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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19869-8.txt b/19869-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa336cc --- /dev/null +++ b/19869-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8461 @@ +Project Gutenberg's While Caroline Was Growing, by Josephine Daskam Bacon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: While Caroline Was Growing + +Author: Josephine Daskam Bacon + +Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19869] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING *** + + + + +Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, Stephen Hope, Fox in the +Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING + + + + +BOOKS ABOUT CHILDREN +BY +JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON + + THE MADNESS OF PHILIP + MEMOIRS OF A BABY + BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY + THE IMP AND THE ANGEL + SISTER'S VOCATION + TEN TO SEVENTEEN + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO +· SAN FRANCISCO + +MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED +LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA +· MELBOURNE + +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. +TORONTO + + + + +WHILE CAROLINE +WAS GROWING + +BY + +JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON + + +_ILLUSTRATED_ + + +NEW YORK +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1911 + + * * * * * + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +Copyright, 1906, by P. F. Collier & Son +Copyright, 1907, by the S. S. McClure Co. +Copyright, 1909, by the S. S. McClure Co., Benjamin B. Hampton, +P. F. Collier & Son, and by the Phelps Publishing Company + + * * * * * + +Copyright, 1911, by The Macmillan Company + + * * * * * + +Set up and Electrotyped. Published March, 1911 + + +Norwood Press: +Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +To S. B. +long Caroline's admirer, +from J. D. B. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + I. AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 1 + + II. A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 38 + + III. THE PRIZE 77 + + IV. WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN 113 + + V. A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 158 + + VI. HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 202 + + VII. THE PRETENDERS 235 + +VIII. A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 269 + + IX. THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 297 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + +With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portière +and disappeared. 66 + +"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a vordt! +Mein Gott! but it is marvellous." 74 + +"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly. 118 + +Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched +abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain. 274 + +Across the court was a lighted room with a long French +window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, +carved chair a very old woman. 282 + +Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a +heavy arbor vitæ, flat on her stomach. 299 + + + + +WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING + + * * * * * + +I + +AN IDYL OF THE ROAD + + +Caroline rocked herself back and forth from her waist, defying the +uncompromisingly straight chair which inclosed her portly little +person. + +"Bounded 'n th' _north_ by _Mass'joosetts_; bounded 'n th' _north_ +by _Mass'joosetts_; bounded 'n th' _north_ by _Mass'joosetts_," she +intoned in a monotonous chant. But her eyes were not upon the map; +like those of the gentleman in the poem, they were with her heart, +and that was far away. + +Out of the window the spring was coming on, in waves of tree-bloom +and bright grass; the birds bickered sweetly in the sun-patches; +everything was reaching on tiptoe for the delicious thrill of +May--and she was bounding Connecticut! It was idiotic. What was a +knowledge of the uninteresting limits of her native State compared +to that soft fresh wind on her cheek, that indescribable odor of +brown earth? + +Two fat birds descended with a twitter into a crystal rain-pool, and +bathed, with splashes of spray; Caroline's feet itched in her ribbed +stockings. A soiled and freckled boy, bare from the knees, whistled +by the window, jangling a can of bait, his pole balanced prettily on +one ragged shoulder. As he reached the puddle, a pure inconsequence +of good feeling seized him, and he splashed deliberately in it, +grinning around him. Caroline mechanically bent and unbuttoned the +top button of her stout boots. He caught her eye. + +"Where you going?" she called through the glass. + +"Oh, I d'no--anywheres, I guess!" he answered invitingly. "Want +to come?" + +"I can't. I have to go to school," she said shortly. + +"And so ought he--you ought to be ashamed of yourself, calling +through the window to that Simms boy!" cried a disgusted voice. +Caroline twitched her shoulder spitefully. + +"A great girl like you, too! Why, he's no better than a common +tramp, that boy," proceeded the voice. "Look at his clothes!" + +"Nobody wears good clothes to go fishing," Caroline grumbled. "I +wish he had mine!" + +"Fishing! He never wears them anywhere. He hasn't got them to wear. +And he'd be glad enough to get yours, I can tell you." + +"He wouldn't do any such thing! He told me Saturday he'd rather be a +dog than a girl; he'd get more use of his legs!" + +There was a scandalized silence. Caroline waited grimly. + +"What are you doing?" said the voice at last. "Studying my +jography," she replied. + +"Well, mind you do, then." + +"I can't, if everybody talks to me all the time," she muttered +sullenly. + +Nevertheless she resumed her rocking and crooning. + +"Bounded 'n th' _east_ by Rho _Disland_; bounded 'n th' _east_ by +Rho _Disland_; bounded 'n th' _east_ by _Rho Disland_." + +The housemaid appeared just under the window, dragging a small +step-ladder and a pail of glistening, soapy water. Her head was +coifed in a fresh starched towel, giving her the appearance of a +holy sister of some clean blue-and-white order; her eyes were large +and mournful. She appealed instantly to Caroline's imagination. + +"Oh, Katy, what a lovely Mother Superior you would make!" she cried +enthusiastically. + +"I'm a Presbyterian, Miss Car'line," said Katy reprovingly. "You'd +better go on with your lessons," and she threw up the window from +the outside. + +A great puff of spring air burst into the room and turned it into a +garden. Moist turf and sprouting leaves, wet flagstones and blowing +fruit-blossoms, the heady brew of early morning in the early year +assailed Caroline's quivering nostrils and intoxicated her soul. + +"Oh, Katy, don't it smell grand!" she cried. + +Katy wrung the soapy cloth and attacked the upper sash. + +"You've got the nose of a bloodhound," she observed. "I b'lieve +you'd smell molasses cookies half a mile." + +Caroline sighed. + +"I didn't mean them," she said. "I meant----" + +"You'd better be at your lesson; your aunty'll be here in a minute +if she hears you talking, now!" + +Katy was severe, but fundamentally friendly. Caroline groaned and +applied herself. + +"Bounded 'n th' _south_ by Long Island _Sound_; bounded 'n th' +_south_ by Long Island _Sound_; bounded 'n th' _south_--oh, look!" + +Up the neat flagged path of the side yard a spotted fox-terrier +approached, delicately erect upon his hind legs, his mouth spread in +cheerful smiles, his ears cocked becomingly. He paused, he waved a +salute, and as a shrill whistle from behind struck up a popular +tune, he waltzed accurately up to the side porch and back, retaining +to the last note his pleased if painstaking smile. + +Caroline gasped delightedly; Katy's severity relaxed. + +"That's a mighty cute little dog," she admitted. + +Another shrill whistle, and the dog returned, limping on three legs, +his ears drooping, his stumpy tail dejected. He paused in the middle +of the walk, and at a sharp clap, as of two hands, he dropped limply +on his side, rolled to his back, and stiffened there pathetically, +his eyes closed. + +Caroline's chin quivered; Katy's position on the ladder was frankly +that of one who has paid for an orchestra-chair; Maggie had left the +cookies and stood grinning in the kitchen door; an aunt appeared in +an upper window. + +One more clap, and the actor returned to life and left them, but +only for a moment. He was back again, erect and smiling, a small +wicker basket balanced on his paws. Marching sedately up to Maggie, +he paused, and glanced politely down at the basket, then up at her. + +Flesh and blood could not resist him. Hastily tugging out from her +petticoat a bulging pocket-book, she deposited a dime in the basket; +the aunt, with extraordinary accuracy, dropped a five-cent piece +from the window; Katy mourned her distance from her own financial +center, and Caroline ran for her bank. It was a practical +mechanism, the top falling off at her onslaught with the ease of +frequent exercise, and she returned in time to slip six pennies +under the two hot cookies that Maggie had added to her first +contribution. At each tribute the terrier barked twice politely, and +only when there was no more to be hoped for did he trot off around +the corner of the house, the cookies swaying at a perilous angle +under his quivering nostrils. + +A moment later a tall young man stepped across the grass and lifted +a worn polo-cap from a reddish-yellow head. + +"Much obliged, all," he said, with an awkward little bow. "Good +day!" + +He turned, whistled to the terrier, and was going on, when he caught +the heartfelt admiration of Caroline's glance. + +"Want to pat him?" he inquired. + +She nodded and approached them. + +"Shake hands with the lady, William Thayer, and tell her how d'you +do," he commanded, as she knelt beside the wonderful creature. + +The terrier offered a cool, tremulous paw, and barked with cheerful +interrogation as she shook it rapturously. + +"Those were fine cookies," said the young man. "I had 'em for +breakfast. I'm going to buy a bone for William Thayer, and then +he'll have some, too." + +"Was that _all_ you had?" she inquired, horror-stricken. He nodded. +"But I'll make it up on dinner," he added lightly. + +Caroline sprang to her feet. + +"You go over there behind that barn and wait a minute," she +commanded. + +The young man--he was only a boy--blushed under his tan and bit +his lip. + +"I didn't mean--I'll get along all right; you needn't bother," he +muttered, conscious of Katy's suspicious eye. + +"Oh, do! Please do!" she entreated. "I'll be out there in just a +minute; hurry up, before Maggie gets through those cookies!" + +He turned toward the barn, and Caroline ran back to the house. + +"Is that man gone? What are you doing, Caroline?" called the +invisible voice. + +"Yes, he's gone. I was patting the dog," she answered boldly, +stepping through the dining-room into the pantry and glancing +hastily about. Only a plate of rolls was in sight; the place was +ostentatiously clean and orderly. She sighed and pushed through the +swinging door; the refrigerator was a more delicate affair. But +Maggie's broad back was bent over her ovenful, and Caroline clicked +the door-knob unchallenged. + +Two chops sat sociably on a large plate; a little mound of spinach +rested on one side of them, a huge baked potato on the other. She +slid the plate softly from the metal shelf, peeping apprehensively +at Maggie, tumbled the rolls on to the top, and sped into the +dining-room. From a drawer in the sideboard she abstracted a silver +fork which she slipped into her pocket, adding, after a moment of +consideration, a salt-shaker. Stepping to the door, she paused on +the little porch for a hasty survey. The coast seemed clear, and she +sped across the yard, the silver jingling in her pocket. She was +safe from the back, but a flank movement on Maggie's part would +have been most disastrous, and it was with full appreciation of the +audacity of her performance that she scudded around the barn and +gained the cherry-tree behind it. + +The young man was sitting on the grass, his head against the tree; +his eyes brightened as she approached. + +"Have any luck?" he inquired. + +She held out the plate, and, as he took it, fumbled in her pocket +for the fork. + +"It's all cold," she murmured apologetically, "but I knew Maggie'd +never warm it. Do you mind?" + +"Not a bit," he answered, with a whimsical glance at her eagerness +to serve him. "I always _did_ like greens," he added, as he accepted +the fork and attacked the spinach. + +"Here, William Thayer!" + +He handed one of the chops to the dog, and stared as Caroline drew +out the salt-cellar. + +"Did you--well, by--that's pretty kind, now!" + +"Potatoes are so nasty without it," she explained. + +"Yes, that's why I don't us'ally eat 'em," he replied. + +There was a moment's silence, while he ate with the frank morning +appetite of twenty, and Caroline watched him, her sympathetic jaws +moving with his, her eyes shining with hospitality. + +"Nice place you've got here," he suggested, breaking a roll. + +"Yes. I _wish_ I'd brought you some butter, but I didn't dare cut +any off; it was in a jar, and it clatters so. ("Oh, that's all +right!") This is nicer than it used to be out here. It _was_ the +chicken-yard, and ashes and things got put here; but nobody keeps +chickens any more, and this is all new grass. They took down the +back part of the barn, too, and painted it, and now it's the +stables, or you _can_ say carriage-house," she explained +instructively. + +He threw his chop-bone to William Thayer and drew a long breath. + +"That was pretty good," he said, "and I'm much obliged to you, +Miss." Caroline swelled with importance at the title. "I must have +walked four or five miles, and it's not such fun with an empty +stomach. I came from Deepdale." + +"Oh, how lovely!" cried she. "By the pond?" + +"Yes, by the pond. I gave William Thayer a swim, and I had a little +nap. It's nice and pretty all around there. I cut some sassafras +root; want some?" + +He felt in his pockets, and produced a brown, aromatic stump; +Caroline sucked at it with a relish. + +"Where are you going now?" she asked respectfully, patting William +Thayer's back while his master caressed his ear. + +"Oh, I don't know exactly. There's some nice woods back of the town; +I think I'll look 'em through, and then go on to New Derby. I read +in the paper about some kind of a firemen's parade there to-morrow, +and if there's a lot of people, we'll earn something. We haven't +made much lately, because William Thayer hurt his leg, and I've been +sparing of him--haven't I, pup? But he's all right now." + +He squeezed the dog's body and tickled him knowingly; the little +fellow grinned widely and barked. Caroline sighed. + +"It must be grand," she said wistfully, "to walk from one town to +another, that way. Where do you sleep?" + +"In barns, sometimes, and there's lots of covered wagons all around +the farm-houses, outside the towns, you know. A church shed's as +good a place as any. I don't like the towns as big as this, though; +I like the country this time o' year." + +Caroline nodded comprehendingly, breathing deep breaths of the +fresh, earth-scented air. + +"I wish there never were any houses in the world--nor any schools, +either!" she cried. + +He smiled. "I never was much for schools, myself," he said. "They +don't smell good." + +Caroline looked at him solemnly. She felt that the resolution of her +life was taken. In one ecstatic flash she beheld her future. + +"I shall never go to school again," she announced. "I shall--" A +wave of joyous possibility broke over her, but modesty tied her +tongue. + +"Could I--would you--I'm a real good walker!" she burst out, and +blushed furiously. Who was she to associate with a dog like William +Thayer? + +The young man looked curiously at her. A kind of anxiety clouded his +frank gray eyes. "Oh, you mustn't talk like that," he urged, laying +one brown hand on her apron. "That wouldn't do for a young lady like +you. I guess you better go to school. Girls, you know!" + +He waited a moment, but she scowled silently. He began again: + +"I guess it's different with girls, anyway. You see, you have to get +your education. A young lady----" + +"I'm not a young lady," snapped Caroline. "I'm only ten 'n' a +quarter!" + +"Well, anyway, it isn't respectable," he argued hastily. Caroline +opened her eyes wide at him. + +"Aren't _you_ respectable?" she demanded, appraising unconsciously +his clothes, which were, if not fine, at least clean and whole, his +flannel shirt finished with a neat blue tie, his shoes no dustier +than the country roads accounted for. + +He flushed under his thick freckles, and plucked at the grass +nervously. + +"N-n--yes, I _am_!" he shouted defiantly. "I know lots of people +don't think so, but I am! We earn our way, William Thayer an' me, +an' we don't want much. I don't see as we do any harm. It don't take +much to live, anyhow; it's coal-scuttles an' lookin'-glasses +an'--an' carpets that cost money. And if you don't want _them_--oh, +what's the use talking? I never could live all tied up." + +"Caroline! Caroline!" A loud voice cut across her meditative +silence. She shrugged her shoulders stubbornly and put her finger on +her lip. The boy shook his head. + +"You better go," he said soothingly. "You'll have to sometime, you +know. Here, take these," as she jumped up, forgetting the fork and +the salt-shaker. "Be sure to put 'em back where you got 'em, won't +you?" + +"Oh, leave 'em here. I'll come back," she said carelessly, but the +boy insisted. + +"No, you take 'em right now," he commanded. "I wouldn't want any +mistake made." + +"Just wait a minute--I'll come back," she repeated, as the call +sounded again. + +"Caroline! where are you?" + +The boy stood up, holding out the silver. "You--you don't want 'em +to say I--I took 'em?" he blurted out. + +Her eyes opened wide; she looked all the incredulous horror she +felt. + +"Steal?" she cried, "with a dog like that?" + +He nodded. "That's the way I look at it, but some don't," he said +shortly. "You better go now. Much obliged for the breakfast. If I +come back this way, maybe I'll stop in again, if you'd like to see +William Thayer." + +"I think she went across behind the stable, Miss Carrie," Katy +called helpfully. + +Caroline thrust the silver into her pocket and turned to go. + +"I'm coming!" she cried desperately, and, patting William Thayer, +she took a few backward steps. + +"There's a nice brook in those woods," she observed irrelevantly, +"if you should want to take another nap," and, turning her back +resolutely, she rounded the barn and disappeared. + +The boy picked up the empty plate and slipped it into a door at the +back of the stable. Then, lifting the dog over the nearest fence, he +climbed it and stepped through the next yard into the street. + +"That was a mighty nice little girl, William Thayer," he said +thoughtfully. "She seemed to understand a lot, for such a little +one." + +Caroline stalked aggressively into the dining-room, and finding it +for the moment empty, hastily replaced the salt-shaker. The fork she +laid in the pantry. Hardly was her pocket clear of the telltale +stuff when her aunt appeared before her. + +"I suppose you know you're late for school, Caroline," she began, +with evident self-control. "If you think I am going to write you an +excuse, you are very much mistaken." + +"All right," Caroline returned laconically. "Is my lunch ready?" + +"It was nothing in the world but that dog; I cannot understand the +fascination that tramps and loafers have for you! You never got it +from this family. Why do you like to talk to dirty tramps! Some day +a strange dog will bite you. Then you'll be sorry!" + +"He wasn't a bit dirty. If you weren't so afraid of dogs, you'd know +William Thayer wouldn't bite!" she retorted indignantly. "I think I +might have three cookies--those are nasty little thin ones. And you +never put enough butter." + +Caroline and her namesake-aunt were as oil and water in their social +intercourse. + +"Now, that's another thing. I cannot see where you put all the food +you eat! You get more than the boys, a great deal. And boys are +supposed--not that any one grudges it to you, child, but really----" + +"I'm getting later all the time," Caroline remarked impartially. +"You needn't cut the crusts off; I like 'em." + +Her aunt sighed, and handed her the lunch-basket; a fringe of +red-and-white napkin dangled invitingly from the corner. + +"Now run along; what are you going in there for?" + +"My jography." + +She stood for a moment looking out at the flagstone where William +Thayer had waltzed so seductively, then strolled slowly out, along +the porch and by the house. The lilies-of-the-valley were white in +the sidebeds; their odor, blown to her on quick puffs of west wind, +filled her with a sort of pleasant sadness, the mingled sorrow and +delight of each new spring. She bent her strong little legs and +squatted down among them, sniffing ecstatically. What was it she was +trying to remember? Had it ever happened? Years ago, when she was +very little---- + +"Caroline! are you trying purposely to be naughty! It is twenty +minutes past nine!" + +She muttered impatiently, stamped her foot deliberately upon the +lilies, and ran out of the yard. + +It will never be known what Caroline's definite intentions were on +that morning. It is not improbable that she meant to go to school. +She undoubtedly walked to the building devoted to the instruction +of her generation and began to mount the steps. What power weighted +her lagging feet and finally dragged her to a sitting position on +the top step, she could not have told; but certain it is that for +ten minutes she sat upon the text-book of geography, thoughtfully +interposed between her person and the cold stone, her chin in her +hand, her eyes fixed and vague. Behind her a chorus of voices arose +in the melody that accompanied a peculiarly tedious system of +gymnastics; she scowled unconsciously. Before her, clear to the +inward vision, lay a pleasant little pond, set in a ring of new +grass. Clear lay the pebbles and roots at the bottom; clear was the +reflection of the feathering trees about it; clear shone the eyes of +William Thayer as he joyously swam for sticks across it. Great +patches of sun warmed the grass and cheered the hearts of two happy +wanderers, who fortified themselves from a lunch-basket padded with +a red-fringed napkin. Happy yellow dandelions were spotted about, +and the birds chirped unceasingly; the wind puffed the whole spring +into their eager nostrils. Truly a pleasant picture! As in a dream, +Caroline walked softly down the steps and toward the north. + +For ten minutes she kept steadily on, looking neither to the right +nor to the left, when the rattle of a particularly noisy wagon +attracted her attention. She caught the eye of the driver; it was +the egg-and-chicken man. He nodded cheerfully. + +"Hello, there!" said he. + +"Hello!" Caroline returned. "You going home?" + +"Sure," said the egg-and-chicken man. "Want a ride?" + +Caroline wasted no breath in words, but clambered up to the seat +beside him. + +"Startin' out early, ain't you?" he queried. "Goin' far up my way?" + +"Pretty far," she answered cautiously, "but not so very." + +"Oh!" said he, impressed by such diplomacy. "'Bout where, now?" + +"Have you sold many eggs this morning?" she inquired with amiable +interest. + +"Twenty-three dozen, an' seven pair o' broilers," he informed her. +"Goin' as far as my place?" + +"I s'pose it's pretty cold as early as you get up," Caroline +suggested pleasantly. + +The egg-and-chicken man surrendered. "Middling," he answered +respectfully, "but it smells so good and things looks so pretty, I +don't mind. I'm glad I don't live in the city. It's all pavin'-stone +an' smoke. This time o' year I like to feel the dirt under m' feet, +somehow." + +"So do I," said Caroline fervently. They jogged on for a mile in +silence. + +"I have to get out here," said he, finally, "but don't be scared. +That horse won't move a peg without me. I'll be back in a minute." + +But when he returned she was not there. + +The houses were thinning out rapidly; one side of the road was +already only a succession of fields, and along a tiny worn path +through one of these Caroline was hurrying nervously. She crossed +the widening brook, almost a little river now, and kept along its +farther bank for half an hour, then left it and struck into the +fringe of the woods. + +It was very still here; the road was far away, and only the chatter +of the birds and the liquid cluck of the little stream disturbed the +stillness of the growing things. She walked softly, except for the +whisper of brushing against the spreading branches that choked the +tiny path. The heat of noon was rising to its climax, and the shafts +of light struck warm on her cheeks. + +Suddenly a sound disturbed the peace of the woods--a scratching, +rattling, scurrying sound. Something was moving through the dead +leaves that had gathered among the roots and trunks. She started +back nervously, but jumped forward again with a cry of delight, and +caught William Thayer in her arms. + +Even as he was licking her cheek, the path widened, the trees turned +into bushes, the underbrush melted away, and the brook, a little +river now, bent in upon them in a broad curve, spanned only by +stepping-stones. It ran full between its grassy banks, gurgling and +chuckling as it lapped the stones, a mirror for the fat white clouds +where it lay in still pools. + +In the shelter of a boulder, a lad crouched over a fire, coaxing it +with bits of paper and handfuls of dry leaves. Just as the flames +shot up, the dog barked cheerily, and the lad turned to welcome him. +His eye fell on Caroline; amazement and real pleasure grew into a +delighted laugh. + +"Well, if you don't beat the Dutch!" he cried. "How'd you get here?" + +"I came in the wagon with the egg-and-chicken man," said she +happily, "and then I walked 'cross lots. William Thayer knew me just +as well!" + +"'Course he did. He always knows his friends. Now, see here. You can +stay and watch this fire, an' I'll go over there a ways where those +men are buildin' a fence; I'll bet they'll give us something. You +look after the fire an' put on these old pieces of rail; it was hard +work gettin' dry stuff to-day. We won't be long." + +They disappeared between the trees, and Caroline sat in proud +responsibility before the delightful little fire. The minutes +slipped by; from time to time she fed the blaze with bits of bent +twigs, and at the proper moment, with a thrill of anxiety, she laid +two pieces of the old fence-rail crosswise on the top. There was a +second of doubt, and then they broke into little sharp tongues of +flame. With a sigh of pleasure, she turned from this success, and, +opening the lunch-basket, laid the napkin on the ground and +methodically arranged four sandwiches, two cookies, and an orange on +it. Then, with her fat legs crossed before her, she waited in +silence. Between the sun at her back and the fire on her face, she +grew pleasantly drowsy; the sounds about her melted imperceptibly to +a soft, rhythmic drone; her head drooped forward.... + +"Hello, hello!" + +She jumped and stared at the boy and the dog. For a moment she +forgot. Then she welcomed them heartily and listened proudly to his +admiring reception of her preparations. + +"Well, William Thayer, will you look at that! How's this for a +surprise? And see what we've got." He balanced a tin pail carefully +between the two crossed sticks in the heart of the fire, and +unfolded from a newspaper two wedges of pumpkin-pie. In William +Thayer's little basket was a large piece of cheese. + +"It's coffee 'n milk mixed together; they had bottles of it," he +explained. "William Thayer 'll take back the pail. Are you hungry?" + +Caroline nodded. + +"Awful," she stated briefly. + +"Well, then," he said with satisfaction, "let's begin." + +Caroline attacked a sandwich, with shining eyes, and when in another +minute the boy took from his pocket a tin ring that slipped +miraculously out of itself into a jointed cup, and dipped her a mug +of hot coffee from the bubbling pail, she realized with a pang of +joy that this was, beyond any question, the master moment of her +life. + +"I take this along," he explained, "so's when I go by, and they're +milking, I can have some warm. Anybody'd give me all I want if +William Thayer dances and drops dead for 'em. It tastes good early +in the morning, I tell you." + +She sighed with pleasure. To drink warm milk in the cool, early +dawn, with the cows about you, and the long, sweet day free before! + +They sipped turn about; the boy divided the orange mathematically; +the pie was filled with fruit of the Hesperides. + +"That was mighty good, that dinner," he announced luxuriously, "an' +now I'll have a pipe." + +The pungent, fresh odor of the burning tobacco was sweet in the air; +a dreamy content held them quiet. + +He did not ask her whence or whither; she had no apologies or +regrets. Two vagabonds from every law of home and duty, they were as +peaceful and unthoughtful of yesterday's bed and to-morrow's meal as +William Thayer, who slept in the sun at their feet. + +For long they did not talk. An unspoken comprehension, an essential +comradeship, filled the deep spaces of silence that frighten and +irritate those whom only custom has associated; and Caroline, flat +on her filled stomach, her nose in the grass, was close in thought +and vague well-being to the boy who puffed blue rings toward the +little river, his head on his arms. + +"I put the plate into that door in the barn," he said, finally. +"Did you put those silver things back?" + +Caroline grunted assent. + +"But they wouldn't think that you--what you said," she assured him +earnestly. "It's only tramps they're afraid of." + +He glanced quickly over at her, but she was utterly innocent. + +"One came to the kitchen once, and asked Mary for some hot tea or +coffee, and she hadn't any, but she said if he was very hungry she'd +give him a piece of bread and butter, and he said to go to hell with +her bread and butter. So she doesn't like them." + +The boy gasped. + +"You oughtn't to--had you--that isn't just right for you to say, is +it?" he asked awkwardly. + +"What--hell?" Caroline inquired placidly. "No, I s'pose not. Nor +damn nor devil, either. But, of course, I know 'em. Those are the +only three I know. I guess they're about the worst, though," she +added with pardonable pride. "My cousin, the Captain, knows some +more. He's twelve 'n a half. But he won't tell 'em to me. He says +boys always know more than girls. I suppose," respectfully, "you +know more than those three, yourself?" + +Her companion coughed. + +"A boy--" he began, then paused, confronted with her round, trustful +eyes. + +"A boy--" he started again, and again he paused. + +"Oh, well, a boy's different," he blurted, finally. + +Caroline nodded humbly. + +"Yes, I know," she murmured. + +There was silence for a while. The river slipped liquidly over the +stones, the white clouds raced along the blue above them, the boy +smoked. At length he burst out with: + +"You're all right, now! You're just a regular little chum, aren't +you?" + +She blushed with pleasure. + +"I never had anybody along with me," he went on dreamily. "I always +go alone. I--I didn't know how nice it was. I _had_ a chum once, but +he--he--" + +The boy's voice trembled. Caroline's face clouded with sympathy. + +"Did he die?" she ventured. + +"No," he said, shortly; "no, he didn't die. He's alive. He couldn't +stand my ways. I tried to stay in school and--and all that, but soon +as spring came I had to be off. So the last time, he told me we had +to part, him and me." + +"What was his name?" she asked gently. + +The boy jerked his head toward the dog. + +"_That's_ his name," he said, "William Thayer." A little frown +gathered on Caroline's smooth forehead; she felt instinctively the +cloud on all this happy wandering. The spring had beckoned, and he +had followed, helpless at the call, but something--what and how +much?--tugged at his heart; its shadow dimmed the blue of the +April sky. + +He shrugged his shoulders with a sigh; the smile came again into +his gray eyes and wrinkled his freckled face. + +"Oh, well, let's be jolly," he cried, with a humorous wink. "The +winter's comin' soon enough!" and he burst into a song: + + "There was a frog lived in a well, + Kitty alone, Kitty alone; + There was a frog lived in a well; + Kitty alone and I!" + +His voice was a sweet, reedy tenor; the quaint old melody delighted +Caroline. + + "This frog he would a-wooing ride, + Kitty alone, Kitty alone." + +She began to catch the air, and nodded to the time with her chin. + + "Cock me cary, Kitty alone, + Kitty alone and I!" + +The boy lifted his polo-cap in a courtly manner, and began with +grimaces and bows to act out the song. His audience swayed +responsive to his every gesture, nodding and beaming. + + "Quoth he, 'Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee'-- + Kitty alone, Kitty alone; + Quoth he, 'Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee, + To see if thou canst fancy me.' + Cock me cary, Kitty alone, + Kitty alone and I!" + +Caroline swung her hat by its ribbons and shrilled the refrain, +intoxicated with freedom and melody: + + "Cock me cary, Kitty alone, + Kitty alone and I!" + +She drummed with her heels on the ground, the boy waved his cap, and +William Thayer rolled over and over, barking loudly for the chorus. +Suddenly the boy jumped up, pulled her to her feet, and with +grotesque, skipping steps pirouetted around the dying fire. The dog +waltzed wildly on his hind legs; Caroline's short petticoats stood +straight out around her as she whirled and jumped, a Bacchante in a +frilled pinafore. The little glade rang to their shouting: + + "Kitty alone and I!" + +He darted suddenly through an opening in the bushes, William Thayer +close behind, Caroline panting and singing as she gave chase. +Through a field, across a little bridge they dashed. He flung the +empty coffee-pail at an astonished group of men, who stopped their +work, their fence-posts in hand, to stare at the mad trio. + +Breathless at last, they flung themselves on a bank by the road and +smiled at each other. Caroline laughed aloud, even, in sheer, +irresponsible light-headedness, but over the boy's face a little +shadow grew. + +"It won't seem so nice alone after this, will it, William Thayer?" +he said, slowly. + +Caroline stared. + +"But--but I'm coming! I'll be there," she cried. "I'm coming with +you!" + +He went on as if he had not heard. + +"Who'll there be to eat our dinner with us to-morrow, William +Thayer?" he questioned whimsically. + +Caroline moved nearer and put her hand on his knee. + +"There'll be--won't there be me?" she begged. + +He shook his head. + +"I guess not," he said bluntly. + +Her eyes filled with tears. + +"But--but you said I was a--a regular little chum," she whispered. +"Don't you like me?" + +He was silent: + +"Don't you? Oh, don't you?" she pleaded. "I don't _need_ much to +eat, really!" + +The lad looked at her with a strange longing. The fatherhood that +lives in every boy thrilled at the touch of her fat little hand on +his knee; the comradely glow in her round brown eyes warmed his +restless, lonely heart. He shook her off almost roughly. + +"I guess they'd miss you more'n that salt-shaker," he said grimly. +"I wish I could take you with me--honest, I do. But you better stay +home and go to school. You don't want to grow up ignorant, and have +your folks ashamed of you." + +"But you--you aren't ignorant!" she urged warmly, her admiration +shining in her eyes. + +He blushed and kicked nervously at the grass. + +"I am," he said angrily. "I am, too. Oh, dear, I wish--I wish--" + +They looked at each other, troubled and uncertain. + +"You're a girl," he began again, "and girls can't; they just can't. +They have to stay with their folks and keep nice. It's too bad, but +that's the way it is. You'd want to see 'em, too. You'd miss 'em +nights." + +Caroline winced, but could not deny. "Oh," she cried passionately, +"why do girls have to do _all_ the missing? It's just what that +Simms boy says: 'If I couldn't be a boy, I'd rather be a dog!'" + +"There, there," he said soothingly, "just think about it. You'll +see. And you're not exactly like a girl, anyhow. You're too nice." + +He patted her shoulder softly, and they lay quietly against the +bank. Her breathing grew slow and regular; raising himself +cautiously on one elbow, he saw that she had fallen asleep, her arm +about William Thayer, her dusty boots pathetically crossed. He +watched her tenderly, with frequent glances up and down the road. + +Presently an irregular beat of hoofs sounded around a bend, and a +clattering wagon drew steadily nearer. + +The egg-and-chicken man jumped out and strode angrily toward the +little group. + +"I've caught you, have I, you young----" + +"'Sh!" + +The boy put up a warning hand. + +"She's fast asleep," he whispered. "Are you goin' to take her home?" + +The man stared. + +"Oh, I'm no child-stealer," said the boy lightly. "Here, just lift +her soft with me, and I'll bet we can put her in without waking her +up at all." + +Without a word, the man slipped his hands under Caroline's +shoulders, the boy lifted her dusty boots, and gently unloosing her +arm from the dog, they carried her lax little body carefully to the +wagon and laid her on the clean straw in the bottom, her head on a +folded coat. She stirred and half opened her eyes, murmured broken +words, and sank yet deeper into her dream. + +The man pointed to a book on the seat. + +"That's her lesson-book," he whispered hoarsely. It was the despised +geography. + +"Her folks think a heap of her, I tell you," he added, still eying +the boy uncertainly. "She's about as bright as they make 'em, I +guess." + +"I guess she is," said the lad simply. "She'd ought to have been a +boy. She'd have made a fine one." + +The man's face cleared. + +"Do--do you want a job?" he said abruptly. "We're short up at my +place, and I wouldn't mind the dog. I remember you, now. You caught +a chicken for me once; my wife gave you a hot supper." + +The boy smiled faintly and shook his head. "I remember," he said. +"No, I don't believe I want any job, thank you. I--I'm sort of--I +have to keep along." + +"Keep along? Where?" + +He waved his hand vaguely. + +"Oh, just along," he repeated. "This year, anyhow. Maybe--well, +good-by. Her folks might be gettin' anxious." + +He stepped up to the cart and looked once more at the flushed cheeks +and brown hands, then strode off up the road. + +The egg-and-chicken man gathered up the reins and the wagon started. +Caroline scowled a little at the motion, but slept on. The boy +whistled to the dog. + +"Come on, William Thayer," he said. "I guess it's just you and me +now." + + + + +II + +A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL + + +Caroline, Miss Honey, and the General were taking the morning air. +Caroline walked ahead, her chin well up, her nose sniffing +pleasurably the unaccustomed asphalt, the fresh damp of the river +and the watered bridle path. The starched ties at the back of her +white pinafore fairly took the breeze, as she swung along to the +thrilling clangor of the monster hurdy-gurdy. Miss Honey, urban and +_blasé_, balanced herself with dignity upon her roller-skates and +watched with patronizing interest the mysterious jumping of young +persons with whom she was unacquainted through complicated diagrams +chalked on the pavement. + +The General sucked a clothespin meditatively: his eyes were fixed on +something beyond his immediate surroundings. Occasionally a +ravishing smile swept up from the dimples at his mouth to the +yellow rings beneath his cap frill; he flapped his hands, emitting +soft, vague sounds. At such times a wake of admiration bubbled +behind him. Delia, who propelled his carriage, which resembled a +victoria except for the rearward position of its motor power, pursed +her lips consciously and affected not to hear the enraptured +comments of the women who passed them. + +To the left the trees, set in a smooth green carpet, threw out tiny, +polished, early May leaves; graceful, white-coated children dotted +the long park. Beyond them the broad blue river twinkled in the sun, +the tugs and barges glided down, the yachts strained their white +sails against the purple bluffs of the Palisades. To the right +towered the long, unbroken rows of brick and stone: story on story +of shining windows, draped and muffled in silk and lace; flight +after flight of clean granite steps; polite, impersonal, hostile as +the monuments in a graveyard. + +Immobile ladies glided by on the great pleasure drive like large +tinted statues; dressed altogether as the colored pictures in +fashion books, holding white curly dogs in their curved arms; the +coachmen in front of them seemed carved in plum-colored broadcloth; +only by watching the groom's eyelids could one ascertain that they +were flesh and blood. Young girls, two, three, and four, cantered +by; their linen habits rose and fell decorously, their hair was +smooth. Mounted policemen, glorious in buttons, breathing out +authority, curvetted past, and everywhere and always the +chug-chug-chug of the gleaming, fierce-eyed motor cars filled one's +ears. They darted past, flaming scarlet, sombre olive and livid +white; a crouching, masked figure, intent at the wheel, veiled, +shapeless women behind a whir of dust to show where they had been a +breath before. + +And everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, a thin stream of +white and pink and blue, a tumbling river of curls and caps and bare +legs, were the children. A babble of shrill cries, of chattering +laughter, of fretful screams, an undercurrent of remonstrance, of +soothing patience, of angry threatening, marked their slow progress +up and down the walk; in the clear spaces of the little park they +trotted freely after hoops and balls, rolled and ran over the green, +and hid, shouting, behind the bushes. It was a giant nursery, and +the mere man who trespassed on its borders smiled deprecatingly, and +steered a careful course among the parasols and tricycles, stooping +now and then to rescue some startled adventurer, sprawling from the +disgusted shock of encounter with this large and rapidly moving +object. + +To Caroline, fresh from untrammeled sporting, through neighborly +suburban yards, this disciplined procession, under the escort of +Delia and the General, was fascinating to a degree. Far from +resenting the authority she would have scorned at home, she derived +an intense satisfaction from it, and pranced ostentatiously beside +the perambulator, mimicking Miss Honey's unconscious deference to a +higher power in the matter of suitable crossings and preferred +playfellows with the absorbed gravity of the artist. + +"See! General, see the wobblybubble," Delia murmured affectionately. +"(Will you see that child turn his head just like a grown person? +Did you ever see anything as smart as that?) Did he like the red one +best? So does Delia. We'll come over here, and then you won't get +the sun in your precious eyes. Do you want me to push you +frontwards, so you can see me? (Watch him look at me--he knows what +I mean just as well, the rascal!) Just wait till we get across, and +I will. Look out, Miss Honey! Take hold of your cousin's hand and +run across together, now, like good girls." + +Miss Honey made an obedient snatch at Caroline's apron strings, and +darted forward with a long roll of her skates. The road was clear +for a block. Delia, with a quick glance to left and right, lowered +the perambulator to the road-level and forged ahead. Caroline, nose +in air, studied the nearest policeman curiously. + +"Look out, there! _Look out!_" + +A man's voice like a pistol shot crashed behind them. Caroline heard +quick steps and a woman's scream, looked up at the huge, blood-red +bulk of an automobile that swooped around the corner and dashed +forward. But Miss Honey's hand was clutching her apron string, and +Miss Honey's weight as she fell, tangled in the skates, dragged her +down. Caroline, toppling, caught in one dizzy backward glance a +vision of a face in the automobile staring down on her, white as +chalk, under a black moustache and staring goggles, and another +face, Delia's, white too, with eyes more strained and terrible than +the goggles themselves. One second that look swept her and Miss +Honey, and then, shifting, fell upon the General strapped securely +into his carriage. Even as Caroline caught her breath, he flew by +her like an arrow, his blue eyes round with surprise under a whirl +of white parasol, the wicker body of the perambulator swaying and +lurching. With that breath still in her nostrils, she was pushed +violently against Miss Honey, who was dragged over her from the +other side by a large hairy hand. A sharp blow from her boot heel +struck Caroline's cheek, and she screamed with the pain; but her cry +was lost in the louder one that echoed around her as the dust from +the red monster blew in her eyes and shut out Delia's figure, flat +on the ground, one arm over her face as the car rushed by. + +"My God! She's down!" That was the man. + +"Take his number!" a shrill voice pierced the growing confusion. + +Caroline, crying with pain, was forced to her feet and stumbled +along, one apron string twisted fast in Miss Honey's hand. Instantly +they were surrounded by a crowd of nurses, and Miss Honey, dazed and +obedient, was shoved and pulled from one to another. + +"Here, get out o' this--don't let the children see anything! Let's +get home." + +"No, wait a minute. Let's see if she's alive. Have they got the +ambulance?" + +"Look out, there, Miss Dorothy, you just stop by me, or you'll be +run over, too!" + +"See! She's moving her head! Maybe she's not--" + +Sobbing with excitement, Caroline wrenched herself free from the +tangle of nurses and carriages, and pushed her way through the +crowd. Against the curb, puffing and grinding, stood the great red +engine; on the front seat a tall policeman sat, one woman in the +back leaned over another, limp against the high cushions, and fanned +her with the stiff vizor of her leather cap. + +"It's all right, dear, it's all right," she repeated monotonously, +with set lips, "the doctor's coming. It wasn't Pullton's fault. It's +all right." + +Caroline wriggled between two policemen, and made for a striped blue +and white skirt that lay motionless on the ground. Across the white +apron ran a broad dirty smudge. + +Caroline ran forward. + +"Delia! Delia!" she gulped. "Is she--is she dead?" + +A little man with eyeglasses looked up from where he knelt beside +the blue and white skirt. + +"I don't believe so, my dear," he said briskly; "is this your nurse? +See, she's opening her eyes, now--speak to her gently." + +As he shifted a leather-covered flask from one hand to the other, +Caroline saw a strange face with drawn purplish lids when she had +always known two merry gray eyes, and tight thin lips she could not +believe Delia's. The head moved a little from side to side, the lips +parted slightly. A nervous fear seized her and she turned to run +away; but she remembered suddenly how kind Delia had been to her; +how that very morning--it seemed so long now--Delia had helped her +with her stubby braids of hair, and chided Miss Honey for laughing +at her ignorance of the customs of the park. She gathered her +courage together and crouched down by the silent, terrifying figure. + +"Hel--hello, Delia!" she began jerkily, wincing as the eyes opened +and stared stupidly at the ring of anxious faces. "How do you +f-feel, Delia?" + +"Lean down," said the little man softly, "she wants to say +something." + +Caroline leaned lower. + +"General," Delia muttered. "Where's General?" + +The little man frowned. + +"Do you know what she means?" he asked. + +Caroline patted her bruised cheek. + +"Of course I do," she said shortly. "That's the baby. Oh," as she +remembered, "where _is_ the General?" + +"Here--here's the baby," called some one. "Push over that carriage," +and a woman breathing heavily, crowded through the ring with the +general, pink and placid, under his parasol. + +"Lift him out," said the little man, and as the woman fumbled at the +strap, he picked the baby out neatly, and held him down by the girl +on the ground. + +"Here's your baby, Delia," he said, with a kind roughness in his +voice. "Safe and sound--not a scratch! Can you sit up and take him?" + +And then, while the standing crowd craned their necks and even the +steady procession moving in the way the police kept clear for them, +paused a moment to stare, while the little doctor held his breath +and the ambulance came clanging up the street, Delia sat up as +straight as the mounted policeman beside her and held out her arms. + +"General, oh, General!" she cried, and buried her face in his fat +warm neck. + +The men coughed, the women's faces twisted, but the little doctor +watched her intently. + +"Move your leg," he said sharply. "Now the other. Hurt you? Not at +all?" + +He turned to the young man in a white jacket, who had jumped from +the back of the ambulance. + +"I thought so," he said. "Though it didn't seem possible. I saw the +thing go over her. Right over her apron--never touched her. Half an +inch more--" + +"Please, is Miss--the other little girl--is she--" + +This was Delia's old voice, and Caroline smiled happily at her. + +"She's all right, Delia--here she is!" + +Miss Honey limped across on one roller-skate, pale, but conscious of +her dramatic value, and the crowd drew a long breath of relief. + +"You are a very brave girl," said the doctor, helping Delia to her +feet and tucking the General, who alternately growled and cooed at +his clothespin, into the perambulator. "You have undoubtedly saved +the lives of all three of these children, and their parents will +appreciate it, you may be sure. The way you sent that baby wagon +flying across the street...! Well, any time you're out of a job, +just come to me, that's all. Dr. Gibbs, West Forty-ninth. Can you +walk now? How far do you have to go?" + +The crowd had melted like smoke. Only the most curious and the +idlest lingered and watched the hysteria of the woman in the +automobile, who clutched her companion, weeping and laughing. The +chauffeur sat stolid, but Caroline's keen round eyes saw that he +shook, from the waist down, like a man in a chill. + +"Yes, sir, I'm all right. It's not so very far." But Delia leaned on +the handle she pushed, and the chug-chug of the great car sent the +blood out of her cheeks. The little doctor frowned. + +"Look here," he said, "I'll tell you what you'll do. You come down +these steps with me, there aren't but three of them, you see, and +we'll just step in here a moment. I don't know what house it is, but +I guess it'll be all right. Oh, yes, you can take him out; he is +safe, you know. Come on, youngsters." + +Before Delia could protest he had pressed the button, and a man in +livery was opening the door. + +"We've just escaped a nasty accident out here," said the little +doctor easily. "You were probably looking out of the window? Yes. +Well, this young woman is a sort of a patient of mine--Dr. Gibbs, +West Forty-ninth Street--and though she's very plucky and perfectly +uninjured, I want her to rest a moment in the hall here and have a +drink of water, if your mistress doesn't object. Just take up this +card and explain the circumstances, and"--his hand went into his +pocket a moment--"that's about all. Sit down, my dear." + +The man took in at a glance the neat uniform of the nurse, the +General's smart, if diminutive, apparel, and the unmistakable though +somewhat ruffled exterior of Miss Honey. + +"Very well, sir," he said politely, taking the card. "It will be all +right, sir, I'm sure. Thank you, sir. Sit down, please. It will be +all right. I will tell Madame Nicola." + +"Well, well, so this is Madame Nicola's!" The little doctor looked +around him appreciatively, as the servant ran up the stairs. + +"I wish I could stay with you, chickens, but I'm late for an +appointment as it is. I must rush along. Now, mind you, stay here +half an hour, Delia, and sit down. You're no trouble at all, and +Madame Nicola knows who I am--if she remembers. I sprayed her +throat once, if I'm not mistaken--she was on a tour, at Pittsburg. +She'll take care of you." He opened the door. "You're a good girl, +you biggest one," he added, nodding at Caroline. "You do as you're +told. Good-by." + +The door shut, and Caroline, Miss Honey and Delia looked at each +other in a daze. Tears filled Delia's eyes, but she controlled her +voice, and only said huskily, "Come here, Miss Honey, and let me +brush you off--you look dreadful. Let me take your handkerchief. Did +it--were you--are you hurt, dear?" + +"No, but you pushed me awful hard, Delia, and a nasty big man +grabbed me and tore my guimpe--see! I wish you'd told me what you +were going to do," began Miss Honey irritably. + +"And you gave me a big kick--it was _me_ he grabbed--look at my +cheek!" Caroline's lips began to twitch; she felt hideously tired, +suddenly. + +"Children, children, don't quarrel. General, darling, _won't_ you +sit still, please? You hurt Delia's knees, and you feel so heavy. +Oh, I wish we were all home!" + +The man in livery came down the stairs. "Will you step up, Madame +says, and she has something for you up there. I'll take the baby," +as Delia's eyes measured the climb. "Lord, I won't drop her--I've +got two o' my own. 'Bout a year, isn't she?" + +"He's a boy," panted Delia, as she rested her weight on the rail, +"and he's only eight months last week," with a proud smile at the +General's massive proportions. + +"Well, he _is_ a buster, isn't he? Here is the nurse, Madame, and +the children. The doctor has gone." + +Caroline stretched her eyes wide and abandoned herself to a frank +inspection of her surroundings. For this she must be pardoned, as +every square inch of the dark, deep-colored room had been taken +bodily from Italian palaces of the most unimpeachable Renaissance +variety. With quick intuition, she immediately recognized a +background for many a tale of courts and kings hitherto unpictured +to herself, and smiled with pleasure at the Princess who advanced, +most royally clad in long shell pink, lace-clouded draperies, to +meet them. + +"You are the brave nurse my maid told me about," said the Princess; +"she saw it all. You ought to be very proud of your quick wits. I +have some sherry for you, and you must lie down a little and then I +will send you home." + +Delia blushed and sank into a high carved chair, the General staring +curiously about him. "It wasn't anything at all," she said, +awkwardly, "if I could have a drink--" + +Caroline checked the Princess as she moved toward a wonderful +colored decanter with wee sparkling tumblers like curved bits of +rainbow grouped about it. + +"She means a drink of water," she explained politely. "She only +drinks water--sometimes a little tea, but most usu'lly water." + +"The sherry will do her more good, I think," the Princess returned, +noticing Caroline for the first time, apparently, her hand on the +decanter. + +At this point Miss Honey descended from a throne of faded +wine-colored velvet, and addressed the Princess with her most +impressive and explanatory manner. + +"It won't do you any good at all to pour that out," she began, with +her curious little air of delivering a set address, prepared in +private some time before, "and I'll tell you why. Delia knew a nurse +once that drank some beer, and the baby got burned, and she never +would drink anything if you gave her a million dollars. Besides, it +makes her sick." + +The Princess looked amused and turned to a maid who appeared at that +moment with apron strings rivalling Caroline's. + +"Get me a glass of water, please," she said, "and what may I give +you--milk, perhaps? I don't know very well what children drink." + +"Thank you, we'd like some water, too," Miss Honey returned primly, +"we had some soda-water, strawberry, once to-day." + +Caroline cocked her head to one side and tried to remember what the +lady's voice made her think of; she scowled in vain while Delia +drank her water and smiled her thanks at the maid. Suddenly it came +to her. It was not like a person talking at all, it was like a +person singing. Up and down her voice traveled, loud and soft; it +was quite pleasant to hear it. + +"Do you feel better now? I am very glad. Bring in that reclining +chair, Ellis, from my room; these great seats are rather stiff," +said the Princess, and Delia, protesting, was made comfortable in a +large curved lounging basket, with the General, contentedly putting +his clothespin through its paces, in her arm. + +"How old is it?" the Princess inquired, after an interval of +silence, during which Miss Honey and Caroline regarded her with a +placid interest, and Delia stroked the General's hair, from which +she had taken the absurd lace cap. + +"He's eight months, Madam, last week--eight months and ten days, +really." + +"That's not very old, now, is it?" pursued the lady. "I suppose they +don't know very much, do they, so young?" + +"Indeed he does, though," Delia protested, "You'll be surprised. +Just watch him, now. Look at Delia, darlin'; where's Delia?" + +The General withdrew his lingering gaze from the clothespin, and +turned his blue eyes wonderingly up to her. The corner of his mouth +trembled, widened, his eyelids crinkled, and then he smiled +delightfully, straight into the eyes of the nurse, stretched up a +wavering pink hand, and patted her cheek. A soft, gurgling +monosyllable, difficult of classification but easy to interpret, +escaped him. + +The Princess smiled appreciatively, and moved with a stately, long +step toward them. + +"That was very pretty," she said, but Delia did not hear her. + +"My baby, my own baby!" she murmured with a shiver, and hiding her +face in the General's neck she sobbed aloud. + +Miss Honey, shocked and embarrassed, twisted her feet nervously and +looked at the inlaid floor. Caroline shared these feelings, but +though she turned red, she spoke sturdily. + +"I guess Delia feels bad," she suggested shyly, "when she thinks +about--about what happened, you know. She don't cry usu'lly." + +The Princess smiled again, this time directly at Caroline, who +fairly blinked in the radiance. With her long brown eyes still +holding Caroline's round ones, she patted Delia's shoulder kindly, +and both the children saw her chin tremble. + +The General, smothered in that sudden hug, whimpered a little and +kicked out wildly with his fat white-stockinged legs. Seen from the +rear he had the appearance of a neat, if excited, package, +unaccountably frilled about with embroidered flannel. Delia +straightened herself, dabbed apologetically at her eyes, and +coughed. + +"It's bottle-time," she announced in horror-stricken tones, +consulting a large nickel watch hanging from her belt, under the +apron. "It's down in the carriage. Could I have a little boiling +water to heat it, if you please?" + +"Assuredly," said the Princess. "Ellis, will you get the--the bottle +from the baby's carriage and some boiling water, please. Do you mix +it here?" + +"Mix--the food is all prepared, Madam." Delia spoke with repressed +scorn. "I only want to heat it for him." + +"Oh, in that case, Ellis, take it down and have it heated, or," as +the nurse half rose, "perhaps you would feel better about it if you +attended to it yourself?" + +"Yes, I think I will go down if you don't mind--when persons aren't +used to 'em they're apt to be a little careless, and I wouldn't have +it break, and him losing his three o'clock bottle, for the world. +You know how it is...." + +The Princess shook her head whimsically. "But surely you will leave +the baby," and she moved toward them again. "I will hold it," with a +half grimace at her own condescension. "It seems so very good and +cheerful--I thought they cried. Will it come to me?" + +Delia loosened her arms, but tightened them again as the little +creature leaned forward to catch at the swinging lace on the lady's +gown. + +"I--I think I'll take baby with me. Thank you just the same, and +he'll go to any one--yes, indeed--but I feel so sort of nervous, I +think I'd better take him. If anything should happen.... Wave your +hand good-by--now, General!" + +The General flapped his arms violently, and bestowed a toothless but +affectionate grin upon the wearer of the fascinating, swaying lace, +before he disappeared with the delighted Ellis in the van. + +"And can you buy all that devotion for twenty, thirty, or is it +forty dollars a month, I wonder?" mused the Princess. + +"Dear me," she added petulantly. "It really makes one actually +_want_ to hold it! It seems a jolly little rat--they're not all like +that, are they? They howl, I'm sure." + +Again Miss Honey took the floor. + +"When babies are sick, or you don't treat them right," she announced +didactically, "they cry, but not a well baby, Delia says. I"--with +conscious pride--"screamed night and day for two weeks!" + +"Really!" observed the Princess. "That must have been--er--trying +for your family!" + +"Worried to death!" Miss Honey rejoined airily, with such an adult +intonation that the Princess started. + +"The General, he just laughs all the time," Caroline volunteered, +"unless you tease him," she added guiltily, "and then he squawks." + +"Yes, indeed," Miss Honey bore witness, jealous of the lady's +flashing smile to Caroline, "my mother says I'm twice the trouble he +is!" + +The Princess laughed aloud. "You're all trouble enough, I can well +believe," she said carelessly, "though you particular three are +certainly amusing little duds--for an afternoon. But for a steady +diet--I'm afraid I'd get a bit tired of you, eh?" + +She tapped their cheeks lightly with a cool, sweet-smelling finger. +Miss Honey smiled uncertainly, but Caroline edged away. There was +something about this beautiful tall lady she could not understand, +something that alternately attracted and repelled. She was grown up, +certainly; her skirts, her size and her coiled hair proved that +conclusively, and the servants obeyed her without question. But what +was it? She was not like the other grown up people one knew. One +moment she sparkled at you and the next moment she forgot you. It +was perfectly obvious that she wanted the General only because Delia +had not wanted to relinquish him, which was not like grown people; +it was like--yes, that was it: she was like a little girl herself, +even though she was so tall and had such large red and blue rings on +her fingers. + +Vaguely this rushed through Caroline's mind, and it was with an +unconscious air of patronage, that she said, as one making +allowances for inexperience, "When you get married, then you'll +_have_ to get tired of them, you know." + +"But you'll be glad you've got 'em, when they're once in bed," Miss +Honey added encouragingly. "My mother says I'm a real treasure to +her, after half past seven!" + +The Princess flushed; her straight dark eyebrows quivered and met +for an instant. + +"But I _am_ married," she said. + +There was an utter silence. + +"I was married five years ago yesterday, as it happens," she went +on, "but it's not necessary to set up a day nursery, you know, under +those circumstances." + +Still silence. Miss Honey studied the floor, and Caroline, after an +astonished stare at the Princess, directed her eyes from one +tapestry to another. + +"I suppose you understand that, don't you?" demanded the Princess +sharply. She appeared unnecessarily irritated, and as a matter of +fact embarrassed her guests to such an extent that they were utterly +unable to relieve the stillness that oppressed them quite as much as +herself. + +The Princess uttered an angry exclamation and paced rapidly up and +down the room, looking more regal and more unlike other people than +ever. + +"For heaven's sake, say something, you little sillies!" she cried. +"I suppose you want me to lose my temper?" + +Caroline gulped and Miss Honey examined her shoe ties mutely. + +Suddenly a well-known voice floated toward them. + +"Was his nice bottle all ready? Wait a minute, only a minute now, +General, and Delia'll give it to you!" + +The procession filed into the room, Delia and the General, Ellis +deferentially holding a tiny white coat, the man in livery bearing a +small copper saucepan in which he balanced a white bottle with some +difficulty. His face was full of anxious interest. + +Delia thanked them both gravely, seated herself on the foot of the +basket chair, arranged the General flat across her knees, and amid +the excited silence of her audience, shook the bottle once or twice +with the air of an alchemist on the brink of an epoch-making +discovery. + +"Want it? Does Delia's baby want it?" she asked enticingly. The +General waved his arms and legs wildly; wreathed in smiles, he +opened and shut his mouth in quick alternation, chirping and +clucking, as she held it up before him; an ecstatic wriggling +pervaded him, and he chuckled unctuously. A moment later only +his deep-drawn, nozzling breaths could be heard in the room. +They watched him in hushed satisfaction; once, as he smiled +gratefully at Delia, Ellis sighed with pleasure. + +"Ain't he sweet, though!" she murmured, and then glancing at the +butler, giggled impressibly as the strained attitudes of the +circle struck her. + +"That will do, thank you, Haddock," said the Princess quickly, +drawing a long breath and seating herself, and the two servants +withdrew. Delia noted nothing, her eyes fixed on her charge; +clearly, it would not have surprised her in the least if they +had all stood, rapt, till the meal was over. + +"He takes it beautiful," she said in low tones, looking +confidentially at the Princess; "I didn't know but being +in a strange place might make a difference with him, but +he's the best baby!--" + +She wiped his mouth and lifting him, still horizontal, +approached her hostess. + +"You can hold him now," she said superbly, "but keep him flat +for twenty minutes, please. I'll go and take the bottle down, +and get his carriage ready. He'll be good. He'll take a little +nap, most likely." + +She laid him across the rose-colored lap of the Princess, who looked +curiously down on him, and offered him her finger tentatively. "I +never held one before," she explained. "I--I don't know...." The +General smiled lazily and patted the finger, picking at the great +sapphire. + +"How soft its hands are," said the Princess. "They slip off, they +are so smooth! And how good--does it never cry?" This she said half +to herself, and Caroline and Miss Honey, knowing there was no need +to answer her, came and leaned against her knee unconsciously, and +twinkled their fingers at the baby. + +"Hello, General! Hello!" they cried softly, and the General smiled +impartially at them and caressed the lady's finger. + +The Princess stroked his cheek. "What a perfectly exquisite skin!" +she said, and bending over him, kissed him delicately. + +"How good it smells--how--how different!" she murmured. "I thought +they--I thought they didn't." + +Miss Honey had taken the lady's other hand, and was examining the +square ruby with a diamond on either side. + +"My mother says that's the principal reason to have a baby," she +remarked, absorbed in the glittering thing. "You sprinkle 'em all +over with violet powder--just like doughnuts with sugar--and kiss +'em. Some people think they get germs that way, but my mother says +if she couldn't kiss 'em she wouldn't have 'em!" + +The Princess bent over the baby again. + +"It's going to sleep here!" she said, half fearfully, with an +inquiring glance at the two. "Oughtn't one to rock it?" + +Miss Honey shook her head severely. "Not General," she answered, "he +won't stand it. My mother tried again and again--could I take that +blue ring a minute? I'd be awful careful--but he wouldn't. He sits +up and he lies down, but he won't rock." + +"I might sing to him," suggested the Princess, brushing a damp lock +from the General's warm forehead and slipping her ringless finger +into his curved fist carefully. "Would he like it?" + +"No, he wouldn't," said Miss Honey bluntly, twisting the ring around +her finger. "He only likes two people to sing--Delia and my mother. +Was that ruby ring a 'ngagement ring?" + +Caroline interfered diplomatically. "General would be very much +obliged," she explained politely, "except that my Aunt Deedee is a +very good singer indeed, and Uncle Joe says General's taste is +ruined for just common singing." + +The Princess stared at her blankly. + +"Oh, indeed!" she remarked. Then she smiled again in that whimsical +expressive way. "You don't think I could sing well enough for +him--as well as your mother?" + +[Illustration: With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a +portière and disappeared.] + +Miss Honey laughed carelessly. "My mother is a singer," she said, "a +real one. She used to sing in concerts--real ones. In theatres. +Real theatres, I mean," as the lady appeared to be still amused. + +"If you know where the Waldorf Hotel is," Caroline interrupted, "she +has sung in that, and it was five dollars to get in. It was to send +the poor children to a Fresh Air Fund. It--it's not the same as you +would sing--or me," she added politely. + +The lady arose suddenly and deposited the General, like a doll, with +one swift motion in the basket chair. Striding across the room she +turned, flushed and tall, and confronted the wondering children. + +"I will sing for you," she said haughtily, "and you can judge +better!" + +With a great sweep of her half bare arm, she brushed aside a +portière and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano +behind the curtains and ceased abruptly. + +"What does your mother sing?" she demanded, not raising her voice, +it seemed, and yet they heard her as plainly as when they had leaned +against her knee. + +"She sings, 'My Heart's Own Heart,'" Miss Honey called back +defiantly. + +"And it's printed on the song, 'To Madame Edith Holt!'" shrilled +Caroline. + +The familiar prelude was played with a firm, elastic touch, the +opening chords struck, and a great shining voice, masterful, like a +golden trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; Miss Honey, +instinctively humming the prelude, got up from her foot-stool and +followed the music, unconscious that she walked. She had been +privileged to hear more good singing in her eight years than most +people have in twenty-four, had Miss Honey, and she knew that this +was no ordinary occasion. She did not know she was listening to one +of the greatest voices her country had ever produced--perhaps in +time to be known for the head of them all--but the sensitive little +soul swelled in her and her childish jealousy was drowned deep in +that river of wonderful sound. + +Higher and sweeter and higher yet climbed the melody; one last +triumphant leap, and it was over. + +"_My heart--my heart--my heart's own heart!_" + +The Princess stood before them in the echoes of her glory, her +breath quick, her eyes brilliant. + +"Well?" she said, looking straight at Miss Honey, "do I sing as well +as your mother?" + +Miss Honey clenched her fists and caught her breath. Her heart was +breaking, but she could not lie. + +"You--you--" she motioned blindly to Caroline, and turned away. + +"You sing better," Caroline began sullenly; but the lady pointed to +Miss Honey. + +"No, you tell me," she insisted remorselessly. + +Miss Honey faced her. + +"You--you sing better than my m-mother," she gulped, "but I _love_ +her better, and she's nicer than you, and I don't love you at +_all_!" + +She buried her face in the red velvet throne, and sobbed aloud with +excitement and fatigue. Caroline ran to her: how could she have +loved that cruel woman? She cast an ugly look at the Princess as she +went to comfort Miss Honey, but the Princess was at the throne +before her. + +"Oh, I am abominable," she cried. "I am too horrid to live! It +wasn't kind of me, _chérie_, and I love you for standing up for +your mother. There's no one to do as much for me, when _I'm_ down +and out--no one!" Sorrow swept over her flexible face like a veil, +and seizing Miss Honey in her strong nervous arms she wept on her +shoulder. + +Caroline, worn with the strain of the day, wept, too, and even the +General, abandoned in the great chair, burst into a tiny warning +wail. + +Quick as thought the Princess was upon him, and had raised him +against her cheek. + +"Hush, hush, don't cry--don't cry, little thing," she whispered, and +sank into one of the high carved chairs with him. + +"No, no, I'll hold him," she protested, as Delia entered, her arms +out. "I'm going to sing to him. May I? He's sleepy." + +Delia nodded indulgently. "For half an hour," she said, as one +allowing a great privilege, "and then we must go. The children are +tired." + +"What do you sing to him?" the Princess questioned humbly. + +"I generally sing 'Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,'" the nurse answered. +"Do you know it?" + +"I think so," and the Princess began a sort of glorified humming, +like a great drowsy bee, all resonant and tremulous. + +"Tell me the words," she said, and Delia recited them, as a mother +would, to humor a petted child. + +The Princess lifted her voice and pressing the General to her, began +the song, + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, + Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise." + +Soft the great voice was, soft and widely flowing; to Caroline, who +had retreated to the further end of the music-room, so that Delia +should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia herself, a wonderful +new Delia, were singing her, a baby again, to sleep. She felt +soothed, cradled, protected by that lapping sea of melody that +drifted her off her moorings, out of the room.... + +Vaguely she saw Miss Honey, relaxed on the red throne, smile in her +sleep, one arm falling over the broad seat. Was it in her dream that +some one in a blue and white apron--not Delia, for Delia was +singing--leaned back slowly in the long basket chair and closed her +tired eyes? Who was it that held the General close in her arms, and +smiled as he patted her cheek at the familiar song and mumbled her +fingers with happy cooing noises? + + "My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, + Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream!" + +Soft as plush, sweet as honey, the warm voice dipped and rose to the +old tune. The General's head was growing heavy, but he smiled +confidingly into the dark eyes above him and stretched himself out +in full-fed, drowsy content. One hand slipped through the lace under +his cheek and rested on the singer's soft breast. She started like a +frightened woman, and her voice broke. + +Down in the hall the butler and the maid sat on the lower stair. + +"Ain't it grand?" she whispered, and Haddock nodded dreamily. + +"Mother used to sing us that in the old country," he said. "There +was Tom and 'Enry an' me--Lord, Lord!" + +The General was asleep. Sometimes a tiny frown drew his eyebrows +together. Sometimes she clenched and uncurled his warm hands. +Sometimes he sucked softly at nothing, with moist, reminiscent lips. +But on and on, over and over, rose and fell the quaint old song, + + "My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream!" + +It flooded the listening house, it spread a net of dreams about the +happy people and coaxed them back to childhood and a child's +protected sleep. It seemed a song that could not stop, that must +return on its simple refrain so long as there were arms to encircle +and breasts to lean upon. + +Two men came softly up a smaller stair than the grand entrance +flight, and paused in amazement at sight of Caroline stretched, full +length, across the threshold. The older and smaller of the men had +in fact stepped on her, and confused and half awake she listened to +his apologies. + +"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! not a vordt! Mein +Gott! but it is marvellous! A voice of velvet! Hey? A voice of the +heart. My friend, what is this?" + +He peeped behind the drawn curtains, and withdrew a face of wonder. + +"It is nothing but children--and they sleep!" he whispered. "Oh, but +listen, listen! And I offered her fifteen hundred dollars for two +hours only of that!" + +The other man peeped behind the curtain in his turn, and seizing +Caroline by the arm tip-toed with her to a further room. + +"What--who--what is the meaning of this?" he whispered hoarsely. +"That child--where--" + +Caroline rubbed her eyes. The golden voice rose and fell around her. + +"General--Delia," she muttered, and stumbled against him. He lifted +her limp little body and laid it gently on a leather sofa. + +"Another time," he said softly to the other man, "I--we cannot talk +with you now. Will you excuse us?" + +The man looked longingly at the curtains. + +"She will never do more well than that. Never!" he hissed. "Oh, my +friend, hear it grow soft! Yes, yes, I am going." + +[Illustration: "Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a +vordt! Mein Gott! but it is marvellous."] + +It seemed to Caroline that in a dream some one with a red face and +glasses askew, shook her by the shoulder and said to her sternly, +"Sh! sh! Listen to me. To-day you hear a great artist--hey? Will you +forget it? I must go because they do not vant me, but you will stay +and listen. There is here no such voice. Velvet! Honey! Sh! sh!" and +he went the way of dreams. + +The man who stayed looked long through the curtains. + +As a swing droops slow and slower, as the ripples fade from a stone +thrown in the stream, the song of the Princess softened and crooned +and hushed. Now it was a rich breath, a resonant thread, + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton--" + +The man stepped across the room and sank below the General at her +feet. With her finger on her lips she turned her eyes to his and +looked deep into them. He caught his breath with a sob, and wrapping +his arm about her as he knelt, hid his face on her lap, against the +General. She laid her hand on his head, across the warm little body, +and patted it tenderly. Around them lay the sleepers; the General's +soft breath was in their ears. The man lifted his head and looked +adoringly at the Princess: her hand caressed his cheek, but her eyes +looked beyond him into the future. + + + + +III + +THE PRIZE + + +Caroline sniffed her way luxuriously through the dusky panelled +library. + +"I think it smells awfully good here, don't you?" she inquired of +her hostess. + +The lady's wonderful velvet train dragged listlessly behind her. Her +neck and arms were dressed in heavy yellowish lace, but all around +her slim body waves of deep colored, soft velvet held the light in +lustrous pools or darkened into almost black shadows. It was like +stained glass in a church, thought Caroline, stroking it +surreptitiously, and like stained glass, too, were the lovely books, +bloody red, grassy green and brown, like Autumn woods, with edges of +gold when the sunlight struck them. They made the walls like a great +jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to ceiling: here and there a +niche of polished wood held a white, clear-cut head. From the +ceiling great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass chains; they +swayed ever so slightly when one watched them closely. + +"This is my favorite room, Duchess," said Caroline, "isn't it +yours?" + +"Do you really think I look like one?" returned the lady, "the only +duchess I ever saw was fat--horribly fat. It is a very handsome +library, of course." + +"Then _she_ didn't look like a duchess, that's all," Caroline +explained. "What I like about this library is, it's so clean. And +you can pull the chairs out and show those big, shiny yellow ones on +the bottom shelf." + +"Of course; why not?" said the Duchess, dropping into a great carved +chair with griffins' heads on the top. + +"Why, you can't do that at Uncle Joe's," Caroline confided, sitting +on a small griffin stool at the lady's feet, "because General gets +at the bottom row and smears 'em. You see he's only two, and you +can't blame him, but he licks himself dreadfully and then rubs it on +the backs. He marks them, too, inside, with a pencil or a hatpin, +or even an orange-wood stick that you clean your nails with. Yours +is made of pearl, you know, but most--a great many, I mean--people +have them wood. And so the chairs have to be all leaned around +against the walls to keep him from the books." + +The Duchess drew a long breath. "And your uncle objects?" she said, +between her teeth. + +"Uncle Joe says," Caroline returned, patting the griffin heads on +her little stool, "that if the President had General in his library +for half an hour he'd feel different about race suicide." + +The Duchess laughed shortly. + +"That is possible, too," she agreed. "You said Cousin Joe was +well--and Edith?" + +"Oh, yes, they're well--I mean, they're very well indeed, thank +you," said Caroline. "Uncle Joe says they have to be, with the +General's shoes two dollars and a half a pair! You see he has quite +thick soles, now--he runs about everywhere. Aunt Edith says he needs +a mounted policeman 'stead of a nurse." + +"Did Edith get rested after the moving?" + +"Oh, yes," Caroline answered absently. She was watching the opal +globes sway. "Aunt Edith says before she was married she'd have gone +South with a trained nurse after such an experience, but now she has +to save the nurse for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down +after lunch." + +The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the griffin chair, but sank +back again. + +"And you have a trained nurse all the time," Caroline mused, +stroking the glistering velvet, "isn't that funny? Just so in case +you _might_ be sick...." The sunlight peeped and winked on the gold +book-edges. + +"It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding very low, "but she is +not likely to be needed for measles." + +"No," Caroline assented, "you and cousin Richard are pretty old for +measles. It's children that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But +you don't seem to ever have any children. And such a big house, too! +And you're very fond of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that +when you like them you can't manage to have any. And people that +don't care about them have them all the time. It was only Christmas +time that Norah Mahoney--she does the extra washing in the +summer--had another. That makes seven. It's a boy. Joseph Michael, +he's named, partly after Uncle Joe. Norah says there don't seem to +be any end to your troubles, once you're married to a man." + +The Duchess turned aside her head, but Caroline knew from the corner +of her mouth that her eyes were full of tears. She stroked the hands +that clenched the griffin's crest. + +"Never mind," she urged, "maybe you'll have some. Most everybody has +just one, anyway." + +The Duchess shook her head mutely; a large round tear dropped on +the griffin. + +"Well, then," said Caroline briskly, "why don't you adopt one? The +Weavers did, and she was quite a nice girl; I used to play with her. +She sucked her thumb, though. But prob'ly they don't, all of them." + +"I wouldn't mind, if she did," the Duchess declared. Already she +spoke more brightly. "I wanted to adopt one--one could take it when +it was very little. But Richard won't hear of it." + +"Not a bit?" Caroline looked worried; she knew Richard. + +"Not a bit," the Duchess repeated, "that is, he says he is willing +under certain conditions, but they are simply impossible. Nobody +could find such a child." + +"There are lots of 'em in the Catholic Foundling," said Caroline +thoughtfully, "all kinds. Aunt Edith went there to sing for them and +she took Miss Honey and me. They're all dressed differently and they +look so sweet. You can take your choice of them; Aunt Edith cried. +But you must let them be Catholics." + +"Richard wouldn't let me take one from an institution," the Duchess +said, "and somehow I wouldn't care to, myself. But there is a woman +I know of who is interested in children that--that aren't likely to +grow up happily, and she will get one for anybody, only one can't +ask any questions about them. You may have all the rights in them, +but you will never know where they came from. And Richard won't have +that. I suppose he's right." + +"But there are plenty of people who would let you have one, if you +would give her a good home and be kind to her," Caroline began, +lapsing for the moment into her confusing, adult manner. + +"Yes, but Richard says that no people nice enough to have a child we +could want would ever give us the child, don't you see," the Duchess +interrupted eagerly. "He says the father must be a gentleman--and +educated--and the mother a good woman. He says there must be good +blood behind it. And they must never see it, never ask about it, +never want it. He says he doesn't see how I could bear to have a +child that any other mother had ever loved." + +Caroline sighed. + +"Cousin Richard does make up his mind, so!" she muttered. + +"He is unreasonable," said the Duchess suddenly, "unreasonable! He +must know all about the child, but the parents must not know about +us! Not know our name, even! Just give up the child and +withdraw--why, the poorest, commonest people would not do that, and +does he expect that people of the kind he requires would be so +heartless? We shall never be able to get one--never. And yet he +wants one so--almost as much as I!" + +The Duchess had forgotten Caroline. Staring at the opal globes she +sat, and again the tears rose, brimmed and overflowed. + +Caroline slipped off the little stool and walked softly out of the +beautiful room. The books glowed jewel-like, the four milky moons +swayed ever so little on their brass chains, the white busts looked +coldly at the Duchess as she sat crying in her big carved chair, and +there was nobody that could help at all. + +Through the dark, shiny halls she walked--cautiously, for she had +had embarrassing lessons in its waxy polish--and paused from force +of habit to pat the great white polar bear that made the little +reception room such a delightful place. More than the busts in +the library even, he set loose the fancy, and whiled one away to +the enchanted North where the Snow Queen drove her white sledge +through the sparkling glades, and the Water Baby dived beneath +the dipping berg. + +Miss Grundman, the trained nurse, appeared in the doorway. + +"Did you care to go out with the brougham, to-day, dear?" she asked. +"Hunt tells me he has to go 'way down town." + +"Yes, I'd like to--can you take care of babies, too?" Caroline +returned abruptly. + +Miss Grundman started. + +"What an odd child you are--of course I can!" she said. "All nurses +can; it's part of the training. Have you any you're worried about?" +she added pointedly. Caroline flushed. + +"You're making fun o' me," she muttered, "you know very well only +grown people have them! I don't mean if they're sick, but can you +wash them, and cook the milk in that tin thing, and everything like +that?" + +"Bless the child, of course I can!" Miss Grundman cried, "you bring +me one and I'll show you!" + +"Oh, I b'lieve you, Miss Grundman, if you say so," Caroline assured +her, and slid carefully along the hall for the stairs that led to +her hat and coat. + +They spun smoothly down the avenue with an almost imperceptible +electric whir, Caroline bolt upright on the plum-colored cushion, +Hunt and Gleggson bolt upright on the seat outside. It was a matter +for congratulation to Caroline that of all the vehicles that glided +by them, none boasted a more upright pair than Hunt and Gleggson. + +The tall brown houses were gradually changing into bright shops; the +carriages grew thicker and thicker; the long procession stopped and +waited now almost every moment, so crowded was the brilliant street. +Once a massive policeman actually smiled at her as Hunt stopped the +brougham close to him, and Caroline's admiring soul crowded to her +eyes at the mighty wave of his white, arresting hand. They drew up +before a great window filled with broughams and victorias displayed +as lavishly as if they had been hats or bonbon boxes--it was like a +gigantic toy-shop. Hunt dropped acrobatically to the pavement and +was seen describing his mysterious desires to an affable gentleman +behind the plate-glass; he measured with his knuckles and +illustrated in pantomime the snapping of something over his knee; +the clerk shook his head in commiseration and signalled to an +attendant, who darted off. Soon Hunt appeared with a small package +and they started on again, turning a corner abruptly and winding +through less exciting streets. The shops grew smaller and dingier; +drays passed lumbering by and street cars jarred along beside them, +but vehicles like their own were noticeably lacking. It was plain +that they attracted more attention, now, and more than one group of +children dancing in the street to the music of the hurdy-gurdy +lingered daringly to provoke the thrilling, mellow warning of their +horn. At last they stopped at a corner and Hunt dropped again to the +pavement, lingering for a short consultation with Gleggson who +pointed once or twice behind them to the small occupant of the +brougham. On this occasion he took with him a mysterious and +powerful handle, and Caroline knew that this was precisely +equivalent to running away with the horses. He hurried around an +unattractive corner, and Gleggson sat alone in front. Five, ten +minutes passed. They seemed very dull to Caroline, and she reached +for the plum-colored tube and spoke boldly through it. + +"What are we waiting for, please, Gleggson? Where is Hunt?" + +"'E just stepped off, Miss, for a minute, like. 'E'll be 'ere +directly. Would you wish for me to go and look 'im up, Miss?" + +Gleggson spoke very cordially. + +"We-ell, I don't know," Caroline said doubtfully. "If you think +he'll be right back ... I can wait...." + +"Pre'aps I'd better, as you say, Miss," Gleggson continued, "for 'e +_'as_ been gone some time, and I think I could lay me 'and on 'im. +You'll not get out, of course, Miss, and I'll be back before you +know it." + +He clambered down and took the same general course as Hunt had +taken, deflecting, however, to enter a little door made like a +window-blind, that failed to reach its own door-sill. + +"Hunt didn't go there at all," Caroline muttered resentfully, and +deliberately opening the door of the brougham, she stepped out. + +She had followed Hunt's track quite accurately till a sudden turn +confused her, and she realized that after that corner she had no +idea in which direction he had gone. She paused uncertainly; the +street was dirty, the few children in sight were playing a game +unknown to her and not playing very pleasantly, at that; the women +who looked at her seemed more curious than kindly. The atmosphere +was not sordid enough to be alarming or even interesting; it was +merely slovenly and distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to +go back when a young girl stopped by her and eyed her inquisitively. + +"Were you lookin' for any particular party?" she asked. + +"I was looking for Hunt," said Caroline, "he went this way, +I think." + +"There's some Hunts across the street there," the girl suggested, +"right hand flat, second floor. I seen the name once. I guess +you're lost all right, ain't you?" + +"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I'm not lost. I can go right back. +I'll see if Hunt's there." + +The threshold was greasy and worn, the stairs covered with faded oil +cloth, the side walls defaced and over-scrawled. At the head of the +stairs three dingy doors opened in three different directions, and a +soiled card on the middle one bore the name of Hunt. A man's voice +somewhere behind it talked in a strange loud sing-song; he seemed to +be telling a long, confusing story. At the moment of Caroline's +timid knock he was saying over and over again, + +"Isn't that so? Isn't that so? Who wouldn't have done the same? Put +your finger on the place where I made the mistake! Will you? Will +anybody? I ask it as a favor--" + +"Hush, won't you?" a woman's voice interrupted, "wasn't that a +knock?" + +Caroline knocked again. + +There was a hasty shuffling and a key turned in the door. + +"Who is it?" the woman's voice asked. "What do you want? The +auction's all over--there's nothing left. We're moving out +to-morrow." + +Surprise held Caroline dumb. How could one have an auction in such a +place? At auctions there were red flags, and horses and carriages +gathered around the house, and people brought luncheon; they had +often driven to auctions out in the country. + +The door opened. + +"Why it's only a child!" said the woman, thin and fatigued, with +dark rings under her not ungentle eyes. "What do you want here?" + +"I'm looking for Hunt," Caroline answered, "doesn't he live here?" + +"Heavens, no!" the woman said, "that old card's been there long +before we moved in, I guess. They were old renters, most likely. +What's the party to you, anyway? Is he your--" + +She paused, studying Caroline's simple but unmistakeable clothes +and manner. + +"He drives the automobile," Caroline explained, "I thought he came +this way." + +"Come in, won't you?" said the woman, "there's no good getting any +more lost than you are, I guess. There's not much to sit on, +'specially if you're used to automobiles, but we can find you +something, I hope. I try to keep it better looking than this +gen'ally, but this is my last day here. I'm going out West +to-morrow." + +An old table, two worn chairs and an over-turned box furnished the +small room; through an open door Caroline spied a tumbled bed. A +kitchen, dismantled and dreary, faced her. + +"The agent gave me five dollars for all I left," the woman said, "I +don't know which of us got the best o' the bargain. Now, about you. +Where do you live? I s'pose they're looking for you right now while +we're talking. Do you know where you left the automobile?" + +"Oh, yes." Caroline stared frankly about her. "Wasn't there a man in +here? Where did he go?" + +The woman grunted out a sort of laugh. "If you're not the limit!" +she murmured. She stepped to the door of the kitchen, looked in, and +beckoned to Caroline. + +"I suppose you heard him carrying on," she said, "he's in there. +Poor fellow, he's all worn out." + +Caroline peered into the kitchen. With his rough, unshaven face +resting on his arms, his hair all tossed about, his face drawn in +misery, even in his heavy sleep, a young man sat before a table, +half lying on it, one hand on a soiled plate still grasping a piece +of bread. + +"Is he sick?" whispered Caroline. + +"N--no, I wouldn't say sick, exactly, but I guess he'd be almost as +well off if he was," said the woman. "It would take his mind off. +He's had a lot of trouble." + +The man scowled in his sleep and clenched his hand, so that the +bread crumbled in it. + +"And so I won the prize," he muttered, "just as I told her I would. +Did I have any pull? Was there any favoritism? No--you know it as +well as I do--it was good work won that prize!" + +"Was it a bridge prize?" Caroline inquired maturely. The woman +stared. + +"A bridge prize?" she repeated vaguely. "Why, no, I guess not. It +was for writing a story for one of those magazines. He won a +thousand dollars." + +The man opened his eyes suddenly. + +"And if you don't believe it," he said, still in that strange +sing-song voice, "just read that letter." + +He pulled a worn, creased sheet from an inner pocket and thrust it +at Caroline. + +"It's typewritten," he added, "it's easy enough to see if I'm lying. +Just read it out." + +Caroline glanced at the engraved letter-heading and began to read in +her careful, childish voice: + + MY DEAR MR. WILLISTON: + + _It is with great pleasure that I have to announce the fact that + your story, "The Renewal," has been selected by the judges as + most worthy of the thousand-dollar prize offered by us._ + +The woman snatched the paper from her hand. + +"The idea!" she cried, "let the child alone, Mr. Williston! Don't +you see she's lost?" + +The man dropped like a stone on the table. + +"Lost!" he whispered, "lost! Oh, that dreadful word! Yes, she's +lost. Poor little Lou. It's all over." + +The woman drew Caroline back into the sitting room. + +"I'm sorry you should see him," she said. "You must excuse him--he +don't really know what he's doing. He lost his wife a week ago and +he's hardly slept since. It's real sad. I was as sorry as I could be +for 'em, and I'd have kept 'em even longer if she'd lived, though +they couldn't pay. I'd keep the baby, too, if I could, it's such a +cute little thing, but I can't, and I'm to take it to the Foundling +to-day. I'll go right out with you, and see that the police--" + +"Oh, is there a baby? Let me see it!" Caroline pleaded. "How old +is it?" + +"Just a week," said the woman. "Yes, you can see him. He's good as +gold, and big--! He weighs nine pounds." + +In the third room, lying in a roll of blankets on a tumbled cot, a +pink, fat baby slept, one fist in his dewy mouth. The red-gold down +was thick on his round head; he looked like a wax Christ-child for +a Christmas tree. + +Caroline sighed ecstatically. + +"Isn't he lovely!" she breathed. + +"He's a fine child," the woman agreed. "And his mother never saw +him, poor little thing. Nor his father either, for that matter." + +Caroline looked in amazement toward the kitchen. + +"Never laid his eyes on him," the woman went on sadly, "as if it was +any good, to blame the poor baby! He's taken a terrible grudge on +the little thing. He was awfully fond of his wife, though. He told +me he was going to leave him right here, and then, of course, +somebody in the house would notify the police, if I didn't take him +to the Foundling. And of course he'd get better care, for that +matter--there's no doubt about that. It's too bad. There's people +that would give their eyes for a fine baby like that, you know." + +"I know it," said Caroline simply, "my cousin Richard would be glad +to have him--he wants one very much. But he's very particular." + +The woman looked at her sharply. "What do you mean?" she asked. "How +particular?" + +Suddenly she laughed nervously. "I ought to be ashamed of myself," +she said, "you ought to be at the police station now. But I'm all +worn out, and it does me good to talk to anybody. I don't let the +neighbors in much--it's a cheap set of people around here, and Mr. +Williston's different from them and I hate to hear him talking to +them the way he will. He don't know what he's doing. He tells 'em +all about that prize--and it's true, you know, he did get it; that's +what they married on, and he thought he could get plenty more that +way, and then he never sold another story. It was too bad. He's a +real gentleman, though you might not think it to look at him now, +not shaved, and all. He thought he could earn a thousand every week, +I s'pose, poor fellow. He got work in a department store, fin'ly, +and it took all he made to bury her. She was a sweet little thing, +but soft. I was real sorry for 'em." + +She wiped her eyes hastily. + +"Do you know whether he went to Harvard?" Caroline inquired, in a +business-like tone. + +The woman was heating some milk in a bottle, over a lamp, and did +not answer her, but a voice from the door brought her sharply +around. The young man stood there. Though still unshaven, he was +otherwise quite changed. His hair was parted neatly, his coat +brushed, his face no longer flushed, but pale and composed. + +"If your extraordinary question refers to me, yes, I went to +Harvard," he said in a grating, disagreeable voice. "I have in fact +been called a 'typical Harvard man.' But that was some time ago. May +I ask who you are?" + +The woman lifted the bottle from the tin cup that held it and picked +up the baby; the young man shifted his eyes from her immediately and +looked persistently over Caroline's head. + +"Her family's coachman's name is Hunt," said the woman, "and she +thought he lived here, she says. He'd no business to go off and +leave her alone. Her family'd be worried to death. When I go out +with the baby I'll take her. I suppose you haven't changed your mind +about the baby, Mr. Williston?--now you're feeling more like +yourself," she added. + +"I cannot discuss that subject, Mrs. Ufford," the young man +answered, in his rasping, unnatural voice. "When you have disposed +of the matter along the lines you yourself suggested, I am at your +service till you take the train. After that--after that"--his lips +tightened in a disagreeable smile--"I may be able to get to +work--and win another prize!" + +"There, there!" she cautioned him, "don't talk about that, Mr. +Williston, don't, now! Why don't you go out with the little girl and +see if you can find her automobile? That'll be less for me to do. +Why don't you?" + +He turned, muttering something about his hat, but Caroline tugged at +his coat. + +"Wait, wait!" she urged him, "I want you to tell her to let me take +the baby! If you went to Harvard, that's all Cousin Richard said, +except about a gentleman"--she paused and scrutinized him a moment. +"You _are_ a gentleman, aren't you?" she asked. + +He looked at her. "My father was," he answered briefly. "In my own +case, I have grave doubts. What do you think?" he asked the woman, +looking no lower than her eyes. + +She fed the baby deftly. "Oh, Mr. Williston, don't talk so--of +course you're a gentleman!" she cried, "you couldn't help about the +money. You did your best." + +His mouth twisted pitifully. + +"That'll do," he said, "what does this child mean? Who is your +cousin? Where does he live?" + +"He lives on Madison Avenue," Caroline began eagerly, "but I mustn't +tell you his last name, you know, because he doesn't want you to +know. That's just it. But he'd love the baby. I could take it right +back in the automobile." + +The man felt in under his coat and detached from his waistcoat a +small gold pin. He tore a strip of wrapping paper from the open box +near him and wrote rapidly on it. + +"There," he said, fastening the pin into the folded paper, "I'm glad +I never pawned it. If your cousin is a Harvard man, the pin will be +enough, but he can look me up from this paper--all he wants. They're +all dead but me, though. Here, wait a moment!" + +He went back into the sitting room and fumbled in a heap of waste +paper on the floor, picked out of it a stiff sheet torn once +through, and attached it with the gold pin to the bit of writing. + +"That's her marriage certificate," he said to the woman. She stared +at him. + +"Mr. Williston, do you believe that child?" she burst out, loosening +her hold on the bottle in her hand. "Why, she may be making it all +up! I--I--you must be crazy! You don't even know her name! I won't +allow it--" + +He broke into her excited remonstrance gravely. + +"I don't believe a child could make up such details, in the first +place, Mrs. Ufford," he said, "she is repeating something she's +heard, I think. Did your cousin mention anything else?" he said +abruptly to Caroline. + +She smiled gratefully at him. "The mother must be a good woman," she +quoted placidly. + +Both of them started. + +"Do you think a child would invent that?" he demanded. "Now, see +here. You take Mrs. Ufford home with you in the automobile and she +can see if there's anything in what you say, really. If there's not, +she can go right on with the--with it, and do as--as we arranged +before. It's all written on the paper, and my full consent to the +adoption, and if there's anything legal to do about it, Mrs. Ufford +can attend to it. But nobody'll trouble 'em--they can be sure of +that. My people all died long ago and--and hers--hers...." + +He stopped short. With eyes filled and lips vaguely moving he fell +into a strange revery, a sort of tranced stupor. So intense were his +absent thoughts that they impressed the woman and the child; they +knew that he was back in the past and waited patiently while for a +few kind moments he forgot. At length his eyes shifted and he took +up his broken phrase, unconscious, evidently, of the pause. "--her's +are back in New England. They never knew.... I had _some_ pride. +They're the I-told-you-so sort, anyhow. And they told her, all +right. Oh yes, they told her! Narrow-minded, God-fearing prigs!" He +stared at Mrs. Ufford curiously. "But they paid their debts, all the +same," he added with a harsh laugh, "and that's more than I've been +able to do, I suppose you're thinking." + +But almost before the dark red had flushed her tired, lined face, +he leaned forward and touched her shoulder kindly. + +"I didn't mean that," he apologized. "I'm half crazy, I think. +You've been as good as gold, and even when I've paid you the money I +owe you, I'll owe you more than I can ever pay. I know that. And +you're New England, too." + +His sudden softening encouraged the woman, and she looked +appealingly up at him, while she patted the bundle on her lap. + +"Folks have hearts in New England, Mr. Williston," she began, "and +if you was to go to her folks or write to 'em, I guess you'd +find--oh, couldn't you?" + +His impatient hand checked her. + +"He might grow up to be a real comfort to you," she murmured +persistently, "and you could look out for him well enough, once you +get started. Just see how smart you are, Mr. Williston--look at that +prize you got; she was awful proud of it." + +His face twisted painfully. + +"I looked out for _her_ well, didn't I?" he said coldly, "I was a +'good provider,' as they say up there, wasn't I? Do you think--" +his voice rang harshly and he struck the table by his side till it +rattled on its unsteady legs--"do you think if I couldn't look out +for her, I would look out for _that_? Get it ready." + +The woman rose, her lips pressed together, and rolled the blankets +tightly about the quiet child. With one gesture she put on a shabby +hat and pinned it to her hair. + +"I'll leave the bottle with you," she said to Caroline; "it'll help +keep him quiet, when I'm gone. Come on." + +The man turned away his head as they passed him. At the outer door +she paused a moment, and her face softened. + +"I know how you feel, Mr. Williston, and I don't judge you," she +said gently, "for the Lord knows you've had more than your share of +trouble. But won't you kiss it once before--before it's too late? +It's your child, you know. Don't you feel--" + +"I feel one thing," he cried out, and the bitterness of his voice +frightened Caroline; "I feel that it murdered her! Take it away!" + +They shrank through the door. + +The woman sobbed once or twice on the stairs, but Caroline patted +the flannel bundle excitedly. + +They had rounded the corner in a moment, and the woman pointed ahead +with her free hand. + +"Is that the automobile?" she asked. + +Caroline nodded. The brougham stood empty and alone where she had +left it. + +"They're not back yet!" she cried in disgust, "the idea!" + +"Maybe they're looking for you," Mrs. Ufford said shortly. + +"Aren't you glad we've got it?" Caroline inquired timidly. "I am, +awfully. I didn't expect to get such a good one, so soon," she went +on more easily, "but I don't like that man much. He's so cross." + +"Child, child, you don't know what you're talkin' about!" the woman +cried impatiently. "He's not cross--but his heart's just about +broke. He thinks more money would've saved her. And I guess he's +right about that. She was a soft little thing. But she stuck to +him." + +They walked a few steps in silence. + +"I don't know as I was actin' right, either, to talk as I did," she +continued abruptly. "I s'pose it is better as 'tis, 'specially if +your folks will take the baby. They'll do a lot more for it than +ever he could, prob'ly. I s'pose they're real rich--regular swells? +I can see they've got a fine automobile." + +"Oh, yes. Cousin Richard's very rich," Caroline answered, +indifferently, "that's only the brougham--there are two more. I have +more fun at Aunt Edith's, though." + +"_'Twas_ queer about all those things your cousin wanted, wasn't +it?" the woman said, musingly. "'Seemed like kind of a sign to him, +I could see--going to Harvard College and all. I s'pose it was a +sign--maybe." + +She walked slowly, perhaps because of her burden. + +"That's a fine college, I s'pose?" she said, inquiringly. + +"It's good enough," Caroline allowed, "of course Yale's the best. We +all go to Yale. Uncle Joe says there had to be something for Yale to +beat, so they founded Harvard!" + +"You don't say," Mrs. Ufford returned, "that's funny." + +They were very near the brougham now. It stood as deserted as when +Caroline had left it. The baby in the bundled blanket neither cried +nor stirred. + +"He's the best child," said the woman, with her tired, kindly smile. +"He's next to nothing to tend to. If he'd felt to go back to her +folks with it, I'd 'a' gone with him to look after it. I've got +enough for that--the things sold real well, and he'd never let me +lose, anyhow. He isn't that kind. I took a real likin' to both of +'em. I've kept boarders, all over, for fifteen years and I never +lost a cent from anybody like him, not one. You get to know all +sorts, keepin' boarders, and Mr. Williston's all right--though you +mightn't think so," she ended loyally. + +Caroline hardly listened. She saw herself in the bearskin reception +room, up the stairs, in the library, her baby in her arms; she heard +the incredulous joy of the Duchess, she explained importantly with +convincing detail, to Cousin Richard the critical. To her eager soul +this thin, friendly woman was merely an incident; that irritable, +incoherent man less than a dream. + +They paused on the curb, and she opened the brougham door +hospitably. + +"You get in first," she said, "and then I can hold him a little +while, can't I?" + +"I never was in one o' these," Mrs. Ufford answered doubtfully, +"s'pose you go in first. It can't go--or back, or anything, can it?" + +"No, no, of course not," said Caroline impatiently. "There's Hunt +'way up the street--he doesn't see us--how he's hurrying!" + +The woman paused, her foot on the broad step. + +"'Taint Hunt--it's Mr. Williston," she announced. "What's he want, I +wonder? Look--he's wavin' at us! I guess he forgot some paper he +wants you to take--he's bound to have it legal," she added with a +sigh. "No, dear, let me be. I'll see what he wants before I get in." + +The young man was running fast; his face was red, his eyes anxious. + +"Have you got it? Is it here?" he cried, panting, and as she lifted +the bundle high, his face cleared and Caroline saw that he was very +handsome. + +"Oh, Mrs. Ufford," he gasped, "read this! Just read it! I found it +in my pocket-book--I thought you might be gone--she put it there for +me--my poor little Lou! My God, what a brute--what a brute!" + +The woman, one foot still on the step of the brougham, supported the +child on her raised knee and held the paper in her free hand. + +"_My dearest husband_," she read aloud, "_if I get well you will +never see this, for I will take it out, but I don't believe I will +take it out, for I don't believe I will get well. They say everybody +thinks they will die, and of course a great many don't, but some do, +and I think I will, I don't know why, but I am sure. But you will +have the little girl. I am sure she will be a girl, and I hope she +will look like me and be a comfort to you. You will take good care +of her, I know. Think how nicely you took care of me and how hard +you worked. You take her to my sister, and when she gets big enough, +then you take her. She will not be a burden for you will earn lots +of money when you can stop working in that horrid store on my +account, and have time to do your writing. You must not get +discouraged, for your writing is fine. Remember that prize you took. +They will all be proud of you some day. You have been so good to me. +Your loving wife, Lou._" + +Her voice broke, and with no further word she held the child out to +the young man. Without a word he took it and stared eagerly into its +face, pushing the wrappings aside. + +"He has her eyes," he murmured, "Lou's eyes!" + +The baby felt the grip of a stronger arm, wrinkled its features and +appeared to scan the dark, trembling face above it. + +"He knows me! Mrs. Ufford, he knows me!" cried the man. + +"Maybe so, maybe so," she said, soothingly. "You'll keep him, won't +you, now?" + +"Keep him? Keep him?" he repeated, "why he's all I've got of +hers--all! He's Lou's and mine, together! He's--" + +"Hush, hush!" she warned him, "here's a crowd already! We're right +out in the street, Mr. Williston! Come back with me. Yes, keep him +if you want to." + +She turned to Caroline, neglected and wide-eyed, in the brougham. + +"You see how it is, dear," she said hastily, "he wants it, after +all. I can't help bein' glad. It ain't always that money does the +most, you know. And he's the baby's father. Don't you mind, will +you?" + +Caroline gulped. + +"I--I guess not," she answered bravely. "But I did want him!" + +"I know. You meant all right," the woman assured her. "You're +real--there's your coachman runnin'. He saw the crowd gatherin', +prob'ly. Good-by, dear." + +She slipped through the curious street children after the tall +figure that hurried on with his bundle, a block ahead. Gleggson +dashed up to the brougham. + +"W'ere was you, Miss, for goodness' sake?" he gasped out, "h'I've +been h'all over after yer! Don't, don't tell Hunt on me, will you, +Miss? He'd fair kill the life out o' me! He's comin' now. 'e 'ad to +go, Miss, fer his little boy was took sick last night and callin' +for 'im. So 'e made up the errant. But it'll cost us both our place, +y' know, Miss!" + +The man's voice shook. Hunt was very near them now, walking hard. + +"I'd no business to leave, I know--_will_ you h'overlook it for +once, Miss, and keep mum?" the man pleaded. + +"All right, Gleggson--all right," she said wearily, "I won't tell." + +Confused, disappointed, and yet with a curious sense of joy in the +joy of the two even now rounding the corner, she leaned back in the +brougham. + +"I'm afraid he'll go to Harvard, anyway," she sighed. + + + + +IV + +WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN. + + +One glance at Caroline's shoulders, hunched with caution, the merest +profile, indeed, of her tense and noiseless advance up the narrow +gravel path, would have convinced the most casual observer that she +was bent upon arson, at the least. At the occasional crunch of the +gravel she scowled; the well meant effort of a speckled gray hen, +escaped from some distant part of the grounds, to bear her company, +produced a succession of pantomimic dismissals that alarmed the hen +to the point of frenzy, so that her clacks and cackles resounded far +beyond the trim hedge that separated the drying-ground from the +little kitchen garden. + +Caroline scowled, turned to shake her fist at the hen, now lumbering +awkwardly through the hedge, and sat down heavily on a little bed of +parsley. + +"Nasty old thing!" she gulped, "_anybody_ could've heard me! And I +was creeping up so still...." + +She peered out from behind a dwarf evergreen and made a careful +survey of the situation. The big square house stood placid and empty +in the afternoon sun; not a cat on the kitchen porch, not a curtain +fluttering from an open window. All was neat, quiet and deserted. +Caroline set her lips with decision. + +"We'll pretend there wasn't any hen," she said, in a low voice, "and +go on from here, just the same." + +Rising with great caution she picked her way, crouching and dodging, +from bush to bush; occasionally she took a lightning peep at the +silent house, then dipped again and continued her stalking. +Following the evergreen hedge around a final corner, she emerged +stealthily in the lee of the latticed kitchen porch and drew a +breath of relief. + +"All right so far," she muttered; "I wonder if that old gray cat +with the new kittens is fussing around here?" + +But no breath of life stirred under the porch as she stooped to peer +through a break in the lattice, and with a final survey of the +premises, inserted her plump person into the gap and wriggled, +panting, into the darkness below. + +It was stuffy and dusty there; the light filtered dimly through the +diamond spaces, and the adventurer, crawling on hands and knees, +bumped into a shadowy pile of flower-pots, sneezed violently and +grovelled wrathfully among the ruins for at least five minutes, +helplessly confused. Quite by accident she knocked her cobwebbed +head against a narrow, outward swinging window, seized it +thankfully, and plunged through it. Hanging a moment by her grimy +hands she swayed, a little fearfully, then dropped with a quick +breath to the concrete floor beneath, and smiled with relief as the +comparative brightness of a well kept cellar revealed her safety. +Vegetable bins, a neat pile of kindling wood, a large portable +closet of wire netting, with occasional plates and covered dishes +suggestively laid away in it, met her eye; on the floor in front of +this last rested a little heap of something wet and glistening. +Untidy as it looked, it had an eatable appearance to Caroline, +whose instinct in these matters was unimpeachable, and bending over +it she inserted one finger. + +"Current jelly!" she whispered, thoughtfully licking the inquiring +member. "The idea!" + +She approached the wire closet and peered along the shelves; there +was no jelly there. + +"'Dropped it getting it out," she pursued, "I wonder why Selma +didn't wipe it up." + +Suddenly her face brightened. + +"We'll keep right on and pretend _'twas_ burglars," she announced to +the quiet cellar, "and they stole the jelly in a hurry and dropped +this and never noticed, and went upstairs to eat it and get the +silver! And so I found 'em, after all!" + +Still on tiptoe, she left the cellar, stole through the laundry, and +crept mysteriously up the back stairs. So absorbed she was that a +cracking board stopped her heart for a breath, and a slip on the +landing sent her to her knees in terror. The empty quiet seemed to +hum around her; strange snappings of the old woodwork dried her +throat. With her hand on the swing door that led into the +dining-room, she paused in a delicious ecstasy of terror, as the +imagined clink of glass and silver, the normal clatter of a cheerful +meal, seemed to echo in the air. + +It was always difficult for Caroline in such moments of excitement +to distinguish between what she saw and heard and what she wished to +see and hear, and at this ghost of table music she smiled with +pleasure. + +"The house is empty," said her common-sense, but she pursed her lips +and whispered, "they're up here eating--they've come for the +silver!" + +By fractions of inches she pushed the door on its well-oiled hinge +and slipped noiselessly into the dining-room. + +A broad beam of light fell across the dark, wainscoted room, and in +the track of it sat a handsome well-dressed man, busily eating. In +front of him was a roast chicken, a cut-glass dish of celery and a +ruby mound of jelly; a crusty loaf of new bread lay broken at his +right; at his left, winking in the sunbeam, stood a decanter half +filled with a topaz liquor. He was daintily poising a bit of jelly +on some bread, the mouthful was in the air, when his eyes fell on +Caroline, an amazed and cobwebbed statue in front of him. + +The hand that held the bread grew rigid. As spilled milk spreads +over a table, the man's face was flooded with sudden grayish white; +against it his thin lips were marked in lavender. While the +grandfather clock ticked ten times they stared at each other, and +then a wave of deep red poured over his face and his mouth twitched. + +"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly, +pointedly regarding her dusty rumpled figure. + +Caroline gulped and dropped her eyes. + +"I--I--nothing particular," she murmured guiltily. + +The man laid the piece of bread down carefully and wiped his fingers +on the napkin spread across his knees. + +"Some time," he said, in a leisurely drawl, "you'll burst into a +room like that, where a person with a weak heart may be sitting, and +that'll be the last of 'em." + +[Illustration: "What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded +sternly.] + +"The last of 'em?" Caroline repeated vaguely. + +"Just so. They'll die on you," he explained briefly. + +Caroline stepped nearer. + +"Is--is your heart weak?" she inquired fearfully. "I'm so sorry. So +is my Uncle Lindsay's." + +"What were you sneaking about so soft for?" he demanded. + +She flushed. + +"I--I was playing burglars," she confessed, "and I got to where they +were in here with the silver, and--and I was coming in to--to get +them, and I didn't expect anybody would be here, really, you know, +and I was surprised when I saw you. I didn't know about your heart." + +"Burglars?" said the man, laughing loudly. "Well, that's one on me! +I must say you're a nervy young party. So you thought I was a +burglar, did you?" + +"Oh, no!" Caroline cried, "of course not--I meant I was playing it +was burglars; I didn't mean you. I--I didn't know anybody was here." + +"Humph!" said he. "What made you play burglars? Anything in that +line yourself, ever?" + +Caroline stared uncomprehendingly. + +"My mother doesn't think it's right for Aunt Edith to go off and +leave the house all alone the way she does," she explained; "she's +always telling her some one will break in if she doesn't leave Selma +or a dog. And she never locks a thing, you know--she says if they +intend to get in, they will, and that's all there is about it. So +this time she went for three days, and Miss Honey and the General +and Delia; and Selma and Anna went to a wedding and Ed went +somewhere about a lawn-mower, and little Ed was going to get the +pony shod. I told Aunt Edith I'd--" she coughed importantly--"keep +an eye on the house." + +"I see," said the man. + +He poured himself two inches of the topaz liquor; it rocked in the +glass. + +Caroline sniffed inquiringly. + +"That's the Scotch," she said; "I know by the smell, partly like +cologne and partly smoky. Do you like it?" + +The man raised the glass to the level of his eyes and watched the +light play through it, then made a slight movement of his arm and +the whisky disappeared smoothly. + +"Your Aunt Edith's taste is as good as her voice," he said, eyeing +Caroline carefully. + +"Oh, that's not Aunt Edith's--that's Uncle Joe's," she explained. +Then, as it flashed across her suddenly. + +"Did you want to see him? He's in New York, too. They're going to +have pictures taken of Miss Honey and General. But after that, Uncle +Joe's going to Chicago. Did you want him?" + +"N-no, not exactly," said the man, studying his well-kept +finger-nails. "I can't say I do. No, my business is with--is more--" + +He stopped suddenly and followed the direction of Caroline's eyes. + +There on the sideboard behind him stood a leather suit-case, long +and solid looking. It was open and tight rows of forks and spoons +filled it. + +The room was quite still for a moment. Caroline wanted to show by +some intelligent remark that she understood the situation, and +could easily imagine what the man was doing with the silver, but +she found this difficult. + +Strange people came to Aunt Edith's house. Dark, foreign-looking men +ate meals there at unusual hours; once Caroline had seen with her +own eyes a plump, yellow German fall suddenly on his knees at Aunt +Edith's feet, as a hand-organ struck up its brassy music under the +window, and burst into passionate singing, waving a whisk-broom in +the air and offering it to Aunt Edith with the most extraordinary +force of manner. And her aunt, who wore at the time a raincoat and +tam o'shanter cap, had leaned forward graciously, gurgled out a most +delicious little tune, accepted the whisk-broom, affected to inhale +its fragrance rapturously, and whirled into a big and beautiful song +in which the plump, yellow gentleman joined, and rising seized her +in his arms, at which point they drowned the hand-organ completely, +and the hand-organ man and Uncle Joe applauded loudly, and they gave +the hand-organ man all he could eat and a dollar. + +You may see from this that one did not look for the commonplace in +Aunt Edith's house. Moreover, the stranger was not unlike some of +her aunt's friends; though he was handsome and assured and +noticeably at his ease, Caroline felt that his manner was subtly +different from that of the friends of her own family. But even the +most unconventional guest had never collected the sideboard silver, +and a little feeling was growing in the air ... doubt and a bit of +what might have begun to be fear ... when suddenly the man began to +laugh. It was abrupt and it rang harshly at first, but grew with +every moment warmer and more infectious, so that Caroline, though +she felt that she was in some way the cause of it, joined in it +finally, in spite of herself. + +"If you knew what a sight you were!" he exclaimed, wiping his eyes +with the napkin, "with your hair all cobwebs and all that dirt on +your knees and those finger-marks on your apron, and being so small +and all"--he began to chuckle again. + +"Small?" she repeated portentously. + +"Oh, I didn't mean small compared with--with anybody else the same +size," he assured her quickly. + +Catching her mollified glance, he went on more soberly. + +"And how did you get in, now? No doors, I'll bet." + +"Under the kitchen porch, through the little cellar window and up +the back stairs," she explained. + +"You mean to say you were out in that little back hall and I never +heard you?" + +She nodded. "I took pains to be still," she added, "so as to +surprise the--so if there had been--" + +"I understand," he said gravely, "so as to get them if they had been +there. Well, you'd have done it. You're all right. Now, I suppose +you're wondering what all this means, aren't you? You haven't got +any idea who I am, have you? You don't know one single thing about +me, and you may be thinking--" + +"I know one thing about you," she interrupted, "I know you went to +Yale." + +The man's jaw dropped, his hands gripped the arm of the chair. + +"And how in--how did you know that?" he cried roughly, with blazing +eyes. + +Caroline shrank a little but faced him. + +"Your pin," she said, pointing to his vest, "I saw it when you held +your arm up." + +The man sank back in his chair and fingered the little jeweled badge +unconsciously. + +"Well, of all the cute ones ... so you've seen this before?" he +suggested. + +"Of course I have--my brother has one, and my Uncle Joe and Uncle +Lindsay and Cousin Lindsay and Cousin Joe." + +"All went to Yale?" he inquired. + +"Lindsay and Joe are there now--they're seniors," she informed him. +"The General's going when he grows up. All the Holts go there. +Grandfather Holt went." + +"You don't say," said the man, bending forward in genuine interest, +"I guess it's a pretty good college, eh?" + +"The best of them all," she assured him. + +"I'll tell you an awful funny thing," she went on abruptly, "you +know all the Holts look alike. Well, when Uncle Lindsay first went +to Yale, he was walking along the Campus, and right by Old South +Middle he met the President. And the President stopped and said, +'Well, well, I see the race of Holts is not yet extinct. Good +afternoon, sir!' _The President._ And he never saw him before!" + +The man shook his head thoughtfully. + +"You don't say," he repeated. "Old South Middle--that's it. That's +the one." + +Suddenly he shrugged his shoulders and took out his watch. "This'll +never pay the rent!" he said briskly. "Now let's get to business. I +suppose you were surprised to see all that stuff in the suit-case?" + +Caroline nodded and grinned back at him, his own quick smile was so +friendly and compelling. + +"Well," he continued, rising and bunching the napkin beside his +plate, "I don't blame you. Not a bit. I'd have been the same myself. +And you'll be even more surprised when you find out what I'm +doing--that is," he stopped abruptly, "unless your Uncle Joe has +told you already and sent you over to help?" + +She shook her head. + +"Didn't, eh?" he stepped over to the sideboard, wiping off the knife +and fork he had been using, and packed them with the others. +Caroline, watching his hands, noticed in the corner of the case a +familiar chamois skin bag; she had often seen it on Aunt Edith's +bureau. + +"Well, now," he continued, "If I had a niece as sharp and smart and +quiet as you are, Missy, I'd tell her my plans, I would, and get her +to help me. I wonder your uncle didn't. Sure he didn't mention +me--Mr. Barker?" + +Again she shook her head, her eyes fastened to the bag. + +"Well," said the man, shutting down the cover of the suit-case and +strapping it tightly, "it's this way. You may have heard your uncle +say something about it being kind o' careless, leaving the house so +much alone? Anyhow, whether he's talked to you or not about it, he +has to me often enough." + +"Oh, yes!" Caroline was conscious of a distinct sense of relief. +"I've often heard him. Then you _do_ know Uncle Joe?" + +The man faced her, starting in violent surprise. + +"Do I know Uncle Joe?" he repeated; "do I _know_ him?" He shook his +head feebly and gazed about the room. "She says, do I know Joe Holt! +And what should I be doing, eating my lunch here, if I didn't?" he +demanded. "What should he tell me about his troubles for, and ask me +to help him, if I didn't know him? Is it likely I'd be packing his +silver in my suit-case if I didn't know him?" + +Caroline stood abashed. + +"I should think you might guess by this time what the joke is," he +went on forgivingly, seeing that she was quite overcome with her own +stupidity, "but as I have to get away pretty quick now, I'll tell +you. You see, Joe isn't coming right back with your aunt; he's going +on to Chicago, and that may keep him some time away--" + +("I know," Caroline interpolated), "and he wanted your aunt to have +somebody stay in the house to look after it--he felt worried. But +no, she wouldn't. Wouldn't even get a dog--that is," eyeing Caroline +steadily, "unless she's got one lately, but when I last heard--" + +"No," she assured him, "she wouldn't. Aunt Edith hates dogs." + +"So Joe told me. 'Now what would you do, Henry,' says Joe to me, +that's my name, Henry Barker, 'what would you do with a woman like +that?' + +"'Do, Joe?' says I, 'why, I'll tell you what I'd do, I'd teach her a +lesson, that's what. I'd I'd give her one good scare, and then you'd +find she'd take your advice, after that.'" + +At this point the man reached for his overcoat and began to struggle +into it. + +"'But I don't know how to, Henry,' says he. 'You don't?' says I, +'nothing easier. Just tip somebody off when the house is empty and +they'll run up and slip in, take what silver and jewelry they can +find in a hurry, pack it up careful and hide it away wherever you +say. Then when your wife gets back and finds 'em gone, there'll be +the d---- there'll be a row, and when she says it's her fault for +not leaving the servants in the house, and she'll never do it again, +then you say, 'All right, my dear, I'm glad you've learned your +lesson,' and step out and get the bag! How's that?' I said." + +He put his hat on, drew a pair of gloves from his pocket, and looked +hard at Caroline; her answering glance was troubled and +non-committal. He scowled slightly and rested one hand on the bag. + +"'All very well, Henry,' says Joe to me, 'but who's to do all this? +I don't know anyone that would dare to, let alone be willing,'" he +went on, glancing hurriedly around the room. "'You know as well as I +do that if they should get caught doing it, anybody would swear +'twas burglary plain and simple, and run' em right in. They'd call +the police. It would look bad for whoever did it, you know,' he +said." + +"He might have asked me. I'd love to do it," Caroline muttered +resentfully. + +As a matter of fact the scheme was sufficiently like many a +practical joke of her irrepressible uncle. Better than anyone, +Caroline, his conspirator elect, knew the lengths he was capable of +going to confound or scandalize his adjacent relatives. + +"Of course," said the man, with relief in his voice, "that's why I +asked you if he hadn't. I guess he was afraid you wouldn't dare. I'd +have trusted you, though, myself." + +She looked gratefully at him. + +"Then, I said, 'Why, Joe, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll +do it myself,'" he concluded, lifting the suit-case from the +sideboard and grimacing at its weight. "'What's the good,' says I, +'of calling yourself a friend, if you can't run a little risk? Just +tell me the day to come and where you want 'em put--be sure you pick +a good safe place--and I'll 'tend to it for you,' I said, 'and +you'll do as much for me some day when I'm in a tight place.'" + +He settled his hat firmly and moved to the long window. + +"I'll have to hurry if I don't want to lose my train," he explained. + +"But where's the place?" Caroline cried excitedly; "what place did +Uncle Joe pick out? Won't you tell me? I won't tell--truly, I +won't!" + +The man paused with one hand on the window button, and looked +thoughtfully at her. + +"By George," he announced, "I've a good mind to tell you! I'm not +supposed to tell a soul, you know, but you've been such a brick, and +being his own niece and all, I think you've got a _right_ to know, I +really do." + +Caroline nodded breathlessly. + +"Look here!" he cried, "I'll trust you if your uncle won't. I don't +like the place he told me, much--it isn't safe enough. There's two +thousand dollars' worth of stuff here, counting the--counting +everything, and an old barn's no place for it. See here. You promise +me to stay here for an hour--one hour exactly, by the clock--and +I'll leave this bag at your house for you. Then you can hide it +under your bed, or anywhere you want, till to-morrow, and then you +can manage the rest to suit yourself. How's that?" + +"Oh, that would be grand!" she gasped. + +"You can just tell your uncle that I saw you were game and I trusted +you, if he wouldn't," he concluded, opening the window, "and I'll +take this to your house in half an hour. Will you promise not to +leave for an hour? We mustn't be seen together, you know, or people +might suspect and then the game'd be up. And will you lock this +window after me and go out the same way you came?" + +"Yes, yes! I promise, I promise solemnly!" she assured him, flushed +with importance, "and tell 'em not to open it, will you? They might. +Say it's private for me, will you?" + +"All right," he said soberly. "I'm kind o' sorry they went to Yale," +he added abruptly. "I'd rather--sh! what's that?" + +He stood rigidly listening; his eyes rolled back, his hand raised in +warning. + +"I don't hear--" she began, but his angry gesture and the furious +whisper that went with it cowed her into a silence as strained as +his own. + +For a moment it seemed to Caroline that she heard a faint snap as of +a board released from pressure, but dead quiet followed; she held +her breath with excitement as the man lifted the suit-case over the +ledge, and peering over the balcony stepped out. Suddenly he paused, +one leg over the sill; his eyes rolled back towards the room, his +lips tightened. So terrible, and so despairing his face had turned +that Caroline rushed to the window. Even as she started she heard +quick soft steps in the hall, and pointed to the freedom outside. + +"Jump, oh, jump, Mr. Barker!" she whispered in a glow of terror, +"hurry! It _is_ somebody!" + +He pointed silently to the ground below, and with her heart pounding +heavily she peered over the sill. Directly below them crouched a +Great Dane, brindled, enormous, one eye fixed sternly on the window. + +The soft steps paused: perhaps she had imagined them! Perhaps, if +they kept quite still, that quaking pair, perhaps.... The man +breathed like a drowning swimmer; it seemed to Caroline she must +scream. + +The door flew open. + +"Look out, there--it's loaded!" the voice came sharp as a +cracked whip. + +Caroline gave a shriek of joy. + +"Why, it's Lindsay!" she cried, "it's just Cousin Lindsay!" + +A tall, powerful young man came in behind a leveled revolver. + +"Car--what--be still, there!" he gasped, steadying the weapon. The +man stood motionless, his eyes on the ground. + +"It's all right--I never carried a gun in my life," he said quietly. + +"Oh, Lindsay, it's only a joke!" + +Caroline ran towards him, stopping in horror at the ugly winking +eyes of the revolver. + +"Mr. Barker only meant--tell Lin about it!" she entreated, sick with +foreboding at the dogged man before her, the scornful flushed boy at +her side. + +"I guess you better tell him, Missy," said the man in a low empty +voice. + +"Go home, Caroline; go straight home this moment." + +Caroline had never heard her cousin speak in that tone, and it was +partly in tears, partly in wrath that she answered, + +"I will _not_ go straight home, Lindsay Holt, and you needn't talk +to me that way, either! Uncle Joe himself asked Mr. Barker--" + +She began glibly enough, but even to her simple consciousness the +story wavered and rang false, with this stricken, passive man before +her. Her voice faltered, she choked.... Had Uncle Joe really asked +this man to get the emeralds? Was it possible that--Lindsay laughed +disagreeably. + +"If you've quite finished, Caroline, will you go home?" he demanded, +his eyes still on the revolver. + +She gulped painfully; her faith tottered on the last brink. + +"Oh, let it go at that; can't you?" the man broke in roughly. "What +difference does it make to you, eh, how this part of the job gets +done? Have I made you any trouble yet? My goose is cooked, all +right, and we'll--we'll talk that over, later, when Missy goes, +but--but couldn't you"--he looked almost appealingly at the young +fellow,--"couldn't we--it's all there in the suit-case--" + +"It was going under my bed Lin--I'd have been careful," Caroline was +hoping against hope, now. + +"You see, Missy," said the man quickly, in almost his old manner, +"you see how it turns out. It was a bad plan, I guess--you can see +how your cousin takes it. You'll have to--to tell your uncle how it +worked; it's one on me, all right." + +"Suppose we put it all back and--oh Lord, what's the use?" he ended +suddenly. + +"Cut it short--what the hell do I care?" + +He dropped suddenly into the chair behind him; his head fell over on +his arms, and the stiff hat rolled along the floor. + +The young man stared curiously at him, but the weakness was genuine; +every muscle was relaxed. + +Lindsay's face softened a little. "As far as that goes, you're quite +right," he said curtly, "though it's a little late in the day. Look +here, Caroline. Mr.--Mr. Barker and I don't agree very well on the +best way to teach people to lock their houses. I--it seems to me a +pretty poor joke. Uncle Joe never meant it to go quite so far, I'm +quite sure," he concluded jerkily. "I--I want to do the best thing +all round, but," looking anxiously towards her for a second, "this +is a little too--a little too--" + +Her face cleared at his change of tone. "I know," she returned +eagerly, "I know just what you mean, Lindsay. I think so, too. +Anybody would think--" + +"That's it," he said briefly. + +"You say you thought so yourself at first," she added, looking +uncomfortably at the bent figure in the chair, "and that made him +feel--" + +"Well, well, I understand now," Lindsay interrupted irritably, "it's +all right now, Caroline. Hadn't you better go? Mr.--Mr. Barker and I +will come along later." + +"Oh, I'll wait and go with you, Lin," she returned, almost assured, +now, "why do I have to go first?" + +The man lifted his head; at sight of the young fellow's nervous +perplexity he smiled faintly. + +"Suppose you run along, Missy," he suggested; "your cousin and I +want to talk business, and--and then I must be hurrying on--hurrying +on," he repeated vaguely, with dazed eyes. He raised his hand to +his head; Lindsay started forward, the revolver loose in his hand. + +"Where did you get that pin?" he cried sharply. "Give that to me." + +The man fingered the pin thoughtfully. "You're 'way off there," he +said. "That's not--that's not--" + +"Not one of your 'jokes'?" Lindsay's voice rang disagreeably. "I +happen to know the contrary. I'll trouble you to hand it over. I'll +soon know to whom it belongs." + +Caroline, hanging over the sill, lost in talkative admiration of the +Great Dane, was oblivious for the moment of the room behind her. + +"It belongs to my son," said the man. There was a moment of silence. +Outside the great hound whined softly. + +"His name Barker, too?" Lindsay asked coldly, half rising. + +"No, sir. His name is James Wardwell," said the man defiantly. + +Lindsay sprang to his feet. + +"That's a dirty lie!" he shouted. He stood over the man, careless +of the revolver. "And you'll pay for it, too!" + +Caroline stared aghast at them. + +"Look out for the gun," the man warned him, and, as with a flush of +mortification Lindsay mastered his weapon, he added quietly, "you +can't be too careful with firearms." + +Lindsay gritted his teeth. + +"You--you--" he began furiously. The man met his eyes for a second, +then with a dark, slow blush, dropped his arm. + +The boy drew back uncertainly. + +"What's the good of lying like that?" he said, "how's it going to +help you?" + +The man looked at the floor. + +"Don't be a fool--how's it going to?" Lindsay repeated irritably. + +The other did not move. + +"Is that the truth?" Lindsay's voice was strained and worried. + +The man drew a long, uneven breath. "Yes," he answered. + +Lindsay glanced at the suit-case, at the man in the chair, at the +revolver. + +"Jimmy!" he muttered, "Jimmy B.!" For the first time since he had +last addressed her, he noticed Caroline. He frowned, then suddenly +his face cleared. + +"Look here," he said, his eye again on the man, "do you know where +all that silver belongs?" + +She nodded. + +"I help Selma sometimes." + +"Could you put it back so nobody would know?" + +"Oh, yes," she answered him, "and the--things from the bureau, too?" + +His lips curled scornfully and his hold on the revolver tightened. + +"A thorough job, wasn't it?" he muttered, then controlling himself +he answered evenly, "Oh, yes, might as well get 'em all back. We'll +just step in the library a minute." + +The man got up and went before him into the library, stumbling as he +walked. + +Lindsay watched him drop into a seat and stood in front of him. + +"What proof have you got that what you said in there is true?" he +asked abruptly, "before we leave the house, I must know." + +"Proof?" the man repeated, "proof?" He stared almost vacantly at +Lindsay. + +"Why, yes," the boy answered impatiently. + +"You say you're the father of one of the most brilliant men in my +class, you wear the pin of his society--a pin I happen to know he +lost recently--and I find you stealing my aunt's spoons! For God's +sake, what's the meaning of it?" + +The man twisted his fingers together and moistened his lips. + +"It kind of settled on me all at once," he said in a hollow voice, +"I felt it since morning. She scared me so to begin with--she came +like a ghost--and then the dog finished me. I had one o' them once +and he nearly did me up--turned on me. Jim pulled him off," he +added, "but they give me a turn whenever I see 'em." + +Lindsay stamped angrily. + +"Will you prove what you say? Or shall we discuss it at the +station-house?" + +The man raised his hand deprecatingly. "No, no;" he said hastily, +"no--that's what I don't want. That's why I--that's the reason I +don't--good Lord, don't you know you've given me a half a dozen +chances, if I'd had the nerve for the risk? Why, I c'd've butted +that gun out of your hand twice in the last ten minutes, you young +fool! How long d'ye suppose it would take a husky man to back you +into one closet and Missy into another and walk off with the stuff? +Hey?" + +His eyes flashed, he threw back his head and breathed hard, a +cornered animal. Lindsay felt a tingle of excitement run down his +spine; for a moment there was danger in the air. + +"I--I notice you didn't see your way to all this," he said +scornfully. But he blushed as he spoke, the man saw it, and Lindsay +knew he saw it; he winced and drew himself up in a boyish attempt to +save the situation. + +"It's quite true--I'm not in the habit of catching house thieves," +he said, drawling a little, "and I doubt if many of them are quite +such accomplished liars as you appear to be; but my stroke will +improve, I've no doubt, as we go on. Would you mind getting up and +'coming along with me' as they call it, I believe?" + +The man made no answer, but raised his hands high above his head. + +"If you'll look in that left vest pocket, there's a little leather +case there," he said, "and--and you'd better take the pin, too, I +guess. I'd be obliged if you'd say you found it somewhere; I never +should've put it on." + +Somewhat clumsily Lindsay extricated the leather case, cursing his +awkwardness and the patience of the man. + +A worn little photograph of a boy of eight or nine was in his hand; +across the bottom was scrawled in a childish hand, "Daddy, from your +son James." + +He drew a long breath. + +"That's Jimmy, all right," he said dully. + +"If you'll just tear it up," said the man. "It's all I've got, and +nobody'd know but some friend that--that would be lookin' for the +likeness." + +Lindsay threw the picture on the floor. + +"I won't believe it--its too sickening!" he cried, "Jim Wardwell's a +gentleman! I--I--why I admired him more than--good God, he's a +_friend_ of mine!" + +The man smiled faintly. + +"Oh, Jimmy has fine friends," he said almost complacently, "he's +always gone with the best. He's very particular." + +Lindsay's forehead was a network of pain and doubt. + +"But Jimmy has plenty of money," he insisted, "he always had +the--his things--oh, it's idiotic! You're crazy, that's all." + +"Oh, yes, he always had plenty," the man said simply. + +In the pause that followed they heard the soft chink of silver +through the wall; Caroline was evidently busy. + +Lindsay twisted his face into an ugly smile. + +"And I thought he was the squarest of the lot," he said slowly, +"I've said so often. We all did. Pretty easy, weren't we?" + +"He is!" The man half rose, but fell back with a grunt of pain. + +"Oh, _damn_ this heart!" he complained fretfully. "I don't know +what's the matter with me. That fortune woman, she knew. Last week +it was I went. 'You're making a plan to end up your business,' she +says to me, 'and so you will, mister, but not the way you think. +There's some trouble coming to you and a child's mixed up in it. +Look out for strange dogs,' she says, they all tell me that--'and +run no risks this month. I don't just like the looks of your hand,' +she says. And when I saw that child, it was all up with me, I +thought. I didn't think the machine would ever get started again. +And then that infernal dog...." + +"We were speaking of--of--did you say that Jim--" Lindsay's voice +sounded strange, even to himself. + +The man blinked a moment. + +"What?" he said vaguely, "what about Jim? Oh--he don't know anything +about it, of course. I sh'd think you'd know enough for that. That's +what I'm telling you, if you'd keep still a minute." + +He stared thoughtfully at the floor and Lindsay waited. Caroline ran +up the front stairs, and he had counted each step before the man +went on. + +"So I sent the money regular every quarter," he muttered, as if +continuing some tale, "and I'd go to see him sometimes all dressed +up, and I tried to talk like he did. He thought I was traveling and +didn't want to be bothered. But I couldn't see him much--was I going +to drag him down, just as I'd got him started right? Not much. 'Go +and visit your friends, o' course,' I used to tell him, 'and you can +write to me.' The best schools I picked out, the very best. And they +came high. But I was good for it." + +He shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes. + +"I had a hunch when I bought the ticket," he muttered. "It just come +over me--'you ought not to go to a place you got the idea of from +Jim,' something seemed to say to me, 'it's unlucky.' And everything +so still, and the stuff so easy--'twas like finding it in the road. +And the last time, too--the last time." + +"But Jim--he thought--" Lindsay prompted. A dreadful curiosity +held him. + +"So then he wrote, 'of course it's Yale, dad,' he wrote, 'we're all +going up together. You don't mind if it costs a little to get +settled, do you?' And was I going to go to him--he was head of his +class, mind you--and say, the Trust has treated me the way I +wouldn't treat a dog--it's all up with me and you? I can go back and +be foreman again at the works--we're bought up, chewed up and spit +out like a wad o' paper?' Not much, I guess. No. Here's where I quit +the honesty game, I said, for it don't pay. You stole my patent, and +I shut up because I couldn't afford to fight you, and you raised me +and raised me--and let me into the firm when you knew it was going +to bust! Now, I says, since my boy's education has been stole from +me, I'll steal it back, I says, and only from them that can afford +it, too! And I'll use no lawyer to do it, either, and we'll have no +trick-work with papers. I'll get it straight from the wives and +daughters of the big thieves that pass the plate on Sundays." + +Lindsay listened to Caroline moving over their heads; her steps +seemed the only reality in this horrid dream. + +"It--it will just about kill Jim," he said slowly. + +"It would have killed him not to go to college," the man returned +sharply, "and he had a right to go." + +"But, good heavens, there are ways--he could have earned money--he's +clever enough to work his way through a dozen colleges!" Lindsay +cried despairingly. + +"There wasn't any working his way through for _my_ boy," said the +man, with a cunning grin; "I've done enough o' that for the family, +thank you. So did his mother--she died of it. No, there's money +enough for all, and it only needs a little planning. The thing is, +never take a risk. Wait for a sure thing. Take from the kind that +takes from _your_ kind--they'll never miss it. Work alone, and never +try to get too much. Who are the ones that get caught? The 'pals'! +No, I've just done for myself, and contented to sell at a big loss, +and only wanted to get my twenty-five hundred a year for Jim, and +something over for his vacations--those camps cost a lot--and enough +to dress as I may need to." + +Lindsay cleared his throat. + +"Do you mean to say that Jim never asked you what your business +was?" + +"He didn't know I ever changed till last month. He thought I +traveled for the Comp'ny. Of course he didn't like that any too +well--you know, you wouldn't expect him to, brought up as he's +been--and I guess he thought 'twould be kinder to me not to +mention it much. He thought I didn't know, but I did. Last +month--last month--" the man paused and his mouth worked, +though he bit his lips. + +"Well, last month?" Lindsay repeated pitilessly. + +"I got my hunch to quit. That fortune woman and--and other things. +The doctor told me to keep quiet and not get on my nerve. And I sort +of fixed it up with Jim in a letter. I told him I'd sold out my +interest in the firm and I was going to send him one more thousand +for graduatin' with and I was going to let him try for himself after +that. I knew that was all right, because he's told me of plenty of +rich young swells who had to. Fathers believed in it." + +"He was going with Buck Williamson on the ranch," said Lindsay +slowly. + +"That's it! Buck Williamson. He asked me wouldn't I look 'em up +after they got settled and try it out there. It was an awful nice +letter," said the man softly, "he's a real gentleman." + +Lindsay jerked his head toward the dining-room. + +"Was this the 'thousand'?" he asked coldly. + +The man nodded. + +"I've never been with him more than a day or two, you see, and I +thought I'd go up to New Haven this spring--when he graduated, and +see him. Just a day or two. And then I was planning to drop out. Of +course I never meant to see him much. I was always deadly afraid +something'd happen, and I didn't want to get connected up with Jim. +But I've been careful. There's not a line o' writing anywhere, and +the man that sold the stuff for me in Jersey City is close as wax." + +"But your friends--" Lindsay was wrung with an angry pity. + +"I don't care for much of anybody but Jim," said the man. + +Caroline was moving restlessly about in the dining-room again. +Lindsay shook himself nervously. + +"Of course, this is very awkward for me," he began, "I mean--I--oh, +the devil! You know what I've got to do, of course?" + +The man looked appealingly at him. "You've got it all back," he said +quickly, "and you know Jim--" + +"Yes, plague take it--I know Jim," the boy muttered, "we all know +Jim." + +"Known well, isn't he?" the man inquired eagerly, "there's no +cleverer scholar there, much cleverer, I mean, is there?" + +Lindsay shook his head. "Not that amounts to anything," he said +shortly. + +"I'll bet there's no better fellow there than Jim--none of the big +bugs?" + +"There is no better fellow anywhere," said Lindsay. + +Caroline tapped fretfully on the door. "Aren't we ever going, Lin?" +she begged; "it's all put back." + +"Yes, yes, in a minute!" he answered, and turned to the man. "I'm +damned sorry to have to do it," he began, "it's a horrible thing to +do, but I can't see that there are any two ways about it. I don't +want to hear you say any more. If you'll come quietly, well and +good. If it was anybody else--but in my uncle's house--and the +community--and--well, will you come?" + +The man sighed. He looked ten years older. "All right," he said, "I +didn't know but--well, never mind. My nerve's gone. I never had a +failure, you see. An' I always knew I couldn't stand one. Never even +left a trail. I couldn't afford to, workin' as I did. I always knew +'twas bound to come, though, and here it is. But it's hard. Jim was +telling me last month about this singer that he'd heard was so +careless, and I noted it down for use some day. You have to notice +those things. He never said his friends lived here. I--it makes me +feel dreadful when I think how he'd feel if he knew I'd been working +his _friends_ this way--he'd never stand for that, Jim wouldn't. It +makes me feel--oh, well, what's the odds? But I wish you didn't +belong to Yale College." + +Lindsay scowled and motioned to the door. + +"Shut up and come on, will you?" he blurted. + +The man got up. + +"I guess I won't see Jim again, then," he said, "will I? Of course +there isn't one chance in a hundred he'll ever know. But I couldn't +explain why I didn't go up to New Haven, nor send the thousand, and +it'll be five years, anyhow--ten, maybe. And I shan't hold out that. +The doctor only gave me two." + +"Ten years? Oh, no!" Lindsay cried. + +"It's grand larceny," said the man simply. + +"Lin, Lin, come _on_!" called Caroline. + +"You've got the pin, and I'll tear the picture up," said the man. +"I've got it all planned, o' course--I give the name of Barker. +And--and _if_ Jim ever says anything to you or any of his friends +about me being mean about the thousand, when I'd promised it, just +kind of give a hint, will you, that things may have happened so's I +couldn't? I hope he'll think I died. I wish he was through Yale, +though. The thousand won't make any difference with graduatin', will +it?" + +Lindsay swallowed hard; his nerves were strained to snapping. + +"Good God, no!" he shouted. He stepped to the French window, opened +it, and threw the revolver over the sill. + +"Get out!" he said briefly, turning to the man, "get out of my +sight! If Jim ever receives another penny from you, I'll tell him +all I know." + +The man swayed towards the chair. "Do you mean it?" he gasped, +"honest?" + +He began to sob and choke a little, and turning half bent over the +chair, hunted with his hand for his hat. + +"Get out!" Lindsay repeated violently, looking persistently +sidewise. + +The man leaned over and fumbled for the picture on the floor, found +it and straightened himself. + +Suddenly he leaped back and fell into the chair again; a dreadful +pallor reached the roots of his hair. + +"All up, I guess--twice to-day--'Jim good-by," he said very quickly, +and rolled against Lindsay, the picture tight in his hand. + +"Lin! If you don't come pretty soon"--Caroline pushed open the door +a little. + +"Hush! Run and bring that whisky!" her cousin whispered, his face +drawn and frightened. + +She waited outside while he labored mysteriously, breathing hard. + +"Is Mr. Barker sick, Lin?" she whispered fearfully when he came back +to the door. + +"Y--yes. I guess he's pretty sick," he said slowly, stepping out +with her and turning the knob carefully. The dining-room reeked with +the whisky on his hands and his coat. + +"We'll go for the doctor," he went on, "both of us, because we'll +have to fix--I'll have to talk to you on the way. You needn't hurry +so, Caroline. There's no--we don't have to hurry." He tried the +outside door twice, to make sure it was latched, and glanced hastily +at the library windows. + +"I'd better wire Uncle Joe," he said half to himself; "he'll know +what to do--oh, there's the dog. Come on, Hamlet--he's Buck +Williams's--gentle as a kitten." + +"Yes, he'll know," she repeated, contentedly, reaching for Hamlet's +black muzzle. + +"But I don't think that was right, do you, Lin, even for a joke?" +she queried, following him down the side path. The big hound padded +on behind them. + +"No," he agreed briefly. + +"Wasn't it funny he had one of your pins?" She was trotting rapidly, +to keep up with him. + +Lindsay stopped short and almost faced her. He looked very young and +tired. + +"I swear, Caroline, I believe worse men have worn it!" he said. + + + + +V + +A PILLAR OF SOCIETY + + +Caroline slipped out of the woodshed with Henry D. Thoreau barking +under his breath at her heels, and struck across the dusty mountain +road into the trail. The advantages of the woodshed were many: it +was cool and dark, the stacked wood had a soothing odor and a neat, +restful appearance, and one was more or less forgotten there. More +important, it lay directly under the long living-room, and sounds +carried easily through the primitive plank floor. Up to now the +murmur of the company's voices had been a negligible quantity, a +background for thought, merely, but suddenly a familiar intonation +had risen higher. + +"Why, certainly, Caroline can show you--she knows all the trails. +Yes, indeed, she'd be delighted, I'm sure.... Oh, any time you +prefer. Don't let her dawdle along, though; she's such a strange +child--sometimes it will take her ten minutes to get across the +road, and then another time she will be as quick as a flash. I'll +see where she is." + +But even as the boards squeaked above her head, Caroline had fled, +and Henry D. Thoreau, smarting from the indignity of her brown, +berry-stained hand circling his muzzle, was expressing his feelings +to the yellow birches and ground pine. + +"Oh shut up, won't you, Henry D.?" she urged him indignantly, "do +you want to take that fat old tiresome lady around our nice +mountain? I don't b'lieve you do. You can be called 'girlie' if you +want to--I don't. She is so hot and she creaks so when she walks! I +_had_ to hold your nose." + +Henry D., who had only wanted an explanation, subsided, and they +trudged on in silence, Indian file, along the narrow trail. + +The early afternoon sun filtered down through the birch and beech +leaves on Caroline's brown head and Henry D.'s brindled back, pine +needles crunched under their feet, thick glossy moss twinkled with +last night's rain. They sniffed the damp, wholesome mold +delightedly; from time to time Caroline kicked the rotten stump of +some pithy, crumbling trunk or marked patterns with her finger nail +in the thin new moss of some smooth slab. Indian pipes and glowing +juniper berries embroidered the way; pale, late anemones, deceived +by the cold mountain weather, sprang up between the giant mushrooms. +It was as still as eternity. + +The wood grew steadily thicker, the light pierced down in golden +arrows only, the silence was almost oppressive. Caroline stepped +suddenly out of the tiny path, pushed aside a clump of fern, buried +her arm up to the elbow in a hollow stump and produced a large +crumbling molasses cooky. + +"Just where I left it, Henry D., just exactly!" she whispered +delightedly. "I wish now I'd left 'em both, but I didn't feel able +to spare 'em at the time." + +They ate the cooky pleasantly, Henry D. receiving every third bite +with scrupulous accuracy. + +"I used to think maybe that huckleberry-boy followed us up and +discovered our places, but this proves he don't," she announced, as +the last crumb disappeared; "he's not so smart as he thinks he is, +is he, Henry D.?" + +They trotted on, moving more quickly as the faint, regular crash of +an axe on wood came nearer and nearer. A barbed-wire fence had +sprung up unaccountably in the wood, following a devious course +among the thick trees, and as they scrambled carefully under it, +Henry D. pausing with accustomed gallantry while his mistress +disentangled two petticoats and an unfortunate stocking, a little +gray-shingled cottage jumped out suddenly from the gray beeches, and +they emerged into its front yard. + +It was a ridiculously operatic little cottage, composed chiefly of +bulging balconies, scarlet and yellow with geraniums and +nasturtiums, casement windows with tiny leaded panes, and double +Dutch doors, evidently practicable. It had all the air of having +retired from the other scenery to practice for its own act, and it +seemed highly probable that a chorus of happy short-skirted +peasantry would skip out from behind it and tunefully relate the +fortunes of the heroine within. + +But the only person in sight was obviously impossible of such +classification. Though she was chopping wood, and chopping it very +well, though she wore what is sometimes called a Mother Hubbard +wrapper and a stiff, clean blue-checked apron, she was not in the +least a peasant. Her figure was tall and spare, her hair gray and +drawn into an uncompromising knot, her face wrinkled and shrewd, her +eyes soft, and full of the experience that middle-age brings to the +native American woman who has lived all her life in the +sparsely-settled country districts. + +Her face relaxed at sight of her visitors. "How d'ye do?" she called +cheerfully, "ma want anything?" + +"I don't believe so," Caroline returned sociably, "I've just come +up, that's all." + +"I thought maybe your ma was worried about them shirt-waists, but +she needn't be: I'll have 'em back by Friday, sure. It'll be all I +can do, though--he's on the rampage these days, and I've got my +hands full, I tell you." + +"Is Old Grumpy bad to-day?" Caroline inquired. + +"Bad? Child, that old fellow is just about the worst I ever saw, and +I've seen plenty. What's on his mind the Lord knows, but it's a +lesson to us all to keep our tempers and not have secret thoughts +preying on us night and day! Just now he told me the truth for once. +'I'm so worried I can't digest, Luella,' he says to me, 'and I +digest so damnably that it's enough to worry an archangel!' There--I +shouldn't 'a' said that before you, but--" + +"Oh, I know 'damn,' Luella," Caroline assured her, "and it isn't as +if you said it purposely, anyway; you just repeated it. It makes all +the difference." + +"I guess it does," Luella assented, "s'long's you understand it. But +then, you understand everything, more or less, 'seems to me. Where +you picked it all up at your age--" + +"What's that, Luella? Who is talking out there? What's going on +_now_ behind my back?" + +A petulant and gray-haired gentleman rushed out at them, very much +like a wiry Scotch terrier, and glared fiercely at Caroline and +Henry D. Thoreau. + +"Nothin's goin' on behind your back that I know of, Mr. Wortley," +Luella returned composedly. "This little girl comes up to see me +every once 'n a while--I do washing for her mother at one of the +cottages--and we were just talkin' back and forth, that's all." + +"You fried that liver!" the gentleman burst forth abruptly, "you +know you fried it, Luella! I might as well have eaten a shingle off +the cottage--it's killing me! Ugh! As if I hadn't enough to bear +without being murdered with fried liver!" + +"I do' know what you've got to bear, Mr. Wortley," and Luella +gathered her apron full of kindlings, "but you needn't add fried +liver to it, 'cause it was broiled." + +"Never!" exploded the fiery gentleman. + +"I'd ought to know," said Luella firmly, "I had the grid-iron to +wash." + +"As for children," he veered off again, "you couldn't have poorer +company. Think what they'll grow into--think!" + +"Some don't turn out so bad," she reminded him, starting toward the +house. + +"Ah, but when are you going to decide that they _have_ 'turned +out'?" he demanded, trotting angrily beside her, "tell me that, will +you? Perhaps you imagine that when they're of age, legally men and +women, and you've managed to keep 'em out of the State Reform School +up to then, you're justified in thinking they've 'turned out'? Hey?" + +"Oh, now, I wouldn't go on so about the State Reform School, Mr. +Wortley," Luella urged pacifically, "that's awful. I always say the +young ones mean well, mostly; there ain't many that set out to be +bad a-purpose. Only, accordin' to their judgment--" + +"Their judgment! _Their_ judgment! For God's sake!" he thundered, +and darted into the house, slamming the door so that the casements +rattled. + +"I guess you'd better run on, dear," Luella suggested, "he's bad +to-day. Some days I just have my hands full with him, and then again +he'll be real pleasant and amusin'--he'll say the cutest things. But +he's perturbed to-day, and that's a fact. You stop in 'long in the +afternoon, when he takes his nap and I'm at my ironing, and we'll +have a good visit." + +Caroline nodded soberly and took up her journey again, not a little +depressed; he had been such a whirlwind of a gentleman. + +Unconsciously she followed a tiny, all-but-overgrown trail that led +straight up the hill against which the cottage was built and lost +itself, apparently, in the thick wood at the top. A belt of tall +beeches half way up blotted out everything behind it, and the dozens +of chipmunks and red squirrels that scurried hither and yon, the fat +hen-partridge schooling her brood under Caroline's very nose, the +flame-colored, translucent lizards slipping under mossy roots at her +feet, showed the neglect into which the trail had fallen. She pushed +on, hardly certain now that she had not lost it, or that it had ever +led anywhere, when she stumbled suddenly over a handsome meerschaum +pipe, still warm, and colored to a nicety. She picked it up, poked +experimentally at the ashes with a twig, smelled it distastefully +and stared about her. No one was in sight, and she had walked at +least a quarter of a mile before she encountered a young man sitting +in a dejected attitude on the stump of a yellow birch. + +He was peering gloomily into the hemlocks opposite him, his hands +were deep in his pockets, his feet crossed at an uncomfortable +angle. He was a pale young man with dark circles under darker eyes, +and an expression of such settled melancholy that Caroline lost no +time in assuaging it as far as she could. + +"Here it is," she remarked, holding out the pipe, "how do you do?" + +The young man started violently. + +"Holy Bridget, who are you?" he demanded. "How did you get here? +This is private property--didn't you see the sign?" + +"There wasn't any sign the way we came," she returned placidly, "we +came over the mountain. Don't you want your pipe?" + +The young man blushed and scowled. "Thank you very much," he said, +extending a thin, brown hand, "I'm afraid I was rather rude. Where +did you find it?" + +"Oh, down there," she answered vaguely. + +He handled the pipe lovingly, knocked it against the birch stump and +cleared it further with a curl of the polished, champagne-tinted +bark. + +"Nice dog," he suggested, "what's his name?" + +"Henry D. Thoreau," she replied, studying the green scarab in his +necktie and the heavy seal-ring on his left hand. + +"For heaven's sake! Who named him?" + +"My Uncle Joe," she returned simply, "because he takes to the woods +whenever he gets the chance. Was that pin a bug once?" + +"Not since I ran across it," said the young man, "before that, I +can't say. Has your uncle any other animals?" + +"Oh, yes," she assured him. "There's the donkey, his name is +Rose-Marie; and the baby's cat, his name is Pharaoh Meneptah, but +the baby calls him Coo-coo; and there's Miss Honey's rabbits, +they're all named Eleanor, because you can't tell them apart, and +one name does just as well; and the canary, his name is Jean and +Edouard de Reszke." + +The young man burst into laughter and fell off the stump abruptly. + +"Those are fine names, all of them," he declared, picking himself up +with great solicitude for the pipe, "but why did the canary get +two?" + +"Because Aunt Edith likes Jean the best, but Uncle Joe says there's +more to Edouard," she explained, "so they named him both, because +Uncle Joe said anything was better than a divided family." + +"That's right," said the young man, "anything is." + +His face, which had looked for a moment merry and boyish, darkened +again, and his big eyes glowered intently at the shadowy hemlocks. + +"Anything," he added, in a low voice, "but a sacrifice of principle, +a sacrifice of truth, as it actually is, to the petty conventions of +a rotten society!" + +With that he sat his teeth hard and pulling a leather pouch out of +his pocket, began stuffing the pipe decisively. Caroline waited for +him to continue, but as he lit the pipe and puffed at it in +silence, she concluded that the interview was at an end, and started +up the path. + +"You'd better not--" he began, but stopped suddenly and appeared to +reconsider. "Oh, I don't know," he added, "it might be better, after +all. Go along." + +The trail was little more than a worn line in the grass, now; soon +it turned sharply to the left, skirted the wood, and led to a tiny, +dilapidated cottage. Caroline had more than once passed it by under +the impression that it was abandoned, or used perhaps for storing +ice or wood; but to-day a thin curl of smoke stained the blue above +it and through the open door of the one living-room that formed its +ground-floor she saw a scarlet Navajo blanket, on which reposed a +magnificent snowy Angora cat. A great green bough covered one of the +walls, and a few chairs, a square pine table and a guitar flung +against a pile of bright cushions, completed the furniture. At the +further end of the room, stretched upon the mate to the Angora's +blanket, lay a young woman, sobbing violently. + +Caroline hesitated, but Henry D. Thoreau recognized grief, and knew +perfectly well what to do. Stepping quietly over to the prostrate +figure he encircled it once, looking for a point of vantage, then +selecting two little white, pink-tipped fingers, he licked them +caressingly. + +The sobbing ceased: the girl drew a longer shaking breath. + +"Is that you, Mimi?" she said huskily, "I didn't know you cared as +much as--oh, what is that?" + +Her hand had fallen on the little bull-dog's smooth, stiff coat and +she started up in surprise. Caroline smiled shyly into her big, +stained gray eyes. + +"It's all right--Henry D. never bites--do you feel bad?" she asked. + +The girl pushed back a handful of crinkly, chestnut hair from her +damp face and rose, shaking out her skirts. + +"Y--yes," she said, frankly, "yes, I do. Do you know why?" + +"No. Why?" Caroline inquired. + +"Because I can't make huckleberry bread," the girl assured her +solemnly. "I--I've been trying all the morning. Look in there." + +Caroline peered into the little lean-to, filled to over-flowing with +a stove, some tin cooking pans, a table full of soiled dishes and a +case of kitchen sundries, half unpacked. + +"You did get it all over, didn't you?" she observed cheerfully, +noting the prints of doughy fingers on oven and chairs and the +burned, odorous wreck, resting in soggy isolation in the middle of +the floor. "You cooked it a little too much, maybe." + +"Maybe," the girl assented listlessly. "I was going to have it for +luncheon. The woman promised to be here by ten o'clock, and I got +the breakfast well enough--after a fashion--but she hasn't come, and +I'm s-so hungry!" + +Her eyes filled again. "It's simply filthy here," she murmured. "Do +you know anybody we could depend on--oh, how stupid of me, of course +you don't." + +"There's Luella," Caroline suggested, "she's right near here, and +she makes lovely huckleberry bread. Shall I go get her? Old +Gr'--the gentleman that she keeps house for takes his nap now, and +I know she could come." + +The look of relief on the girl's face was enough, and Caroline +hurried out, leaving Henry D. Thoreau, who seemed to feel +responsible for his hostess's peace of mind, snuggled in her lap. + +She burst into Luella's placid afternoon kitchen, big with her news, +bustling about excitedly, while Luella methodically packed a +market-basket with half a cold chicken, an untouched loaf of +huckleberry bread, a pan of tiny biscuits and a glass of currant +jelly. + +"Butter I know they've got, and milk, for I see Wilkins stop up +there this mornin' as I come down, and I wondered who on earth had +taken that God-forsaken little cottage. 'Twasn't occupied last +season. Cryin' right out loud, was she? She must 'a been all tired +out to make such a fuss over a tin o' huckleberry bread. I s'pose +she hasn't got many breakfasts in her life. Ten to one 'twas Myra +Tenny that disappointed her: it sounds like her. Always undertakin' +more 'n any one woman c'd possibly attend to, and then goin' back on +you. Pretty cross himself, was he? Well, they'd had words, most +likely. They take it hard at first. They ain't long married, of +course, if they're young as you say. Poor things. There, I guess +that's about all." + +Luella closed the kitchen door softly and they hurried along the +trail. + +"He's off as sound as a baby," she confided to Caroline, "sometimes +he'll sleep two hours, he's up so much in the night." + +As the relief expedition neared the cottage, Henry D. Thoreau +bounded out to greet them, the girl behind him, still flushed and +swollen-eyed, but with her thick, reddish hair newly braided in a +crown around her head. + +"Good afternoon," Luella called cheerily, "I hear you're in trouble +up here! You ought to let me known--I'm the one for jobs like this. +Just let me into the kitchen, Miss----" She paused, but as the girl +made no attempt to help her, continued easily, "well, I should say +so! Got a little burnt, didn't it? Never mind, you ought to a' seen +my first corn-meal muffins! Now you just step out and rest a minute, +dear, and by the time you've called your husband I'll have a little +lunch scratched up and you'll feel so different you won't know +yourself. It's surprisin' how distressed you c'n get on an empty +stomach. 'Tis your husband, isn't it, or is it your brother?" + +"No, it's not--yes. It--it's not my brother," the girl said in a +low voice. + +"No," Luella repeated soothingly, "no, I see. That's a fine cat, +ain't it? I've read of 'em--Angora, ain't it?--but I never saw one. +They say they're mostly deaf. Is that one?" + +"Yes. No--I don't know. I don't believe she is," the girl murmured, +brokenly. She seemed newly distressed; her lips, very red against +her white cheeks, quivered, her full breast strained against her +white linen blouse. + +Luella strode lightly about the disorderly little kitchen; she had +forgotten the very presence of the girl, it seemed, for as she +gathered the soiled dishes, coaxed the fire, filled the kettle and +hastily removed the traces of the ill-fated huckleberry bread, she +hummed a tune and appeared to see only her work. + +Caroline was on her knees before the Angora and knew nothing of the +flight of time, though it was really hardly more than a quarter of +an hour before the kitchen rivalled Luella's in neatness and the +pine table in the living-room, covered with a fresh cloth, and shiny +plated silver, only waited its host. + +"Now if you'll step out and call your husband, Miss--I didn't just +get the name?" said Luella invitingly. + +The girl rose from the chair where she had been sitting, motionless, +except for her eyes, which had followed every movement of the older +woman. She stood very straight and threw her head back with a +gesture almost defiant. + +"My name is Dorothy Hartley," she declared, and ran abruptly out of +the cottage. + +"Well, well," Luella shook her head whimsically, "she's pretty well +wrought up, isn't she? Sweet little thing, too--real loveable, I +sh'd say. It don't seem possible he'd be mean to her. But o' course +he wants his breakfast fit to eat, just the same. I put a place for +you, Car'line, 'cause I know you c'n eat, no matter what time +'tis--you're 's empty's a bag. There he comes--my, but he's +haughty! He looks like somebody in one o' those novels, don't he, +now?" + +They came slowly up the path, hand in hand, like children, her gray +eyes on the ground, his black ones challenging the world. The clear +mountain air carried his words easily to the two in the door: + +"Now, dearest, be brave! Remember, we are right, and we know we are +right." + +She clutched his hand nervously, but made no reply. + +"Come right in," Luella urged them hospitably, "you must be 'most +starved." + +"Oh, no," he assured her, with a loyal glance at the girl, "I--I had +a good breakfast, didn't I, dear?" + +But his eyes brightened at sight of the half chicken and the omelet, +glowing in a parsley wreath, and he had broken one of the puffy +rolls and plunged into a great cup of coffee before he addressed +Caroline. + +"You seem to be a valuable person to know," he observed, +"you and Matthew Arnold or John Greenleaf Whittier or +what-ever-his-name-is." + +Caroline looked embarrassed and helped herself to jelly. + +"You have helped my--we are very much obliged to you, I am sure," +he turned to address Luella, who was passing from stove to table, +"aren't we, dearest?" + +The girl sat with her hands in her lap, staring at her plate. + +"Yes, of course," she agreed, "certainly." + +"If you could come every day--they told me I could find some one to +do that--it would be a great accommodation," he went on, with a +worried look at the sad face opposite him, "and anything it might be +worth, I am sure, Mrs.----" + +"Judd, Luella Judd," she supplied, briskly. "Now, dear, try to eat a +little, do! That omelet'll do you good. And that's a lovely piece o' +breast I cut you off. It was all right my bringin' it, for the old +gentleman never touches cold meat and the jelly's my own. There, +that's right. I thought you'd like it, once you began. There's no +need to tempt Car'line and your husband, is there? But that's all +right: young folks ought to eat--I never grudged mine a crumb, and +the Lord knows they eat me out of house and home." + +The young man, indeed, ate voraciously, and under Luella's kindly +domineering the hostess herself cleared her plate. The hot coffee +brought the color to her cheeks, and she had even smiled at Henry D. +Thoreau. Caroline had never seen anyone prettier. She had a great +dimple in either cheek, and her gray eyes smiled with the sweetest +confidence into the black eyes opposite: any one could see that they +loved each other very much, even if they had "had words." + +"Just a little more o' the huckleberry bread, dear?" Luella urged +her. "I've been sort o' plannin' out how I c'd manage to get here +every day, and I guess I can, if you'll be content to wait a little +for your breakfast. My old gentleman don't have anything but a cup +o' coffee in the morning, an' I c'd be over here by ha' past eight, +easy enough, Mr. Hartley, if that suited you--" + +"Wortley, my name is Wortley," the young man interrupted, hastily. + +Luella looked puzzled. + +"Wortley?" she repeated, "why, that's--well, never mind, it's none +o' my business. I cert'nly thought she said Hartley, though. Well, +if you'n Mrs. Wortley _can_ wait till ha' past eight--" + +"Frank, dear," the girl broke in appealingly, but the young man +shook his head. + +"No, darling," he said firmly, and then looking straight at Luella, +he went on: "This lady's name is Hartley. We are not--we are not +related." + +Luella stared blankly at him a moment, then turned to the girl. But +she, though she got up from her seat and going over to the young man +seized his hand and pressed it between her own, did not lift her +eyes to the woman's troubled and accusing gaze. + +Luella drew a long breath, took off her checked apron and rolled it +mechanically into a bundle. Her face had hardened; only the +shrewdness was left in her eyes. + +"You might 'a told me so before," she said briefly, and turned on +her heel. + +The girl was crying on his shoulder. "Tell her, Frank, please tell +her why," she begged, through her sobs. + +Luella faced her sternly. "He needn't trouble to tell me why," +she said, "I know more'n you think, maybe. I know who your +father is, Mr. Wortley, an' I guess I understand pretty well +by now what his troubles are. If he forbade you marryin' each +other, he had his reasons, I don't doubt, for he's a good man, +if he is quick-tempered, an'--" + +"He _didn't_ forbid our marrying," the young man broke in sharply, +glaring with ill-suppressed irritation at Luella, while he softly +patted the girl's shoulder. "He begged us on his bended knees to +marry, though I don't know how you know him." + +Luella paused with her hand on the door. + +"What!" she exclaimed sharply. "Then it was your folks?" She looked +at the girl. + +"No, it wasn't!" Dorothy lifted her head. "They b-begged us on +_their_ b-bended knees, too," she sobbed and disappeared again. + +"For the Lord's sake!" Luella muttered. Then turning fiercely on him +she took a step forward. + +"Do you mean to tell me you're scoundrel enough--" she began, but +the young man--he was really only a boy--shook his head angrily. + +"Not at all, not at all," he burst out with a curious likeness to +his father, "I'm no more a scoundrel than you are, Mrs. Judd, and +you'll oblige me by acting accordingly." + +It was so evident that he meant what he said, he appeared so +righteously indignant, that Luella paused, dumbfounded, twisting the +apron in her hands. + +"Wh-why ain't you married, then?" she demanded. + +The young man surveyed her calmly. "Because I--we disapprove of +marriage," he said. + +Luella turned a brick-red; her mouth opened vaguely. Though she +spoke not a word, he answered her amazed face. + +"The conditions of marriage at the present day," he stated loftily, +"are not such as to lead me--to lead us to suppose that as an +institution it has accomplished its purpose. Where it is not merely +legalized--" + +"Oh, Frank!" the girl moaned softly, putting her little hand over +his opened lips. He kissed it gently, but removed it. + +"To say nothing of the absolute misery you can see all about you as +a result of a chain that ought long ago to have been broken, or +better still, never--" + +"And before that child, too!" Luella burst out. "Caroline, you get +right up and come home. I never heard anything like it in my life. +Come this minute, now!" + +Caroline rose unwillingly; she thought Luella unnecessarily severe. + +"As to that," young Mr. Wortley announced composedly, "we differ +again. The sooner these matters are discussed frankly before +children, the sooner we shall have fewer unhappy men and women. +There is nothing whatever in my intentions or Miss--or Dorothy's, +to shock or affront the youngest child. I have no children myself, +but--" + +"Humph!" Luella sniffed furiously, "I sh'd hope not!" + +"--but _if_ I had," he pursued evenly, "I should teach them +precisely--" + +"Look here," Luella interrupted roughly, "look me in the face, both +of you!" + +They turned their eyes full on her, the boy's dilated to +fanaticism, glowing with obstinacy; the girl's, wet and pleading, +miserable, but full of love. Luella, with narrowed lids, bored into +those clear young eyes: no shadow of deceit, no hint of shuffling or +double-dealing could withstand that relentless scrutiny. + +Slowly her face softened, her eyebrows relaxed, her hold on the +twisted apron loosened. + +"I guess we better talk this over," she said decisively, closing the +door and seating herself squarely in the chair nearest it. "How old +did you say you was, Mr. Wortley?" + +The forensic expression faded helplessly from the boy's face. He +clutched at it, but it failed him, and with the air of a pupil +addressing his teacher, he replied: "I didn't say, but I'm +twenty-one." + +Luella nodded. "An' you can't be a day over nineteen, can you?" she +demanded of the girl. The braided chestnut head shook sadly. + +"I thought not. I s'pose you've found out that your views ain't +shared by most o' the world," she proceeded, with a fine air of +impartiality. + +"I--we have been very much misunderstood," said the boy stiffly, +"but I have never been in the habit of allowing other people's ideas +to affect my actions." + +"You been spoiled, you mean," Luella interpolated, "I thought so. +Spoiled to death, prob'ly." + +He bit his lip. "But I hope I--we are prepared for +anything--_anything_," he repeated with emphasis, "that may result +from the course we have taken. I expect the results will be +unpleasant--I expect it fully." + +"I guess your expectations 'll be fulfilled right enough," she +responded promptly. "And as for bein' prepared--you remind me o' my +father, Mr. Wortley. He used to say he'd been prepared for death +since the age o' seven years, but he did hope the Lord wouldn't take +advantage of it. Is--is she prepared, too?" + +He looked lovingly at the girl who crouched on the floor beside him. +"Dorothy and I think precisely the same in everything," he said +proudly, "don't we, my dearest one?" + +Luella's lips twitched; she looked at the flushed arrogant young +face with irrepressible admiration. + +"I reely b'lieve you think so!" she declared, and as his hand +clinched and his eyes flashed dangerously, she raised her hand with +a warning gesture. + +"There, there now, I get enough o' that from your father!" she +admonished him, adding quickly, "Does he know you're here?" + +"I don't know," he answered irritably, "I never supposed _he'd_ be +here. I came up here because I'd made all my plans to--and I never +let my plans be interfered with, if I can possibly avoid it. I told +the man to get it ready for me, but just before we started he +telegraphed that it was engaged for the season. But I came all the +same, because I knew this little one would be empty. Father bought +it up to protect himself. Does he know I'm here?" + +Luella looked thoughtful. "I reely don't know," she said slowly. + +"It'll come pretty hard on her, doin' her own work, won't it?" she +went on, watching him curiously. Then, as he started angrily, "Oh, +there ain't nobody here will come, by the day, or any other way--I +sh'd s'pose you'd known that. And as for any o' the cottage +people--heavens an' earth, Car'line, will you get up an' go home? I +don't know what's come over me to forget that child--she sits so +still--" + +But as Caroline got sulkily from her seat, cowed by Luella's stern +face, Dorothy put out her hand and caught the child's dress. + +"Oh! Oh!" she cried hysterically, "don't send her away--don't, +Frank! L-let me have somebody!" + +"There, you see!" said Luella sadly, "you see how 'tis, Mr. Wortley. +Do you mean to say you have the heart--" + +"Dorothy, I don't understand you at all," said the young man, with +evident self restraint. + +"You probably do not realize the very trying position you put me in. +I hope it is not necessary to explain to you, Mrs. Judd, that if +Miss Hartley _wishes_ to marry me, she has but to say the word, and +it shall be done instantly--instantly!" he repeated with emphasis, +"as if," Luella said later, "he'd had a minister in his side +pocket." + +"There, my dear, hear that!" she cried triumphantly, "now just tell +him what you want--" + +"You horrid woman, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" the girl +broke in furiously. "How dare you intimate--as if I didn't know that +Frank would do anything in the world I asked him to!" + +"Oh, no, dearest," he broke in satirically, "that's a poor basis for +action in this beautiful world of ours! Catch your man and tie him +tight before he has time to change his mind. Then he'll be obliged +to stay by you--you've got him hand and foot! That is love!" + +"It's just as well, sometimes, though," Luella inserted placidly. + +"Do you suppose I would ever," the girl stormed, "unless I--oh, +dear, will somebody understand? Don't you know that my--that Frank +has studied this question very deeply, that it's a matter of +principle with us? If you had read all the dreadful things--" + +"I am afraid, darling," he interrupted, with cold dignity, "that +if your people and mine cannot understand the position I take, +if we are actually obliged to take the matter into our own hands, +and--and run away, in fact, in order to prove our sincerity, you +can hardly expect people of a different--of less--with fewer--" + +"I know what you mean, Mr. Wortley," Luella said gravely. She +rose to her feet, beckoning to Caroline, whose waist the girl +still clasped. + +"I haven't got your education," she went on, with a simple humility +that became her very touchingly, "we're poor people up here, us +'natives,' and we don't get much time for books, or when we do, +we're too tired to read 'em much. I don't doubt you've been to +college, yourself, and you've prob'ly learnt a lot about the +mistakes that's been made in the world--a lot that I wouldn't +understand. But I want to tell you one thing. I'm old enough to 'a +been your mother, Mr. Wortley, my oldest boy'd 'a been twenty if +he'd lived--and I've buried two besides him. You'll know I've seen +trouble when I tell you that I've always thought we'd saved him and +Annie if we could 'a had another doctor that'd had more experience +with typhoid, and that's an awful thing to feel." + +She paused a moment with somber eyes. + +"I've worked hard since I was ten years old, and for the last five +years there's been nothin' but me between the children and the poor +house. You don't know much about that kind o' worry, Mr. Wortley, +an' 'taint likely you ever will. I was married when I was +nineteen--" Her eyes fell on the girl and softened lovingly, "'an +what that means in the country with seven children an' no help, an' +the winters what they are here, maybe you can guess a little. But I +tell you this: I ain't had the sorrow, all told, that's preparin' +for that girl, if you keep on like this. An' I wouldn't change my +lot for hers, nor would she, if she knew." + +There was a dead silence in the room. Only the short, grunting +breaths of the sleeping dog stirred the air. The girl sat as if +turned to stone, her arm hard about Caroline; the boy stared +doubtfully at the woman, studying her plain, wrinkled face. + +"I--I have plenty of money," he said, in a hollow thin little voice, +"she will always--" + +"Money!" Luella's voice shook with scorn, "what's money? The Lord +knows, Mr. Wortley, I need money more'n you ever will, but let me +tell you there's things money can't buy. Can you buy children--nice +children like this one--to play with your children? Tell me that!" + +"I shall never have any children," the girl's voice came in a husky, +strained whisper, "I shall be too--too miserable," she concluded +softly, and utterly to herself; she had absolutely forgotten the +others, even the boy, whose eyes turned incessantly from her face to +the older woman's. + +Luella's shrewd glance enveloped the strong young figure. "I never +heard 't misery prevented 'em," she said dryly. + +The boy seemed unable to move, so intense was the concentration of +his thoughts; his fingers stuck out stiffly in a purposeless, set +gesture. + +"If it is true, all that we thought," he said slowly, "then no +hardship, no merely personal suffering should prevent ... the +experiment must be made ... must inevitably, _sometime_...." + +"But not with her, not _her_, Mr. Wortley!" Luella cried. Her +expression turned quickly whimsical. + +"You remind me o' me an' my mother one time, when I was a girl," she +cried. "I wanted to prove that you c'd raise biscuits without the +bakin' powder--I was terrible headstrong; I know what 'tis well +'nough, an' how hard 'tis to give 'way--an' she was tryin' to +persuade me. + +"'I think 't least you might let me make th' experiment,' I says, +an' she turned to me--I c'n see her now an', + +"'Luella,' says she, 'it's all very well for you to make th' +experiment, but I'm the one that'll have to pay the bill!' she says. + +"It'll be like that with you, Mr. Wortley--you'll make th' +experiment, but _she'll_ pay!" + +There was another silence. + +"We always pay," Luella added thoughtfully, "it don't seem just +fair, but we do." + +The young man shook himself suddenly, like a dog fresh from the +water. + +"I didn't mean to--God knows I wouldn't hurt a hair of her head," he +said, in a low voice. His hands relaxed, his shoulders drooped. "It +seemed the best thing only this morning--is that what you meant this +morning, Dorothy, when we--when we--when I went away?" he asked +gently. + +She held out her hand to him, still clasping Caroline, and he knelt +beside her, one arm around her neck. + +"I--I don't want you ever--to do--what you--think--is--is wrong," +she said brokenly, but with a brave effort at steadiness. +"I'll--I'll never--leave you--Frank." + +She gazed adoringly into his eyes, her hand tight in his. Luella's +mouth twitched and she choked as she spoke. + +"Oh, Mr. Wortley," she urged, "it isn't that I don't see what you +mean--partly. You think I don't, but I do. There's awful mistakes +made in marryin', we all see 'em; even 'way back here in the country +dreadful things happen, an' the papers--we c'n read 'em, that's +enough an' more'n enough. There's things that ought to be changed, I +know, but not the way you want to change 'em--oh, not that way! It +can't help any, not marryin', don't you see--folks must just take +pains and marry more careful, 'cause we've begun this way and now we +can't stop without somebody gettin' hurt--and that won't be you, nor +any other man. Marryin's all we've got to tie to, Mr. Wortley, us +women, an' we can't quit now!" + +The boy looked thoughtfully at her: "I--I think perhaps you are +right," he said slowly. He appeared unaccountably older; small, +worried lines were cutting themselves deep around his eyes and +mouth. + +He threw back his head in an attempt to regain the old, masterful +manner. + +"I hope I am too sincere not to state honorably that I--I feel sure +you are right!" he announced, "that is, in this particular instance. +I have no desire to establish any point at the expense--at the +expense...." + +He frowned into space; his lips tightened obstinately. + +"But it will _have_ to be at somebody's expense!" he cried +irritably. "Shall we _always_ go on like this, putting off, putting +off, letting this shameful, unsatisfactory state of things continue, +just because it would be _our_ wives that would suffer...." + +"I guess that's about it," Luella answered, seriously. + +"Then all I have to say is, we're damned cowards, all of us!" he +cried, with the old flash of rage. + +But it was the last time. Beaten, yet triumphant, he stooped for his +harness and himself assumed it, with set teeth. + +"I--I shouldn't have said that," he said, gravely. "It's--it's a +very difficult thing ... a man has so many responsibilities...." + +They waited patiently. + +"It seems one must compromise--something--anyway," he went on, +thinking his way painfully along. "I don't know why it seems so +difficult to me now; ... they talked enough, all the others, and of +course I shall never speak to your Aunt Ethel again--you may use +your own judgment, Dorothy--because there are some insults...." + +He shook himself again and drew the girl to her feet. + +"Dearest," he said, and there was a sad little ring in his voice, +but a strangely kind one, "I--we have been mistaken. It wouldn't do. +I think--" he looked anxiously at Luella--"the sooner we get some +one--to--to--a clergyman, you know, or a--a legal person of some +kind--" + +"I'll get Mr. Andrews right away," Luella assured him briskly. "He's +Cong'ational, and he's a real pleasant young man--new here. +Car'line, you run right down cross-lots to that first white house +an' there he'll be, callin' this minute on the Wilkinses, 'cause she +told me he would. You say Luella Judd wants him right away, an' +he'll come." + +"Yes, Luella, I will," said Caroline but her eyes were fastened on +the girl. + +She was in the boy's arms, her head on his shoulder; she clung to +him tightly, shivering a little, hiding her face. + +"You don't mind, darling?" he begged her earnestly, "you believe I +am doing it for the best? You won't blame me for changing, after all +I've said?" + +She lifted her head and through her loving gray eyes looked out at +him the woman she would be in ten years. A little tender smile +curved her lips; she patted his shoulder as a mother caresses her +headstrong, dearest son. + +"Whatever you think is best, Frank dear," she said, "let's do that." + + * * * * * + +"I only hope to heaven she don't understand!" Luella muttered +nervously, glancing unguardedly at Caroline. + +Caroline stamped her foot angrily. Her sensitive little body had +thrilled in the girl's arm; she had felt all the pathos and dignity +of Luella's appeal, the young man seemed to her mysterious and +noble. And now she was distrusted, grudged her free part in this +exciting afternoon! She scowled at Luella. + +"You must think I'm a baby, Luella Judd!" she cried irritably. "I +understand all about it, just as well as you do! Didn't we have just +the same thing in the family, ourselves?" + +Luella gasped. + +"For heaven's sakes, Car'line, wha' do you mean?" she demanded; +"it's perfectly awful the things you city children know! I do +declare, I don't think it's right!" + +"Pooh!" said Caroline grandly. "I should hope I knew more'n that! +Why, my Uncle Joe's own sister, her man that she was engaged to, he +didn't believe in church weddings, either, and he told my mother if +he had to stand up in gray trousers with those six girls in pink +hats and the bishop all togged out and the whole town glaring at 'em +he'd run away with Cousin Elizabeth, and he didn't know whether he'd +marry her at all! And they cried and they begged 'em, and I was to +be a flower girl and wear my white silk stockings, but still they +wouldn't. And Cousin Elizabeth cried, too, and she said she'd never +feel married in a travelling dress, but Cousin Richard said he +guessed she would. And everybody was terribly angry with them, but +they just had it in her aunt's house that was paralyzed and couldn't +ever go out, and it was right next door to Cousin Richard's father's +house, too, just like this! Not one bridesmaid and nobody had any +cake in a box to take away. It was awful, just like Luella says, but +afterwards we all forgave 'em. They ran off and did it in the +afternoon--there was only her father and that paralyzed aunt." + +She drew a long breath and smiled importantly at them. + +Dorothy put an arm over her fat little shoulders. + +"You must be my bridesmaid and my flower girl, too," she said +softly. + +"You'll go get your father, o' course, Mr. Wortley?" Luella appeared +unconscious of the possibility of any refusal, and though he +started, scowled, and shook his head, her warning glance in +Caroline's direction checked him, and he plunged out of the door. + + * * * * * + +"And may God bless you both," the Reverend Mr. Andrews concluded +unofficially, noting with a certain curiosity, the impeccable riding +breeches of the groom, and the bride's looped-up linen habit--he had +never married a couple attired in precisely that manner, and he +scented romance. + +"Your generosity, Mr. Wortley, to say nothing of your father--" He +paused helplessly. "Mrs. Judd knows what this will mean to us this +winter," he finished. "No, I thank you, Mr. Wortley, I thank you +sir, but I never touch liquor in any form. But I drink their health +in this excellent iced coffee, I do indeed." + +Caroline slipped around to Luella, who sat mopping her eyes behind +the kitchen door. + +"I wish Mr. Wortley--Mr. Grumpy Wortley--wouldn't kiss me any more, +Luella," she complained, "it prickles my face dreadfully. I don't +see why I can't go with 'em as far as the Mountain Road--I'd love to +ride on his horse. I was bridesmaid--why can't I? Do you think my +mother'll let me keep this pin? What did you cry for, Luella? What +was it he said to you? He's going to drive me down to the village to +write some telegrams to New York with him, after they've started. +And then he'll speak to mother about the pin, but we have to get the +telegrams written first. Why do they always put it into the papers +the first thing, Luella? When you were married, were there telegrams +about it in the papers, up here?" + +Luella tied on her checked apron and attacked the soiled dishes +heaped on the kitchen table; her cheeks were deeply flushed and her +hands trembled a little. She smiled affectionately at Caroline. + +"I'll drive down with you, I guess, an' stop off at your ma's," she +answered. + +"No, it wasn't telegraphed 'round much when I was married, but +then," with a humorous twinkling of her deep-set eyes, "I hadn't +never studied into the marryin' question so thorough as some!" + + + + +VI + +HIS FATHER'S HOUSE + + +Caroline stopped abruptly at the edge of the little pine-encircled +glade that edged the pond-lily pond and waved her hand in warning. + +"Hist! there are human creatures there!" she whispered loudly. + +It would be evident to anyone not absolutely stone blind that she +was a fairy. A lace-edged, snowy nightgown was caught up by a sky +blue ribbon about her hips, trailing gloriously behind her over the +grass; two large wings artfully constructed of wrapping-paper +flopped behind her surprisingly bare shoulders--the nightgown was +decidedly _décolleté_, and had been made for a person several sizes +larger than Caroline. + +"Hooma keecha da!" crooned the General. His conversation was +evidently based on the theory that the English language is a dark +mystery, insoluble by system, but likely to be blundered into +fortuitously, at any moment, if the searcher gabble with sufficient +steadiness and persistence. His costume, consisting merely of the +ordinary blue denim overalls of commerce, would have been positively +commonplace were it not for the wings of bright pink tissue paper, +which he wore with a somewhat confusing obstinacy, pinned firmly to +his chest. Miss Honey assisted his wavering footsteps rather +sulkily; she longed for the white and lacy draperies in front of her +and regarded her ballet skirts of stitched newspaper with bare +tolerance. It is true she wore a crown of tinfoil and carried a wand +made of half a brass curtain rod; but her laced tan boots, stubbed +and stained, showed with disgusting plainness, and nobody would take +the trouble to make her a newspaper bodice. + +"If you don't stop tickling me with that arrow, Brother Washburn, +I'll go back!" she declared, snappishly. + +The fourth member of the crew, whose bathing trunks and jersey, +fitted with surprisingly life-like muslin wings, pointed to Puck, +though the quiver slung across his shoulder woke conflicting +memories of Diana, chuckled guiltily and took a flying leap +from the big boulder into the center of the glade. His wings +stiffened realistically, and as he landed, poised on one +classically sandalled foot with arms outspread, the picnic +party before him started violently, and one of them clutched +the other's sleeve with a little cry. + +"What the--oh, it's all right! He's the real thing, isn't he, now?" + +The young man patted the girl's shoulder reassuringly and chuckled +as the rest of the crew emerged from the pines and peered over the +boulder. + +"They're only children," he said. + +She dropped her eyes and tightened her fingers around the shining +drinking cup. + +"Why, yes, they're only children," she repeated carelessly. + +Now, each of these picnic people had said the same words, but it was +entirely obvious to their fascinated audience that the words meant +very different things. For this reason they sidled around the young +lady impersonally, avoiding with care the edges of her pale-tinted +billowy skirts, and lined up confidently beside the young gentleman. + +Not that he controlled the picnic. It was spread out in front of +her, bewitching, intimate, in its suggestion of you--and--I; two +shiny plates, two knives, two forks, two fringed and glossy napkins. +A dark red bottle was propped upright between two stones, a pile of +thin, triangular sandwiches balanced daintily on some cool lettuce +leaves, and a fascinating object that glistened mysteriously in the +sun, held the platter of honor in the middle. + +"The Honorable Mr. Puck," suggested the young man, in the tone of +one continuing an interrupted conversation, "is figuring out how the +chicken got into the jelly without busting it--am I not right?" + +Brother grinned, and Caroline moved a little nearer. Miss Honey +stared at the young lady's fluted skirts and glistening yellow waves +of hair, at the sweeping plume in her hat, and her tiny high-heeled +buckled slippers. + +"I am obliged to admit," the young man went on, slicing into the +quivering aspic, "that I don't know myself. I never could find out. +Perhaps the young person in the--the not-too-long skirts, waved her +wand over the bird and he jumped in and the hole closed up?" He +slipped a section of the bird in question upon the lady's plate and +held the red bottle over her cup. + +"There was hard-boiled eggs stuck on those jelly things at our +wedding," Brother remarked, "on the outside, all around. But they +were bigger than yours." + +"I don't doubt it for a moment," the young man assured him politely. +"Have you been married long, may I ask? And which of these ladies--" + +"Brother doesn't mean that _he_ was married," Miss Honey explained, +"it was his oldest sister. She married a lawyer. I was flower girl." + +"Ima fow guh," murmured the General, thrusting out a fat and +unexpected hand and snatching from a hitherto unperceived box a tiny +cake encased in green frosting. + +"Oh, dear, it's got the pistache!" said the yellow-haired lady +disgustedly. + +Miss Honey fled after the General, who, though he was obliged to +wear whalebone braces in his shoes on account of youth and a +waddling and undeveloped gait, scattered over the ground with the +elusive clumsiness of a young duckling. Brother blushed, but scorned +to desert his troop. + +"He's awfully little, you know--he doesn't mean to steal," he +explained. + +"Twenty-two months," Caroline added, "and he does go so fast." She +smiled doubtfully at the lady, who selected a cake covered with +chocolate and looked at the young man. + +"Don't forget that Mr. Walbridge wants to use the car at six," she +said, "and you have to allow for that bad hill." + +He looked a little uncomfortable. "Don't you want to speak to the +children, Tina, dear?" he asked, dropping his voice; he sat very +close to her. + +"They have both spoken directly to you, you see, and children feel +that so--not being noticed. They're trying to apologize to you for +the cake." + +She bit her lip and turned to Miss Honey, who arrived panting, with +the General firmly secured by the band of his overalls. An oozy +green paste dripped from his hand; one of the pink wings +intermittently concealed his injured expression. + +"That's all right," she said, "don't bother about the cake, little +girl, the baby can have it." + +Miss Honey sniffed. + +"I guess you don't know much about babies if you think they can eat +cake like that," she answered informingly. + +"Hush, now, General, don't begin to hold your breath? Do you want a +nice graham cracker! It's _so_ nice!" + +"_So_ nice!" Caroline repeated mechanically, with a business-like +smile at the General, helpfully champing her teeth. + +The General wavered. He allowed one sticky paw to be cleaned with a +handful of grass, but his expression was most undecided, and he was +evidently in a position to hold his breath immediately if necessary. + +Miss Honey nodded to Caroline. "You've got 'em, haven't you?" she +asked. + +Caroline fumbled at the interior of the nightgown and produced a +somewhat defaced brown wafer. + +"General want it?" she said invitingly. There was another moment of +disheartening suspense. Brother assisted gallantly. + +"They're fine, General!" he urged, "try one!" And he, too, nodded +and chewed the empty air. Instinctively the strange young gentleman +did the same. + +The General looked around at them cautiously, noted the strained +interest of the circle, smiled forgivingly, and reached out for the +brown wafer. Peace was assured. + +"If you could only see how ridiculous you looked," the young lady +remarked, wiping her shining pink finger nails carefully, "you'd +never do that again, Rob. Have a cake?" + +He laughed, but blushed a little at her tone. + +"I suppose so," he admitted. "No, thanks, I'll pass up the cake. +Isn't there enough to go 'round, perhaps?" + +He examined the box. + +"By George, there are exactly three left!" he said delightedly. +"Will the fairy queen hand one to her brother--the big brother--and +one to--to the angel?" + +Caroline moved firmly to the front. "I am the Queen," she explained, +"but I let Miss Honey take the crown and the wand, or she wouldn't +be anything. Brother isn't her brother--that's just his name. +Brother Washburn. The General's her brother. I'll take that +strawberry one. We're much obliged, thank you." + +The cakes vanished unostentatiously and the young gentleman filled +his cup and disposed of it before anyone spoke. + +"We were such a big family, you see," he explained to the pursed red +mouth beside him, "and I know just how it is. You never get enough +cake, and never that dressy kind. It's molasses cake and cookies, +mostly." + +Brother moved nearer and nodded. + +"Well, but you can have all the cake you want, now, thank goodness," +said the lady, glancing contentedly at the tea basket, complete with +its polished fittings, at the big box of bonbons beside her, and the +handsome silk motor coat that was spread as a carpet under her +light dress. + +"Oh, yes, but now I don't want it," he assured her, "I want--other +things." He flashed a daring glance from two masterful brown eyes, +and she smiled indulgently at him for a handsome, spoiled boy. + +"Am I going to get them?" he persisted. + +She laughed the light little laugh of the triumphant woman. + +"My dear Bob," she said, "anybody who can buy all the cake he wants +can usually get the--other things!" + +His face clouded slightly. + +"I hate to hear you talk like that, Christine," he began, "it's not +fair to yourself--" + +"How'd you know I was Puck?" Brother inquired genially. He made no +pretense of including the lady in the conversation; for him she was +simply not there. + +"Oh, I'm not so ignorant as I look," the young man replied. "I don't +believe you could stump me on anything you'd be likely to be--I've +probably been 'em all myself. We were always rigging up at home. +Didn't you use to do that, Tina?" + +The lady shook her head decidedly. + +"If I'd ever got hold of a--well, if I'd had a chance of things as +nice as that biggest one's dragging through the dirt there, I'd have +been doing something very different with it, I can assure you, Mr. +Armstrong! I'd have been saving it." + +"But at that age--" he protested. + +"Oh, I knew real lace from imitation at that age, all right," she +insisted. + +"But you don't think of those things--you go in for the fun," he +urged. + +"It wasn't exactly my idea of fun." + +"No?" he queried, "why, I thought all children did this sort of +thing. We had a regular property room in the attic. We used to be +rigged out as something-or-other all day Saturday, usually." + +"What were you?" Brother demanded eagerly. Unconsciously he dropped, +hugging his knees, by the side of the young man, and Caroline, +observing the motion, came over a little shyly and stood behind +them. The young lady raised her eyebrows and shot a side glance at +her host, but he smiled back at her brightly. + +"Well, we did quite a little in the pirate line," he replied. "I had +an old Mexican sword and Ridgeway--that was my cousin--owned a pair +of handcuffs." + +"Handcuffs!" Brother's jaw dropped. + +"Yes, sir, handcuffs. It was rather unusual, of course, and he was +awfully proud of them. An uncle of his was a sheriff out in +Pennsylvania somewhere, and when he died he left 'em to Ridge in his +will. That was pretty grand, too, having it left in a will." + +Caroline nodded and sat down on an old log behind the young man. A +long smear of brown, wet bark appeared on the nightgown, and one end +of the blue ribbon dribbled into a tiny pool of last night's shower, +caught in a hollow stone. + +"It was a toss-up who'd be pirate king," the young man went on, +smiling over his shoulder at Caroline, "because I was older than he +was, handcuffs or not, and after all, a sword is something. This one +was hacked on the edge and every hack may have meant--probably +did--a life." + +He paused dramatically. + +"I bet you they did!" Brother declared, clapping his hands on his +knees. + +"Weren't there any girls?" + +Caroline slipped from the log and sprawled on the pine needles. + +"Dear me, yes," said the young man, "I should say so. Four of them. +Winifred and Ethel and Dorothea and the Babe--about as big as your +General, there, and dreadfully greedy, the Babe was. Winifred had +the brains and she made up most of the games; I tell you, that girl +had a head!" + +"Just like Caroline," Brother inserted eagerly. + +"Probably," the young man agreed. "She was pretty certain to be +Fairy Queen, too, I remember. But Thea sewed the clothes and begged +the things we needed and looked after the Babe." + +"And what did Ethel do?" + +"Why, now you speak of it, I don't remember that Ethel did much of +anything but look pretty and eat most of the luncheon," he said. +"She used to be Pocahontas a good deal--she's very dark--and I +usually was Captain John Smith. Ridge was Powhatan. And Ethel's +married now. Good Lord! She has twins--of all things!--and they're +named for Ridge and me." + +"I'm glad General isn't twins," said Miss Honey thoughtfully, +pulling her brother back from the fascinations of the tea basket and +comforting him with the curtain-rod wand. + +"Still, we could do the Princes in the Tower with him--them, I +mean," Caroline reminded her, "and then, when they got bigger, the +Corsican Brothers--don't you remember that play Uncle Joe told +about?" + +The young man laughed softly. + +"If that's not Win all over!" he exclaimed. "She always planned for +Ridge to be Mazeppa on one of the carriage horses, when he got the +right size, but somehow, when you _do_ get that size, you don't pull +it off." + +"I did Mazeppa," said Brother modestly, "but of course it was only a +donkey. It wasn't much." + +"We never had one," the young man explained. "Nothing but Ridge's +goat, and she was pretty old. But she could carry a lot of lunch." + +He turned suddenly on his elbow and smiled whimsically at the lady. + +"Come on, Tina, what did _you_ play?" he asked. + +"Is it possible you have remembered that I still exist?" she +answered, half mockingly, half seriously vexed. "I'm afraid I'm out +of this, really. I never pretended to be anything, that I remember." + +"But what _did_ you do when you were a youngster?" he persisted, +"you must have played something!" + +She shook her head. + +"We played jackstones," she said indulgently, after a moment of +thought, "and then I went to school, of course, and--oh, I guess we +cut out paper dolls." + +Caroline looked aghast. + +"Didn't you have any dog?" she demanded. + +"I hope not, in a four-room flat," the lady returned with feeling. +"One family kept one, though, and the nasty little thing jumped up +on a lovely checked silk aunty had just given me, and ruined it. I +tried to take it out with gasolene, but it made a dreadful spot, and +I cried myself sick. Of course I didn't understand about rubbing the +gasolene dry then; I was only eleven." + +The children looked uncomfortably at the ground, conscious of a +distinct lack of sympathy for the tragedy that even at this distance +deepened the lovely rose of the lady's cheek and softened her dark +blue eyes. + +"But in the summer," the young man said, "surely it was different +then! In the country--" + +"Oh, mercy, we didn't get to the country very much," she +interrupted. "You know July and August are bargain times in the +stores and a dressmaker can't afford to leave. Aunty did all her +buying then and I went with her. Dear me," as something in his face +struck her, "you needn't look so horrified! It's not bad in New York +a bit--there's something going on all the while; and then we went to +Rockaway and Coney Island evenings, and had grand times. To tell +you the truth, I never cared for the country--I don't sleep a bit +well there. Of course, to come out this way, with everything nice, +it's all very fine, but to stay in--no, thanks." + +"I know what you mean, of course," he said, "but the city's no place +for children. I'm mighty glad I didn't grow up there. And I've +always had the idea the country would be the best place to settle +down in, finally. You can potter around better there when you're +old, don't you think so? I remember old Uncle Robert and his +chrysanthemums--" + +"Dear me, we all seem to be remembering a good deal this afternoon!" +she broke in. "Since we're neither of us children and neither of us +ready to settle down on account of old age, suppose we stick to +town, Bob?" + +There was a practical brightness in her voice, and her even white +teeth, as she smiled persuasively at him, were very pretty. He +smiled back at her. + +"That seems a fair proposition," he agreed. He reached for her +hand and for a moment her soft, bright coloring, her dainty +completeness, framed in the green of the little glade, were all he +saw. Then, as his eyes lingered on the cool little pond and the +waving pine boughs dark against the blue sky, he sighed. + +"But I'm sorry you don't like the country, Tina, I am, truly," he +said boyishly. "I've had such bully times in it. And I--I rather had +the idea that we liked the same things." + +"Gracious!" the young lady murmured, "after the arguments we've had +over plays and actors!" + +"Oh well, I suppose girls are all alike. But I mean other things--" + +"Where did you do the Pirates?" Brother inquired, politely. + +"What? Where did I--oh to be sure," he returned good-naturedly. "We +had an enormous cellar, all full of pillars, to hold it up, and +queer little rooms and compartments in it; a milk room and vegetable +bins and a workshop. You could ride on a wheel all round, dodging +the pillars. There were all kinds of places to lie in wait there, +and spring out. Win told us an awful thing out of Poe that happened +in a cellar, and Thea would never go there after four in the +afternoon. + +"It was a jolly old place," he went on dreamily, "I can't keep my +mind off it this afternoon, somehow, since I've seen you fellows +rigged out the way we used to. And there was a pond back in the +Christmas Tree Lot like this one. Ridge and I built a raft out there +and stayed all day on it. It was something out of Clark Russell's +books, and Win pushed a barrel out and rescued us. She was a wonder, +that girl." + +He chuckled softly to himself. + +"We tried to stock that pond with oysters once, and Ridge and I +printed invitations for a clambake on our handpress, on the strength +of them, but it was a dreadful waste of money. When we found it +wasn't working, Ridge nearly killed himself diving for 'em, so we +could get some good out of 'em. There they lay at the bottom, +showing just as plain as possible, but it was no use--Poor fellow, +he'll never dive any more." + +"Is he--did he--" Caroline had crawled along till her head lay +almost on the young man's knee; her eyes were big with sympathy. + +"Lost his leg," he told her briefly. "Philippines. Above the knee. +He ran away from college to go. He had the fever badly, too, and +he'll never be fit for much again, I'm afraid. But he's just as +brave about it--" + +"Oh, yes," Brother burst out eagerly, "I bet you he is!" + +"We had such plans," he said softly, "all of us, you know, for +coming back to the old place and ending up there. Win says her kids +shall stay there if she can't." + +"Where is she?" + +"Oh, she's 'most anywhere. Her husband's in the Navy--Asiatic +Squadron--and she hangs about where he's likely to strike the +country next. She was in Honolulu the last I heard. So she's not +likely to do much for the place, you see." + +"Where's Thea?" Miss Honey inquired. + +"Wha tee?" mimicked the General, with an astounding similarity of +inflection. + +The young man threw his light cap at the baby's head; it landed +grotesquely cocked over one eye, and the General, promptly sitting +upon it to protect himself from further attacks, fell into +convulsions of laughter as the young man threatened him. + +"Thea's out West, on a ranch just out of Denver. She was married +first, and her boys have ponies now--broncos. Of course it's fine +for them out there, but she says she won't be happy till they can +get East for a year or two. She wants them to see the place and grow +up a little in it. She wants 'em to see the attic and poke about the +barn and the stable and climb over the rocks. You see they're on the +ranch all summer and in school in Denver all winter, and Thea says +they don't know the look of an old stone wall with an apple tree in +the corner. She says the fruit's not nearly so nice out there." + +"Where is the place? Near here?" + +"No, not so very. It's in the Berkshires, just out of Great +Barrington. Father's practice was there, and grandfather's, too. +Grandfather built it." + +"That's where Lenox is, the Berkshires, isn't it?" the lady inquired +with a yawn. + +"Heavens, its nothing like Lenox!" he assured her hastily. + +"No?" she moved slightly and scowled. + +"My foot's asleep! That comes of sitting here forever!" + +She got up slowly and with little tentative gasps and cries stamped +her prickled feet. + +"Aunty has several customers who go to Lenox"--a vicious stamp--"it +must be grand there, I think. One of them, a regular swell, too--she +thinks nothing of a hundred and fifty for a dress"--a faint stamp +and a squeal of anguish--"told her that property was going up like +everything around there. You could probably"--a determined little +jump--"sell your old place and buy a nice house right in Lenox." + +The young man sat up suddenly. "Sell the place!" he repeated, "sell +the place!" + +He had been watching her pretty, vexed contortions with lazy +pleasure, noticing through rings of cigarette smoke her dainty +ankles, white through the mesh of the thin silk stockings, her +straight, slim back, and the clear flush that deepened her eyes. But +now his face changed, and he stared at her in frank irritation. + +"Sell the place!" echoed Brother and Miss Honey in horror, and +Caroline's lower lip pushed out scornfully. + +The lady stamped again, but not wholly as a therapeutic measure. + +"Well, really!" she cried, "any one would think that these children +were your friends, and I was the stranger, from the way you all +talk. What is the matter with you, anyway? What are you quarreling +about, Rob?" + +He looked at her thoughtfully, appraisingly. + +"I don't think we're quarreling, Tina," he said, "its only that we +look at things differently. And--and looking at things in the same +way rather makes people friends, you know." + +He glanced down at the children, close about him now, and then over +appealingly at her. But she had moved to a rock a little away from +them and now sat on it, her face turned toward the road, leaning on +her pale pink parasol: she did not catch the glance. + +"What became of the Babe?" Caroline suggested suddenly. + +"Babe? She's--her name's Margaret--at school now. She's growing +awfully pretty." + +"And is she going to live at the place, too?" queried the young lady +sharply. + +"Babe's going to capture a corporation or trust or something, and +have oceans of money and build on a wing and a conservatory and make +Italian gardens, I believe," he answered, pleasantly enough. + +"But I'd just as soon she left the gardens alone," he went on, "the +rest of us like 'em the way they are. There was one separate one on +the west side, just for Uncle Robert's chrysanthemums. He used to +work all the morning there and then read in the afternoon. He'd sit +on the side porch with his pipe and Bismarck--he was an old +collie--and he did tell the bulliest yarns. He helped us with +lessons, too. I don't know what we'd have done without Uncle Rob. +Father was so busy--he had a big country practice and he used to get +terribly tired--and we went to Uncle Rob for everything. He got us +out of more scrapes, Ridge and me-- + +"There were tiger lillies in the south garden and lots of clumps of +peonies. Grandmother put those there. And fennel and mint. Mother +used to like dahlias--it seems as if she must have had a quarter of +a mile of dahlias, but of course she didn't--all colors. That garden +ran right up against the house, and directly next to the bricks was +a row of white geraniums. They looked awfully well against the red. +It's a brick house and the date is in bricks over the door--1840. Of +course it's been rented for ten years now, but we have our things +stored in the attic and the people are careful and--well they love +the old place, you know, and they keep up the gardens. They wanted +to buy when father died and again after mother-- + +"But Ridge and I just hung on and leased it from year to year. We +always hoped to get it back. And now to think that I should be the +one to do it!" + +"How are you the one?" Brother inquired practically. + +"Why Uncle Wesley that ran away to sea--I used to have his room, +just over the kitchen, and many a time I've climbed down the side +porch just as he did, and run away fishing--Uncle Wesley died in +England, last year, and left me considerably more than he'd ever +have made if he'd minded grandmother and studied to be a parson. It +seems Uncle Rob knew where he was all the time, and wrote him, +before he was sick himself, to leave the money to the family, and by +George, he did. + +"Lots of the old stuff is there--the sideboard and the library table +and grandfather's old desk mother kept the preserves in. + +"I used to lie on an old sofa in the dining-room on hot afternoons, +waiting for it to get cool, reading some travel book, eating summer +apples, and listening to Win and Thea practicing duets in the +parlor. Lord, I can hear 'em now! I'd look out at the brick walls, +hot, you know, in the sun, and the pear tree, with the nurse rocking +Babe under it, and old Annie shelling peas by the kitchen door, and +it all seemed so comfortable--" + +His eyes were half closed. The children listened dreamily, huddled +against him; low red rays crept down from the west-bound sun and +struck the little pond to copper, the nickel dishes to silver, the +lady's skirt to a peach-colored glory; a little sudden breeze set +the red bottle tinkling between the stones. But to the group +entranced with memories so vivid that reality blurred before them, +the peach and copper glories were ripe fruit against an old brick +wall, the tinkle echoed from an old piano in a dim, green-shuttered +parlor, and the soft snoring of the General, asleep on the silk +motor coat, was the drowsy breathing of a contented little fellow in +knickerbockers dreaming in a window seat. + +"Did you ever go to Atlantic City?" + +The lady's voice woke them as a gong wakes a sleeper. "Now that's my +idea of the country!" + +He stared at her vaguely. + +"But--but that's no place for children," he protested. He had hardly +grown up at that moment, himself. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"It's not exactly necessary to have six children, you know," she +said, "and then you needn't be worried over a place for them, and +can afford to think a little about the place you'd like for +yourself." + +The sun was in her eyes and she missed the look in his as he jumped +up from the astonished group and seized her wrist. + +"Christine, you simply shan't talk that way!" he said. "I don't +know what's the matter with you to-day--why are you so different? +Are you trying to tease me? Because I might as well tell you right +now that you're succeeding a little too well." + +The pink parasol dropped between them. Her eyes met his squarely, +though her voice shook a little. + +"Let my wrist go, Mr. Armstrong," she said, "you hurt me. I assure +you I'm not different at all. If you really want to know what the +matter with me is, let me ask you if you saw anything out of the way +before your friends there interfered?" she pointed to the little +group he had left. "We seemed to be getting on very well then." + +His face fell, and she went on more quickly and with less controlled +tones. + +"You are the one that is different! I have always been just the +same--just exactly the same! Ask anybody if I've changed--ask aunty! +'Tina has the best temper of any girl I know,' aunty always says. +But its just as she warned me. Aunty always knows--she's seen lots +and lots of people and plenty of swells, too--it isn't as if you +were the only one, Mr. Armstrong!" + +He looked curiously at the flushed, lovely face; curiously, as +though he had never really studied it before. + +"Perhaps--perhaps it _is_ I," he said slowly, "I--maybe you're +right. And of course I know--" he smiled oddly at the pretty picture +she made--"that I'm not the only one." + +Something in his tone irritated her; she unfurled the rosy parasol +angrily. + +"Aunty said from the beginning you'd be hard to get on with," she +flashed out. "She said the second time you came to the house with +Mr. Walbridge for his sister's fitting and asked Kitty and I for a +ride in the machine, 'I'm perfectly willing you girls should go, for +they're both all right and I think the dark one's serious, but--" + +"You discussed me with your aunt, then?" + +She looked at him in amazement. + +"Discussed you with aunty? Why certainly I did. Why shouldn't I? How +do you suppose I'm to get anywhere, placed as I am, Mr. Armstrong, +unless I'm pretty careful? I've nothing but my looks--I know that +perfectly well--and I can't afford to make any mistakes. And aunty +said, 'I think the dark one's serious, Tina, but I don't know, +somehow, I'd keep in with Walbridge. He may not have so much money, +but he'll be easier to manage. Armstrong seems like any other gay +young fellow, and for all I know he is--he's certainly generous--but +I'd rather have you Mrs. Walter Walbridge and lose the family +custom, than have you tied up to an obstinate man." + +"And--excuse me, but I'm really interested," he asked, "could you be +Mrs. Walter Walbridge?" + +"Yes, I could," she answered, "he asked me when he lent you the +machine. I suppose he thought you might," she added simply. + +He drew a long breath. + +"And you answered--" + +"I said I'd think it over," she said softly. "I--are you really +angry with me, Rob? We're friends, aren't we? Friends--" + +Her eyes lifted to his. "You see, Rob," she went on, still softly, +"a girl like me has to be awfully straight and pretty careful. It's +not easy to go to theaters and suppers and out with the machines and +keep your head--you can't always tell about men. And I've cost +aunty quite a lot, though of course, my clothes were the cheapest, +really, all made in the house. I had two good offers to go on the +stage, but she wouldn't have it. And even if Mr. Walbridge's mother +did make a fuss, she can't help his getting the money. Of course I +told him I'd think it over, but I always liked--" + +"And now you've thought it over," he interrupted quickly, "and +you've found out that your remarkably able aunt was right. You're a +wise little girl, Tina, for if I know Walter, he _will_ be easier to +manage! He's a lucky fellow--always was. But he'll never get his car +at six to-night." + +He plucked out his watch and strapping up the tea basket began to +push the things hastily into it. + +She stared ahead of her, her chin shaking a little, her eyes a +little dim and most beautiful. + +"I--you don't--you're not angry, Rob?" She leaned over him. + +"Tina, if you look like that I'll kiss you, and Walter will call me +out!" he said lightly. "Of course I'm not angry--we're as chummy as +you'll let me be. Come on and find the choo-choo car!" + +He slipped his arm through the basket handle and made for his coat. +The children scrambled off it apologetically; they were not quite +certain where they stood in the present crisis. But he smiled at +them reassuringly. + +"We'll have to meet again," he called, already beyond them, "and +have some more of those little cakes! Good-by till next time!" + +"Good-by! Good-by!" they called, and Miss Honey, eyeing the pink +parasol longingly, ventured, "Good-by, Miss Tina!" + +The lady did not answer, but walked slowly after the young man, +shaking out her billowy skirts. Soon he was behind the big boulder; +soon she had followed him. + +"Yady go!" the General announced. + +"They had a quarrel, didn't they?" Miss Honey queried. "But they +made up, so it was all right." + +Caroline shook her head wisely. + +"We--ell," she mused, "they made it up, but I don't believe he +changed his mind, just the same." + +Something puffed loudly in the road, whirred down to a steady growl, +and grew fainter and fainter. + +"There they go!" Brother cried. + +He picked up a bit of bark and tossed it into the little pool. + +"I bet you Ridge will be glad to get back to the Place," he said. + + + + +VII + +THE PRETENDERS + + +Midsummer dust lay ankle-deep in the road, white and hot. The +asphalt sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the leaves hung motionless +from the full trees; only the breathless nasturtiums flickered like +flames along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in the glare. +Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard in the relentless heat, spun +along on her bicycle, the only bit of movement on all the long +stretch of the road. The householders had all retired behind their +green blinds; even New England yielded to August's imperious +_siesta_, and it might have been a deserted village, empty and +mysterious, through which she glided. + +By little and little she grew to feel this; her feet moved more and +more slowly on the pedals, her brows knitted as the great idea grew. +Her lips moved, inaudibly at first, but soon began the sing-song +murmur so well known to those who crept upon her unawares. + +"I am all alone; the rest have gone--where have they gone!--where +_could_ they go? Oh, they're dead. Murdered! No, the town was +besieged, and we made ropes with our hair, and bowstrings.... And +they all marched out, and they closed the city gates...." Slower and +slower the pedals moved: Caroline was pushing uphill. "So then the +Mayor said: 'No, this sacrifice is too great--I can not allow you to +make it, my brave children. Death--and worse--await you beyond these +walls. Let us die here together.'" Her chin quivered. At the summit +of the hill she paused. + +"'Then _die_! Die like the dogs you are!' cried the Captain"--with +feet perched high she swooped down the slope, her heart pounding +with excitement, narrowly escaping collision at the bottom with an +empty van, crawling through the heat, manned by a somnolent, huddled +driver. Its hollow, cumbrous rattling pointed sharply the loneliness +of the silent road, almost bare now of houses, for they were on the +very outskirts of the village, and in a flash Caroline knew it for +what it was, and shuddered. + +"It's the Tumbrel!" she murmured softly, and to her awed fancy the +graceful, slim-necked figures in flowered gowns drooped dreadfully +or stiffened in a last pathetic defiance as they rolled by. + +"Courage, my sister, courage!" whispered the brave gentleman, while +the hoarse crowd shouted.... "_And I am Marie Antoinette!_" cried +Caroline in a burst of inspiration. + +Dismounting, she walked proudly beside her wheel; scornfully she +held her head above that vulgar, cruel mob; the driver, poor in +illusions, drowsed stupidly in front of the baleful wagon-load he +knew not of, and clattered down the hill. To the ill-fated Queen, +who followed the curving line of the twelve-foot iron fence that had +sprung up at her side, ten minutes seemed but one. Lost in tragic +musing, she wandered swiftly on; had you, meeting her suddenly, +asked her where she was going, there is little doubt that she would +have told you she was escaping to her palace. And all at once, as +she halted a moment opposite a clear space in the shrubbery and +thickly planted trees that followed the inside line Of the iron +fence, she beheld the palace, high on a terraced knoll. It was of +clean-cut gray stone, rising into a square tower at one corner, from +which the flag drooped in bright folds of red and blue. The windows +shone like mirrors; trim, striped awnings broke the severe angles of +the long building; brilliant flower-beds gleamed from the smooth +turf and bordered the neat walks of crushed gray stone. It stood +massively above its terraces, a very castle of romance to Caroline, +who had never before seen it so polished and beflagged. Wonderingly +she tried the great wrought-iron gate, but it was securely locked, +and a new sign was attached to it: + + PRIVATE PROPERTY! + + ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED + + FROM THE PREMISES! + + VISITORS PLEASE RING AT THE LODGE. + +Caroline stared at it vaguely. So delicate are the oscillations of +the imaginative imp, that it is hard to say just where he swings his +slaves into determined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline +severely and demanded of her in the character of an impatient adult +the name of her castle, she would undoubtedly have informed you that +it was Graystone Tower, a long deserted mansion, too expensive +hitherto for any occupants but the children who roamed every inch of +it for the first spring flowers and coasted down its terraces in +winter. But no one was there to shake her, and so with parted lips +and dreamy eyes she speculated as to whether they would fire the +cannon on her arrival and whether she would scatter coins among her +loyal servants or merely order an ox roasted whole in honor of her +safe return. + +Soon she reached the smaller gate, but before she tried the handle +the sign warned her that it would be useless. She frowned: no one +could keep up the spirit of a royal home-coming under these +disadvantages. Suddenly her eyes brightened, she tossed her head, +and following what was apparently a little blind alley of shrubbery, +she plunged into a tangle of undergrowth and disappeared. Only her +bicycle, resting against the fence, showed that some one had passed +that way. Working herself through the screen of leaves, she emerged +into a fairly cleared path that her accustomed feet followed to its +logical climax--a deep depression scooped out under the sharp, +down-pointed iron prongs, worn smooth by the frequent pressure of +small bodies. The fence had lost its shiny blackness by now and the +grass grew rank and untended around the mouth of the gap. Wriggling +through, Caroline straightened herself and strolled unconcerned +toward the castle, not so near her now. Soon she reached a newly +rolled tennis court; farther on two saddled horses pawed beside a +little summer-house, impatient for the start; an iridescent fountain +tossed two gleaming balls high into the air. Caroline moved like one +in a dream; her fancy, grown so overwhelmingly real, dazzled her, +fairly. But it was like the court of the Sleeping Beauty--no one +came or called. + +At length, wandering on, she came upon a gardener in a neat gray +livery, clipping with a large, distorted pair of scissors the velvet +edge of a flower-bed. He resembled so undeniably the gardeners in +that ageless chronicle of Alice that Caroline smiled approvingly +upon him. + +"You are one of my gardeners, I suppose," she said regally. + +"Yes, Miss," he replied, respectfully, touching his banded cap, "I +am that." + +"You garden very well," said Marie Antoinette, dizzy with delight at +his manner. + +"Yes, Miss; thank you, Miss, I'm sure," and the cap came off. + +She walked on superbly. At last it had happened, and she, Caroline +in the flesh, had fought her way through the prickly hedge of +every-day appearance and won into the garden of romance, where +dreams were true and anything might happen. + +At that moment there came to meet her from behind a great beech tree +a slender little lady. She had gray hair puffed daintily and +fancifully about her small, pale face, and knots of pale blue +ribbon, woven in and out of her lacy, trailing gown, repeated the +color of her mild, round eyes. Half consciously Caroline muttered: +"Here is one of my ladies-in-waiting," when the little lady rushed +at her, smiling delightedly. + +"Are you a queen, then?" she cried in a high, sweet voice. "How very +pleasant. Dear me, how _very_ pleasant!" + +Caroline smiled with equal delight. Very few persons of this little +lady's age had such quick sense; mostly they had to be taught the +game. + +"Yes," she answered, "I am. I am Queen Marie Antoinette." + +The little lady fell back a step. Her blue eyes clouded and she +pouted like a big baby. + +"Why--why, how _can_ you be?" she demanded, fretfully, "when that is +who I am, myself!" + +For a moment Caroline scowled; such flexibility was almost +disconcerting. Then her natural good-humor and the training +resulting from many summers with Miss Honey, who claimed all the +best roles at once and shifted often, prompted her generous reply: + +"All right. I'll be Mary Queen of Scots, then--I like it about as +well." + +The little lady beamed again. + +"That will be very pleasant," she said, "I trust your majesty is +quite well?" + +"Yes, indeed," Caroline assured her, adding airily; "How well the +castle is looking this morning! I think I'll have the flag out every +day, now that I'm back." + +Marie Antoinette flushed angrily and pouted once more. + +"You! _You!_" she mimicked. "What have you to do with my flag? That +goes up by my orders, let me inform you! Here, gardener--" and she +waved her little parasol at the man in gray, who was already walking +rapidly towards them--"is that flag in my honor or not?" + +"Yes, Miss," he said promptly. "Sure it is, Miss," and he nodded +politely at them both. For a moment the rival queens confronted each +other fiercely, then her Majesty of France smiled at Scottish Mary. + +"You see," she said, in her high, bright voice; "you see, I was +right. But then, I always am. I shall have to leave your Royal +Highness now, for I see one of my subjects coming whom I don't care +for at all--she is not very pleasant." + +Sweeping a low courtesy, the little lady glided away with a +graceful, dipping motion; the white hand that lifted her trailing +skirts was covered with turquoises. + +Caroline looked where her royal sister had pointed, and saw a tall, +handsome young woman hurrying toward her. She was dressed plainly +in black, but with a rich plainness that could not have escaped the +youngest of womankind. Opposite Caroline she paused, her hand on her +heart. + +"John! Oh, John! This--this is a child!" + +"Yes, Miss; sure it is," said the gardener politely. + +"But how did she get here? Surely no children come here?" Her hands +were trembling. + +"Yes, Miss, many of 'em--sure they do," he said pleasantly, with a +good Irish smile. + +But it was plain that his good-nature did not please the handsome +lady. She bit her lip angrily. + +"You know very well, John, that you are not to talk to me in that +idiotic way," she said decidedly. "You know that there is no +necessity for it as well as I do." + +"All right, Miss," he replied, soothingly. + +"And you are lying when you say that children come here," she went +on, controlling herself with a great effort, "for they do not." + +The gardener scratched his head doubtfully and walked away, +muttering to himself. The girl turned to Caroline. + +"Tell me," she demanded eagerly, her voice low and hurried, "how did +you come here? Are you with friends? Where are they? What were you +saying to that queen woman?" + +"I--I--we were--I was Mary Queen of Scots," Caroline stammered, +struggling, as the happy dreamer struggles, not to wake. + +The girl started back from her, pale with an emotion that left her +handsome face drawn and old. + +"Good Heavens!--it can't be--a child! A _child_!" she cried. Tears +stood in her dark eyes. + +"How pitiful!" she said, softly, to herself. Then, forcing a smile, +she leaned coaxingly over Caroline. + +"I am only too delighted to make your Majesty's acquaintance," she +said, her voice a little husky, but very sweet. "I have read of you +often. But surely your Majesty has not been here long? I do not +recall having seen you before to-day." + +"N--no, you haven't," Caroline answered, a little grudgingly, "I +only just came." + +"Ah!" said the girl, "and how did you come? Not through the house +surely?" + +"I came under the fence," said Caroline, "the gates were locked. I +was Marie Antoinette then, but I changed after she said she was." + +"Oh! Oh!" the girl groaned, covering her face with slender, ringless +hands. + +"But I'd just as soon," Caroline assured her--"honestly I would. +Only you need a Bothwell for her. I only thought of Marie Antoinette +after the tumbrel went by. I suppose she's used to Marie Antoinette, +prob'ly, and so you can't get her to change." + +She nodded in the direction of the little lady, now far from them, +white against the shrubbery. + +The girl drew in her breath in little gasps, as if she had been +running. + +"Y--yes," she assented, "she's used to being Marie Antoinette. Where +is the hole you got through? Is it big enough for--for anybody?" + +"Oh, yes," said Caroline indifferently, "but nobody knows about it +but me and a few other k--prisoners, I mean; I've used it when I was +escaping before. I think it was a rabbit-hole first, and then we +made it bigger. Isn't that funny--Alice got in by a rabbit-hole, +too, didn't she? I thought of her as soon as I saw the gardener. +He's very polite, isn't he?" + +The girl pressed her lips together. "They are all polite here," she +said briefly. "Do you mean that you go in and out of this hole as +you like? Do they know of it? Is it far from here?" + +"It's over there," Caroline waved, vaguely. "Why? Do you want to +escape, too? Are you a queen?" + +"No." The girl said it with a slight shudder. "No, I'm not. +I'm--I'm--Oh, I'm Joan of Arc! You know about her, don't you, dear?" + +Caroline nodded. "Are you trying to escape?" she repeated, +interested at last. + +"Yes," said the girl, "I am. But don't tell any one, will you? Don't +tell that gardener, for instance." + +"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I won't tell. Wouldn't he help +you?" + +The girl laughed, an excited, sobbing laugh. + +"No, he wouldn't help me at all," she said. "Come on, walk a little. +He is watching us. Don't tell him about the hole, will you? Promise +me faithfully." She turned and seized the child's wrist. "Can you +keep a promise?" she panted. + +"Of course I can." + +"And if any one should ask you, could you--oh, _could_ you say you +came in by the gate?" + +Caroline wriggled free. + +"Of course," she said scornfully. "Do you think I'm a baby?" + +"Don't be angry--don't," the girl pleaded. "I don't mean to frighten +you--your Majesty, I mean--but I am so excited, and--and I don't +quite do what I intend to do or say just what I mean. I am quite all +right now. You see, that gardener--he isn't really a gardener." She +watched Caroline narrowly, quite unprepared for the sudden delight +in her eyes. + +"Oh, _he's_ pretending, too!" cried Mary of Scots joyfully. "What is +he, really?" + +"He's--he's one of my jailers," said the girl somberly. "And the +first thing he would do would be to stop up your hole under the +fence." + +"Oh!" Caroline stared respectfully at the gardener, not far from +them now. + +"Were you ever in chains?" she said, in an awed voice. + +"No," said Joan of Arc, "I never was. I wouldn't be in this--this +fortress if I had to be in chains. This is for well-behaved +prisoners." + +"Is Marie Antoinette a prisoner, too?" + +"Yes," said the girl, wearily, "she is. And she has kept me one. I +should not be here now but for her. She prevented my escape." + +"The mean old thing!" Caroline cried, indignantly, "did she tell?" + +"She called that gardener," said the girl, "just as I was walking +out of the little gate. Of course I had to walk slowly. She is very +malicious--poor thing," she added quickly. + +They were close to a little arbor now, and not so far from the +castle. Caroline could see figures here and there strolling on the +upper terraces and sitting on the piazzas. The tinkle of a mandolin +cut the soft air and the new-mown grass smelled sweet. + +"I think this castle is lovely, though, don't you, Joan of Arc?" she +burst out. + +"It is an abominable castle," said the girl, in a muffled voice. +"Abominable!" + +"Well, then," said Caroline, practically, "if you feel that way, +you'd _better_ escape." + +The girl stared at her. + +"Tell me," she said, earnestly, "have you ever been in this place +before? Where do you live?" + +Caroline shrugged her shoulders impishly. + +"I am Mary Queen of Scots," she replied, obstinately, "and I live in +Scotland. Of course, I've been here before. Who are all those other +people in the castle?" + +The girl drew a long, worried breath. "I believe I should go mad if +I stayed here much longer," she said, to herself. She drew Caroline +down beside her behind the arbor. + +"Listen to me, Mary Queen of Scots," she murmured, very low, with +anxious glances all about her. + +"I don't know who you are nor where you come from, but I believe you +will help me--I believe you're sorry for me. You know how badly Joan +of Arc's friends felt when she was in prison? I'm sure you do. Well +I have a--a dear friend who would die for me, if it would help me. +He has no idea where I am. He thinks I don't want to see him. He +thinks--he must think--I'm no longer his--his--his friend. If I +could only get to him, I should be safe." + +"Why don't you write to him?" Caroline suggested. + +The girl laughed bitterly. + +"If _you_ had prisoners in _your_ fortress, and they wrote letters +to their friends to come and get them out, would _you_ mail the +letters?" she demanded. + +"I s'pose not," said Caroline gravely. Joan of Arc gulped. + +"My letters never went," she said. "Now listen: I must go up to my +room and get some money--I can't do anything without money. Will you +wait here till I come back and not let anyone see you if you can +help it? And if they do, will you say that you slipped in at the +gate with a party that came in an automobile? One was here lately. +Ask if you mayn't stay and see the flowers. And then I will meet +you." + +She looked hard in Caroline's eyes. "You're only playing," she said, +suddenly. "You aren't--you aren't--What is your real name, dear?" + +Caroline scowled. + +"You better hurry up," she said, "or that gardener'll catch us. +You're just like Marie Antoinette," she added irritably. "You think +nobody can be anything but only yourself!" + +Without a word the girl turned and left her, half running. Caroline +heard her sobs. + +At the same moment she caught the crunch of footsteps on the stone +path that led to the arbor and crouched low behind it. Two men, +talking idly, entered the spot of shade and sank down on the rustic +bench. + +"Look here, Ferris," said one voice, "is she really dippy--that +one?" + +"What do you mean?" This was a deeper voice, attached evidently to +blue serge legs, for the speaker leaned to Caroline's eye level to +scratch a match on one of them. + +"Oh, I mean what I say." A gray striped coat sleeve poked through +the lattice work, as the first speaker leaned hard on it. "If she +is, then I am, that's all. It looks queer to me." + +The blue legs crossed themselves tightly under the seat. + +"Look here yourself, Riggs," said the second voice. "If you're +curious in this matter, I advise you to ask the doctor. He's boss +here, not I--thank God! I obey orders and draw my forty per, as per +contract. The same to you, only it's hardly forty, I suppose." + +"No, it's not," grunted Graycoat. "Not by a good sight. I see myself +asking the old man. I only asked your private opinion, Ferris,--you +needn't get sore about it." + +"My young friend," said Bluelegs, slowly, "there's only one thing +you can ask me in this place that I won't tell you, and that's my +private opinion!" + +There was a little pause. Caroline, reveling in conspiracy, lay +quiet, wondering who these people were and what they were talking +about. + +"You are perfectly welcome to anything I know about Miss Aitken," +Bluelegs continued, puffing at a fresh cigarette and throwing the +old one through the lattice at Caroline's feet. + +"Her brother was a pronounced epileptic--died in a fit. I have seen +the doctor's certificate. She was greatly worried over his death, +and the manner of it, and showed signs of incipient melancholia." + +"As how?" interrupted Graycoat. + +"Don't know," said Bluelegs briefly. "Uncle said so. Wouldn't speak +to anybody; cried all day; off her feed--that sort of thing. Very +obstinate." + +"Um," Graycoat muttered thoughtfully, "so am I. But I'd hate to be +shut up on that account." + +"So her uncle," proceeded Bluelegs, "wishing to save her, if +possible, from her brother's fate, decided to--er--take steps in +that direction and--and here she is." + +"So I see," said Graycoat. "Was the brother's epilepsy hereditary?" + +"I believe not," Bluelegs returned. "I believe the young gentlemen +inherited a little too much a little too soon for his best good, and +hit up a rather fast pace; his constitution wasn't the best." + +"Did she know about all this?" + +"I believe she did. Thought she might have saved him if she'd known +sooner, her uncle said." + +"Ah," said Graycoat. "Why didn't this kind uncle put his nephew with +the doctor?" + +"He wasn't his trustee," Bluelegs answered, quietly. + +"Dear me," said Graycoat gently, "how fortunate for the nephew!" + +"That's as you look at it," responded Bluelegs. + +Caroline dozed in the warm shade; in dreams she chased the French +Queen around the iridescent fountain. + +"Uncle any business--besides trusteeship?" asked Graycoat. + +"You can search me," said Bluelegs. + +"Niece about twenty-one, I take it?" asked Graycoat. + +"Search me again," said Bluelegs. + +"Should you think," Graycoat demanded, after a pause, "that this +incipient melancholia was likely to last long--speaking, of course, +professionally?" + +"Really, Dr. Riggs, I don't know." Bluelegs replied. "I am not at +all in touch with the case. The doctor has entire charge of it. He +mentioned to me last week that he was sorry to see both in her and +young Dahl evidences of clearly formed delusions--" + +"Young Dahl!" cried Graycoat, "why, the boy is an admitted +paranoiac!" + +"Really?" said Bluelegs, "you know I don't do much but cocaine and +morphia, these days. Did you know the doctor was going to print my +pamphlet?" + +"He can afford it, I judge," growled Graycoat. "He gets a hundred a +week from Miss Aitken." + +Bluelegs got up and sent a second cigarette after the first. + +"Riggs," he said gravely, "if you're aiming to succeed as a magazine +writer, you're beginning well; if it's your ambition to succeed in +this business, and succeed right here, you're beginning badly. You +were keen enough to get this place. If you talk much this way, you +won't keep it long--you can take it from me. Let's come in to +lunch." + +Their tread on the arbor floor roused the sleeping conspirator; she +sat up, rubbing her eyes half afraid that the clipped terraces, the +floating, flag, the inhabited castle, were only parts of her dream. +But even as she peered around the arbor, Joan of Arc rushed toward +her. She wore a black shade hat and carried a fluffy black parasol +under her arm. + +"Be careful!" she panted. "We can't go yet--I was stopped. I had to +talk. You say yes to whatever I say, will you? Then you can escape +with me--" she smiled sweetly at Caroline--"a real escape, as they +do in story books! Won't that be fine?" Her hand was at her heart +again; a red circle burned in either cheek. + +Caroline nodded eagerly. + +"That will be grand!" she said. She had forgotten till that moment +that she wanted to escape. + +"Ah, Miss Aitken! Late for lunch again!" + +Caroline started guiltily, for it was the voice of Bluelegs. + +Joan threw her arm over Caroline's shoulder carelessly. + +"Yes, Dr. Ferris, I'm afraid I am," she said. "I was delayed by this +little visitor." + +He looked suspiciously at them. "Who is she?" he asked. + +"I don't know." Joan led Caroline along quickly. "She _says_ she is +Mary Queen of Scots." + +He stared blankly. + +"I found her conversing with Marie Antoinette," she went on easily, +"and she seems to have slipped in with an automobile party--was +there one? Children are so secretive, you know. She is trying to get +out, but she says all the gates are locked." + +"Oh, yes, that was the Dahls--they came to see Frederick," he +explained. + +"I see. You were left with the chauffeur, Mademoiselle, and it's +easy to imagine the rest," he added with a smile. He had a very +attractive smile, and Caroline slipped her hand into his offered one +readily. + +"You are fond of children?" said Joan, abruptly. + +"Very," he answered simply. "Why not! And they are fond of me, as +you see. My dear young lady, did you think we are all brutes because +we must obey orders?" + +She set her teeth and walked swiftly forward. + +"I know you think us cruel," he went on frankly, "because we can not +do for you the one thing that you want; but, except for that, have +you anything to complain of?" + +She smiled scornfully. + +"'Except for that'?" she echoed, "no, Dr. Ferris, nothing in the +world--but 'that'!" + +"And you must remember," he continued, in his pleasant, soothing +voice, "that it may not be for long, after all. If you continue to +improve as you have--" She flung away impatiently. "Oh, yes, you +have improved, you know; you eat better, you sleep better, your +nerves are quieter. We get good reports of you. Many are ill longer +than you. Do you like the new masseuse?" + +She did not answer. + +"Now, this little lady must have some lunch with us, and then, no +doubt, we shall see that careless chauffeur again," he said easily. +"Would you like to stay?" he asked Caroline. + +"Yes, I would." + +"Mary was always fickle, you know," he laughed, glancing at her +clinging hand. + +And, indeed, Caroline found him far more winning than the sulky, +silent Joan, and leaned confidingly against him as they climbed the +stone steps and passed through the rich, dark-paneled hall, hung +with bright pictures, filled with bowls of flowers. Several men, +uniformed like the gardener, stood about the steps and terraces; +two stood by the door of a large, airy dining-room filled with +hurrying waiters. About a long silver-laden table some twenty men +and women, cool in lawn and lace and white flannel, were seated, +eating and talking gaily. At the head was a large, tall man in a +snowy vest; evidently the host, by his smiling, interested attention +to everybody's wants. At his right was a vacant chair, and toward +this Joan of Arc directed her steps. She had caught Caroline's hand +in hers, and, as Bluelegs bent and whispered in the tall man's ear, +she added: + +"I think, doctor, if the little girl stays by me she will feel less +shy, perhaps." + +"Certainly, certainly--by all means. A good thought, Miss Aitken, a +good thought," he answered in a rich, kind voice. He shook hands +with Caroline warmly. + +"So you find our grounds attractive?" he asked politely. + +She nodded, a little shyly. All this company, so freshly dressed, so +ceremoniously served, so utterly unconscious of her presence, +embarrassed her a little. For not one of the ladies and +gentlemen--there were no children--paid the slightest attention to +her arrival, even when a place was made for her by Joan and a mug of +milk procured. They talked, or, as she noticed now, sat, many of +them, listless and silent, playing with their rings and bracelets, +answering only with monosyllables the questions of the large, +cordial doctor. + +"Where is Marie Antoinette?" she whispered to her friend, who seemed +nearer, suddenly, than these cold table-mates. + +"She does not eat with us," said Joan, helping her to chicken and +green peas, and beginning her own meal. + +The doctor turned to them, having recommended some asparagus to the +stolid lady at his left. + +"I am glad to see your appetite so good, Miss Aitken," he observed, +lowering his voice a little, "at this rate we shall have no excuse +for keeping you much longer." + +"You have had none for six months," she replied curtly. + +"I am sorry you feel so bitterly," he said, "but you know I can not +agree with you there. You will think more kindly of me some day, I +hope, when time has freed your mind of its prejudice." + +"When will that be?" she asked, meeting his eyes full for a moment. + +"I wrote only this morning to your uncle, stating your gradual but +steady improvement, and assuring him that in my opinion--subject, of +course, to circumstances--it would be a matter of a few months more +only," he said. "Does not that make your feelings a little--only a +little more tender--" + +"What did you say?" a shrill voice interrupted, "say that again, +please." + +Caroline had beguiled the woman next her, a frail, anemic little +creature with pathetic eyes, into a halting conversation. + +"I said," she repeated, buttering her roll thickly and +appreciatively with fresh, clover-scented butter, "I said that no +weather was too hot for me. I love it." + +("Now, really, I _am_ pleased," the big doctor murmured to the girl +beside him. "Mrs. Du Long hasn't seemed so interested for days. In +fact, she's been quite silent; I was alarmed about her. It's the +child's influence.") + +"--Uncle Joe said," Caroline went on, the roll at her mouth, "and he +said I was a regular little snake." + +She heard a guttural, growling sound beside her, lifted her eyes +innocently, and for one flashing, doubtful second beheld the +swollen, distorted face, the bulging eyes, the back-drawn snarling +lips beside her. She did not see the plunging fork above her head, +so quickly did Joan's arm intervene between her and it; she did not +hear its impact against the big doctor's plate nor the gurgling +voice of what had been the sad-eyed little woman beside her, for her +head was buried in Joan's stifling skirt. + +"Kill the snake! Kill the snake!" some one--or something--yelled, +and then a grip of iron caught her arm and the voice of Bluelegs +said sternly: + +"Look straight ahead of you--don't turn your head! Don't turn, Miss +Aitken--you can do nothing--they have her safe. The guards are +here." + +The room, indeed, seemed full of gardeners; a bell rang noisily near +by. + +"But the others--the others!" Joan gasped. + +"They are all right--it won't trouble them," he answered quietly; +and as Caroline and the girl looked fearfully where they were +bidden, they saw the men and women eating placidly, talking with +each other or sitting listless, staring idly at four liveried men +who fought furiously with one small, snarling creature. Like the +cruel witnesses in dreams, they sat, and the waiters served them +swiftly and handed the dishes between their shoulders, as deaf as +they. And suddenly they became terrible to Caroline, and the castle +menacing, a thing to flee from. + +"Step out this way," said Bluelegs, when the sounds of struggle had +died away, "and take the child through the grounds, will you, +please? Try to occupy her thoughts, and your own, too, if you can. +This is one of the unfortunate things that rarely happen, but when +they do--Yes, indeed, Mr. Ogden, it was certainly fine asparagus--I +am glad you enjoyed it. No, she was only a little indisposed--she'll +soon be well again. The heat of the sun, undoubtedly. Don't be +alarmed, Miss Arliss, she will have every attention." + +The gardeners had vanished from the steps where they went down, and +none were seen in the grounds. Joan of Arc clutched Caroline's +waist. + +"Now--now!" she said, between her teeth; "now is the time not to +faint! I never fainted--never. Come and show me that hole in the +fence. There is no one about. But don't run." + +They hurried across the sunlit, smiling terrace. + +"What was the matter?" Caroline queried fearfully, "was she--was +she--" + +"Yes," said Joan brusquely. "Yes. Don't think about it. Don't run +and don't think. Only find the hole." + +They stood beside it. No one was near them; no one called to them. +Silently Caroline slid under the sharp prongs. Joan of Arc put her +hands under her skirt a moment and a white ruffled petticoat slipped +around her feet. She adjusted it over her dress and pulled herself +with difficulty through. As she stood erect in the soiled, stained +petticoat, Caroline saw her knees, tremble under it, and she +drooped against the fence, white-cheeked. + +"Don't faint," she said severely to Caroline. + +With shaking hands she tied the petticoat under her dress again and +they crouched through the underbrush to the outer walk. Caroline +reached for her wheel and the two peered fearfully up and down the +empty road. + +"I can't--I can't," the girl moaned, "my dress is so black--they can +see it from the hill. Oh, what shall I do? I thought I could, and I +can't!" + +The measured trot of a pair of horses sounded on the road. An empty +station wagon came rapidly toward them; groom and driver regarded +them curiously. + +The girl straightened herself and raised her hand with a pretty, +imperious gesture. + +"One moment, please," she said, "but are you going to the village?" + +"Yes, Miss," said the driver, "to the station. Was there anything--" + +She opened a bag at her side and took out carelessly a small gold +piece. + +"My little friend here," she said, in an even, low voice, "was +showing me this beautiful building and grounds and I utterly +neglected to note the time. I fear I have lost my train, if we try +to walk back. If you could take us--" + +"Certainly, Miss," said the driver. "William, put the young lady's +wheel on top. Was it the express you wanted, Miss? I'm to meet +it--the 2.08. Party from Boston." + +They climbed in, the bicycle settled noisily into the trunk-rack on +top, and the big chestnuts pounded down the hill. + +Joan stared straight before her. Presently she drew a pair of black +gloves from her little bag and put them on. Her lips moved steadily, +and Caroline knew from her closed eyes that she was praying. + +They drew into the neat station as the train Snorted itself in. The +girl handed the gold piece to the driver. + +"Divide it, please," she said calmly. "I am much obliged." + +She walked to the drawing-room car, and signaled the black porter. + +"I shall be safe to-night," she said softly, to the child by her +side, "and I won't tell you my name, because it will not be mine +much longer. But what is yours? Tell me quick!" + +"All _aboard_! Next stop One Hund' Twent'-_fifth_ Street!" some one +called, hoarsely. + +Caroline looked dazed. She tried to speak sensibly, but her tongue +played tricks with her, and the tension of her feelings was too much +for her. As the girl paused a second on the platform, and the train +shuddered for its start, Caroline called above the escaping steam: + +"I'm Mary Queen of Scots--I am! I am!" + +The white face of Joan of Arc broke into a wavering smile. + +"You dear little idiot," she called, chokingly, "I'll find you out +yet! You'll see! Good-by--God bless your Majesty." + +And while she might, Caroline ran beside the window, waving her hand +at that tearful, happy face. + + + + +VIII + +A WATCH IN THE NIGHT + + +The village clock boomed out the first strokes of eleven. Solemn and +mellow, the waves of sound flowed over the sleeping streets; the +aftertones vibrated plaintively. Caroline stirred restlessly, +tossing off the sheet and muttering in her dreams. The tears had +dried on her hot cheeks; her brows were still knitted. + +"Four! Five! Six!" the big bell tolled. + +Caroline sat up in bed and dropped her bare, pink legs over the +edge. Her eyes were open now, but set in a fixed, unseeing stare. + +"Seven! Eight!" + +She fumbled with her toes for her leather barefoot sandals and +slipped her feet under the ankle straps. + +"Nine! Ten!" moaned the bell. + +She moved forward, vaguely, in the broad path of moonlight that +poured through the wide-open window, and ran her hands like a blind +girl over the warm sill, lifting her knee to its level. + +"Eleven!" + +Before the murmuring aftertones had lost themselves in the night, +Caroline was out of the window. She stole lightly along the tin +roof, warm yet with the first intense heat of June, dropped easily +to the level of the kitchen-ell, and, slipping down onto the massive +trunk of the old wistaria, fitted accustomed feet into its curled +niches and clambered down among the warm, fragrant clusters. Steeped +in the full moon, it sent out its cloying perfume like a visible +cloud; her white nightgown glistened ghostlike through the leaves. + +She paused a moment in the shadow of the vine, and a great tawny +cat, his orange markings distinct in the moonlight, stole to her, +brushing against her bare ankles caressingly. As he curled and +uncurled his soft tail about her little feet, a sudden impulse +caught her, and she started swiftly through the wide backyard, +bending to a broken gap in the privet hedge, cutting diagonally +across the neighboring grounds, and emerging into a pleasant +country road on the outskirts of the little village, with sleeping +houses sprinkled along its length, well back, mostly, from its edge, +showing here and there a light. + +She struck into the soft, dusty road at a quick, swinging pace, the +fruit of much walking, and the big yellow cat pattered at her side. + +The night was almost windless; sweet, nameless odors poured up from +the heated summer soil; the shadows of the grasses were outlined +like Japanese pictures on the white roadway. Except for the child +and the cat, no living being moved, as far as the eye could see; +only the burdocks and mulleins swayed almost imperceptibly with +breezes so delicate that the leaf tips of the trees could not feel +them. + +A great white moth, blundering against a heavy thistle head, tumbled +against Caroline's elbow and fluttered clumsily into her face. She +started, blinked, drew a long breath, and woke with a frightened +gasp. Before her stretched the pale, curving road; above her the +spangled sky throbbed and glittered; the earth, drenched in +moonlight, beautiful as all lovely creatures caught sleeping, +breathed softly into her face and with every breath put courage into +her heart. + +She looked down and saw the yellow cat, stopping, with one lifted +paw, his green, lamplike eyes fixed unwaveringly on hers. + +"Why, it's you, Red Rufus!" she whispered, "when did we come here? I +don't remember--" + +A bat whirred by: the cat pricked his ears. + +"I don't believe we're here at all, Red Rufus," she whispered again. +"We're just dreaming--at least, I am. I s'pose you're only in my +dream. If I was really here, I'd be frightened to death, prob'ly, +but if it's just a dream, I think it's lovely. Let's go on. I never +had a dream like this--it seems so real, doesn't it, Rufus?" + +They went on aimlessly up the road. Quaint little night sounds began +now to make themselves heard: now and then a drowsy twitter from the +sleeping nests, now and then a distant owl hoot. A sudden gust of +honeysuckle, so strong that it was like a friendly, fragrant body +flung against her, halted her for a moment, and while she paused, +sniffing ecstatically, the low murmur of voices caught her ear. + +The honeysuckle ran riot over an old stone wall, followed an arching +gateway at the foot of a winding path that led to a lighted house on +a knoll above, and flung screening tendrils over an entwined pair +that paused just inside the gate. The girl's white, loose sleeves +fell back from her round arms as she flung them up about her tall +lover's neck; his dark head bent low over hers, their lips met, and +they hung entranced in the bowery archway. + +For a moment Caroline watched them with frank curiosity. Then +something woke and stirred in her, faint and vague, but alive now, +and she turned away her eyes, blushing hot in the cool moonlight. + +The soft tones of their good-night died into broken whispers; parted +from his white lady, he started on for a few, irresolute steps, then +flung about suddenly and walked back toward the house, after a low, +happy protest. The cooing of some drowsy pigeons in the stable on +the other side of the road carried on the lovers' language long +after they were out of earshot, and confused itself with them in +Caroline's mind. + +She wandered on, intoxicated with the mild, spacious night, the dewy +freedom of the fields, the delicious pressure of the warm, velvet +air against her body. Red Rufus purred as he went, rejoicing with +his vagabond comrade. Just how or when she began to know that she +was not asleep, just why the knowledge did not alarm her, it would +be hard to say. But when the truth came to her, the friendly, +powdered stars had been above her long enough to accustom her to +their winking; the tiny, tentative noises of the night had sounded +in her ears till they comforted and reassured her; the vast and +empty field stretches meant only freedom and exhilaration. In a +sudden delirium of joy she slipped between the bars of a rolling +meadow and ran at full speed down its long, grassy slope, her +nightgown streaming behind her, her slender, childish legs white as +ivory against the greenish-black all around her. Beside her bounded +the great cat with shining, gemlike eyes. They rolled down the last +reaches of the slope, and all the Milky Way wondered at them, but +never a sound broke the solemn quiet of the night: the ecstasy was +noiseless. + +[Illustration: Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched +abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain.] + +Her face buried in sweet clover, she panted, prone on the grass. + +"Let's go right on, Rufus, and run away, and do just as we please!" +she whispered to the nestling cat. "If I can't do like the boys do, +I don't want to stay home--the fellows laugh at me! I'd rather be +whipped than sent to bed like a girl. I _won't_ be a young lady--I +_won't_!" + +Rufus purred approvingly. + +"If I only had some trousers!" she mourned, softly; "a boy can do +_anything_!" + +Across the quiet night there cut a thin, shrill cry: a little, +fretful pipe that brought instantly before the mind some hushed, +white room with a shaded light and a tiny basket bed. Caroline sat +up and stared about her: such cries did not come from open fields. +Hardly a stone's throw from her there was a small knoll, and behind +it what might have been a large, projecting boulder suddenly flashed +into red light and showed itself for a dormer window; a cottage had +evidently hidden behind the little hill. Curiously Caroline +approached it and walked softly up the knoll. + +Almost on the top she paused and peered into the unshaded window. +These householders had no fear of peeping neighbors, for only the +moon and the night moths found them out, and the simple bedroom was +framed like some old naïve interior, realistic with the tremendous +realism of the Great Artist. + +The high, old-fashioned footboard of the bed faced the dormer +window, and Caroline could see only the upper portion of the woman's +figure as she leaned over a small crib beside her, her heavy dark +hair falling across her cheek, and lifted up with careful slowness +the tiny creature that wailed in it. Beside her, as he supported +himself anxiously on his elbow, the broad chest and shoulders of her +young husband rose above the screening footboard. The mother gazed +hungrily at the doll-like, writhing object, passed her hand over its +downy forehead, smiled with relief into its opening eyes, and gave +it her breast. + +Instantly the wail ceased. A slow, placid smile--and yet, not quite +a smile--it was rather an elemental content, a gratified drifting +into the warm current of the stream of this world's being--spread +over the woman's face; the man's long arm wrapped around his +wealth, at once protecting and defiant; his head flung back against +the world, while his eyes studied humbly the mystery that he +grasped. The night lamp behind them threw a halo around the mother +and her child, and the great trinity of all times and all faiths +gleamed immortal upon the canvas of the simple room--its only +spectator a child. + +In her, malleable to all the influences of the revealing night, +fairly disembodied, in her detached and flitting presence, the scene +woke dim, coiled memories of an infancy that stirred and pained her +even as it left her forever, and frightened longing for the +motherhood that life was holding for her. No longer an infant, not +yet a woman, this creature that was both felt the helplessness of +one, the yearning of the other, and as she pressed the nestling cat +tightly to her little breast two great, eager tears slipped down her +hot cheeks, and a gulping sob, half loneliness, half pure +excitement, broke into the gentle stillness of the lighted room. + +"Who's there?" + +The man's voice rang like a sudden pistol shot in the night; before +Caroline's fascinated gaze the gleaming, softly colored picture +faded and vanished into the engulfing darkness, as the lamp went out +and a dark, scudding mackerel cloud flew over the moon. +Instinctively she fled softly down the knoll, instinctively she +dropped behind a bush at the bottom. She heard the rattle of the +window pane as the man pushed himself half out of the window; she +heard him call back to the waiting room behind him! + +"It's a cat, dear--I saw it, plain. It's pretty bright out here. But +I thought I saw something white beside it, too. I guess I'll take a +look around outside." + +There was a sound of movement behind the window, and, caught in an +ecstasy of terror, Caroline turned at right angles from the fields +and ran to the road that gleamed white, far on the other side of the +cottage. Panting, she won it, crossed it, and fairly safe behind the +low growth of wayside brushes that fringed its other side, she +dashed along, farther and farther from the cottage, more and more +frightened with every gasping breath. + +On and on she flew, light as a skimming leaf in the wind, the cat +bounding in easy, flexible curves beside her. Now a little brown +cottage in its plot of land sent them into the road for a moment; +now some tiny pond, a mirror for the sprinkled heavens, broke into +their course, and they skirted it more slowly, peering continuously +into its jeweled depths. With them their hurrying shadows, black on +the road, fainter on the grass, fled ceaselessly, hardly more quiet +than they. A very intoxication of fear, a panic terror almost +delicious, drove Caroline through the night, though after a while +she ran more slowly. Utterly ignorant of where she was, reckless +of where she might go, she swung along under the streaming moon, +no white moth or whispering leaf more wholly a part of the night +than she. + +Whatever idea of going back she might have had was lost long ago; +however little she might have meant to range so far, she was now +beyond any turning. No wood creature, no skipping faun or startled +dryad dancing under the moon could have belonged more utterly than +she to the fragrant, mysterious world around her. The bright, +bustling life of every day, its clatter of food and drink, its +smarts and fatigues, its settled routine of work and play, all +seemed as far behind her as some old tale of another life, half +forgotten now. + +Just as her pace subsided into a little skipping trot, a thick hedge +sprang up across their path, driving them into the road, and +continued, stiff and tall, along its edge. The pure pleasure of +conquering its prickly stiffness sent Caroline through it, tearing +one sleeve from her nightgown and dragging a great rent in one side +of it. Emerging into a magnificent sweep of clipped turf, where +wide, leafy boughs spread dappled moon shadows, they made for a +whispering, clucking fountain that threw a diamond column straight +toward the stars, only to break at the top into a beaded mist and +clink musically back to its marble basin. Its rhythmic tinkle, the +four ball-shaped box trees at either corner, the carved whiteness of +the marble basin, and the massive pillar-fronted stone house beyond +it, all spread a glamour of fairyland and foreign courts. Caroline +bowed gravely to the cat, and, seizing his feathery paws, danced, +bowing and posturing, in a bewitched abandon around the tinkling, +glistening fountain. The plumy tail of Red Rufus flew behind him as +he twirled, his little feet pattered furiously after Caroline's +twinkling sandals. Stooping over the fountain, she threw a silvery +handful high in the air and ran to catch it on her head. + +As she stood at last, panting and dazed with her mad circling, she +was aware of the low murmur of a voice, rising and falling in a +steady measure, reaching out of the dim bulk of the great house, +dark and sunk in sleep before her. For a moment a chill fear struck +to the bottom of her little heart: was some weird spell aimed at +her, some malignant eye spying on her? She stood frozen to the spot, +the tiny drops of sweat cooling on her forehead, while the droning +sounded in her ears. Then, out of the very core of her terror, some +inexplicable impulse urged her on to face it, and she crept, step by +step, the cat tight in her nervous grasp, around the corner of the +great house, toward the sound. + +This corner was a wing, set at right angles to the main building, +and as she rounded it she found herself at the edge of an inner +court. In the opposite wing, looking straight across the court, was +a lighted room with a long French window opening directly on the +shaven turf, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, +carved chair a very old woman. She was carefully dressed in deep +black, with pure white ruffles at her neck and around her shrunken +wrists, and a lace cap on her thin, white hair. Her feet were on a +carved foot-stool, and a quaint silver lamp, set on a slender table +at her side, threw a stream of light across the court. Her face, +lined with countless wrinkles, was bent upon a large book in her +lap; from its pages she read in a low, steady voice--the +passionless, almost terrifying voice of great and weary age: + + "_Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all + generations._ + + "_Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou + hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting + to everlasting thou art God._" + +Caroline stared, fascinated, down the path of lamplight. It marked a +bed of yellow tulips with a broad band; they stood motionless, as if +carved in ivory. + +[Illustration: Across the court was a lighted room with a long +French window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, +carved chair a very old woman.] + + "_For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday + when it is past, and as a watch in the night._" + +The grave, steady voice flowed out and mingled with the silver +lamplight; the marble sill of the long window was white like the +sill of a tomb. + + "_We spend our years as a tale that is told._ + + "_The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and + if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is + their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, + and we fly away._" + +The hot excitement of this magic night cooled slowly; over +Caroline's bubbling spirit there fell a mild, strange calm. A breath +from the very caverns of the infinite stole out along the path of +that silver lamp, and in the grave, surrendered voice there sounded +for the child upon life's threshold echoes of the final tolling. + +Entranced by the measured cadences, Caroline stepped forward +unconsciously and stood, white against the gray stone, full in the +path of the lamp. The heavy, wrinkled lids raised themselves from +the deep-set eyes, and the aged reader gazed calmly at the little +figure across the court. The withered old hands clasped each other. + +"Jemmy! O _Jemmy_!" + +Caroline never moved. + +"It _is_ you, Jemmy!" + +The faded eyes devoured the little white figure. + +"I thought you'd never come, Jemmy--but I knew they'd send you. I'm +all ready. Don't you think I'm afraid, Jemmy: I'm eighty-four years +old, and I want to go." + +Caroline hardly breathed; a nameless awe held her motionless and +silent. + +"You see, I don't sleep much any more, Jemmy," the old, toneless +voice went on, "and hardly any at night. They're very kind, all of +them, but I'm--I'm eighty-four years old, and I want to go." + +The ivory tulips gleamed under the stars; the silver lamp, burned +lower and lower: its oil was nearly gone. + +"And you brought your yellow kitty, too, Jemmy! To think of that! +Did they think I wouldn't know my baby? It's only fifty years, ... +shall I come now, Jemmy?" + +The silver lamp went out. In the starlight Caroline saw the lace cap +droop forward, as the the old woman's head settled gently on her +breast. Her hands lay clasped on the great volume; her deep-set eyes +were closed. She read no more from the book, and the child, awed and +sober, stole like a shadow behind the gray wall and left the quiet +figure in the carved chair. + +Her feet fell into a tiny graveled path, and she drifted aimlessly +along it, musing on the meaning of what she had heard. Almost she +had persuaded herself that the gray stone building was an enchanted +palace, and herself a fairy messenger sent to break the spell, when +the delight of pushing through a tiny turnstile and finding a +running brook with a waterfall in it close at hand, drove everything +else from her mind. The grounds had completely changed their +character by now: the turnstile marked the end of cultivation, and +the little path, no longer graveled, wound through the wild +woodland. Here and there a boulder blocked the way; the undergrowth +became dense; great clumps of fern and rhododendron sent out their +heavy, rank odors. Now and again the spicy scent of warm pines and +cedars prepared the ear for the gentle, ceaseless rustle of their +stiff foliage; little scufflings and chitterings at the ground level +told of wood-people wakened by the presence of Red Rufus. + +A strange whitish bulk that glimmered through the thinning +foreground, too big for even a big boulder, too symmetrical and +quiet for a waterfall, tempted Caroline on, and she pressed forward +hastily, lost in speculation, when a sudden odor foreign to the +woods stopped her short at the very edge of a little glade, and she +paused, sniffing curiously. + +A man, bareheaded, with grizzled curly hair, turned suddenly, not +ten feet from her, and stared dumfounded at her, his twisted, brown +cigar an inch from his lips. + +The torn-out sleeve of her nightgown had bared one side to her +waist: the great rent that slit the lower half of the garment left +one slender leg uncovered above her white knee. A spray of wild +azalea wreathed her dark tumbled hair, and Rufus, his plumy tail +curled around her feet in the shadow, and his green eyes flaming, +might have been a baby panther. She leaned one hand on the rough +bark of a chestnut and gazed with startled eyes at the man; it +seemed that the forest must swallow her at a breath from a human +throat. + +He lifted one hand and pinched the back of the other with it till +his face contorted with the pain. + +"Then there _are_ such things!" he said softly; "well, why not?" + +He moved forward almost imperceptibly. + +"If I were younger, I should know you were not possible," he +muttered, "but now I know that I have never doubted you--really." + +Again he took a small step. Caroline, paralyzed with fear and +embarrassment, for she thought he was merely teasing her a little +before he punished her--his pleasant, low voice and whimsical +manners brought her back suddenly to the ordinary world and the +stern facts of her escapade--shivered slightly, but did not attempt +flight. + +"It was this extraordinary night that brought you out, of course," +he went on, again slightly shortening the distance between them, +"you and the little cub. It was a moon out of five thousand, I +admit. Do you live in that chestnut?" + +With a sudden agile bound he covered the space between them and +seized her by the shoulder. + +"Aha!" he cried, "I have--good heavens, it _is_ a child!" + +"Of course I am--I'm Caroline," she murmured writhing under his +grasp. + +He pulled her out into the little glade. + +"Oh! you're Caroline, are you?" he repeated, thoughtfully; "dear me, +you gave me quite a turn, Caroline. Where did you come from--the big +house?" + +"I came from a long way," she said briefly. "I was--I was taking a +walk. Where do you live? Don't you ever to go bed?" + +The man chuckled. + +"I have been feeling adventures in my bones all day," he said, +"and here they are; a child and a cat. If you will come with +me, Mademoiselle, I will show you where I live." + +He led the way gravely to the dim, white object, and Caroline +perceived it to be a tent, pitched by the side of a spring that +poured through a tiny pipe set into the rock. The tent flap was +tied back, and she saw inside it a narrow cot, covered with a +coarse blue blanket, a roughly made table, spread with a game +of solitaire, and a small leather trunk. On the further side of +the tent there smoked, in a rude, improvised oven of stones, a +dying fire. Above it, under a shelf nailed to the tree, hung a +few simple utensils; two or three large stumps had been hacked +into the semblance of seats. + +To one of these stumps the man led Caroline, and, seating her, he +turned to the shelf above the fire and fumbled among the pots and +pans there, producing finally a buttered roll, a piece of maple +sugar, and a small fruit tart. + +"You must be hungry," he said simply, and Caroline ate greedily. +After he had brought her a tin cup of the spring water, he selected +a brown pipe from a half dozen on the shelf and began filling it +from a leather pouch that hung on the tree. + +"Now let's hear all about it," he said easily. + +"I am running away," said Caroline abruptly. At that moment it +really seemed that she had planned her flight from the hour that +left her, tear-stained and disgraced, in her little bed. + +"They didn't treat you well?" he suggested, picking out a red ember +from the coals on the point of a knife and applying it to the pipe. + +"I'm not to wear my knickers any more," Caroline said, with a gulp, +"and my bathing suit has to have a skirt. I've got to stop p-playing +with the b-boys--so much, that is," she added, honestly. + +The man turned his head slightly. + +"That seems hard," he said; "what's the reason?" + +"I'm 'most twelve," said Caroline; "you have to be a young lady, +then." + +"I see," the man said. He looked at her thoughtfully. "I suppose you +_would_ look larger in more clothes," he added. + +"That's it," she assured him, "I do. That's just it." + +"And so you expect to avoid all this by running away?" he asked, +settling into his own stump seat. "I am afraid you can't do it." + +Caroline set her teeth. He regarded her quizzically. + +"See here," he went on, "I wish you'd take my advice in this +matter." + +They confronted each other in the starlight, a strange pair before +the dying fire. The moon had gone, and the stars, though bright, +seemed less solid and less certainly gold than before. A cool breeze +swept through the wood and Caroline shivered in her torn nightdress. +The man stepped into the tent and returned with a long army cloak. +This he wrapped round her and resumed his seat, with Rufus on his +knee. + +"My name," he said, "is Peter. Everybody calls me that--just Peter. +I don't know exactly why it is, but a lot of people--all over--have +got into the way of taking my advice. Perhaps because I've knocked +about all over the world more or less, and haven't got any wife or +children or brothers and sisters of my own to advise, so I take it +out on everybody else. Perhaps because I try to put myself in the +other fellow's place before I advise him. Perhaps because I've had a +little trouble of my own, here and there, and haven't forgotten it. +Anyhow, I get used to talking things over." + +A gentle stirring seemed to pass through the woods: the birds spoke +softly back and forth, a squirrel chattered. Again that cool wind +swept over the trees. + +"Now, take it this week," the man went on, puffing steadily; "you +wouldn't believe the people just about here who've asked for my +advice. I usually camp up here for a week or so in the summer--the +people who own the property like to have me here--and the first day +I unpacked, up comes a nice girl--I used to make birch whistles for +her mother--to tell me all about her young man. She brought me that +spray of honeysuckle over the pipes--grows over the front gate. She +wants to marry him before her father gets to like him, but she hates +to run away. 'Would you advise me to, Peter?' she says. And I +advised her to wait. + +"Then there's my friend the blacksmith. He lives in a queer little +house with dormer windows under a hill, just off the county road. +He's got a new baby, and he was afraid it wouldn't pull through. He +knew I'd seen a lot of babies--black and red and yellow--and _he_ +wanted my advice. 'Peter, what'll I do?' he says, 'what'll I do?' + +"'Why, just wait, Harvey. He'll live. Just wait,' I told him." + +Caroline listened with interest. He might have been talking to his +equal in years, from his tone. + +"Then, oddly enough," he continued, "here's my old friend in the big +house up yonder--and she _is_ old--and what do you think she's +worried about? She's afraid she _won't_ die! 'Oh, Peter,' she says +to me--she's fond of me because I'm the same age as a little boy of +hers that died--'it seems to me that I can't wait, Peter! What shall +I do?' she says. And I tell _her_ to wait. 'Dear old friend,' said I +to her last night, 'it will come. It's bound to come. Just be +patient.'" + +He paused and knocked his pipe empty. + +"Now, as to your case," he said, "I know how you feel. I'm sorry for +you--by the Lord, I'm sorry for you! But what's the use of running +away? You'll keep on growing up, you know. It's one of the things +that doesn't stop. You can't beat the game by wearing knickers, you +know. And then, there'd come a time when you'd want to quit, +anyhow." + +She shook her head. + +"Really, you would," he assured her, persuasively. "They all do." + +"That's what Uncle Joe says," she admitted, "and Aunt Edith. She +changed her mind, she says--" + +"Are you talking about Joe Holt?" Peter demanded. + +"Yes--do you know him? He lives in a big white house with wistaria +on the side," Caroline cried joyfully. + +"I was a senior when he was a freshman," said Peter. "Then he's +taken the Washburn house." + +"Do you know Aunt Edith, too?" asked Caroline. + +"Yes," said Peter, after a pause, "yes, I know Aunt Edith--or used +to. But I didn't know she--they were up in this country. I haven't +seen her--them for a good while. Does--does she sing yet?" + +"Oh, yes, but not on the stage any more, you know," Caroline +explained. + +"I see. Does she sing, I wonder, a song about--Oh, something about +'my heart'?" + +"'My heart's own heart,' you mean," Caroline said importantly; "yes, +indeed. It's her encore song." + +"I see," said Peter again. + +He looked into the fire, and there was a long silence. After a while +he shook his shoulders like a water-dog. + +"Now, Caroline," he said briskly, "here's the way of this business. +You can't wear knickers until you're one of the boys, and you can't +be one of the boys until you wear knickers. Do you see? So you don't +get anywhere." + +Caroline looked puzzled. She was suddenly overcome with sleep, and +the old familiar names and ways tasted of home and comfort to her +soul. + +"You're too nice to be a boy, Caroline," said Peter, leaning over +her and brushing her azalea-crowned hair tenderly with his lips. "If +you persist in this plan of running away to be a boy, some boy, +growing up anxiously, somewhere, will never forgive you! Take my +advice, and wait--will you? Say 'Yes, Peter.'" + +"Yes, Peter," Caroline murmured, drowsily. + +"Good girl! Then I'll take you home with my little donkey. I don't +believe they've missed you yet. You've come four miles, though, you +little gypsy!" + +He disappeared behind the trees, and Caroline nodded. Later she woke +sufficiently to find herself and Rufus on the blue blanket on the +bottom of a little donkey cart; Peter stood by the gentle, +long-eared head. + +"Thank you, Peter," she murmured, half asleep, "and you'll see Aunt +Edith, won't you?" + +"I don't believe so," he said, very low. "Not yet. Tell her Peter +brought you back. Just Peter. But he can't come yet. Get up, Jenny!" + +They wound out by an old wood road. A cool spiciness flowed though +the green aisles, and as the tiny donkey struck into a dog trot, the +man striding easily at her head, a far-away cock crowed shrilly and +the dawn gleamed white. + + + + +IX + +THE ENDS OF THE EARTH + + +"Caroline!" Henry D. Thoreau cocked one brindled ear cannily and +rapped sharply with his tail on the piazza floor, but there was no +other answer to the call. "Caroline!" The insistent voice rang +louder; it was a very determined voice. A sleepy Angora cat scowled +reprovingly at its violence; a gray and pink parrot mimicked its +hortatory note, but after that the midsummer silence settled down +again. Only the bees droned heavily among the heavy August roses. + +"Don't nag her, dear; it doesn't do any good," a sleepy contralto, +rich as creamy chocolate, crooned out of a scarlet-fringed hammock. + +"That's all very well for you, Edith, you don't have the +responsibility of her. Her father wants her to read a little history +every day, and this is the best time--it's too hot for anything +else." + +"Rather hot for history, dear?" + +"It's not too hot for the Moonstone, I notice! She's been at that +since breakfast, steadily. Not a word for any one." + +"'Moonstone' sounds cool, anyhow," drawled the contralto +appeasingly. + +"Oh, Edith! You're as bad as the child herself!" + +"She's fourteen, dear." + +"Fourteen! What is that?" + +"Anything but a child, when it's you, Sis. You talk to her as if she +were ten." + +"You'd think she was, if you saw her riding that donkey--a great +girl like her!" + +"There it is, dear! One moment she's a baby, the next she's a great +girl! It's hard on her, Sis." + +"But, Edith--that donkey!" + +"Poor Rose-Marie! I rode him myself--bareback and standing up!--when +I was fifteen--at a circus. Do you remember?" + +The voice chuckled unwillingly. "You always were a tomboy, Deedee! +Do you remember Joe's bull fight?" + +[Illustration: Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering +under a heavy arbor vitæ, flat on her stomach.] + +"And the lemonade stand!" Contralto cried, with a rich swoop of +laughter. Their voices took up a happy canon of gold memories; there +were no more cries for Caroline. + +She was not a hundred yards away from the sister aunts, sheltering +under a heavy arbor vitæ, flat on her stomach, her nose glued to the +reprehensible Moonstone: that she had heard the calls and resented +them the scowl between her eyebrows exhibited. Behind her, patiently +at graze, a small, mouse-colored donkey stood, shifting a pair of +quaint panniers from side to side and wagging his scarlet ear +tassels thoughtfully. + +The chapter ended, Caroline rose, peered across to the piazza, +nodded to herself at the flow of voices and shrugged her shoulders. + +"Good old Aunt Deedee!" she muttered, "she choked her off! Now, for +heaven's sake, don't bray, Rose-Marie, and perhaps we can get away. +I wouldn't dare get over to the house for a luncheon; we'll have to +get along with sweet-boughs." + +She slipped the book into one pannier, a cushion into the other +and threw a worn steamer rug over the little beast's back; +Caroline was a luxurious lounger and rarely traveled without +her sumpter mule and his impedimenta. She led him with practiced +quiet away from the house and paused under the gnarled old +sweet-bough tree: the greenish-yellow, almost translucent globes +dotted the lush, warm grass, their languorous sweet filled the +air. Selecting a dozen thoughtfully, she added them to the +donkey's load, and they went on at a foot pace, through the +slowly reddening Baldwins and seek-no-furthers, the tiny +lady-apples and the king-of-Tompkins-counties, through the +belt of dead, warped fruit trees, blighted and gray--"like +those Doré pictures," she murmured to Rose-Marie--down three, +crumbling brick steps, where the little fellow picked his way +as daintily as a careful lady, and across the dusty road into +a pasture trail that led to a wood stretch, sparse at first, +thicker as one plunged in deeper. The sun filtered through in +delicious diamonds; here and there a resinous pine, steeped in +heat, threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk scuttered +across their path, clicking nervously, only to squat on his +haunches and stare beadily at Rose-Marie, taut with quivering +curiosity. Caroline scowled at him. + +"Rise of the Dutch Republic!" she muttered angrily. "I think not!" + +The chipmunk winked sympathetically. + +"Your father says it's as interesting as any novel" (with startling +mimicry of the piazza voice). "I notice _they_ don't read it!" + +The chipmunk's place was empty; only a slight stir among the leaves +marked his path. + +Caroline's eyes widened, grew dreamy. She leaned her sharp elbows on +Rose-Marie's hairy back and threw her weight on him thoughtfully: he +checked and stood like a table. + +"Do you suppose there really are regular roads through the trees, +like the monkeys took Mowgli on?" she queried. + +Rose-Marie waved his long, hairy ears meditatively, but said +nothing. + +"I don't mean in any fairy way," she explained hastily, "but just +scientifically. It might be. Corners and turns and short-cuts--why +not? they all know them. He may be running home by a back way, now, +to call his children to look at Rose-Marie; it's as good as a whole +circus parade to them, I suppose. And they talk to each other...." + +Held in a muse, she leaned against the donkey; the moments slipped +by. She lost all count of time. Her eyes stared emptily at some +sunny flicker, some dappled pattern of leaf work; her ears were +filled with the forest drone, the mysterious murmur made up of so +many nameless instruments that only the Great Conductor can classify +and number them. Time ceased to be. + +At length she woke with a start, shook herself coltishly, and they +pushed on. The wood grew thicker; now and then Rose-Marie had to +force his way along the tiny trail; his red tassels caught on the +twigs. + +"I'll tell you what," Caroline began, suddenly, "I'm going to try +that wood track to-day and see where it goes, to the very end. It +must go somewhere. Where do they haul the wood from, if there isn't +some place at the end? Come on, Rose-Marie!" + +At a point where the trail forked she led the donkey along the wider +and less interesting way. It was ridged and rutty, and Rose-Marie +sniffed disgustedly as he slipped among the gnarled roots; the +apples bumped and slid in the pannier. After a while Caroline +stopped under a tree, ate three of the apples, gave the donkey two, +and resting in an artfully constructed nest of rug and pillow, +dipped refreshingly into the Moonstone. + +"That's a kind of luncheon," she remarked philosophically, "and now +we'll start again. I'll go to the end of this, if it takes all day!" + +They settled down to a dogged pace and after an hour, during which +the wood grew thinner by imperceptible degrees, found themselves on +a relatively easy track that forked suddenly into a genuine country +road, stretching far to left and right of them. It was a new country +to Caroline; she found no landmarks whatever. The road glared with +heat, the dust was powdery, the shade nowhere, once they had cleared +the wood. She sighed with fatigue and emptiness; it seemed a long +pull, and the harbor far from worth the voyage, when all was said +and done. + +"What _did_ we want to get to this nasty hot road for, Rose-Marie?" +she cried pettishly, shifting from one long leg to the other, +shrugging a nervous, bony shoulder. "Oh, what's the sense of +anything, anyway?" + +Rose-Marie turned a patient, clear brown eye toward her and shook +his head vaguely. Gnats buzzed about his flexible ears, and with a +swishing fanning motion he displaced them. + +"If my back aches," she warned him callously, "you'll have to take +me home, you know! Tired or not. It feels as if it might, any +minute. I never used to get tired, this way." + +A half mile along the road, set off to the left, among cool trees +and behind a great well sweep, she perceived suddenly a white farm +house. It stood alone, neighborless and well up on a drained, +southerly slope; smoke rose languidly from one of its chimneys. + +"Perhaps they'll give us some milk, Rose-Marie," said Caroline, "and +farms usually have cookies. If there are any children there, you can +give 'em rides to pay for it!" + +Rose-Marie nodded and they went on with some spirit. As they turned +into the deep front yard Caroline almost wept with comfort and a +pathetic sense of the wayworn wanderer on the edge of home and +rest, so the place breathed of these. Clear and white with the faded +whiteness of old New England white shingles, it drowsed under its +elms; a fire of nasturtiums smoldered along the broken, flagged path +that led to it; phlox and "Bouncing Bets" crowded up among the once +formal bed of larkspur on each side the sagging flagstone steps, +beneath the simple entrance porch. Old-fashioned green paper shades +hung evenly half way down the clean windows; the door stood +hospitably ajar. + +"Just wait there, Rose-Marie, till I find out about things," said +Caroline, tapping lightly on the door. The house was perfectly +silent. She tapped again, and it seemed that something heavy moved +across the floor in a farther room, but there was no answer. Pushing +the door open gently, she stepped in and stood surprised, for she +found herself not in the stiff, unused country "parlor" she had +expected, but a neat bedroom. A quaint four-poster with a fluted +valance, a polished mahogany chest of drawers, a stand by the bed +with a Bible worn to a soft gray and a night lamp on it, some faded +photographs tacked to the white walls--this was an odd reception +room. She hesitated, and again the faint rumbling sound pointed to +some person stirring and she went into the next room. + +Here was a clean, kindly kitchen of the best; a swept floor, a +freshly blackened cooking stove, a row of bright tins. It was +carpeted with faded oilcloth, but rag rugs, washed dim and +soft-toned, lay here and there, and the room was so large that the +spread table, standing in an ell, made only a pleasant episode in +it, a certainty of restoring food at needful times. + +It was evidently a sitting room as well, in the primitive, clear +fashion that groups all domestic life about the central fire that +feeds it; a stand with books, a sewing basket, oil lamps for evening +reading, all not too far from brick-shaped pans where unmistakable +bread rose under a clean, folded, red cloth. The whole place seemed +waiting, quietly, hospitably waiting, for just such an empty, +discouraged pilgrim as Caroline. + +She sank gratefully into a high-backed arm-chair, stuffed to just +the hollow of her tired back, covered with a clean, homely +patchwork, and drew out the faithful Moonstone from under her elbow. + +"Someone'll come soon," she assured herself, and slipped into the +story as a hot swimmer slips off his sunny rock into the waiting +blue. Another world, a delicious, smooth element--Romance +itself--received her, and of hunger and heat, thirst and the fatigue +of the road, she knew no more than the blessed dead themselves.... + +A sharp tap at the farther door disturbed her, and instinctively she +called, "Come in!" + +A swift, swishing step brushed across the bedroom and a slender, +angry-eyed young woman poised like a gull before her. + +"Can I get something to eat here?" + +Her voice was at once imperious, irritated, unsure of itself. It +could not be that the owner of this voice, dressed with that +insolent simplicity that need not consider the costly patience of +the work-women, ringed like a dowager with great audacious squares +of ruby and white diamond, booted and hatted as one who wears and +throws away, with a bag of golden mesh on her wrist to pay the +price of any whim--it could not be that she doubted what answer she +should receive. And yet she did--did, and had before this: so much +was evident at first sight. She was a curious gypsyish type, for all +her _Rue de la Paix_ curvings and slim, inevitable folds and pleats; +a full, drooping mouth in a slender dark face, great brown eyes and +heavy waves of black hair. She looked discontented and ready to make +some one suffer for it. + +"Well--can I?" she repeated, as Caroline stared. "I'm ready to pay, +of course." + +"I don't know--I don't live here," said Caroline shortly. She felt +untidy and badly dressed beside this graceful thing standing in a +faint cloud of subtle perfume of her own; her sleeves were too short +and her heavy shoes knobby and worn. She wanted furiously to smell +sweet like that; and the golden bag--oh, to feel it, powerful and +careless, on her wrist! + +"Can you find out?" said the girl, eyeing the room attentively; "my +car broke down--the man left it in the road and went to Ogdenville +for gasoline. I've got to rest somewhere." + +"I don't know anything about it," Caroline said coldly. "I'm waiting +for someone to come, myself. There's nobody here. I don't live here +at all." + +With that, and because she was embarrassed and cross and hungry, she +opened her book ostentatiously and affected to read busily. The girl +frowned angrily a moment, then gave a foreign little shrug of her +shoulder and settled herself in a low rocking chair near the bread, +her hands loose in her lap. The old clock ticked reprovingly through +the hot and conscious silence of the room, but there was no other +sound. Caroline could not have lifted her eyes to save her life, and +the older girl's lips curled scornfully: her eyelids were sullen. + +After a few moments of this intolerable stillness the same low +rumbling sound was heard again, this time moving nearer. Something +was advancing to the kitchen from a farther room, and as they looked +instinctively at the door it pushed open slowly and a sort of foot +rest upon wheels appeared; two large wheels followed, and a woman +pushed her chair into the kitchen. She was a large, good-looking +woman, middle-aged, and not weak, evidently, for she managed her +chair easily with one hand; the other held a slice of pink ham on a +white platter in her lap. Her face, under a placid parting of +grayish fair hair, was rather high colored than of an invalid +pallor, her chest broad and deep, her blue eyes at once kind and +keen. She wore a neat dress of dark-blue print with a prim, +old-fashioned linen collar and a blue bow, a white apron around her +plump waist almost covered the patchwork quilt that wrapped her from +the hips down: a shell comb showed slightly above her crisp hair. As +she faced her two angry guests a smile of unmistakable sincerity and +delight greeted them. + +"Well, of all things!" she cried eagerly; "how long, 'you been +here?" + +Caroline waited sulkily for her social superior; the girl was +undoubtedly a "young lady." Her errand was soon explained, her +question asked. + +"Something to eat?" echoed their delighted hostess. "Well, I should +think so! I'm just getting my dinner. Of course I'm all alone, this +time o' day, but I always say if I'm good enough to cook it well, +I'm good enough to eat it comfortable, and I sit down to table +just's if the family was all here. There's some that believe in a +bite and a bit, when the men folks are out, but I never did. And +then--" she blushed shyly like a girl--"I always want to feel ready +in case anyone should come. Just in case. He says it's foolishness, +but look at you two, now! How'd I feel if I wasn't prepared! And +once--in April, 'twas--a sewing-machine man came. I had ham then, +too." + +She beamed on them, frankly overjoyed in their company, and in the +mellow warmth of that honest pleasure the fog and anger in the room +rolled back like mist under a noon sun, and Caroline unbent, named +herself, and mentioned her donkey and their woodland journey. + +"You don't say!" + +Quick as a flash their hostess was across the room and peering +through the window. + +"Well, of all the funny little fellows! I never saw one before, that +I remember. Aren't those red tossels neat, though! I s'pose he's +tame?" + +Caroline put him through his paces, as he came like a dog at her +call, and she of the wheel chair applauded like a child at a Punch +and Judy. + +"We saw so many of those in Italy," said the older girl. "I rode one +in the Alps." + +The woman's face flushed a deep, quick red; she gripped the arms of +her chair and stared at the nervous little jeweled creature before +her as if she were a vision of the night. + +"Have you been to Italy?" she cried eagerly, "not really!" + +"Me? Oh, yes, I've been all over Europe," said the girl +indifferently. "Why? Do you like it?" + +Now it was the woman who echoed, "Me?" + +She flashed a whimsical look at Caroline; instinct taught her that +they were two to one, here. + +"Why, dear, I've never been out of Lockwood's Corners in my life!" + +Simple, rude incredulity pushed out the girl's lip. + +"Nonsense!" she said brusquely, "that's ridiculous!" + +"Maybe it is," her hostess answered quietly, "but it's true, all the +same. I never have." Gold-bag did not blush for her rudeness, for +the simple reason that she did not realize it, and Caroline suddenly +felt less embarrassed by her. Girls of that age were too old to talk +so pettishly to people not in their own families, and she twiddled +her fingers too much, anyway, and stared too much, or else, again, +she didn't look at one enough. + +"You've been to New York, haven't you?" she asked abruptly. + +"Never," said the woman. "I've been this way since I was seventeen. +I'm a pretty heavy woman, you know, and they couldn't put me on a +train very well. So--" + +"There's plenty of room in a drawing-room car." + +"I guess we couldn't afford that," said the woman simply. + +There was an awkward pause; Caroline blushed furiously. How horrid +it all was! But their hostess brushed it away in a moment. + +"And here you are hungry!" she cried; "the idea! I'll get this ham +right on and fry up some potatoes--I'll do them French! I've got +some fresh raised-doughnuts--I got the prize for them at the county +fair, years ago, so I know they're all right--and some summer apple +sauce; 'tain't much, with summer apples, but I put in lemon peel and +a taste o' last year's cider--it makes a relish, anyhow; and I've +got some fine sweet-pickled watermelon rind. I could have had sponge +cakes, if I'd only known! Would you care to try a cut pie? The +sewing-machine man said he hadn't tasted anything like my squash pie +in years. It was cut, too." + +With incredible swiftness she rolled from table to buttery, from +stove to larder. As the pink ham curled and sputtered in its savory +juices, she turned an earnest face to the girl who watched her +curiously. + +"Can't you tell us a little about Italy, while we're waiting?" she +begged. + +"It's full of fleas," said the traveler carelessly, "and moldy old +places--it's awfully cold, too. I wore my furs a lot of the time. It +smells bad nearly everywhere. Do you stay here in the winter, too?" + +"I've stayed here forty-five winters"--she turned the ham +capably--"and I expect to stay as many more as the Lord spares my +life! I was born here. So was father. Grandfather was born right in +the Corners. In eighty-eight we were snowed up a week here. Mr. +Winterpine--that's my husband--had bronchitis, and he couldn't get +out to tend to the stock. Edgar--that was the hired man's name--was +only twenty, and I had to help with one of the cows; I went out in +my chair through a snow tunnel!" + +She chuckled reminiscently and her guests listened, fascinated. + +"We were caught in a bad storm outside of St. Petersburg, once," +Gold-bag volunteered. "If it hadn't been for J. G. we'd have gone +out, probably. As it was, the driver lost a finger." + +"St. Petersburg, Russia?" the woman inquired respectfully, her +skillet full of potatoes colored like autumn beech leaves. + +The girl nodded. "J. G. swore at the man, so he didn't _dare_ die," +she continued, with a hard little grin; "and we just about pulled +through." + +"Who is J. G.?" asked Caroline abruptly. + +"J. G. Terwilliger," she answered simply. It was as if one had said +"Edward Seventh" or "Adelina Patti" or "P. T. Barnum." + +"Who's he?" + +"He's my father, for one thing. I suppose you know who he is as well +as anybody else." + +"I never heard of him," Caroline said carelessly, "are you all +ready, now, Mrs. Winterpine?" + +"He is the greatest mining expert in the world," the girl declared +emphatically, "and I don't know where you've lived not to know it. +You--" with a look at the woman, "you know him, of course?" + +"I don't know anybody of that name, no," the woman admitted; "but +then, you know, we don't know much, 'way off here, about city +people." + +"There hasn't been a daily paper for ten days that hasn't had his +name in it," the girl remarked dryly. + +Mrs. Winterpine wiped her face, flanked the ham with the potatoes, +assembled an incredible array of sweets and relishes in odd, thick +little glass dishes, and with a wave of her hand indicated her +guests' places. + +"We take the _Lockwood's Corners Clarion_," she explained +pacifically. + +They addressed themselves to the meal, a strange trio. Caroline, +usually a hopeless chatterbox, fell somehow and inevitably into the +listener's seat. Their hostess could no longer be denied: her thirst +gleamed in her eyes, and flesh and blood could not have withstood +her plea for tidings of those distant, rosy lands whose laden +wharves she could never see, nor ever glimpse their tiled roofs +under foreign sunsets, their white spires beneath mysterious moons. +Their clothes: was it true that the French wore wooden shoes? She +had read that men in Italy walked in gay capes, colored like birds. +Was there water in the streets, and were boats really their +carriages? Did soldiers, red-coated, demand passports? Had her guest +seen the snow tops of green slopes? Did dogs drag milk carts for +white-capped women? + +The girl, sulky at first, yielded finally, and in quick, nervous +phrases poured out of her full budget. Taken from her convent +school in California at fifteen, she had roamed the world with the +tireless "J. G." From Panama to Alaska, from Cairo to Christiania, +with her uncreased Paris frocks and the discontented line between +her dark eyes, she had steamed and sailed and ridden; she had +ridden a camel in Algeria, a gelding in Hyde Park, a broncho +on the Western plains. + +"Why do you call your father 'J. G.'?" Caroline demanded suddenly. + +"Do you like 'Klondike Jim' any better? That's his other name," +Gold-bag shot at her defiantly. + +Then came strange tales of a flaring, glaring mining camp: lights +and liquor and bared knives, rough men and rougher words, and in the +midst a thin, big-eyed little creature in the hand of a burly, +red-shirted miner, with the very gift of gold under his matted hair, +the scent for it in his blunt nostrils, the feel for it in his +callous finger tips. Klondike Jim! He had made for his Klondike as a +bloodhound makes for the quarry; he could not be mistaken. Night and +day she had been with him, his first claim named for her--the +Madeline--his first earnings a gold belt for her childish waist! + +And then, money and money and more money. Rivers of it, ponds of it. + +"If J. G. said there was copper under Fifth Avenue, they'd dig it up +to-morrow!" + +"You must be real proud of him," said Mrs. Winterpine genially. + +"I used to be," the girl answered, with her mouth a little awry. + +"My dear, my dear!" + +"Oh, yes," she cried angrily, pushing back her chair and facing +them; "all very well, but who are we? Who was my mother? Who was my +grandfather? Where did we come from? Will a sapphire bracelet answer +me that, do you think? Who knows us? 'Miss Maddy Money Bags'! How +long do you think I'd stay in that convent? Who does J. G. know? +Hotelmen and barkeeps and presidents of things! If you could see the +counts he wanted me to marry! If you could hear the couriers laugh +at him!" + +"But think of all the traveling you've done, dear! What things to +remember! How happy--" + +"Happy! I hate it. As J. G. says, I hate it like--well, I just hate +it," she concluded, with propriety, if a little lamely. + +Something in the look she cast around the warm, clean kitchen struck +the woman suddenly. "You don't mean you'd rather live here--_here_?" +she exclaimed amazedly. + +"Don't you like it?" queried Madeline sharply. + +Mrs. Winterpine considered a moment. "You see, it's my home," she +began. The girl's dry laugh interrupted her. + +"That's just it. It's your home," she repeated. "We haven't any. +That's the idea. What's the use of traveling if you can't come home? +And we can't, ever. Unless we go back to the Klondike," she added +satirically. + +There was a long pause. It seemed that the girl was slowly +undressing herself before them: travel and money and gold bag and +scented linings slipped from her like so many petticoats and left +her thin and cold between them, warm as they were in their solid +homespun of kin and hearth. Lean and empty, a houseless, flitting, +little shadow, she had scoured the world and sat now, envious, by a +kitchen fire. How strange! + +Mrs. Winterpine gathered the dishes with accustomed hands and piled +them by a pan of hot, soapy water. Caroline, sobered, rose to help +her with the instinctive courtesy of the home-trained child, but +drew back at her shaken head and waving finger, and followed her +glance toward her other guest, who stared morosely into the +dooryard, her chin in her ringed, brown hand. She was evidently not +far from tears--in a nervous crisis. + +"I wonder if you'd help me with these dishes, Madeline?" said the +woman quietly, and with a start the girl rose, stood meekly while a +checked apron was tied about her waist and received the moist, +shining ware from the plump hands without a word. She appeared to +have utterly forgotten Caroline. + +After a few moments of rhythmical click and splash, a few journeys +from sink to dresser, the tension broke quietly and the air was +aware of it, as when a threatened thunderstorm goes by above and +dissipates in wind. Feeling this, Mrs. Winterpine began to talk +softly, half to herself it seemed, for her voice took on the tone +of one who is much alone and thinks aloud. + +"All my life I've been crazy for travel. I used to read my geography +book till I wore it out nearly; the exports and the imports, you +know? And the pictures of those Arabian men with white turbans, and +the South Sea Islanders riding on surf boards--I can see 'em now. +There was a castle for Germany, with the moon behind it and the +Rhine--do you know 'Bingen on the Rhine'? I love the sound of that. +And the Black Forest! Think of it!" + +She paused with a platter dripping in her hand, her eyes fixed; and +so strong was the compulsion of her vision that to Caroline, vibrant +as a wind harp to such suggestion, the splash of the water in the +tin was the very tinkle of Undine's mystic stream and _Kühleborn_, +that wicked uncle-brook dashed in cold floods over the belated +knight in the dark German wood! + +"I dreamed once about an Indian temple," the woman went on, "and +you'd really think I'd been there, I saw it so plain. Fat priests +and that big idol that sits cross-legged, all made of brass, and +smiling; and such funny drums and pipes--creepy music. The heathens +brought wreaths and stretched out on their stomachs flat on the +ground. I'd read it somewhere, I guess. I could smell the flowers, +like pond lilies and honeysuckle." + +She poured away the dish water, wiped the pan and began rinsing her +towels and cloths in a small wooden tub bound with tin. The girl +moved aimlessly about the room, fingering the worn furniture. + +"That clock looks awfully old," she said abruptly, pausing before a +square high Dutch affair with a ridiculous picture of Mount Vernon, +wobbly-columned, let in at the bottom. + +"Goodness, yes! That clock--why, that clock was a wedding present to +Lorenzo's great aunt Valeria--she was a Swedenborgian, I believe. +She used to have trances and she could tell you where things were +lost. That chair by the window was her mother's. It's made with +wooden nails, dowels, they call 'em." + +"Did she live here, too?" + +"Yes, indeed. The Winterpines are great hands to stay in one place. +And the way they come back to die! I'm half Winterpine myself--he +and I were second cousins--and I well remember Uncle Milton +Winterpine coming home from Java to die in his bed. He was a sailor, +and how I used to hang around and coax him to tell me what he'd +seen! I remember how he staggered into the house--Mother Winterpine +was living then. + +"'Here, Esther, here's a fifty-pound sack of Old Gov'ment Javvy for +ye, green, and fit for the president's table as soon's it gits +ripe,' he says, 'and you won't have to nurse me long;' and we got +his boots off and helped him to bed. He never left it. He brought me +a parrot, that trip, sort of indigo color and pink. It used to set +me thinking of the hot countries and pineapples and natives, and +those tall trees with all the leaves on top--palms, I guess I mean. +It seems the stars are lower, there, and look bigger; did you ever +see the Southern Cross?" + +"Oh, yes. It's like any other stars. The first officer on the P & O +line always asks me to come and see it. Then he proposes. J. G. +plays poker the whole trip. He can't lose. He says it's tiresome." + +The strange dialogue went on for what might have been an hour. Far +ports and foreign streets, full sails and thronged inns, the +fountains of paved courts, the market squares of dark and vivid +nations, blossomed from the tongue of this chair-bound woman in her +farmhouse prison; and from the blind, unhappy voyager came halting, +telegraphic phrases: climate and train schedules and over-lavish +fees, miles and meals and petty miseries. No sunset had stained her +hurried way, no handed flowers from shy street children had +sweetened it. And ever and again she returned insistently to the +barnyard interests of the Winterpines! + +"See here!" she burst out suddenly, "I'll tell you what I'll do! I +told J. G. that I wouldn't go another step with him--mascot or no +mascot. He wants to go over the Himalayas--to start next week--he +has an idea. But if you'll go, I'll take you! What do you say? My +guest, of course: it don't cost you a penny." + +The woman turned utterly white. Where her knuckles gripped the arms +of the chair they showed a bluish tinge. + +"Me? Me?" she whispered. Her eyes fell to her helpless knees. + +"Oh, you needn't think of that at all," said Madeline. "I knew a man +who didn't _have_ any legs, even, that went round the world and up +the Pyramids. He had money." + +The woman looked wildly about. Her eyes fell on Caroline and this +seemed to bring her into some sort of focus again; the color came +back to her face. + +"That was lovely for you to think of, dear," she said, breathlessly +yet; "but--but--for a moment I forgot.... I--I didn't think of +Lorenzo!" + +"Oh, we'll get a housekeeper for Lorenzo," Madeline said lightly; +"he'll do very well, won't he? One man can't be much to take care +of--you haven't any children?" + +The easy, equal tone, the bright, dry impudence of this little air +plant, this rootless, aimless bubble skipping over the bottomless +deeps of life, brought the dazzled woman quickly to herself. She +looked compassionately at the girl. + +"No," she said gravely, her hands unconsciously flying to her deep +breast; "we haven't any children. And he's not much to take care +of--for his wife. But he wouldn't care for a housekeeper." + +"Oh!" her eyes fell uneasily. "Then we'll take him along!" She +recovered herself. + +Mrs. Winterpine sent her chair with a swift push close to the girl +and laid one hand on her hot forehead, pushing back the thick hair. + +"What a gen'rous little thing you are!" she cried wonderingly. "But +where were you brought up, child? Lorenzo can't jump and run off to +the Himalaya Mountains like that! It takes him a long time to make +up his mind. He--he don't care for travel, besides. He's a regular +Winterpine. And there's the stock. No. I guess I'll keep on doing my +traveling at home. That book you said you'd send...." + +"I'll send a dozen--fifty!" the girl cried impulsively. "I'll bring +them up from New York to-morrow! I'll bring some pictures, too. The +Alps and Venice and the snapshots I took on the Nile! You seem to +know how they look, well enough!" + +"Yes, I know, I know...." the woman repeated dreamily. + +"Don't you want to go?" Madeline urged curiously. + +Again Mrs. Winterpine turned white. + +"Then why don't you?" + +"Child, child!" cried she of the chair, "didn't I tell you he don't +care for travel? We can't do as we like in this world--we don't live +alone. We're placed. There's a hundred things.... Where were you +brought up?" + +Madeline's face flushed a dark, heavy red. Her light confidence +drowned in it; she dropped her eyes. + +"In the Klondike!" she said sullenly, "I told you." + +A loud, whirring horn cut through the country quiet. A great rattle +of gear and chain stormed along the road. + +"There's the machine!" the girl said sulkily; "I must go. It's +fifteen miles to Ogdenville, and a vile road. Good-by--I'll be up +with the books in a day or two." + +She moved to the door. + +"If I can't come--I change my mind awfully--I'll send them just the +same, and--and--" a curious sense of struggle, a visible effort at +thought for another, an attempt to grasp an alien point of view, +dawned in the defiant dark eyes--"I'll write to you from India, if +you want. Would you like it? I can take snap shots...." + +"You're real gen'rous, dear," said her hostess, and wheeling quickly +to her, kissed her warmly. + +She was gone in a cloud of dust. Caroline and the woman sat in +silence. At last Rose-Marie yawned pitifully and his mistress got up +with reluctance. + +"Good-by, Mrs. Winterpine," she said soberly; "I have to go home. +They'll be anxious about me. But I'll come again." + +"Do, my dear," said the other; "this'll be a wonderful summer for +me, with so much company. Wonderful. He'll be interested. But you +run right on: don't let the folks worry. I never had any children, +but I always had my heart set on a daughter. Good-by." + +Caroline and the donkey walked slowly off toward the wood, which +cast cool shadows. They vanished into its depths, and Mrs. +Winterpine sat and watched them kindly from her chair, as one +watches off the traveler bound for far and golden countries. + +"He'd have liked that young one," she said softly. + + * * * * * + + + + +The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the +Macmillan novels. + + + + +NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA" + +(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT) + + +_Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_ + + +The Garden of a Commuter's Wife Illustrated + +"Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that +is the proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and +love of nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of 'folks.' +... It is a charming book."--_The Interior_. + + +People of the Whirlpool Illustrated + +"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its +just perspective of the true values of things, its clever pen +pictures of people and customs, and its healthy optimism for the +great world in general."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph_. + + +The Woman Errant + +"The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an +interesting fictional presentation of an important modern question, +treated with fascinating feminine adroitness."--Miss JEANNETTE +GILDER in the _Chicago Tribune_. + + +At the Sign of the Fox + +"Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine +love of nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural +character."--_New York Tribune_. + + +The Garden, You and I + +"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too +deliciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in +Spain.... The delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, and +without which Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its +poignancy."--_Congregationalist_. + + +The Open Window. Tales of the Months. + +"A little vacation from the sophistication of the +commonplace."--_Argonaut_. + + +Poppea of the Post-Office + +"A rainbow romance, ... tender yet bracing, cheerily stimulating ... +its genial entirety refreshes like a cooling shower."--_Chicago +Record-Herald_. + + +Princess Flower Hat _Just Ready_ + +A Comedy from the Perplexity Book of Barbara the Commuter's Wife. + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * + + + + +BY ZONA GALE + + +Friendship Village + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ + +"As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and +sometimes both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows +whether laughter or tears are fittest for his emotions.... This book +especially makes for higher thinking and better living and +emphasizes the existence of these virtues in lowly places as well as +high."--_New York Times_. + +"The characters are like an orchestra, each instrument holding a +part of its own, all interwoven to a harmonious whole; an orchestra +of strings, be it added, for even the Proudfits' motor fails to +introduce a note of brass.... With the wholesome pungency of humor +that pervades it all, the book cannot fail to find a welcome."--_New +York Post_. + +"There is not a trace of sarcasm or even grotesqueness; her +villagers are not caricatures; they are efficient, useful men and +women whose individualities have been crystallized into distinct +outlines by their limited environments and intimate relations. The +book is happily optimistic, presenting, indeed, the commonplaces of +narrow lives but breathing also the underlying spirit of poetry and +romance."--_Baltimore Sun_. + + +The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ + +"To all who know the hidden sources of human joy and have neither +grown old in cynicism nor gray in utilitarianism, Miss Gale's +charming love stories, full of fresh feeling and grace of style, +will be a draught from the fountain of youth."--_Outlook_. + +"The achievement is unusual for delicacy, subtlety, and the ... +felicitous tenderness which brood over the book like a golden +autumnal haze which dims the outlines of common things and +beautifies them.... The story is indeed unique in this, that it is +an idyl for the aged--a romance of seventy."--_Chicago Tribune_. + +"It is an ideal book for husband and wife to read aloud together.... +Its picture of steadfast love in old age is the best kind of +idealism."--_Chicago Record Herald_. + + +PUBLISHED BY +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York + + * * * * * + + + + +Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS + +_Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ + + +The Choir Invisible + +_This can also be had in a special edition illustrated by Orson +Lowell, $2.50_ + +"One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the +book out of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to the +very core.... Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American +novelists. _The Choir Invisible_ will solidify a reputation already +established and bring into clear light his rare gifts as an artist. +For this latest story is as genuine a work of art as has come from +an American hand."--HAMILTON MABIE in _The Outlook_. + + +The Reign of Law. A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields + +"Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished +as Hawthorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual +suggestion that makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are +lacking in so many novels of the period.... If read in the right +way, it cannot fail to add to one's spiritual possessions."--_San +Francisco Chronicle_. + + +The Mettle of the Pasture + +"It may be that _The Mettle of the Pasture_ will live and become a +part of our literature; it certainly will live far beyond the +allotted term of present-day fiction. Our principal concern is that +it is a notable novel, that it ranks high in the range of American +and English fiction, and that it is worth the reading, the +re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care for +modern literature at its best."--By E. F. E. in the _Boston +Transcript_. + + +Summer in Arcady. A Tale of Nature _Cloth, $1.25_ + +"This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It +is artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in +its descriptions, dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents; +indeed, a veritable masterpiece that must become classic. It is +difficult to give an outline of the story; it is one of the stories +which do not outline; it must be read."--_Boston Daily Advertiser_. + + +_Shorter Stories_ + +The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky $1.50 +Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales $1.50 +The Bride of the Mistletoe $1.25 +A Kentucky Cardinal. _Illustrated_ $1.00 +Aftermath. 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Yet Mr. Herrick's interesting new novel +only begins there; the best brief description of it is, indeed,--a +novel about married people for all who are married. + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of While Caroline Was Growing, by +Josephine Daskam Bacon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING *** + +***** This file should be named 19869-8.txt or 19869-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/6/19869/ + +Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, Stephen Hope, Fox in the +Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: While Caroline Was Growing + +Author: Josephine Daskam Bacon + +Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19869] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING *** + + + + +Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, Stephen Hope, Fox in the +Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1 style="padding-bottom: 3em; font-family: serif;">WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING</h1> + +<h2 style="padding-bottom: 1em;">BOOKS ABOUT CHILDREN</h2> +<h4 style="padding-bottom: 1em;">BY</h4> +<h3 style="padding-bottom: 2em;">JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON</h3> + +<div class="bbox"> +<h3>THE MADNESS OF PHILIP</h3> +<h3>MEMOIRS OF A BABY</h3> +<h3>BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY</h3> +<h3>THE IMP AND THE ANGEL</h3> +<h3>SISTER'S VOCATION</h3> +<h3>TEN TO SEVENTEEN</h3> +</div> + +<p class="figcenter" style="padding-top: 10em;"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" title="logo" alt="logo" width="100" height="37" /> +</p> + +<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +<span style="font-size: x-small">NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO<br /> +· SAN FRANCISCO</span></h4> + +<h4>MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br /> +<span style="font-size: x-small">LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA<br /> +· MELBOURNE</span></h4> + +<h4>THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="smcap">Ltd</span>.<br /> +<span style="font-size: x-small">TORONTO</span></h4> + + +<h1 style="padding-top: 5em; padding-bottom: 2em; font-family: serif;">WHILE CAROLINE<br /> +WAS GROWING</h1> + +<h5>BY</h5> + +<h3 style="padding-bottom: 5em;">JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON</h3> + +<h5 style="letter-spacing: 2px; padding-bottom: 5em;"><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></h5> + +<h5>NEW YORK</h5> +<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h4> +<h6>1911</h6> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<h5 style="font-size: x-small; padding-bottom: 5em;"><i>All rights reserved</i></h5> + + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1906, by P. F. Collier & Son</p> +<p class="center">Copyright, 1907, by the S. S. McClure Co.</p> +<p class="center">Copyright, 1909, by the S. S. McClure Co., Benjamin B. Hampton,<br /> +P. F. Collier & Son, and by the Phelps Publishing Company</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1911, by The Macmillan Company</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p class="center" style="padding-bottom: 10em;">Set up and Electrotyped. Published March, 1911</p> + + +<h5>Norwood Press:</h5> +<h5 style="padding-bottom: 5em;">Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</h5> + + +<div class="bbox"><h3 style="font-family: serif;">To S. B.<br /> +long Caroline's admirer,<br /> +from J. D. B.</h3></div> + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<table summary="table of contents" style="width: 500px;"> +<colgroup span="3"> +<col width="5%"></col> +<col width="80%"></col> +<col width="15%"></col> +</colgroup> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="3">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">I.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">An Idyl of the Road</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#i">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">II.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Little Victory for the General</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#ii">38</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">III.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Prize</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#iii">77</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">IV.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Where Thieves Break in</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#iv">113</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">V.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Pillar of Society</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#v">158</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">VI.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">His Father's House</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#vi">202</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">VII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Pretenders</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#vii">235</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">VIII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Watch in the Night</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#viii">269</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">IX.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Ends of the Earth</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#ix">297</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="illustrations" id="illustrations"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<table summary="list of illustrations" style="width: 500px;"> +<colgroup span="2"> +<col width="85%"></col> +<col width="15%"></col> +</colgroup> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2" style="padding-bottom: 1em;">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" style="padding-bottom: 1em;">With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portière +and disappeared.</td> +<td class="tdc" style="padding-bottom: 1em;"><a href="#Illus_66">66</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" style="padding-bottom: 1em;">"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a vordt! +Mein Gott! but it is marvellous."</td> +<td class="tdc" style="padding-bottom: 1em;"><a href="#Illus_74">74</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" style="padding-bottom: 1em;">"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly.</td> +<td class="tdc" style="padding-bottom: 1em;"><a href="#Illus_118">118</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" style="padding-bottom: 1em;">Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched +abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain.</td> +<td class="tdc" style="padding-bottom: 1em;"><a href="#Illus_274">274</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" style="padding-bottom: 1em;">Across the court was a lighted room with a long French +window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, +carved chair a very old woman.</td> +<td class="tdc" style="padding-bottom: 1em;"><a href="#Illus_282">282</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" style="padding-bottom: 1em;">Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a +heavy arbor vitæ, flat on her stomach.</td> +<td class="tdc" style="padding-bottom: 1em;"><a href="#Illus_299">299</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1> </h1><h1> </h1> +<h2><a name="WHILE_CAROLINE_WAS_GROWING" id="WHILE_CAROLINE_WAS_GROWING"></a> +WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h2><a name="i" id="i"></a>I</h2> + +<h2>AN IDYL OF THE ROAD</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/c.png" title="C" height="44" width="32" alt="C" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">aroline</span> rocked herself back and forth +from her waist, defying the uncompromisingly +straight chair which inclosed her +portly little person.</p> + +<p>"Bounded 'n th' <i>north</i> by <i>Mass'joosetts</i>; bounded +'n th' <i>north</i> by <i>Mass'joosetts</i>; bounded 'n th' +<i>north</i> by <i>Mass'joosetts</i>," she intoned in a monotonous +chant. But her eyes were not upon the +map; like those of the gentleman in the poem, +they were with her heart, and that was far away.</p> + +<p>Out of the window the spring was coming on, +in waves of tree-bloom and bright grass; the +birds bickered sweetly in the sun-patches; everything +was reaching on tiptoe for the delicious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +thrill of May—and she was bounding Connecticut! +It was idiotic. What was a knowledge +of the uninteresting limits of her native State +compared to that soft fresh wind on her cheek, +that indescribable odor of brown earth?</p> + +<p>Two fat birds descended with a twitter into +a crystal rain-pool, and bathed, with splashes +of spray; Caroline's feet itched in her ribbed +stockings. A soiled and freckled boy, bare from +the knees, whistled by the window, jangling a +can of bait, his pole balanced prettily on one +ragged shoulder. As he reached the puddle, a +pure inconsequence of good feeling seized him, +and he splashed deliberately in it, grinning around +him. Caroline mechanically bent and unbuttoned +the top button of her stout boots. He caught +her eye.</p> + +<p>"Where you going?" she called through the +glass.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I d'no—anywheres, I guess!" he answered +invitingly. "Want to come?"</p> + +<p>"I can't. I have to go to school," she said +shortly.</p> + +<p>"And so ought he—you ought to be ashamed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +of yourself, calling through the window to that +Simms boy!" cried a disgusted voice. Caroline +twitched her shoulder spitefully.</p> + +<p>"A great girl like you, too! Why, he's no +better than a common tramp, that boy," proceeded +the voice. "Look at his clothes!"</p> + +<p>"Nobody wears good clothes to go fishing," +Caroline grumbled. "I wish he had mine!"</p> + +<p>"Fishing! He never wears them anywhere. +He hasn't got them to wear. And he'd be glad +enough to get yours, I can tell you."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't do any such thing! He told +me Saturday he'd rather be a dog than a girl; +he'd get more use of his legs!"</p> + +<p>There was a scandalized silence. Caroline +waited grimly.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" said the voice at last. +"Studying my jography," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, mind you do, then."</p> + +<p>"I can't, if everybody talks to me all the time," +she muttered sullenly.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless she resumed her rocking and +crooning.</p> + +<p>"Bounded 'n th' <i>east</i> by Rho <i>Disland</i>; bounded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +'n th' <i>east</i> by Rho <i>Disland</i>; bounded 'n th' <i>east</i> +by <i>Rho Disland</i>."</p> + +<p>The housemaid appeared just under the window, +dragging a small step-ladder and a pail of glistening, +soapy water. Her head was coifed in a fresh +starched towel, giving her the appearance of a +holy sister of some clean blue-and-white order; +her eyes were large and mournful. She appealed +instantly to Caroline's imagination.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Katy, what a lovely Mother Superior +you would make!" she cried enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>"I'm a Presbyterian, Miss Car'line," said Katy +reprovingly. "You'd better go on with your +lessons," and she threw up the window from the +outside.</p> + +<p>A great puff of spring air burst into the room +and turned it into a garden. Moist turf and +sprouting leaves, wet flagstones and blowing +fruit-blossoms, the heady brew of early morning +in the early year assailed Caroline's quivering +nostrils and intoxicated her soul.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Katy, don't it smell grand!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Katy wrung the soapy cloth and attacked the +upper sash.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +"You've got the nose of a bloodhound," she +observed. "I b'lieve you'd smell molasses cookies +half a mile."</p> + +<p>Caroline sighed.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean them," she said. "I meant<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"You'd better be at your lesson; your aunty'll +be here in a minute if she hears you talking, now!"</p> + +<p>Katy was severe, but fundamentally friendly. +Caroline groaned and applied herself.</p> + +<p>"Bounded 'n th' <i>south</i> by Long Island <i>Sound</i>; +bounded 'n th' <i>south</i> by Long Island <i>Sound</i>; +bounded 'n th' <i>south</i>—oh, look!"</p> + +<p>Up the neat flagged path of the side yard a +spotted fox-terrier approached, delicately erect +upon his hind legs, his mouth spread in cheerful +smiles, his ears cocked becomingly. He paused, +he waved a salute, and as a shrill whistle from +behind struck up a popular tune, he waltzed +accurately up to the side porch and back, retaining +to the last note his pleased if painstaking smile.</p> + +<p>Caroline gasped delightedly; Katy's severity +relaxed.</p> + +<p>"That's a mighty cute little dog," she admitted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +Another shrill whistle, and the dog returned, +limping on three legs, his ears drooping, his stumpy +tail dejected. He paused in the middle of the +walk, and at a sharp clap, as of two hands, he +dropped limply on his side, rolled to his back, and +stiffened there pathetically, his eyes closed.</p> + +<p>Caroline's chin quivered; Katy's position on +the ladder was frankly that of one who has paid +for an orchestra-chair; Maggie had left the +cookies and stood grinning in the kitchen door; +an aunt appeared in an upper window.</p> + +<p>One more clap, and the actor returned to life +and left them, but only for a moment. He was +back again, erect and smiling, a small wicker +basket balanced on his paws. Marching sedately +up to Maggie, he paused, and glanced politely +down at the basket, then up at her.</p> + +<p>Flesh and blood could not resist him. Hastily +tugging out from her petticoat a bulging +pocket-book, she deposited a dime in the basket; +the aunt, with extraordinary accuracy, dropped +a five-cent piece from the window; Katy mourned +her distance from her own financial center, and +Caroline ran for her bank. It was a practical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +mechanism, the top falling off at her onslaught +with the ease of frequent exercise, and she +returned in time to slip six pennies under the +two hot cookies that Maggie had added to her +first contribution. At each tribute the terrier +barked twice politely, and only when there +was no more to be hoped for did he trot off +around the corner of the house, the cookies +swaying at a perilous angle under his quivering +nostrils.</p> + +<p>A moment later a tall young man stepped +across the grass and lifted a worn polo-cap from +a reddish-yellow head.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged, all," he said, with an awkward +little bow. "Good day!"</p> + +<p>He turned, whistled to the terrier, and was +going on, when he caught the heartfelt admiration +of Caroline's glance.</p> + +<p>"Want to pat him?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>She nodded and approached them.</p> + +<p>"Shake hands with the lady, William Thayer, +and tell her how d'you do," he commanded, as +she knelt beside the wonderful creature.</p> + +<p>The terrier offered a cool, tremulous paw,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +and barked with cheerful interrogation as she +shook it rapturously.</p> + +<p>"Those were fine cookies," said the young man. +"I had 'em for breakfast. I'm going to buy a +bone for William Thayer, and then he'll have +some, too."</p> + +<p>"Was that <i>all</i> you had?" she inquired, horror-stricken. +He nodded. "But I'll make it up on +dinner," he added lightly.</p> + +<p>Caroline sprang to her feet.</p> + +<p>"You go over there behind that barn and wait +a minute," she commanded.</p> + +<p>The young man—he was only a boy—blushed +under his tan and bit his lip.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean—I'll get along all right; you +needn't bother," he muttered, conscious of Katy's +suspicious eye.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do! Please do!" she entreated. "I'll +be out there in just a minute; hurry up, before +Maggie gets through those cookies!"</p> + +<p>He turned toward the barn, and Caroline +ran back to the house.</p> + +<p>"Is that man gone? What are you doing, +Caroline?" called the invisible voice.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>"Yes, he's gone. I was patting the dog," +she answered boldly, stepping through the dining-room +into the pantry and glancing hastily +about. Only a plate of rolls was in sight; +the place was ostentatiously clean and orderly. +She sighed and pushed through the swinging +door; the refrigerator was a more delicate affair. +But Maggie's broad back was bent over her ovenful, +and Caroline clicked the door-knob unchallenged.</p> + +<p>Two chops sat sociably on a large plate; a +little mound of spinach rested on one side of +them, a huge baked potato on the other. She +slid the plate softly from the metal shelf, peeping +apprehensively at Maggie, tumbled the rolls +on to the top, and sped into the dining-room. +From a drawer in the sideboard she abstracted +a silver fork which she slipped into her pocket, +adding, after a moment of consideration, a salt-shaker. +Stepping to the door, she paused on +the little porch for a hasty survey. The coast +seemed clear, and she sped across the yard, the +silver jingling in her pocket. She was safe from +the back, but a flank movement on Maggie's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +part would have been most disastrous, and it +was with full appreciation of the audacity of +her performance that she scudded around the +barn and gained the cherry-tree behind it.</p> + +<p>The young man was sitting on the grass, +his head against the tree; his eyes brightened +as she approached.</p> + +<p>"Have any luck?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>She held out the plate, and, as he took it, +fumbled in her pocket for the fork.</p> + +<p>"It's all cold," she murmured apologetically, +"but I knew Maggie'd never warm it. Do you +mind?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," he answered, with a whimsical +glance at her eagerness to serve him. "I always +<i>did</i> like greens," he added, as he accepted the +fork and attacked the spinach.</p> + +<p>"Here, William Thayer!"</p> + +<p>He handed one of the chops to the dog, and +stared as Caroline drew out the salt-cellar.</p> + +<p>"Did you—well, by—that's pretty kind, +now!"</p> + +<p>"Potatoes are so nasty without it," she explained.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +"Yes, that's why I don't us'ally eat 'em," he +replied.</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence, while he ate +with the frank morning appetite of twenty, and +Caroline watched him, her sympathetic jaws +moving with his, her eyes shining with hospitality.</p> + +<p>"Nice place you've got here," he suggested, +breaking a roll.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I <i>wish</i> I'd brought you some butter, +but I didn't dare cut any off; it was in a jar, and +it clatters so. ("Oh, that's all right!") This +is nicer than it used to be out here. It <i>was</i> the +chicken-yard, and ashes and things got put here; +but nobody keeps chickens any more, and this +is all new grass. They took down the back part +of the barn, too, and painted it, and now it's +the stables, or you <i>can</i> say carriage-house," she +explained instructively.</p> + +<p>He threw his chop-bone to William Thayer +and drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>"That was pretty good," he said, "and I'm +much obliged to you, Miss." Caroline swelled +with importance at the title. "I must have +walked four or five miles, and it's not such fun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +with an empty stomach. I came from Deepdale."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how lovely!" cried she. "By the +pond?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, by the pond. I gave William Thayer +a swim, and I had a little nap. It's nice and +pretty all around there. I cut some sassafras +root; want some?"</p> + +<p>He felt in his pockets, and produced a brown, +aromatic stump; Caroline sucked at it with a +relish.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going now?" she asked respectfully, +patting William Thayer's back while +his master caressed his ear.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know exactly. There's some +nice woods back of the town; I think I'll look +'em through, and then go on to New Derby. I +read in the paper about some kind of a firemen's +parade there to-morrow, and if there's a lot of +people, we'll earn something. We haven't made +much lately, because William Thayer hurt his +leg, and I've been sparing of him—haven't I, +pup? But he's all right now."</p> + +<p>He squeezed the dog's body and tickled him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +knowingly; the little fellow grinned widely and +barked. Caroline sighed.</p> + +<p>"It must be grand," she said wistfully, "to +walk from one town to another, that way. +Where do you sleep?"</p> + +<p>"In barns, sometimes, and there's lots of covered +wagons all around the farm-houses, outside +the towns, you know. A church shed's as +good a place as any. I don't like the towns as +big as this, though; I like the country this time +o' year."</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded comprehendingly, breathing +deep breaths of the fresh, earth-scented air.</p> + +<p>"I wish there never were any houses in the +world—nor any schools, either!" she cried.</p> + +<p>He smiled. "I never was much for schools, +myself," he said. "They don't smell good."</p> + +<p>Caroline looked at him solemnly. She felt +that the resolution of her life was taken. In +one ecstatic flash she beheld her future.</p> + +<p>"I shall never go to school again," she announced. +"I shall—" A wave of joyous possibility broke +over her, but modesty tied her tongue.</p> + +<p>"Could I—would you—I'm a real good walker!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +she burst out, and blushed furiously. Who was +she to associate with a dog like William Thayer?</p> + +<p>The young man looked curiously at her. A +kind of anxiety clouded his frank gray eyes. +"Oh, you mustn't talk like that," he urged, +laying one brown hand on her apron. "That +wouldn't do for a young lady like you. I guess +you better go to school. Girls, you know!"</p> + +<p>He waited a moment, but she scowled silently. +He began again:</p> + +<p>"I guess it's different with girls, anyway. +You see, you have to get your education. A +young lady<span style="letter-spacing: -2px">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"I'm not a young lady," snapped Caroline. +"I'm only ten 'n' a quarter!"</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, it isn't respectable," he argued +hastily. Caroline opened her eyes wide +at him.</p> + +<p>"Aren't <i>you</i> respectable?" she demanded, +appraising unconsciously his clothes, which were, +if not fine, at least clean and whole, his flannel +shirt finished with a neat blue tie, his shoes +no dustier than the country roads accounted +for.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>He flushed under his thick freckles, and plucked +at the grass nervously.</p> + +<p>"N-n—yes, I <i>am</i>!" he shouted defiantly. "I +know lots of people don't think so, but I am! +We earn our way, William Thayer an' me, an' +we don't want much. I don't see as we do any +harm. It don't take much to live, anyhow; it's +coal-scuttles an' lookin'-glasses an'—an' carpets +that cost money. And if you don't want <i>them</i>—oh, +what's the use talking? I never could live +all tied up."</p> + +<p>"Caroline! Caroline!" A loud voice cut across +her meditative silence. She shrugged her shoulders +stubbornly and put her finger on her lip. +The boy shook his head.</p> + +<p>"You better go," he said soothingly. "You'll +have to sometime, you know. Here, take these," +as she jumped up, forgetting the fork and the +salt-shaker. "Be sure to put 'em back where +you got 'em, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, leave 'em here. I'll come back," she +said carelessly, but the boy insisted.</p> + +<p>"No, you take 'em right now," he commanded. +"I wouldn't want any mistake made."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>"Just wait a minute—I'll come back," she +repeated, as the call sounded again.</p> + +<p>"Caroline! where are you?"</p> + +<p>The boy stood up, holding out the silver. "You—you +don't want 'em to say I—I took 'em?" +he blurted out.</p> + +<p>Her eyes opened wide; she looked all the +incredulous horror she felt.</p> + +<p>"Steal?" she cried, "with a dog like +that?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "That's the way I look at it, +but some don't," he said shortly. "You better +go now. Much obliged for the breakfast. If +I come back this way, maybe I'll stop in again, +if you'd like to see William Thayer."</p> + +<p>"I think she went across behind the stable, +Miss Carrie," Katy called helpfully.</p> + +<p>Caroline thrust the silver into her pocket and +turned to go.</p> + +<p>"I'm coming!" she cried desperately, and, +patting William Thayer, she took a few backward +steps.</p> + +<p>"There's a nice brook in those woods," she +observed irrelevantly, "if you should want to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +take another nap," and, turning her back +resolutely, she rounded the barn and disappeared.</p> + +<p>The boy picked up the empty plate and slipped +it into a door at the back of the stable. Then, +lifting the dog over the nearest fence, he climbed +it and stepped through the next yard into the +street.</p> + +<p>"That was a mighty nice little girl, William +Thayer," he said thoughtfully. "She seemed to +understand a lot, for such a little one."</p> + +<p>Caroline stalked aggressively into the dining-room, +and finding it for the moment empty, +hastily replaced the salt-shaker. The fork she +laid in the pantry. Hardly was her pocket clear +of the telltale stuff when her aunt appeared +before her.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you know you're late for school, +Caroline," she began, with evident self-control. +"If you think I am going to write you an excuse, +you are very much mistaken."</p> + +<p>"All right," Caroline returned laconically. "Is +my lunch ready?"</p> + +<p>"It was nothing in the world but that dog;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +I cannot understand the fascination that tramps +and loafers have for you! You never got it from +this family. Why do you like to talk to dirty +tramps! Some day a strange dog will bite you. +Then you'll be sorry!"</p> + +<p>"He wasn't a bit dirty. If you weren't so +afraid of dogs, you'd know William Thayer +wouldn't bite!" she retorted indignantly. "I +think I might have three cookies—those are +nasty little thin ones. And you never put +enough butter."</p> + +<p>Caroline and her namesake-aunt were as oil +and water in their social intercourse.</p> + +<p>"Now, that's another thing. I cannot see +where you put all the food you eat! You get +more than the boys, a great deal. And boys +are supposed—not that any one grudges it to +you, child, but really<span style="letter-spacing: -2px">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"I'm getting later all the time," Caroline remarked +impartially. "You needn't cut the crusts +off; I like 'em."</p> + +<p>Her aunt sighed, and handed her the lunch-basket; +a fringe of red-and-white napkin dangled +invitingly from the corner.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>"Now run along; what are you going in there +for?"</p> + +<p>"My jography."</p> + +<p>She stood for a moment looking out at the flagstone +where William Thayer had waltzed so +seductively, then strolled slowly out, along the +porch and by the house. The lilies-of-the-valley +were white in the sidebeds; their odor, blown +to her on quick puffs of west wind, filled her with +a sort of pleasant sadness, the mingled sorrow +and delight of each new spring. She bent her +strong little legs and squatted down among them, +sniffing ecstatically. What was it she was +trying to remember? Had it ever happened? +Years ago, when she was very little<span style="letter-spacing: -2px">——</span></p> + +<p>"Caroline! are you trying purposely to be +naughty! It is twenty minutes past nine!"</p> + +<p>She muttered impatiently, stamped her foot +deliberately upon the lilies, and ran out of the +yard.</p> + +<p>It will never be known what Caroline's definite +intentions were on that morning. It is not +improbable that she meant to go to school. She +undoubtedly walked to the building devoted to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +the instruction of her generation and began to +mount the steps. What power weighted her +lagging feet and finally dragged her to a sitting +position on the top step, she could not have told; +but certain it is that for ten minutes she sat +upon the text-book of geography, thoughtfully +interposed between her person and the cold stone, +her chin in her hand, her eyes fixed and vague. +Behind her a chorus of voices arose in the melody +that accompanied a peculiarly tedious system +of gymnastics; she scowled unconsciously. Before +her, clear to the inward vision, lay a pleasant +little pond, set in a ring of new grass. Clear lay +the pebbles and roots at the bottom; clear was +the reflection of the feathering trees about it; +clear shone the eyes of William Thayer as he +joyously swam for sticks across it. Great patches +of sun warmed the grass and cheered the hearts +of two happy wanderers, who fortified themselves +from a lunch-basket padded with a red-fringed +napkin. Happy yellow dandelions were spotted +about, and the birds chirped unceasingly; the +wind puffed the whole spring into their eager +nostrils. Truly a pleasant picture! As in a dream,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +Caroline walked softly down the steps and toward +the north.</p> + +<p>For ten minutes she kept steadily on, looking +neither to the right nor to the left, when the +rattle of a particularly noisy wagon attracted her +attention. She caught the eye of the driver; +it was the egg-and-chicken man. He nodded +cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"Hello, there!" said he.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" Caroline returned. "You going +home?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," said the egg-and-chicken man. "Want +a ride?"</p> + +<p>Caroline wasted no breath in words, but clambered +up to the seat beside him.</p> + +<p>"Startin' out early, ain't you?" he queried. +"Goin' far up my way?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty far," she answered cautiously, "but +not so very."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said he, impressed by such diplomacy. +"'Bout where, now?"</p> + +<p>"Have you sold many eggs this morning?" +she inquired with amiable interest.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-three dozen, an' seven pair o'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +broilers," he informed her. "Goin' as far as +my place?"</p> + +<p>"I s'pose it's pretty cold as early as you get +up," Caroline suggested pleasantly.</p> + +<p>The egg-and-chicken man surrendered. "Middling," +he answered respectfully, "but it smells +so good and things looks so pretty, I don't mind. +I'm glad I don't live in the city. It's all pavin'-stone +an' smoke. This time o' year I like to +feel the dirt under m' feet, somehow."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Caroline fervently. They +jogged on for a mile in silence.</p> + +<p>"I have to get out here," said he, finally, "but +don't be scared. That horse won't move a peg +without me. I'll be back in a minute."</p> + +<p>But when he returned she was not there.</p> + +<p>The houses were thinning out rapidly; one +side of the road was already only a succession +of fields, and along a tiny worn path through +one of these Caroline was hurrying nervously. +She crossed the widening brook, almost a little +river now, and kept along its farther bank for +half an hour, then left it and struck into the fringe +of the woods.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>It was very still here; the road was far away, +and only the chatter of the birds and the liquid +cluck of the little stream disturbed the stillness +of the growing things. She walked softly, except +for the whisper of brushing against the +spreading branches that choked the tiny path. +The heat of noon was rising to its climax, and +the shafts of light struck warm on her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a sound disturbed the peace of the +woods—a scratching, rattling, scurrying sound. +Something was moving through the dead leaves +that had gathered among the roots and trunks. +She started back nervously, but jumped forward +again with a cry of delight, and caught William +Thayer in her arms.</p> + +<p>Even as he was licking her cheek, the path +widened, the trees turned into bushes, the underbrush +melted away, and the brook, a little river +now, bent in upon them in a broad curve, spanned +only by stepping-stones. It ran full between +its grassy banks, gurgling and chuckling as it +lapped the stones, a mirror for the fat white clouds +where it lay in still pools.</p> + +<p>In the shelter of a boulder, a lad crouched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +over a fire, coaxing it with bits of paper and +handfuls of dry leaves. Just as the flames shot +up, the dog barked cheerily, and the lad turned +to welcome him. His eye fell on Caroline; amazement +and real pleasure grew into a delighted +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you don't beat the Dutch!" he cried. +"How'd you get here?"</p> + +<p>"I came in the wagon with the egg-and-chicken +man," said she happily, "and then I walked +'cross lots. William Thayer knew me just as +well!"</p> + +<p>"'Course he did. He always knows his friends. +Now, see here. You can stay and watch this +fire, an' I'll go over there a ways where those +men are buildin' a fence; I'll bet they'll give +us something. You look after the fire an' put +on these old pieces of rail; it was hard work +gettin' dry stuff to-day. We won't be long."</p> + +<p>They disappeared between the trees, and +Caroline sat in proud responsibility before the +delightful little fire. The minutes slipped by; +from time to time she fed the blaze with bits +of bent twigs, and at the proper moment, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +a thrill of anxiety, she laid two pieces of the old +fence-rail crosswise on the top. There was a +second of doubt, and then they broke into little +sharp tongues of flame. With a sigh of pleasure, +she turned from this success, and, opening the +lunch-basket, laid the napkin on the ground and +methodically arranged four sandwiches, two cookies, +and an orange on it. Then, with her fat +legs crossed before her, she waited in silence. +Between the sun at her back and the fire on her +face, she grew pleasantly drowsy; the sounds +about her melted imperceptibly to a soft, rhythmic +drone; her head drooped forward....</p> + +<p>"Hello, hello!"</p> + +<p>She jumped and stared at the boy and the +dog. For a moment she forgot. Then she +welcomed them heartily and listened proudly +to his admiring reception of her preparations.</p> + +<p>"Well, William Thayer, will you look at that! +How's this for a surprise? And see what we've +got." He balanced a tin pail carefully between +the two crossed sticks in the heart of the fire, +and unfolded from a newspaper two wedges of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +pumpkin-pie. In William Thayer's little basket +was a large piece of cheese.</p> + +<p>"It's coffee 'n milk mixed together; they had +bottles of it," he explained. "William Thayer +'ll take back the pail. Are you hungry?"</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded.</p> + +<p>"Awful," she stated briefly.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," he said with satisfaction, "let's +begin."</p> + +<p>Caroline attacked a sandwich, with shining +eyes, and when in another minute the boy took +from his pocket a tin ring that slipped miraculously +out of itself into a jointed cup, and dipped +her a mug of hot coffee from the bubbling pail, she +realized with a pang of joy that this was, beyond +any question, the master moment of her life.</p> + +<p>"I take this along," he explained, "so's when +I go by, and they're milking, I can have some +warm. Anybody'd give me all I want if William +Thayer dances and drops dead for 'em. It tastes +good early in the morning, I tell you."</p> + +<p>She sighed with pleasure. To drink warm +milk in the cool, early dawn, with the cows +about you, and the long, sweet day free before!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +They sipped turn about; the boy divided the +orange mathematically; the pie was filled with +fruit of the Hesperides.</p> + +<p>"That was mighty good, that dinner," he +announced luxuriously, "an' now I'll have a +pipe."</p> + +<p>The pungent, fresh odor of the burning tobacco +was sweet in the air; a dreamy content held them +quiet.</p> + +<p>He did not ask her whence or whither; she +had no apologies or regrets. Two vagabonds +from every law of home and duty, they were +as peaceful and unthoughtful of yesterday's +bed and to-morrow's meal as William Thayer, +who slept in the sun at their feet.</p> + +<p>For long they did not talk. An unspoken +comprehension, an essential comradeship, filled +the deep spaces of silence that frighten and +irritate those whom only custom has associated; +and Caroline, flat on her filled stomach, her nose +in the grass, was close in thought and vague +well-being to the boy who puffed blue rings toward +the little river, his head on his arms.</p> + +<p>"I put the plate into that door in the barn,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +he said, finally. "Did you put those silver things +back?"</p> + +<p>Caroline grunted assent.</p> + +<p>"But they wouldn't think that you—what +you said," she assured him earnestly. "It's +only tramps they're afraid of."</p> + +<p>He glanced quickly over at her, but she was +utterly innocent.</p> + +<p>"One came to the kitchen once, and asked +Mary for some hot tea or coffee, and she hadn't +any, but she said if he was very hungry she'd +give him a piece of bread and butter, and he +said to go to hell with her bread and butter. So +she doesn't like them."</p> + +<p>The boy gasped.</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to—had you—that isn't just +right for you to say, is it?" he asked awkwardly.</p> + +<p>"What—hell?" Caroline inquired placidly. +"No, I s'pose not. Nor damn nor devil, either. +But, of course, I know 'em. Those are the only +three I know. I guess they're about the worst, +though," she added with pardonable pride. "My +cousin, the Captain, knows some more. He's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +twelve 'n a half. But he won't tell 'em to me. +He says boys always know more than girls. I +suppose," respectfully, "you know more than +those three, yourself?"</p> + +<p>Her companion coughed.</p> + +<p>"A boy—" he began, then paused, confronted +with her round, trustful eyes.</p> + +<p>"A boy—" he started again, and again he +paused.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, a boy's different," he blurted, +finally.</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded humbly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," she murmured.</p> + +<p>There was silence for a while. The river slipped +liquidly over the stones, the white clouds raced +along the blue above them, the boy smoked. +At length he burst out with:</p> + +<p>"You're all right, now! You're just a regular +little chum, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>She blushed with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"I never had anybody along with me," he +went on dreamily. "I always go alone. I—I +didn't know how nice it was. I <i>had</i> a chum once, +but he—he—"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>The boy's voice trembled. Caroline's face +clouded with sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Did he die?" she ventured.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, shortly; "no, he didn't die. +He's alive. He couldn't stand my ways. I +tried to stay in school and—and all that, but +soon as spring came I had to be off. So the last +time, he told me we had to part, him and +me."</p> + +<p>"What was his name?" she asked gently.</p> + +<p>The boy jerked his head toward the +dog.</p> + +<p>"<i>That's</i> his name," he said, "William Thayer." +A little frown gathered on Caroline's smooth +forehead; she felt instinctively the cloud on all +this happy wandering. The spring had beckoned, +and he had followed, helpless at the call, but +something—what and how much?—tugged at +his heart; its shadow dimmed the blue of the +April sky.</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders with a sigh; the +smile came again into his gray eyes and wrinkled +his freckled face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, let's be jolly," he cried, with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +humorous wink. "The winter's comin' soon +enough!" and he burst into a song:</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 300px;"> +<p>"There was a frog lived in a well,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kitty alone, Kitty alone;</span><br /> +There was a frog lived in a well;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kitty alone and I!"</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>His voice was a sweet, reedy tenor; the quaint +old melody delighted Caroline.</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 300px;"> +<p> +"This frog he would a-wooing ride,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kitty alone, Kitty alone."</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>She began to catch the air, and nodded to the +time with her chin.</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 300px;"> +<p> +"Cock me cary, Kitty alone,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kitty alone and I!"</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>The boy lifted his polo-cap in a courtly manner, +and began with grimaces and bows to act out +the song. His audience swayed responsive to +his every gesture, nodding and beaming.</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 400px;"> +<p> +"Quoth he, 'Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee'—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Kitty alone, Kitty alone;</span><br /> +Quoth he, 'Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee,<br /> +To see if thou canst fancy me.'<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Cock me cary, Kitty alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Kitty alone and I!"</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>Caroline swung her hat by its ribbons and +shrilled the refrain, intoxicated with freedom +and melody:</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 300px;"> +<p> +"Cock me cary, Kitty alone,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kitty alone and I!"</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>She drummed with her heels on the ground, +the boy waved his cap, and William Thayer +rolled over and over, barking loudly for the +chorus. Suddenly the boy jumped up, pulled +her to her feet, and with grotesque, skipping +steps pirouetted around the dying fire. The +dog waltzed wildly on his hind legs; Caroline's +short petticoats stood straight out around her +as she whirled and jumped, a Bacchante in a +frilled pinafore. The little glade rang to their +shouting:</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 300px;"> +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Kitty alone and I!"</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>He darted suddenly through an opening in +the bushes, William Thayer close behind, Caroline +panting and singing as she gave chase. +Through a field, across a little bridge they dashed. +He flung the empty coffee-pail at an astonished +group of men, who stopped their work, their +fence-posts in hand, to stare at the mad trio.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +Breathless at last, they flung themselves on a +bank by the road and smiled at each other. Caroline +laughed aloud, even, in sheer, irresponsible +light-headedness, but over the boy's face a little +shadow grew.</p> + +<p>"It won't seem so nice alone after this, will +it, William Thayer?" he said, slowly.</p> + +<p>Caroline stared.</p> + +<p>"But—but I'm coming! I'll be there," she +cried. "I'm coming with you!"</p> + +<p>He went on as if he had not heard.</p> + +<p>"Who'll there be to eat our dinner with us +to-morrow, William Thayer?" he questioned +whimsically.</p> + +<p>Caroline moved nearer and put her hand on +his knee.</p> + +<p>"There'll be—won't there be me?" she begged.</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I guess not," he said bluntly.</p> + +<p>Her eyes filled with tears.</p> + +<p>"But—but you said I was a—a regular little +chum," she whispered. "Don't you like +me?"</p> + +<p>He was silent:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +"Don't you? Oh, don't you?" she pleaded. +"I don't <i>need</i> much to eat, really!"</p> + +<p>The lad looked at her with a strange longing. +The fatherhood that lives in every boy thrilled +at the touch of her fat little hand on his knee; +the comradely glow in her round brown eyes +warmed his restless, lonely heart. He shook +her off almost roughly.</p> + +<p>"I guess they'd miss you more'n that salt-shaker," +he said grimly. "I wish I could take +you with me—honest, I do. But you better +stay home and go to school. You don't want +to grow up ignorant, and have your folks ashamed +of you."</p> + +<p>"But you—you aren't ignorant!" she urged +warmly, her admiration shining in her eyes.</p> + +<p>He blushed and kicked nervously at the grass.</p> + +<p>"I am," he said angrily. "I am, too. Oh, +dear, I wish—I wish—"</p> + +<p>They looked at each other, troubled and uncertain.</p> + +<p>"You're a girl," he began again, "and girls +can't; they just can't. They have to stay with +their folks and keep nice. It's too bad, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +that's the way it is. You'd want to see 'em, too. +You'd miss 'em nights."</p> + +<p>Caroline winced, but could not deny. "Oh," +she cried passionately, "why do girls have to +do <i>all</i> the missing? It's just what that Simms +boy says: 'If I couldn't be a boy, I'd rather be +a dog!'"</p> + +<p>"There, there," he said soothingly, "just think +about it. You'll see. And you're not exactly +like a girl, anyhow. You're too nice."</p> + +<p>He patted her shoulder softly, and they lay +quietly against the bank. Her breathing grew +slow and regular; raising himself cautiously on +one elbow, he saw that she had fallen asleep, her +arm about William Thayer, her dusty boots +pathetically crossed. He watched her tenderly, +with frequent glances up and down the road.</p> + +<p>Presently an irregular beat of hoofs sounded +around a bend, and a clattering wagon drew +steadily nearer.</p> + +<p>The egg-and-chicken man jumped out and +strode angrily toward the little group.</p> + +<p>"I've caught you, have I, you young<span style="letter-spacing: -2px">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"'Sh!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +The boy put up a warning hand.</p> + +<p>"She's fast asleep," he whispered. "Are you +goin' to take her home?"</p> + +<p>The man stared.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm no child-stealer," said the boy lightly. +"Here, just lift her soft with me, and I'll bet +we can put her in without waking her up at all."</p> + +<p>Without a word, the man slipped his hands +under Caroline's shoulders, the boy lifted her +dusty boots, and gently unloosing her arm from +the dog, they carried her lax little body carefully +to the wagon and laid her on the clean straw in +the bottom, her head on a folded coat. She +stirred and half opened her eyes, murmured +broken words, and sank yet deeper into her dream.</p> + +<p>The man pointed to a book on the seat.</p> + +<p>"That's her lesson-book," he whispered hoarsely. +It was the despised geography.</p> + +<p>"Her folks think a heap of her, I tell you," +he added, still eying the boy uncertainly. "She's +about as bright as they make 'em, I guess."</p> + +<p>"I guess she is," said the lad simply. "She'd +ought to have been a boy. She'd have made a +fine one."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +The man's face cleared.</p> + +<p>"Do—do you want a job?" he said abruptly. +"We're short up at my place, and I wouldn't +mind the dog. I remember you, now. You +caught a chicken for me once; my wife gave you +a hot supper."</p> + +<p>The boy smiled faintly and shook his head. +"I remember," he said. "No, I don't believe +I want any job, thank you. I—I'm sort of—I +have to keep along."</p> + +<p>"Keep along? Where?"</p> + +<p>He waved his hand vaguely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, just along," he repeated. "This year, +anyhow. Maybe—well, good-by. Her folks might +be gettin' anxious."</p> + +<p>He stepped up to the cart and looked once +more at the flushed cheeks and brown hands, +then strode off up the road.</p> + +<p>The egg-and-chicken man gathered up the +reins and the wagon started. Caroline scowled +a little at the motion, but slept on. The boy +whistled to the dog.</p> + +<p>"Come on, William Thayer," he said. "I +guess it's just you and me now."</p> + + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1> </h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ii" id="ii"></a>II</h2> + +<h2>A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/c.png" title="C" height="44" width="32" alt="C" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">aroline</span>, Miss Honey, and the General +were taking the morning air. Caroline +walked ahead, her chin well up, her nose +sniffing pleasurably the unaccustomed asphalt, +the fresh damp of the river and the watered +bridle path. The starched ties at the back of +her white pinafore fairly took the breeze, as she +swung along to the thrilling clangor of the monster +hurdy-gurdy. Miss Honey, urban and <i>blasé</i>, +balanced herself with dignity upon her roller-skates +and watched with patronizing interest +the mysterious jumping of young persons with +whom she was unacquainted through complicated +diagrams chalked on the pavement.</p> + +<p>The General sucked a clothespin meditatively: +his eyes were fixed on something beyond his +immediate surroundings. Occasionally a ravishing +smile swept up from the dimples at his mouth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +to the yellow rings beneath his cap frill; he flapped +his hands, emitting soft, vague sounds. At such +times a wake of admiration bubbled behind him. +Delia, who propelled his carriage, which resembled +a victoria except for the rearward position of its +motor power, pursed her lips consciously and +affected not to hear the enraptured comments +of the women who passed them.</p> + +<p>To the left the trees, set in a smooth green +carpet, threw out tiny, polished, early May +leaves; graceful, white-coated children dotted +the long park. Beyond them the broad blue +river twinkled in the sun, the tugs and barges +glided down, the yachts strained their white +sails against the purple bluffs of the Palisades. +To the right towered the long, unbroken rows +of brick and stone: story on story of shining +windows, draped and muffled in silk and lace; +flight after flight of clean granite steps; polite, +impersonal, hostile as the monuments in a graveyard.</p> + +<p>Immobile ladies glided by on the great pleasure +drive like large tinted statues; dressed altogether +as the colored pictures in fashion books, holding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +white curly dogs in their curved arms; the +coachmen in front of them seemed carved in +plum-colored broadcloth; only by watching the +groom's eyelids could one ascertain that they +were flesh and blood. Young girls, two, three, +and four, cantered by; their linen habits rose +and fell decorously, their hair was smooth. +Mounted policemen, glorious in buttons, breathing +out authority, curvetted past, and everywhere +and always the chug-chug-chug of the +gleaming, fierce-eyed motor cars filled one's ears. +They darted past, flaming scarlet, sombre olive +and livid white; a crouching, masked figure, +intent at the wheel, veiled, shapeless women +behind a whir of dust to show where they had +been a breath before.</p> + +<p>And everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, a +thin stream of white and pink and blue, a tumbling +river of curls and caps and bare legs, were the +children. A babble of shrill cries, of chattering +laughter, of fretful screams, an undercurrent of +remonstrance, of soothing patience, of angry +threatening, marked their slow progress up and +down the walk; in the clear spaces of the little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +park they trotted freely after hoops and balls, +rolled and ran over the green, and hid, shouting, +behind the bushes. It was a giant nursery, +and the mere man who trespassed on its borders +smiled deprecatingly, and steered a careful +course among the parasols and tricycles, stooping +now and then to rescue some startled +adventurer, sprawling from the disgusted +shock of encounter with this large and rapidly +moving object.</p> + +<p>To Caroline, fresh from untrammeled sporting, +through neighborly suburban yards, this disciplined +procession, under the escort of Delia and the General, +was fascinating to a degree. Far from resenting +the authority she would have scorned at home, +she derived an intense satisfaction from it, and +pranced ostentatiously beside the perambulator, +mimicking Miss Honey's unconscious deference to +a higher power in the matter of suitable crossings +and preferred playfellows with the absorbed gravity +of the artist.</p> + +<p>"See! General, see the wobblybubble," Delia +murmured affectionately. "(Will you see that +child turn his head just like a grown person?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +Did you ever see anything as smart as that?) +Did he like the red one best? So does Delia. +We'll come over here, and then you won't get the +sun in your precious eyes. Do you want me to +push you frontwards, so you can see me? (Watch +him look at me—he knows what I mean just +as well, the rascal!) Just wait till we get across, +and I will. Look out, Miss Honey! Take hold +of your cousin's hand and run across together, +now, like good girls."</p> + +<p>Miss Honey made an obedient snatch at Caroline's +apron strings, and darted forward with a +long roll of her skates. The road was clear for +a block. Delia, with a quick glance to left and +right, lowered the perambulator to the road-level +and forged ahead. Caroline, nose in air, +studied the nearest policeman curiously.</p> + +<p>"Look out, there! <i>Look out!</i>"</p> + +<p>A man's voice like a pistol shot crashed behind +them. Caroline heard quick steps and a woman's +scream, looked up at the huge, blood-red bulk +of an automobile that swooped around the corner +and dashed forward. But Miss Honey's hand +was clutching her apron string, and Miss Honey's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +weight as she fell, tangled in the skates, dragged +her down. Caroline, toppling, caught in one +dizzy backward glance a vision of a face in the +automobile staring down on her, white as chalk, +under a black moustache and staring goggles, +and another face, Delia's, white too, with eyes +more strained and terrible than the goggles themselves. +One second that look swept her and +Miss Honey, and then, shifting, fell upon the +General strapped securely into his carriage. Even +as Caroline caught her breath, he flew by her like +an arrow, his blue eyes round with surprise under +a whirl of white parasol, the wicker body of the +perambulator swaying and lurching. With that +breath still in her nostrils, she was pushed violently +against Miss Honey, who was dragged over her +from the other side by a large hairy hand. A +sharp blow from her boot heel struck Caroline's +cheek, and she screamed with the pain; but her +cry was lost in the louder one that echoed around +her as the dust from the red monster blew in her +eyes and shut out Delia's figure, flat on the ground, +one arm over her face as the car rushed by.</p> + +<p>"My God! She's down!" That was the man.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>"Take his number!" a shrill voice pierced the +growing confusion.</p> + +<p>Caroline, crying with pain, was forced to her +feet and stumbled along, one apron string twisted +fast in Miss Honey's hand. Instantly they were +surrounded by a crowd of nurses, and Miss Honey, +dazed and obedient, was shoved and pulled from +one to another.</p> + +<p>"Here, get out o' this—don't let the children +see anything! Let's get home."</p> + +<p>"No, wait a minute. Let's see if she's alive. +Have they got the ambulance?"</p> + +<p>"Look out, there, Miss Dorothy, you just stop +by me, or you'll be run over, too!"</p> + +<p>"See! She's moving her head! Maybe she's +not—"</p> + +<p>Sobbing with excitement, Caroline wrenched +herself free from the tangle of nurses and carriages, +and pushed her way through the crowd. Against +the curb, puffing and grinding, stood the great +red engine; on the front seat a tall policeman sat, +one woman in the back leaned over another, +limp against the high cushions, and fanned her +with the stiff vizor of her leather cap.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +"It's all right, dear, it's all right," she repeated +monotonously, with set lips, "the doctor's coming. +It wasn't Pullton's fault. It's all right."</p> + +<p>Caroline wriggled between two policemen, and +made for a striped blue and white skirt that lay +motionless on the ground. Across the white +apron ran a broad dirty smudge.</p> + +<p>Caroline ran forward.</p> + +<p>"Delia! Delia!" she gulped. "Is she—is she +dead?"</p> + +<p>A little man with eyeglasses looked up from +where he knelt beside the blue and white skirt.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe so, my dear," he said briskly; +"is this your nurse? See, she's opening her +eyes, now—speak to her gently."</p> + +<p>As he shifted a leather-covered flask from one +hand to the other, Caroline saw a strange face with +drawn purplish lids when she had always known +two merry gray eyes, and tight thin lips she could +not believe Delia's. The head moved a little from +side to side, the lips parted slightly. A nervous +fear seized her and she turned to run away; but she +remembered suddenly how kind Delia had been to +her; how that very morning—it seemed so long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +now—Delia had helped her with her stubby braids +of hair, and chided Miss Honey for laughing at her +ignorance of the customs of the park. She +gathered her courage together and crouched down +by the silent, terrifying figure.</p> + +<p>"Hel—hello, Delia!" she began jerkily, wincing +as the eyes opened and stared stupidly at the +ring of anxious faces. "How do you f-feel, +Delia?"</p> + +<p>"Lean down," said the little man softly, "she +wants to say something."</p> + +<p>Caroline leaned lower.</p> + +<p>"General," Delia muttered. "Where's General?"</p> + +<p>The little man frowned.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what she means?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Caroline patted her bruised cheek.</p> + +<p>"Of course I do," she said shortly. "That's +the baby. Oh," as she remembered, "where <i>is</i> +the General?"</p> + +<p>"Here—here's the baby," called some one. +"Push over that carriage," and a woman breathing +heavily, crowded through the ring with the +general, pink and placid, under his parasol.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +"Lift him out," said the little man, and as +the woman fumbled at the strap, he picked the +baby out neatly, and held him down by the girl +on the ground.</p> + +<p>"Here's your baby, Delia," he said, with a +kind roughness in his voice. "Safe and sound—not +a scratch! Can you sit up and take him?"</p> + +<p>And then, while the standing crowd craned +their necks and even the steady procession moving +in the way the police kept clear for them, +paused a moment to stare, while the little doctor +held his breath and the ambulance came clanging +up the street, Delia sat up as straight as the +mounted policeman beside her and held out her +arms.</p> + +<p>"General, oh, General!" she cried, and buried +her face in his fat warm neck.</p> + +<p>The men coughed, the women's faces twisted, +but the little doctor watched her intently.</p> + +<p>"Move your leg," he said sharply. "Now +the other. Hurt you? Not at all?"</p> + +<p>He turned to the young man in a white jacket, +who had jumped from the back of the ambulance.</p> + +<p>"I thought so," he said. "Though it didn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +seem possible. I saw the thing go over her. Right +over her apron—never touched her. Half an inch +more—"</p> + +<p>"Please, is Miss—the other little girl—is +she—"</p> + +<p>This was Delia's old voice, and Caroline smiled +happily at her.</p> + +<p>"She's all right, Delia—here she is!"</p> + +<p>Miss Honey limped across on one roller-skate, +pale, but conscious of her dramatic value, and the +crowd drew a long breath of relief.</p> + +<p>"You are a very brave girl," said the doctor, +helping Delia to her feet and tucking the General, +who alternately growled and cooed at his clothespin, +into the perambulator. "You have undoubtedly +saved the lives of all three of these +children, and their parents will appreciate it, +you may be sure. The way you sent that +baby wagon flying across the street...! +Well, any time you're out of a job, just come to +me, that's all. Dr. Gibbs, West Forty-ninth. +Can you walk now? How far do you have to +go?"</p> + +<p>The crowd had melted like smoke. Only the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +most curious and the idlest lingered and watched +the hysteria of the woman in the automobile, +who clutched her companion, weeping and laughing. +The chauffeur sat stolid, but Caroline's +keen round eyes saw that he shook, from the +waist down, like a man in a chill.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I'm all right. It's not so very far." +But Delia leaned on the handle she pushed, and +the chug-chug of the great car sent the blood out +of her cheeks. The little doctor frowned.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he said, "I'll tell you what you'll +do. You come down these steps with me, there +aren't but three of them, you see, and we'll just +step in here a moment. I don't know what house +it is, but I guess it'll be all right. Oh, yes, you +can take him out; he is safe, you know. Come +on, youngsters."</p> + +<p>Before Delia could protest he had pressed +the button, and a man in livery was opening the +door.</p> + +<p>"We've just escaped a nasty accident out +here," said the little doctor easily. "You were +probably looking out of the window? Yes. +Well, this young woman is a sort of a patient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +of mine—Dr. Gibbs, West Forty-ninth Street—and +though she's very plucky and perfectly uninjured, +I want her to rest a moment in the hall +here and have a drink of water, if your mistress +doesn't object. Just take up this card and +explain the circumstances, and"—his hand went +into his pocket a moment—"that's about all. +Sit down, my dear."</p> + +<p>The man took in at a glance the neat uniform +of the nurse, the General's smart, if diminutive, +apparel, and the unmistakable though somewhat +ruffled exterior of Miss Honey.</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir," he said politely, taking the +card. "It will be all right, sir, I'm sure. Thank +you, sir. Sit down, please. It will be all right. +I will tell Madame Nicola."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, so this is Madame Nicola's!" +The little doctor looked around him appreciatively, +as the servant ran up the stairs.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could stay with you, chickens, but +I'm late for an appointment as it is. I must +rush along. Now, mind you, stay here half an +hour, Delia, and sit down. You're no trouble +at all, and Madame Nicola knows who I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>—if +she remembers. I sprayed her throat once, +if I'm not mistaken—she was on a tour, at Pittsburg. +She'll take care of you." He opened +the door. "You're a good girl, you biggest one," +he added, nodding at Caroline. "You do as +you're told. Good-by."</p> + +<p>The door shut, and Caroline, Miss Honey and +Delia looked at each other in a daze. Tears +filled Delia's eyes, but she controlled her voice, +and only said huskily, "Come here, Miss Honey, +and let me brush you off—you look dreadful. +Let me take your handkerchief. Did it—were +you—are you hurt, dear?"</p> + +<p>"No, but you pushed me awful hard, Delia, +and a nasty big man grabbed me and tore my +guimpe—see! I wish you'd told me what you +were going to do," began Miss Honey irritably.</p> + +<p>"And you gave me a big kick—it was <i>me</i> he +grabbed—look at my cheek!" Caroline's lips +began to twitch; she felt hideously tired, suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Children, children, don't quarrel. General, +darling, <i>won't</i> you sit still, please? You hurt +Delia's knees, and you feel so heavy. Oh, I wish +we were all home!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +The man in livery came down the stairs. +"Will you step up, Madame says, and she has +something for you up there. I'll take the +baby," as Delia's eyes measured the climb. +"Lord, I won't drop her—I've got two o' my +own. 'Bout a year, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"He's a boy," panted Delia, as she rested her +weight on the rail, "and he's only eight months +last week," with a proud smile at the General's +massive proportions.</p> + +<p>"Well, he <i>is</i> a buster, isn't he? Here is the nurse, +Madame, and the children. The doctor has gone."</p> + +<p>Caroline stretched her eyes wide and abandoned +herself to a frank inspection of her surroundings. +For this she must be pardoned, as every square +inch of the dark, deep-colored room had been +taken bodily from Italian palaces of the most +unimpeachable Renaissance variety. With quick +intuition, she immediately recognized a background +for many a tale of courts and kings hitherto +unpictured to herself, and smiled with pleasure +at the Princess who advanced, most royally clad +in long shell pink, lace-clouded draperies, to meet +them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +"You are the brave nurse my maid told me +about," said the Princess; "she saw it all. You +ought to be very proud of your quick wits. I +have some sherry for you, and you must lie down +a little and then I will send you home."</p> + +<p>Delia blushed and sank into a high carved chair, +the General staring curiously about him. "It +wasn't anything at all," she said, awkwardly, +"if I could have a drink—"</p> + +<p>Caroline checked the Princess as she moved +toward a wonderful colored decanter with wee +sparkling tumblers like curved bits of rainbow +grouped about it.</p> + +<p>"She means a drink of water," she explained +politely. "She only drinks water—sometimes a +little tea, but most usu'lly water."</p> + +<p>"The sherry will do her more good, I think," the +Princess returned, noticing Caroline for the first +time, apparently, her hand on the decanter.</p> + +<p>At this point Miss Honey descended from a +throne of faded wine-colored velvet, and addressed +the Princess with her most impressive and explanatory +manner.</p> + +<p>"It won't do you any good at all to pour that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +out," she began, with her curious little air of delivering +a set address, prepared in private some time +before, "and I'll tell you why. Delia knew a +nurse once that drank some beer, and the baby got +burned, and she never would drink anything if you +gave her a million dollars. Besides, it makes her +sick."</p> + +<p>The Princess looked amused and turned to a +maid who appeared at that moment with apron +strings rivalling Caroline's.</p> + +<p>"Get me a glass of water, please," she said, +"and what may I give you—milk, perhaps? I +don't know very well what children drink."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, we'd like some water, too," Miss +Honey returned primly, "we had some soda-water, +strawberry, once to-day."</p> + +<p>Caroline cocked her head to one side and tried +to remember what the lady's voice made her +think of; she scowled in vain while Delia drank +her water and smiled her thanks at the maid. +Suddenly it came to her. It was not like a person +talking at all, it was like a person singing. Up +and down her voice traveled, loud and soft; it was +quite pleasant to hear it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +"Do you feel better now? I am very glad. +Bring in that reclining chair, Ellis, from my room; +these great seats are rather stiff," said the Princess, +and Delia, protesting, was made comfortable +in a large curved lounging basket, with the General, +contentedly putting his clothespin through +its paces, in her arm.</p> + +<p>"How old is it?" the Princess inquired, after +an interval of silence, during which Miss Honey +and Caroline regarded her with a placid interest, +and Delia stroked the General's hair, from which +she had taken the absurd lace cap.</p> + +<p>"He's eight months, Madam, last week—eight +months and ten days, really."</p> + +<p>"That's not very old, now, is it?" pursued the +lady. "I suppose they don't know very much, +do they, so young?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed he does, though," Delia protested, +"You'll be surprised. Just watch him, now. +Look at Delia, darlin'; where's Delia?"</p> + +<p>The General withdrew his lingering gaze from +the clothespin, and turned his blue eyes wonderingly +up to her. The corner of his mouth trembled, +widened, his eyelids crinkled, and then he smiled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +delightfully, straight into the eyes of the nurse, +stretched up a wavering pink hand, and patted +her cheek. A soft, gurgling monosyllable, difficult +of classification but easy to interpret, escaped +him.</p> + +<p>The Princess smiled appreciatively, and moved +with a stately, long step toward them.</p> + +<p>"That was very pretty," she said, but Delia +did not hear her.</p> + +<p>"My baby, my own baby!" she murmured +with a shiver, and hiding her face in the General's +neck she sobbed aloud.</p> + +<p>Miss Honey, shocked and embarrassed, twisted +her feet nervously and looked at the inlaid floor. +Caroline shared these feelings, but though she +turned red, she spoke sturdily.</p> + +<p>"I guess Delia feels bad," she suggested shyly, +"when she thinks about—about what happened, +you know. She don't cry usu'lly."</p> + +<p>The Princess smiled again, this time directly +at Caroline, who fairly blinked in the radiance. +With her long brown eyes still holding Caroline's +round ones, she patted Delia's shoulder kindly, +and both the children saw her chin tremble.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +The General, smothered in that sudden hug, +whimpered a little and kicked out wildly with his +fat white-stockinged legs. Seen from the rear he +had the appearance of a neat, if excited, package, +unaccountably frilled about with embroidered +flannel. Delia straightened herself, dabbed apologetically +at her eyes, and coughed.</p> + +<p>"It's bottle-time," she announced in horror-stricken +tones, consulting a large nickel watch +hanging from her belt, under the apron. "It's +down in the carriage. Could I have a little +boiling water to heat it, if you please?"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly," said the Princess. "Ellis, will +you get the—the bottle from the baby's carriage +and some boiling water, please. Do you mix it +here?"</p> + +<p>"Mix—the food is all prepared, Madam." +Delia spoke with repressed scorn. "I only want +to heat it for him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, in that case, Ellis, take it down and have +it heated, or," as the nurse half rose, "perhaps +you would feel better about it if you attended to +it yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think I will go down if you don't mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>—when +persons aren't used to 'em they're apt to +be a little careless, and I wouldn't have it break, +and him losing his three o'clock bottle, for the +world. You know how it is...."</p> + +<p>The Princess shook her head whimsically. +"But surely you will leave the baby," and she +moved toward them again. "I will hold it," +with a half grimace at her own condescension. +"It seems so very good and cheerful—I thought +they cried. Will it come to me?"</p> + +<p>Delia loosened her arms, but tightened them +again as the little creature leaned forward to +catch at the swinging lace on the lady's gown.</p> + +<p>"I—I think I'll take baby with me. Thank +you just the same, and he'll go to any one—yes, +indeed—but I feel so sort of nervous, I think +I'd better take him. If anything should happen.... +Wave your hand good-by—now, General!"</p> + +<p>The General flapped his arms violently, and +bestowed a toothless but affectionate grin upon +the wearer of the fascinating, swaying lace, before +he disappeared with the delighted Ellis in the +van.</p> + +<p>"And can you buy all that devotion for twenty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +thirty, or is it forty dollars a month, I wonder?" +mused the Princess.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," she added petulantly. "It really +makes one actually <i>want</i> to hold it! It seems a +jolly little rat—they're not all like that, are they? +They howl, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>Again Miss Honey took the floor.</p> + +<p>"When babies are sick, or you don't treat them +right," she announced didactically, "they cry, but +not a well baby, Delia says. I"—with conscious +pride—"screamed night and day for two weeks!"</p> + +<p>"Really!" observed the Princess. "That must +have been—er—trying for your family!"</p> + +<p>"Worried to death!" Miss Honey rejoined airily, +with such an adult intonation that the Princess +started.</p> + +<p>"The General, he just laughs all the time," +Caroline volunteered, "unless you tease him," +she added guiltily, "and then he squawks."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," Miss Honey bore witness, +jealous of the lady's flashing smile to Caroline, +"my mother says I'm twice the trouble he is!"</p> + +<p>The Princess laughed aloud. "You're all +trouble enough, I can well believe," she said care<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>lessly, +"though you particular three are certainly +amusing little duds—for an afternoon. But for a +steady diet—I'm afraid I'd get a bit tired +of you, eh?"</p> + +<p>She tapped their cheeks lightly with a cool, +sweet-smelling finger. Miss Honey smiled uncertainly, +but Caroline edged away. There was +something about this beautiful tall lady she could +not understand, something that alternately attracted +and repelled. She was grown up, certainly; +her skirts, her size and her coiled hair proved that +conclusively, and the servants obeyed her without +question. But what was it? She was not like the +other grown up people one knew. One moment +she sparkled at you and the next moment she +forgot you. It was perfectly obvious that she +wanted the General only because Delia had not +wanted to relinquish him, which was not like +grown people; it was like—yes, that was it: she +was like a little girl herself, even though she was +so tall and had such large red and blue rings on +her fingers.</p> + +<p>Vaguely this rushed through Caroline's mind, +and it was with an unconscious air of patronage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +that she said, as one making allowances for inexperience, +"When you get married, then you'll +<i>have</i> to get tired of them, you know."</p> + +<p>"But you'll be glad you've got 'em, when +they're once in bed," Miss Honey added encouragingly. +"My mother says I'm a real +treasure to her, after half past seven!"</p> + +<p>The Princess flushed; her straight dark eyebrows +quivered and met for an instant.</p> + +<p>"But I <i>am</i> married," she said.</p> + +<p>There was an utter silence.</p> + +<p>"I was married five years ago yesterday, as it +happens," she went on, "but it's not necessary +to set up a day nursery, you know, under those +circumstances."</p> + +<p>Still silence. Miss Honey studied the floor, and +Caroline, after an astonished stare at the Princess, +directed her eyes from one tapestry to another.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you understand that, don't you?" +demanded the Princess sharply. She appeared +unnecessarily irritated, and as a matter of fact +embarrassed her guests to such an extent that they +were utterly unable to relieve the stillness that +oppressed them quite as much as herself.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +The Princess uttered an angry exclamation and +paced rapidly up and down the room, looking +more regal and more unlike other people than +ever.</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake, say something, you little +sillies!" she cried. "I suppose you want me to +lose my temper?"</p> + +<p>Caroline gulped and Miss Honey examined her +shoe ties mutely.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a well-known voice floated toward +them.</p> + +<p>"Was his nice bottle all ready? Wait a minute, +only a minute now, General, and Delia'll give it +to you!"</p> + +<p>The procession filed into the room, Delia and +the General, Ellis deferentially holding a tiny white +coat, the man in livery bearing a small copper +saucepan in which he balanced a white bottle +with some difficulty. His face was full of anxious +interest.</p> + +<p>Delia thanked them both gravely, seated herself +on the foot of the basket chair, arranged the +General flat across her knees, and amid the excited +silence of her audience, shook the bottle once or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +twice with the air of an alchemist on the brink +of an epoch-making discovery.</p> + +<p>"Want it? Does Delia's baby want it?" she +asked enticingly. The General waved his arms +and legs wildly; wreathed in smiles, he opened +and shut his mouth in quick alternation, chirping +and clucking, as she held it up before him; +an ecstatic wriggling pervaded him, and he +chuckled unctuously. A moment later only +his deep-drawn, nozzling breaths could be heard +in the room. They watched him in hushed +satisfaction; once, as he smiled gratefully at +Delia, Ellis sighed with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Ain't he sweet, though!" she murmured, +and then glancing at the butler, giggled impressibly +as the strained attitudes of the circle struck her.</p> + +<p>"That will do, thank you, Haddock," said the +Princess quickly, drawing a long breath and seating +herself, and the two servants withdrew. +Delia noted nothing, her eyes fixed on her charge; +clearly, it would not have surprised her in the +least if they had all stood, rapt, till the meal was +over.</p> + +<p>"He takes it beautiful," she said in low tones,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +looking confidentially at the Princess; "I didn't +know but being in a strange place might make +a difference with him, but he's the best baby!—"</p> + +<p>She wiped his mouth and lifting him, still +horizontal, approached her hostess.</p> + +<p>"You can hold him now," she said superbly, +"but keep him flat for twenty minutes, please. +I'll go and take the bottle down, and get his +carriage ready. He'll be good. He'll take a +little nap, most likely."</p> + +<p>She laid him across the rose-colored lap of +the Princess, who looked curiously down on him, +and offered him her finger tentatively. "I never +held one before," she explained. "I—I don't +know...." The General smiled lazily and +patted the finger, picking at the great sapphire.</p> + +<p>"How soft its hands are," said the Princess. +"They slip off, they are so smooth! And how +good—does it never cry?" This she said half +to herself, and Caroline and Miss Honey, knowing +there was no need to answer her, came and +leaned against her knee unconsciously, and +twinkled their fingers at the baby.</p> + +<p>"Hello, General! Hello!" they cried softly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +and the General smiled impartially at them and +caressed the lady's finger.</p> + +<p>The Princess stroked his cheek. "What a +perfectly exquisite skin!" she said, and bending +over him, kissed him delicately.</p> + +<p>"How good it smells—how—how different!" +she murmured. "I thought they—I thought they +didn't."</p> + +<p>Miss Honey had taken the lady's other hand, and +was examining the square ruby with a diamond on +either side.</p> + +<p>"My mother says that's the principal reason to +have a baby," she remarked, absorbed in the glittering +thing. "You sprinkle 'em all over with +violet powder—just like doughnuts with sugar—and +kiss 'em. Some people think they get germs +that way, but my mother says if she couldn't kiss +'em she wouldn't have 'em!"</p> + +<p>The Princess bent over the baby again.</p> + +<p>"It's going to sleep here!" she said, half fearfully, +with an inquiring glance at the two. +"Oughtn't one to rock it?"</p> + +<p>Miss Honey shook her head severely. "Not +General," she answered, "he won't stand it. My<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +mother tried again and again—could I take that +blue ring a minute? I'd be awful careful—but he +wouldn't. He sits up and he lies down, but he +won't rock."</p> + +<p>"I might sing to him," suggested the Princess, +brushing a damp lock from the General's warm +forehead and slipping her ringless finger into his +curved fist carefully. "Would he like it?"</p> + +<p>"No, he wouldn't," said Miss Honey bluntly, +twisting the ring around her finger. "He only +likes two people to sing—Delia and my mother. +Was that ruby ring a 'ngagement ring?"</p> + +<p>Caroline interfered diplomatically. "General +would be very much obliged," she explained +politely, "except that my Aunt Deedee is a +very good singer indeed, and Uncle Joe says +General's taste is ruined for just common singing."</p> + +<p>The Princess stared at her blankly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed!" she remarked. Then she smiled +again in that whimsical expressive way. "You +don't think I could sing well enough for him—as +well as your mother?"</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a name="Illus_66" id="Illus_66"></a><img src="images/Illus077.jpg" title="Illus077" alt="Illus077" +width="400" height="667" /></p> + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: 2em;">With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portière +and disappeared.</h5> + +<p>Miss Honey laughed carelessly. "My mother +is a singer," she said, "a real one. She used to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +sing in concerts—real ones. In theatres. Real +theatres, I mean," as the lady appeared to be +still amused.</p> + +<p>"If you know where the Waldorf Hotel is," +Caroline interrupted, "she has sung in that, and +it was five dollars to get in. It was to send the +poor children to a Fresh Air Fund. It—it's not +the same as you would sing—or me," she added +politely.</p> + +<p>The lady arose suddenly and deposited the +General, like a doll, with one swift motion in the +basket chair. Striding across the room she +turned, flushed and tall, and confronted the +wondering children.</p> + +<p>"I will sing for you," she said haughtily, "and +you can judge better!"</p> + +<p>With a great sweep of her half bare arm, she +brushed aside a portière and disappeared. A +crashing chord rolled out from a piano behind +the curtains and ceased abruptly.</p> + +<p>"What does your mother sing?" she demanded, +not raising her voice, it seemed, and yet they +heard her as plainly as when they had leaned +against her knee.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +"She sings, 'My Heart's Own Heart,'" Miss +Honey called back defiantly.</p> + +<p>"And it's printed on the song, 'To Madame +Edith Holt!'" shrilled Caroline.</p> + +<p>The familiar prelude was played with a firm, +elastic touch, the opening chords struck, and a +great shining voice, masterful, like a golden +trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; +Miss Honey, instinctively humming the prelude, +got up from her foot-stool and followed the music, +unconscious that she walked. She had been +privileged to hear more good singing in her eight +years than most people have in twenty-four, had +Miss Honey, and she knew that this was no ordinary +occasion. She did not know she was listening +to one of the greatest voices her country had +ever produced—perhaps in time to be known +for the head of them all—but the sensitive little +soul swelled in her and her childish jealousy was +drowned deep in that river of wonderful sound.</p> + +<p>Higher and sweeter and higher yet climbed +the melody; one last triumphant leap, and it +was over.</p> + +<p>"<i>My heart—my heart—my heart's own heart!</i>"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +The Princess stood before them in the echoes +of her glory, her breath quick, her eyes brilliant.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she said, looking straight at Miss +Honey, "do I sing as well as your mother?"</p> + +<p>Miss Honey clenched her fists and caught her +breath. Her heart was breaking, but she could +not lie.</p> + +<p>"You—you—" she motioned blindly to Caroline, +and turned away.</p> + +<p>"You sing better," Caroline began sullenly; +but the lady pointed to Miss Honey.</p> + +<p>"No, you tell me," she insisted remorselessly.</p> + +<p>Miss Honey faced her.</p> + +<p>"You—you sing better than my m-mother," +she gulped, "but I <i>love</i> her better, and she's nicer +than you, and I don't love you at <i>all</i>!"</p> + +<p>She buried her face in the red velvet throne, +and sobbed aloud with excitement and fatigue. +Caroline ran to her: how could she have loved +that cruel woman? She cast an ugly look at the +Princess as she went to comfort Miss Honey, but +the Princess was at the throne before her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am abominable," she cried. "I am too +horrid to live! It wasn't kind of me, <i>chérie</i>, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +I love you for standing up for your mother. +There's no one to do as much for me, when <i>I'm</i> +down and out—no one!" Sorrow swept over her +flexible face like a veil, and seizing Miss Honey +in her strong nervous arms she wept on her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>Caroline, worn with the strain of the day, wept, +too, and even the General, abandoned in the +great chair, burst into a tiny warning wail.</p> + +<p>Quick as thought the Princess was upon him, +and had raised him against her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush, don't cry—don't cry, little +thing," she whispered, and sank into one of the +high carved chairs with him.</p> + +<p>"No, no, I'll hold him," she protested, as +Delia entered, her arms out. "I'm going to +sing to him. May I? He's sleepy."</p> + +<p>Delia nodded indulgently. "For half an hour," +she said, as one allowing a great privilege, "and +then we must go. The children are tired."</p> + +<p>"What do you sing to him?" the Princess +questioned humbly.</p> + +<p>"I generally sing 'Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,'" +the nurse answered. "Do you know it?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +"I think so," and the Princess began a sort of +glorified humming, like a great drowsy bee, all +resonant and tremulous.</p> + +<p>"Tell me the words," she said, and Delia recited +them, as a mother would, to humor a petted +child.</p> + +<p>The Princess lifted her voice and pressing +the General to her, began the song,</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 450px;"> +<p> +"Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise."</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Soft the great voice was, soft and widely +flowing; to Caroline, who had retreated to the +further end of the music-room, so that Delia +should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia +herself, a wonderful new Delia, were singing her, +a baby again, to sleep. She felt soothed, cradled, +protected by that lapping sea of melody that +drifted her off her moorings, out of the room....</p> + +<p>Vaguely she saw Miss Honey, relaxed on the +red throne, smile in her sleep, one arm falling +over the broad seat. Was it in her dream that +some one in a blue and white apron—not Delia, +for Delia was singing—leaned back slowly in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +long basket chair and closed her tired eyes? +Who was it that held the General close in her +arms, and smiled as he patted her cheek at the +familiar song and mumbled her fingers with happy +cooing noises?</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 450px;"> +<p> +"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,<br /> +Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream!"<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Soft as plush, sweet as honey, the warm voice +dipped and rose to the old tune. The General's +head was growing heavy, but he smiled confidingly +into the dark eyes above him and stretched himself +out in full-fed, drowsy content. One hand slipped +through the lace under his cheek and rested on the +singer's soft breast. She started like a frightened +woman, and her voice broke.</p> + +<p>Down in the hall the butler and the maid sat +on the lower stair.</p> + +<p>"Ain't it grand?" she whispered, and Haddock +nodded dreamily.</p> + +<p>"Mother used to sing us that in the old country," +he said. "There was Tom and 'Enry an' me—Lord, +Lord!"</p> + +<p>The General was asleep. Sometimes a tiny<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +frown drew his eyebrows together. Sometimes she +clenched and uncurled his warm hands. Sometimes +he sucked softly at nothing, with moist, +reminiscent lips. But on and on, over and over, +rose and fell the quaint old song,</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 450px;"> +<p> +"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream!"<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>It flooded the listening house, it spread a net of +dreams about the happy people and coaxed them +back to childhood and a child's protected sleep. +It seemed a song that could not stop, that +must return on its simple refrain so long as +there were arms to encircle and breasts to lean +upon.</p> + +<p>Two men came softly up a smaller stair than the +grand entrance flight, and paused in amazement at +sight of Caroline stretched, full length, across the +threshold. The older and smaller of the men had +in fact stepped on her, and confused and half awake +she listened to his apologies.</p> + +<p>"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! +not a vordt! Mein Gott! but it is marvellous! A +voice of velvet! Hey? A voice of the heart. My +friend, what is this?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +He peeped behind the drawn curtains, and withdrew +a face of wonder.</p> + +<p>"It is nothing but children—and they sleep!" +he whispered. "Oh, but listen, listen! And I +offered her fifteen hundred dollars for two hours +only of that!"</p> + +<p>The other man peeped behind the curtain in +his turn, and seizing Caroline by the arm tip-toed +with her to a further room.</p> + +<p>"What—who—what is the meaning of this?" +he whispered hoarsely. "That child—where—"</p> + +<p>Caroline rubbed her eyes. The golden voice +rose and fell around her.</p> + +<p>"General—Delia," she muttered, and stumbled +against him. He lifted her limp little body and +laid it gently on a leather sofa.</p> + +<p>"Another time," he said softly to the other +man, "I—we cannot talk with you now. Will +you excuse us?"</p> + +<p>The man looked longingly at the curtains.</p> + +<p>"She will never do more well than that. +Never!" he hissed. "Oh, my friend, hear it grow +soft! Yes, yes, I am going."</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a name="Illus_74" id="Illus_74"></a><img src="images/Illus087.jpg" title="Illus087" alt="Illus087" +width="400" height="561" /></p> + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: 2em;">"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a vordt! +Mein Gott! but it is marvellous."</h5> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +It seemed to Caroline that in a dream some one +with a red face and glasses askew, shook her by the +shoulder and said to her sternly, "Sh! sh! Listen +to me. To-day you hear a great artist—hey? +Will you forget it? I must go because they do not +vant me, but you will stay and listen. There is +here no such voice. Velvet! Honey! Sh! sh!" +and he went the way of dreams.</p> + +<p>The man who stayed looked long through the +curtains.</p> + +<p>As a swing droops slow and slower, as the +ripples fade from a stone thrown in the stream, +the song of the Princess softened and crooned +and hushed. Now it was a rich breath, a resonant +thread,</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 240px;"> +<p> +"Flow gently, sweet Afton—"<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>The man stepped across the room and sank +below the General at her feet. With her finger +on her lips she turned her eyes to his and looked +deep into them. He caught his breath with a sob, +and wrapping his arm about her as he knelt, hid +his face on her lap, against the General. She +laid her hand on his head, across the warm little +body, and patted it tenderly. Around them lay<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +the sleepers; the General's soft breath was in +their ears. The man lifted his head and looked +adoringly at the Princess: her hand caressed his +cheek, but her eyes looked beyond him into the +future.</p> + + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1> </h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="iii" id="iii"></a>III</h2> + +<h2>THE PRIZE</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/c.png" title="C" height="44" width="32" alt="C" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">aroline</span> sniffed her way luxuriously +through the dusky panelled library.</p> + +<p>"I think it smells awfully good here, +don't you?" she inquired of her hostess.</p> + +<p>The lady's wonderful velvet train dragged +listlessly behind her. Her neck and arms were +dressed in heavy yellowish lace, but all around +her slim body waves of deep colored, soft velvet +held the light in lustrous pools or darkened into +almost black shadows. It was like stained glass +in a church, thought Caroline, stroking it surreptitiously, +and like stained glass, too, were the +lovely books, bloody red, grassy green and brown, +like Autumn woods, with edges of gold when the +sunlight struck them. They made the walls +like a great jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to +ceiling: here and there a niche of polished wood +held a white, clear-cut head. From the ceiling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass +chains; they swayed ever so slightly when one +watched them closely.</p> + +<p>"This is my favorite room, Duchess," said +Caroline, "isn't it yours?"</p> + +<p>"Do you really think I look like one?" returned +the lady, "the only duchess I ever saw was fat—horribly +fat. It is a very handsome library, +of course."</p> + +<p>"Then <i>she</i> didn't look like a duchess, that's +all," Caroline explained. "What I like about +this library is, it's so clean. And you can pull +the chairs out and show those big, shiny yellow +ones on the bottom shelf."</p> + +<p>"Of course; why not?" said the Duchess, +dropping into a great carved chair with griffins' +heads on the top.</p> + +<p>"Why, you can't do that at Uncle Joe's," +Caroline confided, sitting on a small griffin stool +at the lady's feet, "because General gets at the +bottom row and smears 'em. You see he's only +two, and you can't blame him, but he licks himself +dreadfully and then rubs it on the backs. He +marks them, too, inside, with a pencil or a hatpin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +or even an orange-wood stick that you clean your +nails with. Yours is made of pearl, you know, +but most—a great many, I mean—people have +them wood. And so the chairs have to be all +leaned around against the walls to keep him from +the books."</p> + +<p>The Duchess drew a long breath. "And your +uncle objects?" she said, between her teeth.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joe says," Caroline returned, patting +the griffin heads on her little stool, "that if the +President had General in his library for half an +hour he'd feel different about race suicide."</p> + +<p>The Duchess laughed shortly.</p> + +<p>"That is possible, too," she agreed. "You +said Cousin Joe was well—and Edith?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, they're well—I mean, they're very +well indeed, thank you," said Caroline. "Uncle +Joe says they have to be, with the General's +shoes two dollars and a half a pair! You see +he has quite thick soles, now—he runs about +everywhere. Aunt Edith says he needs a mounted +policeman 'stead of a nurse."</p> + +<p>"Did Edith get rested after the moving?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Caroline answered absently. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +was watching the opal globes sway. "Aunt +Edith says before she was married she'd have +gone South with a trained nurse after such an +experience, but now she has to save the nurse +for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down after +lunch."</p> + +<p>The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the +griffin chair, but sank back again.</p> + +<p>"And you have a trained nurse all the time," +Caroline mused, stroking the glistering velvet, +"isn't that funny? Just so in case you <i>might</i> +be sick...." The sunlight peeped and winked +on the gold book-edges.</p> + +<p>"It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding +very low, "but she is not likely to be needed for +measles."</p> + +<p>"No," Caroline assented, "you and cousin +Richard are pretty old for measles. It's children +that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But +you don't seem to ever have any children. And +such a big house, too! And you're very fond +of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that +when you like them you can't manage to have +any. And people that don't care about them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +have them all the time. It was only Christmas +time that Norah Mahoney—she does the extra +washing in the summer—had another. That +makes seven. It's a boy. Joseph Michael, he's +named, partly after Uncle Joe. Norah says there +don't seem to be any end to your troubles, once +you're married to a man."</p> + +<p>The Duchess turned aside her head, but Caroline +knew from the corner of her mouth that her eyes +were full of tears. She stroked the hands that +clenched the griffin's crest.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," she urged, "maybe you'll have +some. Most everybody has just one, anyway."</p> + +<p>The Duchess shook her head mutely; a large +round tear dropped on the griffin.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Caroline briskly, "why +don't you adopt one? The Weavers did, and she +was quite a nice girl; I used to play with her. +She sucked her thumb, though. But prob'ly +they don't, all of them."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't mind, if she did," the Duchess +declared. Already she spoke more brightly. "I +wanted to adopt one—one could take it when it +was very little. But Richard won't hear of it."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +"Not a bit?" Caroline looked worried; she +knew Richard.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," the Duchess repeated, "that is, +he says he is willing under certain conditions, +but they are simply impossible. Nobody could +find such a child."</p> + +<p>"There are lots of 'em in the Catholic Foundling," +said Caroline thoughtfully, "all kinds. +Aunt Edith went there to sing for them and she +took Miss Honey and me. They're all dressed +differently and they look so sweet. You can take +your choice of them; Aunt Edith cried. But +you must let them be Catholics."</p> + +<p>"Richard wouldn't let me take one from an +institution," the Duchess said, "and somehow +I wouldn't care to, myself. But there is a woman +I know of who is interested in children that—that +aren't likely to grow up happily, and she +will get one for anybody, only one can't ask any +questions about them. You may have all the +rights in them, but you will never know where +they came from. And Richard won't have that. +I suppose he's right."</p> + +<p>"But there are plenty of people who would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +let you have one, if you would give her a good +home and be kind to her," Caroline began, lapsing +for the moment into her confusing, adult manner.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but Richard says that no people nice +enough to have a child we could want would ever +give us the child, don't you see," the Duchess +interrupted eagerly. "He says the father must +be a gentleman—and educated—and the mother +a good woman. He says there must be good +blood behind it. And they must never see it, +never ask about it, never want it. He says he +doesn't see how I could bear to have a child that +any other mother had ever loved."</p> + +<p>Caroline sighed.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Richard does make up his mind, +so!" she muttered.</p> + +<p>"He is unreasonable," said the Duchess suddenly, +"unreasonable! He must know all about +the child, but the parents must not know about +us! Not know our name, even! Just give up +the child and withdraw—why, the poorest, commonest +people would not do that, and does he +expect that people of the kind he requires would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +be so heartless? We shall never be able to get +one—never. And yet he wants one so—almost +as much as I!"</p> + +<p>The Duchess had forgotten Caroline. Staring +at the opal globes she sat, and again the tears +rose, brimmed and overflowed.</p> + +<p>Caroline slipped off the little stool and walked +softly out of the beautiful room. The books +glowed jewel-like, the four milky moons swayed +ever so little on their brass chains, the white +busts looked coldly at the Duchess as she sat crying +in her big carved chair, and there was nobody +that could help at all.</p> + +<p>Through the dark, shiny halls she walked—cautiously, +for she had had embarrassing lessons +in its waxy polish—and paused from force of +habit to pat the great white polar bear that made +the little reception room such a delightful +place. More than the busts in the library even, +he set loose the fancy, and whiled one away to +the enchanted North where the Snow Queen +drove her white sledge through the sparkling +glades, and the Water Baby dived beneath the +dipping berg.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +Miss Grundman, the trained nurse, appeared +in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Did you care to go out with the brougham, +to-day, dear?" she asked. "Hunt tells me he +has to go 'way down town."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'd like to—can you take care of babies, +too?" Caroline returned abruptly.</p> + +<p>Miss Grundman started.</p> + +<p>"What an odd child you are—of course I can!" +she said. "All nurses can; it's part of the training. +Have you any you're worried about?" +she added pointedly. Caroline flushed.</p> + +<p>"You're making fun o' me," she muttered, +"you know very well only grown people have +them! I don't mean if they're sick, but can you +wash them, and cook the milk in that tin thing, +and everything like that?"</p> + +<p>"Bless the child, of course I can!" Miss Grundman +cried, "you bring me one and I'll show +you!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I b'lieve you, Miss Grundman, if you +say so," Caroline assured her, and slid carefully +along the hall for the stairs that led to her hat +and coat.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +They spun smoothly down the avenue with an +almost imperceptible electric whir, Caroline bolt +upright on the plum-colored cushion, Hunt and +Gleggson bolt upright on the seat outside. It +was a matter for congratulation to Caroline +that of all the vehicles that glided by them, none +boasted a more upright pair than Hunt and +Gleggson.</p> + +<p>The tall brown houses were gradually changing +into bright shops; the carriages grew thicker +and thicker; the long procession stopped and +waited now almost every moment, so crowded +was the brilliant street. Once a massive policeman +actually smiled at her as Hunt stopped the +brougham close to him, and Caroline's admiring +soul crowded to her eyes at the mighty wave of +his white, arresting hand. They drew up before +a great window filled with broughams and victorias +displayed as lavishly as if they had been +hats or bonbon boxes—it was like a gigantic +toy-shop. Hunt dropped acrobatically to the +pavement and was seen describing his mysterious +desires to an affable gentleman behind the plate-glass; +he measured with his knuckles and illus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>trated +in pantomime the snapping of something +over his knee; the clerk shook his head in commiseration +and signalled to an attendant, who +darted off. Soon Hunt appeared with a small +package and they started on again, turning a +corner abruptly and winding through less exciting +streets. The shops grew smaller and dingier; +drays passed lumbering by and street cars +jarred along beside them, but vehicles like their +own were noticeably lacking. It was plain that +they attracted more attention, now, and more +than one group of children dancing in the street +to the music of the hurdy-gurdy lingered daringly +to provoke the thrilling, mellow warning of their +horn. At last they stopped at a corner and Hunt +dropped again to the pavement, lingering for a +short consultation with Gleggson who pointed +once or twice behind them to the small occupant +of the brougham. On this occasion he took with +him a mysterious and powerful handle, and +Caroline knew that this was precisely equivalent +to running away with the horses. He hurried +around an unattractive corner, and Gleggson +sat alone in front. Five, ten minutes passed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>. +They seemed very dull to Caroline, and she +reached for the plum-colored tube and spoke +boldly through it.</p> + +<p>"What are we waiting for, please, Gleggson? +Where is Hunt?"</p> + +<p>"'E just stepped off, Miss, for a minute, like. +'E'll be 'ere directly. Would you wish for me +to go and look 'im up, Miss?"</p> + +<p>Gleggson spoke very cordially.</p> + +<p>"We-ell, I don't know," Caroline said doubtfully. +"If you think he'll be right back ... +I can wait...."</p> + +<p>"Pre'aps I'd better, as you say, Miss," Gleggson +continued, "for 'e <i>'as</i> been gone some time, +and I think I could lay me 'and on 'im. You'll +not get out, of course, Miss, and I'll be back +before you know it."</p> + +<p>He clambered down and took the same general +course as Hunt had taken, deflecting, however, +to enter a little door made like a window-blind, +that failed to reach its own door-sill.</p> + +<p>"Hunt didn't go there at all," Caroline muttered +resentfully, and deliberately opening the +door of the brougham, she stepped out.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +She had followed Hunt's track quite accurately +till a sudden turn confused her, and she realized +that after that corner she had no idea in which +direction he had gone. She paused uncertainly; +the street was dirty, the few children in sight were +playing a game unknown to her and not playing +very pleasantly, at that; the women who looked +at her seemed more curious than kindly. The +atmosphere was not sordid enough to be alarming +or even interesting; it was merely slovenly and +distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to +go back when a young girl stopped by her and +eyed her inquisitively.</p> + +<p>"Were you lookin' for any particular party?" +she asked.</p> + +<p>"I was looking for Hunt," said Caroline, "he +went this way, I think."</p> + +<p>"There's some Hunts across the street there," +the girl suggested, "right hand flat, second floor. +I seen the name once. I guess you're lost all +right, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I'm not +lost. I can go right back. I'll see if Hunt's +there."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +The threshold was greasy and worn, the stairs +covered with faded oil cloth, the side walls defaced +and over-scrawled. At the head of the stairs +three dingy doors opened in three different directions, +and a soiled card on the middle one +bore the name of Hunt. A man's voice somewhere +behind it talked in a strange loud sing-song; +he seemed to be telling a long, confusing +story. At the moment of Caroline's timid knock +he was saying over and over again,</p> + +<p>"Isn't that so? Isn't that so? Who wouldn't +have done the same? Put your finger on the place +where I made the mistake! Will you? Will +anybody? I ask it as a favor—"</p> + +<p>"Hush, won't you?" a woman's voice interrupted, +"wasn't that a knock?"</p> + +<p>Caroline knocked again.</p> + +<p>There was a hasty shuffling and a key turned +in the door.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" the woman's voice asked. "What +do you want? The auction's all over—there's +nothing left. We're moving out to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Surprise held Caroline dumb. How could one +have an auction in such a place? At auctions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +there were red flags, and horses and carriages +gathered around the house, and people brought +luncheon; they had often driven to auctions out +in the country.</p> + +<p>The door opened.</p> + +<p>"Why it's only a child!" said the woman, +thin and fatigued, with dark rings under her +not ungentle eyes. "What do you want here?"</p> + +<p>"I'm looking for Hunt," Caroline answered, +"doesn't he live here?"</p> + +<p>"Heavens, no!" the woman said, "that old +card's been there long before we moved in, I +guess. They were old renters, most likely. What's +the party to you, anyway? Is he your—"</p> + +<p>She paused, studying Caroline's simple but +unmistakeable clothes and manner.</p> + +<p>"He drives the automobile," Caroline explained, +"I thought he came this way."</p> + +<p>"Come in, won't you?" said the woman, +"there's no good getting any more lost than +you are, I guess. There's not much to sit on, +'specially if you're used to automobiles, but we +can find you something, I hope. I try to keep +it better looking than this gen'ally, but this is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +my last day here. I'm going out West to-morrow."</p> + +<p>An old table, two worn chairs and an over-turned +box furnished the small room; through +an open door Caroline spied a tumbled bed. +A kitchen, dismantled and dreary, faced her.</p> + +<p>"The agent gave me five dollars for all I +left," the woman said, "I don't know which of +us got the best o' the bargain. Now, about +you. Where do you live? I s'pose they're +looking for you right now while we're talking. +Do you know where you left the automobile?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes." Caroline stared frankly about +her. "Wasn't there a man in here? Where +did he go?"</p> + +<p>The woman grunted out a sort of laugh. "If +you're not the limit!" she murmured. She +stepped to the door of the kitchen, looked in, +and beckoned to Caroline.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you heard him carrying on," she +said, "he's in there. Poor fellow, he's all worn +out."</p> + +<p>Caroline peered into the kitchen. With his +rough, unshaven face resting on his arms, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +hair all tossed about, his face drawn in misery, +even in his heavy sleep, a young man sat before +a table, half lying on it, one hand on a soiled +plate still grasping a piece of bread.</p> + +<p>"Is he sick?" whispered Caroline.</p> + +<p>"N—no, I wouldn't say sick, exactly, but +I guess he'd be almost as well off if he was," +said the woman. "It would take his mind off. +He's had a lot of trouble."</p> + +<p>The man scowled in his sleep and clenched his +hand, so that the bread crumbled in it.</p> + +<p>"And so I won the prize," he muttered, "just +as I told her I would. Did I have any pull? +Was there any favoritism? No—you know it +as well as I do—it was good work won that +prize!"</p> + +<p>"Was it a bridge prize?" Caroline inquired +maturely. The woman stared.</p> + +<p>"A bridge prize?" she repeated vaguely. +"Why, no, I guess not. It was for writing a +story for one of those magazines. He won a +thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>The man opened his eyes suddenly.</p> + +<p>"And if you don't believe it," he said, still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +in that strange sing-song voice, "just read that +letter."</p> + +<p>He pulled a worn, creased sheet from an inner +pocket and thrust it at Caroline.</p> + +<p>"It's typewritten," he added, "it's easy +enough to see if I'm lying. Just read it +out."</p> + +<p>Caroline glanced at the engraved letter-heading +and began to read in her careful, childish voice:</p> + +<div class="blockquot" style="padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;"> +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Mr. Williston</span>:</p> + +<p><i>It is with great pleasure that I have to announce +the fact that your story, "The Renewal," has been +selected by the judges as most worthy of the thousand-dollar +prize offered by us.</i></p> +</div> + +<p>The woman snatched the paper from her hand.</p> + +<p>"The idea!" she cried, "let the child alone, +Mr. Williston! Don't you see she's lost?"</p> + +<p>The man dropped like a stone on the table.</p> + +<p>"Lost!" he whispered, "lost! Oh, that +dreadful word! Yes, she's lost. Poor little Lou. +It's all over."</p> + +<p>The woman drew Caroline back into the sitting +room.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +"I'm sorry you should see him," she said. "You +must excuse him—he don't really know what he's +doing. He lost his wife a week ago and he's +hardly slept since. It's real sad. I was as sorry +as I could be for 'em, and I'd have kept 'em even +longer if she'd lived, though they couldn't pay. +I'd keep the baby, too, if I could, it's such a cute +little thing, but I can't, and I'm to take it to the +Foundling to-day. I'll go right out with you, +and see that the police—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, is there a baby? Let me see it!" Caroline +pleaded. "How old is it?"</p> + +<p>"Just a week," said the woman. "Yes, you +can see him. He's good as gold, and big—! He +weighs nine pounds."</p> + +<p>In the third room, lying in a roll of +blankets on a tumbled cot, a pink, fat baby +slept, one fist in his dewy mouth. The red-gold +down was thick on his round head; he +looked like a wax Christ-child for a Christmas +tree.</p> + +<p>Caroline sighed ecstatically.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he lovely!" she breathed.</p> + +<p>"He's a fine child," the woman agreed. "And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +his mother never saw him, poor little thing. Nor +his father either, for that matter."</p> + +<p>Caroline looked in amazement toward the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Never laid his eyes on him," the woman +went on sadly, "as if it was any good, to blame +the poor baby! He's taken a terrible grudge on +the little thing. He was awfully fond of his +wife, though. He told me he was going to leave +him right here, and then, of course, somebody +in the house would notify the police, if I didn't +take him to the Foundling. And of course he'd +get better care, for that matter—there's no doubt +about that. It's too bad. There's people that +would give their eyes for a fine baby like that, +you know."</p> + +<p>"I know it," said Caroline simply, "my cousin +Richard would be glad to have him—he wants +one very much. But he's very particular."</p> + +<p>The woman looked at her sharply. "What +do you mean?" she asked. "How particular?"</p> + +<p>Suddenly she laughed nervously. "I ought +to be ashamed of myself," she said, "you ought +to be at the police station now. But I'm all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +worn out, and it does me good to talk to anybody. +I don't let the neighbors in much—it's a cheap +set of people around here, and Mr. Williston's +different from them and I hate to hear him talking +to them the way he will. He don't know what +he's doing. He tells 'em all about that prize—and +it's true, you know, he did get it; that's +what they married on, and he thought he could +get plenty more that way, and then he never +sold another story. It was too bad. He's a +real gentleman, though you might not think +it to look at him now, not shaved, and all. He +thought he could earn a thousand every week, I +s'pose, poor fellow. He got work in a department +store, fin'ly, and it took all he made to +bury her. She was a sweet little thing, but soft. +I was real sorry for 'em."</p> + +<p>She wiped her eyes hastily.</p> + +<p>"Do you know whether he went to Harvard?" +Caroline inquired, in a business-like tone.</p> + +<p>The woman was heating some milk in a bottle, +over a lamp, and did not answer her, but a voice +from the door brought her sharply around. The +young man stood there. Though still unshaven,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +he was otherwise quite changed. His hair was +parted neatly, his coat brushed, his face no longer +flushed, but pale and composed.</p> + +<p>"If your extraordinary question refers to me, +yes, I went to Harvard," he said in a grating, +disagreeable voice. "I have in fact been called +a 'typical Harvard man.' But that was some +time ago. May I ask who you are?"</p> + +<p>The woman lifted the bottle from the tin cup +that held it and picked up the baby; the young +man shifted his eyes from her immediately and +looked persistently over Caroline's head.</p> + +<p>"Her family's coachman's name is Hunt," +said the woman, "and she thought he lived here, +she says. He'd no business to go off and leave +her alone. Her family'd be worried to death. +When I go out with the baby I'll take her. I +suppose you haven't changed your mind about +the baby, Mr. Williston?—now you're feeling +more like yourself," she added.</p> + +<p>"I cannot discuss that subject, Mrs. Ufford," +the young man answered, in his rasping, unnatural +voice. "When you have disposed of the matter +along the lines you yourself suggested, I am at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +your service till you take the train. After that—after +that"—his lips tightened in a disagreeable +smile—"I may be able to get to work—and +win another prize!"</p> + +<p>"There, there!" she cautioned him, "don't +talk about that, Mr. Williston, don't, now! Why +don't you go out with the little girl and see if +you can find her automobile? That'll be less +for me to do. Why don't you?"</p> + +<p>He turned, muttering something about his hat, +but Caroline tugged at his coat.</p> + +<p>"Wait, wait!" she urged him, "I want you +to tell her to let me take the baby! If you went +to Harvard, that's all Cousin Richard said, except +about a gentleman"—she paused and scrutinized +him a moment. "You <i>are</i> a gentleman, aren't +you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He looked at her. "My father was," he +answered briefly. "In my own case, I have +grave doubts. What do you think?" he +asked the woman, looking no lower than her +eyes.</p> + +<p>She fed the baby deftly. "Oh, Mr. Williston, +don't talk so—of course you're a gentleman!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +she cried, "you couldn't help about the money. +You did your best."</p> + +<p>His mouth twisted pitifully.</p> + +<p>"That'll do," he said, "what does this child +mean? Who is your cousin? Where does he +live?"</p> + +<p>"He lives on Madison Avenue," Caroline began +eagerly, "but I mustn't tell you his last name, +you know, because he doesn't want you to know. +That's just it. But he'd love the baby. I could +take it right back in the automobile."</p> + +<p>The man felt in under his coat and detached +from his waistcoat a small gold pin. He tore a +strip of wrapping paper from the open box near +him and wrote rapidly on it.</p> + +<p>"There," he said, fastening the pin into the +folded paper, "I'm glad I never pawned it. If +your cousin is a Harvard man, the pin will be +enough, but he can look me up from this paper—all +he wants. They're all dead but me, though. +Here, wait a moment!"</p> + +<p>He went back into the sitting room and +fumbled in a heap of waste paper on the +floor, picked out of it a stiff sheet torn once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +through, and attached it with the gold pin to +the bit of writing.</p> + +<p>"That's her marriage certificate," he said to +the woman. She stared at him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Williston, do you believe that child?" +she burst out, loosening her hold on the bottle +in her hand. "Why, she may be making it all +up! I—I—you must be crazy! You don't +even know her name! I won't allow it—"</p> + +<p>He broke into her excited remonstrance gravely.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe a child could make up such +details, in the first place, Mrs. Ufford," he said, +"she is repeating something she's heard, I think. +Did your cousin mention anything else?" he +said abruptly to Caroline.</p> + +<p>She smiled gratefully at him. "The mother +must be a good woman," she quoted placidly.</p> + +<p>Both of them started.</p> + +<p>"Do you think a child would invent that?" +he demanded. "Now, see here. You take Mrs. +Ufford home with you in the automobile and she +can see if there's anything in what you say, +really. If there's not, she can go right on with +the—with it, and do as—as we arranged before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +It's all written on the paper, and my full consent +to the adoption, and if there's anything legal +to do about it, Mrs. Ufford can attend to it. But +nobody'll trouble 'em—they can be sure of that. +My people all died long ago and—and hers—hers...."</p> + +<p>He stopped short. With eyes filled and lips +vaguely moving he fell into a strange revery, a +sort of tranced stupor. So intense were his +absent thoughts that they impressed the woman +and the child; they knew that he was back in +the past and waited patiently while for a few +kind moments he forgot. At length his eyes +shifted and he took up his broken phrase, unconscious, +evidently, of the pause. "—her's are +back in New England. They never knew.... +I had <i>some</i> pride. They're the I-told-you-so sort, +anyhow. And they told her, all right. Oh +yes, they told her! Narrow-minded, God-fearing +prigs!" He stared at Mrs. Ufford curiously. +"But they paid their debts, all the same," he +added with a harsh laugh, "and that's more than +I've been able to do, I suppose you're thinking."</p> + +<p>But almost before the dark red had flushed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +her tired, lined face, he leaned forward and +touched her shoulder kindly.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that," he apologized. "I'm +half crazy, I think. You've been as good as +gold, and even when I've paid you the money +I owe you, I'll owe you more than I can ever pay. +I know that. And you're New England, too."</p> + +<p>His sudden softening encouraged the woman, +and she looked appealingly up at him, while she +patted the bundle on her lap.</p> + +<p>"Folks have hearts in New England, Mr. +Williston," she began, "and if you was to go to +her folks or write to 'em, I guess you'd find—oh, +couldn't you?"</p> + +<p>His impatient hand checked her.</p> + +<p>"He might grow up to be a real comfort to you," +she murmured persistently, "and you could look +out for him well enough, once you get started. +Just see how smart you are, Mr. Williston—look +at that prize you got; she was awful proud of +it."</p> + +<p>His face twisted painfully.</p> + +<p>"I looked out for <i>her</i> well, didn't I?" he said +coldly, "I was a 'good provider,' as they say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +up there, wasn't I? Do you think—" his voice +rang harshly and he struck the table by his side +till it rattled on its unsteady legs—"do you +think if I couldn't look out for her, I would look +out for <i>that</i>? Get it ready."</p> + +<p>The woman rose, her lips pressed together, and +rolled the blankets tightly about the quiet child. +With one gesture she put on a shabby hat and +pinned it to her hair.</p> + +<p>"I'll leave the bottle with you," she said to +Caroline; "it'll help keep him quiet, when I'm +gone. Come on."</p> + +<p>The man turned away his head as they passed +him. At the outer door she paused a moment, +and her face softened.</p> + +<p>"I know how you feel, Mr. Williston, and I +don't judge you," she said gently, "for the Lord +knows you've had more than your share of trouble. +But won't you kiss it once before—before it's +too late? It's your child, you know. Don't +you feel—"</p> + +<p>"I feel one thing," he cried out, and the bitterness +of his voice frightened Caroline; "I feel that +it murdered her! Take it away!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +They shrank through the door.</p> + +<p>The woman sobbed once or twice on the stairs, +but Caroline patted the flannel bundle excitedly.</p> + +<p>They had rounded the corner in a moment, and +the woman pointed ahead with her free hand.</p> + +<p>"Is that the automobile?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded. The brougham stood empty +and alone where she had left it.</p> + +<p>"They're not back yet!" she cried in disgust, +"the idea!"</p> + +<p>"Maybe they're looking for you," Mrs. Ufford +said shortly.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you glad we've got it?" Caroline +inquired timidly. "I am, awfully. I didn't +expect to get such a good one, so soon," she went +on more easily, "but I don't like that man much. +He's so cross."</p> + +<p>"Child, child, you don't know what you're +talkin' about!" the woman cried impatiently. +"He's not cross—but his heart's just about +broke. He thinks more money would've saved +her. And I guess he's right about that. She +was a soft little thing. But she stuck to him."</p> + +<p>They walked a few steps in silence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +"I don't know as I was actin' right, either, +to talk as I did," she continued abruptly. "I +s'pose it is better as 'tis, 'specially if your folks +will take the baby. They'll do a lot more for +it than ever he could, prob'ly. I s'pose they're +real rich—regular swells? I can see they've +got a fine automobile."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Cousin Richard's very rich," Caroline +answered, indifferently, "that's only the +brougham—there are two more. I have more +fun at Aunt Edith's, though."</p> + +<p>"<i>'Twas</i> queer about all those things your +cousin wanted, wasn't it?" the woman said, +musingly. "'Seemed like kind of a sign to him, +I could see—going to Harvard College and all. +I s'pose it was a sign—maybe."</p> + +<p>She walked slowly, perhaps because of her +burden.</p> + +<p>"That's a fine college, I s'pose?" she said, +inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"It's good enough," Caroline allowed, "of +course Yale's the best. We all go to Yale. Uncle +Joe says there had to be something for Yale to +beat, so they founded Harvard!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +"You don't say," Mrs. Ufford returned, "that's +funny."</p> + +<p>They were very near the brougham now. It +stood as deserted as when Caroline had left it. +The baby in the bundled blanket neither cried +nor stirred.</p> + +<p>"He's the best child," said the woman, with +her tired, kindly smile. "He's next to nothing +to tend to. If he'd felt to go back to her folks +with it, I'd 'a' gone with him to look after it. +I've got enough for that—the things sold real +well, and he'd never let me lose, anyhow. He +isn't that kind. I took a real likin' to both of +'em. I've kept boarders, all over, for fifteen +years and I never lost a cent from anybody like +him, not one. You get to know all sorts, keepin' +boarders, and Mr. Williston's all right—though +you mightn't think so," she ended loyally.</p> + +<p>Caroline hardly listened. She saw herself in +the bearskin reception room, up the stairs, in the +library, her baby in her arms; she heard the +incredulous joy of the Duchess, she explained +importantly with convincing detail, to Cousin +Richard the critical. To her eager soul this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +thin, friendly woman was merely an incident; +that irritable, incoherent man less than a dream.</p> + +<p>They paused on the curb, and she opened the +brougham door hospitably.</p> + +<p>"You get in first," she said, "and then I +can hold him a little while, can't I?"</p> + +<p>"I never was in one o' these," Mrs. Ufford +answered doubtfully, "s'pose you go in first. +It can't go—or back, or anything, can it?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, of course not," said Caroline impatiently. +"There's Hunt 'way up the street—he +doesn't see us—how he's hurrying!"</p> + +<p>The woman paused, her foot on the broad step.</p> + +<p>"'Taint Hunt—it's Mr. Williston," she announced. +"What's he want, I wonder? Look—he's +wavin' at us! I guess he forgot some +paper he wants you to take—he's bound to +have it legal," she added with a sigh. "No, +dear, let me be. I'll see what he wants before +I get in."</p> + +<p>The young man was running fast; his face +was red, his eyes anxious.</p> + +<p>"Have you got it? Is it here?" he cried, +panting, and as she lifted the bundle high, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +face cleared and Caroline saw that he was very +handsome.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Ufford," he gasped, "read this! +Just read it! I found it in my pocket-book—I +thought you might be gone—she put it there +for me—my poor little Lou! My God, what a +brute—what a brute!"</p> + +<p>The woman, one foot still on the step of the +brougham, supported the child on her raised +knee and held the paper in her free hand.</p> + +<p>"<i>My dearest husband</i>," she read aloud, "<i>if +I get well you will never see this, for I will take it +out, but I don't believe I will take it out, for I don't +believe I will get well. They say everybody thinks +they will die, and of course a great many don't, +but some do, and I think I will, I don't know why, +but I am sure. But you will have the little girl. +I am sure she will be a girl, and I hope she will look +like me and be a comfort to you. You will take +good care of her, I know. Think how nicely you +took care of me and how hard you worked. You +take her to my sister, and when she gets big enough, +then you take her. She will not be a burden for +you will earn lots of money when you can stop</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +<i>working in that horrid store on my account, and +have time to do your writing. You must not get +discouraged, for your writing is fine. Remember +that prize you took. They will all be proud of +you some day. You have been so good to me.<br /> +Your loving wife, Lou.</i>"</p> + +<p>Her voice broke, and with no further word +she held the child out to the young man. Without +a word he took it and stared eagerly into its +face, pushing the wrappings aside.</p> + +<p>"He has her eyes," he murmured, "Lou's +eyes!"</p> + +<p>The baby felt the grip of a stronger arm, +wrinkled its features and appeared to scan the +dark, trembling face above it.</p> + +<p>"He knows me! Mrs. Ufford, he knows me!" +cried the man.</p> + +<p>"Maybe so, maybe so," she said, soothingly. +"You'll keep him, won't you, now?"</p> + +<p>"Keep him? Keep him?" he repeated, "why +he's all I've got of hers—all! He's Lou's and +mine, together! He's—"</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush!" she warned him, "here's a +crowd already! We're right out in the street,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +Mr. Williston! Come back with me. Yes, keep +him if you want to."</p> + +<p>She turned to Caroline, neglected and wide-eyed, +in the brougham.</p> + +<p>"You see how it is, dear," she said hastily, +"he wants it, after all. I can't help bein' glad. +It ain't always that money does the most, you +know. And he's the baby's father. Don't you +mind, will you?"</p> + +<p>Caroline gulped.</p> + +<p>"I—I guess not," she answered bravely. "But +I did want him!"</p> + +<p>"I know. You meant all right," the woman +assured her. "You're real—there's your coachman +runnin'. He saw the crowd gatherin', +prob'ly. Good-by, dear."</p> + +<p>She slipped through the curious street children +after the tall figure that hurried on with his +bundle, a block ahead. Gleggson dashed up to +the brougham.</p> + +<p>"W'ere was you, Miss, for goodness' sake?" +he gasped out, "h'I've been h'all over after yer! +Don't, don't tell Hunt on me, will you, Miss? +He'd fair kill the life out o' me! He's comin'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +now. 'e 'ad to go, Miss, fer his little boy was +took sick last night and callin' for 'im. So 'e +made up the errant. But it'll cost us both our +place, y' know, Miss!"</p> + +<p>The man's voice shook. Hunt was very near +them now, walking hard.</p> + +<p>"I'd no business to leave, I know—<i>will</i> you +h'overlook it for once, Miss, and keep mum?" +the man pleaded.</p> + +<p>"All right, Gleggson—all right," she said +wearily, "I won't tell."</p> + +<p>Confused, disappointed, and yet with a curious +sense of joy in the joy of the two even now +rounding the corner, she leaned back in the +brougham.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he'll go to Harvard, anyway," +she sighed.</p> + + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1> </h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="iv" id="iv"></a>IV</h2> + +<h2>WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN.</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/o.png" title="O" height="44" width="39" alt="O" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">ne</span> glance at Caroline's shoulders, hunched +with caution, the merest profile, indeed, +of her tense and noiseless advance up the +narrow gravel path, would have convinced the +most casual observer that she was bent upon +arson, at the least. At the occasional crunch of +the gravel she scowled; the well meant effort +of a speckled gray hen, escaped from some distant +part of the grounds, to bear her company, produced +a succession of pantomimic dismissals +that alarmed the hen to the point of frenzy, so +that her clacks and cackles resounded far beyond +the trim hedge that separated the drying-ground +from the little kitchen garden.</p> + +<p>Caroline scowled, turned to shake her fist at +the hen, now lumbering awkwardly through +the hedge, and sat down heavily on a little bed +of parsley.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +"Nasty old thing!" she gulped, "<i>anybody</i> +could've heard me! And I was creeping up so +still...."</p> + +<p>She peered out from behind a dwarf evergreen +and made a careful survey of the situation. The +big square house stood placid and empty in the +afternoon sun; not a cat on the kitchen porch, +not a curtain fluttering from an open window. +All was neat, quiet and deserted. Caroline set +her lips with decision.</p> + +<p>"We'll pretend there wasn't any hen," she +said, in a low voice, "and go on from here, just +the same."</p> + +<p>Rising with great caution she picked her way, +crouching and dodging, from bush to bush; +occasionally she took a lightning peep at the silent +house, then dipped again and continued her +stalking. Following the evergreen hedge around +a final corner, she emerged stealthily in the lee +of the latticed kitchen porch and drew a breath +of relief.</p> + +<p>"All right so far," she muttered; "I wonder if +that old gray cat with the new kittens is fussing +around here?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +But no breath of life stirred under the porch +as she stooped to peer through a break in the +lattice, and with a final survey of the premises, +inserted her plump person into the gap and +wriggled, panting, into the darkness below.</p> + +<p>It was stuffy and dusty there; the light filtered +dimly through the diamond spaces, and the adventurer, +crawling on hands and knees, bumped into +a shadowy pile of flower-pots, sneezed violently +and grovelled wrathfully among the ruins for at +least five minutes, helplessly confused. Quite +by accident she knocked her cobwebbed head +against a narrow, outward swinging window, +seized it thankfully, and plunged through it. +Hanging a moment by her grimy hands she swayed, +a little fearfully, then dropped with a quick breath +to the concrete floor beneath, and smiled with +relief as the comparative brightness of a well kept +cellar revealed her safety. Vegetable bins, a +neat pile of kindling wood, a large portable closet +of wire netting, with occasional plates and covered +dishes suggestively laid away in it, met her eye; +on the floor in front of this last rested a little +heap of something wet and glistening. Untidy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +as it looked, it had an eatable appearance to +Caroline, whose instinct in these matters was +unimpeachable, and bending over it she inserted +one finger.</p> + +<p>"Current jelly!" she whispered, thoughtfully +licking the inquiring member. "The idea!"</p> + +<p>She approached the wire closet and peered +along the shelves; there was no jelly there.</p> + +<p>"'Dropped it getting it out," she pursued, +"I wonder why Selma didn't wipe it up."</p> + +<p>Suddenly her face brightened.</p> + +<p>"We'll keep right on and pretend <i>'twas</i> burglars," +she announced to the quiet cellar, "and +they stole the jelly in a hurry and dropped this +and never noticed, and went upstairs to eat it +and get the silver! And so I found 'em, after +all!"</p> + +<p>Still on tiptoe, she left the cellar, stole through +the laundry, and crept mysteriously up the back +stairs. So absorbed she was that a cracking +board stopped her heart for a breath, and a slip +on the landing sent her to her knees in terror. +The empty quiet seemed to hum around her; +strange snappings of the old woodwork dried her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +throat. With her hand on the swing door that +led into the dining-room, she paused in a delicious +ecstasy of terror, as the imagined clink of glass +and silver, the normal clatter of a cheerful meal, +seemed to echo in the air.</p> + +<p>It was always difficult for Caroline in such +moments of excitement to distinguish between +what she saw and heard and what she wished +to see and hear, and at this ghost of table music +she smiled with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"The house is empty," said her common-sense, +but she pursed her lips and whispered, "they're +up here eating—they've come for the silver!"</p> + +<p>By fractions of inches she pushed the door on +its well-oiled hinge and slipped noiselessly into +the dining-room.</p> + +<p>A broad beam of light fell across the dark, +wainscoted room, and in the track of it sat a +handsome well-dressed man, busily eating. In +front of him was a roast chicken, a cut-glass dish +of celery and a ruby mound of jelly; a crusty +loaf of new bread lay broken at his right; at his +left, winking in the sunbeam, stood a decanter +half filled with a topaz liquor. He was daintily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +poising a bit of jelly on some bread, the mouthful +was in the air, when his eyes fell on Caroline, +an amazed and cobwebbed statue in front of +him.</p> + +<p>The hand that held the bread grew rigid. As +spilled milk spreads over a table, the man's face +was flooded with sudden grayish white; against +it his thin lips were marked in lavender. While +the grandfather clock ticked ten times they stared +at each other, and then a wave of deep red poured +over his face and his mouth twitched.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here, little girl?" he +demanded sternly, pointedly regarding her dusty +rumpled figure.</p> + +<p>Caroline gulped and dropped her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I—I—nothing particular," she murmured +guiltily.</p> + +<p>The man laid the piece of bread down carefully +and wiped his fingers on the napkin spread across +his knees.</p> + +<p>"Some time," he said, in a leisurely drawl, +"you'll burst into a room like that, where a +person with a weak heart may be sitting, and +that'll be the last of 'em."</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a name="Illus_118" id="Illus_118"></a><img src="images/Illus133.jpg" title="Illus133" alt="Illus133" +width="600" height="344" /></p> + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: 2em;">"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly.</h5> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +"The last of 'em?" Caroline repeated vaguely.</p> + +<p>"Just so. They'll die on you," he explained +briefly.</p> + +<p>Caroline stepped nearer.</p> + +<p>"Is—is your heart weak?" she inquired fearfully. +"I'm so sorry. So is my Uncle Lindsay's."</p> + +<p>"What were you sneaking about so soft for?" +he demanded.</p> + +<p>She flushed.</p> + +<p>"I—I was playing burglars," she confessed, +"and I got to where they were in here with the +silver, and—and I was coming in to—to get them, +and I didn't expect anybody would be here, +really, you know, and I was surprised when I +saw you. I didn't know about your heart."</p> + +<p>"Burglars?" said the man, laughing loudly. +"Well, that's one on me! I must say you're +a nervy young party. So you thought I was a +burglar, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" Caroline cried, "of course not—I +meant I was playing it was burglars; I didn't +mean you. I—I didn't know anybody was here."</p> + +<p>"Humph!" said he. "What made you play +burglars? Anything in that line yourself, ever?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +Caroline stared uncomprehendingly.</p> + +<p>"My mother doesn't think it's right for Aunt +Edith to go off and leave the house all alone the +way she does," she explained; "she's always +telling her some one will break in if she doesn't +leave Selma or a dog. And she never locks a +thing, you know—she says if they intend to get +in, they will, and that's all there is about it. So +this time she went for three days, and Miss Honey +and the General and Delia; and Selma and Anna +went to a wedding and Ed went somewhere about a +lawn-mower, and little Ed was going to get the +pony shod. I told Aunt Edith I'd—" she +coughed importantly—"keep an eye on the +house."</p> + +<p>"I see," said the man.</p> + +<p>He poured himself two inches of the topaz +liquor; it rocked in the glass.</p> + +<p>Caroline sniffed inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"That's the Scotch," she said; "I know by +the smell, partly like cologne and partly smoky. +Do you like it?"</p> + +<p>The man raised the glass to the level of his +eyes and watched the light play through it, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +made a slight movement of his arm and the whisky +disappeared smoothly.</p> + +<p>"Your Aunt Edith's taste is as good as her +voice," he said, eyeing Caroline carefully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's not Aunt Edith's—that's Uncle +Joe's," she explained. Then, as it flashed across +her suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Did you want to see him? He's in New +York, too. They're going to have pictures +taken of Miss Honey and General. But after +that, Uncle Joe's going to Chicago. Did you +want him?"</p> + +<p>"N-no, not exactly," said the man, studying +his well-kept finger-nails. "I can't say I do. +No, my business is with—is more—"</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly and followed the direction +of Caroline's eyes.</p> + +<p>There on the sideboard behind him stood a +leather suit-case, long and solid looking. It +was open and tight rows of forks and spoons +filled it.</p> + +<p>The room was quite still for a moment. Caroline +wanted to show by some intelligent remark +that she understood the situation, and could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +easily imagine what the man was doing with the +silver, but she found this difficult.</p> + +<p>Strange people came to Aunt Edith's house. +Dark, foreign-looking men ate meals there at +unusual hours; once Caroline had seen with her +own eyes a plump, yellow German fall suddenly +on his knees at Aunt Edith's feet, as a hand-organ +struck up its brassy music under the window, +and burst into passionate singing, waving a whisk-broom +in the air and offering it to Aunt Edith +with the most extraordinary force of manner. +And her aunt, who wore at the time a raincoat +and tam o'shanter cap, had leaned forward +graciously, gurgled out a most delicious little +tune, accepted the whisk-broom, affected to +inhale its fragrance rapturously, and whirled +into a big and beautiful song in which the plump, +yellow gentleman joined, and rising seized her +in his arms, at which point they drowned the hand-organ +completely, and the hand-organ man and +Uncle Joe applauded loudly, and they gave the +hand-organ man all he could eat and a dollar.</p> + +<p>You may see from this that one did not look +for the commonplace in Aunt Edith's house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +Moreover, the stranger was not unlike some of +her aunt's friends; though he was handsome +and assured and noticeably at his ease, Caroline +felt that his manner was subtly different from +that of the friends of her own family. But even +the most unconventional guest had never collected +the sideboard silver, and a little feeling was growing +in the air ... doubt and a bit of what might +have begun to be fear ... when suddenly the +man began to laugh. It was abrupt and it +rang harshly at first, but grew with every moment +warmer and more infectious, so that Caroline, +though she felt that she was in some way the cause +of it, joined in it finally, in spite of herself.</p> + +<p>"If you knew what a sight you were!" he +exclaimed, wiping his eyes with the napkin, +"with your hair all cobwebs and all that dirt +on your knees and those finger-marks on your +apron, and being so small and all"—he began +to chuckle again.</p> + +<p>"Small?" she repeated portentously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I didn't mean small compared with—with +anybody else the same size," he assured +her quickly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +Catching her mollified glance, he went on more +soberly.</p> + +<p>"And how did you get in, now? No doors, +I'll bet."</p> + +<p>"Under the kitchen porch, through the little +cellar window and up the back stairs," she explained.</p> + +<p>"You mean to say you were out in that little +back hall and I never heard you?"</p> + +<p>She nodded. "I took pains to be still," she +added, "so as to surprise the—so if there had +been—"</p> + +<p>"I understand," he said gravely, "so as to +get them if they had been there. Well, +you'd have done it. You're all right. Now, +I suppose you're wondering what all this +means, aren't you? You haven't got any +idea who I am, have you? You don't +know one single thing about me, and you +may be thinking—"</p> + +<p>"I know one thing about you," she interrupted, +"I know you went to Yale."</p> + +<p>The man's jaw dropped, his hands gripped +the arm of the chair.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +"And how in—how did you know that?" he +cried roughly, with blazing eyes.</p> + +<p>Caroline shrank a little but faced him.</p> + +<p>"Your pin," she said, pointing to his vest, +"I saw it when you held your arm up."</p> + +<p>The man sank back in his chair and fingered +the little jeweled badge unconsciously.</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the cute ones ... so you've seen +this before?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>"Of course I have—my brother has one, and my +Uncle Joe and Uncle Lindsay and Cousin Lindsay +and Cousin Joe."</p> + +<p>"All went to Yale?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Lindsay and Joe are there now—they're +seniors," she informed him. "The General's going +when he grows up. All the Holts go there. +Grandfather Holt went."</p> + +<p>"You don't say," said the man, bending +forward in genuine interest, "I guess it's a +pretty good college, eh?"</p> + +<p>"The best of them all," she assured him.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you an awful funny thing," she went +on abruptly, "you know all the Holts look alike. +Well, when Uncle Lindsay first went to Yale,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +he was walking along the Campus, and right +by Old South Middle he met the President. And +the President stopped and said, 'Well, well, I +see the race of Holts is not yet extinct. Good +afternoon, sir!' <i>The President.</i> And he never +saw him before!"</p> + +<p>The man shook his head thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"You don't say," he repeated. "Old South +Middle—that's it. That's the one."</p> + +<p>Suddenly he shrugged his shoulders and took +out his watch. "This'll never pay the rent!" +he said briskly. "Now let's get to business. I +suppose you were surprised to see all that stuff +in the suit-case?"</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded and grinned back at him, his +own quick smile was so friendly and compelling.</p> + +<p>"Well," he continued, rising and bunching +the napkin beside his plate, "I don't blame +you. Not a bit. I'd have been the same myself. +And you'll be even more surprised when you +find out what I'm doing—that is," he stopped +abruptly, "unless your Uncle Joe has told you +already and sent you over to help?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +"Didn't, eh?" he stepped over to the sideboard, +wiping off the knife and fork he had been +using, and packed them with the others. Caroline, +watching his hands, noticed in the corner +of the case a familiar chamois skin bag; she had +often seen it on Aunt Edith's bureau.</p> + +<p>"Well, now," he continued, "If I had a niece +as sharp and smart and quiet as you are, Missy, +I'd tell her my plans, I would, and get her to +help me. I wonder your uncle didn't. Sure +he didn't mention me—Mr. Barker?"</p> + +<p>Again she shook her head, her eyes fastened +to the bag.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the man, shutting down the cover +of the suit-case and strapping it tightly, "it's +this way. You may have heard your uncle +say something about it being kind o' careless, +leaving the house so much alone? Anyhow, +whether he's talked to you or not about it, he +has to me often enough."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" Caroline was conscious of a +distinct sense of relief. "I've often heard him. +Then you <i>do</i> know Uncle Joe?"</p> + +<p>The man faced her, starting in violent surprise.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +"Do I know Uncle Joe?" he repeated; "do +I <i>know</i> him?" He shook his head feebly and +gazed about the room. "She says, do I know +Joe Holt! And what should I be doing, eating +my lunch here, if I didn't?" he demanded. +"What should he tell me about his troubles for, +and ask me to help him, if I didn't know him? +Is it likely I'd be packing his silver in my suit-case +if I didn't know him?"</p> + +<p>Caroline stood abashed.</p> + +<p>"I should think you might guess by this time +what the joke is," he went on forgivingly, seeing +that she was quite overcome with her own stupidity, +"but as I have to get away pretty +quick now, I'll tell you. You see, Joe isn't coming +right back with your aunt; he's going on to +Chicago, and that may keep him some time +away—"</p> + +<p>("I know," Caroline interpolated), "and he +wanted your aunt to have somebody stay in the +house to look after it—he felt worried. But no, +she wouldn't. Wouldn't even get a dog—that +is," eyeing Caroline steadily, "unless she's got +one lately, but when I last heard—"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +"No," she assured him, "she wouldn't. Aunt +Edith hates dogs."</p> + +<p>"So Joe told me. 'Now what would you do, +Henry,' says Joe to me, that's my name, Henry +Barker, 'what would you do with a woman like +that?'</p> + +<p>"'Do, Joe?' says I, 'why, I'll tell you +what I'd do, I'd teach her a lesson, that's +what. I'd I'd give her one good scare, and +then you'd find she'd take your advice, after +that.'"</p> + +<p>At this point the man reached for his overcoat +and began to struggle into it.</p> + +<p>"'But I don't know how to, Henry,' says he. +'You don't?' says I, 'nothing easier. Just tip +somebody off when the house is empty and they'll +run up and slip in, take what silver and jewelry +they can find in a hurry, pack it up careful and +hide it away wherever you say. Then when your +wife gets back and finds 'em gone, there'll be the +d<span style="letter-spacing: -2px">——</span> there'll be a row, and when she says it's her +fault for not leaving the servants in the house, +and she'll never do it again, then you say, 'All +right, my dear, I'm glad you've learned your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> +lesson,' and step out and get the bag! How's +that?' I said."</p> + +<p>He put his hat on, drew a pair of gloves from +his pocket, and looked hard at Caroline; her +answering glance was troubled and non-committal. +He scowled slightly and rested one hand +on the bag.</p> + +<p>"'All very well, Henry,' says Joe to me, 'but +who's to do all this? I don't know anyone +that would dare to, let alone be willing,'" he +went on, glancing hurriedly around the room. +"'You know as well as I do that if they should +get caught doing it, anybody would swear 'twas +burglary plain and simple, and run' em right in. +They'd call the police. It would look bad for +whoever did it, you know,' he said."</p> + +<p>"He might have asked me. I'd love to do +it," Caroline muttered resentfully.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact the scheme was sufficiently +like many a practical joke of her irrepressible +uncle. Better than anyone, Caroline, his conspirator +elect, knew the lengths he was capable +of going to confound or scandalize his adjacent +relatives.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +"Of course," said the man, with relief in his +voice, "that's why I asked you if he hadn't. I +guess he was afraid you wouldn't dare. I'd +have trusted you, though, myself."</p> + +<p>She looked gratefully at him.</p> + +<p>"Then, I said, 'Why, Joe, if that's the way +you feel about it, I'll do it myself,'" he concluded, +lifting the suit-case from the sideboard +and grimacing at its weight. "'What's the +good,' says I, 'of calling yourself a friend, if you +can't run a little risk? Just tell me the day to +come and where you want 'em put—be sure you +pick a good safe place—and I'll 'tend to it for +you,' I said, 'and you'll do as much for me +some day when I'm in a tight place.'"</p> + +<p>He settled his hat firmly and moved to the +long window.</p> + +<p>"I'll have to hurry if I don't want to lose my +train," he explained.</p> + +<p>"But where's the place?" Caroline cried +excitedly; "what place did Uncle Joe pick out? +Won't you tell me? I won't tell—truly, I won't!"</p> + +<p>The man paused with one hand on the window +button, and looked thoughtfully at her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> +"By George," he announced, "I've a good +mind to tell you! I'm not supposed to tell a +soul, you know, but you've been such a brick, +and being his own niece and all, I think you've +got a <i>right</i> to know, I really do."</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Look here!" he cried, "I'll trust you if +your uncle won't. I don't like the place he +told me, much—it isn't safe enough. There's +two thousand dollars' worth of stuff here, counting +the—counting everything, and an old barn's +no place for it. See here. You promise me to +stay here for an hour—one hour exactly, by the +clock—and I'll leave this bag at your house for +you. Then you can hide it under your bed, or +anywhere you want, till to-morrow, and then +you can manage the rest to suit yourself. How's +that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that would be grand!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"You can just tell your uncle that I saw you +were game and I trusted you, if he wouldn't," +he concluded, opening the window, "and I'll take +this to your house in half an hour. Will you +promise not to leave for an hour? We mustn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> +be seen together, you know, or people might +suspect and then the game'd be up. And will +you lock this window after me and go out the +same way you came?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes! I promise, I promise solemnly!" +she assured him, flushed with importance, "and +tell 'em not to open it, will you? They might. +Say it's private for me, will you?"</p> + +<p>"All right," he said soberly. "I'm kind o' +sorry they went to Yale," he added abruptly. +"I'd rather—sh! what's that?"</p> + +<p>He stood rigidly listening; his eyes rolled back, +his hand raised in warning.</p> + +<p>"I don't hear—" she began, but his angry +gesture and the furious whisper that went with +it cowed her into a silence as strained as his +own.</p> + +<p>For a moment it seemed to Caroline that she +heard a faint snap as of a board released from +pressure, but dead quiet followed; she held her +breath with excitement as the man lifted the suit-case +over the ledge, and peering over the balcony +stepped out. Suddenly he paused, one leg over +the sill; his eyes rolled back towards the room,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +his lips tightened. So terrible, and so despairing +his face had turned that Caroline rushed to the +window. Even as she started she heard quick +soft steps in the hall, and pointed to the freedom +outside.</p> + +<p>"Jump, oh, jump, Mr. Barker!" she whispered +in a glow of terror, "hurry! It <i>is</i> somebody!"</p> + +<p>He pointed silently to the ground below, and +with her heart pounding heavily she peered over +the sill. Directly below them crouched a Great +Dane, brindled, enormous, one eye fixed sternly +on the window.</p> + +<p>The soft steps paused: perhaps she had imagined +them! Perhaps, if they kept quite still, that +quaking pair, perhaps.... The man breathed +like a drowning swimmer; it seemed to Caroline +she must scream.</p> + +<p>The door flew open.</p> + +<p>"Look out, there—it's loaded!" the voice +came sharp as a cracked whip.</p> + +<p>Caroline gave a shriek of joy.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's Lindsay!" she cried, "it's just +Cousin Lindsay!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +A tall, powerful young man came in behind +a leveled revolver.</p> + +<p>"Car—what—be still, there!" he gasped, +steadying the weapon. The man stood motionless, +his eyes on the ground.</p> + +<p>"It's all right—I never carried a gun in my +life," he said quietly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lindsay, it's only a joke!"</p> + +<p>Caroline ran towards him, stopping in horror +at the ugly winking eyes of the revolver.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Barker only meant—tell Lin about +it!" she entreated, sick with foreboding at the +dogged man before her, the scornful flushed boy +at her side.</p> + +<p>"I guess you better tell him, Missy," said the +man in a low empty voice.</p> + +<p>"Go home, Caroline; go straight home this +moment."</p> + +<p>Caroline had never heard her cousin speak in +that tone, and it was partly in tears, partly in +wrath that she answered,</p> + +<p>"I will <i>not</i> go straight home, Lindsay Holt, +and you needn't talk to me that way, either! +Uncle Joe himself asked Mr. Barker—"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +She began glibly enough, but even to her +simple consciousness the story wavered and rang +false, with this stricken, passive man before +her. Her voice faltered, she choked.... Had +Uncle Joe really asked this man to get the emeralds? +Was it possible that—Lindsay laughed disagreeably.</p> + +<p>"If you've quite finished, Caroline, will you +go home?" he demanded, his eyes still on the +revolver.</p> + +<p>She gulped painfully; her faith tottered on the +last brink.</p> + +<p>"Oh, let it go at that; can't you?" the man +broke in roughly. "What difference does it +make to you, eh, how this part of the job gets +done? Have I made you any trouble yet? +My goose is cooked, all right, and we'll—we'll +talk that over, later, when Missy goes, but—but +couldn't you"—he looked almost appealingly at +the young fellow,—"couldn't we—it's all there +in the suit-case—"</p> + +<p>"It was going under my bed Lin—I'd have +been careful," Caroline was hoping against hope, +now.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> +"You see, Missy," said the man quickly, +in almost his old manner, "you see how it turns +out. It was a bad plan, I guess—you can see +how your cousin takes it. You'll have to—to +tell your uncle how it worked; it's one on me, +all right."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we put it all back and—oh Lord, +what's the use?" he ended suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Cut it short—what the hell do I care?"</p> + +<p>He dropped suddenly into the chair behind +him; his head fell over on his arms, and the stiff +hat rolled along the floor.</p> + +<p>The young man stared curiously at him, but +the weakness was genuine; every muscle was +relaxed.</p> + +<p>Lindsay's face softened a little. "As far as +that goes, you're quite right," he said curtly, +"though it's a little late in the day. Look here, +Caroline. Mr.—Mr. Barker and I don't agree +very well on the best way to teach people to lock +their houses. I—it seems to me a pretty poor +joke. Uncle Joe never meant it to go quite so +far, I'm quite sure," he concluded jerkily. "I—I +want to do the best thing all round, but," look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>ing +anxiously towards her for a second, "this is +a little too—a little too—"</p> + +<p>Her face cleared at his change of tone. "I +know," she returned eagerly, "I know just what +you mean, Lindsay. I think so, too. Anybody +would think—"</p> + +<p>"That's it," he said briefly.</p> + +<p>"You say you thought so yourself at first," +she added, looking uncomfortably at the bent +figure in the chair, "and that made him +feel—"</p> + +<p>"Well, well, I understand now," Lindsay +interrupted irritably, "it's all right now, Caroline. +Hadn't you better go? Mr.—Mr. Barker +and I will come along later."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll wait and go with you, Lin," she returned, +almost assured, now, "why do I have to +go first?"</p> + +<p>The man lifted his head; at sight of the +young fellow's nervous perplexity he smiled +faintly.</p> + +<p>"Suppose you run along, Missy," he suggested; +"your cousin and I want to talk business, and—and +then I must be hurrying on—hurrying on,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +he repeated vaguely, with dazed eyes. He +raised his hand to his head; Lindsay started +forward, the revolver loose in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Where did you get that pin?" he cried +sharply. "Give that to me."</p> + +<p>The man fingered the pin thoughtfully. "You're +'way off there," he said. "That's not—that's +not—"</p> + +<p>"Not one of your 'jokes'?" Lindsay's voice +rang disagreeably. "I happen to know the contrary. +I'll trouble you to hand it over. I'll +soon know to whom it belongs."</p> + +<p>Caroline, hanging over the sill, lost in talkative +admiration of the Great Dane, was oblivious for +the moment of the room behind her.</p> + +<p>"It belongs to my son," said the man. There +was a moment of silence. Outside the great +hound whined softly.</p> + +<p>"His name Barker, too?" Lindsay asked +coldly, half rising.</p> + +<p>"No, sir. His name is James Wardwell," said +the man defiantly.</p> + +<p>Lindsay sprang to his feet.</p> + +<p>"That's a dirty lie!" he shouted. He stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> +over the man, careless of the revolver. "And +you'll pay for it, too!"</p> + +<p>Caroline stared aghast at them.</p> + +<p>"Look out for the gun," the man warned him, +and, as with a flush of mortification Lindsay +mastered his weapon, he added quietly, "you +can't be too careful with firearms."</p> + +<p>Lindsay gritted his teeth.</p> + +<p>"You—you—" he began furiously. The man +met his eyes for a second, then with a dark, slow +blush, dropped his arm.</p> + +<p>The boy drew back uncertainly.</p> + +<p>"What's the good of lying like that?" he said, +"how's it going to help you?"</p> + +<p>The man looked at the floor.</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool—how's it going to?" Lindsay +repeated irritably.</p> + +<p>The other did not move.</p> + +<p>"Is that the truth?" Lindsay's voice was +strained and worried.</p> + +<p>The man drew a long, uneven breath. "Yes," +he answered.</p> + +<p>Lindsay glanced at the suit-case, at the man +in the chair, at the revolver.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +"Jimmy!" he muttered, "Jimmy B.!" For +the first time since he had last addressed her, he +noticed Caroline. He frowned, then suddenly +his face cleared.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he said, his eye again on the +man, "do you know where all that silver +belongs?"</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>"I help Selma sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Could you put it back so nobody would +know?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," she answered him, "and the—things +from the bureau, too?"</p> + +<p>His lips curled scornfully and his hold on the +revolver tightened.</p> + +<p>"A thorough job, wasn't it?" he muttered, +then controlling himself he answered evenly, +"Oh, yes, might as well get 'em all back. We'll +just step in the library a minute."</p> + +<p>The man got up and went before him into the +library, stumbling as he walked.</p> + +<p>Lindsay watched him drop into a seat and +stood in front of him.</p> + +<p>"What proof have you got that what you said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +in there is true?" he asked abruptly, "before +we leave the house, I must know."</p> + +<p>"Proof?" the man repeated, "proof?" He +stared almost vacantly at Lindsay.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes," the boy answered impatiently.</p> + +<p>"You say you're the father of one of the most +brilliant men in my class, you wear the pin of +his society—a pin I happen to know he lost +recently—and I find you stealing my aunt's +spoons! For God's sake, what's the meaning +of it?"</p> + +<p>The man twisted his fingers together and +moistened his lips.</p> + +<p>"It kind of settled on me all at once," he said +in a hollow voice, "I felt it since morning. She +scared me so to begin with—she came like a ghost—and +then the dog finished me. I had one o' +them once and he nearly did me up—turned on +me. Jim pulled him off," he added, "but they +give me a turn whenever I see 'em."</p> + +<p>Lindsay stamped angrily.</p> + +<p>"Will you prove what you say? Or shall we +discuss it at the station-house?"</p> + +<p>The man raised his hand deprecatingly. "No,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +no;" he said hastily, "no—that's what I don't +want. That's why I—that's the reason I don't—good +Lord, don't you know you've given me +a half a dozen chances, if I'd had the nerve for the +risk? Why, I c'd've butted that gun out of your +hand twice in the last ten minutes, you young +fool! How long d'ye suppose it would take a +husky man to back you into one closet and Missy +into another and walk off with the stuff? +Hey?"</p> + +<p>His eyes flashed, he threw back his head and +breathed hard, a cornered animal. Lindsay felt +a tingle of excitement run down his spine; for +a moment there was danger in the air.</p> + +<p>"I—I notice you didn't see your way to all +this," he said scornfully. But he blushed as he +spoke, the man saw it, and Lindsay knew he saw +it; he winced and drew himself up in a boyish +attempt to save the situation.</p> + +<p>"It's quite true—I'm not in the habit of catching +house thieves," he said, drawling a little, +"and I doubt if many of them are quite such +accomplished liars as you appear to be; but +my stroke will improve, I've no doubt, as we go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +on. Would you mind getting up and 'coming +along with me' as they call it, I believe?"</p> + +<p>The man made no answer, but raised his hands +high above his head.</p> + +<p>"If you'll look in that left vest pocket, there's +a little leather case there," he said, "and—and +you'd better take the pin, too, I guess. I'd be +obliged if you'd say you found it somewhere; +I never should've put it on."</p> + +<p>Somewhat clumsily Lindsay extricated the +leather case, cursing his awkwardness and the +patience of the man.</p> + +<p>A worn little photograph of a boy of eight or +nine was in his hand; across the bottom was +scrawled in a childish hand, "Daddy, from your +son James."</p> + +<p>He drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>"That's Jimmy, all right," he said dully.</p> + +<p>"If you'll just tear it up," said the man. "It's +all I've got, and nobody'd know but some friend +that—that would be lookin' for the likeness."</p> + +<p>Lindsay threw the picture on the floor.</p> + +<p>"I won't believe it—its too sickening!" he +cried, "Jim Wardwell's a gentleman! I—I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>—why +I admired him more than—good God, he's +a <i>friend</i> of mine!"</p> + +<p>The man smiled faintly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jimmy has fine friends," he said almost +complacently, "he's always gone with the best. +He's very particular."</p> + +<p>Lindsay's forehead was a network of pain and +doubt.</p> + +<p>"But Jimmy has plenty of money," he insisted, +"he always had the—his things—oh, it's idiotic! +You're crazy, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, he always had plenty," the man said +simply.</p> + +<p>In the pause that followed they heard the soft +chink of silver through the wall; Caroline was +evidently busy.</p> + +<p>Lindsay twisted his face into an ugly smile.</p> + +<p>"And I thought he was the squarest of the +lot," he said slowly, "I've said so often. We all +did. Pretty easy, weren't we?"</p> + +<p>"He is!" The man half rose, but fell back +with a grunt of pain.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>damn</i> this heart!" he complained fretfully. +"I don't know what's the matter with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +me. That fortune woman, she knew. Last week +it was I went. 'You're making a plan to end +up your business,' she says to me, 'and so you +will, mister, but not the way you think. There's +some trouble coming to you and a child's mixed +up in it. Look out for strange dogs,' she says, +they all tell me that—'and run no risks this month. +I don't just like the looks of your hand,' she says. +And when I saw that child, it was all up with me, +I thought. I didn't think the machine would +ever get started again. And then that infernal +dog...."</p> + +<p>"We were speaking of—of—did you say that +Jim—" Lindsay's voice sounded strange, even to +himself.</p> + +<p>The man blinked a moment.</p> + +<p>"What?" he said vaguely, "what about +Jim? Oh—he don't know anything about it, +of course. I sh'd think you'd know enough for +that. That's what I'm telling you, if you'd keep +still a minute."</p> + +<p>He stared thoughtfully at the floor and Lindsay +waited. Caroline ran up the front stairs, and +he had counted each step before the man went on.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +"So I sent the money regular every quarter," +he muttered, as if continuing some tale, "and +I'd go to see him sometimes all dressed up, and +I tried to talk like he did. He thought I was +traveling and didn't want to be bothered. But +I couldn't see him much—was I going to drag +him down, just as I'd got him started right? Not +much. 'Go and visit your friends, o' course,' +I used to tell him, 'and you can write to me.' +The best schools I picked out, the very best. And +they came high. But I was good for it."</p> + +<p>He shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I had a hunch when I bought the ticket," +he muttered. "It just come over me—'you +ought not to go to a place you got the idea of +from Jim,' something seemed to say to me, 'it's +unlucky.' And everything so still, and the stuff +so easy—'twas like finding it in the road. And +the last time, too—the last time."</p> + +<p>"But Jim—he thought—" Lindsay prompted. +A dreadful curiosity held him.</p> + +<p>"So then he wrote, 'of course it's Yale, dad,' +he wrote, 'we're all going up together. You +don't mind if it costs a little to get settled, do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> +you?' And was I going to go to him—he was +head of his class, mind you—and say, the Trust +has treated me the way I wouldn't treat a dog—it's +all up with me and you? I can go back and +be foreman again at the works—we're bought up, +chewed up and spit out like a wad o' paper?' +Not much, I guess. No. Here's where I quit +the honesty game, I said, for it don't pay. You +stole my patent, and I shut up because I couldn't +afford to fight you, and you raised me and raised +me—and let me into the firm when you knew it +was going to bust! Now, I says, since my boy's +education has been stole from me, I'll steal it back, +I says, and only from them that can afford it, too! +And I'll use no lawyer to do it, either, and we'll +have no trick-work with papers. I'll get it straight +from the wives and daughters of the big thieves +that pass the plate on Sundays."</p> + +<p>Lindsay listened to Caroline moving over their +heads; her steps seemed the only reality in this +horrid dream.</p> + +<p>"It—it will just about kill Jim," he said +slowly.</p> + +<p>"It would have killed him not to go to college,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +the man returned sharply, "and he had a right +to go."</p> + +<p>"But, good heavens, there are ways—he could +have earned money—he's clever enough to work +his way through a dozen colleges!" Lindsay +cried despairingly.</p> + +<p>"There wasn't any working his way through +for <i>my</i> boy," said the man, with a cunning grin; +"I've done enough o' that for the family, thank +you. So did his mother—she died of it. No, +there's money enough for all, and it only needs +a little planning. The thing is, never take a +risk. Wait for a sure thing. Take from the +kind that takes from <i>your</i> kind—they'll never +miss it. Work alone, and never try to get too +much. Who are the ones that get caught? The +'pals'! No, I've just done for myself, and contented +to sell at a big loss, and only wanted to +get my twenty-five hundred a year for Jim, and +something over for his vacations—those camps +cost a lot—and enough to dress as I may need to."</p> + +<p>Lindsay cleared his throat.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that Jim never asked you +what your business was?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +"He didn't know I ever changed till last month. +He thought I traveled for the Comp'ny. Of +course he didn't like that any too well—you know, +you wouldn't expect him to, brought up as he's +been—and I guess he thought 'twould be kinder +to me not to mention it much. He thought +I didn't know, but I did. Last month—last +month—" the man paused and his mouth worked, +though he bit his lips.</p> + +<p>"Well, last month?" Lindsay repeated pitilessly.</p> + +<p>"I got my hunch to quit. That fortune woman +and—and other things. The doctor told me to +keep quiet and not get on my nerve. And I sort +of fixed it up with Jim in a letter. I told him +I'd sold out my interest in the firm and I was +going to send him one more thousand for graduatin' +with and I was going to let him try for himself +after that. I knew that was all right, because +he's told me of plenty of rich young swells who +had to. Fathers believed in it."</p> + +<p>"He was going with Buck Williamson on the +ranch," said Lindsay slowly.</p> + +<p>"That's it! Buck Williamson. He asked me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +wouldn't I look 'em up after they got settled and +try it out there. It was an awful nice letter," +said the man softly, "he's a real gentleman."</p> + +<p>Lindsay jerked his head toward the dining-room.</p> + +<p>"Was this the 'thousand'?" he asked coldly.</p> + +<p>The man nodded.</p> + +<p>"I've never been with him more than a day +or two, you see, and I thought I'd go up to New +Haven this spring—when he graduated, and see +him. Just a day or two. And then I was planning +to drop out. Of course I never meant to see him +much. I was always deadly afraid something'd +happen, and I didn't want to get connected up +with Jim. But I've been careful. There's not +a line o' writing anywhere, and the man that sold +the stuff for me in Jersey City is close as wax."</p> + +<p>"But your friends—" Lindsay was wrung +with an angry pity.</p> + +<p>"I don't care for much of anybody but Jim," +said the man.</p> + +<p>Caroline was moving restlessly about in the +dining-room again. Lindsay shook himself nervously.</p> + +<p>"Of course, this is very awkward for me,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +he began, "I mean—I—oh, the devil! You +know what I've got to do, of course?"</p> + +<p>The man looked appealingly at him. "You've +got it all back," he said quickly, "and you know +Jim—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, plague take it—I know Jim," the boy +muttered, "we all know Jim."</p> + +<p>"Known well, isn't he?" the man inquired +eagerly, "there's no cleverer scholar there, much +cleverer, I mean, is there?"</p> + +<p>Lindsay shook his head. "Not that amounts +to anything," he said shortly.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet there's no better fellow there than Jim—none +of the big bugs?"</p> + +<p>"There is no better fellow anywhere," said +Lindsay.</p> + +<p>Caroline tapped fretfully on the door. "Aren't +we ever going, Lin?" she begged; "it's all put +back."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, in a minute!" he answered, and +turned to the man. "I'm damned sorry to have +to do it," he began, "it's a horrible thing to do, +but I can't see that there are any two ways about +it. I don't want to hear you say any more. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +you'll come quietly, well and good. If it was +anybody else—but in my uncle's house—and the +community—and—well, will you come?"</p> + +<p>The man sighed. He looked ten years older. +"All right," he said, "I didn't know but—well, +never mind. My nerve's gone. I never had a +failure, you see. An' I always knew I couldn't +stand one. Never even left a trail. I couldn't +afford to, workin' as I did. I always knew 'twas +bound to come, though, and here it is. But it's +hard. Jim was telling me last month about this +singer that he'd heard was so careless, and I noted +it down for use some day. You have to notice +those things. He never said his friends lived +here. I—it makes me feel dreadful when I think +how he'd feel if he knew I'd been working his +<i>friends</i> this way—he'd never stand for that, Jim +wouldn't. It makes me feel—oh, well, what's +the odds? But I wish you didn't belong to Yale +College."</p> + +<p>Lindsay scowled and motioned to the +door.</p> + +<p>"Shut up and come on, will you?" he blurted.</p> + +<p>The man got up.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +"I guess I won't see Jim again, then," he said, +"will I? Of course there isn't one chance in a +hundred he'll ever know. But I couldn't explain +why I didn't go up to New Haven, nor send the +thousand, and it'll be five years, anyhow—ten, +maybe. And I shan't hold out that. The doctor +only gave me two."</p> + +<p>"Ten years? Oh, no!" Lindsay cried.</p> + +<p>"It's grand larceny," said the man simply.</p> + +<p>"Lin, Lin, come <i>on</i>!" called Caroline.</p> + +<p>"You've got the pin, and I'll tear the picture +up," said the man. "I've got it all planned, +o' course—I give the name of Barker. And—and +<i>if</i> Jim ever says anything to you or any of +his friends about me being mean about the thousand, +when I'd promised it, just kind of give a +hint, will you, that things may have happened +so's I couldn't? I hope he'll think I died. I +wish he was through Yale, though. The thousand +won't make any difference with graduatin', will +it?"</p> + +<p>Lindsay swallowed hard; his nerves were +strained to snapping.</p> + +<p>"Good God, no!" he shouted. He stepped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> +to the French window, opened it, and threw the +revolver over the sill.</p> + +<p>"Get out!" he said briefly, turning to the +man, "get out of my sight! If Jim ever receives +another penny from you, I'll tell him all +I know."</p> + +<p>The man swayed towards the chair. "Do +you mean it?" he gasped, "honest?"</p> + +<p>He began to sob and choke a little, and turning +half bent over the chair, hunted with his +hand for his hat.</p> + +<p>"Get out!" Lindsay repeated violently, looking +persistently sidewise.</p> + +<p>The man leaned over and fumbled for the +picture on the floor, found it and straightened +himself.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he leaped back and fell into the +chair again; a dreadful pallor reached the roots +of his hair.</p> + +<p>"All up, I guess—twice to-day—'Jim good-by," +he said very quickly, and rolled against Lindsay, +the picture tight in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Lin! If you don't come pretty soon"—Caroline +pushed open the door a little.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> +"Hush! Run and bring that whisky!" her +cousin whispered, his face drawn and frightened.</p> + +<p>She waited outside while he labored mysteriously, +breathing hard.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Barker sick, Lin?" she whispered +fearfully when he came back to the door.</p> + +<p>"Y—yes. I guess he's pretty sick," he said +slowly, stepping out with her and turning the +knob carefully. The dining-room reeked with +the whisky on his hands and his coat.</p> + +<p>"We'll go for the doctor," he went on, "both +of us, because we'll have to fix—I'll have to talk +to you on the way. You needn't hurry so, Caroline. +There's no—we don't have to hurry." +He tried the outside door twice, to make sure it +was latched, and glanced hastily at the library +windows.</p> + +<p>"I'd better wire Uncle Joe," he said half to +himself; "he'll know what to do—oh, there's +the dog. Come on, Hamlet—he's Buck Williams's—gentle +as a kitten."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he'll know," she repeated, contentedly, +reaching for Hamlet's black muzzle.</p> + +<p>"But I don't think that was right, do you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> +Lin, even for a joke?" she queried, following +him down the side path. The big hound padded +on behind them.</p> + +<p>"No," he agreed briefly.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it funny he had one of your pins?" +She was trotting rapidly, to keep up with him.</p> + +<p>Lindsay stopped short and almost faced her. +He looked very young and tired.</p> + +<p>"I swear, Caroline, I believe worse men have +worn it!" he said.</p> + + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1> </h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="v" id="v"></a>V</h2> + +<h2>A PILLAR OF SOCIETY</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/c.png" title="C" height="44" width="32" alt="C" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">aroline</span> slipped out of the woodshed +with Henry D. Thoreau barking under his +breath at her heels, and struck across the +dusty mountain road into the trail. The advantages +of the woodshed were many: it was cool +and dark, the stacked wood had a soothing odor +and a neat, restful appearance, and one was +more or less forgotten there. More important, it +lay directly under the long living-room, and sounds +carried easily through the primitive plank floor. +Up to now the murmur of the company's voices +had been a negligible quantity, a background +for thought, merely, but suddenly a familiar +intonation had risen higher.</p> + +<p>"Why, certainly, Caroline can show you—she +knows all the trails. Yes, indeed, she'd be +delighted, I'm sure.... Oh, any time you prefer. +Don't let her dawdle along, though; she's such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +a strange child—sometimes it will take her ten +minutes to get across the road, and then another +time she will be as quick as a flash. I'll see where +she is."</p> + +<p>But even as the boards squeaked above her +head, Caroline had fled, and Henry D. Thoreau, +smarting from the indignity of her brown, berry-stained +hand circling his muzzle, was expressing +his feelings to the yellow birches and ground +pine.</p> + +<p>"Oh shut up, won't you, Henry D.?" she +urged him indignantly, "do you want to take +that fat old tiresome lady around our nice mountain? +I don't b'lieve you do. You can be +called 'girlie' if you want to—I don't. She is +so hot and she creaks so when she walks! I <i>had</i> +to hold your nose."</p> + +<p>Henry D., who had only wanted an explanation, +subsided, and they trudged on in silence, Indian +file, along the narrow trail.</p> + +<p>The early afternoon sun filtered down through +the birch and beech leaves on Caroline's brown +head and Henry D.'s brindled back, pine needles +crunched under their feet, thick glossy moss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +twinkled with last night's rain. They sniffed +the damp, wholesome mold delightedly; from +time to time Caroline kicked the rotten stump +of some pithy, crumbling trunk or marked patterns +with her finger nail in the thin new moss +of some smooth slab. Indian pipes and glowing +juniper berries embroidered the way; pale, +late anemones, deceived by the cold mountain +weather, sprang up between the giant mushrooms. +It was as still as eternity.</p> + +<p>The wood grew steadily thicker, the light +pierced down in golden arrows only, the silence +was almost oppressive. Caroline stepped suddenly +out of the tiny path, pushed aside a clump +of fern, buried her arm up to the elbow in a hollow +stump and produced a large crumbling +molasses cooky.</p> + +<p>"Just where I left it, Henry D., just exactly!" +she whispered delightedly. "I wish now I'd +left 'em both, but I didn't feel able to spare 'em +at the time."</p> + +<p>They ate the cooky pleasantly, Henry D. +receiving every third bite with scrupulous accuracy.</p> + +<p>"I used to think maybe that huckleberry-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>boy +followed us up and discovered our places, +but this proves he don't," she announced, as the +last crumb disappeared; "he's not so smart as he +thinks he is, is he, Henry D.?"</p> + +<p>They trotted on, moving more quickly as the +faint, regular crash of an axe on wood came nearer +and nearer. A barbed-wire fence had sprung +up unaccountably in the wood, following a devious +course among the thick trees, and as they scrambled +carefully under it, Henry D. pausing with accustomed +gallantry while his mistress disentangled +two petticoats and an unfortunate stocking, a +little gray-shingled cottage jumped out suddenly +from the gray beeches, and they emerged into its +front yard.</p> + +<p>It was a ridiculously operatic little cottage, +composed chiefly of bulging balconies, scarlet +and yellow with geraniums and nasturtiums, +casement windows with tiny leaded panes, and +double Dutch doors, evidently practicable. It +had all the air of having retired from the other +scenery to practice for its own act, and it seemed +highly probable that a chorus of happy short-skirted +peasantry would skip out from behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +it and tunefully relate the fortunes of the heroine +within.</p> + +<p>But the only person in sight was obviously +impossible of such classification. Though she +was chopping wood, and chopping it very well, +though she wore what is sometimes called a +Mother Hubbard wrapper and a stiff, clean blue-checked +apron, she was not in the least a peasant. +Her figure was tall and spare, her hair gray and +drawn into an uncompromising knot, her face +wrinkled and shrewd, her eyes soft, and full +of the experience that middle-age brings to the +native American woman who has lived all her +life in the sparsely-settled country districts.</p> + +<p>Her face relaxed at sight of her visitors. "How +d'ye do?" she called cheerfully, "ma want +anything?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe so," Caroline returned sociably, +"I've just come up, that's all."</p> + +<p>"I thought maybe your ma was worried about +them shirt-waists, but she needn't be: I'll have +'em back by Friday, sure. It'll be all I can do, +though—he's on the rampage these days, and +I've got my hands full, I tell you."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> +"Is Old Grumpy bad to-day?" Caroline +inquired.</p> + +<p>"Bad? Child, that old fellow is just about +the worst I ever saw, and I've seen plenty. What's +on his mind the Lord knows, but it's a lesson to +us all to keep our tempers and not have secret +thoughts preying on us night and day! Just +now he told me the truth for once. 'I'm so +worried I can't digest, Luella,' he says to me, +'and I digest so damnably that it's enough to +worry an archangel!' There—I shouldn't 'a' +said that before you, but—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know 'damn,' Luella," Caroline assured +her, "and it isn't as if you said it purposely, +anyway; you just repeated it. It makes all +the difference."</p> + +<p>"I guess it does," Luella assented, "s'long's +you understand it. But then, you understand +everything, more or less, 'seems to me. Where +you picked it all up at your age—"</p> + +<p>"What's that, Luella? Who is talking out +there? What's going on <i>now</i> behind my back?"</p> + +<p>A petulant and gray-haired gentleman rushed +out at them, very much like a wiry Scotch terrier,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +and glared fiercely at Caroline and Henry D. +Thoreau.</p> + +<p>"Nothin's goin' on behind your back that I +know of, Mr. Wortley," Luella returned composedly. +"This little girl comes up to see me +every once 'n a while—I do washing for her mother +at one of the cottages—and we were just talkin' +back and forth, that's all."</p> + +<p>"You fried that liver!" the gentleman burst +forth abruptly, "you know you fried it, Luella! +I might as well have eaten a shingle off the cottage—it's +killing me! Ugh! As if I hadn't enough +to bear without being murdered with fried +liver!"</p> + +<p>"I do' know what you've got to bear, Mr. +Wortley," and Luella gathered her apron full of +kindlings, "but you needn't add fried liver to it, +'cause it was broiled."</p> + +<p>"Never!" exploded the fiery gentleman.</p> + +<p>"I'd ought to know," said Luella firmly, "I +had the grid-iron to wash."</p> + +<p>"As for children," he veered off again, "you +couldn't have poorer company. Think what +they'll grow into—think!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +"Some don't turn out so bad," she reminded +him, starting toward the house.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but when are you going to decide that +they <i>have</i> 'turned out'?" he demanded, trotting +angrily beside her, "tell me that, will you? Perhaps +you imagine that when they're of age, +legally men and women, and you've managed to +keep 'em out of the State Reform School up to +then, you're justified in thinking they've 'turned +out'? Hey?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, now, I wouldn't go on so about the State +Reform School, Mr. Wortley," Luella urged +pacifically, "that's awful. I always say the +young ones mean well, mostly; there ain't many +that set out to be bad a-purpose. Only, accordin' +to their judgment—"</p> + +<p>"Their judgment! <i>Their</i> judgment! For God's +sake!" he thundered, and darted into the house, +slamming the door so that the casements rattled.</p> + +<p>"I guess you'd better run on, dear," Luella +suggested, "he's bad to-day. Some days I just +have my hands full with him, and then again +he'll be real pleasant and amusin'—he'll say the +cutest things. But he's perturbed to-day, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> +that's a fact. You stop in 'long in the afternoon, +when he takes his nap and I'm at my ironing, +and we'll have a good visit."</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded soberly and took up her +journey again, not a little depressed; he had been +such a whirlwind of a gentleman.</p> + +<p>Unconsciously she followed a tiny, all-but-overgrown +trail that led straight up the hill +against which the cottage was built and lost +itself, apparently, in the thick wood at the top. +A belt of tall beeches half way up blotted out +everything behind it, and the dozens of chipmunks +and red squirrels that scurried hither and +yon, the fat hen-partridge schooling her brood +under Caroline's very nose, the flame-colored, +translucent lizards slipping under mossy roots +at her feet, showed the neglect into which the +trail had fallen. She pushed on, hardly certain +now that she had not lost it, or that it had ever +led anywhere, when she stumbled suddenly over +a handsome meerschaum pipe, still warm, and +colored to a nicety. She picked it up, poked +experimentally at the ashes with a twig, smelled +it distastefully and stared about her. No one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> +was in sight, and she had walked at least a quarter +of a mile before she encountered a young man +sitting in a dejected attitude on the stump of a +yellow birch.</p> + +<p>He was peering gloomily into the hemlocks +opposite him, his hands were deep in his pockets, +his feet crossed at an uncomfortable angle. He +was a pale young man with dark circles under +darker eyes, and an expression of such settled +melancholy that Caroline lost no time in assuaging +it as far as she could.</p> + +<p>"Here it is," she remarked, holding out the +pipe, "how do you do?"</p> + +<p>The young man started violently.</p> + +<p>"Holy Bridget, who are you?" he demanded. +"How did you get here? This is private property—didn't +you see the sign?"</p> + +<p>"There wasn't any sign the way we came," +she returned placidly, "we came over the mountain. +Don't you want your pipe?"</p> + +<p>The young man blushed and scowled. "Thank +you very much," he said, extending a thin, brown +hand, "I'm afraid I was rather rude. Where +did you find it?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> +"Oh, down there," she answered vaguely.</p> + +<p>He handled the pipe lovingly, knocked it +against the birch stump and cleared it further +with a curl of the polished, champagne-tinted +bark.</p> + +<p>"Nice dog," he suggested, "what's his name?"</p> + +<p>"Henry D. Thoreau," she replied, studying +the green scarab in his necktie and the heavy +seal-ring on his left hand.</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake! Who named him?"</p> + +<p>"My Uncle Joe," she returned simply, "because +he takes to the woods whenever he gets the +chance. Was that pin a bug once?"</p> + +<p>"Not since I ran across it," said the young +man, "before that, I can't say. Has your uncle +any other animals?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," she assured him. "There's the +donkey, his name is Rose-Marie; and the baby's +cat, his name is Pharaoh Meneptah, but the baby +calls him Coo-coo; and there's Miss Honey's +rabbits, they're all named Eleanor, because you +can't tell them apart, and one name does just as +well; and the canary, his name is Jean and +Edouard de Reszke."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> +The young man burst into laughter and fell +off the stump abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Those are fine names, all of them," he +declared, picking himself up with great solicitude +for the pipe, "but why did the canary get +two?"</p> + +<p>"Because Aunt Edith likes Jean the best, but +Uncle Joe says there's more to Edouard," she +explained, "so they named him both, because +Uncle Joe said anything was better than a divided +family."</p> + +<p>"That's right," said the young man, "anything +is."</p> + +<p>His face, which had looked for a moment merry +and boyish, darkened again, and his big eyes +glowered intently at the shadowy hemlocks.</p> + +<p>"Anything," he added, in a low voice, "but +a sacrifice of principle, a sacrifice of truth, as it +actually is, to the petty conventions of a rotten +society!"</p> + +<p>With that he sat his teeth hard and pulling a +leather pouch out of his pocket, began stuffing +the pipe decisively. Caroline waited for him +to continue, but as he lit the pipe and puffed at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> +it in silence, she concluded that the interview +was at an end, and started up the path.</p> + +<p>"You'd better not—" he began, but stopped +suddenly and appeared to reconsider. "Oh, +I don't know," he added, "it might be better, +after all. Go along."</p> + +<p>The trail was little more than a worn line in the +grass, now; soon it turned sharply to the left, +skirted the wood, and led to a tiny, dilapidated +cottage. Caroline had more than once passed +it by under the impression that it was abandoned, +or used perhaps for storing ice or wood; but to-day +a thin curl of smoke stained the blue above +it and through the open door of the one living-room +that formed its ground-floor she saw a +scarlet Navajo blanket, on which reposed a +magnificent snowy Angora cat. A great green +bough covered one of the walls, and a few chairs, +a square pine table and a guitar flung against a +pile of bright cushions, completed the furniture. +At the further end of the room, stretched upon +the mate to the Angora's blanket, lay a young +woman, sobbing violently.</p> + +<p>Caroline hesitated, but Henry D. Thoreau<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +recognized grief, and knew perfectly well what to +do. Stepping quietly over to the prostrate +figure he encircled it once, looking for a point +of vantage, then selecting two little white, +pink-tipped fingers, he licked them caressingly.</p> + +<p>The sobbing ceased: the girl drew a longer +shaking breath.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Mimi?" she said huskily, "I +didn't know you cared as much as—oh, what +is that?"</p> + +<p>Her hand had fallen on the little bull-dog's +smooth, stiff coat and she started up in surprise. +Caroline smiled shyly into her big, stained gray +eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's all right—Henry D. never bites—do you +feel bad?" she asked.</p> + +<p>The girl pushed back a handful of crinkly, +chestnut hair from her damp face and rose, shaking +out her skirts.</p> + +<p>"Y—yes," she said, frankly, "yes, I do. +Do you know why?"</p> + +<p>"No. Why?" Caroline inquired.</p> + +<p>"Because I can't make huckleberry bread,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +the girl assured her solemnly. "I—I've been +trying all the morning. Look in there."</p> + +<p>Caroline peered into the little lean-to, filled to +over-flowing with a stove, some tin cooking pans, +a table full of soiled dishes and a case of kitchen +sundries, half unpacked.</p> + +<p>"You did get it all over, didn't you?" she +observed cheerfully, noting the prints of doughy +fingers on oven and chairs and the burned, odorous +wreck, resting in soggy isolation in the middle +of the floor. "You cooked it a little too much, +maybe."</p> + +<p>"Maybe," the girl assented listlessly. "I +was going to have it for luncheon. The woman +promised to be here by ten o'clock, and I got +the breakfast well enough—after a fashion—but +she hasn't come, and I'm s-so hungry!"</p> + +<p>Her eyes filled again. "It's simply filthy +here," she murmured. "Do you know anybody +we could depend on—oh, how stupid of +me, of course you don't."</p> + +<p>"There's Luella," Caroline suggested, "she's +right near here, and she makes lovely huckleberry +bread. Shall I go get her? Old Gr'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>—the +gentleman that she keeps house for takes +his nap now, and I know she could come."</p> + +<p>The look of relief on the girl's face was enough, +and Caroline hurried out, leaving Henry D. +Thoreau, who seemed to feel responsible for his +hostess's peace of mind, snuggled in her lap.</p> + +<p>She burst into Luella's placid afternoon kitchen, +big with her news, bustling about excitedly, +while Luella methodically packed a market-basket +with half a cold chicken, an untouched +loaf of huckleberry bread, a pan of tiny biscuits +and a glass of currant jelly.</p> + +<p>"Butter I know they've got, and milk, for +I see Wilkins stop up there this mornin' as I +come down, and I wondered who on earth had +taken that God-forsaken little cottage. 'Twasn't +occupied last season. Cryin' right out loud, +was she? She must 'a been all tired out to make +such a fuss over a tin o' huckleberry bread. I +s'pose she hasn't got many breakfasts in her +life. Ten to one 'twas Myra Tenny that disappointed +her: it sounds like her. Always +undertakin' more 'n any one woman c'd possibly +attend to, and then goin' back on you. Pretty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> +cross himself, was he? Well, they'd had words, +most likely. They take it hard at first. They +ain't long married, of course, if they're young +as you say. Poor things. There, I guess that's +about all."</p> + +<p>Luella closed the kitchen door softly and they +hurried along the trail.</p> + +<p>"He's off as sound as a baby," she confided +to Caroline, "sometimes he'll sleep two hours, +he's up so much in the night."</p> + +<p>As the relief expedition neared the cottage, +Henry D. Thoreau bounded out to greet them, the +girl behind him, still flushed and swollen-eyed, +but with her thick, reddish hair newly braided +in a crown around her head.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon," Luella called cheerily, "I +hear you're in trouble up here! You ought to +let me known—I'm the one for jobs like this. +Just let me into the kitchen, Miss<span style="letter-spacing: -2px">——</span>" She +paused, but as the girl made no attempt to help +her, continued easily, "well, I should say so! +Got a little burnt, didn't it? Never mind, you +ought to a' seen my first corn-meal muffins! +Now you just step out and rest a minute, dear,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> +and by the time you've called your husband I'll +have a little lunch scratched up and you'll feel +so different you won't know yourself. It's surprisin' +how distressed you c'n get on an empty +stomach. 'Tis your husband, isn't it, or is it +your brother?"</p> + +<p>"No, it's not—yes. It—it's not my brother," +the girl said in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"No," Luella repeated soothingly, "no, I see. +That's a fine cat, ain't it? I've read of 'em—Angora, +ain't it?—but I never saw one. They +say they're mostly deaf. Is that one?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. No—I don't know. I don't believe +she is," the girl murmured, brokenly. She seemed +newly distressed; her lips, very red against her +white cheeks, quivered, her full breast strained +against her white linen blouse.</p> + +<p>Luella strode lightly about the disorderly little +kitchen; she had forgotten the very presence of +the girl, it seemed, for as she gathered the soiled +dishes, coaxed the fire, filled the kettle and hastily +removed the traces of the ill-fated huckleberry +bread, she hummed a tune and appeared to see +only her work.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> +Caroline was on her knees before the Angora +and knew nothing of the flight of time, though +it was really hardly more than a quarter of an +hour before the kitchen rivalled Luella's in neatness +and the pine table in the living-room, covered +with a fresh cloth, and shiny plated silver, only +waited its host.</p> + +<p>"Now if you'll step out and call your husband, +Miss—I didn't just get the name?" said Luella +invitingly.</p> + +<p>The girl rose from the chair where she had been +sitting, motionless, except for her eyes, which +had followed every movement of the older woman. +She stood very straight and threw her head back +with a gesture almost defiant.</p> + +<p>"My name is Dorothy Hartley," she declared, +and ran abruptly out of the cottage.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," Luella shook her head whimsically, +"she's pretty well wrought up, isn't she? Sweet +little thing, too—real loveable, I sh'd say. It +don't seem possible he'd be mean to her. But +o' course he wants his breakfast fit to eat, just +the same. I put a place for you, Car'line, 'cause +I know you c'n eat, no matter what time 'tis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>—you're +'s empty's a bag. There he comes—my, +but he's haughty! He looks like somebody in +one o' those novels, don't he, now?"</p> + +<p>They came slowly up the path, hand in hand, +like children, her gray eyes on the ground, his black +ones challenging the world. The clear mountain +air carried his words easily to the two in the door:</p> + +<p>"Now, dearest, be brave! Remember, we are +right, and we know we are right."</p> + +<p>She clutched his hand nervously, but made no +reply.</p> + +<p>"Come right in," Luella urged them hospitably, +"you must be 'most starved."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," he assured her, with a loyal glance +at the girl, "I—I had a good breakfast, didn't I, +dear?"</p> + +<p>But his eyes brightened at sight of the half +chicken and the omelet, glowing in a parsley +wreath, and he had broken one of the puffy rolls +and plunged into a great cup of coffee before he +addressed Caroline.</p> + +<p>"You seem to be a valuable person to know," +he observed, "you and Matthew Arnold or John +Greenleaf Whittier or what-ever-his-name-is."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +Caroline looked embarrassed and helped herself +to jelly.</p> + +<p>"You have helped my—we are very much +obliged to you, I am sure," he turned to address +Luella, who was passing from stove to table, +"aren't we, dearest?"</p> + +<p>The girl sat with her hands in her lap, staring +at her plate.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course," she agreed, "certainly."</p> + +<p>"If you could come every day—they told me +I could find some one to do that—it would be a +great accommodation," he went on, with a worried +look at the sad face opposite him, "and anything +it might be worth, I am sure, Mrs.<span style="letter-spacing: -2px">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"Judd, Luella Judd," she supplied, briskly. +"Now, dear, try to eat a little, do! That omelet'll +do you good. And that's a lovely piece o' breast +I cut you off. It was all right my bringin' it, +for the old gentleman never touches cold meat +and the jelly's my own. There, that's right. I +thought you'd like it, once you began. There's +no need to tempt Car'line and your husband, +is there? But that's all right: young folks +ought to eat—I never grudged mine a crumb,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +and the Lord knows they eat me out of house and +home."</p> + +<p>The young man, indeed, ate voraciously, and +under Luella's kindly domineering the hostess +herself cleared her plate. The hot coffee brought +the color to her cheeks, and she had even smiled +at Henry D. Thoreau. Caroline had never seen +anyone prettier. She had a great dimple in +either cheek, and her gray eyes smiled with the +sweetest confidence into the black eyes opposite: +any one could see that they loved each other very +much, even if they had "had words."</p> + +<p>"Just a little more o' the huckleberry bread, +dear?" Luella urged her. "I've been sort o' +plannin' out how I c'd manage to get here every +day, and I guess I can, if you'll be content to +wait a little for your breakfast. My old gentleman +don't have anything but a cup o' coffee in the +morning, an' I c'd be over here by ha' past eight, +easy enough, Mr. Hartley, if that suited you—"</p> + +<p>"Wortley, my name is Wortley," the young +man interrupted, hastily.</p> + +<p>Luella looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Wortley?" she repeated, "why, that's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>—well, +never mind, it's none o' my business. I +cert'nly thought she said Hartley, though. Well, +if you'n Mrs. Wortley <i>can</i> wait till ha' past eight—"</p> + +<p>"Frank, dear," the girl broke in appealingly, +but the young man shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No, darling," he said firmly, and then looking +straight at Luella, he went on: "This lady's name +is Hartley. We are not—we are not related."</p> + +<p>Luella stared blankly at him a moment, then +turned to the girl. But she, though she got up +from her seat and going over to the young man +seized his hand and pressed it between her own, +did not lift her eyes to the woman's troubled and +accusing gaze.</p> + +<p>Luella drew a long breath, took off her checked +apron and rolled it mechanically into a bundle. +Her face had hardened; only the shrewdness was +left in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"You might 'a told me so before," she said +briefly, and turned on her heel.</p> + +<p>The girl was crying on his shoulder. "Tell +her, Frank, please tell her why," she begged, +through her sobs.</p> + +<p>Luella faced her sternly. "He needn't trouble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +to tell me why," she said, "I know more'n you +think, maybe. I know who your father is, +Mr. Wortley, an' I guess I understand pretty +well by now what his troubles are. If he forbade +you marryin' each other, he had his reasons, +I don't doubt, for he's a good man, if he is quick-tempered, +an'—"</p> + +<p>"He <i>didn't</i> forbid our marrying," the young +man broke in sharply, glaring with ill-suppressed +irritation at Luella, while he softly patted the +girl's shoulder. "He begged us on his bended +knees to marry, though I don't know how you +know him."</p> + +<p>Luella paused with her hand on the door.</p> + +<p>"What!" she exclaimed sharply. "Then it +was your folks?" She looked at the girl.</p> + +<p>"No, it wasn't!" Dorothy lifted her head. +"They b-begged us on <i>their</i> b-bended knees, +too," she sobbed and disappeared again.</p> + +<p>"For the Lord's sake!" Luella muttered. Then +turning fiercely on him she took a step forward.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me you're scoundrel +enough—" she began, but the young man—he +was really only a boy—shook his head angrily.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>"Not at all, not at all," he burst out with a +curious likeness to his father, "I'm no more a +scoundrel than you are, Mrs. Judd, and you'll +oblige me by acting accordingly."</p> + +<p>It was so evident that he meant what he said, +he appeared so righteously indignant, that Luella +paused, dumbfounded, twisting the apron in her +hands.</p> + +<p>"Wh-why ain't you married, then?" she +demanded.</p> + +<p>The young man surveyed her calmly. "Because +I—we disapprove of marriage," he said.</p> + +<p>Luella turned a brick-red; her mouth opened +vaguely. Though she spoke not a word, he answered +her amazed face.</p> + +<p>"The conditions of marriage at the present +day," he stated loftily, "are not such as to lead +me—to lead us to suppose that as an institution +it has accomplished its purpose. Where +it is not merely legalized—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Frank!" the girl moaned softly, putting +her little hand over his opened lips. He kissed +it gently, but removed it.</p> + +<p>"To say nothing of the absolute misery you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> +can see all about you as a result of a chain that +ought long ago to have been broken, or better +still, never—"</p> + +<p>"And before that child, too!" Luella burst +out. "Caroline, you get right up and come home. +I never heard anything like it in my life. Come +this minute, now!"</p> + +<p>Caroline rose unwillingly; she thought Luella +unnecessarily severe.</p> + +<p>"As to that," young Mr. Wortley announced +composedly, "we differ again. The sooner these +matters are discussed frankly before children, +the sooner we shall have fewer unhappy men +and women. There is nothing whatever in my +intentions or Miss—or Dorothy's, to shock or +affront the youngest child. I have no children +myself, but—"</p> + +<p>"Humph!" Luella sniffed furiously, "I sh'd +hope not!"</p> + +<p>"—but <i>if</i> I had," he pursued evenly, "I +should teach them precisely—"</p> + +<p>"Look here," Luella interrupted roughly, "look +me in the face, both of you!"</p> + +<p>They turned their eyes full on her, the boy's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> +dilated to fanaticism, glowing with obstinacy; +the girl's, wet and pleading, miserable, but full +of love. Luella, with narrowed lids, bored into +those clear young eyes: no shadow of deceit, +no hint of shuffling or double-dealing could withstand +that relentless scrutiny.</p> + +<p>Slowly her face softened, her eyebrows relaxed, +her hold on the twisted apron loosened.</p> + +<p>"I guess we better talk this over," she said +decisively, closing the door and seating herself +squarely in the chair nearest it. "How old did +you say you was, Mr. Wortley?"</p> + +<p>The forensic expression faded helplessly from +the boy's face. He clutched at it, but it failed +him, and with the air of a pupil addressing his +teacher, he replied: "I didn't say, but I'm twenty-one."</p> + +<p>Luella nodded. "An' you can't be a day over +nineteen, can you?" she demanded of the girl. +The braided chestnut head shook sadly.</p> + +<p>"I thought not. I s'pose you've found out +that your views ain't shared by most o' the world," +she proceeded, with a fine air of impartiality.</p> + +<p>"I—we have been very much misunderstood,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +said the boy stiffly, "but I have never been in +the habit of allowing other people's ideas to affect +my actions."</p> + +<p>"You been spoiled, you mean," Luella interpolated, +"I thought so. Spoiled to death, prob'ly."</p> + +<p>He bit his lip. "But I hope I—we are +prepared for anything—<i>anything</i>," he repeated +with emphasis, "that may result from the course +we have taken. I expect the results will be +unpleasant—I expect it fully."</p> + +<p>"I guess your expectations 'll be fulfilled right +enough," she responded promptly. "And as +for bein' prepared—you remind me o' my father, +Mr. Wortley. He used to say he'd been prepared +for death since the age o' seven years, but he did +hope the Lord wouldn't take advantage of it. +Is—is she prepared, too?"</p> + +<p>He looked lovingly at the girl who crouched +on the floor beside him. "Dorothy and I think +precisely the same in everything," he said proudly, +"don't we, my dearest one?"</p> + +<p>Luella's lips twitched; she looked at the flushed +arrogant young face with irrepressible admiration.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +"I reely b'lieve you think so!" she declared, +and as his hand clinched and his eyes flashed +dangerously, she raised her hand with a warning +gesture.</p> + +<p>"There, there now, I get enough o' that from +your father!" she admonished him, adding +quickly, "Does he know you're here?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he answered irritably, "I +never supposed <i>he'd</i> be here. I came up here +because I'd made all my plans to—and I never +let my plans be interfered with, if I can possibly +avoid it. I told the man to get it ready for me, +but just before we started he telegraphed that +it was engaged for the season. But I came all +the same, because I knew this little one would +be empty. Father bought it up to protect himself. +Does he know I'm here?"</p> + +<p>Luella looked thoughtful. "I reely don't know," +she said slowly.</p> + +<p>"It'll come pretty hard on her, doin' her own +work, won't it?" she went on, watching him +curiously. Then, as he started angrily, "Oh, +there ain't nobody here will come, by the day, +or any other way—I sh'd s'pose you'd known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +that. And as for any o' the cottage people—heavens +an' earth, Car'line, will you get up an' +go home? I don't know what's come over me +to forget that child—she sits so still—"</p> + +<p>But as Caroline got sulkily from her seat, +cowed by Luella's stern face, Dorothy put out +her hand and caught the child's dress.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh!" she cried hysterically, "don't +send her away—don't, Frank! L-let me have +somebody!"</p> + +<p>"There, you see!" said Luella sadly, "you +see how 'tis, Mr. Wortley. Do you mean to say +you have the heart—"</p> + +<p>"Dorothy, I don't understand you at all," +said the young man, with evident self restraint.</p> + +<p>"You probably do not realize the very trying +position you put me in. I hope it is not necessary +to explain to you, Mrs. Judd, that if Miss Hartley +<i>wishes</i> to marry me, she has but to say the word, +and it shall be done instantly—instantly!" +he repeated with emphasis, "as if," Luella +said later, "he'd had a minister in his side +pocket."</p> + +<p>"There, my dear, hear that!" she cried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +triumphantly, "now just tell him what you +want—"</p> + +<p>"You horrid woman, you ought to be ashamed +of yourself!" the girl broke in furiously. "How +dare you intimate—as if I didn't know that +Frank would do anything in the world I asked +him to!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, dearest," he broke in satirically, +"that's a poor basis for action in this beautiful +world of ours! Catch your man and tie him +tight before he has time to change his mind. +Then he'll be obliged to stay by you—you've +got him hand and foot! That is love!"</p> + +<p>"It's just as well, sometimes, though," Luella +inserted placidly.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose I would ever," the girl +stormed, "unless I—oh, dear, will somebody +understand? Don't you know that my—that +Frank has studied this question very deeply, +that it's a matter of principle with us? If you +had read all the dreadful things—"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid, darling," he interrupted, with +cold dignity, "that if your people and mine +cannot understand the position I take, if we are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +actually obliged to take the matter into our own +hands, and—and run away, in fact, in order to +prove our sincerity, you can hardly expect people +of a different—of less—with fewer—"</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean, Mr. Wortley," +Luella said gravely. She rose to her feet, beckoning +to Caroline, whose waist the girl still clasped.</p> + +<p>"I haven't got your education," she went on, +with a simple humility that became her very +touchingly, "we're poor people up here, us +'natives,' and we don't get much time for books, +or when we do, we're too tired to read 'em much. +I don't doubt you've been to college, yourself, +and you've prob'ly learnt a lot about the mistakes +that's been made in the world—a lot that +I wouldn't understand. But I want to tell you +one thing. I'm old enough to 'a been your +mother, Mr. Wortley, my oldest boy'd 'a been +twenty if he'd lived—and I've buried two besides +him. You'll know I've seen trouble when I tell +you that I've always thought we'd saved him +and Annie if we could 'a had another doctor +that'd had more experience with typhoid, and +that's an awful thing to feel."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +She paused a moment with somber eyes.</p> + +<p>"I've worked hard since I was ten years old, +and for the last five years there's been nothin' +but me between the children and the poor house. +You don't know much about that kind o' worry, +Mr. Wortley, an' 'taint likely you ever will. I +was married when I was nineteen—" Her +eyes fell on the girl and softened lovingly, "'an +what that means in the country with seven +children an' no help, an' the winters what they are +here, maybe you can guess a little. But I tell +you this: I ain't had the sorrow, all told, that's +preparin' for that girl, if you keep on like this. +An' I wouldn't change my lot for hers, nor would +she, if she knew."</p> + +<p>There was a dead silence in the room. Only +the short, grunting breaths of the sleeping dog +stirred the air. The girl sat as if turned to stone, +her arm hard about Caroline; the boy stared +doubtfully at the woman, studying her plain, +wrinkled face.</p> + +<p>"I—I have plenty of money," he said, in a hollow +thin little voice, "she will always—"</p> + +<p>"Money!" Luella's voice shook with scorn,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> +"what's money? The Lord knows, Mr. Wortley, +I need money more'n you ever will, but let me +tell you there's things money can't buy. Can you +buy children—nice children like this one—to +play with your children? Tell me that!"</p> + +<p>"I shall never have any children," the girl's +voice came in a husky, strained whisper, "I shall +be too—too miserable," she concluded softly, +and utterly to herself; she had absolutely forgotten +the others, even the boy, whose eyes +turned incessantly from her face to the older +woman's.</p> + +<p>Luella's shrewd glance enveloped the strong +young figure. "I never heard 't misery prevented +'em," she said dryly.</p> + +<p>The boy seemed unable to move, so intense was +the concentration of his thoughts; his fingers +stuck out stiffly in a purposeless, set gesture.</p> + +<p>"If it is true, all that we thought," he said +slowly, "then no hardship, no merely personal +suffering should prevent ... the experiment +must be made ... must inevitably, <i>sometime</i>...."</p> + +<p>"But not with her, not <i>her</i>, Mr. Wortley!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> +Luella cried. Her expression turned quickly +whimsical.</p> + +<p>"You remind me o' me an' my mother one +time, when I was a girl," she cried. "I wanted +to prove that you c'd raise biscuits without the +bakin' powder—I was terrible headstrong; I +know what 'tis well 'nough, an' how hard 'tis +to give 'way—an' she was tryin' to persuade me.</p> + +<p>"'I think 't least you might let me make th' +experiment,' I says, an' she turned to me—I +c'n see her now an',</p> + +<p>"'Luella,' says she, 'it's all very well for you +to make th' experiment, but I'm the one that'll +have to pay the bill!' she says.</p> + +<p>"It'll be like that with you, Mr. Wortley—you'll +make th' experiment, but <i>she'll</i> pay!"</p> + +<p>There was another silence.</p> + +<p>"We always pay," Luella added thoughtfully, +"it don't seem just fair, but we do."</p> + +<p>The young man shook himself suddenly, like +a dog fresh from the water.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to—God knows I wouldn't +hurt a hair of her head," he said, in a low voice. +His hands relaxed, his shoulders drooped. "It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> +seemed the best thing only this morning—is +that what you meant this morning, Dorothy, +when we—when we—when I went away?" he +asked gently.</p> + +<p>She held out her hand to him, still clasping +Caroline, and he knelt beside her, one arm around +her neck.</p> + +<p>"I—I don't want you ever—to do—what you—think—is—is +wrong," she said brokenly, but +with a brave effort at steadiness. "I'll—I'll +never—leave you—Frank."</p> + +<p>She gazed adoringly into his eyes, her hand +tight in his. Luella's mouth twitched and she +choked as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Wortley," she urged, "it isn't that +I don't see what you mean—partly. You +think I don't, but I do. There's awful mistakes +made in marryin', we all see 'em; even +'way back here in the country dreadful things +happen, an' the papers—we c'n read 'em, that's +enough an' more'n enough. There's things that +ought to be changed, I know, but not the way +you want to change 'em—oh, not that way! +It can't help any, not marryin', don't you see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>—folks +must just take pains and marry more careful, +'cause we've begun this way and now we can't +stop without somebody gettin' hurt—and that +won't be you, nor any other man. Marryin's +all we've got to tie to, Mr. Wortley, us women, +an' we can't quit now!"</p> + +<p>The boy looked thoughtfully at her: "I—I +think perhaps you are right," he said slowly. +He appeared unaccountably older; small, worried +lines were cutting themselves deep around his eyes +and mouth.</p> + +<p>He threw back his head in an attempt to regain +the old, masterful manner.</p> + +<p>"I hope I am too sincere not to state honorably +that I—I feel sure you are right!" he announced, +"that is, in this particular instance. I have no +desire to establish any point at the expense—at +the expense...."</p> + +<p>He frowned into space; his lips tightened +obstinately.</p> + +<p>"But it will <i>have</i> to be at somebody's expense!" +he cried irritably. "Shall we <i>always</i> go on like +this, putting off, putting off, letting this shameful, +unsatisfactory state of things continue, just be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>cause +it would be <i>our</i> wives that would suffer...."</p> + +<p>"I guess that's about it," Luella answered, +seriously.</p> + +<p>"Then all I have to say is, we're damned +cowards, all of us!" he cried, with the old flash of +rage.</p> + +<p>But it was the last time. Beaten, yet triumphant, +he stooped for his harness and himself +assumed it, with set teeth.</p> + +<p>"I—I shouldn't have said that," he said, +gravely. "It's—it's a very difficult thing ... +a man has so many responsibilities...."</p> + +<p>They waited patiently.</p> + +<p>"It seems one must compromise—something—anyway," +he went on, thinking his way painfully +along. "I don't know why it seems so +difficult to me now; ... they talked enough, all +the others, and of course I shall never speak to +your Aunt Ethel again—you may use your own +judgment, Dorothy—because there are some +insults...."</p> + +<p>He shook himself again and drew the girl to her +feet.</p> + +<p>"Dearest," he said, and there was a sad little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +ring in his voice, but a strangely kind one, "I—we +have been mistaken. It wouldn't do. I +think—" he looked anxiously at Luella—"the +sooner we get some one—to—to—a clergyman, +you know, or a—a legal person of some +kind—"</p> + +<p>"I'll get Mr. Andrews right away," Luella +assured him briskly. "He's Cong'ational, and +he's a real pleasant young man—new here. Car'line, +you run right down cross-lots to that first +white house an' there he'll be, callin' this minute +on the Wilkinses, 'cause she told me he would. +You say Luella Judd wants him right away, an' +he'll come."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Luella, I will," said Caroline but her +eyes were fastened on the girl.</p> + +<p>She was in the boy's arms, her head on his +shoulder; she clung to him tightly, shivering a +little, hiding her face.</p> + +<p>"You don't mind, darling?" he begged her +earnestly, "you believe I am doing it for the +best? You won't blame me for changing, after +all I've said?"</p> + +<p>She lifted her head and through her loving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> +gray eyes looked out at him the woman she would +be in ten years. A little tender smile curved +her lips; she patted his shoulder as a mother +caresses her headstrong, dearest son.</p> + +<p>"Whatever you think is best, Frank dear," +she said, "let's do that."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I only hope to heaven she don't understand!" +Luella muttered nervously, glancing +unguardedly at Caroline.</p> + +<p>Caroline stamped her foot angrily. Her sensitive +little body had thrilled in the girl's arm; +she had felt all the pathos and dignity of Luella's +appeal, the young man seemed to her mysterious +and noble. And now she was distrusted, grudged +her free part in this exciting afternoon! She +scowled at Luella.</p> + +<p>"You must think I'm a baby, Luella Judd!" +she cried irritably. "I understand all about +it, just as well as you do! Didn't we have just +the same thing in the family, ourselves?"</p> + +<p>Luella gasped.</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sakes, Car'line, wha' do you +mean?" she demanded; "it's perfectly awful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +the things you city children know! I do declare, +I don't think it's right!"</p> + +<p>"Pooh!" said Caroline grandly. "I should +hope I knew more'n that! Why, my Uncle +Joe's own sister, her man that she was engaged +to, he didn't believe in church weddings, either, +and he told my mother if he had to stand up in +gray trousers with those six girls in pink hats +and the bishop all togged out and the whole town +glaring at 'em he'd run away with Cousin Elizabeth, +and he didn't know whether he'd marry her at +all! And they cried and they begged 'em, and +I was to be a flower girl and wear my white silk +stockings, but still they wouldn't. And Cousin +Elizabeth cried, too, and she said she'd never +feel married in a travelling dress, but Cousin +Richard said he guessed she would. And everybody +was terribly angry with them, but they +just had it in her aunt's house that was paralyzed +and couldn't ever go out, and it was right next +door to Cousin Richard's father's house, too, +just like this! Not one bridesmaid and nobody +had any cake in a box to take away. It was +awful, just like Luella says, but afterwards we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> +all forgave 'em. They ran off and did it in the +afternoon—there was only her father and that +paralyzed aunt."</p> + +<p>She drew a long breath and smiled importantly +at them.</p> + +<p>Dorothy put an arm over her fat little shoulders.</p> + +<p>"You must be my bridesmaid and my flower +girl, too," she said softly.</p> + +<p>"You'll go get your father, o' course, Mr. +Wortley?" Luella appeared unconscious of the +possibility of any refusal, and though he started, +scowled, and shook his head, her warning glance +in Caroline's direction checked him, and he plunged +out of the door.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"And may God bless you both," the Reverend +Mr. Andrews concluded unofficially, noting with +a certain curiosity, the impeccable riding breeches +of the groom, and the bride's looped-up linen +habit—he had never married a couple attired +in precisely that manner, and he scented romance.</p> + +<p>"Your generosity, Mr. Wortley, to say nothing +of your father—" He paused helplessly. +"Mrs. Judd knows what this will mean to us this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> +winter," he finished. "No, I thank you, Mr. +Wortley, I thank you sir, but I never touch liquor +in any form. But I drink their health in this +excellent iced coffee, I do indeed."</p> + +<p>Caroline slipped around to Luella, who sat +mopping her eyes behind the kitchen door.</p> + +<p>"I wish Mr. Wortley—Mr. Grumpy Wortley—wouldn't +kiss me any more, Luella," she complained, +"it prickles my face dreadfully. I +don't see why I can't go with 'em as far as the +Mountain Road—I'd love to ride on his horse. +I was bridesmaid—why can't I? Do you think +my mother'll let me keep this pin? What did +you cry for, Luella? What was it he said to +you? He's going to drive me down to the village +to write some telegrams to New York with +him, after they've started. And then he'll speak +to mother about the pin, but we have to get the +telegrams written first. Why do they always +put it into the papers the first thing, Luella? +When you were married, were there telegrams +about it in the papers, up here?"</p> + +<p>Luella tied on her checked apron and attacked +the soiled dishes heaped on the kitchen table;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> +her cheeks were deeply flushed and her hands +trembled a little. She smiled affectionately at +Caroline.</p> + +<p>"I'll drive down with you, I guess, an' stop +off at your ma's," she answered.</p> + +<p>"No, it wasn't telegraphed 'round much when +I was married, but then," with a humorous twinkling +of her deep-set eyes, "I hadn't never studied +into the marryin' question so thorough as some!"</p> + + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1> </h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="vi" id="vi"></a>VI</h2> + +<h2>HIS FATHER'S HOUSE</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/c.png" title="C" height="44" width="32" alt="C" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">aroline</span> stopped abruptly at the edge +of the little pine-encircled glade that +edged the pond-lily pond and waved her +hand in warning.</p> + +<p>"Hist! there are human creatures there!" +she whispered loudly.</p> + +<p>It would be evident to anyone not absolutely +stone blind that she was a fairy. A lace-edged, +snowy nightgown was caught up by a sky blue +ribbon about her hips, trailing gloriously behind +her over the grass; two large wings artfully +constructed of wrapping-paper flopped behind +her surprisingly bare shoulders—the nightgown +was decidedly <i>décolleté</i>, and had been made for +a person several sizes larger than Caroline.</p> + +<p>"Hooma keecha da!" crooned the General. +His conversation was evidently based on the +theory that the English language is a dark mystery,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +insoluble by system, but likely to be blundered +into fortuitously, at any moment, if the searcher +gabble with sufficient steadiness and persistence. +His costume, consisting merely of the ordinary +blue denim overalls of commerce, would have +been positively commonplace were it not for the +wings of bright pink tissue paper, which he wore +with a somewhat confusing obstinacy, pinned +firmly to his chest. Miss Honey assisted his +wavering footsteps rather sulkily; she longed +for the white and lacy draperies in front of her +and regarded her ballet skirts of stitched newspaper +with bare tolerance. It is true she wore +a crown of tinfoil and carried a wand made of +half a brass curtain rod; but her laced tan boots, +stubbed and stained, showed with disgusting +plainness, and nobody would take the trouble +to make her a newspaper bodice.</p> + +<p>"If you don't stop tickling me with that arrow, +Brother Washburn, I'll go back!" she declared, +snappishly.</p> + +<p>The fourth member of the crew, whose bathing +trunks and jersey, fitted with surprisingly life-like +muslin wings, pointed to Puck, though the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> +quiver slung across his shoulder woke conflicting +memories of Diana, chuckled guiltily and +took a flying leap from the big boulder into the +center of the glade. His wings stiffened realistically, +and as he landed, poised on one classically +sandalled foot with arms outspread, the picnic +party before him started violently, and one of +them clutched the other's sleeve with a little cry.</p> + +<p>"What the—oh, it's all right! He's the +real thing, isn't he, now?"</p> + +<p>The young man patted the girl's shoulder +reassuringly and chuckled as the rest of the crew +emerged from the pines and peered over the +boulder.</p> + +<p>"They're only children," he said.</p> + +<p>She dropped her eyes and tightened her fingers +around the shining drinking cup.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, they're only children," she repeated +carelessly.</p> + +<p>Now, each of these picnic people had said the +same words, but it was entirely obvious to their +fascinated audience that the words meant very +different things. For this reason they sidled +around the young lady impersonally, avoiding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +with care the edges of her pale-tinted billowy +skirts, and lined up confidently beside the young +gentleman.</p> + +<p>Not that he controlled the picnic. It was +spread out in front of her, bewitching, intimate, +in its suggestion of you—and—I; two shiny +plates, two knives, two forks, two fringed and +glossy napkins. A dark red bottle was propped +upright between two stones, a pile of thin, triangular +sandwiches balanced daintily on some cool lettuce +leaves, and a fascinating object that glistened +mysteriously in the sun, held the platter of honor +in the middle.</p> + +<p>"The Honorable Mr. Puck," suggested the +young man, in the tone of one continuing an +interrupted conversation, "is figuring out how +the chicken got into the jelly without busting +it—am I not right?"</p> + +<p>Brother grinned, and Caroline moved a little +nearer. Miss Honey stared at the young lady's +fluted skirts and glistening yellow waves of hair, +at the sweeping plume in her hat, and her tiny +high-heeled buckled slippers.</p> + +<p>"I am obliged to admit," the young man went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +on, slicing into the quivering aspic, "that I don't +know myself. I never could find out. Perhaps +the young person in the—the not-too-long skirts, +waved her wand over the bird and he jumped +in and the hole closed up?" He slipped a section +of the bird in question upon the lady's plate +and held the red bottle over her cup.</p> + +<p>"There was hard-boiled eggs stuck on those +jelly things at our wedding," Brother remarked, +"on the outside, all around. But they were +bigger than yours."</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it for a moment," the young +man assured him politely. "Have you been +married long, may I ask? And which of these +ladies—"</p> + +<p>"Brother doesn't mean that <i>he</i> was married," +Miss Honey explained, "it was his oldest sister. +She married a lawyer. I was flower girl."</p> + +<p>"Ima fow guh," murmured the General, thrusting +out a fat and unexpected hand and snatching +from a hitherto unperceived box a tiny cake +encased in green frosting.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, it's got the pistache!" said the +yellow-haired lady disgustedly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> +Miss Honey fled after the General, who, though +he was obliged to wear whalebone braces in his +shoes on account of youth and a waddling and +undeveloped gait, scattered over the ground +with the elusive clumsiness of a young duckling. +Brother blushed, but scorned to desert his troop.</p> + +<p>"He's awfully little, you know—he doesn't +mean to steal," he explained.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two months," Caroline added, "and +he does go so fast." She smiled doubtfully +at the lady, who selected a cake covered with +chocolate and looked at the young man.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget that Mr. Walbridge wants to +use the car at six," she said, "and you have to +allow for that bad hill."</p> + +<p>He looked a little uncomfortable. "Don't +you want to speak to the children, Tina, dear?" +he asked, dropping his voice; he sat very close +to her.</p> + +<p>"They have both spoken directly to you, +you see, and children feel that so—not being +noticed. They're trying to apologize to you +for the cake."</p> + +<p>She bit her lip and turned to Miss Honey,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +who arrived panting, with the General firmly +secured by the band of his overalls. An oozy +green paste dripped from his hand; one of the +pink wings intermittently concealed his injured +expression.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," she said, "don't bother +about the cake, little girl, the baby can have it."</p> + +<p>Miss Honey sniffed.</p> + +<p>"I guess you don't know much about babies +if you think they can eat cake like that," she +answered informingly.</p> + +<p>"Hush, now, General, don't begin to hold +your breath? Do you want a nice graham +cracker! It's <i>so</i> nice!"</p> + +<p>"<i>So</i> nice!" Caroline repeated mechanically, +with a business-like smile at the General, helpfully +champing her teeth.</p> + +<p>The General wavered. He allowed one sticky +paw to be cleaned with a handful of grass, but +his expression was most undecided, and he was +evidently in a position to hold his breath immediately +if necessary.</p> + +<p>Miss Honey nodded to Caroline. "You've +got 'em, haven't you?" she asked.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +Caroline fumbled at the interior of the nightgown +and produced a somewhat defaced brown +wafer.</p> + +<p>"General want it?" she said invitingly. There +was another moment of disheartening suspense. +Brother assisted gallantly.</p> + +<p>"They're fine, General!" he urged, "try +one!" And he, too, nodded and chewed the +empty air. Instinctively the strange young gentleman +did the same.</p> + +<p>The General looked around at them cautiously, +noted the strained interest of the circle, smiled +forgivingly, and reached out for the brown wafer. +Peace was assured.</p> + +<p>"If you could only see how ridiculous you +looked," the young lady remarked, wiping her +shining pink finger nails carefully, "you'd never +do that again, Rob. Have a cake?"</p> + +<p>He laughed, but blushed a little at her tone.</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," he admitted. "No, thanks, +I'll pass up the cake. Isn't there enough to go +'round, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>He examined the box.</p> + +<p>"By George, there are exactly three left!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> +he said delightedly. "Will the fairy queen hand +one to her brother—the big brother—and one to—to +the angel?"</p> + +<p>Caroline moved firmly to the front. "I am +the Queen," she explained, "but I let Miss Honey +take the crown and the wand, or she wouldn't +be anything. Brother isn't her brother—that's +just his name. Brother Washburn. The General's +her brother. I'll take that strawberry +one. We're much obliged, thank you."</p> + +<p>The cakes vanished unostentatiously and the +young gentleman filled his cup and disposed of +it before anyone spoke.</p> + +<p>"We were such a big family, you see," he +explained to the pursed red mouth beside him, +"and I know just how it is. You never get +enough cake, and never that dressy kind. It's +molasses cake and cookies, mostly."</p> + +<p>Brother moved nearer and nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well, but you can have all the cake you want, +now, thank goodness," said the lady, glancing +contentedly at the tea basket, complete with +its polished fittings, at the big box of bonbons +beside her, and the handsome silk motor coat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> +that was spread as a carpet under her light +dress.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, but now I don't want it," he assured +her, "I want—other things." He flashed a daring +glance from two masterful brown eyes, and she +smiled indulgently at him for a handsome, spoiled +boy.</p> + +<p>"Am I going to get them?" he persisted.</p> + +<p>She laughed the light little laugh of the triumphant +woman.</p> + +<p>"My dear Bob," she said, "anybody who can +buy all the cake he wants can usually get the—other +things!"</p> + +<p>His face clouded slightly.</p> + +<p>"I hate to hear you talk like that, Christine," +he began, "it's not fair to yourself—"</p> + +<p>"How'd you know I was Puck?" Brother +inquired genially. He made no pretense of including +the lady in the conversation; for him +she was simply not there.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not so ignorant as I look," the young +man replied. "I don't believe you could stump +me on anything you'd be likely to be—I've probably +been 'em all myself. We were always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +rigging up at home. Didn't you use to do that, +Tina?"</p> + +<p>The lady shook her head decidedly.</p> + +<p>"If I'd ever got hold of a—well, if I'd had a +chance of things as nice as that biggest one's +dragging through the dirt there, I'd have been +doing something very different with it, I can +assure you, Mr. Armstrong! I'd have been +saving it."</p> + +<p>"But at that age—" he protested.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I knew real lace from imitation at that +age, all right," she insisted.</p> + +<p>"But you don't think of those things—you +go in for the fun," he urged.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't exactly my idea of fun."</p> + +<p>"No?" he queried, "why, I thought all +children did this sort of thing. We had a regular +property room in the attic. We used to be rigged +out as something-or-other all day Saturday, +usually."</p> + +<p>"What were you?" Brother demanded eagerly. +Unconsciously he dropped, hugging his knees, +by the side of the young man, and Caroline, +observing the motion, came over a little shyly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> +and stood behind them. The young lady raised +her eyebrows and shot a side glance at her host, +but he smiled back at her brightly.</p> + +<p>"Well, we did quite a little in the pirate line," +he replied. "I had an old Mexican sword and +Ridgeway—that was my cousin—owned a pair +of handcuffs."</p> + +<p>"Handcuffs!" Brother's jaw dropped.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, handcuffs. It was rather unusual, +of course, and he was awfully proud of them. +An uncle of his was a sheriff out in Pennsylvania +somewhere, and when he died he left 'em to Ridge +in his will. That was pretty grand, too, having +it left in a will."</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded and sat down on an old log +behind the young man. A long smear of brown, +wet bark appeared on the nightgown, and one +end of the blue ribbon dribbled into a tiny pool +of last night's shower, caught in a hollow stone.</p> + +<p>"It was a toss-up who'd be pirate king," +the young man went on, smiling over his shoulder +at Caroline, "because I was older than he was, +handcuffs or not, and after all, a sword is something. +This one was hacked on the edge and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +every hack may have meant—probably did—a +life."</p> + +<p>He paused dramatically.</p> + +<p>"I bet you they did!" Brother declared, +clapping his hands on his knees.</p> + +<p>"Weren't there any girls?"</p> + +<p>Caroline slipped from the log and sprawled +on the pine needles.</p> + +<p>"Dear me, yes," said the young man, "I +should say so. Four of them. Winifred and +Ethel and Dorothea and the Babe—about as +big as your General, there, and dreadfully greedy, +the Babe was. Winifred had the brains and she +made up most of the games; I tell you, that +girl had a head!"</p> + +<p>"Just like Caroline," Brother inserted eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Probably," the young man agreed. "She +was pretty certain to be Fairy Queen, too, I +remember. But Thea sewed the clothes and +begged the things we needed and looked after +the Babe."</p> + +<p>"And what did Ethel do?"</p> + +<p>"Why, now you speak of it, I don't remember +that Ethel did much of anything but look pretty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +and eat most of the luncheon," he said. "She +used to be Pocahontas a good deal—she's very +dark—and I usually was Captain John Smith. +Ridge was Powhatan. And Ethel's married now. +Good Lord! She has twins—of all things!—and +they're named for Ridge and me."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad General isn't twins," said Miss +Honey thoughtfully, pulling her brother back +from the fascinations of the tea basket and comforting +him with the curtain-rod wand.</p> + +<p>"Still, we could do the Princes in the Tower +with him—them, I mean," Caroline reminded +her, "and then, when they got bigger, the Corsican +Brothers—don't you remember that play +Uncle Joe told about?"</p> + +<p>The young man laughed softly.</p> + +<p>"If that's not Win all over!" he exclaimed. +"She always planned for Ridge to be Mazeppa +on one of the carriage horses, when he got the +right size, but somehow, when you <i>do</i> get that +size, you don't pull it off."</p> + +<p>"I did Mazeppa," said Brother modestly, +"but of course it was only a donkey. It wasn't +much."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +"We never had one," the young man explained. +"Nothing but Ridge's goat, and she +was pretty old. But she could carry a lot of +lunch."</p> + +<p>He turned suddenly on his elbow and smiled +whimsically at the lady.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Tina, what did <i>you</i> play?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"Is it possible you have remembered that I +still exist?" she answered, half mockingly, half +seriously vexed. "I'm afraid I'm out of this, +really. I never pretended to be anything, that +I remember."</p> + +<p>"But what <i>did</i> you do when you were a youngster?" +he persisted, "you must have played +something!"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"We played jackstones," she said indulgently, +after a moment of thought, "and then I went +to school, of course, and—oh, I guess we cut +out paper dolls."</p> + +<p>Caroline looked aghast.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you have any dog?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"I hope not, in a four-room flat," the lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +returned with feeling. "One family kept one, +though, and the nasty little thing jumped up on +a lovely checked silk aunty had just given me, +and ruined it. I tried to take it out with gasolene, +but it made a dreadful spot, and I cried +myself sick. Of course I didn't understand +about rubbing the gasolene dry then; I was only +eleven."</p> + +<p>The children looked uncomfortably at the +ground, conscious of a distinct lack of sympathy +for the tragedy that even at this distance deepened +the lovely rose of the lady's cheek and softened +her dark blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"But in the summer," the young man said, +"surely it was different then! In the country—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, mercy, we didn't get to the country +very much," she interrupted. "You know July +and August are bargain times in the stores and a +dressmaker can't afford to leave. Aunty did +all her buying then and I went with her. Dear +me," as something in his face struck her, "you +needn't look so horrified! It's not bad in New +York a bit—there's something going on all the +while; and then we went to Rockaway and Coney<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +Island evenings, and had grand times. To tell +you the truth, I never cared for the country—I +don't sleep a bit well there. Of course, to come +out this way, with everything nice, it's all very +fine, but to stay in—no, thanks."</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean, of course," he said, +"but the city's no place for children. I'm +mighty glad I didn't grow up there. And I've +always had the idea the country would be the +best place to settle down in, finally. You can +potter around better there when you're old, +don't you think so? I remember old Uncle +Robert and his chrysanthemums—"</p> + +<p>"Dear me, we all seem to be remembering +a good deal this afternoon!" she broke in. +"Since we're neither of us children and neither +of us ready to settle down on account of old age, +suppose we stick to town, Bob?"</p> + +<p>There was a practical brightness in her voice, +and her even white teeth, as she smiled persuasively +at him, were very pretty. He smiled +back at her.</p> + +<p>"That seems a fair proposition," he agreed. +He reached for her hand and for a moment her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> +soft, bright coloring, her dainty completeness, +framed in the green of the little glade, were all he +saw. Then, as his eyes lingered on the cool little +pond and the waving pine boughs dark against +the blue sky, he sighed.</p> + +<p>"But I'm sorry you don't like the country, Tina, +I am, truly," he said boyishly. "I've had such +bully times in it. And I—I rather had the idea +that we liked the same things."</p> + +<p>"Gracious!" the young lady murmured, "after +the arguments we've had over plays and +actors!"</p> + +<p>"Oh well, I suppose girls are all alike. But I +mean other things—"</p> + +<p>"Where did you do the Pirates?" Brother +inquired, politely.</p> + +<p>"What? Where did I—oh to be sure," he +returned good-naturedly. "We had an enormous +cellar, all full of pillars, to hold it up, and queer +little rooms and compartments in it; a milk room +and vegetable bins and a workshop. You could +ride on a wheel all round, dodging the pillars. +There were all kinds of places to lie in wait there, +and spring out. Win told us an awful thing out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +Poe that happened in a cellar, and Thea would +never go there after four in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>"It was a jolly old place," he went on dreamily, +"I can't keep my mind off it this afternoon, somehow, +since I've seen you fellows rigged out the way +we used to. And there was a pond back in the +Christmas Tree Lot like this one. Ridge and I +built a raft out there and stayed all day on it. It +was something out of Clark Russell's books, and +Win pushed a barrel out and rescued us. She was +a wonder, that girl."</p> + +<p>He chuckled softly to himself.</p> + +<p>"We tried to stock that pond with oysters once, +and Ridge and I printed invitations for a clambake +on our handpress, on the strength of them, but it +was a dreadful waste of money. When we found +it wasn't working, Ridge nearly killed himself +diving for 'em, so we could get some good out +of 'em. There they lay at the bottom, showing +just as plain as possible, but it was no use—Poor +fellow, he'll never dive any more."</p> + +<p>"Is he—did he—" Caroline had crawled along +till her head lay almost on the young man's knee; +her eyes were big with sympathy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> +"Lost his leg," he told her briefly. "Philippines. +Above the knee. He ran away from college +to go. He had the fever badly, too, and he'll +never be fit for much again, I'm afraid. But he's +just as brave about it—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Brother burst out eagerly, "I bet +you he is!"</p> + +<p>"We had such plans," he said softly, "all of us, +you know, for coming back to the old place and +ending up there. Win says her kids shall stay +there if she can't."</p> + +<p>"Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's 'most anywhere. Her husband's in +the Navy—Asiatic Squadron—and she hangs +about where he's likely to strike the country next. +She was in Honolulu the last I heard. So she's not +likely to do much for the place, you see."</p> + +<p>"Where's Thea?" Miss Honey inquired.</p> + +<p>"Wha tee?" mimicked the General, with an +astounding similarity of inflection.</p> + +<p>The young man threw his light cap at the +baby's head; it landed grotesquely cocked over +one eye, and the General, promptly sitting upon +it to protect himself from further attacks, fell into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> +convulsions of laughter as the young man threatened +him.</p> + +<p>"Thea's out West, on a ranch just out of +Denver. She was married first, and her boys have +ponies now—broncos. Of course it's fine for them +out there, but she says she won't be happy till they +can get East for a year or two. She wants them +to see the place and grow up a little in it. She +wants 'em to see the attic and poke about the barn +and the stable and climb over the rocks. You see +they're on the ranch all summer and in school in +Denver all winter, and Thea says they don't know +the look of an old stone wall with an apple tree in +the corner. She says the fruit's not nearly so nice +out there."</p> + +<p>"Where is the place? Near here?"</p> + +<p>"No, not so very. It's in the Berkshires, just +out of Great Barrington. Father's practice was +there, and grandfather's, too. Grandfather built +it."</p> + +<p>"That's where Lenox is, the Berkshires, isn't +it?" the lady inquired with a yawn.</p> + +<p>"Heavens, its nothing like Lenox!" he assured +her hastily.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> +"No?" she moved slightly and scowled.</p> + +<p>"My foot's asleep! That comes of sitting here +forever!"</p> + +<p>She got up slowly and with little tentative gasps +and cries stamped her prickled feet.</p> + +<p>"Aunty has several customers who go to +Lenox"—a vicious stamp—"it must be grand +there, I think. One of them, a regular swell, +too—she thinks nothing of a hundred and fifty +for a dress"—a faint stamp and a squeal of +anguish—"told her that property was going up +like everything around there. You could probably"—a +determined little jump—"sell your old +place and buy a nice house right in Lenox."</p> + +<p>The young man sat up suddenly. "Sell the +place!" he repeated, "sell the place!"</p> + +<p>He had been watching her pretty, vexed contortions +with lazy pleasure, noticing through rings +of cigarette smoke her dainty ankles, white +through the mesh of the thin silk stockings, her +straight, slim back, and the clear flush that deepened +her eyes. But now his face changed, and he +stared at her in frank irritation.</p> + +<p>"Sell the place!" echoed Brother and Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> +Honey in horror, and Caroline's lower lip pushed +out scornfully.</p> + +<p>The lady stamped again, but not wholly as a +therapeutic measure.</p> + +<p>"Well, really!" she cried, "any one would +think that these children were your friends, and +I was the stranger, from the way you all talk. +What is the matter with you, anyway? What +are you quarreling about, Rob?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her thoughtfully, appraisingly.</p> + +<p>"I don't think we're quarreling, Tina," he said, +"its only that we look at things differently. And—and +looking at things in the same way rather +makes people friends, you know."</p> + +<p>He glanced down at the children, close about +him now, and then over appealingly at her. But +she had moved to a rock a little away from them +and now sat on it, her face turned toward the road, +leaning on her pale pink parasol: she did not catch +the glance.</p> + +<p>"What became of the Babe?" Caroline suggested +suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Babe? She's—her name's Margaret—at +school now. She's growing awfully pretty."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +"And is she going to live at the place, too?" +queried the young lady sharply.</p> + +<p>"Babe's going to capture a corporation or trust +or something, and have oceans of money and +build on a wing and a conservatory and make +Italian gardens, I believe," he answered, pleasantly +enough.</p> + +<p>"But I'd just as soon she left the gardens alone," +he went on, "the rest of us like 'em the way they +are. There was one separate one on the west side, +just for Uncle Robert's chrysanthemums. He used +to work all the morning there and then read in the +afternoon. He'd sit on the side porch with his +pipe and Bismarck—he was an old collie—and he +did tell the bulliest yarns. He helped us with +lessons, too. I don't know what we'd have done +without Uncle Rob. Father was so busy—he had +a big country practice and he used to get terribly +tired—and we went to Uncle Rob for everything. +He got us out of more scrapes, Ridge and me—</p> + +<p>"There were tiger lillies in the south garden and +lots of clumps of peonies. Grandmother put those +there. And fennel and mint. Mother used to like +dahlias—it seems as if she must have had a quarter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> +of a mile of dahlias, but of course she didn't—all +colors. That garden ran right up against the house, +and directly next to the bricks was a row of white +geraniums. They looked awfully well against the +red. It's a brick house and the date is in bricks +over the door—1840. Of course it's been rented +for ten years now, but we have our things stored +in the attic and the people are careful and—well +they love the old place, you know, and they keep +up the gardens. They wanted to buy when father +died and again after mother—</p> + +<p>"But Ridge and I just hung on and leased it +from year to year. We always hoped to get it +back. And now to think that I should be the one +to do it!"</p> + +<p>"How are you the one?" Brother inquired +practically.</p> + +<p>"Why Uncle Wesley that ran away to sea—I +used to have his room, just over the kitchen, and +many a time I've climbed down the side porch +just as he did, and run away fishing—Uncle Wesley +died in England, last year, and left me considerably +more than he'd ever have made if he'd +minded grandmother and studied to be a par<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>son. +It seems Uncle Rob knew where he was +all the time, and wrote him, before he was sick +himself, to leave the money to the family, and by +George, he did.</p> + +<p>"Lots of the old stuff is there—the sideboard +and the library table and grandfather's old desk +mother kept the preserves in.</p> + +<p>"I used to lie on an old sofa in the dining-room +on hot afternoons, waiting for it to get cool, reading +some travel book, eating summer apples, and listening +to Win and Thea practicing duets in the parlor. +Lord, I can hear 'em now! I'd look out at the +brick walls, hot, you know, in the sun, and the pear +tree, with the nurse rocking Babe under it, and +old Annie shelling peas by the kitchen door, and it +all seemed so comfortable—"</p> + +<p>His eyes were half closed. The children listened +dreamily, huddled against him; low red rays crept +down from the west-bound sun and struck the +little pond to copper, the nickel dishes to silver, +the lady's skirt to a peach-colored glory; a little +sudden breeze set the red bottle tinkling between +the stones. But to the group entranced with memories +so vivid that reality blurred before them, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> +peach and copper glories were ripe fruit against +an old brick wall, the tinkle echoed from an old +piano in a dim, green-shuttered parlor, and the soft +snoring of the General, asleep on the silk motor +coat, was the drowsy breathing of a contented +little fellow in knickerbockers dreaming in a window +seat.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever go to Atlantic City?"</p> + +<p>The lady's voice woke them as a gong wakes a +sleeper. "Now that's my idea of the country!"</p> + +<p>He stared at her vaguely.</p> + +<p>"But—but that's no place for children," he protested. +He had hardly grown up at that moment, +himself.</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"It's not exactly necessary to have six children, +you know," she said, "and then you needn't be +worried over a place for them, and can afford to +think a little about the place you'd like for +yourself."</p> + +<p>The sun was in her eyes and she missed the look +in his as he jumped up from the astonished group +and seized her wrist.</p> + +<p>"Christine, you simply shan't talk that way!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> +he said. "I don't know what's the matter with +you to-day—why are you so different? Are you +trying to tease me? Because I might as well tell you +right now that you're succeeding a little too well."</p> + +<p>The pink parasol dropped between them. Her +eyes met his squarely, though her voice shook a +little.</p> + +<p>"Let my wrist go, Mr. Armstrong," she said, +"you hurt me. I assure you I'm not different at +all. If you really want to know what the matter +with me is, let me ask you if you saw anything out +of the way before your friends there interfered?" +she pointed to the little group he had left. "We +seemed to be getting on very well then."</p> + +<p>His face fell, and she went on more quickly and +with less controlled tones.</p> + +<p>"You are the one that is different! I have +always been just the same—just exactly the same! +Ask anybody if I've changed—ask aunty! 'Tina +has the best temper of any girl I know,' aunty +always says. But its just as she warned me. +Aunty always knows—she's seen lots and lots of +people and plenty of swells, too—it isn't as if you +were the only one, Mr. Armstrong!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> +He looked curiously at the flushed, lovely face; +curiously, as though he had never really studied it +before.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps—perhaps it <i>is</i> I," he said slowly, "I—maybe +you're right. And of course I know—" +he smiled oddly at the pretty picture she made—"that +I'm not the only one."</p> + +<p>Something in his tone irritated her; she unfurled +the rosy parasol angrily.</p> + +<p>"Aunty said from the beginning you'd be hard +to get on with," she flashed out. "She said the +second time you came to the house with Mr. Walbridge +for his sister's fitting and asked Kitty and I +for a ride in the machine, 'I'm perfectly willing +you girls should go, for they're both all right and I +think the dark one's serious, but—"</p> + +<p>"You discussed me with your aunt, then?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him in amazement.</p> + +<p>"Discussed you with aunty? Why certainly I +did. Why shouldn't I? How do you suppose I'm +to get anywhere, placed as I am, Mr. Armstrong, +unless I'm pretty careful? I've nothing but my +looks—I know that perfectly well—and I can't +afford to make any mistakes. And aunty said, 'I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +think the dark one's serious, Tina, but I don't +know, somehow, I'd keep in with Walbridge. He +may not have so much money, but he'll be easier +to manage. Armstrong seems like any other gay +young fellow, and for all I know he is—he's certainly +generous—but I'd rather have you Mrs. +Walter Walbridge and lose the family custom, +than have you tied up to an obstinate man."</p> + +<p>"And—excuse me, but I'm really interested," +he asked, "could you be Mrs. Walter Walbridge?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I could," she answered, "he asked me +when he lent you the machine. I suppose he +thought you might," she added simply.</p> + +<p>He drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>"And you answered—"</p> + +<p>"I said I'd think it over," she said softly. "I—are +you really angry with me, Rob? We're +friends, aren't we? Friends—"</p> + +<p>Her eyes lifted to his. "You see, Rob," she +went on, still softly, "a girl like me has to be +awfully straight and pretty careful. It's not +easy to go to theaters and suppers and out with +the machines and keep your head—you can't +always tell about men. And I've cost aunty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +quite a lot, though of course, my clothes were +the cheapest, really, all made in the house. I +had two good offers to go on the stage, but she +wouldn't have it. And even if Mr. Walbridge's +mother did make a fuss, she can't help his getting +the money. Of course I told him I'd think it +over, but I always liked—"</p> + +<p>"And now you've thought it over," he interrupted +quickly, "and you've found out that your +remarkably able aunt was right. You're a wise +little girl, Tina, for if I know Walter, he <i>will</i> be +easier to manage! He's a lucky fellow—always +was. But he'll never get his car at six to-night."</p> + +<p>He plucked out his watch and strapping up +the tea basket began to push the things hastily +into it.</p> + +<p>She stared ahead of her, her chin shaking a +little, her eyes a little dim and most beautiful.</p> + +<p>"I—you don't—you're not angry, Rob?" She +leaned over him.</p> + +<p>"Tina, if you look like that I'll kiss you, and +Walter will call me out!" he said lightly. "Of +course I'm not angry—we're as chummy as you'll +let me be. Come on and find the choo-choo car!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> +He slipped his arm through the basket handle +and made for his coat. The children scrambled +off it apologetically; they were not quite certain +where they stood in the present crisis. But he +smiled at them reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"We'll have to meet again," he called, already +beyond them, "and have some more of those little +cakes! Good-by till next time!"</p> + +<p>"Good-by! Good-by!" they called, and Miss +Honey, eyeing the pink parasol longingly, ventured, +"Good-by, Miss Tina!"</p> + +<p>The lady did not answer, but walked slowly +after the young man, shaking out her billowy +skirts. Soon he was behind the big boulder; soon +she had followed him.</p> + +<p>"Yady go!" the General announced.</p> + +<p>"They had a quarrel, didn't they?" Miss Honey +queried. "But they made up, so it was all right."</p> + +<p>Caroline shook her head wisely.</p> + +<p>"We—ell," she mused, "they made it up, but +I don't believe he changed his mind, just the same."</p> + +<p>Something puffed loudly in the road, whirred +down to a steady growl, and grew fainter and +fainter.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +"There they go!" Brother cried.</p> + +<p>He picked up a bit of bark and tossed it into +the little pool.</p> + +<p>"I bet you Ridge will be glad to get back to +the Place," he said.</p> + + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1> </h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="vii" id="vii"></a>VII</h2> + +<h2>THE PRETENDERS</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/m.png" title="M" height="44" width="50" alt="M" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">idsummer</span> dust lay ankle-deep in the +road, white and hot. The asphalt +sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the +leaves hung motionless from the full trees; only +the breathless nasturtiums flickered like flames +along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in +the glare. Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard +in the relentless heat, spun along on her bicycle, +the only bit of movement on all the long stretch +of the road. The householders had all retired +behind their green blinds; even New England +yielded to August's imperious <i>siesta</i>, and it might +have been a deserted village, empty and mysterious, +through which she glided.</p> + +<p>By little and little she grew to feel this; her feet +moved more and more slowly on the pedals, her +brows knitted as the great idea grew. Her lips +moved, inaudibly at first, but soon began the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +sing-song murmur so well known to those who +crept upon her unawares.</p> + +<p>"I am all alone; the rest have gone—where +have they gone!—where <i>could</i> they go? Oh, they're +dead. Murdered! No, the town was besieged, +and we made ropes with our hair, and bowstrings.... And +they all marched out, and they closed +the city gates...." Slower and slower the +pedals moved: Caroline was pushing uphill. "So +then the Mayor said: 'No, this sacrifice is too +great—I can not allow you to make it, my brave +children. Death—and worse—await you beyond +these walls. Let us die here together.'" Her +chin quivered. At the summit of the hill she +paused.</p> + +<p>"'Then <i>die</i>! Die like the dogs you are!' +cried the Captain"—with feet perched high she +swooped down the slope, her heart pounding with +excitement, narrowly escaping collision at the +bottom with an empty van, crawling through the +heat, manned by a somnolent, huddled driver. +Its hollow, cumbrous rattling pointed sharply the +loneliness of the silent road, almost bare now of +houses, for they were on the very outskirts of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +village, and in a flash Caroline knew it for what +it was, and shuddered.</p> + +<p>"It's the Tumbrel!" she murmured softly, and +to her awed fancy the graceful, slim-necked figures +in flowered gowns drooped dreadfully or stiffened +in a last pathetic defiance as they rolled by.</p> + +<p>"Courage, my sister, courage!" whispered the +brave gentleman, while the hoarse crowd shouted.... +"<i>And I am Marie Antoinette!</i>" cried Caroline +in a burst of inspiration.</p> + +<p>Dismounting, she walked proudly beside her +wheel; scornfully she held her head above that +vulgar, cruel mob; the driver, poor in illusions, +drowsed stupidly in front of the baleful wagon-load +he knew not of, and clattered down the hill. To +the ill-fated Queen, who followed the curving +line of the twelve-foot iron fence that had sprung +up at her side, ten minutes seemed but one. Lost +in tragic musing, she wandered swiftly on; had +you, meeting her suddenly, asked her where she was +going, there is little doubt that she would have +told you she was escaping to her palace. And +all at once, as she halted a moment opposite a +clear space in the shrubbery and thickly planted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> +trees that followed the inside line Of the iron fence, +she beheld the palace, high on a terraced knoll. +It was of clean-cut gray stone, rising into a square +tower at one corner, from which the flag drooped +in bright folds of red and blue. The windows +shone like mirrors; trim, striped awnings broke the +severe angles of the long building; brilliant flower-beds +gleamed from the smooth turf and bordered +the neat walks of crushed gray stone. It stood +massively above its terraces, a very castle of +romance to Caroline, who had never before seen +it so polished and beflagged. Wonderingly she +tried the great wrought-iron gate, but it was +securely locked, and a new sign was attached to it:</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 380px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;"> +<p class="center"> +PRIVATE PROPERTY!<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">All Trespassers are Warned<br /> +<br /> +From the Premises!<br /> +<br /> +Visitors Please Ring at the Lodge.</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Caroline stared at it vaguely. So delicate are the +oscillations of the imaginative imp, that it is hard +to say just where he swings his slaves into determined +self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline +severely and demanded of her in the character of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +an impatient adult the name of her castle, she +would undoubtedly have informed you that it +was Graystone Tower, a long deserted mansion, +too expensive hitherto for any occupants but the +children who roamed every inch of it for the first +spring flowers and coasted down its terraces in +winter. But no one was there to shake her, and +so with parted lips and dreamy eyes she speculated +as to whether they would fire the cannon on her +arrival and whether she would scatter coins among +her loyal servants or merely order an ox roasted +whole in honor of her safe return.</p> + +<p>Soon she reached the smaller gate, but before +she tried the handle the sign warned her that it +would be useless. She frowned: no one could +keep up the spirit of a royal home-coming under +these disadvantages. Suddenly her eyes brightened, +she tossed her head, and following what was +apparently a little blind alley of shrubbery, she +plunged into a tangle of undergrowth and disappeared. +Only her bicycle, resting against the +fence, showed that some one had passed that way. +Working herself through the screen of leaves, she +emerged into a fairly cleared path that her accus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>tomed +feet followed to its logical climax—a deep +depression scooped out under the sharp, down-pointed +iron prongs, worn smooth by the frequent +pressure of small bodies. The fence had lost its +shiny blackness by now and the grass grew rank +and untended around the mouth of the gap. +Wriggling through, Caroline straightened herself +and strolled unconcerned toward the castle, not +so near her now. Soon she reached a newly rolled +tennis court; farther on two saddled horses pawed +beside a little summer-house, impatient for the +start; an iridescent fountain tossed two gleaming +balls high into the air. Caroline moved like one +in a dream; her fancy, grown so overwhelmingly +real, dazzled her, fairly. But it was like the court +of the Sleeping Beauty—no one came or called.</p> + +<p>At length, wandering on, she came upon a +gardener in a neat gray livery, clipping with a +large, distorted pair of scissors the velvet edge +of a flower-bed. He resembled so undeniably the +gardeners in that ageless chronicle of Alice that +Caroline smiled approvingly upon him.</p> + +<p>"You are one of my gardeners, I suppose," she +said regally.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> +"Yes, Miss," he replied, respectfully, touching +his banded cap, "I am that."</p> + +<p>"You garden very well," said Marie Antoinette, +dizzy with delight at his manner.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss; thank you, Miss, I'm sure," and the +cap came off.</p> + +<p>She walked on superbly. At last it had happened, +and she, Caroline in the flesh, had fought +her way through the prickly hedge of every-day +appearance and won into the garden of romance, +where dreams were true and anything might +happen.</p> + +<p>At that moment there came to meet her from +behind a great beech tree a slender little lady. She +had gray hair puffed daintily and fancifully about +her small, pale face, and knots of pale blue ribbon, +woven in and out of her lacy, trailing gown, repeated +the color of her mild, round eyes. Half +consciously Caroline muttered: "Here is one of +my ladies-in-waiting," when the little lady rushed +at her, smiling delightedly.</p> + +<p>"Are you a queen, then?" she cried in a high, +sweet voice. "How very pleasant. Dear me, +how <i>very</i> pleasant!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> +Caroline smiled with equal delight. Very few +persons of this little lady's age had such quick +sense; mostly they had to be taught the game.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, "I am. I am Queen +Marie Antoinette."</p> + +<p>The little lady fell back a step. Her blue eyes +clouded and she pouted like a big baby.</p> + +<p>"Why—why, how <i>can</i> you be?" she demanded, +fretfully, "when that is who I am, myself!"</p> + +<p>For a moment Caroline scowled; such flexibility +was almost disconcerting. Then her natural good-humor +and the training resulting from many +summers with Miss Honey, who claimed all the +best roles at once and shifted often, prompted her +generous reply:</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll be Mary Queen of Scots, then—I +like it about as well."</p> + +<p>The little lady beamed again.</p> + +<p>"That will be very pleasant," she said, "I +trust your majesty is quite well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," Caroline assured her, adding +airily; "How well the castle is looking this +morning! I think I'll have the flag out every +day, now that I'm back."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> +Marie Antoinette flushed angrily and pouted once +more.</p> + +<p>"You! <i>You!</i>" she mimicked. "What have +you to do with my flag? That goes up by my +orders, let me inform you! Here, gardener—" +and she waved her little parasol at the man in +gray, who was already walking rapidly towards +them—"is that flag in my honor or not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss," he said promptly. "Sure it is, +Miss," and he nodded politely at them both. For +a moment the rival queens confronted each other +fiercely, then her Majesty of France smiled at +Scottish Mary.</p> + +<p>"You see," she said, in her high, bright voice; +"you see, I was right. But then, I always am. +I shall have to leave your Royal Highness now, +for I see one of my subjects coming whom I don't +care for at all—she is not very pleasant."</p> + +<p>Sweeping a low courtesy, the little lady glided +away with a graceful, dipping motion; the white +hand that lifted her trailing skirts was covered +with turquoises.</p> + +<p>Caroline looked where her royal sister had +pointed, and saw a tall, handsome young woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> +hurrying toward her. She was dressed plainly +in black, but with a rich plainness that could +not have escaped the youngest of womankind. +Opposite Caroline she paused, her hand on her +heart.</p> + +<p>"John! Oh, John! This—this is a child!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss; sure it is," said the gardener +politely.</p> + +<p>"But how did she get here? Surely no children +come here?" Her hands were trembling.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss, many of 'em—sure they do," +he said pleasantly, with a good Irish smile.</p> + +<p>But it was plain that his good-nature did not +please the handsome lady. She bit her lip +angrily.</p> + +<p>"You know very well, John, that you are +not to talk to me in that idiotic way," she said +decidedly. "You know that there is no necessity +for it as well as I do."</p> + +<p>"All right, Miss," he replied, soothingly.</p> + +<p>"And you are lying when you say that children +come here," she went on, controlling herself +with a great effort, "for they do not."</p> + +<p>The gardener scratched his head doubtfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> +and walked away, muttering to himself. The +girl turned to Caroline.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she demanded eagerly, her voice +low and hurried, "how did you come here? Are +you with friends? Where are they? What were +you saying to that queen woman?"</p> + +<p>"I—I—we were—I was Mary Queen of Scots," +Caroline stammered, struggling, as the happy +dreamer struggles, not to wake.</p> + +<p>The girl started back from her, pale with an +emotion that left her handsome face drawn and +old.</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!—it can't be—a child! A +<i>child</i>!" she cried. Tears stood in her dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"How pitiful!" she said, softly, to herself. +Then, forcing a smile, she leaned coaxingly over +Caroline.</p> + +<p>"I am only too delighted to make your Majesty's +acquaintance," she said, her voice a little husky, +but very sweet. "I have read of you often. +But surely your Majesty has not been here long? +I do not recall having seen you before to-day."</p> + +<p>"N—no, you haven't," Caroline answered, +a little grudgingly, "I only just came."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> +"Ah!" said the girl, "and how did you come? +Not through the house surely?"</p> + +<p>"I came under the fence," said Caroline, +"the gates were locked. I was Marie Antoinette +then, but I changed after she said she was."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh!" the girl groaned, covering her +face with slender, ringless hands.</p> + +<p>"But I'd just as soon," Caroline assured her—"honestly +I would. Only you need a Bothwell +for her. I only thought of Marie Antoinette +after the tumbrel went by. I suppose she's +used to Marie Antoinette, prob'ly, and so you +can't get her to change."</p> + +<p>She nodded in the direction of the little lady, +now far from them, white against the shrubbery.</p> + +<p>The girl drew in her breath in little gasps, as +if she had been running.</p> + +<p>"Y—yes," she assented, "she's used to being +Marie Antoinette. Where is the hole you got +through? Is it big enough for—for anybody?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Caroline indifferently, "but +nobody knows about it but me and a few other +k—prisoners, I mean; I've used it when I was +escaping before. I think it was a rabbit-hole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> +first, and then we made it bigger. Isn't that +funny—Alice got in by a rabbit-hole, too, didn't +she? I thought of her as soon as I saw the gardener. +He's very polite, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>The girl pressed her lips together. "They +are all polite here," she said briefly. "Do you +mean that you go in and out of this hole as you +like? Do they know of it? Is it far from here?"</p> + +<p>"It's over there," Caroline waved, vaguely. +"Why? Do you want to escape, too? Are +you a queen?"</p> + +<p>"No." The girl said it with a slight shudder. +"No, I'm not. I'm—I'm—Oh, I'm Joan of +Arc! You know about her, don't you, dear?"</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded. "Are you trying to escape?" +she repeated, interested at last.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the girl, "I am. But don't tell +any one, will you? Don't tell that gardener, +for instance."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I won't +tell. Wouldn't he help you?"</p> + +<p>The girl laughed, an excited, sobbing laugh.</p> + +<p>"No, he wouldn't help me at all," she said. +"Come on, walk a little. He is watching us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> +Don't tell him about the hole, will you? Promise +me faithfully." She turned and seized the child's +wrist. "Can you keep a promise?" she panted.</p> + +<p>"Of course I can."</p> + +<p>"And if any one should ask you, could you—oh, +<i>could</i> you say you came in by the gate?"</p> + +<p>Caroline wriggled free.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said scornfully. "Do you +think I'm a baby?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be angry—don't," the girl pleaded. +"I don't mean to frighten you—your Majesty, +I mean—but I am so excited, and—and I don't +quite do what I intend to do or say just what I +mean. I am quite all right now. You see, +that gardener—he isn't really a gardener." She +watched Caroline narrowly, quite unprepared +for the sudden delight in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>he's</i> pretending, too!" cried Mary of +Scots joyfully. "What is he, really?"</p> + +<p>"He's—he's one of my jailers," said the girl +somberly. "And the first thing he would do +would be to stop up your hole under the fence."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Caroline stared respectfully at the +gardener, not far from them now.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> +"Were you ever in chains?" she said, in an +awed voice.</p> + +<p>"No," said Joan of Arc, "I never was. I +wouldn't be in this—this fortress if I had to be +in chains. This is for well-behaved prisoners."</p> + +<p>"Is Marie Antoinette a prisoner, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the girl, wearily, "she is. And +she has kept me one. I should not be here now +but for her. She prevented my escape."</p> + +<p>"The mean old thing!" Caroline cried, indignantly, +"did she tell?"</p> + +<p>"She called that gardener," said the girl, "just +as I was walking out of the little gate. Of course +I had to walk slowly. She is very malicious—poor +thing," she added quickly.</p> + +<p>They were close to a little arbor now, and not so +far from the castle. Caroline could see figures here +and there strolling on the upper terraces and +sitting on the piazzas. The tinkle of a mandolin cut +the soft air and the new-mown grass smelled sweet.</p> + +<p>"I think this castle is lovely, though, don't you, +Joan of Arc?" she burst out.</p> + +<p>"It is an abominable castle," said the girl, in +a muffled voice. "Abominable!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> +"Well, then," said Caroline, practically, "if you +feel that way, you'd <i>better</i> escape."</p> + +<p>The girl stared at her.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she said, earnestly, "have you ever +been in this place before? Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>Caroline shrugged her shoulders impishly.</p> + +<p>"I am Mary Queen of Scots," she replied, +obstinately, "and I live in Scotland. Of course, +I've been here before. Who are all those other +people in the castle?"</p> + +<p>The girl drew a long, worried breath. "I believe +I should go mad if I stayed here much longer," +she said, to herself. She drew Caroline down +beside her behind the arbor.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, Mary Queen of Scots," she murmured, +very low, with anxious glances all about +her.</p> + +<p>"I don't know who you are nor where you come +from, but I believe you will help me—I believe +you're sorry for me. You know how badly Joan +of Arc's friends felt when she was in prison? I'm +sure you do. Well I have a—a dear friend who +would die for me, if it would help me. He has +no idea where I am. He thinks I don't want to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> +see him. He thinks—he must think—I'm no +longer his—his—his friend. If I could only get +to him, I should be safe."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you write to him?" Caroline +suggested.</p> + +<p>The girl laughed bitterly.</p> + +<p>"If <i>you</i> had prisoners in <i>your</i> fortress, and they +wrote letters to their friends to come and get them +out, would <i>you</i> mail the letters?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose not," said Caroline gravely. Joan of +Arc gulped.</p> + +<p>"My letters never went," she said. "Now +listen: I must go up to my room and get some +money—I can't do anything without money. Will +you wait here till I come back and not let anyone +see you if you can help it? And if they do, will +you say that you slipped in at the gate with a +party that came in an automobile? One was here +lately. Ask if you mayn't stay and see the +flowers. And then I will meet you."</p> + +<p>She looked hard in Caroline's eyes. "You're +only playing," she said, suddenly. "You aren't—you +aren't—What is your real name, dear?"</p> + +<p>Caroline scowled.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> +"You better hurry up," she said, "or that +gardener'll catch us. You're just like Marie +Antoinette," she added irritably. "You think +nobody can be anything but only yourself!"</p> + +<p>Without a word the girl turned and left her, half +running. Caroline heard her sobs.</p> + +<p>At the same moment she caught the crunch of +footsteps on the stone path that led to the arbor +and crouched low behind it. Two men, talking +idly, entered the spot of shade and sank down on +the rustic bench.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Ferris," said one voice, "is she +really dippy—that one?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" This was a deeper +voice, attached evidently to blue serge legs, for +the speaker leaned to Caroline's eye level to +scratch a match on one of them.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I mean what I say." A gray striped coat +sleeve poked through the lattice work, as the first +speaker leaned hard on it. "If she is, then I am, +that's all. It looks queer to me."</p> + +<p>The blue legs crossed themselves tightly under +the seat.</p> + +<p>"Look here yourself, Riggs," said the second<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> +voice. "If you're curious in this matter, I advise +you to ask the doctor. He's boss here, not I—thank +God! I obey orders and draw my forty +per, as per contract. The same to you, only it's +hardly forty, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"No, it's not," grunted Graycoat. "Not by a +good sight. I see myself asking the old man. I +only asked your private opinion, Ferris,—you +needn't get sore about it."</p> + +<p>"My young friend," said Bluelegs, slowly, +"there's only one thing you can ask me in this +place that I won't tell you, and that's my private +opinion!"</p> + +<p>There was a little pause. Caroline, reveling in +conspiracy, lay quiet, wondering who these people +were and what they were talking about.</p> + +<p>"You are perfectly welcome to anything I know +about Miss Aitken," Bluelegs continued, puffing at +a fresh cigarette and throwing the old one through +the lattice at Caroline's feet.</p> + +<p>"Her brother was a pronounced epileptic—died +in a fit. I have seen the doctor's certificate. She +was greatly worried over his death, and the manner +of it, and showed signs of incipient melancholia."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> +"As how?" interrupted Graycoat.</p> + +<p>"Don't know," said Bluelegs briefly. "Uncle +said so. Wouldn't speak to anybody; cried all +day; off her feed—that sort of thing. Very +obstinate."</p> + +<p>"Um," Graycoat muttered thoughtfully, "so +am I. But I'd hate to be shut up on that account."</p> + +<p>"So her uncle," proceeded Bluelegs, "wishing +to save her, if possible, from her brother's fate, +decided to—er—take steps in that direction and—and +here she is."</p> + +<p>"So I see," said Graycoat. "Was the brother's +epilepsy hereditary?"</p> + +<p>"I believe not," Bluelegs returned. "I believe +the young gentlemen inherited a little too much a +little too soon for his best good, and hit up a rather +fast pace; his constitution wasn't the best."</p> + +<p>"Did she know about all this?"</p> + +<p>"I believe she did. Thought she might have +saved him if she'd known sooner, her uncle said."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Graycoat. "Why didn't this kind +uncle put his nephew with the doctor?"</p> + +<p>"He wasn't his trustee," Bluelegs answered, +quietly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> +"Dear me," said Graycoat gently, "how fortunate +for the nephew!"</p> + +<p>"That's as you look at it," responded Bluelegs.</p> + +<p>Caroline dozed in the warm shade; in dreams she +chased the French Queen around the iridescent +fountain.</p> + +<p>"Uncle any business—besides trusteeship?" +asked Graycoat.</p> + +<p>"You can search me," said Bluelegs.</p> + +<p>"Niece about twenty-one, I take it?" asked +Graycoat.</p> + +<p>"Search me again," said Bluelegs.</p> + +<p>"Should you think," Graycoat demanded, after +a pause, "that this incipient melancholia was likely +to last long—speaking, of course, professionally?"</p> + +<p>"Really, Dr. Riggs, I don't know." Bluelegs +replied. "I am not at all in touch with the case. +The doctor has entire charge of it. He mentioned +to me last week that he was sorry to see both in +her and young Dahl evidences of clearly formed +delusions—"</p> + +<p>"Young Dahl!" cried Graycoat, "why, the boy +is an admitted paranoiac!"</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Bluelegs, "you know I don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> +do much but cocaine and morphia, these days. +Did you know the doctor was going to print my +pamphlet?"</p> + +<p>"He can afford it, I judge," growled Graycoat. +"He gets a hundred a week from Miss +Aitken."</p> + +<p>Bluelegs got up and sent a second cigarette +after the first.</p> + +<p>"Riggs," he said gravely, "if you're aiming +to succeed as a magazine writer, you're beginning +well; if it's your ambition to succeed in this +business, and succeed right here, you're beginning +badly. You were keen enough to get this place. +If you talk much this way, you won't keep it +long—you can take it from me. Let's come in +to lunch."</p> + +<p>Their tread on the arbor floor roused the sleeping +conspirator; she sat up, rubbing her eyes +half afraid that the clipped terraces, the floating, +flag, the inhabited castle, were only parts of her +dream. But even as she peered around the arbor, +Joan of Arc rushed toward her. She wore a +black shade hat and carried a fluffy black parasol +under her arm.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> +"Be careful!" she panted. "We can't go +yet—I was stopped. I had to talk. You say +yes to whatever I say, will you? Then you can +escape with me—" she smiled sweetly at Caroline—"a +real escape, as they do in story books! +Won't that be fine?" Her hand was at her +heart again; a red circle burned in either cheek.</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded eagerly.</p> + +<p>"That will be grand!" she said. She had forgotten +till that moment that she wanted to escape.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Miss Aitken! Late for lunch again!"</p> + +<p>Caroline started guiltily, for it was the voice +of Bluelegs.</p> + +<p>Joan threw her arm over Caroline's shoulder +carelessly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Dr. Ferris, I'm afraid I am," she said. +"I was delayed by this little visitor."</p> + +<p>He looked suspiciously at them. "Who is +she?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know." Joan led Caroline along +quickly. "She <i>says</i> she is Mary Queen of Scots."</p> + +<p>He stared blankly.</p> + +<p>"I found her conversing with Marie Antoinette," +she went on easily, "and she seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> +have slipped in with an automobile party—was +there one? Children are so secretive, you know. +She is trying to get out, but she says all the +gates are locked."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, that was the Dahls—they came to +see Frederick," he explained.</p> + +<p>"I see. You were left with the chauffeur, +Mademoiselle, and it's easy to imagine the rest," +he added with a smile. He had a very attractive +smile, and Caroline slipped her hand into his +offered one readily.</p> + +<p>"You are fond of children?" said Joan, abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Very," he answered simply. "Why not! +And they are fond of me, as you see. My dear +young lady, did you think we are all brutes +because we must obey orders?"</p> + +<p>She set her teeth and walked swiftly forward.</p> + +<p>"I know you think us cruel," he went on +frankly, "because we can not do for you the one +thing that you want; but, except for that, have +you anything to complain of?"</p> + +<p>She smiled scornfully.</p> + +<p>"'Except for that'?" she echoed, "no, Dr. +Ferris, nothing in the world—but 'that'!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> +"And you must remember," he continued, +in his pleasant, soothing voice, "that it may not +be for long, after all. If you continue to improve +as you have—" She flung away impatiently. +"Oh, yes, you have improved, you know; you +eat better, you sleep better, your nerves are +quieter. We get good reports of you. Many +are ill longer than you. Do you like the new +masseuse?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Now, this little lady must have some lunch +with us, and then, no doubt, we shall see that +careless chauffeur again," he said easily. "Would +you like to stay?" he asked Caroline.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would."</p> + +<p>"Mary was always fickle, you know," he +laughed, glancing at her clinging hand.</p> + +<p>And, indeed, Caroline found him far more +winning than the sulky, silent Joan, and leaned +confidingly against him as they climbed the stone +steps and passed through the rich, dark-paneled +hall, hung with bright pictures, filled with bowls +of flowers. Several men, uniformed like the +gardener, stood about the steps and terraces;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> +two stood by the door of a large, airy dining-room +filled with hurrying waiters. About a +long silver-laden table some twenty men and +women, cool in lawn and lace and white flannel, +were seated, eating and talking gaily. At the +head was a large, tall man in a snowy vest; evidently +the host, by his smiling, interested attention +to everybody's wants. At his right was a +vacant chair, and toward this Joan of Arc directed +her steps. She had caught Caroline's hand in +hers, and, as Bluelegs bent and whispered in +the tall man's ear, she added:</p> + +<p>"I think, doctor, if the little girl stays by me +she will feel less shy, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly—by all means. A good +thought, Miss Aitken, a good thought," he answered +in a rich, kind voice. He shook hands with +Caroline warmly.</p> + +<p>"So you find our grounds attractive?" he +asked politely.</p> + +<p>She nodded, a little shyly. All this company, +so freshly dressed, so ceremoniously served, so +utterly unconscious of her presence, embarrassed +her a little. For not one of the ladies and gentle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>men—there +were no children—paid the slightest +attention to her arrival, even when a place was +made for her by Joan and a mug of milk procured. +They talked, or, as she noticed now, sat, +many of them, listless and silent, playing with +their rings and bracelets, answering only with +monosyllables the questions of the large, cordial +doctor.</p> + +<p>"Where is Marie Antoinette?" she whispered +to her friend, who seemed nearer, suddenly, than +these cold table-mates.</p> + +<p>"She does not eat with us," said Joan, helping +her to chicken and green peas, and beginning +her own meal.</p> + +<p>The doctor turned to them, having recommended +some asparagus to the stolid lady at his left.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see your appetite so good, Miss +Aitken," he observed, lowering his voice a little, +"at this rate we shall have no excuse for keeping +you much longer."</p> + +<p>"You have had none for six months," she +replied curtly.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry you feel so bitterly," he said, +"but you know I can not agree with you there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> +You will think more kindly of me some day, I +hope, when time has freed your mind of its +prejudice."</p> + +<p>"When will that be?" she asked, meeting his +eyes full for a moment.</p> + +<p>"I wrote only this morning to your uncle, +stating your gradual but steady improvement, +and assuring him that in my opinion—subject, +of course, to circumstances—it would be a matter +of a few months more only," he said. "Does +not that make your feelings a little—only a little +more tender—"</p> + +<p>"What did you say?" a shrill voice interrupted, +"say that again, please."</p> + +<p>Caroline had beguiled the woman next her, a +frail, anemic little creature with pathetic eyes, +into a halting conversation.</p> + +<p>"I said," she repeated, buttering her roll +thickly and appreciatively with fresh, clover-scented +butter, "I said that no weather was too +hot for me. I love it."</p> + +<p>("Now, really, I <i>am</i> pleased," the big doctor +murmured to the girl beside him. "Mrs. Du +Long hasn't seemed so interested for days. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> +fact, she's been quite silent; I was alarmed about +her. It's the child's influence.")</p> + +<p>"—Uncle Joe said," Caroline went on, the roll +at her mouth, "and he said I was a regular little +snake."</p> + +<p>She heard a guttural, growling sound beside +her, lifted her eyes innocently, and for one flashing, +doubtful second beheld the swollen, distorted +face, the bulging eyes, the back-drawn snarling +lips beside her. She did not see the plunging +fork above her head, so quickly did Joan's arm +intervene between her and it; she did not hear +its impact against the big doctor's plate nor the +gurgling voice of what had been the sad-eyed +little woman beside her, for her head was buried +in Joan's stifling skirt.</p> + +<p>"Kill the snake! Kill the snake!" some one—or +something—yelled, and then a grip of iron +caught her arm and the voice of Bluelegs said +sternly:</p> + +<p>"Look straight ahead of you—don't turn +your head! Don't turn, Miss Aitken—you can +do nothing—they have her safe. The guards +are here."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> +The room, indeed, seemed full of gardeners; +a bell rang noisily near by.</p> + +<p>"But the others—the others!" Joan gasped.</p> + +<p>"They are all right—it won't trouble them," +he answered quietly; and as Caroline and the +girl looked fearfully where they were bidden, they +saw the men and women eating placidly, talking +with each other or sitting listless, staring idly at +four liveried men who fought furiously with one +small, snarling creature. Like the cruel witnesses +in dreams, they sat, and the waiters served +them swiftly and handed the dishes between +their shoulders, as deaf as they. And suddenly +they became terrible to Caroline, and the castle +menacing, a thing to flee from.</p> + +<p>"Step out this way," said Bluelegs, when the +sounds of struggle had died away, "and take the +child through the grounds, will you, please? +Try to occupy her thoughts, and your own, too, +if you can. This is one of the unfortunate things +that rarely happen, but when they do—Yes, +indeed, Mr. Ogden, it was certainly fine asparagus—I +am glad you enjoyed it. No, she was only +a little indisposed—she'll soon be well again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> +The heat of the sun, undoubtedly. Don't be +alarmed, Miss Arliss, she will have every attention."</p> + +<p>The gardeners had vanished from the steps +where they went down, and none were seen in +the grounds. Joan of Arc clutched Caroline's +waist.</p> + +<p>"Now—now!" she said, between her teeth; +"now is the time not to faint! I never fainted—never. +Come and show me that hole in the fence. +There is no one about. But don't run."</p> + +<p>They hurried across the sunlit, smiling terrace.</p> + +<p>"What was the matter?" Caroline queried +fearfully, "was she—was she—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Joan brusquely. "Yes. Don't think +about it. Don't run and don't think. Only +find the hole."</p> + +<p>They stood beside it. No one was near them; +no one called to them. Silently Caroline slid +under the sharp prongs. Joan of Arc put her +hands under her skirt a moment and a white +ruffled petticoat slipped around her feet. She +adjusted it over her dress and pulled herself +with difficulty through. As she stood erect in +the soiled, stained petticoat, Caroline saw her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> +knees, tremble under it, and she drooped against +the fence, white-cheeked.</p> + +<p>"Don't faint," she said severely to Caroline.</p> + +<p>With shaking hands she tied the petticoat +under her dress again and they crouched through +the underbrush to the outer walk. Caroline +reached for her wheel and the two peered fearfully +up and down the empty road.</p> + +<p>"I can't—I can't," the girl moaned, "my +dress is so black—they can see it from the hill. +Oh, what shall I do? I thought I could, and +I can't!"</p> + +<p>The measured trot of a pair of horses sounded +on the road. An empty station wagon came +rapidly toward them; groom and driver regarded +them curiously.</p> + +<p>The girl straightened herself and raised her hand +with a pretty, imperious gesture.</p> + +<p>"One moment, please," she said, "but are you +going to the village?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss," said the driver, "to the station. +Was there anything—"</p> + +<p>She opened a bag at her side and took out +carelessly a small gold piece.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> +"My little friend here," she said, in an even, +low voice, "was showing me this beautiful building +and grounds and I utterly neglected to note +the time. I fear I have lost my train, if we try +to walk back. If you could take us—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Miss," said the driver. "William, +put the young lady's wheel on top. Was it the +express you wanted, Miss? I'm to meet it—the +2.08. Party from Boston."</p> + +<p>They climbed in, the bicycle settled noisily +into the trunk-rack on top, and the big chestnuts +pounded down the hill.</p> + +<p>Joan stared straight before her. Presently +she drew a pair of black gloves from her little +bag and put them on. Her lips moved steadily, +and Caroline knew from her closed eyes that she +was praying.</p> + +<p>They drew into the neat station as the train +Snorted itself in. The girl handed the gold piece +to the driver.</p> + +<p>"Divide it, please," she said calmly. "I am +much obliged."</p> + +<p>She walked to the drawing-room car, and signaled +the black porter.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> +"I shall be safe to-night," she said softly, to +the child by her side, "and I won't tell you my +name, because it will not be mine much longer. +But what is yours? Tell me quick!"</p> + +<p>"All <i>aboard</i>! Next stop One Hund' Twent'-<i>fifth</i> +Street!" some one called, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>Caroline looked dazed. She tried to speak +sensibly, but her tongue played tricks with her, +and the tension of her feelings was too much for +her. As the girl paused a second on the platform, +and the train shuddered for its start, Caroline +called above the escaping steam:</p> + +<p>"I'm Mary Queen of Scots—I am! I am!"</p> + +<p>The white face of Joan of Arc broke into a +wavering smile.</p> + +<p>"You dear little idiot," she called, chokingly, +"I'll find you out yet! You'll see! Good-by—God +bless your Majesty."</p> + +<p>And while she might, Caroline ran beside the +window, waving her hand at that tearful, happy +face.</p> + + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1> </h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="viii" id="viii"></a>VIII</h2> + +<h2>A WATCH IN THE NIGHT</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/t.png" title="T" height="44" width="40" alt="T" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">he</span> village clock boomed out the first strokes +of eleven. Solemn and mellow, the waves +of sound flowed over the sleeping streets; +the aftertones vibrated plaintively. Caroline +stirred restlessly, tossing off the sheet and muttering +in her dreams. The tears had dried on her +hot cheeks; her brows were still knitted.</p> + +<p>"Four! Five! Six!" the big bell tolled.</p> + +<p>Caroline sat up in bed and dropped her bare, +pink legs over the edge. Her eyes were open now, +but set in a fixed, unseeing stare.</p> + +<p>"Seven! Eight!"</p> + +<p>She fumbled with her toes for her leather barefoot +sandals and slipped her feet under the ankle +straps.</p> + +<p>"Nine! Ten!" moaned the bell.</p> + +<p>She moved forward, vaguely, in the broad path +of moonlight that poured through the wide-open<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> +window, and ran her hands like a blind girl over +the warm sill, lifting her knee to its level.</p> + +<p>"Eleven!"</p> + +<p>Before the murmuring aftertones had lost +themselves in the night, Caroline was out of the +window. She stole lightly along the tin roof, +warm yet with the first intense heat of June, +dropped easily to the level of the kitchen-ell, +and, slipping down onto the massive trunk of the +old wistaria, fitted accustomed feet into its curled +niches and clambered down among the warm, +fragrant clusters. Steeped in the full moon, it +sent out its cloying perfume like a visible cloud; +her white nightgown glistened ghostlike through +the leaves.</p> + +<p>She paused a moment in the shadow of the +vine, and a great tawny cat, his orange markings +distinct in the moonlight, stole to her, brushing +against her bare ankles caressingly. As he curled +and uncurled his soft tail about her little feet, +a sudden impulse caught her, and she started +swiftly through the wide backyard, bending to +a broken gap in the privet hedge, cutting diagonally +across the neighboring grounds, and emerging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> +into a pleasant country road on the outskirts of +the little village, with sleeping houses sprinkled +along its length, well back, mostly, from its edge, +showing here and there a light.</p> + +<p>She struck into the soft, dusty road at a quick, +swinging pace, the fruit of much walking, and the +big yellow cat pattered at her side.</p> + +<p>The night was almost windless; sweet, nameless +odors poured up from the heated summer +soil; the shadows of the grasses were outlined +like Japanese pictures on the white roadway. +Except for the child and the cat, no living being +moved, as far as the eye could see; only the burdocks +and mulleins swayed almost imperceptibly +with breezes so delicate that the leaf tips of the +trees could not feel them.</p> + +<p>A great white moth, blundering against a heavy +thistle head, tumbled against Caroline's elbow and +fluttered clumsily into her face. She started, +blinked, drew a long breath, and woke with a +frightened gasp. Before her stretched the pale, +curving road; above her the spangled sky throbbed +and glittered; the earth, drenched in moonlight, +beautiful as all lovely creatures caught sleeping,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> +breathed softly into her face and with every breath +put courage into her heart.</p> + +<p>She looked down and saw the yellow cat, stopping, +with one lifted paw, his green, lamplike +eyes fixed unwaveringly on hers.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's you, Red Rufus!" she whispered, +"when did we come here? I don't remember—"</p> + +<p>A bat whirred by: the cat pricked his ears.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe we're here at all, Red Rufus," +she whispered again. "We're just dreaming—at +least, I am. I s'pose you're only in my dream. +If I was really here, I'd be frightened to death, +prob'ly, but if it's just a dream, I think it's lovely. +Let's go on. I never had a dream like this—it +seems so real, doesn't it, Rufus?"</p> + +<p>They went on aimlessly up the road. Quaint +little night sounds began now to make themselves +heard: now and then a drowsy twitter from the +sleeping nests, now and then a distant owl hoot. +A sudden gust of honeysuckle, so strong that it +was like a friendly, fragrant body flung against +her, halted her for a moment, and while she +paused, sniffing ecstatically, the low murmur of +voices caught her ear.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> +The honeysuckle ran riot over an old stone +wall, followed an arching gateway at the foot +of a winding path that led to a lighted house on a +knoll above, and flung screening tendrils over +an entwined pair that paused just inside the gate. +The girl's white, loose sleeves fell back from her +round arms as she flung them up about her tall +lover's neck; his dark head bent low over hers, +their lips met, and they hung entranced in the +bowery archway.</p> + +<p>For a moment Caroline watched them with +frank curiosity. Then something woke and stirred +in her, faint and vague, but alive now, and she +turned away her eyes, blushing hot in the cool +moonlight.</p> + +<p>The soft tones of their good-night died into +broken whispers; parted from his white lady, +he started on for a few, irresolute steps, then flung +about suddenly and walked back toward the +house, after a low, happy protest. The cooing +of some drowsy pigeons in the stable on the other +side of the road carried on the lovers' language +long after they were out of earshot, and confused +itself with them in Caroline's mind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> +She wandered on, intoxicated with the mild, +spacious night, the dewy freedom of the fields, +the delicious pressure of the warm, velvet air +against her body. Red Rufus purred as he went, +rejoicing with his vagabond comrade. Just how +or when she began to know that she was not +asleep, just why the knowledge did not alarm her, +it would be hard to say. But when the truth came +to her, the friendly, powdered stars had been +above her long enough to accustom her to their +winking; the tiny, tentative noises of the night +had sounded in her ears till they comforted and +reassured her; the vast and empty field stretches +meant only freedom and exhilaration. In a sudden +delirium of joy she slipped between the bars of a +rolling meadow and ran at full speed down its +long, grassy slope, her nightgown streaming behind +her, her slender, childish legs white as ivory against +the greenish-black all around her. Beside her +bounded the great cat with shining, gemlike eyes. +They rolled down the last reaches of the slope, +and all the Milky Way wondered at them, but +never a sound broke the solemn quiet of the night: +the ecstasy was noiseless.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a name="Illus_274" id="Illus_274"></a><img src="images/Illus291.jpg" title="Illus291" alt="Illus291" +width="400" height="508" /></p> + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: 2em;">Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched abandon, +around the tinkling, glistening fountain.</h5> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> +Her face buried in sweet clover, she panted, +prone on the grass.</p> + +<p>"Let's go right on, Rufus, and run away, and +do just as we please!" she whispered to the nestling +cat. "If I can't do like the boys do, I don't +want to stay home—the fellows laugh at me! I'd +rather be whipped than sent to bed like a girl. I +<i>won't</i> be a young lady—I <i>won't</i>!"</p> + +<p>Rufus purred approvingly.</p> + +<p>"If I only had some trousers!" she mourned, +softly; "a boy can do <i>anything</i>!"</p> + +<p>Across the quiet night there cut a thin, shrill +cry: a little, fretful pipe that brought instantly +before the mind some hushed, white room with a +shaded light and a tiny basket bed. Caroline +sat up and stared about her: such cries did not +come from open fields. Hardly a stone's throw +from her there was a small knoll, and behind it +what might have been a large, projecting boulder +suddenly flashed into red light and showed itself +for a dormer window; a cottage had evidently +hidden behind the little hill. Curiously Caroline +approached it and walked softly up the knoll.</p> + +<p>Almost on the top she paused and peered into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> +the unshaded window. These householders had +no fear of peeping neighbors, for only the moon +and the night moths found them out, and the +simple bedroom was framed like some old naïve +interior, realistic with the tremendous realism +of the Great Artist.</p> + +<p>The high, old-fashioned footboard of the bed +faced the dormer window, and Caroline could +see only the upper portion of the woman's figure +as she leaned over a small crib beside her, her +heavy dark hair falling across her cheek, and +lifted up with careful slowness the tiny creature +that wailed in it. Beside her, as he supported +himself anxiously on his elbow, the broad chest +and shoulders of her young husband rose above +the screening footboard. The mother gazed hungrily +at the doll-like, writhing object, passed her +hand over its downy forehead, smiled with relief +into its opening eyes, and gave it her breast.</p> + +<p>Instantly the wail ceased. A slow, placid smile—and +yet, not quite a smile—it was rather an +elemental content, a gratified drifting into the +warm current of the stream of this world's being—spread +over the woman's face; the man's long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> +arm wrapped around his wealth, at once protecting +and defiant; his head flung back against the world, +while his eyes studied humbly the mystery that he +grasped. The night lamp behind them threw +a halo around the mother and her child, and the +great trinity of all times and all faiths gleamed +immortal upon the canvas of the simple room—its +only spectator a child.</p> + +<p>In her, malleable to all the influences of the +revealing night, fairly disembodied, in her detached +and flitting presence, the scene woke dim, +coiled memories of an infancy that stirred and +pained her even as it left her forever, and frightened +longing for the motherhood that life was holding +for her. No longer an infant, not yet a woman, +this creature that was both felt the helplessness +of one, the yearning of the other, and as she pressed +the nestling cat tightly to her little breast two +great, eager tears slipped down her hot cheeks, +and a gulping sob, half loneliness, half pure excitement, +broke into the gentle stillness of the lighted +room.</p> + +<p>"Who's there?"</p> + +<p>The man's voice rang like a sudden pistol shot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> +in the night; before Caroline's fascinated gaze +the gleaming, softly colored picture faded and +vanished into the engulfing darkness, as the lamp +went out and a dark, scudding mackerel cloud +flew over the moon. Instinctively she fled softly +down the knoll, instinctively she dropped behind +a bush at the bottom. She heard the rattle of +the window pane as the man pushed himself half +out of the window; she heard him call back to the +waiting room behind him!</p> + +<p>"It's a cat, dear—I saw it, plain. It's pretty +bright out here. But I thought I saw something +white beside it, too. I guess I'll take a look around +outside."</p> + +<p>There was a sound of movement behind the +window, and, caught in an ecstasy of terror, Caroline +turned at right angles from the fields and ran +to the road that gleamed white, far on the other +side of the cottage. Panting, she won it, crossed +it, and fairly safe behind the low growth of wayside +brushes that fringed its other side, she dashed +along, farther and farther from the cottage, more +and more frightened with every gasping breath.</p> + +<p>On and on she flew, light as a skimming leaf<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> +in the wind, the cat bounding in easy, flexible +curves beside her. Now a little brown cottage +in its plot of land sent them into the road for a +moment; now some tiny pond, a mirror for the +sprinkled heavens, broke into their course, and +they skirted it more slowly, peering continuously +into its jeweled depths. With them their hurrying +shadows, black on the road, fainter on the +grass, fled ceaselessly, hardly more quiet than +they. A very intoxication of fear, a panic terror +almost delicious, drove Caroline through the night, +though after a while she ran more slowly. Utterly +ignorant of where she was, reckless of where she +might go, she swung along under the streaming +moon, no white moth or whispering leaf more +wholly a part of the night than she.</p> + +<p>Whatever idea of going back she might have +had was lost long ago; however little she might +have meant to range so far, she was now beyond +any turning. No wood creature, no skipping +faun or startled dryad dancing under the moon +could have belonged more utterly than she to the +fragrant, mysterious world around her. The +bright, bustling life of every day, its clatter of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> +food and drink, its smarts and fatigues, its settled +routine of work and play, all seemed as far behind +her as some old tale of another life, half forgotten +now.</p> + +<p>Just as her pace subsided into a little skipping +trot, a thick hedge sprang up across their path, +driving them into the road, and continued, stiff +and tall, along its edge. The pure pleasure of +conquering its prickly stiffness sent Caroline +through it, tearing one sleeve from her nightgown +and dragging a great rent in one side of it. Emerging +into a magnificent sweep of clipped turf, +where wide, leafy boughs spread dappled moon +shadows, they made for a whispering, clucking +fountain that threw a diamond column straight +toward the stars, only to break at the top into +a beaded mist and clink musically back to its +marble basin. Its rhythmic tinkle, the four ball-shaped +box trees at either corner, the carved +whiteness of the marble basin, and the massive +pillar-fronted stone house beyond it, all spread +a glamour of fairyland and foreign courts. Caroline +bowed gravely to the cat, and, seizing his +feathery paws, danced, bowing and posturing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> +in a bewitched abandon around the tinkling, +glistening fountain. The plumy tail of Red Rufus +flew behind him as he twirled, his little feet pattered +furiously after Caroline's twinkling sandals. Stooping +over the fountain, she threw a silvery handful +high in the air and ran to catch it on her head.</p> + +<p>As she stood at last, panting and dazed with +her mad circling, she was aware of the low murmur +of a voice, rising and falling in a steady measure, +reaching out of the dim bulk of the great house, +dark and sunk in sleep before her. For a moment +a chill fear struck to the bottom of her little heart: +was some weird spell aimed at her, some malignant +eye spying on her? She stood frozen to the +spot, the tiny drops of sweat cooling on her forehead, +while the droning sounded in her ears. +Then, out of the very core of her terror, some inexplicable +impulse urged her on to face it, and she +crept, step by step, the cat tight in her nervous +grasp, around the corner of the great house, +toward the sound.</p> + +<p>This corner was a wing, set at right angles to +the main building, and as she rounded it she found +herself at the edge of an inner court. In the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> +opposite wing, looking straight across the court, +was a lighted room with a long French window +opening directly on the shaven turf, and in the +center of this window there sat in a high, carved +chair a very old woman. She was carefully +dressed in deep black, with pure white ruffles at +her neck and around her shrunken wrists, and a +lace cap on her thin, white hair. Her feet were +on a carved foot-stool, and a quaint silver lamp, +set on a slender table at her side, threw a stream +of light across the court. Her face, lined with +countless wrinkles, was bent upon a large book +in her lap; from its pages she read in a low, steady +voice—the passionless, almost terrifying voice +of great and weary age:</p> + +<div class="blockquot" style="padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;"> +<p>"<i>Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever +thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting +to everlasting thou art God.</i>"</p></div> + +<p>Caroline stared, fascinated, down the path +of lamplight. It marked a bed of yellow tulips +with a broad band; they stood motionless, as +if carved in ivory.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a name="Illus_282" id="Illus_282"></a><img src="images/Illus301.jpg" title="Illus301" alt="Illus301" +width="400" height="513" /></p> + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: 2em;">Across the court was a lighted room with a long French +window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, +carved chair a very old woman.</h5> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot" style="padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;"> +<p>"<i>For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday +when it is past, and as a watch in the night.</i>"</p> +</div> + +<p>The grave, steady voice flowed out and mingled +with the silver lamplight; the marble sill of the +long window was white like the sill of a tomb.</p> + +<div class="blockquot" style="padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;"> +<p>"<i>We spend our years as a tale that is told.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>The days of our years are threescore years and ten; +and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet +is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, +and we fly away.</i>"</p> +</div> + +<p>The hot excitement of this magic night cooled +slowly; over Caroline's bubbling spirit there +fell a mild, strange calm. A breath from the +very caverns of the infinite stole out along the +path of that silver lamp, and in the grave, surrendered +voice there sounded for the child upon +life's threshold echoes of the final tolling.</p> + +<p>Entranced by the measured cadences, Caroline +stepped forward unconsciously and stood, +white against the gray stone, full in the path of +the lamp. The heavy, wrinkled lids raised themselves +from the deep-set eyes, and the aged reader +gazed calmly at the little figure across the court. +The withered old hands clasped each other.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> +"Jemmy! O <i>Jemmy</i>!"</p> + +<p>Caroline never moved.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> you, Jemmy!"</p> + +<p>The faded eyes devoured the little white figure.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd never come, Jemmy—but +I knew they'd send you. I'm all ready. Don't +you think I'm afraid, Jemmy: I'm eighty-four +years old, and I want to go."</p> + +<p>Caroline hardly breathed; a nameless awe held +her motionless and silent.</p> + +<p>"You see, I don't sleep much any more, +Jemmy," the old, toneless voice went on, "and +hardly any at night. They're very kind, all of +them, but I'm—I'm eighty-four years old, and +I want to go."</p> + +<p>The ivory tulips gleamed under the stars; +the silver lamp, burned lower and lower: its +oil was nearly gone.</p> + +<p>"And you brought your yellow kitty, too, +Jemmy! To think of that! Did they think +I wouldn't know my baby? It's only fifty years, +... shall I come now, Jemmy?"</p> + +<p>The silver lamp went out. In the starlight +Caroline saw the lace cap droop forward, as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> +the old woman's head settled gently on her +breast. Her hands lay clasped on the great +volume; her deep-set eyes were closed. She +read no more from the book, and the child, awed +and sober, stole like a shadow behind the gray +wall and left the quiet figure in the carved chair.</p> + +<p>Her feet fell into a tiny graveled path, and she +drifted aimlessly along it, musing on the meaning +of what she had heard. Almost she had persuaded +herself that the gray stone building was an enchanted +palace, and herself a fairy messenger +sent to break the spell, when the delight of pushing +through a tiny turnstile and finding a running +brook with a waterfall in it close at hand, drove +everything else from her mind. The grounds +had completely changed their character by now: +the turnstile marked the end of cultivation, and +the little path, no longer graveled, wound through +the wild woodland. Here and there a boulder +blocked the way; the undergrowth became +dense; great clumps of fern and rhododendron +sent out their heavy, rank odors. Now and again +the spicy scent of warm pines and cedars prepared +the ear for the gentle, ceaseless rustle of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> +their stiff foliage; little scufflings and chitterings +at the ground level told of wood-people wakened +by the presence of Red Rufus.</p> + +<p>A strange whitish bulk that glimmered through +the thinning foreground, too big for even a big +boulder, too symmetrical and quiet for a waterfall, +tempted Caroline on, and she pressed forward +hastily, lost in speculation, when a sudden odor +foreign to the woods stopped her short at the +very edge of a little glade, and she paused, sniffing +curiously.</p> + +<p>A man, bareheaded, with grizzled curly hair, +turned suddenly, not ten feet from her, and stared +dumfounded at her, his twisted, brown cigar an +inch from his lips.</p> + +<p>The torn-out sleeve of her nightgown had +bared one side to her waist: the great rent that +slit the lower half of the garment left one slender +leg uncovered above her white knee. A spray +of wild azalea wreathed her dark tumbled hair, +and Rufus, his plumy tail curled around her feet +in the shadow, and his green eyes flaming, might +have been a baby panther. She leaned one hand +on the rough bark of a chestnut and gazed with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> +startled eyes at the man; it seemed that the forest +must swallow her at a breath from a human throat.</p> + +<p>He lifted one hand and pinched the back of +the other with it till his face contorted with the +pain.</p> + +<p>"Then there <i>are</i> such things!" he said softly; +"well, why not?"</p> + +<p>He moved forward almost imperceptibly.</p> + +<p>"If I were younger, I should know you were +not possible," he muttered, "but now I know +that I have never doubted you—really."</p> + +<p>Again he took a small step. Caroline, paralyzed +with fear and embarrassment, for she +thought he was merely teasing her a little before +he punished her—his pleasant, low voice and +whimsical manners brought her back suddenly +to the ordinary world and the stern facts of her +escapade—shivered slightly, but did not attempt +flight.</p> + +<p>"It was this extraordinary night that brought +you out, of course," he went on, again slightly +shortening the distance between them, "you +and the little cub. It was a moon out of five +thousand, I admit. Do you live in that chestnut?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> +With a sudden agile bound he covered the +space between them and seized her by the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Aha!" he cried, "I have—good heavens, +it <i>is</i> a child!"</p> + +<p>"Of course I am—I'm Caroline," she murmured +writhing under his grasp.</p> + +<p>He pulled her out into the little glade.</p> + +<p>"Oh! you're Caroline, are you?" he repeated, +thoughtfully; "dear me, you gave me quite a +turn, Caroline. Where did you come from—the +big house?"</p> + +<p>"I came from a long way," she said briefly. +"I was—I was taking a walk. Where do you +live? Don't you ever to go bed?"</p> + +<p>The man chuckled.</p> + +<p>"I have been feeling adventures in my bones +all day," he said, "and here they are; a child +and a cat. If you will come with me, Mademoiselle, +I will show you where I live."</p> + +<p>He led the way gravely to the dim, white +object, and Caroline perceived it to be a tent, +pitched by the side of a spring that poured through +a tiny pipe set into the rock. The tent flap was +tied back, and she saw inside it a narrow cot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> +covered with a coarse blue blanket, a roughly +made table, spread with a game of solitaire, and +a small leather trunk. On the further side of +the tent there smoked, in a rude, improvised +oven of stones, a dying fire. Above it, under +a shelf nailed to the tree, hung a few simple +utensils; two or three large stumps had been +hacked into the semblance of seats.</p> + +<p>To one of these stumps the man led Caroline, +and, seating her, he turned to the shelf above +the fire and fumbled among the pots and pans +there, producing finally a buttered roll, a piece +of maple sugar, and a small fruit tart.</p> + +<p>"You must be hungry," he said simply, and +Caroline ate greedily. After he had brought her +a tin cup of the spring water, he selected a brown +pipe from a half dozen on the shelf and began +filling it from a leather pouch that hung on the +tree.</p> + +<p>"Now let's hear all about it," he said easily.</p> + +<p>"I am running away," said Caroline abruptly. +At that moment it really seemed that she had +planned her flight from the hour that left her, +tear-stained and disgraced, in her little bed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> +"They didn't treat you well?" he suggested, +picking out a red ember from the coals on +the point of a knife and applying it to the +pipe.</p> + +<p>"I'm not to wear my knickers any more," +Caroline said, with a gulp, "and my bathing +suit has to have a skirt. I've got to stop p-playing +with the b-boys—so much, that is," she added, +honestly.</p> + +<p>The man turned his head slightly.</p> + +<p>"That seems hard," he said; "what's the +reason?"</p> + +<p>"I'm 'most twelve," said Caroline; "you +have to be a young lady, then."</p> + +<p>"I see," the man said. He looked at her +thoughtfully. "I suppose you <i>would</i> look larger +in more clothes," he added.</p> + +<p>"That's it," she assured him, "I do. That's +just it."</p> + +<p>"And so you expect to avoid all this by running +away?" he asked, settling into his own +stump seat. "I am afraid you can't do it."</p> + +<p>Caroline set her teeth. He regarded her +quizzically.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> +"See here," he went on, "I wish you'd take +my advice in this matter."</p> + +<p>They confronted each other in the starlight, +a strange pair before the dying fire. The moon +had gone, and the stars, though bright, seemed +less solid and less certainly gold than before. +A cool breeze swept through the wood and Caroline +shivered in her torn nightdress. The man stepped +into the tent and returned with a long army +cloak. This he wrapped round her and resumed +his seat, with Rufus on his knee.</p> + +<p>"My name," he said, "is Peter. Everybody +calls me that—just Peter. I don't know exactly +why it is, but a lot of people—all over—have +got into the way of taking my advice. Perhaps +because I've knocked about all over the world +more or less, and haven't got any wife or children +or brothers and sisters of my own to advise, +so I take it out on everybody else. Perhaps +because I try to put myself in the other fellow's +place before I advise him. Perhaps because I've +had a little trouble of my own, here and there, +and haven't forgotten it. Anyhow, I get used +to talking things over."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> +A gentle stirring seemed to pass through the +woods: the birds spoke softly back and forth, +a squirrel chattered. Again that cool wind swept +over the trees.</p> + +<p>"Now, take it this week," the man went on, +puffing steadily; "you wouldn't believe the +people just about here who've asked for my advice. +I usually camp up here for a week or so in the +summer—the people who own the property like +to have me here—and the first day I unpacked, +up comes a nice girl—I used to make birch whistles +for her mother—to tell me all about her young +man. She brought me that spray of honeysuckle +over the pipes—grows over the front gate. She +wants to marry him before her father gets to like +him, but she hates to run away. 'Would you +advise me to, Peter?' she says. And I advised +her to wait.</p> + +<p>"Then there's my friend the blacksmith. He +lives in a queer little house with dormer windows +under a hill, just off the county road. He's +got a new baby, and he was afraid it wouldn't +pull through. He knew I'd seen a lot of babies—black +and red and yellow—and <i>he</i> wanted my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> +advice. 'Peter, what'll I do?' he says, 'what'll +I do?'</p> + +<p>"'Why, just wait, Harvey. He'll live. Just +wait,' I told him."</p> + +<p>Caroline listened with interest. He might +have been talking to his equal in years, from his +tone.</p> + +<p>"Then, oddly enough," he continued, "here's +my old friend in the big house up yonder—and +she <i>is</i> old—and what do you think she's worried +about? She's afraid she <i>won't</i> die! 'Oh, Peter,' +she says to me—she's fond of me because I'm +the same age as a little boy of hers that died—'it +seems to me that I can't wait, Peter! What +shall I do?' she says. And I tell <i>her</i> to wait. +'Dear old friend,' said I to her last night, 'it +will come. It's bound to come. Just be patient.'"</p> + +<p>He paused and knocked his pipe empty.</p> + +<p>"Now, as to your case," he said, "I know +how you feel. I'm sorry for you—by the Lord, +I'm sorry for you! But what's the use of running +away? You'll keep on growing up, you know. +It's one of the things that doesn't stop. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> +can't beat the game by wearing knickers, you +know. And then, there'd come a time when +you'd want to quit, anyhow."</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Really, you would," he assured her, persuasively. +"They all do."</p> + +<p>"That's what Uncle Joe says," she admitted, +"and Aunt Edith. She changed her mind, +she says—"</p> + +<p>"Are you talking about Joe Holt?" Peter +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Yes—do you know him? He lives in a +big white house with wistaria on the side," Caroline +cried joyfully.</p> + +<p>"I was a senior when he was a freshman," +said Peter. "Then he's taken the Washburn +house."</p> + +<p>"Do you know Aunt Edith, too?" asked +Caroline.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter, after a pause, "yes, I +know Aunt Edith—or used to. But I didn't +know she—they were up in this country. I +haven't seen her—them for a good while. Does—does +she sing yet?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> +"Oh, yes, but not on the stage any more, +you know," Caroline explained.</p> + +<p>"I see. Does she sing, I wonder, a song +about—Oh, something about 'my heart'?"</p> + +<p>"'My heart's own heart,' you mean," Caroline +said importantly; "yes, indeed. It's her +encore song."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Peter again.</p> + +<p>He looked into the fire, and there was a long +silence. After a while he shook his shoulders +like a water-dog.</p> + +<p>"Now, Caroline," he said briskly, "here's +the way of this business. You can't wear knickers +until you're one of the boys, and you can't be +one of the boys until you wear knickers. Do +you see? So you don't get anywhere."</p> + +<p>Caroline looked puzzled. She was suddenly +overcome with sleep, and the old familiar names +and ways tasted of home and comfort to her soul.</p> + +<p>"You're too nice to be a boy, Caroline," said +Peter, leaning over her and brushing her azalea-crowned +hair tenderly with his lips. "If you +persist in this plan of running away to be a boy, +some boy, growing up anxiously, somewhere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> +will never forgive you! Take my advice, and +wait—will you? Say 'Yes, Peter.'"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Peter," Caroline murmured, drowsily.</p> + +<p>"Good girl! Then I'll take you home with +my little donkey. I don't believe they've missed +you yet. You've come four miles, though, you +little gypsy!"</p> + +<p>He disappeared behind the trees, and Caroline +nodded. Later she woke sufficiently to find +herself and Rufus on the blue blanket on the +bottom of a little donkey cart; Peter stood by +the gentle, long-eared head.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Peter," she murmured, half +asleep, "and you'll see Aunt Edith, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe so," he said, very low. "Not +yet. Tell her Peter brought you back. Just +Peter. But he can't come yet. Get up, Jenny!"</p> + +<p>They wound out by an old wood road. A +cool spiciness flowed though the green aisles, +and as the tiny donkey struck into a dog trot, +the man striding easily at her head, a far-away +cock crowed shrilly and the dawn gleamed white.</p> + + +<h1> </h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1> </h1> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ix" id="ix"></a>IX</h2> + +<h2>THE ENDS OF THE EARTH</h2> + +<p class="figleft"><img src="images/c2.png" title="C" height="44" width="35" alt="C" /></p> +<p><span class="smcap">aroline</span>!" Henry D. Thoreau cocked +one brindled ear cannily and rapped +sharply with his tail on the piazza +floor, but there was no other answer to the call. +"Caroline!" The insistent voice rang louder; it +was a very determined voice. A sleepy Angora +cat scowled reprovingly at its violence; a gray +and pink parrot mimicked its hortatory note, but +after that the midsummer silence settled down +again. Only the bees droned heavily among the +heavy August roses.</p> + +<p>"Don't nag her, dear; it doesn't do any good," +a sleepy contralto, rich as creamy chocolate, +crooned out of a scarlet-fringed hammock.</p> + +<p>"That's all very well for you, Edith, you don't +have the responsibility of her. Her father wants +her to read a little history every day, and this is +the best time—it's too hot for anything else."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> +"Rather hot for history, dear?"</p> + +<p>"It's not too hot for the Moonstone, I notice! +She's been at that since breakfast, steadily. +Not a word for any one."</p> + +<p>"'Moonstone' sounds cool, anyhow," drawled +the contralto appeasingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Edith! You're as bad as the child herself!"</p> + +<p>"She's fourteen, dear."</p> + +<p>"Fourteen! What is that?"</p> + +<p>"Anything but a child, when it's you, Sis. +You talk to her as if she were ten."</p> + +<p>"You'd think she was, if you saw her riding +that donkey—a great girl like her!"</p> + +<p>"There it is, dear! One moment she's a baby, +the next she's a great girl! It's hard on her, +Sis."</p> + +<p>"But, Edith—that donkey!"</p> + +<p>"Poor Rose-Marie! I rode him myself—bareback +and standing up!—when I was fifteen—at +a circus. Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>The voice chuckled unwillingly. "You always +were a tomboy, Deedee! Do you remember Joe's +bull fight?"</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a name="Illus_299" id="Illus_299"></a><img src="images/Illus320.jpg" title="Illus320" alt="Illus320" +width="400" height="511" /></p> + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: 2em;">Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a +heavy arbor vitæ, flat on her stomach.</h5> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> +"And the lemonade stand!" Contralto cried, +with a rich swoop of laughter. Their voices took +up a happy canon of gold memories; there were +no more cries for Caroline.</p> + +<p>She was not a hundred yards away from the +sister aunts, sheltering under a heavy arbor vitæ, +flat on her stomach, her nose glued to the reprehensible +Moonstone: that she had heard the calls +and resented them the scowl between her eyebrows +exhibited. Behind her, patiently at graze, +a small, mouse-colored donkey stood, shifting +a pair of quaint panniers from side to side and +wagging his scarlet ear tassels thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>The chapter ended, Caroline rose, peered across +to the piazza, nodded to herself at the flow of +voices and shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Good old Aunt Deedee!" she muttered, "she +choked her off! Now, for heaven's sake, don't +bray, Rose-Marie, and perhaps we can get away. +I wouldn't dare get over to the house for a +luncheon; we'll have to get along with sweet-boughs."</p> + +<p>She slipped the book into one pannier, a cushion +into the other and threw a worn steamer rug<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> +over the little beast's back; Caroline was a luxurious +lounger and rarely traveled without her +sumpter mule and his impedimenta. She led him +with practiced quiet away from the house and +paused under the gnarled old sweet-bough tree: +the greenish-yellow, almost translucent globes +dotted the lush, warm grass, their languorous sweet +filled the air. Selecting a dozen thoughtfully, +she added them to the donkey's load, and they +went on at a foot pace, through the slowly reddening +Baldwins and seek-no-furthers, the tiny +lady-apples and the king-of-Tompkins-counties, +through the belt of dead, warped fruit trees, blighted +and gray—"like those Doré pictures," she +murmured to Rose-Marie—down three, crumbling +brick steps, where the little fellow picked his way +as daintily as a careful lady, and across the dusty +road into a pasture trail that led to a wood stretch, +sparse at first, thicker as one plunged in deeper. +The sun filtered through in delicious diamonds; +here and there a resinous pine, steeped in heat, +threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk +scuttered across their path, clicking nervously, +only to squat on his haunches and stare beadily at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> +Rose-Marie, taut with quivering curiosity. Caroline +scowled at him.</p> + +<p>"Rise of the Dutch Republic!" she muttered +angrily. "I think not!"</p> + +<p>The chipmunk winked sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"Your father says it's as interesting as any +novel" (with startling mimicry of the piazza voice). +"I notice <i>they</i> don't read it!"</p> + +<p>The chipmunk's place was empty; only a slight +stir among the leaves marked his path.</p> + +<p>Caroline's eyes widened, grew dreamy. She +leaned her sharp elbows on Rose-Marie's hairy +back and threw her weight on him thoughtfully: +he checked and stood like a table.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose there really are regular roads +through the trees, like the monkeys took Mowgli +on?" she queried.</p> + +<p>Rose-Marie waved his long, hairy ears meditatively, +but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean in any fairy way," she explained +hastily, "but just scientifically. It might be. +Corners and turns and short-cuts—why not? +they all know them. He may be running home +by a back way, now, to call his children to look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> +at Rose-Marie; it's as good as a whole circus +parade to them, I suppose. And they talk to +each other...."</p> + +<p>Held in a muse, she leaned against the donkey; +the moments slipped by. She lost all count of +time. Her eyes stared emptily at some sunny +flicker, some dappled pattern of leaf work; her +ears were filled with the forest drone, the mysterious +murmur made up of so many nameless instruments +that only the Great Conductor can classify +and number them. Time ceased to be.</p> + +<p>At length she woke with a start, shook herself +coltishly, and they pushed on. The wood grew +thicker; now and then Rose-Marie had to force +his way along the tiny trail; his red tassels caught +on the twigs.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what," Caroline began, suddenly, +"I'm going to try that wood track to-day and see +where it goes, to the very end. It must go somewhere. +Where do they haul the wood from, if +there isn't some place at the end? Come on, +Rose-Marie!"</p> + +<p>At a point where the trail forked she led the +donkey along the wider and less interesting way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> +It was ridged and rutty, and Rose-Marie sniffed +disgustedly as he slipped among the gnarled roots; +the apples bumped and slid in the pannier. After +a while Caroline stopped under a tree, ate three +of the apples, gave the donkey two, and resting +in an artfully constructed nest of rug and pillow, +dipped refreshingly into the Moonstone.</p> + +<p>"That's a kind of luncheon," she remarked +philosophically, "and now we'll start again. I'll +go to the end of this, if it takes all day!"</p> + +<p>They settled down to a dogged pace and after +an hour, during which the wood grew thinner by +imperceptible degrees, found themselves on a +relatively easy track that forked suddenly into a +genuine country road, stretching far to left and +right of them. It was a new country to Caroline; +she found no landmarks whatever. The road +glared with heat, the dust was powdery, the +shade nowhere, once they had cleared the wood. +She sighed with fatigue and emptiness; it seemed +a long pull, and the harbor far from worth the +voyage, when all was said and done.</p> + +<p>"What <i>did</i> we want to get to this nasty hot +road for, Rose-Marie?" she cried pettishly, shifting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> +from one long leg to the other, shrugging a nervous, +bony shoulder. "Oh, what's the sense of anything, +anyway?"</p> + +<p>Rose-Marie turned a patient, clear brown eye +toward her and shook his head vaguely. Gnats +buzzed about his flexible ears, and with a swishing +fanning motion he displaced them.</p> + +<p>"If my back aches," she warned him callously, +"you'll have to take me home, you know! Tired +or not. It feels as if it might, any minute. I +never used to get tired, this way."</p> + +<p>A half mile along the road, set off to the left, +among cool trees and behind a great well sweep, +she perceived suddenly a white farm house. It +stood alone, neighborless and well up on a drained, +southerly slope; smoke rose languidly from one +of its chimneys.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they'll give us some milk, Rose-Marie," +said Caroline, "and farms usually have +cookies. If there are any children there, you can +give 'em rides to pay for it!"</p> + +<p>Rose-Marie nodded and they went on with some +spirit. As they turned into the deep front yard +Caroline almost wept with comfort and a pathetic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> +sense of the wayworn wanderer on the edge of home +and rest, so the place breathed of these. Clear +and white with the faded whiteness of old New +England white shingles, it drowsed under its +elms; a fire of nasturtiums smoldered along the +broken, flagged path that led to it; phlox and +"Bouncing Bets" crowded up among the once +formal bed of larkspur on each side the sagging +flagstone steps, beneath the simple entrance porch. +Old-fashioned green paper shades hung evenly +half way down the clean windows; the door stood +hospitably ajar.</p> + +<p>"Just wait there, Rose-Marie, till I find out +about things," said Caroline, tapping lightly on +the door. The house was perfectly silent. She +tapped again, and it seemed that something heavy +moved across the floor in a farther room, but there +was no answer. Pushing the door open gently, +she stepped in and stood surprised, for she found +herself not in the stiff, unused country "parlor" +she had expected, but a neat bedroom. A quaint +four-poster with a fluted valance, a polished +mahogany chest of drawers, a stand by the bed +with a Bible worn to a soft gray and a night lamp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> +on it, some faded photographs tacked to the white +walls—this was an odd reception room. She +hesitated, and again the faint rumbling sound +pointed to some person stirring and she went into +the next room.</p> + +<p>Here was a clean, kindly kitchen of the best; +a swept floor, a freshly blackened cooking stove, +a row of bright tins. It was carpeted with faded +oilcloth, but rag rugs, washed dim and soft-toned, +lay here and there, and the room was so large that +the spread table, standing in an ell, made only a +pleasant episode in it, a certainty of restoring +food at needful times.</p> + +<p>It was evidently a sitting room as well, in the +primitive, clear fashion that groups all domestic +life about the central fire that feeds it; a stand +with books, a sewing basket, oil lamps for evening +reading, all not too far from brick-shaped pans +where unmistakable bread rose under a clean, +folded, red cloth. The whole place seemed waiting, +quietly, hospitably waiting, for just such an empty, +discouraged pilgrim as Caroline.</p> + +<p>She sank gratefully into a high-backed arm-chair, +stuffed to just the hollow of her tired back,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> +covered with a clean, homely patchwork, and +drew out the faithful Moonstone from under her +elbow.</p> + +<p>"Someone'll come soon," she assured herself, +and slipped into the story as a hot swimmer slips +off his sunny rock into the waiting blue. Another +world, a delicious, smooth element—Romance +itself—received her, and of hunger and heat, +thirst and the fatigue of the road, she knew no +more than the blessed dead themselves....</p> + +<p>A sharp tap at the farther door disturbed her, +and instinctively she called, "Come in!"</p> + +<p>A swift, swishing step brushed across the bedroom +and a slender, angry-eyed young woman +poised like a gull before her.</p> + +<p>"Can I get something to eat here?"</p> + +<p>Her voice was at once imperious, irritated, +unsure of itself. It could not be that the owner +of this voice, dressed with that insolent simplicity +that need not consider the costly patience of the +work-women, ringed like a dowager with great +audacious squares of ruby and white diamond, +booted and hatted as one who wears and throws +away, with a bag of golden mesh on her wrist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> +to pay the price of any whim—it could not be that +she doubted what answer she should receive. +And yet she did—did, and had before this: so +much was evident at first sight. She was a +curious gypsyish type, for all her <i>Rue de la Paix</i> +curvings and slim, inevitable folds and pleats; +a full, drooping mouth in a slender dark face, +great brown eyes and heavy waves of black hair. +She looked discontented and ready to make some +one suffer for it.</p> + +<p>"Well—can I?" she repeated, as Caroline +stared. "I'm ready to pay, of course."</p> + +<p>"I don't know—I don't live here," said Caroline +shortly. She felt untidy and badly dressed +beside this graceful thing standing in a faint cloud +of subtle perfume of her own; her sleeves were too +short and her heavy shoes knobby and worn. She +wanted furiously to smell sweet like that; and +the golden bag—oh, to feel it, powerful and careless, +on her wrist!</p> + +<p>"Can you find out?" said the girl, eyeing the +room attentively; "my car broke down—the man +left it in the road and went to Ogdenville for gasoline. +I've got to rest somewhere."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> +"I don't know anything about it," Caroline +said coldly. "I'm waiting for someone to come, +myself. There's nobody here. I don't live here +at all."</p> + +<p>With that, and because she was embarrassed +and cross and hungry, she opened her book ostentatiously +and affected to read busily. The girl +frowned angrily a moment, then gave a foreign +little shrug of her shoulder and settled herself +in a low rocking chair near the bread, her hands +loose in her lap. The old clock ticked reprovingly +through the hot and conscious silence of the room, +but there was no other sound. Caroline could not +have lifted her eyes to save her life, and the older +girl's lips curled scornfully: her eyelids were +sullen.</p> + +<p>After a few moments of this intolerable stillness +the same low rumbling sound was heard +again, this time moving nearer. Something was +advancing to the kitchen from a farther room, +and as they looked instinctively at the door it +pushed open slowly and a sort of foot rest upon +wheels appeared; two large wheels followed, and +a woman pushed her chair into the kitchen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> +She was a large, good-looking woman, middle-aged, +and not weak, evidently, for she managed +her chair easily with one hand; the other held +a slice of pink ham on a white platter in her lap. +Her face, under a placid parting of grayish fair +hair, was rather high colored than of an invalid +pallor, her chest broad and deep, her blue eyes +at once kind and keen. She wore a neat dress +of dark-blue print with a prim, old-fashioned +linen collar and a blue bow, a white apron around +her plump waist almost covered the patchwork +quilt that wrapped her from the hips down: a +shell comb showed slightly above her crisp hair. +As she faced her two angry guests a smile of +unmistakable sincerity and delight greeted them.</p> + +<p>"Well, of all things!" she cried eagerly; "how +long, 'you been here?"</p> + +<p>Caroline waited sulkily for her social superior; +the girl was undoubtedly a "young lady." Her +errand was soon explained, her question asked.</p> + +<p>"Something to eat?" echoed their delighted +hostess. "Well, I should think so! I'm just +getting my dinner. Of course I'm all alone, +this time o' day, but I always say if I'm good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> +enough to cook it well, I'm good enough to eat +it comfortable, and I sit down to table just's if +the family was all here. There's some that +believe in a bite and a bit, when the men folks +are out, but I never did. And then—" she +blushed shyly like a girl—"I always want to +feel ready in case anyone should come. Just +in case. He says it's foolishness, but look at you +two, now! How'd I feel if I wasn't prepared! +And once—in April, 'twas—a sewing-machine +man came. I had ham then, too."</p> + +<p>She beamed on them, frankly overjoyed in +their company, and in the mellow warmth of +that honest pleasure the fog and anger in the room +rolled back like mist under a noon sun, and Caroline +unbent, named herself, and mentioned her +donkey and their woodland journey.</p> + +<p>"You don't say!"</p> + +<p>Quick as a flash their hostess was across the +room and peering through the window.</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the funny little fellows! I never +saw one before, that I remember. Aren't those +red tossels neat, though! I s'pose he's tame?"</p> + +<p>Caroline put him through his paces, as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> +came like a dog at her call, and she of the wheel +chair applauded like a child at a Punch and Judy.</p> + +<p>"We saw so many of those in Italy," said the +older girl. "I rode one in the Alps."</p> + +<p>The woman's face flushed a deep, quick red; +she gripped the arms of her chair and stared at +the nervous little jeweled creature before her +as if she were a vision of the night.</p> + +<p>"Have you been to Italy?" she cried eagerly, +"not really!"</p> + +<p>"Me? Oh, yes, I've been all over Europe," +said the girl indifferently. "Why? Do you like +it?"</p> + +<p>Now it was the woman who echoed, "Me?"</p> + +<p>She flashed a whimsical look at Caroline; instinct +taught her that they were two to one, here.</p> + +<p>"Why, dear, I've never been out of Lockwood's +Corners in my life!"</p> + +<p>Simple, rude incredulity pushed out the girl's +lip.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" she said brusquely, "that's +ridiculous!"</p> + +<p>"Maybe it is," her hostess answered quietly, +"but it's true, all the same. I never have."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> +Gold-bag did not blush for her rudeness, for the +simple reason that she did not realize it, and Caroline +suddenly felt less embarrassed by her. +Girls of that age were too old to talk so pettishly +to people not in their own families, and she twiddled +her fingers too much, anyway, and stared +too much, or else, again, she didn't look at one +enough.</p> + +<p>"You've been to New York, haven't you?" +she asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Never," said the woman. "I've been this +way since I was seventeen. I'm a pretty heavy +woman, you know, and they couldn't put me on +a train very well. So—"</p> + +<p>"There's plenty of room in a drawing-room +car."</p> + +<p>"I guess we couldn't afford that," said the +woman simply.</p> + +<p>There was an awkward pause; Caroline blushed +furiously. How horrid it all was! But their +hostess brushed it away in a moment.</p> + +<p>"And here you are hungry!" she cried; "the +idea! I'll get this ham right on and fry up some +potatoes—I'll do them French! I've got some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> +fresh raised-doughnuts—I got the prize for them +at the county fair, years ago, so I know they're +all right—and some summer apple sauce; 'tain't +much, with summer apples, but I put in lemon +peel and a taste o' last year's cider—it makes a +relish, anyhow; and I've got some fine sweet-pickled +watermelon rind. I could have had sponge +cakes, if I'd only known! Would you care to +try a cut pie? The sewing-machine man said +he hadn't tasted anything like my squash pie in +years. It was cut, too."</p> + +<p>With incredible swiftness she rolled from +table to buttery, from stove to larder. As the +pink ham curled and sputtered in its savory +juices, she turned an earnest face to the girl who +watched her curiously.</p> + +<p>"Can't you tell us a little about Italy, while +we're waiting?" she begged.</p> + +<p>"It's full of fleas," said the traveler carelessly, +"and moldy old places—it's awfully cold, +too. I wore my furs a lot of the time. It smells +bad nearly everywhere. Do you stay here in +the winter, too?"</p> + +<p>"I've stayed here forty-five winters"—she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> +turned the ham capably—"and I expect to stay +as many more as the Lord spares my life! I was +born here. So was father. Grandfather was +born right in the Corners. In eighty-eight we +were snowed up a week here. Mr. Winterpine—that's +my husband—had bronchitis, and he +couldn't get out to tend to the stock. Edgar—that +was the hired man's name—was only twenty, +and I had to help with one of the cows; I went +out in my chair through a snow tunnel!"</p> + +<p>She chuckled reminiscently and her guests +listened, fascinated.</p> + +<p>"We were caught in a bad storm outside of +St. Petersburg, once," Gold-bag volunteered. +"If it hadn't been for J. G. we'd have gone out, +probably. As it was, the driver lost a finger."</p> + +<p>"St. Petersburg, Russia?" the woman inquired +respectfully, her skillet full of potatoes +colored like autumn beech leaves.</p> + +<p>The girl nodded. "J. G. swore at the man, +so he didn't <i>dare</i> die," she continued, with a +hard little grin; "and we just about pulled +through."</p> + +<p>"Who is J. G.?" asked Caroline abruptly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> +"J. G. Terwilliger," she answered simply. It +was as if one had said "Edward Seventh" or +"Adelina Patti" or "P. T. Barnum."</p> + +<p>"Who's he?"</p> + +<p>"He's my father, for one thing. I suppose +you know who he is as well as anybody else."</p> + +<p>"I never heard of him," Caroline said carelessly, +"are you all ready, now, Mrs. Winterpine?"</p> + +<p>"He is the greatest mining expert in the world," +the girl declared emphatically, "and I don't +know where you've lived not to know it. You—" +with a look at the woman, "you know him, of +course?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know anybody of that name, no," +the woman admitted; "but then, you know, we +don't know much, 'way off here, about city people."</p> + +<p>"There hasn't been a daily paper for ten days +that hasn't had his name in it," the girl remarked +dryly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winterpine wiped her face, flanked the +ham with the potatoes, assembled an incredible +array of sweets and relishes in odd, thick little +glass dishes, and with a wave of her hand indicated +her guests' places.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> +"We take the <i>Lockwood's Corners Clarion</i>," +she explained pacifically.</p> + +<p>They addressed themselves to the meal, a +strange trio. Caroline, usually a hopeless chatterbox, +fell somehow and inevitably into the +listener's seat. Their hostess could no longer +be denied: her thirst gleamed in her eyes, and +flesh and blood could not have withstood her +plea for tidings of those distant, rosy lands whose +laden wharves she could never see, nor ever +glimpse their tiled roofs under foreign sunsets, +their white spires beneath mysterious moons. +Their clothes: was it true that the French wore +wooden shoes? She had read that men in Italy +walked in gay capes, colored like birds. Was +there water in the streets, and were boats really +their carriages? Did soldiers, red-coated, demand +passports? Had her guest seen the snow tops +of green slopes? Did dogs drag milk carts for +white-capped women?</p> + +<p>The girl, sulky at first, yielded finally, and in +quick, nervous phrases poured out of her full +budget. Taken from her convent school in +California at fifteen, she had roamed the world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> +with the tireless "J. G." From Panama to +Alaska, from Cairo to Christiania, with her uncreased +Paris frocks and the discontented line +between her dark eyes, she had steamed and +sailed and ridden; she had ridden a camel in +Algeria, a gelding in Hyde Park, a broncho on +the Western plains.</p> + +<p>"Why do you call your father 'J. G.'?" +Caroline demanded suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Do you like 'Klondike Jim' any better? +That's his other name," Gold-bag shot at her +defiantly.</p> + +<p>Then came strange tales of a flaring, glaring +mining camp: lights and liquor and bared +knives, rough men and rougher words, and in +the midst a thin, big-eyed little creature in +the hand of a burly, red-shirted miner, with +the very gift of gold under his matted hair, +the scent for it in his blunt nostrils, the feel +for it in his callous finger tips. Klondike Jim! +He had made for his Klondike as a bloodhound +makes for the quarry; he could not be +mistaken. Night and day she had been with +him, his first claim named for her—the Madeline<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>—his +first earnings a gold belt for her childish +waist!</p> + +<p>And then, money and money and more money. +Rivers of it, ponds of it.</p> + +<p>"If J. G. said there was copper under Fifth +Avenue, they'd dig it up to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>"You must be real proud of him," said Mrs. +Winterpine genially.</p> + +<p>"I used to be," the girl answered, with her +mouth a little awry.</p> + +<p>"My dear, my dear!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," she cried angrily, pushing back her +chair and facing them; "all very well, but who +are we? Who was my mother? Who was my +grandfather? Where did we come from? Will +a sapphire bracelet answer me that, do you think? +Who knows us? 'Miss Maddy Money Bags'! +How long do you think I'd stay in that convent? +Who does J. G. know? Hotelmen and barkeeps +and presidents of things! If you could see the +counts he wanted me to marry! If you could +hear the couriers laugh at him!"</p> + +<p>"But think of all the traveling you've done, +dear! What things to remember! How happy—"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> +"Happy! I hate it. As J. G. says, I hate it +like—well, I just hate it," she concluded, with +propriety, if a little lamely.</p> + +<p>Something in the look she cast around the warm, +clean kitchen struck the woman suddenly. "You +don't mean you'd rather live here—<i>here</i>?" she +exclaimed amazedly.</p> + +<p>"Don't you like it?" queried Madeline sharply.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winterpine considered a moment. "You +see, it's my home," she began. The girl's dry +laugh interrupted her.</p> + +<p>"That's just it. It's your home," she repeated. +"We haven't any. That's the idea. What's +the use of traveling if you can't come home? And +we can't, ever. Unless we go back to the Klondike," +she added satirically.</p> + +<p>There was a long pause. It seemed that the +girl was slowly undressing herself before them: +travel and money and gold bag and scented linings +slipped from her like so many petticoats and left +her thin and cold between them, warm as they +were in their solid homespun of kin and +hearth. Lean and empty, a houseless, flitting, +little shadow, she had scoured the world and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> +sat now, envious, by a kitchen fire. How +strange!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winterpine gathered the dishes with +accustomed hands and piled them by a pan of hot, +soapy water. Caroline, sobered, rose to help her +with the instinctive courtesy of the home-trained +child, but drew back at her shaken head and waving +finger, and followed her glance toward her other +guest, who stared morosely into the dooryard, +her chin in her ringed, brown hand. She was +evidently not far from tears—in a nervous crisis.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if you'd help me with these dishes, +Madeline?" said the woman quietly, and with a +start the girl rose, stood meekly while a checked +apron was tied about her waist and received the +moist, shining ware from the plump hands without +a word. She appeared to have utterly forgotten +Caroline.</p> + +<p>After a few moments of rhythmical click and +splash, a few journeys from sink to dresser, the +tension broke quietly and the air was aware of +it, as when a threatened thunderstorm goes by +above and dissipates in wind. Feeling this, Mrs. +Winterpine began to talk softly, half to herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> +it seemed, for her voice took on the tone of one +who is much alone and thinks aloud.</p> + +<p>"All my life I've been crazy for travel. I used +to read my geography book till I wore it out nearly; +the exports and the imports, you know? And +the pictures of those Arabian men with white +turbans, and the South Sea Islanders riding on +surf boards—I can see 'em now. There was a +castle for Germany, with the moon behind it and +the Rhine—do you know 'Bingen on the Rhine'? +I love the sound of that. And the Black Forest! +Think of it!"</p> + +<p>She paused with a platter dripping in her hand, +her eyes fixed; and so strong was the compulsion +of her vision that to Caroline, vibrant as a wind +harp to such suggestion, the splash of the water +in the tin was the very tinkle of Undine's mystic +stream and <i>Kühleborn</i>, that wicked uncle-brook +dashed in cold floods over the belated knight in +the dark German wood!</p> + +<p>"I dreamed once about an Indian temple," +the woman went on, "and you'd really think I'd +been there, I saw it so plain. Fat priests and +that big idol that sits cross-legged, all made of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> +brass, and smiling; and such funny drums and +pipes—creepy music. The heathens brought +wreaths and stretched out on their stomachs flat +on the ground. I'd read it somewhere, I guess. +I could smell the flowers, like pond lilies and honeysuckle."</p> + +<p>She poured away the dish water, wiped the pan +and began rinsing her towels and cloths in a +small wooden tub bound with tin. The girl +moved aimlessly about the room, fingering the +worn furniture.</p> + +<p>"That clock looks awfully old," she said +abruptly, pausing before a square high Dutch +affair with a ridiculous picture of Mount Vernon, +wobbly-columned, let in at the bottom.</p> + +<p>"Goodness, yes! That clock—why, that clock +was a wedding present to Lorenzo's great aunt +Valeria—she was a Swedenborgian, I believe. +She used to have trances and she could tell you +where things were lost. That chair by the window +was her mother's. It's made with wooden nails, +dowels, they call 'em."</p> + +<p>"Did she live here, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed. The Winterpines are great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> +hands to stay in one place. And the way they +come back to die! I'm half Winterpine myself—he +and I were second cousins—and I well +remember Uncle Milton Winterpine coming home +from Java to die in his bed. He was a sailor, and +how I used to hang around and coax him to tell +me what he'd seen! I remember how he staggered +into the house—Mother Winterpine was living +then.</p> + +<p>"'Here, Esther, here's a fifty-pound sack of +Old Gov'ment Javvy for ye, green, and fit for the +president's table as soon's it gits ripe,' he says, +'and you won't have to nurse me long;' and we +got his boots off and helped him to bed. He never +left it. He brought me a parrot, that trip, sort +of indigo color and pink. It used to set me thinking +of the hot countries and pineapples and natives, +and those tall trees with all the leaves on top—palms, +I guess I mean. It seems the stars are +lower, there, and look bigger; did you ever see +the Southern Cross?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. It's like any other stars. The first +officer on the P & O line always asks me to come +and see it. Then he proposes. J. G. plays poker<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> +the whole trip. He can't lose. He says it's +tiresome."</p> + +<p>The strange dialogue went on for what might +have been an hour. Far ports and foreign streets, +full sails and thronged inns, the fountains of paved +courts, the market squares of dark and vivid +nations, blossomed from the tongue of this chair-bound +woman in her farmhouse prison; and from +the blind, unhappy voyager came halting, telegraphic +phrases: climate and train schedules and +over-lavish fees, miles and meals and petty +miseries. No sunset had stained her hurried way, +no handed flowers from shy street children had +sweetened it. And ever and again she returned +insistently to the barnyard interests of the +Winterpines!</p> + +<p>"See here!" she burst out suddenly, "I'll +tell you what I'll do! I told J. G. that I wouldn't +go another step with him—mascot or no mascot. +He wants to go over the Himalayas—to start next +week—he has an idea. But if you'll go, I'll take +you! What do you say? My guest, of course: +it don't cost you a penny."</p> + +<p>The woman turned utterly white. Where her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> +knuckles gripped the arms of the chair they showed +a bluish tinge.</p> + +<p>"Me? Me?" she whispered. Her eyes fell +to her helpless knees.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you needn't think of that at all," said +Madeline. "I knew a man who didn't <i>have</i> any +legs, even, that went round the world and up the +Pyramids. He had money."</p> + +<p>The woman looked wildly about. Her eyes +fell on Caroline and this seemed to bring her into +some sort of focus again; the color came back to +her face.</p> + +<p>"That was lovely for you to think of, dear," +she said, breathlessly yet; "but—but—for a +moment I forgot.... I—I didn't think of +Lorenzo!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, we'll get a housekeeper for Lorenzo," +Madeline said lightly; "he'll do very well, won't +he? One man can't be much to take care of—you +haven't any children?"</p> + +<p>The easy, equal tone, the bright, dry impudence +of this little air plant, this rootless, +aimless bubble skipping over the bottomless +deeps of life, brought the dazzled woman quickly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> +to herself. She looked compassionately at the +girl.</p> + +<p>"No," she said gravely, her hands unconsciously +flying to her deep breast; "we haven't any children. +And he's not much to take care of—for his +wife. But he wouldn't care for a housekeeper."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" her eyes fell uneasily. "Then we'll +take him along!" She recovered herself.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winterpine sent her chair with a swift +push close to the girl and laid one hand on her +hot forehead, pushing back the thick hair.</p> + +<p>"What a gen'rous little thing you are!" she +cried wonderingly. "But where were you brought +up, child? Lorenzo can't jump and run off to +the Himalaya Mountains like that! It takes +him a long time to make up his mind. He—he +don't care for travel, besides. He's a regular +Winterpine. And there's the stock. No. I guess +I'll keep on doing my traveling at home. That +book you said you'd send...."</p> + +<p>"I'll send a dozen—fifty!" the girl cried impulsively. +"I'll bring them up from New York +to-morrow! I'll bring some pictures, too. The +Alps and Venice and the snapshots I took on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> +Nile! You seem to know how they look, well +enough!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, I know...." the woman repeated +dreamily.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want to go?" Madeline urged +curiously.</p> + +<p>Again Mrs. Winterpine turned white.</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Child, child!" cried she of the chair, +"didn't I tell you he don't care for travel? +We can't do as we like in this world—we +don't live alone. We're placed. There's a +hundred things.... Where were you brought +up?"</p> + +<p>Madeline's face flushed a dark, heavy red. +Her light confidence drowned in it; she dropped +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"In the Klondike!" she said sullenly, "I +told you."</p> + +<p>A loud, whirring horn cut through the country +quiet. A great rattle of gear and chain stormed +along the road.</p> + +<p>"There's the machine!" the girl said sulkily; +"I must go. It's fifteen miles to Ogdenville,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> +and a vile road. Good-by—I'll be up with the +books in a day or two."</p> + +<p>She moved to the door.</p> + +<p>"If I can't come—I change my mind awfully—I'll +send them just the same, and—and—" +a curious sense of struggle, a visible effort at +thought for another, an attempt to grasp an +alien point of view, dawned in the defiant dark +eyes—"I'll write to you from India, if you +want. Would you like it? I can take snap +shots...."</p> + +<p>"You're real gen'rous, dear," said her hostess, +and wheeling quickly to her, kissed her warmly.</p> + +<p>She was gone in a cloud of dust. Caroline +and the woman sat in silence. At last Rose-Marie +yawned pitifully and his mistress got up +with reluctance.</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mrs. Winterpine," she said soberly; +"I have to go home. They'll be anxious about +me. But I'll come again."</p> + +<p>"Do, my dear," said the other; "this'll be +a wonderful summer for me, with so much company. +Wonderful. He'll be interested. But you +run right on: don't let the folks worry. I never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> +had any children, but I always had my heart set +on a daughter. Good-by."</p> + +<p>Caroline and the donkey walked slowly off +toward the wood, which cast cool shadows. They +vanished into its depths, and Mrs. Winterpine +sat and watched them kindly from her chair, +as one watches off the traveler bound for far and +golden countries.</p> + +<p>"He'd have liked that young one," she said +softly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="block" style="width: 590px;"> +<h1> </h1> +<div class="bbox2"> +<p class="figleft" style="padding-top: .8em;"><img src="images/t.png" title="T" height="44" width="40" alt="T" /></p> +<p style="font-size: large;">he following +pages contain advertisements of a few of the +Macmillan +novels.</p> +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/logo2.jpg" title="logo" alt="logo" width="59" height="41" /> +</p> +</div> +<h1> </h1> + + +<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0;">NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA"</h3> +<h5 style="margin-top: 1px;">(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT)</h5> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<h4 style="text-align: left">The Garden of a Commuter's Wife +<span style="padding-left: 14em; font-size: small;">Illustrated</span> +</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that is the proudest +product of our land, a home where love of books and love of nature go +hand in hand with hearty, simple love of 'folks.' ... It is a charming book."—<i>The +Interior</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left">People of the Whirlpool +<span style="padding-left: 21em; font-size: small;">Illustrated</span> +</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its just perspective +of the true values of things, its clever pen pictures of people and customs, +and its healthy optimism for the great world in general."—<i>Philadelphia Evening +Telegraph</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left">The Woman Errant</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an interesting +fictional presentation of an important modern question, treated with fascinating +feminine adroitness."—Miss <span class="smcap">Jeannette Gilder</span> in the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">At the Sign of the Fox</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine love of nature, +and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural character."—<i>New York +Tribune</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Garden, You and I</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too deliciously +torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in Spain.... The delightful +humor which pervaded the earlier books, and without which Barbara would +not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its poignancy."—<i>Congregationalist</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Open Window. <span style="font-size: small; padding-left: 4em;">Tales of the Months.</span> +</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"A little vacation from the sophistication of the commonplace."—<i>Argonaut</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">Poppea of the Post-Office</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"A rainbow romance, ... tender yet bracing, cheerily stimulating ... its +genial entirety refreshes like a cooling shower."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">Princess Flower Hat <span style="font-size: small; padding-left: 4em;"> +<i>Just Ready</i></span></h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">A Comedy from the Perplexity Book of Barbara the Commuter's Wife.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0px; letter-spacing: 2px;">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h3> +<h5 style="margin-top: 1px;">Publishers <span style="padding-left: 15px;"> +64-66 Fifth Avenue</span> +<span style="padding-left: 15px;">New York</span> +</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span class="smcap">By</span> ZONA GALE</h3> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">Friendship Village +<span style="padding-left: 22em; font-size: small;"><i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.50</i></span></h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and sometimes +both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows +whether laughter or tears are fittest for his emotions.... This book +especially makes for higher thinking and better living and emphasizes +the existence of these virtues in lowly places as well as high."—<i>New +York Times</i>.</p> + +<p class="blockquot2">"The characters are like an orchestra, each instrument holding a +part of its own, all interwoven to a harmonious whole; an orchestra +of strings, be it added, for even the Proudfits' motor fails to introduce +a note of brass.... With the wholesome pungency of humor that +pervades it all, the book cannot fail to find a welcome."—<i>New +York Post</i>.</p> + +<p class="blockquot2">"There is not a trace of sarcasm or even grotesqueness; her villagers +are not caricatures; they are efficient, useful men and women whose +individualities have been crystallized into distinct outlines by their +limited environments and intimate relations. The book is happily +optimistic, presenting, indeed, the commonplaces of narrow lives but +breathing also the underlying spirit of poetry and romance."—<i>Baltimore +Sun</i>.</p> + + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre +<span style="padding-left: 12em; font-size: small;"><i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.50</i></span></h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"To all who know the hidden sources of human joy and have neither +grown old in cynicism nor gray in utilitarianism, Miss Gale's charming +love stories, full of fresh feeling and grace of style, will be a +draught from the fountain of youth."—<i>Outlook</i>.</p> + +<p class="blockquot2">"The achievement is unusual for delicacy, subtlety, and the ... +felicitous tenderness which brood over the book like a golden +autumnal haze which dims the outlines of common things and +beautifies them.... The story is indeed unique in this, that it is an +idyl for the aged—a romance of seventy."—<i>Chicago Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p class="blockquot2">"It is an ideal book for husband and wife to read aloud together.... +Its picture of steadfast love in old age is the best kind of +idealism."—<i>Chicago Record Herald</i>.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: 2px;">PUBLISHED BY</h5> +<h3 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h3> +<h5 style="margin-top: 2px;">64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York</h5> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h3>Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50</i></p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Choir Invisible</h4> + +<p class="center"><i>This can also be had in a special edition illustrated by Orson +Lowell, $2.50</i></p> + +<p class="blockquot2">"One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the book out +of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to the very core.... +Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American novelists. <i>The +Choir Invisible</i> will solidify a reputation already established and bring into +clear light his rare gifts as an artist. For this latest story is as genuine a +work of art as has come from an American hand."—<span class="smcap">Hamilton Mabie</span> +in <i>The Outlook</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Reign of Law. <span style="font-size: small;"> +A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields</span></h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished as Hawthorne's, +and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual suggestion that +makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are lacking in so many novels +of the period.... If read in the right way, it cannot fail to add to one's +spiritual possessions."—<i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Mettle of the Pasture</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"It may be that <i>The Mettle of the Pasture</i> will live and become a part of +our literature; it certainly will live far beyond the allotted term of present-day +fiction. Our principal concern is that it is a notable novel, that it ranks +high in the range of American and English fiction, and that it is worth the +reading, the re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care +for modern literature at its best."—By E. F. E. in the <i>Boston Transcript</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">Summer in Arcady. <span style="padding-left: 2em;">A Tale of Nature</span> +<span style="font-size: small; padding-left: 11em;"><i>Cloth, $1.25</i></span></h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It is +artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in its descriptions, +dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents; indeed, a veritable masterpiece +that must become classic. It is difficult to give an outline of the story; +it is one of the stories which do not outline; it must be read."—<i>Boston +Daily Advertiser</i>.</p> + +<h3><i>Shorter Stories</i></h3> + +<table summary="shorter stories" width="100%"> +<colgroup span="2"> +<col width="85%"></col> +<col width="15%"></col> +</colgroup> +<tr> +<td class="tdb">The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky</td> +<td class="tdc"><i>$1.50</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb">The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky</td> +<td class="tdc"><i>$1.50</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb">Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales</td> +<td class="tdc"><i>$1.50</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb">The Bride of the Mistletoe</td> +<td class="tdc"><i>$1.25</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb">A Kentucky Cardinal. <i>Illustrated</i></td> +<td class="tdc"><i>$1.00</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdb">Aftermath. A Sequel to "A Kentucky Cardinal"</td> +<td class="tdc"><i>$1.00</i></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0px; letter-spacing: 2px;">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h3> +<h5 style="margin-top: 1px;">PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK</h5> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS</h3> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each, $1.50</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Gospel of Freedom</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in a +broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed to +American fiction."—<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Web of Life</h4> + +<p class="blockquote2">"It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and +uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought +out."—<i>Buffalo Express</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Real World</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to +the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man +who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession +of his will—only such battles bite into the consciousness."—<i>Chicago +Tribune</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">The Common Lot</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul +the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has appeared +for many a day."—<i>The World To-day</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 1px;">The Memoirs of an American Citizen. +<span style="font-size: small; padding-left: 14em;">Illustrated</span></h4> +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 0px;">with about fifty drawings by F. B. Masters.</p> + +<p class="blockquot2">"Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to +reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit +than anybody has yet done."—<i>New York Times</i>.</p> + +<p class="blockquot2">"Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document of +startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is giving us +<i>the</i> American novel."—<i>New York Globe</i>.</p> + +<h4 style="text-align: left;">Together</h4> + +<p class="blockquot2">"Journeys end in lovers meeting," says the old saw; so all novels used +to end—in marriage. Yet Mr. Herrick's interesting new novel only +begins there; the best brief description of it is, indeed,—a novel about +married people for all who are married.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0px; letter-spacing: 2px;">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h3> +<h5 style="margin-top: 1px;">PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK</h5> + +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of While Caroline Was Growing, by +Josephine Daskam Bacon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING *** + +***** This file should be named 19869-h.htm or 19869-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/6/19869/ + +Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, Stephen Hope, Fox in the +Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: While Caroline Was Growing + +Author: Josephine Daskam Bacon + +Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19869] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING *** + + + + +Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, Stephen Hope, Fox in the +Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING + + + + +BOOKS ABOUT CHILDREN +BY +JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON + + THE MADNESS OF PHILIP + MEMOIRS OF A BABY + BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY + THE IMP AND THE ANGEL + SISTER'S VOCATION + TEN TO SEVENTEEN + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO +. SAN FRANCISCO + +MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED +LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA +. MELBOURNE + +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. +TORONTO + + + + +WHILE CAROLINE +WAS GROWING + +BY + +JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON + + +_ILLUSTRATED_ + + +NEW YORK +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1911 + + * * * * * + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +Copyright, 1906, by P. F. Collier & Son +Copyright, 1907, by the S. S. McClure Co. +Copyright, 1909, by the S. S. McClure Co., Benjamin B. Hampton, +P. F. Collier & Son, and by the Phelps Publishing Company + + * * * * * + +Copyright, 1911, by The Macmillan Company + + * * * * * + +Set up and Electrotyped. Published March, 1911 + + +Norwood Press: +Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +To S. B. +long Caroline's admirer, +from J. D. B. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + I. AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 1 + + II. A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 38 + + III. THE PRIZE 77 + + IV. WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN 113 + + V. A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 158 + + VI. HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 202 + + VII. THE PRETENDERS 235 + +VIII. A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 269 + + IX. THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 297 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + +With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portiere +and disappeared. 66 + +"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a vordt! +Mein Gott! but it is marvellous." 74 + +"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly. 118 + +Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched +abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain. 274 + +Across the court was a lighted room with a long French +window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, +carved chair a very old woman. 282 + +Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a +heavy arbor vitae, flat on her stomach. 299 + + + + +WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING + + * * * * * + +I + +AN IDYL OF THE ROAD + + +Caroline rocked herself back and forth from her waist, defying the +uncompromisingly straight chair which inclosed her portly little +person. + +"Bounded 'n th' _north_ by _Mass'joosetts_; bounded 'n th' _north_ +by _Mass'joosetts_; bounded 'n th' _north_ by _Mass'joosetts_," she +intoned in a monotonous chant. But her eyes were not upon the map; +like those of the gentleman in the poem, they were with her heart, +and that was far away. + +Out of the window the spring was coming on, in waves of tree-bloom +and bright grass; the birds bickered sweetly in the sun-patches; +everything was reaching on tiptoe for the delicious thrill of +May--and she was bounding Connecticut! It was idiotic. What was a +knowledge of the uninteresting limits of her native State compared +to that soft fresh wind on her cheek, that indescribable odor of +brown earth? + +Two fat birds descended with a twitter into a crystal rain-pool, and +bathed, with splashes of spray; Caroline's feet itched in her ribbed +stockings. A soiled and freckled boy, bare from the knees, whistled +by the window, jangling a can of bait, his pole balanced prettily on +one ragged shoulder. As he reached the puddle, a pure inconsequence +of good feeling seized him, and he splashed deliberately in it, +grinning around him. Caroline mechanically bent and unbuttoned the +top button of her stout boots. He caught her eye. + +"Where you going?" she called through the glass. + +"Oh, I d'no--anywheres, I guess!" he answered invitingly. "Want +to come?" + +"I can't. I have to go to school," she said shortly. + +"And so ought he--you ought to be ashamed of yourself, calling +through the window to that Simms boy!" cried a disgusted voice. +Caroline twitched her shoulder spitefully. + +"A great girl like you, too! Why, he's no better than a common +tramp, that boy," proceeded the voice. "Look at his clothes!" + +"Nobody wears good clothes to go fishing," Caroline grumbled. "I +wish he had mine!" + +"Fishing! He never wears them anywhere. He hasn't got them to wear. +And he'd be glad enough to get yours, I can tell you." + +"He wouldn't do any such thing! He told me Saturday he'd rather be a +dog than a girl; he'd get more use of his legs!" + +There was a scandalized silence. Caroline waited grimly. + +"What are you doing?" said the voice at last. "Studying my +jography," she replied. + +"Well, mind you do, then." + +"I can't, if everybody talks to me all the time," she muttered +sullenly. + +Nevertheless she resumed her rocking and crooning. + +"Bounded 'n th' _east_ by Rho _Disland_; bounded 'n th' _east_ by +Rho _Disland_; bounded 'n th' _east_ by _Rho Disland_." + +The housemaid appeared just under the window, dragging a small +step-ladder and a pail of glistening, soapy water. Her head was +coifed in a fresh starched towel, giving her the appearance of a +holy sister of some clean blue-and-white order; her eyes were large +and mournful. She appealed instantly to Caroline's imagination. + +"Oh, Katy, what a lovely Mother Superior you would make!" she cried +enthusiastically. + +"I'm a Presbyterian, Miss Car'line," said Katy reprovingly. "You'd +better go on with your lessons," and she threw up the window from +the outside. + +A great puff of spring air burst into the room and turned it into a +garden. Moist turf and sprouting leaves, wet flagstones and blowing +fruit-blossoms, the heady brew of early morning in the early year +assailed Caroline's quivering nostrils and intoxicated her soul. + +"Oh, Katy, don't it smell grand!" she cried. + +Katy wrung the soapy cloth and attacked the upper sash. + +"You've got the nose of a bloodhound," she observed. "I b'lieve +you'd smell molasses cookies half a mile." + +Caroline sighed. + +"I didn't mean them," she said. "I meant----" + +"You'd better be at your lesson; your aunty'll be here in a minute +if she hears you talking, now!" + +Katy was severe, but fundamentally friendly. Caroline groaned and +applied herself. + +"Bounded 'n th' _south_ by Long Island _Sound_; bounded 'n th' +_south_ by Long Island _Sound_; bounded 'n th' _south_--oh, look!" + +Up the neat flagged path of the side yard a spotted fox-terrier +approached, delicately erect upon his hind legs, his mouth spread in +cheerful smiles, his ears cocked becomingly. He paused, he waved a +salute, and as a shrill whistle from behind struck up a popular +tune, he waltzed accurately up to the side porch and back, retaining +to the last note his pleased if painstaking smile. + +Caroline gasped delightedly; Katy's severity relaxed. + +"That's a mighty cute little dog," she admitted. + +Another shrill whistle, and the dog returned, limping on three legs, +his ears drooping, his stumpy tail dejected. He paused in the middle +of the walk, and at a sharp clap, as of two hands, he dropped limply +on his side, rolled to his back, and stiffened there pathetically, +his eyes closed. + +Caroline's chin quivered; Katy's position on the ladder was frankly +that of one who has paid for an orchestra-chair; Maggie had left the +cookies and stood grinning in the kitchen door; an aunt appeared in +an upper window. + +One more clap, and the actor returned to life and left them, but +only for a moment. He was back again, erect and smiling, a small +wicker basket balanced on his paws. Marching sedately up to Maggie, +he paused, and glanced politely down at the basket, then up at her. + +Flesh and blood could not resist him. Hastily tugging out from her +petticoat a bulging pocket-book, she deposited a dime in the basket; +the aunt, with extraordinary accuracy, dropped a five-cent piece +from the window; Katy mourned her distance from her own financial +center, and Caroline ran for her bank. It was a practical +mechanism, the top falling off at her onslaught with the ease of +frequent exercise, and she returned in time to slip six pennies +under the two hot cookies that Maggie had added to her first +contribution. At each tribute the terrier barked twice politely, and +only when there was no more to be hoped for did he trot off around +the corner of the house, the cookies swaying at a perilous angle +under his quivering nostrils. + +A moment later a tall young man stepped across the grass and lifted +a worn polo-cap from a reddish-yellow head. + +"Much obliged, all," he said, with an awkward little bow. "Good +day!" + +He turned, whistled to the terrier, and was going on, when he caught +the heartfelt admiration of Caroline's glance. + +"Want to pat him?" he inquired. + +She nodded and approached them. + +"Shake hands with the lady, William Thayer, and tell her how d'you +do," he commanded, as she knelt beside the wonderful creature. + +The terrier offered a cool, tremulous paw, and barked with cheerful +interrogation as she shook it rapturously. + +"Those were fine cookies," said the young man. "I had 'em for +breakfast. I'm going to buy a bone for William Thayer, and then +he'll have some, too." + +"Was that _all_ you had?" she inquired, horror-stricken. He nodded. +"But I'll make it up on dinner," he added lightly. + +Caroline sprang to her feet. + +"You go over there behind that barn and wait a minute," she +commanded. + +The young man--he was only a boy--blushed under his tan and bit +his lip. + +"I didn't mean--I'll get along all right; you needn't bother," he +muttered, conscious of Katy's suspicious eye. + +"Oh, do! Please do!" she entreated. "I'll be out there in just a +minute; hurry up, before Maggie gets through those cookies!" + +He turned toward the barn, and Caroline ran back to the house. + +"Is that man gone? What are you doing, Caroline?" called the +invisible voice. + +"Yes, he's gone. I was patting the dog," she answered boldly, +stepping through the dining-room into the pantry and glancing +hastily about. Only a plate of rolls was in sight; the place was +ostentatiously clean and orderly. She sighed and pushed through the +swinging door; the refrigerator was a more delicate affair. But +Maggie's broad back was bent over her ovenful, and Caroline clicked +the door-knob unchallenged. + +Two chops sat sociably on a large plate; a little mound of spinach +rested on one side of them, a huge baked potato on the other. She +slid the plate softly from the metal shelf, peeping apprehensively +at Maggie, tumbled the rolls on to the top, and sped into the +dining-room. From a drawer in the sideboard she abstracted a silver +fork which she slipped into her pocket, adding, after a moment of +consideration, a salt-shaker. Stepping to the door, she paused on +the little porch for a hasty survey. The coast seemed clear, and she +sped across the yard, the silver jingling in her pocket. She was +safe from the back, but a flank movement on Maggie's part would +have been most disastrous, and it was with full appreciation of the +audacity of her performance that she scudded around the barn and +gained the cherry-tree behind it. + +The young man was sitting on the grass, his head against the tree; +his eyes brightened as she approached. + +"Have any luck?" he inquired. + +She held out the plate, and, as he took it, fumbled in her pocket +for the fork. + +"It's all cold," she murmured apologetically, "but I knew Maggie'd +never warm it. Do you mind?" + +"Not a bit," he answered, with a whimsical glance at her eagerness +to serve him. "I always _did_ like greens," he added, as he accepted +the fork and attacked the spinach. + +"Here, William Thayer!" + +He handed one of the chops to the dog, and stared as Caroline drew +out the salt-cellar. + +"Did you--well, by--that's pretty kind, now!" + +"Potatoes are so nasty without it," she explained. + +"Yes, that's why I don't us'ally eat 'em," he replied. + +There was a moment's silence, while he ate with the frank morning +appetite of twenty, and Caroline watched him, her sympathetic jaws +moving with his, her eyes shining with hospitality. + +"Nice place you've got here," he suggested, breaking a roll. + +"Yes. I _wish_ I'd brought you some butter, but I didn't dare cut +any off; it was in a jar, and it clatters so. ("Oh, that's all +right!") This is nicer than it used to be out here. It _was_ the +chicken-yard, and ashes and things got put here; but nobody keeps +chickens any more, and this is all new grass. They took down the +back part of the barn, too, and painted it, and now it's the +stables, or you _can_ say carriage-house," she explained +instructively. + +He threw his chop-bone to William Thayer and drew a long breath. + +"That was pretty good," he said, "and I'm much obliged to you, +Miss." Caroline swelled with importance at the title. "I must have +walked four or five miles, and it's not such fun with an empty +stomach. I came from Deepdale." + +"Oh, how lovely!" cried she. "By the pond?" + +"Yes, by the pond. I gave William Thayer a swim, and I had a little +nap. It's nice and pretty all around there. I cut some sassafras +root; want some?" + +He felt in his pockets, and produced a brown, aromatic stump; +Caroline sucked at it with a relish. + +"Where are you going now?" she asked respectfully, patting William +Thayer's back while his master caressed his ear. + +"Oh, I don't know exactly. There's some nice woods back of the town; +I think I'll look 'em through, and then go on to New Derby. I read +in the paper about some kind of a firemen's parade there to-morrow, +and if there's a lot of people, we'll earn something. We haven't +made much lately, because William Thayer hurt his leg, and I've been +sparing of him--haven't I, pup? But he's all right now." + +He squeezed the dog's body and tickled him knowingly; the little +fellow grinned widely and barked. Caroline sighed. + +"It must be grand," she said wistfully, "to walk from one town to +another, that way. Where do you sleep?" + +"In barns, sometimes, and there's lots of covered wagons all around +the farm-houses, outside the towns, you know. A church shed's as +good a place as any. I don't like the towns as big as this, though; +I like the country this time o' year." + +Caroline nodded comprehendingly, breathing deep breaths of the +fresh, earth-scented air. + +"I wish there never were any houses in the world--nor any schools, +either!" she cried. + +He smiled. "I never was much for schools, myself," he said. "They +don't smell good." + +Caroline looked at him solemnly. She felt that the resolution of her +life was taken. In one ecstatic flash she beheld her future. + +"I shall never go to school again," she announced. "I shall--" A +wave of joyous possibility broke over her, but modesty tied her +tongue. + +"Could I--would you--I'm a real good walker!" she burst out, and +blushed furiously. Who was she to associate with a dog like William +Thayer? + +The young man looked curiously at her. A kind of anxiety clouded his +frank gray eyes. "Oh, you mustn't talk like that," he urged, laying +one brown hand on her apron. "That wouldn't do for a young lady like +you. I guess you better go to school. Girls, you know!" + +He waited a moment, but she scowled silently. He began again: + +"I guess it's different with girls, anyway. You see, you have to get +your education. A young lady----" + +"I'm not a young lady," snapped Caroline. "I'm only ten 'n' a +quarter!" + +"Well, anyway, it isn't respectable," he argued hastily. Caroline +opened her eyes wide at him. + +"Aren't _you_ respectable?" she demanded, appraising unconsciously +his clothes, which were, if not fine, at least clean and whole, his +flannel shirt finished with a neat blue tie, his shoes no dustier +than the country roads accounted for. + +He flushed under his thick freckles, and plucked at the grass +nervously. + +"N-n--yes, I _am_!" he shouted defiantly. "I know lots of people +don't think so, but I am! We earn our way, William Thayer an' me, +an' we don't want much. I don't see as we do any harm. It don't take +much to live, anyhow; it's coal-scuttles an' lookin'-glasses +an'--an' carpets that cost money. And if you don't want _them_--oh, +what's the use talking? I never could live all tied up." + +"Caroline! Caroline!" A loud voice cut across her meditative +silence. She shrugged her shoulders stubbornly and put her finger on +her lip. The boy shook his head. + +"You better go," he said soothingly. "You'll have to sometime, you +know. Here, take these," as she jumped up, forgetting the fork and +the salt-shaker. "Be sure to put 'em back where you got 'em, won't +you?" + +"Oh, leave 'em here. I'll come back," she said carelessly, but the +boy insisted. + +"No, you take 'em right now," he commanded. "I wouldn't want any +mistake made." + +"Just wait a minute--I'll come back," she repeated, as the call +sounded again. + +"Caroline! where are you?" + +The boy stood up, holding out the silver. "You--you don't want 'em +to say I--I took 'em?" he blurted out. + +Her eyes opened wide; she looked all the incredulous horror she +felt. + +"Steal?" she cried, "with a dog like that?" + +He nodded. "That's the way I look at it, but some don't," he said +shortly. "You better go now. Much obliged for the breakfast. If I +come back this way, maybe I'll stop in again, if you'd like to see +William Thayer." + +"I think she went across behind the stable, Miss Carrie," Katy +called helpfully. + +Caroline thrust the silver into her pocket and turned to go. + +"I'm coming!" she cried desperately, and, patting William Thayer, +she took a few backward steps. + +"There's a nice brook in those woods," she observed irrelevantly, +"if you should want to take another nap," and, turning her back +resolutely, she rounded the barn and disappeared. + +The boy picked up the empty plate and slipped it into a door at the +back of the stable. Then, lifting the dog over the nearest fence, he +climbed it and stepped through the next yard into the street. + +"That was a mighty nice little girl, William Thayer," he said +thoughtfully. "She seemed to understand a lot, for such a little +one." + +Caroline stalked aggressively into the dining-room, and finding it +for the moment empty, hastily replaced the salt-shaker. The fork she +laid in the pantry. Hardly was her pocket clear of the telltale +stuff when her aunt appeared before her. + +"I suppose you know you're late for school, Caroline," she began, +with evident self-control. "If you think I am going to write you an +excuse, you are very much mistaken." + +"All right," Caroline returned laconically. "Is my lunch ready?" + +"It was nothing in the world but that dog; I cannot understand the +fascination that tramps and loafers have for you! You never got it +from this family. Why do you like to talk to dirty tramps! Some day +a strange dog will bite you. Then you'll be sorry!" + +"He wasn't a bit dirty. If you weren't so afraid of dogs, you'd know +William Thayer wouldn't bite!" she retorted indignantly. "I think I +might have three cookies--those are nasty little thin ones. And you +never put enough butter." + +Caroline and her namesake-aunt were as oil and water in their social +intercourse. + +"Now, that's another thing. I cannot see where you put all the food +you eat! You get more than the boys, a great deal. And boys are +supposed--not that any one grudges it to you, child, but really----" + +"I'm getting later all the time," Caroline remarked impartially. +"You needn't cut the crusts off; I like 'em." + +Her aunt sighed, and handed her the lunch-basket; a fringe of +red-and-white napkin dangled invitingly from the corner. + +"Now run along; what are you going in there for?" + +"My jography." + +She stood for a moment looking out at the flagstone where William +Thayer had waltzed so seductively, then strolled slowly out, along +the porch and by the house. The lilies-of-the-valley were white in +the sidebeds; their odor, blown to her on quick puffs of west wind, +filled her with a sort of pleasant sadness, the mingled sorrow and +delight of each new spring. She bent her strong little legs and +squatted down among them, sniffing ecstatically. What was it she was +trying to remember? Had it ever happened? Years ago, when she was +very little---- + +"Caroline! are you trying purposely to be naughty! It is twenty +minutes past nine!" + +She muttered impatiently, stamped her foot deliberately upon the +lilies, and ran out of the yard. + +It will never be known what Caroline's definite intentions were on +that morning. It is not improbable that she meant to go to school. +She undoubtedly walked to the building devoted to the instruction +of her generation and began to mount the steps. What power weighted +her lagging feet and finally dragged her to a sitting position on +the top step, she could not have told; but certain it is that for +ten minutes she sat upon the text-book of geography, thoughtfully +interposed between her person and the cold stone, her chin in her +hand, her eyes fixed and vague. Behind her a chorus of voices arose +in the melody that accompanied a peculiarly tedious system of +gymnastics; she scowled unconsciously. Before her, clear to the +inward vision, lay a pleasant little pond, set in a ring of new +grass. Clear lay the pebbles and roots at the bottom; clear was the +reflection of the feathering trees about it; clear shone the eyes of +William Thayer as he joyously swam for sticks across it. Great +patches of sun warmed the grass and cheered the hearts of two happy +wanderers, who fortified themselves from a lunch-basket padded with +a red-fringed napkin. Happy yellow dandelions were spotted about, +and the birds chirped unceasingly; the wind puffed the whole spring +into their eager nostrils. Truly a pleasant picture! As in a dream, +Caroline walked softly down the steps and toward the north. + +For ten minutes she kept steadily on, looking neither to the right +nor to the left, when the rattle of a particularly noisy wagon +attracted her attention. She caught the eye of the driver; it was +the egg-and-chicken man. He nodded cheerfully. + +"Hello, there!" said he. + +"Hello!" Caroline returned. "You going home?" + +"Sure," said the egg-and-chicken man. "Want a ride?" + +Caroline wasted no breath in words, but clambered up to the seat +beside him. + +"Startin' out early, ain't you?" he queried. "Goin' far up my way?" + +"Pretty far," she answered cautiously, "but not so very." + +"Oh!" said he, impressed by such diplomacy. "'Bout where, now?" + +"Have you sold many eggs this morning?" she inquired with amiable +interest. + +"Twenty-three dozen, an' seven pair o' broilers," he informed her. +"Goin' as far as my place?" + +"I s'pose it's pretty cold as early as you get up," Caroline +suggested pleasantly. + +The egg-and-chicken man surrendered. "Middling," he answered +respectfully, "but it smells so good and things looks so pretty, I +don't mind. I'm glad I don't live in the city. It's all pavin'-stone +an' smoke. This time o' year I like to feel the dirt under m' feet, +somehow." + +"So do I," said Caroline fervently. They jogged on for a mile in +silence. + +"I have to get out here," said he, finally, "but don't be scared. +That horse won't move a peg without me. I'll be back in a minute." + +But when he returned she was not there. + +The houses were thinning out rapidly; one side of the road was +already only a succession of fields, and along a tiny worn path +through one of these Caroline was hurrying nervously. She crossed +the widening brook, almost a little river now, and kept along its +farther bank for half an hour, then left it and struck into the +fringe of the woods. + +It was very still here; the road was far away, and only the chatter +of the birds and the liquid cluck of the little stream disturbed the +stillness of the growing things. She walked softly, except for the +whisper of brushing against the spreading branches that choked the +tiny path. The heat of noon was rising to its climax, and the shafts +of light struck warm on her cheeks. + +Suddenly a sound disturbed the peace of the woods--a scratching, +rattling, scurrying sound. Something was moving through the dead +leaves that had gathered among the roots and trunks. She started +back nervously, but jumped forward again with a cry of delight, and +caught William Thayer in her arms. + +Even as he was licking her cheek, the path widened, the trees turned +into bushes, the underbrush melted away, and the brook, a little +river now, bent in upon them in a broad curve, spanned only by +stepping-stones. It ran full between its grassy banks, gurgling and +chuckling as it lapped the stones, a mirror for the fat white clouds +where it lay in still pools. + +In the shelter of a boulder, a lad crouched over a fire, coaxing it +with bits of paper and handfuls of dry leaves. Just as the flames +shot up, the dog barked cheerily, and the lad turned to welcome him. +His eye fell on Caroline; amazement and real pleasure grew into a +delighted laugh. + +"Well, if you don't beat the Dutch!" he cried. "How'd you get here?" + +"I came in the wagon with the egg-and-chicken man," said she +happily, "and then I walked 'cross lots. William Thayer knew me just +as well!" + +"'Course he did. He always knows his friends. Now, see here. You can +stay and watch this fire, an' I'll go over there a ways where those +men are buildin' a fence; I'll bet they'll give us something. You +look after the fire an' put on these old pieces of rail; it was hard +work gettin' dry stuff to-day. We won't be long." + +They disappeared between the trees, and Caroline sat in proud +responsibility before the delightful little fire. The minutes +slipped by; from time to time she fed the blaze with bits of bent +twigs, and at the proper moment, with a thrill of anxiety, she laid +two pieces of the old fence-rail crosswise on the top. There was a +second of doubt, and then they broke into little sharp tongues of +flame. With a sigh of pleasure, she turned from this success, and, +opening the lunch-basket, laid the napkin on the ground and +methodically arranged four sandwiches, two cookies, and an orange on +it. Then, with her fat legs crossed before her, she waited in +silence. Between the sun at her back and the fire on her face, she +grew pleasantly drowsy; the sounds about her melted imperceptibly to +a soft, rhythmic drone; her head drooped forward.... + +"Hello, hello!" + +She jumped and stared at the boy and the dog. For a moment she +forgot. Then she welcomed them heartily and listened proudly to his +admiring reception of her preparations. + +"Well, William Thayer, will you look at that! How's this for a +surprise? And see what we've got." He balanced a tin pail carefully +between the two crossed sticks in the heart of the fire, and +unfolded from a newspaper two wedges of pumpkin-pie. In William +Thayer's little basket was a large piece of cheese. + +"It's coffee 'n milk mixed together; they had bottles of it," he +explained. "William Thayer 'll take back the pail. Are you hungry?" + +Caroline nodded. + +"Awful," she stated briefly. + +"Well, then," he said with satisfaction, "let's begin." + +Caroline attacked a sandwich, with shining eyes, and when in another +minute the boy took from his pocket a tin ring that slipped +miraculously out of itself into a jointed cup, and dipped her a mug +of hot coffee from the bubbling pail, she realized with a pang of +joy that this was, beyond any question, the master moment of her +life. + +"I take this along," he explained, "so's when I go by, and they're +milking, I can have some warm. Anybody'd give me all I want if +William Thayer dances and drops dead for 'em. It tastes good early +in the morning, I tell you." + +She sighed with pleasure. To drink warm milk in the cool, early +dawn, with the cows about you, and the long, sweet day free before! + +They sipped turn about; the boy divided the orange mathematically; +the pie was filled with fruit of the Hesperides. + +"That was mighty good, that dinner," he announced luxuriously, "an' +now I'll have a pipe." + +The pungent, fresh odor of the burning tobacco was sweet in the air; +a dreamy content held them quiet. + +He did not ask her whence or whither; she had no apologies or +regrets. Two vagabonds from every law of home and duty, they were as +peaceful and unthoughtful of yesterday's bed and to-morrow's meal as +William Thayer, who slept in the sun at their feet. + +For long they did not talk. An unspoken comprehension, an essential +comradeship, filled the deep spaces of silence that frighten and +irritate those whom only custom has associated; and Caroline, flat +on her filled stomach, her nose in the grass, was close in thought +and vague well-being to the boy who puffed blue rings toward the +little river, his head on his arms. + +"I put the plate into that door in the barn," he said, finally. +"Did you put those silver things back?" + +Caroline grunted assent. + +"But they wouldn't think that you--what you said," she assured him +earnestly. "It's only tramps they're afraid of." + +He glanced quickly over at her, but she was utterly innocent. + +"One came to the kitchen once, and asked Mary for some hot tea or +coffee, and she hadn't any, but she said if he was very hungry she'd +give him a piece of bread and butter, and he said to go to hell with +her bread and butter. So she doesn't like them." + +The boy gasped. + +"You oughtn't to--had you--that isn't just right for you to say, is +it?" he asked awkwardly. + +"What--hell?" Caroline inquired placidly. "No, I s'pose not. Nor +damn nor devil, either. But, of course, I know 'em. Those are the +only three I know. I guess they're about the worst, though," she +added with pardonable pride. "My cousin, the Captain, knows some +more. He's twelve 'n a half. But he won't tell 'em to me. He says +boys always know more than girls. I suppose," respectfully, "you +know more than those three, yourself?" + +Her companion coughed. + +"A boy--" he began, then paused, confronted with her round, trustful +eyes. + +"A boy--" he started again, and again he paused. + +"Oh, well, a boy's different," he blurted, finally. + +Caroline nodded humbly. + +"Yes, I know," she murmured. + +There was silence for a while. The river slipped liquidly over the +stones, the white clouds raced along the blue above them, the boy +smoked. At length he burst out with: + +"You're all right, now! You're just a regular little chum, aren't +you?" + +She blushed with pleasure. + +"I never had anybody along with me," he went on dreamily. "I always +go alone. I--I didn't know how nice it was. I _had_ a chum once, but +he--he--" + +The boy's voice trembled. Caroline's face clouded with sympathy. + +"Did he die?" she ventured. + +"No," he said, shortly; "no, he didn't die. He's alive. He couldn't +stand my ways. I tried to stay in school and--and all that, but soon +as spring came I had to be off. So the last time, he told me we had +to part, him and me." + +"What was his name?" she asked gently. + +The boy jerked his head toward the dog. + +"_That's_ his name," he said, "William Thayer." A little frown +gathered on Caroline's smooth forehead; she felt instinctively the +cloud on all this happy wandering. The spring had beckoned, and he +had followed, helpless at the call, but something--what and how +much?--tugged at his heart; its shadow dimmed the blue of the +April sky. + +He shrugged his shoulders with a sigh; the smile came again into +his gray eyes and wrinkled his freckled face. + +"Oh, well, let's be jolly," he cried, with a humorous wink. "The +winter's comin' soon enough!" and he burst into a song: + + "There was a frog lived in a well, + Kitty alone, Kitty alone; + There was a frog lived in a well; + Kitty alone and I!" + +His voice was a sweet, reedy tenor; the quaint old melody delighted +Caroline. + + "This frog he would a-wooing ride, + Kitty alone, Kitty alone." + +She began to catch the air, and nodded to the time with her chin. + + "Cock me cary, Kitty alone, + Kitty alone and I!" + +The boy lifted his polo-cap in a courtly manner, and began with +grimaces and bows to act out the song. His audience swayed +responsive to his every gesture, nodding and beaming. + + "Quoth he, 'Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee'-- + Kitty alone, Kitty alone; + Quoth he, 'Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee, + To see if thou canst fancy me.' + Cock me cary, Kitty alone, + Kitty alone and I!" + +Caroline swung her hat by its ribbons and shrilled the refrain, +intoxicated with freedom and melody: + + "Cock me cary, Kitty alone, + Kitty alone and I!" + +She drummed with her heels on the ground, the boy waved his cap, and +William Thayer rolled over and over, barking loudly for the chorus. +Suddenly the boy jumped up, pulled her to her feet, and with +grotesque, skipping steps pirouetted around the dying fire. The dog +waltzed wildly on his hind legs; Caroline's short petticoats stood +straight out around her as she whirled and jumped, a Bacchante in a +frilled pinafore. The little glade rang to their shouting: + + "Kitty alone and I!" + +He darted suddenly through an opening in the bushes, William Thayer +close behind, Caroline panting and singing as she gave chase. +Through a field, across a little bridge they dashed. He flung the +empty coffee-pail at an astonished group of men, who stopped their +work, their fence-posts in hand, to stare at the mad trio. + +Breathless at last, they flung themselves on a bank by the road and +smiled at each other. Caroline laughed aloud, even, in sheer, +irresponsible light-headedness, but over the boy's face a little +shadow grew. + +"It won't seem so nice alone after this, will it, William Thayer?" +he said, slowly. + +Caroline stared. + +"But--but I'm coming! I'll be there," she cried. "I'm coming with +you!" + +He went on as if he had not heard. + +"Who'll there be to eat our dinner with us to-morrow, William +Thayer?" he questioned whimsically. + +Caroline moved nearer and put her hand on his knee. + +"There'll be--won't there be me?" she begged. + +He shook his head. + +"I guess not," he said bluntly. + +Her eyes filled with tears. + +"But--but you said I was a--a regular little chum," she whispered. +"Don't you like me?" + +He was silent: + +"Don't you? Oh, don't you?" she pleaded. "I don't _need_ much to +eat, really!" + +The lad looked at her with a strange longing. The fatherhood that +lives in every boy thrilled at the touch of her fat little hand on +his knee; the comradely glow in her round brown eyes warmed his +restless, lonely heart. He shook her off almost roughly. + +"I guess they'd miss you more'n that salt-shaker," he said grimly. +"I wish I could take you with me--honest, I do. But you better stay +home and go to school. You don't want to grow up ignorant, and have +your folks ashamed of you." + +"But you--you aren't ignorant!" she urged warmly, her admiration +shining in her eyes. + +He blushed and kicked nervously at the grass. + +"I am," he said angrily. "I am, too. Oh, dear, I wish--I wish--" + +They looked at each other, troubled and uncertain. + +"You're a girl," he began again, "and girls can't; they just can't. +They have to stay with their folks and keep nice. It's too bad, but +that's the way it is. You'd want to see 'em, too. You'd miss 'em +nights." + +Caroline winced, but could not deny. "Oh," she cried passionately, +"why do girls have to do _all_ the missing? It's just what that +Simms boy says: 'If I couldn't be a boy, I'd rather be a dog!'" + +"There, there," he said soothingly, "just think about it. You'll +see. And you're not exactly like a girl, anyhow. You're too nice." + +He patted her shoulder softly, and they lay quietly against the +bank. Her breathing grew slow and regular; raising himself +cautiously on one elbow, he saw that she had fallen asleep, her arm +about William Thayer, her dusty boots pathetically crossed. He +watched her tenderly, with frequent glances up and down the road. + +Presently an irregular beat of hoofs sounded around a bend, and a +clattering wagon drew steadily nearer. + +The egg-and-chicken man jumped out and strode angrily toward the +little group. + +"I've caught you, have I, you young----" + +"'Sh!" + +The boy put up a warning hand. + +"She's fast asleep," he whispered. "Are you goin' to take her home?" + +The man stared. + +"Oh, I'm no child-stealer," said the boy lightly. "Here, just lift +her soft with me, and I'll bet we can put her in without waking her +up at all." + +Without a word, the man slipped his hands under Caroline's +shoulders, the boy lifted her dusty boots, and gently unloosing her +arm from the dog, they carried her lax little body carefully to the +wagon and laid her on the clean straw in the bottom, her head on a +folded coat. She stirred and half opened her eyes, murmured broken +words, and sank yet deeper into her dream. + +The man pointed to a book on the seat. + +"That's her lesson-book," he whispered hoarsely. It was the despised +geography. + +"Her folks think a heap of her, I tell you," he added, still eying +the boy uncertainly. "She's about as bright as they make 'em, I +guess." + +"I guess she is," said the lad simply. "She'd ought to have been a +boy. She'd have made a fine one." + +The man's face cleared. + +"Do--do you want a job?" he said abruptly. "We're short up at my +place, and I wouldn't mind the dog. I remember you, now. You caught +a chicken for me once; my wife gave you a hot supper." + +The boy smiled faintly and shook his head. "I remember," he said. +"No, I don't believe I want any job, thank you. I--I'm sort of--I +have to keep along." + +"Keep along? Where?" + +He waved his hand vaguely. + +"Oh, just along," he repeated. "This year, anyhow. Maybe--well, +good-by. Her folks might be gettin' anxious." + +He stepped up to the cart and looked once more at the flushed cheeks +and brown hands, then strode off up the road. + +The egg-and-chicken man gathered up the reins and the wagon started. +Caroline scowled a little at the motion, but slept on. The boy +whistled to the dog. + +"Come on, William Thayer," he said. "I guess it's just you and me +now." + + + + +II + +A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL + + +Caroline, Miss Honey, and the General were taking the morning air. +Caroline walked ahead, her chin well up, her nose sniffing +pleasurably the unaccustomed asphalt, the fresh damp of the river +and the watered bridle path. The starched ties at the back of her +white pinafore fairly took the breeze, as she swung along to the +thrilling clangor of the monster hurdy-gurdy. Miss Honey, urban and +_blase_, balanced herself with dignity upon her roller-skates and +watched with patronizing interest the mysterious jumping of young +persons with whom she was unacquainted through complicated diagrams +chalked on the pavement. + +The General sucked a clothespin meditatively: his eyes were fixed on +something beyond his immediate surroundings. Occasionally a +ravishing smile swept up from the dimples at his mouth to the +yellow rings beneath his cap frill; he flapped his hands, emitting +soft, vague sounds. At such times a wake of admiration bubbled +behind him. Delia, who propelled his carriage, which resembled a +victoria except for the rearward position of its motor power, pursed +her lips consciously and affected not to hear the enraptured +comments of the women who passed them. + +To the left the trees, set in a smooth green carpet, threw out tiny, +polished, early May leaves; graceful, white-coated children dotted +the long park. Beyond them the broad blue river twinkled in the sun, +the tugs and barges glided down, the yachts strained their white +sails against the purple bluffs of the Palisades. To the right +towered the long, unbroken rows of brick and stone: story on story +of shining windows, draped and muffled in silk and lace; flight +after flight of clean granite steps; polite, impersonal, hostile as +the monuments in a graveyard. + +Immobile ladies glided by on the great pleasure drive like large +tinted statues; dressed altogether as the colored pictures in +fashion books, holding white curly dogs in their curved arms; the +coachmen in front of them seemed carved in plum-colored broadcloth; +only by watching the groom's eyelids could one ascertain that they +were flesh and blood. Young girls, two, three, and four, cantered +by; their linen habits rose and fell decorously, their hair was +smooth. Mounted policemen, glorious in buttons, breathing out +authority, curvetted past, and everywhere and always the +chug-chug-chug of the gleaming, fierce-eyed motor cars filled one's +ears. They darted past, flaming scarlet, sombre olive and livid +white; a crouching, masked figure, intent at the wheel, veiled, +shapeless women behind a whir of dust to show where they had been a +breath before. + +And everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, a thin stream of +white and pink and blue, a tumbling river of curls and caps and bare +legs, were the children. A babble of shrill cries, of chattering +laughter, of fretful screams, an undercurrent of remonstrance, of +soothing patience, of angry threatening, marked their slow progress +up and down the walk; in the clear spaces of the little park they +trotted freely after hoops and balls, rolled and ran over the green, +and hid, shouting, behind the bushes. It was a giant nursery, and +the mere man who trespassed on its borders smiled deprecatingly, and +steered a careful course among the parasols and tricycles, stooping +now and then to rescue some startled adventurer, sprawling from the +disgusted shock of encounter with this large and rapidly moving +object. + +To Caroline, fresh from untrammeled sporting, through neighborly +suburban yards, this disciplined procession, under the escort of +Delia and the General, was fascinating to a degree. Far from +resenting the authority she would have scorned at home, she derived +an intense satisfaction from it, and pranced ostentatiously beside +the perambulator, mimicking Miss Honey's unconscious deference to a +higher power in the matter of suitable crossings and preferred +playfellows with the absorbed gravity of the artist. + +"See! General, see the wobblybubble," Delia murmured affectionately. +"(Will you see that child turn his head just like a grown person? +Did you ever see anything as smart as that?) Did he like the red one +best? So does Delia. We'll come over here, and then you won't get +the sun in your precious eyes. Do you want me to push you +frontwards, so you can see me? (Watch him look at me--he knows what +I mean just as well, the rascal!) Just wait till we get across, and +I will. Look out, Miss Honey! Take hold of your cousin's hand and +run across together, now, like good girls." + +Miss Honey made an obedient snatch at Caroline's apron strings, and +darted forward with a long roll of her skates. The road was clear +for a block. Delia, with a quick glance to left and right, lowered +the perambulator to the road-level and forged ahead. Caroline, nose +in air, studied the nearest policeman curiously. + +"Look out, there! _Look out!_" + +A man's voice like a pistol shot crashed behind them. Caroline heard +quick steps and a woman's scream, looked up at the huge, blood-red +bulk of an automobile that swooped around the corner and dashed +forward. But Miss Honey's hand was clutching her apron string, and +Miss Honey's weight as she fell, tangled in the skates, dragged her +down. Caroline, toppling, caught in one dizzy backward glance a +vision of a face in the automobile staring down on her, white as +chalk, under a black moustache and staring goggles, and another +face, Delia's, white too, with eyes more strained and terrible than +the goggles themselves. One second that look swept her and Miss +Honey, and then, shifting, fell upon the General strapped securely +into his carriage. Even as Caroline caught her breath, he flew by +her like an arrow, his blue eyes round with surprise under a whirl +of white parasol, the wicker body of the perambulator swaying and +lurching. With that breath still in her nostrils, she was pushed +violently against Miss Honey, who was dragged over her from the +other side by a large hairy hand. A sharp blow from her boot heel +struck Caroline's cheek, and she screamed with the pain; but her cry +was lost in the louder one that echoed around her as the dust from +the red monster blew in her eyes and shut out Delia's figure, flat +on the ground, one arm over her face as the car rushed by. + +"My God! She's down!" That was the man. + +"Take his number!" a shrill voice pierced the growing confusion. + +Caroline, crying with pain, was forced to her feet and stumbled +along, one apron string twisted fast in Miss Honey's hand. Instantly +they were surrounded by a crowd of nurses, and Miss Honey, dazed and +obedient, was shoved and pulled from one to another. + +"Here, get out o' this--don't let the children see anything! Let's +get home." + +"No, wait a minute. Let's see if she's alive. Have they got the +ambulance?" + +"Look out, there, Miss Dorothy, you just stop by me, or you'll be +run over, too!" + +"See! She's moving her head! Maybe she's not--" + +Sobbing with excitement, Caroline wrenched herself free from the +tangle of nurses and carriages, and pushed her way through the +crowd. Against the curb, puffing and grinding, stood the great red +engine; on the front seat a tall policeman sat, one woman in the +back leaned over another, limp against the high cushions, and fanned +her with the stiff vizor of her leather cap. + +"It's all right, dear, it's all right," she repeated monotonously, +with set lips, "the doctor's coming. It wasn't Pullton's fault. It's +all right." + +Caroline wriggled between two policemen, and made for a striped blue +and white skirt that lay motionless on the ground. Across the white +apron ran a broad dirty smudge. + +Caroline ran forward. + +"Delia! Delia!" she gulped. "Is she--is she dead?" + +A little man with eyeglasses looked up from where he knelt beside +the blue and white skirt. + +"I don't believe so, my dear," he said briskly; "is this your nurse? +See, she's opening her eyes, now--speak to her gently." + +As he shifted a leather-covered flask from one hand to the other, +Caroline saw a strange face with drawn purplish lids when she had +always known two merry gray eyes, and tight thin lips she could not +believe Delia's. The head moved a little from side to side, the lips +parted slightly. A nervous fear seized her and she turned to run +away; but she remembered suddenly how kind Delia had been to her; +how that very morning--it seemed so long now--Delia had helped her +with her stubby braids of hair, and chided Miss Honey for laughing +at her ignorance of the customs of the park. She gathered her +courage together and crouched down by the silent, terrifying figure. + +"Hel--hello, Delia!" she began jerkily, wincing as the eyes opened +and stared stupidly at the ring of anxious faces. "How do you +f-feel, Delia?" + +"Lean down," said the little man softly, "she wants to say +something." + +Caroline leaned lower. + +"General," Delia muttered. "Where's General?" + +The little man frowned. + +"Do you know what she means?" he asked. + +Caroline patted her bruised cheek. + +"Of course I do," she said shortly. "That's the baby. Oh," as she +remembered, "where _is_ the General?" + +"Here--here's the baby," called some one. "Push over that carriage," +and a woman breathing heavily, crowded through the ring with the +general, pink and placid, under his parasol. + +"Lift him out," said the little man, and as the woman fumbled at the +strap, he picked the baby out neatly, and held him down by the girl +on the ground. + +"Here's your baby, Delia," he said, with a kind roughness in his +voice. "Safe and sound--not a scratch! Can you sit up and take him?" + +And then, while the standing crowd craned their necks and even the +steady procession moving in the way the police kept clear for them, +paused a moment to stare, while the little doctor held his breath +and the ambulance came clanging up the street, Delia sat up as +straight as the mounted policeman beside her and held out her arms. + +"General, oh, General!" she cried, and buried her face in his fat +warm neck. + +The men coughed, the women's faces twisted, but the little doctor +watched her intently. + +"Move your leg," he said sharply. "Now the other. Hurt you? Not at +all?" + +He turned to the young man in a white jacket, who had jumped from +the back of the ambulance. + +"I thought so," he said. "Though it didn't seem possible. I saw the +thing go over her. Right over her apron--never touched her. Half an +inch more--" + +"Please, is Miss--the other little girl--is she--" + +This was Delia's old voice, and Caroline smiled happily at her. + +"She's all right, Delia--here she is!" + +Miss Honey limped across on one roller-skate, pale, but conscious of +her dramatic value, and the crowd drew a long breath of relief. + +"You are a very brave girl," said the doctor, helping Delia to her +feet and tucking the General, who alternately growled and cooed at +his clothespin, into the perambulator. "You have undoubtedly saved +the lives of all three of these children, and their parents will +appreciate it, you may be sure. The way you sent that baby wagon +flying across the street...! Well, any time you're out of a job, +just come to me, that's all. Dr. Gibbs, West Forty-ninth. Can you +walk now? How far do you have to go?" + +The crowd had melted like smoke. Only the most curious and the +idlest lingered and watched the hysteria of the woman in the +automobile, who clutched her companion, weeping and laughing. The +chauffeur sat stolid, but Caroline's keen round eyes saw that he +shook, from the waist down, like a man in a chill. + +"Yes, sir, I'm all right. It's not so very far." But Delia leaned on +the handle she pushed, and the chug-chug of the great car sent the +blood out of her cheeks. The little doctor frowned. + +"Look here," he said, "I'll tell you what you'll do. You come down +these steps with me, there aren't but three of them, you see, and +we'll just step in here a moment. I don't know what house it is, but +I guess it'll be all right. Oh, yes, you can take him out; he is +safe, you know. Come on, youngsters." + +Before Delia could protest he had pressed the button, and a man in +livery was opening the door. + +"We've just escaped a nasty accident out here," said the little +doctor easily. "You were probably looking out of the window? Yes. +Well, this young woman is a sort of a patient of mine--Dr. Gibbs, +West Forty-ninth Street--and though she's very plucky and perfectly +uninjured, I want her to rest a moment in the hall here and have a +drink of water, if your mistress doesn't object. Just take up this +card and explain the circumstances, and"--his hand went into his +pocket a moment--"that's about all. Sit down, my dear." + +The man took in at a glance the neat uniform of the nurse, the +General's smart, if diminutive, apparel, and the unmistakable though +somewhat ruffled exterior of Miss Honey. + +"Very well, sir," he said politely, taking the card. "It will be all +right, sir, I'm sure. Thank you, sir. Sit down, please. It will be +all right. I will tell Madame Nicola." + +"Well, well, so this is Madame Nicola's!" The little doctor looked +around him appreciatively, as the servant ran up the stairs. + +"I wish I could stay with you, chickens, but I'm late for an +appointment as it is. I must rush along. Now, mind you, stay here +half an hour, Delia, and sit down. You're no trouble at all, and +Madame Nicola knows who I am--if she remembers. I sprayed her +throat once, if I'm not mistaken--she was on a tour, at Pittsburg. +She'll take care of you." He opened the door. "You're a good girl, +you biggest one," he added, nodding at Caroline. "You do as you're +told. Good-by." + +The door shut, and Caroline, Miss Honey and Delia looked at each +other in a daze. Tears filled Delia's eyes, but she controlled her +voice, and only said huskily, "Come here, Miss Honey, and let me +brush you off--you look dreadful. Let me take your handkerchief. Did +it--were you--are you hurt, dear?" + +"No, but you pushed me awful hard, Delia, and a nasty big man +grabbed me and tore my guimpe--see! I wish you'd told me what you +were going to do," began Miss Honey irritably. + +"And you gave me a big kick--it was _me_ he grabbed--look at my +cheek!" Caroline's lips began to twitch; she felt hideously tired, +suddenly. + +"Children, children, don't quarrel. General, darling, _won't_ you +sit still, please? You hurt Delia's knees, and you feel so heavy. +Oh, I wish we were all home!" + +The man in livery came down the stairs. "Will you step up, Madame +says, and she has something for you up there. I'll take the baby," +as Delia's eyes measured the climb. "Lord, I won't drop her--I've +got two o' my own. 'Bout a year, isn't she?" + +"He's a boy," panted Delia, as she rested her weight on the rail, +"and he's only eight months last week," with a proud smile at the +General's massive proportions. + +"Well, he _is_ a buster, isn't he? Here is the nurse, Madame, and +the children. The doctor has gone." + +Caroline stretched her eyes wide and abandoned herself to a frank +inspection of her surroundings. For this she must be pardoned, as +every square inch of the dark, deep-colored room had been taken +bodily from Italian palaces of the most unimpeachable Renaissance +variety. With quick intuition, she immediately recognized a +background for many a tale of courts and kings hitherto unpictured +to herself, and smiled with pleasure at the Princess who advanced, +most royally clad in long shell pink, lace-clouded draperies, to +meet them. + +"You are the brave nurse my maid told me about," said the Princess; +"she saw it all. You ought to be very proud of your quick wits. I +have some sherry for you, and you must lie down a little and then I +will send you home." + +Delia blushed and sank into a high carved chair, the General staring +curiously about him. "It wasn't anything at all," she said, +awkwardly, "if I could have a drink--" + +Caroline checked the Princess as she moved toward a wonderful +colored decanter with wee sparkling tumblers like curved bits of +rainbow grouped about it. + +"She means a drink of water," she explained politely. "She only +drinks water--sometimes a little tea, but most usu'lly water." + +"The sherry will do her more good, I think," the Princess returned, +noticing Caroline for the first time, apparently, her hand on the +decanter. + +At this point Miss Honey descended from a throne of faded +wine-colored velvet, and addressed the Princess with her most +impressive and explanatory manner. + +"It won't do you any good at all to pour that out," she began, with +her curious little air of delivering a set address, prepared in +private some time before, "and I'll tell you why. Delia knew a nurse +once that drank some beer, and the baby got burned, and she never +would drink anything if you gave her a million dollars. Besides, it +makes her sick." + +The Princess looked amused and turned to a maid who appeared at that +moment with apron strings rivalling Caroline's. + +"Get me a glass of water, please," she said, "and what may I give +you--milk, perhaps? I don't know very well what children drink." + +"Thank you, we'd like some water, too," Miss Honey returned primly, +"we had some soda-water, strawberry, once to-day." + +Caroline cocked her head to one side and tried to remember what the +lady's voice made her think of; she scowled in vain while Delia +drank her water and smiled her thanks at the maid. Suddenly it came +to her. It was not like a person talking at all, it was like a +person singing. Up and down her voice traveled, loud and soft; it +was quite pleasant to hear it. + +"Do you feel better now? I am very glad. Bring in that reclining +chair, Ellis, from my room; these great seats are rather stiff," +said the Princess, and Delia, protesting, was made comfortable in a +large curved lounging basket, with the General, contentedly putting +his clothespin through its paces, in her arm. + +"How old is it?" the Princess inquired, after an interval of +silence, during which Miss Honey and Caroline regarded her with a +placid interest, and Delia stroked the General's hair, from which +she had taken the absurd lace cap. + +"He's eight months, Madam, last week--eight months and ten days, +really." + +"That's not very old, now, is it?" pursued the lady. "I suppose they +don't know very much, do they, so young?" + +"Indeed he does, though," Delia protested, "You'll be surprised. +Just watch him, now. Look at Delia, darlin'; where's Delia?" + +The General withdrew his lingering gaze from the clothespin, and +turned his blue eyes wonderingly up to her. The corner of his mouth +trembled, widened, his eyelids crinkled, and then he smiled +delightfully, straight into the eyes of the nurse, stretched up a +wavering pink hand, and patted her cheek. A soft, gurgling +monosyllable, difficult of classification but easy to interpret, +escaped him. + +The Princess smiled appreciatively, and moved with a stately, long +step toward them. + +"That was very pretty," she said, but Delia did not hear her. + +"My baby, my own baby!" she murmured with a shiver, and hiding her +face in the General's neck she sobbed aloud. + +Miss Honey, shocked and embarrassed, twisted her feet nervously and +looked at the inlaid floor. Caroline shared these feelings, but +though she turned red, she spoke sturdily. + +"I guess Delia feels bad," she suggested shyly, "when she thinks +about--about what happened, you know. She don't cry usu'lly." + +The Princess smiled again, this time directly at Caroline, who +fairly blinked in the radiance. With her long brown eyes still +holding Caroline's round ones, she patted Delia's shoulder kindly, +and both the children saw her chin tremble. + +The General, smothered in that sudden hug, whimpered a little and +kicked out wildly with his fat white-stockinged legs. Seen from the +rear he had the appearance of a neat, if excited, package, +unaccountably frilled about with embroidered flannel. Delia +straightened herself, dabbed apologetically at her eyes, and +coughed. + +"It's bottle-time," she announced in horror-stricken tones, +consulting a large nickel watch hanging from her belt, under the +apron. "It's down in the carriage. Could I have a little boiling +water to heat it, if you please?" + +"Assuredly," said the Princess. "Ellis, will you get the--the bottle +from the baby's carriage and some boiling water, please. Do you mix +it here?" + +"Mix--the food is all prepared, Madam." Delia spoke with repressed +scorn. "I only want to heat it for him." + +"Oh, in that case, Ellis, take it down and have it heated, or," as +the nurse half rose, "perhaps you would feel better about it if you +attended to it yourself?" + +"Yes, I think I will go down if you don't mind--when persons aren't +used to 'em they're apt to be a little careless, and I wouldn't have +it break, and him losing his three o'clock bottle, for the world. +You know how it is...." + +The Princess shook her head whimsically. "But surely you will leave +the baby," and she moved toward them again. "I will hold it," with a +half grimace at her own condescension. "It seems so very good and +cheerful--I thought they cried. Will it come to me?" + +Delia loosened her arms, but tightened them again as the little +creature leaned forward to catch at the swinging lace on the lady's +gown. + +"I--I think I'll take baby with me. Thank you just the same, and +he'll go to any one--yes, indeed--but I feel so sort of nervous, I +think I'd better take him. If anything should happen.... Wave your +hand good-by--now, General!" + +The General flapped his arms violently, and bestowed a toothless but +affectionate grin upon the wearer of the fascinating, swaying lace, +before he disappeared with the delighted Ellis in the van. + +"And can you buy all that devotion for twenty, thirty, or is it +forty dollars a month, I wonder?" mused the Princess. + +"Dear me," she added petulantly. "It really makes one actually +_want_ to hold it! It seems a jolly little rat--they're not all like +that, are they? They howl, I'm sure." + +Again Miss Honey took the floor. + +"When babies are sick, or you don't treat them right," she announced +didactically, "they cry, but not a well baby, Delia says. I"--with +conscious pride--"screamed night and day for two weeks!" + +"Really!" observed the Princess. "That must have been--er--trying +for your family!" + +"Worried to death!" Miss Honey rejoined airily, with such an adult +intonation that the Princess started. + +"The General, he just laughs all the time," Caroline volunteered, +"unless you tease him," she added guiltily, "and then he squawks." + +"Yes, indeed," Miss Honey bore witness, jealous of the lady's +flashing smile to Caroline, "my mother says I'm twice the trouble he +is!" + +The Princess laughed aloud. "You're all trouble enough, I can well +believe," she said carelessly, "though you particular three are +certainly amusing little duds--for an afternoon. But for a steady +diet--I'm afraid I'd get a bit tired of you, eh?" + +She tapped their cheeks lightly with a cool, sweet-smelling finger. +Miss Honey smiled uncertainly, but Caroline edged away. There was +something about this beautiful tall lady she could not understand, +something that alternately attracted and repelled. She was grown up, +certainly; her skirts, her size and her coiled hair proved that +conclusively, and the servants obeyed her without question. But what +was it? She was not like the other grown up people one knew. One +moment she sparkled at you and the next moment she forgot you. It +was perfectly obvious that she wanted the General only because Delia +had not wanted to relinquish him, which was not like grown people; +it was like--yes, that was it: she was like a little girl herself, +even though she was so tall and had such large red and blue rings on +her fingers. + +Vaguely this rushed through Caroline's mind, and it was with an +unconscious air of patronage, that she said, as one making +allowances for inexperience, "When you get married, then you'll +_have_ to get tired of them, you know." + +"But you'll be glad you've got 'em, when they're once in bed," Miss +Honey added encouragingly. "My mother says I'm a real treasure to +her, after half past seven!" + +The Princess flushed; her straight dark eyebrows quivered and met +for an instant. + +"But I _am_ married," she said. + +There was an utter silence. + +"I was married five years ago yesterday, as it happens," she went +on, "but it's not necessary to set up a day nursery, you know, under +those circumstances." + +Still silence. Miss Honey studied the floor, and Caroline, after an +astonished stare at the Princess, directed her eyes from one +tapestry to another. + +"I suppose you understand that, don't you?" demanded the Princess +sharply. She appeared unnecessarily irritated, and as a matter of +fact embarrassed her guests to such an extent that they were utterly +unable to relieve the stillness that oppressed them quite as much as +herself. + +The Princess uttered an angry exclamation and paced rapidly up and +down the room, looking more regal and more unlike other people than +ever. + +"For heaven's sake, say something, you little sillies!" she cried. +"I suppose you want me to lose my temper?" + +Caroline gulped and Miss Honey examined her shoe ties mutely. + +Suddenly a well-known voice floated toward them. + +"Was his nice bottle all ready? Wait a minute, only a minute now, +General, and Delia'll give it to you!" + +The procession filed into the room, Delia and the General, Ellis +deferentially holding a tiny white coat, the man in livery bearing a +small copper saucepan in which he balanced a white bottle with some +difficulty. His face was full of anxious interest. + +Delia thanked them both gravely, seated herself on the foot of the +basket chair, arranged the General flat across her knees, and amid +the excited silence of her audience, shook the bottle once or twice +with the air of an alchemist on the brink of an epoch-making +discovery. + +"Want it? Does Delia's baby want it?" she asked enticingly. The +General waved his arms and legs wildly; wreathed in smiles, he +opened and shut his mouth in quick alternation, chirping and +clucking, as she held it up before him; an ecstatic wriggling +pervaded him, and he chuckled unctuously. A moment later only +his deep-drawn, nozzling breaths could be heard in the room. +They watched him in hushed satisfaction; once, as he smiled +gratefully at Delia, Ellis sighed with pleasure. + +"Ain't he sweet, though!" she murmured, and then glancing at the +butler, giggled impressibly as the strained attitudes of the +circle struck her. + +"That will do, thank you, Haddock," said the Princess quickly, +drawing a long breath and seating herself, and the two servants +withdrew. Delia noted nothing, her eyes fixed on her charge; +clearly, it would not have surprised her in the least if they +had all stood, rapt, till the meal was over. + +"He takes it beautiful," she said in low tones, looking +confidentially at the Princess; "I didn't know but being +in a strange place might make a difference with him, but +he's the best baby!--" + +She wiped his mouth and lifting him, still horizontal, +approached her hostess. + +"You can hold him now," she said superbly, "but keep him flat +for twenty minutes, please. I'll go and take the bottle down, +and get his carriage ready. He'll be good. He'll take a little +nap, most likely." + +She laid him across the rose-colored lap of the Princess, who looked +curiously down on him, and offered him her finger tentatively. "I +never held one before," she explained. "I--I don't know...." The +General smiled lazily and patted the finger, picking at the great +sapphire. + +"How soft its hands are," said the Princess. "They slip off, they +are so smooth! And how good--does it never cry?" This she said half +to herself, and Caroline and Miss Honey, knowing there was no need +to answer her, came and leaned against her knee unconsciously, and +twinkled their fingers at the baby. + +"Hello, General! Hello!" they cried softly, and the General smiled +impartially at them and caressed the lady's finger. + +The Princess stroked his cheek. "What a perfectly exquisite skin!" +she said, and bending over him, kissed him delicately. + +"How good it smells--how--how different!" she murmured. "I thought +they--I thought they didn't." + +Miss Honey had taken the lady's other hand, and was examining the +square ruby with a diamond on either side. + +"My mother says that's the principal reason to have a baby," she +remarked, absorbed in the glittering thing. "You sprinkle 'em all +over with violet powder--just like doughnuts with sugar--and kiss +'em. Some people think they get germs that way, but my mother says +if she couldn't kiss 'em she wouldn't have 'em!" + +The Princess bent over the baby again. + +"It's going to sleep here!" she said, half fearfully, with an +inquiring glance at the two. "Oughtn't one to rock it?" + +Miss Honey shook her head severely. "Not General," she answered, "he +won't stand it. My mother tried again and again--could I take that +blue ring a minute? I'd be awful careful--but he wouldn't. He sits +up and he lies down, but he won't rock." + +"I might sing to him," suggested the Princess, brushing a damp lock +from the General's warm forehead and slipping her ringless finger +into his curved fist carefully. "Would he like it?" + +"No, he wouldn't," said Miss Honey bluntly, twisting the ring around +her finger. "He only likes two people to sing--Delia and my mother. +Was that ruby ring a 'ngagement ring?" + +Caroline interfered diplomatically. "General would be very much +obliged," she explained politely, "except that my Aunt Deedee is a +very good singer indeed, and Uncle Joe says General's taste is +ruined for just common singing." + +The Princess stared at her blankly. + +"Oh, indeed!" she remarked. Then she smiled again in that whimsical +expressive way. "You don't think I could sing well enough for +him--as well as your mother?" + +[Illustration: With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a +portiere and disappeared.] + +Miss Honey laughed carelessly. "My mother is a singer," she said, "a +real one. She used to sing in concerts--real ones. In theatres. +Real theatres, I mean," as the lady appeared to be still amused. + +"If you know where the Waldorf Hotel is," Caroline interrupted, "she +has sung in that, and it was five dollars to get in. It was to send +the poor children to a Fresh Air Fund. It--it's not the same as you +would sing--or me," she added politely. + +The lady arose suddenly and deposited the General, like a doll, with +one swift motion in the basket chair. Striding across the room she +turned, flushed and tall, and confronted the wondering children. + +"I will sing for you," she said haughtily, "and you can judge +better!" + +With a great sweep of her half bare arm, she brushed aside a +portiere and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano +behind the curtains and ceased abruptly. + +"What does your mother sing?" she demanded, not raising her voice, +it seemed, and yet they heard her as plainly as when they had leaned +against her knee. + +"She sings, 'My Heart's Own Heart,'" Miss Honey called back +defiantly. + +"And it's printed on the song, 'To Madame Edith Holt!'" shrilled +Caroline. + +The familiar prelude was played with a firm, elastic touch, the +opening chords struck, and a great shining voice, masterful, like a +golden trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; Miss Honey, +instinctively humming the prelude, got up from her foot-stool and +followed the music, unconscious that she walked. She had been +privileged to hear more good singing in her eight years than most +people have in twenty-four, had Miss Honey, and she knew that this +was no ordinary occasion. She did not know she was listening to one +of the greatest voices her country had ever produced--perhaps in +time to be known for the head of them all--but the sensitive little +soul swelled in her and her childish jealousy was drowned deep in +that river of wonderful sound. + +Higher and sweeter and higher yet climbed the melody; one last +triumphant leap, and it was over. + +"_My heart--my heart--my heart's own heart!_" + +The Princess stood before them in the echoes of her glory, her +breath quick, her eyes brilliant. + +"Well?" she said, looking straight at Miss Honey, "do I sing as well +as your mother?" + +Miss Honey clenched her fists and caught her breath. Her heart was +breaking, but she could not lie. + +"You--you--" she motioned blindly to Caroline, and turned away. + +"You sing better," Caroline began sullenly; but the lady pointed to +Miss Honey. + +"No, you tell me," she insisted remorselessly. + +Miss Honey faced her. + +"You--you sing better than my m-mother," she gulped, "but I _love_ +her better, and she's nicer than you, and I don't love you at +_all_!" + +She buried her face in the red velvet throne, and sobbed aloud with +excitement and fatigue. Caroline ran to her: how could she have +loved that cruel woman? She cast an ugly look at the Princess as she +went to comfort Miss Honey, but the Princess was at the throne +before her. + +"Oh, I am abominable," she cried. "I am too horrid to live! It +wasn't kind of me, _cherie_, and I love you for standing up for +your mother. There's no one to do as much for me, when _I'm_ down +and out--no one!" Sorrow swept over her flexible face like a veil, +and seizing Miss Honey in her strong nervous arms she wept on her +shoulder. + +Caroline, worn with the strain of the day, wept, too, and even the +General, abandoned in the great chair, burst into a tiny warning +wail. + +Quick as thought the Princess was upon him, and had raised him +against her cheek. + +"Hush, hush, don't cry--don't cry, little thing," she whispered, and +sank into one of the high carved chairs with him. + +"No, no, I'll hold him," she protested, as Delia entered, her arms +out. "I'm going to sing to him. May I? He's sleepy." + +Delia nodded indulgently. "For half an hour," she said, as one +allowing a great privilege, "and then we must go. The children are +tired." + +"What do you sing to him?" the Princess questioned humbly. + +"I generally sing 'Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,'" the nurse answered. +"Do you know it?" + +"I think so," and the Princess began a sort of glorified humming, +like a great drowsy bee, all resonant and tremulous. + +"Tell me the words," she said, and Delia recited them, as a mother +would, to humor a petted child. + +The Princess lifted her voice and pressing the General to her, began +the song, + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, + Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise." + +Soft the great voice was, soft and widely flowing; to Caroline, who +had retreated to the further end of the music-room, so that Delia +should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia herself, a wonderful +new Delia, were singing her, a baby again, to sleep. She felt +soothed, cradled, protected by that lapping sea of melody that +drifted her off her moorings, out of the room.... + +Vaguely she saw Miss Honey, relaxed on the red throne, smile in her +sleep, one arm falling over the broad seat. Was it in her dream that +some one in a blue and white apron--not Delia, for Delia was +singing--leaned back slowly in the long basket chair and closed her +tired eyes? Who was it that held the General close in her arms, and +smiled as he patted her cheek at the familiar song and mumbled her +fingers with happy cooing noises? + + "My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, + Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream!" + +Soft as plush, sweet as honey, the warm voice dipped and rose to the +old tune. The General's head was growing heavy, but he smiled +confidingly into the dark eyes above him and stretched himself out +in full-fed, drowsy content. One hand slipped through the lace under +his cheek and rested on the singer's soft breast. She started like a +frightened woman, and her voice broke. + +Down in the hall the butler and the maid sat on the lower stair. + +"Ain't it grand?" she whispered, and Haddock nodded dreamily. + +"Mother used to sing us that in the old country," he said. "There +was Tom and 'Enry an' me--Lord, Lord!" + +The General was asleep. Sometimes a tiny frown drew his eyebrows +together. Sometimes she clenched and uncurled his warm hands. +Sometimes he sucked softly at nothing, with moist, reminiscent lips. +But on and on, over and over, rose and fell the quaint old song, + + "My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream!" + +It flooded the listening house, it spread a net of dreams about the +happy people and coaxed them back to childhood and a child's +protected sleep. It seemed a song that could not stop, that must +return on its simple refrain so long as there were arms to encircle +and breasts to lean upon. + +Two men came softly up a smaller stair than the grand entrance +flight, and paused in amazement at sight of Caroline stretched, full +length, across the threshold. The older and smaller of the men had +in fact stepped on her, and confused and half awake she listened to +his apologies. + +"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! not a vordt! Mein +Gott! but it is marvellous! A voice of velvet! Hey? A voice of the +heart. My friend, what is this?" + +He peeped behind the drawn curtains, and withdrew a face of wonder. + +"It is nothing but children--and they sleep!" he whispered. "Oh, but +listen, listen! And I offered her fifteen hundred dollars for two +hours only of that!" + +The other man peeped behind the curtain in his turn, and seizing +Caroline by the arm tip-toed with her to a further room. + +"What--who--what is the meaning of this?" he whispered hoarsely. +"That child--where--" + +Caroline rubbed her eyes. The golden voice rose and fell around her. + +"General--Delia," she muttered, and stumbled against him. He lifted +her limp little body and laid it gently on a leather sofa. + +"Another time," he said softly to the other man, "I--we cannot talk +with you now. Will you excuse us?" + +The man looked longingly at the curtains. + +"She will never do more well than that. Never!" he hissed. "Oh, my +friend, hear it grow soft! Yes, yes, I am going." + +[Illustration: "Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a +vordt! Mein Gott! but it is marvellous."] + +It seemed to Caroline that in a dream some one with a red face and +glasses askew, shook her by the shoulder and said to her sternly, +"Sh! sh! Listen to me. To-day you hear a great artist--hey? Will you +forget it? I must go because they do not vant me, but you will stay +and listen. There is here no such voice. Velvet! Honey! Sh! sh!" and +he went the way of dreams. + +The man who stayed looked long through the curtains. + +As a swing droops slow and slower, as the ripples fade from a stone +thrown in the stream, the song of the Princess softened and crooned +and hushed. Now it was a rich breath, a resonant thread, + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton--" + +The man stepped across the room and sank below the General at her +feet. With her finger on her lips she turned her eyes to his and +looked deep into them. He caught his breath with a sob, and wrapping +his arm about her as he knelt, hid his face on her lap, against the +General. She laid her hand on his head, across the warm little body, +and patted it tenderly. Around them lay the sleepers; the General's +soft breath was in their ears. The man lifted his head and looked +adoringly at the Princess: her hand caressed his cheek, but her eyes +looked beyond him into the future. + + + + +III + +THE PRIZE + + +Caroline sniffed her way luxuriously through the dusky panelled +library. + +"I think it smells awfully good here, don't you?" she inquired of +her hostess. + +The lady's wonderful velvet train dragged listlessly behind her. Her +neck and arms were dressed in heavy yellowish lace, but all around +her slim body waves of deep colored, soft velvet held the light in +lustrous pools or darkened into almost black shadows. It was like +stained glass in a church, thought Caroline, stroking it +surreptitiously, and like stained glass, too, were the lovely books, +bloody red, grassy green and brown, like Autumn woods, with edges of +gold when the sunlight struck them. They made the walls like a great +jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to ceiling: here and there a +niche of polished wood held a white, clear-cut head. From the +ceiling great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass chains; they +swayed ever so slightly when one watched them closely. + +"This is my favorite room, Duchess," said Caroline, "isn't it +yours?" + +"Do you really think I look like one?" returned the lady, "the only +duchess I ever saw was fat--horribly fat. It is a very handsome +library, of course." + +"Then _she_ didn't look like a duchess, that's all," Caroline +explained. "What I like about this library is, it's so clean. And +you can pull the chairs out and show those big, shiny yellow ones on +the bottom shelf." + +"Of course; why not?" said the Duchess, dropping into a great carved +chair with griffins' heads on the top. + +"Why, you can't do that at Uncle Joe's," Caroline confided, sitting +on a small griffin stool at the lady's feet, "because General gets +at the bottom row and smears 'em. You see he's only two, and you +can't blame him, but he licks himself dreadfully and then rubs it on +the backs. He marks them, too, inside, with a pencil or a hatpin, +or even an orange-wood stick that you clean your nails with. Yours +is made of pearl, you know, but most--a great many, I mean--people +have them wood. And so the chairs have to be all leaned around +against the walls to keep him from the books." + +The Duchess drew a long breath. "And your uncle objects?" she said, +between her teeth. + +"Uncle Joe says," Caroline returned, patting the griffin heads on +her little stool, "that if the President had General in his library +for half an hour he'd feel different about race suicide." + +The Duchess laughed shortly. + +"That is possible, too," she agreed. "You said Cousin Joe was +well--and Edith?" + +"Oh, yes, they're well--I mean, they're very well indeed, thank +you," said Caroline. "Uncle Joe says they have to be, with the +General's shoes two dollars and a half a pair! You see he has quite +thick soles, now--he runs about everywhere. Aunt Edith says he needs +a mounted policeman 'stead of a nurse." + +"Did Edith get rested after the moving?" + +"Oh, yes," Caroline answered absently. She was watching the opal +globes sway. "Aunt Edith says before she was married she'd have gone +South with a trained nurse after such an experience, but now she has +to save the nurse for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down +after lunch." + +The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the griffin chair, but sank +back again. + +"And you have a trained nurse all the time," Caroline mused, +stroking the glistering velvet, "isn't that funny? Just so in case +you _might_ be sick...." The sunlight peeped and winked on the gold +book-edges. + +"It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding very low, "but she is +not likely to be needed for measles." + +"No," Caroline assented, "you and cousin Richard are pretty old for +measles. It's children that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But +you don't seem to ever have any children. And such a big house, too! +And you're very fond of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that +when you like them you can't manage to have any. And people that +don't care about them have them all the time. It was only Christmas +time that Norah Mahoney--she does the extra washing in the +summer--had another. That makes seven. It's a boy. Joseph Michael, +he's named, partly after Uncle Joe. Norah says there don't seem to +be any end to your troubles, once you're married to a man." + +The Duchess turned aside her head, but Caroline knew from the corner +of her mouth that her eyes were full of tears. She stroked the hands +that clenched the griffin's crest. + +"Never mind," she urged, "maybe you'll have some. Most everybody has +just one, anyway." + +The Duchess shook her head mutely; a large round tear dropped on +the griffin. + +"Well, then," said Caroline briskly, "why don't you adopt one? The +Weavers did, and she was quite a nice girl; I used to play with her. +She sucked her thumb, though. But prob'ly they don't, all of them." + +"I wouldn't mind, if she did," the Duchess declared. Already she +spoke more brightly. "I wanted to adopt one--one could take it when +it was very little. But Richard won't hear of it." + +"Not a bit?" Caroline looked worried; she knew Richard. + +"Not a bit," the Duchess repeated, "that is, he says he is willing +under certain conditions, but they are simply impossible. Nobody +could find such a child." + +"There are lots of 'em in the Catholic Foundling," said Caroline +thoughtfully, "all kinds. Aunt Edith went there to sing for them and +she took Miss Honey and me. They're all dressed differently and they +look so sweet. You can take your choice of them; Aunt Edith cried. +But you must let them be Catholics." + +"Richard wouldn't let me take one from an institution," the Duchess +said, "and somehow I wouldn't care to, myself. But there is a woman +I know of who is interested in children that--that aren't likely to +grow up happily, and she will get one for anybody, only one can't +ask any questions about them. You may have all the rights in them, +but you will never know where they came from. And Richard won't have +that. I suppose he's right." + +"But there are plenty of people who would let you have one, if you +would give her a good home and be kind to her," Caroline began, +lapsing for the moment into her confusing, adult manner. + +"Yes, but Richard says that no people nice enough to have a child we +could want would ever give us the child, don't you see," the Duchess +interrupted eagerly. "He says the father must be a gentleman--and +educated--and the mother a good woman. He says there must be good +blood behind it. And they must never see it, never ask about it, +never want it. He says he doesn't see how I could bear to have a +child that any other mother had ever loved." + +Caroline sighed. + +"Cousin Richard does make up his mind, so!" she muttered. + +"He is unreasonable," said the Duchess suddenly, "unreasonable! He +must know all about the child, but the parents must not know about +us! Not know our name, even! Just give up the child and +withdraw--why, the poorest, commonest people would not do that, and +does he expect that people of the kind he requires would be so +heartless? We shall never be able to get one--never. And yet he +wants one so--almost as much as I!" + +The Duchess had forgotten Caroline. Staring at the opal globes she +sat, and again the tears rose, brimmed and overflowed. + +Caroline slipped off the little stool and walked softly out of the +beautiful room. The books glowed jewel-like, the four milky moons +swayed ever so little on their brass chains, the white busts looked +coldly at the Duchess as she sat crying in her big carved chair, and +there was nobody that could help at all. + +Through the dark, shiny halls she walked--cautiously, for she had +had embarrassing lessons in its waxy polish--and paused from force +of habit to pat the great white polar bear that made the little +reception room such a delightful place. More than the busts in +the library even, he set loose the fancy, and whiled one away to +the enchanted North where the Snow Queen drove her white sledge +through the sparkling glades, and the Water Baby dived beneath +the dipping berg. + +Miss Grundman, the trained nurse, appeared in the doorway. + +"Did you care to go out with the brougham, to-day, dear?" she asked. +"Hunt tells me he has to go 'way down town." + +"Yes, I'd like to--can you take care of babies, too?" Caroline +returned abruptly. + +Miss Grundman started. + +"What an odd child you are--of course I can!" she said. "All nurses +can; it's part of the training. Have you any you're worried about?" +she added pointedly. Caroline flushed. + +"You're making fun o' me," she muttered, "you know very well only +grown people have them! I don't mean if they're sick, but can you +wash them, and cook the milk in that tin thing, and everything like +that?" + +"Bless the child, of course I can!" Miss Grundman cried, "you bring +me one and I'll show you!" + +"Oh, I b'lieve you, Miss Grundman, if you say so," Caroline assured +her, and slid carefully along the hall for the stairs that led to +her hat and coat. + +They spun smoothly down the avenue with an almost imperceptible +electric whir, Caroline bolt upright on the plum-colored cushion, +Hunt and Gleggson bolt upright on the seat outside. It was a matter +for congratulation to Caroline that of all the vehicles that glided +by them, none boasted a more upright pair than Hunt and Gleggson. + +The tall brown houses were gradually changing into bright shops; the +carriages grew thicker and thicker; the long procession stopped and +waited now almost every moment, so crowded was the brilliant street. +Once a massive policeman actually smiled at her as Hunt stopped the +brougham close to him, and Caroline's admiring soul crowded to her +eyes at the mighty wave of his white, arresting hand. They drew up +before a great window filled with broughams and victorias displayed +as lavishly as if they had been hats or bonbon boxes--it was like a +gigantic toy-shop. Hunt dropped acrobatically to the pavement and +was seen describing his mysterious desires to an affable gentleman +behind the plate-glass; he measured with his knuckles and +illustrated in pantomime the snapping of something over his knee; +the clerk shook his head in commiseration and signalled to an +attendant, who darted off. Soon Hunt appeared with a small package +and they started on again, turning a corner abruptly and winding +through less exciting streets. The shops grew smaller and dingier; +drays passed lumbering by and street cars jarred along beside them, +but vehicles like their own were noticeably lacking. It was plain +that they attracted more attention, now, and more than one group of +children dancing in the street to the music of the hurdy-gurdy +lingered daringly to provoke the thrilling, mellow warning of their +horn. At last they stopped at a corner and Hunt dropped again to the +pavement, lingering for a short consultation with Gleggson who +pointed once or twice behind them to the small occupant of the +brougham. On this occasion he took with him a mysterious and +powerful handle, and Caroline knew that this was precisely +equivalent to running away with the horses. He hurried around an +unattractive corner, and Gleggson sat alone in front. Five, ten +minutes passed. They seemed very dull to Caroline, and she reached +for the plum-colored tube and spoke boldly through it. + +"What are we waiting for, please, Gleggson? Where is Hunt?" + +"'E just stepped off, Miss, for a minute, like. 'E'll be 'ere +directly. Would you wish for me to go and look 'im up, Miss?" + +Gleggson spoke very cordially. + +"We-ell, I don't know," Caroline said doubtfully. "If you think +he'll be right back ... I can wait...." + +"Pre'aps I'd better, as you say, Miss," Gleggson continued, "for 'e +_'as_ been gone some time, and I think I could lay me 'and on 'im. +You'll not get out, of course, Miss, and I'll be back before you +know it." + +He clambered down and took the same general course as Hunt had +taken, deflecting, however, to enter a little door made like a +window-blind, that failed to reach its own door-sill. + +"Hunt didn't go there at all," Caroline muttered resentfully, and +deliberately opening the door of the brougham, she stepped out. + +She had followed Hunt's track quite accurately till a sudden turn +confused her, and she realized that after that corner she had no +idea in which direction he had gone. She paused uncertainly; the +street was dirty, the few children in sight were playing a game +unknown to her and not playing very pleasantly, at that; the women +who looked at her seemed more curious than kindly. The atmosphere +was not sordid enough to be alarming or even interesting; it was +merely slovenly and distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to +go back when a young girl stopped by her and eyed her inquisitively. + +"Were you lookin' for any particular party?" she asked. + +"I was looking for Hunt," said Caroline, "he went this way, +I think." + +"There's some Hunts across the street there," the girl suggested, +"right hand flat, second floor. I seen the name once. I guess +you're lost all right, ain't you?" + +"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I'm not lost. I can go right back. +I'll see if Hunt's there." + +The threshold was greasy and worn, the stairs covered with faded oil +cloth, the side walls defaced and over-scrawled. At the head of the +stairs three dingy doors opened in three different directions, and a +soiled card on the middle one bore the name of Hunt. A man's voice +somewhere behind it talked in a strange loud sing-song; he seemed to +be telling a long, confusing story. At the moment of Caroline's +timid knock he was saying over and over again, + +"Isn't that so? Isn't that so? Who wouldn't have done the same? Put +your finger on the place where I made the mistake! Will you? Will +anybody? I ask it as a favor--" + +"Hush, won't you?" a woman's voice interrupted, "wasn't that a +knock?" + +Caroline knocked again. + +There was a hasty shuffling and a key turned in the door. + +"Who is it?" the woman's voice asked. "What do you want? The +auction's all over--there's nothing left. We're moving out +to-morrow." + +Surprise held Caroline dumb. How could one have an auction in such a +place? At auctions there were red flags, and horses and carriages +gathered around the house, and people brought luncheon; they had +often driven to auctions out in the country. + +The door opened. + +"Why it's only a child!" said the woman, thin and fatigued, with +dark rings under her not ungentle eyes. "What do you want here?" + +"I'm looking for Hunt," Caroline answered, "doesn't he live here?" + +"Heavens, no!" the woman said, "that old card's been there long +before we moved in, I guess. They were old renters, most likely. +What's the party to you, anyway? Is he your--" + +She paused, studying Caroline's simple but unmistakeable clothes +and manner. + +"He drives the automobile," Caroline explained, "I thought he came +this way." + +"Come in, won't you?" said the woman, "there's no good getting any +more lost than you are, I guess. There's not much to sit on, +'specially if you're used to automobiles, but we can find you +something, I hope. I try to keep it better looking than this +gen'ally, but this is my last day here. I'm going out West +to-morrow." + +An old table, two worn chairs and an over-turned box furnished the +small room; through an open door Caroline spied a tumbled bed. A +kitchen, dismantled and dreary, faced her. + +"The agent gave me five dollars for all I left," the woman said, "I +don't know which of us got the best o' the bargain. Now, about you. +Where do you live? I s'pose they're looking for you right now while +we're talking. Do you know where you left the automobile?" + +"Oh, yes." Caroline stared frankly about her. "Wasn't there a man in +here? Where did he go?" + +The woman grunted out a sort of laugh. "If you're not the limit!" +she murmured. She stepped to the door of the kitchen, looked in, and +beckoned to Caroline. + +"I suppose you heard him carrying on," she said, "he's in there. +Poor fellow, he's all worn out." + +Caroline peered into the kitchen. With his rough, unshaven face +resting on his arms, his hair all tossed about, his face drawn in +misery, even in his heavy sleep, a young man sat before a table, +half lying on it, one hand on a soiled plate still grasping a piece +of bread. + +"Is he sick?" whispered Caroline. + +"N--no, I wouldn't say sick, exactly, but I guess he'd be almost as +well off if he was," said the woman. "It would take his mind off. +He's had a lot of trouble." + +The man scowled in his sleep and clenched his hand, so that the +bread crumbled in it. + +"And so I won the prize," he muttered, "just as I told her I would. +Did I have any pull? Was there any favoritism? No--you know it as +well as I do--it was good work won that prize!" + +"Was it a bridge prize?" Caroline inquired maturely. The woman +stared. + +"A bridge prize?" she repeated vaguely. "Why, no, I guess not. It +was for writing a story for one of those magazines. He won a +thousand dollars." + +The man opened his eyes suddenly. + +"And if you don't believe it," he said, still in that strange +sing-song voice, "just read that letter." + +He pulled a worn, creased sheet from an inner pocket and thrust it +at Caroline. + +"It's typewritten," he added, "it's easy enough to see if I'm lying. +Just read it out." + +Caroline glanced at the engraved letter-heading and began to read in +her careful, childish voice: + + MY DEAR MR. WILLISTON: + + _It is with great pleasure that I have to announce the fact that + your story, "The Renewal," has been selected by the judges as + most worthy of the thousand-dollar prize offered by us._ + +The woman snatched the paper from her hand. + +"The idea!" she cried, "let the child alone, Mr. Williston! Don't +you see she's lost?" + +The man dropped like a stone on the table. + +"Lost!" he whispered, "lost! Oh, that dreadful word! Yes, she's +lost. Poor little Lou. It's all over." + +The woman drew Caroline back into the sitting room. + +"I'm sorry you should see him," she said. "You must excuse him--he +don't really know what he's doing. He lost his wife a week ago and +he's hardly slept since. It's real sad. I was as sorry as I could be +for 'em, and I'd have kept 'em even longer if she'd lived, though +they couldn't pay. I'd keep the baby, too, if I could, it's such a +cute little thing, but I can't, and I'm to take it to the Foundling +to-day. I'll go right out with you, and see that the police--" + +"Oh, is there a baby? Let me see it!" Caroline pleaded. "How old +is it?" + +"Just a week," said the woman. "Yes, you can see him. He's good as +gold, and big--! He weighs nine pounds." + +In the third room, lying in a roll of blankets on a tumbled cot, a +pink, fat baby slept, one fist in his dewy mouth. The red-gold down +was thick on his round head; he looked like a wax Christ-child for +a Christmas tree. + +Caroline sighed ecstatically. + +"Isn't he lovely!" she breathed. + +"He's a fine child," the woman agreed. "And his mother never saw +him, poor little thing. Nor his father either, for that matter." + +Caroline looked in amazement toward the kitchen. + +"Never laid his eyes on him," the woman went on sadly, "as if it was +any good, to blame the poor baby! He's taken a terrible grudge on +the little thing. He was awfully fond of his wife, though. He told +me he was going to leave him right here, and then, of course, +somebody in the house would notify the police, if I didn't take him +to the Foundling. And of course he'd get better care, for that +matter--there's no doubt about that. It's too bad. There's people +that would give their eyes for a fine baby like that, you know." + +"I know it," said Caroline simply, "my cousin Richard would be glad +to have him--he wants one very much. But he's very particular." + +The woman looked at her sharply. "What do you mean?" she asked. "How +particular?" + +Suddenly she laughed nervously. "I ought to be ashamed of myself," +she said, "you ought to be at the police station now. But I'm all +worn out, and it does me good to talk to anybody. I don't let the +neighbors in much--it's a cheap set of people around here, and Mr. +Williston's different from them and I hate to hear him talking to +them the way he will. He don't know what he's doing. He tells 'em +all about that prize--and it's true, you know, he did get it; that's +what they married on, and he thought he could get plenty more that +way, and then he never sold another story. It was too bad. He's a +real gentleman, though you might not think it to look at him now, +not shaved, and all. He thought he could earn a thousand every week, +I s'pose, poor fellow. He got work in a department store, fin'ly, +and it took all he made to bury her. She was a sweet little thing, +but soft. I was real sorry for 'em." + +She wiped her eyes hastily. + +"Do you know whether he went to Harvard?" Caroline inquired, in a +business-like tone. + +The woman was heating some milk in a bottle, over a lamp, and did +not answer her, but a voice from the door brought her sharply +around. The young man stood there. Though still unshaven, he was +otherwise quite changed. His hair was parted neatly, his coat +brushed, his face no longer flushed, but pale and composed. + +"If your extraordinary question refers to me, yes, I went to +Harvard," he said in a grating, disagreeable voice. "I have in fact +been called a 'typical Harvard man.' But that was some time ago. May +I ask who you are?" + +The woman lifted the bottle from the tin cup that held it and picked +up the baby; the young man shifted his eyes from her immediately and +looked persistently over Caroline's head. + +"Her family's coachman's name is Hunt," said the woman, "and she +thought he lived here, she says. He'd no business to go off and +leave her alone. Her family'd be worried to death. When I go out +with the baby I'll take her. I suppose you haven't changed your mind +about the baby, Mr. Williston?--now you're feeling more like +yourself," she added. + +"I cannot discuss that subject, Mrs. Ufford," the young man +answered, in his rasping, unnatural voice. "When you have disposed +of the matter along the lines you yourself suggested, I am at your +service till you take the train. After that--after that"--his lips +tightened in a disagreeable smile--"I may be able to get to +work--and win another prize!" + +"There, there!" she cautioned him, "don't talk about that, Mr. +Williston, don't, now! Why don't you go out with the little girl and +see if you can find her automobile? That'll be less for me to do. +Why don't you?" + +He turned, muttering something about his hat, but Caroline tugged at +his coat. + +"Wait, wait!" she urged him, "I want you to tell her to let me take +the baby! If you went to Harvard, that's all Cousin Richard said, +except about a gentleman"--she paused and scrutinized him a moment. +"You _are_ a gentleman, aren't you?" she asked. + +He looked at her. "My father was," he answered briefly. "In my own +case, I have grave doubts. What do you think?" he asked the woman, +looking no lower than her eyes. + +She fed the baby deftly. "Oh, Mr. Williston, don't talk so--of +course you're a gentleman!" she cried, "you couldn't help about the +money. You did your best." + +His mouth twisted pitifully. + +"That'll do," he said, "what does this child mean? Who is your +cousin? Where does he live?" + +"He lives on Madison Avenue," Caroline began eagerly, "but I mustn't +tell you his last name, you know, because he doesn't want you to +know. That's just it. But he'd love the baby. I could take it right +back in the automobile." + +The man felt in under his coat and detached from his waistcoat a +small gold pin. He tore a strip of wrapping paper from the open box +near him and wrote rapidly on it. + +"There," he said, fastening the pin into the folded paper, "I'm glad +I never pawned it. If your cousin is a Harvard man, the pin will be +enough, but he can look me up from this paper--all he wants. They're +all dead but me, though. Here, wait a moment!" + +He went back into the sitting room and fumbled in a heap of waste +paper on the floor, picked out of it a stiff sheet torn once +through, and attached it with the gold pin to the bit of writing. + +"That's her marriage certificate," he said to the woman. She stared +at him. + +"Mr. Williston, do you believe that child?" she burst out, loosening +her hold on the bottle in her hand. "Why, she may be making it all +up! I--I--you must be crazy! You don't even know her name! I won't +allow it--" + +He broke into her excited remonstrance gravely. + +"I don't believe a child could make up such details, in the first +place, Mrs. Ufford," he said, "she is repeating something she's +heard, I think. Did your cousin mention anything else?" he said +abruptly to Caroline. + +She smiled gratefully at him. "The mother must be a good woman," she +quoted placidly. + +Both of them started. + +"Do you think a child would invent that?" he demanded. "Now, see +here. You take Mrs. Ufford home with you in the automobile and she +can see if there's anything in what you say, really. If there's not, +she can go right on with the--with it, and do as--as we arranged +before. It's all written on the paper, and my full consent to the +adoption, and if there's anything legal to do about it, Mrs. Ufford +can attend to it. But nobody'll trouble 'em--they can be sure of +that. My people all died long ago and--and hers--hers...." + +He stopped short. With eyes filled and lips vaguely moving he fell +into a strange revery, a sort of tranced stupor. So intense were his +absent thoughts that they impressed the woman and the child; they +knew that he was back in the past and waited patiently while for a +few kind moments he forgot. At length his eyes shifted and he took +up his broken phrase, unconscious, evidently, of the pause. "--her's +are back in New England. They never knew.... I had _some_ pride. +They're the I-told-you-so sort, anyhow. And they told her, all +right. Oh yes, they told her! Narrow-minded, God-fearing prigs!" He +stared at Mrs. Ufford curiously. "But they paid their debts, all the +same," he added with a harsh laugh, "and that's more than I've been +able to do, I suppose you're thinking." + +But almost before the dark red had flushed her tired, lined face, +he leaned forward and touched her shoulder kindly. + +"I didn't mean that," he apologized. "I'm half crazy, I think. +You've been as good as gold, and even when I've paid you the money I +owe you, I'll owe you more than I can ever pay. I know that. And +you're New England, too." + +His sudden softening encouraged the woman, and she looked +appealingly up at him, while she patted the bundle on her lap. + +"Folks have hearts in New England, Mr. Williston," she began, "and +if you was to go to her folks or write to 'em, I guess you'd +find--oh, couldn't you?" + +His impatient hand checked her. + +"He might grow up to be a real comfort to you," she murmured +persistently, "and you could look out for him well enough, once you +get started. Just see how smart you are, Mr. Williston--look at that +prize you got; she was awful proud of it." + +His face twisted painfully. + +"I looked out for _her_ well, didn't I?" he said coldly, "I was a +'good provider,' as they say up there, wasn't I? Do you think--" +his voice rang harshly and he struck the table by his side till it +rattled on its unsteady legs--"do you think if I couldn't look out +for her, I would look out for _that_? Get it ready." + +The woman rose, her lips pressed together, and rolled the blankets +tightly about the quiet child. With one gesture she put on a shabby +hat and pinned it to her hair. + +"I'll leave the bottle with you," she said to Caroline; "it'll help +keep him quiet, when I'm gone. Come on." + +The man turned away his head as they passed him. At the outer door +she paused a moment, and her face softened. + +"I know how you feel, Mr. Williston, and I don't judge you," she +said gently, "for the Lord knows you've had more than your share of +trouble. But won't you kiss it once before--before it's too late? +It's your child, you know. Don't you feel--" + +"I feel one thing," he cried out, and the bitterness of his voice +frightened Caroline; "I feel that it murdered her! Take it away!" + +They shrank through the door. + +The woman sobbed once or twice on the stairs, but Caroline patted +the flannel bundle excitedly. + +They had rounded the corner in a moment, and the woman pointed ahead +with her free hand. + +"Is that the automobile?" she asked. + +Caroline nodded. The brougham stood empty and alone where she had +left it. + +"They're not back yet!" she cried in disgust, "the idea!" + +"Maybe they're looking for you," Mrs. Ufford said shortly. + +"Aren't you glad we've got it?" Caroline inquired timidly. "I am, +awfully. I didn't expect to get such a good one, so soon," she went +on more easily, "but I don't like that man much. He's so cross." + +"Child, child, you don't know what you're talkin' about!" the woman +cried impatiently. "He's not cross--but his heart's just about +broke. He thinks more money would've saved her. And I guess he's +right about that. She was a soft little thing. But she stuck to +him." + +They walked a few steps in silence. + +"I don't know as I was actin' right, either, to talk as I did," she +continued abruptly. "I s'pose it is better as 'tis, 'specially if +your folks will take the baby. They'll do a lot more for it than +ever he could, prob'ly. I s'pose they're real rich--regular swells? +I can see they've got a fine automobile." + +"Oh, yes. Cousin Richard's very rich," Caroline answered, +indifferently, "that's only the brougham--there are two more. I have +more fun at Aunt Edith's, though." + +"_'Twas_ queer about all those things your cousin wanted, wasn't +it?" the woman said, musingly. "'Seemed like kind of a sign to him, +I could see--going to Harvard College and all. I s'pose it was a +sign--maybe." + +She walked slowly, perhaps because of her burden. + +"That's a fine college, I s'pose?" she said, inquiringly. + +"It's good enough," Caroline allowed, "of course Yale's the best. We +all go to Yale. Uncle Joe says there had to be something for Yale to +beat, so they founded Harvard!" + +"You don't say," Mrs. Ufford returned, "that's funny." + +They were very near the brougham now. It stood as deserted as when +Caroline had left it. The baby in the bundled blanket neither cried +nor stirred. + +"He's the best child," said the woman, with her tired, kindly smile. +"He's next to nothing to tend to. If he'd felt to go back to her +folks with it, I'd 'a' gone with him to look after it. I've got +enough for that--the things sold real well, and he'd never let me +lose, anyhow. He isn't that kind. I took a real likin' to both of +'em. I've kept boarders, all over, for fifteen years and I never +lost a cent from anybody like him, not one. You get to know all +sorts, keepin' boarders, and Mr. Williston's all right--though you +mightn't think so," she ended loyally. + +Caroline hardly listened. She saw herself in the bearskin reception +room, up the stairs, in the library, her baby in her arms; she heard +the incredulous joy of the Duchess, she explained importantly with +convincing detail, to Cousin Richard the critical. To her eager soul +this thin, friendly woman was merely an incident; that irritable, +incoherent man less than a dream. + +They paused on the curb, and she opened the brougham door +hospitably. + +"You get in first," she said, "and then I can hold him a little +while, can't I?" + +"I never was in one o' these," Mrs. Ufford answered doubtfully, +"s'pose you go in first. It can't go--or back, or anything, can it?" + +"No, no, of course not," said Caroline impatiently. "There's Hunt +'way up the street--he doesn't see us--how he's hurrying!" + +The woman paused, her foot on the broad step. + +"'Taint Hunt--it's Mr. Williston," she announced. "What's he want, I +wonder? Look--he's wavin' at us! I guess he forgot some paper he +wants you to take--he's bound to have it legal," she added with a +sigh. "No, dear, let me be. I'll see what he wants before I get in." + +The young man was running fast; his face was red, his eyes anxious. + +"Have you got it? Is it here?" he cried, panting, and as she lifted +the bundle high, his face cleared and Caroline saw that he was very +handsome. + +"Oh, Mrs. Ufford," he gasped, "read this! Just read it! I found it +in my pocket-book--I thought you might be gone--she put it there for +me--my poor little Lou! My God, what a brute--what a brute!" + +The woman, one foot still on the step of the brougham, supported the +child on her raised knee and held the paper in her free hand. + +"_My dearest husband_," she read aloud, "_if I get well you will +never see this, for I will take it out, but I don't believe I will +take it out, for I don't believe I will get well. They say everybody +thinks they will die, and of course a great many don't, but some do, +and I think I will, I don't know why, but I am sure. But you will +have the little girl. I am sure she will be a girl, and I hope she +will look like me and be a comfort to you. You will take good care +of her, I know. Think how nicely you took care of me and how hard +you worked. You take her to my sister, and when she gets big enough, +then you take her. She will not be a burden for you will earn lots +of money when you can stop working in that horrid store on my +account, and have time to do your writing. You must not get +discouraged, for your writing is fine. Remember that prize you took. +They will all be proud of you some day. You have been so good to me. +Your loving wife, Lou._" + +Her voice broke, and with no further word she held the child out to +the young man. Without a word he took it and stared eagerly into its +face, pushing the wrappings aside. + +"He has her eyes," he murmured, "Lou's eyes!" + +The baby felt the grip of a stronger arm, wrinkled its features and +appeared to scan the dark, trembling face above it. + +"He knows me! Mrs. Ufford, he knows me!" cried the man. + +"Maybe so, maybe so," she said, soothingly. "You'll keep him, won't +you, now?" + +"Keep him? Keep him?" he repeated, "why he's all I've got of +hers--all! He's Lou's and mine, together! He's--" + +"Hush, hush!" she warned him, "here's a crowd already! We're right +out in the street, Mr. Williston! Come back with me. Yes, keep him +if you want to." + +She turned to Caroline, neglected and wide-eyed, in the brougham. + +"You see how it is, dear," she said hastily, "he wants it, after +all. I can't help bein' glad. It ain't always that money does the +most, you know. And he's the baby's father. Don't you mind, will +you?" + +Caroline gulped. + +"I--I guess not," she answered bravely. "But I did want him!" + +"I know. You meant all right," the woman assured her. "You're +real--there's your coachman runnin'. He saw the crowd gatherin', +prob'ly. Good-by, dear." + +She slipped through the curious street children after the tall +figure that hurried on with his bundle, a block ahead. Gleggson +dashed up to the brougham. + +"W'ere was you, Miss, for goodness' sake?" he gasped out, "h'I've +been h'all over after yer! Don't, don't tell Hunt on me, will you, +Miss? He'd fair kill the life out o' me! He's comin' now. 'e 'ad to +go, Miss, fer his little boy was took sick last night and callin' +for 'im. So 'e made up the errant. But it'll cost us both our place, +y' know, Miss!" + +The man's voice shook. Hunt was very near them now, walking hard. + +"I'd no business to leave, I know--_will_ you h'overlook it for +once, Miss, and keep mum?" the man pleaded. + +"All right, Gleggson--all right," she said wearily, "I won't tell." + +Confused, disappointed, and yet with a curious sense of joy in the +joy of the two even now rounding the corner, she leaned back in the +brougham. + +"I'm afraid he'll go to Harvard, anyway," she sighed. + + + + +IV + +WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN. + + +One glance at Caroline's shoulders, hunched with caution, the merest +profile, indeed, of her tense and noiseless advance up the narrow +gravel path, would have convinced the most casual observer that she +was bent upon arson, at the least. At the occasional crunch of the +gravel she scowled; the well meant effort of a speckled gray hen, +escaped from some distant part of the grounds, to bear her company, +produced a succession of pantomimic dismissals that alarmed the hen +to the point of frenzy, so that her clacks and cackles resounded far +beyond the trim hedge that separated the drying-ground from the +little kitchen garden. + +Caroline scowled, turned to shake her fist at the hen, now lumbering +awkwardly through the hedge, and sat down heavily on a little bed of +parsley. + +"Nasty old thing!" she gulped, "_anybody_ could've heard me! And I +was creeping up so still...." + +She peered out from behind a dwarf evergreen and made a careful +survey of the situation. The big square house stood placid and empty +in the afternoon sun; not a cat on the kitchen porch, not a curtain +fluttering from an open window. All was neat, quiet and deserted. +Caroline set her lips with decision. + +"We'll pretend there wasn't any hen," she said, in a low voice, "and +go on from here, just the same." + +Rising with great caution she picked her way, crouching and dodging, +from bush to bush; occasionally she took a lightning peep at the +silent house, then dipped again and continued her stalking. +Following the evergreen hedge around a final corner, she emerged +stealthily in the lee of the latticed kitchen porch and drew a +breath of relief. + +"All right so far," she muttered; "I wonder if that old gray cat +with the new kittens is fussing around here?" + +But no breath of life stirred under the porch as she stooped to peer +through a break in the lattice, and with a final survey of the +premises, inserted her plump person into the gap and wriggled, +panting, into the darkness below. + +It was stuffy and dusty there; the light filtered dimly through the +diamond spaces, and the adventurer, crawling on hands and knees, +bumped into a shadowy pile of flower-pots, sneezed violently and +grovelled wrathfully among the ruins for at least five minutes, +helplessly confused. Quite by accident she knocked her cobwebbed +head against a narrow, outward swinging window, seized it +thankfully, and plunged through it. Hanging a moment by her grimy +hands she swayed, a little fearfully, then dropped with a quick +breath to the concrete floor beneath, and smiled with relief as the +comparative brightness of a well kept cellar revealed her safety. +Vegetable bins, a neat pile of kindling wood, a large portable +closet of wire netting, with occasional plates and covered dishes +suggestively laid away in it, met her eye; on the floor in front of +this last rested a little heap of something wet and glistening. +Untidy as it looked, it had an eatable appearance to Caroline, +whose instinct in these matters was unimpeachable, and bending over +it she inserted one finger. + +"Current jelly!" she whispered, thoughtfully licking the inquiring +member. "The idea!" + +She approached the wire closet and peered along the shelves; there +was no jelly there. + +"'Dropped it getting it out," she pursued, "I wonder why Selma +didn't wipe it up." + +Suddenly her face brightened. + +"We'll keep right on and pretend _'twas_ burglars," she announced to +the quiet cellar, "and they stole the jelly in a hurry and dropped +this and never noticed, and went upstairs to eat it and get the +silver! And so I found 'em, after all!" + +Still on tiptoe, she left the cellar, stole through the laundry, and +crept mysteriously up the back stairs. So absorbed she was that a +cracking board stopped her heart for a breath, and a slip on the +landing sent her to her knees in terror. The empty quiet seemed to +hum around her; strange snappings of the old woodwork dried her +throat. With her hand on the swing door that led into the +dining-room, she paused in a delicious ecstasy of terror, as the +imagined clink of glass and silver, the normal clatter of a cheerful +meal, seemed to echo in the air. + +It was always difficult for Caroline in such moments of excitement +to distinguish between what she saw and heard and what she wished to +see and hear, and at this ghost of table music she smiled with +pleasure. + +"The house is empty," said her common-sense, but she pursed her lips +and whispered, "they're up here eating--they've come for the +silver!" + +By fractions of inches she pushed the door on its well-oiled hinge +and slipped noiselessly into the dining-room. + +A broad beam of light fell across the dark, wainscoted room, and in +the track of it sat a handsome well-dressed man, busily eating. In +front of him was a roast chicken, a cut-glass dish of celery and a +ruby mound of jelly; a crusty loaf of new bread lay broken at his +right; at his left, winking in the sunbeam, stood a decanter half +filled with a topaz liquor. He was daintily poising a bit of jelly +on some bread, the mouthful was in the air, when his eyes fell on +Caroline, an amazed and cobwebbed statue in front of him. + +The hand that held the bread grew rigid. As spilled milk spreads +over a table, the man's face was flooded with sudden grayish white; +against it his thin lips were marked in lavender. While the +grandfather clock ticked ten times they stared at each other, and +then a wave of deep red poured over his face and his mouth twitched. + +"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly, +pointedly regarding her dusty rumpled figure. + +Caroline gulped and dropped her eyes. + +"I--I--nothing particular," she murmured guiltily. + +The man laid the piece of bread down carefully and wiped his fingers +on the napkin spread across his knees. + +"Some time," he said, in a leisurely drawl, "you'll burst into a +room like that, where a person with a weak heart may be sitting, and +that'll be the last of 'em." + +[Illustration: "What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded +sternly.] + +"The last of 'em?" Caroline repeated vaguely. + +"Just so. They'll die on you," he explained briefly. + +Caroline stepped nearer. + +"Is--is your heart weak?" she inquired fearfully. "I'm so sorry. So +is my Uncle Lindsay's." + +"What were you sneaking about so soft for?" he demanded. + +She flushed. + +"I--I was playing burglars," she confessed, "and I got to where they +were in here with the silver, and--and I was coming in to--to get +them, and I didn't expect anybody would be here, really, you know, +and I was surprised when I saw you. I didn't know about your heart." + +"Burglars?" said the man, laughing loudly. "Well, that's one on me! +I must say you're a nervy young party. So you thought I was a +burglar, did you?" + +"Oh, no!" Caroline cried, "of course not--I meant I was playing it +was burglars; I didn't mean you. I--I didn't know anybody was here." + +"Humph!" said he. "What made you play burglars? Anything in that +line yourself, ever?" + +Caroline stared uncomprehendingly. + +"My mother doesn't think it's right for Aunt Edith to go off and +leave the house all alone the way she does," she explained; "she's +always telling her some one will break in if she doesn't leave Selma +or a dog. And she never locks a thing, you know--she says if they +intend to get in, they will, and that's all there is about it. So +this time she went for three days, and Miss Honey and the General +and Delia; and Selma and Anna went to a wedding and Ed went +somewhere about a lawn-mower, and little Ed was going to get the +pony shod. I told Aunt Edith I'd--" she coughed importantly--"keep +an eye on the house." + +"I see," said the man. + +He poured himself two inches of the topaz liquor; it rocked in the +glass. + +Caroline sniffed inquiringly. + +"That's the Scotch," she said; "I know by the smell, partly like +cologne and partly smoky. Do you like it?" + +The man raised the glass to the level of his eyes and watched the +light play through it, then made a slight movement of his arm and +the whisky disappeared smoothly. + +"Your Aunt Edith's taste is as good as her voice," he said, eyeing +Caroline carefully. + +"Oh, that's not Aunt Edith's--that's Uncle Joe's," she explained. +Then, as it flashed across her suddenly. + +"Did you want to see him? He's in New York, too. They're going to +have pictures taken of Miss Honey and General. But after that, Uncle +Joe's going to Chicago. Did you want him?" + +"N-no, not exactly," said the man, studying his well-kept +finger-nails. "I can't say I do. No, my business is with--is more--" + +He stopped suddenly and followed the direction of Caroline's eyes. + +There on the sideboard behind him stood a leather suit-case, long +and solid looking. It was open and tight rows of forks and spoons +filled it. + +The room was quite still for a moment. Caroline wanted to show by +some intelligent remark that she understood the situation, and +could easily imagine what the man was doing with the silver, but +she found this difficult. + +Strange people came to Aunt Edith's house. Dark, foreign-looking men +ate meals there at unusual hours; once Caroline had seen with her +own eyes a plump, yellow German fall suddenly on his knees at Aunt +Edith's feet, as a hand-organ struck up its brassy music under the +window, and burst into passionate singing, waving a whisk-broom in +the air and offering it to Aunt Edith with the most extraordinary +force of manner. And her aunt, who wore at the time a raincoat and +tam o'shanter cap, had leaned forward graciously, gurgled out a most +delicious little tune, accepted the whisk-broom, affected to inhale +its fragrance rapturously, and whirled into a big and beautiful song +in which the plump, yellow gentleman joined, and rising seized her +in his arms, at which point they drowned the hand-organ completely, +and the hand-organ man and Uncle Joe applauded loudly, and they gave +the hand-organ man all he could eat and a dollar. + +You may see from this that one did not look for the commonplace in +Aunt Edith's house. Moreover, the stranger was not unlike some of +her aunt's friends; though he was handsome and assured and +noticeably at his ease, Caroline felt that his manner was subtly +different from that of the friends of her own family. But even the +most unconventional guest had never collected the sideboard silver, +and a little feeling was growing in the air ... doubt and a bit of +what might have begun to be fear ... when suddenly the man began to +laugh. It was abrupt and it rang harshly at first, but grew with +every moment warmer and more infectious, so that Caroline, though +she felt that she was in some way the cause of it, joined in it +finally, in spite of herself. + +"If you knew what a sight you were!" he exclaimed, wiping his eyes +with the napkin, "with your hair all cobwebs and all that dirt on +your knees and those finger-marks on your apron, and being so small +and all"--he began to chuckle again. + +"Small?" she repeated portentously. + +"Oh, I didn't mean small compared with--with anybody else the same +size," he assured her quickly. + +Catching her mollified glance, he went on more soberly. + +"And how did you get in, now? No doors, I'll bet." + +"Under the kitchen porch, through the little cellar window and up +the back stairs," she explained. + +"You mean to say you were out in that little back hall and I never +heard you?" + +She nodded. "I took pains to be still," she added, "so as to +surprise the--so if there had been--" + +"I understand," he said gravely, "so as to get them if they had been +there. Well, you'd have done it. You're all right. Now, I suppose +you're wondering what all this means, aren't you? You haven't got +any idea who I am, have you? You don't know one single thing about +me, and you may be thinking--" + +"I know one thing about you," she interrupted, "I know you went to +Yale." + +The man's jaw dropped, his hands gripped the arm of the chair. + +"And how in--how did you know that?" he cried roughly, with blazing +eyes. + +Caroline shrank a little but faced him. + +"Your pin," she said, pointing to his vest, "I saw it when you held +your arm up." + +The man sank back in his chair and fingered the little jeweled badge +unconsciously. + +"Well, of all the cute ones ... so you've seen this before?" he +suggested. + +"Of course I have--my brother has one, and my Uncle Joe and Uncle +Lindsay and Cousin Lindsay and Cousin Joe." + +"All went to Yale?" he inquired. + +"Lindsay and Joe are there now--they're seniors," she informed him. +"The General's going when he grows up. All the Holts go there. +Grandfather Holt went." + +"You don't say," said the man, bending forward in genuine interest, +"I guess it's a pretty good college, eh?" + +"The best of them all," she assured him. + +"I'll tell you an awful funny thing," she went on abruptly, "you +know all the Holts look alike. Well, when Uncle Lindsay first went +to Yale, he was walking along the Campus, and right by Old South +Middle he met the President. And the President stopped and said, +'Well, well, I see the race of Holts is not yet extinct. Good +afternoon, sir!' _The President._ And he never saw him before!" + +The man shook his head thoughtfully. + +"You don't say," he repeated. "Old South Middle--that's it. That's +the one." + +Suddenly he shrugged his shoulders and took out his watch. "This'll +never pay the rent!" he said briskly. "Now let's get to business. I +suppose you were surprised to see all that stuff in the suit-case?" + +Caroline nodded and grinned back at him, his own quick smile was so +friendly and compelling. + +"Well," he continued, rising and bunching the napkin beside his +plate, "I don't blame you. Not a bit. I'd have been the same myself. +And you'll be even more surprised when you find out what I'm +doing--that is," he stopped abruptly, "unless your Uncle Joe has +told you already and sent you over to help?" + +She shook her head. + +"Didn't, eh?" he stepped over to the sideboard, wiping off the knife +and fork he had been using, and packed them with the others. +Caroline, watching his hands, noticed in the corner of the case a +familiar chamois skin bag; she had often seen it on Aunt Edith's +bureau. + +"Well, now," he continued, "If I had a niece as sharp and smart and +quiet as you are, Missy, I'd tell her my plans, I would, and get her +to help me. I wonder your uncle didn't. Sure he didn't mention +me--Mr. Barker?" + +Again she shook her head, her eyes fastened to the bag. + +"Well," said the man, shutting down the cover of the suit-case and +strapping it tightly, "it's this way. You may have heard your uncle +say something about it being kind o' careless, leaving the house so +much alone? Anyhow, whether he's talked to you or not about it, he +has to me often enough." + +"Oh, yes!" Caroline was conscious of a distinct sense of relief. +"I've often heard him. Then you _do_ know Uncle Joe?" + +The man faced her, starting in violent surprise. + +"Do I know Uncle Joe?" he repeated; "do I _know_ him?" He shook his +head feebly and gazed about the room. "She says, do I know Joe Holt! +And what should I be doing, eating my lunch here, if I didn't?" he +demanded. "What should he tell me about his troubles for, and ask me +to help him, if I didn't know him? Is it likely I'd be packing his +silver in my suit-case if I didn't know him?" + +Caroline stood abashed. + +"I should think you might guess by this time what the joke is," he +went on forgivingly, seeing that she was quite overcome with her own +stupidity, "but as I have to get away pretty quick now, I'll tell +you. You see, Joe isn't coming right back with your aunt; he's going +on to Chicago, and that may keep him some time away--" + +("I know," Caroline interpolated), "and he wanted your aunt to have +somebody stay in the house to look after it--he felt worried. But +no, she wouldn't. Wouldn't even get a dog--that is," eyeing Caroline +steadily, "unless she's got one lately, but when I last heard--" + +"No," she assured him, "she wouldn't. Aunt Edith hates dogs." + +"So Joe told me. 'Now what would you do, Henry,' says Joe to me, +that's my name, Henry Barker, 'what would you do with a woman like +that?' + +"'Do, Joe?' says I, 'why, I'll tell you what I'd do, I'd teach her a +lesson, that's what. I'd I'd give her one good scare, and then you'd +find she'd take your advice, after that.'" + +At this point the man reached for his overcoat and began to struggle +into it. + +"'But I don't know how to, Henry,' says he. 'You don't?' says I, +'nothing easier. Just tip somebody off when the house is empty and +they'll run up and slip in, take what silver and jewelry they can +find in a hurry, pack it up careful and hide it away wherever you +say. Then when your wife gets back and finds 'em gone, there'll be +the d---- there'll be a row, and when she says it's her fault for +not leaving the servants in the house, and she'll never do it again, +then you say, 'All right, my dear, I'm glad you've learned your +lesson,' and step out and get the bag! How's that?' I said." + +He put his hat on, drew a pair of gloves from his pocket, and looked +hard at Caroline; her answering glance was troubled and +non-committal. He scowled slightly and rested one hand on the bag. + +"'All very well, Henry,' says Joe to me, 'but who's to do all this? +I don't know anyone that would dare to, let alone be willing,'" he +went on, glancing hurriedly around the room. "'You know as well as I +do that if they should get caught doing it, anybody would swear +'twas burglary plain and simple, and run' em right in. They'd call +the police. It would look bad for whoever did it, you know,' he +said." + +"He might have asked me. I'd love to do it," Caroline muttered +resentfully. + +As a matter of fact the scheme was sufficiently like many a +practical joke of her irrepressible uncle. Better than anyone, +Caroline, his conspirator elect, knew the lengths he was capable of +going to confound or scandalize his adjacent relatives. + +"Of course," said the man, with relief in his voice, "that's why I +asked you if he hadn't. I guess he was afraid you wouldn't dare. I'd +have trusted you, though, myself." + +She looked gratefully at him. + +"Then, I said, 'Why, Joe, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll +do it myself,'" he concluded, lifting the suit-case from the +sideboard and grimacing at its weight. "'What's the good,' says I, +'of calling yourself a friend, if you can't run a little risk? Just +tell me the day to come and where you want 'em put--be sure you pick +a good safe place--and I'll 'tend to it for you,' I said, 'and +you'll do as much for me some day when I'm in a tight place.'" + +He settled his hat firmly and moved to the long window. + +"I'll have to hurry if I don't want to lose my train," he explained. + +"But where's the place?" Caroline cried excitedly; "what place did +Uncle Joe pick out? Won't you tell me? I won't tell--truly, I +won't!" + +The man paused with one hand on the window button, and looked +thoughtfully at her. + +"By George," he announced, "I've a good mind to tell you! I'm not +supposed to tell a soul, you know, but you've been such a brick, and +being his own niece and all, I think you've got a _right_ to know, I +really do." + +Caroline nodded breathlessly. + +"Look here!" he cried, "I'll trust you if your uncle won't. I don't +like the place he told me, much--it isn't safe enough. There's two +thousand dollars' worth of stuff here, counting the--counting +everything, and an old barn's no place for it. See here. You promise +me to stay here for an hour--one hour exactly, by the clock--and +I'll leave this bag at your house for you. Then you can hide it +under your bed, or anywhere you want, till to-morrow, and then you +can manage the rest to suit yourself. How's that?" + +"Oh, that would be grand!" she gasped. + +"You can just tell your uncle that I saw you were game and I trusted +you, if he wouldn't," he concluded, opening the window, "and I'll +take this to your house in half an hour. Will you promise not to +leave for an hour? We mustn't be seen together, you know, or people +might suspect and then the game'd be up. And will you lock this +window after me and go out the same way you came?" + +"Yes, yes! I promise, I promise solemnly!" she assured him, flushed +with importance, "and tell 'em not to open it, will you? They might. +Say it's private for me, will you?" + +"All right," he said soberly. "I'm kind o' sorry they went to Yale," +he added abruptly. "I'd rather--sh! what's that?" + +He stood rigidly listening; his eyes rolled back, his hand raised in +warning. + +"I don't hear--" she began, but his angry gesture and the furious +whisper that went with it cowed her into a silence as strained as +his own. + +For a moment it seemed to Caroline that she heard a faint snap as of +a board released from pressure, but dead quiet followed; she held +her breath with excitement as the man lifted the suit-case over the +ledge, and peering over the balcony stepped out. Suddenly he paused, +one leg over the sill; his eyes rolled back towards the room, his +lips tightened. So terrible, and so despairing his face had turned +that Caroline rushed to the window. Even as she started she heard +quick soft steps in the hall, and pointed to the freedom outside. + +"Jump, oh, jump, Mr. Barker!" she whispered in a glow of terror, +"hurry! It _is_ somebody!" + +He pointed silently to the ground below, and with her heart pounding +heavily she peered over the sill. Directly below them crouched a +Great Dane, brindled, enormous, one eye fixed sternly on the window. + +The soft steps paused: perhaps she had imagined them! Perhaps, if +they kept quite still, that quaking pair, perhaps.... The man +breathed like a drowning swimmer; it seemed to Caroline she must +scream. + +The door flew open. + +"Look out, there--it's loaded!" the voice came sharp as a +cracked whip. + +Caroline gave a shriek of joy. + +"Why, it's Lindsay!" she cried, "it's just Cousin Lindsay!" + +A tall, powerful young man came in behind a leveled revolver. + +"Car--what--be still, there!" he gasped, steadying the weapon. The +man stood motionless, his eyes on the ground. + +"It's all right--I never carried a gun in my life," he said quietly. + +"Oh, Lindsay, it's only a joke!" + +Caroline ran towards him, stopping in horror at the ugly winking +eyes of the revolver. + +"Mr. Barker only meant--tell Lin about it!" she entreated, sick with +foreboding at the dogged man before her, the scornful flushed boy at +her side. + +"I guess you better tell him, Missy," said the man in a low empty +voice. + +"Go home, Caroline; go straight home this moment." + +Caroline had never heard her cousin speak in that tone, and it was +partly in tears, partly in wrath that she answered, + +"I will _not_ go straight home, Lindsay Holt, and you needn't talk +to me that way, either! Uncle Joe himself asked Mr. Barker--" + +She began glibly enough, but even to her simple consciousness the +story wavered and rang false, with this stricken, passive man before +her. Her voice faltered, she choked.... Had Uncle Joe really asked +this man to get the emeralds? Was it possible that--Lindsay laughed +disagreeably. + +"If you've quite finished, Caroline, will you go home?" he demanded, +his eyes still on the revolver. + +She gulped painfully; her faith tottered on the last brink. + +"Oh, let it go at that; can't you?" the man broke in roughly. "What +difference does it make to you, eh, how this part of the job gets +done? Have I made you any trouble yet? My goose is cooked, all +right, and we'll--we'll talk that over, later, when Missy goes, +but--but couldn't you"--he looked almost appealingly at the young +fellow,--"couldn't we--it's all there in the suit-case--" + +"It was going under my bed Lin--I'd have been careful," Caroline was +hoping against hope, now. + +"You see, Missy," said the man quickly, in almost his old manner, +"you see how it turns out. It was a bad plan, I guess--you can see +how your cousin takes it. You'll have to--to tell your uncle how it +worked; it's one on me, all right." + +"Suppose we put it all back and--oh Lord, what's the use?" he ended +suddenly. + +"Cut it short--what the hell do I care?" + +He dropped suddenly into the chair behind him; his head fell over on +his arms, and the stiff hat rolled along the floor. + +The young man stared curiously at him, but the weakness was genuine; +every muscle was relaxed. + +Lindsay's face softened a little. "As far as that goes, you're quite +right," he said curtly, "though it's a little late in the day. Look +here, Caroline. Mr.--Mr. Barker and I don't agree very well on the +best way to teach people to lock their houses. I--it seems to me a +pretty poor joke. Uncle Joe never meant it to go quite so far, I'm +quite sure," he concluded jerkily. "I--I want to do the best thing +all round, but," looking anxiously towards her for a second, "this +is a little too--a little too--" + +Her face cleared at his change of tone. "I know," she returned +eagerly, "I know just what you mean, Lindsay. I think so, too. +Anybody would think--" + +"That's it," he said briefly. + +"You say you thought so yourself at first," she added, looking +uncomfortably at the bent figure in the chair, "and that made him +feel--" + +"Well, well, I understand now," Lindsay interrupted irritably, "it's +all right now, Caroline. Hadn't you better go? Mr.--Mr. Barker and I +will come along later." + +"Oh, I'll wait and go with you, Lin," she returned, almost assured, +now, "why do I have to go first?" + +The man lifted his head; at sight of the young fellow's nervous +perplexity he smiled faintly. + +"Suppose you run along, Missy," he suggested; "your cousin and I +want to talk business, and--and then I must be hurrying on--hurrying +on," he repeated vaguely, with dazed eyes. He raised his hand to +his head; Lindsay started forward, the revolver loose in his hand. + +"Where did you get that pin?" he cried sharply. "Give that to me." + +The man fingered the pin thoughtfully. "You're 'way off there," he +said. "That's not--that's not--" + +"Not one of your 'jokes'?" Lindsay's voice rang disagreeably. "I +happen to know the contrary. I'll trouble you to hand it over. I'll +soon know to whom it belongs." + +Caroline, hanging over the sill, lost in talkative admiration of the +Great Dane, was oblivious for the moment of the room behind her. + +"It belongs to my son," said the man. There was a moment of silence. +Outside the great hound whined softly. + +"His name Barker, too?" Lindsay asked coldly, half rising. + +"No, sir. His name is James Wardwell," said the man defiantly. + +Lindsay sprang to his feet. + +"That's a dirty lie!" he shouted. He stood over the man, careless +of the revolver. "And you'll pay for it, too!" + +Caroline stared aghast at them. + +"Look out for the gun," the man warned him, and, as with a flush of +mortification Lindsay mastered his weapon, he added quietly, "you +can't be too careful with firearms." + +Lindsay gritted his teeth. + +"You--you--" he began furiously. The man met his eyes for a second, +then with a dark, slow blush, dropped his arm. + +The boy drew back uncertainly. + +"What's the good of lying like that?" he said, "how's it going to +help you?" + +The man looked at the floor. + +"Don't be a fool--how's it going to?" Lindsay repeated irritably. + +The other did not move. + +"Is that the truth?" Lindsay's voice was strained and worried. + +The man drew a long, uneven breath. "Yes," he answered. + +Lindsay glanced at the suit-case, at the man in the chair, at the +revolver. + +"Jimmy!" he muttered, "Jimmy B.!" For the first time since he had +last addressed her, he noticed Caroline. He frowned, then suddenly +his face cleared. + +"Look here," he said, his eye again on the man, "do you know where +all that silver belongs?" + +She nodded. + +"I help Selma sometimes." + +"Could you put it back so nobody would know?" + +"Oh, yes," she answered him, "and the--things from the bureau, too?" + +His lips curled scornfully and his hold on the revolver tightened. + +"A thorough job, wasn't it?" he muttered, then controlling himself +he answered evenly, "Oh, yes, might as well get 'em all back. We'll +just step in the library a minute." + +The man got up and went before him into the library, stumbling as he +walked. + +Lindsay watched him drop into a seat and stood in front of him. + +"What proof have you got that what you said in there is true?" he +asked abruptly, "before we leave the house, I must know." + +"Proof?" the man repeated, "proof?" He stared almost vacantly at +Lindsay. + +"Why, yes," the boy answered impatiently. + +"You say you're the father of one of the most brilliant men in my +class, you wear the pin of his society--a pin I happen to know he +lost recently--and I find you stealing my aunt's spoons! For God's +sake, what's the meaning of it?" + +The man twisted his fingers together and moistened his lips. + +"It kind of settled on me all at once," he said in a hollow voice, +"I felt it since morning. She scared me so to begin with--she came +like a ghost--and then the dog finished me. I had one o' them once +and he nearly did me up--turned on me. Jim pulled him off," he +added, "but they give me a turn whenever I see 'em." + +Lindsay stamped angrily. + +"Will you prove what you say? Or shall we discuss it at the +station-house?" + +The man raised his hand deprecatingly. "No, no;" he said hastily, +"no--that's what I don't want. That's why I--that's the reason I +don't--good Lord, don't you know you've given me a half a dozen +chances, if I'd had the nerve for the risk? Why, I c'd've butted +that gun out of your hand twice in the last ten minutes, you young +fool! How long d'ye suppose it would take a husky man to back you +into one closet and Missy into another and walk off with the stuff? +Hey?" + +His eyes flashed, he threw back his head and breathed hard, a +cornered animal. Lindsay felt a tingle of excitement run down his +spine; for a moment there was danger in the air. + +"I--I notice you didn't see your way to all this," he said +scornfully. But he blushed as he spoke, the man saw it, and Lindsay +knew he saw it; he winced and drew himself up in a boyish attempt to +save the situation. + +"It's quite true--I'm not in the habit of catching house thieves," +he said, drawling a little, "and I doubt if many of them are quite +such accomplished liars as you appear to be; but my stroke will +improve, I've no doubt, as we go on. Would you mind getting up and +'coming along with me' as they call it, I believe?" + +The man made no answer, but raised his hands high above his head. + +"If you'll look in that left vest pocket, there's a little leather +case there," he said, "and--and you'd better take the pin, too, I +guess. I'd be obliged if you'd say you found it somewhere; I never +should've put it on." + +Somewhat clumsily Lindsay extricated the leather case, cursing his +awkwardness and the patience of the man. + +A worn little photograph of a boy of eight or nine was in his hand; +across the bottom was scrawled in a childish hand, "Daddy, from your +son James." + +He drew a long breath. + +"That's Jimmy, all right," he said dully. + +"If you'll just tear it up," said the man. "It's all I've got, and +nobody'd know but some friend that--that would be lookin' for the +likeness." + +Lindsay threw the picture on the floor. + +"I won't believe it--its too sickening!" he cried, "Jim Wardwell's a +gentleman! I--I--why I admired him more than--good God, he's a +_friend_ of mine!" + +The man smiled faintly. + +"Oh, Jimmy has fine friends," he said almost complacently, "he's +always gone with the best. He's very particular." + +Lindsay's forehead was a network of pain and doubt. + +"But Jimmy has plenty of money," he insisted, "he always had +the--his things--oh, it's idiotic! You're crazy, that's all." + +"Oh, yes, he always had plenty," the man said simply. + +In the pause that followed they heard the soft chink of silver +through the wall; Caroline was evidently busy. + +Lindsay twisted his face into an ugly smile. + +"And I thought he was the squarest of the lot," he said slowly, +"I've said so often. We all did. Pretty easy, weren't we?" + +"He is!" The man half rose, but fell back with a grunt of pain. + +"Oh, _damn_ this heart!" he complained fretfully. "I don't know +what's the matter with me. That fortune woman, she knew. Last week +it was I went. 'You're making a plan to end up your business,' she +says to me, 'and so you will, mister, but not the way you think. +There's some trouble coming to you and a child's mixed up in it. +Look out for strange dogs,' she says, they all tell me that--'and +run no risks this month. I don't just like the looks of your hand,' +she says. And when I saw that child, it was all up with me, I +thought. I didn't think the machine would ever get started again. +And then that infernal dog...." + +"We were speaking of--of--did you say that Jim--" Lindsay's voice +sounded strange, even to himself. + +The man blinked a moment. + +"What?" he said vaguely, "what about Jim? Oh--he don't know anything +about it, of course. I sh'd think you'd know enough for that. That's +what I'm telling you, if you'd keep still a minute." + +He stared thoughtfully at the floor and Lindsay waited. Caroline ran +up the front stairs, and he had counted each step before the man +went on. + +"So I sent the money regular every quarter," he muttered, as if +continuing some tale, "and I'd go to see him sometimes all dressed +up, and I tried to talk like he did. He thought I was traveling and +didn't want to be bothered. But I couldn't see him much--was I going +to drag him down, just as I'd got him started right? Not much. 'Go +and visit your friends, o' course,' I used to tell him, 'and you can +write to me.' The best schools I picked out, the very best. And they +came high. But I was good for it." + +He shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes. + +"I had a hunch when I bought the ticket," he muttered. "It just come +over me--'you ought not to go to a place you got the idea of from +Jim,' something seemed to say to me, 'it's unlucky.' And everything +so still, and the stuff so easy--'twas like finding it in the road. +And the last time, too--the last time." + +"But Jim--he thought--" Lindsay prompted. A dreadful curiosity +held him. + +"So then he wrote, 'of course it's Yale, dad,' he wrote, 'we're all +going up together. You don't mind if it costs a little to get +settled, do you?' And was I going to go to him--he was head of his +class, mind you--and say, the Trust has treated me the way I +wouldn't treat a dog--it's all up with me and you? I can go back and +be foreman again at the works--we're bought up, chewed up and spit +out like a wad o' paper?' Not much, I guess. No. Here's where I quit +the honesty game, I said, for it don't pay. You stole my patent, and +I shut up because I couldn't afford to fight you, and you raised me +and raised me--and let me into the firm when you knew it was going +to bust! Now, I says, since my boy's education has been stole from +me, I'll steal it back, I says, and only from them that can afford +it, too! And I'll use no lawyer to do it, either, and we'll have no +trick-work with papers. I'll get it straight from the wives and +daughters of the big thieves that pass the plate on Sundays." + +Lindsay listened to Caroline moving over their heads; her steps +seemed the only reality in this horrid dream. + +"It--it will just about kill Jim," he said slowly. + +"It would have killed him not to go to college," the man returned +sharply, "and he had a right to go." + +"But, good heavens, there are ways--he could have earned money--he's +clever enough to work his way through a dozen colleges!" Lindsay +cried despairingly. + +"There wasn't any working his way through for _my_ boy," said the +man, with a cunning grin; "I've done enough o' that for the family, +thank you. So did his mother--she died of it. No, there's money +enough for all, and it only needs a little planning. The thing is, +never take a risk. Wait for a sure thing. Take from the kind that +takes from _your_ kind--they'll never miss it. Work alone, and never +try to get too much. Who are the ones that get caught? The 'pals'! +No, I've just done for myself, and contented to sell at a big loss, +and only wanted to get my twenty-five hundred a year for Jim, and +something over for his vacations--those camps cost a lot--and enough +to dress as I may need to." + +Lindsay cleared his throat. + +"Do you mean to say that Jim never asked you what your business +was?" + +"He didn't know I ever changed till last month. He thought I +traveled for the Comp'ny. Of course he didn't like that any too +well--you know, you wouldn't expect him to, brought up as he's +been--and I guess he thought 'twould be kinder to me not to +mention it much. He thought I didn't know, but I did. Last +month--last month--" the man paused and his mouth worked, +though he bit his lips. + +"Well, last month?" Lindsay repeated pitilessly. + +"I got my hunch to quit. That fortune woman and--and other things. +The doctor told me to keep quiet and not get on my nerve. And I sort +of fixed it up with Jim in a letter. I told him I'd sold out my +interest in the firm and I was going to send him one more thousand +for graduatin' with and I was going to let him try for himself after +that. I knew that was all right, because he's told me of plenty of +rich young swells who had to. Fathers believed in it." + +"He was going with Buck Williamson on the ranch," said Lindsay +slowly. + +"That's it! Buck Williamson. He asked me wouldn't I look 'em up +after they got settled and try it out there. It was an awful nice +letter," said the man softly, "he's a real gentleman." + +Lindsay jerked his head toward the dining-room. + +"Was this the 'thousand'?" he asked coldly. + +The man nodded. + +"I've never been with him more than a day or two, you see, and I +thought I'd go up to New Haven this spring--when he graduated, and +see him. Just a day or two. And then I was planning to drop out. Of +course I never meant to see him much. I was always deadly afraid +something'd happen, and I didn't want to get connected up with Jim. +But I've been careful. There's not a line o' writing anywhere, and +the man that sold the stuff for me in Jersey City is close as wax." + +"But your friends--" Lindsay was wrung with an angry pity. + +"I don't care for much of anybody but Jim," said the man. + +Caroline was moving restlessly about in the dining-room again. +Lindsay shook himself nervously. + +"Of course, this is very awkward for me," he began, "I mean--I--oh, +the devil! You know what I've got to do, of course?" + +The man looked appealingly at him. "You've got it all back," he said +quickly, "and you know Jim--" + +"Yes, plague take it--I know Jim," the boy muttered, "we all know +Jim." + +"Known well, isn't he?" the man inquired eagerly, "there's no +cleverer scholar there, much cleverer, I mean, is there?" + +Lindsay shook his head. "Not that amounts to anything," he said +shortly. + +"I'll bet there's no better fellow there than Jim--none of the big +bugs?" + +"There is no better fellow anywhere," said Lindsay. + +Caroline tapped fretfully on the door. "Aren't we ever going, Lin?" +she begged; "it's all put back." + +"Yes, yes, in a minute!" he answered, and turned to the man. "I'm +damned sorry to have to do it," he began, "it's a horrible thing to +do, but I can't see that there are any two ways about it. I don't +want to hear you say any more. If you'll come quietly, well and +good. If it was anybody else--but in my uncle's house--and the +community--and--well, will you come?" + +The man sighed. He looked ten years older. "All right," he said, "I +didn't know but--well, never mind. My nerve's gone. I never had a +failure, you see. An' I always knew I couldn't stand one. Never even +left a trail. I couldn't afford to, workin' as I did. I always knew +'twas bound to come, though, and here it is. But it's hard. Jim was +telling me last month about this singer that he'd heard was so +careless, and I noted it down for use some day. You have to notice +those things. He never said his friends lived here. I--it makes me +feel dreadful when I think how he'd feel if he knew I'd been working +his _friends_ this way--he'd never stand for that, Jim wouldn't. It +makes me feel--oh, well, what's the odds? But I wish you didn't +belong to Yale College." + +Lindsay scowled and motioned to the door. + +"Shut up and come on, will you?" he blurted. + +The man got up. + +"I guess I won't see Jim again, then," he said, "will I? Of course +there isn't one chance in a hundred he'll ever know. But I couldn't +explain why I didn't go up to New Haven, nor send the thousand, and +it'll be five years, anyhow--ten, maybe. And I shan't hold out that. +The doctor only gave me two." + +"Ten years? Oh, no!" Lindsay cried. + +"It's grand larceny," said the man simply. + +"Lin, Lin, come _on_!" called Caroline. + +"You've got the pin, and I'll tear the picture up," said the man. +"I've got it all planned, o' course--I give the name of Barker. +And--and _if_ Jim ever says anything to you or any of his friends +about me being mean about the thousand, when I'd promised it, just +kind of give a hint, will you, that things may have happened so's I +couldn't? I hope he'll think I died. I wish he was through Yale, +though. The thousand won't make any difference with graduatin', will +it?" + +Lindsay swallowed hard; his nerves were strained to snapping. + +"Good God, no!" he shouted. He stepped to the French window, opened +it, and threw the revolver over the sill. + +"Get out!" he said briefly, turning to the man, "get out of my +sight! If Jim ever receives another penny from you, I'll tell him +all I know." + +The man swayed towards the chair. "Do you mean it?" he gasped, +"honest?" + +He began to sob and choke a little, and turning half bent over the +chair, hunted with his hand for his hat. + +"Get out!" Lindsay repeated violently, looking persistently +sidewise. + +The man leaned over and fumbled for the picture on the floor, found +it and straightened himself. + +Suddenly he leaped back and fell into the chair again; a dreadful +pallor reached the roots of his hair. + +"All up, I guess--twice to-day--'Jim good-by," he said very quickly, +and rolled against Lindsay, the picture tight in his hand. + +"Lin! If you don't come pretty soon"--Caroline pushed open the door +a little. + +"Hush! Run and bring that whisky!" her cousin whispered, his face +drawn and frightened. + +She waited outside while he labored mysteriously, breathing hard. + +"Is Mr. Barker sick, Lin?" she whispered fearfully when he came back +to the door. + +"Y--yes. I guess he's pretty sick," he said slowly, stepping out +with her and turning the knob carefully. The dining-room reeked with +the whisky on his hands and his coat. + +"We'll go for the doctor," he went on, "both of us, because we'll +have to fix--I'll have to talk to you on the way. You needn't hurry +so, Caroline. There's no--we don't have to hurry." He tried the +outside door twice, to make sure it was latched, and glanced hastily +at the library windows. + +"I'd better wire Uncle Joe," he said half to himself; "he'll know +what to do--oh, there's the dog. Come on, Hamlet--he's Buck +Williams's--gentle as a kitten." + +"Yes, he'll know," she repeated, contentedly, reaching for Hamlet's +black muzzle. + +"But I don't think that was right, do you, Lin, even for a joke?" +she queried, following him down the side path. The big hound padded +on behind them. + +"No," he agreed briefly. + +"Wasn't it funny he had one of your pins?" She was trotting rapidly, +to keep up with him. + +Lindsay stopped short and almost faced her. He looked very young and +tired. + +"I swear, Caroline, I believe worse men have worn it!" he said. + + + + +V + +A PILLAR OF SOCIETY + + +Caroline slipped out of the woodshed with Henry D. Thoreau barking +under his breath at her heels, and struck across the dusty mountain +road into the trail. The advantages of the woodshed were many: it +was cool and dark, the stacked wood had a soothing odor and a neat, +restful appearance, and one was more or less forgotten there. More +important, it lay directly under the long living-room, and sounds +carried easily through the primitive plank floor. Up to now the +murmur of the company's voices had been a negligible quantity, a +background for thought, merely, but suddenly a familiar intonation +had risen higher. + +"Why, certainly, Caroline can show you--she knows all the trails. +Yes, indeed, she'd be delighted, I'm sure.... Oh, any time you +prefer. Don't let her dawdle along, though; she's such a strange +child--sometimes it will take her ten minutes to get across the +road, and then another time she will be as quick as a flash. I'll +see where she is." + +But even as the boards squeaked above her head, Caroline had fled, +and Henry D. Thoreau, smarting from the indignity of her brown, +berry-stained hand circling his muzzle, was expressing his feelings +to the yellow birches and ground pine. + +"Oh shut up, won't you, Henry D.?" she urged him indignantly, "do +you want to take that fat old tiresome lady around our nice +mountain? I don't b'lieve you do. You can be called 'girlie' if you +want to--I don't. She is so hot and she creaks so when she walks! I +_had_ to hold your nose." + +Henry D., who had only wanted an explanation, subsided, and they +trudged on in silence, Indian file, along the narrow trail. + +The early afternoon sun filtered down through the birch and beech +leaves on Caroline's brown head and Henry D.'s brindled back, pine +needles crunched under their feet, thick glossy moss twinkled with +last night's rain. They sniffed the damp, wholesome mold +delightedly; from time to time Caroline kicked the rotten stump of +some pithy, crumbling trunk or marked patterns with her finger nail +in the thin new moss of some smooth slab. Indian pipes and glowing +juniper berries embroidered the way; pale, late anemones, deceived +by the cold mountain weather, sprang up between the giant mushrooms. +It was as still as eternity. + +The wood grew steadily thicker, the light pierced down in golden +arrows only, the silence was almost oppressive. Caroline stepped +suddenly out of the tiny path, pushed aside a clump of fern, buried +her arm up to the elbow in a hollow stump and produced a large +crumbling molasses cooky. + +"Just where I left it, Henry D., just exactly!" she whispered +delightedly. "I wish now I'd left 'em both, but I didn't feel able +to spare 'em at the time." + +They ate the cooky pleasantly, Henry D. receiving every third bite +with scrupulous accuracy. + +"I used to think maybe that huckleberry-boy followed us up and +discovered our places, but this proves he don't," she announced, as +the last crumb disappeared; "he's not so smart as he thinks he is, +is he, Henry D.?" + +They trotted on, moving more quickly as the faint, regular crash of +an axe on wood came nearer and nearer. A barbed-wire fence had +sprung up unaccountably in the wood, following a devious course +among the thick trees, and as they scrambled carefully under it, +Henry D. pausing with accustomed gallantry while his mistress +disentangled two petticoats and an unfortunate stocking, a little +gray-shingled cottage jumped out suddenly from the gray beeches, and +they emerged into its front yard. + +It was a ridiculously operatic little cottage, composed chiefly of +bulging balconies, scarlet and yellow with geraniums and +nasturtiums, casement windows with tiny leaded panes, and double +Dutch doors, evidently practicable. It had all the air of having +retired from the other scenery to practice for its own act, and it +seemed highly probable that a chorus of happy short-skirted +peasantry would skip out from behind it and tunefully relate the +fortunes of the heroine within. + +But the only person in sight was obviously impossible of such +classification. Though she was chopping wood, and chopping it very +well, though she wore what is sometimes called a Mother Hubbard +wrapper and a stiff, clean blue-checked apron, she was not in the +least a peasant. Her figure was tall and spare, her hair gray and +drawn into an uncompromising knot, her face wrinkled and shrewd, her +eyes soft, and full of the experience that middle-age brings to the +native American woman who has lived all her life in the +sparsely-settled country districts. + +Her face relaxed at sight of her visitors. "How d'ye do?" she called +cheerfully, "ma want anything?" + +"I don't believe so," Caroline returned sociably, "I've just come +up, that's all." + +"I thought maybe your ma was worried about them shirt-waists, but +she needn't be: I'll have 'em back by Friday, sure. It'll be all I +can do, though--he's on the rampage these days, and I've got my +hands full, I tell you." + +"Is Old Grumpy bad to-day?" Caroline inquired. + +"Bad? Child, that old fellow is just about the worst I ever saw, and +I've seen plenty. What's on his mind the Lord knows, but it's a +lesson to us all to keep our tempers and not have secret thoughts +preying on us night and day! Just now he told me the truth for once. +'I'm so worried I can't digest, Luella,' he says to me, 'and I +digest so damnably that it's enough to worry an archangel!' There--I +shouldn't 'a' said that before you, but--" + +"Oh, I know 'damn,' Luella," Caroline assured her, "and it isn't as +if you said it purposely, anyway; you just repeated it. It makes all +the difference." + +"I guess it does," Luella assented, "s'long's you understand it. But +then, you understand everything, more or less, 'seems to me. Where +you picked it all up at your age--" + +"What's that, Luella? Who is talking out there? What's going on +_now_ behind my back?" + +A petulant and gray-haired gentleman rushed out at them, very much +like a wiry Scotch terrier, and glared fiercely at Caroline and +Henry D. Thoreau. + +"Nothin's goin' on behind your back that I know of, Mr. Wortley," +Luella returned composedly. "This little girl comes up to see me +every once 'n a while--I do washing for her mother at one of the +cottages--and we were just talkin' back and forth, that's all." + +"You fried that liver!" the gentleman burst forth abruptly, "you +know you fried it, Luella! I might as well have eaten a shingle off +the cottage--it's killing me! Ugh! As if I hadn't enough to bear +without being murdered with fried liver!" + +"I do' know what you've got to bear, Mr. Wortley," and Luella +gathered her apron full of kindlings, "but you needn't add fried +liver to it, 'cause it was broiled." + +"Never!" exploded the fiery gentleman. + +"I'd ought to know," said Luella firmly, "I had the grid-iron to +wash." + +"As for children," he veered off again, "you couldn't have poorer +company. Think what they'll grow into--think!" + +"Some don't turn out so bad," she reminded him, starting toward the +house. + +"Ah, but when are you going to decide that they _have_ 'turned +out'?" he demanded, trotting angrily beside her, "tell me that, will +you? Perhaps you imagine that when they're of age, legally men and +women, and you've managed to keep 'em out of the State Reform School +up to then, you're justified in thinking they've 'turned out'? Hey?" + +"Oh, now, I wouldn't go on so about the State Reform School, Mr. +Wortley," Luella urged pacifically, "that's awful. I always say the +young ones mean well, mostly; there ain't many that set out to be +bad a-purpose. Only, accordin' to their judgment--" + +"Their judgment! _Their_ judgment! For God's sake!" he thundered, +and darted into the house, slamming the door so that the casements +rattled. + +"I guess you'd better run on, dear," Luella suggested, "he's bad +to-day. Some days I just have my hands full with him, and then again +he'll be real pleasant and amusin'--he'll say the cutest things. But +he's perturbed to-day, and that's a fact. You stop in 'long in the +afternoon, when he takes his nap and I'm at my ironing, and we'll +have a good visit." + +Caroline nodded soberly and took up her journey again, not a little +depressed; he had been such a whirlwind of a gentleman. + +Unconsciously she followed a tiny, all-but-overgrown trail that led +straight up the hill against which the cottage was built and lost +itself, apparently, in the thick wood at the top. A belt of tall +beeches half way up blotted out everything behind it, and the dozens +of chipmunks and red squirrels that scurried hither and yon, the fat +hen-partridge schooling her brood under Caroline's very nose, the +flame-colored, translucent lizards slipping under mossy roots at her +feet, showed the neglect into which the trail had fallen. She pushed +on, hardly certain now that she had not lost it, or that it had ever +led anywhere, when she stumbled suddenly over a handsome meerschaum +pipe, still warm, and colored to a nicety. She picked it up, poked +experimentally at the ashes with a twig, smelled it distastefully +and stared about her. No one was in sight, and she had walked at +least a quarter of a mile before she encountered a young man sitting +in a dejected attitude on the stump of a yellow birch. + +He was peering gloomily into the hemlocks opposite him, his hands +were deep in his pockets, his feet crossed at an uncomfortable +angle. He was a pale young man with dark circles under darker eyes, +and an expression of such settled melancholy that Caroline lost no +time in assuaging it as far as she could. + +"Here it is," she remarked, holding out the pipe, "how do you do?" + +The young man started violently. + +"Holy Bridget, who are you?" he demanded. "How did you get here? +This is private property--didn't you see the sign?" + +"There wasn't any sign the way we came," she returned placidly, "we +came over the mountain. Don't you want your pipe?" + +The young man blushed and scowled. "Thank you very much," he said, +extending a thin, brown hand, "I'm afraid I was rather rude. Where +did you find it?" + +"Oh, down there," she answered vaguely. + +He handled the pipe lovingly, knocked it against the birch stump and +cleared it further with a curl of the polished, champagne-tinted +bark. + +"Nice dog," he suggested, "what's his name?" + +"Henry D. Thoreau," she replied, studying the green scarab in his +necktie and the heavy seal-ring on his left hand. + +"For heaven's sake! Who named him?" + +"My Uncle Joe," she returned simply, "because he takes to the woods +whenever he gets the chance. Was that pin a bug once?" + +"Not since I ran across it," said the young man, "before that, I +can't say. Has your uncle any other animals?" + +"Oh, yes," she assured him. "There's the donkey, his name is +Rose-Marie; and the baby's cat, his name is Pharaoh Meneptah, but +the baby calls him Coo-coo; and there's Miss Honey's rabbits, +they're all named Eleanor, because you can't tell them apart, and +one name does just as well; and the canary, his name is Jean and +Edouard de Reszke." + +The young man burst into laughter and fell off the stump abruptly. + +"Those are fine names, all of them," he declared, picking himself up +with great solicitude for the pipe, "but why did the canary get +two?" + +"Because Aunt Edith likes Jean the best, but Uncle Joe says there's +more to Edouard," she explained, "so they named him both, because +Uncle Joe said anything was better than a divided family." + +"That's right," said the young man, "anything is." + +His face, which had looked for a moment merry and boyish, darkened +again, and his big eyes glowered intently at the shadowy hemlocks. + +"Anything," he added, in a low voice, "but a sacrifice of principle, +a sacrifice of truth, as it actually is, to the petty conventions of +a rotten society!" + +With that he sat his teeth hard and pulling a leather pouch out of +his pocket, began stuffing the pipe decisively. Caroline waited for +him to continue, but as he lit the pipe and puffed at it in +silence, she concluded that the interview was at an end, and started +up the path. + +"You'd better not--" he began, but stopped suddenly and appeared to +reconsider. "Oh, I don't know," he added, "it might be better, after +all. Go along." + +The trail was little more than a worn line in the grass, now; soon +it turned sharply to the left, skirted the wood, and led to a tiny, +dilapidated cottage. Caroline had more than once passed it by under +the impression that it was abandoned, or used perhaps for storing +ice or wood; but to-day a thin curl of smoke stained the blue above +it and through the open door of the one living-room that formed its +ground-floor she saw a scarlet Navajo blanket, on which reposed a +magnificent snowy Angora cat. A great green bough covered one of the +walls, and a few chairs, a square pine table and a guitar flung +against a pile of bright cushions, completed the furniture. At the +further end of the room, stretched upon the mate to the Angora's +blanket, lay a young woman, sobbing violently. + +Caroline hesitated, but Henry D. Thoreau recognized grief, and knew +perfectly well what to do. Stepping quietly over to the prostrate +figure he encircled it once, looking for a point of vantage, then +selecting two little white, pink-tipped fingers, he licked them +caressingly. + +The sobbing ceased: the girl drew a longer shaking breath. + +"Is that you, Mimi?" she said huskily, "I didn't know you cared as +much as--oh, what is that?" + +Her hand had fallen on the little bull-dog's smooth, stiff coat and +she started up in surprise. Caroline smiled shyly into her big, +stained gray eyes. + +"It's all right--Henry D. never bites--do you feel bad?" she asked. + +The girl pushed back a handful of crinkly, chestnut hair from her +damp face and rose, shaking out her skirts. + +"Y--yes," she said, frankly, "yes, I do. Do you know why?" + +"No. Why?" Caroline inquired. + +"Because I can't make huckleberry bread," the girl assured her +solemnly. "I--I've been trying all the morning. Look in there." + +Caroline peered into the little lean-to, filled to over-flowing with +a stove, some tin cooking pans, a table full of soiled dishes and a +case of kitchen sundries, half unpacked. + +"You did get it all over, didn't you?" she observed cheerfully, +noting the prints of doughy fingers on oven and chairs and the +burned, odorous wreck, resting in soggy isolation in the middle of +the floor. "You cooked it a little too much, maybe." + +"Maybe," the girl assented listlessly. "I was going to have it for +luncheon. The woman promised to be here by ten o'clock, and I got +the breakfast well enough--after a fashion--but she hasn't come, and +I'm s-so hungry!" + +Her eyes filled again. "It's simply filthy here," she murmured. "Do +you know anybody we could depend on--oh, how stupid of me, of course +you don't." + +"There's Luella," Caroline suggested, "she's right near here, and +she makes lovely huckleberry bread. Shall I go get her? Old +Gr'--the gentleman that she keeps house for takes his nap now, and +I know she could come." + +The look of relief on the girl's face was enough, and Caroline +hurried out, leaving Henry D. Thoreau, who seemed to feel +responsible for his hostess's peace of mind, snuggled in her lap. + +She burst into Luella's placid afternoon kitchen, big with her news, +bustling about excitedly, while Luella methodically packed a +market-basket with half a cold chicken, an untouched loaf of +huckleberry bread, a pan of tiny biscuits and a glass of currant +jelly. + +"Butter I know they've got, and milk, for I see Wilkins stop up +there this mornin' as I come down, and I wondered who on earth had +taken that God-forsaken little cottage. 'Twasn't occupied last +season. Cryin' right out loud, was she? She must 'a been all tired +out to make such a fuss over a tin o' huckleberry bread. I s'pose +she hasn't got many breakfasts in her life. Ten to one 'twas Myra +Tenny that disappointed her: it sounds like her. Always undertakin' +more 'n any one woman c'd possibly attend to, and then goin' back on +you. Pretty cross himself, was he? Well, they'd had words, most +likely. They take it hard at first. They ain't long married, of +course, if they're young as you say. Poor things. There, I guess +that's about all." + +Luella closed the kitchen door softly and they hurried along the +trail. + +"He's off as sound as a baby," she confided to Caroline, "sometimes +he'll sleep two hours, he's up so much in the night." + +As the relief expedition neared the cottage, Henry D. Thoreau +bounded out to greet them, the girl behind him, still flushed and +swollen-eyed, but with her thick, reddish hair newly braided in a +crown around her head. + +"Good afternoon," Luella called cheerily, "I hear you're in trouble +up here! You ought to let me known--I'm the one for jobs like this. +Just let me into the kitchen, Miss----" She paused, but as the girl +made no attempt to help her, continued easily, "well, I should say +so! Got a little burnt, didn't it? Never mind, you ought to a' seen +my first corn-meal muffins! Now you just step out and rest a minute, +dear, and by the time you've called your husband I'll have a little +lunch scratched up and you'll feel so different you won't know +yourself. It's surprisin' how distressed you c'n get on an empty +stomach. 'Tis your husband, isn't it, or is it your brother?" + +"No, it's not--yes. It--it's not my brother," the girl said in a +low voice. + +"No," Luella repeated soothingly, "no, I see. That's a fine cat, +ain't it? I've read of 'em--Angora, ain't it?--but I never saw one. +They say they're mostly deaf. Is that one?" + +"Yes. No--I don't know. I don't believe she is," the girl murmured, +brokenly. She seemed newly distressed; her lips, very red against +her white cheeks, quivered, her full breast strained against her +white linen blouse. + +Luella strode lightly about the disorderly little kitchen; she had +forgotten the very presence of the girl, it seemed, for as she +gathered the soiled dishes, coaxed the fire, filled the kettle and +hastily removed the traces of the ill-fated huckleberry bread, she +hummed a tune and appeared to see only her work. + +Caroline was on her knees before the Angora and knew nothing of the +flight of time, though it was really hardly more than a quarter of +an hour before the kitchen rivalled Luella's in neatness and the +pine table in the living-room, covered with a fresh cloth, and shiny +plated silver, only waited its host. + +"Now if you'll step out and call your husband, Miss--I didn't just +get the name?" said Luella invitingly. + +The girl rose from the chair where she had been sitting, motionless, +except for her eyes, which had followed every movement of the older +woman. She stood very straight and threw her head back with a +gesture almost defiant. + +"My name is Dorothy Hartley," she declared, and ran abruptly out of +the cottage. + +"Well, well," Luella shook her head whimsically, "she's pretty well +wrought up, isn't she? Sweet little thing, too--real loveable, I +sh'd say. It don't seem possible he'd be mean to her. But o' course +he wants his breakfast fit to eat, just the same. I put a place for +you, Car'line, 'cause I know you c'n eat, no matter what time +'tis--you're 's empty's a bag. There he comes--my, but he's +haughty! He looks like somebody in one o' those novels, don't he, +now?" + +They came slowly up the path, hand in hand, like children, her gray +eyes on the ground, his black ones challenging the world. The clear +mountain air carried his words easily to the two in the door: + +"Now, dearest, be brave! Remember, we are right, and we know we are +right." + +She clutched his hand nervously, but made no reply. + +"Come right in," Luella urged them hospitably, "you must be 'most +starved." + +"Oh, no," he assured her, with a loyal glance at the girl, "I--I had +a good breakfast, didn't I, dear?" + +But his eyes brightened at sight of the half chicken and the omelet, +glowing in a parsley wreath, and he had broken one of the puffy +rolls and plunged into a great cup of coffee before he addressed +Caroline. + +"You seem to be a valuable person to know," he observed, +"you and Matthew Arnold or John Greenleaf Whittier or +what-ever-his-name-is." + +Caroline looked embarrassed and helped herself to jelly. + +"You have helped my--we are very much obliged to you, I am sure," +he turned to address Luella, who was passing from stove to table, +"aren't we, dearest?" + +The girl sat with her hands in her lap, staring at her plate. + +"Yes, of course," she agreed, "certainly." + +"If you could come every day--they told me I could find some one to +do that--it would be a great accommodation," he went on, with a +worried look at the sad face opposite him, "and anything it might be +worth, I am sure, Mrs.----" + +"Judd, Luella Judd," she supplied, briskly. "Now, dear, try to eat a +little, do! That omelet'll do you good. And that's a lovely piece o' +breast I cut you off. It was all right my bringin' it, for the old +gentleman never touches cold meat and the jelly's my own. There, +that's right. I thought you'd like it, once you began. There's no +need to tempt Car'line and your husband, is there? But that's all +right: young folks ought to eat--I never grudged mine a crumb, and +the Lord knows they eat me out of house and home." + +The young man, indeed, ate voraciously, and under Luella's kindly +domineering the hostess herself cleared her plate. The hot coffee +brought the color to her cheeks, and she had even smiled at Henry D. +Thoreau. Caroline had never seen anyone prettier. She had a great +dimple in either cheek, and her gray eyes smiled with the sweetest +confidence into the black eyes opposite: any one could see that they +loved each other very much, even if they had "had words." + +"Just a little more o' the huckleberry bread, dear?" Luella urged +her. "I've been sort o' plannin' out how I c'd manage to get here +every day, and I guess I can, if you'll be content to wait a little +for your breakfast. My old gentleman don't have anything but a cup +o' coffee in the morning, an' I c'd be over here by ha' past eight, +easy enough, Mr. Hartley, if that suited you--" + +"Wortley, my name is Wortley," the young man interrupted, hastily. + +Luella looked puzzled. + +"Wortley?" she repeated, "why, that's--well, never mind, it's none +o' my business. I cert'nly thought she said Hartley, though. Well, +if you'n Mrs. Wortley _can_ wait till ha' past eight--" + +"Frank, dear," the girl broke in appealingly, but the young man +shook his head. + +"No, darling," he said firmly, and then looking straight at Luella, +he went on: "This lady's name is Hartley. We are not--we are not +related." + +Luella stared blankly at him a moment, then turned to the girl. But +she, though she got up from her seat and going over to the young man +seized his hand and pressed it between her own, did not lift her +eyes to the woman's troubled and accusing gaze. + +Luella drew a long breath, took off her checked apron and rolled it +mechanically into a bundle. Her face had hardened; only the +shrewdness was left in her eyes. + +"You might 'a told me so before," she said briefly, and turned on +her heel. + +The girl was crying on his shoulder. "Tell her, Frank, please tell +her why," she begged, through her sobs. + +Luella faced her sternly. "He needn't trouble to tell me why," +she said, "I know more'n you think, maybe. I know who your +father is, Mr. Wortley, an' I guess I understand pretty well +by now what his troubles are. If he forbade you marryin' each +other, he had his reasons, I don't doubt, for he's a good man, +if he is quick-tempered, an'--" + +"He _didn't_ forbid our marrying," the young man broke in sharply, +glaring with ill-suppressed irritation at Luella, while he softly +patted the girl's shoulder. "He begged us on his bended knees to +marry, though I don't know how you know him." + +Luella paused with her hand on the door. + +"What!" she exclaimed sharply. "Then it was your folks?" She looked +at the girl. + +"No, it wasn't!" Dorothy lifted her head. "They b-begged us on +_their_ b-bended knees, too," she sobbed and disappeared again. + +"For the Lord's sake!" Luella muttered. Then turning fiercely on him +she took a step forward. + +"Do you mean to tell me you're scoundrel enough--" she began, but +the young man--he was really only a boy--shook his head angrily. + +"Not at all, not at all," he burst out with a curious likeness to +his father, "I'm no more a scoundrel than you are, Mrs. Judd, and +you'll oblige me by acting accordingly." + +It was so evident that he meant what he said, he appeared so +righteously indignant, that Luella paused, dumbfounded, twisting the +apron in her hands. + +"Wh-why ain't you married, then?" she demanded. + +The young man surveyed her calmly. "Because I--we disapprove of +marriage," he said. + +Luella turned a brick-red; her mouth opened vaguely. Though she +spoke not a word, he answered her amazed face. + +"The conditions of marriage at the present day," he stated loftily, +"are not such as to lead me--to lead us to suppose that as an +institution it has accomplished its purpose. Where it is not merely +legalized--" + +"Oh, Frank!" the girl moaned softly, putting her little hand over +his opened lips. He kissed it gently, but removed it. + +"To say nothing of the absolute misery you can see all about you as +a result of a chain that ought long ago to have been broken, or +better still, never--" + +"And before that child, too!" Luella burst out. "Caroline, you get +right up and come home. I never heard anything like it in my life. +Come this minute, now!" + +Caroline rose unwillingly; she thought Luella unnecessarily severe. + +"As to that," young Mr. Wortley announced composedly, "we differ +again. The sooner these matters are discussed frankly before +children, the sooner we shall have fewer unhappy men and women. +There is nothing whatever in my intentions or Miss--or Dorothy's, +to shock or affront the youngest child. I have no children myself, +but--" + +"Humph!" Luella sniffed furiously, "I sh'd hope not!" + +"--but _if_ I had," he pursued evenly, "I should teach them +precisely--" + +"Look here," Luella interrupted roughly, "look me in the face, both +of you!" + +They turned their eyes full on her, the boy's dilated to +fanaticism, glowing with obstinacy; the girl's, wet and pleading, +miserable, but full of love. Luella, with narrowed lids, bored into +those clear young eyes: no shadow of deceit, no hint of shuffling or +double-dealing could withstand that relentless scrutiny. + +Slowly her face softened, her eyebrows relaxed, her hold on the +twisted apron loosened. + +"I guess we better talk this over," she said decisively, closing the +door and seating herself squarely in the chair nearest it. "How old +did you say you was, Mr. Wortley?" + +The forensic expression faded helplessly from the boy's face. He +clutched at it, but it failed him, and with the air of a pupil +addressing his teacher, he replied: "I didn't say, but I'm +twenty-one." + +Luella nodded. "An' you can't be a day over nineteen, can you?" she +demanded of the girl. The braided chestnut head shook sadly. + +"I thought not. I s'pose you've found out that your views ain't +shared by most o' the world," she proceeded, with a fine air of +impartiality. + +"I--we have been very much misunderstood," said the boy stiffly, +"but I have never been in the habit of allowing other people's ideas +to affect my actions." + +"You been spoiled, you mean," Luella interpolated, "I thought so. +Spoiled to death, prob'ly." + +He bit his lip. "But I hope I--we are prepared for +anything--_anything_," he repeated with emphasis, "that may result +from the course we have taken. I expect the results will be +unpleasant--I expect it fully." + +"I guess your expectations 'll be fulfilled right enough," she +responded promptly. "And as for bein' prepared--you remind me o' my +father, Mr. Wortley. He used to say he'd been prepared for death +since the age o' seven years, but he did hope the Lord wouldn't take +advantage of it. Is--is she prepared, too?" + +He looked lovingly at the girl who crouched on the floor beside him. +"Dorothy and I think precisely the same in everything," he said +proudly, "don't we, my dearest one?" + +Luella's lips twitched; she looked at the flushed arrogant young +face with irrepressible admiration. + +"I reely b'lieve you think so!" she declared, and as his hand +clinched and his eyes flashed dangerously, she raised her hand with +a warning gesture. + +"There, there now, I get enough o' that from your father!" she +admonished him, adding quickly, "Does he know you're here?" + +"I don't know," he answered irritably, "I never supposed _he'd_ be +here. I came up here because I'd made all my plans to--and I never +let my plans be interfered with, if I can possibly avoid it. I told +the man to get it ready for me, but just before we started he +telegraphed that it was engaged for the season. But I came all the +same, because I knew this little one would be empty. Father bought +it up to protect himself. Does he know I'm here?" + +Luella looked thoughtful. "I reely don't know," she said slowly. + +"It'll come pretty hard on her, doin' her own work, won't it?" she +went on, watching him curiously. Then, as he started angrily, "Oh, +there ain't nobody here will come, by the day, or any other way--I +sh'd s'pose you'd known that. And as for any o' the cottage +people--heavens an' earth, Car'line, will you get up an' go home? I +don't know what's come over me to forget that child--she sits so +still--" + +But as Caroline got sulkily from her seat, cowed by Luella's stern +face, Dorothy put out her hand and caught the child's dress. + +"Oh! Oh!" she cried hysterically, "don't send her away--don't, +Frank! L-let me have somebody!" + +"There, you see!" said Luella sadly, "you see how 'tis, Mr. Wortley. +Do you mean to say you have the heart--" + +"Dorothy, I don't understand you at all," said the young man, with +evident self restraint. + +"You probably do not realize the very trying position you put me in. +I hope it is not necessary to explain to you, Mrs. Judd, that if +Miss Hartley _wishes_ to marry me, she has but to say the word, and +it shall be done instantly--instantly!" he repeated with emphasis, +"as if," Luella said later, "he'd had a minister in his side +pocket." + +"There, my dear, hear that!" she cried triumphantly, "now just tell +him what you want--" + +"You horrid woman, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" the girl +broke in furiously. "How dare you intimate--as if I didn't know that +Frank would do anything in the world I asked him to!" + +"Oh, no, dearest," he broke in satirically, "that's a poor basis for +action in this beautiful world of ours! Catch your man and tie him +tight before he has time to change his mind. Then he'll be obliged +to stay by you--you've got him hand and foot! That is love!" + +"It's just as well, sometimes, though," Luella inserted placidly. + +"Do you suppose I would ever," the girl stormed, "unless I--oh, +dear, will somebody understand? Don't you know that my--that Frank +has studied this question very deeply, that it's a matter of +principle with us? If you had read all the dreadful things--" + +"I am afraid, darling," he interrupted, with cold dignity, "that +if your people and mine cannot understand the position I take, +if we are actually obliged to take the matter into our own hands, +and--and run away, in fact, in order to prove our sincerity, you +can hardly expect people of a different--of less--with fewer--" + +"I know what you mean, Mr. Wortley," Luella said gravely. She +rose to her feet, beckoning to Caroline, whose waist the girl +still clasped. + +"I haven't got your education," she went on, with a simple humility +that became her very touchingly, "we're poor people up here, us +'natives,' and we don't get much time for books, or when we do, +we're too tired to read 'em much. I don't doubt you've been to +college, yourself, and you've prob'ly learnt a lot about the +mistakes that's been made in the world--a lot that I wouldn't +understand. But I want to tell you one thing. I'm old enough to 'a +been your mother, Mr. Wortley, my oldest boy'd 'a been twenty if +he'd lived--and I've buried two besides him. You'll know I've seen +trouble when I tell you that I've always thought we'd saved him and +Annie if we could 'a had another doctor that'd had more experience +with typhoid, and that's an awful thing to feel." + +She paused a moment with somber eyes. + +"I've worked hard since I was ten years old, and for the last five +years there's been nothin' but me between the children and the poor +house. You don't know much about that kind o' worry, Mr. Wortley, +an' 'taint likely you ever will. I was married when I was +nineteen--" Her eyes fell on the girl and softened lovingly, "'an +what that means in the country with seven children an' no help, an' +the winters what they are here, maybe you can guess a little. But I +tell you this: I ain't had the sorrow, all told, that's preparin' +for that girl, if you keep on like this. An' I wouldn't change my +lot for hers, nor would she, if she knew." + +There was a dead silence in the room. Only the short, grunting +breaths of the sleeping dog stirred the air. The girl sat as if +turned to stone, her arm hard about Caroline; the boy stared +doubtfully at the woman, studying her plain, wrinkled face. + +"I--I have plenty of money," he said, in a hollow thin little voice, +"she will always--" + +"Money!" Luella's voice shook with scorn, "what's money? The Lord +knows, Mr. Wortley, I need money more'n you ever will, but let me +tell you there's things money can't buy. Can you buy children--nice +children like this one--to play with your children? Tell me that!" + +"I shall never have any children," the girl's voice came in a husky, +strained whisper, "I shall be too--too miserable," she concluded +softly, and utterly to herself; she had absolutely forgotten the +others, even the boy, whose eyes turned incessantly from her face to +the older woman's. + +Luella's shrewd glance enveloped the strong young figure. "I never +heard 't misery prevented 'em," she said dryly. + +The boy seemed unable to move, so intense was the concentration of +his thoughts; his fingers stuck out stiffly in a purposeless, set +gesture. + +"If it is true, all that we thought," he said slowly, "then no +hardship, no merely personal suffering should prevent ... the +experiment must be made ... must inevitably, _sometime_...." + +"But not with her, not _her_, Mr. Wortley!" Luella cried. Her +expression turned quickly whimsical. + +"You remind me o' me an' my mother one time, when I was a girl," she +cried. "I wanted to prove that you c'd raise biscuits without the +bakin' powder--I was terrible headstrong; I know what 'tis well +'nough, an' how hard 'tis to give 'way--an' she was tryin' to +persuade me. + +"'I think 't least you might let me make th' experiment,' I says, +an' she turned to me--I c'n see her now an', + +"'Luella,' says she, 'it's all very well for you to make th' +experiment, but I'm the one that'll have to pay the bill!' she says. + +"It'll be like that with you, Mr. Wortley--you'll make th' +experiment, but _she'll_ pay!" + +There was another silence. + +"We always pay," Luella added thoughtfully, "it don't seem just +fair, but we do." + +The young man shook himself suddenly, like a dog fresh from the +water. + +"I didn't mean to--God knows I wouldn't hurt a hair of her head," he +said, in a low voice. His hands relaxed, his shoulders drooped. "It +seemed the best thing only this morning--is that what you meant this +morning, Dorothy, when we--when we--when I went away?" he asked +gently. + +She held out her hand to him, still clasping Caroline, and he knelt +beside her, one arm around her neck. + +"I--I don't want you ever--to do--what you--think--is--is wrong," +she said brokenly, but with a brave effort at steadiness. +"I'll--I'll never--leave you--Frank." + +She gazed adoringly into his eyes, her hand tight in his. Luella's +mouth twitched and she choked as she spoke. + +"Oh, Mr. Wortley," she urged, "it isn't that I don't see what you +mean--partly. You think I don't, but I do. There's awful mistakes +made in marryin', we all see 'em; even 'way back here in the country +dreadful things happen, an' the papers--we c'n read 'em, that's +enough an' more'n enough. There's things that ought to be changed, I +know, but not the way you want to change 'em--oh, not that way! It +can't help any, not marryin', don't you see--folks must just take +pains and marry more careful, 'cause we've begun this way and now we +can't stop without somebody gettin' hurt--and that won't be you, nor +any other man. Marryin's all we've got to tie to, Mr. Wortley, us +women, an' we can't quit now!" + +The boy looked thoughtfully at her: "I--I think perhaps you are +right," he said slowly. He appeared unaccountably older; small, +worried lines were cutting themselves deep around his eyes and +mouth. + +He threw back his head in an attempt to regain the old, masterful +manner. + +"I hope I am too sincere not to state honorably that I--I feel sure +you are right!" he announced, "that is, in this particular instance. +I have no desire to establish any point at the expense--at the +expense...." + +He frowned into space; his lips tightened obstinately. + +"But it will _have_ to be at somebody's expense!" he cried +irritably. "Shall we _always_ go on like this, putting off, putting +off, letting this shameful, unsatisfactory state of things continue, +just because it would be _our_ wives that would suffer...." + +"I guess that's about it," Luella answered, seriously. + +"Then all I have to say is, we're damned cowards, all of us!" he +cried, with the old flash of rage. + +But it was the last time. Beaten, yet triumphant, he stooped for his +harness and himself assumed it, with set teeth. + +"I--I shouldn't have said that," he said, gravely. "It's--it's a +very difficult thing ... a man has so many responsibilities...." + +They waited patiently. + +"It seems one must compromise--something--anyway," he went on, +thinking his way painfully along. "I don't know why it seems so +difficult to me now; ... they talked enough, all the others, and of +course I shall never speak to your Aunt Ethel again--you may use +your own judgment, Dorothy--because there are some insults...." + +He shook himself again and drew the girl to her feet. + +"Dearest," he said, and there was a sad little ring in his voice, +but a strangely kind one, "I--we have been mistaken. It wouldn't do. +I think--" he looked anxiously at Luella--"the sooner we get some +one--to--to--a clergyman, you know, or a--a legal person of some +kind--" + +"I'll get Mr. Andrews right away," Luella assured him briskly. "He's +Cong'ational, and he's a real pleasant young man--new here. +Car'line, you run right down cross-lots to that first white house +an' there he'll be, callin' this minute on the Wilkinses, 'cause she +told me he would. You say Luella Judd wants him right away, an' +he'll come." + +"Yes, Luella, I will," said Caroline but her eyes were fastened on +the girl. + +She was in the boy's arms, her head on his shoulder; she clung to +him tightly, shivering a little, hiding her face. + +"You don't mind, darling?" he begged her earnestly, "you believe I +am doing it for the best? You won't blame me for changing, after all +I've said?" + +She lifted her head and through her loving gray eyes looked out at +him the woman she would be in ten years. A little tender smile +curved her lips; she patted his shoulder as a mother caresses her +headstrong, dearest son. + +"Whatever you think is best, Frank dear," she said, "let's do that." + + * * * * * + +"I only hope to heaven she don't understand!" Luella muttered +nervously, glancing unguardedly at Caroline. + +Caroline stamped her foot angrily. Her sensitive little body had +thrilled in the girl's arm; she had felt all the pathos and dignity +of Luella's appeal, the young man seemed to her mysterious and +noble. And now she was distrusted, grudged her free part in this +exciting afternoon! She scowled at Luella. + +"You must think I'm a baby, Luella Judd!" she cried irritably. "I +understand all about it, just as well as you do! Didn't we have just +the same thing in the family, ourselves?" + +Luella gasped. + +"For heaven's sakes, Car'line, wha' do you mean?" she demanded; +"it's perfectly awful the things you city children know! I do +declare, I don't think it's right!" + +"Pooh!" said Caroline grandly. "I should hope I knew more'n that! +Why, my Uncle Joe's own sister, her man that she was engaged to, he +didn't believe in church weddings, either, and he told my mother if +he had to stand up in gray trousers with those six girls in pink +hats and the bishop all togged out and the whole town glaring at 'em +he'd run away with Cousin Elizabeth, and he didn't know whether he'd +marry her at all! And they cried and they begged 'em, and I was to +be a flower girl and wear my white silk stockings, but still they +wouldn't. And Cousin Elizabeth cried, too, and she said she'd never +feel married in a travelling dress, but Cousin Richard said he +guessed she would. And everybody was terribly angry with them, but +they just had it in her aunt's house that was paralyzed and couldn't +ever go out, and it was right next door to Cousin Richard's father's +house, too, just like this! Not one bridesmaid and nobody had any +cake in a box to take away. It was awful, just like Luella says, but +afterwards we all forgave 'em. They ran off and did it in the +afternoon--there was only her father and that paralyzed aunt." + +She drew a long breath and smiled importantly at them. + +Dorothy put an arm over her fat little shoulders. + +"You must be my bridesmaid and my flower girl, too," she said +softly. + +"You'll go get your father, o' course, Mr. Wortley?" Luella appeared +unconscious of the possibility of any refusal, and though he +started, scowled, and shook his head, her warning glance in +Caroline's direction checked him, and he plunged out of the door. + + * * * * * + +"And may God bless you both," the Reverend Mr. Andrews concluded +unofficially, noting with a certain curiosity, the impeccable riding +breeches of the groom, and the bride's looped-up linen habit--he had +never married a couple attired in precisely that manner, and he +scented romance. + +"Your generosity, Mr. Wortley, to say nothing of your father--" He +paused helplessly. "Mrs. Judd knows what this will mean to us this +winter," he finished. "No, I thank you, Mr. Wortley, I thank you +sir, but I never touch liquor in any form. But I drink their health +in this excellent iced coffee, I do indeed." + +Caroline slipped around to Luella, who sat mopping her eyes behind +the kitchen door. + +"I wish Mr. Wortley--Mr. Grumpy Wortley--wouldn't kiss me any more, +Luella," she complained, "it prickles my face dreadfully. I don't +see why I can't go with 'em as far as the Mountain Road--I'd love to +ride on his horse. I was bridesmaid--why can't I? Do you think my +mother'll let me keep this pin? What did you cry for, Luella? What +was it he said to you? He's going to drive me down to the village to +write some telegrams to New York with him, after they've started. +And then he'll speak to mother about the pin, but we have to get the +telegrams written first. Why do they always put it into the papers +the first thing, Luella? When you were married, were there telegrams +about it in the papers, up here?" + +Luella tied on her checked apron and attacked the soiled dishes +heaped on the kitchen table; her cheeks were deeply flushed and her +hands trembled a little. She smiled affectionately at Caroline. + +"I'll drive down with you, I guess, an' stop off at your ma's," she +answered. + +"No, it wasn't telegraphed 'round much when I was married, but +then," with a humorous twinkling of her deep-set eyes, "I hadn't +never studied into the marryin' question so thorough as some!" + + + + +VI + +HIS FATHER'S HOUSE + + +Caroline stopped abruptly at the edge of the little pine-encircled +glade that edged the pond-lily pond and waved her hand in warning. + +"Hist! there are human creatures there!" she whispered loudly. + +It would be evident to anyone not absolutely stone blind that she +was a fairy. A lace-edged, snowy nightgown was caught up by a sky +blue ribbon about her hips, trailing gloriously behind her over the +grass; two large wings artfully constructed of wrapping-paper +flopped behind her surprisingly bare shoulders--the nightgown was +decidedly _decollete_, and had been made for a person several sizes +larger than Caroline. + +"Hooma keecha da!" crooned the General. His conversation was +evidently based on the theory that the English language is a dark +mystery, insoluble by system, but likely to be blundered into +fortuitously, at any moment, if the searcher gabble with sufficient +steadiness and persistence. His costume, consisting merely of the +ordinary blue denim overalls of commerce, would have been positively +commonplace were it not for the wings of bright pink tissue paper, +which he wore with a somewhat confusing obstinacy, pinned firmly to +his chest. Miss Honey assisted his wavering footsteps rather +sulkily; she longed for the white and lacy draperies in front of her +and regarded her ballet skirts of stitched newspaper with bare +tolerance. It is true she wore a crown of tinfoil and carried a wand +made of half a brass curtain rod; but her laced tan boots, stubbed +and stained, showed with disgusting plainness, and nobody would take +the trouble to make her a newspaper bodice. + +"If you don't stop tickling me with that arrow, Brother Washburn, +I'll go back!" she declared, snappishly. + +The fourth member of the crew, whose bathing trunks and jersey, +fitted with surprisingly life-like muslin wings, pointed to Puck, +though the quiver slung across his shoulder woke conflicting +memories of Diana, chuckled guiltily and took a flying leap +from the big boulder into the center of the glade. His wings +stiffened realistically, and as he landed, poised on one +classically sandalled foot with arms outspread, the picnic +party before him started violently, and one of them clutched +the other's sleeve with a little cry. + +"What the--oh, it's all right! He's the real thing, isn't he, now?" + +The young man patted the girl's shoulder reassuringly and chuckled +as the rest of the crew emerged from the pines and peered over the +boulder. + +"They're only children," he said. + +She dropped her eyes and tightened her fingers around the shining +drinking cup. + +"Why, yes, they're only children," she repeated carelessly. + +Now, each of these picnic people had said the same words, but it was +entirely obvious to their fascinated audience that the words meant +very different things. For this reason they sidled around the young +lady impersonally, avoiding with care the edges of her pale-tinted +billowy skirts, and lined up confidently beside the young gentleman. + +Not that he controlled the picnic. It was spread out in front of +her, bewitching, intimate, in its suggestion of you--and--I; two +shiny plates, two knives, two forks, two fringed and glossy napkins. +A dark red bottle was propped upright between two stones, a pile of +thin, triangular sandwiches balanced daintily on some cool lettuce +leaves, and a fascinating object that glistened mysteriously in the +sun, held the platter of honor in the middle. + +"The Honorable Mr. Puck," suggested the young man, in the tone of +one continuing an interrupted conversation, "is figuring out how the +chicken got into the jelly without busting it--am I not right?" + +Brother grinned, and Caroline moved a little nearer. Miss Honey +stared at the young lady's fluted skirts and glistening yellow waves +of hair, at the sweeping plume in her hat, and her tiny high-heeled +buckled slippers. + +"I am obliged to admit," the young man went on, slicing into the +quivering aspic, "that I don't know myself. I never could find out. +Perhaps the young person in the--the not-too-long skirts, waved her +wand over the bird and he jumped in and the hole closed up?" He +slipped a section of the bird in question upon the lady's plate and +held the red bottle over her cup. + +"There was hard-boiled eggs stuck on those jelly things at our +wedding," Brother remarked, "on the outside, all around. But they +were bigger than yours." + +"I don't doubt it for a moment," the young man assured him politely. +"Have you been married long, may I ask? And which of these ladies--" + +"Brother doesn't mean that _he_ was married," Miss Honey explained, +"it was his oldest sister. She married a lawyer. I was flower girl." + +"Ima fow guh," murmured the General, thrusting out a fat and +unexpected hand and snatching from a hitherto unperceived box a tiny +cake encased in green frosting. + +"Oh, dear, it's got the pistache!" said the yellow-haired lady +disgustedly. + +Miss Honey fled after the General, who, though he was obliged to +wear whalebone braces in his shoes on account of youth and a +waddling and undeveloped gait, scattered over the ground with the +elusive clumsiness of a young duckling. Brother blushed, but scorned +to desert his troop. + +"He's awfully little, you know--he doesn't mean to steal," he +explained. + +"Twenty-two months," Caroline added, "and he does go so fast." She +smiled doubtfully at the lady, who selected a cake covered with +chocolate and looked at the young man. + +"Don't forget that Mr. Walbridge wants to use the car at six," she +said, "and you have to allow for that bad hill." + +He looked a little uncomfortable. "Don't you want to speak to the +children, Tina, dear?" he asked, dropping his voice; he sat very +close to her. + +"They have both spoken directly to you, you see, and children feel +that so--not being noticed. They're trying to apologize to you for +the cake." + +She bit her lip and turned to Miss Honey, who arrived panting, with +the General firmly secured by the band of his overalls. An oozy +green paste dripped from his hand; one of the pink wings +intermittently concealed his injured expression. + +"That's all right," she said, "don't bother about the cake, little +girl, the baby can have it." + +Miss Honey sniffed. + +"I guess you don't know much about babies if you think they can eat +cake like that," she answered informingly. + +"Hush, now, General, don't begin to hold your breath? Do you want a +nice graham cracker! It's _so_ nice!" + +"_So_ nice!" Caroline repeated mechanically, with a business-like +smile at the General, helpfully champing her teeth. + +The General wavered. He allowed one sticky paw to be cleaned with a +handful of grass, but his expression was most undecided, and he was +evidently in a position to hold his breath immediately if necessary. + +Miss Honey nodded to Caroline. "You've got 'em, haven't you?" she +asked. + +Caroline fumbled at the interior of the nightgown and produced a +somewhat defaced brown wafer. + +"General want it?" she said invitingly. There was another moment of +disheartening suspense. Brother assisted gallantly. + +"They're fine, General!" he urged, "try one!" And he, too, nodded +and chewed the empty air. Instinctively the strange young gentleman +did the same. + +The General looked around at them cautiously, noted the strained +interest of the circle, smiled forgivingly, and reached out for the +brown wafer. Peace was assured. + +"If you could only see how ridiculous you looked," the young lady +remarked, wiping her shining pink finger nails carefully, "you'd +never do that again, Rob. Have a cake?" + +He laughed, but blushed a little at her tone. + +"I suppose so," he admitted. "No, thanks, I'll pass up the cake. +Isn't there enough to go 'round, perhaps?" + +He examined the box. + +"By George, there are exactly three left!" he said delightedly. +"Will the fairy queen hand one to her brother--the big brother--and +one to--to the angel?" + +Caroline moved firmly to the front. "I am the Queen," she explained, +"but I let Miss Honey take the crown and the wand, or she wouldn't +be anything. Brother isn't her brother--that's just his name. +Brother Washburn. The General's her brother. I'll take that +strawberry one. We're much obliged, thank you." + +The cakes vanished unostentatiously and the young gentleman filled +his cup and disposed of it before anyone spoke. + +"We were such a big family, you see," he explained to the pursed red +mouth beside him, "and I know just how it is. You never get enough +cake, and never that dressy kind. It's molasses cake and cookies, +mostly." + +Brother moved nearer and nodded. + +"Well, but you can have all the cake you want, now, thank goodness," +said the lady, glancing contentedly at the tea basket, complete with +its polished fittings, at the big box of bonbons beside her, and the +handsome silk motor coat that was spread as a carpet under her +light dress. + +"Oh, yes, but now I don't want it," he assured her, "I want--other +things." He flashed a daring glance from two masterful brown eyes, +and she smiled indulgently at him for a handsome, spoiled boy. + +"Am I going to get them?" he persisted. + +She laughed the light little laugh of the triumphant woman. + +"My dear Bob," she said, "anybody who can buy all the cake he wants +can usually get the--other things!" + +His face clouded slightly. + +"I hate to hear you talk like that, Christine," he began, "it's not +fair to yourself--" + +"How'd you know I was Puck?" Brother inquired genially. He made no +pretense of including the lady in the conversation; for him she was +simply not there. + +"Oh, I'm not so ignorant as I look," the young man replied. "I don't +believe you could stump me on anything you'd be likely to be--I've +probably been 'em all myself. We were always rigging up at home. +Didn't you use to do that, Tina?" + +The lady shook her head decidedly. + +"If I'd ever got hold of a--well, if I'd had a chance of things as +nice as that biggest one's dragging through the dirt there, I'd have +been doing something very different with it, I can assure you, Mr. +Armstrong! I'd have been saving it." + +"But at that age--" he protested. + +"Oh, I knew real lace from imitation at that age, all right," she +insisted. + +"But you don't think of those things--you go in for the fun," he +urged. + +"It wasn't exactly my idea of fun." + +"No?" he queried, "why, I thought all children did this sort of +thing. We had a regular property room in the attic. We used to be +rigged out as something-or-other all day Saturday, usually." + +"What were you?" Brother demanded eagerly. Unconsciously he dropped, +hugging his knees, by the side of the young man, and Caroline, +observing the motion, came over a little shyly and stood behind +them. The young lady raised her eyebrows and shot a side glance at +her host, but he smiled back at her brightly. + +"Well, we did quite a little in the pirate line," he replied. "I had +an old Mexican sword and Ridgeway--that was my cousin--owned a pair +of handcuffs." + +"Handcuffs!" Brother's jaw dropped. + +"Yes, sir, handcuffs. It was rather unusual, of course, and he was +awfully proud of them. An uncle of his was a sheriff out in +Pennsylvania somewhere, and when he died he left 'em to Ridge in his +will. That was pretty grand, too, having it left in a will." + +Caroline nodded and sat down on an old log behind the young man. A +long smear of brown, wet bark appeared on the nightgown, and one end +of the blue ribbon dribbled into a tiny pool of last night's shower, +caught in a hollow stone. + +"It was a toss-up who'd be pirate king," the young man went on, +smiling over his shoulder at Caroline, "because I was older than he +was, handcuffs or not, and after all, a sword is something. This one +was hacked on the edge and every hack may have meant--probably +did--a life." + +He paused dramatically. + +"I bet you they did!" Brother declared, clapping his hands on his +knees. + +"Weren't there any girls?" + +Caroline slipped from the log and sprawled on the pine needles. + +"Dear me, yes," said the young man, "I should say so. Four of them. +Winifred and Ethel and Dorothea and the Babe--about as big as your +General, there, and dreadfully greedy, the Babe was. Winifred had +the brains and she made up most of the games; I tell you, that girl +had a head!" + +"Just like Caroline," Brother inserted eagerly. + +"Probably," the young man agreed. "She was pretty certain to be +Fairy Queen, too, I remember. But Thea sewed the clothes and begged +the things we needed and looked after the Babe." + +"And what did Ethel do?" + +"Why, now you speak of it, I don't remember that Ethel did much of +anything but look pretty and eat most of the luncheon," he said. +"She used to be Pocahontas a good deal--she's very dark--and I +usually was Captain John Smith. Ridge was Powhatan. And Ethel's +married now. Good Lord! She has twins--of all things!--and they're +named for Ridge and me." + +"I'm glad General isn't twins," said Miss Honey thoughtfully, +pulling her brother back from the fascinations of the tea basket and +comforting him with the curtain-rod wand. + +"Still, we could do the Princes in the Tower with him--them, I +mean," Caroline reminded her, "and then, when they got bigger, the +Corsican Brothers--don't you remember that play Uncle Joe told +about?" + +The young man laughed softly. + +"If that's not Win all over!" he exclaimed. "She always planned for +Ridge to be Mazeppa on one of the carriage horses, when he got the +right size, but somehow, when you _do_ get that size, you don't pull +it off." + +"I did Mazeppa," said Brother modestly, "but of course it was only a +donkey. It wasn't much." + +"We never had one," the young man explained. "Nothing but Ridge's +goat, and she was pretty old. But she could carry a lot of lunch." + +He turned suddenly on his elbow and smiled whimsically at the lady. + +"Come on, Tina, what did _you_ play?" he asked. + +"Is it possible you have remembered that I still exist?" she +answered, half mockingly, half seriously vexed. "I'm afraid I'm out +of this, really. I never pretended to be anything, that I remember." + +"But what _did_ you do when you were a youngster?" he persisted, +"you must have played something!" + +She shook her head. + +"We played jackstones," she said indulgently, after a moment of +thought, "and then I went to school, of course, and--oh, I guess we +cut out paper dolls." + +Caroline looked aghast. + +"Didn't you have any dog?" she demanded. + +"I hope not, in a four-room flat," the lady returned with feeling. +"One family kept one, though, and the nasty little thing jumped up +on a lovely checked silk aunty had just given me, and ruined it. I +tried to take it out with gasolene, but it made a dreadful spot, and +I cried myself sick. Of course I didn't understand about rubbing the +gasolene dry then; I was only eleven." + +The children looked uncomfortably at the ground, conscious of a +distinct lack of sympathy for the tragedy that even at this distance +deepened the lovely rose of the lady's cheek and softened her dark +blue eyes. + +"But in the summer," the young man said, "surely it was different +then! In the country--" + +"Oh, mercy, we didn't get to the country very much," she +interrupted. "You know July and August are bargain times in the +stores and a dressmaker can't afford to leave. Aunty did all her +buying then and I went with her. Dear me," as something in his face +struck her, "you needn't look so horrified! It's not bad in New York +a bit--there's something going on all the while; and then we went to +Rockaway and Coney Island evenings, and had grand times. To tell +you the truth, I never cared for the country--I don't sleep a bit +well there. Of course, to come out this way, with everything nice, +it's all very fine, but to stay in--no, thanks." + +"I know what you mean, of course," he said, "but the city's no place +for children. I'm mighty glad I didn't grow up there. And I've +always had the idea the country would be the best place to settle +down in, finally. You can potter around better there when you're +old, don't you think so? I remember old Uncle Robert and his +chrysanthemums--" + +"Dear me, we all seem to be remembering a good deal this afternoon!" +she broke in. "Since we're neither of us children and neither of us +ready to settle down on account of old age, suppose we stick to +town, Bob?" + +There was a practical brightness in her voice, and her even white +teeth, as she smiled persuasively at him, were very pretty. He +smiled back at her. + +"That seems a fair proposition," he agreed. He reached for her +hand and for a moment her soft, bright coloring, her dainty +completeness, framed in the green of the little glade, were all he +saw. Then, as his eyes lingered on the cool little pond and the +waving pine boughs dark against the blue sky, he sighed. + +"But I'm sorry you don't like the country, Tina, I am, truly," he +said boyishly. "I've had such bully times in it. And I--I rather had +the idea that we liked the same things." + +"Gracious!" the young lady murmured, "after the arguments we've had +over plays and actors!" + +"Oh well, I suppose girls are all alike. But I mean other things--" + +"Where did you do the Pirates?" Brother inquired, politely. + +"What? Where did I--oh to be sure," he returned good-naturedly. "We +had an enormous cellar, all full of pillars, to hold it up, and +queer little rooms and compartments in it; a milk room and vegetable +bins and a workshop. You could ride on a wheel all round, dodging +the pillars. There were all kinds of places to lie in wait there, +and spring out. Win told us an awful thing out of Poe that happened +in a cellar, and Thea would never go there after four in the +afternoon. + +"It was a jolly old place," he went on dreamily, "I can't keep my +mind off it this afternoon, somehow, since I've seen you fellows +rigged out the way we used to. And there was a pond back in the +Christmas Tree Lot like this one. Ridge and I built a raft out there +and stayed all day on it. It was something out of Clark Russell's +books, and Win pushed a barrel out and rescued us. She was a wonder, +that girl." + +He chuckled softly to himself. + +"We tried to stock that pond with oysters once, and Ridge and I +printed invitations for a clambake on our handpress, on the strength +of them, but it was a dreadful waste of money. When we found it +wasn't working, Ridge nearly killed himself diving for 'em, so we +could get some good out of 'em. There they lay at the bottom, +showing just as plain as possible, but it was no use--Poor fellow, +he'll never dive any more." + +"Is he--did he--" Caroline had crawled along till her head lay +almost on the young man's knee; her eyes were big with sympathy. + +"Lost his leg," he told her briefly. "Philippines. Above the knee. +He ran away from college to go. He had the fever badly, too, and +he'll never be fit for much again, I'm afraid. But he's just as +brave about it--" + +"Oh, yes," Brother burst out eagerly, "I bet you he is!" + +"We had such plans," he said softly, "all of us, you know, for +coming back to the old place and ending up there. Win says her kids +shall stay there if she can't." + +"Where is she?" + +"Oh, she's 'most anywhere. Her husband's in the Navy--Asiatic +Squadron--and she hangs about where he's likely to strike the +country next. She was in Honolulu the last I heard. So she's not +likely to do much for the place, you see." + +"Where's Thea?" Miss Honey inquired. + +"Wha tee?" mimicked the General, with an astounding similarity of +inflection. + +The young man threw his light cap at the baby's head; it landed +grotesquely cocked over one eye, and the General, promptly sitting +upon it to protect himself from further attacks, fell into +convulsions of laughter as the young man threatened him. + +"Thea's out West, on a ranch just out of Denver. She was married +first, and her boys have ponies now--broncos. Of course it's fine +for them out there, but she says she won't be happy till they can +get East for a year or two. She wants them to see the place and grow +up a little in it. She wants 'em to see the attic and poke about the +barn and the stable and climb over the rocks. You see they're on the +ranch all summer and in school in Denver all winter, and Thea says +they don't know the look of an old stone wall with an apple tree in +the corner. She says the fruit's not nearly so nice out there." + +"Where is the place? Near here?" + +"No, not so very. It's in the Berkshires, just out of Great +Barrington. Father's practice was there, and grandfather's, too. +Grandfather built it." + +"That's where Lenox is, the Berkshires, isn't it?" the lady inquired +with a yawn. + +"Heavens, its nothing like Lenox!" he assured her hastily. + +"No?" she moved slightly and scowled. + +"My foot's asleep! That comes of sitting here forever!" + +She got up slowly and with little tentative gasps and cries stamped +her prickled feet. + +"Aunty has several customers who go to Lenox"--a vicious stamp--"it +must be grand there, I think. One of them, a regular swell, too--she +thinks nothing of a hundred and fifty for a dress"--a faint stamp +and a squeal of anguish--"told her that property was going up like +everything around there. You could probably"--a determined little +jump--"sell your old place and buy a nice house right in Lenox." + +The young man sat up suddenly. "Sell the place!" he repeated, "sell +the place!" + +He had been watching her pretty, vexed contortions with lazy +pleasure, noticing through rings of cigarette smoke her dainty +ankles, white through the mesh of the thin silk stockings, her +straight, slim back, and the clear flush that deepened her eyes. But +now his face changed, and he stared at her in frank irritation. + +"Sell the place!" echoed Brother and Miss Honey in horror, and +Caroline's lower lip pushed out scornfully. + +The lady stamped again, but not wholly as a therapeutic measure. + +"Well, really!" she cried, "any one would think that these children +were your friends, and I was the stranger, from the way you all +talk. What is the matter with you, anyway? What are you quarreling +about, Rob?" + +He looked at her thoughtfully, appraisingly. + +"I don't think we're quarreling, Tina," he said, "its only that we +look at things differently. And--and looking at things in the same +way rather makes people friends, you know." + +He glanced down at the children, close about him now, and then over +appealingly at her. But she had moved to a rock a little away from +them and now sat on it, her face turned toward the road, leaning on +her pale pink parasol: she did not catch the glance. + +"What became of the Babe?" Caroline suggested suddenly. + +"Babe? She's--her name's Margaret--at school now. She's growing +awfully pretty." + +"And is she going to live at the place, too?" queried the young lady +sharply. + +"Babe's going to capture a corporation or trust or something, and +have oceans of money and build on a wing and a conservatory and make +Italian gardens, I believe," he answered, pleasantly enough. + +"But I'd just as soon she left the gardens alone," he went on, "the +rest of us like 'em the way they are. There was one separate one on +the west side, just for Uncle Robert's chrysanthemums. He used to +work all the morning there and then read in the afternoon. He'd sit +on the side porch with his pipe and Bismarck--he was an old +collie--and he did tell the bulliest yarns. He helped us with +lessons, too. I don't know what we'd have done without Uncle Rob. +Father was so busy--he had a big country practice and he used to get +terribly tired--and we went to Uncle Rob for everything. He got us +out of more scrapes, Ridge and me-- + +"There were tiger lillies in the south garden and lots of clumps of +peonies. Grandmother put those there. And fennel and mint. Mother +used to like dahlias--it seems as if she must have had a quarter of +a mile of dahlias, but of course she didn't--all colors. That garden +ran right up against the house, and directly next to the bricks was +a row of white geraniums. They looked awfully well against the red. +It's a brick house and the date is in bricks over the door--1840. Of +course it's been rented for ten years now, but we have our things +stored in the attic and the people are careful and--well they love +the old place, you know, and they keep up the gardens. They wanted +to buy when father died and again after mother-- + +"But Ridge and I just hung on and leased it from year to year. We +always hoped to get it back. And now to think that I should be the +one to do it!" + +"How are you the one?" Brother inquired practically. + +"Why Uncle Wesley that ran away to sea--I used to have his room, +just over the kitchen, and many a time I've climbed down the side +porch just as he did, and run away fishing--Uncle Wesley died in +England, last year, and left me considerably more than he'd ever +have made if he'd minded grandmother and studied to be a parson. It +seems Uncle Rob knew where he was all the time, and wrote him, +before he was sick himself, to leave the money to the family, and by +George, he did. + +"Lots of the old stuff is there--the sideboard and the library table +and grandfather's old desk mother kept the preserves in. + +"I used to lie on an old sofa in the dining-room on hot afternoons, +waiting for it to get cool, reading some travel book, eating summer +apples, and listening to Win and Thea practicing duets in the +parlor. Lord, I can hear 'em now! I'd look out at the brick walls, +hot, you know, in the sun, and the pear tree, with the nurse rocking +Babe under it, and old Annie shelling peas by the kitchen door, and +it all seemed so comfortable--" + +His eyes were half closed. The children listened dreamily, huddled +against him; low red rays crept down from the west-bound sun and +struck the little pond to copper, the nickel dishes to silver, the +lady's skirt to a peach-colored glory; a little sudden breeze set +the red bottle tinkling between the stones. But to the group +entranced with memories so vivid that reality blurred before them, +the peach and copper glories were ripe fruit against an old brick +wall, the tinkle echoed from an old piano in a dim, green-shuttered +parlor, and the soft snoring of the General, asleep on the silk +motor coat, was the drowsy breathing of a contented little fellow in +knickerbockers dreaming in a window seat. + +"Did you ever go to Atlantic City?" + +The lady's voice woke them as a gong wakes a sleeper. "Now that's my +idea of the country!" + +He stared at her vaguely. + +"But--but that's no place for children," he protested. He had hardly +grown up at that moment, himself. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"It's not exactly necessary to have six children, you know," she +said, "and then you needn't be worried over a place for them, and +can afford to think a little about the place you'd like for +yourself." + +The sun was in her eyes and she missed the look in his as he jumped +up from the astonished group and seized her wrist. + +"Christine, you simply shan't talk that way!" he said. "I don't +know what's the matter with you to-day--why are you so different? +Are you trying to tease me? Because I might as well tell you right +now that you're succeeding a little too well." + +The pink parasol dropped between them. Her eyes met his squarely, +though her voice shook a little. + +"Let my wrist go, Mr. Armstrong," she said, "you hurt me. I assure +you I'm not different at all. If you really want to know what the +matter with me is, let me ask you if you saw anything out of the way +before your friends there interfered?" she pointed to the little +group he had left. "We seemed to be getting on very well then." + +His face fell, and she went on more quickly and with less controlled +tones. + +"You are the one that is different! I have always been just the +same--just exactly the same! Ask anybody if I've changed--ask aunty! +'Tina has the best temper of any girl I know,' aunty always says. +But its just as she warned me. Aunty always knows--she's seen lots +and lots of people and plenty of swells, too--it isn't as if you +were the only one, Mr. Armstrong!" + +He looked curiously at the flushed, lovely face; curiously, as +though he had never really studied it before. + +"Perhaps--perhaps it _is_ I," he said slowly, "I--maybe you're +right. And of course I know--" he smiled oddly at the pretty picture +she made--"that I'm not the only one." + +Something in his tone irritated her; she unfurled the rosy parasol +angrily. + +"Aunty said from the beginning you'd be hard to get on with," she +flashed out. "She said the second time you came to the house with +Mr. Walbridge for his sister's fitting and asked Kitty and I for a +ride in the machine, 'I'm perfectly willing you girls should go, for +they're both all right and I think the dark one's serious, but--" + +"You discussed me with your aunt, then?" + +She looked at him in amazement. + +"Discussed you with aunty? Why certainly I did. Why shouldn't I? How +do you suppose I'm to get anywhere, placed as I am, Mr. Armstrong, +unless I'm pretty careful? I've nothing but my looks--I know that +perfectly well--and I can't afford to make any mistakes. And aunty +said, 'I think the dark one's serious, Tina, but I don't know, +somehow, I'd keep in with Walbridge. He may not have so much money, +but he'll be easier to manage. Armstrong seems like any other gay +young fellow, and for all I know he is--he's certainly generous--but +I'd rather have you Mrs. Walter Walbridge and lose the family +custom, than have you tied up to an obstinate man." + +"And--excuse me, but I'm really interested," he asked, "could you be +Mrs. Walter Walbridge?" + +"Yes, I could," she answered, "he asked me when he lent you the +machine. I suppose he thought you might," she added simply. + +He drew a long breath. + +"And you answered--" + +"I said I'd think it over," she said softly. "I--are you really +angry with me, Rob? We're friends, aren't we? Friends--" + +Her eyes lifted to his. "You see, Rob," she went on, still softly, +"a girl like me has to be awfully straight and pretty careful. It's +not easy to go to theaters and suppers and out with the machines and +keep your head--you can't always tell about men. And I've cost +aunty quite a lot, though of course, my clothes were the cheapest, +really, all made in the house. I had two good offers to go on the +stage, but she wouldn't have it. And even if Mr. Walbridge's mother +did make a fuss, she can't help his getting the money. Of course I +told him I'd think it over, but I always liked--" + +"And now you've thought it over," he interrupted quickly, "and +you've found out that your remarkably able aunt was right. You're a +wise little girl, Tina, for if I know Walter, he _will_ be easier to +manage! He's a lucky fellow--always was. But he'll never get his car +at six to-night." + +He plucked out his watch and strapping up the tea basket began to +push the things hastily into it. + +She stared ahead of her, her chin shaking a little, her eyes a +little dim and most beautiful. + +"I--you don't--you're not angry, Rob?" She leaned over him. + +"Tina, if you look like that I'll kiss you, and Walter will call me +out!" he said lightly. "Of course I'm not angry--we're as chummy as +you'll let me be. Come on and find the choo-choo car!" + +He slipped his arm through the basket handle and made for his coat. +The children scrambled off it apologetically; they were not quite +certain where they stood in the present crisis. But he smiled at +them reassuringly. + +"We'll have to meet again," he called, already beyond them, "and +have some more of those little cakes! Good-by till next time!" + +"Good-by! Good-by!" they called, and Miss Honey, eyeing the pink +parasol longingly, ventured, "Good-by, Miss Tina!" + +The lady did not answer, but walked slowly after the young man, +shaking out her billowy skirts. Soon he was behind the big boulder; +soon she had followed him. + +"Yady go!" the General announced. + +"They had a quarrel, didn't they?" Miss Honey queried. "But they +made up, so it was all right." + +Caroline shook her head wisely. + +"We--ell," she mused, "they made it up, but I don't believe he +changed his mind, just the same." + +Something puffed loudly in the road, whirred down to a steady growl, +and grew fainter and fainter. + +"There they go!" Brother cried. + +He picked up a bit of bark and tossed it into the little pool. + +"I bet you Ridge will be glad to get back to the Place," he said. + + + + +VII + +THE PRETENDERS + + +Midsummer dust lay ankle-deep in the road, white and hot. The +asphalt sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the leaves hung motionless +from the full trees; only the breathless nasturtiums flickered like +flames along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in the glare. +Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard in the relentless heat, spun +along on her bicycle, the only bit of movement on all the long +stretch of the road. The householders had all retired behind their +green blinds; even New England yielded to August's imperious +_siesta_, and it might have been a deserted village, empty and +mysterious, through which she glided. + +By little and little she grew to feel this; her feet moved more and +more slowly on the pedals, her brows knitted as the great idea grew. +Her lips moved, inaudibly at first, but soon began the sing-song +murmur so well known to those who crept upon her unawares. + +"I am all alone; the rest have gone--where have they gone!--where +_could_ they go? Oh, they're dead. Murdered! No, the town was +besieged, and we made ropes with our hair, and bowstrings.... And +they all marched out, and they closed the city gates...." Slower and +slower the pedals moved: Caroline was pushing uphill. "So then the +Mayor said: 'No, this sacrifice is too great--I can not allow you to +make it, my brave children. Death--and worse--await you beyond these +walls. Let us die here together.'" Her chin quivered. At the summit +of the hill she paused. + +"'Then _die_! Die like the dogs you are!' cried the Captain"--with +feet perched high she swooped down the slope, her heart pounding +with excitement, narrowly escaping collision at the bottom with an +empty van, crawling through the heat, manned by a somnolent, huddled +driver. Its hollow, cumbrous rattling pointed sharply the loneliness +of the silent road, almost bare now of houses, for they were on the +very outskirts of the village, and in a flash Caroline knew it for +what it was, and shuddered. + +"It's the Tumbrel!" she murmured softly, and to her awed fancy the +graceful, slim-necked figures in flowered gowns drooped dreadfully +or stiffened in a last pathetic defiance as they rolled by. + +"Courage, my sister, courage!" whispered the brave gentleman, while +the hoarse crowd shouted.... "_And I am Marie Antoinette!_" cried +Caroline in a burst of inspiration. + +Dismounting, she walked proudly beside her wheel; scornfully she +held her head above that vulgar, cruel mob; the driver, poor in +illusions, drowsed stupidly in front of the baleful wagon-load he +knew not of, and clattered down the hill. To the ill-fated Queen, +who followed the curving line of the twelve-foot iron fence that had +sprung up at her side, ten minutes seemed but one. Lost in tragic +musing, she wandered swiftly on; had you, meeting her suddenly, +asked her where she was going, there is little doubt that she would +have told you she was escaping to her palace. And all at once, as +she halted a moment opposite a clear space in the shrubbery and +thickly planted trees that followed the inside line Of the iron +fence, she beheld the palace, high on a terraced knoll. It was of +clean-cut gray stone, rising into a square tower at one corner, from +which the flag drooped in bright folds of red and blue. The windows +shone like mirrors; trim, striped awnings broke the severe angles of +the long building; brilliant flower-beds gleamed from the smooth +turf and bordered the neat walks of crushed gray stone. It stood +massively above its terraces, a very castle of romance to Caroline, +who had never before seen it so polished and beflagged. Wonderingly +she tried the great wrought-iron gate, but it was securely locked, +and a new sign was attached to it: + + PRIVATE PROPERTY! + + ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED + + FROM THE PREMISES! + + VISITORS PLEASE RING AT THE LODGE. + +Caroline stared at it vaguely. So delicate are the oscillations of +the imaginative imp, that it is hard to say just where he swings his +slaves into determined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline +severely and demanded of her in the character of an impatient adult +the name of her castle, she would undoubtedly have informed you that +it was Graystone Tower, a long deserted mansion, too expensive +hitherto for any occupants but the children who roamed every inch of +it for the first spring flowers and coasted down its terraces in +winter. But no one was there to shake her, and so with parted lips +and dreamy eyes she speculated as to whether they would fire the +cannon on her arrival and whether she would scatter coins among her +loyal servants or merely order an ox roasted whole in honor of her +safe return. + +Soon she reached the smaller gate, but before she tried the handle +the sign warned her that it would be useless. She frowned: no one +could keep up the spirit of a royal home-coming under these +disadvantages. Suddenly her eyes brightened, she tossed her head, +and following what was apparently a little blind alley of shrubbery, +she plunged into a tangle of undergrowth and disappeared. Only her +bicycle, resting against the fence, showed that some one had passed +that way. Working herself through the screen of leaves, she emerged +into a fairly cleared path that her accustomed feet followed to its +logical climax--a deep depression scooped out under the sharp, +down-pointed iron prongs, worn smooth by the frequent pressure of +small bodies. The fence had lost its shiny blackness by now and the +grass grew rank and untended around the mouth of the gap. Wriggling +through, Caroline straightened herself and strolled unconcerned +toward the castle, not so near her now. Soon she reached a newly +rolled tennis court; farther on two saddled horses pawed beside a +little summer-house, impatient for the start; an iridescent fountain +tossed two gleaming balls high into the air. Caroline moved like one +in a dream; her fancy, grown so overwhelmingly real, dazzled her, +fairly. But it was like the court of the Sleeping Beauty--no one +came or called. + +At length, wandering on, she came upon a gardener in a neat gray +livery, clipping with a large, distorted pair of scissors the velvet +edge of a flower-bed. He resembled so undeniably the gardeners in +that ageless chronicle of Alice that Caroline smiled approvingly +upon him. + +"You are one of my gardeners, I suppose," she said regally. + +"Yes, Miss," he replied, respectfully, touching his banded cap, "I +am that." + +"You garden very well," said Marie Antoinette, dizzy with delight at +his manner. + +"Yes, Miss; thank you, Miss, I'm sure," and the cap came off. + +She walked on superbly. At last it had happened, and she, Caroline +in the flesh, had fought her way through the prickly hedge of +every-day appearance and won into the garden of romance, where +dreams were true and anything might happen. + +At that moment there came to meet her from behind a great beech tree +a slender little lady. She had gray hair puffed daintily and +fancifully about her small, pale face, and knots of pale blue +ribbon, woven in and out of her lacy, trailing gown, repeated the +color of her mild, round eyes. Half consciously Caroline muttered: +"Here is one of my ladies-in-waiting," when the little lady rushed +at her, smiling delightedly. + +"Are you a queen, then?" she cried in a high, sweet voice. "How very +pleasant. Dear me, how _very_ pleasant!" + +Caroline smiled with equal delight. Very few persons of this little +lady's age had such quick sense; mostly they had to be taught the +game. + +"Yes," she answered, "I am. I am Queen Marie Antoinette." + +The little lady fell back a step. Her blue eyes clouded and she +pouted like a big baby. + +"Why--why, how _can_ you be?" she demanded, fretfully, "when that is +who I am, myself!" + +For a moment Caroline scowled; such flexibility was almost +disconcerting. Then her natural good-humor and the training +resulting from many summers with Miss Honey, who claimed all the +best roles at once and shifted often, prompted her generous reply: + +"All right. I'll be Mary Queen of Scots, then--I like it about as +well." + +The little lady beamed again. + +"That will be very pleasant," she said, "I trust your majesty is +quite well?" + +"Yes, indeed," Caroline assured her, adding airily; "How well the +castle is looking this morning! I think I'll have the flag out every +day, now that I'm back." + +Marie Antoinette flushed angrily and pouted once more. + +"You! _You!_" she mimicked. "What have you to do with my flag? That +goes up by my orders, let me inform you! Here, gardener--" and she +waved her little parasol at the man in gray, who was already walking +rapidly towards them--"is that flag in my honor or not?" + +"Yes, Miss," he said promptly. "Sure it is, Miss," and he nodded +politely at them both. For a moment the rival queens confronted each +other fiercely, then her Majesty of France smiled at Scottish Mary. + +"You see," she said, in her high, bright voice; "you see, I was +right. But then, I always am. I shall have to leave your Royal +Highness now, for I see one of my subjects coming whom I don't care +for at all--she is not very pleasant." + +Sweeping a low courtesy, the little lady glided away with a +graceful, dipping motion; the white hand that lifted her trailing +skirts was covered with turquoises. + +Caroline looked where her royal sister had pointed, and saw a tall, +handsome young woman hurrying toward her. She was dressed plainly +in black, but with a rich plainness that could not have escaped the +youngest of womankind. Opposite Caroline she paused, her hand on her +heart. + +"John! Oh, John! This--this is a child!" + +"Yes, Miss; sure it is," said the gardener politely. + +"But how did she get here? Surely no children come here?" Her hands +were trembling. + +"Yes, Miss, many of 'em--sure they do," he said pleasantly, with a +good Irish smile. + +But it was plain that his good-nature did not please the handsome +lady. She bit her lip angrily. + +"You know very well, John, that you are not to talk to me in that +idiotic way," she said decidedly. "You know that there is no +necessity for it as well as I do." + +"All right, Miss," he replied, soothingly. + +"And you are lying when you say that children come here," she went +on, controlling herself with a great effort, "for they do not." + +The gardener scratched his head doubtfully and walked away, +muttering to himself. The girl turned to Caroline. + +"Tell me," she demanded eagerly, her voice low and hurried, "how did +you come here? Are you with friends? Where are they? What were you +saying to that queen woman?" + +"I--I--we were--I was Mary Queen of Scots," Caroline stammered, +struggling, as the happy dreamer struggles, not to wake. + +The girl started back from her, pale with an emotion that left her +handsome face drawn and old. + +"Good Heavens!--it can't be--a child! A _child_!" she cried. Tears +stood in her dark eyes. + +"How pitiful!" she said, softly, to herself. Then, forcing a smile, +she leaned coaxingly over Caroline. + +"I am only too delighted to make your Majesty's acquaintance," she +said, her voice a little husky, but very sweet. "I have read of you +often. But surely your Majesty has not been here long? I do not +recall having seen you before to-day." + +"N--no, you haven't," Caroline answered, a little grudgingly, "I +only just came." + +"Ah!" said the girl, "and how did you come? Not through the house +surely?" + +"I came under the fence," said Caroline, "the gates were locked. I +was Marie Antoinette then, but I changed after she said she was." + +"Oh! Oh!" the girl groaned, covering her face with slender, ringless +hands. + +"But I'd just as soon," Caroline assured her--"honestly I would. +Only you need a Bothwell for her. I only thought of Marie Antoinette +after the tumbrel went by. I suppose she's used to Marie Antoinette, +prob'ly, and so you can't get her to change." + +She nodded in the direction of the little lady, now far from them, +white against the shrubbery. + +The girl drew in her breath in little gasps, as if she had been +running. + +"Y--yes," she assented, "she's used to being Marie Antoinette. Where +is the hole you got through? Is it big enough for--for anybody?" + +"Oh, yes," said Caroline indifferently, "but nobody knows about it +but me and a few other k--prisoners, I mean; I've used it when I was +escaping before. I think it was a rabbit-hole first, and then we +made it bigger. Isn't that funny--Alice got in by a rabbit-hole, +too, didn't she? I thought of her as soon as I saw the gardener. +He's very polite, isn't he?" + +The girl pressed her lips together. "They are all polite here," she +said briefly. "Do you mean that you go in and out of this hole as +you like? Do they know of it? Is it far from here?" + +"It's over there," Caroline waved, vaguely. "Why? Do you want to +escape, too? Are you a queen?" + +"No." The girl said it with a slight shudder. "No, I'm not. +I'm--I'm--Oh, I'm Joan of Arc! You know about her, don't you, dear?" + +Caroline nodded. "Are you trying to escape?" she repeated, +interested at last. + +"Yes," said the girl, "I am. But don't tell any one, will you? Don't +tell that gardener, for instance." + +"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I won't tell. Wouldn't he help +you?" + +The girl laughed, an excited, sobbing laugh. + +"No, he wouldn't help me at all," she said. "Come on, walk a little. +He is watching us. Don't tell him about the hole, will you? Promise +me faithfully." She turned and seized the child's wrist. "Can you +keep a promise?" she panted. + +"Of course I can." + +"And if any one should ask you, could you--oh, _could_ you say you +came in by the gate?" + +Caroline wriggled free. + +"Of course," she said scornfully. "Do you think I'm a baby?" + +"Don't be angry--don't," the girl pleaded. "I don't mean to frighten +you--your Majesty, I mean--but I am so excited, and--and I don't +quite do what I intend to do or say just what I mean. I am quite all +right now. You see, that gardener--he isn't really a gardener." She +watched Caroline narrowly, quite unprepared for the sudden delight +in her eyes. + +"Oh, _he's_ pretending, too!" cried Mary of Scots joyfully. "What is +he, really?" + +"He's--he's one of my jailers," said the girl somberly. "And the +first thing he would do would be to stop up your hole under the +fence." + +"Oh!" Caroline stared respectfully at the gardener, not far from +them now. + +"Were you ever in chains?" she said, in an awed voice. + +"No," said Joan of Arc, "I never was. I wouldn't be in this--this +fortress if I had to be in chains. This is for well-behaved +prisoners." + +"Is Marie Antoinette a prisoner, too?" + +"Yes," said the girl, wearily, "she is. And she has kept me one. I +should not be here now but for her. She prevented my escape." + +"The mean old thing!" Caroline cried, indignantly, "did she tell?" + +"She called that gardener," said the girl, "just as I was walking +out of the little gate. Of course I had to walk slowly. She is very +malicious--poor thing," she added quickly. + +They were close to a little arbor now, and not so far from the +castle. Caroline could see figures here and there strolling on the +upper terraces and sitting on the piazzas. The tinkle of a mandolin +cut the soft air and the new-mown grass smelled sweet. + +"I think this castle is lovely, though, don't you, Joan of Arc?" she +burst out. + +"It is an abominable castle," said the girl, in a muffled voice. +"Abominable!" + +"Well, then," said Caroline, practically, "if you feel that way, +you'd _better_ escape." + +The girl stared at her. + +"Tell me," she said, earnestly, "have you ever been in this place +before? Where do you live?" + +Caroline shrugged her shoulders impishly. + +"I am Mary Queen of Scots," she replied, obstinately, "and I live in +Scotland. Of course, I've been here before. Who are all those other +people in the castle?" + +The girl drew a long, worried breath. "I believe I should go mad if +I stayed here much longer," she said, to herself. She drew Caroline +down beside her behind the arbor. + +"Listen to me, Mary Queen of Scots," she murmured, very low, with +anxious glances all about her. + +"I don't know who you are nor where you come from, but I believe you +will help me--I believe you're sorry for me. You know how badly Joan +of Arc's friends felt when she was in prison? I'm sure you do. Well +I have a--a dear friend who would die for me, if it would help me. +He has no idea where I am. He thinks I don't want to see him. He +thinks--he must think--I'm no longer his--his--his friend. If I +could only get to him, I should be safe." + +"Why don't you write to him?" Caroline suggested. + +The girl laughed bitterly. + +"If _you_ had prisoners in _your_ fortress, and they wrote letters +to their friends to come and get them out, would _you_ mail the +letters?" she demanded. + +"I s'pose not," said Caroline gravely. Joan of Arc gulped. + +"My letters never went," she said. "Now listen: I must go up to my +room and get some money--I can't do anything without money. Will you +wait here till I come back and not let anyone see you if you can +help it? And if they do, will you say that you slipped in at the +gate with a party that came in an automobile? One was here lately. +Ask if you mayn't stay and see the flowers. And then I will meet +you." + +She looked hard in Caroline's eyes. "You're only playing," she said, +suddenly. "You aren't--you aren't--What is your real name, dear?" + +Caroline scowled. + +"You better hurry up," she said, "or that gardener'll catch us. +You're just like Marie Antoinette," she added irritably. "You think +nobody can be anything but only yourself!" + +Without a word the girl turned and left her, half running. Caroline +heard her sobs. + +At the same moment she caught the crunch of footsteps on the stone +path that led to the arbor and crouched low behind it. Two men, +talking idly, entered the spot of shade and sank down on the rustic +bench. + +"Look here, Ferris," said one voice, "is she really dippy--that +one?" + +"What do you mean?" This was a deeper voice, attached evidently to +blue serge legs, for the speaker leaned to Caroline's eye level to +scratch a match on one of them. + +"Oh, I mean what I say." A gray striped coat sleeve poked through +the lattice work, as the first speaker leaned hard on it. "If she +is, then I am, that's all. It looks queer to me." + +The blue legs crossed themselves tightly under the seat. + +"Look here yourself, Riggs," said the second voice. "If you're +curious in this matter, I advise you to ask the doctor. He's boss +here, not I--thank God! I obey orders and draw my forty per, as per +contract. The same to you, only it's hardly forty, I suppose." + +"No, it's not," grunted Graycoat. "Not by a good sight. I see myself +asking the old man. I only asked your private opinion, Ferris,--you +needn't get sore about it." + +"My young friend," said Bluelegs, slowly, "there's only one thing +you can ask me in this place that I won't tell you, and that's my +private opinion!" + +There was a little pause. Caroline, reveling in conspiracy, lay +quiet, wondering who these people were and what they were talking +about. + +"You are perfectly welcome to anything I know about Miss Aitken," +Bluelegs continued, puffing at a fresh cigarette and throwing the +old one through the lattice at Caroline's feet. + +"Her brother was a pronounced epileptic--died in a fit. I have seen +the doctor's certificate. She was greatly worried over his death, +and the manner of it, and showed signs of incipient melancholia." + +"As how?" interrupted Graycoat. + +"Don't know," said Bluelegs briefly. "Uncle said so. Wouldn't speak +to anybody; cried all day; off her feed--that sort of thing. Very +obstinate." + +"Um," Graycoat muttered thoughtfully, "so am I. But I'd hate to be +shut up on that account." + +"So her uncle," proceeded Bluelegs, "wishing to save her, if +possible, from her brother's fate, decided to--er--take steps in +that direction and--and here she is." + +"So I see," said Graycoat. "Was the brother's epilepsy hereditary?" + +"I believe not," Bluelegs returned. "I believe the young gentlemen +inherited a little too much a little too soon for his best good, and +hit up a rather fast pace; his constitution wasn't the best." + +"Did she know about all this?" + +"I believe she did. Thought she might have saved him if she'd known +sooner, her uncle said." + +"Ah," said Graycoat. "Why didn't this kind uncle put his nephew with +the doctor?" + +"He wasn't his trustee," Bluelegs answered, quietly. + +"Dear me," said Graycoat gently, "how fortunate for the nephew!" + +"That's as you look at it," responded Bluelegs. + +Caroline dozed in the warm shade; in dreams she chased the French +Queen around the iridescent fountain. + +"Uncle any business--besides trusteeship?" asked Graycoat. + +"You can search me," said Bluelegs. + +"Niece about twenty-one, I take it?" asked Graycoat. + +"Search me again," said Bluelegs. + +"Should you think," Graycoat demanded, after a pause, "that this +incipient melancholia was likely to last long--speaking, of course, +professionally?" + +"Really, Dr. Riggs, I don't know." Bluelegs replied. "I am not at +all in touch with the case. The doctor has entire charge of it. He +mentioned to me last week that he was sorry to see both in her and +young Dahl evidences of clearly formed delusions--" + +"Young Dahl!" cried Graycoat, "why, the boy is an admitted +paranoiac!" + +"Really?" said Bluelegs, "you know I don't do much but cocaine and +morphia, these days. Did you know the doctor was going to print my +pamphlet?" + +"He can afford it, I judge," growled Graycoat. "He gets a hundred a +week from Miss Aitken." + +Bluelegs got up and sent a second cigarette after the first. + +"Riggs," he said gravely, "if you're aiming to succeed as a magazine +writer, you're beginning well; if it's your ambition to succeed in +this business, and succeed right here, you're beginning badly. You +were keen enough to get this place. If you talk much this way, you +won't keep it long--you can take it from me. Let's come in to +lunch." + +Their tread on the arbor floor roused the sleeping conspirator; she +sat up, rubbing her eyes half afraid that the clipped terraces, the +floating, flag, the inhabited castle, were only parts of her dream. +But even as she peered around the arbor, Joan of Arc rushed toward +her. She wore a black shade hat and carried a fluffy black parasol +under her arm. + +"Be careful!" she panted. "We can't go yet--I was stopped. I had to +talk. You say yes to whatever I say, will you? Then you can escape +with me--" she smiled sweetly at Caroline--"a real escape, as they +do in story books! Won't that be fine?" Her hand was at her heart +again; a red circle burned in either cheek. + +Caroline nodded eagerly. + +"That will be grand!" she said. She had forgotten till that moment +that she wanted to escape. + +"Ah, Miss Aitken! Late for lunch again!" + +Caroline started guiltily, for it was the voice of Bluelegs. + +Joan threw her arm over Caroline's shoulder carelessly. + +"Yes, Dr. Ferris, I'm afraid I am," she said. "I was delayed by this +little visitor." + +He looked suspiciously at them. "Who is she?" he asked. + +"I don't know." Joan led Caroline along quickly. "She _says_ she is +Mary Queen of Scots." + +He stared blankly. + +"I found her conversing with Marie Antoinette," she went on easily, +"and she seems to have slipped in with an automobile party--was +there one? Children are so secretive, you know. She is trying to get +out, but she says all the gates are locked." + +"Oh, yes, that was the Dahls--they came to see Frederick," he +explained. + +"I see. You were left with the chauffeur, Mademoiselle, and it's +easy to imagine the rest," he added with a smile. He had a very +attractive smile, and Caroline slipped her hand into his offered one +readily. + +"You are fond of children?" said Joan, abruptly. + +"Very," he answered simply. "Why not! And they are fond of me, as +you see. My dear young lady, did you think we are all brutes because +we must obey orders?" + +She set her teeth and walked swiftly forward. + +"I know you think us cruel," he went on frankly, "because we can not +do for you the one thing that you want; but, except for that, have +you anything to complain of?" + +She smiled scornfully. + +"'Except for that'?" she echoed, "no, Dr. Ferris, nothing in the +world--but 'that'!" + +"And you must remember," he continued, in his pleasant, soothing +voice, "that it may not be for long, after all. If you continue to +improve as you have--" She flung away impatiently. "Oh, yes, you +have improved, you know; you eat better, you sleep better, your +nerves are quieter. We get good reports of you. Many are ill longer +than you. Do you like the new masseuse?" + +She did not answer. + +"Now, this little lady must have some lunch with us, and then, no +doubt, we shall see that careless chauffeur again," he said easily. +"Would you like to stay?" he asked Caroline. + +"Yes, I would." + +"Mary was always fickle, you know," he laughed, glancing at her +clinging hand. + +And, indeed, Caroline found him far more winning than the sulky, +silent Joan, and leaned confidingly against him as they climbed the +stone steps and passed through the rich, dark-paneled hall, hung +with bright pictures, filled with bowls of flowers. Several men, +uniformed like the gardener, stood about the steps and terraces; +two stood by the door of a large, airy dining-room filled with +hurrying waiters. About a long silver-laden table some twenty men +and women, cool in lawn and lace and white flannel, were seated, +eating and talking gaily. At the head was a large, tall man in a +snowy vest; evidently the host, by his smiling, interested attention +to everybody's wants. At his right was a vacant chair, and toward +this Joan of Arc directed her steps. She had caught Caroline's hand +in hers, and, as Bluelegs bent and whispered in the tall man's ear, +she added: + +"I think, doctor, if the little girl stays by me she will feel less +shy, perhaps." + +"Certainly, certainly--by all means. A good thought, Miss Aitken, a +good thought," he answered in a rich, kind voice. He shook hands +with Caroline warmly. + +"So you find our grounds attractive?" he asked politely. + +She nodded, a little shyly. All this company, so freshly dressed, so +ceremoniously served, so utterly unconscious of her presence, +embarrassed her a little. For not one of the ladies and +gentlemen--there were no children--paid the slightest attention to +her arrival, even when a place was made for her by Joan and a mug of +milk procured. They talked, or, as she noticed now, sat, many of +them, listless and silent, playing with their rings and bracelets, +answering only with monosyllables the questions of the large, +cordial doctor. + +"Where is Marie Antoinette?" she whispered to her friend, who seemed +nearer, suddenly, than these cold table-mates. + +"She does not eat with us," said Joan, helping her to chicken and +green peas, and beginning her own meal. + +The doctor turned to them, having recommended some asparagus to the +stolid lady at his left. + +"I am glad to see your appetite so good, Miss Aitken," he observed, +lowering his voice a little, "at this rate we shall have no excuse +for keeping you much longer." + +"You have had none for six months," she replied curtly. + +"I am sorry you feel so bitterly," he said, "but you know I can not +agree with you there. You will think more kindly of me some day, I +hope, when time has freed your mind of its prejudice." + +"When will that be?" she asked, meeting his eyes full for a moment. + +"I wrote only this morning to your uncle, stating your gradual but +steady improvement, and assuring him that in my opinion--subject, of +course, to circumstances--it would be a matter of a few months more +only," he said. "Does not that make your feelings a little--only a +little more tender--" + +"What did you say?" a shrill voice interrupted, "say that again, +please." + +Caroline had beguiled the woman next her, a frail, anemic little +creature with pathetic eyes, into a halting conversation. + +"I said," she repeated, buttering her roll thickly and +appreciatively with fresh, clover-scented butter, "I said that no +weather was too hot for me. I love it." + +("Now, really, I _am_ pleased," the big doctor murmured to the girl +beside him. "Mrs. Du Long hasn't seemed so interested for days. In +fact, she's been quite silent; I was alarmed about her. It's the +child's influence.") + +"--Uncle Joe said," Caroline went on, the roll at her mouth, "and he +said I was a regular little snake." + +She heard a guttural, growling sound beside her, lifted her eyes +innocently, and for one flashing, doubtful second beheld the +swollen, distorted face, the bulging eyes, the back-drawn snarling +lips beside her. She did not see the plunging fork above her head, +so quickly did Joan's arm intervene between her and it; she did not +hear its impact against the big doctor's plate nor the gurgling +voice of what had been the sad-eyed little woman beside her, for her +head was buried in Joan's stifling skirt. + +"Kill the snake! Kill the snake!" some one--or something--yelled, +and then a grip of iron caught her arm and the voice of Bluelegs +said sternly: + +"Look straight ahead of you--don't turn your head! Don't turn, Miss +Aitken--you can do nothing--they have her safe. The guards are +here." + +The room, indeed, seemed full of gardeners; a bell rang noisily near +by. + +"But the others--the others!" Joan gasped. + +"They are all right--it won't trouble them," he answered quietly; +and as Caroline and the girl looked fearfully where they were +bidden, they saw the men and women eating placidly, talking with +each other or sitting listless, staring idly at four liveried men +who fought furiously with one small, snarling creature. Like the +cruel witnesses in dreams, they sat, and the waiters served them +swiftly and handed the dishes between their shoulders, as deaf as +they. And suddenly they became terrible to Caroline, and the castle +menacing, a thing to flee from. + +"Step out this way," said Bluelegs, when the sounds of struggle had +died away, "and take the child through the grounds, will you, +please? Try to occupy her thoughts, and your own, too, if you can. +This is one of the unfortunate things that rarely happen, but when +they do--Yes, indeed, Mr. Ogden, it was certainly fine asparagus--I +am glad you enjoyed it. No, she was only a little indisposed--she'll +soon be well again. The heat of the sun, undoubtedly. Don't be +alarmed, Miss Arliss, she will have every attention." + +The gardeners had vanished from the steps where they went down, and +none were seen in the grounds. Joan of Arc clutched Caroline's +waist. + +"Now--now!" she said, between her teeth; "now is the time not to +faint! I never fainted--never. Come and show me that hole in the +fence. There is no one about. But don't run." + +They hurried across the sunlit, smiling terrace. + +"What was the matter?" Caroline queried fearfully, "was she--was +she--" + +"Yes," said Joan brusquely. "Yes. Don't think about it. Don't run +and don't think. Only find the hole." + +They stood beside it. No one was near them; no one called to them. +Silently Caroline slid under the sharp prongs. Joan of Arc put her +hands under her skirt a moment and a white ruffled petticoat slipped +around her feet. She adjusted it over her dress and pulled herself +with difficulty through. As she stood erect in the soiled, stained +petticoat, Caroline saw her knees, tremble under it, and she +drooped against the fence, white-cheeked. + +"Don't faint," she said severely to Caroline. + +With shaking hands she tied the petticoat under her dress again and +they crouched through the underbrush to the outer walk. Caroline +reached for her wheel and the two peered fearfully up and down the +empty road. + +"I can't--I can't," the girl moaned, "my dress is so black--they can +see it from the hill. Oh, what shall I do? I thought I could, and I +can't!" + +The measured trot of a pair of horses sounded on the road. An empty +station wagon came rapidly toward them; groom and driver regarded +them curiously. + +The girl straightened herself and raised her hand with a pretty, +imperious gesture. + +"One moment, please," she said, "but are you going to the village?" + +"Yes, Miss," said the driver, "to the station. Was there anything--" + +She opened a bag at her side and took out carelessly a small gold +piece. + +"My little friend here," she said, in an even, low voice, "was +showing me this beautiful building and grounds and I utterly +neglected to note the time. I fear I have lost my train, if we try +to walk back. If you could take us--" + +"Certainly, Miss," said the driver. "William, put the young lady's +wheel on top. Was it the express you wanted, Miss? I'm to meet +it--the 2.08. Party from Boston." + +They climbed in, the bicycle settled noisily into the trunk-rack on +top, and the big chestnuts pounded down the hill. + +Joan stared straight before her. Presently she drew a pair of black +gloves from her little bag and put them on. Her lips moved steadily, +and Caroline knew from her closed eyes that she was praying. + +They drew into the neat station as the train Snorted itself in. The +girl handed the gold piece to the driver. + +"Divide it, please," she said calmly. "I am much obliged." + +She walked to the drawing-room car, and signaled the black porter. + +"I shall be safe to-night," she said softly, to the child by her +side, "and I won't tell you my name, because it will not be mine +much longer. But what is yours? Tell me quick!" + +"All _aboard_! Next stop One Hund' Twent'-_fifth_ Street!" some one +called, hoarsely. + +Caroline looked dazed. She tried to speak sensibly, but her tongue +played tricks with her, and the tension of her feelings was too much +for her. As the girl paused a second on the platform, and the train +shuddered for its start, Caroline called above the escaping steam: + +"I'm Mary Queen of Scots--I am! I am!" + +The white face of Joan of Arc broke into a wavering smile. + +"You dear little idiot," she called, chokingly, "I'll find you out +yet! You'll see! Good-by--God bless your Majesty." + +And while she might, Caroline ran beside the window, waving her hand +at that tearful, happy face. + + + + +VIII + +A WATCH IN THE NIGHT + + +The village clock boomed out the first strokes of eleven. Solemn and +mellow, the waves of sound flowed over the sleeping streets; the +aftertones vibrated plaintively. Caroline stirred restlessly, +tossing off the sheet and muttering in her dreams. The tears had +dried on her hot cheeks; her brows were still knitted. + +"Four! Five! Six!" the big bell tolled. + +Caroline sat up in bed and dropped her bare, pink legs over the +edge. Her eyes were open now, but set in a fixed, unseeing stare. + +"Seven! Eight!" + +She fumbled with her toes for her leather barefoot sandals and +slipped her feet under the ankle straps. + +"Nine! Ten!" moaned the bell. + +She moved forward, vaguely, in the broad path of moonlight that +poured through the wide-open window, and ran her hands like a blind +girl over the warm sill, lifting her knee to its level. + +"Eleven!" + +Before the murmuring aftertones had lost themselves in the night, +Caroline was out of the window. She stole lightly along the tin +roof, warm yet with the first intense heat of June, dropped easily +to the level of the kitchen-ell, and, slipping down onto the massive +trunk of the old wistaria, fitted accustomed feet into its curled +niches and clambered down among the warm, fragrant clusters. Steeped +in the full moon, it sent out its cloying perfume like a visible +cloud; her white nightgown glistened ghostlike through the leaves. + +She paused a moment in the shadow of the vine, and a great tawny +cat, his orange markings distinct in the moonlight, stole to her, +brushing against her bare ankles caressingly. As he curled and +uncurled his soft tail about her little feet, a sudden impulse +caught her, and she started swiftly through the wide backyard, +bending to a broken gap in the privet hedge, cutting diagonally +across the neighboring grounds, and emerging into a pleasant +country road on the outskirts of the little village, with sleeping +houses sprinkled along its length, well back, mostly, from its edge, +showing here and there a light. + +She struck into the soft, dusty road at a quick, swinging pace, the +fruit of much walking, and the big yellow cat pattered at her side. + +The night was almost windless; sweet, nameless odors poured up from +the heated summer soil; the shadows of the grasses were outlined +like Japanese pictures on the white roadway. Except for the child +and the cat, no living being moved, as far as the eye could see; +only the burdocks and mulleins swayed almost imperceptibly with +breezes so delicate that the leaf tips of the trees could not feel +them. + +A great white moth, blundering against a heavy thistle head, tumbled +against Caroline's elbow and fluttered clumsily into her face. She +started, blinked, drew a long breath, and woke with a frightened +gasp. Before her stretched the pale, curving road; above her the +spangled sky throbbed and glittered; the earth, drenched in +moonlight, beautiful as all lovely creatures caught sleeping, +breathed softly into her face and with every breath put courage into +her heart. + +She looked down and saw the yellow cat, stopping, with one lifted +paw, his green, lamplike eyes fixed unwaveringly on hers. + +"Why, it's you, Red Rufus!" she whispered, "when did we come here? I +don't remember--" + +A bat whirred by: the cat pricked his ears. + +"I don't believe we're here at all, Red Rufus," she whispered again. +"We're just dreaming--at least, I am. I s'pose you're only in my +dream. If I was really here, I'd be frightened to death, prob'ly, +but if it's just a dream, I think it's lovely. Let's go on. I never +had a dream like this--it seems so real, doesn't it, Rufus?" + +They went on aimlessly up the road. Quaint little night sounds began +now to make themselves heard: now and then a drowsy twitter from the +sleeping nests, now and then a distant owl hoot. A sudden gust of +honeysuckle, so strong that it was like a friendly, fragrant body +flung against her, halted her for a moment, and while she paused, +sniffing ecstatically, the low murmur of voices caught her ear. + +The honeysuckle ran riot over an old stone wall, followed an arching +gateway at the foot of a winding path that led to a lighted house on +a knoll above, and flung screening tendrils over an entwined pair +that paused just inside the gate. The girl's white, loose sleeves +fell back from her round arms as she flung them up about her tall +lover's neck; his dark head bent low over hers, their lips met, and +they hung entranced in the bowery archway. + +For a moment Caroline watched them with frank curiosity. Then +something woke and stirred in her, faint and vague, but alive now, +and she turned away her eyes, blushing hot in the cool moonlight. + +The soft tones of their good-night died into broken whispers; parted +from his white lady, he started on for a few, irresolute steps, then +flung about suddenly and walked back toward the house, after a low, +happy protest. The cooing of some drowsy pigeons in the stable on +the other side of the road carried on the lovers' language long +after they were out of earshot, and confused itself with them in +Caroline's mind. + +She wandered on, intoxicated with the mild, spacious night, the dewy +freedom of the fields, the delicious pressure of the warm, velvet +air against her body. Red Rufus purred as he went, rejoicing with +his vagabond comrade. Just how or when she began to know that she +was not asleep, just why the knowledge did not alarm her, it would +be hard to say. But when the truth came to her, the friendly, +powdered stars had been above her long enough to accustom her to +their winking; the tiny, tentative noises of the night had sounded +in her ears till they comforted and reassured her; the vast and +empty field stretches meant only freedom and exhilaration. In a +sudden delirium of joy she slipped between the bars of a rolling +meadow and ran at full speed down its long, grassy slope, her +nightgown streaming behind her, her slender, childish legs white as +ivory against the greenish-black all around her. Beside her bounded +the great cat with shining, gemlike eyes. They rolled down the last +reaches of the slope, and all the Milky Way wondered at them, but +never a sound broke the solemn quiet of the night: the ecstasy was +noiseless. + +[Illustration: Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched +abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain.] + +Her face buried in sweet clover, she panted, prone on the grass. + +"Let's go right on, Rufus, and run away, and do just as we please!" +she whispered to the nestling cat. "If I can't do like the boys do, +I don't want to stay home--the fellows laugh at me! I'd rather be +whipped than sent to bed like a girl. I _won't_ be a young lady--I +_won't_!" + +Rufus purred approvingly. + +"If I only had some trousers!" she mourned, softly; "a boy can do +_anything_!" + +Across the quiet night there cut a thin, shrill cry: a little, +fretful pipe that brought instantly before the mind some hushed, +white room with a shaded light and a tiny basket bed. Caroline sat +up and stared about her: such cries did not come from open fields. +Hardly a stone's throw from her there was a small knoll, and behind +it what might have been a large, projecting boulder suddenly flashed +into red light and showed itself for a dormer window; a cottage had +evidently hidden behind the little hill. Curiously Caroline +approached it and walked softly up the knoll. + +Almost on the top she paused and peered into the unshaded window. +These householders had no fear of peeping neighbors, for only the +moon and the night moths found them out, and the simple bedroom was +framed like some old naive interior, realistic with the tremendous +realism of the Great Artist. + +The high, old-fashioned footboard of the bed faced the dormer +window, and Caroline could see only the upper portion of the woman's +figure as she leaned over a small crib beside her, her heavy dark +hair falling across her cheek, and lifted up with careful slowness +the tiny creature that wailed in it. Beside her, as he supported +himself anxiously on his elbow, the broad chest and shoulders of her +young husband rose above the screening footboard. The mother gazed +hungrily at the doll-like, writhing object, passed her hand over its +downy forehead, smiled with relief into its opening eyes, and gave +it her breast. + +Instantly the wail ceased. A slow, placid smile--and yet, not quite +a smile--it was rather an elemental content, a gratified drifting +into the warm current of the stream of this world's being--spread +over the woman's face; the man's long arm wrapped around his +wealth, at once protecting and defiant; his head flung back against +the world, while his eyes studied humbly the mystery that he +grasped. The night lamp behind them threw a halo around the mother +and her child, and the great trinity of all times and all faiths +gleamed immortal upon the canvas of the simple room--its only +spectator a child. + +In her, malleable to all the influences of the revealing night, +fairly disembodied, in her detached and flitting presence, the scene +woke dim, coiled memories of an infancy that stirred and pained her +even as it left her forever, and frightened longing for the +motherhood that life was holding for her. No longer an infant, not +yet a woman, this creature that was both felt the helplessness of +one, the yearning of the other, and as she pressed the nestling cat +tightly to her little breast two great, eager tears slipped down her +hot cheeks, and a gulping sob, half loneliness, half pure +excitement, broke into the gentle stillness of the lighted room. + +"Who's there?" + +The man's voice rang like a sudden pistol shot in the night; before +Caroline's fascinated gaze the gleaming, softly colored picture +faded and vanished into the engulfing darkness, as the lamp went out +and a dark, scudding mackerel cloud flew over the moon. +Instinctively she fled softly down the knoll, instinctively she +dropped behind a bush at the bottom. She heard the rattle of the +window pane as the man pushed himself half out of the window; she +heard him call back to the waiting room behind him! + +"It's a cat, dear--I saw it, plain. It's pretty bright out here. But +I thought I saw something white beside it, too. I guess I'll take a +look around outside." + +There was a sound of movement behind the window, and, caught in an +ecstasy of terror, Caroline turned at right angles from the fields +and ran to the road that gleamed white, far on the other side of the +cottage. Panting, she won it, crossed it, and fairly safe behind the +low growth of wayside brushes that fringed its other side, she +dashed along, farther and farther from the cottage, more and more +frightened with every gasping breath. + +On and on she flew, light as a skimming leaf in the wind, the cat +bounding in easy, flexible curves beside her. Now a little brown +cottage in its plot of land sent them into the road for a moment; +now some tiny pond, a mirror for the sprinkled heavens, broke into +their course, and they skirted it more slowly, peering continuously +into its jeweled depths. With them their hurrying shadows, black on +the road, fainter on the grass, fled ceaselessly, hardly more quiet +than they. A very intoxication of fear, a panic terror almost +delicious, drove Caroline through the night, though after a while +she ran more slowly. Utterly ignorant of where she was, reckless +of where she might go, she swung along under the streaming moon, +no white moth or whispering leaf more wholly a part of the night +than she. + +Whatever idea of going back she might have had was lost long ago; +however little she might have meant to range so far, she was now +beyond any turning. No wood creature, no skipping faun or startled +dryad dancing under the moon could have belonged more utterly than +she to the fragrant, mysterious world around her. The bright, +bustling life of every day, its clatter of food and drink, its +smarts and fatigues, its settled routine of work and play, all +seemed as far behind her as some old tale of another life, half +forgotten now. + +Just as her pace subsided into a little skipping trot, a thick hedge +sprang up across their path, driving them into the road, and +continued, stiff and tall, along its edge. The pure pleasure of +conquering its prickly stiffness sent Caroline through it, tearing +one sleeve from her nightgown and dragging a great rent in one side +of it. Emerging into a magnificent sweep of clipped turf, where +wide, leafy boughs spread dappled moon shadows, they made for a +whispering, clucking fountain that threw a diamond column straight +toward the stars, only to break at the top into a beaded mist and +clink musically back to its marble basin. Its rhythmic tinkle, the +four ball-shaped box trees at either corner, the carved whiteness of +the marble basin, and the massive pillar-fronted stone house beyond +it, all spread a glamour of fairyland and foreign courts. Caroline +bowed gravely to the cat, and, seizing his feathery paws, danced, +bowing and posturing, in a bewitched abandon around the tinkling, +glistening fountain. The plumy tail of Red Rufus flew behind him as +he twirled, his little feet pattered furiously after Caroline's +twinkling sandals. Stooping over the fountain, she threw a silvery +handful high in the air and ran to catch it on her head. + +As she stood at last, panting and dazed with her mad circling, she +was aware of the low murmur of a voice, rising and falling in a +steady measure, reaching out of the dim bulk of the great house, +dark and sunk in sleep before her. For a moment a chill fear struck +to the bottom of her little heart: was some weird spell aimed at +her, some malignant eye spying on her? She stood frozen to the spot, +the tiny drops of sweat cooling on her forehead, while the droning +sounded in her ears. Then, out of the very core of her terror, some +inexplicable impulse urged her on to face it, and she crept, step by +step, the cat tight in her nervous grasp, around the corner of the +great house, toward the sound. + +This corner was a wing, set at right angles to the main building, +and as she rounded it she found herself at the edge of an inner +court. In the opposite wing, looking straight across the court, was +a lighted room with a long French window opening directly on the +shaven turf, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, +carved chair a very old woman. She was carefully dressed in deep +black, with pure white ruffles at her neck and around her shrunken +wrists, and a lace cap on her thin, white hair. Her feet were on a +carved foot-stool, and a quaint silver lamp, set on a slender table +at her side, threw a stream of light across the court. Her face, +lined with countless wrinkles, was bent upon a large book in her +lap; from its pages she read in a low, steady voice--the +passionless, almost terrifying voice of great and weary age: + + "_Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all + generations._ + + "_Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou + hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting + to everlasting thou art God._" + +Caroline stared, fascinated, down the path of lamplight. It marked a +bed of yellow tulips with a broad band; they stood motionless, as if +carved in ivory. + +[Illustration: Across the court was a lighted room with a long +French window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, +carved chair a very old woman.] + + "_For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday + when it is past, and as a watch in the night._" + +The grave, steady voice flowed out and mingled with the silver +lamplight; the marble sill of the long window was white like the +sill of a tomb. + + "_We spend our years as a tale that is told._ + + "_The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and + if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is + their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, + and we fly away._" + +The hot excitement of this magic night cooled slowly; over +Caroline's bubbling spirit there fell a mild, strange calm. A breath +from the very caverns of the infinite stole out along the path of +that silver lamp, and in the grave, surrendered voice there sounded +for the child upon life's threshold echoes of the final tolling. + +Entranced by the measured cadences, Caroline stepped forward +unconsciously and stood, white against the gray stone, full in the +path of the lamp. The heavy, wrinkled lids raised themselves from +the deep-set eyes, and the aged reader gazed calmly at the little +figure across the court. The withered old hands clasped each other. + +"Jemmy! O _Jemmy_!" + +Caroline never moved. + +"It _is_ you, Jemmy!" + +The faded eyes devoured the little white figure. + +"I thought you'd never come, Jemmy--but I knew they'd send you. I'm +all ready. Don't you think I'm afraid, Jemmy: I'm eighty-four years +old, and I want to go." + +Caroline hardly breathed; a nameless awe held her motionless and +silent. + +"You see, I don't sleep much any more, Jemmy," the old, toneless +voice went on, "and hardly any at night. They're very kind, all of +them, but I'm--I'm eighty-four years old, and I want to go." + +The ivory tulips gleamed under the stars; the silver lamp, burned +lower and lower: its oil was nearly gone. + +"And you brought your yellow kitty, too, Jemmy! To think of that! +Did they think I wouldn't know my baby? It's only fifty years, ... +shall I come now, Jemmy?" + +The silver lamp went out. In the starlight Caroline saw the lace cap +droop forward, as the the old woman's head settled gently on her +breast. Her hands lay clasped on the great volume; her deep-set eyes +were closed. She read no more from the book, and the child, awed and +sober, stole like a shadow behind the gray wall and left the quiet +figure in the carved chair. + +Her feet fell into a tiny graveled path, and she drifted aimlessly +along it, musing on the meaning of what she had heard. Almost she +had persuaded herself that the gray stone building was an enchanted +palace, and herself a fairy messenger sent to break the spell, when +the delight of pushing through a tiny turnstile and finding a +running brook with a waterfall in it close at hand, drove everything +else from her mind. The grounds had completely changed their +character by now: the turnstile marked the end of cultivation, and +the little path, no longer graveled, wound through the wild +woodland. Here and there a boulder blocked the way; the undergrowth +became dense; great clumps of fern and rhododendron sent out their +heavy, rank odors. Now and again the spicy scent of warm pines and +cedars prepared the ear for the gentle, ceaseless rustle of their +stiff foliage; little scufflings and chitterings at the ground level +told of wood-people wakened by the presence of Red Rufus. + +A strange whitish bulk that glimmered through the thinning +foreground, too big for even a big boulder, too symmetrical and +quiet for a waterfall, tempted Caroline on, and she pressed forward +hastily, lost in speculation, when a sudden odor foreign to the +woods stopped her short at the very edge of a little glade, and she +paused, sniffing curiously. + +A man, bareheaded, with grizzled curly hair, turned suddenly, not +ten feet from her, and stared dumfounded at her, his twisted, brown +cigar an inch from his lips. + +The torn-out sleeve of her nightgown had bared one side to her +waist: the great rent that slit the lower half of the garment left +one slender leg uncovered above her white knee. A spray of wild +azalea wreathed her dark tumbled hair, and Rufus, his plumy tail +curled around her feet in the shadow, and his green eyes flaming, +might have been a baby panther. She leaned one hand on the rough +bark of a chestnut and gazed with startled eyes at the man; it +seemed that the forest must swallow her at a breath from a human +throat. + +He lifted one hand and pinched the back of the other with it till +his face contorted with the pain. + +"Then there _are_ such things!" he said softly; "well, why not?" + +He moved forward almost imperceptibly. + +"If I were younger, I should know you were not possible," he +muttered, "but now I know that I have never doubted you--really." + +Again he took a small step. Caroline, paralyzed with fear and +embarrassment, for she thought he was merely teasing her a little +before he punished her--his pleasant, low voice and whimsical +manners brought her back suddenly to the ordinary world and the +stern facts of her escapade--shivered slightly, but did not attempt +flight. + +"It was this extraordinary night that brought you out, of course," +he went on, again slightly shortening the distance between them, +"you and the little cub. It was a moon out of five thousand, I +admit. Do you live in that chestnut?" + +With a sudden agile bound he covered the space between them and +seized her by the shoulder. + +"Aha!" he cried, "I have--good heavens, it _is_ a child!" + +"Of course I am--I'm Caroline," she murmured writhing under his +grasp. + +He pulled her out into the little glade. + +"Oh! you're Caroline, are you?" he repeated, thoughtfully; "dear me, +you gave me quite a turn, Caroline. Where did you come from--the big +house?" + +"I came from a long way," she said briefly. "I was--I was taking a +walk. Where do you live? Don't you ever to go bed?" + +The man chuckled. + +"I have been feeling adventures in my bones all day," he said, +"and here they are; a child and a cat. If you will come with +me, Mademoiselle, I will show you where I live." + +He led the way gravely to the dim, white object, and Caroline +perceived it to be a tent, pitched by the side of a spring that +poured through a tiny pipe set into the rock. The tent flap was +tied back, and she saw inside it a narrow cot, covered with a +coarse blue blanket, a roughly made table, spread with a game +of solitaire, and a small leather trunk. On the further side of +the tent there smoked, in a rude, improvised oven of stones, a +dying fire. Above it, under a shelf nailed to the tree, hung a +few simple utensils; two or three large stumps had been hacked +into the semblance of seats. + +To one of these stumps the man led Caroline, and, seating her, he +turned to the shelf above the fire and fumbled among the pots and +pans there, producing finally a buttered roll, a piece of maple +sugar, and a small fruit tart. + +"You must be hungry," he said simply, and Caroline ate greedily. +After he had brought her a tin cup of the spring water, he selected +a brown pipe from a half dozen on the shelf and began filling it +from a leather pouch that hung on the tree. + +"Now let's hear all about it," he said easily. + +"I am running away," said Caroline abruptly. At that moment it +really seemed that she had planned her flight from the hour that +left her, tear-stained and disgraced, in her little bed. + +"They didn't treat you well?" he suggested, picking out a red ember +from the coals on the point of a knife and applying it to the pipe. + +"I'm not to wear my knickers any more," Caroline said, with a gulp, +"and my bathing suit has to have a skirt. I've got to stop p-playing +with the b-boys--so much, that is," she added, honestly. + +The man turned his head slightly. + +"That seems hard," he said; "what's the reason?" + +"I'm 'most twelve," said Caroline; "you have to be a young lady, +then." + +"I see," the man said. He looked at her thoughtfully. "I suppose you +_would_ look larger in more clothes," he added. + +"That's it," she assured him, "I do. That's just it." + +"And so you expect to avoid all this by running away?" he asked, +settling into his own stump seat. "I am afraid you can't do it." + +Caroline set her teeth. He regarded her quizzically. + +"See here," he went on, "I wish you'd take my advice in this +matter." + +They confronted each other in the starlight, a strange pair before +the dying fire. The moon had gone, and the stars, though bright, +seemed less solid and less certainly gold than before. A cool breeze +swept through the wood and Caroline shivered in her torn nightdress. +The man stepped into the tent and returned with a long army cloak. +This he wrapped round her and resumed his seat, with Rufus on his +knee. + +"My name," he said, "is Peter. Everybody calls me that--just Peter. +I don't know exactly why it is, but a lot of people--all over--have +got into the way of taking my advice. Perhaps because I've knocked +about all over the world more or less, and haven't got any wife or +children or brothers and sisters of my own to advise, so I take it +out on everybody else. Perhaps because I try to put myself in the +other fellow's place before I advise him. Perhaps because I've had a +little trouble of my own, here and there, and haven't forgotten it. +Anyhow, I get used to talking things over." + +A gentle stirring seemed to pass through the woods: the birds spoke +softly back and forth, a squirrel chattered. Again that cool wind +swept over the trees. + +"Now, take it this week," the man went on, puffing steadily; "you +wouldn't believe the people just about here who've asked for my +advice. I usually camp up here for a week or so in the summer--the +people who own the property like to have me here--and the first day +I unpacked, up comes a nice girl--I used to make birch whistles for +her mother--to tell me all about her young man. She brought me that +spray of honeysuckle over the pipes--grows over the front gate. She +wants to marry him before her father gets to like him, but she hates +to run away. 'Would you advise me to, Peter?' she says. And I +advised her to wait. + +"Then there's my friend the blacksmith. He lives in a queer little +house with dormer windows under a hill, just off the county road. +He's got a new baby, and he was afraid it wouldn't pull through. He +knew I'd seen a lot of babies--black and red and yellow--and _he_ +wanted my advice. 'Peter, what'll I do?' he says, 'what'll I do?' + +"'Why, just wait, Harvey. He'll live. Just wait,' I told him." + +Caroline listened with interest. He might have been talking to his +equal in years, from his tone. + +"Then, oddly enough," he continued, "here's my old friend in the big +house up yonder--and she _is_ old--and what do you think she's +worried about? She's afraid she _won't_ die! 'Oh, Peter,' she says +to me--she's fond of me because I'm the same age as a little boy of +hers that died--'it seems to me that I can't wait, Peter! What shall +I do?' she says. And I tell _her_ to wait. 'Dear old friend,' said I +to her last night, 'it will come. It's bound to come. Just be +patient.'" + +He paused and knocked his pipe empty. + +"Now, as to your case," he said, "I know how you feel. I'm sorry for +you--by the Lord, I'm sorry for you! But what's the use of running +away? You'll keep on growing up, you know. It's one of the things +that doesn't stop. You can't beat the game by wearing knickers, you +know. And then, there'd come a time when you'd want to quit, +anyhow." + +She shook her head. + +"Really, you would," he assured her, persuasively. "They all do." + +"That's what Uncle Joe says," she admitted, "and Aunt Edith. She +changed her mind, she says--" + +"Are you talking about Joe Holt?" Peter demanded. + +"Yes--do you know him? He lives in a big white house with wistaria +on the side," Caroline cried joyfully. + +"I was a senior when he was a freshman," said Peter. "Then he's +taken the Washburn house." + +"Do you know Aunt Edith, too?" asked Caroline. + +"Yes," said Peter, after a pause, "yes, I know Aunt Edith--or used +to. But I didn't know she--they were up in this country. I haven't +seen her--them for a good while. Does--does she sing yet?" + +"Oh, yes, but not on the stage any more, you know," Caroline +explained. + +"I see. Does she sing, I wonder, a song about--Oh, something about +'my heart'?" + +"'My heart's own heart,' you mean," Caroline said importantly; "yes, +indeed. It's her encore song." + +"I see," said Peter again. + +He looked into the fire, and there was a long silence. After a while +he shook his shoulders like a water-dog. + +"Now, Caroline," he said briskly, "here's the way of this business. +You can't wear knickers until you're one of the boys, and you can't +be one of the boys until you wear knickers. Do you see? So you don't +get anywhere." + +Caroline looked puzzled. She was suddenly overcome with sleep, and +the old familiar names and ways tasted of home and comfort to her +soul. + +"You're too nice to be a boy, Caroline," said Peter, leaning over +her and brushing her azalea-crowned hair tenderly with his lips. "If +you persist in this plan of running away to be a boy, some boy, +growing up anxiously, somewhere, will never forgive you! Take my +advice, and wait--will you? Say 'Yes, Peter.'" + +"Yes, Peter," Caroline murmured, drowsily. + +"Good girl! Then I'll take you home with my little donkey. I don't +believe they've missed you yet. You've come four miles, though, you +little gypsy!" + +He disappeared behind the trees, and Caroline nodded. Later she woke +sufficiently to find herself and Rufus on the blue blanket on the +bottom of a little donkey cart; Peter stood by the gentle, +long-eared head. + +"Thank you, Peter," she murmured, half asleep, "and you'll see Aunt +Edith, won't you?" + +"I don't believe so," he said, very low. "Not yet. Tell her Peter +brought you back. Just Peter. But he can't come yet. Get up, Jenny!" + +They wound out by an old wood road. A cool spiciness flowed though +the green aisles, and as the tiny donkey struck into a dog trot, the +man striding easily at her head, a far-away cock crowed shrilly and +the dawn gleamed white. + + + + +IX + +THE ENDS OF THE EARTH + + +"Caroline!" Henry D. Thoreau cocked one brindled ear cannily and +rapped sharply with his tail on the piazza floor, but there was no +other answer to the call. "Caroline!" The insistent voice rang +louder; it was a very determined voice. A sleepy Angora cat scowled +reprovingly at its violence; a gray and pink parrot mimicked its +hortatory note, but after that the midsummer silence settled down +again. Only the bees droned heavily among the heavy August roses. + +"Don't nag her, dear; it doesn't do any good," a sleepy contralto, +rich as creamy chocolate, crooned out of a scarlet-fringed hammock. + +"That's all very well for you, Edith, you don't have the +responsibility of her. Her father wants her to read a little history +every day, and this is the best time--it's too hot for anything +else." + +"Rather hot for history, dear?" + +"It's not too hot for the Moonstone, I notice! She's been at that +since breakfast, steadily. Not a word for any one." + +"'Moonstone' sounds cool, anyhow," drawled the contralto +appeasingly. + +"Oh, Edith! You're as bad as the child herself!" + +"She's fourteen, dear." + +"Fourteen! What is that?" + +"Anything but a child, when it's you, Sis. You talk to her as if she +were ten." + +"You'd think she was, if you saw her riding that donkey--a great +girl like her!" + +"There it is, dear! One moment she's a baby, the next she's a great +girl! It's hard on her, Sis." + +"But, Edith--that donkey!" + +"Poor Rose-Marie! I rode him myself--bareback and standing up!--when +I was fifteen--at a circus. Do you remember?" + +The voice chuckled unwillingly. "You always were a tomboy, Deedee! +Do you remember Joe's bull fight?" + +[Illustration: Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering +under a heavy arbor vitae, flat on her stomach.] + +"And the lemonade stand!" Contralto cried, with a rich swoop of +laughter. Their voices took up a happy canon of gold memories; there +were no more cries for Caroline. + +She was not a hundred yards away from the sister aunts, sheltering +under a heavy arbor vitae, flat on her stomach, her nose glued to the +reprehensible Moonstone: that she had heard the calls and resented +them the scowl between her eyebrows exhibited. Behind her, patiently +at graze, a small, mouse-colored donkey stood, shifting a pair of +quaint panniers from side to side and wagging his scarlet ear +tassels thoughtfully. + +The chapter ended, Caroline rose, peered across to the piazza, +nodded to herself at the flow of voices and shrugged her shoulders. + +"Good old Aunt Deedee!" she muttered, "she choked her off! Now, for +heaven's sake, don't bray, Rose-Marie, and perhaps we can get away. +I wouldn't dare get over to the house for a luncheon; we'll have to +get along with sweet-boughs." + +She slipped the book into one pannier, a cushion into the other +and threw a worn steamer rug over the little beast's back; +Caroline was a luxurious lounger and rarely traveled without +her sumpter mule and his impedimenta. She led him with practiced +quiet away from the house and paused under the gnarled old +sweet-bough tree: the greenish-yellow, almost translucent globes +dotted the lush, warm grass, their languorous sweet filled the +air. Selecting a dozen thoughtfully, she added them to the +donkey's load, and they went on at a foot pace, through the +slowly reddening Baldwins and seek-no-furthers, the tiny +lady-apples and the king-of-Tompkins-counties, through the +belt of dead, warped fruit trees, blighted and gray--"like +those Dore pictures," she murmured to Rose-Marie--down three, +crumbling brick steps, where the little fellow picked his way +as daintily as a careful lady, and across the dusty road into +a pasture trail that led to a wood stretch, sparse at first, +thicker as one plunged in deeper. The sun filtered through in +delicious diamonds; here and there a resinous pine, steeped in +heat, threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk scuttered +across their path, clicking nervously, only to squat on his +haunches and stare beadily at Rose-Marie, taut with quivering +curiosity. Caroline scowled at him. + +"Rise of the Dutch Republic!" she muttered angrily. "I think not!" + +The chipmunk winked sympathetically. + +"Your father says it's as interesting as any novel" (with startling +mimicry of the piazza voice). "I notice _they_ don't read it!" + +The chipmunk's place was empty; only a slight stir among the leaves +marked his path. + +Caroline's eyes widened, grew dreamy. She leaned her sharp elbows on +Rose-Marie's hairy back and threw her weight on him thoughtfully: he +checked and stood like a table. + +"Do you suppose there really are regular roads through the trees, +like the monkeys took Mowgli on?" she queried. + +Rose-Marie waved his long, hairy ears meditatively, but said +nothing. + +"I don't mean in any fairy way," she explained hastily, "but just +scientifically. It might be. Corners and turns and short-cuts--why +not? they all know them. He may be running home by a back way, now, +to call his children to look at Rose-Marie; it's as good as a whole +circus parade to them, I suppose. And they talk to each other...." + +Held in a muse, she leaned against the donkey; the moments slipped +by. She lost all count of time. Her eyes stared emptily at some +sunny flicker, some dappled pattern of leaf work; her ears were +filled with the forest drone, the mysterious murmur made up of so +many nameless instruments that only the Great Conductor can classify +and number them. Time ceased to be. + +At length she woke with a start, shook herself coltishly, and they +pushed on. The wood grew thicker; now and then Rose-Marie had to +force his way along the tiny trail; his red tassels caught on the +twigs. + +"I'll tell you what," Caroline began, suddenly, "I'm going to try +that wood track to-day and see where it goes, to the very end. It +must go somewhere. Where do they haul the wood from, if there isn't +some place at the end? Come on, Rose-Marie!" + +At a point where the trail forked she led the donkey along the wider +and less interesting way. It was ridged and rutty, and Rose-Marie +sniffed disgustedly as he slipped among the gnarled roots; the +apples bumped and slid in the pannier. After a while Caroline +stopped under a tree, ate three of the apples, gave the donkey two, +and resting in an artfully constructed nest of rug and pillow, +dipped refreshingly into the Moonstone. + +"That's a kind of luncheon," she remarked philosophically, "and now +we'll start again. I'll go to the end of this, if it takes all day!" + +They settled down to a dogged pace and after an hour, during which +the wood grew thinner by imperceptible degrees, found themselves on +a relatively easy track that forked suddenly into a genuine country +road, stretching far to left and right of them. It was a new country +to Caroline; she found no landmarks whatever. The road glared with +heat, the dust was powdery, the shade nowhere, once they had cleared +the wood. She sighed with fatigue and emptiness; it seemed a long +pull, and the harbor far from worth the voyage, when all was said +and done. + +"What _did_ we want to get to this nasty hot road for, Rose-Marie?" +she cried pettishly, shifting from one long leg to the other, +shrugging a nervous, bony shoulder. "Oh, what's the sense of +anything, anyway?" + +Rose-Marie turned a patient, clear brown eye toward her and shook +his head vaguely. Gnats buzzed about his flexible ears, and with a +swishing fanning motion he displaced them. + +"If my back aches," she warned him callously, "you'll have to take +me home, you know! Tired or not. It feels as if it might, any +minute. I never used to get tired, this way." + +A half mile along the road, set off to the left, among cool trees +and behind a great well sweep, she perceived suddenly a white farm +house. It stood alone, neighborless and well up on a drained, +southerly slope; smoke rose languidly from one of its chimneys. + +"Perhaps they'll give us some milk, Rose-Marie," said Caroline, "and +farms usually have cookies. If there are any children there, you can +give 'em rides to pay for it!" + +Rose-Marie nodded and they went on with some spirit. As they turned +into the deep front yard Caroline almost wept with comfort and a +pathetic sense of the wayworn wanderer on the edge of home and +rest, so the place breathed of these. Clear and white with the faded +whiteness of old New England white shingles, it drowsed under its +elms; a fire of nasturtiums smoldered along the broken, flagged path +that led to it; phlox and "Bouncing Bets" crowded up among the once +formal bed of larkspur on each side the sagging flagstone steps, +beneath the simple entrance porch. Old-fashioned green paper shades +hung evenly half way down the clean windows; the door stood +hospitably ajar. + +"Just wait there, Rose-Marie, till I find out about things," said +Caroline, tapping lightly on the door. The house was perfectly +silent. She tapped again, and it seemed that something heavy moved +across the floor in a farther room, but there was no answer. Pushing +the door open gently, she stepped in and stood surprised, for she +found herself not in the stiff, unused country "parlor" she had +expected, but a neat bedroom. A quaint four-poster with a fluted +valance, a polished mahogany chest of drawers, a stand by the bed +with a Bible worn to a soft gray and a night lamp on it, some faded +photographs tacked to the white walls--this was an odd reception +room. She hesitated, and again the faint rumbling sound pointed to +some person stirring and she went into the next room. + +Here was a clean, kindly kitchen of the best; a swept floor, a +freshly blackened cooking stove, a row of bright tins. It was +carpeted with faded oilcloth, but rag rugs, washed dim and +soft-toned, lay here and there, and the room was so large that the +spread table, standing in an ell, made only a pleasant episode in +it, a certainty of restoring food at needful times. + +It was evidently a sitting room as well, in the primitive, clear +fashion that groups all domestic life about the central fire that +feeds it; a stand with books, a sewing basket, oil lamps for evening +reading, all not too far from brick-shaped pans where unmistakable +bread rose under a clean, folded, red cloth. The whole place seemed +waiting, quietly, hospitably waiting, for just such an empty, +discouraged pilgrim as Caroline. + +She sank gratefully into a high-backed arm-chair, stuffed to just +the hollow of her tired back, covered with a clean, homely +patchwork, and drew out the faithful Moonstone from under her elbow. + +"Someone'll come soon," she assured herself, and slipped into the +story as a hot swimmer slips off his sunny rock into the waiting +blue. Another world, a delicious, smooth element--Romance +itself--received her, and of hunger and heat, thirst and the fatigue +of the road, she knew no more than the blessed dead themselves.... + +A sharp tap at the farther door disturbed her, and instinctively she +called, "Come in!" + +A swift, swishing step brushed across the bedroom and a slender, +angry-eyed young woman poised like a gull before her. + +"Can I get something to eat here?" + +Her voice was at once imperious, irritated, unsure of itself. It +could not be that the owner of this voice, dressed with that +insolent simplicity that need not consider the costly patience of +the work-women, ringed like a dowager with great audacious squares +of ruby and white diamond, booted and hatted as one who wears and +throws away, with a bag of golden mesh on her wrist to pay the +price of any whim--it could not be that she doubted what answer she +should receive. And yet she did--did, and had before this: so much +was evident at first sight. She was a curious gypsyish type, for all +her _Rue de la Paix_ curvings and slim, inevitable folds and pleats; +a full, drooping mouth in a slender dark face, great brown eyes and +heavy waves of black hair. She looked discontented and ready to make +some one suffer for it. + +"Well--can I?" she repeated, as Caroline stared. "I'm ready to pay, +of course." + +"I don't know--I don't live here," said Caroline shortly. She felt +untidy and badly dressed beside this graceful thing standing in a +faint cloud of subtle perfume of her own; her sleeves were too short +and her heavy shoes knobby and worn. She wanted furiously to smell +sweet like that; and the golden bag--oh, to feel it, powerful and +careless, on her wrist! + +"Can you find out?" said the girl, eyeing the room attentively; "my +car broke down--the man left it in the road and went to Ogdenville +for gasoline. I've got to rest somewhere." + +"I don't know anything about it," Caroline said coldly. "I'm waiting +for someone to come, myself. There's nobody here. I don't live here +at all." + +With that, and because she was embarrassed and cross and hungry, she +opened her book ostentatiously and affected to read busily. The girl +frowned angrily a moment, then gave a foreign little shrug of her +shoulder and settled herself in a low rocking chair near the bread, +her hands loose in her lap. The old clock ticked reprovingly through +the hot and conscious silence of the room, but there was no other +sound. Caroline could not have lifted her eyes to save her life, and +the older girl's lips curled scornfully: her eyelids were sullen. + +After a few moments of this intolerable stillness the same low +rumbling sound was heard again, this time moving nearer. Something +was advancing to the kitchen from a farther room, and as they looked +instinctively at the door it pushed open slowly and a sort of foot +rest upon wheels appeared; two large wheels followed, and a woman +pushed her chair into the kitchen. She was a large, good-looking +woman, middle-aged, and not weak, evidently, for she managed her +chair easily with one hand; the other held a slice of pink ham on a +white platter in her lap. Her face, under a placid parting of +grayish fair hair, was rather high colored than of an invalid +pallor, her chest broad and deep, her blue eyes at once kind and +keen. She wore a neat dress of dark-blue print with a prim, +old-fashioned linen collar and a blue bow, a white apron around her +plump waist almost covered the patchwork quilt that wrapped her from +the hips down: a shell comb showed slightly above her crisp hair. As +she faced her two angry guests a smile of unmistakable sincerity and +delight greeted them. + +"Well, of all things!" she cried eagerly; "how long, 'you been +here?" + +Caroline waited sulkily for her social superior; the girl was +undoubtedly a "young lady." Her errand was soon explained, her +question asked. + +"Something to eat?" echoed their delighted hostess. "Well, I should +think so! I'm just getting my dinner. Of course I'm all alone, this +time o' day, but I always say if I'm good enough to cook it well, +I'm good enough to eat it comfortable, and I sit down to table +just's if the family was all here. There's some that believe in a +bite and a bit, when the men folks are out, but I never did. And +then--" she blushed shyly like a girl--"I always want to feel ready +in case anyone should come. Just in case. He says it's foolishness, +but look at you two, now! How'd I feel if I wasn't prepared! And +once--in April, 'twas--a sewing-machine man came. I had ham then, +too." + +She beamed on them, frankly overjoyed in their company, and in the +mellow warmth of that honest pleasure the fog and anger in the room +rolled back like mist under a noon sun, and Caroline unbent, named +herself, and mentioned her donkey and their woodland journey. + +"You don't say!" + +Quick as a flash their hostess was across the room and peering +through the window. + +"Well, of all the funny little fellows! I never saw one before, that +I remember. Aren't those red tossels neat, though! I s'pose he's +tame?" + +Caroline put him through his paces, as he came like a dog at her +call, and she of the wheel chair applauded like a child at a Punch +and Judy. + +"We saw so many of those in Italy," said the older girl. "I rode one +in the Alps." + +The woman's face flushed a deep, quick red; she gripped the arms of +her chair and stared at the nervous little jeweled creature before +her as if she were a vision of the night. + +"Have you been to Italy?" she cried eagerly, "not really!" + +"Me? Oh, yes, I've been all over Europe," said the girl +indifferently. "Why? Do you like it?" + +Now it was the woman who echoed, "Me?" + +She flashed a whimsical look at Caroline; instinct taught her that +they were two to one, here. + +"Why, dear, I've never been out of Lockwood's Corners in my life!" + +Simple, rude incredulity pushed out the girl's lip. + +"Nonsense!" she said brusquely, "that's ridiculous!" + +"Maybe it is," her hostess answered quietly, "but it's true, all the +same. I never have." Gold-bag did not blush for her rudeness, for +the simple reason that she did not realize it, and Caroline suddenly +felt less embarrassed by her. Girls of that age were too old to talk +so pettishly to people not in their own families, and she twiddled +her fingers too much, anyway, and stared too much, or else, again, +she didn't look at one enough. + +"You've been to New York, haven't you?" she asked abruptly. + +"Never," said the woman. "I've been this way since I was seventeen. +I'm a pretty heavy woman, you know, and they couldn't put me on a +train very well. So--" + +"There's plenty of room in a drawing-room car." + +"I guess we couldn't afford that," said the woman simply. + +There was an awkward pause; Caroline blushed furiously. How horrid +it all was! But their hostess brushed it away in a moment. + +"And here you are hungry!" she cried; "the idea! I'll get this ham +right on and fry up some potatoes--I'll do them French! I've got +some fresh raised-doughnuts--I got the prize for them at the county +fair, years ago, so I know they're all right--and some summer apple +sauce; 'tain't much, with summer apples, but I put in lemon peel and +a taste o' last year's cider--it makes a relish, anyhow; and I've +got some fine sweet-pickled watermelon rind. I could have had sponge +cakes, if I'd only known! Would you care to try a cut pie? The +sewing-machine man said he hadn't tasted anything like my squash pie +in years. It was cut, too." + +With incredible swiftness she rolled from table to buttery, from +stove to larder. As the pink ham curled and sputtered in its savory +juices, she turned an earnest face to the girl who watched her +curiously. + +"Can't you tell us a little about Italy, while we're waiting?" she +begged. + +"It's full of fleas," said the traveler carelessly, "and moldy old +places--it's awfully cold, too. I wore my furs a lot of the time. It +smells bad nearly everywhere. Do you stay here in the winter, too?" + +"I've stayed here forty-five winters"--she turned the ham +capably--"and I expect to stay as many more as the Lord spares my +life! I was born here. So was father. Grandfather was born right in +the Corners. In eighty-eight we were snowed up a week here. Mr. +Winterpine--that's my husband--had bronchitis, and he couldn't get +out to tend to the stock. Edgar--that was the hired man's name--was +only twenty, and I had to help with one of the cows; I went out in +my chair through a snow tunnel!" + +She chuckled reminiscently and her guests listened, fascinated. + +"We were caught in a bad storm outside of St. Petersburg, once," +Gold-bag volunteered. "If it hadn't been for J. G. we'd have gone +out, probably. As it was, the driver lost a finger." + +"St. Petersburg, Russia?" the woman inquired respectfully, her +skillet full of potatoes colored like autumn beech leaves. + +The girl nodded. "J. G. swore at the man, so he didn't _dare_ die," +she continued, with a hard little grin; "and we just about pulled +through." + +"Who is J. G.?" asked Caroline abruptly. + +"J. G. Terwilliger," she answered simply. It was as if one had said +"Edward Seventh" or "Adelina Patti" or "P. T. Barnum." + +"Who's he?" + +"He's my father, for one thing. I suppose you know who he is as well +as anybody else." + +"I never heard of him," Caroline said carelessly, "are you all +ready, now, Mrs. Winterpine?" + +"He is the greatest mining expert in the world," the girl declared +emphatically, "and I don't know where you've lived not to know it. +You--" with a look at the woman, "you know him, of course?" + +"I don't know anybody of that name, no," the woman admitted; "but +then, you know, we don't know much, 'way off here, about city +people." + +"There hasn't been a daily paper for ten days that hasn't had his +name in it," the girl remarked dryly. + +Mrs. Winterpine wiped her face, flanked the ham with the potatoes, +assembled an incredible array of sweets and relishes in odd, thick +little glass dishes, and with a wave of her hand indicated her +guests' places. + +"We take the _Lockwood's Corners Clarion_," she explained +pacifically. + +They addressed themselves to the meal, a strange trio. Caroline, +usually a hopeless chatterbox, fell somehow and inevitably into the +listener's seat. Their hostess could no longer be denied: her thirst +gleamed in her eyes, and flesh and blood could not have withstood +her plea for tidings of those distant, rosy lands whose laden +wharves she could never see, nor ever glimpse their tiled roofs +under foreign sunsets, their white spires beneath mysterious moons. +Their clothes: was it true that the French wore wooden shoes? She +had read that men in Italy walked in gay capes, colored like birds. +Was there water in the streets, and were boats really their +carriages? Did soldiers, red-coated, demand passports? Had her guest +seen the snow tops of green slopes? Did dogs drag milk carts for +white-capped women? + +The girl, sulky at first, yielded finally, and in quick, nervous +phrases poured out of her full budget. Taken from her convent +school in California at fifteen, she had roamed the world with the +tireless "J. G." From Panama to Alaska, from Cairo to Christiania, +with her uncreased Paris frocks and the discontented line between +her dark eyes, she had steamed and sailed and ridden; she had +ridden a camel in Algeria, a gelding in Hyde Park, a broncho +on the Western plains. + +"Why do you call your father 'J. G.'?" Caroline demanded suddenly. + +"Do you like 'Klondike Jim' any better? That's his other name," +Gold-bag shot at her defiantly. + +Then came strange tales of a flaring, glaring mining camp: lights +and liquor and bared knives, rough men and rougher words, and in the +midst a thin, big-eyed little creature in the hand of a burly, +red-shirted miner, with the very gift of gold under his matted hair, +the scent for it in his blunt nostrils, the feel for it in his +callous finger tips. Klondike Jim! He had made for his Klondike as a +bloodhound makes for the quarry; he could not be mistaken. Night and +day she had been with him, his first claim named for her--the +Madeline--his first earnings a gold belt for her childish waist! + +And then, money and money and more money. Rivers of it, ponds of it. + +"If J. G. said there was copper under Fifth Avenue, they'd dig it up +to-morrow!" + +"You must be real proud of him," said Mrs. Winterpine genially. + +"I used to be," the girl answered, with her mouth a little awry. + +"My dear, my dear!" + +"Oh, yes," she cried angrily, pushing back her chair and facing +them; "all very well, but who are we? Who was my mother? Who was my +grandfather? Where did we come from? Will a sapphire bracelet answer +me that, do you think? Who knows us? 'Miss Maddy Money Bags'! How +long do you think I'd stay in that convent? Who does J. G. know? +Hotelmen and barkeeps and presidents of things! If you could see the +counts he wanted me to marry! If you could hear the couriers laugh +at him!" + +"But think of all the traveling you've done, dear! What things to +remember! How happy--" + +"Happy! I hate it. As J. G. says, I hate it like--well, I just hate +it," she concluded, with propriety, if a little lamely. + +Something in the look she cast around the warm, clean kitchen struck +the woman suddenly. "You don't mean you'd rather live here--_here_?" +she exclaimed amazedly. + +"Don't you like it?" queried Madeline sharply. + +Mrs. Winterpine considered a moment. "You see, it's my home," she +began. The girl's dry laugh interrupted her. + +"That's just it. It's your home," she repeated. "We haven't any. +That's the idea. What's the use of traveling if you can't come home? +And we can't, ever. Unless we go back to the Klondike," she added +satirically. + +There was a long pause. It seemed that the girl was slowly +undressing herself before them: travel and money and gold bag and +scented linings slipped from her like so many petticoats and left +her thin and cold between them, warm as they were in their solid +homespun of kin and hearth. Lean and empty, a houseless, flitting, +little shadow, she had scoured the world and sat now, envious, by a +kitchen fire. How strange! + +Mrs. Winterpine gathered the dishes with accustomed hands and piled +them by a pan of hot, soapy water. Caroline, sobered, rose to help +her with the instinctive courtesy of the home-trained child, but +drew back at her shaken head and waving finger, and followed her +glance toward her other guest, who stared morosely into the +dooryard, her chin in her ringed, brown hand. She was evidently not +far from tears--in a nervous crisis. + +"I wonder if you'd help me with these dishes, Madeline?" said the +woman quietly, and with a start the girl rose, stood meekly while a +checked apron was tied about her waist and received the moist, +shining ware from the plump hands without a word. She appeared to +have utterly forgotten Caroline. + +After a few moments of rhythmical click and splash, a few journeys +from sink to dresser, the tension broke quietly and the air was +aware of it, as when a threatened thunderstorm goes by above and +dissipates in wind. Feeling this, Mrs. Winterpine began to talk +softly, half to herself it seemed, for her voice took on the tone +of one who is much alone and thinks aloud. + +"All my life I've been crazy for travel. I used to read my geography +book till I wore it out nearly; the exports and the imports, you +know? And the pictures of those Arabian men with white turbans, and +the South Sea Islanders riding on surf boards--I can see 'em now. +There was a castle for Germany, with the moon behind it and the +Rhine--do you know 'Bingen on the Rhine'? I love the sound of that. +And the Black Forest! Think of it!" + +She paused with a platter dripping in her hand, her eyes fixed; and +so strong was the compulsion of her vision that to Caroline, vibrant +as a wind harp to such suggestion, the splash of the water in the +tin was the very tinkle of Undine's mystic stream and _Kuehleborn_, +that wicked uncle-brook dashed in cold floods over the belated +knight in the dark German wood! + +"I dreamed once about an Indian temple," the woman went on, "and +you'd really think I'd been there, I saw it so plain. Fat priests +and that big idol that sits cross-legged, all made of brass, and +smiling; and such funny drums and pipes--creepy music. The heathens +brought wreaths and stretched out on their stomachs flat on the +ground. I'd read it somewhere, I guess. I could smell the flowers, +like pond lilies and honeysuckle." + +She poured away the dish water, wiped the pan and began rinsing her +towels and cloths in a small wooden tub bound with tin. The girl +moved aimlessly about the room, fingering the worn furniture. + +"That clock looks awfully old," she said abruptly, pausing before a +square high Dutch affair with a ridiculous picture of Mount Vernon, +wobbly-columned, let in at the bottom. + +"Goodness, yes! That clock--why, that clock was a wedding present to +Lorenzo's great aunt Valeria--she was a Swedenborgian, I believe. +She used to have trances and she could tell you where things were +lost. That chair by the window was her mother's. It's made with +wooden nails, dowels, they call 'em." + +"Did she live here, too?" + +"Yes, indeed. The Winterpines are great hands to stay in one place. +And the way they come back to die! I'm half Winterpine myself--he +and I were second cousins--and I well remember Uncle Milton +Winterpine coming home from Java to die in his bed. He was a sailor, +and how I used to hang around and coax him to tell me what he'd +seen! I remember how he staggered into the house--Mother Winterpine +was living then. + +"'Here, Esther, here's a fifty-pound sack of Old Gov'ment Javvy for +ye, green, and fit for the president's table as soon's it gits +ripe,' he says, 'and you won't have to nurse me long;' and we got +his boots off and helped him to bed. He never left it. He brought me +a parrot, that trip, sort of indigo color and pink. It used to set +me thinking of the hot countries and pineapples and natives, and +those tall trees with all the leaves on top--palms, I guess I mean. +It seems the stars are lower, there, and look bigger; did you ever +see the Southern Cross?" + +"Oh, yes. It's like any other stars. The first officer on the P & O +line always asks me to come and see it. Then he proposes. J. G. +plays poker the whole trip. He can't lose. He says it's tiresome." + +The strange dialogue went on for what might have been an hour. Far +ports and foreign streets, full sails and thronged inns, the +fountains of paved courts, the market squares of dark and vivid +nations, blossomed from the tongue of this chair-bound woman in her +farmhouse prison; and from the blind, unhappy voyager came halting, +telegraphic phrases: climate and train schedules and over-lavish +fees, miles and meals and petty miseries. No sunset had stained her +hurried way, no handed flowers from shy street children had +sweetened it. And ever and again she returned insistently to the +barnyard interests of the Winterpines! + +"See here!" she burst out suddenly, "I'll tell you what I'll do! I +told J. G. that I wouldn't go another step with him--mascot or no +mascot. He wants to go over the Himalayas--to start next week--he +has an idea. But if you'll go, I'll take you! What do you say? My +guest, of course: it don't cost you a penny." + +The woman turned utterly white. Where her knuckles gripped the arms +of the chair they showed a bluish tinge. + +"Me? Me?" she whispered. Her eyes fell to her helpless knees. + +"Oh, you needn't think of that at all," said Madeline. "I knew a man +who didn't _have_ any legs, even, that went round the world and up +the Pyramids. He had money." + +The woman looked wildly about. Her eyes fell on Caroline and this +seemed to bring her into some sort of focus again; the color came +back to her face. + +"That was lovely for you to think of, dear," she said, breathlessly +yet; "but--but--for a moment I forgot.... I--I didn't think of +Lorenzo!" + +"Oh, we'll get a housekeeper for Lorenzo," Madeline said lightly; +"he'll do very well, won't he? One man can't be much to take care +of--you haven't any children?" + +The easy, equal tone, the bright, dry impudence of this little air +plant, this rootless, aimless bubble skipping over the bottomless +deeps of life, brought the dazzled woman quickly to herself. She +looked compassionately at the girl. + +"No," she said gravely, her hands unconsciously flying to her deep +breast; "we haven't any children. And he's not much to take care +of--for his wife. But he wouldn't care for a housekeeper." + +"Oh!" her eyes fell uneasily. "Then we'll take him along!" She +recovered herself. + +Mrs. Winterpine sent her chair with a swift push close to the girl +and laid one hand on her hot forehead, pushing back the thick hair. + +"What a gen'rous little thing you are!" she cried wonderingly. "But +where were you brought up, child? Lorenzo can't jump and run off to +the Himalaya Mountains like that! It takes him a long time to make +up his mind. He--he don't care for travel, besides. He's a regular +Winterpine. And there's the stock. No. I guess I'll keep on doing my +traveling at home. That book you said you'd send...." + +"I'll send a dozen--fifty!" the girl cried impulsively. "I'll bring +them up from New York to-morrow! I'll bring some pictures, too. The +Alps and Venice and the snapshots I took on the Nile! You seem to +know how they look, well enough!" + +"Yes, I know, I know...." the woman repeated dreamily. + +"Don't you want to go?" Madeline urged curiously. + +Again Mrs. Winterpine turned white. + +"Then why don't you?" + +"Child, child!" cried she of the chair, "didn't I tell you he don't +care for travel? We can't do as we like in this world--we don't live +alone. We're placed. There's a hundred things.... Where were you +brought up?" + +Madeline's face flushed a dark, heavy red. Her light confidence +drowned in it; she dropped her eyes. + +"In the Klondike!" she said sullenly, "I told you." + +A loud, whirring horn cut through the country quiet. A great rattle +of gear and chain stormed along the road. + +"There's the machine!" the girl said sulkily; "I must go. It's +fifteen miles to Ogdenville, and a vile road. Good-by--I'll be up +with the books in a day or two." + +She moved to the door. + +"If I can't come--I change my mind awfully--I'll send them just the +same, and--and--" a curious sense of struggle, a visible effort at +thought for another, an attempt to grasp an alien point of view, +dawned in the defiant dark eyes--"I'll write to you from India, if +you want. Would you like it? I can take snap shots...." + +"You're real gen'rous, dear," said her hostess, and wheeling quickly +to her, kissed her warmly. + +She was gone in a cloud of dust. Caroline and the woman sat in +silence. At last Rose-Marie yawned pitifully and his mistress got up +with reluctance. + +"Good-by, Mrs. Winterpine," she said soberly; "I have to go home. +They'll be anxious about me. But I'll come again." + +"Do, my dear," said the other; "this'll be a wonderful summer for +me, with so much company. Wonderful. He'll be interested. But you +run right on: don't let the folks worry. I never had any children, +but I always had my heart set on a daughter. Good-by." + +Caroline and the donkey walked slowly off toward the wood, which +cast cool shadows. They vanished into its depths, and Mrs. +Winterpine sat and watched them kindly from her chair, as one +watches off the traveler bound for far and golden countries. + +"He'd have liked that young one," she said softly. + + * * * * * + + + + +The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the +Macmillan novels. + + + + +NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA" + +(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT) + + +_Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_ + + +The Garden of a Commuter's Wife Illustrated + +"Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that +is the proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and +love of nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of 'folks.' +... It is a charming book."--_The Interior_. + + +People of the Whirlpool Illustrated + +"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its +just perspective of the true values of things, its clever pen +pictures of people and customs, and its healthy optimism for the +great world in general."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph_. + + +The Woman Errant + +"The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an +interesting fictional presentation of an important modern question, +treated with fascinating feminine adroitness."--Miss JEANNETTE +GILDER in the _Chicago Tribune_. + + +At the Sign of the Fox + +"Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine +love of nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural +character."--_New York Tribune_. + + +The Garden, You and I + +"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too +deliciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in +Spain.... The delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, and +without which Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its +poignancy."--_Congregationalist_. + + +The Open Window. Tales of the Months. + +"A little vacation from the sophistication of the +commonplace."--_Argonaut_. + + +Poppea of the Post-Office + +"A rainbow romance, ... tender yet bracing, cheerily stimulating ... +its genial entirety refreshes like a cooling shower."--_Chicago +Record-Herald_. + + +Princess Flower Hat _Just Ready_ + +A Comedy from the Perplexity Book of Barbara the Commuter's Wife. + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * + + + + +BY ZONA GALE + + +Friendship Village + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ + +"As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and +sometimes both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows +whether laughter or tears are fittest for his emotions.... This book +especially makes for higher thinking and better living and +emphasizes the existence of these virtues in lowly places as well as +high."--_New York Times_. + +"The characters are like an orchestra, each instrument holding a +part of its own, all interwoven to a harmonious whole; an orchestra +of strings, be it added, for even the Proudfits' motor fails to +introduce a note of brass.... With the wholesome pungency of humor +that pervades it all, the book cannot fail to find a welcome."--_New +York Post_. + +"There is not a trace of sarcasm or even grotesqueness; her +villagers are not caricatures; they are efficient, useful men and +women whose individualities have been crystallized into distinct +outlines by their limited environments and intimate relations. The +book is happily optimistic, presenting, indeed, the commonplaces of +narrow lives but breathing also the underlying spirit of poetry and +romance."--_Baltimore Sun_. + + +The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ + +"To all who know the hidden sources of human joy and have neither +grown old in cynicism nor gray in utilitarianism, Miss Gale's +charming love stories, full of fresh feeling and grace of style, +will be a draught from the fountain of youth."--_Outlook_. + +"The achievement is unusual for delicacy, subtlety, and the ... +felicitous tenderness which brood over the book like a golden +autumnal haze which dims the outlines of common things and +beautifies them.... The story is indeed unique in this, that it is +an idyl for the aged--a romance of seventy."--_Chicago Tribune_. + +"It is an ideal book for husband and wife to read aloud together.... +Its picture of steadfast love in old age is the best kind of +idealism."--_Chicago Record Herald_. + + +PUBLISHED BY +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York + + * * * * * + + + + +Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS + +_Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ + + +The Choir Invisible + +_This can also be had in a special edition illustrated by Orson +Lowell, $2.50_ + +"One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the +book out of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to the +very core.... Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American +novelists. _The Choir Invisible_ will solidify a reputation already +established and bring into clear light his rare gifts as an artist. +For this latest story is as genuine a work of art as has come from +an American hand."--HAMILTON MABIE in _The Outlook_. + + +The Reign of Law. A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields + +"Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished +as Hawthorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual +suggestion that makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are +lacking in so many novels of the period.... If read in the right +way, it cannot fail to add to one's spiritual possessions."--_San +Francisco Chronicle_. + + +The Mettle of the Pasture + +"It may be that _The Mettle of the Pasture_ will live and become a +part of our literature; it certainly will live far beyond the +allotted term of present-day fiction. Our principal concern is that +it is a notable novel, that it ranks high in the range of American +and English fiction, and that it is worth the reading, the +re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care for +modern literature at its best."--By E. F. E. in the _Boston +Transcript_. + + +Summer in Arcady. A Tale of Nature _Cloth, $1.25_ + +"This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It +is artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in +its descriptions, dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents; +indeed, a veritable masterpiece that must become classic. It is +difficult to give an outline of the story; it is one of the stories +which do not outline; it must be read."--_Boston Daily Advertiser_. + + +_Shorter Stories_ + +The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky $1.50 +Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales $1.50 +The Bride of the Mistletoe $1.25 +A Kentucky Cardinal. _Illustrated_ $1.00 +Aftermath. A Sequel to "A Kentucky Cardinal" $1.00 + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK + + * * * * * + + + + +Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS + +_Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each, $1.50_ + + +The Gospel of Freedom + +"A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, +in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been +contributed to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_. + + +The Web of Life + +"It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American +life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most +artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express_. + + +The Real World + +"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is +true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of +life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into +conscious possession of his will--only such battles bite into the +consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune_. + + +The Common Lot + +"It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human +soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that +has appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day_. + +The Memoirs of an American Citizen. Illustrated with about fifty +drawings by F. B. Masters. + +"Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to +reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American +spirit than anybody has yet done."--_New York Times_. + +"Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous +document of startling significance. More than any other writer +to-day he is giving us _the_ American novel."--_New York Globe_. + + +Together + +"Journeys end in lovers meeting," says the old saw; so all novels +used to end--in marriage. Yet Mr. Herrick's interesting new novel +only begins there; the best brief description of it is, indeed,--a +novel about married people for all who are married. + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of While Caroline Was Growing, by +Josephine Daskam Bacon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING *** + +***** This file should be named 19869.txt or 19869.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/6/19869/ + +Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, Stephen Hope, Fox in the +Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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