"'Slightest actions oftenMeet the sorest needs,For the world wants daily,Little kindly deeds;Oh, what care and sorrowYou may help remove,With your songs and courage,Sympathy and love.'"
"'Slightest actions oftenMeet the sorest needs,For the world wants daily,Little kindly deeds;Oh, what care and sorrowYou may help remove,With your songs and courage,Sympathy and love.'"
Peace was comforted and went back to the shady garden with a deeper desire to brighten the long, dreary, aimless days of the helpless invalid. She said no more about introducing her beloved minister's family, but in secret she still mourned because the lame girl so steadfastly refused to welcome her dearest friends.
So the days flew swiftly by and the month of May was gone. Summer was early that year, and the first day of June dawned sultry and still over the sweltering city. It was a half-holiday at the Chestnut School, so Peace returned home at noon, hot, perspiring, but radiant at the thought of no more lessons till the morrow. She came a round-about way in order to pass the great gates of the stone mansion, hoping to catch a glimpse of the well-known chair under the lilac bushes; but the lawn was deserted, and she was disappointed, for she had counted much on spending these unexpected leisure hours in the cool garden with the lame girl.
To add to her woe, she found Elizabeth lying on the couch in the darkened study, suffering from a nerve-racking headache, and the preacher, looking very droll togged out in his little wife's kitchen-apron, was flying about serving up the scorched, unseasoned dinner for the forlorn family. He was too much concerned over the illness of the mistress and the unfinished condition of his next Sunday's sermon to sample his own cooking, and as Glen fell asleep over his bowl of bread and milk, Peace was left entirely to her own devices when the meal was ended.
It was too hot to romp, it was too hot to read, and there was no one to play with. She swung idly in the hammock until the very motion was maddening. She prowled through the grove behind the church, she dug industriously in the small flower garden under the east window, she did everything she could think of to make the time pass quickly, but at length threw herself once more into the hammock with a discouraged sigh.
"School might better have kept all day. It is horrid to stay home with nothing to do that's int'resting. I've watched all the afternoon for the Lilac Lady's table-cloth and haven't had a peek of it yet. But there—I don't s'pose she'd know there was only one session today, so she ain't apt to hang it out until time for school to let out, like she usu'ly does. Guess I'll just walk over in that d'rection and see if she ain't under the trees yet. It's been two days since I've seen a glimpse of her. Hicks says she's been dreadful bad again. P'raps I better take her some flowers this time—and there is that little strawberry pie Elspeth made for my very own. I might take her some sandwiches, too,—yes, I'll do it!"
She tiptoed softly into the house, so as not to disturb the two slumberers, and went in search of the minister in order to lay her plan before him; but he, too, had fallen asleep and lay sprawled full length by the open window, beside his half-written manuscript.
"If that ain't just the way!" spluttered Peace under her breath. "I never did go to tell anyone nice plans but they went to sleep or were too busy to be disturbed. Well, I'll do it anyway. I know they won't care a single speck. I'll ask 'em when I get home and they are awake."
Back to the kitchen she stole, and into the tiny pantry, where for the next few minutes she industriously cut and buttered bread, made sandwiches, sliced cake and packed lunch enough for a dozen in the picnic hamper which she found hanging on a nail in the shed. With this on her arm, she returned to the little garden under the window and dug up her choicest flowers, stacked them in an old shoe-box with plenty of black dirt, as she had often seen Hicks do, and departed with her luggage for the stone house across the corner.
She paused at the heavy gates, wondering for the first time whether or not she would be welcome at this time, when no signal had fluttered from the lilac bushes, but at sight of the motionless figure under the largest oak, her doubts vanished, and, boldly opening the gate, she marched up the gravel path and across the lawn toward the familiar chair, bearing the lunch-basket on one arm and a huge box of cheerful-faced pansies on the other.
Hearing the click of the latch and the sound of steps on the walk, the lame girl frowned impatiently, and without opening her eyes, said peevishly, "If you have any errand here, go on to the house. I won't be bothered."
"Oh, I'm sorry," cried Peace in mournful tones. "I brought a picnic with me, but—"
The big blue eyes flashed wide in surprise, and their owner demanded sharply, "Why did you come this time of day? I have not sent for you."
"I didn't say you had. I came 'cause I thought you'd be glad to see me, but if you ain't, I'll go straight home again and eat my picnic all alone, and plant my flowers in my garden again. You don't have to have them if you don't want 'em."
She whirled on her heel and stamped angrily across the grass toward the gate, too hurt to keep the tears from her eyes, and too proud to let her companion see how deeply wounded she was.
Astonished at this flash of gunpowder, the lame girl cried contritely, "Oh, don't go away, Peace! I didn't mean to be cross to you. This has beensucha hard week, dear, I hardly know what I am doing half the time."
"Is the pain so bad?" whispered Peace tenderly, dropping on her knees before the sufferer, having already forgotten her own grievance in her longing to ease and comfort the poor, aching back.
"It is better now," answered the girl, smiling wanly at the sympathetic face bending over her. "The heat always makes it worse, but I do believe it is growing cooler now. Feel the breeze? What have you brought me? A picnic lunch!"
"Yes—my strawberry pie—"
"Did Mrs. Strong know?"
"She made the pie all for my very own self to do just what I please with. Don't you like strawberry pie?" Peace paused in her task of unpacking the basket to look up questioningly at the face among the pillows.
"Oh, yes, dear, I am very fond of it, and it is sweet of you to share yours with me. I shall put my half away for tea."
"Oh, you mustn't do that," protested the ardent little picnicker, passing her a plate of generously thick, ragged looking sandwiches, spread with great chunks of butter fresh from the ice-box, and filled with delicate slices of pink ham. "I want you to eat it with me. This is a 'specially good pie, and Elspeth can 'most beat Faith when it comes to dough. Mrs. Deacon Hopper sent us the ham—a whole one, all boiled and baked with sugar and cloves. It's simplyfine! The lilacs I took the deacon did the work all right. He was so tickled that he got over being grumpy, and calls Saint John a promising preacher now. Please taste the sandwiches. I know you'll like them even if I didn't get the bread cut real even and nice. Then after we get through eating, I'll plant the pansies."
"Pansies!" She stared past the brown head bobbing over the hamper, to the box of nodding blossoms in the grass. "What made you bring me pansies?"
"'Cause you ain't got any, and no garden looks quite finished without some of those flowers in it. Don't you think so?"
"Ide-spisepansies!"
Peace eyed her in horrified amazement an instant, then swept the rejected blossoms out of sight beneath the basket cover, saying tartly, "You needn't be ugly about it! I can take them home again. I s'posed of course you liked them. I didn't know the garden was empty of them 'cause youwouldn'thave them.Ithink they are the prettiest flower growing, next to lilacs and roses."
"Those mocking little faces?"
"Those darling, giggly smiles!"
"What?"
"Didn't you ever see a giggling pansy?"
"No, I can't say I ever did." A faint trace of amusement stole around the corners of the white lips.
"Well, here's one. Oh, I forgot! Youde-spisethem!" She had half lifted a gorgeous yellow blossom from the hidden box, but at second thought dropped it back in the loose earth.
"Let me see it!" The Lilac Lady extended one blue-veined hand with the imperious gesture which Peace had learned to know and obey. Silently she thrust the moist plant into the outstretched fingers, and gravely watched while the keen blue eyes studied the golden petals which, as Peace had declared, seemed fairly teeming with sunshine and laughter. "It does—look rather—cheerful," she conceded at length.
"That is just what I thought. I named it Hope."
"Hope! The name is appropriate."
"Yes, it is very 'propriate. Hope is always so sunshiny and smily—"
"Oh, you named it for your sister."
"Who did you think it was named for?"
"I didn't understand. Is it a habit of yours to name all your flowers?"
"N-o, not all. But we gener'ly name our pansies, Allee and me. See, this beautiful white one with just a tiny speck of yellow in the middle I called my Lilac Lady."
"Why?" A queer little choke came in her throat at these unexpected words, and she turned her eyes away that Peace might not see the tears which dimmed her sight.
"You looked so sweet and like anangelthe first time I saw you, and this pansy has a reg'lar angel face."
"Don't I look sweet and like an angel any more?"
"Some days—whenever you want to. But lots of times I guess you don't care how you look," was the reply, as the busy fingers sorted out the different colored blossoms from the box, all unconscious of the stinging arrow she had just shot into the heart of her friend. "This blue one's Allee. Blue means truth, grandma says, and Allee is true blue. Red in our flag stands for valor. Cherry ain't very brave, but I named this for her anyway, in hopes she'd ask why and I could tell her. Then maybe when she found out that folks thought she was a 'fraid cat, she'd get over it. Don't you think she would?"
"Perhaps—if you were her teacher," the older girl answered absently. "Who is the black one?"
"Grandpa. Isn't it a whopper? He is real tall but not fat like the flower. He always wears black at the University—that's why I picked that one for him. This one is grandma and here is Gail. The striped one is Faith. She is good in streaks, but she can be awful cross sometimes, too,—like you. This tiny one is Glen, and the big, brown, spotted feller is Aunt Pen. It makes me think of old Cockletop, a mother hen we used to have in Parker, which 'dopted everything it could find wandering around loose. That's what Aunt Pen looks as if she'd like to do."
This was too much for the lame girl's risibles, and she laughed outright, long and loud, to Peace's secret delight, for when the Lilac Lady laughed it was a sure sign that she was feeling better.
When she had recovered her composure, she said gravely, "Speaking of Aunt Pen reminds me that she told me this morning the cook had made some chicken patties for my special benefit and was hurt to think I refused them. You might run up to the house and ask for them now to go with our picnic lunch. Minnie will give them to you—cold, please. Some lemonade would taste good, too. Aunt Pen knows how to make it to perfection."
Peace was gone almost before she had finished giving her directions, and as she watched the nimble feet skimming through the clover, she smiled tenderly, then sighed and looked sadly down at her own useless limbs which would never bear her weight again. How many years of existence must she endure in her crippled helplessness? Oh, the bitterness of it! And yet as she gazed at the slippers which never wore out, and compared her lot with that of the dancing, curly-haired sprite, tumbling eagerly up the kitchen steps after the promised goodies, the old, weary look of utter despair did not quite come back into the deep blue eyes; but through the bitterness of her rebellion flashed a faint gleam of something akin to hope. She was thinking of Peace's latest sunshine quotation which had been laboriously entered in the little brown and gold volume and brought to her for her inspection:
"'To live in hope, to trust in right,To smile when shadows start,To walk through darkness as through light,With sunshine in the heart.'"
"'To live in hope, to trust in right,To smile when shadows start,To walk through darkness as through light,With sunshine in the heart.'"
Below the little stanza, Peace had penned her own version of the words in her quaint language: "This means to smile no matter how bad the world goes round and to keep on smiling till the hurt is gone. It don't cost any more to smile than it does to be uggly, and it pays a heep site better."
What a dear little philosopher the child was! A sudden desire to meet the other sisters of that happy family sprang up within her heart. Why should she stay shut away from the world like a nun in her cloister? What had she gained by it? Nothing but bitterness! And think of the joys she had missed!
An insistent rustling of the lilac bushes behind her caught her attention, and by carefully raising her head she could see the thick branches close to the ground bending and giving, as a small, dark object twisted and grunted and wriggled its way through the tiny opening it had managed to find in the hedge.
The girl's first impulse was to scream for help, but a second glance told her that it was not an animal pushing its way through the twigs, for animals do not wear blue gingham rompers. So she held her breath and waited, and at last she was rewarded by seeing a round, flushed, inquisitive baby face peeping through the leaves at her. She smiled and held out her hands, and with a gurgle of gladness, the little fellow gave a final struggle, scrambled to his feet and toddled unsteadily across the lawn to her chair, jabbering baby lingo, the only word of which she could understand was, "Peace."
"Are you Glen?" she demanded, smoothing the soft black hair so like his father's.
"G'en," he repeated, parrot fashion.
"Where is your mamma?"
"Mamma." He pointed in the direction he had come, and gurgled, "S'eep. Papa s'eep. All gone."
The baby himself looked as if he had just awakened from a nap. One cheek was rosier than the other, his hair lay in damp rings all over his head, and his feet were bare and earth-stained from his scramble through the vegetable garden on the other side of the hedge.
A sudden gust of cool wind blew through the trees overhead, a rattling peal of thunder jarred the earth, a blinding flash of lightning startled both girl and baby, and before either knew what had happened, a torrent of rain dashed down upon them. The storm which had been brewing all that sultry day broke in its fury. Hicks came running from the stable to the rescue of his helpless young mistress, Aunt Pen flew out of the house like a distracted hen, and Peace rushed frantically to the garden to save the precious picnic lunch and the box of pansies which were to be planted under the gnarled old oak nearest the lame girl's window.
So it happened that baby Glen was borne away into the great house to wait until the deluge of rain and hail should cease. In the flurry of getting everything under shelter, no one thought of the mother at home, crazed with anxiety and fright; and the whole group was startled a few moments later to behold a bare-headed, wild-eyed woman, drenched to the skin, dash through the iron gates, up the walk, and straight into the house itself, without ever stopping to knock.
"It's Elspeth!" cried Peace, first to find her voice.
"Glen, where's Glen?" was all the frantic mother could gasp as she stood tottering and dripping in the doorway.
"Ma-ma," lisped the little runaway, struggling down from Aunt Pen's lap, where he had been cuddling, and running into Elizabeth's arms.
"Peace, why did you take him without saying a word?" she reproached, sinking into the nearest chair, and hugging her small son close to her breast.
"I didn't—" Peace began.
"I think he must have run away," volunteered the Lilac Lady, staring fixedly at Elizabeth's face with almost frightened eyes. "He squirmed through the hedge while I was alone in the garden. I had not seen the storm approaching, and it broke before I could call Peace or—"
At the sound of the sweet voice, Elizabeth had abruptly risen to her feet, and after one searching glance at the white face among the cushions, cried out with girlish glee, "Myra! Can it be that Peace's Lilac Lady is my dear old chum?"
"You are the same darling Beth!" cried the lame girl hysterically, clinging to the wet hand outstretched to hers. "Why didn't I guess it before? Oh, I have wanted yousooften—but I never dreamed of finding you here. And to think I have refused all this while to let Peace bring you!"
"No, don't think about that. Her desire is accomplished, however it came about—and you are going to let me stay?"
"I would keep you with me always if I could. I have been learning Peace's philosophy and find it very—"
"Peaceful?" They laughed together, and in that laugh sounded the doom of the hedges which Peace had lamented so long.
The next morning dawned bright and clear and cool, and Peace, hurrying to school with her nose buried in a great bunch of early roses from the stone house, pranced gaily down the hill chanting under her breath, "Roses, roses, yellow, red and white, you are surely lovely, sweet and bright—another rhyme! They always come when I ain't trying to make 'em. I wonder if I'll ever be a big poet like Longfellow was. It must be nice to have folks learn the things you write and speak 'em at concerts and school exercises like I'm going to do his 'Children's Hour' next Friday. I've got it so I can say it backwards almost. Elizabeth says I know it perfectly. I hope Miss Peyton will think the same way. She is lots harder to please and I 'most never can do anything to suit her."
She sighed dolefully, for her ludicrous mistakes and blunt remarks were the bane of her new teacher's methodical life, and many an hour she had been kept after school as a punishment for her unruly tongue.
Unfortunately, Miss Peyton belonged to that great army of teachers who teach because they must, and not because they love the work. To be sure, she was most just and impartial in her treatment of the fifty scholars under her supervision, but, possessed of about as much imagination as a cat, she failed to analyze or understand the dispositions of her charges; and well-meaning Peace was usually in disgrace.
But her sunny nature could not stay unhappy long, and as she thrust her small nose deeper among the fragrant blossoms, she smilingly added, "I guess she'll like these roses, anyway. They are the prettiest I ever saw, even in greenhouses. There goes the first bell. I 'xpected to be there early this morning, but likely Annie Simms has beat me again. Well, I don't care, there is only one more week of school and then vacation—and p'raps I can go home. Why, what a crowd there is on the walk! I wonder if someone is hurt again. Where can the principal be?"
She broke into a run, forgetful of her cherished bouquet, and dashed heedlessly across the school-grounds to the group of excited, shouting boys and girls, gathered around the tallest linden, throwing stones and missiles of all sorts up into the branches at some object which Peace could not see. But as she drew near, she could hear a queer, distressed chattering, which reminded her of the monkeys in the park zoo, and turning to one of her mates, she demanded, "What is it the boys have got treed there?"
"A monkey."
"A monkey?" shrieked Peace in real surprise. "Where did they get him?"
"I guess he b'longs to a hand-organ man. He's dressed in funny little pants and a red cap. Thad DePugh found him on his way to school and tried to catch him, but he run up the tree."
"And you stand there without saying a word and let them stone a poor little helpless monkey!"
"It don't b'long to me," muttered the child, angered by the indignant flash of the brown eyes and the scathing rebuke which seemed directed against her alone. "Anyway, I ain't stoning it."
"You ain't helping, either. Let me through here!" She pushed and elbowed her way into the midst of the throng and boldly confronted the ringleaders of the tormentors, screaming in protest, "Don't you throw another stone, you big bullies! Ain't you ashamed of yourself, trying to kill that poor little thing!"
"We ain't trying to kill it," retorted the nearest chap, pausing with his arm uplifted ready to pitch another pebble.
"You mind your own business!" growled another. "This monkey isn't yours. We're trying to make it come down so we can catch it."
"You'll quit throwing things at it, or I'll tell Miss Curtis."
"Tattle-tale, tattle-tale!" mocked the throng, and another handful of rocks flew up among the branches.
"O-h-h-h-h!" shrieked Peace, beside herself with rage. "You d'serve to have the stuffing whaled out of you for that!"
Flinging aside the treasured roses, she seized the biggest boy by the hair and jerked him mercilessly back and forth across the yard, while he sought in vain to loosen the supple fingers, and bawled loudly for help.
"Teacher, teacher! Miss Curtis, oh teacher!" shouted the excited children; and at these sounds of strife from the playgrounds, the principal and half a dozen of her staff rushed out of the building to quell the riot. But even then Peace did not release her grip on the lad's thick topknot.
Pulled forcibly from her victim by the long-suffering Miss Peyton, she collapsed in the middle of the walk and sobbed convulsively, while the rest of the scholars huddled around in scared silence, eager to see what punishment was to be meted out to this small offender, for it was a great disgrace at Chestnut School to be caught fighting.
The grave-faced principal looked from the pitiful heap of misery at her feet to the blubbering bully who had retreated to a safe distance and stood ruefully rubbing his smarting cranium, minus several tufts of hair; and though inwardly smiling at the spectacle, she demanded sternly, "Peace Greenfield, aren't you ashamed of yourself for fighting Thad—"
"Yes," hiccoughed Peace with amazing promptness and candor; "I'm terribly ashamed to think Itouchedhim—he's so dirty. But I ain't half as ashamed ofmyselfas I am of him."
Even Miss Peyton caught her breath in dismay. But the principal had not forgotten her own childhood days, and being still a girl at heart, and secretly in sympathy with the small maid on the ground, she only said, "Explain yourself, Peace."
"It ain't half as bad for a little girl like me to fight a big bully like him, as it is for a big bully like him to fight a little monkey—"
"I wasn't fighting the monkey," sullenly muttered the boy, hanging his head in shame.
"You were stoning him, and he couldn't hit back, so there!"
"What monkey?" demanded the principal, glancing swiftly around the yard for any evidence of such a creature.
A dozen hands pointed toward the linden tree, and one small voice piped, "He's up there!"
"A real monkey?"
"Yes, dressed up in hand-organ pants," Peace explained, scrambling to her feet and peering up among the thick leaves for a glimpse of the frightened animal, which had ceased its wild chattering and sat huddled close against the tree trunk almost within reach. "See it? Poor little Jocko, I won't hurt you!" She stretched out her hands at the same moment that unknowingly she had spoken its name, and to the intense amazement of teachers and pupils, the tiny, trembling creature unhesitatingly dropped upon her shoulder, threw its claw-like arms about her neck and hid its face in her curls.
"Whose monkey is it?" gently asked Miss Curtis, breaking the silence which fell upon the group watching the strange sight.
"I never saw it before," Peace answered.
"But you called it by name," chorused the children, crowding closer about her.
"That was just a guess. There's a story in our reader about Jocko, and I happened to think of it. I didn't know it was this monkey's name."
"How odd!" murmured the primary teacher.
"She's the queerest child I ever saw," confided Miss Peyton; but the principal had seen the janitor approaching the open door to ring the last bell, and being at loss to know what to do with the unwelcome little animal in Peace's arms, she suggested that the child take it home and put it in a box until the owner could be found. This Peace was only too delighted to do, for as no one in the neighborhood seemed to know where it came from or whose it was, she had fond hopes that no one would inquire for it, and that she might keep it for a pet.
So she joyfully carried it back to the parsonage, and burst in upon the little household with the jumbled explanation, "Here's a stone I found monkeying up a tree and Miss Curtis asked me to bring it home and box it till the owner comes around after it. And if he doesn't come, I can keep it myself, can't I, Saint John? He jumped right into my arms and won't let go, but just shakes and shakes 'sif he was still getting hit by those rocks. I pulled Thad DePugh 'most bald headed, and didn't get scolded a bit hardly. She made him go to the office, though, and I hope he gets licked the way I couldn't do but wanted to."
"Here, here," laughed the minister, looking much bewildered at the twisted story. "Just say that again, please, and say it straight. I haven't the faintest idea yet how you got hold of that little reptile or what Thad's hair had to do with it."
"It isn't a reptile!" Peace indignantly denied. "It's a monkey which hid in the linden tree at the schoolhouse to get away from the boys and they stoned it."
Little by little the story was untangled, while the monkey still tenaciously clung to Peace's neck and wide-eyed Glen hung onto her skirts.
"So you think there is a chance of your keeping him for a pet?" said the preacher, when at length the tale was ended.
"Can't I?"
"You are hoping too much, little girl. If this animal belongs to an organ-grinder, he will be around for him very soon, you may be sure. It is the monkey's antics that bring in the pennies. He can't afford to lose such a valuable. Besides, Peace, the poor little thing is almost dead now."
"Oh, Saint John, he is only scared. S'posing you were a monkey and hateful boys stoned you, wouldn't you tremble and shake?"
"I don't doubt it, girlie, but it isn't only fear that ails that animal. Look here at his back—just a solid mass of sores. Elizabeth, isn't that shocking? This is surely a case for the Humane Society. It is a shame to let the creature live, suffering as it must be suffering from those cruel wounds. His owner ought to be jailed."
"Oh, Saint John, you aren't going to kill Jocko, are you?"
"No, dear, he is not my property, and I have no legal right to put him out of his misery, but we must call up the Humane Society and notify them at once. They will be merciful. It is better to have him die now than live and suffer at the hands of a brutal owner, Peace. You must not cry."
For great tears of pity were coursing down the rosy cheeks, and Glen was trying his best to wipe them away with his fat little fists. Elizabeth supplied the missing handkerchief, and as Peace raised it to her face, the monkey gave a sudden convulsive shudder, the tiny paws loosed their grasp about the warm neck, and Jocko lay dead in the child's arms.
For a full moment she stared at the pitiful form, and Elizabeth expected a storm of grief and protest; but instead, the little maid drew a long, deep breath as of relief, and said soberly, "Saint John is right. Jocko is better off dead, but I'm glad he died in my arms, knowing I was good to him, 'stead of being stoned to death by those cruel boys in the tree. Where is Saint John? Has he already gone to telephone the Human Society? He needn't to now. The monkey is dead. I'll run and catch him on my way back to school. Good-bye."
She was off like a flash down the hill once more, but the preacher had either taken a different route or already reached his goal, for he was nowhere in sight. So Peace continued her way to the schoolhouse, racing like mad to make up lost time. As she panted up the steps into the dimness of the cool hall, she stumbled over a trembling figure crouching in the darkest corner by the stairway, and drew back with a startled cry, which was echoed by her victim, a frail, ragged, young urchin with a thatch of jet black curls and great, hollow, dusky eyes.
"Who are you?" demanded Peace, not recognizing him as one of the regular pupils at Chestnut School. "And what are you doing here?"
"Giuseppe Nicoli," answered the elf, looking terribly frightened and shrinking further into his corner. "Me losa monk'. He come here but gona way. W'en Petri fin', he keel me." The thin face worked pathetically as the little fellow bravely tried to stifle the sobs which shook his feeble body; and Peace, with childish instinct, understood what the waif's queer, broken English failed to tell her.
"Is Petri your father?" she asked.
"No, no, no!" He shook his head vehemently to emphasize his words.
"Then why are you afraid of him?"
"He playa de organ, me seeng, me feedle, de monk' he dance and bring in mon'. Monk' los', Petri keel me."
"The monkey is dead." The words escaped her lips before she thought, but the frozen horror on the boy's face brought her to her senses, and she hastily cried, "But he wassosick and hurt! His back was just a mess of solid sores. It is better that he is dead!"
"Oh, but Petri keel me!"
"Sh! The teachers will hear you if you screech so loud. Come upstairs with me. Miss Curtis will know what to do. She won't let Petri get you. Don't be afraid, Jessup. I wouldn't hurt you for the world."
He did not understand half that she said, but the great brown eyes were filled with sympathy, and with the same instinct which had led the monkey to leap into her arms a few moments before, the ragamuffin laid his grimy fists into hers, and she led him up the winding stairs to the principal's office.
When the worthy lady had heard the queer story, she could only stare from one child to the other and gasp for breath. Peace was noted for finding all sorts of maimed birds or sick animals on her way to school, but never before had she appeared with a human being, and Miss Curtis almost doubted now that little Giuseppe was a real human. He looked so pitifully like a scarecrow. What could she do with him? It would be criminal to let the brutal organ-player get him again if the lad's story were true, and she did not doubt its truth after the waif had slipped back his ragged sleeves and showed great, ugly, purple welts across his naked arms.
"Poor little chap," she murmured. "Poor little chap!" As she gingerly touched the bony hands, she was seized with a happy inspiration, and bidding the children sit down till she returned, she entered a little inner office, and Peace heard her at the telephone. "Give me 9275."
There was a pause; then the child grew rigid with horror. The voice from the adjoining room was saying, "Is this the Humane Society?"
It was to the Humane Society that Saint John had intended telephoning, in order that they might come up and kill the poor monkey. Was Miss Curtis a murderer? Surely Giuseppe was not to be killed, too. Then why had she telephoned the Humane Society?
Tiptoeing across the floor to the Italian waif's chair, she clutched him by the hand, dragged him to his feet, and signalling him to be quiet, she stole cautiously from the room with him in tow. Down the long stairs they hurried, and out into the bright sunshine, though poor, frightened Giuseppe protested volubly in his own tongue and the little broken English which he knew, for once on the streets, he feared that the bold, bad Petri would find him and drag him away to dreadful punishments again. But the harder he protested, the faster Peace jerked him along, repeating over and over in her frantic efforts to make him understand, "Petri shan't get you, Jessup. But if we stay there the Human Society will, and that's just as bad. They killed Deacon Skinner's old horse in Parker, and Tim Shandy's lame cow, and were coming to finish Jocko when he died of his own self. You don't want to go the same way, do you?"
Poor Peace did not know the real mission of the Humane Society, or she would not have been so shocked at the idea of little Giuseppe's falling into their hands; but her fear had its effect upon the struggling urchin, and his feet fairly flew over the ground, as he tried to keep pace with his leader. When only half a block from the parsonage, Peace abruptly halted, and the boy's dark eyes looked into hers inquiringly, fearfully. What was the matter now? This was certainly a queer child at his side. Perhaps it would have been wiser had he stayed with the gentle-faced lady in the schoolhouse.
"Run," he urged, tugging at her hand when she continued to stand motionless in the middle of the walk. "Petri geta me."
"No, no, Petri shan't have you, I say!" Peace declared savagely. "But if I take you home to Saint Elspeth, like as not the Human Society will be right there to nab you; and if they ain't now, Miss Curtis will send 'em along as soon as she finds we've run away. Where can I take you?"
Anxiously she looked about her for a hiding place, and as if in answer to her question, her glance rested upon the stone house, surrounded by its tall hedges. "Sure enough! Why didn't I think of that before? My Lilac Lady will take care of you, I know, until Saint John can find some nice place for you to live always. Come on this way."
She whisked around the corner, threw open the gate, and ushered the trembling waif into the splendid garden, with the announcement, "Here is the place I mean, and there is the Lilac Lady under the trees."
The boy surveyed the masses of brilliant flowers, the sparkling fountain, the shifting shadows of the great oaks above him where birds were singing. Then he turned and scanned the white, sweet face among the pillows, and clasping his thin hands in rapture, he breathed, "Italy! Oh, eet iss Paradise!" And as if unable to restrain his joy any longer, he burst into a wild, plaintive song, with a voice silvery toned and clear as a bell. Peace paused in the midst of a turbulent explanation to listen; Aunt Pen came to the door with her sewing in her hand; Hicks stole around the corner of the house, thinking perhaps the young mistress had broken her long silence; and the lame girl herself lay with parted lips, charmed by the glorious burst of melody.
The song won her heart, even before she heard the pitiful story of the wretched little musician, and when Peace had finished recounting the morning's events, the mistress of the stone house turned toward her aunt with blazing, wrathful eyes, exclaiming impetuously, "Isn't that shocking? Oh, how dreadful! We must help him, Aunt Pen. Poor little Giuseppe! See the Humane Society about him at once—Now don't look so horrified, Peace. They don't kill little boys and girls. They take good care of just such waifs as this, and provide nice homes for them. Even if Giuseppe were related to Petri, the Humane Society would take the child away from him on account of his brutality. He is worse than a beast to treat the boy so, and Giuseppe shall never go back to him as long as I can do anything. He shall go to school like other children and get an education. Then we'll make a splendid musician of him; and who knows, Peace, but some day he will be a second Campanini?"
Peace had not the faintest idea of what a Campanini was, but she did understand that Giuseppe Nicoli had found a home and friends, and she was content.
Peace was panic stricken. Almost at the last minute Miss Peyton had changed her mind about the poem which she was to speak, and had given her instead of "The Children's Hour" which she had so carefully learned, those other lines called "Children"; and there were only five days in which to learn them. Memorizing poetry, particularly when she could not quite understand its meaning, was not Peace's strong forte, and it was small wonder that she was dismayed at this change of program; but it was useless to protest. When Miss Peyton decided to do a certain thing, "all the king's horses and all the king's men" could not alter her decision. Peace had learned this from bitter experience and many hours in the dark closet behind the teacher's desk. So, inwardly raging, though outwardly calm, she accepted her fate, and marched home to air her outraged sense of justice before the little parsonage family, sure of sympathy and help in that quarter. Nor was she disappointed.
Elizabeth recognized the small maid's failings as a student, and was much provoked at Miss Peyton's want of understanding, but very wisely kept these sentiments to herself, and set about to help Peace in her difficult task. At her suggestion, the young elocutionist waited until the following morning before beginning her study of the new lines, and with the teacher's copied words in her hand, went out to the hammock under the trees to be alone with her work. There she sat swinging violently to and fro, gabbling the stanzas line by line, while she ferociously jerked the short curls on her forehead and frowned so fiercely that Elizabeth, busy with her Saturday baking, could not resist smiling whenever she chanced to pass the door, through which she could see the familiar figure.
Slower and slower the red lips moved, lower and lower the hammock swung, and finally with a gesture of utter despair, Peace cast the paper from her, and dropped her head dejectedly into her hands.
"Poor youngster," murmured the flushed cook from the window where she sat picking over berries. "John, have you a minute to spare? Peace is in trouble—Oh, nothing but that new poem, but I thought perhaps you might invent some easy way for her to memorize it. You were always good at such things, and I can't stop until my cake is out of the oven and the pies are made."
He assented promptly, and strolling out of the door as if for a breath of fresh air, wandered across the grass to the motionless figure in the hammock. "What seems to be the matter, chick?" he inquired cheerfully, rescuing the discarded paper from the dirt and handing it back to its owner.
"Oh, Saint John, this is a perfectlydreadfulpoem! I don't b'lieve Longfellow ever wrote it, and even if he did, I know I canneverlearn it. The verses haven'tanysense atall. Just listen to this!" She seized the sheet with an angry little flirt, and read to the amazed man:
"'Ye open the eastern windows,That look toward the sun,Where shots are stinging swallowsAnd the brooks in mourning run."'What the leaves are to the forest,Where light and air are stewed,Ere their feet and slender juicesHave been buttoned into food,—"'That to the world are children;Through them it feels the glowOf a brighter and stunnier slimateThan scratches the trunks below."'Ye are better than all the ballotsThat ever were snug and dead;For ye are living poets,And all the blest ate bread.'"
"'Ye open the eastern windows,That look toward the sun,Where shots are stinging swallowsAnd the brooks in mourning run.
"'What the leaves are to the forest,Where light and air are stewed,Ere their feet and slender juicesHave been buttoned into food,—
"'That to the world are children;Through them it feels the glowOf a brighter and stunnier slimateThan scratches the trunks below.
"'Ye are better than all the ballotsThat ever were snug and dead;For ye are living poets,And all the blest ate bread.'"
With difficulty the preacher controlled his desire to shout, and mutely held out his hand for the paper, which he studied long and carefully, for even to his experienced eyes, the hastily scribbled words were hard to decipher. But when he had finished, all he said was, "You have misread the lines, Peace. Wait and I will get you the book from the library. Then you will see your mistake."
Shaking with suppressed mirth he went back to his study, found the volume in question, and returned to the discouraged student with it open in his hands. Half-heartedly Peace reached up for it, but he shook his head, knowing how easy it was for her to misread even printed words and what ludicrous blunders it often led to, and gravely suggested, "Suppose I read it to you first. Then if there is anything you do not understand, perhaps I can explain it so it will be easier to memorize."
"Oh, if you just would!" Peace exclaimed gratefully. "I never could read Miss Peyton's writing, and then she marks me down for her own mistakes."
So in sonorous tones, the preacher read the poet's beautiful tribute to childhood:
"'Come to me, O ye children!For I hear you at your play,And the questions that perplexed meHave vanished quite away."'Ye open the eastern windows,That look towards the sun,Where thoughts are singing swallowsAnd the brooks of morning run."'In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,But in mine is the wind of AutumnAnd the first fall of the snow."'Ah! what would the world be to usIf the children were no more?We should dread the desert behind usWorse than the dark before."'What the leaves are to the forest,With light and air for food,Ere their sweet and tender juicesHave been hardened into wood,—"'That to the world are children;Through them it feels the glowOf a brighter and sunnier climateThan reaches the trunks below."'Come to me, O ye children!And whisper in my earWhat the birds and the winds are singingIn your sunny atmosphere."'For what are all our contrivings,And the wisdom of our books,When compared with your caresses,And the gladness of your looks?"'Ye are better than all the balladsThat ever were sung or said;For ye are living poems,And all the rest are dead.'"
"'Come to me, O ye children!For I hear you at your play,And the questions that perplexed meHave vanished quite away.
"'Ye open the eastern windows,That look towards the sun,Where thoughts are singing swallowsAnd the brooks of morning run.
"'In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,But in mine is the wind of AutumnAnd the first fall of the snow.
"'Ah! what would the world be to usIf the children were no more?We should dread the desert behind usWorse than the dark before.
"'What the leaves are to the forest,With light and air for food,Ere their sweet and tender juicesHave been hardened into wood,—
"'That to the world are children;Through them it feels the glowOf a brighter and sunnier climateThan reaches the trunks below.
"'Come to me, O ye children!And whisper in my earWhat the birds and the winds are singingIn your sunny atmosphere.
"'For what are all our contrivings,And the wisdom of our books,When compared with your caresses,And the gladness of your looks?
"'Ye are better than all the balladsThat ever were sung or said;For ye are living poems,And all the rest are dead.'"
"Well," breathed Peace in evident relief, as he lingeringly repeated the last stanza, "that sounds a little more like it. Maybe with that book I can learn her old poem now."
"Those are beautiful verses, Peace," he rebuked her.
"Yes, I 'xpect they are. I haven't got any grudge against the verses, but it takes a beautifully long time for me to learn anything like that, too." She seized the fat volume with both hands, tipped back among the hammock cushions, and with her feet swinging idly back and forth, began an animated study of the right version of the words, while the minister strolled back to the house to enjoy the joke with Elizabeth.
But though Peace studied industriously and faithfully during the remaining days, she could not seem to master the lines in spite of all the minister's coaching, and in spite of Miss Peyton's struggle with her after school each day.
"There is no sense in making such hard work of a simple little poem like that," declared the teacher, closing her lips in a straight line and looking very much exasperated after an hour's battle with the child Tuesday afternoon. "You have just made up your mind that you will learn it, and that is where the whole trouble lies."
"That's where you are mistaken," sobbed Peace forlornly, though her eyes flashed with indignation as she wiped away her tears. "It's you which has got her mind made up, and you and me ain't the same people. I just can't seem to make those words stick, and I might as well give up trying right now."
"You will have that poem perfectly learned tomorrow afternoon, or I shall know the reason why."
"Then I 'xpect you'll have to know the reason why," gulped the unhappy little scholar, who found the hill of knowledge very steep to climb. "You can't make a frog fly if you tried all your life. It takes me amonthto learn as big a poem as that, and you never gave it to me until Friday afternoon."
"Nine four-line stanzas!" snapped the weary instructor, privately thinking Peace the greatest, trial she had ever had to endure.
"It might as well be ninety," sighed the child. "If Elizabeth was my teacher, or the Lilac Lady, I could get it in no time, but I never could learn anything for some people. Just the sight of them knocks everything I know clean out of my head."
Longfellow slammed shut with a terrific bang, and Miss Peyton rose from her chair, choking with indignation. "You may go now, Peace Greenfield," she said icily, "but that poem must be perfect by tomorrow afternoon, remember."
So with a heavy heart Peace trudged home and took up her struggle once more in the hammock; but was at last rewarded by being able to say every line perfectly and without much hesitation. Elizabeth and her spouse both heard her repeat it many times that evening and again the next morning, and sent her on her way rejoicing to think the task was conquered.
But when it came to the afternoon's rehearsal, poor Peace could only stare at the ceiling, and open and shut her lips in agony, waiting for the words which would not come, while Miss Peyton impatiently tapped the floor with her slippered toe and frowned angrily at the miserable figure. Finally Peace blurted out, "P'raps if you'd go out of the room, I could say it all right."
"You will say it all right with me in the room!" retorted the woman grimly.
"Then s'posing you look out of the window and quit staring so hard at me. All I can think of is that scowl, and it doesn't help a bit."
The dazed teacher shifted her gaze, and Peace slowly began, "'Come to me, O ye children!'" speaking very distinctly and with more expression than Miss Peyton had thought possible.
"There!" exclaimed the woman, much mollified, when the child had finished. "I knew you could say it if you wanted to. Now try it again."
So with the teacher staring out of the window, and Peace gazing at the ceiling, the poem was recited without a flaw six times in succession, and she was finally excused to put in some more practice at home.
Elizabeth thought the day was won, but poor Peace took little comfort in the knowledge that she had acquitted herself creditably at the last rehearsal. "It would be different if that was tomorrow afternoon," she sighed. "But I just know she'll look at me when I get up to speak, and with her eyes boring holes through me, I'll be sure to forget some part of it. None of my other teachers were like her a bit. Miss Truesdale and Miss Olney and Miss Allen all liked children; but I don't b'lieve Miss Peyton does. There's lots of the scholars that she ain't going to let pass, and the only reason they didn't have better lessons is 'cause she scares it out of 'em. Oh, dear, school is such a funny thing!"
"Would you like to have me come to visit you tomorrow?" suggested Elizabeth, who dreaded the ordeal almost as much as did Peace.
"No, you needn't mind. S'posing I should make afrizzleof everything, you'd feel just terribly, I know, and I should, too. I guess it will be bad enough with all the other mothers there. But I wish there wasn'tgoingto be any exercises. I'm sick of 'em already. And what do you think now! She told us only this afternoon that we must all have anantidotefor some of the Presidents to tell tomorrow for General Lesson."
"A what!"
"Anantidote. A short story about some of the Presidents of the United States."
"You mean anecdote, child. I didn't suppose you were old enough to be studying history in your room."
"Oh, this ain't hist'ry! We have a calendar each month telling what big men or women were born and why. Then teacher tells us something about their lives. Lots of 'em are very int'resting, but I can't remember which were Presidents and which were onlymanner-fracturers. That's my trouble."
"Well, it just happens that I can help you out there, my girlie," smiled Elizabeth, smoothing the damp curls back from the flushed cheeks. "John has a book in his library of just such things as that. We'll get it and hunt up some nice, new stories that aren't hoary with age."
The volume was quickly found, and several quaint anecdotes were selected for the next day's program, so if by chance other pupils had come prepared with some of them, there would be still others for Peace to choose from. And when school-time came the next day, she departed almost happily, with the Presidential book tucked under one arm and the well-fingered Longfellow under the other; for she meant to make sure that the words were fresh in her mind before her turn came to recite.
The session began very auspiciously with some happy songs, and Peace's spirits rose. Then came the drawing lesson. Peace was no more of an artist than she was an elocutionist, but she tried hard, and was working away industriously trying to paint the group of grape leaves Miss Peyton had arranged on her desk, when one of the little visitors slipped from his seat in his mother's lap and wandered across the room to his sister's desk, which chanced to be directly in front of Peace; so he could easily see what she was doing. He watched her in silence a moment, and then demanded in a stage whisper, "What you d'awing?"
"Grape leaves," Peace stopped chewing her tongue long enough to answer.
"No, they ain't neither. They's piggies."
The brown head was quickly raised from her task, and the would-be artist studied her work critically. The boy was right. They did look somewhat like a litter of curly-tailed pigs. All they needed were eyes and pointed ears. Mechanically Peace added these little touches, made the snouts a little sharper, drew in two or three legs to make them complete, and sat back in her seat to admire the result of her work.
"Ah," simpered Miss Peyton, who had chanced to look up just that minute, "Peace has finished her sketch. Bring it to the desk, please, so we may all criticize it."
Peace had just dipped her brush into the hollow of her cake of red paint, intending to make the piggies' noses pink, but at this startling command from the teacher, she seemed suddenly turned to an icicle. What could she do? She glanced around her in an agony of despair, saw no loophole of escape, and gathering up the unlucky sketch, she stumbled up the aisle to the desk, still holding her scarlet-tipped paint brush in her hand.
Usually Miss Peyton examined the drawings herself before calling upon the scholars to criticise; but this was the last day of school, and the program was long; so she smiled her prettiest, and said sweetly, "Hold it up for inspection, Peace."
Miserably Peace faced the roomful of scholars and parents, and extended the drawing with a trembling hand. There was an ominous hush, and then the whole audience broke into a yell of laughter. Miss Peyton's face flushed scarlet, and holding out her hand she said sharply, "Give it to me."
Peace wheeled about and dropped the sheet of pigs upon the desk, but at that unfortunate moment, the paint-brush slipped from her grasp and spilled a great, scarlet blot on the teacher's fresh white waist. Dismayed, Peace could only stare at the ruin she had wrought, having forgotten all about her drawing in wondering what punishment would follow this second calamity; and Miss Peyton had to speak twice before she came to her senses enough to know that she was being ordered to her seat.
"Oh," she gasped in mingled surprise and relief, "lemon juice and salt will take that stain out, if it won't fade away with just washing."
Again an audible titter ran around the room, and the teacher, furiously red, repeated for the third time, "Take your seat, Peace Greenfield!"
Much mortified and confused, the child subsided in her place and tried to hide her burning cheeks behind the covers of her volume of anecdotes, but fate seemed against her, for Miss Peyton promptly ordered the paint boxes put away, the desks cleared, and the scholars to be prepared to tell the stories they had found. Now it happened that generous-hearted Peace had lent her book of Presidential reminiscences to several of her less lucky mates that noon, and as she was one of the last to be called upon, she listened with dismay as one after another of the tales she had taken so much pains to learn were repeated by other scholars.
In order that all might hear what was said, each pupil marched to the front of the room, told his little story and returned noiselessly to his seat; so when it came Peace's turn, she stalked bravely up the aisle, faced the throng of scared, perspiring children and beaming mothers, made a profound bow, and said, "George Washington was pock-marked."
She was well on her way to her seat again, when Miss Peyton's crisp tones halted her: "Peace, you surely have something more than that. Have you forgotten?"
"No, ma'am. I lent my stories to the rest of the scholars this noon and they have already spoke all I knew, 'xcept those that arehairywith age. Everyone knows that George Washington was bled to death by over-jealousdoctors."
The harder Peace tried to do her best, the more blundering she became; and now, feeling that the visitors were having great fun at her expense, she sank into her seat and buried her face in her arms, swallowing hard to keep back the tears that stung her eyes.
Directly, she heard Patty Fellows reciting, "The Psalm of Life," and Sara Gray answer to her name with, "The Castle-Builder." Next, the children sang another song, and then—horror of horrors!—Miss Peyton called her name. It was too bad! Any other teacher would have excused her, but she knew Miss Peyton never would. So with a final gulp, she struggled to her feet and advanced once more to the platform.
Her heart beat like a trip-hammer, her breath came in gasps, and her mind seemed an utter blank. "'Come to me,'" prompted the teacher, perceiving for the first time the child's panic and distress; but Peace did not understand that this was her cue, and with a despairing glance at the immovable face behind the desk, she cried hastily, "Oh, not this time! I've thunk of it now. Here goes!