Laddie, A True Blue Story

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To
LEANDER ELLIOT STRATTON
"The Way to Be Happy Is to Be Good"

  

LADDIE, Who Loved and Asked No Questions.
THE PRINCESS, From the House of Mystery.
LEON, Our Angel Child.
LITTLE SISTER, Who Tells What Happened.
MR. and MRS. STANTON, Who Faced Life Shoulder to Shoulder.
SALLY and PETER, Who Married Each Other.
ELIZABETH, SHELLEY, MAY and Other Stanton Children.
MR. and MRS. PRYOR, Father and Mother of the Princess.
ROBERT PAGET, a Chicago Lawyer.
MRS. FRESHETT, Who Offered Her Life for Her Friend.
CANDACE, the Cook.
MISS AMELIA, the School Mistress.
Interested Relatives, Friends, and Neighbours.

CHAPTER I. Little Sister

  
            "And could another child-world be my share,
             I'd be a Little Sister there."

Have I got a Little Sister anywhere in this house?" inquired Laddie at the door, in his most coaxing voice.

"Yes sir," I answered, dropping the trousers I was making for Hezekiah, my pet bluejay, and running as fast as I could. There was no telling what minute May might take it into her head that she was a little sister and reach him first. Maybe he wanted me to do something for him, and I loved to wait on Laddie.

"Ask mother if you may go with me a while."

"Mother doesn't care where I am, if I come when the supper bell rings."

"All right!" said Laddie.

He led the way around the house, sat on the front step and took me between his knees.

"Oh, is it going to be a secret?" I cried.

Secrets with Laddie were the greatest joy in life. He was so big and so handsome. He was so much nicer than any one else in our family, or among our friends, that to share his secrets, run his errands, and love him blindly was the greatest happiness. Sometimes I disobeyed father and mother; I minded Laddie like his right hand.

"The biggest secret yet," he said gravely.

"Tell quick!" I begged, holding my ear to his lips.

"Not so fast!" said Laddie. "Not so fast! I have doubts about this. I don't know that I should send you. Possibly you can't find the way. You may be afraid. Above all, there is never to be a whisper. Not to any one! Do you understand?"

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Something serious," said Laddie. "You see, I expected to have an hour or two for myself this afternoon, so I made an engagement to spend the time with a Fairy Princess in our Big Woods. Father and I broke the reaper taking it from the shed just now and you know how he is about Fairies."

I did know how he was about Fairies. He hadn't a particle of patience with them. A Princess would be the Queen's daughter. My father's people were English, and I had heard enough talk to understand that. I was almost wild with excitement.

"Tell me the secret, hurry!" I cried.

"It's just this," he said. "It took me a long time to coax the Princess into our Big Woods. I had to fix a throne for her to sit on; spread a Magic Carpet for her feet, and build a wall to screen her. Now, what is she going to think if I'm not there to welcome her when she comes? She promised to show me how to make sunshine on dark days."

"Tell father and he can have Leon help him."

"But it is a secret with the Princess, and it's HERS as much as mine. If I tell, she may not like it, and then she won't make me her Prince and send me on her errands."

"Then you don't dare tell a breath," I said.

"Will you go in my place, and carry her a letter to explain why I'm not coming, Little Sister?"

"Of course!" I said stoutly, and then my heart turned right over; for I never had been in our Big Woods alone, and neither mother nor father wanted me to go. Passing Gypsies sometimes laid down the fence and went there to camp. Father thought all the wolves and wildcats were gone, he hadn't seen any in years, but every once in a while some one said they had, and he was not quite sure yet. And that wasn't the beginning of it. Paddy Ryan had come back from the war wrong in his head. He wore his old army overcoat summer and winter, slept on the ground, and ate whatever he could find. Once Laddie and Leon, hunting squirrels to make broth for mother on one of her bad days, saw him in our Big Woods and he was eating SNAKES. If I found Pat Ryan eating a snake, it

would frighten me so I would stand still and let him eat me, if he wanted to, and perhaps he wasn't too crazy to see how plump I was. I seemed to see swarthy, dark faces, big, sleek cats dropping from limbs, and Paddy Ryan's matted gray hair, the flying rags of the old blue coat, and a snake in his hands. Laddie was slipping the letter into my apron pocket. My knees threatened to let me down.

"Must I lift the leaves and hunt for her, or will she come to me?" I wavered.

"That's the biggest secret of all," said Laddie. "Since the Princess entered them, our woods are Enchanted, and there is no telling what wonderful things may happen any minute. One of them is this: whenever the Princess comes there, she grows in size until she is as big as, say our Sally, and she fills all the place with glory, until you are so blinded you scarcely can see her face."

"What is she like, Laddie?" I questioned, so filled with awe and interest, that fear was forgotten.

"She is taller than Sally," said Laddie. "Her face is oval, and her cheeks are bright. Her eyes are big moonlit pools of darkness, and silken curls fall over her shoulders. One hair is strong enough for a lifeline that will draw a drowning man ashore, or strangle an unhappy one. But you will not see her. I'm purposely sending you early, so you can do what you are told and come back to me before she even reaches the woods."

"What am I to do, Laddie?"

"You must put one hand in your apron pocket and take the letter in it, and as long as you hold it tight, nothing in the world can hurt you. Go out our lane to the Big Woods, climb the gate and walk straight back the wagon road to the water. When you reach that, you must turn to your right and go toward Hoods' until you come to the pawpaw thicket. Go around that, look ahead, and you'll see the biggest beech tree you ever saw. You know a beech, don't you?"

"Of course I do," I said indignantly. "Father taught me beech with the other trees."

"Well then," said Laddie, "straight before you will be a purple beech, and under it is the throne of the Princess, the Magic Carpet, and the walls I made. Among the beech roots there is a stone hidden with moss. Roll the stone back and there will be a piece of bark. Lift that, lay the letter in the box you'll find, and scamper to me like flying. I'll be at the barn with father."

"Is that all?"

"Not quite," said Laddie. "It's possible that the Fairy Queen may have set the Princess spinning silk for the caterpillars to weave their little houses with this winter; and if she has, she may have left a letter there to tell me. If there is one, put it in your pocket, hold it close every step of the way, and you'll be safe coming home as you were going. But you mustn't let a soul see it; you must slip it into my pocket when I'm not looking. If you let any one see, then the Magic will be spoiled, and the Fairy won't come again."

"No one shall see," I promised.

"I knew you could be trusted," said Laddie, kissing and hugging me hard. "Now go! If anything gets after you that such a big girl as you really wouldn't be ashamed to be afraid of, climb on a fence and call. I'll be listening, and I'll come flying. Now I must hurry. Father will think it's going to take me the remainder of the day to find the bolts he wants."

We went down the front walk between the rows of hollyhocks and tasselled lady-slippers, out the gate, and followed the road. Laddie held one of my hands tight, and in the other I gripped the letter in my pocket. So long as Laddie could see me, and the lane lay between open fields, I wasn't afraid. I was thinking so deeply about our woods being Enchanted, and a tiny Fairy growing big as our Sally, because she was in them, that I stepped out bravely.

Every few days I followed the lane as far back as the Big Gate. This stood where four fields cornered, and opened into the road leading to the woods. Beyond it, I had walked on Sunday afternoons with father while he taught me all the flowers, vines, and bushes he knew, only he didn't know some of the prettiest ones; I had to have books for them, and I was studying to learn enough that I could find out. Or I had ridden on the wagon with Laddie and Leon when they went to bring wood for the cookstove, outoven, and big fireplace. But to walk! To go all alone! Not that I didn't walk by myself over every other foot of the acres and acres of beautiful land my father owned; but plowed fields, grassy meadows, wood pasture, and the orchard were different. I played in them without a thought of fear.

The only things to be careful about were a little, shiny, slender snake, with a head as bright as mother's copper kettle, and a big thick one with patterns on its back like those in Laddie's geometry books, and a whole rattlebox on its tail; not to eat any berry or fruit I didn't know without first asking father; and always to be sure to measure how deep the water was before I waded in alone.

But our Big Woods! Leon said the wildcats would get me there. I sat in our catalpa and watched the Gypsies drive past every summer. Mother hated them as hard as ever she could hate any one, because once they had stolen some fine shirts, with linen bosoms, that she had made by hand for father, and was bleaching on the grass. If Gypsies should be in our west woods to-day and steal me, she would hate them worse than ever; because my mother loved me now, even if she didn't want me when I was born.

But you could excuse her for that. She had already bathed, spanked, sewed for, and reared eleven babies so big and strong not one of them ever even threatened to die. When you thought of that, you could see she wouldn't be likely to implore the Almighty to send her another, just to make her family even numbers. I never felt much hurt at her, but some of the others I never have forgiven and maybe I never will. As long as there had been eleven babies, they should have been so accustomed to children that they needn't all of them have objected to me, all except Laddie, of course. That was the reason I loved him so and tried to do every single thing he wanted me to, just the way he liked it done. That was why I was facing the only spot on our land where I was in the slightest afraid; because he asked me to.

If he had told me to dance a jig on the ridgepole of our barn, I would have tried it.

So I clasped the note, set my teeth, and climbed over the gate. I walked fast and kept my eyes straight before me. If I looked on either side, sure as life I would see something I never had before, and be down digging up a strange flower, chasing a butterfly, or watching a bird. Besides, if I didn't look in the fence corners that I passed, maybe I wouldn't see anything to scare me. I was going along finely, and feeling better every minute as I went down the bank of an old creek that had gone dry, and started up the other side toward the sugar camp not far from the Big Woods. The bed was full of weeds and as I passed through, away! went Something among them.

Beside the camp shed there was corded wood, and the first thing I knew, I was on top of it. The next, my hand was on the note in my pocket. My heart jumped until I could see my apron move, and my throat went all stiff and dry. I gripped the note and waited.

Father believed God would take care of him. I was only a little girl and needed help much more than a man; maybe God would take care of me. There was nothing wrong in carrying a letter to the Fairy Princess. I thought perhaps it would help if I should kneel on the top of the woodpile and ask God to not let anything get me.

The more I thought about it, the less I felt like doing it, though, because really you have no business to ask God to take care of you, unless you KNOW you are doing right. This was right, but in my heart I also knew that if Laddie had asked me, I would be shivering on top of that cordwood on a hot August day, when it was wrong. On the whole, I thought it would be more honest to leave God out of it, and take the risk myself. That made me think of the Crusaders, and the little gold trinket in father's chest till. There were four shells on it and each one stood for a trip on foot or horseback to the Holy City when you had to fight almost every step of the way. Those shells meant that my father's people had gone four times, so he said; that, although it was away far back, still each of us had a tiny share of the blood of the Crusaders in our veins, and that it would make us brave and strong, and whenever we were afraid, if we would think of them, we never could do a cowardly thing or let any one else do one before us. He said any one with Crusader blood had to be brave as Richard the Lion-hearted. Thinking about that helped ever so much, so I gripped the note and turned to take one last look at the house before I made a dash for the gate that led into the Big Woods.

Beyond our land lay the farm of Jacob Hood, and Mrs. Hood always teased me because Laddie had gone racing after her when I was born. She was in the middle of Monday's washing, and the bluing settled in the rinse water and stained her white clothes in streaks it took months to bleach out. I always liked Sarah Hood for coming and dressing me, though, because our Sally, who was big enough to have done it, was upstairs crying and wouldn't come down. I liked Laddie too, because he was the only one of our family who went to my mother and kissed her, said he was glad, and offered to help her. Maybe the reason he went was because he had an awful scare, but anyway he WENT, and that was enough for me.

You see it was this way: no one wanted me; as there had been eleven of us, every one felt that was enough. May was six years old and in school, and my mother thought there never would be any more babies. She had given away the cradle and divided the baby clothes among my big married sisters and brothers, and was having a fine time and enjoying herself the most she ever had in her life. The land was paid for long ago; the house she had planned, builded as she wanted it; she had a big team of matched grays and a carriage with side lamps and patent leather trimmings; and sometimes there was money in the bank. I do not know that there was very much, but any at all was a marvel, considering how many of us there were to feed, clothe, and send to college. Mother was forty-six and father was fifty; so they felt young enough yet to have a fine time and enjoy life, and just when things were going best, I announced that I was halfway over my journey to earth.

You can't blame my mother so much. She must have been tired of babies and disliked to go back and begin all over after resting six years. And you mustn't be too hard on my father if he was not just overjoyed. He felt sure the cook would leave, and she did. He knew Sally would object to a baby, when she wanted to begin having beaus, so he and mother talked it over and sent her away for a long visit to Ohio with father's people, and never told her. They intended to leave her there until I was over the colic, at least. They knew the big married brothers and sisters would object, and they did. They said it would be embarrassing for their children to be the nieces and nephews of an aunt or uncle younger than themselves. They said it so often and so emphatically that father was provoked and mother cried. Shelley didn't like it because she was going to school in Groveville, where Lucy, one of our married sisters, lived, and she was afraid I would make so much work she would have to give up her books and friends and remain at home. There never was a baby born who was any less wanted than I was. I knew as much about it as any one else, because from the day I could understand, all of them, father, mother, Shelley, Sarah Hood, every one who knew, took turns telling me how badly I was not wanted, how much trouble I made, and how Laddie was the only one who loved me at first. Because of that I was on the cordwood trying to find courage to go farther. Over and over Laddie had told me himself. He had been to visit our big sister Elizabeth over Sunday and about eight o'clock Monday morning he came riding down the road, and saw the most dreadful thing. There was not a curl of smoke from the chimneys, not a tablecloth or pillowslip on the line, not a blind raised. Laddie said his heart went--just like mine did when the Something jumped in the creek bed, no doubt. Then he laid on the whip and rode.

He flung the rein over the hitching post, leaped the fence and reached the back door. The young green girl, who was all father could get when the cook left, was crying. So were Shelley and little May, although she said afterward she had a boil on her heel and there was no one to poultice it. Laddie leaned against the door casing, and it is easy enough to understand what he thought. He told me he had to try twice before he could speak, and then he could only ask: "What's the matter?"

Probably May never thought she would have the chance, but the others were so busy crying harder, now that they had an audience, that she was first to tell him: "We have got a little sister."

"Great Day!" cried Laddie. "You made me think we had a funeral! Where is mother, and where is my Little Sister?"

He went bolting right into mother's room and kissed her like the gladdest boy alive; because he was only a boy then, and he told her how happy he was that she was safe, and then he ASKED for me.

He said I was the only living creature in that house who was not shedding tears, and I didn't begin for about six months afterward. In fact, not until Shelley taught me by pinching me if she had to rock the cradle; then I would cry so hard mother would have to take me. He said he didn't believe I'd ever have learned by myself.

He took a pillow from the bed, fixed it in the rocking chair and laid me on it. When he found that father was hitching the horses to send Leon for Doctor Fenner, Laddie rode back after Sarah Hood and spoiled her washing. It may be that the interest he always took in me had its beginning in all of them scaring him with their weeping; even Sally, whom father had to telegraph to come home, was upstairs crying, and she was almost a woman. It may be that all the tears they shed over not wanting me so scared Laddie that he went farther in his welcome than he ever would have thought of going if he hadn't done it for joy when he learned his mother was safe. I don't care about the reason. It is enough for me that from the hour of my birth Laddie named me Little Sister, seldom called me anything else, and cared for me all he possibly could to rest mother. He took me to the fields with him in the morning and brought me back on the horse before him at noon. He could plow with me riding the horse, drive a reaper with me on his knees, and hoe corn while I slept on his coat in a fence corner. The winters he was away at college left me lonely, and when he came back for a vacation I was too happy for words. Maybe it was wrong to love him most. I knew my mother cared for and wanted me now. And all my secrets were not with Laddie. I had one with father that I was never to tell so long as he lived, but it was about the one he loved best, next after mother. Perhaps I should never tell it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the family knew. I followed Laddie like a faithful dog, when I was not gripping his waving hair and riding in triumph on his shoulders. He never had to go so fast he couldn't take me on his back. He never was in too big a hurry to be kind. He always had patience to explain every shell, leaf, bird, and flower I asked about. I was just as much his when pretty young girls were around, and the house full of company, as when we were alone. That was the reason I was shivering on the cordwood, gripping his letter and thinking of all these things in order to force myself to go farther.

I was excited about the Fairies too. I often had close chances of seeing them, but I always just missed. Now here was Laddie writing letters and expecting answers; our Big Woods Enchanted, a Magic Carpet and the Queen's daughter becoming our size so she could speak with him. No doubt the Queen had her grow big as Shelley, when she sent her on an errand to tell Laddie about how to make sunshine; because she was afraid if she went her real size he would accidentally step on her, he was so dreadfully big.

Or maybe her voice was so fine he could not hear what she said. He had told me I was to hurry, and I had gone as fast as I could until Something jumped; since, I had been settled on that cordwood like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. I had to get down some time; I might as well start.

I gripped the letter, slid to the ground, and ran toward the big gate straight before me. I climbed it, clutched the note again, and ran blindly down the road through the forest toward the creek. I could hurry there. On either side of it I could not have run ten steps at a time. The big trees reached so high above me it seemed as if they would push through the floor of Heaven. I tried to shut my ears and run so fast I couldn't hear a sound, and so going, I soon came to the creek bank. There I turned to my right and went slower, watching for the pawpaw thicket. On leaving the road I thought I would have to crawl over logs and make my way; but there seemed to be kind of a path not very plain, but travelled enough to follow. It led straight to the thicket. At the edge I stopped to look for the beech. It could be reached in one breathless dash, but there seemed to be a green enclosure, so I walked around until I found an entrance. Once there I was so amazed I stood and stared. I was half indignant too.

Laddie hadn't done a thing but make an exact copy of my playhouse under the biggest maiden's-blush in our orchard. He used the immense beech for one corner, where I had the apple tree. His Magic Carpet was woolly-dog moss, and all the magic about it, was that on the damp woods floor, in the deep shade, the moss had taken root and was growing as if it always had been there. He had been able to cut and stick much larger willow sprouts for his walls than I could, and in the wet black mould they didn't look as if they ever had wilted. They were so fresh and green, no doubt they had taken root and were growing. Where I had a low bench under my tree, he had used a log; but he had hewed the top flat, and made a moss cover. In each corner he had set a fern as high as my head. On either side of the entrance he had planted a cluster of cardinal flower that was in full bloom, and around the walls in a few places thrifty bunches of Oswego tea and foxfire, that I would have walked miles to secure for my wild garden under the Bartlett pear tree. It was so beautiful it took my breath away.

"If the Queen's daughter doesn't like this," I said softly, "she'll have to go to Heaven before she finds anything better, for there can't be another place on earth so pretty."

It was wonderful how the sound of my own voice gave me courage, even if it did seem a little strange. So I hurried to the beech, knelt and slipped the letter in the box, and put back the bark and stone. Laddie had said that nothing could hurt me while I had the letter, so my protection was gone as soon as it left my hands.

There was nothing but my feet to save me now. I thanked goodness I was a fine runner, and started for the pawpaw thicket. Once there, I paused only one minute to see whether the way to the stream was clear, and while standing tense and gazing, I heard something. For an instant it was every bit as bad as at the dry creek. Then I realized that this was a soft voice singing, and I forgot everything else in a glow of delight. The Princess was coming!

Never in all my life was I so surprised, and astonished, and bewildered. She was even larger than our Sally; her dress was pale green, like I thought a Fairy's should be; her eyes were deep and dark as Laddie had said, her hair hung from a part in the middle of her forehead over her shoulders, and if she had been in the sun, it would have gleamed like a blackbird's wing. She was just as Laddie said she would be; she was so much more beautiful than you would suppose any woman could be, I stood there dumbly staring. I wouldn't have asked for any one more perfectly beautiful or more like Laddie had said the Princess would be; but she was no more the daughter of the Fairy Queen than I was. She was not any more of a Princess. If father ever would tell all about the little bauble he kept in the till of his big chest, maybe she was not as near! She was no one on earth but one of those new English people who had moved on the land that cornered with ours on the northwest. She had ridden over the roads, and been at our meeting house. There could be no mistake.

And neither father nor mother would want her on our place. They didn't like her family at all. Mother called them the neighbourhood mystery, and father spoke of them as the Infidels. They had dropped from nowhere, mother said, bought that splendid big farm, moved on and shut out every one. Before any one knew people were shut out, mother, dressed in her finest, with Laddie driving, went in the carriage, all shining, to make friends with them. This very girl opened the door and said that her mother was "indisposed," and could not see callers. "In-dis-posed!" That's a good word that fills your mouth, but our mother didn't like having it used to her. She said the "saucy chit" was insulting. Then the man came, and he said he was very sorry, but his wife would see no one. He did invite mother in, but she wouldn't go. She told us she could see past him into the house and there was such finery as never in all her days had she laid eyes on. She said he was mannerly as could be, but he had the coldest, severest face she ever saw.

They had two men and a woman servant, and no one could coax a word from them, about why those people acted as they did. They said 'orse, and 'ouse, and Hengland. They talked so funny you couldn't have understood them anyway. They never plowed or put in a crop. They made everything into a meadow and had more horses, cattle, and sheep than a county fair, and everything you ever knew with feathers, even peacocks. We could hear them scream whenever it was going to rain. Father said they sounded heathenish. I rather liked them. The man had stacks of money or they couldn't have lived the way they did. He came to our house twice on business: once to see about road laws, and again about tax rates. Father was mightily pleased at first, because Mr. Pryor seemed to have books, and to know everything, and father thought it would be fine to be neighbours. But the minute Mr. Pryor finished business he began to argue that every single thing father and mother believed was wrong. He said right out in plain English that God was a myth. Father told him pretty quickly that no man could say that in his house; so he left suddenly and had not been back since, and father didn't want him ever to come again.

Then their neighbours often saw the woman around the house and garden. She looked and acted quite as well as any one, so probably she was not half so sick as my mother, who had nursed three of us through typhoid fever, and then had it herself when she was all tired out. She wouldn't let a soul know she had a pain until she dropped over and couldn't take another step, and father or Laddie carried her to bed. But she went everywhere, saw all her friends, and did more good from her bed than any other woman in our neighbourhood could on her feet. So we thought mighty little of those Pryor people.

Every one said the girl was pretty. Then her clothes drove the other women crazy. Some of our neighbourhood came from far down east, like my mother. Our people back a little were from over the sea, and they knew how things should be, to be right. Many of the others were from Kentucky and Virginia, and they were well dressed, proud, handsome women; none better looking anywhere. They followed the fashions and spent much time and money on their clothes. When it was Quarterly Meeting or the Bishop dedicated the church or they went to town on court days, you should have seen them--until Pryors came. Then something new happened, and not a woman in our neighbourhood liked it. Pamela Pryor didn't follow the fashions. She set them. If every other woman made long tight sleeves to their wrists, she let hers flow to the elbow and filled them with silk lining, ruffled with lace. If they wore high neckbands, she had none, and used a flat lace collar. If they cut their waists straight around and gathered their skirts on six yards full, she ran hers down to a little point front and back, that made her look slenderer, and put only half as much goods in her skirt. Maybe Laddie rode as well as she could; he couldn't manage a horse any better, and aside from him there wasn't a man we knew who would have tried to ride some of the animals she did.

If she ever worked a stroke, no one knew it. All day long she sat in the parlour, the very best one, every day; or on benches under the trees with embroidery frames or books, some of them fearful, big, difficult looking ones, or rode over the country. She rode in sunshine and she rode in storm, until you would think she couldn't see her way through her tangled black hair. She rode through snow and in pouring rain, when she could have stayed out of it, if she had wanted to. She didn't seem to be afraid of anything on earth or in Heaven. Every one thought she was like her father and didn't believe there was any God; so when she came among us at church or any public gathering, as she sometimes did, people were in no hurry to be friendly, while she looked straight ahead and never spoke until she was spoken to, and then she was precise and cold, I tell you.

Men took off their hats, got out of the road when she came pounding along, and stared after her like "be-addled mummies," my mother said. But that was all she, or any one else, could say. The young fellows were wild about her, and if they tried to sidle up to her in the hope that they might lead her horse or get to hold her foot when she mounted, they always saw when they reached her, that she wasn't there.

But she was here! I had seen her only a few times, but this was the Pryor girl, just as sure as I would have known if it had been Sally. What dazed me was that she answered in every particular the description Laddie had given me of the Queen's daughter. And worst of all, from the day she first came among us, moving so proud and cold, blabbing old Hannah Dover said she carried herself like a Princess--as if Hannah Dover knew HOW a Princess carried herself!--every living soul, my father even, had called her the Princess. At first it was because she was like they thought a Princess would be, but later they did it in meanness, to make fun. After they knew her name, they were used to calling her the Princess, so they kept it up, but some of them were secretly proud of her; because she could look, and do, and be what they would have given anything to, and knew they couldn't to save them.

I was never in such a fix in all my life. She looked more as Laddie had said the Princess would than you would have thought any woman could, but she was Pamela Pryor, nevertheless. Every one called her the Princess, but she couldn't make reality out of that. She just couldn't be the Fairy Queen's daughter; so the letter couldn't possibly be for her.

She had no business in our woods; you could see that they had plenty of their own. She went straight to the door of the willow room and walked in as if she belonged there. What if she found the hollow and took Laddie's letter! Fast as I could slip over the leaves, I went back. She was on the moss carpet, on her knees, and the letter was in her fingers. It's a good thing to have your manners soundly thrashed into you. You've got to be scared stiff before you forget them. I wasn't so afraid of her as I would have been if I had known she WAS the princess, and have Laddies letter, she should not. What had the kind of girl she was, from a home like hers, to teach any one from our house about making sunshine? I was at the willow wall by that time peering through, so I just parted it a little and said: "Please put back that letter where you got it. It isn't for you."

She knelt on the mosses, the letter in her hand, and her face, as she turned to me, was rather startled; but when she saw me she laughed, and said in the sweetest voice I ever heard: "Are you so very sure of that?"

"Well I ought to be," I said. "I put it there."

"Might I inquire for whom you put it there?"

"No ma'am! That's a secret."

You should have seen the light flame in her eyes, the red deepen on her cheeks, and the little curl of laughter that curved her lips.

"How interesting!" she cried. "I wonder now if you are not Little Sister."

"I am to Laddie and our folks," I said. "You are a stranger."

All the dancing lights went from her face. She looked as if she were going to cry unless she hurried up and swallowed it down hard and fast.

"That is quite true," she said. "I am a stranger. Do you know that being a stranger is the hardest thing that can happen to any one in all this world?"

"Then why don't you open your doors, invite your neighbours in, go to see them, and stop your father from saying such dreadful things?"

"They are not my doors," she said, "and could you keep your father from saying anything he chooses?"

I stood and blinked at her. Of course I wouldn't even dare try that.

"I'm so sorry," was all I could think to say.

I couldn't ask her to come to our house. I knew no one wanted her. But if I couldn't speak for the others, surely I might for myself. I let go the willows and went to the door. The Princess arose and sat on the seat Laddie had made for the Queen's daughter. It was an awful pity to tell her she shouldn't sit there, for I had my doubts if the real, true Princess would be half as lovely when she came--if she ever did. Some way the Princess, who was not a Princess, appeared so real, I couldn't keep from becoming confused and forgetting that she was only just Pamela Pryor. Already the lovely lights had gone from her face until it made me so sad I wanted to cry, and I was no easy cry- baby either. If I couldn't offer friendship for my family I would for myself.

"You may call me Little Sister, if you like," I said. "I won't be a stranger."

"Why how lovely!" cried the Princess.

You should have seen the dancing lights fly back to her eyes. Probably you won't believe this, but the first thing I knew I was beside her on the throne, her arm was around me, and it's the gospel truth that she hugged me tight. I just had sense enough to reach over and pick Laddie's letter from her fingers, and then I was on her side. I don't know what she did to me, but all at once I knew that she was dreadfully lonely; that she hated being a stranger; that she was sorry enough to cry because their house was one of mystery, and that she would open the door if she could.

"I like you," I said, reaching up to touch her curls.

I never had seen her that I did not want to. They were like I thought they would be. Father and Laddie and some of us had wavy hair, but hers was crisp--and it clung to your fingers, and wrapped around them and seemed to tug at your heart like it does when a baby grips you. I drew away my hand, and the hair stretched out until it was long as any of ours, and then curled up again, and you could see that no tins had stabbed into her head to make those curls. I began trying to single out one hair.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I want to know if only one hair is strong enough to draw a drowning man from the water or strangle an unhappy one," I said.

"Believe me, no!" cried the Princess. "It would take all I have, woven into a rope, to do that."

"Laddie knows curls that just one hair of them is strong enough," I boasted.

"I wonder now!" said the Princess. "I think he must have been making poetry or telling Fairy tales."

"He was telling the truth," I assured her. "Father doesn't believe in Fairies, and mother laughs, but Laddie and I know. Do you believe in Fairies?"

"Of course I do!" she said.

"Then you know that this COULD be an Enchanted Wood?"

"I have found it so," said the Princess.

"And MAYBE this is a Magic Carpet?"

"It surely is a Magic Carpet."

"And you might be the daughter of the Queen? Your eyes are `moonlit pools of darkness.' If only your hair were stronger, and you knew about making sunshine!"

"Maybe it is stronger than I think. It never has been tested. Perhaps I do know about making sunshine. Possibly I am as true as the wood and the carpet."

I drew away and stared at her. The longer I looked the more uncertain I became. Maybe her mother was the Queen. Perhaps that was the mystery. It might be the reason she didn't want the people to see her. Maybe she was so busy making sunshine for the Princess to bring to Laddie that she had no time to sew carpet rags, and to go to quiltings, and funerals, and make visits. It was hard to know what to think.

"I wish you'd tell me plain out if you are the Queen's daughter," I said. "It's most important. You can't have this letter unless I KNOW. It's the very first time Laddie ever trusted me with a letter, and I just can't give it to the wrong person."

"Then why don't you leave it where he told you?"

"But you have gone and found the place. You started to take it once; you would again, soon as I left."

"Look me straight in the eyes, Little Sister," said the Princess softly. "Am I like a person who would take anything that didn't belong to her?"

"No!" I said instantly.

"How do you think I happened to come to this place?"

"Maybe our woods are prettier than yours."

"How do you think I knew where the letter was?"

I shook my head.

"If I show you some others exactly like the one you have there, then will you believe that is for me?"

"Yes," I answered.

I believed it anyway. It just SEEMED so, the better you knew her. The Princess slipped her hand among the folds of the trailing pale green skirt, and from a hidden pocket drew other letters exactly like the one I held. She opened one and ran her finger along the top line and I read, "To the Princess," and then she pointed to the ending and it was merely signed, "Laddie," but all the words written between were his writing. Slowly I handed her the letter.

"You don't want me to have it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "I want you to have it if Laddie wrote it for you--but mother and father won't, not at all."

"What makes you think so?" she asked gently.

"Don't you know what people say about you?"

"Some of it, perhaps."

"Well?"

"Do you think it is true?"

"Not that you're stuck up, and hateful and proud, not that you don't want to be neighbourly with other people, no, I don't think that. But your father said in our home that there was no God, and you wouldn't let my mother in when she put on her best dress and went in the carriage, and wanted to be friends. I have to believe that."

"Yes, you can't help believing that," said the Princess.

"Then can't you see why you'll be likely to show Laddie the way to find trouble, instead of sunshine?"

"I can see," said the Princess.

"Oh Princess, you won't do it, will you?" I cried.

"Don't you think such a big man as Laddie can take care of himself?" she asked, and the dancing lights that had begun to fade came back. "Over there," she pointed through our woods toward the southwest, "lives a man you know. What do his neighbours call him?"

"Stiff-necked Johnny," I answered promptly.

"And the man who lives next him?"

"Pinch-fist Williams."

Her finger veered to another neighbour's.

"The girls of that house?"

"Giggle-head Smithsons."

"What about the man who lives over there?"

"He beats his wife."

"And the house beyond?"

"Mother whispers about them. I don't know."

"And the woman on the hill?"

"She doesn't do anything but gussip and make every one trouble."

"Exactly!" said the Princess. "Yet most of these people come to your house, and your family goes to theirs. Do you suppose people they know nothing about are so much worse than these others?"

"If your father will take it back about God, and your mother will let people in--my mother and father both wanted to be friends, you know."

"That I can't possibly do," she said, "but maybe I could change their feelings toward me."

"Do it!" I cried. "Oh, I'd just love you to do it! I wish you would come to our house and be friends. Sally is pretty as you are, only a different way, and I know she'd like you, and so would Shelley. If Laddie writes you letters and comes here about sunshine, of course he'd be delighted if mother knew you; because she loves him best of any of us. She depends on him most as much as father."

"Then will you keep the secret until I have time to try--say until this time next year?"

"I'll keep it just as long as Laddie wants me to."

"Good!" said the Princess. "No wonder Laddie thinks you the finest Little Sister any one ever had."

"Does Laddie think that?" I asked

"He does indeed!" said the Princess.

"Then I'm not afraid to go home," I said. "And I'll bring his letter the next time he can't come."

"Were you scared this time?"

I told her about that Something in the dry bed, the wolves, wildcats, Paddy Ryan, and the Gypsies.

"You little goosie," said the Princess. "I am afraid that brother Leon of yours is the biggest rogue loose in this part of the country. Didn't it ever occur to you that people named Wolfe live over there, and they call that crowd next us `wildcats,' because they just went on some land and took it, and began living there without any more permission than real wildcats ask to enter the woods? Do you suppose I would be here, and everywhere else I want to go, if there were any danger? Did anything really harm you coming?"

"You're harmed when you're scared until you can't breathe," I said. "Anyway, nothing could get me coming, because I held the letter tight in my hand, like Laddie said. If you'd write me one to take back, I'd be safe going home."

"I see," said the Princess. "But I've no pencil, and no paper, unless I use the back of one of Laddie's letters, and that wouldn't be polite."

"You can make new fashions," I said, "but you don't know much about the woods, do you? I could fix fifty ways to send a message to Laddie."

"How would you?" asked the Princess.

Running to the pawpaw bushes I pulled some big tender leaves. Then I took the bark from the box and laid a leaf on it.

"Press with one of your rings," I said, "and print what you want to say. I write to the Fairies every day that way, only I use an old knife handle."

She tried. She spoiled two or three by bearing down so hard she cut the leaves. She didn't even know enough to write on the frosty side, until she was told. But pretty soon she got along so well she printed all over two big ones. Then I took a stick and punched little holes and stuck a piece of foxfire bloom through.

"What makes you do that?" she asked.

"That's the stamp," I explained.

"But it's my letter, and I didn't put it there."

"Has to be there or the Fairies won't like it," I said.

"Well then, let it go," said the Princess.

I put back the bark and replaced the stone, gathered up the scattered leaves, and put the two with writing on between fresh ones.

"Now I must run," I said, "or Laddie will think the Gypsies have got me sure."

"I'll go with you past the dry creek," she offered.

"You better not," I said. "I'd love to have you, but it would be best for you to change their opinion, before father or mother sees you on their land."

"Perhaps it would," said the Princess. "I'll wait here until you reach the fence and then you call and I'll know you are in the open and feel comfortable."

"I am most all over being afraid now," I told her.

Just to show her, I walked to the creek, climbed the gate and went down the lane. Almost to the road I began wondering what I could do with the letter, when looking ahead I saw Laddie coming.

"I was just starting to find you. You've been an age, child," he said.

I held up the letter.

"No one is looking," I said, "and this won't go in your pocket."

You should have seen his face.

"Where did you get it?" he asked.

I told him all about it. I told him everything--about the hair that maybe was stronger than she thought, and that she was going to change father's and mother's opinions, and that I put the red flower on, but she left it; and when I was done Laddie almost hugged the life out of me. I never did see him so happy.

"If you be very, very careful never to breathe a whisper, I'll take you with me some day," he promised.

CHAPTER II. Our Angel Boy

  
            "I had a brother once--a gracious boy,
             Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,
             Of sweet and quiet joy,--there was the look
             Of heaven upon his face."

It was supper time when we reached home, and Bobby was at the front gate to meet me. He always hunted me all over the place when the big bell in the yard rang at meal time, because if he crowed nicely when he was told, he was allowed to stand on the back of my chair and every little while I held up my plate and shared bites with him. I have seen many white bantams, but never another like Bobby. My big brothers bought him for me in Fort Wayne, and sent him in a box, alone on the cars. Father and I drove to Groveville to meet him. The minute father pried off the lid, Bobby hopped on the edge of the box and crowed--the biggest crow you ever heard from such a mite of a body; he wasn't in the least afraid of us and we were pleased about it. You scarcely could see his beady black eyes for his bushy topknot, his wing tips touched the ground, his tail had two beautiful plumy feathers much longer than the others, his feet were covered with feathers, and his knee tufts dragged. He was the sauciest, spunkiest little fellow, and white as muslin. We went to supper together, but no one asked where I had been, and because I was so bursting full of importance, I talked only to Bobby, in order to be safe.

After supper I finished Hezekiah's trousers, and May cut his coat for me. School would begin in September and our clothes were being made, so I used the scraps to dress him. His suit was done by the next forenoon, and father never laughed harder than when Hezekiah hopped down the walk to meet him dressed in pink trousers and coat. The coat had flowing sleeves like the Princess wore, so Hezekiah could fly, and he seemed to like them.

His suit was such a success I began a sunbonnet, and when that was tied on him, the folks almost had spasms. They said he wouldn't like being dressed; that he would fly away to punish me, but he did no such thing. He stayed around the house and was tame as ever.

When I became tired sewing that afternoon, I went down the lane leading to our meadow, where Leon was killing thistles with a grubbing hoe. I thought he would be glad to see me, and he was. Every one had been busy in the house, so I went to the cellar the outside way and ate all I wanted from the cupboard. Then I spread two big slices of bread the best I could with my fingers, putting apple butter on one, and mashed potatoes on the other. Leon leaned on the hoe and watched me coming. He was a hungry boy, and lonesome too, but he couldn't be forced to say so.

"Laddie is at work in the barn," he said.

"I'm going to play in the creek," I answered.

Crossing our meadow there was a stream that had grassy banks, big trees, willows, bushes and vines for shade, a solid pebbly bed; it was all turns and bends so that the water hurried until it bubbled and sang as it went; in it lived tiny fish coloured brightly as flowers, beside it ran killdeer, plover and solemn blue herons almost as tall as I was came from the river to fish; for a place to play on an August afternoon, it couldn't be beaten. The sheep had been put in the lower pasture; so the cross old Shropshire ram was not there to bother us.

"Come to the shade," I said to Leon, and when we were comfortably seated under a big maple weighted down with trailing grapevines, I offered the bread. Leon took a piece in each hand and began to eat as if he were starving. Laddie would have kissed me and said: "What a fine treat! Thank you, Little Sister."

Leon was different. He ate so greedily you had to know he was glad to get it, but he wouldn't say so, not if he never got any more. When you knew him, you understood he wouldn't forget it, and he'd be certain to do something nice for you before the day was over to pay back. We sat there talking about everything we saw, and at last Leon said with a grin: "Shelley isn't getting much grape sap is she?"

"I didn't know she wanted grape sap."

"She read about it in a paper. It said to cut the vine of a wild grape, catch the drippings and moisten your hair. This would make it glossy and grow faster."

"What on earth does Shelley want with more hair than she has?"

"Oh, she has heard it bragged on so much she thinks people would say more if she could improve it."

I looked and there was the vine, dry as could be, and a milk crock beneath it.

"Didn't the silly know she had to cut the vine in the spring when the sap was running?"

"Bear witness, O vine! that she did not," said Leon, "and speak, ye voiceless pottery, and testify that she expected to find you overflowing."

"Too bad that she's going to be disappointed."

"She isn't! She's going to find ample liquid to bathe her streaming tresses. Keep quiet and watch me."

He picked up the crock, carried it to the creek and dipped it full of water.

"That's too much," I objected. "She'll know she never got a crock full from a dry vine."

"She'll think the vine bled itself dry for her sake."

"She isn't that silly."

"Well then, how silly is she?" asked Leon, spilling out half. "About so?"

"Not so bad as that. Less yet!"

"Anything to please the ladies," said Leon, pouring out more. Then we sat and giggled a while.

"What are you going to do now?" asked Leon.

"Play in the creek," I answered.

"All right! I'll work near you."

He rolled his trousers above his knees and took the hoe, but he was in the water most of the time. We had to climb on the bank when we came to the deep curve, under the stump of the old oak that father cut because Pete Billings would climb it and yowl like a wildcat on cold winter nights. Pete was wrong in his head like Paddy Ryan, only worse. As we passed we heard the faintest sounds, so we lay and looked, and there in the dark place under the roots, where the water was deepest, huddled some of the cunningest little downy wild ducks you ever saw. We looked at each other and never said a word. Leon chased them out with the hoe and they swam down stream faster than old ones. I stood in the shallow water behind them and kept them from going back to the deep place, while Leon worked to catch them. Every time he got one he brought it to me, and I made a bag of my apron front to put them in. The supper bell rang before we caught all of them. We were dripping wet with creek water and perspiration, but we had the ducks, every one of them, and proudly started home. I'll wager Leon was sorry he didn't wear aprons so he could carry them. He did keep the last one in his hands, and held its little fluffy body against his cheeks every few minutes.

"Couldn't anything be prettier than a young duck."

"Except a little guinea," I said.

"That's so!" said Leon. "They are most as pretty as quail. I guess all young things that have down are about as cunning as they can be. I don't believe I know which I like best, myself."

"Baby killdeers."

"I mean tame. Things we raise."

"I'll take guineas."

"I'll say white turkeys. They seem so innocent. Nothing of ours is pretty as these."

"But these are wild."

"So they are," said Leon. "Twelve of them. Won't mother be pleased?"

She was not in the least. She said we were a sight to behold; that she was ashamed to be the mother of two children who didn't know tame ducks from wild ones. She remembered instantly that Amanda Deam had set a speckled Dorking hen on Mallard duck eggs, where she got the eggs, and what she paid for them. She said the ducks had found the creek that flowed beside Deams' barnyard before it entered our land, and they had swum away from the hen, and both the hen and Amanda would be frantic. She put the ducks into a basket and said to take them back soon as ever we got our suppers, and we must hurry because we had to bathe and learn our texts for Sunday-school in the morning.

We went through the orchard, down the hill and across the meadow until we came to the creek. By that time we were tired of the basket. It was one father had woven himself of shaved and soaked hickory strips, and it was heavy. The sight of water suggested the proper place for ducks, anyway. We talked it over and decided that they would be much more comfortable swimming than in the basket, and it was more fun to wade than to walk, so we went above the deep place, I stood in the creek to keep them from going down, and Leon poured them on the water. Pigs couldn't have acted more contrary. Those ducks LIKED us. They wouldn't go to Deams'. They just fought to swim back to us. Anyway, we had the worst time you ever saw. Leon cut long switches to herd them with, and both of us waded and tried to drive them, but they would dart under embankments and roots, and dive and hide.

Before we reached the Deams' I wished that we had carried them as mother told us, for we had lost three, and if we stopped to hunt them, more would hide. By the time we drove them under the floodgate crossing the creek between our land and the Deams' four were gone. Leon left me on the gate with both switches to keep them from going back and he ran to call Mrs. Deam. She had red hair and a hot temper, and we were not very anxious to see her, but we had to do it. While Leon was gone I was thinking pretty fast and I knew exactly how things would happen. First time mother saw Mrs. Deam she would ask her if the ducks were all right, and she would tell that four were gone. Mother would ask how many she had, and she would say twelve, then mother would remember that she started us with twelve in the basket--Oh what's the use! Something had to be done. It had to be done quickly too, for I could hear Amanda Deam, her boy Sammy and Leon coming across the barnyard. I looked around in despair, but when things are the very worst, there is almost always some way out.

On the dry straw worked between and pushing against the panels of the floodgate, not far from me, I saw a big black water snake. I took one good look at it: no coppery head, no geometry patterns, no rattlebox, so I knew it wasn't poisonous and wouldn't bite until it was hurt, and if it did, all you had to do was to suck the place, and it wouldn't amount to more than two little pricks as if pins had stuck you; but a big snake was a good excuse. I rolled from the floodgate among the ducks, and cried, "Snake!" They scattered everywhere. The snake lazily uncoiled and slid across the straw so slowly that--thank goodness! Amanda Deam got a fair look at it. She immediately began to jump up and down and scream. Leon grabbed a stick and came running to the water. I cried so he had to help me out first.

"Don't let her count them!" I whispered.

Leon gave me one swift look and all the mischief in his blue eyes peeped out. He was the funniest boy you ever knew, anyway. Mostly he looked scowly and abused. He had a grievance against everybody and everything. He said none of us liked him, and we imposed on him. Father said that if he tanned Leon's jacket for anything, and set him down to think it over, he would pout a while, then he would look thoughtful, suddenly his face would light up and he would go away sparkling; and you could depend upon it he would do the same thing over, or something worse, inside an hour. When he wanted to, he could smile the most winning smile, and he could coax you into anything. Mother said she dreaded to have to borrow a dime from him, if a peddler caught her without change, because she knew she'd be kept paying it back for the next six months. Right now he was the busiest kind of a boy.

"Where is it? Let me get a good lick at it! Don't scare the ducks!" he would cry, and chase them from one bank to the other, while Amanda danced and fought imaginary snakes. For a woman who had seen as many as she must have in her life, it was too funny. I don't think I could laugh harder, or Leon and Sammy. We enjoyed ourselves so much that at last she began to be angry. She quit dancing, and commenced hunting ducks, for sure. She held her skirts high, poked along the banks, jumped the creek and didn't always get clear across. Her hair shook down, she lost a sidecomb, and she couldn't find half the ducks.

"You younguns pack right out of here," she said. "Me and Sammy can get them better ourselves, and if we don't find all of them, we'll know where they are."

"We haven't got any of your ducks," I said angrily, but Leon smiled his most angelic smile, and it seemed as if he were going to cry.

"Of course, if you want to accuse mother of stealing your ducks, you can," he said plaintively, "but I should think you'd be ashamed to do it, after all the trouble we took to catch them before they swam to the river, where you never would have found one of them. Come on, Little Sister, let's go home."

He started and I followed. As soon as we got around the bend we sat on the bank, hung our feet in the water, leaned against each other and laughed. We just laughed ourselves almost sick. When Amanda's face got fire red, and her hair came down, and she jumped and didn't go quite over, she looked a perfect fright.

"Will she ever find all of them?" I asked at last.

"Of course," said Leon. "She will comb the grass and strain the water until she gets every one."

"Hoo-hoo!"

I looked at Leon. He was so intently watching an old turkey buzzard hanging in the air, he never heard the call that meant it was time for us to be home and cleaning up for Sunday. It was difficult to hurry, for after we had been soaped and scoured, we had to sit on the back steps and commit to memory verses from the Bible. At last we waded toward home. Two of the ducks we had lost swam before us all the way, so we knew they were alive, and all they needed was finding.

"If she hadn't accused mother of stealing her old ducks, I'd catch those and carry them back to her," said Leon. "But since she thinks we are so mean, I'll just let her and little Sammy find them."

Then we heard their voices as they came down the creek, so Leon reached me his hand and we scampered across the water and meadow, never stopping until we sat on the top rail of our back orchard fence. There we heard another call, but that was only two. We sat there, rested and looked at the green apples above our heads, wishing they were ripe, and talking about the ducks. We could see Mrs. Deam and Sammy coming down the creek, one on each side. We slid from the fence and ran into a queer hollow that was cut into the hill between the never-fail and the Baldwin apple trees.

That hollow was overgrown with weeds, and full of trimmings from trees, stumps, everything that no one wanted any place else in the orchard. It was the only unkept spot on our land, and I always wondered why father didn't clean it out and make it look respectable. I said so to Leon as we crouched there watching down the hill where Mrs. Deam and Sammy hunted ducks with not such very grand success. They seemed to have so many they couldn't decide whether to go back or go on, so they must have found most of them.

"You know I've always had my suspicions about this place," said Leon. "There is somewhere on our land that people can be hidden for a long time. I can remember well enough before the war ever so long, and while it was going worst, we would find the wagon covered with more mud in the morning than had been on it at night; and the horses would be splashed and tired. Once I was awake in the night and heard voices. It made me want a drink, so I went downstairs for it, and ran right into the biggest, blackest man who ever grew. If father and mother hadn't been there I'd have been scared into fits. Next morning he was gone and there wasn't a whisper. Father said I'd had bad dreams. That night the horses made another mysterious trip. Now where did they keep the black man all that day?"

"What did they have a black man for?"

"They were helping him run away from slavery to be free in Canada. It was all right. I'd have done the same thing. They helped a lot. Father was a friend of the Governor. There were letters from him, and there was some good reason why father stayed at home, when he was crazy about the war. I think this farm was what they called an Underground Station. What I want to know is where the station was."

"Maybe it's here. Let's hunt," I said. "If the black men were here some time, they would have to be fed, and this is not far from the house."

So we took long sticks and began poking into the weeds. Then we moved the brush, and sure as you live, we found an old door with a big stone against it. I looked at Leon and he looked at me.

"Hoo-hoo!" came mother's voice, and that was the third call.

"Hum! Must be for us," said Leon. "We better go as soon as we get a little dryer."

He slid down the bank on one side, and I on the other, and we pushed at the stone. I thought we never would get it rolled away so we could open the door a crack, but when we did what we saw was most surprising. There was a little room, dreadfully small. but a room. There was straw scattered over the floor, very deep on one side, where an old blanket showed that it had been a bed. Across the end there was a shelf. On it was a candlestick, with a half-burned candle in it, a pie pan with some mouldy crumbs, crusts, bones in it, and a tin can. Leon picked up the can and looked in. I could see too.

It had been used for water or coffee, as the plate had for food, once, but now it was stuffed full of money. I saw Leon pull some out and then shove it back, and he came to the door white as could be, shut it behind him and began to push at the stone. When we got it in place we put the brush over it, and fixed everything like it had been.

At last Leon said: "That's the time we got into something not intended for us, and if father finds it out, we are in for a good thrashing. Are you just a blubbering baby, or are you big enough to keep still?"

"I am old enough that I could have gone to school two years ago, and I won't tell!" I said stoutly.

"All right! Come on then," said Leon. "I don't know but mother has been calling us."

We started up the orchard path at the fourth call.

"Hoo-hoo!" answered Leon in a sick little voice to make it sound far away. Must have made mother think we were on Deams' hill. Then we went on side by side.

"Say Leon, you found the Station, didn't you?"

"Don't talk about it!" snapped Leon.

I changed the subject

"Whose money do you suppose that is?"

"Oh crackey! You can depend on a girl to see everything," groaned Leon. "Do you think you'll be able to stand the switching that job will bring you, without getting sick in bed?"

Now I never had been sick in bed, and from what I had seen of other people who were, I never wanted to be. The idea of being switched until it made me sick was too much for me. I shut my mouth tight and I never opened it about the Station place. As we reached the maiden's-blush apple tree came another call, and it sounded pretty cross, I can tell you. Leon reached his hand.

"Now, it's time to run. Let me do the talking."

We were out of breath when we reached the back door. There stood the tub on the kitchen floor, the boiler on the stove, soap, towels, and clean clothing on chairs. Leon had his turn at having his ears washed first, because he could bathe himself while mother did my hair.

"Was Mrs. Deam glad to get her ducks back?" she asked as she fine-combed Leon.

"Aw, you never can tell whether she's glad about anything or not," growled Leon. "You'd have thought from the way she acted, that we'd been trying to steal her ducks. She said if she missed any she'd know where to find them."

"Well as I live!" cried mother. "Why I wouldn't have believed that of Amanda Deam. You told her you thought they were wild, of course."

"I didn't have a chance to tell her anything. The minute the ducks struck the water they started right back down stream, and there was a big snake, and we had an awful time. We got wet trying to head them back, and then we didn't find all of them."

"They are like little eels. You should have helped Amanda."

"Well, you called so cross we thought you would come after us, so we had to run."

"One never knows," sighed mother. "I thought you were loitering.

Of course if I had known you were having trouble with the ducks! I think you had better go back and help them."

"Didn't I do enough to take them home? Can't Sammy Deam catch ducks as fast as I can?"

"I suppose so," said mother. "And I must get your bathing out of the way of supper. You use the tub while I do Little Sister's hair."

I almost hated Sunday, because of what had to be done to my hair on Saturday, to get ready for it. All week it hung in two long braids that were brushed and arranged each morning. But on Saturday it had to be combed with a fine comb, oiled and rolled around strips of tin until Sunday morning. Mother did everything thoroughly. She raked that fine comb over our scalps until she almost raised the blood. She hadn't time to fool with tangles, and we had so much hair she didn't know what to do with all of it, anyway. When she was busy talking she reached around too far and combed across our foreheads or raked the tip of an ear.

But on Sunday morning we forgot all that, when we walked down the aisle with shining curls hanging below our waists. Mother was using the fine comb, when she looked up, and there stood Mrs. Freshett. We could see at a glance that she was out of breath.

"Have I beat them?" she cried.

"Whom are you trying to beat?" asked mother as she told May to set a chair for Mrs. Freshett and bring her a drink.

"The grave-kiver men," she said. "I wanted to get to you first."

"Well, you have," said mother. "Rest a while and then tell me."

But Mrs. Freshett was so excited she couldn't rest.

"I thought they were coming straight on down," she said, "but they must have turned off at the cross roads. I want to do what's right by my children here or there," panted Mrs. Freshett, "and these men seemed to think the contrivance they was sellin' perfectly grand, an' like to be an aid to the soul's salvation. Nice as it seemed, an' convincin' as they talked, I couldn't get the consent of my mind to order, until I knowed if you was goin' to kiver your dead with the contraption. None of the rest of the neighbours seem over friendly to me, an' I've told Josiah many's the time, that I didn't care a rap if they wa'n't, so long as I had you. Says I, `Josiah, to my way of thinkin', she is top crust in this neighbourhood, and I'm on the safe side apin' her ways clost as possible.'"

"I'll gladly help you all I can," said my mother.

"Thanky!" said Mrs. Freshett. "I knowed you would. Josiah he says to me, `Don't you be apin' nobody.' `Josiah,' says I, `it takes a pretty smart woman in this world to realize what she doesn't know. Now I know what I know, well enough, but all I know is like to keep me an' my children in a log cabin an' on log cabin ways to the end of our time. You ain't even got the remains of the cabin you started in for a cow shed.' Says I, `Josiah, Miss Stanton knows how to get out of a cabin an' into a grand big palace, fit fur a queen woman. She's a ridin' in a shinin' kerridge, 'stid of a spring wagon. She goes abroad dressed so's you men all stand starin' like cabbage heads. All hern go to church, an' Sunday-school, an' college, an' come out on the top of the heap. She does jest what I'd like to if I knowed how. An' she ain't come-uppety one morsel.' If I was to strike acrost fields to them stuck-up Pryors, I'd get the door slammed in my face if 'twas the missus, a sneer if 'twas the man, an' at best a nod cold as an iceberg if 'twas the girl. Them as want to call her kind `Princess,' and encourage her in being more stuck up 'an she was born to be, can, but to my mind a Princess is a person who thinks of some one besides herself once in a while."

"I don't find the Pryors easy to become acquainted with," said mother. "I have never met the woman; I know the man very slightly; he has been here on business once or twice, but the girl seems as if she would be nice, if one knew her."

"Well, I wouldn't have s'posed she was your kind," said Mrs. Freshett. "If she is, I won't open my head against her any more.

Anyway, it was the grave-kivers I come about."

"Just what is it, Mrs. Freshett?" asked mother.

"It's two men sellin' a patent iron kiver for to protect the graves of your dead from the sun an' the rain."

"Who wants the graves of their dead protected from the sun and the rain?" demanded my mother sharply.

"I said to Josiah, `I don't know how she'll feel about it, but I can't do more than ask.'"

"Do they carry a sample? What is it like?"

"Jest the len'th an' width of a grave. They got from baby to six-footer sizes. They are cast iron like the bottom of a cook stove on the under side, but atop they are polished so they shine somethin' beautiful. You can get them in a solid piece, or with a hole in the centre about the size of a milk crock to set flowers through. They come ten to the grave, an' they are mighty stylish lookin' things. I have been savin' all I could skimp from butter, an' eggs, to get Samantha a organ; but says I to her: `You are gettin' all I can do for you every day; there lays your poor brother 'at ain't had a finger lifted for him since he was took so sudden he was gone before I knowed he was goin'.' I never can get over Henry bein' took the way he was, so I says: `If this would be a nice thing to have for Henry's grave, and the neighbours are goin' to have them for theirn, looks to me like some of the organ money will have to go, an' we'll make it up later.' I don't 'low for Henry to be slighted bekase he rid himself to death trying to make a president out of his pa's gin'ral."

"You never told me how you lost your son," said mother, feeling so badly she wiped one of my eyes full of oil.

"Law now, didn't I?" inquired Mrs. Freshett. "Well mebby that is bekase I ain't had a chance to tell you much of anythin', your bein' always so busy like, an' me not wantin' to wear out my welcome. It was like this: All endurin' the war Henry an' me did the best we could without pa at home, but by the time it was over, Henry was most a man. Seemed as if when he got home, his pa was all tired out and glad to set down an' rest, but Henry was afire to be up an' goin'. His pa filled him so full o' Grant, it was runnin' out of his ears. Come the second run the Gin'ral made, peered like Henry set out to 'lect him all by hisself. He wore every horse on the place out, ridin' to rallies. Sometimes he was gone three days at a stretch. He'd git one place an' hear of a rally on ten miles or so furder, an' blest if he didn't ride plum acrost the state 'fore he got through with one trip. He set out in July, and he rid right straight through to November, nigh onto every day of his life. He got white, an' thin, an' narvous, from loss of sleep an' lack of food, an' his pa got restless, said Henry was takin' the 'lection more serious 'an he ever took the war. Last few days before votin' was cold an' raw an' Henry rid constant. 'Lection day he couldn't vote, for he lacked a year of bein' o' age, an' he rid in with a hard chill, an' white as a ghost, an' he says: `Ma,' says he, `I've 'lected Grant, but I'm all tuckered out. Put me to bed an' kiver me warm.'"

I forgot the sting in my eyes watching Mrs. Freshett. She was the largest woman I knew, and strong as most men. Her hair was black and glisteny, her eyes black, her cheeks red, her skin a clear, even dark tint. She was handsome, she was honest, and she was in earnest over everything. There was something about her, or her family, that had to be told in whispers, and some of the neighbours would have nothing to do with her. But mother said Mrs. Freshett was doing the very best she knew, and for the sake of that, and of her children, anyone who wouldn't help her was not a Christian, and not to be a Christian was the very worst thing that could happen to you. I stared at her steadily. She talked straight along, so rapidly you scarcely could keep up with the words; you couldn't if you wanted to think about them any between. There was not a quiver in her voice, but from her eyes there rolled, steadily, the biggest, roundest tears I ever saw. They ran down her cheeks, formed a stream in the first groove of her double chin, overflowed it, and dripped drop, drop, a drop at a time, on the breast of her stiffly starched calico dress, and from there shot to her knees.

"'Twa'n't no time at all 'til he was chokin' an' burnin' red with fever, an' his pa and me, stout as we be, couldn't hold him down nor keep him kivered. He was speechifyin' to beat anythin' you ever heard. His pa said he was repeatin' what he'd heard said by every big stump speaker from Greeley to Logan. When he got so hoarse we couldn't tell what he said any more, he jest mouthed it, an' at last he dropped back and laid like he was pinned to the sheets, an' I thought he was restin', but 'twa'n't an hour 'til he was gone."

Suddenly Mrs. Freshett lifted her apron, covered her face and sobbed until her broad shoulders shook.

"Oh you poor soul!" said my mother. "I'm so sorry for you!"

"I never knowed he was a-goin' until he was gone," she said. "He was the only one of mine I ever lost, an' I thought it would jest lay me out. I couldn't 'a' stood it at all if I hadn't 'a' knowed he was saved. I well know my Henry went straight to Heaven. Why Miss Stanton, he riz right up in bed at the last, and clear and strong he jest yelled it: `Hurrah fur Grant!'"

My mother's fingers tightened in my hair until I thought she would pull out a lot, and I could feel her knees stiffen. Leon just whooped. Mother sprang up and ran to the door.

"Leon!" she cried. Then there was a slam. "What in the world is the matter?" she asked.

"Stepped out of the tub right on the soap, and it threw me down," explained Leon.

"For mercy sake, be careful!" said my mother, and shut the door.

It wasn't a minute before the knob turned and it opened again a little.

I never saw mother's face look so queer, but at last she said softly: "You were thinking of the grave cover for him?"

"Yes, but I wanted to ask you before I bound myself. I heard you lost two when the scarlet fever was ragin' an' I'm goin' to do jest what you do. If you have kivers, I will. If you don't like them when you see how bright and shiny they are, I won't get any either."

"I can tell you without seeing them, Mrs. Freshett," said my mother, wrapping a strand of hair around the tin so tight I slipped up my fingers to feel whether my neck wasn't like a buck- eye hull looks, and it was. "I don't want any cover for the graves of my dead but grass and flowers, and sky and clouds. I like the rain to fall on them, and the sun to shine, so that the grass and flowers will grow. If you are satisfied that the soul of Henry is safe in Heaven, that is all that is necessary. Laying a slab of iron on top of earth six feet above his body will make no difference to him. If he is singing with the angels, by all means save your money for the organ."

"I don't know about the singin', but I'd stake my last red cent he's still hollerin' fur Grant. I was kind o' took with the idea; the things was so shiny and scilloped at the edges, peered like it was payin' considerable respect to the dead to kiver them that-a-way."

"What good would it do?" asked mother. "The sun shining on the iron would make it so hot it would burn any flower you tried to plant in the opening; the water couldn't reach the roots, and all that fell on the slab would run off and make it that much wetter at the edges. The iron would soon rust and grow dreadfully ugly lying under winter snow. There is nothing at all in it, save a method to work on the feelings of the living, and get them to pay their money for something that wouldn't affect their dead a particle."

"'Twould be a poor idea for me," said Mrs. Freshett. "I said to the men that I wanted to honour Henry all I could, but with my bulk, I'd hev all I could do, come Jedgment Day, to bust my box, an' heave up the clods, without havin' to hist up a piece of iron an' klim from under it."

Mother stiffened and Leon slipped again. He could have more accidents than any boy I ever knew. But it was only a few minutes until he came to mother and gave her a Bible to mark the verses he had to learn to recite at Sunday-school next day. Mother couldn't take the time when she had company, so she asked if he weren't big enough to pick out ten proper verses and learn them by himself, and he said of course he was. He took his Bible and he and May and I sat on the back steps and studied our verses. He and May were so big they had ten; but I had only two, and mine were not very long. Leon giggled half the time he was studying. I haven't found anything so very funny in the Bible. Every few minutes he would whisper to himself: "THAT'S A GOOD ONE!"

He took the book and heard May do hers until she had them perfectly, then he went and sat on the back fence with his book and studied as I never before had seen him. Mrs. Freshett stayed so long mother had no time to hear him, but he told her he had them all learned so he could repeat them without a mistake.

Next morning mother was busy, so she had no time then. Father, Shelley, and I rode on the front seat, mother, May, and Sally on the back, while the boys started early and walked.

When we reached the top of the hill, the road was lined with carriages, wagons, spring wagons, and saddle horses. Father found a place for our team and we went down the walk between the hitching rack and the cemetery fence. Mother opened the gate and knelt beside two small graves covered with grass, shaded by yellow rose bushes, and marked with little white stones. She laid some flowers on each and wiped the dust from the carved letters with her handkerchief. The little sisters who had scarlet fever and whooping cough lay there. Mother was still a minute and then she said softly: "`The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.'"

She was very pale when she came to us, but her eyes were bright and she smiled as she put her arms around as many of us as she could reach.

"What a beautiful horse!" said Sally. "Look at that saddle and bridle! The Pryor girl is here."

"Why should she come?" asked Shelley.

"To show her fine clothes and queen it over us!"

"Children, children!" said mother. "`Judge not!' This is a house of worship. The Lord may be drawing her in His own way. It is for us to help Him by being kind and making her welcome."

At the church door we parted and sat with our teachers, but for the first time as I went down the aisle I was not thinking of my linen dress, my patent leather slippers, and my pretty curls. It suddenly seemed cheap to me to twist my hair when it was straight as a shingle, and cut my head on tin. If the Lord had wanted me to have curls, my hair would have been like Sally's. Seemed to me hers tried to see into what big soft curls it could roll. May said ours was so straight it bent back the other way. Anyway, I made up my mind to talk it over with father and always wear braids after that, if I could get him to coax mother to let me.

Our church was quite new and it was beautiful. All the casings were oiled wood, and the walls had just a little yellow in the last skin coating used to make them smooth, so they were a creamy colour, and the blinds were yellow. The windows were wide open and the wind drifted through, while the birds sang as much as they ever do in August, among the trees and bushes of the cemetery. Every one had planted so many flowers of all kinds on the graves you could scent sweet odours. Often a big, black- striped, brown butterfly came sailing in through one of the windows, followed the draft across the room, and out of another. I was thinking something funny: it was about what the Princess had said of other people, and whether hers were worse. I looked at my father sitting in calm dignity in his Sunday suit and thought him quite as fine and handsome as mother did. Every Sabbath he wore the same suit, he sat in the same spot, he worshipped the Lord in his calm, earnest way. The ministers changed, but father was as much a part of the service as the Bible on the desk or the communion table. I wondered if people said things about him, and if they did, what they were. I never had heard. Twisting in my seat, one by one I studied the faces on the men's side, and then the women. It was a mighty good- looking crowd. Some had finer clothes than others--that is always the way--but as a rule every one was clean, neat, and good to see. From some you scarcely could turn away. There was Widow Fall. She was French, from Virginia, and she talked like little tinkly notes of music. I just loved to hear her, and she walked like high-up royalty. Her dress was always black, with white bands at the neck and sleeves, black rustly silk, and her eyes and hair were like the dress. There was a little red on her cheeks and lips, and her face was always grave until she saw you directly before her, and then she smiled the sweetest smile.

Maybe Sarah Hood was not pretty, but there was something about her lean face and shining eyes that made you look twice before you were sure of it, and by that time you had got so used to her, you liked her better as she was, and wouldn't have changed her for anything. Mrs. Fritz had a pretty face and dresses and manners, and so did Hannah Dover, only she talked too much. So I studied them and remembered what the Princess had said, and I wondered if she heard some one say that Peter Justice beat his wife, or if she showed it in her face and manner. She reminded me of a scared cowslip that had been cut and laid in the sun an hour. I don't know as that expresses it. Perhaps a flower couldn't look scared, but it could be wilted and faded. I wondered if she ever had bright hair, laughing eyes, and red in her lips and cheeks. She must have been pretty if she had.

At last I reached my mother. There was nothing scared or faded about her, and she was dreadfully sick too, once in a while since she had the fever. She was a little bit of a woman, coloured like a wild rose petal, face and body--a piece of pink porcelain Dutch, father said. She had brown eyes, hair like silk, and she always had three best dresses. There was one of alpaca or woollen, of black, gray or brown, and two silks. Always there was a fine rustly black one with a bonnet and mantle to match, and then a softer, finer one of either gold brown, like her hair, or dainty gray, like a dove's wing. When these grew too old for fine use, she wore them to Sunday-school and had a fresh one for best. There was a new gray in her closet at home, so she put on the old brown to-day, and she was lovely in it.

Usually the minister didn't come for church services until Sunday-school was half over, so the superintendent read a chapter, Daddy Debs prayed, and all of us stood up and sang: "Ring Out the Joy Bells." Then the superintendent read the lesson over as impressively as he could. The secretary made his report, we sang another song, gathered the pennies, and each teacher took a class and talked over the lesson a few minutes. Then we repeated the verses we had committed to memory to our teachers; the member of each class who had learned the nicest texts, and knew them best, was selected to recite before the school. Beginning with the littlest people, we came to the big folks. Each one recited two texts until they reached the class above mine. We walked to the front, stood inside the altar, made a little bow, and the superintendent kept score. I could see that mother appeared worried when Leon's name was called for his class, for she hadn't heard him, and she was afraid he would forget.

Among the funny things about Leon was this: while you had to drive other boys of his age to recite, you almost had to hold him to keep him from it. Father said he was born for a politician or a preacher, if he would be good, and grow into the right kind of a man to do such responsible work.

"I forgot several last Sabbath, so I have thirteen to-day," he said politely.

Of course no one expected anything like that. You never knew what might happen when Leon did anything. He must have been about sixteen. He was a slender lad, having almost sandy hair, like his English grandfather. He wore a white ruffled shirt with a broad collar, and cuffs turning back over his black jacket, and his trousers fitted his slight legs closely. The wind whipped his soft black tie a little and ruffled the light hair where it was longest and wavy above his forehead. Such a perfect picture of innocence you never saw. There was one part of him that couldn't be described any better than the way Mr. Rienzi told about his brother in his "Address to the Romans," in McGuffey's Sixth. "The look of heaven on his face" stayed most of the time; again, there was a dealish twinkle that sparkled and flashed while he was thinking up something mischievous to do. When he was fighting angry, and going to thrash Absalom Saunders or die trying, he was plain white and his eyes were like steel. Mother called him "Weiscope," half the time. I can only spell the way that sounds, but it means "white-head," and she always used that name when she loved him most. "The look of heaven" was strong on his face now.

"One," said the recording secretary.

"Jesus wept," answered Leon promptly.

There was not a sound in the church. You could almost hear the butterflies pass. Father looked down and laid his lower lip in folds with his fingers, like he did sometimes when it wouldn't behave to suit him.

"Two," said the secretary after just a breath of pause.

Leon looked over the congregation easily and then fastened his eyes on Abram Saunders, the father of Absalom, and said reprovingly: "Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids."

Abram straightened up suddenly and blinked in astonishment, while father held fast to his lip.

"Three," called the secretary hurriedly.

Leon shifted his gaze to Betsy Alton, who hadn't spoken to her next door neighbour in five years.

"Hatred stirreth up strife," he told her softly, "but love covereth all sins."

Things were so quiet it seemed as if the air would snap.

"Four."

The mild blue eyes travelled back to the men's side and settled on Isaac Thomas, a man too lazy to plow and sow land his father had left him. They were not so mild, and the voice was touched with command: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise."

Still that silence.

"Five," said the secretary hurriedly, as if he wished it were over. Back came the eyes to the women's side and past all question looked straight at Hannah Dover.

"As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion."

"Six," said the secretary and looked appealingly at father, whose face was filled with dismay.

Again Leon's eyes crossed the aisle and he looked directly at the man whom everybody in the community called "Stiff-necked Johnny."

I think he was rather proud of it, he worked so hard to keep them doing it.

"Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck," Leon commanded him.

Toward the door some one tittered.

"Seven," called the secretary hastily.

Leon glanced around the room.

"But how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," he announced in delighted tones as if he had found it out by himself.

"Eight," called the secretary with something like a breath of relief.

Our angel boy never had looked so angelic, and he was beaming on the Princess.

"Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," he told her.

Laddie would thrash him for that.

Instantly after, "Nine," he recited straight at Laddie: "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?"

More than one giggled that time.

"Ten!" came almost sharply.

Leon looked scared for the first time. He actually seemed to shiver. Maybe he realized at last that it was a pretty serious thing he was doing. When he spoke he said these words in the most surprised voice you ever heard: "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly."

"Eleven."

Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!"

Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook.

"Twelve."

Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and appeared abused.

"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning.

"Thirteen."

"The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?" inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.

Father's voice broke that silence. "Let us kneel in prayer," he said.

He took a step forward, knelt, laid his hands on the altar, closed his eyes and turned his face upward.

"Our Heavenly Father, we come before Thee in a trying situation," he said. "Thy word of truth has been spoken to us by a thoughtless boy, whether in a spirit of helpfulness or of jest, Thou knowest. Since we are reasoning creatures, it little matters in what form Thy truth comes to us; the essential thing is that we soften our hearts for its entrance, and grow in grace by its application. Tears of compassion such as our dear Saviour wept are in our eyes this morning as we plead with Thee to help us to apply these words to the betterment of this community."

Then father began to pray. If the Lord had been standing six feet in front of him, and his life had depended on what he said, he could have prayed no harder. Goodness knows how fathers remember. He began at "Jesus wept" and told about this sinful world and why He wept over it; then one at a time he took those other twelve verses and hammered them down where they belonged much harder than Leon ever could by merely looking at people. After that he prayed all around each one so fervently that those who had been hit the very worst cried aloud and said: "Amen!" You wouldn't think any one could do a thing like that; but I heard and saw my father do it.

When he arose the tears were running down his cheeks, and before him stood Leon. He was white as could be, but he spoke out loudly and clearly.

"Please forgive me, sir; I didn't intend to hurt your feelings. Please every one forgive me. I didn't mean to offend any one. It happened through hunting short verses. All the short ones seemed to be like that, and they made me think----"

He got no farther. Father must have been afraid of what he might say next. He threw his arms around Leon's shoulders, drew him to the seat, and with the tears still rolling, he laughed as happily as you ever heard, and he cried: "`Sweeping through the Gates!' All join in!"

You never heard such singing in your life. That was another wonderful thing. My father didn't know the notes. He couldn't sing; he said so himself. Neither could half the people there, yet all of them were singing at the tops of their voices, and I don't believe the angels in Heaven could make grander music. My father was leading:

"These, these are they, who in the conflict dire----"

You could tell Emanuel Ripley had been in the war from the way he roared:

"Boldly have stood amidst the hottest fire----"

The Widow Fall soared above all of them on the next line; her man was there, and maybe she was lonely and would have been glad to go to him:

"Jesus now says, `Come up higher----'"

Then my little mother:

"Washed in the blood of the Lamb----"

Like thunder all of them rolled into the chorus:

"Sweepin, through the gates to the New Jerusalem----"

You wouldn't have been left out of that company for anything in all this world, and nothing else ever could make you want to go so badly as to hear every one sing, straight from the heart, a grand old song like that. It is no right way to have to sit and keep still, and pay other people money to sing about Heaven to you. No matter if you can't sing by note, if your heart and soul are full, until they are running over, so that you are forced to sing as those people did, whether you can or not, you are sure to be straight on the way to the Gates.

Before three lines were finished my father was keeping time like a choirmaster, his face all beaming with shining light; mother was rocking on her toes like a wood robin on a twig at twilight, and at the end of the chorus she cried "Glory!" right out loud, and turned and started down the aisle, shaking hands with every one, singing as she went. When she reached Betsy Alton she held her hand and led her down the aisle straight toward Rachel Brown.

When Rachel saw them coming she hurried to meet them, and they shook hands and were glad to make up as any two people you ever saw. It must have been perfectly dreadful to see a woman every day for five years, and not to give her a pie, when you felt sure yours were better than she could make, or loan her a new pattern, or tell her first who had a baby, or was married, or dead, or anything like that. It was no wonder they felt glad. Mother came on, and as she passed me the verses were all finished and every one began talking and moving. Johnny Dover forgot his neck and shook hands too, and father pronounced the benediction. He always had to when the minister wasn't there, because he was ordained himself, and you didn't dare pronounce the benediction unless you were.

Every one began talking again, and wondering if the minister wouldn't come soon, and some one went out to see. There was mother standing only a few feet from the Princess, and I thought of something. I had seen it done often enough, but I never had tried it myself, yet I wanted to so badly, there was no time to think how scared I would be. I took mother's hand and led her a few steps farther and said: "Mother, this is my friend, Pamela Pryor."

I believe I did it fairly well. Mother must have been surprised, but she put out her hand.

"I didn't know Miss Pryor and you were acquainted."

"It's only been a little while," I told her. "I met her when I was on some business with the Fairies. They know everything and they told me her father was busy"--I thought she wouldn't want me to tell that he was plain CROSS, where every one could hear, so I said "busy" for politeness--"and her mother not very strong, and that she was a good girl, and dreadfully lonesome. Can't you do something, mother?"

"Well, I should think so!" said mother, for her heart was soft as rose leaves. Maybe you won't believe this, but it's quite true. My mother took the Princess' arm and led her to Sally and Shelley, and introduced her to all the girls. By the time the minister came and mother went back to her seat, she had forgotten all about the "indisposed" word she disliked, and as you live! she invited the Princess to go home with us to dinner. She stood tall and straight, her eyes very bright, and her cheeks a little redder than usual, as she shook hands and said a few pleasant words that were like from a book, they fitted and were so right. When mother asked her to dinner she said: "Thank you kindly. I should be glad to go, but my people expect me at home and they would be uneasy. Perhaps you would allow me to ride over some week day and become acquainted?"

Mother said she would be happy to have her, and Shelley said so too, but Sally was none too cordial. She had dark curls and pink cheeks herself, and every one had said she was the prettiest girl in the county before Shelley began to blossom out and show what she was going to be. Sally never minded that, but when the Princess came she was a little taller, and her hair was a trifle longer, and heavier, and blacker, and her eyes were a little larger and darker, and where Sally had pink skin and red lips, the Princess was dark as olive, and her lips and cheeks were like red velvet. Anyway, the Princess had said she would come over; mother and Shelley had been decent to her, and Sally hadn't been exactly insulting. It would be a little more than you could expect for her to be wild about the Princess. I believe she was pleased over having been invited to dinner, and as she was a stranger she couldn't know that mother had what we called the "invitation habit."

I have seen her ask from fifteen to twenty in one trip down the aisle on Sunday morning. She wanted them to come too; the more who came, the better she liked it. If the hitching rack and barnyard were full on Sunday she just beamed. If the sermon pleased her, she invited more. That morning she was feeling so good she asked seventeen; and as she only had dressed six chickens--third table, backs and ham, for me as usual; but when the prospects were as now, I always managed to coax a few gizzards from Candace; she didn't dare give me livers--they were counted. Almost everyone in the church was the happiest that morning they had been in years. When the preacher came, he breathed it from the air, and it worked on him so he preached the best sermon he ever had, and never knew that Leon made him do it.

Maybe after all it's a good thing to tell people about their meanness and give them a stirring up once in a while.

CHAPTER III. Mr. Pryor's Door

  
            "Grief will be joy if on its edge
             Fall soft that holiest ray,
             Joy will be grief if no faint pledge
             Be there of heavenly day."

Have Sally and Peter said anything about getting married yet?" asked my big sister Lucy of mother. Lucy was home on a visit. She was bathing her baby and mother was sewing.

"Not a word!"

"Are they engaged?"

"Sally hasn't mentioned it."

"Well, can't you find out?"

"How could I?" asked mother.

"Why, watch them a little and see how they act when they are together. If he kisses her when he leaves, of course they are engaged."

"It would be best to wait until Sally tells me," laughed mother.

I heard this from the back steps. Neither mother nor Lucy knew I was there. I went in to see if they would let me take the baby. Of course they wouldn't! Mother took it herself. She was rocking, and softly singing my Dutch song that I loved best; I can't spell it, but it sounds like this:

  
            "Trus, trus, trill;
             Der power rid der fill,
             Fill sphring aveck,
             Plodschlicter power in der dreck."

Once I asked mother to sing it in English, and she couldn't because it didn't rhyme that way and the words wouldn't fit the notes; it was just, "Trot, trot, trot, a boy rode a colt. The colt sprang aside; down went the boy in the dirt."

"Aw, don't sing my song to that little red, pug-nosed bald-head!" I said.

Really, it was a very nice baby; I only said that because I wanted to hold it, and mother wouldn't give it up. I tried to coax May to the dam snake hunting, but she couldn't go, so I had to amuse myself. I had a doll, but I never played with it except when I was dressed up on Sunday. Anyway, what's the use of a doll when there's a live baby in the house? I didn't care much for my playhouse since I had seen one so much finer that Laddie had made for the Princess. Of course I knew moss wouldn't take root in our orchard as it did in the woods, neither would willow cuttings or the red flowers. Finally, I decided to go hunting. I went into the garden and gathered every ripe touch-me-not pod I could find, and all the portulaca. Then I stripped the tiger lilies of each little black ball at the bases of the leaves, and took all the four o'clock seed there was. Then I got my biggest alder popgun and started up the road toward Sarah Hood's.

I was going along singing a little verse; it wasn't Dutch either; the old baby could have that if it wanted it. Soon as I got from sight of the house I made a powderhorn of a curled leaf, loaded my gun with portulaca powder, rammed in a tiger lily bullet, laid the weapon across my shoulder, and stepped high and lightly as Laddie does when he's in the Big Woods hunting for squirrel. It must have been my own singing--I am rather good at hearing things, but I never noticed a sound that time, until a voice like a rusty saw said: "Good morning, Nimrod!"

I sprang from the soft dust and landed among the dog fennel of a fence corner, in a flying leap. Then I looked. It was the Princess' father, tall, and gray, and grim, riding a big black horse that seemed as if it had been curried with the fine comb and brushed with the grease rag.

"Good morning!" I said when I could speak.

"Am I correct in the surmise that you are on the chase with a popgun?" he asked politely.

"Yes sir," I answered, getting my breath the best I could.

It came easier after I noticed he didn't seem to be angry about anything.

"Where is your hunting ground, and what game are you after?" he asked gravely.

"You can see the great African jungle over there. I am going to hunt for lions and tigers."

You always must answer politely any one who speaks to you; and you get soundly thrashed, at least at our house, if you don't be politest of all to an older person especially with white hair. Father is extremely particular about white hair. It is a "crown of glory," when it is found in the way of the Lord. Mahlon Pryor had enough crown of glory for three men, but maybe his wasn't exactly glory, because he wasn't in the way of the Lord. He was in a way of his own. He must have had much confidence in himself. At our house we would rather trust in the Lord. I only told him about the lions and tigers because he asked me, and that was the way I played. But you should have heard him laugh. You wouldn't have supposed to see him that he could.

"Umph!" he said at last. "I am a little curious about your ammunition. Just how to you bring down your prey?"

"I use portulaca powder and tiger lily bullets on the tigers, and four o'clocks on the lions," I said.

You could have heard him a mile, dried up as he was.

"I used to wear a red coat and ride to the hounds fox hunting," he said. "It's great sport. Won't you take me with you to the jungle?"

I didn't want him in the least, but if any one older asks right out to go with you, what can you do? I am going to tell several things you won't believe, and this is one of them: He got off his horse, tied it to the fence, and climbed over after me. He went on asking questions and of course I had to tell him. Most of what he wanted to know, his people should have taught him before he was ten years old, but father says they do things differently in England.

"There doesn't seem to be many trees in the jungle."

"Well, there's one, and it's about the most important on our land," I told him. "Father wouldn't cut it down for a farm. You see that little dark bag nearly as big as your fist, swinging out there on that limb? Well, every spring one of these birds, yellow as orange peel, with velvet black wings, weaves a nest like that, and over on that big branch, high up, one just as bright red as the other is yellow, and the same black wings, builds a cradle for his babies. Father says a red bird and a yellow one keeping house in the same tree is the biggest thing that ever happened in our family. They come every year and that is their tree. I believe father would shoot any one who drove them away."

"Your father is a gunner also?" he asked, and I thought he was laughing to himself.

"He's enough of a gunner to bring mother in a wagon from Pennsylvania all the way here, and he kept wolves, bears, Indians, and Gypsies from her, and shot things for food. Yes sir, my father can shoot if he wants to, better than any of our family except Laddie."

"And does Laddie shoot well?"

"Laddie does everything well," I answered proudly. "He won't try to do anything at all, until he practises so he can do it well."

"Score one for Laddie," he said in a queer voice.

"Are you in a hurry about the lions and tigers?"

"Not at all," he answered.

"Well, here I always stop and let Governor Oglesby go swimming," I said.

Mr. Mahlon Pryor sat on the bank of our Little Creek, took off his hat and shook back his hair as if the wind felt good on his forehead. I fished Dick Oglesby from the ammunition in my apron pocket, and held him toward the cross old man, and he wasn't cross at all. It's funny how you come to get such wrong ideas about people.

"My big married sister who lives in Westchester sent him to me last Christmas," I explained. "I have another doll, great big, with a Scotch plaid dress made from pieces of mine, but I only play with her on Sunday when I dare not do much else. I like Dick the best because he fits my apron pocket. Father wanted me to change his name and call him Oliver P. Morton, after a friend of his, but I told him this doll had to be called by the name he came with, and if he wanted me to have one named for his friend, to get it, and I'd play with it."

"What did he do?"

"He didn't want one named Morton that much."

Mr. Pryor took Dick Oglesby in his fingers and looked at his curly black hair and blue eyes, his chubby outstretched arms, like a baby when it wants you to take it, and his plump little feet and the white shirt with red stripes all a piece of him as he was made, and said: "The honourable governor of our sister state seems a little weighty; I am at a loss to understand how he swims."

"It's a new way," I said. "He just stands still and the water swims around him. It's very easy for him."

Then I carried Dick to the water, waded in and stood him against a stone. Something funny happened instantly. It always did. I found it out one day when I got some apple butter on the governor giving him a bite of my bread, and put him in the wash bowl to soak. He was two and a half inches tall; but the minute you stood him in water he went down to about half that height and spread out to twice his size around. You should have heard Mr. Pryor.

"If you will lie on the bank and watch you'll have more to laugh at than that," I promised.

He lay down and never paid the least attention to his clothes. Pretty soon a little chub fish came swimming around to make friends with Governor Oglesby, and then a shiner and some more chub. They nibbled at his hands and toes, and then went flashing away, and from under the stone came backing a big crayfish and seized the governor by the leg and started dragging him, so I had to jump in and stop it. I took a shot at the crayfish with the tiger ammunition and then loaded for lions.

We went on until the marsh became a thicket of cattails, bulrushes, willow bushes, and blue flags; then I found a path where the lions left the jungle, hid Mr. Pryor and told him he must be very still or they wouldn't come. At last I heard one. I touched Mr. Pryor's sleeve to warn him to keep his eyes on the trail. Pretty soon the lion came in sight. Really it was only a little gray rabbit hopping along, but when it was opposite us, I pinged it in the side, it jumped up and turned a somersault with surprise, and squealed a funny little squeal,--well, I wondered if Mr. Pryor's people didn't hear him, and think he had gone crazy as Paddy Ryan. I never did hear any one laugh so. I thought if he enjoyed it like that, I'd let him shoot one. I do May sometimes; so we went to another place I knew where there was a tiger's den, and I loaded with tiger lily bullets, gave him the gun and showed him where to aim. After we had waited a long time out came a muskrat, and started for the river. I looked to see why Mr. Pryor didn't shoot, and there he was gazing at it as if a snake had charmed him; his hands shaking a little, his cheeks almost red, his eyes very bright.

"Shoot!" I whispered. "It won't stay all day!"

He forgot how to push the ramrod like I showed him, so he reached out and tried to hit it with the gun.

"Don't do that!" I said.

"But it's getting away! It's getting away!" he cried.

"Well, what if it is?" I asked, half provoked. "Do you suppose I really would hurt a poor little muskrat? Maybe it has six hungry babies in its home."

"Oh THAT way," he said, but he kept looking at it, so he made me think if I hadn't been there, he would have thrown a stone or hit it with a stick. It is perfectly wonderful about how some men can't get along without killing things, such little bits of helpless creatures too. I thought he'd better be got from the jungle, so I invited him to see the place at the foot of the hill below our orchard where some men thought they had discovered gold before the war. They had been to California in '49, and although they didn't come home with millions, or anything else except sick and tired, they thought they had learned enough about gold to know it when they saw it.

I told him about it and he was interested and anxious to see the place. If there had been a shovel, I am quite sure he would have gone to digging. He kept poking around with his boot toe, and he said maybe the yokels didn't look good.

He said our meadow was a beautiful place, and when he praised the creek I told him about the wild ducks, and he laughed again. He didn't seem to be the same man when we went back to the road. I pulled some sweet marsh grass and gave his horse bites, so Mr. Pryor asked if I liked animals. I said I loved horses, Laddie's best of all. He asked about it and I told him.

"Hasn't your father but one thoroughbred?"

"Father hasn't any," I said. "Flos really belongs to Laddie, and we are mighty glad he has her."

"You should have one soon, yourself," he said.

"Well, if the rest of them will hurry up and marry off, so the expenses won't be so heavy, maybe I can."

"How many of you are there?" he asked.

"Only twelve," I said.

He looked down the road at our house.

"Do you mean to tell me you have twelve children there?" he inquired.

"Oh no!" I answered. "Some of the big boys have gone into business in the cities around, and some of the girls are married.

Mother says she has only to show her girls in the cities to have them snapped up like hot cakes."

"I fancy that is the truth," he said. "I've passed the one who rides the little black pony and she is a picture. A fine, healthy, sensible-appearing young woman!"

"I don't think she's as pretty as your girl," I said.

"Perhaps I don't either," he replied, smiling at me.

Then he mounted his horse.

"I don't remember that I ever have passed that house," he said, "without hearing some one singing. Does it go on all the time?"

"Yes, unless mother is sick."

"And what is it all about?"

"Oh just joy! Gladness that we are alive, that we have things to do that we like, and praising the Lord."

"Umph!" said Mr. Pryor.

"It's just letting out what our hearts are full of," I told him. "Don't you know that song:

  
            "`Tis the old time religion
              And you cannot keep it still?'"

He shook his head.

"It's an awful nice song," I explained. "After it sings about all the other things religion is good for, there is one line that says: `IT'S GOOD FOR THOSE IN TROUBLE.'"

I looked at him straight and hard, but he only turned white and seemed sick.

"So?" said Mr. Pryor. "Well, thank you for the most interesting morning I've had this side England. I should be delighted if you would come and hunt lions in my woods with me some time."

"Oh, do you open the door to children?"

"Certainly we open the door to children," he said, and as I live, he looked so sad I couldn't help thinking he was sorry to close it against any one. A mystery is the dreadfulest thing.

"Then if children don't matter, maybe I can come lion-hunting some time with the Princess, after she has made the visit at our house she said she would."

"Indeed! I hadn't been informed that my daughter contemplated visiting your house," he said. "When was it arranged?"

"My mother invited her last Sunday."

I didn't like the way he said: "O-o-o-h!" Some way it seemed insulting to my mother.

"She did it to please me," I said. "There was a Fairy Princess told me the other day that your girl felt like a stranger, and that to be a stranger was the hardest thing in all the world. She sat a little way from the others, and she looked so lonely. I pulled my mother's sleeve and led her to your girl and made them shake hands, and then mother HAD to ask her to come to dinner with us. She always invites every one she meets coming down the aisle; she couldn't help asking your girl, too. She said she was expected at home, but she'd come some day and get acquainted. She needn't if you object. My mother only asked her because she thought she was lonely, and maybe she wanted to come."

He sat there staring straight ahead and he seemed to grow whiter, and older, and colder every minute.

"Possibly she is lonely," he said at last. "This isn't much like the life she left. Perhaps she does feel herself a stranger. It was very kind of your mother to invite her. If she wants to come, I shall make no objections."

"No, but my father will," I said.

He straightened up as if something had hit him. "Why will he object?"

"On account of what you said about God at our house," I told him. "And then, too, father's people were from England, and he says real Englishmen have their doors wide open, and welcome people who offer friendliness."

Mr. Pryor hit his horse an awful blow. It reared and went racing up the road until I thought it was running away. I could see I had made him angry enough to burst. Mother always tells me not to repeat things; but I'm not smart enough to know what to say, so I don't see what is left but to tell what mother, or father, or Laddie says when grown people ask me questions.

I went home, but every one was too busy even to look at me, so I took Bobby under my arm, hunted father, and told him all about the morning. I wondered what he would think. I never found out.

He wouldn't say anything, so Bobby and I went across the lane, and climbed the gate into the orchard to see if Hezekiah were there and wanted to fight. He hadn't time to fight Bobby because he was busy chasing every wild jay from our orchard. By the time he got that done, he was tired, so he came hopping along on branches above us as Bobby and I went down the west fence beside the lane.

If I had been compelled to choose the side of our orchard I liked best, I don't know which I would have selected. The west side-- that is, the one behind the dooryard--was running over with interesting things. Two gates opened into it, one from near each corner of the yard. Between these there was quite a wide level space, where mother fed the big chickens and kept the hens in coops with little ones. She had to have them close enough that the big hawks were afraid to come to earth, or they would take more chickens than they could pay for, by cleaning rabbits, snakes, and mice from the fields. Then came a double row of prize peach trees; rare fruit that mother canned to take to county fairs. One bore big, white freestones, and around the seed they were pink as a rose. One was a white cling, and one was yellow. There was a yellow freestone as big as a young sun, and as golden, and the queerest of all was a cling purple as a beet.

Sometimes father read about the hairs of the head being numbered, because we were so precious in the sight of the Almighty. Mother was just as particular with her purple tree; every peach on it was counted, and if we found one on the ground, we had to carry it to her, because it MIGHT be sound enough to can or spice for a fair, or she had promised the seed to some one halfway across the state. At each end of the peach row was an enormous big pear tree; not far from one the chicken house stood on the path to the barn, and beside the other the smoke house with the dog kennel a yard away. Father said there was a distinct relationship between a smoke house and a dog kennel, and bulldogs were best. Just at present we were out of bulldogs, but Jones, Jenkins and Co. could make as much noise as any dog you ever heard. On the left grew the plum trees all the way to the south fence, and I think there was one of every kind in the fruit catalogues. Father spent hours pruning, grafting, and fertilizing them. He said they required twice as much work as peaches.

Around the other sides of the orchard were two rows of peach trees of every variety; but one cling on the north was just a little the best of any, and we might eat all we wanted from any tree we liked, after father tested them and said: "Peaches are ripe!" In the middle were the apple; selected trees, planted, trimmed, and cultivated like human beings. The apples were so big and fine they were picked by hand, wrapped in paper, packed in barrels, and all we could not use at home went to J. B. White in Fort Wayne for the biggest fruit house in the state. My! but father was proud! He always packed especially fine ones for Mr. White's family. He said he liked him, because he was a real sandy Scotchman, who knew when an apple was right, and wasn't afraid to say so.

On the south side of the orchard there was the earliest June apple tree. The apples were small, bright red with yellow stripes, crisp, juicy and sweet enough to be just right. The tree was very large, and so heavy it leaned far to the northeast.

This sounds like make-believe, but it's gospel truth. Almost two feet from the ground there was a big round growth, the size of a hash bowl. The tree must have been hurt when very small and the place enlarged with the trunk. Now it made a grand step. If you understood that no one could keep from running the last few rods from the tree, then figured on the help to be had from this step, you could see how we went up it like squirrels. All the bark on the south side was worn away and the trunk was smooth and shiny. The birds loved to nest among the branches, and under the peach tree in the fence corner opposite was a big bed of my mother's favourite wild flowers, blue-eyed Marys. They had dainty stems from six to eight inches high and delicate heads of bloom made up of little flowers, two petals up, blue, two turning down, white. Perhaps you don't know about anything prettier than that. There were maiden-hair ferns among them too! and the biggest lichens you ever saw on the fence, while in the hollow of a rotten rail a little chippy bird always built a hair nest. She got the hairs at our barn, for most of them were gray from our carriage horses, Ned and Jo. All down that side of the orchard the fence corners were filled with long grass and wild flowers, a few alder bushes left to furnish berries for the birds, and wild roses for us, to keep their beauty impressed on us, father said.

The east end ran along the brow of a hill so steep we coasted down it on the big meat board all winter. The board was six inches thick, two and a half feet wide, and six long. Father said slipping over ice and snow gave it the good scouring it needed, and it was thick enough to last all our lives, so we might play with it as we pleased. At least seven of us could go skimming down that hill and halfway across the meadow on it. In the very place we slid across, in summer lay the cowslip bed. The world is full of beautiful spots, but I doubt if any of them ever were prettier than that. Father called it swale. We didn't sink deep, but all summer there was water standing there. The grass was long and very sweet, there were ferns and a few calamus flowers, and there must have been an acre of cowslips--cowslips with big-veined, heartshaped, green leaves, and large pale gold flowers. I used to sit on the top rail of that orchard fence and look down at them, and try to figure out what God was thinking when He created them, and I wished that I might have been where I could watch His face as He worked.

Halfway across the east side was a gully where Leon and I found the Underground Station, and from any place along the north you looked, you saw the Little Creek and the marsh. At the same time the cowslips were most golden, the marsh was blue with flags, pink with smart weed, white and yellow with dodder, yellow with marsh buttercups having ragged frosty leaves, while the yellow and the red birds flashed above it, the red crying, "Chip," "Chip," in short, sharp notes, the yellow spilling music all over the marsh while on wing.

It would take a whole book to describe the butterflies; once in a while you scared up a big, wonderful moth, large as a sparrow; and the orchard was alive with doves, thrushes, catbirds, bluebirds, vireos, and orioles. When you climbed the fence, or a tree, and kept quiet, and heard the music and studied the pictures, it made you feel as if you had to put it into words. I often had meeting all by myself, unless Bobby and Hezekiah were along, and I tried to tell God what I thought about things. Probably He was so busy making more birds and flowers for other worlds, He never heard me; but I didn't say anything disrespectful at all, so it made no difference if He did listen. It just seemed as if I must tell what I thought, and I felt better, not so full and restless after I had finished.

All of us were alike about that. At that minute I knew mother was humming, as she did a dozen times a day:

  
            "I think when I read that sweet story of old,
                 When Jesus was here among men
             How He called little children as lambs to His fold,
                 I should like to have been with Him then."

Lucy would be rocking her baby and singing, "Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber." Candace's favourite she made up about her man who had been killed in the war, when they had been married only six weeks, which hadn't given her time to grow tired of him if he hadn't been "all her fancy painted." She arranged the words like "Ben Battle was a soldier bold," and she sang them to suit herself, and cried every single minute:

  
            "They wrapped him in his uniform,
                 They laid him in the tomb,
             My aching heart I thought 'twould break,
                 But such was my sad doom."

Candace just loved that song. She sang it all the time. Leon said our pie always tasted salty from her tears, and he'd take a bite and smile at her sweetly and say: "How UNIFORM you get your pie, Candace!"

May's favourite was "Joy Bells." Father would be whispering over to himself the speech he was preparing to make at the next prayer-meeting. We never could learn his speeches, because he read and studied so much it kept his head so full, he made a new one every time. You could hear Laddie's deep bass booming the "Bedouin Love Song" for a mile; this minute it came rolling across the corn:

  
            "Open the door of thy heart,
                 And open thy chamber door,
         And my kisses shall teach thy lips
                 The love that shall fade no more
                     Till the sun grows cold,
                     And the Stars are old,
                     And the leaves of the Judgment
                             Book unfold!"

I don't know how the Princess stood it. If he had been singing that song where I could hear it and I had known it was about me, as she must have known he meant her, I couldn't have kept my arms from around his neck. Over in the barn Leon was singing:

  
            "A life on the ocean wave,
             A home on the rolling deep,
             Where codfish waggle their tails
             'Mid tadpoles two feet deep."

The minute he finished, he would begin reciting "Marco Bozzaris," and you could be sure that he would reach the last line only to commence on the speech of "Logan, Chief of the Mingoes," or any one of the fifty others. He could make your hair stand a little straighter than any one else; the best teachers we ever had, or even Laddie, couldn't make you shivery and creepy as he could. Because all of us kept going like that every day, people couldn't pass without hearing, so THAT was what Mr. Pryor meant.

I had a pulpit in the southeast corner of the orchard. I liked that place best of all because from it you could see two sides at once. The very first little, old log cabin that had been on our land, the one my father and mother moved into, had stood in that corner. It was all gone now; but a flowerbed of tiny, purple iris, not so tall as the grass, spread there, and some striped grass in the shadiest places, and among the flowers a lark brooded every spring. In the fence corner mother's big white turkey hen always nested. To protect her from rain and too hot sun, father had slipped some boards between the rails about three feet from the ground. After the turkey left, that was my pulpit.

I stood there and used the top of the fence for my railing.

The little flags and all the orchard and birds were behind me; on one hand was the broad, grassy meadow with the creek running so swiftly, I could hear it, and the breath of the cowslips came up the hill. Straight in front was the lane running down from the barn, crossing the creek and spreading into the woods pasture, where the water ran wider and yet swifter, big forest trees grew, and bushes of berries, pawpaws, willow, everything ever found in an Indiana thicket; grass under foot, and many wild flowers and ferns wherever the cattle and horses didn't trample them, and bigger, wilder birds, many having names I didn't know. On the left, across the lane, was a large cornfield, with trees here and there, and down the valley I could see the Big Creek coming from the west, the Big Hill with the church on top, and always the white gravestones around it. Always too there was the sky overhead, often with clouds banked until you felt if you only could reach them, you could climb straight to the gates that father was so fond of singing about sweeping through. Mostly there was a big hawk or a turkey buzzard hanging among them, just to show us that we were not so much, and that we couldn't shoot them, unless they chose to come down and give us a chance.

I set Bobby and Hezekiah on the fence and stood between them. "We will open service this morning by singing the thirty-fifth hymn," I said. "Sister Dover, will you pitch the tune?"

Then I made my voice high and squeally like hers and sang:

  
            "Come ye that love the Lord,
             And let your joys be known,
             Join in a song of sweet accord,
             And thus surround the throne."

I sang all of it and then said: "Brother Hastings, will you lead us in prayer?"

Then I knelt down, and prayed Brother Hastings' prayer. I could have repeated any one of a dozen of the prayers the men of our church prayed, but I liked Brother Hastings' best, because it had the biggest words in it. I loved words that filled your mouth, and sounded as if you were used to books. It began sort of sing- songy and measured in stops, like a poetry piece:

"Our Heavenly Father: We come before Thee this morning, Humble worms of the dust, imploring thy blessing. We beseech Thee to forgive our transgressions, Heal our backsliding, and love us freely."

Sometimes from there on it changed a little, but it always began and ended exactly the same way. Father said Brother Hastings was powerful in prayer, but he did wish he'd leave out the "worms of the dust." He said we were not "worms of the dust"; we were reasoning, progressive, inventive men and women. He said a worm would never be anything except a worm, but we could study and improve ourselves, help others, make great machines, paint pictures, write books, and go to an extent that must almost amaze the Almighty Himself. He said that if Brother Hastings had done more plowing in his time, and had a little closer acquaintance with worms, he wouldn't be so ready to call himself and every one else a worm. Now if you are talking about cutworms or fishworms, father is right. But there is that place where--"Charles his heel had raised, upon the humble worm to tread," and the worm lifted up its voice and spake thus to Charles:

  
            "I know I'm now among the things
                 Uncomely to your sight,
             But, by and by, on splendid wings,
                 You'll see me high and bright."

Now I'll bet a cent THAT is the kind of worm Brother Hastings said we were. I must speak to father about it. I don't want him to be mistaken; and I really think he is about worms. Of course he knows the kind that have wings and fly. Brother Hastings mixed him up by saying "worms of the dust" when he should have said worms of the leaves. Those that go into little round cases in earth or spin cocoons on trees always live on leaves, and many of them rear the head, having large horns, and wave it in a manner far from humble. So father and Brother Hastings were both partly right, and partly wrong.

When the prayer came to a close, where every one always said "Amen," I punched Bobby and whispered, "Crow, Bobby, crow!" and he stood up and brought it out strong, like he always did when I told him. I had to stop the service to feed him a little wheat, to pay him for crowing; but as no one was there except us, that didn't matter. Then Hezekiah crowded over for some, so I had to pretend I was Mrs. Daniels feeding her children caraway cake, like she always did in meeting. If I had been the mother of children who couldn't have gone without things to eat in church I'd have kept them at home. Mrs. Daniels always had the carpet greasy with cake crumbs wherever she sat, and mother didn't think the Lord liked a dirty church any more than we would have wanted a mussy house. When I had Bobby and Hezekiah settled I took my text from my head, because I didn't know the meeting feeling was coming on me when I started, and I had brought no Bible along.

"Blessed are all men, but most blessed are they who hold their tempers." I had to stroke Bobby a little and pat Hezekiah once in a while, to keep them from flying down and fighting, but mostly I could give my attention to my sermon.

"We have only to look around us this morning to see that all men are blessed," I said. "The sky is big enough to cover every one.

If the sun gets too hot, there are trees for shade or the clouds come up for a while. If the earth becomes too dry, it always rains before it is everlastingly too late. There are birds enough to sing for every one, butterflies enough to go around, and so many flowers we can't always keep the cattle and horses from tramping down and even devouring beautiful ones, like Daniel thought the lions would devour him--but they didn't. Wouldn't it be a good idea, O Lord, for You to shut the cows' mouths and save the cowslips also; they may not be worth as much as a man, but they are lots better looking, and they make fine greens. It doesn't seem right for cows to eat flowers; but maybe it is as right for them as it is for us. The best way would be for our cattle to do like that piece about the cow in the meadow exactly the same as ours:

  
            "`And through it ran a little brook,
                 Where oft the cows would drink,
             And then lie down among the flowers,
                 That grew upon the brink.'

"You notice, O Lord, the cows did not eat the flowers in this instance; they merely rested among them, and goodness knows, that's enough for any cow. They had better done like the next verse, where it says:

  
            "`They like to lie beneath the trees,
                 All shaded by the boughs,
             Whene'er the noontide heat came on:
                 Sure, they were happy cows!'

"Now, O Lord, this plainly teaches that if cows are happy, men should be much more so, for like the cows, they have all Thou canst do for them, and all they can do for themselves, besides. So every man is blessed, because Thy bounty has provided all these things for him, without money and without price. If some men are not so blessed as others, it is their own fault, and not Yours. You made the earth, and all that is therein, and You made the men. Of course You had to make men different, so each woman can tell which one belongs to her; but I believe it would have been a good idea while You were at it, if You would have made all of them enough alike that they would all work. Perhaps it isn't polite of me to ask more of You than You saw fit to do; and then, again, it may be that there are some things impossible, even to You. If there is anything at all, seems as if making Isaac Thomas work would be it. Father says that man would rather starve and see his wife and children hungry than to take off his coat, roll up his sleeves, and plow corn; so it was good enough for him when Leon said, `Go to the ant, thou sluggard,' right at him. So, of course, Isaac is not so blessed as some men, because he won't work, and thus he never knows whether he's going to have a big dinner on Sunday, until after some one asks him, because he looks so empty. Mother thinks it isn't fair to feed Isaac and send him home with his stomach full, while Mandy and the babies are sick and hungry. But Isaac is some blessed, because he has religion and gets real happy, and sings, and shouts, and he's going to Heaven when he dies. He must wish he'd go soon, especially in winter.

"There are men who do not have even this blessing, and to make things worse, O Lord, they get mad as fire and hit their horses, and look like all possessed. The words of my text this morning apply especially to a man who has all the blessings Thou hast showered and flowered upon men who work, or whose people worked and left them so much money they don't need to, and yet a sadder face I never saw, or a crosser one. He looks like he was going to hit people, and he does hit his horse an awful crack. It's no way to hit a horse, not even if it balks, because it can't hit back, and it's a cowardly thing to do. If you rub their ears and talk to them, they come quicker, O our Heavenly Father, and if you hit them just because you are mad, it's a bigger sin yet.

"No man is nearly so blessed as he might be who goes around looking killed with grief when he should cheer up, no matter what ails him; and who shuts up his door and says his wife is sick when she isn't, and who scowls at every one, when he can be real pleasant if he likes, as some in Divine Presence can testify. So we are going to beseech Thee, O Lord, to lay Thy mighty hand upon the man who got mad this beautiful morning and make him feel Thy might, until he will know for himself and not another, that You are not a myth. Teach him to have a pleasant countenance, an open door, and to hold his temper. Help him to come over to our house and be friendly with all his neighbours, and get all the blessings You have provided for every one; but please don't make him have any more trouble than he has now, for if You do, You'll surely kill him. Have patience with him, and have mercy on him, O Lord! Let us pray."

That time I prayed myself. I looked into the sky just as straight and as far as I could see, and if I had any influence at all, I used it then. Right out loud, I just begged the Lord to get after Mr. Pryor and make him behave like other people, and let the Princess come to our house, and for him to come too; because I liked him heaps when he was lion hunting, and I wanted to go with him again the worst way. I had seen him sail right over the fences on his big black horse, and when he did it in England, wearing a red coat, and the dogs flew over thick around him, it must have looked grand, but it was mighty hard on the fox. I do hope it got away. Anyway, I prayed as hard as I could, and every time I said the strongest thing I knew, I punched Bobby to crow, and he never came out stronger. Then I was Sister Dover and started: "Oh come let us gather at the fountain, the fountain that never goes dry."

Just as I was going to pronounce the benediction like father, I heard something, so I looked around, and there went he and Dr. Fenner. They were going toward the house, and yet, they hadn't passed me. I was not scared, because I knew no one was sick. Dr. Fenner always stopped when he passed, if he had a minute, and if he hadn't, mother sent some one to the gate with buttermilk and slices of bread and butter, and jelly an inch thick. When a meal was almost cooked she heaped some on a plate and he ate as he drove and left the plate next time he passed. Often he was so dead tired, he was asleep in his buggy, and his old gray horse always stopped at our gate.

I ended with "Amen," because I wanted to know if they had been listening; so I climbed the fence, ran down the lane behind the bushes, and hid a minute. Sure enough they had! I suppose I had been so in earnest I hadn't heard a sound, but it's a wonder Hezekiah hadn't told me. He was always seeing something to make danger signals about. He never let me run on a snake, or a hawk get one of the chickens, or Paddy Ryan come too close. I only wanted to know if they had gone and listened, and then I intended to run straight back to Bobby and Hezekiah; but they stopped under the greening apple tree, and what they said was so interesting I waited longer than I should, because it's about the worst thing you can do to listen when older people don't know. They were talking about me.

"I can't account for her," said father.

"I can!" said Dr. Fenner. "She is the only child I ever have had in my practice who managed to reach earth as all children should. During the impressionable stage, no one expected her, so there was no time spent in worrying, fretting, and discontent. I don't mean that these things were customary with Ruth. No woman ever accepted motherhood in a more beautiful spirit; but if she would have protested at any time, it would have been then. Instead, she lived happily, naturally, and enjoyed herself as she never had before. She was in the fields, the woods, and the garden constantly, which accounts for this child's outdoor tendencies. Then you must remember that both of you were at top notch intellectually, and physically, fully matured. She had the benefit of ripened minds, and at a time when every faculty recently had been stirred by the excitement and suffering of the war. Oh, you can account for her easily enough, but I don't know what on earth you are going to do with her. You'll have to go careful, Paul. I warn you she will not be like the others."

"We realize that. Mother says she doubts if she can ever teach her to sew and become a housewife."

"She isn't cut out for a seamstress or a housewife, Paul. Tell Ruth not to try to force those things on her. Turn her loose out of doors; give her good books, and leave her alone. You won't be disappointed in the woman who evolves."

Right there I realized what I was doing, and I turned and ran for the pulpit with all my might. I could always repeat things, but I couldn't see much sense to the first part of that; the last was as plain as the nose on your face. Dr. Fenner said they mustn't force me to sew, and do housework; and mother didn't mind the Almighty any better than she did the doctor. There was nothing in this world I disliked so much as being kept indoors, and made to hem cap and apron strings so particularly that I had to count the number of threads between every stitch, and in each stitch, so that I got all of them just exactly even. I liked carpet rags a little better, because I didn't have to be so particular about stitches, and I always picked out all the bright, pretty colours.

Mother said she could follow my work all over the floor by the bright spots. Perhaps if I were not to be kept in the house I wouldn't have to sew any more. That made me so happy I wondered if I couldn't stretch out my arms and wave them and fly. I sat on the pulpit wishing I had feathers. It made me pretty blue to have to stay on the ground all the time, when I wanted to be sailing up among the clouds with the turkey buzzards. It called to my mind that place in McGuffey's Fifth where it says:

  
            "Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green,
             Thy sky is ever clear;
             Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
             No winter in thy year."

Of course, I never heard a turkey buzzard sing. Laddie said they couldn't; but that didn't prove it. He said half the members of our church couldn't sing, but they DID; and when all of them were going at the tops of their voices, it was just grand. So maybe the turkey buzzard could sing if it wanted to; seemed as if it should, if Isaac Thomas could; and anyway, it was the next verse I was thinking most about:

  
            "Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
             We'd make with joyful wing,
             Our annual visit o'er the globe,
             Companions of the spring."

That was so exciting I thought I'd just try it, so I stood on the top rail, spread my arms, waved them, and started. I was bumped in fifty places when I rolled into the cowslip bed at the foot of the steep hill, for stones stuck out all over the side of it, and I felt pretty mean as I climbed back to the pulpit.

The only consolation I had was what Dr. Fenner had said. That would be the greatest possible help in managing father or mother.

I was undecided about whether I would go to school, or not. Must be perfectly dreadful to dress like for church, and sit still in a stuffy little room, and do your "abs," and "bes," and "bis," and "bos," all day long. I could spell quite well without looking at a schoolhouse, and read too. I was wondering if I ever would go at all, when I thought of something else. Dr. Fenner had said to give me plenty of good books. I was wild for some that were already promised me. Well, what would they amount to if I couldn't understand them when I got them? THAT seemed to make it sure I would be compelled to go to school until I learned enough to understand what the books contained about birds, flowers, and moths, anyway; and perhaps there would be some having Fairies in them. Of course those would be interesting.

I never hated doing anything so badly, in all my life, but I could see, with no one to tell me, that I had put it off as long as I dared. I would just have to start school when Leon and May went in September. Tilly Baher, who lived across the swamp near Sarah Hood, had gone two winters already, and she was only a year older, and not half my size. I stood on the pulpit and looked a long time in every direction, into the sky the longest of all. It was settled. I must go; I might as well start and have it over. I couldn't look anywhere, right there at home, and not see more things I didn't know about than I did. When mother showed me in the city, I wouldn't be snapped up like hot cakes; I'd be a blockhead no one would have. It made me so vexed to think I had to go, I set Hezekiah on my shoulder, took Bobby under my arm, and went to the house. On the way, I made up my mind that I would ask again, very politely, to hold the little baby, and if the rest of them went and pigged it up straight along, I'd pinch it, if I got a chance.

CHAPTER IV. The Last Day in Eden

  
            "'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
              And coming events cast their shadows before."

Of course the baby was asleep and couldn't be touched; but there was some excitement, anyway. Father had come from town with a letter from the new school teacher, that said she would expect him to meet her at the station next Saturday. Mother thought she might as well get the room ready and let her stay at our house, because we were most convenient, and it would be the best place for her. She said that every time, and the teacher always stayed with us. Really it was because father and mother wanted the teacher where they could know as much as possible about what was going on. Sally didn't like having her at all; she said with the wedding coming, the teacher would be a nuisance. Shelley had finished our school, and the Groveville high school, and instead of attending college she was going to Chicago to study music. She was so anxious over her dresses and getting started, she didn't seem to think much about what was going to happen to us at home; so she didn't care if Miss Amelia stayed at our house. May said it would be best to have the teacher with us, because she could help us with our lessons at home, and we could get ahead of the others. May already had decided that she would be at the head of her class when she finished school, and every time you wanted her and couldn't find her, if you would look across the foot of mother's bed, May would be there with a spelling book. Once she had spelled down our school, when Laddie was not there.

Father had met Peter Dover in town, and he had said that he was coming to see Sally, because he had something of especial importance to tell her.

"Did he say what it was?" asked Sally.

"Only what I have told you," replied father.

Sally wanted to take the broom and sweep the parlour.

"It's clean as a ribbon," said mother.

"If you go in there, you'll wake the baby," said Lucy.

"Will it kill it if I do?" asked Sally.

"No, but it will make it cross as fire, so it will cry all the time Peter is here," said Lucy.

"I'll be surprised if it doesn't scream every minute anyway," said Sally.

"I hope it will," said Lucy. "That will make Peter think a while before he comes so often."

That made Sally so angry she couldn't speak, so she went out and began killing chickens. I helped her catch them. They were so used to me they would come right to my feet when I shelled corn.

"I'm going to kill three," said Sally. "I'm going to be sure we have enough, but don't you tell until their heads are off."

While she was working on them mother came out and asked how many she had, so Sally said three. Mother counted us and said that wasn't enough; there would have to be four at least.

After she was gone Sally looked at me and said: "Well, for land's sake!"

It was so funny she had to laugh, and by the time I caught the fourth one, and began helping pick them, she was over being provoked and we had lots of fun.

The minute I saw Peter Dover he made me think of something. I rode his horse to the barn with Leon leading it. There we saw Laddie.

"Guess what!" I cried.

"Never could!" laughed Laddie, giving Peter Dover's horse a slap as it passed him on the way to a stall.

"Four chickens, ham, biscuit, and cake!" I announced.

"Is it a barbecue?" asked Laddie.

"No, the extra one is for the baby," said Leon. "Squally little runt, I call it."

"It's a nice baby!" said Laddie.

"What do you know about it?" demanded Leon.

"Well, considering that I started with you, and have brought up two others since, I am schooled in all there is to know," said Laddie.

"Guess what else!" I cried.

"More?" said Laddie. "Out with it! Don't kill me with suspense."

"Father is going to town Saturday to meet the new teacher and she will stay at our house as usual."

Leon yelled and fell back in a manger, while Laddie held harness oil to his nose.

"More!" cried Leon, grabbing the bottle.

"Are you sure?" asked Laddie of me earnestly.

"It's decided. Mother said so," I told him.

"Name of a black cat, why?" demanded Laddie.

"Mother said we were most convenient for the teacher."

"Aren't there enough of us?" asked Leon, straightening up sniffing harness oil as if his life depended on it.

"Any unprejudiced person would probably say so to look in," said Laddie.

"I'll bet she'll be sixty and a cat," said Leon. "Won't I have fun with her?"

"Maybe so, maybe not!" said Laddie. "You can't always tell, for sure. Remember your Alamo! You were going to have fun with the teacher last year, but she had it with you."

Leon threw the oil bottle at him. Laddie caught it and set it on the shelf.

"I don't understand," said Leon.

"I do," said Laddie dryly. "THIS is one reason." He hit Peter Dover's horse another slap.

"Maybe yes," said Leon.

"Shelley to music school, two."

"Yes," said Leon. "Peter Dovers are the greatest expense, and Peter won't happen but once. Shelley will have at least two years in school before it is her turn, and you come next, anyway."

"Shut up!" cried Laddie.

"Thanky! Your orders shall be obeyed gladly."

He laid down the pitchfork, went outside, closed the door, and latched it. Laddie called to him, but he ran to the house. When Laddie and I finished our work, and his, and wanted to go, we had to climb the stairs and leave through the front door on the embankment.

"The monkey!" said Laddie, but he didn't get mad; he just laughed.

The minute I stepped into the house and saw the parlour door closed, I thought of that "something" again. I walked past it, but couldn't hear anything. Of course mother wanted to know; and she would be very thankful to me if I could tell her. I went out the front door, and thought deeply on the situation. The windows were wide open, but I was far below them and I could only hear a sort of murmur. Why can't people speak up loud and plain, anyway? Of course they would sit on the big haircloth sofa. Didn't Leon call it the "sparking bench"? The hemlock tree would be best. I climbed quieter than a cat, for they break bark and make an awful scratching with their claws sometimes; my bare feet were soundless. Up and up I went, slowly, for it was dreadfully rough. They were not on the sofa. I could see plainly through the needles. Then I saw the spruce would have been better, for they were standing in front of the parlour door and Peter had one hand on the knob. His other arm was around my sister Sally. Breathlessly I leaned as far as I could, and watched.

"Father said he'd give me the money to buy a half interest, and furnish a house nicely, if you said `yes,' Sally," said Peter.

Sally leaned back all pinksome and blushful, and while she laughed at him she

  
            "Carelessly tossed off a curl
             That played on her delicate brow."

exactly like Mary Dow in McGuffey's Third.

"Well, what did I SAY?" she asked.

"Come to think of it, you didn't say anything."

Sally's face was all afire with dancing lights, and she laughed the gayest little laugh.

"Are you so very sure of that, Peter?" she said.

"I'm not sure of anything," said Peter, "except that I am so happy I could fly."

"Try it, fool!" I said to myself, deep in my throat.

Sally laughed again, and Peter took his other hand from the door and put that arm around Sally too, and he drew her to him and kissed her, the longest, hardest kiss I ever saw. I let go and rolled, tumbled, slid, and scratched down the hemlock tree, dropped from the last branch to the ground, and scampered around the house. I reached the dining-room door when every one was gathering for supper.

"Mother!" I cried. "Mother! Yes! They're engaged! He's kissing her, mother! Yes, Lucy, they're engaged!"

I rushed in to tell all of them what they would be glad to know, and if there didn't stand Peter and Sally! How they ever got through that door, and across the sitting-room before me, I don't understand. Sally made a dive at me, and I was so astonished I forgot to run, so she caught me. She started for the wood house with me, and mother followed. Sally turned at the door and she was the whitest of anything you ever saw.

"This is my affair," she said. "I'll attend to this young lady."

"Very well," said mother, and as I live she turned and left me to my sad fate, as it says in a story book we have. I wish when people are going to punish me, they'd take a switch and strike respectably, like mother does. This thing of having some one get all over me, and not having an idea where I'm going to be hit, is the worst punishment that I ever had. I'd been down the hill and up the hemlock that day, anyway. I'd always been told Sally didn't want me. She PROVED it right then. Finally she quit, because she was too tired to strike again, so I crept among the shavings on the work bench and went to sleep. I THOUGHT they would like to know, and that I was going to please them.

Anyway, they found out, for by the time Sally got back Peter had told them about the store, and the furnished house, and asked father for Sally right before all of them, which father said was pretty brave; but Peter knew it was all right or he couldn't have come like he'd been doing.

After that, you couldn't hear anything at our house but wedding. Sally's share of linen and bedding was all finished long ago. Father took her to Fort Wayne on the cars to buy her wedding, travelling, and working dresses, and her hat, cloak, and linen, like you have when you marry.

It was strange that Sally didn't want mother to go, but she said the trip would tire her too much. Mother said it was because Sally could coax more dresses from father. Anyway, mother told him to set a limit and stick to it. She said she knew he hadn't done it as she got the first glimpse of Sally's face when they came back, but the child looked so beautiful and happy she hadn't the heart to spoil her pleasure.

The next day a sewing woman came; and all of them were shut up in the sitting-room, while the sewing machine just whizzed on the working dresses. Sally said the wedding dress had to be made by hand. She kept the room locked, and every new thing that they made was laid away on the bed in the parlour bedroom, and none of us had a peep until everything was finished. It was awfully exciting, but I wouldn't pretend I cared, because I was huffy at her. I told her I wouldn't kiss her goodbye, and I'd be GLAD when she was gone.

Sally said the school-ma'am simply had to go to Winters', or some place else, but mother said possibly a stranger would have some ideas, and know some new styles, so Sally then thought maybe they had better try it a few days, and she could have her place and be company when she and Shelley left. Shelley was rather silent and blue, and before long I found her crying, because mother had told her she couldn't start for Chicago until after the wedding, and that would make her miss six weeks at the start.

Next day word was sent around that school was to begin the coming Monday; so Saturday afternoon the people who had children large enough to go sent the biggest of them to clean the schoolhouse. May, Leon, and I went to do our share. Just when there were about a bushel of nut shells, and withered apple cores, and inky paper on the floor, the blackboard half cleaned, and ashes trailed deep between the stove and the window Billy Wilson was throwing them from, some one shouted: "There comes Mr. Stanton with Her."

All of us dropped everything and ran to the south windows. I tell you I was proud of our big white team as it came prancing down the hill, and the gleaming patent leather trimmings, and the brass side lamps shining in the sun. Father sat very straight, driving rather fast, as if he would as lief get it over with, and instead of riding on the back seat, where mother always sat, the teacher was in front beside him, and she seemed to be talking constantly. We looked at each other and groaned when father stopped at the hitching post and got out. If we had tried to see what a dreadful muss we could make, things could have looked no worse. I think father told her to wait in the carriage, but we heard her cry: "Oh Mr. Stanton, let me see the dear children I'm to teach, and where I'm to work."

Hopped is the word. She hopped from the carriage and came hopping after father. She was as tall as a clothes prop and scarcely as fat. There were gray hairs coming on her temples. Her face was sallow and wrinkled, and she had faded, pale-blue eyes. Her dress was like my mother had worn several years before, in style, and of stiff gray stuff. She made me feel that no one wanted her at home, and probably that was the reason she had come so far away.

Every one stood dumb. Mother always went to meet people and May was old enough to know it. She went, but she looked exactly as she does when the wafer bursts and the quinine gets in her mouth, and she doesn't dare spit it out, because it costs five dollars a bottle, and it's going to do her good. Father introduced May and some of the older children, and May helped him with the others, and then he told us to "dig in and work like troopers," and he would take Miss Pollard on home.

"Oh do let me remain and help the dear children!" she cried.

"We can finish!" we answered in full chorus.

"How lovely of you!" she chirped.

Chirp makes you think of a bird; and in speech and manner Miss Amelia Pollard was the most birdlike of any human being I ever have seen. She hopped from the step to the walk, turned to us, her head on one side, playfulness in the air around her, and shook her finger at us.

"Be extremely particular that you leave things immaculate at the consummation of your labour," she said. "`Remember that cleanliness is next to Godliness!'"

"Two terms of that!" gasped Leon, sinking on the stove hearth. "Behold Job mourning as close the ashes as he can."

Billy Wilson had the top lid off, so he reached down and got a big handful of ashes and sifted them over Leon. But it's no fun to do anything like that to him; he only sank in a more dejected heap, and moaned: "Send for Bildad and Zophar to comfort me, and more ashes, please."

"Why does the little feathered dear touch earth at all? Why doesn't she fly?" demanded Silas Shaw.

"I'm going to get a hundred wads ready for Monday," said Jimmy Hood. "We can shoot them when we please."

"Bet ten cents you can't hit her," said Billy Wilson. "There ain't enough of her for a decent mark."

"Let's quit and go home," proposed Leon. "This will look worse than it does now by Monday night."

Then every one began talking at once. Suddenly May seized the poker and began pounding on the top of the stove for order.

"We must clean this up," she said. "We might as well finish. Maybe you'll shoot wads and do what you please, and maybe you won't. Her eyes went around like a cat that smells mice. If she can spell the language she uses, she is the best we've ever had."

That made us blink, and I never forgot it. Many times afterward while listening to people talk, I wondered if they could spell the words they used.

"Well, come on, then!" said Leon. He seized the broom and handed it to Billy Wilson, quoting as he did so, "Work, work, my boy, be not afraid"; and he told Silas Shaw as he gave him the mop, to "Look labour boldly in the face!" but he never did a thing himself, except to keep every one laughing.

So we cleaned up as well as we could, and Leon strutted like Bobby, because he locked the door and carried the key. When we reached home I was sorry I hadn't gone with father, so I could have seen mother, Sally, Candace, and Laddie when first they met the new teacher. The shock showed yet! Miss Amelia had taken off her smothery woollen dress and put on a black calico, but it wasn't any more cheerful. She didn't know what to do, and you could see plainly that no one knew what to do with her, so they united in sending me to show her the place. I asked her what she would like most to see, and she said everything was so charming she couldn't decide. I thought if she had no more choice than that, one place would do as well as another, so I started for the orchard. Quick as we got there, I knew what to do. I led her straight to our best cling peach tree, told her to climb on the fence so she could reach easily, and eat all she chose. We didn't dare shake the tree, because the pigs ran on the other side of the fence, and they chanked up every peach that fell there. Those peaches were too good to feed even father's finest Berkshires.

By the time Miss Amelia had eaten nine or ten, she was so happy to think she was there, she quit tilting her head and using big words. Of course she couldn't know how I loved to hear them, and maybe she thought I wouldn't know what they meant, and that they would be wasted on me. If she had understood how much spelling and defining I'd heard in my life, I guess she might have talked up as big as she could, and still I'd have got most of it. When she reached the place where she ate more slowly, she began to talk. She must have asked me most a hundred questions. What all our names were, how old we were, if our girls had lots of beaus, and if there were many men in the neighbourhood, and dozens of things my mother never asked any one. She always inquired if people were well, if their crops were growing, how much fruit they had, and how near their quilts were finished.

I told her all about Sally and the wedding, because no one cared who knew it, after I had been pounded to mince-meat for telling. She asked if Shelley had any beaus, and I said there wasn't any one who came like Peter, but every man in the neighbourhood wanted to be her beau. Then she asked about Laddie, and I was taking no risks, so I said: "I only see him at home. I don't know where he goes when he's away. You'll have to ask him."

"Oh, I never would dare," she said. "But he must. He is so handsome! The girls would just compel him to go to see them."

"Not if he didn't want to go," I said.

"You must never, never tell him I said so, but I do think he is the handsomest man I ever saw."

"So do I," I said, "and it wouldn't make any difference if I told him."

"Then do you mean you're going to tell him my foolish remark?" she giggled.

"No use," I said. "He knows it now. Every time he parts his hair he sees how good looking he is. He doesn't care. He says the only thing that counts with a man is to be big, strong, manly, and well educated."

"Is he well educated?"

"Yes, I think so, as far as he's gone," I answered. "Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all rot about `finishing' your education. You never do. You learn more important things each day, and by the time you are old enough to die, you have almost enough sense to know how to live comfortably. Pity, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Miss Amelia, "it's an awful pity, but it's the truth.

Is your mother being educated too?"

"Whole family," I said. "We learn all the time, mother most of any, because father always looks out for her. You see, it takes so much of her time to manage the house, and sew, and knit, and darn, that she can't study so much as the others; so father reads all the books to her, and tells her about everything he finds out, and so do all of us. Just ask her if you think she doesn't know things."

"I wouldn't know what to ask," said Miss Amelia.

"Ask how long it took to make this world, who invented printing, where English was first spoken, why Greeley changed his politics, how to make bluebell perfumery, cut out a dress, or cure a baby of worms. Just ask her!"

Miss Amelia threw a peach stone through a fence crack and hit a pig. It was a pretty neat shot.

"I don't need ask any of that," she said scornfully. "I know all of it now."

"All right! What is best for worms?" I asked.

"Jayne's vermifuge," said Miss Amelia.

"Wrong!" I cried. "That's a patent medicine. Tea made from male fern root is best, because there's no morphine in it!"

The supper bell rang and I was glad of it. Peaches are not very filling after all, for I couldn't see but that Miss Amelia ate as much as any of us. For a few minutes every one was slow in speaking, then mother asked about cleaning the schoolhouse, Laddie had something to explain to father about corn mould, Sally and the dressmaker talked about pipings--not a bird--a new way to fold goods to make trimmings, and soon everything was going on the same as if the new teacher were not there. I noticed that she kept her head straight, and was not nearly so glib-tongued and birdlike before mother and Sally as she had been at the schoolhouse. Maybe that was why father told mother that night that the new teacher would bear acquaintance.

Sunday was like every other Sabbath, except that I felt so sad all day I could have cried, but I was not going to do it. Seemed as if I never could put on shoes, and so many clothes Monday morning, quite like church, and be shut in a room for hours, to try to learn what was in books, when the world was running over with things to find out where you could have your feet in water, leaves in your hair, and little living creatures in your hands. In the afternoon Miss Amelia asked Laddie to take her for a walk to see the creek, and the barn, and he couldn't escape.

I suppose our barn was exactly like hundreds of others. It was built against an embankment so that on one side you could drive right on the threshing floor with big loads of grain. On the sunny side in the lower part were the sheep pens, cattle stalls, and horse mangers. It was always half bursting with overflowing grain bins and haylofts in the fall; the swallows twittered under the roof until time to go south for winter, as they sailed from the ventilators to their nests plastered against the rafters or eaves. The big swinging doors front and back could be opened to let the wind blow through in a strong draft. From the east doors you could see for miles across the country.

I said our barn was like others, but it was not. There was not another like it in the whole world. Father, the boys, and the hired men always kept it cleaned and in proper shape every day. The upper floor was as neat as some women's houses. It was swept, the sun shone in, the winds drifted through, the odours of drying hay and grain were heavy, and from the top of the natural little hill against which it stood you could see for miles in all directions.

The barn was our great playhouse on Sundays. It was clean there, we were where we could be called when wanted, and we liked to climb the ladders to the top of the haymows, walk the beams to the granaries, and jump to the hay. One day May came down on a snake that had been brought in with a load. I can hear her yell now, and it made her so frantic she's been killing them ever since. It was only a harmless little garter snake, but she was so surprised.

Miss Amelia held her head very much on one side all the time she walked with Laddie, and she was so birdlike Leon slipped him a brick and told him to have her hold it to keep her down. Seemed as if she might fly any minute. She thought our barn was the nicest she ever had seen and the cleanest. When Laddie opened the doors on the east side, and she could see the big, red, yellow, and green apples thick as leaves on the trees in the orchard, the lane, the woods pasture, and the meadow with scattering trees, two running springs, and the meeting of the creeks, she said it was the loveliest sight she ever saw--I mean beheld. Laddie liked that, so he told her about the beautiful town, and the lake, and the Wabash River, that our creek emptied into, and how people came from other states and big cities and stayed all summer to fish, row, swim, and have good times.

She asked him to take her to the meadow, but he excused himself, because he had an engagement. So she stood in the door, and watched him saddle Flos and start to the house to dress in his riding clothes. After that she didn't care a thing about the meadow, so we went back.

Our house looked as if we had a party. We were all dressed in our best, and every one was out in the yard, garden, or orchard. Peter and Sally were under the big pearmain apple tree at the foot of the orchard, Shelley and a half dozen beaus were everywhere. May had her spelling book in one hand and was in my big catalpa talking to Billy Stevens, who was going to be her beau as soon as mother said she was old enough. Father was reading a wonderful new book to mother and some of the neighbours. Leon was perfectly happy because no one wanted him, so he could tease all of them by saying things they didn't like to hear. When Laddie came out and mounted, Leon asked him where he was going, and Laddie said he hadn't fully decided: he might ride to Elizabeth's, and not come back until Monday morning.

"You think you're pretty slick," said Leon. "But if we could see north to the cross road we could watch you turn west, and go past Pryors to show yourself off, or try to find the Princess on the road walking or riding. I know something I'm saving to tell next time you get smart, Mr. Laddie."

Laddie seemed annoyed and no one was quicker to see it than Leon.

Instantly he jumped on the horse block, pulled down his face long as he could, stretched his hands toward Laddie, and making his voice all wavery and tremulous, he began reciting from "Lochiel's Warning," in tones of agonizing pleading:

  
            "Laddie, Laddie, beware of the day!
             For, dark and despairing, my sight, I may seal,
             But man cannot cover what God would reveal;
             'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
             And coming events cast their shadows before."

That scared me. I begged Leon to tell, but he wouldn't say a word more. He went and talked to Miss Amelia as friendly as you please, and asked her to take a walk in the orchard and get some peaches, and she went flying. He got her all she could carry and guided her to Peter and Sally, introduced her to Peter, and then slipped away and left her. Then he and Sally couldn't talk about their wedding, and Peter couldn't squeeze her hand, and she couldn't fix his tie, and it was awful. Shelley and her boys almost laughed themselves sick over it, and then she cried, "To the rescue!" and started, so they followed. They captured Miss Amelia and brought her back, and left her with father and the wonderful book, but I'm sure she liked the orchard better.

I took Grace Greenwood under my arm, Hezekiah on my shoulder, and with Bobby at my heels went away. I didn't want my hair pulled, or to be teased that day. There was such a hardness around my heart, and such a lump in my throat, that I didn't care what happened to me one minute, and the next I knew I'd slap any one who teased me, if I were sent to bed for it. As I went down the lane Peter called to me to come and see him, but I knew exactly how he looked, and didn't propose to make up. There was not any sense in Sally clawing me all over, when I only tried to help mother and Lucy find out what they wanted to know so badly. I went down the hill, crossed the creek on the stepping-stones, and followed the cowpath into the woods pasture. It ran beside the creek bank through the spice thicket and blackberry patches, under pawpaw groves, and beneath giant oaks and elms. Just where the creek turned at the open pasture, below the church and cemetery, right at the deep bend, stood the biggest white oak father owned. It was about a tree exactly like this that an Englishman wrote a beautiful poem in McGuffey's Sixth, that begins:

  
            "A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
             Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
             Here's health and renown to his broad green crown,
             And his fifty arms so strong."

I knew it was the same, because I counted the arms time and again, and there were exactly fifty. There was a pawpaw and spice hedge around three sides of this one, and water on the other. Wild grapes climbed from the bushes to the lower branches and trailed back to earth again. Here, I had two secrets I didn't propose to tell. One was that in the crotch of some tiptop branches the biggest chicken hawks you ever saw had their nest, and if they took too many chickens father said they'd have to be frightened a little with a gun. I can't begin to tell how I loved those hawks. They did the one thing I wanted to most, and never could. When I saw them serenely soar above the lowest of the soft fleecy September clouds, I was wild with envy. I would have gone without chicken myself rather than have seen one of those splendid big brown birds dropped from the skies. I was so careful to shield them, that I selected this for my especial retreat when I wanted most to be alone, and I carefully gathered up any offal from the nest that might point out their location, and threw it into the water where it ran the swiftest.

I parted the vines and crept where the roots of the big oak stretched like bony fingers over the water, that was slowly eating under it and baring its roots. I sat on them above the water and thought. I had decided the day before about my going to school, and the day before that, and many, many times before that, and here I was having to settle it all over again. Doubled on the sak roots, a troubled little soul, I settled it once more.

No books or teachers were needed to tell me about flowing water and fish, how hawks raised their broods and kept house, about the softly cooing doves of the spice thickets, the cuckoos slipping snakelike in and out of the wild crab-apple bushes, or the brown thrush's weird call from the thorn bush. I knew what they said and did, but their names, where they came from, where they went when the wind blew and the snow fell--how was I going to find out that? Worse yet were the flowers, butterflies, and moths; they were mysteries past learning alone, and while the names I made up for them were pretty and suitable, I knew in all reason they wouldn't be the same in the books. I had to go, but no one will ever know what it cost. When the supper bell rang, I sat still. I'd have to wait until at least two tables had been served, anyway, so I sat there and nursed my misery, looked and listened, and by and by I felt better. I couldn't see or hear a thing that was standing still. Father said even the rocks grew larger year by year. The trees were getting bigger, the birds were busy, and the creek was in a dreadful hurry to reach the river. It was like that poetry piece that says:

  
            "When a playful brook, you gambolled,"

(Mostly that gambolled word is said about lambs)

  
                "And the sunshine o'er you smiled,
            On your banks did children loiter,
                 Looking for the spring flowers wild?"

The creek was more in earnest and working harder at pushing steadily ahead without ever stopping than anything else; and like the poetry piece again, it really did "seem to smile upon us as it quickly passed us by." I had to quit playing, and go to work some time; it made me sorry to think how behind I was, because I had not started two years before, when I should. But that couldn't be helped now. All there was left was to go this time, for sure. I got up heavily and slowly as an old person, and then slipped out and ran down the path to the meadow, because I could hear Leon whistle as he came to bring the cows.

By fast running I could start them home for him: Rose, Brindle, Bess, and Pidy, Sukey and Muley; they had eaten all day, but they still snatched bites as they went toward the gate. I wanted to surprise Leon and I did.

"Getting good, ain't you?" he asked. "What do you want?"

"Nothing!" I said. "I just heard you coming and I thought I'd help you."

"Where were you?"

"Playing."

"You don't look as if you'd been having much fun."

"I don't expect ever to have any, after I begin school."

"Oh!" said Leon. "It is kind of tough the first day or two, but you'll soon get over it. You should have behaved yourself, and gone when they started you two years ago."

"Think I don't know it?"

Leon stopped and looked at me sharply.

"I'll help you nights, if you want me to," he offered.

"Can I ever learn?" I asked, almost ready to cry.

"Of course you can," said Leon. "You're smart as the others, I suppose. The sevens and nines of the multiplication table are the stickers, but you ought to do them if other girls can. You needn't feel bad because you are behind a little to start on; you are just that much better prepared to work, and you can soon overtake them. You know a lot none of the rest of us do, and some day it will come your turn to show off. Cheer up, you'll be all right."

Men are such a comfort. I pressed closer for more.

"Do you suppose I will?" I asked.

"Of course," said Leon. "Any minute the woods, or birds, or flowers are mentioned your time will come; and all of us will hear you read and help nights. I'd just as soon as not."

That was the most surprising thing. He never offered to help me before. He never acted as if he cared what became of me. Maybe it was because Laddie always had taken such good care of me, Leon had no chance. He seemed willing enough now. I looked at him closely.

"You'll find out I'll learn things if I try," I boasted. "And you will find out I don't tell secrets either."

"I've been waiting for you to pipe up about----"

"Well, I haven't piped, have I?"

"Not yet."

"I am not going to either."

"I almost believe you. A girl you could trust would be a funny thing to see."

"Tell me what you know about Laddie, and see if I'm funny."

"You'd telltale sure as life!"

"Well, if you know it, he knows it anyway."

"He doesn't know WHAT I know."

"Well, be careful and don't worry mother. You know how she is since the fever, and father says all of us must think of her. If it's anything that would bother her, don't tell before her."

"Say, looky here," said Leon, turning on me sharply, "is all this sudden consideration for mother or are you legging for Laddie?"

"For both," I answered stoutly.

"Mostly for Laddie, just the same. You can't fool me, missy. I won't tell you one word."

"You needn't!" I answered, "I don't care!"

"Yes you do," he said. "You'd give anything to find out what I know, and then run to Laddie with it, but you can't fool me. I'm too smart for you."

"All right," I said. "You go and tell anything on Laddie, and I'll watch you, and first trick I catch you at, I'll do some telling myself, Smarty."

"That's a game more than one can play at," said Leon. "Go ahead!"

CHAPTER V. The First Day of School

  
                "Birds in their little nests agree.
                 And why can't we?"

B-i-r-d-s, birds, i-n, in, t-h-e-i-r, their, l-i-t-t-l-e, little, n-e-s-t-s, nests, a-g-r-e-e, agree."

My feet burned in my new shoes, but most of my body was chilling as I stood beside Miss Amelia on the platform, before the whole school, and followed the point of her pencil, while, a letter at a time, I spelled aloud my first sentence. Nothing ever had happened to me as bad as that. I was not used to so much clothing. It was like taking a colt from the woods pasture and putting it into harness for the first time. That lovely September morning I followed Leon and May down the dusty road, my heart sick with dread.

May was so much smaller that I could have picked her up and carried her. She was a gentle, loving little thing, until some one went too far, and then they got what they deserved, all at once and right away.

Many of the pupils were waiting before the church. Leon climbed the steps, made a deep bow, waved toward the school building across the way, and what he intended to say was, "Still sits the schoolhouse by the road," but he was a little excited and the s's doubled his tongue, so that we heard: "Shill stits the schoolhouse by the road." We just yelled and I forgot a little about myself.

When Miss Amelia came to the door and rang the bell, May must have remembered something of how her first day felt, for as we reached the steps she waited for me, took me in with her, and found me a seat. If she had not, I'm quite sure I'd have run away and fought until they left me in freedom, as I had two years before. All forenoon I had shivered in my seat, while classes were arranged, and the elder pupils were started on their work; then Miss Amelia called me to her on the platform and tried to find out how much schooling I had. I was ashamed that I knew so little, but there was no sense in her making me spell after a pencil, like a baby. I'd never seen the book she picked up. I could read the line she pointed to, and I told her so, but she said to spell the words; so I thought she had to be obeyed, for one poetry piece I know says:

  
            "Quickly speed your steps to school
             And there mind your teacher's rule."

I can see Miss Amelia to-day. Her pale face was lined deeper than ever, her drab hair was dragged back tighter. She wore a black calico dress with white huckleberries, and a white calico apron figured in large black apples, each having a stem and two leaves. In dress she was a fruitful person. She had been a surprise to all of us. Chipper as a sparrow, she had hopped, and chattered, and darted here and there, until the hour of opening. Then in the stress of arranging classes and getting started, all her birdlike ways slipped from her. Stern and bony she stood before us, and with a cold light in her pale eyes, she began business in a manner that made Johnny Hood forget all about his paper wads, and Leon commenced studying like a good boy, and never even tried to have fun with her. Every one was so surprised you could notice it, except May, and she looked, "I told you so!" even in the back. She had a way of doing that very thing as I never saw any one else. From the set of her head, how she carried her shoulders, the stiffness of her spine, and her manner of walking, if you knew her well, you could tell what she thought, the same as if you saw her face.

I followed that pencil point and in a husky voice repeated the letters. I could see Tillie Baher laughing at me from behind her geography, and every one else had stopped what they were doing to watch and listen, so I forgot to be thankful that I even knew my a b c's. I spelled through the sentence, pronounced the words and repeated them without much thought as to the meaning; at that moment it didn't occur to me that she had chosen the lesson because father had told her how I made friends with the birds. The night before he had been putting me through memory tests, and I had recited poem after poem, even long ones in the Sixth Reader, and never made one mistake when the piece was about birds. At our house, we heard next day's lessons for all ages gone over every night so often, that we couldn't help knowing them by heart, if we had any brains at all, and I just loved to get the big folk's readers and learn the bird pieces. Father had been telling her about it, so for that reason she thought she would start me on the birds, but I'm sure she made me spell after a pencil point, like a baby, on purpose to shame me, because I was two years behind the others who were near my age. As I repeated the line Miss Amelia thought she saw her chance. She sprang to her feet, tripped a few steps toward the centre of the platform, and cried: "Classes, attention! Our Youngest Pupil has just completed her first sentence. This sentence contains a Thought. It is a wonderfully beautiful Thought. A Thought that suggests a great moral lesson for each of us. `Birrrds--in their little nests--agreeee.'"

Never have I heard cooing sweetness to equal the melting tones in which Miss Amelia drawled those words. Then she continued, after a good long pause in order to give us time to allow the "Thought" to sink in: "There is a lesson in this for all of us. We are here in our schoolroom, like little birds in their nest. Now how charming it would be if all of us would follow the example of the birds, and at our work, and in our play, agreeee--be kind, loving, and considerate of each other. Let us all remember always this wonderful truth: `Birrrrds--in their little nests-- agreeeee!'"

In three steps I laid hold of her apron. Only last night Leon had said it would come, yet whoever would have thought that I'd get a chance like this, so soon.

"Ho but they don't!" I cried. "They fight like anything! Every day they make the feathers fly!"

In a backward stroke Miss Amelia's fingers, big and bony, struck my cheek a blow that nearly upset me. A red wave crossed her face, and her eyes snapped. I never had been so surprised in all my life. I was only going to tell her the truth. What she had said was altogether false. Ever since I could remember I had watched courting male birds fight all over the farm. After a couple had paired, and were nest building, the father always drove every other bird from his location. In building I had seen him pecked for trying to place a twig. I had seen that happen again for merely offering food to the mother, if she didn't happen to be hungry, or for trying to make love to her when she was brooding. If a young bird failed to get the bite it wanted, it sometimes grabbed one of its nestmates by the bill, or the eye even, and tried to swallow it whole. Always the oldest and strongest climbed on top of the youngest and fooled his mammy into feeding him most by having his head highest, his mouth widest, and begging loudest. There could be no mistake. I was so amazed I forgot the blow, as I stared at the fool woman.

"I don't see why you slap me!" I cried. "It's the truth! Lots of times old birds pull out bunches of feathers fighting, and young ones in the nests bite each other until they squeal."

Miss Amelia caught my shoulders and shook me as hard as she could; and she proved to be stronger than you ever would have thought to look at her.

"Take your seat!" she cried. "You are a rude, untrained child!"

"They do fight!" I insisted, as I held my head high and walked to my desk.

Leon laughed out loud, and that made everyone else. Miss Amelia had so much to do for a few minutes that she forgot me, and I know now why Leon started it, at least partly. He said afterward it was the funniest sight he ever saw. My cheek smarted and burned. I could scarcely keep from feeling to learn whether it were swelling, but I wouldn't have shed a tear or raised my hand for anything you could offer.

Recess was coming and I didn't know what to do. If I went to the playground, all of them would tease me; and if I sat at my desk Miss Amelia would have another chance at me. That was too much to risk, so I followed the others outdoors, and oh joy! there came Laddie down the road. He set me on one of the posts of the hitching rack before the church, and with my arms around his neck, I sobbed out the whole story.

"She didn't understand," said Laddie quietly. "You stay here until I come back. I'll go explain to her about the birds. Perhaps she hasn't watched them as closely as you have."

Recess was over before he returned. He had wet his handkerchief at the water bucket, and now he bathed my face and eyes, straightened my hair with his pocket comb, and began unlacing my shoes.

"What are you going to do?" I asked. "I must wear them. All the girls do. Only the boys are barefoot."

"You are excused," answered Laddie. "Three-fourths of the day is enough to begin on. Miss Amelia says you may come with me."

"Where are you going?"

Laddie was stripping off my stockings as he looked into my eyes, and smiled a peculiar little smile.

"Oh Laddie!" I cried. "Will you take me? Honest!"

He laughed again and then he rubbed my feet.

"Poor abused feet," he said. "Sometimes I wish shoes had never been invented."

"They feel pretty good when there's ice."

"So they do!" said Laddie.

He swung me to the ground, and we crossed the road, climbed the fence, and in a minute our redbird swamp shut the schoolhouse and cross old Miss Amelia from sight. Then we turned and started straight toward our Big Woods. I could scarcely keep on the ground.

"How are the others getting along?" asked Laddie.

"She's cross as two sticks," I told him. "Johnny Hood hasn't shot one paper wad, and Leon hadn't done a thing until he laughed about the birds, and I guess he did that to make her forget me."

"Good!" cried Laddie. "I didn't suppose the boy thought that far."

"Oh, you never can tell by looking at him, how far Leon is thinking," I said.

"That's so, too," said Laddie. "Are your feet comfortable now?"

"Yes, but Laddie, isn't my face marked?"

"I'm afraid it is a little," said Laddie. "We'll bathe it again at the creek. We must get it fixed so mother won't notice."

"What will the Princess think?"

"That you fell, perhaps," said Laddie.

"Do the tears show?"

"Not at all. We washed them all away."

"Did I do wrong, Laddie?"

"Yes, I think you did."

"But it wasn't true, what she said."

"That's not the point."

We had reached the fence of the Big Woods. He lifted me to the top rail and explained, while I combed his waving hair with my fingers.

"She didn't strike you because what you said was not so, for it was. She knew instantly you were right, if she knows anything at all about outdoors. This is what made her angry: it is her first day. She wanted to make a good impression on her pupils, to arouse their interest, and awaken their respect. When you spoke, all of them knew you were right, and she was wrong; that made her ridiculous. Can't you see how it made her look and feel?"

"I didn't notice how she looked, but from the way she hit me, you could tell she felt bad enough."

"She surely did," said Laddie, kissing my cheek softly. "Poor little woman! What a world of things you have to learn!"

"Shouldn't I have told her how mistaken she was?"

"If you had gone to her alone, at recess or noon, or to-night, probably she would have thanked you. Then she could have corrected herself at some convenient time and kept her dignity."

"Must I ask her pardon?"

"What you should do, is to put yourself in Miss Amelia's place and try to understand how she felt. Then if you think you wouldn't have liked any one to do to you what you did to her, you'll know."

I hugged Laddie tight and thought fast--there was no need to think long to see how it was.

"I got to tell her I was wrong," I said. "Now let's go to the Enchanted Wood and see if we can find the Queen's daughter."

"All right!" said Laddie.

He leaped the fence, swung me over, and started toward the pawpaw thicket. He didn't do much going around. He crashed through and over; and soon he began whistling the loveliest little dancy tune. It made your head whirl, and your toes tingle, and you knew it was singing that way in his heart, and he was just letting out the music. That was why it made you want to dance and whirl; it was so alive. But that wasn't the way in an Enchanted Wood. I pulled his hand.

"Laddie!" I cautioned, "keep in the path! You'll step on the Fairies and crush a whole band with one foot. No wonder the Queen makes her daughter grow big when she sends her to you. If you make so much noise, some one will hear you, then this won't be a secret any more."

Laddie laughed, but he stepped carefully in the path after that, and he said: "There are times, Little Sister, when I don't care whether this secret is secret another minute or not. Secrets don't agree with me. I'm too big, and broad, and too much of a man, to go creeping through the woods with a secret. I prefer to print it on a banner and ride up the road waving it."

"Like,--`A youth who bore mid snow and ice, A banner with a strange device,'" I said.

"That would be `a banner with a strange device,'" laughest Laddie. "But, yes--something like!"

"Have you told the Princess?"

"I have!" Laddie fairly shouted it.

"Docs SHE like secrets?"

"No more than I do!"

"Then why----?"

"There you go!" said Laddie. "Zeus, but the woman is beginning to measle out all over you! You know as well as any one that there's something wrong at her house. I don't know what it is; I can't even make a sensible guess as yet, but it's worse than the neighbours think. It's a thing that has driven a family from their home country, under a name that I have doubts about being theirs, and sent them across an ocean, `strangers in a strange land,' as it says in the Bible. It's something that keeps a cultured gentleman and scholar raging up and down the roads and over the country like a madman. It shuts a white-faced, lovely, little woman from her neighbours, but I have passed her walking the road at night with both hands pressed against her heart. Sometimes it tries the Princess past endurance and control; and it has her so worn and tired struggling with it that she is willing to carry another secret, rather than try to find strength to do anything that would make more trouble for her father and mother."

"Would it trouble them for her to know you, Laddie?"

"So long as they don't and won't become acquainted with me, or any one, of course it would."

"Can't you force them to know you?"

"That I can!" said Laddie. "But you see, I only met the Princess a short time ago, and there would be no use in raising trouble, unless she will make me her Knight!"

"But hasn't she, Laddie?"

"Not in the very littlest least," said Laddie. "For all I know, she is merely using me to help pass a lonely hour. You see, people reared in England have ideas of class, that two or three generations spent here wash out. The Princess and her family are of the unwashed British. Father's people have been here long enough to judge a man on his own merits."

"You mean the Princess' family would think you're not good enough to be her Knight?"

"Exactly!"

"And we know that our family thinks they are infidels, and wicked people; and that if she would have you, mother would be sick in bed over it. Oh Laddie!"

"Precisely!"

"What are you going to do?"

"That I must find out."

"When it will make so much trouble, why not forget her, and go on like you did before she came? Then, all of us were happy. Now, it makes me shiver to think what will happen."

"Me too," said Laddie. "But look here, Little Sister, right in my face. Will you ever forget the Princess?"

"Never!"

"Then how can you ask me to?"

"I didn't mean forget her, exactly. I meant not come here and do things that will make every one unhappy."

"One minute, Chick-a-Biddy," said Laddie. Sometimes he called me that, when he loved me the very most of all. I don't believe any one except me ever heard him do it. "Let me ask you this: does our father love our mother?"

"Love her?" I cried. "Why he just loves her to death! He turns so white, and he suffers so, when her pain is the worst. Love her? And she him? Why, don't you remember the other day when he tipped her head against him and kissed her throat as he left the table; that he asked her if she `loved him yet,' and she said right before all of us, `Why Paul, I love you, until I scarcely can keep my fingers off you!' Laddie, is it like that with you and the Princess?"

"It is with me," said Laddie. "Not with the Princess! Now, can I forget her? Can I keep away from even the chance to pass her on the road?"

"No," I said. "No, you can't, Laddie. But can you ever make her love you?"

"It takes time to find that out," said Laddie. "I have got to try; so you be a woman and keep my secret a little while longer, until I find a way out, but don't bother your head about it!"

"I can't help bothering my head, Laddie. Can't you make her understand that God is not a myth?"

"I'm none too sure what I believe myself," said Laddie. "Not that there is no God--I don't mean that--but I surely don't believe all father's teachings."

"If you believe God, do other little things matter, Laddie?"

"I think not," said Laddie, "else Heaven would be all Methodists.

As for the Princess, all she has heard in her life has been against there being a God. Now, she is learning something on the other side. After a while she can judge for herself. It is for us, who profess to be a Christian family, to prove to her why we believe in God, and what He does for us."

"Well, she would think He could do a good deal, if she knew how mother hated asking her to come to our house; and yet she did it, beautifully too, just to give her a chance to see that very thing. But I almost made her do it. I don't believe she ever would alone, Laddie, or at least not for a long time yet."

"I saw that, and understood it perfectly," said Laddie. "Thank you, Little Sister." He picked me up and hugged me tight. "If I could only make you see!"

"But Laddie, I do! I'm not a baby! I know how people love and make homes for themselves, like Sally and Peter are going to. If it is with you about the Princess as it is with father and mother, why I do know."

"All right! Here we are!" said Laddie.

He parted the willows and we stepped on the Magic Carpet, and that minute the Magic worked. I forgot every awful, solemn, troublous thing we had been talking about, and looked around while Laddie knelt and hunted for a letter, and there was none. That meant the Princess was coming, so we sat on the throne to wait. We hadn't remembered to bathe my cheek, we had been so busy when we passed the water, and I doubt if we were thinking much then. We just waited. The willow walls waved gently, the moss carpet was spotted with little gold patches of sunlight, in the shade a few of the red flowers still bloomed, and big, lazy bumblebees hummed around them, or a hummingbird stood on air before them. A sort of golden throbbing filled the woods, and my heart began to leap, why, I don't know; but I'm sure Laddie's did too, for I looked at him and his eyes were shining as I never had seen them before, while his cheeks were a little red, and he was breathing like when you've been running; then suddenly his body grew tense against mine, and that meant she was coming.

Like that first day, she came slowly through the woods, stopping here and there to touch the trunk of a tree, put back a branch, or bend over a flower face. Brown as the wood floor was her dress, and cardinal flowers blazed on her breast, and the same colour showed on her cheeks and lips. Her eyes were like Laddie's for brightness, and she was breathing the same way. I thought sure there was going to be something to remember a lifetime--I was so excited I couldn't stand still. Before it could happen Laddie went and said it was a "beautiful day," and she said "it didn't show in the woods, but the pastures needed rain." Then she kissed me. Well if I ever! I sank on the throne and sat there. They went on talking like that, until it was too dull to bear, so I slipped out and wandered away to see what I could find. When I grew tired and went back, Laddie was sitting on the Magic Carpet with his back against the beech, and the Princess was on the throne reading from a little book, reading such interesting things that I decided to listen. After a while she came to this:

  
        "Thou are mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature, will have weight to bear thee
down."

Laddie threw back his head, and how he laughed! The Princess put down the book and looked at him so surprised.

"Are you reading that to me because you think it appropriate?" asked Laddie.

"I am reading it because it is conceded to be one of the most beautiful poems ever written," said the Princess.

"You knew when you began that you would come to those lines."

"I never even thought of such a thing."

"But you knew that is how your father would regard any relationship, friendly or deeper, with me!"

"I cannot possibly be held responsible for what my father thinks."

"It is natural that you should think alike."

"Not necessarily! You told me recently that you didn't agree with your father on many subjects."

"Kindly answer me this," said Laddie: "Do you feel that I'm a `clown' because I'm not schooled to the point on all questions of good manners? Do you find me gross because I plow and sow?"

"You surprise me," said the Princess. "My consenting to know and to spend a friendly hour with you here is sufficient answer. I have not found the slightest fault with your manners. I have seen no suspicion of `grossness' about you."

"Will you tell me, frankly, exactly what you do think of me?"

"Surely! I think you are a clean, decent man, who occasionally kindly consents to put a touch of human interest into an hour, for a very lonely girl. What has happened, Laddie? This is not like you."

Laddie sat straight and studied the beech branches. Father said beech trees didn't amount to much; but I first learned all about them from that one, and what it taught me made me almost worship them always. There were the big trunk with great rough spreading roots, the bark in little ridges in places, smooth purple gray between, big lichens for ornament, the low flat branches, the waxy, wavy-edged leaves, with clear veins, and the delicious nuts in their little brown burrs. The Princess and I both stared at the branches and waited while a little breath of air stirred the leaves, the sunshine flickered, and a cricket sang a sort of lonesome song. Laddie leaned against the tree again, and he was thinking so hard, to look at him made me begin to repeat to myself the beech part of that beautiful churchyard poem our big folks recite:

  
            "There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
             That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
             His listless length at noontide he would stretch,
             And pore upon the brook that babbles by."

Only he was studying so deeply you could almost feel what was in his mind, and it was not about the brook at all, even if one ran close. Soon he began talking.

"Not so bad!" he said. "You might think worse. I admit the cleanliness, I strive for decency, I delight in being humanely interesting, even for an hour; you might think worse, much worse!

You might consider me a `clown.' `A country clod.' Rather a lowdown, common thing, a `clod,' don't you think? And a `clown'!

And `gross' on top of that!"

"What can you mean?" asked the Princess.

"Since you don't seem to share the estimate of me, I believe I'll tell you," said Laddie. "The other day I was driving from the gravel pit with a very heavy load. The road was wide and level on either side. A man came toward me on horseback. Now the law of the road is to give half to a vehicle similar to the one you are driving, but to keep all of it when you are heavily loaded, if you are passing people afoot or horseback. The man took half the road, and kept it until the nose of his horse touched one of the team I was driving. I stopped and said: `Good morning, sir!

Do you wish to speak with me?' He called angrily: `Get out of my way, you clod!' `Sorry sir, but I can't,' I said. `The law gives me this road when I am heavily loaded, and you are on foot or horseback.'"

"What did he do?" asked the Princess.

And from the way she looked I just knew she guessed the man was the same one I thought of.

"He raised his whip to strike my horse," said Laddie.

"Ah, surely!" said the Princess. "Always an arm raised to strike. And you, Man? What did you do?" she cried eagerly.

"I stood on my load, suddenly," said Laddie, "and I called: `Hold one minute!'"

"And he?" breathed the Princess.

"Something made him pause with his arm still raised. I said to him: `You must not strike my horse. It never has been struck, and it can't defend itself. If you want to come a few steps farther and tackle me, come ahead! I can take it or return it, as I choose.'"

"Go on!" said the Princess.

"That's all," said Laddie, "or at least almost all."

"Did he strike?"

"He did not. He stared at me a second, and then he rode around me; but he was making forceful remarks as he passed about `country clods,' and there was an interesting one about a `gross clown.' What you read made me think of it, that is all."

The Princess stared into the beech branches for a time and then she said: "I will ask your pardon for him. He always had a domineering temper, and trouble he had lately has almost driven him mad; he is scarcely responsible at times. I hesitate about making him angry."

"I think perhaps," said Laddie, "I would have done myself credit if I had recognized that, and given him the road, when he made a point of claiming it."

"Indeed no!" cried the Princess. "To be beaten at the game he started was exactly what he needed. If you had turned from his way, he would have considered you a clod all his life. Since you made him go around, it may possibly dawn on him that you are a man. You did the very best thing."

Then she began to laugh, and how she did laugh.

"I would give my allowance for a quarter to have seen it," she cried. "I must hurry home and tell mother."

"Does your mother know about me?" he demanded. "Does she know that you come here?"

The Princess arose and stood very tall and straight.

"You may beg my pardon or cease to know me," she said. "Whatever led you to suppose that I would know or meet you without my mother's knowledge?"

Then she started toward the entrance.

"One minute!" cried Laddie.

A leap carried him to her side. He caught her hands and held them tight, and looked straight into her eyes. Then he kissed her hands over and over. I thought from the look on her face he might have kissed her cheek if he had dared risk it; but he didn't seem to notice. Then she stooped and kissed me, and turned toward home, while Laddie and I crossed the woods to the west road, and went back past the schoolhouse. I was so tired Laddie tied the strings together and hung my shoes across his shoulders and took me by the arm the last mile.

All of them were at home when we got there, and Miss Amelia came to the gate to meet us. She was mealy-mouthed and good as pie, not at all as I had supposed she would be. I wonder what Laddie said to her. But then he always could manage things for every one. That set me to wondering if by any possible means he could fix them for himself. I climbed to the catalpa to think, and the more I thought, the more I feared he couldn't; but still mother always says one never can tell until they try, and I knew he would try with every ounce of brain and muscle in him. I sat there until the supper bell rang, and then I washed and reached the table last. The very first thing, mother asked how I bruised my face, and before I could think what to tell her, Leon said just as careless like: "Oh she must have run against something hard, playing tag at recess." Laddie began talking about Peter coming that night, and every one forgot me, but pretty soon I slipped a glance at Miss Amelia, and saw that her face was redder than mine.

CHAPTER VI. The Wedding Gown

  
        "The gay belles of fashion may boast of excelling
            In waltz or cotillon, at whist or quadrille;
         And seek admiration by vauntingly telling
            Of drawing and painting, and musical skill;
         But give me the fair one, in country or city,
            Whose home and its duties are dear to her heart,
         Who cheerfully warbles some rustical ditty,
            While plying the needle with exquisite art:
         The bright little needle, the swift-flying needle,
            The needle directed by beauty and art."

The next morning Miss Amelia finished the chapter--that made two for our family. Father always read one before breakfast--no wonder I knew the Bible quite well--then we sang a song, and she made a stiff, little prayer. I had my doubts about her prayers; she was on no such terms with the Lord as my father. He got right at Him and talked like a doctor, and you felt he had some influence, and there was at least a possibility that he might get what he asked for; but Miss Amelia prayed as if the Lord were ten million miles away, and she would be surprised to pieces if she got anything she wanted. When she asked the Almighty to make us good, obedient children, there was not a word she said that showed she trusted either the Lord or us, or thought there was anything between us and heaven that might make us good because we wanted to be. You couldn't keep your eyes from the big gad and ruler on her desk; she often fingered them as she prayed, and you knew from her stiff, little, sawed-out petition that her faith was in implements, and she'd hit you a crack the minute she was the least angry, same as she had me the day before. I didn't feel any too good toward her, but when the blood of the Crusaders was in the veins, right must be done even if it took a struggle. I had to live up to those little gold shells on the trinket. Father said they knew I was coming down the line, so they put on a bird for me; but I told him I would be worthy of the shells too. This took about as hard a fight for me as any Crusade would for a big, trained soldier. I had been wrong, Laddie had made me see that. So I held up my hand, and Miss Amelia saw me as she picked up Ray's arithmetic.

"What is it?"

I held to the desk to brace myself, and tried twice before I could raise my voice so that she heard.

"Please, Miss Amelia," I said, "I was wrong about the birds yesterday. Not that they don't fight--they do! But I was wrong to contradict you before every one, and on your first day, and if you'll only excuse me, the next time you make a mistake, I'll tell you after school or at recess."

The room was so still you could hear the others breathing. Miss Amelia picked up the ruler and started toward me. Possibly I raised my hands. That would be no Crusader way, but you might do it before you had time to think, when the ruler was big and your head was the only place that would be hit. The last glimpse I had of her in the midst of all my trouble made me think of Sabethany Perkins.

Sabethany died, and they buried her at the foot of the hill in our graveyard before I could remember. But her people thought heaps of her, and spent much money on the biggest tombstone in the cemetery, and planted pinies and purple phlox on her, and went every Sunday to visit her. When they moved away, they missed her so, they decided to come back and take her along. The men were at work, and Leon and I went to see what was going on. They told us, and said we had better go away, because possibly things might happen that children would sleep better not to see. Strange how a thing like that makes you bound you will see. We went and sat on the fence and waited. Soon they reached Sabethany, but they could not seem to get her out. They tried, and tried, and at last they sent for more men. It took nine of them to bring her to the surface. What little wood was left, they laid back to see what made her so fearfully heavy, and there she was turned to solid stone. They couldn't chip a piece off her with the shovel. Mother always said, "For goodness sake, don't let your mouth hang open," and as a rule we kept ours shut; but you should have seen Leon's when he saw Sabethany wouldn't chip off, and no doubt mine was as bad.

"When Gabriel blows his trumpet, and the dead arise and come forth, what on earth will they do with Sabethany?" I gasped. "Why, she couldn't fly to Heaven with wings a mile wide, and what use could they make of her if she got there?"

"I can't see a thing she'd be good for except a hitching post," said Leon, "and I guess they don't let horses in. Let's go home."

He acted sick and I felt that way; so we went, but the last glimpse of Sabethany remained with me.

As my head went down that day, I saw that Miss Amelia looked exactly like her. You would have needed a pick-ax or a crowbar to flake off even a tiny speck of her. When I had waited for my head to be cracked, until I had time to remember that a Crusader didn't dodge and hide, I looked up, and there she stood with the ruler lifted; but now she had turned just the shade of the wattles on our fightingest turkey gobbler.

"Won't you please forgive me?"

I never knew I had said it until I heard it, and then the only way to be sure was because no one else would have been likely to speak at that time.

Miss Amelia's arm dropped and she glared at me. I wondered whether I ever would understand grown people; I doubted if they understood themselves, for after turning to stone in a second-- father said it had taken Sabethany seven years--and changing to gobbler red, Miss Amelia suddenly began to laugh. To laugh, of all things! And then, of course, every one else just yelled. I was so mortified I dropped my head again and began to cry as I never would if she'd hit me.

"Don't feel badly!" said Miss Amelia. "Certainly, I'll forgive you. I see you had no intention of giving offense, so none is taken. Get out your book and study hard on another lesson."

That was surprising. I supposed I'd have to do the same one over, but I might take a new one. I was either getting along fast, or Miss Amelia had her fill of birds. I wiped my eyes as straight in front of me as I could slip up my handkerchief, and began studying the first lesson in my reader: "Pretty bee, pray tell me why, thus from flower to flower you fly, culling sweets the livelong day, never leaving off to play?" That was a poetry piece, and it was quite cheery, although it was all strung together like prose, but you couldn't fool me on poetry; I knew it every time. As I studied I felt better, and when Miss Amelia came to hear me she was good as gold. She asked if I liked honey, and I started to tell her about the queen bee, but she had no time to listen, so she said I should wait until after school. Then we both forgot it, for when we reached home, the Princess' horse was hitched to our rack, and I fairly ran in, I was so anxious to know what was happening.

I was just perfectly amazed at grown people! After all the things our folks had said! You'd have supposed that Laddie would have been locked in the barn; father reading the thirty second Psalm to the Princess, and mother on her knees asking God to open her eyes like Saul's when he tried to kick against the pricks, and make her to see, as he did, that God was not a myth, Well, there was no one in the sitting-room or the parlour, but there were voices farther on; so I slipped in. I really had to slip, for there was no other place they could be except the parlour bedroom, and Sally's wedding things were locked up there, and we were not to see until everything was finished, like I told you.

Well, this was what I saw: our bedroom had been a porch once, and when we had been crowded on account of all of us coming, father enclosed it and made a room. But he never had taken out the window in the wall. So all I had to do when I wanted to know how fast the dresses were being made, was to shove up the window above my bed, push back the blind, and look in. I didn't care what she had. I just wanted to get ahead of her and see before she was ready, to pay her for beating me. I knew what she had, and I meant to tell her, and walk away with my nose in the air when she offered to show me; but this was different. I was wild to see what was going on because the Princess was there. The room was small, and the big cherry four-poster was very large, and all of them were talking, so no one paid the slightest attention to me.

Mother sat in the big rocking chair, with Sally on one of its arms, leaning against her shoulder. Shelley and May and the sewing woman were crowded between the wall and the footboard, and the others lined against the wall. The bed was heaped in a tumble of everything a woman ever wore. Seemed to me there was more stuff there than all the rest of us had, put together. The working dresses and aprons had been made on the machine, but there were heaps and stacks of hand-made underclothes. I could see the lovely chemise mother embroidered lying on top of a pile of bedding, and over and over Sally had said that every stitch in the wedding gown must be taken by hand. The Princess stood beside the bed. A funny little tight hat like a man's and a riding whip lay on a chair close by. I couldn't see what she wore--her usual riding clothes probably--for she had a nip in each shoulder of a dress she was holding to her chin and looking down at. After all, I hadn't seen everything! Never before or since have I seen a lovelier dress than that. It was what always had been wrapped in the sheet on the foot of the bed and I hadn't got a peep at it. The pale green silk with tiny pink moss roses in it, that I had been thinking was the wedding dress, looked about right to wash the dishes in, compared with this.

This was a wedding dress. You didn't need any one to tell you. The Princess had as much red as I ever had seen in her cheeks, her eyes were bright, and she was half-laughing and half-crying.

"Oh you lucky, lucky girl!" she was saying. "What a perfectly beautiful bride you will be! Never have I seen a more wonderful dress! Where did you get the material?"

Now we had been trained always to wait for mother to answer a visitor as she thought suitable, or at least to speak one at a time and not interrupt; but about six of those grown people told the Princess all at the same time how our oldest sister Elizabeth was married to a merchant who had a store at Westchester and how he got the dress in New York, and gave it to Sally for her wedding present, or she never could have had it.

The Princess lifted it and set it down softly. "Oh look!" she cried. "Look! It will stand alone!"

There it stood! Silk stiff enough to stand by itself, made into a little round waist, cut with a round neck and sleeves elbow length and flowing almost to where Sally's knees would come. It was a pale pearl-gray silk crossed in bars four inches square, made up of a dim yellow line almost as wide as a wheat straw, with a thread of black on each side of it, and all over, very wide apart, were little faint splashes of black as if they had been lightly painted on. The skirt was so wide it almost filled the room. Every inch of that dress was lined with soft, white silk. There was exquisite lace made into a flat collar around the neck, and ruffled from sight up the inside of the wide sleeves. That was the beginning. The finish was something you never saw anything like before. It was a trimming made of white and yellow beads. There was a little heading of white beads sewed into a pattern, then a lacy fringe that was pale yellow beads, white inside, each an inch long, that dangled, and every bead ended with three tiny white ones. That went around the neck, the outside of the sleeves, and in a pattern like a big letter V all the way around the skirt. And there it stood-- alone!

The Princess, graceful as a bird and glowing like fire, danced around it, and touched it, and lifted the sleeves, and made the bead fringe swing, and laughed, and talked every second. Sally, and mother, and all of them had smiled such wide smiles for so long, their faces looked almost as set as Sabethany's, but of course far different. Being dead was one thing, getting ready for a wedding another.

And it looked too as if God might be a myth, for all they cared, so long as the Princess could make the wedding dress stand alone, and talk a blue streak of things that pleased them. It was not put on either, for there stood the dress, shimmering like the inside of a pearl-lined shell, white as a lily, and the tinkly gold fringe. No one COULD have said enough about it, so no matter what the Princess said, it had to be all right. She kept straight on showing all of them how lovely it was, exactly as if they hadn't seen it before, and she had to make them understand about it, as if she felt afraid they might have missed some elegant touch she had seen.

"Do look how the lace falls when I raise this sleeve! Oh how will you wear this and think of a man enough to say the right words in the right place?"

Mother laughed, and so did all of them.

"Do please show me the rest," begged the Princess. "I know there are slippers and a bonnet!"

Sally just oozed pride. She untied the strings and pushed the prettiest striped bag from a lovely pink bandbox and took out a dear little gray bonnet with white ribbons, and the yellow bead fringe, and a bunch of white roses with a few green leaves. These she touched softly, "I'm not quite sure about the leaves," she said.

The Princess had the bonnet, turning and tilting it.

"Perfect!" she cried. "Quite perfect! You need that touch of colour, and it blends with everything. How I envy you! Oh why doesn't some one ask me, so I can have things like these? I think your brother is a genius. I'm going to ride to Westchester tomorrow and give him an order to fill for me the next time he goes to the city. No one shows me such fabrics when I go, and Aunt Beatrice sends nothing from London I like nearly so well. Oh! Oh!"

She was on her knees now, lifting the skirt to set under little white satin slippers with gold buckles, and white bead buttons. When she had them arranged to suit her, she sat on the floor and kept straight on saying the things my mother and sisters seemed crazy to hear. When Sally showed her the long white silk mitts that went with the bonnet, the Princess cried: "Oh do ride home with me and let me give you a handkerchief Aunt Beatrice sent me, to carry in your hand!"

Then her face flushed and she added without giving Sally time to say what she would do: "Or I can bring it the next time I come past. It belongs with these things and I have no use for it. May I?"

"Please do! I'll use it for the thing I borrow."

"But I mean it to be a gift," said the Princess. "It was made to go with these lace mitts and satin slippers. You must take it!"

"Thank you very much," said Sally. "If you really want me to have it, of course I'd love to."

"I'll bring it to-morrow," promised the Princess. "And I wish you'd let me try a way I know to dress hair for a wedding. Yours is so beautiful."

"You're kind, I'm sure," said Sally. "I had intended to wear it as I always do, so I would appear perfectly natural to the folks; but if you know a more becoming way, I could begin it now, and they would be familiar with it by that time."

"I shan't touch it," said the Princess, studying Sally's face. "Your idea is right. You don't want to commence any new, unfamiliar style that would make you seem different, just at a time when every one should see how lovely you are, as you always have been. But don't forget to wear something blue, and something borrowed for luck, and oh do please put on one of my garters!"

"Well for mercy sake!" cried my mother. "Why?"

"So some one will propose to me before the year is out," laughed the Princess. "I think it must be the most fun of all, to make beautiful things for your very own home, and lovely dresses, and be surrounded by friends all eager to help you, and to arrange a house and live with a man you love well enough to marry, and fix for little people who might come----"

"You know perfectly there isn't a single man in the county who wouldn't propose to you, if you'd let him come within a mile of you," said Shelley.

"When the right man comes I'll go half the mile to meet him? you may be sure of that; won't I, Mrs. Stanton?" the Princess turned to mother.

"I have known girls who went even farther," said my mother rather dryly.

"I draw the line at half," laughed the Princess. "Now I must go; I have been so long my people will be wondering what I'm doing."

Standing in the middle of the room she put on her hat, picked up her whip and gloves, and led the way to the hitching rack, while all of us followed. At the gate stood Laddie as he had come from the field. His old hat was on the back of his head, his face flushed, his collar loosened so that his strong white neck showed, and his sleeves were rolled to the elbow, as they had been all summer, and his arms were burned almost to blisters. When he heard us coming he opened the gate, went to the rack, untied the Princess' horse and led it beside the mounting block. As she came toward him, he took off his hat and pitched it over the fence on the grass.

"Miss Pryor, allow me to make you acquainted with my son," said mother.

I felt as if I would blow up. I couldn't keep my eyes from turning toward the Princess. Gee! I could have saved my feelings. She made mother the prettiest little courtsey I ever set eyes on, and then turned and made a deeper one to Laddie.

"I met your son in one of the village stores some time ago," she said. "Back her one step farther, please!"

Laddie backed the horse, and quicker than you could see how it was done, she flashed up the steps and sat the saddle; but as she leaned over the horse's neck to take the rein from Laddie, he got one level look straight in the eyes that I was sure none of the others saw, because they were not watching for it, and I was. Laddie bowed from the waist, and put the reins in her fingers all in one movement. He caught the glance she gave him too; I could almost feel it like a band passing between them. Then she called a laughing good-bye to all of us at once, and showed us how to ride right, as she flashed toward the Little Hill. That was riding, you may believe, and mother sighed as she watched her.

"If I were a girl again," she said, "I would ride as well as that, or I'd never mount a horse."

"She's been trained from her cradle, and her father deals in horses. Half the battle in riding is a thoroughbred," said Laddie. "No such horse as that ever stepped these roads before."

"And no such girl ever travelled them," said my mother, folding her hands one over the other on top of a post of the hitching rack. "I must say I don't know how this is coming out, and it troubles me."

"Why, what's up?" asked Laddie, covering her hands with his and looking her in the eyes.

"Just this," said my mother. "She's more beautiful of face and form than God ought to allow any woman to be, in mercy to the men who will be forced to meet her. Her speech is highly cultured. Her manners are perfect, and that is a big and unusual thing in a girl of her age. Every word she said, every move she made to- day, was exactly as I would have been proud to hear, and to see a daughter of mine speak and move. If I had only myself to consider, I would make her my friend, because I'm seasoned in the ways of the world, and she could influence me only as I chose to allow her. With you youngsters it is different. You'll find her captivating, and you may let her ways sway you without even knowing it. All these outward things are not essential; they are pleasing, I grant, but they have nothing to do with the one big, elemental fact that a Godless life is not even half a life. I never yet have known any man or woman who attempted it who did not waste life's grandest opportunities, and then come crawling and defeated to the foot of the cross in the end, asking God's mercy where none was deserved or earned. It seems to me a craven way. I know all about the forgiveness on the cross! I know God is big enough and merciful enough to accept even death-bed repentance, but what is that to compare with laying out your course and running it a lifetime without swerving? I detest and distrust this infidel business. I want no child of mine under its influence, or in contact with it."

"But when your time comes, if you said just those things to hers and won her, what a triumph, little mother!"

"`If!'" answered mother. "That's always the trouble! One can't be sure! `If' I knew I could accomplish that, I would get on my knees and wrestle with the Lord for the salvation of the soul of a girl like that, not to mention her poor, housebound mother, and that man with the unhappiest face I ever have seen, her father. It's worth trying, but suppose I try and fail, and at the same time find that in bringing her among us she has influenced some of mine to the loss of their immortal souls then, what will I have done?"

"Mother," said Laddie; "mother, have you such a poor opinion of the things you and father have taught us, and the lives you've lived before us, that you're really afraid of a slip of a girl, almost a stranger?"

"The most attractive girl I ever have seen, and mighty willing to be no longer a stranger, Lad."

"Well, I can't promise for the others," said Laddie, "but for myself I will give you my word of honour that I won't be influenced the breadth of one hair by her, in a doctrinal way."

"Humph!" said my mother. "And it is for you I fear. If a young man is given the slightest encouragement by a girl like that, even his God can't always hold him; and you never have made a confession of faith, Laddie. It is you she will be most likely to captivate."

"If you think I have any chance, I'll go straight over and ask her father for her this very evening," said Laddie, and even mother laughed; then all of us started to the house, for it was almost supper time. I got ready and thought I'd take one more peep at the dress before Sally pinned it in the sheet again, and when I went back, there all huddled in a bunch before it stood Miss Amelia, the tears running down her cheeks.

"Did Sally say you might come here?" I asked.

"No," said Miss Amelia, "but I've been so crazy to see I just slipped in to take a peep when I noticed the open door. I'll go this minute. Please don't tell her."

I didn't say what I would do, but I didn't intend to.

"What are you crying about?" I inquired.

"Ah, I too have known love," sobbed Miss Amelia. "Once I made a wedding dress, and expected to be a happy bride."

"Well, wasn't you?" I asked, and knew at once it was a silly question, for of course she would not be a miss, if she had not missed marrying.

"He died!" sobbed Miss Amelia.

If he could have seen her then, I believe he'd have been glad of it; but maybe he looked as bony and dejected as she did before he went; and he may have turned to stone afterward, as sometimes happens. Right then I heard Sally coming, so I grabbed Miss Amelia and dragged her under the fourposter, where I always hid when caught doing something I shouldn't. But Sally had so much stuff she couldn't keep all of it on the bed, and when she stooped and lifted the ruffle to shove a box under, she pushed it right against us, and knelt to look, and there we were.

"Well upon my soul!" she cried, and sat flat on the floor, holding the ruffle, peering in. "Miss Amelia! And in tears! Whatever is the trouble?"

Miss Amelia's face was redder than any crying ever made it, and I saw she wanted to kill me for getting her into such a fix, and if she became too angry probably she'd take it out on me in school the next day, so I thought I'd better keep her at work shedding tears.

"`HE DIED!'" I told Sally as pathetically as ever I could.

Sally dropped the ruffle instantly, but I saw her knees shake against the floor. After a while she lifted the curtain and offered Miss Amelia her hand.

"I was leaving my dress to show you before putting it away," she said.

I didn't believe it; but that was what she said. Maybe it was an impulse. Mother always said Sally was a creature of impulse. When she took off her flannel petticoat and gave it to poor little half-frozen Annie Hasty, that was a good impulse, but it sent Sally to bed for a week. And when she threw a shovel of coals on Bill Ramsdell's dog, because Bill was a shiftless lout, and the dog was so starved it all the time came over and sucked our eggs, that was a bad impulse, because it didn't do Bill a particle of good, and it hurt the dog, which would have been glad to suck eggs at home, no doubt, if Bill hadn't been too worthless to keep hens.

That was a good impulse she had then, for she asked Miss Amelia to help her straighten the room, and of course that meant to fold and put away wedding things. Any woman would have been wild to do that. Then she told Miss Amelia that she was going to ask father to dismiss school for half a day, and allow her to see the wedding, and she asked her if she would help serve the breakfast.

Miss Amelia wiped her eyes, and soon laughed and was just beaming. I would have been willing to bet my three cents for lead pencils the next time the huckster came, that Sally never thought of wanting her until that minute; and then she arranged for her to wait on table to keep her from trying to eat with the wedding party, because Miss Amelia had no pretty clothes for one thing, and for another, you shouldn't act as if you were hungry out in company, and she ate every meal as if she were breaking a forty days' fast. I wondered what her folks cooked at home.

After supper Peter came, and the instant I saw him I thought of something, and it was such a teasing thought I followed around and watched him harder every minute . At last he noticed me, and put his arms around me.

"Well, what is it, Little Sister?" he asked.

I did wish he would quit that. No one really had a right to call me that, except Laddie. Maybe I had to put up with Peter doing it when I was his sister by law, but before, the old name the preacher baptized on me was good enough for Peter. I was thinking about that so hard, I didn't answer, and he asked again.

"I have seen Sally's wedding dress," I told him.

"But that's no reason why you should stare at me."

"That's just exactly the reason," I answered. "I was trying to see what in the world there is about you to be worth a dress like that."

Peter laughed and laughed. At last he said that he was not really worth even a calico dress; and he was so little worthy of Sally that he would button her shoes, if she would let him. He got that mixed. The buttons were on her slippers: her shoes laced. But it showed a humble spirit in Peter. Not that I care for humble spirits. I am sure the Crusaders didn't have them. I don't believe Laddie would lace even the Princess' shoes, at least not to make a steady business of it. But maybe Peter and Sally had an agreement to help each other. She was always fixing his tie, and straightening his hair. Maybe that was an impulse, though, and mother said Sally would get over being so impulsive when she cut her eye teeth.

CHAPTER VII. When Sally Married Peter

  
"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
 Be it ever so humble there's no place like home!
 A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
 Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere."

When they began arranging the house for the wedding, it could be seen that they had been expecting it, and getting ready for a long time. From all the closets, shelves and chests poured heaps of new things. First, the walls were cleaned and some of them freshly papered, then the windows were all washed long before regular housecleaning time, the floors were scrubbed and new carpet put down. Mother had some window blinds that Winfield had brought her from New York in the spring, and she had laid them away; no one knew why, then. We all knew now. When mother was ready to put them up, father had a busy day and couldn't help her, and she was really provoked. She almost cried about it, when Leon rode in bringing the mail, and said Hannah Dover had some exactly like ours at her windows, that her son had sent from Illinois. Father felt badly enough then, for he always did everything he could to help mother to be first with everything; but so she wouldn't blame him, he said crosslike that if she had let him put them up when they came, as he wanted to, she'd have been six months ahead.

When they finally got ready to hang the blinds no one knew how they went. They were a beautiful shiny green, plain on one side, and on the other there was a silver border across the bottom and one pink rose as big as a pie plate. Mother had neglected to ask Winfield on which side the rose belonged. Father said from the way the roll ran, it went inside. Mother said they were rolled that way to protect the roses, and that didn't prove anything. Laddie said he would jump on a horse and ride round the section, and see how Hannah Dover had hers, and exactly opposite would be right. Everyone laughed, but no one thought he meant it. Mother had father hold one against the window, and she stepped outside to see if she could tell from there. When she came in she said the flower looked mighty pretty, and she guessed that was the way, so father started hanging them. He had only two up when Laddie came racing down the Big Hill bareback, calling for him to stop.

"I tell you that's not right, mother!" he said as he hurried in.

"But I went outside and father held one, and it looked real pretty," said mother.

"One! Yes!" said Laddie. "But have you stopped to consider how two rows across the house are going to look? Nine big pink roses, with the sun shining on them! Anything funnier than Dovers' front I never saw. And look here!"

Laddie picked up a blind. "See this plain back? It's double coated like a glaze. That is so the sun shining through glass won't fade it. The flowers would be gone in a week. They belong inside, mother, sure as you live."

"Then when the blinds are rolled to the middle sash in the daytime no one can see them," wailed mother, who was wild about pink roses.

"But at night, when they are down, you can put the curtains back enough to let the roses show, and think how pretty they will look then."

"Laddie is right!" said father, climbing on the barrel to take down the ones he had fixed.

"What do you think, girls?" asked mother.

"I think the Princess is coming down the Little Hill," said Shelley. "Hurry, father! Take them down before she sees! I'm sure they're wrong."

Father got one all right, but tore the corner of the other. Mother scolded him dreadfully cross, and he was so flustered he forgot about being on the barrel, so he stepped back the same as on the floor, and fell crashing. He might have broken some of his bones, if Laddie hadn't seen and caught him.

"If you are SURE the flowers go inside, fix one before she comes!" cried mother.

Father stepped too close the edge of the chair, and by that time he didn't know how to hang anything, so Laddie climbed up and had one nailed before the Princess stopped. She came to bring Sally the handkerchief, and it was the loveliest one any of us ever had seen. There was a little patch in the middle about four inches square, and around it a wide ruffle of dainty lace. It was made to carry in a hand covered with white lace mitts, when you were wearing a wedding gown of silver silk, lined with white. Of course it wouldn't have been the slightest use for a funeral or with a cold in your head. And it had come from across the sea! From the minute she took it by a pinch in the middle, Sally carried her head so much higher than she ever had before, that you could notice the difference.

Laddie went straight on nailing up the blinds, and every one he fixed he let down full length so the Princess could see the roses were inside; he was so sure he was right. After she had talked a few minutes she noticed the blinds going up. Laddie, in a front window, waved to her from the barrel. She laughed and answered with her whip, and then she laughed again.

"Do you know," she said, "there is the funniest thing at Dovers'. I rode past on the way to Groveville this morning and they have some blinds like those you are putting up."

"Indeed?" inquired my mother. "Winfield sent us these from New York in the spring, but I thought the hot summer sun would fade them, so I saved them until the fall cleaning. The wedding coming on makes us a little early but----"

"Well, they may not be exactly the same," said the Princess. "I only saw from the highway." She meant road; there were many things she said differently. "Have yours big pink roses and silver scrolls inside?"

"Yes," said mother.

The Princess bubbled until it made you think one of those yellow oriole birds had perched on her saddle. "That poor woman has gone and put hers up wrong side out. The effect of all those big pink roses on her white house front is most amusing. It looks as if the house were covered with a particularly gaudy piece of comfort calico. Only fancy!"

She laughed again and rode away. Mother came in just gasping.

"Well, for all His mercies, large and small, the Lord be praised!" she cried piously, as she dropped into the big rocking chair. "THAT is what I consider escaping by the skin of your teeth!"

Then father and Laddie laughed, and said they thought so too. When the blinds were up, the outside looked well, and you should have seen the inside! The woodwork was enamelled white, and the wall paper was striped in white and silver. Every so far on the silver there was a little pink moss rose having green leaves. The carpet was plum red and green in wide stripes, and the lace curtains were freshly washed, snowy, and touched the floor. The big rocker, the straight-backed chairs, and the sofa were beautiful red mahogany wood, and the seats shining haircloth. If no one happened to be looking, you could sit on a sofa arm, stick your feet out and shoot off like riding down a haystack; the landing was much better. On the sofa you bounced two feet high the first time; one, the second; and a little way the third. On the haystack, maybe you hit a soft spot, and maybe you struck a rock. Sometimes if you got smart, and tried a new place, and your feet caught in a tangle of weeds and stuck, you came up straight, pitched over, and landed on your head. THEN if you struck a rock, you were still, quite a while. I was once. But you never dared let mother see you--on the sofa, I mean; she didn't care about the haystack.

There were pictures in oval black frames having fancy edges, and a whatnot where all our Christmas and birthday gifts, almost too dainty to handle, were kept. You fairly held your breath when you looked at the nest of spun green glass, with the white dove in it, that George Washington Mitchell gave to Shelley. Of course a dove's nest was never deep, and round, and green, and the bird didn't have red eyes and a black bill. I thought whoever could blow glass as beautifully as that, might just as easy have made it right while he was at it; but anyway, it was pretty. There were pitchers, mugs, and vases, almost too delicate to touch, and the cloth-covered box with braids of hair coiled in wreaths from the heads of the little fever and whooping cough sisters.

Laddie asked Sally if she and Peter were going to have the ceremony performed while they sat on the sofa. Seemed the right place. They had done all their courting there, even on hot summer days; but I supposed that was because Sally didn't want to be seen fixing Peter's tie until she was ready. She made no bones about it then. She fixed it whenever she pleased; likewise he held her hand. Shelley said that was disgusting, and you wouldn't catch her. Leon said he bet a dollar he would; and I said if he knew he'd get beaten as I did, I bet two dollars he wouldn't tell what he saw. The mantel was white, with vases of the lovely grasses that grew beside the stream at the foot of the Big Hill. Mother gathered the fanciest every fall, dried them, and dipped them in melted alum coloured with copperas, aniline, and indigo. Then she took bunches of the colours that went together best and made bouquets for the big vases. They were pretty in the daytime, but at night you could watch them sparkle and shimmer forever.

I always thought the sitting-room was nicer than the parlour. The woodwork was white enamel there too, but the bureau and chairs were just cherry and not too precious to use. They were every bit as pretty. The mantel was much larger. I could stand up in the fireplace, and it took two men to put on an everyday log, four the Christmas one. On each side were the book shelves above, and the linen closets below. The mantel set between these, and mother always used the biggest, most gorgeous bouquets there, because she had so much room. The hearth was a slab of stone that came far into the room. We could sit on it and crack nuts, roast apples, chestnuts, and warm our cider, then sweep all the muss we made into the fire. The wall paper was white and pale pink in stripes, and on the pink were little handled baskets filled with tiny flowers of different colours. We sewed the rags for the carpet ourselves, and it was the prettiest thing. One stripe was wide, all gray, brown, and dull colours, and the other was pink. There were green blinds and lace curtains here also, and nice braided rugs that all of us worked on of winter evenings. Everything got spicker and spanner each day.

Mother said there was no use in putting down a carpet in a dining-room where you constantly fed a host, and the boys didn't clean their feet as carefully as they should in winter; but there were useful rags where they belonged, and in our bedroom opening from it also. The dining-room wall paper had a broad stripe of rich cream with pink cabbage roses scattered over it and a narrow pink stripe, while the woodwork was something perfectly marvellous. I didn't know what kind of wood it was, but a man who could turn his hand to anything, painted it. First, he put on a pale yellow coat and let it dry. Then he added wood brown, and while it was wet, with a coarse toothed comb, a rag, and his fingers, he imitated the grain, the even wood, and knotholes of dressed lumber, until many a time I found myself staring steadily at a knot to see if a worm wouldn't really come working out. You have to see a thing like that to understand how wonderful it is. You couldn't see why they washed the bedding, and took the feathers from the pillows and steamed them in mosquito netting bags and dried them in the shade, when Sally's was to be a morning wedding, but they did. I even had to take a bucket and gather from around the walls all the little heaps of rocks and shells that Uncle Abraham had sent mother from California, take them out and wash and wipe them, and stack them back, with the fanciest ones on top. He sent her a ring made of gold he dug himself. She always kept the ring in a bottle in her bureau, and she meant to wear it at the wedding, with her new silk dress. I had a new dress too. I don't know how they got everything done. All of them worked, until the last few days they were perfect cross patches.

When they couldn't find another thing indoors to scour, they began on the yard, orchard, barn and road. Mother even had Leon stack the wood pile straighter. She said when corded wood leaned at an angle, it made people seem shiftless; and she never passed a place where it looked that way that her fingers didn't just itch to get at it. He had to pull every ragweed on each side of the road as far as our land reached, and lay every rail straight in the fences. Father had to take spikes and our biggest maul and go to the bridges at the foot of the Big and the Little Hill, and see that every plank was fast, so none of them would rattle when important guests drove across. She said she just simply wouldn't have them in such a condition that Judge Pettis couldn't hear himself think when he crossed; for you could tell from his looks that it was very important that none of the things he thought should be lost. There wasn't a single spot about the place inside or out that wasn't gone over; and to lots of it you never would have known anything had been done if you hadn't seen, because the place was always in proper shape anyway; but father said mother acted just like that, even when her sons were married at other people's houses; and if she kept on getting worse, every girl she married off, by the time she reached me, we'd all be scoured threadbare and she'd be on the verge of the grave. May and I weeded the flowerbeds, picked all the ripe seed, and pulled up and burned all the stalks that were done blooming. Father and Laddie went over the garden carefully; they scraped the walks and even shook the palings to see if one were going to come loose right at the last minute, when every one would be so flustrated there would be no time to fix it.

Then they began to talk about arrangements for the ceremony, whether we should have our regular minister, or Presiding Elder Lemon, and what people they were going to invite. Just when we had planned to ask every one, have the wedding in the church, and the breakfast at the house, and all drive in a joyous procession to Groveville to give them a good send-off in walked Sally. She had been visiting Peter's people, and we planned a lot while she was away.

"What's going on here?" she asked, standing in the doorway, dangling her bonnet by the ties.

She never looked prettier. Her hair had blown out in little curls around her face from riding, her cheeks were so pink, and her eyes so bright.

"We were talking about having the ceremony in the church, so every one can be comfortably seated, and see and hear well," answered mother.

Sally straightened up and began jerking the roses on her bonnet far too roughly for artificial flowers. Perhaps I surprised you with that artificial word, but I can spell and define it; it's easy divided into syllables. Goodness knows, I have seen enough flowers made from the hair of the dead, wax, and paper, where you get the shape, but the colour never is right. These of Sally's were much too bright, but they were better than the ones made at our house. Hers were of cloth and bought at a store. You couldn't tell why, but Sally jerked her roses; I wished she wouldn't, because I very well knew they would be used to trim my hat the next summer, and she said: "Well, people don't have to be comfortable during a wedding ceremony; they can stand up if I can, and as for seeing and hearing, I'm asking a good many that I don't intend to have see or hear either one!"

"My soul!" cried mother, and she dropped her hands and her mouth fell open, like she always told us we never should let ours, while she stared at Sally.

"I don't care!" said Sally, straightening taller yet; her eyes began to shine and her lips to quiver, as if she would cry in a minute; "I don't care----!"

"Which means, my child, that you DO care, very much," said father. "Suppose you cease such reckless talk, and explain to us exactly what it is that you do want."

Sally gave her bonnet an awful jerk. Those roses would look like sin before my turn to wear them came, and she said: "Well then, I do care! I care with all my might! The church is all right, of course; but I want to be married in my very own home! Every one can think whatever they please about their home, and so can I, and what I think is, that this is the nicest and the prettiest place in all the world, and I belong here----"

Father lifted his head, his face began to shine, and his eyes to grow teary; while mother started toward Sally. She put out her hand and held mother from her at arm's length, and she turned and looked behind her through the sitting-room and parlour, and then at us, and she talked so fast you never could have understood what she said if you hadn't known all of it anyway, and thought exactly the same thing yourself.

"I have just loved this house ever since it was built," she said, "and I've had as good times here as any girl ever had. If any one thinks I'm so very anxious to leave it, and you, and mother, and all the others, why it's a big mistake. Seems as if a girl is expected to marry and go to a home of her own; it's drummed into her and things fixed for her from the day of her birth; and of course I do like Peter, but no home in the world, not even the one he provides for me, will ever be any dearer to me than my own home; and as I've always lived in it, I want to be married in it, and I want to stay here until the very last second----"

"You shall, my child, you shall!" sobbed mother.

"And as for having a crowd of men that father is planning to ask, staring at me, because he changes harvest help and wood chopping with them, or being criticised and clawed over by some women simply because they'll be angry if they don't get the chance, I just won't--so there! Not if I have to stand the minister against the wall, and turn our backs to every one. I think----"

"That will do!" said father, wiping his eyes. "That will do, Sally! Your mother and I have got a pretty clear understanding of how you feel, now. Don't excite yourself! Your wedding shan't be used to pay off our scores. You may ask exactly whom you please, want, and feel quite comfortable to have around you----"

Then Sally fell on mother's neck and every one cried a while; then we wiped up, Leon gave Sally his slate, and she came and sat beside the table and began to make out a list of those she really wanted to invite. First she put down all of our family, even many away in Ohio, and all of Peter's, and then his friends, and hers. Once in the list of girls she stopped and said: "If I take that beautiful imported handkerchief from Pamela Pryor, I have just got to invite her "

"And she will outdress and outshine you at your own wedding," put in Shelley.

"Let her, if she can!" said Sally calmly. "She'll have to hump herself if she beats that dress of mine; and as for looks, I know lots of people who think gray eyes, pink cheeks, and brown curls far daintier and prettier than red cheeks and black eyes and curls. If she really is better looking than I am, it isn't her fault; God made her that way, and He wouldn't like us to punish her for it; and it would, because any one can see she wants to be friends; don't you think, mother?"--mother nodded--"and besides, I think she's better looking than I am, myself!"

Sally said that, and wrote down the Princess' name in big letters, and no one cheeped.

Then she began on our neighbourhood, thinking out loud and writing what she thought. So all of us were as still, and held our breath in softly and waited, and Sally said slow and musing like, "Of course we couldn't have anything at THIS house without Sarah Hood. She dressed most of us when we were born, nursed us when we were sick, helped with threshing, company, and parties, and she's just splendid anyway; we better ask all the Hoods"; so she wrote them down. "And it will be lonely for Widow Willis and the girls to see every one else here--we must have them; and of course Deams--Amanda is always such splendid help; and the Widow Fall is so perfectly lovely, we want her for decorative purposes; and we could scarcely leave out Shaws; they always have all of us everything they do; and Dr. Fenner of course; and we'll want Flo and Agnes Kuntz to wait on table, so their folks might as well come too----"

So she went on taking up each family we knew, and telling what they had done for us, or what we had done for them; and she found some good reason for inviting them, and pretty soon father settled back in his chair and never took his eyes from Sally's shining head as she bent over the slate, and then he began pulling his lower lip, like when it won't behave, and his eyes danced exactly as I've seen Leon's. I never had noticed that before.

Sally went straight on and at last she came to Freshetts. "I am going to have all of them, too," she said. "The children are good children, and it will help them along to see how things are done when they are right; and I don't care what any one says, I LIKE Mrs. Freshett. I'll ask her to help work, and that will keep her from talking, and give the other women a chance to see that she's clean, and human, and would be a good neighbour if they'd be friendly. If we ask her, then the others will."

When she finished--as you live--there wasn't a soul she had left out except Bill Ramsdell, who starved his dog until it sucked our eggs, and Isaac Thomas, who was so lazy he wouldn't work enough to keep his wife and children dressed so they ever could go anywhere, but he always went, even with rags flying, and got his stomach full just by talking about how he loved the Lord. To save me I couldn't see Isaac Thomas without beginning to myself:

  
        "'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I hear him complain,
         You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again.
         I passed by his garden, I saw the wild brier,
         The thorn, and the thistle, grow broader and higher;
         The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags;
         And his money he wastes, till he starves or he begs."

That described Isaac to the last tatter, only he couldn't waste money; he never had any. Once I asked father what he thought Isaac would do with it, if by some unforeseen working of Divine Providence, he got ten dollars. Father said he could tell me exactly, because Isaac once sold some timber and had a hundred all at once. He went straight to town and bought Mandy a red silk dress and a brass breastpin, when she had no shoes. He got the children an organ, when they were hungry; and himself a plug hat. Mandy and the children cried because he forgot candy and oranges until the last cent was gone. Father said the only time Isaac ever worked since he knew him was when he saw how the hat looked with his rags. He actually helped the men fell the trees until he got enough to buy a suit, the remains of which he still wore on Sunday. I asked father why he didn't wear the hat too, and father said the loss of that hat was a blow, from which Isaac never had recovered. Once at camp-meeting he laid it aside to pray his longest, most impressive prayer, and an affectionate cow strayed up and licked the nap all off before Isaac finished, so he never could wear it again.

Sally said: "I'll be switched if I'll have that disgusting creature around stuffing himself on my wedding day; but if you're not in bed, when it's all over, mother, I do wish you'd send Mandy and the children a basket."

Mother promised, and father sat and looked on and pulled his lower lip until his ears almost wiggled. Then Sally said she wanted Laddie and Shelley to stand at the parlour door and keep it tight shut, and seat every one in the sitting-room except a special list she had made out to send in there. She wanted all our family and Peter's, and only a few very close friends, but it was enough to fill the room. She said when she and Peter came downstairs every one could see how they looked when they crossed the sitting-room, and for all the difference the door would make, it could be left open then; she would be walled in by people she wanted around her, and the others could have the fun of being there, seeing what they could, and getting all they wanted to eat. Father and mother said that was all right, only to say nothing about the plan to shut the door; but when the time came just to close it and everything would be satisfactory.

Then Sally took the slate upstairs to copy the list with ink, so every one went about something, while mother crossed to father and he took her on his lap, and they looked at each other the longest and the hardest, and neither of them said a word. After a while they cried and laughed, and cried some more, and it was about as sensible as what a flock of geese say when they are let out of the barn and start for the meadow in the morning. Then father, all laughy and criey, said: "Thank God! Oh, thank God, the girl loves the home we have made for her!"

Just said it over and over, and mother kept putting in: "It pays, Paul! It pays!"

Next day Sally put on her riding habit and fixed herself as pretty as ever she could, and went around to have a last little visit with every one, and invited them herself, and then she wrote letters to people away. Elizabeth and Lucy came home, and every one began to work. Father and mother went to the village in the carriage and brought home the bed full of things to eat, and all we had was added, and mother began to pack butter, and save eggs for cakes, and the day before, I thought there wouldn't be a chicken left on the place. They killed and killed, and Sarah Hood, Amanda Deam, and Mrs. Freshett picked and picked.

"I'll bet a dollar we get something this time besides ribs and neck," said Leon. "How do you suppose thigh and breast would taste?"

"I was always crazy to try the tail," I said.

"Much chance you got," sniggered Leon. "'Member the time that father asked the Presiding Elder, `Brother Lemon, what piece of the fowl do you prefer?' and he up and said: `I'm partial to the rump, Brother Stanton.' There sat father bound he wouldn't give him mother's piece, so he pretended he couldn't find it, and forked all over the platter and then gave him the ribs and the thigh. Gee, how mother scolded him after the preacher had gone! You notice father hasn't asked that since. Now, he always says: `Do you prefer light or dark meat?' Much chance you have of ever tasting a tail, if father won't even give one to the Presiding Elder!"

"But as many as they are killing----"

"Oh THIS time," said Leon with a flourish, "this time we are going to have livers, and breast, and thighs, AND tails, if you are beholden to tail."

"I'd like to know how we are?"

"Well, since you have proved that you can keep your mouth shut, for a little while, anyway, I'm going to take you in on this," said Leon. "You keep your eyes on me. When the wedding gets going good, you watch me, and slip out. That's all! I'll be fixed to do the rest. But mind this, get out when I do."

"All right," I promised.

They must have wakened about four o'clock on the wedding day; it wasn't really light when I got up. I had some breakfast in my night dress, and then I was all fixed up in my new clothes, and made to sit on a chair, and never move for fear I would soil my dress, for no one had time to do me over, and there was only one dress anyway. There was so much to see you could keep interested just watching, and I was as anxious to look nice before the boys and girls, and the big people, as any one.

Every mantel and table and bureau was covered with flowers, and you could have smelled the kitchen a mile away, I know. The dining table was set for the wedding party, our father and mother, and Peter's, and the others had to wait. You couldn't have laid the flat of your hand on that table anywhere, it was so covered with things to eat. Miss Amelia, in a dress none of us ever had seen before, a real nice white dress, pranced around it and smirked at every one, and waved the peacock feather brush to keep the flies from the jelly, preserves, jam, butter, and things that were not cooked.

For hours Mrs. Freshett had stood in the kitchen on one side of the stove frying chicken and heaping it in baking pans in the oven, and Amanda Deam on the other, frying ham, while Sarah Hood cooked other things, and made a wash boiler of coffee. Everything was ready by the time it should have been. I had watched them until I was tired, when Sally came through the room where I was, and she said I might come along upstairs and see her dressed. When we reached the door I wondered where she would put me, but she pushed clothing together on a bed, and helped me up, and that was great fun.

She had been bathed and had on her beautiful new linen underclothing that mother punched full of holes and embroidered in flowers and vines, and Shelley was brushing her hair when some one called out: "The Princess is coming!"

I jumped for the window, and all of them, even Sally, crowded behind. Well, talk about carriages! No one ever had seen THAT one before. It WAS a carriage. And such horses! The funny "'orse, 'ouse" man who made the Pryor garden was driving. He stopped at the gate, got out and opened a door, and the Princess' father stepped down, tall and straight, all in shiny black. He turned around and held out his hand, bowing double, and the Princess laid her hand in his and stepped out too. He walked with her to the gate, made another bow, kissed her hand, and stepped back, and she came down the walk alone. He got in the carriage, the man closed the door, and they drove away.

Sally must have arranged before that the Princess was to come early, for she came straight upstairs. She wore a soft white silk dress with big faded pink roses in it, and her hair was fastened at each ear with a bunch of little pink roses. She was lovely, but she didn't "outdress or outshine" Sally one bit, and she never even glanced at the mirror to see how she looked; she began helping with Sally's hair, and to dress her. When Bess Kuntz prinked so long she made every one disgusted, the Princess said: "Oh save your trouble. No one will look at you when there's a bride in the house."

There was a roll almost as thick as your arm of garters that all the other girls wanted Sally to wear for them so they would get a chance to marry that year, and Agnes Kuntz's was so large it went twice around, and they just laughed about it. They put a blue ribbon on Sally's stays for luck, and she borrowed Peter's sister Mary's comb to hold her back hair. They had the most fun, and when she was all ready except her dress they went away, and Sally stood in the middle of the room trembling a little. Outside you could hear carriage wheels rolling, the beat of horses' hoofs, and voices crying greetings. "There was a sound of revelry," by day. Mother came in hurriedly. She wore her new brown silk, with a lace collar pinned at the throat with the pin that had a brown goldstone setting in it, and her precious ring was on her finger. She was dainty and pretty enough to have been a bride herself. She turned Sally around slowly, touching her hair a little and her skirts; then she went to the closet, took out the wedding dress, put the skirt over Sally's head, and she came up through the whiteness, pink and glowing. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, and mother fastened it, shook out the skirt, saw that the bead fringe hung right, and the lace collar lay flat, then she took Sally in her arms, held her tight and said: "God bless you, dear, and keep you always. Amen."

Then she stepped to the door, and Peter, all shining and new, came in. He hugged Sally and kissed her like it didn't make the least difference whether she had on calico or a wedding dress, and he just stared, and stared at her, and never said a word, so at last she asked: "Well Peter, do you like my dress?"

And the idiot said: "Why Sally, I hadn't even seen it!"

Then both of them laughed, and the Presiding Elder came.

I never liked to look at him very well because something had happened, and he had only one eye. I always wondered if he had "plucked it out" because it had "offended" him; but if you could forget his eye, and just listen to his voice, it was like the sweetest music. He married those two people right there in the bedroom, all but about three words at the end. I heard and saw every bit of it. Then Sally said it was time for me to go to mother, but she followed me into the boys' room and shut the door. Then she knelt in her beautiful silver dress, and put her arms around me and said: "Honest, Little Sister, aren't you going to kiss me goodbye?"

"Oh I can if you want me to," I said, but I didn't look at her; I looked out of the window.

She laughed a breathless little catchy sort of laugh and said: "That's exactly what I do want."

"You didn't even want me, to begin with," I reminded her.

"There isn't a doubt but whoever told you that, could have been in better business," said Sally, angry-like. "I was much younger then, and there were many things I didn't understand, and it wasn't you I didn't want; it was just no baby at all. I wouldn't have wanted a boy, or any other girl a bit more. I foolishly thought we had children enough in this house. I see now very plainly that we didn't, for this family never could get along without you, and I'm sorry I ever thought so, and I'd give anything if I hadn't struck you and----"

"Oh be still, and go on and get married!" I said. I could just feel a regular beller coming in my throat. "I was only fooling to pay you up. I meant all the time to kiss you good-bye when the others did. I'll nearly die being lonesome when you're gone----"

Then I ran for downstairs, and when I reached the door, where the steps went into the sitting-room, I stopped, scared at all the people. It was like camp-meeting. You could see the yard full through the windows. Just as I was thinking I'd go back to the boys' room, and from there into the garret, and down the back stairway, Laddie went and saw me. He came over, led me to the parlour door, put me inside, and there mother took my hand and held me tight, and I couldn't see Leon anywhere.

I was caught, but they didn't have him. Mother never hung on as she did that day. I tried and tried to pull away, and she held tight. It was only a minute until the door opened, people crowded back, and the Presiding Elder, followed by Sally and Peter, came into the room, and they began being married all over again.

If it hadn't grown so solemn my mother sprung a tear, I never would have made it. She just had to let me go to sop her face, because tears are salty, and they would turn her new brown silk front yellow. The minute my hand was free, I slipped between the people and looked at the parlour door. It was wedged full and more standing on chairs behind them. No one could get out there.

I thought I would fail Leon sure, and then I remembered the parlour bedroom. I got through that door easy as anything, and it was no trick at all to slip behind the blind, raise the window, and drop into mother's room from the sill. From there I reached the back dining-room door easy enough, went around to the kitchen, and called Leon softly. He opened the door at once and I slipped in. He had just got there. We looked all around and couldn't see where to begin at first. There was enough cooked food there to load two wagons.

An old pillow-case that had dried sage in it was lying across a chair and Leon picked it up and poured the sage into the wood- box, and handed the case to me. He went over and knelt before the oven, while I followed and held open the case. Leon rolled his eyes to the ceiling and said so exactly like father when he is serving company that not one of us could have told the difference: "Which part of the fowl do you prefer, Brother Lemon?"

It was so funny it made me snigger, but I straightened up and answered as well as I could: "I'm especially fond of the rump, Brother Stanton."

Leon stirred the heap and piled four or five tails in the case. I thought that was all I could manage before they would spoil, so I said: "Do you prefer light or dark meat, Sister Abigail?"

"I wish to choose breast," said Leon, simpering just like that silly Abigail Webster. He put in six breasts. Then we found them hidden away back in the oven in a pie pan, for the bride's table, I bet, and we took two livers apiece; we didn't dare take more for fear they had been counted. Then he threw in whatever he came to that was a first choice big piece, until I was really scared, and begged him to stop; but he repeated what the fox said in the story of the "Quarrelsome Cocks"--"Poco was very good, but I have not had enough yet," so he piled in pieces until I ran away with the pillow-case; then he slid in a whole plateful of bread, another of cake, and put the plates in a tub of dishes under the table. Then we took some of everything that wasn't too runny. Just then the silence broke in the front part of the house, and we scooted from the back door, closing it behind us, ran to the wood house and climbed the ladder to the loft over the front part. There we were safe as could be, we could see to the road, hear almost everything said in the kitchen, and "eat our bites in peace," like Peter Justice told the Presiding Elder at the church trial that he wanted his wife to, the time he slapped her. Before very long, they began calling us, and called, and called. We hadn't an idea what they wanted, so we ate away. We heard them first while I was holding over a back to let Leon taste kidney, and it made him blink when he got it good.

"Well my soul!" he said. "No wonder father didn't want to feed that to another man when mother isn't very well, and likes it! No wonder!"

Then he gave me a big bite of breast. It was sort of dry and tasteless; I didn't like it.

"Why, I think neck or back beats that all to pieces!" I said in surprise.

"Fact is, they do!" said Leon. "I guess the people who `wish to choose breast,' do it to get the biggest piece."

I never had thought of it before, but of course that would be the reason.

"Allow me, Sister Stanton," said Leon, holding out a piece of thigh.

That was really chicken! Then we went over the backs and picked out all the kidneys, and ate the little crusty places, and all the cake we could swallow; then Leon fixed up the bag the best he could, and set it inside an old cracked churn and put on the lid.

He said that would do almost as well as the cellar, and the food would keep until to-morrow. I wanted to slip down and put it in the Underground Station; but Leon said father must be spending a lot of money right now, and he might go there to get some, so that wouldn't be safe. Then he cleaned my face, and I told him when he got his right, and we slipped from the back door, crossed the Lawton blackberry patch, and went to the house from the orchard. Leon took an apple and broke it in two, and we went in eating as if we were starving. When father asked us where in this world we had been, Leon told him we thought it would be so awful long before the fourth or fifth table, and we hadn't had much breakfast, and we were so hungry we went and hunted something to eat.

"If you'd only held your horses a minute," said father; "they were calling you to take places at the bride's table."

Well for land's sake! Our mouths dropped open until it's a wonder the cake and chicken didn't show, and we never said a word. There didn't seem to be anything to say, for Leon loved to be with grown folks, and to have eaten at the bride's table would have been the biggest thing that ever happened to me. At last, when I could speak, I asked who had taken our places, and bless your heart if it wasn't that mealy-faced little sister of Peter's, and one of the aunts from Ohio. They had finished, and Sally was upstairs putting on her travelling dress, while the guests were eating, when I heard Laddie ask the Princess to ride with him and Sally's other friends, who were going to escort her to the depot.

"You'll want all your horses. What could I ride?"

"If I find you a good horse and saddle will you go?"

"I will. I think it would be fine sport."

Laddie turned and went from sight that minute. The Princess laughed and kept on making friends with every one, helping wait on people, thinking of nice things to do, and just as the carriage was at the gate for father and mother, and Sally and Peter, and every one else was untying their horses to ride in the procession to the village, from where I was standing on the mounting block I saw something coming down the Little Hill. I took one look, ran to the Princess, and almost dragged her.

Up raced Laddie, his face bright, his eyes snapping with fun. He rode Flos, was leading the Princess' horse Maud, and carrying a big bundle under his arm. He leaped from the saddle and fastened both horses.

"Gracious Heaven! What have you done?" gasped the Princess.

"Brought your mount," said Laddie, quite as if he were used to going to Pryors' after the sausage grinder or the grain sacks. But the Princess was pale and trembling. She stepped so close she touched him, and he immediately got a little closer. You couldn't get ahead of Laddie, and he didn't seem to care who saw, and neither did she.

"Tell me exactly what occurred," she said, just as father does when he means to whale us completely.

"I rapped at the front door," said Laddie.

"And who opened it?" cried the Princess.

"Your father!"

"My father?"

"Yes, your father!" said Laddie. "And because I was in such a hurry, I didn't wait for him to speak. I said: `Good morning, Mr. Pryor. I'm one of the Stanton boys, and I came for Miss Pryor's mount and habit. All the young people who are on horseback are going to ride an escort to the village, around my sister's bridal carriage, and Miss Pryor thinks she would enjoy going. Please excuse such haste, but we only this minute made the plan, and the train won't wait.'"

"And he?"

"He said: `Surely! Hold one minute.' I stood on the step and waited, and I could hear him give the order to some one to get your riding habit quickly, and then he blew a shrill whistle, and your horse was at the gate the fastest of anything I ever saw."

"Did he do or say----"

"Nothing about `clods, and clowns, and grossness!' Every other word he spoke was when I said, `Thank you, and good morning,' and was turning away. He asked: `Did Miss Pryor say whether she preferred to ride home, or shall I escort her in the carriage?'"

"`She did not,' I answered. `The plan was so sudden she had no time to think that far. But since she will have her horse and habit, why not allow my father to escort her?' So you see, I'm going to take you home," exulted Laddie.

"But you told him your FATHER," said the Princess.

"And thereby created the urgent necessity," said Laddie with a flourish, "for speaking to him again, and telling him that my father had visitors from Ohio, and couldn't leave them. We will get all the fun from the day that we can; but before dusk, too early for them to have any cause for cavil, `the gross country clod' is going to take you home!"

One at a time, Laddie pounded those last words into the hitching post, with his doubled fist.

"Suppose he sets the dogs on you! You know he keeps two dreadful ones."

Laddie just roared. He leaned closer.

"Beaucheous Lady," he said, "I have fed those same dogs and rubbed their ears so many nights lately, he'll get the surprise of his life if he tries that."

The Princess drew away and stared at Laddie the funniest.

"On my life!" she said at last. "Well for a country clod----!"

Then she turned with the habit bundle, and ran into the house. Father and mother came from the front door arm in arm and walked to the carriage, and Sally and Peter followed. My, but they looked fine! The Princess had gone to the garden and gathered flowers and lined all the children in rows down each side of the walk. They were loaded with blooms to throw at Sally; but when she came out, in her beautiful gray poplin travelling dress, trimmed in brown ribbon, the same shade as her curls, her face all pink, her eyes shining, and the ties of her little brown bonnet waving to her waist, she was so perfectly beautiful, every single child watched her open mouthed, gripped its flowers, and forgot to throw them at all.

And this you scarcely will believe after what she had said the day she made her list, and when all of us knew her heart was all torn up, Sally just swept along smiling at every one and calling "good-bye" to those who had no way to ride to the village, as if leaving didn't amount to much. At the carriage, a little white, but still smiling, she turned and took one long look at everything, and then she got in and called for me, right out loud before every one, so I got to hold up my head as high as it would go, and step in too, and ride all the way to Groveville between her and Peter, and instead of holding his hand, she held mine, just gripped it tight. She gripped so hard she squeezed all the soreness at her from my heart, and when she kissed me good-bye the very last of all, I whispered in her ear that I wouldn't ever be angry any more, and I wasn't, because after she had explained I saw how it had been. It wasn't ME she didn't want; it was just no baby.

After our carriage came Peter's people, then one father borrowed for the Ohio relatives, then the other children, and all the neighbours followed, and when we reached the high hill where you turn beside the woods, I saw father gather up the lines and brace himself, for Ned and Jo were what he called "mettlesome." "Then came a burst of thunder sound," as it says in "Casablanca," and the horseback riders came sweeping around us, Laddie and the Princess leading. These two rode ahead of us, and the others lined three deep on either side, and the next carriage dropped back and let them close in behind, so Sally and Peter were "in the midst thereof." Instead of throwing old shoes, as always had been done, the Princess coaxed them to throw rice and roses, and every other flower pulled from the bouquets at home, and from the gardens we had passed. Every one was out watching us go by, and when William Justus rode beside the fences crying, "Flowers for the bride! Give us flowers for the bride!" some of the women were so excited they pulled things up by the roots and gave him armloads, and he rode ahead and supplied Laddie and the Princess, and they kept scattering them in the road until every foot of the way to Groveville was covered with flowers, "the fair young flowers that lately sprang and stood." He even made side-cuts into swampy places and gathered armloads of those perfectly lovely, fringy blue gentians, caught up, and filled the carriage and scattered them in a wicked way, because you should only take a few of those rare, late flowers that only grow from seed.

Sally looked just as if she had come into her own and was made for it; I never did see her look so pretty, but Peter sweated and acted awful silly. Father had a time with the team. Ned and Jo became excited and just ranted. They simply danced. Laddie had braided their manes and tails, and they waved like silken floss in the sunshine, and the carriage was freshly washed and the patent leather and brass shone, and we rode flower-covered. Ahead, Laddie and the Princess fairly tried themselves. She hadn't put on her hat or habit after all. When Laddie told her they were going to lead, she said: "Very well! Then I shall go as I am. The dress makes no difference. It's the first time I've had a chance to spoil one since I left England."

When the other girls saw what she was going to do, nearly every one of them left off their hats and riding skirts. Every family had saddle horses those days, and when the riders came racing up they looked like flying flowers, they were all laughing, bloom ladened, singing and calling jokes. Ahead, Laddie and the Princess just plain showed off. Her horse came from England with them, and Laddie said it had Arab blood in it, like the one in the Fourth Reader poem, "Fret not to roam the desert now, With all thy winged speed," and the Princess loved her horse more than that man did his. She said she'd starve before she'd sell it, and if her family were starving, she'd go to work and earn food for them, and keep her horse. Laddie's was a Kentucky thoroughbred he'd saved money for years to buy; and he took a young one and trained it himself, almost like a circus horse. Both of them COULD ride; so that day they did. They ran those horses neck and neck, right up the hill approaching Groveville, until they were almost from sight, then they whirled and came sweeping back fast as the wind. The Princess' eyes were like dead coals, and her black curls streamed, the thin silk dress wrapped tight around her and waved back like a gossamer web such as spiders spin in October. Laddie's hair was blowing, his cheeks and eyes were bright, and with one eye on the Princess-- she didn't need it--and one on the road, he cut curves, turned, wheeled, and raced, and as he rode, so did she.

"Will they break their foolish necks?" wailed mother.

"They are the handsomest couple I ever have seen in my life!" said father.

"Yes, and you two watch out, or you'll strike trouble right there," said Sally, leaning forward.

I gave her an awful nudge. It made me so happy I could have screamed to see them flying away together like that.

"Well, if that girl represents trouble," said father, "God knows it never before came in such charming guise."

"You can trust a man to forget his God and his immortal soul if a sufficiently beautiful woman comes along," said my mother dryly, and all of them laughed.

She didn't mean that to be funny, though. You could always tell by the set of her lips and the light in her eyes.

Just this side of Groveville we passed a man on horseback. He took off his hat and drew his horse to one side when Laddie and the Princess rode toward him. He had a big roll of papers under his arm, to show that he had been for his mail. But I knew, so did Laddie and the Princess, that he had been compelled to saddle and ride like mad, to reach town and come that far back in time to watch us pass; for it was the Princess' father, and WATCH was exactly what he was doing; he wanted to see for himself. Laddie and the Princess rode straight at him, neck and neck, and then both of them made their horses drop on their knees and they waved a salute, and then they were up and away. Of course father and mother saw, so mother bowed, and father waved his whip as we passed. He sat there like he'd turned the same on horseback as Sabethany had in her coffin; but he had to see almost a mile of us driving our best horses and carriages, wearing our wedding garments and fine raiment, and all that "cavalcade," father called it, of young, reckless riders. You'd have thought if there were a hint of a smile in his whole being it would have shown when Sally leaned from the carriage to let him see that her face and clothes were as good as need be and smiled a lovely smile on him, and threw him a rose. He did leave his hat off and bow low, and then Shelley, always the very dickens for daring, rode right up to him and laughed in his face, and she leaned and thrust a flower into his bony hands; you would have thought he would have been simply forced to smile then, but he looked far more as if he would tumble over and roll from the saddle. My heart ached for a man in trouble like that. I asked the Lord to preserve us from secrets we couldn't tell the neighbours!

At the station there wasn't a thing those young people didn't do.

They tied flowers and ribbons all over Sally's satchel and trunk.

They sowed rice as if it were seeding time in a wheatfield. They formed a circle around Sally and Peter and as mushy as ever they could they sang, "As sure as the grass grows around the stump, You are my darling sugar lump," while they danced. They just smiled all the time no matter what was done to them. Some of it made me angry, but I suppose to be pleasant was the right way. Sally was strong on always doing the right thing, so she just laughed, and so did all of us. Going home it was wilder yet, for all of them raced and showed how they could ride.

At the house people were hungry again, so the table was set and they ate up every scrap in sight, and Leon and I ate with them that time and saved ours. Then one by one the carriages, spring wagons, and horseback riders went away, all the people saying Sally was the loveliest bride, and hers had been the prettiest wedding they'd ever seen, and the most good things to eat, and Laddie and the Princess went with them. When the last one was gone, and only the relatives from Ohio were left, mother pitched on the bed, gripped her hands and cried as if she'd go to pieces, and father cried too, and all of us, even Mrs. Freshett, who stayed to wash up the dishes. She was so tickled to be there, and see, and help, that mother had hard work to keep her from washing the linen that same night. She did finish the last dish, scrub the kitchen floor, black the stove, and pack all the borrowed china in tubs, ready to be taken home, and things like that. Mother said it was a burning shame for any neighbourhood to let a woman get so starved out and lonesome she'd act that way. She said enough was enough, and when Mrs. Freshett had cooked all day, and washed dishes until the last skillet was in place, she had done as much as any neighbour ought to do, and the other things she went on and did were a rebuke to us.

I felt sore, weepy, and tired out. It made me sick to think of the sage bag in the cracked churn, so I climbed my very own catalpa tree in the corner, watched up the road for Laddie, and thought things over. If I ever get married I want a dress, and a wedding exactly like that, but I would like a man quite different from Peter; like Laddie would suit me better. When he rode under the tree, I dropped from a limb into his arms, and went with him to the barn. He asked me what was going on at the house, and I told him about Mrs. Freshett being a rebuke to us; and Laddie said she was, and he didn't believe one word against her. When I told him mother was in bed crying like anything, he said: "I knew that had to come when she kept up so bravely at the station.

Thank the Lord, she showed her breeding by holding in until she got where she had a right to cry if she pleased."

Then I whispered for fear Leon might be around: "Did he set the dogs on you?"

"He did not," said Laddie, laughing softly.

"Did he call you names again?"

"He did!" said Laddie, "but I started it. You see, when we got there, Thomas was raking the grass and he came to take the Princess' horse. Her father was reading on a bench under a tree.

I helped her down, and walked with her to the door and said good- bye, and thanked her for the pleasure she had added to the day for us, loudly enough that he could hear; then I went over to him and said: `Good evening, Mr. Pryor. If my father knew anything about it, he would very much regret that company from Ohio detained him and compelled me to escort your daughter home. He would greatly have enjoyed the privilege, but I honestly believe that I appreciated it far more than he could.'"

"Oh Laddie, what did he say?"

"He arose and glared at me, and choked on it, and he tried several times, until I thought the clods were going to fly again, but at last he just spluttered: `You blathering rascal, you!' That was such a compliment compared with what I thought he was going to say that I had to laugh. He tried, but he couldn't keep from smiling himself, and then I said: `Please think it over, Mr. Pryor, and if you find that Miss Pryor has had an agreeable, entertaining day, won't you give your consent for her to come among us again? Won't you allow me to come here, if it can be arranged in such a way that I intrude on no one?'"

"Oh Laddie!"

"He exploded in a kind of a snarl that meant, I'll see you in the Bad Place first. So I said to him: `Thank you very much for to- day, anyway. I'm sure Miss Pryor has enjoyed this day, and it has been the happiest of my life--one to be remembered always. Of course I won't come here if I am unwelcome, but I am in honour bound to tell you that I intend to meet your daughter elsewhere, whenever I possibly can. I thought it would be a better way for you to know and have us where you could see what was going on, if you chose, than for us to meet without your knowledge."

"Oh Laddie," I wailed, "now you've gone and ruined everything!"

"Not so bad as that, Little Sister," laughed Laddie. "Not half so bad! He exploded in another growl, and he shook his walking stick at me, and he said--guess what he said."

"That he would kill you," I panted, clinging to him.

"Right!" said Laddie. "You have it exactly. He said: `Young man, I'll brain you with my walking stick if ever I meet you anywhere with my daughter, when you have not come to her home and taken her with my permission.'"

"What!" I stammered. "What! Oh Laddie, say it over! Does it mean----?"

"It means," said Laddie, squeezing me until I was near losing my breath, "it means, Little Sister, that I shall march to his door and ask him squarely, and if it is anywhere the Princess wants to go, I shall take her."

"Like, `See the conquering hero comes?'"

"Exactly!" laughed Laddie.

"What will mother say?"

"She hasn't made up her mind yet," answered Laddie.

"Do you mean----?" I gasped again.

"Of course!" said Laddie. "I wasn't going to let a girl get far ahead of me. The minute I knew she had told her mother, I told mine the very first chance."

"Mother knows that you feel about the Princess as father does about her?"

"Mother knows," answered Laddie, "and so does father. I told both of them."

Both of them knew! And it hadn't made enough difference that any one living right with them every day could have told it. Time and work will be needed to understand grown people.

CHAPTER VIII. The Shropshire and the Crusader

  
        "For, among the rich and gay,
            Fine, and grand, and decked in laces,
         None appear more glad then they,
            With happier hearts, or happier faces."

Every one told mother for a week before the wedding that she would be sick when it was over, and sure enough she was. She had been on her feet too much, and had so many things to think about, and there had been such a dreadful amount of work for her and Candace, even after all the neighbours helped, that she was sick in bed and we couldn't find a thing she could eat, until she was almost wild with hunger and father seemed as if he couldn't possibly bear it a day longer.

After Candace had tried everything she could think of, I went up and talked it over with Sarah Hood, and she came down, pretending she happened in, and she tried thickened milk, toast and mulled buttermilk; she kept trying for two days before she gave up. Candace thought of new things, and Mrs. Freshett came and made all the sick dishes she knew, but mother couldn't even taste them; so we were pretty blue, and we nearly starved ourselves, for how could we sit and eat everything you could mention, and mother lying there, almost crying with hunger?

Saturday morning I was hanging around her room hoping maybe she could think of some least little thing I could do for her, even if no more than to bring a glass of water, or a late rose to lay on her pillow; it would be better than not being able to do anything at all. After a while she opened her eyes and looked at me, and I scarcely knew her. She smiled the bravest she could and said: "Sorry for mother, dear?"

I nodded. I couldn't say much, and she tried harder than ever to be cheerful and asked: "What are you planning to do to-day?"

"If you can't think of one thing I can do for you, guess I'll go fishing," I said.

Her eyes grew brighter and she seemed half interested.

"Why, Little Sister," she said, "if you can catch some of those fish like you do sometimes, I believe I could eat one of them."

I never had such a be-hanged time getting started. I slipped from the room, and never told a soul even where I was going. I fell over the shovel and couldn't find anything quick enough but my pocket to put the worms in, and I forgot my stringer. At last, when I raced down the hill to the creek and climbed over the water of the deep place, on the roots of the Pete Billings yowling tree, I had only six worms, my apple sucker pole, my cotton cord line, and bent pin hook. I put the first worm on carefully, and if ever I prayed! Sometimes it was hard to understand about this praying business. My mother was the best and most beautiful woman who ever lived. She was clean, and good, and always helped "the poor and needy who cluster round your door," like it says in the poetry piece, and there never could have been a reason why God would want a woman to suffer herself, when she went flying on horseback even dark nights through rain or snow, to doctor other people's pain, and when she gave away things like she did--why, I've seen her take a big piece of meat from the barrel, and a sack of meal, and heaps of apples and potatoes to carry to Mandy Thomas--when she gave away food by the wagonload at a time, God couldn't have WANTED her to be hungry, and yet she WAS that very minute almost crying for food; and I prayed, oh how I did pray! and a sneaking old back- ended crayfish took my very first worm. I just looked at the sky and said: "Well, when it's for a sick woman, can't You do any better than that?"

I suppose I shouldn't have said it, but if it had been your mother, how would you have felt? I pinched the next worm in two, so if a crayfish took that, it wouldn't get but half. I lay down across the roots and pulled my bonnet far over my face and tried to see to the bottom. I read in school the other day:

  
            "And by those little rings on the water I know
             The fishes are merrily swimming below."

There were no rings on the water, but after a while I saw some fish darting around, only they didn't seem to be hungry; for they would come right up and nibble a tiny bit at my worm, but they wouldn't swallow it. Then one did, so I jerked with all my might, jerked so hard the fish and worm both flew off, and I had only the hook left. I put on the other half and tried again. I prayed straight along, but the tears would come that time, and the prayer was no powerful effort like Brother Hastings would have made; it was little torn up pieces mostly: "O Lord, please do make only one fish bite!" At last one did bite good, so I swung carefully that time, and landed it on the grass, but it was so little and it hit a stone and was killed. I had no stringer to put it back in the water to keep cool, and the sun was hot that day, like times in the fall. Stretched on the roots, with it shining on my back, and striking the water and coming up from below, I dripped with heat and excitement.

I threw that one away, put on another worm, and a big turtle took it, the hook, and broke my line, and almost pulled me in. I wouldn't have let go if it had, for I just had to have a fish. There was no help from the Lord in that, so I quit praying, only what I said when I didn't know it. Father said man was born a praying animal, and no matter how wicked he was, if he had an accident, or saw he had just got to die, he cried aloud to the Lord for help and mercy before he knew what he was doing.

I could hear the roosters in the barnyard, the turkey gobbler, and the old ganders screamed once in a while, and sometimes a bird sang a skimpy little fall song; nothing like spring, except the killdeers and larks; they were always good to hear--and then the dinner bell rang. I wished I had been where I couldn't have heard that, because I didn't intend going home until I had a fish that would do for mother if I stayed until night. If the best one in the family had to starve, we might as well all go together; but I wouldn't have known how hungry I was, if the bell hadn't rung and told me the others were eating. So I bent another pin and tried again. I lost the next worm without knowing how, and then I turned baby and cried right out loud. I was so thirsty, the salty tears running down my cheeks tasted good, and doing something besides fishing sort of rested me; so I looked around and up at the sky, wiped my face on the skirt of my sunbonnet, and put on another worm. I had only one more left, and I began to wonder if I could wade in and catch a fish by hand; I did teeny ones sometimes, but I knew the water there was far above my head, for I had measured it often with the pole; it wouldn't do to try that; instead of helping mother any, a funeral would kill her, too, so I fell back on the Crusaders, and tried again.

Strange how thinking about them helped. I pretended I was fighting my way to the Holy City, and this was the Jordan just where it met the sea, and I had to catch enough fish to last me during the pilgrimage west or I'd never reach Jerusalem to bring home a shell for the Stanton crest. I pretended so hard, that I got braver and stronger, and asked the Lord more like there was some chance of being heard. All at once there was a jerk that almost pulled me in, so I jerked too, and a big fish flew over my head and hit the bank behind me with a thump. Of course by a big fish I don't mean a red horse so long as my arm, like the boys bring from the river; I mean the biggest fish I ever caught with a pin in our creek. It looked like the whale that swallowed Jonah, as it went over my head. I laid the pole across the roots, jumped up and turned, and I had to grab the stump to keep from falling in the water and dying. There lay the fish, the biggest one I ever had seen, but it was flopping wildly, and it wasn't a foot from a hole in the grass where a muskrat had burrowed through. If it gave one flop that way, it would slide down the hole straight back into the water; and between me and the fish stood our cross old Shropshire ram. I always looked to see if the sheep were in the meadow before I went to the creek, but that morning I had been so crazy to get something for mother to eat, I never once thought of them--and there it stood!

That ram hadn't been cross at first, and father said it never would be if treated right, and not teased, and if it were, there would be trouble for all of us. I was having more than my share that minute, and it bothered me a lot almost every day. I never dared enter a field any more if it were there, and now it was stamping up and down the bank, shaking its head, and trying to get me; with one flop the fish went ALMOST in the hole, and the next a little away from it. Everything put together, I thought I couldn't stand it. I never wanted anything as I wanted that fish, and I never hated anything as I hated that sheep. It wasn't the sheep's fault either; Leon teased it on purpose, just to see it chase Polly Martin; but that was more her doings than his.

She was a widow and she crossed our front meadow going to her sister's. She had two boys big as Laddie, and three girls, and father said they lived like "the lilies of the field; they toiled not, neither did they spin." They never looked really hungry or freezing, but they never plowed, or planted, they had no cattle or pigs or chickens, only a little corn for meal, and some cabbage, and wild things they shot for meat, and coons to trade the skins for more powder and lead--bet they ate the coons--never any new clothes, never clean, they or their house. Once when father and mother were driving past, they saw Polly at the well and they stopped for politeness sake to ask how she was, like they always did with every one. Polly had a tin cup of water and was sopping at her neck with a carpet rag, and when mother asked, "How are you, Mrs. Martin?" she answered: "Oh I ain't very well this spring; I gest I got the go-backs!"

Mother said Polly looked as if she'd been born with the "go- backs," and had given them to all her children, her home, garden, fields, and even the FENCES. We hadn't a particle of patience with such people. When you are lazy like that it is very probable that you'll live to see the day when your children will peep through the fence cracks and cry for bread. I have seen those Martin children come mighty near doing it when the rest of us opened our dinner baskets at school; and if mother hadn't always put in enough so that we could divide, I bet they would. If Polly Martin had walked up as if she were alive, and had been washed and neat, and going somewhere to do some one good, Leon never would have dreamed of such a thing as training the Shropshire to bunt her. She was so long and skinny, always wore a ragged shawl over her head, a floppy old dress that the wind whipped out behind, and when she came to the creek, she sat astride the foot log, and hunched along with her hands; that tickled the boys so, Leon began teasing the sheep on purpose to make it get her. But inasmuch as she saw fit to go abroad looking so funny, that any one could see she'd be a perfect circus if she were chased, I didn't feel that it was Leon's fault. If, like the little busy bee, she had "improved each shining hour," he never would have done it. Seems to me, she brought the trouble on her own head.

First, Leon ran at the Shropshire and then jumped aside; but soon it grew so strong and quick he couldn't manage that, so he put his hat on a stick and poked it back and forth through a fence crack, and that made the ram raving mad. At last it would butt the fence until it would knock itself down, and if he dangled the hat again, get right up and do it over. Father never caught Leon, so he couldn't understand what made the sheep so dreadfully cross, because he had thought it was quite peaceable when he bought it. The first time it got after Polly, she threw her shawl over its head, pulled up her skirts, and Leon said she hit just eleven high places crossing an eighty-acre field; she came to the house crying, and father had to go after her shawl, and mother gave her a roll of butter and a cherry pie to comfort her.

The Shropshire never really got Polly, but any one could easily see what it would do to me if I dared step around that stump, and it was dancing and panting to begin. If whoever wrote that "Gentle Sheep, pray tell me why," piece ever had seen a sheep acting like that, it wouldn't have been in the books; at least I think it wouldn't, but one can't be sure. He proved that he didn't know much about anything outdoors or he wouldn't have said that sheep were "eating grass and daisies white, from the morning till the night," when daisies are bitter as gall.

Flop! went the fish, and its tail touched the edge of the hole. Then I turned around and picked up the pole. I put my sunbonnet over the big end of it, and poked it at the ram, and drew it back as Leon did his hat. One more jump and mother's fish would be gone. I stood on the roots and waved my bonnet. The sheep lowered its head and came at it with a rush. I drew back the pole, and the sheep's forefeet slid over the edge, and it braced and began to work to keep from going in. The fish gave a big flop and went down the hole. Then I turned Crusader and began to fight, and I didn't care if I were whipped black and blue, I meant to finish that old black-faced Shropshire. I set the pole on the back of its neck and pushed with all my might, and I got it in, too. My, but it made a splash! It wasn't much good at swimming either, and it had no chance, for I stood on the roots and pushed it down, and hit it over the nose with all my might, and I didn't care how far it came on the cars, or how much money it cost, it never would chase me, and make me lose my fish again.

I didn't hear him until he splashed under the roots and then I was so mad I didn't see that it was Laddie; I only knew that it was someone who was going to help out that miserable ram, so I struck with all my might, the sheep when I could hit it, if not, the man.

"You little demon, stop!" cried Laddie.

I got in a good one right on the ram's nose. Then Laddie dropped the sheep and twisted the fish pole from my fingers, and I pushed him as hard as I could, but he was too strong. He lifted the sheep, pulled it to the bank, and rolled it, worked its jaws, and squeezed water from it, and worked and worked.

"I guess you've killed it!" he said at last.

"Goody!" I shouted. "Goody! Oh but I am glad it's dead!"

"What on earth has turned you to a fiend?" asked Laddie, beginning work on the sheep again.

"That ram!" I said. "Ever since Leon made it cross so it would chase Polly Martin, it's got me oftener than her. I can't go anywhere for it, and to-day it made me lose a big fish, and mother is waiting. She thought maybe she could eat some."

Then I roared; bet I sounded like Bashan's bull.

"Dear Lord!" said Laddie dropping the sheep and taking me in his wet arms. "Tell me, Biddy! Tell me how it is."

Then I forgot I was a Crusader, and told him all about it as well as I could for choking, and when I finished he bathed my hot face, and helped me from the roots. Then he went and looked down the hole I showed him and he cried out quicklike, and threw himself on the grass, and in a second up came the fish. Some one had rolled a big stone in the hole, so the fish was all right, not even dead yet, and Laddie said it was the biggest one he ever had seen taken from the creek. Then he said if I'd forgive him and all our family, for spoiling the kind of a life I had a perfect right to lead, and if I'd run to the house and get a big bottle from the medicine case quick, he would see to it that some place was fixed for that sheep where it would never bother me again. So I took the fish and ran as fast as I could, but I sent May back with the bottle, and did the scaling myself. No one at our house could do it better, for Laddie taught me the right way long ago, when I was small, and I'd done it hundreds of times.

Then I went to Candace and she put a little bit of butter and a speck of lard in a skillet, and cooked the fish brown. She made a slice of toast and boiled a cup of water and carried it to the door; then she went in and set the table beside the bed, and I took in the tray, and didn't spill a drop. Mother never said a word; she just reached out and broke off a tiny speck and nibbled it, and it stayed; she tried a little bigger piece, and another, and she said: "Take out the bones, Candace!" She ate every scrap of that fish like the hungriest traveller who ever came to our door, and the toast, and drank the hot water. Then she went into a long sleep and all of us walked tiptoe, and when she waked up she was better, and in a few days she could sit in her chair again, and she began getting Shelley ready to go to music school.

I have to tell you the rest, too. Laddie made the ram come alive, and father sold it the next day for more than he paid for it. He said he hoped I'd forgive him for not having seen how it had been bothering me, and that he never would have had it on the place a day if he'd known. The next time he went to town he bought me a truly little cane rod, a real fishing line, several hooks, and a red bobber too lovely to put into the water. I thought I was a great person from the fuss all of them made over me, until I noticed Laddie shrug his shoulders, and reach back and rub one, and then I remembered.

I went flying, and thank goodness! he held out his arms.

"Oh Laddie! I never did it!" I cried. "I never, never did! I couldn't! Laddie, I love you best of any one; you know I do!"

"Of course you didn't!" said Laddie. "My Little Sister wasn't anywhere around when that happened. That was a poor little girl I never saw before, and she was in such trouble she didn't know WHAT she was doing. And I hope I'll never see her again," he ended, twisting his shoulder. But he kissed me and made it all right, and really I didn't do that; I just simply couldn't have struck Laddie.

Marrying off Sally was little worse than getting Shelley ready for school. She had to have three suits of everything, and a new dress of each kind, and three hats; her trunk wouldn't hold all there was to put in it; and father said he never could pay the bills. He had promised her to go, and he didn't know what in this world to do; because he never had borrowed money in his life, and he couldn't begin; for if he died suddenly, that would leave mother in debt, and they might take the land from her. That meant he'd spent what he had in the bank on Sally's wedding, and all that was in the Underground Station, or maybe the Station money wasn't his.

Just when he was awfully bothered, mother said to never mind, she believed she could fix it. She sent all of us into the orchard to pick the fine apples that didn't keep well, and father made three trips to town to sell them. She had big jars of lard she wouldn't need before butchering time came again, and she sold dried apples, peaches, and raspberries from last year. She got lots of money for barrels of feathers she'd saved to improve her feather beds and pillows; she said she would see to that later. Father was so tickled to get the money to help him out that he said he'd get her a pair of those wonderful new blue geese like Pryors had, that every one stopped to look at. When there was not quite enough yet, from somewhere mother brought out money that she'd saved for a long time, from butter and eggs, and chickens, and turkeys, and fruit and lard, and things that belonged to her. Father hated to use it the worst way, but she said she'd saved it for an emergency, and now seemed to be the time.

She said if the child really had talent, she should be about developing it, and while there would be many who would have far finer things than Shelley, still she meant her to have enough that she wouldn't be the worst looking one, and so ashamed she couldn't keep her mind on her work. Father said, with her face it didn't make any difference what she wore, and mother said that was just like a man; it made all the difference in the world what a girl wore. Father said maybe it did to the girl, and other women; what he meant was that it made none to a man. Mother said the chief aim and end of a girl's life was not wrapped up in a man; and father said maybe not with some girls, but it would be with Shelley: she was too pretty to escape. I do wonder if I'm going to be too pretty to escape, when I put on long dresses. Sometimes I look in the glass to see if it's coming, but I don't suppose it's any use. Mother says you can't tell a thing at the growing age about how a girl is going to look at eighteen.

When everything was almost ready, Leon came in one day and said: "Shelley, what about improving your hair? Have you tried your wild grape sap yet?"

Shelley said: "Why, goodness me! We've been so busy getting Sally married, and my clothes made, I forgot all about that. Have you noticed the crock in passing? Is there anything in it?"

"It was about half full, once when I went by," said Leon. "I haven't seen it lately."

"Do please be a dear and look, when you go after the cows this evening," said Shelley. "If there's anything in it, bring it up."

  
            "Do it yourself for want of me,
             The boy replied quite manfully,"

quoted Leon from "The Little Lord and the Farmer." He was always teasing.

"I think you're mean as dirt if you don t bring it," said Shelley.

Leon grinned and you should have heard the nasty, teasing way he said more of that same piece:

  
            "Anger and pride are both unwise,
             Vinegar never catches flies----"

I wondered she didn't slap him. You could see she wanted to. "I can get it myself," she said angrily.

"What will you give me to bring it?" asked Leon, who never missed a chance to make a bargain.

"My grateful thanks. Are they not a proper reward?" asked Shelley.

"Thanks your foot!" said Leon. "Will you bring something pretty from Chicago for Susie Fall's Christmas present?"

Every one laughed, but Leon never cared. He liked Susie best of any of the girls, and he wanted every one to know it. He went straight to her whenever he had a chance, and he'd already told her mother to keep all the other boys away, because he meant to marry her when he grew up, and Widow Fall said that was fair enough, and she'd save her for him. So Shelley said she would get him something for Susie, and Leon brought the crock. Shelley looked at it sort of dubious-like, tipped it, and stared at the dirt settled in the bottom, and then stuck in her finger and tasted it. She looked at Leon with a queer grin and said: "Smarty, smarty, think you're smart!" She threw the creek water into the swill bucket. No one said a word, but Leon looked much sillier than she did. After he was gone I asked her if she would bring him a Christmas present for Susie NOW, and she said she ought to bring him a pretty glass bottle labelled perfume, with hartshorn in it, and she would, if she thought he'd smell it first.

Shelley felt badly about leaving mother when she wasn't very well; but mother said it was all right, she had Candace to keep house and May and me, and father, and all of us to take care of her, and it would be best for Shelley to go now and work hard as she could, while she had the chance. So one afternoon father took her trunk to the depot and bought the tickets and got the checks, and the next day Laddie drove to Groveville with father and Shelley, and she was gone. Right at the last, she didn't seem to want to leave so badly, but all of them said she must. Peter's cousin, who had gone last year, was to meet her, and have a room ready where she boarded if she could, and if she couldn't right away, then the first one who left, Shelley was to have the place, so they'd be together.

There were eight of us left, counting Candace and Miss Amelia, and you wouldn't think a house with eight people living in it would be empty, but ours was. Everything seemed to wilt. The roses on the window blinds didn't look so bright as they had; mother said the only way she could get along was to keep right on working. She helped Candace all she could, but she couldn't be on her feet very much, so she sat all day long and peeled peaches to dry, showed Candace how to jelly, preserve, and spice them, and peeled apples for butter and to dry, quantities more than we could use, but she said she always could sell such things, and with the bunch of us to educate yet, we'd need the money.

When it grew cold enough to shut the doors, and have fire at night, first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table, then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day, and then father lined us against the wall, all in a row from Laddie down, and he pronounced words--easy ones that divided into syllables nicely, for me, harder for May, and so up until I might sit down. For Laddie, May and Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland's history, the Christian Advocate, and the Agriculturist. My, but he had them so they could spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the proper way to read them. I could do "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "Casablanca," "Gray's Elegy," or "Mark Antony's Speech," but best of all, I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl." When he was tired, if it were not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs. Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and they were pretty, and "very useful too," like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey's Second.

Then they picked the apples. These had to be picked by hand, wrapped in soft paper, packed in barrels, and shipped to Fort Wayne. Where they couldn't reach by hand, they stood on barrels or ladders, and used a long handled picker, so as not to bruise the fruit. Laddie helped with everything through the day, worked at his books at night, and whenever he stepped outside he looked in the direction of Pryors'. He climbed to the topmost limbs of the trees with a big basket, picked it full and let it down with a long piece of clothesline. I loved to be in the orchard when they were working; there were plenty of summer apples to eat yet; it was fun to watch the men, and sometimes I could be useful by handing baskets or heaping up apples to be buried for us.

One night father read about a man who had been hanged for killing another man, and they cut him down too soon, so he came alive, and they had to hang him over; and father got all worked up about it. He said the man had suffered death the first time to "all intents and purposes," so that fulfilled the requirements of the law, and they were wrong when they hanged him again. Laddie said it was a piece of bungling sure enough, but the law said a man must be "hanged by his neck until he was dead," and if he weren't dead, why, it was plain he hadn't fulfilled the requirements of the law, so they were forced to hang him again. Father said that law was wrong; the man never should have been hanged in the first place. They talked and argued until we were all excited about it, and the next evening after school Leon and I were helping pick apples, and when father and Laddie went to the barn with a load we sat down to rest and we thought about what they said.

"Gee, that was tough on the man!" said Leon, "but I guess the law is all right. Of course he wouldn't want to die, and twice over at that, but I don't suppose the man he killed liked to die either. I think if you take a life, it's all right to give your own to pay for it."

"Leon," I said, "some time when you are fighting Absalom Saunders or Lou Wicks, just awful, if you hit them too hard on some tender spot and kill them, would you want to die to pay for it?"

"I wouldn't want to, but I guess I'd have to," said Leon. "That's the law, and it's as good a way to make it as any. But I'm not going to kill any one. I've studied my physiology hard to find all the spots that will kill. I never hit them behind the ear, or in the pit of the stomach; I just black their eyes, bloody their snoots, and swat them on the chin to finish off with."

"Well, suppose they don't study their physiologies like you do, and hit YOU in the wrong place, and kill you, would you want THEM hanged by the neck until they were dead, to pay for it?"

"I don't think I'd want anything if I were dead," he said. "I wonder how it feels to die. Now THAT man knew. I'd like to be hanged enough to find out how it goes, and then come back, and brag about it. I don't think it hurts much; I believe I'll try it."

So Leon took the rope Laddie lowered the baskets with, and threw it over a big limb. Then he rolled up a barrel and stood on it and put my sunbonnet on with the crown over his face, for a black cap, and made the rope into a slip noose over his head, and told me to stand back by the apple tree and hold the rope tight, until he said he was hanged enough. Then he stepped from the barrel. It jerked me toward him about a yard, as he came down smash! on his feet. I held with all my might, but he was too heavy--and falling that way. So he went to trying to fix some other plan, and I told him the sensible thing to do would be for him to hang me, because he'd be strong enough to hold me and I could tell him how it felt just as well. So we fixed me up like we had him, and when Leon got the rope stretched, he wrapped it twice around the apple tree so it wouldn't jerk him as it had me, and when he said "Ready," I stepped from the barrel. The last thing I heard was Leon telling me to say when I was hanged enough. I was so heavy, the rope stretched, and I went down until it almost tore off my head, and I couldn't get a single breath, so of course I didn't tell him, and I couldn't get on the barrel, and my tongue went out, and my chest swelled up, and my ears roared, and I kicked and struggled, and all the time I could hear Leon laughing, and shouting to keep it up, that I was dying fine; only he didn't know that I really was, and at last I didn't feel or know anything more.

When I came to, I was lying on the grass, while father was pumping my arms, and Laddie was pouring creek water on my face from his hat, and Leon was running around in circles, clear crazy. I heard father tell him he'd give him a scutching he'd remember to the day of his death; but inasmuch as I had told Leon to do it, I had to grab father and hold to him tight as I could, until I got breath enough to explain how it happened. Even then I wasn't sure what he was going to do.

After all that, when I tried to tell Leon how it felt, he just cried like a baby, and he wouldn't listen to a word, even when he'd wanted to know so badly. He said if I hadn't come back, he'd have gone to the barn and used the swing rope on himself, so it was a good thing I did, for one funeral would have cost enough, when we needed money so badly, not to mention how mother would have felt to have two of us go at once, like she had before. And anyway, it didn't amount to so awful much. It was pretty bad at first, but it didn't last long, and the next day my neck was only a little blue and stiff, and in three days it was all over, only a rough place where the rope grained the skin as I went down; but I never got to tell Leon how it felt; I just couldn't talk him into hearing, and it was quite interesting too; but still I easily saw why the man in the paper would object to dying twice, to pay for killing another man once.

When the apples were picked and the cabbage, beets, turnips, and potatoes were buried, some corn dried in the garret for new meal, pumpkins put in the cellar, the field corn all husked, and the butchering done, father said the work was in such fine shape, with Laddie to help, and there was so much more corn than he needed for us, and the price was so high, and the turkeys did so well, and everything, that he could pay back what mother helped him, and have quite a sum over.

It was Thanksgiving by that time, and all of Winfield's, Lucy's, Sally and Peter, and our boys came home. We had a big time, all but Shelley; it was too expensive for her to come so far for one day, but mother sent her a box with a whole turkey for herself and her friends; and cake, popcorn, nuts, and just everything that wasn't too drippy. Shelley wrote such lovely letters that mother saved them and after we had eaten as much dinner as we could, she read them before we left the table.

I had heard most of them, but I liked to listen again, because they sounded so happy. You could hear Shelley laugh on every page. She told about how Peter's cousin was waiting when the train stopped. They couldn't room together right away, but they were going to the first chance they had. Shelley felt badly because they were so far apart, but she was in a nice place, where she could go with other girls of the school until she learned the way. She told about her room and the woman she boarded with and what she had to eat; she wrote mother not to worry about clothes, because most of the others were from the country, or small towns, and getting ready to teach, and lots of them didn't have NEARLY as many or as pretty dresses as she did. She told about the big building, the classes, the professors, and of going to public recitals where some of the pupils who knew enough played; and she was working her fingers almost to the bone, so she could next year. She told of people she met, and how one of the teachers took a number of girls in his class to see a great picture gallery. She wrote pages about a young Chicago lawyer she met there, and only a few lines about the pictures, so father said as that was the best collection of art work in Chicago, it was easy enough to see that Shelley had been far more impressed with the man than she had been with the pictures. Mother said she didn't see how he could say a thing like that about the child. Of course she couldn't tell in a letter about hundreds of pictures, but it was easy enough to tell all about a man.

Father got sort of spunky at that, and he said it was mighty little that mattered most, that could be told about a Chicago lawyer; and mother had better caution Shelley to think more about her work, and write less of the man. Mother said that would stop the child's confidences completely and she'd think all the time about the man, and never mention him again, so she wouldn't know what WAS going on. She said she was glad Shelley had found pleasing, refined friends, and she'd encourage her all she could in cultivating them; but of course she'd caution her to be careful, and she'd tell her what the danger was, and after that Shelley wrote and wrote. Mother didn't always read the letters to us, but she answered every one she got that same night. Sometimes she pushed the pen so she jabbed the paper, and often she smiled or laughed softly.

I liked Thanksgiving. We always had a house full of company, and they didn't stay until we were tired of them, as they did at Christmas, and there was as much to eat; the only difference was that there were no presents. It wasn't nearly so much work to fix for one day as it was for a week; so it wasn't so hard on mother and Candace, and father didn't have to spend much money. We were wearing all our clothes from last fall that we could, and our coats from last winter to help out, but we didn't care. We had a lot of fun, and we wanted Sally and Shelley to have fine dresses, because they were in big cities where they needed them, and in due season, no doubt, we would have much more than they, because, as May figured it, there would be only a few of us by that time, so we could have more to spend. That looked sensible, and I thought it would be that way, too. We were talking it over coming from school one evening, and when we had settled it, we began to play "Dip and Fade." That was a game we made up from being at church, and fall and spring were the only times we could play it, because then the rains filled all the ditches beside the road where the dirt was plowed up to make the bed higher, and we had to have the water to dip in and fade over.

We played it like that, because it was as near as we could come to working out a song Isaac Thomas sang every time he got happy. He had a lot of children at home, and more who had died, from being half-fed and frozen, mother thought; and he was always talking about meeting the "pore innocents" in Heaven, and singing that one song. Every time he made exactly the same speech in meeting. It began like reciting poetry, only it didn't rhyme, but it sort of cut off in lines, and Isaac waved back and forth on his feet, and half sung it, and the rags waved too, but you just couldn't feel any thrills of earnestness about what he said, because he needed washing, and to go to work and get him some clothes and food to fill out his frame. He only looked funny, and made you want to laugh. It took Emanuel Ripley to raise your hair. I don't know why men like my father, and the minister, and John Dover stood it; they talked over asking Isaac to keep quiet numbers of times, but the minister said there were people like that in every church, they always came among the Lord's anointed, and it was better to pluck out your right eye than to offend one of them, and he was doubtful about doing it. So we children all knew that the grown people scarcely could stand Isaac's speech, and prayer, and song, and that they were afraid to tell him plain out that he did more harm than good. Every meeting about the third man up was Isaac, and we had to watch him wave, and rant, and go sing-songy:

  
        "Oh brethering and sistering--ah,
         It delights my heart--ah to gather with you,
         In this holy house of worship--ah.
         In his sacred word--ah,
         The Lord--ah tells us,
         That we are all his childring--ah.
         And now, lemme exhort you to-night--ah,
         As one that loves you--ah,
         To choose that good part, that Mary chose--ah,
         That the worrrr-uld kin neither give ner take away--ah."

That went on until he was hoarse, then he prayed, and arose and sang his song. Other men spoke where they stood. Isaac always walked to the altar, faced the people, and he was tired out when he finished, but so proud of himself, so happy, and he felt so sure that his efforts were worth a warm bed, sausage, pancakes, maple syrup, and coffee for breakfast, that it was mighty seldom he failed to fool some one else into thinking so too, and if he could, he wouldn't have to walk four miles home on cold nights, with no overcoat. In summer, mostly, they let him go. Isaac always was fattest in winter, especially during revivals, but at any time mother said he looked like a sheep's carcass after the buzzards had picked it. It could be seen that he was perfectly strong, and could have fed and clothed himself, and Mandy and the children, quite as well as our father did us, if he had wanted to work, for we had the biggest family of the neighbourhood. So we children made fun of him and we had to hold our mouths shut when he got up all tired and teary-like, and began to quaver:

  
        "Many dear childurn we know dew stan'
         Un toon ther harps in the better lan',
         Ther little hans frum each soundin' string,
         Bring music sweet, wile the Anguls sing,
         Bring music sweet, wile the Anguls sing,--
                 We shell meet them agin on that shore,
                 We shell meet them agin on that shore,
                 With fairer face, un angel grace,
                 Each loved un ull welcome us ther.

        "They uster mourn when the childurn died,
         Un said goo-bye at the river side,
         They dipped ther feet in the glidin' stream,
         Un faded away, like a loveli dream,
         Un faded away like a loveli dream."

Then the chorus again, and then Isaac dropped on the front seat exhausted, and stayed there until some good-hearted woman, mostly my mother, felt so sorry about his shiftlessness she asked him to go home with us and warmed and fed him, and put him in the traveller's bed to sleep. The way we played it was this: we stood together at the edge of a roadside puddle and sang the first verse and the chorus exactly as Isaac did. Then I sang the second verse, and May was one of the "many dear childurn," and as I came to the lines she dipped her feet in the "glidin' stream," and for "fading away," she jumped across.

Now May was a careful little soul, and always watched what she was doing, so she walked up a short way, chose a good place, and when I sang the line, she was almost birdlike, she dipped and faded so gracefully. Then we laughed like dunces, and then May began to sway and swing, and drone through her nose for me, and I was so excited I never looked. I just dipped and faded on the spot. I faded all right too, for I couldn't jump nearly across, and when I landed in pure clay that had been covered with water for three weeks, I went down to my knees in mud, to my waist in water, and lost my balance and fell backward.

A man passing on horseback pried me out with a rail and helped me home. Of course he didn't know how I happened to fall in, and I was too chilled to talk. I noticed May only said I fell, so I went to bed scorched inside with red pepper tea, and never told a word about dipping and fading. Leon whispered and said he bet it was the last time I would play that, so as soon as my coat and dress were washed and dried, and I could go back to school, I did it again, just to show him I was no cowardy-calf; but I had learned from May to choose a puddle I could manage before I faded.

CHAPTER IX. "Even So"

  
            "All things whatsoever ye would
             That men should do to you,
             Do ye even so to them."

Our big girls and boys always made a dreadful fuss and said we would catch every disease you could mention, but mother and father were set about it, just like the big rocks in the hills. They said they, themselves, once had been at the mercy of the people, and they knew how it felt. Mother said when they were coming here in a wagon, and she had ridden until she had to walk to rest her feet, and held a big baby until her arms became so tired she drove while father took it, and when at last they saw a house and stopped, she said if the woman hadn't invited her in, and let her cook on the stove, given her milk and eggs, and furnished her a bed to sleep in once in a while, she couldn't have reached here at all; and she never had been refused once. Then she always quoted: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye EVEN SO to them."

Father said there were men who made a business of splitting hairs, and of finding different meanings in almost everything in the Bible. I would like to have seen any one split hairs about that, or it made to mean something else. Of all the things in the Bible that you had to do because it said to, whether you liked it or not, that was the one you struck oftenest in life and it took the hardest pull to obey. It was just the hatefulest text of any, and made you squirm most. There was no possible way to get around it. It meant, that if you liked a splinter new slate, and a sharp pencil all covered with gold paper, to make pictures and write your lessons, when Clarissa Polk sat next you and sang so low the teacher couldn't hear until she put herself to sleep on it, "I WISHT I had a slate! I wisht I HAD a slate! I wisht I had a SLATE! Oh I WISHT I HAD A SLATE!"--it meant that you just had to wash up yours and stop making pictures yourself, and pass it over; you even had to smile when you offered it, if you did it right. I seldom got through it as the Lord would, for any one who loaned Clarissa a slate knew that it would come back with greasy, sweaty finger marks on it you almost had to dig a hole to wash off, and your pencil would be wet. And if there were the least flaw of crystal in the pencil, she found it, and bore down so hard that what she wrote never would come off.

The Lord always seemed bigger and more majestic to me, than at any other time, when I remembered that He could have known all that, and yet smiled as He loaned Clarissa His slate. And that old Bible thing meant, too, that if you would like it if you were travelling a long way, say to California to hunt gold, or even just to Indiana, to find a farm fit to live on--it meant that if you were tired, hungry, and sore, and would want to be taken in and fed and rested, you had to let in other people when they reached your house. Father and mother had been through it themselves, and they must have been tired as could be, before they reached Sarah Hood's and she took them in, and rested and fed them, even when they were only a short way from the top of the Little Hill, where next morning they looked down and stopped the wagon, until they chose the place to build their house. Sarah Hood came along, and helped mother all day, so by night she was settled in the old cabin that was on the land, and ready to go to work making money to build a new one, and then a big house, and fix the farm all beautiful like it was then. They knew so well how it felt, that they kept one bed in the boys' room, and any man who came at dusk got his supper, to sleep there, and his breakfast, and there never was anything to pay. The girls always scolded dreadfully about the extra washing, but mother said she slept on sheets when she came out, and some one washed them.

One time Sally said: "Mother, have you ever figured out how many hundred sheets you've washed since, to pay for that?"

Mother said: "No, but I just hope it will make a stack high enough for me to climb from into Heaven."

Sally said: "The talk at the church always led me to think that you flew to Heaven."

Mother answered: "So I get there, I don't mind if I creep."

Then Sally knew it was time to stop. We always knew. And we stopped, too!

We had heard that "All things" quotation, until the first two words were as much as mother ever needed repeat of it any more, and we had cooked, washed for, and waited on people travelling, until Leon got so when he saw any one coming--of course we knew all the neighbours, and their horses and wagons and carriages--he always said: "Here comes another `Even So!'" He said we had done "even so" to people until it was about our share, but mother said our share was going to last until the Lord said, "Well done, good and faithful servant," and took us home. She had much more about the stranger at the gate and entertaining angels unawares; why, she knew every single thing in the Bible that meant it was her duty to feed and give a bed to any one, no matter how dirty or miserable looking he was! So when Leon came in one evening at dusk and said, "There's another `Even So' coming down the Little Hill!" all of us knew that we'd have company for the night, and we had.

I didn't like that man, but some of the others seemed to find him amusing. Maybe it was because I had nothing to do but sit and watch him, and so I saw more of him than the ones who came and went all the time. As long as there was any one in the room, he complained dreadfully about his sore foot, and then cheered up and talked, and he could tell interesting things. He was young, but he must have been most everywhere and seen everything. He was very brave and could stand off three men who were going to take from him the money he was carrying to buy a piece of land in Illinois. The minute the grown folks left the room to milk, do the night feeding, and begin supper, he twisted in his chair and looked at every door, and went and stood at the back dining-room window, where he could see the barn and what was out there, and coming back he took a peep into father's and mother's room, and although he limped dreadfully when he came, he walked like any one when he went over and picked up father's gun and looked to see if it were loaded, and seemed mighty glad when he found it wasn't. Father said he could load in a flash when it was necessary, but he was dubious about a loaded gun in a house full of children. Not one of us ever touched it, until the boys were big enough to have permission, like Laddie and Leon had. He said a gun was such a great "moral persuader," that the sight of one was mostly all that was needed, and nobody could tell by looking at it whether it was loaded or not. This man could, for he examined the lock and smiled in a pleased way over it, and he never limped a step going back to his chair. He kept on complaining, until father told him before bedtime that he had better rest a day or two, and mother said that would be a good idea.

He talked so much we couldn't do our lessons or spell very well, but it was Friday and we'd have another chance Saturday, so it didn't make so much difference. Father said the traveller must be tired and sleepy and Leon should take a light and show him to bed. He stayed so long father went to the foot of the stairway, and asked him why he didn't come down and he said he was in bed too. The next morning he was sleepy at breakfast and Laddie said it was no wonder, because Leon and the traveller were talking when he went upstairs. The man turned to father and said: "That's a mighty smart boy, Mr. Stanton." Father frowned and said: "Praise to the face is open disgrace. I hope he will be smart enough not to disgrace us, anyway."

The traveller said he was sure he would be, and we could see that he had taken a liking to Leon, for he went with him to the barn to help do the morning feeding. They stayed so long mother sent me to call them, and when I got there, the man was telling Leon how foolish it was for boys to live on a farm; how they never would amount to anything unless they went to cities, and about all the fun there was there, and how nice it was to travel, even along the roads, because every one fed you, and gave you a good bed. He forgot that walking had made his foot lame, and I couldn't see, to save me, why he was going to spend his money to buy a farm, if he thought a town the only place where it was fit to live.

He stayed all Saturday, and father said Sunday was no suitable time to start on a journey again, and the man's foot was bad when father was around, so it would be better to wait until Monday. The traveller tagged Leon and told him what a fine fellow he was, how smart he was, and to prove it, Leon boasted about everything he knew, and showed the man all over the farm.

I even saw them pass the Station in the orchard, and heard Leon brag how father had been an agent for the Governor; but of course he didn't really show him the place, and probably it would have made no difference if he had, for all the money must have been spent on Sally's wedding. Of course father might have put some there he had got since, or that money might never have been his at all, but it seemed as if it would be, because it was on his land.

Sunday evening all of us attended church, but the traveller was too tired, so when Leon said he'd stay with him, father thought it was all right. I could see no one wanted to leave the man alone in the house. He said they'd go to bed early, and we came in quite late. The lamp was turned low, the door unlocked, and everything in place. Laddie went to bed without a candle, and said he'd undress and slip in easy so as not to waken them.

In the morning when he got up the traveller's bed hadn't been slept in, and neither had Leon's. The gun was gone, and father stared at mother, and mother stared at Laddie, and he turned and ran straight toward the Station, and in a minute he was back, whiter than a plate. He just said: "All gone!" Father and mother both sat down suddenly and hard. Then Laddie ran to the barn and came back and said none of the horses had been taken. Soon they went into the parlour and shut the door, and when they came out father staggered and mother looked exactly like Sabethany. Laddie ran to the barn, saddled Flos and rode away. Father wanted to ring an alarm on the dinner bell, like he had a call arranged to get all the neighbours there quickly if we had sickness or trouble, and mother said: "Paul, you shall not! He's so young! We've got to keep this as long as we can, and maybe the Lord will help us find him, and we can give him another chance."

Father started to say something, and mother held up her hand and just said, "Paul!" and he sank back in the chair and kept still. Mother always had spoken of him as "the Head of the Family," and here he wasn't at all! He minded her quickly as I would.

When Miss Amelia came downstairs they let her start to school and never told her a word, but mother said May and I were not to go. So I slipped out and ran through the orchard to look at the Station, and sure enough! the stone was rolled back, the door open and the can lying on the floor. I slid down and picked it up, and there was one sheet of paper money left in it stuck to the sides. It was all plain as a pikestaff. Leon must have thought the money had been spent, and showed the traveller the Station, just to brag, and he guessed there might be something there, and had gone while we were at church and taken it. He had all night the start of us, and he might have a horse waiting somewhere, and be almost to Illinois by this time, and if the money belonged to father, there would be no Christmas; and if it happened to be the money the county gave him to pay the men who worked the roads every fall, and Miss Amelia, or collections from the church, he'd have to pay it back, even if it put him in debt; and if he died, they might take the land, like he said; and where on earth was Leon? Knew what he'd done and hiding, I bet! He needed the thrashing he would get that time, and I started out to hunt him and have it over with, so mother wouldn't be uneasy about him yet; and then I remembered Laddie had said Leon hadn't been in bed all night. He was gone too!

Maybe he wanted to try life in a city, where the traveller had said everything was so grand; but he must have known that he'd kill his mother if he went, and while he didn't kiss her so often, and talk so much as some of us, I never could see that he didn't run quite as fast to get her a chair or save her a step. He was so slim and light he could race for the doctor faster than Laddie or father, either one. Of course he loved his mother, just as all of us did; he never, never could go away and not let her know about it. If he had gone, that watchful-eyed man, who was lame only part of the time, had taken the gun and made him go. I thought I might as well save the money he'd overlooked, so I gripped it tight in my hand, and put it in my apron pocket, the same as I had Laddie's note to the Princess, and started to the barn, on the chance that Leon might be hiding. I knew precious well I would, if I were in his place. So I hunted the granaries, the haymow, the stalls, then I stood on the threshing floor and cried: "Leon! If you're hiding come quick! Mother will be sick with worrying and father will be so glad to see you, he won't do anything much. Do please hurry!"

Then I listened, and all I could hear was a rat gnawing at a corner of the granary under the hay. Might as well have saved its teeth, it would strike a strip of tin when it got through, but of course it couldn't know that. Then I went to every hole around the haystack, where the cattle had eaten; none were deep yet, like they would be later in the season, and all the way I begged of Leon to come out. Once a rooster screamed, flew in my face and scared me good, but no Leon; so I tried the corn crib, the implement shed, and the wood house, climbing the ladder with the money still gripped in one hand. Then I slipped in the front door, up the stairs, and searched the garret, even away back where I didn't like to very well. At last I went to the dining- room, and I don't think either father or mother had moved, while Sabethany turned to stone looked good compared with them. Seemed as if it would have been better if they'd cried, or scolded, or anything but just sit there as they did, when you could see by their moving once in a while that they were alive. In the kitchen Candace and May finished the morning work, and both of them cried steadily. I slipped to May, "Whose money was it?" I whispered. "Father's, or the county's, or the church's?"

"All three," said May.

"The traveller took it."

"How would he find it? None of us knew there was such a place before."

"Laddie seemed to know!"

"Oh Laddie! Father trusts him about everything."

"They don't think HE told?"

"Of course not, silly. It's Leon who is gone!"

"Leon may have told about the Station!" I cried. "He didn't touch the money. He never touched it!"

Then I went straight to father. Keeping a secret was one thing; seeing the only father you had look like that, was another. I held out the money.

"There's one piece old Even So didn't get, anyway," I said. "Found it on the floor of the Station, where it was stuck to the can. And I thought Leon must be hiding for fear he'd be whipped for telling, but I've hunted where we usually hide, and promised him everything under the sun if he'd come out; but he didn't, so I guess that traveller man must have used the gun to make him go along."

Father sat and stared at me. He never offered to touch the money, not even when I held it against his hand. So I saw that money wasn't the trouble, else he'd have looked quick enough to see how much I had. They were thinking about Leon being gone, at least father was. Mother called me to her and asked: "You knew about the Station?"

I nodded.

"When?"

"On the way back from taking Amanda Deam her ducks this summer."

"Leon was with you?"

"He found it."

"What were you doing?"

"Sitting on the fence eating apples. We were wondering why that ravine place wasn't cleaned up, when everywhere else was, and then Leon said there might be a reason. He told about having seen a black man, and that he was hidden some place, and we hunted there and found it. We rolled back the stone, and opened the door, and Leon went in, and both of us saw a can full of money."

"Go on."

"We didn't touch it, mother! Truly we didn't! Leon said we'd found something not intended for children, and we'd be whipped sick if we ever went near or told, and we never did, not even once, unless Leon wanted to boast to the traveller man, but if he showed him the place, he thought sure the money had all been spent on the wedding and sending Shelley away."

Father's arms shot out, and his head pitched on the table. Mother got up and began to walk the floor, and never went near or even touched him. I couldn't bear it. I went and pulled his arm and put the bill under his hand.

"Leon didn't take your money! He didn't! He didn't! I just know he didn't! He does tricks because they are so funny, or he thinks they'll be, but he doesn't steal! He doesn't touch a single thing that is not his, only melons, or chicken out of the skillet, or bread from the cellar; but not money and things. I take gizzards and bread myself, but I don't steal, and Leon or none of us do! Oh father, we don't! Not one of us do! Don't you remember about `Thou shalt not,' and the Crusaders? Leon's the best fighter of any of us. I'm not sure that he couldn't even whip Laddie, if he got mad enough! Maybe he can't whip the traveller if he has the gun, but, father, Leon simply couldn't take the money. Laddie will stay home and work, and all of us. We can help get it back. We can sell a lot of things. Laddie will sell Flos before he'll see you suffer so; and all of us will give up Christmas, and we'll work! We'll work as hard as ever we can, and maybe you could spare the little piece Joe Risdell wants to build his cabin on. We can manage about the money, father, indeed we can. But you don't dare think Leon took it! He never did! Why, he's yours! Yours and mother's!"

Father lifted his head and reached out his arms.

"You blessing!" he said. "You blessing from the Lord!"

Then he gave me a cold, stiff kiss on the forehead, went to mother, took her arm, and said: "Come, mommy, let's go and tell the Lord about it, and then we'll try to make some plan. Perhaps Laddie will be back with word soon."

But he almost had to carry her. Then we could hear him praying, and he was so anxious, and he made it so earnest it sounded exactly like the Lord was in our room and father was talking right to His face. I tried to think, and this is what I thought: as father left the room, he looked exactly as I had seen Mr. Pryor more than once, and my mother had both hands gripped over her heart, and she said we must not let any one know. Now if something could happen to us to make my father look like the Princess' and my mother hold her heart with both hands, and if no one were to know about it like they had said, how were we any different from Pryors? We might be of the Lord's anointed, but we could get into the same kind of trouble the infidels could, and have secrets ourselves, or at least it seemed as if it might be very nearly the same, when it made father and mother look and act the way they did. I wondered if we'd have to leave our lovely, lovely home, cross a sea and be strangers in a strange land, as Laddie said; and if people would talk about us, and make us feel that being a stranger was the loneliest, hardest thing in all the world. Well, if mysteries are like this, and we have to live with one days and years, the Lord have mercy on us! Then I saw the money lying on the table, so I took it and put it in the Bible. Then I went out and climbed the catalpa tree to watch for Laddie.

Soon I saw a funny thing, such as I never before had seen. Coming across the fields, straight toward our house, sailing over the fences like a bird, came the Princess on one of her horses. Its legs stretched out so far its body almost touched the ground, and it lifted up and swept over the rails. She took our meadow fence lengthwiselike, and at the hitching rack she threw the bridle over the post, dismounted, and then I saw she had been riding astride, like a man. I ran before her and opened the sitting-room door, but no one was there, so I went on to the dining-room. Father had come in, and mother was sitting in her chair. Both of them looked at the Princess and never said a word.

She stopped inside the dining-room door and spoke breathlessly, as if she as well as the horse had raced.

"I hope I'm not intruding," she said, "but a man north of us told our Thomas in the village that robbers had taken quite a large sum of hidden money you held for the county, and church, and of your own, and your gun, and got away while you were at church last night. Is it true?"

"Practically," said my father.

Then my mother motioned toward a chair.

"You are kind to come," she said. "Won't you be seated?"

The Princess stepped to the chair, but she gripped the back in both hands and stood straight, breathing fast, her eyes shining with excitement, her lips and cheeks red, so lovely you just had to look, and look.

"No," she said. "I'll tell you why I came, and then if there is nothing I can do here, and no errand I can ride for you, I'll go.

Mother has heart trouble, the worst in all the world, the kind no doctor can ever hope to cure, and sometimes, mostly at night, she is driven to have outside air. Last night she was unusually ill, and I heard her leave the house, after I'd gone to my room. I watched from my window and saw her take a seat on a bench under the nearest tree. I was moving around and often I looked to see if she were still there. Then the dogs began to rave, and I hurried down. They used to run free, but lately, on account of her going out, father has been forced to tie them at night. They were straining at their chains, and barking dreadfully. I met her at the door, but she would only say some one passed and gave her a fright. When Thomas came in and told what he had heard, she said instantly that she had seen the man.

"She said he was about the size of Thomas, that he came from your direction, that he ran when our dogs barked, but he kept beside the fences, and climbed over where there were trees. He crossed our barnyard and went toward the northwest. Mother saw him distinctly as he reached the road, and she said he was not a large man, he stooped when he ran, and she thought he moved like a slinking, city thief. She is sure he's the man who took your money; she says he acted exactly as if he were trying to escape pursuit; but I was to be SURE to tell you that he didn't carry a gun. If your gun is gone, there must have been two, and the other man took that and went a different way. Did two men stop here?"

"No," said father. "Only one."

The Princess looked at him thoughtfully.

"Do you think, Mr. Stanton," she said, "that the man who took the money would burden himself with a gun? Isn't a rifle heavy for one in flight to carry?"

"It is," said father. "Your mother saw nothing of two men?"

"Only one, and she knows he didn't carry a gun. Except the man you took in, no stranger has been noticed around here lately?"

"No one. We are quite careful. Even the gun was not loaded as it stood; whoever took it carried the ammunition also, but he couldn't fire until he loaded."

Father turned to the corner where the gun always stood and then he stooped and picked up two little white squares from the floor.

They were bits of unbleached muslin in which he wrapped the bullets he made.

"The rifle was loaded before starting, and in a hurry," he said, as he held up the squares of muslin. Then he scratched a match, bent, and ran it back and forth over the floor, and at one place there was a flash, and the flame went around in funny little fizzes as it caught a grain of powder here and there. "You see the measure was overrun."

"Wouldn't the man naturally think the gun was loaded, and take it as it stood?"

"That would be a reasonable conclusion," said father.

"But he looked!" I cried. "That first night when you and the boys went to the barn, and the girls were getting supper, he looked at the gun, and he LIKED it when he saw it wasn't loaded. He smiled. And he didn't limp a mite when I was the only one in the room. He and Leon knew it wasn't loaded, and I guess he didn't load it, for he liked having it empty so well."

"Ummmm!" said father. "What it would save in this world if a child only knew when to talk and when to keep still. Little Sister, the next time you see a stranger examine my gun when I'm not in the room, suppose you take father out alone and whisper to him about it."

"Yes, sir," I said.

The way I wished I had told that at the right time made me dizzy, but then there were several good switchings I'd had for telling things, besides what Sally did to me about her and Peter. I would have enjoyed knowing how one could be sure. Hereafter, it will be all right about the gun, anyway.

"Could I take my horse and carry a message anywhere for you? Are both your sons riding to tell the neighbours?"

Father hesitated, but it seemed as if he stopped to think, so I just told her: "Laddie is riding. Leon didn't take a horse."

Father said there was nothing she could do, so she took my hand and we started for the gate.

"I do hope they will find him, and get back the money, and give him what he deserves!" she cried.

"Yes, father and mother are praying that they'll find him," I said. "It doesn't seem to make the least difference to them about the money. Father didn't even look at a big paper piece I found where it was hidden. But they are anxious about the man. Mother says he is so young, we just must find him, and keep this a secret, and give him another chance. You won't tell, will you?"

The Princess stood still on our walk, and then of all things! if she didn't begin to go Sabethany-like. The colour left her cheeks and lips and she shivered and shook and never said one word. I caught her arm. "Say, what ails you?" I cried. "You haven't gone and got heart trouble too, have you?"

She stood there trembling, and then, wheeling suddenly, ran back into the house, and went to my mother. On her knees, the Princess buried her face in mother's breast and said: "Oh Mrs. Stanton! Oh, if I only could help you!"

She began to cry as if something inside her had broken, and she'd shake to pieces.

Mother stared above her head at father, with her eyebrows raised high, and he waved his hand toward me. Mother turned to me, but already she had put her arms around the Princess, and was trying to hold her together.

"What did you tell her that made her come back?" she asked sternlike.

"You forgot to explain that the man was so young, and you wanted to keep it a secret and give him another chance," I said. "I just asked her not to tell."

Mother looked at father and all the colour went from her face, and she began to shake. He stared at her, then he opened her door and lifted the Princess with one arm, and mother with the other, and helped them into mother's room, stepped back and closed the door. After a while it opened and they came out together, with both mother's arms around the Princess, and she had cried until she staggered. Mother lifted her face and kissed her, when they reached the door and said: "Tell your mother I understand enough to sympathize. Carry her my love. I do wish she would give herself the comfort of asking God to help her."

"She does! Oh, I'm sure she does!" said the Princess. "It's father who has lost all judgment and reason."

Father went with her to the gate, and this time she needed help to mount her horse, and she left it to choose its way and go where it pleased on the road. When father came in he looked at mother, and she said: "I haven't the details, but she understands too well. The Pryor mystery isn't much of a mystery any more. God help their poor souls, and save us from suffering like that!"

She said so little and meant so much, I couldn't figure out exactly what she did mean, but father seemed to understand.

"I've often wondered," he said, but he didn't say what he wondered, and he hurried to the barn and saddled our best horse and came in and began getting ready to ride, and we knew he would go northwest. I went back to the catalpa tree and wondered myself; but it was too much for me to straighten out: just why my mother wanting to give the traveller man another chance would make the Princess feel like that. If she had known my mother as I did, she'd have known that she ALWAYS wanted to give every man a second chance, no matter whether he was young or old.

Then I saw Laddie coming down the Big Hill beside the church, but he was riding so fast I thought he wouldn't want to bother with me, so I slid from the tree, and ran to tell mother. She went to the door and watched as he rode up, but you could see by his face he had not heard of them.

"Nothing, but I have some men out. I am going east now," he said. "I wish, father, you would rub Flos down, blanket her, and if you can, walk her slowly an hour while she cools off. I am afraid I've ruined her. How much had you there?"

"I haven't stopped to figure," said father. "I think I'd better take the horse I have ready and go on one of the northwest roads.

The Pryor girl was here a few moments ago, and her mother saw a man cross their place about the right time last evening. He ran and acted suspiciously when the dogs barked. But he was alone and he didn't have a gun."

"Was she sure?"

"Positive."

"Then it couldn't have been our man, but I'll ride in that direction and start a search. They would keep to the woods, I think! You'd better stay with mother. I'll ask Jacob Hood to take your place."

So Laddie rode away again without even going into the house, and mother said to father: "What can he be saying to people, that the neighbours don't come?"

Father answered: "I don't know, but if any one can save the situation, Laddie will."

Mother went to bed, while father sat beside her reading aloud little scraps from the Bible, and they took turns praying. From the way they talked to the Lord, you could plainly see that they were reminding Him of all the promises He had made to take care of people, comfort those in trouble, and heal the broken-hearted.

One thing was so curious, I asked May if she noticed, and she had. When they had made such a fuss about money only a short while before, and worked so hard to get our share together, and when they would have to pay back all that belonged to the county and church, neither of them ever even mentioned money then. Every minute I expected father to ask where I'd put the piece I found, and when he opened right at it, in the Bible, he turned on past, exactly as if it were an obituary, or a piece of Sally's wedding dress, or baby hair from some of our heads. He went on hunting places where the Lord said sure and strong that He'd help people who loved Him. When either of them prayed, they asked the Lord to help those near them who were in trouble, as often and earnestly as they begged Him to help them. There were no people near us who were in trouble that we knew of, excepting Pryors. Hard as father and mother worked, you'd have thought the Lord wouldn't have minded if they asked only once to get the money back, or if they forgot the neighbours, but they did neither one.

May said because they were big like that was why all of us loved them so.

I would almost freeze in the catalpa, but as I could see far in all directions there, I went back, and watched the roads, and when I remembered what Laddie had said, I kept an eye on the fields too. At almost dusk, and frozen so stiff I could scarcely hang to the limb, I heard the bulldogs at Pryors' begin to rave. They kept on steadily, and I thought Gypsies must be passing. Then from the woods came a queer party that started across the cornfield toward the Big Meadow in front of the house, and I thought they were hunters. I stood in the tree and watched until they climbed the meadow fence, and by that time I could see plainly.

The traveller man got over first, then Leon and the dogs, and then Mr. Pryor handed Leon the gun, leaped over, and took it. I looked again, and then fell from the tree and almost bursted. As soon as I could get up, and breathe, I ran to the front door, screaming: "Father! Father! Come open the Big Gate. Leon's got him, but he's so tired Mr. Pryor is carrying the gun, and helping him walk!"

Just like one, all of us ran; father crossed the road, and opened the gate. The traveller man wouldn't look up, he just slouched along. But Leon's chin was up and his head high. He was scratched, torn, and dirty. He was wheezing every breath most from his knees, and Mr. Pryor half carried him and the gun. When they met us, Leon reached in his trousers pocket and drew out a big roll of money that he held toward father. "My fault!" he gasped. "But I got it back for you."

Then he fell over and father caught him in his arms and carried him into the house, and laid him on the couch in the dining-room.

Mr. Pryor got down and gathered up the money from the road. He followed into the house and set the gun in the corner.

"Don't be frightened," he said to mother. "The boy has walked all night, and all day, with no sleep or food, and the gun was a heavy load for him. I gathered from what he said, when the dogs let us know they were coming, that this hound took your money. Your dog barked and awakened the boy and he loaded the gun and followed. The fellow had a good start and he didn't get him until near daybreak. It's been a stiff pull for the youngster and he seems to feel it was his fault that this cowardly cur you sheltered learned where you kept your money. If that is true, I hope you won't be hard on him!"

Father was unfastening Leon's neckband, mother was rubbing his hands, Candace was taking off his shoes, and May was spilling water father had called for, all over the carpet, she shook so. When Leon drew a deep breath and his head rolled on the pillow, father looked at Mr. Pryor. I don't think he heard all of it, but he caught the last words.

"`Hard on him! Hard on him!'" he said, the tears rolling down his cheeks. "`This my son, who was lost, is found!'"

"Oh!" shouted Mr. Pryor, slamming the money on the table. "Poor drivel to fit the circumstances. If I stood in your boots, sir, I would rise up in the mighty strength of my pride and pull out foundation stones until I shook the nation! I never envied mortal man as I envy you to-day!"

Candace cried out: "Oh look, his poor feet! They are blistered and bleeding!"

Mother moved down a little, gathered them in her arms, and began kissing them. Father wet Leon's lips and arose. He held out his hand, and Mr. Pryor took it.

"I will pray God," he said, "that it may happen `even so' to you."

Leon opened his eyes and caught only the last words.

"You had better look out for the `Even So's,' father," he said.

And father had to laugh, but Mr. Pryor went out, and slammed the door, until I looked to see if it had cracked from top to bottom; but we didn't care if it had, we were so happy over having Leon back.

I went and picked up the money and carried it to father to put away, and that time he took it. But even then he didn't stop to see if he had all of it.

"You see!" I said, "I told you----"

"You did indeed!" said father. "And you almost saved our reason. There are times when things we have come to feel we can't live without, so press us, that money seems of the greatest importance. This is our lesson. Hereafter, I and all my family, who have been through this, will know that money is not even worth thinking about when the life and honour of one you love hangs in the balance. When he can understand, your brother shall know of the wondrous faith his Little Sister had in him."

"Maybe he won't like what you and mother thought. Maybe we better not tell him. I can keep secrets real well. I have several big ones I've never told, and I didn't say a word about the Station when Leon said I shouldn't."

"After this there will be no money kept on the place," said father. "It's saving time at too great cost. All we have goes into the bank, and some of us will cheerfully ride for what we want, when we need it. As for not telling Leon, that is as your mother decides. For myself, I believe I'd feel better to make a clean breast of it."

Mother heard, for she sobbed as she bathed Leon's feet, and when his eyes came open so they'd stay a little while, he kept looking at her so funny, between sips of hot milk.

"Don't CRY, mammy!" he said. "I'M all right. Sorry such a rumpus! Let him fool me. Be smart as the next fellow, after this! Know how glad you are to get the money!"

Mother sat back on her heels and roared as I do when I step in a bumblebee's nest, and they get me. Leon was growing better every minute, and he stared at her, and then his dealish, funny old grin began to twist his lips and he cried: "Oh golly! You thought _I_ helped take it and went with him, didn't you?"

"Oh my son, my son!" wailed mother until she made me think of Absalom under the oak.

"Well, I be ding-busted!" said Leon, sort of slow and wondering- like, and father never opened his head to tell him that was no way to talk.

Mother cried more than ever, and between sobs she tried to explain that I heard what the traveller man had said about how bad it was to live in the country; and how Leon was now at an age where she'd known boys to get wrong ideas, and how things looked, and in the middle of it he raised on his elbow and took her in his arms and said: "Well of all the geese! And I 'spose father was in it too! But since it's the first time, and since it is you----! Go to bed now, and let me sleep----But see that you don't ever let this happen again."

Then he kissed her over and over and clung to her tight and at last dropped back and groaned:

  
            "My reputation, O my reputation!
             I've lost my reputation!"

She had to laugh while the tears were still running, and father and Laddie looked at each other and shouted. I guess they thought Leon was about right after that. Laddie went and bent over him and took his hand.

"Don't be in quite such a hurry, old man," he said. "Before you wink out I have got to tell you how proud I am of having a brother who is a real Crusader. The Lord knows this took nerve! You're great, boy, simply great!"

Leon grabbed Laddie's hand with both of his and held tight and laughed. You could see the big tears squeeze out, although he fought to wink them back. He held to Laddie and said low-like, only for him to hear: "It's all right if you stay by a while, old man."

He began to talk slowly.

"It was a long time before I caught up, and then I had to hide, and follow until day, and he wasn't so very easy to handle. Once I thought he had me sure! It was an awful load, but if it hadn't been for the good old gun, I'd never have got him. When we mixed up, I had fine luck getting that chin punch on him; good thing I worked it out so slick on Absalom Saunders, and while old Even So was groggy I got the money away from him, took the gun, and stood back some distance, before he came out of it. Once we had it settled who walked ahead, and who carried the money and gun, we got along better, but I had to keep an eye on him every minute. To come through the woods was the shortest, but I'm tired out, and so is he. Getting close I most felt sorry for him, he was so forlorn, and so scared about what would be done to him. He stopped and pulled out another roll, and offered me all of it, if I'd let him go. I didn't know whether it was really his, or part of father's, so I told him he could just drop it until I found out. Made him sweat blood, but I had the gun, and he had to mind. I was master then. So there may be more in the roll I gave father than Even So took. Father can figure up and keep what belongs to him. Even So had gone away past Flannigans' before I tackled him, and I was sleepy, cold, and hungry; you'd have thought there'd have been a man out hunting, or passing on the road, but not a soul did we see 'til Pryors'! Say, the old man was bully! He helped me so, I almost thought I belonged to him! My! he's fine, when you know him! After he came on the job, you bet old Even So walked up. Say, where is he? Have you fed him?"

Laddie looked at father, who was listening, and we all rushed to the door, but it must have been an hour, and Even So hadn't waited. Father said it was a great pity, because a man like that shouldn't be left to prey on the community; but mother said she didn't want to be mixed up with a trial, or to be responsible for taking the liberty of a fellow creature, and father said that was exactly like a woman. Leon went to sleep, but none of us thought of going to bed; we just stood around and looked at him, and smiled over him, and cried about him, until you would have thought he had been shipped to us in a glass case, and cost, maybe, a hundred dollars.

Father got out his books and figured up his own and the road money, and Miss Amelia's, and the church's. Laddie didn't want her around, so he stopped at the schoolhouse and told her to stay at Justices' that night, we'd need all our rooms; but she didn't like being sent away when there was such excitement, but every one minded Laddie when he said so for sure.

When father had everything counted there was more than his, quite a lot of it, stolen from other people who sheltered the traveller no doubt, father said. We thought he wouldn't be likely to come back for it, and father said he was at loss what to do with it, but Laddie said he wasn't--it was Leon's--he had earned it; so father said he would try to find out if anything else had been stolen, and he'd keep it a year, and then if no one claimed it, he would put it on interest until Leon decided what he wanted to do with it.

When you watched Leon sleep you could tell a lot more about what had happened to him than he could. He moaned, and muttered constantly, and panted, and felt around for the gun, and breathed like he was running again, and fought until Laddie had to hold him on the couch, and finally awakened him. But it did no good; he went right off to sleep again, and it happened all over. Then father began getting his Crusader blood up, although he always said he was a man of peace. But it was a lucky thing Even So got away; for after father had watched Leon a while, he said if that man had been on the premises, his fingers itched so to get at him, he was positive he'd have vented a little righteous indignation on him that would have cost him within an inch of his life. And he'd have done it too! He was like that. It took a lot, and it was slow coming, but when he became angry enough, and felt justified in it, why you'd be much safer to be some one else than the man who provoked him.

After ten o'clock the dog barked, some one tapped, and father went; he always would open the door; you couldn't make him pretend he was asleep, or not at home when he was, and there stood Mr. Pryor. He said they could see the lights and they were afraid the boy was ill, and could any of them help. Father said there was nothing they could do; Leon was asleep. Then Mr. Pryor said: "If he is off sound, so it won't disturb him, I would like to see him again."

Father told him Leon was restless, but so exhausted a railroad train wouldn't waken him, so Mr. Pryor came in and went to the couch. He took off his hat, like you do beside a grave, while his face slowly grew whiter than his hair, and that would be snow-white; then he turned at last and stumbled toward the door. Laddie held it for him, but he didn't seem to remember he was there. He muttered over and over: "Why? Why? In the name of God, why?" Laddie followed to the gate to help him on his horse, because he thought he was almost out of his head, but he had walked across the fields, so Laddie kept far behind and watched until he saw him go safely inside his own door.

I think father and Laddie sat beside Leon all night. The others went to sleep. A little after daybreak, just as Laddie was starting to feed, there was an awful clamour, and here came a lot of neighbours with Even So. Mr. Freshett had found him asleep in a cattle hole in the straw stack, and searched him, and he had more money, and that made Mr. Freshett sure; and as he was very strong, and had been for years a soldier, and really loved to fight, he marched poor Even So back to our house. Every few rods they met more men out searching who came with them, until there were so many, our front yard and the road were crowded. Of all the sights you ever saw, Even So looked the worst. You could see that he'd drop over at much more. Those men kept crying they were going to hang him; but mother went out and talked to them, and said they mustn't kill a man for taking only money. She told them how little it was worth compared with other things; she had Candace bring Even So a cup of hot coffee, lots of bread, and sausage from the skillet, and she said it was our money, and our lad, and we wanted nothing done about it. The men didn't like it, but the traveller did. He grabbed and gobbled like a beast at the hot food and cried, and mother said she forgave him, and to let him go.

Then Mr. Freshett looked awful disappointed, and he came up to father, with his back toward mother, and asked: "That's your say too, Mr. Stanton?" Father grinned sort of rueful-like, but he said to give Even So his money and let him go. He told all about getting ours back, and having had him at the house once before. He brought the money Leon took from him, but the men said no doubt he had stolen that, and Leon had earned it bringing him back, so the traveller shouldn't have it. They took him away on a horse and said they'd let him go, but that they'd escort him from the county. Father told Mr. Freshett that he was a little suspicious of them, and he would hold him responsible for the man's life. Mr. Freshett said that he'd give his word that the man would be safe; they only wanted to make sure he wouldn't come back, and that he'd be careful in the future how he abused hospitality, so they went, and all of us were glad of it.

I don't know what Mr. Freshett calls safe, for they took Even So to Groveville and locked him up until night. Then they led him to the railroad, and made him crawl back and forth through an old engine beside the track, until he was blacker than any negro ever born; and then they had him swallow a big dose of croton oil for his health. That was the only KIND thing they did, for afterward they started him down the track and told him to run, and all of them shot at his feet as he went. Hannah Freshett told me at school the next day. Her father said Even So just howled, and flew up in the air, and ducked, and dodged and ran like he'd never walked a step, or was a bit tired. We made a game of it, and after that one of the boys was Even So, and the others were the mob, and the one who could howl nicest, jump highest, and go fastest, could be "It" oftenest.

Leon grew all right faster than you would think. He went to school day after next, and the boys were sick with envy. They asked and asked, but Leon wouldn't tell much. He didn't seem to like to talk about it, and he wouldn't play the game or even watch us. He talked a blue streak about the money. Father was going to write to every sheriff of the counties along the way the man said he had come, and if he could find no one before spring who had been robbed, he said Leon might do what he liked with the money. I used to pretend it was coming to me, and each day I thought of a new way to spend it. Leon was so sure he'd get it he marched right over and asked Mr. Pryor about a nice young thoroughbred horse, from his stables, and when he came back he could get a coltlike one so very cheap that father and Laddie looked at each other and gasped, and never said a word. They figured up, and if Leon got the money, he could have the horse, and save some for college, and from the start he never changed a mite about those two things he wanted to do with it. He had the horse picked out and went to the field to feed and pet it and make it gentle, so he could ride bareback, and mother said he would be almost sick if the owner of the money turned up.

Pulling his boots one night, father said so too, and that the thoughts of it worried him. He said Mr. Pryor had shaded his price so that if the money had to go, he would be tempted to see if we couldn't manage it ourselves. I don't know how shading the price of a horse would make her feel better, but it did, and maybe Leon is going to get it.

CHAPTER X. Laddie Takes the Plunge

  
            "This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
             The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
             And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
             The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
             And, when he thinks, good, easy man, full surely
             His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
             And then he falls, as I do."

Watch me take the plunge!" said Laddie.

"`Mad frenzy fires him now,'" quoted Leon.

It was Sunday after dinner. We had been to church and Sunday- school in the forenoon, and we had a houseful of company for dinner. All of them remained to spend the afternoon, because in our home it was perfectly lovely. We had a big dinner with everything good to start on, and then we talked and visited and told all the news. The women exchanged new recipes for cooking, advised each other about how to get more work done with less worry, to doctor their sick folks, and to make their dresses. At last, when every thing was talked over, and there began to be a quiet time, father would reach across the table, pick up a paper and read all the interesting things that had happened in the country during the past week; the jokes too, and they made people think of funny stories to tell, and we just laughed. In the Agriculturist there were new ways to farm easier, to make land bear more crops; so he divided that with the neighbours, also how to make gardens, and prune trees. Before he finished, he always managed to work in a lot about being honest, kind, and loving God.

He and mother felt so good over Leon, and by this time they were beginning to see that they were mighty glad about the money too. It wouldn't have been so easy to work, and earn, and pay back all that for our school, roads, and the church; and every day you could see plainer how happy they felt that they didn't have to do it. Because they were so glad about these things, they invited every one they met that day; but we knew Saturday mother felt that probably she would ask a crowd, from the chickens, pie, and cake she got ready. When the reading part was over, and the women were beginning to look at the clock, and you knew they felt they should go home, and didn't want to, Laddie arose and said that, and Leon piped up like he always does and made every one laugh. Of course they looked at Laddie, and no one knew what he meant, so all the women and a few of the men asked him.

"Watch me, I said," laughed Laddie as he left the room.

Soon Mrs. Dover, sitting beside the front window, cried: "Here he is at the gate!"

He was on his horse, but he hitched it and went around the house and up the back way. Before long the stair door of the sitting- room opened, and there he stood. We stared at him. Of course he was bathed, and in clean clothing to start with, but he had washed and brushed some more, until he shone. His cheeks were as smooth and as clear pink as any girl's, his eyes blue-gray and big, with long lashes and heavy brows. His hair was bright brown and wavy, and he was so big and broad. He never had been sick a day in his life, and he didn't look as if he ever would be.

And clothes DO make a difference. He would have had exactly the same hair, face, and body, wearing a hickory shirt and denim trousers; but he wouldn't have looked as he did in the clothes he wore at college, when it was Sunday there, or he was invited to a party at the President's. I don't see how any man could possibly be handsomer or look finer. His shirt, collar, and cuffs were snow-white, like everything had to be before mother got through with it; his big loose tie almost reached his shoulders; and our men could do a thing no other man in the neighbourhood did: they could appear easier in the finest suit they could put on than in their working clothes.

Mother used to say one thing she dreaded about Sunday was the evident tortures of the poor men squirming in boots she knew pinched them, coats too tight, and collars too high. She said they acted like half-broken colts fretting over restriction. Always she said to father and the boys when they went to buy their new clothes: "Now, DON'T join the harness fighters! Get your clothing big enough to set your bodies with comfort and ease."

I suppose those other men would have looked like ours if their mothers had told them. You can always see that a man needs a woman to help him out awful bad.

Of course Laddie knew he was handsome; he had to know all of them were looking at him curiously, but he stood there buttoning his glove and laughing to himself until Sarah Hood asked: "Now what are you up to?"

He took a step toward her, ran one hand under her lanternjawed chin, pulled her head against his side and turned up her face.

"Sarah," he said, "'member the day we spoiled the washing?"

Every one laughed. They had made jokes about it until our friends knew what they meant.

"What are you going to spoil now?" asked Sarah.

"The Egyptians! The `furriners.' I'm going right after them!"

"Well, you could be in better business," said Sarah Hood sharply.

Laddie laughed and squeezed her chin, and hugged her head against him.

"Listen to that, now!" he cried. "My best friend going back on me. Sarah, I thought you, of all people, would wish me luck."

"I do !" she said instantly. "And that's the very reason I don't want you mixed up with that mysterious, offish, stuck-up mess."

"Bless your dear heart!" said Laddie, giving her a harder squeeze than ever. "You got that all wrong, Sarah. You'll live to see the day, very shortly, when you'll change every word of it."

"I haven't done anything but get surer about it every day for two years, anyway," said Sarah Hood.

"Exactly!" said Laddie, "but wait until I have taken the plunge! Let me tell you how the Pryor family strikes me. I think he is a high-tempered, domineering man, proud as Lucifer! For some cause, just or not, he is ruining his life and that of his family because he so firmly believes it just; he is hiding here from his home country, his relatives, and friends. I think she is, barring you and mother, the handsomest woman of her age I ever saw----"

All of them laughed, because Sarah Hood was nearly as homely as a woman could grow, and maybe other people didn't find our mother so lovely as we thought her. I once heard one of her best friends say she was "distinctly plain." I didn't see how she could; but she said that.

"--and the most pitiful," Laddie went on. "Sarah, what do you suppose sends a frail little woman pacing the yard, and up and down the road, sometimes in storm and rain, gripping both hands over her heart?"

"I suppose it's some shameful thing I don't want you mixed up with!" said Sarah Hood promptly, and people just shouted.

"Sarah," said Laddie, "I've seen her closely, watched her move, and studied her expression. There's not one grain of possibility that you, or mother, or Mrs. Fall, or any woman here, could be any closer connected with SHAME. Shame there is," said Laddie, "and what a word! How it stings, burns, withers, and causes heart trouble and hiding; but shame in connection with that woman, more than shame thrust upon her, which might come to any of us, at any time, shame that is her error, in the life of a woman having a face like hers, Sarah, I am ashamed of you! Your only excuse is that you haven't persisted as I have until you got to see for yourself."

"I am not much on persistence in the face of a locked door, a cast-iron man with a big cane, and two raving bulldogs," said Mrs. Hood. "Wait, young man! Just wait until he sets them on you."

Laddie's head went back and how he laughed.

"Hist! A word with you, Sarah!" he said. "'Member I have a sort of knack with animals. I never yet have failed with one I undertook to win. Now those bulldogs of Pryors' are as mild as kittens with a man who knows the right word. Reason I know, Sarah, I've said the word to them, separately and collectively, and it worked. There is a contrast, Sarah, between what I say and do to those dogs, and the kicks and curses they get from their owner. I'll wager you two to one that if you can get Mr. Pryor to go into a `sic-ing' contest with me, I can have his own dogs at his throat, when he can't make them do more than to lick my hands."

They laughed as if that were funny.

"Well, I didn't know about this," said Sarah. "How long have you lived at Pryors'?"

You couldn't have heard what Laddie said if he'd spoken; so he waited until he could be heard, and it never worried him a speck.

He only stood and laughed too; then, "Long enough," he said, "to know that all of us are making a big and cruel mistake in taking them at their word, and leaving them penned up there weltering in misery. What we should do, is to go over there, one at a time, or in a body, and batter at the door of their hearts, until we break down the wall of pride they have built around them, ease their pain, and bring them with us socially, if they are going to live among us. You people who talk loudly and often about loving God, and `doing unto others,' should have gone long ago, for Jesus' sake; I'm going for the sake of a girl, with a face as sweet, and a heart as pure, as any accepted angel at the foot of the throne. Mother, I want a cup of peach jelly, and some of that exceptionally fine cake you served at dinner, to take to our sick neighbour."

Mother left the room.

"Father, I want permission to cut and carry a generous chestnut branch, burred, and full fruited, to the young woman. There is none save ours in this part of the country, and she may never have seen any, and be interested. And I want that article about foot disease in horses, for Mr. Pryor. I'll bring it back when he finishes."

Father folded the paper and handed it to Laddie, who slipped it in his pocket.

"Take the finest branch you can select," father said, and I almost fell over.

He had carried those trees from Ohio, before I had been born, and mother said for years he wrapped them in her shawl in winter and held an umbrella over them in summer, and father always went red and grinned when she told it. He was wild about trees, and bushes, so he made up his mind he'd have chestnuts. He planted them one place, and if they didn't like it, he dug them up and set them another where he thought they could have what they needed and hadn't got the last place. Finally, he put them, on the fourth move, on a little sandy ridge across the road from the wood yard, and that was the spot. They shot up, branched, spread, and one was a male and two were females, so the pollen flew, the burrs filled right, and we had a bag of chestnuts to send each child away from home, every Christmas. The brown leaves and burrs were so lovely, mother cut one of the finest branches she could select and hung it above the steel engraving of "Lincoln Freeing the Slaves," in the boys' room, and nothing in the house was looked at oftener, or thought prettier. That must have been what was in the back of Laddie's head when he wanted a branch for the Princess.

Mother came in with the cake and jelly in a little fancy basket, and Laddie said: "Thank you! Now every one wish me luck! I'm going to ride to Pryors', knock at the door, and present these offerings with my compliments. If I'm invited in, I'm going to make the effort of my life at driving the entering wedge toward social intercourse between Pryors and their neighbours. If I'm not, I'll be back in thirty minutes and tell you what happened to me. If they refuse my gifts, you shall have the jelly, Sarah; I'll give Mrs. Fall the olive branch, bring back the paper, and eat the cake to console my wounded spirits."

Of course every one laughed; they couldn't help it. I watched father and he laughed hardest of the men, but mother was more stiff-lipped about it; she couldn't help a little, though. And I noticed some of those women acted as if they had lost something. Maybe it was a chance to gossip about Laddie, for he hadn't left them a thing to guess at, and mother says the reason gossip is so dreadful is because it is always GUESSWORK. Well, that was all fair and plain. He had told those people, our very best friends, what he thought about everything, the way they acted included. He was carrying something to each member of the Pryor family, and he'd left a way to return joking and unashamed, if they wouldn't let him in. He had fixed things so no one had anything to guess at, and it would look much worse for the Pryors than it would for him, if he did come back.

I wondered if he had been born that smart, or if he learned it in college. If he did, no wonder Leon was bound to go. Come to think of it, though, mother said Laddie was always like that. She said he never bit her when he nursed; he never mauled her as if she couldn't be hurt when he was little, he never tore his clothes and made extra work as he grew, and never in his life gave her an hour's uneasiness. But I guess she couldn't have said that about uneasiness lately, for she couldn't keep from looking troubled as all of us followed to the gate to see him start.

How they joked, and tried to tease him! But they couldn't get a breath ahead. He shot back answers as fast as they could ask questions, while he cut the branch and untied the horse. He gave the limb and basket to mother to hold, kissed her good-bye, and me too, before he mounted. With my arms around his neck--I never missed a chance to try to squeeze into him how I loved him--I whispered: "Laddie, is it a secret any more?"

He threw back his head and laughed the happiest.

"Not the ghost of a secret!" he said. "But you let me do the talking, until I tell you." Then he went on right out loud: "I'm riding up the road waving the banner of peace. If I suffer repulse, the same thing has happened to better men before, so I'll get a different banner and try again."

Laddie mounted, swept a circle in the road, dropped Flos on her knees in a bow, and waved the branch. Leon began to sing at the top of his voice, "Nothing but leaves, nothing but leaves," while Laddie went flashing up the road.

The women went back to the house; the men stood around the gate, watched him from sight, talked about his horse, how he rode, and made wagers that he'd get shut out, like every one did, but they said if that happened he wouldn't come back. Father was annoyed.

"You heard Laddie say he'd return immediately if they wouldn't let him in," he said. "He's a man of his word. He will either enter or come home at once."

It was pitch dark and we had supper before some of them left; they never stayed so late. After we came from church, father read the chapter and we were ready for bed; still Laddie hadn't come back. And father liked it! He just plain liked it! He chuckled behind the Advocate until you could see it shake; but mother had very little to say, and her lips closed tight.

At bedtime he said to mother: "Well, they don't seem in a hurry about sending the boy back."

"Did you really think he WOULD be sent back?" asked mother.

"Not ordinarily," said father, "no! If he had no brain, no wit, no culture, on an animal basis, a woman would look twice before she'd send him away; but with such fanatics as Pryors, one can't always tell what will happen."

"In a case like this, one can be reasonably certain," said mother.

"You don't know what social position they occupied at home. Their earmarks are all good. We've no such notions here as they have."

"Thank God for so much, at any rate," said mother. "How old England would rise up and exult if she had a man in line with Laddie's body, blood and brain, to set on her throne. This talk about class and social position makes me sick. Men are men, and Laddie is as much above the customary timber found in kings and princes, physically and mentally, as the sky is above the earth. Talk me no talk about class! If I catch it coming from any of mine, save you, I will beat it out of them. He has admitted he's in love with the girl; the real question is, whether she's fit to be his wife."

"I should say she appears so," said father.

"Drat appearances!" cried mother. "When it's a question of lifetime misery, and the soul's salvation of my son, if things go wrong, I've no time for appearances. I want to know!"

He might have known he would make her angry when he laughed. She punched the pillow, and wouldn't say another word; so I went to sleep, and didn't miss anything that time.

Next morning at breakfast Laddie was beaming, and father hardly waited to ask the blessing before he inquired: "Well, how did you make it, son?"

Laddie laughed and answered: "Altogether, it might have been much worse."

That was all he would say until Miss Amelia started to school, then he took me on his lap and talked as he buttoned my coat.

"Thomas met me at the gate," he said, "and held my horse while I went to the door. One of their women opened it, and I inquired for Mr. Pryor. She said he was in the field looking at the horses, so I asked for Miss Pryor. She came in a minute, so I gave her the branch, told her about it, and offered the jelly and cake for her mother. The Princess invited me to enter. I told her I couldn't without her father's permission, so I went to the field to see him. The dogs were with him and he had the surprise of his life when his man-eaters rolled at my feet, and licked my hands."

"What did he say?" chuckled father.

"Told Thomas they'd been overfed and didn't amount to a brass farthing; to take them to the woods and shoot them. Thomas said he'd see to it the very first thing in the morning, and then Mr. Pryor told him he would shoot him if he did."

"Charming man to work for," said mother.

"Then I told him I'd been at the house to carry a little gift to his wife and daughter, and to inquire if I might visit an hour, and as he was not there, I had come to the field to ask him. Then I looked him in the eye and said: `May I?'

"`I'll warrant the women asked you to come in,' he said.

"`Miss Pryor was so kind,' I answered, `but I enter no man's house without his permission. May I talk with your daughter an hour, and your wife, if she cares to see me?'

"`It makes no earthly difference to me,' he said, which was not gracious, but might have been worse, so I thanked him, and went back to the house. When I knocked the second time, the Princess came, and I told her the word was that it made `no difference to her father' if I came in, so she opened the door widely, took my hat and offered me a seat. Then she went to the next room and said: `Mother, father has given Mr. Stanton permission to pay us a call. Do you feel able to meet him?' She came at once, offering her hand and saying: `I have already met Mr. Stanton so often, really, we should have the privilege of speaking.'"

"What did she mean by that?" asked mother.

"She meant that I have haunted the road passing their place for two years, and she'd seen me so frequently that she came to recognize me."

"Umph!" said mother.

"Laddie tell on!" I begged.

"Well, I sharpened all the wits I had and went to work. I never tried so hard in my life to be entertaining. Of course I had to feel my way. I'd no idea what would interest a delicate, high- bred lady"--mother sniffed again--"so I had to search and probe, and go by guess until I saw a shade of interest, then I worked in more of the same. It was easy enough to talk to the Princess-- all young folks have a lot in common, we could get along on fifty topics; it was different with the housebound mother. I did my best, and after a while Mr. Pryor came in. I asked him if any of his horses had been attacked with the trouble some of the neighbours were having, and told him what it was. He had the grace to thank me. He said he would tell Thomas not to tie his horse at the public hitching rack when he went to town, and once he got started, he was wild to talk with a man, and I'd no chance to say a word to the women. He was interested in our colleges, state, and national laws, in land development, and everything that all live men are. When a maid announced dinner I apologized for having stayed so long, and excused myself, because I had been so interested, but Mrs. Pryor merely said: `I'm waiting to be offered your arm.'

"Well, you should have seen me drop my hat and step up. I did my best, and while I talked to him a little, I made it most to the women. Any one could see they were starved for company, so I took the job of entertaining them. I told some college jokes, funny things that had happened in the neighbourhood, and everything of interest I could think up. I know we were at the table for two hours with things coming and going on silver platters."

Mother sat straight suddenly.

"Just what did they have to eat, and how did they serve it?" she asked.

"Couldn't tell if I were to be shot for it, mummy," said Laddie. "Forgive me! Next time I'll take notes for you. This first plunge, I had to use all my brains, not to be a bore to them; and to handle food and cutlery as the women did. It's quite a process, but as they were served first, I could do right by waiting. I never was where things were done quite so elaborately before."

"And they didn't know they would have company until you went to the table?"

"Well, they must have thought likely, there was a place for me."

"Umph!" said mother. "Fine idea! Then any one who drops in can be served, and see that they are not a mite of trouble. Candace, always an extra place after this!"

Father just shouted.

"I thought you'd get something out of it!" he said.

"Happy to have justified your faith!" replied mother calmly. "Go on, son!"

"That's all!" said Laddie. "We left the table and talked an hour more. The women asked me to come again; he didn't say anything on that subject; but when he ordered my horse, he asked the Princess if she would enjoy a little exercise, and she said she would, so he told Thomas to bring their horses, and we rode around the section, the Princess and I ahead, Mr. Pryor following. Where the road was good and the light fine enough that there was no danger of laming a horse, we dropped back, one on either side of him, so we could talk. Mrs. Pryor ate the cake and said it was fine; and the `conserve,' she called it, delicious as she ever had tasted. She said all our fruits here had much more flavour than at home; she thought it was the dryer climate and more sunshine. She sent her grateful thanks, and she wants your recipe before next preserving time."

Mother just beamed. My! but she did love to have the things she cooked, bragged on.

"Possibly she'd like my strawberries?" she said.

"There isn't a doubt about it," said Laddie. "I've yet to see the first person who doesn't."

"Is that all?" asked mother.

"I can think of nothing more at this minute," answered Laddie. "If anything comes to my mind later, I won't forget to tell you. Oh yes, there was one thing: You couldn't keep Mr. Pryor from talking about Leon. He must have taken a great fancy to him. He talked until he worried the Princess, and she tried to keep him away from the subject, but his mind seemed to run on it constantly. When we were riding she talked quite as much as he, and it will hustle us to think what the little scamp did, any bigger than they do. Of course, father, you understood the price Mr. Pryor made on one of his very finest colts was a joke. There's a strain of Arab in the father--he showed me the record-- and the mother is bluegrass. There you get gentleness and endurance combined with speed and nerve. I'd trade Flos for that colt as it stands to-day. There's nothing better on earth in the way of horse. His offer is practically giving it away. I know, with the records to prove its pedigree, what that colt would bring him in any city market."

"I don't like it," said mother. "I want Leon to have a horse, but a boy in a first experience, and reckless as he is, doesn't need a horse like that, for one thing, and what is more important, I refuse to be put under any obligations to Pryors."

"That's the reason Mr. Pryor asked anything at all for the horse.

It is my opinion that he would be greatly pleased to give it to Leon, if he could do what he liked."

"Well, that's precisely the thing he can't do in this family," said mother sternly.

"What do you think, father?" asked Laddie.

"I think Amen! to that proposition," said father; "but I would have to take time to thresh it out completely. It appeals to me that Leon is old enough to recognize the value of the animal; and that the care of it would develop and strengthen his character. It would be a responsibility that would steady him. You could teach him to tend and break it."

"Break it!" cried Laddie. "Break it! Why father, he's riding it bareback all over the Pryor meadow now, and jumping it over logs. Whenever he leaves, it follows him to the fence, and the Princess says almost any hour of the day you look out you can see it pacing up and down watching this way and whinnying for him to come."

"And your best judgment is----?"

Laddie laughed as he tied my hood strings. "Well I don't feel about the Pryors as the rest of you do," he said. "If the money isn't claimed inside the time you specified, I would let Leon and Mr. Pryor make their own bargain. The boy won't know for years that it is practically a gift, and it would please Mr. Pryor immensely. Now run, or you'll be late!"

I had to go, so I didn't know how they settled it, but if they wouldn't let Leon have that horse, it was downright mean. What if we were under obligations to Mr. Pryor? We were to Sarah Hood, and half the people we knew, and what was more, we LIKED to be.

When I came from school that night father had been to town. He had an ax and was opening a big crate, containing two of the largest, bluest geese you ever saw. Laddie said being boxed that way and seeing them so close made them look so big; really, they were no finer than Pryors', where he had got the address of the place that sold them. Mother was so pleased. She said she had needed a new strain, for a long time, to improve her feathers; now she would have pillows worth while, in a few years. They put them in the barn where our geese stayed over night, and how they did scream. That is, one of them did; the other acted queerly and father said to Laddie that he was afraid the trip was hard on it. Laddie said it might have been hurt, and mother was worried too. Before she had them an hour, she had sold all our ganders; spring had come, she had saved the blue goose eggs, set them under a hen, raised the goslings with the little chickens, never lost one, picked them and made a new pair of pillows too fine for any one less important than a bishop, or a judge, or Dr. Fenner to sleep on. Then she began saving for a featherbed. And still the goose didn't act as spry or feel as good as the gander. He stuck up his head, screamed, spread his wings and waved them, and the butts looked so big and hard, I was not right certain whether it would be safe to tease him or not.

The first person who came to see them was Sarah Hood, and she left with the promise of a pair as soon as mother could raise them. Father said the only reason mother didn't divide her hair with Sarah Hood was because it was fast, and she couldn't. Mother said gracious goodness! she'd be glad to get rid of some of it if she could, and of course Sarah should have first chance at it. Hadn't she kept her over night so she could see her new home when she was rested, and didn't she come with her, and help her get settled, and had she ever failed when we had a baby, or sickness, or trouble, or thrashers, or a party? Of course she'd gladly divide, even the hair of her head, with Sarah Hood. And father said, "Yes, he guessed she would, and come to think of it, he'd just as soon spare Sarah part of his," and then they both laughed, when it was nothing so very funny that I could see.

The next caller the geese had was Mrs. Freshett. My! she thought they were big and fine. Mother promised her a couple of eggs to set under a hen. Father said she was gradually coming down the scale of her feelings, and before two weeks she'd give Isaac Thomas, at least, a quill for a pen. Almost no one wrote with them any more, but often father made a few, and showed us how to use them. He said they were gone with candles, sand boxes, and snuff. Mother said she had no use for snuff, but candles were not gone, she'd make and use them to the day of her death, as they were the nicest light ever invented to carry from room to room, or when you only wanted to sit and think. Father said there was really no good pen except the quill you sharpened yourself; and while he often used steel ones like we children had at school to write to the brothers and sisters away, and his family, he always kept a few choice quills in the till of his chest, and when he wrote a deed, or any valuable paper, where there was a deal with money, he used them. He said it lent the dignity of a past day to an important occasion.

After mother and Mrs. Freshett had talked over every single thing about the geese, and that they were like Pryors' had been settled, Mrs. Freshett said: "Since he told about it before all of us, and started out the way he did, would it be amiss to ask how Laddie got on at Pryors'?"

"Just the way I thought he would," said mother. "He stayed until all of us were in bed, and I'd never have known when he came in, if it were not a habit of his always to come to my door to see if I'm sleeping. Sometimes I'm wakeful, and if he pommels my pillow good, brings me a drink, and rubs my head a few strokes with his strong, cool hands, I can settle down and have a good night's rest. I was awake when he came, or I'd never have known. It was almost midnight; but they sat two hours at the table, and then all of them rode."

"Not the Missus?"

"Oh no! She's not strong enough. She really has incurable heart trouble, the worst kind there is; her daughter told me so."

"Then they better look out," said Mrs. Freshett. "She is likely to keel over at a breath."

"They must know it. That's why she keeps so quiet."

"And they had him to supper?"

"It was a dinner served at night. Yes. He took Mrs. Pryor in on his arm, and it was like a grand party, just as they fixed for themselves, alone. Waiters, and silver trays, and things carried in and out in courses."

"My land! Well, I s'pose he had enough schoolin' to get him through it all right!"

My mother's face grew red. She never left any one in doubt as to what she meant. Father said that "was the Dutch of it." And mother always answered that if any one living could put things plainer than the English, she would like to hear them do it.

"He certainly had," said mother, "or they wouldn't have invited him to come again. And all mine, Mrs. Freshett, knew how to sit properly at the table, and manage a knife, fork and napkin, before they ever took a meal away from home."

"No 'fence," laughed Mrs. Freshett. "I meant that maybe his years of college schoolin' had give him ways more like theirs than most of us have. For all the money it takes to send a boy to college, he ought to get somethin' out of it more than jest fillin' his head with figgers, an' stars, an' oratin'; an' most always you can see that he does."

"It is contact with cultivated people," said mother. "You are always influenced by it, without knowing it often."

"Maybe you are, bein' so fine yourself," said Mrs. Freshett. "An' me too, I never get among my betters that I don't carry home a lot I put right into daily use, an' nobody knows it plainer. I come here expectin' to learn things that help me, an' when I go home I know I have."

"Why, thank you," said mother. "I'm sure that is a very nice compliment, and I wish I really could feel that it is well deserved."

"Oh I guess you do!" said Mrs. Freshett laughing. "I often noticed you makin' a special effort to teach puddin' heads like me somethin', an' I always thank you for it. There's a world in right teachin'. I never had any. So all I can pick up an' hammer into mine is a gain for me an' them. If my Henry had lived, an' come out anything like that boy o' yourn an' the show he made last Sunday, I'd do well if I didn't swell up an' bust with pride. An' the little tow-haired strip, takin' the gun an' startin' out alone after a robber, even if he wa'n't much of a man, that was downright spunky. If my boys will come out anywhere near like yourn, I'll be glad."

"I don't know how my boys will come out," said mother. "But I work, pray, hope, and hang to them; that's all I know to do."

"Well, if they don't come out right, they ought to be bumped!" said Mrs. Freshett. "After all the chances they've had! I don' know jest how Freshett was brung up, but I'd no chance at all. My folks--well, I guess the less said--little pitchers, you know! I can't see as I was to blame. I was the youngest, an' I knew things was wrong. I fought to go to school, an' pap let me enough that I saw how other people lived. Come night I'd go to the garret, an' bar the trapdoor; but there would be times when I couldn't help seein' what was goin' on. How'd you like chances such as that for a girl of yourn?"

"Dreadful!" said mother. "Mrs. Freshett, please do be careful!"

"Sure!" laughed Mrs. Freshett. "I was jest goin' to tell you about me an' Josiah. He come to our house one night, a stranger off the road. He said he was sick, an' tired, an' could he have a bed. Mother said, `No, for him to move on.' He tried an' he couldn't. They was somethin' about him--well, you know how them things go! I wa'n't only sixteen, but I felt so sorry for him, all fever burned and mumblin', I helped pap put him to bed, an' doctored him all I could. Come mornin' he was a sick man. Pap went for the county doctor, an' he took jest one look an' says: `Small pox! All of ye git!'

"I was bound I wouldn't go, but pap made me, an' the doctor said he'd send a man who'd had it; so I started, but I felt so bad, come a chanct when they got to Groveville, I slipped out an' went back. The man hadn't come, so I set to work the best I knowed. 'Fore long Josiah was a little better an' he asked who I was, an' where my folks went, an' I told him, an' he asked WHY I came back an' I didn't know what to say, so I jest hung my head an' couldn't face him. After a while he says, `All right! I guess I got this sized up. If you'll stay an' nuss me through, I'll be well enough to pull you out, by the time you get it, an' soon as you're able we'll splice, if you say so.'

"`Marry me, you mean?' says I. They wa'n't ever any talk about marryin' at our house. `Sure!' says he. `You're a mighty likely lookin' girl! I'll do fair by ye.' An' he always has, too! But I didn't feel right to let him go it blind, so I jest up and says. `You wouldn't if you knowed my folks!' `You look as decent as I do,' says he; `I'll chance it!' Then I tole him I was as good as I was born, an' he believed me, an' he always has, an' I was too! So I nussed him, but I didn't make the job of it he did. You 'member he is pitted considerable. He was so strong I jest couldn't keep him from disfigerin' himself, but he tied me. I begged to be loose, an' he wouldn't listen, so I got a clean face, only three little scars, an' they ain't deep to speak of. He says he looks like a piece of side meat, but say! they ain't nothin' the matter with his looks to me!

"The nuss man never did come, but the county doctor passed things in the winder, till I was over the worst, an' Josiah sent for a preacher an' he married us through the winder--I got the writin's to show, all framed an' proper. Josiah said he'd see I got all they was in it long that line, anyway. When I was well, hanged if he didn't perdooce a wad from his clothes before they burnt 'em, an' he got us new things to wear, an' a horse, an' wagon, an' we driv away here where we thought we could start right, an' after we had the land, an' built the cabin, an' jest as happy as heart could wish, long come a man I'd made mad once, an' he tole everythin' up and down. Josiah was good about it. He offered to sell the land, an' pull up an' go furder. `What's the use?' says I. `Hundreds know it. We can't go so far it won't be like to follow us; le's stay here an' fight it.' `All right,' says Josiah, but time an' ag'in he has offered to go, if I couldn't make it. `Hang on a little longer,' says I, every time he knew I was snubbed an' slighted. I never tole what he didn't notice. I tried church, when my children began to git a size I wanted 'em to have right teachin', an' you come an' welcomed me an' you been my friend, an' now the others is comin' over at last, an' visitin' me, an' they ain't a thing more I want in life."

"I am so glad!" said mother. "Oh my dear, I am so glad!"

"Goin' right home an' tell that to Josiah," said Mrs. Freshett, jumping up laughing and crying like, "an' mebby I'll jest spread wings and fly! I never was so happy in all my life as I was Sunday, when you ast me before all of them, so cordial like, an' says I to Josiah, `We'll go an' try it once,' an' we come an' nobody turned a cold shoulder on us, an' I wa'n't wearin' specks to see if they did, for I never knowed him so happy in all his days. Orter heard him whistle goin' home, an' he's tryin' all them things he learned, on our place, an' you can see it looks a heap better a'ready, an' now he's talkin' about buildin' in the spring. I knowed he had money, but he never mentioned buildin' before, an' I always thought it was bekase he 'sposed likely we'd have to move on, some time. 'Pears now as if we can settle, an' live like other folks, after all these years. I knowed ye didn't want me to talk, but I had to tell you! When you ast us to the weddin', and others began comin' round, says I to Josiah, `Won't she be glad to know that my skirts is clear, an' I did as well as I could?' An' he says, `That she will! An' more am I,' says he.

`I mighty proud of you,' says he. Proud! Think of that! Miss Stanton, I'd jest wade fire and blood for you!"

"Oh my dear !" said mother. "What a dreadful thing to say!"

"Gimme the chanct, an' watch if I don't," said Mrs. Freshett. "Now, Josiah is proud I stuck it out! Now, I can have a house! Now, my children can have all the show we can raise to give 'em! I'm done cringin' an' dodgin'! I've always done my best; henceforth I mean to hold up my head an' say so. I sure can't be held for what was done 'fore I was on earth, or since neither. You've given me my show, I'm goin' to take it, but if you want to know what's in my heart about you, gimme any kind of a chanct to prove, an' see if I don't pony right up to it!"

Mother laughed until the tears rolled, she couldn't help it. She took Mrs. Freshett in her arms and hugged her tight, and kissed her mighty near like she does Sarah Hood. Mrs. Freshett threw her arms around mother, and looked over her shoulder, and said to me, "Sis, when you grow up, always take a chanct on welcomin' the stranger, like your maw does, an' heaven's bound to be your home! My, but your maw is a woman to be proud of!" she said, hugging mother and patting her on the back.

"All of us are proud of her!" I boasted.

"I doubt if you are proud enough!" cried Mrs. Freshett. "I have my doubts! I don't see how people livin' with her, an' seein' her every day, are in a shape to know jest what she can do for a person in the place I was in. I have my doubts!"

That night when I went home from school mother was worrying over the blue goose. When we went to feed, she told Leon that she was afraid it was weak, and not getting enough to eat when it fed with the others. She said after the work was finished, to take it out alone, and give it all it would eat; so when the horses were tended, the cows milked, everything watered, and the barn ready to close for the night, Laddie took the milk to the house, while Leon and I caught the blue goose, carried her to the well, and began to shell corn. She was starved to death, almost. She ate a whole ear in no time and looked for more, so Leon sent me after another. By the time that was most gone she began to eat slower, and stick her bill in the air to help the grains slip down, so I told Leon I thought she had enough.

"No such thing!" said Leon. "You distinctly heard mother tell me to give her `all she would eat.' She's eating, isn't she? Go bring another ear!"

So she was, but I was doubtful about more.

Leon said I better mind or he would tell mother, so I got it. She didn't begin on it with any enthusiasm. She stuck her bill higher, stretched her neck longer, and she looked so funny when she did it, that we just shrieked. Then Leon reached over, took her by the bill, and stripped her neck to help her swallow, and as soon as he let go, she began to eat again.

"You see!" said Leon, "she's been starved. She can't get enough. I must help her!"

So he did help her every little bit. By that time we were interested in seeing how much she could hold; and she looked so funny that Leon sent me for more corn; but I told him I thought what she needed now was water, so we held her to the trough, and she tried to drink, but she couldn't swallow much. We set her down beside the corn, and she went to eating again.

"Go it, old mill-hopper!" cried Leon.

Right then there was an awful commotion in the barn, and from the squealing we knew one of the horses was loose, and fighting the others. We ran to fix them, and had a time to get Jo back into his stall, and tied. Before we had everything safe, the supper bell rang, and I bet Leon a penny I could reach the house while he shut the door and got there. We forgot every single thing about the goose.

At supper mother asked Leon if he fed the goose all she would eat, and I looked at him guilty-like, for I remembered we hadn't put her back. He frowned at me cross as a bear, and I knew that meant he had remembered, and would slip back and put her inside when he finished his supper, so I didn't say anything.

"I didn't feed her ALL she would eat!" said Leon. "If I had, she'd be at it yet. She was starved sure enough! You never saw anything like the corn she downed."

"Well I declare!" said mother. "Now after this, take her out alone, for a few days, and give her as much as she wants."

"All right!" chuckled Leon, because it was a lot of fun to see her run her bill around, and gobble up the corn, and stick up her head.

The next day was Saturday, so after breakfast I went with Leon to drive the sheep and geese to the creek to water; the trough was so high it was only for the horses and cattle; when we let out the geese, the blue one wasn't there.

"Oh Leon, did you forget to come back and put her in?"

"Yes I did!" he said. "I meant to when I looked at you to keep still, and I started to do it, but Sammy Deam whistled, so I went down in the orchard to see what he wanted, and we got to planning how to get up a fox chase, and I stayed until father called for night, and then I ran and forgot all about the blame old goose."

"Oh Leon! Where is she? What will mother say? 'Spose a fox got her!"

"It wouldn't help me any if it had, after I was to blame for leaving her outside. Blast a girl! If you ever amounted to anything, you could have put her in while I fixed the horses. At least you could have told me to."

I stood there dumblike and stared at him. He has got the awfulest way of telling the truth when he is scared or provoked. Of course I should have thought of the goose when he was having such a hard fight with the horses. If I'd been like he was, I'd have told him that he was older, mother told HIM to do it, and it wasn't my fault; but in my heart I knew he did have his hands full, and if you're your brother's keeper, you ought to HELP your brother remember. So I stood gawking, while Leon slowly turned whiter and whiter.

"We might as well see if we can find her," he said at last, so slow and hopeless like it made my heart ache. So he started around the straw stack one way, and I the other, looking into all the holes, and before I had gone far I had a glimpse of her, and it scared me so I screamed, for her head was down, and she didn't look right. Leon came running and pulled her out. The swelled corn rolled in a little trail after her, and the pigs ran up and began to eat it. Pigs are named righter than anything else I know.

"Busted!" cried Leon in tones of awe; about the worst awe you ever heard, and the worst bust you ever saw.

From bill to breast she was wide open, and the hominy spilling. We just stood staring at her, and then Leon began to kick the pigs; because it would be no use to kick the goose; she would never know. Then he took her up, carried her into the barn, and put her on the floor where the other geese had stayed all night. We stood and looked at her some more, as if looking and hoping would make her get up and be alive again. But there's nothing in all this world so useless as wishing dead things would come alive; we had to do something.

"What are you going to tell mother?"

"Shut up!" said Leon. "I'm trying to think."

"I'll say it was as much my fault as yours. I'll go with you. I'll take half whatever they do to you."

"Little fool!" said Leon. "What good would that do me?"

"Do you know what they cost? Could you get another with some of your horse money?"

I saw it coming and dodged again, before I remembered the Crusaders.

"All right!" I said. "If that's the way you are going to act, Smarty, I'll lay all the blame on you; I won't help you a bit, and I don't care if you are whipped until the blood runs."

Then I went out of the barn and slammed the door. For a minute I felt better; but it was a short time. I SAID that to be mean, but I did care. I cared dreadfully; I was partly to blame, and I knew it. Coming around the barn, I met Laddie, and he saw in a flash I was in trouble, so he stopped and asked: "What now, Chicken?"

"Come into the barn where no one will hear us," I said.

So we went around the outside, entered at the door on the embankment, and he sat in the wheelbarrow on the threshing floor while I told him. I thought I felt badly enough, but after I saw Laddie, it grew worse, for I remembered we were short of money that fall, that the goose was a fine, expensive one, and how proud mother was of her, and how she'd be grieved, and that was trouble for sure.

"Run along and play!" said Laddie, "and don't tell any one else if you can help it. I'll hide the goose, and see if I can get another in time to take the place of this one, so mother won't be worried."

I walked to the house slowly, but I was afraid to enter. When you are all choked up, people are sure to see it, and ask fool questions. So I went around to the gate and stood there looking up and down the road, and over the meadow toward the Big Woods; and all at once, in one of those high, regular bugle calls, like they mostly scream in spring, one of Pryors' ganders split the echoes for a mile; maybe farther.

I was across the road and slinking down inside the meadow fence before I knew it. There was no thought or plan. I started for Pryors' and went straight ahead, only I kept out of line with our kitchen windows. I tramped through the slush, ice, and crossed fields where I was afraid of horses; but when I got to the top of the Pryor backyard fence, I stuck there, for the bulldogs were loose, and came raving at me. I was going to be eaten alive, for I didn't know the word Laddie did; and those dogs climbed a fence like a person; I saw them the time Leon brought back Even So. I was thinking what a pity it was, after every one had grown accustomed to me, and had begun loving me, that I should be wasted for dog feed, when Mr. Pryor came to the door, and called them; they didn't mind, so he came to the fence, and crossest you ever heard, every bit as bad as the dogs, he cried: "Whose brat are you, and what are you doing here?"

I meant to tell him; but you must have a minute after a thing like that.

"God of my life!" he fairly frothed. "What did anybody send a dumb child here for?"

"Dumb child!" I didn't care if Mr. Pryor did wear a Crown of Glory. It wasn't going to do him one particle of good, unless he was found in the way of the Lord. "Dumb child!" I was no more dumb than he was, until his bulldogs scared me so my heart got all tangled up with my stomach, my lungs, and my liver. That made me mad, and there was nothing that would help me to loosen up and talk fast, like losing my temper. I wondered what kind of a father he had. If he'd been stood against the wall and made to recite, "Speak gently," as often as all of us, perhaps he'd have remembered the verse that says:

  
            "Speak gently to the little child;
                Its love be sure to gain;
             Teach it in accents soft and mild;
                It may not long remain."

I should think not, if it had any chance at all to get away! I was so angry by that time I meant to tell him what I thought. Polite or not polite, I'd take a switching if I had to, but I wasn't going to stand that.

"You haven't got any God in your life," I reminded him, "and no one sent me here. I came to see the Princess, because I'm in awful trouble and I hoped maybe she could fix up a way to help me."

"Ye Gods!" he cried. He would stick to calling on God, whether he believed in Him or not. "If it isn't Nimrod! I didn't recognize you in all that bundling."

Probably he didn't know it, but Nimrod was from the Bible too! By bundling, he meant my hood and coat. He helped me from the fence, sent the bulldogs rolling--sure enough he did kick them, and they didn't like it either--took my hand and led me straight into the house, and the Princess was there, and a woman who was her mother no doubt, and he said: "Pamela, here is our little neighbour, and she says she's in trouble, and she thinks you may be of some assistance to her. Of course you will be glad if you can."

"Surely!" said the Princess, and she introduced me to her mother, so I bowed the best I knew, and took off my wet mitten, dirty with climbing fences, to shake hands with her. She was so gracious and lovely I forgot what I went after. The Princess brought a cloth and wiped the wet from my shoes and stockings, and asked me if I wouldn't like a cup of hot tea to keep me from taking a chill.

"I've been much wetter than this," I told her, "and I never have taken a chill, and anyway my throat's too full of trouble to drink."

"Why, you poor child!" said the Princess. "Tell me quickly! Is your mother ill again?"

"Not now, but she's going to be as soon as she finds out," I said, and then I told them.

They all listened without a sound until I got where Leon helped the goose eat, and from that on Mr. Pryor laughed until you could easily see that he had very little feeling for suffering humanity. It was funny enough when we fed her, but now that she was bursted wide open there was nothing amusing about it; and to roar when a visitor plainly told you she was in awful trouble, didn't seem very good manners to me. The Princess and her mother never even smiled; and before I had told nearly all of it, Thomas was called to hitch the Princess' driving cart, and she took me to their barnyard to choose the goose that looked most like mother's, and all of them seemed like hers, so we took the first one Thomas could catch, put it into a bag in the back of the cart, and then we got in and started for our barn. As we reached the road, I said to her: "You'd better go past Dovers', for if we come down our Little Hill they will see us sure; it's baking day."

"All right!" said the Princess, so we went the long way round the section, but goodness me! when she drove no way was far.

When we were opposite our barn she stopped, hitched her horse to the fence, and we climbed over, and slipping behind the barn, carried the goose around to the pen and put it in with ours. She said she wanted the broken one, because her father would enjoy seeing it. I didn't see how he could! We were ready to slip out, when our geese began to run at the new one, hiss and scream, and make such a racket that Laddie and Leon both caught us. They looked at the goose, at me, the Princess, and each other, and neither said a word. She looked back a little bit, and then she laughed as hard as she could. Leon grew red, and he grinned ashamed-like, so she laughed worse than ever. Laddie spoke to me: "You went to Mr. Pryor's and asked for that goose?"

"She did not!" said the Princess before I could answer. "She never asked for anything. She was making a friendly morning call and in the course of her visit she told about the pathetic end of the goose that was expected to lay the golden egg--I mean stuff the Bishop's pillow--and as we have a large flock of blue geese, father gave her one, and he had the best time he's had in years doing it. I wouldn't have had him miss the fun he got from it for any money. He laughed like home again. Now I must slip away before any one sees me, and spoils our secret. Leon, lad, you can go to the house and tell your little mother that the feeding stopped every pain her goose had, and hereafter it looks to you as if she'd be all right."

"Miss Pryor," said Leon, "did you care about what I said at you in church that day?"

"`Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee.' Well, it was a little pointed, but since you ask a plain question, I have survived it."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Leon. "Of course I never would, if I'd known you could be this nice."

The Princess looked at Laddie and almost gasped, and then both of them laughed. Leon saw that he had told her he was sorry he said she was "fair, and no spot in her."

"Oh I don't mean that!" he said. "What I do mean is that I thank you awful much for the goose, and helping me out like such a brick of a good fellow, and what I wish is, that I was as old as Laddie, and he'd hump himself if he got to be your beau."

The Princess almost ran. Laddie and I followed to the road, where he unhitched the horse and helped her in. Then he stood stroking its neck, as he held the bridle.

"I don't know what to say!" said Laddie.

"In such case, I would counsel silence," advised the Princess.

"I hope you understand how I thank you."

"I fail to see what for. Father gave the goose to Little Sister. Her thanks and Leon's are more than enough for him. We had great sport."

"I insist on adding mine. Deep and fervent!"

"You take everything so serious. Can't you see the fun of this?"

"No," said Laddie. "But if you can, I am glad, and I'm thankful for anything that gives me a glimpse of you."

"Bye, Little Sister," said the Princess, and when she loosened the lines the mud flew a rod high.

CHAPTER XI. Keeping Christmas Our Way

  
            "I remember, I remember
                How my childhood fleeted by,--
             The mirth of its December,
                And the warmth of its July."

When dusk closed in it would be Christmas eve. All day I had three points--a chair beside the kitchen table, a lookout melted through the frost on the front window, and the big sitting-room fireplace.

All the perfumes of Araby floated from our kitchen that day. There was that delicious smell of baking flour from big snowy loaves of bread, light biscuit, golden coffee cake, and cinnamon rolls dripping a waxy mixture of sugar, butter, and spice, much better than the finest butterscotch ever brought from the city. There was the tempting odour of boiling ham and baking pies. The air was filled with the smell of more herbs and spices than I knew the names of, that went into mincemeat, fruit cake, plum pudding, and pies. There was a teasing fragrance in the spiced vinegar heating for pickles, a reminder of winesap and rambo in the boiling cider, while the newly opened bottles of grape juice filled the house with the tang of Concord and muscadine. It seemed to me I never got nicely fixed where I could take a sly dip in the cake dough or snipe a fat raisin from the mincemeat but Candace would say: "Don't you suppose the backlog is halfway down the lane?"

Then I hurried to the front window, where I could see through my melted outlook on the frosted pane, across the west eighty to the woods, where father and Laddie were getting out the Christmas backlog. It was too bitterly cold to keep me there while they worked, but Laddie said that if I would watch, and come to meet them, he would take me up, and I might ride home among the Christmas greens on the log.

So I flattened my nose against the pane and danced and fidgeted until those odours teased me back to the kitchen; and no more did I get nicely located beside a jar of pudding sauce than Candace would object to the place I had hung her stocking. It was my task, my delightful all-day task, to hang the stockings. Father had made me a peg for each one, and I had ten feet of mantel front along which to arrange them. But it was no small job to do this to every one's satisfaction. No matter what happened to any one else, Candace had to be pleased: for did not she so manage that most fowls served on mother's table went gizzardless to the carving? She knew and acknowledged the great importance of trying cookies, pies, and cake while they were hot. She was forever overworked and tired, yet she always found time to make gingerbread women with currant buttons on their frocks, and pudgy doughnut men with clove eyes and cigars of cinnamon. If my own stocking lay on the hearth, Candace's had to go in a place that satisfied her--that was one sure thing. Besides, I had to make up to her for what Leon did, because she was crying into the corner of her apron about that.

He slipped in and stole her stocking, hung it over the broomstick, and marched around the breakfast table singing to the tune of--

  
            "Ha, ha, ha, who wouldn't go--
                 Up on the housetop click, click, click?
             Down through the chimney,
                 With good Saint Nick----"

words he made up himself. He walked just fast enough that she couldn't catch him, and sang as he went:

  
            "Ha, ha, ha, good Saint Nick,
                 Come and look at this stocking, quick!

             If you undertake its length to fill,
                 You'll have to bust a ten-dollar bill.
             Who does it belong to?  Candace Swartz.
                 Bring extra candy,--seven quarts----"

She got so angry she just roared, so father made Leon stop it, but I couldn't help laughing myself. Then we had to pet her all day, so she'd cheer up, and not salt the Christmas dinner with her tears. I never saw such a monkey as Leon! I trotted out to comfort her, and snipped bites, until I wore a triangle on the carpet between the kitchen and the mantel, the mantel and the window, and the window and the kitchen, while every hour things grew more exciting.

There never had been such a flurry at our house since I could remember; for to-morrow would be Christmas and bring home all the children, and a house full of guests. My big brother, Jerry, who was a lawyer in the city, was coming with his family, and so were Frank, Elizabeth, and Lucy with theirs, and of course Sally and Peter--I wondered if she would still be fixing his tie--and Shelley came yesterday, blushing like a rose, and she laughed if you pointed your finger at her.

Something had happened to her in Chicago. I wasn't so sure as I had been about a city being such a dreadful place of noise, bad air, and wicked people. Nothing had hurt Shelley. She had grown so much that you could see she was larger. Her hair and face-- all of Shelley just shone. Her eyes danced, she talked and laughed all the time, and she hugged every one who passed her. She never loved us so before. Leon said she must have been homesick and coming back had given her a spell. I did hope it would be a bad one, and last forever. I would have liked for all our family to have had a spell if it would have made them act and look like Shelley. The Princess was not a speck lovelier, and she didn't act any nicer.

If I could have painted, I'd have made a picture of Shelley with a circle of light above her head like the one of the boy Jesus where He talked with the wise men in the temple. I asked father if he noticed how much prettier and nicer she was, and he said he did. Then I asked him if he thought now, that a city was such a bad place to live in, and he said where she was had nothing to do with it, the same thing would happen here, or anywhere, when life's greatest experience came to a girl. That was all he would say, but figuring it out was easy. The greatest experience that happened to our girls was when they married, like Sally, so it meant that Shelley had gone and fallen in love with that lawyer man, and she liked sitting on the sofa with him, and no doubt she fixed his ties. But if any one thought I would tell anything I saw when he came they were badly mistaken.

All of us rushed around like we were crazy. If father and mother hadn't held steady and kept us down, we might have raised the roof. We were all so glad about getting Leon and the money back; mother hadn't been sick since the fish cured her; the new blue goose was so like the one that had burst, even father never noticed any difference; all the children were either home or coming, and after we had our gifts and the biggest dinner we ever had, Christmas night all of us would go to the schoolhouse to see our school try to spell down three others to whom they had sent saucy invitations to come and be beaten.

Mother sat in the dining-room beside the kitchen door, so that she could watch the baking, brewing, pickling, and spicing. It took four men to handle the backlog, which I noticed father pronounced every year "just a little the finest we ever had," and Laddie strung the house with bittersweet, evergreens, and the most beautiful sprays of myrtle that he raked from under the snow. Father drove to town in the sleigh, and the list of things to be purchased mother gave him as a reminder was almost a yard long.

The minute they finished the outdoor work Laddie and Leon began bringing in baskets of apples, golden bellflowers, green pippins, white winter pearmains, Rhode Island greenings, and striped rambos all covered with hoarfrost, yet not frozen, and so full of juice you had to bite into them carefully or they dripped and offended mother. These they washed and carried to the cellar ready for use.

Then they cracked big dishes of nuts; and popped corn that popped with the most resounding pops in all my experience--popped a tubful, and Laddie melted maple sugar and poured over it and made big balls of fluff and sweetness. He took a pan and filled it with grains, selected one at a time, the very largest and whitest, and made an especial ball, in the middle of which he put a lovely pink candy heart on which was printed in red letters: "How can this heart be mine, yet yours, unless our hearts are one?" He wouldn't let any of them see it except me, and he only let me because he knew I'd be delighted.

It was almost dusk when father came through the kitchen loaded with bundles and found Candace and the girls still cooking.

We were so excited we could scarcely be gathered around the supper table, and mother said we chattered until she couldn't hear herself think. After a while Laddie laid down his fork and looked at our father.

"Have you any objection to my using the sleigh to-morrow night?" he asked.

Father looked at mother.

"Had you planned to use it, mother?"

Mother said: "No. If I go, I'll ride in the big sled with all of us. It is such a little way, and the roads are like glass."

So father said politely, as he always spoke to us: "Then it will give me great pleasure for you to take it, my son."

That made Leon bang his fork loudly as he dared and squirm in his chair, for well he knew that if he had asked, the answer would have been different. If Laddie took the sleigh he would harness carefully, drive fast, but reasonably, blanket his horse, come home at the right time, and put everything exactly where he found it. But Leon would pitch the harness on some way, race every step, never think of his steaming horse, come home when there was no one so wild as he left to play pranks with, and scatter the harness everywhere. He knew our father would love to trust him the same as he did Laddie. He wouldn't always prove himself trustworthy, but he envied Laddie.

"You think you'll take the Princess to the spelling bee, don't you?" he sneered.

"I mean to ask her," replied Laddie.

"Maybe you think she'll ride in our old homemade, hickory cheesebox, when she can sail all over the country like a bird in a velvet-lined cutter with a real buffalo robe."

There was a quick catch in mother's breath and I felt her hand on my chair tremble. Father's lips tightened and a frown settled on his face, while Laddie fairly jumped. He went white to the lips, and one hand dropped on the table, palm up, the fingers closing and unclosing, while his eyes turned first to mother, and then to father, in dumb appeal. We all knew that he was suffering. No one spoke, and Leon having shot his arrow straight home, saw as people so often do in this world that the damage of unkind words could not easily be repaired; so he grew red in the face and squirmed uncomfortably.

At last Laddie drew a deep, quivering breath. "I never thought of that," he said. "She has seemed happy to go with me several times when I asked her, but of course she might not care to ride in ours, when she has such a fine sleigh of her own."

Father's voice fairly boomed down the length of the table.

"Your mother always has found our sleigh suitable," he said.

The fact was, father was rarely proud of it. He had selected the hickory in our woods, cut it and hauled it to the mill, cured the lumber, and used all his spare time for two winters making it. With the exception of having the runners turned at a factory and iron-bound at a smithy, he had completed it alone with great care, even to staining it a beautiful cherry colour, and fitting white sheepskins into the bed. We had all watched him and been so proud of it, and now Leon was sneering at it. He might just as well have undertaken to laugh at father's wedding suit or to make fun of "Clark's Commentaries."

Laddie appealed to mother: "Do you think I'd better not ask her?"

He spoke with an effort.

"Laddie, that is the first time I ever heard you propose to do any one an injustice," she said.

"I don't see how," said Laddie.

"It isn't giving the Princess any chance at all," replied mother "You've just said that she has seemed pleased to accompany you before, now you are proposing to cut her out of what promises to be the most delightful evening of the winter, without even giving her the chance to say whether she'd go with you or not. Has she ever made you feel that anything you offered her or wanted to do for her was not good enough?"

"Never!" exclaimed Laddie fervently.

"Until she does, then, do you think it would be quite manly and honourable to make decisions for her? You say you never thought of anything except a pleasant time with her; possibly she feels the same. Unless she changes, I would scarcely let a boy's foolish tongue disturb her pleasure. Moreover, as to the matter of wealth, your father may be as rich as hers; but they have one, we have many. If what we spend on all our brood could be confined to one child, we could easily duplicate all her luxuries, and I think she has the good sense to realize the fact as quickly as any one. I've no doubt she would gladly exchange half she has for the companionship of a sister or a brother in her lonely life."

Laddie turned to father, and father's smile was happy again. Mother was little but she was mighty. With only a few words she had made Leon feel how unkind and foolish he had been, quieted Laddie's alarm, and soothed the hurt father's pride had felt in that he had not been able to furnish her with so fine a turnout as Pryors had.

Next morning when the excitement of gifts and greetings was over, and Laddie's morning work was all finished, he took a beautiful volume of poems and his popcorn ball and started across the fields due west; all of us knew that he was going to call on and offer them to the Princess, and ask to take her to the spelling bee. I suppose Laddie thought he was taking that trip alone, but really he was surrounded. I watched him from the window, and my heart went with him. Presently father went and sat beside mother's chair, and stroking her hand, whispered softly: "Please don't worry, little mother. It will be all right. Your boy will come home happy."

"I hope so," she answered, "but I can't help feeling dreadfully nervous. If things go wrong with Laddie, it will spoil the day."

"I have much faith in the Princess' good common sense," replied father, "and considering what it means to Laddie, it would hurt me sore to lose it."

Mother sat still, but her lips moved so that I knew she was making soft little whispered prayers for her best loved son. But Laddie, plowing through the drift, never dreamed that all of us were with him. He was always better looking than any other man I ever had seen, but when, two hours later, he stamped into the kitchen he was so much handsomer than usual, that I knew from the flush on his cheek and the light in his eye, that the Princess had been kind, and by the package in his hand, that she had made him a present. He really had two, a beautiful book and a necktie. I wondered to my soul if she gave him that, so she could fix it! I didn't believe she had begun on his ties at that time; but of course when he loved her as he did, he wished she would.

It was the very jolliest Christmas we ever had, but the day seemed long. When night came we were in a precious bustle. The wagon bed on bobs, filled with hay and covers, drawn by Ned and Jo, was brought up for the family, and the sleigh made spick-and- span and drawn by Laddie's thoroughbred, stood beside it. Laddie had filled the kitchen oven with bricks and hung up a comfort at four o'clock to keep the Princess warm.

Because he had to drive out of the way to bring her, Laddie wanted to start early; and when he came down dressed in his college clothes, and looking the manliest of men, some of the folks thought it funny to see him carefully rake his hot bricks from the oven, and pin them in an old red breakfast shawl. I thought it was fine, and I whispered to mother: "Do you suppose that if Laddie ever marries the Princess he will be good to her as he is to you?"

Mother nodded with tear-dimmed eyes, but Shelley said: "I'll wager a strong young girl like the Princess will laugh at you for babying over her."

"Why?" inquired Laddie. "It is a long drive and a bitter night, and if you fancy the Princess will laugh at anything I do, when I am doing the best I know for her comfort, you are mistaken. At least, that is the impression she gave me this morning."

I saw the swift glance mother shot at father, and father laid down his paper and said, while he pretended his glasses needed polishing: "Now there is the right sort of a girl for you. No foolishness about her, when she has every chance. Hurrah for the Princess!"

It was easy to see that she wasn't going to have nearly so hard a time changing father's opinion as she would mother's. It was not nearly a year yet, and here he was changed already. Laddie said good-bye to mother--he never forgot--gathered up his comfort and bricks, and started for Pryors' downright happy. We went to the schoolhouse a little later, all of us scoured, curled, starched, and wearing our very best clothes. My! but it was fine. There were many lights in the room and it was hung with greens. There was a crowd even though it was early. On Miss Amelia's table was a volume of history that was the prize, and every one was looking and acting the very best he knew how, although there were cases where they didn't know so very much.

Our Shelley was the handsomest girl there, until the Princess came, and then they both were. Shelley wore one of her city frocks and a quilted red silk hood that was one of her Christmas gifts, and she looked just like a handsome doll. She made every male creature in that room feel that she was pining for him alone. May had a gay plaid frock and curls nearly a yard long, and so had I, but both our frocks and curls were homemade; mother would have them once in a while; father and I couldn't stop her.

But there was not a soul there who didn't have some sort of gift to rejoice over, and laughter and shouts of "Merry Christmas!" filled the room. It was growing late and there was some talk of choosers, when the door opened and in a rush of frosty air the Princess and Laddie entered. Every one stopped short and stared.

There was good reason. The Princess looked as if she had accidentally stepped from a frame. She was always lovely and beautifully dressed, but to-night she was prettier and finer than ever before. You could fairly hear their teeth click as some of the most envious of those girls caught sight of her, for she was wearing a new hat!--a black velvet store hat, fitting closely over her crown, with a rim of twisted velvet, a scarlet bird's wing, and a big silver buckle. Her dress was of scarlet cloth cut in forms, and it fitted as if she had been melted and poured into it. It was edged around the throat, wrists, and skirt with narrow bands of fur, and she wore a loose, long, silk-lined coat of the same material, and worst of all, furs--furs such as we had heard wealthy and stylish city ladies were wearing. A golden brown cape that reached to her elbows, with ends falling to the knees, finished in the tails of some animal, and for her hands a muff as big as a nail keg.

Now, there was not a girl in that room, except the Princess, an she had those clothes, who wouldn't have flirted like a peacock, almost bursting with pride; but because the Princess had them, and they didn't, they sat stolid and sullen, and cast glances at each other as if they were saying: "The stuck-up thing!" "Thinks she's smart, don't she?"

Many of them should have gone to meet her and made her welcome, for she was not of our district and really their guest. Shelley did go, but I noticed she didn't hurry.

The choosers began at once, and Laddie was the first person called for our side, and the Princess for the visitors'. Every one in the room was chosen on one side or the other; even my name was called, but I only sat still and shook my head, for I very well knew that no one except father would remember to pronounce easy ones for me, and besides I was so bitterly disappointed I could scarcely have stood up. They had put me in a seat near the fire; the spellers lined either wall, and a goodly number that refused to spell occupied the middle seats. I couldn't get a glimpse of Laddie or the home folks, or worst of all, of my idolized Princess.

I never could bear to find a fault with Laddie, but I sadly reflected that he might as well have left me at home, if I were to be buried where I could neither hear nor see a thing. I was just wishing it was summer so I could steal out to the cemetery, and have a good visit with the butterflies that always swarmed around Georgiana Jane Titcomb's grave at the corner of the church. I never knew Georgiana Jane, but her people must have been very fond of her, for her grave was scarlet with geraniums, and pink with roses from earliest spring until frost, and the bright colours attracted swarms of butterflies. I had learned that if I stuck a few blossoms in my hair, rubbed some sweet smelling ones over my hands, and knelt and kept so quiet that I fitted into the landscape, the butterflies would think me a flower too, and alight on my hair, dress, and my hands, even. God never made anything more beautiful than those butterflies, with their wings of brightly painted velvet down, their bright eyes, their curious antennae, and their queer, tickly feet. Laddie had promised me a book telling all about every kind there was, the first time he went to a city, so I was wishing I had it, and was among my pet beauties with it, when I discovered him bending over me.

He took my arm, and marching back to his place, helped me to the deep window seat beside him, where with my head on a level, and within a foot of his, I could see everything in the whole room. I don't know why I ever spent any time pining for the beauties of Georgiana Jane Titcomb's grave, even with its handsome headstone on which was carved a lamb standing on three feet and holding a banner over its shoulder with the fourth, and the geraniums, roses, and the weeping willow that grew over it, thrown in. I might have trusted Laddie. He never had forgotten me; until he did, I should have kept unwavering faith.

Now, I had the best place of any one in the room, and I smoothed my new plaid frock and shook my handmade curls just as near like Shelley as ever I could. But it seems that most of the ointment in this world has a fly in it, like in the Bible, for fine as my location was, I soon knew that I should ask Laddie to put me down, because the window behind me didn't fit its frame, and the night was bitter. Before half an hour I was stiff with cold; but I doubt if I would have given up that location if I had known I would freeze, because this was the most fun I had ever seen.

Miss Amelia began with McGuffey's spelling book, and whenever some poor unfortunate made a bad break the crowd roared with laughter. Peter Justice stood up to spell and before three rounds he was nodding on his feet, so she pronounced "sleepy" to him. Some one nudged Pete and he waked up and spelled it, s-l-e, sle, p-e, pe, and because he really was so sleepy it made every one laugh. James Whittaker spelled compromise with a k, and Isaac Thomas spelled soap, s-o-a-p-e, and it was all the funnier that he couldn't spell it, for from his looks you could tell that he had no acquaintance with it in any shape. Then Miss Amelia gave out "marriage" to the spooniest young man in the district, and "stepfather" to a man who was courting a widow with nine children; and "coquette" to our Shelley, who had been making sheep's eyes at Johnny Myers, so it took her by surprise and she joined the majority, which by that time occupied seats.

There was much laughing and clapping of hands for a time, but when Miss Amelia had let them have their fun and thinned the lines to half a dozen on each side who could really spell, she began business, and pronounced the hardest words she could find in the book, and the spellers caught them up and rattled them off like machines.

"Incompatibility," she gave out, and before the sound of her voice died away the Princess was spelling: "I-n, in, c-o-m, com, in com, p-a-t, pat, incompat, i, incompati, b-i-l, bil, incompatibil, i, incompatibili, t-y, ty, incompatibility."

Then Laddie spelled "incomprehensibility," and they finished up the "bilities" and the "alities" with a rush and changed McGuffey's for Webster, with five on Laddie's side and three on the Princess', and when they quit with it, the Princess was alone, and Laddie and our little May facing her.

From that on you could call it real spelling. They spelled from the grammars, hyperbole, synecdoche, and epizeuxis. They spelled from the physiology, chlorophyll, coccyx, arytenoid, and the names of the bones and nerves, and all the hard words inside you.

They tried the diseases and spelled jaundice, neurasthenia, and tongue-tied. They tried all the occupations and professions, and went through the stores and spelled all sorts of hardware, china and dry goods. Each side kept cheering its own and urging them to do their best, and every few minutes some man in the back of the house said something that was too funny. When Miss Amelia pronounced "bombazine" to Laddie our side cried, "Careful, Laddie, careful! you're out of your element!"

And when she gave "swivel-tree" to the Princess, her side whispered, "Go easy! Do you know what it is? Make her define it."

They branched over the country. May met her Jonah on the mountains. Katahdin was too much for her, and Laddie and the Princess were left to fight it out alone. I didn't think Laddie liked it. I'm sure he never expected it to turn out that way. He must have been certain he could beat her, for after he finished English there were two or three other languages he knew, and every one in the district felt that he could win, and expected him to do it. It was an awful place to put him in, I could see that. He stood a little more erect than usual, with his eyes toward the Princess, and when his side kept crying, "Keep the prize, Laddie! Hold up the glory of the district!" he ground out the words as if he had a spite at them for not being so hard that he would have an excuse for going down.

The Princess was poised lightly on her feet, her thick curls, just touching her shoulders, shining in the light; her eyes like stars, her perfect, dark oval face flushed a rich red, and her deep bosom rising and falling with excitement. Many times in later years I have tried to remember when the Princess was loveliest of all, and that night always stands first.

I was thinking fast. Laddie was a big man. Men were strong on purpose so they could bear things. He loved the Princess so, and he didn't know whether she loved him or not; and every marriageable man in three counties was just aching for the chance to court her, and I didn't feel that he dared risk hurting her feelings.

Laddie said, to be the man who conquered the Princess and to whom she lifted her lips for a first kiss was worth life itself. I made up my mind that night that he knew just exactly what he was talking about. I thought so too. And I seemed to understand why Laddie--Laddie in his youth, strength, and manly beauty, Laddie, who boasted that there was not a nerve in his body--trembled before the Princess.

It looked as if she had set herself against him and was working for the honours, and if she wanted them, I didn't feel that he should chance beating her, and then, too, it was beginning to be plain that it was none too sure he could. Laddie didn't seem to be the only one who had been well drilled in spelling.

I held my jaws set a minute, so that I could speak without Laddie knowing how I was shivering, and then I whispered: "Except her eyes are softer, she looks just like a cardinal."

Laddie nodded emphatically and moving a step nearer laid his elbow across my knees. Heavens, how they spelled! They finished all the words I ever heard and spelled like lightning through a lot of others the meaning of which I couldn't imagine. Father never gave them out at home. They spelled epiphany, gaberdine, ichthyology, gewgaw, kaleidoscope, and troubadour. Then Laddie spelled one word two different ways; and the Princess went him one better, for she spelled another three.

They spelled from the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar, Potiphar, Peleg, Belshazzar, Abimelech, and a host of others I never heard the minister preach about. Then they did the most dreadful thing of all. "Broom," pronounced the teacher, and I began mentally, b-r- o-o-m, but Laddie spelled "b-r-o-u-g-h-a-m," and I stared at him in a daze. A second later Miss Amelia gave out "Beecham" to the Princess, and again I tried it, b-e-e-c-h, but the Princess was spelling "B-e-a-u-c-h-a-m-p," and I almost fell from the window.

They kept that up until I was nearly crazy with nervousness; I forgot I was half frozen. I pulled Laddie's sleeve and whispered in his ear: "Do you think she'll cry if you beat her?"

I was half crying myself, the strain had been awful. I was torn between these dearest loves of mine.

"Seen me have any chance to beat her?" retorted Laddie.

Miss Amelia seemed to have used most of her books, and at last picked up an old geography and began giving out points around the coast, while Laddie and the Princess took turns snatching the words from her mouth and spelling them. Father often did that, so Laddie was safe there. They were just going it when Miss Amelia pronounced, "Terra del Fuego," to the Princess. "T-e-r-r- a, Terra, d-e-l, del, F-i-e-u-g-o," spelled the Princess, and sat down suddenly in the midst of a mighty groan from her side, swelled by a wail from one little home district deserter.

"Next!" called Miss Amelia.

"T-e-r-r-a, Terra, d-e-l, del, F-e-u-g-o," spelled Laddie.

"Wrong!" wailed Miss Amelia, and our side breathed one big groan in concert, and I lifted up my voice in that also. Then every one laughed and pretended they didn't care, and the Princess came over and shook hands with Laddie, and Laddie said to Miss Amelia:

"Just let me take that book a minute until I see how the thing really does go." It was well done and satisfied the crowd, which clapped and cheered; but as I had heard him spell it many, many times for father, he didn't fool me.

Laddie and the Princess drew slips for the book and it fell to her. He was so pleased he kissed me as he lifted me down and never noticed I was so stiff I could scarcely stand--and I did fall twice going to the sleigh. My bed was warm and my room was warm, but I chilled the night through and until the next afternoon, when I grew so faint and sleepy I crept to Miss Amelia's desk, half dead with fright--it was my first trip to ask an excuse--and begged: "Oh teacher, I'm so sick. Please let me go home."

I think one glance must have satisfied her that it was true, for she said very kindly that I might, and she would send Leon along to take care of me. But my troubles were only half over when I had her consent. It was very probable I would be called a baby and sent back when I reached home, so I refused company and started alone. It seemed a mile past the cemetery. I was so tired I stopped, and leaning against the fence, peeped through at the white stones and the whiter mounds they covered, and wondered how my mother would feel if she were compelled to lay me beside the two little whooping cough and fever sisters already sleeping there. I decided that it would be so very dreadful, that the tears began to roll down my cheeks and freeze before they fell.

Down the Big Hill slowly I went. How bare it looked then! Only leafless trees and dried seed pods rattling on the bushes, the sand frozen, and not a rush to be seen for the thick blanket of snow. A few rods above the bridge was a footpath, smooth and well worn, that led down to the creek, beaten by the feet of children who raced it every day and took a running slide across the ice. I struck into the path as always; but I was too stiff to run, for I tried. I walked on the ice, and being almost worn out, sat on the bridge and fell to watching the water bubbling under the glassy crust. I was so dull a horse's feet struck the bridge before I heard the bells--for I had bells in my ears that day--and when I looked up it was the Princess--the Princess in her red dress and furs, with a silk hood instead of her hat, her sleigh like a picture, with a buffalo robe, that it was whispered about the country, cost over a hundred dollars, and her thoroughbred mare Maud dancing and prancing. "Bless me! Is it you, Little Sister?" she asked. "Shall I give you a ride home?"

Before I could scarcely realize she was there, I was beside her and she was tucking the fine warm robe over me. I lifted a pair of dull eyes to her face.

"Oh Princess, I am so glad you came," I said. "I don't think I could have gone another step if I had frozen on the bridge."

The Princess bent to look in my face. "Why, you poor child!" She exclaimed, "you're white as death! Where are you ill?"

I leaned on her shoulder, though ordinarily I would not have offered to touch her first, and murmured: "I am not ill, outdoors, only dull, sleepy, and freezing with the cold."

"It was that window!" she exclaimed. "I thought of it, but I trusted Laddie."

That roused me a little.

"Oh Princess," I cried, "you mustn't blame Laddie! I knew it was too cold, but I wouldn't tell him, because if he put me down I couldn't see you, and we thought, but for your eyes being softer, you looked just like a cardinal."

The Princess hugged me close and laughed merrily. "You darling!" she cried.

Then she shook me up sharply: "Don't you dare go to sleep!" she said. "I must take you home first."

Once there she quieted my mother's alarm, put me to bed, drove three miles for Dr. Fenner and had me started nicely on the road to a month of lung fever, before she left. In my delirium I spelled volumes; and the miracle of it was I never missed a word until I came to "Terra del Fuego," and there I covered my lips and stoutly insisted that it was the Princess' secret.

To keep me from that danger sleep on the road, she shook me up and asked about the spelling bee. I thought it was the grandest thing I had ever seen in my life, and I told her so. She gathered me close and whispered: "Tell me something, Little Sister, please."

The minx! She knew I thought that a far finer title than hers.

"Would Laddie care?" I questioned.

"Not in the least!"

"Well then, I will."

"Can Laddie spell `Terra del Fuego?'" she whispered.

I nodded.

"Are you sure?"

"I have heard him do it over and over for father."

The Princess forgot I was so sick, forgot her horse, forgot everything. She threw her head back and her hands up, until her horse stopped in answer to the loosened line, and she laughed and laughed. She laughed until peal on peal re-echoed from our Big Woods clear across the west eighty. She laughed until her ringing notes set my slow pulses on fire, and started my numbed brain in one last effort. I stood up and took her lovely face between my palms, turning it until I could see whether the thought that had come to me showed in her eyes, and it did.

"Oh you darling, splendid Princess!" I cried. "You missed it on purpose to let Laddie beat! You can spell it too!"

CHAPTER XII. The Horn of the Hunter

  
            "The dusky night rides down the sky,
                 And ushers in the morn:
             The hounds all join in glorious cry,
                 The huntsman winds his horn."

Leon said our house reminded him of the mourners' bench before any one had "come through." He said it was so deadly with Sally and Shelley away, that he had a big notion to marry Susie Fall and bring her over to liven things up a little. Mother said she thought that would be a good idea, and Leon started in the direction of Falls', but he only went as far as Deams'. When he came back he had a great story to tell about dogs chasing their sheep, and foxes taking their geese. Father said sheep were only safe behind securely closed doors, especially in winter, and geese also. Leon said every one hadn't as big a barn as ours, and father said there was nothing to prevent any man from building the sized barn he needed to shelter his creatures in safety and comfort, if he wanted to dig in and earn the money to put it up. There was no answer to that, and Mr. Leon didn't try to make any. Mostly, he said something to keep on talking, but sometimes he saw when he had better quit.

I was having a good time, myself. Of course when the fever was the worst, and when I never had been sick before, it was pretty bad, but as soon as I could breathe all right, there was no pain to speak of, and every one was so good to me. I could have Bobby on the footboard of my bed as long as I wanted him, and he would crow whenever I told him to. I kept Grace Greenwood beside me, and spoiled her dress making her take some of each dose of medicine I did, but Shelley wrote that she was saving goods and she would make her another as soon as she came home. I made mother put red flannel on Grace's chest and around her neck, until I could hardly find her mouth when she had to take her medicine, but she swallowed it down all right, or she got her nose held, until she did. She was not nearly so sick as I was, though. We both grew better together, and, when Dr. Fenner brought me candy, she had her share.

When I began to get well it was lovely. Such toast, chicken broth, and squirrels, as mother always had. I even got the chicken liver, oranges, and all of them gave me everything they had that I wanted--I must almost have died to make them act like that!

Laddie and father would take me up wrapped in blankets and hold me to rest my back. Father would rock me and sing about "Young Johnny," just as he had when I was little. We always laughed at it, we knew it was a fool song, but we liked it. The tune was smooth and sleepy-like and the words went:

  
            "One day young Johnny, he did go,
             Way down in the meadow for to mow.
        Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

             He scarce had mowed twice round the field,
             When a pesky sarpent bit him on the heel,
         Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

             He threw the scythe upon the ground,
             An' shut his eyes, and looked all round,
         Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

             He took the sarpent in his hand,
             And then ran home to Molly Bland,
         Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

             O Molly dear, and don't you see,
             This pesky sarpent that bit me?
         Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

             O Johnny dear, why did you go,
             Way down in the meadow fot to mow?
         Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

             O Molly dear, I thought you knowed
             'Twas daddy's grass, and it must be mowed,
         Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-n an-incty, noddy O!

             Now all young men a warning take,
             And don't get bit by a rattlesnake.
         Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!"

All of them told me stories, read to me, and Frank, one of my big gone-away brothers, sent me the prettiest little book. It had a green cover with gold on the back, and it was full of stories and poems, not so very hard, because I could read every one of them, with help on a few words. The piece I liked best was poetry. If it hadn't been for that, I'm afraid, I was having such a good time, I'd have lain there until I forgot how to walk, with all of them trying to see who could be nicest to me. The ones who really could, were Laddie and the Princess, except mother. Laddie lifted me most carefully, the Princess told the best stories, but after all, if the burning and choking grew so bad I could scarcely stand it, mother could lay her hand on my head and say, "Poor child," in a way that made me work to keep on breathing. Maybe I only THOUGHT I loved Laddie best. I guess if I had been forced to take my choice when I had the fever, I'd have stuck pretty tight to mother. Even Dr. Fenner said if I pulled through she'd have to make me. I might have been lying there yet, if it hadn't been for the book Frank sent me, with the poetry piece in it. It began:

  
        "Somewhere on a sunny bank, buttercups are bright,
         Somewhere 'mid the frozen grass, peeps the daisy white."

I read that so often I could repeat it quite as well with the book shut as open, and every time I read it, I wanted outdoors worse. In one place it ran:

  
       "Welcome, yellow buttercups, welcome daisies white,
        Ye are in my spirit visioned a delight.
        Coming in the springtime of sunny hours to tell,
        Speaking to our hearts of Him who doeth all things well."

That piece helped me out of bed, and the blue gander screaming opened the door. It was funny about it too. I don't know WHY it worked on me that way; it just kept singing in my heart all day, and I could shut my eyes and go to sleep seeing buttercups in a gold sheet all over our Big Hill, although there never was a single one there; and meadows full of daisies, which were things father said were a pest he couldn't tolerate, because they spread so, and he grubbed up every one he found. Yet that piece filled our meadow until I imagined I could roll on daisies. They might be a pest to farmers, but sheets of them were pretty good if you were burning with fever. Between the buttercups and the daisies I left the bed with a light head and wobbly legs.

Of course I wasn't an idiot. I knew when I looked from our south window exactly what was to be seen. The person who wrote that piece was the idiot. It sang and sounded pretty, and it pulled you up and pushed you out, but really it was a fool thing, as I very well knew. I couldn't imagine daisies peeping through frozen grass. Any baby should have known they bloomed in July. Skunk cabbage always came first, and hepatica. If I had looked from any of our windows and seen daisies and buttercups in March, I'd have fallen over with the shock. I knew there would be frozen brown earth, last year's dead leaves, caved-in apple and potato holes, the cabbage row almost gone, puddles of water and mud everywhere, and I would hear geese scream and hens sing. And yet that poem kept pulling and pulling, and I was happy as a queen--I wondered if they were for sure; mother had doubts--the day I was wrapped in shawls and might sit an hour in the sun on the top board of the back fence, where I could see the barn, orchard, the creek and the meadow, as you never could in summer because of the leaves. I wasn't looking for buttercups and daisies either. I mighty well knew there wouldn't be any.

But the sun was there. A little taste of willow, oak and maple was in the air. You could see the buds growing fat too, and you could smell them. If you opened your eyes and looked in any direction you could see blue sky, big, ragged white clouds, bare trees, muddy earth with grassy patches, and white spots on the shady sides where unmelted snow made the icy feel in the air, even when the sun shone. You couldn't hear yourself think for the clatter of the turkeys, ganders, roosters, hens, and everything that had a voice. I was so crazy with it I could scarcely hang to the fence; I wanted to get down and scrape my wings like the gobbler, and scream louder than the gander, and crow oftener than the rooster. There was everything all ice and mud. They would have frozen, if they hadn't been put in a house at night, and starved, if they hadn't been fed; they were not at the place where they could hunt and scratch, and not pay any attention to feeding time, because of being so bursting full. They had no nests and babies to rejoice over. But there they were! And so was I! Buttercups and daisies be-hanged! Ice and mud really! But if you breathed that air, and shut your eyes, north, you could see blue flags, scarlet lilies, buttercups, cattails and redbirds sailing over them; east, there would be apple bloom and soft grass, cowslips, and bubbling water, robins, thrushes, and bluebirds; and south, waving corn with wild rose and alder borders, and sparrows, and larks on every fence rider.

Right there I got that daisy thing figured out. It wasn't that there were or ever would be daisies and buttercups among the frozen grass; but it was forever and always that when this FEEL came into the air, you knew they were COMING. THAT was what ailed the gander and the gobbler. They hadn't a thing to be thankful for yet, but something inside them was swelling and pushing because of what was coming. I felt exactly as they did, because I wanted to act the same way, but I'd been sick enough to know that I'd better be thankful for the chance to sit on the fence, and think about buttercups and daisies. Really, one old brown and purple skunk cabbage with a half-frozen bee buzzing over it, or a few forlorn little spring beauties, would have set me wild, and when a lark really did go over, away up high, and a dove began to coo in the orchard, if Laddie hadn't come for me, I would have fallen from the fence.

I simply had to get well and quickly too, for the wonderful time was beginning. It was all very well to lie in bed when there was nothing else to do, and every one would pet me and give me things; but here was maple syrup time right at the door, and the sugar camp most fun alive; here was all the neighbourhood crazy mad at the foxes, and planning a great chase covering a circuit of miles before the ground thawed; here was Easter and all the children coming, except Shelley--again, it would cost too much for only one day--and with everything beginning to hum, I found out there would be more amusement outdoors than inside. That was how I came to study out the daisy piece. There was nothing in the silly, untrue lines: the pull and tug was in what they made you think of.

I was still so weak I had to take a nap every day, so I wasn't sleepy as early at night, and I heard father and mother talk over a lot of things before they went to bed. After they mentioned it, I remembered that we hadn't received nearly so many letters from Shelley lately, and mother seldom found time to read them aloud during the day and forgot, or her eyes were tired, at night.

"Are you worrying about Shelley?" asked father one night.

"Yes, I am," answered mother.

"What do you think is the trouble?"

"I'm afraid things are not coming out with Mr. Paget as she hoped."

"If they don't, she is going to be unhappy?"

"That's putting it mildly."

"Well, I was doubtful in the beginning."

"Now hold on," said mother. "So was I; but what are you going to do? I can't go through the world with my girls, and meet men for them. I trained them just as carefully as possible before I started them out; that was all I could do. Shelley knows when a man appears clean, decent and likable. She knows when his calling is respectable. She knows when his speech is proper, his manners correct, and his ways attractive. She found this man all of these things, and she liked him accordingly. At Christmas she told me about it freely."

"Have you any idea how far the thing has gone?"

"She said then that she had seen him twice a week for two months.

He seemed very fond of her. He had told her he cared more for her than any girl he ever had met, and he had asked her to come here this summer and pay us a visit, so she wanted to know if he might."

"Of course you told her yes."

"Certainly I told her yes. I wish now we'd saved money and you'd gone to visit her and met him when she first wrote of him. You could have found out who and what he was, and with your experience you might have pointed out signs that would have helped her to see, before it was too late."

"What do you think is the trouble?"

"I wish I knew! She simply is failing to mention him in her letters; all the joy of living has dropped from them, she merely writes about her work; and now she is beginning to complain of homesickness and to say that she doesn't know how to endure the city any longer. There's something wrong."

"Had I better go now?"

"Too late!" said mother, and I could hear her throat go wrong and the choke come into her voice. "She is deeply in love with him; he hasn't found in her what he desires; probably he is not coming any more; what could you do?"

"I could go and see if there is anything I could do?"

"She may not want you. I'll write her to-morrow and suggest that you or Laddie pay her a visit and learn what she thinks."

"All right," said father.

He kissed her and went to sleep, but mother was awake yet, and she got up and stood looking down at the church and the two little white gravestones she could see from her window, until I thought she would freeze, and she did nearly, for her hands were cold and the tears falling when she examined my covers, and felt my face and hands before she went to bed. My, but the mother of a family like ours is never short of a lot of things to think of!

I had a new one myself. Now what do you suppose there was about that man?

Of course after having lived all her life with father and Laddie, Shelley would know how a man should look, and act to be right; and this one must have been right to make her bloom out in winter the way other things do in spring; and now what could be wrong? Maybe city girls were prettier than Shelley. But all women were made alike on the outside, and that was as far as you could see. You couldn't find out whether they had pure blood, true hearts, or clean souls. No girl could be so very much prettier than Shelley; they simply were not made that way. She knew how to behave; she had it beaten into her, like all of us. And she knew her books, what our schools could teach her, and Groveville, and Lucy, who had city chances for years, and there never was a day at our house when books and papers were not read and discussed, and your spelling was hammered into you standing in rows against the wall, and memory tests--what on earth could be the matter with Shelley that a man who could make her look and act as she did at Christmas, would now make her unhappy? Sometimes I wanted to be grown up dreadfully, and again, times like that, I wished my bed could stay in mother's room, and I could creep behind father's paper and go to sleep between his coat and vest, and have him warm my feet in his hands forever.

This world was too much for me. I never worked and worried in all my life as I had over Laddie and the Princess, and Laddie said I, myself, never would know how I had helped him. Of course nothing was settled; he had to try to make her love him by teaching her how lovable he was. We knew, because we always had known him, but she was a stranger and had to learn. It was mighty fine for him that he could force his way past the dogs, Thomas, the other men, her half-crazy father, and through the locked door, and go there to try to make her see, on Sunday nights, and week days, every single chance he could invent, and he could think up more reasons for going to Pryors' than mother could for putting out an extra wash.

Now just as I got settled a little about him, and we could see they really wanted him there, at least the Princess and her mother did, and Mr. Pryor must have been fairly decent or Laddie never would have gone; and the Princess came to our house to bring me things to eat, and ask how mother was, and once to learn how she embroidered Sally's wedding chemise, and social things like that; and when father acted as if he liked her so much he hadn't a word to say, and mother seemed to begin to feel as if Laddie and the Princess could be trusted to fix it up about God; and the old mystery didn't matter after all; why, here Shelley popped up with another mystery, and it belonged to us. But whatever ailed that man I couldn't possibly think. It had got to be him, for Shelley was so all right at Christmas, it made her look that pretty we hardly knew her.

I was thinking about her until I scarcely could study my lessons, so I could recite to Laddie at night, and not fall so far behind at school. Miss Amelia offered to hear me, but I just begged Laddie, and father could see that he taught me fifty things in a lesson that you could tell to look at Miss Amelia, she never knew. Why, he couldn't hear me read:

  
            "We charged upon a flock of geese,
                 And put them all to flight
             Except one sturdy gander
                 That thought to show us fight,"--

without teaching me that the oldest picture in all the world was made of a row of geese, some of which were kinds we then had--the earth didn't seem so old when you thought of that--and how a flock of geese once wakened an army and saved a city, and how far wild geese could fly without alighting in migration, and everything you could think of about geese, only he didn't know why eating the same grass made feathers on geese and wool on sheep. Anyway, Miss Amelia never told you a word but what was in the book, and how to read and spell it. May said that father was very much disappointed in her, and he was never going to hire another teacher until he met and talked with her, no matter what kind of letters she could send. He was not going to help her get a summer school, and O my soul! I hope no one does, for if they do, I have to go, and I'd rather die than go to school in the summer.

Laddie, A True Blue Story

Gene Stratton Porter