| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Cricket
Author: Timlow, Elizabeth Weston
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Cricket" ***
CRICKET
[Illustration: HOW CRICKET DELIVERED THE MESSAGE.]
CRICKET
BY
ELIZABETH WESTYN TIMLOW
ILLUSTRATED BY
HARRIET R. RICHARDS
BOSTON
ESTES AND LAURIAT
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1895_,
BY ESTES AND LAURIAT
_Typography and Printing by
C. H. Simonds & Co.
Electrotyping by Geo. C. Scott & Sons
Boston, U. S. A._
TO
My Little God-Daughter,
HELEN MUNN.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CRICKET 11
II. THE QUARREL 22
III. DAMMING THE BROOK 34
IV. THE CONSEQUENCES 43
V. FOURTH OF JULY 50
VI. MAKING ICE-CREAM 61
VII. MOPSIE 71
VIII. WHAT MOPSIE DID 80
IX. THE KITTENS 87
X. ELSPETH 97
XI. IN THE GARRET 104
XII. THE TRAMPS 114
XIII. MAMIE HECKER 124
XIV. LYNCH-LAW 133
XV. GOING TO THE CIDER MILL 144
XVI. THE RUNAWAY 151
XVII. GOING BLACKBERRYING 158
XVIII. COMING HOME 172
XIX. WHAT ZAIDEE AND HELEN FOUND 183
XX. MAMIE’S MESSAGE 195
XXI. THE NEW COW 204
XXII. MAMIE’S REPENTANCE 215
XXIII. WHEN MAMMA WAS A LITTLE GIRL 223
XXIV. MAMMA’S BANK 234
XXV. GOING BACK TO TOWN 242
XXVI. CRICKET’S SHORT MEMORY 254
XXVII. CRICKET’S BOOMERANG 267
XXVIII. KENNETH’S DAY 284
XXIX. A STRAWBERRY HUNT 293
XXX. LEFT BEHIND 309
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
HOW CRICKET DELIVERED THE MESSAGE _Frontispiece_
PAGE
HILDA BY THE BROOK 25
CELEBRATING THE 4TH OF JULY 57
EUNICE AND CRICKET WATCHING THE OTHER CHILDREN 89
CRICKET AND EUNICE THREATEN TO PUNISH MAMIE 135
CRICKET TRYING TO CATCH THE MINNOWS 165
CRICKET FINDS EUNICE UNCONSCIOUS 209
CRICKET AND ’MANDA 317
CRICKET
CHAPTER I.
CRICKET.
Kayuna was the loveliest home in the world. At least, the Ward children
said so. The family usually went out of the city as soon as the
children’s schools closed, in June, and stayed in the country till quite
the first of October.
Kayuna was also the name of a brook that danced gayly through the lower
part of the grounds of the summer home, and that was a never-failing
delight to the children. The house itself was wide, old-fashioned and
roomy, with _such_ a splendid great garret as you never saw before, for
rainy days.
Do you want to know how many Wards there were? Well, let me count. Of
course, first to be mentioned came Doctor papa, and dear, beautiful
mamma, who was never very strong. Then there was Donald, who was
seventeen, and a big fellow, as well, and Marjorie, who was two years
younger, but who already began to give herself grown-up airs. Eunice was
next, nearly twelve. Then came Cricket, the “middleman.” They never knew
whether to take her with the older ones, or leave her at home with the
small fry. Donald would call her “trundlebed trash,” to her great
indignation. Her name was really Jean, but she was such a chirpy, cheery
little soul, that Cricket seemed just to suit her. Below her were the
six-year-old twins; and, lastly, baby Kenneth, everybody’s pet, who was
nearly three.
Wasn’t that a house full? And such a noise as they were equal to when
they set about it! Mamma often said that it was fortunate that the roof
was high and the walls were strong, else surely the house would have
come down about their ears.
This year, to the wild delight of the entire family, papa had decided to
go out into the country very early, on mamma’s account, for she needed
the country air. So the middle of April found them comfortably settled
for a long, lovely summer.
It was so early that papa thought it quite worth while for Eunice and
Cricket, at least, to go to the country school for the rest of the term,
while the older ones had lessons at home with him.
Cricket, especially, was greatly delighted with this arrangement. Her
little friend, Hilda Mason, of whom she was very fond, of course went to
school, and it was such fun going together. The little girls were
delighted to be with each other, and Hilda always looked forward to the
summer, when Cricket would come out into the country.
Hilda was a year older than Cricket, for she was eleven in June, and
Cricket was ten in August. By reason of this extra year, she always
thought Cricket should do just as she, Hilda, wanted.
Hilda was an only child, and lived with her mother and grandmother, who
thought her perfect. Cricket, on the other hand, was very used to giving
up her own way, as children in a large family generally are. Hilda was a
quiet, demure little girl, with polite, grown-up manners. She always
remembered to say “How-do-you do!” and that mamma sent her love, and she
never forgot any errand she was sent on.
Cricket was a heedless little witch, and rarely, by any chance,
remembered anything she was told to do. Her father always said that any
errand she was given meant two, for she was never known to bring home
both her package and her change at the same time.
Hilda was pretty, with big brown eyes and long, orderly, golden curls.
She was plump and straight, and rather proper.
Cricket had short, brown curls, every one of which took a different
kink, and gray-blue eyes that twinkled like merry little stars. She was
thin and tall for her age, and her papa used to tease her by calling her
long legs “knitting-needles,” and offering them to mamma for her fancy
knitting.
Every morning Hilda called for Cricket on her way to school. If Cricket
had gone off earlier, having been sent on some errand, as often
happened, she left a little red stone on the gate-post, as a sign to her
little friend that she had gone. If Hilda came by early and couldn’t
stop, as seldom happened, she picked up the little red stone from its
hiding-place, and left it for Cricket to see.
But, usually, Hilda turned in at the gates promptly at twenty minutes of
nine, and walked up the long avenue, around to the side piazza. Then she
would open the door, and call gently up the side staircase, “Ready,
Cricket?”
A voice from above would answer, promptly, “I’m coming. Have you got
your sums?” and Cricket would come out of her room at the head of the
stairs, giving a last, smoothing touch to her kinky hair.
Then she would plunge down stairs, usually arriving at the bottom by way
of the bannisters, provided she did not trip at the top and come down
head-foremost. Next would follow a wild search for her hat, until she
remembered she had left it last night in the grape arbour; then her
sacque must be found, and that was probably hanging on some tree,—where
she had taken it off to climb better. Strange to say, her books were
generally at hand, for heedless Cricket loved to study.
Hilda always carried her school-books in a neat little bag, for she said
that a strap bent the edges of the books. Cricket strapped hers as
tightly as possible, for she liked to swing them by the long end as she
walked along. Besides, they made a splendid thing to throw at a stray
cat,—which she never hit.
By the time she was fairly ready, Eunice would appear, fresh and sweet
and unhurried. Then Hilda and Eunice would walk quietly down the piazza
steps, while Cricket would say, “Want to see me jump off the piazza as
far as that stone?” Off she would shoot through the air, and, alighting,
would race down the avenue, to wait panting at the gate till Hilda and
Eunice should come up. Then for two minutes, perhaps, they would keep
side by side, while they talked over those dreadful decimals, which they
hated so.
Hilda and Eunice kept straight along the shady path, but Cricket was
seldom known to walk. She ran, she skipped, she danced, she went
backward, and varied the way still further by betaking herself to the
stone fences, wherever they were smooth enough on top.
When they arrived at school Hilda was orderly, cool and sweet, and as
trim as if she had just left her mother’s hands; Cricket had riotous
looking clothes, hot, tumbled curls, hat hanging off her head, but was
always dimpling and smiling, and serenely sure that every one would
greet her with a shout.
Eunice sat with her particular friend, Edith Craig, but Cricket and
Hilda shared the same desk, to the distraction of the long-suffering
teacher. She was always threatening to separate them, but her heart
would melt, at the last minute, at their beseeching looks and penitent
vows to be good and study hard, and never whisper any more. They usually
did have their lessons, as it happened, for they were both bright, and
both fond of study.
Hilda was not altogether a favourite, for she was apt to be both selfish
and exacting, often a little jealous, and always determined to be first
in everything. She was quick in all her studies but her arithmetic, and
here Cricket excelled, greatly to Hilda’s disgust. Many a time she slyly
rubbed out Cricket’s just completed work, and the surprised child would
presently whisper, “Did you ever! I’ve gone and rubbed out my
to-morrow’s examples by mistake. Did you ever see such a goose?” and by
the time she had done them again, Hilda would have been able to make up
her work.
Altogether their friendship was just on this basis: Hilda always wanted
her own way, and Cricket was willing she should have it; so they got on
swimmingly.
Nevertheless, one day they quarrelled. It happened in this wise:
Playing charades was one of the children’s favourite amusements. At
Kayuna there was a fine, large nursery, opening off the wide hall, which
gave a splendid field for action, and the good-natured nurse was always
ready to help them out with their plans.
One rainy Saturday the whole troop were indoors, and after luncheon
charades were voted for. There were Eunice and her little friend, Edith
Craig, Hilda, Cricket, the twins, Helen and Zaidee, and Kenneth.
Kenneth was a star, by the way. He was always willing to be pulled about
like a rag-doll, and really seemed to enjoy it. They would roll him up
for a caterpillar, and stand him up straight for a post, and sprawl him
out for a spider. He would take any position they put him in, as if he
were wax, and would inquire anxiously, after the scene was over, “Did I
do zat all right?”
On this particular day, for some reason, none of them were quite as
good-natured as usual. Perhaps they had been together rather too long,
for Edith and Hilda had both arrived quite early, and had stayed to
luncheon. Perhaps, also, the unusual confinement in the house made them
all a little irritable.
The children usually divided themselves into actors and audience, by
turns. Cricket and Hilda had the stage now, with Kenneth as support.
Eunice and Edith, with the twins, therefore, were audience.
The little actors were searching their brains for a new word to act.
“Penobscot,” and “connundrum,” and “goldsmith,” and “antidote” had
already been used, with dozens of others.
“I know,” cried Cricket, brightening up. “Let’s take _secure_.”
“_Secure?_ Well, how shall we do it?” questioned Hilda.
“Why, sick-cure, of course,” answered Cricket, promptly. “Won’t that do?
In the first scene, Kenneth would be sick—”
“And I’d be the doctor,” put in Hilda.
“And I’d be his mother,” went on Cricket.
“And I’d come and see him and give him some pills—”
“And in the next scene we’d _cure_ him.”
“I ’on’t tate any pills,” announced the baby behind them, unexpectedly,
and very decidedly.
“Oh, yes, you will,” said Hilda, impatiently, “they won’t taste bad—just
little make-believe pills.”
“I don’t lite ’em,” wailed the baby, rebelling, for the first time,
against his elders. He was tired, poor little fellow, for he had gone
through many experiences that afternoon. He had been wound on to a
lap-board with shawls, to represent an Esquimau baby. He had been placed
on a very insecure table, with newspaper wings tied on his bare
shoulders, to pose as a Cupid. Besides this, he had been Daniel in the
lion’s den, with Zaidee and Helen as lions, growling and spitting so
frightfully around him, and making such an alarming pretence of eating
him up, that he had fled, in sudden dismay, to the audience, to take
refuge behind Cricket, who was always his protection in times of
trouble.
Now, the suggestion of pills was more than the little fellow could
stand.
“Just pretend, baby dear,” coaxed Cricket. “See, I’ll sit down here with
this funny old cap on, and this shawl over my shoulders, and I’ll play
I’m your mamma,” dressing herself as she spoke. “And then,” she went on,
“you can lie on my lap, this way, and Hilda will put on Donald’s
overcoat and those big spectacles. Just see how funny she looks! and
she’ll put that fur cap on her head, and she’ll come in and feel your
pulse, and say, ‘Very sick child, marm.’ And then, she will only just
_pretend_ to give you some pills.”
Kenneth still looked doubtful, but Cricket caught up a shawl and wrapped
it around him, and drew his head down.
“That’s a good boy. Put your head down on mamma’s arm,” she said, still
coaxingly.
“I doesn’t ’ant to,” fretted Kenneth, but, nevertheless, he stretched
himself obediently on Cricket’s lap. As his head dropped back, he shut
his eyes very tightly, as he was told, and opened his mouth very wide,
as he always did, in the funniest way, whenever he shut his eyes to
order.
CHAPTER II.
THE QUARREL.
Now, Hilda was a good deal of a tease, in a quiet way. The little fellow
looked so funny as he lay there with closely shut eyes, and wide-open
mouth, that, quick as a flash, came the impulse to throw something in
it. She turned to the washstand close by, where was still standing some
water in which they had just washed their hands. Nurse’s big thimble was
on the washstand also, and Hilda snatched it up, and emptied a
thimbleful of the water right down the poor baby’s throat.
There was a gurgle, a howl, a choke, and Kenneth lay gasping and
struggling for breath, for the water had gone down his little windpipe.
The audience from the hall, and nurse from an adjoining room, came
rushing in. Poor little Kenneth was purple in the face. Nurse snatched
him up and patted his back, and blew in his mouth, to make him catch his
breath.
Hilda stood frightened at the mischief she had unthinkingly done.
Cricket turned upon her, in a sudden blind fury of rage, for almost the
first time in her life.
“You mean, mean, horrid girl! To treat my baby so! I hate you, there!
You’re always doing mean things, and you always take the biggest of
everything, and you’ve made baby cry before.”
“You _are_ mean,” chimed in Eunice; “I’ve seen you rub out Cricket’s
sums, and I always meant to tell everybody, when I got a good chance.”
“And I know who ate up all my candy,” added Edith.
“You tooked my dolly and hided her, and I cried!” put in Zaidee, joining
the attacking force.
“And I know who’s a sneak, and told on Mabel Wilson, when none of the
other girls would!” cried Eunice.
“You’re the selfishest, meanest old thing!” it was Cricket’s turn again.
She had gotten hold of Kenneth now, and he was clinging with both arms
around the neck of his favourite sister.
“To pour that horrid, dirty water down his throat, just to tease him,”
went on Cricket, furiously. “I’ll never forgive you, and I won’t play
with you any more, forever ’n’ ever, ’n’ I wish you’d go home this
moment, Hilda Mason, there!”
Hilda stared helplessly, as the unexpected words rained around her.
Could they be really talking to _her_? Was it her little Cricket who was
blazing like a little fury, and actually telling her to go home? She was
quite too frightened to speak, at first, as the angry group around her
all talked at once.
“I didn’t mean,” she faltered, at last; then she, too, burst into angry
tears. “You’re horrid, rude girls to say such things to company,” she
sobbed. “I’m going straight home to tell mamma how you treated me, and
she’ll never let me come here again.”
“You’d better go right away, Miss Hilda,” said nurse, dryly, and she
brought the little girl’s hat and put on her sacque. Hilda had never
been at all a favourite with her, for she had often seen her slyly tease
the little ones.
Hilda marched off abused, excited and angry. The idea—the very _idea_ of
such language to her, to Hilda Mason, whom everybody called so good, and
who was used to being held up as the model child of the neighbourhood.
[Illustration: HILDA BY THE BROOK.]
And Cricket, her dear Cricket, whom she really loved heartily, had told
her she hated her, and would never forgive her, and wouldn’t ever play
with her any more.
What had she done to deserve all this? Why, nothing at all; only poured
a little water down the baby’s throat, when he looked so funny, lying
there with his eyes squeezed shut, and his mouth wide open. She didn’t
know it would choke him so; of course she didn’t mean to hurt him. Such
a fuss about nothing. Then, suddenly, they all flew at her, and said
dreadful things, right before nurse. Hilda did not realize that such an
outbreak is seldom as sudden as it seems, and that many grievances will
often smoulder for a long time, till some trifle fires the flame.
She walked along, miserable enough, half-crying, half-indignant. The
rain had ceased, and the sky had cleared, so she stopped by the brook in
the grassy lane, which the children used as a short cut, and sat down by
the little bridge. She was ashamed to go on into the village street
while she was crying.
Here she and Cricket had spent many happy hours, and had never, never
quarrelled before. She did not stop to think, then, to whom the credit
of this belonged. Cricket certainly always did as Hilda wished, but she
was sure she was equally ready to do as Cricket wished, wasn’t she? She
began to think. Cricket always liked to keep on through the woods to
Hilda’s house, while she liked to strike off into the village street.
How seldom they went through the woods, although it was nearer, and
Cricket liked it so well! Cricket loved marsh-mallows, while Hilda was
devoted to chocolate-creams; but when they spent their weekly pennies
together for candy, as they always did, how was it they so rarely bought
marsh-mallows? Hilda’s conscience pricked her faintly.
“Well, I am always willing she should buy them, if she’d just say she
would, any way,” she reflected, uneasily.
But then, Cricket never did say she “would, anyway.”
What a delight it was to her little friend to be out in the fields and
woods, searching out the earliest wild-flowers, exploring for the first
chestnuts, perfectly happy if she were simply out-of-doors. She,
herself, preferred quiet, indoor sports and dolls, excepting when the
weather just suited her, and was neither too warm nor too cold. Did they
ever stay out when she did not wish to?
And she _did_ rub out Cricket’s examples, often and often.
“Cricket was so quick,” she argued, with her conscience, “and she could
do them right over, and she didn’t like to get behind herself. Cricket
was such a silly, not to guess it.” And why shouldn’t she take the
biggest of anything? One of them had to have it, and she was the oldest.
Still, she remembered, with another faint sting of conscience, she
didn’t like it when Eunice took things for the same reason, and Cricket
had to yield to them both.
Had Cricket ever been heard telling the twins they must do certain
things because they were younger?
Hilda began to feel very queerly. She was so used to praise and petting,
that the plain speeches she had heard had almost taken her breath away,
true though they were. Cricket was always being lectured, because she
was careless and disorderly, and heedless and forgetful, and Hilda had
always felt superior. But was she really horrid? was she hateful? was
she selfish? was she a sneak?
“Mamma doesn’t think so, anyway,” she said, with a little sob. But it
was that very morning, when she asked permission to go and see Cricket,
that her mother had hesitated, and said,—
“I thought perhaps you would be willing to stay at home this morning,
darling. My head aches badly, and poor, sick grandmamma says she has
scarcely seen her little girl this week.”
But Hilda looked so abused that her mother hastened to add,—
“Never mind, dear, go on and have a good time, but I would like you to
come home to lunch;” and the little girl had neglected her mother’s
words, as of no importance.
It was a very sober, subdued Hilda, who, much later, slipped quietly
into the house.
Her mother had been in bed all day, with one of her worst headaches, the
maid said, and she herself had been sitting with grandmamma, and reading
to her, for the old lady felt very lonely. Hilda winced as she thought
of that hard, rasping voice reading to an invalid.
Mrs. Mason heard her little girl’s voice and spoke to her, and Hilda
crept quietly into her mother’s room. She knew, well enough, that her
little soft fingers had magic power to drive away mamma’s nervous
headaches, but usually it was “such a bother” to sit in the darkened
room, that often, as she now guiltily remembered, she had slipped away,
when she knew mamma had a headache, lest she should be asked to do it.
Oh, she was a selfish, selfish Hilda!
That night, when her head was better, mamma and Hilda had a long talk.
The whole story came out, and Hilda confessed that she believed that she
was the horridest, selfishest girl in the whole town. And her mother’s
tears fell quietly and fast, as she realized, for the first time, how
she had been spoiling her darling. Because her little daughter was
dainty and orderly, and sweet and polite, she had been ruining her with
too much praise, and letting her grow up selfish and inconsiderate.
“We will both begin again, my little girl,” she said, holding Hilda
close. “And to begin with, do you know you ought to tell Cricket you are
sorry?”
“Oh, mamma, I can’t—oh, I _can’t_! I shouldn’t know anything what to
say.”
“It is the only honourable thing to do, darling. You have been much to
blame. I will tell Cricket for you, if you like. She is a dear little
girl, and I’m sure she will forgive you and love you just the same.”
Nevertheless, Hilda could not quite make up her mind, that night, to
take this step.
The next Monday she started off, very soberly and unhappily, for school.
As she turned into the lane, however, she saw a familiar little red
dress fluttering by the hedge, and in a moment Cricket came in view.
Both little girls stopped and looked at each other shyly for a moment.
Cricket spoke first.
“Mamma says I was very rude to you,” she began, very soberly, but Hilda
ran up to her, impulsively, and threw both her arms around her neck.
“_I_ was rude and horrid, Cricket, and I did rub out your sums, and I’ve
teased the children, and I’ve torn up your jography questions often and
often; and I should think you’d hate me.” Hilda said all this in a
breath.
Cricket looked too astonished to speak.
“Oh, please, Cricket, forgive me, and love me just the same, and we’ll
always buy marsh-mallows, for I like them pretty well, and it doesn’t
make any difference if I don’t!” finished Hilda, very much mixed up, but
very much in earnest.
But Cricket, while she did not quite understand all Hilda meant, was,
nevertheless, only too glad to kiss and make friends, and so their
quarrel was made up.
CHAPTER III.
DAMMING THE BROOK.
One bright May morning three little maids sat perched on the topmost
rail of an old fence down by the brook. It was very pleasant just at
that particular spot, where the tiny stream babbled along gayly in its
wide, deep bed. There was only a ribbon of water there now, though early
in the spring the current ran full and strong. The trees in the
neighbouring woods waved and nodded their heads in cordial welcome to
their constant little visitors.
This was a favourite spot with these little people, for they were well
out of sight of the rest of the world. The lane curved around the hill
which was behind them, wound over the rustic bridge, and lost itself in
the green woods on the other side. Below them were the meadows, where
loads of “roosters”—as country children call the sweet little white
violets—grew in abundance.
There sat the three little maids, I say, swinging their black-stockinged
legs, and nodding their three heads, black, brown and golden, keeping
time to the clatter of their busy tongues.
There was so much to talk about, you see, for Hilda’s mamma had promised
her that she might have all her little friends come to supper next week,
to celebrate her eleventh birthday. Of course they had to arrange about
the invitations and the amusements.
At last Cricket’s active body tired of being still so long, and she
began to look around for exercise, for she had been sitting there for
quite fifteen minutes. She edged along on her somewhat unsteady seat,
when suddenly the treacherous rail turned completely over, and laid her
on her back in the soft meadow grass. Hilda and Eunice shouted with
laughter, for such an accident was so like Cricket; but the little girl,
not in the least troubled, picked herself up. To be sure, there was a
jagged tear in her fresh, blue gingham, and a great grass-stain on it,
as well, but these were every-day affairs.
She jumped over the fence and sat down on the end of the wooden bridge,
which crossed the road, with her feet hanging over the water, idly
dropping pebbles down. Presently this inspired her with a new idea.
“Oh, girls!” she exclaimed, “let’s dam up the brook!”
This proposal immediately met with the greatest favor. Hilda and Eunice
jumped briskly down, and Cricket jumped briskly up. The stone wall along
the road supplied them with material, and they fell energetically to
work.
Back and forth they went like little beavers, carrying stones instead of
wood. They stood at the end of the bridge, and dropped the stones down,
splash, just in the right place. It was great fun, tugging at the stones
from the wall, finding the loose ones they could take, without leaving
too large a space; or pulling out the wrong one, and bringing half a
dozen more rattling about their feet, so that they had to jump,
screaming, out of the way. Then they must tug and strain to roll them up
the bank to the lane, and then on to the bridge, and over into the
stream.
Being, as I said, a lonely, out-of-the-way place, it happened that no
one passed to notice the mischief the children were doing. So they
worked away undisturbed.
They lifted stones that were twice the size of their own heads, quite
scorning the little ones, excepting to fill in with. When they presently
paused to take breath and to survey their work, the stones lay closely
packed together from side to side, and the water was deepening fast.
Panting and quite tired out, they threw themselves on the grassy bank to
rest.
“I’m glad,” sighed Cricket, “that I’m not a dammer by trade.”
“If you were,” said Eunice, wisely, “you would be a strong man, and then
it would not be hard work.”
“What are you going to do, girls, when you’re grown-up?” asked Hilda.
“I know,” answered Cricket, promptly; “I thought of it last night. I’m
going to write hymns for the missionaries, and p’raps I’ll be a
missionary myself. Anyway, I’d like to go to Africa and have all the
bananas I could eat, for once.”
“I won’t be a missionary,” returned Hilda, with decision. “I don’t want
to go to Africa. Horrid old skeeters and things, and cannibals to eat
you up.”
“I’d convert them. That’s what missionaries are for,” answered Cricket,
serenely.
“But you wouldn’t get a chance,” persisted Hilda. “They’d catch you and
kill you and eat you up just as _quick_. You’d be in somebody’s stomach
before you could say Jack Robinson.”
“But _hymns_, Cricket,” said Eunice, who had been meditating over the
word, rather overcome by the ambition of her younger sister. “Would you
write hymns like those in the hymnbook?”
“Yes. Of course they might not be quite so good just at first, but I
could practise. I made up one last night. Do you want to hear it? It’s
rather long.”
“Yes, indeed,” cried both the others, much impressed.
And Cricket cleared her throat, and began:——
“A big, black cannibal lived by the sea,
And he was black as he could be,
And he ate up children, one, two, three.
“One day he found a little child,
A little white one, meek and mild,
And the little boy looked up and smiled.
“‘Oh, don’t you know it’s wrong,’ said he,
‘To eat a little child like me?
And God won’t love you then, you see.
“‘And don’t you know if you’re not good,
And don’t do everything you should,
And eat up children in the wood,
“‘You will not then to Heaven go,
But you will suffer down below,
And wonder why you did do so?’
“The cannibal was softened through,
And said to him, ‘Forgive me, do,
And I will go to Heaven with you.’
“If little children only knew
All the good that they could do,
They’d be missionaries, too.”
“Oh, it’s lovely!” exclaimed both little girls, as Cricket finished her
very rapid recitation.
“Cricket! how could you make that all up?”
“Some parts of it _were_ hard,” answered Cricket, modestly. “I couldn’t
get the rhymes right at first, and I had to change it some. I wanted to
say——
“The cannibal fell on his knees,
And said to him, ‘Forgive me, please,’
but I couldn’t think of another rhyme to match it.”
“Well, it’s beautiful,” said Eunice, drawing a long breath of
admiration.
“Aren’t you rested now?” asked Cricket, jumping up. “Let’s dump some
more stones over. Oh—oh! look at the brook!”
They had been resting for half an hour, under a tree, with their backs
to the brook. Now, as they approached it, they were amazed to see how
much their work had deepened the water. Instead of a narrow trickle that
they could easily jump over, it had widened to a deep pool just above
the stones.
“Oh-h!” squealed the children, in delight. Cricket plunged forward to
plug up a tiny little hole in their dam. Of course she stopped on an
insecure stone, and of course, in attempting to get her balance, she
stumbled forward, and stepped into the water up to her knees.
“There; I knew Cricket would do that,” said Hilda, calmly.
Cricket scrambled out.
“My feet are wet,” she remarked, with much surprise. Both the other
girls shouted with laughter.
“Did you think the water wasn’t wet?” asked Hilda.
Going home for dry stockings and shoes never occurred to Cricket. It
would have been altogether too much trouble. She pulled off her soaked
shoes and stockings, and spread them on a sunny stone to dry, and danced
around in her little bare feet.
But the stones hurt her tender skin, and the hot sand blistered it. So
she sat down on the bank, further up, and dabbled her feet in the clear,
running water. The others immediately desired to follow suit, when
Cricket “set the Psalm,” as their old nurse used to say, and in a few
minutes six little bare feet were paddling about.
“It’s very strange,” said Cricket, at last, after a brief fit of
silence, “that Eunice never falls in the water, nor tears her clothes,
nor anything. I b’lieve my mother’d just think herself in luck if she
had two like you, ’stead of me. I’m the most misfortunate girl always.”
Eunice was a careful little girl, and not nearly so much of a romp as
Cricket was. She seldom did have the accidents that so constantly befel
her heedless little sister.
“You do so many more things than I do,” Eunice hastened to explain. “You
do things that I’m afraid to do.”
“I’m afraid this minute,” remarked Hilda.
“Afraid! why, what of?” exclaimed both the others, in chorus.
“’Fraid we’ve got to go home. It’s twelve o’clock, for there’s the
whistle.”
“Oh, is that all! I thought you must have seen a snake, at least,”
laughed Cricket, drawing on her damp stockings and stiff shoes. “Ugh!
these stockings feel just like frogs.”
“We must come back to-morrow,” said Hilda, as they trudged off, “and see
how deep this water is, and we will get some boards and make a raft, and
have piles of fun.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONSEQUENCES.
But both Monday and Tuesday were unfavourable for nautical adventures,
for they brought a driving, pouring rain. Wednesday was too damp for
them to go to the meadows at all, and on Thursday came the famous
birthday party. So it happened that their dam was forgotten till
Saturday, when they turned their steps brookward.
“Oh, _look_ at the water!” they cried, in one breath, as they came
around the curve. They could hardly believe their eyes, for a wide, deep
stream filled the bed from side to side. The combination of the heavy
rains with their dam had worked wonders.
“See the water roll over the dam, girls! it’s just like the mill-dam,”
exclaimed Cricket. “Let’s roll more stones down and make a bigger one
still.”
So, with eager hands, they got great stones again, lugging them from
their places in the stone wall with infinite toil. They balanced them on
the edge of the bridge, and counting, “One,—two,—three,—go!” They each
pushed over one, jumping and screaming with delight, at the tremendous
splashes, as the water flew up, spattering them well.
“Ow—ow! there goes my hat!” It was Cricket’s wail of anguish, of course.
Her next-to-her-best white Leghorn, it was too, for her every-day hat
had come to grief through Dixie’s chewing off her ribbons, and was laid
up for repairs. There lay the pretty broad-brim, caught right on one of
those big stones, with the water lapping all around it. Vainly they ran
down to the side of the bridge and tried to reach it. It was too near
the middle. The water was already so deep and black that they hesitated
to wade in for it.
“Perhaps we can get a stick and reach it,” suggested Hilda. They
accordingly broke long sticks from the bushes near by, and then Cricket
lay flat down on the bridge, with her head and arms hanging over, and
tried to reach the unfortunate hat.
“I can’t quite do it,” she panted. “You hold on to my legs, Eunice,
while I lean over a little further, and, Hilda, you catch it with your
stick at the side, when I poke it over there.”
So Eunice clung to Cricket’s legs with all her might, while Cricket,
fully half over the bridge, made desperate lunges; at last she was
successful.
“There it goes! now, catch it, Hilda!” triumphant and breathless.
Just at this critical moment there rose suddenly a tremendous shout from
the woods.
“Hi! hi! I’ve caught ye, ye young rogues! I’ll teach ye a lesson,
a-dammin’ up my brooks and a-swampin’ my medders, and a-drownin’ my
caows! I’ll hev the law on ye!”
Fright and terror! What awful words were these? Cricket hung, paralyzed,
over the bridge, and Eunice clung to her black-stockinged legs, with
fingers that made black and blue spots in the tender flesh. Hilda,
poised on two uncertain stones, stood like a small Colossus, and all of
them were white with terror, for an awful, great, big, blue-bloused man
was getting over the fence, with, oh, horror, a gun on his shoulder, and
a slovenly bull-dog tagging at his heels!
“I’ve been a-watchin’ for ye, since a long time back,” the man said,
leisurely coming nearer, seeing that the children were too frightened to
run away. “I’m not a-goin’ to eat yer, but I want to know what in
thunder you’re allers up to mischief for. Yer’s the doctor’s gal,” he
went on, addressing Cricket, “and yer a limb.”
Cricket drew herself up on to the bridge. They recognized the man now as
a farmer in the neighbourhood, a gruff old fellow, whom all the children
feared. They quaked still more with fright.
“Now I’ll tell yer, young uns, I could hev the law on ye all for this
flew-doodle-um of yourn, and I ain’t sure,—I—ain’t—_sure_, I ain’t
a-goin’ ter. Now, what hev ye got to say fer yourselves why I
shouldn’t?”
“We didn’t know we were doing any mischief,” faltered Cricket, really
conscience-smitten, as well as frightened.
“Mischief!” growled the farmer, “when ain’t ye young ’uns in mischief?
I’m goin’ to hev ye all in the lock-up.”
“Oh, please, please, Mr. Trante,” cried Cricket, in mortal terror. “If
we’ve done any mischief, please ask my father to pay you for it, but oh,
_don’t_ put us in the lock-up!”
“Wal, I dunno but I re’lly orter,” said Mr. Trante, enjoying their
terror.
“See all the damage ye’ve done. Las’ Sunday I was a-strollin’ round my
medder, up yander”—pointing up beyond where the white violets grew—“an’
I see it was all soft an sorter soggy, by the bank, and the brook was a
considderbal wider. I kinder wondered at that, seein’ as we hadn’t hed
no rain for quite a spell then. Ev’ry night this week the caows kep’
a-comin’ home all wet to their knees, an’ las’ night the boy brung ’em
in, and says he, ‘the medder’s all a-swimming, and the caows has stayed
up into the woods all day.’ It didn’t seem nateral that the rain could
ha’ did all thet, so this mornin’ I sot out to explore, an’ I found this
big dam o’ yourn. I hed a big mornin’s work, so I hed to leave it till
this afternoon. I re’lly orter make ye take ’em out yerselves.”
“I don’t believe we could,” answered Cricket, doubtfully. Then she
brightened up.
“But I’ll ask papa to send Thomas to-morrow morning to help you. I’m so
sorry about the cows, Mr. Trante, and getting the meadow so wet. We
never thought. Will it ever dry up again?” she asked, anxiously.
“Wall, I guess the medder’ll dry up, if you give it a chance,” the
farmer answered, grimly. “How did you young rogues roll up all them big
stones, tearin’ down my stone walls? Look at them big holes!”
Three shamefaced children looked more downcast than ever at this new
view of their mischief.
“I’ll ask papa to pay you for all the trouble we’ve made,” repeated
Cricket.
“Wal, I dunno how I could put a money vally on it, skursely,” growled
the man, “but I’ll see your pa. An’ about the lock-up. Ef you’ll promise
me not to go a-dammin’ up no more streams, not even little dribblin’
things like that ’un there was, mebbe I’ll let ye off this time.”
“Oh, we promise!” cried the three, fervently, while their hearts danced
jigs of joy at their escape.
“An’ tell yer pa to send Thomas over in the morning at seven o’clock
sharp, an’ I an’ he’ll work at them stuns a spell. Looks like it would
be considerable of a chore to hist ’em out,” said Mr. Trante, looking at
the stones, through one eye.
“Come, Bruiser,” he went on, “you an’ me’s a-goin fur the caows now. Ye
kin go home, young ’uns, and don’t do no more damage than ye kin help
a-doin’, while ye’re going thar;” and three very subdued-looking
children immediately took advantage of his permission to disappear
around the curve.
The next day Thomas told Dr. Ward that he had had the hardest half-day’s
work he had done in one while.
“Them crazy young ’uns will be the death o’ me,” he grumbled. “Me an’
Dan’el Trante worked up’ards of half a day to ease them stuns up. An’
the next time they go to dammin’ up creeks, I ’low they better do
suthin’ else with the time.”
And the children concluded they would.
CHAPTER V.
FOURTH OF JULY.
Of course, with such a troop of children as there was at Kayuna, Fourth
of July was a wildly exciting time. They were always up at unearthly
hours in the morning, and used up, before breakfast, an immense supply
of giant torpedoes and fire-crackers, by way of opening the day. Later,
they were allowed free range of the back-kitchen, in order that they
might carry out, all by themselves, the grand performance of the day.
This was making and freezing a great can of ice-cream, with no
interference, even to the extent of a suggestion, from the cook. This
was always eaten by the assembled family, on the piazza, at five in the
afternoon.
In the evening all the people in the neighbourhood gathered on the
piazza and lawn, to see the display of a great quantity of fireworks,
which Dr. Ward always had sent out from town. So they wound up the
Glorious Fourth in a very patriotic manner.
It was really very good-natured of Dr. Ward to allow the display on his
grounds, for it always took Thomas and one of the other men all the next
day to take away the débris, clear up the lawn, and restore things to
their usual trim order.
This particular Fourth really began the night before.
Hilda Mason had been invited to come and spend the night with Cricket
and Eunice, in order to be on hand in the morning. It was barely dark
when the three children decided it was quite time to go to bed, in order
to shorten the long hours that stretched before to-morrow morning. Nurse
had put up a cot in Cricket’s room for Hilda, close beside the larger
bed, so it was quite like sleeping all together.
They were far too much excited to settle down very soon, especially as
it was earlier than their usual bedtime, so they frolicked and built
tents of the sheets, and ended up with a game of tag around the
foot-board. But this speedily brought Eliza to the scene, with a very
peremptory order “to go to sleep, and not disturb everybody in the house
with their jim-jams.”
Thus commanded, and being tired by this time, they were quite ready to
subside, and very soon, after numberless “good-nights” and “don’t you
wish it was to-morrows,” they settled down.
Cricket woke first. The room was already beginning to grow light.
“Oh, girls, girls!” she cried, scrambling out of bed. “We’ve overslept,
I know. There’s the sun rising now.” There certainly was light behind
the trees, as she looked from the east windows.
“Funny we don’t hear the boys,” said Eunice, sitting up and trying to
rub the sleep out of her eyes. “I’m awful sleepy—seems as if we’d just
gone to bed.”
“I should say it did. How quiet everything seems. Hilda, wake up! it’s
morning.”
“I don’t care,” returned Hilda, sleepily, turning over.
“But it’s Fourth of July! Do get up! We want to get ahead of the boys.”
For two boy cousins, Will and Archie Somers, were visiting them.
“Oh, dear!” yawned Hilda, who was always a sleepy head. “I think I’d
rather not have any Fourth of July.”
“But the Fourth’s here, and we’ve got to have it!” said Cricket, pulling
the sheet from under Hilda. “Get up, you lazy girl. I’m all dressed.”
For Cricket dressed as she did everything else, “like a streak of
greased lightning,” as Donald said.
“Oh, I’m getting up!” and Hilda turned out reluctantly.
“I’m going to the boys’ door, while you’re finishing,” said Cricket.
“I’ll be back in a minute.” She slipped out into the hall, as still as a
mouse. It was very dark out there, and she had to feel her way along.
Suddenly, ahead of her, came a glimmer of light, and a tall, white
figure appeared, that startled Cricket so that she turned, with a
scream, to run back. It was only Eliza, who, aroused by the children’s
voices, was coming from the nursery to see what was the matter, but
Cricket was blinded by the sudden light, so that she did not recognize
her. She lost her bearings, turned to the left instead of the right, and
the next moment she was plunging head-foremost down the stairs, with a
crash that in two minutes assembled a white-clad household.
“What is the matter?” asked everybody, hurriedly, of everybody else.
Doctor Ward sprang down the staircase to investigate. At the bottom lay
a little heap.
“Cricket!” he exclaimed, with his heart in his mouth.
“I guess I’m all right, papa,” came a scared little voice from the heap,
“but I don’t know, ’xactly, where I am.”
Her father lifted her up, and felt of her arms and legs.
“No bones broken. Is your back all right? and your head? In the name of
common-sense, child, what are you doing around the house, all dressed,
at midnight?”
“Why, it’s morning,” said Eunice and Hilda together, who, with the
others, had gathered at the foot of the stairs, everybody asking
questions and talking at once.
“It’s morning, and it’s the Fourth of July,” explained Eunice, “and we
got up, and Cricket was going to wake the boys, and get a rise out of
them. Is Cricket hurt?”
The doctor was still feeling Cricket’s back, and her mamma was rubbing
her hands anxiously, but they all laughed at Eunice’s explanation.
“Morning, dear child? It’s just ten minutes of twelve,” she answered,
looking at the tall hall clock. “Just midnight.”
“Midnight!” cried all the three girls, incredulously. “We saw the sun
rising, anyway,” said Hilda, bewildered.
“The moon, you mean,” said the doctor, laughing.
“You’re sure you’re not hurt, darling?” he added. “Well, since Cricket
is not killed, it proves to be a good joke.”
“She must be hurt somewhere,” persisted mamma, still anxiously. “How
could a child go head-foremost down stairs and not be hurt?”
“Nobody could but Cricket,” said her father, kissing her; “but I am
coming to the conclusion that this young woman is not built of ordinary
human material, but on the principle of indestructible dolls. She always
comes right side up with care.”
“I thought I was killed just at first,” said Cricket, sitting up
straight on her father’s knee, and still looking bewildered, “for the
house seemed just to open and let me down, and the first thing I knew,
papa was calling ‘Cricket.’”
“But now,” said mamma, “since nobody is seriously injured, you children
may go back to bed and sleep quietly—if you can—the rest of the night.
And remember that you must not one of you get up in the morning till you
are called. That’s the only safe way. Eliza will call you at five
o’clock, and you must not stir till then.”
In view of the circumstances, the children were quite willing to promise
this, and soon quiet reigned again.
It was broad daylight in good earnest when the children opened their
eyes next, in response to Eliza’s call. Their night’s experience seemed
very far away in the light of day. The boys were already up and out, and
were firing torpedoes at the girls’ windows. Cricket felt a little stiff
and lame at first, but that soon wore off. She really did seem to be of
some material unlike other children, for her constant accidents rarely
disabled her, and she seldom had even a bad scar. When she nearly cut
her finger off in the hay-cutter once, so that it hung by a thread of
skin, she clapped it on and ran to her father, and it grew together like
two pieces of melted wax. Deep cuts healed as if made in soft pitch. She
had fallen from innumerable trees, and would come crashing through the
branches, and land on the ground, stunned for a moment, perhaps, but
with no further injuries. She was very slightly built, without an ounce
of superfluous flesh on her slender bones, and she was very agile and
flexible. She used to amuse her sisters by sitting on the ground and
twisting both legs around her neck, like a clown in the circus. When she
fell, she fell as a baby does, without making the slightest effort to
save herself, and probably this was the reason why she escaped serious
injury.
[Illustration: CELEBRATING THE FOURTH OF JULY.]
When the girls appeared, the boys were ready with a fire of jokes
concerning the midnight adventures. Archie suggested that it would be a
good plan to pin a big label to the moon, so they need not mistake it
again for the sun. Will chanted,—
“The Man in the Moon
Came up too soon,
And waked the girls too early.
Cricket ran into the hall
And got a great fall,
And made a great hurly-burly.”
Fortunately, Cricket did not mind teasing, else her life would have been
a burden.
By breakfast they had fired off dozens of packages of giant torpedoes
and an unlimited number of fire-crackers, and went trooping into the
house, feeling, they said, as if they had been up for at least six
weeks.
CHAPTER VI.
MAKING ICE-CREAM.
After breakfast there came a little lull in the excitement. The edge had
been taken off of the enjoyment of torpedoes, by this time, and the
delights of fire-crackers palled.
To be sure, little Kenneth was still all agog. In his small brain this
day was hopelessly confused with April-Fool’s-Day, which was the latest
special occasion in his narrow experience. He ran around from one to
another, crying excitedly, “Look a-hind you!” and then shrieked in great
glee, “Apple-fool!” enjoying to the full the unfailing surprise of each
person, however often he tried it.
By ten o’clock, however, came the great excitement of the day, making
ice-cream in the back-kitchen. Will and Archie, and even
seventeen-year-old Donald, pounded the ice which Thomas had already put
there, in a big tub, while Marjorie measured the cream and milk and put
in the sugar.
It seemed to be part of the programme regularly to forget the flavouring
till the cream was in the can and the dasher adjusted. Then, at the last
moment, it would suddenly be remembered, and off must come the cover, to
the boys’ disgust, with imminent danger of a deposit of salt within,
while the flavouring was added. Then they would find that they could not
put back the dasher in its place without taking out the can. So out
would come the can, and the cream must be poured out, the dasher slipped
in place, all the ice and salt taken out of the freezer, in order to put
the can back, and the whole thing repacked. All this served to “vary the
monotony,” Donald remarked.
To-day, however, Marjorie, who was chief-cook, had the flavouring in her
mind from the beginning, and she gave the cream a liberal supply of
lemon extract.
“Will you stir this for a moment, please, Eunice,” she said, as Eunice
came into the pantry just then, where Marjorie stood. “I want to speak
to cook.”
Eunice gave it a stir, as Marjorie went out, and then bethought herself
of the flavouring.
“We won’t forget it this time,” she thought. “I know Marjorie has not
remembered it. She never does.” She surveyed the extract-bottles for a
moment.
“I believe bitter-almond ice-cream would be nice,” she thought. “I’ve
never tasted any, but it makes a nice flavour for frosting and cake. I
wonder how much it takes? I guess half a bottle, certainly, for all this
cream,” and in went the bitter-almond, for Eunice had not the vaguest
idea of the necessary quantity.
“Oh, Marjorie,” she called, “I’ve just put in—”
“Do come here, Eunice, I don’t think the boys have chopped this ice fine
enough, and they say it will do,” interrupted Marjorie. “Cricket, you go
and stir the cream.”
Eunice ran out, thinking to herself,—
“I won’t tell her, after all, and she’ll think she’s forgotten it, as
usual.”
Cricket took her turn at the spoon.
“There,” she thought, “the girls never said a word about the flavouring,
and I just s’pose they’ve gone and forgotten it, as usual. I’ll put it
in myself, and just as they think they’ve got to take the can out, I’ll
tell them. Let me see. We always have lemon or vanilla. Essence of
wintergreen. Wintergreen candy is lovely. I’ll just put in some
wintergreen,” and she took the bottle hastily, after turning for a
spoon.
“Oh! oh! it’s peppermint I’ve got,” she exclaimed, in dismay, as the
first spoonful went into the mixture. “Bah! I don’t like peppermint,
I’ll just put in an extra amount of wintergreen to cover it up. Cook
says she often mixes flavours.” And in went plenty of wintergreen. By
this time the whole pantry had a strong odour of essences, principally
peppermint.
“What a strong smell!” said Marjorie, coming back. “What’s the
peppermint bottle doing down here with the cork out?” But Cricket
vanished, and Marjorie, concluding that the cook had come in and used
it, corked it up, and put it back.
“How horribly strong that peppermint is,” she said, as she stirred her
cream. “That bottle, just open for a moment, has scented everything, or
perhaps some of it was spilled.”
Archie appeared now to carry out the cream to pour in the can.
“Whew! peppermint!” he whistled.
“Yes; cook has been using some here, and left the bottle uncorked.
Awful, isn’t it?”
“Thing flavoured this time?”
“Yes, Master Archie, it is. I flavoured it myself, and it’s all right.”
“Good girl. I shall be glad to have some properly flavoured cream of our
manufacture for once. Last year, seems to me, we didn’t get any in.”
The freezing of the cream went rapidly forward now. The three girls made
no remarks about the flavouring, each thinking to surprise the others by
the fact the flavouring had not been forgotten, after all.
Taking the can out, when the cream was frozen, removing the dasher, and
the accompanying tastings, were all important features of the operation.
To-day, however, as the critical moment drew near, mamma came out, and
said there were two wandering minstrels in Highland dress and with
Scottish bag-pipes, in front of the house. Of course they all wanted to
go and see them, so they gave the cream into cook’s charge and all
rushed off. When they returned half an hour later, they found, much to
their disappointment, that the ice-cream was all frozen and packed in
the moulds, to stand till the afternoon.
Making ice-cream had been such a long process that, by the time
everything was put away, a point mamma always insisted on, it was time
to dress for dinner.
The afternoon was rather uninteresting. Some one says that very early
risers are apt to be conceited all the morning and stupid all the
afternoon, and so the children found it. Year after year they had the
same experience, but the twelve months between destroyed the
recollection of everything but the excitement of early morning.
By half-past four, however, they began to brighten up again, for
ice-cream time approached.
This was the children’s day, and the rule was for them to wait on
themselves, so for some time they were busy bringing out plates and
spoons and doylies, and arranging cakes and crackers on the table on the
piazza, where the feast was always served. Cook took the ice-cream out
of the moulds for them, and put it on the ice-cream platter, and when
the grown-up people were all assembled and the party was ready, Maggie,
smiling broadly, appeared with it. The children all sat around with eyes
expectant and mouths watering, for this was their especial and
particular feast, and entirely unlike the ice-cream that was served
every Sunday for dessert.
The cream had certainly been beautifully frozen, and looked very
tempting on this hot afternoon. Marjorie officiated at the platter, and
distributed the dainty with a liberal hand.
Mamma tasted her dish, and set it down suddenly. Auntie, after one
trial, laid down her spoon, and coughed behind her hand as she caught
mamma’s eye. Two or three other guests present toyed with their spoons.
“This is for you, papa,” Marjorie said then, “and it’s a particularly
big dish, because you are so fond of it. There! isn’t that nice?”
“What under the canopy!” hastily exclaimed the doctor, eyeing his dish
in great surprise, after his first mouthful.
“What is it? isn’t it good?” inquired Cricket, anxiously, with a sudden
pang, as she remembered the peppermint.
“Good? it’s—it’s delicious. Only, why didn’t you flavour it?”
“Flavour it?” cried Marjorie and Eunice and Cricket, in a breath, “I
did!” Then each looked at the other.
“I put plenty of lemon in,” said Marjorie.
“I thought bitter-almond might be good,” began Eunice, looking
bewildered.
“I thought Marjorie had forgotten,” broke in Cricket, rapidly, “so I
thought I’d s’prise her, and I meant to put in some wintergreen, ’cause
wintergreen candy is very good, ’n’ I got in the peppermint, by mistake,
so I put in plenty of wintergreen afterwards, to cover it up.” She
confessed this all in a breath, looking very unhappy.
There was a shout.
“There’s no doubt, then, it is thoroughly flavoured; it must have been
my taste,” said the doctor, dryly. “I’m almost sorry I have been told,
for there is such a charm about the unknown. Do you remember what cook
said about her pumpkin pie, when your mother asked her receipt? ‘Shure,
there’s milk, an’ there’s eggs an’ there’s some punkin, but after all,
it’s principally ingrejiencies.’ Your ice-cream is really delicious, but
if I were asked my candid opinion I should say it was principally
ingrejiences.”
“May Zaidee and I have it all, then, mamma,” asked Helen, eagerly, “if
no one else wants it?” The twins had been eating up mamma’s and auntie’s
cream with great relish. “We think it’s good.”
“Let them have all they want,” the doctor answered, laughing. “I’m sure
the amount of peppermint and wintergreen will counteract any possible
ill effect of so much cold.”
The older children were much disappointed, but bore it very well. The
combination of lemon extract and bitter-almond might have been endured,
but Cricket’s generous addition was altogether too much.
Archie and Will put their heads together for a few minutes, and then
Archie mounted a hassock and asked for attention.
“Now, mamma,” interrupted Eunice, “I know he is going to say something
horrid. Make him stop.”
“It isn’t horrid, ma’am, it’s poetic genius, that’s all.”
“Who flavoured up our nice ice-cream,
With lemon-essence by the ream?
Marjorie.”
“There! I knew he would,” said Eunice, resignedly.
Will took up the strain:
“And who next bitter almonds sought,
And poured in extract by the quart?
Eunice.”
“Be still, you wretch!” cried Eunice, attacking him in the rear with a
cushion.
“Come on, if you want to fight,” said Will. “It’s Archie’s turn, now.”
“Who added essence without stint,
The wintergreen and peppermint?
Our Cricket, oh!”
And both boys gave vent to a prolonged howl of anguish.
“Oh, do go on!” cried Cricket, clapping her hands. “It’s splendid.”
Both boys continued in concert:
“Who feasted on this luscious mess,
And groans each struggled to suppress?
All of us!”
Fortunately just here the supper-bell rang, and they all trooped in.
CHAPTER VII.
MOPSIE.
It was on the very next day that Mopsie saved Eunice’s life. Why, I
haven’t said a word yet about Mopsie, have I? and the dear little fellow
ought to have a whole chapter all to himself.
The pets at Kayuna were quite as important, in the children’s eyes, at
least, as they were themselves, and equalled them in number. There was
Donald’s great St. Bernard, stately and dignified, Kaiser William by
name. He was a splendid fellow, but would follow no one but his master.
The pigeons, lovely, soft, fluttering things, belonged to Marjorie, who
fed them faithfully. They would come at her call in troops and light on
her shoulders, and peck at bits of bread which she held between her
teeth.
Eunice’s pet was a beauty, for it was a snow-white pony, which her
godmother had given her the summer before. It carried her in the saddle
beautifully, or was harnessed to the little light cart which held two.
Fine times the children had with Charcoal, named so, on Donald’s advice,
because it wasn’t black.
The twins owned between them the cunningest and brightest little Scotch
terrier, named Duster, from his feathery tail, which, of course, he
always carried straight up in the air. Another dog, named Dixie, of no
particular breed, but of very social nature, belonged to the family in
general, though Cricket laid claim to him, until she had Mopsie.
And who was Mopsie? It is rather a humiliating fact, but I may as well
confess it at once—Mopsie was, or had been, nothing but a poor little
circus pony.
Cricket, at first, was rather ashamed of Mopsie’s past history,
considering that Eunice had her beautiful Charcoal, who had been born
and brought up in a gentleman’s stable. The boys teased her about her
“aristocratic pony,” till she would say, rather indignantly, “I don’t
care. It doesn’t matter a bit what a person does, if he does it just the
best he can, mamma says so. And it’s just the same with a pony. I _know_
my Mopsie was the nicest horse in the circus, for the men said so.
There!”
But after this particular day no one ever teased her again.
If Mopsie could have spoken, he could have told them many stories of his
circus life. He was, certainly, a very bright, sweet-tempered little
creature, and knew no end of tricks, more indeed, than the children ever
suspected, for there was no one to tell him to do them, or who knew what
he could do. He could sit up like a dog, and hop around on his hind
legs, keeping time to music,—this had been called dancing on the
programme,—and jump through hoops, and many other things.
For a long time the children wondered why, as soon as the cart, to which
he was harnessed, stopped, he would try to turn himself around beside
the wheels. But this was a trick he had been taught. The clown in the
circus would drive him round and round the ring, and as soon as he
stopped, it was pony’s business to turn himself directly around, for the
front wheels were low enough to slip under the cart. Then the clown
would pretend he couldn’t find him, because the pony was no longer in
front, and he would pretend to look down in the sawdust for him, and in
his pocket, saying, “Now, where _is_ Alexander the Great gone?” for that
was pony’s name before he was Mopsie.
Another thing he had been trained to do was to pick up and carry really
heavy things in his teeth, and run away with them, while the clown ran
after him, shouting “Stop!” but the little fellow knew he must not stop
till he heard his name as well.
All these, and many more tricks Mopsie had been in the habit of doing
before great crowds every afternoon and evening.
At last came one afternoon that Mopsie little thought was to be his last
in the circus. The circus had come to Wellsboro’, and Mike, Doctor
Ward’s groom, had gone to see it. He was so fond of horses that he was
always hanging around the tents where they were kept, and making friends
with the hostlers.
Suddenly a great commotion arose. One of the big horses, which was
always ugly, got perfectly wild, from the bites of horse-flies, it was
afterward thought, and began kicking furiously right and left, plunging
and rearing till the frightened men could not hold him. Poor little
Alexander the Great was being groomed and harnessed for the ring; as the
maddened horse broke loose, pony and groom were kicked by those great,
heavy hoofs, till the life was almost crushed out of both of them.
In the confusion, after the horse was secured, nobody noticed poor
little Alexander, who lay moaning and quivering in agony. The man beside
him was lifted and taken away, and then somebody bent over the pony.
“He’s done for, poor little fellow,” the man said, pityingly. “I’ll put
him out of his misery,” and he drew a pistol.
Then Mike came forward. “Don’t shoot him yit. Lemme look at the loikes
of ’im.”
Mike was a born horse-doctor, and to his practised eye the pony was not
so seriously hurt but that there was hope of saving him.
“Will you let me have him?” he asked, after feeling the pony all over
very carefully. “He’ll take a sight o’ doctorin’, ’n’ he won’t be no
good in a cirkis agin.”
“Take him, and welcome,” the manager said, hastily. “We’ve no time for
sick horses,” and he swore again at the horse who had done all the
mischief.
So Mike got an old door, and one of the men helped him lift poor little
suffering Alexander on it. Then he hired a cart somewhere, and so the
pony came to Kayuna.
This had been about the first of May. The children were not allowed to
see the new arrival for a week or two, for he was not a very pleasant
object. His legs were bound up, and his poor sides were all covered with
“splarsters,” as Zaidee announced once, in great excitement, when she
had taken a stolen peep.
At last the little visitor was in a condition to be seen, for, thanks to
Mike’s good care, he mended fast. The “splarsters” were taken off,
though his legs were still in splints, and Mike groomed his shaggy,
uneven coat as best he could.
Cricket and Eunice saw him first, and were perfectly delighted with him.
He was even smaller than their dear Charcoal. After that they were his
constant visitors, feeding him with apples and sugar, and petting him
till poor little Alexander must have wondered if he had died and gone to
the horse-heaven.
Then came the exciting day when the last splinter and bandage were
removed, and pony, a little weak and uncertain as to his hoofs, but very
frisky as to his head, was brought out into the yard.
Mike, meantime, had had a private interview with papa, and following
that, one with Cricket.
The result was, that a very happy little girl raced down to the barn,
with Eunice and Dixie close behind.
“Oh, you dear, darling old Mopsie,” Cricket cried out, flinging her arms
about his rough little head. “You’re my ownty-donty pony. Eunice has
Charcoal, and now I have you,” and she hugged him again and again.
When she released him, what did that cunning pony do but offer her his
front hoof to shake!
“Oh, you dear, dear, thing!” she shrieked. “Mike! Mike! see that! he
wants to shake hands,” for the pony sociably offered his other hoof.
“Yis, miss,” said proud Mike, grinning from ear to ear. “He’s been a
cirkis-pony, and knows a deal o’ tricks, I dessay.”
Eunice dived into the stables, and in a moment reappeared, leading her
little snowy Charcoal. The two ponies were a decided contrast—the one so
clean, and well-groomed and white, and the other, rough and black, with
shaggy, uneven coat.
“Yours is awfully cute,” said Eunice, with an arm over her pony’s neck,
“but he can’t compare with my Charcoal. He’s nothing but a circus-pony,
after all.”
That was not like Eunice, and she did not mean to hurt Cricket’s
feelings. It was only that her own pony looked so fresh and dear to her.
But Cricket fired up at once.
“You’re my own Mopsie,” she cried, hugging her black pony again, “and no
other pony could be half so cunning and smart. Charcoal isn’t a bit
smart, Eunice, you know he isn’t.”
A quarrel seemed close at hand, right over those dear ponies, which
stood rubbing noses in the friendliest way. But Eunice was too generous
to hurt Cricket’s feelings knowingly, and she said, quickly,
“Mopsie does look awfully bright, Cricket, and I think that’s a good
name for him. I wonder what his name really was?”
But Mike did not know, so Mopsie was christened thus on the spot, and
Mopsie he remained to the end of the chapter.
“When can I ride him, do you think, Mike?” asked Cricket, eagerly, as
she fed him sugar.
“Shure, Miss Scricket, an’ I’m thinkin’ it’ll be next week ye’ll be
afther ridin’ him, if he kapes on a’mendin’.”
After this, Cricket hated any mention of the fact that Mopsie was, or
had been, a circus-pony, though she stoutly insisted that it “didn’t
make a bit of difference, so long as he circused as well as he could.”
Mike took the best of care of him, and a month made a wonderful
difference with the little fellow. Constant and careful grooming made
his rough hair smoother, and with the vaseline and other things that
Mike knew of, his uneven coat began to lose the marks of scars and
“splarsters.”
CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT MOPSIE DID.
It was a proud day for Cricket when the saddle was first put on the back
of her very own pony, and Mike mounted her. Not that she needed to be
mounted, as a rule, for she was quite equal to grasping the shaggy mane,
and scrambling up into the saddle herself, but this was such an
important occasion that ordinary methods would not do.
Mike was quite as proud as Cricket was, of the black pony. To think that
but for his kindness and devoted care poor little Mopsie’s bones would
now be whitening in some field! And not only that, but to think his
favourite Miss “Scricket” now had a pony of her own, all owing to him.
He had polished up Mopsie to the last degree, and now that the pony had
its pretty little saddle on, just like Charcoal’s, the two did not make
a bad pair.
All the younger fry gathered to watch this first mounting. Dr. Ward was
there, also, for he did not know whether Mopsie had ever carried a
little girl before, and he wanted to make sure that everything was
right. The children cantered up and down the avenue to the gates and
back, and even Charcoal seemed to think that two ponies were much more
fun than one. Mopsie was a bit stiff at first, but he soon grew more
limber, and at last papa said that they might ride down the road,
outside the gates.
“Hurrah! get up, Mopsie!” cried Cricket, bringing the whip lightly down
on Mopsie’s black flank, and tightening the rein a little. To her great
surprise Mopsie began to rise on his hind legs, till his front feet
waved in the air, and then he gravely stalked away on the two legs, with
Cricket wildly clutching his mane.
“Get down, Mopsie,” she shrieked. “Why, I’m falling off. Get down this
minute.”
Papa and Mike both ran to the rescue, but knowing little Mopsie seemed
to feel that, after all, this was not what was expected of him, so he
slowly lowered his front feet, and stood quietly waiting for further
orders.
Mike was full of apologies for his pet.
“It’s the way ye drew the line, Miss Scricket,” he said, anxiously.
“It’s only wan of thim cirkis-tricks. See! he don’t mane no harm, at
all, at all.”
“Oh, it’s lots of fun,” cried Cricket, excitedly, when she discovered
that Mopsie evidently thought he was only doing his duty. “I wish I
could make him do it again.” But just what pull of the rein was
necessary to tell him to rear she could not find out, though she jerked
the patient pony’s head this way and that.
“But I’m afraid to have you go out of the yard, my little girl,” said
papa, “for Mopsie might rear like that any time and throw you.”
“Oh, no, papa, really,” pleaded Cricket, “for he goes up so slowly, that
now that I know what’s coming, I’m not a bit afraid, and he comes right
straight down.”
However, papa would not consent to Cricket’s making a circus-rider of
herself till she understood Mopsie a little better, so there were two or
three weeks of riding within the grounds. At last there came a day when
papa said that he thought Mopsie was now enough accustomed to a little
girl’s riding him to go straight along the road.
It was the day after Fourth of July when the children took their first
ride out into the country. Dr. Ward, mounted on his big gray horse, went
with them for some distance, and then gave them permission to ride along
the lake-road and so home, while he rode further on, on some business.
It was lovely riding along by the lake-road, where it was all cool and
shady, on that hot morning. The edge of the road sloped rather steeply
to the lake, but most of the way there was an old fence along there. In
some places it was broken down. Now and then a fire-cracker in the
distance made both ponies jump a little. Charcoal, especially, was very
nervous about fire-crackers, for once some one had fired off a whole
package right under his nose, and he had been dreadfully frightened.
Presently the little girls came to a place where some lovely, rare
flowers were growing by the lake side, and Cricket jumped off her pony
to get them. It was one of the places where the fence was broken down,
so she slipped down the bank to pick the flowers, leaving Mopsie
cropping a tuft of grass above.
As she did so, three small boys, who were in hiding in the bushes,
suddenly jumped up and fired off a whole pack of crackers, flash! bang!
right under Charcoal’s sensitive nose.
There was a scream from Eunice, Charcoal jumped sideways, and in a
moment Charcoal, Mopsie and Eunice rolled down the steep bank, and were
struggling in the water, while Cricket stood horrified on the bank. The
water was very deep there, even close to the shore, and the force of the
fall carried all three some distance out. Cricket and the very
frightened small boys set up shriek after shriek, but the road was very
lonely, and no houses were near. No one was in sight to render aid.
Charcoal was nearest the shore, and swam to the bank; he scrambled up
like a dog, and stood shivering on the brink, much too frightened to do
anything but stand still.
Here, in this strait, Mopsie’s circus-training came to the front. As he
and Eunice both rose to the surface, she struggling and screaming, the
knowing little pony caught her dress in his teeth, and began to swim
slowly towards the shore with his burden. Fortunate, now, that he had
learned to carry heavy things in his teeth like a dog. It was only a
short distance he had to swim, and in a few minutes he was near enough
for Cricket, steadying herself by an overhanging branch, to reach
forward and help draw Eunice in. Mopsie scrambled up as Charcoal had
done, and stood quietly shaking himself, like a big Newfoundland dog.
For a few minutes the children could do nothing but hug each other and
cry. Then Cricket exclaimed, “Oh, you dear, darling old Mopsie! you
saved my Eunice’s life,” and hugged her brave little pony tightly around
its wet neck. Then Eunice put her dripping arms around it, too.
“You dearest Mopsie,” she half-sobbed, “I’m so glad you were a
circus-pony, for just a plain horse mightn’t have been able to hold my
dress so, and I’m going to love you just as much as I do Charcoal.”
Two very funny-looking children rode into the yard a little later. Great
was the excitement when the story was told, and Mopsie had enough
petting and praise and sugar to turn an ordinary horse’s head. Doctor
Ward said that, without doubt, Eunice would have drowned but for
Mopsie’s training to catch and hold things in his teeth, and besides
that, he said that the little fellow’s circus life had probably done for
him what education does for people generally—made him readier and
quicker.
After that Cricket had the best of it when anybody teased her about
riding a circus-pony, for she would exclaim, “I don’t care if he was. He
saved Eunice’s life, for papa said so. And a plain horse wouldn’t have
known how.”
And Eunice would add: “We love him all the better for it, because he had
to learn how to be an every-day pony, and he’s learned it so well.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE KITTENS.
“Now, what do you s’pose those children are up to?” asked Cricket, with
much interest.
“Those children,” referred to in that particular tone, always meant the
twins, Zaidee and Helen.
Cricket and Eunice sat in an apple-tree, on a low, gnarled limb,
munching harvest apples. It was after dinner, and they had not yet
decided what to do with their afternoon. It was too hot to ride, and
besides, they had been out on their ponies all the morning.
Trooping along the lane beneath them went the nursery party, Zaidee and
Helen, with their nurse, Eliza, who held little Kenneth by the hand.
With them was their little playmate, Sylvie Craig, with her nurse, who
was wheeling Baby Craig in his carriage.
Zaidee and Sylvie swung between them a good-sized covered basket, which
did not seem to be heavy, although they carried it with great care. All
were chattering and laughing in high glee.
“Did you ever do it?” the girls heard Sylvie ask. “It’s the dratest fun.
Zey all swim round, and you pote ’em wiv a stit.”
“Does they squeal?” queried Zaidee, earnestly.
“No-o, I don’t zink so,” returned Sylvie, doubtfully.
“I sawed Thomas cut off a chicken’s head once,” piped up Helen.
“I’ve seen lots of chiten’s heads tut off,” said Sylvie, in a superior
way.
“What are they going to do?” wondered the girls in the apple-tree, as
the group passed down the lane.
“They’re going to the brook,” said Cricket, peering after them. “Let’s
go and see.”
“Don’t let them see us,” cautioned Eunice. “I b’lieve they’re up to some
mischief. Keep behind the hedge.”
Eunice and Cricket followed the group at a little distance.
[Illustration: EUNICE AND CRICKET WATCHING THE OTHER CHILDREN.]
The children stopped by the brook and the older girls watched their
proceedings with much interest from behind the hedge. The two nurses,
both young girls, sat down on the grassy slope and began to talk,
without noticing the little ones much. The brook was wide just there,
and quite deep with recent rains. Overhanging willows lined its banks,
and made it cool and shady.
The children opened their basket.
“What _have_ they got there?” whispered Eunice, craning her neck, as
Sylvie suddenly said,—
“Don’t open it yet. We must det some stits.”
Sticks abounded, and each child armed herself with a stout one. Then
Sylvie lifted the cover, and took out four little squirming, week-old
kittens, with their eyes still shut.
“Now,” directed Sylvie, eagerly, “you frow one in _so_. Oh, see it bob!
frow in anovver one, Zaidee, and pote ’em down when zey turn up,”—and
suiting the action to the word, she poked down the helpless little
bobbing head of the unfortunate kitten.
“I’m afraid it hurts them,” said tender-hearted Helen.
“Oh, no, it doesn’t,” insisted Sylvie. “’Tause I heard mamma tell Dennis
to drown zem her own self. Doesn’t hurt, really.”
And Helen, thus reassured, threw in the wretched little black kitten she
held, and stood ready with her stick.
“Let me frow one in,” cried three-year-old Kenneth, much excited,
picking up one helpless little straggler, and pitching it eagerly into
the water. “Pote it down, Zaidee!”
Eunice and Cricket were so much amazed at this blood-thirsty sight, that
at first they simply stared. But when little Kenneth pushed down the
heads of the helpless victims, Eunice recovered herself and rushed to
the rescue.
“Why, you naughty, naughty children,” she said, in her severest tones,
“to drown the poor little kittens! How would you like me to poke you
down under the water like that, Kenneth?”
“Sylvie says it doesn’t hurt ’em,” said Kenneth, opening his big blue
eyes.
“Of course it hurts to be thumped on the head,” said Eunice. “Eliza, you
ought not let them do so.”
“Oh, law! them kittens don’t mind,” said the nurse, carelessly. “They’ll
never know what killed ’em.”
“Mamma told Dennis to drown zem, her own self, she did,” objected
Sylvie, clinging to her stick.
“Dennis doesn’t drown them that way, goosie,” explained Eunice. “He ties
them up in a bag, and puts a stone in it, and they all drown so fast
that they never know it. It’s cruel to hit them that way, you naughty
little things, and you must promise never to do it again.”
The children, subdued by Eunice’s sharp words and older-sister
authority, duly promised, very gravely, though Sylvie could not resist a
last sly rap. The little, helpless, bobbing things by this time floated
quietly on the surface, and one by one the little bodies drifted beyond
reach of the children’s sticks.
Then Kenneth, who was only a baby, began to whimper.
“I didn’t mean to hurt ze tittens,” he sobbed. “Would it have hurted ’em
wivvout we poted ’em, Tritet?”
“I guess not,” said Cricket, comforting her pet. “P’rhaps it didn’t hurt
them so very much this time, only remember, you must never do it again.”
“No, me won’t ever pote ’em aden,” promised Kenneth.
Then, this part of the afternoon’s programme being over, the children
ran away further along the stream to play, while Cricket and Eunice sat
down on the bank, skipping stones. Baby Craig slept peacefully in his
carriage, and the nurses gossiped and crocheted together.
Presently the girls went a little distance down the bank, and crossed on
the stepping-stones. Lovely cardinal flowers grew in abundance further
up, and they picked big bunches of them. Faintly, from some distance up
the stream, came the children’s voices, but they were out of sight of
the older ones, on account of the overhanging bushes that bordered the
stream above them, on both sides. An hour of the sultry afternoon
slipped by. The girls still sat idly by the brookside, for it was far
too hot for the least exertion. At last, Eliza, who was not usually so
careless, suddenly bethought herself of her neglected charges.
“Miss Eunice,” she called across the stream, coming up opposite to where
the girls sat, “have you seen the children?”
“They went up the brook, I think, ’Liza, and I have not thought of them
since. I hope nothing has happened to them,” said Eunice, anxiously.
“Oh, I guess not,” returned Eliza, but she set off rapidly up the
stream. Some distance beyond there was a tiny cottage, where there lived
a poor widow, a young Scotchwoman, with several little children. Eliza
had sometimes taken the twins there, and it occurred to her that they
might have wandered there now by themselves.
But in another minute the little ones came in sight, running in great
excitement.
“Elspeth falled in the water,” shrieked Helen, while still far off.
Elspeth was the Scotchwoman’s two-year-old baby. “We sawed her fall in.”
Cricket and Eunice were across the stepping-stones in a moment, and flew
to meet the children.
“What do you mean?” they cried, while Mary Ann left Baby Craig in his
carriage to join them.
“She falled in,” repeated Zaidee, breathlessly.
“And we didn’t pote her wiv a stit,” struck in Sylvie, virtuously.
“But who pulled her out?” asked Eliza.
“Nobody pulled her out, ’Liza. She’s all in the water.”
“_Now!_ In the water now? Is she drowned?” cried the others, horrified.
“I dess her’s drownded dead,” said Sylvie, cheerfully. “But me didn’t
pote her, truly. Her dust fell in.”
“I _sawed_ her fall in,” put in Kenneth. “It was all deep.”
“And she kicked in the water,” added Helen, “and by ’n’ by she sailed up
to the top, just like the kitties.”
CHAPTER X.
ELSPETH.
Eunice and Cricket exchanged frightened glances.
“Where is she now?” repeated Mary Ann, also looking scared.
“In ze water, ’tourse,” returned little Sylvie, impatiently. “Her sailed
down ze water all zis way, an’ zen ze bushes taught her, an’ her
touldn’t sail any more.”
“Listen! what’s that?” cried Eunice, with white lips.
A distant cry was becoming nearer and louder.
“My bairn! my bairn!” rang a wailing voice.
Around the curve of the brook ran a wild-eyed woman, wringing her hands.
Across the fields, attracted by her cries, two men came hurrying.
“She drowned! my bairn is drowned!” the hapless mother cried, pushing
back her falling hair.
“I sawed her fall in!” cried Zaidee.
The questioning men and the half-crazed mother stopped at the child’s
words, and gathered around the little ones. They grew frightened and
incoherent at the storm of questions that assailed them.
Evidently a tragedy had taken place under the children’s very eyes. They
had seen little Elspeth, when they were way up the bank, they said,
chasing yellow butterflies. She had run towards the brook, through the
tall grass, and she must have plunged straight into the water. This was
the main stream of the Kayuna, and the current ran swift and deep there.
The children saw her, and ran to the spot, but they never thought of
giving the alarm, for they had no idea what drowning really is. As they
said, “the baby kicked in the water, and then it sailed up to the top.”
Their chief idea was that they must not poke it with a stick.
They had watched the little creature “sailing” down the brook, and had
run along the bank beside it.
“Zere it is,” Sylvie suddenly broke off, pointing to the curve above.
“It’s under the bushes,” Zaidee said, beginning to cry with nervousness
and fright. The excited group around, all talking and asking questions
at once, the frantic mother catching first at one child and then at
another, Mary Ann crying and groaning in true Irish fashion, completely
bewildered the little ones, who had not the faintest idea of the
importance of what they had seen.
As Zaidee pointed, one of the men sprang into the water, knee deep.
“I see it!” he cried, and pressed forward through the water.
The poor mother was plunging after him when the other man forcibly held
her back.
“Let me go to my bairn,” she cried, struggling.
“We’ll bring your bairn,” he said, motioning to the two nurses to hold
her back, while he tore up the bank.
The brushes grew thick there, and the baby had been caught underneath in
such a way that it could not be seen from the steep bank. Excepting that
the children had known where it had stopped, it would have been much
longer before it was found.
The man on the bank plunged down through the bushes and both men were
lost to view.
Five minutes of breathless waiting passed, while even the poor mother
only moaned brokenly, and then they reappeared, one of them bearing the
little drowned baby.
“Run for your pa, children,” cried Eliza, but Cricket’s swift feet were
already flying along to the house.
The group stood in awed silence as the bearer tenderly deposited the
dripping little burden on the grass. It looked as if it were asleep. The
golden curls clung to its white forehead, and the little face was still
rosy.
The poor mother cast herself down beside it in a perfect abandonment of
grief, kissing its lips, and clasping the lifeless little form to her
breast, as she cried, ceaselessly,—
“Oh, my bairn! my bairn!”
Running at full speed down the lane came Dr. Ward, with blankets, and
close behind him followed his wife, with a whiskey-flask. In a moment he
was among them, and had caught the child from the mother. He tore off
its clothes and put his ear to its heart.
“There is hope, I think,” he said, quickly, and with that, although the
baby had been so long under water, there began a desperate fight for the
little life. The doctor worked with an intensity that would not yield to
despair, rubbing and working the little round, white limbs.
The minutes wore on, and the helpless onlookers could only stand by in
breathless silence. The doctor gave brief, quick orders which willing
hands executed. He carried the baby into the direct glare of the
scorching August sun, which beat down with fierce intensity on his
unprotected head. But no one heeded the sickening heat. The poor mother
sat by, passively now, like a stone, her hands clasped round her knees,
in dull despair. Her long hair, yellow as the baby’s own, rolled in a
rough mass down her back, torn and tangled by the bushes, and her wild
eyes watched the doctor’s every movement.
The work of rubbing the tiny, white body, and working the little arms up
and down, went steadily on, one relieving another, but thus far with no
avail.
Half an hour passed. The doctor worked on with set lips.
“Better give it up, sir,” one of the men ventured at last, stopping to
wipe his streaming forehead. The doctor’s face was dark purple, and
every vein was swelling. At the suggestion of stopping their efforts,
the mother uttered a low moan, and stretched out her hands imploringly.
“Work on,” the doctor made answer, briefly. “Work its arms steadily,
Johnson. Rub evenly, Emily,” he said, bending again to breathe into the
baby’s parted lips. He raised his head suddenly, then bent his ear again
to its heart.
“Thank God!” he breathed. A thrill of life ran through the baby’s
frame. There was a faint quiver of its eyelashes, a gasp for
breath,—another—and the baby stirred. Elspeth was saved.
There was a moment of intense silence, and then the mother threw herself
forward and clasped her baby to her bosom with a hungry cry of joy that
no one present ever forgot.
Papa’s feelings when he learned that his own little ones had seen the
accident may be imagined, and then and there he gave the children a few
instructions that even the youngest ones never forgot.
The mother had missed her baby, but she thought nothing of it at first,
for the little thing often strayed some distance from the house. At
last, growing anxious, she went out again and looked around. Down the
bank she saw a little child in a pink dress, which she thought was her
little one. It was really a glimpse of Helen in her little pink frock.
The mother went back, thinking the child was safe.
After a time she went out to call it home, when, to her horror, she saw
her baby’s sunbonnet caught on a low, overhanging branch, with nothing
else to be seen; and then knowing the baby must have fallen in, she had
rushed, screaming for help, down the bank in search of it.
Little Elspeth, wrapped in blankets, was carried to the doctor’s house
to be cared for further, and the next day she was playing about, as
round and rosy as ever.
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE GARRET.
The garret of the old stone house was a mine of wealth to the children.
It was a huge place, extending over the whole house. It had many
unexpected angles and sudden little descents of two or three steps in
different places, over the rambling additions.
Four generations of Wards had lived at Kayuna, and so there was a most
delightful accumulation in the garret. Of course there were lines of old
trunks, piled with ancient dresses and quaint bonnets dating from the
beginning of the century. There were stacks of old furniture in various
stages of going to pieces. There were piles of musty books, in
strange-smelling leather bindings. There were big bundles of
closely-tied up feather-beds, like huge, soft cannon-balls. These made
magnificent barricades when the children played that they were
bombarding forts.
It was as hot as mustard up there in the summer-time, of course, but the
children never minded the heat. Then there were the long, rainy days
that came occasionally, when it was a simple delight to scamper up there
directly after breakfast, to hear the rain pelting cheerfully on the
roof, and the wind whistling through the window-casings, “like a boy
with his hands in his pockets,” Cricket said.
The whole troop had been there one day. It had rained early in the
morning, and though it cleared up before eleven, the children played on
until they had quite exhausted their resources.
They had sailed across the ocean in search of America, in a huge old
sofa turned upside down. They had been shipwrecked, owing to a sudden
parting of the back and sides of their bark, and then they were chased
by cannibals, represented by Hilda and Edith Craig and an imaginary
host.
Little Kenneth, the usual victim on these occasions, had been caught and
prepared for a feast, till rescued by Cricket and Hilda in a valiant
charge.
They had played the Chariot Race in Ben-Hur, with Zaidee and Helen as
horses, harnessed to an old wheel-chair, with Edith as charioteer, while
Cricket drove a dashing pair, consisting of Eunice and Sylvie Craig.
Hilda and Kenneth were occupants of the amphitheatre, and cheered on the
contestants, as they raced around the great chimney in the centre of the
house.
That naturally suggested the burning of Rome, with Nero, personated by
Eunice, fiddling, as she sat on a very high and very insecure tower,
built of trunks and chairs and three-legged tables, while the
inhabitants of the city tore around to save their property.
Then they tied themselves up in bags, drawn over their feet and around
their waists, for tails, and played they were mermaids, disporting
themselves among the rocks and seaweeds, represented by boxes and old
drapery, properly arranged on one of the lower levels of the floor.
This lasted until Kenneth, trying to imitate the older girls in diving
off a bowlder on to a feather bed beneath, missed his balance and fell
entangled in the bag that served him for a tail. He bumped his poor
little head and made his nose bleed, and was borne off shrieking, by
Eliza, who just then appeared on the scene.
Then the Craigs and Hilda had to go home to dinner, and the twins went
out to play.
After dinner, Cricket and Eunice wandered up stairs to the garret again.
“What let’s do now?” asked Eunice, as they sat among the ruins of Rome.
“Why, let’s—” Cricket looked vaguely around. “Let’s dress up in those
clothes up there.”
Some old clothes of Dr. Ward’s, and of Donald’s, hung up on the wall.
“Oh, that will be fun,” cried Eunice, jumping down. “We haven’t dressed
up this summer, once.”
They slipped out of their gingham dresses and petticoats, and with much
giggling and merriment got themselves into the boys’ clothes.
The trousers were so long that they had to cut off the legs, to allow
their feet to come out at all, and the vests and coats were anything but
a tight fit.
“This coat is too fat for me,” Cricket said, dubiously, studying the
effect.
Eunice caught up a small pillow and stuffed it up behind Cricket’s back
under the coat.
“But now I look hump-backed,” objected Cricket, twisting herself double
to get a rear view.
“Never mind, we’ll play you are hump-backed,” returned Eunice, always
ready of resource, as she patted the pillow into a nice, round hump.
“We’ll play that we’re Italians, and you can be that poor little
Pickaninny, or whatever his name was, that mamma read us about last
night.”
“Then we’ll be tramps. Oh, let’s go out doors, and go round to the
kitchen and scare cook!”
This proposal was received with applause by Eunice.
“Wait till I slip down stairs into papa’s office, Eunice,” Cricket
suggested next, “and I’ll get some court-plaster to patch up our faces,
and no one will ever know us. We’ll have piles of fun!”
Cricket was gone a long time, and came back giggling and breathless.
“I heard some one in the hall,” she said, “so I didn’t dare go down
stairs, and I just got out of the bath-room window on to the office
roof, and I climbed down the trellis and went in the office window, and
just as I found the court-plaster case, I heard some one coming, so I
had to run like fury, and I just flew out the window, and didn’t I skip
up the trellis lively!” gasped Cricket, taking breath.
“Then I heard some one in the hall, so I had to stay in the bath-room
ever so long, and I thought they’d never go. And here’s the whole case,”
she said, producing it.
“But suppose that papa wants the case before we can get it back?” asked
Eunice, selecting a big piece.
“Hope to goodness he won’t, or I’ll get a wiggin,” said Cricket, calmly,
applying, as she spoke, a good-sized strip over one eye, while the
corner of Eunice’s mouth disappeared under a black patch.
“Oh, Cricket, how funny you look!” Eunice exclaimed, when she had
completed her own face. Cricket’s left eye had vanished, and two long
strips on the other side, right over her dimples, completely disguised
her. She had stuck a broad-brimmed, ragged hat on the back of her curly
head, and streaked what was visible of her face and her hands with soot
from the chimney.
“You are the funniest girl!” Eunice cried, fairly doubling up with
laughter, as Cricket extricated a little black paw from her voluminous
coat sleeve, and said, in a whining voice,—
“Please, ma’am, I’m a poor widdy, and I have seven small children, and
my wife is dead, and I’m blind and deaf and dumb, and I can’t talk on
account of my bad rheumatics, and will you give me some ice-cream and a
cup of coffee?”
After they had laughed themselves sore, they concluded that they were
ready to set out, so they stole cautiously down. Eunice had bundled her
long braid on top of her head under a battered old felt hat, jammed well
over her ears, and nobody would have known the two dirty little wretches
that crept quietly over the stairs. It was the middle of the afternoon,
and as everybody was napping, the coast was clear. They slipped out the
side door into the shrubbery, and through that to the road, climbing the
low stone fence. Then they came up the lane to the back door.
Cook was nodding on the shady back piazza, as the grotesque little
figures stole up the steps. Cricket crept softly up and laid a grimy
little finger on the end of cook’s unconscious nose.
Cook opened her eyes with a start.
“Howly Moses!” she howled, thinking she had the nightmare. “Get away wid
yer.”
“I’m a poor widdy,” whined Cricket, holding out her hand. “I’ve got
seven small children, and my back is so lame that I can’t talk.”
“He means he can’t work,” struck in Eunice. “He doesn’t understand
English very well, and he’s so deaf anyway, he can’t hear what he’s
saying,” she explained to cook, who sat staring.
“Please, mum, if you’ve any very nice chocolate pudding, I feel as if I
could eat a little,” said Cricket, with a remembrance of dessert. “I had
a very light breakfast,” folding her hands over the pit of her stomach.
“I’ll light-breakfast yer, yer young imperence,” growled cook, quite
awake now. “Git off these premises in the shake o’ a dyin’ lamb’s tail,
or I’ll know the raison whoy.” Cook was a large woman, and as she slowly
rose out of her chair, she towered like a mountain above the children,
who instinctively dodged her threatening hand.
“Git out of this, immijit! Shure I’ll have no tramps here.”
“We’re not tramps,” said Eunice, changing base. “We’re selling things.”
“It’s selling things ye are, are ye? and shure, where’s the things ye’re
afther sellin’?”
“We’re selling post-holes,” said Cricket, promptly, as her eye fell on a
particularly large hole near by, that had been freshly dug for a
clothes-post. “We’ve brought some with us.”
“Post-holes, is it?” cried cook, enraged, and suspecting a joke; “we’ll
see how yer like post-holes, drat yer imperence,” and before Cricket
could dodge, she had swung her by the shoulders off the steps, and
jammed her very forcibly into the hole.
“Sell post-holes again, will yer? I’ll sell yer post-holes for yer!”
cried cook, angrily.
“Stop, cook!” screamed Eunice, hanging on her arm; “it’s Cricket, cook,
and it’s me.”
Cook paused with uplifted arm, and Cricket, decidedly the worse for
wear, took the opportunity to scramble out of the hole, exclaiming,
“We’re only pretending, cook, and we truly didn’t mean to scare you so
badly.”
Cook looked down on the little figures, about a third as large as
herself, and laughed grimly.
“Scare me, is it? Shure, I think the shoe’s on the other fut. But you’re
always up to your tricks.”
“Oh, you didn’t really scare me,” said Cricket, “only you did hurt me a
little when you grabbed me by the nape of the arm. But I wouldn’t have
told if Eunice hadn’t.”
“But I didn’t want you to get hurt, Cricket. Come on, let’s go into the
orchard and get some harvest apples. Good-by, cook,” and the little
tramps ran off, hand in hand.
CHAPTER XII.
THE TRAMPS.
Once in the orchard, they felt as if their feet were on their native
heath, and they were up, in a twinkling, among the branches of their
favourite tree.
In the munching of apples they quite forgot that they were tramps, until
Cricket remarked that her hump made a most convenient pillow for her to
lean back against.
“These clothes are getting awfully hot, Cricket,” said Eunice. “I
wouldn’t be a boy for anything I can think of, to wear such things all
the time.”
“I think girls are nicer than boys, anyway,” remarked Cricket,
thoughtfully. “Girls are always smarter, and I think it makes boys mad.”
“Will always says if anything isn’t just right that we do, that it’s
just like a girl,” returned Eunice, in an aggrieved tone.
“Yes, boys are just so funny, but I don’t mind,” said Cricket,
philosophically.
“I’ve about made up my mind,” pursued Eunice, “that I sha’n’t get
married when I grow up. Husbands are such a ’sponsibility. Mamma, you
know, always fixes papa’s cravats for him, and he never, never goes to
the right drawer for his clean shirts. It’s so funny! Shall you get
married, Cricket?”
Cricket considered the question.
“I think,” she said, after some reflection, “that if I don’t go to
Africa as a missionary, that I’d rather be a widow with an only son.”
“But Cricket,” exclaimed Eunice, “you’d have to be married first if you
were a widow.”
“Why, so I should!” returned Cricket, much surprised. “I didn’t think of
that. You see, Aunt Kate and Harry have such nice times travelling round
together, and there’s Aunt Helen and Max, too. I was thinking of them,
and I forgot they were ever married.”
“I think I’ll be a doctor, like papa,” went on Eunice, “or else I’d like
to be a stage-driver. Whoa! get up there! So, boy!” she said, slapping
imaginary reins, for Eunice was a born horsewoman.
“These clothes _are_ awfully hot, Eunice,” said Cricket, returning to
the original topic.
“Let’s go and take them off now.”
Eunice was quite willing, so they clambered down, chattering and
laughing still.
At a little distance stood old Thomas, attracted by their voices. He had
been coming through the orchard, and he saw up in the tree what he
thought were two ragamuffins, stealing apples, and he was lying in wait
for their descent. As they slipped down, and swung off from a low
branch, he darted forward, and caught one of them in his arms. Of
course, it chanced to be Cricket.
“I’ve caught ye now, ye young rascal! I’ll teach yer to steal our
apples!”
“Why, Thomas!” cried Cricket, “don’t you know me?”
“Yer bet I know yer. I’ve been watchin’ for yer this long time back. I
’low I’ll give yer a trouncin’ that yer’ll remember for one while, yer
young scallawags!” Thomas cried, holding the struggling child by the
shoulder, and bringing his stick whack across her back. The big pillow
saved her from the blow, and Eunice again flew to the rescue. She
managed to get hold of the stick, and clung to it with both her strong
little hands.
“Don’t you know us, Thomas?” both children cried. “We’re not stealing
apples; they’re ours.”
“Yourn, be they? I’ll teach yer if they’re yourn, yer young impidence!”
Thomas cried, angrily, drowning the children’s protests in his loud
tones. “I’ve been on the lookout fer ye, stealin’ my apples and melins,
and garden truck. I’ll hev ye up before the doctor. He said he saw two
strange boys scootin’ round the orchard ’sarternoon; and now I’ve caught
yer, I’ll teach yer to steal apples and sich,” shaking her till her
teeth knocked together, and her arms flew about like a wind-mill.
Then he tightened his clutch upon the unfortunate Cricket, who was quite
overcome by this second attack, and grasping Eunice by the arm, he
started off, dragging the protesting children.
“Let us _alone_, Thomas,” screamed Cricket, at the top of her lungs.
“We—’re—not—boys—at—all.”
“Yer don’t come none o’ yer stuff over me,” was all the answer Thomas
vouchsafed, still dragging them on with relentless hands.
“But it’s Cricket,” cried that victim, despairingly.
Thomas dropped his hold so suddenly that Cricket sat down very
unexpectedly. Eunice pulled off her battered felt hat, and her long
braid fell down her back.
Thomas, who had been completely taken in, stared at them.
“Why didn’t ye say so before?” he said, at length. “Gittin’ yerselves up
in such rigs that yer own mar wouldn’t ha’ knowed ye. Kep’ a sayin’
‘We’re not boys, we’re not boys,’ when anyone with half an eye could see
ye was. Henderin’ me outer half an arternoon’s work,” and Thomas went
off, disgusted.
The children looked at each other and burst out laughing. Their disguise
had been altogether too successful. Cricket rubbed her shoulder
comically.
“I guess Thomas’s fingers are tipped with steel,” she said. “I know I’m
all black and blue.”
“Poor Cricket,” said Eunice, sympathetically. “First you were jammed
into a hole and then you were shaken to jelly. I don’t see why he didn’t
grab me.”
“It’s a peculiar concidence,” said Cricket, meaning coincidence. “No
matter who’s around, _I_ always am grabbed. Let’s go and get some
plums.”
There were some choice early plums near the front of the house, and the
children gathered a good supply and retired into a little rustic arbour
to eat them. Presently a carriage full of callers rolled up the avenue.
“Dear me; it’s the Saunders,” said Cricket, peeping out, “and there’s
Irene Saunders. Gracious, Eunice, mamma’ll be looking for us in a
minute! Let’s skip round to the side-door as soon as they’re in the
house.”
But to their dismay, they heard the ladies say to the maid,—
“It’s so charming on this lovely piazza, that we will wait here for Mrs.
Ward.”
The piazza was a delightful place, twelve feet broad, and supplied with
lounging chairs of every description, a table, magazines, hammocks,
cushions and rugs, and sufficiently shaded by vines to soften the
sunlight. But the arbour where the children were was in full view.
“Shall we go, anyway?” asked Eunice, but before they could get out, Dr.
Ward came round the house, and greeted the guests on the piazza.
“Now, what shall we do?” said Cricket, in despair. “If papa sees us
he’ll certainly think we are tramps, too. I heard him tell Thomas, the
other day, that tramps were getting so thick, he might have to set the
dog on some of them. I don’t think I _could_ stand any more knocking
round.”
“Well, let’s wait,” said Eunice, for there seemed to be nothing else to
do.
Just then Mrs. Ward appeared, and after a moment there were inquiries
for Cricket and Eunice. The children were near enough to hear every
word.
“I want my sister to see your little flock, Mrs. Ward,” said Mrs.
Saunders, graciously, “for you know we all think they are the
show-children of the neighbourhood.” Mrs. Saunders was a woman of much
means and little cultivation, who had lately taken a summer home in
Wellsboro.
Accordingly the twins and Kenneth were soon produced, for they were
fresh from the nurse’s hands.
“And Cricket?” said Mrs. Saunders, again, presently. “She is such a
charming child—so original and interesting.”
“Oh!” groaned Cricket, in the arbour.
“Children,” said Mrs. Ward to the twins, “you may go, please, and see if
you and Eliza can’t find Cricket and Eunice. Kenneth, you take Irene
down to the flower-beds, and you may pick a big bunch of nasturtiums.”
The nasturtium bed was dangerously near the arbour. Cricket and Eunice
scarcely breathed. The little ones picked the flowers and chatted
together.
“What a pretty little house,” said Irene, presently, noticing the
arbour. “Is it your house, Kenneth? What’s in it?” She pushed apart the
vines and peeped through the lattice.
The next moment the grown people were startled by the little ones’ cries
of terror. Frightened by the unexpected sight of the queer-looking
creatures in the arbour, they ran screaming toward the house.
“There!” said Cricket, desperately. “We might as well go out. Children
are the curiousest things.”
“There’s dretful things there!” screamed Irene, flying to her mother.
Dr. Ward came quickly down the steps to investigate.
Then he stopped and stared in astonishment; and so did everybody else,
as the grotesque little figures came slowly out of the arbour.
“It’s only me, papa,” Cricket said, dejectedly; “we have been
dressing-up.”
By this time they were veritable scare-crows. Cricket’s hump was well
wedged up under one shoulder, and soot, dirt and court-plaster, combined
with the effects of the heat, made a little black-a-moor of her. Her hat
hung over one ear, and her curly crop was all on end. Eunice’s long hair
was loosened from its braid, and hung over her back in a rough, black
mass.
Cutting off the trousers to make them short enough had left the upper
part of them so very long that walking was difficult, except by a
constant hitching up of the band, and their slender little legs looked
like very small clappers in very big bells.
The doctor kept his gravity with difficulty, and the guests looked on in
polite astonishment at the remarkable apparitions, for a moment, and
then everybody laughed.
Mrs. Ward recovered herself immediately.
“Mrs. Saunders,” she said, resignedly, “this is Cricket, my charming and
original child, if you will pardon my repeating your words. But I am
sure this is a case when distance will lend enchantment to your opinion
of her. You may go, Cricket.”
And the shamefaced children gladly fled.
CHAPTER XIII.
MAMIE HECKER.
According to the children’s ideas, one of the funniest things about
living in the country was that eggs could be used as money.
It was such a delightfully simple way of getting candy. One could go to
the barns, find two eggs, and, with one in each hand, march off to the
corner grocery-store and get their value in chocolate-sticks, if you
liked chocolate. If not, why, four marsh-mallows, rather stale and
floury, to be sure, but just as nice for toasting, could be had for one
egg.
It always seemed remarkably like getting candy for nothing, and
“egg-candy,” as they called it, was certainly much more delicious than
that for which one paid just ordinary, every-day pennies.
There were many errands to be done in so large a family, and as mamma
believed that every child should be brought up to be useful, Cricket and
Eunice were very apt to be the “leggers,” as they called it. They
usually sold their services for an egg or two apiece.
“Well, young women,” said Dr. Ward, one morning, “I am in search of a
pair of messengers of just about your size.”
“All right, papa. You can have them on the usual terms,” answered
Cricket, importantly.
“You’re a regular pair of Jews, you two,” laughed papa, teasingly. “You
do nothing for nothing. Don’t you think you ought to run on errands for
love? I work for your board and clothes, and certainly you should do
errands for me.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” returned Cricket, hugging him. “I love you in return
for that, and I cut your magazines for you, too. That’s plenty of pay.
The errands are my persquisites. Cook says everybody ought to have
persquisites.”
“Oh, that’s it. On the ground of persquisites, then, I’m perfectly
willing to pay.”
“And then, of course,” went on Cricket, “I would be willing to do an
errand for nothing, very socionally”—she meant occasionally—“just to be
obliging, you know.”
“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” laughed papa. “Now, then, I want
you to go to Mr. Henry Barnes, and give him this note, and wait for an
answer. It’s important. Then, when you come back, you can go to the
barns and get two eggs apiece, and go to the store if you want to. When
you come back, mind. I want the note carried directly.”
“All right, sir,” answered Cricket, taking the note, and away scampered
the little “leggers” for their broad-brimmed hats.
It goes without saying that Cricket’s could not be found, and at last
she recollected she had dropped it yesterday, down into the dry well in
the lower pasture, and had forgotten to get it again.
“Can’t I wear my best one, mamma?” she begged.
“No, my dear, certainly not,” answered mamma, not knowing it was
necessary that the note should be taken immediately. “You know that is
the rule always. If you will be careless and leave your things about,
you must find them.”
So the children ran down to the lower pasture after the hat. It took
some time to recover it, and then they had forgotten that there was any
necessity for haste.
“Let’s take the ponies,” said Eunice, as they came back from the
pasture, “and ride around the lake-road home. I haven’t been there since
I fell in.”
“We can’t,” said Cricket. “Mike said yesterday that Charcoal’s shoe was
loose, and he must take him to the blacksmith’s this morning. I saw him
going right after breakfast, and he isn’t home yet.”
“Oh, bother! then we’ll have to walk,” said Eunice. But the walk looked
very inviting, as they turned out of the avenue into the shady road. It
wound down the hill, over the Kayuna, and swept around the curve out of
sight.
Just over the bridge was the farmer’s house, a low, white building, half
hidden in the trees. As the two little girls passed, they saw a
frowzyheaded child of seven swinging on the gate.
“H’lo!” she called. “Where you goin’?”
“Somewhere to make little girls ask questions,” replied Eunice,
teasingly.
“I’m goin’, too,” cried the child, scrambling down off the gate.
Now Mamie Hecker, the farmer’s little daughter, always wanted to “go
too,” whenever she saw the children pass. She was a whining, dirty,
disagreeable little thing, and always made herself very unpleasant. She
stuck to the children like a burr, and oftentimes they would go far out
of their way, if they saw her in the distance, to avoid her tagging
after them. So when she now got off the gate and came up, chewing her
sunbonnet string, as usual, the two little girls exchanged vexed
glances.
“You can’t come, too,” said Cricket, decidedly.
“Yes, I can, too, you’re goin’ to the store to get some candy an’ I want
some, too,” cried Mamie, dancing around them.
“No, we’re not, either. We’re going for a long walk, and you can’t come
one step,” said Eunice, looking very determined, as they walked on.
“I will come, too! I will!” cried Mamie, catching hold of her dress, and
trotting along.
“Don’t you dare touch my dress with your dirty little fingers,” cried
Eunice, pulling her fresh gingham frock indignantly out of Mamie’s
hands.
Mamie Hecker was one of those disagreeable children that give everyone a
desire to box their ears, no matter what they do. Truth to tell, she
generally deserved it, for her mother spoiled her. She was almost the
only person that upset Cricket’s sweet temper, and Cricket now looked as
if she could bite her.
“Oh, Cricket!” exclaimed Eunice, stopping short. “Have you papa’s note?”
“No, I thought you had,” said Cricket, in dismay.
“We must have left it by the dry well, then,” said Eunice, turning. “We
must go and find it. Now, we’re going home again,” she added to Mamie,
“so you needn’t tag any more. Horrid little tag-tail, anyway.”
Cricket and Eunice ran back up the road, jumped over the fence, and
raced across to the pasture. Much to their relief, the white envelope
still lay where they had left it.
Cricket picked it up, and put it safely in her pocket this time, and
then the children walked more deliberately back.
“Let’s get our eggs now,” Eunice said, as they passed near the barn,
“and skip around to the store the back way and get some candy, so we’ll
have it to eat on the way. I’m awfully hungry.”
“All right, and Mamie Hecker won’t see us, either,” assented Cricket,
entirely forgetting her father’s order to do the errand first. So they
turned towards the barns. They had to search some little time for eggs,
for the hens were late about their usual duties.
“Plaguey things,” said Cricket, “and there’s lots of hens standing
’round doing nothing.”
“Oh, here’s a nest,” called Eunice, “with two eggs in it, and here’s a
hen on—”
Cricket unceremoniously slipped her hand under the hen and whisked her
off. A warm white egg lay in the nest.
“She was just going to cluck, anyway,” said Cricket, as the hen clucked
indignantly. “Say, cut-a-cut-ca-da-cut, if you want to, and don’t scold
so. Your egg is all right. Here’s another in this nest. That’s four.
Come on.”
They went out the side-door of the barn, intending to run across the
orchard and into the back door of the store, and then to take a cut over
the fields to the main road again. This would bring them out below the
Heckers’ house.
To their great disgust, however, just outside the barnyard, they found
Mamie Hecker lurking.
“I seen yer,” she said, triumphantly. “You’ve got some eggs, and you’re
a-goin’ to the store to swap them for some candy. I’m a-goin’, too.”
“Now, Mamie Hecker,” said Eunice, stopping angrily, “you can go straight
home. You shan’t go one step with us.”
Mamie squinted up her impish little black eyes, provokingly.
“Road’s mine as much as yours,” she said, dancing around, in a way
peculiar to herself. “You can’t help my walkin’ in it.”
“You shan’t come with us,” said Eunice, stubbornly, ignoring that point.
“I’ll come as far as my father’s fence, any way,” said Mamie, walking
backwards in front of them.
“You’re a horrid, mean, little copy-cat,” said Cricket, wrathfully. “I
shouldn’t think you’d like to come where you’re not wanted.”
“I don’t keer,” returned Mamie, carelessly. “I want some candy.”
“We’ve given you candy, and we’ve _given_ you candy,” said Cricket, “and
the more we give you, the more you want. You shall not go one step with
us to-day.”
“I’ll go as far as my pa’s fence goes, anyway,” repeated Mamie, skipping
along, “’n’ I’ll go further if I wanter.”
“Mamie Hecker,” said Eunice, stopping suddenly, “if you go one step
further than your father’s fence,—I’ll spank you.”
CHAPTER XIV.
LYNCH-LAW.
Mamie looked considerably startled. Provoking little imp as she was, the
girls had never actually touched her.
“You dassent,” she said, unbelievingly, after a moment. “You dassent
tetch me.”
“Yes, I do dare, and I will,” said Eunice, firmly.
The children had been walking on through the orchard, during the
dispute, Mamie keeping along by the fence. They were close to the corner
now, where a gate opened.
“Don’t you follow us one step beyond that gate.” Eunice looked so
determined that Mamie thought she had better try to make terms.
“If I don’t go no further,” she said, hanging on to the gate, “will you
give me candy when you come back?”
“No, I won’t. We’re not coming back this way.”
“Then I’ll come, too,” said Mamie, suddenly deciding to risk it.
Cricket and Eunice went slowly through the gate. Eunice looked like a
high executioner.
Mamie hesitated a moment, then slowly followed after.
“I’m a-comin’,” she called, rashly, bringing her fate on her own head.
Eunice turned around very promptly.
“Cricket, please hold my eggs for me. Now, Mamie Hecker, if you step
over that stick,—you’ll see.”
Mamie immediately took a step forward, keeping her eye on Eunice,
intending to dodge at the last moment. Eunice stood perfectly still. She
was a tall, strongly-built girl, for her age, and quite capable of
carrying out her threat. Mamie Hecker had always been a thorn in her
flesh, and there were a thousand provoking things in the past to punish
her for.
Mamie took another step. Eunice looked indifferent. Another stop, and
she stood by the stick that was her Rubicon. Eunice looked up at the
sky. Mamie put her foot cautiously over the stick, ready to fly at
Eunice’s first movement. Eunice seemed not to see her. Mamie took
another step and was fairly over.
[Illustration: CRICKET AND EUNICE THREATEN TO PUNISH MAMIE.]
Eunice swooped down upon her like a hawk, and grabbed her skirt, as the
child dodged, shrieking. She caught her, struggling, and, with a deft
sweep of her arm, a trick learned in playing foot-ball with the boys,
she brought Mamie into approved spanking position, and then and there
gave her a punishment which she always richly deserved, but which it was
her mother’s place, not Eunice’s, to give her.
Mamie shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Eunice is killin’ me! Eunice is
killin’ me!”
“Do hold her mouth, Cricket,” said Eunice, spanking on. “Horrid little
thing! I’ll give her something to cry for, for once.”
Cricket came nearer, with her eggs still in her hand. Mamie’s wildly
kicking feet gave her a vigorous thump in the stomach, that unexpectedly
doubled her up like a jack-knife, crushing her eggs which she still held
in her hand.
“Children!” suddenly came a well-known voice behind them. “What does
this disgraceful scene mean?”
There stood Doctor Ward and Archie. Eunice’s hand dropped instantly, and
she released her kicking victim. Mamie righted herself, and flew at her,
screaming. Cricket rose slowly out of the dust, pushing back her hair,
with egg-stained hands, that left a yellow plaster on her curly pate.
Her blue cambric was smeared from neck to hem with rivers of egg.
Eunice’s hat was off, her hair streaming wildly over her shoulders, her
cheeks scarlet, and her eyes flashing. Mamie had torn her dress badly,
and both girls were a spectacle.
Doctor Ward caught Mamie by the shoulder, with a strong hand.
“Be quiet, child,” he said, sternly. “Girls, what does all this mean?
Have you been to Mr. Barnes?”
“No, papa,” faltered Cricket, suddenly conscience-smitten. In her
excitement, she had entirely forgotten that they had been sent on an
important errand.
“Not _yet_? And I sent you two hours ago. Where is the note?”
“Here it is,” and Cricket produced from her pocket a very crumpled
envelope, which looked as if it had seen hard service.
“This? Do you mean to tell me that this is the note I gave you? I
certainly can’t send this. Archie, will you go to Mr. Barnes for me, and
tell him—no, I must write him again. He should have had this an hour
ago, for he will be gone to town, and he should have had it before he
left. Cricket, you have put me in a very unpleasant position.”
“Oh, papa, I am so sorry!” said Cricket, miserably. “First we forgot
this note, and had to go back.”
“That’s a baby trick. I thought you were getting over that. Go on.”
“Then we thought we’d get the eggs and go to the store first, so as to
have the candy to eat on the way; and Mamie said she’d go, and I said
she shouldn’t, and Eunice said she’d spank her if she did,—horrid little
thing; and she did, and Eunice spanked her, and she kicked me and broke
my eggs,” finished Cricket, rapidly.
Doctor Ward’s mouth twitched a little under his moustache, although he
was seriously annoyed that the note had not reached its destination in
time. He knew very well what a torment Mamie was to everyone, and he did
not in his heart blame the girls for taking the law into their own
hands. However, he said:
“You have disobeyed me, children. I told you to go _directly_ with the
note, and get your candy afterwards. Your disobedience is the cause of
your very unladylike display of temper. You can both go to the house.
Mamie, you may go home also. See that hereafter you do not follow or
tease the girls, and I will see that they never touch you again.”
Cricket and Eunice walked soberly up to the house, meek enough in
appearance, but really deeply indignant. To be sent away in disgrace
before that horrid little Mamie Hecker! She was dancing around at a safe
distance, calling after them, jeeringly,—
“Oh, ho! Who’s caught it now! Spank me again, will yer?”
Dr. Ward marched the two little girls into the house, and ordered them
both off to be made presentable again, and then to come to the library.
Fifteen minutes later, two clean, but very solemn-looking children
presented themselves at the library door.
“Children,” began Dr. Ward, sternly, as they stood before him, “you have
disobeyed me. I told you to go _immediately_ on an errand, and you
loitered. The fact that the note happened to be important, does not
render your disobedience any more serious, remember, although it makes
the consequences more serious for me. You also gave way, both of you, to
a very unladylike display of temper. As a punishment, I shall keep you
apart all day. You must not even speak to each other. Eunice, you may go
to your mother, and she will give you something to do, and Cricket may
stay here in the library till dinner-time. You may learn something to
occupy your time. Let me see. You may sit down and learn your
Sunday-school lesson for to-morrow.”
“Oh, papa!” groaned Cricket, at the thought of really losing that
beautiful day out-of-doors. “Please, _please_ do something to us and let
us go! I’d truly rather you’d give me three hard slaps with your ruler.”
“My dear little girl,” said the doctor, “you know I could not possibly
give you three hard slaps, or even one hard slap, with the ruler; for
that would hurt me rather more than it would you, and I think it is you
two that deserve punishment.”
“I’ll go to bed earlier to-night, then, a whole hour,” pleaded Cricket,
“if you will only let us speak to each other. I know we were dreadfully
careless about the note, but I won’t forget again, truly, at least not
for a long time.”
“No, it must stand as I said, my dear. Besides, you know you lost your
tempers disgracefully with that little Mamie.”
“You needn’t take the trouble to punish us for spanking that Mamie,”
Cricket burst out, on this, fairly swelling with wrath at the
remembrance. “She just needed it, papa, for she’s such a horrid little
thing, and such a tag-tail, and her mother never spanks her.”
“And anyway, papa,” struck in Eunice, her eyes flashing still, “I don’t
mind if you do punish me for that, for it was such a satisfaction.”
“Well, well,” said papa, coughing behind his hand. “I really think you
won’t do that again. And the next time you think that Mamie needs
punishment, don’t try lynch-law, but refer to the higher powers.”
“I will, papa. What is lynch-law?”
“Lynch-law, my dear, is the process of inflicting punishment, by
private persons, for crimes or offences, without reference to law.
That is, you know, that however disagreeable Mamie may be, and however
much she annoys you, you really had no right to touch her. You should
have consulted your mother or me long ago, before things came to this
pass. We are the law, in this case. Instead of this, you took the law
into your own hands, and the consequence is that the law now takes you
in hand. However, I am willing to consider the mitigating
circumstances—that means what excuse you had—and we will say that you
two must remain apart till dinner-time, and meditate on the beauty of
the virtue of instant obedience.”
“Oh, papa,” cried Cricket, hugging him well, willing to take her
punishment now that the merited lecture was over, “next time that you
send me with a note I’ll go like a little spider, you’ll see!”
But I regret to say that Cricket even after this had a very hard lesson
before she learned to be perfectly trustworthy where her memory was
concerned. But this story comes later.
CHAPTER XV.
GOING TO THE CIDER MILL.
It was a hot, scorching afternoon in late August. All the grown people
had retired to darkened rooms in the coolest depths of the great stone
house, in search of what comfort could be found. Even nurse had gone to
bed with a headache.
Mamma and auntie had tried to sit on the piazza, for a time, to watch
the little ones, but at last they, too, had to give it up.
“What are children made of?” sighed auntie. “How _can_ they want to stay
out doors, and broil in the sun, instead of playing in that great, cool
nursery? Shall we make them come in?”
But the children rebelled at the very idea.
“Why, it isn’t very hot,” said Cricket, in amazement. “Go in the house?
in the daytime? when it doesn’t rain?”
So mamma charged the older ones to take good care of the twins, and
impressed upon Cricket that she must not let Kenneth out of her sight,
“and don’t go away,” she finished.
“I doesn’t want anyone to take care of me,” objected Kenneth. “I sink
I’m a big man, mamma.”
But his mamma kissed him, and told him that even big men minded their
sisters; and then she and auntie betook themselves to the darkened
depths of their own rooms, and the coolness of cambric wrappers.
The hot hours went by. The children played contentedly for a time, then
they grew tired of everything, and a little cross, too, for they were
really worn out by the heat.
At last, the whole flock of six sat in a disconsolate row along the
broad stone fence that surrounded the grounds. Kenneth fretted for
something to do, and the twins teased each other.
“If only these children weren’t here,” said Eunice, somewhat crossly,
“we might do something.”
“There’s never any fun with children round,” answered Hilda, severely.
“I don’t like to be here anyway,” whined Zaidee. “I wish nurse would
come.”
“Hark!” exclaimed Cricket. “I hear something,” as the heavy rumble of
wheels was heard. The children watched the bend of the road with
interest. Anything that passed was of the greatest importance in the
present want of amusement.
“It’s Thomas, with the oxen,” cried Eunice. “Let’s make him take us,
too—oh, bother! these children.”
The heavy team lumbered in sight, drawn by big, black oxen. Old Thomas
was plodding along by their side, occasionally cracking the long lash of
his goad around their patient heads. Will and Archie stood in the cart.
Thomas stopped his team in the shade and wiped his forehead with his big
red bandanna.
“Ruther a warmish day,” he remarked, as if it were a new discovery.
“Where are you going?” chorused the children.
“Down to the cider mill,” answered Will, briskly. “Come, get up,
Tummas.”
“Oh, dear!” grumbled Eunice, “you boys can go everywhere, and have piles
of fun, and we’ve got to stay here and take care of _children_,”—with
withering scorn.
“Come along, all of you, if you want,” said Archie. “’Tisn’t far.”
“But Kenneth and the twins,” objected Cricket.
“Oh, let the kids come, too,” replied Archie, jumping down. The “kids”
hopped around in great glee at the idea.
“Mamma told us not to go away,” began Eunice, doubtfully; but Hilda, who
was less used to obedience, said quickly,—
“She only meant we were not to go away from the children, and we’re not.
We’re going to take them. Put them in, Arch,” and in she scrambled,
while Archie swung the little ones over the side of the cart.
“Come, Tummas, Tummas, get up the old gee-haws,” Will said, and off they
started. The three little ones sat in a jubilant row on the bottom of
the cart, and the girls balanced themselves on the empty cider barrels,
for there was no seat. Stolen fruits are always sweet, and their rather
uneasy consciences gave an additional zest to the fun.
“Gee, haw!” cried Thomas, cracking his lash around the yoke of the
plodding team. Down the road they pitched and lumbered, screaming with
merriment, across the bridge, under which the little winding Kayuna
babbled, and up the rather steep hill on the other side.
At last they reached the cider mill. What fun it was to run around the
apple-smelling place, and to suck, through a straw, the sickishly-sweet
juice dropping from the press.
Kenneth was lost once, to be discovered leaning over one of the low
vats, splashing his hands in the pale, yellow liquid with great
enjoyment. Of course he was soaked to his shoulders.
“You bad boy,” scolded Eunice, fishing him out. “Look at your dress!”
for it was drenched with cider and black with dirt. His face was grimy
and his curls sticky and odourous.
“My! won’t ’Liza scold!” commented Zaidee, very comfortingly.
Kenneth looked aggrieved, and put up his lip.
“You bringed me, Tritet; I’m hundery, and I want my supper.”
“Come, young uns,” shouted Thomas, outside, when he had filled his
barrels and loaded them up. “Git in with you now, or we won’t git to go
to-night.”
He hoisted Zaidee and Helen over the side, and gave Kenneth a tremendous
swing right over into the corner. The girls scrambled over the
tail-board.
“Now, where’s them rambunktious boys?” said Thomas, looking in the
sheds. “Hullo! there, you fellers—I’m a-goin’.”
The boys had gone to explore the gable of the mill, and were now seen
walking along the ridge-pole.
“You scallawags!” screamed Thomas, “come down here. I’m a-goin’
immijit!”
Archie sat down astride the gable.
“All right, old Thomas, we’ll be there.”
His pockets were stuffed with small green apples, as convenient missiles
for any chance mark. He took one out.
“Bet you, Will, that I can hit old Judge square between the horns,” he
said, taking aim. Straight away sped the bullet-like missile. It missed
its mark, however, and struck old Judge a stinging blow full on his
sensitive nose.
Old Judge’s temper was none of the best under any circumstances. He
threw up his head with a sudden bellow of pain and rage, and then,
jerking forward, to the surprise of everyone, he started off at a heavy
lumbering run, dragging with him his astonished yokefellow.
“Whoa, thar,” cried Thomas. “Whoa, ye fool-critters! whoa, thar!”
He might as well have called to the wind. The clumsy creatures had found
that they could run, and frightened by the noise of the heavy cart,
lumbering at their heels, by the shrieking children, and by the shouts
of the men, bewildered by their own revolt, and the unusual feeling of
liberty, they covered the ground at a swinging pace.
The cart rolled and pitched and the barrels lurched unsteadily. Then a
spigot, insecurely fastened, and loosened by the jolting, came out of
the bung-hole, followed by a spurting deluge of cider.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE RUNAWAY.
Poor little Kenneth, well-wedged into the corner, was really in danger
of being seriously hurt by a reeling barrel, and gave vent to steady
howls of terror. Zaidee and Helen clung to each other, and screamed in
concert, as they pitched this way and that. The cart bumped and rattled
along over the rough lane that led down to the mill.
Eunice and Hilda and Cricket were still sitting, with their feet
swinging over the tail-board, holding on for dear life.
“Whoa! gee! haw!” shouted Eunice, steadily; but none of them realized
that they were actually in any danger.
Suddenly the cart gave a tremendous lurch over a big stone, and then up
a high “thank-you-ma’am.” The tail-board gave way, and the astonished
girls were jerked violently forward, and then suddenly found themselves
sitting in the dusty road. And on went the oxen.
The little ones, still more frightened when they found themselves alone
in the cart, redoubled their howls. They were badly bruised with the
jolting, drenched with cider, and scared out of their little wits.
“Let’s jump out, too,” screamed Zaidee, wild with terror.
“I’m ’fraid to,” sobbed Helen.
“I’m ’fraid to stay here—we—could—roll—out—just—as—easy,” the words
coming in jerks, as the runaway team turned a dangerously sharp corner,
nearly upsetting the reeling cart.
“I’m going to say my prayers!” said Zaidee, with sudden inspiration.
“Then le’s jump.”
So Zaidee steadied herself on her poor little battered knees, by the
side of the cart, but she could think of nothing but her little evening
prayer. At the top of her lungs, so “God could hear,” she prayed:
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
And this I ask for Jesus’ sake, Amen!”
“Come on, Helen!”
And before they could have said “Jack Robinson,” out they rolled, a
wretched little mixed-up bundle of bewildered arms and legs and bumped
heads, in the dust. And on went the oxen.
Back in the distance came Thomas’s voice.
“Whoa, thar! ye fool-critters!” his nearest approach to a “swear-word.”
Thomas, himself, came lumbering along as heavily, but much less swiftly,
than the runaway pair.
Cricket and Eunice and Hilda were making the dust fly with their brisk
little heels, as they, too, shouted in steady chorus, “Whoa, Judge!
Whoa, Cap’n! gee! haw!”
Will and Archie came on at a steady run, adding their yells to the
uproar, and making the terrified oxen sure that they were pursued by
demons.
Kenneth’s steady shrieks had not lessened in volume, but he was getting
hoarse, and his sobbing breaths came shorter.
The cart was firm and strong, with closely fitted boards, so the poor
child was now sitting in quite a tossing sea of cider. The fast-emptying
barrel reeled more and more, and the frightened baby beat it with both
hands.
Now the oxen were well on the home stretch. They had reached the short
steep hill by the farmer’s house. The farmer’s wife, hearing the
shrieks, had run out on the little bridge, and now saw the cart come in
sight at the top of the hill.
She caught off her blue checked apron, and ran forward flourishing it,
and screaming to her husband,—
“’Gustus John! ’Gustus John! Jedge and Cap’n are runnin’ away!”
’Gustus John appeared at the bars.
“Wal, ye don’t say! Here! run ’em into the brook, ’Mandy, ’n I’ll stop
’em thar.”
’Mandy—otherwise Mrs. Hecker—waved her blue banner and cried “Whoa!”
“Whoa!” in shrill soprano, heading the oxen off, as they came plunging
down the hill. At the sight of ’Mandy and her apron, they sheered off
into the side-track through the brook; but there stood ’Gustus John,
with a big stick and outstretched arms, barring their way, and shouting
tremendous “Whoas!” in familiar tones.
Whether the oxen were tired with their unusual exercise, or whether they
simply concluded it was time to stop, I do not know, but Judge and
Captain brought up as suddenly as they had started, and, with quivering
sides and tossing heads, they stood stock-still in the brook.
In a moment poor little dirty Kenneth was in ’Mandy’s motherly arms, and
shortly after the whole excited group were gathered on the bridge.
“Nice-lookin’ passel of young uns you air,” commented ’Mandy. “I do vum!
ef you children don’t beat the Dutch. Like as not them oxen would have
run into the brook anyway and upsot the cart, ef I hadn’t hev ben here,
and this little chap would hev ben drownded, sure.”
“Them children’s regular Jonahses,” grumbled Thomas, in short gasps for
breath. “Never takes ’em nowhere thet suthin doesn’t happen onto some on
’em. I never see oxen run away but once before, and there ain’t no
stoppin’ ’em.”
“Wonder is that they hain’t all killed,” said ’Gustus John. “It’s a real
meracle that this ’ere little chap didn’t git his head broke with thet
’ere bar’l, a-rollin’ round like a pea in a pod.”
“Yer ma ’n’ yer pa ’n’ ’Liza hes all ben down here, a-lookin’ fur yer
everywhere,” said Mrs. Hecker. “It’s past seven, an’ they thought you
was lost, sure. Here they be, now;” and down the road came an excited
group of house-people.
“Oh, where have you been, you naughty, naughty children!” cried mamma,
hurrying on ahead. “We have been so frightened about you.”
Papa took Kenneth from ’Mandy’s arms and held him up.
“Well, of all tough specimens! Mamma, this can’t be your young man.”
Poor Kenneth! his broad-brimmed hat hung down his back, held around his
chin by a soaking wet elastic cord, which left inky stains on his
throat. His sticky curls stood up stiffly in plastered masses, all over
his head. His face was begrimed with dirt and cider and tears. His kilts
hung in festoons from his belt. His stockings were down, dropping over
his shoes. His whole attire was soaking wet, and smelling like a
lager-beer saloon, his father said.
“This is not your young man,” repeated papa, holding him at arm’s
length, in spite of his struggles.
“I want my mamma!” wailed Kenneth. “I sought I was a big man, an’ I’se
nossing but a little boy!”
And mamma hugged her bruised and dirty baby close to her dainty cambric
dress, with a heart so filled with thankfulness as she learned of the
real danger that the little fellow had been in, that she could not give
the girls, then, the lecture that they certainly deserved for their
disobedience, and which their father saw that they had, later.
CHAPTER XVII.
GOING BLACKBERRYING.
Unusual peace and quiet reigned at Kayuna for a time after the
excitement of the runaway. It was an unusually warm summer, and so even
Cricket, the tireless, was somewhat subdued. Hilda Mason went away for a
visit, and her little friend missed her very much, for, as she said
privately to Eunice, “Hilda was so much willinger to do things than she
used to be.”
Eunice and Cricket had long planned a blackberrying party when the
blackberries should be in their prime, and mamma said that now would be
just the time to go. The girls had been expecting their little cousin,
Edna Somers, the sister of Will and Archie, to visit them for a week,
and as she arrived on Monday, they decided that the next Wednesday
should be the important day.
The rest of the party was to consist of Edith Craig, from the Rectory,
Ray Emmons, Phil Howard, and his sister Rose, and Daisy and Harry
Pelham. They planned to get up very early on Wednesday,—oh, by five
o’clock, say,—get an early breakfast of bread and milk from the cook,
have luncheon enough packed for both dinner and supper, and then start
for the blackberry pasture, which was nearly three miles away.
No one of the children but the Howards and Ray Emmons had ever been
there, but they were sure that they could easily find the way again.
They would go through the woods to the West Road, and then they were
almost there. They would arrive on the spot long before the sun grew
hot, and would pick blackberries for awhile. Then, when they chose, they
would find a nice place and take their luncheon. Then they would rest
awhile, and after that, pick more berries till their pails were full,
and then, finally, start for home, and get there just in time for
another supper, after a lovely, long day.
The children were all delighted with the idea. They often had small
picnics, but never any so extensive and grown-up as this.
And then the blackberries! Think of the quarts and bushels they would
bring home! What visions of unlimited jam, and spiced blackberries
without stint, floated before their eyes.
Papa teased the girls a little.
“Perhaps I had better send Thomas and the oxen to meet you at the bars?
If they should happen to come home rather fast, you could have
blackberry _jam_ without any trouble,” he said, laughing. Then he
suggested that they should make arrangements with some farmer to take
their extra berries into Boston to sell.
“We don’t want to be swamped under blackberries, you know,” he added.
Then, of course, the boys had their remarks to make.
“You’ll have to take Mopsie and Charcoal, and drive around from house to
house to sell your berries,” said Will.
“Bet you they won’t bring home half a pint between them all,” said
Archie.
“Better keep off Mr. Trante’s land, anyway. All the best berries grow in
his pasture, and wouldn’t he like to catch you picking them!” said
Donald. “He’s been lying in wait for you children, ever since you
flooded his meadows. Most probably he’d put you all in the lock-up, if
he caught you.”
This was a sore subject with Eunice and Cricket, and they turned the
conversation by asking mamma what cook should put up for their luncheon.
“We want a lot,” said Cricket, decidedly. “’Cause we’ll have to have our
dinner, you know, and then we must have enough left for a nice lunch
before we start for home. And have a _lot_ of supper ready, mamma, dear,
’cause we’ll be ’most starved.”
“That’s on the principle that the more you eat, the hungrier you get,”
said Archie.
“For goodness’ sake, make them stop with their supper, mother,” said
Donald, “else they will get so hungry they can’t stand it.”
The children were deaf to all jokes, and preparations for the important
day went merrily on. An excited group of small people met after supper,
on the Wards’ piazza, on the night before, to “make ’rangements.” One
would have thought that they were planning at least a trip to Europe.
“We girls think we won’t go to sleep at all, to-night,” said Eunice,
with much importance. “We always sit up till nine o’clock, anyway, and
five o’clock will come so soon that it won’t be worth while to get
undressed.”
“Whatever you do,” called Donald from his hammock, “please see that
Cricket is chained in bed till the proper time. She prefers to get up at
midnight and go downstairs on her head, you know, when early rising is
in question, and that wakes the rest of us up.”
“Phil’s going to wake me up,” announced Ray. “I’m going to tie a string
to my big toe, and hang the end of the string out of the window, and
Phil will come along and yank it.”
“Be sure you don’t go without us,” pleaded Daisy. “I’ll have to wake
myself up, and Harry, too, for no one in our house ever gets up so
early.”
“I’ll run over and wake you up, too,” said Phil, obligingly. “I’ll throw
stones up at your window.”
They were all to meet at the bars at the entrance of the woods, for the
cart-path through them was much shorter than the distance around by the
road.
“And we’re not going to have any _children_,” finished Eunice, in the
tone of unutterable scorn that always crushed the twins, who were
eagerly listening to the “’rangements.”
When nine o’clock came, and Eunice and Cricket and Edna had gone
upstairs, they decided, in spite of previous resolutions, that it might
be better just to lie down for awhile, “though it was not at all worth
while to go to sleep.” So they stretched themselves on the beds, all
dressed, to talk over the coming day.
“Edna,” said Cricket, presently, after a suspiciously long silence, “my
clothes are all wriggled up, somehow, and I b’lieve I’ll take my dress
off. It won’t take long to put it on in the morning, and I’ll be more
comfortable.”
“I was just thinking,” agreed Edna, sleepily, “that we’d better take off
our dresses.”
“I think,” said Eunice, when their dresses were off, “I’ll take off my
skirts, too. They get so twisty.”
With their skirts removed they lay down again, and began to talk with
renewed zest. Presently conversation flagged again.
“Cricket,” said Edna, rousing suddenly, “I can’t stand it, and I’m going
to bed, just the same as usual. I don’t think it’s a bit of fun to sit
up all night. Listen! What is that striking? Only ten o’clock!”
The others, by this time, were more than willing to go to bed in
ordinary fashion, and in ten minutes more, all three little girls were
in the Land of Nod.
It proved to be a wonderfully prompt little party, for it was only
half-past five o’clock when they all assembled, with well-filled
luncheon-baskets, and empty pails to bring home their blackberries in.
They were all rather heavy-eyed and quiet at first, to be sure, but they
soon grew wide-awake. It seemed a very new world to the little girls,
who had scarcely ever been up at this hour before, though the boys, from
many a fishing and nutting excursion, were more used to it.
“Doesn’t it look as if everything had been washed?” said Cricket,
skipping along delightedly. “How the leaves rustle, and how the birds
sing! I’m going to get up every day, after this, at five o’clock.”
“Bet you, you won’t,” said Ray, sceptically.
“You’d do it for about two days, and then you’d give it up. Girls never
stick to anything.”
“Oh, Ray Emmons!” came in an indignant chorus. “Girls stick as well as
boys.”
“Seems to me that Edith Craig stuck to the head of her jography class
all last winter, and you boys couldn’t help it,” said Daisy Pelham,
triumphantly.
[Illustration: CRICKET TRYING TO CATCH THE MINNOWS.]
“Oh, jography! I wasn’t talking about jography. Bet you I can hit that
squirrel, plump,” thinking it better to change the subject.
When they came to the little brook, a deep pool below a rough bridge
looked so cool and clean that they loitered to throw stones in it, and
scare the minnows gliding around in its transparent depths. Further
down, among the bulrushes, the frogs croaked and jumped.
“Oh, I say,” cried Harry Pelham, “let’s catch some frogs, and have
frogs’ legs for lunch!”
“Oh, don’t touch the slimy things,” pleaded Daisy. “They squirm and
squeak so. Do let’s go on.”
“Are minnows good to eat?” asked Cricket, who was kneeling on the bank,
and looking down into the water. “I b’lieve I could catch them with my
hand.”
She rolled up her cambric sleeves, and dipped her arm in the water. The
minnows slipped tantalizingly near. A particularly big fellow flashed
by.
“Oh, what a bouncer!” Cricket cried. She plunged forward, and of course
she lost her balance and went head and shoulders into the water, in the
endeavour to save herself. Phil, who stood nearest, pulled her up,
dripping.
“Cricket Ward!” exclaimed Eunice, completely disgusted. “I never saw
anything like you. I believe you’d fall into the water if there wasn’t a
saucerful.”
“I b’lieve I would,” acknowledged Cricket, meekly, rubbing her short,
dripping curls with the boys’ handkerchiefs.
“You’re pretty wet,” said Edith. “I’m afraid you’ve got to go home.”
“Oh, no, I won’t,” said Cricket, much surprised at this suggestion.
“I’ll just go round those bushes and wring my waist out, and I’ll get
dry pretty soon, I reckon. My skirt isn’t very wet.”
“You can put on my sacque, Cricket,” suggested Daisy. “Mamma made me
wear it, and it’s awfully hot. Then you can hang your waist over your
arm to dry, so we can go on.”
So Cricket and Daisy retired from view for a while. When they returned
the rest of the party set up a shout. Daisy was much shorter than
Cricket, so that the sleeves scarcely came below her elbow, and the
bottom of the sacque hung only an inch or so below her waist.
“I don’t care,” said Cricket, comfortably. “It covers me up, and my
waist will be dry soon. Do let’s go on. We won’t get to the blackberry
pasture till noon. It must be pretty nearly eleven o’clock now.”
“Thanks to you, young woman,” answered Harry Pelham, who was older than
the rest. “If you will waste our time falling into brooks—”
“Well,” said Cricket, “I always did fall into the water, and I ’xpect I
always will. I remember sitting down in a pail of hot water once, when I
was just a teenty little bit of a thing. My! how it hurt! I just cried
and cried. At least the water wasn’t so very hot, for the cook was only
scrubbing the floor. I had run away down to the kitchen. But the pail
was deep, and I was so little, that I doubled together just like a
jack-knife, and the cook laughed so that she could hardly pull me out.”
The children laughed, too. Harum-scarum Cricket always had accidents
that never would happen to any one else.
“And you were nearly drowned last summer,” said Edna. “Don’t you
remember up at Lake Clear?”
“I never heard about that. What was it?” asked Edith.
“Oh, nothing,” returned Cricket, who never looked upon her adventures as
interesting. “Edna and I went out paddling in a boat. We couldn’t find
but one oar. Edna could paddle, but I didn’t know how, but it looked so
easy that I thought I could do it. So I stood up and took hold of the
oar, and I took one paddle all right and then I put the oar over the
other side, and somehow, I went right over myself. There wasn’t anybody
in sight, but we _hollered_, at least Edna did, and I did when I came
up; then I went down again and when I came up I struck the boat. It was
pretty hard getting in, and I had to climb up over the end. We had lost
the oar, so Edna pulled up the board in the bottom of the boat and she
paddled us ashore. And that’s all, and I wasn’t drowned,” concluded
Cricket, in the most matter-of-fact way.
“Whew!” whistled Harry. “That was a close call.”
“It was fortunate I hit the boat when I came up,” assented Cricket,
placidly, “for Edna didn’t have any oar, and it was hard pulling up the
board to paddle with. I ’xpect I might have been drowned, if I’d floated
off, and had had to wait for her.”
They had been trudging on through the woods while they were talking, and
now they came to where the cart-path forked.
“Which way do we go?” asked Eunice.
“This way,” said Rose.
“No, this way,” contradicted Phil, positively. “I remember that blasted
oak.”
“Seems to me,” began Rose, doubtfully, “that the blasted oak that I
remember was not at the fork, but close to the edge of the woods. I
don’t think that this is the same tree. I do remember that old beech,
though,” she added, pointing down the right-hand path, “and I think that
that is the way.”
“No, I’m sure about that blasted oak down _this_ path,” said Phil, “and
I think this is the one to take.”
“Bet you it is!” put in Ray, supporting Phil, on principle; “I remember
it, too. Come on, boys.” And the children trooped down the left-hand
path, while Rose, though she still looked doubtful, followed the rest.
CHAPTER XVIII.
COMING HOME.
“I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but I’m getting about starved,”
announced Phil, after they had gone some little distance further. “I
vote we have our grub just as soon as we get to the berry-pasture,
before we pick any berries.”
This proposal was heartily approved of by the entire party.
“It must be nearly noon, I think,” said Eunice. “We wasted a lot of time
by the brook, you know, and we’ve been walking for _hours_ since.”
“Hark! there’s the twelve o’clock whistle now,” exclaimed Phil. The
children listened eagerly. It certainly was the distant mill-whistle,
but it was not the noon signal, but, instead, the one for seven o’clock
in the morning.
“No wonder we are hungry, then,” said Harry. “We all had our breakfasts
at five, and that’s six hours ago.”
“And we’re nowhere near the berry-pasture yet,” said Rose, hesitating
and looking around. “We ought to have been out of the woods long ago.
Phil Howard, I _know_ we took the wrong turn there by that old oak.”
The other children looked at one another in despair.
“Bet you we did!” cried Ray. “I kinder thought this didn’t look right.
Now we’ve got to go back.”
“Don’t let’s,” said Harry. “If we take this path off this way, it will
bring us back on to the road, I know.”
“And _I_ say, don’t let’s go another step till we’ve had our grub.”
Phil gave his advice decidedly, “We can’t get to the pasture, anyway,
till afternoon, and we might as well have our lunch first.”
“There’s the brook again,” exclaimed Cricket, catching sight of her old
friend, the winding Kayuna, which meandered in every known direction.
“We can get some water there. I guess I’ll put on my waist now. It’s
’bout dry,” she added, as the mention of the brook brought her mishap to
her mind.
A pretty little grassy opening just there afforded them a fine place to
sit down for their lunch. Cricket took her pail and went up the brook
after water, and presently returned, arrayed again in her pink cambric
waist, which was very wrinkled and streaky as to the sleeves, and very
damp and sticky as to the collar.
They spread their luncheon, a very generous one, since it had been
provided, as they had begged, with a view to its serving two meals. But
the boys seemed to be entirely hollow.
“See here, boys,” exclaimed Edith, in dismay. “You must stop. There
won’t be bread and butter enough for supper, if you keep on, and we must
make it last. Now, Phil, you’ve had five pieces of cake already. You
shan’t have another bit. We’ll pack the rest up now.” Edith being the
eldest of the party, and unusually quiet and dignified for her age, her
words always carried weight. The boys reluctantly suspended operations,
and very unwillingly watched the remainder of the lunch repacked in the
baskets.
They finally decided not to go back the way they had come, but to take a
cart-path which crossed the one they were on, and which Harry was quite
sure would bring them out on the main road that they wished to strike.
Their lunch had refreshed them, and they went on, gayly chattering and
laughing. A squirrel-hunt detained them awhile, and then a great patch
of squaw-berries, as the children called the pretty partridge-vine,
attracted them. Then they stumbled on some wintergreen, and stopped to
gather great bunches.
“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Cricket, at last. “Boys, I believe it’s
most supper-time, and I’d like to know where that West Road’s gone to.”
“It’s gone to Melville. That’s where it always goes,” said Harry,
smartly.
“Since your wits are so sharp,” laughed Edith, “perhaps they’ll help you
to decide which of these two paths we ought to take now.”
Harry considered.
“We want to go west,” he said, “and there’s the sun over there, so we’ll
take that path. Jove, boys! Look at that sun! it must be four o’clock.
No berries yet.”
The little band began to look rather discouraged.
“We’re like Columbus discovering America,” observed Cricket, cheerfully.
“The farther we go, the more it isn’t there. Let’s keep straight on.
Papa says that the woods aren’t but two miles across, so we will
certainly get out that way.”
“If once we strike that West Road,” said Harry, “I know where to go
then.”
“Here are some blackberries!” cried Ray, who was in advance.
They had come to another open spot, and sure enough, there were some
straggling blackberry vines.
“Let’s pick these, anyway,” said Edna, “in case we don’t find any more.”
The children hooted at this idea, but nevertheless, they fell to work.
The berries were hard and dry and half-ripe, but they were—or ought to
have been—blackberries. Their fingers flew, and the hard little berries
rolled into their tin pails with a lively clatter.
“Ow! ow! ow!” suddenly came in squeals of terror from one of the girls.
“Here’s a snake! a big black snake, and he is eating a little bird!”
The children rushed to the spot. There, among some tall weeds, lay a
long, slender, whip-like object, black and shining, with raised head. In
its open mouth was a poor little, struggling, half-fledged bird, already
partially swallowed. Above it, the parent birds fluttered and screamed
in agony, sweeping around in short, swift circles.
The children stood, at first, in fascinated horror. The poor little
birdie slowly disappeared in the yawning mouth, and the children could
see the muscles of the black body work, as the whole undigested mass
slipped slowly down. Then the snake made queer, darting movements with
its head, and this broke the spell for the frightened children. A wild
stampede instantly followed, as they fled, screaming and shrieking. The
few berries, the rest of the lunch, the napkins and the pail-covers flew
in every direction, as the children sped wildly on, thinking that the
snake was in full pursuit. Nor did they stop until Cricket, who, on her
swift feet, led the band, went, head over heels, over a projecting root,
and found herself sitting on the bank of the ever-present Kayuna.
Then they all brought up, panting and breathless, and rather shamefaced.
“Ho! what made you girls run so?” asked Phil, recovering himself first.
“Well, I like that! what made you run so yourself, Mr. Phil? I guess you
were as frightened as anybody,” said Daisy, indignantly.
“’Fraid? I wasn’t a bit afraid. I just ran after you girls to tell you
there wasn’t any danger, but you ran so fast, and I was tired—”
“Oh, tired!” chorused the girls, scornfully. “Seems to us you managed to
keep pretty well ahead.”
“Jove, boys, where do you think we are?” exclaimed Phil, abruptly
changing the subject.
“We’re just exactly where Cricket fell in the brook this morning.”
And so they were. Thinking it was afternoon they had turned in the
direction of the sun, meaning to go west. Of course they had really gone
east, since it was still morning, and here they were, not ten minutes’
walk from home.
They stood looking at one another in perfect silence.
“Our whole day wasted,” said Eunice, at length, very soberly.
“It must be most supper-time, and we haven’t any lunch left,” commented
Harry, surveying the melancholy collection of empty pails and baskets.
“I’m awful hungry,” sighed Phil.
No one exactly liked to propose going home, yet what else was there to
do? It was too late, they thought, to start out again in search of
pastures new, and yet, how could they go home and encounter the teasing
that would surely follow the tale of the day’s experience.
“If only we had _some_ berries!” groaned Rose.
“That horrid old snake,” said Daisy, looking fearfully around. “We would
have had some, anyway, excepting for his chasing us away.”
Cricket had been sitting still, where she had tumbled. Now she got up
slowly and picked up her pail and basket.
“I’m going home,” she said, decidedly. “I think we’ve had a very nice
day, if we didn’t get any blackberries. Papa always buys them, anyway,
of that poor little girl that brings them down from the hills, and she
needs the money.”
“If Cricket goes,” said Edna, jumping up with great alacrity, “of course
we must all go with her. It must be most supper-time, anyway.”
The depressed looking group presently found themselves at the edge of
the woods.
“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Cricket, stopping short, “if there
aren’t Thomas and the oxen at the bars! Papa has sent him, after all.
Hollo, Thomas, did you come to meet us?”
Thomas stared as they approached.
“Wal, now, young uns, I railly thought you were off for all day. What’s
drove you home at this time o’ the mornin’? Gin out arly, seems to me.”
“Why, no,” answered Cricket, surprised. “It’s the time we meant to come.
Did papa send you for us?”
“Wal, no, not ’xactly. What should yer pa send for you now, fur? He
kinder thought you wuz a-goin’ to stay all day.”
“I should think we had stayed all day,” said Harry. “Seems a week since
this morning.”
“Wal, I rather ’low it’s mornin’ yet,” returned Thomas, equally
surprised.
“Morning _now_?” came a chorus of voices. “Why, we’ve had our dinner,
and we would have had our supper, only we lost it.”
Thomas went off in a loud guffaw.
“Ef you blessed young uns hain’t ben and come home at ten o’clock in the
mornin’!”
“Ten!” faltered a voice or two. The rest were speechless.
“To be sure. Thar comes Mr. Archie now. He’s ben a drivin’ the doctor
over to the nine-thirty train.”
Archie reined up at the sight of the group around the bars.
“Hello, you fellows!” he called. “Thought you were off for all day. Get
your pails filled so soon? What! no berries!”
The children glanced shamefacedly at each other.
“Cricket fell in the brook,” began one.
“And we lost our way,” said another.
“And we ate our dinner, and lost our supper,” said a third.
“And we saw a big, black snake chewing up a little bird—”
“And we were all afraid and ran,” confessed Cricket.
“Not afraid!” cried Phil, valiantly. “The girls ran, Arch, and we
fellows had to run after them to tell them there wasn’t any danger. But
we lost all our supper, running,” he added hastily, to prevent
contradiction to his first statement.
“And then—well,” finished Eunice, in a burst of honesty, “we thought it
was supper-time, Archie; we really did, and Thomas says it’s only ten
o’clock in the morning!”
Archie shouted at this.
“So you never found the berry-pasture at all? Haven’t you got a single
berry among you all? Well, by Jove, you are a fine set! Thought it was
supper-time at ten in the morning!”
The children never heard the end of this joke.
CHAPTER XIX.
WHAT ZAIDEE AND HELEN FOUND.
Mamma had gone away for a two weeks’ visit to grandmamma, and had taken
little Kenneth with her. Zaidee and Helen felt very lonely without their
small playfellow, for it was the first time they had ever been
separated. The first week seemed very long. Then when nurse began to
comfort them by saying that next week mamma and Kenneth would be at home
again, there came a letter from mamma saying that grandmamma was not
very well, and she would stay another week besides.
The twins were quite ready to cry. “Next week” seemed like saying “next
year.” But auntie was staying with them still, and as she was mamma’s
own sister herself, and she looked very much like her, this was a great
comfort to the children, for they would try and “play” it was mamma who
spoke to them. But there was no one to take little Kenneth’s place.
The twins had a favourite playground down by the brook. It was just
below the pool where they had tried to drown the poor little kittens.
A great oak tree grew there, and the grass underneath was smooth and
green. The brook was very shallow there, and there were plenty of
smooth, round stones which they could easily get out of the water,
without getting themselves at all wet. On the green grass they played
house, marking off the rooms by these round stones. The acorns from the
oak served the purpose of cups for their dolls, and bits of broken china
made fine dishes. They had, at home, a beautiful, real doll’s house,
with the cunningest furniture, and plenty of “really, truly” doll’s
dishes, but they got much more pleasure out of this make-believe house,
marked off with stones.
Since Kenneth was not at home to be looked after, Eliza often let the
twins go down to the brook to play all by themselves. One morning, after
breakfast, they ran down there as usual. To their great surprise they
found that some one was there before them.
It was a little boy, about Kenneth’s age. He had on a linen dress and a
broad-brimmed hat. He sat on the edge of the bank, poking a stick into
the water. Where could he have come from? The children were sure they
had never seen him before.
As the twins approached, he looked up at them with a pair of sober, wide
brown eyes.
“Oh, Helen! what’s that!” cried Zaidee, in great amazement, stopping
short.
“It’s a little boy!” exclaimed Helen, as much excited as if she had
found a crocodile. “We’ve finded a little boy!”
Zaidee ran up to Brown-Eyes.
“What is your name?” she demanded, eagerly.
Brown-Eyes answered nothing. He looked at the little girls, gravely, and
the little girls looked at him.
“Haven’t you any name?” persisted Zaidee.
“No,” answered Brown-Eyes, briefly.
“Where do you live?” asked Helen, running round on the other side of
him.
Brown-Eyes looked all around him, into the sky, into the water, and into
the woods on the other side of the brook. Then he said, “I’m here.”
“Oh, Helen!” shrieked Zaidee, in great excitement. “He hasn’t any name,
and he doesn’t live anywhere but here, so he’s ours, cause we finded
him, just like the kitty we finded, and auntie let us keep it.”
Zaidee was very much mixed up in her speech, but Helen understood. She
clapped her hands with joy.
“Now we’ve got a little boy to play with, ’stead of Kenneth. Let’s keep
him to play with till Kenneth comes home, and then there’ll be two of
him, just the same as there’s two of us.”
“Can it talk, do you s’pose?” asked Zaidee, walking around Brown-Eyes,
with much interest. For, excepting his two short answers, he had not
spoken at all.
“I ’xpect he can talk,” returned Helen, “cause he’s got teeth, hasn’t
he?” In her mind the only reason that a baby can’t talk is because it
hasn’t any teeth. Brown-Eyes immediately showed a full set.
“Yes, he has,” said Helen, triumphantly. “He’s got some up teeth and
some down teeth. Talk, boy.”
Brown-Eyes only looked at them as silently as before.
“Poke him,” said Zaidee. “Let’s see if he squeals.”
She did not mean to hurt him, but she poked him in the stomach rather
harder than she meant. Straightway Brown-Eyes’s little feet flew out
like a wind-mill, and kicked Zaidee so vigorously that she lost her
balance, and nearly rolled into the brook.
Brown-Eyes still said nothing.
Zaidee picked herself up with added respect for her little guest.
“I did not mean to hurt you,” she said, standing at a little distance.
“Do you want to play house with us? Let’s build him a new house, Helen.
Come, boy, you get some stones.”
The excitement of building the new house soon made the children friends,
and they played together happily, though Brown-Eyes did not grow
talkative.
At last the little ones grew hungry, and they started for the house,
taking their new playmate with them.
“Where shall we keep him?” asked Helen, as they trudged up the lane and
across the green lawn.
“We’d better shut him up for awhile, till he gets used to us,” was
Zaidee’s advice. “That’s the way we did with kitty.”
“We can put him in the laundry,” suggested Helen. “We put kitty there.”
As the house stood on the hillside which sloped gently back to the
brook, the kitchen and laundry were down stairs. No one noticed the
children as they went in at the lower door. Cricket and Eunice were off
for a long scamper on their ponies, and Donald and his cousins were away
fishing, while Marjorie had gone into town for the day.
The laundry, a large, light room, which was on one side of the lower
hall, chanced to be deserted when they went in.
“Stay here, boy,” said Helen, “and we’ll bring you something to eat, if
you’re good.”
Brown-Eyes nodded gravely. He immediately sat himself down on the floor,
with his sturdy little feet straight out in front of him, and with his
hands folded in his lap. “I be good,” he said, briefly. He never wasted
his words.
The twins locked the laundry door and ran across to the kitchen. They
intended to ask if Eliza had their luncheon ready for them upstairs, and
to tell her to get something for the Boy; but cook had just taken from
the oven the most distracting cookies, all in shapes of little pigs.
“Oh-h!” squealed the children in concert.
“An’ here’s a plateful fur yer auntie,” said cook. “Be off wid yerself,
an’ don’t come nigh me agin till me floor’s mopped entirely.”
Off scampered Zaidee and Helen with the cookies, in great delight, and
quite forgot their little prisoner in the laundry. They found auntie on
the cool, vine-covered piazza.
“What hot little girlies!” she exclaimed, putting back the curly hair
from the warm, shiny little faces. “Eliza,” she called to the nurse, who
passed through the hall at that moment, “take the children upstairs and
wash their hands and faces. Then come back here, little ones, and auntie
will read you a story while you cool off.”
The twins went very willingly, and soon came back, fresh and sweet. They
perched themselves on the broad arms of auntie’s chair, munching cookies
and rocking comfortably, while auntie read to them.
Suddenly a nursemaid came running up the avenue.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” she said, breathlessly. “I’m Mrs. Bennett’s
nurse, and she’s lost Phelps. We can’t find him anywhere, and Mrs.
Bennett’s most distracted.”
The Bennetts were new people, who had lately come for the summer, having
taken a house near by.
“Is the little boy lost?” asked Mrs. Somers, rising. “No, he has not
been here. When did you miss him?”
“It’s over two hours since anyone’s seen him, ma’am. I was busy and
thought he was with his ma, and she thought I had him. We didn’t miss
him till about half an hour ago, and we’ve looked everywhere about the
house and grounds. I just thought he might have run in here, ma’am,”
said the frightened maid.
“He certainly has not been here!” said auntie, “Have you seen Phelps,
children?”
“No,” they both said, positively.
They hadn’t seen Phelps. They hadn’t _ever_ seen him.
“I’m so sorry,” said auntie. “Still he can’t have gone very far. Eliza,
ask Mike or Thomas if they’ve seen the child anywhere around this
morning. Have you been to the village?”
“Mrs. Bennett’s just gone up there, herself, ma’am,” returned the nurse.
“And the gardener has gone the other way to look for him.”
Eliza came back and said that Mike had seen such a little fellow further
down the road, near the farm-house, earlier in the morning.
“P’raps our man has found him, then,” said the nurse, hurrying off,
while auntie sent Eliza again to tell Mike and Thomas to join in the
search.
“Auntie,” broke out Zaidee, a little while later, “I forgot to tell you
that we’ve got a little boy of our own, down stairs.”
“A little boy, Zaidee?” said auntie, laying down her book. “What do you
mean?”
“We finded him, auntie, he’s _ours_,” said Zaidee, earnestly. “Come and
see him.”
“We finded him down by the brook, in our play-house,” chimed in Helen.
“He’s ours, auntie. He’s awful cunning. We’re going to keep him and feed
him as we did the kitty that we finded once, and when Kenneth comes home
they can be twins, just like us.”
“But, children,” exclaimed auntie, “it must be Phelps. Where is he? Why
didn’t you speak before? You said you hadn’t seen him.”
“It isn’t Phelps,” insisted Zaidee. “He’s ours. We _finded_ him. He
hasn’t any name, only just Boy. He doesn’t live anywhere. He said so.
_Please_ let us keep him,” she pleaded. “Mamma let us keep the kitty.”
“You ridiculous children,” said auntie. “A little boy isn’t like a cat.
Tell me where he is, now.”
“He’s in the laundry, where we put the kitty. He’s getting used to us.
He’s real good, and he doesn’t cry at all; he won’t be a bit of
trouble!” begged Helen.
Auntie flew down stairs, the children following, and protesting all the
way against his being sent off. Auntie unlocked the laundry door hastily
and looked in. There sat Master Brown-Eyes, exactly as they had left him
an hour before.
“Phelps are hungry,” he announced at once, looking reproachfully at the
twins.
Auntie picked up the patient baby in her arms.
“You poor little soul!” she exclaimed. But Brown-Eyes resisted strongly.
“Put me down,” he said, for his dignity was much hurt.
“Oh, are you going to send him away?” asked Helen, ready to cry. “Please
let us keep him just till Kenneth comes home, then. He’s lots better
than the kitty was.”
“He certainly is,” said auntie, laughing, “for kitty would not have
stayed there quietly for so long.”
She was carrying struggling Phelps upstairs, while the twins tagged on
behind.
“There’s Eliza and the men, now,” auntie said, when, breathless, she
reached the piazza. “Run, Zaidee, and tell them that Phelps is found.
Tell Mike to go to Mrs. Bennett’s and tell her.—There, my little man,
eat some of these cookies and stop kicking.”
Phelps wriggled out of auntie’s lap, and preferred to eat his cookies,
standing on his own two stout legs, while the twins eyed him, in deep
disappointment.
Their visitor ate all the cookies there were left, and then he suddenly
said, “I are doin’ home now,” and began to back down the steps in his
own solemn fashion.
“Oh, Boy!” cried Helen, reproachfully; “you said you didn’t have any
home.”
Brown-Eyes would not make any reply. He trudged down the avenue soberly.
“Come, twinnies,” laughed auntie, “we’ll go and look after him and see
that he doesn’t lose himself again.”
“Boy,” called Zaidee, “will you come and let us find you again?”
Brown-Eyes nodded, but kept on his way. At the gate they saw a lady
running towards them, from the direction of the village.
“I are dust comin’ home, mamma,” called Phelps, his fat legs quickening
their rate to a run.
His mamma caught him in her arms, and this time he was quite content to
nestle in her neck.
Auntie told her how it had all happened, and, now that the fright was
over, Mrs. Bennett could laugh at the story, and she promised that her
little boy should come and see the twins, even if they could not keep
him as their own.
CHAPTER XX.
MAMIE’S MESSAGE.
The doctor’s farmer, ’Gustus John, as everyone called him, stood at his
little white gate, looking down the road. Dr. Ward was coming up from
the village, with his hands full of letters, and ’Gustus wanted to speak
to him.
“I say,” he drawled, as the doctor came within speaking distance, “I
seen yer comin’, an’ I wanted to tell you about thet new caow o’ yourn,
thet we bought over to the Fair last week. ’T ain’t no bargain, I’m
thinkin’, ’n’ the critter’s all-fired cross. Nigh on to horned me out of
the stable this mornin’. What do you say to fattening her up for beef
straight off?”
“Just as you like,” returned the doctor, absently, for he had some
important letters in his hand, which he had been glancing at as he
walked. “I never like to have cross animals on the place, lest some
accident might happen with so many children about.”
“Yes, thet’s another p’int. I’ve kinder been layin’ round for them
little girls o’ yourn, to warn ’em off. They’re proper fond of junketin,
round the barns, but I think p’raps they’d better make themselves skurse
while this critter is in the barnyard. I hevn’t put her out with the
other caows to-day. I’ve got to go to the lower medder this mornin’, and
I hain’t got no more time to waste now. P’raps you’ll see them?” ’Gustus
had a very soft spot in his heart for the doctor’s family, and always
kept a careful lookout for the little girls.
“I’ll tell them, though it isn’t likely that they will turn up at the
house before dinner,” said the doctor, laughing. “They are very busy
young women, and I haven’t an idea where they are this morning. I’ll
send one of the boys in search of them.”
“I know where they are,” piped up Mamie, who, as usual, was hopping
around, listening with her sharp little ears. “They’re up the brook, by
the stepping-stones. I seen ’em there this morning.”
“You kin tell ’em about it, then,” said her father, turning to her. “Jog
along over there, an’ tell ’em that I say there’s an awful fierce cow in
the barnyard, and they better keep out of there till I tell ’em it’s
safe. Come, skedaddle.” And Mamie “skedaddled.”
The doctor watched her doubtfully as she disappeared around the house.
“Will she tell them?” he asked.
“She’ll tell ’em fast enough,” answered ’Gustus John. “She’ll admire
to.”
“I’ll send one of the boys, anyway,” the doctor said. “I don’t want to
run any risks. Yes, do as you like with the cow, if she is really so
cross. She’ll spoil the others. Fatten her for killing, certainly. I’m
sorry, for she is of good stock.” Then the doctor went on up the hill,
reading his letters as he went. Among them he found a note, begging him
to come at once to a house at the other side of the village, on a little
matter of business. So Mike being bidden to harness at once, the doctor
drove off, quite forgetting the cross cow, and that he meant to send one
of the boys with a special message to his little daughters.
Mamie, meantime, ran across the pasture in high spirits. How delightful
to be able to tell those big girls of something which they must not do!
She began screaming out their names at the top of her lungs, as soon as
she came in sight of them. The girls sat by the brook, busily plaiting
little baskets out of pliant willow twigs.
“Eunice! Cricket! my pa says you shan’t go in our barnyard to-day, so
there!”
“Oh, dear me!” sighed Cricket, in deep disgust. “If there isn’t that
horrid little tag-tail again.”
It was not very often that Mamie ventured on the Kayuna grounds. She had
been warned off too many times, with too many threats of terrible things
happening if she went beyond the farm-yard bounds. This morning her
errand made her bold.
“Do you hear?” she repeated, in her shrill little voice. “Pa sez he
won’t have you in the barnyard any more. I don’t b’lieve he’ll let you
in the barn either, ’n’ then you can’t jump on the hay ever again.”
“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Eunice, not very elegantly it must be
confessed. “As if it wasn’t, really, _our_ father’s barn.”
“Don’t care. My pa kin boss it, ’n’ he’s goin’ to,” returned Mamie,
enjoying her sense of importance, and teasingly keeping back the true
reason of the message.
“I’ll make ’em good and angry, first,” she thought, in her usual
mischievous spirit. “Pa said you was allers a-junketin’ round. I heerd
him,” she said, aloud.
“Well, I’d like to know,” said Cricket, angrily, “what right ’Gustus
John has to say what we shall do in those barns. They are my papa’s, and
he just hires your father to look after the farm, Mamie Hecker. And papa
says we may play in the barns as much as we like, if we don’t ’sturb
things, and ’Gustus John says we never ’sturb anything at all. I don’t
b’lieve one word of it. Do you, Eunice?”
“No, I don’t. But I think,” said Eunice, very slowly and decidedly, “if
you know what’s good for yourself, Mamie, you’ll get off our grounds,
just as fast as you can travel, or else—you’ll see!”
“You don’t dast spank me again,” cried Mamie, holding up one knee, while
she balanced herself on one foot, “cause your pa told you never to dast
do that again. I ’xpect he’d whip you, if you did.”
“Whip me!” replied Eunice, scornfully. “Whippings are for bad little
things like you, Mamie; you’d be better if you got a lot more of them.”
The children never stopped to choose their words when they talked to
Mamie.
“Anyway,” said Mamie, changing the subject, but with a sudden purpose of
revenge for that spanking coming into her mind, “your own pa said just
so. He and pa was a talkin’ by the gate, an’ pa, he said, ‘wish you’d
hev them girls keep out of the barnyard, for they’re allers a-junketin’
round.’ Them’s his very words. An’ yer pa, he said, ‘I’ll tell ’em if I
see ’em, but like as not I won’t’; ’n’ my pa, he said, ‘Mamie, go and
tell ’em straight off this minute, that I say keep out of the barnyard;’
so I come, ’cause my pa an’ your pa, they said to, both on ’em.”
“For goodness sake, Mamie, go away with your ‘pa’s,’” said Cricket,
impatiently. “You do make me so cross. I don’t believe a word of it.
’Gustus never in his life told us to keep out of the barn.” Long
experience with Mamie made the girls slow to believe anything she stated
for a fact.
“He said so this time, anyway,” repeated Mamie, much enjoying the girls’
anger, as she fired stones into the brook to make a splash. “He said he
was a-waitin’ round to warn yer off.” Then she thought, “I won’t tell
’em the reason why, at all, hateful old things, ’n’ then they’ll be
sorry.”
It must be remembered that rude as Cricket and Eunice now certainly were
to the child, it was only that a long time of bearing Mamie’s teasing,
provoking ways had brought them to speaking to her as they did. They
scorned to tell tales, and the elders had no idea how tormenting Mamie
always was. “Worse than skeeters,” Cricket said.
Mamie knew precisely the effect that her words would probably have.
Without doubt, the girls would go to the barns sometime that day, and if
they should get hooked—just a little—by that cross old cow, wouldn’t
they be well paid up for spanking her that day. Of course it wouldn’t be
her fault, for she had told them to keep away.
“You’ve got to keep out of our ba-arn! You’ve got to keep out of our
ba-arn!” she repeated, in a sing-song voice, firing a particularly big
stone into the water, having aimed it with great care close to where
Eunice was sitting. The water splashed up, spattering her well.
“You mean little thing!” Eunice cried, springing up in a fury. Mamie had
already darted away, and was flying across the meadows like a little
brown spider. She rolled under the fence just as Eunice was upon her.
“You dassent tetch me now!” she gasped, panting for breath. “I’m on my
pa’s land.”
“Lucky for you,” said Eunice, wrathfully. “If you come over here again
I’ll take you up to my father, if Cricket and I have to drag you every
step of the way. Now mind!”
“Oh, dear, very smart you are!” jeered Mamie, safe on her side of the
fence. “I expect you’d like to tear me into limbs. But you’ll be sorry
if you don’t keep out of my pa’s barns,” she added, edging off.
“They’re my father’s barns, and I’ll go in them just as much as I
please,” answered Eunice, turning away with much dignity, now that she
had driven Mamie well off the grounds.
“What can she have meant by all that nonsense, Cricket, do you think?”
she said, seating herself again. “The idea of ’Gustus John telling us to
keep out of the barns! He would as soon think of telling us to keep out
of our own stables,” she added.
“Why, I think she just wanted to plague us, and couldn’t think of
anything else to say,” answered Cricket. “Eunice, I do b’lieve we
haven’t been down to the barns this week. Let’s go by-and-by, and jump
on the hay.”
“All right. Let’s go now,” said Eunice, jumping up. “I feel just like
it. I’m stiff sitting still so long.” And accordingly, down went the
willow baskets, and off ran the two little maids.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE NEW COW.
The warm sunshine lay full on the great barnyard, and the silence of a
summer morning in the country lay over everything. The farmhands were
off at work, and the wide barn-doors stood open. The air was full of the
sweet, warm odour of drying hay.
The children loved the big, rambling barn, with its dark, dusky corners,
and they would play there by the hour. They would climb up the steep
ladders, walk fearlessly across the big beams, and, with a wild whoop,
would plunge downward on the mass of soft, sweet-smelling hay beneath.
Cricket had learned to achieve a somersault while in mid-air, and was
very proud of this accomplishment. Then such places for hide-and-seek,
when they could coax the boys to join them, did the dim corners afford!
Such a famous place it was in which to play “Indians,” for they could
barricade themselves behind mounds of hay, and fire a scattering shot of
grain at the enemy who besieged them. The front doors of the barn were
level with the lane, but behind it, where the barnyard was, the ground
fell sharply, so that the same floor was a second story, beneath which
the cow-stables lay. At the back of the barn, opposite the front door,
was another wide door, opening on the cowyard, ten feet below, so that a
wagon backed up there could easily be loaded from above.
Fortunately, ’Gustus John was good-nature itself, and “admired to hev
the children enjoy themselves,” as he often said. In all their capers,
he had never been known to say anything stronger than, “Wal, I do vum! I
never see sech goin’s-on.” It was for this reason that Eunice and
Cricket did not in the least believe Mamie when she said that her father
had sent her to tell them not to go into the barnyard that day. If the
child had told them the reason why, they would not have thought of
going, for, with all their faults, they were rarely directly
disobedient. They were too well-trained for that. Dr. Ward believed in
letting the children run wild all summer, while they were in the
country, and there were but two things he was severe with: disobedience
and the want of truth.
As the girls came up, the barnyard was quite deserted except for one
peaceful-looking cow who stood quietly chewing her cud in a shady
corner. A few stray hens and chickens clucked and scratched in the
straw. Not another sound was to be heard. Even Mamie was not in sight.
“I wonder where that bad little thing is?” said Cricket, looking around,
and half expecting a shower of pebbles, by way of greeting.
“Expect she’s gone to mourn for her sins,” said Eunice.
“That will take her some time,” laughed Cricket, “and so we’ll have a
little peace. Isn’t that the new cow ’Gustus John bought last week at
the Fair? I wonder why it isn’t in the pasture with the rest.”
“I don’t know. Oh, Cricket, what lovely boards!” exclaimed Eunice. “I
suppose ’Gustus has them for his new hen-house. Let’s take one of them
and see-saw.”
“Oh, goody, let’s!” and the little girls soon had one of the long new
boards down from the pile. See-saw was an old amusement, and their
favourite place to balance the board was across one of the open spaces
in the barnyard fence. One little girl would go inside the yard and the
other would stay outside.
“See how funny that cow stands?” said Cricket, as she unfastened the
gate and went into the barnyard, in order to pull the board through as
Eunice pushed it from the other side.
The cow stood with her head lowered and her tail moving restlessly,
watching the children’s movements. Cricket, however, too used to cows to
fear them, did not notice her further, and drew the board to the right
position to balance. Then with much squealing and laughing—little-girl
fashion—the two seated themselves, and the fun began.
“See-saw! see-saw! here we go up and down,” sang the children gayly, as
Cricket’s head rose above the fence and Eunice went down. They did not
see Mamie peeping at them from the barn-door that opened above the
cowyard, and they rather wondered at her unusual absence.
“It’s just lovely to have that Mamie out of the way,” remarked Cricket,
as she went up again.
“Too good to last,” returned Eunice.
At this moment a scream came from the barn-door above them.
“Oh, Cricket, look out for the new cow!” but too late came Mamie’s
warning. The new cow, frantic at the strange sight of a bright-coloured
spot moving up and down before her very eyes, with a rush bolted across
the yard and caught the descending board right on her horns. The next
second Cricket was spinning through the air and came down against Eunice
with a force that stunned them both.
A sudden peal of impish laughter rang out from the barn, changing almost
instantly to a shrill cry of terror. Mamie, hopping about, as usual, on
one foot, had lost her balance, and plunged downward, head-foremost.
The shrill cries still continued when Cricket, a few moments after, sat
up slowly and looked around her.
“Why, what in the world—” she began, pushing back her curly mop with
both hands, in the greatest bewilderment,—then she looked down at
Eunice, who lay white and unconscious on the ground. The back of her
head had struck sharply against a stone, for she had caught the full
force of Cricket’s fall. The latter, consequently, had escaped being
seriously hurt.
[Illustration: CRICKET FINDS EUNICE UNCONSCIOUS.]
“Eunice!” cried Cricket, wild with terror, “speak to me! What’s the
matter, Eunice?” and she tried to lift her sister in her arms. She had
never seen unconsciousness before, and for one terrible moment she
thought that she was dead. Eunice, at the movement, opened her eyes and
tried to speak.
Meanwhile Mamie’s cries were ringing out,—
“Ow! ow! Cricket, come take me off! she’s a-hooking my feet!”
As Eunice stirred, Cricket turned, and even in her terror and excitement
she laughed at the sight she saw. Mamie had lost her balance and plunged
forward, but as she went over the sill, her stout gingham frock caught
on a projecting nail a few inches down, and there she still hung, arms
waving and legs wildly kicking, and sending out shriek after shriek.
Below, the ugly cow was lowering her head and striking at the dangling
feet, every now and then hitting them. “Pull me up, Cricket!” Mamie
screamed, nearly in convulsions of terror, her struggling making the
matter still worse.
As Cricket rose unsteadily to her feet, and saw the situation, the whole
thing flashed into her quick brain. Mamie had been sent to tell them to
keep out of the barnyard, because the new cow was ugly, and she had
purposely given only half the message. And here was Eunice half-killed
as a result. Of her own bruises she never thought.
“I don’t care!” she screamed, passionately, in answer to Mamie’s
shrieks. “I don’t care if you’re all hooked up! You’ve killed my Eunice,
and I hope you are satisfied,” and she knelt by her sister again.
“I’ll never be bad any more,” shrieked Mamie, at the top of her lungs.
“Help—me—up,—Cricket.”
“I don’t care,” repeated Cricket, angrily, but really scarcely knowing
whether to run for help, or stay with Eunice, or help Mamie. “That
hateful, hateful little thing! Serves her right.”
But in a moment Cricket’s better self came to the front, at Mamie’s last
piercing cry,—
“Ow! ow! she’s hurt my foot awful!”
Cricket sprang up and ran around to the barn-door. Her knee was cut and
bleeding, but she did not heed it. She darted across the barn floor to
the door at the back. It was not an easy matter to decide what she was
to do, for Mamie, though she was slight and small, would be a dead
weight on her as she pulled her up, and then also, she suddenly
discovered that her left shoulder was strained and sore. But there was
no time to hesitate, for Mamie’s position was dangerous as well as
absurd. Her struggles might release her dress at any moment, and those
angry horns and hoofs were waiting below.
Cricket grasped a stout, wooden staple at the side of the door-frame
with her right hand, and, bending far over, she slipped her left arm
around Mamie’s waist. Mamie clutched her instantly.
“Stop wiggling,” said Cricket, sharply. It was no small task for her,
with her strained arm, to bring Mamie up even those ten inches, but with
a desperate effort she drew her up to a sitting position on the
door-sill, so the child could scramble in herself. For one second she
felt as if her arm was being dragged out of her body, and only long
practice in swinging off limbs of trees, and drawing herself up again,
had made her muscles equal to the strain.
Mamie climbed in, and then stood perfectly still, for once, with nothing
to say, looking at Cricket out of the tail of her eye. If Cricket had
fallen on her and thrashed her soundly, she would have taken it without
a murmur. But Cricket, of course, had no such idea. She stood for a
moment, looking at her small enemy in silence, and then raced out of the
barn, back to her beloved Eunice. She found her sitting up and looking
very dazed and white. She had not the least idea what had happened to
them, and was too confused to ask.
“Do you feel as if you could walk home?” asked Cricket, putting her arm
very tenderly around her; “or will you stay here while I go for Mike to
bring you home in the carriage? Or do you want to go into the
farm-house, and get ’Manda to give you something?”
“I think—I’ll—go home,” said Eunice, her nerves decidedly shaken, and
her head still dizzy from the effects of the blow. “I’ll—try—to walk.”
Cricket helped her up, and put her arm about her to steady her.
CHAPTER XXII.
MAMIE’S REPENTANCE.
Mamie went sneaking past them to the house and went into the kitchen
where her mother was at work.
“Oh, ma!” she cried. “The girls has been in the barnyard where that
cross cow is, ’n’ Cricket got knocked over the fence, and Eunice is most
killed I guess, ’n’ I don’t b’lieve she kin walk home.”
“Got hooked! Law ful suz! You don’t say so!” and ’Manda hurriedly wiped
her hands and ran out to the lane. The barn was not far from the house,
but the kitchen was on the further side, so she had not noticed the
children’s screams.
She ran to meet the girls and caught Eunice up in her strong arms. “You
poor little dear,” she exclaimed. “I’ll carry you right along myself.
Here, Cricket, you hang on to me too;” for Cricket was limping by this
time, with her knee aching more every minute.
’Manda was very comforting, for she was too used to the children’s
mishaps even to ask how things had happened. “Come in and rest a spell,”
she coaxed, “and let me put some hot water on your head, poor dear.”
“I want to go home,” repeated Eunice, still half-crying.
“Well, so you shall, an’ I’ll carry you right up there, myself. ’Course
yer ma’s yer best friend when you’re hurt. Hi! there goes the doctor
now! Hi! Hi!”
Dr. Ward, returning from his call, drew up his horse as he crossed the
little bridge at the sound of the cry.
“Suthin’ happened, just the same as usual, doctor,” ’Manda said, as the
party came up, with Mamie well in the rear.
The doctor sprang out of his buggy, looking rather anxious. There were
certainly drawbacks to having a pair of romps for daughters.
He hastily took Eunice in his arms.
“What is the matter, dear. Did you fall?”
“Not—not exactly,” said Eunice. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but
somehow Cricket flew over the fence, and fell on top of me, and—and I
think my head knocked into a stone, and my back hurts too.”
“Flew over the fence? What do you mean?”
“That old cow hooked me over,” flashed out Cricket. “We were see-sawing,
just peaceably, and the old thing came up behind me and boosted me right
over the fence, and ’course I fell on Eunice pretty hard, and we got all
mixed up with the end of the boards and some stones. Eunice is more hurt
than I am, though.”
“The _cow_,” said the doctor, looking suddenly stern. “Did you go into
the barnyard?”
“Yes, sir, we always do, you know.”
“Didn’t you get my message?”
“Yes—but—well, I didn’t really believe Mamie, ’cause she didn’t say
why,” burst out Cricket, after a moment’s hesitation. “And we always go
in the barns whenever we wish, and ’Gustus John never says a word. And
oh, dear! I do feel as if the socket was pulled out of my arm.” And
Cricket, between excitement and pain, burst out crying.
Her father had gathered enough from her story to feel sure that there
had been no real disobedience, and seeing the children’s nervousness and
pain, he put them both into the buggy, and as speedily as possible gave
them over into the care of mamma and nurse.
It was several days before Eunice was herself again, for she had really
had a hard blow both on the back and head, and for two days she was
actually willing to remain in bed. She really very seldom met with
accidents, for she was not by nature nearly so much of a romp as her
younger sister, and was far less rash and heedless.
Cricket was as chirpy as ever the next day. Her knee was bound up and
she hobbled about, rather enjoying the attention she received. Her left
arm was somewhat stiff and lame, for she had hit her left side with
considerable force as she landed, although her striking Eunice had
somewhat broken her fall.
The whole story had come out, and, as usual, Cricket had to undergo a
fire of teasing.
“A girl with the sockets pulled out of her arms ought to go to the Dime
Museum,” laughed papa, as they all sat on the piazza that evening after
supper. “She’s a natural curiosity.”
“If I’m a natural curiosity, then I wish I were an unnatural one. I
don’t think I’m nice a bit,” said Cricket, candidly. “Things never
happen to Eunice and Hilda, if I’m not along. Just think, if I hadn’t
hit Eunice she wouldn’t have been hurt a bit,” for Cricket took her
sister’s injuries very much to heart.
“You always have such romantic accidents,” teased Donald. “Think how
thrilling it is to be run away with by a raging span of oxen, and fancy
the excitement of being tossed by the cow with a crumpled horn!”
“I really should think you wouldn’t care to look a piece of beef in the
face,” laughed Will.
“Plant Cricket and what would she come up,” asked Archie, and Cricket
herself answered, quickly,—
“Cow-slip. That’s good. Ask another one.”
“Can’t; you’re too bright.”
“I’d have given a sixpence to see Mamie Hecker dangling on that hook,”
said Will. “Little imp!”
“It wasn’t very funny to fish her up,” said Cricket, seriously, “for it
_did_ pull the sockets out of my arm. Why isn’t that right to say,
papa!”
“Because your arms are put in the sockets, my dear, not the sockets in
your arms.”
“Oh! well, I hope it will teach Mamie a lesson; and the next time she
has a message to give, I hope she’ll give it.”
“What do you think!” exclaimed Marjorie. “Here’s Mamie Hecker coming up
the avenue now.”
Sure enough, there was Mamie in her stiffly-starched best white dress,
and her Sunday hat on her head, coming very slowly up towards the house.
This was very unusual, for Mamie knew her bounds. The family watched her
with interest to see what she meant to do.
Cricket slipped hastily behind mamma. “I don’t want to see her,” she
said, impatiently.
Mamie came awkwardly to the foot of the steps.
“Is Cricket here?” she asked, with a very unusual shyness in her manner,
which was partly due to the fact that she had on her best clothes on a
week-day.
Cricket came unwillingly forward in obedience to mamma’s touch.
“I want to speak to you,” Mamie said, still shyly.
Cricket came slowly down the steps, half expecting some trick, since she
knew Mamie’s ways so well. But the child was in earnest this time. She
stood uneasily, first on one foot and then on the other, not quite
knowing how to say what she wanted to.
“See here,” she burst out, at length. “I’ve brought you those,” holding
out a brown paper bag. “Ma said I might. I bought ’em with the five
cents that the minister give me. An’—an’—I’m awful sorry I didn’t tell
you ’bout the cow right straight off,—an’—I’m not goin’ to tag you any
more.”
Cricket took the bag that the child held toward her.
“Why, Mamie, you shouldn’t have spent your five cents for me,” began
Cricket, shy in her turn, and hardly knowing what to say. “But it’s very
good of you.”
“I told my ma ’n’ pa ’bout my not telling you, and they was awful took
back. Pa said you might have been killed. An’ then you went and pulled
me up with that lame arm of yourn,” Mamie went on, in a lower tone,
putting out one finger to touch Cricket’s left arm, of which the fingers
were still a little stiff and swollen. “I ain’t forgot that. I’m a-goin’
to be gooder all the time, now,” and here Mamie, quite overcome by her
feelings, gave the brown paper bag in Cricket’s hand, a final pat, and,
turning around, scampered away to the gates as fast as her feet could
carry her.
“Well, I say!” Donald exclaimed, as Cricket, still looking very much
amazed, came up the steps. “I should call that a case of clear
repentance. Real article.”
“I’ve hopes of Mamie, now,” said Marjorie.
“That certainly is very touching,” said mamma, gently.
“Cricket, you fished to some purpose when you brought up Mamie from the
depths,” added Will.
“Whatever has she brought as a peace-offering?” asked Archie, curiously.
Cricket opened the bag and displayed five chocolate mice.
“If they were only cows, now,” shouted Will.
CHAPTER XXIII.
WHEN MAMMA WAS A LITTLE GIRL.
The next morning rather dragged. Eunice was up and about again, though
she looked a trifle pale, and did not feel in the mood even for a drive.
Cricket went out for a short time with Mopsie, and took the twins with
her, but she soon came back, finding that the motion of the pony-cart
made her arm ache.
Mamma and auntie were sitting on the piazza under the vines, with their
embroidery, and Cricket found Eunice there, also, comfortably settled in
the broad Mexican hammock.
“Come here, Cricket,” Eunice called, “for mamma is going to tell us
stories.”
“Goody!” cried Cricket, skipping up joyfully, in spite of her stiff
knee.
Was there ever a child to whom mamma’s stories were not a mine of
delight?
“Curl up in the other hammock, pet,” said mamma, “and rest while we
talk. You don’t look like my Cricket, yet.”
Cricket stopped to give mamma one of her bear-squeezes,—for she looked
so cool and sweet and pretty to her little girl, as she sat in her low
chair,—and then she climbed into another hammock, and settled herself
comfortably to listen.
“What shall I tell you about?” asked mamma, ready to begin. “I think
I’ve told you every single thing I ever did, when I was a little girl.”
“Tell us _anything_,” said the children, in chorus. “Never mind if you
have told it before.”
“Let me see. Did I ever tell you about my first lie? Indeed, my only
one, for that matter.”
“Why, mamma!” cried Cricket, in great surprise. “Did you ever tell a
story? I didn’t know that little girls ever used to do that. I thought
they were all so good.”
“This happened when I was a very little girl, dear. Do you remember,”
mamma asked auntie, “that little lilac print dress I had when I was
about five years old? It was such a pretty little dress.”
“I remember the dress very well, and what happened the first time you
wore it,” laughed auntie.
“Yes, that’s the time I mean. Well, children, I had on this little new
dress, of which I was very proud. It was an afternoon in early spring,
and it was the first cambric dress that I had had on that season, so I
felt particularly fine in it. Auntie Jean and I ran out to play. You
remember, don’t you, children, how the house and barns at your
grandfather’s are, and how steep the little hill back of the barn is? It
was all green and grassy, and we loved to play there. Jean’s new dress
was not quite finished, so she had on her regular little afternoon
frock, and I felt prouder than ever of mine. I plumed myself so much,
that finally Jean wouldn’t play with me. I know I made myself very
disagreeable,” added mamma, smiling.
“There were barrels and boxes back of the barn, where we used to play
house. I got up on one of the boxes, after a time, when Jean left me to
myself, and I began jumping off it. Jean was arranging the play-house
near by. The hill, with its short, green grass, looked very inviting to
me, and presently I called to Jean, ‘I dare jump off this box, and roll
right down the hill over and over.’
“‘I wouldn’t,’ Jean said, very pleasantly, ‘you might spoil your new
dress.’ She really meant to advise me not to do it, but I thought that
she meant that I was afraid of my new frock.
“‘Yes, I dare, too, and I will,’ I said, and off I jumped and rolled
sideways down the hill, over and over. It had rained in the night, and,
though the hill was dry, the water had collected in a little hollow at
the foot, which I did not notice on account of the grass. Through this I
rolled, splash.”
“Just like me,” remarked Cricket, with much interest. “Eunice says I’d
tumble into the water, if there wasn’t a saucerful around.”
“Yes, very much like you,” returned mamma, smiling. “When I got up, my
pretty little lilac frock, of course, was all draggled and stained.”
“What an object you looked!” laughed auntie, “and how angry you were!”
“Yes,” said mamma, laughing, also. “That was the funny part of it. I was
so angry, but I’m sure I don’t know who with. I felt that _somebody_ was
very much to blame, but I wasn’t at all willing to say that that
somebody was my naughty little self. I got up, and looked down at my
dress. Then I called out angrily, ‘See what you’ve done, Jean Maxwell,’
as I stood at the foot of the hill. Jean looked at me as I came climbing
up, scolding all the way, and then she burst out laughing. I suppose I
was a very funny object, but I didn’t feel funny at all.”
“It was funny enough to hear you scold, and that was principally what I
was laughing at,” said auntie.
“I dare say,” answered mamma. “By the time I reached the top of the hill
I was in a great rage. I used to get into rages very easily, then.”
“_You_, mamma?” Eunice looked as if she could scarcely believe it.
“Yes, my dear, I wasn’t always a good little girl in those days. ‘I’m
going to tell mother what a naughty girl you are, Jean,’ I half-sobbed.
“‘What a naughty girl _I_ am? You’d better tell her what a naughty girl
you are yourself, rolling down hill, and getting your dress all dirty,’
Jean said, getting angry in her turn. Then she went on with her
play-house and wouldn’t speak to me any more. I ran crying towards the
house. Before I got there, I had quite made up my mind that it was
certainly all Jean’s fault, somehow, and that if it hadn’t been for what
she said, I shouldn’t have rolled down the hill in the first place, and
so I shouldn’t have spoiled my new dress.
“I burst into the sitting-room, where your grandmother sat sewing. You
know what a lovely old lady grandma is now, children, with her white
puffs and dark eyes, and she was just as lovely then, when her hair was
black. She looked up, as I rushed in panting.
“‘Gently, gently, little daughter,’ she said. ‘What _has_ happened to
your new frock, my dear? oh, what a sight you are!’
“Now I knew very well that grandma wouldn’t have punished me for
spoiling the dress, for after all, it was an accident. I had often
rolled down that hill before, and no harm had come of it. So I don’t, in
the least, know what made me say it, excepting that I was so angry, but
almost before I realized it, I was saying very fast, ‘mother, Jean was
angry because I had on my new frock and she hadn’t, and so, when I was
just standing on a box, suddenly she came behind me, and pushed me over
as hard as she could, and I rolled down the hill, and rolled right
through some water, and so I’ve spoiled my new dress.’ I was so excited
that it never occurred to mother that I was not speaking the truth. I
was so little—only five years old,—and I had never told her a lie
before.
“‘Why! why!’ she exclaimed, laying down her work, and getting up. ‘I am
surprised that Jean should do that. Come upstairs with me, and I will
change your dress.’ That was all she said to me then, for mother never
scolded at one child for what another one did, as I have heard some
mothers do, and of course she thought this was Jean’s fault. So she took
me upstairs to the big nursery and took off my dress.
“‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘that your pretty little dress is spoiled.
Now, it will have to go straight to the wash, and it won’t look so
pretty again.’
“‘That naughty Jean!’ I ventured to say, growing bolder.
“‘Hush, my dear,’ said grandma, ‘I will talk to Jean. I dare say she did
not mean to push you so hard.’”
“But I should think, mamma,” broke in Eunice, “that you would have
thought that Jean would come in any minute, and say she hadn’t done it
at all.”
“Of course, I was a very silly little girl not to think of that,”
answered mamma, “but it shows that I wasn’t used to deceiving. I never
thought of the consequences. Somehow, too, by that time, I felt quite
certain that I was telling the exact truth, and I entirely forgot that
Jean would soon be in to say she hadn’t touched me.
“Well, only a few minutes after that, Jean came into the house, and ran
quickly upstairs to the nursery. I was still running around in my little
white petticoat and under-waist, while mother went to the clothes-press,
to get a dress for me. You know that big carved wardrobe that still
stands by grandma’s door in the hall? The one your grandpa brought home
in one of his voyages? Well, it was that very one. Grandma came back, as
Jean came in singing. She looked so entirely unconcerned that I think
mother was surprised.
“‘Jean,’ she said, coming in and holding out her hand to her, ‘how could
you do such a naughty thing as to push your little sister so hard that
she fell off the box, and rolled down the hill?’
“I can see your look of surprise now, Jean,” said mamma, turning to
auntie, “as you stopped short and said, ‘Pushed her off the box? why, I
didn’t! she jumped off herself.’
“Grandma looked from one to the other of us.
“‘What is this?’ she said. ‘One or the other of you is telling me what
isn’t true.’ I shall never forget her look of grieved surprise. It must
have been difficult for her to decide which was the guilty one, at
first, for I felt that I must stick to what I had said. All my anger
came back, and I jumped up and down, screaming, ‘you pushed me off, Jean
Maxwell! you pushed me off.’
“‘Mother, I _didn’t_!’ Jean said. ‘Please believe me, for you know I
wouldn’t do such a thing.’ Really, it would have been much more like me,
for I had a quick temper, and I was always losing it.
“‘Margaret,’ said mother, taking hold of my hands, ‘stand still and tell
me the exact truth. Did Jean push you off the box, or did you jump?’
“‘Jean pushed,’ I began, but I could not look into mother’s eyes, and
tell her a lie again. ‘Anyhow,’ I said, half-crying, ‘she wanted to push
me!’
“‘Tell me the truth, Margaret,’ mother said. ‘Did Jean touch you at
all?’
“‘No,’ I said, unwillingly.
“‘Did she even say she was going to?’
“‘No!’ I cried, ‘for she would not speak to me.’
“‘Then why did you say that she wanted to push you off? Did she ever do
such a thing?’
“‘No, never!’ I admitted, and then I began to feel very much ashamed of
myself, for my anger never lasted long.
“Then mother said, ‘Very well, Jean, I quite understand the matter now.’
Then she sent her away, and talked to me for a long time. She questioned
me closely, and learned that I was the only one to blame. She made me
understand what a dreadful thing it was to tell even a little lie, and
how telling little ones would lead to a habit, so that one might say
what was not true in very important matters. Altogether, I was very
repentant, and promised never to tell another lie about anything, and I
believe I never did. The soap and water helped me remember it.”
“What was the soap and water?” asked Cricket.
“Why, my mother said, when she had finished talking to me, that she
couldn’t kiss the little mouth that had let such a dreadful thing as a
lie come through it, till it was all clean again,—and the only way to
clean it was to wash it out. So she really did wash my mouth out
thoroughly with Castile soap and water, and all the time she made me
feel that it was not so much for a punishment, as really to make my
mouth clean after the lie.
“Grandma seldom punished us, but somehow we always felt the consequences
of our naughty deeds. And as I said, I think I never told another
story.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
MAMMA’S BANK.
“How funny it is to think of your telling a lie!” exclaimed Cricket. “I
never heard about that before. Tell us another one.”
“Do you remember, Margaret,” asked auntie of mamma, “how we put our
money in the bank?”
“Indeed, I do,” laughed mamma. “What disappointed children we were!”
“What was that?” the children asked, eagerly.
“It isn’t much of a story, I think, only it was funny. I was about six
and Jean was eight, weren’t we? Some friend of my mother’s came to visit
her for a few days, and brought her little daughter with her. Do you
remember that little Cecilia, Jean?”
“I should think I did! I remember her distinctly, although we never saw
her again. She was such a prim little thing, with long, light curls—such
cork-screw curls! She wore a silk dress, and didn’t like to do anything
but sit in the parlour and keep herself trim.”
“But we children admired her immensely,” said mamma. “We thought that
her name was beautiful—Cecilia. She said her mother found it in a book.
We loved to race about and romp as much as you children do, but she
didn’t know how to play anything. She was a little older than we were,
and would tell us long stories about her home. One thing impressed us
especially. She asked us if we had any money in the bank, and we said,
‘None at all,’ in much surprise at the question.
“‘I have three hundred dollars in the bank,’ she said, proudly, ‘and my
father’s going to leave it there till I’m twenty-one, and put in one
hundred more every year. It will grow to be a lot of money when I’m a
young lady. Then I’m going to buy wedding clothes with it.’
“This was entirely new talk to Jean and me. We had heard of banks, of
course, but we had never really thought what they were. Cecilia’s words
puzzled us, for awhile, although we did not ask her any questions
further about it.
“The word ‘bank’ only meant to us a literal bank,—a sand-bank. Do you
remember, children, those long sand-banks back of the shore, on the
other side of grandpa’s orchard? They are just within his fence, you
know. Well, we thought that Cecilia surely meant just such a place as
that. After she was gone we talked the matter over very seriously.
Cecilia’s money seemed like untold wealth to us, and of course we would
have nothing like that to start with, but we decided that we would take
what we had and put it in the bank.
“We opened our chamois bags to count our money. We used to put in them
any pennies that remained of our weekly five cents, and extra bits that
would come in our way. Putting this in the bank meant, to us, digging a
hole in the sand-bank, and burying the money in it. Then in some strange
way, which we didn’t at all understand, the money would ‘grow,’ as
Cecilia said, and by-and-by we would have a great deal more. I think we
thought of its growing as the roots of a tree grow. Do you remember,
Jean, how grand we felt, emptying our chamois-skin bags, and counting
our pennies?”
“Indeed, yes,” said auntie. “It was getting near the County Fair time,
to which we were always taken, and for which we had been saving our
pennies eagerly. There seemed such a lot of them.”
“How many and shining they looked!” went on mamma. “We took our bags,
one day, and a little shovel, and started out. We did not tell grandma,
because we thought that we would like to surprise her some day with a
big pile of gold dollars, which, for some reason, we had made up our
minds would be our crop. How earnest and sincere we were!”
“We certainly were,” said auntie, smiling. “I wish I could remember just
how I thought that the money would ‘grow’ in the bank, but I am not sure
whether I thought it would spring up like a plant, and we would pick the
dollars, or whether we thought it would just spread in the ground.
Mother often used to say to us, when we wanted something that was very
absurd, ‘I’ll buy it for you when I can pick gold dollars off the
rosebush.’ Perhaps that gave us the idea.”
Then mamma took up the story again.
“We travelled off with our money-bags, and when we got to the
sand-banks, we selected a nice, smooth place, and dug a deep hole. Then
we laid our chamois-skin bags carefully in. Oh, I believe we wrapped
them in newspaper first, didn’t we? We covered them all up evenly, and
stuck two sticks down to mark the place, and then, feeling very rich, we
trotted home.
“For a week after this we made a trip down there every day, in great
excitement, and every day we came slowly back, much disappointed that
there were no signs of growth. Once we dug down and uncovered our bags,
to see if they had struck roots yet, but we were much discouraged to
find them only mouldy and damp, but still whole. Not a root had struck
out.
“Then Jean suddenly remembered that Cecilia had said that when she grew
to be a _lady_ that there would be a lot of money, so perhaps we would
have to wait just as long, and let our bags lie there till then. This
thought was a greater disappointment, for we had expected to surprise
the family with our crop of gold dollars when your grandfather came home
from his next voyage.
“By-and-by, of course, other things came up, and the bank was rather
forgotten, till one day grandma said that the County Fair was to be held
in a few days, and we would go, as usual. Then we looked at each other
in dismay, for we had buried all our money. We had expected at first,
you know, to reap our crop long before this important day, and here we
were with a very small number of pennies, and no sign of any money
sprouting yet.
“Grandma noticed our dismayed faces and at once asked us what was the
matter; so we told her the whole story. How she laughed! but she
explained to us very carefully what a bank really is, and how money does
‘grow’ or increase in a savings bank. Then she told us to run down and
dig up our bags before they were entirely spoiled.”
“Did you get them?” asked Cricket, eagerly.
“That is the sad part of my story, dear. Two very downcast children, we
went down to the sand-bank, and what do you think?”
“Had it all been taken away?” asked the children, breathlessly.
“No, but it might as well have been, for do you know, we couldn’t find
it. Heavy rains had come, and had washed away our sticks. We ran up and
down the sand-bank, which extends a long distance, you know, but we
could not find the spot anywhere. We dug here and there, for we could
not believe that we would not find our money, but all in vain. At last
we came, crying, back to grandma, and she comforted us, as usual. She
told us that little girls usually got into trouble when they did things
without asking their mammas, but that next time we would both be wiser,
and ask her advice first. Then she asked us how much money we had
buried, and two days after, on the very morning when we were to start
for the Fair, we found by our pillows, when we woke up, two pretty, new
chamois-skin bags, with the same amount of money, all in bright new
nickels, which grandma had taken the trouble to get for us.
“For months afterwards, we used to go down at intervals, and dig for
those bags, till I think we must have pretty nearly spaded up the entire
bank. But, at any rate, we did not strike just the right spot, and we
never saw those bags again.”
“Are they there now,” demanded Cricket, sitting up suddenly.
“For all I know. Much of the sand-bank on the other side has been carted
away for building purposes, but this side, I believe, has never been
disturbed.”
“Won’t I dig for it, next time I go to grandma’s!” cried Cricket. “How
much was there in them?”
“I think about three dollars altogether, wasn’t there, Jean? What
heart-broken children we were, weren’t we, when we first realized that
we couldn’t find the place!”
“Indeed we were. That was my first and last speculation,” laughed
auntie.
“Isn’t it funny,” said Cricket to Eunice, “to think that mamma and
auntie were ever such little geese!”
CHAPTER XXV.
GOING BACK TO TOWN.
Leaving dear old Kayuna and going back to town was always a time of
mourning with the Ward family. They had occasionally lived out there
through the whole year, but it was not very convenient for the grown-up
members of the family, and there were no good schools for the older
ones.
The first of October was the usual time for the flitting. For a week
before there was a great flying around among the small fry, who had to
put away any of their own possessions which were not taken with them
into town, for mamma insisted on their being left in perfect order. All
other things must be collected in the nursery to be packed.
These things were always getting hopelessly mixed up, and some treasured
article was always being rescued from the packed-away things. Cricket
and Eunice had a small trunk which they were allowed to pack all by
themselves, with their own books and treasures, and I should be afraid
to mention the number of times that this trunk was packed and unpacked.
Then there were all the animals on the place to see for a final good-by.
Dear little Mopsie and Charcoal had to have extra feeds of apples and
sugar, to make up for the long time before they would see their little
mistresses again. Mike had to be charged, over and over, not to neglect
to give them enough exercise, and always to let the dogs go, too.
Grinning Mike finally said that he believed “Miss Scriket thought he
didn’t know a horse whin he met wan in the road,” since she gave him so
many instructions.
Then the children must race down to the barns, at the farm-house, and
take a last jump on the heaps of soft, dry hay. They must find some eggs
to take to the store for a final exchange for candy. They must visit all
their favourite haunts by the dear little brook, and say good-by to the
dear old woods, now gay in their fall dress of scarlet and gold.
Hilda had already begun school, and could be with them very little now,
but she was broken-hearted, as usual, at the thought of losing her
little playfellow. She and Edith Craig spent all their spare minutes
with the girls, and planned eagerly for the coming year. Mamma had last
year invited both Hilda and Edith to spend the Christmas holidays in
town with her little daughters, and you can imagine what fine times they
had there, although it proved very different from being together in the
country. Sometime I may tell you about one of these visits to town.
At last everything was ready for the departure. The furniture was all
done up in linen covers, and mattings and rugs were taken up and put
away. The children would race up and down the great echoing halls and
rooms in high glee, enjoying the commotion of the last day. Mamma was
not strong enough to bear all this confusion, and she went back in town
a few days earlier, to see that everything was ready and comfortable in
their town house. The servant whom they left there through the summer
had the house open and in order, so mamma and Kenneth, whom she took
with her, had a few days of rest and quiet all by themselves.
The house at Kayuna was shut up through the winter, though the farmer’s
wife came up once a week to go over it and see that everything was all
right.
At last came the day of departure. Since the village was within easy
driving distance of the city—twelve miles—Mike always loaded up the
trunks on a big cart, and drove them all in town, himself, while the
family went in by train. This year there was a little change in their
going.
’Gustus John, who often drove to town, found that it was necessary for
him to go that very day, and ’Manda wanted to go also, for her fall
shopping. In view of this,—though he had much difficulty in getting his
courage up to ask such a favour,—he begged Dr. Ward that he might have
the “pleasure and honour” of driving Miss Eunice and Miss Cricket in
town with them.
The doctor hesitated, but Cricket and Eunice, hearing of the plan,
begged so hard for permission that their father finally consented.
The start had to be an early one, in order that the farmer and his wife
should get in town to do their errands, for they had to be at home by
five o’clock. So eight o’clock on Wednesday morning saw the wagon drive
in at the gates of Kayuna. ’Gustus John in his big overcoat,—for the
morning was chilly,—and in his new stiff Derby hat, looked a very
different figure from the ’Gustus John of every day, in his blue
overalls and blouse. ’Manda rejoiced in a new fall bonnet, trimmed with
red and blue feathers, and was wrapped up in a gay plaid shawl. She sat
in front with her husband, and left the roomy back seat to the children.
They were all ready, and came out smiling and in good spirits. It was
really much easier parting from dear old Kayuna, since the pleasure of
this long drive was in prospect. Mike brought Mopsie and Charcoal around
to see the start, he said,—though I think it was really an excuse to be
there himself,—and the girls must stop for another hug for them, and
kisses on their cold little noses.
The big farm-horses, carefully groomed and shining, held up their heads,
and said, as plainly as could be, that they were delighted to get off
from the farm-work for one day, as they stood, stamping the ground,
impatient to be off.
’Manda had some extra shawls with which she insisted on wrapping up
Cricket and Eunice, for this October morning was crisp and cool. The
children felt like little mummies, but they were glad of the extra
warmth. Eliza charged ’Manda to take off the shawls before they reached
town, so “they might look like something, when they got there.”
Then ’Gustus John gathered up the reins, and the horses, tossing their
fine heads, wheeled around, and went down the avenue at a brisk trot,
while Eunice and Cricket waved good-by to dear old Kayuna, and threw
kisses to Mopsie and Charcoal.
Gayly the horses trotted along the hard country roads, glad of a chance
to show their spirits and their speed. Merrily the girls’ tongues
wagged, and ’Gustus John and ’Manda on the front seat exchanged
delighted glances. They were such a good-natured couple that the
children always wondered how they happened to have such a spoiled child
as Mamie. Really ’Manda was too good-natured and easy with her. She
never could bear to correct or punish her in any way, and since Mamie
was not very good to begin with, the result was a bad one, as we know.
Too much of our own way is not good for any of us.
An hour of this brisk pace brought them to a roadside hotel, where the
horses were watered at a great trough by the side of the road. It was
pretty to watch the thirsty creatures, as they plunged their noses deep
in the clear, running water, and then drank eagerly. Then ’Gustus John
checked them up again, climbed into the light wagon, and then, gathering
up the reins, he cracked his whip and they were off once more.
Just after that they had an accident that might easily have been a
serious one. The back seat of the wagon could be taken out, so that
’Gustus John could use the space behind for packing jars of butter, and
baskets of eggs, when he went to town with “small truck,” as he called
it. When the seat was put back, two little iron pieces on the bottom
slipped into two little sockets and held it fast. Even without this, the
seat would rest pretty securely on the frame-work.
Now, while ’Gustus John had been harnessing that morning, he had just
lifted the seat from the barn floor, to put it in place,—for the last
time he had used this wagon the seat had been taken out,—when he was
called away. He rested it in its place on the body of the wagon; then,
without stopping at the moment, to notice if it was secure, went to see
what was wanted. When he came back the seat looked all right, and he
entirely forgot that he had not yet slipped the little irons into the
sockets. It would have been safe enough, in this way, over smooth, level
roads, but a jar, or a steep ascent, would have been enough to throw it
off the body of the wagon.
After they left the watering-trough, the road wound up a steep hill, a
very steep one. Eunice leaned forward and took hold of the back of the
front seat.
“Seems to me, Cricket,” she said, “this seat rather wiggles. Hope it
won’t slip off.”
“Nonsense! I don’t feel it,” said Cricket. “’Gustus John always fastens
it in tight. I’ve seen him lots of times,” and by way of showing her
confidence in ’Gustus John’s care, she leaned back with a little
unnecessary force. The horses at that moment came to what is called, in
the country, a “thank you marm,” which is a sort of mound across the
road to act as a water-shed. The wagon gave a jerk as it passed over.
This was too much for the seat, which had slipped a little as they
climbed the hill, and off it went behind, bringing the two little girls
with it, down into the middle of the road. At the same instant the
horses sprang forward at a renewed trot, as they swept around a curve to
a more level piece of road, and they were out of sight in a moment.
Cricket and Eunice, breathless with their sudden descent, sat on the
seat, staring after their chariot in great bewilderment. They had gone
over so suddenly, that neither of them had screamed, and ’Gustus John
and ’Manda, talking busily over their errands in town, did not know that
they had lost their passengers. Suddenly ’Manda, hearing a faint cry in
the distance, turned around to see if the children heard it. There was
nothing but emptiness behind.
“Lawful suz,” she cried, catching at the reins. “Ef we hain’t ben and
gone and lost them children! Turn round, ’Gustus John! turn _round_, I
say!”
’Gustus John’s slower brain could only take in one fact.
“Let go the lines, ’Mandy,” he said, sharply, as one of the horses
reared at the sudden twitch of the reins. “Hain’t I told yer more’n five
hundred times not to do that on no account?”
“The children, ’Gustus John!” gasped ’Manda, rising in her place, and
looking back. “We’ve lost the children! where can they be?”
“Lost ’em _out_?” ’Gustus John pulled up so suddenly that the horses
fell back on their haunches. “My Gummy!” He whirled the horses around,
and drove back. As they came to the curve, they saw Eunice and Cricket
in the road, trying to get out of the heavy shawls, which wrapped them
like mummies.
“Well, I declare for it! Are you hurt, children?” ’Manda called,
eagerly.
Both little girls came up laughing.
“No, not a bit,” they declared. They had not struck their backs at all,
only slipped right out, seat and all, and the thick shawls had protected
them. ’Gustus John was ready to sink into the ground with mortification.
“I swan! I never did forget that ’ere seat fastenin’ before. To think
I’ve been and done it this mornin’ of all mornin’s. I’m ashamed to look
your pa in the face ever agin, when I’ve pretty nigh killed ye both.”
“Why, we’re not hurt the least bit,” Cricket assured him, eagerly, as he
fixed the seat firmly in its place again. “It was lots of fun going
over. It slipped off just as _easy_!”
’Manda felt the children all over very carefully, to make sure that no
bones were broken, she said, though, seeing how lively the children
were, there was little fear of that.
“That seat’s ez tight as a drum, now,” said ’Gustus John, finally,
preparing to lift the girls in.
“Wait a minute,” said ’Manda; “I must tidy them up a bit, now. Look at
Cricket’s hat,” and she straightened the crooked hat, patted down the
flying locks, and pulled their dresses around. “Ain’t it warm enough to
take off them shawls, now? There you be!” with a final pat to each.
Then they mounted again and settled in their places, while the horses,
wondering at all this delay, started off again at a swinging pace, which
took them over the ground so fast that it was not long before they
crossed the long bridge, and were fairly in town.
It was only a little after ten, when they turned into the home-street,
and drew up before the familiar house. Mamma, seeing their arrival from
an upper window, came hurrying down to meet them, as glad to see her
little daughters as if they had been separated a year, instead of a few
days.
Then after mamma had warmly thanked ’Gustus John and ’Manda for bringing
such rosy-faced little maids home, Eunice and Cricket said good-by to
them also, and ran in to the house, feeling now that the lovely summer
at Kayuna was fairly over.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CRICKET’S SHORT MEMORY.
The household settled into their town-life very quickly, and in three
days’ time they almost felt as if their lovely summer had been a dream.
Only the children’s sunburned faces and hands, and their overflowing
health and spirits, remained as proof positive that they had not been in
town all summer.
“How strange it is that Marion Blair does not call for me,” said
Marjorie, one day, turning away from the window, where she had been
standing in hat and coat, for half an hour. “She said she would be here
at three, and it is nearly four now. I’m afraid we’ll lose the
chrysanthemum show altogether.”
“Oh, Marjorie!” cried Cricket, penitently. “I’m so sorry. I met Daisy
Blair on the street this morning, and she asked me to give you this note
from Marion.”
Marjorie read the note hastily.
“You provoking child! She writes that she has a severe cold and can’t go
out to-day, but wants me to call for Sallie Evarts, and go with her, and
Sallie would wait for me till three. Sallie was going with us. Now, it’s
too late to go way up there, and you’ve lost us the flower-show—both of
us, for I’m sure Sallie wouldn’t go off alone—and it’s the last day.”
“Oh, Marjorie dear, I am _so_ sorry,” Cricket said, looking crushed, as
she always did, when her forgetfulness was in question. “I’m _awfully_
sorry.”
“You always are awfully sorry,” returned Marjorie, impatiently, “but
that does not excuse your abominable forgetfulness.” Marjorie used
strong language, but really Cricket’s constant slips of memory were
maddening.
Both her mother and father felt very badly over this fault of Cricket’s,
knowing it might any day bring serious consequences. They had tried
every possible means to help her overcome it, but thus far nothing had
ever done any special good. She would remember better for a time, and
then forget more than ever. One reason for her forgetfulness was an odd
one. With all her high spirits and her love of active, out-door sports,
Cricket was also greatly given to day-dreams. She had a strong
imagination, and was devoted to her books, for she liked to read quite
as much as she loved to run and play. When she was by herself, she was
always dreaming out strange fancies, making jingles which she called
poetry, or telling stories to herself about all sorts of things. When
she was given an errand to do she would always set off willingly enough,
and in a moment would be entirely absorbed in her own fancies as she
walked along the street. She would perhaps go past the house to which
she had been sent, for an entire block, then, suddenly recollecting
herself, would turn quickly and go as far in the other direction.
Marjorie said that one day, when she was calling at a certain house, she
saw Cricket pass a house opposite four times before she remembered to go
in when she came to the door.
She had frequently been known to pass her own home, if she chanced to
come alone from school, and walk on for a couple of blocks. A letter
intrusted to her might reach its destination any time within six months,
if it went into her pocket. She never by any chance remembered a
message. She even forgot, oftentimes, whether she had eaten her lunch or
not. Indeed, the only thing she never mislaid were her school-books, and
the sole things she never forgot were her lessons. Her memory for
history, even for long strings of dates, was really unusual. She could
commit pages of poetry, and Latin declensions, and conjugations rolled
easily off her glib little tongue.
Since this was the case, I am sadly afraid that Cricket’s slips of
memory were simply from lack of attention to what people told her to do.
Her mind was always too full of plans and fancies of her own to notice
carefully what they said. Consequently, things of that sort being laid
on the top of her mind, constantly rolled off and were lost.
So long as Cricket was only a little girl, her fault was annoying but
not serious. Now, as she grew older, and might have important messages
and errands intrusted to her by people who did not know her failing, you
may be sure mamma was in constant terror.
After Cricket’s forgetfulness in delivering the note had lost Marjorie
and her friend the flower-show, mamma had a long and very serious talk
with her little daughter. She reminded her how often she had talked to
her on the same subject before, and how each time Cricket had promised
to do better; how useless it was for her to say how sorry she was, and
then forget the next day just the same.
“Well, you see,” Cricket said, candidly, “I say ‘I’ll _never_ forget
again,’ and then prob’ly the next day I go and do it. And then,
naturally, I get discouraged. _Ever_ is such a long time.”
“Well, little daughter,” suggested mamma, “suppose you try this way.
Don’t say that you’ll _never_ forget again, but only ‘I will try not to
forget a thing I’m told to do _to-day_,’ and the next day say the same
thing. You don’t know how quickly the habit of remembering would be
formed, for I really think that your constant forgetfulness is largely a
habit.”
“I might try that,” said Cricket, thoughtfully. “Couldn’t I take a day
off, sometimes?” she added, quickly.
Mamma laughed
“There is no such thing as ‘taking a day off,’ when we are trying to do
better, pet. Do you know, overcoming a bad habit is like rolling up a
ball of string. If you drop it, you have just so much to do over. So if
you take even one day off—”
“I see,” interrupted Cricket, with a sigh. “I’ve just got to keep
winding. But, truly, I’ll try this time not to drop my ball. I really
_do_ suppose,” she added, thoughtfully, after a moment, “that I could
remember better, if I didn’t tell stories to myself all the time I’m
walking, but it’s such fun. I get so interested that I don’t know
anything.”
“Then the stories should go, little daughter,” said mamma, “if they
hinder you remembering. Now try it for one day at a time. ‘Take short
views,’ as Sydney Smith says.”
“I’ll truly try,” repeated Cricket, with so serious a face that mamma
felt greatly encouraged.
Really, for a week Cricket’s improvement was marvellous. She resolutely
put her beloved stories and day-dreams out of her mind, if she was told
to do anything, until she had done it, and she began to realize that it
had been largely a lack of attention that made her forget messages so.
“I haven’t dropped my ball once this week,” Cricket confided in triumph
to mamma, at the end of that time, as she kissed her good-night. Eunice
had gone to bed early with a bad headache. “Really, do you know,
remembering isn’t such hard work, if you only make up your mind that you
will.”
Mamma smiled. “I am glad you find it so. Good-night, love. By-the-by,
stop at the library door, as you go upstairs, and tell papa that Mr.
Evans has just sent word that he will be in about nine, on some
important business.”
“Yes, mamma,” said Cricket, stopping on her way out to play with Duster.
Then she went out of the room and upstairs. At her room door she
remembered her message.
“Just in time,” she thought. “Most dropped it that time!” and she ran
down again to the library.
Mamma sat listening to see if she delivered the message. Hearing her run
down stairs again, she smiled, satisfied.
“Oh, papa,” Cricket began, when her attention was attracted by a
beautifully illustrated, new volume, which papa was unwrapping. “Isn’t
that beautiful!” she exclaimed, in delight. She hung over papa’s
shoulder, as he turned the pages and explained some of the lovely
pictures.
Suddenly he pulled out his watch and stood up in thought for a moment.
“May I see this more?” begged Cricket.
“Yes, you may take it for a few minutes,” said papa. “Be sure you put it
back on my table when you are through with it. I must step over to
Brewster’s for a minute;” and papa took up some papers and left the
room.
Cricket did not heed him. She threw herself on the white goat-skin
before the open fire, and, with her chin in her hand, she turned the
leaves of the lovely volume in absorbed interest. Papa went out, and she
did not even hear the door close. Mamma did, though, and stepped to the
door of the parlour. The light still streamed from the library, and she
went back, supposing papa was still there.
An hour passed. About nine the bell rang violently; Cricket did not hear
it. A few minutes after, mamma’s repeated “Cricket” brought her to her
feet.
“Where is your father?” Mrs. Ward was saying. “Didn’t you give him my
message?”
“What message?” faltered Cricket, looking bewildered.
“Didn’t you tell him that Mr. Evans would call? Why, _Cricket_!”
“Oh, mamma, what shall I do? I forgot all about it.”
Mr. Evans looked extremely annoyed. He was an irritable man, with small
patience for any one’s short-comings. Now, he certainly had good reason
to be vexed. His business was important, and he had to catch a late
train for New York, and had but little time to spare.
“Well, well, then,” he said, shortly, “perhaps you can tell me where he
is gone, if you did forget the message?”
Cricket grew frightened. “I think—I can’t just remember,” she faltered.
“Haven’t you any idea?” asked mamma. “He must have mentioned some place
when he was going;” for it was papa’s rule always to leave word when he
went out.
“It seems to me—yes, I know,” cried Cricket, brightening up. “He said he
was going to the Bruces,” with a faint echo of the name that papa had
spoken lingering in her ear. Unfortunately, the Bruces lived at the
other end of town, and the Brewsters in the next square.
“I shall have to risk finding him there, then,” said Mr. Evans, looking
at his watch. “No! I have not time. Really this is a most unfortunate
matter,” and Mr. Evans put back his watch, looking like a thunder-cloud.
Having taken the precaution to notify Dr. Ward that it was necessary to
see him that night on important business, it was certainly more than
vexatious to find him out. Mrs. Ward was greatly distressed.
“I will send Donald instantly to the Bruces,” she said. “Perhaps then my
husband can catch you at the station before you leave, if he has not
time to go to your house.” And with this Mr. Evans departed.
Mamma dragged Donald from his studies, and sent him post-haste across
the city. Then she came back to Cricket.
“We won’t talk about this till after I have seen papa!” she said,
gravely, and miserable Cricket went slowly off to bed.
Forlornly, she mounted the stairs. No thought of the new volume she had
left on the rug came to her mind. Usually, it would have been safe
enough, but to-night it chanced that Duster was in an unusually playful
mood. All the older ones but mamma being out, and the younger ones in
bed, Duster felt lonely, and wanted to play. He strolled into the
library in search of amusement. The firelight played on the standing
pages of the costly volume, open on the hearth-rug. Duster darted
forward. With teeth and claws he worried the charming plaything,
pitching it up, and shaking it vigorously, till the covers banged. He
tore the leaves into fragments and chased them around, then settled down
comfortably to chew up what was left.
It is but justice to Duster to say that he was generally a very
well-behaved dog, and rarely did any mischief. He had his own
playthings, and was expected to keep to them. Probably in the dim light,
for mamma had turned down the gas, he did not realize that the new
plaything was that forbidden delight, a book. However, in ten minutes
the charming volume, with its beautiful pictures, and choice binding,
was a wreck, and Duster trotted back to mamma, feeling perfectly
virtuous, and much refreshed, as he lay down on her dress to take a nap.
But the next morning came Cricket’s reckoning with papa and mamma and
the book—or rather with the remains of it.
Donald had returned the night before, saying that the Bruces had not
seen papa, and mamma, of course, became very anxious. Donald had gone
out again to two or three places where he thought his father might be,
and then at the last minute had met him in the street. Dr. Ward had
rushed to the station; Mr. Evans was there, hoping he might come, and
they had a hurried talk, for fortunately the train was late. By this
lucky chance, only, was a great amount of inconvenience saved to several
people.
Then Dr. Ward came home to find mamma in the greatest anxiety; and then,
to crown all, when they went into the library, there lay papa’s rare,
new book, a wreck, upon the floor.
Cricket came from that interview the most wretched little girl that ever
lived. It was seldom that her forgetfulness was the cause of so much
mischief, and she had had a very severe lecture.
“I’m perfectly miserable,” Cricket sobbed, after papa had gone out. “I
thought I was getting on so beautifully, and somehow, I felt sure that I
was never going to forget again.”
“I’m afraid that was just the trouble, dear. Whenever you feel that you
are most successful in overcoming a fault, then is just the time when
you need double caution. ‘It’s always dangerous to be safe,’ you know.”
“Oh, is that what that saying means?” broke in Cricket. “I never could
see how it was dangerous to be safe.”
“That’s exactly it. Now I want you _never_ to feel safe. There is always
danger of dropping your ball.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
CRICKET’S BOOMERANG.
Cricket was so completely subdued by this last piece of forgetfulness,
and its consequences, that for weeks afterwards her improvement was
simply wonderful.
But old habits are very strong. After a time Cricket’s watchfulness over
herself grew less, and the old story began. She borrowed Marjorie’s new
silk umbrella in a hurry, because she could not find her own, and left
it in the horsecar. The very next week she took Zaidee and Helen out to
walk, and left them on a seat in the park, while she ran to speak to
some little friends. They, not knowing that she had the twins with her,
urged her to go down to Howlett’s for hot chocolate with them. She went
off, forgetting the children, whom she had charged “not to stir till I
come back.” An hour after, when she reached home, she was met by Eliza
with a demand for the twins. Nurse flew off on learning where they had
been left, and fifteen minutes later she brought in two little
shivering, crying girls, who had not stirred from the seat, because
Cricket had bidden them stay there. Several policemen and kind-hearted
passers-by had gathered around them, and were trying to find out where
they belonged.
A fine attack of croup for Helen was the result, and a slight cold for
Zaidee, who was stronger, and Cricket was in disgrace again.
“I don’t _like_ to forget,” she said, miserably, when the entire family
took her to task that evening. “I never mean to forget, and then I go
and do it.”
“Go and don’t do it, you mean,” said Donald.
“The trouble is, little daughter,” said papa, as he had said a hundred
times before, “that you do not pay sufficient attention. You know how
many times I have told you that attention is putting your mind upon a
point, with a view to remembering it.”
“I expect that’s the trouble,” said Cricket, quickly. “I _do_ fasten my
mind on a point. I put it on so hard that the point sticks through, and
then of course I can’t remember.”
“I should think you’d remember sometimes, by mere accident,” remarked
Marjorie, looking up from her book. “There are exceptions to all rules.”
“Cricket is the exception to that rule,” struck in Donald.
“Now, I think I have remembered a good many things thus far, sir,” said
Cricket, rather indignantly. “It was only yesterday that you told me to
tell Rose Condit something, and I couldn’t think just exactly what it
was, but I remembered to say that you wanted her to come and see you.”
There was a shout at this.
“You little monkey,” said Donald, getting red. “Did you tell her that? I
told you to say that I’d see her to-night.”
“That’s pretty near the same, isn’t it,” asked Cricket, anxiously.
There was another shout.
“Cricket is like a little chap that I used to hear of when I was a small
boy,” began papa, standing on the hearth-rug, with his hands behind his
back, and smiling down at his small daughter, as she sat on the rug,
clasping her knees with both hands, and staring thoughtfully into the
fire. Cricket was such a lovable, winning thing, with all her trying
ways, that one could not be angry with her long.
“Who was this boy, papa?” she said, looking up. “Now, please don’t tell
me about any good little boy, who never forgot.”
“This wasn’t a good little boy, ma’am,” laughed papa; “he was sent by
his mother to the store for some eggs and sugar and molasses. Lest he
should forget, she told him to repeat the three things on the way. So he
started off, saying ‘Eggs, sugar, and molasses—eggs, sugar, and
molasses.’ Suddenly he stubbed his toe, and fell headlong. As he picked
himself up, he said, ‘Wax, tar, and rosin—wax, tar, and rosin—ain’t
forgot yet.’ So when Cricket _does_ remember, it is likely to be the
wrong thing.”
“The trouble is that Cricket’s forgetfulness never makes any difference
to herself. She isn’t the one that suffers,” said Marjorie, still
feeling injured over her silk umbrella. “It’s always something of other
people’s that she forgets.”
“It ought to be a boomerang arrangement,” said Donald, as he got up to
go out.
“What’s a boomer-something?” asked Cricket, curiously.
“A boomerang, my dear,” returned Donald, “is a curved piece of wood
about a yard long which is used by the Australians. They throw it
straight along, and it turns a few somersaults, and presently comes back
to the thrower. If a person who doesn’t understand it throws it, it’s
more than likely to come back, whack, on his own head. See? Now that’s
the style of thing to make you remember, Miss Scricket. A good, sharp
rap on your own head, when you’re throwing your forgettings around,
would be an excellent thing, wouldn’t it, little mother?” kissing his
mother as he passed her chair.
Mamma smiled up at her tall son, and stroked Cricket’s curly hair.
“I’m beginning to be afraid,” she said, “that Donald is right, my little
girl, and that only a ‘boomerang arrangement’ will do any lasting good.”
Cricket sighed. “It’s very hard to be such a torment to the family, when
I love everybody so,” she said, plaintively. “I wish somebody would
throw stones at me.”
Now, as it proved, the boomerang was not far away.
The very next week a note was brought to the school which Cricket
attended, for her to give to her mother. She put it in her pocket, and
of course it might as well have gone into a coal-mine, as far as her
thinking of it again was concerned.
That was Wednesday. Cricket did not chance to wear that particular dress
again till the next Wednesday, for she tore it in some way, and it was
laid aside to be mended. On going home from school she chanced to put
her hand in her pocket, and brought up the note.
“Where did this come from!” she thought, in bewilderment. She could not
at all remember, but she concluded that some one had given it to her on
her way to school, though she could not recall it.
“I’m so glad I thought of it,” she said to herself, quite proudly, and
she held it in her hand all the way home lest she should forget to
deliver it.
Mamma received the week-old note, and read it without any suspicion. It
was dated, simply, “Wednesday morning.”
“This is from Mrs. Drayton,” she exclaimed to papa. “I’m so glad. She
says that Mrs. Lynn will spend a day and night with her. She’s the
famous lecturer, you know. She and Mrs. Drayton were school-mates. She
comes very unexpectedly now, and Mrs. Drayton wants us to dine there
to-night, very informally. The Camerons will be there—no one else. You
can go, can’t you, dear?”
“Yes, it will suit me very well,” said papa.
After Cricket had left the room Mrs. Ward added,—
“She writes a postscript to say that she is planning a luncheon party
for Emily, for her birthday on Saturday, as a surprise to her, and
invites Eunice and Cricket. She is going to take the children, after, to
the matinée, to see the ‘Old Homestead.’ Isn’t that just like Mrs.
Drayton? Poor Eunice won’t be able to go unless her cold is very much
better, but Cricket will be overjoyed. And she says not to tell the
children till Friday, lest Emily should hear of it.”
Mamma was delighted at the chance of meeting Mrs. Lynn, who was a very
noted woman, and she and papa went off in good season.
About half-past eight, to the surprise of the children, who were
gathered in the sitting-room,—the younger ones always had permission to
sit up a little later when their father and mother were out—the click of
papa’s latchkey was heard in the door, and a moment after he and mamma
entered the room.
“What is the matter? Are you ill?” came in a chorus.
“Nobody is ill,” said papa, looking queer.
“Then what _is_ the matter?”
“Nothing much—only there was no dinner-party.”
“No _dinner-party_?” every one exclaimed.
Mamma took up the note which had been left on the table, and said
gravely to Cricket,—
“Tell me where you got this note, my dear?”
“From my pocket,” returned Cricket, in much surprise.
“How did it get there? When did you find it?”
“Why, this,—” Cricket hesitated. “Yes, it certainly _was_ this morning.”
“You certainly gave it to me this morning, but who gave it to you, and
when?”
“It was the funniest thing,” said Cricket, eagerly. “I really don’t
know. I honestly don’t remember putting it there, and yet somebody must
have given it to me on the way to school.”
“Could anybody have left it at school, for you?” asked papa.
“No, I’m sure no one did this morning. Some one left a note a long time
ago, but,—” Cricket stopped suddenly, in dismay.
“Exactly, my dear,” said papa, dryly. “It was a long time ago—just one
week.”
“Mamma!” cried Cricket, “didn’t I ever give you that note? Is this the
same one?”
“The very same. How did you not happen to find it before?”
Cricket looked down at her dress.
“Why, Cricket!” exclaimed Eunice. “You haven’t had that dress on for a
long time. You tore the ruffle last week, and you were waiting for Eliza
to mend it.”
“That is it, then,” said mamma. “Now, do you know what you have done?
The note was given you last Wednesday. You put it in your pocket, and
did not think of it again. You found it to-day, and did not even know
how it got in your pocket.”
“I thought it was queer,” murmured Cricket.
“You gave me the note this morning. It was dated simply ‘Wednesday,’ so
of course I never doubted it had just been given you.”
“Then there wasn’t any dinner-party to-night?” faltered Cricket.
“I’ll tell you what your forgetfulness has done, my dear,” answered
mamma. “Mrs. Lynn was at Mrs. Drayton’s for that night only. We were
anxious to meet each other, for I know her sister very well. She came
very unexpectedly, and Mrs. Drayton sent the note in to you, since your
school is so near her, as the quickest way of its reaching me.
“To-night, as papa and I arrived, we saw the Draytons’ carriage standing
in front of their door, and of course wondered at that. As we rang the
bell, the door opened, and the Draytons themselves came out, to our
great amazement. They exclaimed at seeing us, and we immediately found
they were invited out to dinner themselves to-night. Of course we
explained, and so did they, though, as they were already late, they
could only stop a few moments.
“Mrs. Drayton was greatly surprised last week, when we neither arrived
nor sent any word, but supposed it was one of my sudden illnesses. Think
how rude you made us appear, Cricket.”
“And then, how ridiculous you made us seem to-night,” added papa, “in
going to dine, when there wasn’t any dinner-party.”
Cricket was much too wretched to speak. She was curled up in a corner of
the couch, with her head buried in the cushions.
“But that is not all,” went on papa.
Cricket raised a tear-stained face, in added dismay. What more could
there be?
“And I am not altogether sorry, my dear, that it will be a great
disappointment to yourself.”
“Oh, ho!” said Donald, quickly. “Boomerang business, I see.”
“Yes, a boomerang, and no mistake. Tell her, mamma.”
“Mrs. Drayton had arranged a children’s luncheon-party for Saturday as a
surprise for Emily. Six were invited, and she intended to take them to a
matinée afterward, to their box, to see ‘The Old Homestead.’ She invited
you and Eunice. I thought I should let you go, Cricket, even though
Eunice may not be well enough.”
Cricket came to her feet with a bound. “Can I go?” she asked, eagerly.
“I am dying to see ‘The Old Homestead?’ Oh, goody, goody!”
“Don’t you understand, dear?” asked mamma. “The matinée-party shares the
fate of the dinner-party. They are both over, and we were not there. You
forgot the note, you see, and it was _last_ Saturday, you know.”
“Last Saturday! Have I lost it!” exclaimed Cricket, with eyes as large
as saucers.
“Whew!” whistled Donald. “That’s a good hard whack with the boomerang,
my lady. You threw it well, that time.”
“Hush, Donald,” said mamma. “Don’t tease her.”
Cricket burst into a flood of tears. To have lost one of Emily Drayton’s
parties! Such _beautiful_ parties her mamma always had for her, too. And
then think of a matinée and a box! Dr. Ward did not approve of much
theatre-going for little people, and the children rarely went, excepting
for their Christmas treat. All Cricket’s little friends had seen ‘The
Old Homestead,’ and she had been begging for weeks to go. Now by her own
careless forgetfulness she had lost it. It was too dreadful. Her
boomerang had struck her a “whack,” indeed.
“I’m awfully sorry for you, Cricket,” Marjorie said, “but I can’t help
hoping that you’ll realize now how pleasant it is for other people to
lose flower-shows and umbrellas and dinner-parties.”
“Make her stop, mamma!” sobbed wretched Cricket. “I’m always sorry when
I forget your things, Marjorie.”
“Yes,” assented teasing Donald, though he really pitied his little
sister. “It’s easy to bear another man’s misfortune like a Christian.
Come, youngster, take your whacking like a man.”
“By-the-way, have you had any dinner?” asked Marjorie, of mamma.
“Oh, yes, papa and I went to the Bolingbroke and dined. Come, Cricket,
it’s bedtime. I’ll go up with you.”
Cricket stumbled upstairs, blind with tears. Mamma helped her to
undress, in her gentle way, and when the little girl was in bed she sat
down and talked with her for a while.
“Yes, it’s very hard, little daughter,” said mamma, “but now I want you
to think how often your forgetfulness has caused other people to lose as
much pleasure as this of yours. I cannot tell you, for instance, how
disappointed I am, not to see Mrs. Lynn. She went to New York the next
day, and sailed on Saturday for Europe for a long stay. I may not have
another chance of meeting her.
“All this is serious, but not so much so, as your forgetting old Mrs.
Cummings’s message not long ago, so that her poor husband nearly died
before papa could get there. It is not worse than when you forgot to
tell Donald that Mr. Marsh wanted him to call at his office on business;
or when you didn’t tell papa that Mr. Evans wanted to see him, or when
you forgot the children, and gave poor little Helen such an attack of
the croup that she is scarcely strong yet.”
“Do people always feel as badly as I do?” sobbed Cricket.
“Just as badly, my dear. Indeed, I think it’s a trifle easier when
you’ve only yourself to blame. As Marjorie said, it is strange that you
so seldom suffer yourself, and yet it is not strange, either. You
remember the things, you see, that you are interested in. I do hope,
dearie, that this will be a lesson, and that your boomerang may never
hit you so hard again.”
“If boomerangs hurt other people half as much as this one has hurt me,”
said Cricket, between her sobs, “they sha’n’t feel any more of _my_
boomerangs, I am sure of that.”
“I hope not, darling,” said mamma, kissing her good-night.
And really, I am glad to say that this was Cricket’s last serious piece
of forgetfulness. She set herself with all her might and main to conquer
her fault, and tried as she had never tried before. She regularly
remembered to bring home both her bundle and her change when she was
sent on an errand. She posted letters promptly. She remembered various
messages that were given to her for her mamma; and on one occasion she
even got up in the middle of the night, and went to papa with some word
which had been given to her for him during the day, and which she had
forgotten.
So she improved steadily. I do not mean to say that she never forgot or
neglected anything again, for she certainly did; but she would usually
recall the forgotten thing in time to set it straight. She understood
now that no half-way trying will conquer any fault, and nothing outside
will help one to do it until a person makes up his mind to do it
himself.
Weeks after, there arrived for Cricket, one evening after dinner, a
mysterious package. The family were all in the sitting-room, where they
usually gathered for a time, after dinner, before they separated to
their various duties or pleasures. Cricket opened it amid much wondering
on the part of the others, as well as on her own.
It was a long thing, and when Cricket got it free from all its
wrappings, what do you think she found? An oddly curved piece of hard
wood, nearly a yard long, pointed at both ends, about four inches wide
in the middle, and half an inch thick.
“What in the world is this queer-looking thing?” Cricket asked, holding
it up in both hands in great amazement.
“A boomerang, my dear,” answered Donald. “For memorabil.”
“For _what_?”
“Memorabil. That means to remember something by. Tie it up with pretty
little blue ribbons, and hang it in your room, my dear, as girls always
do with their trinkets. When you look at it, you’ll remember the famous
occasion when you learned not to forget, for you’re getting to be as
reliable as a district messenger boy. We can give you an errand now with
forty-nine chances out of a hundred that it will be done. Next summer
I’ll teach you how to throw this. I’ve taken lessons on purpose.”
And the boomerang hangs on Cricket’s wall to this day.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
KENNETH’S DAY.
Like most days, this particular day of Kenneth’s began in the morning.
He slept in a crib in mamma’s large room, for the twins and Eliza had
the nursery all to themselves.
Every morning, as soon as it was dawn, Kenneth would begin to stir like
a little bird in his white nest, and then, half asleep as he was, he
would scramble quietly out of his crib, gather up his long, white
nightie, and steal softly over to the big bed across the room.
Then came the never-failing joke of clapping his little fat hands over
papa’s sleepy eyes, with a chirping,—
“Dess who’s here, papa!” and papa, of course, never could guess, and
always named over the whole flock, from seventeen-year-old Donald down,
till the baby called out, gleefully,—
“It’s you’ Tennet, papa!” and scrambled like a little monkey into his
arms. He was such a sunny little creature, always beaming on the world
in general, with such radiant good-temper, that it was no wonder he was
everybody’s pet.
This particular morning was the seventh of November, just before the
Presidential election. Kenneth was astir earlier than usual, for some
reason, and it was still dark when he crept with unusual caution across
the floor, and stuck his little fists into papa’s eyes.
He lifted him up, without his customary frolic, saying, sleepily,—
“Be a good baby, Kenneth, and let papa have another snooze.” So the
little fellow cuddled down in his father’s arms, and lay as still as a
mouse, with his arms tight around papa’s neck, and his golden curls
drifting across his face and getting dreadfully in his way. At last papa
was aroused by a patient little sigh.
“Now, then, Kenneth,” he said, suddenly hoisting him up in the air, “do
you know that papa must go and vote to-day?”
“Let Tennet do, too, papa?” he suggested, coaxingly.
“Not to-day, my little man. You’ll have to wait for eighteen years.”
“Tan I do res’day?” this was as near as his crooked little tongue could
come to yesterday, which was his name for any indefinite period.
“We’ll see, my son. By-the-way, what are your politics?”
Kenneth sat up on papa’s chest and looked wise. He knew quite well when
papa was teasing him.
“You are a Republican, I suppose, you monkey?”
Kenneth shook his head till his sunny curls fell over his eyes.
“What! not a Republican? You don’t mean to tell me you’re a Democrat, do
you?”
Kenneth considered.
“Es, I is. I is a Democrack,” he said, decidedly, conquering the c’s, as
he sometimes did, with a mighty effort.
“Very well, then,” said papa, with equal decision, “then you must go
away from me. I can’t have any little Democracks in my bed.”
To his surprise, the baby slowly slipped from his arms and slid down to
the floor without a word. Papa watched him with amusement; never
thinking he would hold out.
“Change your mind, baby,” he said, coaxingly. “You’re not a Democrack
now, are you?”
Kenneth looked back, wistfully. He was half-way across the floor.
“I _is_ a Demo-crack—” he answered, without wavering.
“Then you’ll have to get into your own crib,” said papa, teasingly.
Without a word the baby went on, climbed up on a chair and tumbled head
over heels into his own nest.
Fifteen minutes later, when papa got up to dress, he found his little
son cuddled down in a forlorn little ball, with his thumb tucked into
his mouth, and his blue eyes grave and wide.
Kenneth hid his head on papa’s shoulder, when he lifted him up and
petted him; but he had nothing to say. By-and-by he wriggled away from
him and crept up to mamma, who was sitting before the dressing-table,
brushing her hair, as bright as baby’s own.
“Mamma,” he whispered, very softly, “I isn’t a Demo-crack now, but I
don’t want papa to see me chain my mind.”
Kenneth’s mind was destined to give him more trouble that very day, for,
with all his sweetness, he was very persistent.
That afternoon he was in the library, all alone with mamma. The elder
girls were all off, and the twins were out with Eliza, and papa was
making his daily rounds among his patients, so Kenneth and mamma had the
blazing wood fire—for the early autumn days were chilly—and the sunny
library all to themselves.
Mamma was sewing on some dainty white material, and Kenneth was amusing
himself in his usual quiet fashion. There was a lower shelf, close to
the floor, where the children’s books were kept, and there stood a long
line of attractive, red-bound Rollo books, fourteen of them. These
always had a special fascination for Kenneth. He would pull them all
out, and build houses with them, or turn over the leaves, looking at
pictures, talking busily to himself all the time.
At last he tired of them, and ran away to something else.
“Put up the Rollo books, darling,” said mamma.
“’Es, I put zem up,” said Kenneth, but he kept on pursuing some belated
flies.
“See, mamma!” he cried, “I dust pote ’em, so, and zey all fall down.”
“Poor flies,” said mamma, pitifully. “Don’t kill them. That is not
kind.”
“All right, I won’t,” Kenneth answered. Presently mamma, attracted by
the stillness, turned around. Kenneth was still standing by the window,
with his little forefinger pointed at a poor, weak fly.
“F’y, f’y,” he said, half-aloud, “does you want to do to heaven? Do
zere, zen!” and down came his plump finger, crushing the fly.
“Kenneth,” said mamma, to draw off his attention, “come now and pick up
the books you had.”
Kenneth, for a wonder, looked very unwilling. Sending flies to heaven
was much more interesting. However, he got up slowly, and went across
the room, looking at mamma from under his long lashes.
“Pick them all up, baby,” said mamma, cheerily, “and then come and sit
in mamma’s lap and watch for papa. It’s almost time for him to come.”
Kenneth stood by the scattered pile of books. Somehow he felt very
unwilling to put them back in their places.
“Come, little son, pick them up,” repeated mamma. To her intense
surprise, Kenneth suddenly whipped his hands behind his back.
“Tennet won’t!” he announced, standing as straight on his two fat legs
as a little drummajor. If one of the pet doves had flown in her face,
mamma could scarcely have been more surprised. She had never before had
to tell Kenneth twice to do anything.
For a moment she scarcely knew what to do.
“See if you can’t get all the books in order, Kenneth, before papa
comes,” she said, after a moment, as if she had not heard.
“Tennet won’t!” in tones more decided, as he gained courage.
“Then,” said mamma, slowly, “Kenneth must go in the corner for five
minutes.”
Kenneth, looking very serious, but quite determined, immediately took up
his station in the corner formed by the tall old clock and a book-case,
while mamma waited while the moments ticked off. An unending time it
seemed to the naughty baby, who stood gravely watching his mother, as if
he were not at all concerned.
Then mamma said,—
“Will Kenneth pick up the books now?”
“Tennet won’t.”
This time there was a gleam of mischief that at once resolved mamma to
sterner measures.
“Very well, then I must spat baby’s hands hard,” and she took up one of
the soft bits of velvet that served Kenneth for hands, and bestowed a
decided spat upon it. Kenneth winked and swallowed. He put his reddened
fingers behind his back, and promptly offered the other hand, which
mamma spatted also.
Straightway he went through the same performance, producing hand number
one. It was difficult to keep from laughing, for the baby was so sober
and so determined. He never moved his eyes from mamma’s face.
Fully half a dozen times, mamma slapped the hands of her rebellious
little man. Then, suddenly remembering baby’s speech in the nursery, she
said,—
“Now, Kenneth, mamma is going into the hall for a few minutes, and there
will be nobody to see you change your mind, so you can pick up the
books, and—”
“Tennet _won’t_!” came with such determined emphasis that mamma almost
jumped.
“Then, when I come back,” mamma went on, looking very grave, “I will
bring a little switch with me, and whip my baby’s hands hard. Kenneth
must not say ‘won’t’ to mamma.”
Kenneth’s eyes looked very serious indeed, as his mother left the room.
Such a long, long time she was gone!
Kenneth looked at the books, and then at his red fingers. Papa might
come and find him in the corner. He began to want to go and put the
books back now, but somehow his legs would not carry him there. Then
mamma appeared, and, oh, dreadful! she had a little lilac switch, that
to baby’s frightened eyes looked like a club. Very slowly she came
towards her little son, looking, oh, so sad! and suddenly Kenneth’s
stubbornness melted away.
“Tennet will! Tennet will!” he cried, and flew past mamma, and with
breathless haste scrambled up the red-bound Rollo books, stowing them in
their places with much eagerness, if not very carefully.
Mamma sat awaiting him with open arms, and as Kenneth nestled up to her
shoulder, he put his arms around her neck and whispered,—
“Please don’t tell papa zat I had to chain my mind aden.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
A STRAWBERRY HUNT.
The winter in town slipped by quickly. The children were counting
impatiently the weeks that must pass before they should be at dear old
Kayuna again, when all plans for the summer were very suddenly changed.
Mamma grew no stronger as the spring came on, and papa and other doctors
thought that she ought to have a sea-voyage. Papa decided to go abroad
for two or three months and see what the air in the Swiss mountains
would do for her. At first mamma insisted on taking all the children,
for she could not make up her mind to leave one of her dear little flock
behind, but papa knew that she ought to have no care at all. Finally,
after much discussion, it was settled in this way: Marjorie and Donald,
who were old enough to be of some help and comfort to mamma, should go,
and the other children should be sent to Marbury, a dear old seaport
town, where grandmamma lived, for the summer. Mamma begged for Kenneth,
her baby, but the doctors all said no. Eliza was perfectly devoted to
him and the twins, and she promised not to let them out of her sight all
summer, and besides, Auntie Jean would be at grandma’s also. So mamma
had to be content.
Kayuna was to have an addition built on this summer, since they were all
to be away, for, as the family grew, they needed more room, and much
repairing was to be done also.
Papa and mamma were to sail the last of June. One day, about the middle
of the month, papa went out to Kayuna, to give his final directions
about the work to be done there.
“Children,” he said at dinner, that night, “I saw that the strawberry
beds at Kayuna were in prime condition to-day. The vines are laden with
fruit. Would you like to make a picnic out there in a day or two, and
gather some? You won’t see Kayuna strawberries this summer, you know.”
“I don’t think they need that argument,” said mamma, smiling at the
exclamations of delight that greeted this proposal.
“How shall we go, papa?” asked Marjorie, who was always practical.
“Take the street-cars out to Porter’s Inn,” said papa, “and then walk
the rest of the way. You won’t mind the two miles. Or you can go by
rail, and get out at East Wellsboro’, only you can’t get there very
early that way.”
The children voted for the street-cars and Porter’s Inn.
“Shall the kidlets go?” asked Eunice. This was Donald’s name for the
twins, for Eunice and Cricket were the kids.
“No,” said Marjorie, decidedly. “It’s too far altogether for the twins.”
Zaidee and Helen immediately set up a wail, at being thus put aside.
“It’s really much too far for you, my pets,” said mamma. “You and
Kenneth shall go to the park with Eliza and have a fine time. You can
sail around the pond, and feed the swans.”
“And we’ll bring you lots of strawberries,” added Cricket, comfortingly.
“Yes, do; and be as successful as you were last summer with the
blackberries,” began papa, with a twinkle, but Cricket pinched him under
the table till he begged for mercy.
“Couldn’t we ask two or three boys and girls to go with us?” asked
Marjorie. “I’d like to have May Chester and the Gray boys.”
“Yes, certainly. Ask Jack Fleming, too. Cook shall put you up some
luncheon, and you can take my keys and go into the house, if you like.”
“Let’s go to-morrow. Things always happen if you put things off,” said
Eunice, not very clearly.
“Very well, my dear. I’m of your opinion myself,” said papa. “Marjorie,
I’ll take you round to see May Chester, after dinner, and while you’re
there, I’ll look up the boys.” Papa would take any amount of trouble for
the happiness of his flock.
Everybody proved to be delighted with the idea. The next day was
wonderfully fine, even for June. At nine o’clock the party were all
gathered at the Wards’. Each little person had a wicker-basket, now
containing luncheon, but which were to come home full of the biggest
berries they could find. If they wished, they were to get some big pails
at the farm-house, and ’Gustus John, who was coming into town with fresh
vegetables, would bring them in for the children.
Papa took them himself to the street-cars, to see the merry party safely
off.
“Don’t stay too late,” cautioned papa. “On the other hand, you need not
come home at noon,” with a sly glance at Cricket.
“Papa!” said that young lady, “if you say any more about that, I won’t
come to-night, and then you’ll be sorry.”
Then the car came, and they were off.
“Isn’t this larks?” beamed Eunice. Picnics in the country were every-day
affairs, but to start right out from town, to be gone all day, was
particularly fine and grown-up.
Fortunately, when they were only half-way there, they were the only
occupants of the cars, and they seemed to fill it full. Each one tried
every corner, and each seat between. They read the advertisements
carefully, and tried the effect of reading them backwards. Then they
read a line from each one, and each reading seemed funnier than the
last.
“Marjorie,” asked Cricket, who had been studying one advertisement
carefully, “what does _Ware_ mean?”
“Wear?” repeated Marjorie; “why, to put on anything—to wear it.”
“No, I don’t mean that kind of wear. Look up there. What kind of a ham
is a Wareham?”
“Where is it? oh, that!” and Marjorie went off in a fit of laughter.
“That doesn’t mean a ham at all. It’s just one word—Wareham. It’s a
place,—Wareham Manufactory.”
“Oh,” said Cricket, meekly. “I thought it was a new kind of ham.”
In spite of their fun, it was a long ride to Porter’s Inn, which was the
end of the line. They were glad enough to scramble out and stretch their
limbs. It was a warm morning, and as the white stretch of country road
was unshaded for a long distance, it was a hot, tired little party that
reached Kayuna. As they pushed back the heavy gates, and went up the
avenue, how delicious seemed the cool, green shade of the great beech
trees, and how soft to their feet was the fine turf, along which they
scampered!
How strange it seemed to the Wards to look up at those shuttered
windows, and see no signs of life about the house!
“Seems as if I _must_ see Dixie come racing down to meet us,” said
Cricket, “and hear his little ‘row! row!’” But Dixie had been sent to
the rectory to spend the summer, and Mopsie and Charcoal had gone over
to Marbury, so that the children could have them there.
The workmen had not begun their work yet, so there were no signs of life
about the place. Marjorie had been intrusted with papa’s keys. She felt
very grand, drawing them from her pocket with a flourish, and inserting
one in the door. It swung back with a startlingly loud clang, and a rush
of close, shut-up air came out. The great, echoing hall looked so large
and so lonely that for a moment the children hesitated to enter it.
Jack found his courage at the sight of the broad, smooth balustrade.
“Hooray!” he shouted. “My eye! what a boss place to slide down!”
He dashed off up the stairs, and came bolting down the balustrade again,
sweeping a fine lot of dust before him. The spell was broken, and the
children entered laughing. Once inside, the Wards soon lost the sense of
strangeness, and raced all over the house in great delight, showing
their favourite places to their friends.
“Do let’s rest,” begged May Chester, at last. “I’m nearly dead!”
“Let’s go into the library and sit down. It’s always cool and lovely
there,” began Marjorie, leading the way. “Oh, I forgot! The chairs are
all tied up, and it’s so gloomy with the shutters closed. We might sit
down on the stairs.”
Dusty stairs are not very soft places to rest on, when one is really
tired, however, and they soon decided to go out and sit on the grass.
In their interest in exploring the house, they had quite forgotten the
strawberries, till Alex Gray suddenly remembered as they stood on the
piazza.
“Hallo! where are our strawberries? I quite forgot to look and see in
which of the rooms the strawberry bed is placed.”
“Don’t try to be funny,” said Marjorie, “it’s too hot.”
“I know where the strawberry bed isn’t,” said Jack, “it isn’t down
cellar,” as he appeared with smutty streaks across his face, showing
where he had been exploring.
“Let’s rest a few minutes longer under these lovely trees,” pleaded May.
“It will be so hot out in the garden.”
“Well, I’ll show you,” said Cricket, running down the steps. “I won’t
keep you in suspicion.”
“In _suspense_,” put in Marjorie.
“Well, I meant suspense. It’s all the same,” said Cricket, cheerfully.
“Come on, boys! Oh, you _dear_ old trees!”
“I suppose we might as well all go, then,” said Marjorie, getting up.
The strawberry beds quite fulfilled Dr. Ward’s accounts of them. The
children fell eagerly to work, their fatigue all forgotten. Such great,
luscious berries as drooped their rosy faces under the leaves would make
everything forgotten but themselves. For a while there were constant
shouts of “Oh, what a beauty!” “My! look at this bunch!” “See these
bouncers!” till beauties and bouncers were an old story.
“I couldn’t eat another berry to save my life, I do believe!” sighed
Eunice, at last, looking very sad.
“Eat them, then, to save the berries,” answered Jack, popping a very big
one into her mouth.
“Now for my part,” said Alex, “I was just going to inquire about
luncheon.”
The girls, in chorus, protested that they couldn’t eat a mouthful.
“Well, I like that!” returned Alex. “As if we’d be filled up by a few
berries.”
“A _few_ berries? oh!” laughed Marjorie.
“They are soft and not filling,” answered Alex. “What do you think boys
are made of, ma’am?”
“I know,” answered Cricket, quickly. “They are made like accordiums—to
stretch out.”
“Accord_ions_,” corrected Marjorie, with a laugh. “Oh, Cricket, you’re
the worst child about long words!”
“I don’t care,” answered Cricket, comfortably. “People know what I
mean.”
“Never mind, Spider,” said Alex, “you’re my friend, I see. Come and give
this accordion something to stretch on.”
“I ought to remember that boys are hollow,” said Marjorie, straightening
up, “after all my experience with Donald and Will and Archie Somers.
Let’s go into the orchard near the old well. It’s always so cool there.”
When lunch was all spread it looked so tempting that the girls concluded
that they could manage to eat a few mouthfuls, and before long there
wasn’t a morsel of anything left. After luncheon they sat awhile under
the dear old apple-trees, which were of the high, old-fashioned kind, so
that the grass grew thick and soft beneath. The sunlight flecked the
grass with gold, the sky was deeply blue, and a slight breeze had sprung
up. Even the boys felt the quiet, peaceful beauty of the wide, old
orchard, and were quite willing to rest for an hour, while Marjorie and
her sisters told merry tales of their many escapades in dear old Kayuna.
“Three o’clock,” yawned Jack Fleming, at last. “We ought to go and see
if those strawberries are drying up, don’t you think?”
“We ought to be about it, if we’re going to take any home,” assented
Marjorie; and they all rose slowly and strolled to the garden again. The
berries were so large and so plentiful, that in a very few minutes every
basket was filled to the brim.
“Eunice, you and Cricket run down to the farm-house and ask ’Manda for
some big pails,” ordered Marjorie, in true, older-sisterly fashion.
“All right,” answered Eunice, obediently. “Come on, Cricket. Where is
she? Crick-et!”
“Here I am,” answered a forlorn little voice.
“Here,” was in the grape arbour near by. Cricket was discovered sitting
huddled up in a little bunch, with her head on her knees.
Marjorie hurried across to her.
“Why, poor little Cricket! What is the matter?”
“Nothing, I guess, ’cept my head aches so,” Cricket replied, rather
dismally. Her sunny little face was very pale and her eyes looked heavy
and dark.
“Poor child!” said Marjorie, sympathetically, sitting down beside her.
“It’s the hot sun, I think. Come down to the farm-house with me, and
’Manda will let you lie down for a while.”
Cricket looked doubtfully out into the sunlight. From the garden it was
not very far across the field down to the farm-house, but the sun looked
very hot.
“I’d rather stay here, I think, Marjorie,” she said, doubtfully, “my
legs feel so wobbly.”
“What’s the matter with the kid?” asked Harold Gray, who was a big boy
of fourteen, and very fond of sunny little Cricket.
“Nothing’s the matter, only my head aches so,” Cricket tried to smile,
but it was a very watery attempt. She so seldom had a headache that it
seemed a very serious thing to her.
“I want her to go down to the farm-house and lie down, but she doesn’t
feel like walking there,” explained Marjorie.
“Is that all? That’s easily fixed. Here, Jack, make a lady’s chair with
me, to carry this young lady in. Now, Marjorie, help my lady up.”
Cricket stood up and the boys lowered their hands.
“Now, then, put your arms around our shoulders,” said Harold, as they
raised the little girl gently. “That’s right. Put your head down on
mine, if it ‘wobbles’” for Cricket’s throbbing head refused to stay
upright, and bobbed helplessly down on Harold’s. Marjorie ran ahead.
’Manda saw them coming, and stood at the door ready to greet them.
“I do declare, I’m proper glad to see you!” she exclaimed, hospitably,
to Marjorie. “’Gustus John he was up to the stables a spell ago, and he
seen you all there a-pickin’ berries, ’n’ he sez when he come in,
‘’Mandy,’ sez he, ‘I ruther guess the children will be along down
bime-by.’ You see yer pa stopped here yesterday, an’ he said that he
’lowed you’d kinder enjoy comin’ out here to pick them berries, an’ here
ye be. La! what’s the matter with Cricket? I ’lowed she wuz bein’
carried thet way fur fun.”
The motherly soul was warmly welcoming the children, while her kind
tongue ran on.
“Cricket has a bad headache, ’Manda,” answered Marjorie; “will you let
her lie down here for a while?”
“Why, for the land’s sake! Poor little dear! lie down on my sofy? why,
of course she shall,” and she had Cricket in her arms in a moment. “You
all sit right down here for a spell and make yourselves perfectly to
home, while I fix up this poor little critter.”
“No, we won’t stay now, thank you,” said Marjorie. “Could you let us
have some large pails to fill with berries? Papa says that ’Gustus John
offered to bring our extra berries to town for us to-morrow.”
“Certain, sure, he did, my dear. You jest go right in the but’try and
git some of them big pails a-settin’ right along side o’ the
flour-barrel. You know where ’tis, _I_ guess. An’ Miss Marjorie, git
some o’ them fresh ginger-cakes I baked this mornin’, they’re on the
but’try shelf, an’ find some milk, an’—”
“Oh, dear, no, thank you,” protested Marjorie, laughing, “we’ve had
plenty of luncheon, and have filled up all the corners with berries. We
only want some pails.”
“Now, Madge, Madge, young lady, speak for yourself. I want to test Mrs.
Hecker’s ginger-cakes and milk, for my accordion’s began to close,” said
Alex.
“Dear me!” cried Marjorie, in despair. “We’ll have to feed you on dried
apples and water. They’ll fill you up, if nothing else will.”
“Not any, I thank you,” returned Alex, quickly. “I’ve no desire to be a
howling swell.”
’Manda, meanwhile, had bustled off with Cricket, into the cool, dark,
little best-parlour, and had laid her on the slippery hair-cloth sofa,
with its round, bolster-like pillow, about as downy as if it were
stuffed tight with sawdust. But any place, quiet and dark, was grateful
to the poor little aching head, whose temples throbbed in jerks that
brought tears to the blue eyes.
Marjorie tiptoed in, presently, to see if she were comfortably fixed,
before they went back for their berries.
Cricket opened her eyes in answer to Marjorie’s inquiry. ’Manda had gone
out of the room for a moment.
“Where’s Mamie Hecker?” whispered Cricket.
“Don’t worry about her, dear. She’s gone to spend a week with her Aunt
Jane. You’re safe.”
“Oh!” Cricket closed her eyes in great relief, then opened them as she
said, miserably, “I can’t walk a step now, and I don’t believe I could
sit up in the car. I don’t see how I’m going to get home.”
“That’s all right,” said Marjorie, soothingly, “for ’Gustus John is
going to drive us to Porter’s Inn, and if you’re well enough you will go
then, but if you don’t feel able, ’Manda wants you to stay all night.
They’ll send you to town in the morning, with ’Gustus John. You wouldn’t
mind staying, would you?”
“Oh, no,” said Cricket, feeling much too badly to care about anything
but lying still.
CHAPTER XXX.
LEFT BEHIND.
The children’s voices died away in the distance. Presently the door
opened carefully, and ’Manda came in, with a big pillow and a tumbler.
“There, now, dearie,” she said, setting down her tumbler, and slipping
the big, soft pillow under Cricket’s head. “That’s a sight better. That
sofy pillow, ’taint very soft. I’d hev taken you right into my room an’
put you to bed, but it’s awful hot there now, being right off the
kitchen so, ’n’ upstairs is hot, too. You’re a little mite sick to your
stomick, too, ain’t you? I thought so. Now drink this lemonade, an’ it
will kinder stop that gnawin’ feeling quicker nor a wink.”
“Lemonade?” repeated Cricket, lifting her heavy eyes in surprise. “When
I’m sick?” for she associated, naturally, any illness with medicines.
“Won’t it hurt me?”
“Bless your little heart, no. It won’t hurt you a mite. It’ll settle
your stomick wonderful, that’s all. ’Taint very sweet.”
’Manda slipped her hand under the pillow and raised the aching head so
gently that Cricket scarcely felt it move. She drained the tumbler
obediently, though the lemonade _was_ rather sour. Then she nestled down
into the soft pillow with a sigh of relief. ’Manda sat by her, waving a
big palm-leaf fan, with a slow, even motion. The silence and the
darkness soon began to soothe the throbbing pain, and Cricket at last
dropped into a fitful doze, that soon became a sound sleep.
An hour passed, and ’Manda heard the children’s voices as they came
across the field again. She tiptoed softly from the room,’sh-ing them
all, with uplifted finger.
“She’s jest dropped asleep, poor little mite,” she said, in answer to
their anxious, whispered inquiries. “Yes, Miss Marjorie, you jest leave
her to-night, an’ ’Gustus John, he’ll fetch her in town in the mornin’,
all right.”
“Sha’n’t I stay with her?” asked Eunice.
“There ain’t no need, Miss Eunice, I’d be proper glad to hev you, but
there ain’t no need, ’less you particular wish it. I’ll jest admire to
hev Cricket stay, and take care of her myself. La, suz! there won’t be
no need of anybody’s takin’ care, I rather guess, for like’s not, when
she wakes up, her headache’ll be all gone, an’ prob’bly by six o’clock
she’ll be wantin’ to go after the caows. No, Miss Eunice, you kin jest
as well as not go right along with the others, an’ be sure an’ tell your
ma that I jest _admire_ to hev Cricket stay.”
“I know you’ll take good care of her,” said Marjorie, hesitating. “I
only hope Cricket won’t feel lonely or homesick when she wakes up.”
“Oh, law! no; don’t you worrit now, Miss Marjorie. She needs her sleep
out, thet’s all. The hot sun an’ the berries was too much for her. What
a sight of berries you’ve got! Never wuz a better crop than this year.
Pity yer missin’ the season.”
The party looked with much satisfaction at the result of their labours.
Four six-quart pails overflowing with luscious fruit stood in a row on
the steps, and besides that, their lunch baskets were filled to the
brim.
“I’m real sorry you told ’Gustus John that you wasn’t goin’ to stop to
have a bite of victuals with us, for here he comes now with the team.
Must you go?”
“It’s after five,” answered Marjorie, “and it will be nearly seven
before we got home now. Yes, we must go. Well, we are so much obliged,
’Manda.”
“Well now, I’m sure you’ve no call to be. You dunno how I’m goin’ to
miss yer all this summer. Don’t know what we’ll do without you an’
Cricket an’ all your pranks,” added ’Manda, turning to Eunice.
’Gustus John and his big wagon came round from the barn just then.
“Pile in, young folks,” he said, cheerily. “Tain’t a very handsome
kerridge, but I guess you’ll find it considerable better than walkin’
over to Porter’s Inn, when you’re dead beat out. All in? Oh, ’Mandy,
give us some ginger-cakes or sumthin’ to eat goin’ along, bein’ as they
won’t stay to set by.”
“Yes, I’ve a basket full all ready,” said ’Manda, producing one, amid
the protests of the children—even the “accordion” boys—that they
couldn’t eat another mouthful of anything.
“But I can’t go without seeing Cricket,” exclaimed Marjorie, suddenly
stopping.
“Now, then, Miss Marjorie, I ain’t a-goin to hev you disturbin’ the
child,” said ’Manda, hastily, who down in her heart was dreadfully
afraid that Cricket might wake up and want to go home with the others,
when she had set her heart on having her stay. “She’ll sleep a good
spell yet, if she’s let to. You couldn’t do her no good ef you did see
her, an’ it might jest spile her nap.”
“Perhaps it’s better not,” Marjorie said, reluctantly. “I suppose that
she will be all right to-night anyway, though she scarcely ever had a
headache before in her life. And you’ll bring her in to-morrow, ’Gustus
John? I do hope that she won’t mind being left.”
“Now don’t you fuss about that,” said ’Gustus John. “’Manda, she thinks
it’s a real Godsend, bein’ as Mamie’s away. ’Mandy sets great store by
Cricket, you know. All ready now? Off we go!”
’Gustus John had promised to bring all the big pails of berries in town
when he went in the next morning, so the children had only their little
baskets with them. Everybody was in place now, and with many good-bys
and thanks to ’Manda, the merry party started.
It was after five when ’Manda went bustling back into the house to
prepare supper. There was no sound from the parlour yet, and she
concluded that Cricket was still sleeping.
“I’ll jest take a peek at the little dear,” she said, presently. “Like’s
not she’s awake by this time, and will want some supper.”
’Manda had always been devoted to Cricket. She had lived with Mrs. Ward
as nurse when Cricket was a baby, and the little girl was more than a
year old when ’Manda married ’Gustus John, the doctor’s farmer. So
Cricket had always been her especial pet.
She opened the parlour door gently and looked in. Cricket opened her
eyes with a smile.
“Oh, ’Manda! my head is ever so much better. It doesn’t ache scarcely at
all. Have the others come in from the strawberry field yet?”
“La, suz! yes, dear heart. They come and went, mebbe half an hour ago.
You wuz a sleepin’ so nice that we didn’t like to wake you up.”
“Gone!” exclaimed Cricket, feeling for the first moment as if she were
deserted on a desert island. “Why, what am I going to do?”
“You’re goin’ to stay with ’Manda to-night, my pretty. That won’t be
bad, will it?”
“No,” faltered Cricket, but she felt very forlorn and homesick,
nevertheless.
She loved kind ’Manda dearly, and since Mamie was not there it was not
quite so bad, but she scarcely ever spent a night away from home without
her mother in her little life. Cricket was such a “mother child.”
She sat up, but she found that her head still felt a little faint and
dizzy when she moved. Two little tears crept up into her eyes. How could
she go to bed without mamma!
“I want my mother!” real sobs now.
“There, there, my pretty! don’t cry!” soothed ’Manda, much distressed,
as she gathered her nursling into her motherly arms.
“Mommer ain’t here, but ’Mandy will take such _good_ care of you, an’
it’s jest fur to-night. To-morrow mornin’, ’Gustus John, he’s got to be
off real early, an’ you’ll hev to be up with the birds, I guess, an’
you’ll hev a bee-you-tiful ride in town. An’ then,” ’Mandy went on,
forgetting that Cricket was not a baby, as she settled her head more
comfortably on her broad bosom, “after tea, to-night, if your’s feelin’
reel smart, there ain’t nuthin’ to hender our takin’ a little walk down
to the village to see Hilda Mason. She’s goin’ to miss you a sight this
summer.”
Cricket began to feel that the situation had its advantages, after all.
’Manda’s lap was very comfortable, her shoulder very soft and plump, and
her arms very loving, so that Cricket could not stay forlorn long,
especially when there was the thought of seeing Hilda Mason so soon. So
she obeyed ’Manda’s advice to “chirk up,” and soon felt like going out
on the little front porch to sit, while ’Manda finished getting supper.
Then ’Gustus John and the two “hired men” came in, and with Sarah, the
rosy-cheeked “hired girl,” they all sat down to the cosey, homely meal.
’Manda would not let Cricket sit with the others, but she had put her in
state at a little square table near by, all by herself. The little table
was spread with ’Manda’s best china, to do honour to her little guest,
and special dainties in the way of preserves and cake were set for her.
Cricket enjoyed her supper, with the “warmed-over” potatoes, great
slices of fresh bread and butter, dried beef, cottage cheese and
pickles, cold meat, two kinds of preserves, berries and three kinds of
cake. Such a mixture, you will say; but Cricket was hungry enough now to
taste a little of everything, and she enjoyed it all.
[Illustration: CRICKET AND ’MANDA.]
By seven o’clock Cricket felt quite as well as ever, and skipped and
pranced, just as usual, along the road that led to Hilda’s home, while
’Manda followed, one broad smile of content.
Hilda was more than delighted to see Cricket, of course, and the little
girls had a lovely time together. Hilda had been invited to go over to
Marbury to stay for a week in August, with Cricket, at grandma’s, and,
of course, the children were delighted to make arrangements for that
important visit.
It was nine o’clock when Cricket and ’Manda returned to the farm-house,
in the moonlight. It seemed odd enough not to go on up the hill when
they came to the little bridge, but instead to turn in at the white
gate, and Cricket felt a little spasm of homesickness, which increased
when she was fairly inside the house, and ’Manda lighted the candle for
her to go upstairs. How she did want mamma and Eunice! Fortunately, she
was really too tired now, to think very much about anything but getting
to bed.
The funny little spare-room had a huge bedstead in it, an old-fashioned
one, with four posts and curtains, and an immense feather bed on it.
When ’Manda lifted her up and swung her over into it, she sank so far
down, that the sides rose on each side of her like billows, and the
sheet, spread across, did not touch her at all. But she was in the Land
of Nod almost before she could say a sleepy “Good-night” to kind ’Manda,
and she knew nothing more.
It was six o’clock, and broad daylight, of course, when ’Manda came in
to awaken her. Sleepy Cricket could hardly realize that there had been
any night at all. She rubbed her drowsy eyes open with much difficulty,
and ’Manda helped her through her toilet. ’Gustus John had to start for
town by seven o’clock, and the wagon already stood in the yard, loaded
up with vegetables and things for the market. ’Gustus John, himself, and
one hired man, were coming to the house with pails of foaming milk, and
another man was harnessing the big, black horses to the wagon.
Breakfast was over at last. The pails of strawberries were snugly tucked
away under the front seat, and everything was ready to start. ’Manda
gave her little guest many a parting hug and kiss, and said she didn’t
see how she ever _was_ going to stand it, not to have the doctor’s
family at Kayuna, and the children junketin’ around, just the same as
usual. Cricket hugged and kissed her in return, and then ’Gustus John
swung her up on the high front seat, where she sat, holding on to the
back, with her feet swinging above the pails of strawberries.
It always seemed delightfully dangerous on that front seat where there
was no dash-board, and where there seemed to be nothing to prevent her
lurching down on the horses’ broad backs if the wagon pitched over
“thank-you-marms.” ’Gustus John, in his blue blouse and broad-brimmed
hat, climbed heavily up beside her, gave a final glance over his load,
cracked his whip, and off they started with a sudden jerk that brought
Cricket’s toes very unexpectedly on a level with her head, and nearly
sent her pitching back into the spring peas and asparagus.
It was a very different trip from the one they had taken last fall.
’Manda’s parting word to ’Gustus John was that he must be careful and
not lose Cricket out, at which ’Gustus responded,—
“Sho!”
He never liked to be reminded of that accident. The horses settled down
to their farm-work jog, not in the least like the brisk trot they had
when they were harnessed to the light wagon. They knew quite well that
they had a load behind them and a long pull before them, and took it
easily.
The air was fresh and sweet, the birds twittered and chirped, the
morning dew lay like diamonds on the grass, and Cricket, who, as we
know, had a special delight in rising early, drew a long breath of
pleasure. She chattered gayly away, and ’Gustus John, in turn, told her
exciting tales of that wonderful time of long ago—“When I was a little
boy.”
It was not yet nine when the wagon clattered over the long bridge, and
they were fairly in town. They had to go more slowly then. They drove to
May Chester’s first to leave her strawberries, Cricket pointing out the
way, then to Jack Fleming’s and the Grays’. Then they turned into the
home-street and drew up before her own door. Cricket felt, as ’Gustus
John lifted her down from her high perch, that she must have made a trip
to Europe, for it seemed so long since she had left there, yesterday
morning.
“I’m so much obliged to you for this lovely ride, ’Gustus John,” she
said, as they went up the steps, ’Gustus carrying her berries. “I’ve had
the elegantest time riding in this morning and having you tell me
stories.”
“Wal, now, I tell you,” said ’Gustus John, “I’d give considerbul down,
ef I had yer to ride in with me every time I come to the city. We’d hev
purty snug times, wouldn’t we, eh? Good-by. Remember me to yer pa and
ma. Good-by.”
And Cricket, throwing him a kiss from the tips of her fingers, vanished
in the house.
THE END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Cricket" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.