Carolyn of the Corners
by Ruth Belmore Endicott · English · Gutenberg #37015 · 412,814 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Carolyn of the Corners
Author: Ruth Belmore Endicott
Illustrator: Edward C. Caswell
Release date: August 9, 2011 [eBook #37015]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37015
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Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAROLYN OF THE CORNERS ***
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: "Mandy! Mandy!" he murmured over and over again (Page
119)]
_THE "LOOK UP" BOOK_
CAROLYN OF THE
CORNERS
BY
RUTH BELMORE ENDICOTT
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
EDWARD C. CASWELL
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1918
Copyright, 1918
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
First and second editions printed
before date of publication
Third edition printed February 1, 1918
Fourth edition printed February 14, 1918
Fifth Printing February 16, 1918
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Ray of Sunlight 1
II An Old-Fashioned Rose 12
III Going to Bed 22
IV "Well-She'll Be a Nuisance" 33
V Aunty Rose Unbends 40
VI Mr. Jedidiah Parlow 48
VII A Tragic Situation 61
VIII Mr. Stagg is Judged 72
IX Prince Awakens the Corners 83
X A Sunday Walk 101
XI A Canine Intervention 112
XII Chet Gormley Tells Some News 120
XIII Breaking Through 140
XIV A Find in the Drifts 150
XV The Old Sailor 161
XVI A Salt-Sea Flavour 168
XVII Will Wonders Never Cease? 177
XVIII Something Carolyn May Wishes to Know 188
XIX A Good Deal of Excitement 200
XX The Spring Freshet 210
XXI The Chapel Bell 224
XXII Chet Gormley's Ambition 234
XXIII How to Write a Sermon 244
XXIV The Awakening 254
XXV The Forest Fire 267
XXVI The Laurel to the Brave 275
XXVII "Two's Company" 290
XXVIII The Journey 297
XXIX The Homing of Carolyn May 307
XXX The House of Bewilderment 313
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Mandy! Mandy!" he murmured over and over again (Page 119)
Frontispiece
She had watched the huge vessel sweep off from the dock 74
"Do people that get drownd-ed feel much pain?" 196
"You aren't mad at each other any more, are you?" 280
CAROLYN OF THE CORNERS
CHAPTER I--THE RAY OF SUNLIGHT
Just as the rays of the afternoon sun hesitated to enter the open door
of Joseph Stagg's hardware store in Sunrise Cove, and lingered on the
sill, so the little girl in the black frock and hat, with twin braids of
sunshiny hair on her shoulders, hovered at the entrance of the dim and
dusty place.
She carried a satchel in one hand, while the fingers of the other were
hooked into the rivet-studded collar of a mottled, homely mongrel dog,
who likewise looked curiously into the dusky interior of Mr. Stagg's
shop, and whose abbreviated tail quivered expectantly.
"Oh, dear me, Prince!" sighed the little girl, "this must be the place.
We'll just _have_ to go in. Of course, I know he must be a nice man; but
he's _such_ a stranger!"
She sighed again; but Prince whined eagerly. He seemed much more
sanguine of a welcome than did his mistress. Her feet faltered over the
doorsill and paced slowly down the shop between the long counters, each
step slower than its predecessor.
She saw no clerk; only the littered counters, the glass-enclosed
showcases, the low bins of nails and bolts on either hand, and the high
shelves filled with innumerable boxes, on the end of each of which was a
sample piece of hardware.
At the back of the shop was a small office closed in with grimy windows.
There was not much light there. The uncertain visitor and her canine
companion saw the shadowy figure of a man inside the office, sitting on
a high stool and bent above a big ledger.
The dog, however, scented something else. The hair on his neck began to
bristle, and he sniffed inquiringly.
In the half darkness of the shop he and his little mistress came
unexpectedly upon what Prince considered his arch-enemy. There rose up
on the end of the counter nearest the open office door a big, black
tom-cat whose arched back, swollen tail, and yellow eyes blazing
defiance, proclaimed his readiness to give battle to the quivering dog.
"Ps-s-st--ye-ow!"
The rising yowl broke the silence of the shop like a trumpet-call. The
little girl dropped her bag and seized the dog's collar with both hands.
"Prince!" she cried, "don't you speak to that cat--don't you _dare_ speak
to it!"
The dog quivered all over in an ague of desire. The instincts of the
chase possessed his doggish soul, but his little mistress' word was law
to him.
"Bless me!" croaked a voice from the office.
The tom-cat uttered a second "ps-s-st--ye-ow!" and shot up a ladder to
the top shelf, from which vantage he looked down, showering insults on
his enemy in a low and threatening tone.
"Bless me!" repeated Joseph Stagg, taking off his eyeglasses and leaving
them in the ledger to mark his place. "What have you brought that dog in
here for?"
He came to the office door. Without his glasses, and with the girl
standing between him and the light, Mr. Stagg squinted a little to see
her, stooping, with his hands on his knees.
"I--I didn't have any place to leave him," was the hesitating reply to
the rather petulant query.
"Hum! Did your mother send you for something?"
"No-o, sir," sighed the little visitor.
"Your father wants something, then?" questioned the puzzled hardware
dealer.
"No-o, sir."
At that moment a more daring ray of sunlight found its way through the
transom over the store door and lit up the dusky place. It fell upon the
slight, black-frocked figure and, for the instant, touched the pretty
head as with an aureole.
"Bless me, child!" exclaimed Mr. Stagg. "Who are you?"
The flowerlike face of the little girl quivered, the blue eyes spilled
big drops over her cheeks. She approached Mr. Stagg, stooping and
squinting in the office doorway, and placed a timid hand upon the broad
band of black crêpe he wore on his coat sleeve.
"You're not Hannah's Car'lyn?" questioned the hardware dealer huskily.
"I'm Car'lyn May Cameron," she confessed. "You're my Uncle Joe. I'm very
glad to see you, Uncle Joe, and--and I hope--you're glad to see me--and
Prince," she finished rather falteringly.
"Bless me!" murmured the man again, leaning for support against the door
frame.
Nothing so startling as this had entered Sunrise Cove's chief "hardware
emporium," as Mr. Stagg's standing advertisement read in the _Weekly
Bugle_, for many and many a year.
Hannah Stagg, the hardware merchant's only sister, had gone away from
home quite fifteen years previously. Mr. Stagg had never seen Hannah
again; but this slight, blue-eyed, sunny-haired girl was a replica of
his sister, and in some dusty corner of Mr. Stagg's heart there dwelt a
very faithful memory of Hannah.
Nothing had served to estrange the brother and sister save time and
distance. Hannah had been a patient correspondent, and Joseph Stagg had
always acknowledged the receipt of her letters in a business-like way,
if with brevity.
"Dear Hannah:
"Yours of the 12th inst. to hand and contents noted. Glad to learn
of your continued good health and that of your family, this leaving
me in the same condition.
"Yours to command,
"J. Stagg."
The hardware merchant was fully as sentimental as the above letter
indicated. If there were drops now in his eyes as he stooped and
squinted at his little niece, it was because the sunlight was shining in
his face and interfered for the moment with his vision.
"Hannah's Car'lyn," muttered Mr. Stagg again. "Bless me, child! how did
you get here from New York?"
"On the cars, uncle." Carolyn May was glad he asked that question
instead of saying anything just then about her mother and father.
"You see, Mr. Price thought I'd better come. He says you are my
guardian--it's in papa's will, and would have been so in mamma's will, if
she'd made one. Mr. Price put me on the train and the conductor took
care of me. Only, I rode 'most all the way with Prince in the baggage
car. You see, he howled so."
Mr. Stagg looked askance at the dog, that yawned, smiled at him, and
cocked his cropped ears.
"Who is Mr. Price?" the storekeeper asked.
"He's a lawyer. He and his family live in the flat right across the hall
from us. He's written you a long letter about it. It's in my bag. Didn't
you get the telegram he sent you last evening, Uncle Joe? A 'night
letter,' he called it."
"Never got it," replied Mr. Stagg shortly.
"Well, you see, when papa and mamma had to go away so suddenly, they
left me with the Prices. I go to school with Edna Price, and she slept
with me at night in our flat--after the _Dunraven_ sailed."
"But--but what did this lawyer send you up here for?" asked Mr. Stagg,
still with an eye on the dog.
The question was a poser, and Carolyn May stammered: "I--I--Don't
guardians _always_ take their little girls home and look out for them?"
"Hum, I don't know." The hardware merchant mused grimly. "But if your
father left a will--However, I suppose I shall learn all about it in that
lawyer's letter."
"Oh, yes, sir!" the child said, hastily turning to open the bag. But he
interposed:
"We'll wait about that, Car'lyn May. I--I guess we'd better go up to The
Corners and see what Aunty Rose has to say about it. You understand, I
couldn't really keep you if she says 'No!'"
"Oh, Uncle Joe! couldn't you?"
"No," he declared, wagging his head decidedly. "And what she'll say to
that dog----"
"Oh" Carolyn May cried again, and put both arms suddenly about the neck
of her canine friend.
"Prince is just the _best_ dog, Uncle Joe. He never quarrels, and he's
almost always got a pleasant smile. He's a universal fav'rite."
Prince yawned again, showing two perfect rows of wolflike teeth. Mr.
Stagg cast a glance upward at the perturbed tom-cat.
"I can see he's a favourite with old Jimmy," he said with added
grimness.
It must be confessed that Carolyn May was nervous about Prince. She was
eager to explain.
"You see, we've had him a dreadfully long time. Papa and I were taking a
walk on a Sunday morning. We 'most always did, for that's all the time
papa had away from his work. And we walked down towards the Harlem
River--and what do you _s'pose_, Uncle Joe? A man was carrying Prince--he
was just a little puppy, not long got over being blind. And the man was
going to drown him!"
"Well," said Mr. Stagg reflectively, still eyeing the dog, "it could not
have been his beauty that saved him from a watery grave."
"Oh, uncle! I think he's real beautiful, even if he is a mongorel,"
sighed Carolyn May. "Anyway, papa bought him from the man for a quarter,
and Prince has been mine ever since."
Mr. Stagg shook his head doubtfully. Then he went into the office and
shut the big ledger into the safe. After locking the safe door, he
slipped the key into his trousers pocket, and glanced around the store.
"I'd like to know where that useless Gormley boy is now. If I ever
happen to want him," muttered Mr. Stagg, "he ain't in sight nor sound.
And if I don't want him, he's right under foot."
"Chet! Hey! you Chet!"
To Carolyn May's amazement and to the utter mystification of Prince, a
section of the floor under their feet began to rise.
"Oh, mercy me!" squealed the little girl, and she hopped off the
trapdoor; but the dog uttered a quick, threatening growl, and put his
muzzle to the widening aperture.
"Hey! call off that dog!" begged a muffled voice from under the
trapdoor. "He'll eat me up, Mr. Stagg."
"Lie down, Prince!" commanded Carolyn May hastily. "It's only a boy. You
know you _like_ boys, Prince," she urged.
"I sh'd think he did like 'em. Likes to eat 'em, don't he?" drawled the
lanky, flaxen-haired youth who gradually came into view through the
opening trap. "Hey, Mr. Stagg, don't they call dogs 'man's cayenne
friend'? And there sure is some pep to this one. You got a tight hold on
his collar, sissy?"
"Come on up out o' that cellar, Chet. I'm going up to The Corners with
my little niece--Hannah's Car'lyn. This is Chetwood Gormley. If he ever
stops growin' longitudinally, mebbe he'll be a man some day, and not a
giant. You stay right here and tend store while I'm gone, Chet."
Carolyn May could not help feeling some surprise at the finally revealed
proportions of Chetwood Gormley. He was lathlike and gawky, with very
prominent upper front teeth, which gave a sort of bow-window appearance
to his wide mouth. But there was a good-humoured twinkle in the
overgrown boy's shallow eyes; and, if uncouth, he was kind.
"I'm proud to know ye, Car'lyn," he said. He stepped quickly out of the
way of Prince when the latter started for the front of the store. "Just
whisper to your cayenne friend that I'm one of the family, will you?"
"Oh, Prince wouldn't bite," laughed the little girl gaily.
"Then he's got a lot of perfectly useless teeth, hasn't he?" suggested
Chetwood.
"Oh, no----" commenced the little girl.
"Come on, now," said Mr. Stagg with some impatience, and led the way to
the door.
Prince paced sedately along by Carolyn May's side. Once out of the shop
in the sunlit street, the little girl breathed a sigh of relief. Mr.
Stagg, peering down at her sharply, asked:
"What's the matter?"
"I--I--Your shop is awful dark, Uncle Joe," she confessed. "I can't seem
to _look up_ in there."
"'Look up'?" repeated the hardware dealer, puzzled.
"Yes, sir. My papa says never to get in any place where you can't _look
up_ and see something brighter and better ahead," said Carolyn May
softly. "He says that's what makes life worth living."
"Oh! he does, does he?" grunted Mr. Stagg.
He noticed the heavy bag in her hand and took it from her. Instantly her
released fingers stole into his free hand. Mr. Stagg looked down at the
little hand on his palm, somewhat startled and not a little dismayed. To
Carolyn May it was the most natural thing in the world to clasp hands
with Uncle Joe as they walked, but it actually made the hardware dealer
blush!
The main street of Sunrise Cove on this warm afternoon was not thronged
with shoppers. Not many people noticed the tall, shambling,
round-shouldered man in rusty black, with the petite figure of the child
and the mongrel dog passing that way, though a few idle shopkeepers
looked after the trio in surprise. But when Mr. Stagg and his companions
turned into the pleasantly shaded street that led out of town towards
The Corners--where was the Stagg homestead--Carolyn May noticed her uncle
become suddenly flustered. She saw the blood flood into his face and
neck, and she felt his hand loosen as though to release her own. The
little girl looked ahead curiously at the woman who was approaching.
She was not a young woman--that is, not what the child would call young.
Carolyn May thought she was very nice looking--tall and robust. She had
beautiful brown hair, and a brown complexion, with a golden-red colour
in her cheeks like that of a russet apple. Her brown eyes flashed an
inquiring glance upon Carolyn May, but she did not look at Mr. Stagg,
nor did Mr. Stagg look at her.
"Oh! who _is_ that lady, Uncle Joe?" asked the little girl when they
were out of earshot.
"Hum!" Her uncle's throat seemed to need clearing. "That--_that_ is Mandy
Parlow--_Miss_ Amanda Parlow," he corrected himself with dignity.
The flush did not soon fade out of his face as they went on in silence.
CHAPTER II--AN OLD-FASHIONED ROSE
The street was slightly rising. The pleasant-looking houses on either
hand had pretty lawns and gardens about them. Carolyn May Cameron
thought Sunrise Cove a very lovely place--as was quite natural to a child
brought up in the city.
Prince approved of the freedom of the street, too. A cat crossed slowly
and with dignity from curb to curb ahead of them, and the dog almost
forgot his manners.
"Here!" exclaimed Mr. Stagg sharply. "Haven't you a leash for that
mongrel? If we've got to take him along----"
"Oh, yes, Uncle Joe," Carolyn May hastened to assure him. "There's a
strap in my bag--right on top of the other things. _Do_ let me get it.
You see, Prince has had trouble with cats; they worry him."
"Looks to me," grunted Mr. Stagg, "as though he'd like to worry them.
What Aunty Rose will say to that mongrel----"
"Oh, dear me!" sighed the little girl. This "Aunty Rose" he spoke of
must be a regular ogress! Carolyn May had opened the bag and found the
strong strap, and now she snapped it into the ring of Prince's collar.
"You'll just _have_ to be good, now, you darling old dear!" she
whispered to him.
It was half a mile from Main Street to The Corners. There was tall
timber all about Sunrise Cove, which was built along the shore of a deep
inlet cutting in from the great lake, whose blue waters sparkled as far
as one might see towards the south and west.
Uncle Joe assured Carolyn May, when she asked him, that from the highest
hill in sight one could see only the lake and the forest-clothed hills
and valleys. Why, there was not a brick house anywhere!
"We don't have any apartment houses, or janitors, or gas and electricity
up here," said Mr. Stagg grimly. "But there's lumber camps all about.
Mebbe they'll interest you. Lots of building going on all the time, too.
Sunrise Cove is growing, but it isn't very citified yet."
He told her, as they went along, of the long trains of cars and of the
strings of barges going out of the Cove, all laden with timber and sawed
boards, millstuff, ties, and telegraph poles.
They came to the last house in the row of dwellings on this street, on
the very edge of the town. Carolyn May saw that attached to the house
was a smaller building, facing the roadway, with a wide-open door,
through which she glimpsed benches and sawed lumber, while to her
nostrils was wafted a most delicious smell of shavings.
"Oh, there's a carpenter shop!" exclaimed Carolyn May. "And is that the
carpenter, Uncle Joe?"
A tall old man, lean-faced and closely shaven, with a hawk's-beak nose
straddled by a huge pair of silver-bowed spectacles, came out of the
shop at that moment, a jack-plane in his hand. He saw Mr. Stagg and,
turning sharply on his heel, went indoors again.
"Who is he, Uncle Joe?" repeated the little girl. "And, if I asked him,
do you s'pose he'd give me some of those nice, long, curly shavings?"
"That's Jed Parlow--and he _wouldn't_ give you any shavings; especially
after having seen you with me," said the hardware merchant brusquely.
The pretty lady whose name was Parlow and the queer-looking old
carpenter, whose name was likewise Parlow, would neither look at Uncle
Joe! Even such a little girl as Carolyn May could see that her uncle and
the Parlows were not friendly. It puzzled her, but she did not feel that
she could ask Uncle Joe about it. So she trudged by his side, holding to
his hand and to the dog's leash.
The street soon became a country road, and there were now no passers-by.
A half-cleared forest lay on either hand--rough pasture land. By-and-by
they came in sight of The Corners--a place where another road crossed
this one at right angles. Both were wide roads, and a little green park
had been left in the middle of the way at their intersection, around
which was a rusty iron railing.
In one corner was a white church with a square tower and green blinds.
This was railed around by rusty iron pipe, as was the graveyard behind
it. At one side was a row of open horse sheds. In another of the four
corners was set a big store, with a covered porch all across the front,
on which were sheltered certain agricultural tools, as well as a row of
more or less decrepit chairs--at this hour of the day unoccupied.
A couple of country wagons stood before the store, but there was no
sound of life at The Corners save a rhythmic "clank, clank, clank" from
the blacksmith shop on the third corner. Carolyn May had a glimpse of a
black-faced man in a red shirt and a leather apron, and with hairy arms,
striking the sparks from a rosy iron on the anvil next the forge, the
dull glow of the forge fire making a background for this portrait of
"The Village Blacksmith."
On the fourth corner of the crossroads stood the Stagg homestead--a wide,
low-roofed house of ancient appearance, yet in good repair. The grass
was lush under the wide-spreading maples in the front yard, and the keys
which had fallen from these trees were carefully brushed into heaps on
the brick walk for removal. Neatness was the keynote of all about the
place.
"Is _this_ where you live, Uncle Joe?" asked Carolyn May breathlessly.
"Oh, what a beautiful big place! Aren't there any other families with
flats here, too?"
"Bless me! No, child," returned the hardware dealer. "I never noticed
the house was any too big for one family."
"Of course," said the little girl, "it isn't so _tall_; but it's 'most
as long as a whole block of houses in the city. One of the short blocks,
I mean. My papa said seven of the crosstown blocks made a mile, and
twenty of the short blocks. So this house must be 'most a twentieth of a
mile long, Uncle Joe. It seems awful big for _me_ to live in!"
Mr. Stagg had halted at the gate, and now looked down upon Carolyn May
with perplexed brow. "Well, we've got to see about that first," he
muttered. "There's Aunty Rose----"
A voice calling, "Chuck! Chuck! Chuck-a-chuck!" came from behind the old
house. A few white-feathered fowls that had been in sight scurried
wildly away in answer to the summons.
Mr. Stagg, still looking at the little girl, set down the bag and
reached for the dog's leash. The loop of the latter he passed around the
gatepost.
"I tell you what it is, Car'lyn May. You'd better meet Aunty Rose first
alone. I've my fears about this mongrel."
"Oh, Uncle Joe!" quavered his niece.
"You go ahead and get acquainted with her," urged Mr. Stagg. "She don't
like dogs. They chase her chickens and run over her flower-beds. Aunty
Rose is peculiar, I might say."
"Oh, Uncle Joe!" repeated the little girl faintly.
"You've got to make her like you, if you want to live here," the
hardware dealer concluded firmly; "and that's all there is to it."
He gave Carolyn May a little shove up the path, and then stood back and
mopped his brow with his handkerchief. Prince strained at the leash and
whined, wishing to follow his little mistress.
Mr. Stagg said: "You'd better keep mighty quiet, dog. If you want your
home address to be The Corners, sing small!"
Carolyn May did not hear this, but disappeared after the fowls around
the corner of the wide, vine-draped porch. The pleasant back yard was
full of sunshine. On the gravel path beyond the old well, with its long
sweep and bucket, half a hundred chickens, some guineas, and a flock of
turkeys scuffled for grain which was being thrown to them from an open
pan.
That pan was held in the plump hand of a very dignified-looking woman,
dressed in drab, and with a sunbonnet on her head. Her voluminous skirt
blew about her tall figure; she was plump, but very upright; her cheeks
were rosy; her spectacles sparkled; and her full lips were puckered into
a matrix for the mellow call:
"Chuck! Chuck! Chuck-a-chuck!"
Aunty Rose's appearance smote the little girl with a feeling of awe. Her
bonnet was so stiffly starched, the line of her old-fashioned stays
across her plump shoulders was as unequivocal as a confession of faith.
And when she turned her face to the child, the latter, young as she was,
knew that the woman's attitude to all the world was despotic.
There was no frown on her face; it was only calm, unruffled,
unemotional. It simply seemed as though nothing, either material or
spiritual, could ruffle the placidity of Aunty Rose Kennedy.
She came of Quaker stock, and the serenity of body and spirit taught by
the sect built a wall between her and everybody else. At least, so it
seemed to Carolyn May. And when Aunty Rose first looked at her, she
seemed to the child to be merely peering over that wall. The little girl
could not get close enough to the woman to "snuggle up."
"Child, who are you?" asked Aunty Rose with some curiosity.
The little girl told her name; but perhaps it was her black frock and
hat that identified her in Aunty Rose's mind, after all.
"You are Hannah Stagg's little girl," she said.
"Yes'm--if you please," Carolyn May confessed faintly.
"And how came you here alone?"
"If you please, Uncle Joe said I'd better prob'ly come ahead and get
acquainted with you first."
"'First'? What do you mean, 'first'?" asked Aunty Rose sternly.
"First--before you saw Prince," responded the perfectly frank little
girl. "Uncle Joe thought maybe you wouldn't care for dogs."
"Dogs!"
"No, ma'am. And, of course, where I live, Prince has to live, too. So----"
"So you brought the dog?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Of course," said Aunty Rose composedly, "I expected you to come here. I
do not know what Joseph Stagg expected. But I did not suppose you would
have a dog. Where is Joseph Stagg?"
"He--he's coming."
"With the dog?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Aunty Rose seemed to take some time to digest this; but she made no
further comment in regard to the matter, only saying:
"Let us go into the house, Car'lyn May. You must take off your hat and
bathe your face and hands."
Carolyn May Cameron followed the stately figure of Aunty Rose Kennedy
into the blue-and-white kitchen of the old house, with something of the
feelings of a culprit on the way to the block.
Such a big kitchen as it was! The little girl thought it must be almost
as big as their whole apartment in Harlem "put together"--and they had a
tiny private hall, too. There was a great, deep, enameled sink, with hot
and cold water faucets over it, and a big, shiny, corrugated drainboard
beside it. Evidently Aunty Rose was not dependent upon the old well in
the yard for her water supply.
There was a shining copper boiler, and a great range, and set tubs of
stone, and a big dresser, and a kitchen cabinet. The walls were covered
with tile paper and the floor with linoleum, and there were plenty of
braided mats about to make the room seem livable. At the cooler end of
the kitchen the supper table was already set--for three.
"Why," mused the little girl, "she must have suspected me," and a warmer
glow filtered into the heart of the "suspected" guest.
It was not till afterwards that she realised that the extra plate on the
table was a part of the old-time Quaker creed--the service for the
Unknown Guest.
"Used to make me feel right spooky when she first came here," Mr. Stagg
sometimes said, "but I got used to it. And it does seem hospitable."
The little girl took off her plain black hat, shook back her hair, and
patted it smooth with her hands, then plunged her hands and face into
the basin of cool water Aunty Rose had drawn for her at the sink. The
dust was all washed away and a fresh glow came into her flowerlike face.
Aunty Rose watched her silently.
Such a dignified, upright, unresponsive woman as she seemed standing
there! And so particular, neat, and immaculate was this kitchen!
Carolyn May, as she dried her face and hands, heard a familiar whine at
the door. It was Prince. She wondered if she had at all broken the ice
for him with Aunty Rose.
"Oh," the little girl mused, "I wonder what she will say to a mongorel."
CHAPTER III--GOING TO BED
Mr. Stagg had fastened Prince's strap to the porch rail, and he now came
in with the bag.
"Is that all the child's baggage, Joseph Stagg?" asked Aunty Rose,
taking it from his hand.
"Why--why, I never thought to ask her," the man admitted. "Have you a
trunk check, Car'lyn?"
"No, sir."
"They sent you up here with only that bag?" Mr. Stagg said with some
exasperation. "Haven't you got any clothes but those you stand in?"
"Mrs. Price said--said they weren't suitable," explained the little girl.
"You see, they aren't black."
"Oh!" exploded her uncle.
"You greatly lack tact, Joseph Stagg," said Aunty Rose, and the hardware
dealer cleared his throat loudly as he went to the sink to perform his
pre-supper ablutions. Carolyn May did not understand just what the woman
meant.
"Ahem!" said Uncle Joe gruffly. "S'pose I ought t've read that letter
before. What's come of it, Car'lyn May?"
But just then the little girl was so deeply interested in what Aunty
Rose was doing that she failed to hear him. Mrs. Kennedy brought out of
the pantry a tin pie plate, on which were scraps of meat and bread,
besides a goodly marrow bone.
"If you think the dog is hungry, Car'lyn May," she said, "you would
better give him this before we break our fast."
"Oh, Aunty Rose!" gasped the little girl, her sober face all a-smile.
"He'll be de-_light_-ed."
She carried the pan out to Prince. But first, seeing the immaculate
condition of the porch floor, she laid a sack down before the hungry dog
and put the pan upon it.
"For, you see," she told Aunty Rose, who stood in the kitchen doorway
watching her, "when he has a bone, he just _will_ get grease all around.
He really can't help it."
Aunty Rose made no audible comment, but she seemed to view Prince with
more curiosity than hostility.
When the door closed again, Mrs. Kennedy went to the stove, and
instantly, with the opening of the oven, the rush of delicious odour
from it made Carolyn May's mouth fairly water. The lunch she had eaten
on the train seemed to have happened a long, long time ago.
Such flaky biscuit--two great pans full of the brown beauties! Mr. Stagg
sat down at the table and actually smiled.
"You never made any bread that _smelt_ better, Aunty Rose," he said
emphatically.
She had removed her sunbonnet, and her grey-brown hair proved to be in
perfectly smooth braids wound about her head. She must have been well
over sixty years of age. Uncle Joe seemed boyish beside her; yet Carolyn
May had at first thought the hardware dealer a very old man.
The little girl took her indicated place at the table timidly. The cloth
was a red and white checked one, freshly ironed, as were the napkins to
match. There was a squat old silver bowl in the middle of the board,
full of spoons of various sizes, and also a castor, like a miniature
carousel, holding several bottles of sauces and condiments. The china
was of good quality and prettily flowered. The butter was iced, and
there was a great glass pitcher of milk, which looked cool and inviting.
"Joseph Stagg," said Aunty Rose, sitting down, "ask a blessing."
Uncle Joe's harsh voice seemed suddenly to become gentle as he
reverently said grace. A tear or two squeezed through Carolyn May's
closed eyelids, for that had been her duty at home; she had said grace
ever since she could speak plainly.
If Aunty Rose noticed the child's emotion, she made no comment, only
helped her gravely to cold meat, stewed potatoes, and hot biscuit.
Mr. Stagg was in haste to eat and get back to the store. "Or that Chet
Gormley will try to make a meal off some of the hardware, I guess," he
said gloomily.
"Oh, dear me, Uncle Joe" exclaimed Carolyn May. "If he did that, he'd
die of indignation."
"Huh? Oh! I guess 'twould cause indigestion," agreed her uncle.
Aunty Rose did not even smile. She sat so very stiff and upright in her
chair that her back never touched the back of the chair; she was very
precise and exact in all her movements.
"Bless me!" Mr. Stagg exclaimed suddenly. "What's that on the mantel,
Aunty Rose? That yaller letter?"
"A telegram for you, Joseph Stagg," replied the old lady as composedly
as though the receipt of a telegram was an hourly occurrence at The
Corners.
"Well!" muttered the hardware dealer, and Carolyn May wondered if he
were not afraid to express just the emotion he felt at that instant. His
face was red, and he got up clumsily to secure the sealed message.
"Who brought it, and when?" he asked finally, having read the lawyer's
night letter.
"A boy. This morning," said Aunty Rose, utterly calm.
"And I never saw it this noon," grumbled the hardware dealer.
Mrs. Kennedy quite ignored any suggestion of impatience in Mr. Stagg's
voice or manner. But he seemed to lose taste for his supper after
reading the telegram.
"Where is the letter that this Mr. Price wrote and sent by you,
Car'lyn?" he asked as he was about to depart for the store.
The little girl asked permission to leave the table, and then ran to
open her bag. Mr. Stagg said doubtfully:
"I s'pose you'll have to put her somewhere--for the present. Don't see
what else we can do, Aunty Rose."
"You may be sure, Joseph Stagg, that her room was ready for her a week
ago," Mrs. Kennedy rejoined, quite unruffled.
The surprised hardware dealer gurgled something in his throat. "What
room?" he finally stammered.
"That which was her mother's. Hannah Stagg's room. It is next to mine,
and she will come to no harm there."
"Hannah's!" exclaimed Mr. Stagg. "Why, that ain't been slept in since
she went away."
"It is quite fit, then," said Aunty Rose, "that it should be used for
her child. Trouble nothing about things that do not concern you, Joseph
Stagg," she added with, perhaps, additional sternness.
Carolyn May did not hear this. She now produced the letter from her
lawyer neighbour.
"There it is, Uncle Joe," she said. "I--I guess he tells you all about me
in it."
"Hum!" said the hardware man, clearing his throat and picking up his
hat. "I'll read it down at the store."
"Shall--shall I see you again to-night, Uncle Joe?" the little girl asked
wistfully. "You know, my bedtime's half-past eight."
"Well, if you don't see me to-night again, you'll be well cared for, I
haven't a doubt," said Uncle Joe shortly, and went out.
Carolyn May went soberly back to her chair. She did not eat much more.
Somehow there seemed to be a big lump in her throat past which she could
not force the food. As the dusk fell, the spirit of loneliness gripped
her, and the tears pooled behind her eyelids, ready to pour over her
cheeks at the least "joggle." Yet she was not usually a "cry-baby" girl.
Aunty Rose was watching her more closely than Carolyn May supposed.
After her third cup of tea she arose and began quietly clearing the
table. The newcomer was nodding in her place, her blue eyes clouded with
sleep and unhappiness.
"It is time for you to go to bed, Car'lyn May," said Aunty Rose firmly.
"I will show you the room Hannah Stagg had for her own when she was a
girl."
"Thank you, Aunty Rose," said the little girl humbly.
She picked up the bag and followed the stately old woman into the back
hall and up the stairway into the ell. Carolyn May saw that at the foot
of the stairs was a door leading out upon the porch where Prince was now
moving about uneasily at the end of his leash. She would have liked to
say "good-night" to Prince, but it seemed better not to mention this
feeling to Aunty Rose.
The fading hues of sunset in the sky gave the little girl plenty of
light to undress by. She thought the room very beautiful, too. It was
large, and the ceiling sloped at one side; the bed was wide and plump
looking. It had four funny, spindle-shaped posts, and it was covered
with a bright patchwork quilt of many tiny squares--quite an intricate
pattern, Carolyn May thought.
"Do you need any help, child?" asked Mrs. Kennedy, standing in her
soldierly manner in the doorway. It was dusky there, and the little girl
could not see her face.
"Oh, no, ma'am," said Carolyn May faintly. "I can button and unbutton
every button. I learned long ago. And my nightie's right in my bag
here."
"Very well," said Aunty Rose, and turned away. Carolyn May stood in the
middle of the room and listened to her descending footsteps. _Aunty Rose
had not even bidden her good-night!_
Like a marooned sailor upon a desert island, the little girl went about
exploring the bedroom which was to be hers--and which had once been her
mother's. That fact helped greatly. Her mother had slept in this very
bed--had looked into that cunning, clouded glass over the dressing
table--had sat in this very little rocking chair to take off her shoes
and stockings--had hung her dress, perhaps, over this other chair.
Carolyn May kept repeating these things as she divested herself of her
garments and got into the nightgown that Mrs. Price had freshly ironed
for her. Then she looked at the high, "puffy" bed.
"How ever _can_ I get into it?" sighed Carolyn May.
She had to stand upon her tiptoes in her fluffy little bedroom slippers
to pull back the quilt, and the blanket and sheet underneath it. The bed
was just a great big bag of feathers!
"Just like a big, big pillow," thought the little girl. "And if I do get
into it, I'm li'ble to sink down, and down, and _down_, till I'm buried,
and won't ever be able to get up in the morning."
Carolyn May had never seen anything softer to sleep on than a mattress
of pressed felt. A feather bed might be all right, but she felt more
than a little shy of venturing into it.
The window was open, and she went to it and looked out. A breath of
honeysuckle blew in. Then, below, on the porch, she heard the uneasy
movements of Prince. And he whined.
"Oh, poor Princey! He doesn't know what's become of me," thought Carolyn
May.
Downstairs, in the great kitchen, Aunty Rose was stepping back and
forth, from table to sink, from sink to dresser, from dresser to pantry.
As the daylight faded, she lit the lamp which swung from the ceiling and
gave light to all the room.
It would have been impossible for the wisest person to guess what were
the thoughts in Aunty Rose's mind. She might have been thinking of that
sunny-haired, blue-eyed little girl upstairs, so lately bereft of those
whom she loved, a stranger to-night in a new home, going to bed for the
first time in her life alone; aye, she _might_ have been thinking of
her. Or she might merely have been deciding in her mind whether to have
batter cakes or waffles for breakfast.
A glad little yelp from the dog tied to the rail of the porch sounded
suddenly. Even Aunty Rose could not mistake that cry of welcome, and she
knew very little about dogs--to their credit, at least. She had heard no
other suspicious sound, but now she crossed the room with firm tread and
opened the porch door. Yes, a little white figure was down there,
hugging the whining mongrel; and if the latter could have spoken English
he could have made it no whit plainer how glad he was to see his little
mistress.
Carolyn May's tearful face was raised from Prince's rough neck.
"Oh, Aunty Rose! Oh, Aunty Rose!" she sobbed. "I just _had_ to say
good-night to somebody. Edna's mother came and heard our prayers and
tucked us into my bed after my papa and mamma went away. So it didn't
seem so bad.
"But to-night--Why! to-night there isn't anybody cares whether I go to
bed or not! But Prince! Prince, _he_ knows just how--how _empty_ I feel!"
The woman stood in the doorway with the light behind her, so Carolyn May
could not see her face; her voice was perfectly calm when she said:
"You would better come in now and wash your face and hands again before
going to bed. That dog has been lapping them with his tongue."
Sobbing, the little girl obeyed. The dog curled down on the porch as
though satisfied, having seen that his little mistress was all right.
The latter trotted over the cold linoleum to the sink and did as Mrs.
Kennedy directed. Then she would have gone back up the stairs without a
word had not Aunty Rose spoken.
"Come here, Carolyn May," she said quite as sternly as before.
The little girl approached her. The old lady sat in one of the
straightest of the straight-backed chairs, her hands in her comfortable
lap. The wet blue eyes were raised to her composed face timidly.
"If you wish to say your prayers here, before going upstairs, you may,
Carolyn May," she said.
"Oh, may I?" gasped the little girl.
She dropped her hands into Aunty Rose's lap. Somehow they found those
larger, comforting hands and cuddled into them as the little girl sank
to her knees on the braided mat.
If the simple "Now I lay me" was familiar to Aunty Rose's ear from long
ago, she gave no sign. When the earnest little voice added to the formal
supplication a desire for the blessing of "Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose,"
the latter's countenance retained its composure.
She asked a blessing upon all her friends, including the Prices, and
even Prince. But it was after that she put the timid question to Aunty
Rose that proved to be almost too much for that good woman's studied
calm.
"Aunty Rose, do you s'pose I might ask God to bless my mamma and papa,
even if they _are_ lost at sea? Somehow, I don't think it would seem so
lonesome if I could keep _that_ in my prayer."
CHAPTER IV--"WELL--SHE'LL BE A NUISANCE"
Mr. Joseph Stagg, going down to his store, past the home and carpenter
shop of Jedidiah Parlow, at which he did not even look, finally came to
his destination in a very brown study. So disturbed had he been by the
arrival of his little niece that he forgot to question and
cross-question young Chetwood Gormley regarding the possible customers
that had been in the store during his absence.
"And I tell you what I think, mother," Chet said, with his mouth full,
at supper that evening. "I think her coming's goin' to bring about
changes. Yes, ma'am!"
Mrs. Gormley was a faded little woman--a widow--who went out sewing for
better-to-do people in Sunrise Cove. She naturally thought her boy
Chetwood a great deal smarter than other people thought him. And--as was
natural, too--Chet developed something like keenness in the sunshine of
her approval.
"You know, mother," he said, on this evening of the arrival of Carolyn
May, "I never _have_ seen any great chance to rise, workin' for Mr.
Joseph Stagg. His ain't a business that offers an aspirin' feller much
advancement."
"But he _pays_ you, Chet," his mother said anxiously.
"Yep. I know. Don't be afraid I'll leave him till I see something
better," he reassured her. "But I might be clerkin' for him till the
cows come home and never see more'n six or eight dollars a week. But now
it's apt to be different."
"How different, Chet?" she asked, puzzled.
"You know Mr. Stagg's as hard as nails--as hard as the goods he sells,"
declared the gawky boy. "No brass hinge, or iron bolt, or copper rivet
in his stock is any harder than he 'pears to be. Mind you, he don't do
nothin' mean. That ain't his way. But he don't seem to have a mite of
interest in anything but his shop. Now, it seems to me, this little
niece is bound to wake him up. He calls her 'Hannah's Car'lyn.'"
"Hannah Stagg was his only sister," said Mrs. Gormley softly. "I
remember her."
"And she's just died, or something, and left this little girl," Chet
continued. "Mr. Stagg's bound to think of something now besides
business. And mebbe he'll need _me_ more. And I'll get a chance to show
him I'm worth something to him. So, by-and-by, he'll put me forward in
the business," said the boy, his homely face glowing. "Who knows? Mebbe
it'll be Stagg & Gormley over the door one of these days. Stranger
things have happened."
"Wouldn't that be fine, Chet!" agreed his mother, taking fire at last
from his enthusiasm. "And you think this pretty little girl's comin'
here is goin' to do all that?"
Perhaps even Chetwood's assurance would have been quenched had he just
then known the thoughts in the hardware merchant's mind. Mr. Stagg sat
in his back office poring over the letter written by his
brother-in-law's lawyer friend, a part of which read:
"From the above recital of facts you will plainly see, being a man of
business yourself, that Mr. Cameron's financial affairs were in a much
worse condition when he went away than he himself dreamed of.
"I immediately looked up the Stonebridge Building and Loan Association.
It is even more moribund than the papers state. The fifteen hundred
dollars Mr. Cameron put into it from time to time might just as well
have been dropped into the sea.
"You know, he had only his salary on _The Morning Beacon_. They were
rather decent to him, when they saw his health breaking down, to offer
him the chance of going to the Mediterranean as correspondent. He was to
furnish articles on 'The Débris of a World War'--stories of the peaceful
sections of Europe which have to care for the human wrecks from the
battlefields.
"It rather cramped Mr. Cameron's immediate resources for your sister to
go with him, and he drew ahead on his expense and salary account. I know
that Mrs. Cameron feared to allow him to go alone across the ocean. He
was really in a bad way; but she proposed to come back immediately on
the _Dunraven_ if he improved on the voyage across.
"Their means really did not allow of their taking the child; the
steamship company would not hear of a half-fare for her. She is a nice
little girl, and my wife would have been glad to keep her longer, but in
the end she would have to go to you, as, I understand, there are no
other relatives.
"Of course, the flat is here, and the furniture. If you do not care to
come on to attend to the matter yourself, I will do the best I can to
dispose of either or both. Mr. Cameron had paid a year's rent in
advance--rather an unwise thing, I thought--and the term has still ten
months to run. He did it so that his wife, on her return from abroad,
might have no worry on her mind. Perhaps the flat might be sublet,
furnished, to advantage. You might state your pleasure regarding this.
"You will see, by the copy of your brother-in-law's will that I enclose,
that you have been left in full and sole possession and guardianship of
his property and affairs, including Carolyn May."
* * * * *
And if somebody had shipped him a crocodile from the Nile, Joseph Stagg
would have felt little more at a loss as to what disposal to make of the
creature than he felt now regarding his little niece.
"Well--she'll be a nuisance; an awful nuisance," was his final comment,
with a mountainous sigh.
Thus far, Aunty Rose Kennedy's attitude towards the little stranger had
been the single pleasant disappointment Mr. Stagg had experienced. Aunty
Rose was an autocrat. Joseph Stagg had never been so comfortable in his
life as since Mrs. Kennedy had taken up the management of his home. But
he stood in great awe of her.
He put the lawyer's letter in the safe. For once he was unable to
respond to a written communication promptly. Although he wore that band
of crêpe on his arm, he could not actually realise the fact that his
sister Hannah was dead.
Any time these fifteen years he might have run down to New York to see
her. First, she had worked in the newspaper office as a stenographer.
Then she had married John Lewis Cameron, and they had gone immediately
to housekeeping.
Cameron was a busy man; he held a "desk job" on the paper. Vacations had
been hard to get. And, before long, Hannah had written about her
baby--"Hannah's Car'lyn."
After the little one's arrival there seemed less chance than before for
the city family to get up to Sunrise Cove. But at any time he might have
gone to them. If Joseph Stagg had shut up his store for a week and gone
to New York, it would not have brought the world to an end.
Nor was it because he was stingy that he had not done this. No, he was
no miser. But he was fairly buried in his business. And there was no
"look up" in that dim little office in the back of the hardware store.
His nose was in the big ledger all the time, and there was no better or
brighter outlook for him.
Business. No other interest, social or spiritual, had Joseph Stagg. To
his mind, time was wasted, used in any but the three very necessary
ways--eating, sleeping, and attending to one's business.
He kept his store open every evening. Not because there was trade enough
to warrant it--that was only on Saturday nights--but what would he do if
he did not come down after supper and sit in his office for a couple of
hours? There he could always find work to do. Outside, he was at a loss
for something with which to occupy his mind.
On this evening he closed the store later than usual, and set out for
The Corners slowly. To tell the truth, Mr. Stagg rather shrank from
arriving home. The strangeness of having a child in the house disturbed
his tranquillity.
The kitchen only was lighted when he approached; therefore, he was
reassured. He knew Hannah's Car'lyn must have been put to bed long
since.
It was dark under the trees, and only long familiarity with the walk
enabled him to reach the back porch noiselessly. Then it was that
something scrambled up in the dark, and the roar of a dog's barking made
Joseph Stagg leap back in fright.
"Drat that mongrel!" he ejaculated, remembering Prince.
The kitchen door opened, revealing Aunty Rose's ample figure. Prince
whined sheepishly and dropped his abbreviated tail, going to lie down
again at the extreme end of his leash, and blinking his eyes at Mr.
Stagg.
"The critter's as savage as a bear!" grumbled the hardware merchant.
"He is a good watchdog; you must allow that, Joseph Stagg," Aunty Rose
said calmly.
The hardware dealer gasped again. It would be hard to say which had
startled him the most--the dog or Aunty Rose's manner.
CHAPTER V--AUNTY ROSE UNBENDS
There never was a lovelier place for a little girl--to say nothing of a
dog--to play in than the yard about the Stagg homestead; and this Carolyn
May confided to Aunty Rose one forenoon after her arrival at The
Corners.
Behind the house the yard sloped down to a broad, calmly flowing brook.
Here the goose and duck pens were fenced off, for Aunty Rose would not
allow the web-footed fowl to wander at large, as did the other poultry.
It was difficult for Prince to learn that none of these feathered folk
were to be molested. He loved to jump into the water after a stick, and
whenever he did so, the quacking and hissing inside the wire-fenced runs
showed just how unpopular his dogship was in that community.
There was a wide-branching oak tree on a knoll overlooking the brook.
Around its trunk Uncle Joe had built a seat. Carolyn May found this a
grand place to sit and dream, while Prince lay at her feet with his pink
tongue out, occasionally snapping at a gnat.
When they saw Aunty Rose, in her sunbonnet, going towards the fenced-in
garden, they both jumped up and bounded down the slope after her. It was
just here, at the corner of the garden fence, that Carolyn May had her
first adventure.
Prince, of course, disturbed the serenity of the poultry. The hens went
shrieking one way, the guinea fowl lifted up their voices in angry
chatter, the turkey hens scurried to cover, but the old turkey cock,
General Bolivar, a big, white Holland fowl, was not to have his dignity
disturbed and his courage impugned by any four-footed creature with
waggish ears and the stump of a tail.
Therefore, General Bolivar charged with outspread wings and quivering
fan. His eyesight was not good, however. He charged the little girl
instead of the roistering dog.
Carolyn May frankly screamed. Thirty-five pounds, or more, of solid
meat, frame, and feathers catapulted through the air at one is not to be
ignored. Had the angry turkey reached the little girl, he would have
beaten her down, and perhaps seriously injured her.
He missed her the first time, but turned to charge again. Prince barked
loudly, circling around the bristling turkey cock, undecided just how to
get into the battle. But Aunty Rose knew no fear of anything wearing
feathers.
"Scat, you brute!" she cried, and made a grab for the turkey, gripping
him with her left hand behind his head, bearing his long neck downward.
In her other hand she seized a piece of lath, and with it chastised the
big turkey across the haunches with vigour.
"Oh, don't spank him any more, Aunty Rose!" gasped Carolyn May at last.
"He _must_ be sorry."
With a final stroke Aunty Rose allowed the big fowl to go--and he ran
away fast enough. But the austere Mrs. Kennedy did not consider the
matter ended there. She had punished one culprit; now she turned to
Prince.
"Your dog, child, does not know his manners. If he is going to stay here
with you, he must learn that fowl are not to be chased nor startled."
"Oh, Aunty Rose!" begged the little girl, "_don't_ punish Prince!
Not--not that way. Please, don't! Why, he's never been spanked in his
life! He wouldn't know what it meant. _Dear_ Aunty Rose----"
"I shall not beat him, Car'lyn May," interrupted Aunty Rose. "But he
must learn his lesson. He has never run at liberty in his life before,
as he does here, I warrant."
"Oh, no, ma'am; he never has. Only in the park early in the morning.
Papa used to take him out for a run before he went to bed. The policemen
didn't mind if Prince _was_ off his leash then."
"'Before he went to bed?'" repeated Aunty Rose curiously. "What time did
your papa go to bed, pray?"
"Why, he worked on a morning paper, you see, and he didn't get home till
'most sunrise--in summer, I mean. He slept in the forenoon."
"Oh, such a way to live!" murmured Aunty Rose, scandalised. Then she
returned to the subject of Prince's punishment. "Your dog must learn
that liberty is not license. Bring him here, Car'lyn May."
She led the way to an open coop of laths in the middle of the back yard.
This was a hutch in which she put broody hens when she wished to break
up their desire to set. She opened the gate of it and motioned Prince to
enter.
The dog looked pleadingly at his little mistress' face, then into the
woman's stern countenance. Seeing no reprieve in either, with drooping
tail he slunk into the cage.
With one hand clutching her frock over her heart, Carolyn May's big blue
eyes overflowed.
"It's just as if he was arrested," she said. "Poor Prince! Has he got to
stay there _always_, Aunty Rose?"
"He'll stay till he learns his lesson," said Mrs. Kennedy grimly, and
went on into the garden.
Carolyn May sat down close to the side of the cage, thrust one hand
between the slats, and held one of the dog's front paws. She had hoped
to go into the garden to help Aunty Rose pick peas, but she could not
bear to leave Prince alone.
By-and-by Mrs. Kennedy came up from the garden, her pan heaped with
pods. She looked neither in the direction of the prisoner nor at his
little mistress. Carolyn May wanted awfully to shell the peas. She liked
to shell peas, and Aunty Rose had more in her pan than the little girl
had ever shelled at one time at home.
Prince whined and lay down. He had begun to realise now that this was no
play, at all, but punishment. He blinked his eyes at Carolyn May and
looked as sorry as ever a dog with cropped ears and an abbreviated tail
could look.
The hutch was under a wide-branching tree. It was shady, and the bees
hummed. A motherly hen with thirteen black chickens paraded by.
"I wonder," thought Carolyn May dozily, "how the mother can be so white
and her family can be so black. I believe there must be a mistake
somewhere. Suppose they shouldn't turn out to be chickens at all, but
crows! Maybe she was fooled about the eggs. You often _are_ fooled about
eggs, you know. You can't tell by the outside of an eggshell whether
what's inside is fresh or not.
"And if those are little crows, and not chicks, they'll fly right up
into the air some day and leave her, and go sailing off across the
brook, saying, 'Caw! Caw! Caw!'"
"Why, there they go now!" gasped Carolyn May--only, she _thought_ she
gasped, just as she _thought_ she saw the baker's dozen of chicks flying
across the brook--for she was fast asleep and dreaming.
Prince slept, too, and fought imaginary battles with the turkey cock in
his dreams, jerking all four of his legs, and growling dreadfully.
Carolyn May went wandering through fairyland, perhaps following the
chicken-crows she had first imagined.
The peas and potatoes were cooking for dinner when Aunty Rose appeared
again. There was the little girl, all of a dewy sleep, lying on the
grass by the prison-pen. Aunty Rose would have released Prince, but,
though he wagged his stump of a tail at her and yawned and blinked, she
had still her doubts regarding a mongrel's good nature.
She could not allow the child to sleep there, however; so, stooping,
picked up Carolyn May and carried her comfortably into the house, laying
her down on the sitting-room couch to have her nap out--as she supposed,
without awakening her.
It had been many a long day since Aunty Rose Kennedy had stood over a
sleeping child and watched the silky eyelashes flutter and the breath
part the rosy lips ever so little. Carolyn May's limbs were dimpled; her
golden hair was wavy, though it did not curl; she was sweet and lovable
in every way.
Aunty Rose came away softly and closed the door, and while she finished
getting dinner she tried to make no noise which would awaken the child.
Mr. Stagg came home at noon, quite as full of business as usual. To tell
the truth, Mr. Stagg always felt bashful in Aunty Rose's presence; and
he tried to hide his affliction by conversation. So he talked steadily
through the meal.
But somewhere--about at the pie course, it was--he stopped and looked
around curiously.
"Bless me!" he exclaimed, "where's Hannah's Car'lyn?"
"Taking a nap," said Aunty Rose composedly.
"Hum! can't the child get up to her victuals?" demanded Mr. Stagg. "You
begin serving that young one separately and you'll make yourself work,
Aunty Rose."
"Never trouble about that which doesn't concern you, Joseph Stagg,"
responded his housekeeper rather tartly. "The Lord has placed the care
of Hannah's Car'lyn on you and me, and I shall do my share, and do it
proper."
Mr. Stagg shook his head and lost interest in his wedge of berry pie.
"There are institutions--" he began weakly; but Aunty Rose said quickly:
"Joseph Stagg! I know you for what you are--other people don't. If the
neighbours heard you say _that_, they'd think you were a heathen. Your
own sister's child!
"Now, you send Tim, the hackman, up after me this afternoon. I've got to
go shopping. The child hasn't a thing to wear but that fancy little
black frock, and she'll ruin that playing around. She's got to have
frocks, and shoes, and another hat--all sorts of things. Seems a shame to
dress a child like her in black--it's punishment. Makes her affliction
double, I do say."
"Well, I suppose we've got to flatter Custom, or Custom will weep,"
growled Mr. Stagg. "But where the money's coming from----"
"Didn't Car'lyn's pa leave her none?" asked Aunty Rose promptly.
"Well--not what you'd call a fortune," admitted Mr. Stagg slowly.
"Thanks be, you've got plenty, then. And if you haven't, I have," said
the woman in a tone that quite closed the question of finances.
"Which shows me just where I get off at," muttered Joseph Stagg as he
started down the walk for the store. "I knew that young one would be a
nuisance."
CHAPTER VI--MR. JEDIDIAH PARLOW
Carolyn May, who was quite used to taking a nap on the days that she did
not go to school, woke up, as bright as a newly minted dollar, very soon
after her Uncle Joe left for the store.
"I'm awfully sorry I missed him," she confided to Aunty Rose when she
danced into the kitchen. "You see, I want to get acquainted with Uncle
Joe just as fast as possible. And he's at home so little, I guess that
it's going to be hard to do it."
"Oh, is that so? And is it going to be hard to get acquainted with me?"
asked the housekeeper curiously.
"Oh, no!" cried Carolyn May, snuggling up to the good woman and patting
her plump, bare arm. "Why, I'm getting 'quainted with _you_ fast, Aunty
Rose! You heard me say my prayers, and when you laid me down on the
couch just now you kissed me."
Aunty Rose actually blushed. "There, there, child!" she exclaimed.
"You're too noticing. Eat your dinner, that I've saved warm for you."
"Isn't Prince to have any dinner, Aunty Rose?" asked the little girl.
"You may let him out, if you wish, after you have had your own dinner.
You can feed him under the tree. But stand by and keep the hens away,
for hens haven't any more morals than they have teeth, and they'll steal
from him. I don't want him to snap any of their heads off before they're
ready for the pot."
"Oh, Aunty Rose," said Carolyn May seriously, "he's too polite. He
wouldn't do such a thing. Really, you don't know yet what a _good_ dog
Prince is."
Carolyn May was very much excited about an hour later when a rusty,
closed hack drew up to the front gate of the Stagg place and stopped.
She and Prince were then playing in the front yard--at least, she was
stringing maple keys into a long, long chain (a delight heretofore
unknown to the little city girl), and the dog was watching her with
wrinkling nose and blinking eyes.
An old man with a square-cut chin whisker and clothing and hat as rusty
as the hack itself held the reins over the bony back of the horse that
drew the ancient equipage.
"I say, young'un, ain't ye out o' yer bailiwick?" queried Tim, the
hackman, staring at the little girl in the Stagg yard.
Carolyn May stood up quickly and tried to look over her shoulder and
down her back. It _was_ hard to get all those buttons buttoned straight.
"I don't know," she said, perturbed. "Does it show?"
"Huh?" grunted Tim. "Does what show?"
"What you said," said Carolyn May accusingly. "I don't believe it does."
"Hey!" chuckled the hack driver suddenly. "I meant, do you 'low Mrs.
Kennedy knows you're playing in her front yard?"
"Aunty Rose? Why, of course!" Carolyn May declared. "Don't you know I
_live_ here?"
"Live here? Get out!" exclaimed the surprised hackman.
"Yes, sir. And Prince, too. With my Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose."
"Pitcher of George Washington!" ejaculated Tim. "You don't mean Joe
Stagg's taken a young-'un to board?"
"He's my guardian," said the little girl primly.
"'Guardian'?" repeated the hackman, puzzled. "You don't mean you're one
o' them fresh-airs, be ye?"
Carolyn May was quite as much puzzled by that expression as she had been
by "bailiwick." She shook her head.
"I don't think I am," she confessed. "Mrs. Price said I was an orphan.
Is that anything like a fresh-air?"
"Most of them is," the hackman said sententiously. "But here's Mrs.
Kennedy."
Aunty Rose appeared. She wore a close bonnet, trimmed very plainly, and
carried a parasol of drab silk. Otherwise, she had not changed her usual
attire, save to remove the voluminous apron she wore when at her
housework.
"I would take you with me, child," she said, looking at Carolyn May,
"only I don't know what to do with that dog. I suppose he would tear the
house down if we shut him in?"
"I expect so," admitted the little girl.
"And if he was outside, he would follow the hack?"
"Yes, ma'am," agreed Carolyn May again.
"Then you'll have to stay at home and watch him," said Aunty Rose
decisively. "I always claimed a dog was a nuisance."
Between Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose, both of the visitors at the Stagg
place were proving to be nuisances.
Aunty Rose climbed into the creaky old vehicle.
"Are you going to be gone long?" asked Carolyn May politely.
"Not more than two hours, child," said the housekeeper. "Nobody will
bother you here----"
"Not while that dog's with her, I reckon," put in Tim, the hackman.
"May I come down the road to meet you, Aunty Rose?" asked the little
girl. "I know the way to Uncle Joe's store."
"I don't know any reason why you can't come to meet me," replied Mrs.
Kennedy. "Anyway, you can come along the road as far as the first house.
You know that one?"
"Yes, ma'am. Mr. Parlow's," said Carolyn May.
"She knows her way 'round, I warrant," put in Tim.
"Very well, child," said Aunty Rose, and the bony old horse started
slowly down the dusty road. Carolyn May stood at the gate and watched it
wabble away. The hush of the afternoon wrapped the place about. Such a
stir as there had been about The Corners in the forenoon seemed to have
been quite quenched. Not even the clank of iron on iron from the
blacksmith shop was now audible.
Carolyn May went back into the yard and sat on the front-porch steps,
and Prince, yawning unhappily, curled down at her feet. There did not
seem to be much to do at this place. The little girl lost interest in
the maple-key chain which Aunty Rose had shown her how to make.
She had time now, had Carolyn May, to compare The Corners with the busy
Harlem streets with which she had been familiar all her life. At this
time of the afternoon the shady sides of the cross streets and the west
side of the avenues were a-bustle with baby carriages and children, with
nurses and mothers. And there were street pianos, and penny peep shows,
and ice-cream-cone peddlers, and wagons, and many automobiles.
"Goodness me!" thought Carolyn May, startled by her own imagination,
"suppose all the folks in all these houses around here were _dead_!"
They might have been, for all the human noises she heard. She could
count seven dwellings from where she sat on the Stagg porch, and there
were others not in sight. No apparent life at the blacksmith shop; none
at the store. Not even a vehicle on the road, now that the hack had
crawled out of view towards Sunrise Cove.
"Goodness me!" she said again, and this time she jumped up, startling
Prince from his nap. "Maybe there is a spell cast over all this place,"
she went on. "Everybody has been put to sleep, just like in a fairy
story. I don't know whether a little girl who _isn't_ asleep can wake
'em up, or whether it must be a prince.
"Why, Princey," she added, looking at the dog, "maybe it will be _you_
that wakes 'em up. Anyway, let's go and see if we can find _somebody_
that's alive."
They went out of the yard together and took the dusty road towards the
town. They passed the broad front of the church, its windows like so
many blind eyes, and the little girl peered timidly over the rusty
railing into the neglected churchyard, where many of the headstones were
moss-grown and toppling.
"This is just the very _deadest_ place," murmured Carolyn May. "And I
guess these folks buried here aren't much quieter than the live folks.
Oh, dear me! these folks here at The Corners don't look up to brighter
things any more than the folks that are under ground. Why, maybe _I'll_
get that way if I stay here! And I know Papa Cameron wouldn't approve of
_that_!"
She sighed, and trudged on in the dust. The perspiration began to
trickle down her pink face. The powdery dust rose from beneath her feet
and was drifted over the wayside grass and weeds by the fretful breeze.
Prince paced on by her side, his nose wrinkling at the strange odours
the breeze brought to his nostrils. A toad hopped suddenly out of its
ambuscade beside the path, and Prince jumped.
"Don't touch the toad, Princey," said the little girl. "You know we
learned about toads at school--and how good they are. And there was one
in Central Park--don't you 'member?"
A minute later, however, as they went on, something flashed into view on
the top rail of the boundary fence. It brought a yelp of delight from
Prince and a startled cry to Carolyn May's lips.
"A squirrel!"
Prince leaped for the fence. With a whisk of its tail, the squirrel went
up the hole of the nearest tree, and out on one of the branches, right
over their heads.
Prince danced about madly in the dust and yelped.
"You silly thing, you," the little girl told him. "You _know_ you can't
climb that tree."
The squirrel chattered angrily overhead.
"Now, come away," Carolyn May commanded. "Don't you see you've made that
squirrel mad at you? You'll _never_ make friends out here in the
country, if you act this way, Princey."
Prince seemed little impressed by this prophecy, but he followed after
his little mistress and left the squirrel to its own devices. They soon
came in sight of the Parlow house and carpenter shop.
"We can't go beyond that," said Carolyn May. "Aunty Rose told us not to.
And Uncle Joe says the carpenter-man isn't a pleasant man."
She looked wistfully at the premises. The cottage seemed quite as much
under the "spell" as had been those dwellings at The Corners. But from
the shop came the sound of a plane shrieking over a long board.
"Oh, Princey!" gasped Carolyn May. "I b'lieve he's making long, curly
shavings!"
If there was one thing Carolyn May adored, it was curls. Because her own
sunny hair was almost perfectly straight, she thought the very loveliest
thing a fairy godmother could do for her was to fit her out with a
perfect suit of curls.
There had been a carpenter shop only two blocks from where she lived in
Harlem, and she and her friend, Edna Price, had sometimes gone there and
begged a few curly shavings with which to bedeck themselves. But they
could never get as many shavings as they wanted there, for the man swept
them up every day and put them in bags, to be sold for baling.
But here, at this carpenter's shop, she had seen, only the afternoon
before, great heaps of the most beautiful, curly, smelly shavings! She
drew nearer, her hand upon Prince's collar, and stood looking at the old
man with the silver-bowed spectacles pushing away at the jack-plane.
Suddenly, Mr. Jedidiah Parlow looked up and saw the wistful,
dust-streaked face under the black hat-brim and above the black frock.
He stared at her for fully a minute, poising the plane over his work.
Then he put it down and came to the door of the shop.
"You're Hannah Stagg's little girl, aren't you?" he asked in a voice
Carolyn May thought almost as dry as his shavings.
"Yes, sir," she said, and sighed. Dear me, he knew who she was right
away! There would not be any chance of her getting a suit of long curls.
"You've come here to live, have you?" said Mr. Parlow slowly.
"Yes, sir. You see, my papa and mamma were lost at sea--with the
_Dunraven_. It was a mistake, I guess," sighed the little girl, "for
they weren't fighting anybody. But the _Dunraven_ got in the way of some
ships that were fighting, in a place called the Mediterranean Ocean, and
the _Dunraven_ was sunk, and only a few folks were saved from it. My
papa and mamma weren't saved."
"So?" said the carpenter, pushing his big spectacles up to his forehead.
"I read about it. Too bad--too mighty bad! I remember Hannah Stagg," he
added, winking his eyes, Carolyn May thought, a good deal as Prince did.
"You look like her."
"Do I?" Carolyn May returned, drawing nearer. "I'm glad I do. And I'm
glad I sleep in what used to be her bed, too. It doesn't seem so
lonesome."
"So? I reckoned you'd be lonesome up there at The Corners," said the
carpenter. "Is that your dog?"
"He's Prince--yes, sir," Carolyn May said, looking at the panting mongrel
proudly. "He's a _splendid_ dog. I know he must be valuable, even if he
is a mongorel. He got his paw hurt once, and papa and I took him to a
vetrernary.
"A vetrernary," explained Carolyn May, "is a dog doctor. And I heard
this one tell my papa that there must be blood of 'most all kinds of
dogs there was in Prince's veins. There aren't many dogs like him."
"No, I reckon not. Not many have such a pedigree," admitted the
carpenter, taking up his plane. Then he squinted curiously across it at
Carolyn May. "I guess your papa was some different from Joe Stagg,
wasn't he?"
"Oh, yes; he didn't look much like Uncle Joe. You see, they aren't
really related," explained Carolyn May innocently.
Mr. Parlow grunted and stripped another shaving from the edge of the
board he was planing. Carolyn May's eager eyes followed that curling
ribbon, and her lips parted. There were just _bushels_ of shavings lying
all about the shop--and Uncle Joe said Mr. Parlow would not give away a
single one!
The carpenter paused before pushing the plane a second time the length
of the board. "Don't you want a drink of water, little girl?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, sir--I would. And I know Prince would like a drink," she told
him quickly.
"Go right around to the well in the back yard," said Mr. Parlow. "You'll
find a glass there--and Mandy keeps a pan on the well-curb for the dogs
and cats."
"Thank you; I'll go," the little girl said, and started around by the
green lane to the yard behind the cottage and the carpenter shop.
She hoped she would see Miss Amanda Parlow; but she saw nobody. The well
was like the one in the Stagg back yard--it had a sweep and a smooth pole
and chain that lowered the bucket into the depth of the shaft.
But it seemed as though somebody must have known the little girl was
coming, for a dripping bucket of water had just been lifted upon the
shelf, and the pan on the well-curb was filled. Prince lapped up the
water from this eagerly.
All the time Carolyn May was getting her drink she felt she was being
watched. She gazed frankly all about, but saw nobody. The green blinds
were tightly closed over the cottage windows; yet the child wondered if
somebody inside was not looking out at her. Was it the nice-looking lady
she had seen the day before--Miss Amanda, who would not look at Uncle
Joe?
She went back to the door of the carpenter shop and found Mr. Parlow
still busily at work.
"Seems to me," he said, in his dry voice, after a little while, "you
aren't much like other little girls."
"Aren't I?" responded Carolyn May wonderingly.
"No. Most little girls that come here want shavings to play with," said
the carpenter, quizzically eyeing her over his work.
"Oh!" cried Carolyn May, almost jumping. "And do you give 'em to 'em?"
"'Most always," admitted Mr. Parlow.
"Oh! Can _I_ have some?" she gasped.
"All you want," said Mr. Parlow, and perhaps that funny noise he made in
his throat was as near to a laugh as he ever got.
When Tim's old hack crawled along the road from town, with Aunty Rose
sitting inside, enthroned amidst a multitude of bundles, Carolyn May was
bedecked with a veritable wig of long, crisp curls, each carefully
thrust under the brim of her hat. And when she shook the curls, Prince
barked at her.
"Well, child, you certainly have made a mess of yourself," said the
housekeeper. "Has she been annoying you, Jedidiah Parlow?"
"She's the only Stagg that ain't annoyed me since her mother went away,"
said the carpenter gruffly.
Aunty Rose looked at him levelly. "I wonder," she said. "But, you see,
she isn't wholly a Stagg."
This, of course, did not explain matters to Carolyn May in the least.
Nor did what Aunty Rose said to her on the way home in the hot, stuffy
hack help the little girl to understand the trouble between her uncle
and Mr. Parlow.
"Better not let Joseph Stagg see you so friendly with Jedidiah Parlow.
Let sleeping dogs lie," Mrs. Kennedy observed.
CHAPTER VII--A TRAGIC SITUATION
Such was the introduction of Carolyn May to The Corners. It was not a
very exciting life she had entered into, but the following two or three
weeks were very full.
Aunty Rose insisted upon her being properly fitted out with clothing for
the summer and fall. Mrs. Price sent on by express certain of the
child's possessions that would be useful, but Aunty Rose declared the
local seamstress must make a number of dresses for Carolyn May. The
latter had to go to the dressmaker's house to be fitted, and that is how
she became acquainted with Chet Gormley's mother.
Mrs. Gormley was helping the dressmaker, and they both made much of
Carolyn May. Aunty Rose allowed her to go for her fittings alone--of
course, with Prince as a companion--so, without doubt, Mrs. Gormley, who
loved a "dish of gossip," talked more freely with the little girl than
she would have done in Mrs. Kennedy's presence.
One afternoon the little girl appeared at the dressmaker's (it was only
two houses nearer the centre of Sunrise Cove than the Parlow cottage)
with Prince's collar decorated with short, curly shavings. This
Elizabethan ruff may or may not have caused the dog to look
"extinguished," as Carolyn May pointed out, but it certainly made him
uncomfortable. However, he endured this dressing-up to please his little
mistress.
"I take it you've stopped at Jed Parlow's shop, child," said Mrs.
Gormley with a sigh.
"Yes, ma'am," returned Carolyn May. "Do you know, he's very lib'ral."
"'Lib'ral'?" repeated Mrs. Gormley. "I never heard of old Jed Parlow
bein' accused of that before. Did you, Mrs. Maine?"
Mrs. Maine was the dressmaker; and she bit off her words when she spoke,
much as she bit off her threads.
"No. I never--heard Jed Parlow--called that--no!" declared Mrs. Maine
emphatically.
"Why, yes," little Carolyn May said quite eagerly, "he gives me all the
shavings I want. I--I guess folks don't just understand about Mr.
Parlow," she added, remembering what her uncle had first said about the
carpenter. "He _is_ real lib'ral."
"It's a wonder to me," drawled Mrs. Gormley, "that he has a thing to do
with _a certain party_, Mrs. Maine, considerin' how his daughter feels
towards that _certain party's_ relation. What d'you think?"
"I guess--there's sumpin--to be said--on both sides--o' that controversy,"
responded the dressmaker.
"Meanin' that mebbe _a certain party's_ relative feels just as cross as
Mandy Parlow?" suggested Mrs. Gormley.
"Yep," agreed the other woman, biting off her answer and her thread at
the same instant.
Carolyn May listened, much puzzled. She wondered just who "a certain
party" could be. It sounded very mysterious.
Mrs. Maine was called away upon some household task, and Mrs. Gormley
seemed to change the subject of conversation.
"Don't your uncle, Mr. Stagg, ever speak to you about Mandy Parlow?" she
asked the little girl.
Carolyn May had to think about this before answering. Then she
remembered.
"Oh, yes," she said brightly.
"He does? Do tell!" exclaimed Mrs. Gormley eagerly. "What does he say?"
"Why, he says her name is _Miss_ Amanda Parlow."
Mrs. Gormley flushed rather oddly and glanced at the child with
suspicion. But little Carolyn May was perfectly frank and ingenuous.
"Humph!" ejaculated Chet's mother. "He never says nothing about bein' in
love with Mandy, does he? They was goin' with each other steady once."
The little girl looked puzzled.
"When folks love each other they look at each other and talk to each
other, don't they?" she asked.
"Well--yes--generally," admitted Mrs. Gormley.
"Then my Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda Parlow aren't in love," announced
Carolyn May with confidence, "for they don't even look at each other."
"They used to. Why, Joseph Stagg and Mandy Parlow was sweethearts years
and years ago! Long before your mother left these parts, child."
"That was a long time 'fore I was borned," said the little girl
wonderingly.
"Oh, yes. Everybody that went to The Corners' church thought they'd be
married."
"My Uncle Joe and Miss Mandy?"
"Yes."
"Then, what would have become of Aunty Rose?" queried Carolyn May.
"Oh, Mrs. Kennedy hadn't gone to keep house for Mr. Stagg then," replied
Mrs. Gormley. "He tried sev'ral triflin' critters there at the Stagg
place before she took hold."
Carolyn May looked at Mrs. Gormley encouragingly. She was very much
interested in Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda Parlow's love affair.
"_Why_ didn't they get married--like my papa and mamma?" she asked.
"Oh, goodness knows!" exclaimed Mrs. Gormley. "Some says 'twas his fault
and some says 'twas hern. And mebbe 'twas a third party's that I might
mention, at _that_," added Mrs. Gormley, pursing up her lips in a very
knowing way.
Here was another mysterious "party"! Carolyn May wondered if this
"party" could be related to the "certain party" who seemed so familiar
to both of the "dressmaking ladies."
"You couldn't get nothin' out of either Mr. Stagg or Mandy about it, I
don't believe. They're both as tight-mouthed as clams," pursued Mrs.
Gormley. "But one day," she said, growing confidential, "it was in
camp-meeting time--one day somebody seen Joe Stagg drivin' out with
another girl--Charlotte Lenny, that was. _She_ was married to a man over
in Springdale long ago. Mr. Stagg took Charlotte to Faith Camp Meeting.
"Then, the very next week, Mandy went with Evan Peckham to a barn dance
at Crockett's, and nobody ain't ever seen your uncle and Mandy Parlow
speak since, much less ever walk together.
"Now stand up, child, and let's see if this frock fits. I declare, your
uncle is a-fittin' you out right nice."
If the truth were told, Uncle Joe did not agree to the making of all
these "frocks and furbelows" for Hannah's Car'lyn without the filing of
some objections.
"I tell you, Aunty Rose," he said to his austere housekeeper (and it
took courage for him to say this), "I tell you the child will get it
into her head that she can _always_ have all these things. Her father
didn't leave anything--scarcely any money at all. I don't suppose, if I
sell out that flat, I'd get a hundred dollars for it. How are all these
frocks and furbelows going to be paid for?"
"You can stop in at the First National, Joseph Stagg, and draw enough
out of my account to pay for them," said Aunty Rose placidly.
"Huh? I guess not!" ejaculated the hardware dealer angrily. "I can pay
my just debts yet, I hope--and them of Hannah's Car'lyn, too. If there's
money got to be spent on the child, I'm the one to spend it."
"Then don't talk as though you were afraid the sheriff was going to tack
a notice on your store door to-morrow morning," returned the old lady
tartly. To herself she observed, out of his hearing: "It will do Joseph
Stagg good to learn to spend money, as well as to make it."
But Mr. Stagg did not take kindly to this, nor to other innovations that
the coming of Carolyn May to The Corners brought about. Especially was
he outspoken about Prince. That faithful follower of "Hannah's Car'lyn"
he failed to discover any use for or any good in.
Prince was a friendly creature, and he did not always display good
judgment in showing his affection. In his doggish mind he could not see
why Mr. Stagg did not like him; he approved of Mr. Stagg very much
indeed.
One particularly muddy day he met the returning hardware merchant at the
gate with vociferous barkings and a plain desire to implant a welcoming
tongue on the man's cheek. He succeeded in muddying Mr. Stagg's suit
with his front paws, and almost cast the angry man full length into a
mud puddle.
"Drat the beast!" ejaculated Mr. Stagg. "I'd rather have an epileptic
fit loose around here than him. Now, look at these clo'es! I declare,
Car'lyn, you've jest got to tie that mongrel up--and keep him tied!"
"All the time, Uncle Joe?" whispered the little girl.
"Yes, _ma'am_, all the time! If I find him loose again, I'll tie a bag
of rocks to his neck and drop him in the deepest hole in the brook. He'd
oughter been drowned by that man when he was a pup."
After this awful threat, Prince lived a precarious existence, and his
mistress was much worried for him. Never, when Uncle Joe was at home,
could the dog have a run. Aunty Rose said nothing, but she saw that both
the little girl and her canine friend were very unhappy.
Mrs. Kennedy, however, had watched Mr. Joseph Stagg for years. Indeed,
she had known him as a boy, long before she had closed up her own little
cottage around on the other road and come to the Stagg place to save the
hardware merchant from the continued reign of those "trifling creatures"
of whom Mrs. Gormley had spoken.
As a bachelor, Joseph Stagg had been preyed upon by certain female
harpies so prevalent in a country community. Some had families whom they
partly supported out of Mr. Stagg's larder; some were widows who looked
upon the well-to-do merchant as a marrying proposition.
Aunty Rose Kennedy did not need the position of Mr. Stagg's housekeeper
and could not be accused of assuming it from mercenary motives. Over her
back fence she had seen the havoc going on in the Stagg homestead after
Hannah Stagg went to the city and Joseph Stagg's final female relative
had died and left him alone in the big house.
One day the old Quaker-like woman could stand no more. She put on her
sunbonnet, came around by the road to the front door of the Stagg house,
which she found open, and walked through to the rear porch on which the
woman who then held the situation of housekeeper was wrapping up the
best feather bed and pillows in a pair of the best home-spun sheets,
preparatory to their removal.
The neighbours enjoyed what followed. Aunty Rose came through the ordeal
as dignified and unruffled as ever; the retiring incumbent went away
wrathfully, shaking the dust of the premises from her garments as a
testimony against "any sich actions."
When Mr. Stagg came home at supper time he found Aunty Rose at the helm
and already a different air about the place.
"Goodness me, Aunty Rose," he said, biting into her biscuit ravenously,
"I was a-going down to the mill-hands' hotel to board. I couldn't stand
it no longer. If you'd stay here and do for me, I'd feel like a new
man."
"You ought to be made over into a new man, Joseph Stagg," the woman said
sternly. "A married man."
"No, no! Never _that_!" gasped the hardware dealer.
"If I came here, Joseph Stagg, it would cost you more money than you've
been paying these no-account women."
"I don't care," said Mr. Stagg recklessly. "Go ahead. Do what you
please. Say what you want. I'm game."
Thereby he had put himself into Aunty Rose's power. She had renovated
the old kitchen and some of the other rooms. If Mr. Stagg at first
trembled for his bank balance, he was made so comfortable that he had
not the heart to murmur. And, besides, he believed in keeping his word.
He had declared himself "game."
But that had all happened years before. This matter of expense for
Hannah's Car'lyn was an entirely different matter. Moreover, the
mischievousness of Prince, the mongrel, was really more than Mr. Joseph
Stagg thought he was called upon to bear.
Of course, Carolyn May let Prince run at large when she was sure Uncle
Joe was well out of sight of the house, but she was very careful to
chain him up again long before her uncle was expected to return.
Prince had learned not to chase anything that wore feathers; Aunty Rose
herself had to admit that he was a very intelligent dog and knew what
punishment was for. But how did he know that in trying to dig out a mole
he would be doing more harm than good?
The mole in question lived under a piece of rock wall near the garden
fence. When let free for his first morning run, Prince had been much
interested in the raised roofs of the tunnels he found in the sod down
there.
Aunty Rose called the mole "a pesky creature." Uncle Joe had threatened
to bring home a trap with which to impale it. How should Prince know--and
this was the question Carolyn May asked afterwards--that he would not be
considered a general benefactor if he managed to capture the little
blind nuisance?
At any rate, when Uncle Joe came home to dinner on one particular
Saturday he walked down to the corner of the garden fence, and there saw
the havoc Prince had wrought. In following the line of the mole's last
tunnel he had worked his way under the picket fence and had torn up two
currant bushes and done some damage in the strawberry patch.
"And the worst of it is," grumbled the hardware dealer, "he never
caught the mole. That mongrel really isn't worth a bag of dornicks to
sink him in the brook. But that's what he's going to get this very
evening when I come home. I won't stand for him a day longer."
Carolyn May positively turned pale as she crouched beside the now
chained-up Prince, both arms about his rough neck. He licked her cheek.
Fortunately, he could not understand _everything_ that was said to him,
therefore the pronouncement of this terrible sentence did not agitate
him an atom.
But his little mistress held to him tightly, dry sobs shaking her slight
form. Uncle Joe went in to dinner with little appreciation of the horror
and despair that filled the soul of Hannah's Car'lyn, out under the tree
in the back yard.
CHAPTER VIII--MR. STAGG IS JUDGED
First, of course, Carolyn May thought she would run away--she and Prince.
She could not eat any dinner, although Aunty Rose called her twice and
she did feel a little faint, for she possessed a hearty appetite. But
the child knew that the very first mouthful she tried to swallow would
choke her--and then she would cry.
Perhaps Aunty Rose understood this, for she did not trouble the little
girl again. Carolyn May sat for a long time under the tree beside the
sleeping dog and thought how different this life at The Corners was from
that she had lived with her father and mother in the city home.
If only that big ship, the _Dunraven_, had not sailed away with her papa
and her mamma!
Carolyn May had been very brave on that occasion. She had gone ashore
with Mrs. Price and Edna after her mother's last clinging embrace and
her father's husky "Good-bye, daughter," with scarcely a tear. She had
watched the huge vessel sweep off from the dock and out into the stream,
carried by the outgoing tide and helped by a fussy tug, which latter she
had thought preposterously small to be of any real service to such a
huge craft as the _Dunraven_.
They had run to the very end of the pier, too; so as to see the last of
the outgoing ship. Of course, the faces of her father and mother were
lost to her vision in the crowd of other passengers, but her mother had
waved her pink veil, as agreed, and Carolyn May could see that for a
long while.
Of course, she had been brave! Mamma would return in a few weeks, and
then, after a time, papa would likewise come back--and, oh! so rosy and
stout! No more cough, no longer a feeble step, no longer breathless
after he had climbed the two flights to their apartment.
These things the little girl, left behind, had fully understood. She
looked forward confidently to the happy return of both her parents.
And then, in two weeks, came the fatal news of the sinking of the
_Dunraven_ and the loss of all but a small part of her crew and
passengers. The steamer had gone down quickly, and in the night, with
the dim coast of Africa far, far to the southward and many, many leagues
of troubled sea between her grave and the Spanish coast.
The two warring vessels--which one had caused the sinking of the
_Dunraven_ would probably never be known--had not even discovered till
daylight that there was a remnant of the _Dunraven's_ company adrift on
the sea. These were finally rescued by the victorious combatant, and in
a heavy fog. The exact spot where the _Dunraven_ had sunk was not known.
Vaguely these facts had become known to Carolyn May. She never spoke of
them. They did not seem real to the little girl. After all, she could
not believe that her father and mother had gone on so long a journey
that they would never again return to her.
But now, sitting beside the condemned Prince--her companion and only real
comforter during these weeks of her orphanhood--the little girl felt
bitterly her loneliness and grief.
If Uncle Joe did as he had threatened, what should she do? There seemed
to be no place for her and Prince to run away to. She did not know her
way about Sunrise Cove and The Corners. During the weeks she had lived
here she had learned to know nobody well enough to fly to for
protection, or of whom to beg shelter for herself and her dog.
She knew Mr. Stagg to be a very firm and determined man. Even Aunty
Rose, who in most things guided affairs at the Stagg homestead, could go
only so far. What Uncle Joe really determined to do, not even the
austere housekeeper could balk. No, there seemed no escaping the awful
tragedy that was to be. And if Prince had to die----
"I'm quite sure I don't want to live," thought Carolyn May dismally. "If
papa, and mamma, and Prince are _all_ dead--why! there aren't enough
other folks left in the world to make it worth while living in, I don't
believe. If Prince isn't going to be alive, then _I_ don't want to be
alive, either."
[Illustration: _She had watched the huge vessel sweep off from the
dock_]
By-and-by Prince began to get very uneasy. It was long past his dinner
hour, and every time he heard the screen door slam he jumped up and
gazed eagerly and with cocked ears and wagging tail in that direction.
"You poor thing, you," said Carolyn May at last. "I s'pose you _are_
hungry. It isn't going to do you a bit of good to eat; but you don't
know it. I'll ask Aunty Rose if she has something for you."
She got up wearily and went across the yard. Aunty Rose stood just
inside the screen door.
"Don't you want any dinner, Car'lyn May?" she asked.
"No, ma'am. I guess I'd better not eat," said the child.
"Why not?"
"'Cause my stomach's so trembly. I just _know_ I couldn't keep anything
down, even if I could swallow it. But Prince'll eat his, please. He--he
don't know any better."
"Tut, tut!" murmured the woman. "He's the most sensible of the two of
you, I declare."
But she did not urge Carolyn May to eat. There was a platter of broken
meat and bread for the dog, and Prince ate with apparent thankfulness.
"But you wouldn't gobble that down so, if you knew what was going to
happen to us, you poor dear," Carolyn May whispered.
Later she took Prince around the premises on his leash. She led him
along the edge of the brook. The Stagg place bordered on both sides of
the stream, and on the farther side were hayfields. Uncle Joe did not
till any land save the garden in which the unhappy Prince had done such
damage.
The little girl found, she believed, what must be the deepest hole in
the brook. It was not far beyond the great, widely spreading tree on the
knoll where she loved to sit. The water was brown and cloudy in this
pool, and a trout jumped there and left a wake of bubbles behind him
where he dived again with the luckless fly he had snapped out of the
air.
"I wonder if that trout will stay there if you are drownd-ed right where
he lives?" Carolyn May asked of Prince.
Prince wagged his abbreviated tail and yawned. Really, he seemed very
little impressed by the tragic fate that overhung him. Perhaps Carolyn
May's feelings would have been less desperate had she been blessed, as
Prince was just then, by a full stomach.
Nevertheless, the tragedy was all very real to the child. She saw Aunty
Rose sitting in one of her stiffest and most straight-backed chairs on
the porch, knitting. Carolyn May would not go near her, for she knew she
would burst out crying at the first kind word.
She had learned to love Aunty Rose. The old lady always waited for
Carolyn May to say her prayers now, when bedtime came. And the child had
a well-grounded suspicion that before Mrs. Kennedy sought her own bed
she crept into Carolyn May's room and kissed her softly and saw that she
was tucked in.
She felt that she would be sorry to leave Aunty Rose. And there was the
woman whose husband kept the store on the other corner from the Stagg
house. _She_ had given Carolyn May a stick of candy one day.
"I expect she'll be sorry not to see me again," the little girl told
herself. "And there's Mrs. Gormley--and Chet. They'll think it funny I
didn't bid them good-bye. And, then, there's Mr. Parlow."
After all, there seemed to be quite a number of people Carolyn May
knew--"just to be acquainted with." But she had never yet seen the
fulfilment of her strong desire to become acquainted with the
carpenter's daughter, Miss Amanda Parlow.
All these thoughts shuttled back and forth in Carolyn May's brain. The
minutes of that afternoon dragged by in most doleful procession. There
was no idea in the little girl's mind that Uncle Joe might change his
intention and Prince be saved from the watery grave promised him. When
she saw the hardware dealer come into the yard almost an hour earlier
than their usual supper time she was not surprised. Nor did she think of
pleading with him for the dog's life.
The little girl watched him askance. Mr. Stagg came directly through the
yard, stopping only at the shed for a moment. There he secured a strong
potato sack, and with it trailing from his hand went halfway up the
knoll to where there was a heap of stones. He stooped down and began to
select some of these, putting them in the bag.
This was too much for Carolyn May. With a fearful look at Uncle Joe's
uncompromising shoulders, she went to the tree where Prince was chained.
Exchanging the chain for the leather leash with which she always led him
about, the little girl guided the mongrel across the yard and around the
corner of the house.
Her last backward glance assured her that the hardware dealer had not
observed her. Quickly and silently she led Prince to the front gate, and
they went out together into the dusty road.
"I--I know we oughtn't to," whispered Carolyn May to her canine friend,
"but I feel I've just _got_ to save you, Prince. I--I can't see you
drownd-ed dead like that!"
Prince whined in sympathy. Perhaps he felt, too, that life held much
that was good and beautiful to his doggish soul.
Carolyn May had no idea where they should go to hide from Uncle Joe.
This venture was the result of a sudden and unpremeditated
determination. Her only thought at first was to get out of sight of the
Stagg premises.
So she turned the nearest corner and went up the road towards the little
closed, gable-roofed cottage where Aunty Rose had lived before she had
come to be Uncle Joe's housekeeper.
Carolyn May had already peered over into the small yard of the cottage
and had seen that Mrs. Kennedy still kept the flower-beds weeded and the
walks neat and the grass plot trimmed. But the window shutters were
barred and the front door built up with boards.
Carolyn May went in through the front gate and sat down on the doorstep,
while Prince dropped to a comfortable attitude beside her. The dog
slept. The little girl ruminated.
She would not go back to Uncle Joe's--no, indeed! She did not know just
what she would do when dark should come, but Prince should not be
sacrificed to her uncle's wrath.
In the morning she would walk to the railroad station. She knew how to
get there, and she knew what time the train left for the south. The
conductor had been very kind to her all the way up from New York, and
she was sure he would be glad to take her back again.
She and Prince! They were both happier in that small Harlem apartment,
even with papa and mamma away, than they ever could be at Sunrise Cove.
And, of course, Prince could not be happy after he was "drownd-ed dead!"
So it all seemed to the heart-hungry child sitting on the doorstep of
the abandoned house. A voice, low, sweet, yet startling, aroused her.
"What are you doing there, little girl?"
Both runaways started, but neither of them was disturbed by the
appearance of her who had accosted Carolyn May.
"Oh, Miss Mandy!" breathed the little girl, and thought that the
carpenter's daughter had never looked so pretty.
"What are you doing there?" repeated Miss Parlow.
"We--we've run away," said Carolyn May at last. She could be nothing but
frank; it was her nature.
"Run away!" repeated the pretty woman. "You don't mean that?"
"Yes, ma'am. I have. And Prince. From Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose," Carolyn
May assured her, nodding her head with each declaration.
"Oh, my dear! What for?" asked Miss Amanda.
So Carolyn May told her--and with tears.
Meanwhile the woman came into the yard and sat beside the child on the
step. With her arm about the little girl, Miss Amanda snuggled her up
close, wiping the tears away with her own handkerchief.
"I just _can't_ have poor Prince drownd-ed," Carolyn May sobbed. "I'd
want to be drownd-ed myself, too."
"I know, dear. But do you really believe your Uncle Joseph would do such
a thing? Would he drown your dog?"
"I-I saw him putting the stones in the bag," sobbed Carolyn May. "And he
_said_ he would."
"But he said it when he was angry, dear. We often say things when we are
angry--more's the pity!--which we do not mean, and for which we are
bitterly sorry afterwards. I am sure, Carolyn May, that your Uncle Joe
has no intention of drowning your dog."
"Oh, Miss Amanda! Are you pos'tive?"
"Positive! I know Joseph Stagg. He was never yet cruel to any _dumb_
creature. Go ask him yourself, Carolyn May. Whatever else he may be, he
is not a hater of helpless and dumb animals."
"Miss Amanda," cried Carolyn May, with clasped hands, "you--you are just
lifting an awful big lump off my heart! I'll run and ask him right
away."
She put up her lips for Miss Amanda to kiss, but she could not wait to
walk properly with her new friend to the corner. Instead, she raced with
the barking Prince back to the Stagg premises. Mr. Stagg had just
finished filling in with the stones the trench Prince had dug under the
garden fence.
"There," he grunted. "That dratted dog won't dig this hole any bigger, I
reckon. What's the matter with you, Car'lyn?"
"Are--are you going to drownd Princey, Uncle Joe? If--if you do, it just
seems to me, I--_I shall die_!"
He looked up at her searchingly.
"Humph! is that mongrel so all-important to your happiness that you want
to die if he does?" demanded the man.
"Yes, Uncle Joe."
"Humph!" ejaculated the hardware dealer again. "I believe you think more
of that dog than you do of me."
"Yes, Uncle Joe."
The frank answer hit Mr. Stagg harder than he would have cared to
acknowledge.
"Why?" he queried.
"Because Prince never said a word to hurt me in his life!" said Carolyn
May, sobbing.
The man was silenced. He felt in his inmost heart that he had been
judged.
CHAPTER IX--PRINCE AWAKENS THE CORNERS
Camp-meeting time was over, and the church at The Corners was to open
for its regular Sunday services.
"Both Satan and the parson have had a vacation," said Mr. Stagg, "and
now they can tackle each other again and see which'll get the strangle
hold 'twixt now and revival time."
"You should not say such things, especially before the child, Joseph
Stagg," admonished Aunty Rose.
Carolyn May, however, seemed not to have heard Uncle Joe's pessimistic
remark; she was too greatly excited by the prospect of Sunday-school.
And the very next week-day school would begin!
By this first week in September the little girl was quite settled in her
new home at The Corners. Prince was still a doubtful addition to the
family, both Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose plainly having misgivings about
him. But in regard to the little girl herself, the hardware merchant and
the housekeeper were of one opinion, even though they did not admit it
to each other.
Aunty Rose remained, apparently, as austere as ever, while Joseph Stagg
was quite as much immersed in business as formerly. Yet there were
times, when she and the child were alone, that Mrs. Kennedy unbent, in a
greater or less degree. And on the part of Joseph Stagg, he found
himself thinking of sunny-haired, blue-eyed "Hannah's Car'lyn" with
increasing frequency.
"Didn't you ever have any little girls, Aunty Rose?" Carolyn May asked
the housekeeper on one of these intimate occasions. "Or little boys? I
mean of your very own."
"Yes," said Aunty Rose in a matter-of-fact tone. "Three. But only to
have them in my arms for a very little while. Each died soon after
coming to me. There was something quite wrong with them all, so the
doctors said."
"Oh, my dear! All three of them?" sighed Carolyn May.
"Two girls and a boy. Only one lived to be three months old. They are
all buried behind the church yonder. My husband, Frank Kennedy, was not
one of us. I married out of Meeting."
The little girl knew that she meant her husband, long since dead, had
not been a member of the congregation of Friends. She leaned against
Mrs. Kennedy's chair and tucked what was meant to be a comforting hand
into that of Aunty Rose.
"Now I know something about you," Carolyn May said softly.
"What is that?" asked the woman, her eyes smiling at the child if her
lips did not.
"I know why it is you don't know just how to cuddle little girls and
show 'em how much you love 'em. _All_ little children, I mean--not only
me."
Aunty Rose looked down at her with unchanging countenance, but Carolyn
May looked fearlessly up into the woman's face. No amount of grimness
there could trouble the child now. For she knew something else about
Aunty Rose. The housekeeper loved her!
"Yes, you didn't have your little babies long enough to learn how to
cuddle and snug 'em up. That's it. You ought to learn, Aunty Rose."
"What for?" asked Aunty Rose Kennedy rather sharply.
"Why! so you could take me up into your lap and hug and kiss me--just as
my mamma used to do."
"You can't teach an old dog new tricks, I guess, Car'lyn May," said
Aunty Rose. "Seems to me too much hugging spoils children."
"Oh, no, indeed!" cried the little girl confidently. "Never! My papa
used to snug me up lots. Do you know what he used to call me?"
"No."
"It was just for fun, you know. Just a pet name. Snuggy. He 'most always
called me that. 'Cause I liked to be snuggled up."
Aunty Rose made no rejoinder.
The next morning early Carolyn May, with Prince, went over into the
churchyard and found the three little stones in a row. She knew they
must be the right ones, for there was a bigger stone, with the
inscription, "Frank Kennedy, beloved spouse of Rose Kennedy," upon it.
"Spouse" puzzled the little girl at first, but she felt timid about
asking Aunty Rose about it.
The names on the three little stones were Emeline, Frank, Jr., and
Clarissa. Weeds and tall grass had begun to sprout about the tombstones
in the old churchyard.
Carolyn May pulled the unsightly weeds from about the little,
lozenge-shaped stones and about the taller one, and she dug out a mullen
plant that grew on one of the graves.
While she was thus engaged, a tall man in black--looking rather "weedy"
himself, if the truth were told--came across the graveyard and stood
beside her. He wore a broad band of crêpe around his hat and on his arm,
and was very grave and serious-looking.
"Who are you, little girl?" he asked, his voice being quite agreeable
and his tone kindly.
"I'm Car'lyn May, if you please," she replied, looking up at him
frankly.
"Car'lyn May Stagg?" he asked. "You're Mr. Stagg's little girl? I've
heard of you."
"Car'lyn May Cameron," she corrected seriously. "I'm only staying with
Uncle Joe. He is my guardian, and he had to take me, of course, when my
papa and mamma were lost at sea."
"Indeed?" returned the gentleman. "Do you know who I am?"
"I--I think," said Carolyn May doubtfully, "that you must be the
undertaker."
For a moment the gentleman looked startled. Then he flushed a little,
but his eyes twinkled.
"The undertaker?" he murmured. "Do I look like that?"
"Excuse me, sir," said Carolyn May. "I don't really know you, you know.
Maybe you're _not_ the undertaker."
"No, I am not. Though our undertaker, Mr. Snivvins, is a very good man."
"Yes, sir," said the little girl politely.
"I am the pastor here--your pastor, I hope," he said, putting a kind hand
upon her head.
"Oh, I know you now!" said Carolyn May brightly. "You're the man Uncle
Joe says is going to get a strangle hold on Satan, now that vacation is
over."
The Reverend Afton Driggs looked rather odd again. The shocking
frankness of the child came pretty near to flooring him.
"I--ahem! Your uncle compliments me," he said drily. "You don't know that
he is ready to do his share, do you?"
"His share?" repeated the puzzled little girl.
"Towards strangling the Evil One," pursued the minister, a wry smile
curling the corners of his lips.
"Has he got a share in it, too?" asked Carolyn May.
"I think we all should have," said the minister, looking down at her
with returning kindliness in his glance. "Even little girls like you."
Carolyn May looked at him quite seriously.
"Do you s'pose," she asked him confidentially, "that Satan is really
wicked enough to trouble little girls?"
It was a startling bit of new philosophy thus suggested, and Mr. Driggs
shook his head in grave doubt. But it gave him something to think of all
that day; and the first sermon preached in The Corners church that
autumn seemed rather different from most of those solid, indigestible
discourses that the good man was wont to drone out to his parishioners.
"Dunno but it is worth while to give the parson a vacation," pronounced
Uncle Joe at the dinner table. "Seems to me, his sermon this morning
seemed to have a new snap to it. Mebbe he'll give old Satan a hard rub
this winter, after all."
"Joseph Stagg!" said Aunty Rose admonishingly.
"I think he's a very nice man," said Carolyn May suddenly. "And I kep'
awake most of the time--you see, I heard poor Princey howling for me
here, where he was tied up."
"Hum!" ejaculated Mr. Stagg. "Which kept you awake--the dog or the
minister?"
"Oh, I like Mr. Driggs very much," the little girl assured him. "And
he's in great 'fliction, too, I am sure. He--he wears crêpe on his hat
and sleeve."
"Hum, so he does," grunted Mr. Stagg. "He's 'most always in mourning for
somebody or something. I tell him his name ought to be Jeremiah instead
of 'Sweet Afton,'" which comment was, of course, lost on Carolyn May.
But she said seriously:
"Do you s'pose, Uncle Joe, that he _looks up_ enough? It does just seem
to me as though poor Mr. Driggs must always be looking down instead of
looking up to see the sunshine and the blue sky and--and the mountains,
like my papa said you should."
Uncle Joe was silent. Aunty Rose said, very briskly for her:
"And your papa was right, Car'lyn May. He was a very sensible man, I
have no doubt."
"Oh, he was quite a _wonderful_ man," said the little girl with full
assurance.
It was on the following morning that school opened. The Corners district
school was a red building, with a squatty bell tower and two front
doors, standing not far up the road beyond the church. Carolyn May
thought it a very odd-looking schoolhouse indeed.
The school she had attended in New York was a big brick-and-stone
building, with wide corridors, well-ventilated rooms, a lovely basement
gymnasium, a great hall, a roof garden in summer, part of which was
enclosed with glass and steam-heated in winter.
Inside the little red schoolhouse were only rows of desks and
"forms"--all marred, knife-marked, and ink-stained. The initials of the
very "oldest inhabitant" of The Corners, Mr. Jackson Sprague, were
carved in the lid of one desk. And the system of education followed in
this school seemed to be now much what it had been in Mr. Sprague's day.
Miss Minnie Lester taught the school, and although Miss Minnie looked
very sharply through her glasses at one, Carolyn May thought she was
going to love the teacher very much.
Indeed, that was Carolyn May's attitude towards almost everybody whom
she met. She expected to love and to be loved. Was it any wonder she
made so many friends?
But this country school was conducted so differently from the city
school that Carolyn May found herself quite puzzled on many points.
She had to divide her desk with another little girl, Freda Payne. Freda
was a black-eyed, snappy little girl who could whisper out of the corner
of her mouth without the teacher's seeing her do it. She instructed
Carolyn May from time to time regarding this new world the city child
had entered into.
"Goodness me! didn't you ever have a slate before?" she whispered to
Carolyn May.
"No," the little city girl confessed. "They don't let us use them where
I went to school. They make too much noise. And, then, they aren't
clean."
"Clean! Course they're clean, if you keep 'em clean," declared Freda
fiercely.
She showed the stranger the bottle of water she kept in her desk and the
sponge with which she washed her slate.
"But the sponge is dirty. And it smells!" ventured Carolyn May, with a
slight shudder. She had heard of germs, and the mussy-looking bit of
sponge was not an attractive object.
"'Tain't neither!" snapped Freda, making her denial positive with two
negatives. "The boys spit on their slates and wipe 'em off on their
jacket sleeves. _That's_ nasty. But us girls is clean."
Carolyn May could not see it, however, and she ignored her own slate.
"You can't use that pencil to write with on paper," Freda caught her up
with another admonition.
"That's a slate pencil, if it has got wood around it."
"Oh, dear me! Is it?" sighed the new pupil. "And I haven't any other
here, that I can see."
"Well, I'll lend you one. But don't chew the lead. I hate to have folks
chew my lead pencils."
Carolyn May promised not to lunch off of the borrowed writing
instrument.
But these were not all the pitfalls into which the new pupil fell. The
morning session was not half over before she wished for a drink of
water. Of course, she asked her seatmate about it.
"You must raise your hand till Miss Minnie sees you. You'll have to
waggle your hand good to make her look, like enough," added Carolyn
May's mentor. "Then, if she nods, you go back to the entry and get your
drink."
"Oh," was the comment of the city child, and she immediately raised her
hand. She did not have to "waggle" it much before Miss Minnie took
notice of her.
"Well, Carolyn May?" she said.
"May--may I get a drink--please?" almost whispered Carolyn May, for she
felt very much embarrassed.
Miss Minnie nodded. The little girl rose and went back to the entry on
the girls' side of the house. She looked all about this rather large
square room without finding what she sought.
Against two walls were rows of pegs, on which were hung the coats and
hats and dinner baskets, or dinner pails, of the pupils. In the corner
was a shelf with a dingy bucket upon it and a rusty tin dipper hanging
beside it.
Finally, Carolyn May came slowly back to her seat. Miss Minnie was busy
with a class of older pupils. Freda asked--of course out of the corner of
her mobile mouth:
"Did you get your drink?"
Carolyn May shook her head.
"Why not?"
"I didn't see any faucet."
"Faucet! What's that for?" demanded the other little girl.
"Why, to get the water out of. Isn't there a cold-water tank? And don't
you have paper cups?" demanded Carolyn May. "I didn't see a thing like
what we use in our school in New York."
"Mercy me, Carolyn May!" fairly hissed Freda. "What _are_ you talking
about? We don't have water laid on in the schoolhouse like they do at
home. The pump's in the yard. And whoever heard of paper cups? Why,
paper won't hold water!"
"Yes, they do," the other little girl said eagerly. "They are all
folded, and you take one and open it, and it holds water."
"I think you're fibbing!" declared her seatmate flatly.
"Oh!" gasped the new pupil, deeply hurt by the imputation.
"Yes, I do!" said Freda. "I've got a folding nickel cup. But who ever
heard of paper cups? Everybody drinks out of the dipper."
"That rusty old saucepan?" murmured Carolyn May in wonder.
"Huh, you're awful finicky!" scoffed the other.
"Is the water in that pail on the shelf?"
"Yes. And don't you spill none, or Miss Minnie will get mad at you."
"I guess I'll wait till I get home at noon recess," said the little city
girl. "I'm--I'm not so thirsty now."
There proved, too, at the start, to be a little difficulty with Miss
Minnie. Prince would not remain at home. He howled and whined for the
first half of Monday morning's session--as Aunty Rose confessed, almost
driving her mad. Then he slipped his collar and tore away on Carolyn
May's cold trail.
He heard the children's voices as they came out of the school at recess,
and charged into the group in search of his little mistress. Carolyn May
was just getting acquainted with the other pupils of her own age and was
enjoying herself very much.
"Carolyn May," pronounced Miss Minnie from the girls' door-stoop, "you
must take that horrid dog home at once! Hurry, or you will be late for
the next class."
Carolyn May was hurt by the teacher's tone and words, and she _knew_
Prince felt bad about it. He fairly slunk out of the schoolyard by her
side, and some of the pupils laughed.
She pulled his collar up a hole tighter and begged Prince to be good and
remain at home till noon. Yet, ten minutes after the session had again
opened there sounded a rattling on the porch floor, and into the school
marched the dog, having drawn the staple with which his chain had been
fastened to the bole of the tree in Mr. Stagg's back yard.
Miss Minnie was both alarmed and angry. Some of the little girls
shrieked and wept when Prince pranced over to Carolyn May's seat.
"If you do not shut that awful dog up so that he cannot follow you here,
Carolyn May, I shall speak to your uncle, Mr. Stagg, about it. Ugh, the
ugly beast! Take him away at once!"
This was entirely too much for the little girl's good temper. Her best
friend, she felt, was maligned.
"Miss Minnie," she said breathlessly, "I don't see how you can say
Prince is ugly. I think he is _beautiful_! And he is just as kind as he
can be!"
She was so hurt and excited because her canine friend was so disliked
that she did not even cry one tear! The teacher, remaining well out of
reach of the dog, repeated her command.
"Take that dog straight home, and don't let him get in this schoolhouse
again! I will not allow the other children to be so frightened."
So Carolyn May's schooldays at The Corners did not begin very happily,
after all. She had always loved and been loved by every teacher she had
ever had before. But Miss Minnie seemed prejudiced against her because
of Prince.
The little girl felt bad about this, but she was of too cheerful a
temperament to droop for long under the pressure of any trouble. The
other children liked her, and Carolyn May found plenty of playmates. She
would never loiter with them, however, in the schoolyard at noon or
after school. Instead, she would hurry home and release poor Prince from
duress.
It had been found impossible to keep the dog on a chain. He had almost
choked himself once, and again had torn his ears getting his collar off.
So the strong chicken coop under the big tree in the back yard which had
first been his prison was again his cell while his little mistress was
at school.
"Of course," Carolyn May said to Aunty Rose, "we mustn't let poor
Princey know it's because of Miss Minnie that he has to be shut up. He
might take a dislike to her, just as she has to him; and that would be
dreadful! If she'd only let him, I know he'd lie down right outside the
schoolroom door while I was inside, and be just as good!"
But Miss Minnie remained obdurate. She did not like any dogs, and in her
eyes Prince was especially objectionable.
One of the bigger girls made up a rhyme about Carolyn May and Prince,
which began:
"_Car'lyn May had a mongrel dog,
Its coat was not white like snow;
And everywhere that Car'lyn went
That dog was sure to go._
"_It followed her to school one day,
Which made Miss Minnie sore;
But when Car'lyn tied the mongrel up,
It was bound to bark and roar._"
There were many more verses; the big girl was always adding new ones.
"I don't mind it--much," Carolyn May confessed to Aunty Rose, "but I
wouldn't like Prince to hear that poetry. His feelings might be hurt."
It was on the last Friday in the month that something happened which
quite changed Miss Minnie's attitude towards "that mongrel."
Incidentally, The Corners, as a community, was fully awakened from its
lethargy, and, as it chanced, like the Sleeping Beauty and all her
retinue, by a Prince.
The school session on Friday afternoons was always shortened. This day
Mr. Brady, one of the school trustees, came to review the school and,
before he left, to pay Miss Minnie her salary for the month.
Carolyn May had permission from Aunty Rose to go calling that afternoon.
Freda Payne, whom she liked very much, lived up the road beyond the
schoolhouse, and she had invited the little city girl to come to see
her. Of course, Prince had to be included in the invitation. Freda fully
understood that, and Carolyn May took him on his leash.
They saw Miss Minnie at her desk when they went past the schoolhouse.
She was correcting written exercises. Carolyn May secretly hoped that
her own was much better than she feared it was.
Not far beyond the schoolhouse Prince began to growl, and the hairs
stiffened on his neck.
"Whatever is the matter with you, Prince?" demanded Carolyn May.
In a moment she saw the cause of the dog's continued agitation. A
roughly dressed, bewhiskered man sat beside the road eating a lunch out
of a newspaper. He leered at Carolyn May and said:
"I guess you got a bad dog there, ain't ye, little girl?"
"Oh, no! He's us'ally very polite," answered Carolyn May. "You _must_ be
still, Prince! You see," she explained, "he doesn't like folks to wear
old clothes. If--if you had on your Sunday suit, I'm quite sure he would
not growl at you."
"He wouldn't, hey?" said the man hoarsely, licking his fingers of the
last crumbs of his lunch. "An' suppose a feller ain't got no Sunday
suit?"
"Why, then, I s'pose Prince wouldn't _ever_ let you come into our
yard--if he was loose."
"Don't you let him loose now, little girl," said the fellow, getting up
hurriedly, and eyeing the angry dog askance.
"Oh, no, sir. We're going visiting up the road. Come away, Prince. I
won't let him touch you," she assured the man.
The latter seemed rather doubtful of her ability to hold the dog long,
and he hobbled away towards the schoolhouse. Prince really objected to
leaving the vicinity, and Carolyn May scolded him all the way up the
road to Freda's house.
Carolyn May had a very pleasant call--Freda's mother even approved of
Prince--and it was an hour before the two started for home. In sight of
the schoolhouse Prince gave evidence again of excitement.
"I wonder what is the matter with you now," Carolyn May began, when
suddenly she sighted what had evidently so disturbed the dog.
A man was crouching under one of the schoolhouse windows, bobbing up now
and then to peer in. It was the man whom they had previously seen beside
the road.
"Hush, Prince!" whispered little Carolyn May, holding the dog by the
collar.
She, too, could see through the open window. Miss Minnie was still at
her desk. She had finished correcting the pupils' papers. Now she had
her bag open and was counting the money Mr. Brady had given her.
"O-o-oh!" breathed Carolyn May, clinging to the eager dog's collar.
The man at the window suddenly left his position and slipped around to
the door. In a moment he appeared in the schoolroom before the startled
teacher.
Miss Minnie screamed. The man, with a rough threat, darted forward to
seize her purse.
Just then Carolyn May unsnapped the leash from Prince's collar and let
him go.
"Save Miss Minnie, Princey!" she cried after the charging dog.
Prince did not trouble about the door. The open window, through which
the tramp had spied upon the schoolmistress, was nearer. He went up the
wall and scrambled over the sill with a savage determination that left
no doubt whatever in the tramp's mind.
With a yell of terror, the fellow bounded out of the door and tore along
the road and through The Corners at a speed never before equalled in
that locality by a Knight of the Road.
Prince lost a little time in recovering his footing and again getting on
the trail of the fleeing tramp. But he was soon baying the fellow past
the blacksmith shop and the store.
The incident called the entire population of The Corners, save the
bedridden, to the windows and doors. For once the little, somnolent
village awoke, and, as before pointed out, a Prince awoke it.
Hiram Lardner, the blacksmith, declared afterwards that "you could have
played checkers on that tramp's coat tails, providin' you could have
kep' up with him."
When Prince came back from the chase, however, the tramp's coat tails
would never serve as a checkerboard, for the dog bore one of them in his
foam-flecked jaws as a souvenir.
CHAPTER X--A SUNDAY WALK
Really, if Prince had been a vain dog, his ego would certainly have
become unduly developed because of this incident. The Corners, as a
community, voted him an acquisition, whereas heretofore he had been
looked upon as a good deal of a nuisance.
After she recovered from her fright, Miss Minnie walked home with
Carolyn May and allowed Prince's delighted little mistress to encourage
the "hero" to "shake hands with teacher."
"Now, you see, he's acquainted with you, Miss Minnie," said Carolyn May.
"He's an awful nice dog. You didn't know just how nice he was before.
But I _am_ glad he didn't really bite that dirty-looking old tramp, Miss
Minnie. I expect it would have made Prince sick. And I'm going to take
that piece of his old coat and bury it in the garden."
Even Mr. Stagg had a good word at last to say for Prince; for he had
been coming home to supper at the moment the dog chased the thievish
tramp through the village.
"We have too many of that gentry here because of the railroad. I wish
he'd chase 'em all out of town," declared the hardware dealer.
Besides, he profited by the incident. The very next day Miss Minnie came
into his store and bought one of the very nicest dog collars he had in
stock--a green leather one with brass rivet heads studding it and a shiny
nameplate.
The silversmith, Mr. Murchiston, took almost a week to engrave on it:
_Prince_
_For a Brave Deed_
The next Friday noon Miss Minnie told Carolyn May she could bring Prince
to school with her--of course, on his leash. By this time all the other
pupils had learned that, even if he did look savage, Prince was quite as
gentle and friendly as little Carolyn May herself, and they had ceased
to be afraid of him.
The afternoon session closed at the usual recess time, and then it was
that Miss Minnie presented the new collar to Prince, with, as Mr. Brady,
the trustee, would have said, "a few appropriate words."
The big girl invented another verse in imitation of "Mary's Little
Lamb," and recited it:
"'_What makes Prince love Car'lyn so?'
The little children cry.
'Why, Car'lyn loves the dog, you know,'
The teacher doth reply._"
"Oh, dear me!" sighed Carolyn May happily. "It's just like a party--a
birthday party. We never celebrated Prince's birthday before, or gave
him any kind of party. But I _know_ he enjoys it."
He certainly did seem to appreciate the honour, and bore himself proudly
with the new green collar around his neck. Uncle Joe attached his
S.P.C.A. license tag to it, which jingled like a bangle.
Carolyn May was glad to see Uncle Joe do this. Everything that Uncle Joe
did which showed he thought of something besides his business pleased
his little niece.
"You see," she told Aunty Rose, "I know Uncle Joe doesn't _look up_
enough. Whenever I'm in his store I almost always see him at his desk
working at that great big book in which he keeps his accounts.
"Chet Gormley says he always is at it--Sundays, too. You know, Aunty
Rose, he walks down to the store every Sunday after dinner and stays
till supper time."
"I know it, child," the housekeeper agreed. "Joseph Stagg is completely
wrapped up in his business."
"Yes. My papa had to work hard, and awful long hours, too. But when he
was away from the newspaper office he said he always left business
behind him. He looked up at the sky and listened to the birds sing.
Leastways," said Carolyn May honestly, "he listened to the sparrows
quarrel. There weren't many other birds on our block, 'cept a parrot;
and he scolded awfully."
At any rate, she was quite sure that Uncle Joe ought to be interested in
something besides his hardware store. She thought about this a good
deal. And, finally, she laid an innocent little trap for him.
Of one tenet of the Friends' belief Aunty Rose was thoroughly convinced:
no cooking went on in the Stagg kitchen after breakfast on the Sabbath.
Of course, they had dinner, but save for hot tea or coffee or soup the
viands at that meal and at supper were cold.
Sometimes during the warm weather there were heaps of Aunty Rose's
flaky-crusted apple turnovers, baked the day before, to crumble into
bowls of creamy milk, or there were piles of lovely sandwiches and eggs
with mayonnaise, and suchlike delicacies.
Aunty Rose, however, removed her work apron when the breakfast dishes
were washed and put away and the kitchen "ridded up," and for the
remainder of Sunday she did only the very necessary things about the
house.
If she did not walk to town to attend the Friends' Meeting House, she
sat in a straight-backed chair and read books that--to Carolyn May--looked
"awfully religious." However, she did not make the day of rest a
nightmare to the child. The little girl had her picture books, as well
as her Sunday-school papers, and she could stroll about or play quietly
with Prince.
The Corners was not burdened with the arrival of Sunday papers from the
city, with their blotchy-looking supplements and unsightly so-called
"funny sheets." Almost everybody went to church, and all the children to
Sunday-school, which was held first.
The Reverend Afton Driggs, though serious-minded, was a loving man. He
was fond of children, and he and his childless wife gave much of their
attention to the Sunday-school. Mrs. Driggs taught Carolyn May's class
of little girls. Mrs. Driggs did her very best, too, to get the children
to stay to the preaching service, but Carolyn May had to confess that
the pastor's discourses were usually hard to understand.
"And he is always reading about the 'Begats,'" she complained gently to
Uncle Joe as they went home together on this particular Sunday--the one
following the presentation of Prince's new collar--"and I _can't_ keep
interested when he does that. I s'pose the 'Begats' were very nice
people, but I'm sure they weren't related to us--they've all got such
funny names."
"Hum!" ejaculated Uncle Joe, smothering a desire to laugh. "Flow gently,
sweet Afton, does select his passages of Scripture mostly from the
'valleys of dry bones,' I allow. You've got it about right there,
Carolyn May."
"Uncle Joe," said the little girl, taking her courage in both hands,
"will you do something for me?" Then, as he stared down at her from
under his bushy brows, she added: "I don't mean that you aren't _always_
doing something for me--letting me sleep here at your house, and eat with
you, and all _that_. But something special."
"What is the 'something special'?" asked Mr. Stagg cautiously.
"Something I want you to do to-day. You always go off to your store
after dinner, and when you come home it's too dark."
"Too dark for what?"
"For us to take a walk," said the little girl very earnestly. "Oh, Uncle
Joe, you don't know how _dreadful_ I miss taking Sunday walks with my
papa! Of course, we took 'em in the morning, for he had to go to work on
the paper in the afternoon, but we did just about go _every_where.
"Sometimes," pursued Carolyn May in reminiscence, "we went to a very,
very early morning service in a church. It was held pertic'lar for folks
that worked at night. It wasn't like our church where I went to
Sunday-school, for there were boys in long dresses, and they swung
little dishes on chains, with something burning in 'em that smelled
nice, and the minister did all the talking----"
"Humph!" snorted Mr. Stagg, who was just as startled as was the Reverend
Mr. Driggs by any new idea.
"And then we walked," sighed Carolyn May. "Of course, we had often to
take a ride first before we could get a place to walk in--not on
pavement. On real dirt and grass! Under the trees! Where the birds sang!
And the flowers lived! Oh, Uncle Joe! do you know how pretty the woods
are now? The trees and bushes are all such lovely colours. I don't dare
go very far alone--not even with Prince. I might get lost, Aunty Rose
says.
"But if you would go with me," the little girl added wistfully, "just
this afternoon, seems to me I wouldn't feel so--so _empty_."
That "empty" feeling from which the little girl suffered when she
thought of her parents and her old life she did not often speak of. Mr.
Stagg looked down at her earnest face and saw that the blue eyes were
misty. But Carolyn May was brave.
"Humph!" said Uncle Joe, clearing his throat. "If it's going to do you
any particular good, Car'lyn May, I suppose I can take a walk with you.
I expect the chestnuts are ripe."
"Oh, they _are_, Uncle Joe! And I've wanted to get just a few. But
whenever Princey and I go to any of the trees near by, there are always
squirrels--and they do quarrel so! I s'pose that's all they'll have to
eat this winter, and maybe the winter is going to be a hard one. That's
what Tim, the hackman, says. I don't want to rob the poor little
squirrels. But couldn't we give 'em something instead to eat, and so
take a few of their nuts?"
"The squirrels always were piggish," chuckled Uncle Joe. "I don't
believe they are entitled to more'n a bushel apiece. Anyway, we'll take
a basket with us."
This they did. Although Aunty Rose was very strict with herself on
Sunday, she did not disapprove of this walk. And certainly Prince did
not.
Once off his chain and realising that they were bound for the woods, he
acted like a mad dog for the first few minutes. As they crossed the
already browning fields he dashed back and forth, now far ahead, now
charging back at them as though determined to run them down. Then he
rolled on the grass, crept on his stomach, tearing up the sod with his
strong claws, and barking with delight.
"That fool pup hasn't got the sense he was born with," declared Uncle
Joe, but without rancour.
"He's just happy," explained Carolyn May. "You see, he's happy for
himself and happy for us, too. So he just has to show off this way. It
isn't really that he hasn't good sense, Uncle Joe."
It was a crisp day--one of those autumn days when the tang of frost
remains in the air, in spite of all the efforts of the sun to warm it.
The sumac had blushed redly all along the hedgerows. The young oak
leaves were brown and curled. Under foot, the dead leaves rustled and
whispered. The bare-limbed beeches looked naked, indeed, among the other
trees. Even the yellowing leaves of the chestnuts themselves were
rattling down without a breath of wind stirring.
The jays screamed at the party as they wheeled swiftly through the wood.
Once Prince jumped a rabbit from its form, and Uncle Joe actually urged
the excited dog in his useless chase of the frightened creature. But
Carolyn May could not approve of that.
"You see," she said gravely, "although it's lots of fun for Prince, we
don't know just how the rabbit feels about it. Maybe he doesn't want to
run so hard. There! Prince has given it up. I'm glad."
She did not mind the dog's chasing and barking at the squirrels. They
were well out of reach. One excited squirrel leaped from a tree top into
the thick branches of another tree, sailing through the air "just like
an aeroplane." Carolyn May had seen aeroplanes and thought she would
like to go up in one.
"Of course," she explained, "not without somebody who knew all about
coming down again. I wouldn't want to get stuck up there."
Here and there they stopped to pick up the glossy brown chestnuts that
had burst from their burrs. That is, Carolyn May and her uncle did.
Prince, after a single attempt to nose one of the prickly burrs, left
them strictly alone.
"You might just as well try to eat Aunty Rose's strawberry needle
cushion, Princey," the little girl said wisely. "You'll have a sorer
nose than Amos Bartlett had when he tried to file it down with a wood
rasp."
"Hum!" ejaculated Mr. Stagg, "whatever possessed that Bartlett child to
do such a fool trick?"
"Why, you know his nose _is_ awfully big," said Carolyn May. "And his
mother's always worried about it. She must have worried Amos, too, for
one day last week he went over to Mr. Parlow's shop, borrowed a wood
rasp, and tried to file his nose down to a proper size. And _now_ he has
to go with his nose all greased and shiny till the new skin grows back
on it."
"Bless me, what these kids will do!" muttered Mr. Stagg.
"Now, _I've_ got big feet," sighed Carolyn May. "I know I have. But I
hope I'll grow up to them. I wouldn't want to try to pare them off to
make them smaller. If they have got such a long start ahead of the rest
of me, I really believe that the rest of me will catch up to my feet in
time, don't you?"
"Nothing like being hopeful," commented Mr. Stagg drily.
It was just at that moment that the little girl and the man, becoming
really good comrades on this walk, met with an adventure. At least, to
Carolyn May it was a real adventure, and one she was not to forget for a
long, long time.
Prince suddenly bounded away, barking, down a pleasant glade, through
the bottom of which flowed a brook. Carolyn May caught a glimpse of
something brown moving down there, and she called shrilly to the dog to
come back.
"But that's _some_body, Uncle Joe" Carolyn May said with assurance, as
the dog slowly returned. "Prince never barks like that, unless it's a
person. And I saw something move."
"Somebody taking a walk, like us. Couldn't be a deer," said Mr. Stagg.
"Oh," cried Carolyn May a moment later, "I see it again. That's a skirt
I see. Why, it's a lady!"
Mr. Stagg suddenly grew very stern-looking, as well as silent. All the
beauty of the day and of the glade they had entered seemed lost on him.
He went on stubbornly, yet as though loath to proceed.
"Why," murmured Carolyn May, "it's Miss Amanda Parlow! That's just who
it is!"
The carpenter's daughter was sitting on a bare brown log by the brook.
She was dressed very prettily, all in brown. Carolyn May had seen her
that day in church in this same pretty dress.
For some weeks Miss Amanda had been away "on a case." Carolyn May knew
that she was a trained nurse and was often away from home weeks at a
time. Mr. Parlow had told her about it.
The little girl wanted to speak to the pretty Miss Amanda, but she
looked again into Uncle Joe's countenance and did not dare.
CHAPTER XI--A CANINE INTERVENTION
Carolyn May wanted _awfully_ to speak to Miss Amanda. The brown lady
with the pretty roses in her cheeks sat on the log by the brook, her
face turned from the path Joseph Stagg and his little niece were coming
along. She must have known they were coming down the glade and who they
were, for nobody could mistake the identity of Prince, and the dog would
not be out in the woods with anybody but his little mistress.
Miss Parlow, however, kept her face steadily turned in the opposite
direction. And Uncle Joe was quite as stubborn. He stared straight ahead
down the path without letting the figure on the log get into the focus
of his vision.
Carolyn May did not see how it was possible for two people who loved
each other, or who ever had loved each other, to act so. They must have
thought a great deal of each other once upon a time, for Chet Gormley's
mother had said so. The very fact that they now acted as they did proved
to the observant child that the situation was not normal.
She wanted to seize Uncle Joe's hand and whisper to him how pretty Miss
Amanda looked. She wanted to run to the lady and talk to her. Thus far
she had found little opportunity for knowing Miss Amanda Parlow well,
although Carolyn May and the old carpenter were now very good friends.
Hanging to Uncle Joe's hand, but looking longingly at the silent figure
on the log, Carolyn May was going down to the stepping-stones by which
they were to cross the brook, when, suddenly, Prince came to a halt
right at the upper end of the log and his body stiffened.
"What is it, Prince?" whispered his little mistress. "Come here."
But the dog did not move. He even growled--not at Miss Amanda, of course,
but at something on the log. And it was just then that Carolyn May
wanted to scream--and she could not!
For there on the log, raising its flat, wicked head out of an aperture,
its lidless eyes glittering, and its forked tongue shooting in and out
of its jaws, was a snake, a horrid, silent, writhing creature, the look
of which held the little girl horror-stricken and speechless.
Uncle Joe glanced down impatiently, to see what made her hold back so.
The child's feet seemed glued to the earth. She could not take another
step.
Writhing out of the hole in the log and coiling, as it did so, into an
attitude to strike, the snake looked to be dangerous, indeed. The fact
that it was only a large blacksnake and non-poisonous made no difference
at that moment to the dog or to the little girl--nor to Joseph Stagg when
he saw it.
It was coiled right at Miss Amanda's back. She did not see it, for she
was quite as intent upon keeping her face turned from Mr. Stagg as he
had been determined to ignore her presence.
After all, it is the appearance of a snake that terrifies some people.
They do not stop to question whether it is furnished with a poison sac
or not. The very look of the creature freezes their blood.
Carolyn May was shaking and helpless. Not so Prince. He repeated his
challenging growl and then sprang at the vibrating head. Miss Amanda
uttered a stifled scream and jumped up from the log, whirling to see
what was happening behind her.
Joseph Stagg dropped Carolyn May's hand and leaped forward with his
walking-stick raised to strike. But the mongrel dog was there first. He
wisely caught the blacksnake behind the head, his strong, sharp teeth
severing its vertebræ.
"Good dog!" shouted Mr. Stagg excitedly. "Fine dog!"
"Oh, Miss Amanda!" shrieked Carolyn May. "I--I thought he was going to
sting you--I did!"
She ran to the startled woman and clung to her hand. Prince nosed the
dead snake. Mr. Stagg looked exceedingly foolish. Miss Amanda recovered
her colour and her voice simultaneously.
"What a brave dog yours is, little girl," she said to Carolyn May. "And
I do so despise snakes!" Then she looked directly at Mr. Stagg and bowed
gravely. "I thank you," she said, but so coldly, so Carolyn May thought,
that her voice might have come "just off an iceberg."
"Oh, I didn't do anything--really I didn't," stammered the man. "It was
the dog."
"Oh!" said Miss Amanda.
"Yes," repeated Mr. Stagg, "it was the dog."
Both looked very uncomfortable. Joseph Stagg began to pick up the
scattered chestnuts from the overturned basket. The lady stooped and
whispered to Carolyn May:
"Come to see me, my dear. I want to know you better."
"And Prince?" asked the little girl.
"And Prince, of course."
Then she kissed Carolyn May and slipped quietly away from the brook,
disappearing very quickly in the undergrowth. Uncle Joe stood up, with
the basket in his hand.
"You'd better call the dog away from that snake, Car'lyn May," he said
in a strangely husky voice. "We'll be going."
The little girl approved.
"You surely don't want to eat it, Prince," she told her canine friend.
"Snakes aren't meat, nor even fish. Are they, Uncle Joe?"
"Humph! what d'you s'pose they are, then?" he demanded.
"Why, they're--they're just insects, aren't they? Not even dogs should
eat them," and she urged Prince away from the snake.
The muscles of the "insect" still twitched, and its tail snapped about.
Prince had his doubts as to whether it was really dead or was "playing
possum."
"Is it true, Uncle Joe," Carolyn May asked, "that snakes can't really
die till the sun goes down? You see, it still wiggles. Do--do you s'pose
it's suffering?"
"I guess Prince fixed Mr. Snake, all right, at the first bite," returned
Mr. Stagg. "He's dead. That old idea about the critters holding the
spark of life till after sunset is just a superstition. We can safely
call that fellow dead and leave him."
Joseph Stagg and the little girl went on across the stepping-stones,
while Prince splashed through the water. Carolyn May was thinking about
Miss Amanda Parlow, and she believed her Uncle Joe was, too.
"Uncle Joe," she said, "would that bad old snake have stung Miss
Amanda?"
"Huh? No; I reckon not," admitted Mr. Stagg absent-mindedly.
"Blacksnakes don't bite. A big one like that can squeeze some."
"But you were scared of it--like me and Prince. And for Miss Amanda,"
said Carolyn May, very much in earnest.
"I guess 'most everybody is scared by the sight of a snake, Car'lyn
May."
"But you were scared for Miss Amanda's sake--just the same as I was,"
repeated the little girl decidedly.
"Well?" he growled, looking away, troubled by her insistence.
"Then you don't hate her, do you?" the child pursued. "I'm glad of that,
Uncle Joe, for I like her very much. I think she's a beautiful lady."
To this Uncle Joe said nothing. He was not to be drawn, badger-like, to
the mouth of his den. What he really thought of Miss Amanda he kept to
himself.
"Anyway," sighed Carolyn May at last, "she invited me to come to see
her, now she's home from nursing. And, if you haven't got any objection,
Uncle Joe, I'm going to see her."
"Go ahead," said Mr. Stagg. "I haven't anything to say against it."
But Carolyn May was far from satisfied by this permission. Child as she
was, somehow she had gained an appreciation of the tragedy in the lives
of Joseph Stagg and Amanda Parlow.
That cry the man had uttered when he sprang to Miss Parlow's aid had
been wrenched from the very depths of his being. Nor had Miss Amanda's
emotion been stirred only by the sight of a snake that was already dead
when she had first seen it. Carolyn May had felt the woman's hand
tremble; there had been tears flooding her eyes when she kissed the
little girl.
"I guess," thought Carolyn May wisely, "that when two folks love each
other and get angry, the love's there just the same. Getting mad doesn't
kill it; it only makes 'em feel worse.
"Poor Uncle Joe! Poor Miss Amanda! Maybe if they'd just try to _look up_
and look for brighter things, they'd get over being mad and be happy
again."
She felt that she would really like to advise with somebody on this
point. Aunty Rose, of course, was out of the question. She knew that
people often advised with their minister when they were in trouble, but
to Carolyn May Mr. Driggs did not seem to be just the person with whom
to discuss a love-affair. Kindly as the minister was disposed, he lacked
the magnetism and sympathy that would urge one to take him into one's
confidence in such a delicate matter.
The little girl quite realised that it was delicate. She longed to help
her uncle and Miss Amanda and to bring them together, but she felt, too,
that whatever she did or said might do more harm than good.
When Uncle Joe and Carolyn May returned from this adventurous walk, Mr.
Stagg went heavily into his own room, closed the door, and even locked
it. He went over to the old-fashioned walnut bureau that stood against
the wall between the two windows, and stood before it for some moments
in an attitude of deep reflection. Finally, he drew his bunch of keys
from his pocket and opened one of the two small drawers in the heavy
piece of furniture--the only locked drawer there was.
It contained a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends--old school
exercises, letters from his sister Hannah, an old-fashioned locket
containing locks of his mother's and of his father's hair, broken
trinkets, childish keepsakes. Indeed, such sentimental remembrances as
Joseph Stagg possessed were secreted in this drawer.
From beneath all this litter he drew forth a tintype picture, faded now,
but clear enough to show him the features of the two individuals printed
on the sensitised plate.
He remembered as keenly as though it were yesterday when and how the
picture had been made--at the county fair so many years ago. His own eyes
looked out of the photograph proudly. They were much younger eyes than
they were now.
And the girl beside him in the picture! Sweet as a wild rose, Mandy
Parlow's lovely, calm countenance promised all the beauty and dignity
her matured womanhood had achieved.
"Mandy! Mandy!" he murmured over and over again. "Oh, Mandy! Why? Why?"
He held the tintype for a long, long time in his hand, gazing on it with
eyes that saw the vanished years rather than the portraits themselves.
Finally, he hid the picture away again, closed and locked the drawer
with a sigh, and with slow steps left the room.
CHAPTER XII--CHET GORMLEY TELLS SOME NEWS
It was when she came in sight of the Parlow place on Monday afternoon,
she and Prince, that Carolyn May bethought her of the very best person
in the world with whom to advise upon the momentous question which so
troubled her.
Who could be more interested in the happiness of Miss Amanda than Mr.
Parlow himself? If his daughter had loved Uncle Joe and still loved him,
it seemed to Carolyn May as though the carpenter should be very eager,
indeed, to help overcome the difficulty that lay between the two parted
lovers.
The little girl had been going to call on Miss Amanda. Aunty Rose had
said she might, and Miss Amanda had invited her "specially."
But the thought of taking the old carpenter into her confidence and
advising with him delayed that visit. Mr. Parlow was busy on some piece
of cabinet work, but he nodded briskly to the little girl when she came
to the door of the shop and looked in.
"Are you very busy, Mr. Parlow?" she asked him after a watchful minute
or two.
"My hands be, Car'lyn May," said the carpenter in his dry voice.
"Oh!"
"But I kin listen to ye--and I kin talk."
"Oh, that's nice! You can talk when you are sawing and fitting things,
can't you? Not like when you are nailing. Then your mouth's full of
nails--like Mrs. Gormley's is full of pins when she's fitting you."
"Miz Gormley never fitted me to nothin' yet," returned Mr. Parlow
grimly, "less 'twas a suit of gossip."
Carolyn May did not notice this remark, nor would she have understood
it. She thought Chet Gormley's mother a very interesting woman, indeed.
She always knew so much about everybody.
Just now, moreover, Carolyn May had something else in her mind; so she
ignored Mr. Parlow's remark about the seamstress. She asked in a
half-whisper:
"Mr. Parlow, did you hear about what happened yesterday?"
"Eh?" he queried, eyeing her quizzically. "Does anything ever happen on
Sunday?"
"Something did on this Sunday," cried the little girl. "Didn't you hear
about the snake?"
"What d'ye mean--snake? The old original snake--that sarpint ye read about
in the Scriptures?" demanded the carpenter, ruffling up his grey hair
till it looked like the topknot of a very cross cockatoo.
"Oh, no, Mr. Parlow!" and then little Carolyn May explained. She told
the story with such earnestness that he stopped working to listen,
watching her with as shrewd, sharp eyes as ever a real cockatoo
possessed.
"Humph!" was his grunted comment at the end. "Well!"
"Don't you think that was real exciting?" asked Carolyn May. "And just
see how it _almost_ brought my Uncle Joe and your Miss Amanda together.
Don't you see?"
Mr. Parlow actually jumped. "What's that you say, child?" he rasped out
grimly. "Bring Mandy and Joe Stagg together? Well, I guess not!"
"Oh, Mr. Parlow, don't you think that would be just be-a-_you_-ti-ful?"
cried the little girl with a lingering emphasis upon the most important
word. "Don't you see how happy they would be?"
"I'd like to know who told you they'd be happy?" he demanded crossly.
"Why! wouldn't they be? If they truly love each other and could get over
being mad?"
"Humph!" growled Mr. Parlow, "you let their 'mad' alone. 'Tain't none of
your business." Mr. Parlow was really all ruffled up, just as though he
were angry at Carolyn May's suggestion. "I don't know as anybody's
pertic'lar anxious to see that daughter of mine and Joe Stagg friendly
again. No good would come of it."
Carolyn May looked at him sorrowfully. Mr. Parlow had quite disappointed
her. It was plain to be seen that he was not the right one to advise
with about the matter. The little girl sighed.
"I really did s'pose you'd want to see Miss Amanda happy, Mr. Parlow,"
she whispered.
"Happy? Bah!" snarled the old man, setting vigorously to work again. He
acted as if he wished to say no more, and let the little girl depart
without another word.
Carolyn May really could not understand it--at least, she could not
immediately. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Mr.
Parlow to wish to see his daughter happy and content.
And the little girl knew that Miss Amanda was not happy. As she became
better and better acquainted with the woman whom she thought so
beautiful she was more and more convinced that the carpenter's daughter
was not of a cheerful spirit.
Mr. Jedidiah Parlow did not seem to care in the least. That must be,
Carolyn May told herself, because he was under the influence of the Dark
Spirit himself. He was always looking down. Like Mr. Stagg, the old
carpenter was immersed in his daily tasks and seldom thought of anything
else.
"Why, he doesn't even know what it means to be happy!" thought Carolyn
May. "He never looks _up_, or _out_, or _away_ from his carpenter's
bench. Dear me! of course he isn't interested in Uncle Joe and Miss
Amanda's being in love."
That Mr. Parlow might have a selfish reason for desiring to keep his
daughter and Joseph Stagg apart did not enter the little girl's mind.
She was too young to appreciate such a situation as that might suggest.
After that Sunday walk, however, Carolyn May was never so much afraid of
her uncle as before. Why, he had even called Prince "good dog"! Truly,
Mr. Joseph Stagg was being transformed--if slowly.
He could not deny to himself that, to a certain extent, he was enjoying
the presence of his little niece at The Corners. If he only could decide
just what to do with the personal property of his sister Hannah and her
husband down in the New York apartment. Never in his life had he been so
long deciding a question. He could not bring himself to the point of
writing the lawyer either to sublet the furnished apartment or to sell
the furniture in it. Nor could he decide to go down himself to sort over
Hannah's little treasures, put the remainder in an auction room, and
close up the apartment.
He had really loved Hannah. He knew it now, did Joseph Stagg, every time
he looked at the lovely little child who had come to live with him at
The Corners. Why! just so had Hannah looked when she was a little thing.
The same deep, violet eyes, and sunny hair, and laughing lips----
Mr. Stagg sometimes actually found a reflection of the cheerful figure
of "Hannah's Car'lyn" coming between him and the big ledger over which
he spent so many of his waking hours.
Once he looked up from the ledger--it was on a Saturday morning--and
really did see the bright figure of the little girl standing before him.
It was no dream or fancy, for old Jimmy, the cat, suddenly shot to the
topmost shelf, squalling with wild abandon. Prince was nosing along at
Carolyn May's side.
"Bless me!" croaked Mr. Stagg. "That dog of yours, Car'lyn May, will
give Jimmy a conniption fit yet. What d'you want down here?"
Carolyn May told him. A man had come to the house to buy a cow, and
Aunty Rose had sent the little girl down to tell Mr. Stagg to come home
and "drive his own bargain."
"Well, well," said Mr. Stagg, locking the ledger in the safe, "I'll
hustle right out and tend to it. Don't see why the man couldn't have
waited till noontime. Hey, you, Chet!"
Chet Gormley was not down in the cellar on this occasion. He appeared,
wearing a much soiled apron, and with very black hands, having been
sorting bolts.
"Here I am, Mr. Stagg," said the boy cheerfully. "Mornin', Car'lyn May.
And how's our friend?" and he ventured to pat Prince's head, having
become well acquainted with the dog by this time.
"Never mind that dog, Chet," said Mr. Stagg. "You pay attention to me.
Look out for the store. Don't have any fooling. And----"
"Oh, uncle! may I stay, too? Me and Prince?" cried Carolyn May. "We'll
be good."
"Pshaw! Yes, if you want to," responded Mr. Stagg, hurrying away. He did
not wish to be bothered with her just then. He desired to walk rapidly.
Chet went to wash his hands and remove the apron. If he was to act as
clerk instead of chore boy, he certainly must "dress the part." Besides,
he did not want to be so dirty in Carolyn May's presence. It seemed to
Chet Gormley as though a boy must look his very best to be worthy of
companionship with the radiant little vision that Mr. Stagg referred to
as "Hannah's Car'lyn."
"My! your uncle's changin' more and more, ain't he?" remarked Chet, the
optimistic. "He does sometimes almost laugh, Car'lyn. I never see the
beat of it!"
"Oh, is he?" cried the little child. "Is he _looking up_ more? Do you
think he is, Chet?"
"I positively do," Chet assured her.
"And he hasn't always got his nose in that old ledger?"
"Well--I wouldn't say that he neglected business, no, ma'am," said the
boy honestly. "You see, we men have got to think of business mostly. But
he sure is thinkin' of some other things, too--ya-as, indeedy!"
"What things, Chet?" Carolyn May asked anxiously, hoping that Uncle Joe
had shown some recovered interest in Miss Amanda and that Chet had
noticed it.
"Why--well--Now, you see, there's that house you used to live in. You know
about that?"
"What about it, Chet?" the little girl asked rather timidly. "Do you
mean where I lived with my mamma and papa before they--they went away?"
"Yes. That's the place."
"It was an apartment," explained Carolyn May.
"Yep. Well, Mr. Stagg ain't never done nothin' about it. He ain't sold
it, nor sold the furniture, nor nothin'. You know, Car'lyn May, your
folks didn't leave you no money."
"Oh! Didn't they?" cried Carolyn May, greatly startled.
"No. You see, I heard all about it. Mr. Vickers, the lawyer, came in
here one day, and your uncle read a letter to him out loud. I couldn't
help but hear. The letter was from another lawyer and 'twas all about
you and your concerns. I heard it all," said the quite innocent Chet. He
had never been taught that it was wrong to listen to other people's
private matters and to repeat them.
Carolyn May's lips expressed a round "O" of wonder and surprise. Like
his mother, Chet Gormley did not have to be urged when he was telling a
bit of news. He was too deeply interested in it himself.
"And Mr. Vickers says: 'So the child hasn't anything of her own, Joe?'"
Chet went on. "And your uncle says: 'Not a dollar, 'cept what I might
sell that furniture for,' And he hasn't sold it yet, I know. He just
can't make up his mind to do it, it seems.
"My maw says Mr. Stagg always was that way--that he hates to let go of
anything he once gets in his hands. But it ain't that, I tell her,"
declared Chet. "It's just that he can't make up his mind to sell them
things that was your mother's, Car'lyn May," added the boy, with a
deeper insight into Mr. Stagg's character than one might have given him
credit for possessing.
But Carolyn May had heard some news that impressed her more deeply than
this idiosyncrasy of Joseph Stagg's. It made her suddenly quiet, and she
was glad a customer came into the store just then to draw Chet Gormley's
attention.
The child had never thought before about how the good things of life
came to her--her food, clothes, and lodging. She had never heard much
talk of ways and means at home between her father and mother. When she
had come to her uncle, if she had thought about it at all, she had
supposed her parents had left ample means for her support, even if Uncle
Joe did "take her home and look out for her," as she had suggested to
him at their first interview.
But, now, Chet Gormley's chattering had given her a new view of the
facts of the case. There had been no money left to spend for her needs.
Uncle Joe was just keeping her out of charity!
"And Prince, too," thought the little girl, with a lump in her throat.
"_He_ hasn't got any more home than a rabbit! And Uncle Joe don't really
like dogs--not even now.
"Oh, dear me!" pursued Carolyn May. "It's awful hard to be an orphan.
But to be a _poor_ orphan--just a charity one--is a whole lot worse, I
guess.
"Of course, uncles aren't like little girls' _real_ parents. Papas and
mammas are glad, I guess, to pay for clothes and food and schoolbooks,
and _every_thing. But if a little girl is only a charity orphan, there
aren't really any folks that want to support her. I wonder if I ought to
stay with Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose and make them so much trouble?"
The thought bit deep into the little girl's very impressionable mind.
The idle chatter of the not very wise, if harmless, Chet Gormley was
destined to cause Carolyn May much perturbation of spirit.
She did not remain at the store until her uncle returned. Chet urged her
to stay and go home with him for dinner when Mr. Stagg came back, but
the little girl did not feel that she could do this. She wished to be
alone and to think over this really tragic thing that faced her--the ugly
fact that she was a "charity child."
"And you're a charity dog, Prince Cameron," she said aloud, looking down
at the mongrel who walked sedately beside her along the country road. "I
don't expect you ever thought of it. You never did have any money, and
you don't really know who your parents are. You began being a charity
dog so early that it hasn't never mattered to you at all--that's how I
s'pose it must be.
"And, then, you were always loved. Papa loved you, and so did mamma;
and, of course, I always loved you to death, Princey!" she cried,
putting both arms suddenly around the dog's neck.
"I--I guess that's where it must be," pursued Carolyn May. "If persons
are only loved, it doesn't matter if they are charity. The love takes
all the sting out of being poor, I guess. But I don't know if Uncle Joe
just does love me or not."
The little girl had loitered along the road until it was now dinner
time. Indeed, Aunty Rose would have had the meal on the table twenty
minutes earlier. Mr. Stagg had evidently remained at The Corners to sell
the cow and eat dinner, too--thus "killing two birds with one stone."
And here Carolyn May and Prince were at Mr. Parlow's carpenter shop,
just as the old man was taking off his apron preparatory to going in to
his dinner. When Miss Amanda was away nursing, the carpenter ate at a
neighbour's table.
Now, Miss Amanda appeared on the side porch.
"Where are you going, little girl?" she asked, smiling.
"Home to Aunty Rose," said Carolyn May bravely. "But I guess I'm late
for dinner."
"I didn't know but something had happened," said Mr. Parlow, going,
heavy-footed, up the porch steps, "when I seen Joe Stagg hikin' by
more'n two hour ago."
Carolyn May told about the man wanting to buy the cow. Mr. Parlow
sputtered something from the depths of the wash-basin about the buyer
"payin' two prices for the critter, if he bought her of Joe Stagg," but
his daughter hastened to cover this by saying:
"Don't you want to come in and eat with us, Carolyn May? Your own dinner
will be cold."
"Oh, may I?" cried the little girl. Somehow, she did not feel that she
could face Uncle Joe just now with this new thought that Chet Gormley's
words had put into her heart. Then she hesitated, with her hand on the
gate latch.
"Will there be some scraps for Prince?" she asked. "Or bones?"
"I believe I can find something for Prince," Miss Amanda replied. "I owe
him more than one good dinner, I guess, for killing that snake. Come in,
and we will see."
The little girl at once became more cheerful. She washed her hands and
face at the pump bench, as had Mr. Parlow. She found his big spectacles
for him (Miss Amanda declared he always managed to lose them when he
took them off); and Carolyn May wiped the lenses, too, before the
carpenter set them on his nose again.
"There! I believe I kin see good for the first time to-day," he
declared. "I reckon I could have seen my work better all the forenoon if
I'd had my specs polished up that-a-way. You air a spry young'un,
Carolyn May."
With this heart-warming word of approval, they went in to dinner. Miss
Amanda was already "dishing up." Unlike the custom at the Stagg house,
the Parlows ate in the dining-room. The kitchen was small.
It seemed quite like old times to Carolyn May. Miss Amanda's way of
setting the table and serving the food was like her mamma's way. There
were individual bread-and-butter plates, and a knife for one's butter
and another for one's meat, and several other articles of table
furnishings that good Aunty Rose knew nothing about.
Carolyn May thought that Miss Amanda, in her house dress and ruffled
apron, with her sleeves turned back above her dimpled, brown elbows, was
prettier than ever. Miss Amanda had retained her youthfulness to a
remarkable degree. Although she was quiet, there was a sparkle in her
brown eyes, and a brisk note in her full, contralto voice that charmed
the little girl. Her cheerful observations quite enlivened Carolyn May
again.
Even Mr. Parlow proved to be amusing when he was "warmed up."
"So you didn't want to go home with Chet Gormley for dinner, eh?" he
repeated. "Mebbe you thought Chet wouldn't leave nothin' for anybody
else to eat?"
"Oh, no, Mr. Parlow, it wasn't that!" Carolyn May said, shaking her
head.
"But it might ha' been," chuckled the carpenter, "if you'd ever seen
Chet eat."
"Now, father!" admonished Miss Amanda.
"Never did see him eat, did you?" pursued the carpenter, still
chuckling.
"No, sir."
"Wal, he's holler to his heels, and it's an all-fired long holler, at
that! Chet worked for Deacon Allbright, out on the South Road, 'fore he
went to Stagg's store. He only worked there part of a season, for he an'
the deacon couldn't get along--no more'n twin brothers," declared Mr.
Parlow.
"Fust place, the deacon is _rayther_ near--has enough on the table to
eat, but jest enough, an' that's all. One o' them tables where there
ain't no scrapin's for ary cat or dog when the folks is through. But, to
hear Deacon Allbright ask a blessin' on it, you'd think ev'ry meal was a
banquet.
"Wal, Chet was a boy, an' he was tearin' hungry, I reckon, when he got
to the table, and the deacon's long-winded prayers was too much for
Chet's appetite. With the dinner dished up and his plate full, that poor
hungry little snipe had to wait while the deacon filled his mouth with
big words.
"An' one day at dinner, when they had some visitors," chuckled Mr.
Parlow, "it got too much for Chet Gormley. Ha'f-way through the deacon's
blessin' the boy began to eat. I spect he couldn't help it. The deacon
didn't have his eyes shut very tight, an' he seen him, and frowned.
"But that didn't make no manner o' odds to Chet. He'd got a taste, and
his appetite was whetted. He begun mowin' away like a good feller. With
righteous indignation, the deacon cleared his throat, and then ended his
long prayer with this:
"An' for what we air about to receive, _and for what Chet Gormley has
already received_, let us be truly grateful."
Carolyn May laughed politely, but she could sympathise with poor Chet.
He did look hungry, he was so long and lathlike. So they chatted
throughout the meal, and the little girl began to feel better in her
mind.
"I think you are lovely, Miss Amanda," she said as she helped wipe the
dishes after the carpenter had gone back to the shop. "I shall always
love you. I guess that anybody who ever _did_ love you would keep right
on doing so till they died! They just couldn't help it!"
"Well, now, that is a compliment!" laughed Miss Amanda. "You think if I
once made friends I couldn't lose them?"
"I'm sure they'd always love you--_just the same_," repeated Carolyn May
earnestly. She had Uncle Joe in mind now. "How could they help doing it?
Even if--if they didn't darest show it."
"What's that?" asked Miss Amanda, looking at her curiously.
"Yes, ma'am. Maybe they wouldn't darest show it," said the little girl
confidently. "But they'd just have to love you. You must be a universal
fav'rite, Miss Amanda."
"Indeed?" said the woman, laughing again, yet with something besides
amusement expressed in her countenance. "And how about you, Chicken
Little? Aren't you universally beloved, too?"
"Oh, I don't expect so, Miss Amanda," said the child. "I wish I was."
"Why aren't you?"
"I--I--Well, I guess it's just because I'm not," Carolyn May said
desperately. "You see, after all, Miss Amanda, I'm only a charity
child."
"A _what_?" gasped Miss Amanda, almost dropping the salad dish she was
herself wiping. "What are you, child?"
"I'm charity," Carolyn May repeated, having hard work to choke back the
tears. "You know--my papa and mamma--didn't--didn't leave any money for
me."
"Oh, my child!!" exclaimed Miss Amanda. "Who told you that?"
"I--I just heard about it," confessed the little visitor.
"Not from Aunty Rose Kennedy?"
"Oh, no, ma'am."
"Did that--Did your uncle tell you such a thing?"
"Oh, no! He's just as good as he can be. But, of course, he doesn't much
like children. You know he doesn't. And he just 'bominates dogs!
"So, you see," added the child, "I _am_ charity. I'm not like other
little girls that's got papas and mammas. Course, I knowed that before,
but it didn't ever seem--seem so hard as it does now," she confessed,
with a sob.
"My dear! my dear!" cried Miss Amanda, dropping on her knees beside the
little girl, "don't talk so! I know your uncle must love you."
"Do you s'pose so?" queried Carolyn May, trying not to cry.
"He _must_! How could he help loving you? Immersed as Joseph Stagg is in
business and his own selfish projects, he cannot be so hard-hearted as
not to love his only sister's child."
Carolyn May clutched at her, suddenly and tightly.
"Oh, Miss Mandy!" she gasped, "don't you s'pose he loves other folks,
too? You know--folks he'd begun to love ever so long ago?"
The woman's smooth cheeks burned suddenly, and she stood up.
"I'm 'most sure he'd never stop loving a person, if he'd once begun to
love 'em," said Carolyn May, with a high opinion of the faithfulness of
Uncle Joe's character. "But how do I know he ever has loved me the least
tiny bit?"
Miss Amanda was evidently impressed by this query. How could the child
be sure? Mr. Stagg was not in the habit of revealing his deeper thoughts
and feelings to the world. And, yet, if she would but admit it, Amanda
Parlow believed that she, if any person could, rightly measured the
hardware dealer's character.
She sat down in a low rocking-chair and drew Carolyn May into her lap.
The little girl sobbed a bit, but rested her head quietly on the woman's
bosom.
"Do you want to know if your Uncle Joe loves you?" she asked Carolyn May
at last. "Do you?"
"Oh, I do!" cried the little girl.
"Then ask him," advised Miss Amanda. "That's the only way to do with Joe
Stagg, if you want to get at the truth. Out with it, square, and ask
him."
"Oh, Miss Mandy! would _you_ dare?" gasped Carolyn May.
"It doesn't matter what I'd dare," said the other drily. "You go ahead
and ask him--and ask him point-blank."
"I will do it," Carolyn May said seriously. Afterwards she wondered if
that were not the way, too, to settle the difficulty between Uncle Joe
and pretty Miss Amanda.
After the child had gone the woman went back into the little cottage,
and her countenance did not wear the farewell smile that Carolyn May had
looked back to see.
Gripping at her heart was the old pain she had suffered years before,
and the conflict that had scared her mind so long ago was roused again.
Time, if not the great physician for all wounds, surely dulls the ache
of them. Miss Amanda's emotions had been dulled during the years which
had passed since she and Joseph Stagg had broken their troth. Carolyn
May--surely with the best intentions in the world--had rasped this wound.
The woman sat in the kitchen rocker and wrung her hands tightly as she
thought.
How peacefully, how beautifully, her life had begun! She had bloomed
into young womanhood and had met every prospect of happiness on its
threshold. She had loved and had been loved. She had been as sure of her
lover's heart in those days as she was of her own.
Then had come the crash of all her hopes and all her believing. Too
proud to demand an explanation of her lover, too much her father's
daughter to show Joseph Stagg what she really felt and suffered, Amanda
Parlow had gone her way, not steeling her heart to tenderness, but
striving to satisfy its longings with a work which, after all, she
realised was a thankless task.
She lavished her sympathy on the afflicted; but, deep in her soul, she
felt no satisfaction in this. She felt that the higher qualities of her
nature were not developed. She craved that satisfaction in life which a
woman finds in a home, in a husband, and in little children.
"Oh, Joe! Oh, Joe! How could you?" she moaned, rocking herself to and
fro. "How could you?"
CHAPTER XIII--BREAKING THROUGH
Carolyn May always spent a part of each Saturday afternoon, unless it
rained, in the neglected graveyard behind The Corners church. One might
think that this was not a very cheerful spot for a little girl--and a
dog--at any time. But the little girl, as a usual thing, carried her own
cheerfulness with her.
Even on this day, when Chet Gormley's ill-advised gossip had so smitten
her with secret grief, she would not let the burden she carried utterly
quench her spirit. She was brave.
She did not tell Aunty Rose where she was going, although she reported
her return from Sunrise Cove to that good woman and explained where she
had stopped for dinner.
"Well, well, with Jedidiah Parlow and his daughter! I would not tell
Joseph Stagg about it, if I were you, child," was Aunty Rose's comment.
Carolyn May had no intention of speaking to Uncle Joe about her visit to
the carpenter and Miss Amanda; yet, having sounded the hardware dealer
on that point before, she did not think he would really mind if she
called on the "pretty lady."
There was something else--something very much more important--that she
desired to talk to Uncle Joe about, and she was thinking very hard over
it as she trimmed the long grass about the three little baby graves in
the Kennedy lot and about the longer grave of Aunty Rose's husband.
"Now I have caught the culprit," said a voice behind her, and Carolyn
May looked up to see the Reverend Afton Driggs smiling down at her.
"It had begun to puzzle me why this little patch of our old graveyard
looked so much better than the rest. I might have known you had
something to do with it," went on the minister.
Carolyn May sighed. "I just wish I could clean up all this cemetery. I
think, maybe, it would please them."
"Please whom?" asked the minister rather startled.
"Why, the folks that are buried here! I suppose they must know about it.
Their spirits, of course--the parts of 'em that keep on living. I should
think it would please 'em if their graves were kept neat."
Mr. Driggs looked thoughtfully about the untidy graveyard.
"It would seem as though 'out of sight is out of mind' in many cases of
old graveyards, Carolyn May. Yes, you are right. Families move away or
die out entirely. The burial lots are left to the mercy of strangers.
"'Brother, keep my memory green!' And we forget the friend who has
really meant much to us--or, perhaps, we beflower the grave once a year.
But that does not keep his memory green; it is only a salve to our own
consciences. Perhaps Memorial Day is of doubtful value, after all."
Probably Carolyn May had not heard the clergyman's comment. Surely, she
had not understood it. But she said now:
"Yes. There's Miss Wade--over yonder."
"Eh?" exclaimed the minister, turning quickly, expecting to see the
person of whom Carolyn May spoke. "There's who?"
"Miss Wade. Or, I s'pose she was a miss. She's not a 'spouse,' or a
'beloved relict,' or 'wife of the above.' So, I guess, she was a maiden
lady."
"Oh!" ejaculated the clergyman. "That old stone in the corner?"
"Yes, sir. That leany one. You know it says: 'Lydia Wade. Died of
smallpox. _Anno Domini_, 1762.'
"I know what _anno Domini_ means. It's after the birth of Christ. I
thought, at first, it was the name of somebody else buried in the same
grave--and that he had smallpox, too.
"It must be dreadful to have smallpox and be buried off in one corner of
the graveyard by one's self. Do you s'pose they did that to Miss Wade
'cause they were 'fraid of other folks here catching it?"
"It might be, my dear," said the clergyman. "But she was buried a long,
long time ago. Probably before there was any church here."
"Well, I guess Miss Wade was buried--poor thing!--so long ago that there
isn't any danger of catching the smallpox from her," sighed the little
girl, yet with relief in her tone. "Anyway, I'm not afraid, for I've
been vaccernated, and it _took_!"
The Reverend Afton Driggs thought this a rather gruesome subject for
Carolyn May; but, with the latter, everything worth talking about at all
could be given a cheerful atmosphere. She got to her feet with a sigh of
satisfaction, and Prince awakened out of his doze in the shelter of the
wall.
"There! I spect this is the last chance I'll have to clean up this place
'fore snow flies. Tim, the hackman, says it is bound to snow soon, and
the frost _has_ burned 'most all the grass."
"I presume winter is almost upon us," agreed Mr. Driggs. "Does the
thought of it make you unhappy?"
"Me? Oh, no, Mr. Driggs! I guess we can be just as happy in winter as in
summer--or fall--or spring. All we've got to do is to look _up_, and not
_down_, all the time. See how blue the sky is! And there are wild geese
flying over, aren't there?" she cried.
"Why, even the wild geese must _look up_, Mr. Driggs. They're looking
for where it's going to be warm weather, with the streams and ponds
open, I s'pose. So, after all, I guess they're wiser than some human
folks, even if they are geese. Don't you think so?"
"I believe you, Carolyn May," cried the minister, taking her little hand
in his own as they walked out of the churchyard.
Tim, the hackman, was a true weather prophet. That very night the first
snow flurry of the season drove against the west window panes of the big
kitchen at the Stagg homestead. It was at supper time.
"I declare for't," said Mr. Stagg, "I guess winter's onto us, Aunty
Rose."
"It has made an early start," agreed the housekeeper. "I trust you have
made everything snug and fast for the season, Joseph Stagg."
"I reckon so," said the hardware dealer easily. "Plenty of wood in the
shed and a full pork barrel," and he chuckled.
Just then Prince whined out on the cold porch and rattled his chain.
Uncle Joe never seemed to notice it!
Carolyn May went to bed that evening in a much more serious mood than
usual. Before going she got a heap of old sacks from the woodshed for
poor Prince to snuggle down in.
This snow did not amount to much; it was little more than a hoar-frost,
as Mr. Stagg said. It frosted the brown grass, but melted away in the
paths. This might be, however, the last chance for a Sunday walk in the
woods for some time, and Carolyn May did not propose to miss it. It was
the one thing Uncle Joe did for her that the little girl could hope was
done because he loved her--"oh, a teeny, weeny mite!"
Of course, uncles and guardians just had to take little girls home and
feed and clothe them--or else send them to a poorhouse. Carolyn May
understood that. But going for a Sunday walk was different. Uncle Joe's
yielding to her desire in this matter awoke the fluttering hope in the
child's breast that she was beloved.
On this Sunday she wished particularly to get him off by himself. Her
heart was filled with a great purpose. She felt that they must come to
an understanding.
They walked to the very glade where they had met Miss Amanda Parlow, and
Prince had killed the blacksnake. Somehow, their steps always seemed to
turn that way. But they had never come upon Miss Amanda in their walks a
second time.
On this particular occasion Uncle Joe sat down upon the log by the brook
where Miss Amanda had once sat. Carolyn May stood before him.
"Uncle Joe," the little girl said, her blue eyes dark with trouble,
"will you tell me something?"
"I reckon so, child, if I can," he responded, looking at her curiously.
"Am--am I just charity, Uncle Joe?"
"Huh? What's that, Car'lyn May?" he exclaimed, startled.
"Am I just a charity orphan? Didn't my papa leave _any_ money a-_tall_
for me? Did you take me just out of charity?"
"Bless me!" gasped the hardware dealer.
"I--I wish you'd answer me, Uncle Joe," went on Carolyn May with a brave
effort to keep from crying. "Isn't there _any_ money left for me--and
Princey?"
Joseph Stagg was too blunt a person to see his way clear to dodging the
question. And he could not speak a falsehood.
"Hum! Well, I'll tell you, Car'lyn May. There isn't _much_ left, and
that's a fact. It isn't your father's fault. He thought there was
plenty. But a business he invested in got into bad hands, and the little
nest egg he'd laid up for his family was lost."
"All lost, Uncle Joe?" quavered Carolyn May.
"All lost," repeated the hardware merchant firmly.
"Then--then I _am_ just charity. And so's Prince," whispered Carolyn May.
"I--I s'pose we could go to the poorhouse, Prince and me; but they mayn't
like dogs there."
"What's that?" ejaculated Joseph Stagg in a sharp tone. "What's that?"
he repeated.
"I--I know you aren't just used to children," went on Carolyn May,
somewhat helplessly. "You're real nice to me, Uncle Joe; but Prince and
me--we really are a nuisance to you."
The man stared at her for a moment in silence, but the flush that dyed
his cheeks was a flush of shame. The very word he had used on that
fateful day when Carolyn May Cameron had come to The Corners! He had
said to himself that she would be a nuisance.
"Maybe we ought to have gone to a poorhouse right at first," stammered
the little girl, when Mr. Stagg broke in on her observation in a voice
so rough that she was startled.
"Bless me, child! Who put such an idea into your head?"
"I--I thought of it myself, Uncle Joe."
"Don't you like it any more here with Aunty Rose and--and me?" he
demanded.
"Oh, yes! Only--only, Uncle Joe, I don't want to stay, if we're a
nuisance, Prince and me. I don't want to stay, if you don't love me."
Joseph Stagg had become quite excited. He stood up, running his fingers
through his bushy hair, and knocking off his hat.
"Bless me!" he finally cried once more. "How do you know I don't love
you, Car'lyn May?"
"Why--why--But, Uncle Joe! how do I know you do love me?" demanded the
little girl. "_You never told me so!_"
The startled man sank upon the log again.
"Well, maybe that's so," he murmured. "I s'pose it isn't my way to be
very--very--softlike. But listen here, Car'lyn May."
"Yes, sir."
"I ain't likely to tell you very frequent how much I--I think of you.
Ahem! But you'd better stop worrying about such things as money and the
like. What I've got comes pretty near belonging to you. Anyway, unless I
have to go to the poorhouse myself, I reckon you needn't worry about
going," and he coughed again drily.
"As far as us loving you--Well, your Aunty Rose loves you."
"Oh, I know she does!" agreed Carolyn May, nodding.
"Hum! How do you know that so well, and yet you don't know that I love
you?"
"Oh--well--now," stammered Carolyn May, "when there isn't anybody else
around but Aunty Rose and me, she tells me so."
"Hum!" Mr. Stagg cleared his throat. "Well, there isn't anybody else
around here but you and me--and the dog," and his eyes twinkled; "so I'll
admit, under cross-examination, that I love you."
"Oh, Uncle Joe!" She bounded at him, sobbing and laughing. "Is it really
so? Do you?"
For the first time Joseph Stagg lifted her upon his knee. She snuggled
up against his vest and put one little arm around his neck--as far as it
would go.
"_Dear_ Uncle Joe!" she sighed ecstatically. "I don't mind if I _am_
charity. If you love me, it takes all the sting out. And I'll help to
make you happy, too!"
"Bless me, child!" came huskily, "ain't I happy enough?"
"Why, Uncle Joe, I don't believe you can be really and truly happy, when
you are always worrying about business. You don't ever seem to have time
to _look up_ and see the sky, or stop to hear the birds sing.
"Seems to me, Uncle Joe," concluded Carolyn May, giving a happy little
jump on his lap, "that if you let your mind sort o' run on--on something
besides hardware once in a while, maybe you would have time to show me
how _much_ you loved me. Then I wouldn't have to ask."
The man looked at her somewhat blankly. Then he turned his head, ran his
hand through his bushy hair, and gazed away meditatively.
The little girl had awakened his heart. And that heart was very, very
sore.
CHAPTER XIV--A FIND IN THE DRIFTS
Before the week was over, winter had come to Sunrise Cove and The
Corners in earnest. Snow fell and drifted, until there was scarcely
anything to be seen one morning when Carolyn May awoke and looked out of
her bedroom windows but a white, fleecy mantle.
This was more snow than the little girl had ever seen in New York. She
came down to breakfast very much excited.
"What are we going to do about all this snow?" she asked. "Why! there
isn't any janitor to shovel off the walk, and no street cleaners to
clear the crosswalks! How am I ever going to get to school?"
"I reckon you'll get to school, all right, if the men get through with
the ploughs before half-past eight. And if Miss Minnie gets here,"
chuckled Uncle Joe.
He went out and fed the fowls for Aunty Rose and did the other chores.
But when he started for the store, promising to send Chet Gormley up to
dig the paths, he had to wade through drifts higher than the top rail of
the fences.
"Don't--don't they shovel up the snow and put it in carts and carry it
all away?" asked Carolyn May of Aunty Rose.
"Who ever heard the like?" returned Mrs. Kennedy. "What kind of a way is
that to do, child? And where would they cart it to? There's just as much
snow in one place as there is in another."
"Why, in New York," explained the little girl, "there's always an army
of men at work after a snowstorm--poor men, you know. And lots and lots
of wagons. My papa used to say the snow was a blessing to the poor who
wanted to earn a little money.
"Of course, lots of the men that shovel snow don't have warm coats--or
mittens, even--or overshoes! They wrap their feet in potato sacks to keep
them warm and dry."
"Well, well," murmured Aunty Rose. "So that's what they do with snow in
the city, is it? Live and learn."
Uncle Joe had shovelled off the porch and steps, and Prince had beaten
his own dooryard in the snow in front of his house. For he had a house
of his own, now--a roomy, warm one--built by Mr. Parlow.
It must be confessed that, although Uncle Joe paid for the building of
this dog-house, it never would have been built by Jedidiah Parlow had it
not been for Carolyn May. At first the grouchy old carpenter refused to
do the job.
"I ain't got to work for Joe Stagg's money--not yit, I guess," growled
the carpenter. "Tell him to git somebody else to build his house."
"Oh, but Mr. Parlow," gasped Carolyn May, quite amazed, "it isn't for
Uncle Joe, you know!"
"What ain't for your Uncle Joe?" demanded Mr. Parlow.
"The dog-house."
"Why ain't it? His money's goin' to pay for it, I reckon!"
"Oh, yes, that's so," admitted Carolyn May. "But Prince is going to live
in it, and, you know, Prince is a friend of yours, Mr. Parlow."
"Wal, no gittin' around sich logic, I do allow," grunted the old man,
his eyes twinkling, and the flush of anger dying out of his cheeks. "I
s'pose it is fur the dog. And the poor beast ain't nobody's enemy. Wal!"
So Prince had his warm house for the winter. Now Carolyn May put on her
rubber boots and warm coat and hood and went out to release the dog for
his morning run. His "morning scramble" would be the better term on this
occasion. Why, at the first bound he was buried in a drift!
"Isn't it lucky," said Carolyn May to Aunty Rose, who stood in the
doorway, "that Prince can smell his way around so well? If it wasn't for
his nose, he'd never be able to find his way out of those drifts. If _I_
fell down in one, I know I wouldn't be able to smell my way out again."
But after Chet Gormley had come and dug the paths, and the ox-teams had
come along with ploughs to break out the roads, she found it possible to
go to school. She took Prince with her.
Prince had learned to behave very well at school now. He was not allowed
in the schoolroom, but he remained on the porch or went back home, as he
pleased. But he was always waiting at the door for his little mistress
at recess and when the session closed.
At noon Uncle Joe came home, dragging a sled--a big roomy one, glistening
with red paint. Just the nicest sled Carolyn May had ever seen, and one
of the best the hardware dealer carried in stock.
"Oh, my, that's lovely!" breathed the little girl in awed delight.
"That's ever so much better than any sled I ever had before. And Prince
could draw me on it, if I only had a harness for him. He used to drag me
in the park. Of course, if he saw a cat, I had to get off and hold him."
Mr. Stagg, once started upon the path of good deeds, seemed to like it.
At night he brought home certain straps and rivets, and in the kitchen,
much to Aunty Rose's amazement, he fitted Prince to a harness which the
next day Carolyn May used on the dog, and Prince drew her very nicely
along the beaten paths.
"But, if anybody would have told me, I'm free to confess I would not
have believed it," Aunty Rose declared, referring to Mr. Stagg's actions
in stronger language than Carolyn May had ever heard her use before.
Carolyn May made a practice now of kissing Uncle Joe good-night when he
started for the store after supper. "'Cause I'm always in bed when you
get home," she explained.
Aunty Rose appeared not to notice this display of affection, and after a
time Mr. Stagg got so used to it that he positively did not blush. But
she climbed right into his lap and kissed him for the harness and sled,
and the housekeeper felt in duty bound to comment upon it.
"You're on the road to spoil that child, Joseph Stagg," she said.
"Ahem!" coughed the hardware dealer, eyeing her with more boldness than
he was usually able to display. "Ahem! I reckon somebody else around
here began the spoiling--if any--Aunty Rose."
And the woman smiled grimly. "Well," she said, "_you_ should not be in
your second childhood--at your age."
By Saturday the roads were in splendid condition for sleighing. The
heavy sleds, transporting timber or sawed planks from the camps and
mills to town, packed the snow firmly.
So Carolyn May went sledding. Soberly, Prince drew the new red sled and
his little mistress along the road towards Miss Amanda's. Of late the
little girl wanted to see the carpenter's daughter just as frequently as
possible. There was a secret understanding between Miss Parlow and
Carolyn May--something both thought of continually, but of which neither
spoke directly.
Carolyn May knew that the pretty lady was glad that Uncle Joe had come
to love her. Every mark of affection that the hardware merchant showed
his little niece the latter retailed to Miss Amanda, and each event lost
nothing in the telling.
Now she desired to show her friend the new sled and Prince's harness.
Mr. Stagg might still pass the Parlow house with his face averted;
nevertheless, his praises were sung to Miss Amanda continually by
Carolyn May.
"Now, Prince," said the little girl as they set forth, "I do hope we
don't meet any cats--or other dogs, either. Dogs are bad enough; but, you
know, if you see a cat you can_not_ keep your mind on what you are
doing."
Prince whined and wagged his ridiculous tail. It did seem as though he
knew just what she was talking about.
However, until they got away from The Corners, at least, they met with
no adventure. The blacksmith hailed Carolyn May--he was a jolly
fellow--and asked her if she wanted to have her horse sharpened.
"No, thank you, Mr. Lardner," the little girl replied. "You see, Prince
has got his claws, so he _can't_ slip on the hard snow. He doesn't need
to be sharpened like the horses."
It was not altogether a pleasant afternoon, for there was a curtain of
haze being drawn over the sun, and the wind was searching. And not only
did the wind cut sharply, but it blew clouds of light snow from the tops
of the drifts into one's face and eyes. Carolyn May almost wished she
had not started for Miss Amanda's house--and this before she was halfway
to her destination.
Prince, however, did not seem to mind it much. The sled slipped easily
over the beaten snow, and Carolyn May was a light load for him, for
Prince was a strong dog.
Out of sight of the houses grouped at The Corners the road to town
seemed as lonely as though it were a veritable wilderness. Here and
there the drifts had piled six feet deep, for the wind had a free sweep
across the barrens.
"Now, there's somebody coming," said Carolyn May, seeing a moving object
ahead between the clouds of drifting snow spray. "Is it a sleigh,
Princey, or just a man?"
She lost sight of the object, then sighted it again.
"It must be a man. It can't be a bear, Princey." Everybody had told her
there were no more bears left in the woods about Sunrise Cove.
"And, anyway, I'm only afraid of bears at night--when I go up to bed in
the dark," Carolyn May told herself. "Here it is broad daylight!"
Besides, if it were any such animal, Prince would surely give tongue. He
only sniffed and pricked up his ears. The strange object had disappeared
again.
It was just at the place where the spring spouted out of the rocky
hillside and trickled across the road. There was a sort of natural
watering trough here in the rock where the horses stopped to drink. The
dog drew the little girl closer to the spot.
"Where _has_ that man gone to? If it was a man."
Prince stopped suddenly and whined.
"What is the matter, Princey?" demanded Carolyn May, really quite
disturbed. There was something in the drift that the wind was heaping
beside the beaten track. What could it be? "Prince!"
The dog barked, and then looked around at his mistress, as though to
say: "See there!"
Carolyn May tumbled off the sled in a hurry. When she did so she slipped
on a patch of snow-covered ice and fell. But she was not hurt.
"There! that's where the water runs across the road. It's all
slippy--Oh!"
It was the sleeve of a man's rough coat thrust out of the snowbank that
brought this last cry to the child's lips. In a very few moments the
sign of the unfortunate wayfarer would have been completely covered in
the drifting snow.
"Oh, oh! It's a man!" burst from Carolyn May's trembling lips. "How cold
he must be!"
She was cold herself--and frightened. She had heard of people dying in
the snow; and this person seemed perfectly helpless.
"Oh, dear me, Prince!" she cried, recovering a measure of her courage.
"We can't let him die here! We've just _got_ to save him!"
She plumped down on her knees and began brushing the snow away. She
uncovered his shoulder. She took hold of this with her mittened hands
and tried to shake the prone figure.
He moved. It was ever so little, but it inspired Carolyn May with hope.
She was not so much afraid of him now, she told herself. He was not
dead.
"Oh, do wake up! Please wake up!" she cried, digging away the snow as
fast as possible.
A shaggy head was revealed, with an old cap pulled down tightly over the
ears. The man moved again and grunted something. He half turned over,
and there was blood upon the snow, and a great frosted cake of it on the
side of his face.
Carolyn May was dreadfully frightened. The man's head was cut and the
blood was smeared over the front of his jacket. Now she could see a
puddle of it, right where he had fallen on the ice--just as she had
fallen herself. Only, he had struck his head on a rock and cut himself.
"You poor thing!" murmured Carolyn May. "Oh, you mustn't lie here! You
must get up! You'll--you'll be frozen!"
"Easy, mate," muttered the man. "I ain't jest right in my top-hamper, I
reckon. Hold hard, matey."
He tried to get up. He rose to his knees, but pitched forward again.
Carolyn May was not afraid of him now--only troubled.
"I'll take you to Miss Amanda," cried the little girl, pulling at his
coat again. "She's a nurse, and she'll know just what to do for you.
Come, Prince and I will take you."
The dog stood by whining, acting as though he knew just what the trouble
was and was anxious to help. The man struggled up into a kneeling
posture.
"My top-hamper ain't jest right," he murmured again. "That was a crack!
Blood! I reckon I'm some hurt, miss."
"Well, I should say you were hurt!" Carolyn May responded briskly. "But
I know Miss Mandy can fix you up. Let's go there--_now_! It's awfully
cold standing here."
"Belike I can't get there," mumbled the man, still on his knees.
"Oh, you must! It's not far. You were coming towards The Corners,
weren't you?"
"I was bound out o' town; yes, miss," the man replied.
"Miss Amanda's is the last house you passed, then. It isn't far,"
repeated Carolyn May.
"I--I don't believe I kin make it, matey," groaned the man, evidently not
quite clear in his mind whom he was addressing. He weaved to and fro as
he knelt, his eyes half-closed, muttering and groaning to himself.
"Oh, you mustn't!" cried Carolyn May. "You mustn't give up. Crawl onto
my sled. Prince and I can drag you to Miss Amanda's. Of course, we can."
"Believe you'd better leave me here, matey," muttered the man.
But Carolyn May would not hear to that. She bustled about, brought the
sled closer to him, and made Prince stand around properly in his
harness. Then she guided
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