CHAPTER XTHE WILD GARDEN
Meanwhile, as the kittens were growing, the garden was growing, too. Peggy thought it was strange that small furry things and plants and vegetables should change so much in a few weeks, while children did not seem to change at all.
The garden had been a delight from the very first, for they had found it so interesting to follow old Michael about with the horses, as he ploughed the field at the back of the house and got it ready for planting. It was still more exciting to watch their mother and the old gardener, as they planned where the different crops were to be. Mrs. Owen had made one of her blue frocks, which she wore, and Peggy had on one of hers, and Alice felt sorry not to be in uniform, but she made a nice bit of color in the landscape in a pink frock.
Next came the planting. They helped about this. It was such fun to pat the earth down after the seed had been put in. There were rows and rows of peas, and rows and rows of string-beans and shell-beans, and some corn and turnips and carrots, and, also, a great many tomato plants. Mrs. Owen was going to put up all the peas and beans and tomatoes that Mrs. Horton needed, as well as her jams and jellies.And she was going to put up vegetables, fruit, and berries for Mrs. Carter, also, as she had been too busy getting settled to have any time to start a garden this year. May was a joyous month. The planting was all done, and some bits of green were poking their heads above the ground.
In June Clara came back, and they had her to play with. They saw a great deal of Diana, too, for they made frequent trips to see how Lady Janet was getting on. One day Clara went with them, and she decided she must have Topsy just as soon as she was big enough to leave home. This would leave only two kittens for three children, but Diana said if Lady Jane was to be hers she would let Christopher have Gretchen.
If Peggy and Alice took pleasure in the garden behind the house, this was nothing compared with their delight in what they called the wild garden, on the hill. The strawberries were the first of the berries to be picked. There were not a great many of them, but as Mrs. Horton and Mrs. Carter both wanted wild strawberry preserves, Mrs. Owen thought it best to get what she could from her own land. So one glorious June day she and the children started for the hill, with their luncheon, and pails to pick the berries in. Alice picked as carefully as her mother did, although not so fast; but Peggy put soft berries in with the good ones, and some bits of leaves somehow got in with her berries.
“Peggy, look what you are doing,” said her mother. “Those berries are over-ripe.”
“I don’t see what difference it makes, mother, so long as you are going to make strawberry jam. Oh, mother, look at that squirrel, he gave a skip from one branch to another. See what a bushy tail he has.”
“Peggy, do attend to your work.”
“Mother, you can’t expect me to work all the time on such a sunshiny day. It is just as important to watch squirrels and birds.”
“Well, perhaps it is for you, but not for me. I can’t put up squirrels for my neighbors by the cold-pack process.”
When it came to the preserving of the strawberries, Peggy and Alice were so interested that they went out into the kitchen so as to watch the whole process.
“Children, you mustn’t eat any more of the strawberries,” said their mother. “Remember, I am putting them up for other people.”
“But, mother, you’ve got lots and lots of them,” said Peggy. “I didn’t know we picked so many.”
“I had to buy a great many more to fill my orders,” said Mrs. Owen, “and even now I shan’t have as much wild strawberry preserve as Mrs. Horton and Mrs. Carter wanted; remember the strawberries represent just so much money.”
“But, mother,” said Peggy, “I think it would be so much nicer to keep the strawberry preserve for ourselvesthan to have the money. We can’t eat that.”
“Children, do keep out of this kitchen.”
“Mother, I don’t see why it is called the ‘cold-pack’ process, when you heat the jars,” said Peggy.
“Oh, do run along, children; you might go down to Diana’s and see how Lady Janet is getting along.”
“She is getting quite big,” said Alice. “Can we bring her home to-day?”
“Not to-day,” said her mother firmly. “I must get this preserving done before she comes.”
Picking raspberries was even more delightful than picking strawberries, because they were bigger, and there were so many more of them; but going for blueberries was the best of all, for there were such quantities of them in the pasture on the hill that one could get quarts and quarts. Indeed, there were so many that Mrs. Owen was glad of extra pickers. She proposed having a picnic and asking Miss Rand and Clara, and Diana and her brothers. Diana was much stronger now, and her father was going to take her to the picnic in his automobile. Mrs. Carter decided she would like to go, too, and so did her brother, who was staying with them for a few days. Diana thought that, next to her father, there was no other man in the whole world so delightful as her Uncle Joe. He was tall and slim and had friendly brown eyes, and such a kind face and merry smilethat Peggy and Alice and Clara liked him the first moment they saw him.
The first moment had been the day Clara went for her kitten. He had put the struggling Topsy into the basket in such a nice way, and he talked to her as if she had been a person. “Topsy, you are going to a very good home,” he said. “Miss Rand is one who understands people like you, and so does Clara. You will have the choicest food—lamb and fish, and all that you most desire, and you will be so well fed you will not have to live, like the Chinese, on mice.”
Lady Janet was still living at the Carters’ on account of the preserving, but she was getting so big she was to come to them very soon.
“If we wait until she gets much bigger, she will be running home just as her mother did,” said Peggy.
The day of the picnic was a glorious one. Peggy called it a “blue day” because the sky was so blue. It was a deep blue, and there were great fleecy clouds floating about. The blueberries were the most wonderful blue, two shades, dark and light, with a shimmer to them, and Peggy’s blue frock seemed a part of all the brightness of the day. Alice had on her yellow frock, and Diana was in green, and Clara in pink. It was almost too beautiful a day for them to stop and pick berries, Peggy thought; but that was what they had come for. Mrs. Owen said she would give a pint of preserved blueberries to theboy or girl who picked the first quart, provided they were carefully picked. So every one set to work to pick with a will.
Tom got his pail filled first, but as he was older than the other children, Diana said she thought Peggy ought to have the prize, because she had filled her quart pail almost as soon as Tom had; for Peggy, who was naturally quick, had been so anxious to come out ahead that she had not stopped to look at squirrels and birds. When Mrs. Owen examined the berries, however, she found some that were not ripe in Peggy’s pail. Diana and Alice had both of them picked slowly, but carefully. Christopher had almost as many as Peggy, but his had to be gone over, and some unripe ones taken out. Clara had the fewest and poorest of all. She was not used to applying herself, and very soon she said she was tired and that the sun made her head ache; so Miss Rand said she could go into the little hut and rest. But this did not suit her, for she liked to be with the other children.
“I am going to give the prize to Diana,” said Mrs. Owen, “as Tom won’t take it, for she has picked carefully.”
“Let’s see who has picked the most,” said Peggy, as she examined the pails. “Oh, mother has a lot more than anybody. Mother, you’ll have to keep some for yourself, and Alice and I can help you eat them.”
Miss Rand had a great many, and so had Mrs.Carter, but her brother Joe had the fewest of all the grown people, for he had been building a fire in the hut, so that Mrs. Owen could fry bacon and heat cocoa for dinner.
When they all took a recess in picking and sat down on the piazza of the camp for their dinner, Peggy thought she had never tasted anything so good in her life as the bread and butter and hard-boiled eggs and crisp bacon. For dessert they had saucers of blueberries and cups of cocoa, and some cake and doughnuts, which Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Horton had contributed to the feast.
As they were resting after dinner, Mrs. Carter read a story aloud to them. Then they all picked blueberries again. Diana and Clara soon got tired, and Miss Rand fixed a comfortable place for them to lie down on the window-seats in the hut. Mrs. Owen took some gray blankets out of one of the lockers and covered them up carefully.
At night, when Dr. Carter came for them with the automobile, they had the large pails Mrs. Owen had brought filled with blueberries as well as the quart pails. Peggy had never seen so many blueberries together in her life. The automobile had seats for seven. There were four grown people at the picnic, and Dr. Carter made five. And there were six children.
“I’ll come back for a second load,” Dr. Carter said.
“I’d rather walk,” said their Uncle Joe, “and I am sure the boys would.”
“We’ll go down by the short cut,” said Tom.
“All right. I can stow the rest of you in.”
The three ladies got in on the back seat, Diana was in front with her father, and Alice and Clara were in the side seats.
“Peggy, we can make room for you in front,” said Dr. Carter.
But Peggy had no idea of missing that walk down the hill with the boys and their Uncle Joe. “I’d rather walk,” she said.
“Jump in, Peggy,” said her mother, “you must be very tired.”
“I’m not a bit tired, truly I’m not, mother. I’ve been so tied down all day picking berries, I’m just crazy for a run.”
“Let the young colt have a scamper,” said Dr. Carter; “it will do her good.”
As Peggy danced along down the hillside, she thought how fortunate Diana was to have a father and an uncle and two brothers. She raced down the hill with Christopher while Tom and his uncle followed at their heels.
“There, I have beaten you, Christopher,” said Peggy, breathlessly, as she sank down on a rock at the bottom of the hill.
“I could have beaten you if I had tried,” said Christopher.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Well, I thought, as you were a girl and younger, I’d let you get a start, and I expected to pass you.”
“Oh, dear, I am tired of being a girl. Just let’s play I’m a boy. You can call me Peter.”
“I don’t want to play you are a boy. I like you better the way you are,” Christopher said, as he glanced at her blue frock.
“Yes, Peggy,” said Uncle Joe, “we all like you better the way you are.”
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to be a girl and make the best of it. But I do wish I had men and boys in my family.”
“You might adopt us,” said Uncle Joe. “I would like you and Alice for nieces. A lot of children I’m no relation to call me ‘Uncle Joe,’ and I’m sure the boys would like you and Alice for cousins.”
“You bet we would,” said Christopher.
So Peggy came back from the picnic a much richer little girl than she had been when she went to it. “Alice,” she said, as she burst into the house, “Mr. Beal says we can call him ‘Uncle Joe,’ and we can play that Tom and Christopher are our cousins.”
“I’d like to call him ‘Uncle Joe,’” said Alice, “for he was so nice about Topsy, but I don’t want the boys for my cousins.”
CHAPTER XITHE GEOGRAPHY GAME
The children’s Uncle Joe was an architect. He was making some additions to Mrs. Horton’s house, and so he came up every little while to see how the work was getting on; and later, he was given the new Savings Bank to build. He often came on from New York for a few days and stayed with the Carters. All the children were delighted when he came, for he was just as nice as a child to play with. In fact, he was nicer, for he knew so much more. He was a great traveler, for he had been a Lieutenant in the army and had been across seas. He had traveled, also, in the United States, and there was hardly a State he had not stayed in. The children were never tired of hearing his stories about places and people. He had, too, a delightful way of inventing games, making them up out of his own head.
One rainy October afternoon, Alice and Peggy were sitting in the living-room when the telephone rang. Alice had Lady Janet curled up in her arms, and Peggy was reading aloud from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Peggy flung down her book and ran to the telephone.
“Oh, Peggy,” said Diana’s plaintive voice, “it is sowet I have had to stay in all day; can’t you and Alice come and play with me?”
“I guess so,” said Peggy, who was always ready to go anywhere; “I’ll ask mother.”
“Don’t let’s go out, it is so wet,” said Alice, who was interested in the story.
“I’m going if mother’ll let me,” said Peggy.
Mrs. Owen had no objection, and, as Alice did not like to be left behind, she and Peggy put on their rubbers and raincoats.
Alice gave Lady Janet a parting hug. “You darling, I am going to see your mother,” she said; “shall I give her your love? Peggy, she is licking my hand,” said Alice.
The two children went out into the chilly October rain. Alice shivered, but Peggy was delighted to be out. She walked into every puddle she came to.
“You’ll get your feet wet,” said Alice.
“I’m just trying to see if it will go over my rubbers,” said Peggy. “Oh, it did that time—I didn’t think it would.”
“You’ve got your feet very wet,” said Alice.
“I know I have, but I can dry my shoes and stockings at Diana’s.”
Diana was sitting before the fire in her room with a book. She jumped up and flung her arms about Alice, who was nearer her, and then about Peggy.
“Peggy has got her feet wet,” said Alice anxiously. “She’ll have to put on some of your stockings while hers are drying.”
“I can’t get into Diana’s stockings,” Peggy said, as she looked down at her feet. “I’ll just sit in my bare feet until my shoes and stockings are dry.”
“Uncle Joe and the boys may come in. I’ll get you some of mother’s,” said Diana.
So Peggy was dressed in a pair of black silk stockings that were much too large for her, and a pair of bedroom slippers that were so big that she was afraid to walk for fear they would fall off. She liked the slippers very much, however, for they were such a pretty shade of blue, and they had black fur all around the edge.
It was early in the afternoon, so the children settled down for a long play. They were beginning to wish they could think of something else to do when Uncle Joe came in.
“How cozy you look,” said he. “Can you give a poor working-man a seat by the fire?”
Peggy who was nearest the fire, sprang up, forgetting all about her slippers.
“I think I see a bird in borrowed plumage,” said Uncle Joe. “Did you get your feet wet?”
“I walked into a mud-puddle on purpose, for the fun of it,” said Peggy. “I wanted to see if it would go over my rubbers. I didn’t think it would, but it did.”
“Oh, Uncle Joe, can’t we play the geography game?” said Diana. “Peggy has never played it.”
“I don’t like geography so very much,” said Alice.
“It’s just a game,” said Diana. “We have to see who can say the forty-eight States quickest. We say them like the alphabet, those beginning with A first, and the one who gets the A’s done first looks them up on the map, to see where they are. It’s lots of fun.”
“Diana likes it because she always beats Tom and Christopher,” said her uncle.
“Let’s begin,” said Diana, “one, two, three.”
But neither Peggy nor Alice could think of a single State beginning with A.
“There are three,” said Diana. “You can look them up on the map and find them.” She brought out an atlas and turned to a map of the United States.
Alice and Peggy pored over the map eagerly.
“I’ve found one,” said Peggy, “it’s Arizona.”
“Here is Alabama,” said Alice.
“Here, is another one, Arkansas,” said Peggy. “Now for the B’s.”
“There aren’t any B’s,” said Diana.
Tom and Christopher came in just then, and Peggy and Alice listened as the others played the game. Once in a while Peggy thought of a State beginning with the right letter, but, as a rule, she thought of the wrong States. Massachusetts would pop into her head when Uncle Joe was asking for I’s, and South Carolina when he wanted the K’s. It was quite discouraging, for the other children had played the game so much.
“This is only the first part of the game,” said Diana. “Uncle Joe has had us each trace a map of the United States, and then we play we have to live in one of the States that begins with the same letter our first name begins with; then we put the tracing over white cardboard and cut out our State, and we can paint it any color we like. We are going to put in the rivers and big towns by and by. I can’t live in any State but Delaware,” she said regretfully.
“There is only Pennsylvania for me to live in,” said Peggy.
“Alice can live in Arizona or Alabama or Arkansas,” said Christopher.
“I don’t want to live in any of them,” said Alice gently, with her sweetest smile. “I want to live just where I do live.”
“But New Hampshire doesn’t begin with an A,” said Peggy.
“I know it doesn’t, but I don’t want to live in any other State.”
“But it’s only a game,” said Peggy. “Don’t you want to play you live in nice Alabama where they have such warm winters, and there are such lots of cunning little black children?”
“No, I don’t. I want to cut out a map of New Hampshire and paint it pink.”
“But, Alice, you’ve got to play the game,” said Peggy.
“I’m going to play my own kind of game and cutout a map of New Hampshire and paint it pink.”
“If she doesn’t care to live in Alabama or Arizona or Arkansas, we might let her live in a State beginning with the first letter of her last name,” said Uncle Joe. “How do you feel about living in Ohio or Oklahoma or Oregon?”
“I don’t want to live in any of those States. I want to live in New Hampshire and paint it pink.”
“But you can’t,” Peggy insisted. “You’ve got to play the game.”
Alice looked up beseechingly at Uncle Joe. She smiled and showed her dimples. “Dear Uncle Joe,” she said sweetly, “can’t you fix the game some way so I can live in New Hampshire and paint it pink?”
Uncle Joe looked thoughtful. A bright idea occurred to him. “Alice, what word do the three last letters of your last name spell if you begin at the end and spell backwards?”
“New,” said Peggy, before Alice could speak.
“She can live in New Hampshire on that account,” said Uncle Joe.
“That isn’t fair,” said Peggy. “I ought to be able to live in New Hampshire.”
“You can if you like—or in New York, or New Jersey, or New Mexico.”
Peggy was dazzled by these opportunities for travel.
“It isn’t a bit fair,” said Christopher. “Poor Diana oughtn’t to have to live in Delaware whenPeggy and Alice have such a lot of States to choose from.”
“It doesn’t seem quite fair,” Uncle Joe admitted. “I’ll have to let Diana live in a State beginning with a C if she prefers.”
“And I am C. C., so I don’t have much choice,” said Christopher.
“When I get my map of Delaware painted and fixed and I’ve lived there awhile, I’ll come and live in Colorado with you, Christopher.”
“I’m going to begin with Pennsylvania,” said Peggy. “I’m going to play the game in the right way. But where can Uncle Joe live? In Jersey with the New left off?”
“As I’m uncle to half the children I know, I feel justified in taking up my residence in the State of Utah,” he said.
“Mother,” Diana called out, as Mrs. Carter passed the door, “do come in; you can live in any of eight States, beginning with an M—Maine, Massachusetts—”
“My mother can, too,” Peggy interrupted. “Her name is Mary. What is your mother’s name?”
“Her name is Mary, too.”
The two little girls wondered at the coincidence.
“Tom can only live in Tennessee or Texas,” said Diana.
“I’m going to live in Texas,” said Tom. “Uncle Joe has been there. He said he saw a prairie fire onceand it looked like the waves of the sea. And at the ranch where he was, the turkeys roosted in trees and the moon looked as big as a cart wheel.”
The children were soon busy tracing their States and cutting them out. Alice found New Hampshire so hard to do that she was sorry she had not chosen Alabama, but she would not let anybody know this on any account. She painted New Hampshire a delicate shade of pink. Peggy painted Pennsylvania a blue that shaded in with her blue frock. Diana painted Delaware green, and Tom chose crimson for Texas, the color of the college he hoped to go to some day.
“I was going to paint Colorado crimson,” said Christopher.
“You can’t,” said Tom. “I have chosen crimson.”
“Can’t I paint Colorado crimson, Uncle Joe?”
“If you like. I think I’ll paint Utah orange, so as to have as much variety as possible on the map.”
“That is a good idea,” said Christopher; “I’ll paint Colorado yellow.”
Alice and Peggy were so interested in the game that they played it every morning when they first waked up, and they got so they could say the forty-eight States while they were putting on their shoes and stockings. It amused them to see which States their different friends could live in.
They felt there were very few children and still fewer grown people who ought to be told the game.It was like a secret society. Some people were so scornful they would think it silly, and they did not care enough about most people to let them into the secret. Mrs. Owen thought it a good game, but she was too busy to play it. Age did not seem to make any difference. Old Michael, for instance, took to it very kindly.
Peggy sat in the wheelbarrow one day while he was raking leaves and she explained the game to him.
“You are very lucky,” she ended, “for you can live in so many States—Maine, Massachusetts—” she began; and she said over the whole eight, ending with Minnesota.
“I think I’ll try Minnesoty for a change,” said the old man. “I’ve a cousin who went out to St. Paul. Will you be my grandchild and come and keep house for me?”
“I’d love to, Mr. Farrell, but I have to live in Pennsylvania. I’m learning all about William Penn and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and Betsy Ross, who made the first flag, so I can tell it to Uncle Joe when he comes back. And I have to read about New Hampshire to Alice, so I’m quite busy. Did you know it was called the Granite State, Mr. Farrell?”
“I have heard tell as much.”
“Oh, Mr. Farrell,” said Peggy hopping up, “do let me try to rake the leaves. They dance about as if they were at a party. What does Mrs. Farrell’s name begin with—can she go to Minnesota with you?”
“Her name is Hattie. I guess my old woman will have to stay right here in New Hampshire. It is hard to break up families that way. My old woman and I haven’t been separated for forty-two years, come Christmas.”
Miss Betsy Porter was another of Peggy’s friends who was greatly interested in the game. Peggy often dropped in to see her and her cat. Miss Betsy Porter always had something very good and spicy to eat. This time it was spice cake. Peggy was on her way back from the village with some buttons and tape for her mother, so she could not stop long. Miss Porter thought it a grand game.
“Only, I am a woman without a country,” she said. “There are no States beginning with B, and I can’t even come in on Elizabeth.”
“You can come in on your last name,” said Peggy. “You can live in Pennsylvania with me.”
“That is great. I went to Philadelphia once when I was a girl.” And she told the eagerly listening Peggy all about the Quaker city with its straight streets and its old buildings.
“I am afraid if your mother is in a hurry for those buttons and that tape,” said Miss Betsy, “you’d better be going home now, but some afternoon when you can stay longer I’ll read you a book about some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.”
“What a lucky child I am to have my name begin with a P,” Peggy said. “There can’t be any other State as interesting as Pennsylvania.”
CHAPTER XIIHOW PEGGY SPENT HER MONEY
As Peggy was going out of Miss Betsy’s kitchen door, some hens straggled along the grass. Some were brown and some were white and some were yellow. Peggy thought they were all fat, prosperous-looking hens. She admired their red combs and their yellow legs.
“I wish we had some hens,” she said to Miss Betsy. “Eggs cost such a lot we can’t ever have any cake.”
“I’d give you some fresh eggs to take back to your mother, only I am afraid you might slip and break them.”
Peggy looked thoughtful. It would be nice to have the eggs, but it would be hard to have to walk home with the eggs on her mind.
“Mother, I wish we kept hens,” she said as she ran into the kitchen. “Miss Betsy has such nice ones.”
“How do you happen to know anything about Miss Betsy’s hens?” her mother asked. “Is calling on Miss Betsy your idea of coming straight home from the village?”
“You didn’t say to come straight home, truly, you didn’t, mother. I thought you wouldn’t mind my making a short call on her and the cat.”
Mrs. Owen found it as hard to find fault with Peggy as it had been to find fault with Peggy’s father.
“We’ve got a hen-house out in the yard,” Peggy went on. “The people who lived here before us must have kept hens, so it must be a good climate for them.”
“I have a few things to do besides taking care of hens,” said Mrs. Owen firmly.
“I’d take all the care of them.”
“I should as soon trust them to Lady Janet’s care.”
“But Alice could help me. She’d remind me to feed them.”
“And, besides, hens cost a great deal,” said Mrs. Owen. She had been thinking of the possibility of keeping hens.
“Do chickens cost a lot? Couldn’t we begin with little chickens and let them grow into hens?”
“If we want eggs this winter we’d have to buy hens.”
“Maybe people will give us a few hens,” said Peggy hopefully. “Miss Betsy has a lot, and the Hortons’ farmer has millions; and the Thorntons have some, and so has Michael Farrell.”
“My dear little girl, people who are so fortunate as to have hens prize them more than if they had gold. You might as well expect me to give away my preserves and canned vegetables.”
Peggy was never tired of looking at the rows of jars of preserves and vegetables, and the tumblers ofjelly that her mother had put up. The greater part of them had been sent away, and there was enough money in the bank from their sale to buy winter coats and hats for both of the children, besides something toward then coal.
Peggy went into the pantry for another look at the shelves. There was a pint jar of the precious strawberry preserve and four pints of raspberries and a dozen pints of cherries from their own tree, and there were a great many jars of blueberries and blackberries, and there was currant jelly and grape jelly. Peggy liked the rich color of the strawberries and raspberries and cherries next the more somber blueberries and blackberries.
The shelf where the vegetables were was almost more delightful in color. The green peas and beans were next the red tomatoes, and beyond them were a few jars of pale yellow corn. They had turnips and carrots and beets stored in the cellar, ready for use.
The children felt very important, and as if their mother could not have had the garden without their help. As she believed in profit-sharing, she paid them for part of their work, while some they did just to help the garden along. At the end of the season they had each earned nearly two dollars. Their mother made it quite two dollars and told them they could spend the money exactly as they pleased, provided they did not get anything to eat with it, like candy.
“You can each get a toy if you like—something that won’t break too easily; or you can get something to wear, or something growing—like a house plant.”
As usual, Alice knew exactly what she wanted most. It was a doll carriage, and she and Peggy went down to the store and chose it.
Peggy did not care for any of the toys. “I want something that’s alive,” she said, “like a canary-bird, or one of Miss Betsy’s hens. I think I’ll buy a hen—that will be most useful. If she laid an egg every day we could take turns in having a fresh egg.”
“That would be great,” said Alice.
Miss Betsy Porter was greatly interested in the children’s plan. “Only, are you sure your mother will be willing to let you keep hens?” she asked prudently.
“Yes, we have a house for them, and she said we could get anything we liked. She had thought about keeping hens, only they are so expensive.”
“I will sell you a Rhode Island Red,” said Miss Betsy. “They lay well, and I will throw in a fine young cock. My neighbors are complaining because the young spring roosters are beginning to crow, and I was expecting to have to send them to the market. I’ll let Michael Farrell take them up to your house this afternoon, if your mother will let you have them. You can stop at his house and send me word by him whether or not your mother wants them.”
Peggy and Alice went out into the yard with Miss Betsy to choose a hen and a rooster.
“It is like a family,” said Peggy, “having two of them. They won’t be lonely. I shall call them Henry Cox and Henrietta Cox.”
“Well, children, what did you buy with your two dollars?” Mrs. Owen asked when they came home that morning.
“I got a carriage for Belle,” said Alice.
“And what did you get, Peggy?”
She hesitated—“Something very useful,” she said. “Guess, mother. It’s something that will grow and something that is alive.”
“A rose in a pot,” said her mother.
Peggy laughed. “Oh, mother, you are ’way off. It has feathers.”
“You haven’t bought a canary-bird?” Mrs. Owen said in tones of dismay.
“No, mother, she is much more useful. It is a hen, and her name is Henrietta Cox, and Miss Betsy gave me a young cock because he crowed so he woke up the neighbors; and we haven’t any near neighbors. And his name is Henry Cox.”
“A hen and a cock! Peggy, what will you think of next!”
“You said I could get anything I liked, mother, and I am sure a hen is much more useful than a doll’s carriage. I’ll let you have one of her eggs every third morning for your breakfast.”
“Did you ever stop to think how they were to be fed? Grain is so high now many people have stopped raising hens.”
“Miss Betsy says the Rhode Island Reds aren’t so particular as some hens. She says you can feed them partly with sour milk and scraps off the table.”
“Sour milk!” said Mrs. Owen; “it’s all very well for Miss Betsy to talk about sour milk, for her brother keeps a cow, and he sends her all the skim milk she can use. I am surprised she let you have a hen and cock without consulting me.”
“She did say she would send them up this afternoon by old Michael if you would let me have them,” faltered Peggy. “But, oh, mother dear, I do want them so much. It isn’t as if I had spent my money on something foolish, like candy.”
“No, that is true,” said Mrs. Owen. After all, she had thought of keeping hens herself.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Peggy,” she said. “You can sell Henrietta’s eggs to me, when she begins to lay, at whatever the market price is, and the money can go toward their food, and if there is any left you can have it to spend. That will be a good lesson in arithmetic for us.”
So Peggy and Alice ran over to old Michael’s house, where he was always to be found at his dinner-hour, to tell him the glad news.
Mrs. Farrell came to the door. She was a prosperous, comfortable looking person, with a plump, trigfigure and smoothly arranged white hair. Peggy thought of telling her about the geography game, but there was something about her that made her hesitate. She was afraid Mrs. Farrell would think it a crazy game.
“Won’t you come in, you little dears?” said Mrs. Farrell.
Alice looked pleased at being called a “little dear,” but Peggy was all the more sure that Mrs. Farrell would not care for the geography game.
“I just wanted to see Mr. Farrell a minute,” she said.
“He is at dinner. Can’t you give me the message?”
“I don’t think I could,” said Peggy. “It is very important, and it is not easy to remember all of it. We’ll not keep him a minute—truly, we won’t.”
“I guess I can remember the message if you can.”
“It is about a hen and a rooster that Miss Betsy Porter wants him to call for to send down to our house—only mother wants our hen-house fixed first.”
How bald it seemed put in this way! If only she could have seen old Michael himself, how differently she would have worded the message!
“It isn’t very hard to remember that message, dearie,” said Mrs. Farrell, in her cooing voice.
Peggy hated to have her call her “dearie.” Half the pleasure in her purchase would be gone if she could not see old Michael. Suddenly, she had a brightidea. She ran around the side of the house to the kitchen window and waved her hand to old Michael.
It was one of the warm days in late autumn, and she was still wearing one of her blue frocks. Her hair was flying about and she pushed it back. Old Michael loved children, and he never hesitated to come at their call. He hastily shoved a large piece of apple pie into his mouth, and, seizing a piece of cheese, he came out of the kitchen door. They were out of hearing of Mrs. Farrell—that unfortunate “Hattie,” who was doomed always to live in New Hampshire, while her husband was free to travel into any State, beginning with M, where his imagination led him.
“Well, what is it now?” he asked.
“Oh, Mr. Farrell, the most wonderful thing has happened!” said Peggy; “I have bought such a lovely hen from Miss Betsy Porter, and she has given me a young rooster, and I am going to play they are people from the State of Rhode Island; and their names are Mr. Henry Cox and Mrs. Henrietta Cox—only, of course, for most people, they are just a cock and hen—just two Rhode Island Reds.”
“I see,” said old Michael. “But why are you telling me about it?”
“Miss Betsy said you could bring them to us this afternoon. She said you were working for her, but mother wanted the hen-house fixed up a little first. Can you do it to-morrow?”
“I see,” said old Michael; “you want the apartment in the hotel made ready for Mr. and Mrs. Cox?”
“Oh, yes,” Peggy said, laughing with delight; “I want everything done for the people who are renting my house.”
“All right, Peggy, I’ll look out for the comfort of your tenants.”
“My tenants are not going to keep any maid, Mr. Farrell; I’ve got to give them most of their meals, although they will get some out, and I thought you’d advise me what food is cheapest and best.”
They talked about the best food for Mr. and Mrs. Cox all the way to Peggy’s house, where Mr. Farrell stopped to inspect the hen-house on his way to Miss Porter’s.
“I always meant to keep hens sometime,” Mrs. Owen confided to Mr. Farrell, “but I did not mean to begin this winter.”
“If you have them at all, you might as well have a few more,” he said; “it is a little like summer boarders—the more you have, the more profit you get.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Owen, “but unfortunately, you have to begin by buying the hens.”
CHAPTER XIIIMRS. OWEN’S SURPRISE PARTY
Mrs. Owen was to have a birthday, and Peggy and Alice felt something especial ought to be done to celebrate it. It was Miss Pauline Thornton who put the idea of a surprise party into Peggy’s head. She came over one rainy evening to tell Mrs. Owen about a surprise party the Sewing Circle was to give to the minister’s wife on her fiftieth birthday. Miss Pauline Thornton lived with her father in the large gray stone house behind the stone wall on which Peggy was fond of walking. She was a great friend of Mrs. Owens, who could never understand why the children did not like her, for she was tall and good-looking and always wore beautiful clothes. Older people found her very agreeable and efficient. Mrs. Owen helped her off with her raincoat. Underneath it was a dress the color of violets.
If Miss Pauline had been the kind of person with whom one could play the geography game, Peggy thought what a good time they could have had living together in Pennsylvania. But as it was, she did not like to spend even a half-hour with her. Miss Pauline’s big house seemed dreary to Peggy, with its high ceilings and stately furniture and pictures. When she went there to call with her mother, shealways hoped that she might see the collie dog and Miss Pauline’s father. She liked old Mr. Thornton. He had white hair and a kind face, and he looked as if he might like to play the geography game, if only his daughter was not there, but she always was there.
Mrs. Owen was reading aloud to the children when Miss Thornton came in.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt; I thought the children were always in bed by this time,” she said, glancing at the clock.
“It is their bedtime, but I was late in beginning to read to them to-night. You can finish the story to yourselves if you like.”
“Aren’t you going to shake hands with me, Peggy?” Miss Thornton asked.
Peggy slowly unlocked her arms, which she had folded behind her, and held out an unwilling hand.
“What is the story that is so interesting?” Miss Thornton asked, as she took the book out of Peggy’s other hand.
“‘Snow White and Rose Red,’” she said. “I never cared for fairy-tales when I was a child.”
Peggy and Alice seated themselves in the same chair, with the book between them.
“You ought to come over nearer the light; you will strain your eyes,” said Miss Thornton.
Mrs. Owen gave up her seat to the children and Miss Thornton began to talk about the surprise party.
Peggy soon found herself listening.
“It is to be in the afternoon—like an afternoon tea,” she said.
“Are all the parish to be there—men as well as women?” asked Mrs. Owen.
“No, only the women. It is what Prissy Baker calls a ‘hen-party.’”
Peggy could keep silent no longer. “Do you mean people are going to give her hens?” she asked.
“Hens? No; that is just an expression, Peggy; that means a party of ladies.”
Peggy was silent. She might have known that they would not have thought of anything so interesting. The fact that they were to take the minister’s wife ten five-dollar gold pieces, in a silk bag, was a poor substitute, indeed, for living, cackling, laying hens.
After the children went to bed, they could still hear Miss Pauline’s voice going on and on.
“It’s funny mother likes her so much,” Peggy said. “If I ever grow up I shall have friends who like to do interesting things, and read fairy-stories, and talk on nice subjects, the way Miss Betsy Porter does. Oh, Alice,” she said, shutting up her eyes and then opening them wide, “I am beginning to see things on the wall. Look and see what is coming.”
Alice stared at the wall, in the darkness, but as usual, she could see nothing. “What do you see?” she asked.
“Hens!” Peggy exclaimed dramatically; “white ones, Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rocks, yellow ones—all kinds, a regular procession; and I see ladies, too, in bright dresses. They are all going to a hen party.”
“I wish I could see them,” said Alice. “Do you really see them, Peggy?”
“Yes, in my mind’s eye. It is such a nice picture, Alice,” she cried, “let’s have a surprise party of just hens for mother!”
“That would be great!” said Alice.
“We’d ask Mrs. Horton and Clara and Miss Rand.”
“They wouldn’t come all the way from New York.”
“They might come. Sometimes they do come for a week-end, and her birthday comes on a Saturday. And we’ll ask all the Carters, of course. Each family need only give one hen.”
“And Miss Pauline Thornton,” said Alice. “They have lots of hens.”
“No,” said Peggy firmly; “I’m not going to ask her. She’d spoil the party.”
“She had on a lovely gown,” said Alice, “and she’s one of mother’s best friends.”
Peggy went to consult Miss Betsy Porter about the party, and Miss Betsy thought it a fine idea. She said that Peggy and Alice could bring their note-paper, with colored pictures on it, down to herhouse, and write the notes, and she would enclose them in a note she would write each person, so they would know there was some responsible person to help about the surprise party, and that it was not merely an idea of the children’s. She said she would bring a loaf of her best spice cake and some cookies and sandwiches, and she knew that Mrs. Carter would be delighted to make and pour the tea, and Miss Thornton would pour the chocolate.
“But I don’t want Miss Pauline,” said Peggy. “She would spoil the party.”
“But she is one of your mother’s best friends. Whose birthday is it, Peggy? Yours or your mother’s?”
“Mother’s,” said Peggy, hanging her head.
“Pauline is a good sort,” said Miss Betsy. “There is no use in disliking good people, Peggy. I think it had better be a small party, for your mother would not want the care of many hens, and, besides, small parties are the most fun. We’ll ask all of the Carters—that will make five.”
“Six with Uncle Joe—I know he’ll come on ’specially for it, if I ask him,” said Peggy. “He needn’t bring a hen, because he belongs to the family. There’s to be just one hen for every family.”
“Then, if Mrs. Horton and Miss Rand and Clara should come on,” said Miss Porter, “that would make nine, I would make ten, and Miss Pauline eleven.”
“If I’ve got to have Miss Pauline,” said Peggy, with a sigh, “I’m going to have the dog and her father.”
“All right,” said Miss Betsy, “that will make one hen for the Carters, one for the Hortons,—for I’m sure they will give a hen, even if they can’t come themselves,—one for the Thorntons, and one for me.”
“Not one for you,” said Peggy. “You have given me Mr. Henry Cox already.”
“I would not be left out on any account,” said Miss Betsy. “Six hens would be as many as your mother would want, as she isn’t planning to run a poultry farm. I am sure Mrs. Horton would like to give a pair—she has so many. I’ll suggest they send Rhode Island Reds—it is better to have all of a kind.”
“I think it would be more fun to have them different,” said Peggy.
“They get along better if they are all of a kind,” said Miss Betsy. “I have too many kinds, but I can give you another Rhode Island Red. It is like the Jews and the Italians—they are happier in a quarter by themselves.”
“It will be a Rhode Island Red Quarter,” said Peggy, in delight. “I can name one Mrs. Rhoda Rhodes.”
“I know some people who are named Henn,” said Miss Betsy.
Peggy looked doubtful. “It may be all right for people,” she said, “but I don’t like it for hens. I think Henderson sounds nicer.”
She and Alice sat down to write the notes. Miss Betsy made no suggestions, but they were glad to ask her about the spelling. Peggy wrote the notes to the Carters and Hortons, and Alice wrote the one to Miss Thornton.