The Project Gutenberg eBook ofPeggy-AloneThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Peggy-AloneAuthor: Mary Agnes ByrneIllustrator: Anna B. CraigRelease date: January 26, 2008 [eBook #24431]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEGGY-ALONE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Peggy-AloneAuthor: Mary Agnes ByrneIllustrator: Anna B. CraigRelease date: January 26, 2008 [eBook #24431]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines
Title: Peggy-Alone
Author: Mary Agnes ByrneIllustrator: Anna B. Craig
Author: Mary Agnes Byrne
Illustrator: Anna B. Craig
Release date: January 26, 2008 [eBook #24431]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEGGY-ALONE ***
The girls paused and waved their handkerchiefs.The girls paused and waved their handkerchiefs.
The girls paused and waved their handkerchiefs.The girls paused and waved their handkerchiefs.
"Down, Prince!"
High above the shrill exclamations of surprise and terror came that thin silvery command which the dog, great black fellow that he was, obeyed at once, and his flight in pursuit of those daring petticoats which had intruded on his master's orchard was brought to an ignominious end.
"Girls, say, girls, don't be frightened! He won't bite!"
One of the children had already scaled the wall, dropping her apron of apples on the way. She stood ready to help the second down, while the third and largest, who had kept in the rear between the smaller ones and their pursuer, waiting to see them safely over ere hastening her own steps, on hearing those friendly words paused and looked back.
Some distance away, under the apple trees on the grassy terrace, stood a little girl dressed all in white; a wreath of green ivy-vines crowded her glossy curls which fell to her waist and framed her thin face; one tiny hand was raised in a beckoning gesture and the other was placed firmly on the head of the dog.
Leading him, she approached the girl who waited in mute surprise.
"Do tell them not to go. They needn't be afraid of Prince now!"
"She says not to be afraid," hallooed the largest girl, whereupon the fugitives came back and seated themselves upon the wall overlooking the scene.
The girl with the dog had come forward. She stood looking half shyly, but with evident good-will, from the little maids on the wall to their friend who had turned after recalling the others, and came back a few steps to meet her.
"What are their names?" inquired the stranger.
"This is Ivy Bonner," the other said in a formal tone, pointing to her thinner companion, who swung her feet on the outside of the wall and, though she sat only half-facing them, seemed to see everything that went on. "And this is my sister Nettie," she continued, indicating the chubby, flaxen-haired party whose ruddy cheeks and great staring blue eyes reminded one of an over-grown doll-baby.
As each name was pronounced its owner gave a ceremonious little bow such as is always used in make-believe introductions, and the newcomer bowed gravely to each in acknowledgment. Then she turned again to the largest girl.
"And yours?"
"I am Laura—Laura Lee."
"What's hers?" called Ivy, who felt that there was something lacking in the ceremony.
"Oh, my name's Alene Dawson," was the answer, and then, turning to Laura, she added with a somewhat rueful laugh, "but Uncle sometimes calls me Peggy-Alone."
"Why does he call you such a funny name?"
"Why, you see I'm so much by myself, now that mother and father went away and left me here with Uncle Fred. I get lonesome all by myself!"
"I should think you would!" cried Laura compassionately.
"Let's sit down," suggested Alene. They did so, side by side, on the grass, while Prince reclined lazily beside them.
"Do you live in the Big House?" inquired Laura, glancing toward a building which stood far up on the level ground overlooking the terraced hill; a substantial house whose gray stone walls and square tower were partly hid with vines. It was the most pretentious habitation in the town and occupied the most beautiful site. Laura and her friends regarded it somewhat as a fairy palace, around which they wove many fanciful romances.
"I'm a-visiting there now but when Uncle goes down town and the maids are all at work I don't know what to do with myself; and when I saw you all here among the trees I just hurried down, I was so glad to see a crowd of girls, but naughty Prince ran ahead and scared you away! What were you playing?"
"We weren't playing; we were just picking apples."
Alene looked horrified.
"You see, Mr. Dawson allows us to come in and take all we want," explained Laura hurriedly, while a shrill voice from the wall cried:
"We weren'tstealing!"
"I never thought that!"
"Well, she looked as if she did," commented Ivy.
"I looked surprised because—well—to think you would eat such green apples."
This statement brought forth a ripple of amusement from the two critics and Alene with reddened cheeks turned to the girl at her side.
"Well, they are dangerous, aren't they?"
"Don't mind those kids, they giggle at 'most anything. You see we are used to eating them and they are not injurious if you eat 'em with salt," explained Laura, though not very clearly.
"She's to take the kids and the apples with a little salt!" cried Ivy.
"Just try one!"
Alene sank her teeth rather gingerly into the rounded green cheek of the proffered apple.
"It's rather sour!" she said, trying to repress a grimace but unable to keep the tears from her eyes.
Laura took from her apron pocket a tiny glass saltcellar and shook some of its contents lightly over the next bite which Alene heroically swallowed.
"It's not so very bad," she murmured. So intent was she on accepting Laura's intended kindness graciously that she envied the ease with which Ivy and Nettie disposed of the apples, biting off great mouthfuls and chewing them, core and all, with evident enjoyment.
Laura forgot to eat any herself, being content to watch Alene's performance and never dreaming what a task it was for her.
"Say, Laura!" came a voice in a loud, hissing tone intended for a whisper; "she's got lace on her petticoat."
"And silk stockings and slippers!"
"Hush—'tisn't polite to whisper before comp'ny," admonished Laura.
"I don't mind the little thing," said Alene in a confidential aside to Laura, regardless of the fact that the "little thing" was nearly as large as herself.
"But she acts years and years older," was Laura's inward comment. "I guess she's used to 'sociating with grown folks."
"I don't like to wear lace-trimmed things, either," continued Alene.
"Why, I think they're lovely," said Laura, tenderly fingering one of the flounces which billowed like waves against her own blue print.
"But you don't have to wear them and be 'called down' by your governess every minute for fear they'll get torn or dirty!"
"Have you a governess?" inquired Laura in a tone of awe.
"Yes, but she took sick just after mother went away and had to go to the hospital. You see mother expected her to come here and take care of me. Uncle hasn't told mother 'cause he don't want to spoil their trip and he thinks it won't hurt me to learn to take care of myself. It's the first time I ever went round without a nurse or someone tagging after me, telling me to do this or not to do that—it's lovely to be free, girls!"
"'Give me liberty or give me death!'" said Laura in a tragic tone, and Alene squeezed her hand.
"Oh, Laura, it's so nice to talk with someone who understands! But in spite of being so free, I get solonely!"
Laura's eyes shone with sudden comprehension.
"Oh, you poor little lonely baby," she said to herself, and then aloud,
"Alene, I wish you could join the Happy-Go-Luckys."
"The Happy-Go-Luckys? What are they?"
"A kind ofclub—you know."
"A club," said Alene, in such a doubtful tone that Laura took a sudden fit of laughter.
"Oh, Alene, you're so funny! It's not a club tohitwith, but just us—a crowd of girls—to go together for fun and to do things."
"Oh, Laura! Would you really let me join, if Uncle will allow?"
"I'd love to, but we have some rules and bylaws—to be eligible the candidate's age must be at least twelve!" Laura from long practice was able to repeat the big words glibly.
"And I won't be twelve till July the seventeenth! Oh, Laura!"
"That's not so far off!"
"But what'll become of me till then? I'll die of loneliness!"
"I was going to say that July seventeenth is so near, and you seem so much older, that we'll have a special election, and—well, we'll stretch the rules to let you in."
Alene gave a sigh of relief.
"As I'm not so very large, you won't have to stretch them very far," she said, encouragingly.
"If she's little, she's old, like Andy Daly's pig!" Again came that sibilant whisper.
"Alene, don't mind her!"
"But why does she say that?"
"It's an old Irish saying. You see, Andy Daly took his pig to market and they objected to its size—'If it's little, it's old' said Andy Daly; and so they say, 'If it's little, it's old, like Andy Daly's pig!'"
Alene laughed and called over to the whisperer:
"If I'm little, I'm old enough to be a Happy-Go-Lucky—so there!"
"Where is Peggy-Alone, Prince?" inquired Mr. Frederick Dawson.
The dog had come bounding over the grass to meet him at the Tower House gate, strange to say unaccompanied by the little girl who was usually the first to greet him each evening on his return from the office.
With Prince barking and snapping at his hand, the young man hurried along the path and into the great hall.
"Yes, Prince, I know she's hiding somewhere, to jump out and scare her poor old Uncle and set his nerves all a-tremble! It was thoughtful of you to give me warning!" he said aloud. He hung up his hat, keeping a sharp lookout for the delinquent but she was nowhere in sight; no dancing footsteps were heard coming from any part of the house.
"I hope she isn't sick," he soliloquized, beginning to feel uneasy. "She's getting pale and listless. The poor little thing must be lonely here all day with no one but the servants. I wish she knew some children to play with! Confounded luck for the governess to fall sick and leave me as a sort of head nurse!" His grumbling anxious thoughts ended in an abrupt exclamation.
"Hello, there!"
Through the open door of the library he saw a little white-robed maid, seated in a great leather revolving chair, with her eyes fixed upon an object on the table beside her. If she noticed the young man's entrance or heard his voice she gave no sign, nor did she pay any attention to Prince, who led the way into the room, and strove with a great show of canine solicitude, in merry barks and gambols, to attract his young mistress' attention.
"Alene!" her Uncle said sharply, but the silence remained unbroken.
Half alarmed, he came forward and shook her by the shoulder.
"For heaven's sake, child, is anything the matter?"
Still she made no reply; she kept gazing, gazing in one direction as though fascinated.
Following her glance, he saw the fragments of a fancy Mexican tobacco-jar, which he had shown to her only the day before.
"Alene, I'm ashamed of you!" he cried in an angry tone. "Has the breaking of this jar brought you to such a state as this? Why, anyone would think—I'd swear it was the truth myself were anyone else in question—yes, they would think me an ogre who ate little girls who chanced to break something!" Turning away, he paced the floor with rapid steps backward and forward. The longer he walked, the faster he went, and higher the angry red glowed in his cheeks.
For a time Alene kept her unaccountable position. Presently her eyes strayed sidewise toward her agitated companion, who, intent on his own angry mutterings, was unaware of her inspection. The gleam of mirth that overspread her countenance was quickly banished; she rose and stood beside her chair and then crossed the floor to his side.
A little hand stole into his, a pair of blue eyes gazed contritely upward.
"Oh, Uncle, you said it was a present and I felt so badly! You aren't angry?"
"Ain't I? Do I look as if I'd beat a child?"
Suddenly his angry mood passed away, and he threw himself into a chair, in a paroxysm of laughter.
"Oh, Polly-Wog, what shall I do to make you pay up for this?"
"The jar? Did it cost so awfully much?"
"The jar you gave me when I came in, I thought you were in a trance! I had a wild notion to lose no time in bringing the doctor!"
She glanced ruefully at the broken vase.
"I was just wondering if it could be pieced together again—"
"Before the ogre got back?"
Alene perched herself on the arm of his chair with one arm around his shoulders.
"You're more like a fairy godmother—father, I mean."
"How did the terrible accident occur?"
"I picked it up to admire it and my hand got sort o' dizzy and let it fall."
"And you didn't think of running away and pretending you knew nothing about it, or blaming it on the maid?"
"Now, Uncle Fred—as if I'd be so dishonorable!"
"Well, I might, if I had such an ogre for an uncle as yours appears to be! I shouldn't fancy being ground to sausages!"
"Like Andy Daly's pig was, I guess! I must tell you about him, but there's something else to ask you first—something very important! Since you're the good fairy, you ought to grant me three wishes but I'll let you off with one."
"I'll not insist on granting the three until I hear Number One—Here goes! One, two, three—"
"Can I—may I—join the Happy-Go-Luckys?" implored Alene in an impressive voice, with clasped hands.
"The Happy-Go-Luckys! You're sure you don't mean the Ku Klux Klan? Hark, there's Kizzie coming to announce dinner. Come along and you can tell me all about it while we eat."
She took his arm with a mock fine-lady air, and walked beside him with mincing steps across the hall to the dining-room.
It was a square apartment with windows opening upon a green vista of gardens, now shut away by latticed blinds, through which the fresh spring air found way.
The bay window was filled with immense potted palms; another window led to a balcony where baskets with myrtle and other vines hung round like a heavy green curtain. The room was finished in light colored woodwork. A square rug in a pattern of tiny green and white tiles partly covered the polished floor; in the center stood a cosy round table, whose snowy napery and old silver and china were lit by a bronze lamp with an ornamental shade that resembled a gorgeous peony.
Seated opposite her Uncle, Alene, in her eagerness to relate her afternoon's adventure, almost forgot to touch the tempting dishes which Kizzie, the maid, served so deftly.
Her usually pale cheeks glowed and her eyes beamed brightly while she told of her new friends and the club.
Mr. Dawson listened with flattering attention.
"You may, you shall, you must, join the Happy-Go-Luckys! As a society for the prevention of loneliness to Peggy-Alone or any other forlorn little girl, it strikes me as a good thing," he declared.
"Oh, Uncle, you're a dear old thing!"
"An article ofvirtuas it were. Be careful how you handle me!"
Alene gave him a reproachful look.
"There, don't start that deadly stare again! I'm not insinuating anything!"
His air of alarm amused Alene. She laughed merrily. Her joy over his permission to join the Happy-Go-Luckys banished from her Uncle's mind any doubts he may have had of her mother's approval. However, he knew something of Alene's new friends, being personally acquainted with Mr. Lee, whose work as a riverman allowed him little time at home, while Mrs. Bonner was a widow who kept a small boarding house; both families, though poor, were highly respectable.
"Since I'm left in charge of Alene, I'll use my own judgment, which tells me that it's the very thing for her. She looks improved already and I'll not let any snobbish question deprive her of happiness." Which settled the matter there and then for all concerned.
* * * * * *
"What's the matter now, Alene, that you pucker your brows over that ponderous tome?"
It was after supper, and Uncle Fred, seated in an easy chair beside the reading table in the library, was lazily puffing a pipe.
A stand near by held a large dictionary over whose pages Alene's head was bent.
Glancing up with a puzzled expression, she said: "I don't quite understand; this book says it means 'plain,' and I'm sure lots of children are quite ugly long before they are that age, and I don't think the girls are plain—Laura has lovely eyes and I never heard I was. Am I ugly, Uncle?"
"Well, one wouldn't pick you out in a crowd when all the lights were out, for a fright—"
"Oh, Uncle Fred, do be sober a minute!"
"Alene, I'm ashamed of you to hint that your guardian is ever anything else!"
"I mean grave!"
"A 'most potent, reverend and grave' old fellow am I!"
"Why, sometimes, Uncle Fred, you act as if you weren't any more than nine," said Alene, returning to the book with an air of tolerant resignation that amused the young man. He crossed to her side.
"Tell me what you are hunting; perhaps I can help you."
Alene ignored his air of exaggerated solemnity.
"You see, Laura said one must be twelve years old to be legible—to the Club, you know."
"Then if I'm not too old, I'm old enough to belong! But if I were you, I'd quit the L's and try something else very like it, with an E before," suggested Uncle Fred.
"Eligible, of course—how stupid of me!"
On the way upstairs that night Alene paused and gave way to a fit of laughter.
"What's the fun now?" called Uncle Fred from his cosy position by the table.
"It seems so funny to think that I," here came a series of mirthful sounds, "to think that you would think that I was afraid of you."
Uncle Fred's chair was overturned by his energetic uprising in pursuit of the little tease, who heeded the warning and was safely out of sight on the landing, with one parting giggle as the door of her room was shut with a resounding clap.
"Not a red gum drop was cast!" cried Laura as she jumped lightly from the garden wall and joined Alene, who for some time had been pacing the orchard impatiently with Prince jumping beside her.
Alene's look of pleased anticipation changed to dismay.
"I'm so sorry!"
"What for?"
"Why, Uncle Fred would have given me money to buy some, if I knew you wanted them!"
Laura's laugh rang out merrily.
"Why, Alene, it'svotes! We don't buy them like 'lectioneers do—we get enough to give each member one red and one white gumdrop. Those who are for a candidate put in a white and those against her a red!"
Alene danced with joy.
"Then I'm elected!"
"You are now a member of the Happy-Go-Luckys and your name is duly inscribed on the books!" said Laura, in her judicial tone.
"And they all put in the white drops! How lovely of them!"
"Yes, all but Ivy; she put hers in her mouth to taste it, and before she knew, it was gone!"
"Dear me, and what did she do then?"
"She whispered it to me at the last minute, just after I got out the little mustard box where we cast our votes, and so I allowed her to put in a button instead. After it was over, some of us wanted to save the gumdrops for the first meeting you attended, but those greedy youngsters had devoured 'em all but two which I managed to keep."
Laura pressed into Alene's hand a small tinsel-paper package.
"You must eat half of each," said Alene, wisely surmising that it was Laura's own portion that had been saved, and resolving to leave for another day the blue ribbon-tied box of candy Uncle Fred had given her that morning, which she had just placed in the grass at the foot of a tree, awaiting Laura's arrival.
Seated on the green beneath the trees, they ate the gumdrops, whose scarcity perhaps made them seem the more delicious, and exchanged confidences concerning themselves and the Happy-Go-Luckys.
Alene, who was an only child, envied Laura's claim to two small sisters and a baby brother and one brother older than herself.
"Ivy is the only girl in the Bonner family."
"Like me!"
"Not quite—she has six brothers, four of them older than she is!"
"Gracious, I'd be lost in such a crowd of boys!"
As for the Club, it had formal meetings when an excursion to the woods or an exhibition was in view; then verbal notice was given to assemble at the home of one of the members. The other meetings were when two or more members met by chance or appointment for any object, whether study, play or conversation.
"So you see this is a meeting of two members, and I think I see a third," concluded the President, Miss Lee, craning her neck in the direction of the side street.
"Hello, Lol," cried a shrill voice, and Ivy's curly head peeped over the wall.
"I'll go and help her over," said Laura, rising quickly. As the wall was not very high, Alene idly wondered why such an active-looking girl should need assistance in scaling it.
"Why, I never dreamed she was lame," she murmured a moment later, swallowing something that seemed to choke her, when she saw Ivy coming forward on a pair of slender crutches. She strove to hide her emotion as she hurried down the grassy terrace to greet her.
Ivy may have noticed her start of surprise, for she said with a queer, unchildish laugh, as though she had read her thought:
"You didn't know I used these," with an expressive glance toward the crutches. "You see I kept 'em on the other side of the wall the other day. I wanted you to treat me as you would if I were like the rest, not handled gently and pitied!"
Alene tried to keep the pity from her countenance, for Ivy's words made her feel worse than ever. She wished she could run away somewhere, for a while, to have a good cry.
"Don't mind her, Alene! I do believe she talks that way to make us feel bad," said Laura in what Alene thought a very unfeeling manner; but she learned later that Laura's seeming harshness toward Ivy was only a cloak to hide her sympathy, and that it gave her an influence over the child who would otherwise use her infirmity to tyrannize over the others.
Ivy threw her crutches on the grass and sank down, saying,
"Horrid things! I hate them—and it makes me feel so mean to have to beg to get them back when the kids take 'em away from me!"
"Do they do that?" inquired Alene, indignantly.
"They have to do it sometimes, for she beats them with the crutches," explained Laura.
"That's the only way I can reach 'em!" said her friend, in self-defense.
Ivy was an elfin-looking creature with sparkling black eyes that seemed to see right through one; her small head was covered with a thick mop of curls of a blackness that, in some lights, had blue and green shades like the plumage of a bird; her wasted cheeks and brown, claw-like hands told pathetically of weary months on a sick-bed, which indeed she had only recently quitted, as Alene learned later.
"What a lovely sash you have on," she exclaimed, with a sudden change of mood, holding up an end of Alene's plaid sash. "It's like a baby rainbow stolen from a fairy sky and hung 'round your waist."
Alene glanced at her sash with a new interest. She cared little for pretty clothes and seldom noticed what those around her wore; that she was dressed finer and more fashionably than Laura and Ivy had not once occurred to her.
"That sounds like poetry," she observed.
"Yes, she writes poetry, too!" Laura returned proudly. "You must let Alene see some of it—and she keeps a book where she writes all about the sky when the sun sets—she sees lovely rivers and golden hills and ladies riding in skiffs—"
"Now, Lol!" cried Ivy with a hectic color reddening her cheeks. "It's just silly stuff, you know, that I put down to pass away the time when I'm laid up," she explained. "I thought of it one evening when the boarders were at supper; the boys were eating and mother of course too busy to stay with me. Hugh brought in my supper on a tray and hurried back to the dining-room and I sat there alone and ate my meal and watched the sky from my couch, which was drawn up close to the window. What wonderful things I saw then!"
"Tell me about them, won't you?" implored Alene.
"There were great purple mountains and emerald lakes and wonderful golden caves—people, too—angels with harps flying through the white clouds, ladies with crowns and long robes gliding along and little children swimming the river on the back of great swans like in the fairy books. Every evening it changed and at last I commenced to write about the different things I saw each day, and so I called it my Sunset Book. As for sunrises—" Ivy gave a sudden arch glance at Laura.
"Lazybones, I don't believe you ever saw one!"
"I'd love to see your book!" cried Alene; "and there are some beautiful sunsets looking from the Tower!"
Ivy glanced up toward the tower of the Big House that rose almost as high as a church spire from the top of the hill.
"I do believe one could see behind the hills over there in the west, to the other side of the world from those windows," she exclaimed.
"Well, you and Laura come up this evening and—"
"Won't your folks object?"
"There's no folks there but Uncle Fred and he's no objector. Promise to come and see how far we can see!"
"'Over the hills and far away.'"
"Yes, we promise," cried Laura.
"Oh, Lol, I could hardly keep my face straight! To think we were actually invited up to the Big House really and truly, and were right there where we had so often pretended to live, you as Countess Terilla and I the Lady Clare-Come-to-See; I could hardly make this face of mine behave."
"Your eyes just shook inside; little, shining imps danced in them, wanting to come out. Yes, I saw them and—"
"And I was so glad of the chance to giggle out loud when you said something that wasn't at all funny but gave us a chance to pretend it was. I could have screamed!"
"After all, it wasn't near so fine as our palace, with its red room and its green room and its blue room with everything to match."
"But that library was beautiful. You couldn't help but see lovely things if you were writing there!"
"Alene is such a dear little thing! She never gave a thought to her home being so much finer than ours; she only thought of giving us a good time!" said Laura.
"She's no snob! She thinks people are what they are in themselves!"
"And thoughts are the most precious things—that's the reason she wanted to give you the pleasure of seeing His Gorgeous Lordship from the tower window!"
For a moment Ivy was silent; her gaze was far away; again she was looking from that little narrow window so close to the clouds.
"Do you know, Lol, if I owned the Big House I'd live in the tower when I wasn't in the library. But it wasn't me in particular, Lol, that Alene wanted. To her I'm only a lesser planet when you're near—it's hearts that count!"
"Yes, she's so good-hearted that you forget her pretty clothes and rich relations, and come to lock on her as just a little girl like the others!" Ivy smiled indulgently as Laura applied her remarks to Alene, and the unconscious Laura continued, "At first when I proposed that she should join the Happy-Go-Luckys, it was just because she looked so lonely with only the dog to play with, in that great house with its acres of grounds; and when she said her Uncle called her 'Peggy-Alone', I could see the tears back of her smile and it came to me, 'what if Nettie or Lois were to be left all alone?' They're so used to tagging after me all their lives, you know, and so I just asked her in, though I was dreadfully afraid you would all be against it."
"And so we were! Just because we knew she was rich and might be in the way when we wanted some fun, or would look down on us because we're poor. That," glancing at her crutches, "makes some people mild and sweet-tempered, they say, but it only makes me hatefuller and selfisher every day! Lol, I'm going to tell you something so you'll see what a selfish thing I am. I swallowed that gumdrop on purpose so I wouldn't have to vote! I didn't have the courage to vote against her because you were so eager to have her join."
"And then you got sorry as you always do."
"No, don't give me too much credit! I got ashamed when I compared my conduct with others; but you were unselfish—you didn't stop to consider the disadvantages to yourself. You only thought of her."
While Laura, with reddened cheeks, disclaimed this with as much earnestness as if taxed with a crime, Ivy went on unheeding:
"I thought it over this morning when I took out my Sunset Book, and instead of writing down what we saw from the tower window—which no onecoulddescribe, no painter nor poet that ever lived, glimpses of glory that God lets shine down, sometimes, when the Pearly Gate is opened just a narrow chink (to let some little white angel in perhaps) and the clouds reflect it, just as the river does the trees, you know—well, I wrote this instead!"
Laura took the precious book and perused it seriously.
"May I keep it and read it to Alene? I know she'd enjoy it!"
Ivy demurred, but at last consented and on Laura's next meeting with Alene she brought forth a green paper-covered copy-book and, with a few preliminary remarks, proceeded to read:
"'Once upon a time—'"
"It begins all right, anyway," interrupted Alene, settling herself comfortably against a tree, and half closing her eyes, as if to hear the better.
"'Once upon a time,'" Laura's voice went on, "'I wandered far away until I came to a narrow path, on one side of which was a beautiful garden blooming with flowers and fruit, with gay birds skimming through the air, while on the other side the grass and flowers lay withered, the trees leaned over, leafless and dead, and perched in their branches were mute, broken-winged birds. I went on until I came to the Witch of the Woods, who stood leaning on her hazel staff, with her red cloak wrapped around her, and her long, silvery hair falling, tangled, en her shoulders.
"'What ails the little maiden that she looks so puzzled? Perhaps I can smooth the wrinkles from her brow!' she said in a harsh, cracked voice.
"'Oh, wise woman!' I cried, for I felt so badly about what I had seen that I never thought of being afraid—'please tell me the mystery of the blighted garden!'
"'My child, you have come through the Garden of Good Intentions—on one side are those which never came to blossom but died in the bud, whilst on the other are those which sprouted and grew and bloomed in beauty year after year, evergreen—'
"'And the voiceless birds?'
"'The mute birds of the broken wings are kind deeds, thought of, but left undone, while those performed multiply and fly, gay singing-birds, making many hearts glad!'"
The reader's voice ceased; the book fell in her lap; a silence followed; Prince lay blinking in the sunshine; the birds and insects gave no token of their presence—even the leaves of the trees hung motionless.
The girls, sitting in the shade side by side, vaguely realized the calm; the heat gave them only a sense of well-being; their thoughts were at first too shadowy for words.
Alene was thinking of Ivy's story. It reminded her of the text she had heard the previous Sunday in the little vine-covered church on the crest of the hill; "Be ye kind one to another, merciful, forgiving one another even as God hath forgiven you in Christ." She wished that she too might go through the Garden of Good Intentions whilst flowers sprang up and birds sang sweetly round about her. But what could she do, what deed of kindness perform, however small, that might perhaps bloom as a wild flower by the wayside to gladden the passer-by?
She gave a start when with a sudden bark Prince leaped up and ran to chase some stray chickens; a breeze blew up till every leaf and blade of grass quivered with joy; a bird twittered softly and was answered by his mate and presently from each bush and tree came the voices of its lodgers in a song of praise.
Then Laura spoke, showing that her thoughts had divined Alene's in a sympathetic wave.
"Now, what do you think, Alene, of a 'Kind Deeds' article in the Happy-Go-Luckys' constitution, pledging each member to the sending out of little birds with strong wings that can fly?"
"And planting seeds to spring up in fragrant flowers? Oh, Laura!" cried Alene, "that would be beautiful!"