“YOU CAN GET ON HIS BACK”“YOU CAN GET ON HIS BACK”
“Range will bring your pa back in no time, don’t you worry,” said Mrs. Pierce, giving Rose a kindly pat on the shoulder; then exclaiming, “The bread!” she ran back to the house, leaving Rose looking down the road, and wondering,a little fearfully, if Anne would reach the big beech tree without being thrown into the road.
Then she looked the other way, in the direction of Boston, and wondered what would befall Lady.
“Come in, my dear, out of this hot sun,” Mrs. Pierce called from the doorway, and Rose went slowly up the path and entered the big square room at the right of the small square entry.
“You sit right down and I’ll bring you a drink,” and Mrs. Pierce drew forward a comfortable rocking-chair for her young guest, and was soon back with a cup of milk and a square of fresh gingerbread.
“I should admire to have a girl just like you,” declared Mrs. Pierce, taking the empty cup. “I can see that you’ve a real good disposition, and a girl would be a sight of company to me.”
Then Rose told her about her own mother, and had begun to tell her Anne Nelson’s little history, when Mrs. Pierce again exclaimed: “My bread!” and hurried off to the kitchen.
Rose went to the open window and looked out, wondering how long it would be before her father would reach the farmhouse, and it seemeda long time to wait in spite of the friendly kindness of Mrs. Pierce.
The black horse went along at an easy pace, and after a little Anne ceased to be afraid, held the bridle-reins more easily, and even ventured to look about a little.
“Things keep happening,” she thought. “I hope nothing has carried off Mr. Freeman and the chaise!”
Mr. Freeman was standing in the roadway, and as he saw Range with Anne on his back coming rapidly toward him he gave an exclamation of surprise. At a word the horse stopped, and Mr. Freeman lifted Anne from his back.
“A man went by Mrs. Pierce’s with Lady before we got there,” said Anne, after she had told him of the farmhouse, of Mrs. Pierce, and of catching Range.
While she talked Mr. Freeman was harnessing Range into the chaise, and they were soon on the way to the farm.
Rose and Mrs. Pierce were at the gate to meet them.
“Oh, father! Can’t you go after Lady?” asked Rose.
Mr. Freeman looked at Mrs. Pierce questioningly.“If Mrs. Pierce will lend me a horse I’ll go at once,” he replied; “there are a good many houses along the way now, and I might get some trace of the thief.”
“You go right along. Take the colt; he’s as fast as any horse hereabouts, and maybe you can overtake the fellow,” replied Mrs. Pierce.
Mr. Freeman captured the colt, and, telling Rose not to worry if he did not return until night, started off, the colt going at a pace that made the girls exclaim in admiration.
“I’m real sorry you folks should be so set back in your journey, but it’s real pleasant for me to have company,” said Mrs. Pierce, with a smiling look at her young visitors. “It’s days and weeks sometimes without my seeing any one but my husband and the boys. Now we’ll sit down here and you tell me all about your journey.”
“It’s just like a story!” declared Mrs. Pierce, when they had finished. “And now you are going to Boston, and you will see the streets and shops, and churches.” She gave a little sigh as she finished, and Anne and Rose wished that it was possible for Mrs. Pierce to go to Boston with them.
“I don’t suppose you could mark out a little plan of Boston, could you?” she said to Rose. “I like to imagine things to myself when I’m here alone, and if I knew how the streets went, and where you lived, why, I could say to myself, ‘To-day Rose and Anne are going up King Street toward the State House, and up Long-acre Street to the Common,’ and it would seem almost as if I saw you when I looked at the plan.”
“Yes, I think I could,” said Rose, and Mrs. Pierce brought a sheet of paper and a red crayon from a big desk in the corner and laid them on the table.
Mrs. Pierce and Anne watched Rose mark out the Common and the Mall. “The Mall is where the fine people walk in the afternoon,” she said. “Mr. Hancock’s mansion is right here, on Beacon Hill, where you get a fine view across the Charles River to Charlestown.”
Then she marked Copp’s Hill. “This is where the British had their guns when the great battle was fought at Bunker Hill,” she said.
Mrs. Pierce listened eagerly. “I can ’most see it all!” she exclaimed. “Now show me where your house is,” and Rose made a little square for her home.
“We are nearer the harbor than many houses are,” she explained, “for my father owns a wharf, and it is convenient to be where he can see boats and vessels coming in.”
The girls had been so interested, Rose in drawing and explaining, and Anne in listening, that time passed very rapidly, and when Rose finished Mrs. Pierce opened the door of a queer little cupboard beside the chimney and took out a small square box.
“My! Is that a gold box!” exclaimed Anne admiringly, for the box shone and glittered in the light.
“If it was I wouldn’t keep it these days, when our poor soldiers need food and clothes,” replied Mrs. Pierce; “it is brass, one my grandfather brought from France.” As she spoke she lifted the cover and took out two little cases of brown leather, and handed one to Rose and the other to Anne. “Open the little clasps,” she said.
The girls obeyed, and as the little cases opened they exclaimed admiringly, for each case held a pair of scissors, a silver thimble, a tiny emery ball and a needle book.
“My uncle brought me those when I was about your age,” Mrs. Pierce said to Anne.“I never quite made out why he brought two until this very day, but I see now,” and she smiled happily at her little visitors. “I see now, because I can give one to each of you girls!”
After the girls had thanked her, and tried on the thimbles, and declared that the cases were almost too nice to use, Mrs. Pierce left them for a few moments.
“Rose,” exclaimed Anne, “wouldn’t it be splendid if Mrs. Pierce would let us make believe that she was our aunt?”
“Perhaps she will; she told me that she hadn’t any brothers or sisters, or anybody except her husband and two sons,” said Rose. “We might ask her if she would be willing for us, when we talk about her to each other, to call her ‘Aunt Anne Rose’!”
“If your father only gets Lady back we’ll be real glad the man took her; shan’t we, Rose?” said Anne thoughtfully.
“Because we found Aunt Anne Rose? Why, yes, I suppose we shall,” replied Rose. “But isn’t it funny she should have our names! You ask her, Anne, if she is willing for us to call her aunt.”
“There!” exclaimed Mrs. Pierce, when Anneran into the kitchen and asked the question, “if I wasn’t wishing for that very thing. I count it as a real blessing that some one went off with your horse! I do indeed. And if Rose’s father don’t find Lady he can borrow our colt for the rest of the journey.”
It was late in the afternoon before Mr. Freeman returned, but he did not bring Lady, nor had he any news of her.
Mr. Pierce and his sons returned home at nightfall, and made the travelers feel that they were as pleased as “Aunt Anne Rose” to have their guests remain for the night.
Mr. Freeman looked a little puzzled when he heard the girls calling Mrs. Pierce “Aunt Anne Rose,” and when Mrs. Pierce told him that was really her name he thought, as the girls had, that it was almost like discovering a relative. Mr. Pierce had insisted that they should borrow the black colt for the remainder of their journey, and they were ready to start at an early hour the next morning.
Rose was tying the ribbons to her pretty hat, while Anne watched her a little wistfully, wishing that she had a hat—almost any kind of a hat, she thought—so that she might not look like “a little wild girl,” as she had overheard some one call her at the Sandwich tavern. Just then she felt something placed gently on her head and saw two broad brown ribbons falling each side of her face.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, looking up in wonder.
Mrs. Pierce stood beside her. “There!” sheexclaimed. “What kind of a milliner do you think I should make for the fine ladies in Boston?” and she lifted the hat from Anne’s head, holding it up for the girls to see.
It was a round flat hat, plaited of straw. It had no trimming save a pretty bow and strings of brown ribbon, but Anne thought it was a beautiful hat.
“It’s one I plaited last year,” continued Mrs. Pierce, putting the hat back on Anne’s head, and tying the brown ribbon under her chin. “I did it evenings, just to keep busy. I do wish I had a prettier ribbon for it.”
“Is it for me?” asked Anne, almost afraid that it was almost too much good fortune to expect.
“Of course it is. ’Twill serve to remind you of your Aunt Anne,” and the friendly woman smiled down at Anne’s happy face.
“We will write you a letter, Aunt Anne Rose,” said Rose, as they walked down the path to where the chaise awaited them, “and you will come and visit my mother in Boston, will you not?”
“Mr. Pierce has already promised that they will both come,” said Mr. Freeman.
“And, Anne,” and Mrs. Pierce patted thelittle hand she was holding so closely, “you tell your father that you have found another aunt, and that he must let you come and stay with me for a long long visit.”
Then good-byes were said, and they were again started on their journey.
“No stops this time—except to ask for news of Lady—until I reach my own house,” declared Mr. Freeman. “’Tis a good cool morning and we ought to get home by midday.”
“Perhaps we shall find Lady,” suggested Rose. But Mr. Freeman shook his head.
“I’m afraid it will be a long time before we get any news of her,” he said soberly. “I only hope the thief will not abuse her.” The brown horse had always been petted and made much of, and neither Mr. Freeman nor Rose could bear to think of her in the hands of people who would not be kind to her.
Every now and then Anne would take off the plaited straw hat and look at it with admiring eyes. “I shall not have to buy a hat now, Rose,” she said.
“But you will want a prettier one than that,” responded her friend.
“A prettier hat!” Anne’s tone seemed to saythat she could not imagine a prettier hat, and she shook her head. “I sha’n’t ever want any other hat,” she declared. “I mean to keep this always because Aunt Anne Rose gave it to me.”
The black colt sped along as if it was nothing but play to pull the big chaise. The girls told Mr. Freeman of all that Aunt Anne Rose had said about the big farm, and of her own loneliness when her husband and sons were away. Rose noticed that, although her father listened, his glance traveled sharply over the pastures as they went along; and that now and then he leaned out for a clearer view of some horse feeding near the road, and she realized that he was keeping an outlook for Lady.
But there was no sign of the pretty brown horse, and Mr. Freeman’s inquiries at houses and in villages along the way did not give him any news of Lady. There was so much for Anne to see and think about that she hardly realized what a serious loss had befallen her good friends. But as they drove down Long-acre Street, past Boston Common, and turned into the street where the Freemans’ house stood, she saw that Rose and Mr. Freeman both looked very downcast.
“What will mother say?” Rose half whispered, as if to herself.
Mrs. Freeman was at the door to welcome them.
“And here is our little maid from Province Town,” she said, putting her arm about Anne. “You are indeed welcome, dear child; and it is a fine time for a little girl to visit Boston.”
Mr. Freeman had expected his wife to ask what had become of Lady, and was surprised that she did not. He led the colt toward the stable, which stood in a paved yard back of the house, and Frederick ran ahead to open the stable door.
“Upon my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Freeman, for there in her own comfortable stall was Lady, munching her noonday meal as if everything was just as usual.
“The man got here last night with Lady,” explained Frederick; “he was in a great hurry to get a boat, and he told me—for mother was at a neighbor’s—that you’d be coming on to-day. Was he taking a message to American troops? Mother said that must be his business; that you’d lend Lady for no other reason,” and the boy looked at his father questioningly.
“I hope that may have been his errand,” said Mr. Freeman, “but I fear he was on other business. The Tories are more anxious than Americans for boats just now,” and he told the boy how Lady had been stolen. “But who ever it was must have known me and where I live,” he concluded; “’tis not every thief who leaves the horse in its owner’s stable.”
“But your name is on the little brass plate on Lady’s bridle,” Frederick reminded him, “so ’twould be easy if the man were honest.”
Mr. Freeman cautioned them not to tell any one but Rose’s mother of their discovery of the shingled house in the woods where Bill Mains had the hidden stores.
“No one knows just whom to trust these days,” he said, “and if such news was known to those who sympathize with the English they’d soon be after his guns and powder.”
“I think we will have a sewing-bee,” Mrs. Freeman said, when Rose had told her the story of Anne’s flight from Province Town, and that the little girl had no clothing, but had two golden guineas to spend.“You and Anne will have to be busy with your needles for a part of each day until she has proper clothes. And early to-morrow morning we will walk up to Mistress Mason’s shop on Cornhill and get her some shoes.”
The little room that opened from Rose’s chamber had a broad window which looked toward the harbor. There were white curtains at this window, tied back with crocheted bands of white cotton. The floor was painted a soft grayish brown, and there were strips of rag carpet spread beside the white covered bed, and in front of the mahogany bureau. There was a looking-glass hung over this bureau. By standing on tiptoe Anne could see herself in it. In one corner of the room was a wash-stand with a blue china bowl and pitcher. Near the window was a low table and a rocking-chair.
It was a very neat and pleasant room, and to Anne it seemed beautiful. That it opened directly into the big square chamber where Rose slept made her feel very much at home. She wished that Aunt Martha Stoddard could see it, and she went to the window and looked off across the blue waters of the harbor wishing that she could see Aunt Martha and tell her all the wonderful things that had befallen her.
It was decided that Anne was to have a pair of slippers with straps fastening around the in-stepand a pair of shoes for every-day wear. Mrs. Freeman had a good store of white stockings which Rose had outgrown and from these a number were selected for Anne. When she was dressed ready to go to the shops with Mrs. Freeman and Rose the latter exclaimed:
“Mother, mayn’t I open the parlor shutters so that Anne can see herself in the long mirror?”
“Why, yes; but be very careful to close them that the sun may not strike on the carpet,” replied Mrs. Freeman, a little reluctantly; for the Freemans’ parlor was a very grand room and opened only when company was asked to tea, or when some distinguished person came to call.
Rose turned the brass knob, pushed open the white-paneled door and tiptoed into the shadowy room. “Come in, Anne!” she called, and Anne followed. She had not seen this room when she had visited the Freemans with Uncle Enos two years before.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, half fearfully, as her feet sank into the soft carpet. Then she stood quite still until Rose had opened the paneled inside shutters at one of the large windows. She looked about her in wonder. Directly opposite the door was a fireplace with a high white manteland over the mantel was the portrait of a very old lady who seemed to be smiling straight at Anne.
“Come in,” Rose repeated, with a little laugh of pleasure at Anne’s evident admiration, and she led her little visitor toward the front of the room where a long mirror, from ceiling to floor, was fastened against the wall between the two windows. “Look at yourself, Anne. You can see the room afterward,” she said, and Anne looked into the mirror and smiled, for she saw a little dark-eyed girl with smoothly braided hair, wearing a hat of plaited straw with a brown ribbon, and a dress of brown linen with a pretty frill at the neck. She looked down admiringly at her white stockings and new shoes, and then twisted her head in the hope of seeing the back of this neat little girl. She quite forgot the soft carpet, and the shining tables and cushioned chairs.
“I do wish Amanda could see me,” she said; “she’d be real glad I had these fine things.”
Anne held Rose’s hand very tightly as they walked along. It seemed to the little girl that all the people of the town were out walking up and down the streets. Now and then there would be a clatter of hoofs over the cobblestone pavements and Anne would look up to see a man go by on horseback. And Mrs. Freeman told her to notice a fine coach drawn by two horses, that stood in front of the very shop they were about to enter.
“If I spend a guinea for clothes will it not be enough?” Anne questioned, as Mrs. Freeman asked a smiling clerk to show them blue dimity.
“Why, yes, Anne; I think we can manage very nicely with a guinea,” responded Mrs. Freeman, who meant to supply Anne with many needful things from her own stores. “Do you wish to save one?”
Anne shook her head. “No,” she responded,“but I want to buy a grand present for Aunt Martha and Uncle Enos, and something for Amanda Cary. I should like to take Amos and the Starkweather children something, but I fear there will not be enough money.”
Mrs. Freeman smiled at Anne’s thought for her playmates. “You can perhaps make something for some of your little friends. Would not the Starkweather children like a little work-bag or a hemstitched handkerchief?” she asked.
The thought of the Starkweather boys with work-bags and hemstitched handkerchiefs seemed very funny to Anne, and she gave a little laugh, saying, “But they are all boys.”
“Oh, well, then we will make some fine candy just before you go home, and you and Rose can make some pretty boxes to put it in. So there’s your present for the Starkweather boys. And you’ll have a whole guinea to buy gifts for Mrs. Stoddard and the captain, and for Amanda. I suppose Amanda is your dearest friend, isn’t she?” and Mrs. Freeman looked down into Anne’s happy smiling face, quite sure that Mrs. Stoddard must be very glad that she had taken the little girl into her own home.
“Best friend, indeed!” exclaimed Rose, before Anne could answer.“Why, mother! Had it not been for that Amanda, Anne never would have run away.”
“But Anne wants to take her a present,” said Mrs. Freeman.
A little flush crept into Anne’s brown cheeks. “I guess Amanda didn’t mean to,” she said.
The clerk was waiting patiently, and Mrs. Freeman now begged his pardon for so long delaying her purchases, and ordered enough dimity for Anne’s dress. It was a light blue with a tiny white sprig, and Anne thought it the prettiest pattern that any one could imagine.
“I have plenty of nainsook in the house for your underwear, so we will not purchase that,” said Mrs. Freeman, “but we will buy some good white cotton yarn so that I can make up some stockings for you. It will make work for you at odd times.” For in those days children were taught that useful occupation brought as much pleasure as play, and every girl had “pieced a quilt” before she was ten years of age, worked a sampler, and usually knit all her own stockings and mittens.
“Can’t Anne have some thread gloves like mine?” Rose asked, and Anne drew a quick breath of delight. “White thread gloves,” shethought to herself, would be more than she could hope for, but Mrs. Freeman seemed to think it a very reasonable request, and told Rose to go with Anne to a shop on Queen Street and select a pair of gloves.
“I must go home now,” she added, “for it is Saturday, and I have much to do. After you have purchased the gloves you girls can walk up to the Common if you wish; but be sure and be home in good season for dinner.”
The girls both promised, and Mrs. Freeman left them, with a word of caution to be careful in crossing Long-acre Street, where there were always many teams, carriages and horsemen going back and forth.
“You are almost a young lady, aren’t you, Rose?” Anne said admiringly, as she looked up at her friend.
“I suppose so,” Rose replied laughingly. “See, my skirts come to my ankles, and Aunt Hetty said I must twist my braids around my head now. And I think it does become me better,” and Rose put up her white-gloved hand to be quite sure that the braids were smoothly fastened.
The girls walked along the Mall, and a littleway toward the Charles River. Rose met several girls of her own age who greeted Anne pleasantly. One of them asked Rose if she knew that a messenger had reached Boston with a copy of the Declaration of Independence. “It is to be read from the balcony of the State House on Tuesday,” said Rose’s friend. “’Twill be a great day, and ’tis well you have reached Boston in time for it.”
When Anne and Rose reached the Freeman house little Millicent was at the door waiting for them. She had a big doll in her arms and told Anne that its name was “Hetty,” because Aunt Hetty Freeman had made it and sent it to her. Frederick had hung the wasp’s nest in his own room, and declared that there was not another boy in Boston who possessed one. Several of his friends had already seen it, and Frederick was quite sure that he was a very fortunate boy to have it for his own.
On Sunday morning Anne was awakened by the sound of the bells of Christ Church, which was not far distant from the Freemans’ house. She lay listening to the musical notes, and wondering if those could really be church-bells.
“They sound like far-off voices singing,” shethought to herself. And when Mrs. Freeman, at breakfast time, told her that there were eight bells, and that they came all the way from Gloucester, England, in 1745, and were the first ring of bells in North America, they seemed even more wonderful to the little girl.
“William Shirley was Governor of Massachusetts at that time,” said Mr. Freeman, “and when the bells reached Boston it was found that there was no money in the church treasury to raise them to the church belfry, and just then Boston had the good news that the colonial forces under General Pepperell had captured Louisburg. Well, every bell in Boston was ringing with triumph, and it did not take long to start a subscription and get money enough to put those fine bells where they could be heard. They were made by good English bell-makers, and there are none better,” concluded Mr. Freeman. Anne thought to herself that she would be sure to remember about these wonderful bells so that she could tell Amanda.
On the morning of the 18th of July people began to gather in King Street and the vicinity of the State House, so that long before one o’clock, the time advertised when the Declaration of Independencewas to be read, there was a crowd. Mr. and Mrs. Freeman with Millicent, Frederick, Rose and Anne had a very good place where they could see the little balcony where Colonel Crafts was to stand.
“Look, father! There are some of the British officers!” said Frederick.
The crowd near where the Freemans were standing stood courteously back to make way for several British officers in full military dress. They secured a place where they could hear well, and Mr. Freeman and several gentlemen exchanged smiles of satisfaction to see these officers present. When the clock struck one, Colonel Crafts, surrounded by a number of gentlemen, appeared on the balcony, and in a clear voice read the declaration announcing to the world that the American colonies were no longer subject to Britain.
What a chorus of shouts and huzzas filled the air! Frederick’s cap went so high that it lodged on the State House balcony, but no one seemed to notice it, and Frederick could not recover his property until late that afternoon. There sounded the measured boom of cannon, and thirteen volleys of musketry. A military bandplayed, and the people dispersed, quietly, and as if they had taken part in a great ceremony, as indeed they had.
“Now you girls will have to settle down; dresses do not make themselves,” said Mrs. Freeman; “nor do stockings grow on trees. Your father’s ship will be coming into harbor before you know it, Anne; and you must have your clothing in order, and Rose has agreed to help you. So to-morrow we must begin in earnest.”
“I have a chance to send the black colt to Mr. Pierce to-morrow,” said Mr. Freeman, “and I have bought a good side-saddle for Mrs. Pierce, that they may know we do not forget their great kindness.”
“That is the very thing, father!” exclaimed Rose. “Now Aunt Anne Rose can ride to the village and see her friends whenever she wishes. She will not be so lonely.”
“I thought of that,” said Mr. Freeman.
“You girls must make up a little package for the colt to carry to your new aunt,” suggested Mrs. Freeman.
Anne had her golden guinea and several shillings besides in a pretty knit purse that Rose had given her, and she was very happy to thinkthat, out of her very own money, she could buy something for Aunt Anne Rose.
“I know what she’d like,” said Anne. “I told her about the fine book that my Aunt Martha keeps in the chest. ’Tis called ’Pilgrim’s Progress.’ And Aunt Anne Rose said that if she had a book to read at times ’twould be as good as company.”
“You girls shall step into Mistress Mason’s and select a suitable book,” said Mrs. Freeman. “You can write her name in it and put ‘From Anne and Rose to Aunt Anne Rose’; no doubt ’twill please her. And this evening we will make some sweets to send her. We wish her to be very sure that we do not lack in gratitude.”
Mistress Mason’s shop in Cornhill seemed a very wonderful place to Anne, with its shelves filled with bright pewter, tall brass candlesticks, and large and small boxes. On a lower shelf at the back of the small room was a row of books. On a narrow counter stood boots, shoes, and slippers. Above this counter, fastened to a stout cord, were hung a number of dolls dressed in the latest fashion. Each one of these dolls had a small white card fastened to its sleeve.
When the girls entered they did not at firstsee any one in the shop, but in a moment Anne noticed that a very tiny old lady was standing behind the further counter.
“Why, she isn’t any bigger than I am!” thought the little girl.
“Good-afternoon, Mistress Mason,” said Rose; “this is my friend, little Anne Nelson, from Province Town.”
“Not so very little, as I view it. Fully as large as I am myself. I should call her large; that is, large for a girl,” responded the little white-haired woman, who was rather sensitive in regard to her size. “I see you wear good shoes,” she continued, peering over the low counter and pointing a tiny finger toward Anne’s feet. “I know my own shoes when I see ’em,” and she laughed pleasantly. “My brother makes every shoe I sell; makes ’em right back here in his own shop, as Miss Rose Freeman well knows.”
“Yes, indeed,” answered Rose, “and Mistress Mason makes dolls, Anne—all those fine ones near the door.”
“All but the ones with china heads; I make only bodies for the heads. The china heads come from France and cost me dear. But they are good bodies, as you can see, my dears; with joints where joints should be, and with feet and hands of soft kid. ’Tis some work, I do assure you, young ladies, to stitch fingers and toes as fingers and toes should be stitched,” and Mistress Mason looked very serious indeed. “And as for making dolls with kid-covered heads, and then painting their faces and giving a good expression to eyes and mouths, I do feel that it’s almost beyond me. I do indeed!”
The little old lady trotted briskly across the shop and unfastening several dolls from the line held them toward her visitors. “Now here is Lady Melissa Melvina,” and Anne saw that on each of the white cards was written the name belonging to the doll on whose sleeve the card was pinned. “Lady Melissa Melvina is all kid,” went on Mistress Mason, “head, body, feet and fingers; and every stitch she wears is of the best. She’s worth twenty shillings. But——!” and Mistress Mason made an impressive pause and shook her head. “Could I get that amount? No. So, though ’tis far too little, you may have her for ten shillings six,” and she smiled as if she were really bestowing a gift upon them.
“We did not come to buy a doll, Mistress Mason, although I’m sure Anne would like greatly to have so fine a doll as this; but we want to purchase a book,” said Rose.
The little old woman was evidently disappointed. “A book, indeed,” she responded. “I know not what is coming to people. Everybody, even the very children, are asking for books. We can hardly keep our shelf neatly filled, and I have half a mind not to keep them. Many a person who should buy a stout pair of shoes puts the money in books,” and she shook her head as if not understanding such folly.
“’Tis for a present,” responded Rose, as if to excuse their purchase, “to a lady who lives in the country and is much alone.”
“I see; well, maybe such folk find company in reading,” said the shopkeeper. “Here is a book may please her,” and she took up a thin volume and opened it. “’Tis a book of verse, but ’tis well thought of. I see but little sense in verse myself; but, for verse, this reads well:
“‘Great conquerors greater glory gainBy foes in triumph led than slain,’”
“‘Great conquerors greater glory gainBy foes in triumph led than slain,’”
“‘Great conquerors greater glory gainBy foes in triumph led than slain,’”
she read, and went on to a second couplet:
“‘Ay me! What perils do environThe man that meddles with cold iron.’
“‘Ay me! What perils do environThe man that meddles with cold iron.’
“‘Ay me! What perils do environThe man that meddles with cold iron.’
“And I declare here is what I’ve always said of poetry. ’Tis as true as I make good dolls:
“‘Those that write in rhyme still makeThe one verse for the other’s sake.’”
“‘Those that write in rhyme still makeThe one verse for the other’s sake.’”
“‘Those that write in rhyme still makeThe one verse for the other’s sake.’”
“I think Aunt Anne Rose would like ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’” Anne ventured, a little timidly, to suggest.
“Maybe. I have a fine copy. Not too large, and easy to read. ’Twill cost five shillings,” and Mistress Mason put back the book of verse and took from the shelf a small square book that she handed to Rose.
The girls looked it over carefully. “But it is not like Aunt Martha’s book,” said Anne; “’tis not so large, nor has it such fine pictures. These pictures are little and black.”
“It tells the same story,” Rose assured her, “and I know it would please Aunt Anne Rose. It will cost us two and six, sixty-two cents, apiece.”
They decided to purchase it, and Mistress Mason wrapped it up in a neat package for them, and said that she hoped they would step in again. She followed them to the door, and Rose and Anne both bowed very politely as they wished her good-day.
“Rose,” said Anne, as soon as they left the little shop, “I know what I shall buy for Aunt Martha; I shall buy her one of those fine pewter dishes.”
“So you can! It will be sure to please her,” replied Rose, looking kindly down at her little friend. “You are always thinking of giving people things, aren’t you, Anne? My Grandmother Freeman, who lived in Wellfleet, used to say that it was a sign that a child would grow up prosperous and happy if it had the spirit to give instead of to take.”
When the girls went up the brick walk to the Freeman house they saw Frederick and a number of small boys in the yard. Frederick was standing on a box with a paper in his hand, from which he was reading, and he and his companions were so interested that they did not notice the girls.
“He’s playing that he’s Colonel Crafts reading the Declaration,” Rose whispered to Anne, as they opened the front door, and entered the house. “Fred has made believe everything that has happened here in Boston for the last two years.”
“It’s warm weather for candy-making,” said Mrs. Freeman, as the family gathered at the supper table in the cool pleasant dining-room, “but Caroline is going to see her mother this evening, so you children can have the kitchen, and you will not have another opportunity for a long time to send Aunt Anne Rose any remembrance.”
The children all declared that it was not too warm for candy-making, and as soon as Caroline, a young woman who helped Mrs. Freeman and Rose with the household work, gave them permission Rose, Anne, Millicent and Frederick went into the kitchen. Rose opened a deep drawer in a chest which stood in one corner of the room.
“Look, Anne,” she said, and Anne peered in, exclaiming:
“Why, it’s filled with little boxes!”
“Yes,” said Rose, picking up one shaped likea heart; “stormy days, and sometimes in winter evenings, when I do not feel like knitting or sewing, I make boxes out of heavy paper or cardboard, and cover them with any bits of pretty paper or cloth that I can get. Frederick helps me. He can make even better ones than I can, and Millicent helps too,” and she smiled down at the little sister who stood close beside Anne.
“Let’s send Aunt Anne Rose the heart-shaped box,” said Anne.
“And fill it with heart-shaped taffy,” added Frederick, running toward a shelf filled with pans and kettles of various shapes and sizes, and taking down a box. “See, we have little shapes for candy,” and he opened the box and took out some tiny heart-shaped pans, and dishes shaped in rounds and stars and crescents.
“My!” exclaimed Anne, “and can you make the candies in these?”
“No!” and Frederick’s voice was a little scornful. “We have to boil it in a kettle, of course; then we grease the inside of these little pans with butter and turn the candy into them, and when it cools we tip them out, and there they are. Fine as any you can buy, aren’t they, Rose?”
“Yes, indeed, and Frederick knows just how to take them out without breaking the candy. He is more careful than I am,” said Rose, who lost no opportunity of praising her little brother and sister, and who never seemed to see any fault in them.
“Molasses taffy is the best,” declared Frederick, “but you can make some sugared raisins, can’t you, Rose?”
“We’ll have to be very careful in putting the candy in the boxes so that it will not melt,” said Rose.
Before it was time to pack the candy Mrs. Freeman came into the kitchen and untied a bundle to show the children what it contained.
“It’s lovely, mother!” exclaimed Rose, lifting up a little fleecy shoulder cape of lavender wool. “Why, it’s the one you knit for yourself!” and she looked at her mother questioningly.
“It seemed all I had that was pretty enough to send Mrs. Pierce,” replied Mrs. Freeman.
“But she lives way off in that lonesome place where she never sees pretty things. She’d be pleased with anything,” said Rose, who almost wished that her mother would keep the pretty shawl.
“That’s why I want to send this to her,” responded Mrs. Freeman. “If she had all sorts of nice things I wouldn’t do it; I’d just send her a cake with my love.”
“Send the cake, too,” said Mr. Freeman, who had followed his wife. “Send the cake with my love.”
“Why, so I will,” said Mrs. Freeman. “Caroline made two excellent loaves of spice cake this very day and we can well spare one of them. But you children must trot off to bed. It’s been a very exciting day.”
Little Millicent was quite ready for bed, but neither Anne nor Rose was sleepy, and Rose followed her little friend into her room.
“See how clear the night is, Anne,” she said, looking out of the window toward the harbor. “The water looks like a mirror.”
Anne came and stood beside her. Her thoughts traveled across the smooth waters to the little house in Province Town. “I shouldn’t wonder if Aunt Martha were looking out at the water and thinking about me,” she said, drawing a little nearer to the tall girl beside her. “I wish she knew how good everybody is to me.”
Rose put her arm about the little girl. “She expects everybody to be good to you, Anne,” she responded; “but I have thought of something that you can do for Mrs. Stoddard that I am sure will please her, and will be something that she will always like to keep.”
“What is it, Rose?” and Anne’s voice was very eager.
“Let’s sit down here on the window-seat, and I’ll tell you. You have learned to write, haven’t you, Anne?”
“Not very well,” confessed the little girl.
“All the better, for what I want you to do will teach you to write as neatly as possible. I want you to write a book.”
“A book!” Anne’s voice expressed so much surprise and even terror that Rose laughed aloud, but answered:
“Why, yes, and you must call it ‘Anne Nelson’s Book,’ and you must begin it by telling what Amanda Cary did to you, and how you believed that Mrs. Stoddard would be glad if you went away. And then you can write all your journey, about the Indians, the house in the woods, Aunt Anne Rose, and all that you see and do in Boston.”
“I haven’t any paper,” said Anne, as if that settled the question.
“I have a fine blank book, every page ruled, that will be just the thing,” responded Rose, “and I will help you write it. I can draw a little, and I have a box of water-colors. I will make little pictures here and there so that Mrs. Stoddard can see the places.”
“Oh, Rose! That will be fine. Shall we begin the book to-morrow?”
Anne was soon in bed, but there were so many wonderful things to think of that she lay long awake.
The Freeman household rose at an early hour. After breakfast Mrs. Freeman said: “Now, Anne, we will make believe that you are my own little girl, and I will tell you what to do to help me, just as I do Rose. You see,” she added with a little laugh, “that I am like Frederick. I like to play that all sorts of pleasant things are really true.”
Anne smiled back. “I like to make-believe, too,” she said.
“Then we’ll begin right now. You can help Rose put the chambers in order, and dust the dining-room. After that Rose can show you the attic, if you want to see where the children play on stormy days, or you may do whatever you please.”
“The attic will be the very place for Anne to write her book,” said Rose, and told her mother of their plan.
It was a very happy morning for Anne. Rose tied a big white apron around her neck, gave her a duster of soft cloth, and showed her just how to make a bed neatly, and put a room in order. Then, when the work was finished, the girls went up the narrow stairs to the attic, a long unfinished room running the whole length of the house with windows at each end. Under one of these windows stood a broad low table. Rose had brought up the blank book, a number of pens, made from goose-quills, and a bottle of ink. She put them on the table and drew up a high-backed wooden chair for Anne. “I’ll sit in this rocking-chair at the end of the table with my knitting,” said Rose.
Anne looked about the attic, and thought that the Freeman children had everything in the world. There was a big wooden rocking-horse, purchased for Frederick, but now belonging to Millicent. There were boxes of blocks, a row ofdolls beside a trunk, a company of tin soldiers, and on a tiny table was spread out a little china tea-set. It was rather hard for Anne to turn away from all these treasures and sit down at the table. She had never seen so many toys in all her life, and she thought she would like to bring her own wooden doll, “Martha Stoddard,” that her father had made for her years ago, up to the attic to visit with these beautiful dolls of china, wax, and kid. But Rose had opened the book and stood beside the table waiting for Anne to sit down.
“How shall I begin?” questioned the little girl anxiously.
“Why, I’d begin just as if I were writing a letter,” said Rose.
So Anne dipped the quill in the ink, and, with her head on one side, and her lips set very firmly together, carefully wrote: “My dear Aunt Martha.”
Rose looked over her shoulder. “That is written very neatly, Anne,” she said.
“Don’t you want to make a picture now, Rose?” said the little girl hopefully.
Rose laughed at Anne’s pleading look, but drew the book toward her end of the table, andtaking a pencil from her box of drawing materials made a little sketch, directly under Anne’s written words, of a little girl at a table writing, and pushed the book back toward Anne.
“Now I will knit while you write,” she said.
So Anne again dipped the quill into the ink, and wrote: “This is a picture of me beginning to write a book. Rose made it.” The attic was very quiet, the sound of Anne’s pen, and of Rose’s knitting-needles could be heard, and for a little time there was no other sound; then came a clatter of stout shoes on the stairway, and little Millicent appeared.
“See, I found this in Anne’s room!” she exclaimed.
Anne looked around, and saw Millicent holding up her beloved “Martha Stoddard.” With a quick exclamation she sprang up and ran toward her. “That’s my doll,” she exclaimed, and would have taken it, but Millicent held it tightly exclaiming:
“I want it!”
Anne stood looking at the child not knowing what to do. This doll was the dearest of her possessions. She had given her beautiful coralbeads to the Indian girl, and now Millicent had taken possession of her doll. She tried to remember that she was a big girl now, ten years old, and that dolls were for babies like six-year-old Millicent. But “Martha Stoddard” was something more than a plaything to Anne; she could not part with it. But how could she take it away from the little girl?
“I want it,” repeated Millicent, looking up at Anne with a pretty smile, as if quite sure that Anne would be glad to give it to her. Anne put her hands over her face and began to cry.
Anne had sprung up from her seat so quickly that she did not think of her book, pen, or ink. Her arm had given the book a careless push, sending it against and overturning the ink-bottle, and she had dropped the pen on the white paper, where it made a long ugly blot.
Rose had been quick to seize the bottle before it rolled to the floor, and was now using a big dusting cloth to wipe up the ink. Her attention was so taken with this that she did not really know what was happening, when the sound of Millicent crying made her look quickly around.
“What is the matter?” she asked, turning toward the little girls.
Anne, with her hands over her face, was evidently crying; and Millicent, grasping the wooden doll with both hands, was making as much noise as she possibly could in a series of half-angry little sobs.
“Millicent, stop this minute,” said Rose, going toward them, “and you, too, Anne, and tell me what you are crying about,” and, quite forgetting the inky cloth in her hand, Rose took hold of Anne’s arm.
Anne looked up, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“There, there,” said Rose, wiping Anne’s face, and leaving it almost blacker than the cloth. “Oh, what have I done!” exclaimed Rose, while Millicent’s sobs ceased for a moment to be followed by a shriek of terror to see Anne’s face turn black so suddenly. “Stop, Millicent,” said Rose. “Come down-stairs, Anne, and I’ll wash the ink off. And tell me what the matter is.”
“Rose! Rose!” called Mrs. Freeman from the floor below. “What is the matter?”
“I’ve got ink on Anne’s face and Millicent is frightened,” Rose called back, drawing Anne toward the stairs. Millicent stopped crying, and finding that no one took the wooden doll from her, trotted across the attic and introduced the newcomer as “Lady Washington” to the other dolls, sat down on the floor beside them and began to play happily.
Anne followed Rose down the stairs and intothe sink-room, where Rose began to scour her face vigorously.
“I don’t mean to hurt you, Anne,” she said laughingly, “and I’m awfully sorry I wiped your face with that dreadful inky cloth, but I have to rub hard to get it off.”
“It’s my—fault,” Anne managed to say. “I was crying.”
“There isn’t any blame in crying, if you have anything to cry about,” said Rose.
“Millicent wanted my doll,” said Anne.
Rose did not speak for a moment. She was very fond of Anne Nelson, and thought her a very generous and thoughtful child, and could not understand why she should cry because little Millicent had taken what Rose called to herself “an old wooden doll.”
“Well,” she said, “Millicent won’t hurt your doll.”
“But she wants to keep it,” said Anne, as Rose gave her face a vigorous wiping with a rough towel.
Rose made no answer. She thought it rather selfish of Anne, when they had all done so much for her, that she should be unwilling for Millicent to keep the doll.
Anne was not a dull child, and Rose’s silence made her realize that she had acted selfishly; still, she could not feel that wanting to keep “Martha Stoddard” was wrong.
“There! You are quite rid of ink now,” said Rose, “and there is an hour before dinner. Do you want to write some more in your book?”
“No,” said Anne. It seemed to her that she should never want to write in the book again. She wished that she and “Martha Stoddard” were safe back with Aunt Martha in Province Town.
“Well, I have some errands to do for mother, so I’ll run along,” said Rose pleasantly, and left Anne alone in the little square room called the “sink-room,” because of two sinks near the one window which overlooked the green yard at the back of the house. There was a door opening into the yard, and Anne looked out feeling more unhappy than she had since the night when Aunt Martha had sent her up-stairs.
Frederick was in the yard. He was setting what looked to Anne like wooden bottles in a straight row at the further end of the square of greensward. Then he ran across to the open door where Anne was standing.