"'Between the dark and the daylightWhen the night is beginning to lower,Comes a pause in the day's occupation,That is known as the Children's Hour.'"
"'Between the dark and the daylightWhen the night is beginning to lower,Comes a pause in the day's occupation,That is known as the Children's Hour.'"
Verse after verse she repeated glibly, racing so rapidly that the words fairly tumbled out of her mouth. Suddenly the dreadful thought came to her. She had begun the wrong poem! Her voice faltered; she turned pleading, glassy eyes toward the teacher; and Miss Peyton, misunderstanding the cause of her hesitation, again prompted, "'They climb—'"
Peace was hopelessly lost.
"'They climb up onto the target,'"
"'They climb up onto the target,'"
She recited in feverish tones:
"'O'er my arms and the back of my hair;If I try to e-scrape, they surround me;They scream to me everywhere,'"
"'O'er my arms and the back of my hair;If I try to e-scrape, they surround me;They scream to me everywhere,'"
Someone tittered; the ripple of mirth broke into a peal of laughter; and with a despairing sob, Peace cried, "Oh, teacher, I've got the stage-strike! I can't say another word!" And out of the room she rushed like a wounded bird.
Usually Elizabeth was her comforter, but this day some blind instinct led her to take refuge in the Enchanted Garden, and she sobbed out her sorrow and humiliation in the skirts of her beloved Lilac Lady.
Peace in tears was a new sight for the invalid, and she was alarmed at the wild tempest of grief. But the small philosopher could not be unhappy long, and after a few moments the tears ceased, the storm was spent, a flushed, swollen face peeped up at the anxious eyes above her, and with a familiar, queer little grimace, she giggled, "I made 'em all laugh, anyway, and they did look awful solemn andfunerallylined up there against the wall. But I s'pose teacher won't let me pass now, and I'll have to take this term all over again."
"Tell me about it," said the lame girl gently, stroking the damp curls on the round, brown head in her lap.
So Peace faithfully recounted the day's events to the amusement and indignation of her lone audience; but when she had finished, she sighed dolefully. "The worst of it is, I've got to go back to school tomorrow for my books and dismissal card. Oh, mercy, yes! And Miss Peyton has got my Longfellow. I don't b'lieve I can ever ask her for it, even if it is Saint John's."
"Oh, yes, you can," assured the Lilac Lady. "By the time tomorrow comes, the teacher will have forgotten all about the mistakes of today."
"It's very plain that you don't know Miss Peyton," was the disconcerting reply. "There's nothing she ever forgets. My one comfort is I won't have to go to school to her next year even if she doesn't let me pass now, 'cause by that time the girls will all be well and I can go home again. There's always a grain of comfort in every bit of trouble, grandma says."
"Sca-atter sunshine, all along the wa-ay," sang the lame girl, surprised out of her long silence in her anxiety to cajole her little playmate into her happy self again; but Peace did not even hear the rich sweetness of the voice, so surprised was she to have her motto turned upon her in that manner, and for a few moments she sat so lost in thought that the lame girl feared she had offended her, and was about to beg her forgiveness when the round face lifted itself again, and Peace exclaimed, "That's what I'll do! Tomorrow, when I have to go back for my card, I'll offer to kiss her good-bye, and I'll tell her I'm sorry I've been such a bother to her all these weeks. I never thought about it before, but I s'pose she's just been inag-o-nyover having me upset all her plans like I've managed to do, though I never meant to. The worse I try to follow what she tells us to do, the bigger chase I lead her. My, what a time she must have had! Do you think she she'd like to hear I'm sorry?"
"What a darling you are!" thought the lame girl. "I don't wonder everyone loves you so much." But aloud she merely answered heartily, "I think it is a beautiful plan, dear. When she understands that you have tried your best to please her, I am sure she will be kind to my little curly-head."
So it happened that when Peace received her dismissal card from Miss Peyton the next morning, she lifted her rosy mouth for a kiss, and murmured contritely, "I'm very sorry you have caused me so much bother since I came here to school, but next term I won't be here, for which you bet I'm thankful." She had rehearsed that little speech over and over on her way to school; but, as usual, when she came to say it to this argus-eyed teacher, she juggled her pronouns so thoroughly that no one could have been sure just what she did mean.
However, Miss Peyton had done some hard thinking since the previous afternoon, and a little glimmer of understanding was beginning to penetrate her methodical, order-loving soul, so she stooped and kissed the forgiving lips raised to hers, as she said heartily, "That is all right, my child. I wish I could erase all the troubles that have marred these days for you. I am sorry I did not know as much three months ago as I do now."
"I am, too, but folks are never too old to learn, grandpa says," Peace answered happily, and departed with beaming countenance, for Miss Peyton had "passed her" after all.
It had been decided that Giuseppe Nicoli was to live at the stone house and be educated as the Lilac Lady's protégé.
The Humane Society had thoroughly investigated the case and found that the poor little waif was an orphan, whom greedy-eyed Petri had taken in charge on account of his unusual musical talent. There were no relatives on this side of the water to claim the homeless lad, and those in old Italy were too poor to be burdened with his keep; so the Society gladly listened to the lame girl's plea, and gave Giuseppe into her keeping.
It would be hard to tell which was the more jubilant over his good fortune, the child himself, or Peace, who was never tired of rehearsing the story of his rescue from the brutal organ-grinder's clutches. So the minute she knew that the big house was to be his future home, she raced off to the corner drug store to telephone the good news to Allee and the rest at home, who were much interested in the doings at the little parsonage, and only regretted that the Hill Street Church was not yet able to afford a telephone of its own, for Peace could make only one trip daily to the drug store, and often the girls thought of something else they wanted to ask her after she had rung off. Also, the drug clerk was sometimes impolite enough to tell Peace that she was talking too long, and that does leave one so embarrassed.
This day, however, he had no occasion for uttering a word of complaint, for after a surprised exclamation and three or four rapid questions of the speaker at the other end of the line, Peace banged the receiver on its hook, and turned rebellious eyes on the idle clerk lolling behind the counter, saying, "Now, what do you think of that?"
"What?" drawled the man, who was in his element when he could tease someone. "Do you take me for a mind reader?"
"I sh'd say not!" she answered crossly. "It takes folks with brains to read other folks' minds."
"Whew!" he whistled, delighted with the encounter. "Your claws are out today. What seems to be the matter?"
"Grandpa has taken grandma and the little girls to the Pine Woods without so much as saying a word to me about it; and Gail and Faith have gone to the lake with the Sherrars and never invited me."
"If the whole family is away, who is keeping house?"
"Gussie and Marie, of course. Who'd you s'pose? Grandma told Gussie that when I called up she was to 'xplain matters to me so's I'd understand how it all happened and not feel bad about their going off. Gail and Faith went first. I 'xpected that part of it, but none of 'em ever hinted a word to me about the Pine Woods. I s'pose they've lived so long without me at home that they've got used to it and so don't care any more about me."
Two tears stole out from under the twitching lids and rolled down the chubby cheeks. The clerk moved uneasily. He did hate to see anyone cry, but had not the slightest idea how to avert the threatened deluge. As his eye roved about the small store for something to divert her attention, it chanced to rest upon the candy cabinet, and hastily diving into the case, he brought forth a handful of tempting chocolates, and presented them with the tactful remark, "Aw, you're cross; have some candy to sweeten you up!"
The brown eyes winked away the tears and blazed scornfully up at the face above her. "Keep it yourself! You need it!" she growled savagely, pushing the extended hand away from her so fiercely that the candy was scattered all about the floor, and without a backward glance, she flounced out of the store.
"Well, I vum!" exclaimed the astonished clerk. "Next time I'll let her bawl." Stooping over to collect the hapless chocolate drops before they should be tramped upon, he began to whistle, and the notes followed Peace out on the street—just a bar of her sunshine song, but the woe-begone face brightened a bit, although the girl said to herself, "Oh, dear, seems 'sif that song chases me wherever I go. I get it sung or whistled or spoke at me a dozen times a day. And it's hard work always to remember it, 'specially when folks go off and forget all about you when you've just been counting thedaystill 'twas time to go home and see Allee and grandpa after being away so long. S'posing I should die 'fore they get back, I wonder how they'll feel. Why, Peace Greenfield, you hateful little tike! Ain't you ashamed of yourself? Yes, I am. Of course they didn't run away a-purpose. Grandpa didn't know he had to go until an hour 'fore the train went, and there wasn't time to send for me and get my clo'es ready to go, too. It was awful nice of him to think of taking the girls and grandma to the Pine Woods to get real well and rested while he did up his business in Dolliver. They'll come back lots better than they'd be if they had to stay here through all this hot.
"Think of being shut up three months in the house so's they couldn't plant gardens or go flower-hunting, or have picnics, or even go to school! I've been doing all those things while they've been sick. I'm truly 'shamed of myself to be so cross about their going off. Elizabeth and Saint John are just the dearest people to me, and the Lilac Lady really cried tears in her eyes when she thought I was going to leave here Monday. She'll be glad to know that I am to stay two or three weeks longer. And it will be such fun to get letters from the girls in the woods all the while they are gone. After all, I b'lieve I'll have a better time here anyway."
The cloud had passed over without the threatened storm, and the round face, though still a little sober, looked quite contented again. But during this silent soliloquy, the young philosopher had been wandering aimlessly through the streets, without any thought of the direction she was taking, and was suddenly roused from her revery by the mingled shouts and laughter of a throng of boys and girls playing noisily in a great yard fenced in by tall iron pickets.
"Why, school is closed for the summer!" murmured Peace to herself, pressing her face against the iron bars in order that she might watch the lively games on the other side of the palings. "Elizabeth says all the Martindale schools close at the same time. What can these children be doing here then? P'raps this is where the old lady who lived in a shoe had to move to when the shoe got too small for her fambly. Do you s'pose it is?"
"Yup, I guess that's how it happened," answered a voice close beside her, and she jumped almost out of her shoes in her surprise, for unconsciously she had spoken her thoughts aloud, and a merry-faced urchin, sprawled in the shade of a low-limbed box-elder, had answered her. His peal of delight at having startled her so brought another lad and two girls to see the cause of his glee, and Peace was shocked to behold in the smaller of the girls her own double, only the stranger child was dressed in a long blue apron, which made her look much older than she really was. As the children stood staring at each other through the close-set pickets, the boy in the grass discovered the likeness of the two faces, and with a startled whoop sat up to ask excitedly of Peace, "Did you ever have a twin?"
"No."
"Oh, dear, I was sure you must have! You're just theyimageof Lottie. She's anorphan, and the folks that brought her here didn't even know what her real name was or anything about her, and we've always 'magined that some day her truly people would come and find her and she'd have a mother of her own."
"Is this a—a school?" asked Peace. She wanted to say orphan asylum, but was afraid it would be impolite, and she did not wish to offend any of these friendly appearing children.
"It's the Children's Home."
"Who owns it?"
"Why—er—I don't know," stammered the second youth, who seemed the oldest of the quartette inside the fence.
"I guess the splintered ladies do," remarked the cherub in the grass.
"The wh-at?"
"Tony's trying to be smart now," said the larger girl scornfully. "The Lady Board is meeting today, and he always calls them the splintered ladies."
"What is a Lady Board?" inquired mystified Peace, thinking this was the queerest home she had ever heard tell of.
"Why, they are the ladies who say how things shall be done here—"
"The number of times we can have butter each week and how much milk each of us can drink, and the number of potatoes the cook shall fix," put in the boy called Tony.
"Don't you have butter every day!" cried Peace in shocked surprise.
"Well, I guess not! We have it Sunday noons and sometimes holiday nights."
"And we never have sugar on our oatmeal, or sauce to eat with our bread," added Lottie, shaking her curls dolefully.
"What do you eat, then?"
"Oh, bread and milk, and mush of some kind, or rice, and potatoes and vegetables and meat once a week and pie or pudding real seldom."
"Who takes care of you?" asked Peace again after a slight pause.
"The matron and nurses."
"What's a matron?"
"The boss of the caboose," grinned Tony irreverently.
"Is she nice?"
"That's what we're waiting to find out. She's just come, you see, and we don't know her real well yet. The other one was a holy fright."
"But the new onelooksnice," said Lottie loyally. "She smiles all the time, and Miss Cooper never did. She always looked froze."
"She must be like Miss Peyton. She was my teacher at Chestnut School and I didn't like her a bit till the day school ended. She did get thawed out then, though, and I b'lieve she'll be nicer after this."
"Do you live near here?" asked Tony, thinking it was their turn to ask questions of this debonair little stranger, who evidently belonged to rich people, because her brown curls were tied back with a huge pink ribbon, a dainty white pinafore covered her pretty gingham dress, and her feet were shod in patent leather slippers.
"No, grandpa's house is three miles away, but I am staying at the Hill Street parsonage." Briefly she explained how it had all come about, and the story seemed like a fairy tale to the four eager listeners.
"Then you are an orphan, too," cried Tony triumphantly, when she had finished. "How do you know Lottie ain't your twin sister?"
"'Cause there never were any twins in our family, and if there had been, do you s'pose mother'd have let one loose like that, to get put in a Children's Home? I guess not!"
"Maybe she's a cousin, then."
"We haven't got any. Papa was the only child Grandpa Greenfield had, and mother's only brother died when he was little."
"But Lottie's just theyimageof you," insisted Tony, bent on discovering some tie of relationship between the two.
"I can't help that. I guess it's just a queerity, though I'd like to find out I had some sure-enough cousins which I didn't know anything about. Besides, Lottie is lots darker than me. Her hair is black and so are her eyes. Least I guess they are what you'd call black. Mine are only brown."
"You're the same size. Ain't they, Ethel?" asked the older lad.
"Yes, that was what I was thinking. I don't believe many folks would know them apart if they changed clothes."
"Oh, let's do it!" cried Peace, charmed with the suggestion. "We've got a book at home that tells how a little beggar boy changed places with a prince, and they had the strangest 'xperiences! It'll be lots of fun to fool the others. They haven't been paying any 'tention to our talking here. Where's the gate?"
"At the other side of the yard. There's only one—"
"But visitors aren't allowed to come and play with us without a permit from the matron," began the larger boy, cautiously.
"Oh, bother, George," Tony cried impatiently. "We can't get a permit now with all the Lady Boards here, and you know it."
"Why not?" asked Peace.
"'Cause Miss Chase is busy with them in the parlors and we can't see her till they are gone."
"How long will that be?"
"Oh, hours, maybe."
"Then I'll come in now and get my permit later."
Without waiting to hear what comments they might have to make about this plan, she flew around the corner Tony had indicated a moment before, and in through the great iron gates, standing slightly ajar. Following the wide walks leading from the front yard to the back, she came to another lower gate, where Ethel and Lottie met her; and in a jiffy the white apron was exchanged for the long, blue pinafore of the black-eyed child.
"You'll have to give her your hair-ribbon, too," said Ethel, surveying the two figures critically. "We don't wear ribbons here on common days, and that would give away that you weren't really Lottie."
Peace gleefully jerked off her rampant pink bow, and the older girl deftly tied it among the raven locks of the other orphan.
Tony and George now came slowly around the corner of the building, to discover whether the visitor had really kept her promise, and were themselves puzzled to know which was their mate and which the stranger child until Peace laughed. "That's where you are different," said George, critically. "You don't sound a bit alike. Come on and see who will be first to find out the secret."
So the masqueraders were led laughingly away to meet the other children, still boisterously playing at games under the trees. It did not take the fifty pair of sharp eyes as long to discover the difference as the five plotters had hoped, but they were all just as charmed with the result, and gave Peace a royal time. She was a natural leader and her lively imagination delighted her new playmates. But Lottie, in her borrowed finery, received scant attention, and being, unfortunately, rather a spoiled child, she resented the fact that Peace had usurped her place. So she retired to the fence and pouted. At first no one noticed her sullen looks, but finally Ethel missed her, and finding her standing cross and glum in the corner, she tried to draw her into the lively game of last couple out, which the stranger had organized.
"I won't play at all," declared the jealous girl. "No one cares whether I'm here or not, and 's long as you'd rather haveher, you can just have her!"
"But we wouldn't rather," fibbed the older girl. "She's our comp'ny and we have to be nice to her."
"'Cause you like her better'n you do me," insisted the other.
"No such thing! Come on and see!"
"I won't, either!"
"What's the matter?" asked Peace, hearing the excited voices and stepping out of line to learn the cause.
"Oh, Lottie's spunky," answered Ethel carelessly, turning back to join her companions.
"I'm not! You horrid thing, take that!" Out shot one little hand and the sharp nails dug vicious, cruel scratches down Ethel's cheek.
"You cat!" cried Peace, horrified at the uncalled-for act, and springing at the white-aproned figure, she caught her by the shoulder, and shook her till her teeth rattled. Lottie doubled up like a jack-knife and buried her sharp teeth in the brown hand gripping her so tightly, biting so viciously that the blood ran and Peace screamed with pain.
Frightened at the sight of the two girls clinched in battle, the other children danced excitedly about the yard and shrieked wildly. Tony even started for the matron, but remembered the Lady Board meeting, and flew instead for the new cook, busy preparing refreshments for the distinguished visitors, gasping out as he stumbled into the kitchen, "Oh, come quick! There's a strange girl in the yard and Lottie's chewing her into shoe-strings!"
Bridget was new at the business, or she would never have meddled in the affair. Glancing out of the window, she saw what looked to be a small riot in the corner, and knowing that the matron and her assistants were engaged with their visitors in the other wing of the building, she dropped her plate of sandwiches, and rushed to the rescue as fast as her avoirdupois would permit. She was familiar enough with the rules of the institution to know that the Home children did not wear white aprons and pink hair-ribbons except on special occasions, and also that fighting was severely punished. It never occurred to her that the matron was the proper authority to whom to report trouble. She made a lunge for the two struggling children, jerked them apart, shook them impartially, and blazed out in rich, Irish brogue, "Ye dirty spalpeens, phwat d'ye mane by sich disorderly conduct? It'll be a long toime afore ye'll iver git inside this fince again to play, ye black-eyed miss! Make tracks now or I'll call the p'lice! You, ye little beggar, march straight inter the house! The matron'll settle with ye good and plenty whin she gits toime!"
Both girls tried to explain, and the frightened, excited Home children shouted in vain. Irish Bridget seized the resisting Lottie, thrust her forcibly out through the gate, and hustled poor Peace into the dark entry, in spite of her protests and frantic kicking. "I'm not Lottie, I'm not Lottie!" she wailed. "I don't b'long here, I tell you!"
"I don't care if ye're Lottie or Lillie," screamed the angry cook, pinioning the struggling child and carrying her bodily up a short flight of stairs into a wide hall. "Ye've been breaking the rules by fightin' and in that room ye go! The matron'll settle with ye afther a bit. An' ye'll catch it good, too, if ye kape on screeching loike that."
Peace was dumped into a small, office-like apartment, the key turned in the lock, and she was left alone. Frantic with excitement and fear, she let out three or four piercing screams, rattled the knob, and pounded the door until her fists were sore, but no one came to release her, and after a few moments she seemed to realize how useless it was to expect help from that quarter. She looked around her prison hopefully, curiously, for some other avenue of escape. A window stood open across the room, but the screen was fastened so tightly that she could not move it even when she threw her whole weight upon it. Besides, it was a long way to the ground below. Would she dare jump if the screen were not in her way?
Then her restless eyes spied the telephone on the desk behind her, and with a shriek of triumph she seized the receiver and called breathlessly over the wire, "Hello, central! Give me the drug store where I telephone every day. Number? I don't know the number. It's on Hill Street and Twenty-ninth Avenue. What information do you want? Well, I've thunk of the drug store's name now. It's Teeter's Pharmacy, and it's on the corner—Well, I'm giving you the information 's fast as I can. My name is Peace Greenfield, and the crazy cook's taken me for someone else and shut me in when I don't b'long to this Home at all. I changed clothes with—well, what is the matter now? If you'll give me that drug store—Teeter's Pharmacy, corner of Hill Street and Twenty-ninth Avenue,—I'll have them go after Saint John, so's he can come and get me out of here. A—what? Policeman? Are you a p'liceman? No, I ain't one, and I don't want one! Do you s'pose I want to be 'rested for getting bit? Oh, dear, I don't know what you are trying to say! Ain't you central? Then why don't you give me Teeter's Pharmacy, corner of Hill Street and—now she's clicked her old machine up! Oh, how will I ever get out of here?"
Dismayed to find that central had deserted her, she puckered her face to cry, but at that moment there were hasty steps in the hall, a key grated in the lock, and the door flew open, showing a startled, white-faced woman and frightened Tony in the doorway, while a whole string of curious-eyed ladies were gathered in the hall behind them.
Silently Peace stared from one to another, and then as no one offered to speak, she asked, "Where's the cook? Have you seen her lately?"
"No," laughed the matron, very evidently relieved at her reception. "Tony tells me that a mistake has been made and that you don't belong to the Home."
"He is right, I'm thankful to say," returned Peace with such a comical, grown-up air that the ladies in the hall giggled and nudged each other, and one of them ventured to ask, "Why?"
"Just think of having to live here day after day without any butter on your bread, or gravy for your potatoes, or sugar in your oatmeal, without any pies or cakes or puddings 'cept on Sundays and special holidays,—with only mush, mush, mush all the time, and not even all the milk you wanted, maybe! Hm! I'm glad I live in a house where there ain't any Lady Boards to tell us what we have to do and what we can have to eat. Come to think of it, I'm part of anorphan'sylum, really. There's six of us at Grandpa Campbell's but he doesn't bring us up on mush. We have all the butter and sugar and gravy and pudding and sauce that we want—"
"This isn't an orphan asylum," said the matron kindly, wondering what kind of a creature this queer child was, but already convinced that Bridget had blundered, in spite of her startling resemblance to Lottie.
"It isn't? What do you call it then?"
"It is a Home for the purpose of taking care of children who have one or both parents living, but who, for some reason, cannot be taken care of in their own homes for a time."
"Oh! Then you take the place of mother to them?"
"I try to."
"Do you like your job?"
"Very, very much!"
"You do sound 'sif you did, but I sh'd think you'd hate to sit all those little children down to butterless bread and gravyless potato and sugarless mush. Oh, I forgot! That ain't your fault. It's the Lady Board which says what you have to feed your children. Did you ever ask them—the ladies, I mean—to be common visitors and eat just what the rest of you had? I bet if you'd just try that, they'd soon send you something different! I don't see how you stay so fat and rosy with—but then you've only just come, haven't you? I s'pose there's lots of time to get thin in. I wonder if that's what is the matter with Lottie," Peace chattered relentlessly on. "She is awfully ugly today; but then I'd be, too, if I had to live on such grub. It's worse than we had at the little brown house in Parker—"
"If you will slip off that apron and come with me," interrupted the matron desperately, not daring to look at the faces of her dismayed "Lady Board," "we will find Lottie and get your own clothes so you can go home. The next time you come, be sure to get a permit first. Then this trouble won't happen again."
"Oh, will you let me come some more?"
"Aren't you Dr. Campbell's granddaughter? Tony said you were."
"Yes, he's my adopted grandpa now."
"Mrs. Campbell is interested in the Home—"
"Is she a splinter?"
"Awhat?"
Tony giggled and dodged behind the matron to hide his tell-tale face, and Peace, remembering Ethel's explanation, said hastily, "I mean a piece of the Lady's Board?"
"No, she is not one of the Board of Directors, if that is what you mean; but she often sends the children little treats—candy and nuts at Christmas time, or flowers from the greenhouse after the summer blossoms are gone."
"Oh, I see. She told me one time that she would take us to visit the Children's Home, but I didn't know it was this. We've got scarlet fever at our house—."
"Child alive! What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I ain't got it, and anyway, I haven't been home since our spring vacation in March. I am staying with Saint John, the new preacher at Hill Street Church, and I 'xpect if I don't get home pretty soon, he'll think I am lost, sure. I went down to the drug store to telephone grandma, and when Gussie told me they had gone to the Pine Woods, I was so mad for a time that I just boiled over. So I walked on and on till I came to this place. I never have been so far before, and I didn't know there was such a Home around here. I know they'll let me come often. There aren't many children up our way to play with and sometimes it gets lonesome. There's Lottie now! Cook must have found out that I knew what I was talking about. Here's your apron, Lottie; and say, I'm awful sorry I shook you. Will you pretend I didn't do it, and be friends with me again?"
"I—I bit you," stammered the child, as much astonished at this greeting as were the matron and the "Lady Board," who still lingered in the hall, fascinated with this frank creature, who so fearlessly voiced her own opinions of their work.
"So you did!" exclaimed Peace, in genuine surprise, glancing down at the ugly, purple bruise on her hand, which she had completely forgotten. "Well, I won't remember that any more, either. Two folks which look so much alike ought to be friends, and I want you to like me."
"I—do—like you," faltered the embarrassed child. "I'm sorry I was hateful. Here are your apron and ribbon."
"Keep the ribbon," responded Peace generously. "I s'pose I've got to take the apron back, 'cause grandpa says I mustn't give away my clothes without asking him or grandma about it, and I can't now, 'cause they are both gone away. But a hair-ribbon ain't clothes, and, anyway, that's one Frances Sherrar gave me, so I know you can have it." She pressed the pink bow back into Lottie's hand, and throwing both arms around her, kissed her fervently, saying, "I am coming again some time soon, and I'll bring you a bag of sugar and some real butter so's you can have it extra for once, even if the Lady Boards didn't order it for that p'tic'lar day. Good-bye, Mrs. Matron, and Tony, and—all the rest. I've had a good time here—till I run up against the cook, I mean. Mercy! She's strong! But I'm glad grandpa adopted us so's I didn't have to come here to live." She waved her hand gaily at them, and danced away down the walk, whistling cheerily.
"She's a quaint child!" murmured the lady who had questioned her.
"She's a trump!" declared Tony to Lottie, as they departed together for the playgrounds.
And in her heart the matron whispered, "She's a darling!"
"Oh, Elspeth, you can't guess where I've been!" shrieked Peace, puffing with excitement as she stumbled up the steps after her long run home.
"Why, I thought you were playing with Giuseppe and the Lilac Lady," replied the young mother, looking up in surprise from the little white dress she was hemstitching.
"But I went down to the drug store to telephone grandma!"
"I know you did, but I thought you stopped to tell the news at the stone house on your way home."
"What news?"
"That the invalids have run away and left you."
"How did you know that?"
"The postman came just after you left, and he brought a letter from Dr. Campbell, explaining all about it."
"Then he did take time to write, did he? I was pretty hot about it at first," Peace admitted candidly, "But I don't care at all now. I've had such a splendid time here with you all the while they've been shut up sick, that no matter how long they stay in the Pine Woods, it couldn't make up for all they've missed by not being me."
"Do you really feel that way about it, dear?" cried Elizabeth, much pleased and touched at the child's unlooked-for declaration.
"You just better b'lieve I do! Why, I've had just the nicest time! I 'xpected I'd miss seeing the girls just dreadfully, but Gail and Faith have come up every single week, and I've telephoned home 'most every day, and the rest of the time has been filled so full that I haven't minded how long I've been away at all. This must be my other home, I guess."
"You little sweetheart! I wonder if you have any idea how much we are going to miss you when grandpa takes you away again."
"Oh, yes, I 'magine I do. I make such a racket wherever I go that when I leave, the stillness seems like a hole. But don't you fret! I'm coming up here real often—just as often as grandma will let me. 'Cause I've got not only you to visit now, but the Lilac Lady and Juiceharpie and the Home children—Oh, that's what I started to tell you about when I first came up.
"I've just been there. I never knew there was a Home so near here, or I'd have been there before this. And what do you think? There's a girl living in it named Lottie, which looks so much like me that when we changed aprons the other children didn't know the difference at first. They think she must be my twin sister or some cousin I don't know anything about, though I kept telling them there weren't any cousins in our family, and if mother'd ever had twins, she'd have kept 'em both and not throwed one away to grow up without knowing who her people were. Don't you think so?"
"I most assuredly do," Elizabeth answered promptly. "Gail has often told me that your papa was an only child, and the one brother your mamma had died when he was a little fellow. So there can't be any near cousins, and you are not a twin, so Lottie isn't your sister. How did it all come about?"
The story was quickly told, to Elizabeth's mingled amusement and horror; and Peace ended by sagely remarking, "So I'm going to ask Allee if she's willing that we should use some of our Fourth of July money to buy them a treat of sugar and butter for a whole day—or a week, if it doesn't take too much, and grandpa don't sit down on the plan. I don't think he will, 'cause these children aren't fakes. They really d'serve having some good times 'casionally, and it did make them so happy to have someone extra to play with. I s'pose they get awfully tired of fighting the same children all the time. Besides, we've got lots of money in our bank, 'cause we used only about ten dollars of our furnishing money to dec'rate our room with, and the rest we saved for patriotism. I am awful glad there are such places for poor children to go to when their own people can't take care of 'em, but I do wish the Lady Boards weren't so stingy."
Elizabeth knew it would do no good to argue the matter, and besides, she was not well posted concerning this particular Home, so she merely agreed that Peace's plan would no doubt make the little folks happy, but wisely suggested that she say no more about it until she had consulted with the family at home and received their consent. "Because, you see, dear, if you make some rash promises which you can't fulfill, it will only make the children unhappy, instead of bringing sunshine into their lives."
"But isn't it a good way to spend money? They ain't beggars with bank accounts somewhere, like the old woman which got Gail's dollar last spring."
"I think it is a very nice way, dearie, and I am sure grandpa will not object a mite; but the best way is not to make any promises that we don't intend to carry out, or that we are not sure we can fulfill. Then no one will be disappointed if our plans don't come through the way we hoped they would. Do you see what I mean?"
"Yes; never promise to doanythinguntil you're sure you can. But that would keep me from doing lots of things, Elspeth. I could not ever promise to be good, or—"
"Oh, Peace, I didn't mean that!" Elizabeth never could get accustomed to this literal streak in the small maiden's character; and, in consequence, her little preachments often received an unexpected shower-bath. "I meant not to promise to do favors for other folks unless we can and will see that they are done."
"Ain't it a favor to be good when it's easier and naturaler to be bad—not really bad, either, but just yourself?"
"No, dear. We ought totryto be good without anyone's asking us to, and just because it is easier to do wrong than right is no excuse for us at all."
Unconsciously she said this very severely, for she thought she heard Saint John chuckling behind the curtains of the study window; but Peace interpreted the lecture literally, and hastily jumping up from the step, said, "I think I'll go and tell the Lilac Lady about the children, and see if she hasn't got more roses than she knows what to do with, 'cause I know they'd like 'em at the Home. Do you care?"
"No, Peace. Glen is asleep. But don't stay long, for it is nearly five o'clock now, and tea will soon be ready."
"All right. I'll bring you some roses for the table if she has any to spare today, and she ought to, 'cause the pink and white bushes have just begun to open."
She whisked out of sight around the corner in a twinkling, and was soon perched on the stool beside the lame girl's chair, regaling her with an account of the afternoon's adventures.
The white signal fluttering from the lilac bushes had been discarded long ago, and Peace was welcome whenever she came now, for with her peculiar childish instinct, she seemed to know when the invalid found her chatter wearisome. At such times she would sit in the grass beside the chair, silently weaving clover chains, or wander quietly about the premises, revelling in the beauty and perfume of the garden flowers, or better still, whistling softly the sweet tunes which the pain-racked body always found so soothing.
But this afternoon the young mistress of the stone house was lonely, for Aunt Pen and Giuseppe were in town shopping, and she wished to be amused; so Peace was doubly welcome, and felt very much flattered at the attention her lengthy story received. To tell the truth of the matter, the lame girl had just discovered how cunningly the small, round face was dimpled, and in watching these little Cupid's love kisses come and go with the child's different expressions and moods, she did not hear a word that was said until Peace heaved a great, sympathetic sigh, and closed her tale with the remark, "And so I'm going to see if I can't take them some—enough to last a week maybe—for it must bedreadfulto eat bread and potatoes every day without any butter or gravy."
The older girl roused herself with a start, and promptly began asking questions in such an adroit fashion that in a moment or two she had the gist of the whole story, and was much interested in the picture Peace drew of the Home children's life. "Why, do you know, I used to go there with Aunt Pen—years ago—to carry flowers and trinkets, and sometimes to sing. My! How glad they used to be! They would sit and listen with eyes and mouths wide open as if they simply couldn't get enough. Aunt Pen used to be quite interested in the Home. Poor Aunt Pen! She gave up all her pet hobbies when I was hurt."
"Didn't you like to go?"
"Oh, it was flattering to have such an appreciative audience, of course; but—my ambitions soared higher than that. They were as well satisfied with a hand-organ."
"Oh, Tony ain't! And neither is Ethel! They both justlovemusic, and they kept me whistling until I was tired. And how they do love stories! I 'magined for them till my thinker ran empty. I couldn't help wishing I was you, so's I could tell them all the beau-ti-ful fancies you make up as you lie here under the trees day in and day out. I told 'em about you and pictured this garden for 'em, and the flowers which Hicks cuts by thebushel-basket, and Juiceharpie which plays the fiddle and dances and sings like a cheer-up—"
"A cherub, do you mean? Giuseppe is inconsolable to think he can't teach you to say his name correctly."
"Yes, and I'm the same thing to think he's got such a name that won't be said right. He doesn't like Jessup any better. But never mind, I know he'd like Tony and the other Home boys; and I thought maybe you would let him go some day and play for the children there. Miss Chase is awfully sweet and nice, even if she is fat, and she'd be tickled to pieces to give him a permit any time he could come."
The lame girl laid a thin, waxen hand on the curly head bobbing so enthusiastically at her side, and murmured gently, "How do you think up so many beautiful things to do for other people?"
"I don't," Peace frankly replied. "I guess they just think themselves. You see, I know what it is to be poor and not have nice things like other folks, and now that grandpa's taken us home to live with him in a great, big house where there's always plenty and enough to spare, seems like it was just the proper thing to give some of it away to make the lessforchinita little happier. It takessucha little to make folks smile!"
"Indeed it does, little philosopher. Your name should have been Lady Bountiful. Giuseppe may go with you to the Home as often as he wishes with his violin, and help you make them happy."
"Oh, you're such a darling!" cried Peace in ecstasy, hugging the hand between her own pink palms. "I wish you could go, too. Tony says they have song services every Sunday afternoon, and they are great! I'm to go next Sunday and hear them, but I wish you could, too."
"You are very generous," murmured the lame girl a trifle huskily. Then—perhaps it was because Peace's enthusiasm was contagious, perhaps it was due to a growing desire in her own heart for the world from which she had shut herself so long ago—the older girl suddenly electrified her companion by adding, "I should like to hear them myself. Do you think the matron would allow them to visit me in my garden, seeing that I can't go to the Home as other folks do?"
"Oh, do you mean that?"
"Every word!"
"Miss Chase couldn't say no to anything so beautiful, and I don't think the Lady Boards would object, either; but I'll find out. Saint John can tell me, I'm sure. Oh, I never dreamed of anything so lovely! I wouldn't havedareddream it!" She hugged herself in rapture, and her eyes beamed like stars. How grand it was to have friends like the Lilac Lady!
So it came about that a few days later fifty shining-faced, bright-eyed boys and girls from the Home marched proudly up Hill Street and in through the great iron gates to the Enchanted Garden, where the lame girl, with Aunt Pen and the parsonage household to assist her, waited to greet them.
That was a gala day, talked about for weeks afterward, dreamed of in the silent watches of the night, and recorded in memory's treasure book to be lived over again and again in later years,—one of those heart's delights, the fragrance of which never dies.
The Home children were charmed with the beautiful garden and its cool fountain, just as Peace had known they would be, and the frail young hostess was as charmed with her guests. They had games on the wide lawn, they sang their sweet, happy choruses, Giuseppe played and danced, Peace and the preacher whistled, Elizabeth told them stories, and Aunt Pen surprised them all by serving sparkling frappé with huge slices of fig cake, such as only Minnie, the cook, could make. Then, as the afternoon drew to a close, and the matron began lining up her charges for the homeward walk, Tony and Lottie stepped out of the ranks and sang a pretty little verse of thanks for the good time all had enjoyed.
So surprised was the Lilac Lady at this unexpected little turn, that for an instant her eyes grew misty with unshed tears; then she smiled happily, and obeying a sudden impulse, she lifted her voice and carolled,