THE SHED CHAMBER

"Well, I once answered an advertisement in theFarmer's Friend, girls, and I have always been glad I did. It was that summer when father broke his arm and the potato crop failed, and everything seemed to be going wrong on the farm. There were plenty of girls to do the work at home, and I thought I ought to get something outside to do if I could. I tried here and there, but without success; at last my eye caught a notice in theFarmer's Friend, just the same kind of notice as that you are speaking of, Lottie: 'Wanted, a capable, steady girl to assist in housework and take care of children. Address, with reference, A. B. C., Dashville.' I talked it over with mother, and she agreed with me; father didn't take so kindly to the idea, naturally; he likes to have us all at home, especially in summer. However, he said I might do as I pleased; so I answered the notice and sent a letter from our pastor, saying what he thought of me. I was almost ashamed to send it, too; he has always been more than kind to me, you know; if I'd been his own daughter he couldn't have said more. Well, they wrote for me to come, and I went.

"Girls, it was pretty hard when it came to that part, leaving the house, and mother standing in the doorway trying not to look anxious, and father fretting and saying it was all nonsense, and he shouldn't have hands enough to pick the apples. Of course he knew I knew better, but I was glad he didn't want me to go, after all. Sister Nell and Sister Margie had packed my trunk, and they were as excited as I was, and almost wished they were going instead, but not quite, I think; and so Joe whistled to old Senator, and I waved my handkerchief, and mother and the two girls waved their aprons, and off I went.

"I didn't really feel alone till I was in the train and had lost sight of Joe standing and smoothing Senator's mane and nodding at me; then the world seemed very big and Tupham Corner a very small corner in it. I will not say anything more about this part; you'll find it out soon enough yourselves, when you go away from home the first time.

"It was a long journey, or it seemed so then; but everything comes to an end some time, and there was plenty of daylight left for me to see my new home when I arrived. It was a pleasant-looking house, long and rambling, painted yellow, too, which made me more homesick than ever. There were two children standing in the doorway, and presently Mr. Bowles came out and shook hands with me and helped me down with my things. He was a kind, sensible-looking man, and he made the children come and speak to me and shake hands. They were shy then and hung back, and put their fingers in their mouths; I knew just how they felt. I wanted to hang back, too, when he took me into the house to see Mrs. Bowles. She was an invalid, he told me, and could not leave her room.

"Girls, the minute I saw that sweet, pale face, with the look of pain and patience in it, I knew what I had come for. I do think we understood each other from the first minute, Mrs. Bowles and I; for she held my hand a good while, looking into my face and I into hers, and she must have seen how sorry I was for her, and how I hoped I could help her; for when I went into the kitchen I heard her say, with a little sigh, as she lay back again, 'O John, I do believe this is the right one at last!' You may believe I made up my mind that I would be the right one, Lottie!

"That kitchen was in a scandalous condition. It was well I had seen Mrs. Bowles first or I should have wanted to run away that very minute. The eldest little girl—it seems strange to think that there ever was a time when I didn't know Barbara's name!—followed me out,—I think her father told her to,—and rubbed along against the wall, just exactly as I used to when I felt shy. When I asked her a little about where things were, and so on—they were everywhere and nowhere; you never saw such a looking place in your life!—she took her finger out of her mouth, and pretty soon I told her about our yellow coon kittens, and after that we got on very well. She said they had had one girl after another, each worse than the last. The shoe factory had taken off all the good help and left only the incapable ones. The last one, Barbara said, had almost starved them, and been saucy to Mrs. Bowles, and dirty—well, there was no need to tell me that. It was a shame to see good things so destroyed; for the things were good, only all dirty and broken, and—oh, well! there's no use in telling about that part.

"I asked when her mother had had anything to eat, and she said not since noon; I knew that was no way for an invalid to be taken care of, so I put the kettle on and hunted about till I found a cup and saucer I liked, and then I found the bread-box—oh, dear! that bread-box, girls! But the mold scraped right off, and the bread wasn't really bad; I made some toast and cut the crust off, and put just a thin scrape of butter on it; then I sent Barbara in with a little tray and told her to see that her mother took it all. I thought she'd feel more like taking it from the child than from a stranger, if she hadn't much appetite. My dears, the child came out again in a few minutes, her face all alight.

"'She drank it all, every drop!' she cried. 'And now she's eating the toast. She said how did you know, and she cried, but now she's all right. Father 'most cried, too, I think. Say!'

"'Yes, dear.'

"'Father says the Lord sent you. Did he?'"

3w_Lordsent.jpg (103K)["'FATHER SAYS THE LORD SENT YOU. DID HE?'"]

["'FATHER SAYS THE LORD SENT YOU. DID HE?'"]

"I nodded, for I couldn't say anything that minute. I kissed the little girl and went on with my cleaning. Girls, don't ever grudge the time you spend in learning to cook nicely. Food is what keeps the breath of life in us, and it all depends upon us girls now, and later, when we are older women, whether it is good or bad. No, Sue, I'm not going to preach, but I shall never forget how that tired man and those hungry children enjoyed their supper. 'Twas mother's supper, every bit of it, from the light biscuit down to the ham omelette; I found the ham bone in a dark cupboard, all covered with mold, like the bread, but 'twas good and sweet underneath. I only wish mother had been there to see them eat. After supper Mr. Bowles came and shook hands with me. I didn't know then that he never used any more words than he had to; but I was pleased, if I did think it funny.

"I was tired enough by the time bedtime came, and after I had put the children to bed and seen that Mrs. Bowles was comfortable, and had water and crackers and a candle beside her—she was a very poor sleeper—I was glad enough to go to bed myself. Barbara showed me my room, a pretty little room with sloping gables and windows down by the floor. There were two doors, and I asked her where the other led to. She opened it and said, 'The shed chamber.' I looked over her shoulder, holding up the candle, and saw a great bare room, with some large trunks in it, but no other furniture except a high wardrobe. I liked the look of the place, for it was a little like our play room in the attic at home; but I was too tired to explore, and I was asleep in ten minutes from the time I had tucked up Barbara in her bed, and Rob and Billy in their double crib.

"I should take a week if I tried to tell you all about those first days; and, after all, it is one particular thing that I started to tell, only there is so much that comes back to me. In a few days I felt that I belonged there, almost as much as at home; they were that kind of people, and made me feel that they cared about me, and not only about what I did. Mrs. Bowles has always been the best friend I have in the world after my own folks; it didn't take us a day to see into each other, and by and by it got to be so that I knew what she wanted almost before she knew, herself.

"At the end of the week Mr. Bowles said he ought to go away on business for a few days, and asked her if she would feel safe to stay with me and the children, or if he should ask his brother to come and sleep in the house.

"'No, indeed!' said Mrs. Bowles. 'I shall feel as safe with Nora as if I had a regiment in the house; a good deal safer!' she added, and laughed.

"So it was settled, and the next day Mr. Bowles went away and I was left in full charge. I suppose I rather liked the responsibility. I asked Mrs. Bowles if I might go all over the house to see how everything fastened, and she said, 'Of course.' The front windows were just common windows, quite high up from the floor; but in the shed chamber, as in my room, they opened near the floor, and there was no very secure way of fastening them, it seemed to me. However, I wasn't going to say anything to make her nervous, and that was the way they had always had them. If I had only known!

"After the children went to bed that evening I read to Mrs. Bowles for an hour, and then I went to warm up a little cocoa for her; she slept better if she took a drop of something hot the last thing. It was about nine o'clock. I had just got into the kitchen, and was going to light the lamp, when I heard the door open softly.

"'Who's there?' I asked.

"'Only me,' said a girl's voice.

"I lighted my lamp, and saw a girl about my own age, pretty, and showily dressed. She said she was the girl who had left the house a few days ago; she had forgotten something, and might she go up into the shed chamber and get it? I told her to wait a minute, and went and asked Mrs. Bowles. She said yes, Annie might go up. 'Annie was careless and saucy,' she said, 'but I think she meant no harm. She can go and get her things.'

"I came back and told the girl, and she smiled and nodded. I did not like her smile, I could not tell why. I started to go with her, but she turned on me pretty sharply, and said she had been in the house three months and didn't need to be shown the way by a stranger. I didn't want to put myself forward, but no sooner had she run up-stairs, and I heard her steps in the chamber above me, than something seemed to be pushing, pushing me toward those stairs, whether I would or no. I tried to hold back, and tell myself it was nonsense, and that I was nervous and foolish; it made no difference, I had to go up-stairs.

"I went softly, my shoes making no noise. My own little room was dark, for I had closed the blinds when the afternoon sun was pouring in hot and bright; but a slender line of light lay across the blackness like a long finger, and I knew the moon was shining in at the windows of the shed chamber. I did a thing I had never done before in my life; that silver finger came through the keyhole, and it drew me to it. I knelt down and looked through.

"The big room shone bare and white in the moonlight; the trunks looked like great animals crouching along the walls. Annie stood in the middle of the room, as if she were waiting or listening for something. Then she slipped off her shoes and went to one of the windows and opened it. I had fastened it, but the catch was old and she knew the trick of it, of course. In another moment something black appeared over the low sill; it was a man's head. My heart seemed to stand still. She helped him, and he got in without making a sound. He must have climbed up the big elm-tree which grew close against the house. They stood whispering together for a few minutes, but I could not hear a word.

"The man was in stocking feet; he had an evil, coarse face, yet he was good-looking, too, in a way. I thought the girl seemed frightened, and yet pleased, too; and he seemed to be praising her, I thought, and once he put his arms round her and kissed her. She went to the wardrobe and opened it, but he shook his head; then she opened the great cedar trunk, and he nodded, and measured it and got into it and sat down. It was so deep that he could sit quite comfortably with the cover down. Annie shut it and then opened it again.

"I had seen all I wanted to see. I slipped down-stairs as I heard her move toward the door; when she came down I was stirring my cocoa on the stove, with my back to her. She came round and showed me a bundle she had in her hand, and said she must be going now. I kept my face in the shadow as well as I could, for I was afraid I might not be able to look just as usual; but I spoke quietly, and asked her if she had found everything, and wished her good night as pleasantly as I knew how. All the while my head was in a whirl and my heart beat so loud I thought she must have heard it. There was a good deal of silver in the house, and I knew that Mr. Bowles had drawn some money from the bank only a day or two before, to pay a life-insurance premium.

"I never listened to anything as I did to the sound of her footsteps; even after they had died away, after she had turned the corner, a good way off, I stood still, listening, not stirring hand or foot. But when I no longer heard any sound my strength seemed to come back with a leap, and I knew what I had to do. I told you my shoes made no noise. I slipped up-stairs, through my own room, and into the shed chamber. Girls, it lay so peaceful and bare in the white moonlight, that for a moment I thought I must have dreamed it all.

"It seemed half a mile to the farther end, where the great cedar trunk stood. As I went a board creaked under my feet, and I heard—or fancied I heard—a faint rustle inside the trunk. I began to hum a tune, and moved about among the trunks, raising and shutting the lids, as if I were looking for something. Now at last I was beside the dreadful chest, and in another instant I had turned the key. Then, girls, I flew! I knew the lock was a stout one and the wood heavy and hard; it would take the man some time to get it open from the inside, whatever tools he might have. I was down-stairs in one breath, praying that I might be able to control my voice so that it would not sound strange to the sick woman.

"'Would you mind if I went out for a few minutes, Mrs. Bowles? The moonlight is so lovely I thought I would like to take a little walk, if there is nothing you want.'

"She looked surprised, but said in her kind way, yes, certainly I might go, only I'd better not go far.

"I thanked her, and walked quietly out to the end of the garden walk; then I ran! Girls, I had no idea I could run so! Strength seemed given me, for I never felt my body. I was like a spirit flying or a wind blowing. The road melted away before me, and all the time I saw two things before my eyes as plain as I see you now,—the evil-faced man working away at the lock of the cedar chest, and the sweet lady sitting in the room below with her Bible on her knee. Yes, I thought of the children, too, but it seemed to me no one, not even the wickedest, could wish to hurt a child. So on I ran!

"I reached the first house, but I knew there was no man there, only two nervous old ladies. At the next house I should find two men, George Brett and his father.

"Yes, Lottie, my George, but I had never seen him then. He had only lately come back from college. The first I saw of him was two minutes later, when I ran almost into his arms as he came out of the house. I can see him now, in the moonlight, tall and strong, with his surprised eyes on me. I must have been a wild figure, I suppose. I could hardly speak, but somehow I made him understand.

"He turned back to the door and shouted to his father, who came hurrying out; then he looked at me. 'Can you run back?' he asked.

"I nodded. I had no breath for words but plenty for running, I thought.

"'Come on, then!'

"Girls, it was twice as easy running with that strong figure beside me. I noticed in all my hurry and distress how easily he ran, and I felt my feet, that had grown heavy in the last few steps, light as air again. Once I sobbed for breath, and he took my hand as we ran, saying, 'Courage, brave girl!' We ran on hand in hand, and I never failed again. We heard Mr. Brett's feet running, not far behind; he was a strong, active man, but could not quite keep up with us.

"As we neared the house, 'Quiet,' I said; 'Mrs. Bowles does not know.'"

He nodded, and we slipped in at the back door. In an instant his shoes were off and he was up the back stairs like a cat, and I after him. As we entered the shed chamber the lid of the cedar trunk rose.

I saw the gleam of the evil black eyes and the shine of white, wolfish teeth. Without a sound George Brett sprang past me; without a sound the robber leaped to meet him. I saw them in the white light as they clinched and stood locked together; then a mist came before my eyes and I saw nothing more.

"I did not actually faint, I think; it cannot have been more than a few minutes before I came to myself. But when I looked again George was kneeling with his knee on the man's breast, holding him down, and Father Brett was looking about the chamber and saying, in his dry way, 'Now where in Tunkett is the clothes-line to tie this fellow?'

"And the girl? Annie? O girls, she was so young! She was just my own age and she had no mother. I went to see her the next day, and many days after that. We are fast friends now, and she is a good, steady girl; and no one knows—no one except our two selves and two others—that she was ever in the shed chamber."

MAINE TO THE RESCUE

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! It's snowing!"

"Hurrah! hurrah! It's snowing!"

Massachusetts looked up from her algebra. She was the head of the school. She was rosy and placid as the apple she was generally eating when not in class. Apples and algebra were the things she cared most about in school life.

"Whence come these varying cries?" she said, taking her feet off the fender and trying to be interested, though her thoughts went on with "a 1/6 b =" etc.

"Oh, Virginia is grumbling because it is snowing, and Maine is feeling happy over it, that's all!" said Rhode Island, the smallest girl in Miss Wayland's school.

"Poor Virginia! It is rather hard on you to have snow in March, when you have just got your box of spring clothes from home."

"It is atrocious!" said Virginia, a tall, graceful, languishing girl. "How could they send me to such a place, where it is winter all the spring? Why, at home the violets are in blossom, the trees are coming out, the birds singing—"

"And at home," broke in Maine, who was a tall girl, too, but lithe and breezy as a young willow, with flyaway hair and dancing brown eyes, "at home all is winter—white, beautiful, glorious winter, with ice two or three feet thick on the rivers, and great fields and fields of snow, all sparkling in the sun, and the sky a vast sapphire overhead, without a speck. Oh, the glory of it, the splendor of it! And here—here it is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. A wretched, makeshift season, which they call winter because they don't know what else to call it."

"Come! come!" said Old New York, who was seventeen years old and had her own ideas of dignity. "Let us alone, you two outsiders! We are neither Eskimos nor Hindoos, it is true, but the Empire State would not change climates with either of you."

"No, indeed!" chimed in Young New York, who always followed her leader in everything, from opinions down to hair-ribbons.

"No, indeed!" repeated Virginia, with languid scorn. "Because you couldn't get any one to change with you, my dear."

Young New York reddened. "You are so disagreeable, Virginia!" she said. "I am sure I am glad I don't have to live with you all the year round—"

"Personal remarks!" said Massachusetts, looking up calmly. "One cent, Young New York, for the missionary fund. Thank you! Let me give you each half an apple, and you will feel better."

She solemnly divided a large red apple, and gave the halves to the two scowling girls, who took them, laughing in spite of themselves, and went their separate ways.

"Why didn't you let them have it out, Massachusetts?" said Maine, laughing. "You never let any one have a good row."

"Slang!" said Massachusetts, looking up again. "One cent for the missionary fund. You will clothe the heathen at this rate, Maine. That is the fourth cent to-day."

"'Row' isn't slang!" protested Maine, feeling, however, for her pocket-book.

"Vulgar colloquial!" returned Massachusetts, quietly. "And perhaps you would go away now, Maine, or else be quiet. Have you learned—"

"No, I haven't!" said Maine. "I will do it very soon, dear Saint Apple. I must look at the snow a little more."

Maine went dancing off to her room, where she threw the window open and looked out with delight. The girl caught up a double handful and tossed it about, laughing for pure pleasure. Then she leaned out to feel the beating of the flakes on her face.

"Really quite a respectable little snowstorm!" she said, nodding approval at the whirling white drift. "Go on, and you will be worth while, my dear." She went singing to her algebra, which she could not have done if it had not been snowing.

The snow went on increasing from hour to hour. By noon the wind began to rise; before night it was blowing a furious gale. Furious blasts clutched at the windows, and rattled them like castanets. The wind howled and shrieked and moaned, till it seemed as if the air were filled with angry demons fighting to possess the square white house.

Many of the pupils of Miss Wayland's school came to the tea-table with disturbed faces; but Massachusetts was as calm as usual, and Maine was jubilant.

"Isn't it a glorious storm?" she cried, exultingly. "I didn't know there could be such a storm in this part of the country, Miss Wayland. Will you give me some milk, please?"

"There is no milk, my dear," said Miss Wayland, who looked rather troubled. "The milkman has not come, and probably will not come to-night. There has never been such a storm here in my lifetime!" she added. "Do you have such storms at home, my dear?"

"Oh, yes, indeed!" Maine said, cheerfully. "I don't know that we often have so much wind as this, but the snow is nothing out of the way. Why, on Palm Sunday last year our milkman dug through a drift twenty feet deep to get at his cows. He was the only milkman who ventured out, and he took me and the minister's wife to church in his little red pung.

"We were the only women in church, I remember. Miss Betsy Follansbee, who had not missed going to church in fifteen years, started on foot, after climbing out of her bedroom window to the shed roof and sliding down. All her doors were blocked up, and she lived alone, so there was no one to dig her out. But she got stuck in a drift about half-way, and had to stay there till one of the neighbors came by and pulled her out."

All the girls laughed at this, and even Miss Wayland smiled; but suddenly she looked grave again.

"Hark!" she said, and listened. "Did you not hear something?"

"We hear Boreas, Auster, Eurus, and Zephyrus," answered Old New York. "Nothing else."

At that moment there was a lull in the screeching of the wind; all listened intently, and a faint sound was heard from without which was not that of the blast.

"A child!" said Massachusetts, rising quickly. "It is a child's voice. I will go, Miss Wayland."

"I cannot permit it, Alice!" cried Miss Wayland, in great distress. "I cannot allow you to think of it. You are just recovering from a severe cold, and I am responsible to your parents. What shall we do? It certainly sounds like a child crying out in the pitiless storm. Of course itmaybe a cat—"

Maine had gone to the window at the first alarm, and now turned with shining eyes.

"Itisa child!" she said, quietly. "I have no cold, Miss Wayland. I am going, of course."

Passing by Massachusetts, who had started out of her usual calm and stood in some perplexity, she whispered, "If it were freezing, it wouldn't cry. I shall be in time. Get a ball of stout twine."

She disappeared. In three minutes she returned, dressed in her blanket coat, reaching half-way below her knees, scarlet leggings and gaily wrought moccasins; on her head a fur cap, with a band of sea-otter fur projecting over her eyes. In her hand she held a pair of snow-shoes. She had had no opportunity to wear her snow-shoeing suit all winter, and she was quite delighted.

"My child!" said Miss Wayland, faintly. "How can I let you go? My duty to your parents—what are those strange things, and what use are you going to make of them?"

By way of answer Maine slipped her feet into the snow-shoes, and, with Massachusetts' aid, quickly fastened the thongs.

"The twine!" she said. "Yes, that will do; plenty of it. Tie it to the door-handle, square knot, so! I'm all right, dear; don't worry." Like a flash the girl was gone out into the howling night.

Miss Wayland wrung her hands and wept, and most of the girls wept with her. Virginia, who was curled up in a corner, really sick with fright, beckoned to Massachusetts.

"Is there any chance of her coming back alive?" she asked, in a whisper. "I wish I had made up with her. But we may all die in this awful storm."

"Nonsense!" said Massachusetts. "Try to have a little sense, Virginia! Maine is all right, and can take care of herself; and as for whimpering at the wind, when you have a good roof over your head, it is too absurd."

For the first time since she came to school Massachusetts forgot the study hour, as did every one else; and in spite of her brave efforts at cheerful conversation, it was a sad and an anxious group that sat about the fire in the pleasant parlor.

Maine went out quickly, and closed the door behind her; then stood still a moment, listening for the direction of the cry. She did not hear it at first, but presently it broke out—a piteous little wail, sounding louder now in the open air. The girl bent her head to listen. Where was the child? The voice came from the right, surely! She would make her way down to the road, and then she could tell better.

Grasping the ball of twine firmly, she stepped forward, planting the broad snow-shoes lightly in the soft, dry snow. As she turned the corner of the house an icy blast caught her, as if with furious hands, shook her like a leaf, and flung her roughly against the wall.

Her forehead struck the corner, and for a moment she was stunned; but the blood trickling down her face quickly brought her to herself. She set her teeth, folded her arms tightly, and stooping forward, measured her strength once more with that of the gale.

This time it seemed as if she were cleaving a wall of ice, which opened only to close behind her. On she struggled, unrolling her twine as she went.

The child's cry sounded louder, and she took fresh heart. Pausing, she clapped her hand to her mouth repeatedly, uttering a shrill, long call. It was the Indian whoop, which her father had taught her in their woodland rambles at home.

The childish wail stopped; she repeated the cry louder and longer; then shouted, at the top of her lungs, "Hold on! Help is coming!"

Again and again the wind buffeted her, and forced her backward a step or two; but she lowered her head, and wrapped her arms more tightly about her body, and plodded on.

Once she fell, stumbling over a stump; twice she ran against a tree, for the white darkness was absolutely blinding, and she saw nothing, felt nothing but snow, snow. At last her snow-shoe struck something hard. She stretched out her hands—it was the stone wall. And now, as she crept along beside it, the child's wail broke out again close at hand.

"Mother! O mother! mother!"

The girl's heart beat fast.

"Where are you?" she cried. At the same moment she stumbled against something soft. A mound of snow, was it? No! for it moved. It moved and cried, and little hands clutched her dress.

She saw nothing, but put her hands down, and touched a little cold face. She dragged the child out of the snow, which had almost covered it, and set it on its feet.

"Who are you?" she asked, putting her face down close, while by vigorous patting and rubbing she tried to give life to the benumbed, cowering little figure, which staggered along helplessly, clutching her with half-frozen fingers.

"Benny Withers!" sobbed the child. "Mother sent me for the clothes, but I can't get 'em!"

"Benny Withers!" cried Maine. "Why, you live close by. Why didn't you go home, child?"

"I can't!" cried the boy. "I can't see nothing. I tried to get to the school, an' I tried to get home, an' I can't get nowhere 'cept against this wall. Let me stay here now! I want to rest me a little."

He would have sunk down again, but Maine caught him up in her strong, young arms.

"Here, climb up on my back, Benny!" she said, cheerfully. "Hold on tight round my neck, and you shall rest while I take you home. So! That's a brave boy! Upsy, now! there you are! Now put your head on my shoulder—close! and hold on!"

Ah! how Maine blessed the heavy little brother at home, whowouldride on his sister's back, long after mamma said he was too big. How she blessed the carryings up and down stairs, the "horsey rides" through the garden and down the lane, which had made her shoulders strong!

Benny Withers was eight years old, but he was small and slender, and no heavier than six-year-old Philip. No need of telling the child to hold on, once he was up out of the cruel snow bed. He clung desperately round the girl's neck, and pressed his head close against the woollen stuff.

Maine pulled her ball of twine from her pocket—fortunately it was a large one, and the twine, though strong, was fine, so that there seemed to be no end to it—and once more lowered her head, and set her teeth, and moved forward, keeping close to the wall, in the direction of Mrs. Withers's cottage.

For awhile she saw nothing, when she looked up under the fringe of otter fur, which, long and soft, kept the snow from blinding her; nothing but the white, whirling drift which beat with icy, stinging blows in her face. But at last her eyes caught a faint glimmer of light, and presently a brighter gleam showed her Mrs. Withers's gray cottage, now white like the rest of the world.

Bursting open the cottage door, she almost threw the child into the arms of his mother.

The woman, who had been weeping wildly, could hardly believe her eyes. She caught the little boy and smothered him with kisses, chafing his cold hands, and crying over him.

"I didn't know!" she said. "I didn't know till he was gone. I told him at noon he was to go, never thinking 'twould be like this. I was sure he was lost and dead, but I couldn't leave my sick baby. Bless you, whoever you are, man or woman! But stay and get warm, and rest ye! You're never going out again in this awful storm!"

But Maine was gone.

In Miss Wayland's parlor the suspense was fast becoming unendurable. They had heard Maine's Indian whoop, and some of them, Miss Wayland herself among the number, thought it was a cry of distress; but Massachusetts rightly interpreted the call, and assured them that it was a call of encouragement to the bewildered child.

Then came silence within the house, and a prolonged clamor—a sort of witches' chorus, with wailing and shrieking without. Once a heavy branch was torn from one of the great elms, and came thundering down on the roof. This proved the finishing touch for poor Virginia. She went into violent hysterics, and was carried off to bed by Miss Way land and Old New York.

Massachusetts presently ventured to explore a little. She hastened through the hall to the front door, opened it a few inches, and put her hand on the twine which was fastened to the handle. What was her horror to find that it hung loose, swinging idly in the wind! Sick at heart, she shut the door, and pressing her hands over her eyes, tried to think.

Maine must be lost in the howling storm! She must find her; but where and how?

Oh! if Miss Wayland had only let her go at first! She was older; it would not have mattered so much.

But now, quick! she would wrap herself warmly, and slip out without any one knowing.

The girl was turning to fly up-stairs, when suddenly something fell heavily against the door outside. There was a fumbling for the handle; the next moment it flew open, and something white stumbled into the hall, shut the door, and sat down heavily on the floor.

"Personal—rudeness!" gasped Maine, struggling for breath. "You shut the door in my face! One cent for the missionary fund."

The great storm was over. The sun came up, and looked down on a strange, white world. No fences, no walls; only a smooth ridge where one of these had been. Trees which the day before had been quite tall now looked like dwarfs, spreading their broad arms not far from the snow carpet beneath them. Road there was none; all was smooth, save where some huge drift nodded its crest like a billow curling for its downward rush.

Maine, spite of her scarred face, which showed as many patches as that of a court lady in King George's times, was jubilant. Tired! not a bit of it! A little stiff, just enough to need "limbering out," as they said at home.

"There is no butter!" she announced at breakfast. "There is no milk, no meat for dinner. Therefore, I go a-snow-shoeing. Dear Miss Wayland, let me go! I have learned my algebra, and I shall be discovering unknown quantities at every step, which will be just as instructive."

Miss Wayland could refuse nothing to the heroine of last night's adventure. Behold Maine, therefore, triumphant, sallying forth, clad once more in her blanket suit, and dragging her sled behind her.

There was no struggling now—no hand-to-hand wrestling with storm-demons. The sun laughed from a sky as blue and deep as her own sky of Maine, and the girl laughed with him as she walked along, the powdery snow flying in a cloud from her snow-shoes at every step.

Such a sight had never been seen in Mentor village before. The people came running to their upper windows—their lower ones were for the most part buried in snow—and stared with all their eyes at the strange apparition.

In the street, life was beginning to stir. People had found, somewhat to their own surprise, that they were alive and well after the blizzard; and knots of men were clustered here and there, discussing the storm, while some were already at work tunnelling through the drifts.

Mr. Perkins, the butcher, had just got his door open, and great was his amazement when Maine hailed him from the top of a great drift, and demanded a quarter of mutton with some soup meat.

4w_drift.jpg (97K)["MAINE HAILED HIM FROM THE TOP OF A GREAT DRIFT."]

["MAINE HAILED HIM FROM THE TOP OF A GREAT DRIFT."]

"Yes, miss!" he stammered, open-mouthed with astonishment. "I—I've got the meat; but I wasn't—my team isn't out this morning. I don't know about sending it."

"I have a 'team' here!" said Maine, quietly, pulling her sled alongside. "Give me the mutton, Mr. Perkins; you may charge it to Miss Wayland, please, and I will take it home."

The butter-man and the grocer were visited in the same way, and Maine, rather embarrassed by the concentrated observation of the whole village, turned to pull her laden sled back, when suddenly a window was thrown open, and a voice exclaimed:

"Young woman! I will give you ten dollars for the use of those snow-shoes for an hour!"

Maine looked up in amazement, and laughed merrily when she saw the well-known countenance of the village doctor.

"What! You, my dear young lady?" cried the good man. "This is 'Maine to the Rescue,' indeed! I might have known it was you. But I repeat my offer. Make it anything you please, only let me have the snow-shoes. I cannot get a horse out, and have two patients dangerously ill. What is your price for the magic shoes?"

"My price, doctor?" repeated Maine, looking up with dancing eyes. "My price is—one cent. For the Missionary Fund! The snow-shoes are yours, and I will get home somehow with my sled and the mutton."

So she did, and Doctor Fowler made his calls with the snow-shoes, and saved a life, and brought cheer and comfort to many. But it was ten dollars, and not one cent, which he gave to the Missionary Fund.

THE SCARLET LEAVES

"The Committee will please come to order!" said Maine.

"What's up?" asked Massachusetts, pausing in her occupation of peeling chestnuts.

"Why, you know well enough, Massachusetts. Here it is Wednesday, and we don't know yet what we are going to do on Friday evening. We must do something, or go shamed to our graves. Never a senior class has missed its Frivolous Friday, since the school began."

"Absolutely no hope of the play?"

"None! Alma's part is too important; no one could possibly take it at two days' notice. Unless—they say Chicago has a real gift for acting; but somehow, I don't feel as if she were the person."

"I should bar that, positively," put in Tennessee. "In the first place, Chicago has not been here long enough to be identified with the class. She is clever, of course, or she could not have entered junior last year; but—well, it isn't necessary to say anything more; she is out of the question."

"It is too exasperating!" said Massachusetts. "Alma might have waited another week before coming down with measles."

"It's harder for her than for any one else, Massachusetts," said Maine. "Poor dear; she almost cried her eyes out yesterday, when the spots appeared, and there was no more doubt."

"Yes, I know that; she is a poor, unfortunate Lamb, and I love her, you know I do; still, a growl may be permitted, Maine. There's nothing criminal in a growl. The question is, as you were saying, what shall we do?"

"A dance?"

"We had a dance last week!" said Maine; "at least the sophomores did, and we don't want to copy them."

"A straw-ride?"

"A candy-pull?"

"A concert?"

"The real question is," said Tennessee, cracking her chestnut leisurely, "what does Maine intend to do? If she thinks we made her Class President because we meant to arrange things ourselves, she is more ignorant than I supposed her. Probably she has the whole thing settled in her Napoleonic mind. Out with it, Moosetocmaguntic!"

Maine smiled, and looked round her. The Committee was clustered in a group at the foot of a great chestnut-tree, at the very edge of a wood. The leaves were still thick on the trees, and the October sun shone through their golden masses, pouring a flood of warmth and light down on the greensward, sprinkled with yellow leaves and half-open chestnut burrs. Massachusetts and Tennessee, sturdy and four-square as their own hills; Old New York and New Jersey, and Maine herself, a tall girl with clear, kind eyes, and a color that came and went as she talked. This was the Committee.

5w_conference.jpg (138K)[THE CONFERENCE.]

[THE CONFERENCE.]

"Well," said Maine, modestly. "I did have an idea, girls. I don't know whether you will approve or not, but—what do you say to a fancy ball?"

"A fancy ball! at two days' notice!"

"Penobscot is losing her mind. Pity to see it shattered, for it was once a fine organ."

"Be quiet, Tennessee! I don't mean anything elaborate, of course. But I thought we might have an informal frolic, and dress up in—oh, anything we happened to have. Not call it a dance, but have dancing all the same; don't you see? There are all kinds of costumes that can be got up with very little trouble, and no expense to speak of."

"For example!" said Massachusetts. "She has it all arranged, girls; all we have to do is to sit back and let wisdom flow in our ears."

"Massachusetts, if you tease me any more,I'llsit back, and let you do it all yourself. Well, then—let me see! Tennessee—to tell the truth, I didn't sleep very well last night; my head ached; and I amused myself by planning a few costumes, just in case you should fancy the idea."

"Quack! quack!" said Massachusetts. "I didn't mean to interrupt, but youarea duck, and I must just show that I can speak your language. Go on!"

"Tennessee, I thought you might be an Indian. You must have something that will show your hair. With my striped shawl for a blanket, and the cock's feather out of Jersey's hat—what do you think?"

"Perfect!" said Tennessee. "And I can try effects with my new paint-box, one cheek stripes, the other spots. Hurrah! next!"

"Old New York, you must be a flower of some kind. Or—why not a basket of flowers? You could have a basket-work bodice, don't you see? and flowers coming out of it all round your neck—your neck is so pretty, you ought to show it—"

"Or carrots and turnips!" said the irrepressible Massachusetts. "Call her a Harvest Hamper, and braid her lovely locks with strings of onions!"

"Thank you," laughed Old New York, a slender girl whose flower-like beauty made her a pleasure to look at. "I think I'll keep to the posy, Massachusetts. Go on, Maine! what shall Massachusetts be, and what will you be yourself?"

"Massachusetts ought by rights to be an apple, a nice fat rosy apple; but I don't quite know how that can be managed."

"Then I shall be a codfish!" said Massachusetts, decidedly. "I am not going to desert Mr. Micawber—I mean the Bay State. I shall go as a salt codfish.Dixi! Pass on to the Pine-Tree!"

"Why, so I might be a pine-tree! I didn't think of that. But still, I don't think I will; I meant to be October. The leaves at home are so glorious in October, and I saw some scarlet leaves yesterday that will be lovely for chaplets and garlands."

"What are they? the maples don't turn red here—too near the sea, I suppose."

"I don't know what they are. Pointed leaves, rather long and delicate, and the most splendid color you ever saw. There is just this one little tree, near the crossroad by the old stone house. I haven't seen anything like it about here. I found it yesterday, and just stood and looked at it, it was so beautiful. Yes, I shall be October; I'll decide on that. What's that rustling in the wood? aren't we all here? I thought I heard something moving among the trees. I do believe some one is in there, Massachusetts."

"I was pulling down a branch; don't be imaginative, my dear. Well, go on! are we to make out all the characters?"

"Why—I thought not. Some of the girls will like better to choose their own, don't you think? I thought we, as the Committee, might make out a list of suggestions, though, and then they can do as they please. But now, I wish some of you others would suggest something; I don't want to do it all."

"Daisy will have to be her namesake, of course," said Tennessee.

"Jersey can be a mosquito," said Old New York; "she's just the figure for it."

"Thank you!" said Jersey, who weighed ninety pounds. "Going on that theory, Pennsylvania ought to go as an elephant, and Rhode Island as a giraffe."

"And Chicago as a snake—no! I didn't mean that!" cried Maine.

"You said it! you said it!" cried several voices, in triumph.

"The Charitable Organ has called names at last!" said Jersey, laughing. "And she has hit it exactly. Now, Maine, what is the use of looking pained? the girlisa snake—or a sneak, which amounts to the same thing. Let us have truth, I say, at all hazards."

"I am sorry!" said Maine, simply. "I am not fond of Chicago, and that is the very reason why I should not call her names behind her back. It slipped out before I knew it; I am sorry and ashamed, and that is all there is to say. And now, suppose we go home, and tell the other girls about the party."

The Committee trooped off across the hill, laughing and talking, Maine alone grave and silent. As their voices died away, the ferns nodded beside a great pine-tree that stood just within the border of the wood, not six yards from where they had been sitting. A slender dark girl rose from the fern-clump in which she had been crouching, and shook the pine-needles from her dress. Very cautiously she parted the screen of leaves, and looked after the retreating girls.

"That was worth while!" she said; and her voice, though quiet, was full of ugly meaning. "Snakes can hear, Miss Oracle, and bite, too. We'll see about those scarlet leaves!"

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