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Heart of Gold

by Ruth Brown MacArthur · English · Gutenberg #23448 · 363,011 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Heart of Gold

Author: Ruth Brown MacArthur


        
Release date: November 11, 2007 [eBook #23448]
                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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HEART OF GOLD

by

RUTH ALBERTA BROWN

Author of "At the Little Brown House," "The
Lilac Lady," "Tabitha at Ivy Hall,"
"Tabitha's Vacation," "Tabitha's Glory," Etc.







[Illustration: "Peace, Peace! Come down. You'll fall! You'll fall!"]



The Saalfield Publishing Company
Chicago   Akron, Ohio   New York

Made in U. S. A.

Copyright, MCMXV
by
The Saalfield Publishing Company



CONTENTS

       CHAPTER I.    THE GIRL WHO TOOK A DARE 
      CHAPTER II.    THE SCRAP-BOOK BRIGADE 
     CHAPTER III.    GUSSIE'S NEW PLAY 
      CHAPTER IV.    PEACE LEARNS THE BITTER TRUTH 
       CHAPTER V.    THE LILAC LADY'S MESSAGE 
      CHAPTER VI.    THE PARSONAGE TWINS 
     CHAPTER VII.    AN ENDLESS CHAIN OF LETTERS 
    CHAPTER VIII.    ALLEE'S ALBUM 
      CHAPTER IX.    PEACE INTERVIEWS THE BISHOP 
       CHAPTER X.    THE NEW PASTOR OF SOUTH AVENUE CHURCH 
      CHAPTER XI.    DOCTOR DICK 
     CHAPTER XII.    MISS WAYNE 
    CHAPTER XIII.    THE LITTLE AUTHOR LADY 
     CHAPTER XIV.    KETURAH AND BILLY BOLEE 
      CHAPTER XV.    THE RING THAT BUILT A HOSPITAL 
     CHAPTER XVI.    PEACE DISCOVERS SOME SECRETS 
    CHAPTER XVII.    A HOSPITAL WEDDING 
   CHAPTER XVIII.    THE SEVEN MCGEES 
     CHAPTER XIX.    WONDERFUL TIDINGS 


Heart of Gold


CHAPTER I

THE GIRL WHO TOOK A DARE


"Attention, children! Close copy books and pass them to the right.
Monitors, collect."

Tired Miss Phelps laid down her crayon, with one sweep of her arm erased
the letter exercises she had so laboriously traced on the blackboard for
her fifty pupils to copy, wiped the clinging chalk from her dry, chapped
hands, and sank wearily into her chair beside the littered desk, as she
issued her commands in sharp, almost impatient tones. Her head ached
fiercely, her brain seemed on fire, the subdued scratching of scores of
pens in unskilled fingers set her nerves on edge, and she was ready to
collapse with the strain of the day. Yet another hour remained before
the afternoon session would draw to a close. How was she ever to hear
the stupid geography recitation, or listen to the halting, singsong
voices stumble through pages of a Reader too old for their
understanding?

Again she glanced at the clock. A full hour of torture, and she was
simply longing for bed! A sudden determination seized her. She would
read to her scholars instead of listening to the lessons they had
prepared to recite! So, selecting a book from the row on her desk, she
waited until the blotted, inky copy books had been gleefully whisked
shut by their owners, passed across the aisle and gathered in neat piles
by the monitors, who creaked solemnly up to the corner table and laid
them beside the day's written exercises for the teacher's inspection
later. Then they clattered back to their seats and waited with expectant
eyes fixed upon Miss Phelps for the next command.

"Take rest position!"

There was a brisk scraping of feet, a rustling of dresses, and fifty
active bodies sat stiffly erect with hands clasped on the desk-tops in
front of them. No,--not fifty. One child, a brown-eyed girl with short,
riotous curls tumbling about her round, animated face, sat heedless of
her surroundings, staring out of the window near her into the bright
Spring sunshine, and from her rapt expression it was evident that her
thoughts were far away from school and lessons.

Miss Phelps waited an instant, but the child was lost in her dreams and
did not feel the unusual silence of the room. Following the gaze of the
intent brown eyes, the teacher glanced out of the window and saw a flock
of pigeons disporting themselves on the barn roof across the road; and
as they fluttered and strutted, scolded and cooed, the little watcher at
her desk unconsciously imitated their movements, thrusting out her
chest, cocking her head pertly on one side and nodding and pecking at
imaginary birds, just as her pretty feathered friends were doing as they
basked in the warm sunshine. Involuntarily the woman smiled. Then, as
the girl continued to mimic the doves, she tapped her foot impatiently
on the floor and repeated emphatically, "Children, take rest position!"

Stealthily the other pupils let their eyes rove about the room in search
of the guilty member, for it was very plain from the teacher's manner
that someone was out of order. Instantly a pencil rapped sharply on the
desk, and forty-nine pair of inquisitive eyes jerked quickly to the
front again. But the fiftieth pair continued to stare out of the window,
until in exasperation the woman's voice rasped out, "Peace Greenfield,
will you please give me your undivided attention?"

With a start of horrified surprise the culprit awoke from her daydreams,
to discover that she was flapping her outstretched arms in either aisle
like some exultant cockerel just ready to crow. Abashed and dismayed at
having been caught napping, she thrust her hands hastily into her desk,
seized her geography, and scrambling to her feet, started for the front
of the room, remembering that her class was the next to recite. The
children tittered, and Peace, much amazed to find that no one followed,
paused uncertainly, searched her brain desperately to recall the
teacher's command, and then glibly recited, "Brazil is bounded on the
north by--"

The scholars burst into a howl of derision, and poor Peace slumped into
her seat, covered with confusion. Even the tired teacher smiled at the
child's discomfort, but immediately rapped for order, and said sternly,
"Rest position, please! The geography and reading classes will not
recite this afternoon. I shall read to you from our book of mythology,
and when I have finished, I shall expect you to repeat the story. What
was the last we read about?"

"The wooden horse in the siege of Troy," shouted a score of voices.

"Correct," smiled the teacher faintly. "And today I shall tell you about
Ganymede and how he was connected with the other characters we have been
studying. Ganymede--repeat the name after me."

"Ganymede," roared the obedient scholars.

"Ganymede," whispered Peace to herself. "Ganymede--what a funny name! I
wonder if he was any relation to those folks Hope was talking about last
night. They were Medes and--and Persians. I d'clare, I 'most forgot that
word. Hist'ry like Hope's must be int'resting. I'll be glad when I get
big enough to study about the Goffs and Salts and--and Sandals and the
rest of that bunch." She meant Goths and Celts and Vandals, but somehow
words had a bad habit of getting sadly mixed up in that active brain
which tried to absorb all it heard; and she was always making outrageous
speeches in consequence.

"I don't like mythology. What do we care about Herc'les and his sore
heel, or Helen or Hector?--I wonder if that's the man Hec Abbott was
named after? I'd rather--My! what a lovely day it is for March! No
wonder the doves are talking. Wouldn't I like to be up on that barn roof
in the sun! Bet I'd do some talking too. S'posing I was a really dove.
What fun it would be to fly away, away up in the blue sky. I wonder if
they ever bump into the clouds. There goes a white cloud skimming right
over the sun. Now it's gone and we're in the shine once more. Queer how
it can shine in spots and be cloudy in spots at the same time. That's
like laughing with one eye and bawling with the other. I don't b'lieve a
body could ever do that. Wish I could, just to see what it would feel
like.

"'Twon't take many days like this 'fore the grass begins to grow and the
leaves to come. The trees are budded big now. I am crazy wild for the
cowslips and vi'lets to get here. Hicks promised to help us plant some
flowers on our Lilac Lady's grave. It looks so bare and lonely now with
the snow all gone, and only that tall white stone to tell where she is.
I know where the loveliest yellow vi'lets grow."

"Peace Greenfield!"

Again Peace came to the earth with an abruptness that left her
breathless and quaking. "Yes, ma'am," she responded meekly.

"You weren't paying attention, were you?" demanded the long-suffering
teacher.

Peace pondered. She could scarcely say "yes" truthfully, and yet her
intentions were good. She had not meant to lose herself again, nor did
realize how very little she had heard of the story which the teacher had
been reading.

"Were you?" repeated Miss Phelps relentlessly.

"Partly," Peace responded haughtily.

The woman gasped; then as the scholars giggled, she said sternly, "Tell
us what the story was about."

Peace opened her mouth. "Gan--" she began and halted. What _had_ the
story been about? Rapidly she searched through her memory. It was such a
funny word. How could she have forgotten it?

The children sniggered audibly.

"Gan--what?" urged the weary teacher sarcastically.

O, yes, now she remembered it! "Gandermeats and pigeons," triumphantly
finished Peace, with a saucy toss of her head.

There was a moment of dead silence in the room; then a jeering shout
rose from forty-nine throats. But it was instantly quelled by a sharp
rap on the desk, and when order was restored, Miss Phelps said
encouragingly, "Ganymede and what, Peace? Surely not _pigeon_! You
didn't mean that, now did you?"

But Peace had come to the end of her resources. If it wasn't pigeons,
what was it?

"Tell her, children," prompted Miss Phelps, as Peace floundered
helplessly.

"An eagle," yelled the chorus of eager voices.

An _eagle_! Queer, but she had heard no mention made of an eagle; and
she trembled in her shoes for fear the teacher would ask still more
embarrassing questions.

Fortunately, however, Miss Phelps turned to the lad across the aisle,
and said, "Johnny, you may tell us the story of Ganymede."

Johnny was nearly bursting his jacket in his eagerness to publish his
knowledge; so to Peace's immense gratification and relief, he gabbled
off his version of Ganymede's experience with Jupiter's eagle. And Peace
breathed more freely when he sat down puffing with pride at the
teacher's, "Well told, Johnny."

"Mercy! I'm glad she didn't ask me any more about the old fellow," Peace
sighed. "I--I guess I didn't hear much she said, but that horrid
mythology is so dry. I don't see why she keeps reading the stuff to us.
I'd a sight rather study about physiology and _cardrack_ valves and
_oil-factory_ nerves in the nose like Cherry does; though I don't see
how she ever remembers those long words and what part of the body they
b'long to. I'd--yes, I'd rather have mental 'rithmetic every day of the
week than mythology about old gods that never lived, and did only mean
things to everybody when they b'lieved they lived."

"Peace Greenfield!" sounded an exasperated voice in her ear. "If you
would rather watch those pigeons across the street than to pay attention
to your lessons, we will just excuse you and let you stand by the window
until--"

"I wasn't watching a single pigeon that time," Peace broke in hotly. "I
was only thinking about those hateful gods folks used to b'lieve in, and
wondering why the School Board makes us study about them when they were
just clear fakes--every one of 'em--'nstead of learning things that
really did happen at some time. There's enough true, int'resting things
going on around us to keep us busy without studying fakes, seems to me."

Now it happened that the mythological tales with which Miss Phelps
regaled her small charges from time to time were not a part of the
regular course of study laid out for her grade, and at this pupil's
blunt criticism, the teacher's face became scarlet; but she quickly
regained her poise, and turning to the school, asked, "How many of you
enjoy listening to these myths which I have been reading?"

A dozen wavering, uncertain hands went up. The rest remained clasped on
their desks.

The woman was astounded. "What kind of stories _do_ you like best?" she
faltered.

"Those in the new Readers," responded the pupils as with one voice.

Mechanically Miss Phelps reached for one of the volumes, and opening it
at random, read the New England tale of the Pine-tree Shillings to her
delighted audience.

Peace tried to center her thoughts upon what was being read, but the
lure of the Spring sunshine and blue sky was too great to be resisted;
and before the story was ended, she was again wandering in realms of her
own. Down by the river where the pussy willows grew, out in the
marshland where the cowslips soon would blow, up the gently sloping
hillside, far up where the tall shaft of marble stood sentinel over the
grave of her beloved Lilac Lady, she wandered, planning, planning what
she would do when the warm Spring sunshine had chased away the Frost
King for another year.

The book closed with a sudden snap, and the teacher demanded crisply,
"All who think they can tell the story as well as Johnny told us about
Ganymede, raise your hands."

Vaguely aware that Miss Phelps had told them to raise their hands, Peace
quickly shot one plump arm into the air and waved it frantically.

"Very well, Peace, you may begin."

Peace bounced to her feet. What was expected of her? Why had she raised
her hand?

"Aw, tell her about the pine-tree shillings," prompted boastful Johnny
in a whisper, and Peace plunged boldly into the half-heard story,
wondering within herself how she was going to end it respectably when
she did not know the true ending because her mind had been
wool-gathering.

"Once there was a man--a man--a man--" blundered the girl, trying in
vain to remember whether or not he had a name.

"Yes, a man," repeated the teacher impatiently. "Go on. Where did he
live and what did he do?"

"He lived in olden times," replied Peace, grasping eagerly at the
suggestion.

"Well, but in what country? Asia or Africa?"

"Neither. He lived in the New England,"--the New England chanced to be
Martindale's largest furniture store,--"and he was very rich and had a
buckskin maiden."

"A _what_?" gasped the astonished woman, dropping her book to the floor
with a bang.

"A--a buckskin maiden," repeated the child slowly, realizing that she
had made some mistake, but not knowing where.

"Buxom," whispered Johnny frantically.

"A--a bucksin maiden," corrected Peace.

"Buxom!" snapped the teacher irritably.

"Bucksome," repeated Peace, with the picture of a bucking billy goat
uppermost in her mind, and wondering how a maiden could be _bucksome_.

"Go on," sharply.

"Well, this bucksome maiden wanted awful bad to get married, like all
other women do, and so her father found a man for her, but she had to
have a dairy--"

"Dowry," corrected the teacher. "What is a dowry, Peace?"

"A place where they keep cows," responded the child, sure of herself
this time; but to her amazement, the rest of the scholars hooted
derisively, and Miss Phelps said wearily, "Peace was evidently asleep
when I explained the meaning of that word. Alfred, you may tell her what
a dowry is."

"A dowry is the money and jew'ls and things a girl gets from her father
to keep for her very own when she marries."

"Oh," breathed Peace, suddenly enlightened. "Well, her father stood her
in a pair of scales and weighed her with shingles--"

"With--?" Miss Phelps fortunately had not caught the word.

"Pine-tree shillings," prompted Johnny under his breath. "He had a chest
full of 'em."

"Pine-tree shingles," answered Peace dutifully. "He had a chest made of
them."

"Peace Greenfield!" Miss Phelps' patience had come to an end. Sometimes
it seemed to her as if this solemn-eyed child purposely misunderstood,
and mocked at her attempts to lead unwilling feet along the path of
learning, and she was at a loss to know how to deal with the sprightly
elf who danced and flitted about like an elusive will-o'-wisp. The fact
that she was the University President's granddaughter was the only thing
that had saved her thus far from utter disfavor in the eyes of her
teacher; but now even that fact was lost sight of in face of the child's
repeated misdemeanors and flagrant inattention. She should be punished.
It was the only way out.

Drawing her thin lips into a straight, grim line to express her
disapproval, Miss Phelps repeated, "Peace Greenfield, you may remain
after school."

The gong rang at that instant, the notes of the piano echoed through the
building, and surprised, dismayed Peace, after one searching look at
her teacher's face and a longing glance out into the bright sunlight,
sank into her seat and watched her comrades march gleefully down the
hall and scatter along the street. It was too bad to be kept in on such
a beautiful day! O, dear, what a queer world it was and how many queer
people in it! There was Miss Phelps for one. She was so strict and stern
and sarcastic,--almost as sharp and harsh as Miss Peyton, who had made
life so miserable for poor Peace in Chestnut School the year before. But
Miss Peyton did begin to understand at last, while Miss Phelps--

"Peace, come here."

Peace roused from her bitter revery with a start. She had not observed
the teacher's noiseless return to the room after conducting her pupils
down the hall, and was astonished to find the stiff figure sitting in
its accustomed place behind the desk which had once more been whisked
into spick and span order for another day.

Peace scuttled spryly down the aisle, casting one final wistful glance
over her shoulder at the doves across the street. How delightful it must
be to be a bird! The teacher saw the glance, and putting on her severest
expression, demanded sternly, "What is the matter with you, child? Have
you lost your wits entirely, or--"

"O, teacher," the eager voice burst forth, as Peace pointed rapturously
out of the window, "isn't this the elegantest day? Seems 's if Winter
had stayed twice as long this year as it ought to, and it's been an
awful trial to everyone, with its blizzards and drifts. I like winter,
too. It's such fun coasting and skating and sleighing and snow-balling.
But I've got enough for once. I'm _glad_ Spring is here at last." Her
voice sent a responding joyous thrill through the woman's cold heart in
spite of herself. "The ice in the river is 'most all gone, the pussy
willows by the boathouse are peeking out their queer little jackets, and
the robins are beginning to build their nests in the trees. Grandpa says
when the birds commence to build, Spring is here to stay; and I'm _so_
glad. I've just been aching to go hunting vi'lets and cowslips and
'nemones. We are going to plant a heap of wild flowers on her grave--"

"Whose grave?" the amazed teacher heard herself asking.

"My Lilac Lady's. It's so bare now. The grass was all dead when she fell
asleep last Fall, and only the ugly ground shows now--just the size of
the bed they laid her in. We're going to cover it with the flowers she
liked best, first the wild ones from the woods, and then the garden
blossoms--pansies and forget-me-nots and English daisies. I know where
the prettiest vi'lets grow,--just scads and oodles of 'em--down by the
stone bridge over Bartlett's Creek in Parker; and Hicks is going to help
us transplant them. Only it's too early yet. They aren't even up through
the ground now. But it won't take long, with days like this. It's hard
to study with Spring smelling so d'licious right under your nose.
Doesn't it make you want to get out and jump rope and play marbles and
leap-frog, and--and just jump and skip and _yell_? I can pretty near fly
with gladness!"

Peace turned a radiant face toward the silent woman, and was dismayed to
find tears glistening in the cold gray eyes. "Oh!" she exclaimed in deep
contrition, "what is the matter? Did I--what have I said now to make you
squall?"

"Nothing, dear," smiled the teacher, wiping away the telltale drops with
a hasty whisk of her handkerchief. "I--I just saw in my mind a picture
of the little old cottage where I used to live, and it made me homesick,
I think. My head aches, too,--"

"Then you mustn't let me keep you here," cried the child, forgetting
that she had been bidden to remain after school as a punishment for
inattention. "You better go right home, drink a cup of good, hot tea,
and go to bed. That'll make you feel all right by morning, I know,
'cause that's the way we fix Grandpa up when his head bothers. Here's
your hat and coat. Just breathe in lots of air, too. It's pretty muddy
under foot to walk very far, but the fresh air will do you good."

Before the woman could realize how it happened, Peace had coaxed her
into her wraps, slipped on her own, and hand in hand with the astounded
teacher was walking demurely down the muddy street, still chattering
gayly. At the corner, faithful Allee awaited the coming of her
unfortunate sister, and Peace, seeing the yellow curls bobbing under the
blue stocking cap, gave the teacher's hand a parting squeeze, waved a
smiling good-bye, and skipped off beside the younger child as if there
were no such a thing as being kept in after school.

"O, Allee," Miss Phelps heard her say as they pelted down the avenue,
"do you s'pose Grandma'll let us go over to Evelyn's to play? It's dry
enough, I'm sure."

"Cherry's gone on ahead to find out," Allee panted. "They are going to
play anti-over,--Ted and Johnny and all the rest."

"Goody! I just know Grandma won't put her foot down. It's such a lovely
day! Hear that robin say, 'Spring is here, Spring is here!' S'posin' we
were robins, Allee, and had to hunt up horse-hair and hay to build our
nests of--"

"Peace! Allee! Hurry up. We are already to play," screamed Evelyn
Smiley, leaning over her gate and beckoning wildly to the racing girls.
"Your grandmother says you can stay till five o'clock. Ted's 'it' this
time. Johnny has a dandy ball, and we are going to play over the house."

"Oh!" cried Peace incredulously, "that's so high!"

"All the more fun," answered Ted, joining them at the gate.

"But we might break some windows."

"Fiddlesticks! Our ball is big and soft Couldn't break anything with it.
'Tain't like Fred's hard rubber one. Come on. This is my side of the
house. You take the other."

The rest of the dozen children gathered on the front lawn scuttled away
to the place designated, and the game was on. Such laughing and
shouting, such running and dodging! Once Edith Smiley, Evelyn's aunt,
beloved of all the children, came to the window and watched the
boisterous, exhilarating frolic with an anxious pucker between her
brows. "I am afraid someone will get hurt, Mother," she said in answer
to the white-haired grandmother's questioning glance.

"How can they? Seems to me they are playing a very harmless game."

"But the house is too high for 'anti-over.' They should have taken the
garage."

"Nonsense! They are developing muscle. Watch that Peace fling the ball.
She can throw almost as well as a boy."

"The lawn is so slippery--"

"They are nimble on their feet, and the ground is soft."

Edith retired to her piano practise and the mother resumed her knitting
with her usual tranquillity. Suddenly above the soft strains of music
that filled the house, rose a yell of dismay from a dozen throats
outside.

"What's happened?" Edith glanced apprehensively toward the door.

"Their ball is caught on the roof," answered her mother, still smiling
placidly. "Guess their game is over for tonight. Well, it is time. The
clock is just ready to strike five."

Edith turned back to the piano, but before her hands had touched the
ivory keys, there was a wild, excited, protesting shout from outside
that brought her to her feet and sent her flying for the door.

"Peace, Peace! Come down. You'll fall! You'll fall!"

"Johnny Gates, take that back! She's not a coward! She couldn't keep the
ball from catching in that corner."

"Oh, Peace, never mind the ball. It's Johnny who's the coward."

"Hush! You will confuse her!" Edith's voice was low but vibrant, and the
screams from the terrified watchers below abruptly ceased.

Peace had reached the ball wedged in a hollow by the chimney, and with
accurate aim, sent it spinning down to its white-faced, tearful owner;
but as she turned to crawl back the way she had come, her foot slipped,
she wavered uncertainly, and fell with a crash to the roof, rolling over
and over in a vain endeavor to stop her mad career, till, with the
horrified eyes of the stricken audience glued upon her, she slid over
the coping and landed in a crumpled heap on the sodden turf below.

Then pandemonium broke loose. Evelyn burst into uncontrollable sobs,
Fanny toppled over in blissful unconsciousness, Cherry, beside herself
with grief, tore down the street to break the direful news to those at
home; and the boys danced and pranced in their terror, as they screamed,
"She's dead, she's dead! Peace Greenfield's dead!"

For a brief instant, which seemed like eternity to Edith Smiley, she
stood rooted to the spot, transfixed by the very horror of it all. Then
loyal Allee's frenzied scream brought her to her senses, and she saw the
golden head bending over the disheveled form in the mud, as the child
repeated again and again, "She's _not_ dead! She _can't_ be dead! I
won't _let_ her be dead!" Swiftly Edith knelt beside the pair and sought
to lift the older child to carry her into the house. But at her first
touch, the brown eyes unclosed, and a roguish smile broke over the white
face, as Peace looked up at the frightened figures above her and giggled
hysterically, "I've often wondered what it would feel like to fly. Do
you s'pose it makes the birds sick and dizzy every time they make a
swoop?"

"Peace!" gasped Edith, "are you hurt?"

"No, only things look kind of tipsy 'round here, and my breath has got
St. Vitas Dance." Slowly she stretched out her arms and legs that they
might see that none of her limbs were broken; but when she attempted to
sit up, her lips went white and she fell back on the trampled grass with
a stifled groan.

"You _are_ hurt, Peace Greenfield," declared anxious Allee, hovering
over her like a mother bird over her young.

"There's a place in my back," whispered the injured girl faintly. "I
guess maybe one of my ribs is cracked."

At this moment the distracted President and wild-eyed Gail pushed
through the knot of children huddled about the fallen heroine, and
demanded huskily, "How is she? Not dead? Thank God! Any bones broken?"

"Nope, Grandpa," smiled Peace cheerfully. "I just got a _cricket_ in my
back, so it hurts a little when I wiggle; but I got Johnny's ball, too,
didn't I?"

"I'm afraid there is something wrong," whispered Edith Smiley, with a
worried look in her eyes, as she made way for the President. "She can't
move without groaning."

The stalwart man stooped over the outstretched figure and gathered it in
his arms, but as he lifted her from the ground she screamed in agony and
fainted quite away. Thus they bore her home--the President with the
still form on his bosom, Gail bearing the muddy red stocking cap, Cherry
and Allee bringing up the rear, while a hushed, scared-faced throng of
playmates followed at some distance.

The next morning the corner seat by the window in Miss Phelps' room was
vacant for the first time that year, and the teacher looked up in
surprise when no familiar voice answered, "Present," when she called
Peace Greenfield's name.

"She fell off the roof of Smiley's house," volunteered one scholar.

"And broke her back," supplemented another.

"What!" shrieked the horrified teacher, with a strange, sickening fear
clutching at her heart.

The door opened, and the school principal entered the room, looking worn
and distraught.

"Miss Lisk," cried the teacher, turning eagerly to her superior, "the
children tell me that Peace Greenfield has fallen from some roof and
broken her back."

"O, it's not as bad as that," responded the older woman promptly. "She
has had a nasty fall and is--hurt. How badly, the doctor is unable yet
to say, but we hope she will soon be with us again." Lowering her voice
so none but the teacher could hear, she added, "The physician is afraid
that her spine is injured."

"Oh!" cried Miss Phelps, too shocked for further words.

"It is too bad such a thing should happen to her," continued Miss Lisk
sadly. "She is such a lovable child, the life of her home."

Had anyone paid such a tribute to the lively Peace on the previous day,
her teacher would merely have raised her eyebrows doubtfully; but with
the memory of that flushed, joyous face still so vividly before her, and
with the sound of the eager, childish prattle still ringing in her ears,
she nodded her head in assent, and turned back to the day's duties with
a heaviness of heart that was overwhelming. With that restless, active
figure gone from its accustomed corner, the sun seemed to have set in
mid-day and left the whole world in darkness.




CHAPTER II

THE SCRAP-BOOK BRIGADE


When Peace awoke to her surroundings again, she was lying in the
gorgeously draped bed of the Flag Room with old Dr. Coates bending over
her, and she startled the worthy gentleman by asking in sprightly tones,
"Well, Doctor, how are you? It's been a long time since you've been to
call on me, isn't it? Do you think I have cracked a rib?"

"No, little girl," he answered soberly, but his wrinkled old face
brightened visibly at the sound of her cheery voice. "I _think_ you have
put a kink in your back."

"Will it be all right soon?"

"We hope so, curly pate."

"By tomorrow?"

"O, dear, no! Not for--days." He could not bring himself to tell her
that it might be weeks before he could even determine how badly the
little back was hurt.

"Mercy!" she wailed in consternation, for bed held no charms for that
active body. "And must I stay in bed all that while?"

"My dear child," he answered gravely, "do you realize that you are the
luckiest girl in seven counties tonight?"

"How?" she asked curiously, forgetting her lament in her wonder at his
words.

"It's a miracle that you were not killed outright."

"Well, Johnny dared me."

"And you couldn't pass up a dare?"

She shook her head.

"Well, now my girlie must take her medicine."

Peace looked startled. "I didn't 'xpect to fall," she murmured, and two
tears glistened in her big brown eyes.

The doctor relented. "There, there, little one," he comforted, "don't
feel badly. We'll soon have you up and about--_perhaps_," he added under
his breath.

So he left her smiling and cheerful, but his own heart was heavy as he
descended the stairs after the long examination was ended, a pall of
anxiety hung over the whole household when the door closed behind his
broad back. Peace crippled perhaps for life, perhaps never to walk
without crutches again! It was too dreadful to be true. Peace,--their
gay little butterfly! Peace, whose feet seemed like wings! They never
walked, but danced along with the lightness of a fairy, tripping,
flitting, never still. What a calamity!

"But Dr. Coates says it is too soon to know for certain yet," Hope
reminded them, trying to find a ray of encouragement to cheer the
anxious household, and they seized upon that straw with desperation,
gradually taking heart once more, and trying to shake off the dreadful
fear that Peace would never romp or dance about the house again.

And it really seemed as if the white-haired physician's fears were
groundless; for after the first few days when the slightest touch made
the little sufferer whimper with pain, she seemed to get better. The
soreness wore away, the drawn lines around the mouth smoothed themselves
out, the rosy color came back to the round cheeks and the sound of the
well-known laughter floated from room to room. Peace was undoubtedly
better, and even Dr. Coates forgot to look grave as he came and went on
his professional calls.

"She is doing nicely?" the worried President asked him anxiously two
weeks after the accident.

"Splendidly!" the doctor answered with his bluff heartiness. "Far better
than I had dared hope. If she continues to improve as rapidly as she has
been doing, we will have her on her feet again in a month or two."

"A month or two!" gasped Peace, when Allee, who had chanced to overhear
the old physician's words, repeated them to the restless invalid. "Why,
I 'xpected he'd let me up next week _anyway_!"

"The back is a very delicate organism," quoted Cherry grandly, always
ready to display her small store of knowledge, though she really meant
to bring comfort to this dismayed sister. "When it is once injured, it
requires a long time to grow strong again. Wouldn't you rather spend two
or three months in bed than to hobble about on crutches all the rest of
your life?"

"Yes, of course, but--"

"Well, Doctor thought at first that you would never be able to walk
without 'em." Now that Peace seemed well on the road to recovery, the
secret fear which had haunted the household ever since the night of the
accident took shape in words, and for the first time the invalid learned
what a fate had been prophesied for her.

"_Without crutches?_" she half whispered.

"Yes."

Peace lay silent for a long moment while the awfulness of those words
burned themselves into her brain. Then with a shudder she said aloud,
"That's a mighty big thankful, ain't it?--To think I don't have to limp
along with crutches! But, oh dear, two months in bed is _such_ a long
time to wait! Whatever will I do with myself? My feet are just _itching_
to wiggle. I've been here two weeks now, and it seems two years. Two
months means _eight whole weeks_!"

The voice rose to a tragic wail, and Grandma Campbell, hearing the
commotion, hurried across the hall to discover the cause. She glanced
reprovingly at the two culprits when the tale of woe had been poured
into her ears with fresh laments from the small victims; but instead of
scolding, as remorseful Cherry and Allee expected her to do, she smiled
sympathetically, even cheerfully at the tragic face on the pillow, and
asked, "Supposing you were a little tenement-house girl, cooped up in a
tiny, stifling kitchen, with the steamy smell of hot soapsuds always in
the air, and you had to lie all day, week in and week out, with not a
book nor a toy to help while away the long hours. With not even a
glimpse of the world outside to make you forget for a time the cruelly
aching back--"

"O, Grandma, not _really_?" interrupted Peace, for something in the
sound of the gentle voice told her that this was no imaginary picture
which was being drawn. "Is there such a little girl?"

The white head nodded soberly.

"Isn't there even any _sunshine_ there?" The brown eyes glanced
wistfully out of the window, beside which the swan bed had been drawn,
and gloated in the beautiful April sunlight which was already coaxing
the grass into its brilliant green dress.

"Not a gleam," answered the woman sadly. "The buildings are jammed so
closely together, and the windows are so small that not a ray of
sunlight can penetrate a quarter part of the musty, dingy little rooms."

"Is that _here_--in Martindale?" inquired Cherry in shocked tones.

"Yes, on the North Side."

"What is the little girl's name?" asked Allee, awed into whispers by
this sad recital.

"Sadie Wenzell."

"How old is she?" was the next question.

"Just the age of Peace."

"O, a little girl!" exclaimed Cherry. "Will she ever get well again?"

The sweet-faced woman hesitated an instant. How could she tell the
eager listeners that long neglect had made poor Sadie's case well-nigh
hopeless? Then she answered slowly, "We are giving her every possible
chance now, dearies. The Aid Society found her by accident, and got her
into the Children's Ward of the City Hospital. She cried with happiness
because the bed was so soft and white and clean; and when the nurse
carries up her breakfast or dinner, it is hard to persuade the little
thing to eat,--she is so charmed with the dainty appearance of the
tray."

"Oh-h!" whispered the three voices in awed chorus.

"Didn't she have anything to eat in her own house?" ventured Allee.

"Nothing but dry bread and greasy soup all the five years she has laid
there--"

"Five years!" repeated Peace in horrified accents. "Without any sunshine
and green grass and flowers! O, I sh'd think she'd have _died_ before
this! Didn't she ever go to school and play with other children?"

"Before she fell from the fire-escape--"

"Was she hurt in a fire?" interrupted Cherry with interest.

"No, there was no fire, but the fire-escape was her only playground, for
her mother would not let her run the streets with the other ragamuffins
of the tenements; and one day she fell and crushed her hip. But before
that, she had attended a free kindergarten around the corner and learned
her alphabet. Her mother has a little education, and she has managed to
find time to teach Sadie how to read, but that is all the child knows of
school."

"O," sighed Peace, with a sudden yearning for the rambling old
school-house, the high-ceilinged rooms, her low seat by the window, and
even stern Miss Phelps, "what a lot she has missed! Here I'm feeling bad
'cause school will be out 'fore I am up again, if I have to stay in bed
two months longer, and I'll be way behind my classes. But Sadie has
never had a chance to go to school at all."

"Yes, dearie, you see how much you have to be thankful for, even if it
is two months before you can get out of doors again by yourself. Until
now, Sadie never knew what flowers looked like growing in the ground. I
sent her a pot of your hyacinths when the Aid made their monthly visit
to the Hospital, and Mrs. Cheever was just telling me that the child
could not believe they were really alive. It is so sad to find one
cheated out of so much in life."

"Isn't there something else I can send her of mine?" Peace anxiously
inquired. "I've got so much and she hasn't anything. These puzzles are
so stale I don't want to see 'em again and those books--"

"Suppose you make some scrapbooks to amuse her with at first," suggested
Mrs. Campbell hastily, for when the missionary spirit seized this
restless, active body, it never ceased working until she had given away
not only all her own treasures, but all those belonging to her sisters
which chanced to fall into her hands.

"Scrapbooks!" cried Peace scornfully. "No one but babies cares for them.
Why, even Allee hasn't been int'rested in such things for ages."

Mrs. Campbell smiled inwardly at Peace's contempt, but gently persisted,
"Sadie is too weak to hold heavy books yet, dearie. The puzzles _might_
amuse her, but she tires so easily that I know some small cambric
scrapbooks would prove a boon to her just now. I agree with you that she
would soon grow weary of looking at mere pictures; but I found some very
unique and helpful little books in the attic the other day which might
give you some ideas. Ned Meadows made them one summer for his own
amusement while he was confined to his bed with a broken leg. He cut up
a lot of old magazines and pasted the articles which interested him into
some ancient notebooks Grandpa Campbell had lying around the house. He
was always on the lookout for items concerning electricity, and one book
was filled from cover to cover with bits of such news. Another contained
nothing but jokes which had helped him laugh away a good many minutes;
and still another was used for anecdotes of famous men, with perhaps a
photograph or caricature to illustrate the little stories. He spent
hours cutting and pasting just for his own pleasure and amusement; but
without realizing it, he also stored away much useful knowledge in his
brain while he was waiting impatiently for the leg to mend. Don't you
think that would make an interesting play for you?"

"Ye--s," replied Peace dutifully but doubtfully. She was not as fond of
reading as were her sisters, and though her grandmother's plan _sounded_
interesting when it concerned someone else, she had her misgivings as to
its success when applied to herself.

"Then let's begin at once," cried Mrs. Campbell, trying to look
intensely eager, as she noted the lack of enthusiasm in the round,
cherubic face on the pillow. "We will make our books of cambric, because
that will be of lighter weight than paper, and I have stacks of old
magazines filled with short stories and bright sayings. Cherry, will you
please bring me my scissors from the work-basket and that roll of
colored cambric on the top shelf in the hall closet? Allee, wouldn't you
like to run down to the barn and ask Jud to bring us those old
'Companions' from the loft? Here comes Hope. Just in time, dearie, to
fetch us the paste from the library and the pinking iron which Gussie
was using last evening. We probably won't get as far as pasting anything
today, as it is so nearly night now, but we will have everything ready
for the time we shall need it."

Mrs. Campbell bustled briskly about, settling the invalid in a more
comfortable position, arranging the light bed table where it would be
most convenient for Peace to reach, and collecting the other necessary
material for the "scrapbook brigade," as she laughingly called it, when
Cherry, Hope, Allee and Jud came marching upstairs again, each bringing
a contribution to aid in the good cause. All looked so eagerly
enthusiastic and anxious to lend a hand that in spite of herself, Peace
began to feel a thrill of interest tingle through her veins, and
promptly began snipping up the pages which Jud dumped on a chair beside
her bed. Mrs. Campbell cut the colored cloth into neat squares, Allee
pinked the edges, and Cherry stitched them into tiny books with
card-board covers to protect the pictures and stories so soon to be
pasted on their pages. Everyone had a task of her own, and the
dinner-bell rang before anyone had tired of this new play. Indeed, it
was with actual reluctance that Peace surrendered her shears and saw her
cluttered table cleared away for the night.

"If it would only last!" sighed Mrs. Campbell, as she related the day's
events to the little family gathered around the table for the evening
meal. "But she is not contented with anything long, and will soon weary
of this as she has of everything else."

"Then we must get our heads together and be ready with something new
just as soon as we see her interest is flagging. Gail, you are the
oldest. We will let you have the honor of first turn."

"All right, Grandpa," smiled Gail. "I will do my best." But it was
really Gussie who accidentally found the next diversion after an
unexpected and tragic ending of the scrapbook brigade.

Cutting, sorting, arranging and pasting proved an amusing occupation
for several days, owing to the contagious enthusiasm of the other
members of the household, who were constantly bringing in some bright
little story, quaint anecdote or interesting bit of information to add
to Peace's rapidly growing collection. At one time Mrs. Campbell would
suddenly appear on the threshold with her hands filled with colored
plates from some magazine article relating to birds or bees, plants or
other nature study. Again Faith would bring in a bundle of laughable
incidents gleaned from the "funny" pages of popular magazines; or Allee
would lay a carefully trimmed bunch of short poems gathered from
children's publications upon the white counterpane of Peace's bed. And
once Hope triumphantly displayed a thick package of beautiful
illustrations for articles already clipped out for pasting.

"Where did you get them?" Peace demanded.

"Miss Page gave them to me when I happened to mention what you were
doing," answered Hope, her face glowing with animation as she tenderly
turned the pictures one by one for Peace to see.

"How did she happen to have so many?"

"She used them in her English classes when they were studying about
Lowell and Hawthorne and Longfellow. See, here is one that illustrates
'The Children's Hour,' and here is another of 'Snow Bound.' This is a
beautiful picture of Hawthorne's birthplace, and here is 'Old
Ironsides.' You don't know much about some of the men yet because you
haven't had their poems in school; but you've got stories about everyone
of them for your scrapbooks, and if the pictures don't fit, we will hunt
up some other articles that will go with them."

Peace sighed, opened her mouth as if to protest, then closed it again;
but a rebellious look crept into the brown eyes; and had Hope been less
enthusiastic over her latest contribution to the scrapbook fund, she
might have noticed the determined set of the expressive mouth, and
suspected that something unusual was brewing under the brown curls.

As it was, no one but Peace was prepared for the host of children that
marched up the President's front door steps the following afternoon,
armed with paste-pots, brushes and scissors, and wearing big pinafores
over their school dresses. Each demanded to see the invalid, and when
ushered into the Flag Room was promptly set to work sticking pictures
onto cambric pages.

"This can hardly be a coincidence," thought Mrs. Campbell, assailed by a
sudden suspicion when patient Marie had shown the tenth visitor up the
winding stairs. "Here come three in one bunch. Yes, they are turning in
at the gate. Peace--"

The brown eyes glanced up from under their long lashes, and reading in
the gentle, old face the unspoken question, Peace calmly announced,
"Grandma, these are the Gleaners and their friends. They've come to help
me stick scrapbooks. You 'member you said they might have their next
meeting at our house?"

"But--but that's more than a week off yet," stammered the amazed lady.

"The _reg'lar_ meeting day is," Peace agreed, "but I was just swamped
under with work, so I coaxed Miss Edith to call a special meeting just
a-purpose to stick. They've all brung their own glue and stuff. All we
need now is more tables. I was awfully afraid there wouldn't be many
come, and I'm so deathly tired of hacking and reading and sorting and
pasting all by my lonesome, that for two cents I'd dump the whole
business right into the river, Sadie Wenzell or no Sadie Wenzell."

"Why, Peace!" murmured the surprised woman in shocked tones.

"Well, I would," the small rebel persisted. "Just as soon as I get one
bunch of papers snipped up, in comes Jud with a bigger pile, or the
girls lug up a lot of truck. I've read till I'm dizzy and cross-eyed,
and my wits are worn out trying to 'member all they've seen and heard.
I've learned so much _inflammation_ that it will be _months_ before
there's any space for any more to sink in. What do you s'pose Sadie's
going to do with it all? There are a dozen scrapbooks all made and
enough stuff cut to fill a dozen more. There goes the bell again. That
must be Miss Edith. I know her ring."

Abashed at this unlooked-for outbreak, and musing over the abrupt ending
of her cherished plans, Mrs. Campbell hastily withdrew and went to meet
the superintendent, whose voice could be heard in cheery greeting from
the hall below.

Just fifteen girls put in appearance at the President's house that
afternoon, and for two hours they worked like beavers under the
direction of the small tyrant in bed. Then Peace abruptly commanded,
"Lay down your brushes now and clear up. It's most dinner time and this
room must look all right when Grandpa gets here. Grandma, will you
please bring in the prize?"

"The prize?" echoed Mrs. Campbell in bewilderment.

"Why, yes. It's that box of bonbons on your shelf. I asked Grandpa to
get it for me two days ago."

"Did--did he know what you wanted it for?" she queried.

"I don't s'pose he did ezackly," the child confessed. "But I was so
afraid no one would want to paste pictures bad enough to come out today,
that I promised 'freshments for all and a prize for the one who made the
best book and Evelyn's got it. Evelyn, you better open up the box and
treat the rest of us. A choc'lit drop would taste pretty good after
working so hard. Gussie'll be up d'reckly with the 'reshments. I told
her to make a whale of a batch of cookies and gallons of lemonade. We
need something after finishing that job. But we've got most of the stuff
stuck in somewhere and the books are plumb full. I'm so glad!"

And indeed Peace was right. Scarcely a scrap remained of the huge pile
of pictures and clippings which had littered table, dresser and bed a
few moments before the scrapbook brigade began to congregate; but more
than twenty neatly pasted scrapbooks stood stacked in the corner to dry,
and Peace was content.




CHAPTER III

GUSSIE'S NEW PLAY


The day following this unexpected meeting of the Gleaners, the invalid
spent in slumber, so exhausted was she by her efforts to get the
obnoxious books completed and out of the way; but the second day she was
herself again and restlessly eager for some new diversion; and here it
was that Gussie came to the rescue. It had been a hard day for them all.
Outside the rain poured down in torrents, driven by a cold, fitful wind
which seemed more like the blast of winter than the herald of returning
spring; and inside even the cheerful glow of the open fires could not
dispel the gloom and dampness of the storm without. It is just such a
day as makes well folks cross and disgusted, and the poor, unwilling
prisoner in the Flag Room upstairs felt forlorn indeed as she gazed down
the deserted, flooded streets and across the soaked, sodden lawns which
only yesterday had whispered of the coming of summer.

She was tired of reading,--the mere thought of it made her sick--the
geographical puzzles which Allee and Cherry had laboriously cut out for
her amusement quacked of school and duty; she could not play games all
by herself and Grandma was too busy; dolls long since had lost their
charm; it was too stormy for callers; and altogether world seemed a
dull and cheerless place. Even when the girls returned from school the
atmosphere did not clear. Peace was plainly out of sorts, and it was
with a sigh of thanksgiving that the household saw the dismal day draw
to a close.

The dinner-bell pealed out its summons, and half-heartedly Allee pulled
out the invalid's little table, covered it with a snowy cloth and sat
down beside the bed. It was her turn to eat dinner in the Flag Room that
night. Such occasions were usually regarded as a great privilege by this
golden-haired fairy, who was a willing slave to every caprice of the
brown-haired sister; but tonight she did not care much. Peace was so
sulky,--not at all her sprightly, cheerful self,--and Allee felt out of
sorts in sympathy.

Marie did not at once put in appearance with the usual covered tray, and
Peace had just reached out an impatient hand to ring the bell when there
was a sound of light steps on the stairs, and Gussie's smiling face
bobbed around the corner.

"Good evening," she laughed, courtesying so low that the tray she bore
tripped threateningly.

"What's happened to Marie?" demanded Peace, ungraciously. Then catching
sight of the quaint garb the new waitress was wearing, her face lighted
expectantly, and she cried in delight, "O, Gussie, how'd you come to
think of that? Ain't that Swede dress pretty, Allee? 'Tis Swede, isn't
it?"

"Yes," laughed Gussie, perfectly satisfied with the reception of her
little surprise. "This is the way women dress in Sweden where I was
born."

"And I'll bet you've got something nice under that napkin, too," Peace
hazarded, her eyes dancing with their old roguish gleam.

"I shouldn't wonder a bit," Gussie retorted, setting down the tray
before the eager duet and carefully lifting off the white towel which
covered it. The girls looked mystified,--a trifle disappointed, it
seemed to the watchful cook,--and she hastily explained, "I've brought
you a Swedish supper."

"A--what?" gasped Peace, still studying the queer dishes on the tray.

"A supper like the boys and girls in Sweden eat."

"Oh-h!" cried both girls in unison. "What fun!"

"Do they have this every night?" asked Allee, privately thinking that if
they did she was glad she was an American.

"Oh, no, not always. This is just a--a sample supper. We have different
dishes in Sweden just as you do here or in France or England."

"Then make us another Swede supper tomorrow night,--and every night
until we've et up all your Swede dishes. Will you, Gussie?" wheedled
Peace.

The older girl hesitated, frowned and said thoughtfully, "You would get
tired of them very soon, girlie. Lots you would not touch at all. For
instance, sour milk and sugar."

"No, I shouldn't like that," Peace confessed, with an expressive shrug
of her shoulders, "but--"

"I'll tell you what I'll do," the obliging Gussie interrupted. "Tomorrow
night we will have a French dinner, and you must tell everything you
know about France."

"Oh, how splendid!" Both children clapped their hands gleefully. "And
next night we'll have a German dinner, and then an Italian and a Spanish
and a Denmarkish and a Swiss, and a--a--"

Peace paused to think of some other countries, while Gussie stood
appalled at the result of her suggestion. But a glance at the glowing
face on the pillow was ample reward, and suddenly realizing that she had
given the weary prisoner a new and profitable play to occupy the long
hours while the girls were away at school, she recklessly promised,
"Dinners for every country in the world, if we can find out what each
nation eats. But mind, you must learn all you can about the people and
their land."

"It'll be fun to do that," Peace answered readily. "I wonder why they
don't teach g'ography that way in school. It would be a heap more
interesting."

Thus the long weeks rolled by, and unknown to Peace herself, she was not
only keeping abreast of her classes in school, but forging ahead in her
studies as she had never done before.

"It's so int'resting to learn that way," sighed the little prisoner
blissfully, after a particularly impressive lesson supper one night.
"The only thing is, we're going to run out of countries pretty soon, and
then what _will_ we do? Already we've reached Asia. I ate China last
night and India tonight. Tomorrow 'twill be Japan, and then there is
only Africa and South America left before we get around the world. They
have all been such fun! Some countries know how to cook lots better than
others. Now, I really dreaded getting to China, 'cause the books say
Chinamen eat roasted rats, and I couldn't bear to think of Gussie's
dishing up such horrible things as that; but the _slop chewey_ and rice
she cooked were simply deelicious. I've always heard a lot about the
India folks eating curry, too, and I thought it meant the hair they
scratched off their horses with a curry-comb; so I was much surprised
when Gussie made some for my dinner tonight. It's only soup with some
stuff in it that makes it 'most too hot to eat.

"I can't imagine what she will give me in Africa, 'cause we ain't
cannibals, and she never will even hint what's coming next, but I guess
she will get around it some way. Why, in some countries the people eat
horrible things! In West Indies they bake snakes and fry palm worms!
Think of it! Ugh, it makes me shiver! The folks in Brazil eat ants, and
in New Caledonia it's spiders. The Mexicans cook parrots and eat
dynamite. Do you s'pose they ever 'xplode? And in France where Marie was
born they just _love_ snails--raw! I'd as soon eat angleworms myself.
My! I'm glad I'm a civilised _huming_ being. Course Gussie hasn't fed me
any of that junk, and it's been lots of fun traveling this way. I wish
the world wasn't round, but just stretched away and away. Then there'd
be room for more countries."

"Maybe Gussie will take you around the world again," suggested Allee
comfortingly.

"You'd better take a trip through the United States next," said Cherry,
who privately thought Peace was having the most wonderful experiences
that ever befell mortal man, and rather envied the invalid her easy
lot,--for such it really seemed to her.

"Why, I never thought of that," cried Peace, enchanted with the idea.
"But how could I, so's it would be as interesting as eating in other
countries? We are all Americans here and cook the same things."

"O, there's lots of difference between our own states," Cherry stoutly
maintained. "In Florida they raise oranges mostly, and cotton in
Louisiana--"

"A person can't eat cotton," Peace broke in scornfully.

"I didn't say they could," replied Cherry as indignantly. "But they grow
other things, too. Maine has the best apples in the country, Grandpa
says; and Michigan the best peaches. Georgia grows sweet potatoes--"

"And peanuts," Peace interrupted, aglow with animation.

"Yes, and peanuts," Cherry repeated. "California is noted for its
grapes, and--oh, every state has _something_ it raises 'specially. It
would be as interesting traveling in the United States as in Europe, _I_
think."

"So do I,--now," Peace conceded. "And Gussie does make such a splendid
teacher! That's what she ought to be all right, 'stead of a cook, though
she does know how to cook wonderful things. But I'm glad she has got
'most enough money saved up to take her through Normal College. She can
poke more real education into a fellow's head in a minute than Miss
Phelps can in a day."

So the unique lessons continued, and Peace almost forgot at times that
she was a prisoner unable to romp and play in the sunshiny out-of-doors
which she loved so well. She even whistled occasionally when the play
was most interesting; and the members of the household, watching so
anxiously over their idol, rejoiced that the color still bloomed in the
round cheeks, and the merry sparkle so often danced in the big brown
eyes.




CHAPTER IV

PEACE LEARNS THE BITTER TRUTH


The school year came to a close, the days grew hotter, the nights
brought no relief, and Dr. Coates, still a daily visitor at the big
house, began to look grave again.

"What is it?" asked the President, feeling intuitively that something
was wrong. "She is not doing as well?"

"No." The old doctor shook his head.

"The heat?"

"Possibly,--possibly. But she had stopped mending before the hot wave
struck us."

"Then you think--"

"I'm afraid it means that operation I mentioned when she was first
hurt."

The President turned on his heel and strode over to the window where he
stood looking out into the warm, breathless evening twilight. When he
wheeled about again, the doctor saw that the strong face was set and
white, and great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. "I--I
trust you will not be offended, doctor," he said with a catch in his
voice, "but I should like the opinion of other physicians--specialists--
before taking that step. You say--it is--a very delicate operation?"

"Yes," the doctor admitted. "But I am afraid now that it is her only
chance. However, it is perfectly agreeable to me if you wish to consult
other authorities. I myself would be glad to hear the opinions of
specialists."

So it happened that a few days later a strange doctor bent over the
white bed in the Flag Room, and when he had punched and poked to his
heart's content and Peace's abject misery, another physician took his
place.

"Dr. Coates said I hadn't cracked a rib," moaned the unhappy victim
tearfully, as she saw the second unfamiliar face above her, "but I'll
bet that man who just went out has cracked the whole bunch for me. Is
that your business, too?"

"No, my dear," tenderly answered the big, burly specialist, beginning
his examination with such a gentle, practised touch that Peace scarcely
winced throughout the long ordeal. "My business is to mend cracked
ribs--also cracked backs. Does yours feel very badly cracked?"

"All splintered up sometimes," the child promptly admitted. "It gets so
bad in the night when there's no one here to rub it that I can't help
crying once in a while. I tried to rub it myself the other night, but it
took all my breath away and I could hardly get it back again. The bed is
so hot! Dr. Coates said ages ago that I could get up in two months, but
it's more'n that now and he shakes his head every time I ask him."

"Are you then so anxious to get out of this dear little crib?"

Peace stared hard at the kindly face so near her own, and then
ejaculated, "'Cause it's a dear little crib doesn't make it any cooler
nor any easier to stay tucked in when you are just crazy to be dancing
about. Why, it's _June_ now! They told me I'd be well so's I could plant
the pansies on my Lilac Lady's grave, seeing as Allee had to set out all
the vi'lets without any of my help. And now Hicks has had to transplant
the pansies 'cause they will soon be too big."

"Tell me all about it," urged the specialist, as if every minute of his
time was not worth dollars to him; and Peace poured her heart full of
woe into his sympathetic ears. When she had finished he abruptly asked,
"Supposing Dr. Coates told you that an operation would be necessary
before you could get well, would you let him perform it?"

"What's a _noperation_?" asked Peace inquisitively.

"There is something out of place in your back, caused by your fall. It
is pressing against the spine and must be lifted up where it belongs
before--you can ever--get well."

"And can Dr. Coates lift it up where it b'longs?" Peace was breathlessly
interested.

"Yes,--we think so,--we hope so," stammered the doctor, startled by the
eager tone of her voice and the quick light in her big eyes.

"All right then, we'll have the _noperation_. I'd most begun to think I
was going to be like my Lilac Lady. My legs don't feel any more, and she
said hers didn't."

"God forbid," muttered the man, who had already lost his heart to the
little invalid, and was deeply touched by the pathos of the case; and
gathering up his glittering instruments, he hurried from the room.

That night a cooling rain washed the fever from the air and the world
awoke refreshed from its bath. The hot wave had broken, but to poor
Peace the cool atmosphere brought little relief. The injured back hurt
her cruelly and she could not keep the tears from her eyes.

"I knew that first doctor would crack a rib," she sobbed wildly, as the
distracted President strove in vain to ease her pain. "Why doesn't Dr.
Coates come and _noperate_? O, it does hurt me so bad, Grandpa!"

Laying the child back among her pillows, the stalwart man hastily fled
down the stairway, and when he came back Dr. Coates and a sweet-faced,
white-capped nurse were with him. The room across the hall was stripped
of its furnishings and scrubbed with some evil-smelling stuff until the
whole house reeked with it. Then the walls were draped with spotless
sheets, and the next morning Peace was borne away to the improvised
operating room, where only Dr. Coates, the kindly-faced stranger
physician, their young assistant and the nurse were allowed to remain.

Peace looked about her curiously, murmured drowsily "I can't say I
admire your dec'rations," and fell asleep under the gentle fumes of the
ether.

It seemed hours later when she awakened to consciousness and saw about
her the white, drawn, anxious faces of her loved ones. "Then I'm not
dead yet," she exclaimed with satisfaction. "That's good. Did you get my
back patched up, Dr. Coates?"

The horrible strain was broken. With stifled, hysterical sobs, the
family hurriedly withdrew, and the nurse bent over the bed with her
finger on her lips as she gently commanded, "Hush, childie, you mustn't
talk now. We want you to get some sleep so the little back will have a
chance to heal."

"Can I talk when I wake up?" Peace demanded weakly.

"Yes, if you are very good."

"All right. You can go now. I don't like folks to stare at me when I'm
asleep. It d'sturbs my slumber." Closing her eyes once more, she fell
into a dreamless sleep, and the doctors departed, much pleased with the
result of their operation.

The days of convalescence were busy ones in the Campbell household, for
it required the combined efforts of family, nurse, doctor and friends to
keep the restless patient's attention occupied. St. John and Elizabeth
came often to the big house, bringing Glen or Guiseppe or Lottie to
amuse the prisoner; Miss Edith laughingly declared that she was more
frequently found in the Flag Room than in her own home; Ted and Evelyn
vied with each other to see which could run the most errands, read the
most stories, or propose the most new plays during the long vacation
hours; and even busy Aunt Pen found opportunity occasionally to steal
away for a brief visit with the brown-haired sprite who had brought so
much joy into her own heart and life.

For a time the operation seemed a decided success, the back appeared to
be stronger, the pain almost disappeared, and the nurse was no longer
needed in the sick room. One day a wheel-chair was substituted for the
bed where Peace had lain so many weeks; and for the first time since the
accident, she was carried out under her beloved trees, where she could
watch the flowers bud and blossom, smell their perfume on each passing
breeze, and listen to the nesting birds in the branches overhead. But
the crutches she had so fondly dreamed of, which were to teach her to
walk again, were not forthcoming, and with alarm she saw the summer slip
rapidly by while she lay among the pillows in the garden.

When she spoke of it to the older sisters, they answered cheerily, "Be
patient, girlie, it takes a long time for such a hurt to heal," and
turned their heads away lest she should read the growing conviction in
their eyes.

"It's _so_ hard to be patient," she protested mournfully. "You bet I'll
never climb another roof."

"No," they sighed sadly to themselves, "I am afraid you never will."

But the cruel truth of the matter was broken to poor Peace at a most
unexpected moment. She was resting under her favorite oak, close to the
library window, one warm afternoon, planning as usual for the day when
she could walk again; and lulled by the drowsy hum of the bees and the
soft swish of the leaves above her, she drifted off to slumberland. A
slanting beam of the setting sun waked her as it fell across her face,
and she sat up abruptly, hardly realizing what had roused her. Then she
became aware of voices issuing from the library beyond, and Allee's
agonized voice cried out, "O, Grandpa, you don't mean that she will
_never_, _never_ walk again? Must she lie there all the rest of her life
like the Lilac Lady and Sadie Wenzell until the angels come and get her?
Grandpa, must she _die_ like they did?"

With a startled gasp, Peace leaned forward in her chair, then sank back
among the pillows with a dreadful, sickening sensation gripping at her
heart. They were talking about her! She strained her ears to catch the
President's reply, but could hear only an indistinct rumble of voices
mingled with Allee's sharp sobs. So the angels had carried Sadie Wenzell
to her home beyond the Gates! Idly she wondered when it had happened and
why she had not been told. It had been one of her dearest plans to visit
Sadie some day and see for herself how she enjoyed the scrapbooks which
had cost Peace so much labor and lament. Now Sadie was gone.

"Grandpa, Grandpa, why couldn't _I_ have been the one to fall and hurt
my back?" wailed the shrill voice from the open window. "'Twouldn't have
made so much difference then, but Peace!--O, Grandpa, I can't _bear_ to
think of her lying there all the long years--"

Again the voice trailed away into silence, and Peace lay stunned by the
significance of the words. All her life chained to a chair! All her life
a helpless invalid like the Lilac Lady! The black night of despair
descended about her and swallowed her up.

They thought her asleep when they came to wheel her into the house
before the dew should fall; and as she did not stir when they laid her
in the white swan bed, they stole softly away and left her in the grip
of the demon Despair.

So this was what the Lilac Lady had meant when she had said so bitterly,
"You will turn your face to the wall, say good-bye to those who you
thought were your friends, build a high fence around you and
hide--_hide_ from the world and everything!" The words came back to her
with a startling distinctness and a great sob rose in her throat.

"What is it, darling?" asked a gentle voice from the darkness, and
Peace, clutching wildly for some human support in her hour of anguish,
threw her arms about the figure kneeling at her bedside, and cried in
terror, "O, Grandma, I _can't_, I _can't_!"

"Can't what?" asked the sweet voice, thinking the child was a victim of
some bad dream, for she never suspected that Peace could know the
dreadful truth.

"I _can't_ stay here all the rest of my life! I wasn't made for the bed.
My feet _won't_ keep still. I _must_ run and shout. O, Grandma, tell me
it isn't true!"

But the gentle voice was silent, and the woman's tears mingling with
those of the grief-stricken child told the story. Clasping the quivering
little body more tightly in her arms, the silvery-haired grandmother
sobbed without restraint until the child's grief was spent, and from
sheer exhaustion Peace fell asleep.

Then, loosing the grip of the slender hands, now grown so thin and
white, she laid her burden back on the bed, and as she kissed the wet
cheeks and left the weary slumberer to her troubled dreams, she
whispered sadly, "Good-night, little Peace,--and good-bye. We have lost
our merry little sprite. It will be a different Peace who wakens with
the morrow."




CHAPTER V

THE LILAC LADY'S MESSAGE


Mercifully, Peace slept long the next morning, and it was not until the
sun was high in the sky that she opened her eyes to her surroundings.
Then it was with a heavy sense of something wrong, and she stared
uneasily about her, trying to remember what was the trouble.

"I feel as if I'd done something bad," she said half aloud, "but I can't
think of a thing."

The sound of Allee's footsteps creeping softly along the hall and a
glimpse of an awed, tear-stained face peering at her from the doorway
suddenly recalled to her mind the scene of yesterday, and the bitter
truth rushed over her with agonizing keenness. She could never walk
again! All her days must be spent in a wheel-chair, a helpless prisoner!
The Lilac Lady was right,--she wanted to turn her face to the wall, to
say good-bye to her friends and hide,--hide from the world and
everything!

"Peace," whispered a timid voice from the doorway, where Allee had
paused, uncertain whether to stay or to depart.

The invalid stiffened.

"Peace, are you awake?" persisted the pleading voice, for the brown eyes
stared unblinkingly straight ahead of her, and not a muscle of her
tense body moved. "May I come in and sit beside you?"

"No!" screamed Peace in sudden frenzy, almost paralyzing the little
petitioner on the threshold. "_Go away!_ You can walk and run and jump,
and I never can again. You've got two whole legs to amuse yourself with
and mine are no good. Get out of here! I don't want to see anyone with
legs today--or tomorrow--or ever again!" Jerking the pillow slip over
her eyes she sobbed convulsively, and Allee, with one terrified look at
the quivering heap under the bed-clothes, rushed pellmell from the room,
blinded by scalding tears.

Peace had sent her away! Peace did not want her,--would not have her any
more! It was the greatest catastrophe of her short life to be banished
by Peace; and stumbling with unseeing eyes down the hall, she ran
headlong into the arms of someone just coming up the stairs.

"Why--" began a husky, rumbling voice, and Allee, thinking it was the
President on his way to the sick-room, sobbed out, "O, Grandpa, she sent
me away! She says she never wants to see a pair of good legs again. You
better--"

"It's not Grandpa, little one," interrupted the other voice. "It's
I,--St. John. Do you think she will let me in? Because I have come
especially to see her."

But a sharp, imperative voice from the Flag Room answered them. "Come
back, Allee, I'm sorry I don't like the looks of legs today, but I want
you just the same,--legs and all."

For an instant Allee looked unbelievingly up into Mr. Strong's eyes, as
if doubtful that she had heard aright; then as the minister gave her a
gentle push toward the door, she bounded lightly away, and when the Hill
Street pastor reached the threshold the two sisters were locked fast in
each other's arms.

All at once, through the tangle of Allee's curls, the brown eyes spied
the form of her beloved friend hesitating in the doorway; but instead of
looking surprised at his presence, Peace pushed the little sister from
her and demanded fiercely, as if his being there were the most natural
thing in the world, "Make faces at me, St. John,--the very worst you
know how."

"Why, my dear--" stammered the young minister, as much amazed at his
reception as he could have been had she dashed a cup of water in his
face. "Why, Peace, I don't believe--"

"Of course you know how to make faces!" she interrupted scornfully. "Do
you s'pose I've forgotten that day in Parker down by the barn? Make some
now,--the most _hijious_ ones you can think of."

There was nothing to do but to comply with her strange whim; so,
rumpling up his thick, shining black hair, he proceeded to distort his
comely features into the most surprising contortions imaginable. But
with the heavy ache in his heart and a growing lump in his throat at the
pitifulness of her plight, he was not real successful in diverting her
unhappy thoughts, and with a mournful wail of woe she burst into tears.

"My child!" he cried contritely, and in an instant his strong arms
closed about the huddled figure, and he held her fast, crooning softly
in her ear as a mother might over her babe, until at length the
convulsive gasps eased, grew less frequent, and finally ceased.

There was a long-drawn, quivering sigh, a last gulp or two and Peace
hiccoughed, "It's no use, St. John. I can't coax up a ghost of a smile
from anywhere. I've _thunk_ of all the funniest things that ever
happened to me or anyone else; I've scratched my brains to 'member the
funny stories I s'lected for Sadie Wenzell's bunch of scrapbooks; I've
even pretended the funniest things I could imagine, but it won't work. I
knew if there was a sign of a laugh left inside of me, your horrible
faces would bring it out. It did in Parker, when I thought I never could
smile again. But this time--get your legs out of sight,--under the
bed,--anywhere so's I can't see them. I don't like their looks!"

Had the situation been less tragic, he could not have refrained from
laughing at the ludicrous way she bristled up and snapped out her
command; but mindful only of the great trouble which had suddenly
overshadowed the young life, he hastily tucked his long limbs out of
sight under the edge of the bed, slumped as far down in his chair as he
possibly could, and fell to energetically stroking the brown curls
tumbled about the hot, flushed face, as he vainly tried to think of some
comforting words with which to soothe the rebellious, sorrowful child.

From below came the sound of a voice singing softly, and though the
words were indistinguishable, the three occupants of the Flag Room
caught snatches of the tune Peace loved so well, the Gleaners' Motto
Song. Recalling the days when the brown-eyed child had made the little
Hill Street parsonage ring with this very melody, the preacher
unconsciously began to chant,


     "'When the days are gloomy,
       Sing some happy song,
     Meet the world's repining
       With a courage strong;
     Go with faith undaunted
       Through the ills of life,
     Scatter smiles and sunshine
       O'er its toil and strife.'"


"Well, don't it beat all?" exclaimed Peace wearily.

"Doesn't what beat all?" mildly inquired the pastor, as she made no
effort to explain her words.

"How some folks will wear a tune to a frazzle," was the disconcerting
reply. "There's Faith, now, she hasn't played anything for days 'xcept
'_Carve-a-leery-rusty-canner_!' And when it ain't that it's '_Nose-arts
Snorter_,' or those wretched _archipelagoes_. I'm so sick of 'em all
that I could shout when she touches the piano. As for that song you
were just droning,--why, everyone in this house seems to think it's the
only thing going. There is nothing left of it now but tatters."

The preacher had abruptly ceased his humming, and as Allee crept quietly
from the room to hush the singer below, he suddenly remembered a
commission given him by his wife; and fumbling in his pocket, he drew
out a small book, daintily bound in white and gold. "Elspeth sent you
this booklet, dear," he ventured, somewhat timidly, for after two such
rebuffs as he had received in his endeavor to cheer the sufferer, he was
at a loss to know what to say or do next. "She could not come today
herself, but she thought this little story might please you."

"Thanks," replied Peace, dropping the volume on the pillow without a
spark of interest in face or voice. "I'd rather have seen her. She has
got some sense. Books haven't. I've been stuffed so full of stories, I
am ready to bu'st." Then, as if fearing that she had been rude to this
dearest of friends, she added hastily, "But I s'pose there is room for
one more. It must be good or Elspeth wouldn't have sent it. What is it
about?"

"It's the story of a little girl named Gwen, who fell from--"

Peace stopped him with a peremptory wave of her hand. "That will do for
the present," she said coldly, in such exact imitation of Miss Phelps
that no one who had ever met the teacher could possibly mistake her
tone. "I don't like the name. It sounds like 'grin'."

The minister rubbed his head in perplexity. Never in all his
acquaintance with Peace had he seen her in such a mood. Was this child
among the pillows really Peace, the sunbeam of this home, the sunbeam of
every home she chanced to enter? Poor little girl! What a pity such a
terrible misfortune should have befallen her! She stirred uneasily, and
he hurriedly asked, "Would you rather I should go away and leave you
alone?"

"No! O, no!" She clutched one big hand closer with both of hers, and a
look of alarm leaped into her eyes, so heavy with weeping. "It's
easier--the pain here," laying one thin hand over her heart, "it's
easier with you here. I wish you had brought Elspeth."

"She will come some other day," he answered gently, glad to see a more
natural expression creep over the white face, though his heart ached at
the sorrowful tone of her voice. "What would you like to have me do?
Talk?"

"Yes, if you've anything int'resting to say," she murmured drowsily.

"And if not?" For he saw that it would be only a matter of minutes
before she would be in the Land of Nod again.

"Then just hold me. I'm tired," she answered wearily.

So he sat and held her on her pillows until her regular breathing told
him that she was fast asleep, when, laying her back upon the bed, he
left her with a heavy heart.

"I never dreamed that a child so young could take it so hard," he
confided to his wife in troubled tones when he had told her the whole
sad story. "She seems to have grown old in a night."

"Poor little birdie," Elizabeth tenderly murmured, stroking the dark
hair from her sleeping son's forehead as she laid him in his crib for
his nap. "Why did they tell her so soon? The family themselves haven't
grown accustomed to the meaning of it yet."

"No one knows how she learned it, Elspeth. She was asleep under the
trees when the President came home with the sad news. He had been to
consult that famous specialist about the child's condition when the
surgeon told him that the case was hopeless, so far as her walking again
is concerned. He was so unmanned by the verdict that he blurted it out
to Mrs. Campbell immediately upon his return home, and the girls
overheard it. But Peace was out-of-doors all the while. She didn't waken
for dinner; but when everyone was in bed, Mrs. Campbell heard her
crying, and went to discover what was the matter. They are terribly
broken up about the whole affair. It seems wicked to say so, but had the
accident happened to any other of the sisters, it would not have seemed
so dreadful. What is _Peace_ ever going to do without those nimble,
dancing feet?"

"Our Peace will surprise us yet," prophesied the little wife hopefully.
"This experience won't down her, hard as it seems now, if she is made of
the stuff I think she is."

But as the days rolled by in that afflicted household, it really seemed
as if they had lost their engaging, winsome little Peace for all time,
so changed did the invalid grow. Nothing suited her, everything annoyed.
The girls talked too much or were too silent; the servants were too
noisy or too obviously quiet; the President's shoes clumped and his
slippers squeaked; Mrs. Campbell always pulled the curtains too low or
not low enough. The dogs' barking fretted her, the singing of the canary
made her peevish, even the cat's purring brought forth a protest; but as
soon as the unreasonable patient discovered that all the pets had been
banished on her account, she demanded them back. However, the
long-suffering members of the family could not find it in their hearts
to chide, and they redoubled their efforts to make their little favorite
forget. Those were gloomy days in the Campbell household, for they sadly
missed the merry laughter, the gay whistle, the unexpected pranks and
frank speeches of this child of the sunshine and out-of-doors. At first
they had tried to be cheerful and full of fun in the sick-room, hoping
to win back the merry smile to the white lips; but Peace resented this
attitude, and straightway they ceased their songs and laughter, only to
have her demand them again. Unhappy, capricious Peace!

"Why don't you play on the piano any more?" she inquired of Faith one
afternoon, when it was that sister's turn to amuse the invalid for an
hour or two.

"Do you want me to?" cried Faith eagerly, for her fingers were just
itching to glide over the ivory keys.

"Of course,--s'posing you play something pretty."

So Faith took her place at her beloved instrument and dashed into a
brilliant, rattling jig which had always been a favorite of the
brown-haired sister.

But she had played scarcely a dozen measures when a shrill, imperious
voice from above shrieked, "Don't play that! O, stop, stop! Can't you
see it's got _legs_?"

"Legs?" wondered Faith, her hands poised in mid air, so abruptly had she
ceased her playing.

"There's a million pair of legs to that tune and every one of 'em can
dance. Play something without legs."

The utter ridiculousness of the complaint did not occur to Faith, but
with an unusual display of patience, she tried air after air, hoping to
find something which might satisfy the childish whim of the lame sister,
only to be rewarded at last by a peevish call, "You may as well give it
up, Faith. They've _all_ got legs."

The entire family was at their wits' end. No one had a sane suggestion
to offer, and their hosts of friends were in the same predicament. When
it seemed as if something must surely give way under the strain, Peace
suddenly subsided into a state of utter indifference to her
surroundings, more alarming to her loved ones than had been her peevish,
unreasonable demands. Nothing interested her, books she loathed,
conversation bored her, neighborly calls from her dearest friends
wearied her, she no longer yearned for the sunshine and flowers of the
garden; indeed, she showed no desire to be out-of-doors at all, but lay
day after day in the wheel-chair by the balcony window, staring with
somber, unseeing eyes out over the river. Nothing family or friends
could do roused her from her apathy, and despair descended upon the
household. Must this little life which they loved so dearly fade away
before their eyes, and they helpless to prevent?

"O, Donald," sobbed Mrs. Campbell, clinging desperately to her husband's
strong arm, "I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it! She takes it so hard!
It is torture to watch her suffer so. Our precious Peace!"

"If only her St. Elizabeth could come to her!" sighed the baffled
President.

But it was not her beloved saint of the parsonage who saved the day. It
was her Lilac Lady, now sleeping under the sod of the wind-kissed
hillside, and Aunt Pen was her messenger.

It was a breathless, sultry afternoon in late summer when the
sweet-faced matron of Oak Knoll turned in at the President's gate and
sought out the invalid lying motionless under the oak trees where the
fierce heat had driven her. The little face among the pillows was no
longer rosy and round; blue veins showed at the temples, the lips were
colorless, the eyes hollow; the hands, once so brown and strong, were
thin and waxy-white; the whole body lay inert,--lifeless, it seemed; and
a pang of fear gripped the gentle heart brooding so tenderly over the
poor wrecked life.

"Are you asleep, darling?" she whispered softly, touching with light
fingers the clustering rings of dark brown which covered the shapely
head.

The mournful eyes opened dully, and Peace murmured parrot fashion, "Good
afternoon, Aunt Pen. I hope you keep well these hot days. You must take
care of yourself, you know."

Secretly amazed, the woman merely stooped and kissed the white face, as
she settled herself comfortably in a nearby chair and cheerily answered,
"Yes, I am well, dear, and all the little birdlings are, too. I intended
to bring Giuseppe and his violin this afternoon, but--"

"It's just as well you didn't," interrupted the other voice in lifeless
tones. "Prob'ly _his_ music has legs, too, and I haven't any use for
such things these days."

"But he had promised to play for a dear old lady at the Home," continued
Aunt Pen, as if she had not noticed the interruption. "So I brought
you--"

"Some more magazines," again broke in Peace, perceiving the gay covers
in the woman's hand.

"That was very kind of you I'm sure, but I have a whole libr'y at
my--at my _de_-mand. So you put yourself to a lot of trouble all for
nothing."

"This is a different kind of magazine from any you have," replied the
woman soberly, though sorely tempted to smile at the stilted, unnatural
tones of her little favorite.

"Is it?" Just a spark of interest flickered in the somber eyes. "Why, I
thought I had the whole c'lection already. Folks seem to think I don't
want to do anything but read, and they keep the house pretty well filled
up with magazines, old and new. Last week I had Allee telephone to the
Salvation Army to come and get them. But it didn't do any good,--we've
had as many more brought in since."

"This is the one your Lilac Lady was reading when she--fell asleep,"
said Aunt Pen gently, a little catch in her voice as she thought of
Peace, doomed to spend the rest of her days in a wheel-chair, just as
that other girl, the Lilac Lady, had done.

"Oh! And you brought it to me! I sh'd think you would want to keep it
yourself."

"I did, dearie. I laid it away among my treasures, but today I chanced
upon it, and in turning the pages, I caught a glimpse of a slip of paper
written on, in her handwriting. I had not examined the book since the
day I picked it up from the floor beside her chair; but this morning I
drew out the scrap she had written and found a little message for you--"

"For me?" Incredulous surprise animated the white face.

"Yes, dear. Some verses she had written that last hour,--not even
complete. I know she intended them for you. Perhaps she felt that she
would be--asleep--before you came, so she wrote a little message for
you, Peace, but I never found it until today. Would you care to have me
read it to you?"

"Let me read it, please." Peace snatched the paper eagerly and with
jealous eyes scanned the simple stanzas penned so many months ago for
just that very moment.


     "Up the garden pathway,
       Light as the morning air,
     Singing and laughing gayly,
       A child with face so fair
     Dances with arms outreaching,
       Her eyes ashine with glee,
     Nor pauses until she reaches
       The chair 'neath the old oak tree,
     Where, chained by mortal weaknesses,
       I lie from day to day
     Waiting my darling's coming.--
       Ah! could I keep her alway!--

     Child of flowers and sunshine,
       Child of laughter and love,
     Peace,--a God-given blessing,
       Straight from the heavens above,
     Bringing the breath of the woodland,
       The perfume of sun-kissed flowers,
     The freshness of vagrant breezes,
       The sweetness of cooling showers;
     Bringing the thrilling music
       Of skylarks and forest birds,
     Heart-healing, soul-cheering measures,
       Wondrous songs without words.

     Peace,--oh, how can I tell it?--
       The marvelous peace you have brought,
     The wonderful lessons of living
       Your generous spirit has taught,
     Easing the burden of sorrow,
       Soothing the sharp sting of pain,
     Bringing fresh aspirations,--
       My Peace gives me _hope_ again!"


Once, twice, three times she read the lines. Then turning puzzled,
wondering eyes upon Aunt Pen, she whispered eagerly, "What does it all
mean, please? Did she really feel that way, Aunt Pen? Did I scatter
sunshine after all? Was she happier when I was with her? O, did I--make
her--forget?"

"More than you will ever know," answered the woman warmly, squeezing the
thin fingers lying across her knee. "You brought back the sunshine she
thought had gone out of her life forever. You gave her something to live
for, something to do, made life seem worth while. O, my little Peace,
it is just as the poem tells you,--you gave her _hope_!"

For a long time the child lay lost in thought, and only the faint
rustling of the leaves overhead broke the stillness. Then she said
sadly, glancing down at the useless feet in their gay slippers, "But I
had my legs _then_."

"You have your smile now. A happy heart is worth more than a dozen pair
of legs, dear. It was your merry voice, your gay laughter, your joyous
nature that cheered your Lilac Lady. Surely you didn't lose all those
when you lost the use of your feet!"

Peace smiled ruefully. "You'd have thought so if you had lived with me
since I got hurt," she confessed.

"I don't believe it," Aunt Pen vigorously contradicted. "Our real Peace,
our little sunbeam has just been hiding under a dark cloud all this
while. She is coming back to us her own gay self some day,--soon, we
hope."

"Do you b'lieve that?" Peace eagerly demanded.

"I know it," the woman answered with conviction.

"But s'posing I have really forgotten how to laugh and--and whistle, and
be nice?"

"Pshaw! As if you could have forgotten all that, dear! But even then, it
is never too late to learn, you know."

"That's so. And maybe after a bit it would be easier. I--guess
I'll--try to learn--again, Aunt Pen. May I keep this little poem so's I
won't forget any more? It's really mine, for she wrote it for me, didn't
she?"

"Yes, indeed, darling. That's your message. You helped your Lilac Lady,
and now she is going to help you."




CHAPTER VI

THE PARSONAGE TWINS


"Peace, Peace, guess what's happened!"

Allee tore across the smooth, green lawn as if racing for her life; and
Cherry, following hard upon her heels, panted protestingly, "I'm going
to tell her. It's my right. I heard what he said first."

"I don't care if you did," retorted Allee. "I reached her chair first.
So now!"

It was just a week since Aunt Pen's visit to the President's house, but
already a remarkable change had come over the little invalid in her
wheel-chair prison. The dull indifference had disappeared from the thin
face, the hopeless look from the somber eyes; and though there was still
a sadly pathetic droop to the once merry mouth, she seemed to have
shaken off the deadly apathy which had gripped her for so long, and to
have taken a fresh hold upon life again. True, it was hard work to smile
and look happy with the dreadful knowledge tugging at one's heart that
one must be a helpless cripple for the rest of her days, but the first
smile had made it easier for the second to come, and gradually the old
merry disposition came creeping back. Aunt Pen was right,--her real self
had only been in hiding, and with the lifting of the cloud the sunshine
of that gay spirit burst forth again.

She was tired of being idle, and with characteristic energy that very
morning had surprised and delighted the whole household by demanding
something to do,--some real work with which to fill the long hours. And
Miss Smiley had promptly suggested Indian baskets, spending many
precious minutes of a busy forenoon teaching the weak fingers how to
weave. Peace was a-tingle with pride over her accomplishment, especially
when she was told of its possibilities and scope; and straightway began
planning to send her first finished product to the State Fair which was
to open its gates soon.

So as she wrestled with the damp raffia sad willow sticks after Miss
Edith had left her, she so far forgot her trouble that the old, familiar
laugh bubbled up to her lips, and once she paused in her work to answer
a trilling bird in the branches overhead. She was all alone on the wide,
shady lawn, and so engrossed in her own thoughts that she never heard
the chug-chug of a motor-car gliding up the river road, nor saw the
black-frocked figure leap nimbly from the machine and scurry up the walk
to the kitchen door, as if in too big a hurry to enter the house in the
proper manner. But she did hear the boisterous shouts of Cherry and
Allee a few moments later, as they burst through the screen door and
raced through the short, sweet clover toward her, each clamoring to tell
her the news which stuck out all over them.

"I reached her first!" Allee repeated, waving the older sister off.

"Pig!" returned Cherry. "You always--"

"Tut, tut," interrupted a voice from behind, in tones of mock severity.
"Are you girls _quarreling_? I'm ashamed of you. Peace, what is it all
about?"

Mr. Strong, light of step and radiant of face, appeared on the scene by
another path; and Peace, flinging down the raffia basket which her busy
fingers were weaving, stretched out eager arms in welcome. "It's
something they both wanted to tell me, St. John, but they stopped to
scrap about it, and I hain't heard what it is yet."

"Bet you meant to steal my thunder, didn't you?" He turned merry,
accusing eyes upon the pair of culprits, and they flushed guiltily. "But
you just aren't going to do it this time. _I_ shall tell her myself. It
is my news, you know."

Both heads bobbed solemnly, and Peace, excited and not understanding,
cried imperiously, "Tell me quick. I'm half dead with curiosity. Has old
Tortoise-shell got some more kittens or--Say, you haven't put Glen in
_pants_ yet?"

"No," he laughed delightedly and the two sisters giggled in glee. "Guess
again. It happened last night."

"Somebody sent you a present?"

"The most wonderful gift!"

"Two of 'em," put in impatient Allee, but the minister held up a warning
finger, and she quickly subsided.

"Two!" repeated Peace, much mystified. "What _can_ they be? Oh, I
know--monkeys!" For ever since the day that Peace had brought the sick,
half-dead monkey home to the parsonage, it had been Glen's fondest dream
to own one himself.

"No!" Mr. Strong and the other two girls exploded in a gale of laughter.

"Give it up then," Peace promptly retorted. "I mightn't guess in a
hundred years and I'm fairly bu'sting to know."

"Well, girlie, the angels brought us two little babies last night for
our very own. Two! Think of it!"

"Twins!" gurgled Allee, ecstatically hopping from one foot to the other.

"Both girls!" added Cherry, hugging herself from sheer joy at being part
bearer of the glad tidings.

"Truly, St. John?" asked Peace, almost too amazed for words.

"Truly, my lady."

"Well, what do you think of that! I bet you were s'prised. Now weren't
you? What do they look like? Are they pretty?"

"I can't say they are very beautiful to look at yet," admitted the fond
father. "They resemble scraps of wrinkled red flannel more than anything
else just now. But they will improve. Glen did, and he was a caution to
took at when he was a day old."

"Are they big or little?"

"Neither is very large, but one is tinier than the other,--weighs only
four pounds. She isn't such a brilliant scarlet as her sister, and we
_think_ she will have dark eyes and black hair. The reddest one has blue
eyes now, is bald-headed, and possesses a most excellent pair of lungs.
The Tiniest One has cried only once so far, but its twin makes up for
it."

"What are their names?" The three girls hung breathlessly on his answer.

"That's one reason I am here now," the minister replied gravely.
"Elspeth and I couldn't discover any suitable names for the twinnies, so
she sent me down here to consult with Peace--"

"O--ee!" squealed the girls.

"Mercy!" whispered Peace in awed amazement. "Does she really want _me_
to name her babies?"

"Shouldn't you like to?"

"O, so much! But most mothers would thank other folks to let them do
their own naming. Or, if the mothers didn't mind, prob'ly the children
themselves would kick when they grew up. There was our family, for one.
Grandpa Greenfield named the most of us, and see what a job he made of
it. He went to the Bible for us, too."

The minister's lips twitched, but Peace was so very serious that he
dared not laugh; so, after an apologetic cough behind his hand, he
suggested politely, "Then suppose we arrange it this way,--if the first
names you select don't suit, we will tell you so, and you can pick out
some others."

"O, don't I have to think them up today? I s'posed you would want 'em
right away. Grandpa named us the first time he looked at us, Gail says."

"Well, we needn't be in such a big hurry as that, girlie. It took us a
month to decide what we should call our boy, and if you want that long a
time, take it."

"I don't think I shall," she replied, viewing her unusual and unexpected
privilege with serious eyes. "Not being a mother or a father, I don't
expect it will take me more'n a few days to find very pretty names."
Then, as if struck by an important thought, she asked, "But how will you
_Christian_ them, s'posing I don't hit on some likely names before a
month is up?"

"Christian them!"

"Yes. Like they did Tommy Finnegan's baby brother. He was only seven
days old, but he had to have a name before the priest could Christian
him."

"Oh!" Mr. Strong was enlightened. "There is no set time in our church
for christening babies, dear. We call it baptizing in our church, and
sometimes parents don't have their children baptized until they are old
enough to understand for themselves what it means."

"Then you won't be having the twins chris--baptizzened for some time
yet!"

"No, probably not until Children's Day--"

"Why, that's already gone by! There won't be another until next summer!"

"Next June. But that is usually the time we perform that ceremony in
our church, although any other time is just as good."

"Well, I'll have your children named by that time,--don't you fret.
Allee, won't you bring me 'Hill's Evangel' from the Library? I 'member
that has strings of names in it."

"'Hill's Manual,'" corrected the preacher, picking up his hat and
preparing to depart.

"Is it? St. John says it is 'Hill's Emanuel,'" she called after the
fleeing sister. "It's a big dirty-red book and you will find it in the
furthest corner of the bookcase on the next to the lowest shelf. Why,
St. John, must you hustle away so soon? You've hardly got here yet.
Perhaps I could have some names ready for you to take home with you if
you'd wait a while longer."

"Thanks, Peace," he bowed courteously. "But I must hurry home and mind
the kiddies. There is no one there to look after them and Elspeth except
the nurse and Aunt Pen. I told them I shouldn't be gone but a few
minutes, and here it is almost an hour. Good-bye, Peace. Good-bye,
Cherry. I'll come again soon."

"Good-bye, St. John, and next time bring the twins with you."

"O, Peace," gasped Allee, who was just returning with the heavy book in
her short arms, and overheard the sister's parting admonition; "they're
too fresh yet. Grandma says it will prob'ly be several weeks 'fore they
get taken anywhere."

The preacher, convulsed with laughter, glanced back over his shoulder
and seeing the look of disappointment in the brown eyes, rashly
promised, "This shall be the first place they visit, girlies, and we'll
bring them just as soon as they are old enough."

So he swung out of sight down the driveway, and Peace turned to her
delightful task of finding suitable names for the little strangers at
the parsonage.

"They ought to begin with the same letter," suggested Cherry, wishing it
had fallen to her lot to name a pair of twins, "like Hazel and Helen
Bean."

"Or else rhyme with each other," put in excited Allee, thinking it a
most wonderful privilege which had been granted Peace, "like Pearl and
Beryl Whittaker."

"Or they might suggest the same thing," ventured Hope, who had heard the
good news and had come out to see what progress the favored sister was
making. "For instance, Opal and Garnet Ordway. The opal and the garnet
are precious stones, you know."

"_These_ twins are precious babies," interrupted Peace in decided
accents, "and we shan't call them such heathenish names as stones. This
book, now, has a long line of names,--here it is,--and there ought to be
some pretty ones amongst them, though I can't say the _a's_ sound very
nice. There is only one decent one in the bunch and that's Abigail."

Hope, leaning over the back of her chair, scanned the list beginning
with _a's_ and thoughtfully read aloud, "Abigail, Achsa, Ada, Adaline,
Addie, Adela, Adelaide, Adora, Agatha, Agnes, Alethea, Alexandra, Alice,
Almeda, Amanda, Amarilla, Amy, Angeline, Anna, Annabel, Antoinette,
Augusta, Aurelia, Aurora, Avis,--that last one isn't so bad--"

"It isn't so good, either," Peace retorted. "It sounds like the thing
you fall into when you tumble off a steep mountain. I wouldn't want a
baby of mine called that."

"Abyss, you mean," suggested Hope, when the other sisters looked
mystified. "No one else would ever think of such a thing."

"No one else needs to. I'd do thinking enough for all if I tacked such a
name on a little baby that couldn't help itself."

It was very evident that Peace had taken a deep dislike to the name, so
Hope said no more, and they turned their attention to the next letter
with no better success. Peace was too critical to be easily satisfied,
and when the whole list had been thoroughly considered several times,
she sighed, "There is only one nice name on the page."

"And that is--?" Hope ventured.

"Elizabeth."

"But that is Mrs. Strong's name!" all three chorused.

"Don't I know it? And can't a baby be named for its mother? Gail was.
The only trouble is there is no other pretty name to go with it.
Nothing rhymes with it, and none of the other _e's_ are nice enough."

"Hasn't Mrs. Strong a sister named Esther?" asked Cherry, consulting the
list again.

"Ye--s, but since I knew Esther Kern, I've lost my liking for that name.
I can't bear to think of one of those lovely twins growing up into such
a pug-nosed, freckle-faced sauce-box."

"Well, here is 'Evelyn,'--that is pretty enough, I'm sure."

"And Evelyn Smiley would say the baby was named for her. I'd sooner call
it Peace, and be done with it."

"Then how about Edith, for Miss Smiley?"

"It's too short. Elizabeth has four pieces to it, and it wouldn't be
fair to give less than four to the other one."

So the search for a name went on, and each succeeding day found Peace no
nearer her goal. Whenever the busy pastor appeared for a brief chat, she
had to own defeat, and beg for a little more time. One day a brilliant
thought occurred to her, and the next time the preacher's shining black
head appeared at the gate he was greeted with the excited yell, "What is
Elspeth's middle name? It isn't right to call one baby after its mother
and the other after nobody."

"Elspeth has no middle name--"

"Neither have I," sighed Peace. "When I marry, my middle name will be
Greenfield, but until then I haven't got any."

"That's the way with Elizabeth."

"I was afraid it would be, but I hoped she would be more fortunate than
me."

Another idea buzzed through her brain.

"What's _your_ middle name? Maybe we could make something out of that."

"I am afraid not," he smiled. "I was named John Solomon, after my two
doting grandfathers."

"Solomon!" she echoed in great disappointment. "Mercy! I wouldn't name a
cat that!"

"Neither would I," he agreed quite cheerfully, and Peace returned to the
much thumbed 'Hill's Manual' once more to consider the list of _e's_.

"I've a notion to call the Tiniest One Evangeline," she mused. "It's
exactly as long and almost as pretty. Only it sounds so much like these
preachers that get up and rage and dance all over the pulpit while they
are trying to think of what they meant to say. I should hate to think of
either twin growing up to be a woman preacher, 'specially the Tiniest
One. I always wanted to call _her_ Elizabeth, 'cause she is so much
gooder than the Tiny One, but St. John says she has dark eyes. Elspeth's
are blue, so it ought to be the blue-eyed baby that's named for her, I
s'pose, even if it does cry more. Mercy, in another two days the month
will be up, and I _must_ have those names by then. It's hard work always
to say the Tiny One and the Tiniest One."

Again she fell into a brown study, but two days later found her as
undecided as ever, and she concluded to ask for just one more week in
which to make up her mind. However, when Mr. Strong appeared for his
brief visit that morning, his face looked so sadly grave as he bent over
the crippled child to give her his usual kiss of greeting that she cried
apprehensively, "What's the matter, St. John! Has anything happened to
the twins?"

"One of them--the Tiniest One--flew away with the angels last night," he
answered simply, turning his face away that she might not witness his
grief.

For a moment his reply dazed her; then she threw both arms about his
neck, and burst into tears, sobbing as if her heart would break, while
he dumbly sought to soothe her sorrow, by cuddling her head on his
shoulder and rubbing his quivering cheek against hers, for he could not
trust his voice to speak.

The first outburst of grief over, Peace shook the tears from her eyes,
loosened her strangling grasp about his neck and gulped, "Well, that
makes the naming of them easier, doesn't it, St. John! I was so fussed
up to find something nice enough to go with Elizabeth, but now we'll
just call the Tiniest One 'Angel Baby' and be glad that God didn't lug
off both twins. But oh, I do wish He had waited a little while longer
until I could have seen the two live twins."

So they comforted each other, and when the grave-eyed minister left her
a few moments later, she was smiling ever so faintly, while the
heaviness of his heart had lifted a bit, and he felt better for the
child's sympathy.

Sitting alone in her chair under the trees after the tall,
black-frocked figure had disappeared down the avenue, Peace suddenly
heard the voice of Mrs. Campbell through the library window saying in
troubled tones, "I really ought to go up to the parsonage myself and see
Mrs. Strong in person. She would appreciate it more than anything else,
but it is utterly impossible to go today, with that Board Meeting to
attend to. I suppose I might write a little note of condolence now and
make my call tomorrow, but such things are so stiff at best--"

Abruptly Peace remembered that she had sent no message by St. John to
her sorrowing Elspeth, and with feverish eagerness she caught at her
grandmother's suggestion of a note, turning to the table beside her
chair where lay the dirty-red book which she had consulted so often
during the past few weeks.

"I'll write her, too," she decided. "There are some lovely
_corndolences_ in this 'Manual,' and I wouldn't for the world have her
think I didn't care terribly bad because one of her babies has died."

With impatient fingers she turned the worn and ragged pages until she
found the section she was seeking. Then pulling out pen and paper, she
laboriously copied one of the stilted, old-fashioned epistles printed
under the title of "Letters of Sympathy," and despatched it, hidden
under a beautiful spray of white daisies and fern, to the little
parsonage on the hill.

Elizabeth herself received the badly blotted missive, and with
startled, mystified eyes, read the incongruous words penned by that
childish hand.


"My dear Friend,--I realize that this letter will find you berried in
the deepest sorrow at the loss of your darling little Angle Baby, and
that words of mine will be intirely inacqueduct to assawsage your
overwhelming grief; yet I feel that I must write a few words to insure
you that I am thinking of you and praying for you. If there can be a
coppersating thought, it is that your darling returned to the God who
gave it pure and unspotted by the world's temptations. The white rose
and bud I send (Jud says there haint any in blossom, so I'll have to
take daisies) I trust you will permit to rest upon your darling's
pillow.

With feelings of deepest symparthy, I remain, dear friend,

                  Yours very sincerely,
                             PEACE GREENFIELD."


On the other side of the inky sheet were scrawled a few almost illegible
lines, "My darlingest St. Elspeth, I have neerly squalled my heyes out
because St. John says your Angle Baby has flewn back to Heaven and I
wanted it to stay. But I am glad you have got another twin so the little
crib St. John told us about won't be all empty and you will still have
one reel live baby to rock to sleep besides Glen. This note of
corndolence on the other page is the best I could find. All the others
were too old. This one fits pretty well, but I had to change it a
little, and even now it is stiff like Grandma says all notes of
corndolence are. But I guess you will know I am as sorry as can be, for
I love you and want you to be happy.
                                         YOUR PEACE."


And Elizabeth, looking with tear-dimmed eyes from the bungling little
note to the lovely, snow-white daisies in the box, was strangely
comforted.




CHAPTER VII

AN ENDLESS CHAIN OF LETTERS


Peace closed the magazine with a reluctant sigh. "That," she said with
decided emphasis on the pronoun, "is a good story. If all _orthers_
wrote like that, 'twould make int'resting reading."

"What was it about?" asked Allee, looking up from a gorgeous splash of
water-colors which she was pleased to call a painting.

"About a girl named Angelica Regina, who started an endless chain of
letters to help the Ladies' Aid of her uncle's church c'lect scraps for
silk quilts."

"Did the ladies ask her to?"

"Mercy, no! They didn't have an idea that she'd done such a thing, and
they kept wondering where in the world all those scraps were coming
from. Fin'ly it got so bad that the Post Office man was real mad and the
husbands of the Ladies' Aid got mad, and the ladies themselves got mad
and wouldn't take any more bundles that came through the mail. 'Twasn't
till then that anyone knew 'bout the endless chain of letters. But at
last one lady s'spected Angelica Regina had done the whole thing, and
she made her own up to it."

"What is an endless chain of letters? I can't see how she worked it."

"Why, don't you 'member the letter Hope got last Christmas asking her
to write five more just like it and send them to friends of hers?"

"Well, but that's only five letters."

"Yes, 'twould be if it stopped there, but each of those five people had
to write five letters more and give them to _their_ friends. Five times
five is twenty-five, and then those twenty-five would write five
letters. Don't you see how it would keep growing till there would be
hundreds and hundreds of letters written?"

Allee nodded solemnly, and Peace fell into a brown study. Presently she
announced decidedly, "I b'lieve I'll do it. I like the scheme."

"Do what? What scheme?" inquired Allee, somewhat absently, as she
critically surveyed her brilliant splotch of color, and wondered if she
had added enough red to her sunset.

"I'll start an endless chain myself."

"What do _you_ want silk scraps for?" Allee's brush fell unheeded from
her hand, and the blue eyes shot an amazed glance up at the figure in
the wheel-chair.

"I don't want any silk scraps, but I can ask for something else, can't
I?"

"What shall you choose?" Allee was now alive with curiosity.

"Well,--I don't really know--just yet," Peace was obliged to confess.
"It wouldn't be right to ask 'em each for a dime, like Hope's letter
did, to _endower_ a hospital bed, 'cause I haven't got the bed, and
anyway I don't need money. Grandpa's got enough for us all. Now if we'd
just known of this plan in Parker, p'raps we could have paid off our
mortgage without any trouble."

"But then Grandpa wouldn't have found us, and we prob'ly would still be
living in the little brown house on that farm," responded Allee, with a
frown.

"That's so. I hadn't thought of that. Well, it can't be money that I'll
ask for, and I don't want silk scraps. Just now I can't think of a thing
I want real bad which Grandpa can't get for me,--'nless it is buttons."

"Buttons!" repeated Allee, wondering if Peace had lost her senses
altogether. "What do you want buttons for? What kind of buttons? Ain't
your clothes got enough buttons on 'em now? Grandma--"

"Sh!" Peace cautioned, for in her surprise Allee had unconsciously
raised her voice almost to a yell. "I don't mean that kind of buttons. I
mean fancy ones just for a c'lection."

"But what good will a c'lection of _buttons_ be?" demanded Allee, more
puzzled than before. "What can you use 'em for?"

"What can you use any c'lection for?" sarcastically retorted Peace,
exasperated at the little sister's stupidity. "What does Henderson
Meadows use his c'lection of stamps for? Just to brag about and see how
many more kinds he can get than the other boys."

"But--I never heard of such a thing as a c'lection of _buttons_,"
persisted Allee, privately worried for fear Peace was going crazy. "No
one that I know has got one."

"They will have as soon as I get mine started," the other girl stoutly
maintained. "You wait and see."

Allee shook her head doubtfully and slowly reached out her hand for her
gorgeous sunset which strongly resembled a rainbow in convulsions.

"You don't seem to like the plan," suggested Peace, more than ever
determined to make the venture, just to prove to this skeptical creature
that she knew what she was talking about.

"I--don't think--it will work," replied truthful Allee.

"Well, I'll show you. Miss Edith said when she was a girl it was a fad
one winter to see who could get the biggest and prettiest string of
buttons, and when I was telling Grandma she laughed and said they had
the same thing a-going when she was a girl."

"But I don't see any sense to it," protested the younger sister, still
unconvinced.

"I never saw a c'lection yet that had any _sense_ to it, when it comes
to that," Peace reluctantly admitted. "What _sense_ is there in saving
up a lot of dead bugs like Cherry's been doing all summer, or a bunch of
horrid, nasty, dirty old pipes, like Len Abbott was so proud of; or even
all those _queeriosities_ that Judge Abbott kept in his library and said
was worth so much money! I ain't a-going to do it for the _sense_ there
is in it, but it'll be awful lonesome for me when you girls go back to
school this fall, 'specially as the doctor says I mustn't have a teacher
of my own yet, and I can't do any real studying all by myself."
Privately, Peace was much pleased with this verdict, but she thought it
unnecessary to say so. "That's why I thought it would be a good plan to
get something like this started which would help fill up the time while
you and Cherry were shut up in school, and Grandma was too busy to pay
attention to me."

Allee's antagonism and skepticism vanished as if by magic. She had
opposed this beautiful plan which would mean so much to her crippled
sister! In deepest contrition she enthusiastically proposed, "Let's
write the letter now and send it off so's your answers will begin coming
in as soon as they can. I guess I didn't 'xactly see what you meant at
first. I think it'll be a nice plan."

"All right," Peace replied, quick to take advantage of favorable
circumstances. "You get the paper and ink. I've used mine all up out
here. And say, s'posing we keep this endless chain plan a secret among
our two selves. You can have half the buttons that come in; but if
Cherry should know, she would prob'ly want a share, too."

"Maybe 'twould be better," Allee agreed, as she ran away to the house
for writing materials.

Then began the task of composing a letter which should cover their
wants; but so many obstacles presented themselves to the inexperienced
writers, that the afternoon had waned before a satisfactory epistle had
resulted.

"There," sighed Peace at length, "I guess that will do. It is short
enough so's it won't take anyone long to make five copies, and it's long
enough so's no one can be mistaken about what we mean. I wish I knew
whether Hope kept the one she got. Maybe we could have gone by that and
made a better letter of ours. This one in the magazine didn't help very
much 'cause it talks about the Ladies' Aid, and we couldn't use that,
for everybody would know a Ladies' Aid would want something besides
buttons in their work. Do you think ours will do?"

"Yes, it's perfectly elegant," the younger child replied, lovingly
fingering the inky page of tipsy letters which she had just finished.
"Now who are you going to send them to?"

"I've been thinking of that all the while we were writing, and I've
already got a list of more'n five."

"Who?"

"Well, there's Lorene Meadows for a starter. She lives in Chicago and is
acquainted with slews of kids which we don't know. Then there's Mrs.
Grinnell in Parker, and Hec Abbott and Tessie and Effie and Jessie and
Miss Dunbar and Annette Fisher and Mrs. Bainbridge and Mrs. Hartman and
oh--all the Parker folks."

"Then s'posing we write more'n five to begin with."

"I hadn't thought of that. There's no reason why we shouldn't. Let's
make it ten,--that's all the stamps I've got."

"All right."

Both girls set to work laboriously scribbling the ten copies of their
chain letter, then sealed and addressed them, and Allee dropped them
into the mail box on the corner just as the dinner bell pealed out its
summons to the dining-room.

School began the next Monday. The following day the first link in the
endless chain was received from Lorene, who enclosed twelve handsome
buttons and asked full particulars about the button collection, as she
desired to start one for herself, and could Peace send her twelve
buttons in exchange for hers? This was an unforeseen development, but
Peace was so delighted with this first dozen that she set Allee to
hunting up stray buttons about the house with which to satisfy the
demands of any other youthful collectors. On Wednesday two more answers
were received, one from Mrs. Grinnell, containing forty of the oddest
looking buttons the girls had ever seen; and one from a stranger in
Chicago, probably a friend of Lorene's, for she, too, asked for buttons
in return.

Peace sighed, divided the contents of the two packages with an impartial
hand, and remarked, "It's lucky Mrs. Grinnell don't want forty in
exchange. We had only thirty-six to begin with, and Lorene's twelve and
this girl's eight leaves us only sixteen, s'posing we get many more
answers asking for some."

Fortunately for her peace of mind, however, only one other letter made
such a request, but a new dilemma arose. Packages began to arrive with
insufficient postage, and the crippled girl's pocket money vanished with
alarming rapidity. The letter carrier always delivered the daily budget
of mail to the little maid under the trees when the weather permitted of
her being at her post, and it chanced that for a fortnight after the
answers to her endless chain began pouring in, she received her own
mail, so no one but Allee knew her secret, and there was no one but
Allee to help her out with her heavy postage bills.

"I never s'posed anyone would send out packages without enough stamps on
'em," she complained to her loyal supporter one night, after an
unusually heavy mail and a correspondingly heavy drain on her
pocketbook. "And the trouble is, the letters that have the most money to
pay on them hold the ugliest buttons. I spent twelve cents for stamps
today. That's the worst yet. Yesterday it was ten, and seven the day
before. There won't be much of my monthly dollar left if it keeps on
this way. The postman got sassy this morning and asked me if I'd started
a--a correspondence school, or if I was having a birthday shower every
day. I'm tired of the sight of buttons!"

"Already?" cried Allee. "Why, I think they are fine. If your dollar is
all spent before the month is up, you can use mine. I ought to pay half
the stampage anyway, as long as I get half the buttons. All the girls at
school are wild to know where we get so many, but I won't tell. There's
eight hundred on your string and seven hundred and fifty on mine."

"But I divided 'em even--"

"I know you did, but you see, I traded some, and Dolly Thomas cried
'cause she had only twenty buttons on her string, so I gave her a few of
mine."

"Well, I wish we had some way to make the chain end," sighed Peace
disconsolately. "I've got as big a c'lection as I want now and still
they keep a-coming. That's just the way those silk scraps did to the
Ladies' Aid in the story. O, dear, don't I get into the worst messes! I
wouldn't mind if they'd pay their own stamps, but I want my money for
Christmas, and if this keeps up I'll have to break into my bank. I
thought it would be such fun to get mail every day, but the very sight
of the postman now makes me sick."

"We might tell Grandpa. He'd know what to do," suggested Allee, seeing
that Peace was really heartily tired of this deluge of buttons.

"I--I hate to do that. He'd think we were little sillies and I guess we
are."

"'Twas your plan," Allee briefly informed her, for she did not care to
be called a "silly" by anyone.

"Of course it was," Peace hastily acknowledged. "And I'm tired of it.
Maybe--don't you think Miss Edith could tell us what to do?"

"I b'lieve she could. Ask her tomorrow. She'll be sure to pass, even if
she doesn't have time to stop awhile. O, see who's coming!"

"Elspeth!" cried Peace, almost bouncing out of her chair in her
eagerness to greet the dear friend whose face she had not seen for many
weeks.

"My little girlies!" The woman's sweet face bent over the eager one
among the pillows and lingered there. It was the first time she had seen
the crippled child since the doctors had pronounced her case hopeless,
and she had feared that her presence might recall to Peace's mind the
great misfortune, and bring on a deluge of tears. But Peace was thinking
of other things than wheel-chairs. This was the first time she had seen
her Elspeth since the Angel Baby had slipped away to its Maker, and she
glanced apprehensively into the tender blue eyes above her, expecting to
find them dim with tears of grief for the little one she had lost.
Instead, they were smiling serenely. She had locked her sorrow deep down
in her heart, and only God and her good St. John knew what a heavy ache
throbbed in her breast.

So the brown eyes smiled bravely back, and after a moment the eager
voice asked reproachfully, "Didn't you bring the b--the children? I
haven't seen Baby Elspeth yet, and she is--"

"Two months old tomorrow," proudly answered the mother. "Yes, we brought
her. We call her Bessie to avoid confusion of names. St. John has her
now, but he happened to meet our postman on the street back there and
stopped to tell him about some mail that he doesn't want delivered any
longer."

"What kind of mail?" Peace breathlessly demanded, suddenly remembering
her endless chain of letters.

"O, some cheap magazines that keep coming. He wrote the publishers two
or three times to discontinue them, but it didn't do any good, so now he
is telling the postman not to bring them any more."

"Is that all you have to do?" The brown eyes were glowing with
eagerness.

"Yes. Refuse to accept them when the postman brings them and they will
soon stop coming."

"Will it work with packages?"

"With anything, I guess."

"What happens to the things you refuse?"

"O, some of them are returned to the sender, some go to the dead-letter
office, and others are just destroyed, I guess."

"Oh!" Peace had received all the information she needed, and as St. John
now appeared at the gate with Glen in tow and Baby Bessie in his arms,
she turned her attention to her guests, who, as a special surprise for
the invalid, had been invited to stay for dinner.

The next day, however, when the postman made his appearance with his
arms bulging with packages, and a grin of amusement stretching his mouth
from ear to ear, he was astounded to hear the little lady in the
wheel-chair say crisply, "Take 'em all back. I won't receive another
one you bring me. I s'pose there is postage to pay on most of 'em, too,
ain't there?"

"Fifteen cents," he acknowledged.

"Well, this is the time you don't get your fifteen cents," she announced
calmly but with decision.

"But I can't deliver these packages until that is paid."

"Goody! I'm tired of the sight of them. The very looks of you coming up
the walk gives me a pain. Don't bring me another single package. Take
them back to the--the letter undertaker--"

"The what?" His eyes were twinkling, and he had hard work to keep his
twitching lips from breaking into an audible chuckle.

"The place you send mail when it ain't wanted by the person it's
supposed to go to. I've had all I care to do with chain letters. I
really didn't think they were _endless_ or I never would have started
mine. We've got buttons enough to start a department store already."

The light of understanding broke over the postman's rugged features. "So
it was a chain letter, was it?"

"Yes."

"And you don't want any more packages?"

"I won't _accept_ any more." She bobbed her head emphatically and set
all the short curls to dancing.

"All right, Miss Peace. I'll see that you aren't bothered with any more
packages."

Peace heaved a great sigh of relief, and turned energetically back to
her basket weaving, which had been sadly neglected of late. The parcels
actually did cease coming, and the two conspirators hugged themselves
with delight that it had not been necessary to tell their secret so no
one knew what sillies they were. By common consent they barred chain
letters as a topic of conversation, and had almost forgotten the hateful
packages when one morning Peace received a letter from Miss Truman,
still a teacher in the Parker School, saying that she had just mailed a
large box addressed to the little invalid, and hoped that Peace would
enjoy its contents. The girl was wild with anticipation, but the parcel
did not put in appearance that afternoon, nor the next day, nor the
next.

"I am afraid it has gone astray," said Grandpa Campbell when the third
morning passed without it coming.

"And won't I ever get it?" asked Peace disconsolately.

"Such things sometimes happen, though Parker is such a short distance
from here that it seems almost impossible for it to have been lost. I
will call at the Post Office and inquire. Perhaps for some reason it is
stalled there."

That afternoon he appeared with the coveted parcel in his hand and a
mystified look in his eyes.

"You got it?" shrieked Peace in ecstasy.

"Yes, I got it, but if the Postmaster had not been a very good friend of
mine, you would never have seen it."

"Why not?" Peace was genuinely amazed. "What right had the Postmaster
to my package? Did he want to keep it?"

"He tells me that you issued orders two weeks or more ago not to deliver
any more packages to your address."

"He--oh, that was buttons! I didn't mean this kind of packages."

"Buttons!" the President looked even more puzzled.

"O, dear," sighed Peace unhappily. "Now I've got to tell what a
silly-pate I've been." So she poured out the tale of the endless chain
to the astonished man, ending with the characteristic remark, "And I
told the letter-carrier to send all the rest of the button packages to
the letter graveyard at Washington, but I s'posed of course he'd bring
me packages like this."

"He has no way of distinguishing between them, my dear," the President
gravely informed her, trying hard to keep his face straight. "You
ordered _all_ parcels addressed to you stopped. You refused to accept
them, and there will be no more delivered to you."

"_Never?_" gasped Peace.

"Well,--not for months and months and months. I don't know exactly how
we can get the matter fixed up now."

"And will they keep all my _Christmas_ packages, too?"

"If they come addressed to you."

"Where's my pencil and postcards?" She began a wild, scrambling search,
through the drawers of the table which always stood beside her chair.

"What do you want of them?" the man inquired with considerable
curiosity.

"Why, I've got to write everyone I know and tell 'em if they want to
send me anything for Christmas or my birthday, or any other time, to
address it on the outside to Allee," she retorted, scribbling away
energetically.




CHAPTER VIII

ALLEE'S ALBUM


"You are late, Allee." Peace had watched the little figure ever since it
had turned the corner a block further down the street, and noted with
increasing anxiety that the usually swift feet tonight were lagging and
slow. Indeed, so abstracted was the belated scholar that she almost
forgot to turn in at her own gate, and in Peace's mind this could mean
only one thing,--Allee had fallen below grade in her arithmetic that
afternoon and had been kept after school to make it up. As a further
indication that this was the case, she was intently studying the front
page of a scratch-tablet, and when Peace called to her, she hastily hid
the paper under her apron, while her rosy cheeks grew rosier still, and
a look of guilty alarm flew into her blue eyes.

"Am I?" She tried to speak naturally, but suspicious Peace detected the
strained note in her voice, and demanded, "Were you kept after school?"

"Yes,--no,--not really school."

"What do you mean by that? Cherry's been home for more'n half an hour."

"That long?" Allee's amazement was too genuine to doubt.

"Yes, and you said you'd come home the minute school was out so's we
could finish that puzzle and send it off."

"I didn't mean to stay so long. It seemed only a minute, Peace, truly."
Allee was deeply penitent.

"Where have you been? To see Miss Edith?"

"No--o--"

"And what's that you are hiding under your apron? Allee Greenfield,
you've got a secret from me!" cried Peace, much aggrieved.

Poor Allee's face flushed crimson, the frank eyes wavered and fell, and
a meek voice stammered, "I--I--'tisn't really a secret, Peace."

"What is it then?"

"I was afraid you would laugh at me--"

"Why? What is there to laugh at?"

"My--my rhymes."

"Rhymes?"

"Yes. You know Hope has to write 'em in High School, and even Cherry's
teacher took a notion to make her scholars try thinking up poetry."

"Has your teacher?"

"O, no, but at recess we play school and one of our games is making up
rhymes. The leader says anything she wants to, and we have to answer so
it will make a jingle. It's like spelling down. If we miss we have to go
to the foot of the class."

"Mercy me! the whole house will be talking poetry next," ejaculated
Peace. "Gail's just written one that the--the--what is the name of that
paper?--has printed with her name at the bottom of it, and Cherry came
home tonight with her head so big that she can hardly lug it, 'cause her
verses were the best in her room. But I didn't think it would hit _you_.
Why, there's getting to be a reg'lar _emetic_ of poetry 'round here."

Allee looked crestfallen. "It's fun when you know how," she ventured,
apologetically. "Gussie showed me, and helps me get the feet straight."

"Feet! Gussie! Is she at it, too?"

"Gussie writes perfectly elegant rhymes," Allee defended. "You haven't
forgotten those dishes she cooked for you and rhymed over, have you?"

"I guess not! They were so funny. I pasted 'em into my 'Glimmers of
Gladness.'"

"And I stuck mine into my album," confessed Allee.

"Your album? What album?"

"A little book Gussie gave me to write my jingles in. The name on the
cover is 'Album,' so that's what I call it."

"Would--would you let me see it?"

Allee hesitated. "You won't laugh?"

"Not a single snicker."

"Well, then,--I don't mind."

She darted away to the house, returning almost immediately with a small,
thick note-book in her hand, partly filled with round, even writing,
which Peace instantly recognized as Gussie's. "That ain't--" she began,
but Allee forestalled her.

"Gussie copies 'em all for me, 'cause my letters are so dreadfully big
the pages won't hold all I want to write," she explained.

"Why don't you get a bigger book and write your own poems in it? The
pages are too small in this. I'll tell you,--Grandma gave me a big, fat
book a long time ago to keep a _dairy_ in."--Peace never could remember
the proper place for the words 'dairy' and 'diary.'--"But I wrote only
one day. It wasn't at all int'resting to scribble all by myself, but if
you'll use my book we'll both write. How'd you like that?"

Allee's eyes were shining happily. "I think it would be fine. I--I
really wanted your book, 'cause it is so nice and wide, but I thought
likely you would find some use for it yourself some day."

"Well, I have. We'll use it for a scrap album."

"A scrap album?"

"Yes. I mean, we can each of us write in it whenever we feel poetry, but
we needn't _have_ to do it at any time."

"And I can paste my 'lustrations in it between leaves, can't I?"

"What kind of 'lustrations?"

"Why, like Hope's note-book. She _has_ to draw pictures of plants and
flowers in her botany, and just for fun she makes _skitches_ to picture
out the stories they study in some of her other classes."

"But her _skitches_ are nice," Peace remarked skeptically. "Why, Grandpa
thinks some day she will make a good 'lustrator for magazines and
books."

"My pictures are nice, too," Allee contended. "Here is a sunset I
painted a long time ago--"

"It looks like a prairie fire," murmured the older sister, gravely
eyeing the highly-colored sheet upside down.

"It just matches a lullaby I made up yesterday," continued Allee,
unmindful of Peace's criticism. Rapidly her fingers turned the pages
until she had found the lines she wanted, and with a heart filled with
pride, she passed the book to her companion, who read,


     "The sun is sinking in the west,
     'Tis time my baby dear should rest,--
         Sleep, baby, sleep."


"You haven't got any baby," the reader interrupted.

"It don't need babies to write lullabies," Allee scornfully retorted. "A
real poet can write about _anything_."

"Well, anyway, I like this one better." Peace's eyes had travelled
rapidly through the lines, and lingered over some stanzas on the
opposite page:


     "I wonder why the fairies hide?
       I'm sure I'd like to see them dance,
     But though my very best I've tried,
       I never yet have had a chance.
         I wonder why, don't you?

     I wonder why the birdies fly,
       While I alone can cry and talk;
     But though I often try and try,
       I cannot do a thing but walk.
         I wonder why, don't you?"


"Yes, Gussie liked that, too," said Allee, much pleased.

"Did you write it all yourself?" Peace was incredulous.

"Well, Gussie showed me how to fix it up so it didn't limp, but it's
almost like I wrote it."

"I don't see how you can think of the things to say."

"They think themselves, I guess," replied Allee after a moment's study.
"Teacher last year used to read us stories and make us tell them
ourselves, just as pretty as we could; and you and I 'magine so many
things about the moon lady and the mountain elves and water sprites.
It's easy to _tell_ them like stories, so I just tried writing them out.
That ain't so easy, 'cause I can't always spell the words, but it's fun
now that I'm used to it. Then Gussie showed me how rhymes were made into
real poetry, so I tried that, too. It's just fitting words into a tune
like you used to do, only you don't need a tune either. The poems in our
Readers are what I go by."

Peace was very much interested. In her "Glimmers of Gladness" she had
essayed a poem or two, as she was pleased to call them; but Allee's were
far superior to any of her attempts, and Allee was two years younger.
"Bring me all the old Readers in the library," she abruptly commanded,
"and while you are copying your poems in my book, I'll write a few of my
own."

Allee ran to do her bidding, and soon the two embryo poets were so busy
with pen and pencil that they were amazed when Jud appeared to carry the
invalid into the house.

"It's surely not dinner time yet!" Allee protested. "Why, I've got only
one poem and half of a story copied."

"That's better'n me," Peace dolefully sighed, closing the First Reader
with reluctant hands and laying it aside. "I haven't done a line yet. I
haven't even found a poem to pattern after, though I guess I'll take
'Long Time Ago' for my first one. That's easy, and when I get onto the
hang of it, I'll try something harder. If it's dinner time already the
days must be getting lots shorter again."

"You are right, they are," Jud agreed. "Soon it will be too cold out
here for you--"

"I shan't mind," Peace interrupted. "I'm going to write a good deal this
winter. Gussie'll teach me to be a poet, and I always could write better
inside the house. There's too much to look at out-of-doors."

Jud heaved a gusty sigh. "You all think a heap of Gussie, don't you?" he
asked with a jealous pang, for he found it almost impossible to get a
quiet word with that busy and important member of the household, and now
that winter was coming on, it would be harder than ever, for even the
little after-dinner chats in the garden would have to be discontinued.

"I sh'd say we do!" both girls chorused. "She is worth thinking a lot
of--"

"That's where you are right again," the man agreed heartily.

"She can do _anything_" said Peace, who was never tired of singing
Gussie's praises.

"Even to making poets," he teased.

"Yes, sir, even to making poets, and some day you will see for
yourself."

"I hope I may," he sighed again, and the little group slowly trundled up
the walk into the house.

Jud's prophecy of cold weather came true sooner than he had expected,
and as if to make up for the long, lovely autumn of the year before,
wintry winds descended early upon Martindale. Heavy frosts wrought havoc
in the gardens, the yellow and crimson leaves fell in showers, September
died in a blaze of glory, and October found the trees naked and vines
shivering in the keen, sharp air. It was too cold to spend the hours
out-of-doors any longer, and the Campbells dreaded the long days of
confinement that stretched out in such an appalling array before the
crippled child. So they were amazed and agreeably surprised to hear no
word of lament from the small maid herself, who was suddenly seized with
such a studious fit that she found hardly time to eat her meals.

"I'm learning to be a poet," she told them by way of explanation.
"Gussie's teaching me, and some day maybe you can read our
poems,--Allee's and mine."

"God bless Gussie," they smiled tenderly, and went their way content,
leaving the young student to toil with inky fingers over pages of
impossible rhymes, for they knew that when this new play should have
lost its attraction, they must have something else to hold the patient's
interest.

Perhaps it was Gussie's teaching, perhaps Allee's unflagging enthusiasm
which kept restless Peace pouring over the ancient Readers unearthed
from obscure corners of the President's great library; but however that
may be, more ink was used in the big house during those early Fall days
than had ever been used before, and the fat notebook was filled at an
alarming rate with contributions from its two owners, and an occasional
skit, by way of encouragement, from Gussie, the cook.

As neither Peace nor Allee ever offered to share their secrets with
their elders, the sisters soon lost interest in the new amusement; but
one night when both scribes were fast asleep in their beds, Hope chanced
to find the precious volume on the couch by the fireplace where Allee
had carelessly dropped it when the dinner hour had been announced.
Picking it up, she opened it idly, before she recognized what book she
had in her hand. Then, just as she was about to lay it aside, one of
Allee's contributions caught her eye, and with amazement she read the
little story, retouched and polished up by Gussie, but breathing the
small sister's winsomeness in every word.

"Why, the little mouse!" she exclaimed in her astonishment. "If that
isn't just like her!"

"Where's the mouse?" demanded Cherry, curling her feet up under her and
searching wildly about the floor with eyes full of fear and loathing.

"In bed," promptly answered Hope. "I've got her stories here in my hand.
Grandma, do you know what the youngsters have been doing all this
while?"

Mrs. Campbell glanced at the book on Hope's knee, and smilingly
answered, "Learning to be poets under Gussie's instruction."

"But Allee really does write splendidly," Hope insisted very seriously.
"I can hardly believe she wrote all this; yet it sounds just like her.
She always did have such a beautiful way of saying things." Then she
burst out laughing.

"What is it?" demanded the sisters, scenting something unusual, and
laying aside their lessons to listen.

"A poem by Peace," gasped Hope. "O, it's too funny!" Wiping her eyes,
she dramatically read:


     "'In the yard the little chicklets
       Ran to and fro,
     Digging up the worms and buglets
       Squirming down below.

     Came a hawk and grabbed a chicklet,
       Right by the toe,
     And the little chicklet hollered,
       "O, let me go."

     But the hawklet hugged him tighter,
       Wouldn't turn him loose,
     Cause he thought he'd make good dinner
       When there was no goose.

     So the hawklet went a-flying
       Up in the sky,
     With the chicklet still a-crying,
       "I don't want to die."'"


By the time she had finished reading the queer stanzas, five heads were
clustered about hers, for even the President cast aside his paper to
listen; and five pair of eager eyes were striving to read the uneven
scrawls with which the pages were filled.

"Well, I declare!" ejaculated the learned Doctor of Laws, rubbing his
spectacles vigorously, and bending over the ink-blotted book again. "I
had no idea that Allee was far enough advanced in school to write
compositions and--and--rhymes.'

"She is nearly up with Peace," said Gail proudly. "I predict that she
will be a poet yet."

"Wouldn't be at all surprised," replied the doctor. "Her grandfather
might have shone in literature if he had chosen that field instead of
the ministry."

"I like Peace's contributions almost the best," murmured the grandmother
apologetically, brushing a tear from her cheek as she finished reading
some incomplete lines penned by the brown-eyed maid:--


     "Shut up here with no trees nor plants,
     I can't tear my close on a barb wire fence.
     With my feet on a pillow where I can't use 'em
     There's nothing on earth can ever bruise 'em.
     But oh, how I hate to lie here all day,
     When I want to be out in the garden at play.
     I want to get up and run and shout,
     I want to see what's happening about.
     There'll be no more climbing up roofs so high,
     I must live in a wheel-chair until I die."


Hope's eyes, too, had seen the pathetic lines, and closing the book, she
softly said, "Let's all write something in it as a surprise,--something
of our own, I mean."

"And you make little margin pictures like Mrs. Strong did in Peace's
Brownie Book," suggested Cherry.

"You mean her 'Glimmers of Gladness,'" Faith corrected, smiling a little
in remembrance of the brown and gold volume which had helped while away
the rainy days at the parsonage more than a year before.

"And paint the name in fancy letters on the front cover," Gail added.

"What shall you call it?" asked the grandmother, already searching for
pen and paper that she might make a first draft of some lines running
through her mind.

"The same title they have given it," Gail answered. "'Allee's Album.'"

"And God bless 'Allee's Album,'" reverently whispered the deeply-touched
President, blowing his nose like a trumpet to relieve his feelings.




CHAPTER IX

PEACE INTERVIEWS THE BISHOP


"Well," sighed the President, laying down the evening paper and leaning
wearily back among the cushions of his great Morris chair, "it really
looks as if South Avenue Church is to have Dr. Henry Shumway for its
pastor this year."

Mrs. Campbell glanced up hastily from her sewing with consternation in
her eyes and asked, "Has the bishop really confirmed the report?"

"No, but he won't deny it, either. According to an article in this
paper, our beloved Dr. Glaves is to be transferred to the Iowa
Conference, and Dr. Shumway takes his place."

"I sh'd think you'd be glad enough to see Dr. Glaves go," remarked an
abstracted voice from the corner of the room where Peace and Allee were
absorbed in the task of sorting and stringing bright-colored beads. "He
reminds me of tombstones and _seminaries_,--not only his name, but the
_pomperous_ way he has of crawling up the aisle. He walks like a stone
_yimage_."

"Porpoise, you mean," gently suggested Allee.

"Pompous," corrected the President, smiling a little at their blunders.
"I can't say I am exactly sorry to see the Reverend Philander N. Glaves
transferred,"--his tone was mildly sarcastic,--"for he was a misfit in
South Avenue Church. We didn't want him in the first place, but we tried
to be decent to him during his year's sojourn with us. However, that's
neither here nor there. When three times in succession we are given a
man we don't want, I think it is time to kick. We have quietly accepted
the other two men when we wanted Dr. Atkinson, but now--"

"You oughtn't to kick the preacher," mused Peace, studying the effect of
some green and purple beads together. "He has to go where he is sent,
doesn't he?"

"Ye--s," reluctantly conceded the President.

"Then 'tisn't his fault if he gets stuck in a good-for-nothing church
which he doesn't want--"

"South Avenue Church is considered one of the choicest pastorates our
Conference affords," hastily interrupted Dr. Campbell, while his wife
quickly buried her face in her sewing again, to hide the smile dancing
in her eyes.

"Is it?" Peace looked genuinely surprised. "It's always scrapping. _I'd_
hate to be its preacher. Papa had a _nawful_ time in his last church
'cause they picked on him to scrap about. He got sent where he didn't
want to go, and in the end he had to quit,--just plumb worn out by being
jumped on. He was a good man, too."

The President looked uncomfortable. "But Peace," he argued, "you are too
young to understand such matters. I haven't the slightest doubt that Dr.
Shumway is a good man and an excellent preacher. In fact, he comes most
highly recommended. We aren't objecting to him personally. It's the
principle of the thing--"

"Well, if the Pendennis Church people had kicked the principle instead
of Papa, maybe he'd be a live preacher yet and not an angel."

Dr. Campbell lapsed into silence. What was the use of arguing with a
child? He was tired from a strenuous day's work at the University and
disgusted with the bishop's pig-headed perversity. It was early in the
evening yet, but perhaps bed was the best place for him in his state of
mind; so excusing himself and bidding the trio good-night, he stalked
off upstairs.

Peace had forgotten all about the bishop and Dr. Shumway when she awoke
the next morning, and might have paid no more attention to the South
Avenue Church discussions, had she not chanced to overhear a
conversation not intended for her ears. It was after luncheon, Cherry
and Allee had returned to school, the older sisters were not expected
for hours yet, and Peace was just composing herself for a nap, having
nothing else to fill in the long afternoon until school should close for
the day, when the telephone bell rang, and Mrs. Campbell herself
answered it.

Thinking it might be a message from her St. Elspeth or Aunt Pen, who
never were too busy to remember the little prisoner at the other end of
the city, Peace popped her head up to listen, and heard her grandmother
say slowly and with evident regret, "I'm so sorry, Mrs. York, but I
don't see how I can.--O, yes, indeed, I had planned on it, but
circumstances, you know.--She's doing nicely, but I can't very well
leave her alone all the afternoon.--No, but the two smaller girls are in
school until half-past three, Gail and Faith have recitations up through
the sixth hour at the University, and Hope went with her class to view
that collection of antiquities at the Public Library.--Well, you see,
this is Gussie's afternoon out, and--No, never with Marie.--I had
counted upon Hope's being here to keep her company.--I am sorry to
disappoint you, but I assure you I am very much more disappointed on my
own account--"

"Grandma!"

"Good-bye. I suppose I shall see you Sunday!"

"Grandma!"

"All right. Good-bye."

"Grandma! Can't you hear me?"

"Yes, dearie, but I was at the telephone."

"I know it, and I wanted you to tell Mrs. York that you'd come."

"But, childie, I can't leave you here all alone. You and Marie--"

"Fight. Yes, I know. But you might take me along. Couldn't you?"

Mrs. Campbell was startled. This was the first time since the accident
that Peace had showed any desire to go beyond the boundaries of the
garden; and the woman glanced suspiciously at the eager face, thinking
that the suggestion meant a sacrifice of the child's own wishes. But the
eyes were shining with their old-time enthusiasm, and Mrs. Campbell
said hesitatingly, "It's a Missionary Conference, dear."

"I always did like missionary meetings," Peace reminded her.

"But this will be different,--mostly statistics, reports and
discussions. I am afraid you would find it very dull."

"Women can be awfully dull sometimes," Peace admitted cheerfully. "But
you want to go, I haven't anything to do, and I might just as well be
watching the crowds there as taking a nap here at home. Then both of us
would be amused, while here, you would be thinking of what you'd missed,
and I'd be just itching for something to do."

"But supposing the proceedings don't amuse you?" smiled the woman.

"Then I'll go to sleep like Deacon Skinner always did in Parker. Or I
might take along something to read, s'posing things get too awfully
dry."

"Would you really like to go?" Mrs. Campbell was still a little
doubtful, though from her manner of glancing at the clock, and then down
the street, it was evident that she herself very much desired to attend
that afternoon's session of the Conference.

"Sure," Peace answered promptly, and Mrs. Campbell allowed herself to be
persuaded. So half an hour later the brown-eyed maid found herself
trundling down the familiar streets in her wheel-chair.

It was a clear, cold day, and the crisp air smelled of fallen leaves
and bonfires; and both woman and child sniffed hungrily at the delicious
odors of Autumn. Peace was almost reluctant to enter the big church when
they reached it, for the lure of the open air was great, the blue sky
charming, and even the leafless trees and frost-blackened shrubs were
enticing.

Once inside the building, however, she forgot all else in watching the
crowd of enthusiastic ladies trotting to and fro and mingling with the
throng of black-frocked ministers gathered for the closing sessions of
the Annual Conference. Even when the meeting was called to order and the
afternoon's business begun, Peace did not lose her interest, though she
understood very little of what was going on, and wondered how her
grandmother or any other sensible soul could be interested in the long
lists of stupid figures that were read from time to time.

"Sounds 's if they were learning their multiplication tables," she
giggled, "and when they all get to gabbling at once,--that's the Chinese
of it."

"What's the Chinese of it, if I may ask?" inquired a deep voice in her
ear; and thinking it was her beloved St. John, she whirled about to find
a friendly-eyed stranger just sitting down in the pew behind her chair.

She had forgotten her surroundings, and had spoken her thoughts aloud.
"Mercy!" she gasped. "I thought I had this corner all to myself. I never
s'pected anyone was near enough to hear what I said. Once before I did
that same thing, and a minister caught me at it that time, too. Your
voice sounds like his,--deep and bull-froggy. I 'most called you St.
John before I saw it was someone else. Are you a missionary?"

"O, no. Just a--"

"Plain preacher?" finished Peace, as he hesitated a moment with his
sentence incomplete.

"Yes, just a plain preacher," he laughed.

"Well, I thought you had a missionaryish look about you. That's why I
asked. I've been trying all the afternoon to sort out the gang--"

"Do what?" He was frankly amazed.

"Now I s'pose I've shocked you," she cried penitently. "Grandma doesn't
like me to use such words, but I keep forgetting. I meant I'd been
trying to pick out the missionaries and ministers, and the bishop. I
'specially wanted a look at the bishop, but I haven't seen a wink of him
yet."

"And why are you so anxious to see the bishop, my girl?" asked her newly
found acquaintance, smiling in amusement. "He surely ought to be
flattered--"

"I want to see if he looks beery."

"Beery!" The broad face of her companion looked like an enlarged
exclamation point.

"Yes,--he's got such a beery name. Fancy a man called Malthouse being a
minister, and a bishop at that! I couldn't help wondering if his face
fitted his job any better than his name."

"Well--as to that--I'm not--prepared to say," stammered the big man
beside her.

"Don't you know him?"

"O, yes, quite well."

"Is he good-looking?"

"Well, you know folks differ in their ideas of what good-looking means,"
he hedged, seeming somewhat embarrassed.

"I took that _extinguished_ looking man over there in the corner for the
bishop--"

"Extinguished?"

"Yes, the one with the extra long tails on his coat and bushy white
hair; but he's been opening and shutting windows all day long, and I
expect they'd give the bishop something better than that to do."

The puzzled divine glanced curiously in the direction the child's thin
forefinger was pointing, and chuckled outright as he beheld the aged
figure of the new janitor moving slowly down the aisle with the long
window-stick in his hand. "So you think he looks like a bishop?" he
managed to articulate soberly.

"Yes, I do. He's the best-looking man in the bunch. He's so tall and
straight, too, and so--so bishop-y in the set of his clothes. They fit
him. But he doesn't jabber as much as the rest. I s'pose 'twould be just
like the things that happen to me to find out that that giant bean-pole
which keeps teetering around the room is the bishop." She indicated a
very tall, very slender man, who at that moment chanced to pass their
retreat.

"No," her companion answered promptly, "that is not the bishop. His
name is Shumway,--Dr. Shumway--"

"Dr. Shumway!" echoed the child. "The man the bishop is going to send to
our church? Well, I don't wonder the people mean to kick! Ain't he the
homeliest ever?"

"Who told you that?" gravely asked the stranger preacher, all the smile
gone from his kindly eyes.

"That he's homely? No one. I can see it for myself."

"I mean who told you that the people intend to kick?"

"Oh! Grandpa was talking to Grandma last evening. The paper said Dr.
Shumway was to take the place of Dr. Glaves. It's a pity they can't
divide up, ain't it? Dr. Glaves would look less like an elephant if he
didn't have so much meat on him and Dr. Shumway needs a lot more'n he's
got."

"Who is your grandfather?" interrupted the man beside her, ignoring the
candid criticisms of his entertainer.

"Dr. Campbell, President of the State University," she answered proudly.

"Oh!" He was silent a moment; then as if musing aloud, he murmured, "So
they mean to kick, do they?"

"Well, wouldn't you? This is the third time South Avenue Church has
asked for one partic'lar man and got a different fellow. It's time they
kicked, seems to me. I guess the bishop likes to lord it over the
churches and have his own way in things."

"Perhaps he thinks he knows best what kind of a man is needed in his
different charges."

"P'r'aps he does, but he made an awful bungle when he sent Dr. Glaves
down here,--that's sure."

"Possibly that was a mistake," replied her companion in a queer,
strained voice. "But no one is sorrier than the bishop himself when he
blunders."

"Then I sh'd think he would be more careful about giving us another
misfit. We are tired of 'em."

"Dr. Shumway is a man whom everyone loves," said the ministerial-looking
gentleman warmly.

"I'm glad of that, then; but I am sorry he is coming to South Avenue
Church just the same. He doesn't look as if he could stand being kicked
any more'n Papa could. Has he got any children?"

"Yes, five, I believe."

"Any my size?"

"I think his family is pretty well grown up, my girl."

"That's lucky, for if the church _should_ happen to wear him out like
they did Papa, why, his children could take care of themselves when he
died and not have to dig like we did, and fin'ly be adopted or else sent
to the poor farm."

The big man fidgeted in his pew and looked quite uncomfortable as the
relentless voice continued, "I sh'd hate to be a bishop and have such
things blamed onto me; but if the bishop hadn't _insisted_ on sending
Papa to that Pendennis Church when they had asked for someone else,
maybe he might be living with his family yet, instead of with the
angels."

"Who was your Papa?" the gruff voice gently asked.

"Peter Greenfield."

"Oh!"

"Did you know him?"

"Yes. Yes, indeed. He was one of my--I am the--I knew him well. He was a
good preacher and a splendid man. The Church suffered a great loss in
his death."

"His family suffered a worser one, 'cause Mamma got sick and then we had
two angels behind the Gates, and no one here to tell us what to do, and
Gail not eighteen."

"Tell me about it."

The missionary meeting had long since dissolved into several committee
meetings, and the hum of voices in the great auditorium drowned the
conversation in the dim recess at the rear of the room; but Peace had
entirely forgotten her surroundings, and without restraint she poured
out the simple story of her father's sacrifices in her concise, forceful
way, laying bare family secrets and relating with telling effect the
pathetic struggle of the six sisters left alone to face the battle with
the world.

"And then we came to live with Grandpa and Grandma Campbell," she
finished. "They are just like truly relations to us, but they can never
make up for our own father and mother, any more than we can really take
the place of their own little girls which died. Why, has the Conference
quit? Everybody's bustling all around the room now. I wonder where
Grandma went? Is it time to go home?"

"In a moment or two," replied the man, thoughtfully stroking his
smoothly-shaven chin. "Some of the committees are evidently still in
session."

"And I never looked at Allee's Album all the while I was here! I had to
come, else Grandma couldn't, 'cause the girls are all in school 'xcept
Hope, and she has gone to see the _iniquities_ at the Library. So I
brought this along to keep myself awake with, 'cause I thought it would
likely be a stupid, sleepy meeting today. They always are when a lot of
fat old ladies get to talking _ecstatics_,"--she meant statistics--"but
I've had a very nice time listening and watching those funny preachers;
and I'm glad you came along to talk to me--"

"Bishop Malthouse!" someone from the rostrum shouted.

The dignified gentleman rose hastily, stooped and kissed the white cheek
of the child, and departed after a hurried, "Sounds as if I was wanted."

At that moment Mrs. Campbell rustled up to the little recess where the
wheel-chair stood, glanced apprehensively at the figure reclining among
the cushions, and briskly asked, "Tired, dearie?"

"No, Grandma. I've had a lovely time. But who is that minister just
going up the aisle?"

Mrs. Campbell glanced over her shoulder. "Bishop Malthouse, dear."

"Bishop--!" Words failed her.

"Yes, the man who appoints the ministers of this Conference."

"O, Grandma! And I told him some dreadful things about himself. We've
been talking most of the afternoon."

Mrs. Campbell's heart smote her. "What did you say to him, girlie?"

Peace briefly recounted their conversation as she remembered it, and
sighed tragically, "I talk too much. Faith says I tell all I know to
everyone I meet."

"That little tongue of yours does run away with itself sometimes,"
replied the woman, dismayed at Peace's revelations; but perceiving how
distressed the child felt over her blunder, she forbore to chide her;
and in silence they wound their way homeward.

The President was late for dinner that night, but when he did arrive,
the whole family knew from his very step that he was the bearer of good
news.

"Grandpa's glad," sang Peace, as he hurried into the room and took his
place at the table.

"Did--have you been--?" began Mrs. Campbell, hesitatingly.

"To the Official Board Meeting?" he finished. "Yes, that is why I am so
late."

"The meeting was in regard to the new preacher?"

"Yes, and the bishop was there in person."

"Oh!" Seven pair of eyes regarded him expectantly.

"He very frankly stated his reasons for not wishing to send us Dr.
Atkinson, and why he thought Dr. Shumway was the man for the place. Then
he left us to decide which minister we would have."

"And you chose--?"

"Dr. Shumway--unanimously."

Involuntarily Mrs. Campbell glanced across the table toward Peace; and
that young lady, busy buttering a hot roll, paused long enough to remark
complacently, "I guess the bishop ain't as lordy as he looks, after all,
is he?"




CHAPTER X

THE NEW PASTOR OF SOUTH AVENUE CHURCH


"Marie, if that is anyone to see Grandma, show them in here, and tell
'em she will be back in a few minutes. Well, that's what she said to do
when she went out." For Marie had paused uncertainly on her way to
answer the doorbell, and eyed Peace skeptically.

"O, very well," retorted the maid crossly. "But mind your manners and be
a lady."

Before Peace could think of a suitable reply to that studied insult, the
girl had flung open the door and ushered in a very tall, angular person,
who at first sight seemed all arms and legs. But when one caught a
glimpse of his face, one straightway forgot all other characteristics,
for in rugged homeliness it would have been hard to surpass him, and yet
there was a striking kindliness of feature, a certain gentleness of eye
that instantly drew people to him, so that instinctively they knew him
to be their friend. Up into this face sulky Peace found herself staring,
as the tall figure crossed the parlor threshold, and came to meet her
with hand outstretched in greeting.

"How do you do?" a rich voice rumbled. "Are you the mistress of the
house today?"

"You're as homely as Abraham Lincoln," she gasped, scarcely aware that
she had spoken aloud. "In fact, you look very much like his
pictures,--as much as a gray, bald-headed, whiskerless man could look
like a black-bearded one."

"Thanks," he laughed genially. "That is the greatest compliment anyone
could pay me. I only wish I were as noble a man."

"We grow to be like our highest ideas," Peace answered primly, recalling
a little lecture she had received that morning. "You are Dr. Shumway,
ain't you? Pastor of South Avenue Church?"

"Yes, mademoiselle; and you are one of Dr. Campbell's granddaughters?"

"By adoption. My name is Peace Greenfield, and my father and real
grandfather were ministers in their time. That's why I am so much
interested in preachers. Have you any children?" she asked.

"Five," he answered, amused at the grown-up air she had assumed. "How
many are there of you?"

"Six. Four older'n me and just Allee younger. The bishop said he thought
all of yours were grown up. Are they?"

"We--ll, none of them are very small now. Pansy is the youngest, and she
is nearly fourteen."

"Pansy! Of all names! I s'pose she is as big as an elephant, ain't she?"

"She _is_ rather large for her age," acknowledged the surprised
minister, hardly knowing how to receive these candid remarks of his
youthful hostess.

"All the Pansies I ever knew were," sighed Peace. "I don't see why
people will name their biggest children Pansy."

"But how is one to tell how fat a child will be when it grows up?"
argued the puzzled man.

"It's never safe to name a baby Pansy. It's sure to be a whale. Besides,
Pansy isn't a pretty name for a _person_. It is all right for a flower,
but for a real live thing--well, ministers do have awfully queer notions
about pretty names, anyway. Are all your children girls?"

"No, only four. Keturah, Caroline, Penelope and Pansy."

"Mercy! What outrageous names! It is very plain that _you_ didn't go to
the Bible for your children, but you couldn't have done any worse if you
had."

"Why, child, what do you mean?" gasped the thoroughly uncomfortable
pastor, mentally deciding that this was the rudest specimen of humanity
that he had ever met in his life.

"Well, you see after my sister Gail was born and named after Mamma,
Grandpa came to stay with us and while he lived he took the job of
naming the rest of us,--all but Allee. He died before she came. But he
hunted out words from the Bible to call us, and they are all misfits but
Hope."

"Hope is a very pretty name," murmured the minister, somewhat
hesitatingly.

"Yes, and Hope is a very pretty girl, too. The name and the girl go
together all right in that case. But look at Faith and Cherry--her real
name is Charity--and me. Look at my name. There ain't a thing peaceful
about me. I seem bound to make a stir wherever I go, no matter how hard
I try to be good. It just ain't _in_ me to be quiet and keep my mouth
shut. Now, if Grandpa had waited till I grew up, he never would have
called me 'Peace.' Still, I'm glad he didn't call me 'Catarrh.' That's
outlandish. I thought that was something which ailed folks."

"Catarrh is," agreed Dr. Shumway, amusement supplanting the indignation
which he had felt welling up within him. "My girl's name is Keturah. We
call her Kitty--"

"Yes, I s'pose so. The girls named Kitty are always big and homely,
too."

"Well, our Kitty is neither big nor homely--"

"O, doesn't she look like you?"

He smiled grimly. "No," he answered. "She resembles her angel mother."

"Have you got an angel in your family, too?" Peace's brown eyes were
softly tender, and the busy minister suddenly loved the talkative little
sprite who was so very frank in her observations.

"Yes, two. The mother of my five children, and my only grandson,
Keturah's child."

"A baby?"

"Yes." His eyes sought the live embers in the great fireplace, and he
sat apparently lost in thought.

Peace sighed and was thoughtfully silent a moment; then as the pause
grew oppressive to her, she observed, "So Keturah's married."

The minister looked up startled, then smiled in amusement. "Yes, and
Caroline also, but Carrie has no children."

"Who keeps house for you if your wife is an angel and your biggest
children are married? Do they live with you still?"

"O, no. Both girls have homes of their own in other towns. My sister
Anne stays with us, and with the help of Penelope and Pansy manages the
house very well."

"What did you do with your boy? You haven't said a word about him yet."

"Dickson? O, he doesn't live at home any more, either. He is a doctor at
Danbury Hospital in Fairview. He is getting to be quite a remarkable
surgeon and we are all proud of him, I can tell you."

"How nice!" exclaimed Peace, glancing involuntarily at the slippered
feet resting on the cushioned stool of Dr. Campbell's great Morris
chair. "I wish we had a good doctor in our family. Then p'r'aps _he_
could make me walk again."

"Walk again!" Amazement, consternation showed in the minister's face,
and his eyes also sought the useless little feet on their cushion. "Why,
child," he whispered, all the pity and sympathy of his great heart
throbbing in his voice, "are _you_ lame?"

It seemed incredible, and yet he recalled now that all the while he had
sat there listening to her chatter, those gay slippers had not once
moved.

"Yes," Peace answered simply, surprised at his question. "Didn't you
know that before?"

He shook his head.

"I'll have to live in chairs all my life," she explained. "They _said_
maybe after a time I could have crutches, but it's my back that's hurt
and crutches won't be much good to me, I guess. I _clum_ a roof and
fell--oh, months and months ago."

Briefly she recounted the unlucky adventure and the sad, weary days that
had followed, while the preacher listened spell-bound,--shocked at the
sorrowful tale.

When she had finished, his quivering lips whispered tenderly, "Poor
little girl!" and two great tears stole down his rugged cheeks.

Peace was deeply touched at this unusual display of sympathy, and laying
her thin little hand on his knee, she said softly, "I love you." There
was a pause. Then before Dr. Shumway could think of any appropriate
words in which to voice his turbulent thoughts, the crippled girl
abruptly exclaimed, "Why, do you know, you've got eyes like my cat!"

The reverend gentleman fairly bounced from his chair in his
astonishment. "Eyes like your c--cat!" he stuttered.

"Yes," Peace calmly answered. "One brown and one blue. I've been
watching you ever since you came in, trying to make out why you looked
so queer, and now I know,--it's your eyes. Does it feel any different
having two colors instead of one?"

"N--o," he managed to reply, still staring with fascinated eyes at the
child in the chair opposite.

"Well, I should think it would," she began, but at that moment there was
a brisk step on the wide veranda, the front door opened and Mrs.
Campbell entered.

Dr. Shumway rose to meet her, and Peace's interview with the new pastor
of South Avenue Church was at an end.

But the face of the small cripple haunted the minister, her pathetic
story lingered in his mind, and he found himself constantly thinking of
the long, weary years of helpless waiting stretching out before her.

"O, it can't be," he protested over and over again. "She was never meant
for a life like that! Activity is written all over her. She is right
when she says she can't keep quiet. What wonderful good such energy
could accomplish if trained in the right direction! I wonder if
Dickson--I believe I will write him. No, it would be better for him to
see her first without having heard anything about the case. How can we
bring it to pass?"

Straightway he began to plan how he might carry out a certain scheme
which was gradually taking shape in his brain, until at length a
practicable idea at last presented itself and he broached the subject to
the other members of his household.

They were seated at the dinner table one night when he casually
observed to his two youngest daughters, "Girls, what do you think of a
Christmas party at the parsonage this year? Can we manage one?"

"A Christmas party!" gasped both girls in dismay.

Even his sister Anne stared at him aghast.

"Well, why not?" he inquired, when no one ventured an explanation of the
family's evident consternation.

"I don't know how to entertain," wailed Pansy. "I'm too clumsy."

"We are hardly settled here," ventured sister Anne deprecatingly.

"Keturah is coming home for Christmas," whispered Penelope.

"So are Dick and Carrie," said the preacher briskly. "We all will be
together once again and I want my whole family to meet the young folks
of my new flock. What if we aren't in apple-pie order? We'll be less so
by the time the party is over, I'll wager. As for Kitty,--I think we
better plan for our Christmas party."

"That settles it," whispered Pansy to the youngest sister, as her father
began to discuss some household problem with his sister. "But I'll bet
he's got some pet scheme up his sleeve. His party isn't just to
introduce us,--you see."

Penelope was shrewd in her observations and knew her father like a book,
but she did not guess his secret, nor was she particularly curious this
time. She did not want a Christmas party at the parsonage. It meant so
much work and clutter. Besides, it was so much nicer to have just a
little family gathering, such as they were accustomed to each year.
There would be Kitty and Ed, Carrie and Phil, and Dick.--Dickson was
still unmarried.--That would make five extra in the little family, and
five people were a plenty to plan for, without having a party. But then,
what was the use of objecting? Her father had said party, and a party
there would be. The only thing to do was to make the best of it and plan
the most unique program the brains of the whole household could devise.
So Aunt Anne, Penelope and Pansy set to work.

True to his convictions, Dr. Shumway wrote nothing of his plans to his
son, nor did he once mention his hopes to the distracted Campbell
family, although he had skilfully managed that his son's professional
reputation should reach the ears of them all. To be doubly sure that his
pet scheme should not fail, he gave Peace a personal invitation to
attend his Christmas party, and made several visits to the Campbell home
apparently to discuss his plans with members of that household, while in
reality his object was to rouse the invalid's curiosity and interest so
she would be sure to join the merrymakers at the parsonage on that night
of nights. Then Dickson could not fail to meet her and their
acquaintance would come about naturally. He could not feel that Dr.
Coates and the specialists had really found the seat of the trouble
yet, but Dickson would know if there was any hope for the little
sufferer. Dickson,--stalwart, genial, gentle Dickson,--his boy,--his boy
would know.

So it was with great eagerness that he looked forward to the Christmas
party, for Peace had solemnly promised to be there in her wheel-chair,
and it was hard to refrain from telling the whole story to his boy
before the time was ripe.

But when at last the night arrived, Peace was not among the guests who
thronged the gayly decorated parsonage. The old-time pain had come back,
and she lay white and spent upon her bed in the Flag Room, watching with
anguish in her heart while the other sisters made ready for the
festivities. They had demurred at leaving her. It seemed so selfish to
go and enjoy themselves when she must stay behind and suffer, but she
had insisted.

"Because I can't go to the _pastorage_ myself isn't any reason why you
should stick at home, too," she told them. "Besides, I want to know all
about it, and it takes the whole family to see _everything_."

"What in the world do you mean?" they chorused.

And she explained, "Well, Gail remembers the speeches and what folks say
just to each other. Faith hears only the music. Hope sees the pretty
things folks wear. Cherry tells what they had to eat, and Allee fills up
the chinks."

They laughed merrily at the small invalid's powers of discernment, and
were finally persuaded to attend the party which was barred to her. So
they donned their daintiest dresses, robbed the greenhouse for their
adornment, kissed the little sister fondly and hurried away into the
night. Peace listened to the sound of their footsteps crunching through
the hard-packed snow, until the last echo died away. Then turning her
face to the wall, she gave way to a flood of bitter tears.

"Why, darling," cried the watchful Mrs. Campbell, kneeling beside the
sobbing child and striving to soothe and comfort her, "what is the
matter? Did you want to go so badly?"

"No, no, it ain't that," poor Peace hiccoughed, burying her head on the
grandmotherly shoulder. "But I thought I was 'most well, and now the
hurt has begun again. I ain't crying 'cause the girls have gone, truly.
It's just that dreadful ache in my back. O, Grandma, am I going to be
like my Lilac Lady after all? She had well days when she could read and
sew; and then there were times when the pain was so bad that she
couldn't bear to see folks at all. I don't want to die, but oh, Grandma,
how can I stand that awful ache?"

"O God," prayed the woman's heart, torn with agony at the sight of her
darling's suffering, "help us to make it easier for her."

And as if in answer to her petition, there was a step on the stair, and
a big, stalwart, fur-coated figure stood unannounced in the doorway.
Mrs. Campbell rose hurriedly to her feet and confronted the stranger.
What right had he in her house? How came he there?

He smiled reassuringly at her look of alarm, and something in his
boyish face made Peace exclaim, "You look like Pansy Shumway, though
you're not so fat and homely."

At that, he laughed outright. "It's because I am her brother, I expect,"
he answered simply.

"O, are you Dr. Dick?" she cried eagerly.

"Yes," he replied. "They told me you could not come to our party, so I
have brought the party to you,--a bit of it, at least."

Fishing into the depths of his great pockets, he brought forth a
marvelous array of cakes, candies, nuts and pop-corn, finally producing
what looked to be a scarlet carnation in a tiny plantpot of rich loam,
but upon investigation Peace found that her little nosegay was merely a
flower thrust into a mound of chocolate ice-cream; and her delight made
her forget her pain for a moment.

"You're a reg'lar Santy Claus," she giggled. "Did you come down the
chimbley? I never heard the door bell."

"O, I met Prexy on the steps and he told me where to find you, so I came
right up without further invitation." He did not add that for more than
an hour he had been closeted with Dr. Campbell in the parsonage study,
where the anxious President had sought him to learn if there could be
any hope for their little Peace.

"I s'pose the door is a safer way of getting into houses than falling
down chimbleys would be," said the girl, pleased with her own fancies.
"But it would have seemed a little realer if you had tumbled out of the
fireplace. Where is your pack, and what have you brought for me?"

"What would you like best?" he parried, studying the drawn face among
the pillows.

"O, let me see--A new back, I guess," she sighed ruefully, as a sharp
twinge of pain recalled her to her surroundings and caused her to writhe
in agony, "and a pair of legs to match. You are a sure-enough doctor,
ain't you? Can't you mend me up again? The other doctors' job didn't
last very long."

"Perhaps if you will let me rub the little back--"

"O, I can't bear to have a doctor touch it!" she shuddered. "They always
make it hurt worse."

"I'll be very careful," he promised, "and if it hurts, I'll stop right
away."

Still she hesitated.

"'F I could just go to sleep," she sighed. "I'm so tired."

"You will go to sleep if you will let me rub the back a little."

She looked incredulous, but another stinging pain brought the tears to
her eyes, and she cried pitifully, "Yes, oh, yes,--just rub me now. It
does hurt so bad I can't help crying, and you don't look as if you liked
to poke people to pieces."

"It is my business to put people together again," he said gravely,
turning the pain-racked little body with deft hands, all the while
keeping up a lively chatter to amuse the small sufferer. So light was
his touch, so sympathetic his personality, that very soon the tense
muscles began to relax, the drawn lines in the childish face gradually
smoothed themselves away, and the brown eyes grew heavy with sleep.

Realizing that the Santa Claus stranger had kept his promise, Peace
murmured drowsily, as she felt herself drifting away to slumberland,
"You are a good doctor, Dr. Dick. I'll hire you the next time I fall off
a roof. I b'lieve you could have mended me up if you'd had first
chance."

"Please God, it may not be too late now," he muttered under his breath,
and stole softly from the room to report his convictions to Dr.
Campbell, who was waiting in the hall below.




CHAPTER XI

DOCTOR DICK


It was Christmas Day, but the Campbell house was very still. All sounds
of revelry and mirth were hushed, for Peace, worn out by her long
struggle with pain, had wakened only long enough to view the many gifts
heaped about her cot, and then sleep had claimed her again. So the two
younger girls had been despatched to the Hill Street parsonage, where
St. John and Elspeth were having a Christmas tree for Glen and tiny
Bessie; and the three older sisters settled down to a quiet day at home,
refusing all invitations from their many friends, because of a nameless
fear that tugged at each breast, a feeling that perhaps they might be
needed before the day was done.

It had been such a strange day, so un-Christmas-like, so uncanny. All
the long hours through, they had scarcely caught a glimpse of Dr. or
Mrs. Campbell. Dr. Coates had made repeated trips to the house, the
minister's son had spent several hours in the President's study, the
minister himself had been there a time or two, but through it all no one
had come to tell them what it was about, and Peace had slept wearily on.

Then as the winter twilight gathered over the city, Gussie appeared to
summon them to the library below, but she could not answer their eager
questions, for she knew no more than they; and each girl looked at the
others with apprehensive eyes, as each heart whispered, "It can't be
that we have lost her,--that she is dead instead of sleeping." So with
quaking limbs they hurried to the dimly-lighted study where the haggard
President and his wife awaited them.

"What do you think about another operation for Peace?" Dr. Campbell
began, with distraught abruptness.

Three hearts beat wildly with relief. She was still alive!

"Is there no other hope?" Gail implored.

He shook his head.

"Will a second operation give her a chance?" Hope eagerly questioned.

"A fighting chance, we think."

"And without the operation--will she die?" asked Faith.

"She will suffer as her Lilac Lady suffered and go as she went. Perhaps
in five years, perhaps in ten. Perhaps--one will tell the story."

A deep silence fell upon them. Mrs. Campbell sat with her head buried in
her arms, and from the occasional convulsive shiver of her shoulders,
they knew that she was crying. Was the situation then so desperate?

"Who will operate?" Hope's low-voiced question sounded like the notes of
a trumpet through the stillness of the room.

"Dr. Shumway--"

"The minister's son?"

"Yes."

"But he is so young!"

"He has made a marvelous name for himself already as a children's
surgeon. He seldom loses a case."

"But--but he is a physician in Fairview, is he not?" asked Gail in
worried tones.

"Yes, that is where the rub comes. I thought perhaps if we offered him
enough money he might operate here in Martindale and be with her through
the worst of it at least, before returning to his work in Fairview, but
he can't see his way clear. He wants to take her back with him--"

"O, that would be dreadful," the girls broke in. "Supposing she
should--_die_--there all alone!"

"She wouldn't be alone," the President explained. "Mother and I would
go, too."

"But the University--doesn't it take _months_ for a patient to get well
after such an operation?" protested Faith.

"Yes, but we would not stay until she had entirely recovered; only long
enough to be sure all was well, and then--"

"I would go," said Gail simply.

"Wouldn't I do?" asked Hope. "This is Gail's last year at the
University, and she can't graduate if she loses a whole term."

"Peace is worth dozens of terms," Gail answered softly. "Besides, I am
the oldest, and Mother left her in my care. It is my place to go."

"But we haven't decided yet whether or not Peace herself is going to
Fairview," Faith reminded them.

"That's so," agreed Dr. Campbell. "What is your wish in the matter?"

"It seems to me we _have_ decided," suggested Gail. "We want to do
everything we can for her, and if you think there is a--a chance--"

"Does she know?" interrupted Faith.

"Not yet."

"Then why not leave the decision with her?"

The President shook his head. "She is too young to know what is best for
her, and we cannot raise false hopes in her heart. She has suffered too
much already to be disappointed again--should the operation fail to
accomplish the desired results."

"But how are you going to get her to Fairview without her knowing?" Hope
frowned in bewilderment.

"O, she will have to know about the operation, but not what we hope will
result. Hark! Don't I hear her calling?"

Just then the library door opened behind them, and Marie announced young
Dr. Shumway.

"Right on time," said the President, consulting his watch, "and your
patient is just now awake. Will you tell her, doctor? We have decided to
take the chance, but think you will make a better job of breaking the
news to her."

"Very well," replied the doctor promptly, not pausing to meet the other
members of the family. "I'll go right on up."

So he mounted the stairs to the Flag Room, wondering how he should
broach the subject to the small maid soon to become his patient, but she
gave him no chance for speech, for the instant she saw him bending over
her, she exclaimed, "I dreamed about you last night,--the queerest
dream!"

"You did! Well now, isn't that strange! I dreamed about you, too."

"O, tell me your dream," she commanded, delighted at his words.

"You first, my girl. Then you shall hear mine."

"Well, I thought I was on a hard, hard bed in the middle of a great, big
room, and all around the room were rows and rows of shelves, just like
the pickle closet in our Parker cellar. They were empty at first, but
just as I was beginning to wonder what they were all for, I noticed a
funny little hump-backed man sitting in one corner, dangling his legs
over the edge of the shelf, and when I asked him who he was, he said he
was one of my naughties. I didn't know what he meant, so he 'xplained
that he was the bad spirit inside of me, which painted Mr. Hardman's
barn once when I got mad at him. Then all of a sudden, I saw that the
shelves were full,--just plumb full of people. Some were little and
ugly, like the hump-back, and some were big and beautiful. The big ones
were the goodies I had done. There was the time I sang for the
hand-organ man, and the time I gave my circus money to the miss'nary,
and the time I took the sick monkey home, and the time I carried
pansies to my Lilac Lady, and--oh, crowds of 'em. But I 'most believe
there were more naughties than goodies like Faith's State Fair cake
which I spoiled, and the faces I made at old Skinflint when he wouldn't
let us pick raspberries and all the times I bothered Grandpa by giving
away my own and other folks's junk. O, I could see them all piled up on
those shelves, and I began to cry about it, when who should come into
the room but you and what do you s'pose you did, Dr. Dick?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," he confessed. "Tell me quickly."

"You fished a pair of wooden legs out of your pocket and laid them on
the bed, and when I asked you what they were for, you said you had
brought them for me, so I could get up and chase the naughties away, to
leave more room for the goodies."

"And did you do it?" the doctor gravely inquired as the story-teller
ceased abruptly.

"I don't know," she answered wistfully. "I woke up just then. That's
always the way,--you never find out anything from a dream."

"Well, I think I must have finished up your dream for you," said the
doctor musingly, "for in my dream I was back at my old job in the
hospital and I found the head nurse making up a bed in one of the little
rooms one day. The _head_ nurse, mind you, who has altogether too many
things to attend to without making up beds. So I asked her what she
thought she was doing, and she said there was a little girl in the
office downstairs, who wanted a new pair of legs, and she was getting
the room ready so we could mend this child right away. So I went off to
see if I could find some nice, strong legs for the little girl, and when
I came back she was lying in the bed, and I was surprised to discover
that I knew her. Who do you suppose it was?"

"I s'pose you _dreamed_ it was me," said Peace, not much impressed by
the narrative, which sounded quite flat and tame to her.

"Yes," said the doctor, somewhat disconcerted by her lack of interest.
"I dreamed it was you. How do you think you would like to make the dream
come true?"

"How?" she asked, a little startled at the suggestion.

"By going to the hospital and having another operation--"

"O, I'm tired of being cut up," she interrupted wearily. "I had one
operation already, and the pain came back just the same, even if we did
hire some old doctors which had been in the business for ages and ages."

"Well, I am not a graybeard," Dr. Shumway assented, "but I think I could
help the little back some, anyway."

"Would _you_ do the operating?" The big brown eyes opened wide in
surprise.

"Sure. Why not?"

"Yon don't look as if you knew enough."

The doctor gasped.

"Well, I mean you haven't got any white hair and wrinkles," Peace
explained, perceiving that she had said something amiss. "You look as if
you hadn't been a man for a very long time. But p'r'aps you know more
than folks would think. Have you talked to Grandpa about it?"

"Yes, and he is willing to take the chance if you are."

"Well, that's something,--from him. It was ever so long before he would
let Dr. Coates operate. You must know your business or he'd never have
said yes. When will it happen?" she asked.

"In a couple of days or so--"

"_That_ soon?"

"The sooner the better. Well leave here tomorrow for Fairview--"

"O, do I have to go away for it?" The great eyes looked startled and
half fearful.

"Yes, to Danbury Hospital in Fairview, and--"

"O, then I'll go, sure!" She clapped her thin hands gleefully. "I always
did want to see the insides of a hospital. I've often visited one, but
never had to live there a day, for they operated on me at home before.
Mercy, I'm having a lot of 'xperiences, ain't I? Here comes Grandpa now,
and the rest of the bunch. Hello, folkses! Guess what's going to happen!
I'm going to Fairview Hospital tomorrow in Danbury, and be cut to pieces
again. Dr. Dick is to do the operation. I b'lieve he knows enough, even
if he ain't a _gray-back_; and _he_ thinks he can stop the hurting, so
it won't come back any more. That's worth trying for, ain't it?"

"But tomorrow--" gasped the girls. "Is it to be that soon?"

"We ought to leave here tomorrow," explained Dr. Shumway. "The operation
will take place as soon after that as we can get her rested up for it."

"Then it is all settled!" sighed the President in relief, and a great
burden seemed lifted from his shoulders. Somehow, the strong, earnest
face of the young doctor inspired confidence and courage in the hearts
of others, and they could not but feel that all would go well with their
little invalid.

So they departed the next day for Fairview,--the President and his wife,
Dr. Shumway and his patient,--and a few days later Peace found herself
lying on the operating table in a great, white room of the hospital,
with white-capped nurses flitting noiselessly about, and white-gowned
doctors passing to and fro.

"It's like my dream," she whispered. "Only there aren't any shelves
filled with goods and bads.--Well, Dr. Dick, if you aren't a fright! I
never should have known you if you hadn't spoken. You look like the
pictures in our Sunday School lessons of how they used to bury folks in
the Bible, with that nightgown on and all that white stuff over your
head. It's rather 'propriate, though, for this room looks like a
_car-slop-egus_. Isn't that what you call the graves they used to put
people in?"

"Sarcophagus," suggested the doctor, only the twinkle of his deep blue
eyes betraying his amusement. "That is a casket of stone. Is that what
you mean?"

"Yes, I guess so, though I thought it was a room hacked out of the side
of a hill where they stuck folks when they died, instead of putting them
in graves like we do. Where is the man which is going to give me the
_antiseptic_?"

"Right here, my girl," chuckled a deep voice on the other side of her,
and she looked up into the eyes of a second white-swathed figure,
already beginning to adjust the anaesthetizer over her head. "Now don't
be afraid. Just take a deep, deep breath--"

"I know all about it," she interrupted. "I've been through this same
performance once before. That stuff hasn't changed its smell a bit,
either. Are you all ready? Well, then, good-night. If Dr. Dick don't
know his business, I 'xpect I'm a goner."

The bright eyes drooped shut, the childish voice trailed off into
silence, and the little patient slept while the skillful surgeons mended
the bruised back and useless limbs.




CHAPTER XII

MISS WAYNE


Peace awoke to find herself lying in a narrow iron bed, drawn close
beside a window, through which she could see clouds of great, feathery
snow-flakes swirling lazily, softly downwards; and not remembering where
she was or how she came to be there, she murmured half aloud, "The
angels seem to be shedding their feathers pretty lively today, don't
they?"

"What did you say?" asked a strange voice from somewhere in the
background, and a sweet face framed in glossy black hair bent over her.

"Maybe it's heaven after all," mused Peace to herself, "though I should
think they would have dec'rations on the walls of heaven, 'nstead of
leaving 'em naked." Then she spoke aloud, surprised at the effort it
cost her, "Are you a dead nurse?"

"Do I look very dead?" questioned the strange voice again, and the face
above her broke into a rare smile.

"Well, then, how did you get to heaven?"

"This isn't heaven, dear. You are in Danbury Hospital. Have you
forgotten?"

"O, that's so. I remember now. It's nice to know you ain't an angel."

The nurse laughed outright. "Yes, I'm glad, too, for I want to live a
long time. The world is full of so many things I want to see."

"That's me, too, but I thought I was dead sure this time."

"No, dear, you are very much alive and are going to get well."

"That's good, but what's the matter? I can't get my breath."

"It's the ether, childie. You will be all right soon, but you must not
talk now. Just rest. Sleep if you can, so you can visit with Grandfather
and Grandmother Campbell. They are anxious to see you."

Meanwhile, downstairs in the office of the great hospital, the President
and his wife had sat like statues through all those interminable minutes
which were to tell the story of whether the little life was to be spared
or sacrificed. Vaguely they heard the bustle of busy nurses, vaguely
they saw the doctors hurrying in and out about their duties; but not
once did either man or woman move from the great chairs in which they
sat. Sometimes it seemed to the matron and head-nurse, who occasionally
passed that way, as if both had been turned to stone, so fixed was their
gaze, so rigid their bodies. But in reality neither had ever been more
keenly alive. Each heart was reviewing with painful accuracy the two
short years that had gone since the little band of orphans had come to
live with them. How much had happened in that time, and how dearly they
had come to love each one of the sisters!

"I could not care more for them if they were my own," whispered Mrs.
Campbell to herself.

"They are like my own flesh and blood," thought the President.

"I know a mother is not supposed to have favorites among her children,"
mused Mrs. Campbell, half guiltily, "but there is something about Peace
which makes her seem just a little the dearest to me."

"They are all such lovable girls," the President told himself, "but
somehow I can't help liking Peace a little the best. Everyone does. I
wonder why."

So they sat there side by side in the great hospital and pondered,
waiting for the verdict from the white room above them.

Suddenly Dr. Shumway stood before them. "It is all over," he began,
smiling cheerfully. "She will--"

"All over," whispered Mrs. Campbell, and fainted quite away.

When she opened her eyes again, the young doctor was bending over her,
chafing her hands, and she heard his remorseful voice saying, "My dear
Mrs. Campbell, you misunderstood me. The operation was successful. The
little one will live."

"Ah, yes, I know," sighed the woman. "But it was such a relief to know
the ordeal was ended that I couldn't bear the joy of the news. I am all
right now. When can we see our girl?"

Quickly the good news was flashed over the wires to the anxious hearts
in Martindale, "Operation successful. Peace will walk again." And great
was the rejoicing everywhere.

Only Peace herself seemed undisturbed, taking everything as a matter of
course, obeying the nurse's orders, and asking no questions concerning
her own welfare, though she asked enough about other people's affairs to
make up, and soon became a source of unending amusement to the hospital
attendants, who made every excuse imaginable to talk with this dear
little, queer little patient in her room.

Peace was in her element. Nothing suited her quite so well as to make
new friends, and she was delighted at the interest the busy nurses and
doctors displayed in her case. "Why, Miss Wayne," she sighed
ecstatically one day when she had been in the hospital for a month, "I
know the name of every nurse and doctor in this building, and pretty
near all the patients. The only trouble with them is they change so
often I really can't get much acquainted before they go home. I'm just
wild to get into that wheel-chair which Dr. Dick has promised me as soon
as I get strong enough; for then I can go visiting the other sick folks,
can't I? Dr. Dick says I can, and I'm crazy to see what they look like.
I can't tell very well from what the nurses sa

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