group of girls and woman bakingBUTTONS PREPARING TO “COOK A PIE.”—Page 138.
BUTTONS PREPARING TO “COOK A PIE.”—Page 138.
“No.”
“Do your father and mother ever go to church?”
“No,”—moving forward now of her own accord, with some haste toward the door.
“O you’re gone, are you? Well, littlegirl, you needn’t call again. Do you hear?”
“There, that’s splendid,” said Sadie admiringly. “To think what a little heathen she is! Do you suppose it’s safe to live near such people?”
“We shan’t have any more trouble fromher, I’m thinking,” returned the “protector of the family,” feeling that he had vindicated his character.
But little Mary was not quite satisfied. This behavior was hardly in accordance with the daily precepts and examples of her parents, who had taught her that she ought to pity and try to help the poor, ignorant, and unfortunate.
She pondered on the subject at intervals all the morning, as she sat in the hammock, amusing her devoted little friend, Kittyleen. Pecy looked as if she never had a good timein her life. Was it fair to drive her away? Could she herself do anything for the child? If so, what, and how?
Fanny and Blanche were off in the meadow making daisy-wreaths as a pretty surprise for to-night’s ice-cream party. In the house Sadie arranged pond lilies in a cracked bowl, repeating to Preston the stanza,—
“From the reek of the pond, the lilyHas risen in raiment white,A spirit of air and water,A form of incarnate light.”
“From the reek of the pond, the lilyHas risen in raiment white,A spirit of air and water,A form of incarnate light.”
“From the reek of the pond, the lilyHas risen in raiment white,A spirit of air and water,A form of incarnate light.”
“From the reek of the pond, the lily
Has risen in raiment white,
A spirit of air and water,
A form of incarnate light.”
“Sadie is too hifalutin’ for anything,” thought Lucy, who had the rice pudding on her hands. Ah, that pudding!
Lucy had forgotten, or did not know, that rice has a habit of swelling. Before long it had risen to the top of the kettle and was overflowing it, like an eruption of lava down the sides of a volcano.
“Oh, look, look,” cried Sadie, “it’s like the genius in the Arabian Nights, that flew out when the bottle was opened, and grew to a great steam giant!”
“Can’t stop to talk fairy stories. Get the spider!” cried Lucy.
She filled the spider from the bubbling, dripping kettle.
“The pudding dish! Big platter!”
The white-hot spirit of the mischievous rice was just beginning his frolic.
“The pitcher!”
The steam giant was still rising, growing, dancing ever upward.
“Sugar bowl! Pour out the sugar on the table! All the plates.—O, dear, all the cups and saucers!”
“Don’t you want the teaspoons? Here, let’s stop this nonsense,” said Preston. And coming to the rescue, he swung off the kettleand poured the bewitched contents upon the grass at the back door.
“Oh, you extravagant creature! You’ve wasted three pounds of rice and half a pound of raisins, and killed the grass!”
Preston gazed in inward consternation at the ruinous white flood; but he was not going to confess his sins to cousin Lucy.
“That’s the proper way to serve rice pudding,” said he. “Always serve hot, and make it go as far as you can. Now let the children pick out the plums.”
“But our pudding’s gone.”
“I’ll cook a pie,” replied he, with alacrity. “I cooked ’em last summer at the lakes fit to set before a king.”
Laughing was the very mainspring of life at Camp Comfort; but the girls had never laughed yet as they did now, to see Buttons in full swing preparing to “cook a pie.” Lucykindly summoned every member of the family to witness the performance. The taking-off of his coat, the pinning-up of his sleeves, the tying-on of an apron, the swathing of the head in a towel, the cleansing of hands with sand-soap and nail-brush; and Buttons was ready for action.
“Now,” said he, drawing a long breath and looking authoritatively through his spectacles. “Now, bring on the flour and things, and butter some plates.—Lard, butter, knife, spoon.—Where’s your milk? No, water won’t do. I prefer milk. Bring me half a cup.—Where’s your salt?”
He carefully measured out a half-cup of equal parts of butter and lard, and rubbed it into a pint of flour.
“Now, cream tartar and soda.”
The girls brought them with a growing feeling of respect. He stirred two teaspoonfulsof cream tartar into the flour, dissolved half as much soda in the milk, mixed all together rapidly, and rolled the mass on the board.
“I hope ’twill be better than the pie we had yesterday, that was baked in the spider,” said Mary, not heeding Lucy’s frown.
“How tough that was,” said Blanche. “What did Lucy put in to make it so tough?”
“She didn’t put in much of anything,” replied Fanny. “Jack said you could have cut it with a pair of scissors, ’twas so thin.”
“Hush, children, the rest of us couldn’t have done as well,” said Sadie, leaning over the table, watching Preston’s efforts. “What shall you fill it with?”
The question startled him: he had not thought of the inside of the pie.
“Oh, almost anything,” said he, carefully trimming the edges of the lower crust.
“Are there any lemons?”
“No, Jack used a dozen yesterday for one pitcher of lemonade,” said Lucy.
“But we have some very green apples if the children haven’t eaten them all.”
“Fly round then and slice ’em.”
“How impertinent!” cried the whole family. “Take notice,thisis the way Buttons makes pies.”
But they “flew round,” all five of them, and picked some very green currants off the bushes in the back yard with merry good will.
“Now, behold me fill my pies,” said Preston, slowly sifting a cup of sugar over the bottom crust before he put in the currants.
“May I behold, too?” asked the grocer, who stood at the side door. He had heard the laughing half a mile away.
“Yes, sir, this is my cooking school.”
“Well, go on with your lecture. Youmake a real pretty picture standing there with that rig on.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I was about to remark, it’s truly lamentable, the ignorance of girls and women! They put the currants in first andthenthe sugar, and the juice spills out all over the oven.—See, here is the oven ready. What have you been thinking of, girls, to let that fire go out?”
“You see how he acts, Mr. Fowler,” said Sadie, as Lucy put wood in the stove.
“But, as I was saying—sugar first,thencurrants, and the juice stays in. Bring some water to pour in, Flaxie.”
“Can’t I hire you to come and show my women folks how to cook?” said the grocer, laughing at the notion of placing sugar below currants.
But there was reason in the “notion,” as the event proved, for the juice did “stay in,”and the pie would have done Preston great credit, if it had not been trifled with in the oven, like all the Camp Comfort baking. But it was far superior to Lucy’s spider-pie, and a vote was taken on the spot for a change of cooks.
Preston was jubilant, for was not this his second victory for the day?
The weather was sultry, and after dinner everybody would gladly have reclined in the hammocks under the shade, if Lucy had not suddenly remembered that ice-cream always suggests cake. Lemon-cake was made and burned; but the ice-cream party did not come off on account of a heavy shower which rose about six o’clock.
In the midst of it arrived the incorrigible Pecielena Pancake with a new errand. Preston was chagrined. Had he inspired her with no real awe after all?
“Have you got an ambril?”
An umbrella was useless now, for she was thoroughly soaked and dripping with rain.
“I want to take it to the paster,” said she, “so’s to keep themilkdry!”
“Go a-way!” exclaimed the campers in concert; and at a signal from Preston they all clapped hands, and pursued the astonished little vagrant to the door. Everybody but Mary. Somehow, as she looked at the poor, wild creature, with the bright, restless, unhappy eyes, a feeling of pity moved her.
“Be ye kindly affectioned one toward another.” Did that mean tramps, too? She had been thinking of it all day. She was not sure. Of course, nobody wanted gipsy children coming around to bother, especially after they had been forbidden the house; and Preston was a very, very good boy, every body said so, and not likely to do anythingcruel. Still, it could not be denied that Pecy Pancake was a human being, and that it was raining. On the whole, Mary thought she had done well not to help “clap her out.”
Whatan evening that was! It had only rained when Pecy came, but soon the rain turned to hail, which the wind drove rattling against the windows. It was a wild storm, and they had sent the poor child forth, perhaps to perish in it, simply because she was disagreeable and wanted to borry “an ambril to keep the milk dry.” Probably she had never held an “ambril” in her life, and could not resist the temptation to ask for one when the opportunity offered.
Preston went to the door and called to her, but she had run like a deer, and was already out of sight and hearing.
“Itistoo bad,” said Lucy, “just look at those hailstones as big as robins’ eggs! Did that child have anything on her head?”
“Yes,” replied Mary, pacing the floor excitedly, “an old sunbonnet. But the hailstones will strike right through it. Don’t hailstones ever kill people?”
“Oh, don’t worry! It didn’t hail when we sent her out, or we wouldn’t have done it, of course. But she’s as tough as a pine-knot; ’twould take more than hailstones to killher,” said Preston; and then he whistled to keep his courage up.
“Girls, if there’s an ‘ambril,’ let’s have it. I’m going to the ‘paster,’ wherever it is, to find her.”
And go he would and did, in spite of all remonstrances. He was gone a long while, and when he returned, the sky was clear again.
“Yes, I found her.She’sall right. She had a quantity of ice-cream in her ‘milk-bucket’ to take home.”
“Did she row across the river?”
“Yes, and I stood and watched her safe over. I tell you she’s smarter than chain-lightning.”
He did not relate that he had found her crying bitterly, and that she had evidently suffered not only from fright but from wounded feeling. She had uttered no word of complaint, but her silent tears had given him a feeling of remorse he would never forget. He rose early next morning to caulk the old boat which lay useless in the barn. “Abbott” had promised to do it, but “Abbott” and the “Electric Light” were both inclined to forgetfulness, and all the hard tasks were sure to fall, sooner or later, on “the old man of the family.”
“I believe the concern is seaworthy now, and suppose we row across the river,” said he, when breakfast was despatched.
There were six little cries of ecstasy. It was “Dishes, take care of yourselves if you can;” and, as for food, the flies seemed disposed to take care of that.
It was a lovely morning, the atmosphere being particularly bright and clear after last night’s storm. Gorgeous red and gold butterflies hovered in the air, a robin in the front yard hopped along five steps, then stopped to look at the campers, and the eastern morning sun threw his shadow before him exactly his own size.
“It’s a perfect state of bliss to go rowing this morning,” exclaimed Mary, as they entered the boat.
“’Twas all we needed to make us perfectly happy,” remarked Sadie Patten, longingto repeat some poetry, but restrained by fear of Lucy.
The river Dee, though remarkably deep, was narrow and soon crossed.
“Let’s call on our Pancake friends before we go any farther. What say?” said Preston, helping the girls out of the boat.
It was just what he had come for; he wished to set his conscience at rest about Pecy; and the girls had understood and sympathized all the while, without a word being said.
“Yes, let’s call,” said they.
The Pancakes lived in a small red cottage. Somebody says, “A red house blushes for the man who painted it;” but this house had more to blush for than that,—dirt and disorder without and within. It was badly weather-stained, and the windows were half glass, half rags. Outside there were twoold tubs, a rake with stumpy teeth, and a mop lying across some battered tin pans. The children around the door were as shaggy-headed as their playmate, a lame old dog; and indeed the only graceful object about the premises was the soft blue smoke, which was happy enough to escape from the miserable house through the low chimney.
Here dwelt the family of Pancakes. The father had once been a decent, though “queer” man, living in Kentucky; but his wife died, and her death seemed to turn his brain and make him “queerer” than ever. He married again, a miserable woman, belonging to the sort of people in the South called “Crackers;” and from that time he did not seem to care what became of him. After many wanderings he had settled at last at Old Bluff, declaring he would not move again. His wife could not read, and he hadgiven up books himself, and had no wish to send his children to school or church. Pecy, the eldest, was his first wife’s daughter, and by far the brightest of them all; but the stepmother made her a perfect drudge, and the browbeaten child had scarcely a moment to herself, except in going to and from the “paster.” Her loiterings at Camp Comfort had already caused her several beatings. The family lived chiefly by hunting and fishing, had nothing to do with their neighbors, and of course sank lower and lower, and grew poorer and poorer, though to their credit it must be said that they had never yet been known to steal.
Half a dozen children stood staring at Preston as he knocked at the cottage door. It was opened after some time by Mrs. Pancake, who wore a blue and yellow calico gown, falling in straight lines to her ankles;and though her feet were bare, her head was covered by a monstrous pink sun-bonnet, shaped like a flour-scoop. She had a cup in her hand, and was stirring the contents with a yellow spoon.
“Good morning,” said Preston for his whole party, who were grouped about him in silence.
The woman did not return the greeting, and they all felt that their presence was not welcome.
“We came to inquire for your little girl. We hope she did not take cold last night in the rain; did she?”
“Wal, yes, she done took a fever cold,” replied the woman crossly, pointing to a bunch of straw on the floor, whereon lay a child smelling at a rag rolled in tar. It was Pecy, and she immediately covered her face.
“Can we do anything for her?” asked Lucy; and Lucy’s manner was very sweet when she chose. Pecy had never happened to hear her voice sound like this; and something—perhaps it was surprise—caused her to shake with convulsive sobs.
“I dun know,” replied the woman, stirring vigorously with the spoon. “I’m mixing mandrake and ’lasses. I’lowedshe’d get wet goin’ to the pastur’ in the rain; but she won’t mindme, sevin’ (excepting) I licks her.”
“What a home, and what a mother!” thought the campers.
“Would you like to have us bring her some lemons and sugar?” asked Preston.
There was a quick stirring of the bundle of rags on the floor, and Pecy’s rough head and flushed face appeared for a moment above the surface.
“We are all sorry you are sick, Pecy,” continued Preston; “we didn’t know those hailstones were coming, or we would have kept you at our house.” This was as near a confession as he chose to make; and, closing the subject, “Now we’ll go back and get the lemons and sugar. Good-by, Pecy.”
“Did you ever in all your life!” exclaimed Sadie, when they were safely in the boat again. Words seemed utterly powerless to express the astonishment, pity, and disgust of the whole party. “I’m so glad you thought of the lemons, Preston,” said Lucy.
For there was an unspoken feeling with her and all the rest, of responsibility for the little creature they had thoughtlessly ill-treated. Was there anything more they could do for her? They “wondered she didn’t die and done with it in such a home. Perhaps her mother would kill her with herdoses.” Yes; but who had driven her out without mercy into the storm? If sheshoulddie, would Camp Comfort be free from blame?
They hastened back with ten lemons,—all they had of yesterday’s purchase,—and their entire stock of sugar and flour. Not a word of thanks did they receive or expect; but the look of joy on Pecy’s dusky face was reward enough.
“Oh,she’sall right,” said Preston. “A little sore throat, that’s all. And tar won’t hurt her, or mandrake either.—There, now, spread your parasols, for the sun’s coming out. Shall we row up stream or down?”
The next Saturday evening Mary Gray was sitting at her mother’s feet, looking wistfully in her face. She had come home to stay over Sunday, and had just been repeating in a sweet, clear voice, and with unusual feeling,the “verse” she was to speak at Sabbath School concert:—
“God wants the happy-hearted girls,The loving girls, the best of girls,The worst of girls!He wants to make the girls his pearls,And so reflect his holy face,And bring to mind his wondrous grace,That beautiful the world may be,And filled with love and purity.God wants the girls.”
“God wants the happy-hearted girls,The loving girls, the best of girls,The worst of girls!He wants to make the girls his pearls,And so reflect his holy face,And bring to mind his wondrous grace,That beautiful the world may be,And filled with love and purity.God wants the girls.”
“God wants the happy-hearted girls,The loving girls, the best of girls,The worst of girls!He wants to make the girls his pearls,And so reflect his holy face,And bring to mind his wondrous grace,That beautiful the world may be,And filled with love and purity.God wants the girls.”
“God wants the happy-hearted girls,
The loving girls, the best of girls,
The worst of girls!
He wants to make the girls his pearls,
And so reflect his holy face,
And bring to mind his wondrous grace,
That beautiful the world may be,
And filled with love and purity.
God wants the girls.”
“I think that is just lovely, mamma. Only it doesn’t seem somehow as if He could, you know! Notthe worst of girls!” Then interrupting herself,—“Mamma, are there any heathen in America?”
“Yes, my daughter, I fear there are. But why do you ask? You can never have seen any?”
“Yes, mamma, I have seen them. They live at Old Bluff. Their name is Pancake.They don’t belong anywhere, and they haven’t been there long. Preston says Queen Victoria ought to take care of them, but I suppose she hasn’t heard of them yet, and they are growing up heathen. Why, mamma, they can’t read, and don’t go to church; they fish Sundays, and dig worms and shoot ducks.”
And Mary went on with a graphic story of Pecy, one of “the worst of girls,” and the bother they had had with her at Camp Comfort. When it came to the adventure in the hailstorm, Mrs. Gray looked pained.
“I knew you wouldn’t like it, mamma, when they clapped her out. She got sick, too, and we all went to see her, and carried lemons and sugar, and she was well in a day or two. But, oh, such a house, and such a mother! Preston says she thinks the earth stands still, and the sun moves round it!Her husband knows more; but what I was going to ask you is,—Well, you remember those Chinese babies——”
Mary found it difficult to proceed.
“Yes, dear, I remember.”
“You said I wanted to please Mrs. Lee, and make her and the girls think I was generous. That was true; I know I did, and it has made me ashamed ever since,” said Mary, a pink blush creeping over her forehead.
Her mother saw it, and wondered if anything in all this naughty world is more innocent than a child’s blush? She was sure there is nothing half so fair.
“Well, dear, go on.”
“So I was thinking——Are these Pancake heathen almost as bad as the Chinese, mamma?”
“Yes, quite as bad, I should say.”
“Well, then, couldn’t I give them all myJuly pin-money, and not let anybody know it? That would make up for the Chinese babies; and I know I should feel better.”
“Are you in sober earnest, Mary?”
“Yes, mamma, I’ve thought and thought about it. I’m in real earnest this time, and I don’t want to be ‘seen of men.’ Do you understand, mamma?”
“Yes, dear, I understand. But you wanted new gloves and new music.”
“I know it, but I don’t care. I can wait. I’ve thought it all over, and I shan’t be sorry this time. Are you willing?”
“Perfectly willing.”
Mrs. Gray considered a moment. “I will consult with Mr. Lee or Miss Pike about this family. They are both very wise in such matters; and if they approve youshallgive something to the little girl. And I promise you, Mary, nobody shall know who gives it.”
“Papa, we are starving. Do send us a watermelon!” wrote Mary one day, and sent home the note by little Kittyleen, whose visit was at last over.
Dr. Gray laughed again and again at this pathetic appeal, and chancing to see Mrs. Townsend picking strawberries in her garden, he paused as he went by to tell her how the children were suffering.
“They had plenty day before yesterday,” said she, laughing in her turn. “O doctor, have you ever been out to their camp? They are the most disorderly, wasteful creatures:and just think of the grocer’s bills they are running up.”
“It’s an extravagant piece of business,” assented the doctor; “but they are having a delightful time, something to remember all their lives. It won’t last more than two or three weeks at farthest, and I for one shan’t mind the bills if the little souls don’t starve and are happy.”
“You are just like the general,” returned Mrs. Townsend, with a disapproving smile; and then went into the house to make with her own hands a strawberry short-cake for Miss Pike and Julia Gray to take to Camp Comfort in the sunshade carriage with the other goodies.
It was quite the fashion for the parents, aunts, cousins, and other friends to make little donation visits to the quintette, who always hailed both visitors and viands withjoy. But to-day the “favorite friend,” Miss Pike, sister Julia, and the watermelon, coming all together, were almost too much for Mary.
Miss Pike was the most entertaining of guests, and had brought a story with her, written expressly for the Quintette Club—so she informed them as they all gathered about her in a delighted group after dinner.
“Oh let’s have it now, this moment. Oh, Miss Pike, you are a darling.”
“Well, you may bring my hand-bag, Mary. And will Julia read aloud while I sew? For I’m rather hurried, you see.”
She had already been over to Old Bluff, measured Pecy Pancake with her eye, and found she was about Fanny’s size; and now the dear soul began to baste a calico frock for the machine, while Julia read.
Here I am, at my last gasp. I’ve stood it thirty-five years without flinching, but now my time is come. Pleasant sky, you and I must part. Bright sun, good by. Remember I am but a “humble instrument,” and forgive me for smoking in your face. Look, iron-hearted men,—see how a hero dies! For I’m dying in a good cause, and it’s not I that will cry “Quarter.”
Well, what would you do? Here I am alone,—shovel, tongs, cooking-stove, all gone, that made life desirable! Yesterday, sir, you climbed atop of the house, tore off the tin roof, and rolled it up into parcels like so much jelly-cake. I looked on and saw you, but the bitterness was past. The time I could have wept was the day my family hadnotice to leave. Now they are gone, and what care I what happens? I saw you pull down the walls, till the air was so thick with plaster you could almost cut it with a knife. I saw you rip up the chamber-floor as if it had been a rag carpet. I saw you pull away the door-steps, wheresheused to stand, looking up and down the street.
I saw women and children coming to carry away shingles and clapboards for kindlings. Little by little, crash by crash, down went the house, till there was nothing left standing but the other chimney and me—and this morninghewas taken. Now I’m sole survivor. I’m red as far down as the chamber fireplace; the rest of the way I’m white. Some of you laughed, seeing me standing up alone, with a white body and red head, and said I looked “like a monument smiling at grief.”
Well, yes, and my grief began to come (or rather I began to come to grief) last winter, when I first heard my family say the “city fathers” were going to “improve the street.” As we were a frame house, one story with basement kitchen, I feared, and my family feared, our room would be considered better than our company.
“And if they do pull the house down, where shallwego?” asked poor Mr. Dean, as they all sat about the sitting-room fireplace. He was always asking his wife “what they should do,” and she a sick woman, coughing there in her chair! But Mr. Dean has been a broken-down man ever since that affair of Dick’s, which I am about to relate.
There are three Dean children, John, Dick, and Nell.She—I mean Nell—has a voice like a harp, and I’ve heard it remarked that her hair is a trap to catch a sunbeam.Bless her, I always did my best to draw whenshelaid the coal on the grate! Her father never could understand why she had so much better luck than he had in making a fire!
John, the oldest, is married, and living in Boston. He has always paid his father’s rent, and the Deans have lived here ever since Dick was born. Ithinkthey had a life-lease. They could afford to laugh at their neighbors on moving day. Who’ll laugh now? I’m getting wheezy—thank you, little boy—put on more shingles, it warms my heart.
Where was I? O, speaking of the trouble. It is the family mystery, twelve months old; and the odd part of it is, that I know more about it than anyone else in the family.
A year ago, when Dick was attending the academy, he came home one night with a diamond ring on his forefinger.
“How splendid! Whose is it?” said Nell, who was making buttered toast for supper.
“That’s telling,” says Dick. “What if it’s my own?”
“Then it’s paste.”
“Paste, ma’am? It’s asolitaire, worth seven hundred dollars.”
Nell let the toast burn. She put the ring on her finger and turned it round and round. Knowing it was worth seven hundred dollars, and its owner wouldn’t take a thousand, she saw at once it was an elegant affair. After Dick had teased her a while, he told her it belonged to James Van Duster, the wealthiest boy in school.
“And he doesn’t know I’ve got it. I slipped it off his finger while I was helping him out with his Greek. Won’t it be a good joke to see his long face to-morrow morning?”
“O Dick, how dared you?” said Nell.
And then I smelt the toast burning again, and heard her scraping it with a knife.
“The ring is too large for you, Dick. Let me take it for safe keeping.”
“You, Miss Nell! Why, you’d serve it up in the toast-dip, just as you did the saltspoon last week.”
“But think, Dick, if anything should happen to such a splendid jewel!”
“There isn’t anything going to happen! Don’t fret! If I was in the habit of losing things now——”
Dick checked himself, and I suspect he blushed. Nell, with all her kindness of heart, couldn’t help laughing, for Dick was as harum-scarum as a hurricane.
I felt low-spirited from that moment, and knew I shouldn’t breathe freely till the precious ring was fairly out of the house.
In the evening Dick came down into thebasement kitchen again to crack some butternuts. He knelt by the brick hearth and began to pound. I could have told him better than that. There was a crack in a corner of the fireplace, and all of a sudden off slipped that ring and rolled into it.Of course!
You could have knocked me over with a feather. But, as true as I stand here, that boy went whistling upstairs, and never missed the ring till Nell asked what he had done with it.
You may depend there were a few remarks made then. Dick rushed upstairs and down, and the whole family went to hunting. Next morning a carpenter was sent for to take up the boards under the dining-room table. There was a hole in the carpet there, and Dick was almost sure he must have dropped the ring when he stooped to pick up his knife.
How I longed to be heard! I talked then as plainly as I do now, but they thought it was the wind “sighing down chimney.”
Nell suggested that the ring might be around the fireplace.
“You’re warm, my dear,” whispered I, as they say in games when you come near a right guess.
But, alas, they didn’t look deep enough; there was a crack in the mortar under the bricks, and there lies that ring now, at the north-east corner, eight inches from the surface; there it lies to this day!
Well, what’s a diamond ring? Nothing but the dust of the earth; no better than Lehigh coal anyway. But James Van Duster didn’t think so. And the worst is to tell. He wasn’t quite so absent-minded as our Dick took him to be;heknew when the ring was drawn off his finger as well as eitheryou or I would have known. And being a high-spirited young fellow, with a narrow mind, and envious of our Dick besides, what should he do that morning but send an officer after Dick. You could have heard Mr. Dean groan across the street. The officer was very polite, and listened respectfully to all the family had to say; but I’ve no means of knowing whether he believed it or not. All I can state with certainty is that old Mr. Van Duster interfered, and said if Dick could pay James the price of the ring, the matter should be hushed up, and he needn’t go to jail.
Seven hundred dollars! Why, old Mr. Dean just earned his salt by tending an oven at a bakery! There was nothing in the house of any value but Mrs. Dean’s piano, and that wouldn’t bring more than three hundred dollars. Of course it went, though—poor Nelly, how that took thelife out of her!—and John made up the rest of the money in the shape of a loan. I did think John was hard-faced, wife or no wife. He might havegivenDick the money for their mother’s sake. It was too bad for such a young fellow as Dick to be saddled with a debt.
After this he couldn’t afford his time to go to school; so he got a clerkship. He tried to hold up his head with the best of them till he began to see his mates turning the cold shoulder. The Van Dusters hadn’t kept their word. You see, the story had been whispered around that Dick stole a solitaire and sold it to a Jew who had run off with it, andthatwas why James Van Duster was obliged to stoop to wear a cluster diamond. This was more than Dick could bear. He ran away, and went to work on a farm in New Jersey. He keptwriting home that his mother’s letters were his greatest comfort. She had perfect faith that the mystery would be cleared up some time, but I think hope deferred was the cause of her illness.
The old gentleman gave up at once, and everything fell upon Nell. She found some employment, embroidering and copying and the like of that, and had most of the housework to do besides. I never knew such a girl. All the amusement she seemed to have was going to the door, standing on the steps, and looking up and down the street.
(More shingles, boys, I’m about out of breath.)
Ah, well, we’ve been a suffering family; but we have our blessings after all; not the least of which is Nell. We have had some cosy times this winter, too, popping corn over the open fire; but it’s all past now.The family went to Thirty-fifth Street yesterday. I don’t know how I could have borne it, but I’m sustained by this reflection; I am dying; dying, too, for the good of the family.
Yes, whenIfall the ring will be revealed! To whom? Aye, there’s the rub! Not to you noisy, rollicking boys, I hope and trust! I keep looking out for Nell. I heard her tell her mother day before yesterday “she should watch that kitchen chimney when it went.”
Bravo! There she stands! That’s Nell! That modest girl in the blue dress, with the bird on her hat. Bravo, Nell! I’m reeling, dear. I’ve got my death-blow, I’ve only been waiting for you!
Hammer away, ye iron-hearted men! Make an end of me now. I’m dying in a good cause, sirs, in a good cause,yes!
Farewell, sweet Nell,North-East corner; eight inches down!Farewell, N-e-l-l!
Allow me to add that our friend, the late Chimney, did not die with a lie in his mouth. Therewasa ring. Nell found it.
Imagine the delight of the Dean family! The newspapers made it appear that the Honorable Van Duster was very magnanimous, for he gave Dick the price of the ring—seven hundred dollars. Why not, indeed? Hadn’t Mr. Van Duster received payment in full? But he also gave back the boy’s good name, which was worth a thousand diamond rings.
“But he can’t make up to my Dick for the two dreadful years he has borne. That suffering canneverbe made up,” said old Mr. Dean, shaking the ashes out of his pipe.
I can’t agree with him. Hasn’t the sufferingbeen made up to Dick in patience and thoughtfulness and charity for others? If you knew him you would think so, I know. It was a hard experience; but Dick is wondrously improved. He is the staff of the family now, and his loving mother says:—
“The sorrows of his youthful daysHave made him wise for coming years.”
“The sorrows of his youthful daysHave made him wise for coming years.”
“The sorrows of his youthful daysHave made him wise for coming years.”
“The sorrows of his youthful days
Have made him wise for coming years.”
Miss Pikehad “a kind of awaywith her,” as Mary expressed it, which was charming alike to old and young and rich and poor. In the three days she spent at Camp Comfort she won the hearts of the Pecks, who lived half a mile at the left; also the hearts of the Browns, who lived half a mile at the right. And across the river, in that benighted red cottage, her presence was felt like a full beam of sunshine.
She was interested at once in poor, wretched, overworked little Pecielena, who, she saw, was far superior to her vagabondbrothers and sisters. She told the Quintette she would like to become better acquainted with the child, and suggested asking her over to the camp to dinner. Pecielena had never even knocked at their door since the night of the hailstorm; but Mary espied her at a distance with her milk-pail, and ran up to her, saying, with beaming good will,—
“Pecy, we’ll let you come to our house to dinner to-morrow if you want to!”
Some people might not have considered this a very cordial invitation, but Pecy was more than satisfied with it, and, as her mother had been won by Miss Pike, there was no objection made to her going.
“What, eat dinner atthathouse! Would the girls let her sit down with them at the table?” she wondered, feeling as if a star had dropped at her feet.
Meanwhile Dr. and Mrs. Gray had arrived,their carriage fairly loaded with eatables, a huge plum pudding riding between them, to make room for which little Ethel had to be perched at their feet on a cricket. It was Dr. Gray’s first vacation, and he would have preferred a day at the seaside; but when he heard that the Quintette would “break camp” in another week, he decided to visit Old Bluff and make Mary happy.
“How good you are, papa, and how I love you!” said she, springing into his arms, while the girls rolled the dainties out of the carriage like peas out of a pod.
“Oh, mamma!” said she, when she had her mother to herself at last in her own hammock, “we are going to have that heathen I told you of to dinner. And I haven’t said one word to Miss Pike about my giving her my pin-money, not one word. There are three poor families,—Jack calls them a‘peck of brown pancakes;’ he means the Pecks, and Browns, and Pancakes, you know. And the girls want to do something for all of them, and I suppose they think I’m cold-hearted and stingy.”
“Well, you don’t like them to think that, do you?”
“Yes, I do, mamma; it’s no more than fair,” said Mary stoutly.
Mrs. Gray had never in her life felt so well pleased with her young daughter as at this moment. It was very clear now that Mary had been honestly disgusted with her own conduct, and had chosen this way to punish herself for her false charity and love of display.
“And I’ll not spoil it all by praising her,” thought the discreet mother.
When she went into the house with Mary the girls began to talk about Pecielena. Theywere rather “in fancy” with her since Miss Pike had taken her up.
“You don’t know how she has improved, auntie, since we came here,” said Lucy. “She used to be saucy; but somehow she’s afraid of us now, and we never see her unless we meet her, or go where she is.”
“And she doesn’t look the same in the new calico dress, does she, Miss Pike?” said Sadie. “She isn’t handsome, but she has soft, graceful ways like a kitten, and like a swan, and like a gazelle; and you ought to see her row a boat! If mother’s willing, I’m going to give her my dark green ladies-cloth dress to make over.”
“I’m going to show her how to bang her hair,” said Fanny. “And I have a Kate Greenaway dress she may have.”
This, with a side-glance at Mary. “I’d as lief let her have my handbag as not,” remarked Blanche Jones.
“Shan’tyoudo anything, Flaxie? You have so much money of your own.”
Mrs. Gray could scarcely restrain an amused smile as Mary replied in a low voice,
“Perhaps I’ll do something—I’ll see”—and then had to steal out of the room for fear she might add,—
“Yes, indeed I’m going to do more than all the rest of you put together. And if mamma’s willing, I shall teach Pecy her letters too!”
The young lady under discussion was now seen approaching the house.
“Why, this can’t be the little savage you’ve said so much about,” exclaimed Mrs. Gray, looking out of the rainbow-window. “But what a thin, old looking face!”
Pecy was in holiday attire. Miss Pike’s calico dress fitted her well, and it seems she did possess a pair of whole shoes, and hadborrowed her mother’s pink sun-bonnet. To say she was modest and well-behaved would be incorrect; but Mrs. Gray did not find her as bold and impudent as had been at first represented.
Though twelve years old, she had never dined at a really civilized table; so now, when she found herself seated before an array of brown linen tablecloth, clean dishes, and tolerably bright silver, she was obviously quite bewildered. In her eyes, Dr. Gray was a wonderful man, while his wife and daughters were no less than queen and princesses. As for Miss Pike, she would probably have classed her among angels, if she had ever heard of such beings, which is hardly likely.
She could not manage a fork, and in attempting it, often dropped her food upon the tablecloth. But it was worst of all when the pie was served. Lucy, annoyed by hershocking manners, refrained from looking at her, as she said with cool politeness,—
“Pecielena, will you have a piece of pie?”
Now Miss Pancake, painfully aware of her awkwardness, was resolved for once to show her quickness and dexterity. Never stopping to see that Lucy was about to put the pie into a little plate, she held out herhandfor a piece! You can hardly believe it, but that was the fashion at home. Shealwaysheld out her hand when she wanted a piece of pie, and her mother flung it into her outstretched palm. How should she know that this was not the custom that prevailed in polite society? But when Lucy passed her a little plate with freezing dignity, she understood her mistake in a moment. She saw, too, that Mary and Fanny were exchanging glances of surprise and amusement. They would have laughed aloud if they had dared.
All this was too much for poor little Pecy, who had tried to behave so well. She sprang up suddenly, overturned her chair, and, never stopping for her pink sun-bonnet, ran for dear life out of the house. She did not cease running till she reached the bank; and then she sat down upon some stones and cried. It was an immense relief to get away from such overstrained gentility. Pie in little plates indeed! As if her own hand were not clean enough to hold a piece of pie!
She looked up at dear Old Bluff, and thought what a grand thing it is to be a mountain and not be expected to know anything about the fashions. She was sure she should never wish to see anything more of polite society.
But here was the strangest part of it; she had a secret longing for this very thing! She had already begun to wash her face everyday, and, as far as possible, to comb her tangled hair. She was ashamed of her uncouth language, which she now perceived was quite unlike that of the young people at Camp Comfort. Oh, if she could talk like them! If she could read, as they did, out of books! Above all, if she only knew how to “behave!” There was a skill in carrying a fork to one’s mouth with food on it, that passed her comprehension. How could people do it? It seemed vastly harder to her than walking a tight-rope, which she had seen done at a circus!
Oh dear, to think they had invited her to a grand dinner, and she couldn’t “behave,” and they had laughed at her! There was somethinginthis little girl, or she would not have been capable of so much shame. She had naturally a shrewd, bright mind, which, of course, had been running to waste. She hadseen cities and villages whizzing by her from car-windows in travelling, but her little life had all been spent in backwoods places, and Camp Comfort was really almost her first near view of civilized life. Now she was waking to a new world. If she could only get to it, if she could only live in it! She had as many eyes, ears, and fingers as anybody else: Why couldn’t she be a nice, proper, polite little girl,—say, for instance, like that pretty Flaxie Frizzle, who had treated her so kindly and offered to take her with her to church?
Flaxie’s mother was so nice! Perhaps she had cows, and needed a little girl to milk them? But, oh dear, she wouldn’t hire anybody that couldn’t “behave!”
After this, Pecielena hovered about Camp Comfort longingly, but would have got no farther than the door-stone, if Flaxie had not come out and urged her to enter.
“Oh yes, come in, Pecy, come in, and have some raisins.”
It had been a bright day for Pecy when the Quintette came to Camp Comfort, a brighter day than she knew. Miss Pike had a “plan” for her. She meant to win the child away from her “queer” father and all her miserable surroundings, and have her reared carefully in a good Christian family. But Miss Pike did not speak of this at present. She never talked much about her plans till they were well matured.
Pecielena nearly cried her eyes out on the day the Quintette “broke camp.” They were obliged to go, for the Hunnicuts of Rosewood wanted the house. There was a farewell dirge on the cornet and harmonica, a touching farewell to Old Bluff and the River Dee, the big barn, the front door-yard, the white rose-bush, the spreading elms, the“broad-breasted old oak tree” in the corner; and the Quintette and the Trio retired again to private life.
“Pecy,” said Mary, as the little waif stood at the gate with her milk pail, looking mournfully at the grass, “Pecy, my mamma said I might ask you to go to my house at Laurel Grove. Would you like to go?”
“O may I?” almost screamed Pecy. “But I hain’t got no gown and bunnit to wear.”
“Don’t think about your clothes, dear; you look well enough; and when you get to my house, I’ll make you have a good time; now see if I don’t.”
Thus Pecy’s tears were happily dried. In a few weeks the “camping out” had become “old times;” a dear and fragrant memory, which the young people loved to recall. It had been a delight to the whole eight while it lasted; but what it had been to the poorfamilies about Old Bluff,—the Pecks, Browns, and Pancakes,—who shall say?
And one day it occurred to busy Miss Pike that she hadn’t quite enough to do, for she was only teaching school, studying French and German, and getting up Christmas festivals for Laurel Grove and Rosewood children; but she must try to manage a Christmas Tree for the little outcasts of Old Bluff. There would be no leisure for it on Christmas Eve, the twenty fourth; neither on the twenty-fifth; but the twenty-sixth would answer every purpose.
And where could the tree be put? Where else but in the parlor of Camp Comfort itself? The Hunnicuts were willing at once. They had but one child, James, and he was ready to help. So were the Quintette and the Trio of course, and so were all their relatives and friends.
Oneof the handsomest evergreens in the Townsend woods was chopped off close by the roots, and dragged to Camp Comfort by Preston Gray and James Hunnicut. The Old Bluff children had thought and dreamed of nothing else for three weeks but that mysterious Christmas Tree. If it were to be placed in a church they would have shrunk from approaching it, for they were afraid of churches, and none of the Pancakes, except Pecielena, and none of the Pecks, except Charlie, had as yet been drawn inside a Sunday school. Or if the Tree were to be in some elegant house at LaurelGrove, in a cold parlor with high walls and solemn marble fireplaces, where rich children congregate, what would these little savages have cared for it then?
But this Tree,theirTree, was to be at Camp Comfort, a place they knew all about; and the doorkeeper, Mr. Hunnicut, was to let in every child big enough to walk. As for the grown people, they would be let in also, but merely that they might take care of the children; for that is all that is wanted of grown people at Christmas time!
Mary Gray, Ethel, Blanche Jones, and Fanny Townsend watched the clouds for the whole three weeks. At one time it rained, and there were fears of “a green Christmas;” then it grew cold, and the first snow came; but before there was much time to be glad of the snow, the wind hastened along and heaped it into drifts.
“It isn’t likely they’ll have a Tree if it keeps on drifting like this,” said Dora, who was apt to grow melancholy when she baked for “two days running;” and surely the turkeys, pies, puddings, and cakes that had gone through her hands were enough to drag her spirits very low. Mary did not know then of her own new piano that was to be given her on Christmas, and Dora’s prediction seemed to spoil all her holiday joy; but her father reassured her.
“Why, my child, we’ll have the Tree if the drifts are as high as your head.”
Ethel said there were to be “three Christmases this year; one at Laurel Grove, one at Rosewood, and one at Old Bluff.” Yes, and the wind held its breath, and the sun and moon shone for every one of the three!
When the night came for “Old Bluff Christmas,” a rose-blue sky bent above thewhite splendor of the world. The Pecks, Browns, and Pancakes arrived in wild haste at Camp Comfort before Mr. Hunnicut was ready to let them in. They would have thought him very unfeeling if they had known that he was finishing his turkey supper while they waited in the entry.
But they did not wait long. There was a loud jingling of sleigh-bells, the blowing of a cornet, and the eight campers and lame Sadie Stockwell appeared in a boat-sleigh drawn by two horses adorned with about twenty strings of bells. Behind this imposing equipage glided the modest sleighs containing meek parents and friends.
Then the warm, cheerful parlor was thrown open at last, with its dozen lamps, blazing and twinkling as if they knew it was Christmas; and the beautiful tree was seen shining like all the stars in the sky.Aloft, on the topmost part, stood a little waxen image called the Christ-child; and if it had been alive it could hardly have smiled more benignly.
Dr. Gray, stepping forward, told the delighted little guests to look up at it and think of it as the image of the little child Jesus, the good Lord, who loved little children while on earth, and who loves them still in heaven.
Then Mr. Lee made a short prayer, so very simple that the youngest ones could understand; but they scarcely listened for looking at the Tree.
Ah, you that have seen Trees ever since you can remember, they are an old story to you; but if you were a poor little child, and this were your first vision of one, can you fancy what it would be to you then?
Pecielena Pancake, with hair neatly braidedand falling down the back of her new frock, stood gazing at it in amazement. To her it was a beautiful marvel. Her mother would not come, but had sent all the children, and they were dragging and tugging at her skirts.
Mrs. Peck and Mrs. Brown were there, women who could not “behave” much better than Pecy, but they were quiet and smiling, and they and all the poor rough little children stood looking at the shining Tree with lips far apart and very wide eyes.
Some of the children were trembling between smiles and tears, so eagerly hoping they had presents coming, so sadly afraid they hadn’t!
The Quintette and the Trio looked around benevolently. Mary Gray felt little thrills of joy at seeing the children so happy now, and knowing they would be happier still when the presents were given out. She was gladSadie Stockwell was there and enjoying it; but it had not occurred to her to be proud because she herself was the one who had thought of inviting Sadie. Neither was Mary conscious this evening of her own looks and appearance. Her tresses “of crisped gold” floated unheeded, and she never once looked down at her new dress to admire the color. Her thoughts were not of herself but of others.
“Dr. Gray,” said Miss Pike in a low tone, “don’t you agree with me that this last year has been the best year of Mary’s life? I believe she will grow up to be a thoughtful, unselfish woman.”
“Flaxie Growing Up!” said Dr. Gray, blinking and rubbing his eyes.
“Why, Doctor, she is thirteen,” laughed Miss Pike. “But, there, they are beginning to sing, and we must go over and join them.”
After the Christmas songs, Dr. Gray and General Townsend took off the presents.
There was a joyous scream from Pecy Pancake when she received her new cloak of gray beaver cloth, with buttons to match, and a collar that would turn down or up. The name of the giver was not mentioned, and the studied look of innocence on Mary’s face was edifying to behold.
Preston’s expression was equally innocent when Charlie Peck bounded forward and seized his brave sled, “Clipper,” and when little Bobby Brown shouted over his first pair of skates.
And every time a present was taken off the Tree, the little candles on the branches seemed to twinkle more gayly, and the Christ-child to smile more benevolently than ever.
“Susy Peck,” called Dr. Gray from the right, and a wee girl stepped forward withfingers in her mouth, and snatched—snatched is the word—the pretty doll which Julia Gray had dressed in a scarlet frock, with fashionable hood, fur tippet, and muff. Like most of the others, Susy forgot to say “Thank you;” but I suppose it was the proudest moment of her life.
“Baby Peck,” called out General Townsend from the left; and another wee girl toddled up, holding on by her mother’s finger, and got a handsome box so full of sugarplums that the cover would hardly stay on. And then the overjoyed baby had to be taken in her mother’s arm, lest, in running about to show the box, she should get under everybody’s feet.
“Johnny Brown,” called Dr. Gray. And Johnny’s chin dropped on his little ragged necktie with delight at receiving a pretty jacket with linen collar and cuffs, while the“Electric Light” was suddenly extinguished behind the parlor door.
But why enumerate the presents which fell like ripe fruit from that bountiful Tree? The pretty dresses, the modest needle-books, the painted drums, beautiful books and pictures, and all manner of gay toys?
And why describe the long table which the ladies had spread with every dainty that these children had ever sighed for; real turkey with genuine “stuffing;” cakes of all sorts and sizes, with fruit and without; some as yellow as gold, and some buried under snow-drifts of frosting; and best of all, perhaps, to them, large mounds of candy, oranges, nuts, and raisins!
“Worth while, isn’t it?” said the “Electric Light,” nodding his head, which was nearly as bright as a Christmas candle.
“Our coming out to Camp Comfort was agreat thing for the neighbors,” remarked Bert Abbott to James Hunnicut, who wishedhehad been one of the immortal three!
And Preston took off his spectacles and wiped them, remarking that the glass was apt to grow dim in a warm room.
“Now strike up your cornet, Jack; take your harmonica, Sadie, and let’s have another Christmas song.”