"Dear Brownie," the letter began, "It is very Hard to be a girl. I try, but I forget and act just like a boy. But noBody seems to know—isn't it Queer? I hope you are getting along better, but it is real easy to act like a Boy; all you have to do is to Act Natcherul. I cut my foot chopping wood. Margery, a very nice woman that lives here made me a little wee peach dumpling and I had all the saurse I wanted. I can have coffee for breakfast if I want it—can you? Aunt Beulah has little white curls and they bob upand down when she talks. I would like to pull one to see if it would come off like nurse's braid. You always think you've done something wrong when Aunt Beulah looks at you—at least I do, but I've been doing it ever since I came, doing wrong for a girl, I mean, not for a boy, for I've only acted like myself. John is a very nice man. He was in the War. He is one of the nicest men I Have ever Met. He has a scar on his cheek, a soldier did it for him in the War. He has a splendid nephew Patsey and I have seen him. His Muscle is immense. John lets me feed the cows and to-morrow if I am well I shall feed the pigs, but I may have the lockjaw. People do that are wounded. There is a pond here. I have not seen it, but my friend John says so. There are lilies in it and a boy, they think, for he never came up. I open my mouth often to see if it will work, and I haven't the Lockjaw yet. Aunt Celia gave me a photograph for you and one for me. I mailed yours. She is a lovely woman, all smiles and a soft voice. I liker best. She isn't so Terryfying. I haven't seen a Boy, but there are some here, for John says they come to hook the pears. They are not vagrums, he says, only mischievus. If I catch them they'll wish They Hadn't Come. They can have all the pears they want if they ask, but they are 'Pirates,' John says. Your affectionate Gay."
"Dear Brownie," the letter began, "It is very Hard to be a girl. I try, but I forget and act just like a boy. But noBody seems to know—isn't it Queer? I hope you are getting along better, but it is real easy to act like a Boy; all you have to do is to Act Natcherul. I cut my foot chopping wood. Margery, a very nice woman that lives here made me a little wee peach dumpling and I had all the saurse I wanted. I can have coffee for breakfast if I want it—can you? Aunt Beulah has little white curls and they bob upand down when she talks. I would like to pull one to see if it would come off like nurse's braid. You always think you've done something wrong when Aunt Beulah looks at you—at least I do, but I've been doing it ever since I came, doing wrong for a girl, I mean, not for a boy, for I've only acted like myself. John is a very nice man. He was in the War. He is one of the nicest men I Have ever Met. He has a scar on his cheek, a soldier did it for him in the War. He has a splendid nephew Patsey and I have seen him. His Muscle is immense. John lets me feed the cows and to-morrow if I am well I shall feed the pigs, but I may have the lockjaw. People do that are wounded. There is a pond here. I have not seen it, but my friend John says so. There are lilies in it and a boy, they think, for he never came up. I open my mouth often to see if it will work, and I haven't the Lockjaw yet. Aunt Celia gave me a photograph for you and one for me. I mailed yours. She is a lovely woman, all smiles and a soft voice. I liker best. She isn't so Terryfying. I haven't seen a Boy, but there are some here, for John says they come to hook the pears. They are not vagrums, he says, only mischievus. If I catch them they'll wish They Hadn't Come. They can have all the pears they want if they ask, but they are 'Pirates,' John says. Your affectionate Gay."
"Oh!" sighed May, "Brown's foot is cut with an ax; he may have lockjaw."
"Who's Brown?"
"My twin bro—my twin, I mean. Uncle George calls him Brown and me Brownie because we're both brown, do you see?"
"Perfectly," remarked the General, who couldn't see at all.
"This," said May, undoing the package, "is Aunt Celia's photograph. She gave it to me. Brown says she's lovely—and so she is. She doesn't look a bit 'terrifying,' does she?"
"Not in the least," answered the General, who really knew nothing about it, for May had monopolized the photograph and he had not had as much as a glance at it.
"She looks like a little fairy godmother, doesn't she?" said May, passing the photograph to her uncle.
The General put on his glasses and looked at the photograph.
"What a resemblance!" he cried.
"To whom?" May asked, running to his side.
"To my mother."
"It is our Aunt Celia Linn who lives at Hazelnook where Ga—where Brown is."
The General became reflective. "I think I met Miss Celia Linn in my youth," he said, at length,"when she was a young girl, but I didn't notice the resemblance then and I cannot recall her face."
This was not strange; the General in his youth had studiously avoided looking at young girls long enough to impress their features upon his memory.
"Wouldn't you like to have her on your desk? She is so pretty and looks so much like your mother," said May, thinking her suggestion would please the General.
"I shall be very happy," said the General, bowing to the photograph, as though it was Miss Celia herself who had expressed a desire to occupy his desk. May gave the photograph a good position on the desk, and with a bird-like tip of her head which should have revealed to the dull General that his guest was of the gentler sex, she looked first at the photograph, then at the portraits on the wall, saying,—
"Isn't it nice to have an alive woman in the room, Uncle Harold? All the portrait people are dead, aren't they? They look so."
"Yes, all are dead."
"There ought to be a frame for it," said May, with true feminine instinct. "A pretty silver frame for such a pretty silver-haired lady. We might put a little vase of flowers beside it—some roses and mignonette."
"Very appropriate, indeed," said the General, to whom a rose by the name of hollyhock or petunia would have smelled quite as sweet.
"I will get them now," cried May, rushing out of the room.
The General, left alone, wrote a brief note to a New York firm, ordering a silver frame of the handsomest design (for "a silver-haired lady"), and he fancied all the time that he was doing this to please his supposed nephew, and perhaps he was.
"I've picked some roses, Miss Sarah," cried May through the kitchen window, "for a bouquet to put beside the loveliest lady. Her photograph is on Uncle Harold's desk and he likes it ever so much."
"Where did it come from?"
"Hazelnook. Wouldn't you like to see it?"
"No," said Sarah, shortly.
"There!" said May on her return to the library, "isn't that pretty?"
"Very," said the General, looking critically at the flowers held up for his inspection. "Where did you learn to put posies together so neatly?"
"I didn't learn," said May, blithely. "Such things are natural to girls, didn't you know that?"
"So I supposed; but I didn't know boys shared that faculty."
"Oh, Uncle Harold," cried the young culpritwith a desperate attempt to change the subject, "when does my training begin?"
"At once, my boy, at once!" replied the delighted disciplinarian.
May began to feel sorry that she had mentioned the training, surrounded as it was by mystery, but it was too late to recall her words.
The General said, "Come," and they left the house together.
No sooner had they gone when Sarah sought the library.
"I should like to see the woman that has the brass to send her photograph to him," her thoughts ran. Despite the General's sixty-six years and his distaste for feminine society Sarah was constantly apprehensive lest he fall a victim to some wily woman's charms. "I've had trouble enough with him," she was wont to say, as though she had helped him through love-affairs innumerable!
It was with anything but agreeable emotions, therefore, that she took Miss Celia's photograph between her thumb and finger, holding it as if she expected something to rub off, and looked at it earnestly.
"Um," said Sarah, when her inspection was over, and she left the room without further comment. A little later she added, "It's his mother over again!"
"Where are we going, Uncle Harold?" May asked, as they walked briskly through the grounds.
"To the stables."
"What is he going to do to me?" May thought, ruefully.
When they reached the stable the General went to a glass case which held—horrors to relate!—a fine collection of fire-arms. Selecting two rifles, the General, with an inviting smile, extended one towards May. If there was anything that our little heroine in the hero's guise was really afraid of it was a rifle, or, indeed, arms of any kind, and her involuntary shrinking did not escape the General's eye.
"Why don't you take it?" he asked, with the nearest approach to sharpness that he had displayed since they had become "friends."
"I—don't want to," said May, huddling herself in a small bunch against the side of the barn.
The General did not lose his temper; fortunately, too, for had he done so May would have turned and fled, but his voice was stern, as he said,—
"Take that rifle and do as I bid you!"
When the doctor was gone, after saying that Gay would be all right in a day or two, Miss Celia took her place at the bedside of the sufferer, prepared to play the nurse; Miss Linn and Margery returned to their household duties; John resumed his wood-chopping and Peace spread her downy wing once more over Rose Cottage.
During the rest of the day Gay spoke so gently, looked so pensive and behaved so like an angel that Miss Linn wondered how she could have dreamed of calling her mock niece a hoyden.
"She is perfectly angelic," Miss Linn confided to her sister. "I don't know how I ever thought her otherwise."
"The dear lamb," said Margery, after seeing Gay among the pillows successfully playing the rôle of angel, "she's no more like the tomboy as was flying around the back-yard this forenoon than nothing in the world. It looks," added Margery, who had had what she called "an expe'runce" and was qualified to judge, "it looks like a real change of heart."
Miss Celia said nothing at first, but as day waned into night and Gay did not relapse into his former graceless conduct she added her meed of praise.
The next morning Gay was better—and Gay on a couch of pain and Gay in health were two different persons. Long before anybody else was astir he was standing and stepping—gingerly at first, then boldly—on the injured foot "to see if it would hurt!" As it did not he began to dress, selecting, with the recklessness of a boy, the first frock that came to hand; one of May's best ones, a pretty brown China silk, with smocked yoke, puffed-sleeves and a quaint little chatelaine pocket. It was not an easy frock to get into, and Gay tugged and toiled, thinking regretfully of knickerbockers and cambric blouse-waist.
"Goodness," he panted, "I wonder who would be a girl if it could be helped."
The chatelaine pocket belonged on the side, but in Gay's hands it swung in front.
"It will be handy for pears and things," said Gay to himself.
The hooks and eyes on the bodice showed the utmost aversion for one another, refusing to meet until forced to, but at length they were as securely joined as man and wife, and Gay popped his head out of the window to cool his brow. Making a girl's toilet was serious and heating work.
"Good morning, little invalid!" cried a pleasant voice. It was Miss Celia standing in the trim garden below.
Then Gay, obeying one of those extraordinary impulses that govern boys when there is a chance to court disaster, climbed through the window, swung off, caught a sturdy trumpet vine and slid to the ground, scattering leaves and flowers before him as he went. Rose Cottage was a low, irregular building and the distance from the window to the ground was not great, but such a descent was not without danger, and it certainly was one which the average wearer of petticoats would not have essayed. Poor, frightened Miss Celia permitted Gay to upset her ideas of maidenly propriety without a word of censure; she had scarcely strength to say,—
"May, how could you do that?"
"I had to, auntie; I felt so full! After I have stayed in the house a whole day I have to do something to let off steam. Don't you?"
Miss Celia disclaimed all acquaintance with this mental condition, but she didn't scold a bit, and Gay, realizing that he was not playing his part with great skill, appreciated her forbearance.
"What did they know about girls?" Miss Celia silently argued. "Two old maids whose youth was passed? The ways of modern childhood were a sealed book to them."
Not so lenient were Miss Linn's judgments. She, also, had seen Gay's descent, and having recovered from her fright she began to be indignant; to think that it was time something; was done to curb such high animal spirits. It might be her guest's taste to leave the house by a second story window; it was not hers!
So after breakfast she demanded Gay's presence in the morning room.
"Did you bring any work with you?" she asked.
"What kind of work do you mean?" said Gay, looking puzzled.
"Sewing."
"Sewing! I can't sew."
"Can't sew!" cried Miss Linn, in horror. "Have you never learned?"
"Not I," said Gay, thinking this would end the matter.
This was a mistake. Miss Linn immediately produced, from the depths of a work-basket, a number of small squares of bright-colored calico and white cotton cloth, and spread them on a table.
"Is that a game?" asked Gay, curiously.
"It is patchwork," Miss Linn replied, amazed at such ignorance.
"What is it for?" questioned Gay, who had no acquaintance with those monuments to feminine industry, known as quilts and "comforters."
"For you to make a pretty little quilt for your bed," said Miss Linn, in a persuasive tone. "Wouldn't you like to have it?"
"No, I thank you. A blanket is good enough for me!" said naughty Gay.
"But this would be your own work!" said Miss Linn, trying to arouse the housewifely instinct in the fraud's breast. "See, it would look so." And Miss Linn arranged the squares of calico in the right relations with the squares of cloth.
"Yes—like a checker-board," said Gay, not very enthusiastically.
"Don't you think it is very nice?" said Miss Linn.
"It wouldn't be half bad for camping; and it might do for a sail if a fellow was hard up, though I guess the wind would rip it to smithereens in a little while."
Miss Linn was in despair. Was there ever such a girl? Or one who used such peculiar expressions? The poor lady was not quite certain that she was listening to slang, but she had a suspicion that she was. "Rip" and "Smithereens" sounded like it.
"The doctor's wife is on the porch, mem," announced Margery at the door.
"Say that I will be right out," said Miss Linn.
"Good," thought Gay. "I shall get out of this mess!"
GAY DROVE THE NEEDLE INTO HIS THUMB
GAY DROVE THE NEEDLE INTO HIS THUMB
But his exultation was premature!
"May," said Miss Linn, "here are squares already sewed. I want you to put the other pieces together in the same way. Yes, you can do it," she added, for she saw signs of rebellion in Gay's face. "Here are needles, thread and a thimble that Aunt Celia used when she was a little girl. You must do it somehow," and Miss Linn left the room.
"Sew!" muttered Gay, distracted at this fresh calamity. "I won't do it; I'll tell her that I'm a boy and be sent home!" And disturb the mother whose recovery to health depended upon freedom from agitation? No; that would not do. There was nothing to do but submit to this indignity, and Gay picked up a square, pondered a moment as if trying to recall some knowledge of the art of sewing, grasped the threaded needle and drove it through the cloth into his thumb!
"Christopher Columbus!" cried Gay. "I'd rather take a flogging than try to manage this old needle!"
Then he began again; by pushing the needle half way through one side of the square, then turning the square over and pulling the needle and thread through on that side, several uneven stitches were taken, but a knot put an end to this. Gay pulled and jerked the thread until it broke, then a new dilemma presented itself; the end of thethread slipped through the cloth in spite of his efforts to keep it where it belonged.
Suddenly a bright idea struck him. "I hope there's some here," he said, to himself. There was "some" in a crystal jar, on Miss Celia's davenport, and Gay went manfully to work to join the squares together with mucilage. This was his bright idea! In order to facilitate matters he used his lap for a table.
In a little while he dashed out on the porch where his aunts were entertaining their caller. "Here it is, all done!" he cried.
Miss Linn's astonished gaze traveled from the silk frock where the mucilage was trickling down the front breadths in little streams, to the patchwork with the wet rim round each square. "I told you to sew it," she said, reproachfully.
"Excuse me," said Gay, with exasperating politeness, "you said get it together somehow—and isn't gluing it, 'somehow'?"
"May," said Miss Linn, flushing with mortification, "go to your room and stay until I come."
Gay turned away, muttering something not intended for anybody's ears, but Miss Linn heard it.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"I said that if I had known that visiting was like going to a reform school I wouldn't have come," replied Gay, the incorrigible.
After Gay had sulked a little in his room, and indulged in rather violent criticism of Miss Linn, the aspect of matters changed somewhat. What was the use of spending the rest of the day in the dumps? There must be some fun to be had even in the quiet guest-room. It occurred to him that it would be sport to lean out of the window as far as possible and try to look in the dining-room window, which was just below, with his head upside down.
This was dangerous, of course, for a fall would have shaken up the performer a trifle, but the danger was the fun and Gay hung out till his head nearly touched the window below. While he was enjoying himself in this way Margery passed through the garden and saw him.
"Goodness gracious," she cried. "You mustn't do that, Miss May."
"Why mustn't I?" asked Gay, not moving at all.
"You'll break your neck," answered Margery.
"Oh, no, I shan't," replied Gay, a good deal flattered by this interest. "I could lean out still farther."
"May!" shrieked Margery, covering her head with her apron.
"Don't you like it?"
"Mercy, no. Are ye in yet?" said Margery, without uncovering her head.
"Yes, I'm in."
Margery uncovered her face and looked first on the ground to see if Gay was there in fragments, then up at the window where he was now sitting astride of the window-sill, swinging one foot on the outside.
"Oh!" shrieked Margery, when she saw this dreadful position. "Do get in, miss; you'll get dizzy and fall out."
"I'm not allowed to do anything in this house!" sulked Gay. A moment later he added, "Shall I have my dinner up here?"
"I guess so."
"Well, if you will give me some stout string and that little tray in the kitchen with open work places on the ends, I'll rig something to hoist my dinner up from the dining-room and let down the dishes afterwards. It will save you lots of bother."
"I'll think about it," said Margery discreetly, hurrying away.
Gay sat quietly on the window for a moment, looking out over the garden to the street beyond in search of something diverting. A boy, carrying alarge tin pail, was passing, and Gay recognized him.
"Hullo, Patsey!" he shouted. "Come into the yard, won't you?"
Patsey saw Gay at once and answered,—
"I can't now, miss; I'm carryin' ther dinner ter me mother's boarders."
"All right," returned Gay, who wouldn't have been guilty of interfering with business. "Stop when you come back, then."
"I will, miss," Patsey replied, with a grin of delight. The democratic manner of the visitor at Rose Cottage was quite to Patsey's mind; he appreciated the good fellowship with which "Miss May" treated him.
"She's a darlin'," he thought, admiringly. "She's me notion of a lady—speakin' to a b'y as if he was a human bein'."
Patsey's "notion of a lady" was a fairly good one, albeit he was somewhat deceived in the specimen of which he spoke.
When Patsey was out of sight Gay remembered, with a pang of regret, that he had an engagement with John at the noon hour. "I will write a note to Aunt Beulah," thought he.
There were pen, ink and paper in the room, and after various trials Gay wrote this note:—
"I write to ask you to Comute my Sentence. Ihave an Important ingagement at twelve. I'll go back to prison when I've kept it, if you will let me come down."
Gay did not know how to spell "commute" nor did he understand the precise meaning of his first sentence, but he had heard his father, who was a lawyer, use it in connection with prisoners, and he thought it calculated to impress his aunts. He lowered the note by a string and bobbed it up and down in front of the dining-room window until Margery saw it and took it in.
"For Aunt Beulah, with my compliments," said Gay, with great courtesy.
A moment after Margery thrust her head out of the lower window. "You can come down," she said.
"Hurrah!" shouted Gay, dashing out of the room, jumping down three stairs at one jump and completing the descent by sliding down the bannisters.
There was quite a group on the porch—the doctor's wife, who had been "persuaded" to spend the day; the minister, who was willing to be persuaded, so agreeable did he find Miss Celia's companionship, and the doctor—who was not the doctor's wife's husband, by the way. They were all laughing when Gay appeared.
"Your engagement must be very important, Miss May," said the doctor.
"It is," said Gay brightly, for he liked the big, bluff, jolly doctor, "I'm going to feed the pigs for John."
This simple assertion was not received with favor by the feminine portion of the group, but the doctor laughed heartily.
"I think pigs very interesting animals; so contented and fat and jolly—Jane says contentment is better than wealth," Gay said.
"I have been told so," remarked the doctor, pleasantly.
"I mean to be a farmer when I grow up," continued unwary Gay. "I used to think I'd be a lawyer, like father, but I've changed my mind."
"A lawyer!" Miss Linn exclaimed.
"I have heard," observed the minister, "that one of the results of the popular movement for the higher education of women is to cause even baby girls to select professions."
"Heaven forbid!" sighed the doctor's wife, who was reared in the good old time when music, manners and morals were the only accomplishments in which girls were instructed.
"Are you in favor of suffrage?" asked the doctor.
"Suffrage!" repeated Gay, for the word was not a familiar one.
"You will vote, won't you?"
"Yes," said Gay, on safe ground now, "when I'm twenty-one."
"How terrible!" gasped poor Miss Linn. "What is the world coming to? The ballot and a profession! And to think such heresy is alive in Elinor Walcott's household!"
"But you will go to balls and parties when you grow up, won't you?" asked the doctor's wife, hoping this remark would elicit a fitting reply.
"Not much!" said Gay, scornfully. "My father says we want fewer leaders of the cotillon and more leaders of opinion in this country. I mean to make mother proud of me."
"I think you'll do it, little girl," said the doctor. "Your parents have exemplified in your training the advice of the eminent divine—'make all your sons virtuous and all your daughters brave.'"
The minister opened his mouth to reply, but as the first word trembled on his lips, Gay gave a whoop, cleared the stoop with one bound and ran toward the pear orchard.
"What is it now?" said Miss Linn, plaintively.
The company rose with one accord and sought the lawn, where they had a view of Gay, then in the midst of a group of boys, dealing blows right and left.
"Is she fighting?" groaned Miss Linn.
"Oh, she will be hurt!" cried Miss Celia. "May, my dear child, come here."
"What does it mean?" gasped the doctor's wife.
"Let her alone; she's a scientific boxer," the doctor cried, after a hasty glance.
"A scientific boxer!" cried Miss Linn, clinging to Celia's arm for support. "Elinor's daughter that!"
"I dare say it's so," said the doctor's wife. "I have heard that the best families in New York are making athletes of their girls."
"Very sensibly, too," replied the doctor. "There goes the Carver boy end over end."
"Somebody must separate them! What are we thinking of!" said Miss Celia.
"Shall I go?" asked the minister, who secretly thought the young Arab could take care of herself, but who was anxious to do Miss Celia's bidding.
"There goes the last boy over the fence," said the doctor. "Bravo! Miss May," he added, as Gay, in tattered frock, joined them, "victory all along the line, wasn't it?"
"I could have downed a dozen like them," gasped the victor. "They were hardly worth tackling; they know about as much about boxing as hens, but I guess they'll let the pears alone for a while."
"A girl," began Miss Linn, in awful tones, "a girl of refinement would not fight with a vulgar rabble of boys; she would not notice them."
"Do I look like a girl of refinement?" asked Gay, with an audacious smile.
When Gay's challenge, "Do I look like a girl of refinement?" was flung back at Miss Linn, following as it did one of the most extraordinary scenes of which a girl was ever the heroine, it was indeed marvelous that it did not reveal him in his true colors. But everybody seemed to be blind, unreasoning, stupid. It was a mystery that the prowess of the valiant disposer of the boyish robbers was not speedily traced to its real origin, that of sex. Gay's conversation, liberally interspersed as it was with slang, was enough in itself to proclaim him a lively, wide-awake boy. Speech, actions, and bearing all pointed in one direction, but Gay's audience permitted their vision to be obscured by—petticoats.
It was not strange that the gentle, unworldly occupants of Rose Cottage were, at first, misled. They had invited a girl; and a girl, as far as outward garb could make one, had arrived. At Cedarville a similar misconception had occurred. With a single exception no one dreamed that the twinshad exchanged roles and clothes. Miss Maud Berkeley, alone, regarded Gay with suspicion.
As a matter of fact, after exchanging clothes each acted his or her part with freedom from disguise that made their success the more marked. Gay and May had ceased to regard their position as enviable; it was no longer a "lark" to masquerade in each other's clothes, but trained from infancy to self-reliance and self-restraint, they were capable of much endurance, even in a mistaken cause. Already they were looking forward to their release; the delicate girl not more eagerly than the strong boy.
After Gay's reply to his aunt, a council of war, at which he was not present, was held in the drawing-room at Rose Cottage. The minister confined his efforts to indorsing Miss Celia's sentiments, notwithstanding the fact that that lady, whose heart was with the culprit, but whose judgment was with the council, contradicted herself constantly. It was the doctor's wife who suggested surrounding Gay with girls as a means of conventionalizing him!
"Invite girls of her own age here; it is the only thing that will do any good," said she positively.
"I'll do it," said Miss Linn. "I will give a party at once to introduce May to the girls here."
Then, with the minuteness of detail that characterizes the discussions of persons who lead uneventful lives, these good people planned the festivity thatwas formally to introduce the young rogue to the Hazelnook girls.
The next event of the day following the skirmish under the pear tree was Gay's receipt of a letter from his father. It was written, of course, to the real May, and while reading it, the mock May experienced a sharp twinge of conscience. It was so unconsciously condemnatory in its entire confidence that it made Gay really unhappy—for a moment.
The letter was brief.
"My dear little Daughter,—"Three days have passed since you left us, and I am glad to be able to tell you that your mother is better—a few days more and her poor nerves will have begun to strengthen, then for a holiday for us all somewhere in the lovely country. Ned is a good boy, and nurse is very proud of Baby, who grows to look, so she says, more and more like the sixth Earl of Roslyn. What a comical, pink, squirming little earl he must have been, mustn't he? Alice is enjoying herself very much; she has won a prize in a tennis tournament at Lake Hopatcong, and has been to three parties. You can see what you have to look forward to when you are a young lady of fifteen! Your dear mother sends love and kisses, and says, 'Tell my little girl to be gentle and good.' And I add, try to do as your aunts wishin everything; even though their way may differ from your mother's way. Different people, different ways, you know, dear. With love to our little girl, and compliments to the aunties, I am,"Your loving father,"Edward Walcott.""New York, Aug. 10, 1900."
"My dear little Daughter,—
"Three days have passed since you left us, and I am glad to be able to tell you that your mother is better—a few days more and her poor nerves will have begun to strengthen, then for a holiday for us all somewhere in the lovely country. Ned is a good boy, and nurse is very proud of Baby, who grows to look, so she says, more and more like the sixth Earl of Roslyn. What a comical, pink, squirming little earl he must have been, mustn't he? Alice is enjoying herself very much; she has won a prize in a tennis tournament at Lake Hopatcong, and has been to three parties. You can see what you have to look forward to when you are a young lady of fifteen! Your dear mother sends love and kisses, and says, 'Tell my little girl to be gentle and good.' And I add, try to do as your aunts wishin everything; even though their way may differ from your mother's way. Different people, different ways, you know, dear. With love to our little girl, and compliments to the aunties, I am,
"Your loving father,
"Edward Walcott."
"New York, Aug. 10, 1900."
"It doesn't seem right for father to think he is writing to one when he's writing to the other!" thought Gay. "Still, we're really the same as one, and now that mother is better we can soon tell and then it will be all right. I'm tired of it and I'm ashamed to have father and mother and everybody trusting me when I'm a fraud, besides, I'm tearing May's clothes all to pieces and I shall have to tell pretty soon, or go to bed."
The letter had a good effect, however, for Gay really tried to be "gentle and good." He behaved with such propriety that the poor deluded aunts were in raptures.
"She can be charming when she likes," Miss Linn said.
"I don't condemn her conduct yesterday; it was incomprehensible, but what a brave little thing she is! I'm sure the doctor admires her," Miss Celia said proudly.
"The minister doesn't admire her," Miss Linn said significantly.
Miss Celia's face flushed a delicate rose. "That does not interest me," she said.
"Why, Celia!" exclaimed her sister.
And Miss Celia, for some mysterious reason, looked confused.
After dinner Gay wrote a letter to May and asked permission to post it, which was granted. A small group of boys, among whom were the robbers, stood in front of the post-office. They were talking earnestly.
"There wasn't any science about it. What are you giving us?" one was saying.
"Here she is now," another boy cried, as he saw Gay.
"Nice girl! Nice girlie to fight with boys!" a third boy said.
"You don't want any more, do you?" said Gay, forgetting his feminine apparel and his resolution to be "gentle and good."
A saucy fellow came up to Gay with a gibe on his tongue and made a move as if to disarrange Gay's frock, when down in the dust he went on his face.
"If you can be civil we'll call it square; if you can't I'll show you how to be," said Gay, calmly.
"We'll call it square," said the first speakerwith a smile that was pleasant despite its width. "You're made of the real stuff, if you are a girl."
"Much obliged for your good opinion," replied Gay with an answering smile.
"I'll get even with you!" said the boy who had been tripped up.
"Go ahead," said Gay, coolly.
"You talk big because you're a girl and you think I daren't touch you!" growled the boy.
"I didn't stop to talk big yesterday, did I?" asked Gay, with rising color.
"No, you didn't; you hit like a good one. I'll take it all back about big talk," said the boy, heartily.
"Let's shake hands on that," said Gay, forgetting that girls do not commonly display so much cordiality toward comparative strangers, it being a boy's privilege to be "hail fellow well met" with all.
After a general handshaking, which was accompanied by some embarrassment on the part of the boys, who were unaccustomed to the society of girls and did not know that their new acquaintance was a very poor imitation of one, they told Gay their names and such portions of their history as seemed to fit the occasion.
"You'd better call me Brown Walcott," said Gay. "That's what the fellows in New York call me—my twin sister is called Brownie."
The boys looked at one another sheepishly; they didn't know what to say.
"Well, we will call you Miss—Brown," faltered Lyman Carver at length.
"Drop the Miss," said Gay.
"All right, we will. We can drop her easier than we can beat her in any other way!" said Will Babbitt.
This speech which everybody applauded—save Gay, who refrained through a delicate sense of modesty—immediately established a feeling of good fellowship.
"I promised to come right back," said Gay. "Walk along with me, won't you? It seems mighty good to see some fellows once more."
The boys stared. This was the most extraordinary girl! There was no resisting her pleasant manner, however, and they were soon walking along together, all talking merrily.
"Oh," cried Gay, suddenly, when they were outside the gate at Rose Cottage, "I'm going to have some kind of a time to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock; my aunt said so to-day. I wish you'd come."
This was another embarrassing moment! The boys were not generally included among aristocratic Miss Linn's young guests.
"I don't believe we should know anybody there except by sight," said Robert Clark at length.
"It will be a good chance to get acquainted with everybody, then," Gay replied.
"I don't think we can go, anyway, because we've got a game to-morrow afternoon," said Lyman.
"Ball?" questioned Gay.
"Yes," Lyman answered.
"Put it off till day after to-morrow and I'll come," said Gay.
"Do you know anything about ball?" asked Fred Brown, wondering secretly if there was anything that this wonderful girl wasn't up to.
"If you can get on to my curves I'll give you the dandiest bat you ever held in your hands," Gay said, with great enthusiasm.
The boys were literally overcome by this challenge, but Lyman succeeded in saying,
"We'll take you up on that some day, Brown."
"It can't be too soon to suit me," laughed Gay. Then he threw one arm across Lyman's shoulders, the other across Will's and added, persuasively, "Promise you will come to-morrow."
"You see," said Will, "we don't belong to that set and when they meet us at church affairs they generally treat us as if we were heathen. They are not like you, Brown."
"I'd like to see anybody treat my guests that way!" said Gay, defiantly. "If you come I guess you'll see that my party isn't a church show."
When Gay went into the house the minister was there; his nearest approach to a week-day occupation was visiting Miss Celia. "Who were those boys, Miss May?" he asked, with a desire to be agreeable.
"Hazelnook boys; splendid fellows. Don't you know them?"
"I think not, though their parents may be my parishioners. All boys of that age look alike."
"Aunt Celia," said Gay that evening, when they were alone, "I don't think much of that minister."
"Why not, dear?" Miss Celia asked with considerable interest.
"Because ministers say they want to be like Jesus, but He wouldn't have said about the boys, 'They all look alike,' just as if He didn't care how they looked and didn't want to know them! I'm sure He knew all the boys wherever He went."
"Thank you, dear, for making something clear to me," Miss Celia said, softly.
And Gay wondered in vain what Miss Celia meant.
"It is necessary that we understand one another before we begin," said the General. "Do you know what the position of the soldier is?"
"I don't know much about it," May answered, "but it must be an awfully hard one—having to carry a gun, and go into battle and kill other soldiers and stay out doors all night in the dark, and not see his family and—oh, it must be a very hard position!"
"I didn't mean precisely that," the General said, "I meant this." And he assumed the soldier's position, arms at a carry. "Now do you understand?"
"Yes," said May. "It makes me think of a dog when you say 'Head up, sir, and tail erect.'"
"I should not have described it in just those terms, but perhaps you have caught the idea," said the General, whose sense of humor, as it may have been observed, was not abnormally developed. "Take the position yourself."
May laid the rifle on the barn floor, preparatory to obeying.
"Keep your piece," the General commanded.
"Piece—of what?" asked May, looking puzzled. "I haven't a piece of anything."
"Piece, arm, rifle and musket are synonymous terms," explained the General. "Do you know what synonymous means?"
"One just as bad as the other," May promptly replied.
The General smiled, but he was not to be diverted from his purpose by absurd replies.
"You may leave your piece where it is for the present," said he, "and you are to do as I bid you. Stand where you are. Now, heels well together, feet out—yes, that is good—body erect, chest out—that is excel——"
"Oh, I go to a gymnasium!" interrupted May, "and I know one mustn't mistake one's stomach for one's chest, for they are not the same, whatever some people may think."
This knowledge of one of the primary lessons in physical culture impressed the General very favorably.
"Good!" said he. "I shall make a soldier of you yet. I shall have you at West Point before you know it, my boy!"
"You'll have to get me there that way if you get me there at all!" said May, with a wry face, which the General did not see. "I'll never go there if I do know it," she added, under her breath.
"Shoulders square," resumed the General. "Arms at the side, elbows near the body—no, not——"
"Don't you want me to dig my elbows into my ribs?" asked May. "They stay better that way."
"No, there must be no stiffness or constraint in these positions," the General said.
"I don't see what else you can get in them," May said. "I feel as if there was a stick running right down my back, and I'm sure I shall never be able to move my feet again."
"Yet I think I understood you to say you go to the gymnasium," said the General.
"Yes, but the gymnasium is no more like this than—than a Christmas party is like a Sunday-school," May replied.
"Attention!" commanded the General.
"All right, sir," May responded, cheerfully.
"You need not reply; the soldier says nothing; he obeys," said the General.
"Oh, I suppose the officers do all the talking," said May, in direct defiance of the General's last remark. "But can't the soldier answer back at all?"
"No, not during drill," said the General.
"They must make it up when they're not drilling!" said May.
"Attention!" the General shouted. "Palms ofthe hands front, little fingers behind the seam of the trousers, chin drawn in, eyes front—eyes front, I say."
"Dear me, Uncle Harold, how can I keep my eyes front and see how my hands and fingers and feet are at the same time?" grumbled May.
"By practise; we will try it again," said the General.
And try it again they did, without, and then with arms, until May was ready to drop with fatigue. She was a plucky little recruit, but the Springfield Cadet rifle; weight over eight pounds, with bayonet nearly nine pounds, was not exactly a plaything. At length the General saw that she was tired and commanded,
"Squad, rest!"
May knew what rest meant and sat down on the stable floor without ceremony.
"Am I a squad?" she inquired. "What does it mean?"
"A squad is a number of armed men," the General replied. "The term slipped out before I was aware of it—I have never drilled a single recruit."
While they were at a rest the General deemed it wise to continue her instructions by defining various terms, such as columns, rank, file, front, rear, etc., and then he said,—
"There are three kinds of commands——"
"I think I know what they are," said May quickly.
"Indeed!" said the General.
"The command that you obey, the kind you don't obey and the kind you half obey," said May.
The General laughed heartily at this. The recruit certainly had very droll ideas of tactics, but the instructor saw fit to enlighten him more precisely as to the meaning of military commands. After explaining more motions than May could have mastered in a month, the General cried,—
"Attention!"
"I'm looking," said May.
"Fall in," commanded the General.
"What shall I fall into?" demanded May, not offering to rise.
"Gay!" the General cried, dropping the military formality of a drill master and speaking as an annoyed relative, "I explained that to you only a moment ago! What do you think it means?"
"That you want me to get up, I suppose," May replied, rising and assuming the soldier's position, with a smothered sigh.
"Couldn't you put it in better form than that?" asked the General, patiently but reproachfully.
"I don't know," said May, rather listlessly. "You were just telling me about 'fatigue' things—my answer was a 'fatigue' answer!"
But although the General laughed, thinking May vastly diverting, he ignored her hint and began to instruct her in the mysteries of Present arms, Right shoulder arms, Order arms, Parade rest—and nobody knows what else, looking at the execution of her movements with the enthusiasm of a veteran. He seemed to be animated with the spirit of a dozen generals, and roared and thundered his commands as though he had been drilling a large squad instead of one weary little girl in borrowed uniform. They had just gone through for the sixth time, Left, reverse—an exceedingly tiresome position as all cadets know—when, without a word of warning to the General, May slipped to the ground and lay there in a motionless heap.
"What is the matter? What is it?" cried the General. "Can't you speak, my boy?"
May did not reply, and the General, now thoroughly alarmed, picked her up and bore her in his arms to Sarah.
"What have you been doing to him?" Sarah demanded, as she took May in her arms.
"I've been instructing him——" began the General.
"You'd better instruct yourself!" Sarah interrupted, indignantly. "Drilling this poor boy till he faints! Phyllis, the smelling salts, and some water."
When May recovered from her swoon the General asked,—
"Why didn't you tell me you were tired?"
"You said the good soldier obeyed without speaking," May said, with a wan smile. "I was trying to learn how."
"Bless my heart, what a boy you are!" the General exclaimed, actually kissing the "boy's" cheek. "This shall not happen again; you shall have a fine light rifle for your own as soon as possible."
"Oh, thank you, but I really don't care for one!" said May, secretly alarmed at the thought of having to harbor such a dangerous possession.
"Is there anything else that you can think of that you would like to have?" questioned the General, anxiously, for he wanted to make amends for his late thoughtlessness.
"Oh, yes!" cried May. "If I could have one of those big dolls with a phonograph inside—almost a human inside, talk and a laugh all there, I should be perfectly happy!"
"A doll!" said the General, with a frown.
"Yes, I know a girl that would like it!" May said quickly, fearing that she had betrayed herself.
"A rifle will be a more appropriate gift," replied the General.
He gave May some silver, however, that burnedso in her pocket that as soon as she could she went to the village to spend it. She bought a doll's hat, one admirably suited to Maud Madeleine's waxen features, and on leaving the store she encountered Philip Guy Brentwood. He was not alone; two boys, whether of the same species or not May could not determine, were with him.
"I saw you buying a doll's bonnet," said Philip, disagreeably. "What a sissy! Bah, you make me tired!"
"Are you sure you weren't born so?" May asked, good-humoredly.
"I'll have that hat to pay you for insulting me!" cried Philip.
He made a dash for the hat; May thrust out her foot suddenly and Philip measured his length in the dust.
The boys shouted for more, but May, who was "no fighter," walked quickly away.
"I'll be even with you, yet," Philip muttered angrily.
But it might have been observed that he made no effort to overtake May.
May sat on a pile of hay in the lower barn, trimming the doll's hat she had bought in the village, singing as she worked. Three days had passed since she made the purchase and this was the first opportunity to add a beautiful feather found in the barn yard and a bow of ribbon to Maud Madeleine's new head gear. She had drilled every morning with greater success than had attended her maiden effort, thanks to the General's increased solicitude and a little device of her own which enabled her to handle her rifle without fear of instant death.
With feminine strategy she had induced James to take her rifle apart, then telling him that she would put it together she filled the breech and the barrel with cotton wool and threw the cartridge under the barn! As the piece was a safety notch, the subsequent military movements were executed with a light heart; the General's command to "fall in" was received with as light a heart as an invitation to "take a chair."
But a problem to the full as interesting as present arms was absorbing May's thoughts as she sewed: Philip, and how to square accounts with him.
Philip now made daily visits to the Haines' mansion, and it often seemed to May that he came solely to bully and tease her. Philip thought the girl in knickerbockers a very timorous lad; he, therefore, put forth all his talent for jeering and sneering, with unhappy result.
"He's spoiling for a fight," May said to herself, with unerring accuracy. "But I should be ashamed to come to blows with a boy, although I know he's so much of a coward that he would be more scared than I if we did have a little set-to. I wonder what Gay would do? But I know; he'd take some of Philip's swagger out of him. Still, I'm not Gay, if I am wearing his clothes."
Now, as it may be seen, May was not an Amazon nor a miniature virago. She knew a little about boxing; she had been a pupil of Uncle George, who had been a student at Harvard College, where he had learned a great deal about sports, and it is probable that had she overcome her dislike to fighting she would have taught Philip a wholesome lesson. She was to teach him one in another and a better way, but she did not know it, and as she sewed she wrestled with her problem and could not solve it.
While May sat there on the fragrant hay, the afternoon sunshine streaming in upon her, Philip made his appearance, and so unexpectedly that she had not time to whisk the hat out of sight.
"Are you sewing?" cried Philip, with a loud laugh.
"Yes," May answered, with a deep blush.
"What an awful sissy you are, anyway! You kiss people; you don't dare to fight, and you sew! You ought to go into a dime museum!"
"You forgot to mention one other thing."
"What is that?"
"I don't dare to be as rude and disagreeable as a savage."
"Never mind about that; you're a freak without it!"
May laughed; Philip's answer was rather bright and she showed her appreciation of it.
"You got one on me that time, Philip."
"Where did you learn to sew?" asked Philip, who wanted more fun on this subject.
"At a kindergarten—you didn't think I was born clever enough to sew, did you?" said May, pleasantly.
"I once knew another boy that sewed. He died, and he deserved to!"
"Perhaps it may have been just the sewing thatmade him good enough to die," May said, laughingly, determined not to lose her temper or show Philip that he annoyed her.
"I brought over some cigarettes," said Philip, with sudden change of base. "I'll bet you don't dare to smoke one."
"I dare to but I don't want to. Nasty things!"
"You needn't pretend that you think they're nasty; you're afraid to take even a whiff."
"I'd be ashamed to take a whiff."
"Why don't you own up that you're a sissy and are afraid it will make you sick?"
May did not reply. "He isn't worth answering," she thought. "I wish I wasn't a girl—or if Gay were here, he'd give it to him!"
"I'm going to smoke one. And you've got to, whether you want to or not." Here Philip thrust a cigarette and a match into May's hand. "Now light it," he added.
May's reply was to tear the cigarette to pieces and to put the match in her blouse pocket.
"Will you light this one?" Philip cried, angrily, pressing a second cigarette into May's hand.
"No!" said May, throwing the cigarette down and setting her heel on it.
"If you are a coward and a girl-boy, why, I can't help it, but I'm going to smoke."
"If you are a tough and ill-bred, why I can't help it, but I'm not going to smoke."
After this interchange of opinions Philip lit a match, touched it to the end of the cigarette with the air of knowing just how it was done, then threw the blazing match down carelessly on the hay.
"You mustn't be so careless; you might set the barn afire," said May, jumping up and stamping out the match and a few wisps of blazing hay.
"What a fuss cat!" cried Philip, lighting a card of matches and throwing them recklessly down.
He meant only to arouse May's resentment, and threw them, as he supposed, far enough away from the hay, but his estimate of the distance was incorrect, and the matches fell into a depression in the hay, and before May could snatch them out little tongues of fire were darting in every direction.
"Help me, Philip!" she cried, trampling on the flames as she talked. "We must put it out or the barn will burn. It is full of hay and there is no water here."
Philip looked at the rapidly spreading flames with frightened eyes, then he ran out of the barn shouting "Fire!" at the top of his lungs. The barn was at some distance from the house and no one heard him, so he kept on running until he reached the house, when he entered the General's library without ceremony, crying, "Come, quick, Gay's set the barn on fire!"