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diff --git a/old/gcomp10.txt b/old/gcomp10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..438e371 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/gcomp10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2428 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Four Girls and a Compact, by Annie Hamilton Donnell +#3 in our series by Annie Hamilton Donnell + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Four Girls and a Compact + +Author: Annie Hamilton Donnell + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9505] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 7, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUR GIRLS AND A COMPACT *** + + + + +Produced by Joel Erickson, David Garcia and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +FOUR GIRLS AND A COMPACT + +By Annie Hamilton Donnell + + +1908. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +"Wait for T.O.," commanded Loraine, and of course they waited. Loraine's +commands were always obeyed, Laura Ann said, because her name was such a +_queeny_ one. Nobody else in the little colony--the "B-Hive"--had a +queeny name. + +"Though I just missed it," sighed Laura Ann. "Think what a little step +from Loraine to Laur' Ann! I always just miss things." + +T.O. was apt to be late. She never rode, and, being short, was not a +remarkable walker. To-night she was later than usual. The three other +girls got into kimonos and slippers and prepared tea. In all their minds +the Grand Plan was fomenting, and it was not easy to wait. A cheer +greeted T.O. as she came in, wet and weary and cheerful. + +"You're overdue, my dear," Loraine said severely. But of course T.O. +laughed and offered a weak pun: + +"The 'dew' is over me, you mean! Oh, girls, this looks too cozy for +anything in here! All the way up town I've been blessing you three for +taking me in." + +Said Laura Ann: "If I were pun-mad, like some folks, I could do +something quite smart there. But there, you poor, wet dear! You sha'n't +be outdone in your specialty, no you sha'n't! Get off your things quick, +dear--we're all bursting to talk about the Grand Plan." + +It was, after all, Billy that started in. Billy was very tired indeed, +and her lean, eager face was pale. + +"Girls, we _must!_" she said. "I can't hold out more than a few +weeks more. I shall be a mental wreck and go 'round muttering, +_one_-two--three--four, _one_--two--three--four--flat your b's, +sharp your c's--one--two--three--four--_play!_" For Billy all day +toiled at pianos, teaching unwilling little persons to play. Billy's +long name was Wilhelmina. + +They were all toilers--worker-B's. The "B" part of the name which they +had given to the little colony came from the accident of all their +surnames beginning with that letter--Brown, Bent, Baker, Byers. It was, +they all agreed, a happy accident; the "B-Hive" sounded so well. But, +as Laura Ann said, it entailed things, notably industry. + +Laura Ann finished negatives part of the day to earn money to learn to +paint the other part. She was poor, but the same good grit that made her +loyal to her old grandmother's name, unshortened and unbeautified, gave +her courage to work on toward the distant goal. + +Loraine taught--"just everlastingly taught," she said, until she could +do it with her eyes shut. Cube root, all historic dates, all x, y, z's, +were as printing to her, dinned into the warp and woof of her by patient +reiteration. She was very tired, too. The rest of the long June days +stretched ahead of her in weary perspective. + +That these three had drifted together in the great city was sufficiently +curious, but more curious yet was the "drifting together" of T.O.--a +plain little clerk in a great department store. She, herself, humbly +acknowledged that she did not seem to "belong," but here she was, +divesting herself of her wet wraps and getting ready for tea in the tiny +flat. Handkerchiefs, initialed, "warranted,"--uninitialed, +unwarranted--were behind her and ahead, but between she forgot their +existence and took her comfort. + +"Well?" she said presently. "I'm ready." They sat down to the simple +little meal without further delay and with the first mouthfuls opened +again the rather time-worn discussion. Could they adopt the Grand Plan? +Oh, _couldn't_ they? To get out of the hot, teeming city and +breathe air enough and pure enough, to luxuriate in idleness, to +_rest_--to a girl, they longed for it. They were all orphans, and +they were all poor. The Grand Plan was ambitious, indefinite, but they +could not give it up. They had wintered it and springed it, and clung +to it through bright days and dark. + +Suddenly Loraine tapped sharply on the table. "All in favor of spending +the summer in the country say 'aye,'" she cried, "and say it hard!" + +"Aye!" + +"Aye!" + +"Aye!" + +"_Aye_!" appended Loraine, and said it hard. "It's a vote," she +added calmly. Then, staring at each other, they sat for a little with +rather frightened faces. For this thing that they had done was rather a +stupendous thing. T.O. recovered first--courage was as the breath of her +little lean nostrils. + +"Girls, this is great!" she laughed. "_We've gone and done it!_ +There's nothing left but to pack our trunks!" + +"Except a few last trifles, such as deciding where to go and what to pay +for it with," put in Laura Ann with soft irony. "We could decide those +things on the train, I suppose--" + +"Let's decide 'em on the spot," rejoined T.O. imperturbably. "Somebody +propose something." + +Here Billy was visited with one of her inspirations and promptly shared +it with her usual generosity. "We must hunt up a place to--er--'bunk' +in--just bunk and board ourselves. Of course we can't afford to +_be_ boarded--" + +"Of course," in chorus. + +"Well, then, one of us must go out into the waste places--oh, anywhere +where the grass has room to grow and there are trees and birds and +_barns_--I stipulate barns." Billy made a splendid, comprehensive +gesture that took in all the points of the compass impartially. "One +of us must take a few days off and go and hunt up a nice, inexpensive +little Eldorado for us. There!--there, my friends, you have the +solution of your knotty little problem in a nutshell. I gladly give +my 'services' free." + +"Who's going?" demanded practical Laura Ann. "Does anybody kindly +volunteer?" + +No volunteers. Silence, broken only by the chirp of the cheery little +teakettle. The immense responsibility of setting the Grand Plan in +motion was not to be lightly assumed. The utter vagueness of Billy's +"waste places" was dismaying, to say the least. There might be many +nice, inexpensive little Eldorados waiting to be "bunked" in and +picnicked in, but where? The world was full of places where there were +trees and birds and barns, but to pick out the particular one where +four tired-out young toilers could lay down their tools and rest +_inexpensively_, looked like a big undertaking. + +Billy had settled back in her chair with an air of having done her part +and washed her hands of further responsibility. The rest must do their +parts now. Billy, who was the youngest and frailest of the little colony +of workers, had fallen into the way of dropping asleep whenever +opportunity offered; she did so now with a little sigh of contentment. +Her girlish face against the faded crimson back of the chair looked +startlingly white. In her sleep she moved her lips and the others caught +a pathetic little "_one_-two-three-four" dropping from them. Poor +Billy! She was giving a music lesson in her dreams! + +Loraine made a little paper shade and shielded her pale face from the +light, and Laura Ann tilted the clumsy patent rocker backward and +trigged it with a book. Both their faces, tired, too, and pale, were +sweet with kindness. T.O., who did queer and unexpected things, went +round the table on her toes and kissed Billy's forehead openly. Her face +had a puckering frown on it, oddly at variance with the kiss and with +the look in her eyes. The kiss and the look were the things that +mattered--the frown was a thing of insignificance. + +"You poor little blessed!" she murmured. + +"'Flat your b,'" murmured Billy wearily, and no one laughed. They were +all laughers, but the picture of Billy toiling on monotonously in her +sleep failed to appeal to them as humorous. T.O. went back silently to +her seat. + +What the initials T.O. stood for in the way of a name had been the +subject of much guessing in the B-Hive, for the owner of the initials +refused whimsically to explain them. Perhaps she would sometime when the +moon was full or the wind was in the right quarter, she said. Meanwhile +T.O. did well enough--as well as "Billy," anyway, or "Laura Ann"! And +they fell in gayly with her whimsy and called her T.O. The nearest they +had ever come to an answer to their guesses was one night when they had +been discussing "talents" and comparing "callings," and T.O. had sat by, +a wistful little listener and admirer. For T.O. had no talent, and who +would call selling handkerchiefs from morning till night a "calling"? +Even sheer, fine handkerchiefs, warranted every thread linen! + +"Talentless One," she broke out startlingly. "You want to know what +'T.O.' stands for--that's it!" And the amused look in the girls' eyes +changed quickly to understanding at sight of her face. "Well," she +challenged, "why don't you say what an appropriate name it is? It's a +wonder you _talented_ ones didn't guess it long ago! Listen! +Loraine's talent is writing--we all know she'll be an author some day. +Laura Ann's is art. Oh, you needn't laugh--need she, girls? One of these +days we're all going to a 'hanging,' and _it'll be Laura Ann's!_ +Billy's talent everybody knows. She can play wicked folks good, if +there's a piano handy. Well, what is my talent? Don't everybody speak at +once!" The girl's flushed face defied them. It was bitter with longing +to be a Talented One. + +[Illustration: "YOU POOR LITTLE BLESSED!" SHE MURMURED.] + +"Dear!" It was like gentle Loraine to begin with a "dear," and like her, +too, to cross the room to T.O. and touch her little bitter face with +cool fingers. "Dear, don't you worry--your talent is _there._" + +"Where?" demanded T.O. Then she laughed. "I suppose you mean buried in +a handkerchief! But I shall never be able to dig it out--never! There's +such an awful pile of them on top! They keep piling on new ones every +day. If I keep on selling handkerchiefs till I'm seventy-five, I'll +never get down to my talent." + +It was, after all, quite true, though none of them would acknowledge +it--except the Talentless One herself. She was, as she insisted, the odd +one in the busy little B-Hive. Her very face, small and dark and lean, +was an "odd" one; the faces of the other three were marked by an +indefinable something that she called talent, and she was not far wrong. +A subtle refinement, intellectuality, asserted itself gently in all +three of them. The dark little face of T.O. was vivacious and keen, but +not refined or intellectual. + +Billy was the baby "B," as Loraine was the acknowledged queen. They all +favored Billy and took care of her. Was it a rainy morning? Somebody got +Billy's rubbers, somebody else her umbrella! Was the child paler than +usual? She must have the softest chair and be babied. Poor little +toiler-Billy, created to have a mother and a home, to sit always in soft +chairs and be taken care of! Yet without them all she was making a +splendid struggle for independence, with the best of them, and they were +conscious of a certain element of heroism in her toiling that none of +the rest of them laid claim to in their own. The other B.'s were proud +of Billy. + +T.O. was as small and thin as Billy, but no one thought of taking care +of T.O. or babying her. Instead, T.O.--the Talentless One--took care of +them all. She had always been a toiler, always been alone, and to the +rest it was comparatively a new experience. T.O., as she herself said, +was able to give them all "points." + +While tired Billy slept to-night, the Grand Plan discussion was taken up +again and entertained with new enthusiasm. It was now a definite Plan, +since they had voted unanimously to adopt it--it was no longer merely +a unanimous wish, to be bandied about longingly. It remained only to +choose a brave soul to go forth and find for it a "local habitation." + +"When Billy wakes up, we'll draw lots," Loraine decided gently. "The one +who gets the longest slip _will go_--but mercy! I hope I sha'n't be +the one! Girls, there really ought to be one to--er--oversee the drawing +of the lots--" + +"Hear! Hear!" from T.O. + +"You will take your chances with the common herd, my dear," Laura Ann +said firmly. "You really need not be alarmed, though, for I shall draw +the fatal slip. I always do. Then I shall go up-country and engage four +boards at a nice white house with green blinds, and forget to ask how +much they will cost--the 'boards,' I mean--and whether they'll take +Billy at half-price. You'll all like my white house, but you won't be +able to stay more than one night on account of the expense. So you'll +turn me out of the B-Hive and I shall--" + +"Oh, don't do anything else--don't!" T.O. groaned. "That will be doing +enough." + +"We shall have to find a _very_ cheap place," Loraine said, +thoughtfully, too intent on the fate of the Grand Plan to listen to +pleasantries. "Somewhere where it won't cost much of anything." + +"Such an easy place to find!" murmured Laura Ann. "I see myself going +straight to it!" + +"We've _got_ to go to it, on account of--" Loraine nodded toward +the sleeping little figure in the softest chair. "Girls, Billy is all +worn out." + +"So are you," Laura Ann said tenderly. + +"And you," retorted Loraine. + +The Talentless One, unintentionally left out, sighed an infinitesimal +sigh, preparatory to smiling stoutly. + +"Of course we're going to find the right place," she said convincingly. +"You wait and see. _I_ see it now"--this dreamily; it was odd for +the Talentless One to be dreaming. "It looks this way: Green, grassy and +pine-woodsy and roomy. And cornfields--think of it!" + +"'Woods and cornfields--the picture must not be over-done,'" quoted +softly and a little accusingly Laura Ann. But the Talentless One had +never heard of Miss Cary's beautiful poem, and went on calmly: + +"And a--pump. Girls, if _I_ find the 'Eldorado,' there'll be a +pump--painted blue!" + +Here Billy woke up. There was no time to discountenance the pump. + +"Why, I believe I've been asleep!" Billy laughed restedly. "And I've +been somewhere else, too. Guess!" + +"To Eldorado," someone ventured. + +"Well, I have. It was the loveliest place! There weren't any pianos or +schools or photograph salons or _handkerchiefs_ in it!" + +"Then we'll go there!" the Talentless One cried. + +Loraine was busy cutting strips of paper. She cut four of varying +lengths and dropped them into an empty cracker-box. + +"Somebody shake them up, everyone shut her eyes and draw one," she +ordered. "And the person that draws the longest slip must be the one +to find our Eldorado." + +They shut their eyes and fumbled in the cracker-box. The room was oddly +quiet. Laura Ann, who always drew the fatal slip, breathed a little +hard. + +But the lot fell to the Talentless One. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Why, I didn't get it!" exclaimed Laura Ann, in surprise. "And maybe I'm +not thankful! Poor T.O.!" + +"Yes, poor T.O.!" agreed Loraine and Billy. The honor of drawing the +longest slip was not, it appeared, a coveted one. But T.O. actually +beamed! + +"Needn't anyone pity me!" she said, briskly. "I like it! You see," she +added, explanatorily, "I never did anything remarkable before! Of course +I sha'n't blame you girls any if you shake in your shoes while I'm gone, +but I'll promise to do my little best. If you thought you could trust +me--" + +"We do! We do!" Loraine said, warmly, speaking for them all. "And we +pity you, too, poor dear! It looks like an awful undertaking to me." + +"How long can you take? Are you sure they'll let you get off down at +Torrey's?" asked Billy, languidly. + +"Oh," the Talentless One said, calmly, "I shall get a substitute, of +course. They let the girls do that, if the substitute suits 'em. There's +a girl that used to be at the handkerchief counter that will be glad +enough to earn a little money, I know. She'll be tickled! And she can +keep the place open for me when I get back from the country in the +fall--" Suddenly the Talentless One laughed out joyously. "Hear me! +'When I get back from the country!' Doesn't that sound splendid! Makes +me think of cows and chickens and strawberries and--" + +"Pumps painted blue!" laughed Laura Ann. "We're in for a blue pump, +girls!" + + * * * * * + +The substitution at the handkerchief counter could not be arranged +for at once, so the proposed voyage of discovery was a little delayed. +Meanwhile the Grand Plan and a newly-born family of lesser plans +occupied the interim of waiting. One thing they all agreed upon. +It was tired little Billy who voiced it. + +"We won't be good this summer, will we? I've been good so long that +I want to rest!" + +"It would seem comfortable not to have to be, wouldn't it?" Loraine +laughed. As if Loraine could rest from being good! "Not to have to do +anything for anybody--just be good to yourself! Now, I call that the +luxury of selfishness! And really, girls, we deserve one little +luxury--" + +"We'll indulge ourselves," T.O. nodded gravely. "I'm sure I've been +polite to people and patient with people long enough to have a +vacation--a summer vacation!" + +"Give me a paper and pencil, somebody, quick!" This from Laura Ann. +She fell to scribbling industriously. The purring of her pencil over +the paper had a smooth, wicked sound as if it were writing wicked things. +It was. + +"Be it known," read Laura Ann, flourishing her pencil, "that we, the +undersigned, having endeavored, up to the present, to be good, consider +ourselves entitled to be selfish during our summer vacation. That we +mean to be selfish--that we herewith swear to be! That we do not mean to +'do good unto' anybody except ourselves! Inasmuch as we have faithfully +tried to do our several duties hitherto, we feel justified in resting +from the same until such time as we may--er--wish to begin again. + +"Furthermore, resolved: That any or all persons hereunto subscribed, who +fail to keep the letter of this compact, be summarily _dropped!_" + +(Signed) "LAURA ANN BYERS." + +The paper went the rounds and was soberly signed by each girl in turn. +Loraine, the last, traced three words in her tiny handwriting at the +head of the paper. + +"The Wicked Compact!" read Billy over her shoulder, and nodded +agreeingly. "That's a good name for it. Doesn't it make you feel lovely +and shuddery to belong to a Wicked Compact! Oh, you needn't think I +shall go back on the rules and regulations! If somebody gets down on his +knees and implores, 'Which note shall I flat?' I shall turn coldly away, +or else say, 'Suit yourself, my dear!' But, girls, oh girls, I hope +there won't be any pianos in Eldorado!" + +"Probably there will be only cabinet organs--don't worry, dear!" soothed +Laura Ann. + + * * * * * + +The day after the Wicked Compact was drawn up and signed, T.O. started +on her quest for Eldorado. She would have no one escort her to the +station; she would give no intimation of her plans. They were all to +wait as patiently as possible till she came back. It was only because +she had to, poor child, that she accepted the contributions of the +others toward her expenses of travel. + +At the station she straightened her short stature to its utmost and +approached the ticket window. She might have been, from her splendid +dignity of manner, six feet instead of five. + +"Will you please tell me which road is the cheapest to travel on?" she +asked, clearly, undismayed outwardly, inwardly quailing before the +ticket man's amazement. His curious eyes surveyed her through the little +opening. + +"Why--er--well, there's the most competition on the X & Y Road," he +said, slowly. "The rates on that line are about down to the limit--" + +"Thank you," the dignified one said, and turned away. She found the time +table of the X & Y Road on the station wall, and studied it +thoughtfully. She had resolved to select the place with the most +promising name. Back at the ticket window she patiently waited her turn +in a little stream of people. The woman ahead of her was flourishing a +dainty, embroidered handkerchief, and she wondered idly if it had come +from her counter at Torrey's. If so, why was it not a little white flag +of truce that gave her a right to say "How do you do?" to the woman? +The Talentless One suddenly felt a little lonely. + +"Ticket to Placid Pond, please," she said, when her turn came. The very +sound of the peaceful little name gave her courage. Placid Pond! Placid +Pond! Could any place be more indicative of rest? Then she bethought her +of the Wicked Compact, and felt almost impelled to hand back the +ticket--Placid Pond could not be the right place to be bad in! + +But it was too late! + +"Two-twenty," the ticket man said, monotonously, and she fumbled in her +lean, little purse. To Placid Pond she would go, and, if there were +barns and cornfields and a blue-painted pump--the thrill of expectancy +ran through her veins, and she forgot the Wicked Compact. + +The Talentless One had never glided through green places like this +before, between slow, clear little streams, by country children waving +their hats. She had never seen far, splendid reaches of hills, +undulating softly against the sky. Wonder and delight filled her. She +found herself envying the little, brown children who waved their hats. + +"It's pretty, ain't it?" a fresh, old voice said in her ear. When she +turned, it was to look into a fresh, old face behind her. + +"Ain't it a pretty world the Lord's made? The 'firmament showeth his +handiwork,' don't it? Where are you going to, deary?" + +"A place called Placid Pond," answered the girl, smiling back. + +"_No?_ Well, I declare! That's where Emmeline Camp lives that was a +Jones an' spelt out o' my spellin'-book! If you see Emmeline, you tell +her you saw me on the cars. Emmeline and I have always kep' up our +interest in each other. She'll be tickled--you tell her I've learnt that +leaf-stitch at last! She'll understand!" + +The thin, old voice tinkled on pleasantly in the Talentless One's ears. + +"Come back here an' set with me, deary, an' I'll tell you which house is +Emmeline's, so, if you go past, you'll know it--it's painted green! Did +you ever! But Emmeline was always set on green. She was married in a +green silk, an' we girls said she married a green husband!" + +T.O. laughed enjoyingly. She began to feel acquainted with Emmeline, and +to hope she should find the green house--perhaps it would be the +Eldorado house! Wonders happened sometimes. + +"I don't suppose--there isn't a blue pump, is there? I've set my heart +on a blue pump!" she laughed, as if the little, old woman who knew +Emmeline would understand. The little, old woman smiled delightedly--as +if she understood! + +"Dear land, no! I hope Emmeline ain't painted her pump blue--and her +livin' in a green house! But she'd go out an' do it--it would be just +like Emmeline, if she knew anybody wanted a blue pump! Here we are, +deary! This is Placid Pond we're coming to! You see that sheet o' water, +don't you? Well, that's it!" + +The Talentless One buttoned her jacket and clutched her little black +bag. Her thin cheeks bloomed suddenly with tiny red spots of excitement. +She seemed on the edge of an Adventure; and, to one who had stood behind +a counter nearly all her days, an Adventure began with a capital A. +The train slowed up and stood panting--in a hurry to go again. + +"Oh, I wish you were going to get out here!" T.O. said, wistfully. + +The little, old woman seemed like an old friend to her. She felt oddly +young and inexperienced. Then, remembering the girls left behind in the +B-Hive and their confidence in her, she threw up her small head and +hurried away valiantly. + +"Good-by!" she called back, from the bit of platform outside. + +"Good-by! Give my love to Emmeline!" nodded and beamed the little, old +face in the car window. + +It was a tiny place. T.O. could see only the great, placid sheet of +water and the diminutive station at first. She accosted the only human +being in sight. + +"Which way is the city--village, I mean?" she asked. + +He was an old man and held a scooped palm behind his ear. + +"Eh?" + +"The village--please direct me to it." + +"Well," he laughed good-humoredly, "all the village they is you'll +strike yonder," pointing. "You keep a-goin', an' you'll git thar!" + +She thanked him and set out courageously. She kept "a-goin'." The +country road was shady and dusty and sweet with mystic, unseen, growing +things. Her feet, used to hard pavements, sank into the soft dust +luxuriously. She breathed deep and swung along at a splendid pace. It +was hard to believe that she was a clerk at Torrey's! There did not seem +to have ever been handkerchiefs in the world--even all-linen, warranted +ones! + +"This is Eldorado!" she said aloud, and was proud of herself for finding +it so soon--coming straight to it! Lucky she had been the one to draw +the longest strip. + +She passed one or two houses, but none of them were painted green. She +said to herself she would keep on to "Emmeline's" house. The whim had +seized her and was holding on tight that Emmeline's might be the Right +Place. So she swung on buoyantly. + +[Illustration: "WHICH WAY IS THE VILLAGE?" SHE ASKED.] + +A stone wall bordered the road on one side, and over the wall she spied +a sprinkling of little flowers that called, "Come and pick us!" to her. +She did not know that they were bluets, but she knew they were dainty +and sweet and beckoned to her. She paused an instant uncertainly, and +then climbed the wall. It was rather an arduous undertaking for a clerk +at a handkerchief counter, and she went about it clumsily. The wall was +high and the stones "jiggled" in a terrifying way. One big stone climbed +down on the other side with her--they went together unceremoniously. + +The Talentless One laughed a little under her breath as she sat up among +the little flowers, but she was not quite sure that she wanted to laugh. +The big stone was on her foot and she regarded it with disfavor. It +required considerable strength to roll it off--then she got up. Then she +sank down again very suddenly. + +"Oh!" she cried, sharply. For several moments she said nothing more, did +nothing more. The discovery she had made was not a pleasant discovery. +In Eldorado clumsy people who could not climb stone walls came to grief. +She had come to grief. When she moved her foot, terrible twinges of pain +were telegraphed all over her body. She sat, a sorry little heap, among +the stranger flowers that had brought about her ruin. The roadway +stretched dustily and emptily up and down, on the other side of the +wall. + +"Oh!" breathed the Talentless One. It had been a sigh before, now it was +a groan. What was she to do? A sort of terror seized her. She had never +been really frightened before. The beautiful country about her no longer +was beautiful. It was no longer Eldorado to her. + +Then she discovered a green fleck down the road, a different green from +the grass and trees. If it should be Emmeline's house--if she could get +to it! + +"I must!" she said, and hobbled to her feet. Somehow she got over the +wall, and went stumbling toward the green spot. The agony in her foot +increased every moment; she grew dizzy with it. + +It must be Emmeline's house--a little, green-painted one beside the +road! There could not be two green houses in Placid Pond. With a long +breath of relief she got to the door. After that she did not know +anything for a little time, then her eyes opened. Someone with a kind, +anxious face was bending over her. It was Emmeline! It looked like the +face of an old friend to the poor, little Talentless One. + +"There, there, poor dear! Never mind where you be, or who I be--you +'tend right to gettin' out o' your faint! Sniff this bottle--there! +You'll be all right in a minute. It's your foot, ain't it? It's all +swollen up--how'd you sprain it?" + +She had the injured foot in her tremulous old hands, gently loosening +the shoe. The girl, though she winced with pain, did not utter a sound. + +"There ain't any doctor this side of Anywhere," the kind voice ran on, +"but never you mind. I'll risk but what I've got liniments that will +doctor you up." + +And the girl, looking up into the peaceful old "lineaments," smiled +faintly, and knew there was healing in them. Even in her throbbing pain +she could think of this new pun that she would regale the girls with +when she got back to them--if she ever got back! + +"You are 'Emmeline,' aren't you!" she presently questioned, feebly, like +an old woman, for the pain seemed to have made her old. "I'm so glad you +are Emmeline!" + +Poor dear, she was wandering in her mind, and no wonder, with a foot +swollen up like that! It was queer, though, hitting on the right name +in that way. + +"There! there! Yes, I am Emmeline, though I might've been Sophia or +Debby Jane! Namin' people is sort o' accidental. I always wished they'd +named me somethin' prettier by accident! But I guess Emmeline will have +to do." + +It was long after this before any explanation was made. The fact that +it was Emmeline was enough for those first hours. + +"Now, you kind of bear on to yourself, poor dear! This boot has got to +come off!" the kind voice crooned. But, in the awful process of "bearing +on," the Talentless One shot out into the dark, as if pushed by a heavy +hand. How long it was before she came back into the light she did not +know--it seemed to be a point of light that pricked her eyes. She shut +them against it, and longed to drift away again; the dark had been cool +and pleasant. + +It was a lighted lamp on a tiny, round table. She found it out the next +time she opened her eyes. She was in a little bedroom, on the bed. The +door was open, and a voice drifted in to her: + +"She was coming to beautifully when I left her. I thought mebbe she'd +feel more at home to come to alone. I've got her ankle all dressed nice, +but it would make your heart ache to see it! The poor dear won't walk +again this one while--" + +"But, Emmeline Camp, what are you going to do with her all that time?" +The second voice was a little shrill. + +"Sh! I'm goin' to doctor her up, just as if she was the little girl the +Lord never gave me. I've always known what I'd do if my little girl +broke anything--There! you'll have to excuse me, Mrs. Williams, while +I take this cup o'tea in." + +It is odd how many little confidences can be exchanged in the time of +cooling and drinking a cup of tea. The caller had gone away, and the old +woman and the girl were left alone. Little by little the story of the +B-Hive and the quest for an Eldorado came out. Emmeline Camp sat and +nodded, and clandestinely wiped her eyes. + +"I see--I see, deary! Now, don't you talk any more and get faint again. +I'll talk. You no need to worry about anything in the world--not yet! +When it's time to commence, I'll tell you. How does your foot feel now? +Dear, dear! When I was fussing over it, it seemed just as if it was my +little Amelia's foot! I've always known what I'd do if she sprained +hers, and so I did it to yours, deary!" + +"Is Amelia your daughter?" + +The old face wavered between a smile and tears. "Yes," she nodded, "but +she warn't ever born. It's a kind of a secret between me and the Lord. +He knows I've made believe Amelia. I've always been kind of lonesome, +an' she's been a sight of company to me. She's been a good daughter, +Amelia has!" Now it was a smile. "We've set an' sewed patchwork +together, ever since she grew up. When she was little--there, deary, +hear me run on! But you remind me so much of Amelia. You can laugh just +as much as you want to at me runnin' on like this about a little girl +that warn't ever born--mebbe laughin' will help your foot." + +She took up the empty cup and went away, but she came back and stood a +minute in the doorway. + +"There's this about it," she laughed, in a tender, little way, "if she +warn't ever born, she won't ever die. I sha'n't lose Amelia!" + + * * * * * + +To the three girls waiting at the B-Hive came a letter. They read it, +three heads in a bunch: + +"Eldorado, June 26. + +"Come whenever you want to. Directions enclosed." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +There was a postscript. It was like T.O. to put the most of the letter +into the postscript. + +"P.S.--Never call me the Talentless One again" (as if they ever had!), +"when I came straight to the Eldorado--tumbled right into it. I've +decided to stay here until you come--please tell my substitute so. I +know she'll be so glad she'll throw up her hat. Bring your sheets and +pillow-cases. Come by way of the X. & Y. R.R. to a place called Placid +Pond." + +The three readers, bunched together over the letter, uttered a cry of +delight. "Placid Pond!"--of all the dear, delightful, placid names! The +very look of it on paper was restful; it _sounded_ restful when you +said it over and over--"Placid Pond. Placid Pond. Placid Pond." + +"Oh, she's a dear--she's an _artist!_" cried Laura Ann, who +measured all things by their relationship to art. This was an own +cousin! + +"Read on--somebody hold the letter still!" Billy cried excitedly. And +they read on: "Take the only road there is to take, and keep on to a +house that's painted green. It will be Emmeline's house, though they +might have named her Sophia, she says, by accident. But you will be glad +she is Emmeline. She has a beautiful daughter that never was born and +never will die--oh, girls, come as quick as ever you can!" + +Yours, "The Talented One." + +"P.S. No. 2.--Don't climb any stone walls. The stones are not stuck on." + +For a tiny space the three girls looked at each other in silence. The +letter in Loraine's hand was a masterpiece, full of enticing mysteries +that beckoned to them to come and find the "answers." What kind of an +Eldorado was this that was called Placid Pond, and was full of +mysteries? How could they wait! They must pack up and go at once! + +"'Talented One,' indeed!--she's a genius! See how she's left us to guess +things, instead of explaining them all out in a nice, tame way--oh, +_girls_"--Laura Ann's eyes shone--"won't we have the greatest +time!" + +"What I want to know is, who is Emmeline--" + +"Yes, who is Emmeline?" + +"And who _can_ her daughter _be_? She sounds so lovely and ghostly!" + +"Everything sounds lovely and ghostly. When can we go, girls?" This from +practical Loraine. "_I_ can't till after the Fourth." + +"Nor I," groaned Billy, dolefully. + +"I could, but I shall not--I shall wait for you two," Laura Ann said +quietly. + +Loraine turned upon her. "You needn't," she said, "now that you've +signed the compact--you can do whatever you _want_ to now, you +know. Needn't think of anybody but yourself." + +"The privilege of being selfish doesn't begin till we get to Eldorado," +laughed Laura Ann. "You'll see what I do then!" + +It was arranged that they should start on the fifth of July. "With our +sheets and pillow-cases," appended Billy. No one thought of writing to +T.O. for further particulars. No one wanted further particulars. The +uncertainly and mystery that enveloped Eldorado was its greatest charm. +They speculated, to be sure, at odd moments, as to the identity of the +person who might have been Sophia but was Emmeline, and they wrestled a +little with the hidden meaning of Postscript Number Two. Why were they +especially bidden not to climb stone walls? And _why_ was the +Talented One "staying over" till they came? + +"Why? Why? Why?" chanted Billy, "but don't anybody dare to guess why! +Who wants to know!" + +"Not me!" echoed ungrammatically Laura Ann. + +While they waited and speculated mildly, and packed and repacked their +things, T.O. lay on the bed in Emmeline Camp's little bedroom and winced +with pain whenever she moved her wounded foot. But she was very happy. +"Peace is in my soul, if not my _sole!_" she thought, a slave still +to the punning habit. She had never been so peaceful in her life. The +little old woman who had befriended her bustled happily in and out of +the little bedroom. She bathed and rubbed the swollen ankle, and smiled +and chattered to the girl at the other end of it. Her "lineaments" were +working a cure, surely. + +It had all been decided upon. The B-Hive was to be transplanted for the +summer to the little, green-painted house trailed over with +morning-glory vines and roses. Emmeline Camp had wanted, she said, for +forty years, to go upon a long journey, to visit her brother. Here was +her chance. The small sum she had at last consented to be paid for the +use of her little house would pay her traveling expenses one way, at +least, and John would be glad enough, she said, to pay her fare home, +to get rid of her! Only she was quite able to pay it herself. + +"I've kind of hankered to go to see John all these years. Forty years is +quite a spell to hanker, isn't it? But I never felt like leaving the +house behind, and I couldn't take it along very conveniently, so I +stayed to home. And then--my dear, you can laugh as well as not, but +I didn't like to leave Amelia." + +"But you might have taken her with--" + +"No," seriously, "I couldn't 've taken Amelia. I think, deary, it might +'ve killed her; she's part of the little house and the morning-glories +and roses. I'd have had to leave Amelia if I'd gone, and it didn't seem +right." + +"But now--" + +"Now," the little, old woman laughed in her odd, tender way that "went +with" Amelia, "now she'll have plenty of young company--all o' you here +with her. I shall make believe she's coming and going with you, and +it'll be a sight of comfort. Yes, deary, I guess this is going to be my +chance to visit John." + +"And our chance to have a summer in the country," completed the Talented +One. "Oh, I think you are--_dear_! Whatever will the other girls +say when I tell them about you!" + +One day T.O. remembered the blue pump. She gazed out of the window at +the brown one in the little yard. "Who would have thought," she sighed, +"that I could be so happy without a blue pump!" + +"What's that, deary?" The little, old woman was sewing patchwork near by. + +"Oh," laughed the girl, "I always _did_ want a pump that was +painted blue. I saw a picture of one once when I was a little mite, and +it impressed me--such a lovely, bright blue! I thought it went +beautifully with the green grass! But I can get along without it, I +guess." + +"We have to get along without having things painted to suit us," nodded +the little, old woman philosophically. But she remembered the blue pump. +There was a can of paint out in the shed room, and there was Jane +Cotton's Sam. + +Jane Cotton's Sam was a "feature" of Placid Pond--a whole set of +features, T.O. said. He was a lumbering, awkward fellow, well up to the +end of his teens, the only hope of widowed Jane. The Lord had given him +a splendid head, but the Placid Pond people were secretly triumphing in +the knowledge that Sam had failed to pass in his college examinations, +"head or no head." Jane had always boasted so of Sam's brains, and +predicted such a wonderful future for him! All her soul was set on Sam's +success--well, wasn't it time her pride had a fall? Mebbe now she'd see +Sam wasn't much different from other people's boys. + +Jane's heart was reported to be broken by the boy's failure, and Sam +went about sulkily defiant. He made a great pretense of lofty +indifference, but maybe he didn't care!--maybe not! Emmeline Camp knew +in her gentle old heart that he cared. She worried about Sam. + +All this the Talented One learned, little by little, in the way country +gossip is learned. She learned many other things, too, about the +neighbors--things that she lay and pondered about. It seemed queer to +find out that even a placid little place like this, set among the +peaceful hills, had its tragedies and comedies--its pitiful little +skeletons behind the doors. + +"That's Old '61," Mrs. Camp said, pointing to an old figure in the road. +"See him go marching past!--he always marches, as if he heard drums +beating and he was keeping time. I tell 'em he _does_ hear 'em. +He lives all alone up on the edge o' the woods, and folks say he spends +most all his time trying to pick march tunes out on the organ. A few +years ago he got some back pension money, and up and spent it for a +cabinet organ! Dear land! it seemed a pity, when he might have got him +some nice clothes or something sensible. But there he sets and sets over +that organ, trying to pick out tunes! Well,"--the gentle old voice took +on charity--"well, if that's his way of being happy, I s'pose he's got +as good a right to it as I have to--Amelia," a whimsical little smile +lighting up the old face, but underlying it the tenderness that the girl +on the bed had come to look for whenever any reference was made to +Amelia. + +"We've all got our idiosyncreases," added Emmeline Camp, "only some of +'em's creased in a little deeper'n others. I guess mine and Old '61's +are pretty considerable deep!" + +The early July days were cloudless and full of hot, stinging noises. +T.O. crawled out to lie in the grass under a great tree, and exult in +room and freedom and rest. Her ankle was still very painful, but she +regarded it with philosophical toleration: "You needn't have climbed a +stone wall, need you? Well, then, what have you to complain of? The best +thing you can do is to keep still." Which was, without doubt, the truth. +"Anyhow, it isn't becoming in you to be so puffed up!" + +It was decided that Mrs. Camp should start on her trip before the other +girls arrived. Hence, on the morning of the day they had set to come, +the little old woman and her bags and bundles rode away down the dusty +country road. Her lean, brown, crumpled old face had an exalted +expression; the joy of anticipation and the triumph of patient waiting +met in it and blended oddly. It was a great day for Emmeline Camp. + +"Good-by, deary. Keep right on rubbing, and don't go to walking 'round. +There's some cookies left in the cooky-crock, and a pie or two on the +shelf to kind of set you going. Take good care o' yourselves." + +"And Amelia," whispered the girl, drawing the old face down to her. +"We'll take good care of Amelia." + +It was a little lonely after the old stage rumbled away. The Talented +One turned whimsically to Amelia for company. She tried to imagine her, +as the little old woman did, but in vain. She could not conjure up the +sweet, elusive face, the hair, the eyes, the grave little mouth of +Amelia. The little old woman had taken away with her love, the key. She +must have taken Amelia away with her, too, the girl thought, smiling at +her own fancy. So, for company, she must wait until Loraine and Billy +and Laura Ann came, on the further edge of the day. She lay in the cool +grass, and made beatific plans for all the long, lazy days to come. No +hurrying, or worrying--each one for herself, happy in her own way. Only +themselves to think of for the space of a golden summer! + +"I am glad she took Amelia," the girl in the grass laughed softly. +"We'd never be able to keep to the Compact with Amelia 'round--Amelia +would never have signed a 'Wicked Compact'!" Which, in the event of +gentle, unsinning Amelia ever having been born, might or might not have +been true. It would have been harder work, reflected the girl in the +grass, for Amelia to have been unsinning and gentle, if she had been born. + +Jane Cotton's Sam came lounging down the road, cap over one eye, face +surlily defiant. T.O. watched him with displeasure. So that was the kind +of a boy that gave up? Poor kind of a boy! Why didn't he try it again, +especially when his poor mother's heart was breaking? Didn't he know +that giving up was worse than failing in his examinations? Somebody +ought to tell him--why, he was stopping at Mrs. Camp's little front +gate! He was coming in! + +The girl lying in the long grass under the tree sat up hurriedly. Quick, +quick! what was his name? Oh, yes, Sam! + +"Good-morning, Sam," she said pleasantly. But the boy, with a mere nod +of his splendidly-modeled head, hurried away toward the tiny barn. The +girl had seen the dark flush that mounted upward from his neck over his +pink and white cheeks. + +"Poor thing! He knows _I_ know that he didn't pass--that is the +only 'out' about living in the country: everybody knows everything. +Well, if it makes him blush, then his mother needn't break her heart +_yet_. I like the looks of that boy, if he does go 'round +scowling." Whereupon the Talented One promptly dismissed Jane Cotton's +Sam from her meditations. It did not occur to her to question his right +to be on Mrs. Camp's premises. She lay back in the grass and took up +again the interrupted thread of her musings. By gentle degrees odd +fancies took possession of her. + +[Illustration: THE BOY, WITH A MERE NOD, HURRIED AWAY.] + +The sprinkling of great, white daisies in the grass beside her--suppose, +now, this minute, they changed into white handkerchiefs, spread out on +a green counter! Then she would have to sell them to passers-by; it was +her business to sell handkerchiefs. Someone was coming marching up the +road--suppose she tried to sell him one, for the fun of it!--to make a +good story for the girls. Laughing, she got up and leaned on the fence. +She "dared" herself to do it. Then, courteously, "Can I sell you +anything in handkerchiefs to-day? Initialed, embroidered--" + +The marching feet stopped. Shrewd old eyes studied her face and +twinkled, responsive to the harmless mischief visible in it. + +"You got any with flags on--in the corners or anywhere? Or drums on?" +It was Old '61. "Or red, white an' blue ones? I'd like one o' +_them_--I fit in the war," explanatorily. + +"Yes?" The saleswoman was not especially interested in the war; it is +not the way with many of her kind to be interested in things. + +"I fit clear through--in the Wilderness, and Bull Run, an' plenty more. +They couldn't get rid o' me, the enemy couldn't! No, sir, where there +was marchin' an' shootin', I was bound to be there! They hit me time 'n' +again, but I didn't waste no unnecessary time in hospittles--I had to +git back to the boys." + +She was interested now; she forgot she was to sell him a handkerchief. +"Go on," she said. + +"It was great! You ought to heard the drums an' smelt the smoke, an' +felt your feet marchin' under you, an' your knapsack poundin' your +back--yes, sir, an' bein' hungry an' thirsty an' wore out! You'd ought +to seen how ragged the boys got, an' heard 'em whistlin' 'Through +Georgy' while they sewed on patches--oh, you'd ought to _whistled_ +'Through Georgy'!" + +The girl, watching the kindled old face, saw a shadow creep over it. + +"I useter--I useter--but someway I've lost it. It's pretty hard to've +_marched_ through Georgy an' forgot the tune about. Some days I +'most get holt of it again--I thought I could, on the organ, but I +can't, not the hull of it. Someway I've lost it--it's pretty hard. It +ha'nts me--if you ever be'n ha'nted, you know how bad it is." + +No, the girl who was leaning on the fence had never been ha'nted, but +her eyes were wide with pity for the old soul who had marched through +Georgia and forgotten the tune. + +"Some days I 'most ketch it. I don't suppose"--the old voice halted +diffidently--"I don't suppose _you'd_ whistle it, would you? Jest +through once--" + +But she could not whistle even once "Through Georgia." "I'm so sorry!" +she cried. "I can't whistle, or sing, or anything. I wish I could!" +She wished she were Billy; Billy could have done it. + +Old '61 marched on, up the dusty road, and the girl went back to her +tree. She had not sold any daisy-handkerchiefs, but she had her story to +tell the girls. She lay in the grass thinking of it. Once or twice she +pursed her lips and made a ludicrous ineffectual attempt to whistle, but +she did not smile. Jane Cotton's Sam clicked the gate, going out, but +she did not notice. When she did at last look up, and her gaze wandered +over the little yard aimlessly, she suddenly uttered a little note of +surprise. + +"Why!" she cried. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +For the pump was a blue pump! A miracle had been wrought while she mused +in the grass and listened to Old '61. The little old brown pump had +blossomed out gayly, brilliantly. + +"Why!" Then a subdued chuckle reached her from some nearby ambush out +beyond the fence. She put two and two together--the pump, the laugh, and +Jane Cotton's Sam. Six! Jane Cotton's Sam, while she was day-dreaming +and Marching through Georgia with Old '61, had painted the brown pump +blue! That was his business on Mrs. Camp's premises. Mrs Camp had +remembered--the dear, oh, the dear!--that she wanted a blue pump, and +had got the boy to come and make one. And now, down behind the fence +somewhere, the boy was laughing at her amazement. Well, let him laugh-- +she laughed, too! Suddenly she began to clap her hands by way of +applause to her hidden audience. + +The pump itself was distinctly a disappointment. In gay-hued pictures, +seen by childish eyes, blue pumps accord with green grass and trees--in +nature, seen by maturer eyes, there is something wrong with the colors. +They look out of place--either the green growing things or the gay blue +pump do not belong there. The girl's loyalty to little, kind Emmeline +Camp would not let her admit that it was the blue pump that didn't +"belong." She was glad--glad--that it was blue, for it stood for a +thoughtful kindness to her, and thoughtful kindnesses had been rare in +her self-dependent, hustling life. + +"Hurrah for the blue pump!" she cried softly. She felt like going up to +it and hugging it, but fortunately she did not yield to the impulse. + +The other girls arrived at dusk. T.O., her knee in a chair, had hitched +laboriously from little kitchen to little dining-room and got supper. +Spent and triumphant, she waited in the doorway. She could hear their +voices coming up the road--Billy's excited voice, Laura Ann's gay one, +Loraine's calm and sweet. She longed to run out to meet them. Next best, +she sent her own voice, in a clear, long call. + +"That's T.O.! Girls, let's run!" she heard Billy say. + +"Why doesn't _she_ run?" Laura Ann demanded severely. "That would +be perfectly appropriate under the circumstances." + +"'Tis queer, isn't it, that she didn't come to meet us?" Loraine added. +In another moment they had reached Emmeline Camp's little green-painted +house and found the Talented One waiting impatiently at the gate. Things +explained themselves rapidly. Exclamations of pity crowded upon +exclamations of delight and welcome. Four happy young wage-earners sat +down to T.O.'s hardly-prepared little supper and four tongues were +loosed. Even Loraine did her part of the chattering. + +"I feel so nice and _placid_ already!" enthused Billy. + +"Oh, so do I!--so do I!" echoed Laura Ann. "It's such a comfort to get +one's chains off!--I felt mine slip off back there at that dear, funny +little station." + +"Oh, was _that_ what I heard clanking?" offered quiet Loraine, and +was promptly cheered. + +The meal was a merry one. And afterwards there was exploring to be done +about the little yard and orchard and up and down the road, in the dim, +sweet twilight, with the Talented One at the gate calling soft +directions. + +"And I've got a blue pump for you," she laughed. "Just wait till +daylight! Don't anybody feel of it in the dark to see if it's blue, +because you'll find it's green! There's a story goes with the pump and +one with its mother--I mean with the boy-who-painted-its mother! Placid +Pond is full of stories." + +"Nice, dozy, placid ones, I suppose," Laura Ann returned lightly. But +the Talented One shook her head. + +"Wait till you hear them," she said gravely. + +"Give us some of the titles to-night," coaxed Billy. They were all back +on the little doorsteps and the moon was rising, majestic and golden, +behind the trees. + +"Well--" she considered thoughtfully, "there's 'The Story of Amelia', +and the story of 'The Boy Who Didn't Pass', and the one of 'Old '61'--", + +"Oh, tell us--tell us!" Billy pleaded, and would not be refused. It was +never easy to refuse Billy. She had her way this time, and there in the +mellow night-light, with soft night-noises all about them, T.O. told her +stories. She had never told a story before in her life, and her voice at +first stumbled diffidently, but as she went on, a queer thing +happened--she did not seem to be telling it herself, but the little old +woman who loved Amelia seemed to be telling it! Then the Boy Who Didn't +Pass, then Old '61, in his tremulous, halting old voice. + +They listened in perfect silence, and even after the stories ended they +said nothing. Billy, quite unashamed, was crying over poor Old '61. + +"You'd have thought, wouldn't you," T.O. murmured after a while, "that +places like this would be humdrum-y and commonplace? But I guess there +are 'stories' everywhere. I'm beginning to find out things, girls." + +The next day began in earnest the long-yearned-for time of rest. It was +decided unanimously over the breakfast cups, to live and move, eat and +all but sleep, out of doors. To devote four separate and four combined +energies to having a good time. To abide by the rules and regulations +of the Wicked Compact--long live the Wicked Compact! Laura Ann made an +illuminated copy of it, framed it in a border of hurriedly-painted +forget-me-nots and hung it on the screen door, where they could not help +seeing it and "remembering their vows," Laura Ann said. It was a matter +of gay conjecture with them who would be the first to break the Compact. + +"And be driven out of the B-Hive--not I!" Billy said decisively. "I +shan't have the least temptation to break it, anyway--I feel selfish all +over! You couldn't drive me to do a good deed with a--a pitchfork!" + +"Me either--not even with a darning-needle!" laughed Laura Ann. "If +anybody asks me to lend her a pin, hear me say, 'Can't, my dear; it's +against the rules.' Needn't anybody worry about losing me out o' the +Hive!" + +"Loraine will be the one--you see," T.O. said lazily. "And what I want +to know is, how are we going to live without Loraine? I vote we append a +by-law. By-law I.: 'Resolved, that we except Loraine--just Loraine.'" + +"Second the motion," murmured Billy, on her back in the grass, nibbling +clover heads. + +"No," Loraine said severely, "I refuse to be put into a by-law." + + * * * * * + +The summer days were long days--lazy, somnolent days. The four girls +spent them each in her own separate way. Sometimes the little colony met +only at mealtimes--with glowing reports of the mornings' or afternoons' +wanderings. + +Billy, it was noticed, although like the rest she wandered abroad, made +no reports. Had she had a good time? Yes--yes, of course. Where had she +been all the morning or all the afternoon? Oh--oh, to places. Woods? +Yes--that is, almost woods. And more than that they failed to elicit. +Nearly every day she started away by herself, and after awhile they +noticed that she went in the same direction. She went briskly, alertly, +like one with a definite end in view. Now, where did Billy go? Their +vagrant curiosity was aroused, but not yet to the point of +investigation. + +Old '61 knew. Every morning since that first morning he had strained his +dim old eyes to catch a glimpse of a little figure coming blithely up +the road. On that first morning it had stopped in front of his little +house and said pleasant things to him as he sat on the doorsteps. He +remembered all the things. + +"Good-morning! It's a splendid day, isn't it?" + +And: "What a perfectly lovely place you live in! With the woods so near +you can shake hands with them out of your windows!" + +And: "Don't the birds wake you up mornings? I wonder what they sing +about up here." Then she had glanced at his ancient army coat and added +the Pleasantest Thing Of All: "I think they must sing Battle Hymns and +Red, White and Blue songs and 'Marching Through Georgia,' don't they?" + +"Not the last one," he had answered sadly. "They never sing that. If +they did, I'd 'a' learnt it of 'em long ago." + +"Do you like that one best--very best?" she had asked, and he liked to +remember how she had smiled. He had stood up then and thrown back his +old shoulders proudly. + +"Why, you see, marm," he had said simply, "I _marched_ through +Georgy!" + +The next morning, too, she had stopped and talked to him. But it was not +until the third time that he had ventured to ask her to whistle it. And +then--Old '61, now peering down the road for the blithe little figure, +thrilled again at the remembrance of what had happened. She had laughed +gently and said she did not know how to whistle, but if he would like +her to sing it-- + +There had been eight mornings all told, now, counting this morning, +which was sure to be. Yes, clear 'way down there somebody was comin' +swingin' along--somebody little an' happy an' spry. Old '61 began to +laugh softly. He could hardly wait for her to come and sit down on the +doorstep and sing it. Two or three times--she would sing it two or three +times. + +He had a surprise for her this morning. With great pains he had dragged +his cabinet organ out onto the little porch. It was all open, ready. +He went a little way down the road in his eagerness to meet her. + +"Good-morning!" Billy called brightly. "Am I late to-day?" + +"Jest a little--jest a little," he quavered joyously, "but I'll forgive +ye! There's somethin' waitin' up there--I've got a surprise for ye!" + +"Honest?" Billy stood still in the road, looking into the eager, +childish old face. "Oh, goody! I love surprises. Am I to guess it?" + +"No, no, jest to come an' play on it!" he quavered. Then a cloud settled +over his face and dimmed the delight in it. "Mebbe you don't know how +to?" he added, a tremulous upward lift to his voice. + +"How to 'play on' a surprise!" cried Billy. "Well, how am I to know +until I see it? I can play on 'most everything else!" + +They had got to the little front gate--were going up the little +carefully-weeded path--were very close to it now. Billy sprang up the +steps. + +"I can! I can!" she laughed. "Hear me!" Her fingers ran up and down the +keys, then settled into a soft, sweet little melody. Another and +another-- + +The old man on the lower step sat patiently listening and waiting. If +she did not play it soon, he should have to ask her to, but he would +rather have her play it without. Perhaps the next one-- + +The next one was beautiful, but not It--not _It_--not the Right +One. + +"There!" finished Billy with a flourish. "You see, I _can_ play on +a surprise!" She stopped abruptly at sight of the disappointed old face +below her. For an instant she was bewildered, then a beautiful instinct +that had lain unused on some shelf of Billy's mind came to life and +whispered to her what the trouble was. + +"Oh!" she cried softly, "Oh, I'm sorry I forgot!" She turned back to +the little organ and began to play again. + +[Illustration: THE OLD MAN SAT LISTENING AND WAITING.] + +Up went the sagging old head, up the sagging old shoulders! Old '61 was +back in "Georgy," marching through mud and pine-barrens, in cold and +hunger and weariness--with the boys, from Atlanta to the sea. Hurrah! +hurrah! the flag that made them free! + +He was not old, not alone and forlorn and cumbering the earth. He was +young and straight and loyal, defying suffering and death, with glory +and fame, perhaps, on there ahead. His country needed him--he was +marching through Georgia for his country. + +Billy played it over and over, untiring. A lump grew in her throat at +the sight of the old face down there on the lower step. For so much was +written on the old face! + +Suddenly Old '61 got up and began to march, swinging his old legs out +splendidly. Down the walk, down the road, he went, as far as the music +went, then came marching splendidly back. Head up, shoulders squared, +the "boys" marching invisible beside him and before him and behind him, +he was no longer Old '61, but Young '61. + +The next day Billy ate her breakfast quietly, helped clear away the +things, and went quietly away. She did not stop to read Laura Ann's +gay-painted "Compact" on the screen door. It might even have been +noticed, if anyone cared to notice, that she did not look at it, that +she hurried a little through the door, as if to avoid it. + +Old '61 was waiting at the gate. She smiled at the eager invitation she +read in his face. + +"No," she said, shaking her head for emphasis, "no, I'm not going to +play it this time. I'm going to teach you to play it! I shall be going +back to the city before long, and then what will you do when you want to +hear it? Perhaps you couldn't keep the tune in your head. I'm going to +show you an easy way to play it--just the air. I shall have to try it +myself first, of course. But I'm sure you can learn how, if you'll +practice faithfully." It was queer how her music-teacher tone crept back +into her voice. She laughed to herself to hear it. "Practice faithfully" +sounded so natural to say! + +She sat down at the organ and experimented thoughtfully, trying to +reduce the old man's beloved tune to its very lowest terms. After quite +a long time she nodded and smiled. + +Then began Old '61s music lessons. It was terrible work, like earning a +living with the sweat of the brow. But the two of them--the young woman +and the old man--bent to it heroically. For an hour, that first time, +the cramped old fingers felt their way over the keyboard; for an hour +Billy bent over them, patiently pointing the way. She had forgotten that +she was not to think of piano-notes now--that she had signed the Wicked +Compact. She had forgotten everything but her determination to teach Old +'61 to play "Marching through Georgia." And Old '61 had, in his turn, +forgotten things--that he was old, alone, a cumberer, everything but his +determination to learn It. + +It was not a scientific lesson. It did not begin with first principles +and creep slowly upward; it began in the middle, in a splendid, +haphazard, ambitious way. The stiff old hands were gently placed in +position for the first notes of the tune, the stiff old fingers were +pressed gently down, one at a time. Over and over and over the process +was repeated. It was learning by sheer brute patience and love. + +"That's all for the first lesson," Billy announced at the end of the +hour. "You've got those first notes well enough to practice them. +To-morrow we'll go a little bit farther." But she did not know the long, +patient hours between now and then that the old man would "practice," +crooked painfully over the keys. She did not reckon on the miracle that +might be wrought out of intense desire. + +The next morning Old '61 at the gate proclaimed proudly: + +"I've got it! I've got it! I can play an' sing fur as we've b'en! +It's ringin' in my head all the time." + +"Did the birds wake you up singing it?" Billy asked, smilingly. She, +herself, was all eagerness to learn of her pupil's progress. The lesson +began at once. Already, she found, the miracle had begun to work. The +old man sat down to the organ with a flourish that, if it had not been +full of pathos, would have been a little comedy act. After a brief +preliminary search the old fingers found their place and pounded out +triumphantly the few notes they had been taught. + +"Good! good!" applauded the teacher heartily. "Why, you do it +splendidly! Now we'll go on a little farther--this finger on this note, +this one here, your thumb _here_." She stationed them carefully and +the second lesson began. It was nearer two hours than one when it ended. + + * * * * * + +"Where have _you_ been, Billy?" Loraine asked at lunch. They had +all been describing their individual pursuits and experiences of the +morning. + +"Oh, to a place," answered Billy lightly. + +"What place?" Loraine persisted curiously. + +"Well," laughed Billy, "if you must know, I've been marching +through--oh, a _place_!" she concluded hastily, repenting herself. +"It was a pretty hard place, and I'm hungry as a bear. Wish somebody'd +say, 'Won't you have another piece of pie?'" + +"Won't you have another piece of pie?" laughed Loraine, and nothing +further was said of an embarrassing nature. + +The summer days grew into summer weeks. Patiently and joyously Old '61 +plodded his way to the sea. He practiced nearly all his waking hours, +and when he was not at the little organ, practicing, he went about +humming the beloved words. Pride and love, rather than any melody of his +cracked old voice, made a tune of them. + +His progress astonished his teacher. Her praise was impetuous enough for +further and greater exertions. One day Billy said the next time should +be an exhibition, when he should play it all--from "Atlanta to the +sea"--with her as audience, not helping, but sitting in a chair +listening. + +She came to the Exhibition in a white dress, with sweet-peas at her +waist. Her smiles at the foot of the steps changed to something like a +sob when she discovered that Old '61 had been decorating the organ and +the little porch. He, himself, was brushed and radiant, his old face the +face of a little child. + +"The audience will sit on the steps," Billy said, a little tremulously. +"Right here. Make believe I'm rows and rows of people! Now will you +please favor us by 'Marching through Georgia'?". + +He went at once to the little gayly-bedecked instrument and began to +play. The dignity and pride of the shabby old figure redeemed its +shabbiness--the fervor of the pounded notes redeemed the tune. The +audience--in "rows and rows,"--listened gravely, and at the end burst +into genuine applause. The sound swelled and multiplied oddly, and then +they saw the three figures at the gate who had listened, too. Billy was +discovered! + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +They escorted Billy home. It was rather a silent walk until the end. +Loraine spoke first. + +"One less in the B-Hive," she said sadly. + +"Yes, I suppose I'm dropped now," responded Billy, not uncheerfully. +"Of course I've got to take the consequences of my--my crime. But I don't +care!" she added with vivacity. "I'd rather live alone in a ten-story +house than have missed that Exhibition!" + +"Yes," mused Laura Ann thoughtfully, "it was a beautiful one. I'm glad +_I_ didn't miss it. When I think of what it stood for--" + +She broke off suddenly and slipped her hand into Billy's arm. Another +short silence. Then Laura Ann finished: "All the work and patience it +stood for, day after day--girls, when I think of that I feel--" + +"I know--all of us know," T.O. hastily interposed. "That's about the way +we all feel, I guess. No use talking about it, though. Billy's broken +the Compact and we're under oath to drop her." + +"Not till we go back to work," Loraine put in emphatically, "and then +she can live next door and come in every night to tea! There's nothing +in the Compact against that, is there? Well, then, I invite you, Billy, +for the very first tea!" + +"I accept!" laughed Billy. She did not seem at all depressed. In her +ears rang the pounding refrain of Old '61 marching through Georgia. + +Nothing more was said on this subject. A little picnic had been planned +for the afternoon, and they went briskly about making preparations for +it, as soon as they got back to Mrs. Camp's little green house. While +they worked they discussed Amelia. + +"If she hadn't gone with her mother we'd have taken her to the picnic +with us," the Talented One said, over her egg-beating. "I wonder if +Amelia likes picnics?" + +"Don't! You make me feel creepy," Laura Ann laughed. "What _I_ +wonder is how she'd have looked if she'd ever been born. I lay awake one +night trying to imagine Amelia." + +"Blue eyes and golden hair," Loraine chimed in dreamily, "and a little +dimple in her chin." + +"You needn't any of you lie awake nights imagining. I can tell you," the +Talented One said. "She has blue eyes, but her hair is brown and the +dimples are in her cheeks. Her hair just waves a little away from the +parting--it is always parted. She sits very still, sewing patchwork--her +mother told me," added the Talented One quietly. "She said she wished +she knew how to paint so she could paint Amelia's picture. She told me +where she'd like to have it hung--here in the dining-room, between the +windows. Amelia'd always been very real, she said, but the picture would +make her realer." + +"Did she ever say what kind of dresses Amelia wears?" asked Laura Ann +without looking up from her stirring. + +"No, I never asked, but they must be white dresses, I think,--Amelia is +such an innocent little thing," laughed T.O. softly. It was odd how they +always laughed or talked softly when it was about little make-believe +Amelia. + +The picnic was in the woods, in a lovely little spot Loraine had +discovered in her wanderings. A brook babbled noisily through the spot. +They spread their lunch at the foot of a forest giant and ate it +luxuriously to the tune the brook sang. It was hard to believe they had +ever been toilers in a great city. + +"There never were any public schools," murmured Loraine, lying back and +gazing into the thick mesh of leaves overhead. "Nobody ever said +'Teacher! Teacher!' to me." + +"There never were any negatives to be 'touched up'--nobody ever had +their pictures taken," Laura Ann murmured, dreamy, too. "I've always +been here beside this brook, lying on my back--what a beautiful world +it's always been!" + +The Talented One sat rigidly straight. "There have always been +handkerchiefs," she sighed, "and there always will be. I shall have to +go back there and sell them. When I look at all these leaves, it reminds +me--there are leaves on handkerchiefs, straggling round the +borders--ugh!" + +It was foolish talk, perhaps, but it was the place and the time for +foolish talk. After a little more of it they drifted apart, wandering +this way and that in a delightful, aimless way. So little of their four +lives had been aimless or especially delightful that they reveled in the +sweet opportunity. Loraine wandered farthest. She came after awhile to a +clearing where a small pond glimmered redly with the parting rays of the +sun. A great boy lounged beside the pond dangling a pole. Loraine +recognized him as Jane Cotton's Sam. + +"Oh!" she said, "now I've made a noise and scared away your fish!" + +"Ain't any fish," muttered the boy. He did not turn around. The pole +slanted further and further, till it lay on the bank beside the boy. + +"Oh, maybe there are, if you wait long enough--and nobody comes crashing +through the bushes! I don't suppose--I mean if you are not going to use +it any more yourself--" Loraine looked toward the idle pole. "I never +fished in my life," she explained. The boy understood with remarkable +quickness. + +"You mean you'd like to try it?" he asked, and this time turned round. +It was not at all a bad face on close inspection, Loraine decided. The +veil of sullenness had lifted a little. + +[Illustration: "I NEVER FISHED IN MY LIFE," SHE EXPLAINED.] + +"Oh, but I just would! Only if I should have an accident and catch +anything, whatever would I do! They--they are always cold and clammy, +aren't they?" + +Jane Cotton's Sam laughed outright, and Loraine decided that it was a +very good face. + +"I'll 'tend to all you catch," the boy said. He was busily baiting the +hook; now he extended the pole to her. + +"Wiggle it--up and down a little, like this," he directed, "and don't +make any more noise than you can help. If you feel a bite, let me know." + +"But I don't see how I can feel a bite unless they bite me--" + +Again the boy laughed wholesomely. They were getting acquainted. The +fishing began, and for what seemed to her a long time Loraine sat +absolutely still, dangling the pole. Nothing happened for a discouraging +while. Then Loraine whispered: "I feel a bite, but it's on my wrist! If +it's a mosquito I wish you would 'shoo' it off." + +Another wait. Then a real bite in the right place. In another moment +Loraine landed a wriggling little fish in the grass. She did not squeal +nor shudder, but sat regarding it with gentle pride. + +"Poor little thing! I suppose I ought to put you back, but you're my +first and only fish, and I've _got_ to carry you home for the girls +to see. You'll have to forgive me this time!" She turned to the boy. +"I suppose he ought to be dressed, or undressed, or something, before +he's fried, oughtn't he? I thought I'd like to fry him for breakfast, +to surprise the girls--" + +"I'll dress him for you," Jane Cotton's Sam said eagerly, "and bring +him over in the morning in plenty o' time." + +"Thank you," Loraine said heartily. "Now you'll have to let me do +something for you. 'Turn about is fair play.' Couldn't I--" She +hesitated, looking out over the still reddened water rather than at the +boy's face. "Couldn't I help you in some way with your studies? That's +my business, you know. It would really be doing me a kindness, for I may +get all out of practice unless I teach somebody something!" Had Loraine, +too, forgotten the Compact on the screen door? + +The boy fidgeted, then burst out angrily: "I s'pose they've all been +telling you I failed up in my exams? They have, haven't they? You +_knew_ it, didn't you?" + +"Yes," Loraine answered quietly. "But I've heard a good many worse +things in my life. I've heard of boys that smoked and drank and--and +_stole_. What does missing a few examinations amount to beside +things like those?" But the boy did not seem to have been listening to +anything except his own angry thoughts. All his sun-browned young face +was flooded with red; he had run his fingers through his hair till it +stood up fiercely. + +"They needn't trouble themselves 'bout me, nor you needn't, nor anybody +needn't!" he declaimed loudly. "Anybody'd think they were saints +themselves!" + +"And _I_ was a saint and everybody was saints!" laughed Loraine +softly. But Jane Cotton's Sam did not laugh. He went striding away into +the woods, his head flung up high. Loraine and the little dead fish were +left behind. Oddly the girl was not thinking of the boy's rudeness in +return for her kind offer of help, but of the flash of spirit in his +eyes. It augured well for him, she was thinking, for spirit was spirit, +although "gone wrong." In the right place, it should spur him on to a +second attempt to get into college. What if she were to persist in her +offer--were to work with him, urge him to work with her? + +But he had chosen to spurn her advances. She shook her head sadly. On +his own head be it. She turned her attention to the little dead fish. + +"You poor dear, you look so dead and forlorn--what am I going to do with +you? Someway you've got to go home with me and be fried." She took him +up gingerly, but dropped him again--he was so slippery and damp! Wrap +him in her handkerchief? But she had no pocket and she could never, +never carry him in her sleeve which she had adopted as a pocket. So then +she must leave him, must she? Poor little useless sacrifice! + +Back at the picnic spot the girls were waiting for her. They went home +in the late, sweet twilight. + +A letter was tucked under the screen door where some friendly neighbor +had left it. "Miss Thomasia O. Brown," Billy read aloud, and waved the +letter in triumph, for the secret was out. The 'T' in T.O. stood for +Thomasia! + +"Well?" bristled the Talented One, "it had to stand for something, +didn't it? It's awful, I know, but _I'm_ not to blame--I didn't +name myself, did I? I wish people could," she added with a sigh. + +"Is it for a _Thomas?_" questioned Laura Ann curiously. + +Thomasia nodded: "There was always a Thomas in the family until they got +to me. They did the best they could to make me one." She was opening the +letter with careful precision. "Why, of course, it's from Mrs. Camp!" +she cried delightedly. + +"My dear, I hope you are well and your friends have come, and Jane +Cotton's Sam has not forgotten to paint the pump. I arrived here safely +after a very long journey--my dear, I never dreamed the world was so +big! This part of it is well enough, but give me Placid Pond! Now I am +going to tell you something, and you may laugh all you're a mind to--I +sha'n't hear! What I'm going to tell is, _Amelia came_, too. After +I'd got good and settled down on the cars I looked up and knew she was +sitting right opposite, on the seat I'd turned over. She seemed +_there_--and you may laugh, my dear. I laughed, I was so pleased to +have Amelia along. John doesn't know she came--Amelia never makes a mite +of trouble! But everywhere I go she goes, my dear. I shouldn't tell you +if I didn't feel you'd understand. If he hasn't painted it yet, the blue +paint is on a shelf in the woodhouse, and you can paint it. I'm afraid +Jane Cotton's Sam won't ever amount to much. Poor Jane!" + +Thomasia read the letter aloud, and at this point Loraine interposed +warmly: "Jane Cotton's Sam is abused! It's a shame everybody groans over +him--_I_ like him. If there isn't a lot of good in him, then I don't +know how to read human nature, that's all." + +The next morning very early someone knocked at the kitchen door. It was +Laura Ann's turn to make the fire, and she answered the knock. Jane +Cotton's Sam stood on the steps outside. He had a mysterious little +package in his hand. He looked up eagerly, but it was evident from the +disappointed look on his face that Laura Ann was the wrong girl. And he +did not know the right one's name! + +"Good-morning!" nodded Laura Ann, sublimely unconscious of the +soot-patch over her nose. + +"Good-morning. I'd like to see--I've brought something for the one that +teaches school." + +"Loraine? But she isn't up yet--" + +"Yes, I am up, too," called a voice overhead, "but I won't be long! I'll +be _down_." + +It was a little fish, dressed and ready to fry, that was in the tiny +bundle. The boy extended it blushingly. Then his eyes lifted to +Loraine's in frank petition for pardon. + +"I was mighty rude," he said. "I went back to the pond to say so, but +you were gone. I beg your pardon." + +She liked the tone of his voice and his good red blushes. "That's all +right," she nodded reassuringly. But he did not go away. There was +something else. + +"If--you know what you said? If you'd offer _again_--" + +Loraine glanced over her shoulder. Laura Ann was rattling stove-lids at +the other end of the kitchen. "I offer _now_," Loraine said in a +low voice. + +"Then I accept." The boy's voice was eager. "I'll study like everything! +I thought about it in the night--I thought I'd like to surprise my +mother. If I could get into college next year--" His eyes shone. "Oh I +say, I'd do 'most anything for that!" + +The little plan was hurriedly made, in low tones, there on Emmeline +Camp's little doorsteps. The boy was to take his books to the pond where +Loraine had caught her fish. He was to study there alone for a time +every day, and in the afternoon she was to stroll that way and go over +the work with him and set him right in all the wrong places. + +"It was in Latin and mathematics I failed up," Jane Cotton's Sam +explained. + +"It's Latin and mathematics we'll tackle!" softly laughed Loraine. +"You wait--you see--you _grind!_" + +He strode away, whistling, and the tune was full of courage and +determination. Loraine smiled as she listened. She stood a moment, then +opened the screen door and went in. The "Compact" swung and tilted with +the jolt of her energetic movements. She adjusted it with a queer little +smile. + +For summer days on summer days the covert, earnest lessons went on +beside the bit of sunny water. Teacher and pupil pored intently over the +problems and difficult passages, and steadily the pupil's courage grew. +The old sullen look had vanished--Jane Cotton's Sam put on manliness and +a splendid swing to his shoulders. In her heart Loraine exulted. What if +she were disobeying the Compact--death to the Wicked Compact! + +Laura Ann suspected, but for reasons of her own kept her own counsel. +She had begun to suspect, when Jane Cotton's Sam brought the little +fish. At that time the "reasons of her own" had begun to influence her +and she had omitted to mention to Billy and T.O. that the boy had stood +on the doorsteps in earnest conversation with Loraine. Mentioning it to +Billy might not, indeed, have mattered, since Billy was already an +"outsider." But Loraine might not want T.O. to know, anyway. + +It was significant that Laura Ann, in going in and out, now chose to +ignore the gayly-illuminated placard that swung on the door--that she +herself had adorned and hung there. But she did not go in and out as +much now; for whole mornings she slipped away to a little attic room +upstairs and busied herself alone. + +It was getting grievously near the time to go back to the great city +again. Emmeline Camp was coming back then. + +All but T.O. mourned audibly the rapidly lessening days, but T.O. made +no useless laments. One day she surprised them. + +"Girls, I _want_ to go back!" she announced. "I shall be ready when +it's time--now anybody can say what anybody pleases. Scoff at me--do. +I expect it! But I'm getting homesick to see a street-car and a--a +policeman! It's lovely and peaceful here, but I've had my fill of it +now--I want to go home and bump into crowds and hear big, stirry noises. +It's different with you girls--you weren't born in the city; you didn't +play with street-cars and policemen and get sung to sleep by the noises! +I was tired--tired--and now I'm rested. I've had a perfectly beautiful +time, but I shall be ready to go back. Honestly, girls, it would break +my heart not to!" + +It was so much like T.O., Billy said, to keep all her feelings to +herself and then suddenly spring them on people like that, and take +people's breath away. Billy did not keep things to herself. + + * * * * * + +Jane Cotton came up the kitchen path one day when all but Loraine were +sitting on the doorsteps--Loraine had strolled nonchalantly down the +street as her afternoon habit was. + +"Well, I've found out!" announced Jane Cotton. She was beaming; her +sallow face was oddly cleared and lighted--her lips trembled with +eagerness to deliver her news. "I've _found out_! Where's the rest +o' you?" She counted them over. "It's the rest o' you I want--well, you +tell her I've found out. Tell her I hardly slept a wink last night, +I was so happy! Tell her I _bless_ her, and I know the Lord will. +They didn't want me to know yet but I couldn't help finding out. And +they won't mind when they know how happy it's made me--oh, I ain't +afraid but he'll pass this time! I know he will--I know it! You tell her +she's saved my boy." And without further delay the slender figure turned +and walked jubilantly down the path. It was as if she marched to the +melody of the joy in her heart. + +They looked at each other silently, then at the Wicked Compact behind +them. There did not seem any explanation needed. + +"Another one dropped," murmured T.O. sighingly. But Laura Ann said +nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Laura Ann stole quietly away and went upstairs to the little attic room. +Close by the window was a rough little easel arrangement with a picture +on it. Laura Ann stood regarding it thoughtfully. "I wonder"--she smiled +at the whimsy of the thought--"I wonder if it looks like Amelia," she +murmured. + +It was not a wonderful picture. No committee would have hung it on a +"line." There were rather glaring errors in it of draughtsmanship and +coloring. But the face of the girl in it was appealingly sweet--brown +hair, blue eyes, little round chin. Laura Ann had not dared to put in +the dimples. + +"Dimples need a master," she said, "besides, they only show when you +smile, and I don't believe Amelia smiles very often!" + +She sat down and took up a brush. The picture was nearly done, but she +found touches to be added here and there. There might be a stray +lock--there, like that. And a little bit more shade under the chin, and +the wistful droop of the mouth relieved, oh, a very little bit! Amelia +looked so serious. + +"Poor little thing! Well, it's a serious matter to be a dream-child, +with not an ounce of good red blood in your veins." + +Laura Ann meant to slip back after they had started for the station, on +the last day, and hang the picture in the little sunny dining-room. She +did not want the girls to know there was a picture. But still--a new +thought had begun to obtrude itself unwelcomely. Was painting Amelia's +portrait a breach, too, of the Compact? She had undertaken it as a +little "offering" to Mrs. Camp, to show her own individual gratitude for +her own share of the dear little green cottage all these beautiful +weeks--T.O. had said Mrs. Camp had longed for a picture. But the fact +that it had taken many patient hours of work "unto others," was not to +be overlooked. If it had broken the rules of the Wicked Compact, and she +went back to the B-Hive without letting the girls know of it--oh, hum! +of course that would be another "wicked compact"! She would have to let +them know--and she didn't want to let them know--oh, dear! + +Suddenly Laura Ann dropped her paints and gave herself up to laughter. +She had remembered that only T.O.--Thomasia O.--would be left now in the +B-Hive! For all the rest had broken the Compact. Thomasia O., living all +alone in the dear, shabby little rooms, presented a funny picture, for +of them all she was least fitted to live alone. Even Billy could do +better. + +"The rest of us will live together," laughed Laura Ann. "There's nothing +to prevent that, if we live outside the old B-Hive. We'll start a new +B-Hive! Poor Thomasia O.!" + +They would miss T.O. very much indeed--well, they could invite her in to +tea and keep her all night! In spite of the wicked old Compact, they +would keep together. "And we'll never," vowed Laura Ann for them all, +"sign any more nefarious bonds!" + +She hung the picture of Amelia on the wall when they were all away, and +then went away herself. She stayed away until nearly dark. Thomasia O. +went to meet her. + +"I knew it all the time," she said quietly, without preface of any kind. +"It's a perfect likeness." + +"You knew it?" said Laura Ann. + +"Yes, I was prowling 'round one day, to see what attics were like, and +I found Amelia. Only her hair and her eyes, then, but I knew her. I'm +so glad poor Mrs. Camp will have that picture to help her bear her +troubles!" + +[Illustration: THE PICTURE WAS NEARLY DONE.] + +"Poor"--"troubles." This was all enigma to Laura Ann. But she wisely +waited to be enlightened. She had divined the moment she saw T.O. that +the girl was unusually disturbed. This was true. + +"I've had two letters--the first one came three weeks ago from her +brother. I didn't want to spoil your good time, telling sad things, +so I kept it to myself--Laura Ann, that woman _mothered_ me!" + +Laura Ann stood still. "Do you mean Mrs. Camp? Is she--dead?" But the +other did not seem to hear. She ran on in a low, troubled voice. + +"She bathed my ankle, and said 'My dear,' and waited on me, when she'd +never set eyes on me in her life before. How did she know but that I was +an--an _impostor_? And she let us have her dear little house to live +in--" + +"Yes, yes--oh, yes, she let _me_ live in it!" Laura Ann interposed. +"You ought to have told us she was dead." + +"She isn't dead. She's fallen downstairs and broken her hip. The doctor +says it's so bad she won't ever walk again without crutches, her brother +wrote. He said he wanted her to stay and live with him, but she wouldn't +listen to it. She wanted to come home as soon as she possibly could. So +she's coming--he's coming with her, to 'start' her." + +T.O. fingered a letter in her hand in a nervous, undecided way, as if +she were half inclined to read it to the other girl. It was not Emmeline +Camp's brother's letter. It had come ten days ago, and she herself knew +it by heart. How many, many times she had read it! She had cried over +the wistful cry in it, and over Amelia's death--for the letter said that +Amelia was dead. + +"My dear," it said, "I've lost Amelia--you'd think she would have stood +by her mother in her trouble, wouldn't you? But she hasn't been near me +since. It seems queer--perhaps after people break their hips they can't +'feel' anything else but their hips! Perhaps it breaks their +imaginations. Anyway, Amelia's dead, my dear. Sometimes I think mebbe +I'd ought to be, too--a lone little woman like me, without a chick or a +child. Old women with children can afford to tumble downstairs, but not +my kind of old women. John is real good. He wants me to stay here, but I +can't--I can't, I can't, my dear! I've got to be where I can limp out to +the old pump and the gate and the orchard, on my crutches--I've got to +see the old hills I was born in, and Old '61 marching past the house, +and the old neighbors--I've got to die at _home_, my dear. So John +can't keep me. I wish I was going to find you there. I keep thinking how +beautiful it would be. You'd be out to the gate waiting, the way +people's daughters wait for them. And mebbe you'd have the kettle all +hot and we'd have a cup of tea together just as if I was the mother and +you was--Amelia! All the way home I should be thinking about your being +there. It's queer, isn't it, you went limping in that gate first, and +now it's me? A good many things are queer, and some are kind of +desolate. I've decided, my dear, that daughters have to be the kind that +are born, to stay by a body in trouble. They have to be made of flesh +and blood, my dear--and Amelia wasn't! + +"I've written this a little to a time, laying on my back. Mebbe you +won't ever read it. Mebbe I won't ever see you again, but you will +remember, my dear, that I've loved you ever since I took off your +stocking and saw your poor, sprained ankle. If the Lord would perform +a miracle for me, I'd ask for it to be the bringing of Amelia to life +and finding her you." + +T.O. did not show the letter to Laura Ann. She put it in her pocket +again, and they walked home slowly, talking of Mrs. Camp's sad accident. +At the supper table it was voted that they all write a joint letter of +sympathy to her, and express, at the same time, their united and +separate thanks for her kindness to them in lending them her home. + +Loraine wrote the letter, Laura Ann copied it, they all signed it. Into +cold pen-and-ink words they tried to diffuse warmth and gratitude and +sympathy, but the result was not very satisfying, as such results rarely +are. Still, it was all they could do. Billy and Laura Ann went off to +mail it. + +"Do you begin to feel lonesome?" laughed Loraine softly, as she and T.O. +sat on the steps in the dark. "Thinking of being left all alone in the +Hive, I mean? The rest of us begin to feel lonesome, thinking of being +left out! We had a grist of good times all together, didn't we? Remember +the little 'treats' when you always brought home olives, and Billy sage +cheese? Laura Ann used to change about--sometimes eclairs, sometimes +sauerkraut! Always sardines for me. Oh, _do_ you remember the treat +with a capital 'T,' when we had ice cream and angel cake? And Billy +wanted to divide the hole so as not to waste anything--there, I don't +believe you've heard a word I said!" + +She had not, for she was not there. Loraine put out her hand in the +darkness, but could not find her. She had slipped away unceremoniously. + +She was down in the road, walking fast and hard. The battle was on +again. + +"I thought I had it all decided--I _did_ have! Why do I have to +decide it over again?" she was saying stormily to herself. "I said I'd +do it, and I'm going to do it--what am I down here fighting in the dark +for?" But still she fought on. + +It was so still about her, and with all her girl's heart she longed for +noise again--car-bells and rattling wheels and din of men's voices. +There were such wide spaces all about, and she longed for narrow +spaces--for rows on rows of houses and people coming and going. It was +the city-blood in her asserting itself. She had had her breath of space +and freedom and green, growing things, and exulted in it while it +lasted. Now she pined for her native streets. But all the sympathy and +gratitude in her went out to the little old woman who was coming home to +a lonely home--whose one dream-child was dead. + +No one had ever really needed her before--to be needed appealed to her +strongly. And in the short time between her own coming to Placid Pond +and the coming of the other girls, a bond of real affection had been +established between Mrs. Camp and herself. + +But hadn't she been over all this before? Long ago she had decided what +to do. Now, suddenly, she wheeled in the dark road and went hurrying in +the other direction. She would go back to Loraine on the doorstep, and +laugh and talk. She had decided "for good." + +The stars came trooping out, and she lifted her face to them with a new +sense of peace. They were such friendly, twinkling little stars. + +T.O. was humming a lilty little tune when she came up the path in the +starlight and joined Loraine again on the doorstep. + +The other two girls were coming slowly back from the little country post +office, both to hurry and have the pleasant walk over. Billy had been +saying nice things about the portrait of Amelia they had found hanging +on the wall. + +"It's a dear!" she said heartily. "I wish I could make a picture like +that." + +"You've made one a thousand times better!" cried Laura Ann. "I saw it +this afternoon." + +"_Me_--make a picture?" Billy's voice was incredulous. "I couldn't +draw my breath straight!" + +"It was a beautiful one. I stood still and looked at it. Your background +was fine, dear--woods banked against a late afternoon sky, with bits of +red light straggling through the branches, a little box of a house in +the foreground, with patches of new shingles on the 'cover'; a crooked +little front path, a funny little well, a little rosebush all a flame of +color--" + +"Mercy!" Billy's little triangle of a face put on alarm. Was Laura Ann +losing her mind? + +"But that--all that--was only the setting. The heart of the picture, +dear, was an old man marching up and down the path--did I say it was a +moving picture? He was whistling a tune in a wheezy way, and keeping +step to it grandly. Once he seemed to lose a few notes; then he went +into a little box of a house, and I heard an organ--" + +"Oh!" breathed Billy, assured of the other's sanity, "you mean Old '61 +practicing! That's the way he does--he's learning to march through +Georgia without the organ, but he misses a step or two sometimes. +_That_ was the picture, was it?" + +"It was a beautiful one," Laura Ann said softly. "You needn't tell me +you can't paint, Billy! That's the kind of pictures we shall find +hanging in the Great Picture Gallery." + +They walked on for a little in silence, with only the piping chorus of +the little night creatures in their ears. The sweet, cool damp was in +their faces. + +"Here we are at Jane Cotton's Sam's," Billy whispered by and by, to +break the spell. She could not have told why she whispered. + +"So we are. Billy, look, he's studying like a trooper! That boy is going +to walk straight into college in September! Let's go straight home and +hug Loraine--come on! Take hold of my hand, and we'll run." + +"Wait--wait! Look, there's another of your pictures, Laura Ann!" Billy's +lips were close to the other's ear; Billy was pointing. Into the little +lighted room where Jane Cotton's Sam sat poring over a book, had come +another figure. As they looked, it stopped beside the boy and bent over +him. + +"That's just the setting--all that," Laura Ann murmured. "The heart of +the picture is her face, Billy!" For Jane Cotton's face was radiant. + + * * * * * + +The day at last came for their return to the city and to the work they +were so much better able to do. The little, green-painted house was in +spotless order to leave behind. As Mrs. Camp was to come the following +day, they had filled the little pantry with food--not remarkably light +cake or bread, not especially flaky piecrust, but everything flavored +with sympathy and gratitude and good will. + +"Go on, all of you; I'll catch up," Billy said, as they stood on the +steps with the door locked behind them. "When you get out of sight I'm +going to kiss the house good-by!" + +"T.O. had better stay behind with you, to kiss the pump!" Loraine said. +"Or we'll all stay--I guess we can all find something to kiss." + +"Did anybody think to take down the Wicked Compact?" demanded Laura Ann +suddenly. "It would be awful to leave that behind." + +They were at the gate. T.O. stopped suddenly, pointing. What they saw +was a tiny, tiny mound, rounded symmetrically. "There it lies--I buried +it," T.O. said briefly, but added, "And let no one keep its grave +green!" They looked at her a little curiously. Perhaps they were +thinking that it might have been appropriate for her to take it home +with her and hang it on the wall to keep her company in the lonely +little B-Hive. But they only laughed and tramped on cheerfully to the +station. They were a little late, and had to run the last of the way. +The train was already in, and they scrambled aboard. + +"Well, here we are leaving Eldorado!" sighed breathlessly Loraine. + +"And all of us heart-broken but T.O.--girls, where's T.O.?" + +She was not there. The train was getting under way. In a flurry they +huddled to the windows. + +"Good-by! Good-by!" shouted a gay voice from the platform. A little +white envelope flew in at one of the open windows. T.O., quite calm +and unexcited, stood out there waving to them. + +"What in the world!" ejaculated Laura Ann, then stopped. For she alone +could see a little ray of light. "Read the letter," she said more +quietly. "The letter will tell us." + +They all read it together, their heads bunched closely. + +"Dear girls, I'm going to stay. I never was needed before, but I guess +I am now. And maybe you'll think it's funny, but I'm _wanted_! An +imaginary daughter can't wait on a poor little cripple--it takes the +flesh-and-blood kind. I found out she wanted me, and so I'm going to +stay. It would have been lonesome, anyway, all alone in the Hive! +I bequeath all my rights to you--" + +"As if she had any now, any more than the rest of us!" muttered Billy +fiercely, her eyes full of tears. + +"Sometimes when you're going and coming, some o' you listen to the +car-wires sing, for me, and the wheels rattle," the letter went on. +"Bump into somebody sometime for me! Good-by. You're all of you dears. + +"Amelia." + +At the signature they choked a little, and looked away at the flying +landscape without seeing it at all. Laura Ann saw another picture--a +girl waiting at a little gate. Woods and dusty road and humble little +homes for background, and an old stage rattling into view in the +foreground. She saw it stop--in the picture--and a helpless little old +figure be taken out. She saw the girl at the gate spring forward and +hold out her hands. But the heart of the picture was the face of the +little old woman on crutches. It was another picture for the Grand +Gallery. + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Four Girls and a Compact, by Annie Hamilton Donnell + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUR GIRLS AND A COMPACT *** + +This file should be named gcomp10.txt or gcomp10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, gcomp11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gcomp10a.txt + +Produced by Joel Erickson, David Garcia and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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