Then taking Irene as company, she carried the message to the telegraph station that same evening, to make sure it reached its destination in time to prevent the threatened visit from the unwelcome cousins.
"Perhaps I acted in a high-handed manner," she confessed to Gloriana, as they were preparing for bed that night, "but I couldn't bear to think of that selfish old cat—yes, that's what she is,—imposing upon Mrs. McKittrick again. I remember the boys, though it was quite a while ago that they were here. They were only little shavers then, too. I never met them, but one doesn't have to in order to know all they want to know about their antics."
"And judging from our first day's experiences as housekeepers in this family, we shall have allwewant to do, without two terrors of boys added."
"To-day has been rather hard and disappointing," Tabitha acknowledged with a gusty sigh.
"But to-morrow will be better," Gloriana comforted her. "And it is only for two weeks. That's one consolation."
"Thank fortune!" Tabitha exclaimed with fervor; and the tired eyelids closed over the drowsy black eyes and the gray.
"Well, one whole week is gone," said Tabitha exultantly, as she bent over the heaped-up mending basket one hot afternoon, and tried to make neat darns of the gaping holes in the heels of Susie's stockings.
"Yes, and half of the first day of the second week," Gloriana replied cheerily. "But really, Puss, time hasn't dragged as slowly as I feared. That first day was the longest, I think, I ever knew."
"That first day was a horrible nightmare," the older girl emphatically declared. "I thought itneverwould end, and I'd have quit my job on the spot if there had been anyone to take my place."
"I'd have quit it anyway if you had just said the word," laughed her companion. "I thought you'd never go to sleep that night—I wanted so badly to cry."
"Did you? So did I, but you kept tossing so restlessly that I knew you were still awake, and finally I dropped off without getting my cry at all."
"That's just what I did, too!" giggled Gloriana.
"And the next morning everything looked so different——"
"Yes, I could laugh then at the burro's nose in your lovely pie and the seeds in my gingerbread; but they didn't seem so funny the night before."
"They seemed anything but funny to me for several days, and I don't think I'll ever see a chocolate pie or a gingerbread again in my life without remembering this vacation."
"But things have gone splendidly since that first night," Gloriana reminded her. "The children have tried to be angels, even if they have executed some queer stunts for cherubs."
"Yes, I know, but I am glad just the same that half of our—apprenticeship—is over. If this week will pass as smoothly as last week did, it's all I'll— What in the world is the matter with the children? Sounds as if they were having an Indian war dance. I wonder if those Swanberg boys are bothering again."
Both girls dropped their mending and hurried to the door just in time to hear Inez's voice say cuttingly, "Of course we know who you are, Williard and Theodore McKittrick!"
"Guess again!" drawled the older of two strange boys, lolling on suitcases in the middle of the yard.
"Well, thoseareyour names," Inez insisted.
"You look enough like you used to when you were here before, so we can't be mistaken," said Mercedes primly.
"Can't, eh? Well, our names are Williard and Theodore no longer. We are Billiard and Toady these days. Mind you don't forget! We've come to stay till the folks get back——"
"Didn't you get our telegram telling you not to come?" demanded belligerent Susie.
"Sure we did!"
"Then why didn't you stay at home?"
"'Cause ma had the arrangements all made to go across the ocean and there wasn't anyone else to send us to. Grandma's away travelling, and Aunt Helen's kids have got scarlet fever."
"But papa's in the hospital and mamma's there nursing him," said Irene indignantly.
"Truly?" The boy called Toady spoke for the first time.
"Do you think I'm lying?"
"Well, ma said she bet it was all a bluff to keep us from coming out here," Billiard explained, looking genuinely surprised at Irene's words.
"And anyway," supplemented Toady, "she said if it was true about your father and mother being away to Los Angeles, there'd have to be someone here to look after you kids, and two more wouldn't make much difference."
"Specially when she's paying for our board!"
Tabitha, a silent spectator in the doorway, ground her teeth in helpless rage, while Gloriana gasped audibly at the impudence of mother and sons.
"It's no more'n right that you should pay board," Susie declared in heat. "You make so much trouble wherever you go."
"Do, huh?" Billiard, frowning darkly, advanced threateningly toward his outspoken cousin, with fists doubled up and an ugly sneer on his face. But Susie was no coward, and when he shook his knuckles close to her little pug nose to emphasize his words, the girl's arm shot out unexpectedly and landed a blow fair and square on one eye.
With a yell of rage and pain, the surprised boy lunged forward, but instead of confronting Susie, he found himself in the grasp of a tall, irate young lady, who wore her shining black hair pinned up on top of her head, although her skirts were still short enough to show a pair of trim ankles. "Now stop right here!"
She spoke quietly, almost too quietly; but one look into the smouldering depths of those big, black eyes was enough to cow the bully, and he jerked himself free, muttering sulkily, "She hit me first!"
"She had to, or get hit herself," bawled Inez, jigging excitedly from one foot to the other in her exultation over her cousin's defeat.
"Inez!"
"Well, he needn't have come! We telegraphed them not to!"
"Inez!"
The girl subsided, and Billiard found courage to leer triumphantly at her discomfiture. But Tabitha intercepted the glance, and in that ominously calm voice which had struck terror to his cowardly heart before, she announced, "It is too late now to think of that side of the question. We'll have to make the most of a bad situation; but Iwill nottolerate fighting. You may as well understand that first as last. If you boys can't behave like gentlemen, you can just move on down to the hotel. Is that plain?"
"Yes, sir—ma'am," stammered the abashed Billiard, glancing uneasily about for some means of escape, but Tabitha had delivered her ultimatum, and now swept grandly into the house, satisfied that she had displayed her authority in a very impressive manner.
Hardly had the screen closed behind her, however, when her sharp ears caught Billiard's hoarsely whispered question, "Who is that high-headed geezer?"
"The girl who is taking care of us," answered Mercedes unguardedly.
"Girl?"
"Sure! What did you take her for?"
"A—a new woman. A—one of these things that's trying to vote and do men's work and such like."
"Oho!" yelled the McKittrick girls in unison. "Why, she ain't much older'n us!"
"She goes to Ivy Hall in Los Angeles, the boarding school I belong to," said Mercedes.
"Honest Injun?"
"Cross my heart!"
"Huh!"
And instinctively Tabitha knew that there was trouble ahead for her. "Isn't this the worst luck you ever heard of?" she groaned to Gloriana when once inside the house again.
"If I had my way about it, I'd ship them straight home on the next train," declared the red-haired girl angrily. "The very idea of their mother doing such a thing as that! What kind of a woman is she, anyway?"
"I don't know much about her, except that she is utterly selfish and very rich. The boys are sent away to school most of the year; and during vacations she manages to shift them onto some of her relatives. Fortunately, Jim McKittrick is too far away to be bothered with them very often."
"But what shall you—we do with them? Shall we tell Mrs. McKittrick that they have come?"
"Goodness, no! At least not yet. It would just worry her more than ever and she is worn to distraction now. No, we must make the best of it this week, and by that time Miss Davis will be here. She was raised in a family of boys and ought to know how to manage them."
"Well, I am thankfulIam not in her shoes," breathed Gloriana. "I suppose we can get along somehow for the six days that are left. Where shall you put them?"
"Well, I declare! I had forgotten all about that part of it. They will think I am a real hospitable hostess." She stepped to the door to call them, but not a soul was in sight anywhere. Two open suitcases lay on the ground with their contents scattered all about, but both owners and their cousins had disappeared.
"Mercedes! Susie!" she called peremptorily, but no one answered; and not even the sound of their voices at play fell on her listening ear. "Strange," she muttered. "They were here a minute ago. Where can they have gone so quickly?"
She was about to start on a tour of investigation when a series of wild, piercing screams of abject terror rent the air, and Rosslyn came stumbling down the steep incline behind the house, bruised, scratched, torn, and covered from head to foot with what looked like blood Gloriana caught him as he fell, for Tabitha turned faint and sick at the sight; but a shout of boyish disgust from above brought her to her senses.
"Aw, come back, you bawl baby! We were just foolin'! You ain't hurt a mite!" Billiard swaggered into view from behind a tall boulder half-way up the mountainside, and even Tabitha shuddered at the spectacle he presented, for he was togged out in war paint and feathers till he looked fiendish as he brandished a tomahawk in one hand and an evil-looking knife in the other. At sight of the girl on the narrow piazza, he hastily retreated behind the rocks again; but Tabitha was there almost as soon as he. Snatching the gorgeous headdress from the culprit's head, she trampled it ruthlessly in the sharp gravel, disarmed the would-be Indian brave, breaking the treasured tomahawk and knife against the rocks, and shook the cowering savage with strong, relentless hands. But not a word did she speak, and though her victim writhed and squirmed and wriggled, he could not break the fierce grip on his shoulders.
"Don't, don't," he blubbered in desperation. "I didn't mean to scare him so bad. We were only playing Indian."
"Only—playing—Indian!" panted Tabitha, in scorching scorn. "Look at those children! You have frightened them all to death!" Pausing an instant in her vigorous shaking, she pointed at the circle of sisters,—Mercedes, weak and trembling, bent over the limp form of little Janie, blowing frantically in the still, white face; a thoroughly subdued and frightened Toady was wildly fanning poor Irene, who had likewise crumpled in a faint; while close by sat Susie and Inez clinging to each other and sobbing in terror.
"Oh, I didn't mean to!" bellowed Billiard, as Tabitha resumed her shaking. "I thought they'd seen Indians before."
"And so they have, but not such horrible savages as you!" Shake! Shake! Shake!
Irene sighed faintly and opened her eyes. Toady's heart gave a violent thump of relief and thanksgiving, and abruptly dropping the headdress of feathers which he had been using as a fan, he flew to his brother's rescue.
"Oh, please, Mrs. Tabitha," he pleaded, "you've drubbed him enough. Shake me if you ain't through yet. You'll have him plumb addled! Really, we were just in for some fun. We never dreamed the kids would scare so easy. That's only vegetable dye on Rosslyn's head. He thought we had scalped him, but we didn't mean to hurt him."
Tabitha glanced down into the entreating brown eyes at her elbow, straightway forgave Toady, and released her victim so suddenly that he fell sprawling into a nest of sharp-thorned Mormon pears; but of this she was unaware, for with one swoop she gathered up the now hysterical baby, and stalked off toward the house, saying grimly, "You boys stay right where you are until you are willing to apologize and promise to behave yourselves in the future. I've a mind to turn you over to the sheriff now. Come, girls!" Followed by the troop of white, shivering sisters, she disappeared within doors, and soon quiet reigned in the Eagles' Nest.
Only then did the cowed Billiard venture to peer from his retreat at the house below. It was nearing the supper hour and he was hungry, but Tabitha had said he must apologize and promise good behaviour before he would be admitted to the family circle. It was evident that she meant business.
"Toady," he whispered to the other boy, sitting silent and motionless where he had dropped when Tabitha had left them an hour before. "Toady, can you see anyone down there?"
Toady glanced off at the hazy flat below with its winding silver ribbon of railroad track, and the lonely, dingy station house, and shook his head.
"Aw, not there!" Billiard protested, seeing that his brother's thoughts had evidently been running in the same channel. "Down to Uncle Jim's, I mean."
Scarcely shifting his position, dutiful Toady craned his neck around a boulder, surveyed the quiet mountainside in the waning afternoon light, and again shook his head.
"Creep down and see what they're doing. Maybe they are talking about us."
"Go yourself," returned Toady briefly.
"Aw, come now, Toady! She ain't so mad at you, and besides, you're littler. They wouldn't see you so quick."
Still Toady remained seated.
"We'll have to have some water to wash off this stuff before she'll let us in to—to apologize," wheedled Billiard.
"Areyou going to apologize?"
"Looks like we got to," answered the older boy gloomily. "She's a reg'lar cyclone. Smashed up half our things already, and like enough she will sick the sheriff on us like she said, 'nless we do—er—apologize."
It was very evident that Billiard was not in the habit of apologizing for anything; and Toady, grinning with no little satisfaction at his brother's discomfiture, arose and slowly descended by a roundabout trail to the cottage. He was gone a long time and Billiard was growing decidedly restless and anxious when he appeared in sight once more. "She's—they are going to write to Uncle Hogan!" he announced breathlessly.
"Uncle Hogan!" cried Billiard in dismay.
"Yes, that's just what I heard them say. Mercedes told her how Uncle Hogan——"
"I'll get even with Miss Mercedes," Billiard interrupted fiercely.
"You better get that paint off your face and hike for the house with your apology," advised the more easily persuaded brother, "else you'll never have a chance to get even with anybody again."
"Why?"
"Because if we don't promise to be good inside of an hour, they are going to ask the—the—some man, sort of a policeman, I guess, to look after us until Uncle Hogan answers."
"Do you really think they'd write to Uncle Hogan?"
"Sure! Tabitha knows him. She and that Glory girl with the red hair kept him all night last winter off some mountain he wanted to climb 'cause they didn't know who he was. She had a gun and shot at them; but when her father got there he said 'twas all right, and Uncle Hogan thinks Tabitha is the whole cheese now."
"Supposing we do—apologize, will they write to him still?"
"No, I guess not. If you'll promise to behave, they will let you stay until some woman who's going to take care of the kids most of the summer gets here. Then she can do as she pleases about writing. You better knuckle under, Billiard."
The older boy groaned. "You don't seem to care very much," he complained bitterly, feeling that Toady had deserted him at the most critical moment.
"I—I've apologized already," acknowledged the other. "I'd rather do that than have Uncle Hogan get after us."
"So would I," Billiard sulkily decided, and pulling himself up from his rocky seat, he slowly shambled down the mountainside, with Toady at his heels hugely enjoying his brother's humiliation, for, though comrades in mischief, the older boy loved to bully the younger, and Toady had a long list of scores to settle, so he could not refrain from grinning broadly behind Billiard's back, particularly since his part of the disagreeable program had already been accomplished.
"Better wash your face, first," he suggested, as Billiard made straight for the kitchen door, through which savory odors of supper cooking were beginning to steal.
"Aw, come off!"
"She won't let you in till you do."
"Well, then, where's the water?"
Toady pointed toward a basin on a nearby rock, and Billiard made a vigorous, if somewhat hasty toilet. Then, after a moment's further hesitation, he entered the kitchen with hanging head, and, addressing a grease spot on the floor by Tabitha's feet, muttered surlily, "I—er—apologize."
Tabitha's lips twitched. He looked so utterly downcast and abject that she could scarcely keep from smiling openly. "Are you ready to promise to behave yourself from now on?"
"Yes, sir—I mean, ma'am," he gulped, flushing angrily as the girls tittered.
Tabitha instantly silenced their mirth, and turning to the boy, said graciously, "Then we'll let bygones be bygones; but we'll have no more such actions while you stay. Your suitcase is in the back bedroom. Toady will show you. But first, please bring in a couple armfuls of wood. It looks like rain and——"
"Wood! We never bring in wood at home!" the boy rebelled.
"You are not at home now," Tabitha answered sweetly.
"But—we're paying board!"
"I haven't seen any board money yet. And anyway, we need the wood."
Angrily the boy jerked out a purse from his trousers pocket and slammed some gold pieces on the table.
"Twenty dollars," she counted. "For how long?"
"All summer."
"Ten weeks! Two dollars a week for two of you! Board on the desert is cheap at a dollar a day. You can write your mother to that effect; and in the meantime, perhaps you better put up at the hotel——"
"Oh, she said if anyone made a fuss, she'd pay more," Billiard hastily explained, for somehow the hotel idea did not appeal to him.
"Well, you tell her a dollar a day for each of you is the regular rate. And now you will have just about time to get that wood before supper is ready."
Billiard glanced questioningly up into the clear, olive face above him, as if he could not believe his ears.
"The pile is close to the door," she continued, paying no attention to the amazement in his face: "and the woodbox is on the screened porch."
Billiard hesitated, opened his lips as if to speak, closed them again, and inwardly raging, but outwardly meek, marched out of the door to the woodpile.
Tabitha retired late that night, weary but triumphant, congratulating herself that Billiard was conquered; but she had reckoned without her host. Two little heathen such as Williard and Theodore McKittrick are not to be converted in one day, nor are they apt to be forced into reforming. Brought up with utter disregard for other people's rights, by a mother who bore them no particular love, but who surrounded them with every luxury money could buy simply because she found it less trouble to indulge than to deny them, it is scarcely to be wondered at that they had no idea of honor or obedience.
Their father, Dennis McKittrick, had been more successful than his brothers in his struggle for wealth. After amassing a comfortable fortune, he had not lived to enjoy it, and before his oldest son had seen his sixth birthday, the father was laid to rest in the shadow of a resplendent monument in an Eastern cemetery; and the rearing of the two boys was left wholly to their fashion-plate mother, whose only gods were dress and personal pleasure. Tabitha had heard many stories of the selfish, heartless woman, who found her motherhood a burden rather than a blessing, but she did not understand the difficulties one must contend with in attempting to reform such lawless youths, and being little more than a child herself, it was only natural that she should make mistakes.
But she did not at once realize this fact, for Billiard, completely surprised by the unusual treatment accorded him, was a model of obedience and politeness for the next two days, and Tabitha was deceived into thinking his reformation was genuine and lasting; while in reality, the young scapegrace was merely studying the unique situation and plotting how to "get even" with the girl who already had mastered him twice. A coward at heart, he knew he could not come out openly and fight her, so he slyly planned little annoyances to hinder her work and try her patience. Yet so adroitly did he manoeuvre that Tabitha was some time in finding out the real culprit.
"My brefus food ain't nice," wailed Janie, the third morning of her cousins' stay.
"Nor mine, either," protested Rosslyn, tasting his critically, and wrinkling his nose in disgust.
"You've salted it something fierce," said Billiard, winking solemnly at Toady while Tabitha was busy sampling her dish of porridge.
"It's so salt that sugar doesn't sweeten it," added Susie, making a wry face at the first mouthful and taking a hasty swallow of water.
Tabitha's mystified face quickly cleared. Seizing the sugar-bowl, she cautiously tasted its contents, and turning toward Inez, said accusingly, "You filled it with salt instead of sugar!"
"Then someone put the salt cup in the sugar barrel," cried Inez indignantly, "'cause I just poured one cupful into the sugar-bowl."
"Well, be more careful the next time," admonished the black-eyed girl, retreating to the pantry for a fresh supply of sweetening; and Billiard, elated at the success of his first attempt, determined to try again.
"What in the world did you put in that salad dressing, Glory?" cried Tabitha, snatching up her glass of water with eager hands.
"What's the matter with it?" demanded the second cook, whose turn it was to wait upon the table that day.
"You used ginger 'stead of mustard," scolded Toady, who had a particular aversion for red hair, and took little pains to conceal it.
Gloriana had her suspicions as to how such an accident could have happened, but a hurried visit to the pantry disclosed the spice cans in their proper places, all correctly labelled; so she reluctantly admitted her mistake, but decided to keep her eyes open.
"There's soap in my glass of water," complained Irene at the next meal.
"Soap!" echoed Mercedes. "I washed those glasses myself, and never used a bit of soap on them! That's the way mamma told us to wash them."
But the fact still remained that not only was Irene's glass soapy, but more than half the dishes on the table tasted of Fels Naptha. Tabitha looked concerned, but Billiard and Toady were so innocent appearing that she never suspected them of having had a hand in the affair.
The next time it was Tabitha's biscuits. When they appeared on the table they were as thin as wafers and as hard as bricks. In some way she had substituted corn starch for baking powder; but as another hurried visit to the pantry showed both articles where they belonged on their respective shelves, she concluded that carelessness on her part had caused the trouble, and let the matter drop.
Then the house began to be infested with all sorts of obnoxious insects and reptiles. Mercedes found two huge grasshoppers in the soup one day; a long, wriggling centipede fell out of the cook-book as Tabitha turned its pages in search of a favorite recipe; a scorpion dropped off the cake plate which Gloriana was in the act of passing, so frightening the girl that she dashed cake, dish and all onto the floor, and promptly had hysterics. Horned toads, ugly lizards, and worms of every description made their appearance by the dozen, until even Tabitha grew alarmed; but still she did not suspect the cause of such an invasion, as the two brothers were apparently as docile and obedient as their gentler cousins.
Even when they found a dead rattler coiled up in the middle of the kitchen floor, Tabitha attributed it to Carrie's dog, General, who still spent much of his time at the McKittrick cottage. Nor did she notice that the reptile was coiled in a most impossible manner, with its head propped up by two tiny wires. She merely hustled the thing out of doors, hacked it into pieces with the axe, and buried the remnants under a pile of rocks to make sure no harm came of them. It never occurred to her to wonder how General, who was not allowed in the house, could have dragged the snake inside without someone seeing or hearing him, for he was proud of his snake-killing accomplishment and always made a big commotion when he succeeded in trapping one. So the culprits enjoyed the girls' scare, and retired to the water-tank behind the assayer's office to hatch up some new scheme.
Only Gloriana, whose cordial dislike for boys, caused by her unhappy experiences in Manchester, made her suspicious of all that species of humanity, seemed aware of what was going on, but she could not catch them red-handed. And knowing that she suspected them, the brothers made life miserable for her in a hundred ways. They hid her crutch in the most out-of-way places, adroitly misplaced her cooking utensils, or whatever article she was about to use, causing her many a long and annoying search when she was in a hurry. They stopped the clock or set it ahead with aggravating frequency; and discovering that the plucky girl grimly bore their tormenting in silence, they grew bolder, jumping out at her from unexpected corners, tweaking her long braids, tripping her up, and calling her "Carrots," or "Red-top," when Tabitha was out of hearing, for they still entertained a wholesome fear of that strong-armed, hot-tempered little housekeeper, who demanded instant obedience from her charges, and was able to enforce her authority by main strength if necessary.
Also, they felt a certain boyish admiration for the tall, lithe girl who bore such a record for bravery, though not for the world would they have admitted the fact, even to each other; and they could not resist plaguing her on the sly whenever a chance presented itself. But to tease her openly was out of the question; so Gloriana received a double share of tormenting, which she bore with such uncomplaining fortitude that the boys forgot to be cautious, and one afternoon while Tabitha was in town on an errand, Mercedes came upon them as they were limping about the kitchen in an exaggerated fashion chanting with tuneless voices,
"Baa-baa, black sheep, have you any wool?Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full;One for the master, one for the dame,And one for the 'gory head' who limps awful lame."
Tears were standing in the tired gray eyes, but Gloriana, with her back resolutely turned toward her tormentors, scrubbed her pan of vegetables more vigorously, and tried not to hear the taunting words, though she knew from the sound of their steps that the boys were circling nearer and ever nearer, and would soon jerk off her hair-ribbon or poke her in the back.
"Cowards!" exploded Mercedes wrathfully. "You'd never dare do that if Tabitha was here! I'm going to tell her just how mean you are!"
"Tattletale, tattletale!" jeered Billiard, taking a rapid survey of the yard as he limped past the door, to see if the other housekeeper had by any chance returned from the post-office.
"You wait and see what you get when Tabby finds out what you have been doing," threatened the girl; and the little name slipping inadvertently from her tongue gave the boys another inspiration.
"Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt," they began inunison, "where have you been?I've been to Silver Bow to buy me a bean.Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt, what saw you there?I saw 'Gory Hanner' with her fearful red hair."
So intent were they upon rendering their new song, that neither boy heard the screen open and close softly behind him, but Mercedes caught a glimpse of the set, white face and flashing eyes through the doorway, and held her breath in mingled fear and expectation.
"Billy goat, Billy goat, where have you been?" a low, ominous voice interrupted; and the two tormentors came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the floor, paralyzed at the unexpected appearance of the black-haired girl.
"A-chewing the whiskers, that grow under my chin," the voice calmly finished, and seizing the pan of dirty water from which Gloriana had just rescued the last potato, Tabitha dashed its contents over the astonished duet. Then realizing that once more she had let go of her fiery temper, she fled from the house up the trail to a great boulder on the summit of the mountain, and threw herself face down in an abandon of shame, remorse and despair.
"Oh, dear, why can't I be good?" she sobbed. "Just when I think I can hold onto myself and be ladylike no matter how mad I get, something comes up to show me that I'm mistaken. I'm just as hateful as Billiard! Oh, dear! And I thought he was being so good, and all the while he was doing mean things behind my back. I make a miserable fizzle of everything I undertake. What would Mrs. McKittrick say if she could have seen me a few minutes ago? Now I've lost all the hold I had on the boys. They can't respect anyone who doesn't control her temper any better than I.
"How I wish I had never offered to take care of the tribe of McKittrick! No, that isn't so, either, for then the mother couldn't have gone inside with Mr. McKittrick, and perhaps the operation would have killed him. I'm glad he had his chance, bad boys or no bad boys! But oh, I am so thankful that Miss Davis will soon be home. I will never play housekeeper again, never! But now,—how can I make it right with Billiard and Toady? What a world this is to live in! Always stepping on someone's toes and then having to beg pardon. The trouble of it is I—I don't believe I am very sorry that I doused the boys. I am sorry I got so mad and did such a hateful thing, of course, but they deserved more than they got. And yet they aren't to blame, either, after the bringing up they have had. I suppose—it's up to me—to do the apologizing act—myself—this trip."
Drying her eyes and taking a firm grip on herself, she descended from her refuge and sought out the boys in their room.
"Come in," Billiard called gruffly in response to her knock, though inwardly he was quaking with fear lest it might be the sheriff or Uncle Hogan, whose authority he had never but once dared to defy. So he was visibly relieved when he saw Tabitha standing alone on the threshold, but waited uncertainly for her to state her errand.
She was as anxious as they to have the ordeal over with, and plunged into the middle of her carefully framed speech, saying briefly, "I came to ask your pardon for my rudeness of a few minutes ago. I forgot myself. It was wrong of me to speak and act as I did, no matter how great the provocation."
Her wandering gaze suddenly fell upon Billiard's face, just in time to see him wink wickedly at Toady, and her good resolutions abruptly took wing. "But you deserved every bit you got," she finished fiercely, "and the next time I'llsouse you in the rain barrel!"
Slamming the door in their surprised faces, she marched majestically away to the kitchen, and furiously began beating up a cake, so chagrined over this new defeat of her plans that she could not keep the tears from her eyes.
Suddenly a meek voice at her elbow spoke hesitatingly, "Say, Tabitha, we've apologized to Gory Anne—Gloriana, I mean. Will you—excuse—me for what we said about you, too?"
Toady's big, beseeching, brown eyes met hers unflinchingly—he certainly knew how to look angelic when occasion demanded it—and Tabitha relented.
"Yes, Toady, I'll excuseyou," she said with meaning emphasis, which was not lost on the older brother, keeping well in the background.
"I—I'm ready to be excused, too," Billiard gulped at length, shuffling forward a few steps, but not raising his eyes from the floor.
"Very well," she answered coldly. "But don't you dare bother Gloriana again. I won't stand for it!"
"No, ma'am," Billiard responded meekly; and the two boys made good their escape, feeling very virtuous indeed.
"Miss Davis gets home to-day," sang Tabitha under her breath, as she drew on her slippers that bright, hot morning. "Do you know that, Gloriana Holliday?"
"Haven't I been counting every minute,—yes, every second for the past twenty-four hours?" laughed the second girl, letting down her luxuriant auburn mane and beginning to brush it vigorously. "But I had a horrible dream last night. I thought she sent us her wedding announcements, and we had to stay here all summer."
"False prophet! How dare you dream such a thing as that? Didn't we have a letter from her just two days ago saying she would reach here on to-day's train? And anyway, dreams always go by contraries, you know."
"It's mighty lucky they do in this case," Gloriana replied seriously. "But I woke in a cold sweat, the dream was so very real. I couldn't help wondering if somethinghaddelayed her so she wouldn't reach here as soon as we had expected."
"What a pessimist you are!" cried Tabitha, eyeing her companion in surprise. "You are usually just the opposite. What is the matter with you to-day, Glory?"
"Oh, I just somehow feel it in my bones that something is going to happen——"
"To be sure! Miss Davis is coming home and relieve us of our job."
"Something disappointing, I mean.
"Well, you just get that feeling out of your bones right away!" commanded Tabitha, thrusting the last pin into her shining, black hair and whisking into her big, kitchen apron. "You must have the rheumatism and that is bad for one's health. One more meal after this, and—exit Tabitha Catt and Gloriana Holliday, housekeepers."
Gloriana laughed, as, with a comical flourish and backward courtesy, the black-haired girl disappeared through the door, but her gay spirits were contagious, and presently the younger maid joined her companion in the kitchen, singing softly:
"'Maxwellton's braes are bonnieWhere early fa's the dew,And 'twas there that Annie LaurieGave me her promise true.'"
"There, that sounds better," Tabitha commented. "Really, I was beginning to get shivers of misgiving myself from your gloomy forebodings in the other room. What shall we have for dinner in honor of the occasion? Green peas, asparagus tips, French potatoes and caramel pudding? Or shall we invest in some strawberries at two bits a box and have shortcake for dessert?"
Merrily she skipped about the kitchen, making ready the simple breakfast for the hungry brood; and when that was out of the way, and the house swept and dusted, the two housekeepers began preparations for an elaborate dinner.
"To celebrate our release from bondage," laughed Gloriana, browning the sugar for a caramel pudding, while Tabitha carefully concocted her best layer cake. So busy were they that the morning flew by as on wings, and before either was aware of the hour, a shrill blast of a whistle proclaimed the approach of a locomotive.
"The train!" gasped Tabitha.
"And we haven't tidied the children up or changed our own dresses," mourned Gloriana.
"I intended to meet Miss Davis at the station, to be sure she came here for dinner," wailed the other.
"It's too late now to do that, but we can make the youngsters a little more presentable before the 'bus comes up from the depot," suggested the younger girl.
"They certainly will need cleaning up by this time, I'll admit. Call them, will you, please?"
Gloriana stepped to the door and yodelled shrilly, but there was no answering trill, save the echo thrown back by the mountain peaks.
"Decamped again!" sighed Tabitha impatiently. "Did you ever see a bunch of children who could do the disappearing act as quickly or as completely as the tribe of McKittrick? If you will watch these potatoes, I will go hunting. They were here only a few seconds ago, seems to me."
Briskly she circled the house. Not a chick nor a child was anywhere in evidence. Down to the boulder playhouse, up the trail to the summit, but nowhere were the children to be found. Tabitha became alarmed. What mischief had Billiard led them into now? He had been perfectly angelic for twenty-four hours. It was time for another outbreak.
Shading her eyes with her hand, she anxiously surveyed the surrounding hillsides, the gray flat below, the dingy station house, and presently her sharp eyes espied a procession of lagging figures straggling down the steps from the depot platform.
"Can it be—" she began. "Yes, I do believe it is! Horrors! Whatever will Miss Davis say when she sees that bunch of dirty ragamuffins! One, two, three, four—Billiard is lugging Janie pickaback, and Mercy and Toady have made a chair for Rosslyn. Yes, that is my family!"
She turned to go back to the house, but another thought had suddenly occurred to her. "Miss Davis! She's not with them. Can it be she didn't come? Was Gloriana right after all? She surely would not let the children plod home in the heat while she rode in the 'bus. No, there are only eight people in that bunch and they are all children. Oh, dear, suppose Glory's dream has come true!"
Mechanically she turned back to the house, and her comrade in misery, catching a glimpse of her disturbed face, cried in alarm, "Can't you find any of them?"
"Yes, they have been to the depot."
"The little rascals! Without so much as asking leave! And it is such a long walk for Rosslyn and Janie!"
"I suppose Billiard put them up to it," Tabitha murmured, glad that Glory had not asked about Miss Davis; and she fell to dishing up potatoes with such reckless energy that the hot fat slopped over and blistered her hand.
"Oh!" cried Gloriana pityingly, "you have burned yourself. Let me finish taking them up."
"No, it's nothing. Serves me right for getting so provoked. I do wish I could learn to control my temper."
Gloriana remained discreetly silent, thinking that Tabitha was angry because of the children's latest escapade; and in silence they finished dinner preparations, both waiting anxiously, nervously for the runaways' return.
At length they heard them coming up the steep path from town, and Susie flew through the door with two letters in her hand. "They are both for you, Tabitha," she panted. "One's from mamma. I'd know her writing in the dark. Miss Davis didn't come on to-day's train, but I s'pose likely she'll be here to-morrow, don't you think?"
Tabitha snatched the envelopes from Susie's outstretched hand, and ripped them open with one stroke of the knife she held, muttering feverishly, "The other is from Miss Davis." Her quick eyes swept the page at a single glance, it seemed, and a smothered groan escaped her.
"What is it?" ventured Gloriana timidly, the morning's foreboding gripping her anew.
"She has broken her leg."
"Broken her leg!" repeated the red-haired girl dully.
"Broken her leg!" echoed mystified Susie.
"Who? Mamma?"
"Miss Davis."
"Holy snakes!"
"Why, Susie!"
"I mean—I—I—that just slipped out accidental. I was so s'prised at wondering what we'd do with a broken-legged woman hopping around here."
"But she won't be hopping around here," Tabitha grimly told her. "She must stay flat on her back in bed for three weeks, and then it will be days and days before she can get around without a crutch."
"Then—who—will housekeep—for us?" gasped Susie. "I reckon it is up to you to stay a while longer. Mrs. Goodale's grand-baby's got the fever and she is going to stay in Carson City until he's well. He is the only grandbaby she's got."
"How did you hear that?" demanded Tabitha, her heart sinking within her at Susie's words.
"Don't we know the Goodales well? She has only one girl, and that girl has only one baby."
"Oh, I didn't mean that! Where did you hear that the baby was sick?"
"Mr. Porter told us at the station. He has just got home from Carson City, and he saw Mrs. Goodale there. Why don't you read mamma's letter? You hain't looked at it yet."
Tabitha had completely forgotten the second envelope, and now hurriedly drew out the written page and scanned the blurred, uneven lines. Then without a word of explanation, she slipped the paper back into its envelope, and dropped it into her pocket, saying only, "Let the children have their dinner now. Everything is ready."
But all through the meal she was unusually preoccupied, puzzling, pondering, struggling, longing to be alone with herself, and yet held to her post by her sense of duty. At last, however, the hungry appetites were satisfied, the chattering children had gone back to their play, the dishes were washed and piled away in the cupboard, and Tabitha slipped away to the little room which she shared with Gloriana and Janie, knowing that no one would molest her here as long as the lame girl stood guard at the door.
Once alone, she spread the two letters out on the bed before her and read and re-read them until she knew both word for word.
Only one course lay open to her, that was plain; but yet her heart rebelled hotly against the circumstances which made this one course the only right one.
"There never was such a girl for getting into scrapes,", she groaned. "And this time I've not only got myself into one, but Gloriana as well. It will be six weeks at the very least before Miss Davis can come home, and there is no telling when Mrs. Goodale will be back. It is out of the question for Mrs. McKittrick to leave her husband just when he needs her most, even though she does offer to come. No, it's up to me, as Susie says. And I did want to go to Catalina with Myra so much! Here's my whole summer spoiled just because of a hasty promise.
"Tabitha Catt! Aren't you ashamed of yourself! You know right well that Mrs. McKittrick never could have gone to the city if you hadn't taken charge of her children, and the chances are that Mr. McKittrick would have died without her. He isn't wholly out of danger even yet. You selfish wretch! What do you think of a person who will talk the way you have been doing? Oh, dear, what a queer world it is! I wouldn't mind so much if Gloriana didn't have to suffer, too; but it is too bad to keep her here on the boiling desert when she might be enjoying life on the Island or at the beach. It wouldn't be so bad if those awful boys weren't here, either; but they are thelimit. I am on edge every minute of the day, looking for the next outbreak. I don't believe theycanbe good. And yet—there's no other way—out of it. I can't let Mrs. McKittrick come home just because I am too utterly selfish to stay here myself. She has been so good to me. And it is positively out of the question for her to have the children with her."
Undecided, rebellious, unhappy, Tabitha crossed the room to the window, and stood looking out over the barren mountainside. Should she? Could she? What ought she to do? On the other side of a little gully just opposite the window, sat Irene, rocking to and fro on a teetering stone, and singing in a high, sweet treble to a battered rag-doll, hugged tightly to her breast. The words floated up to the girl in the window, indistinct at first, but growing clearer as the singer forgot her surroundings; and Tabitha suddenly found herself listening to the queer, garbled words of the song that fell from the childish lips.
"What in creation does she think she is singing?" she asked herself in amazement, recognizing with a fresh pang the tune Gloriana had begun the day with.
Irene finished the verse and commenced again:
"Maxwellton breaks her bonnet,And nearly swallows two,An' 'twas their hat and her locketGave me a pummy stew.Gave me a pummy stewWhich near forgot can be,And for bonnet and a locketI'd lame a downy deed."