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CHAPTER XPLANS
After looking out upon the garden from where she stood upon the porch, Cassy decided that she would like to be by herself for a while and think over all that had been taking place. So she stole down the long path to a little corner sheltered by trees on one side and by tall bushes on the other.
Into this little hiding-place she crept and lay down with face upturned towards the leaves and branches overhead. There was an empty nest among the branches, and there were all sorts of creeping, crawling things at hand to amuse and interest her. A fuzzy caterpillar, with a funny face, looked over the side of a leaf at her; a nimble spider spun a web from twig to twig; a busy colony of ants near by ran back and forth as if the affairs of the nation had to be settled. John had told her many things about the ants, and he had been as interested as she in a family of spiders.
“And he is my uncle. Think of it,” she said, winking her eyes at the caterpillar. “I don’t suppose you care about your relations because you have to have such lots and lots of them, but I care. You couldn’t have as nice a one as my Uncle John if you tried. Uncle John, Uncle John; how nice that sounds. What will Rock say? And Eleanor, and oh dear, there’s so much I haven’t heard about yet. I wish they’d hurry up and tell me. I wish little girls could hear every blessed thing that grown people talk about. I wonder if my mouse is at home. I think I’ll go and see.”
She jumped up and ran to the tool-house. After opening the door softly she stood inside whistling and chirruping in a gentle way, and after some patient waiting she saw a little mouse come creeping out. Then she gently opened a small tin box and took some crumbs from it; these she held in her hand, crouching on the ground as she did so, and after a little while the mouse came nearer, and finally crept upon her hand, eating the crumbs confidently and stopping once in a while to look at her with round bright eyes. She heard the whir, whir of the lawn-moweroutside, and then the sound stopped and she lifted her head to listen, for she heard a voice say: “Where is Cassy? I can’t find her anywhere.”
The little mouse paused in its meal, and as a shadow darkened the door it leaped from Cassy’s hand and went scudding across the floor, but not before it was seen by some one who was entering.
“Well, Miss Oddity,” cried a voice. “I might know you’d be off hiding somewhere playing with a mouse or a spider or something.”
Cassy was so happy that she did not resent this but replied, laughing: “Well, Miss Morning-Glory, you’ve scared my mouse away, you see.”
“Yes, I am sorry I did. I wish I had crept up softly to see you feed it. How tame it is, but ugh! I don’t believe I’d like a mouse crawling on me.” And Eleanor stepped in, looking very pretty in her white dress and broad-brimmed hat. “I came down with papa this morning,” she said. “Mamma and I came, and Rock and Uncle Heath. Mamma and papa have goneback, and I am going to stay all night, for I have to go to the dentist’s in the morning.”
“Are you going to stay here?”
“Yes, if your mother doesn’t mind.”
“Oh, I know she won’t, and I shall be so glad. Will Rock stay, too?”
“Yes. He is down town now and will be here after a while.”
“Have you heard the news?” asked Cassy.
“What? About the money? Yes, but isn’t it too bad that it isn’t more? Papa says that Uncle Heath did his best, but he was only one against many, and that it was the best that could be done.”
“It is much better than nothing,” said Cassy, repeating her mother’s words. “But I didn’t mean that news so much as the other about—but never mind now, let’s wait till Rock comes, and then I can tell you both. It’s the most of a s’prise you ever heard; it’s just wonderful.”
“You might tell me first. I won’t tell Rock.”
Cassy shook her head.
“No, I must wait.” She could be very determinedsometimes, and Eleanor soon saw that there was no use in insisting.
“You are not going back to Orchard Street, I hope,” said the latter.
“No, indeed, mother says we are not.”
“I know something, too,” said Eleanor. “Aunt Dora isn’t coming back to the city till November, so you can stay here till then if you want to.”
“That is more good news, but if—— Oh, dear, I wish Rock would come. I can hardly keep my secret.”
“I wish you’d just make out I’m Miss Morning-Glory, and then you’d be sure to tell me.”
“I don’t see so much of Miss Morning-Glory nowadays,” Cassy confessed. “I have so many things to do, and I think she’s in the country a great deal in the summer.” She spoke very seriously, and Eleanor laughed.
“You funny girl! You are as funny as Bubbles. I wish you could see Bubbles, our little colored girl, you know; and I wish—oh, dear, I was so in hopes you were going to have a cottage near us. Rock told me he had picked one out for you.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, it stands by itself just a little way out of our town. It is a country town, you know, with trees and gardens, and there are woods very near the cottage, and it has a big field next to it. There’s a little brook runs through the field and on into the woods.”
“Oh,” sighed Cassy, “how lovely! Is it a little, little cottage?”
“Not so very, very little; it has eight rooms, I think.”
“I’m afraid that’s much too big; but it’s nice to hear about it. Mother said—oh, dear, there I go again. Come, I want to show you such a dear little hiding-place I have under the bushes. I don’t believe you ever found it. Isn’t it too queer for anything that I should be living here all summer, when I always longed just to get behind these garden walls?”
“Yes, but we all think it is fine to have you.”
“I never, never expected to be so happy as I have been here.”
“And don’t you like John McClure?”
Cassy laughed, a pleased, half-embarrassed little laugh, and Eleanor looked at her, puzzled.
“What makes you laugh that way?”
“Because. Oh, just because——”
“I hear Rock’s whistle.”
They ran up the walk down which Rock was coming. “Here we are,” cried Eleanor. “Hurry, Rock, Cassy has something to tell you.”
“I know,” he returned as he came near. “Father told me.”
“No, I don’t believe you do know it,” Eleanor declared. “It is not the railroad money; it is something else.”
“What is it?” Rock had come up to them.
Cassy clasped her hands tightly and looked from one to the other.
“John McClure is my truly uncle.”
“I don’t believe it,” cried Eleanor. “You are joking. How can he be?”
“He is truly, my owny downy uncle.”
“He can’t be your father’s brother because his name is McClure,” said Rock.
“He isn’t my father’s brother; he is my mother’s.”
“You told me your name was Catherine Kennedy after your grandmother, and that yourmother’s name was Kennedy before she was married,” said Eleanor severely.
“He might be a stepbrother,” suggested Rock.
“But he isn’t; he is my mother’s own brother, and his real name is Kennedy.”
“Not McClure?” exclaimed Rock and Eleanor at once.
“No, he changed his name. Oh, it’s a long story. Come over here in my corner and I’ll tell you.”
They followed her readily, being quite eager to hear more of this strange matter, and she told her story to two very interested listeners.
“Whew!” exclaimed Rock, when she had concluded. “It is like a story-book. Isn’t it the queerest thing, Dimple? Father always said that there was a history connected with John McClure and that he was out of place in this position.”
“But I haven’t found out yet what entail means,” said Cassy, soberly.
“I can tell you,” Rock informed her. “It’s not letting property go out of the family. It goes down from father to son, and it can’t be sold by one person because it has to go to his son.That’s why John comes by your grandfather’s property; it would have gone to his father if he had lived, and then down to John.”
“But he can sell it; he is going to.”
“Then the entail stops with him; it is that way sometimes. I can’t explain it exactly, but anyhow when a place is entailed it can’t be sold or left by will to any one but the next in descent, and John is the next in descent so it comes to him. Entail means to cut off, to abridge; I looked it up one day.”
“I thought it meant to put a tail on,” said Cassy.
Rock laughed.
“Never mind what it means; you can study it up when you’re older. I am mighty glad for John. I must go and tell him so. And I’m glad for you, Cassy. It is a good deal to happen in one day. Where is Jerry? What does he think of it?”
“He’s glad, of course. I don’t know just where he is. He came out here after dinner but I suppose he’s with the boys. He does stay in a great deal more than he used to, but he gets tired of not having boys to play with. If heknew you were here he’d be back quick enough.”
“And don’t you get tired of not having girls?” Rock asked.
“I do have,” Cassy returned, in all seriousness. To her mind if Flora and Miss Morning-Glory were not girls she would like to know who were.
“I think I’ll go hunt up Jerry after I have seen John,” said Rock, as he walked off.
Left to themselves the two little girls talked till Mrs. Law called them. They found Martha on hand, Mr. Dallas having very thoughtfully sent for her.
“You will have too much of a houseful, Mrs. Law,” he said, “and if we are all to be looked after you will need more than one pair of hands. Besides, you and your brother will have much to say to each other. I am sorry I must lose the best man we ever had, but I am glad for you all.”
Such an exciting time never was. All this houseful of people, an old friend suddenly appearing as an unknown and unlooked for uncle, and besides this all that about the money that had been that day received. Any one of these things would be enough to excite any child, buttake them all together and it was too much for one of Cassy’s imaginative temperament. Long after every one else in the house was fast asleep she lay with wide open eyes.
Finally she decided that she would get up and go out on the porch which led from the room. She put on her shoes and stockings and wrapping a blanket around her, for the September night was chill, she crept out on the porch. The moon was on the wane and was not shining very brightly. In the trees the insects were keeping up a noisy chirping. Cassy looked down into the shadowy depths of the garden. The large white moon-flowers shone out of the green around her and sent up a faint sweet odor.
“You ought to be called night-glories,” Cassy whispered to them. “That is what I should call you.”
Presently she saw down in the garden below her a man’s figure, pacing up and down the long walk.
“It is Uncle John,” she said, “and he can’t sleep either. I wonder what he is thinking about, and if he is lonely down there.” She thought she would like to go down to him, butshe was a little afraid to grope her way through the dark house, so she leaned over the railing of the porch and when he came near she called him softly.
He came and stood under where she was.
“What are you doing up this time of night, you little witch?” he asked.
“I couldn’t sleep and I thought I’d like to see how the world looked in the night-time; ’way in the night like this.”
“Would you like to come down here with me and see?”
“Yes, indeed I would.”
He went a little aside and brought a long ladder up which he climbed, and lifting her over the railing, he carried her down pick-a-back.
“There,” he said, when they had reached the ground, “we’ll take a turn around the garden. Are you wrapped up good and warm?”
“Almost too warm, in this blanket. Do I look like an Indian?”
“You might look like almost anything in this light, but I don’t think your costume will do to walk in.” He took her up in his arms, although she protested that she was too heavy. “If Icouldn’t carry a mite like you I’d be a poor stick,” he told her, and he bore her off under the trees, down this path, and up that, between hedge-rows and past flower borders, telling her of the moths, the katydids and of all the night creatures; of flowers that went to sleep and of those that were awake only after the sun went down.
After a while Cassy asked, “What were you thinking of, Uncle John, when you were walking, walking up and down?”
“Of many things; of my boyhood and of——” he paused, “my little baby girl asleep forever out there in Australia.”
“Oh!” Cassy held him closer. “I didn’t know. Oh, Uncle John, I am so sorry and I love you very much.”
He kissed her.
“Dear little lassie, that too, was what I was thinking of. It is a great thing to me, who thought himself alone in the world, to find suddenly that he has those who are his own flesh and blood, and who are his friends already.”
“We will live together always, won’t we?”
“I hope so.”
“And when you come back, what will you do?”
“I will pick you all up and carry you off with me to a home of our own.”
“Oh! Oh!”
“I’ve been thinking of it and I believe I love a garden better than most things, and so I think I will be a florist. I have studied up the subject pretty well.”
“And you’ll have——”
“Greenhouses and all sorts of flowers.”
“And will we live close to them?”
“I haven’t a doubt but that we will.”
Cassy dropped her head on his shoulder.
“I think that is the loveliest plan I ever heard of. I am so glad I didn’t go to sleep, for if I had I wouldn’t have come out here to have you tell me about it.”
“I think it is time you were going in. You will be too sleepy to get up to-morrow and Miss Eleanor is here, so you will not want to lie abed. I’ll take you back now and you must try to go to sleep so as to be up to breakfast to-morrow.”
Cassy promised, and he carried her back. For awhile she lay in bed listening to the sound of the insects, and then she fell asleep.