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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Witch Winnie, by Elizabeth W. Champney
+
+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: Witch Winnie
+       The Story of a King's Daughter
+
+Author: Elizabeth W. Champney
+
+Release Date: December 2, 2010 [EBook #34551]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITCH WINNIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Patrick Hopkins and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+- Illustration captions in {brackets} have been added by the transcriber
+for reader convenience.
+
+- The position of some illustrations has been changed to improve
+readability.
+
+- Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. These
+minor errors include extra or missing commas, periods, and quotation
+marks (" and ').
+
+- Significant typographical errors have been corrected. A full list of
+these corrections is available in the Transcriber's Corrections section
+at the end of the book.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: {Cover: Witch Winnie
+     The Story of a King's Daughter
+        Elizabeth W. Champney}]
+
+
+
+
+             WITCH WINNIE.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: {Woman lowers basket
+    from window to three men waiting
+              below.}]
+
+
+
+
+             WITCH WINNIE
+
+    THE STORY OF A "KING'S DAUGHTER"
+
+                  BY
+
+         ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY
+
+               NEW YORK
+
+         DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+
+              PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1889, by
+WHITE AND ALLEN
+
+Copyright, 1891, by
+DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+
+THE BURR PRINTING HOUSE
+New York
+
+
+
+_DEDICATED TO_
+MY LITTLE WITCH MARIE.
+
+    Where she's been the sunshine lingers,
+      She's my witch and she's my mouse;
+    She has helpful, fairy fingers,
+      Busy keeper of the house.
+
+    She is tricksy and she's elfish;
+      Sure no plague could e'er be worse;
+    She is thoughtful and unselfish,
+      She's my gentle angel-nurse.
+
+    All their jokes the brownies lend her,
+      She's a merry, mischief thing;
+    But her heart is very tender--
+      She's a Daughter of the King.
+
+    Yes, there's something nice about her,
+      And I'll love her till my death;
+    No, I could not do without her--
+      I'm her ma, Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  CHAPTER                                                      PAGE
+
+        INTRODUCTION,                                             9
+
+     I. BOARDING-SCHOOL SCRAPES,                                 11
+
+    II. GUINEVERE'S GOWN,                                        30
+
+   III. THE PRINCESS,                                            50
+
+    IV. COURT LIFE,                                              63
+
+     V. LITTLE PRINCE DEL PARADISO,                              79
+
+    VI. MRS. HETTERMAN THROWS LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY,              90
+
+   VII. WINNIE'S CONFESSION,                                    109
+
+  VIII. THE ELDER BROTHER AND MRS. HALSEY'S STRANGE STORY,      123
+
+    IX. THE KING'S DAUGHTERS AND THE VENETIAN FÊTE,             139
+
+     X. THE LANDLORD OF RICKETT'S COURT,                        162
+
+    XI. THE GUESTS OF THE ELDER BROTHER,                        189
+
+   XII. WITH THE DYNAMITERS,                                    212
+
+  XIII. THE KING'S DAUGHTERS IN THE COUNTRY,                    225
+
+   XIV. OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY,                            246
+
+    XV. THE ESTATES DEL PARADISO,                               302
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+It is but just to explain that, while all of the characters introduced
+in this little story are purely imaginary, the founding of the Home of
+the Elder Brother was suggested by the work of some real children,
+younger than Madame's pupils, who gave a little fair, and, helped by
+charitable people, instituted a lovely charity, the Messiah Home for
+Little Children, at 4 Rutherford Place, New York City. This Home still
+opens its doors to the children of working-women, and is helped by
+different circles of King's Daughters, some of whom have adopted
+children to clothe. It is a beautiful work, founded by children for
+children, and it is hoped that others all over the land will join in it,
+and that the work may broaden until no such dens as Rickett's Court will
+remain in our fair city or country.
+
+                                                           E. W. C.
+
+
+
+
+WITCH WINNIE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BOARDING-SCHOOL SCRAPES.
+
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Winnie.}]
+
+We never had any until Witch Winnie came to room in our corner.
+
+We had the reputation of being the best behaved set at Madame's, a
+little bit self-conscious too, and proud of our propriety. Perhaps this
+was the reason that we were nicknamed the "Amen Corner," though the
+girls pretended it was because the initials of our names, spelled
+downward, like an acrostic--
+
+    _A_delaide Armstrong,
+    _M_illy Roseveldt,
+    _E_mma Jane Anton,
+    _N_ellie Smith--
+
+formed the word _amen_. But certainly the name would not have clung to
+us as it did if the other girls had not recognized its fitness in our
+forming a sanctimonious little clique who echoed Madame's sentiments,
+and were real Pharisees in minding the rules about study-hours, and
+whispering, and having our lights out in time, and the other lesser
+matters of the law which the girls in the "Hornets' Nest," Witch
+Winnie's set, disregarded with impunity.
+
+And verily we had our reward, for Madame trusted us, and gave us the
+best set of rooms in the great stone corner tower, overlooking the park,
+quite away from the espial of the corridor teacher. They had been
+intended for an infirmary, but as no one was ever sick at Madame's, she
+grew tired of keeping them unoccupied, and assigned them to us.
+
+Sometimes the other girls annoyed us by making calls in study-hours, and
+we virtuously displayed a placard on our door bearing the inscription,
+"Particularly Engaged." It caught Witch Winnie's eye, as she strolled
+along the hall, and she scribbled beneath it,
+
+    "The girls of the Amen Corner
+      Would have us all to know
+    That they're _engaged_, each one engaged--
+      Particularly so."[A]
+
+[A] This incident is borrowed from an actual occurrence.
+
+We hardly knew whether to be amused or vexed at this sally of Witch
+Winnie's. We acknowledged that it was bright, but we deplored her
+wildness, and had no idea how much we should love her in time to come.
+After all, our reputation as model pupils had a very slender foundation.
+It rested chiefly on Emma Jane's preternatural conscientiousness. The
+night that the cadet band serenaded our school, some of the pupils,
+presumably the girls in the "Hornets' Nest," threw out bouquets to the
+performers. Rumor said that when Madame heard of this she was greatly
+shocked.
+
+"I don't see how she can punish them for it," said Adelaide; "there's
+nothing in the rules about not giving flowers to young men. Still, it
+was a dreadful thing to do, and Madame is ingenious enough to twist the
+rules some way, so as to 'make the punishment fit the crime.' I am glad
+the Amen Corner is guiltless."
+
+Then we marched into chapel on tiptoe with excitement to see Madame
+wreak vengeance on the wrong-doers. Witch Winnie sat behind me, and
+turning, I saw that she looked pale, but resolute.
+
+Madame rose in awful dignity, her wiry curls, which Milly said reminded
+her of spiral bed-springs, bristled ominously.
+
+"Young ladies," she exclaimed, in a sharp tone of command, "you may all
+rise." We rose.
+
+"If you turn to the printed rules of this institution," she continued,
+"you will find under Section VII. the following paragraph--'Pupils are
+not allowed to disfigure the lawn by _throwing from the windows_ any
+bits of paper, hair, apple-parings, peanut shells, or waste material _of
+any kind_. Scrap-baskets are provided for the reception of such matter,
+and any pupil throwing _anything from her window upon the school
+grounds_ will be regarded as having committed a misdemeanor.'"
+
+An impressive silence followed, in which Witch Winnie gave a sigh of
+relief, and whispered to Cynthia Vaughn, "We're all right; we didn't
+disfigure her precious lawn. The bouquets never touched the ground. I
+lowered them, with a string, in my scrap-basket (just where she says we
+ought to have put them), and the drum-major took them out and
+distributed them to the other boys."
+
+"Young ladies," Madame continued, in tones of triumph, "those of you who
+have not broken this rule within the past week may sit down."
+
+We all sat down--all but Emma Jane Anton, who remained in conspicuous
+discomfort. Adelaide pulled her by the basque, "Sit down!" she
+whispered; "Madame doesn't mean you."
+
+Emma Jane stood like a martyr while Madame regarded her through her
+lorgnette with astonishment depicted on every feature.
+
+"If you committed this infringement of the rules at any time other than
+last evening you may sit down."
+
+Emma Jane remained standing.
+
+"Then," said Madame, drawing herself up frigidly, "Miss Anton, you may
+explain: what was it you threw out?"
+
+"Madame," replied Emma Jane, "the window was open--we were listening to
+the music--and a bat flew in; and, Madame, he would not stay in the
+waste-paper basket, and so, Madame, I threw him out."
+
+Every one laughed; discipline was forgotten for the moment, until Madame
+rapped smartly on the desk and called for order. She complimented Emma
+Jane highly on her conscientiousness, but she looked provoked with her
+all the same, while Witch Winnie, who was stuffing her handkerchief into
+her mouth, nearly went into convulsions.
+
+After the sketch which I have endeavored to give of Witch Winnie, and
+the position which she occupied at Madame's, I trust that we, as
+self-respecting pupils, will not be too severely blamed when I confess
+that we received, with great disfavor, Madame's announcement that Winnie
+was henceforth to room in the Amen Corner.
+
+The bedrooms at Madame's boarding-school were clustered in little groups
+around study-parlors, five girls forming a family. For a long time there
+had been only four in our set. Emma Jane Anton, who preferred to room
+alone, had the little single bedroom; Adelaide and Milly were chums;
+while I, Nellie Smith, familiarly nicknamed Tib, had luxuriated so long
+in the large corner chamber that I had almost forgotten that Madame
+told me, at the outset, that I must hold myself in readiness to receive
+a room-mate at any time.
+
+Adelaide Armstrong was the daughter of a railroad magnate. She had been
+brought up in the West, but, though she had traveled much, and had seen
+a great deal of society, her education had not been entirely neglected.
+She had studied a great deal in a desultory way, and contested the head
+of the class with Emma Jane Anton, who was a "regular dig," and had
+prepared for college in the Boston public schools.
+
+It was really surprising how Adelaide had picked up so much. She had
+studied Latin with a priest in New Mexico, and had profited by two years
+at a lonely post on the confines of Canada, where her father had been
+interested in the fur trade, to become proficient in French. Strikingly
+handsome, a brunette with brilliant complexion and Andalusian eyes,
+energetic and spirited, she was popular both with her instructors and
+her classmates.
+
+Milly Roseveldt was her exact contrast--a milky-complexioned little
+blonde, shy and sweet; she was also a trifle dull. Adelaide translated
+her Latin, and worked out her problems, and I wrote her compositions,
+while Milly rewarded us with largesses of love and confectionery, for
+she was the most generous as well as the most affectionate of girls. Her
+father, a wealthy New York banker, placed large sums of money at her
+disposal, and Milly deluged her friends with gifts of flowers and
+bonbons. It seemed very natural to me that Adelaide and Milly should be
+sworn friends; but my admittance into the sacred circle was a mystery to
+me, and to a number of aspiring girls who asserted that I was nobody in
+particular, and who envied me my place in my friends' affection. My
+presence in the school itself was almost as great a wonder. My father
+was a Long Island farmer. We opened our house to city boarders during
+the summer, and one season Miss Sartoris, the teacher in Art at
+Madame's, boarded with us. I had taken drawing lessons at the Academy,
+and Miss Sartoris took me out sketching with her. I worked like a
+beaver, and was never so happy in my life. I delighted Miss Sartoris,
+who wakened mother's ambition by telling her that I was the most
+talented pupil she had ever had. More than this: we three induced good,
+easy-going, generous father to let me go back to the city with Miss
+Sartoris as a pupil at Madame's. My wardrobe was meagre, but not
+countrified, for I possessed a natural sense of color and a quick
+faculty for imitation. I had seen plenty of city people at Scup Haven,
+and my few dresses, I fancied, would pass muster anywhere. I was a fair
+scholar, and took the lead in the studio. I was not brilliant and
+stylish like Adelaide, or rich and pretty like Milly, but they liked me,
+and I liked myself the better for the consciousness that there must be
+something nice about me which attracted them. I believe now that it was
+an absence of self-consciousness and selfishness on my part, and my
+hearty admiration and devotion to them. Adelaide called me, playfully,
+"the great American Appreciator."
+
+It was just before the theatricals given by our literary society that an
+incident occurred which showed me how much they really thought of me. We
+three were arranging the stage; I was touching up the scenery, and Milly
+holding the tacks for Adelaide, who was looping the drapery, when we
+overheard the conversation of a group of girls on the other side of the
+curtain.
+
+Cynthia Vaughn was the first to speak.
+
+"I think Adelaide Armstrong is perfectly splendid!"
+
+"So do I," said another; and there was a chorus of confused voices
+exclaiming, "So stylish!" "Perfectly elegant!" "The handsomest girl in
+school!"
+
+Adelaide left her work and placed her hand on the curtain, but Milly
+threw her arms impulsively around her. "Let us hear what they will say,"
+she whispered; "when they are through we can pull the cord, and all bow
+thanks."
+
+By this time other voices were chanting Milly's praises, and Adelaide
+turned reluctantly away, remarking, "Well, if you enjoy that sort of
+thing, you are welcome to it. I should not be surprised, by the way they
+are loading it on, if they knew we were here."
+
+They did not know it, for at that instant Cynthia Vaughn spoke up again,
+"I don't see what they find to admire in that pokey Lib Smith."
+
+"I should think Milly would be ashamed to be seen with her," said
+another; "her dresses always remind me of a chicken with its head
+through a hole in a salt-bag."
+
+Adelaide sprang forward with flashing eyes to confront the speaker, but
+this time it was I who held her back. "Let them say their say," I
+whispered, hoarsely, while Milly cowered, trembling. "I believe her
+mother makes her dresses at home," said Witch Winnie; "and, as she can't
+have Tib to try them on, she fits them on her grandfather."
+
+There was a hearty laugh at this sally, and another added: "I don't see
+how Adelaide can endure her, she is so stingy. Have you noticed that the
+girls place a fresh bouquet at her plate every morning? and I never
+could find out that she ever gave either of them so much as a single
+flower."
+
+Adelaide nearly writhed herself from my grasp, but I held her tightly.
+"Milly," she gasped, "are you a coward, to stand there and hear our
+friend reviled so? Can't you stop them?"
+
+The blood surged into Milly's pale cheeks, and she sprang before the
+curtain. "Girls," she cried, "how can you talk so? Nellie Smith is our
+dearest friend. She is not one bit stingy; she gives us more than we
+have ever given her. Because she does not parade her presents on the
+breakfast-table is no reason that she has not given me lots and lots of
+things, and no girl can consider herself my friend who talks so about
+our darling Tib."
+
+Here Milly broke down in tears, and Witch Winnie exclaimed, "Good for
+you, Milly Roseveldt; I didn't know you had so much spunk!" But at this
+point we all fled to the Amen Corner, and bolted the door, refusing to
+admit Witch Winnie, who impulsively shouted her apologies through the
+keyhole.
+
+"Oh, Milly!" I cried, "what made you tell a lie for me? I never gave you
+a thing." And I might have added, "How could I, when my allowance for
+spending-money is hardly sufficient to keep me in slate-pencils?"
+
+But Milly stopped my mouth with kisses, and pointed to sundry original
+works of art with which I had decorated her apartment, and declared,
+besides, that helping her on that last horrid composition was a greater
+gift than all the roses in Le Moult's greenhouse.
+
+So we of the Amen Corner disliked Witch Winnie and loved each other, all
+but Emma Jane Anton. We could not be said to exactly love her; we
+tolerated her in our midst, in spite of her uncongenial nature, because
+we took pride in her eminent respectability, and in the higher average
+of reputation for creditable scholarship and exemplary behavior which
+she gave to our corner. But love her! We might as well have tried to
+love an iceberg.
+
+Witch Winnie arrived on Adelaide's birthday, and was a most unwelcome
+birthday present. Emma Jane Anton had obtained permission for us to
+celebrate the occasion by sitting up an hour later that evening. Milly
+had ordered a form of ice-cream and a birthday-cake from Mazetti's, and
+we had invited in a half-dozen friends to share the treat. As a damper
+on this beautiful fête, Madame had called us into her private study that
+afternoon, and had told us that she had decided to assign Witch Winnie
+as my room-mate. She did not scruple to tell us her reasons for doing
+so. Winnie (according to Madame) was the head-centre of a wild set of
+"ne'er-do-weels" who roomed in the top of the house, "a perfect hornets'
+nest under the eaves," Madame said. Madame felt that if the queen hornet
+was taken away, the rest would be more amenable to discipline, and that
+Winnie, placed among such proper and well-behaved girls as we were,
+would herself feel our beneficial influence.
+
+"I think," said Madame, "that if you knew Winnie's history you would
+understand her better. Her parents were both very talented and highly
+imaginative people. Her father is a playwright of reputation, who
+married a very lovely young actress who had sustained the leading part
+in several of his plays. They were tenderly attached to each other. Mrs.
+De Witt had great dramatic talent; she made it the study of her life to
+realize his conceptions, and succeeded to his perfect satisfaction. She
+said that she so lived in her part that frequently she forgot her own
+personality, while Mr. De Witt was always cudgeling his brains to invent
+new plots, situations, and characters for his wife. Mrs. De Witt died
+when Winnie was but three years of age. The child has lived with
+different relatives, and has been spoiled and neglected by turns, but
+never quite understood. I have studied her carefully, and think I see in
+her a combination of both parents. She has her father's highly organized
+imaginative nature, but instead of constructing plots for plays, it
+develops itself in plots for scrapes. She delights in dramatic
+situations, and is a natural and unconscious actress. Her father hopes
+that she may never adopt the stage as her profession, for it was that
+life of mental and physical strain which killed Winnie's mother.
+Something remarkable in organization or in action the girl will
+certainly be, and as she takes her color, like a chameleon, from her
+surroundings, or, rather, her cue from the other actors, I have great
+hopes for your influence over her."
+
+Madame's confidences made little impression upon our prejudice. We
+listened in silence, and, returning to our rooms, held an indignation
+meeting, in which Emma Jane led. Adelaide, who ought to have sympathized
+with the neglected orphan, for she had lost her own mother when a little
+girl, and who did find in this fact a bond of fellow-feeling later on,
+now ignored all her claim for pity, and chose to feel that we were all
+grossly insulted. Milly pitied me the enforced companionship, several of
+us were in tears, and in the midst of it all Witch Winnie appeared. The
+clatter of voices sank to sudden silence, and the new-comer, looking
+from face to face, instantly understood the situation.
+
+"If you feel half as badly as I do, girls," she said, with a merry
+laugh, "I'm sorry for you; I wouldn't intrude on you in this way if I
+could help it. Madame tells me you are to have a spread to-night, and
+have invited your particular friends. It's too bad she wouldn't let me
+put off moving till to-morrow morning. I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll
+sit in the recitation-room and cram for examination until the party is
+over. Of course you don't want me, a perfect stranger to your friends;
+it isn't to be supposed you would."
+
+Emma Jane Anton looked relieved. "We provided for a limited number," she
+explained; "if we had known that we were to have the honor of your
+company--"
+
+But Adelaide interrupted her instantly. "Sit in that dismal
+recitation-room while I am having my birthday party! Indeed you shall do
+nothing of the sort!" while Milly came gallantly to the rescue, assuring
+her that she had ordered more ice-cream than they could possibly
+consume, and I did the best I could to make Winnie believe that she was
+welcome.
+
+The girls appeared _en masse_ as soon as the bell struck for the close
+of evening study-hour--congratulations were offered to Adelaide, and
+Winnie was introduced. All made extravagant efforts to be gay and
+sociable, but there was a certain constraint, a forced quality, in it
+all, which had for its reason something beyond the fact of an unwelcome
+addition to the Corner: the refreshments had not arrived. Mazetti had
+forgotten to send them. There stood the study-table neatly spread with a
+table-cloth borrowed from the steward's department, and set with
+saucers, spoons, and plates, all disappointingly empty.
+
+Adelaide tried to carry off the situation as an immense joke. Milly
+alternated between hope and despair, fancying each noise of wheels the
+confectioner's cart. The guests showed their disappointment plainly,
+some confessing that they had slighted the evening prunes and rice in
+anticipation of this treat. And I heard Cynthia Vaughn whisper that it
+was a very cheap way to give a party--to pretend that there had been a
+mistake. At this juncture I suddenly noticed that Witch Winnie had
+disappeared.
+
+A few moments later a loud knocking, or kicking, for it was evidently
+bestowed with feet instead of hands, was heard at the door. "Let me in,
+girls!" cried Witch Winnie's voice--"let me in, quick! before Madame
+catches me." We opened the door, and Witch Winnie burst in, and sat
+laughing on the floor; from her dress, which had been gathered up in
+her hands, and had served as a market-basket, rolled a quantity of paper
+bags and parcels--lemons, bottles of olives, sugar, mixed pickles,
+crackers, sardines, macaroons, nuts, raisins, candy, etc., etc.
+
+"Help yourselves, girls," she chuckled. "We'll have the spread, after
+all. I have been around the corner and bought out Mr. Beeny's little
+grocery." Then broke in a chorus of voices--
+
+"How did you ever get out of the house?"
+
+"Was Cerberus asleep?" (Cerberus was our nickname for the janitor.)
+
+"How very sweet of you!"
+
+"But how extravagant!"
+
+"O girls! these pickled limes are too lovely for anything."
+
+Adelaide appeared with her ewer. "I'll make the lemonade," she said, and
+began rolling the lemons with Milly's curling-stick, while Emma Jane
+Anton manipulated the can-opener with energy and success. Each girl flew
+to her room for her tooth-mug, and we drank Witch Winnie's health in
+brimming bumpers of lemonade.
+
+"How did you ever manage it?" Milly asked again.
+
+"I climbed down the fire-escape." Witch Winnie giggled.
+
+"But you had to drop twelve feet onto the sidewalk!"
+
+"What of that? I've done it in the gymnasium from the trapeze many a
+time."
+
+"But you never came back that way?"
+
+"Hardly. I rang the basement bell, and when Cerberus said he'd tell
+Madame, I made him a present of three packages of cigarettes and some
+Limburger cheese, and I am quite certain that he will never say a word."
+
+Witch Winnie's generosity and good-fellowship had won the day. From that
+moment we took her into our hearts.
+
+The ice-cream which Milly had ordered arrived the next day, but we were
+all too ill to touch it; we had feasted without restraint on our new
+chum's bountiful but somewhat heterogeneous repast, and were paying the
+penalty with rousing headaches, but in our fiercest pangs we were still
+ready to declare that if there ever was a trump it was Witch Winnie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+GUINEVERE'S GOWN.
+
+
+Aristocratic Adelaide was now as deeply attached to "that little witch"
+Winnie as she had been prejudiced against her, and Winnie, who had
+hitherto spoken of her new friend as "that stuck-up Armstrong girl," was
+now her devoted admirer.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Adelaide.}]
+
+Although this state of affairs was perfectly agreeable to the Amen
+Corner, it was not equally so to the Hornets. They had endured Winnie's
+removal as a piece of Madame's tyranny, had looked upon their Queen as a
+martyr, and had taken it for granted that we would make things extremely
+uncomfortable for her. They perceived, with astonishment, that we
+welcomed her heartily, and when it dawned upon them by degrees that
+Winnie was herself happy in the change, that she actually promenaded in
+the corridor with an arm lovingly twined about the waist of that odious
+Tib Smith, that the placard "Engaged" appeared as frequently on the
+outer door of the Amen Corner, and that Winnie's lessons and behavior
+improved so much that she was actually becoming a favorite with the
+teachers instead of their special torment--the indignation of the
+Hornets' Nest knew no bounds.
+
+It showed itself in a practical joke originated by Cynthia, which might
+have been very amusing had it not been spiced with malice. I have spoken
+of our literary society and its projected entertainment. We were to have
+a series of tableaux; among others, Guinevere kneeling before an altar.
+Milly had been chosen to represent Guinevere on account of her beautiful
+hair, and because she spent her Saturdays and Sundays at home, and could
+have any costume arranged for herself. What was our disappointment, one
+Monday morning, to receive a note from Milly saying that she would not
+be able to take part in the entertainment, as her mother was going to
+Washington for a fortnight, and had decided that, as Milly looked pale,
+a little outing would do her good. This note was read to the literary
+society amid groans from the members. "We can't give up that tableau."
+"Adelaide, _you_ take the part." "Can't; my hair is as black as a crow's
+wing. Tib's hair is lovely when it is down. It falls to her knees, and
+it has the sheen of molten gold. Girls, you must see it," and Adelaide
+proceeded to pull my braids apart; I protesting all the time that it was
+absurd to have a freckled Guinevere who was as homely as a hedge fence.
+
+"Granted," replied Witch Winnie, "but nobody is going to see your face,
+child; you pose with your back to the audience, and as none of the girls
+know what regal hair you have, it will be such fun to have them guess
+who it is."
+
+All of the other girls joined in persuading me, excepting one of the
+Hornets, who lifted her voice in favor of Cynthia Vaughn.
+
+"But, girls, what am I to do for a costume?"
+
+"Why didn't Milly think to send hers along?" said Adelaide. "We might
+write her."
+
+"No, there's no time; she leaves this morning on the 'limited.'"
+
+"If you would like, I'll take the part," Cynthia Vaughn suggested. "I've
+all that canton flannel ermine, and the ruff made out of the old window
+curtains, which I wore when I was Queen Elizabeth."
+
+"That ruff would be a frightful anachronism," said Emma Jane Anton.
+
+"And the ermine has served three times already. Thank you, we'll manage
+somehow," Witch Winnie asserted, confidently.
+
+We retired to the Amen Corner to talk it over. "If worse comes to
+worst," said Witch Winnie, "I know I can make a magnificent train out of
+the plush table-cloth in Madame's library."
+
+"But how will you ever get it?"
+
+"Emma Jane must ask her to lend it to us; she'll do anything for Emma
+Jane."
+
+"Emma Jane declines to act in this emergency," said Miss Anton, firmly.
+
+"You wouldn't be so mean!"
+
+"But I would; Adelaide, please read Milly's letter again; I didn't half
+hear it."
+
+"I must have dropped it in the Society hall; I will get it after dinner.
+If she had thought that Tib might be chosen to take her place, she
+would have done anything for the honor of the Amen Corner."
+
+Here some one tapped at the door, and announced, "A letter for Miss
+Armstrong."
+
+"It's from Milly!" exclaimed Adelaide, "and it looks as if it had been
+opened, and pasted up again."
+
+"I thought Madame boasted that she never submitted her young ladies to
+that sort of espionage," said Witch Winnie.
+
+"Girls, girls!" Adelaide fairly shrieked; "just listen to this! Milly
+writes--
+
+     "'I forgot to say in my last that mamma's maid is putting the
+     finishing touches to my costume, and Gibson will bring it around
+     to-morrow. The dress (purple velvet) is one which mamma wore last
+     summer when she was presented to the Queen. The lace which trims it
+     was made to order from a pattern of her own selection in Brussels.
+     You may keep the crown, for the gems in it are only Rhinestones.
+     Aunt Fanny wore it at a costume ball, and they sparkle like the
+     real thing. Be careful of the lace, for mamma prizes it highly.
+
+                                        'Yours, Milly.
+
+     'P. S.--I've coaxed papa to lend you a silver chatelaine, old
+     French repoussé, linked with emeralds, which he keeps in his
+     cabinet of curiosities. It shows finely against the velvet.'"
+
+How we all exclaimed and chattered! "Now what will the Hornets' Nest say
+to that?"
+
+"Canton flannel ermine indeed!"
+
+"I should like to see them bring on their old mosquito-netting ruff!"
+
+"Real emeralds! A diadem flashing with diamonds!"
+
+"Don't tell them a word about it until Tib dawns on them in all her
+glory on Wednesday night."
+
+It was hard to keep this resolution, but we did. The Hornets were
+giggling and whispering among themselves as we marched in to dinner,
+with all the importance given by the possession of a state secret. The
+other girls relapsed into silence as we took our seats, and watched us
+with strange, significant looks.
+
+"I've been looking up the matter in Racinet's work on Costume," remarked
+Cynthia Vaughn, "and I find you were right, Miss Anton; ruffs did not
+come in until long after Arthur's reign."
+
+"I would like to consult the book," Emma Jane replied, "unless you can
+tell me whether chatelaines were worn at that period."
+
+Here a small Hornet was seized with strangulation, and had to be
+vigorously thumped upon the back by her friends.
+
+"Oh, I think so," Cynthia replied, sweetly, disregarding her friend's
+condition. "Wouldn't it be sweet to have Guinevere wear one? Miss Smith
+is so artistic, I'm sure she could cut one out of gilt paper."
+
+Adelaide scouted the idea. "Whatever we get up for that costume," she
+said, "I am determined shall be _real_, no _imitation_ chatelaines, or
+anything else."
+
+Cynthia lifted her eyebrows. "Perhaps you will secure one of Queen
+Victoria's court robes?" she remarked, icily.
+
+It was on Adelaide's lips to reply that we might have a robe which had
+figured at a court reception of the English Queen, but she felt Witch
+Winnie's foot upon hers, and replied that in undertaking this tableau
+the Amen Corner felt confident that they could carry it through
+creditably, and we therefore begged to be excused from the dress
+rehearsal that afternoon. We left the dining-room in a body, and the
+Hornets laughed aloud before we closed the door. "'They laugh best who
+laugh last,'" said Witch Winnie. "Won't those girls fairly expire when
+they see Tib in her grand rôle!"
+
+Tuesday was a long and weary day for us. We started at every knock,
+expecting a summons to the janitor's room to receive a package, but none
+came. We retired much disappointed; and we held a council of war before
+breakfast. The Roseveldts' butler had evidently proved false to his
+trust, and the costume was waiting for us at the family mansion on Fifth
+Avenue.
+
+"I will ask Madame at breakfast to excuse me from my morning lessons to
+do an important errand," said Witch Winnie; "I will tell her the entire
+story, and I know that, rather than disappoint us all, she will let us
+go to the Roseveldts' for the things."
+
+Madame proved to be in good-humor, and on reading Milly's letter readily
+gave Winnie and me the desired permission, sending for a hansom to take
+us to our destination. All of the Hornets at the lower end of the table
+heard this conversation, and Adelaide thought that Cynthia Vaughn turned
+green with envy. An hour later, as we came down the front stairs to take
+our hansom, Cerberus popped his head from his office to tell us that a
+package had just been received for Miss Adelaide Armstrong. "Come back,
+girls!" Adelaide cried excitedly; "here is the costume. It can be
+nothing else. My, what a big bundle!"
+
+We carried it between us in triumph up the staircase. The Hornets were
+clustered on the very top landing; their faces peered over the
+balustrade, and as they caught sight of our procession a peal of
+derisive laughter echoed through the hall as they scuttled away to their
+nest under the eaves.
+
+"Those Hornets have certainly gone crazy," Emma Jane remarked,
+practically. She was carrying her corner of the package, and was as
+interested as the rest of us in the arrival of the costume. We entered
+our study-parlor in suppressed excitement, and impatiently cut the
+knots, and tore open the wrappings, when, behold! another package,
+scrupulously tied. This paper removed revealed another, then another,
+and another, and the fact slowly dawned upon us that we had been
+victimized. "Girls!" exclaimed Witch Winnie, sitting down on the floor
+in despair, "it's a wicked sell of those Hornets: there is nothing
+here."
+
+Emma Jane Anton kept on methodically removing the wrappers and folding
+them neatly. "Perhaps," suggested Adelaide, "they have merely arranged
+this hoax to fool us, and the costume is still at the Roseveldts'."
+
+"It's just like that Cynthia Vaughn to do such a thing; we'll go, all
+the same," Witch Winnie replied, rising hopefully and tying on her veil.
+At this juncture Emma Jane reached a pasteboard box marked "Violet
+velvet court dress." Lifting the lid discovered a quantity of trash. An
+empty sardine-box bore the label "Diamond Crown;" a dilapidated bustle
+was marked "Brussels point lace;" a mixed-pickle bottle was filled with
+apple-parings and labeled "Old repoussé châtelaine, reign of Arthur I.;
+the _real_ article; must be returned."
+
+A howl of mingled laughter and dismay rose from our corner. "Cynthia
+Vaughn wrote that letter which purported to be from Milly. Well, it's a
+real good practical joke, anyway," said Witch Winnie; "better than I
+thought the Hornets could get up without my help. Let us show them that
+we can take a joke, and good-naturedly acknowledge ourselves sold."
+
+"And in the mean time what am I to do for a costume? You know the
+tableaux come off to-night."
+
+"That puts another face on the matter."
+
+"I suppose Cynthia would be only too glad to take the part even now."
+
+"After all we have said, and your name printed on the programme--never!"
+This from Adelaide.
+
+"I'll tell you what we will do," suggested Winnie; "the hansom is still
+waiting at the door; Tib and I will drive to a costumer's and hire
+something. I found the address of a place on the Bowery the other day
+and fortunately saved it. Hold your heads up high; we will not
+acknowledge ourselves defeated yet."
+
+As Witch Winnie and I sped out of the quiet square and down the great
+teeming thoroughfare, the Elevated trains jarring overhead and the
+motley crowd surging about us, a misgiving of conscience swept over me.
+What would Madame say? This was not what we had obtained permission to
+do. This was very different from Fifth Avenue, and not at all a quarter
+of the city in which young ladies should be wandering without chaperons.
+
+We were quite desperate, however, and it seemed too late to turn back.
+The hansom stopped before a Hebrew misfit clothing store where dress
+suits were announced as on hire by the evening. Flaunting placards above
+told that costumes for the theatrical profession and for fancy balls
+were to be let in the fourth story. We climbed a dirty staircase, and
+after knocking by mistake at an intelligence office for _Dienst
+Mädchen_, a hair-dyeing and complexion-enameling rooms, a chiropodist's,
+and a clairvoyant's, we found ourselves in a room piled from floor to
+ceiling with costumes. A fat German, who looked as if he were some
+second-hand piece of furniture, very much soiled as to his linen, and
+the worse for wear as to his physical mechanism, admitted us and did the
+honors of the establishment. I glanced around at the motley objects
+which filled the wareroom; gaudy spangled dresses, with a sprinkle of
+saw-dust (suggestive of the arena) clinging to the worn cotton velvet,
+many-ruffled shockingly brief skirts of rose-colored gauze that had spun
+like so many teetotums behind flaring foot-lights, tinfoil suits of
+armor that had come in all mud-besplashed from parading the streets at
+the last grand procession, the faded banners which flapped above them
+so jauntily, drooping wearily now from the rafters, covered with dust
+and festooned by the spiders. A row of dominoes dependent from a
+neighboring clothes-line rustled with an air of mystery, and a heap of
+masks upon the floor seemed to leer and wink from their eyeless windows.
+
+"I am afraid," said Winnie, drawing nearer the door, "that you haven't
+anything so nice as I want."
+
+"I haf effery dings, effery dings," replied the ponderous costumer; "you
+don't t'ink I keeps dose fine procade for the costume ball out here in
+te tust, ain't it?"
+
+"I wanted something for a school entertainment," Winnie explained.
+
+"So, so; I haf effery dings, I tole you, for de school. Ya, from dose
+Kindergarten to dot universities. Dings for little peebles and dings for
+big peebles."
+
+"I should like to know what kind of big people patronize your
+establishment?"
+
+"Sometimes dose ladies who make de church fair. I have some angel wing
+for de Christmas mystery, de mask for de Muzzer Goose pantomine.
+Sometimes dose fine ladies dey make some peesness mit me. When de
+shentlemen step on dose trail or spill coffee on dot tablier, den I buys
+dot dress, and my designer she make it all new again. I haf one ferry
+nice designer; she haf many times arrange ze historical costume for dose
+grand painting what make ze artists."
+
+"Then I think I would like to talk with her," said Winnie.
+
+"Ya, ya, dat vas right. Here, Mrs. Halsey, Mrs. Halsey! Perhaps you
+petter go in de sewing-room, ain't it?"
+
+He opened the door into a back room where a sweet pale-faced woman sat
+sewing little bells on a jester's cap.
+
+We were struck from the outset with Mrs. Halsey's refined appearance,
+and we were not surprised when she showed, by her complete understanding
+of what we required, that she had read Tennyson and had some idea of
+historical periods in costume. She drew a purple velvet robe from a
+great bundle. I exclaimed in disapproval as I noticed a horrid crimson
+border.
+
+"But this is coming off," said the little woman, using her scissors
+briskly, "and instead, I will stitch some gold braid appliqué in a lily
+design. See, how do you like this effect?" and her deft fingers flew,
+coiling and twisting the gilt braid until a really regal combination was
+produced.
+
+"Then we will have it open at the side to show a white satin petticoat,
+also laced with gold, and the sleeves can be puffed and slashed with
+white satin. I arranged a costume like that for Mary Anderson."
+
+"Is it possible that such a noted and successful actress gets her
+costumes at a place like this?" asked Witch Winnie.
+
+"Oh, no," replied Mrs. Halsey, with a sigh; "when I made Miss Anderson's
+dresses I was designer for Madame Céleste's establishment. I should be
+there now if it were not for Jim."
+
+She was fitting the dress to me, and as this would take several minutes,
+Winnie asked,
+
+"Who is Jim?"
+
+"Jim is my son; he is twelve years old, and the brightest little fellow,
+for his age, you ever saw. He leads his classes at the public school,
+has a record of 100 in mathematics, for all that he has such a poor
+chance at preparing his lessons."
+
+"How does that happen?" It was I who inquired this time.
+
+"Jim is an ambitious boy; ambitious to help me as well as to keep a
+place in his class, and a milkman pays him a dollar a week for driving
+his cart over to Jersey City to meet the milk train and fill his cans
+for him every morning."
+
+"That is very nice."
+
+"If it did not break so cruelly into the poor boy's hours for sleep. In
+order to dress and snatch a bite before he goes down to the stable and
+harnesses, he has to rise at 3 o'clock. This enables the milkman to
+sleep until Jim arrives with the milk at 6 o'clock, in time to begin the
+morning rounds. I make the boy take an hour's sleep after this, but it
+is not enough."
+
+"He ought to go to bed very early."
+
+"Yes, but the lessons; when are they to be learned? He shouts them out
+in his sleep. 'If I gain seven hundred dollars from a rise of 2-1/2 per
+cent. in Pennsylvania Railroad stock, what was my original investment?'
+He has his father's quickness for figures. Bless his heart! he never had
+any money to invest in railroad stocks, and by heaven's help he never
+will."
+
+"I am not so sure about that," said Witch Winnie. "How did it happen
+that you lost your position at Madame Céleste's on account of Jim?" She
+had finished the fitting and was removing the pins from her mouth, but
+Winnie drew on her gloves very slowly; we were both interested.
+
+"Madame kept me for such late hours that I did not reach home until Jim
+was asleep, and at last she proposed to raise my salary, but said that I
+must sleep in the establishment, so as to be on hand to open early in
+the morning. This was after Madame's very successful winter, when she
+bought a house out of town, and did not find it convenient to come in
+until late in the day. I told her that I would accept her offer if Jim
+could be with me; but there was no room for him, and we thought it best
+to stick together. I get through here at 6 o'clock, and can cook Jim's
+dinner. But it's hard for the boy. If I could only afford to let him
+have his entire time for his study--but his dollar a week half pays our
+rent."
+
+"Wouldn't it have been better for you both if you had remained at Madame
+Céleste's, and had sent Jim to boarding-school? There are such nice
+cadet schools up the Hudson."
+
+A faint smile overspread the woman's face. "Madame always insisted that
+her employees should dress well. I know exactly what it cost me. It
+would have left just a dollar and a half a week for Jim. Do you know of
+any boarding-school that would have taken him at those rates?"
+
+Winnie sorrowfully confessed that she did not, and we reluctantly took
+our leave, Mrs. Halsey promising to finish the costume immediately, and
+to send it by Jim in ample time for the evening's performances.
+
+Our escapade lay heavily upon my conscience in spite of our success in
+obtaining the costume, but I felt still more troubled for poor Mrs.
+Halsey and her overworked boy. "I wonder," I said to Winnie, "if Madame
+could not make him useful here at the school, and let him work for his
+board, tend furnace and run errands."
+
+"You could not tell her about him without confessing our lark, and don't
+you do that for the world!"
+
+"No," I promised, against my will, "of course not, unless you consent;
+the secret is half yours, but I really think it would be the best way."
+
+Adelaide was greatly interested in our report. "I am to have my violin
+dress for the concert made at Madame Céleste's," she said, "and I mean
+to ask her about this Mrs. Halsey."
+
+Jim came with the package while we were at supper, and Adelaide ran down
+to the office to receive it. She told us that he was an undersized,
+stoop-shouldered boy, with a cough which she fancied he had contracted
+by driving in the early morning mists. He took off his hat like a little
+gentleman, however, and his finger-nails and teeth were clean. Any clown
+might wear good clothes, Adelaide insisted, but these little details
+marked the gentleman. He had at first declined the dime which Adelaide
+proffered, but accepted it on her insistence that it was only for
+car-fare and it was raining. He put it away carefully in a little worn
+purse which contained just one cent, at the same time remarking, "I
+don't mind the rain, and I can get Ma the quinine the doctor says she
+ought to be taking."
+
+"That's the boy for me," Witch Winnie remarked; "he's got clear grit,
+and tenderness for his mother besides."
+
+And Guinevere's gown? It was a beauty. The golden lilies gave it a
+sumptuous effect, and it fulfilled almost exactly the promises of the
+forged letter; there was even a _rivière_ of fish-scale pearls and
+glass beads down the side, which really resembled a châtelaine. The
+Hornets were overcome with amazement--simply dazzled and dazed.
+According to Adelaide--who always resorted to French to express her
+superlatives, and, when that language proved inadequate, pieced it out
+with translations of American slang or coinage of her own--they were
+"_Completement bouleversées, stupefiées, mortifiées, et frappée plus
+haute q'un--q'un--kite_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PRINCESS.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of the dear old lady.}]
+
+
+    That's the dear old lady,
+      In a green tabby gown
+    And a great lace cap,
+      With long lace ruffles hanging down.
+
+    There she sits
+      In a cushioned high-backed seat,
+    Covered over with crimson damask,
+      With a footstool at her feet.
+
+    You see what a handsome room it is,
+      Full of old carving and gilding;
+    The house is, one may be sure,
+      Of the Elizabethan style of building.
+
+                           --_Mary Howitt._
+
+Our interest in Mrs. Halsey and her son slumbered for a time; not that
+we forgot her, or gave up our determination to do something for Jim
+whenever the opportunity offered. It was soon to come, but our time and
+interest were filled with other things. Just now it was a mystery--and
+what so dear to a girl's imagination?
+
+It was brought up for discussion afresh, because Miss Prillwitz had said
+to Emma Jane Anton that the diadem which I wore as Guinevere was not a
+suitable one for a queen, but a rather nondescript arrangement half-way
+between that of a marquis and an earl.
+
+This assumption of authoritative knowledge in regard to coronets revived
+an old rumor as to the noble birth of Miss Prillwitz.
+
+No one could tell who first circulated the report that Miss Prillwitz
+was a princess. It developed little by little, I fancy, but when it
+began to be whispered we received it without a shadow of doubt. Miss
+Prillwitz was a prim little woman, who always came to Madame's
+receptions dressed in the same brocade dress, once gaudy with a great
+bouquet pattern, but now faded into faint pink and primrose on a
+background of silvery-green, with the same carefully cleaned gloves and
+fine old fan of the period of Marie Antoinette. She wore her perfectly
+white hair à la Pompadour, and further increased her diminutive height
+by French heels, but in spite of these artificial contrivances she was a
+tiny woman, though she had dignity enough for a very tall one. Adelaide
+said she had "the unmistakable air of a _grande dame_," and that she
+would have suspected her in any disguise. Milly had once spied, half
+tucked in her belt and dependent from a slender chain, a miniature, set
+in brilliants, of a handsome young man in uniform, a row of decorations
+on his breast, crosses and stars hanging from strips of bright ribbon.
+This was a great discovery, and Milly was sure that the original was no
+less a personage than Peter the Great. She had thought out a thrilling
+romance of true love crossed by jealousy and heartbreak, which the rest
+of the girls accepted as more than probable, until Emma Jane Anton
+suggested that as Peter the Great died in 1725, it would really make the
+princess much older than she appeared, to fancy that he was the hero of
+her girlhood. Emma Jane Anton always had a disagreeable faculty of
+remembering dates. The other girls were unanimous in the opinion that
+she knew entirely too much, and each one looked and longed for an
+opportunity of publicly detecting her in a mistake and correcting
+her--an opportunity which never came. Milly never made herself offensive
+by being certain of anything, and was loved and petted accordingly. The
+myth of a royal lover was a congenial one, and gained credence, though
+none of us dared to give him a name or date, at least not in the
+presence of Emma Jane Anton. No one had the temerity to question
+Adelaide's infallibility in detecting a great lady at first sight. It
+did not ever occur to Emma Jane Anton to ask how many princesses she had
+met, and what was the "unmistakable air" of distinction and nobility
+which announced them like a herald's proclamation. Perhaps this was
+because Adelaide herself possessed this grand air by nature, and was far
+more regal in appearance and feeling than many a Guelph or Stuart. Witch
+Winnie, perhaps because she was the mad-cap of the boarding-school, and
+was always getting into scrapes herself, snuffed a political plot, and
+suggested that the princess had been exiled on account of deep-laid
+machinations against one of the reigning families, a supposition which
+would account for her living in exile and disguise, and even in
+comparative poverty. This explanation, as being the most ingenious, and
+affording fascinating scope for the imagination, was the most popular
+one, and was more or less elaborated according to the individual fancy
+of the young lady. Emma Jane Anton was obliged to admit that she might
+be a princess, and that there was no harm in calling her so amongst
+ourselves. Madame had let fall some very singular expressions when she
+announced the fact that we were to have her for our teacher in Botany.
+Emma Jane had heard her, and it was she who had reported the news to the
+others.
+
+"Girls," she said, "did you ever hear anything so absurd! We are going
+to recite our Botany to the princess."
+
+"You don't mean it!"
+
+"Honest! She lives in that funny old house across the square, that
+Winnie always pretends to think is haunted. We are to parade over there
+three days in the week. Madame says it's a great opportunity, for she is
+really quite eminent; writes for scientific journals, has traveled in
+all sorts of foreign countries, and _has moved in court circles_."
+
+"I told you so!" exclaimed Adelaide, triumphantly. "I always said she
+was a true-blue princess."
+
+"I don't know that you have quite proved it yet," replied Emma Jane
+Anton, coolly, "but Madame did say that we would have an opportunity of
+learning much more from her than mere botany--etiquette, I presume--for
+she went on to hint that she had been brought up in a different school
+of manners from that of our own day and country, that we would find her
+peculiar in some ways, and that she trusted to our native courtesy to
+humor her little foibles, and a hundred more things of the same sort,
+winding up with that stock expression which she always uses when she has
+talked a subject to shreds and tatters--'A word to the wise is
+sufficient.'"
+
+"I wish I had heard her," said Witch Winnie; "I don't consider this
+subject talked to tatters, by any means. I propose that this Botany
+class constitute itself a committee of investigation to clear up the
+mystery in regard to the history of the princess. We are supposed to be
+devoted to the study of nature, but I consider _human_ nature a deal the
+more interesting. It will almost pay for having to mind one's _p_'s and
+_q_'s. I wonder what she would say if she caught me sliding down her
+palace balusters! We'll all have to practice curtseying--one step to the
+side, then two back. Oh! I'm ever so sorry I knocked over that stand.
+Was the vase a keepsake or anything? I'll buy you another. No, I can't,
+for I've spent all my allowance for this month. Well, you may have that
+_bonbonnière_ of mine you liked so much." The vase was a treasure, but
+no one could be vexed with Witch Winnie, and I forgave her, of course,
+and would none of the _bonbonnière_.
+
+Our first glimpse at the house in which the princess lived was as
+appetizing to our imaginations as the little lady herself. It had been
+built as a church-school, and straggled around the church, shaping
+itself to the exterior angles of that edifice, and in so doing gained a
+number of queerly shaped rooms, some long and narrow, and others with
+irregular corners, but all bright with southern sunshine. The princess
+rented only the upper floor and the front room in the basement. The rest
+of the house had been let to other parties, but was now vacant. How
+strange and lonely it must seem, we thought, to go up and down those
+long staircases, and peep into the uninhabited rooms! Rather eerie at
+night. "I wouldn't live that way for the world," shivered Milly. "I
+should be afraid of robbers."
+
+"Burglars don't usually choose an unoccupied house for their
+operations," Emma Jane remarked, sententiously.
+
+Later, when we were better acquainted with the princess, Milly asked her
+if she was never timid. She acknowledged that she was, but assured us
+that rats _were one great comfort_.
+
+"What do you mean?" Milly asked.
+
+"Whenevaire," said the princess (in the quaint broken English which we
+always found so fascinating, English which had only the foreignness of
+pronunciation and idiom, and which Adelaide insisted was rarely so
+maltreated as to be really _broken_, but was only a little
+dislocated)--"whenevaire I hear one cautious sawing noise which shall be
+as if ze burglaire to file ze lock, I say to myself, 'Ah, ha! Monsieur
+Rat have invited to himself some companie in ze pantry of ze butler.'
+When zere come one _tappage_ on ze _escalier_, as zo some one make haste
+to depart ze house, I turn myself upon my bed and make to myself
+explanation--Rats! When ze footsteps mysterious steal so softly down ze
+hall, and make pause justly at my door, then I reach for ze great cane
+of my fazzer, which I keep at all times by ze canopy of my bed, and I
+pound on ze floor--boom, boom, Monsieur Rat _scélérat_, and it is thus I
+make my reassurance."
+
+The princess received us in what had been the basement dining-room,
+which she called her laboratory. The entire south side was one broad
+window of small diamond-shaped panes. Forming a sill to this window was
+a row of low, wide cases for the reception of herbaria, and the room had
+a peculiar herby smell, a mixture of sweet-fern and faint aromatic
+herbs.
+
+The cushions which converted the tops of these cases into seats were
+stuffed with dried beech-leaves.
+
+The princess quoted Latin to us for her preference for the fine springy
+upholstery which beech-leaves give. _Silva domus, cubilia frondes._
+("The wood a house, the foliage a couch.")
+
+The other furniture in the room was a long table placed in front of the
+book-case divan, a table covered with piles of MS. books, a press for
+specimens, two microscopes, and a great blue china bowl containing
+pussy-willows in water--our specimens for the day's study. High
+book-cases, whose contents could only be guessed at, for the glass doors
+were lined with curiously shirred green silk, were ranged against the
+wall opposite, and at one end of the room stood a monumental German
+stove in white porcelain; at the other was Miss Prillwitz's chair, a
+high-backed Gothic affair, which had once served as an episcopal
+_sedilium_, but had been removed on the occasion of a new furnishing of
+the church.
+
+It formed a stately background for the little figure. I often found
+myself making sketches of her on the sheets of soft paper between which
+we pressed our flowers, instead of listening to the lecture. I liked to
+imagine how she would look in a great ruff, not of Cynthia Vaughn's
+mosquito net, but of real _point de Venise_.
+
+And yet her talks were very interesting; she was a true lover of nature,
+and made us love her. She regretted that she could not take us into the
+deep woods, but she opened our eyes to the wealth of country
+suggestiveness which we could find in the city. She introduced us
+personally to the scanty two dozen or so of trees in the little park,
+and from the intimate acquaintance formed with each of these, our
+appetites were whetted for vast wildernesses of forest primeval.
+
+She opened to us the beauty which there lies in the simple branching of
+the trees in their winter nudity, the tracery of the limbs and twigs cut
+clearly against a yellow sunset, or picked out with snow; how the elms
+gave graceful wine-glass and Greek-vase outlines; the snakily mottled
+sycamore undulated its great arms like a boa-constrictor reaching out
+for prey; the birch, "the lady of the woods," displayed her white satin
+dress; the gnarled hemlocks wrestled upward, each sharp angle a defiance
+to the winter storms with which they had striven in heroic combat, the
+bent knees clutching the rocks, while the aged arms writhed and tossed
+in the grasp of the fiends of the air. She showed us the beautiful
+parabolic curve of the willows, a bouquet of rockets; the military
+bearing of a row of Lombardy poplars standing, in their perfect
+alignment, like tall grenadiers drawn up in a hollow square. Before the
+first tender blurring of the leaf-buds we knew our trees, and loved them
+for their almost human qualities.
+
+Miss Sartoris had taught me, the preceding summer, to look for the
+decorative beauty to be found in common roadside weeds, and we had made
+sketches together of dock, elecampane, tansy, thistles, and milkweed. I
+had one rich, rare day with her in a swamp, when I ruined a pair of
+stockings, and made the discovery that a skunk-cabbage was as beautiful
+in its curves as a calla. I brought these sketches to the princess, and
+she congratulated me on the possession of my country home with its
+gold-mines of beauty all around.
+
+"You are one heiress, my dear," she said, "to ze vast wealths which you
+have only to learn how you s'all enjoy. Only t'ink of ze sousands of
+poor city people who haf never had ze felicity to see a swamp!"
+
+I grew to appreciate the country, and to feel that I was richer than I
+had thought.
+
+Milly found a branch of study which was not above the measure of her
+intellect. She soon mastered the long names, and learned to think, and
+teachers in other departments noted an improvement. There was need for
+this, for the Hornets long kept up a tradition that at one of the
+history examinations Milly had been asked, "What is the Salic Law?" and
+had replied, confidently--"That no woman or _descendant of a woman_, can
+ever reign in France."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+COURT LIFE.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Mrs. Grogan.}]
+
+
+Mrs. Grogan, the baby-farmer of Rickett's Court, could hardly have been
+described as a court lady, and yet she was a very typical specimen of
+the women of this locality. But before introducing the reader to the
+society of Rickett's Court, I must first explain how it was that we came
+to make its acquaintance.
+
+As the time approached for the concert of which I have spoken, Adelaide
+was reminded of her determination to have a "violin dress" made by
+Madame Céleste. Adelaide played the violin, as we thought, divinely;
+she was at least the best performer at Madame's. "The violin is the
+violet," I said, quoting from "Charles Auchester." "You must have a
+violet-colored gown."
+
+"A very delicate shade of china crêpe will do," Adelaide replied, "made
+up with a darker tint, and the sleeves must be puffed like that dress
+the princess wore to the tableaux."
+
+"Adelaide, dear," murmured Milly, "you ought to wear angel sleeves to
+show your lovely arms."
+
+"And have them flop about like a ship's pennant in a lively breeze,
+during that bit of rapid bowing? That would be too grotesque."
+
+"Puff them to the elbow," I suggested, "and then have a fall of soft
+lace that will float back and give the turn of your wrist as you whip
+the strings."
+
+"See here, Adelaide," remarked Witch Winnie, "if you want something
+really fine, get that Mrs. Halsey to design it for you."
+
+"You don't suppose that I would hire a dress for the concert at a
+costumer's?"
+
+"I didn't say that; you could have it made wherever you pleased, but get
+Mrs. Halsey's ideas on the subject; they are really remarkable."
+
+Adelaide considered the subject and acted upon it, but, greatly to my
+relief, she refused to do so without explaining the entire affair to
+Madame.
+
+"I'll not stand in the way of your having a nice gown," said Witch
+Winnie. "Come, Tib, let's confess."
+
+I was overjoyed, and Madame, though duly shocked, was not severe. She
+even allowed Witch Winnie to take Adelaide to see Mrs. Halsey,
+stipulating only that she should be chaperoned by one of the teachers.
+Adelaide chose Miss Sartoris, at my suggestion, both because we liked
+her, and from my feeling that her artistic instinct might be of service.
+
+The girls were disappointed to find that Mrs. Halsey was no longer at
+the costumer's. He had "pounced" her, he said, because she was "too much
+of a lady for de peesness." Fortunately he could give the girls her
+address--No. 1, sixth floor, Rickett's Court.
+
+It was a very disagreeable part of town. Miss Sartoris looked doubtful
+as they approached it, and was on the point of getting into the carriage
+again as they alighted, but Witch Winnie had already darted through a
+long dark hall which led to the court in the centre of the block, and
+there was nothing for it but to follow.
+
+Evil smells nearly choked them as they ran the gauntlet of that hall,
+and they were no better off on emerging upon the sloppy court. The space
+overhead, between the buildings, was laced with an intricate network of
+clothes-lines filled with garments. Adelaide said she realized now where
+all upper New York had its laundry work done, for this was evidently not
+the wash of the court people. From their appearance it was only fair to
+conjecture that they were so busy doing other people's washing that they
+never had time for their own. The dirty water seemed to be thrown from
+the windows into the court, where it stood in puddles or feebly trickled
+into the sewer, from which emanated nauseous and deadly gases. Sickly
+children were dabbling in these puddles.
+
+"It makes me think of Hood's 'Lost Heir,'" said Miss Sartoris--
+
+                                          "The court,
+    Where he was better off than all the other young boys,
+    With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster shells, and a dead kitten by
+        way of toys."
+
+They mounted a ricketty staircase grimed with dirt. Smells of new
+degrees and varieties of loathsomeness assaulted them at every landing.
+The Italian rag-pickers in the basement were sorting their filthy wares,
+while a little girl was concocting for them the garlic stew over a
+charcoal brazier. The mingled fumes came thick from the open door. Mrs.
+Grogan on the first floor had paused in her washing to take a pull at a
+villainous pipe. She came to the door still smoking, and carrying in her
+arms an almost skeleton baby, who sucked at a dirty rag containing a
+crust dipped in gin. Winnie obtained one glimpse of the interior of Mrs.
+Grogan's domicile, and drew back quite pale. "Adelaide," she said, "the
+room literally _swarmed_ with babies; that woman cannot have so many all
+of the same age." Inquiry of Mrs. Halsey enlightened them. Mrs. Grogan
+was a "baby-farmer," and boarded these children, making a good income
+thereby, as their mothers were servants in good families. On the next
+floor a family of eight were working in a hall-bedroom, at rolling
+cigars. The large rooms were occupied by some Chinese. Mrs. Halsey
+thought that they used them as an opium den. Past more doors, up three
+more pairs of stairs, and they paused at No. 1. They knocked several
+times, but they could not make themselves heard above the buzz and whirr
+of a sewing-machine. Finally Winnie opened the door, and there sat Mrs.
+Halsey bent over the machine, while the floor was piled with dainty
+underclothing neatly tucked.
+
+She sprang up, evidently pleased to see Winnie again, and motioned her
+callers to the only seats which the room afforded--a chair, a trunk, and
+a stool.
+
+Winnie apologized for the interruption, and explained her errand. "But
+perhaps you are too busy to design this dress," Adelaide said; "I see
+you have plenty of work."
+
+"It will not take long to make a little sketch," Mrs. Halsey replied,
+"and it will be a real pleasure for me to do it." As her fingers moved
+rapidly over the paper the girls took an inventory of the room. A
+cracked cooking-stove, and a cupboard behind it formed of a dry-goods
+box, but all the utensils were scrupulously clean. A closet, another
+dry-goods case on end, with a chintz curtain in front, concealed, as
+Winnie's prying eyes ascertained, a roll of bedding, which was
+evidently spread on the floor at night. Mrs. Halsey knelt before a worn
+table, and this, with the sewing-machine, completed the furnishing of
+the apartment. No, in the window there was a row of fruit-cans
+containing some geraniums. Miss Sartoris discovered them, and Mrs.
+Halsey apologized for their condition. "They were just in bud," she
+said, "but we were without coal for several days, and they were nipped
+by frost."
+
+Poor woman! she looked as if _she_ had been nipped by the frost too
+during that bitter experience. She coughed, and Adelaide remarked, "You
+ought to drink cream, Mrs. Halsey; they say it is better for a cough
+than cod-liver oil."
+
+"I have plenty of milk," the little woman replied. "The milkman for whom
+my Jim works lets him have the milk that he finds left over in the cans
+when he washes them out after his rounds. Sometimes there's as much as a
+pint, and almost always enough for our oatmeal."
+
+Mrs. Halsey spoke cheerily and proudly--as of a luxury which she owed
+her boy. The design was completed, and Adelaide was delighted.
+
+"Would you like to have me make the costume in tissue-paper?" Mrs.
+Halsey asked; "the sleeve, at least, and this drapery; then any
+seamstress can make it."
+
+"How much will it be?" Adelaide asked, doubtfully--wondering if her
+five-dollar bill would cover the charge.
+
+"Do you think seventy-five cents too much? It would take me an
+afternoon."
+
+"But you could certainly earn more than that by your sewing."
+
+Mrs. Halsey smiled rather bitterly. "Would you really like to know the
+rates at which I work?" she asked.
+
+Adelaide expressed her interest. "These pretty Mother Hubbard
+night-gowns sell well, I am sure, but I know you can't get very much for
+making them, for I bought a pair at a bargain counter for a dollar."
+
+"It is the bargain counter which makes the low pay. I get a dollar and
+thirty cents _a dozen_ for making them," said Mrs. Halsey, calmly.
+
+"A dozen!" cried Winnie; "and how many can you make in a day?"
+
+"Eight."
+
+"Then you make--"
+
+"Eighty-five cents a day; but I cannot average that."
+
+"Can't you do better with something else?"
+
+"I have made flannel skirts--tucked--at a dollar a dozen, but I can only
+make eight of those in a day, so that is less. I have received a dollar
+and twenty cents a dozen for making chemises, which sell at seven
+dollars a dozen; and seventy-five cents a dozen for babies' slips, three
+tucks and a hem; forty cents a dozen for corset covers. I have a friend
+who works a machine in a ruffling factory; she makes a hundred and fifty
+yards of hemmed and tucked ruffling a day, for which she receives
+twenty-five cents. So, you see, I am better off than some."[A]
+
+[A] See "Campbell's Prisoners of Poverty" for still more harrowing
+statistics.
+
+"And can you live on five dollars a week?"
+
+"Six dollars, Madame; Jim earns one dollar and the milk."
+
+"You pay for rent--"
+
+"Six dollars a month; yes, it _is_ hard to earn that."
+
+"You must be thankful that you have only Jim to provide for."
+
+"The Sandys, on the floor below, have six children; five of them earn
+wages. I think they earn more than their cost."
+
+"But," said Miss Sartoris, "I thought child labor was prohibited by
+law."
+
+"Not out of school hours, or at home. Then the parents often swear a
+child is over fourteen, but small of its age, and get it into a factory.
+You wouldn't blame them, Madame, if you knew all the circumstances I do.
+I keep Jim at his books, but the study, with the night work, I'm afraid
+is killing him. They tempt him at the saloon, too, to take what they
+call a 'bracer' as he goes out to drive the milk cart at 3 in the
+morning, but I get up and have tea ready for him, so that he does not
+yield."
+
+"We must go now," said Miss Sartoris, kindly. "You will send Jim with
+the paper pattern to-night?" Adelaide slipped a dollar into Mrs.
+Halsey's hand, and would take no change. And the three went down the
+stairs thoughtful and sad.
+
+"What can we do for her?" Winnie asked.
+
+"I am sure I don't know," replied Miss Sartoris; "she certainly seems
+capable of securing better wages."
+
+"I will speak to Madame Céleste about her," said Adelaide; and she was
+as good as her word. Winnie accompanied Adelaide when she took the
+pattern to the fashionable dress-maker. The modiste listened in rapt
+attention to Adelaide's explanation of the gown wanted. She examined the
+design with interest. "It is perfectly made," she said. "Who constructed
+this for you? It is the work of an expert. Ah, Miss, if I only had now
+in my establishment a designer who was with me last year! She had such a
+mind for _costumes de fantaisie_! For Greek costumes to be worn at the
+harp, and for Directoire dresses, I miss her cruelly, but Mademoiselle's
+design is so explicit that we will have no trouble."
+
+"Was your designer a Mrs. Halsey?" Winnie asked.
+
+"The same, Miss. Do you know her? Can you give me her address? I must
+try to get her back."
+
+"I think you may be able to obtain her. She made this pattern for me;
+but you will have to bid high, for she has her boy with her now."
+
+"Ah yes! the boy; that was the trouble between us. Seamstresses have no
+business to be mothers. Mrs. Halsey ought to give up the child entirely
+to some asylum for adoption; he will always be a handicap to her; but
+she does not see this, and clings to him as though she thought him her
+only chance for fortune. There is a mystery in Mrs. Halsey's life. Her
+husband has deserted her, and she lives in the vain hope that he will
+come back some day and explain everything. She patronized me once, long
+ago, when she was in better circumstances. She will not talk about her
+husband, and I fancy that he is one of those defaulting cashiers who
+have run away to Canada. I am willing to take her back on the old terms,
+but she must give up her boy. I have an order for a set of costumes for
+one of our queens of the opera. Mrs. Halsey is just the one to take it
+in hand. Where did you say she could be found?"
+
+"I think you had better communicate with her through me," Adelaide
+replied; "I am not at liberty to give her address."
+
+"And it is very possible," Winnie spoke up, eagerly, for she had seen a
+gleam in Madame Céleste's eyes, "that her friends will provide for the
+boy. In that case she will be more independent, and perhaps will not be
+willing to return at the old salary. What shall we say is the most that
+you will offer."
+
+"Five dollars a week and her board; that is very good pay, Miss; fifty
+cents more than I paid her when she was with me."
+
+The girls could hardly wait to reach the Amen Corner to talk the matter
+over. Milly was all sympathy. "I will write to papa," she said, "and get
+him to send Jim to a boarding-school. I'll send for several circulars,
+and find out how much it costs."
+
+As an answer from Mr. Roseveldt might be expected the next day, we
+decided to wait for it. Adelaide regretted that her father was in Omaha,
+as she was sure that he would have aided in the scheme.
+
+Mr. Roseveldt's answer was most discouraging. He regarded Milly's plan
+as mere sentimental nonsense, and would take no interest in it.
+
+"You might save something out of your allowance, Milly," suggested the
+audacious Winnie.
+
+"I give away three-fourths of it now," Milly replied, in an injured
+tone. "What with the flowers I have on the organ every day for Miss
+Hope, and the favors for the german, which I always furnish, and the
+bonbons I give you girls, and all my other extras--"
+
+"But, Milly dear," I exclaimed, "we would all ever so much rather you
+spent the candy money for Jim than on us."
+
+"But I want _some_ candy for myself, and I am not going to be so mean as
+to munch it, and not pass any to the other girls."
+
+It would have been a real deprivation to Milly to do without her beloved
+candy. She gloated over luscious pasty "lumps of delight" in the way of
+marshmallows and chocolate creams, candied fruits and marrons glacées,
+and her silver bonbonnière was always filled with the most expensive
+candied violets and rose-leaves. Worse than this, there were certain
+little cordial drops, which were a peculiar weakness of Milly's; none of
+us knew with what an awful danger she was playing, or that Milly
+inherited a taste for alcoholic beverages through several generations.
+But Milly was not selfish.
+
+"Very well, girls," she said, with a sigh, "if you will go without, I
+will, and we will form a total abstinence candy society. I know just how
+much that means for Jim, for I paid Maillard eight dollars last month."
+
+"You are a good girl," spoke up Emma Jane, "and if you hold to that
+resolution, Milly Roseveldt, I will deal you out a cake of maple sugar
+every day, from a box I've just received from some Vermont cousins. I
+was wondering what I should do with it, for I don't care for sweets."
+
+Milly's face brightened; all unconsciously she was doing as great a
+kindness to herself as to Jim, and the pure maple sugar was a good
+substitute for the unwholesome concoctions of the confectioner; it
+satisfied her craving for sweets, and did not poison her appetite.
+
+The rest of us added our small contributions, but the aggregate only
+amounted to three dollars a week, and we were unable to learn of any
+boarding-school to which Jim could be sent at those rates.
+
+Winnie had communicated Madame Céleste's offer to Mrs. Halsey. "It would
+be just the thing if I were alone," she replied, "but what would Jim do
+without me?"
+
+"Perhaps you can board him somewhere," Winnie suggested; and she told of
+the sum which we girls had promised.
+
+"If I knew of any respectable place where he would have good influences,
+I would accept your kindness, as a loan, for a little while," Mrs.
+Halsey replied, "for my first earnings must go for clothes. I have
+friends in Connecticut; perhaps they will take Jim."
+
+But Mrs. Halsey found that her friends had moved West. She thanked us
+for our interest, but said that there seemed nothing better to do than
+to continue as they were.
+
+"I can't bear to tell Madame Céleste that she declines her offer," said
+Adelaide. "_We_ must find a place for that boy."
+
+"I don't see how," replied Winnie; but she saw, that afternoon; it came
+to her all by a sudden inspiration during our botany lesson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+LITTLE PRINCE DEL PARADISO.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of the little Prince del Paradiso.}]
+
+
+That day the botany class found their teacher in a flutter of
+excitement. There was a fresh, pink glow in the faded cheeks, and an
+unusual sparkle in the kindly eyes. She seated herself in the episcopal
+chair, lifted her lorgnette, and began to arrange the specimens for the
+day's lesson, but her hand trembled so that she could scarcely adjust
+the microscope, and the papers on which her notes were written sifted
+through her fingers and were strewn in confusion on the floor.
+
+"Are you ill, Miss Prillwitz?" Adelaide asked, in alarm.
+
+"No, Miss Armstrong," replied the princess, "it is not a painful in my
+system, and it is not a sorry; it is a pleasant. I shall expect to
+myself a company, and this is to me so seldom that I find myself
+_égaré_--what you call it?--scatter? sprinkled?--as to my
+understanding."
+
+We all looked our interest, and Winnie ventured to ask--"One of your
+relations, Miss Prillwitz?"
+
+"Yes," replied the little lady; "he is of my own family, though to see
+him I have never ze pleasure. It ees ze little Prince del Paradiso."
+
+We girls pinched each other under the table, while Milly murmured, "A
+prince! How perfectly lovely!"
+
+"Yes," replied Miss Prillwitz; "ze birthright to ziss little poy is one
+great, high, nobilitie, _la plus haute noblesse_, but he know nossing of
+it, nossing whateffer. He haf ze misfortune to be exported from his home
+when one leetle child; he haf been elevated by poor peoples to think
+himself also a poor. He know nossing of ze estates what belong his
+family, and better he not know until he make surely his title, and he
+make to himself some education which shall make him suit to his
+position."
+
+"How did you know about this little stolen prince?" Emma Jane asked.
+
+"I receive message from his older bruzzer to take him to my house
+_provisionellement_, till his rights and his--his--what you call--his
+sameness?"
+
+"You mean his identity?"
+
+"Yes, yes, his die entity can be justly prove."
+
+"It seems to me," said Witch Winnie, impulsively, "that he can't be a
+very kind elder brother to be so indifferent."
+
+"My dear child, you make my admiration with what celeritude you do
+arrive always at exactly ze wrong conclusion. Ze prince haf made great
+effort to recover his little bruzzer, but he must guard himself from ze
+false claimants, ze impostors."
+
+"Then the little boy who is coming to you," said Emma Jane, "may not be
+the real prince, after all?"
+
+"That is a possible," Miss Prillwitz admitted, "but it is not a
+probable. Somesing assure me zat he s'all prove his nobility."
+
+"How very interesting," said Milly. "Was he stolen away from home by
+gypsies?"
+
+"No, my child, he was not steal. He wandered himself away from his
+fazzer's house and was lost."
+
+"How old is he now?"
+
+"Twelve year."
+
+Witch Winnie started; that was just Jim Halsey's age, and what a
+difference in the destiny awaiting the two boys! One the son of a king,
+the other of a criminal.
+
+"Will you to see ze little chamber of ze petit prince?" asked Miss
+Prillwitz.
+
+We were all overjoyed by the suggestion, and the eager little woman led
+us to a room just under the roof, with a dormer-window looking out upon
+the roof of the church.
+
+Milly ran directly to this window, and drawing aside the curtains looked
+out, but started back again half frightened, for a carved gargoyle under
+the eaves was very near and leered at her with a malicious, demoniacal
+expression. He was a grotesque creature with bat wings, lolling tongue,
+and long claws, but harmless enough, for the doves perched on his head
+and preened their iridescent plumage in the sunshine. The church roof
+just here was a wilderness of flying buttresses and pinnacles; the
+chimes were still far overhead, and rang out, as we entered the
+chambers, my favorite hymn--"Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear."
+
+I have not yet described the room itself. We all exclaimed at its quaint
+beauty as we entered.
+
+It was papered with an old-fashioned vine pattern, the green foliage
+twined about a slender trellis, and this gave the room, which was really
+quite small, the effect of an arbor with space beyond. There was a patch
+of dark green carpet with a mossy pattern before the bed, which was very
+simple and dressed in white. In the window recess was a dry-goods box,
+upholstered in a fern-patterned chintz of a restful green tint, and
+serving, with its cushions, both as a divan and as a chest for clothing.
+There was a little corner wash-stand with a toilet set decorated with
+water-lilies and green lily-pads, and there was a little sliding curtain
+of green China silk with a shadow-pattern at the window, while through
+the uncurtained upper space one saw, beyond the church roof, the trees
+of the park.
+
+"O Miss Prillwitz!" I exclaimed, "it is just Aurora Leigh's room over
+again. You modeled it on Mrs. Browning's description, did you not?--
+
+    "'I had a little chamber in the house,
+    As green as any privet-hedge a bird
+    Might choose to build in ...
+    ... the walls
+    Were green, the carpet was pure green;
+                the straight
+    Small bed was curtained greenly,
+                and the folds
+    Hung green about the window,
+              which let in
+    A dash of dawn dew from its greenery,
+                the honeysuckle.'"
+
+"I haf nefer ze pleasure to know zat room," said Miss Prillwitz, her
+eyes kindling.
+
+"How perfectly sweet!" exclaimed Adelaide. "It is like 'a lodge in some
+vast wilderness.' I didn't know that there was a place in New York so
+like the country."
+
+"Will the prince study botany with us?" Milly asked, as we descended the
+stairs.
+
+"I fear he is not ready for ze botany. His education haf been neglect.
+But you s'all see him oftenly. I must beg you not to tell him zat he is
+a prince; zis must not divulge to him until ze proper time."
+
+"And then," added Emma Jane, "it would be cruel to excite hopes which
+may be doomed to disappointment."
+
+The princess smiled. "I do not fear zat," she said. "And now, young
+ladies, I must make you my excuse, and beg Miss Armstrong she s'all hear
+ze class ze remains of ze hour; I must go to ze market for prepare ze
+young prince his supper."
+
+She hurried away, and we attempted to turn our minds to our lesson.
+Adelaide had just exclaimed that in botany the term _hop_ signified
+small, and _dog_ large, but she broke off the statement with the
+exclamation, "And do you see, girls, what this proves?"
+
+"That dog-roses are large roses," replied Emma Jane.
+
+"That the Chinese laundry man around the corner, Hop Sin, is a little
+sinner," said Winnie.
+
+"No, no, I don't mean that, but she said that the Prince del Paradiso
+was related to her; then, of course, she must belong to the Paradiso
+family as well, and what we have so long suspected is really true. She
+is a genuine princess, and probably the daughter of a king."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," replied Emma Jane.
+
+"Do you suspect Miss Prillwitz of being an impostor?" Adelaide asked,
+coldly.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Emma Jane; "but in many European countries
+every son of a prince is called a prince, instead of the eldest son
+only, as in England, and all the sons of all the younger sons are
+princes, and so on to the last descendant; and I presume it is so with
+the daughters as well; so that the title must often exist where there
+are no estates."
+
+"But Miss Prillwitz said that the Prince del Paradiso was heir to
+immense estates," Milly insisted.
+
+"But that proves nothing in her own case," Adelaide admitted. "Some day,
+perhaps she will tell us more about herself, since she has begun to open
+her heart to us."
+
+At that moment the door-bell rang, and as the princess kept no servant,
+Winnie went to the door. She was gone a long time, and came back looking
+grave and distraught--giving an evasive answer when we asked her who had
+called. I wondered at this because, as I sat nearest the door, I had
+overheard a part of the conversation, and knew that it referred to the
+little boy who was expected. "He cannot come," a voice had said; "he has
+a situation where he can learn a trade." This was of so much interest
+to us all that I wondered why Winnie did not immediately report it.
+
+As soon as we returned to the school she obtained an interview with
+Madame, and permission to see Mrs. Halsey in reference to the Céleste
+situation; Madame stipulating that she must not ask this favor for a
+long time, as she did not like to have her pupils frequent the tenement
+district. I offered to go with Winnie, and was surprised that she
+declined my company. She returned glowing with suppressed excitement.
+
+"Mrs. Halsey has accepted Madame Céleste's offer," she exclaimed; "she
+leaves the court to-morrow, let us hope for good and all. O girls, it is
+a horrible place! I saw worse sights than when I was there before."
+
+"And Jim?" we asked.
+
+"Jim is provided for. We are to pay three dollars a week for him for the
+present, until Mrs. Halsey gets on her feet."
+
+"Did she find a good place for him?"
+
+"An excellent place; but you must not ask me another question, and if
+any mysterious circumstances should come to your observation within a
+few days, you are not to say a thing, or even look surprised. Promise,
+every one of you."
+
+"A mystery! how delightful!" exclaimed Milly. "It's almost as good as
+the little prince. You can rely on us; we will help you, Winnie,
+whatever it is, for we know it's all right if it's your doing."
+
+Emma Jane was not present, and I remarked that, while the rest of us
+would believe in Winnie without understanding her, and even in spite of
+the most suspicious circumstances, I was not sure that we could trust
+Emma Jane so far.
+
+"Emma Jane will see nothing to suspect, and Milly, I know, will stand by
+me. It's only you two that I am afraid of--Adelaide, because she has
+seen Jim; and Tib, from her natural smartness in smelling out a secret."
+
+"Whatever it is, Winnie, we believe you could never do anything very
+bad," said Adelaide.
+
+"But I have," Winnie replied; "something just reckless. I'm in for the
+worst scrape of my life, and just as I was trying so hard to be good. I
+shall never be anything but a malefactor, and maybe get expelled, and
+throw the dear Amen Corner into disgrace. I'd better have staid queen
+of the Hornets, for I shall be nothing but Witch Winnie to the end of
+the chapter."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MRS. HETTERMAN THROWS LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Mrs. Hetterman.}]
+
+
+Mrs. Hetterman came into our life in consequence of a train of troubles
+which arose in the boarding-school from the frequent change of the cook.
+Madame had been served for several years by a faithful colored man, who
+had suddenly taken it into his head to go off as steward on a
+gentleman's yacht. She had supplied his place by a Biddy, who was found
+intoxicated on the kitchen floor. A woman followed who turned out to be
+a thief, and we were now enduring an incompetent creature who made sour
+bread and spoiled nearly every dish which passed through her hands. Half
+of the girls were suffering with dyspepsia, and all were grumbling. The
+Amen Corner was especially out of sorts. Milly, who was always
+fastidious, had eaten nothing but maple-sugar for breakfast, and had a
+sick headache; Emma Jane was snappish; Witch Winnie had stolen a box of
+crackers from the pantry, which she had passed around. Adelaide and I
+had regaled ourselves upon them, but Emma Jane had declined on high
+moral grounds, and was virtuously miserable. It was in this unchristian
+frame of mind, or rather of stomach, that we took our next botany
+lesson. We found the princess beaming with pleasure. "My tear young
+ladies," she exclaimed, "you must felicitate me. It is all so much
+better as I had hoped. Ze leetle prince has not been so badly elevated
+after all. He haf been taught to be kind and unselfish; zat is already
+ze foundation of a gentleman."
+
+Miss Prillwitz had occasion to leave the room a few minutes later.
+Adelaide sniffed the air, and remarked, "Girls, don't you smell
+something very nice?"
+
+"It's here on the stand in the corner," said Witch Winnie, lifting a
+napkin which covered a tray, and exclaiming, "Fish balls! Only see! the
+most beautiful brown fish balls!"
+
+"It's the remnants of their breakfast; she has forgotten to take it
+away," said Adelaide. "They make me feel positively faint with longing;
+I don't believe she would mind if we took just one."
+
+We ate of the dainties, even Emma Jane yielding to temptation; they were
+delicious, and, having begun, we could not stop until they were all
+devoured. Then we looked at one another in shame and dismay. "Who will
+confess?" asked Adelaide.
+
+"You ought to; you put us up to it," said Emma Jane Anton.
+
+"Let's write a round-robin," I suggested, "and all sign it."
+
+"I'll stand it," said Winnie. "I led you into temptation."
+
+A step was heard in the hall. Winnie stepped forward and began to speak
+rapidly; the rest of us looked down shamefacedly.
+
+"Miss Prillwitz, please forgive us; we were so hungry we could not stand
+it. If you knew what a dreadful breakfast we had this morning, I'm sure
+you would not blame us--"
+
+But she was interrupted by a cry of dismay--"Oh! have you eaten them
+all? I bought them for Aunty."
+
+Looking up, we saw a manly little boy with an expression of distress on
+his frank features.
+
+Adelaide uttered a sharp exclamation. I thought she said, "It's him!"
+and yet Adelaide seldom forgot her grammar. Winnie drew a deep breath,
+and caught Adelaide by the arm. The boy looked up from the empty platter
+to the girls' faces, and his expression changed. "Oh! it's you," he
+said. "Well, no matter, only I meant 'em for a present for _her_--Miss
+Prillwitz, you know. She's no end good to me. Mrs. Hetterman, down at
+Rickett's Court, makes 'em for regular customers every Friday morning.
+They are prime, and mother gave me a quarter for pocket-money this
+month, so I got ten cents' worth for Aunty; she lets me call her so. I
+thought she'd like 'em, and it would patronize Mrs. Hetterman, and show
+her I hadn't forgotten old friends, if I had moved up in the world."
+
+"Here's ten cents to get some more from Mrs. Hetterman," said Adelaide,
+"and maybe we can get her a wholesale order to furnish our
+boarding-school. I'll speak to Madame about it this very day."
+
+"And if Madame doesn't order them, we girls will club together and have
+a spread of our own," said Winnie.
+
+Miss Prillwitz came in at this juncture, and explanations followed.
+
+"If Madame is in such trouble in regards of a cook," said Miss
+Prillwitz, "I vill write her of Mrs. Hetterman, and perhaps it will be
+to them both a providence. Can she make ozzer sings as ze croquettes of
+codfish?"
+
+"Oh yes, indeed," the little prince spoke up, eagerly; "soup, and
+turnovers, and _such_ bread! She gave me a little loaf every baking
+while mother had the pneumonia. Mr. Dooley, the butcher, gave me a
+marrow bone every Monday, and I always took it to Mrs. Hetterman to make
+into soup. It made mother sick to boil it in our little room, and Mrs.
+Hetterman would make a kettle of stock, and showed me how to keep it in
+a crock outside the window, so mother could have some every day; it was
+what kept mother's strength up through it all. We had such good
+neighbors at the court! but Mrs. Hetterman was best of all. She has five
+children of her own, too. Bill is a messenger boy, and Jennie works in a
+feather factory. Mary is a cripple, but she is just lovely, and tidies
+the house, and takes care of the two little ones. Mr. Hetterman was a
+plasterer and got good wages, but he fell from a scaffolding and broke
+his leg, and he's at the hospital."
+
+"And does Mrs. Hetterman support the family on ze croquettes of
+codfish?" asked Miss Prillwitz.
+
+"She scrubs offices, but she could get a place as cook in a family if it
+wasn't for the children." He looked longingly at Miss Prillwitz as he
+spoke, but she did not seem to notice the glance.
+
+"Here, mon garçon, run down to ze court, and tell Mrs. Hetterman to take
+a basket of her cookery to ze boarding-school. I t'ink she will engage
+to herself some beesness."
+
+The lesson proceeded, but Adelaide and Winnie both blundered; they were
+evidently thinking of something else.
+
+A change came over Witch Winnie; she lost her old reckless gayety and
+became subdued and thoughtful. The Hornets said she was studying for
+honors, but I knew this was not the case, for her lessons were not as
+well prepared as formerly. She would sit for long periods lost in
+reverie. Winnie had charge of the money collected for Jim's board. She
+reported, after one week, that his mother did not need as much; two
+dollars would supply the margin between what was required and the sum
+she was able to pay. None of us, with the exception of Adelaide, knew
+where Winnie had domiciled Jim, but we were content to leave the matter
+in her hands. A week later Mrs. Halsey only needed one dollar. Mrs.
+Hetterman was engaged as cook for the boarding-school, and we all
+rejoiced in the change. I went down to the kitchen to see her, one
+afternoon, and found her a buxom Englishwoman who dropped her _h_'s, but
+was always neat and civil. She was delighted when she found that I knew
+the names of her children. "It was a little boy who used to live in your
+court who told me about them," I said, "and who introduced us to your
+good fish balls."
+
+"Oh yes, Miss, I mind; it was little Jim 'Alsey; 'e's the prince of fine
+fellers, 'e is."
+
+Jim Halsey the prince! My head fairly reeled, and yet this explained
+many things which had seemed mysterious. Winnie's agency in the matter
+was still not entirely clear to me. I did not connect her remorseful
+remarks about another scrape, with Jim, and I believed that by some
+remarkable coincidence he was really Miss Prillwitz's little prince
+incognito. I wondered whether Mrs. Hetterman knew anything of his real
+history, but she preferred to talk at present about her own family. She
+was very happy in the prospect of introducing her oldest daughter,
+Jennie, into the house as a waitress. "It will be so much better for
+Jennie," she said, "than the feather factory. The hair there is not good
+for 'er lungs."
+
+I did not understand, at first, what Mrs. Hetterman meant by the _hair_,
+but when she explained that it was "the hatmosphere," her meaning dawned
+upon me.
+
+"It will make it a bit lonelier for Mary and the little ones," she
+admitted, "but I go down every night, after the work's over, to tidy
+them up and to see that hall's right. The court is not a fit place for
+the children. If I could find decent lodgings for them, such as Mrs.
+'Alsey 'as got for her Jim! I think I could pay as much, if the place
+was only found; I'm 'oping something will turn hup, Miss."
+
+"I hope so," I replied; and I asked Winnie that afternoon if she thought
+the person who was boarding Jim Halsey would take the Hettermans, but
+she utterly discouraged the idea.
+
+We saw a good deal of the little prince. Miss Prillwitz called him
+Giacomo, and was deeply attached to him. He did her credit too, for he
+was docile and bright. His mother was right in saying that he inherited
+his father's facility for mathematics, but with this faculty he
+possessed also a love for mechanics and for machinery of every sort.
+
+"He will make one good engineer some day," said Miss Prillwitz, in
+speaking of him to us.
+
+"That is a strange career for a prince," said Adelaide.
+
+"My tear, it may be many year before he ees call to his princedom, and
+in ze meanstime he muss make his way. Zen, too, ze sons of ze royal
+houses make such study, and it is one good thing for ze country whose
+prince interest himself in ze science."
+
+"I wonder how he would like to study surveying by and by," Adelaide
+said. "I know that father could employ him in the West."
+
+"Zat is one excellent idea," said Miss Prillwitz. "We will see, when ze
+time s'all arrive."
+
+We were all fond of the little prince. After all, Miss Prillwitz had
+decided to let him attend the botany lessons on Saturdays. "If he s'all
+be one surveyor in ze West," she said, "he s'all have opportunity to
+discover ze new species of flower; he must learn all ze natural
+science."
+
+The prince attended the public school during the week, and held his
+place at the head of his class with ease. It was not hard to do so, now
+that he could sleep all night. Emma Jane, who had had her spasms of
+doubt in regard to him, and had even gone so far at first as to say that
+Miss Prillwitz was a crank, and she had no faith in the boy's nobility,
+had been won over by the boy himself, and remarked one afternoon that
+the internal evidence was convincing; Giacomo was not like common
+children; he was evidently cast in a finer mold; he would do honor to
+any position; birth would tell, after all. It was all that dear Milly
+could do not to betray the secret to the little prince. He was very fond
+of Milly, but deferential and unpresuming, as became his apparent
+position. "Some day our places may be reversed. You may live in a
+beautiful home and have hosts of friends," Milly said to him. "Will you
+remember me then, Giacomo?"
+
+"How can that ever be?" the boy asked. "You will grow up and be a fine
+rich lady; I will be a poor young man whom you will have quite
+forgotten."
+
+"Not necessarily poor," Milly hastened to reply. "If you go West you
+may, by working hard, become rich and famous. Will you forget your old
+friends then?"
+
+And Jim promised that he would never, never forget. Then a shade came
+across his face. "Maybe I will, after all," he said, "for I have
+forgotten Mary Hetterman for more than a week. I did not think I could
+be so mean."
+
+Adelaide and I had a conference in regard to the prince. It seemed that
+she had recognized him as Jim Halsey from the first. "I have been
+wondering," she said, "whether it was not a case like that of Little
+Lord Fauntleroy, and whether Mrs. Halsey could not be proved to be the
+wife of a prince, but I see that cannot be the explanation of the
+matter; and I have concluded that Jim is her adopted child. She must
+have taken him, when she was in better circumstances, from the people
+who brought him to this country when he was a very little fellow, and so
+he has no recollection of any other home."
+
+"She always spoke of him as her very own," I said, "and seemed fonder of
+him than a foster-mother could be. It will be very hard for her to part
+with him, if his real relatives claim him."
+
+"Not if he goes to high rank and great estates," said Adelaide. "She
+probably had no idea of his noble birth when she adopted him; and it
+just proves that bread cast upon the waters returns, for he will
+probably care for her right royally, when he comes into his own, and she
+will find that adopting that boy was the best investment she ever made
+in her life."
+
+Winnie came in while we were talking.
+
+"Why didn't you tell us, Winnie," I asked, "that Jim Halsey was the
+little prince?"
+
+"It did not seem necessary," Winnie replied, looking unnecessarily
+alarmed, as it seemed to me.
+
+"You pay his board directly to Miss Prillwitz, I suppose?" Adelaide
+said.
+
+"No, I give it to his mother, and she sends it by mail."
+
+"Well, I don't see any harm in letting Miss Prillwitz know that we know
+his mother, and are helping in his support."
+
+"I do, and I wish you would not tell her this," Winnie entreated.
+
+"Just as you please," Adelaide replied, "but I hate mysteries."
+
+"So do I," said Winnie, with a deep sigh.
+
+"What is the matter with you, any way, Winnie?" Adelaide asked.
+
+"That is my business," Winnie replied, shortly, and left the room,
+banging the door behind her.
+
+"Winnie isn't half as jolly as she used to be," said Milly, in an
+injured tone. "I always depend on her to save me when I'm not prepared
+for recitation. When Professor Todd was coming down the line in the
+Virgil class and was only two girls away from me, I made the most
+beseeching faces at Winnie, who sits opposite, and usually she is so
+quick to take the hint, and come to the rescue by asking Professor Todd
+a lot of questions about the sites of the ancient cities, and where he
+thinks the Hesperides were situated. She gets him to talking on his pet
+hobbies, and he proses on like an old dear, until the bell rings for
+change of class. But this time she just stared at me in the most
+wall-eyed manner, while I signaled her in a perfect agony as he got
+nearer and nearer. I tried to think of some question of my own to ask
+him, and suddenly one popped into my head which I thought was very
+bright. He had just been talking about Æneas' shipwreck, and he referred
+to St. Paul's, with a description of the ancient vessels, and how he met
+the same Mediterranean storms, and I plucked up courage and said,
+'Professor Todd, why is it that we hear so much about Virginia, and in
+all the pictures of the shipwreck we see her standing on the deck of the
+ship, and Paul rushing out into the surf to rescue her? Now I have read
+the chapter in Acts which describes St. Paul's shipwreck, very
+carefully, and in that, and in all the history of Paul, there is not one
+word about Virginia.'
+
+"You should have heard the girls shout; I think they were just as mean
+as they could be. That odious Cynthia Vaughn nearly fell off the bench,
+and Professor Todd looked at me in such a despairing way, as though he
+gave me up from that time forth. I just burst into tears, and Winnie
+came over and took me out of the room. She acknowledged that it was all
+her fault, and that she ought to have come to my rescue sooner."
+
+Poor Milly! we could only comfort her with our assurances that we loved
+her all the more for her troubles.
+
+Summer was approaching, and we were making our plans for vacation.
+Milly's mother had invited Adelaide to spend the season with them at
+their cottage at Narragansett Pier; and Winnie's father had consented to
+her spending June and July with me on our Long Island farm. Winnie
+cheered up somewhat at the prospect. "It's the warm weather which makes
+me feel muggy," she said; "I shall feel better when we get out of the
+city too. The noise and racket distract me, and seeing so many miserable
+people makes me miserable and sick at heart."
+
+"I don't feel so at all," I replied. "It makes me happy to see how much
+good even we can do. Mrs. Halsey would not have obtained her situation
+with Madame Céleste but for us, or have been able to place Jim with
+Miss Prillwitz."
+
+Winnie winced. "Don't talk about them; I am sick and tired of hearing
+about the little prince. Do you know, I don't believe he is a prince at
+all!"
+
+"What! Do you imagine that this story of Miss Prillwitz's is only a
+fabrication?"
+
+"Perhaps so, or at least a hallucination on her part; and even if it is
+all true Jim may not be the boy. I wonder what proof she has of his
+identity, or whether she has written yet to his relatives. I mean to ask
+her--this very day."
+
+But Winnie did nothing of the kind, for we were surprised on arriving at
+Miss Prillwitz's to find three new children sitting in the broad
+window-seats. One was a thin girl with crutches, whom I at once guessed
+must be Mary Hetterman; two chubby, freckle-faced little ones sat in the
+sunshine looking over a picture-book together, while Miss Prillwitz
+beamed upon them.
+
+"My tears," she said, "you see I haf some more companie. Giacomo haf
+brought these small people to spend ze day."
+
+Jim came in a little later, and introduced his friends. He was flushed
+and excited, and it presently appeared that the visit was a part of a
+deep-laid scheme of his own.
+
+"I wanted you to know the Hettermans," he said, "because they are such
+nice children, and Rickett's Court is no place for them, for the family
+next door have the fever, and Mr. Grogan has the tremens, and scares
+them most to death. Mrs. Hetterman gets twenty dollars a month as cook
+now, and she says she can pay a dollar a week apiece for each of the
+children if she can board them where it is healthful and decent; and you
+young ladies were so kind as to help my mother at first, and now, as she
+don't need it any longer, maybe you would help the Hettermans, and then
+maybe Aunty would take them in. Mary is very handy, for all she's a
+cripple, and the babies' noise is just nothing but a pleasure, and--"
+here the tears stood in his eyes, and he looked at Miss Prillwitz, who
+was frozen stiff with astonishment, with piteous appealing--"and I would
+eat just as little as I could."
+
+The good woman's voice trembled, "Take ze children to play in ze park,"
+she said; "ze young ladies and I, we talk it some over."
+
+Mary Hetterman tied the children's hoods on with cheerful alacrity. She
+evidently had high hopes, while Jim threw his arms around Miss
+Prillwitz--"Aunty," he said, "they deserve that you should be kind to
+them more than I do."
+
+"What reason is zere that I should take them in more as all ze uzzer
+children in ze court?"
+
+"Just as much reason as for you to take me," replied the boy, running
+away.
+
+"Bless his heart!" said Miss Prillwitz, as he closed the door; "he knows
+not ze reason zat draw me to him, ze cherubim. But I did not know you to
+help his muzzer until now."
+
+Adelaide explained matters, and the case of the Hettermans was
+discussed, Miss Prillwitz agreeing to take them in if we would assist in
+their support. "I shall leaf zem in my apartement for ze summer," she
+said, "for it is necessaire to me zat I go ze shore of ze sea, and I
+s'all take Giacomo with me, for I cannot bear to separate myself of him.
+Zis is so near to your school zat Mrs. Hetterman can sleep her nights
+here. But I have not decided to myself where I shall repose myself for
+ze summer."
+
+I spoke up quickly, referring her to Miss Sartoris for the beauties of
+our part of Long Island and for mother's low price for board. Miss
+Prillwitz was evidently pleasantly impressed. She thought she would like
+to study the seaweed of that part of the coast, and when she heard of
+the lighthouse, against which the birds of passage dashed themselves,
+and how the keeper had kept their skins, waiting for some one to come
+that way and teach him to stuff them, she was quite decided in our
+favor.
+
+I noticed that Winnie grew suddenly silent. As we left the house she
+pinched me softly. "You didn't mean any harm, Tib," she said, "but if
+they go, it will take every bit of pleasure out of my summer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Winnie's confession.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Wilhelm Kalbfleisch.}]
+
+
+Wilhelm Kalbfleisch, the butcher's boy, was one of the most
+uninteresting specimens of humanity that I have ever seen. That any of
+us would ever give him even a passing glance seemed quite beyond the
+range of probability, and yet Wilhelm's stolid, good-natured face
+haunted Winnie's dreams like a very Nemesis, and came to acquire a new
+and singular interest even in my own mind.
+
+We passed a little Catholic church on our way to the boarding-school.
+
+"We are early," said Winnie. "Let's go in."
+
+It was Lent, and the altar was shrouded in black, and only a few candles
+burning dimly. We stood beside a carved confessional. A muffled murmur
+came from the interior, and the red curtains pulsated as though in time
+to sobs.
+
+"Let us go out," whispered Milly; "I am stifling."
+
+She looked so white that I was really afraid she was going to faint. "I
+feel better," she gasped, when we reached the open air.
+
+"It was frightfully close," Winnie said, "and the air was heavy with
+incense."
+
+"It was not that," said Milly, "it was the thought of it all; that there
+was a poor woman in that confessional telling all her sins to a priest.
+I never could do it in the world."
+
+"It would be a comfort to me," said Winnie, fiercely. "I only wish there
+was some one with authority, to whom I could confess my sins, that I
+might get rid of the responsibility of them."
+
+"There is," I said, before I thought; "'He hath borne our griefs and
+carried our sorrows.'"
+
+Winnie gave me a quick look. "You don't usually preach, Tib," she said,
+and burst into a merry round of stories and jokes, which convulsed the
+other girls, but did not in the least deceive me. I could see that she
+was troubled, and was trying to carry it off by riding her high horse.
+"Girls," she said, "I want you to come around to the butcher's with me.
+They have such funny little beasts in the window. I mean to get one, and
+the butcher's boy, Wilhelm, is such a princely creature--just my _beau
+idéal_--I want you to see him."
+
+The funny little beasts proved to be forms of head-cheese in fancy
+shapes. Strange roosters and ducks, with plumage of gayly colored sugar
+icing, and animals of uncouth forms and colors. Winnie bought a small
+pig with a blue nose and green tail, all the while bombarding the
+butcher's boy, who was a particularly stupid specimen, with keen
+questions and witty sallies. He was so very obtuse that he did not even
+see that she was making sport of him.
+
+As we hurried home to make up for our little escapade, Winnie amused us
+all by asking us how we thought Wilhelm would grace a princely station.
+"Just imagine, for an instant, that he was the lost Prince Paradiso!
+What a figure he would cut in chain armor, or in a court costume of
+velvet and jewels! Did you notice the elegance of his manners and the
+brilliancy of his wit?"
+
+"Winnie, Winnie, have you gone wild?" Adelaide asked. "Why do you make
+such sport of the poor fellow? He is well enough where he is, I am
+sure."
+
+"Is he not?" Winnie replied, a little more soberly; "I was only thinking
+what a mercy it is that people are so well fitted for their stations in
+life by nature. Now, think of Jim as a butcher, growing up to chop
+sausage-meat and skewer roasts!"
+
+"Jim never could be a butcher," Adelaide replied; "even if Miss
+Prillwitz's dreams do not come true, the education she is giving him
+will do no harm. He will carve a future for himself."
+
+We went into the house, and the subject was dropped. The next morning a
+message came from Miss Prillwitz that one of the Hetterman children was
+sick. It was the fever, contracted in their old home, and we were told
+that our botany lessons must be interrupted for the present. We heard
+through Mrs. Hetterman that the child was not very sick. It was one of
+the chubby little ones that had looked so well. She was quarantined now
+in Jim's room, the green one up under the roof, and had a trained nurse
+to care for her. Mrs. Hetterman did not see the child, but talked with
+her daughter Mary in the basement every evening She thought it was a
+great mercy that they had completed their moving before the child was
+taken sick. This did not seem to me to be exactly generous to Miss
+Prillwitz, but I could not blame the mother for the feeling, for under
+the careful treatment the child speedily weathered the storm, and came
+out looking only a little paler for the confinement. We were expecting a
+summons to return to our lessons, when Mrs. Hetterman told us that Jim
+was sick. We were not greatly alarmed, for the little girl's illness had
+been so slight that we fancied we would see our favorite about in a
+fortnight.
+
+Milly sent in baskets of white grapes and flowers, and Adelaide carried
+over a beautiful set of photographs of Italian architecture. "It may
+amuse him to look them over," she said, "and it is just possible that
+his ancestral palace figures among them."
+
+Adelaide hoped to go to Europe as soon as she graduated. "If Jim is
+established in his rights by that time, I shall visit him," she said,
+"so, you see, I am only mercenary in my attentions to him now."
+
+Winnie looked up indignantly, "Then you deserve to be disappointed."
+
+Adelaide laughed merrily. "I thought you knew me well enough, Winnie, to
+tell when I am in fun. I like Jim so much, personally, that I would do
+as much for him if he had no great expectations; but I do not see that
+there is any harm in thinking of the kindnesses which he may be able to
+do me."
+
+"If you don't count too surely on them. Miss Prillwitz has had time to
+notify his relatives, and they do not seem to take any interest in him."
+
+It is the unexpected that always happens. That very evening Mrs.
+Hetterman brought us this note from Miss Prillwitz. She wrote better
+than she spoke, for on paper there was no opportunity for the foreign
+accent to betray itself:
+
+     "MY DEAR YOUNG LADIES:
+
+     "The elder brother have arrived, and I fear you will have no more
+     opportunity to see little Giacomo, for I think he will take him
+     away very shortly to his father's house.
+
+     "You must not be too sorry, but think what a so great thing this
+     is for poor little Giacomo, to be called so soon to his beautiful
+     estate; no more poorness or trouble, in the palace of the King.
+     Giacomo desire me to thank you for all you kindness to him. He hope
+     some time you will all come to him at his beautiful country of
+     everlasting springtime, and the elder brother invite you also. Mrs.
+     Halsey is here. She is much troubled. She forget that Giacomo was
+     not her very own, and the pain of parting from him is great. She
+     can not rightly think of the good fortune it is to him. She wish to
+     go with him, but that is not possible for now. Giacomo hope you
+     will comfort her. He hope, too, we will continue our care to the
+     children Hetterman. Come not to-night, dear young ladies, to bid
+     him farewells; I fear you to cry, and so to trouble his happiness.
+
+     "Your at all times loving teacher,
+
+                                    "CÉLESTINE PRILLWITZ."
+
+"The idea of our crying, like so many babies!" said Emma Jane Anton;
+"why, it's the best thing that possibly could happen to him, and I, for
+one, shall congratulate him heartily."
+
+"I suppose so," Milly assented, doubtfully, "but I shall miss him
+awfully, he is such a nice little fellow."
+
+"So much the better," said Adelaide; "how glad the prince must be to
+find that his little brother is really presentable. As Winnie was
+saying, 'Fancy his feelings if he had found him a coarse, common
+creature like Wilhelm, the butcher's boy!' And now, Winnie, what do you
+say to my being too sure about visiting him some day? Here is the
+invitation from the prince himself. I wonder just where in Italy they
+live!"
+
+So the girls chatted all together, but Winnie was strangely silent.
+
+"I ought to see Miss Prillwitz at once," she exclaimed, suddenly.
+
+"It's too late, now," replied Emma Jane; "there! the retiring-bell is
+ringing, and if you look across the square you can see that Miss
+Prillwitz's lights are all out; besides, she particularly requested us
+not to come until morning."
+
+"Then I must run over before breakfast," said Winnie, "for it is very
+important."
+
+She set a little alarm-clock for an hour earlier than our usual
+waking-time; but she was unable to sleep, and her restlessness kept me
+awake also. She tossed from side to side, and moaned to herself, and at
+last I heard her say, "Oh! what wouldn't I give if some one would only
+show me the best way out of it."
+
+"Winnie," I said, softly, "I am not asleep. What is the matter? Are you
+in trouble?"
+
+"Yes, Tib."
+
+"Do you need money?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you in love?"
+
+"The idea! A thousand times no."
+
+"Are you going to be expelled?"
+
+"Not unless I tell on myself; perhaps not even then. But oh, Tib, I told
+you I was in for a scrape. I thought I could stick it through, but it's
+worse than I thought. I can't keep the secret; I've got to tell."
+
+"I would, and then you'll feel better."
+
+"No, I will not, for telling will not do any good. I'm not sure but it
+will do harm."
+
+"You poor child, what can it be?"
+
+"Just this--Jim is _not_ the prince."
+
+"I don't see how you know that, or, if you do, what business it is of
+yours."
+
+"Because I deceived Miss Prillwitz, and got Jim in there by making her
+think he was the boy she had heard about, while the real boy is
+somewhere else. I've _got_ to tell her before his friends take him away,
+and before that other boy disappears from view entirely."
+
+"That is really dreadful, but if you know where the true prince is, it
+can't be quite irreparable. What ever made you do such a thing? and how
+did you manage to do it?"
+
+"Why, you see, I hadn't any faith in this story of a lost prince at all.
+I thought that Miss Prillwitz was just a little bit of a crank, who had
+been imposed on by designing people and I was sure, when I saw the woman
+at the door who came to tell Miss Prillwitz that her boy had a situation
+and could not come, that she had been in league with the person who had
+told Miss Prillwitz about the lost prince, but had backed out of the
+plot because she was afraid. Miss Prillwitz had evidently not suspected
+that she knew anything of the boy's supposed expectations, for she had
+merely promised to take him to board, teach, and clothe, for whatever
+the mother could give her, the woman having said that she was going into
+a family as German nursery governess, and agreeing to send a trifle
+toward her boy's support whenever she received her salary. It was just
+the time that Mrs. Halsey was looking for a place for Jim. It was so
+easy to have him come at the time agreed upon and take the place of the
+other boy. I was afraid, at first, that Miss Prillwitz would be
+surprised by the regularity of our payments and the amount we sent, but
+she didn't seem to suspect anything, and she is so fond of him, and he
+deserves it all--and everything worked so well up to the coming of the
+prince."
+
+"But, Winnie, why didn't you tell her the whole story at first? I think
+she would have taken him, all the same, and then you would not have got
+things into this awful muddle."
+
+"Indeed she would not have taken him, a mere pauper out of the slums,
+unless she had thought that he was something more. She is a born
+aristocrat, and she never could have taken Jim to her heart so if she
+had not believed that he was of her own class--of her family, even. Why,
+even Adelaide would never have seen half the fine qualities in him which
+she thinks she has discovered if she had not thought him a noble; and it
+has thrown a fine halo of romance over him for Milly; and even Emma
+Jane, who was hard to convince at first, is firmly persuaded that he is
+made of a little finer clay than the rest of us. And you, Tib, confess
+that you are disappointed yourself."
+
+"I am bitterly disappointed," I admitted; "but that is nothing to the
+extent that Miss Prillwitz will feel it. I wouldn't be in your shoes,
+Winnie, for anything."
+
+"I know it; I know it. I have been wicked, but I had no idea that the
+family would ever look him up. I hardly believed the story that there
+had been any prince lost. And, Tib, if there had not been, where would
+have been the harm in what I did?"
+
+"It would have been wrong, all the same, Winnie, even if it had seemed
+to turn out well. Deception is always wrong, and I did not think it of
+you. But there, don't sob so, or you will make yourself sick, and you
+need all your wits and strength to carry you through the ordeal of
+setting things straight to-morrow. I'll stand by you. I'll go with you
+if it will be any help."
+
+"No, you shall not; Miss Prillwitz might think you were implicated in
+the affair. The fault was all mine, and I will not have any one else
+share the blame; only be on hand at the door, Tib, with an ambulance to
+carry away the remnants, for I shall be all broken into smithereens by
+the interview."
+
+I tried to soothe the excited girl, and fancied that she had fallen
+asleep, when she suddenly began to laugh hysterically.
+
+"I haven't told you who the real prince is," she said. "Aren't you
+curious to know?"
+
+"Have I ever met him?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; it's Wilhelm the butcher's boy."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Isn't it too absurd for anything? That was the situation which his
+mother, or foster-mother, preferred to Miss Prillwitz's care. What will
+Adelaide say now about blue blood telling even in low circumstances?
+There is _blood_ enough about Wilhelm if that is all that is desired.
+And won't that foreign prince be just raving when he is introduced to
+his long-lost brother! But poor Miss Prillwitz!--that's the worst of
+all. No doubt she has been writing with pride and delight the most
+glowing letters in reference to Jim's fitness for his high position. How
+chagrined and mortified the dear old lady will be! Tell me now, Tib,
+that things were not better as I managed them."
+
+"It does seem as if there must be a mistake somewhere. Still, the truth
+is the truth, and I believe in telling it, even if the Heavens fall.
+This matter is all in the hands of Providence, Winnie, and I believe you
+got into trouble simply by thinking that you knew better than
+Providence, and that the world could not move on without you."
+
+"I must say you are rather hard on me, Tib, but perhaps you are right.
+Do you suppose that if I hand the tangle I have made right to God, he
+will take it from my hands and straighten it out for me? I should think
+He would have nothing more to do with it, or with me."
+
+"That is not the way our mothers behave when we get our work into a
+snarl."
+
+This last remark comforted her. She laid her head upon my shoulder and
+prayed:
+
+"Dear Heavenly Father, I have done wrong, and everything has gone wrong.
+Help me henceforth to do right, and wilt Thou make everything turn out
+right. For thy dear Son's sake, I ask it. Amen."
+
+Then trustfully she fell asleep, her conscience relieved of a great
+weight, and with faith in a power beyond her own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE ELDER BROTHER AND MRS. HALSEY'S STRANGE STORY.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of child sleeping in bed.}]
+
+
+Notwithstanding Winnie's protestations to the contrary, I insisted on
+going with her the next morning when she went to make her confession.
+
+The little alarm-clock made its usual racket, but Winnie slept
+peacefully, and I was dressed before I could make up my mind to waken
+her. But I knew how disappointed she would be if she could not make her
+call on Miss Prillwitz before breakfast, and I wakened her with a kiss,
+and made her a cup of coffee over the gas while she was dressing. Then
+we put on our ulsters and hoods, and slipped out of the house just as
+the rising-bell was ringing.
+
+We knew that Miss Prillwitz was habitually an early riser, or we would
+not have planned to call at such an hour, but we were surprised to find
+a cab standing before her door.
+
+"I wonder whether the prince and Jim are just about to leave," Winnie
+exclaimed. "I did not know that any of the ocean steamers sailed so
+early in the morning. What if they have gone and we are too late!"
+
+Something was the matter with the door-bell, and just as we were about
+to knock, the door opened and a stout gentleman came down the steps, and
+drove away in the carriage. Jim was not with him, and Miss Prillwitz
+stood inside the door.
+
+Winnie caught her arm and asked, "Was that the prince, the elder
+brother?"
+
+"No, tear," said Miss Prillwitz, gravely. "Why haf you come, when I
+write you you must not?"
+
+"Oh Miss Prillwitz, it was because I have something so particular, so
+important, to tell you. Do not tell me that Jim has gone, and that it is
+too late!"
+
+"No, tear, Giacomo haf not gone already. I think ze elder brother take
+him very soon, and we keep our little Giacomo not one leetle longer. Go
+in ze park by ze bench and I vill come and talk zare wiz you."
+
+We wondered at her unwillingness to let us in, but obeyed her
+directions, and presently she came out to us with a shawl thrown about
+her and a knitted boa outside her cap. Even then she did not sit near
+us, but on a bench at a little distance, having first noted carefully
+that the wind blew from our direction toward her. All this might have
+seemed strange to us had we not been so thoroughly absorbed in what
+Winnie was about to say. The poor child blundered into her story at
+once, and told it in such broken fashion that Miss Prillwitz never could
+have understood it but for my explanations. When we had finished, the
+tears stood in Miss Prillwitz's eyes.
+
+"My tear child," she said, kindly, drawing nearer to us, "how you haf
+suffer! Yes, you have done a sin, but you are sorry, and God he forgive
+ze sorrowful."
+
+"But do you forgive me, Miss Prillwitz?" Winnie cried, passionately.
+"Can you ever love me again?"
+
+"Yes, my tear, I forgive you freely, and I love you more as ever."
+
+"And the elder brother and Jim? Have Jim's expectations been raised?
+Will he be greatly disappointed, and will the prince be very angry?"
+
+"My tear, in all zis it is not as you have t'inked. See, you haf not
+understand my way of talk. I t'ink Giacomo will, all ze same, pretty
+soon go to his Fazzer's house. Ze elder brother is may be gone wiz him
+by now. You have not, then, understand zat dis elder brother is ze Lord
+Christ? zat ze beautiful country is Heaven? Our little Giacomo lie very
+sick. Ze doctor, whom justly you did meet, he gif no hope. His poor
+muzzer sit by him so sad, so sad, it tear my heart. She cannot see he go
+to ze palace to be one Prince del Paradiso."
+
+We sat bolt upright, dazed and stunned by this astounding information.
+
+"Do you mean to say," Winnie said, slowly, grasping her head as though
+laboring to concentrate her ideas, "that Jim is dying, and that he is no
+more a prince than any of us? I mean that the other boy is not a real
+prince, and that no child ever strayed away from its father's house, or
+elder brother has been seeking for a lost one? Oh Miss Prillwitz, how
+could you make up such a story?"
+
+"My tear, my tear, it is all true, and I t'ought you to understand my
+leetle vay of talk. Giacomo is a prince in disguise; you, my tears, are
+daughters of ze great King. Zat uzzer boy, ze butcher, he also inherit
+ze same heavenly palace. All ze children what come in zis world haf
+wander avay from zat home, and ze elder brother he go up and down
+looking for ze lost. He gif me commission; he gif effery Christians
+commission to find zose lost prince--to teach him and fit him for his
+high position. I did not have intention to deceive you, my tear. It was
+my little vay of talk."
+
+"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Winnie, "I feel as if my brain were turning a
+somersault, but I cannot realize it. Then I did not really deceive you,
+after all, Miss Prillwitz, though I was just as wicked in intending to
+do so. And Jim--do not say there is no hope!"
+
+"No, my tear. I know all ze time zis was not ze boy I expect. But I say
+to myself, 'How he come I know not, but he is also ze child of ze
+King.' Ze elder brother want him to be care for also. May be ze elder
+brother send him, and I take him very gladly. And surely, I never find
+one child to prove his title to be one Prince of Paradise better as
+Giacomo. So gentle, so loving, so generous and soughtful. I not wonder
+at all ze elder brother want him. I sank him, I sank you, too, Winnie, I
+have privilege to know one such lovely character."
+
+Miss Prillwitz looked at her watch. "I can no longer," she said quickly,
+and hurried back to her home. We crossed the park thoughtfully and
+entered the school. There was just time to tell the girls the news
+before chapel. The knowledge that dear Jim was lying at death's door
+overwhelmed every other consideration, and yet we talked over Miss
+Prillwitz's little allegory also.
+
+"We were stupid not to see through it at first," said Adelaide. "She is
+just the woman to create an ideal world for herself and to live in it. I
+have no grudge against her because we misunderstood her meaning, and yet
+there certainly is something very fine in Jim's nature."
+
+"Now I think it all over," said Emma Jane, "she has said nothing which
+was not true."
+
+"I understand her letter better now," I said. "We have all been parts of
+a beautiful parable, and we have been as thickheaded as the disciples
+were when Jesus said, 'O fools, and slow of heart to believe.'"
+
+Milly was silently weeping. "All the beauty of the idea doesn't change
+the fact that Jim is dying," she said.
+
+"I have never loved any one so since I lost my mother and my baby
+brother," said Adelaide. "I can't remember how he looked--it was ten
+years ago, and I have no photographs, only this cameo pin, which father
+bought because it reminded him of mother. Not the face either, only the
+turn of the neck. He said she had a beautiful neck--and as he came home
+from his business at night he always saw her sitting in her little
+sewing-chair by the window looking every now and then over her shoulder
+for him with her neck turned so, and her profile clear cut against the
+dark of the room like the two colors of agate in this cameo."
+
+It is not natural for girls to talk freely on what stirs them most
+deeply, and little more was said on the subject that morning, but we
+each thought a great deal, and if our hearts could have been laid bare
+to each other, we would have been startled by the similarity of the
+trains of thought which this event had roused. All through the morning's
+lessons our imaginations wandered to the house across the park, and we
+wondered whether all was indeed over, and dear, cheery, helpful Jim had
+gone. We did not remember that we had declared we would gladly let him
+go to an earthly princedom, and yet this was far better for him. Our
+imaginations saw only the white upturned face upon the pillow, the
+grief-stricken mother, and Miss Prillwitz flitting about drawing the
+sheet straight, and placing white lilacs in his hands.
+
+Adelaide confessed to me, long after, that all of her worldly thoughts
+in reference to visiting Jim some day came back to her in a strange,
+sermonizing way. She said that in her secret heart she had rather
+dreaded the visit because she knew so little of the etiquette of foreign
+courts, and was afraid she might make some mistake. She had even studied
+several books on the subject, and knew the sort of costume it was
+necessary to wear in a royal presentation, just the length of the
+train, the degree of décolletée, and the veil, and the feathers. The
+thought came over her with great vividness that she had never studied
+the etiquette of Heaven or attempted to provide herself with garments
+fit for the presence of the King. Mrs. Hetterman had a habit of singing
+quaint old hymns. There was one which we often heard echoing up from the
+basement--
+
+    "At His right hand our eyes behold
+    The queen arrayed in purest gold;
+    The world admires her heavenly dress,
+    Her robe of joy and righteousness."
+
+This scrap was borne in upon Adelaide's mind now. "A robe of joy and
+righteousness," she thought to herself; "I wonder how it is made! it
+surely must be becoming."
+
+Then she thought again of her mingled motives, of how glad she had been
+that she had befriended Jim because she could claim him as an
+acquaintance as a prince, in that foreign country, and how she had
+wished that she might entertain more traveling members of the nobility
+in his country in order to have more acquaintances at court. "If the
+poor are Christ's brothers and sisters," she said to herself, "I have
+abundant opportunity to make many friendships which may be carried over
+into that unknown country;" and a new purpose awoke in her heart, which
+had for its spring not the most unselfish motives, but a strong one, and
+destined to achieve good work, and to give place in time to higher aims.
+
+Afternoon came, and no message had arrived from Jim. "Girls," said
+Adelaide, as we sat in the Amen Corner, "if Jim dies, I propose that we
+carry this sort of work on of fitting poor children for something
+higher, and broaden it, as a memorial to him. I don't exactly see my way
+yet, but we can do a good deal if we band together and try."
+
+"Oh! don't talk about Jim's dying," said Milly, "we'll do it, anyway."
+
+"I can't see why we don't hear from Miss Prillwitz," said Winnie,
+impatiently. "It is recreation hour; let us go out into the park, and
+perhaps she will see us and send us some word."
+
+We walked around and around the paths which were in view from Miss
+Prillwitz's windows. Presently we saw Mary Hetterman coming toward us
+with a note in her hand.
+
+"I know just what that note says," exclaimed Milly, sinking upon a
+bench. "The little prince has gone to his estates."
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed Adelaide. "See! is it a ghost?" We looked as she
+pointed, and saw at Jim's window a perfect representation of Adelaide's
+cameo. A white face against the dark interior. It vanished as she spoke,
+leaving us all with a strange, eerie sensation, a feeling that this was
+certainly an omen of Jim's death. But our premonitions, like so many
+others, did not come true. The note was not for us. Mary Hetterman
+passed us with a smile and a nod, and a moment later Miss Prillwitz
+herself came out to us.
+
+We knew by her face that she brought good news, but none of us spoke
+until she answered our unuttered question.
+
+"No, tears, Jim haf not gone. Ze prince haf been here, but I sink he not
+take him zis time already. The doctor sink we keep him one leetle time
+longer. I cannot stay. It is time I go give him his medicine, and let
+loose ze nurse, for I care for him ze nights. Good-bye, my tears. Ah! I
+am so happy zat ze little prince go not yet to his estates; so happy,
+and yet so sleepy also." And we noticed for the first time the great
+dark rings which want of sleep and anxiety had drawn around Miss
+Prillwitz's eyes.
+
+"Good-bye, princess," I cried; "surely no one deserves that title more
+than you, for you have proved yourself a royal daughter of the King. We
+have called you so a long time among ourselves--our Princess del
+Paradiso."
+
+She smiled, waved her hand, and vanished into the queer house which she
+had made a palace.
+
+It was some time before Adelaide could recover from the shock of the
+apparition at the window, though we assured her that it was probably
+only the trained nurse; and we afterward ascertained that it was in
+reality Mrs. Halsey, who had come to the window for a moment to greet
+the glad new day, and who was now as joyful as she had been despairing.
+So much tension of feeling, so great extremes of joy and sorrow, had
+affected her deeply, and she wept out her gratitude on Miss Prillwitz's
+sympathizing heart. "You have been very good to him," Mrs. Halsey said,
+with emotion. "Some time, when the past all comes back to me, as I am
+sure it will some day, I may be able to return your kindness."
+
+Mrs. Halsey had made several mysterious allusions to the past, and Miss
+Prillwitz, who had a kindly way of gaining the confidence of everyone,
+said sweetly, "Tell me about your early life, my tear."
+
+"It is a strange story," Mrs. Halsey replied. "I had a happy childhood
+and girlhood, and a happy married life up to the time that my dear
+parents died, and even after that, for my husband was the best of men,
+and I had a sweet little daughter. Their faces come back to me, waking
+and sleeping, though I have lost them, I sometimes fear, forever."
+
+"Did they die?" Miss Prillwitz asked.
+
+"No, dear, I think not; but now comes the strange part of my story: I
+remember a journey vaguely, and a steamer disaster, a night of horror
+with fire and water, and then all is a frightful blank; a curtain of
+blackness seems to have fallen on all my past life. I am told that I was
+rescued from the burning of a Sound steamer, with my baby-boy in my
+arms, and given shelter by some kindly farmer folk. I had received an
+injury--a blow on the head--and had brain-fever, from which I recovered
+in body, but with a disordered mind, my memory shattered; I could
+remember faces, but not names. I could not tell the name of the town in
+which I had lived, or my own name. I remained with the kind people who
+first received me for several months, but I did not wish to be a burden
+to them, and I hoped that I might find my home. I knew that it had been
+in a city, and I felt sure that if I ever saw any of my old
+surroundings, or old friends I would recognize them at once. It was
+thought, too, that New York physicians might help me, so I came to New
+York, and my case was advertised in the papers. But months had passed
+since the accident, and my friends either did not see the advertisement,
+or did not recognize me in the story given. The doctors at the hospital
+pronounced me incurable, and I was discharged. I wandered up and down
+the streets, but although I felt sure that I had been in New York
+before, I could not find my home. I read the names on the signs, hoping
+to recognize my own name, but I never came across it. Meantime I took
+the name of Halsey; it was necessary for me to live, and I knew that I
+could sew, and that I had a faculty for designing; and seeing Madame
+Céleste's advertisement for a designer, I applied at once for the
+situation. It seemed to me at first that I had seen Madame Céleste
+before, but she was repellent in manner, and I did not dare question
+her, and gradually that impression faded. I hired a woman to take care
+of Jim, and though he was not well cared for, he lived, and we got on
+until he was large enough to play upon the streets. Then I took him home
+to the little room in Rickett's Court, and finding that I could not be
+with him as much as he needed, I gave up my place at Madame Céleste's
+and worked at first for the costumer, where the young ladies found me,
+and afterward tried to keep soul and body together by taking sewing
+home. It was the life of a galley-slave, but I did not care so long as I
+could keep my boy at school, and with me out of school hours. But I
+could not do that, for to earn the money which was absolutely necessary
+for our support Jim had to work too, and driving the milkman's cart in
+the early morning was the best we could find for him out of school
+hours. He was so proud and happy to do it, and to help earn for us both;
+but, as you know, it cut into his hours for sleep, and left him no time
+to study. Oh! I was nearly in despair, when God sent you as angels to my
+help and Jim's."
+
+"And have you never been able to guess what your old name was?" Miss
+Prillwitz asked.
+
+"Never; sometimes it seems to me that I remember it in my dreams, but
+when I awake it is gone; still, I cannot help feeling that I shall find
+my own again. Sometimes there comes a great inward illumination, and the
+curtain seems to be lifting. I cannot think they have forgotten me--my
+husband tender and true, and my little girl with the great questioning
+eyes."
+
+Miss Prillwitz did not share Mrs. Halsey's confidence, but her sympathy
+was enlisted, and she caressed and comforted Mrs. Halsey. "It shall be
+as you hope, my tear; if not just now and here, zen surely by and by,
+and zat is not very long. And meantime you have found some friends, ze
+young ladies and me, and ze Elder Brother have found you, and we are all
+one family, so you can be no longer lonely and wizout relation, even in
+zis world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE KING'S DAUGHTERS AND THE VENETIAN FÊTE.
+
+    "O ladies, dear ladies, the next sunny day,
+    Please trundle your hoops just out of Broadway,
+    From its whirl and its bustle, its fashion and pride,
+    And the temples of trade which tower on each side,
+    To the alleys and lanes where Misfortune and Guilt
+    Their children have gathered, their city have built.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Then say, if you dare,
+    Spoiled children of fashion, you've nothing to wear!"
+
+[Illustration: {Drawing of Milly Roseveldt.}]
+
+
+Milly Roseveldt made an important entry in her diary a few days after
+this. She was very exact about keeping her diary, recording for the most
+part, however, very trivial matters, but the day that she wrote "We have
+organized a 'King's Daughters Ten'" was a day with a white stone in it,
+and deserved to be remembered.
+
+Jim had passed the crisis of the fever, and recovered rapidly. Neither
+of the other Hettermans was taken ill. The house was thoroughly cleansed
+and disinfected, and after a few weeks we took up our interrupted botany
+lessons. But Jim's illness had made more than a transient impression,
+and Adelaide's suggestion that we should broaden and deepen our work was
+talked over amongst us.
+
+"There is a society," said Emma Jane, "which I have heard of somewhere,
+which is called 'The King's Daughters.' I think they have much the same
+idea that Miss Prillwitz has expressed. It is formed of separate links
+of ten members, bound together by the common purpose of doing good. Now,
+I think, we might form such a link, with Miss Prillwitz for our
+president. There are five of us, but we need five more. Whom shall we
+ask?"
+
+"Girls," said Winnie, "I'm afraid you won't agree, but there is real
+good stuff in those Hornets."
+
+"The Hornets! Oh, never!"
+
+"What an idea!"
+
+"Why, they hate us!"
+
+"No, they simply think that we despise them."
+
+"Well, so we do. I am sure, the way that Cynthia Vaughn behaves is
+simply despicable."
+
+"Perhaps so," Winnie admitted, "but the other three girls are not so
+bad. Little Breeze"--that was our nickname for Tina Gale--"is a real
+good-natured girl, and a perfect genius for getting up things. When I
+roomed in the Nest she was devoted to me; so they all were, for that
+matter. I could make them do whatever I pleased, and Rosaria Ricos, the
+Cuban heiress, is just as generous as she can be. 'Trude Middleton is a
+great Sunday-school worker when she is at home, and Puss Seligman's
+mother has a longer calling-list than Milly's, I do believe. Don't you
+remember what a lot of tickets she sold for the theatricals? If we are
+going to get up a charitable society we must use some brains to make it
+succeed, and those girls are a power. You know very well that it is the
+Hornets' Nest and the Amen Corner which support the literary society,
+and when we unite on any ticket-selling or other enterprise it is sure
+to succeed."
+
+"Yes," replied Emma Jane Anton, "that is because we appeal to entirely
+different sets of girls--between us we carry the entire school."
+
+"I will take all in," said Adelaide, "except Cynthia. She has been too
+hateful to Tib and Milly for anything!"
+
+"Oh, don't mind me," murmured Milly; "I dare say she could not help
+laughing when I made that mistake about Paul and Virginia."
+
+"I don't believe she will join us," I said, doubtfully; "but I am sure I
+would a great deal rather have her for a friend than an enemy."
+
+"She will be so surprised and flattered that she will be as sweet as
+jam," said Winnie, confidently. "You have no idea what a lofty
+reputation you girls have. I used to reverence and envy you until it
+amounted to positive hatred. That is what made me behave so badly. I
+knew we couldn't approach you in good behavior, and I determined to take
+the lead in something. That's just the way with Cynthia. She imagines
+that you would not touch her with a ten-foot pole, and she wants you to
+think that she doesn't care, but she does."
+
+Milly promptly furnished the wherewithal for a spread, and the Hornets
+were invited. Adelaide said that they acted as if a sense of
+gratification were struggling with a sneaking consciousness of
+unworthiness, and it was all that she could do not to display the scorn
+which she was afraid she felt. But Milly was as sweetly gracious as only
+Milly knew how to be, and Winnie put them all at their ease with her
+rollicking good-fellowship. I was sure that Cynthia at first suspected
+some trick, but even she succumbed at last to our praise of her
+banjo-playing, which was really admirable. They melted completely with
+the ice-cream--little ducks with strawberry heads and pistache wings;
+and when Winnie told them the entire story of the little prince they
+were greatly interested.
+
+"Now," said Winnie, "I have been talking with Jim, and he says that the
+tenement house in which he lived swarms with children who ought not to
+pass the summer there, who will die if they do; and what I want to
+propose is, that we club together and have some sort of entertainment,
+to send them to the country, or do something else for them."
+
+The proposition met with favor, as did the plan for the King's Daughters
+society, which was organized at once, and officered as follows, the
+"spoils" being divided equally between the Amen Corner and the Hornets:
+
+President--Miss Prillwitz.
+
+Vice-Presidents--Adelaide Armstrong and Gertrude Middleton.
+
+Secretary--Cynthia Vaughn.
+
+Treasurer--Emma Jane Anton.
+
+Executive Committee--The foregoing officers and the rest of the society.
+
+"Little Breeze" then made a practical suggestion: "You know," said she,
+"that the literary society is always allowed to give an entertainment
+the week before the graduating exercises, to put the treasury in funds,
+or, rather, to pay old debts. We have no debts this year, and I am sure
+that the society will let us have the occasion. Whatever we ten favor is
+sure to be carried in the literary society."
+
+"That is what I said," remarked Winnie.
+
+"So if Miss Anton will get Madame's permission for the change, I have no
+doubt we can make at least three hundred dollars."
+
+"Nonsense! we will make twice that," said Puss Hastings.
+
+"But what shall we have?"
+
+"I know the sweetest thing," said Little Breeze. "A Venetian Fête! It is
+really a fair, but the booths are all made to represent gondolas. They
+are painted black, and have their prows turned toward the centre of the
+room. We can have it in the gymnasium. The gondolas are canopied in
+different colors and hung with bright lanterns. We must all be dressed
+in Venetian costume, and have music and some pretty dances. It will be
+lovely!"
+
+The fair was planned out: each girl had a gondola assigned her, with
+permission to work other girls in, and enthusiasm had reached a high
+pitch, when the retiring-bell clanged and the Hornets took their
+departure, the utmost good feeling prevailing between what had been
+until this evening rival factions of the school.
+
+After our next botany lesson we lingered to inform Miss Prillwitz of
+what we had done, and to ask her to accept the Presidency of our ten.
+She listened with much interest.
+
+"My tears," she said, "I sink perhaps you s'all do much good. I have
+justly been sinking, sinking; but ze need is great. I know not how we
+s'all come at ze money which we do need."
+
+Then Miss Prillwitz explained that she had visited Rickett's Court, and
+had found so many little children in those vile surroundings; some of
+them, whose mothers were servants in families, and received good wages,
+were "boarding" with Mrs. Grogan, the baby-farmer. She had met one such
+mother in the court--a waitress on Fifth Avenue, who had three children
+with Mrs. Grogan.
+
+"I pay her fifteen dollars a month," she said; "it is cheaper than I can
+board them elsewhere, and all that I can pay; but it makes my heart sick
+to see them sleeping and playing beside sewers and sinks, and to have
+them exposed to language of infinitely worse foulness. I know that if
+they do not die in childhood, of which there is every likelihood, they
+will grow up bad; and I don't know which I would choose for them. I
+wouldn't mind slaving for them, if there was any hope, if I could see
+them in decent surroundings, with some prospect of their turning out
+well in the end; but now, when I ask myself what all my toil amounts to,
+it seems to me that the best thing which could happen to us all would be
+to die."
+
+The waitress knew of other servants who could have no home of their own
+for their children, but who could pay something for their support, and
+whose maternal love and feeling of independence kept them from giving
+their children up to institutions; who had entrusted their little ones
+to bad people, who hired them to beggars, beat and half starved them.
+And now the summer was approaching, and it was dreadful to think of
+those closely packed tenement houses under the stifling heat.
+
+Miss Prillwitz said that it had seemed to her positively wrong for her
+to go away to the seashore for the summer while so many must remain and
+suffer.
+
+"I don't see that," said Adelaide, "unless by staying you can make their
+condition better."
+
+"Perhaps I can so," replied Miss Prillwitz, "if ze King's Daughters will
+help me." And then she developed a plan of Jim's. He had noticed the
+vacant floors in her house, which had remained unlet all the winter. "If
+you could rent them for the summer, Miss Prillwitz," he had suggested,
+"we wouldn't need much furniture, but could just invite a lot of the
+children in and let them camp down. The rooms are so clean, and there is
+such lovely fresh air and no smells, and such beautiful bath-tubs, and
+the park for the little ones to play in, and Mary Hetterman could watch
+them."
+
+"You forget," Miss Prillwitz had replied, "zat zose children are use
+probably to eat somet'ings."
+
+No, Jim had not forgotten that, but Mrs. Hetterman would be out of a
+place for the summer vacation, and would cook for them, and the
+children's mothers would pay something, and he would do the marketing.
+After the public school closed the older children could earn something,
+he thought. He was all on fire with the idea, and his enthusiasm had
+communicated itself to our princess. "I haf even vent to see my
+landlord," she confessed; "he is von very rich man. I sought maybe he
+let me use ze rooms for ze summer, since he cannot else rent them. But
+no, he did not so make his wealths. We can have them von hundred dollar
+ze months; six months, five hundred. We cannot else. Now do you sink you
+make five hundred dollar from your fair?"
+
+"Oh, I think so; indeed, I am sure of it!" Adelaide exclaimed; "dear
+little Jim, what an angel he is! We will go right to work and see what
+we can do."
+
+Of course the fair was a success, as fairs go. I have since thought that
+a fair is a poor way for Christian people to give money to any
+charitable purpose. So much goes astray from the goal, so much is
+swallowed up in the expenses, that if people would only put their hands
+in their pockets and give at the outset what they do give in the
+aggregate, more would be realized, and much time, vexation, and labor
+saved. But people do not yet recognize this, and we knew no better than
+to follow in the old way. I had charge of the Art gondola, with Miss
+Sartoris and all the Studio girls to help me. We decided that, as it was
+a Venetian fête, we would make a specialty of Italian art. Miss Sartoris
+suggested etchings, and one of the leading art dealers allowed us to
+make our choice from his entire collection, giving them to us at
+wholesale, as he would to any other retail dealer, we to sell them at
+the regular retail price, thereby taking no unfair advantage over our
+purchasers, and yet making a handsome profit on each etching sold, while
+we ran no risk, as all unsold stock was to be returned.
+
+We were surprised to find how many Venetian subjects had been
+etched. There were half a dozen different views of St. Mark's
+Cathedral--exteriors and interiors; San Giorgios and La Salutes; there
+were Rainy Nights in Venice, and Sunny Days in Venice, canals and
+bridges, shipping and palaces, piazzas and archways and cloisters.
+
+Then we obtained a quantity of photographs of the Italian master-pieces,
+chiefly from the works of Titian and the Venetian school, though we
+included also the Madonnas of Raphael. Miss Sartoris found an Italian
+curiosity-shop, which was a perfect treasure-trove, for here we secured,
+on commission, a quantity of Venetian glass beads, the beautiful
+blossomed variety, with tiny smelling-bottles of the same material,
+together with sleeve-buttons of Florentine mosaic, ornaments of pink
+Neapolitan coral, and broken pieces of antique Roman marbles, all of
+which we sold at immense profit. We had not thought of having any
+statuary, until Jim came to us, one afternoon, saying that Miss
+Prillwitz had told him that we intended to have an Italian fête, and as
+several of the families whom he wished benefited were Italians, who
+lived in Rickett's Court, he thought they might help us.
+
+"What do they do?" I asked.
+
+"The older Stavini boys peddle plaster-of-paris images, and some of them
+are very pretty. Pietro will bring you a basket of them, I am sure, and
+take back all you don't sell."
+
+The plaster casts proved to be artistic and new. There was a set of five
+singing cherubs which we had seen on sale in the stores at twenty-five
+dollars a set, which Pietro offered us at fifty cents each, and others
+in like proportion. We sold his entire basketful at advanced prices, and
+received several orders for duplicates.
+
+Winnie had charge of the refreshment department, and had a troop of the
+"preparatories" dressed as contadinas, who were to serve Neapolitan ices
+in colored glasses. Jim enabled her to introduce a very taking novelty
+by telling her of Vincenzo Amati, a cook in an Italian restaurant, who
+had three motherless little girls who were candidates for the summer
+home. Vincenzo agreed to come and cook for us while the fair lasted,
+Mrs. Hetterman kindly giving him place in the kitchen, so that we were
+able to add to our other attractions that of a real Italian supper,
+served on little tables in an adjoining recitation-room. Vincenzo
+brought us several dozen Chianti wine flasks, the empty bottles at the
+restaurant having been one of his perquisites. They were of graceful
+shapes, with slender necks, and wound in wicker, which Miss Sartoris
+gilded and further ornamented with a bow of bright satin ribbon. These
+flasks, empty, decorated each of the little tables, and one was given to
+each guest as a souvenir.
+
+The menu consisted of--
+
+    Riso con piselli, } (Soup).
+    Minestra Zuppa,   }
+    Olives.
+    Bistecca (Beefsteak).
+    Macaroni al burro (with butter).
+    Macaroni a pomidoro (with potatoes).
+    Testa de vitello (Calf's head).
+    Carciofi (Artichokes).
+    Cavolifiori (Cauliflower).
+    Salami di Bologna (Bologna Sausage).
+    Crostata di frutti (Fruit tarts).
+    Formaggio (Cheese).
+
+Adelaide was musical director, and led the singing class in "Dolce
+Napoli" and other Italian songs. The girls were dressed in costume, and
+there was one fisher chorus, which made a very effective tableau with a
+background of colored sails and nets. Vincenzo allowed his little
+girls to appear with a neighbor's hand-organ, and when they passed their
+tambourines they gathered a goodly harvest of pennies.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of the Venetian Fête.}]
+
+Little Breeze arranged the tableaux and the dances, Mrs. Halsey sending
+in designs for the costumes; and Cynthia Vaughn ran a side show of
+stereopticon views, Professor Todd kindly working the lantern.
+
+Milly had the flower gondola, or booth of cut flowers, supplied from her
+father's conservatory, and Miss Prillwitz contributed to this department
+a quantity of little albums and herbaria containing pressed flowers and
+seaweed from different Italian cities. Our dear princess was present,
+beaming with happiness, and the "ten" introduced her proudly to their
+parents and friends. Mr. Roseveldt seemed much interested, in an amused
+way, in what we were trying to do. "Go ahead, my dear," he said to
+Milly, "and if you don't come to me to shoulder a lot of bad debts
+before the summer is over, I shall be greatly surprised, and have a far
+higher respect for what little girls can do than I now possess."
+
+"'Little girls,' indeed!" Milly repeated, with scorn. "There are younger
+gentlemen, sir, who consider us young ladies, if you do not. But we
+will compel your respect, and we will not ask you for one penny either."
+
+This was rather hard, for we had secretly hoped, all along, that Milly's
+father would help us, and now she had made it a point of pride not to
+ask him. He behaved very well, however, for although he bantered us
+cruelly on our Utopian enterprise, he bought a button-hole bouquet of
+his own violets from Milly, paying a five-dollar bill for it and
+neglecting to ask for change, and then took Miss Prillwitz, Madame, Emma
+Jane Anton, Miss Sartoris, and Miss Hope successively out to supper. He
+purchased, too, an alabaster model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which
+Madame had contributed on condition that it should be sold for not less
+than twenty dollars, and which we had feared would not be disposed of,
+as we had voted that there should be no raffling. Madame was greatly
+interested in the fair; it drew attention to her school, and she smiled
+on everyone--a self-constituted reception committee. She was even
+gracious to the cadet band which had serenaded the school in the fall
+term. The cadets to a man invited Milly out to dinner. She went with
+each of them in succession, and as the viands were sold _à la carte_,
+she bravely ordered the more expensive dishes over and over again,
+enduring a martyrdom of dyspepsia for a week in consequence.
+
+Of course Jim was present, and his mother. Adelaide was attentive to
+both; there seemed to be a mutual attraction that kept them together,
+and whenever Adelaide left Mrs. Halsey, and taking up her baton (Milly's
+curling-stick), led her orchestra, Mrs. Halsey's eyes followed her with
+a strange wistfulness. Winnie, with her usual heedlessness, had
+neglected to introduce Adelaide to Mrs. Halsey when she called on her in
+the court, and she now turned to Jim and asked her name. It happened
+that Jim thought that she referred to the pianist instead of to
+Adelaide, and he replied that the young lady in question was Miss Hope,
+the music-teacher. Mrs. Halsey gave a little sigh of disappointment, and
+continued her spell-bound gaze. I was about to correct the mistake which
+I was sure Jim had made, when it was announced that Mrs. Le Moyne, the
+celebrated interpreter of Robert Browning, would kindly recite a poem of
+Mrs. Browning's. Mrs. Halsey and Jim moved nearer the rostrum, and my
+opportunity for explanation was lost. If I had known the effect that
+the name of Adelaide Armstrong would have had upon Mrs. Halsey, chains
+could not have kept me in my gondola--so many invisible gates of
+opportunity are closed and opened to us all along life's pathway!
+
+The poem recited was, most appropriately, "The Cry of the Children."
+Tears welled into the eyes of many a mother as the practiced art of the
+speaker rendered most feelingly the pathetic words:
+
+    "But these others--children small,
+      Spilt like blots about the city
+    Quay and street and palace wall--
+      Take them up into your pity!
+
+    Patient children--think what pain
+      Makes a young child patient yonder;
+    Wronged too commonly to strain
+      After right, or wish or wonder;
+
+    Sickly children, that whine low
+      To themselves and not their mothers,
+    From mere habit, never so--
+      Hoping help or care from others;
+
+    Healthy children, with those blue
+      English eyes, fresh from their Maker,
+    Fierce and ravenous, staring through
+      At the brown loaves of the baker.
+
+    Can we smooth down the bright hair,
+      O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in
+    Our hearts' pulses? Can we bear
+      The sweet looks of our own children?
+
+    O my sisters! Children small,
+      Blue-eyed, wailing through the city--
+    Our own babes cry in them all;
+      Let us take them into pity!"
+
+That poem was worth a great deal to our cause. Those of the mothers of
+our Ten who were present were won to us at once.
+
+Mrs. Middleton, our vice-president's mother, and the wife of a
+clergyman, entered into our scheme with enthusiasm, and felt sure that
+her husband's church would assist us.
+
+Mrs. Seligman and Mrs. Roseveldt put their heads together and planned to
+interest their society friends. One of hers, Mrs. Roseveldt was sure,
+would contribute the coal, and another the flour, while Mrs. Seligman
+would provide the blankets, and a friend of her acquaintance would
+certainly assume the butcher's bill. Madame Céleste, the dress-maker,
+who was present, was about to refurnish her parlors, and would
+contribute curtains. Madame Céleste bought a quantity of my photographs
+of old Italian portraits, and I have no doubt that they were very
+serviceable to her in the way of suggestions for æsthetic costumes.
+
+We knew before the evening closed that the fair must have realized more
+than we had hoped, and Emma Jane, the Treasurer of the new society,
+announced at our next meeting that the fair had cleared six hundred
+dollars. Vociferous applause followed, and we immediately adjourned to
+Miss Prillwitz's to report the unexpectedly happy result.
+
+Our princess had talked over the scheme with such of our mothers as were
+present at the fair; and she now advised that we create them a board of
+managers of the proposed Home, to carry it on for us, as we were all
+minors, and lacked the necessary experience, we to labor for it harder
+than ever. This was immediately done, and after this, affairs marched
+with great rapidity. The Home of the Elder Brother was licensed and
+fitted up for its little guests within a week. The vacant floors in Miss
+Prillwitz's house were rented--not for the summer only, as we had at
+first planned, but, to our great surprise, for a year. An "unknown
+friend," who had admired our efforts, sent in a subscription of nine
+hundred dollars, thereby more than doubling the amount obtained by the
+fair, and guaranteeing that amount annually as long as the Home was
+continued.
+
+Mr. Roseveldt had been better than his word, and the Home was placed on
+an assured basis for a year. What it would be after that we could not
+tell. It was only permitted to see one step ahead, but that step we
+could take with thankful assurance.
+
+Madame sent over a quantity of furniture, as she intended to refit the
+students' rooms during the summer vacation. Donations of every kind
+poured in, and twenty-five little iron bedsteads were dressed in white,
+and set in the sunny rooms which were to be used as dormitories. Madame
+Céleste had said that she would not require Mrs. Halsey during the three
+summer months, and the little woman offered her services for that
+interim as nursery care-taker.
+
+Another surprise came when Emma Jane Anton announced that she had
+written home and obtained permission to remain as matron. She had a
+talent for housekeeping, and she gave her services freely. "I am not
+rich," she said. "I can't give money, but I can give myself. I am not
+used to children; I don't believe they will like me, for I don't care
+for them overmuch; but Mrs. Halsey will mother them, and I can keep the
+house sweet and clean; I can market economically, and keep accounts
+exactly, and I mean that the princess shall not give up her visit to
+Tib. She must go to the country for a part of the summer at least."
+
+"And when she comes back," I said, "you must take your turn, Emma Jane;
+we will be so glad to have you!"
+
+"Oh, immensely! I am a genial, sweet creature, I know, an addition to
+society; but I thank you, all the same, and if I feel run down, I will
+come and get a sniff of sea air."
+
+The King's Daughters' Ten held their last meeting before the breaking up
+of the school. The money gained was entrusted to Emma Jane's care for
+the summer, and each of the members bound herself to carry the scheme
+with her wherever she went, to interest others, to gather and forward
+funds, and to work for the Home in every possible way.
+
+Then we paid our last visit, for that term, to Miss Prillwitz, and our
+first to our little guests, and returning, packed our trunks, attended
+the graduating exercises of the senior class (the Amen Corner and the
+Hornets were all juniors and sophomores, with the exception of Emma
+Jane, who graduated), hugged and wept over each other, and elected
+Winnie corresponding secretary for the summer, and promised to write to
+her every month, reporting work done for the Home, and separated with
+mingled hilarity and depression of spirits.
+
+Mr. Roseveldt called at the Home with Milly and Adelaide before they
+left town. It was a little plan of the girls to interest him in Jim, and
+it succeeded admirably. After a number of other questions, Mr. Roseveldt
+asked Jim if he could drive.
+
+"I managed the milkman's nag," the boy replied, "and he was an awfully
+hardmouthed, ugly brute."
+
+"Then I fancy you will have no trouble with Milly's pony, which is as
+gentle as a kitten," Mr. Roseveldt replied. "I want a boy in buttons
+just to sit in the rumble while the girls drive about the country." And
+so Jim was engaged to go to Narragansett Pier, and would have a happy
+summer with Milly and Adelaide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE LANDLORD OF RICKETT'S COURT.
+
+    "And yet it was never in my soul
+      To play so ill a part:
+    But evil is wrought by want of thought
+      As well as by want of heart."
+
+                            --_Thos. Hood._
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Solomon Meyer.}]
+
+
+Solomon Meyer, who collected the rents at Rickett's Court, was looked
+upon by the tenants as the landlord, though he distinctly disclaimed
+that honor, explaining that he was only the agent, empowered merely to
+receive money, never to disburse. According to Mr. Meyer the landlord
+was a heartless miser, whom he had entreated to make repairs and to
+lower rents, but who always turned a deaf ear to such appeals. If he,
+Solomon Meyer, only owned Rickett's Court, there would be no end to the
+reforms which his tender heart would cause him to institute; as it was,
+there was no hope for anything of the kind; his orders were explicit--if
+tenants could not pay, they must leave.
+
+Many of the tenants believed that Mr. Meyer was really the owner of
+their building, and that the landlord whom he represented as responsible
+for all their discomfort was purely imaginary, but in this they wronged
+the agent. Solomon Meyer had no scruples against telling a lie whenever
+it would serve his purpose, but here the truth did very well. Rickett's
+Court had a landlord who, although he was not the inhuman wretch which
+Solomon represented him, still cared nothing for his tenants, and, while
+the agent had never suggested any reforms or repairs, might well have
+guessed that they were needed. Adelaide Armstrong would have been
+shocked beyond expression if she had known that the true landlord of
+Rickett's Court was no other than her own father. Mr. Armstrong would
+have been no less shocked if he had known of the abuses for which he was
+really responsible. He had never seen his own property. It had been
+represented to him as a profitable investment, and had proved so. He was
+only in New York for brief intervals each year, and he left the entire
+management of Rickett's Court to Solomon Meyer, well pleased with the
+returns which he rendered, and not suspecting that they were less than
+the sums wrung from the tenants.
+
+He had mentally set aside Rickett's Court as Adelaide's property, and he
+used its proceeds to defray her expenses. There was a neat little
+surplus left over each quarter-day, which he placed in the savings bank
+to her credit, and with which he intended to endow her on her marriage.
+But of all this Adelaide of course knew nothing. Mr. Armstrong's more
+important business ventures were in western railroad speculations. These
+absorbed his attention, and needed the closest application of his
+faculties. He was glad of this. The East had grown distasteful to him
+since the loss of his wife and infant son. He felt that he might have
+been a different man if his wife, whom he tenderly loved, had lived;
+and Adelaide had never ceased to mourn her mother, whom she could not
+remember. "What shall I ever do," she frequently asked, "when I finish
+school? If I only had a mother to be my companion and counselor! but I
+shall be so lonely, and so unfit to take care of myself!"
+
+The circumstances which I relate in this chapter because they belong
+here in sequence of time, did not come to my knowledge until long after
+their occurrence.
+
+Mr. Armstrong came on from the West the evening of our fair. He was
+weary and much occupied by matters of business, and he did not attend
+it, much to our regret. He lent a kindly ear to Adelaide's description
+of it, for he was fond and proud of his beautiful daughter, and he liked
+to see her a leader in everything.
+
+He manifested apparently little interest, however, in what she had to
+tell him of Rickett's Court. "There, there, Puss!" he said, lightly,
+"you must not get fanatical, and rant. I hardly think things are as bad
+down there as you make them out."
+
+"But, papa," Adelaide interrupted, "I went there myself. I saw it with
+my own eyes. It is horrible to think that human beings should be
+obliged to live in such filth and misery. I think the landlord of
+Rickett's Court ought to be prosecuted. I wish I knew that old Rickett!
+I would give him a piece of my mind."
+
+"I've no doubt of it; but spare me, Puss, since my name is not Rickett."
+
+He must have felt a sharp twinge of conscience as he spoke, while his
+daughter's words could not have failed to make an impression on the
+false Rickett. He had read in the cars a little book entitled "Uncle
+Tom's Tenement," by Alice Wellington Rollins, and Helen Campbell's
+"Prisoners of Poverty." He wondered if their pictures of tenement life
+were indeed true. A few days later he listened to some remarks of Mr.
+Felix Adler's on tenement reform. He knew what Mr. Charles Pratt was
+doing in Brooklyn, and his better man told him that now was his
+opportunity. Why should he not put the plumbing in his tenement in
+decent repair; it might not cost much more, after all, than to bribe the
+inspector to report it as all right--a proceeding which Solomon Meyer
+advised. He could at least drain the sink in the court, and do away with
+the unchristian smells which now drove the chance visitor from the
+vicinity. And if he should have the rooms cleaned and whitewashed, he
+might even pose before the public as a humanitarian landlord, and so
+gain the cooperation of some of the philanthropists of the day for some
+other schemes which he had in mind.
+
+He visited the court with a plumber, and found it in worse condition
+than he had imagined. There was a leak from the sewer in the back
+basement. All of the rooms were foul with vermin, and rats scuttled back
+into the walls through great holes. Many of the tenants had left, for
+various reasons. The opening of the Home of the Elder Brother was in
+great part responsible for the emptying of Rickett's Court, for the
+better class of its tenants had embraced this great opportunity to place
+their children in good surroundings. So many children had been
+transferred from Mrs. Grogan's care to the Home by their mothers that
+Mrs. Grogan, finding her occupation gone, betook herself to petty
+larceny and was arrested.
+
+The Italian rag-pickers had taken to the road, with a monkey and an
+organ as tramps for the summer, leaving their filth behind them.
+
+Mr. Armstrong looked into their vacated den, and found it impossible to
+imagine what it could have been when occupied.
+
+The windows had been stoned by the street boys until hardly a pane
+remained, and the staircase had rotted so that he thrust his foot
+through it. The house would need plastering and glazing as well as
+replumbing. It began to look like a great undertaking. However, he bade
+the plumber make and send him his estimates, and hurried out of the
+court, not taking a full breath until he was fairly on Broadway. Then he
+sent a mason and a carpenter to look at the building. "I must make some
+repairs," he said to himself, "or I shall get no tenants whatever."
+
+He had noticed another defect: there was but one staircase. He must add
+a fire-escape, for the place was a death-trap. He had a feeling of
+responsibility in regard to endangering the lives of human beings by
+fire, and he was trying to invent a scheme for heating and lighting
+railroad cars in such a manner as to do away with the danger of fire in
+case of accident. So far, the full completion of the invention escaped
+him, but he worked at it by night and day, not so much because it would
+be an immense boon to the age, but because he was sure that, if
+introduced only on his own railroad, it would boom the line above a
+rival route, and if patented, would make his fortune. Solomon Meyer, in
+enumerating the tenants of the court, had mentioned a Mr. Trimble, a
+poor inventor, who occupied the back attic, whom it would be well to
+turn out, as he had paid no rent for some time, though he had promised
+well, saying that he had just invented a scheme for the safe heating of
+cars, from which he hoped to realize a large sum. Mr. Armstrong
+thoughtlessly displayed before his agent the interest which he felt.
+"Bring the man to me," he exclaimed; "if he has really worked out the
+problem, it is just what I want."
+
+The agent at once paid a visit to the poor inventor and possessed
+himself of his plans and model, promising to do his best for him.
+
+Mr. Armstrong saw at a glance that the inventor had compassed just what
+had baffled him so long.
+
+"What will he take for this invention?" he asked, eagerly.
+
+"Not one cent less as five t'ousand dollar," replied Mr. Meyer.
+
+"That is a good round sum," remarked Mr. Armstrong, "but the right to it
+is worth more than that to me. Arrange the papers for me, get the
+gentleman to sign them, give him this check for a thousand dollars, and
+I will send him another, soon, for four thousand."
+
+Mr. Meyer saw his opportunity here. He returned to Mr. Trimble, assured
+him that his contrivance had been anticipated and already patented by
+another man: he was too late. The poor man's disappointment was intense;
+his head and hands trembled.
+
+"I thank you for trying for me," he said; "there is nothing for me now
+but the river. I have occupied this room in the hope of paying my rent
+when I realized from that invention, but I have no longer any
+expectations, and I had better go and drown myself."
+
+Then for the first time Mr. Meyer realized that there was another person
+in the room. Jim had come down to the court to see his old friends, and
+had dropped in to inquire after Mr. Trimble's son, a merry little fellow
+who had been a playmate of his in the old days. Jim had retreated into a
+corner when the agent called, but he now sprang forward and threw his
+arms around the poor inventor's neck.
+
+"No, no!" he cried; "Mr. Meyer will beg Mr. Rickett to let you stay
+until the first of the month, and something may turn up by that time."
+
+Some sense of shame prompted Solomon Meyer to yield to this request,
+though in his secret heart he knew that his own plans could be more
+safely carried out if his victim did drown himself; and the sooner the
+better. Then he hurried away to collect rents of the new tenants, with
+the money which Mr. Armstrong had sent Stephen Trimble burning like a
+coal in his pocket.
+
+The contract for the new invention was returned to Mr. Armstrong at the
+same time with the estimates of the different mechanics for the
+improvements of Rickett's Court. It would cost three thousand dollars to
+put the tenement in decent repair, and this did not include the
+fire-escape. Mr. Armstrong whistled as he added up the items. It was
+really not convenient for him to place his hand on so much ready cash;
+certainly not without using the money which he had placed in the savings
+bank to Adelaide's credit. Mr. Meyer stood cringing before him, and Mr.
+Armstrong explained the situation.
+
+The agent promptly disapproved of the improvements. They would be a
+great waste of money. No one would rent the tenements after they were
+repaired, for it would be necessary to charge a higher rent, and tenants
+able to pay it, or desiring bathrooms and sanitary plumbing, would not
+occupy such a quarter of the city.
+
+"But suppose I do not charge any more rent, but simply try to educate my
+old tenants to better habits of life?"
+
+Mr. Meyer explained that Mr. Armstrong could throw away his money in
+that way if he wished, but that the class of tenants who patronized
+Rickett's Court could not be educated. They preferred filth to
+cleanliness, and, however respectable their quarters were made, would
+soon convert them into sinks again.
+
+Mr. Armstrong reminded his agent that his best tenants had left him,
+that the house was practically deserted, and that something must be done
+to attract new occupants.
+
+Mr. Meyer assured him that applications had already been received for
+the rooms in their present state. A ship-load of emigrants had just
+arrived: Polish Jews and exiled Russians, who had been imprisoned as
+Nihilists, and who had suffered such barbarities that Rickett's Court,
+horrible as it was, seemed positively comfortable to them.
+
+Mr. Armstrong hesitated. He did not like to give up his scheme of
+renovation; still, there were the papers waiting for his signature for
+the transfer of the invention, and this he had decided he must have; it
+was sure to bring in a great deal of money, and another year he could
+much better afford to make these improvements. He decided, reluctantly,
+that he would put them off for the present.
+
+"I will have a fire-escape put up," he said to his agent, "and we will
+do the rest as soon as possible."
+
+Solomon Meyer shrugged his shoulders. "There is no danger of fire," he
+said, "and I was about to propose that you take out a fire insurance
+policy on that building; that cost about the same, and much more
+sensible."
+
+Mr. Armstrong thought a moment. "If the danger of fire is sufficient to
+warrant me in insuring, it is also great enough to make furnishing the
+fire-escape an imperative duty. I insist on your seeing that one is
+adjusted immediately. You may also take out an insurance policy for
+twenty thousand. See if Mr. Trimble can wait for the rest of his money
+until the first of the month. (The agent's face fell.) You have given
+him my check for one thousand; he ought to be willing to wait a few days
+for the rest. If he is not satisfied, tell him to come down and see me,
+and we'll come to some agreement."
+
+This was exactly what Solomon Meyer did not wish. "I will try my best to
+make him sign the papers on those terms," he said, and carried them away
+to his own den, where he forged the name of Stephen Trimble to both
+contract and check. He found no difficulty in cashing the check, for Mr.
+Armstrong's name was well known, though Stephen Trimble's was not.
+
+And in the mean time the poor inventor sat in his garret trying to
+think. His wife was in the hospital, and his little son busied himself
+with washing the supper dishes. It was not a heavy task, for their
+supper had consisted only of some cold griddle-cakes which, the
+flap-jack man had given them. When the boy had finished his work he
+crept close to his father and laid his head on his knee.
+
+"Why don't you light the lamp?" Mr. Trimble asked, rousing himself.
+
+"There isn't any oil, daddy."
+
+"No matter. I can think better in the dark, and you had better go to
+bed."
+
+"I am going out pretty soon to help the flap-jack man wheel his cart."
+
+"Very well, Lovey, if he is a good man; I don't want you to do anything
+wrong."
+
+"He's good to me, daddy."
+
+"I'm glad of that; you need a friend, and you may need one more." He
+kissed his little boy as he went out--an unwonted action on the father's
+part--and waited until he was sure that the child had left the building,
+then rose, with a desperate look upon his face, and stepped out on the
+landing. The house was very full now; people had been coming for two
+days past with great bales of foul clothing, offensive with odors of the
+steerage, and had packed into the already dirty rooms. It was an
+unusually warm night for spring, and the house was unbearably close. The
+tenants had resorted to the roof, and were sitting under the stars,
+trying in vain to find fresh air, and screaming and scolding at one
+another in a strange, harsh language.
+
+Stephen Trimble was about to descend the staircase, when two men of
+unpleasant aspect stopped him.
+
+"You are the machinist who lives on the top floor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you time for a little job?"
+
+"Plenty of time. Thank God!" he added, mentally, "who has sent me help
+in time."
+
+"Then come down-stairs with us: we are your neighbors, and are just
+under you.
+
+"What do you want me to do?"
+
+"We'll show you."
+
+The men admitted him to their room, and carefully locked the door behind
+them. One of them struck a light, and in so doing dropped a match upon
+the floor. The other sprang upon it quickly, ground it out with his
+heel, and cursed him for his carelessness. Stephen Trimble looked about
+him, and saw that one end of the room was piled with boxes and tin cans,
+one of which was open, showing a compound slightly resembling maple
+sugar. A table stood before the low window, and on it was apparatus or
+machinery of some sort. The first man placed his candle on the table,
+and drew up a packing-box for Mr. Trimble to sit upon. There was no
+other furniture in the room.
+
+"You do not live here?" said the inventor.
+
+"No," replied the first man, who constituted himself the spokesman for
+both; "it isn't a sweet place to live in. We hire it as a workshop. You
+see, we are perfecting a sort of torpedo. You've heard of the submarine
+torpedoes that did such good service in blowing up the Turkish ships in
+the Russo-Turkish war?"
+
+"Oh yes," replied Stephen Trimble, much interested. "I thought that
+stuff looked like dynamite! So you are inventing a new torpedo, which
+you mean to sell the Government? That's a good idea. They are thinking
+of increasing the navy, and it's always better to deal with the
+Government than with private individuals."
+
+The silent man nudged his partner and remarked, "Yes, we're agoin' to
+deal with the Government. That's a good way to put it."
+
+The other man made an impatient gesture, and proceeded to explain a
+small machine to Mr. Trimble. "You don't exactly understand my friend,"
+he said, "but no matter. This kind of a torpedo isn't of the submarine
+kind; we pack the explosives here, matches here, friction paper just
+beside them; but just here we are stuck, and we need you or some other
+mechanic to show us how the thing can be set off by electricity, the
+operator to touch a button at a distance."
+
+Mr. Trimble bent himself to an examination of the contrivance. He asked
+several questions, and as his scrutiny continued, his expression of
+satisfaction changed to one of mistrust and alarm. Suddenly he sprang
+from his seat and pushed the model from him. "That is an
+infernal-machine!" he exclaimed.
+
+"That's about the long and the short of it," said the man, calmly.
+
+"Then I will have nothing to do with it," and he turned toward the door.
+
+"Hold on, my friend, ain't you a trifle in a hurry? All we want you to
+do is to fix that attachment for us, and if you won't do it some other
+man will, but we're willing to pay you a hundred dollars for the job.
+That's a goodish sum to pay, if the job is a little queer, but I take it
+you're used to doing queer things by the big checks that pass through
+your hands."
+
+"What do you mean?" Stephen Trimble asked, with some indignation.
+
+"Oh! you needn't pretend innocence and poverty. A man doesn't scatter
+round thousand-dollar checks who's as poor as you pretend to be, or as
+good, either."
+
+"Tell me what you mean."
+
+"Now don't tell us you know nothing of a check for a thousand dollars
+which we happened to see in the pocket-book of the agent of this
+building when he dropped in here to collect the rent."
+
+"I never saw a check for a thousand dollars in my life."
+
+"If you don't believe me, ask that sharp little boy of yours. It was he
+who first let me know there was a scientific man in the building. He saw
+me unpacking my machine. I happened to leave the door open just a
+minute. I never saw such a sharp little fellow. In he comes and says,
+'My father makes machines too. He's going to make us awful rich some
+day.'
+
+"After that he got in the way of knocking at the door and asking to see
+my machinery. I thought it would be a good idea to let him, for he is
+too little to suspect anything, and I could stuff him with the idea that
+I was making a new kind of telegraph, for I was pretty sure that he
+would tell it around, and that people would believe it and think there
+couldn't be anything shady in what I was doing if I let anybody and
+everybody have the freedom of the room.
+
+"Well, the day I'm speaking of, your little chap was sitting there
+turning the crank of that machine just as cheerful as if it wouldn't
+have blown him to kingdom come if the attachment had only been on, when
+in come another little feller who had been looking for him. 'See here,'
+says my partner, 'there's getting to be too many children here; we don't
+keep a Sunday-school, we don't.' They were just going to leave, when the
+agent he come in with the rent contract for us to sign. Well, the boys
+lingered round, full of curiosity, as boys are, and we signed the paper
+and handed over the cash. Mr. Meyer in stuffing it away in his
+pocket-book brought to light that thousand-dollar check I was telling
+you about. He fumbled to hide it, but it dropped on the floor, and a
+little gust of wind carried it over to where the boys were. The oldest
+boy--Jim, I think your son called him--picked it up, and took a good
+look at it. 'Hullo!' says he, 'here's your father's name, Lovey. "Pay to
+the order of Stephen Trimble one thousand dollars"!' The agent he just
+made one dive for that check, with his fist lifted as though he were
+going to strike the boy, who dropped the check, and both the little
+shavers scooted, and none too soon either, for Meyer looked mad enough
+to kill the youngster, though he tried to laugh it off, and turned the
+check over and showed me that it was his fast enough, for it was
+endorsed on the back, 'Pay to the order of Solomon Meyer.'"
+
+Stephen Trimble put his hand to his head in a dazed way. "You are
+fooling me," he said.
+
+"Not we, but somebody is, if you don't know anything about it. Well, if
+you are not the bloated bondholder we took you for, perhaps you'll
+consider our little offer?"
+
+"No, gentlemen, not to-night at least; give me time to think it over.
+One bad man may have wronged me, but I've no call to go against the
+law."
+
+"Oh yes, take plenty of time"--and they opened the door. Some one was
+knocking at Stephen Trimble's own room. It was the flap-jack man, and
+he had a white, scared face.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked the inventor.
+
+"Lovey's been--"
+
+"Run over?" gasped the poor father.
+
+"No; arrested."
+
+Stephen Trimble gave one exclamation of horror--then asked, "What's he
+done?"
+
+"Nothing but wheeling my cart; they'd have caught me, too, but I cut and
+run. This is a pretty country where one is arrested for trying to earn
+an honest living!"
+
+This was the last straw. Stephen Trimble had said that he had no reason
+to resist the law, but he could not hold to that now. He staggered
+feebly down-stairs, knocked at the door of the dynamiters, and said.
+"I've come back sooner than I thought I would. Give me five dollars in
+advance, and I'll undertake that business of yours to-morrow, and maybe
+I'll get up a little infernal-machine for my own use at the same time,
+but just now I must find my boy."
+
+The man handed him some greasy bills. "You look sick," he said. "You had
+better go down to the free-lunch counter at the saloon, and have a good
+square meal."
+
+Stephen Trimble went and ate and drank to excess. He did not look for
+his little son, and he did not return to the dynamiters' the next
+morning, for he was drunk--and drunk for three days thereafter. Then he
+sobered down and applied himself to the task which they had set him--a
+task intended to bring ruin to the class which had wronged him. He knew
+the aims, now, of the men for whom he was working, and he believed that
+he sympathized with them. They told him how they had borne imprisonment
+and torture for no wrong in Russia, and had come to this country
+expecting to find it the land of justice and kindness, but had met only
+the same tyranny of the rich over the poor--the rich, who cared for
+nothing but their own pleasures, and ground the poor under their chariot
+wheels.
+
+As he worked he thought of his own private wrongs, and determined that
+as soon as his task was done he would seek out the man who had defrauded
+him. He was sure now that the check which the men had seen had something
+to do with his invention, but he believed that the true criminal was
+some one behind Solomon Meyer, the man to whom the agent said he had
+given his invention--the landlord of Rickett's Court. It was like a man
+who would compel human beings to live in such a state as this to commit
+such a fraud. He would hunt him down presently, and in the name of his
+tenants, as well as in his own cause, wreak such revenge that the ears
+of those who heard should tingle.
+
+The landlord of Rickett's Court, all unconscious of the volcano upon
+which he was treading, attended the closing exercises of Madame's
+school, and listened with pride to his daughter's prize essay on "The
+Dangerous Classes."
+
+There was a quotation from Ruskin at the close which pricked his heart a
+little, and made him regret that it was not convenient to carry out his
+good intentions just at present. How charming she looked in the white
+India silk, and how well she read that final quotation!
+
+"If you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be
+striven for--life for all men as for yourselves--if you can determine
+some honest and simple order of existence following those trodden ways
+of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking those quiet and withdrawn
+paths, which are peace; then, and so sanctifying wealth into
+'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily labors, your
+domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one
+magnificent harmony. You will know, then, how to build well enough; you
+will build with stone well, but with flesh better--temples not made with
+hands, but riveted of hearts, and that kind of marble, crimson-veined,
+is indeed eternal."
+
+Mr. Armstrong entirely ruined a new pair of kid gloves in applauding his
+daughter.
+
+He consigned her to Mrs. Roseveldt for the summer, and in reply to that
+lady's urgent request that he would visit them, explained that
+Narragansett Pier was fraught with so many memories that he had never
+been able to revisit it. "I own a cottage a little distance from the
+town," he said. "It was there that both my children were born. We were
+in the habit of occupying it every summer, but since my wife's death I
+have neither been able to bring myself to go there, or to rent it, and
+it has remained closed."
+
+"O papa, will you not let me have it for the summer?" Adelaide asked.
+
+"Certainly, Puss, if you want to fit it up for a studio or that sort of
+thing; but it is in a lonely wood, and you must have suitable company
+with you if you think of staying there. If you manage to change the
+place and infuse new life in it, I may bring myself to look in upon you
+there. At all events, I will join you at the Roseveldts' as soon as I
+can; just now important business detains me."
+
+The business, as we know, was the securing and putting in service of the
+new invention for heating and lighting cars. It was necessary for him to
+go to Washington to arrange for the patent, and it was on this trip that
+a clue most unexpectedly fell into his hands which seemed to lead to a
+startling discovery--a discovery which was more to him than any fortune
+which the invention could bring.
+
+It all came about through a scrap of paper which fell in his way as he
+was looking about his hotel bedroom for a piece of wrapping-paper with
+which to cover the model of the machine which he was about to carry to
+the Patent Office. He could find nothing for this purpose but an old
+newspaper which lined a bureau drawer. In this he wrapped his machine,
+and took his seat in the street-car, the package resting on his knees.
+His fellow-passengers were uninteresting, and he fixed his gaze upon
+his package. A heading to one of the shorter articles in the old
+newspaper attracted his attention.
+
+"Remarkable Case of Loss of Identity; the Doctors Puzzled."
+
+He read on aimlessly.
+
+"The physicians of ---- Hospital have an interesting case. One of their
+patients, a lady, was injured at the burning of the _Henrietta_ in the
+Sound in October last. This accident has resulted in a partial loss of
+memory, and total confusion as to her identity. The unfortunate lady is
+unable to give her own name or that of her friends. A remarkable
+circumstance in the case is the fact that, through all the horror and
+suffering of the accident, which has resulted in a partial loss of her
+reason, the poor lady kept her infant boy safely clasped in her arms,
+and the child, entirely uninjured, was rescued with her. Any person who
+believes that he recognizes a lost friend in this case is requested to
+communicate with Dr. H. C. Carver, of the ---- Hospital."
+
+Mr. Armstrong read this item over and over again. He had believed that
+his wife and child were lost in the burning of this steamer. Was it
+possible that they still lived? and what had ten years of separation
+done for them?
+
+The horse-car passed the Patent Office, but he did not see it. He sat
+staring at the newspaper until the car brought him to the end of the
+route and the conductor touched him on the shoulder. "Pardon me, sir; I
+forgot you wished to stop at the Patent Office."
+
+Mr. Armstrong woke from his reverie.
+
+"No," he exclaimed, "at the railway station. I want to catch the next
+train for New York--none until 4 o'clock? Then I _will_ go to the Patent
+Office; but, first, tell me where I can send a telegram."
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of girls near rowboat.}]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE GUESTS OF THE ELDER BROTHER.
+
+    "And man may work with the great God; yea, ours
+    This privilege; all others, how beyond!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Effectually the planet to subdue,
+    And break old savagehood in claw and tusk;
+    To draw our fellows up as with a cord
+    Of love unto their high-appointed place,
+    Till from our state barbaric and abhorred
+    We do arise unto a royal race,
+    To be the blest companions of the Lord."
+
+                                 --HENRY G. SUTTON.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of girl writing.}]
+
+
+A few days before school closed saw the Home filled for the summer.
+
+The gathering in was achieved principally by Jim, Mrs. Hetterman, and
+Vincenzo Amati.
+
+Vincenzo was an Italian of the better sort. He had lived in America long
+enough to acquire some of our ways of life. He earned a fairly good
+salary as cook, and he had kept his little family in comparative comfort
+in the best apartment which Rickett's Court had to offer, until the
+death of his pretty wife Giovanina. Since then the three little girls
+had done their best, but there was a woeful change. They became
+slatternly in appearance, and the two rooms grew dirty and cheerless.
+Worse than this, the girls affiliated with a lower class of their own
+nationality, the children of the rag-pickers in the basement, already
+referred to, who lived upon the chances of garbage barrels and beggary,
+and who spent much of their time in picking over and assorting the old
+bones, rags, paper, and other refuse dumped each night upon the floor of
+their sleeping and living room, as the result of their father's daily
+toil. These children were sickly and miserable, tainted morally as well
+as physically; and their parents, who were contented with their
+disgusting lives, were laying up money, in fact, for a return to Italy.
+But Vincenzo was not contented that his children should live in such
+fashion or have contaminating associates. He was one of the first
+applicants to place his children in the Home, paying cheerfully the
+highest sum asked for board, it having been early decided that the rates
+for each child should be proportioned to the wages of the parent.
+
+Then several children previously "farmed out" to Mrs. Grogan, whose
+mothers were servants in good families, were received on similar terms.
+
+A German woman, a Mrs. Rumple, brought her two children, saying that she
+was going West, but, as she knew not what fortune awaited her there,
+wished to place her children in the Home until she could send for them.
+She paid their board in advance for the summer, taking the money in coin
+from her petticoat pocket.
+
+"Why do you leave New York?" asked Emma Jane Anton.
+
+"It ish not de guntry. De guntry ish a very goot guntry. It ish de
+beeples," said Mrs. Rumple.
+
+"What is the matter with the people?" asked Emma Jane.
+
+"I comes de seas over a pride, mit my man Heinrich Rumple; dat is ten
+years aco alreaty. Heinrich is one very goot man; he trinks only one mug
+of lager every days; he comes every Saturday home mit his moneys, and
+oh, mine fraulein, how he luf me! Pretty soon py und py de peer ish not
+coot, and he takes one leetle glass of schnapps instead. Den de leetle
+babies come, one, tree, four, six, and it cost all de time more to live,
+and he pring all de time less moneys mit de Saturdays. But he trinks all
+de time more schnapps--one, two, tree, four glass de every days, and I
+know not how much de Sundays, and I tink he not luf me now so much as
+sometimes. Den de sickness comes, de shills and de fevers, and we all de
+time shake, shake, and first one little children die, and den anudder,
+all but Carl and de little Gracie; and mine man not haf any moneys to py
+medicines, put he haf blenty to py schnapps, and he all de time trink
+more as is goot for him, and one night he comes home and he knows not
+vat he does, and he sthrikes de leetle Gracie, and she is long time very
+sick. Mine soul! I tinks she vill die, and Heinrich Rumple--dot ish my
+man--he puts his name mit de bledge, and says he vill not any times
+trink any more, und de Gracie gets vell, und ve are all wery happy, but
+he all de same trinks again shust so pad as ever. Py und py pretty soon
+I says, 'Heinrich Rumple, I cannot sthand dis nonsense any more ain't
+it. I cannot haf dose childer all their bones broke any more; I put dem
+in one 'sylum avay from you, and I goes in dot Western land seek my
+fortune.'"
+
+"And so you left your husband?" asked Miss Anton.
+
+"Ya. I left mine man," replied the woman.
+
+"And don't you suppose he will ever reform, and send you money to come
+back to him?"
+
+"No, I s'pose so. He said to me dat day: 'Barbara, it is de beeples. I
+haf too many friends, and I trinks mit dem all de time, too often; I
+tinks if I am in de West, where I know nobodys, I would be a petter
+husband to you alretty.' And so he goed away mit me."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you and your husband are leaving New York for
+the West together?"
+
+"Ya. I left him, and he say, 'Barbara, you has right; I leaf myself,
+too.' But I cannot trust him alretty mit de chillern. I leaf dem one six
+month, to try what come of it all."
+
+"I hope your husband has indeed left his worst self behind him," said
+Emma Jane; and on suitable security being provided, the Rumple children
+were admitted.
+
+In almost all cases it was not the desperately and hopelessly pauperized
+and vicious--who were provided for by reformatories and the city
+charities--whom they helped, but the class just above them, who were
+slipping over the brink, and would surely have fallen and contributed to
+swell the dangerous classes, if not reached by this timely assistance.
+
+"Prevention is better than cure," and it was the hope of the "King's
+Daughters" to rescue the innocent children of decent and struggling
+parents before they should need reformation.
+
+Rosaria Ricos, the Cuban heiress, endowed a bed to be used for some
+child whose parents could do nothing whatever toward its support. She
+wished to have more free beds, but Miss Prillwitz showed her how much
+better it was for the parents to do something, however little it might
+be, for their children, and not be pauperized by having every feeling of
+independence and ability to care for their own taken from them.
+Exceptional circumstances might arise, when a mother out of employment,
+could wisely be helped over a great exigency, but she advised that Miss
+Ricos's "Emergency Bed" be given for short periods only. It was first
+occupied by Lovell Trimble, familiarly, but most inappropriately,
+nicknamed by the other children, Lovey Dimple. He was a homely,
+unprepossessing boy, with a pug nose and a disproportionately large
+head. His father was the unsuccessful inventor of Rickett's Court, with
+whom we are already acquainted. He spent all his former earnings in
+securing patents for various great inventions which were to make all
+their fortunes. His mother had been a shop-girl in a large dry-goods
+store, and had supported the family until long-continued standing had
+sent her to the hospital. Lovey had tried to take her place in
+supporting his father by wheeling "the machine" of a hot-flap-jack
+seller, while the flap-jack man devoted his attention to frying the
+cakes, flipping them on to a plate, and serving them up with a dab of
+butter and a lake of molasses. They did their best business winter
+nights after the theatres were out--sheltered from the snow by an awning
+or a convenient door-way, and they knew which places of amusement were
+out first, and would race at ambulance speed from Harrigan and Hart's
+to the Bowery, to secure the custom of each. Lovey liked the business,
+for, besides the pay, after the day's trade was over the flap-jack man
+let him eat whatever was left, for the batter would not keep, and he had
+always a few cakes to carry home to his father of the full brain and
+empty stomach.
+
+But one night a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
+Children, who had had his eye on the flap-jack man as employing too
+young a child for labor involving so much privation, descended upon the
+cart with a policeman; and the flap-jack man having discreetly
+absconded, they arrested Lovey in default of his employer. Miss
+Prillwitz appeared in court at Jim's request, for in some way Jim had
+heard of his friend's apprehension, and having ascertained that Mr.
+Trimble had gone upon a spree, she rashly, but not unnaturally, decided
+that nothing was to be expected from such a father, and next paid a
+visit to Mrs. Trimble, at the hospital. Learning there that there was a
+prospect of her cure, she offered Lovey the hospitality of the Emergency
+Bed until his mother should be able to work once more. This case
+established relations between the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
+to Children and the new Home; and a little girl--who had been forced to
+sell lead-pencils on the street at night by a drunken mother, though her
+father was a brakeman, who could well afford to support her--was
+committed to the Home through the agency of the Society; and the father,
+on being notified, approved the action, and paid her board regularly.
+
+One desirable result of the Home was its effect on Emma Jane's
+character. From being, as she had truly said of herself, an unlovely and
+unloving girl who disliked children, her nature sweetened by contact
+with them; and taking them one by one into her heart, it broadened and
+softened, till an expression which was almost madonna-like trembled in a
+face which had been grim and repellent. Lovey Dimple was the first to
+scale the fortress of Emma Jane's affections. He inherited his father's
+aptitude for mechanics. Among the old books and papers contributed to
+the Home were, strangely enough, some bound volumes of the _Scientific
+American_ and a few stray Patent Office reports, and over these he
+pored until his head seemed full of revolving cog-wheels and pulleys,
+and pistons, and his heart beat like a stationary engine. He was certain
+that he would be an inventor some day, like Ericsson or Edison; indeed,
+he was an inventor already, for had he not constructed unnumbered
+mill-wheels and windmills, weathercocks and whirligigs, besides taking
+to pieces the clock (which he could not get together again), and
+adapting his mother's sewing-machine to fret-saw purposes? He had
+studied every machine which he had seen in the stores, from the
+corn-sheller to the great patent mower, and believed that he understood
+the action of each. "Patent" was a word that stirred his soul, though he
+had but a dim conception of its meaning. It was something, his father
+had said, that the Government would give him if he invented a really
+useful, labor-saving machine, one which would "supply a felt want."
+
+Lovey knew what a felt hat was, but it was several days before he really
+knew what his father meant by a felt want. As soon as he had grasped the
+idea he began in earnest. "Mother Halsey," he asked, "what part of your
+work bothers you most?"
+
+Mrs. Halsey looked hot and flustered. Half an hour before this she had
+put her room and the nursery in order, had dressed the twenty-five
+children; from combing their hair and scrubbing the little ones, and
+introducing them into each separate garment, to merely tying
+apron-strings and buttoning the "behind buttons" of the older ones, and
+giving them a final dress review before starting them to the public
+school.
+
+In view of this state of affairs, it is not to be wondered at that Mrs.
+Halsey said that dressing the children gave her more bother than
+anything else. Lovey, with a pencil and paper, sat down to invent a
+machine which should do this for her. He reflected that such a machine
+would be hailed with delight in nearly every family, and if he could
+manage to sell them at a dollar apiece his fortune was assured. He took
+as his models the washing-machine, a cross-cut saw, and a corn-sheller,
+and in a few moments had made his drawing of a combination of the three
+machines. The motive power, he decided, should be furnished by the
+father of the family, who could turn the crank; and on days when this
+was not convenient the smoke from the cooking-stove could be utilized,
+the stove pipe being turned so that the smoke should strike the paddles
+of the main wheel, and the continuous stream passing across the edge of
+the wheel and up the chimney, he felt certain, would turn it. Just back
+of the machine, and above it, there was to be a great hopper into which
+the naked children could climb by means of a ladder, and where the
+clothing could be tossed promiscuously, the machine sorting it and
+robing each child properly. The cross-cut saw near the mouth would
+shingle each child's hair, and save the trouble of curling, while the
+children, completely dressed, would be poured through this spout into
+their mother's arms.
+
+  [Illustration: {Hand drawing of the invention.}]
+
+Lovey exhibited this drawing to Mrs. Halsey and to Miss Anton, and
+begged them to show it to President Harrison and obtain a patent for him
+as soon as possible; but, somehow, though the invention was received
+with applause and approbation by the entire family, nothing was ever
+done about it.
+
+The droll conceit attracted Emma Jane to the boy. "Perhaps some day he
+may become an inventor of something more practical," she said, and ever
+after watched him with increasing interest.
+
+Lovey had had great trouble with his arithmetic, and he had decided that
+a grand labor-saving machine would be one which would save a boy the
+trouble of studying. He thought that it would be a good idea to bore a
+hole in a boy's head when he was asleep, introduce the end of a funnel
+into the opening, and then with a coffee-mill grind up the usual
+text-books and stuff his brains. He made a drawing of this machine also,
+and Merry Twinkle and he came very near trying it practically, but they
+never could quite agree as to who should be the operator and who should
+be operated upon. Lovey had another brilliant inspiration. He noticed
+that his rubber ball, which had a hole in it, had a remarkable power of
+suction, and that if he held the orifice to his cheek and squeezed the
+ball, when he let go it would pucker his cheek in a way to remind one
+distantly of a kiss. He imagined that if the ball were drawn out into a
+tube, and that tube continued indefinitely the action would still be the
+same. Here was a discovery. How many separated friends and lovers would
+be glad to patronize a kissaphone, an instrument by which kisses could
+be sent and actually felt. He imagined the establishment of offices on
+both sides of the Atlantic, and the laying of a submarine tube.
+
+  [Illustration: {Hand drawing of the book-grinding machine.}]
+
+A young physician, a friend of Mrs. Roseveldt's, was visiting the Home
+just as Lovey completed this triumph. "Another invention of Lovey
+Dimple's," Emma Jane explained, as the child handed her the drawing. Dr.
+Curtiss came oftener than the sanitary condition of the Home really
+demanded, and he was well acquainted with Lovey's genius in this
+direction.
+
+"Yes, sir," promptly replied Lovey, "and I have met a felt want now,
+sure," and then he explained the kissaphone.
+
+"Try it on me, Lovey, and let me see how it feels," asked the doctor.
+
+Lovey did so, and Dr. Curtiss made a wry face. "It strikes me that is a
+very poor substitute for the genuine article," he said, "but perhaps I
+am not qualified to judge.
+
+"Now if you could have a nice looking lady operator, and could attach
+your tubing to the back of her head, and have her transmit the kiss as
+the mouthpiece of the machine, I should think your invention might be
+very popular."
+
+Lovey received this suggestion with entire good faith. "Miss Anton," he
+said, beseechingly, "won't you act as mouthpiece and let me send a kiss
+to Dr. Curtiss?" And he could never quite decide why Emma Jane, who was
+usually so kind, declined in great confusion to render him this trifling
+service.
+
+There was another little boy in the Home who made remarkable
+drawings--the one already referred to as Merry Twinkle. All of his
+family, even the female portion, were sea-faring people; his grandfather
+had been a sailor, and was now an inmate of the Sailors' Snug Harbor.
+His mother sometimes took Merry to visit him when she was back from a
+voyage, for she was stewardess on an ocean steamer. His father had been
+engineer on the same boat, but had been killed by a boiler explosion,
+and Merry had been _boarded_ hitherto with Mrs. Grogan.
+
+One evening, after a visit to his grandfather, Merry handed Emma Jane a
+series of wonderful marines.
+
+"Grandfather sang me a very old song to-day," he said. "It went this
+way:
+
+    Two gallant ships from England sailed;
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we:
+    One was the _Princess Charlotte_, the other _Prince of Wales_,
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+"This is a picture of the _Princess Charlotte_," handing Emma Jane his
+drawing.
+
+"It is night, and the captain is pacing the lonely deck; he has set his
+lantern on a small stand, and has put his hands in his pockets to keep
+them warm. The second verse goes this way:
+
+    'Up aloft! up aloft!' our gallant captain cried;
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we.
+    'Look ahead, look astern, look aweather, look alee,'
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+    'Oh, I've seen on ahead, and I've seen on astern,'
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    'And I see a ragged wind and a lofty ship at sea,'
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+    'Ahoy! ship ahoy!' our gallant captain cried,
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    'Are you a man-of-war, or a privateer?' says he;
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+    'Oh! I am no man-of-war or privateer,' says he,
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    'But I am a jolly pirate seeking for my fee,'
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+"This is the picture of the pirate ship and the fight. Captain Kidd has
+cut off the head of one of the men who boarded his ship. One of his men
+is firing a cannon, the rest of his crew may be seen between-decks.
+
+    'Twas broadside to broadside, so quickly then came we;
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    Until the _Princess Charlotte_ shot her masts into the sea,
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+    Then 'Quarter! oh, quarter!' the pirate captain cried;
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    But the quarters that we gave them were down beneath the sea,
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+"Grandfather called it the story of Captain Kidd, because he thought he
+must have been the pirate whose ship the _Princess Charlotte_ sunk.
+Captain Kidd was taken to London and hanged in chains, and I've made a
+picture of that too."
+
+Emma Jane hardly approved of the sanguinary spirit displayed by these
+drawings, but she could not expect that the boy's antecedents and
+surroundings would produce an angel. She endeavored to draw his
+attention to gentler subjects for his pencil, recited tender and loving
+ballads, and changed the current of the boy's thought and aspiration,
+realizing that here was material which, in the fostering atmosphere of
+Rickett's Court, might easily develop into an anarchist--a menace to the
+state.
+
+The Sandy girls were the last to be received from the court. The father
+had been a truckman, but a heavy box had fallen upon him, and he had
+lived in pain and misery for a year and had then died. Mrs. Sandy, by
+making men's clothing, managed to keep the wolf from the door--no, only
+snarling _at_ the door with fierce, hungry eyes. All of her six children
+helped her. The oldest girl did the ironing and finishing; the next
+child, a boy, carried the great bundles back and forth in the intervals
+of his profession as a bootblack; the second girl did all of their poor
+housework; the twins sewed on buttons and pulled out basting threads,
+and the youngest boy sold newspapers, while Mrs. Sandy herself ran the
+sewing-machine ten or twelve hours in the day.
+
+When Mrs. Hetterman asked her why she did not give up this desperate
+battle with the point of the needle, and leave her vile surroundings to
+take service in some good family, she replied that she had often thought
+of this, but she must keep a home, however poor, for the children. "The
+two boys could live at the Newsboys' Lodging-House, for they earn enough
+to support themselves, but what would I do with my four girls?"
+
+When Mrs. Hetterman assured her that there was a Home where they could
+all be cared for in cleanliness, health, and comfort, and have time for
+study and schooling and industrial education, which would fit them to
+earn their own living in future, and all for a sum quite within the
+means of any domestic, she brought her cramped hand down with a heavy
+blow upon the sewing-machine.
+
+"I don't mind if I break every bone in yer body, ye Satan's grindstone!"
+she said to the machine; "it's the last time that Mary Sandy'll grind
+soul and body thin at ye, praise be to a delivering Providence!"
+
+Mrs. Hastings, one of the managers of the Home, had had great trouble
+with incompetent and ungrateful servants, and she gladly took the
+faithful Scotch woman into her family.
+
+These, then, were the guests of the Elder Brother, for that first
+summer, from Rickett's Court:
+
+    1 Jim Halsey, American.
+    3 Hettermans, English.
+    3 Amatis, Italian.
+    4 Babies from Mrs. Grogan's, Irish.
+    2 Carl and Gracie Rumple, German.
+    1 Lovey Dimple, American.
+    1 Merry Twinkle, American.
+    4 Sandy Girls, Scotch.
+
+In all, nineteen children transplanted from the filth and vice, hunger
+and ignorance, of the court, and six more from other localities as bad,
+to sweet, wholesome surroundings. It was thought best that those
+children of school age should attend a public school to avoid
+"institutionizing" them; and for this end they wore no uniform, and
+mingled freely with other well-behaved children in the park under Mrs.
+Halsey's motherly supervision. Their birthdays were celebrated with a
+little party, with cake and candles, and everything was done to
+cultivate a home-like feeling. They drew their books like other children
+from the children's new free circulating library, and were taught to
+guard them carefully. They had a sewing society--in reality a
+sewing-class--where boys and girls were alike taught to mend and darn,
+to sew on buttons, and to make button-holes--all but the Sandy children,
+who, it was judged, had served a long enough apprenticeship in this
+department, and were sent to Mrs. Hetterman to learn how to cook.
+
+Miss Prillwitz was anxious that the boys should have industrial
+training, and brought the matter before the board of managers, who
+entirely agreed with her, and voted that a subscription sent them by Mr.
+Armstrong be used to secure a suitable teacher.
+
+It was just at this time that a letter was received from Adelaide
+announcing that she had fitted up the cottage which her father had
+placed at her disposal, and would like to have Mrs. Halsey occupy it
+with the youngest children for the heated term. Miss Prillwitz was
+delighted. Jim was already at the Pier with the Roseveldts, and it would
+be pleasant for his mother to be near him, and a fine thing for the
+little girls and the babies. This would leave the nursery vacant, and it
+could be fitted up as a workshop for the boys. She had a chat with Mrs.
+Halsey the day before she left, and asked her if she knew of anyone who
+could teach the boys carpentry.
+
+"Mr. Trimble, Lovey's father, is a perfect jack-of-all-trades," replied
+Mrs. Halsey.
+
+Miss Prillwitz was doubtful. "Mr. Trimble is a drunkard," she said.
+
+"Not irreclaimable, I am sure," said Mrs. Halsey. "He was a sober man
+when I knew him. Despair alone could have driven him to drink. I wish
+you would send and ask him to call and see you."
+
+So a letter was sent, and none too soon, for affairs were now at their
+worst with Stephen Trimble.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+WITH THE DYNAMITERS.
+
+    "While we range with Science, glorying in the time,
+    City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime;
+    Where among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied feet,
+    Crime and hunger cast out maidens by the thousand on the street;
+    Where the master scrimps his haggard seamstress of her daily bread,
+    And a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead."
+
+                                                              --_Anon._
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of the anarchist of Rickett's Court.}]
+
+
+The anarchist of Rickett's Court, under whose influence the inventor had
+fallen, was a thoroughly bad man, and the writer has no sympathy to
+waste upon him or his methods, but with his deluded and desperate victim
+we should all sympathize.
+
+Stephen Trimble had brooded over his troubles and wrongs until he was
+half crazed, and the men for whom he worked added fuel to the flame.
+
+"Why should you be so precious careful of the rich?" his employer said.
+"What have the rich ever done for you? They've murdered your wife, as I
+make out, insisting on her standing all day long, when she was not able
+to do so, and might have done her work just as well sitting. They've
+sent your innocent little boy to jail along with common pickpockets.
+They've robbed you of your money--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Stephen Trimble; "you've said that over and over, until I
+believe it, though I don't know why I should take your word any quicker
+than that of anyone else. You've made much of your kindness in telling
+me, though I don't see what good it does me, unless you are willing to
+go into court and testify for me as to what you've seen."
+
+The men shook their heads. "No going into court for us! We want to keep
+as far away from the law as possible."
+
+"Then I don't see but you are as much against me as the rest. I've
+worked with you long enough to know what your aims are; your machine is
+now in working order, ready to blow up the finest house, the largest
+audience, in New York, church or armory, bank-vault or prison; and if
+all you say is true, you may blow away, for all I care, and blow
+yourselves up with the rest, and me too. If the world is the Sodom and
+Gomorrah it seems to me, we have Bible warrant for its destruction. My
+work for you is done; give me my money, and we are through with each
+other."
+
+"See here, Trimble," said the anarchist, "we have already paid you
+fifteen dollars, and you ought not to be too close with us."
+
+"You promised me a hundred; do you mean to say--"
+
+"Don't be so touchy; what I mean to say is this: We cannot help you by
+testifying in court, as you suggested; it wouldn't do you any good if we
+did; but find out the man who has wronged you, and we will help you to
+your revenge. In a few days our society will begin its operations. We
+are out of funds now, but there will be a new deal soon. We begin with
+the banking-house of Roseveldt, Gold & Co., and as soon as the
+fireworks are over we will be rich enough, and you shall have a fair
+share."
+
+Stephen Trimble sprang to his feet. "I thought you were anarchists! do
+you acknowledge that you are common burglars?"
+
+"No, my friend, we acknowledge nothing of the kind. Be good enough to
+attend to your own business."
+
+"It is time that I did," replied the inventor; "I have neglected it long
+enough."
+
+Stephen Trimble walked out of the building. He had three things to
+do--to discover the landlord of Rickett's Court; to see his wife for the
+last time; and to free his little son, whom he believed to be still in
+prison.
+
+There was quite a commotion in the court; some men were putting up a
+fire-escape. "What ever put it into Solomon Meyer's head to do that?" he
+asked.
+
+"'Tain't Solomon Meyer," a workman replied; "it's the landlord himself.
+He ordered it done some time ago, and was mad as a hornet because Meyer
+hadn't attended to it."
+
+"See here, my friend," said Stephen Trimble, "if you know who the
+landlord of this tenement is, you will do me a favor by directing me to
+him."
+
+"Armstrong's the man--Alexander Armstrong, President of the ---- R. R.
+Co.; his office is over the banking-house of Roseveldt & Gold, No. ----
+Broadway. He rooms there too, when he's in town--back of his office."
+
+Stephen Trimble stood very still for a moment. The information which he
+thought would be so difficult to obtain had come to his door. The
+vengeance which he had fancied might take long days and nights of
+plotting, hung now over the man who had wronged him. He need do
+absolutely nothing, and Alexander Armstrong was doomed. He must
+inevitably be killed in the explosion and conflagration which was
+planned to cover the robbery of the bank beneath him.
+
+They had changed places, and the landlord of Rickett's Court was his
+victim. One-third of his task was accomplished. He walked now in the
+direction of the hospital, and asked to see his wife. He hardly expected
+to be admitted, but he would at least make the attempt. To his surprise
+he was shown into a cheerful parlor, and Mrs. Trimble was sent for. She
+came down, looking pale, but happy.
+
+"O Stephen," she cried, "it has been so long since I have seen you! but
+never mind, I am almost well now, and we shall soon be together again.
+The doctor tells me I may leave next week. They have been so very kind
+to me here, it has been like Heaven. The rich are thoughtful and
+generous to provide such places for the poor. I am so grateful; and I
+have rested so that I shall be able to take hold with new courage."
+
+He listened in a stupefied way, and seeing that he was not inclined to
+speak, she ran on, "And isn't it beautiful about Lovey?"
+
+This stung him to speech. "Beautiful? To be arrested and sent to
+prison?"
+
+"Why, no, dear. Haven't you heard? A sweet, kind woman--Miss
+Prillwitz--called, and told me that he is being cared for at a little
+Home, for nothing, Stephen; and they will keep him there until we are on
+our feet again. If that isn't brotherly love, I don't know what is. It
+makes me believe that there is such a thing as Christianity, after all."
+
+Still Stephen Trimble was silent. She was happy, and he would not dispel
+her illusion, at least not now. Evidently there were _some_ good people
+in New York, and she had experienced their kindness. He had expected to
+find her suffering from neglect and cruelty. He would not have been
+surprised if she had died. He could hardly believe that a _charity
+patient_ had received such attention. That their little son had been
+also tenderly cared for passed his belief, but he would see for himself,
+and he took the address of the Home. He bade his wife good-bye gently.
+"I shall come back to you very soon, Stephen," she said, "and things
+will go better then." He could not tell her of his deep despair. He
+tried to smile, but only succeeded in giving her a pitiful, longing
+look. He walked on toward the Home of the Elder Brother, sure that its
+name was a lie, and that he would find Lovey abused. But he was met at
+the door by Mrs. Halsey, whom he had known at Rickett's Court, who
+called his little son to come down and see his papa, and who told him of
+the plan of which she had just been speaking to Miss Prillwitz. And a
+moment later Lovey, well dressed, clean, fat, and jolly, tumbled into
+his arms with a cry of rapture.
+
+"Do you want to come home, Lovey?" he asked.
+
+"No, daddy, I want you to come here. Please, Mrs. Halsey, mayn't he
+come?"
+
+"We would like to have him very much to teach our boys the use of tools
+for a few hours every day. It is just what I have been telling your
+father."
+
+"A week ago," said Stephen Trimble, "your offer would have been heaven
+to me; now I am afraid it is too late."
+
+"Don't say so," urged Mrs. Halsey; and she called Miss Prillwitz to talk
+the matter over with him. Miss Prillwitz's first argument was to ask him
+to luncheon. He ate the nourishing food--the first good meal that had
+passed his lips for many days--and he said, as he bade them farewell, "I
+will come to you if I can, and teach your boys mechanics; if I don't
+come it will be because something has happened to me, and if anything
+happens to me I want to ask you to lend a helping hand to my wife--and
+may God bless you." A new impulse stirred within his heart, gratitude,
+which he had not felt toward any human being for years. He was softened,
+and tears stood in his eyes. He could almost forgive the landlord of
+Rickett's Court now.
+
+An impulse to see the man, though not with any hope of gaining anything
+from the interview, came over him. It was still early, and he walked
+down Broadway to the building designated, and looked into the bank. How
+wealthy and strong it looked, with the clerks busily at work calling off
+fabulous sums to one another, and handling the piles of bills and coin!
+The safe-doors stood open, and he could see the great bolts and bars,
+and complicated combinations; and he smiled scornfully as he thought how
+easily the little machine upon which he had been working would open them
+all.
+
+A policeman saw him staring in at the window, and asked him his
+business.
+
+"I want to find Mr. Armstrong, the R. R. president."
+
+"Then you must go up-stairs. There is the door."
+
+He walked up and saw another room, with gentlemen sitting in easy
+attitudes in comfortable chairs. He asked a clerk for Mr. Armstrong, and
+was told that he was in Washington, on business.
+
+"Business connected with a patent?"
+
+"Yes; I believe so. What did you want of him?"
+
+"Nothing. Say only that Stephen Trimble called."
+
+"What! is this Stephen Trimble?" exclaimed a hearty voice behind him;
+and, turning, the inventor saw an earnest but kindly looking man, who
+had just entered carrying a hand-bag.
+
+"That is Mr. Armstrong," said the clerk, and Stephen Trimble stared
+fascinated.
+
+"Step into my private office," said the financier, "I am glad you have
+come. It is always better to transact business at first hand, and I was
+sorry you could not come when Mr. Meyer asked you to do so."
+
+"I do not know what you mean, sir."
+
+"Did not Solomon Meyer tell you that I wanted you to call, with
+reference to the four thousand dollars still unpaid on our patent
+transaction?"
+
+"Solomon Meyer told me that I was too late, and that you did not care
+for my invention."
+
+Mr. Armstrong sprang from his chair. "And he never gave you my check for
+a thousand dollars?"
+
+"Never; though I heard that he had it;" and Stephen Trimble related what
+the anarchist had told him.
+
+Mr. Armstrong unlocked a safe, and took from it the contract in regard
+to the patent. "Is not this your signature?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir: I never saw the paper."
+
+"Then Solomon Meyer is a swindler."
+
+"Very likely, sir."
+
+"Go home; say nothing, and I will have him arrested. Stop--a little
+money may not come amiss to you just now. Here is fifty dollars on our
+account. I will see you again to-morrow, but I have an important
+appointment now."
+
+"I don't know how to thank you, sir, or what to say," said Stephen
+Trimble, utterly confounded.
+
+"There are no thanks due; on the contrary, I owe you a small matter of
+five thousand dollars--perhaps more--for it seems you have not signed
+this paper, and perhaps may not be willing to sell your invention for so
+small a sum."
+
+As he spoke, the confidential clerk tapped at the door and remarked,
+"Dr. Carver, sir, of ---- Hospital, says you telegraphed to him from
+Washington to meet you here."
+
+Instantly Stephen Trimble saw that Mr. Armstrong had forgotten his
+existence; his entire expression changed from kindly benevolence to
+intense eagerness and anxiety.
+
+"What has he got to worry about, I wonder!" thought the inventor, as he
+gave place to the physician, and descended the stairs. Force of habit
+led his steps toward Rickett's Court, but he walked like a different
+man, and the workman who had seen his cringing, crouching manner as he
+slouched out of the court that morning, did not recognize the man who
+entered with buoyant, determined step. The change had begun when he left
+the door of the Home of the Elder Brother. There his faith in his kind
+had been restored. Had the good fortune of the afternoon befallen him
+before that experience he could not have believed it, or the stupendous
+change would have driven him insane. But it had come upon him,
+mercifully, by degrees, and he was rapturously happy, and clearer in
+mind than he had been for months. It was as if a great and crushing
+weight had been lifted from heart and brain. Suddenly, as he crossed the
+threshold, he remembered the infernal-machine. The anarchists would
+probably use it that night, and Alexander Armstrong, his benefactor, was
+doomed. He wondered how he could ever have been so mad as to aid them.
+There was only one thing to be done: he must undo his work, render the
+contrivance harmless, and save his friend. He knocked at the door; there
+was no answer; the men were probably out. He tried to open it, but it
+was locked. He could easily have picked the lock, but people were coming
+and going. The new fire-escape suggested itself to his mind, and he
+decided to go to his room and, as it was already dark, descend by it to
+the workroom. This resolution was quickly accomplished. He lighted a
+candle and was just reaching toward the machine, when the door opened
+and the anarchists entered.
+
+"What are you doing? I thought you had finished your work," said his
+former employer.
+
+"No, I have not finished," replied Stephen Trimble, nervously taking up
+a tool and beginning to remove a screw.
+
+"You are tampering with the machine; put it down!" and the man seized it
+angrily.
+
+"Let go!" shouted Stephen Trimble, "you touch it at your peril; the
+button is under your hand!"
+
+The warning came too late--there was a blinding flash, then a crash as
+though the heavens had fallen; then blackness and silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE KING'S DAUGHTERS IN THE COUNTRY.
+
+    "Her father sent her in his land to dwell,
+      Giving to her a work that must be done;
+    And since the king loves all his people well,
+      Therefore she, too, cares for them, every one.
+    And when she stoops to lift from want and sin,
+    The brighter shines her royalty therein.
+    She walks erect through dangers manifold,
+      While many sink and fail on either hand;
+    She dreads not summer's heat nor winter's cold,
+      For both are subject to the king's command.
+    She need not be afraid of anything,
+    Because she is the daughter of a king."
+
+                                            _Anon._
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of woman sitting on fence.}]
+
+
+While all these sad things were happening Winnie and I were enjoying a
+happy summer at my beloved home in the blessed country.
+
+It is not to be imagined that Winnie dropped all her wild ways and
+became a saint at once. She had been sobered by her sad experience in
+plotting and scheming for the little prince; but since her full
+forgiveness her elastic spirits rose to the surface, and her cheerful
+disposition asserted itself in many playful pranks and merry, tricksy
+ways.
+
+We did not forget our promise to work for the Elder Brother, but for a
+time we did nothing but rest fully and completely.
+
+She was delighted with the country. The fresh air and free, wholesome
+life acted upon her like wine. She climbed walls and trees, leaped
+brooks, whistled, shouted, rode on the hay-carts, helped in the kitchen
+and in the garden, drove Dobbin about the country roads, went berrying,
+and was a prime favorite with all the boys, though I regret to say that
+at first, perhaps on this very account, the country girls were a little
+jealous and envious of her. But not a whit cared Winnie for this. She
+tramped over the fields and through marshes, with her botanist's can
+swung across her shoulder by a shawl-strap, searching for specimens. She
+boated and bathed, taking like a duck to the water, and learning to swim
+more quickly than any other person I had ever known. She loved to work
+in our old-fashioned garden, pulled weeds diligently, and seemed to
+love to feel the fresh earth with her fingers. Our flowers were all such
+as had grown there in my grandmother's time. It seemed to me that she
+must have modeled it on Mary Howitt's garden, for we had the very
+flowers which she describes in her poems.
+
+    "And there, before the little bench,
+      O'ershadowed by the bower,
+    Grow southernwood and lemon thyme,
+      Sweet-pea and gillyflower;
+
+    "And pinks and clove carnations,
+      Rich-scented, side by side;
+    And at each end a holly-hock,
+      With an edge of London-pride.
+
+    "I had marigolds and columbines,
+      And pinks all pinks exceeding;
+    I'd a noble root of love-in-a-mist,
+      And plenty of love-lies-bleeding."
+
+There was a bed of herbs, too, which my mother cherished--sweet-marjoram
+and summer savory, sage, rue, and rosemary.
+
+Winnie took a great interest in all of these plants. The country girls
+thought it odd that she should care for the wild plants which were so
+common in our vicinity, not knowing Winnie's enthusiasm for botany, and
+her desire to make a large collection to show the princess. An unusually
+ignorant girl met her on one of her botanizing expeditions, and Winnie
+asked her if maiden-hair grew in our region. "Of course it does!" the
+girl replied, indignantly; "you didn't s'pose we all wore wigs, did
+you?"
+
+It was some time before Winnie could control herself and explain that
+the maiden-hair of which she was in search was a kind of fern.
+
+"Do you want it for a charm?" the girl asked.
+
+"No," replied Winnie; "what will it do?"
+
+"If you put it in your shoe and say the right kind of a charm, you will
+understand the language of the birds."
+
+"Then I shall certainly try it," said Winnie, "for that would be great
+fun."
+
+Another day mother brought the same girl into the garden, where Winnie
+was at work, to give her some vegetables.
+
+"Did you try the charm?" the girl asked.
+
+"Yes, indeed," Winnie replied.
+
+"And did it work?"
+
+"Oh, famously! There is a wood-pecker in the old tree just outside of my
+window, and he wakes me by his drumming every morning. This morning I
+understood for the first time just what he has been saying. It was 'Wake
+up, wake up! little rascal, little rascal, little rascal!'"
+
+The girl stared at Winnie in open-mouthed astonishment. "You must be a
+witch," she said.
+
+"That's what they call me--Witch Winnie."
+
+They were standing beside mother's bed of herbs, and the frightened girl
+pulled up a stalk of rue and held it at arm's length, as though it were
+a protection. "Don't come nigh me! don't work any of your tricks on me!"
+she said.
+
+Winnie explained that she was only in sport, but the girl was only half
+reassured, and still clung to the spray of rue.
+
+Miss Prillwitz afterward explained that rue, like vervain, was supposed
+to "hinder witches of their will," probably from the fact that it was
+once used in the Church of Rome, bound in fagots, as a holy-water
+sprinkler, and is spoken of in old writings as the "Herb of Grace."
+
+In this way Witch Winnie's name was revived again, and was applied to
+her by her new friends, even though they did not believe in her uncanny
+powers.
+
+The princess came to us later in the season for a visit of a month, and
+we came to know her intimately and love her dearly. She brought five of
+the boys from the Home with her, for mother was pleased with the
+enterprise, and father had said that he guessed it wouldn't break him to
+give those city children a taste of what the country was like, and if we
+women folk could stand them he supposed he could.
+
+Winnie took the boys in charge and led them off with her on her long
+tramps and to row in the safe, flat-bottomed boat. They had great sport,
+crabbing, bathing, swimming, and fishing, and their vacation did them a
+world of good. These were the boys for whom the princess had planned the
+industrial classes, but Mr. Trimble lay at the hospital injured, it was
+thought, unto death by the explosion at Rickett's Court, and that plan
+was postponed for the present.
+
+The boys attracted much attention in the Sabbath-school and wherever
+they appeared. Many questions were asked, and Miss Prillwitz was
+requested to explain the plan of the Home, in public and in private at
+the sewing society, and at the Fourth of July picnic.
+
+We were not all ignorant country bumpkins at Scup Harbor, and we were
+not all poor. There were plenty of farmers, who dressed coarsely and
+fared plainly, who had bank accounts that would have bought out many a
+New Yorker of fashion. They were not selfish either. I have heard
+somewhere of a stingy deacon who, on hearing of a case of heart-rending
+distress, prayed for it in this wise:
+
+"O Lord, 'giving doth not impoverish Thee, neither doth withholding
+enrich Thee,' but giving doth impoverish us, and withholding doth enrich
+us; therefore do Thou attend to this case, good Lord; do _Thou_ attend
+to this case."
+
+Now this story may not be exaggerated, but I can only say that he did
+not live in our section of the country. Our deacons were soft-hearted,
+though horny-handed men, and though they had the poor of their own
+church and vicinity to look out for, and performed that office well,
+they decided that Scup Harbor was rich enough to extend a helping hand
+to New York, since New York was either too poor or too hard-hearted to
+care for its own.
+
+Accordingly a collection was taken up in church that made Miss
+Prillwitz's heart sing for joy; and the Ladies' Benevolent Sewing
+Society voted to have a box of clothing ready for the Home by cold
+weather.
+
+The grown people were not the only ones interested; there were girls
+among us of gentle manners and hearts, and who were far better educated
+than Milly Roseveldt. Some of these heard of Miss Prillwitz's eminence
+as a scientist, and helped me to organize a class for her in Natural
+History, and the remainder of the summer took on an aspect of mental
+improvement as well as of physical recreation. Miss Prillwitz mapped out
+a course of work and reading for each of us to carry on after her return
+to the city, and the circle arranged to meet at the homes of the
+members, and read essays and discuss different scientific subjects.
+
+Winnie was surprised at the amount of intelligence and information
+displayed, and soon acquired a sincere respect for country girls. It was
+at one of our meetings after the princess had returned to New York that
+she noticed that Ethel Stanley, the daughter of a wealthy dairy farmer,
+wore a little silver cross with a purple ribbon knot.
+
+"Has it come here, too?" she asked; "are you a King's Daughter?"
+
+"Oh yes," replied Ethel; "I belong to the Helpful Ten, and there is a
+Cheer-Up Ten at the Corners. What do you call your link?"
+
+"The Seek-and-to-Save Ten," Winnie replied; and she explained the
+mission of our Circle, and how we hoped to help the Elder Brother in his
+search for the little lost princes. Ethel was delighted. "I think we
+might help you," she said; "we are Methodists, but we don't mind working
+for you if you will let us. I suppose you are all Episcopalians in New
+York?"
+
+"Oh dear, no!" exclaimed Winnie, "we are everything; Tib is a
+Congregationalist, and Emma Jane is a Unitarian, Adelaide is
+Presbyterian; 'Trude Middleton is a Dutch Reformer; Rosario Ricos is
+Catholic; Puss Seligman is a Jewess; Little Breeze comes from
+Philadelphia Quaker stock, though she is so gay you wouldn't think it;
+Cynthia Vaughn is a Baptist; Milly Roseveldt is the only Episcopalian;
+and I'm a--heathen."
+
+"No you are not," I protested; "you are a follower of the Elder Brother,
+Winnie, and that means you are a Christian." She gave my hand a little
+squeeze, and Ethel exclaimed, "I should think your society would go to
+pieces; I don't see how you can work together with such different
+views."
+
+"That depends," said Winnie, thoughtfully, "whether in the future we all
+pull in different directions, and tear our charity to pieces between us,
+or whether each of us uses all her force to bring in people from our
+different church organizations to help in the work, and make it widely
+and purely undenominational. I mean to write a little parable on that
+subject some day, for I feel full of it."
+
+"Do!" we all exclaimed; "write it for the next meeting at Ethel's."
+
+"I don't know; it would hardly be a scientific essay, you know."
+
+"I am not sure about that," replied Ethel; "I think it might be called a
+scientific method of carrying on charitable enterprises. Please write
+it, and I will invite our Ten, and the Cheer-up Ten from the Corners,
+and the Loyal Legion, and the Missionary Society, and all the girls I
+know generally."
+
+The plan was carried into effect, and at the next meeting Winnie read us
+this fable, which she called
+
+A FISH STORY.[A]
+
+[A] NOTE.--This allegory was first published in _Good Company_, of 1880.
+
+"Once upon a time the fishes and salt-water animals down in the bay
+decided to organize a Home for Sea-urchins.
+
+"The circumstances of the remarkable agitation which suddenly spread
+among the peaceful denizens of the deep became known to me by my
+inadvertently getting a spray of sea-fern in one of my bathing-sandals.
+I suddenly discovered that I could understand the voices of the little
+creatures that I had so often watched from Tib's father's dory, or
+sported among when I took my sea-bath. I lay in the dory one afternoon,
+looking down into the clear depth of the water, watching the tricks and
+manners of a sea-anemone, and thinking how similar her behavior was to
+that of a reigning belle at a popular watering-place, when it dawned
+upon me that she _was_ the belle of the cove, surrounded by a circle of
+obsequious masculine admirers, prominent among whom were the
+hermit-crab, the octopus, the jelly-fish, the lobster, the conger-eel,
+the king-iyo, and the stickleback--"
+
+"Now, Winnie," I objected, "you never saw an octopus or a king-iyo in
+our cove, and you can't make me believe it!"
+
+"My dear Tib," Winnie replied, "didn't I tell you this was a fish story?
+Pray do not interrupt again. The animals that I have mentioned were all
+aspirants to the hand of the Sea-Anemone, and the first remarks which I
+overheard and comprehended were her confidences to her friend the
+Gold-Fish, in which she intimated that she considered the Jelly-Fish the
+most amiable, the Lobster the richest, the King-iyo (a titled foreigner
+from Japan) the most _distingué_, and the Conger-Eel the most polite;
+but, after all, the Hermit-Crab was really the best, and she liked him
+more than any of the others, with the exception of the Octopus, who was
+so fascinatingly wicked.
+
+"The next time that I looked into the cove was during a meeting of the
+managers of the Sea-Urchins' Home.
+
+"The Sea-Anemone had just been unanimously elected to the presidency on
+account of her popularity.
+
+"The Cuttle-Fish had been created secretary in recognition of his
+remarkable facility in throwing ink, while all official documents were
+stamped by the Seal.
+
+"The Electric-Eel was made visiting physician; and the Shark, surgeon
+and lecturer on vivisection.
+
+"The Hermit-Crab, who had been detailed to make observations on the
+_modus_ in which such societies were carried on among human beings, made
+the following report:
+
+"MISS PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-FISHES:
+
+"Your committee have made a careful investigation of the subject
+assigned them, and agree that while man's faculties have not been
+cultivated to so high an extent as those pertaining to fishes, he is
+still a moral and intellectual animal. We believe that if he were put in
+possession of the advantages accorded to our race, and were submerged in
+salt-water for several centuries, his brain would undoubtedly become so
+pickled as to reduce it in size and intensify its quality. Favorable
+conditions of brain-pickling are all that is necessary, in our opinion,
+to develop some of the most advanced specimens of this _genus_ into a
+low form of _mollusk_.
+
+"The opinions of the Hermit-Crab were considered a marvel of liberality
+and generous thinking. He proceeded to explain the society-forming
+instinct of the human race as a professor of our own species might
+lecture on the concretions of deep-sea corals, and continued swimmingly,
+as fishes usually do, until a white-whiskered Sea-Lion begged leave to
+make a motion, in the language of a motto of conduct which he had often
+heard shouted to seamen by their commanders: 'When you are in the navy,
+do as the knaves do.' 'Let us,' he added, 'act upon this principle of
+conformity, by doing amongst men as the many do, and immediately
+organize a fair to meet the salaries of our officers and pay the debt on
+the society building.'
+
+"'But none of us need salaries,' objected the Lobster, 'and we have no
+debt.'
+
+"'As to declining a salary because I do not need it,' replied the
+Sea-Lion, 'I can only say that I find no such example set by the race
+whose customs we are following; and without a debt, or at least a
+deficit in the accounts of our treasurer, the respectability of our
+society may well be questioned.'
+
+"A committee of Codfish aristocrats was at once authorized to secure a
+debt of magnificent proportions, at whatever cost, and the salary of
+each member of the society was set according to his own estimates.
+Frequent meetings of the managers were appointed for the purpose of
+drawing the salaries, and as the care of the Sea-Urchins could with the
+utmost ingenuity be made to take up but a small portion of the time,
+each of the managers seized upon these meetings as opportunities to air
+their own particular opinions. The Lobster, who was something of an
+autocrat, and had determined from the outset to run the concern, took
+the entire business management into his own claws, greatly incensing the
+ladies on the debt committee by intimating that they knew nothing of
+business, and that his office-boy, the Craw-Fish, could have devised a
+debt of far nobler proportions. The King-iyo, or three-tailed fish of
+Japan, trusted that the philosophy of the Orient was to have its full
+recognition in the principles of the society, and that the Sea-Urchins
+would be instructed in Buddhism. The Octopus, who had been one of the
+most desperate characters in the bay, carried his change of heart so far
+as to assert that no one could be considered as religious, or even
+respectable, who had not been extremely wicked, and urged that only the
+most depraved and hopeless young Sea-Urchins be admitted into the Home.
+While the Octopus raved over essential wickedness, and the King-iyo of
+philosophy, the Jelly-Fish dabbled in humanitarianism, and asserted that
+brains were not to be tolerated, thought was to be considered a crime,
+and a heart the only organ necessary for the spiritual body. All books
+on theology and philosophy should be sold for old paper, and the
+proceeds invested in charlotte russe for tramps and criminals. Every
+measure in the least savoring of logic or common sense must be vetoed.
+
+"The Stickleback, who luxuriated in controversy, and in making himself
+generally disagreeable, summed up the remarks of those preceding him as
+the merest vaporing of idiocy, and denounced every system of belief held
+by his fellow-managers, before hearing it, with the same impartiality.
+Antagonism, he asserted, was the only rational attitude for any fish
+under all circumstances. The Conger-Eel, managing to gain possession of
+the floor, endeavored to pour oil on the troubled waters. He was sure
+that if the heterogeneous, and even antipathetic, ideas held by the
+different managers were only presented in writing, they would, properly
+mingled, blend as sweetly as lemon juice and loaf sugar in a cooling
+summer libation. The Cuttle-Fish, was unanimously elected chairman of a
+committee for eliciting and reconciling the opinions of the managers in
+a printed constitution. He opened the ball with a statement of his own
+views, which he passed to each member in turn, asking them to add their
+several criticisms and corrections. When the paper had gone the rounds
+it was read in open session by the Hermit-Crab, who summed up everything
+that had gone before, in a paper entitled 'A Historical Review of the
+Documents, beginning with the King-iyo's criticism of Mr.
+Snapping-Turtle's attack on Mr. Shrimp's vindication of Mr. Jelly-Fish's
+Apology of Mr. Conger-Eel's Deprecatory Answer to Mr. Lobster's satire
+on Mr. Stickleback's Challenge to Mr. Octopus's Dogmatic Denunciation of
+Mr. Shark's strictures on Miss Sea-Anemone's conciliatory explanation of
+Mr. Cuttle-Fish's exposition of the views of the society.'
+
+"Of course this paper satisfied no one, and the meeting plunged at once
+into a whirlpool of ruinous discussion.
+
+"The Stickleback bristled his spines and glared angrily about him,
+shrieking, 'Antagonism! Nihilism!'
+
+"'Fanaticism, Sensationalism!' yelled the Octopus.
+
+"'Dogmatism! Absolutism!' replied the Lobster, hurling clams about him
+in the belief that they were works on combative theology.
+
+"'Asceticism! Monasticism!' groaned the Hermit-Crab, retreating into a
+pipe bowl and blocking the entrance with a pearl-oyster.
+
+"'Humanitarianism!' warbled the Jelly-Fish, as he choked three
+sea-melons and a quart of sea-mushrooms into the mouth of a sick
+Grampus.
+
+"'Paganism! Barbarianism!' retorted the King-iyo, punching the
+Jelly-Fish.
+
+"'Optimism! Universalism!' sweetly chanted the Conger-Eel, but as he
+spoke the entire convention broke up and floated away, leaving the
+little Sea-Urchins crying for their supper, and only a debt of colossal
+proportions to mark the site of the proposed Home."
+
+"And how do you propose to avoid the fate of the Fish Society?" Ethel
+asked, after the storm of applause which followed Winnie's paper had
+subsided.
+
+"By recognizing, from the first, that we unite only for this special
+purpose, and that we all have very varied and contradictory opinions,
+which we will make no attempt to reconcile or ventilate. I think we can
+make our very differences an element of strength, if it is acknowledged
+from the outset that we are to be different. As Corresponding Secretary
+of our Ten I have received the most encouraging reports from the girls.
+They are all working hard for the Home, and all working in different
+ways, and each seems to think that the Home belongs to her
+individually--as it really does--and that her organization is
+responsible for its success. I am sure that when we next meet, the girls
+will accept Mrs. Middleton's proposition to have the Home of the Elder
+Brother entered as one of the Dutch Reformed charities, and I hope that
+each of the other girls will take measures to have it recognized as one
+of the charities of her particular church organization. I have a letter
+from Little Breeze, saying that the Friends' Meeting in Philadelphia, of
+which her mother is a member, propose to own a bed in the Home; and Puss
+Seligman writes that the Hebrew Charitable Association, of which her
+brother is Vice-President, have voted to hold themselves responsible
+for every child of their race whom we entertain. Cynthia Vaughn reports
+that the Church of ----burgh, Pennsylvania, will keep us in coal on
+condition that a delegation of the children go to the Baptist
+Sunday-school. Miss Prillwitz has already divided the Home into
+detachments, sending the children, as far as possible, to the churches
+which their mothers prefer, and there is a strong division of Baptists."
+
+"I think," said Ethel, "that our Methodist Church would like to have a
+share in the work. I am sure that father will be glad to supply you with
+milk and butter as his own private subscription."
+
+The President of the Loyal Legion then spoke up, and proposed that their
+organization furnish barrels and make the rounds of the farms in
+procession, soliciting apples and potatoes, which they would freight to
+the Home, on condition that a Loyal Legion Temperance Society be
+organized among the children of the Elder Brother, to be considered as a
+branch of the Scup Harbor Legion.
+
+The Cheer-up Ten from the Corners held a brief meeting in the orchard,
+and returned to report that they had decided to adopt one of our
+children to clothe. They desired that the child of the poorest parents
+be assigned them, and promised that if the proper measurements were
+sent, they would keep it respectably dressed in garments of their own
+make.
+
+I suggested little Georgie, a child rescued from Mrs. Grogan, whose
+mother could only furnish fifty cents a week from her scanty earnings
+for his support; and our convention broke up for that day, after
+partaking of strawberries and cream, singing a good old hymn, slightly
+altered for the occasion by Winnie.
+
+    "Here we raise our Ebenezer,
+      Hither by God's grace we come;
+    And we hope, by His good pleasure,
+      Long we may remain a Home."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTE.--The Messiah Home, 4 Rutherford Place, New York, a charity founded
+for children by children, whose beautiful work suggested to the author
+this simple story, has been greatly helped by circles of the King's
+Daughters, several of whom have adopted children to clothe after the
+manner of the Cheer-up Ten. The writer commends this work to any other
+circles of the King's Daughters eager to do the work of the Elder
+Brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY.
+
+    "When smale foules maken melodie,
+    That sleepen alle night with open eye,
+    Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages."
+
+       _Chaucer, Prologue to "Canterbury Tales."_
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of landscape.}]
+
+
+It must not be imagined that our entire summer was given over to works
+of charity and mercy. There were times when we quite forgot the Home of
+the Elder Brother in merry romping and girlish enjoyment; and one of the
+pleasantest experiences of that season was an excursion in two
+tin-peddler's carts, or rather, in two carts belonging to one
+tin-peddler; a pilgrimage which was undertaken solely and simply as a
+lark, and most successfully realized its aims.
+
+Toward the end of June, while Miss Prillwitz was still with us, father
+fell into a state of body or mind which he called "the malary." It was
+the fashion for everyone in our region to dub every disease with which
+they might be afflicted, from indigestion to inherited insanity,
+malaria; and the prescription given by our wise old physician for this
+disease of many manifestations was always the same.
+
+"I don't know exactly what has caused this trouble," he would say, "but
+I know what will cure it. You need a change. If you've been living high,
+diet. If you've been starving yourself, have Thanksgiving dinner every
+day. Take a change of air and a change of scene, a change of occupation,
+and, above all, a change of habits, and somewhere we'll hit the nail on
+the head that has done the mischief."
+
+The prescription pleased my father. He decided that he needed a change
+from the coast to the interior, and from exercise to a sedentary life.
+"Instead of tramping around this farm," he said, "I would like to be
+driving over the western Massachusetts hills. I am as sick of this
+eternal pound, pound of the surf on the shore as of the sea-fog in my
+throat."
+
+"Take the horses, father," said mother, cheerfully, "and drive through
+Connecticut up to your brother Asahel's farm in Hawley. I can run this
+household well enough without you."
+
+"It would be a rather lonesome drive," father demurred, though his eyes
+shone with longing.
+
+"Zen why not to take us wiz you, Mr. Smiss?" asked Miss Prillwitz. "We
+would each stand her share of ze expenses, and such a tour of
+_diligence_ would be most delightful."
+
+Upon this the matter was thoroughly canvassed, and it was finally
+decided that mother should remain at home with the five little boys,
+whom Ethel Stanley and the Helpful Ten had agreed to amuse during our
+absence; and that Miss Prillwitz, Miss Sartoris, Winnie, Mr. Stillman,
+and I should accompany father. Mr. Stillman was a summer-boarder from
+New York, who came to us every season to fish and hunt. Hearing that
+Miss Prillwitz was fond of ornithology, and that the lighthouse-keeper
+sent her dead birds, he tried to please her by shooting others and
+bringing them to her, but she soon made him understand that she
+preferred studying them alive and at liberty.
+
+"Zese poor leetle tears zat haf cast zemself on ze lighthouse," she
+explained, "zey have not been kill for me, zey could not else, but I
+wish I could hinder zem of it."
+
+"It is not much fun to shoot birds, after all," Mr. Stillman admitted,
+"only the exultation in hitting a difficult mark. I hate to pick them up
+afterward."
+
+"If it is only ze chase and ze difficulty which make you admiration,"
+said Miss Prillwitz, "why do you not buy to yourself a camera of
+detective for ze instantaneousness, whereby you can photograph ze bird
+on his wing? Zey tell me it shall be much more difficult to do zat zan
+to shoot him dead."
+
+And so Mr. Stillman had sent to New York for an amateur photographer's
+outfit, and had fitted up a dark-room in the old smoke-house, where he
+developed his negatives. He was a man to whom almost everything he tried
+was easy, and he tried his hand at many things. He had traveled much,
+and assured us that wherever he went he tried to learn some new
+accomplishment. In China he had learned the art of making fireworks,
+and earlier in the season the smoke-house had served as a chemical
+laboratory for the manufacture of rockets. Before Miss Prillwitz had
+suggested amateur photography, Mr. Stillman had amused us by setting off
+fireworks on the beach at night, but the new craze seemed destined to
+supersede every other; pyrotechnics were neglected, and the shot-gun and
+rifle rusted from lack of use.
+
+A tin-peddler lived not far from us--an enterprising man, the proprietor
+of two carts, one of which his wife was accustomed to conduct, following
+him in caravan style on his summer journeyings; but this season the man
+was sick, his wife busied in his care, and the great carts, piled with
+wares, stood waiting in the sheds.
+
+"I've a notion," said father, "to buy Eben Ware's stock and hire one of
+his carts. I can hitch my span of horses to it, and I will make enough
+selling tinware, as we go, to pay the expenses of the whole trip."
+
+This plan did not strike me pleasantly at first, but before I had time
+to object Mr. Stillman joined in enthusiastically.
+
+"A capital idea, Mr. Smith, but you know our board is to be paid
+regularly to Mrs. Smith during our absence. Miss Sartoris, Miss
+Prillwitz, and I all insist upon that. I will take the peddler's horses
+and his second cart, which I will load up with my photographic outfit,
+the ladies' baggage, camp supplies, etc., and I will fill in any spare
+space with fireworks, which I will offer for sale along the route, all
+profits to be devoted to the charity in which the ladies are interested.
+The Fourth of July is so near that I fancy the rockets will meet with a
+ready sale."
+
+All joined in the plan with zest. Our wardrobe was reduced to a minimum.
+It was discovered that the two carts were arranged to turn into
+ambulances for camping at night, and would furnish comfortable
+accommodation for the feminine portion of the party, while a small tent
+was provided for father and Mr. Stillman. In reality we camped but one
+night, preferring to stop at wayside inns, but it was pleasant to know
+that we could do so whenever we wished. A roll of army blankets and
+comfortables, a few kitchen utensils, and some canned goods were stored
+away in Mr. Stillman's cart, with Miss Prillwitz's botanizing
+equipments, Miss Sartoris's sketching materials, his own belongings, and
+all the fireworks which he could manufacture in time; and still there
+was room in the capacious interior. The rifle was added at Winnie's
+urgent request, as a defense against wild beasts, though we all joined
+in ridiculing her fears that bears might be found in the Massachusetts
+woods, little thinking that we should have a thrilling adventure with a
+grizzly bear. At the last moment Mr. Stillman added another camera and
+more chemicals.
+
+"This means," he replied, in answer to our questions, "that I have
+rented a tintype outfit of a photographer over at the Corners, and
+propose to add to our resources by taking tintypes as we go."
+
+Mr. Stillman's ready invention, so fertile in expedients, received
+hearty applause, and the gypsy caravan set out in high feather. We took
+the steamboat with the carts to New Haven, and from that point struck
+into the interior by turnpikes and country roads, father leading the way
+with his jingling coach, Miss Prillwitz and Winnie perched high beside
+him, and Miss Sartoris, Mr. Stillman, and I, who called ourselves the
+Art Contingent, bringing up the rear. How beautiful the roads were,
+shaded by willows or arched by elms! Often fascinating lanes led off
+from the highway toward comfortable farm-houses, or grass-grown,
+deserted roads mounted through shady gorges to the lonely hills,
+tempting us from the beaten track. But the highway was beautiful enough.
+Sometimes it followed the curves of some vagrant stream, or wound around
+gently undulating hills. Miss Sartoris pointed out the fact that it was
+most frequently a succession of curves, while French highways are laid
+out as straight as the surveyor can make them, and do not compose as
+well in landscape paintings. The Connecticut roads we found easy to
+travel, well kept, and for the most part level or of easy grade. It was
+not until we reached western Massachusetts that we walked up the hills
+to lighten the load, or that the driver pressed his foot hard on the
+brake as the cart coasted down the steep inclines like a toboggan.
+
+Winnie was delighted with a bit of gorge road which played at hide and
+seek with a wayward brook. "It seems to me," she said, "that the wood is
+a matter-of-fact business man, and the brook is his sweet but willful
+little wife. See how he tries to adapt himself to her whims and pranks,
+keeping as close to her as he can, while the side which she does not
+touch is stern with rock and shadow! And she, coquettish little thing,
+wanders away from him into the deepest part of the ravine, where he
+cannot follow, and hides herself in a tangle of fern and wild-flowers,
+till, just as the lonely old road, quite in despair at having lost her,
+crosses the ravine on a bridge of logs, apparently for the sole purpose
+of seeking her, the merry little brook flies under the mossy bridge and
+is close beside him on the side which he thought farthest from her."
+
+"That is a very good parable," said father. "You've struck the nail
+pretty fairly. That's the way it has always been with my wife and me. My
+daughter, too, is one of the brook kind, but you needn't conclude that
+the old road doesn't enjoy all the company of blackberry vines and
+laurel and ferns that the brook attracts to itself, and which never
+would have come near the road but for the brook. I mean you and Miss
+Sartoris and the rest."
+
+"And sometimes," Winnie added, "the road has its grains of corn or wheat
+dropped from a passing cart, you know, to give to the sparrows, and the
+brook likes that ever so much."
+
+Father always called the boys from the Home "the sparrows," and he was
+pleased by this allusion to his generosity.
+
+We found ourselves following the circus at one stage of our journey, and
+we pitched our tent and made camp not far from the fair-grounds. We
+chose for our camp a site which had once been occupied by a house that
+had been burned to the ground. The only out-building which had escaped
+the conflagration was a root-house, or cellar, excavated, cave-like, in
+the side of a hill. It struck Mr. Stillman as a particularly good
+"dark-room," and we at once pre-empted it. Miss Sartoris painted a
+sign-board for the photographic studio, and Winnie and I arranged a
+bower with a flowery background for Mr. Stillman's sitters. We had a
+rich harvest that day, Winnie acting as cashier, and Miss Sartoris, as
+assistant, posing the groups. Mr. Stillman was quite exhausted when
+evening fell. He said he had never done such a day's work in his life,
+and his tintype material was nearly used up. We were patronized not only
+by the country people who came to see the show, sheepish lovers who
+wished to have their portraits taken together, and parties of merry
+young people, but also by the showmen themselves. The living skeleton
+and the fat lady, the strong man supporting a great weight by his teeth,
+the lion tamer with his pets, and the snake charmer, were all among Mr.
+Stillman's patrons. When it was understood that he had an instantaneous
+camera with him, the equestrienne desired him to take a photograph of
+her while performing her famous feat of riding five horses at once, and
+the acrobats challenged him to catch their rapid evolutions. He
+surprised them by his remarkable success in obtaining a perfect
+negative. It was our most successful day, from a financial point of
+view, for we realized over twenty dollars.
+
+Father had a rather annoying experience which made him desire to avoid
+the circus in the future. Among the articles which the tin-peddler had
+given him was a soldering furnace and irons, for mending old tinware.
+Father made his first attempt to use these tools on this afternoon. The
+door-keeper of one of the tents brought him his japanned tin strong-box
+to mend, and father attacked the task laboriously, succeeding in making
+it firm by a rather too plentiful application of solder. He was so
+interested in his task that he did not notice that an organ-grinder,
+one of the followers of the circus, had pressed quite near and was
+regarding the coins, which the door-keeper had temporarily turned into
+his handkerchief, with hungry eyes. Suddenly the monkey, which had been
+tied to the organ, became loose, and springing straight to the little
+furnace, seized and brandished the heated soldering-iron. A great
+excitement ensued, for no one dared to take the formidable weapon from
+the mischievous creature. The owner of the monkey seemed at his wits'
+end. He raged, stamped, tore his hair, commanded and entreated the
+monkey to bring back the iron, all to no avail. The monkey, having
+burned himself, finally dropped it, but, frightened by the pain or by
+his master's threats, continued his flight into the woods, followed by
+the organ-grinder. When the excitement occasioned by this event had
+subsided, a still greater one ensued on the discovery that the
+door-keeper's handkerchief and money had disappeared. The man angrily
+charged father with its theft, but Mr. Stillman came running from his
+dark-room with a negative which he had just developed. He had been
+standing at the door, with his detective camera in his hand, and, quite
+unintentionally, had done real detective work, for, intending only to
+catch the monkey with the soldering-iron, he had focused upon it at the
+very first, and the unerring eye of the camera had seen and recorded
+what every one else had been too preoccupied to discover--the
+organ-grinder snatching the gate-keeper's money. The negative was a
+sufficient witness, and the organ-grinder was at once sought for, but
+the earth seemed to have swallowed him. The monkey was found nursing his
+burned paw in a tree, but his master and the money were not to be found.
+There was such a train of beggars and questionable characters in the
+wake of the circus that it was decided not to pursue our moneyed
+advantage by following with them; and the next day we stood back from
+the road to let the heavy, shambling elephants and long train of gaudily
+decorated wagons pass by. Mr. Stillman had his detective camera out, and
+took some interesting views of the procession. Father had taken a
+dislike to the soldering outfit, and congratulated himself that the
+monkey had lost the iron, but the last in the procession, a gypsy
+fortune-teller, handed it to him, saying that it was a lodestone, which
+would bring evil fortune to the person who possessed it, and advising
+him to give it to his worst enemy. "I am a witch," Winnie laughed, "and
+can reverse all omens--so we need not fear." Turning from the highway,
+we now struck across the country, through chestnut woods, where Miss
+Prillwitz taught us to recognize the song of the thrush, the sweetest of
+New England songsters, and cousin of the mocking-bird. Mr. Stillman was
+vexed that he could not obtain a single photograph of a thrush, but she
+is a shy bird, and keeps hidden in leafy thickets, and though we heard
+her song frequently, we never saw her. Mr. Stillman became very skillful
+in photographing other birds, even fixing the agile little fly-catchers
+in their eccentric movements, the watchful bobolink atilt on a
+mullein-stalk, the swallows skimming the river's surface, and the
+sagacious crows, who, having proved that a very natural scarecrow was
+harmless, were less suspicious of him. The withered limbs on certain old
+apple-trees were favorite perches for the birds, for there was no
+foliage here to impede their flight, and outlined against the sky they
+were capital targets for the camera. Mr. Stillman secured a gentlemanly
+king-bird in such a position, his white breast and black back and tail
+feathers reminding Winnie of a dandy in full evening dress.
+
+Miss Prillwitz remarked on the brilliant plumage of the New England
+birds, and said that it was a mistake to imagine that those of the South
+were more beautiful. She pointed out the black and gold orioles, the
+lovely bluebird, the scarlet tanagers, as brilliant as flamingoes, the
+beautiful rose-breasted grosbeaks, with a rich crimson heart upon their
+breasts, and the red-winged blackbirds, with their scarlet epaulets,
+reminding one of brisk artillerymen. It was the last of June--the most
+perfect of all the months--and as we rode we repeated all of the poets'
+praises of the month that we could remember. We agreed that Lowell had
+sung the season best:
+
+    "The bobolink has come, and, like the soul
+    Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,
+    Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what,
+    Save June! Dear June! Now God be praised for June."
+
+But Margaret Deland pleased us nearly as well in her homage to the queen
+month:
+
+    "The dark laburnum's chains of gold
+      She twists about her throat;
+    Perched on her shoulder, blithe and bold,
+      The brown thrush sounds his note!
+
+    "And blue of the far dappled sky,
+      That shows at warm, still noon,
+    Shines in her softly smiling eye--
+      Oh who's so sweet as June?"
+
+Father was not a very successful tin-peddler. The thrifty New England
+housewives were not pleased because he was unwilling to exchange his
+wares for rags, after the manner of other itinerant venders. He was
+uncertain as to the prices which he ought to charge; asking so little
+for his brooms that one patron purchased all his stock, at a decided
+loss to himself, as he afterwards learned, and demanding so much for
+nutmeg graters that a sagacious purchaser showed him the door with
+scorn. The soldering outfit, too, caused him much woe. It seemed that
+the original peddler was a clever tinker; and all sorts of broken
+articles, from clocks to umbrellas, were brought out for father to mend.
+At first father good humoredly tried his best, but having burned holes
+in his clothing, as well as blistered his hands, and succeeding in no
+instance in satisfying his patrons, he was tempted to throw the little
+furnace away, but his sense of economy would not allow him to do this,
+and he stowed it away vindictively in the depths of his cart.
+
+Shortly after this we spent two very interesting days in visiting Mt.
+Holyoke and Smith colleges. They gave both to Winnie and me a desire for
+a higher education than that which we were receiving at Madame's. Miss
+Sartoris wandered slowly through the Art Building of Smith, looking
+longingly at its superb equipment. The college is charmingly situated in
+the old town of Northampton. We were told that the students had just
+acted a Greek play, the "Electra" of Sophocles, very successfully, and
+we looked at one another in envy as we thought how impossible it would
+have been to present such a drama at Madame's.
+
+We passed the Holyoke range on July 1. This barrier marks as distinct a
+climatic change as Cape Cod in the Atlantic currents, for, just as,
+south of the Cape, and apparently threatened by her bent arm, the Gulf
+Stream sweeps to the north the tropic sea-weeds, and north of it, and
+gathered close in its embrace, the Arctic mosses cling to the cold
+heart of New England; so, south of the Holyoke range the air may be
+tepid and lifeless, while beyond it invigorating breezes from the
+Northland are dancing cheerily.
+
+We had eaten the last native Connecticut strawberries, but they were
+just in their glory north of the barrier, and though the almanac said
+July, it was June weather still.
+
+Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke stand as sentinels at the entrance of a
+lovely region, through whose elm-covered villages we drove at leisurely
+pace, resting over a Sabbath at old Hadley, one of the most charming
+places, with its principal street a double cloister of elms and maples,
+and where a Sabbath peace and stillness brooded even on week-days. Mr.
+Stillman found, for the next few days, a ready sale for his fireworks,
+exhausting his stock and adding twenty-five dollars to the treasury.
+About twelve miles north of Mount Holyoke rises Mount Toby, a noble
+mountain, which assumes, from certain directions, the shape of a
+crouching camel. The resemblance is even more marked than that of the
+Rock of Gibraltar to a lion. It dominates the country round about, and
+from its summit nearly a score of nestling towns and villages are
+visible. Among these Mr. Stillman sold his rockets, and proposed that we
+should spend Fourth of July night on its summit, and there watch the
+little fire-fountains on the plain below. It was an attractive plan, but
+Mr. Stillman had not counted the weather into his reckoning. It had been
+a sultry day. As we stopped at a farm-house on our way from Sunderland
+to Mount Toby, the good woman told us to look out for rain. "The grass
+has been waiting two days to be cut," she said, "but it looks kinder
+lowry, and the men-folks daresn't begin haying."
+
+There were two superb cumulus clouds in the west, shaped like elm-trees,
+or wine-glasses touching rims, and there was a blue rain-cloud in the
+southeast, with fringes trailing the landscape, and blurring it from our
+view.
+
+"The rain may not reach Mount Toby at all," father said; "showers travel
+about among those hills in a curious fashion. I have seen it raining
+hard on one side of Sugar-Loaf, while the other was dry and dusty. There
+is a deserted railway station at the foot of Toby, where we can spend
+the night. There were picnic grounds laid out on the mountain at one
+time, but the enterprise failed, and trains no longer stop there."
+
+A view of the station, which we reached early in the afternoon,
+confirmed father's recommendation of it. The roof was weather tight, and
+it was a roomy, comfortable building, a good refuge should a shower
+overtake us. We picnicked beside a beautiful cascade, and leaving the
+horses picketed beside the carts, proceeded to climb the mountain on
+foot. It was glorious with masses of white and pink laurel, which I had
+never before seen in its perfection, and Miss Prillwitz introduced me to
+many other plants and flowers new to me. The Amherst basket-fern, shaped
+like a Corinthian capital, grew in perfection, the Columbine blew her
+flame-colored trumpets, and the harebell rang her inaudible chimes from
+mossy clefts in the gray rocks. Miss Prillwitz said she had last picked
+harebells in Austria.
+
+"You know," said Miss Sartoris, "that Mary Howitt calls the harebell
+
+          'The very flower to take
+          Into the heart, and make
+    The cherished memory of all pleasant places;
+          Name but the light harebell,
+          And straight is pictured well
+    Where'er of fallen state lie lonely traces.
+          Old slopes of pasture ground,
+          Old fosse and moat and mound,
+    Where the mailed warrior and crusader came;
+          Old walls of crumbling stone
+          With ivy overgrown,
+    Rise at the mention of the harebell's name.'"
+
+Miss Prillwitz pointed out more obscure plants, and gave us interesting
+bits of information in regard to them. Some had strangely human
+characteristics. The cassia, a shrinking sensitive-plant with yellow
+blossoms, was one of these, while the poison-ivy in its unctuous growth
+had an evil and malignant appearance which seemed to hint at its
+inimical nature. She told us how to tell the poisonous sumac from the
+harmless variety, the poisonous kind being the only one that has pendant
+fruit. She gave us also a little chat about parasitic plants, suggested
+by a _gerardia_, a little thief which draws its nutriment from the roots
+of huckleberry.
+
+"I did not know that plants had so little conscience," said Winnie. "It
+reminds me of a guest a Southern gentleman had, who remained twelve
+years, and after the death of the host married his widow."
+
+"Plants seem also to be cruel," said Miss Prillwitz. "Zere is ze
+_apocynum_, a carnivorous plant which eat ze insect. You should read of
+him by Darwin. He set a trap for ze fly wiz some honey, and when Mr. Fly
+tickle ze plant, quick he is caught, and Mr. Apocynum he eat him, and
+digest him at his leisures."
+
+"Miss Prillwitz, you should write a book for young people, and call it
+'Near Nature's Heart,'" I suggested.
+
+"I would so like," replied Miss Prillwitz, "but if I waste my time to
+write, how should I earn my lifes? I have know many author, and very few
+do make their wealths by--by their authority."
+
+Miss Prillwitz brought out the last word triumphantly, quite sure that
+she had achieved a success in our difficult language. I turned aside to
+Mr. Stillman, that she might not see my smile. "How interesting she
+makes our climb," I said, "and all these wayside weeds! 'She illustrates
+the landscape.'"
+
+"In my humble opinion it is Miss Sartoris who 'illustrates the
+landscape,'" he replied. "See what a picture she makes reaching after
+those sweet-briar blossoms! I wish I had not left my detective at the
+station."
+
+Miss Sartoris was indeed very pretty. It seemed to me that she grew
+younger and more bewitching with every day of our trip. Each changing
+pose as she leisurely picked the wild roses was full of grace, but I
+could hardly understand why Mr. Stillman should greatly regret not
+securing this particular view, when she had figured in at least half of
+the photographs which he had taken.
+
+We reached the top of the mountain just at sunset. The west glowed with
+a yellow-green color. The strange clouds, which had been as white as
+curds in the afternoon, were now dark blue, lighted by flashes of heat
+lightning. They moved forward like the pillar which led the Israelites,
+great billowy masses piled one on the other and toppling at the summit,
+while they melted at the base into a mist of rain. Behind them was the
+background of the sunset, like a plate of hammered gold dashed with that
+sinister green. There were threatening rumblings in the east also, and
+Amherst and its college buildings were blotted out by the rain clouds,
+which resembled the petals of a fringed gentian, and seemed to be
+traveling rapidly in our direction.
+
+Father took a rapid view of the horizon. "There will be no fireworks
+display for us to-night," he said. "There are two showers which will
+meet in an hour's time, and Toby will be just about in the centre of the
+fracas. We had better hurry down the mountain if we want to escape a
+wetting."
+
+Miss Sartoris gave a longing look at the beautiful panorama of nestling
+villages, forest and winding river (a view unsurpassed in
+Massachusetts), and now glorified by the magnificent cloud effects. "Can
+we not rest for half an hour?" she asked.
+
+"I think not," father replied, and we reluctantly retraced our steps.
+When half-way down the mountain the wind, which preceded the march of
+the cloud battalion, caught up with us. The chestnuts crouched low and
+moaned, the poplars shivered and shook their white palms, and the
+hemlocks writhed and tossed their gaunt arms as though in agony. Then
+there was a hush, when they seemed to stand still from very fear, and a
+minute later the storm burst upon us. We were but a short distance from
+the station when this occurred, and the foliage which roofed the road
+was so dense that we were not very wet when we reached our shelter.
+There was an invigorating scent of ozone in the air, and a certain
+exhilaration in being out in a storm, and in hearing the crash of
+falling limbs far back in the woods. We noticed the gentleness of the
+rain, which, though apparently fierce, did not break a single fragile
+wild-flower. Each leaf, sponged free from dust, brightened as though
+freshly varnished, and each blade of grass threaded its necklace of
+crystal beads. The cascade, swollen and turbid, roared angrily at our
+side, and a shallower rivulet made the path slippery as we hurried on;
+but a few moments of laughing scramble brought us panting into the dry
+station, safely housed for the night from the storm.
+
+Father and Mr. Stillman arranged shelter for the horses by spreading the
+tent between the two carts, and we ate our supper at what had formerly
+been a refreshment counter. Then the ticket-office was assigned to the
+gentlemen as their dormitory, and hammocks were hung for the rest of us
+in the ladies' waiting-room. We told ghost stories for a time by the
+light of a spirit-lamp and a few candles, but retired early, as we were
+thoroughly tired from our long walk, and were soon asleep, lulled by the
+monotone of the falling rain. We were not destined, however, to enjoy a
+night of undisturbed repose, for the principal adventure of our journey
+occurred that night.
+
+I do not know how long we had slept when we were all suddenly awakened
+by a startling scream.
+
+"What is it? Oh, what is it?" gasped Winnie.
+
+"Is it a catamount?" asked Miss Sartoris.
+
+I thought of the railroad track, which ran close beside us, and
+suggested that it might be the shriek of a passing engine, when suddenly
+it came again on the side of the station opposite to the track. Father
+sprang up, exclaiming, "Something is the matter with the horses!"
+
+The rain was still pouring, and a dim light from the swinging lantern
+illumined the room. As father spoke, one of the windows, which had been
+left open for ventilation, was suddenly filled by an uncouth form,
+which, with much scrambling and snorting, was proceeding to force an
+entrance.
+
+"It is a bear!" shrieked Winnie; and so it was. Mr. Stillman rushed
+forward with his rifle. There was a loud report, and a heavy fall on the
+outside.
+
+"Horses can scent bears at a distance," said father, as he took down the
+lantern; "but who would have thought there were any such creatures in
+these woods?"
+
+"Perhaps it has broken away from the circus," suggested Mr. Stillman,
+reloading his rifle; for there was an ominous growling outside. Human
+voices were presently heard whose intonations were almost as harsh as
+those of the brute. Father unbarred the door, and we saw two men bending
+over the wounded bear, which he now saw was muzzled, and the property of
+the men, who had evidently heard of the old station, and had thought to
+take refuge in it from the storm.
+
+"Here's a pretty state of things!" father exclaimed, with a whistle.
+"You have shot a performing bear, Stillman, and these showmen will
+probably make us pay dearly for the mistake."
+
+We had all been terribly frightened; but we recovered instantly on this
+announcement, and hurriedly dressing, we peered out at the men as they
+stood about the wounded animal and discussed the situation. One of the
+showmen was a foreigner, who swore and grumbled in some strange
+language, which Miss Prillwitz afterward told us was Russian. The other
+was unmistakably a Jew, and he took a Jewish advantage of the accident.
+
+"You haf ruined our pizness--dot bear he wort one, two hundert dollar!"
+
+"Nonsense!" replied father, as confidently as if he were accustomed to
+trade in that species of live-stock; "he's dear at fifty. Besides, he
+isn't dead, nor anything like it. Hold him with this halter, you two,
+and I'll examine him. There! I told you so; it's only a flesh wound in
+the right foreleg. There are no bones broken. He will be ready for
+travel in a week. All you've got to do is to stay here for a few
+days--and where could you be better off? We leave in the morning, and no
+one will dispute your possession of this house. I will leave you enough
+provisions to keep you until you are ready for the road again."
+
+The men talked it over in Russian, and seemed far from satisfied, though
+Mr. Stillman offered to give them twenty dollars as an equivalent for
+what they would have gained during the next week, and father added his
+remaining stock of small tinware, which, he explained, they could easily
+sell from door to door at the farm-houses and villages in the vicinity.
+He was tired of his occupation as a tin-peddler, and glad to get rid of
+the obnoxious soldering furnace, as well as the patty-pans and
+muffin-rings. A settlement was finally effected when, in addition to
+this, Mr. Stillman agreed to their demand for fifty dollars cash
+indemnity.
+
+There was no more sleep for us that night, and it was with rueful
+countenances that we discussed the adventure among ourselves.
+
+"To think," lamented Winnie, "that, just as we were congratulating
+ourselves on gaining so much money for the Home, we should be obliged to
+pay it all out, and more besides, to these wretched men, and all for
+nothing too!"
+
+"Yes," replied Mr. Stillman, "that is the provoking part. If I had only
+killed the creature we might have bear-steak for breakfast (though it
+would have been pretty expensive meat), and I could have had his hide
+mounted as a rug, and have exhibited it to my friends with truthful
+braggadocio as one of my hunting trophies."
+
+I sympathized with Winnie in regard to the depleted condition of our
+treasury; but Miss Prillwitz remarked, enigmatically, that the adventure
+might not prove to be such a losing one as we imagined. We begged her
+to explain; but she bade us wait until we were at least ten miles from
+our encampment.
+
+We relinquished the station to the showmen after a very early breakfast,
+and drove away with lightened carts and subdued spirits.
+
+The rain had ceased, but was likely to begin again at any moment, for
+the sky was thickly overcast, and father suggested that, as this was a
+famous trout region, we might do well to spend the morning in fishing.
+This plan pleased all but Miss Prillwitz, who whispered to father that
+she had particular reasons for reaching a telegraph station as soon as
+possible, and we accordingly directed our course at a rattling pace
+toward the shire town of Greenfield. On the way Miss Prillwitz confided
+to us her suspicions; and in order that the reader may understand them,
+I must anticipate the events which are to be related in the next
+chapter, and explain that, after the explosion at Rickett's Court,
+Solomon Meyer and one of the anarchists had disappeared from New York,
+and Mr. Armstrong had offered a reward for their apprehension.
+
+The anarchist was known to be a Russian, and though Miss Prillwitz had
+never seen Solomon Meyer, she felt sure, from Lovey Trimble's
+description of him, that he had decided to avoid the ordinary routes of
+travel, and to journey toward Canada on foot, disguised as an itinerant
+showman. She had more proofs of his identity than these suspicions. The
+men had conversed very freely with each other in Russian, never dreaming
+that there was any one present who could understand the language. The
+Russian had complained bitterly that this accident would delay their
+journey to Canada, and the Jew had replied that it might be as well to
+lie hidden until the search was over.
+
+Arrived at Greenfield, Miss Prillwitz telegraphed to Mr. Armstrong, and
+in two hours received the following reply: "Have the local authorities
+arrest the parties and detain them until I can reach Greenfield."
+
+Accordingly Mr. Stillman and father, with a sheriff and a constable,
+drove back toward Mount Toby in a sort of picnic wagon. Father advised
+us to await him at Deerfield, one of the most interesting villages in
+the Connecticut Valley--both from its intrinsic beauty and its historic
+associations. We engaged lodgings at the small hotel, where we found
+but one other traveler, a dejected book-agent. It was nearly
+dinner-time, and the landlord looked rather alarmed by the unexpected
+arrival of so many hungry-looking guests, but he soon set before us a
+capital dinner of broiled chicken, and after a little rest we took a
+stroll through the beautiful old town. We were informed that the
+Memorial Hall, a museum of antique furniture, books, costumes, and other
+curiosities, was well worth visiting; and so, indeed, we found it. One
+object which greatly interested me was an old spinnet, with a quaint
+collection of music, both sacred and secular. Here was a great bass-viol
+which formerly groaned out an accompaniment to the male voices of the
+choir as they took their part in such strange, metrical arrangements as
+
+    "Come, my beloved, haste away,
+    Cut short the hours of thy delay;
+    Fly like a youthful hart or roe,
+    Over the hills where spices grow."
+
+The Library, too, a collection of "the (literary) remains" of many
+celebrated doctors of divinity, was a fascinating room, and one in which
+we would have enjoyed prowling for a long time. Hawthorne has given
+such an admirable description, in his "Old Manse," of just such a
+library, that I cannot forbear quoting it here.
+
+"The old books would (for the most part) have been worth nothing at an
+auction. They possessed an interest quite apart from their literary
+value; many of them had been transmitted down through a series of
+consecrated hands from the days of the mighty Puritan divines. A few of
+the books were Latin folios written by Catholic authors; others
+demolished papistry as with a sledgehammer, in plain English. A
+dissertation on the book of Job, which only Job himself could have had
+the patience to read, filled at least a score of small, thick-set
+quartos, at the rate of two or three volumes to a chapter. Then there
+was a vast folio 'Body of Divinity.' Volumes of this form dated back two
+hundred years and more, and were generally bound in black leather,
+exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to books
+of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to be
+carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times: diminutive, but as
+black as their bulkier brethren. These little old volumes impressed me
+as if they had been intended for very large ones, but had been,
+unfortunately, blighted at an early stage of their growth. Then there
+were old newspapers, and still older almanacs, which reproduced the
+epochs when they had issued from the press with a distinctness that was
+altogether unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic
+looking-glass among the books, with the images of a vanished century in
+them."
+
+We lingered long in the Library, and in the Indian Room, where stands an
+old door gashed by the tomahawks of the Indians who, with a company of
+French, in 1704, surprised Deerfield, massacred a great part of the
+inhabitants, and carried a hundred and twelve as prisoners to Canada.
+Yellow and crumbling letters, uncertainly spelled and quaintly phrased,
+hung around the room, telling how perilous such a driving-tour as we had
+just taken would have been in those pioneer days. One, dated 1756 and
+written to Captain John Burt in the Crown Point Army, read as follows:
+
+
+      "Dear Husband.
+
+     "It is a Crasie time in this place. There is but little Traviling
+     by the Massachusetts Fort which makes it more difficult to send
+     letters. Capt. Chapin and Chidester and his Son were killed and
+     scalpt by the Enemy near the new foort at Hoosack."
+
+Sarah Williams, of Roxbury, in 1714 announces to her friends at
+Deerfield the expected return of many of their friends who had been
+carried off in different raids--"We have had news that Unkel is Coming
+with one hundred and fifty Captives."
+
+The number dwindled, and many who were carried away on that dreary march
+through the winter snow never returned, but among the relics preserved
+in the archives of Memorial Hall is a pathetic little red shoe which
+walked all the way from Hatfield to Canada and back, on the foot of
+little Sally Colman. It is hardly more than a tiny sole, with a rag of
+the scarlet upper clinging to it, but it tells the story of the cruel
+march, and the heroic efforts of the noble men who effected the rescue
+of their friends, better than many a page of print.
+
+We were so much interested in Memorial Hall that it was long past
+supper-time before we thought of leaving. The book-agent advised us to
+visit the old burying-ground, and, after supper, offered to show us the
+way. We found it grass-grown and neglected; in some portions, a thicket
+of climbing vines and tangling briers. Indeed, the entire God's acre was
+so given over to nature that the birds built undismayed, while the
+squirrel frisked impudently on the headstones, and the woodchuck
+burrowed beside the tombs. It had not been used for many years; a newer
+cemetery raised its white monuments on the hillside, while here lichens
+nearly filled the carving, and the stones leaned at tipsy angles,
+proving that grief for any buried here had been long assuaged, that the
+very mourners had passed away, and it was doubtful whether a single aged
+man still lingered in the town of whom it could be said that
+
+    "These mossy marbles rest
+    On the lips which he has pressed
+            In their bloom.
+    And the names he loved to hear
+    Have been carved for many a year
+            On the tomb."
+
+As Miss Sartoris remarked, the place did not suggest sadness, but gentle
+retrospection, while curiosity provoked the fancy to fill out the
+histories so provokingly suggested in the inscriptions. Here was buried
+Mrs. Williams, whom her epitaph declares to be "the virtuous and
+desirable consort of Mr. John Williams," and Mr. Mehuman Hinsdale, who
+was "twice captivated by the barbarous savages."
+
+The book-agent read us another epitaph, copied in Vernon, Vt., which
+suggested a three-volume novel in the history which it gave of early
+Indian times. Our imaginations sank exhausted as we attempted to follow
+the heroine through all her matrimonial complications, I give it as it
+was dictated to me:
+
+  MRS. JEMIMA TUTE,
+  SUCCESSIVELY RELICT OF MESSRS. WILLIAM PHIPS,
+  CALEB HOWE, AND AMOS TUTE.
+  THE TWO FIRST WERE KILLED BY THE INDIANS,
+  PHIPS, JULY 5, 1743; HOWE, JUNE 27, 1755.
+  WHEN HOWE WAS KILLED, SHE AND HER CHILDREN,
+  THEN SEVEN IN NUMBER, WERE CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY.
+  THE OLDEST DAUGHTER WENT TO FRANCE, AND WAS
+  MARRIED TO A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. THE YOUNGEST WAS
+  TORN FROM HER BREAST, AND PERISHED WITH HUNGER.
+  BY THE AID OF SOME BENEVOLENT GENTLEMEN, AND HER
+  OWN PERSONAL HEROISM, SHE RECOVERED THE REST.
+  SHE DIED MARCH 7, 1805, HAVING PASSED THROUGH
+  MORE VICISSITUDES AND ENDURED MORE HARDSHIPS THAN
+  ANY OF HER CONTEMPORARIES.
+
+    "'No more can savage foe annoy,
+     Nor aught her widespread fame destroy.'"
+
+
+It was dark when we wandered back to the hotel, past the old manse built
+for the Reverend John Williams by his parishioners after his return from
+captivity. We were told that some one residing in the house of late had
+occasion to move a tall piece of furniture in one of the chambers, and
+discovered a door. Opening this, a secret staircase was found leading
+from the cellar to the attic. No one living had known of its existence,
+and many were the wild guesses made as to its object.
+
+When we returned to the hotel we found that father and Mr. Stillman had
+not yet arrived. Miss Sartoris seemed very anxious, and feared that
+there might have been trouble in arresting the tramps. Winnie cheered us
+by suggesting the trout fishing, which Mr. Stillman had reluctantly
+abandoned when we left Mt. Toby. It would be a good night for fishing,
+the landlord said; perhaps they had remained for it, since the distance
+to Toby was too long to be comfortably made three times in one day.
+After breakfast the next morning, as our travelers were still absent,
+Miss Sartoris and I unpacked our sketch-boxes and began to make a study
+of the street from the north end, just at the point where the French
+and Indians, "swarming over the palisades on the drifted snow, surprised
+and sacked the sleeping town."
+
+Miss Prillwitz and Winnie, with their botanists' cans, followed a little
+brook that ran at the back of the hotel, and came back laden with blue
+German forget-me-nots. Father and Mr. Stillman arrived just before
+dinner, Mr. Stillman carrying in one hand a string of beautiful speckled
+trout, and in the other something which looked like a buffalo-robe. He
+looked very triumphant and happy, while father followed, carrying in a
+rather sheepish manner--what but the old soldering furnace! We greeted
+them with so much laughter and so many questions that it was some time
+before they could give an account of their adventures.
+
+Arrived at the Mount Toby railroad station, they had found it deserted.
+The men having evidently decided that it was not safe to await the
+recovery of the bear, had accordingly killed it, and secreted it in a
+cave at the foot of the mountain. The sheriff knew of this cave, and in
+examining it in search of the men, found the carcass of the bear.
+
+"And so," exclaimed Mr. Stillman, exhibiting the skin, "I secured my
+rug, after all, but we concluded that the meat looked rather tough, and
+we would not take it. I shall express this skin straight to a
+taxidermist that I know, and have it handsomely mounted."
+
+"But the men!" I asked; "you don't mean to tell me that they escaped?"
+
+"No," replied father; "but if you can't keep quiet I shall not be able
+to tell you how they were caught. It was this very ill-luck-bringing
+soldering outfit that did it. When we found that they had left, I
+suspected that they had taken the morning train for Canada at the
+Montague station, for no trains stopped at Toby; and in case they had
+done that, there was hardly a chance of our reaching the station and
+ascertaining the fact in time to telegraph and effect their arrest
+before they could leave the country. We had driven from Greenfield
+pretty rapidly, and our horses were tired; then we took a wrong turning,
+and got off into Leverett, or some other unhappy wilderness; but after a
+while we found a farmer who provided us with fresh beasts, and we
+reached the Montague station toward evening. It was shut up, and the
+station-master had gone home, but after another half-hour we found him.
+Yes, our men had bought tickets for Montreal that morning. Then you
+should have seen our hurry to telegraph; but the station-master advised
+us to keep cool, and wait a little. 'They bought their tickets,' he
+said, 'but they didn't go there.' So that was a feint, I thought, to
+throw us off the track. But no; on their way from Toby they had decided
+that they would have a cup of coffee, and they had sat down behind a
+barn to make it on my soldering furnace, and as they were doubtless as
+tired of carrying the old thing as I was, they left it there. The wind
+blew the coals into the hay, and in a few minutes the barn was on fire.
+Someone had seen them leave the yard, and before the train came along
+for which they were waiting, they were arrested as incendiaries, and
+taken to the Greenfield jail. As this was precisely where the sheriff
+wished to take them, there was nothing for him to do but to return and
+notify the authorities that the men would be wanted soon on more serious
+charges. And as the station-master informed us that there was some good
+trout-fishing nearby, we decided to spend the night in Montague. So we
+let the sheriff and constable drive back to Greenfield without us, and
+telegraphed Mr. Armstrong that his birds were caught."
+
+"If they only turn out to be his birds!" said Winnie.
+
+"I haf no doubtfuls of zat," said Miss Prillwitz.
+
+"But why did you bring back that wretched little furnace and iron?" I
+asked.
+
+"Why, the curious part of it is that the farmer who drove us over this
+morning had found them in the ruins of his barn, and he brought them
+along, thinking that we might like them to help in identifying the
+rascals. I couldn't refuse his kindness, but I certainly shall not carry
+them away from this place. I don't believe in such nonsense, but the
+gypsy's prediction has come true so far, and they brought bad fortune to
+the gentlemen to whom I presented them."
+
+Mr. Armstrong, who had been telegraphed for, arrived with a police
+officer that night; and Miss Prillwitz, father, and Mr. Stillman were
+absent all the next morning making depositions to aid in the
+identification of the prisoners.
+
+It was finally decided to remove them to New York to await trial on Mr.
+Armstrong's charges. We set out that afternoon for Ashfield, our route
+leading us over beautiful hills, and affording us views of rare
+loveliness. Ashfield is a village loved by literary men as Deerfield is
+by artists. Deerfield nestles in a valley, while Ashfield lies on the
+breezy hill-top; George William Curtis is the centre of the coterie of
+rare minds who make Ashfield their summer home. Mr. Curtis gives a
+lecture here once a year for the benefit of the Sanderson Academy. At
+this time every manner of vehicle brings the country-people over the
+winding roads, which converge in Ashfield like the spokes of a wheel in
+their hub. We were not fortunate enough to light on this red-letter day,
+and we accordingly rested over night at the long low inn, and started
+early the next morning for uncle's home in Hawley. The distance was
+short, as the crow flies, but it seemed to be all up-hill. The last mile
+was through one of those gorges so common in this region, where the
+fissure between the hills is so narrow that the sun only looks in for
+two or three hours. Slowly climbing the long, green-vaulted stairway,
+the dusky tapestry was at length looped back for us, and the road,
+emerging from the wooded ravine, gleamed yellow-white between the
+grassy mounds. Crowning one of these knolls stood a long, white
+farm-house, spreading out wing after wing in hospitable effort to
+shelter the entire hill-top. Beside the road stood a post with a
+letter-box affixed, for the reception of the mail left by the daily
+stage. We passed a huddle of old barns and out-buildings, among which I
+recognized a carpenter's shop, a carriage-shed, a sugar-house in
+convenient proximity to a grove of maples, a dairy through which ran the
+brook, keeping cool and solid the eighty pounds of butter which my
+cousins made each week, a cider-mill, and behind it an orchard of russet
+apple-trees, and a long row of bee-hives fronting the flower-garden.
+
+Uncle expected us, and it was delightful to see the meeting between the
+two brothers, who had not seen each other in twelve years. There were
+plenty of airy bedrooms, hung with pure white dimity, and after our
+gypsy life it seemed very pleasant to find once more the comforts of a
+home. We spent several days at the Maples, attending service in the dear
+old-fashioned church with its high, square pews.
+
+Aunt Prue had all of our travel-soiled clothing neatly washed, and
+refilled the emptied hampers and lunch-baskets with abundant supplies
+from the products of the farm and her own good cookery.
+
+Uncle was a large, easy man, who dearly loved to tell a story to match
+his own ample proportions, only the twinkle in his eye redeeming him
+from the charge of deception. Aunt Prue's rigid conscience revolted at
+uncle's romances. "Asahel Smith!" she would exclaim, "how can you lie
+like that; and you a church-member?"
+
+"Now, Prudence," Uncle Asahel would reply, "the catechism says a lie is
+a story told with intention to deceive, and when I told these girls that
+I drove the oxen home with the last load of hay so fast that I got it
+into the barn before a drop of water fell, while it was raining so hard
+behind me that Watch, who was following the wagon, actually _swam_ all
+the way up from the medder--when I told 'em that, I cal'late I didn't
+deceive 'em; I was only cultivating their imaginations."
+
+Aunt Prue groaned in spirit, and began to sing, in a high, cracked
+voice.
+
+    "False are the men of high degree,
+    The baser sort are vanity;
+    Weighed in the balance, both appear
+    Light as a puff of empty air."
+
+While at The Maples we made an excursion to Cummington, formerly
+Bryant's home. We sat in the library, shut in by a thick grove, where he
+composed his translations of the Odyssey and Iliad, and we played with a
+little pet dog of which he had been very fond. Not far from the estate
+is a fine library, Bryant's gift to the little town. "Bryant's River" is
+a brawling little stream which flows through a very picturesque region.
+We amused ourselves by fancying that we recognized spots described in
+several of his poems.
+
+There was a grand old oak upon the place which might have inspired his
+lines--
+
+                        "This mighty oak--
+    By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem
+    Almost annihilated--not a prince
+    In all that proud Old World beyond the deep
+    E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
+    Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
+    Thy hand has graced him."
+
+The scenery about Cummington and Hawley tempted us to a frequent use of
+our sketching-materials. Mr. Stillman, too, found several birds new to
+him, and took some beautiful landscape photographs. Miss Sartoris gave
+him new ideas about choosing views where mountain and cloud, trees and
+reflections, composed well, and his photographs became much more
+artistic. He began to talk about the importance of placing his darkest
+dark here, and his highest light there, of balancing a steeple in this
+part of his picture by a human interest in the foreground, of massing
+his shadows, of angular composition, of tone and harmony, and the rest
+of the cant of the studio. Nor was it all cant; Miss Sartoris had taught
+him to see more in nature than he had ever seen before, and while his
+ambition had hitherto been to secure sharp photographs of instantaneous
+effects--mere feats of mechanical skill--his aim was now to produce
+pictures satisfying to highly cultivated tastes. He acknowledged that
+all this was due to Miss Sartoris, who had opened a new world to him,
+though it seemed to me that he really owed quite as much to Miss
+Prillwitz, but for whose influence he would never have taken up
+photography. I was a little jealous for our princess, and felt that,
+though Miss Sartoris was young and fair, and Miss Prillwitz old and
+wrinkled, this was no reason why honor should not be rendered where
+honor was due.
+
+There was a pond with a bit of swamp land on uncle's farm, which he
+considered the blot on the place, but which Miss Sartoris declared was a
+real treasure-trove for a picture. One end was covered with lily-pads,
+and great waxy pond-lilies were opening their alabaster lamps here and
+there on the surface, while the yellow cow-lilies dotted the other end
+with their butter-pats. Cat-tails and rushes grew in the shallower
+portions, and here was to be found the rare moccasin-flower, a pink and
+white orchid of exquisite shape. Miss Sartoris painted a beautiful
+picture here. She said it reminded her of the pond which Ruskin
+describes with an artist's insight and enthusiasm.
+
+"A great painter sees beneath and behind the brown surface what will
+take him a day's work to follow; and he follows it, cost what it will.
+He sees it is not the dull, dirty, blank thing which he supposes it to
+be; it has a heart as well as ourselves, and in the bottom of that there
+are the boughs of the tall trees and their quivering leaves, and all the
+hazy passages of sunshine, the blades of the shaking grass, with all
+manner of hues of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; and the
+bottom seen in the clear little bits at the edge, and the stones of it,
+and all the sky. For the ugly gutter that stagnates over the drain-bars
+in the heart of the foul city is not altogether base. It is at your will
+that you see in that despised stream either the refuse of the street or
+the image of the sky; so it is with many other things which we unkindly
+despise."
+
+We all regretted when our short visit at The Maples came to an end, but
+Miss Prillwitz felt that she must be hastening back to the Home, and we
+had already transgressed the bounds which we had set to our outing. We
+decided to vary our journey by returning through Berkshire. We drove,
+the first day, to Pittsfield, a flourishing little city, and now for the
+first time we felt ourselves out of place in the peddler's carts.
+Nowhere else had we attracted any special attention. It was a common
+thing for tin-peddlers to take their feminine relatives with them on
+their jaunts, and as we dressed very plainly, and conducted ourselves
+with gravity, no one gave us a second look.
+
+At Pittsfield, however, we came in contact once more with "society," and
+the loungers on the hotel veranda gave us a broadside of astonished
+looks as we alighted. "It is very disagreeable to be stared at in this
+way," Winnie remarked to Miss Prillwitz as we entered.
+
+"My tear," replied the good lady, "it takes four eyes to make a
+stare."[A]
+
+[A] A remark once made by Professor Maria Mitchell to a student of
+Vassar College who had made a similar complaint.
+
+Winnie colored deeply, for she knew that if she had been less
+self-conscious she would not have felt the curious and impertinent gaze.
+We left Pittsfield so early the next morning that none of the hotel
+loungers were on the piazza to comment on our appearance.
+
+We drove, that day, over the lovely Lenox hills, once covered by stony
+pastures, dotted here and there by lonely farm-houses, but now a
+succession of beautiful parks and aristocratic villas and mansions. Mr.
+Stillman had his camera out, and photographed a number of the handsome
+residences as we passed, and one of the gay little village-carts driven
+by a young woman dressed in the height of fashion, and presided over by
+a footman in livery.
+
+"That does not seem to me a sensible way of going into the country,"
+said Winnie. "I don't believe she has half the fun that we have in this
+old caravan."
+
+"Perhaps not," I replied, "but I presume that Adelaide and Milly are
+driving about in much the same style; and we know that better-hearted
+girls never lived."
+
+We picnicked near "Stockbridge Bowl," a lovely lake, blue as Geneva and
+encircled by beautiful hills. As father brought out the lunch-hamper I
+noticed a queer expression on his face. "What do you suppose I have
+found stowed away in the back part of the cart?" he asked.
+
+"Not the soldering furnace?" we all replied, in unison.
+
+He smiled grimly, and, instead of replying, placed it before us. "That
+Deerfield landlord must have packed it up without your knowledge," said
+Miss Sartoris. "Its reappearance is becoming really amusing; let us make
+one grand final effort to get rid of it by sinking it in the middle of
+the lake."
+
+"Will you do it?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Miss Sartoris took the furnace and ran down to the lake, whence she
+presently returned empty-handed.
+
+"Did you drown the creature?"
+
+"Not exactly, but I gave an ancient fisherman whom I found there a
+quarter to commit the crime for me. I told him that it was something
+which we were tired of, and never wished to see again, and he promised
+me, in rather a mixed manner, that 'human hand should never find hide
+nor hair of it, nor human eye set foot on it again.'"
+
+A general laugh followed this announcement. How should we know that the
+man's suspicions were excited by Miss Sartoris's anxiety to get rid of
+the object, and that instead of sinking it in the middle of "the Bowl"
+he wrapped it carefully in brown paper, and labeling it "To be kept till
+called for," hid it under the bank! "Somebody will come for that
+object," he said to himself; "shouldn't wonder if it was wanted at court
+as circumstantial evidence of somethin' or 'nother."
+
+Another event occurred while we were resting at "the Bowl." Miss
+Sartoris remarked that a view which she had obtained as she returned
+from the lake was the most enchanting that she had seen on the trip.
+"How I wish that I had time to sketch it!" she said.
+
+"I will photograph it for you," Mr. Stillman exclaimed, with alacrity,
+"if you will kindly show me just where you would like to have the view
+taken."
+
+They walked back together, a turn in the road hiding them from our view.
+We waited for them a long time, and at length father became impatient
+and drove on, leaving me to hold Mr. Stillman's horses. When they came
+back there was an expression on their faces which told everything. I
+should have known it even if Mr. Stillman had been able to keep the
+words back, but he was too happy to be silent. "You were lamenting, this
+morning," he said to me as he took the reins, "that we had only two more
+days to journey together."
+
+"That is all," I replied, "unless Miss Sartoris and you have decided to
+make a longer trip."
+
+"Yes," he replied, "you have guessed it exactly: Miss Sartoris has just
+consented to journey on through life with me."
+
+I was surprised, and yet, when I came to think of it, I saw that I ought
+to have suspected it from the time they first met; and, all things
+considered, they were admirably suited to each other. So I could only
+rejoice in their happiness, though I wondered, a little selfishly, what
+Madame's would be without Miss Sartoris, and whether I should ever have
+a teacher whom I should love as well.
+
+When we caught up with the other cart father asked whether he got a
+successful negative.
+
+"No," replied Mr. Stillman, "I didn't get a very decided negative, and I
+confess I didn't want one."
+
+There was a look of blank astonishment on all their faces, and then a
+peal of laughter as his meaning dawned upon them. After the storm of
+congratulations and exclamations had ceased, Miss Sartoris suddenly
+exclaimed, "You left your detective camera!"
+
+"That is so," Mr. Stillman replied, "Shall we drive back after it?"
+
+"Not unless you want to catch that shower," father remarked, pointing to
+a threatening cloud.
+
+"I'll get you ladies under shelter first, and then I really think I must
+look it up," said Mr. Stillman. But before we reached Stockbridge we met
+a coaching-party conducted by a nattily dressed young man of slender
+build, who managed his spirited four-in-hand with considerable skill,
+and who reined them in as we approached, exclaiming, "Stillman! by all
+that's odd!" Mr. Stillman introduced the gentleman as a Mr. Van Silver,
+an old friend from the city, and mutual explanations followed. He was
+now on his way to Lenox, and agreed to stop at the spot which Mr.
+Stillman indicated, and if he could find the camera express it to Mr.
+Stillman at Scup Harbor.
+
+Very little more of interest to the reader occurred until we reached
+home. We followed the Housatonic for the greater part of our way, and
+when we had nearly reached its mouth, drove across to New Haven, from
+which port, having completed our round-trip, we took the steamer for
+home. Father found a letter from Mr. Armstrong in relation to the
+thieves taken in Montague, who were proved to be the criminals of
+Rickett's Court, whose retribution shall be related in the next chapter.
+The little boys left in mother's care had conducted themselves in as
+exemplary a manner as could be expected, there having been no cases of
+really bad conduct, and only two slight accidents.
+
+Miss Prillwitz took them under her wing and left with them for the Home,
+all looking happier, browner, and rounder for their stay in the country.
+Winnie regretted that our scheme for filling the treasury of the Home
+had not been a success, since the aggregate of money made by peddling
+tinware and rockets, and by taking tintypes, did not meet the expenses
+of the trip. Mr. Stillman, however, insisted on presenting the
+institution with a handsome check, "as an inadequate thank-offering," so
+he said, for the great blessing which had come to him in our journeying
+"over the hills and far away."
+
+Miss Sartoris left almost immediately for her own home, and Mr. Stillman
+followed her soon after. Two express packages came to him before he left
+us. One was the bearskin, handsomely mounted, the other was preceded by
+a note from his friend Mr. Van Silver, which said that he had overtaken
+a venerable fisherman walking off with his camera, and that it required
+considerable persuasion of a "sterling quality" to rescue it from him.
+Mr. Stillman opened the package with grateful anticipation, and
+found--the soldering furnace!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE ESTATES DEL PARADISO.
+
+    "I have been here before,
+        But when, or how, I cannot tell;
+    I know the grass beyond the door,
+        The sweet, keen smell,
+    The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
+
+    You have been mine before,
+        How long ago I may not know;
+    But just when, at that swallow's soar,
+        Your neck turned so,
+    Some veil did fall--I knew it all of yore."
+
+                                     --_Rossetti._
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of woman.}]
+
+
+We must now return to Mr. Armstrong, whom we left in chapter XII. in
+conference with Dr. Carver over the Doctor's advertisement of the case
+of lost identity inserted in the daily papers ten years before.
+
+The physician listened gravely to Mr. Armstrong's account of the loss of
+his wife and infant son, the wild hopes which were now awakened, and to
+his request for the address of the lady referred to, and gave him a
+pitying glance as he replied:
+
+"So many bereaved persons have come to me fancying that they recognized
+a loved one in that notice, only to be cruelly disappointed; and Mrs.
+Halsey has in the past been subjected to so many trying interviews of
+this description, that I hesitate to encourage your visiting her, unless
+you have positive proof of what you hope. A photograph would give this
+proof."
+
+"And, unfortunately, I have none of Mrs. Armstrong."
+
+"But I had one taken of Mrs. Halsey, which I have kept in the hope that
+it might be identified some day;" and the Doctor drew from his
+pocket-book a thumbed and discolored photograph, which he placed in Mr.
+Armstrong's hand.
+
+The effect was unmistakable. The strong man rose to his feet, staggered,
+and fainted, for he had recognized his wife. The physician quickly
+restored him to consciousness, and after waiting until the effect of the
+shock had partially passed away, he said:
+
+"I see that there is no danger of any mistake, and that I may direct
+you where to find Mrs. Halsey--I beg pardon, Mrs. Armstrong. Her
+address, when I last saw her, was No. 1 Rickett's Court."
+
+"Rickett's Court!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, in horror.
+
+"Yes, sir; it is not the best quarter of the city, but many of the
+respectable poor live there; and you must remember, sir, that your wife
+must necessarily have had a hard struggle to support herself and your
+little son, alone and friendless, in this great city."
+
+Mr. Armstrong groaned aloud. Rickett's Court had not seemed so bad to
+him for other men's children and wives, but that _his_ child, _his_
+wife, should live in such vile surroundings was horrible. He sprang to
+his feet, seized his hat, and with a hasty "I will see you again,
+Doctor," hurried in the same direction which Stephen Trimble had taken
+not a half-hour before. It was only a short distance, but it seemed
+miles to him. Just as he came in sight of the building every window in
+its front was illuminated with a sudden flash, and a heavy detonation
+shook the earth. Then smoke poured from the broken panes, and the air
+was filled with flying splinters and débris, while shrieks from
+within, and shouts of "Fire! fire!" from without, added to the
+confusion.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of city street and buildings.}]
+
+The smoke cleared in a moment, and people were seen at the windows
+dropping down the fire-escape. Only a few minutes later a fire-engine
+came tearing around the corner, and the hoarse voice of a fireman was
+heard dominating the tumult and giving orders, but before this Alexander
+Armstrong, possessed of but one idea--that his wife and child were
+somewhere within--had rushed into the burning building. One glance
+showed him that this was hopeless. The staircase had been torn out by
+the explosion, and the flames were roaring up the space which it had
+occupied, as through a chimney. He was dragged back to the court by the
+fireman, who exclaimed, "Man alive! can't you see that the staircase has
+gone, and that they are coming down the fire-escape? There wouldn't have
+been the ghost of a chance for them but for that. Bless the man who had
+it put there!"
+
+The words gave him a little heart, and he stood at the foot, helping the
+women and catching the children handed to him, hoping in vain to
+recognize his wife. They stopped coming. "Are all out?" he shouted.
+"There's some one in the fourth story," said a woman, and before the
+fireman could lay his hand on the fire-escape Mr. Armstrong was half-way
+up. The façade still stood, but the entire interior of the building was
+in flames, and blinding smoke and scorching sparks poured from the
+windows. At the fourth story a man had staggered to the window and lay
+with his arm outside, holding on to the sill. Mr. Armstrong uttered a
+cry when he saw that it was a man, but, none the less, he lifted him
+tenderly out, and into the arms of the fireman following close behind
+them. Then drawing his coat over his mouth and nostrils, he entered the
+room. Another man lay at a little distance, or a body that had been a
+man, terribly torn and shattered by the explosion. It was the anarchist
+who had been the principal in the plot; the other had escaped. Mr.
+Armstrong descended, looking into every apartment as he came down to be
+sure no living thing was left inside that furnace.
+
+"You are a hero, sir! will you give me your name? I represent ----." It
+was the omnipresent reporter on hand for an item. Mr. Armstrong turned
+from him, without reply, to the man whom he had rescued, Stephen
+Trimble, who lay with a foot torn from the ankle, and a broken arm. A
+hospital surgeon knelt at his side bandaging deftly. A policeman had
+sent the call when Mr. Armstrong started up the fire-escape, and the
+ambulance, a more conclusive "Evidence of Christianity" than that dear
+old Dr. Hopkins or any other theologian ever wrote; nobler exponent of
+civilization than the fire department even, since that is the rich man's
+provision for saving his own property, while the ambulance is the rich
+man's provision for saving the poor man's life--the ambulance, with
+surgeon on the back seat coolly feeling for his instruments, and
+bare-headed driver clanging the gong, and lashing his already galloping
+horses, had torn like mad down Broadway. And as it came, aristocratic
+carriages hurrying with ladies just a little late for a grand dinner,
+and an expectant bridegroom on his way to Grace Church, halted and
+waited for it to pass; express and telegraph agents, and rushing men of
+business, gave it the right of way as it bounded on its errand of mercy.
+
+Alexander Armstrong spoke for a moment with the surgeon, long enough to
+learn that Stephen Trimble's injuries were probably not mortal, and to
+urge every attention possible. Then he caught sight of Solomon Meyer
+bowing and cringing at a little distance, and he sprang upon him like a
+panther on his prey. Solomon, greatly surprised, could only imagine that
+the loss of the property had driven him insane, and gasped, "Ze
+insurance bolicy is all right," whereat the ex-landlord gave his agent
+such a shaking that his teeth rattled in his head, only pausing to
+inquire if he knew anything of a tenant by the name of Mrs. Halsey.
+Solomon Meyer assured him that Mrs. Halsey had long since quitted the
+building, but this only partially reassured him, for he placed very
+little reliance on the man's word. His wife, almost found, was lost to
+him again. He could not believe that she perished in the burning
+building; still, there was this horrible possibility.
+
+There was no one to tell him that she had just gone to Narragansett Pier
+at his daughter's bidding, and was occupying the very cottage where so
+many of her happier years were passed; and he threw himself more
+unreservedly into his business projects, not, however, forgetting the
+poor inventor at the hospital, whom he visited frequently, and cared for
+as tenderly as though he had been his brother. After the excitement of
+the fire was over, he remembered that the law had an account to settle
+with Solomon Meyer, but he was not then to be found. His guilty
+conscience had taken the alarm, and the subtle magnetism which draws bad
+people together had caused him to form a partnership with the anarchist
+who had escaped the explosion, and but for Miss Prillwitz's timely
+recognition they would have fled to Canada. Mr. Armstrong found them, as
+we know, in the Greenfield jail, and had no difficulty in identifying
+them, and in having them brought to justice.
+
+As the time approached for the trial of Solomon Meyer and the Russian
+anarchist, Mr. Armstrong was troubled with the fear that Stephen Trimble
+might not be able to testify in court. He visited him frequently at the
+hospital, and whenever he approached the subject of his dealings with
+the anarchists he became excited and confused.
+
+His little son, Lovey Dimple, was seated beside him during one of Mr.
+Armstrong's calls. He was allowed to visit his father, and waited upon
+him day by day, sometimes telling him of the pleasant times he had had
+at the seashore, and at others watching him quietly. His presence
+seemed to do his father good; and on this visit Mr. Armstrong was able
+to obtain much more information from Stephen Trimble than upon any
+previous occasion.
+
+"You are quite sure," Mr. Armstrong asked, "that you never saw this
+check, which someone has cashed at the bank, and which is indorsed with
+your name?"
+
+"Never, never!" replied the wounded man.
+
+"I see it, though," Lovey Dimple spoke up, promptly. "Jim had come down
+to the court to see me, and I wanted to show him the machine in the
+Rooshans' room, and we follered him in there. Mr. Meyer dropped a piece
+of paper which looked like that, and Jim picked it up. He could tell you
+what was written on it."
+
+"I must have Jim as a link in our chain of testimony," Mr. Armstrong
+replied. "Is he at the Home of the Elder Brother?"
+
+"No, sir; Jim used to be there, but he had the luck to be adopted. He
+went away just for to be a tiger for some swells, and they liked him so
+much they permoted him. He's Jim Roservelt now."
+
+So this was the lad of whom Adelaide had spoken to him. Mr. Armstrong
+wrote to his friend Mr. Roseveldt, requesting that Jim should be sent to
+the city. His testimony at the trial was so clear and concise, and his
+entire appearance so manly, that Mr. Armstrong was greatly drawn to him.
+
+"If my own boy had lived," he said to Mr. Roseveldt, who had come to the
+city with Jim, "he would have been about the age of this little fellow.
+I am about to make a western trip of six or seven weeks, and would like
+to take him with me. Should the liking which I have taken to him grow
+upon acquaintance, I beg of you to relinquish him to me; I need him, for
+I am a stricken man, and you are a fortunate one, or I would not ask
+it."
+
+Mr. Roseveldt replied that, though he was fond of Jim, he would
+willingly give him up to Mr. Armstrong for adoption after his return
+from the West, provided the boy's mother would consent to the transfer.
+Singularly enough, the name of that mother was not mentioned, and Mr.
+Armstrong took Jim with him to Colorado, little dreaming that the boy
+was his own son.
+
+He had said that he needed Jim; and he needed him in more ways than he
+knew. He had grown world-soiled, as well as world-weary, and the
+companionship of a soul white and young was destined to exert upon him a
+purifying as well as rejuvenating influence. Before the grand mountain
+scenery Jim's fresh enthusiasm stimulated Mr. Armstrong's sated
+admiration, and the child's naive ideas of right and wrong were a rebuke
+to the man's sophistries. They journeyed together through the wild and
+beautiful cañons of the Rocky Mountains, and the boy was deeply
+impressed by the stupendous cliffs rising on each side--walls that were
+sometimes two thousand feet in height, and so close together that the
+narrow river, which had cut its way down from the surface, sometimes
+filled the entire space at the bottom of the gorge. But even here the
+ingenuity of man had surmounted the barriers of nature, and the
+observation-car on which they rode dashed along upon a shelf cut in the
+solid rock, with a sheer wall on one hand, and a dizzy precipice on the
+other. Such a cañon was the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas; in one portion
+an iron bridge hangs suspended from strong supports fixed in the solid
+walls, and the train glides along it, swaying as in a hammock, over the
+brawling river.
+
+The climax of their tour was reached in the Black Cañon. The scenes here
+are awful, even in broad daylight, for the sombre crags tower to the
+height of several thousand feet. Our travelers passed through the chasm
+at night. Far overhead the stars were shining in the little rift of sky,
+which was all that they could see between the walls; and in the
+mysterious half-lights of the illumined portions, and the utter
+blackness of the shadows, the grotesque shapes of the crags took on
+strange forms and awful suggestions. At times it seemed as if the train
+was about to dash itself against a wall of solid masonry, which opened,
+as though thrown back by genii, as they approached. At one point,
+catching the moonlight, a silvery cascade swept over the rocks like a
+bow of crystal; and at another, a mighty monument of rosy stone, the
+Curricanti Needle, towered far above the cliffs, like the sky-piercing
+spire of some grand cathedral.
+
+"The people who live here must be very good," Jim gasped, as they
+emerged from the valley of enchantment, "one is so much nearer to God
+out here!"
+
+"Nobody lives in the cañon now," Mr. Armstrong replied; "Indians lived
+here not very long ago. They used to hold their councils on that shelf
+of rock where the pines grow, the last accessible spot on the Curricanti
+pinnacle, but the settlers in the neighborhood did not have your idea
+about their being such very good men, and as the cañon was the best
+pathway through the mountains for the railroad, they were driven out."
+
+"I am sorry for the Indians," Jim said, simply. "If I had owned that
+cañon I wouldn't have liked to have given it up, would you?"
+
+Mr. Armstrong evaded the question. "You will not have so much pity for
+them when you know them better," he replied. "They are a low lot, and if
+they do not know enough to improve the advantages which they possess, it
+is only fair that they should be appropriated by those who will make a
+better use of them."
+
+Jim did not quite understand what Mr. Armstrong meant by appropriating
+the Indians' advantages, but he was to learn more in relation to that
+word before the journey was over. Returning to Denver, Mr. Armstrong
+took the boy with him on a tour through some of the pueblos of New
+Mexico. The word "pueblo" signifies town, and the Pueblo Indians are
+those who build houses instead of tents and wigwams, and live from
+generation to generation in towns and cities, instead of wandering about
+the plains and mountains like the other tribes. There are twenty-six of
+these communities in New Mexico, and some of the cities were old when
+the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
+
+When New Mexico was ceded to the United States by Mexico, the right of
+the Pueblo Indians to their towns and to certain tracts of land
+surrounding them was confirmed by treaty, so that these Indians are
+better off in many ways than any others. Mr. Armstrong had a special
+reason for visiting the Pueblos. He had purchased several large herds of
+cattle, and wished to rent land of the Indians for pasturage. A man by
+the name of Sanchez, who traded among the Pueblos, could speak the
+language, and had gained the confidence of the Indians, happened to be
+on the train, and recognizing Mr. Armstrong as a wealthy capitalist, who
+had large interests in cattle, as well as in railroads, at once guessed
+pretty nearly the nature of his errand in the Indian country.
+
+He introduced himself, and, learning that Mr. Armstrong intended to
+visit the pueblo of Taos, to witness the celebration of the Festival of
+San Geronimo, offered his services as interpreter and courier. These Mr.
+Armstrong was very glad to accept, for he had heard of the man, and knew
+that he had considerable influence among the Indians. There was
+something repellent, however, in his insinuating, cringing manner which
+made one feel that here was a man who was not to be trusted. The party
+was increased by an army officer and a Catholic priest, who were also
+going to Taos to witness the festival. The pueblo lies at a distance of
+twenty miles from the railroad station, but an Indian was found waiting
+for Mr. Sanchez with a rough wagon, and that gentleman invited the
+others to ride with him. They crossed the Rio Grande River and drove
+along beside it in a northeasterly direction, through a not very
+interesting country. The coloring was all yellowish brown--the sandy
+earth, the crisp parched grass, the distant hills, even the water when
+taken from the turbid river, were all of a like monotonous tint. Now and
+then they met or passed an Indian, wrapped in a striped blanket and
+mounted on a small shaggy pony. Toward evening they came in sight of
+the pueblo. The first view was very picturesque. The houses of adobe, or
+sun-dried brick, were built in ranges one above the other, like a great
+stairway, the roof of the lower house serving as the dooryard for the
+one above. Ladders were placed against the walls, and up and down these,
+nearly naked Indian children scrambled like young monkeys. They parted
+their long elf-locks with their hands, and stared at the strangers with
+wild, black eyes. Mr. Sanchez conducted them to an unoccupied house,
+which he said would be at their service during the festival for quite a
+good sum. There was no hotel, and this seemed the best thing to be done.
+It had evidently been suddenly cleared for the unexpected guests, and
+some of the utensils and furniture remained. The priest pointed out with
+pleasure a gaudy print of the Virgin. There were strings of red peppers
+drying on the outer wall, and a great olha, or decorated water-pot,
+within, but there was no bedding or food. The gentlemen, however, had
+each brought with them army blankets, and Mr. Sanchez offered to act as
+their commissary and skirmish for provisions. He presently returned,
+followed by a woman carrying a bowl of stewed beef and onions, and a
+boy driving a donkey, whose panniers were filled with melons. This, with
+some coffee, which the officer made over a spirit-lamp, and some
+crackers contributed by Mr. Armstrong, constituted their supper, which
+hunger made palatable.
+
+After this refreshment they mounted to their roof and watched the
+preparations for the festivities of the next day. Mr. Sanchez pointed
+out the entrance to the _estufa_, or underground council-chamber, into
+which the young men of the tribe were disappearing for the celebration
+of mysterious pagan rites.
+
+"I thought the Pueblos were Roman Catholics," Mr. Armstrong remarked.
+
+The Catholic priest shook his head sadly. "Our converts have always
+remained half pagan," he said; "the early missionaries were content to
+engraft as much Christianity as they could on the old customs, thinking
+that the better faith would gradually supplant the old, but the old
+rites and ceremonies have remained. Still we must hesitate to say that
+the Fathers did wrong, since it was the only way to win the savages to
+the holy faith."
+
+The priest strolled away to visit the church and to find a Mexican
+brother who was to celebrate Mass on the next day. The church was a
+ruinous building which stood apart from the others. The army officer
+told of the siege which it sustained during the Mexican War, and pointed
+to the indentations made in its walls by cannon-balls.
+
+The situation was such a strange one that Jim slept but little. All
+night long he could hear the dull beat of the tom-toms in the _estufa_,
+and as soon as the first streak of dawn illumined the sky the pueblo was
+awake and all excitement. Indians from neighboring towns poured in, some
+on foot, and others mounted on ponies or donkeys.
+
+In the plaza stood a great pole resembling a flag-staff, but instead of
+a banner there dangled from the top a live sheep and a basket of bread
+and grain, with a garland of fruits and vegetables. The church bell was
+clanging for Mass, and Jim followed the others. An old Mexican priest
+was the celebrant, and a few young Indians in red cotton petticoats and
+coarse lace overskirts waited upon him awkwardly as altar-boys. When the
+Host was elevated, an Indian at the door beat the tom-tom, and four
+musket-shots were fired. The priest then marched down the centre of the
+church, followed by the altar-boys, one of whom bore a hideous painting,
+which Mr. Sanchez assured them was painted in Spain by the great
+Murillo, and might be had, through him, for a trifling sum. The
+congregation joined in the procession and followed to the race-track,
+where games, races, and dances were participated in by fifty young men
+of Taos against fifty from other pueblos. The sports were witnessed by
+fully two thousand spectators, who swarmed along the terraces, and
+formed a packed mass of men, women, children, horses, and donkeys around
+the race-track. There was a group of visitors standing near our
+travelers, who regarded the races with intense interest. It consisted of
+an old man dressed in white linen blouse and trousers, with a red
+handkerchief knotted about his gray locks, an obese and not over cleanly
+old lady in full Indian toggery, and a young girl in a pink calico
+dress, with a black shawl over her head and shoulders. They watched one
+of the runners with the most intense excitement, and when he came off
+victor in several of the contests, their enthusiasm knew no bounds.
+"That old man is the Governor of the pueblo of ----," said Mr. Sanchez.
+"It is his son who has just stepped out to lead the corn-dance. The
+daughter, little Rosaria, is pretty, is she not?" He approached her as
+he spoke, with easy assurance, and taking her by the chin, made some
+remarks in the Pueblo language intended to be complimentary; but the
+girl twisted herself from his grasp with hot indignation; and Sanchez
+returned, grumbling that since she had been to the Ramona School at
+Santa Fé she was too much of a lady to speak to anyone. Jim was standing
+beside her; and sure, from her manner, that she understood English, he
+asked her to explain the corn-dance to him. She did so, very kindly, and
+the hunt-dance which followed, when the painted clowns brought out
+grotesque clay images, and after adoring them fired at them, and
+shattered them in fragments, the crowd scrambling for the pieces. The
+young man who had been pointed out as the Governor's son secured a
+piece, and brought it to the girl in triumph. "That is the ear of a
+wolf," she said. "It means that he will have success in the south; we,
+who have been taught better, do not believe these old charms any more."
+
+The last thing on the programme was the climbing of the pole for the
+sheep, which was finally won by a young brave of Taos.
+
+There was racing on ponies afterward by young Indians and Mexicans, but
+this was informal, and not included in the rites of the day. The young
+girl looked at the races enviously. "My brother ought to win there," she
+said, "for we had the swiftest ponies of any of the Pueblos, and ought
+to have them, for our pasture lands are the best, but we have sold
+nearly all our live-stock, and the pastures are no longer of any use to
+us."
+
+Mr. Armstrong overheard this remark, and asked Rosaria if her people
+would be willing to rent their lands. She conferred with her father in
+the Pueblo language, and Mr. Sanchez immediately joined in the
+conversation, talking volubly to the old man, and translating to Mr.
+Armstrong. "He says you are welcome to return to his pueblo with him,"
+explained Mr. Sanchez, "and he will call a council of his townspeople to
+deliberate on your proposition."
+
+There was more conversation, and it was decided to accept the Governor's
+invitation. Mr. Armstrong engaging Mr. Sanchez to go with them and help
+him in the transaction. This seemed to him the only thing which he could
+do, since he did not understand the language, and the Governor seemed to
+place confidence in the trader. The party set out the next morning for
+San ----, Mr. Armstrong and Jim in Mr. Sanchez's wagon, and the Governor
+and his children following on diminutive donkeys. Several days elapsed
+before the bargain could be made. The Indians were very suspicious of
+being entrapped into some fraud, and it needed all of Mr. Sanchez's
+eloquence to persuade them that the arrangement would be to their
+advantage. Mr. Armstrong had told Mr. Sanchez that he was willing to pay
+fifteen hundred dollars for the rental of the land for three years, and
+that he (Sanchez) might deduct his fee for services from this sum. "Then
+if I can persuade them to let you have the land for twelve hundred,"
+asked Mr. Sanchez, "I may claim three hundred for my assistance in the
+matter?"
+
+"That is a pretty round fee," replied Mr. Armstrong, "but it does not
+matter to me who has the money. The land is worth fifteen hundred
+dollars to me, and if you can persuade the Indians to take less, so much
+the better for you."
+
+Jim was much interested in the negotiations. He sat beside Mr. Armstrong
+in the council-chamber, trying to make out from the expressive gestures
+what it was that the Indians were saying, and sometimes it seemed to him
+that Mr. Sanchez did not translate correctly. At such times he went out
+to where Rosaria stood by the open door listening, with other children.
+She translated for him the treaty as Mr. Sanchez read it, and he was
+astonished to find that it offered the Indians only three hundred
+dollars as rent for their land, the wily Sanchez having reserved twelve
+hundred as his own share.
+
+"But Mr. Armstrong is willing to pay your people fifteen hundred," Jim
+protested to Rosaria, and the girl slipped into the council-chamber just
+as the Governor was about to sign the paper, and snatched it from his
+hand.
+
+"Is it true," she asked of Mr. Armstrong, "that you are willing to pay
+more for our land? Mr. Sanchez offers us but three hundred dollars!"
+
+Mr. Armstrong, surprised at the man's effrontery, acknowledged that he
+was ready to pay more, while Sanchez, furious at seeing his opportunity
+slipping from him, poured upon Rosaria all manner of abuse, and
+threatened Mr. Armstrong that unless he held to his bargain to allow him
+whatever margin he could make he would spoil the trade for him.
+
+"Here's a pretty affair!" said Mr. Armstrong to Jim. "You had better
+have kept quiet and let the old swindler feather his nest. Now I fear
+that I shall not be able to make any bargain with the Indians."
+
+"But it was not right, was it," asked Jim, "that the Indians should have
+so little and Mr. Sanchez so much?"
+
+"The proportion does seem unfair," Mr. Armstrong admitted to Jim; but he
+added, to Sanchez, "I hold to my part of the bargain. I will give you
+whatever margin you can make between their demands and fifteen hundred
+dollars."
+
+Sanchez attempted to regain his lost advantage, but all this time
+Rosaria had been talking excitedly, explaining to one after another of
+the Indians, now pointing to the figures in the treaty, now scornfully
+at Sanchez, arguing, entreating, scolding, and when the trader began
+his defense of her charges, laughing him to scorn. The Governor put an
+end to the altercation by tearing the treaty in pieces and ordering two
+stout Indians to lead Sanchez from the room. He then bade Rosaria tell
+Mr. Armstrong that fifteen hundred dollars was the very least that they
+were willing to take for their land.
+
+Mr. Armstrong bowed, and replied that he would think over the matter. He
+expected to have an opportunity to discuss it with his agent, but when
+he left the council-chamber he saw his wagon on the road to Santa Fé, at
+a long distance from the pueblo, and was handed the label from a peach
+can, on the back of which was scribbled:
+
+     "That boy of yours is too smart to live; the plaguey Indians have
+     given me an hour to leave their reservation. Manage your own
+     concerns without the help of--
+
+                                     Sanchez."
+
+The bargain was accordingly struck without the aid of a middle-man, and
+Mr. Armstrong was conceded the right to pasture his cattle for three
+years in consideration of the sum of five hundred dollars, to be paid in
+advance at the beginning of each season. Mr. Armstrong was much amused.
+"It has turned out all right," he said to Jim, "but you must acknowledge
+that it was really none of your business, and I would advise you, in
+future, not to meddle in matters which do not concern you."
+
+"I will try," Jim replied, much abashed. "I ought to have told you
+instead of Rosaria, and you would have fixed it all right," he added,
+cheerfully. "I ought to have known that you wouldn't have let the
+Indians be cheated."
+
+Mr. Armstrong felt the reproach in the undeserved confidence. Here was a
+companion who was a sort of embodied conscience. It was not always
+profitable to have a conscience in business, and yet there was something
+satisfactory and refreshing in the way in which this affair had
+terminated. "They say 'honesty is the best policy,'" he said to himself;
+"I wonder if this little fellow would not be a Mascot to bring me good
+luck. I have a notion to make him my partner in some of my risky
+ventures; Providence seems to smile upon him and his principles; perhaps
+if I make my good-fortune his as well, it will smile upon me." What he
+said to Jim was this: "You seem fond of a wild western life, Jim, and
+of the Indians. Our business among the Pueblos is ended. We are going
+back to Colorado. I have a notion to show you what the Colorado Indians
+are like. They are Utes, and they do not live in houses, like the
+Pueblos, but rove about in a perfectly savage manner; they are not
+peaceful and industrious, like the Pueblos, but lazy and ugly. I do not
+think that they are susceptible of civilization. I would as soon think
+of educating a coyote as a Ute.
+
+"Now the Utes possess some of the best mining lands in Colorado, but
+will never develop them; so it seems to me better that they should be
+removed to the desert lands, which are worthless for purposes of
+civilization, and let the whites have their opportunity. I have my eye
+on a gulch which I discovered while hunting in the San Juan Mountains
+four years ago, and which I mean to pre-empt just as soon as we get the
+Utes to give up their present reservation and pack off to Utah. We shall
+go back that way, and I will show you the spot."
+
+Jim opened his eyes very wide. He did not quite comprehend what Mr.
+Armstrong had said. Surely he could not mean to defraud the Indians in
+any way! He would doubtless pay them the worth of their mine, and if
+they liked the ready money better than the trouble of mining the silver
+for themselves it would be all fair.
+
+At Antonito Mr. Armstrong left the railroad, provided himself with a
+span of horses, a wagon, camping outfit, and a brace of greyhounds, and
+struck out through the Ute reservation for the mountains. He told some
+gentleman whom he met at Antonito that he proposed to enjoy a little
+coursing for antelope; but there was a set of surveyors' instruments in
+the wagon, which proved that he intended to locate the mine which he had
+come across during his previous visit. His acquaintance attempted to
+discourage his making the trip alone, saying that the Utes had been
+restless of late, owing to a failure in receiving their supplies from
+Government, and it was hardly safe to approach their reservation.
+
+"You need not be afraid of the Utes," another gentleman replied. "I knew
+their old chief, Ouray, and was entertained once in his house--a neater
+farm-house than many a white settler can show, and I was hospitably
+waited upon by his wife, Chipeta, who gave me peaches from their own
+orchard, and saleratus biscuit, and when I saw the familiar yellow
+streaks in them, and tasted the old chief's whisky, I had to confess
+that the Indian was capable of civilization."
+
+Mr. Armstrong laughed, but the first speaker bade him be careful, for
+all the Utes were not like Ouray, who had so well earned his title of
+the White Man's Friend.
+
+"Now," exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, after he had driven out of sight of the
+last human habitation--"now at last we can breathe! What do you think of
+it, Jim?"
+
+"I didn't know the world was so big," the boy replied; "these must be
+the Estates del Paradiso which Miss Prillwitz talks about. Why, there's
+room for all New York to spread itself out, and every child to have a
+yard to play in. It seems a little bit lonely," he added, after a pause.
+"I should think you would have liked to have had some of those gentlemen
+go with you."
+
+"Why, you see, Jim," Mr. Armstrong replied, "I am going to hunt up that
+silver mine, and I had a little rather not share the secret with any one
+but you. Besides, I like the loneliness. I grow very tired of people
+sometimes, Jim, and it seems good to get away from them. Don't you ever
+feel so?"
+
+"Mother did," Jim said. "She likes helping at the Home very much, but
+she got a little tired just before the young ladies sent for her to go
+to the seashore, and she came across one verse in the Bible which
+sounded so beautiful. It was, 'Come ye yourselves apart into a desert
+place and rest awhile, for there were many coming and going, and they
+had no leisure so much as to eat.'"
+
+"I didn't know they had such hurrying times down in Galilee," Mr.
+Armstrong replied, lightly. He was in good spirits, and they drove a
+long distance that day, camping at night by a small stream, in which he
+caught some fine trout. As Jim curled up close to him under the army
+blanket, Mr. Armstrong felt a slight tremor run through the boy's frame.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked. "Are you afraid? We are still miles away
+from the Indians."
+
+"It isn't the Indians," Jim replied, "but it's all so still! I don't
+hear horse-cars, nor the Elevated, nor people passing, nor nothing. Down
+at the Pier it was something like this, but there was always the sea;
+and at the pueblo there were the dogs; while here it seems as if
+something had stopped."
+
+"'All the roaring looms of time,'" Mr. Armstrong replied, quoting from
+Tennyson, "have stopped for a little while for us, my boy, and that's
+the beauty of it. But the old machines will have us in their grip again
+very soon."
+
+The next day Mr. Armstrong enjoyed a rabbit hunt. Jim, though he took
+part in the sport, could hardly be said to enjoy it. "It seems such a
+pity to kill the pretty things!" he said. But this did not keep him from
+making a hearty meal of broiled rabbit, or from hoping that they might
+find antelope before the trip was over. The loneliness which he had felt
+the night before came on again toward evening, and Jim was not sorry, on
+their third day out, to see that they were approaching a new frame
+house.
+
+"An old half-breed guide used to have a tepee here," said Mr. Armstrong;
+"I shall engage his services for our trip. He is a good cook, a good
+hunter, faithful to his employers, and he knows every rock and clump of
+sage-brush in all the region. His only fault is that he will get drunk.
+He was with me when I found the silver ore, and I need him to guide me
+to the spot again."
+
+As they came nearer, Mr. Armstrong seemed greatly surprised to see a
+large field of waving corn in front of the house, while some cows were
+being driven toward an out-building by a young Indian in checked shirt
+and brown overalls.
+
+"What can have come over old Charley!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong. "When I
+was here before, nothing would induce him to degrade himself by farm
+labor. Some boomer must have established himself here. It's illegal, for
+the land still belongs to the Indians."
+
+They drove up to the front door, and were met by the same young man whom
+they had seen driving the cows, but the overalls were replaced by a
+faded pair of army trousers, and a paper collar had been hastily added
+to the checked shirt. He bade them enter, in good English, and the
+interior of the house was clean and inviting. The walls were papered
+with newspapers, a bright patchwork quilt was spread upon the bed, and a
+pleasant-faced girl was frying ham and eggs over the stove; while there
+was a shelf of books over the table. An Indian woman emerged from a
+shadowy corner and expressed a welcome by pantomime.
+
+"Is not this Charley's wife?" Mr. Armstrong asked, and the woman smiled
+and nodded her recognition.
+
+"Where is your husband?" was the next question. "Charley no good," was
+the wife's frank reply; "gone hunting with white men."
+
+This was a disappointment that Mr. Armstrong had not anticipated; he was
+not sure that he could find his way to the silver mine without Charley's
+help, but it was worth trying. The odor of the frying ham was
+appetizing, and the invitation to supper was promptly accepted.
+
+"Are you Charley's son?" Mr. Armstrong asked of the young man, who
+presently brought in a foaming pail of milk, and assisted his mother and
+sister in waiting on their guests.
+
+"Yes, sir," was the prompt reply, "and my name is Charley too--Charles
+Sumner."
+
+Mr. Armstrong stared in astonishment. "Where did you learn to speak
+English so well?" he asked.
+
+"At the Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania."
+
+"Then you are one of Captain Pratt's boys?"
+
+"Yes, sir," and a smile lightened the somewhat stolid features. Mr.
+Armstrong did not believe in Eastern schools for Indians, and he asked,
+rather sarcastically, "And what did you learn when you were in the
+East--Latin and Theology?"
+
+The boy shook his head. "I learned to work on the farm," he said, "and
+to read and write, and do a little arithmetic; and I learned some
+carpentry--enough to build this house, and make that table, and the
+cupboard and things."
+
+"Very creditable, I am sure," Mr. Armstrong replied, half incredulously,
+"but how did you come into the fortune necessary to set you up in this
+flourishing style?"
+
+"I helped build the new depot at S----, and they paid me off with the
+lumber that was left, and I built the house out of that. Then I had some
+money which I had put in the savings-bank from my earnings every
+vacation in the East, and I bought the cows with that; and then I made a
+churn, and we've been making butter the way I saw them do it in
+Pennsylvania, and I sell it for a good price at the Springs."
+
+"Well, you have more stuff in you than I ever thought it possible for an
+Indian to have," Mr. Armstrong replied, fairly won, in spite of
+himself, to admiration. "I always supposed that those Carlisle students,
+as soon as they returned to old surroundings, went back to savagery."
+
+"It is pretty hard for us," the boy replied. "Last year I planted about
+three times as much corn as you see here. I had taken a contract to
+supply the quartermaster at Fort ----, and I thought I should make a
+good deal of money; but just as it was green, all of our relations came
+to see us. There were ten families. They camped there by the creek, and
+they stayed until they had eaten every roasting ear. They said they had
+come to celebrate my home-coming, and father made them welcome, and gave
+a dance, and killed one of our cows for them. They would have killed
+them all, but I drove them off into the mountains, and hid them. That is
+the reason I have planted so little corn here this season. I have
+another field over in a little valley in the mountains which I hope they
+will not find, and I drive the cattle up the cañon every morning, for
+they may be here any day."
+
+"You poor fellow!" said Mr. Armstrong. "I have heard the proverb, 'Save
+us from our friends!' but I never understood the full force of it
+before."
+
+After the hearty meal the little house was put at the service of the
+travelers, the family camping outside, and, much to Mr. Armstrong's
+contentment, they passed a comfortable and restful night. The next
+morning Mr. Armstrong asked Charles Sumner if he was familiar with the
+mountains, and could guide him to a certain valley, which he indicated
+as having a chimney-like formation at one end.
+
+"Why, certainly," the young man replied; "don't you remember I was with
+father when he took you hunting four years ago? He killed an eagle that
+had her nest on a ledge high up on the chimney, and I climbed up for the
+young ones."
+
+"Ah yes, I remember now, but you were such a little fellow then that I
+could not realize the change."
+
+"I grew more at Carlisle," said the young man, significantly, "than at
+any other time of my life. We all grew at Carlisle."
+
+"Then you will take us to the chimney," Mr. Armstrong asked, "and cook
+for us while we are out? What will you charge?"
+
+"I don't think I ought to ask you anything, sir, for there is good
+pasturage thereabout, and I can drive my cows along, and herd them there
+until after the visit of our relatives. My sister is going to B---- with
+all the green-corn that the ponies can carry, so when they come they
+will find mother, and very little else. The valley in which my other
+corn is planted is in that direction, and perhaps you will let me bring
+some of it in your wagon when we come back?"
+
+Charles Sumner rode cheerily beside them on a diminutive pony, driving
+his cows and the pack pony, and chatting freely of many things.
+Sometimes Jim sprang from his seat to make him change places and rest
+awhile. The pony had a fascination for Jim, and he speedily learned from
+Charles Sumner how to manage it, and to "round up" the herd of cows and
+calves. The young Indian taught him, also, how to make arrows, and to
+shoot with them, to picket the horses, and to use the lasso, to make
+camp coffee, and to set up and take down the tepee, or tent of buffalo
+hide, which the pack-pony dragged between long poles.
+
+"You would like to be a cow-boy, wouldn't you, Jim?" Mr. Armstrong
+asked, but Charles Sumner shook his head. "Cow-boys are no good," he
+said, emphatically; "they shoot Indians as if they were wild beasts.
+Better stay in the East, where the white people are good. I wish I
+could, but the Government insists that as soon as we are educated we
+must go back to our reservations. I wish it would let us stay and earn
+our living in the East, where it is so much easier to stay civilized."
+
+Jim, on the other hand, was delighted with everything he saw. "If all
+the boys in Rickett's Court could only come out here!" he exclaimed,
+"and ride, and herd cows, and hunt, and camp out, and all the Indian
+boys could only go East, and go to school, and work at trades--how nice
+it would be!"
+
+Mr. Armstrong admitted that the change might be good for both, but while
+speaking they came in sight of the chimney-shaped pinnacle, and he
+hastily unpacked his theodolite and other instruments, and began to take
+angles, and to jot down memoranda.
+
+"This is the first time that I have ever seen a surveyor on the Ute
+reservation," said Charles Sumner, "and I think that our troubles will
+be ended sometime by that little machine. Just as soon as the
+Government divides up our land and gives each Indian his own share,
+then each good Indian will cultivate his own farm, and will have some
+heart to work. How can he now, when the land belongs as much to every
+lazy Indian in the tribe as to himself? O sir, is it possible that the
+Government has sent you to begin this division?"
+
+Mr. Armstrong confessed that his observations were made only for his own
+amusement. He was surprised to find that the young man had such advanced
+views on the "land in severalty" question, and he asked whether any of
+the other Indians of the tribe shared his opinions.
+
+"There are a good many who have staked out farms and are cultivating
+them, just as I have," he replied, "but we know that we have no right to
+the land, and may be turned out any day, whenever bad white men persuade
+our chiefs to give up this reservation and move away to the bad lands in
+the West."
+
+Mr. Armstrong winced a little under the earnest, questioning look with
+which Jim regarded him. To turn his train of thought he said, "There is
+the old eagle's nest on the ledge still, Charles Sumner. Can you climb
+up there to-day as nimbly as you did four years ago?"
+
+For answer, the young man threw himself from his pony and began to
+ascend the cliff. It was very steep, but he chose his way cautiously,
+seizing each point of vantage in the way of a crevice or projection. He
+had almost reached the nest when he paused, looked away to the
+southward, and began rapidly to descend. "There is a band of Utes coming
+over the divide," he said; "I think it would be as well for us to go a
+little further up the valley." He hurriedly collected his herd, and
+drove them before him through a pass into a long, shady gorge. Mr.
+Armstrong followed with the team. "This is the place!" he exclaimed,
+excitedly, as they entered the ravine. "It was in this little cañon that
+I found the silver. A vein cropped right out to the surface, and I
+filled my pockets with the ore. I set up a buffalo skull to mark the
+spot. There it is--at the foot of that pine. It must have rolled down,
+for I placed it higher. Hold the reins, Jim, while I scramble up the
+bank and see if I see any signs of the vein." With the agility of a
+younger man, Mr. Armstrong climbed the steep bank, and came down with
+his hands filled with crumbled ore. "It is there, fast enough," he
+said, triumphantly; "if it were not on the Indian reservation I would be
+the owner of that mine now. They cannot hold the lands long, and when
+they are opened to settlement this cañon shall be ours, Jim. You say you
+would like to live a western life. If your mother, of whom you seem so
+fond, is of the same opinion, you shall pre-empt a claim here, and I
+will take one just beside you, and between us we will own the mine. You
+don't understand it, my boy; but I have taken a fancy to you, and I mean
+to make your fortune."
+
+"And will this ravine be my very own?" Jim asked--"mother's and mine?"
+
+"Yes, my boy; and I am curious to see what you will make of it, and what
+you will make of yourself while you are waiting to come into your
+possessions. I mean to put you in the way of getting a good practical
+education, which shall be of use to you out here."
+
+"And can I learn surveying?"
+
+"Yes; and mining engineering and assaying and mechanics, and all that."
+
+"That is what Lovey Dimple would like to learn too. Can he come with me?
+He'd invent a machine right off to dig the silver just as easy."
+
+"We will see, Jim. I would like to give him a good turn for his father's
+sake; but don't take too many into our company, or we shall have to
+water the stock too freely."
+
+They had nearly reached the head of the gorge, and they found that
+Charles Sumner had paused, and had corraled his cows in a little natural
+amphitheatre, where they were resting contentedly.
+
+"I must watch them pretty sharply," the Indian explained, "for the corn
+I told you about is in the next valley, and if they should get into
+that, they would be as bad as our relations. Just walk to the top of the
+hill, Mr. Armstrong, and see what a nice field of it I have over there."
+Mr. Armstrong returned bringing an armful of fine roasting ears, but
+Charles Sumner thought it best not to build a fire until the party of
+Utes had passed, and they sat down to a cold supper of canned baked
+beans. After supper Jim had a long talk with Charles Sumner, and
+ascertained that the young man had fixed his heart upon making this
+particular section his home farm as soon as the reservation should be
+divided in severalty among the Indians, which he hoped would happen
+before many years.
+
+"Then," said Jim, "you think that the white people will never have a
+chance to come in here and take up land?"
+
+"Do you think they ought to be allowed to do so, when the land is ours?"
+Charles Sumner asked.
+
+"No, I don't," Jim replied, promptly. "I think it is really yours, and
+you ought to keep it; and I'll just tell you a secret about this cañon.
+It is worth a great deal more than you know. There is a silver mine in
+it, and I'll show you where, and you had just better go back East and
+study the best way to mine silver, and then when you get your claim you
+will know how to work it. I wish you would take me in as your partner,
+for Mr. Armstrong is going to have me taught all about mining. He
+thought he might pre-empt this mine for me, but, of course, when he sees
+that it really belongs to you, he will not want to, unless, perhaps, you
+would like to sell out your right in it."
+
+Jim had spoken so rapidly that he did not notice that Mr. Armstrong had
+approached, and was listening with an astonished expression to what he
+was saying.
+
+"Jim, are you crazy?" Mr. Armstrong exclaimed, as soon as he could
+recover himself. "Don't you see that you are throwing away your chances?"
+
+"Oh no," Jim replied, with a smile, "I hadn't any chance at all. You
+didn't know, but it all belongs to Charles Sumner."
+
+Their conversation was interrupted by a whoop in the valley below. The
+band of Utes had discovered the traces of their last camp, and had
+followed their trail into the cañon.
+
+"Drive over into the next ravine!" said Charles Sumner; "they will camp
+here when they find my cows. Wait for me just below the corn-field, and
+I will join you as soon as I can. They will not hurt you if they find
+you, but they will beg and steal everything."
+
+Mr. Armstrong hurriedly followed Charles Sumner's advice, and was joined
+about midnight by the young Indian, who drove before him three cows, all
+he had been able to rescue from a herd of twelve.
+
+The young man wiped his brow with a despairing gesture. "They were
+ugly," he said. "Some Durango cow-boys have been pasturing their cattle
+on the reservation, and they insisted that my cows were a part of the
+herd, and that the owners were somewhere near. If they had found you,
+they might have treated you roughly. I think we had better get away
+while they are feasting."
+
+It occurred to Mr. Armstrong that it looked very much as if Charles
+Sumner had saved their lives at the sacrifice of his property, and a
+feeling of gratitude and liking sprang up in his heart for the young
+man.
+
+"I don't know what I shall do," the Indian continued, dejectedly. "It
+doesn't seem to be any use to try to be civilized in this country."
+
+"No, my poor fellow!" replied Mr. Armstrong, "it really does not. In
+your place, I think I should go back to the blanket and be a savage with
+the rest. I will tell you what to do: come East again with your mother
+and sister. I will let you try farming on a piece of land which I have
+taken a fancy to in Massachusetts, where you will not have these
+discouragements. When the land question is settled, you and Jim shall
+come back here and form a partnership. If it is divided in severalty to
+the Utes, then I will establish your right to the cañon, and you shall
+take Jim in as your partner; and if it is opened to the whites for
+settlement, he will take up the land and give you a share in it."
+
+This proposition was accepted by Charles Sumner and his sister, the
+mother preferring to remain with her husband. After establishing the
+young Indians in Massachusetts, Mr. Armstrong brought Jim with him to
+Narragansett Pier.
+
+A short space must now be given to Milly and Adelaide, who, though
+mingling in a very different class of society, had an experience that
+summer not unlike our own. Mrs. Roseveldt gave a lawn-party at the
+beginning of the season to organize a tennis club. Tennis was the rage
+that season. Many of the cottages had tennis courts, and the different
+players wished to plan for a grand tournament at the end of the season.
+A pretty uniform was designed of white flannel, the skirt embroidered
+with a deep Greek fret in gold thread, and laid in accordion pleats. A
+little jacket lined with gold-colored silk, and embroidered in the same
+pattern, was to be worn over the shirt waist, and a gold-colored sash
+ending in a tassel, with a white Tam o'Shanter, completed the costume.
+Milly had planned that Mrs. Halsey should have the making of these
+costumes while at the Pier.
+
+A fund was contributed with which to purchase a trophy for the prize
+player. It rose quickly to a hundred and fifty dollars, and a meeting
+was held to decide what the trophy should be. Most of the members
+thought that a gold pin in the shape of a racket, with a pearl ball,
+manufactured by Tiffany, would be the correct thing, and this idea would
+certainly have been adopted if Milly had not turned the current by a
+neat little speech.
+
+"I am sure," she said, "that we do not want to vulgarize our club by
+making it professional, and a prize of any great money value would
+certainly do this. So I move that the prize be a simple wreath of laurel
+tied with a white ribbon, on which the date of the tournament and name
+of the club be printed." The members all agreed that this would be in
+better form, but asked what was to be done with the money already
+contributed. Then Milly rose to the occasion, and flung out the banner
+of the Home.
+
+"It seems as if we had no right to be romping in this delicious fresh
+air while poor children are gasping in the vile smells of the city."
+
+The Fresh-Air Fund and the Working Girls' Vacation Society were both
+popular charities, and were proposed by different members as proper
+recipients of our funds. Milly was ready to agree to this, but one young
+man, supposed until that day to be a mere gilded youth, without an idea
+above his neckties, suggested that it was always pleasanter to be the
+distributer of one's own benefits, and moved that the club get up a
+little Fresh-Air Fund of its own. "We might rent a cottage down here and
+send for a dozen or so young beggars, and take turns in caring for
+them."
+
+A general laugh followed this remark. "What would you do, personally,
+Mr. Van Silver?" asked one of the girls.
+
+"I would put my coach and four-in-hand at the service of the
+enterprise," he said, "and make myself expressman and 'bus driver. I'd
+take the children out to drive every day, for one thing."
+
+Everyone insisted that they would like to see him do it, but he
+persisted until they were convinced of his sincerity. Mr. Van Silver's
+patronage had given an aristocratic stamp to the enterprise, and some
+one now proposed that they rent a cottage for the children for the
+season.
+
+Milly then explained that Adelaide had already fitted up her cottage for
+the purpose, and was expecting an invoice of children by the next day.
+Adelaide invited the party to visit the cottage that afternoon, and the
+entire club climbed to the top and interior of Mr. Van Silver's coach;
+Mr. Stacy Fitz-Simmons, the whilom drum-major of the Cadet band, blowing
+the coach horn for all he was worth.
+
+They found a park overgrown into a forest, in the depth of which stood a
+pleasant cottage, with broad verandas, which once commanded a beautiful
+view of the glistening bay, with Newport in the distance.
+
+"I intend to have some of these trees cut away, so as to leave a vista
+through to the water," Adelaide explained.
+
+They entered the house, and found it renovated from the mold and decay
+with which ten years had encumbered it, sweet and fresh with new paint,
+and papering of pretty design. Light and graceful ratan furniture and
+chintz hangings added to the beauty of the room, simple straw mattings
+covered the floor. It was as lovely a home as heart could wish.
+
+"I have done all I can afford," Adelaide said, simply, "and if the club
+would like to use this cottage for their city children it is at their
+service, but first Milly wants to entertain the younger children of the
+Home of the Elder Brother here for a couple of weeks."
+
+"And we will each of us take his or her turn for a week," said Mr. Van
+Silver; and so the "Paradiso Seaside Home" was provided for.
+
+Mrs. Halsey came with the children. From the moment that she left the
+station she seemed to be in a dream.
+
+"It all looks so familiar!" she exclaimed; "I am sure I have been here
+before! There is something caressing in the feeling of the damp air, as
+though it kissed my cheek like an old friend. And the scent of the
+salt-water! I remember it so well; and shall we hear the surf? Oh, when
+was it, where was it, that I knew it all?"
+
+When they drove into the grounds she shook her head. "No, it was not
+this place," she said, with a wistful look in her eyes; "there were no
+trees." But at the first glimpse of the house a trembling seized her,
+and she could hardly mount the steps. Within doors a puzzled expression
+came into her face.
+
+"It is familiar, yet unfamiliar," she said. "I cannot be sure. If I
+could only see some face that I had known before, then I could tell."
+
+"Perhaps the face will come," Adelaide said; and it came.
+
+A few weeks later Mr. Armstrong returned with Jim from the western trip,
+and came down to the Pier to make the visit which his daughter so
+greatly desired. Adelaide had driven to the station for them in Milly's
+pony carriage, Jim mounted to his old place on the rumble, Mr. Armstrong
+settled himself for the drive, and Adelaide took the reins.
+
+"I am going to take you around by the cottage, papa," she said. "I want
+to show you what I have done there, and how happy the Home children
+are."
+
+Mr. Armstrong drew himself up, as though wincing from some sudden pain.
+"I did not intend to go there again, daughter," he said; "I shall miss a
+face at the window."
+
+"I know, papa--the cameo; but she would have been glad to see the
+cottage used as it is."
+
+They turned into the drive, and Mr. Armstrong nerved himself for the
+sight of his old home. Suddenly he cried out, and caught his daughter's
+arm. "Is it only memory, or have I lost my senses? The face is there!"
+
+Adelaide laughed reassuringly. "I don't wonder that it gave you a turn,
+papa; it did me, too, when I saw the same sight in Miss Prillwitz's
+window last winter, but it is only dear Mrs. Halsey looking out for us."
+
+"Then thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, leaping from the vehicle and
+hurrying forward. "Do you not remember me? my own!--my wife!"
+
+His wife remembered: the veil which had blinded her for years fell at
+the sight of her husband's face.
+
+Happily the shock had not been as sudden as it seemed; during the time
+which she had spent in the cottage the conviction had grown upon her
+that this had been her home. She had asked Adelaide its history, and
+learning that it had been built for her mother, who had been drowned in
+the great steamboat disaster, a hope had sprung up in her heart, which
+she dared not express to any one, that she had found her own again.
+Adelaide had said that she expected her father, and Mrs. Halsey waited
+only to see his face to be assured of the truth.
+
+Adelaide's delight at finding that Mrs. Halsey was her lost mother, and
+Jim her brother, was genuine and intense. "I knew, all the time, that
+Jim was somebody's child," she exclaimed, incoherently. "It is all too
+good to be true! too good to be true!"
+
+"Jim deserves a better father than he has found," said Mr. Armstrong,
+"and by God's grace he shall have a better.
+
+"It is too bad to break up this nice little arrangement of a summer home
+for the poor children," he added, "and I will allow the cottage to be
+used for this purpose just so long as the tennis club desire to maintain
+it; but I must have my wife. Please remember that we have been parted
+from each other a very long time. I am going West next week, and I must
+take her with me; and it will not do Adelaide any harm to have a glimpse
+of the great West before we send her to school in the fall. Jim has had
+as much of the West as he can stand at present, and we will leave him in
+the best school that we can find."
+
+"But what shall we do for a housekeeper for the cottage?" Adelaide
+asked, in dismay.
+
+"Mrs. Trimble has just left the hospital, fully recovered, but I have no
+doubt she would prefer to run your little enterprise rather than to
+return to the store; and as I have deprived you of your housekeeper I
+don't mind paying Mrs. Trimble to supply her place for the remainder of
+the summer. It will do Mr. Trimble good, too, to complete his
+convalescence here, and perhaps in the winter they will accept the
+janitorship of your tenement."
+
+"My tenement!" Adelaide replied, in surprise.
+
+"Yes, I intend to give you the management of this property, which I have
+always considered your own. You have a matter of twenty thousand dollars
+insurance money, which, with the ten thousand which I have deposited to
+your name in the savings bank, you may use in erecting a model tenement
+on the site of the old Rickett's Court building. I think I shall have
+some more money for you to put into the enterprise if the patent works
+well. I shall give Mr. Trimble a share in the profits of that invention
+over and above the five thousand dollars already paid him, but I think
+that he would like one of your suites of rooms in return for acting as
+janitor and agent of the building, and it will not interfere with his
+teaching mechanics to the boys at the Home."
+
+"If you please, papa," said Adelaide, "I like the plan of engaging Mr.
+Trimble as janitor, but I would rather be my own agent and collect the
+rents myself; then I can see just what improvements are needed, and be
+sure that my tenants are all comfortable."
+
+For the remainder of their stay in the East the Armstrongs busied
+themselves with architects' plans and specifications. Adelaide enjoyed
+planning the bathrooms and conveniences of different kinds. "And the
+paving-stones must be taken up in the court," she said, "and a nice
+grass-plot laid out in their place, and we will have pretty iron
+balconies before every window, and a fire-escape."
+
+"Yes, daughter," replied her father, "I will make you a present of that,
+outside the other matters--the very best kind of fire-escape to be found
+in the city; and, while we are about it, I will send one to the Home of
+the Elder Brother."
+
+Adelaide's interest in her tenement did not wean her away from the Home,
+and I have since observed that it is always those who, seemingly, are
+already doing as much as they can in the way of charity who are always
+ready to lend a helping hand to other enterprises, and that it is the
+earnest workers of little means, as well as the wealthy philanthropists,
+who
+
+                      "To the ages
+    Fair bequests, and costly, make."
+
+The Armstrongs went West, and Adelaide created an interest for the Home
+in her new surroundings, while Milly kept up the enthusiasm of the
+tennis club at the Pier. That club flourished in a manner unheard of,
+heretofore, in a place where everyone was so busy doing nothing that
+even the exertion of tennis had been voted a bore. It was not tennis,
+however, that kept them together, or gave the members their bright,
+jolly looks, but the Paradiso Cottage.
+
+    "For we may find a zest
+      In any true employ
+    Which, like a whetstone in the breast,
+      Shall give an edge to joy."
+
+But while we all worked in our different ways, it was our corresponding
+secretary who was the clasp to the necklace, or rather, the central
+battery which sent currents of life pulsating through the connecting
+wires. The scapegrace who plotted and schemed mischief, she who had
+erstwhile reveled in the name of "the malicious, seditious,
+insubordinate, disreputable, skeptical Queen of the Hornets," had become
+a wise and enterprising central manager of a helpful charity.
+
+The summer vacation is over, and we have all met again for another
+winter at Madame's; Amen Corner and Hornets all filled with a fine
+enthusiasm for our work, and a deep, true affection for one another.
+
+The Home rests, we are told, on very slender foundations. There is no
+financier as a backer, no estate, no great endowment, nothing to ensure
+its existence from year to year but the hearts and hands of ten young
+girls. Nothing else? They forget that we have behind us and with us the
+Elder Brother, with all the estates del Paradiso.
+
+    "By each saving word unspoken,
+    By Thy will, yet poorly done,
+          Hear us, hear us,
+    Thou Almighty! help us on."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Corrections
+
+Following is a list of significant typographical errors that have been
+corrected.
+
+- Page 45, "Celeste's" changed to "Céleste's" (position at Madame
+Céleste's).
+
+- Page 48, "insistance" changed to "insistence" (on her insistence).
+
+- Page 155, "ochestra" changed to "orchestra" (led her orchestra).
+
+- Page 189, "Vicenzo" changed to "Vincenzo" (and Vincenzo Amati).
+
+- Page 206, "pictture" changed to "picture" (I've made a picture).
+
+- Page 213, "any one" changed to "anyone" (of anyone else).
+
+- Page 228, "Winnnie" changed to "Winnie" (replied Winnie).
+
+- Page 277, "formerely" changed to "formerly" (which formerly groaned).
+
+- Page 282, "salvages" changed to "savages" (barbarous savages).
+
+- Page 314, "Amstrong" changed to "Armstrong" (Mr. Armstrong evaded).
+
+- Page 326, "Sante" changed to "Santa" (road to Santa Fé).
+
+- Page 334, "pantomine" changed to "pantomime" (welcome by pantomime).
+
+- Page 352, "f r" changed to "for" (station for them).
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Witch Winnie, by Elizabeth W. Champney
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Witch Winnie, by Elizabeth W. Champney.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Witch Winnie, by Elizabeth W. Champney
+
+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: Witch Winnie
+       The Story of a King's Daughter
+
+Author: Elizabeth W. Champney
+
+Release Date: December 2, 2010 [EBook #34551]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITCH WINNIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Patrick Hopkins and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tn">
+
+<h3>Transcriber's Note</h3>
+
+<ul>
+<li> Illustration captions in {brackets} have been added by the transcriber
+for reader convenience.</li>
+
+<li> The position of some illustrations has been changed to improve
+readability.</li>
+
+<li> Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. These
+minor errors include extra or missing commas, periods, and quotation
+marks (" and ').</li>
+
+<li> Significant typographical errors have been corrected and are marked with
+dotted underlines. Place your mouse over the highlighted word and the original text will
+<ins class="correct" title="Like this!">appear</ins>. A full list of these same corrections
+is also available in the <a href="#TC">Transcriber's Corrections</a> section at the end of
+the book.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 433px;">
+   <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="433" height="650" id="coverpage" alt="{Cover: Witch Winnie - The Story of a King's Daughter - Elizabeth W. Champney}" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1>WITCH WINNIE.</h1>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a><br /><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a><br /><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 499px;">
+<img src="images/gs01.jpg" width="499" height="650" alt="{Woman lowers basket from window to three men waiting below.}" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1>WITCH WINNIE</h1>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: 150%;"><span class="smcap">The Story of a "King's Daughter"</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+
+<h2>ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK<br />
+DODD, MEAD &amp; COMPANY<br />
+<span class="smcap">Publishers</span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<br />
+<br />
+Copyright, 1889, by<br />
+WHITE AND ALLEN<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Copyright, 1891, by<br />
+DODD, MEAD &amp; COMPANY<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+</p>
+<div style="float: right;"><p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Burr Printing House</span><br />
+New York</p></div>
+<div class="clr">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p class="center"><i>DEDICATED TO</i><br />
+<span style="font-size: 150%;">MY LITTLE WITCH MARIE.</span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Where</span> she's been the sunshine lingers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She's my witch and she's my mouse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She has helpful, fairy fingers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Busy keeper of the house.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She is tricksy and she's elfish;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sure no plague could e'er be worse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She is thoughtful and unselfish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She's my gentle angel-nurse.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All their jokes the brownies lend her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She's a merry, mischief thing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But her heart is very tender&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She's a Daughter of the King.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yes, there's something nice about her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And I'll love her till my death;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No, I could not do without her&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I'm her ma, Elizabeth.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a><br /><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">CHAPTER</span></td><td align="right"><span class="smcap">PAGE</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><span class="smcap">Introduction</span>,</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">I.</td><td><span class="smcap">Boarding-School Scrapes</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">II.</td><td><span class="smcap">Guinevere's Gown</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Princess</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">IV.</td><td><span class="smcap">Court Life</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">V.</td><td><span class="smcap">Little Prince del Paradiso</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VI.</td><td><span class="smcap">Mrs. Hetterman Throws Light on the
+Mystery</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VII.</td><td><span class="smcap">Winnie's Confession</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Elder Brother and Mrs. Halsey's
+Strange Story</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">IX.</td><td><span class="smcap">The King's Daughters and the Venetian
+F&ecirc;te</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">X.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Landlord of Rickett's Court</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XI.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Guests of the Elder Brother</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XII.</td><td><span class="smcap">With the Dynamiters</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XIII.</td><td><span class="smcap">The King's Daughters in the Country</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XIV.</td><td><span class="smcap">Over the Hills and Far Away</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_246">246</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XV.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Estates del Paradiso</span>, </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a><br /><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is but just to explain that, while all of the characters introduced
+in this little story are purely imaginary, the founding of the Home of
+the Elder Brother was suggested by the work of some real children,
+younger than Madame's pupils, who gave a little fair, and, helped by
+charitable people, instituted a lovely charity, the Messiah Home for
+Little Children, at 4 Rutherford Place, New York City. This Home still
+opens its doors to the children of working-women, and is helped by
+different circles of King's Daughters, some of whom have adopted
+children to clothe. It is a beautiful work, founded by children for
+children, and it is hoped that others all over the land will join in it,
+and that the work may broaden until no such dens as Rickett's Court will
+remain in our fair city or country.</p>
+
+<p class="right">E. W. C.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a><br /><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="WITCH_WINNIE" id="WITCH_WINNIE"></a>WITCH WINNIE.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br />
+
+<span class="title">BOARDING-SCHOOL SCRAPES.</span></h2>
+
+<!--
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 163px;">
+<img src="images/ch01.jpg" height="200" width="163" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+-->
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch01a.jpg" height="200" width="117" alt="{Drawing of Winnie.}" title="" style="float: left;" /><img src="images/ch01b.jpg" height="63" width="46" alt="W" title="" style="float: left;" />E never had any until Witch Winnie came to room in our corner.</p>
+
+<p>We had the reputation of being the best behaved set at Madame's, a
+little bit self-conscious too, and proud of our propriety. Perhaps this
+was the reason that we were nicknamed the "Amen Corner," though the
+girls pretended it was because the initials of our names, spelled
+downward, like an acrostic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 10em;">
+<i>A</i>delaide Armstrong,<br />
+<i>M</i>illy Roseveldt,<br />
+<i>E</i>mma Jane Anton,<br />
+<i>N</i>ellie Smith&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>formed the word <i>amen</i>. But certainly the name would not have clung to
+us as it did if the other girls had not recognized its fitness in our
+forming a sanctimonious little clique who echoed Madame's sentiments,
+and were real Pharisees in minding the rules about study-hours, and
+whispering, and having our lights out in time, and the other lesser
+matters of the law which the girls in the "Hornets' Nest," Witch
+Winnie's set, disregarded with impunity.</p>
+
+<p>And verily we had our reward, for Madame trusted us, and gave us the
+best set of rooms in the great stone corner tower, overlooking the park,
+quite away from the espial of the corridor teacher. They had been
+intended for an infirmary, but as no one was ever sick at Madame's, she
+grew tired of keeping them unoccupied, and assigned them to us.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the other girls annoyed us by making calls in study-hours, and
+we virtuously displayed a placard on our door bearing the inscription,
+"Particularly Engaged."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> It caught Witch Winnie's eye, as she strolled
+along the hall, and she scribbled beneath it,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The girls of the Amen Corner<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Would have us all to know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That they're <i>engaged</i>, each one engaged&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Particularly so."<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> This incident is borrowed from an actual occurrence.</p></div>
+
+<p>We hardly knew whether to be amused or vexed at this sally of Witch
+Winnie's. We acknowledged that it was bright, but we deplored her
+wildness, and had no idea how much we should love her in time to come.
+After all, our reputation as model pupils had a very slender foundation.
+It rested chiefly on Emma Jane's preternatural conscientiousness. The
+night that the cadet band serenaded our school, some of the pupils,
+presumably the girls in the "Hornets' Nest," threw out bouquets to the
+performers. Rumor said that when Madame heard of this she was greatly
+shocked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how she can punish them for it," said Adelaide; "there's
+nothing in the rules about not giving flowers to young men. Still, it
+was a dreadful thing to do, and Madame is ingenious enough to twist the
+rules some way, so as to 'make the pun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>ishment fit the crime.' I am glad
+the Amen Corner is guiltless."</p>
+
+<p>Then we marched into chapel on tiptoe with excitement to see Madame
+wreak vengeance on the wrong-doers. Witch Winnie sat behind me, and
+turning, I saw that she looked pale, but resolute.</p>
+
+<p>Madame rose in awful dignity, her wiry curls, which Milly said reminded
+her of spiral bed-springs, bristled ominously.</p>
+
+<p>"Young ladies," she exclaimed, in a sharp tone of command, "you may all
+rise." We rose.</p>
+
+<p>"If you turn to the printed rules of this institution," she continued,
+"you will find under Section VII. the following paragraph&mdash;'Pupils are
+not allowed to disfigure the lawn by <i>throwing from the windows</i> any
+bits of paper, hair, apple-parings, peanut shells, or waste material <i>of
+any kind</i>. Scrap-baskets are provided for the reception of such matter,
+and any pupil throwing <i>anything from her window upon the school
+grounds</i> will be regarded as having committed a misdemeanor.'"</p>
+
+<p>An impressive silence followed, in which Witch Winnie gave a sigh of
+relief, and whispered to Cynthia Vaughn, "We're all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> right; we didn't
+disfigure her precious lawn. The bouquets never touched the ground. I
+lowered them, with a string, in my scrap-basket (just where she says we
+ought to have put them), and the drum-major took them out and
+distributed them to the other boys."</p>
+
+<p>"Young ladies," Madame continued, in tones of triumph, "those of you who
+have not broken this rule within the past week may sit down."</p>
+
+<p>We all sat down&mdash;all but Emma Jane Anton, who remained in conspicuous
+discomfort. Adelaide pulled her by the basque, "Sit down!" she
+whispered; "Madame doesn't mean you."</p>
+
+<p>Emma Jane stood like a martyr while Madame regarded her through her
+lorgnette with astonishment depicted on every feature.</p>
+
+<p>"If you committed this infringement of the rules at any time other than
+last evening you may sit down."</p>
+
+<p>Emma Jane remained standing.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Madame, drawing herself up frigidly, "Miss Anton, you may
+explain: what was it you threw out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," replied Emma Jane, "the window was open&mdash;we were listening to
+the music&mdash;and a bat flew in; and, Madame, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> would not stay in the
+waste-paper basket, and so, Madame, I threw him out."</p>
+
+<p>Every one laughed; discipline was forgotten for the moment, until Madame
+rapped smartly on the desk and called for order. She complimented Emma
+Jane highly on her conscientiousness, but she looked provoked with her
+all the same, while Witch Winnie, who was stuffing her handkerchief into
+her mouth, nearly went into convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>After the sketch which I have endeavored to give of Witch Winnie, and
+the position which she occupied at Madame's, I trust that we, as
+self-respecting pupils, will not be too severely blamed when I confess
+that we received, with great disfavor, Madame's announcement that Winnie
+was henceforth to room in the Amen Corner.</p>
+
+<p>The bedrooms at Madame's boarding-school were clustered in little groups
+around study-parlors, five girls forming a family. For a long time there
+had been only four in our set. Emma Jane Anton, who preferred to room
+alone, had the little single bedroom; Adelaide and Milly were chums;
+while I, Nellie Smith, familiarly nicknamed Tib, had luxuriated so long
+in the large corner chamber that I had almost forgotten that Madame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+told me, at the outset, that I must hold myself in readiness to receive
+a room-mate at any time.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide Armstrong was the daughter of a railroad magnate. She had been
+brought up in the West, but, though she had traveled much, and had seen
+a great deal of society, her education had not been entirely neglected.
+She had studied a great deal in a desultory way, and contested the head
+of the class with Emma Jane Anton, who was a "regular dig," and had
+prepared for college in the Boston public schools.</p>
+
+<p>It was really surprising how Adelaide had picked up so much. She had
+studied Latin with a priest in New Mexico, and had profited by two years
+at a lonely post on the confines of Canada, where her father had been
+interested in the fur trade, to become proficient in French. Strikingly
+handsome, a brunette with brilliant complexion and Andalusian eyes,
+energetic and spirited, she was popular both with her instructors and
+her classmates.</p>
+
+<p>Milly Roseveldt was her exact contrast&mdash;a milky-complexioned little
+blonde, shy and sweet; she was also a trifle dull. Adelaide translated
+her Latin, and worked out her prob<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>lems, and I wrote her compositions,
+while Milly rewarded us with largesses of love and confectionery, for
+she was the most generous as well as the most affectionate of girls. Her
+father, a wealthy New York banker, placed large sums of money at her
+disposal, and Milly deluged her friends with gifts of flowers and
+bonbons. It seemed very natural to me that Adelaide and Milly should be
+sworn friends; but my admittance into the sacred circle was a mystery to
+me, and to a number of aspiring girls who asserted that I was nobody in
+particular, and who envied me my place in my friends' affection. My
+presence in the school itself was almost as great a wonder. My father
+was a Long Island farmer. We opened our house to city boarders during
+the summer, and one season Miss Sartoris, the teacher in Art at
+Madame's, boarded with us. I had taken drawing lessons at the Academy,
+and Miss Sartoris took me out sketching with her. I worked like a
+beaver, and was never so happy in my life. I delighted Miss Sartoris,
+who wakened mother's ambition by telling her that I was the most
+talented pupil she had ever had. More than this: we three induced good,
+easy-going, generous father to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> let me go back to the city with Miss
+Sartoris as a pupil at Madame's. My wardrobe was meagre, but not
+countrified, for I possessed a natural sense of color and a quick
+faculty for imitation. I had seen plenty of city people at Scup Haven,
+and my few dresses, I fancied, would pass muster anywhere. I was a fair
+scholar, and took the lead in the studio. I was not brilliant and
+stylish like Adelaide, or rich and pretty like Milly, but they liked me,
+and I liked myself the better for the consciousness that there must be
+something nice about me which attracted them. I believe now that it was
+an absence of self-consciousness and selfishness on my part, and my
+hearty admiration and devotion to them. Adelaide called me, playfully,
+"the great American Appreciator."</p>
+
+<p>It was just before the theatricals given by our literary society that an
+incident occurred which showed me how much they really thought of me. We
+three were arranging the stage; I was touching up the scenery, and Milly
+holding the tacks for Adelaide, who was looping the drapery, when we
+overheard the conversation of a group of girls on the other side of the
+curtain.</p>
+
+<p>Cynthia Vaughn was the first to speak.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I think Adelaide Armstrong is perfectly splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," said another; and there was a chorus of confused voices
+exclaiming, "So stylish!" "Perfectly elegant!" "The handsomest girl in
+school!"</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide left her work and placed her hand on the curtain, but Milly
+threw her arms impulsively around her. "Let us hear what they will say,"
+she whispered; "when they are through we can pull the cord, and all bow
+thanks."</p>
+
+<p>By this time other voices were chanting Milly's praises, and Adelaide
+turned reluctantly away, remarking, "Well, if you enjoy that sort of
+thing, you are welcome to it. I should not be surprised, by the way they
+are loading it on, if they knew we were here."</p>
+
+<p>They did not know it, for at that instant Cynthia Vaughn spoke up again,
+"I don't see what they find to admire in that pokey Lib Smith."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think Milly would be ashamed to be seen with her," said
+another; "her dresses always remind me of a chicken with its head
+through a hole in a salt-bag."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide sprang forward with flashing eyes to confront the speaker, but
+this time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> it was I who held her back. "Let them say their say," I
+whispered, hoarsely, while Milly cowered, trembling. "I believe her
+mother makes her dresses at home," said Witch Winnie; "and, as she can't
+have Tib to try them on, she fits them on her grandfather."</p>
+
+<p>There was a hearty laugh at this sally, and another added: "I don't see
+how Adelaide can endure her, she is so stingy. Have you noticed that the
+girls place a fresh bouquet at her plate every morning? and I never
+could find out that she ever gave either of them so much as a single
+flower."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide nearly writhed herself from my grasp, but I held her tightly.
+"Milly," she gasped, "are you a coward, to stand there and hear our
+friend reviled so? Can't you stop them?"</p>
+
+<p>The blood surged into Milly's pale cheeks, and she sprang before the
+curtain. "Girls," she cried, "how can you talk so? Nellie Smith is our
+dearest friend. She is not one bit stingy; she gives us more than we
+have ever given her. Because she does not parade her presents on the
+breakfast-table is no reason that she has not given me lots and lots of
+things, and no girl can consider her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>self my friend who talks so about
+our darling Tib."</p>
+
+<p>Here Milly broke down in tears, and Witch Winnie exclaimed, "Good for
+you, Milly Roseveldt; I didn't know you had so much spunk!" But at this
+point we all fled to the Amen Corner, and bolted the door, refusing to
+admit Witch Winnie, who impulsively shouted her apologies through the
+keyhole.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Milly!" I cried, "what made you tell a lie for me? I never gave you
+a thing." And I might have added, "How could I, when my allowance for
+spending-money is hardly sufficient to keep me in slate-pencils?"</p>
+
+<p>But Milly stopped my mouth with kisses, and pointed to sundry original
+works of art with which I had decorated her apartment, and declared,
+besides, that helping her on that last horrid composition was a greater
+gift than all the roses in Le Moult's greenhouse.</p>
+
+<p>So we of the Amen Corner disliked Witch Winnie and loved each other, all
+but Emma Jane Anton. We could not be said to exactly love her; we
+tolerated her in our midst, in spite of her uncongenial nature, because
+we took pride in her eminent respectability, and in the higher average
+of reputa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>tion for creditable scholarship and exemplary behavior which
+she gave to our corner. But love her! We might as well have tried to
+love an iceberg.</p>
+
+<p>Witch Winnie arrived on Adelaide's birthday, and was a most unwelcome
+birthday present. Emma Jane Anton had obtained permission for us to
+celebrate the occasion by sitting up an hour later that evening. Milly
+had ordered a form of ice-cream and a birthday-cake from Mazetti's, and
+we had invited in a half-dozen friends to share the treat. As a damper
+on this beautiful f&ecirc;te, Madame had called us into her private study that
+afternoon, and had told us that she had decided to assign Witch Winnie
+as my room-mate. She did not scruple to tell us her reasons for doing
+so. Winnie (according to Madame) was the head-centre of a wild set of
+"ne'er-do-weels" who roomed in the top of the house, "a perfect hornets'
+nest under the eaves," Madame said. Madame felt that if the queen hornet
+was taken away, the rest would be more amenable to discipline, and that
+Winnie, placed among such proper and well-behaved girls as we were,
+would herself feel our beneficial influence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Madame, "that if you knew Winnie's history you would
+understand her better. Her parents were both very talented and highly
+imaginative people. Her father is a playwright of reputation, who
+married a very lovely young actress who had sustained the leading part
+in several of his plays. They were tenderly attached to each other. Mrs.
+De Witt had great dramatic talent; she made it the study of her life to
+realize his conceptions, and succeeded to his perfect satisfaction. She
+said that she so lived in her part that frequently she forgot her own
+personality, while Mr. De Witt was always cudgeling his brains to invent
+new plots, situations, and characters for his wife. Mrs. De Witt died
+when Winnie was but three years of age. The child has lived with
+different relatives, and has been spoiled and neglected by turns, but
+never quite understood. I have studied her carefully, and think I see in
+her a combination of both parents. She has her father's highly organized
+imaginative nature, but instead of constructing plots for plays, it
+develops itself in plots for scrapes. She delights in dramatic
+situations, and is a natural and unconscious actress. Her father hopes
+that she may never adopt the stage as her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> profession, for it was that
+life of mental and physical strain which killed Winnie's mother.
+Something remarkable in organization or in action the girl will
+certainly be, and as she takes her color, like a chameleon, from her
+surroundings, or, rather, her cue from the other actors, I have great
+hopes for your influence over her."</p>
+
+<p>Madame's confidences made little impression upon our prejudice. We
+listened in silence, and, returning to our rooms, held an indignation
+meeting, in which Emma Jane led. Adelaide, who ought to have sympathized
+with the neglected orphan, for she had lost her own mother when a little
+girl, and who did find in this fact a bond of fellow-feeling later on,
+now ignored all her claim for pity, and chose to feel that we were all
+grossly insulted. Milly pitied me the enforced companionship, several of
+us were in tears, and in the midst of it all Witch Winnie appeared. The
+clatter of voices sank to sudden silence, and the new-comer, looking
+from face to face, instantly understood the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"If you feel half as badly as I do, girls," she said, with a merry
+laugh, "I'm sorry for you; I wouldn't intrude on you in this way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> if I
+could help it. Madame tells me you are to have a spread to-night, and
+have invited your particular friends. It's too bad she wouldn't let me
+put off moving till to-morrow morning. I'll tell you what I'll do&mdash;I'll
+sit in the recitation-room and cram for examination until the party is
+over. Of course you don't want me, a perfect stranger to your friends;
+it isn't to be supposed you would."</p>
+
+<p>Emma Jane Anton looked relieved. "We provided for a limited number," she
+explained; "if we had known that we were to have the honor of your
+company&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Adelaide interrupted her instantly. "Sit in that dismal
+recitation-room while I am having my birthday party! Indeed you shall do
+nothing of the sort!" while Milly came gallantly to the rescue, assuring
+her that she had ordered more ice-cream than they could possibly
+consume, and I did the best I could to make Winnie believe that she was
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>The girls appeared <i>en masse</i> as soon as the bell struck for the close
+of evening study-hour&mdash;congratulations were offered to Adelaide, and
+Winnie was introduced. All made extravagant efforts to be gay and
+sociable, but there was a certain constraint, a forced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> quality, in it
+all, which had for its reason something beyond the fact of an unwelcome
+addition to the Corner: the refreshments had not arrived. Mazetti had
+forgotten to send them. There stood the study-table neatly spread with a
+table-cloth borrowed from the steward's department, and set with
+saucers, spoons, and plates, all disappointingly empty.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide tried to carry off the situation as an immense joke. Milly
+alternated between hope and despair, fancying each noise of wheels the
+confectioner's cart. The guests showed their disappointment plainly,
+some confessing that they had slighted the evening prunes and rice in
+anticipation of this treat. And I heard Cynthia Vaughn whisper that it
+was a very cheap way to give a party&mdash;to pretend that there had been a
+mistake. At this juncture I suddenly noticed that Witch Winnie had
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later a loud knocking, or kicking, for it was evidently
+bestowed with feet instead of hands, was heard at the door. "Let me in,
+girls!" cried Witch Winnie's voice&mdash;"let me in, quick! before Madame
+catches me." We opened the door, and Witch Winnie burst in, and sat
+laughing on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> the floor; from her dress, which had been gathered up in
+her hands, and had served as a market-basket, rolled a quantity of paper
+bags and parcels&mdash;lemons, bottles of olives, sugar, mixed pickles,
+crackers, sardines, macaroons, nuts, raisins, candy, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>"Help yourselves, girls," she chuckled. "We'll have the spread, after
+all. I have been around the corner and bought out Mr. Beeny's little
+grocery." Then broke in a chorus of voices&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How did you ever get out of the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was Cerberus asleep?" (Cerberus was our nickname for the janitor.)</p>
+
+<p>"How very sweet of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"But how extravagant!"</p>
+
+<p>"O girls! these pickled limes are too lovely for anything."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide appeared with her ewer. "I'll make the lemonade," she said, and
+began rolling the lemons with Milly's curling-stick, while Emma Jane
+Anton manipulated the can-opener with energy and success. Each girl flew
+to her room for her tooth-mug, and we drank Witch Winnie's health in
+brimming bumpers of lemonade.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you ever manage it?" Milly asked again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I climbed down the fire-escape." Witch Winnie giggled.</p>
+
+<p>"But you had to drop twelve feet onto the sidewalk!"</p>
+
+<p>"What of that? I've done it in the gymnasium from the trapeze many a
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"But you never came back that way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly. I rang the basement bell, and when Cerberus said he'd tell
+Madame, I made him a present of three packages of cigarettes and some
+Limburger cheese, and I am quite certain that he will never say a word."</p>
+
+<p>Witch Winnie's generosity and good-fellowship had won the day. From that
+moment we took her into our hearts.</p>
+
+<p>The ice-cream which Milly had ordered arrived the next day, but we were
+all too ill to touch it; we had feasted without restraint on our new
+chum's bountiful but somewhat heterogeneous repast, and were paying the
+penalty with rousing headaches, but in our fiercest pangs we were still
+ready to declare that if there ever was a trump it was Witch Winnie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br />
+
+<span class="title">GUINEVERE'S GOWN.</span></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch02a.jpg" height="266" width="143" alt="{Drawing of Adelaide.}" title="" style="float: left;" /><img src="images/ch02b.jpg" height="63" width="55" alt="A" title="" style="float: left;" />RISTOCRATIC Adelaide was now as deeply attached to "that little witch"
+Winnie as she had been prejudiced against her, and Winnie, who had
+hitherto spoken of her new friend as "that stuck-up Armstrong girl," was
+now her devoted admirer.</p>
+
+<p>Although this state of affairs was perfectly agreeable to the Amen
+Corner, it was not equally so to the Hornets. They had endured Winnie's
+removal as a piece of Madame's tyranny, had looked upon their Queen as a
+martyr, and had taken it for granted that we would make things extremely
+uncomfortable for her. They perceived, with astonishment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> that we
+welcomed her heartily, and when it dawned upon them by degrees that
+Winnie was herself happy in the change, that she actually promenaded in
+the corridor with an arm lovingly twined about the waist of that odious
+Tib Smith, that the placard "Engaged" appeared as frequently on the
+outer door of the Amen Corner, and that Winnie's lessons and behavior
+improved so much that she was actually becoming a favorite with the
+teachers instead of their special torment&mdash;the indignation of the
+Hornets' Nest knew no bounds.</p>
+
+<p>It showed itself in a practical joke originated by Cynthia, which might
+have been very amusing had it not been spiced with malice. I have spoken
+of our literary society and its projected entertainment. We were to have
+a series of tableaux; among others, Guinevere kneeling before an altar.
+Milly had been chosen to represent Guinevere on account of her beautiful
+hair, and because she spent her Saturdays and Sundays at home, and could
+have any costume arranged for herself. What was our disappointment, one
+Monday morning, to receive a note from Milly saying that she would not
+be able to take part in the entertainment, as her mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> was going to
+Washington for a fortnight, and had decided that, as Milly looked pale,
+a little outing would do her good. This note was read to the literary
+society amid groans from the members. "We can't give up that tableau."
+"Adelaide, <i>you</i> take the part." "Can't; my hair is as black as a crow's
+wing. Tib's hair is lovely when it is down. It falls to her knees, and
+it has the sheen of molten gold. Girls, you must see it," and Adelaide
+proceeded to pull my braids apart; I protesting all the time that it was
+absurd to have a freckled Guinevere who was as homely as a hedge fence.</p>
+
+<p>"Granted," replied Witch Winnie, "but nobody is going to see your face,
+child; you pose with your back to the audience, and as none of the girls
+know what regal hair you have, it will be such fun to have them guess
+who it is."</p>
+
+<p>All of the other girls joined in persuading me, excepting one of the
+Hornets, who lifted her voice in favor of Cynthia Vaughn.</p>
+
+<p>"But, girls, what am I to do for a costume?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't Milly think to send hers along?" said Adelaide. "We might
+write her."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, there's no time; she leaves this morning on the 'limited.'"</p>
+
+<p>"If you would like, I'll take the part," Cynthia Vaughn suggested. "I've
+all that canton flannel ermine, and the ruff made out of the old window
+curtains, which I wore when I was Queen Elizabeth."</p>
+
+<p>"That ruff would be a frightful anachronism," said Emma Jane Anton.</p>
+
+<p>"And the ermine has served three times already. Thank you, we'll manage
+somehow," Witch Winnie asserted, confidently.</p>
+
+<p>We retired to the Amen Corner to talk it over. "If worse comes to
+worst," said Witch Winnie, "I know I can make a magnificent train out of
+the plush table-cloth in Madame's library."</p>
+
+<p>"But how will you ever get it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Emma Jane must ask her to lend it to us; she'll do anything for Emma
+Jane."</p>
+
+<p>"Emma Jane declines to act in this emergency," said Miss Anton, firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't be so mean!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I would; Adelaide, please read Milly's letter again; I didn't half
+hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"I must have dropped it in the Society hall; I will get it after dinner.
+If she had thought that Tib might be chosen to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> her place, she
+would have done anything for the honor of the Amen Corner."</p>
+
+<p>Here some one tapped at the door, and announced, "A letter for Miss
+Armstrong."</p>
+
+<p>"It's from Milly!" exclaimed Adelaide, "and it looks as if it had been
+opened, and pasted up again."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Madame boasted that she never submitted her young ladies to
+that sort of espionage," said Witch Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>"Girls, girls!" Adelaide fairly shrieked; "just listen to this! Milly
+writes&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"'I forgot to say in my last that mamma's maid is putting the
+finishing touches to my costume, and Gibson will bring it around
+to-morrow. The dress (purple velvet) is one which mamma wore last
+summer when she was presented to the Queen. The lace which trims it
+was made to order from a pattern of her own selection in Brussels.
+You may keep the crown, for the gems in it are only Rhinestones.
+Aunt Fanny wore it at a costume ball, and they sparkle like the
+real thing. Be careful of the lace, for mamma prizes it highly.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+'Yours, Milly.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>'P. S.&mdash;I've coaxed papa to lend you a silver chatelaine, old
+French repouss&eacute;, linked with emeralds, which he keeps in his
+cabinet <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>of curiosities. It shows finely against the velvet.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>How we all exclaimed and chattered! "Now what will the Hornets' Nest say
+to that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Canton flannel ermine indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see them bring on their old mosquito-netting ruff!"</p>
+
+<p>"Real emeralds! A diadem flashing with diamonds!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell them a word about it until Tib dawns on them in all her
+glory on Wednesday night."</p>
+
+<p>It was hard to keep this resolution, but we did. The Hornets were
+giggling and whispering among themselves as we marched in to dinner,
+with all the importance given by the possession of a state secret. The
+other girls relapsed into silence as we took our seats, and watched us
+with strange, significant looks.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been looking up the matter in Racinet's work on Costume," remarked
+Cynthia Vaughn, "and I find you were right, Miss Anton; ruffs did not
+come in until long after Arthur's reign."</p>
+
+<p>"I would like to consult the book," Emma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> Jane replied, "unless you can
+tell me whether chatelaines were worn at that period."</p>
+
+<p>Here a small Hornet was seized with strangulation, and had to be
+vigorously thumped upon the back by her friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think so," Cynthia replied, sweetly, disregarding her friend's
+condition. "Wouldn't it be sweet to have Guinevere wear one? Miss Smith
+is so artistic, I'm sure she could cut one out of gilt paper."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide scouted the idea. "Whatever we get up for that costume," she
+said, "I am determined shall be <i>real</i>, no <i>imitation</i> chatelaines, or
+anything else."</p>
+
+<p>Cynthia lifted her eyebrows. "Perhaps you will secure one of Queen
+Victoria's court robes?" she remarked, icily.</p>
+
+<p>It was on Adelaide's lips to reply that we might have a robe which had
+figured at a court reception of the English Queen, but she felt Witch
+Winnie's foot upon hers, and replied that in undertaking this tableau
+the Amen Corner felt confident that they could carry it through
+creditably, and we therefore begged to be excused from the dress
+rehearsal that afternoon. We left the dining-room in a body, and the
+Hornets laughed aloud before we closed the door. "'They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> laugh best who
+laugh last,'" said Witch Winnie. "Won't those girls fairly expire when
+they see Tib in her grand r&ocirc;le!"</p>
+
+<p>Tuesday was a long and weary day for us. We started at every knock,
+expecting a summons to the janitor's room to receive a package, but none
+came. We retired much disappointed; and we held a council of war before
+breakfast. The Roseveldts' butler had evidently proved false to his
+trust, and the costume was waiting for us at the family mansion on Fifth
+Avenue.</p>
+
+<p>"I will ask Madame at breakfast to excuse me from my morning lessons to
+do an important errand," said Witch Winnie; "I will tell her the entire
+story, and I know that, rather than disappoint us all, she will let us
+go to the Roseveldts' for the things."</p>
+
+<p>Madame proved to be in good-humor, and on reading Milly's letter readily
+gave Winnie and me the desired permission, sending for a hansom to take
+us to our destination. All of the Hornets at the lower end of the table
+heard this conversation, and Adelaide thought that Cynthia Vaughn turned
+green with envy. An hour later, as we came down the front stairs to take
+our hansom, Cerberus popped his head from his office to tell us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> that a
+package had just been received for Miss Adelaide Armstrong. "Come back,
+girls!" Adelaide cried excitedly; "here is the costume. It can be
+nothing else. My, what a big bundle!"</p>
+
+<p>We carried it between us in triumph up the staircase. The Hornets were
+clustered on the very top landing; their faces peered over the
+balustrade, and as they caught sight of our procession a peal of
+derisive laughter echoed through the hall as they scuttled away to their
+nest under the eaves.</p>
+
+<p>"Those Hornets have certainly gone crazy," Emma Jane remarked,
+practically. She was carrying her corner of the package, and was as
+interested as the rest of us in the arrival of the costume. We entered
+our study-parlor in suppressed excitement, and impatiently cut the
+knots, and tore open the wrappings, when, behold! another package,
+scrupulously tied. This paper removed revealed another, then another,
+and another, and the fact slowly dawned upon us that we had been
+victimized. "Girls!" exclaimed Witch Winnie, sitting down on the floor
+in despair, "it's a wicked sell of those Hornets: there is nothing
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Emma Jane Anton kept on methodically<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> removing the wrappers and folding
+them neatly. "Perhaps," suggested Adelaide, "they have merely arranged
+this hoax to fool us, and the costume is still at the Roseveldts'."</p>
+
+<p>"It's just like that Cynthia Vaughn to do such a thing; we'll go, all
+the same," Witch Winnie replied, rising hopefully and tying on her veil.
+At this juncture Emma Jane reached a pasteboard box marked "Violet
+velvet court dress." Lifting the lid discovered a quantity of trash. An
+empty sardine-box bore the label "Diamond Crown;" a dilapidated bustle
+was marked "Brussels point lace;" a mixed-pickle bottle was filled with
+apple-parings and labeled "Old repouss&eacute; ch&acirc;telaine, reign of Arthur I.;
+the <i>real</i> article; must be returned."</p>
+
+<p>A howl of mingled laughter and dismay rose from our corner. "Cynthia
+Vaughn wrote that letter which purported to be from Milly. Well, it's a
+real good practical joke, anyway," said Witch Winnie; "better than I
+thought the Hornets could get up without my help. Let us show them that
+we can take a joke, and good-naturedly acknowledge ourselves sold."</p>
+
+<p>"And in the mean time what am I to do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> for a costume? You know the
+tableaux come off to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"That puts another face on the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Cynthia would be only too glad to take the part even now."</p>
+
+<p>"After all we have said, and your name printed on the programme&mdash;never!"
+This from Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what we will do," suggested Winnie; "the hansom is still
+waiting at the door; Tib and I will drive to a costumer's and hire
+something. I found the address of a place on the Bowery the other day
+and fortunately saved it. Hold your heads up high; we will not
+acknowledge ourselves defeated yet."</p>
+
+<p>As Witch Winnie and I sped out of the quiet square and down the great
+teeming thoroughfare, the Elevated trains jarring overhead and the
+motley crowd surging about us, a misgiving of conscience swept over me.
+What would Madame say? This was not what we had obtained permission to
+do. This was very different from Fifth Avenue, and not at all a quarter
+of the city in which young ladies should be wandering without chaperons.</p>
+
+<p>We were quite desperate, however, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> seemed too late to turn back.
+The hansom stopped before a Hebrew misfit clothing store where dress
+suits were announced as on hire by the evening. Flaunting placards above
+told that costumes for the theatrical profession and for fancy balls
+were to be let in the fourth story. We climbed a dirty staircase, and
+after knocking by mistake at an intelligence office for <i>Dienst
+M&auml;dchen</i>, a hair-dyeing and complexion-enameling rooms, a chiropodist's,
+and a clairvoyant's, we found ourselves in a room piled from floor to
+ceiling with costumes. A fat German, who looked as if he were some
+second-hand piece of furniture, very much soiled as to his linen, and
+the worse for wear as to his physical mechanism, admitted us and did the
+honors of the establishment. I glanced around at the motley objects
+which filled the wareroom; gaudy spangled dresses, with a sprinkle of
+saw-dust (suggestive of the arena) clinging to the worn cotton velvet,
+many-ruffled shockingly brief skirts of rose-colored gauze that had spun
+like so many teetotums behind flaring foot-lights, tinfoil suits of
+armor that had come in all mud-besplashed from parading the streets at
+the last grand procession, the faded ban<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>ners which flapped above them
+so jauntily, drooping wearily now from the rafters, covered with dust
+and festooned by the spiders. A row of dominoes dependent from a
+neighboring clothes-line rustled with an air of mystery, and a heap of
+masks upon the floor seemed to leer and wink from their eyeless windows.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," said Winnie, drawing nearer the door, "that you haven't
+anything so nice as I want."</p>
+
+<p>"I haf effery dings, effery dings," replied the ponderous costumer; "you
+don't t'ink I keeps dose fine procade for the costume ball out here in
+te tust, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted something for a school entertainment," Winnie explained.</p>
+
+<p>"So, so; I haf effery dings, I tole you, for de school. Ya, from dose
+Kindergarten to dot universities. Dings for little peebles and dings for
+big peebles."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to know what kind of big people patronize your
+establishment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes dose ladies who make de church fair. I have some angel wing
+for de Christmas mystery, de mask for de Muzzer Goose pantomine.
+Sometimes dose fine ladies dey make some peesness mit me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> When de
+shentlemen step on dose trail or spill coffee on dot tablier, den I buys
+dot dress, and my designer she make it all new again. I haf one ferry
+nice designer; she haf many times arrange ze historical costume for dose
+grand painting what make ze artists."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I think I would like to talk with her," said Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>"Ya, ya, dat vas right. Here, Mrs. Halsey, Mrs. Halsey! Perhaps you
+petter go in de sewing-room, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door into a back room where a sweet pale-faced woman sat
+sewing little bells on a jester's cap.</p>
+
+<p>We were struck from the outset with Mrs. Halsey's refined appearance,
+and we were not surprised when she showed, by her complete understanding
+of what we required, that she had read Tennyson and had some idea of
+historical periods in costume. She drew a purple velvet robe from a
+great bundle. I exclaimed in disapproval as I noticed a horrid crimson
+border.</p>
+
+<p>"But this is coming off," said the little woman, using her scissors
+briskly, "and instead, I will stitch some gold braid appliqu&eacute; in a lily
+design. See, how do you like this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> effect?" and her deft fingers flew,
+coiling and twisting the gilt braid until a really regal combination was
+produced.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we will have it open at the side to show a white satin petticoat,
+also laced with gold, and the sleeves can be puffed and slashed with
+white satin. I arranged a costume like that for Mary Anderson."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible that such a noted and successful actress gets her
+costumes at a place like this?" asked Witch Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," replied Mrs. Halsey, with a sigh; "when I made Miss Anderson's
+dresses I was designer for Madame C&eacute;leste's establishment. I should be
+there now if it were not for Jim."</p>
+
+<p>She was fitting the dress to me, and as this would take several minutes,
+Winnie asked,</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jim is my son; he is twelve years old, and the brightest little fellow,
+for his age, you ever saw. He leads his classes at the public school,
+has a record of 100 in mathematics, for all that he has such a poor
+chance at preparing his lessons."</p>
+
+<p>"How does that happen?" It was I who inquired this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim is an ambitious boy; ambitious to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> help me as well as to keep a
+place in his class, and a milkman pays him a dollar a week for driving
+his cart over to Jersey City to meet the milk train and fill his cans
+for him every morning."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very nice."</p>
+
+<p>"If it did not break so cruelly into the poor boy's hours for sleep. In
+order to dress and snatch a bite before he goes down to the stable and
+harnesses, he has to rise at 3 o'clock. This enables the milkman to
+sleep until Jim arrives with the milk at 6 o'clock, in time to begin the
+morning rounds. I make the boy take an hour's sleep after this, but it
+is not enough."</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to go to bed very early."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but the lessons; when are they to be learned? He shouts them out
+in his sleep. 'If I gain seven hundred dollars from a rise of 2&#189; per
+cent. in Pennsylvania Railroad stock, what was my original investment?'
+He has his father's quickness for figures. Bless his heart! he never had
+any money to invest in railroad stocks, and by heaven's help he never
+will."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure about that," said Witch Winnie. "How did it happen
+that you lost your position at Madame <ins class="correct" title="Celeste's">C&eacute;leste's</ins> on account<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> of Jim?" She
+had finished the fitting and was removing the pins from her mouth, but
+Winnie drew on her gloves very slowly; we were both interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame kept me for such late hours that I did not reach home until Jim
+was asleep, and at last she proposed to raise my salary, but said that I
+must sleep in the establishment, so as to be on hand to open early in
+the morning. This was after Madame's very successful winter, when she
+bought a house out of town, and did not find it convenient to come in
+until late in the day. I told her that I would accept her offer if Jim
+could be with me; but there was no room for him, and we thought it best
+to stick together. I get through here at 6 o'clock, and can cook Jim's
+dinner. But it's hard for the boy. If I could only afford to let him
+have his entire time for his study&mdash;but his dollar a week half pays our
+rent."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it have been better for you both if you had remained at Madame
+C&eacute;leste's, and had sent Jim to boarding-school? There are such nice
+cadet schools up the Hudson."</p>
+
+<p>A faint smile overspread the woman's face. "Madame always insisted that
+her employees<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> should dress well. I know exactly what it cost me. It
+would have left just a dollar and a half a week for Jim. Do you know of
+any boarding-school that would have taken him at those rates?"</p>
+
+<p>Winnie sorrowfully confessed that she did not, and we reluctantly took
+our leave, Mrs. Halsey promising to finish the costume immediately, and
+to send it by Jim in ample time for the evening's performances.</p>
+
+<p>Our escapade lay heavily upon my conscience in spite of our success in
+obtaining the costume, but I felt still more troubled for poor Mrs.
+Halsey and her overworked boy. "I wonder," I said to Winnie, "if Madame
+could not make him useful here at the school, and let him work for his
+board, tend furnace and run errands."</p>
+
+<p>"You could not tell her about him without confessing our lark, and don't
+you do that for the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I promised, against my will, "of course not, unless you consent;
+the secret is half yours, but I really think it would be the best way."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide was greatly interested in our report. "I am to have my violin
+dress for the concert made at Madame C&eacute;leste's," she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> said, "and I mean
+to ask her about this Mrs. Halsey."</p>
+
+<p>Jim came with the package while we were at supper, and Adelaide ran down
+to the office to receive it. She told us that he was an undersized,
+stoop-shouldered boy, with a cough which she fancied he had contracted
+by driving in the early morning mists. He took off his hat like a little
+gentleman, however, and his finger-nails and teeth were clean. Any clown
+might wear good clothes, Adelaide insisted, but these little details
+marked the gentleman. He had at first declined the dime which Adelaide
+proffered, but accepted it on her <ins class="correct" title="insistance">insistence</ins> that it was only for
+car-fare and it was raining. He put it away carefully in a little worn
+purse which contained just one cent, at the same time remarking, "I
+don't mind the rain, and I can get Ma the quinine the doctor says she
+ought to be taking."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the boy for me," Witch Winnie remarked; "he's got clear grit,
+and tenderness for his mother besides."</p>
+
+<p>And Guinevere's gown? It was a beauty. The golden lilies gave it a
+sumptuous effect, and it fulfilled almost exactly the promises of the
+forged letter; there was even a <i>rivi&egrave;re</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> of fish-scale pearls and
+glass beads down the side, which really resembled a ch&acirc;telaine. The
+Hornets were overcome with amazement&mdash;simply dazzled and dazed.
+According to Adelaide&mdash;who always resorted to French to express her
+superlatives, and, when that language proved inadequate, pieced it out
+with translations of American slang or coinage of her own&mdash;they were
+"<i>Completement boulevers&eacute;es, stupefi&eacute;es, mortifi&eacute;es, et frapp&eacute;e plus
+haute q'un&mdash;q'un&mdash;kite</i>!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br />
+
+<span class="title">THE PRINCESS.</span></h2>
+
+<div style="float: left; width: 50%;">
+<div class="poem" style="margin-left: 0;"><div class="stanza">
+<img src="images/ch03a.jpg" height="200" width="139" alt="{Drawing of the dear old lady.}" title="" style="float: left; margin-right: 3.2em;" /><img src="images/ch03b.jpg" height="58" width="32" alt="T" title="" style="float: left; margin-left: -3.2em; margin-right: 3.2em;" />
+<span class="i0">HAT'S the dear old lady,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In a green tabby gown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a great lace cap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With long lace ruffles hanging down.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There she sits<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In a cushioned high-backed seat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Covered over with crimson damask,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With a footstool at her feet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You see what a handsome room it is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Full of old carving and gilding;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The house is, one may be sure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the Elizabethan style of building.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Mary Howitt.</i></p>
+</div></div></div>
+<div class="clr"></div>
+
+<p>Our interest in Mrs. Halsey and her son slumbered for a time; not that
+we forgot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> her, or gave up our determination to do something for Jim
+whenever the opportunity offered. It was soon to come, but our time and
+interest were filled with other things. Just now it was a mystery&mdash;and
+what so dear to a girl's imagination?</p>
+
+<p>It was brought up for discussion afresh, because Miss Prillwitz had said
+to Emma Jane Anton that the diadem which I wore as Guinevere was not a
+suitable one for a queen, but a rather nondescript arrangement half-way
+between that of a marquis and an earl.</p>
+
+<p>This assumption of authoritative knowledge in regard to coronets revived
+an old rumor as to the noble birth of Miss Prillwitz.</p>
+
+<p>No one could tell who first circulated the report that Miss Prillwitz
+was a princess. It developed little by little, I fancy, but when it
+began to be whispered we received it without a shadow of doubt. Miss
+Prillwitz was a prim little woman, who always came to Madame's
+receptions dressed in the same brocade dress, once gaudy with a great
+bouquet pattern, but now faded into faint pink and primrose on a
+background of silvery-green, with the same carefully cleaned gloves and
+fine old fan of the period of Marie Antoinette. She wore her perfectly
+white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> hair &agrave; la Pompadour, and further increased her diminutive height
+by French heels, but in spite of these artificial contrivances she was a
+tiny woman, though she had dignity enough for a very tall one. Adelaide
+said she had "the unmistakable air of a <i>grande dame</i>," and that she
+would have suspected her in any disguise. Milly had once spied, half
+tucked in her belt and dependent from a slender chain, a miniature, set
+in brilliants, of a handsome young man in uniform, a row of decorations
+on his breast, crosses and stars hanging from strips of bright ribbon.
+This was a great discovery, and Milly was sure that the original was no
+less a personage than Peter the Great. She had thought out a thrilling
+romance of true love crossed by jealousy and heartbreak, which the rest
+of the girls accepted as more than probable, until Emma Jane Anton
+suggested that as Peter the Great died in 1725, it would really make the
+princess much older than she appeared, to fancy that he was the hero of
+her girlhood. Emma Jane Anton always had a disagreeable faculty of
+remembering dates. The other girls were unanimous in the opinion that
+she knew entirely too much, and each one looked and longed for an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+opportunity of publicly detecting her in a mistake and correcting
+her&mdash;an opportunity which never came. Milly never made herself offensive
+by being certain of anything, and was loved and petted accordingly. The
+myth of a royal lover was a congenial one, and gained credence, though
+none of us dared to give him a name or date, at least not in the
+presence of Emma Jane Anton. No one had the temerity to question
+Adelaide's infallibility in detecting a great lady at first sight. It
+did not ever occur to Emma Jane Anton to ask how many princesses she had
+met, and what was the "unmistakable air" of distinction and nobility
+which announced them like a herald's proclamation. Perhaps this was
+because Adelaide herself possessed this grand air by nature, and was far
+more regal in appearance and feeling than many a Guelph or Stuart. Witch
+Winnie, perhaps because she was the mad-cap of the boarding-school, and
+was always getting into scrapes herself, snuffed a political plot, and
+suggested that the princess had been exiled on account of deep-laid
+machinations against one of the reigning families, a supposition which
+would account for her living in exile and disguise, and even in
+comparative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> poverty. This explanation, as being the most ingenious, and
+affording fascinating scope for the imagination, was the most popular
+one, and was more or less elaborated according to the individual fancy
+of the young lady. Emma Jane Anton was obliged to admit that she might
+be a princess, and that there was no harm in calling her so amongst
+ourselves. Madame had let fall some very singular expressions when she
+announced the fact that we were to have her for our teacher in Botany.
+Emma Jane had heard her, and it was she who had reported the news to the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>"Girls," she said, "did you ever hear anything so absurd! We are going
+to recite our Botany to the princess."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Honest! She lives in that funny old house across the square, that
+Winnie always pretends to think is haunted. We are to parade over there
+three days in the week. Madame says it's a great opportunity, for she is
+really quite eminent; writes for scientific journals, has traveled in
+all sorts of foreign countries, and <i>has moved in court circles</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I told you so!" exclaimed Adelaide,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> triumphantly. "I always said she
+was a true-blue princess."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that you have quite proved it yet," replied Emma Jane
+Anton, coolly, "but Madame did say that we would have an opportunity of
+learning much more from her than mere botany&mdash;etiquette, I presume&mdash;for
+she went on to hint that she had been brought up in a different school
+of manners from that of our own day and country, that we would find her
+peculiar in some ways, and that she trusted to our native courtesy to
+humor her little foibles, and a hundred more things of the same sort,
+winding up with that stock expression which she always uses when she has
+talked a subject to shreds and tatters&mdash;'A word to the wise is
+sufficient.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had heard her," said Witch Winnie; "I don't consider this
+subject talked to tatters, by any means. I propose that this Botany
+class constitute itself a committee of investigation to clear up the
+mystery in regard to the history of the princess. We are supposed to be
+devoted to the study of nature, but I consider <i>human</i> nature a deal the
+more interesting. It will almost pay for having to mind one's <i>p</i>'s and
+<i>q</i>'s. I wonder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> what she would say if she caught me sliding down her
+palace balusters! We'll all have to practice curtseying&mdash;one step to the
+side, then two back. Oh! I'm ever so sorry I knocked over that stand.
+Was the vase a keepsake or anything? I'll buy you another. No, I can't,
+for I've spent all my allowance for this month. Well, you may have that
+<i>bonbonnière</i> of mine you liked so much." The vase was a treasure, but
+no one could be vexed with Witch Winnie, and I forgave her, of course,
+and would none of the <i>bonbonni&egrave;re</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Our first glimpse at the house in which the princess lived was as
+appetizing to our imaginations as the little lady herself. It had been
+built as a church-school, and straggled around the church, shaping
+itself to the exterior angles of that edifice, and in so doing gained a
+number of queerly shaped rooms, some long and narrow, and others with
+irregular corners, but all bright with southern sunshine. The princess
+rented only the upper floor and the front room in the basement. The rest
+of the house had been let to other parties, but was now vacant. How
+strange and lonely it must seem, we thought, to go up and down those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+long staircases, and peep into the uninhabited rooms! Rather eerie at
+night. "I wouldn't live that way for the world," shivered Milly. "I
+should be afraid of robbers."</p>
+
+<p>"Burglars don't usually choose an unoccupied house for their
+operations," Emma Jane remarked, sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>Later, when we were better acquainted with the princess, Milly asked her
+if she was never timid. She acknowledged that she was, but assured us
+that rats <i>were one great comfort</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" Milly asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Whenevaire," said the princess (in the quaint broken English which we
+always found so fascinating, English which had only the foreignness of
+pronunciation and idiom, and which Adelaide insisted was rarely so
+maltreated as to be really <i>broken</i>, but was only a little
+dislocated)&mdash;"whenevaire I hear one cautious sawing noise which shall be
+as if ze burglaire to file ze lock, I say to myself, 'Ah, ha! Monsieur
+Rat have invited to himself some companie in ze pantry of ze butler.'
+When zere come one <i>tappage</i> on ze <i>escalier</i>, as zo some one make haste
+to depart ze house, I turn myself upon my bed and make to myself
+explanation&mdash;Rats!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> When ze footsteps mysterious steal so softly down ze
+hall, and make pause justly at my door, then I reach for ze great cane
+of my fazzer, which I keep at all times by ze canopy of my bed, and I
+pound on ze floor&mdash;boom, boom, Monsieur Rat <i>sc&eacute;l&eacute;rat</i>, and it is thus I
+make my reassurance."</p>
+
+<p>The princess received us in what had been the basement dining-room,
+which she called her laboratory. The entire south side was one broad
+window of small diamond-shaped panes. Forming a sill to this window was
+a row of low, wide cases for the reception of herbaria, and the room had
+a peculiar herby smell, a mixture of sweet-fern and faint aromatic
+herbs.</p>
+
+<p>The cushions which converted the tops of these cases into seats were
+stuffed with dried beech-leaves.</p>
+
+<p>The princess quoted Latin to us for her preference for the fine springy
+upholstery which beech-leaves give. <i>Silva domus, cubilia frondes.</i>
+("The wood a house, the foliage a couch.")</p>
+
+<p>The other furniture in the room was a long table placed in front of the
+book-case divan, a table covered with piles of MS. books, a press for
+specimens, two micro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>scopes, and a great blue china bowl containing
+pussy-willows in water&mdash;our specimens for the day's study. High
+book-cases, whose contents could only be guessed at, for the glass doors
+were lined with curiously shirred green silk, were ranged against the
+wall opposite, and at one end of the room stood a monumental German
+stove in white porcelain; at the other was Miss Prillwitz's chair, a
+high-backed Gothic affair, which had once served as an episcopal
+<i>sedilium</i>, but had been removed on the occasion of a new furnishing of
+the church.</p>
+
+<p>It formed a stately background for the little figure. I often found
+myself making sketches of her on the sheets of soft paper between which
+we pressed our flowers, instead of listening to the lecture. I liked to
+imagine how she would look in a great ruff, not of Cynthia Vaughn's
+mosquito net, but of real <i>point de Venise</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And yet her talks were very interesting; she was a true lover of nature,
+and made us love her. She regretted that she could not take us into the
+deep woods, but she opened our eyes to the wealth of country
+suggestiveness which we could find in the city. She introduced us
+personally to the scanty two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> dozen or so of trees in the little park,
+and from the intimate acquaintance formed with each of these, our
+appetites were whetted for vast wildernesses of forest primeval.</p>
+
+<p>She opened to us the beauty which there lies in the simple branching of
+the trees in their winter nudity, the tracery of the limbs and twigs cut
+clearly against a yellow sunset, or picked out with snow; how the elms
+gave graceful wine-glass and Greek-vase outlines; the snakily mottled
+sycamore undulated its great arms like a boa-constrictor reaching out
+for prey; the birch, "the lady of the woods," displayed her white satin
+dress; the gnarled hemlocks wrestled upward, each sharp angle a defiance
+to the winter storms with which they had striven in heroic combat, the
+bent knees clutching the rocks, while the aged arms writhed and tossed
+in the grasp of the fiends of the air. She showed us the beautiful
+parabolic curve of the willows, a bouquet of rockets; the military
+bearing of a row of Lombardy poplars standing, in their perfect
+alignment, like tall grenadiers drawn up in a hollow square. Before the
+first tender blurring of the leaf-buds we knew our trees, and loved them
+for their almost human qualities.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miss Sartoris had taught me, the preceding summer, to look for the
+decorative beauty to be found in common roadside weeds, and we had made
+sketches together of dock, elecampane, tansy, thistles, and milkweed. I
+had one rich, rare day with her in a swamp, when I ruined a pair of
+stockings, and made the discovery that a skunk-cabbage was as beautiful
+in its curves as a calla. I brought these sketches to the princess, and
+she congratulated me on the possession of my country home with its
+gold-mines of beauty all around.</p>
+
+<p>"You are one heiress, my dear," she said, "to ze vast wealths which you
+have only to learn how you s'all enjoy. Only t'ink of ze sousands of
+poor city people who haf never had ze felicity to see a swamp!"</p>
+
+<p>I grew to appreciate the country, and to feel that I was richer than I
+had thought.</p>
+
+<p>Milly found a branch of study which was not above the measure of her
+intellect. She soon mastered the long names, and learned to think, and
+teachers in other departments noted an improvement. There was need for
+this, for the Hornets long kept up a tradition that at one of the
+history examinations Milly had been asked, "What is the Salic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> Law?" and
+had replied, confidently&mdash;"That no woman or <i>descendant of a woman</i>, can
+ever reign in France."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br />
+
+<span class="title">COURT LIFE.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch04.jpg" width="190" height="300" alt="{Drawing of Mrs. Grogan.} M" title="" style="float: left;" />RS. GROGAN, the baby-farmer of Rickett's Court, could hardly have been
+described as a court lady, and yet she was a very typical specimen of
+the women of this locality. But before introducing the reader to the
+society of Rickett's Court, I must first explain how it was that we came
+to make its acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>As the time approached for the concert of which I have spoken, Adelaide
+was reminded of her determination to have a "violin dress" made by
+Madame C&eacute;leste. Adelaide played<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> the violin, as we thought, divinely;
+she was at least the best performer at Madame's. "The violin is the
+violet," I said, quoting from "Charles Auchester." "You must have a
+violet-colored gown."</p>
+
+<p>"A very delicate shade of china cr&ecirc;pe will do," Adelaide replied, "made
+up with a darker tint, and the sleeves must be puffed like that dress
+the princess wore to the tableaux."</p>
+
+<p>"Adelaide, dear," murmured Milly, "you ought to wear angel sleeves to
+show your lovely arms."</p>
+
+<p>"And have them flop about like a ship's pennant in a lively breeze,
+during that bit of rapid bowing? That would be too grotesque."</p>
+
+<p>"Puff them to the elbow," I suggested, "and then have a fall of soft
+lace that will float back and give the turn of your wrist as you whip
+the strings."</p>
+
+<p>"See here, Adelaide," remarked Witch Winnie, "if you want something
+really fine, get that Mrs. Halsey to design it for you."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't suppose that I would hire a dress for the concert at a
+costumer's?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say that; you could have it made wherever you pleased, but get
+Mrs. Halsey's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> ideas on the subject; they are really remarkable."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide considered the subject and acted upon it, but, greatly to my
+relief, she refused to do so without explaining the entire affair to
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not stand in the way of your having a nice gown," said Witch
+Winnie. "Come, Tib, let's confess."</p>
+
+<p>I was overjoyed, and Madame, though duly shocked, was not severe. She
+even allowed Witch Winnie to take Adelaide to see Mrs. Halsey,
+stipulating only that she should be chaperoned by one of the teachers.
+Adelaide chose Miss Sartoris, at my suggestion, both because we liked
+her, and from my feeling that her artistic instinct might be of service.</p>
+
+<p>The girls were disappointed to find that Mrs. Halsey was no longer at
+the costumer's. He had "pounced" her, he said, because she was "too much
+of a lady for de peesness." Fortunately he could give the girls her
+address&mdash;No. 1, sixth floor, Rickett's Court.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very disagreeable part of town. Miss Sartoris looked doubtful
+as they approached it, and was on the point of getting into the carriage
+again as they alighted,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> but Witch Winnie had already darted through a
+long dark hall which led to the court in the centre of the block, and
+there was nothing for it but to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Evil smells nearly choked them as they ran the gauntlet of that hall,
+and they were no better off on emerging upon the sloppy court. The space
+overhead, between the buildings, was laced with an intricate network of
+clothes-lines filled with garments. Adelaide said she realized now where
+all upper New York had its laundry work done, for this was evidently not
+the wash of the court people. From their appearance it was only fair to
+conjecture that they were so busy doing other people's washing that they
+never had time for their own. The dirty water seemed to be thrown from
+the windows into the court, where it stood in puddles or feebly trickled
+into the sewer, from which emanated nauseous and deadly gases. Sickly
+children were dabbling in these puddles.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes me think of Hood's 'Lost Heir,'" said Miss Sartoris&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">"The court,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where he was better off than all the other young boys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p><p>They mounted a ricketty staircase grimed with dirt. Smells of new
+degrees and varieties of loathsomeness assaulted them at every landing.
+The Italian rag-pickers in the basement were sorting their filthy wares,
+while a little girl was concocting for them the garlic stew over a
+charcoal brazier. The mingled fumes came thick from the open door. Mrs.
+Grogan on the first floor had paused in her washing to take a pull at a
+villainous pipe. She came to the door still smoking, and carrying in her
+arms an almost skeleton baby, who sucked at a dirty rag containing a
+crust dipped in gin. Winnie obtained one glimpse of the interior of Mrs.
+Grogan's domicile, and drew back quite pale. "Adelaide," she said, "the
+room literally <i>swarmed</i> with babies; that woman cannot have so many all
+of the same age." Inquiry of Mrs. Halsey enlightened them. Mrs. Grogan
+was a "baby-farmer," and boarded these children, making a good income
+thereby, as their mothers were servants in good families. On the next
+floor a family of eight were working in a hall-bedroom, at rolling
+cigars. The large rooms were occupied by some Chinese. Mrs. Halsey
+thought that they used them as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> an opium den. Past more doors, up three
+more pairs of stairs, and they paused at No. 1. They knocked several
+times, but they could not make themselves heard above the buzz and whirr
+of a sewing-machine. Finally Winnie opened the door, and there sat Mrs.
+Halsey bent over the machine, while the floor was piled with dainty
+underclothing neatly tucked.</p>
+
+<p>She sprang up, evidently pleased to see Winnie again, and motioned her
+callers to the only seats which the room afforded&mdash;a chair, a trunk, and
+a stool.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie apologized for the interruption, and explained her errand. "But
+perhaps you are too busy to design this dress," Adelaide said; "I see
+you have plenty of work."</p>
+
+<p>"It will not take long to make a little sketch," Mrs. Halsey replied,
+"and it will be a real pleasure for me to do it." As her fingers moved
+rapidly over the paper the girls took an inventory of the room. A
+cracked cooking-stove, and a cupboard behind it formed of a dry-goods
+box, but all the utensils were scrupulously clean. A closet, another
+dry-goods case on end, with a chintz curtain in front, concealed, as
+Winnie's prying eyes ascertained, a roll of bed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>ding, which was
+evidently spread on the floor at night. Mrs. Halsey knelt before a worn
+table, and this, with the sewing-machine, completed the furnishing of
+the apartment. No, in the window there was a row of fruit-cans
+containing some geraniums. Miss Sartoris discovered them, and Mrs.
+Halsey apologized for their condition. "They were just in bud," she
+said, "but we were without coal for several days, and they were nipped
+by frost."</p>
+
+<p>Poor woman! she looked as if <i>she</i> had been nipped by the frost too
+during that bitter experience. She coughed, and Adelaide remarked, "You
+ought to drink cream, Mrs. Halsey; they say it is better for a cough
+than cod-liver oil."</p>
+
+<p>"I have plenty of milk," the little woman replied. "The milkman for whom
+my Jim works lets him have the milk that he finds left over in the cans
+when he washes them out after his rounds. Sometimes there's as much as a
+pint, and almost always enough for our oatmeal."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Halsey spoke cheerily and proudly&mdash;as of a luxury which she owed
+her boy. The design was completed, and Adelaide was delighted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to have me make the costume in tissue-paper?" Mrs.
+Halsey asked; "the sleeve, at least, and this drapery; then any
+seamstress can make it."</p>
+
+<p>"How much will it be?" Adelaide asked, doubtfully&mdash;wondering if her
+five-dollar bill would cover the charge.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think seventy-five cents too much? It would take me an
+afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"But you could certainly earn more than that by your sewing."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Halsey smiled rather bitterly. "Would you really like to know the
+rates at which I work?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide expressed her interest. "These pretty Mother Hubbard
+night-gowns sell well, I am sure, but I know you can't get very much for
+making them, for I bought a pair at a bargain counter for a dollar."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the bargain counter which makes the low pay. I get a dollar and
+thirty cents <i>a dozen</i> for making them," said Mrs. Halsey, calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"A dozen!" cried Winnie; "and how many can you make in a day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eight."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you make&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Eighty-five cents a day; but I cannot average that."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you do better with something else?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have made flannel skirts&mdash;tucked&mdash;at a dollar a dozen, but I can only
+make eight of those in a day, so that is less. I have received a dollar
+and twenty cents a dozen for making chemises, which sell at seven
+dollars a dozen; and seventy-five cents a dozen for babies' slips, three
+tucks and a hem; forty cents a dozen for corset covers. I have a friend
+who works a machine in a ruffling factory; she makes a hundred and fifty
+yards of hemmed and tucked ruffling a day, for which she receives
+twenty-five cents. So, you see, I am better off than some."<a name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_2" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_2" id="Footnote_A_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_2"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> See "Campbell's Prisoners of Poverty" for still more
+harrowing statistics.</p></div>
+
+<p>"And can you live on five dollars a week?"</p>
+
+<p>"Six dollars, Madame; Jim earns one dollar and the milk."</p>
+
+<p>"You pay for rent&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Six dollars a month; yes, it <i>is</i> hard to earn that."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be thankful that you have only Jim to provide for."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Sandys, on the floor below, have six children; five of them earn
+wages. I think they earn more than their cost."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Miss Sartoris, "I thought child labor was prohibited by
+law."</p>
+
+<p>"Not out of school hours, or at home. Then the parents often swear a
+child is over fourteen, but small of its age, and get it into a factory.
+You wouldn't blame them, Madame, if you knew all the circumstances I do.
+I keep Jim at his books, but the study, with the night work, I'm afraid
+is killing him. They tempt him at the saloon, too, to take what they
+call a 'bracer' as he goes out to drive the milk cart at 3 in the
+morning, but I get up and have tea ready for him, so that he does not
+yield."</p>
+
+<p>"We must go now," said Miss Sartoris, kindly. "You will send Jim with
+the paper pattern to-night?" Adelaide slipped a dollar into Mrs.
+Halsey's hand, and would take no change. And the three went down the
+stairs thoughtful and sad.</p>
+
+<p>"What can we do for her?" Winnie asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I don't know," replied Miss Sartoris; "she certainly seems
+capable of securing better wages."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I will speak to Madame C&eacute;leste about her," said Adelaide; and she was
+as good as her word. Winnie accompanied Adelaide when she took the
+pattern to the fashionable dress-maker. The modiste listened in rapt
+attention to Adelaide's explanation of the gown wanted. She examined the
+design with interest. "It is perfectly made," she said. "Who constructed
+this for you? It is the work of an expert. Ah, Miss, if I only had now
+in my establishment a designer who was with me last year! She had such a
+mind for <i>costumes de fantaisie</i>! For Greek costumes to be worn at the
+harp, and for Directoire dresses, I miss her cruelly, but Mademoiselle's
+design is so explicit that we will have no trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Was your designer a Mrs. Halsey?" Winnie asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The same, Miss. Do you know her? Can you give me her address? I must
+try to get her back."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you may be able to obtain her. She made this pattern for me;
+but you will have to bid high, for she has her boy with her now."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah yes! the boy; that was the trouble between us. Seamstresses have no
+business<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> to be mothers. Mrs. Halsey ought to give up the child entirely
+to some asylum for adoption; he will always be a handicap to her; but
+she does not see this, and clings to him as though she thought him her
+only chance for fortune. There is a mystery in Mrs. Halsey's life. Her
+husband has deserted her, and she lives in the vain hope that he will
+come back some day and explain everything. She patronized me once, long
+ago, when she was in better circumstances. She will not talk about her
+husband, and I fancy that he is one of those defaulting cashiers who
+have run away to Canada. I am willing to take her back on the old terms,
+but she must give up her boy. I have an order for a set of costumes for
+one of our queens of the opera. Mrs. Halsey is just the one to take it
+in hand. Where did you say she could be found?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had better communicate with her through me," Adelaide
+replied; "I am not at liberty to give her address."</p>
+
+<p>"And it is very possible," Winnie spoke up, eagerly, for she had seen a
+gleam in Madame C&eacute;leste's eyes, "that her friends will provide for the
+boy. In that case she will be more independent, and perhaps will not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> be
+willing to return at the old salary. What shall we say is the most that
+you will offer."</p>
+
+<p>"Five dollars a week and her board; that is very good pay, Miss; fifty
+cents more than I paid her when she was with me."</p>
+
+<p>The girls could hardly wait to reach the Amen Corner to talk the matter
+over. Milly was all sympathy. "I will write to papa," she said, "and get
+him to send Jim to a boarding-school. I'll send for several circulars,
+and find out how much it costs."</p>
+
+<p>As an answer from Mr. Roseveldt might be expected the next day, we
+decided to wait for it. Adelaide regretted that her father was in Omaha,
+as she was sure that he would have aided in the scheme.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Roseveldt's answer was most discouraging. He regarded Milly's plan
+as mere sentimental nonsense, and would take no interest in it.</p>
+
+<p>"You might save something out of your allowance, Milly," suggested the
+audacious Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>"I give away three-fourths of it now," Milly replied, in an injured
+tone. "What with the flowers I have on the organ every day for Miss
+Hope, and the favors for the german, which I always furnish, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+bonbons I give you girls, and all my other extras&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Milly dear," I exclaimed, "we would all ever so much rather you
+spent the candy money for Jim than on us."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want <i>some</i> candy for myself, and I am not going to be so mean as
+to munch it, and not pass any to the other girls."</p>
+
+<p>It would have been a real deprivation to Milly to do without her beloved
+candy. She gloated over luscious pasty "lumps of delight" in the way of
+marshmallows and chocolate creams, candied fruits and marrons glac&eacute;es,
+and her silver bonbonni&egrave;re was always filled with the most expensive
+candied violets and rose-leaves. Worse than this, there were certain
+little cordial drops, which were a peculiar weakness of Milly's; none of
+us knew with what an awful danger she was playing, or that Milly
+inherited a taste for alcoholic beverages through several generations.
+But Milly was not selfish.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, girls," she said, with a sigh, "if you will go without, I
+will, and we will form a total abstinence candy society. I know just how
+much that means for Jim, for I paid Maillard eight dollars last month."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are a good girl," spoke up Emma Jane, "and if you hold to that
+resolution, Milly Roseveldt, I will deal you out a cake of maple sugar
+every day, from a box I've just received from some Vermont cousins. I
+was wondering what I should do with it, for I don't care for sweets."</p>
+
+<p>Milly's face brightened; all unconsciously she was doing as great a
+kindness to herself as to Jim, and the pure maple sugar was a good
+substitute for the unwholesome concoctions of the confectioner; it
+satisfied her craving for sweets, and did not poison her appetite.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of us added our small contributions, but the aggregate only
+amounted to three dollars a week, and we were unable to learn of any
+boarding-school to which Jim could be sent at those rates.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie had communicated Madame C&eacute;leste's offer to Mrs. Halsey. "It would
+be just the thing if I were alone," she replied, "but what would Jim do
+without me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you can board him somewhere," Winnie suggested; and she told of
+the sum which we girls had promised.</p>
+
+<p>"If I knew of any respectable place where he would have good influences,
+I would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> accept your kindness, as a loan, for a little while," Mrs.
+Halsey replied, "for my first earnings must go for clothes. I have
+friends in Connecticut; perhaps they will take Jim."</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Halsey found that her friends had moved West. She thanked us
+for our interest, but said that there seemed nothing better to do than
+to continue as they were.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't bear to tell Madame C&eacute;leste that she declines her offer," said
+Adelaide. "<i>We</i> must find a place for that boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how," replied Winnie; but she saw, that afternoon; it came
+to her all by a sudden inspiration during our botany lesson.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br />
+
+<span class="title">LITTLE PRINCE DEL PARADISO.</span></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch05.jpg" width="161" height="240" alt="{Drawing of the little Prince del Paradiso.} T" title="" style="float: left;" />HAT day the botany class found their teacher in a flutter of
+excitement. There was a fresh, pink glow in the faded cheeks, and an
+unusual sparkle in the kindly eyes. She seated herself in the episcopal
+chair, lifted her lorgnette, and began to arrange the specimens for the
+day's lesson, but her hand trembled so that she could scarcely adjust
+the microscope, and the papers on which her notes were written sifted
+through her fingers and were strewn in confusion on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ill, Miss Prillwitz?" Adelaide asked, in alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Miss Armstrong," replied the princess,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> "it is not a painful in my
+system, and it is not a sorry; it is a pleasant. I shall expect to
+myself a company, and this is to me so seldom that I find myself
+<i>&eacute;gar&eacute;</i>&mdash;what you call it?&mdash;scatter? sprinkled?&mdash;as to my
+understanding."</p>
+
+<p>We all looked our interest, and Winnie ventured to ask&mdash;"One of your
+relations, Miss Prillwitz?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the little lady; "he is of my own family, though to see
+him I have never ze pleasure. It ees ze little Prince del Paradiso."</p>
+
+<p>We girls pinched each other under the table, while Milly murmured, "A
+prince! How perfectly lovely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Miss Prillwitz; "ze birthright to ziss little poy is one
+great, high, nobilitie, <i>la plus haute noblesse</i>, but he know nossing of
+it, nossing whateffer. He haf ze misfortune to be exported from his home
+when one leetle child; he haf been elevated by poor peoples to think
+himself also a poor. He know nossing of ze estates what belong his
+family, and better he not know until he make surely his title, and he
+make to himself some education which shall make him suit to his
+position."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How did you know about this little stolen prince?" Emma Jane asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I receive message from his older bruzzer to take him to my house
+<i>provisionellement</i>, till his rights and his&mdash;his&mdash;what you call&mdash;his
+sameness?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean his identity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, his die entity can be justly prove."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," said Witch Winnie, impulsively, "that he can't be a
+very kind elder brother to be so indifferent."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, you make my admiration with what celeritude you do
+arrive always at exactly ze wrong conclusion. Ze prince haf made great
+effort to recover his little bruzzer, but he must guard himself from ze
+false claimants, ze impostors."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the little boy who is coming to you," said Emma Jane, "may not be
+the real prince, after all?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a possible," Miss Prillwitz admitted, "but it is not a
+probable. Somesing assure me zat he s'all prove his nobility."</p>
+
+<p>"How very interesting," said Milly. "Was he stolen away from home by
+gypsies?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my child, he was not steal. He wandered himself away from his
+fazzer's house and was lost."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How old is he now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve year."</p>
+
+<p>Witch Winnie started; that was just Jim Halsey's age, and what a
+difference in the destiny awaiting the two boys! One the son of a king,
+the other of a criminal.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you to see ze little chamber of ze petit prince?" asked Miss
+Prillwitz.</p>
+
+<p>We were all overjoyed by the suggestion, and the eager little woman led
+us to a room just under the roof, with a dormer-window looking out upon
+the roof of the church.</p>
+
+<p>Milly ran directly to this window, and drawing aside the curtains looked
+out, but started back again half frightened, for a carved gargoyle under
+the eaves was very near and leered at her with a malicious, demoniacal
+expression. He was a grotesque creature with bat wings, lolling tongue,
+and long claws, but harmless enough, for the doves perched on his head
+and preened their iridescent plumage in the sunshine. The church roof
+just here was a wilderness of flying buttresses and pinnacles; the
+chimes were still far overhead, and rang out, as we entered the
+chambers, my fa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>vorite hymn&mdash;"Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear."</p>
+
+<p>I have not yet described the room itself. We all exclaimed at its quaint
+beauty as we entered.</p>
+
+<p>It was papered with an old-fashioned vine pattern, the green foliage
+twined about a slender trellis, and this gave the room, which was really
+quite small, the effect of an arbor with space beyond. There was a patch
+of dark green carpet with a mossy pattern before the bed, which was very
+simple and dressed in white. In the window recess was a dry-goods box,
+upholstered in a fern-patterned chintz of a restful green tint, and
+serving, with its cushions, both as a divan and as a chest for clothing.
+There was a little corner wash-stand with a toilet set decorated with
+water-lilies and green lily-pads, and there was a little sliding curtain
+of green China silk with a shadow-pattern at the window, while through
+the uncurtained upper space one saw, beyond the church roof, the trees
+of the park.</p>
+
+<p>"O Miss Prillwitz!" I exclaimed, "it is just Aurora Leigh's room over
+again. You modeled it on Mrs. Browning's description, did you not?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'I had a little chamber in the house,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As green as any privet-hedge a bird<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might choose to build in ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">... the walls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were green, the carpet was pure green;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">the straight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Small bed was curtained greenly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">and the folds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hung green about the window,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">which let in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A dash of dawn dew from its greenery,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">the honeysuckle.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"I haf nefer ze pleasure to know zat room," said Miss Prillwitz, her
+eyes kindling.</p>
+
+<p>"How perfectly sweet!" exclaimed Adelaide. "It is like 'a lodge in some
+vast wilderness.' I didn't know that there was a place in New York so
+like the country."</p>
+
+<p>"Will the prince study botany with us?" Milly asked, as we descended the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear he is not ready for ze botany. His education haf been neglect.
+But you s'all see him oftenly. I must beg you not to tell him zat he is
+a prince; zis must not divulge to him until ze proper time."</p>
+
+<p>"And then," added Emma Jane, "it would be cruel to excite hopes which
+may be doomed to disappointment."</p>
+
+<p>The princess smiled. "I do not fear zat,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> she said. "And now, young
+ladies, I must make you my excuse, and beg Miss Armstrong she s'all hear
+ze class ze remains of ze hour; I must go to ze market for prepare ze
+young prince his supper."</p>
+
+<p>She hurried away, and we attempted to turn our minds to our lesson.
+Adelaide had just exclaimed that in botany the term <i>hop</i> signified
+small, and <i>dog</i> large, but she broke off the statement with the
+exclamation, "And do you see, girls, what this proves?"</p>
+
+<p>"That dog-roses are large roses," replied Emma Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"That the Chinese laundry man around the corner, Hop Sin, is a little
+sinner," said Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, I don't mean that, but she said that the Prince del Paradiso
+was related to her; then, of course, she must belong to the Paradiso
+family as well, and what we have so long suspected is really true. She
+is a genuine princess, and probably the daughter of a king."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure of that," replied Emma Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suspect Miss Prillwitz of being an impostor?" Adelaide asked,
+coldly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," replied Emma Jane; "but in many European countries
+every son of a prince is called a prince, instead of the eldest son
+only, as in England, and all the sons of all the younger sons are
+princes, and so on to the last descendant; and I presume it is so with
+the daughters as well; so that the title must often exist where there
+are no estates."</p>
+
+<p>"But Miss Prillwitz said that the Prince del Paradiso was heir to
+immense estates," Milly insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"But that proves nothing in her own case," Adelaide admitted. "Some day,
+perhaps she will tell us more about herself, since she has begun to open
+her heart to us."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the door-bell rang, and as the princess kept no servant,
+Winnie went to the door. She was gone a long time, and came back looking
+grave and distraught&mdash;giving an evasive answer when we asked her who had
+called. I wondered at this because, as I sat nearest the door, I had
+overheard a part of the conversation, and knew that it referred to the
+little boy who was expected. "He cannot come," a voice had said; "he has
+a situation where he can learn a trade." This was of so much interest
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> us all that I wondered why Winnie did not immediately report it.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as we returned to the school she obtained an interview with
+Madame, and permission to see Mrs. Halsey in reference to the C&eacute;leste
+situation; Madame stipulating that she must not ask this favor for a
+long time, as she did not like to have her pupils frequent the tenement
+district. I offered to go with Winnie, and was surprised that she
+declined my company. She returned glowing with suppressed excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Halsey has accepted Madame C&eacute;leste's offer," she exclaimed; "she
+leaves the court to-morrow, let us hope for good and all. O girls, it is
+a horrible place! I saw worse sights than when I was there before."</p>
+
+<p>"And Jim?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim is provided for. We are to pay three dollars a week for him for the
+present, until Mrs. Halsey gets on her feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she find a good place for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"An excellent place; but you must not ask me another question, and if
+any mysterious circumstances should come to your observation within a
+few days, you are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> not to say a thing, or even look surprised. Promise,
+every one of you."</p>
+
+<p>"A mystery! how delightful!" exclaimed Milly. "It's almost as good as
+the little prince. You can rely on us; we will help you, Winnie,
+whatever it is, for we know it's all right if it's your doing."</p>
+
+<p>Emma Jane was not present, and I remarked that, while the rest of us
+would believe in Winnie without understanding her, and even in spite of
+the most suspicious circumstances, I was not sure that we could trust
+Emma Jane so far.</p>
+
+<p>"Emma Jane will see nothing to suspect, and Milly, I know, will stand by
+me. It's only you two that I am afraid of&mdash;Adelaide, because she has
+seen Jim; and Tib, from her natural smartness in smelling out a secret."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever it is, Winnie, we believe you could never do anything very
+bad," said Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"But I have," Winnie replied; "something just reckless. I'm in for the
+worst scrape of my life, and just as I was trying so hard to be good. I
+shall never be anything but a malefactor, and maybe get expelled, and
+throw the dear Amen Corner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> into disgrace. I'd better have staid queen
+of the Hornets, for I shall be nothing but Witch Winnie to the end of
+the chapter."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br />
+
+<span class="title">MRS. HETTERMAN THROWS LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY.</span></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch06.jpg" width="210" height="296" alt="{Drawing of Mrs. Hetterman.} T" title="" style="float: left;" />RS. HETTERMAN came into our life in consequence of a train of troubles
+which arose in the boarding-school from the frequent change of the cook.
+Madame had been served for several years by a faithful colored man, who
+had suddenly taken it into his head to go off as steward on a
+gentleman's yacht. She had supplied his place by a Biddy, who was found
+intoxicated on the kitchen floor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> A woman followed who turned out to be
+a thief, and we were now enduring an incompetent creature who made sour
+bread and spoiled nearly every dish which passed through her hands. Half
+of the girls were suffering with dyspepsia, and all were grumbling. The
+Amen Corner was especially out of sorts. Milly, who was always
+fastidious, had eaten nothing but maple-sugar for breakfast, and had a
+sick headache; Emma Jane was snappish; Witch Winnie had stolen a box of
+crackers from the pantry, which she had passed around. Adelaide and I
+had regaled ourselves upon them, but Emma Jane had declined on high
+moral grounds, and was virtuously miserable. It was in this unchristian
+frame of mind, or rather of stomach, that we took our next botany
+lesson. We found the princess beaming with pleasure. "My tear young
+ladies," she exclaimed, "you must felicitate me. It is all so much
+better as I had hoped. Ze leetle prince has not been so badly elevated
+after all. He haf been taught to be kind and unselfish; zat is already
+ze foundation of a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz had occasion to leave the room a few minutes later.
+Adelaide sniffed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> the air, and remarked, "Girls, don't you smell
+something very nice?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's here on the stand in the corner," said Witch Winnie, lifting a
+napkin which covered a tray, and exclaiming, "Fish balls! Only see! the
+most beautiful brown fish balls!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the remnants of their breakfast; she has forgotten to take it
+away," said Adelaide. "They make me feel positively faint with longing;
+I don't believe she would mind if we took just one."</p>
+
+<p>We ate of the dainties, even Emma Jane yielding to temptation; they were
+delicious, and, having begun, we could not stop until they were all
+devoured. Then we looked at one another in shame and dismay. "Who will
+confess?" asked Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to; you put us up to it," said Emma Jane Anton.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's write a round-robin," I suggested, "and all sign it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stand it," said Winnie. "I led you into temptation."</p>
+
+<p>A step was heard in the hall. Winnie stepped forward and began to speak
+rapidly; the rest of us looked down shamefacedly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Miss Prillwitz, please forgive us; we were so hungry we could not stand
+it. If you knew what a dreadful breakfast we had this morning, I'm sure
+you would not blame us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But she was interrupted by a cry of dismay&mdash;"Oh! have you eaten them
+all? I bought them for Aunty."</p>
+
+<p>Looking up, we saw a manly little boy with an expression of distress on
+his frank features.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide uttered a sharp exclamation. I thought she said, "It's him!"
+and yet Adelaide seldom forgot her grammar. Winnie drew a deep breath,
+and caught Adelaide by the arm. The boy looked up from the empty platter
+to the girls' faces, and his expression changed. "Oh! it's you," he
+said. "Well, no matter, only I meant 'em for a present for <i>her</i>&mdash;Miss
+Prillwitz, you know. She's no end good to me. Mrs. Hetterman, down at
+Rickett's Court, makes 'em for regular customers every Friday morning.
+They are prime, and mother gave me a quarter for pocket-money this
+month, so I got ten cents' worth for Aunty; she lets me call her so. I
+thought she'd like 'em, and it would patronize Mrs. Hetterman, and show
+her I hadn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> forgotten old friends, if I had moved up in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Here's ten cents to get some more from Mrs. Hetterman," said Adelaide,
+"and maybe we can get her a wholesale order to furnish our
+boarding-school. I'll speak to Madame about it this very day."</p>
+
+<p>"And if Madame doesn't order them, we girls will club together and have
+a spread of our own," said Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz came in at this juncture, and explanations followed.</p>
+
+<p>"If Madame is in such trouble in regards of a cook," said Miss
+Prillwitz, "I vill write her of Mrs. Hetterman, and perhaps it will be
+to them both a providence. Can she make ozzer sings as ze croquettes of
+codfish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, indeed," the little prince spoke up, eagerly; "soup, and
+turnovers, and <i>such</i> bread! She gave me a little loaf every baking
+while mother had the pneumonia. Mr. Dooley, the butcher, gave me a
+marrow bone every Monday, and I always took it to Mrs. Hetterman to make
+into soup. It made mother sick to boil it in our little room, and Mrs.
+Hetterman would make a kettle of stock, and showed me how to keep it in
+a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> crock outside the window, so mother could have some every day; it was
+what kept mother's strength up through it all. We had such good
+neighbors at the court! but Mrs. Hetterman was best of all. She has five
+children of her own, too. Bill is a messenger boy, and Jennie works in a
+feather factory. Mary is a cripple, but she is just lovely, and tidies
+the house, and takes care of the two little ones. Mr. Hetterman was a
+plasterer and got good wages, but he fell from a scaffolding and broke
+his leg, and he's at the hospital."</p>
+
+<p>"And does Mrs. Hetterman support the family on ze croquettes of
+codfish?" asked Miss Prillwitz.</p>
+
+<p>"She scrubs offices, but she could get a place as cook in a family if it
+wasn't for the children." He looked longingly at Miss Prillwitz as he
+spoke, but she did not seem to notice the glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, mon garçon, run down to ze court, and tell Mrs. Hetterman to take
+a basket of her cookery to ze boarding-school. I t'ink she will engage
+to herself some beesness."</p>
+
+<p>The lesson proceeded, but Adelaide and Winnie both blundered; they were
+evidently thinking of something else.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A change came over Witch Winnie; she lost her old reckless gayety and
+became subdued and thoughtful. The Hornets said she was studying for
+honors, but I knew this was not the case, for her lessons were not as
+well prepared as formerly. She would sit for long periods lost in
+reverie. Winnie had charge of the money collected for Jim's board. She
+reported, after one week, that his mother did not need as much; two
+dollars would supply the margin between what was required and the sum
+she was able to pay. None of us, with the exception of Adelaide, knew
+where Winnie had domiciled Jim, but we were content to leave the matter
+in her hands. A week later Mrs. Halsey only needed one dollar. Mrs.
+Hetterman was engaged as cook for the boarding-school, and we all
+rejoiced in the change. I went down to the kitchen to see her, one
+afternoon, and found her a buxom Englishwoman who dropped her <i>h</i>'s, but
+was always neat and civil. She was delighted when she found that I knew
+the names of her children. "It was a little boy who used to live in your
+court who told me about them," I said, "and who introduced us to your
+good fish balls."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, Miss, I mind; it was little Jim 'Alsey; 'e's the prince of fine
+fellers, 'e is."</p>
+
+<p>Jim Halsey the prince! My head fairly reeled, and yet this explained
+many things which had seemed mysterious. Winnie's agency in the matter
+was still not entirely clear to me. I did not connect her remorseful
+remarks about another scrape, with Jim, and I believed that by some
+remarkable coincidence he was really Miss Prillwitz's little prince
+incognito. I wondered whether Mrs. Hetterman knew anything of his real
+history, but she preferred to talk at present about her own family. She
+was very happy in the prospect of introducing her oldest daughter,
+Jennie, into the house as a waitress. "It will be so much better for
+Jennie," she said, "than the feather factory. The hair there is not good
+for 'er lungs."</p>
+
+<p>I did not understand, at first, what Mrs. Hetterman meant by the <i>hair</i>,
+but when she explained that it was "the hatmosphere," her meaning dawned
+upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"It will make it a bit lonelier for Mary and the little ones," she
+admitted, "but I go down every night, after the work's over, to tidy
+them up and to see that hall's right. The court is not a fit place for
+the children.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> If I could find decent lodgings for them, such as Mrs.
+'Alsey 'as got for her Jim! I think I could pay as much, if the place
+was only found; I'm 'oping something will turn hup, Miss."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," I replied; and I asked Winnie that afternoon if she thought
+the person who was boarding Jim Halsey would take the Hettermans, but
+she utterly discouraged the idea.</p>
+
+<p>We saw a good deal of the little prince. Miss Prillwitz called him
+Giacomo, and was deeply attached to him. He did her credit too, for he
+was docile and bright. His mother was right in saying that he inherited
+his father's facility for mathematics, but with this faculty he
+possessed also a love for mechanics and for machinery of every sort.</p>
+
+<p>"He will make one good engineer some day," said Miss Prillwitz, in
+speaking of him to us.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a strange career for a prince," said Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"My tear, it may be many year before he ees call to his princedom, and
+in ze meanstime he muss make his way. Zen, too, ze sons of ze royal
+houses make such study, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> is one good thing for ze country whose
+prince interest himself in ze science."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder how he would like to study surveying by and by," Adelaide
+said. "I know that father could employ him in the West."</p>
+
+<p>"Zat is one excellent idea," said Miss Prillwitz. "We will see, when ze
+time s'all arrive."</p>
+
+<p>We were all fond of the little prince. After all, Miss Prillwitz had
+decided to let him attend the botany lessons on Saturdays. "If he s'all
+be one surveyor in ze West," she said, "he s'all have opportunity to
+discover ze new species of flower; he must learn all ze natural
+science."</p>
+
+<p>The prince attended the public school during the week, and held his
+place at the head of his class with ease. It was not hard to do so, now
+that he could sleep all night. Emma Jane, who had had her spasms of
+doubt in regard to him, and had even gone so far at first as to say that
+Miss Prillwitz was a crank, and she had no faith in the boy's nobility,
+had been won over by the boy himself, and remarked one afternoon that
+the internal evidence was convincing; Giacomo was not like common
+children; he was evidently cast in a finer mold; he would do honor to
+any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> position; birth would tell, after all. It was all that dear Milly
+could do not to betray the secret to the little prince. He was very fond
+of Milly, but deferential and unpresuming, as became his apparent
+position. "Some day our places may be reversed. You may live in a
+beautiful home and have hosts of friends," Milly said to him. "Will you
+remember me then, Giacomo?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can that ever be?" the boy asked. "You will grow up and be a fine
+rich lady; I will be a poor young man whom you will have quite
+forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily poor," Milly hastened to reply. "If you go West you
+may, by working hard, become rich and famous. Will you forget your old
+friends then?"</p>
+
+<p>And Jim promised that he would never, never forget. Then a shade came
+across his face. "Maybe I will, after all," he said, "for I have
+forgotten Mary Hetterman for more than a week. I did not think I could
+be so mean."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide and I had a conference in regard to the prince. It seemed that
+she had recognized him as Jim Halsey from the first. "I have been
+wondering," she said, "whether it was not a case like that of Little
+Lord Fauntleroy, and whether Mrs. Halsey could not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> proved to be the
+wife of a prince, but I see that cannot be the explanation of the
+matter; and I have concluded that Jim is her adopted child. She must
+have taken him, when she was in better circumstances, from the people
+who brought him to this country when he was a very little fellow, and so
+he has no recollection of any other home."</p>
+
+<p>"She always spoke of him as her very own," I said, "and seemed fonder of
+him than a foster-mother could be. It will be very hard for her to part
+with him, if his real relatives claim him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if he goes to high rank and great estates," said Adelaide. "She
+probably had no idea of his noble birth when she adopted him; and it
+just proves that bread cast upon the waters returns, for he will
+probably care for her right royally, when he comes into his own, and she
+will find that adopting that boy was the best investment she ever made
+in her life."</p>
+
+<p>Winnie came in while we were talking.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you tell us, Winnie," I asked, "that Jim Halsey was the
+little prince?"</p>
+
+<p>"It did not seem necessary," Winnie replied, looking unnecessarily
+alarmed, as it seemed to me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You pay his board directly to Miss Prillwitz, I suppose?" Adelaide
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I give it to his mother, and she sends it by mail."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't see any harm in letting Miss Prillwitz know that we know
+his mother, and are helping in his support."</p>
+
+<p>"I do, and I wish you would not tell her this," Winnie entreated.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you please," Adelaide replied, "but I hate mysteries."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," said Winnie, with a deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with you, any way, Winnie?" Adelaide asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my business," Winnie replied, shortly, and left the room,
+banging the door behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Winnie isn't half as jolly as she used to be," said Milly, in an
+injured tone. "I always depend on her to save me when I'm not prepared
+for recitation. When Professor Todd was coming down the line in the
+Virgil class and was only two girls away from me, I made the most
+beseeching faces at Winnie, who sits opposite, and usually she is so
+quick to take the hint, and come to the rescue by asking Professor Todd
+a lot of questions about the sites of the ancient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> cities, and where he
+thinks the Hesperides were situated. She gets him to talking on his pet
+hobbies, and he proses on like an old dear, until the bell rings for
+change of class. But this time she just stared at me in the most
+wall-eyed manner, while I signaled her in a perfect agony as he got
+nearer and nearer. I tried to think of some question of my own to ask
+him, and suddenly one popped into my head which I thought was very
+bright. He had just been talking about &AElig;neas' shipwreck, and he referred
+to St. Paul's, with a description of the ancient vessels, and how he met
+the same Mediterranean storms, and I plucked up courage and said,
+'Professor Todd, why is it that we hear so much about Virginia, and in
+all the pictures of the shipwreck we see her standing on the deck of the
+ship, and Paul rushing out into the surf to rescue her? Now I have read
+the chapter in Acts which describes St. Paul's shipwreck, very
+carefully, and in that, and in all the history of Paul, there is not one
+word about Virginia.'</p>
+
+<p>"You should have heard the girls shout; I think they were just as mean
+as they could be. That odious Cynthia Vaughn nearly fell off the bench,
+and Professor Todd looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> at me in such a despairing way, as though he
+gave me up from that time forth. I just burst into tears, and Winnie
+came over and took me out of the room. She acknowledged that it was all
+her fault, and that she ought to have come to my rescue sooner."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Milly! we could only comfort her with our assurances that we loved
+her all the more for her troubles.</p>
+
+<p>Summer was approaching, and we were making our plans for vacation.
+Milly's mother had invited Adelaide to spend the season with them at
+their cottage at Narragansett Pier; and Winnie's father had consented to
+her spending June and July with me on our Long Island farm. Winnie
+cheered up somewhat at the prospect. "It's the warm weather which makes
+me feel muggy," she said; "I shall feel better when we get out of the
+city too. The noise and racket distract me, and seeing so many miserable
+people makes me miserable and sick at heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel so at all," I replied. "It makes me happy to see how much
+good even we can do. Mrs. Halsey would not have obtained her situation
+with Madame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> C&eacute;leste but for us, or have been able to place Jim with
+Miss Prillwitz."</p>
+
+<p>Winnie winced. "Don't talk about them; I am sick and tired of hearing
+about the little prince. Do you know, I don't believe he is a prince at
+all!"</p>
+
+<p>"What! Do you imagine that this story of Miss Prillwitz's is only a
+fabrication?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so, or at least a hallucination on her part; and even if it is
+all true Jim may not be the boy. I wonder what proof she has of his
+identity, or whether she has written yet to his relatives. I mean to ask
+her&mdash;this very day."</p>
+
+<p>But Winnie did nothing of the kind, for we were surprised on arriving at
+Miss Prillwitz's to find three new children sitting in the broad
+window-seats. One was a thin girl with crutches, whom I at once guessed
+must be Mary Hetterman; two chubby, freckle-faced little ones sat in the
+sunshine looking over a picture-book together, while Miss Prillwitz
+beamed upon them.</p>
+
+<p>"My tears," she said, "you see I haf some more companie. Giacomo haf
+brought these small people to spend ze day."</p>
+
+<p>Jim came in a little later, and introduced his friends. He was flushed
+and excited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>, and it presently appeared that the visit was a part of a
+deep-laid scheme of his own.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted you to know the Hettermans," he said, "because they are such
+nice children, and Rickett's Court is no place for them, for the family
+next door have the fever, and Mr. Grogan has the tremens, and scares
+them most to death. Mrs. Hetterman gets twenty dollars a month as cook
+now, and she says she can pay a dollar a week apiece for each of the
+children if she can board them where it is healthful and decent; and you
+young ladies were so kind as to help my mother at first, and now, as she
+don't need it any longer, maybe you would help the Hettermans, and then
+maybe Aunty would take them in. Mary is very handy, for all she's a
+cripple, and the babies' noise is just nothing but a pleasure, and&mdash;"
+here the tears stood in his eyes, and he looked at Miss Prillwitz, who
+was frozen stiff with astonishment, with piteous appealing&mdash;"and I would
+eat just as little as I could."</p>
+
+<p>The good woman's voice trembled, "Take ze children to play in ze park,"
+she said; "ze young ladies and I, we talk it some over."</p>
+
+<p>Mary Hetterman tied the children's hoods on with cheerful alacrity. She
+evidently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> had high hopes, while Jim threw his arms around Miss
+Prillwitz&mdash;"Aunty," he said, "they deserve that you should be kind to
+them more than I do."</p>
+
+<p>"What reason is zere that I should take them in more as all ze uzzer
+children in ze court?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just as much reason as for you to take me," replied the boy, running
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless his heart!" said Miss Prillwitz, as he closed the door; "he knows
+not ze reason zat draw me to him, ze cherubim. But I did not know you to
+help his muzzer until now."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide explained matters, and the case of the Hettermans was
+discussed, Miss Prillwitz agreeing to take them in if we would assist in
+their support. "I shall leaf zem in my apartement for ze summer," she
+said, "for it is necessaire to me zat I go ze shore of ze sea, and I
+s'all take Giacomo with me, for I cannot bear to separate myself of him.
+Zis is so near to your school zat Mrs. Hetterman can sleep her nights
+here. But I have not decided to myself where I shall repose myself for
+ze summer."</p>
+
+<p>I spoke up quickly, referring her to Miss Sartoris for the beauties of
+our part of Long Island and for mother's low price for board.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> Miss
+Prillwitz was evidently pleasantly impressed. She thought she would like
+to study the seaweed of that part of the coast, and when she heard of
+the lighthouse, against which the birds of passage dashed themselves,
+and how the keeper had kept their skins, waiting for some one to come
+that way and teach him to stuff them, she was quite decided in our
+favor.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed that Winnie grew suddenly silent. As we left the house she
+pinched me softly. "You didn't mean any harm, Tib," she said, "but if
+they go, it will take every bit of pleasure out of my summer."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br />
+
+<span class="title">WINNIE'S CONFESSION.</span></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch07a.jpg" width="153" height="350" alt="{Drawing of Wilhelm Kalbfleisch.}" title="" style="float: left;" /><img src="images/ch07b.jpg" width="42" height="61" alt="W" title="" style="float: left;" />ILHELM KALBFLEISCH, the butcher's boy, was one of the most
+uninteresting specimens of humanity that I have ever seen. That any of
+us would ever give him even a passing glance seemed quite beyond the
+range of probability, and yet Wilhelm's stolid, good-natured face
+haunted Winnie's dreams like a very Nemesis, and came to acquire a new
+and singular interest even in my own mind.</p>
+
+<p>We passed a little Catholic church on our way to the boarding-school.</p>
+
+<p>"We are early," said Winnie. "Let's go in."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was Lent, and the altar was shrouded in black, and only a few candles
+burning dimly. We stood beside a carved confessional. A muffled murmur
+came from the interior, and the red curtains pulsated as though in time
+to sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go out," whispered Milly; "I am stifling."</p>
+
+<p>She looked so white that I was really afraid she was going to faint. "I
+feel better," she gasped, when we reached the open air.</p>
+
+<p>"It was frightfully close," Winnie said, "and the air was heavy with
+incense."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not that," said Milly, "it was the thought of it all; that there
+was a poor woman in that confessional telling all her sins to a priest.
+I never could do it in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a comfort to me," said Winnie, fiercely. "I only wish there
+was some one with authority, to whom I could confess my sins, that I
+might get rid of the responsibility of them."</p>
+
+<p>"There is," I said, before I thought; "'He hath borne our griefs and
+carried our sorrows.'"</p>
+
+<p>Winnie gave me a quick look. "You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> don't usually preach, Tib," she said,
+and burst into a merry round of stories and jokes, which convulsed the
+other girls, but did not in the least deceive me. I could see that she
+was troubled, and was trying to carry it off by riding her high horse.
+"Girls," she said, "I want you to come around to the butcher's with me.
+They have such funny little beasts in the window. I mean to get one, and
+the butcher's boy, Wilhelm, is such a princely creature&mdash;just my <i>beau
+id&eacute;al</i>&mdash;I want you to see him."</p>
+
+<p>The funny little beasts proved to be forms of head-cheese in fancy
+shapes. Strange roosters and ducks, with plumage of gayly colored sugar
+icing, and animals of uncouth forms and colors. Winnie bought a small
+pig with a blue nose and green tail, all the while bombarding the
+butcher's boy, who was a particularly stupid specimen, with keen
+questions and witty sallies. He was so very obtuse that he did not even
+see that she was making sport of him.</p>
+
+<p>As we hurried home to make up for our little escapade, Winnie amused us
+all by asking us how we thought Wilhelm would grace a princely station.
+"Just imagine, for an instant, that he was the lost Prince Para<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>diso!
+What a figure he would cut in chain armor, or in a court costume of
+velvet and jewels! Did you notice the elegance of his manners and the
+brilliancy of his wit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Winnie, Winnie, have you gone wild?" Adelaide asked. "Why do you make
+such sport of the poor fellow? He is well enough where he is, I am
+sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he not?" Winnie replied, a little more soberly; "I was only thinking
+what a mercy it is that people are so well fitted for their stations in
+life by nature. Now, think of Jim as a butcher, growing up to chop
+sausage-meat and skewer roasts!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jim never could be a butcher," Adelaide replied; "even if Miss
+Prillwitz's dreams do not come true, the education she is giving him
+will do no harm. He will carve a future for himself."</p>
+
+<p>We went into the house, and the subject was dropped. The next morning a
+message came from Miss Prillwitz that one of the Hetterman children was
+sick. It was the fever, contracted in their old home, and we were told
+that our botany lessons must be interrupted for the present. We heard
+through Mrs. Hetterman that the child was not very sick. It was one of
+the chubby lit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>tle ones that had looked so well. She was quarantined now
+in Jim's room, the green one up under the roof, and had a trained nurse
+to care for her. Mrs. Hetterman did not see the child, but talked with
+her daughter Mary in the basement every evening She thought it was a
+great mercy that they had completed their moving before the child was
+taken sick. This did not seem to me to be exactly generous to Miss
+Prillwitz, but I could not blame the mother for the feeling, for under
+the careful treatment the child speedily weathered the storm, and came
+out looking only a little paler for the confinement. We were expecting a
+summons to return to our lessons, when Mrs. Hetterman told us that Jim
+was sick. We were not greatly alarmed, for the little girl's illness had
+been so slight that we fancied we would see our favorite about in a
+fortnight.</p>
+
+<p>Milly sent in baskets of white grapes and flowers, and Adelaide carried
+over a beautiful set of photographs of Italian architecture. "It may
+amuse him to look them over," she said, "and it is just possible that
+his ancestral palace figures among them."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide hoped to go to Europe as soon as she graduated. "If Jim is
+established in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> his rights by that time, I shall visit him," she said,
+"so, you see, I am only mercenary in my attentions to him now."</p>
+
+<p>Winnie looked up indignantly, "Then you deserve to be disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide laughed merrily. "I thought you knew me well enough, Winnie, to
+tell when I am in fun. I like Jim so much, personally, that I would do
+as much for him if he had no great expectations; but I do not see that
+there is any harm in thinking of the kindnesses which he may be able to
+do me."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't count too surely on them. Miss Prillwitz has had time to
+notify his relatives, and they do not seem to take any interest in him."</p>
+
+<p>It is the unexpected that always happens. That very evening Mrs.
+Hetterman brought us this note from Miss Prillwitz. She wrote better
+than she spoke, for on paper there was no opportunity for the foreign
+accent to betray itself:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear young ladies</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"The elder brother have arrived, and I fear you will have no more
+opportunity to see little Giacomo, for I think he will take him
+away very shortly to his father's house.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not be too sorry, but think what <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>a so great thing this
+is for poor little Giacomo, to be called so soon to his beautiful
+estate; no more poorness or trouble, in the palace of the King.
+Giacomo desire me to thank you for all you kindness to him. He hope
+some time you will all come to him at his beautiful country of
+everlasting springtime, and the elder brother invite you also. Mrs.
+Halsey is here. She is much troubled. She forget that Giacomo was
+not her very own, and the pain of parting from him is great. She
+can not rightly think of the good fortune it is to him. She wish to
+go with him, but that is not possible for now. Giacomo hope you
+will comfort her. He hope, too, we will continue our care to the
+children Hetterman. Come not to-night, dear young ladies, to bid
+him farewells; I fear you to cry, and so to trouble his happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Your at all times loving teacher,</p>
+
+<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">C&eacute;lestine Prillwitz</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"The idea of our crying, like so many babies!" said Emma Jane Anton;
+"why, it's the best thing that possibly could happen to him, and I, for
+one, shall congratulate him heartily."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," Milly assented, doubtfully, "but I shall miss him
+awfully, he is such a nice little fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better," said Adelaide;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> "how glad the prince must be to
+find that his little brother is really presentable. As Winnie was
+saying, 'Fancy his feelings if he had found him a coarse, common
+creature like Wilhelm, the butcher's boy!' And now, Winnie, what do you
+say to my being too sure about visiting him some day? Here is the
+invitation from the prince himself. I wonder just where in Italy they
+live!"</p>
+
+<p>So the girls chatted all together, but Winnie was strangely silent.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to see Miss Prillwitz at once," she exclaimed, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's too late, now," replied Emma Jane; "there! the retiring-bell is
+ringing, and if you look across the square you can see that Miss
+Prillwitz's lights are all out; besides, she particularly requested us
+not to come until morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must run over before breakfast," said Winnie, "for it is very
+important."</p>
+
+<p>She set a little alarm-clock for an hour earlier than our usual
+waking-time; but she was unable to sleep, and her restlessness kept me
+awake also. She tossed from side to side, and moaned to herself, and at
+last I heard her say, "Oh! what wouldn't I give if some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> one would only
+show me the best way out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Winnie," I said, softly, "I am not asleep. What is the matter? Are you
+in trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Tib."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you need money?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you in love?"</p>
+
+<p>"The idea! A thousand times no."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to be expelled?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless I tell on myself; perhaps not even then. But oh, Tib, I told
+you I was in for a scrape. I thought I could stick it through, but it's
+worse than I thought. I can't keep the secret; I've got to tell."</p>
+
+<p>"I would, and then you'll feel better."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I will not, for telling will not do any good. I'm not sure but it
+will do harm."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor child, what can it be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just this&mdash;Jim is <i>not</i> the prince."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how you know that, or, if you do, what business it is of
+yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I deceived Miss Prillwitz, and got Jim in there by making her
+think he was the boy she had heard about, while the real boy is
+somewhere else. I've <i>got</i> to tell her before his friends take him away,
+and be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>fore that other boy disappears from view entirely."</p>
+
+<p>"That is really dreadful, but if you know where the true prince is, it
+can't be quite irreparable. What ever made you do such a thing? and how
+did you manage to do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you see, I hadn't any faith in this story of a lost prince at all.
+I thought that Miss Prillwitz was just a little bit of a crank, who had
+been imposed on by designing people and I was sure, when I saw the woman
+at the door who came to tell Miss Prillwitz that her boy had a situation
+and could not come, that she had been in league with the person who had
+told Miss Prillwitz about the lost prince, but had backed out of the
+plot because she was afraid. Miss Prillwitz had evidently not suspected
+that she knew anything of the boy's supposed expectations, for she had
+merely promised to take him to board, teach, and clothe, for whatever
+the mother could give her, the woman having said that she was going into
+a family as German nursery governess, and agreeing to send a trifle
+toward her boy's support whenever she received her salary. It was just
+the time that Mrs. Halsey was looking for a place for Jim. It was so
+easy to have him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> come at the time agreed upon and take the place of the
+other boy. I was afraid, at first, that Miss Prillwitz would be
+surprised by the regularity of our payments and the amount we sent, but
+she didn't seem to suspect anything, and she is so fond of him, and he
+deserves it all&mdash;and everything worked so well up to the coming of the
+prince."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Winnie, why didn't you tell her the whole story at first? I think
+she would have taken him, all the same, and then you would not have got
+things into this awful muddle."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed she would not have taken him, a mere pauper out of the slums,
+unless she had thought that he was something more. She is a born
+aristocrat, and she never could have taken Jim to her heart so if she
+had not believed that he was of her own class&mdash;of her family, even. Why,
+even Adelaide would never have seen half the fine qualities in him which
+she thinks she has discovered if she had not thought him a noble; and it
+has thrown a fine halo of romance over him for Milly; and even Emma
+Jane, who was hard to convince at first, is firmly persuaded that he is
+made of a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> finer clay than the rest of us. And you, Tib, confess
+that you are disappointed yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I am bitterly disappointed," I admitted; "but that is nothing to the
+extent that Miss Prillwitz will feel it. I wouldn't be in your shoes,
+Winnie, for anything."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it; I know it. I have been wicked, but I had no idea that the
+family would ever look him up. I hardly believed the story that there
+had been any prince lost. And, Tib, if there had not been, where would
+have been the harm in what I did?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been wrong, all the same, Winnie, even if it had seemed
+to turn out well. Deception is always wrong, and I did not think it of
+you. But there, don't sob so, or you will make yourself sick, and you
+need all your wits and strength to carry you through the ordeal of
+setting things straight to-morrow. I'll stand by you. I'll go with you
+if it will be any help."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you shall not; Miss Prillwitz might think you were implicated in
+the affair. The fault was all mine, and I will not have any one else
+share the blame; only be on hand at the door, Tib, with an ambulance to
+carry away the remnants, for I shall be all broken into smithereens by
+the interview."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I tried to soothe the excited girl, and fancied that she had fallen
+asleep, when she suddenly began to laugh hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't told you who the real prince is," she said. "Aren't you
+curious to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have I ever met him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed; it's Wilhelm the butcher's boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it too absurd for anything? That was the situation which his
+mother, or foster-mother, preferred to Miss Prillwitz's care. What will
+Adelaide say now about blue blood telling even in low circumstances?
+There is <i>blood</i> enough about Wilhelm if that is all that is desired.
+And won't that foreign prince be just raving when he is introduced to
+his long-lost brother! But poor Miss Prillwitz!&mdash;that's the worst of
+all. No doubt she has been writing with pride and delight the most
+glowing letters in reference to Jim's fitness for his high position. How
+chagrined and mortified the dear old lady will be! Tell me now, Tib,
+that things were not better as I managed them."</p>
+
+<p>"It does seem as if there must be a mistake somewhere. Still, the truth
+is the truth, and I believe in telling it, even if the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> Heavens fall.
+This matter is all in the hands of Providence, Winnie, and I believe you
+got into trouble simply by thinking that you knew better than
+Providence, and that the world could not move on without you."</p>
+
+<p>"I must say you are rather hard on me, Tib, but perhaps you are right.
+Do you suppose that if I hand the tangle I have made right to God, he
+will take it from my hands and straighten it out for me? I should think
+He would have nothing more to do with it, or with me."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not the way our mothers behave when we get our work into a
+snarl."</p>
+
+<p>This last remark comforted her. She laid her head upon my shoulder and
+prayed:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Heavenly Father, I have done wrong, and everything has gone wrong.
+Help me henceforth to do right, and wilt Thou make everything turn out
+right. For thy dear Son's sake, I ask it. Amen."</p>
+
+<p>Then trustfully she fell asleep, her conscience relieved of a great
+weight, and with faith in a power beyond her own.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+
+<span class="title">THE ELDER BROTHER AND MRS. HALSEY'S STRANGE STORY.</span></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch08.jpg" width="204" height="336" alt="{Drawing of child sleeping in bed.} N" title="" style="float: left;" />OTWITHSTANDING Winnie's protestations to the contrary, I insisted on
+going with her the next morning when she went to make her confession.</p>
+
+<p>The little alarm-clock made its usual racket, but Winnie slept
+peacefully, and I was dressed before I could make up my mind to waken
+her. But I knew how disappointed she would be if she could not make her
+call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> on Miss Prillwitz before breakfast, and I wakened her with a kiss,
+and made her a cup of coffee over the gas while she was dressing. Then
+we put on our ulsters and hoods, and slipped out of the house just as
+the rising-bell was ringing.</p>
+
+<p>We knew that Miss Prillwitz was habitually an early riser, or we would
+not have planned to call at such an hour, but we were surprised to find
+a cab standing before her door.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder whether the prince and Jim are just about to leave," Winnie
+exclaimed. "I did not know that any of the ocean steamers sailed so
+early in the morning. What if they have gone and we are too late!"</p>
+
+<p>Something was the matter with the door-bell, and just as we were about
+to knock, the door opened and a stout gentleman came down the steps, and
+drove away in the carriage. Jim was not with him, and Miss Prillwitz
+stood inside the door.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie caught her arm and asked, "Was that the prince, the elder
+brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, tear," said Miss Prillwitz, gravely. "Why haf you come, when I
+write you you must not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Miss Prillwitz, it was because I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> something so particular, so
+important, to tell you. Do not tell me that Jim has gone, and that it is
+too late!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, tear, Giacomo haf not gone already. I think ze elder brother take
+him very soon, and we keep our little Giacomo not one leetle longer. Go
+in ze park by ze bench and I vill come and talk zare wiz you."</p>
+
+<p>We wondered at her unwillingness to let us in, but obeyed her
+directions, and presently she came out to us with a shawl thrown about
+her and a knitted boa outside her cap. Even then she did not sit near
+us, but on a bench at a little distance, having first noted carefully
+that the wind blew from our direction toward her. All this might have
+seemed strange to us had we not been so thoroughly absorbed in what
+Winnie was about to say. The poor child blundered into her story at
+once, and told it in such broken fashion that Miss Prillwitz never could
+have understood it but for my explanations. When we had finished, the
+tears stood in Miss Prillwitz's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"My tear child," she said, kindly, drawing nearer to us, "how you haf
+suffer! Yes, you have done a sin, but you are sorry, and God he forgive
+ze sorrowful."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But do you forgive me, Miss Prillwitz?" Winnie cried, passionately.
+"Can you ever love me again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my tear, I forgive you freely, and I love you more as ever."</p>
+
+<p>"And the elder brother and Jim? Have Jim's expectations been raised?
+Will he be greatly disappointed, and will the prince be very angry?"</p>
+
+<p>"My tear, in all zis it is not as you have t'inked. See, you haf not
+understand my way of talk. I t'ink Giacomo will, all ze same, pretty
+soon go to his Fazzer's house. Ze elder brother is may be gone wiz him
+by now. You have not, then, understand zat dis elder brother is ze Lord
+Christ? zat ze beautiful country is Heaven? Our little Giacomo lie very
+sick. Ze doctor, whom justly you did meet, he gif no hope. His poor
+muzzer sit by him so sad, so sad, it tear my heart. She cannot see he go
+to ze palace to be one Prince del Paradiso."</p>
+
+<p>We sat bolt upright, dazed and stunned by this astounding information.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say," Winnie said, slowly, grasping her head as though
+laboring to concentrate her ideas, "that Jim is dying, and that he is no
+more a prince than any of us?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> I mean that the other boy is not a real
+prince, and that no child ever strayed away from its father's house, or
+elder brother has been seeking for a lost one? Oh Miss Prillwitz, how
+could you make up such a story?"</p>
+
+<p>"My tear, my tear, it is all true, and I t'ought you to understand my
+leetle vay of talk. Giacomo is a prince in disguise; you, my tears, are
+daughters of ze great King. Zat uzzer boy, ze butcher, he also inherit
+ze same heavenly palace. All ze children what come in zis world haf
+wander avay from zat home, and ze elder brother he go up and down
+looking for ze lost. He gif me commission; he gif effery Christians
+commission to find zose lost prince&mdash;to teach him and fit him for his
+high position. I did not have intention to deceive you, my tear. It was
+my little vay of talk."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Winnie, "I feel as if my brain were turning a
+somersault, but I cannot realize it. Then I did not really deceive you,
+after all, Miss Prillwitz, though I was just as wicked in intending to
+do so. And Jim&mdash;do not say there is no hope!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my tear. I know all ze time zis was not ze boy I expect. But I say
+to myself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> 'How he come I know not, but he is also ze child of ze
+King.' Ze elder brother want him to be care for also. May be ze elder
+brother send him, and I take him very gladly. And surely, I never find
+one child to prove his title to be one Prince of Paradise better as
+Giacomo. So gentle, so loving, so generous and soughtful. I not wonder
+at all ze elder brother want him. I sank him, I sank you, too, Winnie, I
+have privilege to know one such lovely character."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz looked at her watch. "I can no longer," she said quickly,
+and hurried back to her home. We crossed the park thoughtfully and
+entered the school. There was just time to tell the girls the news
+before chapel. The knowledge that dear Jim was lying at death's door
+overwhelmed every other consideration, and yet we talked over Miss
+Prillwitz's little allegory also.</p>
+
+<p>"We were stupid not to see through it at first," said Adelaide. "She is
+just the woman to create an ideal world for herself and to live in it. I
+have no grudge against her because we misunderstood her meaning, and yet
+there certainly is something very fine in Jim's nature."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I think it all over," said Emma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Jane, "she has said nothing which
+was not true."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand her letter better now," I said. "We have all been parts of
+a beautiful parable, and we have been as thickheaded as the disciples
+were when Jesus said, 'O fools, and slow of heart to believe.'"</p>
+
+<p>Milly was silently weeping. "All the beauty of the idea doesn't change
+the fact that Jim is dying," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never loved any one so since I lost my mother and my baby
+brother," said Adelaide. "I can't remember how he looked&mdash;it was ten
+years ago, and I have no photographs, only this cameo pin, which father
+bought because it reminded him of mother. Not the face either, only the
+turn of the neck. He said she had a beautiful neck&mdash;and as he came home
+from his business at night he always saw her sitting in her little
+sewing-chair by the window looking every now and then over her shoulder
+for him with her neck turned so, and her profile clear cut against the
+dark of the room like the two colors of agate in this cameo."</p>
+
+<p>It is not natural for girls to talk freely on what stirs them most
+deeply, and little more was said on the subject that morning, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> we
+each thought a great deal, and if our hearts could have been laid bare
+to each other, we would have been startled by the similarity of the
+trains of thought which this event had roused. All through the morning's
+lessons our imaginations wandered to the house across the park, and we
+wondered whether all was indeed over, and dear, cheery, helpful Jim had
+gone. We did not remember that we had declared we would gladly let him
+go to an earthly princedom, and yet this was far better for him. Our
+imaginations saw only the white upturned face upon the pillow, the
+grief-stricken mother, and Miss Prillwitz flitting about drawing the
+sheet straight, and placing white lilacs in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide confessed to me, long after, that all of her worldly thoughts
+in reference to visiting Jim some day came back to her in a strange,
+sermonizing way. She said that in her secret heart she had rather
+dreaded the visit because she knew so little of the etiquette of foreign
+courts, and was afraid she might make some mistake. She had even studied
+several books on the subject, and knew the sort of costume it was
+necessary to wear in a royal presentation, just the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> length of the
+train, the degree of d&eacute;collet&eacute;e, and the veil, and the feathers. The
+thought came over her with great vividness that she had never studied
+the etiquette of Heaven or attempted to provide herself with garments
+fit for the presence of the King. Mrs. Hetterman had a habit of singing
+quaint old hymns. There was one which we often heard echoing up from the
+basement&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"At His right hand our eyes behold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The queen arrayed in purest gold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world admires her heavenly dress,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her robe of joy and righteousness."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This scrap was borne in upon Adelaide's mind now. "A robe of joy and
+righteousness," she thought to herself; "I wonder how it is made! it
+surely must be becoming."</p>
+
+<p>Then she thought again of her mingled motives, of how glad she had been
+that she had befriended Jim because she could claim him as an
+acquaintance as a prince, in that foreign country, and how she had
+wished that she might entertain more traveling members of the nobility
+in his country in order to have more acquaintances at court. "If the
+poor are Christ's brothers and sisters," she said to herself, "I have
+abundant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> opportunity to make many friendships which may be carried over
+into that unknown country;" and a new purpose awoke in her heart, which
+had for its spring not the most unselfish motives, but a strong one, and
+destined to achieve good work, and to give place in time to higher aims.</p>
+
+<p>Afternoon came, and no message had arrived from Jim. "Girls," said
+Adelaide, as we sat in the Amen Corner, "if Jim dies, I propose that we
+carry this sort of work on of fitting poor children for something
+higher, and broaden it, as a memorial to him. I don't exactly see my way
+yet, but we can do a good deal if we band together and try."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! don't talk about Jim's dying," said Milly, "we'll do it, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see why we don't hear from Miss Prillwitz," said Winnie,
+impatiently. "It is recreation hour; let us go out into the park, and
+perhaps she will see us and send us some word."</p>
+
+<p>We walked around and around the paths which were in view from Miss
+Prillwitz's windows. Presently we saw Mary Hetterman coming toward us
+with a note in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I know just what that note says," exclaim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>ed Milly, sinking upon a
+bench. "The little prince has gone to his estates."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" exclaimed Adelaide. "See! is it a ghost?" We looked as she
+pointed, and saw at Jim's window a perfect representation of Adelaide's
+cameo. A white face against the dark interior. It vanished as she spoke,
+leaving us all with a strange, eerie sensation, a feeling that this was
+certainly an omen of Jim's death. But our premonitions, like so many
+others, did not come true. The note was not for us. Mary Hetterman
+passed us with a smile and a nod, and a moment later Miss Prillwitz
+herself came out to us.</p>
+
+<p>We knew by her face that she brought good news, but none of us spoke
+until she answered our unuttered question.</p>
+
+<p>"No, tears, Jim haf not gone. Ze prince haf been here, but I sink he not
+take him zis time already. The doctor sink we keep him one leetle time
+longer. I cannot stay. It is time I go give him his medicine, and let
+loose ze nurse, for I care for him ze nights. Good-bye, my tears. Ah! I
+am so happy zat ze little prince go not yet to his estates; so happy,
+and yet so sleepy also." And we noticed for the first time the great
+dark rings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> which want of sleep and anxiety had drawn around Miss
+Prillwitz's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, princess," I cried; "surely no one deserves that title more
+than you, for you have proved yourself a royal daughter of the King. We
+have called you so a long time among ourselves&mdash;our Princess del
+Paradiso."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, waved her hand, and vanished into the queer house which she
+had made a palace.</p>
+
+<p>It was some time before Adelaide could recover from the shock of the
+apparition at the window, though we assured her that it was probably
+only the trained nurse; and we afterward ascertained that it was in
+reality Mrs. Halsey, who had come to the window for a moment to greet
+the glad new day, and who was now as joyful as she had been despairing.
+So much tension of feeling, so great extremes of joy and sorrow, had
+affected her deeply, and she wept out her gratitude on Miss Prillwitz's
+sympathizing heart. "You have been very good to him," Mrs. Halsey said,
+with emotion. "Some time, when the past all comes back to me, as I am
+sure it will some day, I may be able to return your kindness."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Halsey had made several mysterious allusions to the past, and Miss
+Prillwitz, who had a kindly way of gaining the confidence of everyone,
+said sweetly, "Tell me about your early life, my tear."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a strange story," Mrs. Halsey replied. "I had a happy childhood
+and girlhood, and a happy married life up to the time that my dear
+parents died, and even after that, for my husband was the best of men,
+and I had a sweet little daughter. Their faces come back to me, waking
+and sleeping, though I have lost them, I sometimes fear, forever."</p>
+
+<p>"Did they die?" Miss Prillwitz asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear, I think not; but now comes the strange part of my story: I
+remember a journey vaguely, and a steamer disaster, a night of horror
+with fire and water, and then all is a frightful blank; a curtain of
+blackness seems to have fallen on all my past life. I am told that I was
+rescued from the burning of a Sound steamer, with my baby-boy in my
+arms, and given shelter by some kindly farmer folk. I had received an
+injury&mdash;a blow on the head&mdash;and had brain-fever, from which I recovered
+in body, but with a disordered mind, my memory shattered; I could
+remember faces, but not names. I could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> tell the name of the town in
+which I had lived, or my own name. I remained with the kind people who
+first received me for several months, but I did not wish to be a burden
+to them, and I hoped that I might find my home. I knew that it had been
+in a city, and I felt sure that if I ever saw any of my old
+surroundings, or old friends I would recognize them at once. It was
+thought, too, that New York physicians might help me, so I came to New
+York, and my case was advertised in the papers. But months had passed
+since the accident, and my friends either did not see the advertisement,
+or did not recognize me in the story given. The doctors at the hospital
+pronounced me incurable, and I was discharged. I wandered up and down
+the streets, but although I felt sure that I had been in New York
+before, I could not find my home. I read the names on the signs, hoping
+to recognize my own name, but I never came across it. Meantime I took
+the name of Halsey; it was necessary for me to live, and I knew that I
+could sew, and that I had a faculty for designing; and seeing Madame
+C&eacute;leste's advertisement for a designer, I applied at once for the
+situation. It seemed to me at first that I had seen Madame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> C&eacute;leste
+before, but she was repellent in manner, and I did not dare question
+her, and gradually that impression faded. I hired a woman to take care
+of Jim, and though he was not well cared for, he lived, and we got on
+until he was large enough to play upon the streets. Then I took him home
+to the little room in Rickett's Court, and finding that I could not be
+with him as much as he needed, I gave up my place at Madame C&eacute;leste's
+and worked at first for the costumer, where the young ladies found me,
+and afterward tried to keep soul and body together by taking sewing
+home. It was the life of a galley-slave, but I did not care so long as I
+could keep my boy at school, and with me out of school hours. But I
+could not do that, for to earn the money which was absolutely necessary
+for our support Jim had to work too, and driving the milkman's cart in
+the early morning was the best we could find for him out of school
+hours. He was so proud and happy to do it, and to help earn for us both;
+but, as you know, it cut into his hours for sleep, and left him no time
+to study. Oh! I was nearly in despair, when God sent you as angels to my
+help and Jim's."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you never been able to guess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> what your old name was?" Miss
+Prillwitz asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Never; sometimes it seems to me that I remember it in my dreams, but
+when I awake it is gone; still, I cannot help feeling that I shall find
+my own again. Sometimes there comes a great inward illumination, and the
+curtain seems to be lifting. I cannot think they have forgotten me&mdash;my
+husband tender and true, and my little girl with the great questioning
+eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz did not share Mrs. Halsey's confidence, but her sympathy
+was enlisted, and she caressed and comforted Mrs. Halsey. "It shall be
+as you hope, my tear; if not just now and here, zen surely by and by,
+and zat is not very long. And meantime you have found some friends, ze
+young ladies and me, and ze Elder Brother have found you, and we are all
+one family, so you can be no longer lonely and wizout relation, even in
+zis world."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br />
+
+<span class="title">THE KING'S DAUGHTERS AND THE VENETIAN F&Ecirc;TE.</span></h2>
+
+<div style="float: left;">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O ladies, dear ladies, the next sunny day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Please trundle your hoops just out of Broadway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From its whirl and its bustle, its fashion and pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the temples of trade which tower on each side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the alleys and lanes where Misfortune and Guilt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their children have gathered, their city have built.</span>
+<hr style="width: 3em; margin-top: 0.8em; margin-bottom: 0.8em;" />
+<span class="i0">Then say, if you dare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spoiled children of fashion, you've nothing to wear!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+<div class="clr"></div>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch09.jpg" width="203" height="296" alt="{Drawing of Milly Roseveldt.} M" title="" style="float: left;" />ILLY ROSEVELDT made an important entry in her diary a few days after
+this. She was very exact about keeping her diary, recording for the most
+part, however, very trivial matters, but the day that she wrote "We have
+organized a 'King's Daughters Ten'" was a day with a white stone in it,
+and deserved to be remembered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jim had passed the crisis of the fever, and recovered rapidly. Neither
+of the other Hettermans was taken ill. The house was thoroughly cleansed
+and disinfected, and after a few weeks we took up our interrupted botany
+lessons. But Jim's illness had made more than a transient impression,
+and Adelaide's suggestion that we should broaden and deepen our work was
+talked over amongst us.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a society," said Emma Jane, "which I have heard of somewhere,
+which is called 'The King's Daughters.' I think they have much the same
+idea that Miss Prillwitz has expressed. It is formed of separate links
+of ten members, bound together by the common purpose of doing good. Now,
+I think, we might form such a link, with Miss Prillwitz for our
+president. There are five of us, but we need five more. Whom shall we
+ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Girls," said Winnie, "I'm afraid you won't agree, but there is real
+good stuff in those Hornets."</p>
+
+<p>"The Hornets! Oh, never!"</p>
+
+<p>"What an idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they hate us!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, they simply think that we despise them."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, so we do. I am sure, the way that Cynthia Vaughn behaves is
+simply despicable."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so," Winnie admitted, "but the other three girls are not so
+bad. Little Breeze"&mdash;that was our nickname for Tina Gale&mdash;"is a real
+good-natured girl, and a perfect genius for getting up things. When I
+roomed in the Nest she was devoted to me; so they all were, for that
+matter. I could make them do whatever I pleased, and Rosaria Ricos, the
+Cuban heiress, is just as generous as she can be. 'Trude Middleton is a
+great Sunday-school worker when she is at home, and Puss Seligman's
+mother has a longer calling-list than Milly's, I do believe. Don't you
+remember what a lot of tickets she sold for the theatricals? If we are
+going to get up a charitable society we must use some brains to make it
+succeed, and those girls are a power. You know very well that it is the
+Hornets' Nest and the Amen Corner which support the literary society,
+and when we unite on any ticket-selling or other enterprise it is sure
+to succeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Emma Jane Anton, "that is because we appeal to entirely
+different sets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> of girls&mdash;between us we carry the entire school."</p>
+
+<p>"I will take all in," said Adelaide, "except Cynthia. She has been too
+hateful to Tib and Milly for anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't mind me," murmured Milly; "I dare say she could not help
+laughing when I made that mistake about Paul and Virginia."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe she will join us," I said, doubtfully; "but I am sure I
+would a great deal rather have her for a friend than an enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"She will be so surprised and flattered that she will be as sweet as
+jam," said Winnie, confidently. "You have no idea what a lofty
+reputation you girls have. I used to reverence and envy you until it
+amounted to positive hatred. That is what made me behave so badly. I
+knew we couldn't approach you in good behavior, and I determined to take
+the lead in something. That's just the way with Cynthia. She imagines
+that you would not touch her with a ten-foot pole, and she wants you to
+think that she doesn't care, but she does."</p>
+
+<p>Milly promptly furnished the wherewithal for a spread, and the Hornets
+were invited.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> Adelaide said that they acted as if a sense of
+gratification were struggling with a sneaking consciousness of
+unworthiness, and it was all that she could do not to display the scorn
+which she was afraid she felt. But Milly was as sweetly gracious as only
+Milly knew how to be, and Winnie put them all at their ease with her
+rollicking good-fellowship. I was sure that Cynthia at first suspected
+some trick, but even she succumbed at last to our praise of her
+banjo-playing, which was really admirable. They melted completely with
+the ice-cream&mdash;little ducks with strawberry heads and pistache wings;
+and when Winnie told them the entire story of the little prince they
+were greatly interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Winnie, "I have been talking with Jim, and he says that the
+tenement house in which he lived swarms with children who ought not to
+pass the summer there, who will die if they do; and what I want to
+propose is, that we club together and have some sort of entertainment,
+to send them to the country, or do something else for them."</p>
+
+<p>The proposition met with favor, as did the plan for the King's Daughters
+society, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> was organized at once, and officered as follows, the
+"spoils" being divided equally between the Amen Corner and the Hornets:</p>
+
+<p>President&mdash;Miss Prillwitz.</p>
+
+<p>Vice-Presidents&mdash;Adelaide Armstrong and Gertrude Middleton.</p>
+
+<p>Secretary&mdash;Cynthia Vaughn.</p>
+
+<p>Treasurer&mdash;Emma Jane Anton.</p>
+
+<p>Executive Committee&mdash;The foregoing officers and the rest of the society.</p>
+
+<p>"Little Breeze" then made a practical suggestion: "You know," said she,
+"that the literary society is always allowed to give an entertainment
+the week before the graduating exercises, to put the treasury in funds,
+or, rather, to pay old debts. We have no debts this year, and I am sure
+that the society will let us have the occasion. Whatever we ten favor is
+sure to be carried in the literary society."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I said," remarked Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>"So if Miss Anton will get Madame's permission for the change, I have no
+doubt we can make at least three hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! we will make twice that," said Puss Hastings.</p>
+
+<p>"But what shall we have?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know the sweetest thing," said Little Breeze. "A Venetian F&ecirc;te! It is
+really a fair, but the booths are all made to represent gondolas. They
+are painted black, and have their prows turned toward the centre of the
+room. We can have it in the gymnasium. The gondolas are canopied in
+different colors and hung with bright lanterns. We must all be dressed
+in Venetian costume, and have music and some pretty dances. It will be
+lovely!"</p>
+
+<p>The fair was planned out: each girl had a gondola assigned her, with
+permission to work other girls in, and enthusiasm had reached a high
+pitch, when the retiring-bell clanged and the Hornets took their
+departure, the utmost good feeling prevailing between what had been
+until this evening rival factions of the school.</p>
+
+<p>After our next botany lesson we lingered to inform Miss Prillwitz of
+what we had done, and to ask her to accept the Presidency of our ten.
+She listened with much interest.</p>
+
+<p>"My tears," she said, "I sink perhaps you s'all do much good. I have
+justly been sinking, sinking; but ze need is great. I know not how we
+s'all come at ze money which we do need."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then Miss Prillwitz explained that she had visited Rickett's Court, and
+had found so many little children in those vile surroundings; some of
+them, whose mothers were servants in families, and received good wages,
+were "boarding" with Mrs. Grogan, the baby-farmer. She had met one such
+mother in the court&mdash;a waitress on Fifth Avenue, who had three children
+with Mrs. Grogan.</p>
+
+<p>"I pay her fifteen dollars a month," she said; "it is cheaper than I can
+board them elsewhere, and all that I can pay; but it makes my heart sick
+to see them sleeping and playing beside sewers and sinks, and to have
+them exposed to language of infinitely worse foulness. I know that if
+they do not die in childhood, of which there is every likelihood, they
+will grow up bad; and I don't know which I would choose for them. I
+wouldn't mind slaving for them, if there was any hope, if I could see
+them in decent surroundings, with some prospect of their turning out
+well in the end; but now, when I ask myself what all my toil amounts to,
+it seems to me that the best thing which could happen to us all would be
+to die."</p>
+
+<p>The waitress knew of other servants who could have no home of their own
+for their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> children, but who could pay something for their support, and
+whose maternal love and feeling of independence kept them from giving
+their children up to institutions; who had entrusted their little ones
+to bad people, who hired them to beggars, beat and half starved them.
+And now the summer was approaching, and it was dreadful to think of
+those closely packed tenement houses under the stifling heat.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz said that it had seemed to her positively wrong for her
+to go away to the seashore for the summer while so many must remain and
+suffer.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that," said Adelaide, "unless by staying you can make their
+condition better."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I can so," replied Miss Prillwitz, "if ze King's Daughters will
+help me." And then she developed a plan of Jim's. He had noticed the
+vacant floors in her house, which had remained unlet all the winter. "If
+you could rent them for the summer, Miss Prillwitz," he had suggested,
+"we wouldn't need much furniture, but could just invite a lot of the
+children in and let them camp down. The rooms are so clean, and there is
+such lovely fresh air and no smells, and such beau<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>tiful bath-tubs, and
+the park for the little ones to play in, and Mary Hetterman could watch
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget," Miss Prillwitz had replied, "zat zose children are use
+probably to eat somet'ings."</p>
+
+<p>No, Jim had not forgotten that, but Mrs. Hetterman would be out of a
+place for the summer vacation, and would cook for them, and the
+children's mothers would pay something, and he would do the marketing.
+After the public school closed the older children could earn something,
+he thought. He was all on fire with the idea, and his enthusiasm had
+communicated itself to our princess. "I haf even vent to see my
+landlord," she confessed; "he is von very rich man. I sought maybe he
+let me use ze rooms for ze summer, since he cannot else rent them. But
+no, he did not so make his wealths. We can have them von hundred dollar
+ze months; six months, five hundred. We cannot else. Now do you sink you
+make five hundred dollar from your fair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think so; indeed, I am sure of it!" Adelaide exclaimed; "dear
+little Jim, what an angel he is! We will go right to work and see what
+we can do."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of course the fair was a success, as fairs go. I have since thought that
+a fair is a poor way for Christian people to give money to any
+charitable purpose. So much goes astray from the goal, so much is
+swallowed up in the expenses, that if people would only put their hands
+in their pockets and give at the outset what they do give in the
+aggregate, more would be realized, and much time, vexation, and labor
+saved. But people do not yet recognize this, and we knew no better than
+to follow in the old way. I had charge of the Art gondola, with Miss
+Sartoris and all the Studio girls to help me. We decided that, as it was
+a Venetian f&ecirc;te, we would make a specialty of Italian art. Miss Sartoris
+suggested etchings, and one of the leading art dealers allowed us to
+make our choice from his entire collection, giving them to us at
+wholesale, as he would to any other retail dealer, we to sell them at
+the regular retail price, thereby taking no unfair advantage over our
+purchasers, and yet making a handsome profit on each etching sold, while
+we ran no risk, as all unsold stock was to be returned.</p>
+
+<p>We were surprised to find how many Venetian subjects had been etched.
+There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> were half a dozen different views of St. Mark's
+Cathedral&mdash;exteriors and interiors; San Giorgios and La Salutes; there
+were Rainy Nights in Venice, and Sunny Days in Venice, canals and
+bridges, shipping and palaces, piazzas and archways and cloisters.</p>
+
+<p>Then we obtained a quantity of photographs of the Italian master-pieces,
+chiefly from the works of Titian and the Venetian school, though we
+included also the Madonnas of Raphael. Miss Sartoris found an Italian
+curiosity-shop, which was a perfect treasure-trove, for here we secured,
+on commission, a quantity of Venetian glass beads, the beautiful
+blossomed variety, with tiny smelling-bottles of the same material,
+together with sleeve-buttons of Florentine mosaic, ornaments of pink
+Neapolitan coral, and broken pieces of antique Roman marbles, all of
+which we sold at immense profit. We had not thought of having any
+statuary, until Jim came to us, one afternoon, saying that Miss
+Prillwitz had told him that we intended to have an Italian f&ecirc;te, and as
+several of the families whom he wished benefited were Italians, who
+lived in Rickett's Court, he thought they might help us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do they do?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The older Stavini boys peddle plaster-of-paris images, and some of them
+are very pretty. Pietro will bring you a basket of them, I am sure, and
+take back all you don't sell."</p>
+
+<p>The plaster casts proved to be artistic and new. There was a set of five
+singing cherubs which we had seen on sale in the stores at twenty-five
+dollars a set, which Pietro offered us at fifty cents each, and others
+in like proportion. We sold his entire basketful at advanced prices, and
+received several orders for duplicates.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie had charge of the refreshment department, and had a troop of the
+"preparatories" dressed as contadinas, who were to serve Neapolitan ices
+in colored glasses. Jim enabled her to introduce a very taking novelty
+by telling her of Vincenzo Amati, a cook in an Italian restaurant, who
+had three motherless little girls who were candidates for the summer
+home. Vincenzo agreed to come and cook for us while the fair lasted,
+Mrs. Hetterman kindly giving him place in the kitchen, so that we were
+able to add to our other attractions that of a real Italian supper,
+served on little tables in an adjoining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> recitation-room. Vincenzo
+brought us several dozen Chianti wine flasks, the empty bottles at the
+restaurant having been one of his perquisites. They were of graceful
+shapes, with slender necks, and wound in wicker, which Miss Sartoris
+gilded and further ornamented with a bow of bright satin ribbon. These
+flasks, empty, decorated each of the little tables, and one was given to
+each guest as a souvenir.</p>
+
+<p>The menu consisted of&mdash;</p>
+
+<div style="text-align: center;">
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>Riso con piselli,<br />
+Minestra Zuppa,</td><td>} (Soup).</td></tr>
+</table>
+Olives.<br />
+Bistecca (Beefsteak).<br />
+Macaroni al burro (with butter).<br />
+Macaroni a pomidoro (with potatoes).<br />
+Testa de vitello (Calf's head).<br />
+Carciofi (Artichokes).<br />
+Cavolifiori (Cauliflower).<br />
+Salami di Bologna (Bologna Sausage).<br />
+Crostata di frutti (Fruit tarts).<br />
+Formaggio (Cheese).</div>
+
+<p>Adelaide was musical director, and led the singing class in "Dolce
+Napoli" and other Italian songs. The girls were dressed in costume, and
+there was one fisher chorus, which made a very effective tableau with a
+background of colored sails and nets. Vin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>cenzo allowed his little
+girls to appear with a neighbor's hand-organ, and when they passed their
+tambourines they gathered a goodly harvest of pennies.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 491px;">
+<img src="images/gs02.jpg" width="491" height="650" alt="{Drawing of the Venetian Fête.}" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Little Breeze arranged the tableaux and the dances, Mrs. Halsey sending
+in designs for the costumes; and Cynthia Vaughn ran a side show of
+stereopticon views, Professor Todd kindly working the lantern.</p>
+
+<p>Milly had the flower gondola, or booth of cut flowers, supplied from her
+father's conservatory, and Miss Prillwitz contributed to this department
+a quantity of little albums and herbaria containing pressed flowers and
+seaweed from different Italian cities. Our dear princess was present,
+beaming with happiness, and the "ten" introduced her proudly to their
+parents and friends. Mr. Roseveldt seemed much interested, in an amused
+way, in what we were trying to do. "Go ahead, my dear," he said to
+Milly, "and if you don't come to me to shoulder a lot of bad debts
+before the summer is over, I shall be greatly surprised, and have a far
+higher respect for what little girls can do than I now possess."</p>
+
+<p>"'Little girls,' indeed!" Milly repeated, with scorn. "There are younger
+gentlemen, sir, who consider us young ladies, if you do not.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> But we
+will compel your respect, and we will not ask you for one penny either."</p>
+
+<p>This was rather hard, for we had secretly hoped, all along, that Milly's
+father would help us, and now she had made it a point of pride not to
+ask him. He behaved very well, however, for although he bantered us
+cruelly on our Utopian enterprise, he bought a button-hole bouquet of
+his own violets from Milly, paying a five-dollar bill for it and
+neglecting to ask for change, and then took Miss Prillwitz, Madame, Emma
+Jane Anton, Miss Sartoris, and Miss Hope successively out to supper. He
+purchased, too, an alabaster model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which
+Madame had contributed on condition that it should be sold for not less
+than twenty dollars, and which we had feared would not be disposed of,
+as we had voted that there should be no raffling. Madame was greatly
+interested in the fair; it drew attention to her school, and she smiled
+on everyone&mdash;a self-constituted reception committee. She was even
+gracious to the cadet band which had serenaded the school in the fall
+term. The cadets to a man invited Milly out to dinner. She went with
+each of them in succession, and as the viands were sold <i>&agrave; la carte</i>,
+she bravely ordered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> more expensive dishes over and over again,
+enduring a martyrdom of dyspepsia for a week in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Jim was present, and his mother. Adelaide was attentive to
+both; there seemed to be a mutual attraction that kept them together,
+and whenever Adelaide left Mrs. Halsey, and taking up her baton (Milly's
+curling-stick), led her <ins class="correct" title="ochestra">orchestra</ins>, Mrs. Halsey's eyes followed her with
+a strange wistfulness. Winnie, with her usual heedlessness, had
+neglected to introduce Adelaide to Mrs. Halsey when she called on her in
+the court, and she now turned to Jim and asked her name. It happened
+that Jim thought that she referred to the pianist instead of to
+Adelaide, and he replied that the young lady in question was Miss Hope,
+the music-teacher. Mrs. Halsey gave a little sigh of disappointment, and
+continued her spell-bound gaze. I was about to correct the mistake which
+I was sure Jim had made, when it was announced that Mrs. Le Moyne, the
+celebrated interpreter of Robert Browning, would kindly recite a poem of
+Mrs. Browning's. Mrs. Halsey and Jim moved nearer the rostrum, and my
+opportunity for explanation was lost. If I had known the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> effect that
+the name of Adelaide Armstrong would have had upon Mrs. Halsey, chains
+could not have kept me in my gondola&mdash;so many invisible gates of
+opportunity are closed and opened to us all along life's pathway!</p>
+
+<p>The poem recited was, most appropriately, "The Cry of the Children."
+Tears welled into the eyes of many a mother as the practiced art of the
+speaker rendered most feelingly the pathetic words:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But these others&mdash;children small,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Spilt like blots about the city<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quay and street and palace wall&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Take them up into your pity!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Patient children&mdash;think what pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Makes a young child patient yonder;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wronged too commonly to strain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">After right, or wish or wonder;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sickly children, that whine low<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To themselves and not their mothers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From mere habit, never so&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hoping help or care from others;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Healthy children, with those blue<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">English eyes, fresh from their Maker,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fierce and ravenous, staring through<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At the brown loaves of the baker.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Can we smooth down the bright hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our hearts' pulses? Can we bear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sweet looks of our own children?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O my sisters! Children small,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blue-eyed, wailing through the city&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our own babes cry in them all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Let us take them into pity!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That poem was worth a great deal to our cause. Those of the mothers of
+our Ten who were present were won to us at once.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Middleton, our vice-president's mother, and the wife of a
+clergyman, entered into our scheme with enthusiasm, and felt sure that
+her husband's church would assist us.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Seligman and Mrs. Roseveldt put their heads together and planned to
+interest their society friends. One of hers, Mrs. Roseveldt was sure,
+would contribute the coal, and another the flour, while Mrs. Seligman
+would provide the blankets, and a friend of her acquaintance would
+certainly assume the butcher's bill. Madame C&eacute;leste, the dress-maker,
+who was present, was about to refurnish her parlors, and would
+contribute curtains. Madame C&eacute;leste bought a quantity of my photographs
+of old Italian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> portraits, and I have no doubt that they were very
+serviceable to her in the way of suggestions for &aelig;sthetic costumes.</p>
+
+<p>We knew before the evening closed that the fair must have realized more
+than we had hoped, and Emma Jane, the Treasurer of the new society,
+announced at our next meeting that the fair had cleared six hundred
+dollars. Vociferous applause followed, and we immediately adjourned to
+Miss Prillwitz's to report the unexpectedly happy result.</p>
+
+<p>Our princess had talked over the scheme with such of our mothers as were
+present at the fair; and she now advised that we create them a board of
+managers of the proposed Home, to carry it on for us, as we were all
+minors, and lacked the necessary experience, we to labor for it harder
+than ever. This was immediately done, and after this, affairs marched
+with great rapidity. The Home of the Elder Brother was licensed and
+fitted up for its little guests within a week. The vacant floors in Miss
+Prillwitz's house were rented&mdash;not for the summer only, as we had at
+first planned, but, to our great surprise, for a year. An "unknown
+friend," who had admired our efforts, sent in a subscription of nine
+hundred dollars, thereby more than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> doubling the amount obtained by the
+fair, and guaranteeing that amount annually as long as the Home was
+continued.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Roseveldt had been better than his word, and the Home was placed on
+an assured basis for a year. What it would be after that we could not
+tell. It was only permitted to see one step ahead, but that step we
+could take with thankful assurance.</p>
+
+<p>Madame sent over a quantity of furniture, as she intended to refit the
+students' rooms during the summer vacation. Donations of every kind
+poured in, and twenty-five little iron bedsteads were dressed in white,
+and set in the sunny rooms which were to be used as dormitories. Madame
+C&eacute;leste had said that she would not require Mrs. Halsey during the three
+summer months, and the little woman offered her services for that
+interim as nursery care-taker.</p>
+
+<p>Another surprise came when Emma Jane Anton announced that she had
+written home and obtained permission to remain as matron. She had a
+talent for housekeeping, and she gave her services freely. "I am not
+rich," she said. "I can't give money, but I can give myself. I am not
+used to children; I don't believe they will like me, for I don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> care
+for them overmuch; but Mrs. Halsey will mother them, and I can keep the
+house sweet and clean; I can market economically, and keep accounts
+exactly, and I mean that the princess shall not give up her visit to
+Tib. She must go to the country for a part of the summer at least."</p>
+
+<p>"And when she comes back," I said, "you must take your turn, Emma Jane;
+we will be so glad to have you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, immensely! I am a genial, sweet creature, I know, an addition to
+society; but I thank you, all the same, and if I feel run down, I will
+come and get a sniff of sea air."</p>
+
+<p>The King's Daughters' Ten held their last meeting before the breaking up
+of the school. The money gained was entrusted to Emma Jane's care for
+the summer, and each of the members bound herself to carry the scheme
+with her wherever she went, to interest others, to gather and forward
+funds, and to work for the Home in every possible way.</p>
+
+<p>Then we paid our last visit, for that term, to Miss Prillwitz, and our
+first to our little guests, and returning, packed our trunks, attended
+the graduating exercises of the senior class (the Amen Corner and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+Hornets were all juniors and sophomores, with the exception of Emma
+Jane, who graduated), hugged and wept over each other, and elected
+Winnie corresponding secretary for the summer, and promised to write to
+her every month, reporting work done for the Home, and separated with
+mingled hilarity and depression of spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Roseveldt called at the Home with Milly and Adelaide before they
+left town. It was a little plan of the girls to interest him in Jim, and
+it succeeded admirably. After a number of other questions, Mr. Roseveldt
+asked Jim if he could drive.</p>
+
+<p>"I managed the milkman's nag," the boy replied, "and he was an awfully
+hardmouthed, ugly brute."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I fancy you will have no trouble with Milly's pony, which is as
+gentle as a kitten," Mr. Roseveldt replied. "I want a boy in buttons
+just to sit in the rumble while the girls drive about the country." And
+so Jim was engaged to go to Narragansett Pier, and would have a happy
+summer with Milly and Adelaide.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br />
+
+<span class="title">THE LANDLORD OF RICKETT'S COURT.</span></h2>
+
+<div style="float: left;">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And yet it was never in my soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To play so ill a part:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But evil is wrought by want of thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As well as by want of heart."<br /></span>
+</div>
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Thos. Hood.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="clr"></div>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch10.jpg" width="155" height="252" alt="{Drawing of Solomon Meyer.} S" title="" style="float: left;" />OLOMON MEYER, who collected the rents at Rickett's Court, was looked
+upon by the tenants as the landlord, though he distinctly disclaimed
+that honor, explaining that he was only the agent, empowered merely to
+receive money, never to disburse. According to Mr. Meyer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> the landlord
+was a heartless miser, whom he had entreated to make repairs and to
+lower rents, but who always turned a deaf ear to such appeals. If he,
+Solomon Meyer, only owned Rickett's Court, there would be no end to the
+reforms which his tender heart would cause him to institute; as it was,
+there was no hope for anything of the kind; his orders were explicit&mdash;if
+tenants could not pay, they must leave.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the tenants believed that Mr. Meyer was really the owner of
+their building, and that the landlord whom he represented as responsible
+for all their discomfort was purely imaginary, but in this they wronged
+the agent. Solomon Meyer had no scruples against telling a lie whenever
+it would serve his purpose, but here the truth did very well. Rickett's
+Court had a landlord who, although he was not the inhuman wretch which
+Solomon represented him, still cared nothing for his tenants, and, while
+the agent had never suggested any reforms or repairs, might well have
+guessed that they were needed. Adelaide Armstrong would have been
+shocked beyond expression if she had known that the true landlord of
+Rickett's Court was no other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> than her own father. Mr. Armstrong would
+have been no less shocked if he had known of the abuses for which he was
+really responsible. He had never seen his own property. It had been
+represented to him as a profitable investment, and had proved so. He was
+only in New York for brief intervals each year, and he left the entire
+management of Rickett's Court to Solomon Meyer, well pleased with the
+returns which he rendered, and not suspecting that they were less than
+the sums wrung from the tenants.</p>
+
+<p>He had mentally set aside Rickett's Court as Adelaide's property, and he
+used its proceeds to defray her expenses. There was a neat little
+surplus left over each quarter-day, which he placed in the savings bank
+to her credit, and with which he intended to endow her on her marriage.
+But of all this Adelaide of course knew nothing. Mr. Armstrong's more
+important business ventures were in western railroad speculations. These
+absorbed his attention, and needed the closest application of his
+faculties. He was glad of this. The East had grown distasteful to him
+since the loss of his wife and infant son. He felt that he might have
+been a different man if his wife, whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> he tenderly loved, had lived;
+and Adelaide had never ceased to mourn her mother, whom she could not
+remember. "What shall I ever do," she frequently asked, "when I finish
+school? If I only had a mother to be my companion and counselor! but I
+shall be so lonely, and so unfit to take care of myself!"</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances which I relate in this chapter because they belong
+here in sequence of time, did not come to my knowledge until long after
+their occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong came on from the West the evening of our fair. He was
+weary and much occupied by matters of business, and he did not attend
+it, much to our regret. He lent a kindly ear to Adelaide's description
+of it, for he was fond and proud of his beautiful daughter, and he liked
+to see her a leader in everything.</p>
+
+<p>He manifested apparently little interest, however, in what she had to
+tell him of Rickett's Court. "There, there, Puss!" he said, lightly,
+"you must not get fanatical, and rant. I hardly think things are as bad
+down there as you make them out."</p>
+
+<p>"But, papa," Adelaide interrupted, "I went there myself. I saw it with
+my own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> eyes. It is horrible to think that human beings should be
+obliged to live in such filth and misery. I think the landlord of
+Rickett's Court ought to be prosecuted. I wish I knew that old Rickett!
+I would give him a piece of my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I've no doubt of it; but spare me, Puss, since my name is not Rickett."</p>
+
+<p>He must have felt a sharp twinge of conscience as he spoke, while his
+daughter's words could not have failed to make an impression on the
+false Rickett. He had read in the cars a little book entitled "Uncle
+Tom's Tenement," by Alice Wellington Rollins, and Helen Campbell's
+"Prisoners of Poverty." He wondered if their pictures of tenement life
+were indeed true. A few days later he listened to some remarks of Mr.
+Felix Adler's on tenement reform. He knew what Mr. Charles Pratt was
+doing in Brooklyn, and his better man told him that now was his
+opportunity. Why should he not put the plumbing in his tenement in
+decent repair; it might not cost much more, after all, than to bribe the
+inspector to report it as all right&mdash;a proceeding which Solomon Meyer
+advised. He could at least drain the sink in the court, and do away with
+the unchris<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>tian smells which now drove the chance visitor from the
+vicinity. And if he should have the rooms cleaned and whitewashed, he
+might even pose before the public as a humanitarian landlord, and so
+gain the cooperation of some of the philanthropists of the day for some
+other schemes which he had in mind.</p>
+
+<p>He visited the court with a plumber, and found it in worse condition
+than he had imagined. There was a leak from the sewer in the back
+basement. All of the rooms were foul with vermin, and rats scuttled back
+into the walls through great holes. Many of the tenants had left, for
+various reasons. The opening of the Home of the Elder Brother was in
+great part responsible for the emptying of Rickett's Court, for the
+better class of its tenants had embraced this great opportunity to place
+their children in good surroundings. So many children had been
+transferred from Mrs. Grogan's care to the Home by their mothers that
+Mrs. Grogan, finding her occupation gone, betook herself to petty
+larceny and was arrested.</p>
+
+<p>The Italian rag-pickers had taken to the road, with a monkey and an
+organ as tramps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> for the summer, leaving their filth behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong looked into their vacated den, and found it impossible to
+imagine what it could have been when occupied.</p>
+
+<p>The windows had been stoned by the street boys until hardly a pane
+remained, and the staircase had rotted so that he thrust his foot
+through it. The house would need plastering and glazing as well as
+replumbing. It began to look like a great undertaking. However, he bade
+the plumber make and send him his estimates, and hurried out of the
+court, not taking a full breath until he was fairly on Broadway. Then he
+sent a mason and a carpenter to look at the building. "I must make some
+repairs," he said to himself, "or I shall get no tenants whatever."</p>
+
+<p>He had noticed another defect: there was but one staircase. He must add
+a fire-escape, for the place was a death-trap. He had a feeling of
+responsibility in regard to endangering the lives of human beings by
+fire, and he was trying to invent a scheme for heating and lighting
+railroad cars in such a manner as to do away with the danger of fire in
+case of accident. So far, the full com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>pletion of the invention escaped
+him, but he worked at it by night and day, not so much because it would
+be an immense boon to the age, but because he was sure that, if
+introduced only on his own railroad, it would boom the line above a
+rival route, and if patented, would make his fortune. Solomon Meyer, in
+enumerating the tenants of the court, had mentioned a Mr. Trimble, a
+poor inventor, who occupied the back attic, whom it would be well to
+turn out, as he had paid no rent for some time, though he had promised
+well, saying that he had just invented a scheme for the safe heating of
+cars, from which he hoped to realize a large sum. Mr. Armstrong
+thoughtlessly displayed before his agent the interest which he felt.
+"Bring the man to me," he exclaimed; "if he has really worked out the
+problem, it is just what I want."</p>
+
+<p>The agent at once paid a visit to the poor inventor and possessed
+himself of his plans and model, promising to do his best for him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong saw at a glance that the inventor had compassed just what
+had baffled him so long.</p>
+
+<p>"What will he take for this invention?" he asked, eagerly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not one cent less as five t'ousand dollar," replied Mr. Meyer.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a good round sum," remarked Mr. Armstrong, "but the right to it
+is worth more than that to me. Arrange the papers for me, get the
+gentleman to sign them, give him this check for a thousand dollars, and
+I will send him another, soon, for four thousand."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Meyer saw his opportunity here. He returned to Mr. Trimble, assured
+him that his contrivance had been anticipated and already patented by
+another man: he was too late. The poor man's disappointment was intense;
+his head and hands trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you for trying for me," he said; "there is nothing for me now
+but the river. I have occupied this room in the hope of paying my rent
+when I realized from that invention, but I have no longer any
+expectations, and I had better go and drown myself."</p>
+
+<p>Then for the first time Mr. Meyer realized that there was another person
+in the room. Jim had come down to the court to see his old friends, and
+had dropped in to inquire after Mr. Trimble's son, a merry little fellow
+who had been a playmate of his in the old days. Jim had retreated into a
+corner when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> the agent called, but he now sprang forward and threw his
+arms around the poor inventor's neck.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" he cried; "Mr. Meyer will beg Mr. Rickett to let you stay
+until the first of the month, and something may turn up by that time."</p>
+
+<p>Some sense of shame prompted Solomon Meyer to yield to this request,
+though in his secret heart he knew that his own plans could be more
+safely carried out if his victim did drown himself; and the sooner the
+better. Then he hurried away to collect rents of the new tenants, with
+the money which Mr. Armstrong had sent Stephen Trimble burning like a
+coal in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>The contract for the new invention was returned to Mr. Armstrong at the
+same time with the estimates of the different mechanics for the
+improvements of Rickett's Court. It would cost three thousand dollars to
+put the tenement in decent repair, and this did not include the
+fire-escape. Mr. Armstrong whistled as he added up the items. It was
+really not convenient for him to place his hand on so much ready cash;
+certainly not without using the money which he had placed in the savings
+bank to Adelaide's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> credit. Mr. Meyer stood cringing before him, and Mr.
+Armstrong explained the situation.</p>
+
+<p>The agent promptly disapproved of the improvements. They would be a
+great waste of money. No one would rent the tenements after they were
+repaired, for it would be necessary to charge a higher rent, and tenants
+able to pay it, or desiring bathrooms and sanitary plumbing, would not
+occupy such a quarter of the city.</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose I do not charge any more rent, but simply try to educate my
+old tenants to better habits of life?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Meyer explained that Mr. Armstrong could throw away his money in
+that way if he wished, but that the class of tenants who patronized
+Rickett's Court could not be educated. They preferred filth to
+cleanliness, and, however respectable their quarters were made, would
+soon convert them into sinks again.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong reminded his agent that his best tenants had left him,
+that the house was practically deserted, and that something must be done
+to attract new occupants.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Meyer assured him that applications had already been received for
+the rooms in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> their present state. A ship-load of emigrants had just
+arrived: Polish Jews and exiled Russians, who had been imprisoned as
+Nihilists, and who had suffered such barbarities that Rickett's Court,
+horrible as it was, seemed positively comfortable to them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong hesitated. He did not like to give up his scheme of
+renovation; still, there were the papers waiting for his signature for
+the transfer of the invention, and this he had decided he must have; it
+was sure to bring in a great deal of money, and another year he could
+much better afford to make these improvements. He decided, reluctantly,
+that he would put them off for the present.</p>
+
+<p>"I will have a fire-escape put up," he said to his agent, "and we will
+do the rest as soon as possible."</p>
+
+<p>Solomon Meyer shrugged his shoulders. "There is no danger of fire," he
+said, "and I was about to propose that you take out a fire insurance
+policy on that building; that cost about the same, and much more
+sensible."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong thought a moment. "If the danger of fire is sufficient to
+warrant me in insuring, it is also great enough to make furnishing the
+fire-escape an imperative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> duty. I insist on your seeing that one is
+adjusted immediately. You may also take out an insurance policy for
+twenty thousand. See if Mr. Trimble can wait for the rest of his money
+until the first of the month. (The agent's face fell.) You have given
+him my check for one thousand; he ought to be willing to wait a few days
+for the rest. If he is not satisfied, tell him to come down and see me,
+and we'll come to some agreement."</p>
+
+<p>This was exactly what Solomon Meyer did not wish. "I will try my best to
+make him sign the papers on those terms," he said, and carried them away
+to his own den, where he forged the name of Stephen Trimble to both
+contract and check. He found no difficulty in cashing the check, for Mr.
+Armstrong's name was well known, though Stephen Trimble's was not.</p>
+
+<p>And in the mean time the poor inventor sat in his garret trying to
+think. His wife was in the hospital, and his little son busied himself
+with washing the supper dishes. It was not a heavy task, for their
+supper had consisted only of some cold griddle-cakes which, the
+flap-jack man had given them. When the boy had finished his work he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+crept close to his father and laid his head on his knee.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you light the lamp?" Mr. Trimble asked, rousing himself.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't any oil, daddy."</p>
+
+<p>"No matter. I can think better in the dark, and you had better go to
+bed."</p>
+
+<p>"I am going out pretty soon to help the flap-jack man wheel his cart."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Lovey, if he is a good man; I don't want you to do anything
+wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"He's good to me, daddy."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad of that; you need a friend, and you may need one more." He
+kissed his little boy as he went out&mdash;an unwonted action on the father's
+part&mdash;and waited until he was sure that the child had left the building,
+then rose, with a desperate look upon his face, and stepped out on the
+landing. The house was very full now; people had been coming for two
+days past with great bales of foul clothing, offensive with odors of the
+steerage, and had packed into the already dirty rooms. It was an
+unusually warm night for spring, and the house was unbearably close. The
+tenants had resorted to the roof, and were sitting under the stars,
+trying in vain to find fresh air, and screaming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> and scolding at one
+another in a strange, harsh language.</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Trimble was about to descend the staircase, when two men of
+unpleasant aspect stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are the machinist who lives on the top floor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you time for a little job?"</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty of time. Thank God!" he added, mentally, "who has sent me help
+in time."</p>
+
+<p>"Then come down-stairs with us: we are your neighbors, and are just
+under you.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want me to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll show you."</p>
+
+<p>The men admitted him to their room, and carefully locked the door behind
+them. One of them struck a light, and in so doing dropped a match upon
+the floor. The other sprang upon it quickly, ground it out with his
+heel, and cursed him for his carelessness. Stephen Trimble looked about
+him, and saw that one end of the room was piled with boxes and tin cans,
+one of which was open, showing a compound slightly resembling maple
+sugar. A table stood before the low window, and on it was appa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>ratus or
+machinery of some sort. The first man placed his candle on the table,
+and drew up a packing-box for Mr. Trimble to sit upon. There was no
+other furniture in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not live here?" said the inventor.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the first man, who constituted himself the spokesman for
+both; "it isn't a sweet place to live in. We hire it as a workshop. You
+see, we are perfecting a sort of torpedo. You've heard of the submarine
+torpedoes that did such good service in blowing up the Turkish ships in
+the Russo-Turkish war?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," replied Stephen Trimble, much interested. "I thought that
+stuff looked like dynamite! So you are inventing a new torpedo, which
+you mean to sell the Government? That's a good idea. They are thinking
+of increasing the navy, and it's always better to deal with the
+Government than with private individuals."</p>
+
+<p>The silent man nudged his partner and remarked, "Yes, we're agoin' to
+deal with the Government. That's a good way to put it."</p>
+
+<p>The other man made an impatient gesture, and proceeded to explain a
+small machine to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> Mr. Trimble. "You don't exactly understand my friend,"
+he said, "but no matter. This kind of a torpedo isn't of the submarine
+kind; we pack the explosives here, matches here, friction paper just
+beside them; but just here we are stuck, and we need you or some other
+mechanic to show us how the thing can be set off by electricity, the
+operator to touch a button at a distance."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Trimble bent himself to an examination of the contrivance. He asked
+several questions, and as his scrutiny continued, his expression of
+satisfaction changed to one of mistrust and alarm. Suddenly he sprang
+from his seat and pushed the model from him. "That is an
+infernal-machine!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's about the long and the short of it," said the man, calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will have nothing to do with it," and he turned toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, my friend, ain't you a trifle in a hurry? All we want you to
+do is to fix that attachment for us, and if you won't do it some other
+man will, but we're willing to pay you a hundred dollars for the job.
+That's a goodish sum to pay, if the job is a little queer, but I take it
+you're used to doing queer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> things by the big checks that pass through
+your hands."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" Stephen Trimble asked, with some indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you needn't pretend innocence and poverty. A man doesn't scatter
+round thousand-dollar checks who's as poor as you pretend to be, or as
+good, either."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't tell us you know nothing of a check for a thousand dollars
+which we happened to see in the pocket-book of the agent of this
+building when he dropped in here to collect the rent."</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw a check for a thousand dollars in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't believe me, ask that sharp little boy of yours. It was he
+who first let me know there was a scientific man in the building. He saw
+me unpacking my machine. I happened to leave the door open just a
+minute. I never saw such a sharp little fellow. In he comes and says,
+'My father makes machines too. He's going to make us awful rich some
+day.'</p>
+
+<p>"After that he got in the way of knocking at the door and asking to see
+my machinery. I thought it would be a good idea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> to let him, for he is
+too little to suspect anything, and I could stuff him with the idea that
+I was making a new kind of telegraph, for I was pretty sure that he
+would tell it around, and that people would believe it and think there
+couldn't be anything shady in what I was doing if I let anybody and
+everybody have the freedom of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the day I'm speaking of, your little chap was sitting there
+turning the crank of that machine just as cheerful as if it wouldn't
+have blown him to kingdom come if the attachment had only been on, when
+in come another little feller who had been looking for him. 'See here,'
+says my partner, 'there's getting to be too many children here; we don't
+keep a Sunday-school, we don't.' They were just going to leave, when the
+agent he come in with the rent contract for us to sign. Well, the boys
+lingered round, full of curiosity, as boys are, and we signed the paper
+and handed over the cash. Mr. Meyer in stuffing it away in his
+pocket-book brought to light that thousand-dollar check I was telling
+you about. He fumbled to hide it, but it dropped on the floor, and a
+little gust of wind carried it over to where the boys were. The oldest
+boy&mdash;Jim, I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> your son called him&mdash;picked it up, and took a good
+look at it. 'Hullo!' says he, 'here's your father's name, Lovey. "Pay to
+the order of Stephen Trimble one thousand dollars"!' The agent he just
+made one dive for that check, with his fist lifted as though he were
+going to strike the boy, who dropped the check, and both the little
+shavers scooted, and none too soon either, for Meyer looked mad enough
+to kill the youngster, though he tried to laugh it off, and turned the
+check over and showed me that it was his fast enough, for it was
+endorsed on the back, 'Pay to the order of Solomon Meyer.'"</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Trimble put his hand to his head in a dazed way. "You are
+fooling me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not we, but somebody is, if you don't know anything about it. Well, if
+you are not the bloated bondholder we took you for, perhaps you'll
+consider our little offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, gentlemen, not to-night at least; give me time to think it over.
+One bad man may have wronged me, but I've no call to go against the
+law."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, take plenty of time"&mdash;and they opened the door. Some one was
+knocking at Stephen Trimble's own room. It was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> flap-jack man, and
+he had a white, scared face.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" asked the inventor.</p>
+
+<p>"Lovey's been&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Run over?" gasped the poor father.</p>
+
+<p>"No; arrested."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Trimble gave one exclamation of horror&mdash;then asked, "What's he
+done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but wheeling my cart; they'd have caught me, too, but I cut and
+run. This is a pretty country where one is arrested for trying to earn
+an honest living!"</p>
+
+<p>This was the last straw. Stephen Trimble had said that he had no reason
+to resist the law, but he could not hold to that now. He staggered
+feebly down-stairs, knocked at the door of the dynamiters, and said.
+"I've come back sooner than I thought I would. Give me five dollars in
+advance, and I'll undertake that business of yours to-morrow, and maybe
+I'll get up a little infernal-machine for my own use at the same time,
+but just now I must find my boy."</p>
+
+<p>The man handed him some greasy bills. "You look sick," he said. "You had
+better go down to the free-lunch counter at the saloon, and have a good
+square meal."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Trimble went and ate and drank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> to excess. He did not look for
+his little son, and he did not return to the dynamiters' the next
+morning, for he was drunk&mdash;and drunk for three days thereafter. Then he
+sobered down and applied himself to the task which they had set him&mdash;a
+task intended to bring ruin to the class which had wronged him. He knew
+the aims, now, of the men for whom he was working, and he believed that
+he sympathized with them. They told him how they had borne imprisonment
+and torture for no wrong in Russia, and had come to this country
+expecting to find it the land of justice and kindness, but had met only
+the same tyranny of the rich over the poor&mdash;the rich, who cared for
+nothing but their own pleasures, and ground the poor under their chariot
+wheels.</p>
+
+<p>As he worked he thought of his own private wrongs, and determined that
+as soon as his task was done he would seek out the man who had defrauded
+him. He was sure now that the check which the men had seen had something
+to do with his invention, but he believed that the true criminal was
+some one behind Solomon Meyer, the man to whom the agent said he had
+given his invention&mdash;the landlord of Rickett's Court. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> like a man
+who would compel human beings to live in such a state as this to commit
+such a fraud. He would hunt him down presently, and in the name of his
+tenants, as well as in his own cause, wreak such revenge that the ears
+of those who heard should tingle.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord of Rickett's Court, all unconscious of the volcano upon
+which he was treading, attended the closing exercises of Madame's
+school, and listened with pride to his daughter's prize essay on "The
+Dangerous Classes."</p>
+
+<p>There was a quotation from Ruskin at the close which pricked his heart a
+little, and made him regret that it was not convenient to carry out his
+good intentions just at present. How charming she looked in the white
+India silk, and how well she read that final quotation!</p>
+
+<p>"If you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be
+striven for&mdash;life for all men as for yourselves&mdash;if you can determine
+some honest and simple order of existence following those trodden ways
+of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking those quiet and withdrawn
+paths, which are peace; then, and so sanctifying wealth into
+'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> your daily labors, your
+domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one
+magnificent harmony. You will know, then, how to build well enough; you
+will build with stone well, but with flesh better&mdash;temples not made with
+hands, but riveted of hearts, and that kind of marble, crimson-veined,
+is indeed eternal."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong entirely ruined a new pair of kid gloves in applauding his
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>He consigned her to Mrs. Roseveldt for the summer, and in reply to that
+lady's urgent request that he would visit them, explained that
+Narragansett Pier was fraught with so many memories that he had never
+been able to revisit it. "I own a cottage a little distance from the
+town," he said. "It was there that both my children were born. We were
+in the habit of occupying it every summer, but since my wife's death I
+have neither been able to bring myself to go there, or to rent it, and
+it has remained closed."</p>
+
+<p>"O papa, will you not let me have it for the summer?" Adelaide asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, Puss, if you want to fit it up for a studio or that sort of
+thing; but it is in a lonely wood, and you must have suitable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> company
+with you if you think of staying there. If you manage to change the
+place and infuse new life in it, I may bring myself to look in upon you
+there. At all events, I will join you at the Roseveldts' as soon as I
+can; just now important business detains me."</p>
+
+<p>The business, as we know, was the securing and putting in service of the
+new invention for heating and lighting cars. It was necessary for him to
+go to Washington to arrange for the patent, and it was on this trip that
+a clue most unexpectedly fell into his hands which seemed to lead to a
+startling discovery&mdash;a discovery which was more to him than any fortune
+which the invention could bring.</p>
+
+<p>It all came about through a scrap of paper which fell in his way as he
+was looking about his hotel bedroom for a piece of wrapping-paper with
+which to cover the model of the machine which he was about to carry to
+the Patent Office. He could find nothing for this purpose but an old
+newspaper which lined a bureau drawer. In this he wrapped his machine,
+and took his seat in the street-car, the package resting on his knees.
+His fellow-passengers were uninteresting,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> and he fixed his gaze upon
+his package. A heading to one of the shorter articles in the old
+newspaper attracted his attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Remarkable Case of Loss of Identity; the Doctors Puzzled."</p>
+
+<p>He read on aimlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"The physicians of &mdash;&mdash; Hospital have an interesting case. One of their
+patients, a lady, was injured at the burning of the <i>Henrietta</i> in the
+Sound in October last. This accident has resulted in a partial loss of
+memory, and total confusion as to her identity. The unfortunate lady is
+unable to give her own name or that of her friends. A remarkable
+circumstance in the case is the fact that, through all the horror and
+suffering of the accident, which has resulted in a partial loss of her
+reason, the poor lady kept her infant boy safely clasped in her arms,
+and the child, entirely uninjured, was rescued with her. Any person who
+believes that he recognizes a lost friend in this case is requested to
+communicate with Dr. H. C. Carver, of the &mdash;&mdash; Hospital."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong read this item over and over again. He had believed that
+his wife and child were lost in the burning of this steamer. Was it
+possible that they still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> lived? and what had ten years of separation
+done for them?</p>
+
+<p>The horse-car passed the Patent Office, but he did not see it. He sat
+staring at the newspaper until the car brought him to the end of the
+route and the conductor touched him on the shoulder. "Pardon me, sir; I
+forgot you wished to stop at the Patent Office."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong woke from his reverie.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he exclaimed, "at the railway station. I want to catch the next
+train for New York&mdash;none until 4 o'clock? Then I <i>will</i> go to the Patent
+Office; but, first, tell me where I can send a telegram."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 474px;">
+<img src="images/gs03.jpg" width="474" height="650" alt="{Drawing of girls near rowboat.}" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br />
+
+<span class="title">THE GUESTS OF THE ELDER BROTHER.</span></h2>
+
+<div style="float: left;">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And man may work with the great God; yea, ours<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This privilege; all others, how beyond!</span>
+<hr style="width: 3em; margin-top: .8em; margin-bottom: .8em;" />
+<span class="i0">Effectually the planet to subdue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And break old savagehood in claw and tusk;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To draw our fellows up as with a cord<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of love unto their high-appointed place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till from our state barbaric and abhorred<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We do arise unto a royal race,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To be the blest companions of the Lord."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Henry G. Sutton.</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="clr"></div>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch11.jpg" width="278" height="329" alt="{Drawing of girl writing.} A" title="" style="float: left;" /> FEW days before school closed saw the Home filled for the summer.</p>
+
+<p>The gathering in was achieved principally by Jim, Mrs. Hetterman, and
+<ins class="correct" title="Vicenzo">Vincenzo</ins> Amati.</p>
+
+<p>Vincenzo was an Italian of the better sort. He had lived in America long
+enough to acquire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> some of our ways of life. He earned a fairly good
+salary as cook, and he had kept his little family in comparative comfort
+in the best apartment which Rickett's Court had to offer, until the
+death of his pretty wife Giovanina. Since then the three little girls
+had done their best, but there was a woeful change. They became
+slatternly in appearance, and the two rooms grew dirty and cheerless.
+Worse than this, the girls affiliated with a lower class of their own
+nationality, the children of the rag-pickers in the basement, already
+referred to, who lived upon the chances of garbage barrels and beggary,
+and who spent much of their time in picking over and assorting the old
+bones, rags, paper, and other refuse dumped each night upon the floor of
+their sleeping and living room, as the result of their father's daily
+toil. These children were sickly and miserable, tainted morally as well
+as physically; and their parents, who were contented with their
+disgusting lives, were laying up money, in fact, for a return to Italy.
+But Vincenzo was not contented that his children should live in such
+fashion or have contaminating associates. He was one of the first
+applicants to place his children in the Home, paying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> cheerfully the
+highest sum asked for board, it having been early decided that the rates
+for each child should be proportioned to the wages of the parent.</p>
+
+<p>Then several children previously "farmed out" to Mrs. Grogan, whose
+mothers were servants in good families, were received on similar terms.</p>
+
+<p>A German woman, a Mrs. Rumple, brought her two children, saying that she
+was going West, but, as she knew not what fortune awaited her there,
+wished to place her children in the Home until she could send for them.
+She paid their board in advance for the summer, taking the money in coin
+from her petticoat pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you leave New York?" asked Emma Jane Anton.</p>
+
+<p>"It ish not de guntry. De guntry ish a very goot guntry. It ish de
+beeples," said Mrs. Rumple.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with the people?" asked Emma Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"I comes de seas over a pride, mit my man Heinrich Rumple; dat is ten
+years aco alreaty. Heinrich is one very goot man; he trinks only one mug
+of lager every days; he comes every Saturday home mit his moneys,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> and
+oh, mine fraulein, how he luf me! Pretty soon py und py de peer ish not
+coot, and he takes one leetle glass of schnapps instead. Den de leetle
+babies come, one, tree, four, six, and it cost all de time more to live,
+and he pring all de time less moneys mit de Saturdays. But he trinks all
+de time more schnapps&mdash;one, two, tree, four glass de every days, and I
+know not how much de Sundays, and I tink he not luf me now so much as
+sometimes. Den de sickness comes, de shills and de fevers, and we all de
+time shake, shake, and first one little children die, and den anudder,
+all but Carl and de little Gracie; and mine man not haf any moneys to py
+medicines, put he haf blenty to py schnapps, and he all de time trink
+more as is goot for him, and one night he comes home and he knows not
+vat he does, and he sthrikes de leetle Gracie, and she is long time very
+sick. Mine soul! I tinks she vill die, and Heinrich Rumple&mdash;dot ish my
+man&mdash;he puts his name mit de bledge, and says he vill not any times
+trink any more, und de Gracie gets vell, und ve are all wery happy, but
+he all de same trinks again shust so pad as ever. Py und py pretty soon
+I says, 'Heinrich Rumple, I cannot sthand dis nonsense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> any more ain't
+it. I cannot haf dose childer all their bones broke any more; I put dem
+in one 'sylum avay from you, and I goes in dot Western land seek my
+fortune.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And so you left your husband?" asked Miss Anton.</p>
+
+<p>"Ya. I left mine man," replied the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"And don't you suppose he will ever reform, and send you money to come
+back to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I s'pose so. He said to me dat day: 'Barbara, it is de beeples. I
+haf too many friends, and I trinks mit dem all de time, too often; I
+tinks if I am in de West, where I know nobodys, I would be a petter
+husband to you alretty.' And so he goed away mit me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that you and your husband are leaving New York for
+the West together?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ya. I left him, and he say, 'Barbara, you has right; I leaf myself,
+too.' But I cannot trust him alretty mit de chillern. I leaf dem one six
+month, to try what come of it all."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope your husband has indeed left his worst self behind him," said
+Emma Jane;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> and on suitable security being provided, the Rumple children
+were admitted.</p>
+
+<p>In almost all cases it was not the desperately and hopelessly pauperized
+and vicious&mdash;who were provided for by reformatories and the city
+charities&mdash;whom they helped, but the class just above them, who were
+slipping over the brink, and would surely have fallen and contributed to
+swell the dangerous classes, if not reached by this timely assistance.</p>
+
+<p>"Prevention is better than cure," and it was the hope of the "King's
+Daughters" to rescue the innocent children of decent and struggling
+parents before they should need reformation.</p>
+
+<p>Rosaria Ricos, the Cuban heiress, endowed a bed to be used for some
+child whose parents could do nothing whatever toward its support. She
+wished to have more free beds, but Miss Prillwitz showed her how much
+better it was for the parents to do something, however little it might
+be, for their children, and not be pauperized by having every feeling of
+independence and ability to care for their own taken from them.
+Exceptional circumstances might arise, when a mother out of employment,
+could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> wisely be helped over a great exigency, but she advised that Miss
+Ricos's "Emergency Bed" be given for short periods only. It was first
+occupied by Lovell Trimble, familiarly, but most inappropriately,
+nicknamed by the other children, Lovey Dimple. He was a homely,
+unprepossessing boy, with a pug nose and a disproportionately large
+head. His father was the unsuccessful inventor of Rickett's Court, with
+whom we are already acquainted. He spent all his former earnings in
+securing patents for various great inventions which were to make all
+their fortunes. His mother had been a shop-girl in a large dry-goods
+store, and had supported the family until long-continued standing had
+sent her to the hospital. Lovey had tried to take her place in
+supporting his father by wheeling "the machine" of a hot-flap-jack
+seller, while the flap-jack man devoted his attention to frying the
+cakes, flipping them on to a plate, and serving them up with a dab of
+butter and a lake of molasses. They did their best business winter
+nights after the theatres were out&mdash;sheltered from the snow by an awning
+or a convenient door-way, and they knew which places of amusement were
+out first, and would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> race at ambulance speed from Harrigan and Hart's
+to the Bowery, to secure the custom of each. Lovey liked the business,
+for, besides the pay, after the day's trade was over the flap-jack man
+let him eat whatever was left, for the batter would not keep, and he had
+always a few cakes to carry home to his father of the full brain and
+empty stomach.</p>
+
+<p>But one night a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
+Children, who had had his eye on the flap-jack man as employing too
+young a child for labor involving so much privation, descended upon the
+cart with a policeman; and the flap-jack man having discreetly
+absconded, they arrested Lovey in default of his employer. Miss
+Prillwitz appeared in court at Jim's request, for in some way Jim had
+heard of his friend's apprehension, and having ascertained that Mr.
+Trimble had gone upon a spree, she rashly, but not unnaturally, decided
+that nothing was to be expected from such a father, and next paid a
+visit to Mrs. Trimble, at the hospital. Learning there that there was a
+prospect of her cure, she offered Lovey the hospitality of the Emergency
+Bed until his mother should be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> able to work once more. This case
+established relations between the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
+to Children and the new Home; and a little girl&mdash;who had been forced to
+sell lead-pencils on the street at night by a drunken mother, though her
+father was a brakeman, who could well afford to support her&mdash;was
+committed to the Home through the agency of the Society; and the father,
+on being notified, approved the action, and paid her board regularly.</p>
+
+<p>One desirable result of the Home was its effect on Emma Jane's
+character. From being, as she had truly said of herself, an unlovely and
+unloving girl who disliked children, her nature sweetened by contact
+with them; and taking them one by one into her heart, it broadened and
+softened, till an expression which was almost madonna-like trembled in a
+face which had been grim and repellent. Lovey Dimple was the first to
+scale the fortress of Emma Jane's affections. He inherited his father's
+aptitude for mechanics. Among the old books and papers contributed to
+the Home were, strangely enough, some bound volumes of the <i>Scientific
+American</i> and a few stray Patent Office reports, and over these he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+pored until his head seemed full of revolving cog-wheels and pulleys,
+and pistons, and his heart beat like a stationary engine. He was certain
+that he would be an inventor some day, like Ericsson or Edison; indeed,
+he was an inventor already, for had he not constructed unnumbered
+mill-wheels and windmills, weathercocks and whirligigs, besides taking
+to pieces the clock (which he could not get together again), and
+adapting his mother's sewing-machine to fret-saw purposes? He had
+studied every machine which he had seen in the stores, from the
+corn-sheller to the great patent mower, and believed that he understood
+the action of each. "Patent" was a word that stirred his soul, though he
+had but a dim conception of its meaning. It was something, his father
+had said, that the Government would give him if he invented a really
+useful, labor-saving machine, one which would "supply a felt want."</p>
+
+<p>Lovey knew what a felt hat was, but it was several days before he really
+knew what his father meant by a felt want. As soon as he had grasped the
+idea he began in earnest. "Mother Halsey," he asked, "what part of your
+work bothers you most?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Halsey looked hot and flustered. Half an hour before this she had
+put her room and the nursery in order, had dressed the twenty-five
+children; from combing their hair and scrubbing the little ones, and
+introducing them into each separate garment, to merely tying
+apron-strings and buttoning the "behind buttons" of the older ones, and
+giving them a final dress review before starting them to the public
+school.</p>
+
+<p>In view of this state of affairs, it is not to be wondered at that Mrs.
+Halsey said that dressing the children gave her more bother than
+anything else. Lovey, with a pencil and paper, sat down to invent a
+machine which should do this for her. He reflected that such a machine
+would be hailed with delight in nearly every family, and if he could
+manage to sell them at a dollar apiece his fortune was assured. He took
+as his models the washing-machine, a cross-cut saw, and a corn-sheller,
+and in a few moments had made his drawing of a combination of the three
+machines. The motive power, he decided, should be furnished by the
+father of the family, who could turn the crank; and on days when this
+was not convenient the smoke from the cooking-stove<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> could be utilized,
+the stove pipe being turned so that the smoke should strike the paddles
+of the main wheel, and the continuous stream passing across the edge of
+the wheel and up the chimney, he felt certain, would turn it. Just back
+of the machine, and above it, there was to be a great hopper into which
+the naked children could climb by means of a ladder, and where the
+clothing could be tossed promiscuously, the machine sorting it and
+robing each child properly. The cross-cut saw near the mouth would
+shingle each child's hair, and save the trouble of curling, while the
+children, completely dressed, would be poured through this spout into
+their mother's arms.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;">
+<img src="images/pg200.jpg" width="650" height="551" alt="{Hand drawing of the invention.}" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lovey exhibited this drawing to Mrs. Halsey and to Miss Anton, and
+begged them to show it to President Harrison and obtain a patent for him
+as soon as possible; but, somehow, though the invention was received
+with applause and approbation by the entire family, nothing was ever
+done about it.</p>
+
+<p>The droll conceit attracted Emma Jane to the boy. "Perhaps some day he
+may become an inventor of something more practical," she said, and ever
+after watched him with increasing interest.</p>
+
+<p>Lovey had had great trouble with his arithmetic, and he had decided that
+a grand labor-saving machine would be one which would save a boy the
+trouble of studying. He thought that it would be a good idea to bore a
+hole in a boy's head when he was asleep, introduce the end of a funnel
+into the opening, and then with a coffee-mill grind up the usual
+text-books and stuff his brains. He made a drawing of this machine also,
+and Merry Twinkle and he came very near trying it practically, but they
+never could quite agree as to who should be the operator and who should
+be operated upon. Lovey had another brilliant inspiration. He noticed
+that his rubber ball, which had a hole in it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> had a remarkable power of
+suction, and that if he held the orifice to his cheek and squeezed the
+ball, when he let go it would pucker his cheek in a way to remind one
+distantly of a kiss. He imagined that if the ball were drawn out into a
+tube, and that tube continued indefinitely the action would still be the
+same. Here was a discovery. How many separated friends and lovers would
+be glad to patronize a kissaphone, an instrument by which kisses could
+be sent and actually felt. He imagined the establishment of offices on
+both sides of the Atlantic, and the laying of a submarine tube.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;">
+<img src="images/pg202.jpg" width="650" height="532" alt="{Hand drawing of the book-grinding machine.}" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A young physician, a friend of Mrs. Roseveldt's, was visiting the Home
+just as Lovey completed this triumph. "Another invention of Lovey
+Dimple's," Emma Jane explained, as the child handed her the drawing. Dr.
+Curtiss came oftener than the sanitary condition of the Home really
+demanded, and he was well acquainted with Lovey's genius in this
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," promptly replied Lovey, "and I have met a felt want now,
+sure," and then he explained the kissaphone.</p>
+
+<p>"Try it on me, Lovey, and let me see how it feels," asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Lovey did so, and Dr. Curtiss made a wry face. "It strikes me that is a
+very poor substitute for the genuine article," he said, "but perhaps I
+am not qualified to judge.</p>
+
+<p>"Now if you could have a nice looking lady operator, and could attach
+your tubing to the back of her head, and have her transmit the kiss as
+the mouthpiece of the machine, I should think your invention might be
+very popular."</p>
+
+<p>Lovey received this suggestion with entire good faith. "Miss Anton," he
+said, beseechingly, "won't you act as mouthpiece and let me send a kiss
+to Dr. Curtiss?" And he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> could never quite decide why Emma Jane, who was
+usually so kind, declined in great confusion to render him this trifling
+service.</p>
+
+<p>There was another little boy in the Home who made remarkable
+drawings&mdash;the one already referred to as Merry Twinkle. All of his
+family, even the female portion, were sea-faring people; his grandfather
+had been a sailor, and was now an inmate of the Sailors' Snug Harbor.
+His mother sometimes took Merry to visit him when she was back from a
+voyage, for she was stewardess on an ocean steamer. His father had been
+engineer on the same boat, but had been killed by a boiler explosion,
+and Merry had been <i>boarded</i> hitherto with Mrs. Grogan.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, after a visit to his grandfather, Merry handed Emma Jane a
+series of wonderful marines.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandfather sang me a very old song to-day," he said. "It went this
+way:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Two gallant ships from England sailed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blow high, blow low, so sailed we:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One was the <i>Princess Charlotte</i>, the other <i>Prince of Wales</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"This is a picture of the <i>Princess Charlotte</i>," handing Emma Jane his
+drawing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is night, and the captain is pacing the lonely deck; he has set his
+lantern on a small stand, and has put his hands in his pockets to keep
+them warm. The second verse goes this way:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Up aloft! up aloft!' our gallant captain cried;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blow high, blow low, so sailed we.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Look ahead, look astern, look aweather, look alee,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Oh, I've seen on ahead, and I've seen on astern,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'And I see a ragged wind and a lofty ship at sea,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Ahoy! ship ahoy!' our gallant captain cried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Are you a man-of-war, or a privateer?' says he;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Oh! I am no man-of-war or privateer,' says he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'But I am a jolly pirate seeking for my fee,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"This is the picture of the pirate ship and the fight. Captain Kidd has
+cut off the head of one of the men who boarded his ship. One of his men
+is firing a cannon, the rest of his crew may be seen between-decks.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twas broadside to broadside, so quickly then came we;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until the <i>Princess Charlotte</i> shot her masts into the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then 'Quarter! oh, quarter!' the pirate captain cried;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the quarters that we gave them were down beneath the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Grandfather called it the story of Captain Kidd, because he thought he
+must have been the pirate whose ship the <i>Princess Charlotte</i> sunk.
+Captain Kidd was taken to London and hanged in chains, and I've made a
+<ins class="correct" title="pictture">picture</ins> of that too."</p>
+
+<p>Emma Jane hardly approved of the sanguinary spirit displayed by these
+drawings, but she could not expect that the boy's antecedents and
+surroundings would produce an angel. She endeavored to draw his
+attention to gentler subjects for his pencil, recited tender and loving
+ballads, and changed the current of the boy's thought and aspiration,
+realizing that here was material which, in the fostering atmosphere of
+Rickett's Court, might easily develop into an anarchist&mdash;a menace to the
+state.</p>
+
+<p>The Sandy girls were the last to be re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>ceived from the court. The father
+had been a truckman, but a heavy box had fallen upon him, and he had
+lived in pain and misery for a year and had then died. Mrs. Sandy, by
+making men's clothing, managed to keep the wolf from the door&mdash;no, only
+snarling <i>at</i> the door with fierce, hungry eyes. All of her six children
+helped her. The oldest girl did the ironing and finishing; the next
+child, a boy, carried the great bundles back and forth in the intervals
+of his profession as a bootblack; the second girl did all of their poor
+housework; the twins sewed on buttons and pulled out basting threads,
+and the youngest boy sold newspapers, while Mrs. Sandy herself ran the
+sewing-machine ten or twelve hours in the day.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Hetterman asked her why she did not give up this desperate
+battle with the point of the needle, and leave her vile surroundings to
+take service in some good family, she replied that she had often thought
+of this, but she must keep a home, however poor, for the children. "The
+two boys could live at the Newsboys' Lodging-House, for they earn enough
+to support themselves, but what would I do with my four girls?"</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Hetterman assured her that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> there was a Home where they could
+all be cared for in cleanliness, health, and comfort, and have time for
+study and schooling and industrial education, which would fit them to
+earn their own living in future, and all for a sum quite within the
+means of any domestic, she brought her cramped hand down with a heavy
+blow upon the sewing-machine.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind if I break every bone in yer body, ye Satan's grindstone!"
+she said to the machine; "it's the last time that Mary Sandy'll grind
+soul and body thin at ye, praise be to a delivering Providence!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hastings, one of the managers of the Home, had had great trouble
+with incompetent and ungrateful servants, and she gladly took the
+faithful Scotch woman into her family.</p>
+
+<p>These, then, were the guests of the Elder Brother, for that first
+summer, from Rickett's Court:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noin">1 Jim Halsey, American.<br />
+3 Hettermans, English.<br />
+3 Amatis, Italian.<br />
+4 Babies from Mrs. Grogan's, Irish.<br />
+2 Carl and Gracie Rumple, German.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>1 Lovey Dimple, American.<br />
+1 Merry Twinkle, American.<br />
+4 Sandy Girls, Scotch.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>In all, nineteen children transplanted from the filth and vice, hunger
+and ignorance, of the court, and six more from other localities as bad,
+to sweet, wholesome surroundings. It was thought best that those
+children of school age should attend a public school to avoid
+"institutionizing" them; and for this end they wore no uniform, and
+mingled freely with other well-behaved children in the park under Mrs.
+Halsey's motherly supervision. Their birthdays were celebrated with a
+little party, with cake and candles, and everything was done to
+cultivate a home-like feeling. They drew their books like other children
+from the children's new free circulating library, and were taught to
+guard them carefully. They had a sewing society&mdash;in reality a
+sewing-class&mdash;where boys and girls were alike taught to mend and darn,
+to sew on buttons, and to make button-holes&mdash;all but the Sandy children,
+who, it was judged, had served a long enough apprenticeship in this
+department, and were sent to Mrs. Hetterman to learn how to cook.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz was anxious that the boys should have industrial
+training, and brought the matter before the board of managers, who
+entirely agreed with her, and voted that a subscription sent them by Mr.
+Armstrong be used to secure a suitable teacher.</p>
+
+<p>It was just at this time that a letter was received from Adelaide
+announcing that she had fitted up the cottage which her father had
+placed at her disposal, and would like to have Mrs. Halsey occupy it
+with the youngest children for the heated term. Miss Prillwitz was
+delighted. Jim was already at the Pier with the Roseveldts, and it would
+be pleasant for his mother to be near him, and a fine thing for the
+little girls and the babies. This would leave the nursery vacant, and it
+could be fitted up as a workshop for the boys. She had a chat with Mrs.
+Halsey the day before she left, and asked her if she knew of anyone who
+could teach the boys carpentry.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Trimble, Lovey's father, is a perfect jack-of-all-trades," replied
+Mrs. Halsey.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz was doubtful. "Mr. Trimble is a drunkard," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not irreclaimable, I am sure," said Mrs. Halsey. "He was a sober man
+when I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> knew him. Despair alone could have driven him to drink. I wish
+you would send and ask him to call and see you."</p>
+
+<p>So a letter was sent, and none too soon, for affairs were now at their
+worst with Stephen Trimble.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br />
+
+<span class="title">WITH THE DYNAMITERS.</span></h2>
+
+<div style="float: left;">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"While we range with Science, glorying in the time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crime and hunger cast out maidens by the thousand on the street;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the master scrimps his haggard seamstress of her daily bread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead."</span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Anon.</i></p>
+</div>
+<div class="clr"></div>
+
+<p class="noin" style="text-indent: -.7em;"><img src="images/ch12.jpg" width="236" height="289" alt="{Drawing of the anarchist of Rickett's Court.} T" title="" style="float: left;" />HE anarchist of Rickett's Court, under whose influence the inventor had
+fallen, was a thoroughly bad man, and the writer has no sympathy to
+waste upon him or his methods, but with his deluded and desperate victim
+we should all sympathize.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Stephen Trimble had brooded over his troubles and wrongs until he was
+half crazed, and the men for whom he worked added fuel to the flame.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you be so precious careful of the rich?" his employer said.
+"What have the rich ever done for you? They've murdered your wife, as I
+make out, insisting on her standing all day long, when she was not able
+to do so, and might have done her work just as well sitting. They've
+sent your innocent little boy to jail along with common pickpockets.
+They've robbed you of your money&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" cried Stephen Trimble; "you've said that over and over, until I
+believe it, though I don't know why I should take your word any quicker
+than that of <ins class="correct" title="any one">anyone</ins> else. You've made much of your kindness in telling
+me, though I don't see what good it does me, unless you are willing to
+go into court and testify for me as to what you've seen."</p>
+
+<p>The men shook their heads. "No going into court for us! We want to keep
+as far away from the law as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I don't see but you are as much against me as the rest. I've
+worked with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> you long enough to know what your aims are; your machine is
+now in working order, ready to blow up the finest house, the largest
+audience, in New York, church or armory, bank-vault or prison; and if
+all you say is true, you may blow away, for all I care, and blow
+yourselves up with the rest, and me too. If the world is the Sodom and
+Gomorrah it seems to me, we have Bible warrant for its destruction. My
+work for you is done; give me my money, and we are through with each
+other."</p>
+
+<p>"See here, Trimble," said the anarchist, "we have already paid you
+fifteen dollars, and you ought not to be too close with us."</p>
+
+<p>"You promised me a hundred; do you mean to say&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be so touchy; what I mean to say is this: We cannot help you by
+testifying in court, as you suggested; it wouldn't do you any good if we
+did; but find out the man who has wronged you, and we will help you to
+your revenge. In a few days our society will begin its operations. We
+are out of funds now, but there will be a new deal soon. We begin with
+the banking-house of Roseveldt, Gold &amp; Co., and as soon as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+fireworks are over we will be rich enough, and you shall have a fair
+share."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Trimble sprang to his feet. "I thought you were anarchists! do
+you acknowledge that you are common burglars?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend, we acknowledge nothing of the kind. Be good enough to
+attend to your own business."</p>
+
+<p>"It is time that I did," replied the inventor; "I have neglected it long
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Trimble walked out of the building. He had three things to
+do&mdash;to discover the landlord of Rickett's Court; to see his wife for the
+last time; and to free his little son, whom he believed to be still in
+prison.</p>
+
+<p>There was quite a commotion in the court; some men were putting up a
+fire-escape. "What ever put it into Solomon Meyer's head to do that?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't Solomon Meyer," a workman replied; "it's the landlord himself.
+He ordered it done some time ago, and was mad as a hornet because Meyer
+hadn't attended to it."</p>
+
+<p>"See here, my friend," said Stephen Trimble, "if you know who the
+landlord of this tenement is, you will do me a favor by directing me to
+him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Armstrong's the man&mdash;Alexander Armstrong, President of the &mdash;&mdash; R. R.
+Co.; his office is over the banking-house of Roseveldt &amp; Gold, No. &mdash;&mdash;
+Broadway. He rooms there too, when he's in town&mdash;back of his office."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Trimble stood very still for a moment. The information which he
+thought would be so difficult to obtain had come to his door. The
+vengeance which he had fancied might take long days and nights of
+plotting, hung now over the man who had wronged him. He need do
+absolutely nothing, and Alexander Armstrong was doomed. He must
+inevitably be killed in the explosion and conflagration which was
+planned to cover the robbery of the bank beneath him.</p>
+
+<p>They had changed places, and the landlord of Rickett's Court was his
+victim. One-third of his task was accomplished. He walked now in the
+direction of the hospital, and asked to see his wife. He hardly expected
+to be admitted, but he would at least make the attempt. To his surprise
+he was shown into a cheerful parlor, and Mrs. Trimble was sent for. She
+came down, looking pale, but happy.</p>
+
+<p>"O Stephen," she cried, "it has been so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> long since I have seen you! but
+never mind, I am almost well now, and we shall soon be together again.
+The doctor tells me I may leave next week. They have been so very kind
+to me here, it has been like Heaven. The rich are thoughtful and
+generous to provide such places for the poor. I am so grateful; and I
+have rested so that I shall be able to take hold with new courage."</p>
+
+<p>He listened in a stupefied way, and seeing that he was not inclined to
+speak, she ran on, "And isn't it beautiful about Lovey?"</p>
+
+<p>This stung him to speech. "Beautiful? To be arrested and sent to
+prison?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no, dear. Haven't you heard? A sweet, kind woman&mdash;Miss
+Prillwitz&mdash;called, and told me that he is being cared for at a little
+Home, for nothing, Stephen; and they will keep him there until we are on
+our feet again. If that isn't brotherly love, I don't know what is. It
+makes me believe that there is such a thing as Christianity, after all."</p>
+
+<p>Still Stephen Trimble was silent. She was happy, and he would not dispel
+her illusion, at least not now. Evidently there were <i>some</i> good people
+in New York, and she had experienced their kindness. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> expected to
+find her suffering from neglect and cruelty. He would not have been
+surprised if she had died. He could hardly believe that a <i>charity
+patient</i> had received such attention. That their little son had been
+also tenderly cared for passed his belief, but he would see for himself,
+and he took the address of the Home. He bade his wife good-bye gently.
+"I shall come back to you very soon, Stephen," she said, "and things
+will go better then." He could not tell her of his deep despair. He
+tried to smile, but only succeeded in giving her a pitiful, longing
+look. He walked on toward the Home of the Elder Brother, sure that its
+name was a lie, and that he would find Lovey abused. But he was met at
+the door by Mrs. Halsey, whom he had known at Rickett's Court, who
+called his little son to come down and see his papa, and who told him of
+the plan of which she had just been speaking to Miss Prillwitz. And a
+moment later Lovey, well dressed, clean, fat, and jolly, tumbled into
+his arms with a cry of rapture.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to come home, Lovey?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, daddy, I want you to come here. Please, Mrs. Halsey, mayn't he
+come?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We would like to have him very much to teach our boys the use of tools
+for a few hours every day. It is just what I have been telling your
+father."</p>
+
+<p>"A week ago," said Stephen Trimble, "your offer would have been heaven
+to me; now I am afraid it is too late."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say so," urged Mrs. Halsey; and she called Miss Prillwitz to talk
+the matter over with him. Miss Prillwitz's first argument was to ask him
+to luncheon. He ate the nourishing food&mdash;the first good meal that had
+passed his lips for many days&mdash;and he said, as he bade them farewell, "I
+will come to you if I can, and teach your boys mechanics; if I don't
+come it will be because something has happened to me, and if anything
+happens to me I want to ask you to lend a helping hand to my wife&mdash;and
+may God bless you." A new impulse stirred within his heart, gratitude,
+which he had not felt toward any human being for years. He was softened,
+and tears stood in his eyes. He could almost forgive the landlord of
+Rickett's Court now.</p>
+
+<p>An impulse to see the man, though not with any hope of gaining anything
+from the interview, came over him. It was still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> early, and he walked
+down Broadway to the building designated, and looked into the bank. How
+wealthy and strong it looked, with the clerks busily at work calling off
+fabulous sums to one another, and handling the piles of bills and coin!
+The safe-doors stood open, and he could see the great bolts and bars,
+and complicated combinations; and he smiled scornfully as he thought how
+easily the little machine upon which he had been working would open them
+all.</p>
+
+<p>A policeman saw him staring in at the window, and asked him his
+business.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to find Mr. Armstrong, the R. R. president."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must go up-stairs. There is the door."</p>
+
+<p>He walked up and saw another room, with gentlemen sitting in easy
+attitudes in comfortable chairs. He asked a clerk for Mr. Armstrong, and
+was told that he was in Washington, on business.</p>
+
+<p>"Business connected with a patent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I believe so. What did you want of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. Say only that Stephen Trimble called."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What! is this Stephen Trimble?" exclaimed a hearty voice behind him;
+and, turning, the inventor saw an earnest but kindly looking man, who
+had just entered carrying a hand-bag.</p>
+
+<p>"That is Mr. Armstrong," said the clerk, and Stephen Trimble stared
+fascinated.</p>
+
+<p>"Step into my private office," said the financier, "I am glad you have
+come. It is always better to transact business at first hand, and I was
+sorry you could not come when Mr. Meyer asked you to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know what you mean, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Did not Solomon Meyer tell you that I wanted you to call, with
+reference to the four thousand dollars still unpaid on our patent
+transaction?"</p>
+
+<p>"Solomon Meyer told me that I was too late, and that you did not care
+for my invention."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong sprang from his chair. "And he never gave you my check for
+a thousand dollars?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never; though I heard that he had it;" and Stephen Trimble related what
+the anarchist had told him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong unlocked a safe, and took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> from it the contract in regard
+to the patent. "Is not this your signature?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir: I never saw the paper."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Solomon Meyer is a swindler."</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Go home; say nothing, and I will have him arrested. Stop&mdash;a little
+money may not come amiss to you just now. Here is fifty dollars on our
+account. I will see you again to-morrow, but I have an important
+appointment now."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how to thank you, sir, or what to say," said Stephen
+Trimble, utterly confounded.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no thanks due; on the contrary, I owe you a small matter of
+five thousand dollars&mdash;perhaps more&mdash;for it seems you have not signed
+this paper, and perhaps may not be willing to sell your invention for so
+small a sum."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, the confidential clerk tapped at the door and remarked,
+"Dr. Carver, sir, of &mdash;&mdash; Hospital, says you telegraphed to him from
+Washington to meet you here."</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Stephen Trimble saw that Mr. Armstrong had forgotten his
+existence; his entire expression changed from kindly benevolence to
+intense eagerness and anxiety.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What has he got to worry about, I wonder!" thought the inventor, as he
+gave place to the physician, and descended the stairs. Force of habit
+led his steps toward Rickett's Court, but he walked like a different
+man, and the workman who had seen his cringing, crouching manner as he
+slouched out of the court that morning, did not recognize the man who
+entered with buoyant, determined step. The change had begun when he left
+the door of the Home of the Elder Brother. There his faith in his kind
+had been restored. Had the good fortune of the afternoon befallen him
+before that experience he could not have believed it, or the stupendous
+change would have driven him insane. But it had come upon him,
+mercifully, by degrees, and he was rapturously happy, and clearer in
+mind than he had been for months. It was as if a great and crushing
+weight had been lifted from heart and brain. Suddenly, as he crossed the
+threshold, he remembered the infernal-machine. The anarchists would
+probably use it that night, and Alexander Armstrong, his benefactor, was
+doomed. He wondered how he could ever have been so mad as to aid them.
+There was only one thing to be done:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> he must undo his work, render the
+contrivance harmless, and save his friend. He knocked at the door; there
+was no answer; the men were probably out. He tried to open it, but it
+was locked. He could easily have picked the lock, but people were coming
+and going. The new fire-escape suggested itself to his mind, and he
+decided to go to his room and, as it was already dark, descend by it to
+the workroom. This resolution was quickly accomplished. He lighted a
+candle and was just reaching toward the machine, when the door opened
+and the anarchists entered.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing? I thought you had finished your work," said his
+former employer.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have not finished," replied Stephen Trimble, nervously taking up
+a tool and beginning to remove a screw.</p>
+
+<p>"You are tampering with the machine; put it down!" and the man seized it
+angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Let go!" shouted Stephen Trimble, "you touch it at your peril; the
+button is under your hand!"</p>
+
+<p>The warning came too late&mdash;there was a blinding flash, then a crash as
+though the heavens had fallen; then blackness and silence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br />
+
+<span class="title">THE KING'S DAUGHTERS IN THE COUNTRY.</span></h2>
+
+<div style="float: left;">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Her father sent her in his land to dwell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Giving to her a work that must be done;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And since the king loves all his people well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Therefore she, too, cares for them, every one.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when she stoops to lift from want and sin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The brighter shines her royalty therein.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She walks erect through dangers manifold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While many sink and fail on either hand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She dreads not summer's heat nor winter's cold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For both are subject to the king's command.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She need not be afraid of anything,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because she is the daughter of a king."</span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="right"><i>Anon.</i></p>
+</div>
+<div class="clr"></div>
+
+<p class="noin" style="text-indent: -.3em;"><img src="images/ch13.jpg" width="218" height="308" alt="{Drawing of woman sitting on fence.} W" title="" style="margin-right: 5px; float: left;" />HILE all these sad things were happening Winnie and I were enjoying a
+happy summer at my beloved home in the blessed country.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be imagined that Winnie dropped all her wild ways and
+became a saint at once. She had been sobered by her sad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> experience in
+plotting and scheming for the little prince; but since her full
+forgiveness her elastic spirits rose to the surface, and her cheerful
+disposition asserted itself in many playful pranks and merry, tricksy
+ways.</p>
+
+<p>We did not forget our promise to work for the Elder Brother, but for a
+time we did nothing but rest fully and completely.</p>
+
+<p>She was delighted with the country. The fresh air and free, wholesome
+life acted upon her like wine. She climbed walls and trees, leaped
+brooks, whistled, shouted, rode on the hay-carts, helped in the kitchen
+and in the garden, drove Dobbin about the country roads, went berrying,
+and was a prime favorite with all the boys, though I regret to say that
+at first, perhaps on this very account, the country girls were a little
+jealous and envious of her. But not a whit cared Winnie for this. She
+tramped over the fields and through marshes, with her botanist's can
+swung across her shoulder by a shawl-strap, searching for specimens. She
+boated and bathed, taking like a duck to the water, and learning to swim
+more quickly than any other person I had ever known. She loved to work
+in our old-fashioned garden, pulled weeds diligently,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> and seemed to
+love to feel the fresh earth with her fingers. Our flowers were all such
+as had grown there in my grandmother's time. It seemed to me that she
+must have modeled it on Mary Howitt's garden, for we had the very
+flowers which she describes in her poems.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And there, before the little bench,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O'ershadowed by the bower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grow southernwood and lemon thyme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweet-pea and gillyflower;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And pinks and clove carnations,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rich-scented, side by side;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And at each end a holly-hock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With an edge of London-pride.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I had marigolds and columbines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And pinks all pinks exceeding;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'd a noble root of love-in-a-mist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And plenty of love-lies-bleeding."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There was a bed of herbs, too, which my mother cherished&mdash;sweet-marjoram
+and summer savory, sage, rue, and rosemary.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie took a great interest in all of these plants. The country girls
+thought it odd that she should care for the wild plants which were so
+common in our vicinity, not knowing Winnie's enthusiasm for botany,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> and
+her desire to make a large collection to show the princess. An unusually
+ignorant girl met her on one of her botanizing expeditions, and Winnie
+asked her if maiden-hair grew in our region. "Of course it does!" the
+girl replied, indignantly; "you didn't s'pose we all wore wigs, did
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>It was some time before Winnie could control herself and explain that
+the maiden-hair of which she was in search was a kind of fern.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want it for a charm?" the girl asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied <ins class="correct" title="Winnnie">Winnie</ins>; "what will it do?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you put it in your shoe and say the right kind of a charm, you will
+understand the language of the birds."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall certainly try it," said Winnie, "for that would be great
+fun."</p>
+
+<p>Another day mother brought the same girl into the garden, where Winnie
+was at work, to give her some vegetables.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you try the charm?" the girl asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," Winnie replied.</p>
+
+<p>"And did it work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, famously! There is a wood-pecker in the old tree just outside of my
+window, and he wakes me by his drumming every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> morning. This morning I
+understood for the first time just what he has been saying. It was 'Wake
+up, wake up! little rascal, little rascal, little rascal!'"</p>
+
+<p>The girl stared at Winnie in open-mouthed astonishment. "You must be a
+witch," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what they call me&mdash;Witch Winnie."</p>
+
+<p>They were standing beside mother's bed of herbs, and the frightened girl
+pulled up a stalk of rue and held it at arm's length, as though it were
+a protection. "Don't come nigh me! don't work any of your tricks on me!"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie explained that she was only in sport, but the girl was only half
+reassured, and still clung to the spray of rue.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz afterward explained that rue, like vervain, was supposed
+to "hinder witches of their will," probably from the fact that it was
+once used in the Church of Rome, bound in fagots, as a holy-water
+sprinkler, and is spoken of in old writings as the "Herb of Grace."</p>
+
+<p>In this way Witch Winnie's name was revived again, and was applied to
+her by her new friends, even though they did not believe in her uncanny
+powers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The princess came to us later in the season for a visit of a month, and
+we came to know her intimately and love her dearly. She brought five of
+the boys from the Home with her, for mother was pleased with the
+enterprise, and father had said that he guessed it wouldn't break him to
+give those city children a taste of what the country was like, and if we
+women folk could stand them he supposed he could.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie took the boys in charge and led them off with her on her long
+tramps and to row in the safe, flat-bottomed boat. They had great sport,
+crabbing, bathing, swimming, and fishing, and their vacation did them a
+world of good. These were the boys for whom the princess had planned the
+industrial classes, but Mr. Trimble lay at the hospital injured, it was
+thought, unto death by the explosion at Rickett's Court, and that plan
+was postponed for the present.</p>
+
+<p>The boys attracted much attention in the Sabbath-school and wherever
+they appeared. Many questions were asked, and Miss Prillwitz was
+requested to explain the plan of the Home, in public and in private at
+the sewing society, and at the Fourth of July picnic.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We were not all ignorant country bumpkins at Scup Harbor, and we were
+not all poor. There were plenty of farmers, who dressed coarsely and
+fared plainly, who had bank accounts that would have bought out many a
+New Yorker of fashion. They were not selfish either. I have heard
+somewhere of a stingy deacon who, on hearing of a case of heart-rending
+distress, prayed for it in this wise:</p>
+
+<p>"O Lord, 'giving doth not impoverish Thee, neither doth withholding
+enrich Thee,' but giving doth impoverish us, and withholding doth enrich
+us; therefore do Thou attend to this case, good Lord; do <i>Thou</i> attend
+to this case."</p>
+
+<p>Now this story may not be exaggerated, but I can only say that he did
+not live in our section of the country. Our deacons were soft-hearted,
+though horny-handed men, and though they had the poor of their own
+church and vicinity to look out for, and performed that office well,
+they decided that Scup Harbor was rich enough to extend a helping hand
+to New York, since New York was either too poor or too hard-hearted to
+care for its own.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly a collection was taken up in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> church that made Miss
+Prillwitz's heart sing for joy; and the Ladies' Benevolent Sewing
+Society voted to have a box of clothing ready for the Home by cold
+weather.</p>
+
+<p>The grown people were not the only ones interested; there were girls
+among us of gentle manners and hearts, and who were far better educated
+than Milly Roseveldt. Some of these heard of Miss Prillwitz's eminence
+as a scientist, and helped me to organize a class for her in Natural
+History, and the remainder of the summer took on an aspect of mental
+improvement as well as of physical recreation. Miss Prillwitz mapped out
+a course of work and reading for each of us to carry on after her return
+to the city, and the circle arranged to meet at the homes of the
+members, and read essays and discuss different scientific subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie was surprised at the amount of intelligence and information
+displayed, and soon acquired a sincere respect for country girls. It was
+at one of our meetings after the princess had returned to New York that
+she noticed that Ethel Stanley, the daughter of a wealthy dairy farmer,
+wore a little silver cross with a purple ribbon knot.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Has it come here, too?" she asked; "are you a King's Daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," replied Ethel; "I belong to the Helpful Ten, and there is a
+Cheer-Up Ten at the Corners. What do you call your link?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Seek-and-to-Save Ten," Winnie replied; and she explained the
+mission of our Circle, and how we hoped to help the Elder Brother in his
+search for the little lost princes. Ethel was delighted. "I think we
+might help you," she said; "we are Methodists, but we don't mind working
+for you if you will let us. I suppose you are all Episcopalians in New
+York?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, no!" exclaimed Winnie, "we are everything; Tib is a
+Congregationalist, and Emma Jane is a Unitarian, Adelaide is
+Presbyterian; 'Trude Middleton is a Dutch Reformer; Rosario Ricos is
+Catholic; Puss Seligman is a Jewess; Little Breeze comes from
+Philadelphia Quaker stock, though she is so gay you wouldn't think it;
+Cynthia Vaughn is a Baptist; Milly Roseveldt is the only Episcopalian;
+and I'm a&mdash;heathen."</p>
+
+<p>"No you are not," I protested; "you are a follower of the Elder Brother,
+Winnie, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> that means you are a Christian." She gave my hand a little
+squeeze, and Ethel exclaimed, "I should think your society would go to
+pieces; I don't see how you can work together with such different
+views."</p>
+
+<p>"That depends," said Winnie, thoughtfully, "whether in the future we all
+pull in different directions, and tear our charity to pieces between us,
+or whether each of us uses all her force to bring in people from our
+different church organizations to help in the work, and make it widely
+and purely undenominational. I mean to write a little parable on that
+subject some day, for I feel full of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do!" we all exclaimed; "write it for the next meeting at Ethel's."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; it would hardly be a scientific essay, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure about that," replied Ethel; "I think it might be called a
+scientific method of carrying on charitable enterprises. Please write
+it, and I will invite our Ten, and the Cheer-up Ten from the Corners,
+and the Loyal Legion, and the Missionary Society, and all the girls I
+know generally."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The plan was carried into effect, and at the next meeting Winnie read us
+this fable, which she called</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">a fish story.</span><a name="FNanchor_A_3" id="FNanchor_A_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_3" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_3" id="Footnote_A_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_3"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Note.</span>&mdash;This allegory was first published in <i>Good Company</i>,
+of 1880.</p></div>
+
+<p>"Once upon a time the fishes and salt-water animals down in the bay
+decided to organize a Home for Sea-urchins.</p>
+
+<p>"The circumstances of the remarkable agitation which suddenly spread
+among the peaceful denizens of the deep became known to me by my
+inadvertently getting a spray of sea-fern in one of my bathing-sandals.
+I suddenly discovered that I could understand the voices of the little
+creatures that I had so often watched from Tib's father's dory, or
+sported among when I took my sea-bath. I lay in the dory one afternoon,
+looking down into the clear depth of the water, watching the tricks and
+manners of a sea-anemone, and thinking how similar her behavior was to
+that of a reigning belle at a popular watering-place, when it dawned
+upon me that she <i>was</i> the belle of the cove, surrounded by a circle of
+obsequious masculine admirers, prominent among whom were the
+hermit-crab, the oc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>topus, the jelly-fish, the lobster, the conger-eel,
+the king-iyo, and the stickleback&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Winnie," I objected, "you never saw an octopus or a king-iyo in
+our cove, and you can't make me believe it!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Tib," Winnie replied, "didn't I tell you this was a fish story?
+Pray do not interrupt again. The animals that I have mentioned were all
+aspirants to the hand of the Sea-Anemone, and the first remarks which I
+overheard and comprehended were her confidences to her friend the
+Gold-Fish, in which she intimated that she considered the Jelly-Fish the
+most amiable, the Lobster the richest, the King-iyo (a titled foreigner
+from Japan) the most <i>distingu&eacute;</i>, and the Conger-Eel the most polite;
+but, after all, the Hermit-Crab was really the best, and she liked him
+more than any of the others, with the exception of the Octopus, who was
+so fascinatingly wicked.</p>
+
+<p>"The next time that I looked into the cove was during a meeting of the
+managers of the Sea-Urchins' Home.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sea-Anemone had just been unanimously elected to the presidency on
+account of her popularity.</p>
+
+<p>"The Cuttle-Fish had been created secretary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> in recognition of his
+remarkable facility in throwing ink, while all official documents were
+stamped by the Seal.</p>
+
+<p>"The Electric-Eel was made visiting physician; and the Shark, surgeon
+and lecturer on vivisection.</p>
+
+<p>"The Hermit-Crab, who had been detailed to make observations on the
+<i>modus</i> in which such societies were carried on among human beings, made
+the following report:</p>
+
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">Miss President and Fellow-Fishes</span>:<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Your committee have made a careful investigation of the subject
+assigned them, and agree that while man's faculties have not been
+cultivated to so high an extent as those pertaining to fishes, he is
+still a moral and intellectual animal. We believe that if he were put in
+possession of the advantages accorded to our race, and were submerged in
+salt-water for several centuries, his brain would undoubtedly become so
+pickled as to reduce it in size and intensify its quality. Favorable
+conditions of brain-pickling are all that is necessary, in our opinion,
+to develop some of the most advanced specimens of this <i>genus</i> into a
+low form of <i>mollusk</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The opinions of the Hermit-Crab were <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>considered a marvel of liberality
+and generous thinking. He proceeded to explain the society-forming
+instinct of the human race as a professor of our own species might
+lecture on the concretions of deep-sea corals, and continued swimmingly,
+as fishes usually do, until a white-whiskered Sea-Lion begged leave to
+make a motion, in the language of a motto of conduct which he had often
+heard shouted to seamen by their commanders: 'When you are in the navy,
+do as the knaves do.' 'Let us,' he added, 'act upon this principle of
+conformity, by doing amongst men as the many do, and immediately
+organize a fair to meet the salaries of our officers and pay the debt on
+the society building.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But none of us need salaries,' objected the Lobster, 'and we have no
+debt.'</p>
+
+<p>"'As to declining a salary because I do not need it,' replied the
+Sea-Lion, 'I can only say that I find no such example set by the race
+whose customs we are following; and without a debt, or at least a
+deficit in the accounts of our treasurer, the respectability of our
+society may well be questioned.'</p>
+
+<p>"A committee of Codfish aristocrats was at once authorized to secure a
+debt of magnif<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>icent proportions, at whatever cost, and the salary of
+each member of the society was set according to his own estimates.
+Frequent meetings of the managers were appointed for the purpose of
+drawing the salaries, and as the care of the Sea-Urchins could with the
+utmost ingenuity be made to take up but a small portion of the time,
+each of the managers seized upon these meetings as opportunities to air
+their own particular opinions. The Lobster, who was something of an
+autocrat, and had determined from the outset to run the concern, took
+the entire business management into his own claws, greatly incensing the
+ladies on the debt committee by intimating that they knew nothing of
+business, and that his office-boy, the Craw-Fish, could have devised a
+debt of far nobler proportions. The King-iyo, or three-tailed fish of
+Japan, trusted that the philosophy of the Orient was to have its full
+recognition in the principles of the society, and that the Sea-Urchins
+would be instructed in Buddhism. The Octopus, who had been one of the
+most desperate characters in the bay, carried his change of heart so far
+as to assert that no one could be considered as religious, or even
+respectable, who had not been ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>tremely wicked, and urged that only the
+most depraved and hopeless young Sea-Urchins be admitted into the Home.
+While the Octopus raved over essential wickedness, and the King-iyo of
+philosophy, the Jelly-Fish dabbled in humanitarianism, and asserted that
+brains were not to be tolerated, thought was to be considered a crime,
+and a heart the only organ necessary for the spiritual body. All books
+on theology and philosophy should be sold for old paper, and the
+proceeds invested in charlotte russe for tramps and criminals. Every
+measure in the least savoring of logic or common sense must be vetoed.</p>
+
+<p>"The Stickleback, who luxuriated in controversy, and in making himself
+generally disagreeable, summed up the remarks of those preceding him as
+the merest vaporing of idiocy, and denounced every system of belief held
+by his fellow-managers, before hearing it, with the same impartiality.
+Antagonism, he asserted, was the only rational attitude for any fish
+under all circumstances. The Conger-Eel, managing to gain possession of
+the floor, endeavored to pour oil on the troubled waters. He was sure
+that if the heterogeneous, and even antipathetic, ideas <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>held by the
+different managers were only presented in writing, they would, properly
+mingled, blend as sweetly as lemon juice and loaf sugar in a cooling
+summer libation. The Cuttle-Fish, was unanimously elected chairman of a
+committee for eliciting and reconciling the opinions of the managers in
+a printed constitution. He opened the ball with a statement of his own
+views, which he passed to each member in turn, asking them to add their
+several criticisms and corrections. When the paper had gone the rounds
+it was read in open session by the Hermit-Crab, who summed up everything
+that had gone before, in a paper entitled 'A Historical Review of the
+Documents, beginning with the King-iyo's criticism of Mr.
+Snapping-Turtle's attack on Mr. Shrimp's vindication of Mr. Jelly-Fish's
+Apology of Mr. Conger-Eel's Deprecatory Answer to Mr. Lobster's satire
+on Mr. Stickleback's Challenge to Mr. Octopus's Dogmatic Denunciation of
+Mr. Shark's strictures on Miss Sea-Anemone's conciliatory explanation of
+Mr. Cuttle-Fish's exposition of the views of the society.'</p>
+
+<p>"Of course this paper satisfied no one, and the meeting plunged at once
+into a whirlpool of ruinous discussion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Stickleback bristled his spines and glared angrily about him,
+shrieking, 'Antagonism! Nihilism!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Fanaticism, Sensationalism!' yelled the Octopus.</p>
+
+<p>"'Dogmatism! Absolutism!' replied the Lobster, hurling clams about him
+in the belief that they were works on combative theology.</p>
+
+<p>"'Asceticism! Monasticism!' groaned the Hermit-Crab, retreating into a
+pipe bowl and blocking the entrance with a pearl-oyster.</p>
+
+<p>"'Humanitarianism!' warbled the Jelly-Fish, as he choked three
+sea-melons and a quart of sea-mushrooms into the mouth of a sick
+Grampus.</p>
+
+<p>"'Paganism! Barbarianism!' retorted the King-iyo, punching the
+Jelly-Fish.</p>
+
+<p>"'Optimism! Universalism!' sweetly chanted the Conger-Eel, but as he
+spoke the entire convention broke up and floated away, leaving the
+little Sea-Urchins crying for their supper, and only a debt of colossal
+proportions to mark the site of the proposed Home."</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you propose to avoid the fate of the Fish Society?" Ethel
+asked, after the storm of applause which followed Winnie's paper had
+subsided.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"By recognizing, from the first, that we unite only for this special
+purpose, and that we all have very varied and contradictory opinions,
+which we will make no attempt to reconcile or ventilate. I think we can
+make our very differences an element of strength, if it is acknowledged
+from the outset that we are to be different. As Corresponding Secretary
+of our Ten I have received the most encouraging reports from the girls.
+They are all working hard for the Home, and all working in different
+ways, and each seems to think that the Home belongs to her
+individually&mdash;as it really does&mdash;and that her organization is
+responsible for its success. I am sure that when we next meet, the girls
+will accept Mrs. Middleton's proposition to have the Home of the Elder
+Brother entered as one of the Dutch Reformed charities, and I hope that
+each of the other girls will take measures to have it recognized as one
+of the charities of her particular church organization. I have a letter
+from Little Breeze, saying that the Friends' Meeting in Philadelphia, of
+which her mother is a member, propose to own a bed in the Home; and Puss
+Seligman writes that the Hebrew Charitable Association, of which her
+brother <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>is Vice-President, have voted to hold themselves responsible
+for every child of their race whom we entertain. Cynthia Vaughn reports
+that the Church of &mdash;&mdash;burgh, Pennsylvania, will keep us in coal on
+condition that a delegation of the children go to the Baptist
+Sunday-school. Miss Prillwitz has already divided the Home into
+detachments, sending the children, as far as possible, to the churches
+which their mothers prefer, and there is a strong division of Baptists."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Ethel, "that our Methodist Church would like to have a
+share in the work. I am sure that father will be glad to supply you with
+milk and butter as his own private subscription."</p>
+
+<p>The President of the Loyal Legion then spoke up, and proposed that their
+organization furnish barrels and make the rounds of the farms in
+procession, soliciting apples and potatoes, which they would freight to
+the Home, on condition that a Loyal Legion Temperance Society be
+organized among the children of the Elder Brother, to be considered as a
+branch of the Scup Harbor Legion.</p>
+
+<p>The Cheer-up Ten from the Corners held a brief meeting in the orchard,
+and returned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> to report that they had decided to adopt one of our
+children to clothe. They desired that the child of the poorest parents
+be assigned them, and promised that if the proper measurements were
+sent, they would keep it respectably dressed in garments of their own
+make.</p>
+
+<p>I suggested little Georgie, a child rescued from Mrs. Grogan, whose
+mother could only furnish fifty cents a week from her scanty earnings
+for his support; and our convention broke up for that day, after
+partaking of strawberries and cream, singing a good old hymn, slightly
+altered for the occasion by Winnie.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here we raise our Ebenezer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hither by God's grace we come;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we hope, by His good pleasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Long we may remain a Home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>&mdash;The Messiah Home, 4 Rutherford Place, New York, a charity founded
+for children by children, whose beautiful work suggested to the author
+this simple story, has been greatly helped by circles of the King's
+Daughters, several of whom have adopted children to clothe after the
+manner of the Cheer-up Ten. The writer commends this work to any other
+circles of the King's Daughters eager to do the work of the Elder
+Brother.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br />
+
+<span class="title">OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY.</span></h2>
+
+<div style="float: left;">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When smale foules maken melodie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sleepen alle night with open eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages."</span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="right"><i>Chaucer, Prologue to "Canterbury Tales."</i></p>
+</div>
+<div class="clr"></div>
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch14.jpg" width="222" height="170" alt="{Drawing of landscape.} I" title="" style="margin-right: 3px; margin-top: -.5em; float: left;" />T must not be imagined that our entire summer was given over to works
+of charity and mercy. There were times when we quite forgot the Home of
+the Elder Brother in merry romping and girlish enjoyment; and one of the
+pleasantest experiences of that season was an excursion in two
+tin-peddler's carts, or rather, in two carts belonging to one
+tin-peddler; a pilgrimage which was undertaken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> solely and simply as a
+lark, and most successfully realized its aims.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of June, while Miss Prillwitz was still with us, father
+fell into a state of body or mind which he called "the malary." It was
+the fashion for everyone in our region to dub every disease with which
+they might be afflicted, from indigestion to inherited insanity,
+malaria; and the prescription given by our wise old physician for this
+disease of many manifestations was always the same.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know exactly what has caused this trouble," he would say, "but
+I know what will cure it. You need a change. If you've been living high,
+diet. If you've been starving yourself, have Thanksgiving dinner every
+day. Take a change of air and a change of scene, a change of occupation,
+and, above all, a change of habits, and somewhere we'll hit the nail on
+the head that has done the mischief."</p>
+
+<p>The prescription pleased my father. He decided that he needed a change
+from the coast to the interior, and from exercise to a sedentary life.
+"Instead of tramping around this farm," he said, "I would like to be
+driving over the western Massachusetts hills. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> am as sick of this
+eternal pound, pound of the surf on the shore as of the sea-fog in my
+throat."</p>
+
+<p>"Take the horses, father," said mother, cheerfully, "and drive through
+Connecticut up to your brother Asahel's farm in Hawley. I can run this
+household well enough without you."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a rather lonesome drive," father demurred, though his eyes
+shone with longing.</p>
+
+<p>"Zen why not to take us wiz you, Mr. Smiss?" asked Miss Prillwitz. "We
+would each stand her share of ze expenses, and such a tour of
+<i>diligence</i> would be most delightful."</p>
+
+<p>Upon this the matter was thoroughly canvassed, and it was finally
+decided that mother should remain at home with the five little boys,
+whom Ethel Stanley and the Helpful Ten had agreed to amuse during our
+absence; and that Miss Prillwitz, Miss Sartoris, Winnie, Mr. Stillman,
+and I should accompany father. Mr. Stillman was a summer-boarder from
+New York, who came to us every season to fish and hunt. Hearing that
+Miss Prillwitz was fond of ornithology, and that the lighthouse-keeper
+sent her dead birds, he tried to please her by shooting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> others and
+bringing them to her, but she soon made him understand that she
+preferred studying them alive and at liberty.</p>
+
+<p>"Zese poor leetle tears zat haf cast zemself on ze lighthouse," she
+explained, "zey have not been kill for me, zey could not else, but I
+wish I could hinder zem of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not much fun to shoot birds, after all," Mr. Stillman admitted,
+"only the exultation in hitting a difficult mark. I hate to pick them up
+afterward."</p>
+
+<p>"If it is only ze chase and ze difficulty which make you admiration,"
+said Miss Prillwitz, "why do you not buy to yourself a camera of
+detective for ze instantaneousness, whereby you can photograph ze bird
+on his wing? Zey tell me it shall be much more difficult to do zat zan
+to shoot him dead."</p>
+
+<p>And so Mr. Stillman had sent to New York for an amateur photographer's
+outfit, and had fitted up a dark-room in the old smoke-house, where he
+developed his negatives. He was a man to whom almost everything he tried
+was easy, and he tried his hand at many things. He had traveled much,
+and assured us that wherever he went he tried to learn some new
+accomplishment. In China he had learned the art of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> making fireworks,
+and earlier in the season the smoke-house had served as a chemical
+laboratory for the manufacture of rockets. Before Miss Prillwitz had
+suggested amateur photography, Mr. Stillman had amused us by setting off
+fireworks on the beach at night, but the new craze seemed destined to
+supersede every other; pyrotechnics were neglected, and the shot-gun and
+rifle rusted from lack of use.</p>
+
+<p>A tin-peddler lived not far from us&mdash;an enterprising man, the proprietor
+of two carts, one of which his wife was accustomed to conduct, following
+him in caravan style on his summer journeyings; but this season the man
+was sick, his wife busied in his care, and the great carts, piled with
+wares, stood waiting in the sheds.</p>
+
+<p>"I've a notion," said father, "to buy Eben Ware's stock and hire one of
+his carts. I can hitch my span of horses to it, and I will make enough
+selling tinware, as we go, to pay the expenses of the whole trip."</p>
+
+<p>This plan did not strike me pleasantly at first, but before I had time
+to object Mr. Stillman joined in enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>"A capital idea, Mr. Smith, but you know our board is to be paid
+regularly to Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> Smith during our absence. Miss Sartoris, Miss
+Prillwitz, and I all insist upon that. I will take the peddler's horses
+and his second cart, which I will load up with my photographic outfit,
+the ladies' baggage, camp supplies, etc., and I will fill in any spare
+space with fireworks, which I will offer for sale along the route, all
+profits to be devoted to the charity in which the ladies are interested.
+The Fourth of July is so near that I fancy the rockets will meet with a
+ready sale."</p>
+
+<p>All joined in the plan with zest. Our wardrobe was reduced to a minimum.
+It was discovered that the two carts were arranged to turn into
+ambulances for camping at night, and would furnish comfortable
+accommodation for the feminine portion of the party, while a small tent
+was provided for father and Mr. Stillman. In reality we camped but one
+night, preferring to stop at wayside inns, but it was pleasant to know
+that we could do so whenever we wished. A roll of army blankets and
+comfortables, a few kitchen utensils, and some canned goods were stored
+away in Mr. Stillman's cart, with Miss Prillwitz's botanizing
+equipments, Miss Sartoris's sketching materials, his own belongings, and
+all the fireworks which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> he could manufacture in time; and still there
+was room in the capacious interior. The rifle was added at Winnie's
+urgent request, as a defense against wild beasts, though we all joined
+in ridiculing her fears that bears might be found in the Massachusetts
+woods, little thinking that we should have a thrilling adventure with a
+grizzly bear. At the last moment Mr. Stillman added another camera and
+more chemicals.</p>
+
+<p>"This means," he replied, in answer to our questions, "that I have
+rented a tintype outfit of a photographer over at the Corners, and
+propose to add to our resources by taking tintypes as we go."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stillman's ready invention, so fertile in expedients, received
+hearty applause, and the gypsy caravan set out in high feather. We took
+the steamboat with the carts to New Haven, and from that point struck
+into the interior by turnpikes and country roads, father leading the way
+with his jingling coach, Miss Prillwitz and Winnie perched high beside
+him, and Miss Sartoris, Mr. Stillman, and I, who called ourselves the
+Art Contingent, bringing up the rear. How beautiful the roads were,
+shaded by willows or arched by elms! Often fascinating lanes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> led off
+from the highway toward comfortable farm-houses, or grass-grown,
+deserted roads mounted through shady gorges to the lonely hills,
+tempting us from the beaten track. But the highway was beautiful enough.
+Sometimes it followed the curves of some vagrant stream, or wound around
+gently undulating hills. Miss Sartoris pointed out the fact that it was
+most frequently a succession of curves, while French highways are laid
+out as straight as the surveyor can make them, and do not compose as
+well in landscape paintings. The Connecticut roads we found easy to
+travel, well kept, and for the most part level or of easy grade. It was
+not until we reached western Massachusetts that we walked up the hills
+to lighten the load, or that the driver pressed his foot hard on the
+brake as the cart coasted down the steep inclines like a toboggan.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie was delighted with a bit of gorge road which played at hide and
+seek with a wayward brook. "It seems to me," she said, "that the wood is
+a matter-of-fact business man, and the brook is his sweet but willful
+little wife. See how he tries to adapt himself to her whims and pranks,
+keeping as close to her as he can, while the side which she does<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> not
+touch is stern with rock and shadow! And she, coquettish little thing,
+wanders away from him into the deepest part of the ravine, where he
+cannot follow, and hides herself in a tangle of fern and wild-flowers,
+till, just as the lonely old road, quite in despair at having lost her,
+crosses the ravine on a bridge of logs, apparently for the sole purpose
+of seeking her, the merry little brook flies under the mossy bridge and
+is close beside him on the side which he thought farthest from her."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a very good parable," said father. "You've struck the nail
+pretty fairly. That's the way it has always been with my wife and me. My
+daughter, too, is one of the brook kind, but you needn't conclude that
+the old road doesn't enjoy all the company of blackberry vines and
+laurel and ferns that the brook attracts to itself, and which never
+would have come near the road but for the brook. I mean you and Miss
+Sartoris and the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"And sometimes," Winnie added, "the road has its grains of corn or wheat
+dropped from a passing cart, you know, to give to the sparrows, and the
+brook likes that ever so much."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Father always called the boys from the Home "the sparrows," and he was
+pleased by this allusion to his generosity.</p>
+
+<p>We found ourselves following the circus at one stage of our journey, and
+we pitched our tent and made camp not far from the fair-grounds. We
+chose for our camp a site which had once been occupied by a house that
+had been burned to the ground. The only out-building which had escaped
+the conflagration was a root-house, or cellar, excavated, cave-like, in
+the side of a hill. It struck Mr. Stillman as a particularly good
+"dark-room," and we at once pre-empted it. Miss Sartoris painted a
+sign-board for the photographic studio, and Winnie and I arranged a
+bower with a flowery background for Mr. Stillman's sitters. We had a
+rich harvest that day, Winnie acting as cashier, and Miss Sartoris, as
+assistant, posing the groups. Mr. Stillman was quite exhausted when
+evening fell. He said he had never done such a day's work in his life,
+and his tintype material was nearly used up. We were patronized not only
+by the country people who came to see the show, sheepish lovers who
+wished to have their portraits taken together, and parties of merry
+young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> people, but also by the showmen themselves. The living skeleton
+and the fat lady, the strong man supporting a great weight by his teeth,
+the lion tamer with his pets, and the snake charmer, were all among Mr.
+Stillman's patrons. When it was understood that he had an instantaneous
+camera with him, the equestrienne desired him to take a photograph of
+her while performing her famous feat of riding five horses at once, and
+the acrobats challenged him to catch their rapid evolutions. He
+surprised them by his remarkable success in obtaining a perfect
+negative. It was our most successful day, from a financial point of
+view, for we realized over twenty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Father had a rather annoying experience which made him desire to avoid
+the circus in the future. Among the articles which the tin-peddler had
+given him was a soldering furnace and irons, for mending old tinware.
+Father made his first attempt to use these tools on this afternoon. The
+door-keeper of one of the tents brought him his japanned tin strong-box
+to mend, and father attacked the task laboriously, succeeding in making
+it firm by a rather too plentiful application of solder. He was so
+interested in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> his task that he did not notice that an organ-grinder,
+one of the followers of the circus, had pressed quite near and was
+regarding the coins, which the door-keeper had temporarily turned into
+his handkerchief, with hungry eyes. Suddenly the monkey, which had been
+tied to the organ, became loose, and springing straight to the little
+furnace, seized and brandished the heated soldering-iron. A great
+excitement ensued, for no one dared to take the formidable weapon from
+the mischievous creature. The owner of the monkey seemed at his wits'
+end. He raged, stamped, tore his hair, commanded and entreated the
+monkey to bring back the iron, all to no avail. The monkey, having
+burned himself, finally dropped it, but, frightened by the pain or by
+his master's threats, continued his flight into the woods, followed by
+the organ-grinder. When the excitement occasioned by this event had
+subsided, a still greater one ensued on the discovery that the
+door-keeper's handkerchief and money had disappeared. The man angrily
+charged father with its theft, but Mr. Stillman came running from his
+dark-room with a negative which he had just developed. He had been
+standing at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> the door, with his detective camera in his hand, and, quite
+unintentionally, had done real detective work, for, intending only to
+catch the monkey with the soldering-iron, he had focused upon it at the
+very first, and the unerring eye of the camera had seen and recorded
+what every one else had been too preoccupied to discover&mdash;the
+organ-grinder snatching the gate-keeper's money. The negative was a
+sufficient witness, and the organ-grinder was at once sought for, but
+the earth seemed to have swallowed him. The monkey was found nursing his
+burned paw in a tree, but his master and the money were not to be found.
+There was such a train of beggars and questionable characters in the
+wake of the circus that it was decided not to pursue our moneyed
+advantage by following with them; and the next day we stood back from
+the road to let the heavy, shambling elephants and long train of gaudily
+decorated wagons pass by. Mr. Stillman had his detective camera out, and
+took some interesting views of the procession. Father had taken a
+dislike to the soldering outfit, and congratulated himself that the
+monkey had lost the iron, but the last in the procession, a gypsy
+fortune-teller,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> handed it to him, saying that it was a lodestone, which
+would bring evil fortune to the person who possessed it, and advising
+him to give it to his worst enemy. "I am a witch," Winnie laughed, "and
+can reverse all omens&mdash;so we need not fear." Turning from the highway,
+we now struck across the country, through chestnut woods, where Miss
+Prillwitz taught us to recognize the song of the thrush, the sweetest of
+New England songsters, and cousin of the mocking-bird. Mr. Stillman was
+vexed that he could not obtain a single photograph of a thrush, but she
+is a shy bird, and keeps hidden in leafy thickets, and though we heard
+her song frequently, we never saw her. Mr. Stillman became very skillful
+in photographing other birds, even fixing the agile little fly-catchers
+in their eccentric movements, the watchful bobolink atilt on a
+mullein-stalk, the swallows skimming the river's surface, and the
+sagacious crows, who, having proved that a very natural scarecrow was
+harmless, were less suspicious of him. The withered limbs on certain old
+apple-trees were favorite perches for the birds, for there was no
+foliage here to impede their flight, and outlined against the sky they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+were capital targets for the camera. Mr. Stillman secured a gentlemanly
+king-bird in such a position, his white breast and black back and tail
+feathers reminding Winnie of a dandy in full evening dress.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz remarked on the brilliant plumage of the New England
+birds, and said that it was a mistake to imagine that those of the South
+were more beautiful. She pointed out the black and gold orioles, the
+lovely bluebird, the scarlet tanagers, as brilliant as flamingoes, the
+beautiful rose-breasted grosbeaks, with a rich crimson heart upon their
+breasts, and the red-winged blackbirds, with their scarlet epaulets,
+reminding one of brisk artillerymen. It was the last of June&mdash;the most
+perfect of all the months&mdash;and as we rode we repeated all of the poets'
+praises of the month that we could remember. We agreed that Lowell had
+sung the season best:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The bobolink has come, and, like the soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save June! Dear June! Now God be praised for June."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But Margaret Deland pleased us nearly as well in her homage to the queen
+month:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The dark laburnum's chains of gold<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She twists about her throat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perched on her shoulder, blithe and bold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The brown thrush sounds his note!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And blue of the far dappled sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That shows at warm, still noon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shines in her softly smiling eye&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh who's so sweet as June?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Father was not a very successful tin-peddler. The thrifty New England
+housewives were not pleased because he was unwilling to exchange his
+wares for rags, after the manner of other itinerant venders. He was
+uncertain as to the prices which he ought to charge; asking so little
+for his brooms that one patron purchased all his stock, at a decided
+loss to himself, as he afterwards learned, and demanding so much for
+nutmeg graters that a sagacious purchaser showed him the door with
+scorn. The soldering outfit, too, caused him much woe. It seemed that
+the original peddler was a clever tinker; and all sorts of broken
+articles, from clocks to umbrellas, were brought out for father to mend.
+At first father good humoredly tried his best, but having burned holes
+in his clothing, as well as blistered his hands, and succeeding in no
+instance in satisfying his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> patrons, he was tempted to throw the little
+furnace away, but his sense of economy would not allow him to do this,
+and he stowed it away vindictively in the depths of his cart.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after this we spent two very interesting days in visiting Mt.
+Holyoke and Smith colleges. They gave both to Winnie and me a desire for
+a higher education than that which we were receiving at Madame's. Miss
+Sartoris wandered slowly through the Art Building of Smith, looking
+longingly at its superb equipment. The college is charmingly situated in
+the old town of Northampton. We were told that the students had just
+acted a Greek play, the "Electra" of Sophocles, very successfully, and
+we looked at one another in envy as we thought how impossible it would
+have been to present such a drama at Madame's.</p>
+
+<p>We passed the Holyoke range on July 1. This barrier marks as distinct a
+climatic change as Cape Cod in the Atlantic currents, for, just as,
+south of the Cape, and apparently threatened by her bent arm, the Gulf
+Stream sweeps to the north the tropic sea-weeds, and north of it, and
+gathered close in its embrace, the Arctic mosses cling to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> cold
+heart of New England; so, south of the Holyoke range the air may be
+tepid and lifeless, while beyond it invigorating breezes from the
+Northland are dancing cheerily.</p>
+
+<p>We had eaten the last native Connecticut strawberries, but they were
+just in their glory north of the barrier, and though the almanac said
+July, it was June weather still.</p>
+
+<p>Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke stand as sentinels at the entrance of a
+lovely region, through whose elm-covered villages we drove at leisurely
+pace, resting over a Sabbath at old Hadley, one of the most charming
+places, with its principal street a double cloister of elms and maples,
+and where a Sabbath peace and stillness brooded even on week-days. Mr.
+Stillman found, for the next few days, a ready sale for his fireworks,
+exhausting his stock and adding twenty-five dollars to the treasury.
+About twelve miles north of Mount Holyoke rises Mount Toby, a noble
+mountain, which assumes, from certain directions, the shape of a
+crouching camel. The resemblance is even more marked than that of the
+Rock of Gibraltar to a lion. It dominates the country round about, and
+from its summit nearly a score<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> of nestling towns and villages are
+visible. Among these Mr. Stillman sold his rockets, and proposed that we
+should spend Fourth of July night on its summit, and there watch the
+little fire-fountains on the plain below. It was an attractive plan, but
+Mr. Stillman had not counted the weather into his reckoning. It had been
+a sultry day. As we stopped at a farm-house on our way from Sunderland
+to Mount Toby, the good woman told us to look out for rain. "The grass
+has been waiting two days to be cut," she said, "but it looks kinder
+lowry, and the men-folks daresn't begin haying."</p>
+
+<p>There were two superb cumulus clouds in the west, shaped like elm-trees,
+or wine-glasses touching rims, and there was a blue rain-cloud in the
+southeast, with fringes trailing the landscape, and blurring it from our
+view.</p>
+
+<p>"The rain may not reach Mount Toby at all," father said; "showers travel
+about among those hills in a curious fashion. I have seen it raining
+hard on one side of Sugar-Loaf, while the other was dry and dusty. There
+is a deserted railway station at the foot of Toby, where we can spend
+the night. There were picnic grounds laid out on the moun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>tain at one
+time, but the enterprise failed, and trains no longer stop there."</p>
+
+<p>A view of the station, which we reached early in the afternoon,
+confirmed father's recommendation of it. The roof was weather tight, and
+it was a roomy, comfortable building, a good refuge should a shower
+overtake us. We picnicked beside a beautiful cascade, and leaving the
+horses picketed beside the carts, proceeded to climb the mountain on
+foot. It was glorious with masses of white and pink laurel, which I had
+never before seen in its perfection, and Miss Prillwitz introduced me to
+many other plants and flowers new to me. The Amherst basket-fern, shaped
+like a Corinthian capital, grew in perfection, the Columbine blew her
+flame-colored trumpets, and the harebell rang her inaudible chimes from
+mossy clefts in the gray rocks. Miss Prillwitz said she had last picked
+harebells in Austria.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," said Miss Sartoris, "that Mary Howitt calls the harebell</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">'The very flower to take<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Into the heart, and make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cherished memory of all pleasant places;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Name but the light harebell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And straight is pictured well<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where'er of fallen state lie lonely traces.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span><span class="i6">Old slopes of pasture ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Old fosse and moat and mound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the mailed warrior and crusader came;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Old walls of crumbling stone<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">With ivy overgrown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rise at the mention of the harebell's name.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz pointed out more obscure plants, and gave us interesting
+bits of information in regard to them. Some had strangely human
+characteristics. The cassia, a shrinking sensitive-plant with yellow
+blossoms, was one of these, while the poison-ivy in its unctuous growth
+had an evil and malignant appearance which seemed to hint at its
+inimical nature. She told us how to tell the poisonous sumac from the
+harmless variety, the poisonous kind being the only one that has pendant
+fruit. She gave us also a little chat about parasitic plants, suggested
+by a <i>gerardia</i>, a little thief which draws its nutriment from the roots
+of huckleberry.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know that plants had so little conscience," said Winnie. "It
+reminds me of a guest a Southern gentleman had, who remained twelve
+years, and after the death of the host married his widow."</p>
+
+<p>"Plants seem also to be cruel," said Miss Prillwitz. "Zere is ze
+<i>apocynum</i>, a car<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>nivorous plant which eat ze insect. You should read of
+him by Darwin. He set a trap for ze fly wiz some honey, and when Mr. Fly
+tickle ze plant, quick he is caught, and Mr. Apocynum he eat him, and
+digest him at his leisures."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Prillwitz, you should write a book for young people, and call it
+'Near Nature's Heart,'" I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"I would so like," replied Miss Prillwitz, "but if I waste my time to
+write, how should I earn my lifes? I have know many author, and very few
+do make their wealths by&mdash;by their authority."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz brought out the last word triumphantly, quite sure that
+she had achieved a success in our difficult language. I turned aside to
+Mr. Stillman, that she might not see my smile. "How interesting she
+makes our climb," I said, "and all these wayside weeds! 'She illustrates
+the landscape.'"</p>
+
+<p>"In my humble opinion it is Miss Sartoris who 'illustrates the
+landscape,'" he replied. "See what a picture she makes reaching after
+those sweet-briar blossoms! I wish I had not left my detective at the
+station."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sartoris was indeed very pretty. It seemed to me that she grew
+younger and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> more bewitching with every day of our trip. Each changing
+pose as she leisurely picked the wild roses was full of grace, but I
+could hardly understand why Mr. Stillman should greatly regret not
+securing this particular view, when she had figured in at least half of
+the photographs which he had taken.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the top of the mountain just at sunset. The west glowed with
+a yellow-green color. The strange clouds, which had been as white as
+curds in the afternoon, were now dark blue, lighted by flashes of heat
+lightning. They moved forward like the pillar which led the Israelites,
+great billowy masses piled one on the other and toppling at the summit,
+while they melted at the base into a mist of rain. Behind them was the
+background of the sunset, like a plate of hammered gold dashed with that
+sinister green. There were threatening rumblings in the east also, and
+Amherst and its college buildings were blotted out by the rain clouds,
+which resembled the petals of a fringed gentian, and seemed to be
+traveling rapidly in our direction.</p>
+
+<p>Father took a rapid view of the horizon. "There will be no fireworks
+display for us to-night," he said. "There are two showers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> which will
+meet in an hour's time, and Toby will be just about in the centre of the
+fracas. We had better hurry down the mountain if we want to escape a
+wetting."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sartoris gave a longing look at the beautiful panorama of nestling
+villages, forest and winding river (a view unsurpassed in
+Massachusetts), and now glorified by the magnificent cloud effects. "Can
+we not rest for half an hour?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," father replied, and we reluctantly retraced our steps.
+When half-way down the mountain the wind, which preceded the march of
+the cloud battalion, caught up with us. The chestnuts crouched low and
+moaned, the poplars shivered and shook their white palms, and the
+hemlocks writhed and tossed their gaunt arms as though in agony. Then
+there was a hush, when they seemed to stand still from very fear, and a
+minute later the storm burst upon us. We were but a short distance from
+the station when this occurred, and the foliage which roofed the road
+was so dense that we were not very wet when we reached our shelter.
+There was an invigorating scent of ozone in the air, and a certain
+exhilaration in being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> out in a storm, and in hearing the crash of
+falling limbs far back in the woods. We noticed the gentleness of the
+rain, which, though apparently fierce, did not break a single fragile
+wild-flower. Each leaf, sponged free from dust, brightened as though
+freshly varnished, and each blade of grass threaded its necklace of
+crystal beads. The cascade, swollen and turbid, roared angrily at our
+side, and a shallower rivulet made the path slippery as we hurried on;
+but a few moments of laughing scramble brought us panting into the dry
+station, safely housed for the night from the storm.</p>
+
+<p>Father and Mr. Stillman arranged shelter for the horses by spreading the
+tent between the two carts, and we ate our supper at what had formerly
+been a refreshment counter. Then the ticket-office was assigned to the
+gentlemen as their dormitory, and hammocks were hung for the rest of us
+in the ladies' waiting-room. We told ghost stories for a time by the
+light of a spirit-lamp and a few candles, but retired early, as we were
+thoroughly tired from our long walk, and were soon asleep, lulled by the
+monotone of the falling rain. We were not destined, however, to enjoy a
+night of undisturbed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> repose, for the principal adventure of our journey
+occurred that night.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know how long we had slept when we were all suddenly awakened
+by a startling scream.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Oh, what is it?" gasped Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a catamount?" asked Miss Sartoris.</p>
+
+<p>I thought of the railroad track, which ran close beside us, and
+suggested that it might be the shriek of a passing engine, when suddenly
+it came again on the side of the station opposite to the track. Father
+sprang up, exclaiming, "Something is the matter with the horses!"</p>
+
+<p>The rain was still pouring, and a dim light from the swinging lantern
+illumined the room. As father spoke, one of the windows, which had been
+left open for ventilation, was suddenly filled by an uncouth form,
+which, with much scrambling and snorting, was proceeding to force an
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a bear!" shrieked Winnie; and so it was. Mr. Stillman rushed
+forward with his rifle. There was a loud report, and a heavy fall on the
+outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Horses can scent bears at a distance," said father, as he took down the
+lantern;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> "but who would have thought there were any such creatures in
+these woods?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it has broken away from the circus," suggested Mr. Stillman,
+reloading his rifle; for there was an ominous growling outside. Human
+voices were presently heard whose intonations were almost as harsh as
+those of the brute. Father unbarred the door, and we saw two men bending
+over the wounded bear, which he now saw was muzzled, and the property of
+the men, who had evidently heard of the old station, and had thought to
+take refuge in it from the storm.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a pretty state of things!" father exclaimed, with a whistle.
+"You have shot a performing bear, Stillman, and these showmen will
+probably make us pay dearly for the mistake."</p>
+
+<p>We had all been terribly frightened; but we recovered instantly on this
+announcement, and hurriedly dressing, we peered out at the men as they
+stood about the wounded animal and discussed the situation. One of the
+showmen was a foreigner, who swore and grumbled in some strange
+language, which Miss Prillwitz afterward told us was Russian. The other
+was unmis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>takably a Jew, and he took a Jewish advantage of the accident.</p>
+
+<p>"You haf ruined our pizness&mdash;dot bear he wort one, two hundert dollar!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" replied father, as confidently as if he were accustomed to
+trade in that species of live-stock; "he's dear at fifty. Besides, he
+isn't dead, nor anything like it. Hold him with this halter, you two,
+and I'll examine him. There! I told you so; it's only a flesh wound in
+the right foreleg. There are no bones broken. He will be ready for
+travel in a week. All you've got to do is to stay here for a few
+days&mdash;and where could you be better off? We leave in the morning, and no
+one will dispute your possession of this house. I will leave you enough
+provisions to keep you until you are ready for the road again."</p>
+
+<p>The men talked it over in Russian, and seemed far from satisfied, though
+Mr. Stillman offered to give them twenty dollars as an equivalent for
+what they would have gained during the next week, and father added his
+remaining stock of small tinware, which, he explained, they could easily
+sell from door to door at the farm-houses and villages in the vicinity.
+He was tired of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> occupation as a tin-peddler, and glad to get rid of
+the obnoxious soldering furnace, as well as the patty-pans and
+muffin-rings. A settlement was finally effected when, in addition to
+this, Mr. Stillman agreed to their demand for fifty dollars cash
+indemnity.</p>
+
+<p>There was no more sleep for us that night, and it was with rueful
+countenances that we discussed the adventure among ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>"To think," lamented Winnie, "that, just as we were congratulating
+ourselves on gaining so much money for the Home, we should be obliged to
+pay it all out, and more besides, to these wretched men, and all for
+nothing too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Mr. Stillman, "that is the provoking part. If I had only
+killed the creature we might have bear-steak for breakfast (though it
+would have been pretty expensive meat), and I could have had his hide
+mounted as a rug, and have exhibited it to my friends with truthful
+braggadocio as one of my hunting trophies."</p>
+
+<p>I sympathized with Winnie in regard to the depleted condition of our
+treasury; but Miss Prillwitz remarked, enigmatically, that the adventure
+might not prove to be such a losing one as we imagined. We begged her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+to explain; but she bade us wait until we were at least ten miles from
+our encampment.</p>
+
+<p>We relinquished the station to the showmen after a very early breakfast,
+and drove away with lightened carts and subdued spirits.</p>
+
+<p>The rain had ceased, but was likely to begin again at any moment, for
+the sky was thickly overcast, and father suggested that, as this was a
+famous trout region, we might do well to spend the morning in fishing.
+This plan pleased all but Miss Prillwitz, who whispered to father that
+she had particular reasons for reaching a telegraph station as soon as
+possible, and we accordingly directed our course at a rattling pace
+toward the shire town of Greenfield. On the way Miss Prillwitz confided
+to us her suspicions; and in order that the reader may understand them,
+I must anticipate the events which are to be related in the next
+chapter, and explain that, after the explosion at Rickett's Court,
+Solomon Meyer and one of the anarchists had disappeared from New York,
+and Mr. Armstrong had offered a reward for their apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>The anarchist was known to be a Russian,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> and though Miss Prillwitz had
+never seen Solomon Meyer, she felt sure, from Lovey Trimble's
+description of him, that he had decided to avoid the ordinary routes of
+travel, and to journey toward Canada on foot, disguised as an itinerant
+showman. She had more proofs of his identity than these suspicions. The
+men had conversed very freely with each other in Russian, never dreaming
+that there was any one present who could understand the language. The
+Russian had complained bitterly that this accident would delay their
+journey to Canada, and the Jew had replied that it might be as well to
+lie hidden until the search was over.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Greenfield, Miss Prillwitz telegraphed to Mr. Armstrong, and
+in two hours received the following reply: "Have the local authorities
+arrest the parties and detain them until I can reach Greenfield."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly Mr. Stillman and father, with a sheriff and a constable,
+drove back toward Mount Toby in a sort of picnic wagon. Father advised
+us to await him at Deerfield, one of the most interesting villages in
+the Connecticut Valley&mdash;both from its intrinsic beauty and its historic
+associations. We engaged lodgings at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> small hotel, where we found
+but one other traveler, a dejected book-agent. It was nearly
+dinner-time, and the landlord looked rather alarmed by the unexpected
+arrival of so many hungry-looking guests, but he soon set before us a
+capital dinner of broiled chicken, and after a little rest we took a
+stroll through the beautiful old town. We were informed that the
+Memorial Hall, a museum of antique furniture, books, costumes, and other
+curiosities, was well worth visiting; and so, indeed, we found it. One
+object which greatly interested me was an old spinnet, with a quaint
+collection of music, both sacred and secular. Here was a great bass-viol
+which <ins class="correct" title="formerely">formerly</ins> groaned out an accompaniment to the male voices of the
+choir as they took their part in such strange, metrical arrangements as</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Come, my beloved, haste away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cut short the hours of thy delay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fly like a youthful hart or roe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the hills where spices grow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Library, too, a collection of "the (literary) remains" of many
+celebrated doctors of divinity, was a fascinating room, and one in which
+we would have enjoyed prowling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> for a long time. Hawthorne has given
+such an admirable description, in his "Old Manse," of just such a
+library, that I cannot forbear quoting it here.</p>
+
+<p>"The old books would (for the most part) have been worth nothing at an
+auction. They possessed an interest quite apart from their literary
+value; many of them had been transmitted down through a series of
+consecrated hands from the days of the mighty Puritan divines. A few of
+the books were Latin folios written by Catholic authors; others
+demolished papistry as with a sledgehammer, in plain English. A
+dissertation on the book of Job, which only Job himself could have had
+the patience to read, filled at least a score of small, thick-set
+quartos, at the rate of two or three volumes to a chapter. Then there
+was a vast folio 'Body of Divinity.' Volumes of this form dated back two
+hundred years and more, and were generally bound in black leather,
+exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to books
+of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to be
+carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times: diminutive, but as
+black as their bulkier brethren. These little old volumes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> impressed me
+as if they had been intended for very large ones, but had been,
+unfortunately, blighted at an early stage of their growth. Then there
+were old newspapers, and still older almanacs, which reproduced the
+epochs when they had issued from the press with a distinctness that was
+altogether unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic
+looking-glass among the books, with the images of a vanished century in
+them."</p>
+
+<p>We lingered long in the Library, and in the Indian Room, where stands an
+old door gashed by the tomahawks of the Indians who, with a company of
+French, in 1704, surprised Deerfield, massacred a great part of the
+inhabitants, and carried a hundred and twelve as prisoners to Canada.
+Yellow and crumbling letters, uncertainly spelled and quaintly phrased,
+hung around the room, telling how perilous such a driving-tour as we had
+just taken would have been in those pioneer days. One, dated 1756 and
+written to Captain John Burt in the Crown Point Army, read as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Dear Husband.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 8em;">"It is a Crasie time in this place. There is but little Traviling
+by <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>the Massachusetts Fort which makes it more difficult to send
+letters. Capt. Chapin and Chidester and his Son were killed and
+scalpt by the Enemy near the new foort at Hoosack."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sarah Williams, of Roxbury, in 1714 announces to her friends at
+Deerfield the expected return of many of their friends who had been
+carried off in different raids&mdash;"We have had news that Unkel is Coming
+with one hundred and fifty Captives."</p>
+
+<p>The number dwindled, and many who were carried away on that dreary march
+through the winter snow never returned, but among the relics preserved
+in the archives of Memorial Hall is a pathetic little red shoe which
+walked all the way from Hatfield to Canada and back, on the foot of
+little Sally Colman. It is hardly more than a tiny sole, with a rag of
+the scarlet upper clinging to it, but it tells the story of the cruel
+march, and the heroic efforts of the noble men who effected the rescue
+of their friends, better than many a page of print.</p>
+
+<p>We were so much interested in Memorial Hall that it was long past
+supper-time before we thought of leaving. The book-agent advised us to
+visit the old burying-ground, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> after supper, offered to show us the
+way. We found it grass-grown and neglected; in some portions, a thicket
+of climbing vines and tangling briers. Indeed, the entire God's acre was
+so given over to nature that the birds built undismayed, while the
+squirrel frisked impudently on the headstones, and the woodchuck
+burrowed beside the tombs. It had not been used for many years; a newer
+cemetery raised its white monuments on the hillside, while here lichens
+nearly filled the carving, and the stones leaned at tipsy angles,
+proving that grief for any buried here had been long assuaged, that the
+very mourners had passed away, and it was doubtful whether a single aged
+man still lingered in the town of whom it could be said that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"These mossy marbles rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the lips which he has pressed<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">In their bloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the names he loved to hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have been carved for many a year<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">On the tomb."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As Miss Sartoris remarked, the place did not suggest sadness, but gentle
+retrospection, while curiosity provoked the fancy to fill out the
+histories so provokingly suggested in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> inscriptions. Here was buried
+Mrs. Williams, whom her epitaph declares to be "the virtuous and
+desirable consort of Mr. John Williams," and Mr. Mehuman Hinsdale, who
+was "twice captivated by the barbarous <ins class="correct" title="salvages">savages</ins>."</p>
+
+<p>The book-agent read us another epitaph, copied in Vernon, Vt., which
+suggested a three-volume novel in the history which it gave of early
+Indian times. Our imaginations sank exhausted as we attempted to follow
+the heroine through all her matrimonial complications, I give it as it
+was dictated to me:</p>
+
+<div style="text-align: center;">
+<table summary="" width="80%">
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Jemima Tute,<br />
+Successively Relict of Messrs. William Phips,<br />
+Caleb Howe, and Amos Tute.<br />
+The two first were killed by the indians,<br />
+Phips, July 5, 1743; Howe, June 27, 1755.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><p style="margin: 0;"><span class="smcap">When Howe was Killed, She and Her Children,
+Then Seven in Number, were Carried into Captivity.</span></p></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><p style="margin: 0;"><span class="smcap">The Oldest Daughter went to France, and was
+Married to a French Gentleman. The Youngest was
+Torn from Her Breast, and Perished with Hunger.
+By the aid of some Benevolent Gentlemen, and Her
+Own Personal Heroism, She Recovered the Rest.
+She Died March 7, 1805, Having Passed Through
+more Vicissitudes and Endured more Hardships than
+any of Her Contemporaries.</span></p></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'No more can savage foe annoy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor aught her widespread fame destroy.'"</span>
+</div></div></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was dark when we wandered back to the hotel, past the old manse built
+for the Reverend John Williams by his parishioners after his return from
+captivity. We were told that some one residing in the house of late had
+occasion to move a tall piece of furniture in one of the chambers, and
+discovered a door. Opening this, a secret staircase was found leading
+from the cellar to the attic. No one living had known of its existence,
+and many were the wild guesses made as to its object.</p>
+
+<p>When we returned to the hotel we found that father and Mr. Stillman had
+not yet arrived. Miss Sartoris seemed very anxious, and feared that
+there might have been trouble in arresting the tramps. Winnie cheered us
+by suggesting the trout fishing, which Mr. Stillman had reluctantly
+abandoned when we left Mt. Toby. It would be a good night for fishing,
+the landlord said; perhaps they had remained for it, since the distance
+to Toby was too long to be comfortably made three times in one day.
+After breakfast the next morning, as our travelers were still absent,
+Miss Sartoris and I unpacked our sketch-boxes and began to make a study
+of the street from the north end, just at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> point where the French
+and Indians, "swarming over the palisades on the drifted snow, surprised
+and sacked the sleeping town."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz and Winnie, with their botanists' cans, followed a little
+brook that ran at the back of the hotel, and came back laden with blue
+German forget-me-nots. Father and Mr. Stillman arrived just before
+dinner, Mr. Stillman carrying in one hand a string of beautiful speckled
+trout, and in the other something which looked like a buffalo-robe. He
+looked very triumphant and happy, while father followed, carrying in a
+rather sheepish manner&mdash;what but the old soldering furnace! We greeted
+them with so much laughter and so many questions that it was some time
+before they could give an account of their adventures.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the Mount Toby railroad station, they had found it deserted.
+The men having evidently decided that it was not safe to await the
+recovery of the bear, had accordingly killed it, and secreted it in a
+cave at the foot of the mountain. The sheriff knew of this cave, and in
+examining it in search of the men, found the carcass of the bear.</p>
+
+<p>"And so," exclaimed Mr. Stillman, exhib<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>iting the skin, "I secured my
+rug, after all, but we concluded that the meat looked rather tough, and
+we would not take it. I shall express this skin straight to a
+taxidermist that I know, and have it handsomely mounted."</p>
+
+<p>"But the men!" I asked; "you don't mean to tell me that they escaped?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied father; "but if you can't keep quiet I shall not be able
+to tell you how they were caught. It was this very ill-luck-bringing
+soldering outfit that did it. When we found that they had left, I
+suspected that they had taken the morning train for Canada at the
+Montague station, for no trains stopped at Toby; and in case they had
+done that, there was hardly a chance of our reaching the station and
+ascertaining the fact in time to telegraph and effect their arrest
+before they could leave the country. We had driven from Greenfield
+pretty rapidly, and our horses were tired; then we took a wrong turning,
+and got off into Leverett, or some other unhappy wilderness; but after a
+while we found a farmer who provided us with fresh beasts, and we
+reached the Montague station toward evening. It was shut up, and the
+station-master had gone home, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> after another half-hour we found him.
+Yes, our men had bought tickets for Montreal that morning. Then you
+should have seen our hurry to telegraph; but the station-master advised
+us to keep cool, and wait a little. 'They bought their tickets,' he
+said, 'but they didn't go there.' So that was a feint, I thought, to
+throw us off the track. But no; on their way from Toby they had decided
+that they would have a cup of coffee, and they had sat down behind a
+barn to make it on my soldering furnace, and as they were doubtless as
+tired of carrying the old thing as I was, they left it there. The wind
+blew the coals into the hay, and in a few minutes the barn was on fire.
+Someone had seen them leave the yard, and before the train came along
+for which they were waiting, they were arrested as incendiaries, and
+taken to the Greenfield jail. As this was precisely where the sheriff
+wished to take them, there was nothing for him to do but to return and
+notify the authorities that the men would be wanted soon on more serious
+charges. And as the station-master informed us that there was some good
+trout-fishing nearby, we decided to spend the night in Montague. So we
+let the sheriff and con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>stable drive back to Greenfield without us, and
+telegraphed Mr. Armstrong that his birds were caught."</p>
+
+<p>"If they only turn out to be his birds!" said Winnie.</p>
+
+<p>"I haf no doubtfuls of zat," said Miss Prillwitz.</p>
+
+<p>"But why did you bring back that wretched little furnace and iron?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the curious part of it is that the farmer who drove us over this
+morning had found them in the ruins of his barn, and he brought them
+along, thinking that we might like them to help in identifying the
+rascals. I couldn't refuse his kindness, but I certainly shall not carry
+them away from this place. I don't believe in such nonsense, but the
+gypsy's prediction has come true so far, and they brought bad fortune to
+the gentlemen to whom I presented them."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong, who had been telegraphed for, arrived with a police
+officer that night; and Miss Prillwitz, father, and Mr. Stillman were
+absent all the next morning making depositions to aid in the
+identification of the prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>It was finally decided to remove them to New York to await trial on Mr.
+Armstrong's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> charges. We set out that afternoon for Ashfield, our route
+leading us over beautiful hills, and affording us views of rare
+loveliness. Ashfield is a village loved by literary men as Deerfield is
+by artists. Deerfield nestles in a valley, while Ashfield lies on the
+breezy hill-top; George William Curtis is the centre of the coterie of
+rare minds who make Ashfield their summer home. Mr. Curtis gives a
+lecture here once a year for the benefit of the Sanderson Academy. At
+this time every manner of vehicle brings the country-people over the
+winding roads, which converge in Ashfield like the spokes of a wheel in
+their hub. We were not fortunate enough to light on this red-letter day,
+and we accordingly rested over night at the long low inn, and started
+early the next morning for uncle's home in Hawley. The distance was
+short, as the crow flies, but it seemed to be all up-hill. The last mile
+was through one of those gorges so common in this region, where the
+fissure between the hills is so narrow that the sun only looks in for
+two or three hours. Slowly climbing the long, green-vaulted stairway,
+the dusky tapestry was at length looped back for us, and the road,
+emerging from the wooded ravine, gleamed yellow-white between the
+grassy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> mounds. Crowning one of these knolls stood a long, white
+farm-house, spreading out wing after wing in hospitable effort to
+shelter the entire hill-top. Beside the road stood a post with a
+letter-box affixed, for the reception of the mail left by the daily
+stage. We passed a huddle of old barns and out-buildings, among which I
+recognized a carpenter's shop, a carriage-shed, a sugar-house in
+convenient proximity to a grove of maples, a dairy through which ran the
+brook, keeping cool and solid the eighty pounds of butter which my
+cousins made each week, a cider-mill, and behind it an orchard of russet
+apple-trees, and a long row of bee-hives fronting the flower-garden.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle expected us, and it was delightful to see the meeting between the
+two brothers, who had not seen each other in twelve years. There were
+plenty of airy bedrooms, hung with pure white dimity, and after our
+gypsy life it seemed very pleasant to find once more the comforts of a
+home. We spent several days at the Maples, attending service in the dear
+old-fashioned church with its high, square pews.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Prue had all of our travel-soiled clothing neatly washed, and
+refilled the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> emptied hampers and lunch-baskets with abundant supplies
+from the products of the farm and her own good cookery.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle was a large, easy man, who dearly loved to tell a story to match
+his own ample proportions, only the twinkle in his eye redeeming him
+from the charge of deception. Aunt Prue's rigid conscience revolted at
+uncle's romances. "Asahel Smith!" she would exclaim, "how can you lie
+like that; and you a church-member?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Prudence," Uncle Asahel would reply, "the catechism says a lie is
+a story told with intention to deceive, and when I told these girls that
+I drove the oxen home with the last load of hay so fast that I got it
+into the barn before a drop of water fell, while it was raining so hard
+behind me that Watch, who was following the wagon, actually <i>swam</i> all
+the way up from the medder&mdash;when I told 'em that, I cal'late I didn't
+deceive 'em; I was only cultivating their imaginations."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Prue groaned in spirit, and began to sing, in a high, cracked
+voice.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"False are the men of high degree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The baser sort are vanity;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weighed in the balance, both appear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light as a puff of empty air."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>While at The Maples we made an excursion to Cummington, formerly
+Bryant's home. We sat in the library, shut in by a thick grove, where he
+composed his translations of the Odyssey and Iliad, and we played with a
+little pet dog of which he had been very fond. Not far from the estate
+is a fine library, Bryant's gift to the little town. "Bryant's River" is
+a brawling little stream which flows through a very picturesque region.
+We amused ourselves by fancying that we recognized spots described in
+several of his poems.</p>
+
+<p>There was a grand old oak upon the place which might have inspired his
+lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">"This mighty oak&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Almost annihilated&mdash;not a prince<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In all that proud Old World beyond the deep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E'er wore his crown as loftily as he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wears the green coronal of leaves with which<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy hand has graced him."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The scenery about Cummington and Hawley tempted us to a frequent use of
+our sketching-materials. Mr. Stillman, too, found several birds new to
+him, and took some beautiful landscape photographs. Miss Sartoris gave
+him new ideas about choosing views<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> where mountain and cloud, trees and
+reflections, composed well, and his photographs became much more
+artistic. He began to talk about the importance of placing his darkest
+dark here, and his highest light there, of balancing a steeple in this
+part of his picture by a human interest in the foreground, of massing
+his shadows, of angular composition, of tone and harmony, and the rest
+of the cant of the studio. Nor was it all cant; Miss Sartoris had taught
+him to see more in nature than he had ever seen before, and while his
+ambition had hitherto been to secure sharp photographs of instantaneous
+effects&mdash;mere feats of mechanical skill&mdash;his aim was now to produce
+pictures satisfying to highly cultivated tastes. He acknowledged that
+all this was due to Miss Sartoris, who had opened a new world to him,
+though it seemed to me that he really owed quite as much to Miss
+Prillwitz, but for whose influence he would never have taken up
+photography. I was a little jealous for our princess, and felt that,
+though Miss Sartoris was young and fair, and Miss Prillwitz old and
+wrinkled, this was no reason why honor should not be rendered where
+honor was due.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pond with a bit of swamp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> land on uncle's farm, which he
+considered the blot on the place, but which Miss Sartoris declared was a
+real treasure-trove for a picture. One end was covered with lily-pads,
+and great waxy pond-lilies were opening their alabaster lamps here and
+there on the surface, while the yellow cow-lilies dotted the other end
+with their butter-pats. Cat-tails and rushes grew in the shallower
+portions, and here was to be found the rare moccasin-flower, a pink and
+white orchid of exquisite shape. Miss Sartoris painted a beautiful
+picture here. She said it reminded her of the pond which Ruskin
+describes with an artist's insight and enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"A great painter sees beneath and behind the brown surface what will
+take him a day's work to follow; and he follows it, cost what it will.
+He sees it is not the dull, dirty, blank thing which he supposes it to
+be; it has a heart as well as ourselves, and in the bottom of that there
+are the boughs of the tall trees and their quivering leaves, and all the
+hazy passages of sunshine, the blades of the shaking grass, with all
+manner of hues of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; and the
+bottom seen in the clear little bits at the edge, and the stones of it,
+and all the sky.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> For the ugly gutter that stagnates over the drain-bars
+in the heart of the foul city is not altogether base. It is at your will
+that you see in that despised stream either the refuse of the street or
+the image of the sky; so it is with many other things which we unkindly
+despise."</p>
+
+<p>We all regretted when our short visit at The Maples came to an end, but
+Miss Prillwitz felt that she must be hastening back to the Home, and we
+had already transgressed the bounds which we had set to our outing. We
+decided to vary our journey by returning through Berkshire. We drove,
+the first day, to Pittsfield, a flourishing little city, and now for the
+first time we felt ourselves out of place in the peddler's carts.
+Nowhere else had we attracted any special attention. It was a common
+thing for tin-peddlers to take their feminine relatives with them on
+their jaunts, and as we dressed very plainly, and conducted ourselves
+with gravity, no one gave us a second look.</p>
+
+<p>At Pittsfield, however, we came in contact once more with "society," and
+the loungers on the hotel veranda gave us a broadside of astonished
+looks as we alighted. "It is very disagreeable to be stared at in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> this
+way," Winnie remarked to Miss Prillwitz as we entered.</p>
+
+<p>"My tear," replied the good lady, "it takes four eyes to make a
+stare."<a name="FNanchor_A_4" id="FNanchor_A_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_4" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_4" id="Footnote_A_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_4"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> A remark once made by Professor Maria Mitchell to a student
+of Vassar College who had made a similar complaint.</p></div>
+
+<p>Winnie colored deeply, for she knew that if she had been less
+self-conscious she would not have felt the curious and impertinent gaze.
+We left Pittsfield so early the next morning that none of the hotel
+loungers were on the piazza to comment on our appearance.</p>
+
+<p>We drove, that day, over the lovely Lenox hills, once covered by stony
+pastures, dotted here and there by lonely farm-houses, but now a
+succession of beautiful parks and aristocratic villas and mansions. Mr.
+Stillman had his camera out, and photographed a number of the handsome
+residences as we passed, and one of the gay little village-carts driven
+by a young woman dressed in the height of fashion, and presided over by
+a footman in livery.</p>
+
+<p>"That does not seem to me a sensible way of going into the country,"
+said Winnie. "I don't believe she has half the fun that we have in this
+old caravan."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," I replied, "but I presume that Adelaide and Milly are
+driving about in much the same style; and we know that better-hearted
+girls never lived."</p>
+
+<p>We picnicked near "Stockbridge Bowl," a lovely lake, blue as Geneva and
+encircled by beautiful hills. As father brought out the lunch-hamper I
+noticed a queer expression on his face. "What do you suppose I have
+found stowed away in the back part of the cart?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not the soldering furnace?" we all replied, in unison.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled grimly, and, instead of replying, placed it before us. "That
+Deerfield landlord must have packed it up without your knowledge," said
+Miss Sartoris. "Its reappearance is becoming really amusing; let us make
+one grand final effort to get rid of it by sinking it in the middle of
+the lake."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sartoris took the furnace and ran down to the lake, whence she
+presently returned empty-handed.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you drown the creature?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly, but I gave an ancient fisherman whom I found there a
+quarter to com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>mit the crime for me. I told him that it was something
+which we were tired of, and never wished to see again, and he promised
+me, in rather a mixed manner, that 'human hand should never find hide
+nor hair of it, nor human eye set foot on it again.'"</p>
+
+<p>A general laugh followed this announcement. How should we know that the
+man's suspicions were excited by Miss Sartoris's anxiety to get rid of
+the object, and that instead of sinking it in the middle of "the Bowl"
+he wrapped it carefully in brown paper, and labeling it "To be kept till
+called for," hid it under the bank! "Somebody will come for that
+object," he said to himself; "shouldn't wonder if it was wanted at court
+as circumstantial evidence of somethin' or 'nother."</p>
+
+<p>Another event occurred while we were resting at "the Bowl." Miss
+Sartoris remarked that a view which she had obtained as she returned
+from the lake was the most enchanting that she had seen on the trip.
+"How I wish that I had time to sketch it!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I will photograph it for you," Mr. Stillman exclaimed, with alacrity,
+"if you will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> kindly show me just where you would like to have the view
+taken."</p>
+
+<p>They walked back together, a turn in the road hiding them from our view.
+We waited for them a long time, and at length father became impatient
+and drove on, leaving me to hold Mr. Stillman's horses. When they came
+back there was an expression on their faces which told everything. I
+should have known it even if Mr. Stillman had been able to keep the
+words back, but he was too happy to be silent. "You were lamenting, this
+morning," he said to me as he took the reins, "that we had only two more
+days to journey together."</p>
+
+<p>"That is all," I replied, "unless Miss Sartoris and you have decided to
+make a longer trip."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "you have guessed it exactly: Miss Sartoris has just
+consented to journey on through life with me."</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised, and yet, when I came to think of it, I saw that I ought
+to have suspected it from the time they first met; and, all things
+considered, they were admirably suited to each other. So I could only
+rejoice in their happiness, though I wondered, a little selfishly, what
+Madame's would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> without Miss Sartoris, and whether I should ever have
+a teacher whom I should love as well.</p>
+
+<p>When we caught up with the other cart father asked whether he got a
+successful negative.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Mr. Stillman, "I didn't get a very decided negative, and I
+confess I didn't want one."</p>
+
+<p>There was a look of blank astonishment on all their faces, and then a
+peal of laughter as his meaning dawned upon them. After the storm of
+congratulations and exclamations had ceased, Miss Sartoris suddenly
+exclaimed, "You left your detective camera!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," Mr. Stillman replied, "Shall we drive back after it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless you want to catch that shower," father remarked, pointing to
+a threatening cloud.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get you ladies under shelter first, and then I really think I must
+look it up," said Mr. Stillman. But before we reached Stockbridge we met
+a coaching-party conducted by a nattily dressed young man of slender
+build, who managed his spirited four-in-hand with considerable skill,
+and who reined them in as we approached, exclaiming, "Stillman!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> by all
+that's odd!" Mr. Stillman introduced the gentleman as a Mr. Van Silver,
+an old friend from the city, and mutual explanations followed. He was
+now on his way to Lenox, and agreed to stop at the spot which Mr.
+Stillman indicated, and if he could find the camera express it to Mr.
+Stillman at Scup Harbor.</p>
+
+<p>Very little more of interest to the reader occurred until we reached
+home. We followed the Housatonic for the greater part of our way, and
+when we had nearly reached its mouth, drove across to New Haven, from
+which port, having completed our round-trip, we took the steamer for
+home. Father found a letter from Mr. Armstrong in relation to the
+thieves taken in Montague, who were proved to be the criminals of
+Rickett's Court, whose retribution shall be related in the next chapter.
+The little boys left in mother's care had conducted themselves in as
+exemplary a manner as could be expected, there having been no cases of
+really bad conduct, and only two slight accidents.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Prillwitz took them under her wing and left with them for the Home,
+all looking happier, browner, and rounder for their stay in the country.
+Winnie regretted that our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> scheme for filling the treasury of the Home
+had not been a success, since the aggregate of money made by peddling
+tinware and rockets, and by taking tintypes, did not meet the expenses
+of the trip. Mr. Stillman, however, insisted on presenting the
+institution with a handsome check, "as an inadequate thank-offering," so
+he said, for the great blessing which had come to him in our journeying
+"over the hills and far away."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sartoris left almost immediately for her own home, and Mr. Stillman
+followed her soon after. Two express packages came to him before he left
+us. One was the bearskin, handsomely mounted, the other was preceded by
+a note from his friend Mr. Van Silver, which said that he had overtaken
+a venerable fisherman walking off with his camera, and that it required
+considerable persuasion of a "sterling quality" to rescue it from him.
+Mr. Stillman opened the package with grateful anticipation, and
+found&mdash;the soldering furnace!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br />
+
+<span class="title">THE ESTATES DEL PARADISO.</span></h2>
+
+<div style="float: left;">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I have been here before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But when, or how, I cannot tell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I know the grass beyond the door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The sweet, keen smell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You have been mine before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">How long ago I may not know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But just when, at that swallow's soar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Your neck turned so,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some veil did fall&mdash;I knew it all of yore."</span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Rossetti.</i></p>
+</div>
+<div class="clr"></div>
+
+<p class="noin"><img src="images/ch15.jpg" width="171" height="265" alt="{Drawing of woman.} W" title="" style="margin-top: -.5em; float: left;" />E must now return to Mr. Armstrong, whom we left in chapter XII. in
+conference with Dr. Carver over the Doctor's advertisement of the case
+of lost identity inserted in the daily papers ten years before.</p>
+
+<p>The physician listened gravely to Mr. Armstrong's account of the loss of
+his wife and infant son, the wild<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> hopes which were now awakened, and to
+his request for the address of the lady referred to, and gave him a
+pitying glance as he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"So many bereaved persons have come to me fancying that they recognized
+a loved one in that notice, only to be cruelly disappointed; and Mrs.
+Halsey has in the past been subjected to so many trying interviews of
+this description, that I hesitate to encourage your visiting her, unless
+you have positive proof of what you hope. A photograph would give this
+proof."</p>
+
+<p>"And, unfortunately, I have none of Mrs. Armstrong."</p>
+
+<p>"But I had one taken of Mrs. Halsey, which I have kept in the hope that
+it might be identified some day;" and the Doctor drew from his
+pocket-book a thumbed and discolored photograph, which he placed in Mr.
+Armstrong's hand.</p>
+
+<p>The effect was unmistakable. The strong man rose to his feet, staggered,
+and fainted, for he had recognized his wife. The physician quickly
+restored him to consciousness, and after waiting until the effect of the
+shock had partially passed away, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I see that there is no danger of any mis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>take, and that I may direct
+you where to find Mrs. Halsey&mdash;I beg pardon, Mrs. Armstrong. Her
+address, when I last saw her, was No. 1 Rickett's Court."</p>
+
+<p>"Rickett's Court!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, in horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; it is not the best quarter of the city, but many of the
+respectable poor live there; and you must remember, sir, that your wife
+must necessarily have had a hard struggle to support herself and your
+little son, alone and friendless, in this great city."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong groaned aloud. Rickett's Court had not seemed so bad to
+him for other men's children and wives, but that <i>his</i> child, <i>his</i>
+wife, should live in such vile surroundings was horrible. He sprang to
+his feet, seized his hat, and with a hasty "I will see you again,
+Doctor," hurried in the same direction which Stephen Trimble had taken
+not a half-hour before. It was only a short distance, but it seemed
+miles to him. Just as he came in sight of the building every window in
+its front was illuminated with a sudden flash, and a heavy detonation
+shook the earth. Then smoke poured from the broken panes, and the air
+was filled with flying splinters and d&eacute;bris, while shrieks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> from
+within, and shouts of "Fire! fire!" from without, added to the
+confusion.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 409px;">
+<img src="images/gs04.jpg" width="409" height="650" alt="{Drawing of city street and buildings.}" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The smoke cleared in a moment, and people were seen at the windows
+dropping down the fire-escape. Only a few minutes later a fire-engine
+came tearing around the corner, and the hoarse voice of a fireman was
+heard dominating the tumult and giving orders, but before this Alexander
+Armstrong, possessed of but one idea&mdash;that his wife and child were
+somewhere within&mdash;had rushed into the burning building. One glance
+showed him that this was hopeless. The staircase had been torn out by
+the explosion, and the flames were roaring up the space which it had
+occupied, as through a chimney. He was dragged back to the court by the
+fireman, who exclaimed, "Man alive! can't you see that the staircase has
+gone, and that they are coming down the fire-escape? There wouldn't have
+been the ghost of a chance for them but for that. Bless the man who had
+it put there!"</p>
+
+<p>The words gave him a little heart, and he stood at the foot, helping the
+women and catching the children handed to him, hoping in vain to
+recognize his wife. They stopped coming. "Are all out?" he shouted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+"There's some one in the fourth story," said a woman, and before the
+fireman could lay his hand on the fire-escape Mr. Armstrong was half-way
+up. The façade still stood, but the entire interior of the building was
+in flames, and blinding smoke and scorching sparks poured from the
+windows. At the fourth story a man had staggered to the window and lay
+with his arm outside, holding on to the sill. Mr. Armstrong uttered a
+cry when he saw that it was a man, but, none the less, he lifted him
+tenderly out, and into the arms of the fireman following close behind
+them. Then drawing his coat over his mouth and nostrils, he entered the
+room. Another man lay at a little distance, or a body that had been a
+man, terribly torn and shattered by the explosion. It was the anarchist
+who had been the principal in the plot; the other had escaped. Mr.
+Armstrong descended, looking into every apartment as he came down to be
+sure no living thing was left inside that furnace.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a hero, sir! will you give me your name? I represent &mdash;&mdash;." It
+was the omnipresent reporter on hand for an item. Mr. Armstrong turned
+from him, without reply, to the man whom he had rescued, Stephen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+Trimble, who lay with a foot torn from the ankle, and a broken arm. A
+hospital surgeon knelt at his side bandaging deftly. A policeman had
+sent the call when Mr. Armstrong started up the fire-escape, and the
+ambulance, a more conclusive "Evidence of Christianity" than that dear
+old Dr. Hopkins or any other theologian ever wrote; nobler exponent of
+civilization than the fire department even, since that is the rich man's
+provision for saving his own property, while the ambulance is the rich
+man's provision for saving the poor man's life&mdash;the ambulance, with
+surgeon on the back seat coolly feeling for his instruments, and
+bare-headed driver clanging the gong, and lashing his already galloping
+horses, had torn like mad down Broadway. And as it came, aristocratic
+carriages hurrying with ladies just a little late for a grand dinner,
+and an expectant bridegroom on his way to Grace Church, halted and
+waited for it to pass; express and telegraph agents, and rushing men of
+business, gave it the right of way as it bounded on its errand of mercy.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander Armstrong spoke for a moment with the surgeon, long enough to
+learn that Stephen Trimble's injuries were probably not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> mortal, and to
+urge every attention possible. Then he caught sight of Solomon Meyer
+bowing and cringing at a little distance, and he sprang upon him like a
+panther on his prey. Solomon, greatly surprised, could only imagine that
+the loss of the property had driven him insane, and gasped, "Ze
+insurance bolicy is all right," whereat the ex-landlord gave his agent
+such a shaking that his teeth rattled in his head, only pausing to
+inquire if he knew anything of a tenant by the name of Mrs. Halsey.
+Solomon Meyer assured him that Mrs. Halsey had long since quitted the
+building, but this only partially reassured him, for he placed very
+little reliance on the man's word. His wife, almost found, was lost to
+him again. He could not believe that she perished in the burning
+building; still, there was this horrible possibility.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one to tell him that she had just gone to Narragansett Pier
+at his daughter's bidding, and was occupying the very cottage where so
+many of her happier years were passed; and he threw himself more
+unreservedly into his business projects, not, however, forgetting the
+poor inventor at the hospital, whom he visited frequently, and cared for
+as tenderly as though he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> been his brother. After the excitement of
+the fire was over, he remembered that the law had an account to settle
+with Solomon Meyer, but he was not then to be found. His guilty
+conscience had taken the alarm, and the subtle magnetism which draws bad
+people together had caused him to form a partnership with the anarchist
+who had escaped the explosion, and but for Miss Prillwitz's timely
+recognition they would have fled to Canada. Mr. Armstrong found them, as
+we know, in the Greenfield jail, and had no difficulty in identifying
+them, and in having them brought to justice.</p>
+
+<p>As the time approached for the trial of Solomon Meyer and the Russian
+anarchist, Mr. Armstrong was troubled with the fear that Stephen Trimble
+might not be able to testify in court. He visited him frequently at the
+hospital, and whenever he approached the subject of his dealings with
+the anarchists he became excited and confused.</p>
+
+<p>His little son, Lovey Dimple, was seated beside him during one of Mr.
+Armstrong's calls. He was allowed to visit his father, and waited upon
+him day by day, sometimes telling him of the pleasant times he had had
+at the seashore, and at others watch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>ing him quietly. His presence
+seemed to do his father good; and on this visit Mr. Armstrong was able
+to obtain much more information from Stephen Trimble than upon any
+previous occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite sure," Mr. Armstrong asked, "that you never saw this
+check, which someone has cashed at the bank, and which is indorsed with
+your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, never!" replied the wounded man.</p>
+
+<p>"I see it, though," Lovey Dimple spoke up, promptly. "Jim had come down
+to the court to see me, and I wanted to show him the machine in the
+Rooshans' room, and we follered him in there. Mr. Meyer dropped a piece
+of paper which looked like that, and Jim picked it up. He could tell you
+what was written on it."</p>
+
+<p>"I must have Jim as a link in our chain of testimony," Mr. Armstrong
+replied. "Is he at the Home of the Elder Brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; Jim used to be there, but he had the luck to be adopted. He
+went away just for to be a tiger for some swells, and they liked him so
+much they permoted him. He's Jim Roservelt now."</p>
+
+<p>So this was the lad of whom Adelaide had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> spoken to him. Mr. Armstrong
+wrote to his friend Mr. Roseveldt, requesting that Jim should be sent to
+the city. His testimony at the trial was so clear and concise, and his
+entire appearance so manly, that Mr. Armstrong was greatly drawn to him.</p>
+
+<p>"If my own boy had lived," he said to Mr. Roseveldt, who had come to the
+city with Jim, "he would have been about the age of this little fellow.
+I am about to make a western trip of six or seven weeks, and would like
+to take him with me. Should the liking which I have taken to him grow
+upon acquaintance, I beg of you to relinquish him to me; I need him, for
+I am a stricken man, and you are a fortunate one, or I would not ask
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Roseveldt replied that, though he was fond of Jim, he would
+willingly give him up to Mr. Armstrong for adoption after his return
+from the West, provided the boy's mother would consent to the transfer.
+Singularly enough, the name of that mother was not mentioned, and Mr.
+Armstrong took Jim with him to Colorado, little dreaming that the boy
+was his own son.</p>
+
+<p>He had said that he needed Jim; and he needed him in more ways than he
+knew. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> had grown world-soiled, as well as world-weary, and the
+companionship of a soul white and young was destined to exert upon him a
+purifying as well as rejuvenating influence. Before the grand mountain
+scenery Jim's fresh enthusiasm stimulated Mr. Armstrong's sated
+admiration, and the child's naive ideas of right and wrong were a rebuke
+to the man's sophistries. They journeyed together through the wild and
+beautiful ca&ntilde;ons of the Rocky Mountains, and the boy was deeply
+impressed by the stupendous cliffs rising on each side&mdash;walls that were
+sometimes two thousand feet in height, and so close together that the
+narrow river, which had cut its way down from the surface, sometimes
+filled the entire space at the bottom of the gorge. But even here the
+ingenuity of man had surmounted the barriers of nature, and the
+observation-car on which they rode dashed along upon a shelf cut in the
+solid rock, with a sheer wall on one hand, and a dizzy precipice on the
+other. Such a ca&ntilde;on was the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas; in one portion
+an iron bridge hangs suspended from strong supports fixed in the solid
+walls, and the train glides along it, swaying as in a hammock, over the
+brawling river.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The climax of their tour was reached in the Black Ca&ntilde;on. The scenes here
+are awful, even in broad daylight, for the sombre crags tower to the
+height of several thousand feet. Our travelers passed through the chasm
+at night. Far overhead the stars were shining in the little rift of sky,
+which was all that they could see between the walls; and in the
+mysterious half-lights of the illumined portions, and the utter
+blackness of the shadows, the grotesque shapes of the crags took on
+strange forms and awful suggestions. At times it seemed as if the train
+was about to dash itself against a wall of solid masonry, which opened,
+as though thrown back by genii, as they approached. At one point,
+catching the moonlight, a silvery cascade swept over the rocks like a
+bow of crystal; and at another, a mighty monument of rosy stone, the
+Curricanti Needle, towered far above the cliffs, like the sky-piercing
+spire of some grand cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>"The people who live here must be very good," Jim gasped, as they
+emerged from the valley of enchantment, "one is so much nearer to God
+out here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody lives in the ca&ntilde;on now," Mr. Armstrong replied; "Indians lived
+here not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> very long ago. They used to hold their councils on that shelf
+of rock where the pines grow, the last accessible spot on the Curricanti
+pinnacle, but the settlers in the neighborhood did not have your idea
+about their being such very good men, and as the ca&ntilde;on was the best
+pathway through the mountains for the railroad, they were driven out."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for the Indians," Jim said, simply. "If I had owned that
+ca&ntilde;on I wouldn't have liked to have given it up, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. <ins class="correct" title="Amstrong">Armstrong</ins> evaded the question. "You will not have so much pity for
+them when you know them better," he replied. "They are a low lot, and if
+they do not know enough to improve the advantages which they possess, it
+is only fair that they should be appropriated by those who will make a
+better use of them."</p>
+
+<p>Jim did not quite understand what Mr. Armstrong meant by appropriating
+the Indians' advantages, but he was to learn more in relation to that
+word before the journey was over. Returning to Denver, Mr. Armstrong
+took the boy with him on a tour through some of the pueblos of New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+Mexico. The word "pueblo" signifies town, and the Pueblo Indians are
+those who build houses instead of tents and wigwams, and live from
+generation to generation in towns and cities, instead of wandering about
+the plains and mountains like the other tribes. There are twenty-six of
+these communities in New Mexico, and some of the cities were old when
+the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>When New Mexico was ceded to the United States by Mexico, the right of
+the Pueblo Indians to their towns and to certain tracts of land
+surrounding them was confirmed by treaty, so that these Indians are
+better off in many ways than any others. Mr. Armstrong had a special
+reason for visiting the Pueblos. He had purchased several large herds of
+cattle, and wished to rent land of the Indians for pasturage. A man by
+the name of Sanchez, who traded among the Pueblos, could speak the
+language, and had gained the confidence of the Indians, happened to be
+on the train, and recognizing Mr. Armstrong as a wealthy capitalist, who
+had large interests in cattle, as well as in railroads, at once guessed
+pretty nearly the nature of his errand in the Indian country.</p>
+
+<p>He introduced himself, and, learning that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> Mr. Armstrong intended to
+visit the pueblo of Taos, to witness the celebration of the Festival of
+San Geronimo, offered his services as interpreter and courier. These Mr.
+Armstrong was very glad to accept, for he had heard of the man, and knew
+that he had considerable influence among the Indians. There was
+something repellent, however, in his insinuating, cringing manner which
+made one feel that here was a man who was not to be trusted. The party
+was increased by an army officer and a Catholic priest, who were also
+going to Taos to witness the festival. The pueblo lies at a distance of
+twenty miles from the railroad station, but an Indian was found waiting
+for Mr. Sanchez with a rough wagon, and that gentleman invited the
+others to ride with him. They crossed the Rio Grande River and drove
+along beside it in a northeasterly direction, through a not very
+interesting country. The coloring was all yellowish brown&mdash;the sandy
+earth, the crisp parched grass, the distant hills, even the water when
+taken from the turbid river, were all of a like monotonous tint. Now and
+then they met or passed an Indian, wrapped in a striped blanket and
+mounted on a small shaggy pony. Toward evening they came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> in sight of
+the pueblo. The first view was very picturesque. The houses of adobe, or
+sun-dried brick, were built in ranges one above the other, like a great
+stairway, the roof of the lower house serving as the dooryard for the
+one above. Ladders were placed against the walls, and up and down these,
+nearly naked Indian children scrambled like young monkeys. They parted
+their long elf-locks with their hands, and stared at the strangers with
+wild, black eyes. Mr. Sanchez conducted them to an unoccupied house,
+which he said would be at their service during the festival for quite a
+good sum. There was no hotel, and this seemed the best thing to be done.
+It had evidently been suddenly cleared for the unexpected guests, and
+some of the utensils and furniture remained. The priest pointed out with
+pleasure a gaudy print of the Virgin. There were strings of red peppers
+drying on the outer wall, and a great olha, or decorated water-pot,
+within, but there was no bedding or food. The gentlemen, however, had
+each brought with them army blankets, and Mr. Sanchez offered to act as
+their commissary and skirmish for provisions. He presently returned,
+followed by a woman carrying a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> bowl of stewed beef and onions, and a
+boy driving a donkey, whose panniers were filled with melons. This, with
+some coffee, which the officer made over a spirit-lamp, and some
+crackers contributed by Mr. Armstrong, constituted their supper, which
+hunger made palatable.</p>
+
+<p>After this refreshment they mounted to their roof and watched the
+preparations for the festivities of the next day. Mr. Sanchez pointed
+out the entrance to the <i>estufa</i>, or underground council-chamber, into
+which the young men of the tribe were disappearing for the celebration
+of mysterious pagan rites.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought the Pueblos were Roman Catholics," Mr. Armstrong remarked.</p>
+
+<p>The Catholic priest shook his head sadly. "Our converts have always
+remained half pagan," he said; "the early missionaries were content to
+engraft as much Christianity as they could on the old customs, thinking
+that the better faith would gradually supplant the old, but the old
+rites and ceremonies have remained. Still we must hesitate to say that
+the Fathers did wrong, since it was the only way to win the savages to
+the holy faith."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The priest strolled away to visit the church and to find a Mexican
+brother who was to celebrate Mass on the next day. The church was a
+ruinous building which stood apart from the others. The army officer
+told of the siege which it sustained during the Mexican War, and pointed
+to the indentations made in its walls by cannon-balls.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was such a strange one that Jim slept but little. All
+night long he could hear the dull beat of the tom-toms in the <i>estufa</i>,
+and as soon as the first streak of dawn illumined the sky the pueblo was
+awake and all excitement. Indians from neighboring towns poured in, some
+on foot, and others mounted on ponies or donkeys.</p>
+
+<p>In the plaza stood a great pole resembling a flag-staff, but instead of
+a banner there dangled from the top a live sheep and a basket of bread
+and grain, with a garland of fruits and vegetables. The church bell was
+clanging for Mass, and Jim followed the others. An old Mexican priest
+was the celebrant, and a few young Indians in red cotton petticoats and
+coarse lace overskirts waited upon him awkwardly as altar-boys. When the
+Host was elevated, an Indian at the door beat the tom-tom, and four
+musket-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>shots were fired. The priest then marched down the centre of the
+church, followed by the altar-boys, one of whom bore a hideous painting,
+which Mr. Sanchez assured them was painted in Spain by the great
+Murillo, and might be had, through him, for a trifling sum. The
+congregation joined in the procession and followed to the race-track,
+where games, races, and dances were participated in by fifty young men
+of Taos against fifty from other pueblos. The sports were witnessed by
+fully two thousand spectators, who swarmed along the terraces, and
+formed a packed mass of men, women, children, horses, and donkeys around
+the race-track. There was a group of visitors standing near our
+travelers, who regarded the races with intense interest. It consisted of
+an old man dressed in white linen blouse and trousers, with a red
+handkerchief knotted about his gray locks, an obese and not over cleanly
+old lady in full Indian toggery, and a young girl in a pink calico
+dress, with a black shawl over her head and shoulders. They watched one
+of the runners with the most intense excitement, and when he came off
+victor in several of the contests, their enthusiasm knew no bounds.
+"That old man is the Gov<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>ernor of the pueblo of &mdash;&mdash;," said Mr. Sanchez.
+"It is his son who has just stepped out to lead the corn-dance. The
+daughter, little Rosaria, is pretty, is she not?" He approached her as
+he spoke, with easy assurance, and taking her by the chin, made some
+remarks in the Pueblo language intended to be complimentary; but the
+girl twisted herself from his grasp with hot indignation; and Sanchez
+returned, grumbling that since she had been to the Ramona School at
+Santa F&eacute; she was too much of a lady to speak to anyone. Jim was standing
+beside her; and sure, from her manner, that she understood English, he
+asked her to explain the corn-dance to him. She did so, very kindly, and
+the hunt-dance which followed, when the painted clowns brought out
+grotesque clay images, and after adoring them fired at them, and
+shattered them in fragments, the crowd scrambling for the pieces. The
+young man who had been pointed out as the Governor's son secured a
+piece, and brought it to the girl in triumph. "That is the ear of a
+wolf," she said. "It means that he will have success in the south; we,
+who have been taught better, do not believe these old charms any more."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The last thing on the programme was the climbing of the pole for the
+sheep, which was finally won by a young brave of Taos.</p>
+
+<p>There was racing on ponies afterward by young Indians and Mexicans, but
+this was informal, and not included in the rites of the day. The young
+girl looked at the races enviously. "My brother ought to win there," she
+said, "for we had the swiftest ponies of any of the Pueblos, and ought
+to have them, for our pasture lands are the best, but we have sold
+nearly all our live-stock, and the pastures are no longer of any use to
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong overheard this remark, and asked Rosaria if her people
+would be willing to rent their lands. She conferred with her father in
+the Pueblo language, and Mr. Sanchez immediately joined in the
+conversation, talking volubly to the old man, and translating to Mr.
+Armstrong. "He says you are welcome to return to his pueblo with him,"
+explained Mr. Sanchez, "and he will call a council of his townspeople to
+deliberate on your proposition."</p>
+
+<p>There was more conversation, and it was decided to accept the Governor's
+invitation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> Mr. Armstrong engaging Mr. Sanchez to go with them and help
+him in the transaction. This seemed to him the only thing which he could
+do, since he did not understand the language, and the Governor seemed to
+place confidence in the trader. The party set out the next morning for
+San &mdash;&mdash;, Mr. Armstrong and Jim in Mr. Sanchez's wagon, and the Governor
+and his children following on diminutive donkeys. Several days elapsed
+before the bargain could be made. The Indians were very suspicious of
+being entrapped into some fraud, and it needed all of Mr. Sanchez's
+eloquence to persuade them that the arrangement would be to their
+advantage. Mr. Armstrong had told Mr. Sanchez that he was willing to pay
+fifteen hundred dollars for the rental of the land for three years, and
+that he (Sanchez) might deduct his fee for services from this sum. "Then
+if I can persuade them to let you have the land for twelve hundred,"
+asked Mr. Sanchez, "I may claim three hundred for my assistance in the
+matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a pretty round fee," replied Mr. Armstrong, "but it does not
+matter to me who has the money. The land is worth fif<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>teen hundred
+dollars to me, and if you can persuade the Indians to take less, so much
+the better for you."</p>
+
+<p>Jim was much interested in the negotiations. He sat beside Mr. Armstrong
+in the council-chamber, trying to make out from the expressive gestures
+what it was that the Indians were saying, and sometimes it seemed to him
+that Mr. Sanchez did not translate correctly. At such times he went out
+to where Rosaria stood by the open door listening, with other children.
+She translated for him the treaty as Mr. Sanchez read it, and he was
+astonished to find that it offered the Indians only three hundred
+dollars as rent for their land, the wily Sanchez having reserved twelve
+hundred as his own share.</p>
+
+<p>"But Mr. Armstrong is willing to pay your people fifteen hundred," Jim
+protested to Rosaria, and the girl slipped into the council-chamber just
+as the Governor was about to sign the paper, and snatched it from his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true," she asked of Mr. Armstrong, "that you are willing to pay
+more for our land? Mr. Sanchez offers us but three hundred dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong, surprised at the man's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> effrontery, acknowledged that he
+was ready to pay more, while Sanchez, furious at seeing his opportunity
+slipping from him, poured upon Rosaria all manner of abuse, and
+threatened Mr. Armstrong that unless he held to his bargain to allow him
+whatever margin he could make he would spoil the trade for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a pretty affair!" said Mr. Armstrong to Jim. "You had better
+have kept quiet and let the old swindler feather his nest. Now I fear
+that I shall not be able to make any bargain with the Indians."</p>
+
+<p>"But it was not right, was it," asked Jim, "that the Indians should have
+so little and Mr. Sanchez so much?"</p>
+
+<p>"The proportion does seem unfair," Mr. Armstrong admitted to Jim; but he
+added, to Sanchez, "I hold to my part of the bargain. I will give you
+whatever margin you can make between their demands and fifteen hundred
+dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez attempted to regain his lost advantage, but all this time
+Rosaria had been talking excitedly, explaining to one after another of
+the Indians, now pointing to the figures in the treaty, now scornfully
+at Sanchez, arguing, entreating, scolding, and when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> the trader began
+his defense of her charges, laughing him to scorn. The Governor put an
+end to the altercation by tearing the treaty in pieces and ordering two
+stout Indians to lead Sanchez from the room. He then bade Rosaria tell
+Mr. Armstrong that fifteen hundred dollars was the very least that they
+were willing to take for their land.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong bowed, and replied that he would think over the matter. He
+expected to have an opportunity to discuss it with his agent, but when
+he left the council-chamber he saw his wagon on the road to <ins class="correct" title="Sante">Santa</ins> F&eacute;, at
+a long distance from the pueblo, and was handed the label from a peach
+can, on the back of which was scribbled:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"That boy of yours is too smart to live; the plaguey Indians have
+given me an hour to leave their reservation. Manage your own
+concerns without the help of&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="right">Sanchez."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The bargain was accordingly struck without the aid of a middle-man, and
+Mr. Armstrong was conceded the right to pasture his cattle for three
+years in consideration of the sum of five hundred dollars, to be paid in
+advance at the beginning of each season.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> Mr. Armstrong was much amused.
+"It has turned out all right," he said to Jim, "but you must acknowledge
+that it was really none of your business, and I would advise you, in
+future, not to meddle in matters which do not concern you."</p>
+
+<p>"I will try," Jim replied, much abashed. "I ought to have told you
+instead of Rosaria, and you would have fixed it all right," he added,
+cheerfully. "I ought to have known that you wouldn't have let the
+Indians be cheated."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong felt the reproach in the undeserved confidence. Here was a
+companion who was a sort of embodied conscience. It was not always
+profitable to have a conscience in business, and yet there was something
+satisfactory and refreshing in the way in which this affair had
+terminated. "They say 'honesty is the best policy,'" he said to himself;
+"I wonder if this little fellow would not be a Mascot to bring me good
+luck. I have a notion to make him my partner in some of my risky
+ventures; Providence seems to smile upon him and his principles; perhaps
+if I make my good-fortune his as well, it will smile upon me." What he
+said to Jim was this: "You seem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> fond of a wild western life, Jim, and
+of the Indians. Our business among the Pueblos is ended. We are going
+back to Colorado. I have a notion to show you what the Colorado Indians
+are like. They are Utes, and they do not live in houses, like the
+Pueblos, but rove about in a perfectly savage manner; they are not
+peaceful and industrious, like the Pueblos, but lazy and ugly. I do not
+think that they are susceptible of civilization. I would as soon think
+of educating a coyote as a Ute.</p>
+
+<p>"Now the Utes possess some of the best mining lands in Colorado, but
+will never develop them; so it seems to me better that they should be
+removed to the desert lands, which are worthless for purposes of
+civilization, and let the whites have their opportunity. I have my eye
+on a gulch which I discovered while hunting in the San Juan Mountains
+four years ago, and which I mean to pre-empt just as soon as we get the
+Utes to give up their present reservation and pack off to Utah. We shall
+go back that way, and I will show you the spot."</p>
+
+<p>Jim opened his eyes very wide. He did not quite comprehend what Mr.
+Armstrong had said. Surely he could not mean to de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>fraud the Indians in
+any way! He would doubtless pay them the worth of their mine, and if
+they liked the ready money better than the trouble of mining the silver
+for themselves it would be all fair.</p>
+
+<p>At Antonito Mr. Armstrong left the railroad, provided himself with a
+span of horses, a wagon, camping outfit, and a brace of greyhounds, and
+struck out through the Ute reservation for the mountains. He told some
+gentleman whom he met at Antonito that he proposed to enjoy a little
+coursing for antelope; but there was a set of surveyors' instruments in
+the wagon, which proved that he intended to locate the mine which he had
+come across during his previous visit. His acquaintance attempted to
+discourage his making the trip alone, saying that the Utes had been
+restless of late, owing to a failure in receiving their supplies from
+Government, and it was hardly safe to approach their reservation.</p>
+
+<p>"You need not be afraid of the Utes," another gentleman replied. "I knew
+their old chief, Ouray, and was entertained once in his house&mdash;a neater
+farm-house than many a white settler can show, and I was hospitably
+waited upon by his wife, Chipeta, who gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> me peaches from their own
+orchard, and saleratus biscuit, and when I saw the familiar yellow
+streaks in them, and tasted the old chief's whisky, I had to confess
+that the Indian was capable of civilization."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong laughed, but the first speaker bade him be careful, for
+all the Utes were not like Ouray, who had so well earned his title of
+the White Man's Friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, after he had driven out of sight of the
+last human habitation&mdash;"now at last we can breathe! What do you think of
+it, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know the world was so big," the boy replied; "these must be
+the Estates del Paradiso which Miss Prillwitz talks about. Why, there's
+room for all New York to spread itself out, and every child to have a
+yard to play in. It seems a little bit lonely," he added, after a pause.
+"I should think you would have liked to have had some of those gentlemen
+go with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you see, Jim," Mr. Armstrong replied, "I am going to hunt up that
+silver mine, and I had a little rather not share the secret with any one
+but you. Besides, I like the loneliness. I grow very tired of people
+sometimes, Jim, and it seems good to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> get away from them. Don't you ever
+feel so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mother did," Jim said. "She likes helping at the Home very much, but
+she got a little tired just before the young ladies sent for her to go
+to the seashore, and she came across one verse in the Bible which
+sounded so beautiful. It was, 'Come ye yourselves apart into a desert
+place and rest awhile, for there were many coming and going, and they
+had no leisure so much as to eat.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know they had such hurrying times down in Galilee," Mr.
+Armstrong replied, lightly. He was in good spirits, and they drove a
+long distance that day, camping at night by a small stream, in which he
+caught some fine trout. As Jim curled up close to him under the army
+blanket, Mr. Armstrong felt a slight tremor run through the boy's frame.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" he asked. "Are you afraid? We are still miles away
+from the Indians."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't the Indians," Jim replied, "but it's all so still! I don't
+hear horse-cars, nor the Elevated, nor people passing, nor nothing. Down
+at the Pier it was something like this, but there was always the sea;
+and at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> pueblo there were the dogs; while here it seems as if
+something had stopped."</p>
+
+<p>"'All the roaring looms of time,'" Mr. Armstrong replied, quoting from
+Tennyson, "have stopped for a little while for us, my boy, and that's
+the beauty of it. But the old machines will have us in their grip again
+very soon."</p>
+
+<p>The next day Mr. Armstrong enjoyed a rabbit hunt. Jim, though he took
+part in the sport, could hardly be said to enjoy it. "It seems such a
+pity to kill the pretty things!" he said. But this did not keep him from
+making a hearty meal of broiled rabbit, or from hoping that they might
+find antelope before the trip was over. The loneliness which he had felt
+the night before came on again toward evening, and Jim was not sorry, on
+their third day out, to see that they were approaching a new frame
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"An old half-breed guide used to have a tepee here," said Mr. Armstrong;
+"I shall engage his services for our trip. He is a good cook, a good
+hunter, faithful to his employers, and he knows every rock and clump of
+sage-brush in all the region. His only fault is that he will get drunk.
+He was with me when I found the silver ore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> and I need him to guide me
+to the spot again."</p>
+
+<p>As they came nearer, Mr. Armstrong seemed greatly surprised to see a
+large field of waving corn in front of the house, while some cows were
+being driven toward an out-building by a young Indian in checked shirt
+and brown overalls.</p>
+
+<p>"What can have come over old Charley!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong. "When I
+was here before, nothing would induce him to degrade himself by farm
+labor. Some boomer must have established himself here. It's illegal, for
+the land still belongs to the Indians."</p>
+
+<p>They drove up to the front door, and were met by the same young man whom
+they had seen driving the cows, but the overalls were replaced by a
+faded pair of army trousers, and a paper collar had been hastily added
+to the checked shirt. He bade them enter, in good English, and the
+interior of the house was clean and inviting. The walls were papered
+with newspapers, a bright patchwork quilt was spread upon the bed, and a
+pleasant-faced girl was frying ham and eggs over the stove; while there
+was a shelf of books over the table. An Indian woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> emerged from a
+shadowy corner and expressed a welcome by <ins class="correct" title="pantomine">pantomime</ins>.</p>
+
+<p>"Is not this Charley's wife?" Mr. Armstrong asked, and the woman smiled
+and nodded her recognition.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your husband?" was the next question. "Charley no good," was
+the wife's frank reply; "gone hunting with white men."</p>
+
+<p>This was a disappointment that Mr. Armstrong had not anticipated; he was
+not sure that he could find his way to the silver mine without Charley's
+help, but it was worth trying. The odor of the frying ham was
+appetizing, and the invitation to supper was promptly accepted.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you Charley's son?" Mr. Armstrong asked of the young man, who
+presently brought in a foaming pail of milk, and assisted his mother and
+sister in waiting on their guests.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," was the prompt reply, "and my name is Charley too&mdash;Charles
+Sumner."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong stared in astonishment. "Where did you learn to speak
+English so well?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"At the Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are one of Captain Pratt's boys?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," and a smile lightened the somewhat stolid features. Mr.
+Armstrong did not believe in Eastern schools for Indians, and he asked,
+rather sarcastically, "And what did you learn when you were in the
+East&mdash;Latin and Theology?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy shook his head. "I learned to work on the farm," he said, "and
+to read and write, and do a little arithmetic; and I learned some
+carpentry&mdash;enough to build this house, and make that table, and the
+cupboard and things."</p>
+
+<p>"Very creditable, I am sure," Mr. Armstrong replied, half incredulously,
+"but how did you come into the fortune necessary to set you up in this
+flourishing style?"</p>
+
+<p>"I helped build the new depot at S&mdash;&mdash;, and they paid me off with the
+lumber that was left, and I built the house out of that. Then I had some
+money which I had put in the savings-bank from my earnings every
+vacation in the East, and I bought the cows with that; and then I made a
+churn, and we've been making butter the way I saw them do it in
+Pennsylvania, and I sell it for a good price at the Springs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you have more stuff in you than I ever thought it possible for an
+Indian to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> have," Mr. Armstrong replied, fairly won, in spite of
+himself, to admiration. "I always supposed that those Carlisle students,
+as soon as they returned to old surroundings, went back to savagery."</p>
+
+<p>"It is pretty hard for us," the boy replied. "Last year I planted about
+three times as much corn as you see here. I had taken a contract to
+supply the quartermaster at Fort &mdash;&mdash;, and I thought I should make a
+good deal of money; but just as it was green, all of our relations came
+to see us. There were ten families. They camped there by the creek, and
+they stayed until they had eaten every roasting ear. They said they had
+come to celebrate my home-coming, and father made them welcome, and gave
+a dance, and killed one of our cows for them. They would have killed
+them all, but I drove them off into the mountains, and hid them. That is
+the reason I have planted so little corn here this season. I have
+another field over in a little valley in the mountains which I hope they
+will not find, and I drive the cattle up the ca&ntilde;on every morning, for
+they may be here any day."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor fellow!" said Mr. Armstrong. "I have heard the proverb, 'Save
+us from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> our friends!' but I never understood the full force of it
+before."</p>
+
+<p>After the hearty meal the little house was put at the service of the
+travelers, the family camping outside, and, much to Mr. Armstrong's
+contentment, they passed a comfortable and restful night. The next
+morning Mr. Armstrong asked Charles Sumner if he was familiar with the
+mountains, and could guide him to a certain valley, which he indicated
+as having a chimney-like formation at one end.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly," the young man replied; "don't you remember I was with
+father when he took you hunting four years ago? He killed an eagle that
+had her nest on a ledge high up on the chimney, and I climbed up for the
+young ones."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah yes, I remember now, but you were such a little fellow then that I
+could not realize the change."</p>
+
+<p>"I grew more at Carlisle," said the young man, significantly, "than at
+any other time of my life. We all grew at Carlisle."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will take us to the chimney," Mr. Armstrong asked, "and cook
+for us while we are out? What will you charge?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I ought to ask you any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>thing, sir, for there is good
+pasturage thereabout, and I can drive my cows along, and herd them there
+until after the visit of our relatives. My sister is going to B&mdash;&mdash; with
+all the green-corn that the ponies can carry, so when they come they
+will find mother, and very little else. The valley in which my other
+corn is planted is in that direction, and perhaps you will let me bring
+some of it in your wagon when we come back?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles Sumner rode cheerily beside them on a diminutive pony, driving
+his cows and the pack pony, and chatting freely of many things.
+Sometimes Jim sprang from his seat to make him change places and rest
+awhile. The pony had a fascination for Jim, and he speedily learned from
+Charles Sumner how to manage it, and to "round up" the herd of cows and
+calves. The young Indian taught him, also, how to make arrows, and to
+shoot with them, to picket the horses, and to use the lasso, to make
+camp coffee, and to set up and take down the tepee, or tent of buffalo
+hide, which the pack-pony dragged between long poles.</p>
+
+<p>"You would like to be a cow-boy, wouldn't you, Jim?" Mr. Armstrong
+asked, but Charles Sumner shook his head. "Cow-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>boys are no good," he
+said, emphatically; "they shoot Indians as if they were wild beasts.
+Better stay in the East, where the white people are good. I wish I
+could, but the Government insists that as soon as we are educated we
+must go back to our reservations. I wish it would let us stay and earn
+our living in the East, where it is so much easier to stay civilized."</p>
+
+<p>Jim, on the other hand, was delighted with everything he saw. "If all
+the boys in Rickett's Court could only come out here!" he exclaimed,
+"and ride, and herd cows, and hunt, and camp out, and all the Indian
+boys could only go East, and go to school, and work at trades&mdash;how nice
+it would be!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong admitted that the change might be good for both, but while
+speaking they came in sight of the chimney-shaped pinnacle, and he
+hastily unpacked his theodolite and other instruments, and began to take
+angles, and to jot down memoranda.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the first time that I have ever seen a surveyor on the Ute
+reservation," said Charles Sumner, "and I think that our troubles will
+be ended sometime by that little machine. Just as soon as the
+Government<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> divides up our land and gives each Indian his own share,
+then each good Indian will cultivate his own farm, and will have some
+heart to work. How can he now, when the land belongs as much to every
+lazy Indian in the tribe as to himself? O sir, is it possible that the
+Government has sent you to begin this division?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong confessed that his observations were made only for his own
+amusement. He was surprised to find that the young man had such advanced
+views on the "land in severalty" question, and he asked whether any of
+the other Indians of the tribe shared his opinions.</p>
+
+<p>"There are a good many who have staked out farms and are cultivating
+them, just as I have," he replied, "but we know that we have no right to
+the land, and may be turned out any day, whenever bad white men persuade
+our chiefs to give up this reservation and move away to the bad lands in
+the West."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong winced a little under the earnest, questioning look with
+which Jim regarded him. To turn his train of thought he said, "There is
+the old eagle's nest on the ledge still, Charles Sumner. Can you climb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>
+up there to-day as nimbly as you did four years ago?"</p>
+
+<p>For answer, the young man threw himself from his pony and began to
+ascend the cliff. It was very steep, but he chose his way cautiously,
+seizing each point of vantage in the way of a crevice or projection. He
+had almost reached the nest when he paused, looked away to the
+southward, and began rapidly to descend. "There is a band of Utes coming
+over the divide," he said; "I think it would be as well for us to go a
+little further up the valley." He hurriedly collected his herd, and
+drove them before him through a pass into a long, shady gorge. Mr.
+Armstrong followed with the team. "This is the place!" he exclaimed,
+excitedly, as they entered the ravine. "It was in this little ca&ntilde;on that
+I found the silver. A vein cropped right out to the surface, and I
+filled my pockets with the ore. I set up a buffalo skull to mark the
+spot. There it is&mdash;at the foot of that pine. It must have rolled down,
+for I placed it higher. Hold the reins, Jim, while I scramble up the
+bank and see if I see any signs of the vein." With the agility of a
+younger man, Mr. Armstrong climbed the steep bank, and came down with
+his hands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> filled with crumbled ore. "It is there, fast enough," he
+said, triumphantly; "if it were not on the Indian reservation I would be
+the owner of that mine now. They cannot hold the lands long, and when
+they are opened to settlement this ca&ntilde;on shall be ours, Jim. You say you
+would like to live a western life. If your mother, of whom you seem so
+fond, is of the same opinion, you shall pre-empt a claim here, and I
+will take one just beside you, and between us we will own the mine. You
+don't understand it, my boy; but I have taken a fancy to you, and I mean
+to make your fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"And will this ravine be my very own?" Jim asked&mdash;"mother's and mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my boy; and I am curious to see what you will make of it, and what
+you will make of yourself while you are waiting to come into your
+possessions. I mean to put you in the way of getting a good practical
+education, which shall be of use to you out here."</p>
+
+<p>"And can I learn surveying?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and mining engineering and assaying and mechanics, and all that."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what Lovey Dimple would like to learn too. Can he come with me?
+He'd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> invent a machine right off to dig the silver just as easy."</p>
+
+<p>"We will see, Jim. I would like to give him a good turn for his father's
+sake; but don't take too many into our company, or we shall have to
+water the stock too freely."</p>
+
+<p>They had nearly reached the head of the gorge, and they found that
+Charles Sumner had paused, and had corraled his cows in a little natural
+amphitheatre, where they were resting contentedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I must watch them pretty sharply," the Indian explained, "for the corn
+I told you about is in the next valley, and if they should get into
+that, they would be as bad as our relations. Just walk to the top of the
+hill, Mr. Armstrong, and see what a nice field of it I have over there."
+Mr. Armstrong returned bringing an armful of fine roasting ears, but
+Charles Sumner thought it best not to build a fire until the party of
+Utes had passed, and they sat down to a cold supper of canned baked
+beans. After supper Jim had a long talk with Charles Sumner, and
+ascertained that the young man had fixed his heart upon making this
+particular section his home farm as soon as the reservation should be
+divided in severalty among the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> Indians, which he hoped would happen
+before many years.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Jim, "you think that the white people will never have a
+chance to come in here and take up land?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think they ought to be allowed to do so, when the land is ours?"
+Charles Sumner asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't," Jim replied, promptly. "I think it is really yours, and
+you ought to keep it; and I'll just tell you a secret about this ca&ntilde;on.
+It is worth a great deal more than you know. There is a silver mine in
+it, and I'll show you where, and you had just better go back East and
+study the best way to mine silver, and then when you get your claim you
+will know how to work it. I wish you would take me in as your partner,
+for Mr. Armstrong is going to have me taught all about mining. He
+thought he might pre-empt this mine for me, but, of course, when he sees
+that it really belongs to you, he will not want to, unless, perhaps, you
+would like to sell out your right in it."</p>
+
+<p>Jim had spoken so rapidly that he did not notice that Mr. Armstrong had
+approached, and was listening with an astonished expression to what he
+was saying.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Jim, are you crazy?" Mr. Armstrong exclaimed, as soon as he could
+recover himself. "Don't you see that you are throwing away your chances?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," Jim replied, with a smile, "I hadn't any chance at all. You
+didn't know, but it all belongs to Charles Sumner."</p>
+
+<p>Their conversation was interrupted by a whoop in the valley below. The
+band of Utes had discovered the traces of their last camp, and had
+followed their trail into the ca&ntilde;on.</p>
+
+<p>"Drive over into the next ravine!" said Charles Sumner; "they will camp
+here when they find my cows. Wait for me just below the corn-field, and
+I will join you as soon as I can. They will not hurt you if they find
+you, but they will beg and steal everything."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong hurriedly followed Charles Sumner's advice, and was joined
+about midnight by the young Indian, who drove before him three cows, all
+he had been able to rescue from a herd of twelve.</p>
+
+<p>The young man wiped his brow with a despairing gesture. "They were
+ugly," he said. "Some Durango cow-boys have been pasturing their cattle
+on the reservation, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> they insisted that my cows were a part of the
+herd, and that the owners were somewhere near. If they had found you,
+they might have treated you roughly. I think we had better get away
+while they are feasting."</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to Mr. Armstrong that it looked very much as if Charles
+Sumner had saved their lives at the sacrifice of his property, and a
+feeling of gratitude and liking sprang up in his heart for the young
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what I shall do," the Indian continued, dejectedly. "It
+doesn't seem to be any use to try to be civilized in this country."</p>
+
+<p>"No, my poor fellow!" replied Mr. Armstrong, "it really does not. In
+your place, I think I should go back to the blanket and be a savage with
+the rest. I will tell you what to do: come East again with your mother
+and sister. I will let you try farming on a piece of land which I have
+taken a fancy to in Massachusetts, where you will not have these
+discouragements. When the land question is settled, you and Jim shall
+come back here and form a partnership. If it is divided in severalty to
+the Utes, then I will establish your right to the ca&ntilde;on, and you shall
+take Jim in as your partner; and if it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> opened to the whites for
+settlement, he will take up the land and give you a share in it."</p>
+
+<p>This proposition was accepted by Charles Sumner and his sister, the
+mother preferring to remain with her husband. After establishing the
+young Indians in Massachusetts, Mr. Armstrong brought Jim with him to
+Narragansett Pier.</p>
+
+<p>A short space must now be given to Milly and Adelaide, who, though
+mingling in a very different class of society, had an experience that
+summer not unlike our own. Mrs. Roseveldt gave a lawn-party at the
+beginning of the season to organize a tennis club. Tennis was the rage
+that season. Many of the cottages had tennis courts, and the different
+players wished to plan for a grand tournament at the end of the season.
+A pretty uniform was designed of white flannel, the skirt embroidered
+with a deep Greek fret in gold thread, and laid in accordion pleats. A
+little jacket lined with gold-colored silk, and embroidered in the same
+pattern, was to be worn over the shirt waist, and a gold-colored sash
+ending in a tassel, with a white Tam o'Shanter, completed the costume.
+Milly had planned that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> Mrs. Halsey should have the making of these
+costumes while at the Pier.</p>
+
+<p>A fund was contributed with which to purchase a trophy for the prize
+player. It rose quickly to a hundred and fifty dollars, and a meeting
+was held to decide what the trophy should be. Most of the members
+thought that a gold pin in the shape of a racket, with a pearl ball,
+manufactured by Tiffany, would be the correct thing, and this idea would
+certainly have been adopted if Milly had not turned the current by a
+neat little speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure," she said, "that we do not want to vulgarize our club by
+making it professional, and a prize of any great money value would
+certainly do this. So I move that the prize be a simple wreath of laurel
+tied with a white ribbon, on which the date of the tournament and name
+of the club be printed." The members all agreed that this would be in
+better form, but asked what was to be done with the money already
+contributed. Then Milly rose to the occasion, and flung out the banner
+of the Home.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems as if we had no right to be romping in this delicious fresh
+air while poor children are gasping in the vile smells of the city."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Fresh-Air Fund and the Working Girls' Vacation Society were both
+popular charities, and were proposed by different members as proper
+recipients of our funds. Milly was ready to agree to this, but one young
+man, supposed until that day to be a mere gilded youth, without an idea
+above his neckties, suggested that it was always pleasanter to be the
+distributer of one's own benefits, and moved that the club get up a
+little Fresh-Air Fund of its own. "We might rent a cottage down here and
+send for a dozen or so young beggars, and take turns in caring for
+them."</p>
+
+<p>A general laugh followed this remark. "What would you do, personally,
+Mr. Van Silver?" asked one of the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"I would put my coach and four-in-hand at the service of the
+enterprise," he said, "and make myself expressman and 'bus driver. I'd
+take the children out to drive every day, for one thing."</p>
+
+<p>Everyone insisted that they would like to see him do it, but he
+persisted until they were convinced of his sincerity. Mr. Van Silver's
+patronage had given an aristocratic stamp to the enterprise, and some
+one now proposed that they rent a cottage for the children for the
+season.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Milly then explained that Adelaide had already fitted up her cottage for
+the purpose, and was expecting an invoice of children by the next day.
+Adelaide invited the party to visit the cottage that afternoon, and the
+entire club climbed to the top and interior of Mr. Van Silver's coach;
+Mr. Stacy Fitz-Simmons, the whilom drum-major of the Cadet band, blowing
+the coach horn for all he was worth.</p>
+
+<p>They found a park overgrown into a forest, in the depth of which stood a
+pleasant cottage, with broad verandas, which once commanded a beautiful
+view of the glistening bay, with Newport in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to have some of these trees cut away, so as to leave a vista
+through to the water," Adelaide explained.</p>
+
+<p>They entered the house, and found it renovated from the mold and decay
+with which ten years had encumbered it, sweet and fresh with new paint,
+and papering of pretty design. Light and graceful ratan furniture and
+chintz hangings added to the beauty of the room, simple straw mattings
+covered the floor. It was as lovely a home as heart could wish.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have done all I can afford," Adelaide said, simply, "and if the club
+would like to use this cottage for their city children it is at their
+service, but first Milly wants to entertain the younger children of the
+Home of the Elder Brother here for a couple of weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"And we will each of us take his or her turn for a week," said Mr. Van
+Silver; and so the "Paradiso Seaside Home" was provided for.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Halsey came with the children. From the moment that she left the
+station she seemed to be in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>"It all looks so familiar!" she exclaimed; "I am sure I have been here
+before! There is something caressing in the feeling of the damp air, as
+though it kissed my cheek like an old friend. And the scent of the
+salt-water! I remember it so well; and shall we hear the surf? Oh, when
+was it, where was it, that I knew it all?"</p>
+
+<p>When they drove into the grounds she shook her head. "No, it was not
+this place," she said, with a wistful look in her eyes; "there were no
+trees." But at the first glimpse of the house a trembling seized her,
+and she could hardly mount the steps.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> Within doors a puzzled expression
+came into her face.</p>
+
+<p>"It is familiar, yet unfamiliar," she said. "I cannot be sure. If I
+could only see some face that I had known before, then I could tell."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the face will come," Adelaide said; and it came.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks later Mr. Armstrong returned with Jim from the western trip,
+and came down to the Pier to make the visit which his daughter so
+greatly desired. Adelaide had driven to the station <ins class="correct" title="f r">for</ins> them in Milly's
+pony carriage, Jim mounted to his old place on the rumble, Mr. Armstrong
+settled himself for the drive, and Adelaide took the reins.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to take you around by the cottage, papa," she said. "I want
+to show you what I have done there, and how happy the Home children
+are."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Armstrong drew himself up, as though wincing from some sudden pain.
+"I did not intend to go there again, daughter," he said; "I shall miss a
+face at the window."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, papa&mdash;the cameo; but she would have been glad to see the
+cottage used as it is."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They turned into the drive, and Mr. Armstrong nerved himself for the
+sight of his old home. Suddenly he cried out, and caught his daughter's
+arm. "Is it only memory, or have I lost my senses? The face is there!"</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide laughed reassuringly. "I don't wonder that it gave you a turn,
+papa; it did me, too, when I saw the same sight in Miss Prillwitz's
+window last winter, but it is only dear Mrs. Halsey looking out for us."</p>
+
+<p>"Then thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, leaping from the vehicle and
+hurrying forward. "Do you not remember me? my own!&mdash;my wife!"</p>
+
+<p>His wife remembered: the veil which had blinded her for years fell at
+the sight of her husband's face.</p>
+
+<p>Happily the shock had not been as sudden as it seemed; during the time
+which she had spent in the cottage the conviction had grown upon her
+that this had been her home. She had asked Adelaide its history, and
+learning that it had been built for her mother, who had been drowned in
+the great steamboat disaster, a hope had sprung up in her heart, which
+she dared not express to any one, that she had found her own again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+Adelaide had said that she expected her father, and Mrs. Halsey waited
+only to see his face to be assured of the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide's delight at finding that Mrs. Halsey was her lost mother, and
+Jim her brother, was genuine and intense. "I knew, all the time, that
+Jim was somebody's child," she exclaimed, incoherently. "It is all too
+good to be true! too good to be true!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jim deserves a better father than he has found," said Mr. Armstrong,
+"and by God's grace he shall have a better.</p>
+
+<p>"It is too bad to break up this nice little arrangement of a summer home
+for the poor children," he added, "and I will allow the cottage to be
+used for this purpose just so long as the tennis club desire to maintain
+it; but I must have my wife. Please remember that we have been parted
+from each other a very long time. I am going West next week, and I must
+take her with me; and it will not do Adelaide any harm to have a glimpse
+of the great West before we send her to school in the fall. Jim has had
+as much of the West as he can stand at present, and we will leave him in
+the best school that we can find."</p>
+
+<p>"But what shall we do for a housekeeper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> for the cottage?" Adelaide
+asked, in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Trimble has just left the hospital, fully recovered, but I have no
+doubt she would prefer to run your little enterprise rather than to
+return to the store; and as I have deprived you of your housekeeper I
+don't mind paying Mrs. Trimble to supply her place for the remainder of
+the summer. It will do Mr. Trimble good, too, to complete his
+convalescence here, and perhaps in the winter they will accept the
+janitorship of your tenement."</p>
+
+<p>"My tenement!" Adelaide replied, in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I intend to give you the management of this property, which I have
+always considered your own. You have a matter of twenty thousand dollars
+insurance money, which, with the ten thousand which I have deposited to
+your name in the savings bank, you may use in erecting a model tenement
+on the site of the old Rickett's Court building. I think I shall have
+some more money for you to put into the enterprise if the patent works
+well. I shall give Mr. Trimble a share in the profits of that invention
+over and above the five thousand dollars already paid him, but I think
+that he would like one of your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> suites of rooms in return for acting as
+janitor and agent of the building, and it will not interfere with his
+teaching mechanics to the boys at the Home."</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, papa," said Adelaide, "I like the plan of engaging Mr.
+Trimble as janitor, but I would rather be my own agent and collect the
+rents myself; then I can see just what improvements are needed, and be
+sure that my tenants are all comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>For the remainder of their stay in the East the Armstrongs busied
+themselves with architects' plans and specifications. Adelaide enjoyed
+planning the bathrooms and conveniences of different kinds. "And the
+paving-stones must be taken up in the court," she said, "and a nice
+grass-plot laid out in their place, and we will have pretty iron
+balconies before every window, and a fire-escape."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, daughter," replied her father, "I will make you a present of that,
+outside the other matters&mdash;the very best kind of fire-escape to be found
+in the city; and, while we are about it, I will send one to the Home of
+the Elder Brother."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide's interest in her tenement did not wean her away from the Home,
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> I have since observed that it is always those who, seemingly, are
+already doing as much as they can in the way of charity who are always
+ready to lend a helping hand to other enterprises, and that it is the
+earnest workers of little means, as well as the wealthy philanthropists,
+who</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"To the ages<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair bequests, and costly, make."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Armstrongs went West, and Adelaide created an interest for the Home
+in her new surroundings, while Milly kept up the enthusiasm of the
+tennis club at the Pier. That club flourished in a manner unheard of,
+heretofore, in a place where everyone was so busy doing nothing that
+even the exertion of tennis had been voted a bore. It was not tennis,
+however, that kept them together, or gave the members their bright,
+jolly looks, but the Paradiso Cottage.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For we may find a zest<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In any true employ<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which, like a whetstone in the breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall give an edge to joy."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But while we all worked in our different ways, it was our corresponding
+secretary who was the clasp to the necklace, or rather,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> the central
+battery which sent currents of life pulsating through the connecting
+wires. The scapegrace who plotted and schemed mischief, she who had
+erstwhile reveled in the name of "the malicious, seditious,
+insubordinate, disreputable, skeptical Queen of the Hornets," had become
+a wise and enterprising central manager of a helpful charity.</p>
+
+<p>The summer vacation is over, and we have all met again for another
+winter at Madame's; Amen Corner and Hornets all filled with a fine
+enthusiasm for our work, and a deep, true affection for one another.</p>
+
+<p>The Home rests, we are told, on very slender foundations. There is no
+financier as a backer, no estate, no great endowment, nothing to ensure
+its existence from year to year but the hearts and hands of ten young
+girls. Nothing else? They forget that we have behind us and with us the
+Elder Brother, with all the estates del Paradiso.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"By each saving word unspoken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Thy will, yet poorly done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Hear us, hear us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou Almighty! help us on."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">THE END.</p>
+
+<div class="tn">
+
+<h3><a name="TC" id="TC">Transcriber's Corrections</a></h3>
+
+<p>Following is a list of significant typographical errors that have been corrected.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, "Celeste's" changed to "Céleste's" (position at Madame Céleste's).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, "insistance" changed to "insistence" (on her insistence).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, "ochestra" changed to "orchestra" (led her orchestra).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, "Vicenzo" changed to "Vincenzo" (and Vincenzo Amati).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, "pictture" changed to "picture" (I've made a picture).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, "any one" changed to "anyone" (of anyone else).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, "Winnnie" changed to "Winnie" (replied Winnie).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, "formerely" changed to "formerly" (which formerly groaned).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, "salvages" changed to "savages" (barbarous savages).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, "Amstrong" changed to "Armstrong" (Mr. Armstrong evaded).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, "Sante" changed to "Santa" (road to Santa Fé).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, "pantomine" changed to "pantomime" (welcome by pantomime).</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, "f r" changed to "for" (station for them).</li>
+
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Witch Winnie, by Elizabeth W. Champney
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,7960 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Witch Winnie, by Elizabeth W. Champney
+
+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: Witch Winnie
+       The Story of a King's Daughter
+
+Author: Elizabeth W. Champney
+
+Release Date: December 2, 2010 [EBook #34551]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITCH WINNIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Patrick Hopkins and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+- Illustration captions in {brackets} have been added by the transcriber
+for reader convenience.
+
+- The position of some illustrations has been changed to improve
+readability.
+
+- Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. These
+minor errors include extra or missing commas, periods, and quotation
+marks (" and ').
+
+- Significant typographical errors have been corrected. A full list of
+these corrections is available in the Transcriber's Corrections section
+at the end of the book.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: {Cover: Witch Winnie
+     The Story of a King's Daughter
+        Elizabeth W. Champney}]
+
+
+
+
+             WITCH WINNIE.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: {Woman lowers basket
+    from window to three men waiting
+              below.}]
+
+
+
+
+             WITCH WINNIE
+
+    THE STORY OF A "KING'S DAUGHTER"
+
+                  BY
+
+         ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY
+
+               NEW YORK
+
+         DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+
+              PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1889, by
+WHITE AND ALLEN
+
+Copyright, 1891, by
+DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+
+THE BURR PRINTING HOUSE
+New York
+
+
+
+_DEDICATED TO_
+MY LITTLE WITCH MARIE.
+
+    Where she's been the sunshine lingers,
+      She's my witch and she's my mouse;
+    She has helpful, fairy fingers,
+      Busy keeper of the house.
+
+    She is tricksy and she's elfish;
+      Sure no plague could e'er be worse;
+    She is thoughtful and unselfish,
+      She's my gentle angel-nurse.
+
+    All their jokes the brownies lend her,
+      She's a merry, mischief thing;
+    But her heart is very tender--
+      She's a Daughter of the King.
+
+    Yes, there's something nice about her,
+      And I'll love her till my death;
+    No, I could not do without her--
+      I'm her ma, Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  CHAPTER                                                      PAGE
+
+        INTRODUCTION,                                             9
+
+     I. BOARDING-SCHOOL SCRAPES,                                 11
+
+    II. GUINEVERE'S GOWN,                                        30
+
+   III. THE PRINCESS,                                            50
+
+    IV. COURT LIFE,                                              63
+
+     V. LITTLE PRINCE DEL PARADISO,                              79
+
+    VI. MRS. HETTERMAN THROWS LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY,              90
+
+   VII. WINNIE'S CONFESSION,                                    109
+
+  VIII. THE ELDER BROTHER AND MRS. HALSEY'S STRANGE STORY,      123
+
+    IX. THE KING'S DAUGHTERS AND THE VENETIAN FETE,             139
+
+     X. THE LANDLORD OF RICKETT'S COURT,                        162
+
+    XI. THE GUESTS OF THE ELDER BROTHER,                        189
+
+   XII. WITH THE DYNAMITERS,                                    212
+
+  XIII. THE KING'S DAUGHTERS IN THE COUNTRY,                    225
+
+   XIV. OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY,                            246
+
+    XV. THE ESTATES DEL PARADISO,                               302
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+It is but just to explain that, while all of the characters introduced
+in this little story are purely imaginary, the founding of the Home of
+the Elder Brother was suggested by the work of some real children,
+younger than Madame's pupils, who gave a little fair, and, helped by
+charitable people, instituted a lovely charity, the Messiah Home for
+Little Children, at 4 Rutherford Place, New York City. This Home still
+opens its doors to the children of working-women, and is helped by
+different circles of King's Daughters, some of whom have adopted
+children to clothe. It is a beautiful work, founded by children for
+children, and it is hoped that others all over the land will join in it,
+and that the work may broaden until no such dens as Rickett's Court will
+remain in our fair city or country.
+
+                                                           E. W. C.
+
+
+
+
+WITCH WINNIE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BOARDING-SCHOOL SCRAPES.
+
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Winnie.}]
+
+We never had any until Witch Winnie came to room in our corner.
+
+We had the reputation of being the best behaved set at Madame's, a
+little bit self-conscious too, and proud of our propriety. Perhaps this
+was the reason that we were nicknamed the "Amen Corner," though the
+girls pretended it was because the initials of our names, spelled
+downward, like an acrostic--
+
+    _A_delaide Armstrong,
+    _M_illy Roseveldt,
+    _E_mma Jane Anton,
+    _N_ellie Smith--
+
+formed the word _amen_. But certainly the name would not have clung to
+us as it did if the other girls had not recognized its fitness in our
+forming a sanctimonious little clique who echoed Madame's sentiments,
+and were real Pharisees in minding the rules about study-hours, and
+whispering, and having our lights out in time, and the other lesser
+matters of the law which the girls in the "Hornets' Nest," Witch
+Winnie's set, disregarded with impunity.
+
+And verily we had our reward, for Madame trusted us, and gave us the
+best set of rooms in the great stone corner tower, overlooking the park,
+quite away from the espial of the corridor teacher. They had been
+intended for an infirmary, but as no one was ever sick at Madame's, she
+grew tired of keeping them unoccupied, and assigned them to us.
+
+Sometimes the other girls annoyed us by making calls in study-hours, and
+we virtuously displayed a placard on our door bearing the inscription,
+"Particularly Engaged." It caught Witch Winnie's eye, as she strolled
+along the hall, and she scribbled beneath it,
+
+    "The girls of the Amen Corner
+      Would have us all to know
+    That they're _engaged_, each one engaged--
+      Particularly so."[A]
+
+[A] This incident is borrowed from an actual occurrence.
+
+We hardly knew whether to be amused or vexed at this sally of Witch
+Winnie's. We acknowledged that it was bright, but we deplored her
+wildness, and had no idea how much we should love her in time to come.
+After all, our reputation as model pupils had a very slender foundation.
+It rested chiefly on Emma Jane's preternatural conscientiousness. The
+night that the cadet band serenaded our school, some of the pupils,
+presumably the girls in the "Hornets' Nest," threw out bouquets to the
+performers. Rumor said that when Madame heard of this she was greatly
+shocked.
+
+"I don't see how she can punish them for it," said Adelaide; "there's
+nothing in the rules about not giving flowers to young men. Still, it
+was a dreadful thing to do, and Madame is ingenious enough to twist the
+rules some way, so as to 'make the punishment fit the crime.' I am glad
+the Amen Corner is guiltless."
+
+Then we marched into chapel on tiptoe with excitement to see Madame
+wreak vengeance on the wrong-doers. Witch Winnie sat behind me, and
+turning, I saw that she looked pale, but resolute.
+
+Madame rose in awful dignity, her wiry curls, which Milly said reminded
+her of spiral bed-springs, bristled ominously.
+
+"Young ladies," she exclaimed, in a sharp tone of command, "you may all
+rise." We rose.
+
+"If you turn to the printed rules of this institution," she continued,
+"you will find under Section VII. the following paragraph--'Pupils are
+not allowed to disfigure the lawn by _throwing from the windows_ any
+bits of paper, hair, apple-parings, peanut shells, or waste material _of
+any kind_. Scrap-baskets are provided for the reception of such matter,
+and any pupil throwing _anything from her window upon the school
+grounds_ will be regarded as having committed a misdemeanor.'"
+
+An impressive silence followed, in which Witch Winnie gave a sigh of
+relief, and whispered to Cynthia Vaughn, "We're all right; we didn't
+disfigure her precious lawn. The bouquets never touched the ground. I
+lowered them, with a string, in my scrap-basket (just where she says we
+ought to have put them), and the drum-major took them out and
+distributed them to the other boys."
+
+"Young ladies," Madame continued, in tones of triumph, "those of you who
+have not broken this rule within the past week may sit down."
+
+We all sat down--all but Emma Jane Anton, who remained in conspicuous
+discomfort. Adelaide pulled her by the basque, "Sit down!" she
+whispered; "Madame doesn't mean you."
+
+Emma Jane stood like a martyr while Madame regarded her through her
+lorgnette with astonishment depicted on every feature.
+
+"If you committed this infringement of the rules at any time other than
+last evening you may sit down."
+
+Emma Jane remained standing.
+
+"Then," said Madame, drawing herself up frigidly, "Miss Anton, you may
+explain: what was it you threw out?"
+
+"Madame," replied Emma Jane, "the window was open--we were listening to
+the music--and a bat flew in; and, Madame, he would not stay in the
+waste-paper basket, and so, Madame, I threw him out."
+
+Every one laughed; discipline was forgotten for the moment, until Madame
+rapped smartly on the desk and called for order. She complimented Emma
+Jane highly on her conscientiousness, but she looked provoked with her
+all the same, while Witch Winnie, who was stuffing her handkerchief into
+her mouth, nearly went into convulsions.
+
+After the sketch which I have endeavored to give of Witch Winnie, and
+the position which she occupied at Madame's, I trust that we, as
+self-respecting pupils, will not be too severely blamed when I confess
+that we received, with great disfavor, Madame's announcement that Winnie
+was henceforth to room in the Amen Corner.
+
+The bedrooms at Madame's boarding-school were clustered in little groups
+around study-parlors, five girls forming a family. For a long time there
+had been only four in our set. Emma Jane Anton, who preferred to room
+alone, had the little single bedroom; Adelaide and Milly were chums;
+while I, Nellie Smith, familiarly nicknamed Tib, had luxuriated so long
+in the large corner chamber that I had almost forgotten that Madame
+told me, at the outset, that I must hold myself in readiness to receive
+a room-mate at any time.
+
+Adelaide Armstrong was the daughter of a railroad magnate. She had been
+brought up in the West, but, though she had traveled much, and had seen
+a great deal of society, her education had not been entirely neglected.
+She had studied a great deal in a desultory way, and contested the head
+of the class with Emma Jane Anton, who was a "regular dig," and had
+prepared for college in the Boston public schools.
+
+It was really surprising how Adelaide had picked up so much. She had
+studied Latin with a priest in New Mexico, and had profited by two years
+at a lonely post on the confines of Canada, where her father had been
+interested in the fur trade, to become proficient in French. Strikingly
+handsome, a brunette with brilliant complexion and Andalusian eyes,
+energetic and spirited, she was popular both with her instructors and
+her classmates.
+
+Milly Roseveldt was her exact contrast--a milky-complexioned little
+blonde, shy and sweet; she was also a trifle dull. Adelaide translated
+her Latin, and worked out her problems, and I wrote her compositions,
+while Milly rewarded us with largesses of love and confectionery, for
+she was the most generous as well as the most affectionate of girls. Her
+father, a wealthy New York banker, placed large sums of money at her
+disposal, and Milly deluged her friends with gifts of flowers and
+bonbons. It seemed very natural to me that Adelaide and Milly should be
+sworn friends; but my admittance into the sacred circle was a mystery to
+me, and to a number of aspiring girls who asserted that I was nobody in
+particular, and who envied me my place in my friends' affection. My
+presence in the school itself was almost as great a wonder. My father
+was a Long Island farmer. We opened our house to city boarders during
+the summer, and one season Miss Sartoris, the teacher in Art at
+Madame's, boarded with us. I had taken drawing lessons at the Academy,
+and Miss Sartoris took me out sketching with her. I worked like a
+beaver, and was never so happy in my life. I delighted Miss Sartoris,
+who wakened mother's ambition by telling her that I was the most
+talented pupil she had ever had. More than this: we three induced good,
+easy-going, generous father to let me go back to the city with Miss
+Sartoris as a pupil at Madame's. My wardrobe was meagre, but not
+countrified, for I possessed a natural sense of color and a quick
+faculty for imitation. I had seen plenty of city people at Scup Haven,
+and my few dresses, I fancied, would pass muster anywhere. I was a fair
+scholar, and took the lead in the studio. I was not brilliant and
+stylish like Adelaide, or rich and pretty like Milly, but they liked me,
+and I liked myself the better for the consciousness that there must be
+something nice about me which attracted them. I believe now that it was
+an absence of self-consciousness and selfishness on my part, and my
+hearty admiration and devotion to them. Adelaide called me, playfully,
+"the great American Appreciator."
+
+It was just before the theatricals given by our literary society that an
+incident occurred which showed me how much they really thought of me. We
+three were arranging the stage; I was touching up the scenery, and Milly
+holding the tacks for Adelaide, who was looping the drapery, when we
+overheard the conversation of a group of girls on the other side of the
+curtain.
+
+Cynthia Vaughn was the first to speak.
+
+"I think Adelaide Armstrong is perfectly splendid!"
+
+"So do I," said another; and there was a chorus of confused voices
+exclaiming, "So stylish!" "Perfectly elegant!" "The handsomest girl in
+school!"
+
+Adelaide left her work and placed her hand on the curtain, but Milly
+threw her arms impulsively around her. "Let us hear what they will say,"
+she whispered; "when they are through we can pull the cord, and all bow
+thanks."
+
+By this time other voices were chanting Milly's praises, and Adelaide
+turned reluctantly away, remarking, "Well, if you enjoy that sort of
+thing, you are welcome to it. I should not be surprised, by the way they
+are loading it on, if they knew we were here."
+
+They did not know it, for at that instant Cynthia Vaughn spoke up again,
+"I don't see what they find to admire in that pokey Lib Smith."
+
+"I should think Milly would be ashamed to be seen with her," said
+another; "her dresses always remind me of a chicken with its head
+through a hole in a salt-bag."
+
+Adelaide sprang forward with flashing eyes to confront the speaker, but
+this time it was I who held her back. "Let them say their say," I
+whispered, hoarsely, while Milly cowered, trembling. "I believe her
+mother makes her dresses at home," said Witch Winnie; "and, as she can't
+have Tib to try them on, she fits them on her grandfather."
+
+There was a hearty laugh at this sally, and another added: "I don't see
+how Adelaide can endure her, she is so stingy. Have you noticed that the
+girls place a fresh bouquet at her plate every morning? and I never
+could find out that she ever gave either of them so much as a single
+flower."
+
+Adelaide nearly writhed herself from my grasp, but I held her tightly.
+"Milly," she gasped, "are you a coward, to stand there and hear our
+friend reviled so? Can't you stop them?"
+
+The blood surged into Milly's pale cheeks, and she sprang before the
+curtain. "Girls," she cried, "how can you talk so? Nellie Smith is our
+dearest friend. She is not one bit stingy; she gives us more than we
+have ever given her. Because she does not parade her presents on the
+breakfast-table is no reason that she has not given me lots and lots of
+things, and no girl can consider herself my friend who talks so about
+our darling Tib."
+
+Here Milly broke down in tears, and Witch Winnie exclaimed, "Good for
+you, Milly Roseveldt; I didn't know you had so much spunk!" But at this
+point we all fled to the Amen Corner, and bolted the door, refusing to
+admit Witch Winnie, who impulsively shouted her apologies through the
+keyhole.
+
+"Oh, Milly!" I cried, "what made you tell a lie for me? I never gave you
+a thing." And I might have added, "How could I, when my allowance for
+spending-money is hardly sufficient to keep me in slate-pencils?"
+
+But Milly stopped my mouth with kisses, and pointed to sundry original
+works of art with which I had decorated her apartment, and declared,
+besides, that helping her on that last horrid composition was a greater
+gift than all the roses in Le Moult's greenhouse.
+
+So we of the Amen Corner disliked Witch Winnie and loved each other, all
+but Emma Jane Anton. We could not be said to exactly love her; we
+tolerated her in our midst, in spite of her uncongenial nature, because
+we took pride in her eminent respectability, and in the higher average
+of reputation for creditable scholarship and exemplary behavior which
+she gave to our corner. But love her! We might as well have tried to
+love an iceberg.
+
+Witch Winnie arrived on Adelaide's birthday, and was a most unwelcome
+birthday present. Emma Jane Anton had obtained permission for us to
+celebrate the occasion by sitting up an hour later that evening. Milly
+had ordered a form of ice-cream and a birthday-cake from Mazetti's, and
+we had invited in a half-dozen friends to share the treat. As a damper
+on this beautiful fete, Madame had called us into her private study that
+afternoon, and had told us that she had decided to assign Witch Winnie
+as my room-mate. She did not scruple to tell us her reasons for doing
+so. Winnie (according to Madame) was the head-centre of a wild set of
+"ne'er-do-weels" who roomed in the top of the house, "a perfect hornets'
+nest under the eaves," Madame said. Madame felt that if the queen hornet
+was taken away, the rest would be more amenable to discipline, and that
+Winnie, placed among such proper and well-behaved girls as we were,
+would herself feel our beneficial influence.
+
+"I think," said Madame, "that if you knew Winnie's history you would
+understand her better. Her parents were both very talented and highly
+imaginative people. Her father is a playwright of reputation, who
+married a very lovely young actress who had sustained the leading part
+in several of his plays. They were tenderly attached to each other. Mrs.
+De Witt had great dramatic talent; she made it the study of her life to
+realize his conceptions, and succeeded to his perfect satisfaction. She
+said that she so lived in her part that frequently she forgot her own
+personality, while Mr. De Witt was always cudgeling his brains to invent
+new plots, situations, and characters for his wife. Mrs. De Witt died
+when Winnie was but three years of age. The child has lived with
+different relatives, and has been spoiled and neglected by turns, but
+never quite understood. I have studied her carefully, and think I see in
+her a combination of both parents. She has her father's highly organized
+imaginative nature, but instead of constructing plots for plays, it
+develops itself in plots for scrapes. She delights in dramatic
+situations, and is a natural and unconscious actress. Her father hopes
+that she may never adopt the stage as her profession, for it was that
+life of mental and physical strain which killed Winnie's mother.
+Something remarkable in organization or in action the girl will
+certainly be, and as she takes her color, like a chameleon, from her
+surroundings, or, rather, her cue from the other actors, I have great
+hopes for your influence over her."
+
+Madame's confidences made little impression upon our prejudice. We
+listened in silence, and, returning to our rooms, held an indignation
+meeting, in which Emma Jane led. Adelaide, who ought to have sympathized
+with the neglected orphan, for she had lost her own mother when a little
+girl, and who did find in this fact a bond of fellow-feeling later on,
+now ignored all her claim for pity, and chose to feel that we were all
+grossly insulted. Milly pitied me the enforced companionship, several of
+us were in tears, and in the midst of it all Witch Winnie appeared. The
+clatter of voices sank to sudden silence, and the new-comer, looking
+from face to face, instantly understood the situation.
+
+"If you feel half as badly as I do, girls," she said, with a merry
+laugh, "I'm sorry for you; I wouldn't intrude on you in this way if I
+could help it. Madame tells me you are to have a spread to-night, and
+have invited your particular friends. It's too bad she wouldn't let me
+put off moving till to-morrow morning. I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll
+sit in the recitation-room and cram for examination until the party is
+over. Of course you don't want me, a perfect stranger to your friends;
+it isn't to be supposed you would."
+
+Emma Jane Anton looked relieved. "We provided for a limited number," she
+explained; "if we had known that we were to have the honor of your
+company--"
+
+But Adelaide interrupted her instantly. "Sit in that dismal
+recitation-room while I am having my birthday party! Indeed you shall do
+nothing of the sort!" while Milly came gallantly to the rescue, assuring
+her that she had ordered more ice-cream than they could possibly
+consume, and I did the best I could to make Winnie believe that she was
+welcome.
+
+The girls appeared _en masse_ as soon as the bell struck for the close
+of evening study-hour--congratulations were offered to Adelaide, and
+Winnie was introduced. All made extravagant efforts to be gay and
+sociable, but there was a certain constraint, a forced quality, in it
+all, which had for its reason something beyond the fact of an unwelcome
+addition to the Corner: the refreshments had not arrived. Mazetti had
+forgotten to send them. There stood the study-table neatly spread with a
+table-cloth borrowed from the steward's department, and set with
+saucers, spoons, and plates, all disappointingly empty.
+
+Adelaide tried to carry off the situation as an immense joke. Milly
+alternated between hope and despair, fancying each noise of wheels the
+confectioner's cart. The guests showed their disappointment plainly,
+some confessing that they had slighted the evening prunes and rice in
+anticipation of this treat. And I heard Cynthia Vaughn whisper that it
+was a very cheap way to give a party--to pretend that there had been a
+mistake. At this juncture I suddenly noticed that Witch Winnie had
+disappeared.
+
+A few moments later a loud knocking, or kicking, for it was evidently
+bestowed with feet instead of hands, was heard at the door. "Let me in,
+girls!" cried Witch Winnie's voice--"let me in, quick! before Madame
+catches me." We opened the door, and Witch Winnie burst in, and sat
+laughing on the floor; from her dress, which had been gathered up in
+her hands, and had served as a market-basket, rolled a quantity of paper
+bags and parcels--lemons, bottles of olives, sugar, mixed pickles,
+crackers, sardines, macaroons, nuts, raisins, candy, etc., etc.
+
+"Help yourselves, girls," she chuckled. "We'll have the spread, after
+all. I have been around the corner and bought out Mr. Beeny's little
+grocery." Then broke in a chorus of voices--
+
+"How did you ever get out of the house?"
+
+"Was Cerberus asleep?" (Cerberus was our nickname for the janitor.)
+
+"How very sweet of you!"
+
+"But how extravagant!"
+
+"O girls! these pickled limes are too lovely for anything."
+
+Adelaide appeared with her ewer. "I'll make the lemonade," she said, and
+began rolling the lemons with Milly's curling-stick, while Emma Jane
+Anton manipulated the can-opener with energy and success. Each girl flew
+to her room for her tooth-mug, and we drank Witch Winnie's health in
+brimming bumpers of lemonade.
+
+"How did you ever manage it?" Milly asked again.
+
+"I climbed down the fire-escape." Witch Winnie giggled.
+
+"But you had to drop twelve feet onto the sidewalk!"
+
+"What of that? I've done it in the gymnasium from the trapeze many a
+time."
+
+"But you never came back that way?"
+
+"Hardly. I rang the basement bell, and when Cerberus said he'd tell
+Madame, I made him a present of three packages of cigarettes and some
+Limburger cheese, and I am quite certain that he will never say a word."
+
+Witch Winnie's generosity and good-fellowship had won the day. From that
+moment we took her into our hearts.
+
+The ice-cream which Milly had ordered arrived the next day, but we were
+all too ill to touch it; we had feasted without restraint on our new
+chum's bountiful but somewhat heterogeneous repast, and were paying the
+penalty with rousing headaches, but in our fiercest pangs we were still
+ready to declare that if there ever was a trump it was Witch Winnie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+GUINEVERE'S GOWN.
+
+
+Aristocratic Adelaide was now as deeply attached to "that little witch"
+Winnie as she had been prejudiced against her, and Winnie, who had
+hitherto spoken of her new friend as "that stuck-up Armstrong girl," was
+now her devoted admirer.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Adelaide.}]
+
+Although this state of affairs was perfectly agreeable to the Amen
+Corner, it was not equally so to the Hornets. They had endured Winnie's
+removal as a piece of Madame's tyranny, had looked upon their Queen as a
+martyr, and had taken it for granted that we would make things extremely
+uncomfortable for her. They perceived, with astonishment, that we
+welcomed her heartily, and when it dawned upon them by degrees that
+Winnie was herself happy in the change, that she actually promenaded in
+the corridor with an arm lovingly twined about the waist of that odious
+Tib Smith, that the placard "Engaged" appeared as frequently on the
+outer door of the Amen Corner, and that Winnie's lessons and behavior
+improved so much that she was actually becoming a favorite with the
+teachers instead of their special torment--the indignation of the
+Hornets' Nest knew no bounds.
+
+It showed itself in a practical joke originated by Cynthia, which might
+have been very amusing had it not been spiced with malice. I have spoken
+of our literary society and its projected entertainment. We were to have
+a series of tableaux; among others, Guinevere kneeling before an altar.
+Milly had been chosen to represent Guinevere on account of her beautiful
+hair, and because she spent her Saturdays and Sundays at home, and could
+have any costume arranged for herself. What was our disappointment, one
+Monday morning, to receive a note from Milly saying that she would not
+be able to take part in the entertainment, as her mother was going to
+Washington for a fortnight, and had decided that, as Milly looked pale,
+a little outing would do her good. This note was read to the literary
+society amid groans from the members. "We can't give up that tableau."
+"Adelaide, _you_ take the part." "Can't; my hair is as black as a crow's
+wing. Tib's hair is lovely when it is down. It falls to her knees, and
+it has the sheen of molten gold. Girls, you must see it," and Adelaide
+proceeded to pull my braids apart; I protesting all the time that it was
+absurd to have a freckled Guinevere who was as homely as a hedge fence.
+
+"Granted," replied Witch Winnie, "but nobody is going to see your face,
+child; you pose with your back to the audience, and as none of the girls
+know what regal hair you have, it will be such fun to have them guess
+who it is."
+
+All of the other girls joined in persuading me, excepting one of the
+Hornets, who lifted her voice in favor of Cynthia Vaughn.
+
+"But, girls, what am I to do for a costume?"
+
+"Why didn't Milly think to send hers along?" said Adelaide. "We might
+write her."
+
+"No, there's no time; she leaves this morning on the 'limited.'"
+
+"If you would like, I'll take the part," Cynthia Vaughn suggested. "I've
+all that canton flannel ermine, and the ruff made out of the old window
+curtains, which I wore when I was Queen Elizabeth."
+
+"That ruff would be a frightful anachronism," said Emma Jane Anton.
+
+"And the ermine has served three times already. Thank you, we'll manage
+somehow," Witch Winnie asserted, confidently.
+
+We retired to the Amen Corner to talk it over. "If worse comes to
+worst," said Witch Winnie, "I know I can make a magnificent train out of
+the plush table-cloth in Madame's library."
+
+"But how will you ever get it?"
+
+"Emma Jane must ask her to lend it to us; she'll do anything for Emma
+Jane."
+
+"Emma Jane declines to act in this emergency," said Miss Anton, firmly.
+
+"You wouldn't be so mean!"
+
+"But I would; Adelaide, please read Milly's letter again; I didn't half
+hear it."
+
+"I must have dropped it in the Society hall; I will get it after dinner.
+If she had thought that Tib might be chosen to take her place, she
+would have done anything for the honor of the Amen Corner."
+
+Here some one tapped at the door, and announced, "A letter for Miss
+Armstrong."
+
+"It's from Milly!" exclaimed Adelaide, "and it looks as if it had been
+opened, and pasted up again."
+
+"I thought Madame boasted that she never submitted her young ladies to
+that sort of espionage," said Witch Winnie.
+
+"Girls, girls!" Adelaide fairly shrieked; "just listen to this! Milly
+writes--
+
+     "'I forgot to say in my last that mamma's maid is putting the
+     finishing touches to my costume, and Gibson will bring it around
+     to-morrow. The dress (purple velvet) is one which mamma wore last
+     summer when she was presented to the Queen. The lace which trims it
+     was made to order from a pattern of her own selection in Brussels.
+     You may keep the crown, for the gems in it are only Rhinestones.
+     Aunt Fanny wore it at a costume ball, and they sparkle like the
+     real thing. Be careful of the lace, for mamma prizes it highly.
+
+                                        'Yours, Milly.
+
+     'P. S.--I've coaxed papa to lend you a silver chatelaine, old
+     French repousse, linked with emeralds, which he keeps in his
+     cabinet of curiosities. It shows finely against the velvet.'"
+
+How we all exclaimed and chattered! "Now what will the Hornets' Nest say
+to that?"
+
+"Canton flannel ermine indeed!"
+
+"I should like to see them bring on their old mosquito-netting ruff!"
+
+"Real emeralds! A diadem flashing with diamonds!"
+
+"Don't tell them a word about it until Tib dawns on them in all her
+glory on Wednesday night."
+
+It was hard to keep this resolution, but we did. The Hornets were
+giggling and whispering among themselves as we marched in to dinner,
+with all the importance given by the possession of a state secret. The
+other girls relapsed into silence as we took our seats, and watched us
+with strange, significant looks.
+
+"I've been looking up the matter in Racinet's work on Costume," remarked
+Cynthia Vaughn, "and I find you were right, Miss Anton; ruffs did not
+come in until long after Arthur's reign."
+
+"I would like to consult the book," Emma Jane replied, "unless you can
+tell me whether chatelaines were worn at that period."
+
+Here a small Hornet was seized with strangulation, and had to be
+vigorously thumped upon the back by her friends.
+
+"Oh, I think so," Cynthia replied, sweetly, disregarding her friend's
+condition. "Wouldn't it be sweet to have Guinevere wear one? Miss Smith
+is so artistic, I'm sure she could cut one out of gilt paper."
+
+Adelaide scouted the idea. "Whatever we get up for that costume," she
+said, "I am determined shall be _real_, no _imitation_ chatelaines, or
+anything else."
+
+Cynthia lifted her eyebrows. "Perhaps you will secure one of Queen
+Victoria's court robes?" she remarked, icily.
+
+It was on Adelaide's lips to reply that we might have a robe which had
+figured at a court reception of the English Queen, but she felt Witch
+Winnie's foot upon hers, and replied that in undertaking this tableau
+the Amen Corner felt confident that they could carry it through
+creditably, and we therefore begged to be excused from the dress
+rehearsal that afternoon. We left the dining-room in a body, and the
+Hornets laughed aloud before we closed the door. "'They laugh best who
+laugh last,'" said Witch Winnie. "Won't those girls fairly expire when
+they see Tib in her grand role!"
+
+Tuesday was a long and weary day for us. We started at every knock,
+expecting a summons to the janitor's room to receive a package, but none
+came. We retired much disappointed; and we held a council of war before
+breakfast. The Roseveldts' butler had evidently proved false to his
+trust, and the costume was waiting for us at the family mansion on Fifth
+Avenue.
+
+"I will ask Madame at breakfast to excuse me from my morning lessons to
+do an important errand," said Witch Winnie; "I will tell her the entire
+story, and I know that, rather than disappoint us all, she will let us
+go to the Roseveldts' for the things."
+
+Madame proved to be in good-humor, and on reading Milly's letter readily
+gave Winnie and me the desired permission, sending for a hansom to take
+us to our destination. All of the Hornets at the lower end of the table
+heard this conversation, and Adelaide thought that Cynthia Vaughn turned
+green with envy. An hour later, as we came down the front stairs to take
+our hansom, Cerberus popped his head from his office to tell us that a
+package had just been received for Miss Adelaide Armstrong. "Come back,
+girls!" Adelaide cried excitedly; "here is the costume. It can be
+nothing else. My, what a big bundle!"
+
+We carried it between us in triumph up the staircase. The Hornets were
+clustered on the very top landing; their faces peered over the
+balustrade, and as they caught sight of our procession a peal of
+derisive laughter echoed through the hall as they scuttled away to their
+nest under the eaves.
+
+"Those Hornets have certainly gone crazy," Emma Jane remarked,
+practically. She was carrying her corner of the package, and was as
+interested as the rest of us in the arrival of the costume. We entered
+our study-parlor in suppressed excitement, and impatiently cut the
+knots, and tore open the wrappings, when, behold! another package,
+scrupulously tied. This paper removed revealed another, then another,
+and another, and the fact slowly dawned upon us that we had been
+victimized. "Girls!" exclaimed Witch Winnie, sitting down on the floor
+in despair, "it's a wicked sell of those Hornets: there is nothing
+here."
+
+Emma Jane Anton kept on methodically removing the wrappers and folding
+them neatly. "Perhaps," suggested Adelaide, "they have merely arranged
+this hoax to fool us, and the costume is still at the Roseveldts'."
+
+"It's just like that Cynthia Vaughn to do such a thing; we'll go, all
+the same," Witch Winnie replied, rising hopefully and tying on her veil.
+At this juncture Emma Jane reached a pasteboard box marked "Violet
+velvet court dress." Lifting the lid discovered a quantity of trash. An
+empty sardine-box bore the label "Diamond Crown;" a dilapidated bustle
+was marked "Brussels point lace;" a mixed-pickle bottle was filled with
+apple-parings and labeled "Old repousse chatelaine, reign of Arthur I.;
+the _real_ article; must be returned."
+
+A howl of mingled laughter and dismay rose from our corner. "Cynthia
+Vaughn wrote that letter which purported to be from Milly. Well, it's a
+real good practical joke, anyway," said Witch Winnie; "better than I
+thought the Hornets could get up without my help. Let us show them that
+we can take a joke, and good-naturedly acknowledge ourselves sold."
+
+"And in the mean time what am I to do for a costume? You know the
+tableaux come off to-night."
+
+"That puts another face on the matter."
+
+"I suppose Cynthia would be only too glad to take the part even now."
+
+"After all we have said, and your name printed on the programme--never!"
+This from Adelaide.
+
+"I'll tell you what we will do," suggested Winnie; "the hansom is still
+waiting at the door; Tib and I will drive to a costumer's and hire
+something. I found the address of a place on the Bowery the other day
+and fortunately saved it. Hold your heads up high; we will not
+acknowledge ourselves defeated yet."
+
+As Witch Winnie and I sped out of the quiet square and down the great
+teeming thoroughfare, the Elevated trains jarring overhead and the
+motley crowd surging about us, a misgiving of conscience swept over me.
+What would Madame say? This was not what we had obtained permission to
+do. This was very different from Fifth Avenue, and not at all a quarter
+of the city in which young ladies should be wandering without chaperons.
+
+We were quite desperate, however, and it seemed too late to turn back.
+The hansom stopped before a Hebrew misfit clothing store where dress
+suits were announced as on hire by the evening. Flaunting placards above
+told that costumes for the theatrical profession and for fancy balls
+were to be let in the fourth story. We climbed a dirty staircase, and
+after knocking by mistake at an intelligence office for _Dienst
+Maedchen_, a hair-dyeing and complexion-enameling rooms, a chiropodist's,
+and a clairvoyant's, we found ourselves in a room piled from floor to
+ceiling with costumes. A fat German, who looked as if he were some
+second-hand piece of furniture, very much soiled as to his linen, and
+the worse for wear as to his physical mechanism, admitted us and did the
+honors of the establishment. I glanced around at the motley objects
+which filled the wareroom; gaudy spangled dresses, with a sprinkle of
+saw-dust (suggestive of the arena) clinging to the worn cotton velvet,
+many-ruffled shockingly brief skirts of rose-colored gauze that had spun
+like so many teetotums behind flaring foot-lights, tinfoil suits of
+armor that had come in all mud-besplashed from parading the streets at
+the last grand procession, the faded banners which flapped above them
+so jauntily, drooping wearily now from the rafters, covered with dust
+and festooned by the spiders. A row of dominoes dependent from a
+neighboring clothes-line rustled with an air of mystery, and a heap of
+masks upon the floor seemed to leer and wink from their eyeless windows.
+
+"I am afraid," said Winnie, drawing nearer the door, "that you haven't
+anything so nice as I want."
+
+"I haf effery dings, effery dings," replied the ponderous costumer; "you
+don't t'ink I keeps dose fine procade for the costume ball out here in
+te tust, ain't it?"
+
+"I wanted something for a school entertainment," Winnie explained.
+
+"So, so; I haf effery dings, I tole you, for de school. Ya, from dose
+Kindergarten to dot universities. Dings for little peebles and dings for
+big peebles."
+
+"I should like to know what kind of big people patronize your
+establishment?"
+
+"Sometimes dose ladies who make de church fair. I have some angel wing
+for de Christmas mystery, de mask for de Muzzer Goose pantomine.
+Sometimes dose fine ladies dey make some peesness mit me. When de
+shentlemen step on dose trail or spill coffee on dot tablier, den I buys
+dot dress, and my designer she make it all new again. I haf one ferry
+nice designer; she haf many times arrange ze historical costume for dose
+grand painting what make ze artists."
+
+"Then I think I would like to talk with her," said Winnie.
+
+"Ya, ya, dat vas right. Here, Mrs. Halsey, Mrs. Halsey! Perhaps you
+petter go in de sewing-room, ain't it?"
+
+He opened the door into a back room where a sweet pale-faced woman sat
+sewing little bells on a jester's cap.
+
+We were struck from the outset with Mrs. Halsey's refined appearance,
+and we were not surprised when she showed, by her complete understanding
+of what we required, that she had read Tennyson and had some idea of
+historical periods in costume. She drew a purple velvet robe from a
+great bundle. I exclaimed in disapproval as I noticed a horrid crimson
+border.
+
+"But this is coming off," said the little woman, using her scissors
+briskly, "and instead, I will stitch some gold braid applique in a lily
+design. See, how do you like this effect?" and her deft fingers flew,
+coiling and twisting the gilt braid until a really regal combination was
+produced.
+
+"Then we will have it open at the side to show a white satin petticoat,
+also laced with gold, and the sleeves can be puffed and slashed with
+white satin. I arranged a costume like that for Mary Anderson."
+
+"Is it possible that such a noted and successful actress gets her
+costumes at a place like this?" asked Witch Winnie.
+
+"Oh, no," replied Mrs. Halsey, with a sigh; "when I made Miss Anderson's
+dresses I was designer for Madame Celeste's establishment. I should be
+there now if it were not for Jim."
+
+She was fitting the dress to me, and as this would take several minutes,
+Winnie asked,
+
+"Who is Jim?"
+
+"Jim is my son; he is twelve years old, and the brightest little fellow,
+for his age, you ever saw. He leads his classes at the public school,
+has a record of 100 in mathematics, for all that he has such a poor
+chance at preparing his lessons."
+
+"How does that happen?" It was I who inquired this time.
+
+"Jim is an ambitious boy; ambitious to help me as well as to keep a
+place in his class, and a milkman pays him a dollar a week for driving
+his cart over to Jersey City to meet the milk train and fill his cans
+for him every morning."
+
+"That is very nice."
+
+"If it did not break so cruelly into the poor boy's hours for sleep. In
+order to dress and snatch a bite before he goes down to the stable and
+harnesses, he has to rise at 3 o'clock. This enables the milkman to
+sleep until Jim arrives with the milk at 6 o'clock, in time to begin the
+morning rounds. I make the boy take an hour's sleep after this, but it
+is not enough."
+
+"He ought to go to bed very early."
+
+"Yes, but the lessons; when are they to be learned? He shouts them out
+in his sleep. 'If I gain seven hundred dollars from a rise of 2-1/2 per
+cent. in Pennsylvania Railroad stock, what was my original investment?'
+He has his father's quickness for figures. Bless his heart! he never had
+any money to invest in railroad stocks, and by heaven's help he never
+will."
+
+"I am not so sure about that," said Witch Winnie. "How did it happen
+that you lost your position at Madame Celeste's on account of Jim?" She
+had finished the fitting and was removing the pins from her mouth, but
+Winnie drew on her gloves very slowly; we were both interested.
+
+"Madame kept me for such late hours that I did not reach home until Jim
+was asleep, and at last she proposed to raise my salary, but said that I
+must sleep in the establishment, so as to be on hand to open early in
+the morning. This was after Madame's very successful winter, when she
+bought a house out of town, and did not find it convenient to come in
+until late in the day. I told her that I would accept her offer if Jim
+could be with me; but there was no room for him, and we thought it best
+to stick together. I get through here at 6 o'clock, and can cook Jim's
+dinner. But it's hard for the boy. If I could only afford to let him
+have his entire time for his study--but his dollar a week half pays our
+rent."
+
+"Wouldn't it have been better for you both if you had remained at Madame
+Celeste's, and had sent Jim to boarding-school? There are such nice
+cadet schools up the Hudson."
+
+A faint smile overspread the woman's face. "Madame always insisted that
+her employees should dress well. I know exactly what it cost me. It
+would have left just a dollar and a half a week for Jim. Do you know of
+any boarding-school that would have taken him at those rates?"
+
+Winnie sorrowfully confessed that she did not, and we reluctantly took
+our leave, Mrs. Halsey promising to finish the costume immediately, and
+to send it by Jim in ample time for the evening's performances.
+
+Our escapade lay heavily upon my conscience in spite of our success in
+obtaining the costume, but I felt still more troubled for poor Mrs.
+Halsey and her overworked boy. "I wonder," I said to Winnie, "if Madame
+could not make him useful here at the school, and let him work for his
+board, tend furnace and run errands."
+
+"You could not tell her about him without confessing our lark, and don't
+you do that for the world!"
+
+"No," I promised, against my will, "of course not, unless you consent;
+the secret is half yours, but I really think it would be the best way."
+
+Adelaide was greatly interested in our report. "I am to have my violin
+dress for the concert made at Madame Celeste's," she said, "and I mean
+to ask her about this Mrs. Halsey."
+
+Jim came with the package while we were at supper, and Adelaide ran down
+to the office to receive it. She told us that he was an undersized,
+stoop-shouldered boy, with a cough which she fancied he had contracted
+by driving in the early morning mists. He took off his hat like a little
+gentleman, however, and his finger-nails and teeth were clean. Any clown
+might wear good clothes, Adelaide insisted, but these little details
+marked the gentleman. He had at first declined the dime which Adelaide
+proffered, but accepted it on her insistence that it was only for
+car-fare and it was raining. He put it away carefully in a little worn
+purse which contained just one cent, at the same time remarking, "I
+don't mind the rain, and I can get Ma the quinine the doctor says she
+ought to be taking."
+
+"That's the boy for me," Witch Winnie remarked; "he's got clear grit,
+and tenderness for his mother besides."
+
+And Guinevere's gown? It was a beauty. The golden lilies gave it a
+sumptuous effect, and it fulfilled almost exactly the promises of the
+forged letter; there was even a _riviere_ of fish-scale pearls and
+glass beads down the side, which really resembled a chatelaine. The
+Hornets were overcome with amazement--simply dazzled and dazed.
+According to Adelaide--who always resorted to French to express her
+superlatives, and, when that language proved inadequate, pieced it out
+with translations of American slang or coinage of her own--they were
+"_Completement bouleversees, stupefiees, mortifiees, et frappee plus
+haute q'un--q'un--kite_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PRINCESS.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of the dear old lady.}]
+
+
+    That's the dear old lady,
+      In a green tabby gown
+    And a great lace cap,
+      With long lace ruffles hanging down.
+
+    There she sits
+      In a cushioned high-backed seat,
+    Covered over with crimson damask,
+      With a footstool at her feet.
+
+    You see what a handsome room it is,
+      Full of old carving and gilding;
+    The house is, one may be sure,
+      Of the Elizabethan style of building.
+
+                           --_Mary Howitt._
+
+Our interest in Mrs. Halsey and her son slumbered for a time; not that
+we forgot her, or gave up our determination to do something for Jim
+whenever the opportunity offered. It was soon to come, but our time and
+interest were filled with other things. Just now it was a mystery--and
+what so dear to a girl's imagination?
+
+It was brought up for discussion afresh, because Miss Prillwitz had said
+to Emma Jane Anton that the diadem which I wore as Guinevere was not a
+suitable one for a queen, but a rather nondescript arrangement half-way
+between that of a marquis and an earl.
+
+This assumption of authoritative knowledge in regard to coronets revived
+an old rumor as to the noble birth of Miss Prillwitz.
+
+No one could tell who first circulated the report that Miss Prillwitz
+was a princess. It developed little by little, I fancy, but when it
+began to be whispered we received it without a shadow of doubt. Miss
+Prillwitz was a prim little woman, who always came to Madame's
+receptions dressed in the same brocade dress, once gaudy with a great
+bouquet pattern, but now faded into faint pink and primrose on a
+background of silvery-green, with the same carefully cleaned gloves and
+fine old fan of the period of Marie Antoinette. She wore her perfectly
+white hair a la Pompadour, and further increased her diminutive height
+by French heels, but in spite of these artificial contrivances she was a
+tiny woman, though she had dignity enough for a very tall one. Adelaide
+said she had "the unmistakable air of a _grande dame_," and that she
+would have suspected her in any disguise. Milly had once spied, half
+tucked in her belt and dependent from a slender chain, a miniature, set
+in brilliants, of a handsome young man in uniform, a row of decorations
+on his breast, crosses and stars hanging from strips of bright ribbon.
+This was a great discovery, and Milly was sure that the original was no
+less a personage than Peter the Great. She had thought out a thrilling
+romance of true love crossed by jealousy and heartbreak, which the rest
+of the girls accepted as more than probable, until Emma Jane Anton
+suggested that as Peter the Great died in 1725, it would really make the
+princess much older than she appeared, to fancy that he was the hero of
+her girlhood. Emma Jane Anton always had a disagreeable faculty of
+remembering dates. The other girls were unanimous in the opinion that
+she knew entirely too much, and each one looked and longed for an
+opportunity of publicly detecting her in a mistake and correcting
+her--an opportunity which never came. Milly never made herself offensive
+by being certain of anything, and was loved and petted accordingly. The
+myth of a royal lover was a congenial one, and gained credence, though
+none of us dared to give him a name or date, at least not in the
+presence of Emma Jane Anton. No one had the temerity to question
+Adelaide's infallibility in detecting a great lady at first sight. It
+did not ever occur to Emma Jane Anton to ask how many princesses she had
+met, and what was the "unmistakable air" of distinction and nobility
+which announced them like a herald's proclamation. Perhaps this was
+because Adelaide herself possessed this grand air by nature, and was far
+more regal in appearance and feeling than many a Guelph or Stuart. Witch
+Winnie, perhaps because she was the mad-cap of the boarding-school, and
+was always getting into scrapes herself, snuffed a political plot, and
+suggested that the princess had been exiled on account of deep-laid
+machinations against one of the reigning families, a supposition which
+would account for her living in exile and disguise, and even in
+comparative poverty. This explanation, as being the most ingenious, and
+affording fascinating scope for the imagination, was the most popular
+one, and was more or less elaborated according to the individual fancy
+of the young lady. Emma Jane Anton was obliged to admit that she might
+be a princess, and that there was no harm in calling her so amongst
+ourselves. Madame had let fall some very singular expressions when she
+announced the fact that we were to have her for our teacher in Botany.
+Emma Jane had heard her, and it was she who had reported the news to the
+others.
+
+"Girls," she said, "did you ever hear anything so absurd! We are going
+to recite our Botany to the princess."
+
+"You don't mean it!"
+
+"Honest! She lives in that funny old house across the square, that
+Winnie always pretends to think is haunted. We are to parade over there
+three days in the week. Madame says it's a great opportunity, for she is
+really quite eminent; writes for scientific journals, has traveled in
+all sorts of foreign countries, and _has moved in court circles_."
+
+"I told you so!" exclaimed Adelaide, triumphantly. "I always said she
+was a true-blue princess."
+
+"I don't know that you have quite proved it yet," replied Emma Jane
+Anton, coolly, "but Madame did say that we would have an opportunity of
+learning much more from her than mere botany--etiquette, I presume--for
+she went on to hint that she had been brought up in a different school
+of manners from that of our own day and country, that we would find her
+peculiar in some ways, and that she trusted to our native courtesy to
+humor her little foibles, and a hundred more things of the same sort,
+winding up with that stock expression which she always uses when she has
+talked a subject to shreds and tatters--'A word to the wise is
+sufficient.'"
+
+"I wish I had heard her," said Witch Winnie; "I don't consider this
+subject talked to tatters, by any means. I propose that this Botany
+class constitute itself a committee of investigation to clear up the
+mystery in regard to the history of the princess. We are supposed to be
+devoted to the study of nature, but I consider _human_ nature a deal the
+more interesting. It will almost pay for having to mind one's _p_'s and
+_q_'s. I wonder what she would say if she caught me sliding down her
+palace balusters! We'll all have to practice curtseying--one step to the
+side, then two back. Oh! I'm ever so sorry I knocked over that stand.
+Was the vase a keepsake or anything? I'll buy you another. No, I can't,
+for I've spent all my allowance for this month. Well, you may have that
+_bonbonniere_ of mine you liked so much." The vase was a treasure, but
+no one could be vexed with Witch Winnie, and I forgave her, of course,
+and would none of the _bonbonniere_.
+
+Our first glimpse at the house in which the princess lived was as
+appetizing to our imaginations as the little lady herself. It had been
+built as a church-school, and straggled around the church, shaping
+itself to the exterior angles of that edifice, and in so doing gained a
+number of queerly shaped rooms, some long and narrow, and others with
+irregular corners, but all bright with southern sunshine. The princess
+rented only the upper floor and the front room in the basement. The rest
+of the house had been let to other parties, but was now vacant. How
+strange and lonely it must seem, we thought, to go up and down those
+long staircases, and peep into the uninhabited rooms! Rather eerie at
+night. "I wouldn't live that way for the world," shivered Milly. "I
+should be afraid of robbers."
+
+"Burglars don't usually choose an unoccupied house for their
+operations," Emma Jane remarked, sententiously.
+
+Later, when we were better acquainted with the princess, Milly asked her
+if she was never timid. She acknowledged that she was, but assured us
+that rats _were one great comfort_.
+
+"What do you mean?" Milly asked.
+
+"Whenevaire," said the princess (in the quaint broken English which we
+always found so fascinating, English which had only the foreignness of
+pronunciation and idiom, and which Adelaide insisted was rarely so
+maltreated as to be really _broken_, but was only a little
+dislocated)--"whenevaire I hear one cautious sawing noise which shall be
+as if ze burglaire to file ze lock, I say to myself, 'Ah, ha! Monsieur
+Rat have invited to himself some companie in ze pantry of ze butler.'
+When zere come one _tappage_ on ze _escalier_, as zo some one make haste
+to depart ze house, I turn myself upon my bed and make to myself
+explanation--Rats! When ze footsteps mysterious steal so softly down ze
+hall, and make pause justly at my door, then I reach for ze great cane
+of my fazzer, which I keep at all times by ze canopy of my bed, and I
+pound on ze floor--boom, boom, Monsieur Rat _scelerat_, and it is thus I
+make my reassurance."
+
+The princess received us in what had been the basement dining-room,
+which she called her laboratory. The entire south side was one broad
+window of small diamond-shaped panes. Forming a sill to this window was
+a row of low, wide cases for the reception of herbaria, and the room had
+a peculiar herby smell, a mixture of sweet-fern and faint aromatic
+herbs.
+
+The cushions which converted the tops of these cases into seats were
+stuffed with dried beech-leaves.
+
+The princess quoted Latin to us for her preference for the fine springy
+upholstery which beech-leaves give. _Silva domus, cubilia frondes._
+("The wood a house, the foliage a couch.")
+
+The other furniture in the room was a long table placed in front of the
+book-case divan, a table covered with piles of MS. books, a press for
+specimens, two microscopes, and a great blue china bowl containing
+pussy-willows in water--our specimens for the day's study. High
+book-cases, whose contents could only be guessed at, for the glass doors
+were lined with curiously shirred green silk, were ranged against the
+wall opposite, and at one end of the room stood a monumental German
+stove in white porcelain; at the other was Miss Prillwitz's chair, a
+high-backed Gothic affair, which had once served as an episcopal
+_sedilium_, but had been removed on the occasion of a new furnishing of
+the church.
+
+It formed a stately background for the little figure. I often found
+myself making sketches of her on the sheets of soft paper between which
+we pressed our flowers, instead of listening to the lecture. I liked to
+imagine how she would look in a great ruff, not of Cynthia Vaughn's
+mosquito net, but of real _point de Venise_.
+
+And yet her talks were very interesting; she was a true lover of nature,
+and made us love her. She regretted that she could not take us into the
+deep woods, but she opened our eyes to the wealth of country
+suggestiveness which we could find in the city. She introduced us
+personally to the scanty two dozen or so of trees in the little park,
+and from the intimate acquaintance formed with each of these, our
+appetites were whetted for vast wildernesses of forest primeval.
+
+She opened to us the beauty which there lies in the simple branching of
+the trees in their winter nudity, the tracery of the limbs and twigs cut
+clearly against a yellow sunset, or picked out with snow; how the elms
+gave graceful wine-glass and Greek-vase outlines; the snakily mottled
+sycamore undulated its great arms like a boa-constrictor reaching out
+for prey; the birch, "the lady of the woods," displayed her white satin
+dress; the gnarled hemlocks wrestled upward, each sharp angle a defiance
+to the winter storms with which they had striven in heroic combat, the
+bent knees clutching the rocks, while the aged arms writhed and tossed
+in the grasp of the fiends of the air. She showed us the beautiful
+parabolic curve of the willows, a bouquet of rockets; the military
+bearing of a row of Lombardy poplars standing, in their perfect
+alignment, like tall grenadiers drawn up in a hollow square. Before the
+first tender blurring of the leaf-buds we knew our trees, and loved them
+for their almost human qualities.
+
+Miss Sartoris had taught me, the preceding summer, to look for the
+decorative beauty to be found in common roadside weeds, and we had made
+sketches together of dock, elecampane, tansy, thistles, and milkweed. I
+had one rich, rare day with her in a swamp, when I ruined a pair of
+stockings, and made the discovery that a skunk-cabbage was as beautiful
+in its curves as a calla. I brought these sketches to the princess, and
+she congratulated me on the possession of my country home with its
+gold-mines of beauty all around.
+
+"You are one heiress, my dear," she said, "to ze vast wealths which you
+have only to learn how you s'all enjoy. Only t'ink of ze sousands of
+poor city people who haf never had ze felicity to see a swamp!"
+
+I grew to appreciate the country, and to feel that I was richer than I
+had thought.
+
+Milly found a branch of study which was not above the measure of her
+intellect. She soon mastered the long names, and learned to think, and
+teachers in other departments noted an improvement. There was need for
+this, for the Hornets long kept up a tradition that at one of the
+history examinations Milly had been asked, "What is the Salic Law?" and
+had replied, confidently--"That no woman or _descendant of a woman_, can
+ever reign in France."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+COURT LIFE.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Mrs. Grogan.}]
+
+
+Mrs. Grogan, the baby-farmer of Rickett's Court, could hardly have been
+described as a court lady, and yet she was a very typical specimen of
+the women of this locality. But before introducing the reader to the
+society of Rickett's Court, I must first explain how it was that we came
+to make its acquaintance.
+
+As the time approached for the concert of which I have spoken, Adelaide
+was reminded of her determination to have a "violin dress" made by
+Madame Celeste. Adelaide played the violin, as we thought, divinely;
+she was at least the best performer at Madame's. "The violin is the
+violet," I said, quoting from "Charles Auchester." "You must have a
+violet-colored gown."
+
+"A very delicate shade of china crepe will do," Adelaide replied, "made
+up with a darker tint, and the sleeves must be puffed like that dress
+the princess wore to the tableaux."
+
+"Adelaide, dear," murmured Milly, "you ought to wear angel sleeves to
+show your lovely arms."
+
+"And have them flop about like a ship's pennant in a lively breeze,
+during that bit of rapid bowing? That would be too grotesque."
+
+"Puff them to the elbow," I suggested, "and then have a fall of soft
+lace that will float back and give the turn of your wrist as you whip
+the strings."
+
+"See here, Adelaide," remarked Witch Winnie, "if you want something
+really fine, get that Mrs. Halsey to design it for you."
+
+"You don't suppose that I would hire a dress for the concert at a
+costumer's?"
+
+"I didn't say that; you could have it made wherever you pleased, but get
+Mrs. Halsey's ideas on the subject; they are really remarkable."
+
+Adelaide considered the subject and acted upon it, but, greatly to my
+relief, she refused to do so without explaining the entire affair to
+Madame.
+
+"I'll not stand in the way of your having a nice gown," said Witch
+Winnie. "Come, Tib, let's confess."
+
+I was overjoyed, and Madame, though duly shocked, was not severe. She
+even allowed Witch Winnie to take Adelaide to see Mrs. Halsey,
+stipulating only that she should be chaperoned by one of the teachers.
+Adelaide chose Miss Sartoris, at my suggestion, both because we liked
+her, and from my feeling that her artistic instinct might be of service.
+
+The girls were disappointed to find that Mrs. Halsey was no longer at
+the costumer's. He had "pounced" her, he said, because she was "too much
+of a lady for de peesness." Fortunately he could give the girls her
+address--No. 1, sixth floor, Rickett's Court.
+
+It was a very disagreeable part of town. Miss Sartoris looked doubtful
+as they approached it, and was on the point of getting into the carriage
+again as they alighted, but Witch Winnie had already darted through a
+long dark hall which led to the court in the centre of the block, and
+there was nothing for it but to follow.
+
+Evil smells nearly choked them as they ran the gauntlet of that hall,
+and they were no better off on emerging upon the sloppy court. The space
+overhead, between the buildings, was laced with an intricate network of
+clothes-lines filled with garments. Adelaide said she realized now where
+all upper New York had its laundry work done, for this was evidently not
+the wash of the court people. From their appearance it was only fair to
+conjecture that they were so busy doing other people's washing that they
+never had time for their own. The dirty water seemed to be thrown from
+the windows into the court, where it stood in puddles or feebly trickled
+into the sewer, from which emanated nauseous and deadly gases. Sickly
+children were dabbling in these puddles.
+
+"It makes me think of Hood's 'Lost Heir,'" said Miss Sartoris--
+
+                                          "The court,
+    Where he was better off than all the other young boys,
+    With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster shells, and a dead kitten by
+        way of toys."
+
+They mounted a ricketty staircase grimed with dirt. Smells of new
+degrees and varieties of loathsomeness assaulted them at every landing.
+The Italian rag-pickers in the basement were sorting their filthy wares,
+while a little girl was concocting for them the garlic stew over a
+charcoal brazier. The mingled fumes came thick from the open door. Mrs.
+Grogan on the first floor had paused in her washing to take a pull at a
+villainous pipe. She came to the door still smoking, and carrying in her
+arms an almost skeleton baby, who sucked at a dirty rag containing a
+crust dipped in gin. Winnie obtained one glimpse of the interior of Mrs.
+Grogan's domicile, and drew back quite pale. "Adelaide," she said, "the
+room literally _swarmed_ with babies; that woman cannot have so many all
+of the same age." Inquiry of Mrs. Halsey enlightened them. Mrs. Grogan
+was a "baby-farmer," and boarded these children, making a good income
+thereby, as their mothers were servants in good families. On the next
+floor a family of eight were working in a hall-bedroom, at rolling
+cigars. The large rooms were occupied by some Chinese. Mrs. Halsey
+thought that they used them as an opium den. Past more doors, up three
+more pairs of stairs, and they paused at No. 1. They knocked several
+times, but they could not make themselves heard above the buzz and whirr
+of a sewing-machine. Finally Winnie opened the door, and there sat Mrs.
+Halsey bent over the machine, while the floor was piled with dainty
+underclothing neatly tucked.
+
+She sprang up, evidently pleased to see Winnie again, and motioned her
+callers to the only seats which the room afforded--a chair, a trunk, and
+a stool.
+
+Winnie apologized for the interruption, and explained her errand. "But
+perhaps you are too busy to design this dress," Adelaide said; "I see
+you have plenty of work."
+
+"It will not take long to make a little sketch," Mrs. Halsey replied,
+"and it will be a real pleasure for me to do it." As her fingers moved
+rapidly over the paper the girls took an inventory of the room. A
+cracked cooking-stove, and a cupboard behind it formed of a dry-goods
+box, but all the utensils were scrupulously clean. A closet, another
+dry-goods case on end, with a chintz curtain in front, concealed, as
+Winnie's prying eyes ascertained, a roll of bedding, which was
+evidently spread on the floor at night. Mrs. Halsey knelt before a worn
+table, and this, with the sewing-machine, completed the furnishing of
+the apartment. No, in the window there was a row of fruit-cans
+containing some geraniums. Miss Sartoris discovered them, and Mrs.
+Halsey apologized for their condition. "They were just in bud," she
+said, "but we were without coal for several days, and they were nipped
+by frost."
+
+Poor woman! she looked as if _she_ had been nipped by the frost too
+during that bitter experience. She coughed, and Adelaide remarked, "You
+ought to drink cream, Mrs. Halsey; they say it is better for a cough
+than cod-liver oil."
+
+"I have plenty of milk," the little woman replied. "The milkman for whom
+my Jim works lets him have the milk that he finds left over in the cans
+when he washes them out after his rounds. Sometimes there's as much as a
+pint, and almost always enough for our oatmeal."
+
+Mrs. Halsey spoke cheerily and proudly--as of a luxury which she owed
+her boy. The design was completed, and Adelaide was delighted.
+
+"Would you like to have me make the costume in tissue-paper?" Mrs.
+Halsey asked; "the sleeve, at least, and this drapery; then any
+seamstress can make it."
+
+"How much will it be?" Adelaide asked, doubtfully--wondering if her
+five-dollar bill would cover the charge.
+
+"Do you think seventy-five cents too much? It would take me an
+afternoon."
+
+"But you could certainly earn more than that by your sewing."
+
+Mrs. Halsey smiled rather bitterly. "Would you really like to know the
+rates at which I work?" she asked.
+
+Adelaide expressed her interest. "These pretty Mother Hubbard
+night-gowns sell well, I am sure, but I know you can't get very much for
+making them, for I bought a pair at a bargain counter for a dollar."
+
+"It is the bargain counter which makes the low pay. I get a dollar and
+thirty cents _a dozen_ for making them," said Mrs. Halsey, calmly.
+
+"A dozen!" cried Winnie; "and how many can you make in a day?"
+
+"Eight."
+
+"Then you make--"
+
+"Eighty-five cents a day; but I cannot average that."
+
+"Can't you do better with something else?"
+
+"I have made flannel skirts--tucked--at a dollar a dozen, but I can only
+make eight of those in a day, so that is less. I have received a dollar
+and twenty cents a dozen for making chemises, which sell at seven
+dollars a dozen; and seventy-five cents a dozen for babies' slips, three
+tucks and a hem; forty cents a dozen for corset covers. I have a friend
+who works a machine in a ruffling factory; she makes a hundred and fifty
+yards of hemmed and tucked ruffling a day, for which she receives
+twenty-five cents. So, you see, I am better off than some."[A]
+
+[A] See "Campbell's Prisoners of Poverty" for still more harrowing
+statistics.
+
+"And can you live on five dollars a week?"
+
+"Six dollars, Madame; Jim earns one dollar and the milk."
+
+"You pay for rent--"
+
+"Six dollars a month; yes, it _is_ hard to earn that."
+
+"You must be thankful that you have only Jim to provide for."
+
+"The Sandys, on the floor below, have six children; five of them earn
+wages. I think they earn more than their cost."
+
+"But," said Miss Sartoris, "I thought child labor was prohibited by
+law."
+
+"Not out of school hours, or at home. Then the parents often swear a
+child is over fourteen, but small of its age, and get it into a factory.
+You wouldn't blame them, Madame, if you knew all the circumstances I do.
+I keep Jim at his books, but the study, with the night work, I'm afraid
+is killing him. They tempt him at the saloon, too, to take what they
+call a 'bracer' as he goes out to drive the milk cart at 3 in the
+morning, but I get up and have tea ready for him, so that he does not
+yield."
+
+"We must go now," said Miss Sartoris, kindly. "You will send Jim with
+the paper pattern to-night?" Adelaide slipped a dollar into Mrs.
+Halsey's hand, and would take no change. And the three went down the
+stairs thoughtful and sad.
+
+"What can we do for her?" Winnie asked.
+
+"I am sure I don't know," replied Miss Sartoris; "she certainly seems
+capable of securing better wages."
+
+"I will speak to Madame Celeste about her," said Adelaide; and she was
+as good as her word. Winnie accompanied Adelaide when she took the
+pattern to the fashionable dress-maker. The modiste listened in rapt
+attention to Adelaide's explanation of the gown wanted. She examined the
+design with interest. "It is perfectly made," she said. "Who constructed
+this for you? It is the work of an expert. Ah, Miss, if I only had now
+in my establishment a designer who was with me last year! She had such a
+mind for _costumes de fantaisie_! For Greek costumes to be worn at the
+harp, and for Directoire dresses, I miss her cruelly, but Mademoiselle's
+design is so explicit that we will have no trouble."
+
+"Was your designer a Mrs. Halsey?" Winnie asked.
+
+"The same, Miss. Do you know her? Can you give me her address? I must
+try to get her back."
+
+"I think you may be able to obtain her. She made this pattern for me;
+but you will have to bid high, for she has her boy with her now."
+
+"Ah yes! the boy; that was the trouble between us. Seamstresses have no
+business to be mothers. Mrs. Halsey ought to give up the child entirely
+to some asylum for adoption; he will always be a handicap to her; but
+she does not see this, and clings to him as though she thought him her
+only chance for fortune. There is a mystery in Mrs. Halsey's life. Her
+husband has deserted her, and she lives in the vain hope that he will
+come back some day and explain everything. She patronized me once, long
+ago, when she was in better circumstances. She will not talk about her
+husband, and I fancy that he is one of those defaulting cashiers who
+have run away to Canada. I am willing to take her back on the old terms,
+but she must give up her boy. I have an order for a set of costumes for
+one of our queens of the opera. Mrs. Halsey is just the one to take it
+in hand. Where did you say she could be found?"
+
+"I think you had better communicate with her through me," Adelaide
+replied; "I am not at liberty to give her address."
+
+"And it is very possible," Winnie spoke up, eagerly, for she had seen a
+gleam in Madame Celeste's eyes, "that her friends will provide for the
+boy. In that case she will be more independent, and perhaps will not be
+willing to return at the old salary. What shall we say is the most that
+you will offer."
+
+"Five dollars a week and her board; that is very good pay, Miss; fifty
+cents more than I paid her when she was with me."
+
+The girls could hardly wait to reach the Amen Corner to talk the matter
+over. Milly was all sympathy. "I will write to papa," she said, "and get
+him to send Jim to a boarding-school. I'll send for several circulars,
+and find out how much it costs."
+
+As an answer from Mr. Roseveldt might be expected the next day, we
+decided to wait for it. Adelaide regretted that her father was in Omaha,
+as she was sure that he would have aided in the scheme.
+
+Mr. Roseveldt's answer was most discouraging. He regarded Milly's plan
+as mere sentimental nonsense, and would take no interest in it.
+
+"You might save something out of your allowance, Milly," suggested the
+audacious Winnie.
+
+"I give away three-fourths of it now," Milly replied, in an injured
+tone. "What with the flowers I have on the organ every day for Miss
+Hope, and the favors for the german, which I always furnish, and the
+bonbons I give you girls, and all my other extras--"
+
+"But, Milly dear," I exclaimed, "we would all ever so much rather you
+spent the candy money for Jim than on us."
+
+"But I want _some_ candy for myself, and I am not going to be so mean as
+to munch it, and not pass any to the other girls."
+
+It would have been a real deprivation to Milly to do without her beloved
+candy. She gloated over luscious pasty "lumps of delight" in the way of
+marshmallows and chocolate creams, candied fruits and marrons glacees,
+and her silver bonbonniere was always filled with the most expensive
+candied violets and rose-leaves. Worse than this, there were certain
+little cordial drops, which were a peculiar weakness of Milly's; none of
+us knew with what an awful danger she was playing, or that Milly
+inherited a taste for alcoholic beverages through several generations.
+But Milly was not selfish.
+
+"Very well, girls," she said, with a sigh, "if you will go without, I
+will, and we will form a total abstinence candy society. I know just how
+much that means for Jim, for I paid Maillard eight dollars last month."
+
+"You are a good girl," spoke up Emma Jane, "and if you hold to that
+resolution, Milly Roseveldt, I will deal you out a cake of maple sugar
+every day, from a box I've just received from some Vermont cousins. I
+was wondering what I should do with it, for I don't care for sweets."
+
+Milly's face brightened; all unconsciously she was doing as great a
+kindness to herself as to Jim, and the pure maple sugar was a good
+substitute for the unwholesome concoctions of the confectioner; it
+satisfied her craving for sweets, and did not poison her appetite.
+
+The rest of us added our small contributions, but the aggregate only
+amounted to three dollars a week, and we were unable to learn of any
+boarding-school to which Jim could be sent at those rates.
+
+Winnie had communicated Madame Celeste's offer to Mrs. Halsey. "It would
+be just the thing if I were alone," she replied, "but what would Jim do
+without me?"
+
+"Perhaps you can board him somewhere," Winnie suggested; and she told of
+the sum which we girls had promised.
+
+"If I knew of any respectable place where he would have good influences,
+I would accept your kindness, as a loan, for a little while," Mrs.
+Halsey replied, "for my first earnings must go for clothes. I have
+friends in Connecticut; perhaps they will take Jim."
+
+But Mrs. Halsey found that her friends had moved West. She thanked us
+for our interest, but said that there seemed nothing better to do than
+to continue as they were.
+
+"I can't bear to tell Madame Celeste that she declines her offer," said
+Adelaide. "_We_ must find a place for that boy."
+
+"I don't see how," replied Winnie; but she saw, that afternoon; it came
+to her all by a sudden inspiration during our botany lesson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+LITTLE PRINCE DEL PARADISO.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of the little Prince del Paradiso.}]
+
+
+That day the botany class found their teacher in a flutter of
+excitement. There was a fresh, pink glow in the faded cheeks, and an
+unusual sparkle in the kindly eyes. She seated herself in the episcopal
+chair, lifted her lorgnette, and began to arrange the specimens for the
+day's lesson, but her hand trembled so that she could scarcely adjust
+the microscope, and the papers on which her notes were written sifted
+through her fingers and were strewn in confusion on the floor.
+
+"Are you ill, Miss Prillwitz?" Adelaide asked, in alarm.
+
+"No, Miss Armstrong," replied the princess, "it is not a painful in my
+system, and it is not a sorry; it is a pleasant. I shall expect to
+myself a company, and this is to me so seldom that I find myself
+_egare_--what you call it?--scatter? sprinkled?--as to my
+understanding."
+
+We all looked our interest, and Winnie ventured to ask--"One of your
+relations, Miss Prillwitz?"
+
+"Yes," replied the little lady; "he is of my own family, though to see
+him I have never ze pleasure. It ees ze little Prince del Paradiso."
+
+We girls pinched each other under the table, while Milly murmured, "A
+prince! How perfectly lovely!"
+
+"Yes," replied Miss Prillwitz; "ze birthright to ziss little poy is one
+great, high, nobilitie, _la plus haute noblesse_, but he know nossing of
+it, nossing whateffer. He haf ze misfortune to be exported from his home
+when one leetle child; he haf been elevated by poor peoples to think
+himself also a poor. He know nossing of ze estates what belong his
+family, and better he not know until he make surely his title, and he
+make to himself some education which shall make him suit to his
+position."
+
+"How did you know about this little stolen prince?" Emma Jane asked.
+
+"I receive message from his older bruzzer to take him to my house
+_provisionellement_, till his rights and his--his--what you call--his
+sameness?"
+
+"You mean his identity?"
+
+"Yes, yes, his die entity can be justly prove."
+
+"It seems to me," said Witch Winnie, impulsively, "that he can't be a
+very kind elder brother to be so indifferent."
+
+"My dear child, you make my admiration with what celeritude you do
+arrive always at exactly ze wrong conclusion. Ze prince haf made great
+effort to recover his little bruzzer, but he must guard himself from ze
+false claimants, ze impostors."
+
+"Then the little boy who is coming to you," said Emma Jane, "may not be
+the real prince, after all?"
+
+"That is a possible," Miss Prillwitz admitted, "but it is not a
+probable. Somesing assure me zat he s'all prove his nobility."
+
+"How very interesting," said Milly. "Was he stolen away from home by
+gypsies?"
+
+"No, my child, he was not steal. He wandered himself away from his
+fazzer's house and was lost."
+
+"How old is he now?"
+
+"Twelve year."
+
+Witch Winnie started; that was just Jim Halsey's age, and what a
+difference in the destiny awaiting the two boys! One the son of a king,
+the other of a criminal.
+
+"Will you to see ze little chamber of ze petit prince?" asked Miss
+Prillwitz.
+
+We were all overjoyed by the suggestion, and the eager little woman led
+us to a room just under the roof, with a dormer-window looking out upon
+the roof of the church.
+
+Milly ran directly to this window, and drawing aside the curtains looked
+out, but started back again half frightened, for a carved gargoyle under
+the eaves was very near and leered at her with a malicious, demoniacal
+expression. He was a grotesque creature with bat wings, lolling tongue,
+and long claws, but harmless enough, for the doves perched on his head
+and preened their iridescent plumage in the sunshine. The church roof
+just here was a wilderness of flying buttresses and pinnacles; the
+chimes were still far overhead, and rang out, as we entered the
+chambers, my favorite hymn--"Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear."
+
+I have not yet described the room itself. We all exclaimed at its quaint
+beauty as we entered.
+
+It was papered with an old-fashioned vine pattern, the green foliage
+twined about a slender trellis, and this gave the room, which was really
+quite small, the effect of an arbor with space beyond. There was a patch
+of dark green carpet with a mossy pattern before the bed, which was very
+simple and dressed in white. In the window recess was a dry-goods box,
+upholstered in a fern-patterned chintz of a restful green tint, and
+serving, with its cushions, both as a divan and as a chest for clothing.
+There was a little corner wash-stand with a toilet set decorated with
+water-lilies and green lily-pads, and there was a little sliding curtain
+of green China silk with a shadow-pattern at the window, while through
+the uncurtained upper space one saw, beyond the church roof, the trees
+of the park.
+
+"O Miss Prillwitz!" I exclaimed, "it is just Aurora Leigh's room over
+again. You modeled it on Mrs. Browning's description, did you not?--
+
+    "'I had a little chamber in the house,
+    As green as any privet-hedge a bird
+    Might choose to build in ...
+    ... the walls
+    Were green, the carpet was pure green;
+                the straight
+    Small bed was curtained greenly,
+                and the folds
+    Hung green about the window,
+              which let in
+    A dash of dawn dew from its greenery,
+                the honeysuckle.'"
+
+"I haf nefer ze pleasure to know zat room," said Miss Prillwitz, her
+eyes kindling.
+
+"How perfectly sweet!" exclaimed Adelaide. "It is like 'a lodge in some
+vast wilderness.' I didn't know that there was a place in New York so
+like the country."
+
+"Will the prince study botany with us?" Milly asked, as we descended the
+stairs.
+
+"I fear he is not ready for ze botany. His education haf been neglect.
+But you s'all see him oftenly. I must beg you not to tell him zat he is
+a prince; zis must not divulge to him until ze proper time."
+
+"And then," added Emma Jane, "it would be cruel to excite hopes which
+may be doomed to disappointment."
+
+The princess smiled. "I do not fear zat," she said. "And now, young
+ladies, I must make you my excuse, and beg Miss Armstrong she s'all hear
+ze class ze remains of ze hour; I must go to ze market for prepare ze
+young prince his supper."
+
+She hurried away, and we attempted to turn our minds to our lesson.
+Adelaide had just exclaimed that in botany the term _hop_ signified
+small, and _dog_ large, but she broke off the statement with the
+exclamation, "And do you see, girls, what this proves?"
+
+"That dog-roses are large roses," replied Emma Jane.
+
+"That the Chinese laundry man around the corner, Hop Sin, is a little
+sinner," said Winnie.
+
+"No, no, I don't mean that, but she said that the Prince del Paradiso
+was related to her; then, of course, she must belong to the Paradiso
+family as well, and what we have so long suspected is really true. She
+is a genuine princess, and probably the daughter of a king."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," replied Emma Jane.
+
+"Do you suspect Miss Prillwitz of being an impostor?" Adelaide asked,
+coldly.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Emma Jane; "but in many European countries
+every son of a prince is called a prince, instead of the eldest son
+only, as in England, and all the sons of all the younger sons are
+princes, and so on to the last descendant; and I presume it is so with
+the daughters as well; so that the title must often exist where there
+are no estates."
+
+"But Miss Prillwitz said that the Prince del Paradiso was heir to
+immense estates," Milly insisted.
+
+"But that proves nothing in her own case," Adelaide admitted. "Some day,
+perhaps she will tell us more about herself, since she has begun to open
+her heart to us."
+
+At that moment the door-bell rang, and as the princess kept no servant,
+Winnie went to the door. She was gone a long time, and came back looking
+grave and distraught--giving an evasive answer when we asked her who had
+called. I wondered at this because, as I sat nearest the door, I had
+overheard a part of the conversation, and knew that it referred to the
+little boy who was expected. "He cannot come," a voice had said; "he has
+a situation where he can learn a trade." This was of so much interest
+to us all that I wondered why Winnie did not immediately report it.
+
+As soon as we returned to the school she obtained an interview with
+Madame, and permission to see Mrs. Halsey in reference to the Celeste
+situation; Madame stipulating that she must not ask this favor for a
+long time, as she did not like to have her pupils frequent the tenement
+district. I offered to go with Winnie, and was surprised that she
+declined my company. She returned glowing with suppressed excitement.
+
+"Mrs. Halsey has accepted Madame Celeste's offer," she exclaimed; "she
+leaves the court to-morrow, let us hope for good and all. O girls, it is
+a horrible place! I saw worse sights than when I was there before."
+
+"And Jim?" we asked.
+
+"Jim is provided for. We are to pay three dollars a week for him for the
+present, until Mrs. Halsey gets on her feet."
+
+"Did she find a good place for him?"
+
+"An excellent place; but you must not ask me another question, and if
+any mysterious circumstances should come to your observation within a
+few days, you are not to say a thing, or even look surprised. Promise,
+every one of you."
+
+"A mystery! how delightful!" exclaimed Milly. "It's almost as good as
+the little prince. You can rely on us; we will help you, Winnie,
+whatever it is, for we know it's all right if it's your doing."
+
+Emma Jane was not present, and I remarked that, while the rest of us
+would believe in Winnie without understanding her, and even in spite of
+the most suspicious circumstances, I was not sure that we could trust
+Emma Jane so far.
+
+"Emma Jane will see nothing to suspect, and Milly, I know, will stand by
+me. It's only you two that I am afraid of--Adelaide, because she has
+seen Jim; and Tib, from her natural smartness in smelling out a secret."
+
+"Whatever it is, Winnie, we believe you could never do anything very
+bad," said Adelaide.
+
+"But I have," Winnie replied; "something just reckless. I'm in for the
+worst scrape of my life, and just as I was trying so hard to be good. I
+shall never be anything but a malefactor, and maybe get expelled, and
+throw the dear Amen Corner into disgrace. I'd better have staid queen
+of the Hornets, for I shall be nothing but Witch Winnie to the end of
+the chapter."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MRS. HETTERMAN THROWS LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Mrs. Hetterman.}]
+
+
+Mrs. Hetterman came into our life in consequence of a train of troubles
+which arose in the boarding-school from the frequent change of the cook.
+Madame had been served for several years by a faithful colored man, who
+had suddenly taken it into his head to go off as steward on a
+gentleman's yacht. She had supplied his place by a Biddy, who was found
+intoxicated on the kitchen floor. A woman followed who turned out to be
+a thief, and we were now enduring an incompetent creature who made sour
+bread and spoiled nearly every dish which passed through her hands. Half
+of the girls were suffering with dyspepsia, and all were grumbling. The
+Amen Corner was especially out of sorts. Milly, who was always
+fastidious, had eaten nothing but maple-sugar for breakfast, and had a
+sick headache; Emma Jane was snappish; Witch Winnie had stolen a box of
+crackers from the pantry, which she had passed around. Adelaide and I
+had regaled ourselves upon them, but Emma Jane had declined on high
+moral grounds, and was virtuously miserable. It was in this unchristian
+frame of mind, or rather of stomach, that we took our next botany
+lesson. We found the princess beaming with pleasure. "My tear young
+ladies," she exclaimed, "you must felicitate me. It is all so much
+better as I had hoped. Ze leetle prince has not been so badly elevated
+after all. He haf been taught to be kind and unselfish; zat is already
+ze foundation of a gentleman."
+
+Miss Prillwitz had occasion to leave the room a few minutes later.
+Adelaide sniffed the air, and remarked, "Girls, don't you smell
+something very nice?"
+
+"It's here on the stand in the corner," said Witch Winnie, lifting a
+napkin which covered a tray, and exclaiming, "Fish balls! Only see! the
+most beautiful brown fish balls!"
+
+"It's the remnants of their breakfast; she has forgotten to take it
+away," said Adelaide. "They make me feel positively faint with longing;
+I don't believe she would mind if we took just one."
+
+We ate of the dainties, even Emma Jane yielding to temptation; they were
+delicious, and, having begun, we could not stop until they were all
+devoured. Then we looked at one another in shame and dismay. "Who will
+confess?" asked Adelaide.
+
+"You ought to; you put us up to it," said Emma Jane Anton.
+
+"Let's write a round-robin," I suggested, "and all sign it."
+
+"I'll stand it," said Winnie. "I led you into temptation."
+
+A step was heard in the hall. Winnie stepped forward and began to speak
+rapidly; the rest of us looked down shamefacedly.
+
+"Miss Prillwitz, please forgive us; we were so hungry we could not stand
+it. If you knew what a dreadful breakfast we had this morning, I'm sure
+you would not blame us--"
+
+But she was interrupted by a cry of dismay--"Oh! have you eaten them
+all? I bought them for Aunty."
+
+Looking up, we saw a manly little boy with an expression of distress on
+his frank features.
+
+Adelaide uttered a sharp exclamation. I thought she said, "It's him!"
+and yet Adelaide seldom forgot her grammar. Winnie drew a deep breath,
+and caught Adelaide by the arm. The boy looked up from the empty platter
+to the girls' faces, and his expression changed. "Oh! it's you," he
+said. "Well, no matter, only I meant 'em for a present for _her_--Miss
+Prillwitz, you know. She's no end good to me. Mrs. Hetterman, down at
+Rickett's Court, makes 'em for regular customers every Friday morning.
+They are prime, and mother gave me a quarter for pocket-money this
+month, so I got ten cents' worth for Aunty; she lets me call her so. I
+thought she'd like 'em, and it would patronize Mrs. Hetterman, and show
+her I hadn't forgotten old friends, if I had moved up in the world."
+
+"Here's ten cents to get some more from Mrs. Hetterman," said Adelaide,
+"and maybe we can get her a wholesale order to furnish our
+boarding-school. I'll speak to Madame about it this very day."
+
+"And if Madame doesn't order them, we girls will club together and have
+a spread of our own," said Winnie.
+
+Miss Prillwitz came in at this juncture, and explanations followed.
+
+"If Madame is in such trouble in regards of a cook," said Miss
+Prillwitz, "I vill write her of Mrs. Hetterman, and perhaps it will be
+to them both a providence. Can she make ozzer sings as ze croquettes of
+codfish?"
+
+"Oh yes, indeed," the little prince spoke up, eagerly; "soup, and
+turnovers, and _such_ bread! She gave me a little loaf every baking
+while mother had the pneumonia. Mr. Dooley, the butcher, gave me a
+marrow bone every Monday, and I always took it to Mrs. Hetterman to make
+into soup. It made mother sick to boil it in our little room, and Mrs.
+Hetterman would make a kettle of stock, and showed me how to keep it in
+a crock outside the window, so mother could have some every day; it was
+what kept mother's strength up through it all. We had such good
+neighbors at the court! but Mrs. Hetterman was best of all. She has five
+children of her own, too. Bill is a messenger boy, and Jennie works in a
+feather factory. Mary is a cripple, but she is just lovely, and tidies
+the house, and takes care of the two little ones. Mr. Hetterman was a
+plasterer and got good wages, but he fell from a scaffolding and broke
+his leg, and he's at the hospital."
+
+"And does Mrs. Hetterman support the family on ze croquettes of
+codfish?" asked Miss Prillwitz.
+
+"She scrubs offices, but she could get a place as cook in a family if it
+wasn't for the children." He looked longingly at Miss Prillwitz as he
+spoke, but she did not seem to notice the glance.
+
+"Here, mon garcon, run down to ze court, and tell Mrs. Hetterman to take
+a basket of her cookery to ze boarding-school. I t'ink she will engage
+to herself some beesness."
+
+The lesson proceeded, but Adelaide and Winnie both blundered; they were
+evidently thinking of something else.
+
+A change came over Witch Winnie; she lost her old reckless gayety and
+became subdued and thoughtful. The Hornets said she was studying for
+honors, but I knew this was not the case, for her lessons were not as
+well prepared as formerly. She would sit for long periods lost in
+reverie. Winnie had charge of the money collected for Jim's board. She
+reported, after one week, that his mother did not need as much; two
+dollars would supply the margin between what was required and the sum
+she was able to pay. None of us, with the exception of Adelaide, knew
+where Winnie had domiciled Jim, but we were content to leave the matter
+in her hands. A week later Mrs. Halsey only needed one dollar. Mrs.
+Hetterman was engaged as cook for the boarding-school, and we all
+rejoiced in the change. I went down to the kitchen to see her, one
+afternoon, and found her a buxom Englishwoman who dropped her _h_'s, but
+was always neat and civil. She was delighted when she found that I knew
+the names of her children. "It was a little boy who used to live in your
+court who told me about them," I said, "and who introduced us to your
+good fish balls."
+
+"Oh yes, Miss, I mind; it was little Jim 'Alsey; 'e's the prince of fine
+fellers, 'e is."
+
+Jim Halsey the prince! My head fairly reeled, and yet this explained
+many things which had seemed mysterious. Winnie's agency in the matter
+was still not entirely clear to me. I did not connect her remorseful
+remarks about another scrape, with Jim, and I believed that by some
+remarkable coincidence he was really Miss Prillwitz's little prince
+incognito. I wondered whether Mrs. Hetterman knew anything of his real
+history, but she preferred to talk at present about her own family. She
+was very happy in the prospect of introducing her oldest daughter,
+Jennie, into the house as a waitress. "It will be so much better for
+Jennie," she said, "than the feather factory. The hair there is not good
+for 'er lungs."
+
+I did not understand, at first, what Mrs. Hetterman meant by the _hair_,
+but when she explained that it was "the hatmosphere," her meaning dawned
+upon me.
+
+"It will make it a bit lonelier for Mary and the little ones," she
+admitted, "but I go down every night, after the work's over, to tidy
+them up and to see that hall's right. The court is not a fit place for
+the children. If I could find decent lodgings for them, such as Mrs.
+'Alsey 'as got for her Jim! I think I could pay as much, if the place
+was only found; I'm 'oping something will turn hup, Miss."
+
+"I hope so," I replied; and I asked Winnie that afternoon if she thought
+the person who was boarding Jim Halsey would take the Hettermans, but
+she utterly discouraged the idea.
+
+We saw a good deal of the little prince. Miss Prillwitz called him
+Giacomo, and was deeply attached to him. He did her credit too, for he
+was docile and bright. His mother was right in saying that he inherited
+his father's facility for mathematics, but with this faculty he
+possessed also a love for mechanics and for machinery of every sort.
+
+"He will make one good engineer some day," said Miss Prillwitz, in
+speaking of him to us.
+
+"That is a strange career for a prince," said Adelaide.
+
+"My tear, it may be many year before he ees call to his princedom, and
+in ze meanstime he muss make his way. Zen, too, ze sons of ze royal
+houses make such study, and it is one good thing for ze country whose
+prince interest himself in ze science."
+
+"I wonder how he would like to study surveying by and by," Adelaide
+said. "I know that father could employ him in the West."
+
+"Zat is one excellent idea," said Miss Prillwitz. "We will see, when ze
+time s'all arrive."
+
+We were all fond of the little prince. After all, Miss Prillwitz had
+decided to let him attend the botany lessons on Saturdays. "If he s'all
+be one surveyor in ze West," she said, "he s'all have opportunity to
+discover ze new species of flower; he must learn all ze natural
+science."
+
+The prince attended the public school during the week, and held his
+place at the head of his class with ease. It was not hard to do so, now
+that he could sleep all night. Emma Jane, who had had her spasms of
+doubt in regard to him, and had even gone so far at first as to say that
+Miss Prillwitz was a crank, and she had no faith in the boy's nobility,
+had been won over by the boy himself, and remarked one afternoon that
+the internal evidence was convincing; Giacomo was not like common
+children; he was evidently cast in a finer mold; he would do honor to
+any position; birth would tell, after all. It was all that dear Milly
+could do not to betray the secret to the little prince. He was very fond
+of Milly, but deferential and unpresuming, as became his apparent
+position. "Some day our places may be reversed. You may live in a
+beautiful home and have hosts of friends," Milly said to him. "Will you
+remember me then, Giacomo?"
+
+"How can that ever be?" the boy asked. "You will grow up and be a fine
+rich lady; I will be a poor young man whom you will have quite
+forgotten."
+
+"Not necessarily poor," Milly hastened to reply. "If you go West you
+may, by working hard, become rich and famous. Will you forget your old
+friends then?"
+
+And Jim promised that he would never, never forget. Then a shade came
+across his face. "Maybe I will, after all," he said, "for I have
+forgotten Mary Hetterman for more than a week. I did not think I could
+be so mean."
+
+Adelaide and I had a conference in regard to the prince. It seemed that
+she had recognized him as Jim Halsey from the first. "I have been
+wondering," she said, "whether it was not a case like that of Little
+Lord Fauntleroy, and whether Mrs. Halsey could not be proved to be the
+wife of a prince, but I see that cannot be the explanation of the
+matter; and I have concluded that Jim is her adopted child. She must
+have taken him, when she was in better circumstances, from the people
+who brought him to this country when he was a very little fellow, and so
+he has no recollection of any other home."
+
+"She always spoke of him as her very own," I said, "and seemed fonder of
+him than a foster-mother could be. It will be very hard for her to part
+with him, if his real relatives claim him."
+
+"Not if he goes to high rank and great estates," said Adelaide. "She
+probably had no idea of his noble birth when she adopted him; and it
+just proves that bread cast upon the waters returns, for he will
+probably care for her right royally, when he comes into his own, and she
+will find that adopting that boy was the best investment she ever made
+in her life."
+
+Winnie came in while we were talking.
+
+"Why didn't you tell us, Winnie," I asked, "that Jim Halsey was the
+little prince?"
+
+"It did not seem necessary," Winnie replied, looking unnecessarily
+alarmed, as it seemed to me.
+
+"You pay his board directly to Miss Prillwitz, I suppose?" Adelaide
+said.
+
+"No, I give it to his mother, and she sends it by mail."
+
+"Well, I don't see any harm in letting Miss Prillwitz know that we know
+his mother, and are helping in his support."
+
+"I do, and I wish you would not tell her this," Winnie entreated.
+
+"Just as you please," Adelaide replied, "but I hate mysteries."
+
+"So do I," said Winnie, with a deep sigh.
+
+"What is the matter with you, any way, Winnie?" Adelaide asked.
+
+"That is my business," Winnie replied, shortly, and left the room,
+banging the door behind her.
+
+"Winnie isn't half as jolly as she used to be," said Milly, in an
+injured tone. "I always depend on her to save me when I'm not prepared
+for recitation. When Professor Todd was coming down the line in the
+Virgil class and was only two girls away from me, I made the most
+beseeching faces at Winnie, who sits opposite, and usually she is so
+quick to take the hint, and come to the rescue by asking Professor Todd
+a lot of questions about the sites of the ancient cities, and where he
+thinks the Hesperides were situated. She gets him to talking on his pet
+hobbies, and he proses on like an old dear, until the bell rings for
+change of class. But this time she just stared at me in the most
+wall-eyed manner, while I signaled her in a perfect agony as he got
+nearer and nearer. I tried to think of some question of my own to ask
+him, and suddenly one popped into my head which I thought was very
+bright. He had just been talking about AEneas' shipwreck, and he referred
+to St. Paul's, with a description of the ancient vessels, and how he met
+the same Mediterranean storms, and I plucked up courage and said,
+'Professor Todd, why is it that we hear so much about Virginia, and in
+all the pictures of the shipwreck we see her standing on the deck of the
+ship, and Paul rushing out into the surf to rescue her? Now I have read
+the chapter in Acts which describes St. Paul's shipwreck, very
+carefully, and in that, and in all the history of Paul, there is not one
+word about Virginia.'
+
+"You should have heard the girls shout; I think they were just as mean
+as they could be. That odious Cynthia Vaughn nearly fell off the bench,
+and Professor Todd looked at me in such a despairing way, as though he
+gave me up from that time forth. I just burst into tears, and Winnie
+came over and took me out of the room. She acknowledged that it was all
+her fault, and that she ought to have come to my rescue sooner."
+
+Poor Milly! we could only comfort her with our assurances that we loved
+her all the more for her troubles.
+
+Summer was approaching, and we were making our plans for vacation.
+Milly's mother had invited Adelaide to spend the season with them at
+their cottage at Narragansett Pier; and Winnie's father had consented to
+her spending June and July with me on our Long Island farm. Winnie
+cheered up somewhat at the prospect. "It's the warm weather which makes
+me feel muggy," she said; "I shall feel better when we get out of the
+city too. The noise and racket distract me, and seeing so many miserable
+people makes me miserable and sick at heart."
+
+"I don't feel so at all," I replied. "It makes me happy to see how much
+good even we can do. Mrs. Halsey would not have obtained her situation
+with Madame Celeste but for us, or have been able to place Jim with
+Miss Prillwitz."
+
+Winnie winced. "Don't talk about them; I am sick and tired of hearing
+about the little prince. Do you know, I don't believe he is a prince at
+all!"
+
+"What! Do you imagine that this story of Miss Prillwitz's is only a
+fabrication?"
+
+"Perhaps so, or at least a hallucination on her part; and even if it is
+all true Jim may not be the boy. I wonder what proof she has of his
+identity, or whether she has written yet to his relatives. I mean to ask
+her--this very day."
+
+But Winnie did nothing of the kind, for we were surprised on arriving at
+Miss Prillwitz's to find three new children sitting in the broad
+window-seats. One was a thin girl with crutches, whom I at once guessed
+must be Mary Hetterman; two chubby, freckle-faced little ones sat in the
+sunshine looking over a picture-book together, while Miss Prillwitz
+beamed upon them.
+
+"My tears," she said, "you see I haf some more companie. Giacomo haf
+brought these small people to spend ze day."
+
+Jim came in a little later, and introduced his friends. He was flushed
+and excited, and it presently appeared that the visit was a part of a
+deep-laid scheme of his own.
+
+"I wanted you to know the Hettermans," he said, "because they are such
+nice children, and Rickett's Court is no place for them, for the family
+next door have the fever, and Mr. Grogan has the tremens, and scares
+them most to death. Mrs. Hetterman gets twenty dollars a month as cook
+now, and she says she can pay a dollar a week apiece for each of the
+children if she can board them where it is healthful and decent; and you
+young ladies were so kind as to help my mother at first, and now, as she
+don't need it any longer, maybe you would help the Hettermans, and then
+maybe Aunty would take them in. Mary is very handy, for all she's a
+cripple, and the babies' noise is just nothing but a pleasure, and--"
+here the tears stood in his eyes, and he looked at Miss Prillwitz, who
+was frozen stiff with astonishment, with piteous appealing--"and I would
+eat just as little as I could."
+
+The good woman's voice trembled, "Take ze children to play in ze park,"
+she said; "ze young ladies and I, we talk it some over."
+
+Mary Hetterman tied the children's hoods on with cheerful alacrity. She
+evidently had high hopes, while Jim threw his arms around Miss
+Prillwitz--"Aunty," he said, "they deserve that you should be kind to
+them more than I do."
+
+"What reason is zere that I should take them in more as all ze uzzer
+children in ze court?"
+
+"Just as much reason as for you to take me," replied the boy, running
+away.
+
+"Bless his heart!" said Miss Prillwitz, as he closed the door; "he knows
+not ze reason zat draw me to him, ze cherubim. But I did not know you to
+help his muzzer until now."
+
+Adelaide explained matters, and the case of the Hettermans was
+discussed, Miss Prillwitz agreeing to take them in if we would assist in
+their support. "I shall leaf zem in my apartement for ze summer," she
+said, "for it is necessaire to me zat I go ze shore of ze sea, and I
+s'all take Giacomo with me, for I cannot bear to separate myself of him.
+Zis is so near to your school zat Mrs. Hetterman can sleep her nights
+here. But I have not decided to myself where I shall repose myself for
+ze summer."
+
+I spoke up quickly, referring her to Miss Sartoris for the beauties of
+our part of Long Island and for mother's low price for board. Miss
+Prillwitz was evidently pleasantly impressed. She thought she would like
+to study the seaweed of that part of the coast, and when she heard of
+the lighthouse, against which the birds of passage dashed themselves,
+and how the keeper had kept their skins, waiting for some one to come
+that way and teach him to stuff them, she was quite decided in our
+favor.
+
+I noticed that Winnie grew suddenly silent. As we left the house she
+pinched me softly. "You didn't mean any harm, Tib," she said, "but if
+they go, it will take every bit of pleasure out of my summer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Winnie's confession.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Wilhelm Kalbfleisch.}]
+
+
+Wilhelm Kalbfleisch, the butcher's boy, was one of the most
+uninteresting specimens of humanity that I have ever seen. That any of
+us would ever give him even a passing glance seemed quite beyond the
+range of probability, and yet Wilhelm's stolid, good-natured face
+haunted Winnie's dreams like a very Nemesis, and came to acquire a new
+and singular interest even in my own mind.
+
+We passed a little Catholic church on our way to the boarding-school.
+
+"We are early," said Winnie. "Let's go in."
+
+It was Lent, and the altar was shrouded in black, and only a few candles
+burning dimly. We stood beside a carved confessional. A muffled murmur
+came from the interior, and the red curtains pulsated as though in time
+to sobs.
+
+"Let us go out," whispered Milly; "I am stifling."
+
+She looked so white that I was really afraid she was going to faint. "I
+feel better," she gasped, when we reached the open air.
+
+"It was frightfully close," Winnie said, "and the air was heavy with
+incense."
+
+"It was not that," said Milly, "it was the thought of it all; that there
+was a poor woman in that confessional telling all her sins to a priest.
+I never could do it in the world."
+
+"It would be a comfort to me," said Winnie, fiercely. "I only wish there
+was some one with authority, to whom I could confess my sins, that I
+might get rid of the responsibility of them."
+
+"There is," I said, before I thought; "'He hath borne our griefs and
+carried our sorrows.'"
+
+Winnie gave me a quick look. "You don't usually preach, Tib," she said,
+and burst into a merry round of stories and jokes, which convulsed the
+other girls, but did not in the least deceive me. I could see that she
+was troubled, and was trying to carry it off by riding her high horse.
+"Girls," she said, "I want you to come around to the butcher's with me.
+They have such funny little beasts in the window. I mean to get one, and
+the butcher's boy, Wilhelm, is such a princely creature--just my _beau
+ideal_--I want you to see him."
+
+The funny little beasts proved to be forms of head-cheese in fancy
+shapes. Strange roosters and ducks, with plumage of gayly colored sugar
+icing, and animals of uncouth forms and colors. Winnie bought a small
+pig with a blue nose and green tail, all the while bombarding the
+butcher's boy, who was a particularly stupid specimen, with keen
+questions and witty sallies. He was so very obtuse that he did not even
+see that she was making sport of him.
+
+As we hurried home to make up for our little escapade, Winnie amused us
+all by asking us how we thought Wilhelm would grace a princely station.
+"Just imagine, for an instant, that he was the lost Prince Paradiso!
+What a figure he would cut in chain armor, or in a court costume of
+velvet and jewels! Did you notice the elegance of his manners and the
+brilliancy of his wit?"
+
+"Winnie, Winnie, have you gone wild?" Adelaide asked. "Why do you make
+such sport of the poor fellow? He is well enough where he is, I am
+sure."
+
+"Is he not?" Winnie replied, a little more soberly; "I was only thinking
+what a mercy it is that people are so well fitted for their stations in
+life by nature. Now, think of Jim as a butcher, growing up to chop
+sausage-meat and skewer roasts!"
+
+"Jim never could be a butcher," Adelaide replied; "even if Miss
+Prillwitz's dreams do not come true, the education she is giving him
+will do no harm. He will carve a future for himself."
+
+We went into the house, and the subject was dropped. The next morning a
+message came from Miss Prillwitz that one of the Hetterman children was
+sick. It was the fever, contracted in their old home, and we were told
+that our botany lessons must be interrupted for the present. We heard
+through Mrs. Hetterman that the child was not very sick. It was one of
+the chubby little ones that had looked so well. She was quarantined now
+in Jim's room, the green one up under the roof, and had a trained nurse
+to care for her. Mrs. Hetterman did not see the child, but talked with
+her daughter Mary in the basement every evening She thought it was a
+great mercy that they had completed their moving before the child was
+taken sick. This did not seem to me to be exactly generous to Miss
+Prillwitz, but I could not blame the mother for the feeling, for under
+the careful treatment the child speedily weathered the storm, and came
+out looking only a little paler for the confinement. We were expecting a
+summons to return to our lessons, when Mrs. Hetterman told us that Jim
+was sick. We were not greatly alarmed, for the little girl's illness had
+been so slight that we fancied we would see our favorite about in a
+fortnight.
+
+Milly sent in baskets of white grapes and flowers, and Adelaide carried
+over a beautiful set of photographs of Italian architecture. "It may
+amuse him to look them over," she said, "and it is just possible that
+his ancestral palace figures among them."
+
+Adelaide hoped to go to Europe as soon as she graduated. "If Jim is
+established in his rights by that time, I shall visit him," she said,
+"so, you see, I am only mercenary in my attentions to him now."
+
+Winnie looked up indignantly, "Then you deserve to be disappointed."
+
+Adelaide laughed merrily. "I thought you knew me well enough, Winnie, to
+tell when I am in fun. I like Jim so much, personally, that I would do
+as much for him if he had no great expectations; but I do not see that
+there is any harm in thinking of the kindnesses which he may be able to
+do me."
+
+"If you don't count too surely on them. Miss Prillwitz has had time to
+notify his relatives, and they do not seem to take any interest in him."
+
+It is the unexpected that always happens. That very evening Mrs.
+Hetterman brought us this note from Miss Prillwitz. She wrote better
+than she spoke, for on paper there was no opportunity for the foreign
+accent to betray itself:
+
+     "MY DEAR YOUNG LADIES:
+
+     "The elder brother have arrived, and I fear you will have no more
+     opportunity to see little Giacomo, for I think he will take him
+     away very shortly to his father's house.
+
+     "You must not be too sorry, but think what a so great thing this
+     is for poor little Giacomo, to be called so soon to his beautiful
+     estate; no more poorness or trouble, in the palace of the King.
+     Giacomo desire me to thank you for all you kindness to him. He hope
+     some time you will all come to him at his beautiful country of
+     everlasting springtime, and the elder brother invite you also. Mrs.
+     Halsey is here. She is much troubled. She forget that Giacomo was
+     not her very own, and the pain of parting from him is great. She
+     can not rightly think of the good fortune it is to him. She wish to
+     go with him, but that is not possible for now. Giacomo hope you
+     will comfort her. He hope, too, we will continue our care to the
+     children Hetterman. Come not to-night, dear young ladies, to bid
+     him farewells; I fear you to cry, and so to trouble his happiness.
+
+     "Your at all times loving teacher,
+
+                                    "CELESTINE PRILLWITZ."
+
+"The idea of our crying, like so many babies!" said Emma Jane Anton;
+"why, it's the best thing that possibly could happen to him, and I, for
+one, shall congratulate him heartily."
+
+"I suppose so," Milly assented, doubtfully, "but I shall miss him
+awfully, he is such a nice little fellow."
+
+"So much the better," said Adelaide; "how glad the prince must be to
+find that his little brother is really presentable. As Winnie was
+saying, 'Fancy his feelings if he had found him a coarse, common
+creature like Wilhelm, the butcher's boy!' And now, Winnie, what do you
+say to my being too sure about visiting him some day? Here is the
+invitation from the prince himself. I wonder just where in Italy they
+live!"
+
+So the girls chatted all together, but Winnie was strangely silent.
+
+"I ought to see Miss Prillwitz at once," she exclaimed, suddenly.
+
+"It's too late, now," replied Emma Jane; "there! the retiring-bell is
+ringing, and if you look across the square you can see that Miss
+Prillwitz's lights are all out; besides, she particularly requested us
+not to come until morning."
+
+"Then I must run over before breakfast," said Winnie, "for it is very
+important."
+
+She set a little alarm-clock for an hour earlier than our usual
+waking-time; but she was unable to sleep, and her restlessness kept me
+awake also. She tossed from side to side, and moaned to herself, and at
+last I heard her say, "Oh! what wouldn't I give if some one would only
+show me the best way out of it."
+
+"Winnie," I said, softly, "I am not asleep. What is the matter? Are you
+in trouble?"
+
+"Yes, Tib."
+
+"Do you need money?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you in love?"
+
+"The idea! A thousand times no."
+
+"Are you going to be expelled?"
+
+"Not unless I tell on myself; perhaps not even then. But oh, Tib, I told
+you I was in for a scrape. I thought I could stick it through, but it's
+worse than I thought. I can't keep the secret; I've got to tell."
+
+"I would, and then you'll feel better."
+
+"No, I will not, for telling will not do any good. I'm not sure but it
+will do harm."
+
+"You poor child, what can it be?"
+
+"Just this--Jim is _not_ the prince."
+
+"I don't see how you know that, or, if you do, what business it is of
+yours."
+
+"Because I deceived Miss Prillwitz, and got Jim in there by making her
+think he was the boy she had heard about, while the real boy is
+somewhere else. I've _got_ to tell her before his friends take him away,
+and before that other boy disappears from view entirely."
+
+"That is really dreadful, but if you know where the true prince is, it
+can't be quite irreparable. What ever made you do such a thing? and how
+did you manage to do it?"
+
+"Why, you see, I hadn't any faith in this story of a lost prince at all.
+I thought that Miss Prillwitz was just a little bit of a crank, who had
+been imposed on by designing people and I was sure, when I saw the woman
+at the door who came to tell Miss Prillwitz that her boy had a situation
+and could not come, that she had been in league with the person who had
+told Miss Prillwitz about the lost prince, but had backed out of the
+plot because she was afraid. Miss Prillwitz had evidently not suspected
+that she knew anything of the boy's supposed expectations, for she had
+merely promised to take him to board, teach, and clothe, for whatever
+the mother could give her, the woman having said that she was going into
+a family as German nursery governess, and agreeing to send a trifle
+toward her boy's support whenever she received her salary. It was just
+the time that Mrs. Halsey was looking for a place for Jim. It was so
+easy to have him come at the time agreed upon and take the place of the
+other boy. I was afraid, at first, that Miss Prillwitz would be
+surprised by the regularity of our payments and the amount we sent, but
+she didn't seem to suspect anything, and she is so fond of him, and he
+deserves it all--and everything worked so well up to the coming of the
+prince."
+
+"But, Winnie, why didn't you tell her the whole story at first? I think
+she would have taken him, all the same, and then you would not have got
+things into this awful muddle."
+
+"Indeed she would not have taken him, a mere pauper out of the slums,
+unless she had thought that he was something more. She is a born
+aristocrat, and she never could have taken Jim to her heart so if she
+had not believed that he was of her own class--of her family, even. Why,
+even Adelaide would never have seen half the fine qualities in him which
+she thinks she has discovered if she had not thought him a noble; and it
+has thrown a fine halo of romance over him for Milly; and even Emma
+Jane, who was hard to convince at first, is firmly persuaded that he is
+made of a little finer clay than the rest of us. And you, Tib, confess
+that you are disappointed yourself."
+
+"I am bitterly disappointed," I admitted; "but that is nothing to the
+extent that Miss Prillwitz will feel it. I wouldn't be in your shoes,
+Winnie, for anything."
+
+"I know it; I know it. I have been wicked, but I had no idea that the
+family would ever look him up. I hardly believed the story that there
+had been any prince lost. And, Tib, if there had not been, where would
+have been the harm in what I did?"
+
+"It would have been wrong, all the same, Winnie, even if it had seemed
+to turn out well. Deception is always wrong, and I did not think it of
+you. But there, don't sob so, or you will make yourself sick, and you
+need all your wits and strength to carry you through the ordeal of
+setting things straight to-morrow. I'll stand by you. I'll go with you
+if it will be any help."
+
+"No, you shall not; Miss Prillwitz might think you were implicated in
+the affair. The fault was all mine, and I will not have any one else
+share the blame; only be on hand at the door, Tib, with an ambulance to
+carry away the remnants, for I shall be all broken into smithereens by
+the interview."
+
+I tried to soothe the excited girl, and fancied that she had fallen
+asleep, when she suddenly began to laugh hysterically.
+
+"I haven't told you who the real prince is," she said. "Aren't you
+curious to know?"
+
+"Have I ever met him?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; it's Wilhelm the butcher's boy."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Isn't it too absurd for anything? That was the situation which his
+mother, or foster-mother, preferred to Miss Prillwitz's care. What will
+Adelaide say now about blue blood telling even in low circumstances?
+There is _blood_ enough about Wilhelm if that is all that is desired.
+And won't that foreign prince be just raving when he is introduced to
+his long-lost brother! But poor Miss Prillwitz!--that's the worst of
+all. No doubt she has been writing with pride and delight the most
+glowing letters in reference to Jim's fitness for his high position. How
+chagrined and mortified the dear old lady will be! Tell me now, Tib,
+that things were not better as I managed them."
+
+"It does seem as if there must be a mistake somewhere. Still, the truth
+is the truth, and I believe in telling it, even if the Heavens fall.
+This matter is all in the hands of Providence, Winnie, and I believe you
+got into trouble simply by thinking that you knew better than
+Providence, and that the world could not move on without you."
+
+"I must say you are rather hard on me, Tib, but perhaps you are right.
+Do you suppose that if I hand the tangle I have made right to God, he
+will take it from my hands and straighten it out for me? I should think
+He would have nothing more to do with it, or with me."
+
+"That is not the way our mothers behave when we get our work into a
+snarl."
+
+This last remark comforted her. She laid her head upon my shoulder and
+prayed:
+
+"Dear Heavenly Father, I have done wrong, and everything has gone wrong.
+Help me henceforth to do right, and wilt Thou make everything turn out
+right. For thy dear Son's sake, I ask it. Amen."
+
+Then trustfully she fell asleep, her conscience relieved of a great
+weight, and with faith in a power beyond her own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE ELDER BROTHER AND MRS. HALSEY'S STRANGE STORY.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of child sleeping in bed.}]
+
+
+Notwithstanding Winnie's protestations to the contrary, I insisted on
+going with her the next morning when she went to make her confession.
+
+The little alarm-clock made its usual racket, but Winnie slept
+peacefully, and I was dressed before I could make up my mind to waken
+her. But I knew how disappointed she would be if she could not make her
+call on Miss Prillwitz before breakfast, and I wakened her with a kiss,
+and made her a cup of coffee over the gas while she was dressing. Then
+we put on our ulsters and hoods, and slipped out of the house just as
+the rising-bell was ringing.
+
+We knew that Miss Prillwitz was habitually an early riser, or we would
+not have planned to call at such an hour, but we were surprised to find
+a cab standing before her door.
+
+"I wonder whether the prince and Jim are just about to leave," Winnie
+exclaimed. "I did not know that any of the ocean steamers sailed so
+early in the morning. What if they have gone and we are too late!"
+
+Something was the matter with the door-bell, and just as we were about
+to knock, the door opened and a stout gentleman came down the steps, and
+drove away in the carriage. Jim was not with him, and Miss Prillwitz
+stood inside the door.
+
+Winnie caught her arm and asked, "Was that the prince, the elder
+brother?"
+
+"No, tear," said Miss Prillwitz, gravely. "Why haf you come, when I
+write you you must not?"
+
+"Oh Miss Prillwitz, it was because I have something so particular, so
+important, to tell you. Do not tell me that Jim has gone, and that it is
+too late!"
+
+"No, tear, Giacomo haf not gone already. I think ze elder brother take
+him very soon, and we keep our little Giacomo not one leetle longer. Go
+in ze park by ze bench and I vill come and talk zare wiz you."
+
+We wondered at her unwillingness to let us in, but obeyed her
+directions, and presently she came out to us with a shawl thrown about
+her and a knitted boa outside her cap. Even then she did not sit near
+us, but on a bench at a little distance, having first noted carefully
+that the wind blew from our direction toward her. All this might have
+seemed strange to us had we not been so thoroughly absorbed in what
+Winnie was about to say. The poor child blundered into her story at
+once, and told it in such broken fashion that Miss Prillwitz never could
+have understood it but for my explanations. When we had finished, the
+tears stood in Miss Prillwitz's eyes.
+
+"My tear child," she said, kindly, drawing nearer to us, "how you haf
+suffer! Yes, you have done a sin, but you are sorry, and God he forgive
+ze sorrowful."
+
+"But do you forgive me, Miss Prillwitz?" Winnie cried, passionately.
+"Can you ever love me again?"
+
+"Yes, my tear, I forgive you freely, and I love you more as ever."
+
+"And the elder brother and Jim? Have Jim's expectations been raised?
+Will he be greatly disappointed, and will the prince be very angry?"
+
+"My tear, in all zis it is not as you have t'inked. See, you haf not
+understand my way of talk. I t'ink Giacomo will, all ze same, pretty
+soon go to his Fazzer's house. Ze elder brother is may be gone wiz him
+by now. You have not, then, understand zat dis elder brother is ze Lord
+Christ? zat ze beautiful country is Heaven? Our little Giacomo lie very
+sick. Ze doctor, whom justly you did meet, he gif no hope. His poor
+muzzer sit by him so sad, so sad, it tear my heart. She cannot see he go
+to ze palace to be one Prince del Paradiso."
+
+We sat bolt upright, dazed and stunned by this astounding information.
+
+"Do you mean to say," Winnie said, slowly, grasping her head as though
+laboring to concentrate her ideas, "that Jim is dying, and that he is no
+more a prince than any of us? I mean that the other boy is not a real
+prince, and that no child ever strayed away from its father's house, or
+elder brother has been seeking for a lost one? Oh Miss Prillwitz, how
+could you make up such a story?"
+
+"My tear, my tear, it is all true, and I t'ought you to understand my
+leetle vay of talk. Giacomo is a prince in disguise; you, my tears, are
+daughters of ze great King. Zat uzzer boy, ze butcher, he also inherit
+ze same heavenly palace. All ze children what come in zis world haf
+wander avay from zat home, and ze elder brother he go up and down
+looking for ze lost. He gif me commission; he gif effery Christians
+commission to find zose lost prince--to teach him and fit him for his
+high position. I did not have intention to deceive you, my tear. It was
+my little vay of talk."
+
+"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Winnie, "I feel as if my brain were turning a
+somersault, but I cannot realize it. Then I did not really deceive you,
+after all, Miss Prillwitz, though I was just as wicked in intending to
+do so. And Jim--do not say there is no hope!"
+
+"No, my tear. I know all ze time zis was not ze boy I expect. But I say
+to myself, 'How he come I know not, but he is also ze child of ze
+King.' Ze elder brother want him to be care for also. May be ze elder
+brother send him, and I take him very gladly. And surely, I never find
+one child to prove his title to be one Prince of Paradise better as
+Giacomo. So gentle, so loving, so generous and soughtful. I not wonder
+at all ze elder brother want him. I sank him, I sank you, too, Winnie, I
+have privilege to know one such lovely character."
+
+Miss Prillwitz looked at her watch. "I can no longer," she said quickly,
+and hurried back to her home. We crossed the park thoughtfully and
+entered the school. There was just time to tell the girls the news
+before chapel. The knowledge that dear Jim was lying at death's door
+overwhelmed every other consideration, and yet we talked over Miss
+Prillwitz's little allegory also.
+
+"We were stupid not to see through it at first," said Adelaide. "She is
+just the woman to create an ideal world for herself and to live in it. I
+have no grudge against her because we misunderstood her meaning, and yet
+there certainly is something very fine in Jim's nature."
+
+"Now I think it all over," said Emma Jane, "she has said nothing which
+was not true."
+
+"I understand her letter better now," I said. "We have all been parts of
+a beautiful parable, and we have been as thickheaded as the disciples
+were when Jesus said, 'O fools, and slow of heart to believe.'"
+
+Milly was silently weeping. "All the beauty of the idea doesn't change
+the fact that Jim is dying," she said.
+
+"I have never loved any one so since I lost my mother and my baby
+brother," said Adelaide. "I can't remember how he looked--it was ten
+years ago, and I have no photographs, only this cameo pin, which father
+bought because it reminded him of mother. Not the face either, only the
+turn of the neck. He said she had a beautiful neck--and as he came home
+from his business at night he always saw her sitting in her little
+sewing-chair by the window looking every now and then over her shoulder
+for him with her neck turned so, and her profile clear cut against the
+dark of the room like the two colors of agate in this cameo."
+
+It is not natural for girls to talk freely on what stirs them most
+deeply, and little more was said on the subject that morning, but we
+each thought a great deal, and if our hearts could have been laid bare
+to each other, we would have been startled by the similarity of the
+trains of thought which this event had roused. All through the morning's
+lessons our imaginations wandered to the house across the park, and we
+wondered whether all was indeed over, and dear, cheery, helpful Jim had
+gone. We did not remember that we had declared we would gladly let him
+go to an earthly princedom, and yet this was far better for him. Our
+imaginations saw only the white upturned face upon the pillow, the
+grief-stricken mother, and Miss Prillwitz flitting about drawing the
+sheet straight, and placing white lilacs in his hands.
+
+Adelaide confessed to me, long after, that all of her worldly thoughts
+in reference to visiting Jim some day came back to her in a strange,
+sermonizing way. She said that in her secret heart she had rather
+dreaded the visit because she knew so little of the etiquette of foreign
+courts, and was afraid she might make some mistake. She had even studied
+several books on the subject, and knew the sort of costume it was
+necessary to wear in a royal presentation, just the length of the
+train, the degree of decolletee, and the veil, and the feathers. The
+thought came over her with great vividness that she had never studied
+the etiquette of Heaven or attempted to provide herself with garments
+fit for the presence of the King. Mrs. Hetterman had a habit of singing
+quaint old hymns. There was one which we often heard echoing up from the
+basement--
+
+    "At His right hand our eyes behold
+    The queen arrayed in purest gold;
+    The world admires her heavenly dress,
+    Her robe of joy and righteousness."
+
+This scrap was borne in upon Adelaide's mind now. "A robe of joy and
+righteousness," she thought to herself; "I wonder how it is made! it
+surely must be becoming."
+
+Then she thought again of her mingled motives, of how glad she had been
+that she had befriended Jim because she could claim him as an
+acquaintance as a prince, in that foreign country, and how she had
+wished that she might entertain more traveling members of the nobility
+in his country in order to have more acquaintances at court. "If the
+poor are Christ's brothers and sisters," she said to herself, "I have
+abundant opportunity to make many friendships which may be carried over
+into that unknown country;" and a new purpose awoke in her heart, which
+had for its spring not the most unselfish motives, but a strong one, and
+destined to achieve good work, and to give place in time to higher aims.
+
+Afternoon came, and no message had arrived from Jim. "Girls," said
+Adelaide, as we sat in the Amen Corner, "if Jim dies, I propose that we
+carry this sort of work on of fitting poor children for something
+higher, and broaden it, as a memorial to him. I don't exactly see my way
+yet, but we can do a good deal if we band together and try."
+
+"Oh! don't talk about Jim's dying," said Milly, "we'll do it, anyway."
+
+"I can't see why we don't hear from Miss Prillwitz," said Winnie,
+impatiently. "It is recreation hour; let us go out into the park, and
+perhaps she will see us and send us some word."
+
+We walked around and around the paths which were in view from Miss
+Prillwitz's windows. Presently we saw Mary Hetterman coming toward us
+with a note in her hand.
+
+"I know just what that note says," exclaimed Milly, sinking upon a
+bench. "The little prince has gone to his estates."
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed Adelaide. "See! is it a ghost?" We looked as she
+pointed, and saw at Jim's window a perfect representation of Adelaide's
+cameo. A white face against the dark interior. It vanished as she spoke,
+leaving us all with a strange, eerie sensation, a feeling that this was
+certainly an omen of Jim's death. But our premonitions, like so many
+others, did not come true. The note was not for us. Mary Hetterman
+passed us with a smile and a nod, and a moment later Miss Prillwitz
+herself came out to us.
+
+We knew by her face that she brought good news, but none of us spoke
+until she answered our unuttered question.
+
+"No, tears, Jim haf not gone. Ze prince haf been here, but I sink he not
+take him zis time already. The doctor sink we keep him one leetle time
+longer. I cannot stay. It is time I go give him his medicine, and let
+loose ze nurse, for I care for him ze nights. Good-bye, my tears. Ah! I
+am so happy zat ze little prince go not yet to his estates; so happy,
+and yet so sleepy also." And we noticed for the first time the great
+dark rings which want of sleep and anxiety had drawn around Miss
+Prillwitz's eyes.
+
+"Good-bye, princess," I cried; "surely no one deserves that title more
+than you, for you have proved yourself a royal daughter of the King. We
+have called you so a long time among ourselves--our Princess del
+Paradiso."
+
+She smiled, waved her hand, and vanished into the queer house which she
+had made a palace.
+
+It was some time before Adelaide could recover from the shock of the
+apparition at the window, though we assured her that it was probably
+only the trained nurse; and we afterward ascertained that it was in
+reality Mrs. Halsey, who had come to the window for a moment to greet
+the glad new day, and who was now as joyful as she had been despairing.
+So much tension of feeling, so great extremes of joy and sorrow, had
+affected her deeply, and she wept out her gratitude on Miss Prillwitz's
+sympathizing heart. "You have been very good to him," Mrs. Halsey said,
+with emotion. "Some time, when the past all comes back to me, as I am
+sure it will some day, I may be able to return your kindness."
+
+Mrs. Halsey had made several mysterious allusions to the past, and Miss
+Prillwitz, who had a kindly way of gaining the confidence of everyone,
+said sweetly, "Tell me about your early life, my tear."
+
+"It is a strange story," Mrs. Halsey replied. "I had a happy childhood
+and girlhood, and a happy married life up to the time that my dear
+parents died, and even after that, for my husband was the best of men,
+and I had a sweet little daughter. Their faces come back to me, waking
+and sleeping, though I have lost them, I sometimes fear, forever."
+
+"Did they die?" Miss Prillwitz asked.
+
+"No, dear, I think not; but now comes the strange part of my story: I
+remember a journey vaguely, and a steamer disaster, a night of horror
+with fire and water, and then all is a frightful blank; a curtain of
+blackness seems to have fallen on all my past life. I am told that I was
+rescued from the burning of a Sound steamer, with my baby-boy in my
+arms, and given shelter by some kindly farmer folk. I had received an
+injury--a blow on the head--and had brain-fever, from which I recovered
+in body, but with a disordered mind, my memory shattered; I could
+remember faces, but not names. I could not tell the name of the town in
+which I had lived, or my own name. I remained with the kind people who
+first received me for several months, but I did not wish to be a burden
+to them, and I hoped that I might find my home. I knew that it had been
+in a city, and I felt sure that if I ever saw any of my old
+surroundings, or old friends I would recognize them at once. It was
+thought, too, that New York physicians might help me, so I came to New
+York, and my case was advertised in the papers. But months had passed
+since the accident, and my friends either did not see the advertisement,
+or did not recognize me in the story given. The doctors at the hospital
+pronounced me incurable, and I was discharged. I wandered up and down
+the streets, but although I felt sure that I had been in New York
+before, I could not find my home. I read the names on the signs, hoping
+to recognize my own name, but I never came across it. Meantime I took
+the name of Halsey; it was necessary for me to live, and I knew that I
+could sew, and that I had a faculty for designing; and seeing Madame
+Celeste's advertisement for a designer, I applied at once for the
+situation. It seemed to me at first that I had seen Madame Celeste
+before, but she was repellent in manner, and I did not dare question
+her, and gradually that impression faded. I hired a woman to take care
+of Jim, and though he was not well cared for, he lived, and we got on
+until he was large enough to play upon the streets. Then I took him home
+to the little room in Rickett's Court, and finding that I could not be
+with him as much as he needed, I gave up my place at Madame Celeste's
+and worked at first for the costumer, where the young ladies found me,
+and afterward tried to keep soul and body together by taking sewing
+home. It was the life of a galley-slave, but I did not care so long as I
+could keep my boy at school, and with me out of school hours. But I
+could not do that, for to earn the money which was absolutely necessary
+for our support Jim had to work too, and driving the milkman's cart in
+the early morning was the best we could find for him out of school
+hours. He was so proud and happy to do it, and to help earn for us both;
+but, as you know, it cut into his hours for sleep, and left him no time
+to study. Oh! I was nearly in despair, when God sent you as angels to my
+help and Jim's."
+
+"And have you never been able to guess what your old name was?" Miss
+Prillwitz asked.
+
+"Never; sometimes it seems to me that I remember it in my dreams, but
+when I awake it is gone; still, I cannot help feeling that I shall find
+my own again. Sometimes there comes a great inward illumination, and the
+curtain seems to be lifting. I cannot think they have forgotten me--my
+husband tender and true, and my little girl with the great questioning
+eyes."
+
+Miss Prillwitz did not share Mrs. Halsey's confidence, but her sympathy
+was enlisted, and she caressed and comforted Mrs. Halsey. "It shall be
+as you hope, my tear; if not just now and here, zen surely by and by,
+and zat is not very long. And meantime you have found some friends, ze
+young ladies and me, and ze Elder Brother have found you, and we are all
+one family, so you can be no longer lonely and wizout relation, even in
+zis world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE KING'S DAUGHTERS AND THE VENETIAN FETE.
+
+    "O ladies, dear ladies, the next sunny day,
+    Please trundle your hoops just out of Broadway,
+    From its whirl and its bustle, its fashion and pride,
+    And the temples of trade which tower on each side,
+    To the alleys and lanes where Misfortune and Guilt
+    Their children have gathered, their city have built.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Then say, if you dare,
+    Spoiled children of fashion, you've nothing to wear!"
+
+[Illustration: {Drawing of Milly Roseveldt.}]
+
+
+Milly Roseveldt made an important entry in her diary a few days after
+this. She was very exact about keeping her diary, recording for the most
+part, however, very trivial matters, but the day that she wrote "We have
+organized a 'King's Daughters Ten'" was a day with a white stone in it,
+and deserved to be remembered.
+
+Jim had passed the crisis of the fever, and recovered rapidly. Neither
+of the other Hettermans was taken ill. The house was thoroughly cleansed
+and disinfected, and after a few weeks we took up our interrupted botany
+lessons. But Jim's illness had made more than a transient impression,
+and Adelaide's suggestion that we should broaden and deepen our work was
+talked over amongst us.
+
+"There is a society," said Emma Jane, "which I have heard of somewhere,
+which is called 'The King's Daughters.' I think they have much the same
+idea that Miss Prillwitz has expressed. It is formed of separate links
+of ten members, bound together by the common purpose of doing good. Now,
+I think, we might form such a link, with Miss Prillwitz for our
+president. There are five of us, but we need five more. Whom shall we
+ask?"
+
+"Girls," said Winnie, "I'm afraid you won't agree, but there is real
+good stuff in those Hornets."
+
+"The Hornets! Oh, never!"
+
+"What an idea!"
+
+"Why, they hate us!"
+
+"No, they simply think that we despise them."
+
+"Well, so we do. I am sure, the way that Cynthia Vaughn behaves is
+simply despicable."
+
+"Perhaps so," Winnie admitted, "but the other three girls are not so
+bad. Little Breeze"--that was our nickname for Tina Gale--"is a real
+good-natured girl, and a perfect genius for getting up things. When I
+roomed in the Nest she was devoted to me; so they all were, for that
+matter. I could make them do whatever I pleased, and Rosaria Ricos, the
+Cuban heiress, is just as generous as she can be. 'Trude Middleton is a
+great Sunday-school worker when she is at home, and Puss Seligman's
+mother has a longer calling-list than Milly's, I do believe. Don't you
+remember what a lot of tickets she sold for the theatricals? If we are
+going to get up a charitable society we must use some brains to make it
+succeed, and those girls are a power. You know very well that it is the
+Hornets' Nest and the Amen Corner which support the literary society,
+and when we unite on any ticket-selling or other enterprise it is sure
+to succeed."
+
+"Yes," replied Emma Jane Anton, "that is because we appeal to entirely
+different sets of girls--between us we carry the entire school."
+
+"I will take all in," said Adelaide, "except Cynthia. She has been too
+hateful to Tib and Milly for anything!"
+
+"Oh, don't mind me," murmured Milly; "I dare say she could not help
+laughing when I made that mistake about Paul and Virginia."
+
+"I don't believe she will join us," I said, doubtfully; "but I am sure I
+would a great deal rather have her for a friend than an enemy."
+
+"She will be so surprised and flattered that she will be as sweet as
+jam," said Winnie, confidently. "You have no idea what a lofty
+reputation you girls have. I used to reverence and envy you until it
+amounted to positive hatred. That is what made me behave so badly. I
+knew we couldn't approach you in good behavior, and I determined to take
+the lead in something. That's just the way with Cynthia. She imagines
+that you would not touch her with a ten-foot pole, and she wants you to
+think that she doesn't care, but she does."
+
+Milly promptly furnished the wherewithal for a spread, and the Hornets
+were invited. Adelaide said that they acted as if a sense of
+gratification were struggling with a sneaking consciousness of
+unworthiness, and it was all that she could do not to display the scorn
+which she was afraid she felt. But Milly was as sweetly gracious as only
+Milly knew how to be, and Winnie put them all at their ease with her
+rollicking good-fellowship. I was sure that Cynthia at first suspected
+some trick, but even she succumbed at last to our praise of her
+banjo-playing, which was really admirable. They melted completely with
+the ice-cream--little ducks with strawberry heads and pistache wings;
+and when Winnie told them the entire story of the little prince they
+were greatly interested.
+
+"Now," said Winnie, "I have been talking with Jim, and he says that the
+tenement house in which he lived swarms with children who ought not to
+pass the summer there, who will die if they do; and what I want to
+propose is, that we club together and have some sort of entertainment,
+to send them to the country, or do something else for them."
+
+The proposition met with favor, as did the plan for the King's Daughters
+society, which was organized at once, and officered as follows, the
+"spoils" being divided equally between the Amen Corner and the Hornets:
+
+President--Miss Prillwitz.
+
+Vice-Presidents--Adelaide Armstrong and Gertrude Middleton.
+
+Secretary--Cynthia Vaughn.
+
+Treasurer--Emma Jane Anton.
+
+Executive Committee--The foregoing officers and the rest of the society.
+
+"Little Breeze" then made a practical suggestion: "You know," said she,
+"that the literary society is always allowed to give an entertainment
+the week before the graduating exercises, to put the treasury in funds,
+or, rather, to pay old debts. We have no debts this year, and I am sure
+that the society will let us have the occasion. Whatever we ten favor is
+sure to be carried in the literary society."
+
+"That is what I said," remarked Winnie.
+
+"So if Miss Anton will get Madame's permission for the change, I have no
+doubt we can make at least three hundred dollars."
+
+"Nonsense! we will make twice that," said Puss Hastings.
+
+"But what shall we have?"
+
+"I know the sweetest thing," said Little Breeze. "A Venetian Fete! It is
+really a fair, but the booths are all made to represent gondolas. They
+are painted black, and have their prows turned toward the centre of the
+room. We can have it in the gymnasium. The gondolas are canopied in
+different colors and hung with bright lanterns. We must all be dressed
+in Venetian costume, and have music and some pretty dances. It will be
+lovely!"
+
+The fair was planned out: each girl had a gondola assigned her, with
+permission to work other girls in, and enthusiasm had reached a high
+pitch, when the retiring-bell clanged and the Hornets took their
+departure, the utmost good feeling prevailing between what had been
+until this evening rival factions of the school.
+
+After our next botany lesson we lingered to inform Miss Prillwitz of
+what we had done, and to ask her to accept the Presidency of our ten.
+She listened with much interest.
+
+"My tears," she said, "I sink perhaps you s'all do much good. I have
+justly been sinking, sinking; but ze need is great. I know not how we
+s'all come at ze money which we do need."
+
+Then Miss Prillwitz explained that she had visited Rickett's Court, and
+had found so many little children in those vile surroundings; some of
+them, whose mothers were servants in families, and received good wages,
+were "boarding" with Mrs. Grogan, the baby-farmer. She had met one such
+mother in the court--a waitress on Fifth Avenue, who had three children
+with Mrs. Grogan.
+
+"I pay her fifteen dollars a month," she said; "it is cheaper than I can
+board them elsewhere, and all that I can pay; but it makes my heart sick
+to see them sleeping and playing beside sewers and sinks, and to have
+them exposed to language of infinitely worse foulness. I know that if
+they do not die in childhood, of which there is every likelihood, they
+will grow up bad; and I don't know which I would choose for them. I
+wouldn't mind slaving for them, if there was any hope, if I could see
+them in decent surroundings, with some prospect of their turning out
+well in the end; but now, when I ask myself what all my toil amounts to,
+it seems to me that the best thing which could happen to us all would be
+to die."
+
+The waitress knew of other servants who could have no home of their own
+for their children, but who could pay something for their support, and
+whose maternal love and feeling of independence kept them from giving
+their children up to institutions; who had entrusted their little ones
+to bad people, who hired them to beggars, beat and half starved them.
+And now the summer was approaching, and it was dreadful to think of
+those closely packed tenement houses under the stifling heat.
+
+Miss Prillwitz said that it had seemed to her positively wrong for her
+to go away to the seashore for the summer while so many must remain and
+suffer.
+
+"I don't see that," said Adelaide, "unless by staying you can make their
+condition better."
+
+"Perhaps I can so," replied Miss Prillwitz, "if ze King's Daughters will
+help me." And then she developed a plan of Jim's. He had noticed the
+vacant floors in her house, which had remained unlet all the winter. "If
+you could rent them for the summer, Miss Prillwitz," he had suggested,
+"we wouldn't need much furniture, but could just invite a lot of the
+children in and let them camp down. The rooms are so clean, and there is
+such lovely fresh air and no smells, and such beautiful bath-tubs, and
+the park for the little ones to play in, and Mary Hetterman could watch
+them."
+
+"You forget," Miss Prillwitz had replied, "zat zose children are use
+probably to eat somet'ings."
+
+No, Jim had not forgotten that, but Mrs. Hetterman would be out of a
+place for the summer vacation, and would cook for them, and the
+children's mothers would pay something, and he would do the marketing.
+After the public school closed the older children could earn something,
+he thought. He was all on fire with the idea, and his enthusiasm had
+communicated itself to our princess. "I haf even vent to see my
+landlord," she confessed; "he is von very rich man. I sought maybe he
+let me use ze rooms for ze summer, since he cannot else rent them. But
+no, he did not so make his wealths. We can have them von hundred dollar
+ze months; six months, five hundred. We cannot else. Now do you sink you
+make five hundred dollar from your fair?"
+
+"Oh, I think so; indeed, I am sure of it!" Adelaide exclaimed; "dear
+little Jim, what an angel he is! We will go right to work and see what
+we can do."
+
+Of course the fair was a success, as fairs go. I have since thought that
+a fair is a poor way for Christian people to give money to any
+charitable purpose. So much goes astray from the goal, so much is
+swallowed up in the expenses, that if people would only put their hands
+in their pockets and give at the outset what they do give in the
+aggregate, more would be realized, and much time, vexation, and labor
+saved. But people do not yet recognize this, and we knew no better than
+to follow in the old way. I had charge of the Art gondola, with Miss
+Sartoris and all the Studio girls to help me. We decided that, as it was
+a Venetian fete, we would make a specialty of Italian art. Miss Sartoris
+suggested etchings, and one of the leading art dealers allowed us to
+make our choice from his entire collection, giving them to us at
+wholesale, as he would to any other retail dealer, we to sell them at
+the regular retail price, thereby taking no unfair advantage over our
+purchasers, and yet making a handsome profit on each etching sold, while
+we ran no risk, as all unsold stock was to be returned.
+
+We were surprised to find how many Venetian subjects had been
+etched. There were half a dozen different views of St. Mark's
+Cathedral--exteriors and interiors; San Giorgios and La Salutes; there
+were Rainy Nights in Venice, and Sunny Days in Venice, canals and
+bridges, shipping and palaces, piazzas and archways and cloisters.
+
+Then we obtained a quantity of photographs of the Italian master-pieces,
+chiefly from the works of Titian and the Venetian school, though we
+included also the Madonnas of Raphael. Miss Sartoris found an Italian
+curiosity-shop, which was a perfect treasure-trove, for here we secured,
+on commission, a quantity of Venetian glass beads, the beautiful
+blossomed variety, with tiny smelling-bottles of the same material,
+together with sleeve-buttons of Florentine mosaic, ornaments of pink
+Neapolitan coral, and broken pieces of antique Roman marbles, all of
+which we sold at immense profit. We had not thought of having any
+statuary, until Jim came to us, one afternoon, saying that Miss
+Prillwitz had told him that we intended to have an Italian fete, and as
+several of the families whom he wished benefited were Italians, who
+lived in Rickett's Court, he thought they might help us.
+
+"What do they do?" I asked.
+
+"The older Stavini boys peddle plaster-of-paris images, and some of them
+are very pretty. Pietro will bring you a basket of them, I am sure, and
+take back all you don't sell."
+
+The plaster casts proved to be artistic and new. There was a set of five
+singing cherubs which we had seen on sale in the stores at twenty-five
+dollars a set, which Pietro offered us at fifty cents each, and others
+in like proportion. We sold his entire basketful at advanced prices, and
+received several orders for duplicates.
+
+Winnie had charge of the refreshment department, and had a troop of the
+"preparatories" dressed as contadinas, who were to serve Neapolitan ices
+in colored glasses. Jim enabled her to introduce a very taking novelty
+by telling her of Vincenzo Amati, a cook in an Italian restaurant, who
+had three motherless little girls who were candidates for the summer
+home. Vincenzo agreed to come and cook for us while the fair lasted,
+Mrs. Hetterman kindly giving him place in the kitchen, so that we were
+able to add to our other attractions that of a real Italian supper,
+served on little tables in an adjoining recitation-room. Vincenzo
+brought us several dozen Chianti wine flasks, the empty bottles at the
+restaurant having been one of his perquisites. They were of graceful
+shapes, with slender necks, and wound in wicker, which Miss Sartoris
+gilded and further ornamented with a bow of bright satin ribbon. These
+flasks, empty, decorated each of the little tables, and one was given to
+each guest as a souvenir.
+
+The menu consisted of--
+
+    Riso con piselli, } (Soup).
+    Minestra Zuppa,   }
+    Olives.
+    Bistecca (Beefsteak).
+    Macaroni al burro (with butter).
+    Macaroni a pomidoro (with potatoes).
+    Testa de vitello (Calf's head).
+    Carciofi (Artichokes).
+    Cavolifiori (Cauliflower).
+    Salami di Bologna (Bologna Sausage).
+    Crostata di frutti (Fruit tarts).
+    Formaggio (Cheese).
+
+Adelaide was musical director, and led the singing class in "Dolce
+Napoli" and other Italian songs. The girls were dressed in costume, and
+there was one fisher chorus, which made a very effective tableau with a
+background of colored sails and nets. Vincenzo allowed his little
+girls to appear with a neighbor's hand-organ, and when they passed their
+tambourines they gathered a goodly harvest of pennies.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of the Venetian Fete.}]
+
+Little Breeze arranged the tableaux and the dances, Mrs. Halsey sending
+in designs for the costumes; and Cynthia Vaughn ran a side show of
+stereopticon views, Professor Todd kindly working the lantern.
+
+Milly had the flower gondola, or booth of cut flowers, supplied from her
+father's conservatory, and Miss Prillwitz contributed to this department
+a quantity of little albums and herbaria containing pressed flowers and
+seaweed from different Italian cities. Our dear princess was present,
+beaming with happiness, and the "ten" introduced her proudly to their
+parents and friends. Mr. Roseveldt seemed much interested, in an amused
+way, in what we were trying to do. "Go ahead, my dear," he said to
+Milly, "and if you don't come to me to shoulder a lot of bad debts
+before the summer is over, I shall be greatly surprised, and have a far
+higher respect for what little girls can do than I now possess."
+
+"'Little girls,' indeed!" Milly repeated, with scorn. "There are younger
+gentlemen, sir, who consider us young ladies, if you do not. But we
+will compel your respect, and we will not ask you for one penny either."
+
+This was rather hard, for we had secretly hoped, all along, that Milly's
+father would help us, and now she had made it a point of pride not to
+ask him. He behaved very well, however, for although he bantered us
+cruelly on our Utopian enterprise, he bought a button-hole bouquet of
+his own violets from Milly, paying a five-dollar bill for it and
+neglecting to ask for change, and then took Miss Prillwitz, Madame, Emma
+Jane Anton, Miss Sartoris, and Miss Hope successively out to supper. He
+purchased, too, an alabaster model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which
+Madame had contributed on condition that it should be sold for not less
+than twenty dollars, and which we had feared would not be disposed of,
+as we had voted that there should be no raffling. Madame was greatly
+interested in the fair; it drew attention to her school, and she smiled
+on everyone--a self-constituted reception committee. She was even
+gracious to the cadet band which had serenaded the school in the fall
+term. The cadets to a man invited Milly out to dinner. She went with
+each of them in succession, and as the viands were sold _a la carte_,
+she bravely ordered the more expensive dishes over and over again,
+enduring a martyrdom of dyspepsia for a week in consequence.
+
+Of course Jim was present, and his mother. Adelaide was attentive to
+both; there seemed to be a mutual attraction that kept them together,
+and whenever Adelaide left Mrs. Halsey, and taking up her baton (Milly's
+curling-stick), led her orchestra, Mrs. Halsey's eyes followed her with
+a strange wistfulness. Winnie, with her usual heedlessness, had
+neglected to introduce Adelaide to Mrs. Halsey when she called on her in
+the court, and she now turned to Jim and asked her name. It happened
+that Jim thought that she referred to the pianist instead of to
+Adelaide, and he replied that the young lady in question was Miss Hope,
+the music-teacher. Mrs. Halsey gave a little sigh of disappointment, and
+continued her spell-bound gaze. I was about to correct the mistake which
+I was sure Jim had made, when it was announced that Mrs. Le Moyne, the
+celebrated interpreter of Robert Browning, would kindly recite a poem of
+Mrs. Browning's. Mrs. Halsey and Jim moved nearer the rostrum, and my
+opportunity for explanation was lost. If I had known the effect that
+the name of Adelaide Armstrong would have had upon Mrs. Halsey, chains
+could not have kept me in my gondola--so many invisible gates of
+opportunity are closed and opened to us all along life's pathway!
+
+The poem recited was, most appropriately, "The Cry of the Children."
+Tears welled into the eyes of many a mother as the practiced art of the
+speaker rendered most feelingly the pathetic words:
+
+    "But these others--children small,
+      Spilt like blots about the city
+    Quay and street and palace wall--
+      Take them up into your pity!
+
+    Patient children--think what pain
+      Makes a young child patient yonder;
+    Wronged too commonly to strain
+      After right, or wish or wonder;
+
+    Sickly children, that whine low
+      To themselves and not their mothers,
+    From mere habit, never so--
+      Hoping help or care from others;
+
+    Healthy children, with those blue
+      English eyes, fresh from their Maker,
+    Fierce and ravenous, staring through
+      At the brown loaves of the baker.
+
+    Can we smooth down the bright hair,
+      O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in
+    Our hearts' pulses? Can we bear
+      The sweet looks of our own children?
+
+    O my sisters! Children small,
+      Blue-eyed, wailing through the city--
+    Our own babes cry in them all;
+      Let us take them into pity!"
+
+That poem was worth a great deal to our cause. Those of the mothers of
+our Ten who were present were won to us at once.
+
+Mrs. Middleton, our vice-president's mother, and the wife of a
+clergyman, entered into our scheme with enthusiasm, and felt sure that
+her husband's church would assist us.
+
+Mrs. Seligman and Mrs. Roseveldt put their heads together and planned to
+interest their society friends. One of hers, Mrs. Roseveldt was sure,
+would contribute the coal, and another the flour, while Mrs. Seligman
+would provide the blankets, and a friend of her acquaintance would
+certainly assume the butcher's bill. Madame Celeste, the dress-maker,
+who was present, was about to refurnish her parlors, and would
+contribute curtains. Madame Celeste bought a quantity of my photographs
+of old Italian portraits, and I have no doubt that they were very
+serviceable to her in the way of suggestions for aesthetic costumes.
+
+We knew before the evening closed that the fair must have realized more
+than we had hoped, and Emma Jane, the Treasurer of the new society,
+announced at our next meeting that the fair had cleared six hundred
+dollars. Vociferous applause followed, and we immediately adjourned to
+Miss Prillwitz's to report the unexpectedly happy result.
+
+Our princess had talked over the scheme with such of our mothers as were
+present at the fair; and she now advised that we create them a board of
+managers of the proposed Home, to carry it on for us, as we were all
+minors, and lacked the necessary experience, we to labor for it harder
+than ever. This was immediately done, and after this, affairs marched
+with great rapidity. The Home of the Elder Brother was licensed and
+fitted up for its little guests within a week. The vacant floors in Miss
+Prillwitz's house were rented--not for the summer only, as we had at
+first planned, but, to our great surprise, for a year. An "unknown
+friend," who had admired our efforts, sent in a subscription of nine
+hundred dollars, thereby more than doubling the amount obtained by the
+fair, and guaranteeing that amount annually as long as the Home was
+continued.
+
+Mr. Roseveldt had been better than his word, and the Home was placed on
+an assured basis for a year. What it would be after that we could not
+tell. It was only permitted to see one step ahead, but that step we
+could take with thankful assurance.
+
+Madame sent over a quantity of furniture, as she intended to refit the
+students' rooms during the summer vacation. Donations of every kind
+poured in, and twenty-five little iron bedsteads were dressed in white,
+and set in the sunny rooms which were to be used as dormitories. Madame
+Celeste had said that she would not require Mrs. Halsey during the three
+summer months, and the little woman offered her services for that
+interim as nursery care-taker.
+
+Another surprise came when Emma Jane Anton announced that she had
+written home and obtained permission to remain as matron. She had a
+talent for housekeeping, and she gave her services freely. "I am not
+rich," she said. "I can't give money, but I can give myself. I am not
+used to children; I don't believe they will like me, for I don't care
+for them overmuch; but Mrs. Halsey will mother them, and I can keep the
+house sweet and clean; I can market economically, and keep accounts
+exactly, and I mean that the princess shall not give up her visit to
+Tib. She must go to the country for a part of the summer at least."
+
+"And when she comes back," I said, "you must take your turn, Emma Jane;
+we will be so glad to have you!"
+
+"Oh, immensely! I am a genial, sweet creature, I know, an addition to
+society; but I thank you, all the same, and if I feel run down, I will
+come and get a sniff of sea air."
+
+The King's Daughters' Ten held their last meeting before the breaking up
+of the school. The money gained was entrusted to Emma Jane's care for
+the summer, and each of the members bound herself to carry the scheme
+with her wherever she went, to interest others, to gather and forward
+funds, and to work for the Home in every possible way.
+
+Then we paid our last visit, for that term, to Miss Prillwitz, and our
+first to our little guests, and returning, packed our trunks, attended
+the graduating exercises of the senior class (the Amen Corner and the
+Hornets were all juniors and sophomores, with the exception of Emma
+Jane, who graduated), hugged and wept over each other, and elected
+Winnie corresponding secretary for the summer, and promised to write to
+her every month, reporting work done for the Home, and separated with
+mingled hilarity and depression of spirits.
+
+Mr. Roseveldt called at the Home with Milly and Adelaide before they
+left town. It was a little plan of the girls to interest him in Jim, and
+it succeeded admirably. After a number of other questions, Mr. Roseveldt
+asked Jim if he could drive.
+
+"I managed the milkman's nag," the boy replied, "and he was an awfully
+hardmouthed, ugly brute."
+
+"Then I fancy you will have no trouble with Milly's pony, which is as
+gentle as a kitten," Mr. Roseveldt replied. "I want a boy in buttons
+just to sit in the rumble while the girls drive about the country." And
+so Jim was engaged to go to Narragansett Pier, and would have a happy
+summer with Milly and Adelaide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE LANDLORD OF RICKETT'S COURT.
+
+    "And yet it was never in my soul
+      To play so ill a part:
+    But evil is wrought by want of thought
+      As well as by want of heart."
+
+                            --_Thos. Hood._
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of Solomon Meyer.}]
+
+
+Solomon Meyer, who collected the rents at Rickett's Court, was looked
+upon by the tenants as the landlord, though he distinctly disclaimed
+that honor, explaining that he was only the agent, empowered merely to
+receive money, never to disburse. According to Mr. Meyer the landlord
+was a heartless miser, whom he had entreated to make repairs and to
+lower rents, but who always turned a deaf ear to such appeals. If he,
+Solomon Meyer, only owned Rickett's Court, there would be no end to the
+reforms which his tender heart would cause him to institute; as it was,
+there was no hope for anything of the kind; his orders were explicit--if
+tenants could not pay, they must leave.
+
+Many of the tenants believed that Mr. Meyer was really the owner of
+their building, and that the landlord whom he represented as responsible
+for all their discomfort was purely imaginary, but in this they wronged
+the agent. Solomon Meyer had no scruples against telling a lie whenever
+it would serve his purpose, but here the truth did very well. Rickett's
+Court had a landlord who, although he was not the inhuman wretch which
+Solomon represented him, still cared nothing for his tenants, and, while
+the agent had never suggested any reforms or repairs, might well have
+guessed that they were needed. Adelaide Armstrong would have been
+shocked beyond expression if she had known that the true landlord of
+Rickett's Court was no other than her own father. Mr. Armstrong would
+have been no less shocked if he had known of the abuses for which he was
+really responsible. He had never seen his own property. It had been
+represented to him as a profitable investment, and had proved so. He was
+only in New York for brief intervals each year, and he left the entire
+management of Rickett's Court to Solomon Meyer, well pleased with the
+returns which he rendered, and not suspecting that they were less than
+the sums wrung from the tenants.
+
+He had mentally set aside Rickett's Court as Adelaide's property, and he
+used its proceeds to defray her expenses. There was a neat little
+surplus left over each quarter-day, which he placed in the savings bank
+to her credit, and with which he intended to endow her on her marriage.
+But of all this Adelaide of course knew nothing. Mr. Armstrong's more
+important business ventures were in western railroad speculations. These
+absorbed his attention, and needed the closest application of his
+faculties. He was glad of this. The East had grown distasteful to him
+since the loss of his wife and infant son. He felt that he might have
+been a different man if his wife, whom he tenderly loved, had lived;
+and Adelaide had never ceased to mourn her mother, whom she could not
+remember. "What shall I ever do," she frequently asked, "when I finish
+school? If I only had a mother to be my companion and counselor! but I
+shall be so lonely, and so unfit to take care of myself!"
+
+The circumstances which I relate in this chapter because they belong
+here in sequence of time, did not come to my knowledge until long after
+their occurrence.
+
+Mr. Armstrong came on from the West the evening of our fair. He was
+weary and much occupied by matters of business, and he did not attend
+it, much to our regret. He lent a kindly ear to Adelaide's description
+of it, for he was fond and proud of his beautiful daughter, and he liked
+to see her a leader in everything.
+
+He manifested apparently little interest, however, in what she had to
+tell him of Rickett's Court. "There, there, Puss!" he said, lightly,
+"you must not get fanatical, and rant. I hardly think things are as bad
+down there as you make them out."
+
+"But, papa," Adelaide interrupted, "I went there myself. I saw it with
+my own eyes. It is horrible to think that human beings should be
+obliged to live in such filth and misery. I think the landlord of
+Rickett's Court ought to be prosecuted. I wish I knew that old Rickett!
+I would give him a piece of my mind."
+
+"I've no doubt of it; but spare me, Puss, since my name is not Rickett."
+
+He must have felt a sharp twinge of conscience as he spoke, while his
+daughter's words could not have failed to make an impression on the
+false Rickett. He had read in the cars a little book entitled "Uncle
+Tom's Tenement," by Alice Wellington Rollins, and Helen Campbell's
+"Prisoners of Poverty." He wondered if their pictures of tenement life
+were indeed true. A few days later he listened to some remarks of Mr.
+Felix Adler's on tenement reform. He knew what Mr. Charles Pratt was
+doing in Brooklyn, and his better man told him that now was his
+opportunity. Why should he not put the plumbing in his tenement in
+decent repair; it might not cost much more, after all, than to bribe the
+inspector to report it as all right--a proceeding which Solomon Meyer
+advised. He could at least drain the sink in the court, and do away with
+the unchristian smells which now drove the chance visitor from the
+vicinity. And if he should have the rooms cleaned and whitewashed, he
+might even pose before the public as a humanitarian landlord, and so
+gain the cooperation of some of the philanthropists of the day for some
+other schemes which he had in mind.
+
+He visited the court with a plumber, and found it in worse condition
+than he had imagined. There was a leak from the sewer in the back
+basement. All of the rooms were foul with vermin, and rats scuttled back
+into the walls through great holes. Many of the tenants had left, for
+various reasons. The opening of the Home of the Elder Brother was in
+great part responsible for the emptying of Rickett's Court, for the
+better class of its tenants had embraced this great opportunity to place
+their children in good surroundings. So many children had been
+transferred from Mrs. Grogan's care to the Home by their mothers that
+Mrs. Grogan, finding her occupation gone, betook herself to petty
+larceny and was arrested.
+
+The Italian rag-pickers had taken to the road, with a monkey and an
+organ as tramps for the summer, leaving their filth behind them.
+
+Mr. Armstrong looked into their vacated den, and found it impossible to
+imagine what it could have been when occupied.
+
+The windows had been stoned by the street boys until hardly a pane
+remained, and the staircase had rotted so that he thrust his foot
+through it. The house would need plastering and glazing as well as
+replumbing. It began to look like a great undertaking. However, he bade
+the plumber make and send him his estimates, and hurried out of the
+court, not taking a full breath until he was fairly on Broadway. Then he
+sent a mason and a carpenter to look at the building. "I must make some
+repairs," he said to himself, "or I shall get no tenants whatever."
+
+He had noticed another defect: there was but one staircase. He must add
+a fire-escape, for the place was a death-trap. He had a feeling of
+responsibility in regard to endangering the lives of human beings by
+fire, and he was trying to invent a scheme for heating and lighting
+railroad cars in such a manner as to do away with the danger of fire in
+case of accident. So far, the full completion of the invention escaped
+him, but he worked at it by night and day, not so much because it would
+be an immense boon to the age, but because he was sure that, if
+introduced only on his own railroad, it would boom the line above a
+rival route, and if patented, would make his fortune. Solomon Meyer, in
+enumerating the tenants of the court, had mentioned a Mr. Trimble, a
+poor inventor, who occupied the back attic, whom it would be well to
+turn out, as he had paid no rent for some time, though he had promised
+well, saying that he had just invented a scheme for the safe heating of
+cars, from which he hoped to realize a large sum. Mr. Armstrong
+thoughtlessly displayed before his agent the interest which he felt.
+"Bring the man to me," he exclaimed; "if he has really worked out the
+problem, it is just what I want."
+
+The agent at once paid a visit to the poor inventor and possessed
+himself of his plans and model, promising to do his best for him.
+
+Mr. Armstrong saw at a glance that the inventor had compassed just what
+had baffled him so long.
+
+"What will he take for this invention?" he asked, eagerly.
+
+"Not one cent less as five t'ousand dollar," replied Mr. Meyer.
+
+"That is a good round sum," remarked Mr. Armstrong, "but the right to it
+is worth more than that to me. Arrange the papers for me, get the
+gentleman to sign them, give him this check for a thousand dollars, and
+I will send him another, soon, for four thousand."
+
+Mr. Meyer saw his opportunity here. He returned to Mr. Trimble, assured
+him that his contrivance had been anticipated and already patented by
+another man: he was too late. The poor man's disappointment was intense;
+his head and hands trembled.
+
+"I thank you for trying for me," he said; "there is nothing for me now
+but the river. I have occupied this room in the hope of paying my rent
+when I realized from that invention, but I have no longer any
+expectations, and I had better go and drown myself."
+
+Then for the first time Mr. Meyer realized that there was another person
+in the room. Jim had come down to the court to see his old friends, and
+had dropped in to inquire after Mr. Trimble's son, a merry little fellow
+who had been a playmate of his in the old days. Jim had retreated into a
+corner when the agent called, but he now sprang forward and threw his
+arms around the poor inventor's neck.
+
+"No, no!" he cried; "Mr. Meyer will beg Mr. Rickett to let you stay
+until the first of the month, and something may turn up by that time."
+
+Some sense of shame prompted Solomon Meyer to yield to this request,
+though in his secret heart he knew that his own plans could be more
+safely carried out if his victim did drown himself; and the sooner the
+better. Then he hurried away to collect rents of the new tenants, with
+the money which Mr. Armstrong had sent Stephen Trimble burning like a
+coal in his pocket.
+
+The contract for the new invention was returned to Mr. Armstrong at the
+same time with the estimates of the different mechanics for the
+improvements of Rickett's Court. It would cost three thousand dollars to
+put the tenement in decent repair, and this did not include the
+fire-escape. Mr. Armstrong whistled as he added up the items. It was
+really not convenient for him to place his hand on so much ready cash;
+certainly not without using the money which he had placed in the savings
+bank to Adelaide's credit. Mr. Meyer stood cringing before him, and Mr.
+Armstrong explained the situation.
+
+The agent promptly disapproved of the improvements. They would be a
+great waste of money. No one would rent the tenements after they were
+repaired, for it would be necessary to charge a higher rent, and tenants
+able to pay it, or desiring bathrooms and sanitary plumbing, would not
+occupy such a quarter of the city.
+
+"But suppose I do not charge any more rent, but simply try to educate my
+old tenants to better habits of life?"
+
+Mr. Meyer explained that Mr. Armstrong could throw away his money in
+that way if he wished, but that the class of tenants who patronized
+Rickett's Court could not be educated. They preferred filth to
+cleanliness, and, however respectable their quarters were made, would
+soon convert them into sinks again.
+
+Mr. Armstrong reminded his agent that his best tenants had left him,
+that the house was practically deserted, and that something must be done
+to attract new occupants.
+
+Mr. Meyer assured him that applications had already been received for
+the rooms in their present state. A ship-load of emigrants had just
+arrived: Polish Jews and exiled Russians, who had been imprisoned as
+Nihilists, and who had suffered such barbarities that Rickett's Court,
+horrible as it was, seemed positively comfortable to them.
+
+Mr. Armstrong hesitated. He did not like to give up his scheme of
+renovation; still, there were the papers waiting for his signature for
+the transfer of the invention, and this he had decided he must have; it
+was sure to bring in a great deal of money, and another year he could
+much better afford to make these improvements. He decided, reluctantly,
+that he would put them off for the present.
+
+"I will have a fire-escape put up," he said to his agent, "and we will
+do the rest as soon as possible."
+
+Solomon Meyer shrugged his shoulders. "There is no danger of fire," he
+said, "and I was about to propose that you take out a fire insurance
+policy on that building; that cost about the same, and much more
+sensible."
+
+Mr. Armstrong thought a moment. "If the danger of fire is sufficient to
+warrant me in insuring, it is also great enough to make furnishing the
+fire-escape an imperative duty. I insist on your seeing that one is
+adjusted immediately. You may also take out an insurance policy for
+twenty thousand. See if Mr. Trimble can wait for the rest of his money
+until the first of the month. (The agent's face fell.) You have given
+him my check for one thousand; he ought to be willing to wait a few days
+for the rest. If he is not satisfied, tell him to come down and see me,
+and we'll come to some agreement."
+
+This was exactly what Solomon Meyer did not wish. "I will try my best to
+make him sign the papers on those terms," he said, and carried them away
+to his own den, where he forged the name of Stephen Trimble to both
+contract and check. He found no difficulty in cashing the check, for Mr.
+Armstrong's name was well known, though Stephen Trimble's was not.
+
+And in the mean time the poor inventor sat in his garret trying to
+think. His wife was in the hospital, and his little son busied himself
+with washing the supper dishes. It was not a heavy task, for their
+supper had consisted only of some cold griddle-cakes which, the
+flap-jack man had given them. When the boy had finished his work he
+crept close to his father and laid his head on his knee.
+
+"Why don't you light the lamp?" Mr. Trimble asked, rousing himself.
+
+"There isn't any oil, daddy."
+
+"No matter. I can think better in the dark, and you had better go to
+bed."
+
+"I am going out pretty soon to help the flap-jack man wheel his cart."
+
+"Very well, Lovey, if he is a good man; I don't want you to do anything
+wrong."
+
+"He's good to me, daddy."
+
+"I'm glad of that; you need a friend, and you may need one more." He
+kissed his little boy as he went out--an unwonted action on the father's
+part--and waited until he was sure that the child had left the building,
+then rose, with a desperate look upon his face, and stepped out on the
+landing. The house was very full now; people had been coming for two
+days past with great bales of foul clothing, offensive with odors of the
+steerage, and had packed into the already dirty rooms. It was an
+unusually warm night for spring, and the house was unbearably close. The
+tenants had resorted to the roof, and were sitting under the stars,
+trying in vain to find fresh air, and screaming and scolding at one
+another in a strange, harsh language.
+
+Stephen Trimble was about to descend the staircase, when two men of
+unpleasant aspect stopped him.
+
+"You are the machinist who lives on the top floor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you time for a little job?"
+
+"Plenty of time. Thank God!" he added, mentally, "who has sent me help
+in time."
+
+"Then come down-stairs with us: we are your neighbors, and are just
+under you.
+
+"What do you want me to do?"
+
+"We'll show you."
+
+The men admitted him to their room, and carefully locked the door behind
+them. One of them struck a light, and in so doing dropped a match upon
+the floor. The other sprang upon it quickly, ground it out with his
+heel, and cursed him for his carelessness. Stephen Trimble looked about
+him, and saw that one end of the room was piled with boxes and tin cans,
+one of which was open, showing a compound slightly resembling maple
+sugar. A table stood before the low window, and on it was apparatus or
+machinery of some sort. The first man placed his candle on the table,
+and drew up a packing-box for Mr. Trimble to sit upon. There was no
+other furniture in the room.
+
+"You do not live here?" said the inventor.
+
+"No," replied the first man, who constituted himself the spokesman for
+both; "it isn't a sweet place to live in. We hire it as a workshop. You
+see, we are perfecting a sort of torpedo. You've heard of the submarine
+torpedoes that did such good service in blowing up the Turkish ships in
+the Russo-Turkish war?"
+
+"Oh yes," replied Stephen Trimble, much interested. "I thought that
+stuff looked like dynamite! So you are inventing a new torpedo, which
+you mean to sell the Government? That's a good idea. They are thinking
+of increasing the navy, and it's always better to deal with the
+Government than with private individuals."
+
+The silent man nudged his partner and remarked, "Yes, we're agoin' to
+deal with the Government. That's a good way to put it."
+
+The other man made an impatient gesture, and proceeded to explain a
+small machine to Mr. Trimble. "You don't exactly understand my friend,"
+he said, "but no matter. This kind of a torpedo isn't of the submarine
+kind; we pack the explosives here, matches here, friction paper just
+beside them; but just here we are stuck, and we need you or some other
+mechanic to show us how the thing can be set off by electricity, the
+operator to touch a button at a distance."
+
+Mr. Trimble bent himself to an examination of the contrivance. He asked
+several questions, and as his scrutiny continued, his expression of
+satisfaction changed to one of mistrust and alarm. Suddenly he sprang
+from his seat and pushed the model from him. "That is an
+infernal-machine!" he exclaimed.
+
+"That's about the long and the short of it," said the man, calmly.
+
+"Then I will have nothing to do with it," and he turned toward the door.
+
+"Hold on, my friend, ain't you a trifle in a hurry? All we want you to
+do is to fix that attachment for us, and if you won't do it some other
+man will, but we're willing to pay you a hundred dollars for the job.
+That's a goodish sum to pay, if the job is a little queer, but I take it
+you're used to doing queer things by the big checks that pass through
+your hands."
+
+"What do you mean?" Stephen Trimble asked, with some indignation.
+
+"Oh! you needn't pretend innocence and poverty. A man doesn't scatter
+round thousand-dollar checks who's as poor as you pretend to be, or as
+good, either."
+
+"Tell me what you mean."
+
+"Now don't tell us you know nothing of a check for a thousand dollars
+which we happened to see in the pocket-book of the agent of this
+building when he dropped in here to collect the rent."
+
+"I never saw a check for a thousand dollars in my life."
+
+"If you don't believe me, ask that sharp little boy of yours. It was he
+who first let me know there was a scientific man in the building. He saw
+me unpacking my machine. I happened to leave the door open just a
+minute. I never saw such a sharp little fellow. In he comes and says,
+'My father makes machines too. He's going to make us awful rich some
+day.'
+
+"After that he got in the way of knocking at the door and asking to see
+my machinery. I thought it would be a good idea to let him, for he is
+too little to suspect anything, and I could stuff him with the idea that
+I was making a new kind of telegraph, for I was pretty sure that he
+would tell it around, and that people would believe it and think there
+couldn't be anything shady in what I was doing if I let anybody and
+everybody have the freedom of the room.
+
+"Well, the day I'm speaking of, your little chap was sitting there
+turning the crank of that machine just as cheerful as if it wouldn't
+have blown him to kingdom come if the attachment had only been on, when
+in come another little feller who had been looking for him. 'See here,'
+says my partner, 'there's getting to be too many children here; we don't
+keep a Sunday-school, we don't.' They were just going to leave, when the
+agent he come in with the rent contract for us to sign. Well, the boys
+lingered round, full of curiosity, as boys are, and we signed the paper
+and handed over the cash. Mr. Meyer in stuffing it away in his
+pocket-book brought to light that thousand-dollar check I was telling
+you about. He fumbled to hide it, but it dropped on the floor, and a
+little gust of wind carried it over to where the boys were. The oldest
+boy--Jim, I think your son called him--picked it up, and took a good
+look at it. 'Hullo!' says he, 'here's your father's name, Lovey. "Pay to
+the order of Stephen Trimble one thousand dollars"!' The agent he just
+made one dive for that check, with his fist lifted as though he were
+going to strike the boy, who dropped the check, and both the little
+shavers scooted, and none too soon either, for Meyer looked mad enough
+to kill the youngster, though he tried to laugh it off, and turned the
+check over and showed me that it was his fast enough, for it was
+endorsed on the back, 'Pay to the order of Solomon Meyer.'"
+
+Stephen Trimble put his hand to his head in a dazed way. "You are
+fooling me," he said.
+
+"Not we, but somebody is, if you don't know anything about it. Well, if
+you are not the bloated bondholder we took you for, perhaps you'll
+consider our little offer?"
+
+"No, gentlemen, not to-night at least; give me time to think it over.
+One bad man may have wronged me, but I've no call to go against the
+law."
+
+"Oh yes, take plenty of time"--and they opened the door. Some one was
+knocking at Stephen Trimble's own room. It was the flap-jack man, and
+he had a white, scared face.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked the inventor.
+
+"Lovey's been--"
+
+"Run over?" gasped the poor father.
+
+"No; arrested."
+
+Stephen Trimble gave one exclamation of horror--then asked, "What's he
+done?"
+
+"Nothing but wheeling my cart; they'd have caught me, too, but I cut and
+run. This is a pretty country where one is arrested for trying to earn
+an honest living!"
+
+This was the last straw. Stephen Trimble had said that he had no reason
+to resist the law, but he could not hold to that now. He staggered
+feebly down-stairs, knocked at the door of the dynamiters, and said.
+"I've come back sooner than I thought I would. Give me five dollars in
+advance, and I'll undertake that business of yours to-morrow, and maybe
+I'll get up a little infernal-machine for my own use at the same time,
+but just now I must find my boy."
+
+The man handed him some greasy bills. "You look sick," he said. "You had
+better go down to the free-lunch counter at the saloon, and have a good
+square meal."
+
+Stephen Trimble went and ate and drank to excess. He did not look for
+his little son, and he did not return to the dynamiters' the next
+morning, for he was drunk--and drunk for three days thereafter. Then he
+sobered down and applied himself to the task which they had set him--a
+task intended to bring ruin to the class which had wronged him. He knew
+the aims, now, of the men for whom he was working, and he believed that
+he sympathized with them. They told him how they had borne imprisonment
+and torture for no wrong in Russia, and had come to this country
+expecting to find it the land of justice and kindness, but had met only
+the same tyranny of the rich over the poor--the rich, who cared for
+nothing but their own pleasures, and ground the poor under their chariot
+wheels.
+
+As he worked he thought of his own private wrongs, and determined that
+as soon as his task was done he would seek out the man who had defrauded
+him. He was sure now that the check which the men had seen had something
+to do with his invention, but he believed that the true criminal was
+some one behind Solomon Meyer, the man to whom the agent said he had
+given his invention--the landlord of Rickett's Court. It was like a man
+who would compel human beings to live in such a state as this to commit
+such a fraud. He would hunt him down presently, and in the name of his
+tenants, as well as in his own cause, wreak such revenge that the ears
+of those who heard should tingle.
+
+The landlord of Rickett's Court, all unconscious of the volcano upon
+which he was treading, attended the closing exercises of Madame's
+school, and listened with pride to his daughter's prize essay on "The
+Dangerous Classes."
+
+There was a quotation from Ruskin at the close which pricked his heart a
+little, and made him regret that it was not convenient to carry out his
+good intentions just at present. How charming she looked in the white
+India silk, and how well she read that final quotation!
+
+"If you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be
+striven for--life for all men as for yourselves--if you can determine
+some honest and simple order of existence following those trodden ways
+of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking those quiet and withdrawn
+paths, which are peace; then, and so sanctifying wealth into
+'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily labors, your
+domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one
+magnificent harmony. You will know, then, how to build well enough; you
+will build with stone well, but with flesh better--temples not made with
+hands, but riveted of hearts, and that kind of marble, crimson-veined,
+is indeed eternal."
+
+Mr. Armstrong entirely ruined a new pair of kid gloves in applauding his
+daughter.
+
+He consigned her to Mrs. Roseveldt for the summer, and in reply to that
+lady's urgent request that he would visit them, explained that
+Narragansett Pier was fraught with so many memories that he had never
+been able to revisit it. "I own a cottage a little distance from the
+town," he said. "It was there that both my children were born. We were
+in the habit of occupying it every summer, but since my wife's death I
+have neither been able to bring myself to go there, or to rent it, and
+it has remained closed."
+
+"O papa, will you not let me have it for the summer?" Adelaide asked.
+
+"Certainly, Puss, if you want to fit it up for a studio or that sort of
+thing; but it is in a lonely wood, and you must have suitable company
+with you if you think of staying there. If you manage to change the
+place and infuse new life in it, I may bring myself to look in upon you
+there. At all events, I will join you at the Roseveldts' as soon as I
+can; just now important business detains me."
+
+The business, as we know, was the securing and putting in service of the
+new invention for heating and lighting cars. It was necessary for him to
+go to Washington to arrange for the patent, and it was on this trip that
+a clue most unexpectedly fell into his hands which seemed to lead to a
+startling discovery--a discovery which was more to him than any fortune
+which the invention could bring.
+
+It all came about through a scrap of paper which fell in his way as he
+was looking about his hotel bedroom for a piece of wrapping-paper with
+which to cover the model of the machine which he was about to carry to
+the Patent Office. He could find nothing for this purpose but an old
+newspaper which lined a bureau drawer. In this he wrapped his machine,
+and took his seat in the street-car, the package resting on his knees.
+His fellow-passengers were uninteresting, and he fixed his gaze upon
+his package. A heading to one of the shorter articles in the old
+newspaper attracted his attention.
+
+"Remarkable Case of Loss of Identity; the Doctors Puzzled."
+
+He read on aimlessly.
+
+"The physicians of ---- Hospital have an interesting case. One of their
+patients, a lady, was injured at the burning of the _Henrietta_ in the
+Sound in October last. This accident has resulted in a partial loss of
+memory, and total confusion as to her identity. The unfortunate lady is
+unable to give her own name or that of her friends. A remarkable
+circumstance in the case is the fact that, through all the horror and
+suffering of the accident, which has resulted in a partial loss of her
+reason, the poor lady kept her infant boy safely clasped in her arms,
+and the child, entirely uninjured, was rescued with her. Any person who
+believes that he recognizes a lost friend in this case is requested to
+communicate with Dr. H. C. Carver, of the ---- Hospital."
+
+Mr. Armstrong read this item over and over again. He had believed that
+his wife and child were lost in the burning of this steamer. Was it
+possible that they still lived? and what had ten years of separation
+done for them?
+
+The horse-car passed the Patent Office, but he did not see it. He sat
+staring at the newspaper until the car brought him to the end of the
+route and the conductor touched him on the shoulder. "Pardon me, sir; I
+forgot you wished to stop at the Patent Office."
+
+Mr. Armstrong woke from his reverie.
+
+"No," he exclaimed, "at the railway station. I want to catch the next
+train for New York--none until 4 o'clock? Then I _will_ go to the Patent
+Office; but, first, tell me where I can send a telegram."
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of girls near rowboat.}]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE GUESTS OF THE ELDER BROTHER.
+
+    "And man may work with the great God; yea, ours
+    This privilege; all others, how beyond!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Effectually the planet to subdue,
+    And break old savagehood in claw and tusk;
+    To draw our fellows up as with a cord
+    Of love unto their high-appointed place,
+    Till from our state barbaric and abhorred
+    We do arise unto a royal race,
+    To be the blest companions of the Lord."
+
+                                 --HENRY G. SUTTON.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of girl writing.}]
+
+
+A few days before school closed saw the Home filled for the summer.
+
+The gathering in was achieved principally by Jim, Mrs. Hetterman, and
+Vincenzo Amati.
+
+Vincenzo was an Italian of the better sort. He had lived in America long
+enough to acquire some of our ways of life. He earned a fairly good
+salary as cook, and he had kept his little family in comparative comfort
+in the best apartment which Rickett's Court had to offer, until the
+death of his pretty wife Giovanina. Since then the three little girls
+had done their best, but there was a woeful change. They became
+slatternly in appearance, and the two rooms grew dirty and cheerless.
+Worse than this, the girls affiliated with a lower class of their own
+nationality, the children of the rag-pickers in the basement, already
+referred to, who lived upon the chances of garbage barrels and beggary,
+and who spent much of their time in picking over and assorting the old
+bones, rags, paper, and other refuse dumped each night upon the floor of
+their sleeping and living room, as the result of their father's daily
+toil. These children were sickly and miserable, tainted morally as well
+as physically; and their parents, who were contented with their
+disgusting lives, were laying up money, in fact, for a return to Italy.
+But Vincenzo was not contented that his children should live in such
+fashion or have contaminating associates. He was one of the first
+applicants to place his children in the Home, paying cheerfully the
+highest sum asked for board, it having been early decided that the rates
+for each child should be proportioned to the wages of the parent.
+
+Then several children previously "farmed out" to Mrs. Grogan, whose
+mothers were servants in good families, were received on similar terms.
+
+A German woman, a Mrs. Rumple, brought her two children, saying that she
+was going West, but, as she knew not what fortune awaited her there,
+wished to place her children in the Home until she could send for them.
+She paid their board in advance for the summer, taking the money in coin
+from her petticoat pocket.
+
+"Why do you leave New York?" asked Emma Jane Anton.
+
+"It ish not de guntry. De guntry ish a very goot guntry. It ish de
+beeples," said Mrs. Rumple.
+
+"What is the matter with the people?" asked Emma Jane.
+
+"I comes de seas over a pride, mit my man Heinrich Rumple; dat is ten
+years aco alreaty. Heinrich is one very goot man; he trinks only one mug
+of lager every days; he comes every Saturday home mit his moneys, and
+oh, mine fraulein, how he luf me! Pretty soon py und py de peer ish not
+coot, and he takes one leetle glass of schnapps instead. Den de leetle
+babies come, one, tree, four, six, and it cost all de time more to live,
+and he pring all de time less moneys mit de Saturdays. But he trinks all
+de time more schnapps--one, two, tree, four glass de every days, and I
+know not how much de Sundays, and I tink he not luf me now so much as
+sometimes. Den de sickness comes, de shills and de fevers, and we all de
+time shake, shake, and first one little children die, and den anudder,
+all but Carl and de little Gracie; and mine man not haf any moneys to py
+medicines, put he haf blenty to py schnapps, and he all de time trink
+more as is goot for him, and one night he comes home and he knows not
+vat he does, and he sthrikes de leetle Gracie, and she is long time very
+sick. Mine soul! I tinks she vill die, and Heinrich Rumple--dot ish my
+man--he puts his name mit de bledge, and says he vill not any times
+trink any more, und de Gracie gets vell, und ve are all wery happy, but
+he all de same trinks again shust so pad as ever. Py und py pretty soon
+I says, 'Heinrich Rumple, I cannot sthand dis nonsense any more ain't
+it. I cannot haf dose childer all their bones broke any more; I put dem
+in one 'sylum avay from you, and I goes in dot Western land seek my
+fortune.'"
+
+"And so you left your husband?" asked Miss Anton.
+
+"Ya. I left mine man," replied the woman.
+
+"And don't you suppose he will ever reform, and send you money to come
+back to him?"
+
+"No, I s'pose so. He said to me dat day: 'Barbara, it is de beeples. I
+haf too many friends, and I trinks mit dem all de time, too often; I
+tinks if I am in de West, where I know nobodys, I would be a petter
+husband to you alretty.' And so he goed away mit me."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you and your husband are leaving New York for
+the West together?"
+
+"Ya. I left him, and he say, 'Barbara, you has right; I leaf myself,
+too.' But I cannot trust him alretty mit de chillern. I leaf dem one six
+month, to try what come of it all."
+
+"I hope your husband has indeed left his worst self behind him," said
+Emma Jane; and on suitable security being provided, the Rumple children
+were admitted.
+
+In almost all cases it was not the desperately and hopelessly pauperized
+and vicious--who were provided for by reformatories and the city
+charities--whom they helped, but the class just above them, who were
+slipping over the brink, and would surely have fallen and contributed to
+swell the dangerous classes, if not reached by this timely assistance.
+
+"Prevention is better than cure," and it was the hope of the "King's
+Daughters" to rescue the innocent children of decent and struggling
+parents before they should need reformation.
+
+Rosaria Ricos, the Cuban heiress, endowed a bed to be used for some
+child whose parents could do nothing whatever toward its support. She
+wished to have more free beds, but Miss Prillwitz showed her how much
+better it was for the parents to do something, however little it might
+be, for their children, and not be pauperized by having every feeling of
+independence and ability to care for their own taken from them.
+Exceptional circumstances might arise, when a mother out of employment,
+could wisely be helped over a great exigency, but she advised that Miss
+Ricos's "Emergency Bed" be given for short periods only. It was first
+occupied by Lovell Trimble, familiarly, but most inappropriately,
+nicknamed by the other children, Lovey Dimple. He was a homely,
+unprepossessing boy, with a pug nose and a disproportionately large
+head. His father was the unsuccessful inventor of Rickett's Court, with
+whom we are already acquainted. He spent all his former earnings in
+securing patents for various great inventions which were to make all
+their fortunes. His mother had been a shop-girl in a large dry-goods
+store, and had supported the family until long-continued standing had
+sent her to the hospital. Lovey had tried to take her place in
+supporting his father by wheeling "the machine" of a hot-flap-jack
+seller, while the flap-jack man devoted his attention to frying the
+cakes, flipping them on to a plate, and serving them up with a dab of
+butter and a lake of molasses. They did their best business winter
+nights after the theatres were out--sheltered from the snow by an awning
+or a convenient door-way, and they knew which places of amusement were
+out first, and would race at ambulance speed from Harrigan and Hart's
+to the Bowery, to secure the custom of each. Lovey liked the business,
+for, besides the pay, after the day's trade was over the flap-jack man
+let him eat whatever was left, for the batter would not keep, and he had
+always a few cakes to carry home to his father of the full brain and
+empty stomach.
+
+But one night a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
+Children, who had had his eye on the flap-jack man as employing too
+young a child for labor involving so much privation, descended upon the
+cart with a policeman; and the flap-jack man having discreetly
+absconded, they arrested Lovey in default of his employer. Miss
+Prillwitz appeared in court at Jim's request, for in some way Jim had
+heard of his friend's apprehension, and having ascertained that Mr.
+Trimble had gone upon a spree, she rashly, but not unnaturally, decided
+that nothing was to be expected from such a father, and next paid a
+visit to Mrs. Trimble, at the hospital. Learning there that there was a
+prospect of her cure, she offered Lovey the hospitality of the Emergency
+Bed until his mother should be able to work once more. This case
+established relations between the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
+to Children and the new Home; and a little girl--who had been forced to
+sell lead-pencils on the street at night by a drunken mother, though her
+father was a brakeman, who could well afford to support her--was
+committed to the Home through the agency of the Society; and the father,
+on being notified, approved the action, and paid her board regularly.
+
+One desirable result of the Home was its effect on Emma Jane's
+character. From being, as she had truly said of herself, an unlovely and
+unloving girl who disliked children, her nature sweetened by contact
+with them; and taking them one by one into her heart, it broadened and
+softened, till an expression which was almost madonna-like trembled in a
+face which had been grim and repellent. Lovey Dimple was the first to
+scale the fortress of Emma Jane's affections. He inherited his father's
+aptitude for mechanics. Among the old books and papers contributed to
+the Home were, strangely enough, some bound volumes of the _Scientific
+American_ and a few stray Patent Office reports, and over these he
+pored until his head seemed full of revolving cog-wheels and pulleys,
+and pistons, and his heart beat like a stationary engine. He was certain
+that he would be an inventor some day, like Ericsson or Edison; indeed,
+he was an inventor already, for had he not constructed unnumbered
+mill-wheels and windmills, weathercocks and whirligigs, besides taking
+to pieces the clock (which he could not get together again), and
+adapting his mother's sewing-machine to fret-saw purposes? He had
+studied every machine which he had seen in the stores, from the
+corn-sheller to the great patent mower, and believed that he understood
+the action of each. "Patent" was a word that stirred his soul, though he
+had but a dim conception of its meaning. It was something, his father
+had said, that the Government would give him if he invented a really
+useful, labor-saving machine, one which would "supply a felt want."
+
+Lovey knew what a felt hat was, but it was several days before he really
+knew what his father meant by a felt want. As soon as he had grasped the
+idea he began in earnest. "Mother Halsey," he asked, "what part of your
+work bothers you most?"
+
+Mrs. Halsey looked hot and flustered. Half an hour before this she had
+put her room and the nursery in order, had dressed the twenty-five
+children; from combing their hair and scrubbing the little ones, and
+introducing them into each separate garment, to merely tying
+apron-strings and buttoning the "behind buttons" of the older ones, and
+giving them a final dress review before starting them to the public
+school.
+
+In view of this state of affairs, it is not to be wondered at that Mrs.
+Halsey said that dressing the children gave her more bother than
+anything else. Lovey, with a pencil and paper, sat down to invent a
+machine which should do this for her. He reflected that such a machine
+would be hailed with delight in nearly every family, and if he could
+manage to sell them at a dollar apiece his fortune was assured. He took
+as his models the washing-machine, a cross-cut saw, and a corn-sheller,
+and in a few moments had made his drawing of a combination of the three
+machines. The motive power, he decided, should be furnished by the
+father of the family, who could turn the crank; and on days when this
+was not convenient the smoke from the cooking-stove could be utilized,
+the stove pipe being turned so that the smoke should strike the paddles
+of the main wheel, and the continuous stream passing across the edge of
+the wheel and up the chimney, he felt certain, would turn it. Just back
+of the machine, and above it, there was to be a great hopper into which
+the naked children could climb by means of a ladder, and where the
+clothing could be tossed promiscuously, the machine sorting it and
+robing each child properly. The cross-cut saw near the mouth would
+shingle each child's hair, and save the trouble of curling, while the
+children, completely dressed, would be poured through this spout into
+their mother's arms.
+
+  [Illustration: {Hand drawing of the invention.}]
+
+Lovey exhibited this drawing to Mrs. Halsey and to Miss Anton, and
+begged them to show it to President Harrison and obtain a patent for him
+as soon as possible; but, somehow, though the invention was received
+with applause and approbation by the entire family, nothing was ever
+done about it.
+
+The droll conceit attracted Emma Jane to the boy. "Perhaps some day he
+may become an inventor of something more practical," she said, and ever
+after watched him with increasing interest.
+
+Lovey had had great trouble with his arithmetic, and he had decided that
+a grand labor-saving machine would be one which would save a boy the
+trouble of studying. He thought that it would be a good idea to bore a
+hole in a boy's head when he was asleep, introduce the end of a funnel
+into the opening, and then with a coffee-mill grind up the usual
+text-books and stuff his brains. He made a drawing of this machine also,
+and Merry Twinkle and he came very near trying it practically, but they
+never could quite agree as to who should be the operator and who should
+be operated upon. Lovey had another brilliant inspiration. He noticed
+that his rubber ball, which had a hole in it, had a remarkable power of
+suction, and that if he held the orifice to his cheek and squeezed the
+ball, when he let go it would pucker his cheek in a way to remind one
+distantly of a kiss. He imagined that if the ball were drawn out into a
+tube, and that tube continued indefinitely the action would still be the
+same. Here was a discovery. How many separated friends and lovers would
+be glad to patronize a kissaphone, an instrument by which kisses could
+be sent and actually felt. He imagined the establishment of offices on
+both sides of the Atlantic, and the laying of a submarine tube.
+
+  [Illustration: {Hand drawing of the book-grinding machine.}]
+
+A young physician, a friend of Mrs. Roseveldt's, was visiting the Home
+just as Lovey completed this triumph. "Another invention of Lovey
+Dimple's," Emma Jane explained, as the child handed her the drawing. Dr.
+Curtiss came oftener than the sanitary condition of the Home really
+demanded, and he was well acquainted with Lovey's genius in this
+direction.
+
+"Yes, sir," promptly replied Lovey, "and I have met a felt want now,
+sure," and then he explained the kissaphone.
+
+"Try it on me, Lovey, and let me see how it feels," asked the doctor.
+
+Lovey did so, and Dr. Curtiss made a wry face. "It strikes me that is a
+very poor substitute for the genuine article," he said, "but perhaps I
+am not qualified to judge.
+
+"Now if you could have a nice looking lady operator, and could attach
+your tubing to the back of her head, and have her transmit the kiss as
+the mouthpiece of the machine, I should think your invention might be
+very popular."
+
+Lovey received this suggestion with entire good faith. "Miss Anton," he
+said, beseechingly, "won't you act as mouthpiece and let me send a kiss
+to Dr. Curtiss?" And he could never quite decide why Emma Jane, who was
+usually so kind, declined in great confusion to render him this trifling
+service.
+
+There was another little boy in the Home who made remarkable
+drawings--the one already referred to as Merry Twinkle. All of his
+family, even the female portion, were sea-faring people; his grandfather
+had been a sailor, and was now an inmate of the Sailors' Snug Harbor.
+His mother sometimes took Merry to visit him when she was back from a
+voyage, for she was stewardess on an ocean steamer. His father had been
+engineer on the same boat, but had been killed by a boiler explosion,
+and Merry had been _boarded_ hitherto with Mrs. Grogan.
+
+One evening, after a visit to his grandfather, Merry handed Emma Jane a
+series of wonderful marines.
+
+"Grandfather sang me a very old song to-day," he said. "It went this
+way:
+
+    Two gallant ships from England sailed;
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we:
+    One was the _Princess Charlotte_, the other _Prince of Wales_,
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+"This is a picture of the _Princess Charlotte_," handing Emma Jane his
+drawing.
+
+"It is night, and the captain is pacing the lonely deck; he has set his
+lantern on a small stand, and has put his hands in his pockets to keep
+them warm. The second verse goes this way:
+
+    'Up aloft! up aloft!' our gallant captain cried;
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we.
+    'Look ahead, look astern, look aweather, look alee,'
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+    'Oh, I've seen on ahead, and I've seen on astern,'
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    'And I see a ragged wind and a lofty ship at sea,'
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+    'Ahoy! ship ahoy!' our gallant captain cried,
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    'Are you a man-of-war, or a privateer?' says he;
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+    'Oh! I am no man-of-war or privateer,' says he,
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    'But I am a jolly pirate seeking for my fee,'
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+"This is the picture of the pirate ship and the fight. Captain Kidd has
+cut off the head of one of the men who boarded his ship. One of his men
+is firing a cannon, the rest of his crew may be seen between-decks.
+
+    'Twas broadside to broadside, so quickly then came we;
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    Until the _Princess Charlotte_ shot her masts into the sea,
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+    Then 'Quarter! oh, quarter!' the pirate captain cried;
+      Blow high, blow low, so sailed we;
+    But the quarters that we gave them were down beneath the sea,
+      Cruising down on the coast of Barbaree.
+
+"Grandfather called it the story of Captain Kidd, because he thought he
+must have been the pirate whose ship the _Princess Charlotte_ sunk.
+Captain Kidd was taken to London and hanged in chains, and I've made a
+picture of that too."
+
+Emma Jane hardly approved of the sanguinary spirit displayed by these
+drawings, but she could not expect that the boy's antecedents and
+surroundings would produce an angel. She endeavored to draw his
+attention to gentler subjects for his pencil, recited tender and loving
+ballads, and changed the current of the boy's thought and aspiration,
+realizing that here was material which, in the fostering atmosphere of
+Rickett's Court, might easily develop into an anarchist--a menace to the
+state.
+
+The Sandy girls were the last to be received from the court. The father
+had been a truckman, but a heavy box had fallen upon him, and he had
+lived in pain and misery for a year and had then died. Mrs. Sandy, by
+making men's clothing, managed to keep the wolf from the door--no, only
+snarling _at_ the door with fierce, hungry eyes. All of her six children
+helped her. The oldest girl did the ironing and finishing; the next
+child, a boy, carried the great bundles back and forth in the intervals
+of his profession as a bootblack; the second girl did all of their poor
+housework; the twins sewed on buttons and pulled out basting threads,
+and the youngest boy sold newspapers, while Mrs. Sandy herself ran the
+sewing-machine ten or twelve hours in the day.
+
+When Mrs. Hetterman asked her why she did not give up this desperate
+battle with the point of the needle, and leave her vile surroundings to
+take service in some good family, she replied that she had often thought
+of this, but she must keep a home, however poor, for the children. "The
+two boys could live at the Newsboys' Lodging-House, for they earn enough
+to support themselves, but what would I do with my four girls?"
+
+When Mrs. Hetterman assured her that there was a Home where they could
+all be cared for in cleanliness, health, and comfort, and have time for
+study and schooling and industrial education, which would fit them to
+earn their own living in future, and all for a sum quite within the
+means of any domestic, she brought her cramped hand down with a heavy
+blow upon the sewing-machine.
+
+"I don't mind if I break every bone in yer body, ye Satan's grindstone!"
+she said to the machine; "it's the last time that Mary Sandy'll grind
+soul and body thin at ye, praise be to a delivering Providence!"
+
+Mrs. Hastings, one of the managers of the Home, had had great trouble
+with incompetent and ungrateful servants, and she gladly took the
+faithful Scotch woman into her family.
+
+These, then, were the guests of the Elder Brother, for that first
+summer, from Rickett's Court:
+
+    1 Jim Halsey, American.
+    3 Hettermans, English.
+    3 Amatis, Italian.
+    4 Babies from Mrs. Grogan's, Irish.
+    2 Carl and Gracie Rumple, German.
+    1 Lovey Dimple, American.
+    1 Merry Twinkle, American.
+    4 Sandy Girls, Scotch.
+
+In all, nineteen children transplanted from the filth and vice, hunger
+and ignorance, of the court, and six more from other localities as bad,
+to sweet, wholesome surroundings. It was thought best that those
+children of school age should attend a public school to avoid
+"institutionizing" them; and for this end they wore no uniform, and
+mingled freely with other well-behaved children in the park under Mrs.
+Halsey's motherly supervision. Their birthdays were celebrated with a
+little party, with cake and candles, and everything was done to
+cultivate a home-like feeling. They drew their books like other children
+from the children's new free circulating library, and were taught to
+guard them carefully. They had a sewing society--in reality a
+sewing-class--where boys and girls were alike taught to mend and darn,
+to sew on buttons, and to make button-holes--all but the Sandy children,
+who, it was judged, had served a long enough apprenticeship in this
+department, and were sent to Mrs. Hetterman to learn how to cook.
+
+Miss Prillwitz was anxious that the boys should have industrial
+training, and brought the matter before the board of managers, who
+entirely agreed with her, and voted that a subscription sent them by Mr.
+Armstrong be used to secure a suitable teacher.
+
+It was just at this time that a letter was received from Adelaide
+announcing that she had fitted up the cottage which her father had
+placed at her disposal, and would like to have Mrs. Halsey occupy it
+with the youngest children for the heated term. Miss Prillwitz was
+delighted. Jim was already at the Pier with the Roseveldts, and it would
+be pleasant for his mother to be near him, and a fine thing for the
+little girls and the babies. This would leave the nursery vacant, and it
+could be fitted up as a workshop for the boys. She had a chat with Mrs.
+Halsey the day before she left, and asked her if she knew of anyone who
+could teach the boys carpentry.
+
+"Mr. Trimble, Lovey's father, is a perfect jack-of-all-trades," replied
+Mrs. Halsey.
+
+Miss Prillwitz was doubtful. "Mr. Trimble is a drunkard," she said.
+
+"Not irreclaimable, I am sure," said Mrs. Halsey. "He was a sober man
+when I knew him. Despair alone could have driven him to drink. I wish
+you would send and ask him to call and see you."
+
+So a letter was sent, and none too soon, for affairs were now at their
+worst with Stephen Trimble.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+WITH THE DYNAMITERS.
+
+    "While we range with Science, glorying in the time,
+    City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime;
+    Where among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied feet,
+    Crime and hunger cast out maidens by the thousand on the street;
+    Where the master scrimps his haggard seamstress of her daily bread,
+    And a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead."
+
+                                                              --_Anon._
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of the anarchist of Rickett's Court.}]
+
+
+The anarchist of Rickett's Court, under whose influence the inventor had
+fallen, was a thoroughly bad man, and the writer has no sympathy to
+waste upon him or his methods, but with his deluded and desperate victim
+we should all sympathize.
+
+Stephen Trimble had brooded over his troubles and wrongs until he was
+half crazed, and the men for whom he worked added fuel to the flame.
+
+"Why should you be so precious careful of the rich?" his employer said.
+"What have the rich ever done for you? They've murdered your wife, as I
+make out, insisting on her standing all day long, when she was not able
+to do so, and might have done her work just as well sitting. They've
+sent your innocent little boy to jail along with common pickpockets.
+They've robbed you of your money--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Stephen Trimble; "you've said that over and over, until I
+believe it, though I don't know why I should take your word any quicker
+than that of anyone else. You've made much of your kindness in telling
+me, though I don't see what good it does me, unless you are willing to
+go into court and testify for me as to what you've seen."
+
+The men shook their heads. "No going into court for us! We want to keep
+as far away from the law as possible."
+
+"Then I don't see but you are as much against me as the rest. I've
+worked with you long enough to know what your aims are; your machine is
+now in working order, ready to blow up the finest house, the largest
+audience, in New York, church or armory, bank-vault or prison; and if
+all you say is true, you may blow away, for all I care, and blow
+yourselves up with the rest, and me too. If the world is the Sodom and
+Gomorrah it seems to me, we have Bible warrant for its destruction. My
+work for you is done; give me my money, and we are through with each
+other."
+
+"See here, Trimble," said the anarchist, "we have already paid you
+fifteen dollars, and you ought not to be too close with us."
+
+"You promised me a hundred; do you mean to say--"
+
+"Don't be so touchy; what I mean to say is this: We cannot help you by
+testifying in court, as you suggested; it wouldn't do you any good if we
+did; but find out the man who has wronged you, and we will help you to
+your revenge. In a few days our society will begin its operations. We
+are out of funds now, but there will be a new deal soon. We begin with
+the banking-house of Roseveldt, Gold & Co., and as soon as the
+fireworks are over we will be rich enough, and you shall have a fair
+share."
+
+Stephen Trimble sprang to his feet. "I thought you were anarchists! do
+you acknowledge that you are common burglars?"
+
+"No, my friend, we acknowledge nothing of the kind. Be good enough to
+attend to your own business."
+
+"It is time that I did," replied the inventor; "I have neglected it long
+enough."
+
+Stephen Trimble walked out of the building. He had three things to
+do--to discover the landlord of Rickett's Court; to see his wife for the
+last time; and to free his little son, whom he believed to be still in
+prison.
+
+There was quite a commotion in the court; some men were putting up a
+fire-escape. "What ever put it into Solomon Meyer's head to do that?" he
+asked.
+
+"'Tain't Solomon Meyer," a workman replied; "it's the landlord himself.
+He ordered it done some time ago, and was mad as a hornet because Meyer
+hadn't attended to it."
+
+"See here, my friend," said Stephen Trimble, "if you know who the
+landlord of this tenement is, you will do me a favor by directing me to
+him."
+
+"Armstrong's the man--Alexander Armstrong, President of the ---- R. R.
+Co.; his office is over the banking-house of Roseveldt & Gold, No. ----
+Broadway. He rooms there too, when he's in town--back of his office."
+
+Stephen Trimble stood very still for a moment. The information which he
+thought would be so difficult to obtain had come to his door. The
+vengeance which he had fancied might take long days and nights of
+plotting, hung now over the man who had wronged him. He need do
+absolutely nothing, and Alexander Armstrong was doomed. He must
+inevitably be killed in the explosion and conflagration which was
+planned to cover the robbery of the bank beneath him.
+
+They had changed places, and the landlord of Rickett's Court was his
+victim. One-third of his task was accomplished. He walked now in the
+direction of the hospital, and asked to see his wife. He hardly expected
+to be admitted, but he would at least make the attempt. To his surprise
+he was shown into a cheerful parlor, and Mrs. Trimble was sent for. She
+came down, looking pale, but happy.
+
+"O Stephen," she cried, "it has been so long since I have seen you! but
+never mind, I am almost well now, and we shall soon be together again.
+The doctor tells me I may leave next week. They have been so very kind
+to me here, it has been like Heaven. The rich are thoughtful and
+generous to provide such places for the poor. I am so grateful; and I
+have rested so that I shall be able to take hold with new courage."
+
+He listened in a stupefied way, and seeing that he was not inclined to
+speak, she ran on, "And isn't it beautiful about Lovey?"
+
+This stung him to speech. "Beautiful? To be arrested and sent to
+prison?"
+
+"Why, no, dear. Haven't you heard? A sweet, kind woman--Miss
+Prillwitz--called, and told me that he is being cared for at a little
+Home, for nothing, Stephen; and they will keep him there until we are on
+our feet again. If that isn't brotherly love, I don't know what is. It
+makes me believe that there is such a thing as Christianity, after all."
+
+Still Stephen Trimble was silent. She was happy, and he would not dispel
+her illusion, at least not now. Evidently there were _some_ good people
+in New York, and she had experienced their kindness. He had expected to
+find her suffering from neglect and cruelty. He would not have been
+surprised if she had died. He could hardly believe that a _charity
+patient_ had received such attention. That their little son had been
+also tenderly cared for passed his belief, but he would see for himself,
+and he took the address of the Home. He bade his wife good-bye gently.
+"I shall come back to you very soon, Stephen," she said, "and things
+will go better then." He could not tell her of his deep despair. He
+tried to smile, but only succeeded in giving her a pitiful, longing
+look. He walked on toward the Home of the Elder Brother, sure that its
+name was a lie, and that he would find Lovey abused. But he was met at
+the door by Mrs. Halsey, whom he had known at Rickett's Court, who
+called his little son to come down and see his papa, and who told him of
+the plan of which she had just been speaking to Miss Prillwitz. And a
+moment later Lovey, well dressed, clean, fat, and jolly, tumbled into
+his arms with a cry of rapture.
+
+"Do you want to come home, Lovey?" he asked.
+
+"No, daddy, I want you to come here. Please, Mrs. Halsey, mayn't he
+come?"
+
+"We would like to have him very much to teach our boys the use of tools
+for a few hours every day. It is just what I have been telling your
+father."
+
+"A week ago," said Stephen Trimble, "your offer would have been heaven
+to me; now I am afraid it is too late."
+
+"Don't say so," urged Mrs. Halsey; and she called Miss Prillwitz to talk
+the matter over with him. Miss Prillwitz's first argument was to ask him
+to luncheon. He ate the nourishing food--the first good meal that had
+passed his lips for many days--and he said, as he bade them farewell, "I
+will come to you if I can, and teach your boys mechanics; if I don't
+come it will be because something has happened to me, and if anything
+happens to me I want to ask you to lend a helping hand to my wife--and
+may God bless you." A new impulse stirred within his heart, gratitude,
+which he had not felt toward any human being for years. He was softened,
+and tears stood in his eyes. He could almost forgive the landlord of
+Rickett's Court now.
+
+An impulse to see the man, though not with any hope of gaining anything
+from the interview, came over him. It was still early, and he walked
+down Broadway to the building designated, and looked into the bank. How
+wealthy and strong it looked, with the clerks busily at work calling off
+fabulous sums to one another, and handling the piles of bills and coin!
+The safe-doors stood open, and he could see the great bolts and bars,
+and complicated combinations; and he smiled scornfully as he thought how
+easily the little machine upon which he had been working would open them
+all.
+
+A policeman saw him staring in at the window, and asked him his
+business.
+
+"I want to find Mr. Armstrong, the R. R. president."
+
+"Then you must go up-stairs. There is the door."
+
+He walked up and saw another room, with gentlemen sitting in easy
+attitudes in comfortable chairs. He asked a clerk for Mr. Armstrong, and
+was told that he was in Washington, on business.
+
+"Business connected with a patent?"
+
+"Yes; I believe so. What did you want of him?"
+
+"Nothing. Say only that Stephen Trimble called."
+
+"What! is this Stephen Trimble?" exclaimed a hearty voice behind him;
+and, turning, the inventor saw an earnest but kindly looking man, who
+had just entered carrying a hand-bag.
+
+"That is Mr. Armstrong," said the clerk, and Stephen Trimble stared
+fascinated.
+
+"Step into my private office," said the financier, "I am glad you have
+come. It is always better to transact business at first hand, and I was
+sorry you could not come when Mr. Meyer asked you to do so."
+
+"I do not know what you mean, sir."
+
+"Did not Solomon Meyer tell you that I wanted you to call, with
+reference to the four thousand dollars still unpaid on our patent
+transaction?"
+
+"Solomon Meyer told me that I was too late, and that you did not care
+for my invention."
+
+Mr. Armstrong sprang from his chair. "And he never gave you my check for
+a thousand dollars?"
+
+"Never; though I heard that he had it;" and Stephen Trimble related what
+the anarchist had told him.
+
+Mr. Armstrong unlocked a safe, and took from it the contract in regard
+to the patent. "Is not this your signature?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir: I never saw the paper."
+
+"Then Solomon Meyer is a swindler."
+
+"Very likely, sir."
+
+"Go home; say nothing, and I will have him arrested. Stop--a little
+money may not come amiss to you just now. Here is fifty dollars on our
+account. I will see you again to-morrow, but I have an important
+appointment now."
+
+"I don't know how to thank you, sir, or what to say," said Stephen
+Trimble, utterly confounded.
+
+"There are no thanks due; on the contrary, I owe you a small matter of
+five thousand dollars--perhaps more--for it seems you have not signed
+this paper, and perhaps may not be willing to sell your invention for so
+small a sum."
+
+As he spoke, the confidential clerk tapped at the door and remarked,
+"Dr. Carver, sir, of ---- Hospital, says you telegraphed to him from
+Washington to meet you here."
+
+Instantly Stephen Trimble saw that Mr. Armstrong had forgotten his
+existence; his entire expression changed from kindly benevolence to
+intense eagerness and anxiety.
+
+"What has he got to worry about, I wonder!" thought the inventor, as he
+gave place to the physician, and descended the stairs. Force of habit
+led his steps toward Rickett's Court, but he walked like a different
+man, and the workman who had seen his cringing, crouching manner as he
+slouched out of the court that morning, did not recognize the man who
+entered with buoyant, determined step. The change had begun when he left
+the door of the Home of the Elder Brother. There his faith in his kind
+had been restored. Had the good fortune of the afternoon befallen him
+before that experience he could not have believed it, or the stupendous
+change would have driven him insane. But it had come upon him,
+mercifully, by degrees, and he was rapturously happy, and clearer in
+mind than he had been for months. It was as if a great and crushing
+weight had been lifted from heart and brain. Suddenly, as he crossed the
+threshold, he remembered the infernal-machine. The anarchists would
+probably use it that night, and Alexander Armstrong, his benefactor, was
+doomed. He wondered how he could ever have been so mad as to aid them.
+There was only one thing to be done: he must undo his work, render the
+contrivance harmless, and save his friend. He knocked at the door; there
+was no answer; the men were probably out. He tried to open it, but it
+was locked. He could easily have picked the lock, but people were coming
+and going. The new fire-escape suggested itself to his mind, and he
+decided to go to his room and, as it was already dark, descend by it to
+the workroom. This resolution was quickly accomplished. He lighted a
+candle and was just reaching toward the machine, when the door opened
+and the anarchists entered.
+
+"What are you doing? I thought you had finished your work," said his
+former employer.
+
+"No, I have not finished," replied Stephen Trimble, nervously taking up
+a tool and beginning to remove a screw.
+
+"You are tampering with the machine; put it down!" and the man seized it
+angrily.
+
+"Let go!" shouted Stephen Trimble, "you touch it at your peril; the
+button is under your hand!"
+
+The warning came too late--there was a blinding flash, then a crash as
+though the heavens had fallen; then blackness and silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE KING'S DAUGHTERS IN THE COUNTRY.
+
+    "Her father sent her in his land to dwell,
+      Giving to her a work that must be done;
+    And since the king loves all his people well,
+      Therefore she, too, cares for them, every one.
+    And when she stoops to lift from want and sin,
+    The brighter shines her royalty therein.
+    She walks erect through dangers manifold,
+      While many sink and fail on either hand;
+    She dreads not summer's heat nor winter's cold,
+      For both are subject to the king's command.
+    She need not be afraid of anything,
+    Because she is the daughter of a king."
+
+                                            _Anon._
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of woman sitting on fence.}]
+
+
+While all these sad things were happening Winnie and I were enjoying a
+happy summer at my beloved home in the blessed country.
+
+It is not to be imagined that Winnie dropped all her wild ways and
+became a saint at once. She had been sobered by her sad experience in
+plotting and scheming for the little prince; but since her full
+forgiveness her elastic spirits rose to the surface, and her cheerful
+disposition asserted itself in many playful pranks and merry, tricksy
+ways.
+
+We did not forget our promise to work for the Elder Brother, but for a
+time we did nothing but rest fully and completely.
+
+She was delighted with the country. The fresh air and free, wholesome
+life acted upon her like wine. She climbed walls and trees, leaped
+brooks, whistled, shouted, rode on the hay-carts, helped in the kitchen
+and in the garden, drove Dobbin about the country roads, went berrying,
+and was a prime favorite with all the boys, though I regret to say that
+at first, perhaps on this very account, the country girls were a little
+jealous and envious of her. But not a whit cared Winnie for this. She
+tramped over the fields and through marshes, with her botanist's can
+swung across her shoulder by a shawl-strap, searching for specimens. She
+boated and bathed, taking like a duck to the water, and learning to swim
+more quickly than any other person I had ever known. She loved to work
+in our old-fashioned garden, pulled weeds diligently, and seemed to
+love to feel the fresh earth with her fingers. Our flowers were all such
+as had grown there in my grandmother's time. It seemed to me that she
+must have modeled it on Mary Howitt's garden, for we had the very
+flowers which she describes in her poems.
+
+    "And there, before the little bench,
+      O'ershadowed by the bower,
+    Grow southernwood and lemon thyme,
+      Sweet-pea and gillyflower;
+
+    "And pinks and clove carnations,
+      Rich-scented, side by side;
+    And at each end a holly-hock,
+      With an edge of London-pride.
+
+    "I had marigolds and columbines,
+      And pinks all pinks exceeding;
+    I'd a noble root of love-in-a-mist,
+      And plenty of love-lies-bleeding."
+
+There was a bed of herbs, too, which my mother cherished--sweet-marjoram
+and summer savory, sage, rue, and rosemary.
+
+Winnie took a great interest in all of these plants. The country girls
+thought it odd that she should care for the wild plants which were so
+common in our vicinity, not knowing Winnie's enthusiasm for botany, and
+her desire to make a large collection to show the princess. An unusually
+ignorant girl met her on one of her botanizing expeditions, and Winnie
+asked her if maiden-hair grew in our region. "Of course it does!" the
+girl replied, indignantly; "you didn't s'pose we all wore wigs, did
+you?"
+
+It was some time before Winnie could control herself and explain that
+the maiden-hair of which she was in search was a kind of fern.
+
+"Do you want it for a charm?" the girl asked.
+
+"No," replied Winnie; "what will it do?"
+
+"If you put it in your shoe and say the right kind of a charm, you will
+understand the language of the birds."
+
+"Then I shall certainly try it," said Winnie, "for that would be great
+fun."
+
+Another day mother brought the same girl into the garden, where Winnie
+was at work, to give her some vegetables.
+
+"Did you try the charm?" the girl asked.
+
+"Yes, indeed," Winnie replied.
+
+"And did it work?"
+
+"Oh, famously! There is a wood-pecker in the old tree just outside of my
+window, and he wakes me by his drumming every morning. This morning I
+understood for the first time just what he has been saying. It was 'Wake
+up, wake up! little rascal, little rascal, little rascal!'"
+
+The girl stared at Winnie in open-mouthed astonishment. "You must be a
+witch," she said.
+
+"That's what they call me--Witch Winnie."
+
+They were standing beside mother's bed of herbs, and the frightened girl
+pulled up a stalk of rue and held it at arm's length, as though it were
+a protection. "Don't come nigh me! don't work any of your tricks on me!"
+she said.
+
+Winnie explained that she was only in sport, but the girl was only half
+reassured, and still clung to the spray of rue.
+
+Miss Prillwitz afterward explained that rue, like vervain, was supposed
+to "hinder witches of their will," probably from the fact that it was
+once used in the Church of Rome, bound in fagots, as a holy-water
+sprinkler, and is spoken of in old writings as the "Herb of Grace."
+
+In this way Witch Winnie's name was revived again, and was applied to
+her by her new friends, even though they did not believe in her uncanny
+powers.
+
+The princess came to us later in the season for a visit of a month, and
+we came to know her intimately and love her dearly. She brought five of
+the boys from the Home with her, for mother was pleased with the
+enterprise, and father had said that he guessed it wouldn't break him to
+give those city children a taste of what the country was like, and if we
+women folk could stand them he supposed he could.
+
+Winnie took the boys in charge and led them off with her on her long
+tramps and to row in the safe, flat-bottomed boat. They had great sport,
+crabbing, bathing, swimming, and fishing, and their vacation did them a
+world of good. These were the boys for whom the princess had planned the
+industrial classes, but Mr. Trimble lay at the hospital injured, it was
+thought, unto death by the explosion at Rickett's Court, and that plan
+was postponed for the present.
+
+The boys attracted much attention in the Sabbath-school and wherever
+they appeared. Many questions were asked, and Miss Prillwitz was
+requested to explain the plan of the Home, in public and in private at
+the sewing society, and at the Fourth of July picnic.
+
+We were not all ignorant country bumpkins at Scup Harbor, and we were
+not all poor. There were plenty of farmers, who dressed coarsely and
+fared plainly, who had bank accounts that would have bought out many a
+New Yorker of fashion. They were not selfish either. I have heard
+somewhere of a stingy deacon who, on hearing of a case of heart-rending
+distress, prayed for it in this wise:
+
+"O Lord, 'giving doth not impoverish Thee, neither doth withholding
+enrich Thee,' but giving doth impoverish us, and withholding doth enrich
+us; therefore do Thou attend to this case, good Lord; do _Thou_ attend
+to this case."
+
+Now this story may not be exaggerated, but I can only say that he did
+not live in our section of the country. Our deacons were soft-hearted,
+though horny-handed men, and though they had the poor of their own
+church and vicinity to look out for, and performed that office well,
+they decided that Scup Harbor was rich enough to extend a helping hand
+to New York, since New York was either too poor or too hard-hearted to
+care for its own.
+
+Accordingly a collection was taken up in church that made Miss
+Prillwitz's heart sing for joy; and the Ladies' Benevolent Sewing
+Society voted to have a box of clothing ready for the Home by cold
+weather.
+
+The grown people were not the only ones interested; there were girls
+among us of gentle manners and hearts, and who were far better educated
+than Milly Roseveldt. Some of these heard of Miss Prillwitz's eminence
+as a scientist, and helped me to organize a class for her in Natural
+History, and the remainder of the summer took on an aspect of mental
+improvement as well as of physical recreation. Miss Prillwitz mapped out
+a course of work and reading for each of us to carry on after her return
+to the city, and the circle arranged to meet at the homes of the
+members, and read essays and discuss different scientific subjects.
+
+Winnie was surprised at the amount of intelligence and information
+displayed, and soon acquired a sincere respect for country girls. It was
+at one of our meetings after the princess had returned to New York that
+she noticed that Ethel Stanley, the daughter of a wealthy dairy farmer,
+wore a little silver cross with a purple ribbon knot.
+
+"Has it come here, too?" she asked; "are you a King's Daughter?"
+
+"Oh yes," replied Ethel; "I belong to the Helpful Ten, and there is a
+Cheer-Up Ten at the Corners. What do you call your link?"
+
+"The Seek-and-to-Save Ten," Winnie replied; and she explained the
+mission of our Circle, and how we hoped to help the Elder Brother in his
+search for the little lost princes. Ethel was delighted. "I think we
+might help you," she said; "we are Methodists, but we don't mind working
+for you if you will let us. I suppose you are all Episcopalians in New
+York?"
+
+"Oh dear, no!" exclaimed Winnie, "we are everything; Tib is a
+Congregationalist, and Emma Jane is a Unitarian, Adelaide is
+Presbyterian; 'Trude Middleton is a Dutch Reformer; Rosario Ricos is
+Catholic; Puss Seligman is a Jewess; Little Breeze comes from
+Philadelphia Quaker stock, though she is so gay you wouldn't think it;
+Cynthia Vaughn is a Baptist; Milly Roseveldt is the only Episcopalian;
+and I'm a--heathen."
+
+"No you are not," I protested; "you are a follower of the Elder Brother,
+Winnie, and that means you are a Christian." She gave my hand a little
+squeeze, and Ethel exclaimed, "I should think your society would go to
+pieces; I don't see how you can work together with such different
+views."
+
+"That depends," said Winnie, thoughtfully, "whether in the future we all
+pull in different directions, and tear our charity to pieces between us,
+or whether each of us uses all her force to bring in people from our
+different church organizations to help in the work, and make it widely
+and purely undenominational. I mean to write a little parable on that
+subject some day, for I feel full of it."
+
+"Do!" we all exclaimed; "write it for the next meeting at Ethel's."
+
+"I don't know; it would hardly be a scientific essay, you know."
+
+"I am not sure about that," replied Ethel; "I think it might be called a
+scientific method of carrying on charitable enterprises. Please write
+it, and I will invite our Ten, and the Cheer-up Ten from the Corners,
+and the Loyal Legion, and the Missionary Society, and all the girls I
+know generally."
+
+The plan was carried into effect, and at the next meeting Winnie read us
+this fable, which she called
+
+A FISH STORY.[A]
+
+[A] NOTE.--This allegory was first published in _Good Company_, of 1880.
+
+"Once upon a time the fishes and salt-water animals down in the bay
+decided to organize a Home for Sea-urchins.
+
+"The circumstances of the remarkable agitation which suddenly spread
+among the peaceful denizens of the deep became known to me by my
+inadvertently getting a spray of sea-fern in one of my bathing-sandals.
+I suddenly discovered that I could understand the voices of the little
+creatures that I had so often watched from Tib's father's dory, or
+sported among when I took my sea-bath. I lay in the dory one afternoon,
+looking down into the clear depth of the water, watching the tricks and
+manners of a sea-anemone, and thinking how similar her behavior was to
+that of a reigning belle at a popular watering-place, when it dawned
+upon me that she _was_ the belle of the cove, surrounded by a circle of
+obsequious masculine admirers, prominent among whom were the
+hermit-crab, the octopus, the jelly-fish, the lobster, the conger-eel,
+the king-iyo, and the stickleback--"
+
+"Now, Winnie," I objected, "you never saw an octopus or a king-iyo in
+our cove, and you can't make me believe it!"
+
+"My dear Tib," Winnie replied, "didn't I tell you this was a fish story?
+Pray do not interrupt again. The animals that I have mentioned were all
+aspirants to the hand of the Sea-Anemone, and the first remarks which I
+overheard and comprehended were her confidences to her friend the
+Gold-Fish, in which she intimated that she considered the Jelly-Fish the
+most amiable, the Lobster the richest, the King-iyo (a titled foreigner
+from Japan) the most _distingue_, and the Conger-Eel the most polite;
+but, after all, the Hermit-Crab was really the best, and she liked him
+more than any of the others, with the exception of the Octopus, who was
+so fascinatingly wicked.
+
+"The next time that I looked into the cove was during a meeting of the
+managers of the Sea-Urchins' Home.
+
+"The Sea-Anemone had just been unanimously elected to the presidency on
+account of her popularity.
+
+"The Cuttle-Fish had been created secretary in recognition of his
+remarkable facility in throwing ink, while all official documents were
+stamped by the Seal.
+
+"The Electric-Eel was made visiting physician; and the Shark, surgeon
+and lecturer on vivisection.
+
+"The Hermit-Crab, who had been detailed to make observations on the
+_modus_ in which such societies were carried on among human beings, made
+the following report:
+
+"MISS PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-FISHES:
+
+"Your committee have made a careful investigation of the subject
+assigned them, and agree that while man's faculties have not been
+cultivated to so high an extent as those pertaining to fishes, he is
+still a moral and intellectual animal. We believe that if he were put in
+possession of the advantages accorded to our race, and were submerged in
+salt-water for several centuries, his brain would undoubtedly become so
+pickled as to reduce it in size and intensify its quality. Favorable
+conditions of brain-pickling are all that is necessary, in our opinion,
+to develop some of the most advanced specimens of this _genus_ into a
+low form of _mollusk_.
+
+"The opinions of the Hermit-Crab were considered a marvel of liberality
+and generous thinking. He proceeded to explain the society-forming
+instinct of the human race as a professor of our own species might
+lecture on the concretions of deep-sea corals, and continued swimmingly,
+as fishes usually do, until a white-whiskered Sea-Lion begged leave to
+make a motion, in the language of a motto of conduct which he had often
+heard shouted to seamen by their commanders: 'When you are in the navy,
+do as the knaves do.' 'Let us,' he added, 'act upon this principle of
+conformity, by doing amongst men as the many do, and immediately
+organize a fair to meet the salaries of our officers and pay the debt on
+the society building.'
+
+"'But none of us need salaries,' objected the Lobster, 'and we have no
+debt.'
+
+"'As to declining a salary because I do not need it,' replied the
+Sea-Lion, 'I can only say that I find no such example set by the race
+whose customs we are following; and without a debt, or at least a
+deficit in the accounts of our treasurer, the respectability of our
+society may well be questioned.'
+
+"A committee of Codfish aristocrats was at once authorized to secure a
+debt of magnificent proportions, at whatever cost, and the salary of
+each member of the society was set according to his own estimates.
+Frequent meetings of the managers were appointed for the purpose of
+drawing the salaries, and as the care of the Sea-Urchins could with the
+utmost ingenuity be made to take up but a small portion of the time,
+each of the managers seized upon these meetings as opportunities to air
+their own particular opinions. The Lobster, who was something of an
+autocrat, and had determined from the outset to run the concern, took
+the entire business management into his own claws, greatly incensing the
+ladies on the debt committee by intimating that they knew nothing of
+business, and that his office-boy, the Craw-Fish, could have devised a
+debt of far nobler proportions. The King-iyo, or three-tailed fish of
+Japan, trusted that the philosophy of the Orient was to have its full
+recognition in the principles of the society, and that the Sea-Urchins
+would be instructed in Buddhism. The Octopus, who had been one of the
+most desperate characters in the bay, carried his change of heart so far
+as to assert that no one could be considered as religious, or even
+respectable, who had not been extremely wicked, and urged that only the
+most depraved and hopeless young Sea-Urchins be admitted into the Home.
+While the Octopus raved over essential wickedness, and the King-iyo of
+philosophy, the Jelly-Fish dabbled in humanitarianism, and asserted that
+brains were not to be tolerated, thought was to be considered a crime,
+and a heart the only organ necessary for the spiritual body. All books
+on theology and philosophy should be sold for old paper, and the
+proceeds invested in charlotte russe for tramps and criminals. Every
+measure in the least savoring of logic or common sense must be vetoed.
+
+"The Stickleback, who luxuriated in controversy, and in making himself
+generally disagreeable, summed up the remarks of those preceding him as
+the merest vaporing of idiocy, and denounced every system of belief held
+by his fellow-managers, before hearing it, with the same impartiality.
+Antagonism, he asserted, was the only rational attitude for any fish
+under all circumstances. The Conger-Eel, managing to gain possession of
+the floor, endeavored to pour oil on the troubled waters. He was sure
+that if the heterogeneous, and even antipathetic, ideas held by the
+different managers were only presented in writing, they would, properly
+mingled, blend as sweetly as lemon juice and loaf sugar in a cooling
+summer libation. The Cuttle-Fish, was unanimously elected chairman of a
+committee for eliciting and reconciling the opinions of the managers in
+a printed constitution. He opened the ball with a statement of his own
+views, which he passed to each member in turn, asking them to add their
+several criticisms and corrections. When the paper had gone the rounds
+it was read in open session by the Hermit-Crab, who summed up everything
+that had gone before, in a paper entitled 'A Historical Review of the
+Documents, beginning with the King-iyo's criticism of Mr.
+Snapping-Turtle's attack on Mr. Shrimp's vindication of Mr. Jelly-Fish's
+Apology of Mr. Conger-Eel's Deprecatory Answer to Mr. Lobster's satire
+on Mr. Stickleback's Challenge to Mr. Octopus's Dogmatic Denunciation of
+Mr. Shark's strictures on Miss Sea-Anemone's conciliatory explanation of
+Mr. Cuttle-Fish's exposition of the views of the society.'
+
+"Of course this paper satisfied no one, and the meeting plunged at once
+into a whirlpool of ruinous discussion.
+
+"The Stickleback bristled his spines and glared angrily about him,
+shrieking, 'Antagonism! Nihilism!'
+
+"'Fanaticism, Sensationalism!' yelled the Octopus.
+
+"'Dogmatism! Absolutism!' replied the Lobster, hurling clams about him
+in the belief that they were works on combative theology.
+
+"'Asceticism! Monasticism!' groaned the Hermit-Crab, retreating into a
+pipe bowl and blocking the entrance with a pearl-oyster.
+
+"'Humanitarianism!' warbled the Jelly-Fish, as he choked three
+sea-melons and a quart of sea-mushrooms into the mouth of a sick
+Grampus.
+
+"'Paganism! Barbarianism!' retorted the King-iyo, punching the
+Jelly-Fish.
+
+"'Optimism! Universalism!' sweetly chanted the Conger-Eel, but as he
+spoke the entire convention broke up and floated away, leaving the
+little Sea-Urchins crying for their supper, and only a debt of colossal
+proportions to mark the site of the proposed Home."
+
+"And how do you propose to avoid the fate of the Fish Society?" Ethel
+asked, after the storm of applause which followed Winnie's paper had
+subsided.
+
+"By recognizing, from the first, that we unite only for this special
+purpose, and that we all have very varied and contradictory opinions,
+which we will make no attempt to reconcile or ventilate. I think we can
+make our very differences an element of strength, if it is acknowledged
+from the outset that we are to be different. As Corresponding Secretary
+of our Ten I have received the most encouraging reports from the girls.
+They are all working hard for the Home, and all working in different
+ways, and each seems to think that the Home belongs to her
+individually--as it really does--and that her organization is
+responsible for its success. I am sure that when we next meet, the girls
+will accept Mrs. Middleton's proposition to have the Home of the Elder
+Brother entered as one of the Dutch Reformed charities, and I hope that
+each of the other girls will take measures to have it recognized as one
+of the charities of her particular church organization. I have a letter
+from Little Breeze, saying that the Friends' Meeting in Philadelphia, of
+which her mother is a member, propose to own a bed in the Home; and Puss
+Seligman writes that the Hebrew Charitable Association, of which her
+brother is Vice-President, have voted to hold themselves responsible
+for every child of their race whom we entertain. Cynthia Vaughn reports
+that the Church of ----burgh, Pennsylvania, will keep us in coal on
+condition that a delegation of the children go to the Baptist
+Sunday-school. Miss Prillwitz has already divided the Home into
+detachments, sending the children, as far as possible, to the churches
+which their mothers prefer, and there is a strong division of Baptists."
+
+"I think," said Ethel, "that our Methodist Church would like to have a
+share in the work. I am sure that father will be glad to supply you with
+milk and butter as his own private subscription."
+
+The President of the Loyal Legion then spoke up, and proposed that their
+organization furnish barrels and make the rounds of the farms in
+procession, soliciting apples and potatoes, which they would freight to
+the Home, on condition that a Loyal Legion Temperance Society be
+organized among the children of the Elder Brother, to be considered as a
+branch of the Scup Harbor Legion.
+
+The Cheer-up Ten from the Corners held a brief meeting in the orchard,
+and returned to report that they had decided to adopt one of our
+children to clothe. They desired that the child of the poorest parents
+be assigned them, and promised that if the proper measurements were
+sent, they would keep it respectably dressed in garments of their own
+make.
+
+I suggested little Georgie, a child rescued from Mrs. Grogan, whose
+mother could only furnish fifty cents a week from her scanty earnings
+for his support; and our convention broke up for that day, after
+partaking of strawberries and cream, singing a good old hymn, slightly
+altered for the occasion by Winnie.
+
+    "Here we raise our Ebenezer,
+      Hither by God's grace we come;
+    And we hope, by His good pleasure,
+      Long we may remain a Home."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTE.--The Messiah Home, 4 Rutherford Place, New York, a charity founded
+for children by children, whose beautiful work suggested to the author
+this simple story, has been greatly helped by circles of the King's
+Daughters, several of whom have adopted children to clothe after the
+manner of the Cheer-up Ten. The writer commends this work to any other
+circles of the King's Daughters eager to do the work of the Elder
+Brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY.
+
+    "When smale foules maken melodie,
+    That sleepen alle night with open eye,
+    Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages."
+
+       _Chaucer, Prologue to "Canterbury Tales."_
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of landscape.}]
+
+
+It must not be imagined that our entire summer was given over to works
+of charity and mercy. There were times when we quite forgot the Home of
+the Elder Brother in merry romping and girlish enjoyment; and one of the
+pleasantest experiences of that season was an excursion in two
+tin-peddler's carts, or rather, in two carts belonging to one
+tin-peddler; a pilgrimage which was undertaken solely and simply as a
+lark, and most successfully realized its aims.
+
+Toward the end of June, while Miss Prillwitz was still with us, father
+fell into a state of body or mind which he called "the malary." It was
+the fashion for everyone in our region to dub every disease with which
+they might be afflicted, from indigestion to inherited insanity,
+malaria; and the prescription given by our wise old physician for this
+disease of many manifestations was always the same.
+
+"I don't know exactly what has caused this trouble," he would say, "but
+I know what will cure it. You need a change. If you've been living high,
+diet. If you've been starving yourself, have Thanksgiving dinner every
+day. Take a change of air and a change of scene, a change of occupation,
+and, above all, a change of habits, and somewhere we'll hit the nail on
+the head that has done the mischief."
+
+The prescription pleased my father. He decided that he needed a change
+from the coast to the interior, and from exercise to a sedentary life.
+"Instead of tramping around this farm," he said, "I would like to be
+driving over the western Massachusetts hills. I am as sick of this
+eternal pound, pound of the surf on the shore as of the sea-fog in my
+throat."
+
+"Take the horses, father," said mother, cheerfully, "and drive through
+Connecticut up to your brother Asahel's farm in Hawley. I can run this
+household well enough without you."
+
+"It would be a rather lonesome drive," father demurred, though his eyes
+shone with longing.
+
+"Zen why not to take us wiz you, Mr. Smiss?" asked Miss Prillwitz. "We
+would each stand her share of ze expenses, and such a tour of
+_diligence_ would be most delightful."
+
+Upon this the matter was thoroughly canvassed, and it was finally
+decided that mother should remain at home with the five little boys,
+whom Ethel Stanley and the Helpful Ten had agreed to amuse during our
+absence; and that Miss Prillwitz, Miss Sartoris, Winnie, Mr. Stillman,
+and I should accompany father. Mr. Stillman was a summer-boarder from
+New York, who came to us every season to fish and hunt. Hearing that
+Miss Prillwitz was fond of ornithology, and that the lighthouse-keeper
+sent her dead birds, he tried to please her by shooting others and
+bringing them to her, but she soon made him understand that she
+preferred studying them alive and at liberty.
+
+"Zese poor leetle tears zat haf cast zemself on ze lighthouse," she
+explained, "zey have not been kill for me, zey could not else, but I
+wish I could hinder zem of it."
+
+"It is not much fun to shoot birds, after all," Mr. Stillman admitted,
+"only the exultation in hitting a difficult mark. I hate to pick them up
+afterward."
+
+"If it is only ze chase and ze difficulty which make you admiration,"
+said Miss Prillwitz, "why do you not buy to yourself a camera of
+detective for ze instantaneousness, whereby you can photograph ze bird
+on his wing? Zey tell me it shall be much more difficult to do zat zan
+to shoot him dead."
+
+And so Mr. Stillman had sent to New York for an amateur photographer's
+outfit, and had fitted up a dark-room in the old smoke-house, where he
+developed his negatives. He was a man to whom almost everything he tried
+was easy, and he tried his hand at many things. He had traveled much,
+and assured us that wherever he went he tried to learn some new
+accomplishment. In China he had learned the art of making fireworks,
+and earlier in the season the smoke-house had served as a chemical
+laboratory for the manufacture of rockets. Before Miss Prillwitz had
+suggested amateur photography, Mr. Stillman had amused us by setting off
+fireworks on the beach at night, but the new craze seemed destined to
+supersede every other; pyrotechnics were neglected, and the shot-gun and
+rifle rusted from lack of use.
+
+A tin-peddler lived not far from us--an enterprising man, the proprietor
+of two carts, one of which his wife was accustomed to conduct, following
+him in caravan style on his summer journeyings; but this season the man
+was sick, his wife busied in his care, and the great carts, piled with
+wares, stood waiting in the sheds.
+
+"I've a notion," said father, "to buy Eben Ware's stock and hire one of
+his carts. I can hitch my span of horses to it, and I will make enough
+selling tinware, as we go, to pay the expenses of the whole trip."
+
+This plan did not strike me pleasantly at first, but before I had time
+to object Mr. Stillman joined in enthusiastically.
+
+"A capital idea, Mr. Smith, but you know our board is to be paid
+regularly to Mrs. Smith during our absence. Miss Sartoris, Miss
+Prillwitz, and I all insist upon that. I will take the peddler's horses
+and his second cart, which I will load up with my photographic outfit,
+the ladies' baggage, camp supplies, etc., and I will fill in any spare
+space with fireworks, which I will offer for sale along the route, all
+profits to be devoted to the charity in which the ladies are interested.
+The Fourth of July is so near that I fancy the rockets will meet with a
+ready sale."
+
+All joined in the plan with zest. Our wardrobe was reduced to a minimum.
+It was discovered that the two carts were arranged to turn into
+ambulances for camping at night, and would furnish comfortable
+accommodation for the feminine portion of the party, while a small tent
+was provided for father and Mr. Stillman. In reality we camped but one
+night, preferring to stop at wayside inns, but it was pleasant to know
+that we could do so whenever we wished. A roll of army blankets and
+comfortables, a few kitchen utensils, and some canned goods were stored
+away in Mr. Stillman's cart, with Miss Prillwitz's botanizing
+equipments, Miss Sartoris's sketching materials, his own belongings, and
+all the fireworks which he could manufacture in time; and still there
+was room in the capacious interior. The rifle was added at Winnie's
+urgent request, as a defense against wild beasts, though we all joined
+in ridiculing her fears that bears might be found in the Massachusetts
+woods, little thinking that we should have a thrilling adventure with a
+grizzly bear. At the last moment Mr. Stillman added another camera and
+more chemicals.
+
+"This means," he replied, in answer to our questions, "that I have
+rented a tintype outfit of a photographer over at the Corners, and
+propose to add to our resources by taking tintypes as we go."
+
+Mr. Stillman's ready invention, so fertile in expedients, received
+hearty applause, and the gypsy caravan set out in high feather. We took
+the steamboat with the carts to New Haven, and from that point struck
+into the interior by turnpikes and country roads, father leading the way
+with his jingling coach, Miss Prillwitz and Winnie perched high beside
+him, and Miss Sartoris, Mr. Stillman, and I, who called ourselves the
+Art Contingent, bringing up the rear. How beautiful the roads were,
+shaded by willows or arched by elms! Often fascinating lanes led off
+from the highway toward comfortable farm-houses, or grass-grown,
+deserted roads mounted through shady gorges to the lonely hills,
+tempting us from the beaten track. But the highway was beautiful enough.
+Sometimes it followed the curves of some vagrant stream, or wound around
+gently undulating hills. Miss Sartoris pointed out the fact that it was
+most frequently a succession of curves, while French highways are laid
+out as straight as the surveyor can make them, and do not compose as
+well in landscape paintings. The Connecticut roads we found easy to
+travel, well kept, and for the most part level or of easy grade. It was
+not until we reached western Massachusetts that we walked up the hills
+to lighten the load, or that the driver pressed his foot hard on the
+brake as the cart coasted down the steep inclines like a toboggan.
+
+Winnie was delighted with a bit of gorge road which played at hide and
+seek with a wayward brook. "It seems to me," she said, "that the wood is
+a matter-of-fact business man, and the brook is his sweet but willful
+little wife. See how he tries to adapt himself to her whims and pranks,
+keeping as close to her as he can, while the side which she does not
+touch is stern with rock and shadow! And she, coquettish little thing,
+wanders away from him into the deepest part of the ravine, where he
+cannot follow, and hides herself in a tangle of fern and wild-flowers,
+till, just as the lonely old road, quite in despair at having lost her,
+crosses the ravine on a bridge of logs, apparently for the sole purpose
+of seeking her, the merry little brook flies under the mossy bridge and
+is close beside him on the side which he thought farthest from her."
+
+"That is a very good parable," said father. "You've struck the nail
+pretty fairly. That's the way it has always been with my wife and me. My
+daughter, too, is one of the brook kind, but you needn't conclude that
+the old road doesn't enjoy all the company of blackberry vines and
+laurel and ferns that the brook attracts to itself, and which never
+would have come near the road but for the brook. I mean you and Miss
+Sartoris and the rest."
+
+"And sometimes," Winnie added, "the road has its grains of corn or wheat
+dropped from a passing cart, you know, to give to the sparrows, and the
+brook likes that ever so much."
+
+Father always called the boys from the Home "the sparrows," and he was
+pleased by this allusion to his generosity.
+
+We found ourselves following the circus at one stage of our journey, and
+we pitched our tent and made camp not far from the fair-grounds. We
+chose for our camp a site which had once been occupied by a house that
+had been burned to the ground. The only out-building which had escaped
+the conflagration was a root-house, or cellar, excavated, cave-like, in
+the side of a hill. It struck Mr. Stillman as a particularly good
+"dark-room," and we at once pre-empted it. Miss Sartoris painted a
+sign-board for the photographic studio, and Winnie and I arranged a
+bower with a flowery background for Mr. Stillman's sitters. We had a
+rich harvest that day, Winnie acting as cashier, and Miss Sartoris, as
+assistant, posing the groups. Mr. Stillman was quite exhausted when
+evening fell. He said he had never done such a day's work in his life,
+and his tintype material was nearly used up. We were patronized not only
+by the country people who came to see the show, sheepish lovers who
+wished to have their portraits taken together, and parties of merry
+young people, but also by the showmen themselves. The living skeleton
+and the fat lady, the strong man supporting a great weight by his teeth,
+the lion tamer with his pets, and the snake charmer, were all among Mr.
+Stillman's patrons. When it was understood that he had an instantaneous
+camera with him, the equestrienne desired him to take a photograph of
+her while performing her famous feat of riding five horses at once, and
+the acrobats challenged him to catch their rapid evolutions. He
+surprised them by his remarkable success in obtaining a perfect
+negative. It was our most successful day, from a financial point of
+view, for we realized over twenty dollars.
+
+Father had a rather annoying experience which made him desire to avoid
+the circus in the future. Among the articles which the tin-peddler had
+given him was a soldering furnace and irons, for mending old tinware.
+Father made his first attempt to use these tools on this afternoon. The
+door-keeper of one of the tents brought him his japanned tin strong-box
+to mend, and father attacked the task laboriously, succeeding in making
+it firm by a rather too plentiful application of solder. He was so
+interested in his task that he did not notice that an organ-grinder,
+one of the followers of the circus, had pressed quite near and was
+regarding the coins, which the door-keeper had temporarily turned into
+his handkerchief, with hungry eyes. Suddenly the monkey, which had been
+tied to the organ, became loose, and springing straight to the little
+furnace, seized and brandished the heated soldering-iron. A great
+excitement ensued, for no one dared to take the formidable weapon from
+the mischievous creature. The owner of the monkey seemed at his wits'
+end. He raged, stamped, tore his hair, commanded and entreated the
+monkey to bring back the iron, all to no avail. The monkey, having
+burned himself, finally dropped it, but, frightened by the pain or by
+his master's threats, continued his flight into the woods, followed by
+the organ-grinder. When the excitement occasioned by this event had
+subsided, a still greater one ensued on the discovery that the
+door-keeper's handkerchief and money had disappeared. The man angrily
+charged father with its theft, but Mr. Stillman came running from his
+dark-room with a negative which he had just developed. He had been
+standing at the door, with his detective camera in his hand, and, quite
+unintentionally, had done real detective work, for, intending only to
+catch the monkey with the soldering-iron, he had focused upon it at the
+very first, and the unerring eye of the camera had seen and recorded
+what every one else had been too preoccupied to discover--the
+organ-grinder snatching the gate-keeper's money. The negative was a
+sufficient witness, and the organ-grinder was at once sought for, but
+the earth seemed to have swallowed him. The monkey was found nursing his
+burned paw in a tree, but his master and the money were not to be found.
+There was such a train of beggars and questionable characters in the
+wake of the circus that it was decided not to pursue our moneyed
+advantage by following with them; and the next day we stood back from
+the road to let the heavy, shambling elephants and long train of gaudily
+decorated wagons pass by. Mr. Stillman had his detective camera out, and
+took some interesting views of the procession. Father had taken a
+dislike to the soldering outfit, and congratulated himself that the
+monkey had lost the iron, but the last in the procession, a gypsy
+fortune-teller, handed it to him, saying that it was a lodestone, which
+would bring evil fortune to the person who possessed it, and advising
+him to give it to his worst enemy. "I am a witch," Winnie laughed, "and
+can reverse all omens--so we need not fear." Turning from the highway,
+we now struck across the country, through chestnut woods, where Miss
+Prillwitz taught us to recognize the song of the thrush, the sweetest of
+New England songsters, and cousin of the mocking-bird. Mr. Stillman was
+vexed that he could not obtain a single photograph of a thrush, but she
+is a shy bird, and keeps hidden in leafy thickets, and though we heard
+her song frequently, we never saw her. Mr. Stillman became very skillful
+in photographing other birds, even fixing the agile little fly-catchers
+in their eccentric movements, the watchful bobolink atilt on a
+mullein-stalk, the swallows skimming the river's surface, and the
+sagacious crows, who, having proved that a very natural scarecrow was
+harmless, were less suspicious of him. The withered limbs on certain old
+apple-trees were favorite perches for the birds, for there was no
+foliage here to impede their flight, and outlined against the sky they
+were capital targets for the camera. Mr. Stillman secured a gentlemanly
+king-bird in such a position, his white breast and black back and tail
+feathers reminding Winnie of a dandy in full evening dress.
+
+Miss Prillwitz remarked on the brilliant plumage of the New England
+birds, and said that it was a mistake to imagine that those of the South
+were more beautiful. She pointed out the black and gold orioles, the
+lovely bluebird, the scarlet tanagers, as brilliant as flamingoes, the
+beautiful rose-breasted grosbeaks, with a rich crimson heart upon their
+breasts, and the red-winged blackbirds, with their scarlet epaulets,
+reminding one of brisk artillerymen. It was the last of June--the most
+perfect of all the months--and as we rode we repeated all of the poets'
+praises of the month that we could remember. We agreed that Lowell had
+sung the season best:
+
+    "The bobolink has come, and, like the soul
+    Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,
+    Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what,
+    Save June! Dear June! Now God be praised for June."
+
+But Margaret Deland pleased us nearly as well in her homage to the queen
+month:
+
+    "The dark laburnum's chains of gold
+      She twists about her throat;
+    Perched on her shoulder, blithe and bold,
+      The brown thrush sounds his note!
+
+    "And blue of the far dappled sky,
+      That shows at warm, still noon,
+    Shines in her softly smiling eye--
+      Oh who's so sweet as June?"
+
+Father was not a very successful tin-peddler. The thrifty New England
+housewives were not pleased because he was unwilling to exchange his
+wares for rags, after the manner of other itinerant venders. He was
+uncertain as to the prices which he ought to charge; asking so little
+for his brooms that one patron purchased all his stock, at a decided
+loss to himself, as he afterwards learned, and demanding so much for
+nutmeg graters that a sagacious purchaser showed him the door with
+scorn. The soldering outfit, too, caused him much woe. It seemed that
+the original peddler was a clever tinker; and all sorts of broken
+articles, from clocks to umbrellas, were brought out for father to mend.
+At first father good humoredly tried his best, but having burned holes
+in his clothing, as well as blistered his hands, and succeeding in no
+instance in satisfying his patrons, he was tempted to throw the little
+furnace away, but his sense of economy would not allow him to do this,
+and he stowed it away vindictively in the depths of his cart.
+
+Shortly after this we spent two very interesting days in visiting Mt.
+Holyoke and Smith colleges. They gave both to Winnie and me a desire for
+a higher education than that which we were receiving at Madame's. Miss
+Sartoris wandered slowly through the Art Building of Smith, looking
+longingly at its superb equipment. The college is charmingly situated in
+the old town of Northampton. We were told that the students had just
+acted a Greek play, the "Electra" of Sophocles, very successfully, and
+we looked at one another in envy as we thought how impossible it would
+have been to present such a drama at Madame's.
+
+We passed the Holyoke range on July 1. This barrier marks as distinct a
+climatic change as Cape Cod in the Atlantic currents, for, just as,
+south of the Cape, and apparently threatened by her bent arm, the Gulf
+Stream sweeps to the north the tropic sea-weeds, and north of it, and
+gathered close in its embrace, the Arctic mosses cling to the cold
+heart of New England; so, south of the Holyoke range the air may be
+tepid and lifeless, while beyond it invigorating breezes from the
+Northland are dancing cheerily.
+
+We had eaten the last native Connecticut strawberries, but they were
+just in their glory north of the barrier, and though the almanac said
+July, it was June weather still.
+
+Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke stand as sentinels at the entrance of a
+lovely region, through whose elm-covered villages we drove at leisurely
+pace, resting over a Sabbath at old Hadley, one of the most charming
+places, with its principal street a double cloister of elms and maples,
+and where a Sabbath peace and stillness brooded even on week-days. Mr.
+Stillman found, for the next few days, a ready sale for his fireworks,
+exhausting his stock and adding twenty-five dollars to the treasury.
+About twelve miles north of Mount Holyoke rises Mount Toby, a noble
+mountain, which assumes, from certain directions, the shape of a
+crouching camel. The resemblance is even more marked than that of the
+Rock of Gibraltar to a lion. It dominates the country round about, and
+from its summit nearly a score of nestling towns and villages are
+visible. Among these Mr. Stillman sold his rockets, and proposed that we
+should spend Fourth of July night on its summit, and there watch the
+little fire-fountains on the plain below. It was an attractive plan, but
+Mr. Stillman had not counted the weather into his reckoning. It had been
+a sultry day. As we stopped at a farm-house on our way from Sunderland
+to Mount Toby, the good woman told us to look out for rain. "The grass
+has been waiting two days to be cut," she said, "but it looks kinder
+lowry, and the men-folks daresn't begin haying."
+
+There were two superb cumulus clouds in the west, shaped like elm-trees,
+or wine-glasses touching rims, and there was a blue rain-cloud in the
+southeast, with fringes trailing the landscape, and blurring it from our
+view.
+
+"The rain may not reach Mount Toby at all," father said; "showers travel
+about among those hills in a curious fashion. I have seen it raining
+hard on one side of Sugar-Loaf, while the other was dry and dusty. There
+is a deserted railway station at the foot of Toby, where we can spend
+the night. There were picnic grounds laid out on the mountain at one
+time, but the enterprise failed, and trains no longer stop there."
+
+A view of the station, which we reached early in the afternoon,
+confirmed father's recommendation of it. The roof was weather tight, and
+it was a roomy, comfortable building, a good refuge should a shower
+overtake us. We picnicked beside a beautiful cascade, and leaving the
+horses picketed beside the carts, proceeded to climb the mountain on
+foot. It was glorious with masses of white and pink laurel, which I had
+never before seen in its perfection, and Miss Prillwitz introduced me to
+many other plants and flowers new to me. The Amherst basket-fern, shaped
+like a Corinthian capital, grew in perfection, the Columbine blew her
+flame-colored trumpets, and the harebell rang her inaudible chimes from
+mossy clefts in the gray rocks. Miss Prillwitz said she had last picked
+harebells in Austria.
+
+"You know," said Miss Sartoris, "that Mary Howitt calls the harebell
+
+          'The very flower to take
+          Into the heart, and make
+    The cherished memory of all pleasant places;
+          Name but the light harebell,
+          And straight is pictured well
+    Where'er of fallen state lie lonely traces.
+          Old slopes of pasture ground,
+          Old fosse and moat and mound,
+    Where the mailed warrior and crusader came;
+          Old walls of crumbling stone
+          With ivy overgrown,
+    Rise at the mention of the harebell's name.'"
+
+Miss Prillwitz pointed out more obscure plants, and gave us interesting
+bits of information in regard to them. Some had strangely human
+characteristics. The cassia, a shrinking sensitive-plant with yellow
+blossoms, was one of these, while the poison-ivy in its unctuous growth
+had an evil and malignant appearance which seemed to hint at its
+inimical nature. She told us how to tell the poisonous sumac from the
+harmless variety, the poisonous kind being the only one that has pendant
+fruit. She gave us also a little chat about parasitic plants, suggested
+by a _gerardia_, a little thief which draws its nutriment from the roots
+of huckleberry.
+
+"I did not know that plants had so little conscience," said Winnie. "It
+reminds me of a guest a Southern gentleman had, who remained twelve
+years, and after the death of the host married his widow."
+
+"Plants seem also to be cruel," said Miss Prillwitz. "Zere is ze
+_apocynum_, a carnivorous plant which eat ze insect. You should read of
+him by Darwin. He set a trap for ze fly wiz some honey, and when Mr. Fly
+tickle ze plant, quick he is caught, and Mr. Apocynum he eat him, and
+digest him at his leisures."
+
+"Miss Prillwitz, you should write a book for young people, and call it
+'Near Nature's Heart,'" I suggested.
+
+"I would so like," replied Miss Prillwitz, "but if I waste my time to
+write, how should I earn my lifes? I have know many author, and very few
+do make their wealths by--by their authority."
+
+Miss Prillwitz brought out the last word triumphantly, quite sure that
+she had achieved a success in our difficult language. I turned aside to
+Mr. Stillman, that she might not see my smile. "How interesting she
+makes our climb," I said, "and all these wayside weeds! 'She illustrates
+the landscape.'"
+
+"In my humble opinion it is Miss Sartoris who 'illustrates the
+landscape,'" he replied. "See what a picture she makes reaching after
+those sweet-briar blossoms! I wish I had not left my detective at the
+station."
+
+Miss Sartoris was indeed very pretty. It seemed to me that she grew
+younger and more bewitching with every day of our trip. Each changing
+pose as she leisurely picked the wild roses was full of grace, but I
+could hardly understand why Mr. Stillman should greatly regret not
+securing this particular view, when she had figured in at least half of
+the photographs which he had taken.
+
+We reached the top of the mountain just at sunset. The west glowed with
+a yellow-green color. The strange clouds, which had been as white as
+curds in the afternoon, were now dark blue, lighted by flashes of heat
+lightning. They moved forward like the pillar which led the Israelites,
+great billowy masses piled one on the other and toppling at the summit,
+while they melted at the base into a mist of rain. Behind them was the
+background of the sunset, like a plate of hammered gold dashed with that
+sinister green. There were threatening rumblings in the east also, and
+Amherst and its college buildings were blotted out by the rain clouds,
+which resembled the petals of a fringed gentian, and seemed to be
+traveling rapidly in our direction.
+
+Father took a rapid view of the horizon. "There will be no fireworks
+display for us to-night," he said. "There are two showers which will
+meet in an hour's time, and Toby will be just about in the centre of the
+fracas. We had better hurry down the mountain if we want to escape a
+wetting."
+
+Miss Sartoris gave a longing look at the beautiful panorama of nestling
+villages, forest and winding river (a view unsurpassed in
+Massachusetts), and now glorified by the magnificent cloud effects. "Can
+we not rest for half an hour?" she asked.
+
+"I think not," father replied, and we reluctantly retraced our steps.
+When half-way down the mountain the wind, which preceded the march of
+the cloud battalion, caught up with us. The chestnuts crouched low and
+moaned, the poplars shivered and shook their white palms, and the
+hemlocks writhed and tossed their gaunt arms as though in agony. Then
+there was a hush, when they seemed to stand still from very fear, and a
+minute later the storm burst upon us. We were but a short distance from
+the station when this occurred, and the foliage which roofed the road
+was so dense that we were not very wet when we reached our shelter.
+There was an invigorating scent of ozone in the air, and a certain
+exhilaration in being out in a storm, and in hearing the crash of
+falling limbs far back in the woods. We noticed the gentleness of the
+rain, which, though apparently fierce, did not break a single fragile
+wild-flower. Each leaf, sponged free from dust, brightened as though
+freshly varnished, and each blade of grass threaded its necklace of
+crystal beads. The cascade, swollen and turbid, roared angrily at our
+side, and a shallower rivulet made the path slippery as we hurried on;
+but a few moments of laughing scramble brought us panting into the dry
+station, safely housed for the night from the storm.
+
+Father and Mr. Stillman arranged shelter for the horses by spreading the
+tent between the two carts, and we ate our supper at what had formerly
+been a refreshment counter. Then the ticket-office was assigned to the
+gentlemen as their dormitory, and hammocks were hung for the rest of us
+in the ladies' waiting-room. We told ghost stories for a time by the
+light of a spirit-lamp and a few candles, but retired early, as we were
+thoroughly tired from our long walk, and were soon asleep, lulled by the
+monotone of the falling rain. We were not destined, however, to enjoy a
+night of undisturbed repose, for the principal adventure of our journey
+occurred that night.
+
+I do not know how long we had slept when we were all suddenly awakened
+by a startling scream.
+
+"What is it? Oh, what is it?" gasped Winnie.
+
+"Is it a catamount?" asked Miss Sartoris.
+
+I thought of the railroad track, which ran close beside us, and
+suggested that it might be the shriek of a passing engine, when suddenly
+it came again on the side of the station opposite to the track. Father
+sprang up, exclaiming, "Something is the matter with the horses!"
+
+The rain was still pouring, and a dim light from the swinging lantern
+illumined the room. As father spoke, one of the windows, which had been
+left open for ventilation, was suddenly filled by an uncouth form,
+which, with much scrambling and snorting, was proceeding to force an
+entrance.
+
+"It is a bear!" shrieked Winnie; and so it was. Mr. Stillman rushed
+forward with his rifle. There was a loud report, and a heavy fall on the
+outside.
+
+"Horses can scent bears at a distance," said father, as he took down the
+lantern; "but who would have thought there were any such creatures in
+these woods?"
+
+"Perhaps it has broken away from the circus," suggested Mr. Stillman,
+reloading his rifle; for there was an ominous growling outside. Human
+voices were presently heard whose intonations were almost as harsh as
+those of the brute. Father unbarred the door, and we saw two men bending
+over the wounded bear, which he now saw was muzzled, and the property of
+the men, who had evidently heard of the old station, and had thought to
+take refuge in it from the storm.
+
+"Here's a pretty state of things!" father exclaimed, with a whistle.
+"You have shot a performing bear, Stillman, and these showmen will
+probably make us pay dearly for the mistake."
+
+We had all been terribly frightened; but we recovered instantly on this
+announcement, and hurriedly dressing, we peered out at the men as they
+stood about the wounded animal and discussed the situation. One of the
+showmen was a foreigner, who swore and grumbled in some strange
+language, which Miss Prillwitz afterward told us was Russian. The other
+was unmistakably a Jew, and he took a Jewish advantage of the accident.
+
+"You haf ruined our pizness--dot bear he wort one, two hundert dollar!"
+
+"Nonsense!" replied father, as confidently as if he were accustomed to
+trade in that species of live-stock; "he's dear at fifty. Besides, he
+isn't dead, nor anything like it. Hold him with this halter, you two,
+and I'll examine him. There! I told you so; it's only a flesh wound in
+the right foreleg. There are no bones broken. He will be ready for
+travel in a week. All you've got to do is to stay here for a few
+days--and where could you be better off? We leave in the morning, and no
+one will dispute your possession of this house. I will leave you enough
+provisions to keep you until you are ready for the road again."
+
+The men talked it over in Russian, and seemed far from satisfied, though
+Mr. Stillman offered to give them twenty dollars as an equivalent for
+what they would have gained during the next week, and father added his
+remaining stock of small tinware, which, he explained, they could easily
+sell from door to door at the farm-houses and villages in the vicinity.
+He was tired of his occupation as a tin-peddler, and glad to get rid of
+the obnoxious soldering furnace, as well as the patty-pans and
+muffin-rings. A settlement was finally effected when, in addition to
+this, Mr. Stillman agreed to their demand for fifty dollars cash
+indemnity.
+
+There was no more sleep for us that night, and it was with rueful
+countenances that we discussed the adventure among ourselves.
+
+"To think," lamented Winnie, "that, just as we were congratulating
+ourselves on gaining so much money for the Home, we should be obliged to
+pay it all out, and more besides, to these wretched men, and all for
+nothing too!"
+
+"Yes," replied Mr. Stillman, "that is the provoking part. If I had only
+killed the creature we might have bear-steak for breakfast (though it
+would have been pretty expensive meat), and I could have had his hide
+mounted as a rug, and have exhibited it to my friends with truthful
+braggadocio as one of my hunting trophies."
+
+I sympathized with Winnie in regard to the depleted condition of our
+treasury; but Miss Prillwitz remarked, enigmatically, that the adventure
+might not prove to be such a losing one as we imagined. We begged her
+to explain; but she bade us wait until we were at least ten miles from
+our encampment.
+
+We relinquished the station to the showmen after a very early breakfast,
+and drove away with lightened carts and subdued spirits.
+
+The rain had ceased, but was likely to begin again at any moment, for
+the sky was thickly overcast, and father suggested that, as this was a
+famous trout region, we might do well to spend the morning in fishing.
+This plan pleased all but Miss Prillwitz, who whispered to father that
+she had particular reasons for reaching a telegraph station as soon as
+possible, and we accordingly directed our course at a rattling pace
+toward the shire town of Greenfield. On the way Miss Prillwitz confided
+to us her suspicions; and in order that the reader may understand them,
+I must anticipate the events which are to be related in the next
+chapter, and explain that, after the explosion at Rickett's Court,
+Solomon Meyer and one of the anarchists had disappeared from New York,
+and Mr. Armstrong had offered a reward for their apprehension.
+
+The anarchist was known to be a Russian, and though Miss Prillwitz had
+never seen Solomon Meyer, she felt sure, from Lovey Trimble's
+description of him, that he had decided to avoid the ordinary routes of
+travel, and to journey toward Canada on foot, disguised as an itinerant
+showman. She had more proofs of his identity than these suspicions. The
+men had conversed very freely with each other in Russian, never dreaming
+that there was any one present who could understand the language. The
+Russian had complained bitterly that this accident would delay their
+journey to Canada, and the Jew had replied that it might be as well to
+lie hidden until the search was over.
+
+Arrived at Greenfield, Miss Prillwitz telegraphed to Mr. Armstrong, and
+in two hours received the following reply: "Have the local authorities
+arrest the parties and detain them until I can reach Greenfield."
+
+Accordingly Mr. Stillman and father, with a sheriff and a constable,
+drove back toward Mount Toby in a sort of picnic wagon. Father advised
+us to await him at Deerfield, one of the most interesting villages in
+the Connecticut Valley--both from its intrinsic beauty and its historic
+associations. We engaged lodgings at the small hotel, where we found
+but one other traveler, a dejected book-agent. It was nearly
+dinner-time, and the landlord looked rather alarmed by the unexpected
+arrival of so many hungry-looking guests, but he soon set before us a
+capital dinner of broiled chicken, and after a little rest we took a
+stroll through the beautiful old town. We were informed that the
+Memorial Hall, a museum of antique furniture, books, costumes, and other
+curiosities, was well worth visiting; and so, indeed, we found it. One
+object which greatly interested me was an old spinnet, with a quaint
+collection of music, both sacred and secular. Here was a great bass-viol
+which formerly groaned out an accompaniment to the male voices of the
+choir as they took their part in such strange, metrical arrangements as
+
+    "Come, my beloved, haste away,
+    Cut short the hours of thy delay;
+    Fly like a youthful hart or roe,
+    Over the hills where spices grow."
+
+The Library, too, a collection of "the (literary) remains" of many
+celebrated doctors of divinity, was a fascinating room, and one in which
+we would have enjoyed prowling for a long time. Hawthorne has given
+such an admirable description, in his "Old Manse," of just such a
+library, that I cannot forbear quoting it here.
+
+"The old books would (for the most part) have been worth nothing at an
+auction. They possessed an interest quite apart from their literary
+value; many of them had been transmitted down through a series of
+consecrated hands from the days of the mighty Puritan divines. A few of
+the books were Latin folios written by Catholic authors; others
+demolished papistry as with a sledgehammer, in plain English. A
+dissertation on the book of Job, which only Job himself could have had
+the patience to read, filled at least a score of small, thick-set
+quartos, at the rate of two or three volumes to a chapter. Then there
+was a vast folio 'Body of Divinity.' Volumes of this form dated back two
+hundred years and more, and were generally bound in black leather,
+exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to books
+of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to be
+carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times: diminutive, but as
+black as their bulkier brethren. These little old volumes impressed me
+as if they had been intended for very large ones, but had been,
+unfortunately, blighted at an early stage of their growth. Then there
+were old newspapers, and still older almanacs, which reproduced the
+epochs when they had issued from the press with a distinctness that was
+altogether unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic
+looking-glass among the books, with the images of a vanished century in
+them."
+
+We lingered long in the Library, and in the Indian Room, where stands an
+old door gashed by the tomahawks of the Indians who, with a company of
+French, in 1704, surprised Deerfield, massacred a great part of the
+inhabitants, and carried a hundred and twelve as prisoners to Canada.
+Yellow and crumbling letters, uncertainly spelled and quaintly phrased,
+hung around the room, telling how perilous such a driving-tour as we had
+just taken would have been in those pioneer days. One, dated 1756 and
+written to Captain John Burt in the Crown Point Army, read as follows:
+
+
+      "Dear Husband.
+
+     "It is a Crasie time in this place. There is but little Traviling
+     by the Massachusetts Fort which makes it more difficult to send
+     letters. Capt. Chapin and Chidester and his Son were killed and
+     scalpt by the Enemy near the new foort at Hoosack."
+
+Sarah Williams, of Roxbury, in 1714 announces to her friends at
+Deerfield the expected return of many of their friends who had been
+carried off in different raids--"We have had news that Unkel is Coming
+with one hundred and fifty Captives."
+
+The number dwindled, and many who were carried away on that dreary march
+through the winter snow never returned, but among the relics preserved
+in the archives of Memorial Hall is a pathetic little red shoe which
+walked all the way from Hatfield to Canada and back, on the foot of
+little Sally Colman. It is hardly more than a tiny sole, with a rag of
+the scarlet upper clinging to it, but it tells the story of the cruel
+march, and the heroic efforts of the noble men who effected the rescue
+of their friends, better than many a page of print.
+
+We were so much interested in Memorial Hall that it was long past
+supper-time before we thought of leaving. The book-agent advised us to
+visit the old burying-ground, and, after supper, offered to show us the
+way. We found it grass-grown and neglected; in some portions, a thicket
+of climbing vines and tangling briers. Indeed, the entire God's acre was
+so given over to nature that the birds built undismayed, while the
+squirrel frisked impudently on the headstones, and the woodchuck
+burrowed beside the tombs. It had not been used for many years; a newer
+cemetery raised its white monuments on the hillside, while here lichens
+nearly filled the carving, and the stones leaned at tipsy angles,
+proving that grief for any buried here had been long assuaged, that the
+very mourners had passed away, and it was doubtful whether a single aged
+man still lingered in the town of whom it could be said that
+
+    "These mossy marbles rest
+    On the lips which he has pressed
+            In their bloom.
+    And the names he loved to hear
+    Have been carved for many a year
+            On the tomb."
+
+As Miss Sartoris remarked, the place did not suggest sadness, but gentle
+retrospection, while curiosity provoked the fancy to fill out the
+histories so provokingly suggested in the inscriptions. Here was buried
+Mrs. Williams, whom her epitaph declares to be "the virtuous and
+desirable consort of Mr. John Williams," and Mr. Mehuman Hinsdale, who
+was "twice captivated by the barbarous savages."
+
+The book-agent read us another epitaph, copied in Vernon, Vt., which
+suggested a three-volume novel in the history which it gave of early
+Indian times. Our imaginations sank exhausted as we attempted to follow
+the heroine through all her matrimonial complications, I give it as it
+was dictated to me:
+
+  MRS. JEMIMA TUTE,
+  SUCCESSIVELY RELICT OF MESSRS. WILLIAM PHIPS,
+  CALEB HOWE, AND AMOS TUTE.
+  THE TWO FIRST WERE KILLED BY THE INDIANS,
+  PHIPS, JULY 5, 1743; HOWE, JUNE 27, 1755.
+  WHEN HOWE WAS KILLED, SHE AND HER CHILDREN,
+  THEN SEVEN IN NUMBER, WERE CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY.
+  THE OLDEST DAUGHTER WENT TO FRANCE, AND WAS
+  MARRIED TO A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. THE YOUNGEST WAS
+  TORN FROM HER BREAST, AND PERISHED WITH HUNGER.
+  BY THE AID OF SOME BENEVOLENT GENTLEMEN, AND HER
+  OWN PERSONAL HEROISM, SHE RECOVERED THE REST.
+  SHE DIED MARCH 7, 1805, HAVING PASSED THROUGH
+  MORE VICISSITUDES AND ENDURED MORE HARDSHIPS THAN
+  ANY OF HER CONTEMPORARIES.
+
+    "'No more can savage foe annoy,
+     Nor aught her widespread fame destroy.'"
+
+
+It was dark when we wandered back to the hotel, past the old manse built
+for the Reverend John Williams by his parishioners after his return from
+captivity. We were told that some one residing in the house of late had
+occasion to move a tall piece of furniture in one of the chambers, and
+discovered a door. Opening this, a secret staircase was found leading
+from the cellar to the attic. No one living had known of its existence,
+and many were the wild guesses made as to its object.
+
+When we returned to the hotel we found that father and Mr. Stillman had
+not yet arrived. Miss Sartoris seemed very anxious, and feared that
+there might have been trouble in arresting the tramps. Winnie cheered us
+by suggesting the trout fishing, which Mr. Stillman had reluctantly
+abandoned when we left Mt. Toby. It would be a good night for fishing,
+the landlord said; perhaps they had remained for it, since the distance
+to Toby was too long to be comfortably made three times in one day.
+After breakfast the next morning, as our travelers were still absent,
+Miss Sartoris and I unpacked our sketch-boxes and began to make a study
+of the street from the north end, just at the point where the French
+and Indians, "swarming over the palisades on the drifted snow, surprised
+and sacked the sleeping town."
+
+Miss Prillwitz and Winnie, with their botanists' cans, followed a little
+brook that ran at the back of the hotel, and came back laden with blue
+German forget-me-nots. Father and Mr. Stillman arrived just before
+dinner, Mr. Stillman carrying in one hand a string of beautiful speckled
+trout, and in the other something which looked like a buffalo-robe. He
+looked very triumphant and happy, while father followed, carrying in a
+rather sheepish manner--what but the old soldering furnace! We greeted
+them with so much laughter and so many questions that it was some time
+before they could give an account of their adventures.
+
+Arrived at the Mount Toby railroad station, they had found it deserted.
+The men having evidently decided that it was not safe to await the
+recovery of the bear, had accordingly killed it, and secreted it in a
+cave at the foot of the mountain. The sheriff knew of this cave, and in
+examining it in search of the men, found the carcass of the bear.
+
+"And so," exclaimed Mr. Stillman, exhibiting the skin, "I secured my
+rug, after all, but we concluded that the meat looked rather tough, and
+we would not take it. I shall express this skin straight to a
+taxidermist that I know, and have it handsomely mounted."
+
+"But the men!" I asked; "you don't mean to tell me that they escaped?"
+
+"No," replied father; "but if you can't keep quiet I shall not be able
+to tell you how they were caught. It was this very ill-luck-bringing
+soldering outfit that did it. When we found that they had left, I
+suspected that they had taken the morning train for Canada at the
+Montague station, for no trains stopped at Toby; and in case they had
+done that, there was hardly a chance of our reaching the station and
+ascertaining the fact in time to telegraph and effect their arrest
+before they could leave the country. We had driven from Greenfield
+pretty rapidly, and our horses were tired; then we took a wrong turning,
+and got off into Leverett, or some other unhappy wilderness; but after a
+while we found a farmer who provided us with fresh beasts, and we
+reached the Montague station toward evening. It was shut up, and the
+station-master had gone home, but after another half-hour we found him.
+Yes, our men had bought tickets for Montreal that morning. Then you
+should have seen our hurry to telegraph; but the station-master advised
+us to keep cool, and wait a little. 'They bought their tickets,' he
+said, 'but they didn't go there.' So that was a feint, I thought, to
+throw us off the track. But no; on their way from Toby they had decided
+that they would have a cup of coffee, and they had sat down behind a
+barn to make it on my soldering furnace, and as they were doubtless as
+tired of carrying the old thing as I was, they left it there. The wind
+blew the coals into the hay, and in a few minutes the barn was on fire.
+Someone had seen them leave the yard, and before the train came along
+for which they were waiting, they were arrested as incendiaries, and
+taken to the Greenfield jail. As this was precisely where the sheriff
+wished to take them, there was nothing for him to do but to return and
+notify the authorities that the men would be wanted soon on more serious
+charges. And as the station-master informed us that there was some good
+trout-fishing nearby, we decided to spend the night in Montague. So we
+let the sheriff and constable drive back to Greenfield without us, and
+telegraphed Mr. Armstrong that his birds were caught."
+
+"If they only turn out to be his birds!" said Winnie.
+
+"I haf no doubtfuls of zat," said Miss Prillwitz.
+
+"But why did you bring back that wretched little furnace and iron?" I
+asked.
+
+"Why, the curious part of it is that the farmer who drove us over this
+morning had found them in the ruins of his barn, and he brought them
+along, thinking that we might like them to help in identifying the
+rascals. I couldn't refuse his kindness, but I certainly shall not carry
+them away from this place. I don't believe in such nonsense, but the
+gypsy's prediction has come true so far, and they brought bad fortune to
+the gentlemen to whom I presented them."
+
+Mr. Armstrong, who had been telegraphed for, arrived with a police
+officer that night; and Miss Prillwitz, father, and Mr. Stillman were
+absent all the next morning making depositions to aid in the
+identification of the prisoners.
+
+It was finally decided to remove them to New York to await trial on Mr.
+Armstrong's charges. We set out that afternoon for Ashfield, our route
+leading us over beautiful hills, and affording us views of rare
+loveliness. Ashfield is a village loved by literary men as Deerfield is
+by artists. Deerfield nestles in a valley, while Ashfield lies on the
+breezy hill-top; George William Curtis is the centre of the coterie of
+rare minds who make Ashfield their summer home. Mr. Curtis gives a
+lecture here once a year for the benefit of the Sanderson Academy. At
+this time every manner of vehicle brings the country-people over the
+winding roads, which converge in Ashfield like the spokes of a wheel in
+their hub. We were not fortunate enough to light on this red-letter day,
+and we accordingly rested over night at the long low inn, and started
+early the next morning for uncle's home in Hawley. The distance was
+short, as the crow flies, but it seemed to be all up-hill. The last mile
+was through one of those gorges so common in this region, where the
+fissure between the hills is so narrow that the sun only looks in for
+two or three hours. Slowly climbing the long, green-vaulted stairway,
+the dusky tapestry was at length looped back for us, and the road,
+emerging from the wooded ravine, gleamed yellow-white between the
+grassy mounds. Crowning one of these knolls stood a long, white
+farm-house, spreading out wing after wing in hospitable effort to
+shelter the entire hill-top. Beside the road stood a post with a
+letter-box affixed, for the reception of the mail left by the daily
+stage. We passed a huddle of old barns and out-buildings, among which I
+recognized a carpenter's shop, a carriage-shed, a sugar-house in
+convenient proximity to a grove of maples, a dairy through which ran the
+brook, keeping cool and solid the eighty pounds of butter which my
+cousins made each week, a cider-mill, and behind it an orchard of russet
+apple-trees, and a long row of bee-hives fronting the flower-garden.
+
+Uncle expected us, and it was delightful to see the meeting between the
+two brothers, who had not seen each other in twelve years. There were
+plenty of airy bedrooms, hung with pure white dimity, and after our
+gypsy life it seemed very pleasant to find once more the comforts of a
+home. We spent several days at the Maples, attending service in the dear
+old-fashioned church with its high, square pews.
+
+Aunt Prue had all of our travel-soiled clothing neatly washed, and
+refilled the emptied hampers and lunch-baskets with abundant supplies
+from the products of the farm and her own good cookery.
+
+Uncle was a large, easy man, who dearly loved to tell a story to match
+his own ample proportions, only the twinkle in his eye redeeming him
+from the charge of deception. Aunt Prue's rigid conscience revolted at
+uncle's romances. "Asahel Smith!" she would exclaim, "how can you lie
+like that; and you a church-member?"
+
+"Now, Prudence," Uncle Asahel would reply, "the catechism says a lie is
+a story told with intention to deceive, and when I told these girls that
+I drove the oxen home with the last load of hay so fast that I got it
+into the barn before a drop of water fell, while it was raining so hard
+behind me that Watch, who was following the wagon, actually _swam_ all
+the way up from the medder--when I told 'em that, I cal'late I didn't
+deceive 'em; I was only cultivating their imaginations."
+
+Aunt Prue groaned in spirit, and began to sing, in a high, cracked
+voice.
+
+    "False are the men of high degree,
+    The baser sort are vanity;
+    Weighed in the balance, both appear
+    Light as a puff of empty air."
+
+While at The Maples we made an excursion to Cummington, formerly
+Bryant's home. We sat in the library, shut in by a thick grove, where he
+composed his translations of the Odyssey and Iliad, and we played with a
+little pet dog of which he had been very fond. Not far from the estate
+is a fine library, Bryant's gift to the little town. "Bryant's River" is
+a brawling little stream which flows through a very picturesque region.
+We amused ourselves by fancying that we recognized spots described in
+several of his poems.
+
+There was a grand old oak upon the place which might have inspired his
+lines--
+
+                        "This mighty oak--
+    By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem
+    Almost annihilated--not a prince
+    In all that proud Old World beyond the deep
+    E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
+    Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
+    Thy hand has graced him."
+
+The scenery about Cummington and Hawley tempted us to a frequent use of
+our sketching-materials. Mr. Stillman, too, found several birds new to
+him, and took some beautiful landscape photographs. Miss Sartoris gave
+him new ideas about choosing views where mountain and cloud, trees and
+reflections, composed well, and his photographs became much more
+artistic. He began to talk about the importance of placing his darkest
+dark here, and his highest light there, of balancing a steeple in this
+part of his picture by a human interest in the foreground, of massing
+his shadows, of angular composition, of tone and harmony, and the rest
+of the cant of the studio. Nor was it all cant; Miss Sartoris had taught
+him to see more in nature than he had ever seen before, and while his
+ambition had hitherto been to secure sharp photographs of instantaneous
+effects--mere feats of mechanical skill--his aim was now to produce
+pictures satisfying to highly cultivated tastes. He acknowledged that
+all this was due to Miss Sartoris, who had opened a new world to him,
+though it seemed to me that he really owed quite as much to Miss
+Prillwitz, but for whose influence he would never have taken up
+photography. I was a little jealous for our princess, and felt that,
+though Miss Sartoris was young and fair, and Miss Prillwitz old and
+wrinkled, this was no reason why honor should not be rendered where
+honor was due.
+
+There was a pond with a bit of swamp land on uncle's farm, which he
+considered the blot on the place, but which Miss Sartoris declared was a
+real treasure-trove for a picture. One end was covered with lily-pads,
+and great waxy pond-lilies were opening their alabaster lamps here and
+there on the surface, while the yellow cow-lilies dotted the other end
+with their butter-pats. Cat-tails and rushes grew in the shallower
+portions, and here was to be found the rare moccasin-flower, a pink and
+white orchid of exquisite shape. Miss Sartoris painted a beautiful
+picture here. She said it reminded her of the pond which Ruskin
+describes with an artist's insight and enthusiasm.
+
+"A great painter sees beneath and behind the brown surface what will
+take him a day's work to follow; and he follows it, cost what it will.
+He sees it is not the dull, dirty, blank thing which he supposes it to
+be; it has a heart as well as ourselves, and in the bottom of that there
+are the boughs of the tall trees and their quivering leaves, and all the
+hazy passages of sunshine, the blades of the shaking grass, with all
+manner of hues of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; and the
+bottom seen in the clear little bits at the edge, and the stones of it,
+and all the sky. For the ugly gutter that stagnates over the drain-bars
+in the heart of the foul city is not altogether base. It is at your will
+that you see in that despised stream either the refuse of the street or
+the image of the sky; so it is with many other things which we unkindly
+despise."
+
+We all regretted when our short visit at The Maples came to an end, but
+Miss Prillwitz felt that she must be hastening back to the Home, and we
+had already transgressed the bounds which we had set to our outing. We
+decided to vary our journey by returning through Berkshire. We drove,
+the first day, to Pittsfield, a flourishing little city, and now for the
+first time we felt ourselves out of place in the peddler's carts.
+Nowhere else had we attracted any special attention. It was a common
+thing for tin-peddlers to take their feminine relatives with them on
+their jaunts, and as we dressed very plainly, and conducted ourselves
+with gravity, no one gave us a second look.
+
+At Pittsfield, however, we came in contact once more with "society," and
+the loungers on the hotel veranda gave us a broadside of astonished
+looks as we alighted. "It is very disagreeable to be stared at in this
+way," Winnie remarked to Miss Prillwitz as we entered.
+
+"My tear," replied the good lady, "it takes four eyes to make a
+stare."[A]
+
+[A] A remark once made by Professor Maria Mitchell to a student of
+Vassar College who had made a similar complaint.
+
+Winnie colored deeply, for she knew that if she had been less
+self-conscious she would not have felt the curious and impertinent gaze.
+We left Pittsfield so early the next morning that none of the hotel
+loungers were on the piazza to comment on our appearance.
+
+We drove, that day, over the lovely Lenox hills, once covered by stony
+pastures, dotted here and there by lonely farm-houses, but now a
+succession of beautiful parks and aristocratic villas and mansions. Mr.
+Stillman had his camera out, and photographed a number of the handsome
+residences as we passed, and one of the gay little village-carts driven
+by a young woman dressed in the height of fashion, and presided over by
+a footman in livery.
+
+"That does not seem to me a sensible way of going into the country,"
+said Winnie. "I don't believe she has half the fun that we have in this
+old caravan."
+
+"Perhaps not," I replied, "but I presume that Adelaide and Milly are
+driving about in much the same style; and we know that better-hearted
+girls never lived."
+
+We picnicked near "Stockbridge Bowl," a lovely lake, blue as Geneva and
+encircled by beautiful hills. As father brought out the lunch-hamper I
+noticed a queer expression on his face. "What do you suppose I have
+found stowed away in the back part of the cart?" he asked.
+
+"Not the soldering furnace?" we all replied, in unison.
+
+He smiled grimly, and, instead of replying, placed it before us. "That
+Deerfield landlord must have packed it up without your knowledge," said
+Miss Sartoris. "Its reappearance is becoming really amusing; let us make
+one grand final effort to get rid of it by sinking it in the middle of
+the lake."
+
+"Will you do it?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Miss Sartoris took the furnace and ran down to the lake, whence she
+presently returned empty-handed.
+
+"Did you drown the creature?"
+
+"Not exactly, but I gave an ancient fisherman whom I found there a
+quarter to commit the crime for me. I told him that it was something
+which we were tired of, and never wished to see again, and he promised
+me, in rather a mixed manner, that 'human hand should never find hide
+nor hair of it, nor human eye set foot on it again.'"
+
+A general laugh followed this announcement. How should we know that the
+man's suspicions were excited by Miss Sartoris's anxiety to get rid of
+the object, and that instead of sinking it in the middle of "the Bowl"
+he wrapped it carefully in brown paper, and labeling it "To be kept till
+called for," hid it under the bank! "Somebody will come for that
+object," he said to himself; "shouldn't wonder if it was wanted at court
+as circumstantial evidence of somethin' or 'nother."
+
+Another event occurred while we were resting at "the Bowl." Miss
+Sartoris remarked that a view which she had obtained as she returned
+from the lake was the most enchanting that she had seen on the trip.
+"How I wish that I had time to sketch it!" she said.
+
+"I will photograph it for you," Mr. Stillman exclaimed, with alacrity,
+"if you will kindly show me just where you would like to have the view
+taken."
+
+They walked back together, a turn in the road hiding them from our view.
+We waited for them a long time, and at length father became impatient
+and drove on, leaving me to hold Mr. Stillman's horses. When they came
+back there was an expression on their faces which told everything. I
+should have known it even if Mr. Stillman had been able to keep the
+words back, but he was too happy to be silent. "You were lamenting, this
+morning," he said to me as he took the reins, "that we had only two more
+days to journey together."
+
+"That is all," I replied, "unless Miss Sartoris and you have decided to
+make a longer trip."
+
+"Yes," he replied, "you have guessed it exactly: Miss Sartoris has just
+consented to journey on through life with me."
+
+I was surprised, and yet, when I came to think of it, I saw that I ought
+to have suspected it from the time they first met; and, all things
+considered, they were admirably suited to each other. So I could only
+rejoice in their happiness, though I wondered, a little selfishly, what
+Madame's would be without Miss Sartoris, and whether I should ever have
+a teacher whom I should love as well.
+
+When we caught up with the other cart father asked whether he got a
+successful negative.
+
+"No," replied Mr. Stillman, "I didn't get a very decided negative, and I
+confess I didn't want one."
+
+There was a look of blank astonishment on all their faces, and then a
+peal of laughter as his meaning dawned upon them. After the storm of
+congratulations and exclamations had ceased, Miss Sartoris suddenly
+exclaimed, "You left your detective camera!"
+
+"That is so," Mr. Stillman replied, "Shall we drive back after it?"
+
+"Not unless you want to catch that shower," father remarked, pointing to
+a threatening cloud.
+
+"I'll get you ladies under shelter first, and then I really think I must
+look it up," said Mr. Stillman. But before we reached Stockbridge we met
+a coaching-party conducted by a nattily dressed young man of slender
+build, who managed his spirited four-in-hand with considerable skill,
+and who reined them in as we approached, exclaiming, "Stillman! by all
+that's odd!" Mr. Stillman introduced the gentleman as a Mr. Van Silver,
+an old friend from the city, and mutual explanations followed. He was
+now on his way to Lenox, and agreed to stop at the spot which Mr.
+Stillman indicated, and if he could find the camera express it to Mr.
+Stillman at Scup Harbor.
+
+Very little more of interest to the reader occurred until we reached
+home. We followed the Housatonic for the greater part of our way, and
+when we had nearly reached its mouth, drove across to New Haven, from
+which port, having completed our round-trip, we took the steamer for
+home. Father found a letter from Mr. Armstrong in relation to the
+thieves taken in Montague, who were proved to be the criminals of
+Rickett's Court, whose retribution shall be related in the next chapter.
+The little boys left in mother's care had conducted themselves in as
+exemplary a manner as could be expected, there having been no cases of
+really bad conduct, and only two slight accidents.
+
+Miss Prillwitz took them under her wing and left with them for the Home,
+all looking happier, browner, and rounder for their stay in the country.
+Winnie regretted that our scheme for filling the treasury of the Home
+had not been a success, since the aggregate of money made by peddling
+tinware and rockets, and by taking tintypes, did not meet the expenses
+of the trip. Mr. Stillman, however, insisted on presenting the
+institution with a handsome check, "as an inadequate thank-offering," so
+he said, for the great blessing which had come to him in our journeying
+"over the hills and far away."
+
+Miss Sartoris left almost immediately for her own home, and Mr. Stillman
+followed her soon after. Two express packages came to him before he left
+us. One was the bearskin, handsomely mounted, the other was preceded by
+a note from his friend Mr. Van Silver, which said that he had overtaken
+a venerable fisherman walking off with his camera, and that it required
+considerable persuasion of a "sterling quality" to rescue it from him.
+Mr. Stillman opened the package with grateful anticipation, and
+found--the soldering furnace!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE ESTATES DEL PARADISO.
+
+    "I have been here before,
+        But when, or how, I cannot tell;
+    I know the grass beyond the door,
+        The sweet, keen smell,
+    The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
+
+    You have been mine before,
+        How long ago I may not know;
+    But just when, at that swallow's soar,
+        Your neck turned so,
+    Some veil did fall--I knew it all of yore."
+
+                                     --_Rossetti._
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of woman.}]
+
+
+We must now return to Mr. Armstrong, whom we left in chapter XII. in
+conference with Dr. Carver over the Doctor's advertisement of the case
+of lost identity inserted in the daily papers ten years before.
+
+The physician listened gravely to Mr. Armstrong's account of the loss of
+his wife and infant son, the wild hopes which were now awakened, and to
+his request for the address of the lady referred to, and gave him a
+pitying glance as he replied:
+
+"So many bereaved persons have come to me fancying that they recognized
+a loved one in that notice, only to be cruelly disappointed; and Mrs.
+Halsey has in the past been subjected to so many trying interviews of
+this description, that I hesitate to encourage your visiting her, unless
+you have positive proof of what you hope. A photograph would give this
+proof."
+
+"And, unfortunately, I have none of Mrs. Armstrong."
+
+"But I had one taken of Mrs. Halsey, which I have kept in the hope that
+it might be identified some day;" and the Doctor drew from his
+pocket-book a thumbed and discolored photograph, which he placed in Mr.
+Armstrong's hand.
+
+The effect was unmistakable. The strong man rose to his feet, staggered,
+and fainted, for he had recognized his wife. The physician quickly
+restored him to consciousness, and after waiting until the effect of the
+shock had partially passed away, he said:
+
+"I see that there is no danger of any mistake, and that I may direct
+you where to find Mrs. Halsey--I beg pardon, Mrs. Armstrong. Her
+address, when I last saw her, was No. 1 Rickett's Court."
+
+"Rickett's Court!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, in horror.
+
+"Yes, sir; it is not the best quarter of the city, but many of the
+respectable poor live there; and you must remember, sir, that your wife
+must necessarily have had a hard struggle to support herself and your
+little son, alone and friendless, in this great city."
+
+Mr. Armstrong groaned aloud. Rickett's Court had not seemed so bad to
+him for other men's children and wives, but that _his_ child, _his_
+wife, should live in such vile surroundings was horrible. He sprang to
+his feet, seized his hat, and with a hasty "I will see you again,
+Doctor," hurried in the same direction which Stephen Trimble had taken
+not a half-hour before. It was only a short distance, but it seemed
+miles to him. Just as he came in sight of the building every window in
+its front was illuminated with a sudden flash, and a heavy detonation
+shook the earth. Then smoke poured from the broken panes, and the air
+was filled with flying splinters and debris, while shrieks from
+within, and shouts of "Fire! fire!" from without, added to the
+confusion.
+
+  [Illustration: {Drawing of city street and buildings.}]
+
+The smoke cleared in a moment, and people were seen at the windows
+dropping down the fire-escape. Only a few minutes later a fire-engine
+came tearing around the corner, and the hoarse voice of a fireman was
+heard dominating the tumult and giving orders, but before this Alexander
+Armstrong, possessed of but one idea--that his wife and child were
+somewhere within--had rushed into the burning building. One glance
+showed him that this was hopeless. The staircase had been torn out by
+the explosion, and the flames were roaring up the space which it had
+occupied, as through a chimney. He was dragged back to the court by the
+fireman, who exclaimed, "Man alive! can't you see that the staircase has
+gone, and that they are coming down the fire-escape? There wouldn't have
+been the ghost of a chance for them but for that. Bless the man who had
+it put there!"
+
+The words gave him a little heart, and he stood at the foot, helping the
+women and catching the children handed to him, hoping in vain to
+recognize his wife. They stopped coming. "Are all out?" he shouted.
+"There's some one in the fourth story," said a woman, and before the
+fireman could lay his hand on the fire-escape Mr. Armstrong was half-way
+up. The facade still stood, but the entire interior of the building was
+in flames, and blinding smoke and scorching sparks poured from the
+windows. At the fourth story a man had staggered to the window and lay
+with his arm outside, holding on to the sill. Mr. Armstrong uttered a
+cry when he saw that it was a man, but, none the less, he lifted him
+tenderly out, and into the arms of the fireman following close behind
+them. Then drawing his coat over his mouth and nostrils, he entered the
+room. Another man lay at a little distance, or a body that had been a
+man, terribly torn and shattered by the explosion. It was the anarchist
+who had been the principal in the plot; the other had escaped. Mr.
+Armstrong descended, looking into every apartment as he came down to be
+sure no living thing was left inside that furnace.
+
+"You are a hero, sir! will you give me your name? I represent ----." It
+was the omnipresent reporter on hand for an item. Mr. Armstrong turned
+from him, without reply, to the man whom he had rescued, Stephen
+Trimble, who lay with a foot torn from the ankle, and a broken arm. A
+hospital surgeon knelt at his side bandaging deftly. A policeman had
+sent the call when Mr. Armstrong started up the fire-escape, and the
+ambulance, a more conclusive "Evidence of Christianity" than that dear
+old Dr. Hopkins or any other theologian ever wrote; nobler exponent of
+civilization than the fire department even, since that is the rich man's
+provision for saving his own property, while the ambulance is the rich
+man's provision for saving the poor man's life--the ambulance, with
+surgeon on the back seat coolly feeling for his instruments, and
+bare-headed driver clanging the gong, and lashing his already galloping
+horses, had torn like mad down Broadway. And as it came, aristocratic
+carriages hurrying with ladies just a little late for a grand dinner,
+and an expectant bridegroom on his way to Grace Church, halted and
+waited for it to pass; express and telegraph agents, and rushing men of
+business, gave it the right of way as it bounded on its errand of mercy.
+
+Alexander Armstrong spoke for a moment with the surgeon, long enough to
+learn that Stephen Trimble's injuries were probably not mortal, and to
+urge every attention possible. Then he caught sight of Solomon Meyer
+bowing and cringing at a little distance, and he sprang upon him like a
+panther on his prey. Solomon, greatly surprised, could only imagine that
+the loss of the property had driven him insane, and gasped, "Ze
+insurance bolicy is all right," whereat the ex-landlord gave his agent
+such a shaking that his teeth rattled in his head, only pausing to
+inquire if he knew anything of a tenant by the name of Mrs. Halsey.
+Solomon Meyer assured him that Mrs. Halsey had long since quitted the
+building, but this only partially reassured him, for he placed very
+little reliance on the man's word. His wife, almost found, was lost to
+him again. He could not believe that she perished in the burning
+building; still, there was this horrible possibility.
+
+There was no one to tell him that she had just gone to Narragansett Pier
+at his daughter's bidding, and was occupying the very cottage where so
+many of her happier years were passed; and he threw himself more
+unreservedly into his business projects, not, however, forgetting the
+poor inventor at the hospital, whom he visited frequently, and cared for
+as tenderly as though he had been his brother. After the excitement of
+the fire was over, he remembered that the law had an account to settle
+with Solomon Meyer, but he was not then to be found. His guilty
+conscience had taken the alarm, and the subtle magnetism which draws bad
+people together had caused him to form a partnership with the anarchist
+who had escaped the explosion, and but for Miss Prillwitz's timely
+recognition they would have fled to Canada. Mr. Armstrong found them, as
+we know, in the Greenfield jail, and had no difficulty in identifying
+them, and in having them brought to justice.
+
+As the time approached for the trial of Solomon Meyer and the Russian
+anarchist, Mr. Armstrong was troubled with the fear that Stephen Trimble
+might not be able to testify in court. He visited him frequently at the
+hospital, and whenever he approached the subject of his dealings with
+the anarchists he became excited and confused.
+
+His little son, Lovey Dimple, was seated beside him during one of Mr.
+Armstrong's calls. He was allowed to visit his father, and waited upon
+him day by day, sometimes telling him of the pleasant times he had had
+at the seashore, and at others watching him quietly. His presence
+seemed to do his father good; and on this visit Mr. Armstrong was able
+to obtain much more information from Stephen Trimble than upon any
+previous occasion.
+
+"You are quite sure," Mr. Armstrong asked, "that you never saw this
+check, which someone has cashed at the bank, and which is indorsed with
+your name?"
+
+"Never, never!" replied the wounded man.
+
+"I see it, though," Lovey Dimple spoke up, promptly. "Jim had come down
+to the court to see me, and I wanted to show him the machine in the
+Rooshans' room, and we follered him in there. Mr. Meyer dropped a piece
+of paper which looked like that, and Jim picked it up. He could tell you
+what was written on it."
+
+"I must have Jim as a link in our chain of testimony," Mr. Armstrong
+replied. "Is he at the Home of the Elder Brother?"
+
+"No, sir; Jim used to be there, but he had the luck to be adopted. He
+went away just for to be a tiger for some swells, and they liked him so
+much they permoted him. He's Jim Roservelt now."
+
+So this was the lad of whom Adelaide had spoken to him. Mr. Armstrong
+wrote to his friend Mr. Roseveldt, requesting that Jim should be sent to
+the city. His testimony at the trial was so clear and concise, and his
+entire appearance so manly, that Mr. Armstrong was greatly drawn to him.
+
+"If my own boy had lived," he said to Mr. Roseveldt, who had come to the
+city with Jim, "he would have been about the age of this little fellow.
+I am about to make a western trip of six or seven weeks, and would like
+to take him with me. Should the liking which I have taken to him grow
+upon acquaintance, I beg of you to relinquish him to me; I need him, for
+I am a stricken man, and you are a fortunate one, or I would not ask
+it."
+
+Mr. Roseveldt replied that, though he was fond of Jim, he would
+willingly give him up to Mr. Armstrong for adoption after his return
+from the West, provided the boy's mother would consent to the transfer.
+Singularly enough, the name of that mother was not mentioned, and Mr.
+Armstrong took Jim with him to Colorado, little dreaming that the boy
+was his own son.
+
+He had said that he needed Jim; and he needed him in more ways than he
+knew. He had grown world-soiled, as well as world-weary, and the
+companionship of a soul white and young was destined to exert upon him a
+purifying as well as rejuvenating influence. Before the grand mountain
+scenery Jim's fresh enthusiasm stimulated Mr. Armstrong's sated
+admiration, and the child's naive ideas of right and wrong were a rebuke
+to the man's sophistries. They journeyed together through the wild and
+beautiful canyons of the Rocky Mountains, and the boy was deeply
+impressed by the stupendous cliffs rising on each side--walls that were
+sometimes two thousand feet in height, and so close together that the
+narrow river, which had cut its way down from the surface, sometimes
+filled the entire space at the bottom of the gorge. But even here the
+ingenuity of man had surmounted the barriers of nature, and the
+observation-car on which they rode dashed along upon a shelf cut in the
+solid rock, with a sheer wall on one hand, and a dizzy precipice on the
+other. Such a canyon was the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas; in one portion
+an iron bridge hangs suspended from strong supports fixed in the solid
+walls, and the train glides along it, swaying as in a hammock, over the
+brawling river.
+
+The climax of their tour was reached in the Black Canyon. The scenes here
+are awful, even in broad daylight, for the sombre crags tower to the
+height of several thousand feet. Our travelers passed through the chasm
+at night. Far overhead the stars were shining in the little rift of sky,
+which was all that they could see between the walls; and in the
+mysterious half-lights of the illumined portions, and the utter
+blackness of the shadows, the grotesque shapes of the crags took on
+strange forms and awful suggestions. At times it seemed as if the train
+was about to dash itself against a wall of solid masonry, which opened,
+as though thrown back by genii, as they approached. At one point,
+catching the moonlight, a silvery cascade swept over the rocks like a
+bow of crystal; and at another, a mighty monument of rosy stone, the
+Curricanti Needle, towered far above the cliffs, like the sky-piercing
+spire of some grand cathedral.
+
+"The people who live here must be very good," Jim gasped, as they
+emerged from the valley of enchantment, "one is so much nearer to God
+out here!"
+
+"Nobody lives in the canyon now," Mr. Armstrong replied; "Indians lived
+here not very long ago. They used to hold their councils on that shelf
+of rock where the pines grow, the last accessible spot on the Curricanti
+pinnacle, but the settlers in the neighborhood did not have your idea
+about their being such very good men, and as the canyon was the best
+pathway through the mountains for the railroad, they were driven out."
+
+"I am sorry for the Indians," Jim said, simply. "If I had owned that
+canyon I wouldn't have liked to have given it up, would you?"
+
+Mr. Armstrong evaded the question. "You will not have so much pity for
+them when you know them better," he replied. "They are a low lot, and if
+they do not know enough to improve the advantages which they possess, it
+is only fair that they should be appropriated by those who will make a
+better use of them."
+
+Jim did not quite understand what Mr. Armstrong meant by appropriating
+the Indians' advantages, but he was to learn more in relation to that
+word before the journey was over. Returning to Denver, Mr. Armstrong
+took the boy with him on a tour through some of the pueblos of New
+Mexico. The word "pueblo" signifies town, and the Pueblo Indians are
+those who build houses instead of tents and wigwams, and live from
+generation to generation in towns and cities, instead of wandering about
+the plains and mountains like the other tribes. There are twenty-six of
+these communities in New Mexico, and some of the cities were old when
+the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
+
+When New Mexico was ceded to the United States by Mexico, the right of
+the Pueblo Indians to their towns and to certain tracts of land
+surrounding them was confirmed by treaty, so that these Indians are
+better off in many ways than any others. Mr. Armstrong had a special
+reason for visiting the Pueblos. He had purchased several large herds of
+cattle, and wished to rent land of the Indians for pasturage. A man by
+the name of Sanchez, who traded among the Pueblos, could speak the
+language, and had gained the confidence of the Indians, happened to be
+on the train, and recognizing Mr. Armstrong as a wealthy capitalist, who
+had large interests in cattle, as well as in railroads, at once guessed
+pretty nearly the nature of his errand in the Indian country.
+
+He introduced himself, and, learning that Mr. Armstrong intended to
+visit the pueblo of Taos, to witness the celebration of the Festival of
+San Geronimo, offered his services as interpreter and courier. These Mr.
+Armstrong was very glad to accept, for he had heard of the man, and knew
+that he had considerable influence among the Indians. There was
+something repellent, however, in his insinuating, cringing manner which
+made one feel that here was a man who was not to be trusted. The party
+was increased by an army officer and a Catholic priest, who were also
+going to Taos to witness the festival. The pueblo lies at a distance of
+twenty miles from the railroad station, but an Indian was found waiting
+for Mr. Sanchez with a rough wagon, and that gentleman invited the
+others to ride with him. They crossed the Rio Grande River and drove
+along beside it in a northeasterly direction, through a not very
+interesting country. The coloring was all yellowish brown--the sandy
+earth, the crisp parched grass, the distant hills, even the water when
+taken from the turbid river, were all of a like monotonous tint. Now and
+then they met or passed an Indian, wrapped in a striped blanket and
+mounted on a small shaggy pony. Toward evening they came in sight of
+the pueblo. The first view was very picturesque. The houses of adobe, or
+sun-dried brick, were built in ranges one above the other, like a great
+stairway, the roof of the lower house serving as the dooryard for the
+one above. Ladders were placed against the walls, and up and down these,
+nearly naked Indian children scrambled like young monkeys. They parted
+their long elf-locks with their hands, and stared at the strangers with
+wild, black eyes. Mr. Sanchez conducted them to an unoccupied house,
+which he said would be at their service during the festival for quite a
+good sum. There was no hotel, and this seemed the best thing to be done.
+It had evidently been suddenly cleared for the unexpected guests, and
+some of the utensils and furniture remained. The priest pointed out with
+pleasure a gaudy print of the Virgin. There were strings of red peppers
+drying on the outer wall, and a great olha, or decorated water-pot,
+within, but there was no bedding or food. The gentlemen, however, had
+each brought with them army blankets, and Mr. Sanchez offered to act as
+their commissary and skirmish for provisions. He presently returned,
+followed by a woman carrying a bowl of stewed beef and onions, and a
+boy driving a donkey, whose panniers were filled with melons. This, with
+some coffee, which the officer made over a spirit-lamp, and some
+crackers contributed by Mr. Armstrong, constituted their supper, which
+hunger made palatable.
+
+After this refreshment they mounted to their roof and watched the
+preparations for the festivities of the next day. Mr. Sanchez pointed
+out the entrance to the _estufa_, or underground council-chamber, into
+which the young men of the tribe were disappearing for the celebration
+of mysterious pagan rites.
+
+"I thought the Pueblos were Roman Catholics," Mr. Armstrong remarked.
+
+The Catholic priest shook his head sadly. "Our converts have always
+remained half pagan," he said; "the early missionaries were content to
+engraft as much Christianity as they could on the old customs, thinking
+that the better faith would gradually supplant the old, but the old
+rites and ceremonies have remained. Still we must hesitate to say that
+the Fathers did wrong, since it was the only way to win the savages to
+the holy faith."
+
+The priest strolled away to visit the church and to find a Mexican
+brother who was to celebrate Mass on the next day. The church was a
+ruinous building which stood apart from the others. The army officer
+told of the siege which it sustained during the Mexican War, and pointed
+to the indentations made in its walls by cannon-balls.
+
+The situation was such a strange one that Jim slept but little. All
+night long he could hear the dull beat of the tom-toms in the _estufa_,
+and as soon as the first streak of dawn illumined the sky the pueblo was
+awake and all excitement. Indians from neighboring towns poured in, some
+on foot, and others mounted on ponies or donkeys.
+
+In the plaza stood a great pole resembling a flag-staff, but instead of
+a banner there dangled from the top a live sheep and a basket of bread
+and grain, with a garland of fruits and vegetables. The church bell was
+clanging for Mass, and Jim followed the others. An old Mexican priest
+was the celebrant, and a few young Indians in red cotton petticoats and
+coarse lace overskirts waited upon him awkwardly as altar-boys. When the
+Host was elevated, an Indian at the door beat the tom-tom, and four
+musket-shots were fired. The priest then marched down the centre of the
+church, followed by the altar-boys, one of whom bore a hideous painting,
+which Mr. Sanchez assured them was painted in Spain by the great
+Murillo, and might be had, through him, for a trifling sum. The
+congregation joined in the procession and followed to the race-track,
+where games, races, and dances were participated in by fifty young men
+of Taos against fifty from other pueblos. The sports were witnessed by
+fully two thousand spectators, who swarmed along the terraces, and
+formed a packed mass of men, women, children, horses, and donkeys around
+the race-track. There was a group of visitors standing near our
+travelers, who regarded the races with intense interest. It consisted of
+an old man dressed in white linen blouse and trousers, with a red
+handkerchief knotted about his gray locks, an obese and not over cleanly
+old lady in full Indian toggery, and a young girl in a pink calico
+dress, with a black shawl over her head and shoulders. They watched one
+of the runners with the most intense excitement, and when he came off
+victor in several of the contests, their enthusiasm knew no bounds.
+"That old man is the Governor of the pueblo of ----," said Mr. Sanchez.
+"It is his son who has just stepped out to lead the corn-dance. The
+daughter, little Rosaria, is pretty, is she not?" He approached her as
+he spoke, with easy assurance, and taking her by the chin, made some
+remarks in the Pueblo language intended to be complimentary; but the
+girl twisted herself from his grasp with hot indignation; and Sanchez
+returned, grumbling that since she had been to the Ramona School at
+Santa Fe she was too much of a lady to speak to anyone. Jim was standing
+beside her; and sure, from her manner, that she understood English, he
+asked her to explain the corn-dance to him. She did so, very kindly, and
+the hunt-dance which followed, when the painted clowns brought out
+grotesque clay images, and after adoring them fired at them, and
+shattered them in fragments, the crowd scrambling for the pieces. The
+young man who had been pointed out as the Governor's son secured a
+piece, and brought it to the girl in triumph. "That is the ear of a
+wolf," she said. "It means that he will have success in the south; we,
+who have been taught better, do not believe these old charms any more."
+
+The last thing on the programme was the climbing of the pole for the
+sheep, which was finally won by a young brave of Taos.
+
+There was racing on ponies afterward by young Indians and Mexicans, but
+this was informal, and not included in the rites of the day. The young
+girl looked at the races enviously. "My brother ought to win there," she
+said, "for we had the swiftest ponies of any of the Pueblos, and ought
+to have them, for our pasture lands are the best, but we have sold
+nearly all our live-stock, and the pastures are no longer of any use to
+us."
+
+Mr. Armstrong overheard this remark, and asked Rosaria if her people
+would be willing to rent their lands. She conferred with her father in
+the Pueblo language, and Mr. Sanchez immediately joined in the
+conversation, talking volubly to the old man, and translating to Mr.
+Armstrong. "He says you are welcome to return to his pueblo with him,"
+explained Mr. Sanchez, "and he will call a council of his townspeople to
+deliberate on your proposition."
+
+There was more conversation, and it was decided to accept the Governor's
+invitation. Mr. Armstrong engaging Mr. Sanchez to go with them and help
+him in the transaction. This seemed to him the only thing which he could
+do, since he did not understand the language, and the Governor seemed to
+place confidence in the trader. The party set out the next morning for
+San ----, Mr. Armstrong and Jim in Mr. Sanchez's wagon, and the Governor
+and his children following on diminutive donkeys. Several days elapsed
+before the bargain could be made. The Indians were very suspicious of
+being entrapped into some fraud, and it needed all of Mr. Sanchez's
+eloquence to persuade them that the arrangement would be to their
+advantage. Mr. Armstrong had told Mr. Sanchez that he was willing to pay
+fifteen hundred dollars for the rental of the land for three years, and
+that he (Sanchez) might deduct his fee for services from this sum. "Then
+if I can persuade them to let you have the land for twelve hundred,"
+asked Mr. Sanchez, "I may claim three hundred for my assistance in the
+matter?"
+
+"That is a pretty round fee," replied Mr. Armstrong, "but it does not
+matter to me who has the money. The land is worth fifteen hundred
+dollars to me, and if you can persuade the Indians to take less, so much
+the better for you."
+
+Jim was much interested in the negotiations. He sat beside Mr. Armstrong
+in the council-chamber, trying to make out from the expressive gestures
+what it was that the Indians were saying, and sometimes it seemed to him
+that Mr. Sanchez did not translate correctly. At such times he went out
+to where Rosaria stood by the open door listening, with other children.
+She translated for him the treaty as Mr. Sanchez read it, and he was
+astonished to find that it offered the Indians only three hundred
+dollars as rent for their land, the wily Sanchez having reserved twelve
+hundred as his own share.
+
+"But Mr. Armstrong is willing to pay your people fifteen hundred," Jim
+protested to Rosaria, and the girl slipped into the council-chamber just
+as the Governor was about to sign the paper, and snatched it from his
+hand.
+
+"Is it true," she asked of Mr. Armstrong, "that you are willing to pay
+more for our land? Mr. Sanchez offers us but three hundred dollars!"
+
+Mr. Armstrong, surprised at the man's effrontery, acknowledged that he
+was ready to pay more, while Sanchez, furious at seeing his opportunity
+slipping from him, poured upon Rosaria all manner of abuse, and
+threatened Mr. Armstrong that unless he held to his bargain to allow him
+whatever margin he could make he would spoil the trade for him.
+
+"Here's a pretty affair!" said Mr. Armstrong to Jim. "You had better
+have kept quiet and let the old swindler feather his nest. Now I fear
+that I shall not be able to make any bargain with the Indians."
+
+"But it was not right, was it," asked Jim, "that the Indians should have
+so little and Mr. Sanchez so much?"
+
+"The proportion does seem unfair," Mr. Armstrong admitted to Jim; but he
+added, to Sanchez, "I hold to my part of the bargain. I will give you
+whatever margin you can make between their demands and fifteen hundred
+dollars."
+
+Sanchez attempted to regain his lost advantage, but all this time
+Rosaria had been talking excitedly, explaining to one after another of
+the Indians, now pointing to the figures in the treaty, now scornfully
+at Sanchez, arguing, entreating, scolding, and when the trader began
+his defense of her charges, laughing him to scorn. The Governor put an
+end to the altercation by tearing the treaty in pieces and ordering two
+stout Indians to lead Sanchez from the room. He then bade Rosaria tell
+Mr. Armstrong that fifteen hundred dollars was the very least that they
+were willing to take for their land.
+
+Mr. Armstrong bowed, and replied that he would think over the matter. He
+expected to have an opportunity to discuss it with his agent, but when
+he left the council-chamber he saw his wagon on the road to Santa Fe, at
+a long distance from the pueblo, and was handed the label from a peach
+can, on the back of which was scribbled:
+
+     "That boy of yours is too smart to live; the plaguey Indians have
+     given me an hour to leave their reservation. Manage your own
+     concerns without the help of--
+
+                                     Sanchez."
+
+The bargain was accordingly struck without the aid of a middle-man, and
+Mr. Armstrong was conceded the right to pasture his cattle for three
+years in consideration of the sum of five hundred dollars, to be paid in
+advance at the beginning of each season. Mr. Armstrong was much amused.
+"It has turned out all right," he said to Jim, "but you must acknowledge
+that it was really none of your business, and I would advise you, in
+future, not to meddle in matters which do not concern you."
+
+"I will try," Jim replied, much abashed. "I ought to have told you
+instead of Rosaria, and you would have fixed it all right," he added,
+cheerfully. "I ought to have known that you wouldn't have let the
+Indians be cheated."
+
+Mr. Armstrong felt the reproach in the undeserved confidence. Here was a
+companion who was a sort of embodied conscience. It was not always
+profitable to have a conscience in business, and yet there was something
+satisfactory and refreshing in the way in which this affair had
+terminated. "They say 'honesty is the best policy,'" he said to himself;
+"I wonder if this little fellow would not be a Mascot to bring me good
+luck. I have a notion to make him my partner in some of my risky
+ventures; Providence seems to smile upon him and his principles; perhaps
+if I make my good-fortune his as well, it will smile upon me." What he
+said to Jim was this: "You seem fond of a wild western life, Jim, and
+of the Indians. Our business among the Pueblos is ended. We are going
+back to Colorado. I have a notion to show you what the Colorado Indians
+are like. They are Utes, and they do not live in houses, like the
+Pueblos, but rove about in a perfectly savage manner; they are not
+peaceful and industrious, like the Pueblos, but lazy and ugly. I do not
+think that they are susceptible of civilization. I would as soon think
+of educating a coyote as a Ute.
+
+"Now the Utes possess some of the best mining lands in Colorado, but
+will never develop them; so it seems to me better that they should be
+removed to the desert lands, which are worthless for purposes of
+civilization, and let the whites have their opportunity. I have my eye
+on a gulch which I discovered while hunting in the San Juan Mountains
+four years ago, and which I mean to pre-empt just as soon as we get the
+Utes to give up their present reservation and pack off to Utah. We shall
+go back that way, and I will show you the spot."
+
+Jim opened his eyes very wide. He did not quite comprehend what Mr.
+Armstrong had said. Surely he could not mean to defraud the Indians in
+any way! He would doubtless pay them the worth of their mine, and if
+they liked the ready money better than the trouble of mining the silver
+for themselves it would be all fair.
+
+At Antonito Mr. Armstrong left the railroad, provided himself with a
+span of horses, a wagon, camping outfit, and a brace of greyhounds, and
+struck out through the Ute reservation for the mountains. He told some
+gentleman whom he met at Antonito that he proposed to enjoy a little
+coursing for antelope; but there was a set of surveyors' instruments in
+the wagon, which proved that he intended to locate the mine which he had
+come across during his previous visit. His acquaintance attempted to
+discourage his making the trip alone, saying that the Utes had been
+restless of late, owing to a failure in receiving their supplies from
+Government, and it was hardly safe to approach their reservation.
+
+"You need not be afraid of the Utes," another gentleman replied. "I knew
+their old chief, Ouray, and was entertained once in his house--a neater
+farm-house than many a white settler can show, and I was hospitably
+waited upon by his wife, Chipeta, who gave me peaches from their own
+orchard, and saleratus biscuit, and when I saw the familiar yellow
+streaks in them, and tasted the old chief's whisky, I had to confess
+that the Indian was capable of civilization."
+
+Mr. Armstrong laughed, but the first speaker bade him be careful, for
+all the Utes were not like Ouray, who had so well earned his title of
+the White Man's Friend.
+
+"Now," exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, after he had driven out of sight of the
+last human habitation--"now at last we can breathe! What do you think of
+it, Jim?"
+
+"I didn't know the world was so big," the boy replied; "these must be
+the Estates del Paradiso which Miss Prillwitz talks about. Why, there's
+room for all New York to spread itself out, and every child to have a
+yard to play in. It seems a little bit lonely," he added, after a pause.
+"I should think you would have liked to have had some of those gentlemen
+go with you."
+
+"Why, you see, Jim," Mr. Armstrong replied, "I am going to hunt up that
+silver mine, and I had a little rather not share the secret with any one
+but you. Besides, I like the loneliness. I grow very tired of people
+sometimes, Jim, and it seems good to get away from them. Don't you ever
+feel so?"
+
+"Mother did," Jim said. "She likes helping at the Home very much, but
+she got a little tired just before the young ladies sent for her to go
+to the seashore, and she came across one verse in the Bible which
+sounded so beautiful. It was, 'Come ye yourselves apart into a desert
+place and rest awhile, for there were many coming and going, and they
+had no leisure so much as to eat.'"
+
+"I didn't know they had such hurrying times down in Galilee," Mr.
+Armstrong replied, lightly. He was in good spirits, and they drove a
+long distance that day, camping at night by a small stream, in which he
+caught some fine trout. As Jim curled up close to him under the army
+blanket, Mr. Armstrong felt a slight tremor run through the boy's frame.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked. "Are you afraid? We are still miles away
+from the Indians."
+
+"It isn't the Indians," Jim replied, "but it's all so still! I don't
+hear horse-cars, nor the Elevated, nor people passing, nor nothing. Down
+at the Pier it was something like this, but there was always the sea;
+and at the pueblo there were the dogs; while here it seems as if
+something had stopped."
+
+"'All the roaring looms of time,'" Mr. Armstrong replied, quoting from
+Tennyson, "have stopped for a little while for us, my boy, and that's
+the beauty of it. But the old machines will have us in their grip again
+very soon."
+
+The next day Mr. Armstrong enjoyed a rabbit hunt. Jim, though he took
+part in the sport, could hardly be said to enjoy it. "It seems such a
+pity to kill the pretty things!" he said. But this did not keep him from
+making a hearty meal of broiled rabbit, or from hoping that they might
+find antelope before the trip was over. The loneliness which he had felt
+the night before came on again toward evening, and Jim was not sorry, on
+their third day out, to see that they were approaching a new frame
+house.
+
+"An old half-breed guide used to have a tepee here," said Mr. Armstrong;
+"I shall engage his services for our trip. He is a good cook, a good
+hunter, faithful to his employers, and he knows every rock and clump of
+sage-brush in all the region. His only fault is that he will get drunk.
+He was with me when I found the silver ore, and I need him to guide me
+to the spot again."
+
+As they came nearer, Mr. Armstrong seemed greatly surprised to see a
+large field of waving corn in front of the house, while some cows were
+being driven toward an out-building by a young Indian in checked shirt
+and brown overalls.
+
+"What can have come over old Charley!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong. "When I
+was here before, nothing would induce him to degrade himself by farm
+labor. Some boomer must have established himself here. It's illegal, for
+the land still belongs to the Indians."
+
+They drove up to the front door, and were met by the same young man whom
+they had seen driving the cows, but the overalls were replaced by a
+faded pair of army trousers, and a paper collar had been hastily added
+to the checked shirt. He bade them enter, in good English, and the
+interior of the house was clean and inviting. The walls were papered
+with newspapers, a bright patchwork quilt was spread upon the bed, and a
+pleasant-faced girl was frying ham and eggs over the stove; while there
+was a shelf of books over the table. An Indian woman emerged from a
+shadowy corner and expressed a welcome by pantomime.
+
+"Is not this Charley's wife?" Mr. Armstrong asked, and the woman smiled
+and nodded her recognition.
+
+"Where is your husband?" was the next question. "Charley no good," was
+the wife's frank reply; "gone hunting with white men."
+
+This was a disappointment that Mr. Armstrong had not anticipated; he was
+not sure that he could find his way to the silver mine without Charley's
+help, but it was worth trying. The odor of the frying ham was
+appetizing, and the invitation to supper was promptly accepted.
+
+"Are you Charley's son?" Mr. Armstrong asked of the young man, who
+presently brought in a foaming pail of milk, and assisted his mother and
+sister in waiting on their guests.
+
+"Yes, sir," was the prompt reply, "and my name is Charley too--Charles
+Sumner."
+
+Mr. Armstrong stared in astonishment. "Where did you learn to speak
+English so well?" he asked.
+
+"At the Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania."
+
+"Then you are one of Captain Pratt's boys?"
+
+"Yes, sir," and a smile lightened the somewhat stolid features. Mr.
+Armstrong did not believe in Eastern schools for Indians, and he asked,
+rather sarcastically, "And what did you learn when you were in the
+East--Latin and Theology?"
+
+The boy shook his head. "I learned to work on the farm," he said, "and
+to read and write, and do a little arithmetic; and I learned some
+carpentry--enough to build this house, and make that table, and the
+cupboard and things."
+
+"Very creditable, I am sure," Mr. Armstrong replied, half incredulously,
+"but how did you come into the fortune necessary to set you up in this
+flourishing style?"
+
+"I helped build the new depot at S----, and they paid me off with the
+lumber that was left, and I built the house out of that. Then I had some
+money which I had put in the savings-bank from my earnings every
+vacation in the East, and I bought the cows with that; and then I made a
+churn, and we've been making butter the way I saw them do it in
+Pennsylvania, and I sell it for a good price at the Springs."
+
+"Well, you have more stuff in you than I ever thought it possible for an
+Indian to have," Mr. Armstrong replied, fairly won, in spite of
+himself, to admiration. "I always supposed that those Carlisle students,
+as soon as they returned to old surroundings, went back to savagery."
+
+"It is pretty hard for us," the boy replied. "Last year I planted about
+three times as much corn as you see here. I had taken a contract to
+supply the quartermaster at Fort ----, and I thought I should make a
+good deal of money; but just as it was green, all of our relations came
+to see us. There were ten families. They camped there by the creek, and
+they stayed until they had eaten every roasting ear. They said they had
+come to celebrate my home-coming, and father made them welcome, and gave
+a dance, and killed one of our cows for them. They would have killed
+them all, but I drove them off into the mountains, and hid them. That is
+the reason I have planted so little corn here this season. I have
+another field over in a little valley in the mountains which I hope they
+will not find, and I drive the cattle up the canyon every morning, for
+they may be here any day."
+
+"You poor fellow!" said Mr. Armstrong. "I have heard the proverb, 'Save
+us from our friends!' but I never understood the full force of it
+before."
+
+After the hearty meal the little house was put at the service of the
+travelers, the family camping outside, and, much to Mr. Armstrong's
+contentment, they passed a comfortable and restful night. The next
+morning Mr. Armstrong asked Charles Sumner if he was familiar with the
+mountains, and could guide him to a certain valley, which he indicated
+as having a chimney-like formation at one end.
+
+"Why, certainly," the young man replied; "don't you remember I was with
+father when he took you hunting four years ago? He killed an eagle that
+had her nest on a ledge high up on the chimney, and I climbed up for the
+young ones."
+
+"Ah yes, I remember now, but you were such a little fellow then that I
+could not realize the change."
+
+"I grew more at Carlisle," said the young man, significantly, "than at
+any other time of my life. We all grew at Carlisle."
+
+"Then you will take us to the chimney," Mr. Armstrong asked, "and cook
+for us while we are out? What will you charge?"
+
+"I don't think I ought to ask you anything, sir, for there is good
+pasturage thereabout, and I can drive my cows along, and herd them there
+until after the visit of our relatives. My sister is going to B---- with
+all the green-corn that the ponies can carry, so when they come they
+will find mother, and very little else. The valley in which my other
+corn is planted is in that direction, and perhaps you will let me bring
+some of it in your wagon when we come back?"
+
+Charles Sumner rode cheerily beside them on a diminutive pony, driving
+his cows and the pack pony, and chatting freely of many things.
+Sometimes Jim sprang from his seat to make him change places and rest
+awhile. The pony had a fascination for Jim, and he speedily learned from
+Charles Sumner how to manage it, and to "round up" the herd of cows and
+calves. The young Indian taught him, also, how to make arrows, and to
+shoot with them, to picket the horses, and to use the lasso, to make
+camp coffee, and to set up and take down the tepee, or tent of buffalo
+hide, which the pack-pony dragged between long poles.
+
+"You would like to be a cow-boy, wouldn't you, Jim?" Mr. Armstrong
+asked, but Charles Sumner shook his head. "Cow-boys are no good," he
+said, emphatically; "they shoot Indians as if they were wild beasts.
+Better stay in the East, where the white people are good. I wish I
+could, but the Government insists that as soon as we are educated we
+must go back to our reservations. I wish it would let us stay and earn
+our living in the East, where it is so much easier to stay civilized."
+
+Jim, on the other hand, was delighted with everything he saw. "If all
+the boys in Rickett's Court could only come out here!" he exclaimed,
+"and ride, and herd cows, and hunt, and camp out, and all the Indian
+boys could only go East, and go to school, and work at trades--how nice
+it would be!"
+
+Mr. Armstrong admitted that the change might be good for both, but while
+speaking they came in sight of the chimney-shaped pinnacle, and he
+hastily unpacked his theodolite and other instruments, and began to take
+angles, and to jot down memoranda.
+
+"This is the first time that I have ever seen a surveyor on the Ute
+reservation," said Charles Sumner, "and I think that our troubles will
+be ended sometime by that little machine. Just as soon as the
+Government divides up our land and gives each Indian his own share,
+then each good Indian will cultivate his own farm, and will have some
+heart to work. How can he now, when the land belongs as much to every
+lazy Indian in the tribe as to himself? O sir, is it possible that the
+Government has sent you to begin this division?"
+
+Mr. Armstrong confessed that his observations were made only for his own
+amusement. He was surprised to find that the young man had such advanced
+views on the "land in severalty" question, and he asked whether any of
+the other Indians of the tribe shared his opinions.
+
+"There are a good many who have staked out farms and are cultivating
+them, just as I have," he replied, "but we know that we have no right to
+the land, and may be turned out any day, whenever bad white men persuade
+our chiefs to give up this reservation and move away to the bad lands in
+the West."
+
+Mr. Armstrong winced a little under the earnest, questioning look with
+which Jim regarded him. To turn his train of thought he said, "There is
+the old eagle's nest on the ledge still, Charles Sumner. Can you climb
+up there to-day as nimbly as you did four years ago?"
+
+For answer, the young man threw himself from his pony and began to
+ascend the cliff. It was very steep, but he chose his way cautiously,
+seizing each point of vantage in the way of a crevice or projection. He
+had almost reached the nest when he paused, looked away to the
+southward, and began rapidly to descend. "There is a band of Utes coming
+over the divide," he said; "I think it would be as well for us to go a
+little further up the valley." He hurriedly collected his herd, and
+drove them before him through a pass into a long, shady gorge. Mr.
+Armstrong followed with the team. "This is the place!" he exclaimed,
+excitedly, as they entered the ravine. "It was in this little canyon that
+I found the silver. A vein cropped right out to the surface, and I
+filled my pockets with the ore. I set up a buffalo skull to mark the
+spot. There it is--at the foot of that pine. It must have rolled down,
+for I placed it higher. Hold the reins, Jim, while I scramble up the
+bank and see if I see any signs of the vein." With the agility of a
+younger man, Mr. Armstrong climbed the steep bank, and came down with
+his hands filled with crumbled ore. "It is there, fast enough," he
+said, triumphantly; "if it were not on the Indian reservation I would be
+the owner of that mine now. They cannot hold the lands long, and when
+they are opened to settlement this canyon shall be ours, Jim. You say you
+would like to live a western life. If your mother, of whom you seem so
+fond, is of the same opinion, you shall pre-empt a claim here, and I
+will take one just beside you, and between us we will own the mine. You
+don't understand it, my boy; but I have taken a fancy to you, and I mean
+to make your fortune."
+
+"And will this ravine be my very own?" Jim asked--"mother's and mine?"
+
+"Yes, my boy; and I am curious to see what you will make of it, and what
+you will make of yourself while you are waiting to come into your
+possessions. I mean to put you in the way of getting a good practical
+education, which shall be of use to you out here."
+
+"And can I learn surveying?"
+
+"Yes; and mining engineering and assaying and mechanics, and all that."
+
+"That is what Lovey Dimple would like to learn too. Can he come with me?
+He'd invent a machine right off to dig the silver just as easy."
+
+"We will see, Jim. I would like to give him a good turn for his father's
+sake; but don't take too many into our company, or we shall have to
+water the stock too freely."
+
+They had nearly reached the head of the gorge, and they found that
+Charles Sumner had paused, and had corraled his cows in a little natural
+amphitheatre, where they were resting contentedly.
+
+"I must watch them pretty sharply," the Indian explained, "for the corn
+I told you about is in the next valley, and if they should get into
+that, they would be as bad as our relations. Just walk to the top of the
+hill, Mr. Armstrong, and see what a nice field of it I have over there."
+Mr. Armstrong returned bringing an armful of fine roasting ears, but
+Charles Sumner thought it best not to build a fire until the party of
+Utes had passed, and they sat down to a cold supper of canned baked
+beans. After supper Jim had a long talk with Charles Sumner, and
+ascertained that the young man had fixed his heart upon making this
+particular section his home farm as soon as the reservation should be
+divided in severalty among the Indians, which he hoped would happen
+before many years.
+
+"Then," said Jim, "you think that the white people will never have a
+chance to come in here and take up land?"
+
+"Do you think they ought to be allowed to do so, when the land is ours?"
+Charles Sumner asked.
+
+"No, I don't," Jim replied, promptly. "I think it is really yours, and
+you ought to keep it; and I'll just tell you a secret about this canyon.
+It is worth a great deal more than you know. There is a silver mine in
+it, and I'll show you where, and you had just better go back East and
+study the best way to mine silver, and then when you get your claim you
+will know how to work it. I wish you would take me in as your partner,
+for Mr. Armstrong is going to have me taught all about mining. He
+thought he might pre-empt this mine for me, but, of course, when he sees
+that it really belongs to you, he will not want to, unless, perhaps, you
+would like to sell out your right in it."
+
+Jim had spoken so rapidly that he did not notice that Mr. Armstrong had
+approached, and was listening with an astonished expression to what he
+was saying.
+
+"Jim, are you crazy?" Mr. Armstrong exclaimed, as soon as he could
+recover himself. "Don't you see that you are throwing away your chances?"
+
+"Oh no," Jim replied, with a smile, "I hadn't any chance at all. You
+didn't know, but it all belongs to Charles Sumner."
+
+Their conversation was interrupted by a whoop in the valley below. The
+band of Utes had discovered the traces of their last camp, and had
+followed their trail into the canyon.
+
+"Drive over into the next ravine!" said Charles Sumner; "they will camp
+here when they find my cows. Wait for me just below the corn-field, and
+I will join you as soon as I can. They will not hurt you if they find
+you, but they will beg and steal everything."
+
+Mr. Armstrong hurriedly followed Charles Sumner's advice, and was joined
+about midnight by the young Indian, who drove before him three cows, all
+he had been able to rescue from a herd of twelve.
+
+The young man wiped his brow with a despairing gesture. "They were
+ugly," he said. "Some Durango cow-boys have been pasturing their cattle
+on the reservation, and they insisted that my cows were a part of the
+herd, and that the owners were somewhere near. If they had found you,
+they might have treated you roughly. I think we had better get away
+while they are feasting."
+
+It occurred to Mr. Armstrong that it looked very much as if Charles
+Sumner had saved their lives at the sacrifice of his property, and a
+feeling of gratitude and liking sprang up in his heart for the young
+man.
+
+"I don't know what I shall do," the Indian continued, dejectedly. "It
+doesn't seem to be any use to try to be civilized in this country."
+
+"No, my poor fellow!" replied Mr. Armstrong, "it really does not. In
+your place, I think I should go back to the blanket and be a savage with
+the rest. I will tell you what to do: come East again with your mother
+and sister. I will let you try farming on a piece of land which I have
+taken a fancy to in Massachusetts, where you will not have these
+discouragements. When the land question is settled, you and Jim shall
+come back here and form a partnership. If it is divided in severalty to
+the Utes, then I will establish your right to the canyon, and you shall
+take Jim in as your partner; and if it is opened to the whites for
+settlement, he will take up the land and give you a share in it."
+
+This proposition was accepted by Charles Sumner and his sister, the
+mother preferring to remain with her husband. After establishing the
+young Indians in Massachusetts, Mr. Armstrong brought Jim with him to
+Narragansett Pier.
+
+A short space must now be given to Milly and Adelaide, who, though
+mingling in a very different class of society, had an experience that
+summer not unlike our own. Mrs. Roseveldt gave a lawn-party at the
+beginning of the season to organize a tennis club. Tennis was the rage
+that season. Many of the cottages had tennis courts, and the different
+players wished to plan for a grand tournament at the end of the season.
+A pretty uniform was designed of white flannel, the skirt embroidered
+with a deep Greek fret in gold thread, and laid in accordion pleats. A
+little jacket lined with gold-colored silk, and embroidered in the same
+pattern, was to be worn over the shirt waist, and a gold-colored sash
+ending in a tassel, with a white Tam o'Shanter, completed the costume.
+Milly had planned that Mrs. Halsey should have the making of these
+costumes while at the Pier.
+
+A fund was contributed with which to purchase a trophy for the prize
+player. It rose quickly to a hundred and fifty dollars, and a meeting
+was held to decide what the trophy should be. Most of the members
+thought that a gold pin in the shape of a racket, with a pearl ball,
+manufactured by Tiffany, would be the correct thing, and this idea would
+certainly have been adopted if Milly had not turned the current by a
+neat little speech.
+
+"I am sure," she said, "that we do not want to vulgarize our club by
+making it professional, and a prize of any great money value would
+certainly do this. So I move that the prize be a simple wreath of laurel
+tied with a white ribbon, on which the date of the tournament and name
+of the club be printed." The members all agreed that this would be in
+better form, but asked what was to be done with the money already
+contributed. Then Milly rose to the occasion, and flung out the banner
+of the Home.
+
+"It seems as if we had no right to be romping in this delicious fresh
+air while poor children are gasping in the vile smells of the city."
+
+The Fresh-Air Fund and the Working Girls' Vacation Society were both
+popular charities, and were proposed by different members as proper
+recipients of our funds. Milly was ready to agree to this, but one young
+man, supposed until that day to be a mere gilded youth, without an idea
+above his neckties, suggested that it was always pleasanter to be the
+distributer of one's own benefits, and moved that the club get up a
+little Fresh-Air Fund of its own. "We might rent a cottage down here and
+send for a dozen or so young beggars, and take turns in caring for
+them."
+
+A general laugh followed this remark. "What would you do, personally,
+Mr. Van Silver?" asked one of the girls.
+
+"I would put my coach and four-in-hand at the service of the
+enterprise," he said, "and make myself expressman and 'bus driver. I'd
+take the children out to drive every day, for one thing."
+
+Everyone insisted that they would like to see him do it, but he
+persisted until they were convinced of his sincerity. Mr. Van Silver's
+patronage had given an aristocratic stamp to the enterprise, and some
+one now proposed that they rent a cottage for the children for the
+season.
+
+Milly then explained that Adelaide had already fitted up her cottage for
+the purpose, and was expecting an invoice of children by the next day.
+Adelaide invited the party to visit the cottage that afternoon, and the
+entire club climbed to the top and interior of Mr. Van Silver's coach;
+Mr. Stacy Fitz-Simmons, the whilom drum-major of the Cadet band, blowing
+the coach horn for all he was worth.
+
+They found a park overgrown into a forest, in the depth of which stood a
+pleasant cottage, with broad verandas, which once commanded a beautiful
+view of the glistening bay, with Newport in the distance.
+
+"I intend to have some of these trees cut away, so as to leave a vista
+through to the water," Adelaide explained.
+
+They entered the house, and found it renovated from the mold and decay
+with which ten years had encumbered it, sweet and fresh with new paint,
+and papering of pretty design. Light and graceful ratan furniture and
+chintz hangings added to the beauty of the room, simple straw mattings
+covered the floor. It was as lovely a home as heart could wish.
+
+"I have done all I can afford," Adelaide said, simply, "and if the club
+would like to use this cottage for their city children it is at their
+service, but first Milly wants to entertain the younger children of the
+Home of the Elder Brother here for a couple of weeks."
+
+"And we will each of us take his or her turn for a week," said Mr. Van
+Silver; and so the "Paradiso Seaside Home" was provided for.
+
+Mrs. Halsey came with the children. From the moment that she left the
+station she seemed to be in a dream.
+
+"It all looks so familiar!" she exclaimed; "I am sure I have been here
+before! There is something caressing in the feeling of the damp air, as
+though it kissed my cheek like an old friend. And the scent of the
+salt-water! I remember it so well; and shall we hear the surf? Oh, when
+was it, where was it, that I knew it all?"
+
+When they drove into the grounds she shook her head. "No, it was not
+this place," she said, with a wistful look in her eyes; "there were no
+trees." But at the first glimpse of the house a trembling seized her,
+and she could hardly mount the steps. Within doors a puzzled expression
+came into her face.
+
+"It is familiar, yet unfamiliar," she said. "I cannot be sure. If I
+could only see some face that I had known before, then I could tell."
+
+"Perhaps the face will come," Adelaide said; and it came.
+
+A few weeks later Mr. Armstrong returned with Jim from the western trip,
+and came down to the Pier to make the visit which his daughter so
+greatly desired. Adelaide had driven to the station for them in Milly's
+pony carriage, Jim mounted to his old place on the rumble, Mr. Armstrong
+settled himself for the drive, and Adelaide took the reins.
+
+"I am going to take you around by the cottage, papa," she said. "I want
+to show you what I have done there, and how happy the Home children
+are."
+
+Mr. Armstrong drew himself up, as though wincing from some sudden pain.
+"I did not intend to go there again, daughter," he said; "I shall miss a
+face at the window."
+
+"I know, papa--the cameo; but she would have been glad to see the
+cottage used as it is."
+
+They turned into the drive, and Mr. Armstrong nerved himself for the
+sight of his old home. Suddenly he cried out, and caught his daughter's
+arm. "Is it only memory, or have I lost my senses? The face is there!"
+
+Adelaide laughed reassuringly. "I don't wonder that it gave you a turn,
+papa; it did me, too, when I saw the same sight in Miss Prillwitz's
+window last winter, but it is only dear Mrs. Halsey looking out for us."
+
+"Then thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, leaping from the vehicle and
+hurrying forward. "Do you not remember me? my own!--my wife!"
+
+His wife remembered: the veil which had blinded her for years fell at
+the sight of her husband's face.
+
+Happily the shock had not been as sudden as it seemed; during the time
+which she had spent in the cottage the conviction had grown upon her
+that this had been her home. She had asked Adelaide its history, and
+learning that it had been built for her mother, who had been drowned in
+the great steamboat disaster, a hope had sprung up in her heart, which
+she dared not express to any one, that she had found her own again.
+Adelaide had said that she expected her father, and Mrs. Halsey waited
+only to see his face to be assured of the truth.
+
+Adelaide's delight at finding that Mrs. Halsey was her lost mother, and
+Jim her brother, was genuine and intense. "I knew, all the time, that
+Jim was somebody's child," she exclaimed, incoherently. "It is all too
+good to be true! too good to be true!"
+
+"Jim deserves a better father than he has found," said Mr. Armstrong,
+"and by God's grace he shall have a better.
+
+"It is too bad to break up this nice little arrangement of a summer home
+for the poor children," he added, "and I will allow the cottage to be
+used for this purpose just so long as the tennis club desire to maintain
+it; but I must have my wife. Please remember that we have been parted
+from each other a very long time. I am going West next week, and I must
+take her with me; and it will not do Adelaide any harm to have a glimpse
+of the great West before we send her to school in the fall. Jim has had
+as much of the West as he can stand at present, and we will leave him in
+the best school that we can find."
+
+"But what shall we do for a housekeeper for the cottage?" Adelaide
+asked, in dismay.
+
+"Mrs. Trimble has just left the hospital, fully recovered, but I have no
+doubt she would prefer to run your little enterprise rather than to
+return to the store; and as I have deprived you of your housekeeper I
+don't mind paying Mrs. Trimble to supply her place for the remainder of
+the summer. It will do Mr. Trimble good, too, to complete his
+convalescence here, and perhaps in the winter they will accept the
+janitorship of your tenement."
+
+"My tenement!" Adelaide replied, in surprise.
+
+"Yes, I intend to give you the management of this property, which I have
+always considered your own. You have a matter of twenty thousand dollars
+insurance money, which, with the ten thousand which I have deposited to
+your name in the savings bank, you may use in erecting a model tenement
+on the site of the old Rickett's Court building. I think I shall have
+some more money for you to put into the enterprise if the patent works
+well. I shall give Mr. Trimble a share in the profits of that invention
+over and above the five thousand dollars already paid him, but I think
+that he would like one of your suites of rooms in return for acting as
+janitor and agent of the building, and it will not interfere with his
+teaching mechanics to the boys at the Home."
+
+"If you please, papa," said Adelaide, "I like the plan of engaging Mr.
+Trimble as janitor, but I would rather be my own agent and collect the
+rents myself; then I can see just what improvements are needed, and be
+sure that my tenants are all comfortable."
+
+For the remainder of their stay in the East the Armstrongs busied
+themselves with architects' plans and specifications. Adelaide enjoyed
+planning the bathrooms and conveniences of different kinds. "And the
+paving-stones must be taken up in the court," she said, "and a nice
+grass-plot laid out in their place, and we will have pretty iron
+balconies before every window, and a fire-escape."
+
+"Yes, daughter," replied her father, "I will make you a present of that,
+outside the other matters--the very best kind of fire-escape to be found
+in the city; and, while we are about it, I will send one to the Home of
+the Elder Brother."
+
+Adelaide's interest in her tenement did not wean her away from the Home,
+and I have since observed that it is always those who, seemingly, are
+already doing as much as they can in the way of charity who are always
+ready to lend a helping hand to other enterprises, and that it is the
+earnest workers of little means, as well as the wealthy philanthropists,
+who
+
+                      "To the ages
+    Fair bequests, and costly, make."
+
+The Armstrongs went West, and Adelaide created an interest for the Home
+in her new surroundings, while Milly kept up the enthusiasm of the
+tennis club at the Pier. That club flourished in a manner unheard of,
+heretofore, in a place where everyone was so busy doing nothing that
+even the exertion of tennis had been voted a bore. It was not tennis,
+however, that kept them together, or gave the members their bright,
+jolly looks, but the Paradiso Cottage.
+
+    "For we may find a zest
+      In any true employ
+    Which, like a whetstone in the breast,
+      Shall give an edge to joy."
+
+But while we all worked in our different ways, it was our corresponding
+secretary who was the clasp to the necklace, or rather, the central
+battery which sent currents of life pulsating through the connecting
+wires. The scapegrace who plotted and schemed mischief, she who had
+erstwhile reveled in the name of "the malicious, seditious,
+insubordinate, disreputable, skeptical Queen of the Hornets," had become
+a wise and enterprising central manager of a helpful charity.
+
+The summer vacation is over, and we have all met again for another
+winter at Madame's; Amen Corner and Hornets all filled with a fine
+enthusiasm for our work, and a deep, true affection for one another.
+
+The Home rests, we are told, on very slender foundations. There is no
+financier as a backer, no estate, no great endowment, nothing to ensure
+its existence from year to year but the hearts and hands of ten young
+girls. Nothing else? They forget that we have behind us and with us the
+Elder Brother, with all the estates del Paradiso.
+
+    "By each saving word unspoken,
+    By Thy will, yet poorly done,
+          Hear us, hear us,
+    Thou Almighty! help us on."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Corrections
+
+Following is a list of significant typographical errors that have been
+corrected.
+
+- Page 45, "Celeste's" changed to "Celeste's" (position at Madame
+Celeste's).
+
+- Page 48, "insistance" changed to "insistence" (on her insistence).
+
+- Page 155, "ochestra" changed to "orchestra" (led her orchestra).
+
+- Page 189, "Vicenzo" changed to "Vincenzo" (and Vincenzo Amati).
+
+- Page 206, "pictture" changed to "picture" (I've made a picture).
+
+- Page 213, "any one" changed to "anyone" (of anyone else).
+
+- Page 228, "Winnnie" changed to "Winnie" (replied Winnie).
+
+- Page 277, "formerely" changed to "formerly" (which formerly groaned).
+
+- Page 282, "salvages" changed to "savages" (barbarous savages).
+
+- Page 314, "Amstrong" changed to "Armstrong" (Mr. Armstrong evaded).
+
+- Page 326, "Sante" changed to "Santa" (road to Santa Fe).
+
+- Page 334, "pantomine" changed to "pantomime" (welcome by pantomime).
+
+- Page 352, "f r" changed to "for" (station for them).
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Witch Winnie, by Elizabeth W. Champney
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