GE6RGE 
 MADDEN 
 MARTIN
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Abbie Ann

 
 ,. 
 
 Abbie Ann
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF " EMMY LOU " 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BY C. M. RELYEA 
 
 New York 
 
 The Century Co. 
 
 1907
 
 Copyright, 1906, 1907, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Published October, 
 
 THE DE VINNE PRESS
 
 D 
 
 PS 
 
 A/ 
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 Abbie Ann Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " She tried to see her new sash " 9 
 
 " A bump, a rush of air, the noise of a locomotive waked 
 
 her" 15 
 
 Jim, the brakeman, finds Abbie Ann on the flat-car . 22 
 
 " Once, Abbie Ann there was a little girl with hair and 
 
 eyes like yours " . 39 
 
 " Mr. McEwan was making notes on the back of an en 
 velop " 61 
 
 " Each one had brought her something for a ' good-by ' " 67 
 Abbie's last days with her father 74 
 
 " Abbie Ann, standing forlornly in the center of the lone 
 some room, began to sob" 80 
 
 Martha Lunn inspecting Abbie Ann's new hat ... 87 
 
 " That afternoon she helped Maria unpack " .... 99 
 
 " Suddenly the puppet became a ghost " 107 
 
 Abbie Ann knocking at Miss Henrietta's door . . 122 
 
 "' I have brought her, you see '" 126 
 
 " Abbie was studying her nose closely and critically " . 135 
 
 " Abbie Ann wrote a letter to her father " 139
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abbie passes Katharine Van Antwerp in the hall . . 148 
 
 Abbie's box arrives 157 
 
 Aunt Abbie and Abbie at the milliner's 1 70 
 
 '"This, is where the Marquis de Lafayette ' " . 175 
 
 Aunt Abbie appearing in Abbie's room at night . . 181 
 
 " Miss Ann drew herself up " 200 
 
 Aunt Ann playing the piano 205 
 
 Maria, Abbie and Aunt Ann looking at the contents of 
 
 the old leather trunk 220 
 
 "Abbie Ann rushed, frantic with joy, to her father " . 225
 
 Abbie Ann
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 BBIE ANN, as she skipped 
 along the platform of the 
 little railroad station by her 
 father's side, turned her head 
 to see her new sash. Perhaps she was 
 wishing there was some one beside herself 
 to admire it; but the tracks, the switches, 
 the station, made Coal City, as it was 
 some twenty years ago. Beyond the bend, 
 nearer the coke ovens, were the rows of 
 frame houses occupied by the miners and 
 their families. 
 
 Abbie Ann's father was tall and close- 
 bearded and he looked pre-occupied ; he 
 was leading her along by the hand as if
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 he had forgotten entirely that she was 
 there, and she was skipping, not only be 
 cause the general tune of life is one to skip 
 to, but because he went so fast. 
 
 He paused at the open door of the sta 
 tion and Mr. McEwan the agent, within, 
 looked up. Next to her father, Abbie 
 Ann who was nine years old, long ago 
 had decided she cared for Mr. McEwan 
 more than for any one else in the world. 
 Now her world, beside father and Mr. 
 McEwan, consisted of Coal City and its 
 inhabitants, the miners and their families. 
 
 He looked up as they darkened the door 
 way, and the telegraph instrument clicked 
 on under his rapid fingers. 
 
 "May I leave Abbie with you for an 
 hour or more ?" asked her father, stepping 
 into the room. 
 
 Mr. McEwan looked at Abbie Ann. He 
 wore glasses and when he opened his eyes 
 wide and blinked them quick, the glasses 
 winked. They winked at Abbie now. 
 
 4
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "Why not?" said he. 
 
 Another thing about Mr. McEwan was, 
 that when he raised his eyebrows inter 
 rogatively, it lifted his hair too, which was 
 red and which stood up like a brush. 
 When his glasses winked and his hair 
 lifted, Abbie had come, long ago, to know 
 that he was pleased. 
 
 This being the case now, and his little 
 daughter provided for, Abbie Ann's father 
 turned hastily and went back to the wag 
 onette where the gentlemen who had come 
 to see the mine, were waiting. When 
 money is being sought to further develop 
 a coal mine, would-be investors are to be 
 given undivided attention. So Abbie Ann 
 was left behind and father and the gentle 
 men drove off. 
 
 She went over to the desk and stood 
 beside Mr. McEwan who, looking up, sur 
 veyed her with a speculative air. Then he 
 shook his head dubiously. 
 
 "You really don't look it," he said. 
 
 5
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "What?" asked Abbie Ann. 
 
 "A young barbarian." 
 
 Abbie grew violently red. Mr. Mc- 
 Ewan was quoting the lady who had gone 
 off on the evening train the night be 
 fore last. She had been engaged to come 
 to Coal City in the interests of Abbie Ann 
 and her general welfare and education and 
 had departed after making a discourag- 
 ingly short trial of the situation and there 
 fore Abbie now grew red 
 
 But here the telegraph instrument, 
 which never had stopped, began to click 
 frantically, and Mr. McEwan transferred 
 his attention from her to it. 
 
 Abbie was used to every one being busy ; 
 her father was always pre-occupied, being 
 a part owner, and the superintendent of 
 the mine; everybody in Coal City was 
 busy, the miners, their wives, the children, 
 all, it would seem, but Abbie Ann and the 
 babies. 
 
 It was hot in the telegraph office and it 
 6
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 proved just as hot in the waiting room. 
 Also the benches around the walls were 
 hard, and she knew the old faded rail 
 road posters by heart, so she tried to see 
 her new sash in the cheap little look 
 ing-glass which hung, tilted, opposite the 
 ticket window. She had bought the sash 
 herself, that morning, at the store, her 
 father allowing her to choose anything 
 she preferred, for staying behind with Mr. 
 McEwan. It was a rich magenta and the 
 great amount of linen in its composition 
 gave it a stiff and elegant gloss indeed. 
 Abbie considered the effect against her 
 pink gingham dress very fine. 
 
 She had a fear that her father had not 
 tied it right, though it had taken him some 
 time, but the glass hung too high for her 
 to get a view of it. She could see her face 
 however and since it was smiling at her, 
 she smiled back at it, then tipped her hat a 
 little to observe the effect that way. 
 
 She was obliged to admit that her hair 
 
 7
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 was red ; Mr. McEwan always told her so, 
 but then it was not the red of his, and it 
 was not straight. Abbie Ann called hers 
 "brown red" and she called his "red red," 
 and she consoled herself further with the 
 fact that hers curled. 
 
 When Mr. McEwan wanted to tease he 
 told her that her temper was the color of 
 her hair, at which for a long time she used 
 to stamp her foot, but lately she had 
 stopped, since he asked if that did not 
 prove what he said ? 
 
 The glass tilted on the wall also showed 
 Abbie's cheeks to be red, and her eyes 
 brown. She felt she would hate not to be 
 as pretty as she was, but she felt also, she 
 would feel worse to have Mr. McEwan 
 know she thought she was pretty. He de 
 clared even now that when she wore a new 
 dress or a new hat she strutted. On all 
 such occasions he was used to drawl : 
 
 "How loves the little Abbie Ann 
 To dress so fine each hour, 
 
 8
 
 * A 
 
 " She tried to see her new sash"
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 And spend her money for a fan 
 Or artificial flower." 
 
 When Abbie found that any way she tip 
 toed, she could not see her sash, she went 
 out on the platform. She had her new 
 August magazine, but the platform was 
 reeking and resinous even in this early 
 morning sun, so fierce was the day. Across 
 the main tracks on a switch, upon which 
 the shadow of Black Diamond Mountain 
 still fell, stood a flat-car. A few tarpau 
 lins lay together on it. That Abbie was 
 forbidden to play on the tracks or to walk 
 on the switches was true enough, but there 
 are always reasons to apply to the especial 
 case at hand. It looked cool and shady 
 and inviting on the flat-car, and the tar 
 paulins offered a comfortable nook. It 
 was n't a flat-car suddenly, as she looked 
 over at it, it was a house, her own little 
 house in which she lived and looked out on 
 the rest of the world. 
 
 And here Abbie jumped down off the 
 ii
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 platform and ran across and clambered up 
 on it. 
 
 It was snug, and cosy, and far-off, even 
 as she had pictured, and crouching down 
 on the other side of the tarpaulins she 
 laughed to think what a hunt Mr. McEwan 
 would have when he came to look for her. 
 
 She would not let him hunt too long, be 
 cause there was sure to be an apple for 
 her, or maybe a candy pipe if he had been 
 to the Junction lately, or perhaps a choco 
 late mouse. Once it had been popcorn, 
 and in the box with it was a ring set with 
 a green diamond. Mr. McEwan said it 
 was a rare thing, a green diamond, a rare 
 gem, he called it. Next to her father, 
 Abbie was sure she cared most for him. 
 
 While Mr. McEwan had been at college, 
 he became sick. Later he came to Coal 
 City, away off in the Allegheny Moun 
 tains because he could get a job and get 
 well, too. At first he used to say he meant 
 to go back to college. 
 
 12
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "When?" Abbie Ann had asked him, 
 for even that long ago she hated to spare 
 him. 
 
 "Some time," he always assured her. 
 
 "Why some time," Abbie had worried 
 him to know, "Why not what time?" 
 
 "Because time 's money," Mr. McEwan 
 always said. 
 
 But later on he stopped saying he was 
 going. Abbie asked him why again. 
 
 "Because I 'm finding time is n't," said 
 he. 
 
 "Is n't what?" queried Abbie. 
 
 "Money." 
 
 It was very hard to follow Mr. McEwan 
 sometimes. Abbie did not try to that day. 
 While she waited for him to come hunting 
 her, she read her magazine. There was a 
 discouraging number of words she had to 
 spell. Her father one day said she was 
 backward in her reading, but she told him 
 he was wrong, that she always spelled 
 right ahead. 
 
 13
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Somehow, to-day, the reading seemed 
 harder than ever, and Abbie found it 
 warmer than it had looked in the car; the 
 click, click, click, of the telegraph instru 
 ment reached her far off and faint, and 
 presently her head fell over against the 
 piled up tarpaulins and she forgot to lift 
 it, and 
 
 A BUMP, a rush of air, the noise of a loco 
 motive waked her. Scrambling from the 
 tarpaulin little Abbie Ann stood up, but 
 lost her balance and sat down again. The 
 flat-car was one of a long train leaving 
 the switch, Coal City already behind, its 
 little square station gleaming yellow 
 against the mountainous background, and 
 growing smaller every moment. A brake- 
 man was walking the long line of cars 
 ahead. Abbie screamed to him, but her 
 voice was lost in the bumping and grind 
 ing of the brakes. 
 
 Had the train been going westward to- 
 
 14
 
 " A bump, a rush of air, the noise of a locomotive waked her "
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 ward the Junction, she knew she could 
 have gotten off in an hour and waited for 
 the afternoon train back to Coal City, but 
 they were rushing in the opposite direc 
 tion. The mountains loomed strange and 
 dark, it was somber in this defile and chill 
 and tunnel-like. The flat-car jerked and 
 bumped. 
 
 Abbie Ann swallowed tears and lumps 
 and sulphur smoke all together. Ever 
 after she never knew whether terror 
 meant a sulphur taste on the tongue, or 
 whether a sulphur taste brought back ter 
 ror. Or does a falling-away at the pit of 
 the stomach mean both? 
 
 She screamed, and screamed again to 
 the vanishing station, and choked between 
 times. It was as if, across the increasing 
 space, she yet clung with desperate little 
 fingers to father, to Mr. McEwan, to the 
 known, the familiar, the habitual, and one 
 by one the fingers were being torn from 
 their hold. 
 
 17
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 She screamed, and screamed again, then 
 with a sudden sense of futility such as can 
 come even to a baby, the little red-headed 
 girl in the pink dress and magenta sash, 
 with the grim fir-clad Alleghenies looming 
 either side over her, threw herself on the 
 gritty car floor and clung to the tarpaulins 
 and cried and beat with her feet against 
 the boards. It was rage. Abbie Ann was 
 one to shake furious little fists in the face 
 of contrary Fortune. 
 
 After how long she did not know, little 
 Abbie clinging to the tarpaulins for very 
 terror of this swaying, rocking fury of the 
 rush through space, sat up. 
 
 Not long before, in the night, her father 
 had wrapped her in a blanket and carried 
 her to the window. It was a red-eyed 
 monster, with a fiery trail behind, speed 
 ing through the skies, she looked out on, 
 called a comet. Herself a mere speck on 
 the trail of this rushing thing, Abbie 
 found herself thinking of that monster 
 18
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 now. Yet seeing trains go by Coal City 
 every day, ordinarily Abbie Ann called 
 them locomotives and freight cars. She 
 even knew their numbers and the names of 
 the engineers. 
 
 With a gone feeling everywhere, the 
 small object on the flat-car gazed at the 
 flying scene, a brawling river churning it 
 self to foam on one side, steep walls and 
 dark-clad slopes of mountains on the other, 
 and each moment of it carrying her away 
 from father. 
 
 She even thought of jumping, but she 
 was afraid. The cinders fell thick, the 
 rush thundered back upon her in the echo. 
 And on they went, over bridges, the brawl 
 ing river beneath, through tunnels where 
 the smoke blinded and choked and stran 
 gled the little numbed soul clutching at 
 safety and the tarpaulins, in and out of the 
 gloom and somber grandeur. 
 
 At last when rage and terror and the 
 numb despair all had died away to apathy, 
 
 19
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 when she could not even cry, as the train 
 took a curve Abbie Ann saw the brakeman 
 traveling over his route, from car to car. 
 Do things always begin to come our way 
 when once we have given in? This time 
 the brakeman was traveling backward 
 over the train. He reached the rear end 
 of the box-car next to her flat-car. It was 
 Jim, a trainman Abbie had talked to often, 
 on the switch at Coal City. He used to 
 smile when he talked and his eyes and 
 teeth, all shiny white, would look funny 
 out of the grime of his face. 
 
 "Jim," she cried, "Jim, oh Jim!" Her 
 little voice, naturally, was lost, but since in 
 her joy to see him, she had crawled out to 
 the middle of the swaying flat-car, why, 
 Jim as he climbed down saw her. Now 
 one is not looking for red-headed little 
 girls to roll out of tarpaulins on a freight 
 train. 
 
 "Great Scott !" he roared, almost losing 
 his balance in the suddenness of his sur- 
 
 20
 
 Jim, the brakeman, finds Abbie Ann on the flat-car
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 prise. Abbie Ann smiled through tears. 
 It was different now Jim had come. 
 
 "It 's the little Coal City kid," he 
 gasped. 
 
 Abbie Ann explained in hysterical 
 screams. His face of mingled grime and 
 concern made her laugh. 
 
 Jim bent to speak to her. "Hold on," he 
 roared, "wait here till I come back." 
 
 As if she could do anything else, Jim 
 was so funny, but everything was all right 
 now, and with an amazing sudden sense of 
 light-heartedness, she watched him go on 
 his clambering way. It was Jim's respon 
 sibility now. Even the mountains seemed 
 lower. Or were they foothills along here? 
 
 But she had time to think that terrible 
 things had befallen him before he re 
 turned. He did n't come, and he did n't 
 come. Had Jim forgotten her? Had he 
 fallen off the train? Never, never would 
 she see her father again. 
 
 Just then he came clambering back, and 
 2 23
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 reaching her, sat down on the tarpaulin 
 and wiped the smoke and grime from his 
 face. 
 
 "We 're going to put you on the pas 
 senger we meet at Lynn, at five-ten. We 're 
 side-tracked there. That '11 get you at Coal 
 City at eleven. We '11 telegraph your 
 father our next stop. It 's three now. I 
 reckon he 's about crazy." 
 
 "But it will be all right when I get 
 there," said the now cheerful Abbie Ann 
 hopefully. 
 
 AT Lynn, two hours later, Jim carried her 
 off, and took her over to the hotel and got 
 her some supper, but first he asked a girl 
 there to wash her face. Abbie Ann caught 
 a glimpse of it in a gilt-framed mirror on 
 the wall. Her eyes and her little teeth 
 gleamed white through grime, but she did 
 not laugh as she had when it was Jim's 
 face. It was a nice girl he asked this 
 favor of, a girl with red cheeks, and she 
 24
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 even stayed while Abbie Ann, perched on 
 a high stool at a counter, ate supper. Jim 
 asked her how she would like a ring on the 
 order of Abbie Ann's. She laughed. "Go 
 'long," she said. When the express thun 
 dered in, Jim boarded it with Abbie Ann. 
 His own train was puffing on the switch. 
 He explained the matter to the conductor, 
 to whom Abbie had often nodded from the 
 Coal City platform. 
 
 "Richardson of the Black Diamond? 
 I '11 see she reaches him," he said, and off 
 into the night the Express thundered 
 westward. They reached Coal City at 
 eleven where the conductor handed off a 
 plump, red-headed little girl half asleep. 
 In her arms were a bag of candy, one of 
 fruit, a toy puzzle, and a picture paper, 
 given her by the conductor, the porter, the 
 butcher boy, and a lady on the sleeper. 
 Abbie Ann had quite enjoyed the trip. 
 
 She saw Mr. McEwan first. His hair 
 was standing up brushier than ever, and 
 
 25
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 he looked strange and wild. When he 
 grabbed her from the conductor, the clutch 
 of his hand hurt. 
 
 "She 's here! and safe! " he called. 
 And then his breath seemed to catch. And 
 as the Express rushed on into the dark 
 ness, he handed her over to her father 
 next behind him. The whole of Coal City 
 seemed to be there too, men, women, visit 
 ing gentlemen and all. They had been 
 hunting Abbie from noon until the tele 
 gram came in the afternoon. 
 
 Generally her father was pre-occupied. 
 Now he held her close. 
 
 "My little girl, my little girl," he 
 kept saying under his breath, all the way 
 up the cinder road, while the strange gen 
 tlemen followed after, past the coke ovens, 
 throwing their deep glow out into the 
 darkness, to the big house next the store, 
 where she and her father lived. And when 
 for answer, Abbie Ann rubbed her cheek 
 against his, she found his was wet. 
 26
 
 II 
 
 HE next evening shortly be 
 fore Abbie Ann's bedtime, her 
 father pushed his books aside 
 and wheeling his chair around 
 from the desk, took her on his knee. He 
 had his office at home, and the two gener 
 ally spent their evenings here, he at work, 
 she with her dolls. 
 
 There was a space between the wall and 
 the end of the desk that almost seemed to 
 have been meant for a doll-house, and 
 moreover her father let her use a drawer 
 of the desk for her playthings. 
 
 Once a lady came to Coal City with her 
 husband who had business at the mine, and 
 they stayed over night, and she kept say 
 ing "poor child," and every time she said 
 it she stroked Abbie Ann's hair. Then 
 while the two gentlemen were out, she 
 27
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 brushed up .the office hearth, and put 
 things around in the places where she said 
 they ought to be. The office being at 
 home, there was no covering except a coat 
 of paint on the floor, or on the floor of the 
 hall. The color of the soil of Coal City is 
 red, and red clay foot-prints on a painted 
 floor show discouragingly. After the 
 lady had brushed around for a while, she 
 gave up, and saying "poor child" some 
 more, bade Abbie Ann bring all her stock 
 ings that she might darn them. 
 
 Afterward Abbie asked her father why 
 the lady said "poor child," but he only 
 looked out of the window across the valley 
 and did not reply. Unless she was in a 
 temper, whenever she saw her father 
 glance in that way out across the valley, 
 Abbie Ann changed the subject, for some 
 thing seemed to tell her then that father 
 was worried. So she saved the question, 
 and later asked Mr. McEwan why the lady 
 had said "poor child." 
 28
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 That person, surveying small Abbie 
 Ann, lifted his forehead in ridges and 
 gazed debatingly. Her hair was in tangle, 
 one shoe-string was broken and the tongue 
 of the shoe hung loose;. there was red clay 
 on her stockings, and a long scratch on her 
 face, results of a scramble up the moun 
 tain side for blackberries ; also there was a 
 slit in her dress skirt where a briar had 
 caught it. 
 
 "Because," said Mr. McEwan solemnly, 
 "there is so little demand on the market 
 for young savages." 
 
 But this had been some time before, in 
 one of the intervals between teachers. 
 
 This evening Abbie Ann's father, push 
 ing his ledger away, lifted her to his knee. 
 'Now her father was that sort of person 
 who, a dripping umbrella in his hand, 
 stands in a doorway and looks helplessly 
 around until the women folk rush to him 
 and take it. But there were no women 
 folk to take care of him and Abbie Ann. 
 29
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Her father loved the small bundle of her 
 self, tears, smudges, and all, better even 
 than he himself knew, better than all else 
 in the world, but he did n't know what to 
 do with her. His attitude with Abbie Ann 
 was very like that of himself with the um 
 brella. 
 
 He lifted her to his knee now and 
 stroked her hair awkwardly. It made her 
 think of the lady. She endured it, hopeful 
 that it would n't last long. Perhaps it was 
 because it was not natural to her father 
 that it made her embarrassed. She was 
 right. It stopped. 
 
 "How brave to do her duty is my wilful 
 offspring?" suddenly he inquired. 
 
 Now wilful offspring meant Abbie Ann. 
 It was what still another lady brought to 
 Coal City to teach her, had called her. 
 
 She had no idea what wilful offspring 
 meant, but she did know that the lady had 
 not meant it to be complimentary. 
 
 "How brave?" father was repeating. 
 
 30
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Abbie Ann thought of the day before on 
 the freight train. 
 
 "Not so brave," she concluded. 
 
 Which evidently was disconcerting. 
 Her father began to stroke her hair again, 
 and Abbie to endure it. "But brave 
 enough, I am sure, to stand by her duty ?" 
 he suggested. 
 
 He spoke so uneasily, and it sounded so 
 conciliatory that Abbie Ann grew dubious. 
 His voice sounded solemn too, almost as if 
 they were in church, which in itself was 
 an alarming sensation, Coal City having 
 Church at the most, perhaps three times a 
 year, when a minister could be secured. 
 
 "Brave enough, I am sure," said father, 
 "to stand by her duty." 
 
 "I, I don't know," 'faltered Abbie Ann. 
 
 "For tather has made up his mind to be 
 brave enough to show his little daughter 
 her duty," he continued. But here he 
 paused so long, and appeared to be ponder 
 ing so hard that Abbie Ann to show how 
 
 3 1
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 entirely at ease and free from embarrass 
 ment she was began to twist his mustache 
 to stand out, a sharp point each side above 
 his pointed beard. Then when he looked 
 at her so earnestly above the fierce mus 
 tache, Abbie forgot she was embarrassed 
 and laughed. 
 
 "Such a little girl," said her father, 
 hopelessly, "such a little child." 
 
 "I was only pretending," she hastened 
 to assure him, "I 'm listening." 
 
 "And it is only for a few years at most," 
 her father then said, as if continuing a 
 former thought ; was he talking to her or 
 to himself? 
 
 "What 's for a few years ?" asked Abbie 
 Ann. 
 
 At this he seemed to come back to her 
 and hastened to stroke her hair. "I have 
 been meditating it for some time," he con 
 fessed, even guiltily, "and yesterday's hap 
 pening determined me." 
 
 But it was to be seen that Abbie Ann's 
 
 32
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 tall bearded parent viewed the inquiring- 
 eyed object on his knee with considerable 
 apprehension. He also continued to stroke 
 her hair vigorously. 
 
 "I am going to take you away from Coal 
 City and put you at school," he told her. 
 
 There was a pause, during which there 
 seemed to be no support under Abbie Ann ; 
 there was a singing in her ears and a dry- 
 ness in her mouth. Coal City meant all 
 she knew. "Away" meant that unknown 
 void and desolation the cars were rush 
 ing toward yesterday, and its inhabitants 
 were summed up in the lady who called 
 her "poor child" and made her uncomfor 
 table. 
 
 "But I don't want to go to school," she 
 rejoined, and her voice sounded so far off, 
 even to herself, and strange, that she 
 threw herself upon him and clung to him 
 suddenly and fiercely, "I don't want to go 
 to school, I don't want to." 
 
 Father said nothing. The silence was 
 
 33
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 alarming. She burrowed her head deeper 
 into his coat collar, "Why can't I have a 
 teacher here?" came up in muffled tones 
 from Abbie Ann. 
 
 "We have tried it, and how long have 
 they stayed ?" 
 
 It sounded as if it meant what it said, 
 his voice this time. 
 
 "They stayed longer than the cooks," 
 came up from Abbie Ann, sulkily, and un 
 wisely; for the number of cooks brought 
 to Coal City for the superintendent's 
 household, from all points far and near, 
 had become a jocular matter up and down 
 the railroad; none could or would stand 
 the isolation of the life. Her father had 
 grown as sensitive about cooks as was 
 Abbie about teachers. 
 
 So at this he spoke decidedly. Perhaps 
 the allusion nettled him. 
 
 "The teaching is not all," he said, "you 
 need to be with other children," he was 
 quoting the words of the lady, "and you 
 
 34
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 need to have what only different surround 
 ings can give you." 
 
 "I don't," said Abbie Ann. There was 
 no doubt as to the finality of her utterance. 
 She had slipped down from his knee and 
 stood, firm planted on the floor. A red 
 spot was burning on either cheek. Sud 
 denly she stamped her foot, and stamped 
 again; then she seized the nearest thing, 
 which chanced to be her youngest child, 
 and flung the luckless infant across the 
 room. This done, simultaneously, as it 
 were, with the dull thud of its unhappy 
 head against the wall, Abbie Ann threw 
 herself upon the floor, prone, and beat 
 with her small hands and feet thereon. 
 
 It was not the first time this big man 
 had watched his little daughter thus, nor 
 yet the first time he had wondered what he 
 ought to do about it; he had met a mine 
 disaster with a promptness that saved his 
 men's lives; he had averted a strike by a 
 just grasp of the situation ; he had quelled 
 
 35
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 a riot in a neighboring district during the 
 miseries of actual strike there; but these 
 things were a matter of course, in mere 
 line with a man's work, and he thought no 
 more about them. But what to do with 
 one small daughter who flung herself on 
 the floor and beat with her fists and feet 
 thereon, this big man did not know. 
 
 Meanwhile the heap of red tangles, 
 skirts, arms and legs, there before him, 
 began to be shaken by sobs. Abbie Ann 
 usually grew more reasonable at the weep 
 ing stage. Her father gazed down upon 
 her. Those small moaned "ohs," on his 
 little daughter's lips hurt him surpris 
 ingly. He would try reason. He offered 
 it somewhat diffidently, seeing that Ab 
 bie Ann had a disconcerting way of reject 
 ing it. 
 
 "Suppose/' he said, "that I failed in my 
 duty to you now, and lived to feel my own 
 and your reproaches?" 
 
 His little girl, sitting up at this to listen, 
 
 36
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 here shook her head violently, so violently 
 the red curls flung about wildly. She 
 was hazy as to what it was he might some 
 day feel, but from her position, it was saf 
 est to combat everything. "That would n't 
 never, never be, " she stated, with gen 
 eral vagueness of statement, but much de 
 cision. 
 
 But her father thought differently, and 
 said moreover that she was too young to 
 know. 
 
 "And further," he added, "it is my 
 daughter's duty to help father to do his." 
 He spoke so solemnly it might have been 
 Church again. Abbie Ann hugged her 
 knees. It would never do to weaken now. 
 
 But he went on. The words seemed to 
 come with effort at first, but later, some 
 thing came into them that made them 
 easier. Was it tenderness? Or was it sad 
 laughter ? 
 
 "Once Abbie Ann there was a little 
 girl with hair and eyes like yours. She 
 
 37
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 lived in a city, and used to come by a cer 
 tain gate every day, the last little girl in 
 the procession coming from a neighboring 
 boarding-school for the daily walk. There 
 was a boy generally hanging on that gate, 
 who in time that little girl came to nod to. 
 Perhaps, some day, you may be shown 
 some medals and some prize books laid 
 away by persons who loved this little girl, 
 that will prove to you how faithfully she 
 did her duty." 
 
 Abbie Ann had wriggled along the floor, 
 still embracing her knees, the better to 
 hear. Now she got up and leaned against 
 her father's knee. The story rather than 
 the moral of it, had seized her. 
 
 "Who was she, the little girl, father?" 
 
 "Your mother, Abbie." 
 
 There was a silence. Nobody spoke. 
 Little as she had been, Abbie Ann seemed 
 to herself to remember, 
 
 Therefore she rose up and flung herself 
 upon him and wetted his poor collar with 
 
 .38
 
 Once, Abbie Ann there was a little girl with hair and 
 eyes like yours "
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 a fresh burst of tears ; "I '11 be good, I '11 
 be good," she whispered. 
 
 "I know, I know, " said father, in re 
 turn, gathering her up, and this time for 
 getting to stroke her hair. 
 
 Then Abbie Ann sat up. Had she 
 known her little nose was puffed like a ripe 
 red cherry, she might have been discon 
 certed. 
 
 "Who was the little boy?" she asked. 
 She liked that story. 
 
 "His name in those days, was, Johnnie, 
 Johnnie Richardson." 
 
 Abbie Ann laughed delightedly. It was 
 father himself, that boy; father's name 
 was John Richardson ! 
 
 He was saying more: "And I have 
 chosen to send you to this same school, be 
 cause the same teacher is there who taught 
 your mother? Will this help you to go 
 and try to be happy?" 
 
 He never had talked just this way to 
 her before. She felt solemn, and began to 
 
 41
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 cry a little again, but sobbed her willing 
 ness to try. 
 
 And it was settled, and big, bearded 
 John Richardson drew a breath. 
 
 42
 
 Ill 
 
 HERE were other reasons why 
 Abbie Ann's father had con 
 cluded she would be better at 
 school; indeed, he could have 
 found very, very good ones happening al 
 most any day. She remembered several 
 herself, or, rather, would like not to have 
 remembered them. 
 
 For instance, there was the time the 
 Bishop came to hold service. It is not 
 often such a thing happens to miners as 
 having a Bishop come, but this one had 
 been doing so at intervals since the men 
 built themselves a church. 
 
 His stay over night was with Mr. Rich 
 ardson and Abbie Ann, and even with 
 limitations as to cooks and available 
 sources of marketing supplies, a household 
 
 43
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 is driven to make preparations for a 
 Bishop, or at least into trying to do so. It 
 was winter and there was mountain mut 
 ton secured from a farmer, and a wild 
 turkey and what 'Mr. McEwan called 
 trimmings. Unfortunately there was dam 
 son-plum preserves too, with the seeds left 
 in, which the wife of one of the miners 
 had sent up with pride for the occasion, 
 and which was put on the table in a glass 
 dish as a trimming also. 
 
 Now damson preserve with the seed 
 left in, is an insidious thing, as Abbie Ann 
 saw it; it is a game, and you win or not, 
 according to the generous instincts of the 
 person helping you. The damsons, and 
 the saucers for them, were near the Bishop 
 and he kindly served them. 
 
 He was a bearded little man, genial and 
 kindly, and helping Abbie, as the lady, 
 first, he helped her genially which means 
 generously. Then he and her father and 
 Mr. McEwan returned to their talk of im- 
 
 44
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 ported foreign labor and scabs, and topics 
 common to mining-town conversation. 
 
 The game based on damson preserves 
 is this : having separated the fruit, once it 
 is in your mouth, from the seed by means 
 of your tongue, you swallow the delicacy 
 and store the other away in the pouch of 
 your cheek, squirrel-fashion, and repeat 
 the operation, the game being to empty 
 the saucer without at all removing a seed 
 from your cheek pouches. Do you suc 
 ceed in thus retaining all to the last spoon 
 ful, you win, and you thereupon retire 
 from the table and, seeking isolation, pro 
 ceed to count how many plums the saucer 
 contained. Should the distribution of the 
 delicacy have been very liberal, the cheeks 
 of the gamester gradually assume a dis 
 tension alarmingly suggestive of mumps, 
 while the eyes above them seem to imply 
 asphyxiation or strangulation. Still, it is 
 a beautiful game. 
 
 The Bishop helped Abbie liberally, oh, 
 
 45
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 quite liberally, and then went on with his 
 talking. If he had only kept on with it, all 
 might have ended well, but he did not. 
 Having exhausted the subjects of union 
 men and scabs, and being a kindly gen 
 tleman, he turned to say a pleasant and 
 playful word to his host's little daugh 
 ter. 
 
 "Heaven bless my soul," cried the star 
 tled Bishop, not at all meaning to be un- 
 devout. It was that critical stage in the 
 plum game, you see, preceding the last 
 spoonful, and suggestive of strained eye 
 balls and strangulation, for the Bishop 
 had helped liberally. 
 
 "Heaven bless my soul," he cried in 
 alarm, "Richardson, look at your child !" 
 
 And then it happened. Whether she tried 
 to speak and choked, or to cry and stran 
 gled, Abbie could n't decide, even after 
 ward. But whichever it may have been, 
 it had all the effect of an explosion. Plum 
 seeds shot everywhere! Mr. McEwan 
 says it was a plum seed that fractured the
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 outer edge of his spectacle glass. It was 
 funny, oh, very funny ! that is, to every one 
 but Abbie Ann and her father, he being 
 overly sensitive about matters concerning 
 his little daughter's deportment. Between 
 them, damson preserves were not men 
 tioned by one to the other for days to 
 come. 
 
 Then there was the episode with Aunt 
 Venus's Willyum. Aunt Venus was elderly 
 and colored, and had been induced to come 
 up from Huntington to cook, agreeing to 
 do so, provided she might bring one of her 
 daughter's children for company. Will 
 yum was the one she brought. You 'd 
 have gathered from this she had pleasure 
 in the society of her grandchild, a small 
 person with deferentially rolling eyes and 
 an agility in dodging cuffs and heavy- 
 handed slaps, unbelievable. 
 
 The chief fault Aunt Venus seemed to 
 find in him, now that she had him here, 
 was that he got under her feet, and her 
 remedy for the same was curdling. 
 
 47
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "Keep outen f'om under my way," she 
 would direfully adjure him, at intervals 
 through the day, "or I '11 slap the taste 
 clean outen yo' mouf !" 
 
 And if Aunt Venus threatened him, 
 Abbie Ann brow-beat the undersized 
 Willyum to a degree of servile docility. 
 Mr. McEwan told her she did. 
 
 "What 's servile docility?" she asked 
 him, interested. 
 
 "The result of the other person wanting 
 everything her own way," Mr. McEwan 
 assured her. She gathered from this, he 
 meant the other person to be her. But all 
 Abbie Ann could recall that she did, was 
 to decide what games they should play, 
 after which Willyum meekly played them. 
 
 One of the natural avocations of Will- 
 yum's race is to barber. Abbie had seen 
 them doing it down at Hinton. To barber, 
 the operator stands in a white jacket be 
 hind a velvet chair, and in time the person 
 in the chair arises shorn. 
 
 48
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Father's chair could be made to answer 
 as the velvet one for the game .purpose, 
 and an outgrown pique coat of Abbie's 
 would serve for the jacket, and Mr. Mc- 
 Ewan, now the weather was so warm, had 
 lately been using an instrument he called 
 a clipper, on the long-haired coat of 
 father's old dog, Wolf. As has been set 
 forth, Abbie Ann was a moderately long 
 haired small creature herself, her curls 
 being fine and tangly and abundant. 
 
 Now whether it was innocence on the 
 hounded Willyum's part, or zeal in play 
 ing the game, or revenge sweetly born in 
 him at the moment and direfully executed, 
 none can say. Willyum was a silent, or 
 at best a monosyllabic creature. But, 
 being mounted on a box and told to barber, 
 he barbered, apparently with no know 
 ledge of a distinction between scalp and 
 hair. And clippers once enmeshed in a 
 tousled tangle of curly fine hair, hang en- 
 webbed and pulling by their own weight 
 
 49
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 even after the operator has been compelled 
 by the shrieks of the victim to desist, and 
 the victim wails lustily. 
 
 The results were considerable. To be 
 sure, father could strip the several scalp 
 wounds with court plaster, but it takes a 
 real, not a play, barber, which means a 
 trip down to Hinton to find one, to prop 
 erly reduce a partially chewed-off head of 
 curls to a uniformity of evenly clipped 
 fleece. And Abbie Ann was n't near so 
 pretty as she had decided she was, seen 
 with a clipped fleece and court-plaster 
 strips paralleling her crown. 
 
 There were other regrettable occur 
 rences recorded of Abbie Ann, too. Fa 
 ther's Wolf was not the only pet, for Abbie 
 had several herself, yapping puppies 
 and lame and decrepit roosters and such. 
 Whenever the miners' children met a 
 point in the parental humor where their 
 pets were threatened or forbidden, they 
 brought them to Abbie for presents. And, 
 
 50
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 owing to her obliging disposition, so 
 Mr. McEwan put it, she took everything 
 of all natures anybody brought, from lame 
 dogs and sick cats, land terrapins and 
 young screech-owls, to the measles. He 
 said the only thing she drew the line at 
 taking, was precautions. 
 
 The sick cat which she accepted, in time 
 recovered; that is, in all but its nerves, 
 which remained uncertain. The cat could 
 hardly be blamed, therefore, when Abbie, 
 on tip-toe, and feeling along the mantel 
 above her head for one thing, knocked an 
 other, which chanced to be a tall, quart, 
 stone-ware jug affair of ink uncorked, 
 of course off the mantel-shelf and on to 
 the arm-chair wherein the nervous cat was 
 slumbering. The cat wildly fled, true, but 
 not before the descending inky flood had 
 considerably deluged and endyed it, mak 
 ing in a straight line for the nearest exit, 
 an indelible path of flight left behind, 
 which means it went right up on and 
 
 51
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 across the bed whereon the week's clean 
 laundry, brought home by a miner's wife, 
 lay outspread. It was a pity, too, that 
 father's shirts and handkerchiefs and the 
 tablecloths should have been uppermost. 
 The flight of an inky cat across such 
 things is unmistakable. 
 
 It was bad, too, when Abbie Ann took 
 the measles, though it fortunately was one 
 of those times when a teacher was tem 
 porarily residing with them, who could 
 take care of her. But since this person's 
 attitude seemed to be that the sick person 
 was somehow to blame in the matter and 
 in disgrace accordingly, it was not a pleas 
 ant time to look back upon. The lady's 
 frame of mind also seemed to be that 
 Abbie could have helped taking measles if 
 she had wanted to. And then she took 
 them herself ! Whereupon her attitude of 
 mind promptly veered to where it held Ab 
 bie Ann again responsible for that! And 
 when she got better, she indignantly went. 
 
 52
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 And so from these things, you can see 
 that Abbie Ann's father had a right to feel 
 it was better that his little daughter should 
 be taken away to school. 
 
 Once before when the subject had been 
 partially broached, Mr. McEwan said if 
 he were not so busy, he would teach her 
 himself! He always had had ideas, he 
 said, on proper methods in teaching. In 
 spelling, for instance, he said, always em 
 phasize the lesson by use of the object 
 spelled. If b, o, x was put forward suc 
 cessfully by the pupil as the spelling of the 
 same, Mr. McEwan's idea was, as teacher, 
 to produce the box. The pupil next ad 
 vancing the claim that g, u, m spelled gum, 
 and d, r, o, p spelled drop, the lid should 
 then be lifted to disclose rows of 'em in 
 side, pink and white, to be consumed 
 thoughtfully and earnestly while the 
 teacher gave a lesson on the cohesive and 
 resistant properties of gum. 
 
 Abbie Ann agreed that his ideas were 
 
 53
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 prepossessing. She fetched her reader, 
 with the page corner turned down at the 
 last list of spelling words preceding the 
 attack of measles. 
 
 "How would you do them?" she asked 
 him, interestedly. 
 
 He looked at the list, and then he looked 
 at her, hurt. He said it would take time, 
 of course, to plan his ideas in detail, but 
 she ought not to have showed lack of 
 faith. 
 
 She assured him that it was not lack of 
 faith, and it was n't, though the list began 
 with cherubim and ended with Himalaya, 
 and had such words as would, could, and 
 should, amidways. Her faith in Mr. Mc- 
 Ewan was far larger than such a mild test 
 of it as that ! 
 
 There was country school for three 
 months in the winter for the miners' chil 
 dren, and the term opening just after the 
 retirement of the private teacher, Abbie, 
 for the time being, went there. She came 
 
 54
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 home with a lesson in penmanship copied 
 on her slate over which Mr. McEwan 
 shook his head. Perhaps he was jealous 
 of country-school methods. The teacher 
 had set the copy, which said: 
 
 "Old King Coal was a merry old soul." 
 
 Mr. McEwan objected to the spelling of 
 the name, but then, of course, he allowed, 
 you had to remember the young man 
 teacher, in his off times, was a miner, and 
 was to be excused for evident prejudice on 
 the subject. 
 
 But now all these familiar affairs of 
 every day were to be left behind and Abbie 
 Ann was to go away to school, having 
 agreed with father to do so. 
 
 55
 
 IV 
 
 UT the going did not seem 
 possible by the next day, and 
 Abbie Ann kept her face swol 
 len by weeping afresh every 
 time she thought about it, feeling herself 
 to be a mistreated little girl sent off into 
 the great, terrifying world with no one 
 caring, a little girl gotten rid of by being 
 put at a terrible place called a school. 
 Very well, she would go, since she had 
 promised, she would go, but once there she 
 would cry herself ill, oh, very ill, and per 
 haps die, and 
 
 At this point Abbie Ann burst into tears 
 again. 
 
 Mr. McEwan came up that evening to 
 supper as he often did, in order he said, 
 to help them out. 
 
 56
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 This was because of a peculiarity of 
 Fabe, the cook, whom Mr. McEwan had 
 brought from Washington on returning 
 from his vacation some time before. Fabe 
 having hitherto officiated in restaurants 
 and boarding-bowses, said he did not know 
 how 'to cook for two, and true enough, 
 when he made for instance a pudding, it 
 was so liberal an affair that Mr. Richard 
 son and Abbie Ann continued to eat pud 
 ding day after day until it was gone. In 
 a way it might have been said to save Fabe 
 trouble, and it was owing to this pecu 
 liarity that Mr. McEwan said he came to 
 meals to help them out. 
 
 This evening after supper they sat on 
 the side porch. One did not see the station 
 from here, or the chutes, or the coke ovens, 
 only the anvil-shaped valley with the en 
 closing mountains making a purple rim 
 around. Across on the opposite slope of 
 the valley stood the church, ugly, it is 
 true, but the miners had built it them- 
 
 57
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 selves ; there was a graveyard by the side 
 of the church and in it a tall white shaft. 
 Abbie Ann's young mother lay beneath 
 that shaft; it was while she was among 
 them that the miners had built the church. 
 
 Out on the porch this evening Abbie 
 Ann told Mr. McEwan about her going 
 away for he had been talking business to 
 her father all through supper, and she had 
 had no opportunity to tell him before ; her 
 father, cigar in hand, listened, too, and 
 very cruel, and very terrible it sounded, 
 the way she stated it. Somehow, by 
 the time she reached the end, she felt 
 ashamed. 
 
 But Mr. McEwan was making notes on 
 the back of an envelop. "Albemarle 
 County pippins, maple sugar, hickory 
 nuts, " he was muttering. 
 
 "What?" Abbie Ann asked him. 
 
 "H'm," he was still jotting down, "did 
 you speak, oh, to be sure, I was plan 
 ning for the Thanksgiving box; but that 
 
 58
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 is proceeding too fast, you have n't gone 
 
 yet,-" 
 
 "Box?" asked Abbie. 
 
 Mr. McEwan blinked, and his red head 
 nodded across at her red head confiden 
 tially. "At Thanksgiving," said he, "and 
 at Christmas, and on birthdays, and at 
 Easter; what else did you suppose board 
 ing-schools were for ? And you lock your 
 door, having admitted six or more of your 
 really bosom friends, and stealthily open 
 ing the box, you feast as the clock tells the 
 midnight hour " 
 
 This was a new phase of things. 
 "Really?" asked Abbie Ann. 
 
 Mr. McEwan turned his head; he was 
 sitting on the porch railing smoking. "Oh, 
 Fabe," he called. 
 
 That person came out from the dining- 
 room; he was very black and very shiny 
 and he wore a paper cap. When he first 
 arrived at Coal City he said his name was 
 Fabe Winbush; but Mr. McEwan said 
 
 59
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 that he was too modest to tell it all, that 
 the whole of it was Fabacious Vespucious 
 McGruder Daniel Winbush. 
 
 Abbie Ann asked Fabe if it really was, 
 whereupon he showed all his teeth, but he 
 never said. 
 
 When he came to the door Mr. Mc- 
 Ewan demanded, "How about a cake, 
 Fabe ? None of your little miching meas 
 urements, either, but an ample, sizable, 
 cake-walking article, pink and white per 
 haps, and fruity, and say, nutty, within?" 
 
 Fabe grinned, as indeed he always did 
 at Mr. McEwan. "Th' ain't no trouble 
 'bout its being sizable, if it 's a big cake 
 you want, 
 
 "And candy," said he, "the real thing in 
 Allegheny maple sugar with hickory nut 
 meats through. I mean to scour the moun 
 tains for the nuts myself." 
 
 But after Mr. McEwan had gone, the 
 shamed feeling came back upon Abbie that 
 she had not been honest. She went slowly 
 60
 
 Mr. McEwan was making notes on the back of an envelop "
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 and stood by her father who was on the 
 settee, his arm stretched along the railing. 
 
 "I won't," she said, "I won't any more," 
 and she touched his hand on the baluster. 
 His closed on hers. Then he lifted her to 
 the bench by him. 
 
 In the valley below them a mist was 
 floating over the low lands. The young 
 moon shining down upon it made it a 
 moving silver sea. But above the mists, 
 on the opposite slope across the valley, 
 stood the shaft, tall and gleaming. Abbie 
 sat very still, she had no idea why. The 
 sheep bells from some hillside tinkled 
 faintly. It hurt, not that she knew that 
 it did, she only knew something made her 
 creep closer to father. 
 
 It is a question if Abbie even rightly 
 understood that she and her father in their 
 time must come to cross the valley also 
 to where that shaft stood; it was not that 
 kind of fear, for only vaguely did Abbie 
 Ann know what the shaft meant. Yet the 
 
 63
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 beauty of the evening, and the young moon 
 on the mists, and the shaft across the val 
 ley, stayed on the little heart. It is good 
 that it should have; The Star stayed with 
 Dickens' child. 
 
 Not that Abbie thought these things, 
 she only sat close within the circle of her 
 father's arm, while Fabe's voice, mellow 
 and low, came crooningly out from the 
 kitchen, that kitchen which had so shocked 
 the strange lady, to the rattle of his pots 
 and pans.
 
 HEN Mr. Richardson and 
 Abbie Ann left Coal City in 
 September, the whole commu 
 nity was at the station to see 
 them off, the miners, their wives, the older 
 children, the babies, Mr. McEwan and 
 Fabe. 
 
 Abbie felt important. She even had a 
 trunk of her own and on one end of it, it 
 read: 
 
 Abbie Ann Richardson. 
 
 Down at the junction lived a lady who 
 sewed and who had made Abbie's new 
 clothes after the two had studied the fash 
 ion papers together, and the lady had sent 
 down to Cincinnati for the patterns and 
 the materials. Mr. Richardson seemed 
 doubtful at the results but said if Abbie 
 
 6s
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 and the lady were satisfied, they were the 
 ones to know. Mr. McEwan said all was 
 too plain, that mere gilt braid did well 
 enough for Coal City, but for metropolitan 
 purposes, it ought to be at least 14 carat 
 quality, since which Abbie had been a little 
 troubled in her mind. 
 
 Each one had brought her something 
 for a "good-by" ; indeed she could not take 
 them all, the peach pie and the pet squirrel, 
 for instance. Mr. McEwan said he would 
 take care of the pie. 
 
 Everybody waved until the train, east 
 ward bound, was rounding the curve and 
 Abbie hanging- out the window, while her 
 father clutched her skirts, waved too. It 
 made her new ring glisten. Mr. McEwan 
 had given her that. The green diamond 
 in the other one had chipped off in dis 
 couraging fashion, and finally had fallen 
 out, while this new one had for a setting 
 a little, clear, dark-blue stone that glis 
 tened. 
 
 66
 
 " Each one had brought her something for a 'good-by'
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "Not so rare a gem, perhaps," Mr. Mc- 
 Ewan had explained, "but with better 
 wearing qualities. And blue, you know, 
 is true." 
 
 Abbie Ann, gazing at her ring, resolved 
 she would be true. A verse had accom 
 panied the ring. It read: 
 
 "I knew by her hair that so gracefully curled 
 Around her pink ears, that she ringlets 
 
 held dear, 
 
 And I said/ Of all natural things intheworld, 
 A ring let me give her before she leaves 
 here.' " 
 
 Abbie Ann gave Mr. McEwan a pin, 
 which originally had a black bead for head 
 until she dipped it in sealing wax. He had 
 it on at the station in his tie, a green and 
 blue necktie, where it showed beautifully. 
 
 That night Mr. Richardson and Abbie 
 Ann reached the city, going to a hotel. 
 The next day they went to the school. 
 
 It was a large, square house of red 
 brick, with white shutters, and the door 
 
 69
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 knob and the door bell shone. The maid 
 who answered the ring and who showed 
 them into a parlor, was square herself, and 
 staid and neat and noiseless. Everything 
 in the room seemed to shine too, the furni 
 ture, the fender, the mirror between the 
 windows, the chandeliers. Straight back 
 mahogany chairs sat straight back against 
 the walls. 
 
 Abbie felt her heart sinking. The truth 
 was though she did not know it, in the 
 midst of this depressing propriety she felt 
 herself a very small somebody indeed, and 
 she resented the feeling. 
 
 Then a lady came in whom Mr. Rich 
 ardson rising to meet addressed as Miss 
 Owsley.
 
 VI 
 
 ISS OWSLEY, whom Abbie's 
 father, after the first greeting 
 called Miss Henrietta, was of 
 medium height and plump, and 
 shook comfortably when she laughed. She 
 had white hair under a square of lace and 
 her silk dress rustled when she moved. 
 
 Abbie Ann felt smaller, yet nobody had 
 done a thing. 
 
 "And this is Abbie," said the lady, 
 holding out a plump, well kept hand 
 with good, old fashioned rings on it, a 
 capable, resolute old hand, with a move 
 ment of decision about it that suggested 
 sway and authority. Not that the small 
 girl read this in it, she merely stood up and 
 came and took it. She was very miserable. 
 Then they all sat down.
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "Do you know," said the lady, "she is 
 very like her mother? And while we are 
 on the subject, Abbie, child, see if you 
 can find a book on the table there" 
 
 Abbie Ann got down and went to the 
 table on which were books neatly placed. 
 She took one because she was told to. 
 Within its red and gold cover, which was 
 somewhat faded, were colored pictures of 
 little boys in queer short jackets and long 
 trousers. The name on the book was 
 "Sanford and Merton." It had been on 
 that table many years, for things did not 
 change at Miss Owsley's school until that 
 lady was convinced it was for the better. 
 
 Although Abbie began dutifully to read 
 at the book, she never after asked for it 
 that she might finish it; also, though she 
 did not mean to listen, the conversation 
 now and then, reached her. 
 
 "No place for a child," she heard her 
 father say. What was no place for a child, 
 Abbie wondered. 
 
 72
 
 Abbie's last days with her father
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 " Could not leave then, nor can I 
 now," father was saying; "my duty to the 
 miners who have stood by me and to Ab 
 bie as well, is to stick it out until it pays." 
 
 She also heard "Miss Abbie," used sev 
 eral times on Miss Henrietta's lips. Did it 
 mean herself? It was very awing to hear 
 herself called "Miss." 
 
 Then her father spoke again. His voice 
 was decided. "Well, Miss Owsley, it is 
 your plan; I have no right, I suppose, to 
 object; indeed, I suppose I ought to hope 
 you may succeed, though I may as well 
 confess, it was because of this very thing, 
 and the thought that such a construction 
 of my motive might be put upon it, that I 
 have not brought her to you sooner. I had 
 no right to oppose Evelyn's efforts, but I 
 naturally have made none since she, " 
 He broke off, then added as he rose, "it 
 was her dearest wish it might be so, 
 though myself, I see no especial good to 
 come from it now." 
 
 75
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Evelyn was the name of Abbie's mother. 
 She wondered what it all meant. 
 
 Then her father, leaning down, kissed 
 her abruptly and went away, the quicker 
 that he felt uncertain what she was going 
 to do. He was to remain in the city a 
 week, so this was not good-by, but still, he 
 went in a hurry. 
 
 She stood where he had left her, pluck 
 ing at the fingers of the little cotton gloves 
 she had put on so proudly. Mr. McEwan 
 had said they wore gloves in cities. Then 
 she began to swallow hard. 
 
 When Miss Owsley returned from see 
 ing Mr. Richardson to the door, she bade 
 Abbie Ann come with her. She was very 
 cheery and chatty and talked briskly of 
 many things and if she saw the tears she 
 gave no sign. 
 
 They went out into the hall and up the 
 stairs which were painted white with a 
 dark red baluster and had a strip of red 
 carpet on them held down by brass rails
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 that shone. So did the room up-stairs 
 shine into which Miss Owsley led the new 
 pupil. There were two white beds, two 
 chests of drawers, one bureau, and a wash- 
 stand behind a blue screen. All looked 
 straight and precise and lonesome. At 
 home Abbie had fashion-plate ladies and 
 pictures cut from the papers pasted over 
 her walls, and the drawers of her bureau 
 sat in a corner so that she might have the 
 bureau for a three-storied play-house. It 
 was when the strange lady had looked in 
 at that room, that she said, "poor child!" 
 in accents of keenest suffering. 
 
 Miss Owsley was speaking with busi 
 ness-like briskness. "This is to be your 
 room, near mine, as your father asked. 
 You will share it with one other girl. 
 Neither pupils nor teachers have returned 
 yet. School opens on Wednesday of next 
 week. In the meantime your father wishes 
 me to look over your clothes to see if any 
 thing is wanting." 
 
 77
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Abbie Ann, standing forlornly in the 
 center of the lonesome room, began to 
 sob. She tried to stop but could not. 
 
 "Dear, dear, dearie me," said Miss 
 Owsley, for, truth to tell, she was non 
 plussed. This was not generally her de 
 partment of the school, it was in executive 
 ability that Miss Owsley was strong. She 
 rubbed her handsome nose debatingly 
 with a finger tip and gazed at the new 
 pupil. Abbie Ann was plump like a young 
 robin, and her red curls were abundant. 
 Her little zouave jacket, sporting gilt 
 braid with alarming elaboration, seemed 
 rather to have burst to allow her healthy 
 little waist to obtrude between it and the 
 skirt, than to have been curtailed by in 
 tention, and little Abbie's brand-new hat 
 blossomed like a flower and seed catalogue: 
 
 Planted there in the middle of the floor, 
 she sobbed on. 
 
 "Dear, dear me," said the embarrassed 
 Miss Owsley. The new pupil was younger 
 by a year than any boarder ever received 
 
 78
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 before and the lady was quite perplexed, 
 but she led her by the hand out to the hall 
 and into another room. Perhaps she felt 
 the bare lonesomeness of the first one too. 
 A canary was singing here, and a fire 
 burned in the grate. 
 
 Miss Owsley was reflecting. What had 
 she seen the primary teacher do under 
 such circumstances ? Pupils were brought 
 to this head of the school, as a rule, when 
 in need of sterner methods than comfort 
 ing. 
 
 Meanwhile she took off Abbie Ann's 
 hat at which the new pupil, as if interpret 
 ing the attention as kindly, groped about 
 for some part of this comforter's person to 
 hold to and her hand closed on a fold of 
 that lady's dress. 
 
 Miss Owsley, forgetting about the pos 
 sible method of the primary teacher, sat 
 down and took her in her lap while Abbie 
 Ann sobbed against her shoulder. 
 
 "Dear me, dear me," said Miss Hen 
 rietta, and patted the little shoulder and 
 Si
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 rocked. Abbie cried on, but the sobs were 
 not so wild. Now and then they began to 
 check themselves. The canary sang. She 
 stopped to listen. Then she sat up and felt 
 better. 
 
 Miss Owsley laughed as if to find her 
 self in this position was amusing. Abbie, 
 feeling better, laughed too, and suddenly 
 did not feel strange any more, and sat up 
 and began to talk. She showed Miss Hen 
 rietta her ring, and after that told her 
 about Mr. McEwan, and about Fabe, and 
 about Coal City. 
 
 Miss Owsley asked her if she had ever 
 been to school and Abbie told her about the 
 teachers. It is doubtful if this principal, 
 for all her years at schooling, ever got so 
 much of the pupil's point of view before. 
 Her plump shoulders shook, while, one 
 would say, she somewhat adroitly led the 
 new pupil to tell about the teachers. 
 
 One who had come to Coal City, had 
 been named Miss Jane Livermore. There 
 82
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 had been an advertisement put in the 
 Church paper, Abbie related, and it said, 
 "Wanted, an elderly teacher to take en 
 tire charge of a little girl." Father and 
 Mr. McEwan chose Miss Jane Livermore 
 from among the answers, on account 
 of her name which they thought sounded 
 elderly and experienced, but when she 
 came she was seventeen and she cried so 
 they had to let her go right back. She 
 said she had thought it would be romantic, 
 whereas it was only lonesome and her 
 name was not Jane at all they had read 
 her writing wrong it was Jean. 
 
 Miss Henrietta gathered even more 
 about the last teacher of all; Miss Sallie 
 Briscom, Abbie said was her name. She 
 kept a row of medicine bottles on the side 
 board, and a row of pill boxes on the 
 mantel. She said she could n't stand 
 Fabe's cooking, that there was no sense in 
 roasting a whole quarter of a beast at once, 
 and then eating on it until it was gone. 
 
 83
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 She said too, so Abbie told Miss Henrietta, 
 that the look of the house was scandalous, 
 that Abbie Ann ought to be made to pick 
 her things up, and her father and Mr. Mc- 
 Ewan to wipe their feet before they came 
 in. She said too, that Abbie Ann's posses 
 sions, overflowing the house, were trash. 
 
 " 'Concentrate/ was what she said," re 
 lated Abbie Ann, repeating it with great 
 care, " 'concentrate and get rid of/ ' 
 
 "And Fabe did," explained Abbie; "he 
 poured all the bottles into one, when he 
 was cleaning the dining-room, and he put 
 all the pills into one box, and she got mad. 
 She said he might have killed her. So she 
 went." 
 
 And Miss Henrietta Owsley laughed 
 and laughed. She had had Miss Sallie 
 Briscoms for teachers in her day too, and 
 even Miss Jean Livermores. And the 
 canary sang, and the fire crackled, and Ab 
 bie Ann laughed too, with no very clear 
 idea why, but feeling comfortable within 
 herself.
 
 VII 
 
 ISS OWSLEY came into the 
 new pupil's room that after 
 noon to direct the maid in un 
 packing, and to show Abbie 
 Ann how to put her clothes away. This 
 relationship with a pupil was a new one 
 and grew out of the unexpectedness of the 
 situation. For small Abbie it was beauti 
 fully ordered, else how would she have 
 known Miss Henrietta? Neither teach 
 ers nor other pupils had arrived yet, and 
 Miss Owsley and the little girl had eaten 
 dinner in the big dining-room together, 
 waited on by the square and silent maid, 
 whose name was Martha Lunn. Later 
 Abbie found the girls all called her Sally. 
 There was something on the new pupil's 
 
 85
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 mind beside the unpacking of her trunk 
 when Miss Owsley and Martha arrived. 
 
 "Will she be little or big, Miss Hen 
 rietta?" promptly she inquired. 
 
 "Who?" replied Miss Owsley, contem 
 plating the array of dresses made by the 
 Junction lady, and now laid out by Martha 
 on the bed. There was a plaid silk among 
 them, a Scotch costume; a "fancy dress," 
 the fashion paper had called it, Abbie ex 
 plained, which, indeed, was exactly why 
 she had chosen it. There were others 
 equally gay if less elaborate, but this, it 
 could be seen, was her favorite. 
 
 Miss Henrietta was smiling to herself 
 over something; Abbie Ann wondered 
 what, but repeated her question. 
 
 "Will who be little or big?" returned 
 Miss Owsley, rousing from her own 
 thoughts. 
 
 "The other girl in this room ?" 
 
 Martha Lunn was lifting a hat from the 
 tray. It was the new pupil's best, that was 
 86
 
 Martha Lunn inspecting Abbie Ann's new hat
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 plain to be seen, and it bore a wreath of 
 many-colored flowers made of feathers. 
 Abbie Ann had persuaded her father to let 
 her buy it of a man, peddling at Coal City, 
 and she considered it very beautiful. So 
 evidently did Martha Lunn who lifted it 
 carefully and viewed it admiringly from 
 all sides. 
 
 "Queer now, how they come to make 
 such of feathers," observed Martha, ex 
 amining; "my cousin's mother-in-law 
 keeps hers like it under glass." 
 
 Miss Henrietta was indulging in her 
 silent laugh again, and it was such a com 
 fortable laugh that Abbie Ann laughed 
 too, wonderingly but sociably. 
 
 Martha Lunn smiled too, in her way, 
 which was grimly. She was still rubbing 
 a forefinger investigatingly along a fea 
 thered edge. One would say all three 
 were enjoying themselves, each in her own 
 fashion. 
 
 "The room-mate?" then said Miss Ows- 
 
 89
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 ley, "To be sure. I will tell you the names 
 of the ones I had thought of, and suppose 
 I let you choose for yourself?" 
 
 Miss Henrietta Owsley grown playful ! 
 Martha Lunn again chuckled grimly as 
 she bent over into the depths of the trunk. 
 
 "There are three girls to come back who 
 have lost their room-mates," Miss Owsley 
 was saying, "any one of whom I had 
 thought of for you." 
 
 The new pupil approached close and 
 looked at her. 
 
 "One is named Mary Dressel." 
 
 Mary Dressel, pale, neat, eminently 
 proper. Abbie Ann had an instantaneous 
 vision of her. Her mind was made up. 
 "No," she said, "she 's good, I would n't 
 like her." 
 
 Miss Owsley smiled. "Katherine Van 
 Antwerp." 
 
 Abbie's face showed equally quick pre 
 judice. "She would n't like me, she 's 
 fine," she declared. 
 
 90
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "Maria Mason." 
 
 "Oh, Maria," decided Abbie Ann, for 
 Maria did not sound too fine, nor yet too 
 good, "I want it to be Maria." 
 
 Miss Owsley, seeming well satisfied, 
 laughed some more, then turned back to 
 the now emptied trunk and then to the bed. 
 "Nothing is marked, I see. Did you bring 
 a work basket? No? Nor thimble? Nor 
 darning materials ?" 
 
 Abbie Ann, feeling crestfallen, said no. 
 
 The questioner seemed to make a mental 
 note of it, then added, "Have you rub 
 bers? Nor raincoat? Napkin ring? Nor 
 warmer flannels than these? Nor any 
 school dresses?" 
 
 "Those," said Abbie Ann, doubtfully, 
 looking to the bed, "and this," fingering 
 the dress she was then wearing. She had 
 thought Mr. McEwan was joking when 
 he said her clothes lacked trimming. 
 
 Miss Owsley said nothing further, but 
 before school began, a week later, to the 
 
 91
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 bewilderment of the new pupil, the Coal 
 City outfit was laid away, and in the closet 
 were hung two new dresses fresh from the 
 hands of Martha Lunn's seamstress cou 
 sin. One was a dark blue for every day, 
 the other a brown for Sunday, and with 
 these came a supply of white aprons, fine, 
 long, full, with ruffles over the shoulders. 
 There was a blue hat, and a brown one, 
 with ribbons, but not a feather. Perhaps 
 Miss Henrietta was something of an ex 
 tremist the other way. 
 
 Abbie Ann cried, and in her room 
 stamped her foot. It was the first time she 
 had done so since leaving home. Martha, 
 who had brought the new clothes home 
 from her cousin's, witnessed it, gazing as 
 if a little fascinated. "I thought you 
 did n't have that red hair for nothing," 
 finally she said. 
 
 Abbie stopped suddenly. 
 
 But she told her father about it that 
 afternoon in the park, for he came and 
 92
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 took her some place every day. They were 
 sitting under a big tree supposedly watch 
 ing the ducks and swans on the lake ; but 
 she, concerned with her own troubles, was 
 telling about the dresses. 
 
 Her father laughed. "What 's bred in 
 the bone, Pollykins, " he began. Then 
 he laughed again. Abbie Ann had no idea 
 what about. 
 
 Later his voice changed. "I had a let 
 ter from home to-day," he said, "I go back 
 to-night instead of to-morrow." 
 
 His little daughter held on to the bench. 
 It was as if something had stopped inside 
 her. She could not see the lake, nor the 
 ducks, nor the swans for a moment, only 
 a blur of them all. As this cleared away, 
 the sun was slanting long in under the 
 trees, and touching the grass. Children's 
 laughter, from afar, reached them faintly. 
 
 Why should it hurt ? Why should there 
 rush on little Abbie, because the sun 
 slanted long and golden, the picture of a 
 
 93
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 valley, misty like a silver sea, with a white 
 shaft beyond and a young, young moon 
 above? Is it because all beautiful things 
 hurt? 
 
 She put her hand in her father's, and 
 winked the rebellious tears back some 
 where. It was an uncertain little attempt, 
 yet still it was an attempt. 
 
 But we like to have our efforts appre 
 ciated. Abbie was afraid he had n't under 
 stood. "I 'm being good, you know," she 
 explained, looking up to be sure he com 
 prehended it. "I could have, " with a 
 general implication he understood fully, 
 "but I would n't." 
 
 Her father looked a little queer, perhaps 
 a little sheepish too. Then he laughed. 
 The truth was, when it came to having her 
 cry because he was going back, that was 
 another thing. He was a little chagrined 
 perhaps that she did not. 
 
 But they held each other's hand on the 
 car all the way back to the school. 
 
 94
 
 VIII 
 
 Y Monday the teachers had 
 come, and on Tuesday the 
 pupils began returning. All 
 day there were arrivals, and 
 trunks being carried in, and laughter and 
 greetings in the halls. 
 
 These days Miss Henrietta had time but 
 for passing notice, and that of the briefest, 
 of Abbie Ann, now become but one little 
 girl in a girls' school of many, and Abbie, 
 so quick to note, and so quick also to re 
 sent, hung around gloomily and watched 
 the arrivals. She regarded these new 
 comers furtively. Their laughter made 
 her feel left out, and the old intimacies and 
 companionships everywhere in evidence, 
 made her jealous. For comfort, she began 
 
 95
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 to coax up embers of self-pity. Miss Hen 
 rietta liked the others better, Miss Hen 
 rietta greeted them pleasantly and never 
 noticed her standing there! She would 
 go up to her room, she would write to her 
 father and tell him to come and take her 
 home, she would, she would so, yet, 
 
 Abbie Ann lingered on in the hall. 
 
 She told herself it was because another 
 girl was just then arriving but she lin 
 gered on even after the several girls stand 
 ing around rushed to greet the new-comer. 
 She was a dark-haired girl, and her cheeks 
 were rich with crimson ; she kissed every 
 body rapturously, then seeing Miss Ows- 
 ley coming through the hall, she dropped 
 satchel and umbrella and flew to greet her. 
 The new-comer made one think of breezi- 
 ness and laughter and excitement, and 
 Miss Owsley, shaking hands with her, 
 called her Mary, Mary Dressel. Abbie 
 Ann felt as if Mary Dressel had purposely 
 deceived her. 
 
 96
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 At the one o'clock dinner hour she heard 
 another girl called Katherine Van Ant 
 werp, a tall, thin girl who wore eye 
 glasses, and whose aunt, it seemed, was a 
 teacher in the school. 
 
 Abbie Ann felt queerer; what would 
 Maria be? 
 
 She was still hanging around in the hall, 
 full of interest and not honest enough to 
 admit it, when Maria Mason came. Miss 
 Owsley called to Abbie at once, who went 
 self-consciously to greet her. Maria was 
 small, almost as small as Abbie herself, 
 and her hair was smooth and tied in 
 looped-up plaits behind her ears. Her 
 cheeks were pink and grew pinker when 
 she was spoken to. When she took off her 
 jacket, she was as neat and straight as 
 though she had not just come that after 
 noon from Washington. It turned out 
 that Maria's father was an army officer, 
 and he and her mother had been ordered 
 too far away for her to be taken. She 
 
 97
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 spent her vacations, so Abbie learned in 
 time, with her aunt and her grandmother 
 in Washington, and this was her second 
 year at the school. She was eleven, where 
 as Mary Dressel and Katherine were 
 older. Abbie Ann was glad. 
 
 That afternoon she helped Maria un 
 pack, taking the things from her as she 
 lifted them out of her trunk, and carrying 
 them to the bed. Maria's petticoats and 
 little undergarments were fine as fine and 
 the scallops on them were done by hand. 
 Abbie had never thought about undergar 
 ments needing to be fine before. And 
 Maria's aprons seemed as if they were for 
 parties. She said her grandma and her 
 auntie made them, and her mama made 
 and sent the scalloped runnings in her let 
 ters by mail. Maria had a work-box, and 
 a bag for her laundry, and bags to hang 
 for her shoes. When she had unpacked 
 her pin-cushion and sofa pillow and her 
 photographs, and she and Abbie Ann had
 
 " That afternoon she helped Maria unpack "
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 put them around, the room looked dressed 
 up. 
 
 Then Abbie said, "Let 's rest." 
 
 But Maria could n't. "I Ve got to 
 finish. Auntie told me to." 
 
 She laughed and her cheeks grew pink, 
 but she did it; that was Maria's way, she 
 always did it ; perhaps being an army offi 
 cer's daughter had something to do with it. 
 
 Soon Abbie Ann wondered what she 
 would have done without Maria, who told 
 her what was expected of her, and the 
 names of the teachers, and of the girls, 
 and what she must do and must not do. 
 The bedrooms were all in the big house, 
 together with the reception rooms and 
 parlor and dining-room, but the school 
 rooms were in a frame building in the yard 
 behind. 
 
 In a week it was as if she might always 
 have known Maria, who even showed Ab 
 bie her letters from her mother and her 
 father. The latter sent her a beautiful silk 
 
 101
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 American flag on his birthday, and they 
 put it above his picture over the table. 
 
 Abbie showed Maria the letters which 
 came from her father and Mr. McEwan. 
 One from the latter had a verse in it 
 which Maria memorized and when she 
 said it she would get to laughing. Abbie 
 Ann would giggle too, for when Maria 
 laughed she could not stop, and Miss In 
 gram, the primary teacher whose room 
 was next, would rap on the wall and they 
 would have to put their faces in the pillows 
 to hush. Abbie, in her letter to Mr. Mc 
 Ewan, had written about the school and 
 Miss Henrietta and Martha Lunn. 
 
 "The girls call her Sally," she had writ 
 ten about Martha, "she fell down the other 
 day, she was Heavy, the Ladder broak, she 
 could not get up." . 
 
 It was to this letter that Mr. McEwan 
 was replying. In his answer were, "Lines 
 to Miss Sally Lunn Upon Her Fall From 
 a Ladder." The verses read: 
 1 02
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "O Sally Lunn, how sad to tell 
 
 That you, who should be light, 
 Did prove so heavy that you fell 
 From such a risen height! 
 
 "They tell me that you could not rise 
 
 After you fell, and yet 
 Should you not rise in lighter guise 
 For having thus been set? 
 
 "O Sally Lunn, O Sally Lunn, 
 
 That you should fall was bad; 
 But lest you should be worse undone 
 Don't let it make you sad !" 
 
 103
 
 IX 
 
 |HE youngest pupil began to 
 like school well enough that 
 is, all but the weekly attend 
 ance at church. Ministers 
 came seldom indeed to Coal City and even 
 on these occasions Abbie's father let her 
 go home before sermon time, and carried 
 peppermint drops in his vest pocket for her 
 during the time she was there, but there is 
 no one at boarding-school to remember 
 she was such a very, very little girl how 
 would there be ? 
 
 Every Sunday the girls were taken in 
 procession, two by two, to Miss Owsley's 
 own church where they occupied a num 
 ber of pews reserved for them. 
 
 One very warm Sunday morning in late 
 October, Abbie Ann took her place in the 
 104
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 rear of the procession unwillingly enough, 
 walking with Maria, they being the small 
 est. 
 
 The sun was hot and Abbie followed 
 the line in with a sigh of relief. Being the 
 last, she and Maria sat in the last row of 
 the school pews. 
 
 It all seemed long to the youngest pupil. 
 She yawned, she stretched her small legs 
 which dangled wearily between seat and 
 floor, she thought of the mountains, and 
 of father and Mr. McEwan, and of the 
 merry day they might be having together. 
 
 Wriggling, she twisted her handker 
 chief in her hands, which brought to mind 
 a game she and Mr. McEwan sometimes 
 played. With some labor, for Abbie Ann 
 was not dexterous with her fingers, she 
 knotted one of the corners of the handker 
 chief, then thrusting her small finger into 
 the knot and adjusting the skirts around 
 about her little fist, forthwith the minia 
 ture puppet began to nod and dance. 
 
 105
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Abbie Ann looked at Maria, who, fol 
 lowing the glance down to her hand, shook 
 her head and looked shocked. The solemn 
 puppet nodded wickedly, and Maria gave 
 a giggle. 
 
 Suddenly the puppet became a ghost and 
 came stalking stiffly toward Maria who 
 gave a little shriek, hastily muffled, it is 
 true, but not before whack! came some 
 thing on Abbie Ann's head, and both 
 looked hastily round into the faces of 
 two old ladies, two pompous and fine old 
 ladies, two very well-dressed old ladies 
 who were eyeing Abbie Ann severely, 
 while the one who had tapped her on the 
 head with a fan, shook that article in a 
 threatening manner. 
 
 Abbie, startled, met this person's gaze. 
 With her glowing cheeks, her wealth of 
 hair, her flashes of smile and storm, her 
 brown eyes, roving, speculating, wonder 
 ing, Abbie was more than pretty, though 
 she did not know this. Had any one ever 
 1 06
 
 Suddenly the puppet became a ghost
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 seen a little girl anything in appearance 
 like her before, that person would have 
 been apt to remember it. 
 
 As Abbie turned, the old lady with the 
 fan straightened herself suddenly, and 
 looked at this youngest of Miss Owsley's 
 pupils strangely. Indeed, the pupil could 
 feel the look going through her, as it were, 
 and also she knew she had been naughty, 
 and was being reprimanded, in church, 
 and by strangers. Maria's face, too, was 
 crimson and she looked as though she 
 might be going to cry. 
 
 Abbie feeling a sudden hatred of every 
 one around her, of school and of every 
 thing connected with it, for she could not 
 stand it to be in the wrong, buried her face 
 in the cushioned pew back and began to 
 sob. 
 
 Maria pulled her. "Miss Walsh is look 
 ing," she whispered. Now Miss Walsh, 
 the head teacher, was tall and sparing of 
 her words, so that a mere look on her part 
 109
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 was generally effective. Indeed that part 
 of boarding-school consisting of Miss 
 Walsh was all tradition had made it out to 
 be. Abbie turned about hastily, to find 
 that everybody seemed to be looking at 
 her, that even the girls in front had turned 
 around solicitously. 
 
 She hated to be looked at, she hated to 
 be pitied, and she gave a sudden sob of 
 rage. 
 
 Miss Walsh, turning again, looked at 
 little Miss Ingram, and little Miss Ingram, 
 on whom all unpleasant tasks seemed to 
 fall, perhaps because she let them, rose and 
 beckoned to the youngest pupil. 
 
 Eyed by her neighbors, that small per 
 son stood up, and Maria, tearful herself, 
 handed her her prayer-book, and, dis 
 graced and overwhelmed, small Abbie 
 Ann crept out of the pew, and was led 
 down the long aisle and out of the church. 
 
 It is something of an ordeal to walk 
 down an aisle like that. When they got 
 no
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 out, little Miss Ingram's face was scarlet, 
 and her lips were pressed tightly, and she 
 turned the youngest pupil in the right di 
 rection by rather a sharp grasp on her 
 shoulder. The small person looked up, 
 startled, but Miss Ingram made no re 
 marks and the walk was in silence. 
 
 Miss Henrietta, who had remained at 
 home because of a cold, looked grave when 
 Abbie Ann was led in. It was at times 
 such as this that she generally came in 
 touch with her pupils. 
 
 Miss Ingram tried to explain, having 
 guessed at what had happened from the 
 little she had seen. 
 
 "Abbie," she reported, "mistreated 
 Maria Mason in church." 
 
 Abbie Ann could n't believe her ears; 
 she turned on little Miss Ingram like a 
 fury. She stamped her foot, she tore her 
 hat off and flung it across the room and 
 that the elastic snapped and stung her chin 
 did not help things either. "I did n't!" 
 in
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 she raved, "I did n't ! I hate school ! I 'm 
 going home to my father " And brought 
 to a finish only because she choked, she 
 flung herself on the floor and burst into 
 tears. 
 
 Miss Henrietta motioning the horrified 
 Miss Ingram out, waited until she was 
 gone. Then she spoke, and her voice was 
 changed so that it made Abbie, even in 
 her rage, look up. Miss Henrietta's face, 
 too, was as changed as her voice. 
 
 "I shall not try to talk to you until you 
 can act like a human being. Does rage 
 convert you into something lower than 
 human that you should grovel? Get up 
 and go to your room." And she turned 
 about to the window while Abbie Ann 
 crept out. 
 
 Only that little soul knew what the next 
 hours in her room meant. Miss Henrietta 
 had shown Abbie Ann to herself. All the 
 rest was forgotten in the memory of that 
 question: "Does rage convert you into 
 
 112
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 something lower than a human, that you 
 should grovel ?" 
 
 Small Abbie had never heard the word 
 grovel before, but somehow she knew 
 what it meant. Nor do the Abbie Anns 
 have to be older than nine to know when a 
 thing is true. She had been blessed with 
 a large and comfortable opinion of her 
 self, and this view was upsetting. Per 
 haps the statements made by the lady visi 
 tor to Coal City were true too, which was 
 what made them also unpleasant. 
 
 The day passed; no one came near her 
 except Martha, who at dinner time en 
 tered, put a tray on the table silently, took 
 a look around, and went out. 
 
 What of Maria? Abbie Ann's heart 
 yearned for Maria, her comforter and 
 counselor, the steady-going Maria. The 
 last she had seen of Maria, her pink little 
 cheeks were wet with tears for Abbie, 
 who, remembering, wept less violently, 
 and even got up and investigated the tray. 
 
 "3
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 There was turkey and cranberries, and 
 yes, chocolate pudding. Abbie Ann's 
 heart softened to the bigness of Miss Hen 
 rietta in the matter and she wept some 
 more. Not that she meant to touch it! 
 The fitness of things showed even Abbie 
 Ann the incongruity of turkey to tragedy. 
 She was resolved that Martha Lunn 
 should carry that tray out untouched, ex 
 actly as it came in. 
 
 She looked a little shamefaced when 
 later Martha Lunn came for the tray, 
 and it was empty. We hate to acknow 
 ledge to ourselves that we are not built for 
 the bigger roles in life. 
 
 Martha, having met some Abbie Anns 
 in her time before, smiled grimly, which 
 hardened that little person's heart again, 
 so that she felt she hated them all, even 
 yes, even Maria. 
 
 But late in the afternoon the sun 
 streamed in, low and level, a moment be 
 fore setting, and oddly enough it made the 
 114
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 youngest pupil cry some more, but with no 
 rage in the tears now. 
 
 A moment later there came a tap, and 
 then the door opened to Maria's touch. 
 Now she might have had her own cause 
 for grievance, having been shut out of her 
 room for no shortcomings of her own, 
 but she only looked concerned. 
 
 "Abbie," she said, and the very tones 
 of her anxious little voice brought com 
 fort, "Miss Owsley says you are to come 
 out, it 's supper." 
 
 A disheveled little figure arose from the 
 bed and flung itself upon Maria. "Oh," 
 said Abbie Ann, steeped in repentance, as 
 it were, "I '11 never take more than my 
 share of the pegs, Maria, never any 
 more." 
 
 Then, before Maria could reply, she was 
 gone. 
 
 Miss Henrietta was reading. Now it is 
 to be noted that the stout, portly lady 
 capped with the lace square upon her white 
 
 "5
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 hair was "Miss Henrietta" to but one per 
 son in her school, and to the rest she re 
 presented Miss Owsley. 
 
 There came a tap at her door, and a 
 panting Abbie Ann burst in and flung her 
 self upon the portly bosom of Miss Hen 
 rietta. "I 'm sorry, I 'm sorry," she 
 sobbed. 
 
 Doubtless Miss Owsley should have 
 reprimanded such impulsiveness, but in 
 stead, she lifted the plump little person 
 up to her lap and let her cry there. Who 
 knows but secretly it was dear to her to 
 comfort the repentant youngest pupil? 
 
 When Martha Lunn came in a moment 
 later, Miss Owsley put the youngest pupil 
 down a little hastily, with something of 
 the same shamefaced look on her face, 
 that had been known to be on Abbie's 
 parent's, when, for instance, he tip-toed up 
 to his little daughter's room to see what 
 she was doing, after he had punished her. 
 Also Miss Owsley hastily suggested that 
 116
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 the youngest pupil owed something to 
 Miss Ingram. Abbie went slowly out ; she 
 would go to Miss Ingram because Miss 
 Henrietta said so, but she did n't love Miss 
 Ingram. 
 
 Martha Lunn made pretense of brush 
 ing up the already immaculate hearth. 
 
 "They 've got a tempestuous, stormy 
 road to travel, I Ve al'ays noticed red 
 heads have," remarked Martha, incident 
 ally. 
 
 '117
 
 X 
 
 N the following Friday, Miss 
 Owsley sent for Abbie Ann. 
 
 "Instead of walking with 
 the school this afternoon," she 
 said to the inquiring little girl who ap 
 peared, "I wish you to go with me to call 
 upon some ladies who knew your mother." 
 "Yes 'm," said Abbie, virtuously, for the 
 repentant uplift was still upon her. She 
 wondered who the ladies might be, but it 
 was not hers, this proper little girl's part, 
 to ask. One almost might have looked to 
 see her little hands folded, so chastened 
 was the deportment of the youngest pupil. 
 Miss Henrietta, noticing the air of vir 
 tuous attention, turned away; was it be 
 cause of sudden laughter that shook her 
 shoulders ? 
 
 118
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Abbie Ann, departing, put on her best 
 cashmere with the aid of Martha Lunn, 
 but not without a sigh, chastened though 
 she was, for the glories of a banished 
 wardrobe that she knew of. This done, 
 and hat and cloak on, she went and 
 knocked at Miss Henrietta's door. 
 
 That lady viewed her critically. "Tell 
 Martha to bring your brush," she said. 
 And when that soul came, she had her 
 brush Abbie's hair all over again. Now 
 Martha had an artist's pride in her handi 
 work; she did n't see anything wanting 
 as it was, but good-naturedly plied the 
 brush with vigorous hand again, then 
 slipped a forefinger in a curl and displayed 
 it. "Ekal to a good brass polish, that 
 shine is," she commented. 
 
 At last Miss Henrietta seemed satisfied 
 and they went down the steps together, 
 but she seemed quite nervous and unlike 
 herself all the way. It was not far, half 
 a dozen squares perhaps, into the older 
 7 119
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 part of the city, but Miss Owsley had set 
 tled Abbie's hat, and retouched her curls 
 several times, perhaps because of the 
 freakish wind of the bleak November day, 
 before they stopped at a red brick house 
 with white trimmings and heavy white 
 shutters. 
 
 "Now, Abbie," she said, "try to be a 
 little lady." 
 
 This remark was disconcerting, it put 
 Abbie Ann out of conceit with her recent 
 efforts and made her a little sulky. They 
 went up the steps together, the stout old 
 lady and the plump little girl. 
 
 An elderly woman in cap and apron 
 opened the door. 
 
 "Well, Eliza," said Miss Owsley. 
 
 "How do you do, ma'am," said Eliza, 
 but it was at the little girl with the bur 
 nished curls she was looking. Eliza 
 seemed nervous too. "In the library, 
 please," she said. 
 
 "Very well, Eliza. Now, my dear," this 
 1 20
 
 Abbie Ann knocking at Miss 
 Henrietta's door
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 to Abbie Ann, "try to behave prettily," 
 which again was an unfortunate way of 
 putting it. 
 
 Miss Henrietta led the way and vaguely 
 wondering what was expected of her, 
 Abbie Ann followed down the hall and 
 through a curtained doorway. 
 
 Two tall figures arose in the half gloom 
 and, the first greetings over, Miss Hen 
 rietta Owsley drew a little girl with bur 
 nished curls from behind her with the re 
 mark, "I have brought her, you see." 
 
 Tall, imposing, bewilderingly bedecked, 
 there stood the two old ladies who had 
 frowned on Abbie Ann and had witnessed 
 her disgrace in church. 
 
 If there was room for any thought in 
 that overwhelmed little sinner's heart, it 
 was that she might not be remembered. 
 
 The tallest and straightest of the old 
 ladies spoke. "So it is the child I was 
 obliged to correct in church last Sun 
 day." 
 
 123
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 The three elderly dames gazed down on 
 the one little girl. 
 
 "Of all disappointing things" the lit 
 tle girl heard Miss Owsley say, then saw 
 her turn to the other, the more kindly- 
 looking lady. "Well, Ann, and have you 
 no word of welcome for Evelyn's child, 
 either?" 
 
 That lady had been standing in the 
 shadow of the other. She came forward, 
 her fineries rustling like the wind through 
 the dry-leafed boughs at end of autumn 
 and took the little girl's hand. "What 
 is your name, my dear ?" she asked, some 
 what timidly. 
 
 "Abbie Ann Richardson," said the 
 owner of the name, faintly, and in a voice 
 she certainly never had heard before. 
 
 At that the lady dropped her hand sud 
 denly, and the other old lady said, quite 
 fiercely, "Where did you get your name?" 
 
 "My sponsors," actually trembled on the 
 dazed youngest pupil's lips, she having 
 124
 
 " I have brought her, you see
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 newly reached that point in a recently in 
 troduced thing called catechism, but Miss 
 Owsley's hand upon her shoulder recalled 
 her in time and she said she did not know. 
 
 "Do you not know for whom you are 
 named ?" persisted the old lady, eyeing the 
 plump little girl keenly. 
 
 "No, ma'am," said Abbie Ann, swal 
 lowing hard. 
 
 "I told you that the child knows noth 
 ing," said Miss Owsley, tartly. 
 
 The lady frowned. "You are named for 
 me," she announced abruptly, "for me and 
 for this lady," and she brought the other 
 old lady, who had melted away behind her 
 again, forward by a tap with her fan. "We 
 are your great-aunts. I am your great- 
 aunt, Abbie Norris, and this is your great- 
 aunt, Ann Norris." 
 
 She paused and seemed to wait for the 
 
 effect of her words. She could not have 
 
 been disappointed. The little girl gasped 
 
 and turned toward Miss Owsley help- 
 
 127
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 lessly. She remembered afterward won 
 dering if they were great aunts because 
 they were so tall and so terrifying. 
 
 Miss Owsley looked flushed and an 
 noyed. "What is the use " she began. 
 
 "Exactly," interrupted Aunt Abbie 
 Norris. "What is the use of all this mys 
 tery?" 
 
 "Oh, sister!" said Aunt Ann Norris. 
 Then she turned to Miss Owsley. She 
 looked frightened and fluttered. "Sit 
 down, dear Henrietta," she begged, for 
 everybody had been standing. 
 
 "I knew who she was when she looked 
 up in church," announced Aunt Abbie 
 Norris. "She has every Norris feature. 
 It is of no use to lay plots for me, Hen 
 rietta, I did not know she was in the city, 
 but the moment she looked up, I knew 
 her." 
 
 "Sister!" cried Aunt Ann. "And you 
 did not say a word w r hen Henrietta came 
 to ask if she might bring her !" 
 128
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Aunt Abbie looked a trifle disconcerted, 
 if her severe countenance could look such 
 a thing. "I did not want to spoil Hen 
 rietta's plans," she said, and turned on her 
 little niece suddenly. 
 
 That small person was sitting uneasily 
 on the edge of her chair and at Aunt Ab- 
 bie's sudden movement she almost fell off. 
 
 "How did you happen to come here to 
 school?" Aunt Abbie demanded, and she 
 said it with the air of one who announces, 
 "I have you now." 
 
 Abbie Ann caught her breath. Miss 
 Henrietta gave her a little touch. "It was 
 on account of the flat-car," said Abbie 
 Ann in a high voice, desperately. 
 
 "What ?" demanded Aunt Abbie. 
 
 "The flat-car," said Abbie Ann, trying 
 not to cry. 
 
 The door opened and Eliza came in with 
 a tray on which were glasses and a plate 
 of cakes. 
 
 "You may take a cake, Abbie Ann," 
 129
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 said Miss Henrietta, when the tray was 
 passed. The small person took one and 
 held to it miserably. 
 
 "Now what was that about a flat-car ?" 
 demanded Aunt Abbie. 
 
 But Aunt Ann, interposing in a flut 
 tered way, timidly called the little niece to 
 her. One almost would have said she, too, 
 was afraid of Aunt Abbie. 
 
 Little Abbie went to Aunt Ann's side. 
 She even looked up timidly after Aunt 
 Abbie turned and went on talking to Miss 
 Henrietta. This great-aunt's hair was 
 soft gray, where Aunt Abbie's was hard 
 gray, though both wore it alike, much 
 waved and crimped. 
 
 Aunt Ann bent and took off the niece's 
 hat, and drew her against her knee. 
 "Now, my dear," she said, with a sudden 
 little authority, "tell me what it was about 
 a flat-car." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Abbie Ann told of 
 her adventures on that object, and of Jim 
 130
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 and the girl at the hotel, and of the ring, 
 and of how she and father had agreed to 
 do their duty, and so she had come to Miss 
 Henrietta to school, and forgetting the 
 terrifying Aunt Abbie, who fortunately 
 was behind her, Abbie Ann told it to Aunt 
 Ann quite naturally and at the end began 
 to eat her cake. 
 
 But here Miss Henrietta, who had been 
 talking with Miss Abbie, arose. "Tell 
 your aunts good-by," she said. 
 
 Abbie Ann knowing but one meaning of 
 the command, put her plump little face up 
 to Aunt Ann willingly enough, but went 
 over to Aunt Abbie with visible reluctance, 
 while that person stooped and touched the 
 little forehead with a hasty, "There, 
 there." 
 
 Eliza saw them to the door, but as they 
 stepped out into the vestibule there came a 
 rustle behind them, and there was Aunt 
 Ann looking flurried and unhappy. One 
 would not have thought one old lady could
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 have had on so many chains and chate 
 laines and pins and rings and trinkets. 
 Abbie Ann loved chains and rings and 
 trinkets herself, and gazed upward at 
 Aunt Ann's. 
 
 "You must not mind, dear Henrietta," 
 Aunt Ann was saying in a hurried way; 
 "you know how much she thinks of you 
 behind it all." 
 
 "H'm," said Miss Henrietta. Perhaps 
 she was wondering now why she had done 
 it. 
 
 "H'm," said Miss Henrietta. Perhaps 
 
 "Humph," said a voice grimly, from 
 within the hall, and as Miss Ann went in 
 hastily, Miss Henrietta and the little girl 
 with the burnished curls went down the 
 steps. It would seem as if all that burnish 
 ing had been for naught. 
 
 Miss Henrietta seemed most decidedly 
 
 put out over something. Abbie Ann had 
 
 too guilty a fear it was connected with her 
 
 behavior at church to gather courage to 
 
 132
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 open her mouth. They trudged along in 
 silence. 
 
 After a long time Abbie Ann spoke. 
 Much as there was she wanted to know, 
 one thing lay nearest. "What is it," she 
 asked, "a feature?" 
 
 "Feature?" repeated Miss Henrietta, a 
 little sharply perhaps "feature? What 
 do you mean? Oh to be sure, it 's 
 some part of your face, a person's nose 
 perhaps, mouth, forehead, hair, " 
 
 Abbie Ann seemed to draw a relieved 
 breath. "Aunt Abbie's hair is gray," she 
 said. 
 
 "It used to be red," said Miss Henrietta. 
 
 The rest of the way was in heavy silence. 
 
 As they reached their own door, Miss 
 Henrietta spoke again. "I prefer your 
 father should explain why you have not. 
 known your aunts before, you may tell 
 him of this visit when you write." 
 
 Then they went in. 
 
 Abbie Ann hurried to Maria, who lis- 
 
 133
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 tened to it all with eager interest. "Is an 
 aunt a great-aunt when she gets old?" 
 Abbie Ann wondered. 
 
 "I hope not," said Maria decidedly, for 
 Maria had an auntie of her own. 
 
 "What made her so cross do you sup 
 pose?" queried the wondering Abbie Ann, 
 still dwelling on great-aunt Abbie. 
 
 Maria had no idea. 
 
 "But so 's Miss Ingram," she reasoned; 
 "some are and some ain't; 't ain't a reason 
 it 's you." 
 
 But Abbie was studying her nose 
 closely and critically in the glass of the 
 bureau. "I don't care if she did say I had 
 every Norris feature, I have n't; say it, 
 Maria, say I have n't got a nose like great- 
 aunt Abbie's." 
 
 134
 
 Abbie was studying her nose closely and critically
 
 XI 
 
 ITH considerable effort and 
 much ink Abbie Ann wrote a 
 letter to her father that very 
 evening. Maria was down 
 stairs practising, so the spelling was Ab- 
 bie's own: 
 
 "Deer Father," she wrote, "we went to see 
 Them. Aunt Ann is not so grate an Aunt as 
 Aunt Abbie is but I like her the Best. I hope I 
 will not Go to see them Anny more. Maria is 
 well. I love her Next to you and Mr. Mc- 
 Ewan. I sed I wode be glad not to have Them 
 for my Aunts and she sed you cant be chew- 
 sers in kin its what you have got. Miss Hen 
 rietta said I might ask you about my aunts and 
 so I do. 
 
 "Your true daughter 
 
 "ABBIE ANN RICHARDSON. 
 
 "Do you know what is a Norris f eechur ? Do 
 you think I have Got them deer Father I do not 
 think I have." 
 
 137
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 If Maria was well when Abbie so stated 
 it in her letter, she was the reverse of it 
 by the next day. On the afternoon's mail 
 Abbie Ann received a postal card which 
 looked businesslike and official and was 
 signed "A. M. McEwan, Agent," and 
 which stated : 
 
 "Box shipped to-day. B, o, x, box. Con 
 tents selected with view to midnight alarms. 
 Nothing liable to crunch audibly included. Ar 
 ranged in quantities for bosom friends in sixes. 
 C, a, r, a, m, e, 1, s, caramels." 
 
 Maria heard the news of the postal 
 card listlessly, and the mention of the 
 caramels seemed to make her unhappy. 
 
 "But Fabe uses cream and butter and 
 chocolate, all, in his caramels, Maria, they 
 are rich," attested Abbie anxiously. 
 
 Maria turned, anguished. "I wish you 
 would n't roll it around in your mouth so, 
 telling of it," she said; "it is as bad as if 
 you were eating them !" 
 
 138
 
 ; Abbie Ann wrote a letter to her father "
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 A little later Maria's cheeks from being 
 pale became sharply pink and being found 
 thus by Martha Lunn, she was hastily re 
 moved to that top-floor room called the 
 infirmary. They gave it even chances for 
 a day to be measles, but, fortunately 
 enough, since it was a large day- and 
 boarding-school together, it was a false 
 alarm, and proved to be Maria's poor 
 stomach. 
 
 "It 's a weak digestion," Martha Lunn 
 informed the solicitous Abbie Ann, "and 
 she brought it with her" it was as if 
 Martha was jealous for the reputation of 
 Miss Owsley's Select School "but she 's 
 brought more too, she 's brought a good 
 disposition along with it and that 's saying 
 a good deal when the seat of the trouble 's 
 near the liver !" 
 
 Accordingly, cheered by messages from 
 
 Maria, Abbie's mind could revert to the 
 
 news of the postal card. From the first, 
 
 she had grasped that a box from home is 
 
 141
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 a secret and confidential affair, yet she 
 found herself rather embarrassed by that 
 fact. How was she to keep it so? Yet 
 she anxiously gathered that Mr. McEwan 
 expected her to. She missed the sage 
 counselings of Maria. 
 
 Her next claim for advice, after that on 
 Maria, seemed to be with Mary Dressel, 
 who might have been her room-mate if 
 Maria had not. So might Katherine Van 
 Antwerp, but Abbie felt that somehow 
 Katherine never seemed to be sought by 
 any one. Martha Lunn said the trouble 
 was with herself. 
 
 "It 's a porkypine's own bristles keep a 
 distance round it, not ours," declared 
 Martha. "I don't call it pride that acts 
 oncivil because a body 's here on its 
 teacher aunt's bounty and a scholarship, 
 and resents it. It 's a mighty poor pride 
 that resents it after it 's taken it. I call it 
 false shame, myself," said Martha. 
 
 At any rate, whatever the reason for it, 
 142
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Abbie went for advice about her box to 
 Mary Dressel and not to Katherine. 
 
 "He said Albemarle County pippins 
 would be in it, and maple-sugar and hick 
 ory-nut candy/' Abbie confided, "and a 
 cake, maybe two, and Fabe, our cook, he 
 promised there should be a turkey, 
 roasted, and beaten biscuits. And Mr. 
 McEwan, telling me about boxes, said you 
 lock your door, after you 've asked your 
 friends to come, and then you open the 
 box-" 
 
 Mary Dressel's lively countenance grew 
 livelier, the scarlet of her cheeks deep 
 ened, and her dimples came and went. 
 "No?" she said, as one being informed. 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Did n't you ever have a box?" Abbie 
 asked, surprised. 
 
 "No, only pocket money," regretfully. 
 "I have to do my treating in soda-water. 
 Stupid, is n't it? But of course if your 
 Mr. Me , what 's his name, says his 
 
 8 143
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 and your box is a secret, why, of course, 
 it 's got to be a secret, and that settles it ! 
 Besides, it gives a box the flavor of the 
 real thing, does n't it ? I '11 tell you, Abbie 
 Ann, you let me engineer this for you," 
 and Mary's lively face grew livelier still. 
 "Whom shall we ask to come ?" 
 
 Miss Owsley's establishment was not 
 so large a boarding-school as it was a day 
 school, and it so happened that the boarding 
 girls were all older than Abbie and Maria. 
 
 "Why," said Abbie Ann, a little at a 
 loss, now that it came to the point, to 
 know who were her bosom friends beyond 
 Maria, "why-" 
 
 "You leave it to me," again said the 
 lively Mary, "or, no, I '11 tell you whom to 
 ask. I '11 see 'em first, that 's the best way, 
 then you go and ask them. Rosina, and 
 Bess, for a start, and Florry and Kitty 
 next, we can have more than six, Ab 
 bie, a whole turkey, my goodness! Ask 
 Henrietta Havering, too, and Clarice 
 144
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Carr" was it possible this lively Mary 
 was suggesting all that set known as her 
 particular friends? "and, I suppose you 
 ought, you '11 have to have Katherine Van 
 Antwerp, seeing who you are, and who 
 she is" 
 
 Abbie did not at all understand. "Oh !" 
 she said, with prejudice, "do we have to 
 have her, Mary ? Why do we have to ?" 
 
 Mary looked surprised. "I supposed 
 on account of the scholarship you would 
 feel you had to," she said, "but if you don't 
 want her, I am sure I don't, for we have 
 all tried to be nice with her, and she " 
 
 "The scholarship?" Abbie had no idea 
 what Mary was talking about. Martha 
 Lunn had mentioned this, too, but though 
 Abbie was altogether hazy about what a 
 scholarship was, she was not going to tell 
 Mary Dressel so. The Abbies object to 
 admitting they don't know. 
 
 "We won't have her," she declared, as 
 the safest way of dismissing the subject. 
 
 145
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "But won't Martha Limn find out about 
 the box when it conies, and won't she have 
 to tell?" 
 
 "You leave it to me," said Mary, grown 
 lively again. "I 've been here longer than 
 you have." And accordingly Abbie left 
 it, only inquiring about one thing further. 
 
 "Won't we have to dress up, since it is 
 a party?" she asked. 
 
 Mary grew livelier and laughed as she 
 met the anxious gaze of Abbie Ann. Per 
 haps she was wondering what Abbie 
 would evolve tc dress up in. "Why, yes," 
 she said, "dress up, it 's just the thing." 
 
 All the guests accepted. There seemed 
 to be a disposition among them to giggle 
 when they did so. Indeed, they giggled 
 all that next day. Miss Henrietta Owsley 
 seemed amused over something, too, every 
 time she noticed Abbie Richardson, and 
 so, grimly, did Martha Lunn. 
 
 Mary Dressel seemed bubbling over 
 with lively spirits, such as pirouetting 
 146
 
 Abbie passes Katharine Van Antwerp in the hall
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 about the halls whenever Abbie chanced 
 to see her. 
 
 At recess she sought Abbie. "It 's 
 come," she whispered, with large secrecy; 
 "it 's up-stairs and safely hid away in 
 your room!" 
 
 She meant the box! Not even Maria 
 could have been such a helper as this, 
 though Abbie could not imagine how 
 Mary could have managed it. 
 
 In going to and from classes that day, 
 Abbie Ann Richardson seemed to do noth 
 ing but pass Katherine Van Antwerp 
 going to her classes too, though it is just 
 possible she noticed Katherine because it 
 was on her mind that she had not included 
 her. She wondered, too, what a scholar 
 ship was. 
 
 She went out of her way after school to 
 seek Martha to ask about it, and found her 
 counting laundry in the linen closet. 
 
 "What 's a scholarship, Martha?" she 
 inquired. 
 
 149
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "It 's what enables a person what 's 
 proved she 's capable of taking a edyca- 
 tion, to get it," said Martha, promptly. 
 
 J T ain't a case of money thrown away as 
 with some of the rest of you. Some rich 
 body arranges it, and some brainy body 
 uses it. It 's a loan to be paid back in 
 brains. Think you '11 aim to get one?" 
 
 "Martha," said Abbie, changing the 
 subject as it became personal; "did you 
 ever have a secret?" She asked it as if 
 the weight of one were bothersome. "It 's 
 a thing you have to keep, you know " 
 
 "Then I 'd keep it," said Martha Lunn, 
 promptly. 
 
 Mary Dressel said she would come to 
 Abbie's room early that evening to help 
 her dress, and to prepare matters. When 
 she arrived she had hunted out a partyfied 
 summer dress for herself, adorned with a 
 sash and ribbons, but Abbie eclipsed her. 
 
 The box had been temporarily stored, 
 by some remarkable machination on
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Mary's part, in Abbie's closet for secret 
 keeping, and in that same closet a trunk, 
 also was stored for safe-keeping, the con 
 tents of which Abbie Ann had by no 
 means forgotten. To-night she had gone 
 into its treasured contents, and was don 
 ning part of the same when the lively 
 Mary arrived. 
 
 They conversed in low and secret whis 
 pers. The skirt Abbie Ann was getting 
 into, was tartan and kilted, and it was to 
 be worn, as it developed, with a full white 
 waist beneath an abbreviated jacket, the 
 whole surmounted by a tartan sash dia- 
 gonaling the wearer's person from one 
 shoulder to the opposite hip. She ex 
 plained to Mary that it was called a Scotch 
 costume, and was also set down in the 
 fashion paper as "a fancy dress." Per 
 haps Abbie had grown since it was made, 
 or else the dressmaker's skill had been 
 limited, for the tartan kilt was short even 
 as kilts go, and the jacket part proved
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 filled to bursting. Mary Dressel seemed 
 overcome as she viewed her young friend 
 after she was in it. 
 
 Abbie, however, was concerned in point 
 ing out how she had adorned the room 
 with flowers in numerous bunches. 
 
 "I took them off my hats," she ex 
 plained to Mary, "I never seemed to be 
 using 'em that way!" 
 
 She also had pulled and shoved and 
 pushed Mr. McEwan's box out from the 
 closet to the middle of the floor in antici 
 pation, and returning to examination of it 
 again, she promptly burst the sleeve of 
 her Scotch costume in stooping, but Mary 
 kindly pinned it together. 
 
 The exigencies of hostess are disturbing 
 if one is not used to them. "What have 
 we got to cut a turkey with, Mary?" Ab 
 bie queried, anxiously, "and how are we 
 ever to open the box? It 's nailed. Some 
 body '11 hear us !" 
 
 "Hush," said Mary, with lively caution ; 
 
 152
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "sh-h , there, I knew it would come ! It 's 
 Martha, fly ! There in the closet, latch the 
 door, quick! Don't open it until every 
 thing is quiet!" 
 
 Abbie flew. And did the lights go 
 down? Yes, she could witness through 
 her closet transom that they did. But 
 why did not Mary come in the closet too? 
 Could she have waited to turn the lights 
 low, and then gone under the bed? 
 
 And what then ? Abbie held her breath. 
 Was Martha Lunn choosing night, of all 
 times, to do spring cleaning, in Novem 
 ber, in Abbie Ann's room? She heard 
 heavy articles moving, and heavy feet 
 tramping, the roll of castors across the 
 floor, and then hammering. And did she 
 yes, unquestionably, she seemed to hear 
 suppressed laughter. And chuckles? 
 Was it Martha Lunn's chuckles? 
 
 Abbie could not understand. She 
 started to open the door despite injunc 
 tions, but tones of another voice she knew 
 
 153
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 arrested her, the tones of Miss Henrietta. 
 Was she, too, laughing? Then came a 
 sudden buzz and chatter of animated ar 
 rivals. 
 
 Abbie Ann walked out as the lights 
 flared up. There were candles on the 
 mantel in the usually empty candlesticks, 
 and Martha was lighting them. The party 
 was there in both senses, one part of it in 
 festive dresses and ribbons, and the other 
 part, the box, neatly placed on a paper and 
 open. In the room sat a table, no, two 
 cutting-tables, put together, with a cloth 
 laid thereon to be spread upon them, and 
 with implements thereon, too, such as 
 knives, forks, paper-plates and other ar 
 ticles of attack and conveyance useful in 
 food-matters. On a side-table were 
 lemons, ice, sugar, glasses, and a bowl, 
 Miss Owsley's contribution, so it devel 
 oped later, to the party, though by now 
 she and Martha Lunn had melted away, 
 and vanished ! 
 
 154
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 For Miss Owsley and Martha had 
 known about it all along ! Miss Henrietta 
 had had a communication concerning the 
 box too, her note being from Abbie Ann's 
 father, asking if it might come ; and later 
 she had another note telling her that it had 
 started ! 
 
 Moreover, it was the expected thing in 
 Miss Owsley's school for a party to fol 
 low, whenever a box came, and Mary 
 Dressel knew it ! Miss Henrietta's theory 
 was, that the sooner the party was given, 
 the quicker the box was gone, and the 
 more of the school invited to partake of 
 it, the less per young stomachs to go into 
 them and the better chance of no after 
 consequences for anybody! And grim 
 Martha Lunn had entered into the joke 
 with the lively Mary, and Miss Henrietta 
 had smiled too, and let it go on. 
 
 Abbie Ann, coming out to this lively 
 information and gay laughter, did not 
 know whether to stamp her foot and be 
 
 155
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 mad, or to take the matter as it was meant, 
 and laughed too. 
 
 She stood there, in her Scotch skirts, 
 deciding, while the party, breathless with 
 laughter and the spectacle of the tartan 
 splendor, waited, when the door opened 
 again and Martha Lunn returned. She 
 was bearing something in her big, strong 
 arms, something wrapped in a blanket, 
 which she deposited on the bed and which, 
 suddenly discarding its wrappings and sit 
 ting up, pink with the joy of it, proved to 
 be Maria. 
 
 "She can have a lemonade and a beat 
 biscuit, since you say you got 'em in the 
 box, but nary 'nother thing, mind that," 
 said Martha. 
 
 And Abbie Ann, in her joy at beholding 
 Maria, forgot the question of temper she 
 was deciding, and flew to embrace her. 
 
 They left the opening of her box, all but 
 the nailed cover which Martha had re 
 moved, to Abbie, while Mary and her as- 
 
 156
 
 
 Abbie's box arrives
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 sistants spread the table, and the remain 
 der made the lemonade. But before Abbie 
 Ann had done more than fold back the 
 upper layer of white paper, Florry Morton 
 made a remark. 
 
 "It is as much fun as the Evelyn Norris 
 scholarship treat at Easter," she an 
 nounced. 
 
 Abbie Ann was so surprised she laid 
 down the envelop she had found within 
 the box, and looked around though the 
 envelop did undoubtedly contain verses. 
 
 "What 's the Evelyn Norris scholarship 
 treat ?" she asked Florrie. 
 
 At this, the party all looked at Abbie 
 oddly, that is all except Maria who evi 
 dently had not caught the connection up 
 to now, either. 
 
 "We supposed you knew, it 's an 'in 
 memory' endowment," said Florry, hesi 
 tatingly; "Katherine Van Antwerp has 
 the scholarship and the treat is a party 
 with music and flowers every spring in 
 
 159
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 memory of Evelyn Norris. Two old ladies 
 named Norris established it." 
 
 Abbie Ann, who was on the floor by the 
 box, hardly seemed at first to grasp what 
 it meant. Yet Evelyn Norris was her 
 own young mother, and the scholarship 
 was proving to be something in memory 
 of that mother ! The old ladies' part in it 
 hardly mattered! And as this much 
 dawned on Abbie she dashed the envelop 
 to the ground, darted up, and, tartan kilts 
 and all, banged open the door and flew out 
 of the room. 
 
 When she returned she was dragging 
 Katherine Van Antwerp by the hand. 
 Taken by storm and the impetuous on 
 slaught of Abbie, something had moved 
 Katherine to come; perhaps it was jus 
 tice to that "In Memory of Evelyn Nor 
 ris," together with the sudden and ardent 
 embraces of the daughter of Evelyn that 
 brought her. Moreover, her usually pale 
 face was pink, and she could n't keep her 
 160
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 eye-glasses on, they were dangling on 
 their cord, because of, could it be, for 
 laughter? Indeed, since it was her first 
 view of her hostess in the scant kilt of a 
 Scotch costume, one realized the most self- 
 contained Katherine in the world could 
 hardly have helped it had she wanted to. 
 As it was, it broke the ice of her shy re 
 serve. 
 
 "She 's my best friend now, Katherine 
 is," said Abbie with emphasis, bringing 
 her in. "Maria was, but I 'm Abbie Nor- 
 ris, and and the other is is Evelyn 
 Norris, and and so, you see, Katherine 
 has got to let herself be." 
 
 Later, over the turkey and the lesser 
 glories of the box, for the turkey being 
 Fabe's own affair, was bigger even than 
 that mighty structure of his art, the cake, 
 they read the verses. 
 
 They were by Mr. McEwan, Abbie ex 
 plained, and hospitably made the guests 
 feel they had every right to their share, 
 
 161
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 though they were addressed to Miss Abbie 
 Ann Richardson, and said: 
 
 "Believe me if all these digestion's sweet 
 
 harms 
 
 Which I send thee so rashly to-day 
 Are devoured by thee only, 't is feared thy 
 
 young charms 
 
 With abruptness will fade quite away. 
 There is here quite enough for all friends of 
 
 thy heart, 
 
 Let thy appetite be as it will ; 
 Else above the dire ruin of what thou then art 
 Pious warning will tell of thee still." 
 
 162
 
 XII 
 
 next day, which was Fri 
 day, before an answer had 
 time to come to Abbie's letter 
 to her father, Miss Henrietta 
 sent for the youngest pupil, who, truth to 
 tell, went a little fearfully. She felt that 
 she had a right to dread such summons 
 since that last one resulting in the visit to 
 her great-aunts. Nor was she wrong 
 about it. 
 
 "Abbie," said Miss Henrietta briefly, 
 "your aunts wish you to come and stay 
 with them until Sunday afternoon. The 
 carriage is waiting." 
 
 Miss Henrietta at her desk spoke 
 
 shortly and also avoided looking at the 
 
 youngest pupil. Perhaps she, like other 
 
 peacemakers before her, was wishing she 
 
 163
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 had let well enough alone before setting 
 this thing going. At any rate she spoke 
 briefly, then took up her pen. The matter 
 was ended. 
 
 But not so with the victim. For a mo 
 ment she stood as if stunned, and then 
 clutched Miss Owsley's sleeve. Some 
 things are too appalling to be believed. 
 Her intense little face might have been a 
 masque of tragedy. "But I don't have to 
 go, please say I don't have to go, Miss 
 Henrietta !" 
 
 Some people are moved by sympathy 
 one way, some another; it made Miss 
 Owsley cross. "Now, Abbie," she said, 
 "we want no scenes. Martha is packing 
 your bag. Go and get ready." And Miss 
 Henrietta, closing her lips firmly, returned 
 to her writing. 
 
 Abbie Ann went out slowly. Martha 
 was putting a little nightgown into the 
 bag when the youngest pupil came in ; that 
 small person was crying. 
 164
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "It 's dreadful swelling on the nose," 
 remarked Martha, looking up, "which 
 ain't to say becoming to red hair. What 
 you been using this tooth brush on, any 
 how?" 
 
 Abbie Ann mopped her eyes, "My over 
 shoes," she said. 
 
 "I thought it could n't 'a' been your 
 teeth," said Martha, gazing at the article 
 dubiously. 
 
 But Abbie Ann was pulling her best 
 buttoned shoes out of the closet. "I reckon 
 you 'd cry too, Martha Lunn. I think Ab 
 bie Ann is an awful name, anyhow, and if 
 they had n't been my aunts, I would n't 
 have had to be it." 
 
 "You might 've been Samantha Ann," 
 rejoined Martha, "I 've got a Aunt Sa 
 mantha Simpson Sanders." 
 
 Abbie paused in the shoe buttoning. 
 "Sometimes I think you 're right com 
 forting, Martha," she acknowledged. 
 
 Perhaps Miss Henrietta was more con- 
 
 165
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 cerned than she cared to show. She was 
 down-stairs by chance, was it? and 
 came to the door to see the youngest pupil 
 off. She had a letter too, for Abbie Ann. 
 
 "The postman just brought it in time," 
 she said with a hand on the little shoulder. 
 Then she called to the driver of the closed 
 carriage at the curb : 
 
 "Jennings, are you to take Miss Abbie 
 Ann straight home?" 
 
 "No, ma'am," came from out Jennings' 
 furs, for the day was raw, "Miss Abbie 
 and Miss Ann are waiting at the mil 
 liner's." 
 
 Now there are vehicles and there are 
 equipages. Abbie Ann had never ridden 
 in an equipage before, and a Jennings in 
 furs is an imposing sight. She got in 
 looking very small when the door was shut 
 upon her. 
 
 With a little gloved fist, she rubbed 
 fiercely at the tears that would come, and 
 with the other hand held to her letter. 
 166
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 In time the carriage drew up before a 
 store, and a plump little girl in brown, 
 with loose burnished curls beneath a big 
 brown hat and with a nose inclining to be 
 pink at the tip, came forth. A young 
 girl, waiting apparently at the door, took 
 her little gloved hand and led her back 
 through the store between cases of rib 
 bons and feathers and artificial flowers 
 to a space curtained off in the rear. 
 
 "Well," said a grim voice as they went 
 in between the curtains, "she did let you 
 come ?" 
 
 It was Aunt Abbie Norris. Time had 
 not softened the aspect of her. 
 
 But Aunt Ann Norris, who was sitting 
 in a chair with a hand-glass before the 
 mirror, called the little niece to her and 
 bent to kiss her. Aunt Ann's face was 
 very white for an old, old woman, except 
 on the cheek bones, where it was very red. 
 It made her look older, and it made Abbie 
 Ann feel afraid. "Old" is prettier when 
 167
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 its wrinkles are allowed to show, than 
 when it wears white and red upon its face 
 to hide them. 
 
 Aunt Ann Norris, before the mirror 
 holding a hand-glass, was getting a new 
 bonnet. The little niece, having been 
 kissed by her, was told to get upon a chair 
 while she returned to the business. 
 
 The milliner lady, at this, held a spray 
 of airy feathers, glittering with spangles, 
 against the bonnet upon old Aunt Ann's 
 head. Then she laid that aside and tried a 
 bunch of purple flowers. Aunt Abbie fa 
 vored the flowers, the lady was inclined 
 to the feather. 
 
 Aunt Ann seemed to be gathering up 
 her courage and then spoke a little un 
 certainly, "How would it do," she said 
 timidly, "to use both?" 
 
 Aunt Abbie arose with abruptness. "It 
 is unbelievable, your love of dress, Ann," 
 she said, and the lace barbs on her head 
 piece and the bangles quivered with the 
 168
 
 Aunt Abbie and Abbie at the milliner's
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 decision of it, "we will take the bonnet, 
 Madame Breaux, and with the flowers. 
 Good afternoon." 
 
 They were almost out of the store when 
 something seemed to strike Aunt Abbie 
 about the plump little niece preceding her. 
 "Child," she said, "who selected that hat 
 you have on? Is that your best bon 
 net?" 
 
 "Yes 'm, Miss Henrietta bought it." 
 
 Miss Henrietta and Aunt Abbie Norris 
 seemed to be of two minds about most 
 things. 
 
 "Madame Breaux," said Aunt Abbie, 
 bringing the party to a halt, "show us hats 
 suitable for this child." 
 
 And when Abbie Ann next entered the 
 carriage, following behind the two old 
 ladies, she bore upon her burnished red 
 curls a great, soft-brimmed, feathered 
 thing that might have been the ideal of 
 her finery-loving little soul's own dream. 
 Abbie Ann was a Norris in more ways 
 171
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 than in features. It even heartened her 
 up for a time, and presently she followed 
 the old ladies from the carriage into the 
 house with a pretty fair grace. 
 
 But something depressing seemed to 
 come upon her at dinner. Nobody talked, 
 and Jennings presented things suddenly 
 on a silver waiter. 
 
 Abbie felt forlorner; waves of misery, 
 one after another, rose up out of the pit of 
 her little stomach and enveloped her. She 
 could not eat, lumps were in her throat 
 until it ached. It was homesickness, but 
 she had never heard it called that. 
 
 Presently Aunt Abbie spied the little 
 guest's plate. "Sit up," she said, not more 
 grimly than nature impelled all utterance 
 from her to be; "sit up and eat your din 
 ner." 
 
 Abbie Ann sat up and began swallow 
 ing pieces almost whole, though what they 
 were, farther than food, she had small 
 idea. In time the meal came to an end and 
 she could get down. 
 
 172
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 It seemed a solemn house, heavy and 
 subduing. Like the carriage that was an 
 equipage, it made Abbie Ann feel small. 
 Aunt Ann took her by the hand and led 
 her into the room opening out of the din 
 ing room. Here she pointed to a chair, a 
 chair one would almost naturally avoid, 
 with a bony-like structure of spindles for 
 a back, and with ungracefully spraddling 
 legs. "This, Abbie Ann," she said with 
 no little pride, "is the chair in which Ben 
 jamin Franklin sat when he called on our 
 Grandmother Gwynne, and this," laying 
 her beringed old wrinkled hand on the 
 beveled edge of a table, "is where the Mar 
 quis de Lafayette " 
 
 "Now Ann," it was the voice of Aunt 
 Abbie coming in from the dining room, 
 "you are mixing it up again " 
 
 Aunt Ann looked put out. Her old 
 voice grew quite decided. "Not at all, 
 Sister Abbie, it was in this chair that " 
 
 " Lafayette sat," said Aunt Abbie, 
 appearing in the doorway. 
 
 173
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Aunt Ann looked quite flushed. "No, 
 sister, Lafayette wrote, and Franklin 
 sat-" 
 
 Aunt Abbie tapped the table smartly 
 with her knuckles, "It was at this table, 
 Ann, that Franklin wrote " 
 
 "but he did n't write, Sister, he sat " 
 poor Miss Ann Norris was almost tear 
 ful. 
 
 " that Franklin wrote to his brother 
 in Boston," stated Aunt Abbie firmly. 
 "Try to remember these things as they 
 are, Ann," and Aunt Abbie retired. 
 
 "Abbie Ann," said Aunt Ann Norris, 
 recovering herself as she could, "do you 
 know who the Marquis de Lafayette 
 was?" 
 
 "No, ma'am," said Abbie Ann. 
 
 "Dear me," said the old lady; "but you 
 know Benjamin Franklin?" 
 
 "No, ma'am," said the wretched Abbie. 
 
 After which they all three went into 
 the parlor and Aunt Ann read aloud bits 
 
 174
 
 " ' This, is where the Marquis de Lafayette
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 from the evening paper and Aunt Abbie 
 made grim comments thereon. 
 
 "Dear me," reported Aunt Ann, "an 
 other burglary ! It terrifies me to read of 
 how-" 
 
 "Then I would n't read it," said Aunt 
 Abbie, and Aunt Ann was silent for a 
 time. But before long she revived. 
 
 "Some one named Smith is dead," she 
 reported, "J. T. or J. F. I can't just make 
 out, J. F., I believe " 
 
 "Do you know anybody named either ?" 
 inquired Aunt Abbie briefly. 
 
 No, Aunt Ann confessed, she did n't 
 know any Smiths at all, but 
 
 "Then what matter?" snapped Aunt 
 Abbie. 
 
 And all the while Abbie Ann sat on a 
 square stool to which she had been directed 
 and wondered why they had asked her to 
 come. It did not occur to her that people 
 sometimes do things because they think 
 they ought. The two old ladies were pretty 
 177
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 near as ill at ease as the guest and evi 
 dently had no idea what to do with her 
 now they had her with them and perhaps 
 they were as relieved as Abbie Ann when 
 Eliza came to take her to bed. They kissed 
 her good night hastily. 
 
 All this while Abbie had not read her 
 letter. She thought to do so now, but 
 Eliza kept waiting and offering to unbut 
 ton her clothes, as if to get it through with 
 and over. It is n't pleasant to undress 
 with an Eliza waiting for you to get 
 through, but Abbie Ann was subdued past 
 any will of her own by this time, and it 
 was in a meek voice, after she had been as 
 sisted in between cold linen sheets, that she 
 asked if she might read her letter in bed. 
 
 Eliza flared up the gas with no very 
 good grace, which further so disturbed 
 Abbie that she found herself having to 
 spell every other word. Finding this bid 
 fair to take all night, Eliza offered to read 
 it to her. 
 
 178
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 After various items of home news the 
 letter ended with, "And now, my little 
 girl, it is enough for you to know that 
 Miss Abbie and Miss Ann are your aunts, 
 and that it was your mother's wish that 
 you should love them." 
 
 Eliza was deeply interested. She for 
 got to be in a hurry. "Did n't you always 
 know they were your aunts ?" she inquired. 
 
 "No," said Abbie Ann, "I did n't know 
 anything about them." 
 
 "Dear, dear!" said Eliza, "Miss Eve 
 lyn's own child and never to have heard of 
 Miss Abbie and Miss Ann!" 
 
 "Did she, did my mother have to know 
 them too, Eliza ?" queried Abbie Ann, sit 
 ting up in bed in her interest. 
 
 "Did Miss Evelyn" Eliza began, then 
 broke off; "this was her own little bed, 
 and her own room you are in this minute." 
 Now it was a pretty room, smaller than the 
 rest. Its walls and its rug were blue, and 
 its pretty bed was carved, and had a 
 179
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 scrolled head and foot. A chest of draw 
 ers stood against the wall, and over a table 
 hung an oval, gilt-framed glass. And it 
 had been her mother's room ! 
 
 "Oh, Eliza, did she have to come to stay 
 here, too? How was it all, Eliza, why 
 did n't I know about it before ?" 
 
 But Eliza drew in. "It is n't for me to 
 be talkin', I 'm thinkin'," she said ab 
 ruptly. "Good night, Miss Abbie Ann." 
 
 Now whether the little girl in that bed 
 dreamed it or not, she could not tell, but it 
 seemed to her, the next morning, that in 
 the night she had waked, and had seen 
 Aunt Abbie standing by the bed and look 
 ing at her, but that as she opened her eyes, 
 Aunt Abbie faded away and left her in the 
 darkness. 
 
 180
 
 Aunt Abbie appearing in Abbie's room at night
 
 XIII 
 
 T breakfast, Aunt Abbie was 
 so grim that the little Abbie 
 was overcome to think she 
 even had dared to dream about 
 her in the night. Aunt Ann asked her sis 
 ter if she would have oatmeal? "Do I ever 
 have it?" rejoined Aunt Abbie. Aunt 
 Ann met this amiably. "It is said the 
 Scotch have cultivated their literature on 
 oatmeal," she observed. "Then when I 
 am Scotch and cultivating literature, I 
 will eat it, and not before," said Aunt Ab 
 bie. But the rest of the morning passed 
 quickly, for Eliza, more amiable by day, 
 and guessing many things, asked if Abbie 
 Ann would like to go to market with the 
 cook. 
 
 At luncheon Aunt Abbie did not appear, 
 
 '83
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 confessing to a headache, it seemed. "A 
 most unusual thing," Aunt Ann explained 
 to Abbie Ann, "an almost unheard-of 
 thing; I do not remember your Aunt Ab 
 bie to have had a headache in years." 
 
 "She says you are to take Miss Abbie 
 Ann for a drive, Miss Ann," here ex 
 plained Eliza, "and that she wishes to be 
 left alone." 
 
 "Very well, Eliza," said Miss Ann 
 meekly, and accordingly she and Abbie 
 Ann, gorgeous in their new head-gear, 
 went out for a drive. 
 
 For some reason Abbie felt able to 
 talk with Aunt Ann and after a while ven 
 tured a remark about the thing puzzling 
 her. "Did you always know there was a 
 me, Aunt Ann?" she queried. 
 
 Aunt Ann looked troubled, and 
 smoothed the fur tails to her stole with a 
 hand that always trembled a little. "Your 
 Aunt Abbie," she remarked with seeming 
 irrelevance, after a little pause, "is a 
 184
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 strong character, and a person of great 
 discretion and reserve ; a person of singu 
 lar reserve, my dear. And in the latter, I 
 trust," added Aunt Ann hastily, "I resem 
 ble her." 
 
 Now Abbie Ann, listening, did not un 
 derstand a word. Nor did she understand 
 Aunt Ann herself, or she would have 
 known there was more to follow. 
 
 "Neither am I without proper pride in 
 family," declared Aunt Ann; "I 'm sure 
 I 'm as proud of blood as ever Sister is : it 
 is n't every one, my dear, who could be 
 'Daughters' through two lines, and 
 'Dames' through four. Not that I 'd have 
 you think I objected to shaving soap. 
 Why should n't a man's father make shav 
 ing soap? I 've been told it was very 
 good soap. And I 'm sure, when you 
 think about it, Benjamin Franklin's father 
 made candles, not so different, you see? 
 But Sister Abbie could n't seem to stand 
 the family likeness on the soap wrappers. 
 
 185
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 But he 's dead now, and the business too, 
 I 've been told, and John is in coal mines. 
 But I would n't have you feel I consider 
 soap as so different from whale oil, where 
 ours came from, my dear." 
 
 Abbie Ann's countenance, as she gazed 
 on her Aunt Ann, showed wonder and 
 bewilderment; what was Aunt Ann talk 
 ing about? 
 
 But the old lady had herself all wrought 
 up; she pulled the strap and told Jennings, 
 "home." But on the way, not far from 
 Miss Owsley's Select School, she had Jen 
 nings check the horses, while she pointed 
 out a house to Abbie Ann not unlike Miss 
 Henrietta's own, though not so imposing 
 a mansion as hers and Aunt Abbie's by 
 any means. "This is where John Richard 
 son, your father, lived," she said, "when 
 we first came to hear of him." 
 
 Aunt Abbie appeared at dinner, but 
 taller, straighter, grimmer, if possible, 
 than before. Conversation died away, and 
 186
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 not even a frozen pudding, cream without 
 and marvels of candied mysteries within to 
 the uninitiated Abbie, could revive it. 
 
 Afterward, Abbie Ann was given a 
 book and told to sit on the little stool and 
 read; now the little stool was embarrass 
 ingly near to Aunt Abbie, who herself was 
 reading a large volume bound in solemn 
 leather. 
 
 Abbie Ann looked at the book given her 
 which had a strangely familiar red and 
 gold binding, somewhat faded. Its name, 
 yes, its name was "Sandford and Merton." 
 Do all old ladies keep "Sandford and Mer 
 ton" on hand for little girls? 
 
 She opened the book listlessly, at any 
 page that chanced and spelled along 
 for a time concerning a little boy named 
 Harry. 
 
 "Besides learning, with greatest readi 
 ness, everything that was taught him, lit 
 tle Harry" so said the book "was the 
 most honest, obliging .creature in the
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 world. He was never discontented, nor 
 did he grumble, whatever he was desired 
 to do. And then you might believe Harry 
 in everything he said ; for though he could 
 have gained a plum cake by telling an un 
 truth, and was sure the truth would ex 
 pose him to a severe whipping, he never 
 hesitated in declaring it. Nor was he like 
 many other children who place their whole 
 happiness in eating; for give him but a 
 morsel of dry bread for his dinner and he 
 would be satisfied, though you placed 
 sweetmeats and fruit and every other 
 nicety in his " 
 
 Abbie Ann, fresh from the memory of 
 that frozen pudding, hunted another place, 
 feeling she could n't stand any more of 
 Harry ; we prefer to meet ordinary people 
 like ourselves along the way. There was 
 another boy named Tommy. She turned 
 the pages, hunting something less appall 
 ing than the virtues of Harry. But alas ! 
 
 " 'Dear heart !' said Tommy, 'what a 
 1 88
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 number of accidents people are subject to 
 in this world !' 
 
 " 'It is very true/ " answered a Mr. 
 Barlow, " 'but as that is the case, it is nec 
 essary to improve ourselves in every man 
 ner, that we may be able to struggle 
 against them/ 
 
 " 'That,' " said Tommy, on that page, 
 or some other, it really did not matter to 
 Abbie Ann which, as she turned them," 'I 
 perfectly comprehend,' " which, to tell 
 the truth, was more than Abbie felt that 
 she did. 
 
 She had had enough of "Sandford and 
 Merton." She peeped up cautiously, to 
 meet, however, Aunt Abbie's grim eye, 
 and returned hastily to her book, too 
 hastily in fact to know that Aunt Abbie 
 returned to hers as abruptly and with 
 something of the same guilty air of being 
 caught. For, strangely enough, Aunt 
 Abbie had not been reading at all, but 
 gazing at her little niece. Shortly after 
 189
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 she arose and saying something about 
 not being well, went up-stairs. 
 
 Eliza appeared soon after to escort the 
 guest to bed. 
 
 It seemed hours after she was there, 
 that Abbie Ann opened her eyes. It was 
 no dream this time, there was Aunt Abbie, 
 or was it? With the fierceness gone, it 
 was an old woman, whose hand, holding 
 a candle, was tremulous; whose nose and 
 chin, in silhouette on the wall, made gro 
 tesque shadows 
 
 It frightened Abbie worse to have her 
 tremble, to have her old, than to have her 
 tall and stern and grim. What did she 
 want? Why did n't she go? Would she 
 never, never go? Would she stand there 
 forever, forever, with that candle, looking 
 down 
 
 Abbie Ann, holding her little self rigid, 
 
 felt she could n't stand it to have Aunt 
 
 Abbie know that she was awake, she 
 
 might lean over, she might touch her 
 
 190
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 The grim old Aunt Abbies, do they reckon 
 on these costs when they make themselves 
 feared so? 
 
 But Aunt Abbie never knew; and per 
 haps too, little Abbie fell asleep without 
 knowing it, for when she woke again, only 
 the light from the hall was in the room, 
 and Aunt Abbie with her candle was gone. 
 
 191
 
 XIV 
 
 ISS HENRIETTA OWS 
 LEY was invited for the next 
 day to Sunday dinner. Aunt 
 Abbie, Aunt Ann, and Abbie 
 Ann were home from church when she 
 arrived. The majestic array of the great- 
 aunts in honor of Sunday was awing. 
 Miss Owsley looked briskly handsome and 
 comely. 
 
 Aunt Abbie's greeting was singular ; on 
 looking up and seeing the other in the 
 doorway, she said, "Henrietta Owsley, I 
 have been a wicked old woman." 
 
 Miss Henrietta Owsley did not move 
 an eyelid of her strong, portly face. "I 
 have been telling you so for some years," 
 she said, cheerfully and promptly. 
 
 Aunt Abbie took this with surprising 
 192
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 meekness. "I know you have/' she said 
 with alarming humility, "but it seems that 
 each must travel his own road to repent 
 ance. There are no short-cuts by way of 
 another's experience." 
 
 Abbie Ann felt as if she were still in 
 church; she had no idea what it was all 
 about, but then that made it the more like 
 church to poor Abbie. 
 
 But, promptly enough, Aunt Abbie's 
 every-day manner returned. 
 
 "Henrietta," she said decidedly, "you 
 must have this child's trunk packed to 
 morrow. It is the proper thing that she 
 should come to live with us while here." 
 
 Abbie Ann understood this, and held 
 her breath and clutched the seat of the 
 chair she was on. 
 
 "Not at all," returned Miss Henrietta 
 Owsley, who was just as decided. "You 
 forget the child has a father. She was 
 brought to me. I can allow no change 
 unless ordered by him." 
 
 193
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "H'm," said Aunt Abbie Norris. 
 
 "And you forget," went on the relent 
 less Miss Henrietta, "that though you 
 may be ready to forgive, it does not follow 
 that you are forgiven." 
 
 Aunt Abbie's grim face changed but she 
 held her own. "Henrietta Owsley," she 
 said, "you are the only person on earth 
 who would dare speak to me in that way, 
 you know you are." 
 
 "I think we 've always been distin 
 guished for plain speaking with each 
 other, Abbie," said Miss Henrietta, good- 
 humoredly. Then she laughed and went 
 on : "However, I Ve never seen that it has 
 done either of us much good, as we seem 
 to make a habit of never taking the other's 
 advice." 
 
 "H'm," said Aunt Abbie again, and 
 Aunt Ann coming in, she lapsed into si 
 lence, which, if violent tweakings of her 
 great nose meant anything, was filled with 
 inward thoughts of a disturbing nature. 
 194
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 At sundown Miss Henrietta and her 
 youngest pupil, bag in hand, went home 
 in the carriage. 
 
 BUT Abbie Ann was not to be left to her 
 Maria long. School was not over the next 
 day, when Aunt Ann Norris appeared, 
 tearful and helpless. 
 
 She clung to the little niece, who was 
 brought down by Miss Owsley, as to some 
 thing of her own flesh and blood, but she 
 handed a note to Miss Owsley. 
 
 "Read it, dear Henrietta," she begged, 
 her bonnet all awry, her old hands tremu 
 lous, "read it and tell me what it means ! 
 I went down town, in fact, Henrietta, I 
 may say, Sister Abbie sent me down in 
 the carriage to match purple floss, and on 
 my return, read it " 
 
 Miss Owsley took the proffered note 
 and read it calmly. 
 
 "Dear Ann," it set forth, "I am going on a 
 journey. Do not worry about me. I am fully 
 
 195
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 able to look after myself, but have taken 
 Eliza to satisfy you. I cannot say just when I 
 shall return. Your affectionate sister, 
 
 "A. L. NORRIS." 
 
 "What does it mean?" begged poor 
 Miss Ann. 
 
 "It means what it says," responded the 
 practical Miss Henrietta. 
 
 "And what am I to do?" quavered the 
 bewildered and forsaken Miss Ann. 
 
 "Go home and be comfortable," said 
 the other. "Your sister can take care of 
 herself." 
 
 "Dear Henrietta, am I to stay in that 
 big house alone?" And the poor old Miss 
 Ann, her eye-glasses dangling on their 
 gold chain, had hasty recourse to her 
 pocket handkerchief. "Sister Abbie," 
 wept Miss Ann, "is most unkind ; she has 
 no right to treat me with so little confi 
 dence." 
 
 Miss Owsley gazed upon her lifelong 
 friend, Ann Norris. Was it fair that the 
 196
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 sister's stronger will should have kept 
 poor Ann dependent thus ? But born pre 
 ceptress that Miss Henrietta was, it was 
 too late to begin on Ann now, and so, with 
 a smile, she said: 
 
 "You may take Abbie back with you, if 
 you wish, and send her to school each 
 morning." 
 
 Abbie Ann accepted this willingly 
 enough. She did not mind going with 
 Aunt Ann, and when she came down 
 ready to go, a little later, she brought 
 Maria, that Aunt Ann might know her. 
 And it was plain to be seen that Aunt Ann, 
 even in her tearful state, liked the pink- 
 cheeked Maria. 
 
 So, as Aunt Abbie failed to return that 
 day, or the next, they invited Maria to 
 drive with them in the afternoon and go 
 home with them to dinner. 
 
 When they went for her, she came out 
 in her best dress and hat, with a letter in 
 her hand. 
 
 197
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "It 's from my auntie," she told Miss 
 Ann, her cheeks pinker with the pleasure 
 of it, "and it 's about you." 
 
 Miss Ann's nerves were none of the 
 best. "About me?" she returned, with 
 alarm, "oh, Maria, what is it? I am quite 
 prepared, what has happened to Sister 
 Abbie?" 
 
 Maria looked astonished. "It 's about 
 you," she said. "My auntie says my 
 grandma is glad I am rooming with Ab 
 bie Ann. She says that Miss Ann Norris 
 and my grandma's brother, Mr. Chedson 
 Dudley Rowley, were old friends." 
 
 Aunt Ann sat back in the carriage. 
 Surely she had heard, but she did not 
 say a word, only her gloved old hands 
 closed on her lorgnette quite agitatedly 
 and she looked off out of the carriage 
 window. 
 
 Presently her gaze came in to the 
 two little girls side by side on the seat op 
 posite her. They looked uncomfortable. 
 198
 
 Miss Ann drew herself up"
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 What had Maria said, what had she 
 done? 
 
 Miss Ann Norris smoothed her dress 
 in a fluttered, timid way with her old 
 hand. "Your Aunt Abbie, Abbie Ann," 
 she then remarked, as she had once before, 
 "is a strong character; a person of great 
 discretion and* reserve. In this latter, my 
 dears, I hope I resemble her." 
 
 And Miss Ann drew herself up and 
 looked from one small face to the other, 
 wistfully. Was she only waiting for a lit 
 tle encouragement, to open her old heart 
 to these two little girls? 
 
 But they did not know what to say ; em 
 barrassed, each held the other's hand and 
 said nothing and on Miss Ann Norris's 
 face a look wistful and troubled lingered 
 all the way home. 
 
 She even forgot at dinner to worry, and 
 talked a good deal of the time when she 
 and Sister Abbie were young. Abbie and 
 Maria also gathered from her, that Aunt 
 
 2OI
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Ann and Aunt Abbie once were girls, and 
 tripped about the shady streets neighbor 
 ing this very house, with other pretty 
 girls, all in short-waisted, scant-skirted 
 hand-embroidered muslins, their slipper 
 elastics crossed upon their pretty ankles, 
 their faces looking out from big scoop 
 Leghorn bonnets tied with bows under 
 their pretty chins. And the poke of Aunt 
 Ann's favorite Leghorn, they learned, was 
 filled in around her little pink face with 
 rosebuds in close profusion. 
 
 After dinner old Miss Ann, far along in 
 her seventies, went to the piano. She 
 seemed to forget her little niece and 
 Maria. 
 
 Her playing was hesitating and low as 
 if the old fingers were hunting their way, 
 but it made little Abbie Ann and Maria 
 seek each other's hands again, they knew 
 not why. 
 
 And presently Aunt Ann's old voice 
 trembled above the gliding runs and mel- 
 202
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 ody and there was something left in the old 
 tones still. It was years after that Abbie 
 Ann came upon and remembered the 
 words Aunt Ann Norris sang quaver- 
 ingly: 
 
 "No, the heart that has truly loved never for 
 gets 
 
 But as truly loves on to the close, 
 As the sunflower turns on her god when he 
 
 sets 
 
 The same look which she turned when he 
 rose." 
 
 When Aunt Ann turned from the piano, 
 she was just an old, old woman, older be 
 cause of the fineries which bedecked her. 
 She called Maria to her. 
 
 "Your Uncle Chedson," said Miss Ann 
 to Maria, "died when we both were 
 twenty." 
 
 Soon after Maria had to be sent home 
 
 in the carriage, but the next afternoon 
 
 they went for her again. Aunt Ann even 
 
 held Maria's hand. It was plain to be seen 
 
 11 203
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 that she loved Maria. At first Abbie Ann 
 felt queer, but she could not be jealous 
 very long, for the very reason that she 
 loved Maria too. 
 
 204
 
 Aunt Ann playing the piano
 
 XV 
 
 BBIE, during this stay with 
 her Aunt Ann, began to un 
 derstand why elderly ladies 
 offered a book called "Sand- 
 ford and Merton" to their young friends 
 for reading purposes. Old ladies had 
 known in the flesh such little boys as these! 
 She made the discovery in this way. 
 The second day Miss Henrietta agreed that 
 Maria again might drive with them, and 
 again go home with them to dinner, but 
 Maria herself explained that to do so she 
 would have to take her books along and 
 in the hour between the drive and dinner, 
 prepare her lessons. 
 
 "I '11 do mine then too," agreed Abbie, 
 and it was so settled. 
 
 The thing which seemed to be oppress- 
 207
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 ing the conscientious Maria, when the 
 hour came, was the composition hanging 
 over her head. Abbie had one too, on 
 "The Beaver," whereas the older Maria 
 lamented over the more abstract proposi 
 tion of "Spring." Abbie Ann tried to 
 cheer her up about it. 
 
 "It is harder for me than it is for Ab 
 bie," Maria told Miss Ann, in her prettily 
 anxious way. Maria was a little lady, 
 every inch of her. "I like to sew and to 
 straighten around our room and such 
 things, but I don't seem to know how to 
 write a composition." 
 
 Abbie Ann's concern was over another 
 part of it. "I can write 'em easy enough," 
 she claimed, "if I just did n't have to spell 
 'em." 
 
 "I have always found the pen to be a 
 task, myself," confessed truthful Aunt 
 Ann, "though we have not been without 
 talent in the family that way. Your Aunt 
 Abbie, Abbie Ann, wields a fluent pen 
 208
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 when she has a mind to, and our brother 
 Joseph, you have heard of your Uncle 
 Joseph, Abbie Ann?" 
 
 "No, ma'am," from that person, apolo 
 getically. 
 
 Aunt Ann looked her concern. "Dear, 
 dear, it is unbelievable you should not 
 have heard of your Uncle Joseph. Had 
 he lived to maturity we have always felt 
 he would have brought great honor, even 
 renown, to the family. Our brother 
 Charles was your grandfather, Abbie 
 Ann, but Joseph died young, the victim, I 
 have always felt, of his own precocity. 
 But you shall see what we have preserved 
 of Joseph's ; wait until I ring for Emma," 
 Emma was the second maid, "though 
 whether she will know how to get what I 
 want like Eliza would, I am not sure." 
 
 "It is a small leather trunk," Aunt Ann 
 explained to Emma when she appeared, 
 "and it is in the closet between Sister Ab- 
 bie's and my room, back on the shelf." 
 209
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 This seemed an odd place for a trunk to 
 Maria and Abbie Ann! And, moreover, 
 Emma seemed a slight, if willing young 
 body, to fetch such a thing alone. 
 
 "Our mother laid everything of our 
 brother Joseph's away in the trunk which 
 had been hers as a bride," said old Miss 
 Ann to the two little listeners, "and Sister 
 Abbie and I have rarely disturbed them. 
 This is it," as Emma returned, "the trunk, 
 I mean, my dears, and you both may look 
 over it together." 
 
 It was about two feet long by perhaps 
 one and a half the other way, and of 
 leather, nail-studded. Abbie and Maria 
 felt they would have called it a box. But 
 no, within its wall-paper lined top, on a 
 small pasted label, one read a direct state 
 ment: 
 
 "i Family Trunk. 
 
 "John Felix, Trunk Maker 27 Arch Street 
 "1790." 
 
 Judged by the contents of the trunk, 
 Joseph had been prolific. The two little 
 210
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 girls were overawed. There were layers 
 of copy-books, bearing Joseph's name, be 
 ginning with those filled with what Aunt 
 Ann called pothooks, succeeded by 
 stratas of thin paper-backed books bear 
 ing the explanation "Compositions." 
 
 The little girls opened one of these but 
 without enthusiasm. They had a sudden 
 prejudice against this all too perfect 
 Joseph. For Abbie Ann's part, she knew 
 that of all the family, so far, she preferred 
 Aunt Ann ! 
 
 They gazed at Joseph's perfect chirog- 
 raphy with coldness! Moreover, on the 
 opening page, within an enwreathing bor 
 der of colored flowers encircling a scroll 
 decoration, he had written: 
 
 "Learning is the ornament of youth and the 
 comfort of age. 
 
 "Vanity and presumption ruin many a prom 
 ising youth. 
 
 "Written by Joseph Norris, 6th mo th , nth, 
 
 1817. 
 "Select School." 
 
 211
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Worse still, on the next page, behold, was 
 what Joseph called in an embellished head 
 line a 
 
 "PREFACE" 
 
 It read thus : 
 
 "The reader must excuse these pieces as they 
 are made when I am a boy of but 1 1 years old. 
 My master told me that at some future day I 
 might see the advantage of having been put to 
 writing compositions whilst a school boy; 
 therefore I have composed a piece every sev 
 enth day." 
 
 Maria read this aloud, then passed the 
 book for the next page to Abbie Ann. 
 
 "It 's poetry," she said, having exam 
 ined it; "you read it." 
 
 "No, you," said Abbie, hastily. 
 
 "It 's your uncle," avowed Maria. 
 
 Abbie Ann took the book filled with 
 the neat chirography and read with reluc 
 tance. Joseph made her feel small, and 
 effaced and cross. She did n't like this 
 212
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 newly discovered relative at all, and her 
 reading showed it as she announced : 
 
 "THE BEGGAR MAN 
 
 "There is a man both blind and poor, 
 Who begs a dinner at your door, 
 He of his wife was soon bereft 
 And also without children left; 
 He knows not where to lay his head 
 For he has got no downy bed; 
 Then do not send him from your door 
 For he is old, and very poor." 
 
 "Pooh," said Abbie, "that way of doing 
 'em is easier than real compositions. I 
 could do that, could n't you, Maria ?" 
 
 Maria was doubtful, but Aunt Ann took 
 it literally. Her eye-glasses fell off and 
 dangled on their chain, and she grew quite 
 ambitious that they should try, especially 
 Abbie Ann. 
 
 "Think of the gratification to your Aunt 
 Abbie and to me, if we could think the 
 mantle of our brother Joseph had fallen 
 upon you, Abbie Ann." 
 213
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 That person looked as if she wished she 
 had not claimed too much, but for the 
 sake of the generation she belonged to, it 
 would not do to back down now. 
 
 "I '11 do one and show you," she told 
 Aunt Ann, grandly, "and I '11 send it to 
 Mr. McEwan afterward. He '11 be pleased 
 to see I can ! I '11 do it now." 
 
 And abandoning Joseph, Abbie flew to 
 get pad and pencil. 
 
 "There is another poem of our young 
 brother's, called 'The Market Day/ " old 
 Miss Ann told Maria, "which we of his 
 family always esteemed highly. You 
 might read it aloud, while Abbie Ann 
 makes ready." 
 
 But Abbie Ann was ready there was 
 nothing leisurely in her generation and 
 she listened to any more of Joseph reluc 
 tantly. Yet before it was over, she liked 
 him better, and so, one could see, did 
 Maria who read to them : 
 
 214
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "THE MARKET DAY 
 
 "Now the people come to town 
 Some from up and some from down. 
 Some bring meat and others honey 
 All to get a little money. 
 They also bring both corn and wheat 
 To buy some stockings for their feet; 
 Some raise rhy " 
 
 ("What?" for Abbie Ann was looking 
 over Maria's shoulder, "Joseph was hu 
 man then, after all ? Nice, altogether dif 
 ferent Joseph!") 
 
 "Some raise rhy and others flax 
 To make them linen for their backs." 
 
 Seeing that Joseph the paragon was 
 weak in spelling, Abbie wondered if, after 
 all, she was indeed to prove a Joseph 
 to the family? At any rate, feeling re 
 lieved about her own failing that way she 
 seized her paper and retired. 
 
 "You talk," she told the others. 
 
 They talked. Maria was sorry that 
 Joseph died. 
 
 215
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Miss Ann told her about it. "He died 
 at twelve," she stated; "and, I have al 
 ways felt, of his own precocity, though, 
 more directly speaking, they attributed it 
 to unripe gooseberries. They grew in a 
 row, the bushes, I mean, in his master's 
 back yard. He was a person full of liveli 
 ness and spirits too, was Joseph," testi 
 fied dear Miss Ann, "as you will see, my 
 dear, if you will turn to that poem called 
 'Snow.' But perhaps we disturb dear 
 Abbie?" 
 
 But she did not hear them.- She was 
 chewing her pencil-end and gazing at that 
 page in her geography bearing cut and 
 text under title of "The Beaver." 
 
 So Maria read: 
 
 "SNOW 
 
 'Now the flakes are falling 
 And the leaves around us lay, 
 
 Now the boys for fire are calling 
 Because they in the snow do play. 
 
 216
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "See, they kick the snow about 
 And throw at one another, 
 And when one party 's put to rout 
 It turns to chase the other. 
 
 "When some are wet and most are hurt 
 
 In school they take their places, 
 
 And there they worry, tiese and fret, 
 
 And make their crooked faces." 
 
 (Dear, rapidly becoming adorable, little 
 Joseph!) 
 
 "It also was his part," said Miss Ann, 
 "to attend our mother to service and 
 carry her large prayer-book to and fro for 
 her on the way. There were certain boys 
 of the street who jeered him as he did 
 so. And Joseph was a lad of spirit, my 
 dear. Letting them gain courage by his 
 lack of notice of them, and approach from 
 behind quite close, suddenly he drew forth 
 his pocket handkerchief, spread it on a 
 convenient horse-block, laid his mother's 
 prayer-book carefully thereon, and then 
 advanced on the jeering street boys to such 
 217
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 purpose they never again molested him, 
 the while his mother, a person of spirit 
 also, stood and awaited him. This done, 
 Joseph rejoined our parent, resumed the 
 prayer-book and they went on. I may say, 
 with no feeling but rejoicing now that it 
 was so," said dear Miss Ann, "that Joseph, 
 of us all, was our mother's favorite 
 child." 
 
 Abbie Ann was approaching. "It comes 
 easy enough in your mind," she told them ; 
 "it is n't that! It 's the getting it down 
 out of your mind that is hard. You try 
 and you '11 see, Maria." 
 
 But Maria shook her head knowing her 
 limitations, but she and Miss Ann both held 
 out their loyal hands for Abbie's efforts. 
 On a somewhat smeared and a considerably 
 erased and interlined paper, what they 
 read was this : 
 
 "THE BEAVER 
 "The beaver is like a rat, 
 It swims, and its tail is flat. 
 
 218
 
 Maria, Abbie and Aunt Ann looking at the contents 
 of the old leather trunk
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Its teeth are very strong indeede 
 
 To saw trees. 
 It also is noted for damms. 
 
 "Its ears are short and the beaver is black 
 And it makes men's hats ; 
 They are found in Europes, north hemisphere 
 And are useful in our arts. 
 
 "ABBIE ANN RICHARDSON, nth Mo. 
 
 "Seleckt School." 
 
 Dear Miss Ann wept into her pocket 
 handkerchief, and Maria's cheeks, too, 
 were pink with honest admiration of her 
 friend. 
 
 Then Aunt Ann grew anxious and 
 reproached herself for having inspired 
 her great-niece to this thing. 
 
 "We '11 lay it away until your father 
 shall see it," she told Abbie, "and then, 
 with the example of Joseph before us, let 
 him say whether you shall be encouraged 
 to continue in the matter." 
 
 "She will have to hand it in as a compo 
 sition, first," explained Maria. 
 
 221
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "To be sure," said Aunt Ann, who had 
 forgotten. 
 
 But Miss Ingram was less enthusiastic 
 about it than dear Miss Ann. In fact 
 what little she said was laconic. 
 
 "Copy it out in plain English and cor 
 rect your facts and spelling," was that per 
 son's comment to Abbie Ann. 
 
 222
 
 XVI 
 
 T was the evening of the next 
 day. Aunt Ann and Abbie 
 had gone up-stairs, more be 
 cause the autocratic Jennings 
 began turning the lights out than because 
 it was late. 
 
 All the evening Aunt Ann's conversa 
 tion had seemed to take a gloomy turn as 
 if her mind were on Aunt Abbie. "There 
 are tragedies in every family, my dear," 
 she told her niece; "we had an uncle our 
 selves whose ship was scuttled by pirates." 
 Abbie Ann, preparing for bed, paused 
 in unbuttoning her shoe. Evidently some 
 thing direful had happened to the uncle. 
 "What 's 'scuttled,' Aunt Ann?" she in 
 quired. 
 
 "Dear me," said Aunt Ann, smoothing 
 
 223
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 her dress, "really, Abbie Ann, I don't 
 know that I can exactly tell you. Sister 
 Abbie would know. I should say myself 
 it was a nautical way of sinking a vessel 
 peculiar to pirates." 
 
 Abbie Ann pulled her shoe off. 
 "What 's 'pirates/ Aunt Ann?" 
 
 That soul was quite fluttered. "Pirates, 
 my dear, " but she never got farther 
 than to say she had heard they generally 
 wore ear-rings, when both paused 
 
 They heard the front door opening, then 
 heard voices. 
 
 Abbie Ann's ears were sharp, and with 
 one shoe on, the other in her hand, she 
 flew down-stairs, Aunt Ann coming be 
 hind, quite tottery from her week's anxie 
 ties. 
 
 "Father! Father! Father!" Abbie Ann 
 went calling. 
 
 And it was her father and Eliza put 
 ting Aunt Abbie down into a chair very 
 gently. 
 
 224
 
 " Abbie Ann rushed, frantic with joy, to her father"
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 Abbie Ann rushed to her father, but 
 Aunt Ann tearfully approached her sister. 
 
 "Now what is the use of any heroics, 
 Ann?" Aunt Abbie, alarmingly erect, 
 briefly demanded. "There, keep away, 
 no, I prefer you would n't touch me, even 
 a finger tip. It 's lumbago." 
 
 Poor Miss Ann, thus waved off, took 
 Mr. Richardson's proffered hand meekly. 
 
 "I went to ask John Richardson's par 
 don," announced Aunt Abbie at this point, 
 "and I took cold in his drafty house and 
 he had to bring me home." 
 
 And Aunt Abbie made a motion as 
 though to rise, and sank back. 
 
 "If he had not been an amiable man, he 
 might have told me these were long-de 
 ferred tweaks of conscience," said Aunt 
 Abbie with grim humor; "but it is n't 
 that; it 's his drafty halls and that Fabe 
 creature's cooking." But she was quite 
 white about the lips nevertheless. 
 
 John Richardson, this time not at all 
 227
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 like the man with the dripping umbrella, 
 set his little half-shod daughter down, and 
 detached himself from Miss Ann. 
 
 "Get a glass of wine for Miss Norris, 
 Eliza," he said. 
 
 "Not at all," said Aunt Abbie, decid 
 edly, "that 's the last thing one needs in 
 rheumatic tendencies." 
 
 "Get a glass of wine, "Eliza." said John 
 Richardson. "Please bring it immedi 
 ately." 
 
 Eliza disappeared, hat and wraps yet 
 on, but she came back with the wine. 
 
 "You need it. You are faint," said 
 John Richardson, and held it to her lips. 
 Aunt Abbie sat straight. She had no idea 
 of drinking it. John Richardson held the 
 wine, and looked at her. Suddenly Aunt 
 Abbie opened her mouth and swallowed 
 it meekly. 
 
 Then her eye fell on Abbie Ann, dan 
 gling one shoe, and looking on wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 228
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "Child," she said, "come to me." 
 
 The niece went. Aunt Abbie's eyes 
 ranged from the one-stockinged foot up 
 to the tumbled hair. 
 
 'Abbie Ann," she said, almost gently, 
 certainly with surprising meekness, "I was 
 such a child as you once. John, if you '11 
 give me your arm to the top of the stairs, 
 I '11 go to bed." Later, Abbie's father came 
 down again, and took his little daughter 
 on his knee. He had brought more than 
 himself for her, he had a letter in his 
 pocket from Mr. McEwan which she joy 
 ously proceeded to read. 
 
 "There 's a verse," she announced; "it 
 says, 'Lines to Miss Abbie Ann Richard 
 son on First Beholding Her Great- 
 Aunt/ " 
 
 Her father looked doubtful, perhaps 
 apprehensive too. It is only fair to this 
 gentleman to say he did not know the lines 
 were there when he brought the letter. 
 
 But Abbie was reading them: 
 229
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "Shake not your glory locks at me 
 That in the great-aunt I should see 
 The why that little Abbie Ann 
 So loves a feather or a fan, 
 And why the little Abbie's head 
 And temper too, should blaze so . ..." 
 
 Abbie stopped suddenly. Her face was 
 scarlet ; so was her father's, but for a dif 
 ferent reason. It never would have done 
 to let his little daughter know, when she 
 stopped reading, how near he came to sup 
 plying that rhyme. 
 
 "Abbie," he said, presently, "your Aunt 
 Abbie is desirous that you should make 
 your home here with her while going to 
 school. I have told her that for this year 
 I want you where you are. After that, I 
 have promised to leave it to you, whether 
 you shall stay here or not." 
 
 Abbie Ann listened. She even took it 
 quite cheerfully. "Anyhow, that 's a long 
 way off," she reasoned. 
 
 230
 
 XVII 
 
 OAL CITY is in the heart of 
 very beautiful mountains. In 
 the summer-time, a wild little 
 river dashes over giant boul 
 ders and churns itself to foam under rocky, 
 laurel- and rhododendron-grown banks. 
 The country is full of summer hotels and 
 mineral springs. 
 
 One day in June a freight consignment 
 was put off on the platform of Coal City. 
 It seemed to consist of household comforts, 
 screens as for drafty halls, footstools, care 
 fully wrapped mattresses. 
 
 A day later, the westward bound morn 
 ing sleeper drew up at Coal City. Mr. 
 McEwan, station-agent, ahead even of 
 Mr. John Richardson, owner of the Black 
 Diamond Mines, received into his own 
 231
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 hands, the party handed off, one after an 
 other by the conductor; a party consisting 
 of an old lady, a nodding bunch of mig 
 nonette in her bonnet, one maid, laden 
 with bags and bundles and wearing the 
 tolerant air of one conducting and humor 
 ing a consignment of irresponsibles, one 
 little girl with pink, pink cheeks and a trim 
 little person, and another little girl with 
 eager eyes and red, red hair- 
 Aunt Ann and Maria had come to Coal 
 City to pay a visit to Abbie Ann, and Eliza 
 had come to look after the party. 
 
 Aunt Abbie had declined the invitation, 
 hastily; she did not seem to care for the 
 mode of life at Coal City; and Miss Henri 
 etta had declined likewise, agreeing how 
 ever, to go and stay with her old friend 
 Miss Abbie, while Aunt Ann went. 
 
 ' We have n't a bit of patience with each 
 other's ways," stated Miss Owsley, "but 
 it will be good discipline for us both." 
 Mr. McEwan, receiving the party from 
 232
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 the conductor, handed them on to Mr. 
 Richardson, which brought him to Abbie 
 Ann last. 
 
 As he lifted her off the step and set her 
 on the platform, he surveyed her up and 
 down. Now it chanced she had on a blue 
 linen dress, and a flapping-brimmed, dark 
 blue hat with flowers. Mr. McEwan sur 
 veyed her up and down. Then his eye 
 brows lifted and his glasses blinked and he 
 shook hands. 
 
 "Blue," said Mr. McEwan, "is true." 
 
 She looked up and because of the sun 
 blinked too. 
 
 "I have been true/' said Abbie. 
 
 233
 
 XVIII 
 
 R. McEWAN called Eliza a 
 zealous female, and contended 
 that the unholy light of the 
 crusader against disorder 
 burned in her eye. He was on the porch 
 sitting on an inverted clothes-basket for 
 lack of any better article to sit on, when he 
 said it. 
 
 Eliza after a day's sojourn at Coal 
 City had gone to Mr. Richardson for con 
 sultation. Her manner toward her 
 charges still had that tolerant air one ac 
 cords to irresponsibles, only that now she 
 included among these incompetents, Fabe, 
 and also Aunt Venus, who had come up 
 from Hinton for the summer as assistant, 
 and in a way, Mr. Richardson and Mr. 
 McEwan too. 
 
 234
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 She went, however, for consultation to 
 Mr. Richardson. 
 
 "If Miss Ann is to be looked after 
 and made comfortable," she announced 
 "I '11 have to have permission to take 
 hold." 
 
 Now Mr. Richardson had been doubt 
 ful about the advisability of that dear old 
 person coming anyway. 
 
 "Then, for prudence' sake," he adjured 
 Eliza, since Miss Ann was here, "take 
 hold." 
 
 And this she proceeded to do. "Tak 
 ing hold," moreover, is a strenuous pro 
 ceeding as interpreted by an Eliza and is 
 apparently both volcanic and disruptive 
 in its nature. For instance, everything 
 portable and movable in a house at such 
 times seems to go galvanically out at win 
 dows and doors. The proceeding also 
 includes brooms and scrubbing brushes, a 
 cold and comfortless mid-day lunch, and 
 it drives the other humans of a household 
 
 2 35
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 forth to the porches for refuge, since, in 
 this case, showers prevented removal of 
 themselves further afield. 
 
 Rugs, curtains, and other temporarily 
 superfluous furnishings had been moved 
 to the porches too. Maria sat on a fender, 
 for want of -any other unoccupied article 
 to hold her, and Abbie Ann sat on a 
 bucket. Maria's mama had sent the two 
 little girls, from a post in the far, far 
 Southwest, a pair each of elaborately 
 beaded Indian moccasins which had just 
 come by mail and which they were each 
 holding for want of any safe place to lay 
 them down. 
 
 Mr. McEwan arriving just here, turned 
 a clothes-basket over, tried it carefully, 
 and took a seat thereon. 
 
 "It is the way Sister Abbie and the ser 
 vants have done me, all my life at home," 
 said poor Miss Ann from her position in 
 an armchair wedged against a hat-rack,, 
 with her old feet on a dictionary. "And 
 236
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 even when I get way off here, John goes 
 and gives Eliza permission !" 
 
 "She says she found the pepper-box in 
 the refrigerator, and the corn meal in the 
 soup-tureen," reported Abbie; "and if 
 there were n't women to take proper care 
 of the men and children, Eliza says what 
 would the world come to?" 
 
 The clothes-basket giving forth threat 
 ening sounds of imminent collapse, Mr. 
 McEwan arose and sought the porch-rail, 
 damp as it was from the recent shower. 
 He ridged his brows too, so that it lifted 
 his hair, and he blinked through his glasses 
 and replied. 
 
 "Come to?" retorted Mr. McEwan. 
 "Why," with conviction in his tone, "why, 
 without the Elizas we would lapse right 
 back into the Golden Age, and sit on flow 
 ery banks and shut our eyes to the weeds 
 gradually crowding 'em out, and eat ber 
 ries out of burdock leaves, and toss ripe 
 grapes across into each other's mouths, 
 
 237
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 and chant chansons to the sun and can 
 zonets to the moon and " 
 
 "But who would weed the flowery 
 banks ?" queried Abbie, worried that these 
 might disappear, since he himself had 
 suggested it. 
 
 Mr. McEwan looked at her with in 
 credulous amaze, and then shook his 
 head sadly. Who could have believed, he 
 remarked, that in their own Abbie they 'd 
 ever come to see a juvenile Eliza undevel 
 oped! "These things grow on one, too/' 
 he lamented anxiously. "The Elizas in 
 time come to make pepper-pot mole-hills 
 into mountains, with whole ranges of the 
 real thing in mountains immediately out 
 side. Besides," suggested Mr. McEwan, 
 triumphantly, "if the pepper-pot habitually 
 stays in the ice-box, would not one always 
 know where to find it? What the Elizas 
 need," declared Mr. McEwan, "is a 
 broader view. I will get Mooney from the 
 Junction to come up and spell me at the 
 238
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 office for a day, and we will get Fabe and 
 a two-horse wagon and take our Abbie 
 here and Eliza up to the top of old Sugar 
 Loaf Mountain and let them get it." 
 
 He meant a broader view. 
 
 And while Mr. McEwan might be jok 
 ing about the one part of it, he was not 
 about the Sugar Loaf side of it. 
 
 Eliza however, on being consulted about 
 it later, demurred. For herself she did 
 not want to go and preferred to get the 
 house in order according to her notions 
 of order, and as for Miss Ann, Eliza said 
 she was not used to such undertakings 
 and it would be the death of her ! 
 
 But Miss Ann was decided. "I Ve sat 
 on hotel porches at summer places all my 
 life," she declared, "and watched every 
 body else go on the expeditions and excur 
 sions because Sister Abbie would not let 
 me undertake them. I am going, Eliza." 
 
 And when the day came, Miss Ann 
 went, sitting in an arm-chair installed in 
 
 239
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 place of the wagon's center cross-seat, the 
 same chair having been lashed into secur 
 ity by Fabe and Mr. McEwan. Moreover, 
 the only concession she would make to 
 Eliza was in the carrying of a sunshade 
 and the wearing of a large green veil, 
 which she threw back with determination 
 once they were beyond the eye of that 
 person. 
 
 Fabe and Mr. McEwan sat on the front 
 seat and drove, and Maria and Abbie sat 
 together on the rear one. When they were 
 two thirds of the way up Sugar Loaf, who 
 came driving up behind them in the buck- 
 board but father, who had found he could 
 get off, after all ! 
 
 The broad view had begun some while 
 before, during the first stages of the wind 
 ing ascent of Sugar Loaf, but now it was 
 all one could ask for breadth. These 
 long lines, one behind another, of moun 
 tains holding hands and stretching north 
 and south, were the Alleghanies, but the 
 240
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 fainter azure ones so far away that they 
 melted into the sky, were the Blue Ridge 
 ranges. 
 
 At one's feet was home in the valley be 
 low, with Eliza sorting kitchen-tins from 
 Fabe's providential reserve of empty to 
 mato-cans he had stored away. Now Ab 
 bie Ann's father considered Eliza invalu 
 able. He said if any one of the ladies who 
 had come to teach Abbie had humanely 
 taken hold as Eliza was doing, how grate 
 ful he would have been. The others found 
 it hard to agree with him. 
 
 There was something else down there 
 in the valley just now too, as pleasant to 
 have escaped from as house-cleaning. 
 From up here, as they wound around and 
 emerged on the eyebrows of old Sugar 
 Loaf, as Mr. McEwan called this high 
 shelving platform, they could see storm 
 clouds hanging low over the house and the 
 valley, heavy with lightning and rolling 
 with thunder. Then a bit later they saw a 
 13 241
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 rainbow bridging the valley, one end rest 
 ing on a spur of the old King Coal Moun 
 tain, into whose center the mine dipped 
 and burrowed, while the other end seemed 
 to drop behind the yellow railroad station 
 across the sidings and the tracks. 
 
 "My grandmamma always laughs and 
 says there is a pot of gold at the end of a 
 rainbow," said Maria. 
 
 Abbie had never heard of this. "Both 
 ends ?" she queried. 
 
 Father was close behind in the buck- 
 board, old Royal's gray nose almost into 
 the backs of Abbie and Maria. 
 
 "Why, of course," he called, "or how 
 could the rainbow be balanced?" 
 
 Abbie Ann turned about on the seat of 
 the wagon and studied the arch. 
 
 "Then one pot of gold is in our mine, 
 father; will they find it, digging, do you 
 s'pose?" 
 
 "They certainly will not find it if they 
 don't dig," laughed father. 
 242
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "And see ! Maria look ! Why the other 
 end of the rainbow rests right on the sta 
 tion! Will there be a pot of gold there, 
 too, for Mr. McEwan?" 
 
 "In the near course of time, I think 
 there will be," said father. 
 
 "Time 's money, you remember," came 
 back from Mr. McEwan on the front seat. 
 
 "But you said you had found it wasn't," 
 expostulated Abbie Ann. 
 
 "I was mistaken"; said Mr. McEwan, 
 "time is, if you go at it right." 
 
 But it was after the travelers had passed 
 over the eyebrows of old Sugar Loaf, and 
 had left the horses unharnessed and teth 
 ered, munching their dinners of corn and 
 hay, and had climbed on foot up the short 
 pull to the bald, flat-topped crown of the 
 mountain overlooking half a dozen vil 
 lages beside their own, that Abbie and 
 Maria and Aunt Ann heard the explana 
 tion of how time had proved to be money 
 for Mr. McEwan. 
 
 243
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 There were many things to be done 
 first though, before settling to conversa 
 tion. Fabe had to bring the basket and 
 the long-handled skillet and the coffee-pot, 
 then the big can of drinking-water, up to 
 the camp on Sugar Loaf's summit, and 
 then he and Mr. McEwan had to find 
 flat stones to build a sort of oven affair 
 for the fire and then start the fire itself 
 and get the kettle on and the water to 
 boiling. 
 
 Then later, Fabe shucked young corn 
 and cleaned it, and covered it again in its 
 wet shuckings and buried it in the ashes to 
 roast, just as he did the potatoes and the 
 eggs, only these he rolled in wet leaves. 
 
 Meanwhile father and Mr. McEwan 
 brought up the arm-chair, expecting to 
 put Miss Ann in it amid sofa-pillows and 
 shawls, as if it were the most natural thing 
 in the world for an old lady in a silk 
 dress and gold eye-glasses, with nodding 
 mignonette in her bonnet, to sit in an up- 
 244
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 bolstered arm-chair on a top peak of an 
 Appalachian mountain. 
 
 But she declined to be put in the chair. 
 Away from the insistent care of Sister 
 Abbie and Eliza, Aunt Ann proved quite 
 as brisk and capable as any younger one 
 of them, and found the table-cloth and de 
 lightedly tottered around spreading it, and 
 produced the salt and pepper and cups and 
 saucers, and cut the cake and piled the 
 fried chicken on the platter, and told Maria 
 and Abbie Ann how she and little Joseph 
 and her brother Charles once had packed 
 a basket and slipped away and played pic 
 nic and camp in their own back yard. 
 
 "Myself, I have always longed for ad 
 venture," declared dear Miss Ann; "a 
 taste perhaps in common with that ances 
 tor whose ship was scuttled by pirates. 
 Indeed I have often urged Sister Abbie to 
 consider foreign travel. And I like doing 
 things. If your Fabacious were not here 
 I really should have begged to be allowed 
 13* 245
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 a hand to-day in the cookery." Then 
 hastily as if in defense of such great rash 
 ness Aunt Ann added, "I have frequently 
 made jelly-cake in my day and also a syl 
 labub that even Sister Abbie allowed to be 
 delicious !" 
 
 Later, dear Miss Ann, finding herself 
 as it were, the center of the occasion, told 
 about some tarts she had made and not so 
 very many years ago. 
 
 Fortunately by that time the party was 
 seated about the table-cloth, munching hot 
 corn on the cob, with sizzling bacon and 
 roasted eggs and cold chicken on the tin 
 plates before them; or, between her men 
 tion of the tarts and the odor of the boil 
 ing coffee which Fabe had on the fire, and 
 the breezy exhilaration of Sugar Loaf's 
 summit, their appetites could not have 
 stood it. 
 
 "Peach tarts they were, filled into small 
 
 squares of puff pastry and latticed across 
 
 with pastry strips," related Miss Ann; 
 
 "and when they were finished, I had Mary, 
 
 246
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 the cook, place them upon a napkin on a 
 platter, and left her to carry them to the 
 pantry. Which she did, setting them, for 
 some reason, her freshly baked bread 
 being on the pantry table cooling, I be 
 lieve, on the pantry window-sill, also to 
 cool. And this pantry window opened on 
 a side street but being high and screened, 
 the window was often left open. Then 
 Mary went on to her affairs and I up 
 stairs," continued Miss Ann; "and when 
 we went back, she and I, to remove the 
 tarts to their proper place an hour later, 
 the screen window was raised and there 
 were no tarts, only a few lines on a piece 
 of paper pinned down to the board by the 
 tines of one of our prized and crested sil 
 ver forks. And it said," went on Aunt 
 Ann, 
 
 "'The old, old story: 
 " The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts 
 
 All on a summer's day, 
 The Knave of Hearts, he stole those 
 tarts ..-.."' 
 
 247
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "And the next day," continued Miss Ann, 
 "if you will believe it, there came to the 
 house brought by the kitchen way just as 
 the supplies all are, a bushel basket of the 
 most wonderful peaches even Sister Abbie 
 could remember to have seen, and a card 
 attached which said, 'More.' Sister Abbie 
 thinks it was some wayward college youth 
 from the University not so many blocks 
 from us. But, whoever it was, it has given 
 me a new and more kindly feeling for 
 burglars" 
 
 "Still," said Mr. McEwan, "you cannot 
 always count on the quality of your burg 
 lar. They would n't all leave the fork! 
 From this, see how plainly you and Miss 
 Abbie need a protector in the house! I 
 am going back to the University myself 
 next year. You might be good to me and 
 take me." 
 
 "Really?" cried Abbie Ann. 
 
 And then Mr. McEwan explained. It 
 was not altogether mere time that had 
 248
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 proved to be money, but, more directly, a 
 hole in a piece of steel where nobody had 
 chanced to think of a hole being useful 
 before. It had something to do with ma 
 chinery in the mines, and from indications 
 the pot of gold was already waiting for 
 Mr. McEwan. 
 
 "And you and I will be with Aunt Ab 
 bie and Aunt Ann together/' cried Abbie; 
 "and I won't mind so much not living at 
 school as I would, because Maria won't be 
 living there next year either !" 
 
 "But we will be together every day at 
 Miss Henrietta's just the same way," ex 
 plained Maria. 
 
 For Maria's father and mother were 
 coming home to be stationed at the post 
 just outside this very same city, and 
 Maria could be with them, and with the 
 flag and parade and the soldier men and 
 the many things she talked so much about 
 and loved so well, and yet could come to 
 school and be with Abbie daily also. 
 249
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 LATE that evening the picnic party, home 
 ward bound, checked the horses for a 
 breathing spell on the last foot spur at 
 the base of Sugar Loaf. Fabe was in the 
 buckboard with the paraphernalia while 
 father this time was in the wagon. Such 
 is the effect of mountain air, they were all 
 forgetting they ever had had dinner! 
 
 As they paused above the valley, the 
 evening train was winding its yellow 
 length in and out of the cuts and defiles 
 that marked its way. Between the low 
 hills to the west, the sun slanted in across 
 the lowlands and the brawling, boulder- 
 strewn little river and the miners' houses 
 and the ovens, long and low and golden 
 and gleamed against a white shaft on the 
 valley's eastern slope. From some moun 
 tain side, the sheep-bells tinkled. 
 
 Abbie Ann and Maria held each other's 
 
 hands close, they could not have said why. 
 
 Then Abbie slipped down from the back 
 
 seat and crept past Aunt Ann in her 
 
 250
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 stoutly lashed arm-chair, and reaching 
 father, slipped a hand around that he 
 might know hers was there and hold it. 
 And since his fingers closed promptly on 
 hers, it is to be gathered that he, too, 
 was noting the sun slanting long and 
 golden and low across the valley and was 
 hearing the sheep-bells tinkling and un 
 derstood. 
 
 Perhaps the Miss Anns feel the need 
 of an understanding some one too, at 
 evening when green fields and hills are 
 touched by the sinking sun, for when Ab 
 bie next looked around, Maria was stand 
 ing at Aunt Ann's old knee, and that per 
 son was holding Maria's little hand be 
 tween both of hers. 
 
 But Mr. McEwan was gazing fixedly 
 valley-ward pe'rhaps because there was 
 no hand for him to hold. 
 
 "If my glasses don't deceive me," said 
 he peering downward, "there is smoke 
 coming out of the kitchen chimney." 
 
 251
 
 Abbie Ann 
 
 "It goes straight up, and it 's blue," 
 said Maria. 
 
 "Blue is true," said Abbie and she 
 turned her ring so that its small stone 
 gleamed in the sun. For her part, she 
 meant always to be true. 
 
 THE END 
 
 252
 
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