Thereafter, Hannah was always most securely tethered or kept shut up in her stall within the barn; her mistress finding it easier to cut the grass and feed her there than to allow her to do it for herself. But these performances did not endear the creature to anybody: nor was it comforting to have Pa Babcock—who took no part in any of these "chasings"—inform them that:
"Of course, that was the reason my friend Oliver sold her to you so cheap. At ordinary rating that fine blooded cow would have brought at least a hundred dollars. Of course, too, there had to be some consideration to offset the price;" and again when, on the morning of that gathering at Seth Winters's smithy, Hannah had gnawed her fastening rope in two and started on a tour of the farm, he began to explain: "There is a way to prevent such——" But had paused abruptly, his attention attracted to the road below, and finished his possible advice by the pointing of his grimy finger and the exclamation: "Tiberius Cæsar! Look a-there!"
Mrs. Chester did look and instinctively sought the society of John and Dorothy, as a protection against the invasion that threatened them.
"Oh! what can it mean? They are all looking this way as if they were bound for Skyrie! Wagons, people, such a crowd—tell me, John Chester,have you advertised again? Is it another 'sale'?"
But he shook his head, as much surprised and alarmed as she: till Seth Winters, the foremost of this invading army, came up to them, and courteously doffing his hat, explained, with a gay:
"Good-morning, neighbors! Don't be frightened! We are nothing but a well-meaningbee!"
If to be busy is a synonym for "bee" this one was well named. As the blacksmith further explained, while Dorothy hastened to fetch a chair for Mrs. Calvert, who stood beside him, merrily smiling:
"It's a way country folks have of giving a neighbor a lift. We get up 'bees' to raise a barn, help in somebody's belated haying or harvesting, and we've arranged one now to get Skyrie into a little better shape. Too much of a job for one man to undertake alone, and with your permission, we'll begin. Each man knows his part and your near neighbor, John Smith, is boss of the whole. His farm is next to this, he knows most about Skyrie. 'One year's seeding makes seven years' weeding,' you know, and poor Skyrie has been running to weed-seeds far too long.Maywe begin?"
Mother Martha could not speak, and Dorothy seemed all eyes and mouth, so widely they stared and gaped in her surprise; but father John found voice to falter:
"We are almost overcome. I shall never be able to return this kindness, and I don't, I can't quite understand——"
"No need you should, and as for returning kindnesses, all can find some way to do that if they watch out. I take it you are willing we should go ahead. Therefore, John Smith! do your duty! and let every man hustle as he never did before. By sunset and milking-time Skyrie must be the best-ordered farm on the mountain! Hip, hip, hooray!"
What a cheer went up! With what honest pride did John Smith, the best farmer of them all, step to the fore and assign to each man his place! and with what scant loss of time did the fun begin!
Fun they made of it, in truth, though long untilled fields were stubborn in their yielding to plow or harrow, and unmown meadows were such a tangle as tried the mettle of mowing machine and scythe.
Into the garden rushed a half-dozen workers, with plow, spade, rake, and seed bags, coolly forcing the staring Pa Babcock aside, at the risk of being trampled in his own asparagus ditch. Also he, with equal coolness, resigned himself to having his task taken out of hand and repaired to the side of his employers to rest. Was he not, also, one of the family?
Such a "bee" as that was had never before buzzed on that mountain, even though this was by no means the first one known there. It was of greater proportions and more full of energy than could possibly have been brought to the mere raising of a barn or the gathering of a single crop. Dorothy's romantic history, added to the ex-postman's own pitiful story, would have been sufficient to win those warm-hearted country folk to the rescue, even without the example of Seth Winters to rouse them everywhere.
"My Cousin Seth calls himself a blacksmith, but he seems to be a carpenter as well. See? He is actually climbing the roof, to make sure every old, worn-out shingle is replaced by a new one. Trust me, if Seth undertakes anything it will be well done. Your roof will never leak again, as Dorothy said it did that stormy night," said Mrs. Cecil to Martha, while that astonished matron sat now beside her guest, watching and wondering, unable to talk; till at last a sudden fear arose in her housewifely breast, and she answered by asking:
"What shall I do with them? How feed them all? I can just remember such a time when my grandfather had a lot of people come to help, and all the women in the house had to cook for days beforehand, it seems to me, for the one dinner."
"O mother! We can't! Why, there aren't potatoes enough in the pantry for our own dinner, let alone so many people!" cried Dorothy, regretfully regarding her small fingers, roughened now by that cutting of "seed." "Even if we'd saved all you got of Mrs. Smith they wouldn't have begun to go around. I might—do you suppose I could make biscuit enough, like you taught me for father's supper—if there was flour—and maybe butter, and there was time!"
Mrs. Cecil laughed and drew the girl close to her for a moment; then, rising, said:
"Don't worry, Mrs. Chester, nor Dolly dear. These folks haven't come to make trouble but to save it. I see that the women are gathering in that far field that has already been mowed and raked. Herbert Montaigne is there, with his horse-rake, and I'm curious to see if he can manage something useful as easily as he does his own fast horse. Besides, country women are a bit shy, sometimes, and I want you to go among them with me and get acquainted. Get your—Mrs. Chester a hat, my darling, and your own if you need it, Dorothy."
She spoke with a tone of authority, habitual enough, but she had hesitated for an instant over the word "mother," and Martha's tender, jealous heart was quick to notice it and to assure herself that "she has taken a notion to my girl and wants to adopt her from me. I know it. I'm as sure as if she'd said so outright. But she shan't. She shall not. Dorothy is not the kind of child to be handed from pillar to post, that fashion. She's mine. She was sent to me and I shall keep her, even if John did once say that a richer woman could do more for her than we can. I—I begin almost to—to hate Mrs. Cecil! And I'm glad I didn't borrow money of her instead of that nice old Friend."
By which reflections it seemed that poor, jealous mother Martha likened herself to a "pillar" and the mistress of Deerhurst to a "post." It was in that mood she followed the old lady down to that far field in which the group of women, aided by a few lads, seemed so strangely busy.
Busy, indeed! In a community accustomed to "picnics" conveniences for such were a matter of course; so in some of the wagons had been brought wooden tressels, and the long boards that were laid upon these made the necessary tables for the great feast to come.
In one corner of this field, fragrant now with the freshly cut grass which Herbert had raked into windrows, was a cluster of trees, giving a comfortable shade; and beneath these the helpful lads detailed for the task set up the tressels and placed the boards in readiness; then brought from the wagons in the road outside such big baskets and so many, all so heavily laden with the best their owners could provide, that Dorothy could only clasp her hands and cry out in amazement:
"Why, this is far and away beyond anything we ever had at home! Even the Sunday-school excursions down the Bay didn't have so many baskets! I wish—how I wish that father was here!"
"Here he shall be!" cried Herbert, jumping from his seat upon the rake and hurrying toward her. "I've gathered up all that's in this lot and I'll go fetch him. Goodness! If there isn't the little mother herself! Come to see if her precious son has overheated himself by doing something useful! Wait, Dorothy! Here's a lark! My mother wouldn't mix with 'common folks'—I mean she wouldn't be let by Helena—but now she shall. She has let her curiosity and her anxiety over her son and heir"—here the lad swept Dolly a profound bow which she as merrily returned by as profound a courtesy, each laughing as if no disagreement had marked their last interview—"she has come to the 'Bee' and she shall taste of its honey!"
Away he sped, scattering jests and laughter as he went, the farm-wives whom his friendliness had already propitiated looking after him with ready approval, while more than one remarked on the absence of that "insolence" which had been attributed to him.
"The father and daughter may be terrible top-lofty, but there ain't no nonsense in the boy, and the mother looks as if she'd like to be neighborly, if she dared to," said Mrs. Smith, advancing to meet Mrs. Calvert and Martha. "How-do, Mis' Cecil? It's the crownin' top-notch of the whole business, havin' you come, too. But I knowed you would. I said to John, says I, 'Mis' Calvert's sure to be on hand if she can shake a leg, she ain't one to miss no doin's, she ain't,' I says, and I'm tickled to death to see you can, ma'am."
With this conclusion Mrs. Smith turned a triumphant eye upon her neighbors as if to show them how exceedingly familiar and intimate she was with the greatest lady "up-mounting." Besides, as wife of the commander of this expedition, she realized her own important position: and set to work at once to introduce everybody to Mrs. Chester, for Mrs. Calvert was already known to most and waited no introduction to those she did not know.
"Now, boys, get them benches sot up right to once! wouldn't keep visitin' ladies standing, would you?" ordered this mistress of ceremonies, herself setting the example by placing a bench under the very shadiest tree and beside the head table. "Now, Mis' Calvert, Mis' Chester, Dolly, and you, old Mis' Turnbull, step right up and se' down. Comfortable, be ye? All right, then, we'll have dinner ready in the jerk of a lamb's tail! Mis' Spencer, you set that cherry pie o' yourn on this particular spot an' figure of this table-cloth! I want Mis' Calvert to taste it, an' when she does she'll say she never knew before what cherry pie could be! Fact. Oh! you needn't wriggle an' try to make believe you don't know it yourself, Sarah Spencer, so bein's you've took first prize for pies at the county fair, three-four years hand-runnin'. Fit to set off this very best table-cloth in the bunch—My! but it's fine! yet the lucky woman 'at owns it didn't think the best none too good for this here joyful occasion. I tell you, isn't it a good thing the Lord sent us such a splendid day? Hot? Well, maybe, but need hot weather to make the corn grow an' hay cure right. Now, if that don't beat the Dutch! here comes the boss himself! Bore right along like a king on his throne! Hurray!"
By the "boss," of course, it was Mr. Chester she meant: smiling as even that sunny-tempered gentleman had rarely smiled, and carried in a stout chair upon the shoulders of two strong men, while waving them to the tune of his merry whistle, followed Herbert with the crutches.
"Coffee? Smell it! Fried chicken? Well, that's a smart trick. Wait till I copy that over at the camp!" cried the lad, always a hungry chap but never quite so hungry as now; and watching with admiration how deftly two women were deep-frying in a kettle, suspended by three crotched sticks above a fire on the ground, the already prepared fowls which had once been the choicest of their flocks.
Plenty of other things there were, roasts and broils and brews, but Mrs. Smith's mandate had long before gone forth that: "Our men must have something hot with their dinner, and not all 'cold victuals.' John he can get more work out of a hired man 'an anybody else I ever saw, an' he does it by feedin' 'em. He says, says he, in hayin' time when he wants folks to swing their scythes lively: 'Buttermilk an' whey, Draggin' all the day; Ham an' eggs—Look out for your legs!' So I'm bound to have that tried to Mr. Chester's 'Bee.'"
So not only figuratively but practically it was a case of "ham and eggs," and brimful of his enjoyment, master Herbert now deposited the crutches within easy reach of their owner and hurried to the road, where his mother and sister sat amusedly watching in their phaeton. He made one attempt to vault over the intervening wall, but it was so wide he failed and struck the top in an ignominous heap, which set all the other lads in the field into uproarious laughter—himself joining in it with perfect good humor. Even his mother, whose idol he was, looked at him in surprise, anticipating scowls instead of smiles; but the love and sympathy which had emanated from Seth Winters's big heart had touched, that day, the more selfish heart of many another—even the "spoiled" lad, Herbert's. Ah! the bliss of bestowing kindness! how it returns in an overflow of happiness!
"O son! Are you hurt?" cried Mrs. Montaigne, in alarm. How could anybody fall upon stones in that way and not be injured? But "son" had rebounded from the impact like a rubber ball, or the best trained gymnast of his school, as he was.
Another leap brought him to the side of the carriage and to insisting that his women should return with him to what he called "the festal board," adding "it's literally such, though don't they look dainty? those rough planks covered with white linen? Oh! but they've got the 'fixings' to make your mouth water. Please get out, mother, Helena, and come. I'll help you over the wall. It's easy. Come!"
But Helena drew up with haughtiness, demanding:
"What can you be thinking of, Herbert Montaigne? The idea of mother or I mixing in such a crowd. If it suits you to play the fool——"
"No foolishness about what I did, I tell you! Why, child alive, I raked the hay together on three whole six-acre fields! I! your good-for-something brother! Think of that, then put it in your pipe and smoke it!"
With that he began strutting up and down beside the phaeton with such a comical resemblance to a pouter pigeon that coachman James had to turn his face aside, lest he should disgrace himself by a smile, while Mrs. Montaigne laughed aloud.
"Herbert, you dreadful boy! You use more shocking language every day. There's no need for you to suffer any further contamination by mingling with such persons as are yonder. Don't go back. Ride home with us, and let's go into Newburgh and pay visits upon somebody worth while," coaxed Helena, whose mission in life seemed to be the reconstruction of all with whom she came in contact.
"Not much I go! I hate visits, and if you think you're going to drag me away from Skyrie just the minute the real fun begins, you're mistaken, that's all. Besides, what would my friend Mrs. Calvert think if I deserted her in this base fashion? Why, we've settled it that I'm to be her attendant at this famous dinner—I tell you it's going to make history, this busy bumble 'Bee'! It will be told of and held up as an example of what can be done and should be done, sometimes. No, indeed, I shan't miss it, and you won't unless you're a bigger—I mean more unwise than I think you. Mother's coming anyway, to sit next to Mrs. Calvert and that pretty Dorothy. Huh! Talk about girls! She's a daisy, she is! Good deal more of one than that little-boy-calf of hers she's so fond of. That's right, mother! Have a will of your own or a will of mine, once in a lifetime!" commended this persuasive son.
Mrs. Montaigne loved both her children, said that she did so equally, and they both ruled her; Helena by fear, Herbert by love. Under all his rollicking nonsense the deepest feeling of the lad's heart was love for the timid little woman who was so ready to sacrifice herself to them all, and who he believed was also the superior of all. Once in a long while she acted with decision. She did so now. Whether the name of Calvert had been one to conjure with, or because she was really anxious to see what sort of people these were who had so evidently "bewitched" her son, she descended from the phaeton, laughingly demanding if Herbert thought she "possibly could get over that dreadful wall, or should they go further and through the gate?"
"Over it? Easy as breathing!"
She was a tiny woman and he a very strong lad: and before she knew what he was about he had caught her over his back, sack-fashion, and leaped to the top of the wide wall. A couple of steps, and he had swung her down upon the grass within the field, where she stood too amazed to speak: though Mrs. Smith, observant from a distance, dramatically exclaimed:
"My soul and body! You could knock me down with a feather!"
"Everybody's here, with all his first wife and children!" cried somebody, facetiously, as the tin horn was blown to summon the men from their labors in the field to their dinner.
"So they be! So they be! yonder comes Mis' Babcock with all her flock, root and branch. Reckoned she'd strike Skyrie about feedin' time; but there's plenty, plenty for everyone; and she's a nice woman, a hard worker an' kind neighbor. Sho! Look at Seth Winters! If that man ain't a kind of a mesmeriser, or somethin' like it! for he's actually coaxed that proud Miss Montaigne to join the merry throng! Fact. I just seen him escortin' her through the gate, an', Dorothy! mind you put on your best manners an' treat her real polite, like city folks is supposed to know how. Since she's put her pride in her pocket an' come, I'd like to have her see she ain't the only young lady up-mounting. 'Cause you belong now, you know; you're one ofus. Go meet her, whilst I fix another chair right alongside her ma and Mis' Calvert!" directed Mrs. Smith, handing the girl a plate of rusk, with the added injunction: "Take special care o' them biscuit, too, child. I made them myself, I did, an' I want the 'ristocratics to have first chance at 'em. If some them men folks tackle them on the road to table, there won't be nothin' left of them but the plate. Take care! I—Why, I don't believe she heard a word I said!"
Dorothy had heard in part. She obediently carried the plate to the table, though not to that part of it which its owner had designated, and she had answered: "Yes, Mrs. Smith, I will try." But she had suddenly perceived a forlorn figure, leaning against the stone wall that separated the field from the road, and her interest centered on that.
Poor Peter Piper was peering wistfully into that busy, happy, laughing assemblage of people, as if he longed to be among them yet felt himself shut out. He had not heard about the "Bee," and even if he had might not have comprehended what it meant. Had he been at the blacksmith's home once after the scheme was started, Seth would assuredly have given the half-wit as courteous a chance to share in the fun and labor of that day as he had given all his other neighbors. But Peter had not been seen by anybody who knew him since that visit of his to Skyrie, in company with old Brindle. He had departed then, frowning and greatly troubled. Why, his clouded mind could not understand; but something had gone wrong. The once deserted farm had become the home of strangers and he could visit it no more. Thus much he felt and knew; and that night he disappeared.
However, the poor fellow's absences were so frequent that nobody missed him from the neighborhood and Dorothy had utterly forgotten him. Now, as she saw him, her heart throbbed with pity.
"He looks as if this picnic were Paradise, and he shut out! I'm going to ask him here!"
With a swoop upon it Mrs. Smith rescued her fine rusk from the plebeian appetites which would have consumed it and carried it triumphantly to the "aristocratic" end of the head table, then stood arms akimbo, staring after Dorothy and ejaculating:
"If that don't beat all my first wife's relations! That chit of a child set down the biscuit, but she snatched up a big cake worth twice as much. She's going to coax that simpleton with it, just as a body has to coax a wild critter to come an' be caught. And I plain told her that Helena Montaigne was here, and 'twas her chanst to make friends withher. Pshaw! I don't believe that Dorothy Chester cares a pin whether she gets in with rich folks or not! 'Tain't five minutes ago 't I heard her sassin' Herbert same as she might one my own boys. Don't stand in awe of nobody, Dorothy don't, an' yet nobody gets mad at her. 'Course, I don't begrudge Peter Piper a mouthful o' victuals. None of us would, but what'sleft overafter the rest is done would be plenty good enough for him. Huh! All that splendid chocolate cake—five-layer-thick!"
As Dorothy approached the wall Peter dodged behind it and, for a moment, she thought he had run away. If he had she meant to follow; and with the ease that her long practice in chasing Hannah had given her she vaulted over the wall to pursue. But he had not run, and she landed on the further side plump beside him where he sat huddled against the stones.
"Well! It was lucky for you I didn't jump on you instead of by you!" cried the girl, as she, also, sat down on the bank.
Peter shrank aside, as one who wards off a blow, and mumbled something which she made out to mean:
"I didn't do any harm. I didn't!"
His speech was thick and he lisped like a baby learning to talk, but his face brightened when she answered quickly:
"Of course you didn't. But why aren't you in there with all the others? You must come, in a minute, back with me. First, see here?"
With the friendliest of smiles she held aloft the monster cake she had judged would be the waif's proper share of the feast, choosing for him, as she would for herself, to have the dessert come before the bread and butter.
Peter's protruding eyes fastened upon the dainty and his mouth opened widely, and for a time, at least, he knew nothing beyond that cake. Breaking it into bits, Dorothy fed him. He did not offer to take the food in his own hands, he simply opened that cavernous mouth and received with a snap of his jaws the portions she dropped therein. The operation became fascinating to the girl and she marveled to see no movement of swallowing; only that automatic opening and closing, and the subsequent absorption of the cake.
She had not supposed he would consume the whole loaf at one meal. He did. The last morsel followed the first and still there was no sign of surfeit, and the girl sprang up, saying:
"Now I must go back to help those ladies wait on the table. Will you come?"
With some hesitation Peter Piper got to his feet, and now his gaze was riveted upon her face as closely as it had been upon the chocolate cake and almost as greedily. As if within her bonny smile and unshrinking friendliness he beheld something new and wonderfully beautiful. It was just as they stood up that somebody behind the wall called out:
"Well, Peter Piper! Good enough! So you've come to the 'Bee,' too, have you? If you'd let me know where you were you'd have had your invitation long ago. Time enough, though, time enough. Always is to do a good deed, and there's a deal of work yet to be finished before nightfall. Let me tell you, Miss Dorothy Chester, there isn't a better gardener anywhere around than our friend Peter! If he'd only stick to it—if the lad would only stick to it!"
It was Seth Winters, of course, who had seen Dorothy's crossing of the field to that same spot where he, also, had discovered the feathered cap of the poor imbecile. He was honestly glad of the lad's return, being always somewhat anxious over his long absences. Much experience of life had shown him that the world is not very kind to such as Peter, and he tried by fatherly interest and goodness to make up to the boy somewhat for the harshness of others. Dorothy's action had delighted him: and with an approving smile he held his hands toward her, across the wall, and bade:
"Give me your hands, lassie! I'll help you back over; and, Peter, come."
Dorothy sprang lightly to the top of the wall and he swung her as lightly down; the half-wit following with a nimbleness one would not have expected and, like a child, catching hold of the girl's skirt and thus firmly attaching himself to her.
"Why, Peter! Don't do that! Young ladies don't like to drag big fellows like you around by main force!" remonstrated the smith, smiling and shaking his head at the youth, who merely smiled in return and clutched the tighter, even though the girl once or twice tried to loosen his grasp, attempting this so gently that it produced no effect; and thus escorted she came back to the stables beneath the trees and to the presence of Helena, toward whom officious Mrs. Smith immediately forced her.
Oddly enough, since they were so unlike, there was instant liking between the two girls; and with a smile Helena made room for Dorothy on the bench beside her. But there was no room for Peter, nor would he have claimed it now had there been plenty. With intense and haughty surprise Helena had stared at the unfortunate for a moment, till an amused contempt curved her lips in a disdainful smile.
In general, people did not credit the poor creature with sensitiveness; none save Seth Winters believing that he keenly felt the scoffs and gibes so often put upon him; but he now proved the truth of the blacksmith's opinion. Helena's scornful look did what Dorothy's efforts had failed to do—it loosened Peter's fingers from her skirt and sent him, cowering and abashed, to the furthest limit of the group. Fortunately, for him, straight also to a spot where Herbert Montaigne was merrily helping—or hindering—the women busy cooking over the fires upon the ground. Herbert had seen Dorothy's exit from the field with the great cake in hand and had, for an instant, intended pursuit that should end in a lark; then he had seen the red feathers of Peter's cap and reflected:
"That girl's got some fellow over there she's going to feed on the sly. They've both dropped down out of sight now—I reckon I won't spoil sport—shouldn't like it myself. It's none of my business anyhow, though I wouldn't mind being the fellow in the case—this time."
Also he made it sufficiently his business to watch for the reappearance of Dolly, minus the cake and attended by Seth and the too appreciative Peter. Then the whole significance of the incident flashed upon him, and to his boyish fancy for the little maid was instantly added a deep respect.
"Bless my eyes! I called her a 'daisy,' but she's more than that. There isn't a girl in a thousand who'd have done that decent thing without being bidden; but—Hello! seems as if she'd got what Mrs. Smith calls her 'come uppance'! The simpleton has glued himself to her petticoats and she can't shake him free!" Then a moment more of watching showed him the result of his sister's haughtiness and made him exclaim aloud: "Good enough for Helena! The first time I ever knew her confounded pride to be of any use. But here comes the victim of her scorn, and it's up to me to finish the job Dorothy C. has so well begun!"
In all his life poor Peter Piper had never been so happy as that day made him. Instead of the indifference or aversion commonly shown him, he was met with an outstretched hand and the genial greeting of another lad not much younger than himself; and if, for the sake of impressing others into the same friendliness, the greeting was rather overdone, the fault was on the right side and Peter was too simple to suspect it.
With a confused expression and an unaccountable warmth in his lonely heart, the "touched of God" accepted the extended hand and cast a grateful glance into Herbert's face. A look that, for an instant, suffused that youngster's own because he felt his present kindness to be "second hand." Then Peter turned about and pointed to where Dorothy now sat laughing and feasting, and volubly explaining to Mrs. Smith, between mouthfuls:
"I really couldn't help taking the nicest cake in sight, dear Mrs. Smith! I knew it was yours and belonged now to the public; and I will make you another to take its place. I—I hope it wasn't 'stealing——'" she finished, with a momentary gravity.
"Bless all my first wife's relations! Don't let such a horrid word as that come to this merry 'Bee!' It was yours, your very own, leastwise your ma's and pa's, to eat or give away just as you'd ruther. I do still think that broken pieces, after the rest has finished, would have answered the purpose full as well, but——"
"Broken pieces, Mrs. Smith! On a day like this?" cried Mrs. Calvert, reprovingly. "You do yourself an injustice. If I'm not mistaken you've put aside some mighty tender pieces of chicken and part of your own biscuits for this same poor estray."
The mistress of ceremonies blushed and bridled her head. In truth she had, indeed, "put aside" the dainties mentioned, but alas! they had been intended for the delectation of her own and her cronies' palates. With instant change of mind, however, she caught up the basket hidden beneath the table and marched valiantly forward to the spot where Herbert was supplying Peter with the best of everything he could lay his hands on. Admirably frank—when found out—good Mrs. Smith now added her store to Herbert's, and the half-wit's eyes grew more protruding than ever. Also, to the disgust of both watchful lad and woman, Peter caught the food from the basket and thrust it within his oilcloth jacket. He knew, if those watching him did not, the terrible pangs of starvation and here was provision for many a day. Besides, the whole of a rich chocolate cake does have a diminishing effect upon even such appetites as Peter's.
Bounteous as the feast was, but a brief half-hour was permitted for its consumption; then the master of the day announced:
"Our job's well begun and so half-done. Now for a fine finish and—home!"
All who were standing hurried to their tasks at this word of command, and all who were sitting as promptly rose. Among them Mrs. Cecil, with a sudden realization of her eighty years of cushioned ease and her one hour of sitting on a board. Also, her zest of the occasion had as suddenly passed. She had taken a moment's chance to speak to "Johnnie" of money matters; how it would "really be an accommodation for him to take and use some of her own superfluous ready cash, till such time as Skyrie began to yield a comfortable income"; and to her delicately worded offer "Johnnie" had returned a most awkward refusal. He had tried to soften his reply, but not being politic or tactful had succeeded only in expressing himself more brusquely. When pressed to tell if any other person had superseded her, he had to acknowledge that Friend Oliver Sands had done so, but that the affair belonged to his wife, etc.
That was the climax. Between the mistress of Deerhurst and the miller there was a grudge of long standing. Though liberal in her business dealings the old gentlewoman hated to be cheated, and she had openly declared to all who chose to listen that Oliver had cheated her. She stopped buying her feed of him and went to the extra trouble of sending all the way to Newburgh for everything in his line that was required at Deerhurst.
Few like to have their kindnesses returned upon themselves, unappreciated: Betty Calvert less than most: so with a feeling of affront, which she was too outspoken wholly to corer by politeness, she said:
"Mr. Smith, I must go home. May Dorothy Chester take your horse and wagon and drive me there?"
"Of course, and proud to have you use it. But can that little girl drive?" he asked, glancing at the child with a funny smile. Well he knew the retort he might expect—and presently received, amid a burst of kindly laughter from others around—from the lady:
"My good Mr. Smith,Isold you that nag. He's twenty years old if a day. A babe in arms could drive him! and I'll send a capable horseman back with him—and her. Good-day, all; and God speed the finish!"
She said it quite devoutly, thankful for the present help given the crippled, would-be farmer, and knowing that with even the best of help his future would be difficult.
A few moments later, for the first time in her life, Dorothy held a pair of reins in her hands, clutching them tightly as if all her strength were required to restrain the speed of the venerable animal hitched before the open "democrat" in which she sat, and that nothing could induce to anything swifter than a walk. Once she opened her lips and asked, nervously:
"Are you—much afraid, Mrs. Calvert?"
"Not—much!" quavered that lady, in mimicry, and with the most admiring contemplation of the earnest young face beside her. From the flapping ears of their steed Dorothy's own eyes never wavered. It was a wonderful experience. To pull on either rein and guide so big a creature to the right or left—Why, she had seen others drive but she had never before realized the great intelligence of a horse! Oh! how delightful it would be to own one for one's self! All the inborn love of horseflesh that, till that moment, she had not realized woke up in her small breast, and finally found voice in the exclamation:
"Oh! If Daisy-Jewel had only been a colt instead of a calf!"
"A perfectly simple matter to change him into one," quietly returned Mrs. Cecil; and hearing her, Dorothy wondered if this old gentlewoman were in truth the "fairy godmother" to whom she had sometimes likened her.
The girl did not answer. They had arrived at the gates of Deerhurst and this young "coachman" was gravely considering how to drive through them without hitting either ivy-covered pillar. So earnest was she now that Mrs. Calvert had twice to repeat a question she had long been pondering; but which fell upon Dorothy Chester's ears, at last, with the sound of an exploding bomb.
"My little Dorothy, will you come to live with me, and becomemyadopted daughter?"
"O Jim! I feel so—so guilty! Just as if I had done something dreadfully wrong!" cried troubled Dorothy C. to her faithful if jealous friend, as they were driving homeward again. The reins were in his hands this time and he held them with an ease which left everything to the old horse itself, and which would have surprised the girl had room been left in her mind for any smaller surprises after that great one of Mrs. Cecil's question.
"Don't see why," returned practical Jim. His own satisfaction was great, just then, for he had seen Herbert Montaigne driving homeward on his brand-new horse-rake, brilliant in red paint and purchased by that extravagant youth expressly for the Skyrie "Bee." Herbert had forsaken that laborious festivity, soon after the departure of Mrs. Calvert and Dorothy; but not till after he had also finished all the raking there had been for him to do. Much of the ground was so overrun with bushes and brambles that only hand-rakes were available, and to the more difficult task of these the lad did not aspire.
Now, at ease with his own conscience and at peace with all the world, he drove by the gates of Deerhurst whistling his merriest, and bent upon ending his rarely useful day by a row upon the river. He even caught a glimpse of Dorothy sitting in the farm wagon waiting for Jim to "make himself tidy after his gardening," as his mistress had directed; and had called out some bit of nonsense to her which she was too absorbed in thought to notice.
"That's all right. Needn't answer if she doesn't wish! I'll see her to-morrow and get her to go on that picnic at the camp. One picnic paves the way to another—that's easy! I don't feel now any great longing even for planked shad—such a dinner I ate! But that's one good thing about a dinner, little Kit! Take a few hours off and you'll be ready for the next one! Good thing my top-lofty sister 'took a notion' to sweet Dolly! That's going to make things lots easier for my scheme, 'but I'll 'bide a wee' before I spring it on the Pater. Eh, little Kit? Aren't you a beauty? and—good luck! You're just the thing to take her, to-morrow. She told me, to-day, they hadn't a single cat. 'Not a single cat!' In a tone of regular heartbreak, she said it, Kit! That's why I heard you squalling by the roadside and picked you up. Somebody dropped you, didn't he? Somebody a deal richer in cats than Dorothy C. Why, little Kit, I heard a workman telling the other day how he found a bag of kittens, a whole bag of them, 'lost' by somebody as heartless as your own late owner, probably, but far less wise. For the bag was a potato sack and it had the owner's name stamped in full on it. Must have lost it out the back of a wagon, the workman thought. Anyway, next day he gathered up all the stray cats and kittens he could find and in the dead of night—the dead of night, little Kit! when all dire deeds are done!—he carried the replenished sack back and left it on the 'loser's' doorstep. Good for that workman! but, query. What became of the cats? Never mind, Kitty, I know what will become of you, and your fate will be the happiest possible. Get up there, Slowpoke!" finished the lad, thrusting the tiny kitten he had found astray on the road into his blouse, and urging the work horse forward. In any case it is probable he would have picked up the lost kitten and given it a home in his father's barn, but it suited well with Dorothy's pathetic regret that he should have found it.
"You 'don't see why,' Jim Barlow, I feel so worried over what Mrs. Calvert asked? Then you're stupider than I thought. She is so kind, she found and saved me—after you, of course—and she is so old and lonely. I'd love to live with her if—if there were two of me. Already she looks to me to do little things for her that nobody else seems to think she wants, and to do them without her asking. I love her. Seems if she was sort of my folks—my own folksthat I must have had sometime. We like the same things. She adores Dickens, so do I. She loves outdoors, so do I. She—But there, it's no use! I can't go to live with her and leave father John and mother Martha. It would break their hearts and mine, too! Oh! dear! I wish she hadn't asked me; then I wouldn't have had to say 'No,' and see her beautiful old face lose all its lovely brightness. When I think how old she is, how it's but a little while she'll need me—Why, then my heart breaks in two the other way! O Jim! Isn't life a terrible, terrible perplexity?" demanded this small maid to whom "life" was, indeed, just showing its realities.
Jim listened silently, but it wouldn't have flattered her to know that it was her ready flow of language and the rather long words she used which mainly impressed him. To his practical mind it was simply impossible for any right-minded girl to forsake those who had cared for her all her life, in order to gratify the whim of an old lady whom she had known but a short time. Nor did it enter the thoughts of either of these young folks that the material advantages offered to Dorothy would be very great. It was only a question of happiness; the happiness of the Chesters or that of Mrs. Cecil.
As they left Deerhurst behind them and still Jim had answered nothing except that provoking "Don't see why," Dorothy lost her patience.
"Jim Barlow, have you lost your tongue? I think—I think you're horribly unsympathetic!" she cried, flashing a glance upon him that was meant for anger, yet ended in surprise at his actually smiling countenance. "I don't see anything funny in this business, if you do! What are you laughing at?"
Now he looked at her, his face radiant with the fun of his own thoughts, and replied:
"Lots o' things. Fust off, Dorothy, will you correct me every time I use bad language?"
"Bad—language! Swearing, you mean? Why, Jim, I never heard you, not once. Huh! If I did I reckon Iwouldcorrect you, so quick 'twould make you dizzy!"
"Pshaw! I don't mean that, silly thing! I mean—Dorothy, I want to talk like other folks: like Mis' Calvert——"
"Then begin to call her 'Mrs.'"
"Mrs. Calvert," answered Jim, obediently. "To you and her and Mr. Chester, talkin'——"
"Talking, Jim. Don't clip the g's off your words!"
He half-frowned, then laughed. She was almost too ready with her corrections. But he went on:
"I'm studyin'—studying—every night, as long as I dast——"
"Dare, you mean."
Poor Jim gasped and retorted:
"Well, dare, then, if you say so. D-a-r-e! and be done with it! Mis', I mean Mrs., Calvert has give orders——"
"Given orders, boy."
"Shut up! I mean she's told the old man and woman that keeps——"
"Who keep!"
"That keeps the gate and lives in the lodge an' I live with 'em, if you want to know the hull kit an' boodle of the story, she's give 'em orders I can't have no light lit after half-past ten o'clock, 'cause I'll spile my eyes an' break down my strength—Pshaw! as if a feller could, just a-studyin', when he's so powerful bent on't as I be! But, you know I know I don't talk quite the same as them 'at knows better an' has had more book l'arnin'," explained the young student, hopelessly relapsing into the truck-farm vernacular.
"Yes, Jim, I do know that you know, as you so tellingly put it. I've seen you flush more than once when you've noticed the difference in speech, and I'll help you all I can. I don't know much myself. I'm only a girl, not far along in her own education, but I'll do what I can; only, Jim Barlow, don't you go and get offended when I set you right. If you do you shall go on 'wallowing in your ignorance,' as I've read somewhere. Now, that's enough 'correction' for once. Tell me the other 'lots of things' you were laughing at."
"Sure! The first one, how we're goin' to get ahead of that old Quaker miller. Mis'—Mrs.—Calvert's planned the hull—whole—business. She don't like him none. She stopped me an' told me things, a few. She 'lows he's got some scheme or other, 'at ain't no good to your folks, a-lettin' good money on a wore-out farm like Skyrie. There's more in his doin's than has come to light yet. That's what she says. Even his sellin' your ma that jumpin' cow was a low-down, ornery trick. An' that bull calf—no more use to such as you-all 'an a white elephant, she says. Less; 'cause I s'pose a body'dcould sella elephant, if they was put to it. Say, Dorothy. They's a-goin' to be a circus come to Newburgh bime-by. The pictures of it is all along the fences an' walls; an', say—I'm earnin' wages now, real good ones. I told Mis', Mrs., Calvert 't I didn't think I ought to take any money off her, 'cause she's give—given—me all these new clothes an' treats me so like a prince; but she laughed an' said how 'twas in the Bible that 'a laborer is worthy of his hire' and she'd be a poor sort of Christian that didn't at least try to live up to her Bible. Say, Dorothy, she's even give me one for myself! Fact. She give it an' says she, she says: 'James, if you make that the rule of your heart and life, you can't help being a gentleman, 'at you aspire to be, as well as a good man.' Then she fetched out another book, big—Why, Dorothy! So big it's real heavy to lift! An' she called that one a 'Shakespeare.' The name was printed on it plain; an' she said the man what wrote it more years ago 'an I can half-tell, had 'done the thinkin' for half—the world, or more,' she said. And how 'if I'd use them two books constant an' apply 'em to my own life I'd never need be ashamed an' I could hold up my head in even the wisest company.' Say, Dorothy! Mis' Calvert knows a powerful lot, seems if!"
"Well, she ought. She's lived a powerful long time."
"An' I've been thinkin' things over. I don't believe Iwilltry to be President, like we planned. Lookin' into that Shakespeare feller's book I 'low I'd ruther write one like it, instead."
"O Jim! That's too delightful! I must tell father that. I must!You, a newShakespeare! Why, boy, he's the wisest writer ever lived. I'm only just being allowed to read a little bit of him, old as I am. My father picks out the best parts of the best dramas and we often read them together, evenings. But—What are the other things you thought about, and made you laugh? That circus, too; shall you go to it, Jim? Did you ever go to one?"
"Never.Never.But I'm just sufferin' to go. Say, Dorothy? If I can get all my work done, an' Mrs. Calvert she don't think it's sinful waste o' good money, an' your folks'll let you, an' it don't come on to rain but turns out a real nice day, an' I can get the loan of Mrs. Calvert's oldest horse an' rig—'cause I wouldn't dast—dare—to ask for a young one—an' I felt as if I could take care of you in such a terrible crowd as Ephraim says they always is to circuses, would you, will you, go with me?"
In spite of herself Dorothy could not help laughing. Yet there was something almost pathetic in the face of this poor youth, possessing a small sum of money for the first time, beset by the caution which had hedged his humble, dependent life, yet daring—actually daring, of his own volition—to be generous! Generous of that which Miranda Stott had taught him was the very best thing in the world—money! Of himself, his strength, his unselfishness and devotion,—all so much higher than that "money,"—he had always been most lavish; and remembering this, with a sympathy wise beyond her years, Dorothy speedily hushed her laughter and answered eagerly:
"Indeed, I will, you dear, care-taking, cautious boy, and thank you heartily. I love a circus. Father John used to take mother Martha and me to one once every summer. Why, what a perfectly wild and giddy creature I shall be! To a circus with you, a camp-picnic with Herbert and Helena, and this splendid farmers' 'Bee'—Hurray!"
Jim's countenance fell. "I didn't know 'bout that other picnic," said he. "When's it comin' off? And what is a picnic, anyway?"
"You'll see when we get home to Skyrie. A picnic is the jolliest thing there is—except a circus.Except a circus.When it's to come off I don't know, but when it does I mean you shall be in it, too, Jim Barlow. Yet you haven't finished about poor, dear Mr. Oliver Sands. You have wandered all over the face of the earth, as my teacher used to complain I did in writing my compositions. I didn't stick to my subject. You haven't stuck to yours, the Quaker man. Finish him up, for we're almost at Skyrie now."
Comforted by her ranking of a circus as something infinitely more delightful than even a rich boy's picnic, and because the fields of Skyrie were, indeed, now in view, Jim resumed concerning the gentleman in question:
"Dorothy, that calf o' yours won't never be no good. The man give him to you, all right, an' 'peared amazin' generous. But—he cal'lated on gettin' back more'n his money's worth. He'd tried to sell old Hannah time an' again, so Mrs. Calvert was told, an' couldn't, 'count of her being so hard to keep track of. He didn't dast to sell without the calf alongside, for if he did the critter's so tearin' lively she'd 'a' got back home to his farm 'fore he did, drive as fast as he might. But what he planned was: your ma take the calf for a gift an' she'd have to send to his mill to get feed an' stuff for to raise it on. To keep both cow an' calf would cost—I don't know how much, but enough to suit him all right. 'Tother side the matter, his side, you did get Hannah cheap. She's good breed, her milk'll make nice butter——"
"It does! Splendid, perfectly splendid! Mrs. Smith showed mother how to manage and it all came back to her, for she had only, as father says, 'mislaid her knowledge' and she makes all the butter we need. Not all we want—We could eat pounds and pounds! But it takes a good many quarts of milk to make a pound of butter, I've learned; and an awful lot of what father calls 'circular exercise' to make the 'butter come.' Mother bought one of those churns that you turn around and around, I mean a dasher around and around inside the churn—I get my talk mixed up, sometimes—and it takes an hour, maybe, to turn and turn. Worse than freezing ice cream in a 'ten-minute' freezer, like we had in Baltimore, yet had to work all morning to get it frozen ready for Sunday dinner. Mother thinks a dash-churn, stand and flap the dasher straight up and down till your arms and legs give out, is the best kind. But the around-and-around is the modern sort; so, of course, she got that. If Daisy-Jewel and Piggy-Wig didn't need so much milk themselves there'd be more for us. And somehow, you don't make me feel very nice toward Mr. Oliver Sands."
"Say, Dorothy. Mis' Calvert's notion is for you to sell Daisy an' buy a horse. Will you, if you get a chance?"
"Simple Simon! A horse is worth lots and lots more than a calf! was that what she meant when she said a calf might turn into a colt? A colt is a horse, after all. A little horse. Well, maybe she was right. I might sell a little calf and get a little colt. But who in the world would buy? Besides, despite all the trouble she makes, mother wouldn't part with that pretty, écru-colored cow, and Hannah will not be separated from Daisy-Jewel. I mean Daisy-Jewel will not be separated from Hannah. Even a man, Mr. Oliver Sands, said that would be 'cruel.' You don't want to have me cruel, do you, Jim Barlow?"
"Shucks! Hannah won't mourn for no calf, longer 'n a couple of hours, 'less she's different from any cow I ever see, light-complected or otherwise. As for that jumpin' notion o' hern; I'll fix her! I've been layin' out to do it, ever since I heard she done it, but somehow I didn't get the chance."
"You didn't get the chance because you never take it. I don't think it's right, Jim Barlow, for you to work every minute of daylight, fearing you won't do all your horrid 'duty' to your employer, then study all night to make yourself 'fit for your friends,' as you told me. Maybe, some of your friends might like to see you, now and then, before youare'fit,'" returned Dorothy, and with that they came to the gate of Skyrie and drove over the path to the barn, the path, or driveway, which that very morning had been overgrown and hidden with grass and weeds, but now lay hard and clean as if just newly made.
"Pshaw! Somebody's been busy, I declare!" cried Jim, admiringly, and leaped out to tie Mr. Smith's "nag" in a comfortable shady place. He did not offer to help Dorothy alight, nor did she either wait for or expect this courtesy; but seeing mother Martha in the kitchen, ran to her with an account of her brief outing.
The housemistress had slipped away from the few women guests left remaining in the field where dinner had been served. Most of them had already left for home, their part in the day's proceedings having been well finished, and each a busy farmwife who had snatched a half-day from her own crowding tasks to help the "Bee" along.
She had made many acquaintances, she was glad to know them. She "liked folks better than scenery," as she had once complained to her husband, during a fit of homesickness for "dear old Baltimore"; but she was very tired. The excitement of this unexpected visitation, and the varying emotions of the day had strangely wearied her. Besides, deep down in her heart—as in father John's—lay a feeling of wounded pride. She had been very happy, for a time, she had found herself the center of much kindly attention: and yet—she wished that the need for such attention had not existed. So she was glad now of the privacy of her kitchen whither none would intrude; and into which Dorothy ran, full of talk and eager above all things to tell of that astonishing offer of Mrs. Calvert's to re-adopt her.
But something stopped the words on her lips. She could not herself have explained why she refrained from speaking, unless it were that weary, fretful expression of Mrs. Chester's face. So, instead of bestowing confidences, she merely said:
"Mother dear, do come upstairs to your own pretty room and lie down. It's grown terribly warm this afternoon and you look so tired. I'll shut the blinds and make it all dark and cool; then I'll find father John and see if he needs me too. Come, mother, come."
With a sudden burst of affection, such as rarely came from Mrs. Chester, that lady caught the girl in her arms and kissed her fondly, saying:
"You are my good angel, Dolly darling! You are the brightness of my life. Don't ever let anybody else steal you away from me, will you? I couldn't live without you, now—and here."
Dorothy's breath came quick and sharp. How odd this was, to have her mother touch upon that very subject lying uppermost in her own heart! Could she and Mrs. Calvert have been discussing her in this way? Well, at least, she now knew that she had been wholly right. The reluctant "No" she had given Mrs. Betty was the only word to say.
The "Bee" was a thing of the past. Everybody had gone, leaving a vastly different Skyrie from that which greeted the rising sun of that memorable day. Weed-grown, bramble-infested fields lay cleared of débris, that had been gathered into heaps and burned. The garden plot was now a stretch of well-made beds wherein had been sown or set such things as would develop to ripeness that season, although it was long past orthodox time for garden-making. To the delight of his obstinate soul, even Pa Babcock's asparagus trench had been duly prepared and a sufficient number of the roots set out. But the work of the trench, or bed, had not been accomplished by himself. He had explained the pressing need of such a thing to Mrs. Calvert, who, to rid herself and others of his "talk," had promptly furnished the necessary funds to pay for the plants and had dispatched him to a distant market gardener's to procure them. He had returned sooner than was expected or desired, but could he relegate his own intelligent task to anybody else? So, for once, he really did work faithfully, spreading out each tiny rootlet with a care that insured a prompt growth, and deluging them with water which it took many trips to the spring to bring.
The old well-curb had been repaired, the well emptied of water, and cleaned. The barn had been put in order, so far as might be with the time and material at command. The roof would not leak again nor the blinds fall because of rusted hinges. Even the cellar had been swept, and garnished with double coatings of sweet-smelling whitewash; and, indeed, all that these willing helpers could think of and accomplish had been done to make the Skyrie household "start farming fair and square."
The last event of the "Bee" had been an auction.
Mrs. Calvert had sent a brief note of instructions to Seth Winters and he had promptly acted upon them. With such an assembly at hand the time was ripe for selling Daisy-Jewel to the highest bidder. So the blacksmith held a short parley with Bill Barry, the village auctioneer, and afterward started the sale by a fair price named for such a blooded quadruped.
"Seven dollars! Seven dollars! Did I hear somebody bid seven dollars? only seven for such a beautiful Jewel and Daisy combined?"
"Seven fifty!" called Jim Barlow, also acting upon instructions.
"Seven fifty—somebody higher?Andeight dollars? Eight, eight, eight, somebody raise me eight-eight-eight—Andfifty! Eight dollars and fifty cents! Why, you folks, you make me blush to be an auctioneer, standing here on a horse-block and selling away from a little girl the only piece of stawk she owns for just eight dollars and fifty cents. That I should live to—Nine, nine, nine, nine! Somebody raise me nine dollars for a full-bred Jersey bull calf! nine, nine, nine——"
"Ten!" shouted Mr. Smith, who knew he could reimburse himself in some way for this recklessly extravagant purchase.
But the chance was not for him. "Ten fifty!" shouted somebody at the rear of the crowd, and:
"Ten and fifty! Fifty, fifty, fifty—Hard word that to rattle off—Make it 'leven; and ease my poor tongue! 'Leven, 'leven, 'leven, eleven dollars and fifty cents. That's that blamed old fifty cropping up again. Go it by even dollars, friends and feller citizens, Eleven and—twelve, twelve, twelve—Almost as bad to say! Hump her up. Thirteen do I hear? Thirteen? Don't let her stick at that! who'll pay just thirteen unlucky dollars when they can buy a full-blooded bull calf for—Fourteen, do I hear? Fourteen, fourteen, four—four—four—Fifteen good American dollars for a poor little girl's pet calf! Neighbors, I am ashamed of you, I certainly am. Why, I'll bid sixteen myself, ruther 'an have such a blot as that printed on this town's archives! I will, I say, though I haven't any more use for a poor little girl's one pet calf than I have for two wives! Sixteen I bid, seventeen somebody lifts me. Eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty? Now you begin to talk! But let me warn you fellers, that this here sale is cash or its equivalent. So anyone who's just biddin' to hear himself talk—take care! Twenty-one, one, one, one, one, one, one——"
The sale went on for a long time, and the bidding grew more spirited continually. Bill Barry's taunt about cash payment touched the pride of some, but the outcome of the matter was predestined from the beginning. Seth Winters had had his instructions and now acted upon them. When nobody would "raise" him any higher, the calf was knocked down to him at thirty-five dollars and was promptly dispatched to a new home in charge of the Smith boys, who had come to see the finish of the "Bee."
Bill Barry refused to take any payment for his services in the matter, so the blacksmith hurried to find Dorothy and to place the money in her hands. To his surprise, he found her weeping bitterly, with her head against old Hannah's hairy side, as if mingling her tears with that bereaved mother's.
"Why, Dorothy dear! I understood you were tired of Daisy-Jewel and more than willing to exchange him for a colt. See here—thirty-five dollars, all in crisp banknotes, and your very own!"
But Dorothy would not be comforted, nor even lift her curly head to look upon what she now sadly considered as the price of blood, while Hannah continued to moo distractingly, yet, at the same time managed to chew her cud—the sign of a well-contented bovine mind.
Jim also drew near, a wide, short board in hand and, wholly disgusted with Dorothy's inconsistency, exclaimed:
"Pshaw! If girls don't beat all creation for changin' their minds! Here was you wantin' to be rid of that calf, now cryin' like—most like one yourself. Shucks! Dorothy Chester, where's your good sense at? An' you stand aside, will you? I want to fix Hannah so you won't have to chase her no more."
Now the truth is that Dorothy had listened to the auction with keen interest and no thought of grief till she heard Mr. Barry allude to herself as a "poor little girl with only one calf." Then the springs of self-pity were touched and she would have stopped the sale had she dared or known quite how. That her father approved of it he had told her at its beginning, and so did Jim. These two were the most sensibly practical persons she knew, even more than mother Martha,—where the question of live stock was concerned,—and she ought to be guided by their judgment. Daisy-Jewel had been a trial and expense from the day of his arrival at Skyrie, but—he washerDaisy-Jewel, and she had sold him into bondage—probably, into worse: the hands of a butcher! Thirty-five dollars! It seemed incredible: but thirty-five dollars as the price of a life. How dreadful!
"Stand still, you old misery! Now, then, my Hannah, how do you find yourself?" cried Jim, coolly pushing Dorothy aside and stepping back himself to avoid the twisting and jerking of the cow's horns. "There you be! Plenty of chance to look down on the pasture but none to go skippin' over stun walls!"
Dorothy wiped her eyes, indignant with Jim for his callous want of sympathy in her own grief, and curious about Hannah; who had ceased both mooing and chewing, confused and distracted by the thing which had befallen her.
Jim had simply hung the board he had brought upon Hannah's horns and securely fastened it there, letting it fall forward over her face at an angle which permitted her to see the ground but, as he had declared, would not encourage her search for stone walls to leap. "Easy as fallin' off a log, ain't it?" he demanded of Mr. Winters, who had watched the operation with some amusement and some compassion. "Some folks think it's mean to put boards on 'em, but Mis' Stott she said 'twas better to be mean to critters than to have critters mean to folks. Why, here has Dorothy been runnin' half over the hull farm, catchin' Hannah, when all that time she might have been studyin' her books!"
"Thanks, noble youth! I'm not 'sufferin'' to study in the summer and vacation time," answered Dorothy, who had begun to recover her cheerfulness and now asked the blacksmith, as he extended the money toward her: "What will become of Daisy now?"
"Mrs. Calvert has bought him. He will be kept on the Deerhurst farm, the other side of the mountain, and will grow up, I trust, quite worthy of his pedigree. She owns a fine herd of animals and her stock-farm is one of her chief interests here."
"Than he won't be—be murdered?"
"No, indeed. Here is your money. I must be going. Good-night."
"I'll go along with you. Good-night, Dorothy. Don't forget to ask your folks 'bout that circus!" called Jim, casting a self-important glance into Seth Winters's face as he followed him down the path.
With her money in hand Dorothy joined her parents and was well commended that she had consented to the sale of Daisy-Jewel; and for a little while, until milking-time required Martha's presence in the barnyard, the trio discussed its vast amount and the best sort of horse to be selected. Neither Mr. Chester nor his wife dashed the girl's enthusiasm or so much as hinted that the sum in hand would scarcely pay for a good horse. To her it seemed all-sufficient, not only for a horse, but for a wagon and harness as well. And—But let us not anticipate!
The circus whose coming attractions now filled Jim Barlow's mind more than even his beloved "study" had sent out its posters long ahead; so that the country folk might accustom themselves to the ideas of its tempting sights and to grow anxious to behold them. To the lad it seemed as if the days would never pass. The only relief to his eagerness was that Herbert's projected camp-picnic had been postponed on account of Helena's sudden illness. One of her bronchial attacks had kept her a prisoner within the Towers and she had become so interested in the idea of the affair that her brother waited for her to recover.
He contented himself the better by frequent visits to Skyrie, and by his gift to Dorothy of the stray kitten. The rather disreputable-looking little animal he had coaxed Miss Milliken to cleanse and adorn with a blue ribbon before its advent at Skyrie, where it now resided, petted and pampered till its thin outlines became plump ones and it almost filled that place in Dorothy's heart left vacant by Daisy-Jewel.
Also, Dolly herself had twice been sent for to visit Helena in her confinement of the sick-room, and had won the liking of everybody who saw her there. She was so simple and natural, so free from the imitating manner of some of Helena's friends who envied and toadied to the rich man's daughter, that the heiress found her society novel and refreshing. It was something quite new for Helena to be told, one day when she was "fussing" over the dainty meal sent up to her room, that:
"Why, Helena Montaigne! You perfectly wicked girl! My mother and Mrs. Calvert too both say that it's as sinful as it's ill-bred to quarrel with your food. 'Not fit to eat' isn't true. Maybe you aren't 'fit' to eat it yourself, poor dear, because you're ill. But I never saw such a dainty lunch as that, even at Deerhurst itself. Eat it, do, and get strong and make your mother happy. She's taken a lot of trouble for you. I know she went into the kitchen and fixed those things herself, because she thought your cook wasn't careful enough. Now, do behave! And I'll sing to you while you eat. I've heard my father say that at the big hotels at Atlantic City and other places they have a band play while the people dine. Well, then, I'll be your band and sing. So begin! You must! I shall make you!"
Laughing, yet wholly in earnest, Dorothy had picked a morsel of food on a fork and held it so close to Helena's lips that she had to take it, whether or not. A second morsel followed the first, and the performance was enlivened by a recital of Peter Piper's consumption of the chocolate cake.
Before she knew it Helena was laughing, and likewise before she quite realized it—so swiftly had Dorothy fed and talked—she had made a better meal than at any time since her illness. The food strengthened, for the illness was really past, and seeing her darling recover made Mrs. Montaigne very grateful to the girl whose influence had helped that recovery. Also, this general liking for his own especial friend, as Herbert considered her, fully confirmed the lad in the scheme he had formed, but had not yet broached to his family. Thought he:
"I'll wait a little longer yet, till even the Pater has seen how sweet and unselfish she is, then I'll spring it on the family. If I carry it through—Hurray!"
But though Jim knew of these visits he had not resented them. It was perfectly natural, he supposed, that girls should like other girls; and that puling, sickly-looking, stuck-up daughter of those rich folks—Well, he was glad that Dorothy could show them that a little maid who had once worked alongside himself on a Maryland truck-farm could "hold a candle" with the best of them! Herbert, himself, had not crossed Jim's way. He had gone into camp with some other lads of the Heights and had himself almost forgotten his home in the fun of that outing.
But weeks do pass, no matter how they sometimes seem to drag; and the day came when Jim and Dorothy were seated in Mrs. Calvert's runabout, a gentle horse in the shafts, and themselvesen routefor that long-dreamed-of circus.
Dorothy carried her money with her. As yet the sum received for Daisy-Jewel remained unbroken. Neither parent would use any of it, each insisting that it was Dorothy's own and that she should expend it as she saw fit: though that this would be for the horse or colt into which the calf had been thus changed was a foregone conclusion.
It had become a standard jest with the ex-postman that she should never go anywhere away from Skyrie without her pocket-book. "In case you might meet the horse of your heart, somewhere along the road. It's the unexpected that happens. You're certain to find Daisy's successor when you're unaware that he, she, or it is near." And to-day he had added:
"A circus is the very place to look for a horse! When you get there stir around and—pick up a bargain, if you can! By all means, take your pocket-book to-day!"
She had kissed his merry lips to stop their teasing but—she had carried the purse! Something unexpected was, in reality, to happen: Despite their long anticipation, this happy pair of youngsters were to fall short of their ambition—they were not to visit the circus.