“I agree with you, my boy; ministers aren’t any better than other folks, certainly,” said Mr. Lee, laughing outright in the most genial way.
“Oh, that wasn’t what I meant, sir. Please don’t think I meant to say that,”pleaded Fred, feeling himself more than ever the most foolish of April fools.
But the good-natured clergyman drew him into the room. “Come, now,” said he, still laughing, though not sarcastically at all, just merrily, “let me have the call I missed yesterday. Your cousin Preston is one of my best friends, but I think you’ve never entered my study before.”
It was a cosy, sunny room, and, beside books, held a large cabinet, and a green plant-stand, blooming with flowers. Fred seated himself on the edge of a chair, ready for instant departure; but Mr. Lee chatted most agreeably, telling interesting stories, and inquiring about Hilltop people, till he forgot his embarrassment, and was soon asking questions in regard to the different objects in the cabinet.
What was that whitish, buff-colored stuff?Coquina?Oh! And people built houses of it? Possible? Was it really made of shells? How strange!—Well, that tarantula’s nest was a queer concern! Why, it shut down like a trap-door exactly. Looked as if it had a hinge, and a carpenter made it.—Was that an eagle’s claw?—Oh, andthat?A rattlesnake’s rattle?—Was this a scorpion?—And so on.
It was a varied collection, and Mr. Lee seemed to have nothing to do that morning but to exhibit it. Not another word about the April Fool; but Fred felt that he was forgiven, or, rather, that no forgiveness was needed, as no offence had been taken.
“I tell you, Flaxie,” confided he to his cousin afterward, “I never liked Mr. Lee half so well; never dreamed he was so bright and sharp.Helikes fun as well as we boys. Only somehow—Well, I wouldn’t do itagain; it was foolish. See here, Flaxie, have you put this in your journal? Well, don’t you now! If the boys should find out—”
“What do you mean about my journal?” returned Mary, drawing up her mouth like the silk “work-pocket,” to mark her displeasure. “Anybody’d think my journal was a newspaper.”
Fred smiled wisely.
Thejournal was a pretty little red book, which lay sometimes on the piano, sometimes on the centre-table, and was often opened innocently enough by callers. If it had been the simple, matter-of-fact little book that it ought to have been, the reading of it would have done no harm. But Mary had a habit of recording her emotions, also her opinions of her friends,—a bad habit, which she did not break off till it had nearly brought her into trouble.
“What does Fred Allen mean by calling me ‘Miss Fanny dear, with mouth stretchedfrom ear to ear’?” asked Fanny Townsend, indignantly.
“How do you know he did?”
“Saw it in your journal. And you put a period after ‘Miss’! Needn’t accuse me of laughing, Flaxie Frizzle, when I happen to know that my mother considersyoua great giggler, and dreads to have you come to our house.”
“Does she? Then I’ll stay away! And if I did put a period after ‘Miss’ it was a mistake. But I’ve no respect for people that read other people’s private journals!”
“Hope you don’t call that private. Why, I thought ’twas a Sabbath-school book, or I wouldn’t have touched it.” And whether she would or not, Fanny was obliged to laugh; so the breach was healed for the time. But after this Mary began a new journal, which she conducted on differentprinciples, trying moreover to keep it in its proper place in her writing-desk.
There were secret signs and mysterious allusions in this new journal, however, the letters “C. C.” recurring again and again in all sorts of places, without any apparent meaning or connection. She evidently enjoyed scribbling them, and no harm was done, since nobody but “we girls” knew what they meant. “C. C.” was a precious secret, which we may pry into for ourselves by-and-by.
Mary was now in her thirteenth year, and though she still enjoyed hanging May-baskets, driving hoops, skipping the rope, and even playing dolls, her growing mind was never idle. She enjoyed her lessons at school, for she memorized with ease; she liked to draw; but sitting at the piano was a weariness; and she considered it a trial that,in addition to her own practising, she should be expected to teach and superintend Ethel. She was strict with her little pupil, and found frequent occasion for sermonettes, but Ethel got on famously, and Mary received and deserved high praise as teacher.
She missed her cousin Fred when he went home at last, not to return, but she told Lady Fotheringay (Blanche Jones) in confidence that she “could improve her mind better when he was gone.” Moreover, Preston would soon be home for his summer vacation.
She was beginning to question what she was made for. Something grand and wonderful, no doubt; something much better than studying, reading, sewing, and doing errands. There were times when this favored child of fortune even said to herself that life was hard, and that her mother wasover-strict in requiring her to mend her clothes and do a stint of some sort of sewing on Saturdays. Wasn’t she old enough yet to have outgrown stints?
“Why can’t pillow-cases be hemmed by machine?” complained she to Ethel. “And thereyouare,—almost six years old, with not a thing to do! I can tell you I used to sew patchwork at your age by the yard! C. C. I keep saying that over to comfort myself, Ethel, butyoudon’t know what it stands for. Oh no,notchocolate candy; better than that!—Wish I lived at the south, where colored servants do everything. There’s Grandma Hyde now; if we had her black Venus, and her black Mary, and her yellow Thomas, I shouldn’t have to dust parlors and run of errands! Mamma is always talking to me about being useful.Littlegirls are never talked to in that way; it’s we oldergirls who have to bear all the brunt. It tires me to death to sew, sew, sew! Now it’s such fun to run in the woods. Mr. Lee says we ought to admire nature, and I’m going after flag-root this afternoon instead of mending my stockings—I think it’s my duty!”
As Mary rattled on in this way, little Ethel listened most attentively. Her sister Flaxie stood as a pattern to her of all the virtues,—ah, if Flaxie had but known it!—and she looked forward to the time when she should be exactly like her, with just such curls, and just that superior way of lecturing little people. It was not worth while to be any better than Flaxie. If Flaxie objected to sewing and mending, Ethel would object to it also.
“If my mamma ever makes me sit on a chair to sew patchwork, I’ll go South! Ifshe makes me mend stockings, I’ll go in the woods! I won’t be useful if Flaxie isn’t; no indeedy!”
Thus while Flaxie’s sermonettes were forgotten, her chance words and her example took deep hold of the little one’s mind.
Everybody said Mary was growing up a sweet girl, more “lovesome” and womanly than had once been expected. In truth Mary thought so herself. Plenty of well-meaning but injudicious people had told her she was pretty; and she knew that Mrs. Lee liked to look at her face because it was so “expressive,” and Mrs. Patten because it was so “thoughtful,” and somebody else because it was so “intelligent.” Ethel had a figure like a roly-poly pudding; but Mary was tall and slight, and even Mrs. Prim admitted that she was “graceful.”
One Sunday morning early in May she satin church, apparently paying strict attention to the sermon, but really thinking.
“I dare say, now, Mrs. Townsend is looking at me, and wishing Fanny were more like me. Nobody else of my age sits as still as I do, except Sadie Stockwell, and she has a stiff spine. There’s Major Patten, I remember he said once to father, ‘Dr. Gray, your second girl is a child to be proud of.’ I know he did, for I was coming into the room and heard him.”
Directly after morning services came Sunday school, and Mary was in Mrs. Lee’s class. Mrs. Lee was an enthusiastic young woman, fond of all her scholars, but it was easy to see that Mary was her prime favorite. Mrs. Gray’s class of boys—Phil being the youngest—sat in the next seat. The lesson to-day was short, and after recitation Mrs. Lee showed her own class and Mrs. Gray’ssome pictures which her uncle had brought her from China.
“Whatisthat queer thing?” said Fanny, as she and Mary touched bonnets over one of the pictures.
“That is called a baby-tower. My uncle says it is a good representation of the dreadful place they drop girl-babies into sometimes. You know girls are lightly esteemed in heathen countries.”
“Drop girl-babiesintoit?” asked Blanche Jones. “Doesn’t it hurt them?”
“Not much, I believe; but it kills them.”
“Oh, Mrs. Lee!” It was Mary who spoke, in tones of horror.
“The tower is half full of lime, and the lime stops their breath. So I presume they hardly suffer at all.”
Mary’s eyes were full of tears, and she sprang up eagerly, exclaiming,—
“Oh, Mrs. Lee! Oh, mamma, did you hear that? I declare, it’s too bad! Can’t the missionaries stop their killing babies so?”
“You sweet child,” said Mrs. Lee.
But Mrs. Gray only said,—
“Yes, my daughter, the missionaries are doing their best; but everything can’t be done in a day.”
“But it ought to be done this very minute, mamma.”
Mary’s whole face glowed; and Mrs. Lee, who sat directly in front of her, could not refrain from leaning over the pew and kissing her.
“We ought to bring more money, seems to me,” suggested good, moon-faced Blanche Jones, pressing her fat hands together.
“Yes, a cent every Sunday is too little,” said one of Mrs. Gray’s little boys.
“Yes, a centistoo little,” agreed Fanny Townsend earnestly.
“How thoughtless we’ve been,” said Mary, in high excitement. “For my part, I mean to give those Chinese every cent of my pin-money this month. Do you care if I do, mamma?”
“No; you have my full consent. Only do not make up your mind in a hurry,” replied Mrs. Gray; but her manner was cold in comparison with Mrs. Lee’s cordial hand-shake and “God bless you, my precious girl.”
“I’m a real pet with Mrs. Lee,” thought Mary, her heart throbbing high.
Blanche, Fanny, and the two older girls in the class,—Sadie Patten and Lucy Abbott,—were silent. They knew that Mary’s pin-money amounted to four dollars a month, and though they had thought of doing something themselves, this brilliant offer discouraged them at once: they could not make up their minds to anything so munificent.
Going home that noon, Mary “walked on thorns,” though she tried to be humble. By the next day, her feelings toward the Chinese had undergone a slight chill; and when her mother alluded to Captain Emerson—Mrs. Lee’s uncle—and his pictures, Mary did not care to converse on the subject. She even felt a pang of regret at the recollection of her hasty promise. Those girl-babies were far off now; she could not see them in imagination, as at first. Days passed, and the poor things were fading out of mind, buried deep in the lime of the tower.
“My daughter,” said Mrs. Gray, on Saturday, “let me see your portmonnaie.” It contained three dollars and a half now. Mrs. Gray counted the bills. “Have you any especial use for this money, Mary?”
“I don’t know.Wouldyou buy those stereoscopic views of Rome and the Alpsthat Mr. Snow said I could choose from different sets?”
Mrs. Gray smiled quietly.
“What good will the views do the babies in China?”
There was a sudden droop of Mary’s head.
“Why, mamma, as true as you live I forgot all about those babies; I really did! You see, mamma, I didn’t stop to think last Sunday. Must I give all my money to Mrs. Lee—three dollars and a half?”
“To Mrs. Lee? I was under the impression that you were to give it to the missionaries to convert the Chinese.”
“Oh, yes, but Isaidit to Mrs. Lee; the missionaries don’t know anything about it.”
“So it seems,” returned Mrs. Gray dryly; “you said it to Mrs. Lee merely to pleaseher.” Mary’s head sank still lower. “Well,you might ask Mrs. Lee to let you off, my daughter.”
“But, mamma, how it would look to go to her and ask that! I couldn’t!”
“Then you’ll be obliged to give the money,” responded Mrs. Gray unfeelingly. How easily she might have said, “Never mind, Mary, I will see Mrs. Lee and arrange it for you.” And she was usually a thoughtful, obliging mother. Mary pressed the bills together in her hand, spread them out tenderly, gazed at them as if she loved them. It was a large sum, and looked larger through her tears.
“I can’t ask Mrs. Lee to let me off; you know I can’t, mamma. I’d rather lose the money!”
“Lose the money!” So that was the way she regarded it! A strange sort of benevolence surely!
“Take heed, therefore, that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.” This was Mr. Lee’s text next day.
“Oh, that means me,” groaned Mary inwardly. “I’ve been seen of Mrs. Lee, and I’ve been seen of Blanche and Fanny and the other girls; and that’s just what I did it for, andnotfor the people in China! Oh, dear! oh, dear! to think what a humbug I am!”
Andnow we come to an episode of the highest importance to five young misses of Laurel Grove. General Townsend owned an unoccupied house about two miles from town, at the foot of a steep hill called Old Bluff; and it had occurred to the active mind of Mary Gray that this would be a fine place for “camping out.”
It was April when she hinted this to Fanny Townsend, but it was May before Fanny spoke of it to her father.
“I’m waiting till some time when you come to my house to tea, Dandelina; andwe mustn’t get to laughing, now you remember.”
Mary seated herself at the Townsend tea-table one evening with nervous dread; for, next to Mrs. Prim, Mrs. Townsend inspired her with more awe than any other lady in town. When she thought it time for Fanny to speak, she touched her foot under the table, and Fanny began.
“Papa, I have something to say.”
Fanny had the feeling that she was not highly reverenced by her family, on account of her unfortunate habit of giggling; but her face was serious enough now. “Papa, may we girls go down to the farm next summer,—to that house with the roses ’round it,—and camp out? The girls all want to, and we—we’re going to call it Camp Comfort.” (The reader will perceive that this explains the letters “C. C.”) She was sorry next momentthat she had spoken, for her mother said, just as she had feared she might, “What will you think of next, Fanny?”
But her father seemed only amused. “Camp out? We girls? How many may ye be? And who? Going to take your servants?”
“You’ll each need a watch-dog,” suggested Fanny’s elder brother, Jack.
“You’ll come home nights, I presume,—servants, watch-dogs and all,” said her father.
“O no, indeed! It wouldn’t be camping out if we came home nights! And nobody has a dog but Fanny, and we shouldn’t want any servants,” cried Mary Gray, whose views of labor seemed to have changed materially.
“We intend to do our own work,” remarked Fanny. Whereupon everybody laughed; and General Townsend asked again who the girls were? “Oh, Flaxie Frizzle and BlancheJones and I, papa; that makes three, rather young; and then Sadie Patten and Lucy Abbott, they’re rather old; that makes five. Sadie and Lucy will be the mothers,—I mean if you let us go.”
“That ‘if’ is well put in,” said brother Jack.
“But what will you do for a stove?” asked General Townsend, wishing to hear their plans, “there’s none in the house.”
“My mamma has a rusty stove, and our Henry Mann could take it to Old Bluff,” replied Mary.
“But there’s no furniture,—not a chair or a table.”
“They have too many chairs at Major Patten’s and Mr. Jones’s; their houses are running over with chairs.”
“Well, what about dishes?”
“Why, papa,” said Fanny eagerly, “onlythink what lots of disheswehave, just oceans, all broken to pieces!”
“Ah, shall you eat from broken dishes?” asked Mrs. Townsend coolly. “And perhaps you’ll sleep on the floor?”
“O no, Mrs. Townsend, our house is full of beds! Mamma has some of them put in the stable, and Blanche Jones’s house is full of beds, and they have to keep some of them in the attic. Everybody has everything; we’ve talked it all over. And there’s our big express wagon, and our Henry Mann to drive.”
Mary paused for breath.
“Yes, papa, Dr. Gray’s express wagon is very large; and we have a push-cart, you know. So can’t we go?” coaxed Fanny, true to first principles.
“What haveIto do about it, little Miss Townsend? It seems you have already madeyour plans and invited your guests. How happened you to think to ask my permission for the rent of the house.”
“Finish your supper, Frances, and do not sit there with your bread in the air,” said Mrs. Townsend in a decided tone. “You forget that I am to be consulted as well as your father. And that’s not all. I’ve no idea that Dr. Gray, or Major Patten, or Mr. Jones, or Mrs. Abbott will consent to this camping out, as you call it; so you must not set your hearts on it, you and Flaxie.”
But it chanced that every one of the parents did consent at last; and one morning in the latter part of June you might have seen some very busy girls loading a push-cart and an express wagon, with the help of their brothers and Henry Mann, while Fanny laughed almost continually, and Mary Gray exclaimed at intervals,—
“O won’t it be a state of bliss?”
There were four bedsteads, eight chairs, one old sofa, one table, one rusty stove, a variety of old dishes,—not broken ones,—beside a vast amount of rubbish, which the mothers thought quite useless, but which the daughters assured them would be “just the thing for our charades.”
“I’m not going to Old Bluff to assist in such performances as charades, so you may just count me out,” said Preston, who was to take turns with Bert Abbott in being a nightly guest at Camp Comfort; since the parents would not consent that the girls should spend one night there alone.
“As if boys were the least protection,” said Lucy Abbott, Preston’s cousin.
“Still they may be useful in getting up games,” returned Sadie Patten hopefully. “And Jack Townsend’s cornet is charming.”
“So it is; it goes so well with your harmonica. And we’ll make the boys stir the ice cream,” said Lucy, the head housekeeper.
There was an ice-house connected with their cottage, and ice cream was to be permitted on Sundays, and lemonade at pleasure.
“But where are the lemons?” said Mary, flying about in everybody’s way.
“Oh, we shall buy fresh lemons every morning of our grocer who comes to our door,” said Lucy grandly. “What I want to know is, if my hammock was packed?—Children, did you see three hammocks in that push-cart?—Boys, I hope you’ll hang up those hammocks before we get there! Don’t go racing now and spilling out things!—There, I don’t believe anybody thought to put in that spider,” added she anxiously, as the five girls had bidden good-by to theirfamilies in the cool of the morning, and were walking in a gay procession toward their house in the country.
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,But to be young was very Heaven.”
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,But to be young was very Heaven.”
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,But to be young was very Heaven.”
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very Heaven.”
Old Bluff was a steep, though not very high mountain on the Canada side, and if it is not gone, it stands there yet, hanging defiantly over the blue brook called theriverDee, and throwing its huge shadow from shore to shore.
Old Bluff is a stern, bareheaded peak, and few are the flowers that dare show their faces near it. It is chiefly the hardy wintergreen and disconsolate little sprigs of pine and spruce which huddle together along its sides.
At the foot of this famous bluff, on the New York side, stood General Townsend’s old-fashioned farm-house, a story and a halfhigh, with a white picket fence around it, and a red barn at one side. The house many years ago had been white; and the panes of glass in the windows were not only very small, but weather-stained and streaked with rainbow hues. London Pride or “Bouncing Bet” grew near the broad front door-stone, together with a few bunches of southernwood, which Dr. Gray thought had a finer odor than any geranium. The front yard was grassy, and the fence lined with roses of various sorts.
It was the first summer for years that this pleasant old place had been vacant, and now it might be applied for any day; but meanwhile the five girls, called “the quintette,” and the three attendant cavaliers, called “the trio,” were welcome to rusticate in it, and call it a “camp” if they chose.
After the furniture was set up, and therehad been a reasonable amount of play at hide and seek in the barn, and the first supper had been eaten—the tablecloth proving to be too small for the table—Mary went to one of the front “rainbow-windows” to watch for Preston.
“I mean to be a true woman.”
This was what she usually said to herself when resolved not to cry. But therewassomething lonesome in the thought of going to bed without kissing her mother.
“Nobody else feels as I do, and I wouldn’t mention it for anything; but I’d give one quarter of my pin money—one whole dollar—to see mamma and Ethel.”
She had supposed that in camping out all care would be left behind. Her mother had excused her from lessons and sewing, and she had looked for “a state of bliss;” but it is forever true—and Mary was beginning tofind it so—that wherever we are, there is “something still to do and bear.”
Homesickness was a constitutional weakness with Mary, but she disdained the cowardice of running home; she would be a “true woman,” and crack walnuts to please Lucy.
“Well, this is a hard-working family,” said Preston, arriving presently in state on his bicycle, as Lucy and Sadie were engaged in putting the supper dishes in the kitchen cupboard.
“Yes, Mr. Gray; and we allow no idlers here. Please may I ask what ails our window shades, sir?”
The poor old green-cloth curtains were tearing away from the gentle clasp of Sadie Patten’s tack-nails, and leaning over from the tops of the windows as if already tired of the sun and wanting a little rest.
“Well, let’s see your hammer.”
“No, I’m using it, I’m a young lady now and do as I please,” cried Mary, springing up from the kitchen hearth, and scattering her walnuts broadcast, “catch me if you can.”
“Is that so? Well, then, now for a race from here to the sweet-apple tree. One, two, three, begin!” And Preston started off at the top of his speed, Mary just before him, her face aglow, her hair streaming in the wind. As she skimmed over the ground, shouting and laughing, she seemed for all the world like a little girl, and not in the least like a young lady. She was soon caught and obliged to surrender the hammer, whereupon Preston nailed the curtains neatly, and went whistling about the house, giving finishing touches here and there to the rickety furniture.
“O thank you. You’ve been a great help. Now, in return, you shall have a spring-bedto sleep on, the only one we have in the house,” said Lucy, with a mischievous glance at Sadie.
The spring-bed did not fit the bedstead, and the chances were that it might fall through in the night.
“You’re too tremendously kind, too self-sacrificing,” said Preston, suspecting at once that something was wrong.
But he had his revenge. The bedstead was extremely noisy, and the roguish youth, unable to sleep himself on account of mosquitoes, rejoiced to think that he was probably keeping his cousin Lucy awake.
“Good morning, Preston, I hope you rested well,” said she, as they all met next morning in the front yard.
“O very.—it’ssoquiet in the country,” returned he demurely. “Did you everhearanything so quiet?”
“Never; except possibly a saw-mill,” said Sadie Patten. “Lucy and I wondered if you could be alive, you were so still!”
“Itwassort of frightful. No sound broke the awful silence, save the warning voice of the mosquito.—By the way, girls, why don’t you call this spot Mosquito Ranch?”
“I’ll tell you what we used to call it at our house,—we always called it ‘Down to the Farm,’” remarked little Fanny.
“It ought to be Rose Villa,” said Lucy. “Just see our rose-tree that reaches almost to the eaves. We measured it yesterday, and it’s seven feet high.”
“That will do for a tree,” said Preston, plucking one of the pure, white roses and thrusting it into his button-hole; “but you can’t eat roses, you know.”
He had built a fire in the kitchen stove, but the young ladies seemed to have forgottenentirely that there was such a thing in the world as breakfast.
“O, yes, we must prepare our simple morning meal,” said cousin Lucy. “Girls, where’s my blue-checked apron? Preston, we’ve heard there are lovely trout in that brook across the field. Not theriver-brook.”
“Have you, really? Then I go a-fishing; I’d rather do that than starve.—No, Fan, you needn’t come, I won’t have anybody with me but Flaxie.”
Very proud was Mary that she could be trusted to keep silence in the presence of the wise and wary trout. It was beautiful there by the brook-side, in the still June morning, sitting and watching the “shadowy water, with a sweet south wind blowing over it.” There was no house within half a mile, and perhaps the Peck family and the Brown family—the nearest neighbors—were stillasleep, for there was no sound, except the “song-talk” of the birds, and the whisper of the wind through the trees. It was a very light whisper, reminding Preston of the words,—
“And then there creptA little noiseless noise among the leaves,Born of the very sigh that silence heaves.”
“And then there creptA little noiseless noise among the leaves,Born of the very sigh that silence heaves.”
“And then there creptA little noiseless noise among the leaves,Born of the very sigh that silence heaves.”
“And then there crept
A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves.”
Mary’s breath was a “noiseless noise,” too; it hardly stirred the folds of her buff print dress; it was the very “sigh” of “silence,” and Preston thought he should tell her so, and praise her when they got home; but it happened that he forgot it.
The trout came, as they usually did when he called for them; but it must be confessed that they were never eaten. Lucy put them in the spider, Sadie salted, Fanny turned, and finally Blanche Jones burned them. The “morning meal” was as “simple” as needbe, with cold bread and butter, cold tongue, and muddy, creamless coffee, the milk having turned sour. In the midst of their repast, the young campers were surprised by a loud peal of the door-bell.
“Buttons,” said Lucy to her cousin Preston, “you’ll have to go to the door.”
“Yes,” said Sadie, “as Buttons is the only servant we keep, he must answer the bell.”
Preston obeyed, laughing. A droll little image of dirt and rags stood at the door, holding a ten-quart tin pail.
“Good morning,” said Preston, surprised at the shrewd, unchildlike expression of her face, for she was perhaps twelve years old and looked forty. The little girl seemed equally surprised. “What’s them things?”said she, pointing to Preston’s spectacles. “What do you wear ’em for?”
“Do you want anything, little girl?” asked he, frowning, or trying to frown.
“I say, what do you wear glasses for?Youain’t an old man.”
“No matter what I wear them for—” very sternly. “Do you want anything, child?”
“Yes, I came to ax you for some swifts.”
“What do you mean by swifts?”
“Lor now, don’t you know what swifts is? Swifts is something folks reels yarn on.”
“Well, we haven’t any in this house, little girl, and if that’s all you came for, you’d better run home.”
“Hain’t got no swifts?” shuffling forward with her small, bare feet, and peeping into the house through her straggling locks of hair. “Well, you’ve got a spin-wheel, hain’t ye?”
“No, we’ve nothing you want. You’d better go.”
By that time Mary and Fanny were at the sitting-room door, curious to see the stranger.
“How d’ye do? Do you children live here all alone? Guess I’ll come in,” said the waif, brushing past Preston, who did not choose to keep her out by main force, and entering the sitting-room where the breakfast-table was spread. “I live over t’other side of Bluff. My name’s Pancake.”
“Oh, I know who you are then,” said Fanny, not very cordially; for she had heard her father speak of a poor, half-starved, vagrant family of that name; harmless, he believed, but not very desirable neighbors.
“My name’sPecyPancake,” added the waif obligingly, and bent her snub nose to sniff the burnt trout.
“Peace, probably,” said Preston, aside.
“No,Pecielena. Hain’t you got no lasses cake? Oh, what cunning little sassers;” handling the salt glasses. “Where’s the cups to ’em? How came you children to come here alone?”
“We came because wechose,” said Mary, with crushing emphasis.
“Wewishedto come,” said Fanny, trying to be as dignified as Mary, though she felt her inferiority in this respect always.
In no wise disconcerted, Miss Pecielena Pancake started on a tour of observation about the room.
“You look like you’d been burnt out or somethin’. Who does your work? Got any cow? Oh, you hain’t? Well,I’vegot a cow. This here is my milk bucket. I’ll fetch ye some milk.”
“No, no, no,” exclaimed Lucy, in alarm. “Our milk is to be brought from town.”
“Is, hey? Well, I’ll fetch you some sour milk; five cents a quart.”
“Don’t take the trouble,” said Sadie mildly; “we are not fond of sour milk.”
After a long inspection of the room, Pecy gazed observantly out of the window.
“Look here! What’s them things hanging up in the trees? Look like fish-nets. I’ve seen folks in Rosewood swing in just such; be they swings?—Well, I reckon I must be a-goin’. But we paster our cow this side the river, and I’ll call agin when I come to milk.”
“Is it possible that creature is really gone?”
“Hope she stayed just as long as she wished to,” said Lucy, shutting the door forcibly.
“Oh, she’s only half civilized, and doesn’t know any better,” returned the more charitable Sadie.
“Young ladies,” said Preston, flourishing his arms preparatory to a speech, “it seems you have settled in a refined and cultivated neighborhood—very!I never knew before why you couldn’t stay at home; but I now see that Laurel Grove is unworthy of you. You pined for the advantages of elevated, intellectual society, such as can be found only at Old Bluff.”
“Buttons,” said Lucy, shaking the broom at him, “we permit no impertinence from servants. Go, pump a pail of water directly, and then you may wipe the dishes.”
Preston “struck an attitude” again.
“Honored ladies, there’s a limit to all things. Buttons will cook, he will answer door-bells, he will scrub, if need be; but wipe dishes he will not,no, not if you flay him alive! Farewell! Once again, farewell!”
“Don’t go, Preston,” entreated Mary, as her brother mounted his “steed,” the bicycle; “do stay to dinner.”
“Couldn’t; might starve.”
“Fie, Buttons,” cried the older girls, “you’re no gentleman!”
“A servant is not expected to be a gentleman.”
“But do dine with us,Mr. Gray.”
“Thank you, not to-day. Good-by, I’ll send Abbott to watch to-night.” Preston and his cousin Bert Abbott, being in college together, called each other by their surnames, to the no small amusement of Bert’s sister Lucy.
“He calls sleeping here ‘watching,’” laughed Sadie, as Preston glided away, bowing and waving his hand. “But here comes our grocer. Why, who is that with him?”
For as the wagon stopped at the gate, Mr. Fowler lifted a little girl over the wheels.
“Kittyleen! Kittyleen Garland! Dear me, where did you pickherup, Mr. Fowler?”
For it was not to be supposed that Kittyleen came from home. She was an innocent little truant, whose mother never objected to her straying about the streets.
“Glad to see you, Kittyleen; you can go and play in the barn with Flaxie and Fanny,” said Lucy hospitably; and then, turning to Sadie, “Now, what shall we order for dinner?”
Sadie looked helpless.
“What wouldyouadvise, Mr. Fowler? Our fathers said we might haveanything, and they’d settle the bills; but I——”
“Lemons,” struck in Lucy, ashamed of Sadie’s weakness.
“A dozen, and some fresh butter. Lard,—perhaps ten pounds, for pies.”
“Anything else,” asked the grocer, deferentially,as he jotted these orders into a notebook. “I’ll bring them to-morrow—a real pretty situation here. What do you call it? Old Maid’s Hall?”
“No, a convent,” said Sadie quickly, “for we shall have to fast if you’re not coming back with our groceries till to-morrow.”
“Why, Miss Sadie, it’s all of two miles, and it won’t pay to come twice a day,” said the grocer, wiping his heated brows.
“Well, we shall have to fast, then. This is a convent, as I told you, and we are nuns—Capuchinnuns—for you know Capuchin nuns are famous for fasting.”
“So they be,” laughed Mr. Fowler, though it was the first time in his life he had ever heard of a Capuchin nun; “so they be,” and rode away laughing, to tell Dr. Gray and Major Patten, whom he met in the village, “that those children were having a high oldtime down there at the cottage, and were bright as pins, every one of ’em.”
“They forgot to order meat, but hadn’t I better take down some Cape Cod turkey to keep off starvation?” He meant salt codfish.
“How do you suppose they’ll make way with ten pounds of lard, though?”
“Never mind,” replied Dr. Gray, throwing his head back to laugh; “they beg not to be interfered with, and we’ll let them have their own way for a while.”
Starvation was not likely to ensue for some days, as the young campers had been bountifully supplied by their mothers with bread, pies, cake, and cold meats.
“Oh, housekeeping is just play and takes no time at all,” said Sadie Patten; “now let’s get up some charades and rehearse for to-morrow night, and invite the three boys—Kittyleen must be amused, you know.”
The charade which follows was their first attempt of the sort at Camp Comfort, the music between the acts being supplied by Jack Townsend’s cornet and Sadie Patten’s harmonica.
The stage was out of doors. Two posts were driven into the ground, and between them hung the red table-cloth suspended from a fish-line. This was the drop-curtain.
The audience, in chairs, or on the ground, were directly in front of the stage. At a whistle from the invisible depths the drop-curtain was raised by Blanche Jones, revealing the manager, Preston Gray, who made a low bow, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, it is with profound pleasure that I present to you the two stars of tragedy, Madame Graylocks, of the Tuscarora OperaCompany, and Don Albertus of the Cannibal Islands.”
The two “stars” then step forward, to be greeted by the audience with deafening cheers. Miss Graylocks (alias Mary Gray), her face and hands well stained with walnut-juice, is clad in blue jacket, gray skirt and red-topped boots (Sadie Patten called them “galligaskins”), with a stove-pipe hat on her head. An ounce of black worsted floats down her shoulders for hair. She makes a deep courtesy, Don Albertus (Bert Abbott) a low bow.
He is an Indian chief, clad in a red and green dressing-gown, with a feather duster on his head for a war-plume. His face, like Madame Graylocks’, is a fine mahogany color.
Their “unrivalled performance,” announces the manager, “is to be a charade in two syllables.”
The stage is now observed to be strewn with sticks and twigs, to resemble the outskirts of a forest. No word is spoken; but as a tin pail hangs on a pole over something that looks like a fireplace, it would seem that the worthy couple are keeping house, and that the squaw is preparing dinner. But as yet there is no fire. The squaw collects branches and twigs, lays them crosswise under the tin pail. Her lord and master seats himself on the ground, watching her in scowling silence. The soup must boil; but how can she make a fire? She rubs two stones together Indian-fashion, but cannot strike a spark. She tries with all her might, dancing up and down and shaking her head dolefully. The chief laughs at her, offering no help, till she points in despair to the tin pail, reminding him that at this rate theymust starve. He rises then, pushes her aside, and flashing his white teeth at her, seizes the two stones, rubs them just once together, and they instantly ignite (of course this is done by means of a match hidden in his sleeve.) The twigs are soon crackling under the pail. He points his finger disdainfully at the poor squaw, who cannot make a fire. She looks so brow-beaten and discouraged at this, so unlike the spirited Flaxie Frizzle of real life, that the audience laugh. Then the drop-curtain falls.
The soup has boiled, the chief has dined, and now sits with hands folded, looking good-natured. The pail is empty and lying bottom upward on the grass. Enter his meek wife; takes the empty pail; returns with it full of water, slopping it as she walks. The thirstychief points to his mouth. She produces a large iron spoon, fills it and gives him to drink, afterwards helping herself. They sit and sip from the spoon alternately, when a “pale face” (Preston) enters, with a jug. The chief starts up with eager delight. Pale Face swings the jug slowly, to show that it is full. The chief, smiling and obsequious, advances to shake hands. The squaw looks alarmed; shakes her head at the jug, and insists on giving Pale Face some water. Pale Face declines it; takes stopper out of jug and presents it to chief’s nose with an eloquent gesture, which means, “Nowisn’tthat good?”
It is evidently whiskey, for the chief sniffs the stopper, laughs and dances, pointing to his mouth.
Squaw weeps; is evidently a good temperance woman; holds the pail to her husband’slips. He pushes her away, and begs in dumb show for the whiskey.
Faithful squaw shakes her stovepipe hat, wrings her worsted hair, chases Pale Face around and around the stage, trying to make him give up the fatal jug. In vain; chief is allowed to get it; raises it joyfully to his lips.
Faithful squaw, becoming frantic, seizes the pail, and, overdoing her part, pours all the water over Pale Face, drenching him completely.
“Oo! Oo!” he gurgles. “If that isn’t just like you, Flaxie Frizzle!”
Blanche hurries down the drop curtain. Scene closes.
“I thought there was no talking in a pantomime,” laughed the audience.
It now appears that the whiskey which Pale Face mischievously brought has wrought its dreadful work. The proud war-plume of the chief dangles ignominiously over his left ear; his copper-colored cheeks and nose are blazing red (painted with Chinese vermilion). He tries to walk; reels like a ship in a storm.
His devoted wife has certainly tried her very best to save him from this degradation; but, like any bad husband, he only hates her for it, and has made up his drunken mind to kill her. Seizing her by the yarn of the head, he is actually scalping her with the lemon-squeezer, when little Kittyleen, who can bear no more, cries out,—
“Stop, stop, you shan’t hurt my Flaxie!”
This timely interference does not save the squaw’s life, however,—or not entirely. Her head comes off,—or at any rate, the hat and the ounce of worsted. But ere she falls to rise no more, she turns—with remarkable presence of mind for a dying woman—and points to the whiskey-jug, scowling furiously at it, as if to assure the audience that it is the jug andnotthe lemon-squeezer that has caused her death.
Before any one had time to say, “Now guess the word,” Jack Townsend, known by the campers as “the Electric Light,” on account of his red head, exclaimed, “It’sFire Water, isn’t it? That’s the Indian name for whiskey. I guessed it by the waterfall in the second syllable.”
“No wonder you did; there was waterenough in that syllable to put out all the fire in the first one!” exclaimed Preston, springing for his bicycle, to fly home and change his wet clothes.
“There’sthat dreadful little Pancake ringing again. She comes every morning, Preston, and you must stop it,” said cousin Lucy, waving away half a dozen flies from the sugar-bowl, with as much vehemence as she could throw into her napkin.
“Troublesome flies,” said Preston, without heeding his cousin’s request. “They say a barn-swallow will eat a thousand a day; wishwehad a barn-swallow.”
Lucy went to the door a trifle crossly, bread-knife hard in hand, as if she meant to charge it at the foe.
“Andnowwhat do you want?”
For it seemed as if the little gipsy must have exhausted all the errands that could possibly be thought of.
“Could I borry a piece o’ stovepipe—’boutsolong—I’ll fetch it back to morry.”
“A piece of stovepipe!”
Lucy would not have smiled on any account.
“Yes, mammy’s sick, and our stovepipe’s rusted off. I’ll fetch it home to morry.”
And before Lucy had time to prevent it, the little try-patience had rushed past her, and effected an entrance into the breakfast room. And, as if her own presence were not unwelcome enough, she was followed by a large, formidable-looking bee.
“Don’t you be scared,” said Pecielena, as the children all screamed. “I’ll catch him and kill him.”
“No, no,” cried Mary. “I belong to the society for cruelty to animals. I can’t let you kill him.”
But Pecy had already caught the bee and crushed him against the table-cloth with the broom-handle.
Sadie looked at Lucy, the “lady abbess,” to see how long she meant to allow such behavior to go on; but Lucy had become discouraged, and was retreating to the kitchen.
“I must go and pick over the rice for dinner. I supposeyoudon’t know, Sadie, whether three pounds will make pudding enough for six people?” said she, putting the rice in the only kettle the house afforded, and pouring over it two quarts of water. No, Sadie did not know.
The unbidden guest, forgetting that her cow had not been milked, stood looking on, as saucy as an English cuckoo in a hedge-sparrow’snest. It would not appear that she intended the least harm; she was simply a little half-starved, wild creature, and the sight of the raisins gave her a hungry longing, which Lucy was unable to comprehend, or she would have admired the poor thing’s self-denial in not teasing, and would have given her gladly a handful of the coveted sweets.
Camp Comfort, with its merry, careless child-tenants and abundance of food, seemed an earthly paradise to wretched little Pecy. She had never ventured so boldly into any other house, even the humble Browns and Pecks, as into this one, which had no responsible grown people in it; nobody really old enough to command her to leave.
“Is this here your dog, Lucy?” said she, caressing the pug. “His nose turns up some like yours. I never see such a queer dog.”
“And I never saw such a queer girl,” said Lucy, reddening. “Are you the protector of this family, Preston Gray? General Townsend told mother he felt easy about us with you here; but if you haven’t authority enough to keep tramps away, perhaps we’ll have to call on Bert or Jack.”
This sarcasm aroused Preston.
“Miss Pancake,” said he solemnly, “do you see this gun?” taking it from the corner. “Perhaps you may not know that I am a soldier in the regular army; and when people do not behave well it is my business to shoot them.”
Pecielena was a shrewd child, and only laughed.
“You wouldn’tdassshoot me,” said she confidently.
“Ah, you needn’t be so sure of that. Wait and see. Now I’m going to ask you sixquestions; and do you step toward the door every time you answer one. And if you are not out of the door by the time the last one is answered——”
The sentence was left unfinished, but there was an awful gleam of spectacles, a threatening wave of the gun, and Preston’s appearance was most military and imposing.
“Do you know how to read, little girl?”
“No.”
“Then step.”
She slowly obeyed.
“Do you ever go to church?”