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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 HOMESPUN YARNS 
 
 MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY 
 
 AUTHOR OF " BONNYBOROUGH," " FAITH GARTNEY s GIRLHOOD," 
 
 "THE GAYWORTHIES," THE "REAL FOLKS" SERIES, 
 
 " ODD, OR EVEN," ETC., ETC. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 Press, (amfcrib0e 
 1887
 
 Copyright, 1886, 
 BT ADELINE D. T. WIIITXEZ. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Hough ton & Co.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL 1 
 
 MY MOTHEK PUT IT ON 28 
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS 42 
 
 THE SOAP-BUBBLE QUESTION 99 
 
 How THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP 113 
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE KOCK .... 180 
 
 GlRL-NOBLESSE 202 
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK 240 
 
 How BEL CAUGHT THE "BURGLAR" 301 
 
 TRYING ON BONNETS 313 
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT . 324 
 
 1694433
 
 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 
 I. 
 
 THE world has grown a great piece since I was a little 
 girl, and I am not a hundred years old either. Jamie 
 and I both have our grandchildren, to be sure ; but Jamie s 
 are not big enough yet for anything but " this little pig 
 and that little pig ; " and my own have only just begun to 
 tease me for " stories about when you were a little girl ; " 
 and so by way of posting up my memory, and lest when 
 it begins to drop things it may let slip some of the dear 
 old recollections that should be handed down in a family, 
 I will try and rehearse a little, setting down a few frag 
 ments in black and white, where they can at least be 
 " kept till called for." For I hold that happy recollec 
 tions are the very best of heirlooms, and should at least 
 be cherished by the generations equally with the tea 
 spoons and the old china and the silver knee-buckles. 
 
 The city that I was born in has grown, since then, 
 away out into the country ; and the country has grown 
 away out over the wilderness and the mountains, till it 
 stands thinking awlu le what is to be done next on the 
 shores of another ocean. It is a good thing that the 
 world is round. What would have become of us all, and 
 of our travels, if there had been a " jumping-off place " ? 
 
 When I was a little girl, born in a city, there were n t 
 1
 
 2 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 half so many cities to be born in as there are now. Doz 
 ens of them have been born, since then, themselves. 
 
 There were no gas-lights in those nights, in the streets 
 or in the houses. The lamplighters used to come round 
 in the mornings, with their ladders and oil-cans, and trim 
 and fill the lanterns ; running up the rungs, and sliding 
 down the posts. Then at evening they came again with 
 their torches, and lit them up. It was great amusement 
 for the city children to watch them from the windows ; 
 they had grown so quick, so elf-like, so shiny from head 
 to foot with their employ. In the parlors we had astral 
 lamps, giving the starlike light that their name signifies. 
 Then there were mantel lamps, and hanging lamps in the 
 chandeliers, which were like the children, sure to behave 
 their worst if there was company. 
 
 We had n t any furnaces then ; and I remember when 
 there were no cooking-ranges, and very few coal-grates ; 
 and how the old gentlemen grumbled when the new inven 
 tions first came, and could n t eat their roast beef that was 
 no longer cooked by a wood-blaze, or reconcile themselves 
 at all to " sitting round a hole in the carpet." 
 
 Ways of living were different. There was n t half so 
 much cloth wanted, nor half so much sewing or house 
 keeping to be done ; and yet they all thought they were 
 pretty busy, too. Very nice people were contented to have 
 hair-cloth covered chairs and sofas, and plain white blinds 
 to their windows, and they only put five widths into their 
 silk dresses. There were pictures of women in hoops in 
 the histories we studied at school ; and we wondered at 
 them, as we did at the costumes of the Turks and the 
 Japanese. 
 
 When I was a very little girl, there were no omnibuses 
 even. At least not in our city. Street-cars had never 
 been dreamed of. There were no enormous distances to
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 3 
 
 traverse, such as there are now. The street we lived in, 
 which is to-day quite in the old part of the town, had but 
 one house, then, helow our own, which stood little more 
 than half-way down. A great square of elegant dwell 
 ings opposite was then a vacant ground, where boys 
 played ball and marbles, and flew kites, and built snow 
 forts in winter. Brick by brick, we children, as we grew, 
 saw all these stately mansions grow up likewise, only 
 faster, as is the nature of things contrasted with souls. 
 
 When we went out of town, we drove in carriages or 
 traveled in stages. The steam-whistle, that shrieks from 
 end to end of the great metropolis to-day, had never lifted 
 up its eldritch voice. The sweet country roads wound 
 still and green out from the paved thoroughfares, crossed 
 by no iron tracks, and bestridden by no warning sign 
 board bidding * Beware of the Engine ! " It was some 
 thing, then, to go out of town ! 
 
 Country was country in those days, not merely in 
 convenient city. Twenty miles was a journey. And 
 when you got there you found a new atmosphere and look 
 to things. City contrivances and fashions did n t appear 
 simultaneously in the farm-houses. They had asparagus 
 branches in the fire-places, and peacocks feathers over 
 the looking-glasses. You did n t find the same patterns of 
 paper on the walls, or carpets on the floors. And there 
 were n t any photograph-albums lying about, or novels 
 and magazines on the tables. Who had ever heard of a 
 sun-picture then ? You might see an ancient portrait or 
 two in the best parlor, and you might find the Scottish 
 Chiefs, or the Romance of the Forest, or The Spectator, 
 or Paradise Lost, or Thomson s Seasons, if you looked for 
 books. But these would n t be lying about ; they would 
 be safely put away on shelf or in cupboard, and you 
 would have to look for them. Country was countrified ;
 
 4 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 it was n t brackish with a mixture of city airs ; it was 
 sweet and pure and simple and distinct, with ways of its 
 own. 
 
 I am going to tell a story : that was what I began for. 
 Children like particular memories better than general ret 
 rospections. It was to be a story, or, rather, a bit of 
 that inexhaustible story from which old ladies draw, of 
 " When I was a little girl." 
 
 It shall be a story of a summer journey. 
 
 There were two of us, my brother and I. We were 
 sent to bed early, because we were to set off early in the 
 morning. We put our shoes and clean stockings beside 
 our beds, ready for the feet to pop into ; the clothes were 
 laid out for each of us on chairs. Fresh pantalets, with 
 their triple ruffles ; the fine flannel petticoat with its brier- 
 stitched hem, and the dimity overskirt, edged with tiny 
 points, for my mother was dainty of her little ones 
 apparel ; the frock of French print and the nankeen coat, 
 braided with white, these were for me. Jamie had his 
 blue suit with the eagle buttons, and his new straw hat 
 with dark blue ribbon to match. 
 
 Two queer things came, or seemed to come, close to 
 gether. A restless toss upon my pillow, with a word to 
 Jamie lying in the little open room adjoining, " Oh. dear, 
 Jamie ! this night never will be gone ! I can t go to 
 sleep, and it won t be morning till I do I " And then 
 our mother s bright, sweet look above me, and the sun 
 making golden bars across the chamber through the 
 blinds, and her call, " Wake up, little sleepers ! We Ve 
 got a journey to begin ! " Just in a wink the night was 
 gone, after all. 
 
 I suppose, if you could see a picture of our mother, 
 she would look to you very like the queer mammas in the 
 old editions of Rosamond, and Harry and Lucy. That is
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 5 
 
 one reason I like those old story-books so much to this 
 day. But I know, from my childish memory, and because 
 I have been told, that there was hardly a lovelier lady to 
 be seen in those days than she, with her dark hair gath 
 ered up in knots and bows and bands about the delicately 
 wrought high-topped tortoise-shell comb, and the soft little 
 curls lying lightly upon her temples. I have a picture of 
 her so, with a short-waisted dress, and a broad belt and 
 gold buckle, and great sleeves that look odd, to be sure, 
 but somehow stately, rounding out their airy swell from 
 shoulder to elbow. 
 
 She had on her gray pongee traveling-habit when she 
 came to wake us that morning, a dress such as ladies 
 wore in those days upon journeys ; turned away in front 
 from a white habit-shirt with little crimped ruffles, and 
 the great sleeves coming in small and close at the wrists, 
 finished with the same nice cambric crimpings. Her 
 hair, except the little curls upon the temples, was wound 
 smoothly around the comb in one great glossy band, which 
 it was my delight always to see her brush when she 
 dressed it, holding it with some difficulty in the grasp 
 of one hand, while with the other she swept out its splen 
 did length away down to her knees as she sat before her 
 toilet-glass. Such hair as that is hardly to be seen now, 
 except sewed to wires, so that anybody can buy it and tie 
 it on. 
 
 We woke wide up in a minute, Jamie and I ; and 
 mother laughed to see us scramble on our stockings, heels 
 before, in our hurry, asking questions, and chattering like 
 newly wakened swallows. 
 
 " mother, have you been to breakfast ? Why did n t 
 you call us sooner ? " 
 
 " Who cares for breakfast ? Are the horses come ? " 
 
 " O Jamie, how many stockings have you got on ? "
 
 6 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " I m most ready ; but it always takes girls so long ! " 
 
 " I m glad my hair s just cut. Snarls are the worst 
 things. There, Jamie, I m most ready too. Oh, just 
 think, it really has come, to-day ! And we re going 
 to Ridgeley ! " 
 
 " Not to-day. We shall ride all day to-day, and part 
 of to-morrow. And I shall drive. That s the best of it. 
 Are they gray horses or black ones ? O mother, these 
 eagle buttons are so new ! they won t go through the 
 holes ! Please just come and fasten this." 
 
 And, after all, I was ready as soon as Jamie. 
 
 Table-rules had to be suspended that morning. Jamie 
 was at the window half a dozen times with his biscuit in 
 his hand, watching for the horses that were driven up at 
 last, a pale cream-colored and a gray one, beauties, 
 with long tails. Jamie went then and finished his biscuit 
 sitting upon the front seat with the driver. I sat on the 
 doorstep, looking alternately at him and at something on 
 the opposite side of the street that had been a childish mys 
 tery and wonder to me ever since I could remember, and 
 that I could hardly reason myself from my first thought 
 of, though I knew better now. There was an old gate, 
 seldom used, that led into a garden ; and on this gate was 
 a streak that had precisely the effect of a black cat s tail 
 shut in. How many weary minutes I had watched it from 
 the nursery window above, wondering if I should ever see 
 the gate opened, and find out if there were really a black 
 cat there or not ! To this day I never have. The illu 
 sion was always complete. There was the tail, curved up 
 from the crack as if in pain, and the cat must be on the 
 other side of it. I could not help looking at it and think 
 ing of it so, even after my mother had led me over and 
 shown me that it was only a dash of black paint. 
 
 When my father and mother had finished their break-
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 1 
 
 fast, and mother had put on the Leghorn bonnet with its 
 high crown that went over the great comb, and its wide 
 brim that shaded her face and held, away back against 
 the soft curls, gauze bows and flowers, I helped Martha 
 bring out the bags and shawls. I had also my doll and 
 three picture-books. There were pockets to the carriage, 
 and a great box under the driver s seat. It was great fun 
 to pack these, to put in first the little parcels that would 
 not be wanted till night, and then the books and the cakes 
 and the paper of sugar-plums which were to be wanted 
 first, and were to console the tediousness of the journey 
 when the hours began to grow long in the heat of the day. 
 
 There was an excellent place for Dolly ; a seat by her 
 self, formed by the steps of the carriage on the farther 
 side, where they were folded up within the door. You 
 don t see carriages made so now. They are hung low, 
 and there is just one iron step that is never folded in ; but 
 in those days, when Jamie and I went to Ridgeley in the 
 summers, it was a great part of the ceremony and delight, 
 the letting down of the steps with a rattle, the ascend 
 ing them to the high body of the vehicle, and the shut 
 ting them up with a slam by the driver after we were 
 in. 
 
 So at last the trunks were strapped behind, and we were 
 off, in the fresh, sparkling summer morning. The man 
 from the stable gave up the long white reins to my father 
 when he was seated, touched his hat, and walked away 
 down the sidewalk, putting one hand in his pocket, as he 
 had doubtless had pleasant occasion given him to do ; the 
 little children playing in the sand where the new house 
 was building down the street looked up as we went by, 
 and I was very sorry for them that they were to have no 
 better time to-day, when Jamie and I were going off on 
 a journey ; the wheels clattered merrily over the round
 
 8 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 paving-stones till we got upon the "soft street," as we 
 children called it, where the new macadamizing had been 
 done ; and presently we drove over a long bridge with a 
 wide blue river running below, and came really and truly 
 out into the beginning of the country. 
 
 " Now, father, let me drive," said Jamie. 
 
 " By and by," said father. 
 
 " It s nice and level here," said Jamie, with as strong 
 suggestion of argument as he was apt to venture upon. 
 He did not say " Why not now, father ? " as some boys 
 would, not by any means naughty boys either. He 
 knew that when father said " by and by," he meant by 
 and by, and that the " why not now ? " of persistence was 
 never tolerated. 
 
 " Yes, it s nice and level," replied my father, who was, 
 on his part, never unnecessarily short or peremptory in his 
 denials ; " but I have two very good reasons for not let 
 ting you drive just yet. I wonder if you can guess what 
 they are." 
 
 " Perhaps there s a hill coming." 
 
 " We might be coming to a hill, possibly ; I don t think 
 the hills will put themselves at all out of their way to 
 meet us ; that ivould be something frightful, and require 
 a man at the reins ! No, that is n t it." 
 
 "Perhaps you think we 11 meet a drove of sheep." 
 
 " If we did, I could relieve your responsibility. No, 
 that is n t it, either." 
 
 " Well, father," said Jamie, looking with his bright blue 
 eyes all around and forward upon the unobstructed way, 
 " I don t think I see any great reason at all." 
 
 Father laughed. 
 
 " You discriminate wisely between I don t think I see 
 and I don t think there is. Well, I 11 tell you. In the 
 first place, the horses are fresh."
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 9 
 
 "Fresh?" 
 
 " Yes ; not at all tired, and inclined to go pretty fast." 
 
 " I guess I could hold them," said Jamie, straightening 
 up his little person, and looking very mighty indeed with 
 squared elbo\vs and closed fists that made little back and 
 forth movements as if grasping the tugging reins. " But 
 what is the other reason ? " 
 
 " You are fresh, too," said father. 
 
 Jamie looked a little uncomprehending. 
 
 " You have just begun your day, and the pleasure of it. 
 You have n t used any of it up. By and by you will be 
 gin to get a little tired of sitting still and merely looking 
 about. It will be a good plan, then, to have the pleasure 
 of the driving in reserve. The best for the last, Jamie, 
 like the mince-pie." 
 
 " Only I did n t get that, after all," said Jamie. " It s 
 a bad plan to save up too long." 
 
 " If I did n t understand better than Miss Eunice," said 
 father, laughing. 
 
 Miss Eunice was an elderly lady friend, to whose house 
 our mother had taken Jamie and me some time before. 
 There were two kinds of pie at dinner, and we had given 
 us a small piece of each. Jamie had carefully set aside 
 his mince-pie on his plate, and eaten all the apple-pie first, 
 on the principle of keeping the best until the last ; when, 
 to his great consternation, before he could touch his knife 
 
 O 
 
 to his favorite morsel, Miss Eunice interposed. 
 
 " You don t like the mince-pie, do you, dear ? Well, 
 here s another bit of apple." And in a twinkling the 
 substitution was made, and the mince-pie laid back upon 
 its own dish. Jamie did n t cry, though he came pretty 
 near it for a second ; but he told me privately, afterwards, 
 that Miss Eunice w r as a " gump," and I think the lady 
 never regained her former place in his estimation.
 
 10 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Poor Jamie ! I don t remember that ever in his life he 
 lost anything again by saving it up too long ! 
 
 " There s a cow in the road, father ! " cried Jamie, 
 suddenly, a minute after ; " and she looks cross, or some 
 thing. What is the matter with her ? " 
 
 Mother and I looked out, then, at the front, between 
 father s elbow and Jamie s shoulder, and saw, directly be 
 fore us, at some rods distance, a white cow, in apparently 
 a very agitated state of mind, moving to and fro with un 
 certain air, and a sort of plunge in her quickened gait ; 
 giving an excited toss of her head every now and then, 
 accompanied by a short and anxious "moo." 
 
 " She s crazy, I guess," said Jamie. 
 
 " She s in some trouble," said my father. " Strayed 
 away from her pasture, probably, and lost herself." 
 
 " Is it quite safe to pass her ? " asked my mother, anx 
 iously. She was a little timid in a carriage. " Won t she 
 frighten the horses ? " 
 
 " Or hook them ? " asked I, who had a special terror of 
 horned beasts. 
 
 " Oh no," answered father, quite calmly. " There 11 be 
 no danger. She 11 move aside as we come up. She s 
 only astray, as I said," he added, as we approached her 
 nearer. " I can see the rope about her neck. She has- 
 been tied, and broken away." 
 
 We could all see it now, hanging from her neck and 
 swaying about, dragging one end in the dust as she moved. 
 
 She was heading toward the right-hand side of the road 
 as we came up, and father took the left. 
 
 Suddenly a queer thing happened, that really threw us 
 into danger. 
 
 As we approached the cow, and were about to pass, she 
 hastened her steps across the road, at the same time turn 
 ing down toward us on our right. With this movement,
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 11 
 
 her rope, that had been dragging on the ground, lifted, 
 and showed itself attached to a heavy chain, which in its 
 turn reached up the steep bank on our left, and was fas 
 tened to a post in the rail fence. A gap in this fence, 
 close by, and furrows in the bank, made it evident, at a 
 glance, how she had got into her present position, and 
 what was her trouble, and ours as well. 
 
 It was a peril, though a strange and ludicrous one, for 
 an instant. Blundering Mooly all but had us in a fright 
 ful noose. The horses would have been entangled and 
 thrown down, and the cow, perhaps, tumbled into the 
 carriage, with three more forward steps of either. My 
 father turned short round to the right, striking with his 
 whip, at the same instant, toward Mooly, to check her ad 
 vance. The carriage gave a whirl and a tilt, for the for 
 ward wheels were not made to run under ; the cow tossed 
 her horns under the very noses of the horses, and fell 
 back ; the horses sprang past her and dashed on, my fa 
 ther drawing the reins tightly ; and for another two or 
 three rods it was a question of a run. But they were 
 curb-bitted, and the hands upon them were steady ; and 
 in a minute more the danger was over, and we caught our 
 breaths. 
 
 Mother was very pale, leaning back in her corner of the 
 carriage. As "soon as father could transfer the reins to 
 one hand again, he leaned back anxiously toward her. 
 
 " Are you faint, Susie ? " 
 
 " Oh no," answered my mother with a smile, the color 
 coming back a little to her cheeks ; " but it was a great 
 fright." 
 
 " It has proved our horses. They were less startled 
 than most animals would have been, and I have them per 
 fectly under control." 
 
 Father always found something to say which was just
 
 12 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 the assurance mother needed. He never told her not to 
 he afraid ; he always gave her a reason why she should 
 feel that fear was uncalled for. She smiled again, in re 
 ply ; and, though she did not say much for some minutes, 
 the color kept creeping hack to her face, and the expres 
 sion of anxiety relaxed, and I could see that her first 
 day s pleasure was not going to be spoiled by the acci 
 dent. 
 
 II. 
 
 We went on, through two or three suburban towns ; 
 through reaches of wood where the road lay between the 
 villages ; along the edges of lonely swamps, sometimes, 
 where we heard the cry of strange birds, or the croak of 
 great frogs, sitting half in, half out of the water, on mossy 
 stones or stumps, and could see the tall, stately cat-o -nine 
 tails standing in still ranks, with their close-fitting brown 
 velvet uniform jackets, always prim and orderly, and 
 drawn up in the same array, as if they had stood there 
 from year to year, though no one might pass by for days 
 or weeks together to see. I always had peculiar fancies 
 about these plants. They were not flowers, they had 
 no leaves, they were different from any other growing 
 thing. I always saw them on these summer journeys, and 
 never at any other time. They seemed to wait, like elfin 
 sentinels, by the wayside, or to stand spell-bound, like en 
 chanted things, in motionless groups, away back among 
 green shadows. 
 
 Then there were roadside brooks that we drove through 
 to wet the wheels and cool the horses feet, and sometimes 
 to let down their heads for a long, delicious drink. We 
 had our mugs, too, in the carriage - pockets, and it was 
 great pleasure to get out and dip up from among the shin 
 ing pebbles the cool running water that came away down
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 13 
 
 from the far hills, bringing with it the sweet flavor of the 
 rocks and moss, and the purity that only open streams, 
 trickling along in the fresh air, under sunshine and forest 
 shadow, can ever have. 
 
 Then I unpacked some nice parcel, and handed round 
 to father and mother and Jamie the cakes that tasted so 
 good after our ride of hours since the early and half-eaten 
 breakfast. And then we began to " take sides and guess 
 houses," a travelers game invented by ourselves, that 
 whilecl away a good piece of the long stretch of time and 
 way between morning and noon. 
 
 We made our guesses as we wound along a wild and 
 solitary piece of road where no house was visible ; yet 
 that being a road, we knew must lead, at last, among 
 habitations. 
 
 " I guess red," would be the first cry, from Jamie or 
 me, eager to claim the color that in these regions gave 
 the broadest chance. 
 
 "Well, I guess yellow," would be the reply, taking the 
 alternative. " What do you guess, mother ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don t know, black, perhaps." Black stood 
 with us for the weather-beaten tint of the many buildings 
 that had never known the touch of paint at all. 
 
 And once in a while father would say, decidedly, " I 
 guess white." 
 
 Then there would be great haste between us to take his 
 side, which we had good reason to suspect the strongest ; 
 and presently, out of the four nominated colors, we settled 
 down to two parties only, each standing by its own, 
 the canvass greatly affected by the apparent comparative 
 reliance of individuals upon their separate conjectures, 
 which varied according as they rested more on memory 
 or chance. 
 
 Then what an eager watching for the first glimpse, at a
 
 14 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 turn in the road, of some distant farm-house, or the show 
 ing of its chimney among the trees ! And what glee and 
 triumph for two of us, if a color we had chosen turned 
 out to be the right ! Sometimes, of course, we were all 
 wrong ; but this only proved that father and mother did 
 not always know of a surety what should come next, and 
 gave fresh zest of uncertainty to future ventures. 
 
 We had drawn upon each of these resources succes 
 sively, and we had been four hours upon the road, when 
 Jamie said, " I think, father, it s all used up, now, but 
 the driving." And father, smiling, gave the reins into his 
 hands. 
 
 We were upon a long, even reach of turnpike road, that 
 lay between fields of grass and corn. It was a pretty 
 thing to see Jamie, in his bright new suit and eagle but 
 tons, sitting so upright and firm and manly, with the 
 broad reins in his little hands, and such a look of glad 
 daring in his handsome face, as his blue eyes looked 
 straight forward, with a glow of light in them, at the 
 great free-stepping horses, and the wind blew back the 
 brown curls and waves of his hair and the blue ribbon of 
 his hat. It was my pleasure to watch him then ; I never 
 thought that my resources were used up. Besides, if he 
 had the driving, I had always Dolly ; and this was a 
 pleasure boys knew nothing about. 
 
 " Shall we have dinner at Nishaway ? " asked Jamie, 
 as father resumed the reins at the brow of a long hill, 
 at last. 
 
 " Yes, at Nutt s tavern," said father, with an anticipa 
 tion of good cheer in his tone. Jamie just opened and 
 shut his lips in a satisfied way. Nutt s tavern was an 
 enjoyment of itself. 
 
 There were no great, clattering hotels then, with fusty, 
 pinchbeck style and vulgar hurry ; we stopped at quiet,
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 15 
 
 roomy country inns, with broad, clean, homely porticoes, 
 and smooth slopes of turf rolling away from these to the 
 roadside over which we came up to the door, under the 
 swinging sign-hoard. 
 
 Nutt s tavern was a fair and pleasant specimen of such. 
 We arrived there to-day, as usual, at a little past noon ; 
 and the easy rumble of our city equipage brought 
 " Cap n Nutt " himself to the entrance, to make us wel 
 come. 
 
 " Ben thinkin t was time to expect you, Squire, for a 
 week back." All along the road, every year, people ex 
 pected the " Squire," from the Fourth of July " out," as 
 our Irish brethren say. 
 
 There was a great cackling in the farm-yard, for the 
 hens were proclaiming their own " well done " for the 
 day, and the bountiful sweetness of the hay smell came 
 from the great barn that stretched out at right angles 
 from the tavern at a few paces distance. A couple of 
 hostlers had loosened our horses traces, and looped up 
 the harnesses, while we were alighting and looking round ; 
 and in two minutes Jamie was running on before father 
 to the barn to see them cared for, and mother and I had 
 gone into the little low-ceiled, shaded best parlor, where 
 the bright brasses and asparagus in the wide brick fire 
 place and the striped rag-carpet on the floor looked just 
 as they had done last year, and every year since I could 
 remember Nutt s. 
 
 Here mother laid aside her high bonnet, and rolled her 
 curls smoothly over her fingers by the little tilted glass 
 against the wall that had a gay lady on a green bank 
 painted at the top, and a gilt eagle with two chains of 
 bright balls festooning from his beak to the corners of the 
 frame above. My bonnet and coat were quickly off also ; 
 and then we walked out together alone: the wide hall that
 
 16 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 opened through the house, and led upon a great, square, 
 sloping platform at the hack. Here we found Mrs. Nutt, 
 round and jolly and tidy, and smiling at us with that 
 especially benignant smile of an old lady innocent of 
 teeth, and gone hack, so, to a certain infantile simplicity 
 and sweetness of expression. 
 
 It would he difficult to describe our country dinner ; 
 impossible to convey an idea of our relish for it. There 
 were the eggs the hens had just been cackling about ; 
 there was broiled chicken, deliciously tender, and hearty 
 beefsteak, the least bit tough. There was apple-pie and 
 mince-pie and custard-pie, and cheese, and cider, and 
 plum-cake, and smoking tea, and yellow cream, and brown 
 bread as good as cake, and butter that looked like gold 
 and smelt like a nosegay ; and there was a great plate 
 without which a country -tavern table is never set of 
 doughnuts. And we ate what we liked best, and all we 
 wanted ; for all was light and sweet and fresh, and 
 daintily cooked by Mrs. Nutt s own hands ; and we were 
 traveling, and nothing ever hurt us on a journey. 
 
 After dinner, mother went up-stairs, and had a little 
 nap : and Jamie and I went all over the yards and barn-s, 
 and made acquaintance with a dog that would roll over 
 and beg and speak, and with a great, beautiful brood of 
 yellow ducks which had an old hen for a step-mother ; and 
 we drove the peacock round, and tried to make him spread 
 his tail, which no peacock that I ever saw would ever do 
 for me until I was old enough to have outgrown my eager 
 ness for its fabulous glories. And Captain Nutt tried to 
 hunt up his famous rooster, of a new breed, that he said 
 had been out of sight for some days, and show him to 
 father ; and when Moses, the hostler, finally went down 
 a trap-door under the barn, and routed him out with a 
 great scurry, we had such a laugh as never was ! It was a
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 17 
 
 good while before he would come at all ; and then such 
 a poor, pitiful, sneaking creature, with his comb hanging, 
 and his tail-feathers draggled and broken and half pulled 
 out, and his skin picked bare in spots, as showed himself 
 under protest, and made an instant rush across the corner 
 of the yard, and hid himself under a pile of boards, you 
 would n t believe ! 
 
 " He s sheddin his feathers," said Captain Nutt, al 
 most as much mortified in his turn. " I did n t know he d 
 got to look so bad. The hens must have been a-peckin 
 of him too ; and I guess that air rampageous old red 
 rooster of Danforth s has ben over, an lied a fight. But 
 it s a famous breed, for all that." 
 
 " A bran-new breed, squire," said Moses to my father, 
 with a twinkle of fun. " All meat and no feathers." 
 
 Captain Nutt and father had a hearty laugh then, and 
 went off together to look at the oxen. 
 
 We could have stayed at Nutt s tavern a whole week 
 happily, but in a couple of hours from our arrival the 
 horses were put to again and driven round ; and mother 
 and I had on our bonnets, and Jamie was on the front 
 seat, and we all got in, and Mrs. Nutt smiled, and the 
 Captain bowed, and Moses went off with a pleased face 
 and his hand in his pocket, and we rolled away again over 
 the turf and into the high-road, as Jamie said, to " renew 
 our journey." 
 
 This feeling of freshness and renewal, and of more 
 pleasantness farther on, is the great charm of a journey, 
 as it is of our life. 
 
 It had been nice to get out of the carriage, and rest 
 ourselves, and run about, and eat a good dinner ; it was 
 nicer yet to set off anew, with the great green hills rising 
 up before us, among which lay our road ; the horses feel 
 ing, like ourselves, quite ready and glad to go on, with 
 2
 
 18 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 other villages and people to see, other brooks to water at, 
 and a tea-table as bountiful in its way as the dinner to be 
 ready for us when we were hungry again, somewhere, we 
 did not know yet where ; perhaps at the tavern in Anni- 
 ton, perhaps, as last year, at the " House Beautiful." 
 
 " May n t we stop at the House Beautiful ? " I begged, 
 when we had traveled three hours more, and the sun be 
 gan to slide down the west. 
 
 Now at the House Beautiful we had found ourselves 
 accidentally the year before, when we had been delayed 
 by the casting of a horse s shoe, and it had grown too late 
 to reach Anniton by tea-time. It had opened its doors to 
 us while we waited, and we had been made welcome, and 
 had stayed all night, and had seen wonderful things, and 
 I had given a name out of my dear Pilgrim s Progress to 
 the house of our entertainment. 
 
 Two maiden ladies lived there ; their grandfather had 
 kept it as a tavern before Anniton became the stage stop 
 ping-place. It was a great rambling mansion, with a pole 
 before the door, from which the sign had long been taken 
 down ; and on this, now, a beautiful wren-house perched 
 itself instead, and woodbine climbed up, and hung long 
 wreaths and streamers about it to the very top. 
 
 "Suppose we do stop at the House Beautiful." said my 
 mother, " and then keep on to Anniton to spend the 
 night?" 
 
 " Oh, do, father ! I want to see if Adam and Eve have 
 fell down yet." 
 
 " Or the apples." 
 
 " Or a bird ; or only just a few of the little red berries." 
 
 All this we said in one breath. 
 
 " I think that great accident happened, once for all, a 
 good many thousand years ago," said my father. " But 
 you should say fallen, not fell. "
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 19 
 
 " Well, fallen. Oh, I do hope they have ! " 
 
 " I in afraid that s a little touch of the old coveting 
 serpent," said mother. 
 
 We were conscious of no harm, Jamie and I ; and I 
 don t think mother meant that we were very wicked, af 
 ter all. 
 
 " Miss Perie was real good, was n t she ? " said Jamie. 
 
 " And Miss Persie too," quoth I. 
 
 " It 11 be prime to go there again ! " That is what 
 boys said, then, to express completeness of pleasure. Now 
 it would be " jolly " or " bully." There are fashions of 
 slang, as of everything else. 
 
 " You 11 stop, won t you, father ? " 
 
 " Perhaps we will," said my father ; and this decision 
 led to a bit of an adventure, to close this day, which had 
 begun, also, with something very near one. This is just 
 why I have chosen this special day to tell you about. 
 
 It was half-past five when we drove up in front of 
 " Radd s." It was so the country people spoke, to this 
 day, of what had been, long ago, Radd s Tavern. 
 
 The ladies Radd, Miss Experience and Miss Persever 
 ance, came to the door. Miss Perie was altogether the 
 " old lady " in her style ; wearing a cap and a false front 
 of little curls, with a band of black velvet ambushed 
 among them, hiding its edge, and holding it on. Miss 
 Persie, some years younger, kept to her own natural front 
 of grayish locks, frisee, and wore a great many bows and 
 notched ends of brown satin ribbon about her comb, where 
 my mother had the bows and bands of her beautiful hair. 
 But they had placid and lovely faces, both of them ; 
 and there was genial, honest gladness of welcome in them 
 now, as they met us at the steps of the carriage, and hast 
 ened us in. 
 
 " Now, this is real clever of you," said Miss Perie. u I
 
 20 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 should have took it hard if you had drove by without 
 stopping." 
 
 " They would n t have thought of doing that, Sister 
 Perie," said Miss Persie, reproachful of the admission of 
 possibility. She had me by the hand, leading me down 
 the long hall to the sitting-room ; and with the words she 
 suddenly picked me up by the arms, and kissed me. 
 
 " We wanted to see Adam and Eve," said I without a 
 bit of concealing tact. 
 
 " Has n t it tumbled down yet ? " cried Jamie, eagerly. 
 
 " No," said Miss Persie, laughing ; " but when it 
 does " 
 
 " I m to have Adam and the horse," said Jamie. 
 
 " And I m to have Eve and the barberry-bush," said I. 
 
 They took us into the sitting-room, which was oak-pan 
 eled, and had an old-fashioned square carpet with a bor 
 der on the floor, of which it covered only the middle, and 
 the dark oak boards shining beyond it like a rich frame 
 work. And the wonderful fireplace was there, set with 
 painted tiles ; wide and open, to hold a generous blaze in 
 winter, but decked now with* a summer garniture such 
 as I never beheld elsewhere. In the first place, upon the 
 deep brick hearth had been placed garden earth, heaped 
 and moulded into undulations of mound and hollow, I 
 might say, almost hill and dale ; on this again, a covering 
 of bright green moss, carefully fitted and kept fresh with 
 water ; bits of pine branch and little trails of winterberry 
 vine diversifying it ; and a china shepherdess with her 
 dog, and a numerous flock of milk-white sheep, grouped 
 about among it all. 
 
 We sat right down before it, Jamie and I, and would 
 have found enough in it to amuse us for hours, if pres 
 ently the thought of Adam and Eve had not recurred. 
 Miss Perie said she would take us up to see it while Miss
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 21 
 
 Persie should lay the table and put the kettle on for tea. 
 Their tea, good souls, had been over and cleared away by 
 five. 
 
 Then we went, well pleased, up the broad staircase of 
 shallow steps, and trotted after Miss Perie along the gal 
 lery above. At the far end she opened a door into a 
 kind of state-chamber, and went in to roll up the paper 
 shades, and set open a blind, while Jamie and I stood 
 just within the entrance, trying to accustom our eyes to 
 the dimness of the shut-up room. Then suddenly it shone 
 upon us, as the light was let in. Over the mantel, in a 
 great frame or case, projecting six or seven inches and 
 glassed in front, and occupying the whole width and half 
 the height of the chimney, the glory of the old man 
 sion, Adam and Eve in wax-work, done by Miss Perie 
 and Miss Persie at a boarding-school forty years before. 
 
 In truth, it was a marvel. The whole right of the 
 scene was occupied by forest trees and interlacing vines, 
 made of wax foliage, fashioned bit by bit, and stuck in 
 according to the taste of the artists. Among these, as 
 tonishing birds in rare companionships, a robin-redbreast 
 and a poll-parrot on the same branch ; yellow-birds and 
 bluebirds and gorgeous nondescripts ; fruits also, as curi 
 ously grouped ; crimson apples and pink peaches, purple 
 grapes and golden oranges. Then below, and scattered 
 throughout the whole, the animals : sheep in abundance ; 
 cows ; goats, much like the sheep, with the addition of 
 horns ; hens and chickens ; a cat, a dog, a lion, and a 
 leopard ; and a green snake lying in the grass. Close by 
 Adam, a red-brown horse, with enormous tail and mane. 
 But above all, there were Adam and Eve ! Two little 
 wax figures like dolls ! Eve s light, flossy hair of silk, 
 or real, I don t know which hanging in waves about 
 her, nearly enveloping her ; her face turned toward us
 
 22 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 and away from Adam, who stood beyond, slightly turned 
 away also ; perhaps there had been already a little paradi 
 siacal tiff. At Eve s feet, the barberry-bush with its glow 
 ing pendules of scarlet berries ; this was what I coveted. 
 
 We stood in breathless delight and awe before it ; it 
 was minutes before we spoke. Then Jamie said, timidly, 
 " I wonder if it ever will tumble down ! " 
 
 " Perhaps if we were to jump " whispered I. 
 
 " That would n t be fair ! " said the boy, with a proud, 
 indignant honor in his tone. I shrank back abashed. 
 
 We looked, and looked, and drew long breaths of relief 
 now and then ; and pretty soon Miss Perie said, " Now 
 we will go and see the peacock." 
 
 So she led us, down three steps, into a narrow passage 
 diverging from the first, and along this till we came to a 
 tiny door in an angle of the wall, a bit of a door just 
 wide enough to pass through, and so low that Miss Perie 
 had to stoop. This led upon a flight of ten narrow steps, 
 which brought us up into a little railed balcony with a 
 recessed alcove at the back, and looking down in front 
 into a long, empty hall, the ball-room of the old inn. 
 This that we were in was the musicians gallery. Back 
 in the alcove stood what we came to see, a magnificent 
 stuffed peacock, with very full and perfect tail at its 
 utmost spread. No live bird ever did as much for me, 
 as I said before ; and I doubt if any live bird ever had 
 such a tail to spread, which accounts for it. 
 
 It was like a dream or a fairy story, this queer old 
 house with its curious things, and its many rooms, its 
 steps up and steps down, and unexpected doors, and little 
 galleries and " cubbies." We believed that there were 
 scores of wonders within its walls yet unrevealed. But 
 we were satisfied with Adam and Eve and the peacock. 
 Then we went down and had a race in the great, empty
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 23 
 
 ball-room. Something of the old merriment that had 
 clung to its walls when grandmothers were young, touched 
 and inspired us, and we frolicked up and down in pure 
 glee of space and freedom, till we heard the tinkle of a 
 bell at the foot of the great stairs. 
 
 " That s tea," said Miss Perie ; and we went down. 
 
 It was tea, and a great many things beside. Brown 
 bread and white bread, and butter, raspberries and cream, 
 plum-cake, and gingerbread, and doughnuts. 
 
 It was after seven when we had finished, and were 
 bidding Miss Perie and Miss Persie good-by. We had 
 eight miles to go to Anniton ; and in the west, where we 
 had trusted to the long twilight and the young moon, 
 there was a dark cloud that rolled itself into great, bil 
 lowy edges, and kept swelling up the sky. We had had 
 candles in the sitting-room, which was shaded by thick 
 lilac bushes close to the windows, and we had not guessed 
 at this. 
 
 " Oh James ! " cried my mother, " look there ! " 
 
 "You d better stay all night," said Miss Perie. 
 
 " Oh no, we re obliged to you," said my father. " It 
 will go round, quite likely. We had better keep on." 
 
 Mother looked at him again, and hesitated before she 
 put her foot on the carriage-step. She never said so be 
 fore us, but we knew quite well that she was afraid of 
 thunder. 
 
 " It is only a wind-cloud, I think," said father. 
 
 " You will stop if it comes on to storm ? " she said, 
 still hesitating. 
 
 " Oh yes, we 11 get under cover somewhere. It won t 
 amount to much." 
 
 And so we started. But before we crossed the Moonick 
 bridge, and came into the woods that lay beyond, a little 
 quivering thread of lightning ran down the black curtain
 
 24 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 of cloud, a few drops fell from its upper fringe, and our 
 adventure began. There was a mile of woods before we 
 sbould come out into the open road, and as much more 
 distance to the nearest dwellings. The wind freshened, 
 and the black cloud surged up higher faster. Father 
 urged on his horses, and mother leaned back in her corner, 
 and never spoke a word. In the heart of the wood we 
 were in complete darkness. Father gave the horses their 
 heads, and they kept the road. I could hear mother s 
 quick breath, and feel a tremble of her hand as she held 
 mine. Suddenly, on before us, straight down across the 
 opening between the trees, shot a bolt of pale, intense 
 purple fire : and crashing, rolling, splitting, hissing, all in 
 one mingled sound, came the thunder-burst. The horses 
 paused, half-reared, and then sprang on ; but my father 
 held them firmly by the curb, and they quieted again, 
 quieted to a safe but very rapid trot, which in a few 
 hushed, fearful minutes brought us out into comparative 
 light. Then the rain came down in great drops. Father 
 drew up the boot, which he had unbuckled when the first 
 sprinkle fell. Mother wrapped a shawl around me, and did 
 not let me go when she had done it, but held me tight in 
 her arms. 
 
 " Jamie had better come back here," she said, speaking 
 for the first time, with something very strange in her 
 voice. Father knew what it meant. 
 
 " There s a little farm-house along here somewhere, in 
 the edge of Rundell ; we can reach it in a few minutes, 
 and perhaps they 11 take us in," he said. 
 
 Jamie climbed in over the back of the front seat, and 
 we sat huddled together, all three. There came no 
 more such terrific bursts, but the lightning flashed in 
 broad sheets at quickening intervals, and the thunder 
 rolled in almost continuous accompaniment. We could 
 see our road quite plainly now.
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 25 
 
 " Jacobs told me the truth in recommending these 
 horses," said my father, in a cheery way, drawing the 
 boot-leather higher toward his shoulders. " They will 
 stand almost anything." 
 
 And then we said nothing more, but watched with daz 
 zled eyes the flashes, and heard the rain-streams pour like 
 shot upon the carriage-roof. Ten minutes of this glare 
 and dash and silence brought us to a little long, low, red 
 house on a grass slope by the roadside. Father turned 
 the horses right up to the door, and gave one stroke with 
 his whip-handle upon it. A woman opened it, her hus 
 band and three children following her, and looking from 
 behind to see Avho came. 
 
 " Can you " began my father. 
 
 " Land s sake, yes ! " cried the woman. " Come right 
 along in. Jeb, open the kerridge door, and then help 
 round with the bosses to the barn. Enoch, fetch the lan 
 tern ! " 
 
 The oldest boy went to obey ; and the farmer opened 
 the door and let down the steps. I jumped right into his 
 arms. Then came mother, very pale, and quite ex 
 hausted. As for Jamie, he had scrambled over the front 
 seat again, to come out from his proper place like a 
 man. 
 
 We had never been in a house like this before. It 
 was a contrast to the House Beautiful, yet it had its 
 charms. Jamie said it was prime fun. They wanted to 
 set a tea-table for us, but we assured them we had had 
 our tea an hour before, and could not eat. But the 
 farmer would bring up a pitcher of strong cider, and his 
 wife produced a plate of the inevitable doughnuts. Just 
 to gratify them, we tasted ; and then we children begged 
 to be put to bed, partly from real weariness, partly be 
 cause we were impatient for the fun of it.
 
 26 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Anything will do ; a shake-down in the same room 
 with us," said father. 
 
 " Oh, there s plenty of room," replied the hostess, in 
 the pride of her hospitality. " The little folks can have 
 the eave-garrets, and our boys can go into the shed-cham 
 ber. Kuthie can come down and sleep in the cot." 
 
 Mother let her arrange it in her own way ; and pres 
 ently, to our great delight, we were ushered up a broad, 
 bare stairway of clean unpainted boards, into the middle 
 space under the house-roof. On each side were the " eave- 
 garrets," two nice little tidy bedrooms made up fresh 
 for us with coarse, but very white, sheets and pillow-beers, 
 as the good woman called them. 
 
 There was a savory smell of thyme and lavender and 
 pennyroyal and all sorts of herbs, drying in the open 
 room, mingled with the odor of the clean rough boards 
 and rafters also, that had baked under the summer suns 
 for years and years. 
 
 Mother tucked us in, and heard us say our prayers ; 
 and then went down to her own room, which was only just 
 at the foot of the broad, short stairway. She left her 
 door open, and we all seemed close together. Jamie and 
 I talked across for a long time about what there might be 
 in the open garret that lay between us, and how far it 
 went, and where it led to. We made up quite a story 
 about it, in the middle of which, at last, we fell asleep. 
 
 Well that was our adventure. We thought it quite a 
 considerable one. The morning sun came up grand and 
 glorious, and shone into the great garret in little slender 
 lines of light, here and there, between the boards and raf 
 ters. And it was very still, after the rain-music to which 
 we had slept and dreamed. We wondered if father and 
 mother and the horses were up. Very soon we were 
 down-stairs, looking out at the open door upon the green
 
 WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL. 27 
 
 slope, where every blade was strung with shining drops. 
 There were ducks and chickens about, and the horses were 
 being curried at the barn-door. There was a breakfast of 
 hot cakes, and maple syrup, and fried pork and eggs, and 
 potatoes, and doughnuts ; and by seven o clock, after many 
 thanks and " welcomes," we were on our way. At twelve, 
 coming to the top of a hill, just at the end of our jour 
 ney, we spied grandpa s old chaise turning into the green 
 lane at the bottom ; and as he got out at the barn, our 
 horses trotted up to the door. So we got safely, at last, 
 to Ridgeley. But the time we had at Ridgeley would be 
 a story of itself. 
 
 It occurs to me just to mention this before I finish. 
 Years afterward, when we were man and woman, and 
 Jamie and his wife and little child, and I and my hus 
 band and our little David and Dolly, were all at the old 
 
 home in V Street to spend Christmas, and I was 
 
 toasting Baby Susie s feet before the fire, and telling her 
 " this little pig and that little pig," there came a great ring 
 at the door, such as express-men and telegraph-boys and 
 people after the doctor only give, and presently word was 
 brought up to us of something that had come " in a big 
 box." I rolled all the little pigs up in Susie s crimson 
 flannel nightgown, and popped her into nurse s lap, and 
 Jamie and Mrs. Jamie and I ran down to see. 
 
 A great case of boards had come by railroad, with this 
 curious address : 
 
 "To THE CHILDREN OF JAMES THORNELL, ESQ., 
 
 "V STREET, 
 
 B ." 
 
 Inside the lid was a letter, explaining. It was a bequest 
 to Jamie and me. Miss Perie and Miss Persie were dead, 
 and this was Adam and Eve,
 
 MY MOTHER PUT IT ON. 
 
 IT was old Boston Boston fifty years or so ago 
 and it was New Year s morning. 
 
 Since June we had lived in our new house in one of 
 the lately laid-out, airy neighborhoods over on the West 
 Hill. Before that, we lived in Pearl street, where all the 
 great warehouses are now, and where the other great 
 warehouses were hurned down, melted into strange, 
 stone monuments of ruin, in the terrible fire, a dozen 
 years ago. Down in Pearl street, in a large house with 
 a garden to it, and a wonderful staircase inside that 
 had landings with balustraded arches through to other 
 landings, and which was a sublimity and delight to me 
 that the splendid stairways in Roman palaces can scarcely 
 equal now, still lived my best and beautiful friend, 
 Elizabeth Hunter. I thought in those days all Elizabeths 
 were beautiful, because I knew two who had fair, delicious 
 complexions, sweet, deep-cornered mouths, and brown 
 hair. My hair was light and straight and fine ; it looked 
 thin and cold to me by the side of theirs. 
 
 On this New Year, I was to go and spend the day with 
 Elizabeth. My father and my brother Andrew were to 
 come to dinner. My mother was an invalid, and could 
 not bear the cold and the fatigue. But she had my pretty 
 dress all ready for me, a soft, blue merino real deep- 
 sky blue, with trimming to the tucks and hem and low 
 neck-band and sleeve-bindings of dark carbuncle-colored 
 velvet ribbon in a raised Greek pattern. You may think
 
 MY MOTHER PUT IT ON. 29 
 
 it looked queer ; but it did n t ; it was very pretty and 
 becoming. 
 
 Before I was to go, however, there was ever so much 
 other New Year delight to keep the time from seeming 
 long. Father and Andrew were going down to the whip- 
 factory in Dock square, to choose for Andrew the long 
 est-lashed toy whip, with the gayest snapper and the hand 
 somest handle, that he could pick out there. And afterward 
 they were going to a great toy-shop, to buy me the wax 
 dell I had been promised. 
 
 I did not care to choose my doll, as Andrew would 
 choose his whip. I had a kind of real little-mother feel 
 ing about that. I would rather have what came to me ; 
 what my father brought me. I wanted it to be mine from 
 the first minute I saw it, without any doubt, or any chance 
 to choose otherwise. If I had looked and hesitated among 
 dozens of them, and picked out one, I should always have 
 felt as if I had left some child behind that maybe ought 
 to have been mine, and that I had not quite ivhole chosen 
 any one. So I was content to stay with my mother, and 
 run down from her with the quarter and half dollars to 
 the watchman and the carrier and the scavenger and the 
 milkman, when they came with their expectation of a lit 
 tle present. What dear old simple days those were, when 
 we had a family regard for our milkman, our watchman, 
 our scavenger ! 
 
 Meanwhile, I was to be dressed. 
 
 I had just got on my blue morocco slippers, that looked 
 so funny with my striped dark calico morning-frock, when 
 the bell, that I thought I had done answering with the sil 
 ver fees, rang loudly again. Marcella, our housemaid, 
 called me from the foot of the nursery stairs. 
 
 It s somebody for you, Miss P^mmeline," she said, and 
 I thought she meant another man for money. I took the
 
 80 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 last quarter from the little wallet father had filled for me, 
 and ran down. But it was the tall black servant from the 
 Hunters . And he had in his hand a pretty paper box 
 tied with a silk cord. 
 
 " Mrs. Hunter s compliments and love, miss, to you and 
 to your ma ; and she hopes you 11 wear something she has 
 made for you just like Miss Elizabeth s to-day." 
 
 I took the box, made a little courtesy to him, and said, 
 " Please thank Mrs. Hunter, and say I wish her a happy 
 New Year, and here s a happy New Year for you." For 
 I thought he could n t help seeing the silver quarter, and 
 thinking it was for him ; and father had told me to " use 
 my judgment," and I certainly wanted to give it to him 
 the minute I saw he had come all the way with a present 
 for me. Elizabeth and I liked Jefferson very much ; he 
 gave us macaroons and prunes and almonds from the pan 
 try, and he swung us in the swing in the great dvying- 
 room. He made me a fine bow, and thanked me, and said 
 he should keep my quarter for luck. 
 
 So I ran up to my mother and kissed her, for some 
 how whenever anything pleasant came to me I always 
 kissed my mother, and we opened the box. It was a 
 beautiful blue silk braid net, with a long blue ribbon run 
 through to tie it round the head with. 
 
 " Oh- mother ! " I cried, " it s a long ribbon, for flying 
 ends ! " I was so glad ; for I had no curls like Elizabeth s, 
 and I thought flying ribbons would seem like them a lit 
 tle, and I had never worn any. 
 
 "It is very pretty," said my mother; "but I think, 
 dear, with your short hair, a short bow would look 
 better." 
 
 She did not tell me that my face was narrow and my 
 nose was long, and that I could n t possibly look like Eliz 
 abeth Hunter, even with flying ends. I know it now, as
 
 MY MOTHER PUT IT ON. 31 
 
 I have found out a good many things that I did n t under 
 stand at the time. 
 
 I was disappointed, too disappointed to say anything ; 
 and before I spoke, mother, who had put the net over my 
 hair and drawn the ribbon, tied a butterfly bow with it 
 over my left ear, and snipped the ends into short dove 
 tails with her small bright toilet scissors. 
 
 I choked a little in my throat, and the tears came into 
 my eyes. 
 
 " Did you care so much ? " asked mother tenderly, and 
 kissed me again. u But it is a great deal prettier for you 
 so ; trust me, dear." 
 
 I did not speak then, for I couldn t; but I tried to 
 swallow the choke and the tears ; mother, who was always 
 kind, had been so dearly kind to me that day. And An 
 drew came running up the stairs just then and bounced in 
 at the door ; and there was my dear wax-baby in his arms, 
 and I was a happy little mother ; and what happy little 
 mother, with her baby born on New Year s morning, cares 
 how her cap is tied ? 
 
 The baby was dressed in a pretty white slip and a bib ; 
 and there was a blanket with pink scalloped edges, to 
 wrap it in. 
 
 " There were dollies a good deal older, and some all 
 grown up," said Andrew ; " but father thought you d 
 want to have it a real baby, and let it grow. And it 
 opens and shuts its eyes. See here ! There ! it s gone 
 to sleep. And now^look at my whip ! " He pulled it out 
 from under his arm, whence it trailed behind him, and 
 cracked it gloriously with its yellow snappers, right over 
 my baby s head. 
 
 " Oh And ! Be careful ! Give her right to me. Boys 
 don t know how to tend babies, you know. But you re 
 real good ; and your whip is splendid ! "
 
 32 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Guess I am ! Brought her right straight along, and 
 did n t care a mite, and three boys hollered after me, 
 Fore I d be a girl and carry a rag-baby ! I just kept 
 her with one hand and cracked my whip with the other, 
 and looked right ahead, as if they was n t anywhere ! " 
 
 I put my arms round his neck, and hugged him and 
 the baby and the whip all together ; for my Andie always 
 was a hero, and loved me. He brought me my greatest 
 gift pleasures, and my happiest surprises. Father always 
 took him into the plan, if Andie had n t already begged it 
 for me, whenever there was one. I think our parents 
 had that notion about son and daughter, and what the 
 little man and woman should be to each other. Mother 
 used to set me to do all the little cheery, comfortable 
 home things for Andie. Andie brought me my wax doll 
 when I was seven years old ; he walked down to Jones s 
 with father, the day I was seventeen, and brought me home 
 my real gold watch. I always mended Andie s stockings 
 after I was old enough, and quite little girls were old 
 enough in those days ; and I made pan-ginger bread for 
 his supper when he was coming home cold from coasting 
 on the Common ; and I read to him when he was sick 
 with sore throat, and saved money to fill his bag with 
 white alleys when marble-time came round. Andie and 
 I used to promise never to get married, but to keep house 
 with each other when we were grown up. I have never 
 got married ; but Andie has been lying in the gray stone 
 tomb at Mount Auburn for thirty years. 
 
 My mother hurried me a little now ; for Marcella was 
 ready. 
 
 We walked down across the Common, Marcella and I ; 
 she was to leave me at the door. There was a biting 
 wind, with snow-needles in it ; and the path was deep 
 with half-trodden snow; but I was warm in my cloth
 
 MY MOTHER PUT IT ON. 33 
 
 pelisse with gray fur cape and border, my quilted bon 
 net edged with fur. and my thick little moccasins with 
 gray fur round the ankles. 
 
 I was perfectly happy till Mrs. Hunter unfastened my 
 things by the large parlor fire, and lifted off my bonnet 
 carefully. 
 
 Elizabeth, with her dimpled face, her sweet-set mouth, 
 her brown curls, among which the long blue ribbon floated, 
 for the net was a mere matter of ornament, and lay 
 light and loose over the hair, held only by the ribbon 
 band simply tied at the left temple, was standing by, 
 impatient to get me out and begin our day. 
 
 "Why, where are the long ends?" she said. And 
 then I immediately felt as if all there was of me was that 
 one little, short-cropped butterfly bow. 
 
 " Mother thought " I began, and there stopped. My 
 lips trembled a little, and I blushed hot. 
 
 Mrs. Hunter looked sorry. " Was she quite particu 
 lar ? " she asked, after an instant. " Because I have an 
 other ribbon. Just for to-day, perhaps, because you like 
 to be like Lizzie ? It would be a pity not to please the 
 child," she said to Mrs. Marchand, her sister, who was 
 there. She was drawing the blue ribbon from her pretty, 
 round, carved work-table, and she put out her hand to 
 untie my little bow. 
 
 Then it came over me. I started back. " Please ! No ! 
 Please not, Mrs. Hunter. Thank you a great deal " 
 I stammered, in a hurry, and afraid I was dreadfully im 
 polite, but mother put it on! " 
 
 I would n t have had that bow with the dovetailed ends 
 untied that minute, for all the world. 
 
 A singular expression, I thought, passed between the 
 faces of the two ladies. Mrs. Hunter leaned down from 
 her chair, reached my hand, drew me to her again, and 
 3
 
 34 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 kissed me. " You are a dear little thing," she said to 
 me. " The little souls know best," she said to her sister. 
 
 "When the little souls are " but Mrs. Marchand did 
 not say what. 
 
 I wondered why Mrs. Hunter, while she praised me, 
 but it was not praise either ; it was better than that, 
 should have looked as if she pitied me so. I could n t 
 think it was for the sake of the ribbon. No, indeed : I 
 know now what it was. 
 
 We had a beautiful time. Of course I had brought 
 my baby, and I secretly thought it was a great deal cun- 
 ninger and prettier than Elizabeth s, that she had had 
 ever since her last birthday, and that really looked quite 
 old and common to me now, though she had kept it so 
 nice, and I had admired it so. 
 
 Father and Andrew came to dinner ; and after dinner 
 we had forfeits, and Hunt the Ring, and Magical Music, 
 and Still Palm. There were three other children who 
 came to spend the afternoon. 
 
 I was very happy. There was a hidden corner in my 
 heart that kept warming up every now and then, as if 
 mother and I had a secret together, and we were whis 
 pering it to each other across the wide, cold city. Eliza 
 beth s pretty hair and long blue ribbons flew this way and 
 that in the merry play and running ; and I noticed them 
 just as I always had, and I knew that there was nothing 
 pretty about my short, plain, light-colored hair, and I did 
 think that flying ends would have been a comfort if I 
 could have had them in the first place ; but there was 
 something beyond comfort in the loyalty of wearing that 
 butterfly bow which nobody need touch or try to change 
 for me, since because she thought it best for me to 
 wear it so my mother had put it on ! 
 
 I ran straight up to her dressing-room the minute we
 
 MY MOTHER PUT IT ON. 35 
 
 got home. She sat there in her white flannel wrapper 
 hefore the fire. I threw my arms around her and laid 
 my head down on her lap. 
 
 " Now untie the little bow," I said ; and she asked : 
 " Did my little girl wear it all the day for my sake ? " 
 
 She understood. We had been whispering to each 
 other s thought across all the cold, wide city. 
 
 " Mother," I asked her, after I said my prayers, and 
 before I said good-night, " why did I have such a Rocky- 
 Mountain kind of a face ? Why could n t God have 
 given me a pretty, flat face ? Can you tell ? " 
 
 " God did n t see best to make you handsome, dear ; 
 but He will make you beautiful, if you will let Him, his 
 own way. And I don t think," she added, more lightly, 
 and laughing a sweet laugh, " that my Emmie s face 
 could be a flat one ! It would n t suit her at all ; and I 
 love this a great deal better ! " 
 
 When I was seventeen years old, my mother had been 
 dead eight years. I had a step-mother. 
 
 That was horrible, you think ? Wait till you hear. 
 
 When my father a graver, silenter, but not less kind 
 and gentle man brought home at last this lady, as 
 truly, I think, for our sakes as his own, he called us to 
 them both as they sat together on the long velvet sofa in 
 the library. I remember the moment, and the look of 
 everything as if it were just now. It was a September mid 
 day ; they had been married in church, and we had all 
 come straight home ; there was no company, " this day 
 was for themselves and the children," and dinner was 
 going on, almost just as usual, in the dining-room beyond. 
 
 The lady, whom we had seen but few times, her 
 home had been at a distance in the country, was 
 dressed in a plain violet silk ; and now her bonnet was
 
 36 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 off, her dark hair looked homelike and simple, just parted 
 away over her low, pleasant forehead and twisted richly 
 behind ; and her face I never forget that about it 
 was watching the door when we came in. 
 
 My father said to me, being the girl and the oldest, 
 " Emmeline, I hope you will be the happier for this day, 
 and I believe you will, from this day forward as long as 
 you and my wife shall live." He fell, unpremeditatedly, 
 into the words of the Solemn Service that had been 
 spoken over them ; it was as if he had married us two, in 
 our new relation, to each other. 
 
 He said to Andrew, " My boy knows what men owe 
 to women ; he and I must do our best and manliest for 
 these two. We four are a family now." 
 
 The new wife stretched out a hand to each of us. She 
 slipped her arm round me, and drew me to her side, while 
 she held Andrew s hand upon her knee. The face that 
 looked into mine was very wistful and kind ; it almost 
 seemed to beseech something of me. It asked leave to 
 be loving. 
 
 We children did not know what to say. I felt uneasy 
 not to speak at all. I believe I smiled a little, shyly. 
 Then I asked : 
 
 " What shall I call you, please ? " 
 
 "What shall they call you, Lucy?" asked my father. 
 
 " Call me step-mamma, " was the answer ; and I think 
 he was utterly surprised. 
 
 " I will not take their mother s name away," she said. 
 " I will not be instead of her. I will be called just what I 
 want to be ; a step, a link, between her and them. I will 
 try to do for her what she would have done if she had 
 stayed." 
 
 "Then I think I ll call you For-mamma, " said 
 straight-spoken Andrew. "I think that will do very 
 well."
 
 MY MOTHER PUT IT ON. 37 
 
 We all laughed ; and it relieved the feeling. " Thank 
 you, Andrew," said our step-mamma. " That is a great 
 help at the very beginning. I believe we shall under 
 stand each other." 
 
 For my part I only kissed her. By the way she kissed 
 me back, I knew it was her first act " for " my mother. 
 
 So we began to love her, and we called her " step-mam 
 ma." People thought it very odd, and we never explained 
 it to them. We let our relation explain itself. But among 
 ourselves, the familiar, privileged, lovely name was " For- 
 mamma." That we kept this sign through so many years, 
 the years of our troublesome, probative childhood, 
 tells more than any story of the years could tell. 
 
 I only wanted to say a little bit of what she was to me 
 at seventeen ; and how my mother s very words came 
 again to me through her, as by an accepted mediation. 
 
 I went with her to a large party ; my very first large 
 grown-up party. 
 
 My old friend, Elizabeth Hunter, was a bride this win 
 ter. I had been bridesmaid at her wedding : that was the 
 beginning of my corning out, earlier than I should other 
 wise have done. 
 
 What a plain little bridesmaid I had been, to what an 
 exquisite vision of a bride ! I remember thinking, as we, 
 the bridal party, walked through the long rooms, when all 
 was gay, and ceremony was bi oken through at supper- 
 time when the rooms rustled with the turning of the 
 groups to look after her and the murmur went along about 
 her beauty " What difference ought it to make, that she 
 is the beauty, and that I can never be, so long as the 
 beauty is and we all feel it? " Yet the strange difference 
 was there, and the cross of my beauty-loving nature was 
 that I, in my own being and movement, could never hold 
 and represent it.
 
 38 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 I looked at myself when I had dressed for this large 
 party. The lovely blue silk the delicate lace the 
 white roses they almost achieved prettiness enough of 
 themselves ; and I suppose I looked as nice as I could ; 
 but there were still the too prominent brows, the nose too 
 big for the eyes, the lips too easily parted over the teeth, 
 fine and white, but contributing to the excess of profile, or 
 middle-face, that had made me call it Rocky-Mountain 
 outline when I was a child. 
 
 I went down to my step-mamma s room. She, in her 
 ruby-colored satin, was fairer at thirty-eight than I at 
 seventeen. I sat watching her as she put pearl earrings 
 into her ears. 
 
 " For-mamma," I said, " I don t believe I shall ever 
 care much for parties. And it will be for a very mean 
 and selfish reason, too. I think it is only pretty people 
 who can enjoy them much." 
 
 She laid down the second pearl hoop on the table, and 
 came to me. 
 
 " Emmie," she said, " I know it is a hard thing for a 
 woman who loves all lovely things, not to be very beautiful 
 herself. The dear Lord has not made you very beautiful, 
 in mere features. But can t you wear a plain face awhile, 
 because He has given it to you to wear, and trust to Him 
 to make it lovely in his way and season ? " 
 
 My step-mamma hardly ever said anything so direct as 
 this to me, about religion. She only lived her religion in 
 a pleasant, comfortable, unassuming way, and kept a light 
 shining by which I saw without her flashing it upon me 
 like a dark-lantern into any little selfish or God- for 
 getful course of my own life. Now, these words came to 
 me across ten years the very words said to me in that 
 same room, at that same hour of night. . . . "Why it was 
 the very night ! We were going to a New Year s party.
 
 MY MOTHER PUT IT ON. 39 
 
 A great heart-beat came up in my throat, and the tears 
 pressed up together into face and eyes, while I felt the 
 kindling of my own look, and saw what it must be by the 
 answering color and the licrht in hers. 
 
 o o 
 
 I put my hands out and reached them round her waist 
 as she stood close to me in her beautiful glowing dress, 
 under which a more beautiful heart was glowing brighter. 
 
 " I cannot tell you two apart, Mamma and For-mam- 
 ma ! " I said. 
 
 We went together to the party. For-mamma had to 
 put her one pearl hoop in her pocket after she got there, 
 for she had forgotten the other on her dressing-table. 
 And what that party was to me I wonder if any grand, 
 lovely, tender church-service ever was to anybody, more 
 or better ! 
 
 I had a quiet time, compared to some girls who were 
 always rushed after, and rushing through the gay dances. 
 I was politely asked, and I did dance ; but not every 
 time ; that was as it always was with me. But all the 
 beauty and all the gladness in the whole room was mine ; 
 for it was all the dear Lord s," and He was giving it as 
 He would. " Passing it round," I couldn t help thinking 
 was it irreverent, I wonder ? as the sweet, rich con 
 fections were passed round, that were meant, a share in 
 turn, for all. My turn would come. And for my plain, 
 still, Rocky-Mountain face that I was wearing now, 
 there was a secret between me and some Heart that 
 thought of me across whatever cold and emptiness of 
 wintry way might seem to lie between, like that which had 
 been when in my childish disappointment I wore the sim 
 ple bit of ribbon that my mother had put on." 
 
 There came a time when I had to give up other beauty. 
 To recognize that it was not for me yet. Not in all
 
 40 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 this long, waiting world, as other people have it. That 
 was harder ; yet it was all one. It seemed to me that 
 some people were given at their birth a kind of ticket that 
 opened to them all paradises ; and that others were thrust 
 forth, unaccredited, into a life whose most beautiful doors 
 would be shut, one after another, in their faces. 
 
 I had to content myself with a fate like my face ; a 
 plain pleasantness without great, wonderful delight. A 
 Rocky-Mountain aspect of living, that seemed hard and 
 rough until I got into the heart of it, and let it shut out 
 the fair champaigns, and then it showed me its own depth, 
 and height, and glory. 
 
 There was one long, heavy time when For-mamma and 
 I were separated for years. For-mamma was a widow 
 now ; we four that had been a family together were we 
 two here and they two there ; they three, in the other 
 home. And my grandmother, in her feeble, querulous, 
 uncomfortable old age, had nobody to come and live with 
 her and " see her through," as she said. At nearly the 
 same time, For-mamma s sister died, and there were five 
 little children to be cared for. I thought she would never 
 get away from that duty, though mine might see an end. 
 But a new wife came there after a good while, as For- 
 mamma I hope it was as she came had come to us ; 
 and then grandmother died, and nobody could say other 
 wise than that it was a release. I did not say so ; I hate 
 to hear people say that ; it is so apt to mean a release for 
 those who outlive. There are long dyings, and brief ones ; 
 when it is over, we go back to the well time to measure 
 our loss. Grandmother s dying began almost twenty years 
 before, when her nerves gave out, and her comfort in liv 
 ing was over, and people began to lose patience with her. 
 I looked back to that time, and thought what a bright, 
 handsome woman, fond of her own way, but with such a 
 fine capable way, I could recollect her.
 
 MY MOTHER PUT IT ON. 41 
 
 I had tried to do my duty ; it was a piece of life that 
 the same Love had put on me that I had learned a lit 
 tle to believe in as a mother s ; and now it was over 
 " through," and For-mamma and I came together again, 
 so gladly ! 
 
 I suppose everybody thinks we are very fortunate peo 
 ple, and perfectly happy ; for we have plenty of money, 
 and can do all the pleasant things that can be done with 
 money, for ourselves and for others. I suppose many per 
 sons think that my five years with Grandmother Cumber 
 land were paid for in the fifty thousand dollars that she 
 left me. I know that they were paid for as they went 
 along, and as I found myself able and cheerful to live 
 them. 
 
 For-mamma and I are happy ; I do not think we shall 
 ever leave each other now so long as we both may live. 
 I often think how my father joined us together with those 
 words. 
 
 We have a lovely and dear home, and friends to fill it 
 when we want them ; we have happy errands to many 
 who get some happiness through our hands ; we have trav 
 eled together, and seen glorious and wonderful things ; 
 we read and think, we sing and sew, we laugh and talk 
 and are silent together ; we do not let each other miss or 
 want. But. for all this we have each and both to 
 gether our troubles to bear, that would not have been 
 worthy to be called troubles if they had stirred in us so 
 slightly as to have been forgotten long ago. 
 
 We only bear them as things grown tender to us by 
 their very pain and pressure, because of Some One who 
 will say to us when we go home to Him : 
 
 " Did my dear child wear it all the day for My Sake ? "
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 
 I. 
 
 THE ERRAND. 
 
 " You might do half a dozen better things," said Great- 
 aunt Salva, rather crossly. 
 
 Grand-niece Thankful s hall of green crewel rolled off 
 her lap, across the piazza, in whose wide house doorway 
 Miss Peniworth and Thankful Holme were sitting. Some 
 thing was apt to roll or drop or call attention with this 
 young girl, so as to leave Aunt Salva unanswered for the 
 moment, when an answer would he difficult. 
 
 " And I don t see," resumed the old lady, as Thankful 
 came hack to her low wicker chair opposite, with the re 
 covered wool, " I don t see what you can find worth 
 while in a piece of work like that ! " 
 
 There was really no manner of relation between the 
 two sentences, save consecutiveuess and the conjunctive 
 particle, and perhaps the mood which ran along in unity 
 under either subject. The little word " and " very often 
 serves simply in such signification. 
 
 " I m not doing much of it," replied Thankful cheerily, 
 tackling the last and least complicated proposition. " It s 
 Mrs. Rolson s album sofa-cover ; this crocus patch is all of 
 my share." 
 
 And she held up a lovely lozenge of tender green, with 
 tall blade leaves of darker shade, conventionally outlined, 
 and slender stalks with yellow cup corollas thrown across 
 it.
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 43 
 
 " It s a nice way to get work and worsteds out of other 
 people," said Miss Peniworth. " It s all of a piece with 
 weddings and silver weddings, and birthday At-Homes, 
 and such trash. I suppose it will come to living alto 
 gether by a contribution box, one of these days." 
 
 " Not one of these days, Aunt Salva, I guess. One of 
 the days of the kingdom of heaven, maybe." 
 
 " Kingdom of laziness, I should say ! " 
 
 " When everybody would be busy doing something for 
 somebody else ! " 
 
 " Why don t you go to Europe with the Overoffens ? " 
 
 " I don t feel prepared to take in Europe yet." 
 
 " Or spend the winter in Washington, then ? I know 
 Mrs. Colonel Stalworth wants you." 
 
 " I don t care enough for the present chapter of United 
 States history. I d rather review or skip." 
 
 " Humph ! Well, stop in New York with me." 
 
 Thankful laid her work in her lap, and looked across at 
 Miss Peniworth with the most enchanting frankness. 
 
 " We should quarrel in a week, and I should hate to do 
 that with you." 
 
 "With me? Or with what" Miss Peniworth 
 dropped her voice and stopped, ashamed. She jerked 
 her head aside, but her eyes flashed keenly and covertly 
 at Thankful athwart that motion. 
 
 " With you, Aunt Salva, and what you Ve got, but 
 won t own up to," the girl boldly answered to her mean 
 ing with as quick a flash " a real good heart, under 
 neath all your terribleness." 
 
 "P-t-z!" ejaculated Miss Peniworth, shrugging her 
 shoulders in fit gesture for the catlike utterance. But it 
 was all in sound and gesture. She could not get the 
 sputter into her face over which an involuntary relaxation 
 shimmered.
 
 44 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 "It only shows," she resumed presently, "that your 
 grandmother knew what she was about when she made 
 your coming of age to be when you was four times seven 
 instead of three. That was a clear sug-gacity ! " 
 
 Tense, construction, and pronunciation sometimes 
 yielded to Aunt Salva s intensity when uttering herself 
 upon subjects that lay close to her convictions. 
 
 "I m quite satisfied," returned Thankful. "Grand 
 mamma ordered me a sufficient allowance, and I may use 
 it wherever I please." 
 
 " Put it into the family sieve at Broadtop ! and take 
 out a little bread and butter that you 11 have to eat 
 amongst a troop of slopping children with nursery discipline 
 going on over the teacups ! Well, I suppose you think 
 you re sharp, but when it gets too much for you, or your 
 pocket, maybe you 11 be happy to come over to me." 
 
 " Auntie Salvie, they re as proud at Broadtop as you 
 are ! And that s just why you can t understand each 
 other. And if I m sharp, or a little bit kin-and-kind also, 
 it only shows " and a touch of mimicry pointed her 
 speech without malice " that I ve got just two or three 
 things by inheritance besides my money. And the little 
 Frosts are lovely. Only Laura has too much to do with 
 the blessed crowd. And I want to live in a home." 
 
 " Girls are always in a hurry for a home. There s 
 the usual way to get it, I suppose ; to say nothing of its 
 being all ready made for you here, if you chose to appre 
 ciate it." 
 
 Thankful jumped up rather suddenly, and went to look 
 nearer at something which she had been partly watching 
 while the talk had gone on. 
 
 As she does so, let me explain as I must do some 
 where with all the conciseness possible, the position and 
 relation of affairs obscurely indicated in the current con 
 versation.
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 45 
 
 Thankful Holme had been an orphan for five years, 
 living here in a pleasant old country house with her grand 
 mamma Peniworth. By three successive marriages, in 
 the third of which was no survivor of the first, herself 
 and two much older step-sisters, hoth now some time mar 
 ried, had been left with no real blood-tie between them, 
 save a distant-cousinship, the father of Charlotte and 
 Laura Peniworth having been a half - nephew of Aunt 
 Salva s, and the second husband of his widow having be 
 come in his turn a widower, and then married old Madam 
 Peniworth s daughter, Thankful s mother. 
 
 There was no love lost, as people bitterly say, between 
 the old Peniworths and the " Robert Peniworth " branch ; 
 and nothing had won upon the prejudice in the case of 
 the young Peniworth sisters, who Laura especially 
 had fallen under ban and displeasure by many a childish, 
 and even maturer, showing of dislike and a ready pug 
 nacity, when pressed by interference or authority. 
 
 " You are paring those apples too thick," Aunt Salva 
 had said to her one day when she was seven years old. 
 It was in the Robert Peniworth dining-room, and Miss 
 Salva was only a morning visitor. 
 
 " I m paring them for my mother," the little girl had 
 replied, letting fall, as she spoke, a strip, or almost slice, 
 of particularly fleshy rind. 
 
 " I should quite suppose so," sniffed Miss Salva coolly, 
 and the child had understood, and her eyes had blazed. 
 
 In these later days, the very last time Miss Salva had 
 made one of her duty-and-decency appearances at Broad- 
 top (for the Peniworths might not lose love, yet neither 
 would they lose dignity by manifest family splinterings), 
 she admonished Laura that she was cutting some cloth 
 to less advantage than might be possible by doubling and 
 piecing, upon which the young matron had run her scis-
 
 46 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 sors rapidly through with a most capable and satisfied air, 
 vouchsafing no notice. 
 
 " I ivonder at you ! " Aunt Salva cried, with indignation 
 and affront. 
 
 " Now, Auntie Sal ! " said Mrs. Laura, holding her 
 shining steels apart in air as dripping from the slaughter, 
 and looking straight in Miss Peniworth s face with ex 
 asperating imperturbability, " suppose you just wonder, 
 please, and I 11 cut ? " 
 
 And after that Miss Peniworth had not gone to Broad- 
 top for now more than a year. So that matters were not 
 smoothing out at all in the roughened relationship. 
 
 One thing more needs to be stated. At the marriage 
 of each grand-niece, Miss Peniworth had given pride and 
 conscience " a cold potato and let them go," by present 
 ing the bride with three thousand-dollar bonds of the 
 Liberty Loan and Trust Company, with the distinct dec 
 laration that it was all either was to expect, and the 
 prophecy that it would n t last longer than till the wedding 
 gowns were out of fashion. The old lady was known to 
 keep a careful watch, through her Boston banker, upon 
 all the sales of the company s bonds, and to have repeat 
 edly changed other stocks into investments therein, " be 
 cause there was nothing better," she said ; but Stewart 
 and Laura Frost believed she would put her last shilling 
 into L. L. and T., rather than miss the chance of com 
 ing across numbers 149-154 inclusive of 1888, when any 
 of them should be in transition from " those girls " un 
 thrifty fingers. 
 
 Miss Salva lived in New York in an elegant small 
 house on Thirty-first street, with a housekeeper-compan 
 ion, a cook, and a man servant. She had one eye on 
 Laura at Broadtop, and the other on Charlotte at Brook 
 lyn, " for satisfaction," if not for aid and comfort; and
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 47 
 
 she thought now to hold some rein of management in 
 Thankful s affairs, although a queer surprise befell her 
 here at times. 
 
 The young lady did not offensively "take the bits be 
 tween her teeth," but she did not always seem to have 
 them in her mouth. Aunt Salva, as now, often pulled 
 upon something that neither resisted nor obeyed. That, 
 perhaps, was the difference between Holme and Peni- 
 worth. 
 
 Thankful was very fond of Laura, who had been a tall 
 girl at home during the early years of the little step-sister s 
 childhood, and had indulged and companionized her, and 
 had told her that they were " step-sisters " only because 
 it was such a long step between them over the twelve 
 birthdays. 
 
 So Thankful was quite resolved on spending this first 
 winter of her independence with the Stewart Frosts at 
 Broadtop, a pretty town in the hill country of northern 
 New Jersey. 
 
 At present we have left her bent upon some special in 
 vestigation which has drawn her off, for the second time, 
 from Miss Peniworth s argument. A large brown spider 
 had been busily hanging her evening web between the 
 swinging sprays and twisted stems of an old luxuriant 
 creeper and a pillar of the broad piazza. She had 
 dropped, huge and hairy, trailing her long threads and 
 swaying in the softly-moving wind, until she had caught 
 on this side and on that, making fast her mainstays ; then, 
 in a favoring puff, had stretched a horizontal, and built 
 more lines on that ; and now she was weaving and knot 
 ting, back and forth, round and round, closing in and up 
 to her focus, literally her hearthplace. 
 
 Thankful stood peering into the shadow among the 
 vine-twigs, and watched the last short parallels and joins,
 
 48 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 as the creature, shrunken with her long spinning, ran and 
 fastened them, and at last sat herself down, withered and 
 weary, at the solitary self-centre she had wrought around. 
 
 " Oh, wliat s the use ? " cried Thankful, which ejacu 
 lation Miss Salva naturally, though with some puzzled 
 effort, connected with what had been last spoken. 
 
 " Use ? Why, to be somewhere. To have things of 
 your own to yourself. That s a home." 
 
 " Well, she s got it. And it is n t a home after all. 
 It s all to herself. And she is n t much of anything as a 
 result. She was a good deal higger when she began. 
 And I believe they eat up their husbands, too some 
 sorts when they have any, don t they?" 
 
 " What on earth are you talking about, Thankful 
 Holme ? " 
 
 " Why, spiders, Aunt Salva. I would n t be a spider 
 for any consideration whatever. Just to spin and spin, 
 and double and twist and tie up, laying out lines for my 
 self, and then sit withered up in the middle of them. I 11 
 never have a spider home as long as I live ! " 
 
 Aunt Salva sat as mute as the spider. Perhaps the ap 
 plication reached farther and keener than pleased her, or 
 than Thankful at all meant, as was perfectly evident ; so 
 that there was nobody to be angry at. Maybe the thing 
 struck Thankful herself when it had been said ; for she 
 added with swift and slightly remote recurrence as she 
 came back to her chair once more : 
 
 " Besides, I ve fallen in love with Bobby, and must 
 cast in my lot with him now." 
 
 A minute after, with the curious appositeness that rules 
 in words and things illustrating and reflecting each other 
 in their befallings, the Bobby referred to projected him 
 self upon the scene, coming through the house from the 
 back, a small boy of six, with a large, glossy-brown bun
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 49 
 
 in one hand, and a pink-and-golden peach in the other, 
 with which he crossed the piazza into the shade of the 
 great Norway spruces close in front. 
 
 " Fenella gave them to me," he called, looking back 
 , when he had set himself in a needle-strewn nook like a 
 little image in a green shrine. " And she said I might eat 
 .my supper out of doors. And, Aunt Thankful," he went 
 on with solemn deliberation, " I ve come-cluded that I 
 don t want to go back to Broadtop right away presently. 
 I like that girl to distraction ! " 
 
 After Thankful s burst of laughter at the pat parody of 
 her own confession, he continued in precisely the same 
 manner as one interrupted inconsequently, but not so to 
 be discomposed : " Well, I do, and you too. I don t like 
 groaned-up folks usually. They re pretty always tired or 
 busy, or can t spare things, or they have a bone in their 
 foot. But you don t. And Fenella gives me buns ; and 
 when I have bread and butter, you always butter the 
 crusts." 
 
 " I guess if you re going to Broadtop or going to bring 
 Broadtop here, to butter crusts, you 11 have your hands 
 full and none too much butter ! " exclaimed Aunt 
 Salva as she gathered up her mended stockings and took 
 herself slowly away up the fine old staircase. 
 
 " The crusts are all you need take much pains to but 
 ter, it seems to me," said Thankful to herself and Bobby. 
 " It spreads down easy enough into the soft parts. And 
 yet there s where most people persist in just dabbing it 
 on." 
 
 k She s awfully groaned-up, is n t she," said Bobby 
 Frost, coining in at the door and tossing his old head 
 over his young shoulder towards the landing behind whose 
 balusters Miss Peniworth s silk skirts were grandly sweep 
 ing. 
 
 3
 
 50 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 That Bobby happened to be here at all, to be fallen in 
 love with and to have his crusts buttered, was due first to 
 whooping-cough, from which he was recovering, and to 
 complete which recovery his father had brought him to 
 Norchester on his own way, on business, to Boston ; leav 
 ing him with an Aunt Frost whose home was a mile away 
 toward Graveham from the Peniworth place. That he 
 should come to Thankful, though she earnestly entreated 
 it, had been quite out of the question with Mrs. Laura. 
 " To tumble in my children upon her the moment her 
 house becomes her own ! " she said indignantly. " That 
 would be quite too much that the Peniworth prophecies 
 might be fulfilled ! " But Thankful had got him for day 
 visits : and he had quite well learned his own way over 
 across by the lane and in at the back door, as he had come 
 at the present time, his trunk being to follow from Aunt 
 Frost s, and he to spend a final day or two here for Thank- 
 ful s " own better convenience," before she should take the 
 care of him home to Broadtop, as had been under some 
 protest conceded. 
 
 So, directly after Miss Salva s short stop at the " Ever 
 greens," on her autumn trip from Old Orchard to Prince 
 ton, on her return home to New York, and curiously co 
 incident with Bobby s sojourn the " Evergreens " was 
 shut up ; it was forbidden by the will to be " sold, let, 
 lent, or otherwise alienated or put to any use except that 
 of the occupancy of Thankful Holme and her proper and 
 natural household, should she elect to live there" (this 
 also had been a " suggacity " ) ; and Bobby and Aunt 
 Thankful made their rail and steamer trip to New York 
 and thence onward by morning train, an hour s distance 
 into New Jersey ; where, walking up from the little sta 
 tion in the hollow at which they alighted, they found them 
 selves at the door of a modest, olive-green house, with
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 51 
 
 mahogany-colored blinds and a red roof, upon " The 
 Slope " at Broad top. 
 
 Broadtop was divided by topography and social lines 
 into three parts, of successive rising order and impor 
 tance ; the " Plain," the " Slope," and the " Brim." With 
 in or behind the " Brim," an avenue skirting the edge of 
 Broadtop Hill, upon which the fine houses of the high- 
 privileged were built, commanding with cool, breezy supe 
 riority the level and lowly world below, made and main 
 tained that the Brim might have a "view" and a foun 
 dation, lay the sacredly environed and secluded " Round," 
 a kind of green park into which all the gardens of the 
 Brim opened, and so issued in a common pleasure-ground 
 for this literal upper circle of inhabitants. It was all as 
 definite and beautifully discrete as Dante s Paradise or 
 Swedenborg s Three Heavens. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Frost were on the ascending 
 middle line ; not very far up, but prettily terraced where 
 they stood : they might climb higher or slip downward by 
 some future change. Ethelind and Celia Frost, in their 
 early teens, were growing just old enough to begin to ap 
 preciate the palpable and impalpable facts of life which 
 these zones and selvedges signified ; the former wished 
 fervently, both openly and in secret, that they " belonged 
 up on the Brim," and the latter had experienced a wound 
 whose scar would remain a memory in the flesh long years 
 after the hurt had been healed and laughed at, when Livia 
 Sternhaugh had one day publicly pronounced her " only a 
 village girl ! " A week s excitement, half hilarity and 
 half discontent, resulted with them from every infrequent 
 afternoon ecstasy of lawn-tennis in the Round. They 
 had their lessons at home ; they had not been invited to 
 the governess-and-masters arrangement for the young 
 " round-heads," and the town school on the flat would not 
 do at all.
 
 52 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 At this moment they were away upon an errand in the 
 lower street. Mrs. Frost was busy with some matters 
 that had taken her to the topmost room in the house ; the 
 " middies," two boys nearly nine and eleven, were at 
 school, public instruction being well enough for them at 
 present ; the travelers had not been expected until a later 
 train, so that nobody happened to meet and welcome them 
 but two gray cats, sitting like the Northumberland lions, 
 one on each ramp of the doorstone, whom Bobby hailed 
 and introduced tumultuously as " One-ey " and " Two-ey." 
 
 " Forcause they are twins, and came here together," he 
 exclaimed. " There s another, that we had afterward. 
 She s Oddy-doddy, and she s yellow." 
 
 This was charming. Thankful felt already at home, 
 and that home had a distinctive character. 
 
 Yet when the door was opened she had time to notice, 
 while Laura was hastening down at the shout of her boy, 
 that hall and stair carpets were dim and shabby with the 
 tread of so many incessant young feet, and that there was 
 a certain discouraged expression in the trail of a pre-aes- 
 thetic table cover, and the irregular gathering of small 
 inevitables upon a crowded mantel in the open dining- 
 room. 
 
 On Laura s part, after the first warm embrace and eager 
 utterance of pleasure, her glance ran rapidly from its 
 scanning of the pretty, blooming face, over the girl s fault 
 less equipment, with the last fresh touch of perfect " style " 
 upon it, from the neat little poke of the picturesque but 
 modest bonnet-brim, down along double-buttoned, jaunty- 
 pocketed jacket of soft, beautiful, coarse and costly wool- 
 stuff, to scarfed and kilted skirt of camel s hair, with 
 chatelaine-bag of silken plush, girdled aslant, ending with 
 the " eight-dollar-if-eighty-cents " boots, all of which Laura 
 instinctively inventoried, not with the pomp and vanity
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 53 
 
 side of her, but with the mother-keenness that joined in 
 voluntarily the thought of " her girls," and the sight of 
 things so altogether nice and so altogether unattainable. 
 
 But we must let these first glances represent much sub 
 sequent insight and comparison, and must plunge more 
 abruptly and disconnectedly " in medias res ; " picking 
 up our crusts here and there, instead of regularly slicing 
 the loaf, if we are to butter them, as suitably proposed in 
 a few sketchy chapters. 
 
 It might not have been very different with Thankful 
 and her early days at Broadtop, had nothing been said or 
 illustrated by " buttered crusts." It was her nature to 
 smooth and appetize things, and to begin with the diffi 
 culties, seizing them with quick and valorous apprehen 
 sion, letting the easy spots take care of themselves ; but to 
 any such fitness almost always comes a word spoken 
 plainly into the life as errand or message, henceforth to 
 make conscious root and motive in it, and order work with 
 purpose. " Buttered Crusts " had so come to Thankful, 
 and formulated a mere happy proneness to a principle. 
 
 She had come to her step-sister s home to make it the 
 pleasanter for her coming if she could ; to share and lift 
 a little the bothers and perplexities she knew of or could 
 guess, instead of going off to have just her own good time 
 with her own ; and the accidental sign had given her a 
 key and watchword. From her first entrance that Octo 
 ber morning she kept an outlook for bits of crusts to but 
 ter, as if they had been so many four-leaved clovers that 
 it meant good luck to find ; and with every one she found 
 came indeed some scrap of luck or easement to the house 
 hold, sometimes directly recognized and sometimes not ; 
 but what mattered it which, so long as the good taste got 
 into things and the family fare was made comfortable to 
 the family palate ?
 
 54 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " If we get over Sunday and Monday without notice of 
 intent to quit, we can breathe the rest of the week," said 
 Mrs. Laura as the housework adjutant-general departed 
 one morning, with her orders for the wash-day lunch, and 
 a handful of overlooked small wear of the children s. 
 " We just weathered it this time." 
 
 " I think it s the breakfasts," said Thankful. " Thun 
 der in the morning, sailors take warning. And the thun 
 der comes early, I ve noticed, if at all." 
 
 " We must have breakfasts, nevertheless." 
 
 Another weather proverb occurred to Thankful which 
 she did not quote : " Evening gray and morning red, etc." 
 The signs, or the gathering, began, she thought, over 
 night. 
 
 So the next Sunday morning when Runy in big hat and 
 feather came down before the family to go to early mass, 
 her eyelids lifted to a parallel with the high tilt of the hat 
 brim at sight of the long dining-room table usually a 
 litter of evening and weekly papers, children s games and 
 school-books, maybe a stray hat or handkerchief or two, 
 possibly an emptied milk glass and a plate of biscuit 
 crumbs or fruit parings, with the large lamp awaiting re 
 moval and replenishing in the midst of all, and a huddle 
 of chairs pushed about at various angles of relinquish- 
 ment around it nicely spread for the morning meal, 
 complete to the salts and cruet-stand, with the white hen 
 waiting for her eggs at the corner, and the water pitcher 
 on its green tray opposite. 
 
 And the same thing happened on the Monday also. 
 
 " Bless her kind soul, and it s I that 11 say a prayer for 
 it ! " was Runy s Sunday exclamation, remembering Thank 
 ful with her writing materials the last in the room when 
 she herself went up through it the night before. And for 
 the Monday s breakfast she just stopped in her first sudsing
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 55 
 
 to " bobble up " some Graham griddle-batter for the cakes 
 " Miss Thankful " liked. 
 
 "I was up late with my letters," Thankful explained to 
 her effusion afterward, " and I happened to think of it. 
 It s so much better to have things ready over night for a 
 busy morning. I d bring up my coal and kindlings, be 
 sides, if I were you, Runy." 
 
 And between the two there went on weeks of Sundays 
 and Mondays, when there were neither lowering sunsets 
 nor lurid dawns. 
 
 " I never can persuade that child to go of an errand," 
 said Laura another day in despair. "He s ready enough 
 with anything but a set message, and he is n t shy of visit 
 ing, but to go and say ten words and come away again 
 one might as well ask him to go and have a tooth pulled. 
 I can t understand it." 
 
 Thankful interviewed Bobby afterward on her own ac 
 count. 
 
 " T ain t goin\" said the unwilling little Mercury, 
 "and t ain t say in ; but Aunt Thankye, how do 
 you" 
 
 "Well, how what?" 
 
 " It s easy enough to get into people s houses, you 
 know," he replied with a rush of candor, " but the thing 
 is, you see, how do you get out ? " 
 
 " Oh ! well, that s just the prettiest part of it, when 
 you once know how to do it right. But it takes a little 
 practice. Where s your hat ? " 
 
 " It s a great deal easier for a boy because of the hat," 
 resumed Thankful when that article had been put into 
 her hand. " Now look : You are Mrs. Snow. I am 
 Bobby Frost. Good-morning, Mrs. Snow." 
 
 She held the hat easily by the rim between thumbs and
 
 56 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 fingers, gently handling, but not fidgeting with it, and 
 looked straight at Mrs. Snow. 
 
 " Mamma sent me to say that you might keep the Club 
 books over her week this time, if you wish, for she is 
 very busy with a dressmaker, and making grape jelly, 
 and can t read more than the magazines. (Now it s your 
 turn, Mrs. Snow. You always have half the wretched 
 ness, you know. I ve nothing to do but listen, and take 
 care of my hat.)" 
 
 Mrs. Snow stared ; Bobby Frost had never been sent 
 to her with half so long an agony before. Then she 
 laughed and ventured to answer, entering into the game. 
 
 " Tell your mamma I m very muthsh oblithzhed," she 
 said, mixing up her dignity with Bobby Frost s occasional 
 inimitable lisp. 
 
 Then Thankful turned toward the door. (" Mrs. Snow 
 ought to come with me and show me out ") she parenthe 
 sized, (" but if she does n t, it s no matter. I ve only 
 got one thing more to say, and one thing more to do with 
 my hat, and it s over.)" 
 
 She put one hand on the door-latch, raised the hat with 
 the other by a truly gentlemanly lift of the elbow, letting 
 the brim incline lightly toward her right ear, said " Good 
 morning, Mrs. Snow," and disappeared. 
 
 " Oh, but Aunt Thankye," called out Bobby into the 
 entry, " she does very often say more things, and tells me 
 it s a pleasant day, and I m a nice boy, and can t I stay 
 longer. And then " 
 
 " Well, why did n t you say them ? " asked Aunt 
 Thankye, coming back. " You were Mrs. Snow. I 11 
 begin again if you want to. But it s only to answer, 
 Yes, ma am, or Thank you, or Not now, I thank 
 you, and go, just the same, whenever she stops. She 11 
 do that by the time you re at the door. Two good-morn-
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 57 
 
 ings, your message, your hat, and the door, are all you ve 
 got to think of. The rest is her business." 
 
 And the drill was repeated with variations and laughter, 
 and exchange of parts, until Bobby rushed away to his 
 mother, shouting ecstatically, " I 11 go all your messithzhes 
 now, mamma. Ain t you got any ready ? I know every 
 bit how now ; and Aunt Thankye has put a new ribbon 
 on my hat, and she says that when you fix em right, all 
 the hard things are thzhest the comforblest ! " 
 
 After this, Bobby made a pride and practice of con 
 ning his mother s errands, and rehearsing them to Aunt 
 Thankful, with something of the hat drill, on every oc 
 casion ; his trial had become his diversion ; it was a bit 
 of amateur theatricals, and a development of decided tal 
 ent ; mamma was no longer troubled to put everything 
 " in a note," because he " could n t pothsibly say it all 
 right," and the only contretemps which ever happened 
 was when one day the Mrs. Snow of the occasion, find 
 ing some little difficulty of her own in answering as di 
 rectly and positively as she felt was proper, rather mixed 
 up her part of the play and came to a doubtful halt, so 
 that Bobby hardly knew whether or not he had got it all, 
 or his regular cue for beginning to depart ; and the pause 
 continuing, he looked up with a puzzled remonstrance, 
 and gently whispered, " Ain t you goin to finish your 
 half of the wrethshedness ? " 
 
 "You ve taken one gray hair out of my head! " said 
 Mrs. Laura to her step-sister. 
 
 Most trivial of crusts ; yet small, hard corners in the 
 daily bread. Lightest of frets and strains, yet stealing 
 some bright color, as from one hair at a time, out of 
 mother-life and strength. 
 
 Thankful was no all-or-nothing errand-worker ; she was 
 quite willing to begin and persevere with bits and edges.
 
 58 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 II. 
 
 BITS AND EDGES. 
 
 THE long walk would be nothing were there no peb 
 ble in the shoe. "When great cares worried Airs. Laura, 
 it was not themselves so much as the trifles hindering her 
 grappling with them, that upset her patience. A ragged 
 corner to her tablecloth, a child s hat lost, a little dust 
 overlooked or waiting the brush, would make the world 
 weary to her, more than comparing the butcher s bill with 
 the balance in her cash box, or facing the Wednesday 
 clothes-sorting or the Friday sweep. It was so even in 
 her dealings with her children. If they would have kept 
 always fresh and comfortable to look upon, she could have 
 met with less annoyance their vicissitudes of temper, their 
 interruptions, their little disobediences. 
 
 " I could bear with Bobby better if it was n t for his 
 buttons," was her impetuous utterance one wild day of 
 nursery cyclones, and the alliteration in trochaics had 
 passed into the family proverbial philosophy. 
 
 Thankful set herself to remedy the buttons. If Mis 
 tress Peggoty, of immortal memory, had to sacrifice her 
 buttons to her emotions, how was a boy of six, with the 
 impulse and activity of growing man-force within him, 
 with steel-spring limbs, and india-rubber muscles to give 
 it play, to keep small trousers and shirt-waists together ? 
 Bobby Frost was always presenting himself to his mother 
 in a solution of continuity. Thankful invented the simple 
 expedient of strong, close, elastic loops under the trouser- 
 bands, instead of button-holes. Bobby was thenceforth 
 clothed, and Mrs. Laura in her right mind. 
 
 Likewise with chance disorders about the house. She 
 forestalled the nettle-fret of these by early morning raids,
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 59 
 
 into which she gradually drew the elder girls ; for she 
 would by no means take altogether upon herself that 
 which it was their natural duty to do. " Come, girls ! " 
 she would say, after breakfast, and that meant what Eth- 
 elind called " ordering out the special police," who from 
 room to room cleared away rapidly every little eyesore 
 and fidget, so that all the domestic thoroughfares were 
 straightened and opened up for mamma s ten o clock pa 
 rade. 
 
 For a while the unplaceable matter, which is rubbish 
 as " matter out of place is dirt " was the bore within 
 the bother ; odds and ends of work or play which might 
 perhaps be finally disposed of, but might be wanted again ; 
 especially scraps of Mr. Frost s property, or little calcu 
 lations or memoranda which he would leave about, ex 
 pecting to find them in the same spot after any interval. 
 An old letter, perhaps, on the top of the silver basket, 
 laid there on carrying up at night, that it might be re 
 membered ; the need for remembrance not occurring, 
 possibly, for several days. What to do with it meantime ? 
 And four children, with their pencils, paper, tools, play 
 things, treasures, old and new, brought forth, but seldom 
 carried back, often left a trail after them like that of a 
 small tornado. 
 
 Thankful founded two institutions ; a " hash-box," and 
 a capacious wall-pocket : the first for juvenile miscellanies, 
 the second sacred to the father of the family, wherein he 
 might depend on finding whatever he had left upon the 
 sands within the sweep of morning tidying-tide. These 
 things worked admirably ; life ebbed and flowed in small 
 details, like a summer sea. If it could only have been 
 the same with the anxieties and perplexities, which 
 Thankful would " fain, fain " have grappled with also ! 
 She could count seven family wants at this very moment.
 
 60 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 But she had to bide her time among the lesser comforts 
 she had created. 
 
 The Middies wanted to have a birthday party. They 
 would be nine and eleven years old on the ninth and 
 eleventh days of November. This coincidence of num 
 bers would never occur again. The tenth was their day 
 to celebrate, and should certainly be celebrated now. 
 Ethelind and Celia wanted to join a French conversation 
 class, and to have winter jerseys, one cardinal-red, the 
 other ocean-blue. Mrs. Frost wanted new carpeting for 
 her hall and stairs. Mr. Frost needed a new overcoat. 
 Bobby wanted vociferously a " bisuckle, or less a new 
 sled." The " mighty mite," or " Madge the midget," 
 wanted a plush coat and hood, and did n t care anything 
 about it. 
 
 Thankful turned things in her mind, as if they had 
 been her own puzzle. Which might, and in what way, be 
 managed ? Which achieved, would leave widest margin 
 for the rest ? It was a game at solitaire. 
 
 Most conspicuously and literally the carpet blocked the 
 way. It was a king-card topping the pile. It blocked 
 more than expenditure ; it hindered social welcome. It 
 discouraged house-ordering and easy adorning. What 
 good in crewel cat-o -nine-tails and fleur-de-lis, that only 
 mocked and flaunted the hole at the doorway ? Under 
 the mat, truly ; but how hateful was that ! 
 
 Thankful meditated ; then one morning she spoke. 
 
 " There s another old stair-carpet in the attic, Laura," 
 she said. 
 
 " Two of em," said Laura bitterly. " Each died its 
 own lingering death." 
 
 " I saw one with a crimson border." 
 
 " The other s brown. And the middles are both gone." 
 
 " And this is old-gold and olive, and this middle is
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 61 
 
 in decline. There s a dark olive-green drugget up there 
 not worn out." 
 
 "I know. Charlotte sent me that when they moved. 
 It was on her little library." 
 
 " I d throw away the middles, and take the borders ; 
 then I d cut the drugget into narrow strips. The colors 
 are all lovely with each other. I know a way with ma- 
 crame twine to make seams and edges ; I d put them 
 together ; I d paint a dark - green floor - border ; and I 
 would n t thank you for inlaid woods and Daghestan ! " 
 
 " I would you, though ! Thankye, you re a born con 
 triver ! " 
 
 " Non nascitur. Only a fit. I take one now and 
 again. It uses me up, though. Make the most of me 
 while the full strength s on. Let s go to work." 
 
 And up in the attic they did go to work ; Midget Madge 
 and Bobby blissful among forgotten and unknown treasures 
 a gracious rain hammering upon the skylights, and 
 Runy digging out tacks from the carpet below, fearless of 
 door-bells. When Stewart Frost came home that night, 
 and for several nights thereafter, he stepped in upon a 
 clean, bare floor which thrust unspoken misgivings upon 
 his mind as to how Frau Laura expected to cover it again ; 
 for he had quite agreed with her statement, that " when 
 that carpet was shaken it would shake into shoddy." 
 
 The third night a broad painted band of Venetian red 
 lay along the edges. And two or three more days went 
 on in a masonic mystery. 
 
 On the Saturday evening, under the clear light of a 
 high-raised double-burner, with an extra illumination at 
 the landing above, stretched beautiful completed pathways 
 in lines of old-gold and olive, dark-red and russet, myste 
 riously joined with ribs of strong, soft gray, upon dividing 
 stripes of deep, dull green. The ends were fastened down 
 by brass rings around bright-headed screws.
 
 62 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 61 New style," said Laura complacently. 
 
 " How much ? " inquired Stewart concisely. 
 
 " Let me see. Twine, paint, tacks, rings, screws 
 about two dollars and seventy-five cents." 
 
 " Carpet left out." 
 
 " Carpet-Hmfc brought out with flying colors ! Thank 
 Thankye. And to-morrow order your overcoat and draw 
 upon a saved-up balance in my bureau-drawer, that is n t 
 otherwise wanted." 
 
 That scored off two things, and literally paved the way 
 for the Middies party. But with this arose fresh diffi 
 culty supper favors. 
 
 " Everybody always has a basket full right after the ice 
 cream," said first Middy, laying down the law. 
 
 " Steamboats, and elephants, and locomotives, and cam 
 els, and wheelbarrows, and jackstraws, and" 
 
 " Fans," supplied Madge. 
 
 " O yes, p-f-ans ! " finished second Middy, with boy- 
 scorn that took two consonants. 
 
 "If your party depends on that," said Mrs. Laura 
 calmly, " I think it will have to wait a few years till 
 papa s ship comes in." 
 
 " I don t believe that ship has ever started yet, or ever 
 will get here ! " And " No more don t I ! " ejaculated 
 the two Middies in rapid order. 
 
 " Oh, I wish you would only " began Thankful. 
 
 " Don t wish, Thankye, for you know I won t," broke 
 in Laura, as quick of response as the boys. 
 
 " It is n t Christian," remonstrated Thankful. " It s just 
 what you d wish in my place." 
 
 And just what you would n t do in mine," retorted un 
 manageable Mrs. Laura. 
 
 "Well ! I see the beauty of first and last exchanging 
 places. When people try each other s predicaments they 11
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 63 
 
 learn just what they do want. It takes double reflections 
 mirrors set opposite to get the everlasting view. 
 Blessed are those that have n t looked in the glass and yet 
 have behaved themselves. Don t despair, boys ; there s 
 a way out through bushel basket-fulls of won ts and 
 can ts ! " 
 
 The next day she said meekly to Laura, " Will you give 
 me one dollar for the supper favors, to spend at discre 
 tion? " 
 
 And Laura quite gravely counted out three quarters, 
 two ten-cents, and a nickel from her small-change box. 
 
 " If you will please return memorandum of disburse 
 ments," she said. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; charging shopping commission ! " cried 
 Thankful jubilantly, for the birthday party was thus ad 
 mitted for granted. 
 
 " No supper favors, and nothing particular to do ! " ex 
 claimed Ethelind gloomily. " What is the use of asking 
 those boys from the Brim ? " 
 
 " To let them brim over," answered Thankful ; but 
 Ethelind was not so sure they would appreciate that. 
 
 Thankful took herself into council, with a scrap she had 
 cut from a newspaper column. 
 
 " Bubble parties all the rage in London oleate of 
 soda (whatever that is), and glycerine. First of all, 
 I 11 go to a chemist." 
 
 " Points and results " must be the motto in brief lim 
 its. 
 
 " Right after the ice-cream," on the evening of the 
 tenth the boys from the Slope having come in joyful 
 numbers, and some " real good fellows " even from the 
 Flat, while the half-dozen from the Brim came to see 
 what they would make of it, and additionally because they 
 were boys, after all, with like proclivities for ice-cream
 
 64 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 and cakes with the ordinary sort " Miss Thankye," as 
 they all fell into calling her, unfastened a quiver-shaped 
 straw basket that hung from the gasalier above the birth 
 day cakes with their garlands of nine and eleven stars 
 and began dispensing its rather curious contents. At the 
 same time, a large bowl was set at the end of the table, 
 which had been rapidly cleared, and along which Mrs. 
 Frost had thrown a double length of crimson blanket that 
 glowed rich and soft under the bright light. Thankful 
 meanwhile went round with the favors. These were to 
 each boy and girl a pipe prettily decorated by herself in 
 oil colors, and an accompanying little bottle of some thick- 
 ish, semitransparent fluid, the stopper daintily tied down 
 with a narrow ribbon of red, blue, or gold-color. 
 
 "Magic pipes and elixir of sunbeams," she exclaimed 
 as she went about, " to blow such bubbles as you never 
 heard of, and to carry home for blowing more." 
 
 Then there was an eager gathering round the big bowl, 
 and a blowing in turn of great, filmy, marvelously tena 
 cious globes, that swelled and thinned till countless glo 
 rious changes of crimson, rose, flame-color, primrose, blue, 
 pale-violet, were reflected in them, sweeping and blending 
 round their lovely curves as they dropped on the soft 
 woollen, or floated like a little universe of liquid planets 
 in the lighted space. And they rolled or wafted till the 
 room seemed full. They even piled one upon another. 
 The children caught them on their hands and blew them 
 off again ; they raced them ; they played fairy-tennis with 
 them ; and by and by came ringings at the door announc 
 ing carriages and servants, and word was brought in for 
 most reluctant departures, only comforted by the future 
 delight sealed up for them in Miss Thankful s cheap but 
 enchanting party-favors. 
 
 " Nothing particular to do ? " It had been more par-
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 65 
 
 ticular, more stunningly successful, than anything on rec 
 ord from Brim to Basin. 
 
 " Those Frosts know things, anyhow ! " was Kist Stern- 
 haugh s verdict as he went up the hill, and Win Trupeare 
 shouted back : 
 
 " You bet they do ! And how to pick out a fair sort of 
 fellows, too, here or there. It was just a first-rate crowd 
 and time ; and that Aunt Thankye is a queen of trumps, 
 and I say it ! " 
 
 Thankful rendered in her account to Laura in the morn 
 ing, with a charge of fifteen cents exceeded on the rib 
 bons. 
 
 The Mite was at her mightiest that next morning. Bub 
 bles, ice-cream, nine o clock, had keyed her up to concert- 
 pitch, and she would n t come down. Double elder sister 
 power failed to persuade her properly into her clothes. 
 The steel button-hook fell on her bare knee as Celia strug 
 gled with her boots. That closed the electric circuit. 
 There came shock and outcry. Thankful looked in from 
 her opposite room. 
 
 " She won t have her stockings strapped, and she wants 
 everything done wrong end foremost, as she has got out 
 of bed. Look at her hat ! " cried Celia. 
 
 Bare -legged and bare-shouldered, her little petticoats 
 hanging about her unfastened, Midget had set the gay- 
 lined hat, with its perk Alsatian bow turned round behind, 
 in a wild, determined slant over her uncombed curls. The 
 face beneath was full of naughty fun, dashed with cross 
 ness. 
 
 " My Oddy-doddy is crying for me," she said. " Out 
 in the yard. And they won t be quick at all." 
 
 " Boiling up with mischief, and crusty with contrari 
 ness, she is, the crater," said Ethelind, out of her towel. 
 
 " And they drop cold things on me," plained away the 
 Midget. " And they have gone down my stocking."
 
 66 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Which they would n t have done if the little straps 
 had been clasped," said Thankful, stooping down to the 
 work Celia had left in indignation. 
 
 " Or if she had n t jumped like a grasshopper, and stuck 
 her elbow into my eye," said injured Celia. 
 
 " Once there was a grasshopper," Thankful began at 
 random, catching at the word, and drawing up the stock 
 ing out of which she had fished the offending hook. 
 
 "Well?" encouraged Madge, suffering the strap to be 
 fastened, and magnanimously offering the other leg. 
 
 "And he was hopping gently along in the field under 
 a row of hedge. It had rained the night before ; little 
 drops were hanging, round and shiny, on the stems and 
 branches. One of them fell from the end of a twig 
 (here the hat was tossed off and the petticoat buttoned), 
 and caught on a spire of grass (sponge, Ethel !), and 
 bent it down (now towel and brush !) and so slid 
 right on to Mr. Grasshopper s knee, which was 
 kinked up behind him ; Chow ! says the grasshopper ; 
 and he frightened three ladybugs, and a spider, and a 
 long-legs, and gave a great jump, right over the 
 bushes (now the little gown !) into the next field, where 
 he had never been in all his life. And what do you think 
 he came down in ? People never know how that will be 
 when they cry out at little troubles, and jump without 
 looking. It was a miserable dirty yellow puddle. 
 And he did n t have time to say Chow ! It was too 
 serious to speak about this time. It took him all the 
 forenoon to get out again, and to dry himself on a clean 
 rock in the sun. What if the rocks and trees said Chow ! 
 and jumped up out of the ground and made a great 
 earthquake, when the rain came down on them ? Why, 
 if things did n t keep bravely and pleasantly in their 
 places, a little drop of water might upset the world ! 
 There ; now you re all ready do you see ? "
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 67 
 
 " Well, I did n t expect to be so good," piped the Midget, 
 apologetically. " Only, for I am, I guess I 11 go and find 
 my Oddy-docldy." 
 
 " That the tragedy of the unexpected has happened, 
 let us be content," remarked Thankful, getting up to go 
 also. 
 
 " Yes, till to-morrow morning," said Celia. "But 
 whoever s to invent grasshoppers, and crickets, and katy 
 dids, and kangaroos, to keep up with her jumps, is going 
 to have a lively time of it all except getting to break 
 fast themselves ! " 
 
 " Sufficient unto the day, " quoted Thankful, disap 
 pearing. 
 
 " Sufficient unto the Saturdays, anyway," suggested 
 Ethelind, significantly. 
 
 " Oh Ethel ! " wailed Celia. " My stocking-bag ! Unto 
 a solid week of Saturdays ! " 
 
 " Should n t have a stocking-bag," admonished Ethe 
 lind, severely wise. " What s the use of keeping miseries 
 stored up by the sackful ? " 
 
 " Oh, I know, you re always for grabbing things by the 
 throat, and making a deadly tussle, to have it over with. 
 But it is n t. It comes round every week." 
 
 " Why a tussle at all ? " sounded cheerily from Thank- 
 ful s side again. 
 
 " Oh Aunt Thankye ! I just do hate mending, of 
 course ! " To which Thankful quietly answered : 
 
 " So do I." 
 
 "Well, then?" triumphantly. 
 
 " In the abstract." 
 
 " Oh ! if it would only stay in the abstract, I would n t 
 bother with hating. It s always the other thing." 
 
 " And so," continued Thankful, " I always make the 
 concrete comfortable. Dainties se laissent manger. Mend-
 
 68 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ing is a thing to take a relish with. Bring yours to my 
 room to-day." 
 
 " May I come too ? With Ocldy-doddy ? " cried out 
 Madge, struggling up the stairs with the yellow cat in her 
 arms. 
 
 " Will you he concrete ? " Celia demanded awfully. 
 
 " Yes. Or I 11 see ahout it. What is con-treat ? " 
 
 " Sorry and ashamed : and bringing along your mend 
 ing," said Ethelind. 
 
 " I ve some mending for the Mite," said Thankful, in 
 a tone of promise. 
 
 " If your name had been Agamemnonia, we should 
 have called you Thankye all the same," said Ethelind. 
 " It s all you give a chance for." 
 
 " And Midget ! If you 11 come to see me all dressed 
 to-morrow morning, at one minute before eight, some 
 thing pretty will be just ready to happen. It won t hap 
 pen an instant after eight, remember." 
 
 I may put in here for brevity, that Thankful unpacked 
 that night a certain small, square box which she had not 
 opened since her arrival ; and that she took from it and 
 hung up in her room a beautiful Swiss cuckoo clock, whose 
 striking-weight she only put on in time for the little bird 
 to fly out and chirrup the hour at eight o clock ; and that 
 Madge scarcely ever failed thereafter to present herself 
 in breakfast trim in time to see and hear the lovely won 
 der which she was never weary of ; and that, above all, 
 Aunt Thankye told her that when she should be six years 
 old if the whole family would vote that she deserved 
 it she should have the clock for her own, in her own 
 little room. After which, at any threatened escapade or 
 perversity, it needed no more than to say " cuckoo! " to 
 bring the Midget to reason. 
 
 Madge s mending turned out to be the re-stringing of a
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 69 
 
 lovely lot of lava beads of every color blue, orange, 
 green, black, and white ; deep and pale reds and browns ; 
 soft buffs and grays. Ethel and Celia dropped them 
 through their fingers, and spread them about in the large 
 shallow box in which they were intrusted to Midget, with 
 delight. 
 
 " Here is a strong, slim needle, and here a fine silk 
 cord," said Thankful. " Now, as long as you keep them 
 in the box and on the string, you may work at them, 
 Mite. And you may place the colors as you please." 
 
 Celia had lugged in the stocking-bag, from which, like 
 threads from a snarl, she was wont to draw out and 
 pair as she could, upon emergency, such legs and feet as 
 showed least delapidation. " If I could only once see to 
 the bottom of this ! " she exclaimed. " But, oh, how be 
 witching ! " 
 
 The bewitching thing now was a darning - case that 
 Thankful was unrolling. Through stitched slips of silk- 
 lined kid ran smooth cut skeins of cottons and threads, 
 in various colors, as the hosiery of the present day de 
 mands. Across the top was a narrow cushion, upon which 
 bristled a bright rank of ready threaded needles, dropping 
 their deep, even fringe in stripes of white, gray, brown 
 and red. 
 
 " Use them up for me," Thankful said to the admiring 
 girls, pinning the pretty furnisher with two thumb-tacks 
 to the window-sill beside them. " I ve another just now, 
 with only black and gray. 
 
 " You see, I always thread a lot of needles all at once ; 
 the chief tiresomeness is the stopping to do that and let 
 ting go your stretcher in the middle of a darn. I just 
 stick up one and take down another. What do you use 
 for stretchers ? " 
 
 " Eggs. They re a nuisance. Toadstools are better."
 
 70 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Try these egg-cups. Hold by the stems, and darn 
 across the rims." 
 
 " What alleviations ! " ejaculated Ethelind. 
 
 " Oh, that is n t aU ! " said Thankful. She unfolded a 
 lap-table, set it up, put a book-easel upon it, and on that 
 opened " Lady Betty s Governess." 
 
 " We 11 have that," she said, " to wile the monotony. 
 With no needles to thread, we can read and darn, both 
 quite smoothly. And here are tJiese. Nobody can have 
 more than one after each pair or repair which must 
 take at least ten minutes. Mitey, you shall have one 
 after every thirty beads and no spill. Put a black bead 
 every tenth one." 
 
 " These " were delicious Huyler s chocolates simple 
 nonpareils for Mite ; the richer bonnes - bouches for her 
 elders. 
 
 " How utterly Three-jolly-fellowship-porterish ! " cried 
 Ethelind again. 
 
 The morning sped ; darning was " linked sweetness," 
 not seeming long drawn out ; Madge strung half her 
 beads, slid down along her cushion, and fell asleep to 
 the pleasant sound of the quaint sentences of the Cor 
 bet Chronicle ; and by the time it had come to where 
 Margaret Corbet was taken to task by the Lady Jemima, 
 and just as the clock struck eleven, Thankful and Ethe 
 lind had finished all of their own work that was at hand. 
 
 " Now we might help Celia," suggested Thankful. 
 
 " Or go for the oubliette," said Ethelind. 
 
 " The oubliette ? " queried Thankful, astonished. 
 
 "Yes. That s the family mending-basket. Mummer 
 has to keep things round in funerals." 
 
 " Funerals ! " 
 
 " That was Madge s idea when she first rode by a cem 
 etery and had the white stones explained to her. She
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 71 
 
 thought it would be a nicer way to keep them round in 
 pessorsions. I think the mending-baskets are a good 
 deal like it." 
 
 Celia really saw the bottom of her bag by one o clock ; 
 there was much brought back to light and usefulness from 
 Mummer s deep " oubliette ; " Midget had waked and 
 gone off with a handful of nonpareils to the Middies in 
 their tool-room ; and the Chronicle had got to the ghost 
 story of the Halting Knight in the long armor-gallery. 
 
 " Must we really stop ? I shall be miserable till I have 
 more miseries to assuage," said Ethelind. 
 
 "You may say assuage !" cried Celia. "It s these 
 cups that cheer. Why didn t we invent them when we 
 were cramping our fingers and bending our needles round 
 those wretched eggs ? Oh, dear ! I shall only have three 
 pairs of stockings next Saturday, unless I tear some 
 thing ! " 
 
 " We can borrow trouble any time," said Ethel. 
 "There s always this." And she took up the oubliette to 
 carry it away. 
 
 " And we can rip up old dresses to make over, and sew 
 all the buttons on all the boots ; and hem dish-towels ; and 
 make rags into holders ; and do all sorts of lovely hate 
 ful things," exulted Celia. 
 
 "And I have something else to propose when I have 
 asked your mother," said Thankful. 
 
 Mrs. Laura was asked, and reasoned into it ; then 
 Thankful said to the girls, " Would you like to earn the 
 money for the French conversations ? " 
 
 She had three summer dresses not made up pur 
 chases of the late season at the marking-down ; two lovely 
 linen lawns, one figured in black with tiny bows and 
 feathered arrows, the other with true-love knots as dainty ; 
 and a pale-gray nun s-veiling like a filmy cloud. These
 
 72 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 were to be simply fashioned by an easy pattern ; but they 
 were to have much delicate frilling and side plaiting. 
 Why pay a dressmaker ten dollars each, when here was a 
 pair of deft and ready hands for every one ? There fol 
 lowed delightful sewing hours for weeks, in Thankful s 
 pleasant room ; the conversation class began meantime, 
 and all three joined " two with their earnings, one with 
 her savings," Thankful said. Home practice came in with 
 the frills and hemmings ; and their readings of charming 
 old-time stories continued. They finished " Lady Betty s 
 Governess," followed it with " Lady Rosamond s Book," 
 and afterwards luxuriated through the inimitable " Old 
 Chelsea Bun-house," and the " Ladies of Bever Hollow." 
 
 Four of the seven family wants were met without sac 
 rifice, the other three Thankful had her own thoughts 
 about. 
 
 " You can t turn Santa Glaus from the house, any 
 how ! " she declared, in one of her little arguments with 
 Frau Laura. 
 
 " I don t know," answered that uncapitulating person ; 
 " if he should come with a packet too big for our chim- 
 ney." 
 
 " He does n t mind an extra up and down ; and where 
 there s a will there s a way, if it s through the roof," 
 said Thankful, walking off with the last word. 
 
 But before Christmas several extraordinary things hap 
 pened ; and all at once, as strange things do. 
 
 Miss Salva Peniworth came out from New York, brav 
 ing the icy ferry-passage, and spent a whole day at Broad- 
 top. To see Thankful, of course, Laura considered ; 
 Thankful had been several times to Thirty-first street, 
 dutifully. Not only so, however : she really and truly 
 liked Aunt Salva ; the real and true of her, which Miss 
 Peniworth hid away from herself. Not merely so, again :
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 73 
 
 she believed Aunt Salva held herself by great stress from 
 liking Laura ; testing her at a length that was exhausting 
 the life-chance for any yielding ; and that Laura might 
 have had some kindlier impulse toward Aunt Salva, but 
 that she was so bent on never lowering an eyelash in defer 
 ence, for fear of the motive that might be imputed. 
 
 Between these, Thankful s to-and-fros had to be most 
 nicely measured. Yet they measured themselves, without 
 policy, simply because she could convey no impression that 
 she had not within herself, and her thought and certainty 
 of each was so honestly of the best. This is the true and 
 only mediation. 
 
 Aunt Salva held her chin high, and sometimes sniffed, 
 and Laura would keep dignified silence, at any innocently 
 pleasant mentions relatively suggestive of desert or secret 
 appreciation. Laura never gave opening for such, but 
 with Aunt Salva, if Thankful volunteered nothing, there 
 was not wanting some little flick or nudge of query or re 
 mark. 
 
 " Of course you pay your board, and that must help," 
 Aunt Salva said. 
 
 " Five dollars a week. It is all they will touch. They 
 say it costs them no more." 
 
 " Humph ! " The sound was gruff ; but the gray eyes 
 twinkled, and the rough-set wrinkles relaxed. 
 
 " She visits on the Round ? " 
 
 " On the Brim at intervals. She returns civilities 
 at the front doors. She won t be intimate. The Round 
 is extreme privilege. She does n t go in and out and 
 across, though they have asked her. She says thank 
 you, and takes her own way, all the same." 
 
 " Of course they ask her. She is a Peniworth." 
 
 " She remembers that ; and also that she is Mrs. Stew 
 art Frost."
 
 74 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Stewart Frost is well enough ; but he 11 never fire the 
 East River. And I hate frowsiness, and I abominate ex 
 travagance, and I despise looking to other people. How 
 is a woman to shape her course ? " 
 
 "If you were at Broadtop oftener, you would see." 
 
 Aunt Salva came to Broadtop. Laura, though she pre 
 tended, even to herself, not to care, was glad of her neat, 
 bright entrance-way, neither frowsy nor extravagant, and 
 a debt to no one. People whose harsh counsel or criticism 
 we utterly repel, do nevertheless maintain strange pro 
 tested power over our self-judgments. Aunt Salva no 
 ticed and understood the pretty thrift the minute she set 
 her foot upon it ; she was good at expedients herself. 
 But she would not have spoken, to save her best china 
 dinner-service. 
 
 That same morning Laura had been anxiously ransack 
 ing boxes and drawers for a certain old document pres 
 ently wanted ; it concerned some wild land in Iowa, an 
 inheritance of Stewart Frost s, which the agent wrote 
 might now be sold. One must not buy a pig in a poke, 
 neither should one too readily part with property known 
 only to one s self by hearsay ; yet all essentials had better 
 be looked up. The important paper had failed to be found 
 in two preceding searches by Stewart ; neither had Laura 
 found it now. It was a worry, and it had put about the 
 regular day s routine. Upon such little conjunctures very 
 particular visits are apt to arrive. 
 
 But Laura gathered herself up ; she put by the search 
 and the thought of it, since it could not now be continued ; 
 she had that gift of self-transference which is a grand 
 thing to possess in this displaced interrupted formation 
 of affairs that we call life ; and it was presently quite as 
 if Aunt Salva s visit had been the preconcerted plan and 
 order of the day.
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 75 
 
 Laura was serenely satisfied with her house ; there was 
 not a new thing in it since Miss Peniworth came there 
 last ; but old things had been so furbished and turned 
 about that it had the aspect of a well-preserved person 
 ality ; a little different with time, but nothing really lost, 
 and all kept fresh with a certain adaptiveness which is the 
 secret of growing old with grace, either for furnishings 
 or faces. 
 
 The dinner was just as simple as it could be ; but a 
 juicy steak with boiled rice like a snow-heap, and cran 
 berry sauce, done precisely to the jelly turn, and shining 
 from the mould in splendid crimson smoothness, and yel 
 low sweet potatoes such as are fine and cheap in Jersey, 
 with a delicate squash pie for dessert ; Aunt Salva could 
 really decline nothing either from lack of relish, or from 
 sublime refusal to enjoy an extravagance. 
 
 And Thankful saw to it that the Middies had clean 
 hands ; and Midget was given the rice to help to, which 
 so put her on her dignity that she was sedate even to an 
 elderliness ; and but with the day s visit itself we have 
 really very little to do. 
 
 It was afterward that the thing happened which 
 changed the visit into an event, and the event into all that 
 came of it. 
 
 Thankful who had accompanied Aunt Salva to the 
 station and seen her safely seated in her return train at 
 four-fifteen, on her ai rival by which her own carriage was to 
 meet her at Christopher Street, had scarcely reached home 
 again after a stop at the library, and things had but just 
 quieted into evening comfort at the Frosts , when there 
 came up through the town a rush and horror of such news 
 as comes to our tea-tables almost daily from a distance 
 through the papers, but came now through Broadtop by 
 breathless word of mouth, and from within the very com-
 
 7G HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 pass of the " view " from the Brim windows. It was such 
 a very different thing. 
 
 It ran along the streets of the plain, making pale faces 
 as it went, and up the Slope, from dwelling to dwelling, 
 to the exempt and separate Round itself, that might not 
 ordinarily he so much as touched by little lower, local 
 ferments. 
 
 That four-fifteen train had come to grief, a mile above, 
 at Southdale Junction. A mishandled switch a few 
 freight-cars on a siding a run-off upon it ; one car 
 jammed up and splintered to pieces three or four thrown 
 off against a walled embankment. 
 
 Three persons killed, many grievously or fatally hurt. 
 The Broadtop passengers, mostly in the last, least injured 
 car, were sent back to their homes. Other sufferers were 
 following, Broadtop being the nearest refuge. Aunt Salva, 
 in less than two hours from her leave-taking, was carried 
 in again at the little olive-colored house on the Slope, with 
 a fractured leg, and a ragged flesh wound from some end 
 of broken iron. 
 
 That same night so things followed Stewart Frost 
 came down from New York to meet this dreadful sur 
 prise, heart-laden with serious ill news of his own. A 
 Boston man s failure had been announced ; large, scat 
 tered liabih ties assets nearly nothing ; and Stewart had 
 held a note of his, had got it discounted, and of course 
 indorsed it himself. It was for twenty -five hundred dollars, 
 payable at the North National Bank in Boston on the 
 twenty-third of the current month. 
 
 Here were real heavy pain and trouble. Laura s bonds 
 must go now ; and though the western land should be 
 sold, she could not buy them back again, with their seven 
 per cent, interest that had always paid the rent of the 
 home. Aunt Salva in the house too, at the very climax ;
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 11 
 
 helpless, obliged to be obliged to them ; that making it all 
 the more impossible for proud, help-scorning Laura to let 
 her know their strait. Laura and her husband would go 
 on caring for the old lady in hers, though it were with the 
 last dollar, and never let her dream the fact ; they would 
 do it with a stiff, cool quietness, lest warmth or kindliness 
 should be suspected of hope or satisfaction in the oppor 
 tunity ; and Miss Peniworth would take them at their self- 
 presentation, and chafe at every spoonful of broth or 
 gruel, and squirm in her bed at every footstep up and 
 doAvn in her service. 
 
 Why would not people understand each other ? And 
 why must everything happen in a heap ? 
 
 Bits and ederes ? But here was the whole loaf ! 
 
 III. 
 
 THE WHOLE LOAF. 
 
 " THERE are two blue boxes in the high wardrobe, 
 Thankye," said Mrs. Laura " lint and bandages ; an 
 inheritance from the war." 
 
 Thankful went to look for them, and brought back a 
 box of lint and a bundle of yellow papers. " Blue Bluff 
 Lands, Iowa," was written on the wrapper. " They were 
 in the bandage-box," she said. 
 
 In twenty years, things supposed all the while un 
 touched may easily by some chance have happened to be 
 shifted. " The strips got used probably," said Laura, 
 " and then these were put there." 
 
 " Was n t it just a Providence ? " she exclaimed to 
 Stewart, when she gave him the lost documents. Stew 
 art drew up his eyebrows. 
 
 " Funny notions you women have of Providence," he
 
 78 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 said. " An old woman s leg broken to say nothing of 
 all the rest of the maiming and murdering to bring one 
 old deed to light out of a lint box." 
 
 " I never said it ! " cried Frau Laura indignantly. 
 " But I do say that while anybody is about it, all sorts of 
 things are done by the way ; and that s the reason, per 
 haps, that it takes a woman to see a Providence." 
 
 " For all that, dearie, I m afraid this particular ar 
 rangement is too late for the twenty-third." 
 
 " As if Providence was n t arranging at both ends ! " 
 retorted Laura, whose little sermons were always of the 
 free-spoken, epigrammatic sort. " We 11 do our best, and 
 the Lord will do his best! " And with that word the 
 earnest tears stood in her eyes. Stewart kissed her, and 
 a touch of her faith passed into his heart, more live, per 
 haps, than if she had preached more solemnly. 
 
 Miss Salva sent for Miss Sluyterhand, the companion 
 housekeeper. This pacified her sense of undue obligation 
 somewhat ; she could pay Miss Sluyterhand s board, and 
 put aside those irksome services of her kin. But it made 
 no one else more comfortable. The waiting on Miss 
 Sluyterhand by no means passed into the acknowledged 
 account ; and that personage herself inwardly resented 
 the overthrow of certain little private plans and calcula 
 tions. The letter was already written which was to sum 
 mon her sister and niece to visit her in New York ; the 
 cook and the butler had had friendly hints of a possible 
 little vacation in their turn for these three were of the 
 wise in their generation in the making of friends of the 
 mammon of unrighteousness ; and now to be boxed up here 
 to nurse Miss Peniworth, " amongst forty children and a 
 girl of all work ! " it was a choking exasperation. Miss 
 Peniworth knew very well what her dependant s services 
 were worth ; that was why she employed them. She would
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 79 
 
 have no heart thrown in that could not be reckoned and 
 paid for ; she would have " no mixing up with her own." 
 Well, she had maintained her principle so far, but now 
 some other power and plan had interfered. And as Mrs. 
 Laura said, Providence does many things by the way. 
 
 Miss Salva often snubbed Miss Sluyterhand. That also 
 was tacitly in the bargain. 
 
 " You may go to walk, or to bed," she said to her one 
 afternoon. " I 11 have some of the children in. I sha n t 
 want my tonic and jelly till six o clock, and I want to be 
 amused." 
 
 Certainly Miss Sluyterhand was not amusing. But it 
 did not divert her to be told so, or to be contrasted dis 
 paragingly with Bobby Frost, who presently came in, as 
 to the presence of Old King Cole, with pipe and bowl, 
 which it had occurred to him might please Miss Peni- 
 worth. 
 
 " You see," he said to that groaned-up lady, whom now 
 that she was literally groaned-up, he commiserated 
 " you see, all these bubbles that stay round on the drug 
 get " and he dropped another shining sphere, to Aunt 
 Salva s real wonderment, among the rolling, glittering 
 crowd " are good things you go and do." He was re 
 producing a certain little lesson Aunt Thankful had read 
 to him, but Miss Peniworth could only guess at that. 
 " The water is just the pothsibility. There has to be 
 something that makes the water stick together tight. 
 That s when you say I will, real strong; put glythce- 
 rine in it. And then you blow ; " Bobby stopped to illus 
 trate with a green and golden ball ; " that s the breather- 
 life in it. And then " he rolled the beautiful thing 
 down before him, all throbbing with splendid hues " the 
 Lord puts the colors in, and makes it thshine ! " 
 
 " Where did you get that, and who told you to tell 
 me ? " demanded Miss Salva from her pillow.
 
 80 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Bobby looked up with eyes as pure and shining with 
 sweet color as his globes. 
 
 " Why, Aunt Thankye ! She knows lots. And nobody 
 told me. It isn t a methsizhe." But presently Bobby 
 took himself off, very much as if he had discharged his 
 errand, and left Aunt Salva with the bubbles shining on 
 the floor, and the " message " turning over in some won 
 derful new light within her mind. 
 
 Somehow, from pure pity, certainly from no instigation, 
 the youthful life of the house gathered around that bed of 
 imprisonment, and poured its best out for its soothing. 
 
 Ethelind read excellently ; Aunt Salva discovered it 
 from her rendering to her, at request, the columns of the 
 " New York Times." Afterward, as magnanimously suf 
 fering a kindness, the old lady had said, You might bring 
 a book, if you like." And Ethelind brought her favorite 
 " Lady Betty" and "Lady Rosamond." 
 
 " Are n t you afraid of the Lady Jemima and Sister 
 Catherine parts ? " asked Celia, outside the door one 
 morning. 
 
 " Why, no ! Aunt Salva is n t a religious ! " 
 
 " She preaches, though, and regulates. And she s got 
 a creed, a stiff one. A Peniworth is a Peniworth. 
 There s all sorts ; any kind of oughty is piousness ; and 
 she s very oughty." 
 
 " Any kind of naughty is wickedness ; and you re very 
 naughty," said Ethel with grim gravity. There was a 
 touch of Peniworth uncompromisingness about herself that 
 owned kindred with Aunt Salva. 
 
 It was Celia s proposition, however, on the Saturday, 
 that the "three jolly fellowships" should "sympose" in 
 Aunt Salva s room. So they came, Madge and Oddy- 
 doddy linked on as usual, the former with big ivory cro 
 chet-needle and rug-yarn, to which she had been pro-
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 81 
 
 motecl, and Ethel fetching the dear old " Neighbors ; " 
 for they were just discovering Miss Bremer and her 
 Swedeland home pictures out of their forty years anti 
 quity ; Miss Peniworth had never read them in her day, 
 simply because all the world went so ridiculously wild 
 over them. 
 
 " We re coming down upon you," said Ethelind ; " book, 
 bags, basket, bonbons, oubliette, and all." 
 
 " And Oddy-doddy," quoth Madge. " But you need to 
 be com-plete, you know." 
 
 " What ? " demanded the old lady with the broken leg. 
 
 " Oh, only to be sorry, and to bring your mending," 
 quoted the child in explanation, delivering a whole gospel 
 unawares. And Aunt Salva s great gray eyes followed her 
 and Oddy-doddy round the room in stern amaze. 
 
 Mrs. Laura looked vexed when she entered later with 
 the invalid s claret and biscuits. " I thought you knew 
 better ! " she said to Thankful. She was sure it would 
 seem to Aunt Salva like a premeditated show. But Aunt 
 Salva could see through things, both ways. 
 
 " You need n t worry ! " she said sharply to Laura. 
 " You re no goose, nor yet ostrich. I should n t suspect 
 you of eggs laid on top of the sand." 
 
 These two women shot very straight at one another, 
 without even training their guns. 
 
 As Christmas drew nearer, the Middies, and Bobby, 
 and Madge were strangely perplexed at the hushings-up 
 they got. It seemed as if Christmas were suddenly an 
 unutterable " bad word," and Santa Glaus a disreputable 
 person not to be alluded to. They had always had their 
 blessed little transparent mysteries, but the mysteries were 
 never before forbidden to be talked about ; indeed, the 
 ail-but tellings, and the elaborate hints, had heretofore 
 6
 
 82 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 been the most delightfully exciting part of it. Bobby and 
 Madge would whisper and consult in spite of hushings, on 
 their favorite confidential landing just outside the spare 
 chamber-door. 
 
 " Perhaps she won t hang up her stocking at all," said 
 Bobby. " If she does, I shall put in a pipe and a bottle. 
 They don t cothst muthsh." 
 
 " I d give her my Oddy-doddy," said Madge, " only 
 she s such a scratch-cat to people she don t know and 
 that don t know her." 
 
 " I should n t think a Chrithshmas thing would scrathsh 
 anybody," said Bobby. 
 
 " I guess you re thinking of Christian things ; and cats 
 ain t Christian, not even in stockings," said Madge reflec 
 tively, her peculiarly clear pronunciation contrasting with 
 Bobby s crushed digraphs. 
 
 " Hang up my stocking ! " the old lady was muttering, 
 as she overheard them. " I guess if I do it 11 only be 
 because there s no leg to put into it ! " But she fell to 
 thinking of Christmas and " Christian things " in an un 
 wonted manner, for all that. A little later, as she lay 
 silent, a queer, half - conscious smile played curiously 
 among the wrinkles that seemed to ripple in it across the 
 pale old face. 
 
 " It might scratch," she whispered. " People that she 
 don t know, and that don t know her." 
 
 The Midget s word came like a refrain to her ear, and 
 a moral to her meditation. It was very near to " people 
 that she ought to know, and that ought to know her." 
 
 Miss Peniworth lay there, I think, from day to day, 
 picking up the crumbs that fell from the children s table, 
 growing a little sorry, and doing some mending besides 
 the bone-mending that she had " brought with her." In 
 a way, therefore, to be more " complete " by Christmas 
 time.
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 83 
 
 Mrs. Laura came into her room one morning, and spoke 
 without preface. 
 
 " If you would n t mind. Aunt Salva," she said, " I should 
 much prefer to be without Miss Sluyterhand. She re 
 quires more consideration, and makes more difference in 
 the house than you do." 
 
 "All right," returned Aunt Salva. "Plainest said is 
 readiest read. Short metre s easy singing." And instead 
 of being annoyed, she actually looked with respect at 
 Madam Laura. Miss Sluyterhand was astounded within 
 half an hour at being told that she might return by next 
 train to Thirty-first street. " It don t take six sound 
 women to look after one smashed one," said Miss Peni- 
 worth. 
 
 " You might have counted them up before," returned 
 the companion. 
 
 " Did n t know they all counted, but they do," replied 
 Miss Peniworth. 
 
 " If she begins to realize her relations ! " said Miss 
 Sluyterhand to herself, and felt herself already counted 
 out, and that the next order might be back to Pekean- 
 sneke village where she came from. 
 
 And Christmas drew nearer and nearer ; and the 
 twenty-third must come before the twenty-fifth ; and the 
 papers closing the land sale had only been signed and 
 sent to Blue Bluff by the mail of the thirteenth, and there 
 was but just a chance of payment coming by the twenty- 
 second, when Stewart Frost must go to Boston. 
 
 " We won t sell your bonds, Laura," he said to his wife, 
 "but I m afraid they must be hypothecated ; and I don t 
 like to lay a finger on them. The Iowa money won t 
 quite cover, you see ; and then so many things might hap 
 pen to absorb some of it before redeeming the other. I 
 don t like it," he repeated slowly and strongly. And
 
 84 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Laura knew well that there were other tight pinches, and 
 that once in pledge she might easily have seen the last of 
 her nice little seven per cents. 
 
 The mails of the twenty-first brought nothing, either to 
 the New York or Broadtop address, from Blue Bluff. 
 The morning of the twenty-second broke clear and sharp, 
 with its tardy sunrise and a wind that streamed straight 
 from northern icebergs. Stewart Frost was to go by the 
 Fall River boat that night ; he left home with his wife s 
 bonds, duly transferred to himself, in his breast-pocket. 
 
 " I will telegraph you if anything comes to Leonard 
 street," he said, when he bade Laura good-bye. " Coast 
 down hill after me, Bobby, and report to mamma from 
 morning mail." 
 
 " Something might come here by the quarter-past two," 
 said Laura. 
 
 "No use," said Stewart. "Afternoon mail would be 
 gone, and night mail from here would n t overtake. I 
 shall be busy early to-morrow. You can t borrow money 
 in a minute, even on L. L. and T s." And so he went 
 away, leaving neither address nor instruction for anything 
 to follow. 
 
 Nevertheless, Bobby coasted downhill again to the post- 
 office at half-past two o clock, the women watching for his 
 return from an upper window. 
 
 " There he comes with his wrethshedness, " said 
 Thankful, spying the small figure first, tugging his sled 
 with one hand, and flourishing the other in the air, square 
 white corners showing from it above the grasp of the red 
 mitten. 
 
 " And now, what? He said it was no use." 
 
 " But it must be. It has got to be. I 11 go to New 
 York." 
 
 " Then, what ? And there s no train till four-fifteen."
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 85 
 
 " Then I 11 catch him at the boat. And there s a train 
 from Southdale at three-fifteen." 
 
 " You can t catch that." 
 
 " I can. Win Trupeare will drive me over." And 
 Thankful turned to a writing-table behind her and began 
 to scratch off one of her little double-and-twisted notes. 
 
 " Thanky ! " 
 
 " All right, quite welcome ! " 
 
 " Pshaw ! Nonsense, I mean ! You must n t. Ther 
 mometer down to two below, and going to tumble all 
 night." 
 
 " We shall too, and so will Stewart if this letter 
 does n t go." 
 
 " This letter hasn t come." But it did come in at that 
 minute. 
 
 " Will you go over to the Trupeare s with this, my 
 Scandinavian ? " 
 
 Bobby received the unknown term and the pat on the 
 shoulder as if they had been knighthood and the acco 
 lade. 
 
 " Course I will." And with a sniffle and a rub of the 
 mitten across eyes watery with the cold, he took the paper 
 quirl and stumped off once more. 
 
 " I can t ! " exclaimed Laura. 
 
 " I know it, so it is to be I," responded Thankful, pull 
 ing wraps out of the wardrobe. 
 
 " Let you ! " finished Laura. 
 
 " Nor hinder." 
 
 And now Thankful s arctic boots were on and the but 
 ton-hook flashing along their fastenings. 
 
 You 11 never find him in that crowd. You 11 barely 
 be on time." 
 
 " I 11 have half an hour. I 11 send a policeman on 
 board and I 11 watch the gangway."
 
 86 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " It will be pitch-dark, and no train home between five 
 and seven. You 11 freeze." 
 
 " No matter. I won t. Besides, there s always Thirty- 
 first street, and Miss Sluyterhand." But on the way to 
 Southdale, Thankful had time to consider that she would 
 by no means try Thirty-first street. She knew the " tricks 
 and the manners " there ; and she would neither use the 
 servants hospitality behind their mistress back and 
 Aunt Salva must not know nor go up town for the 
 chance of being locked out and still further belated. 
 " But Providence is at both ends, and at all crossings," 
 she said to herself. She was persuaded that Providence 
 had this matter in hand, and as one link had put this 
 letter into hers. 
 
 " Thanks, ever so much. Don t stop," she said to Win, 
 jumping out on the platform at Southdale. And as Win 
 had to meet his father by the three-thirty arrival at Broad- 
 top, he bade " Good-bye," then sprung to his seat, grabbed 
 his fur cap in salute, and shot away on swift runners over 
 the sharp, crusted snow. 
 
 Left alone, Thankful realized some eerieness in this 
 thing she had set about. The midwinter sun was low 
 down already. And the train from far up country 
 did not come to the junction till quite fifteen minutes be 
 hind time. 
 
 " I shall have fifteen minutes," she said to herself ; 
 but in a mental tone as if already, she began to say, 
 " Don t be a goose, Thankful ! " 
 
 Three minutes lost again at a turn-out, through being 
 off time. " Twelve minutes ! " Thankful told herself. 
 " I wonder if I am a goose ? " 
 
 On board the ferry-boat she sat under a lamp, watch 
 in hand, and came solemnly to the conclusion that she 
 was a goose a wild one and on a hopeless chase.
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 87 
 
 Ice at the starting-slip, ice hindering the paddles that 
 crushed their slow way across, ice at the landing in big, 
 loose blocks, delaying the chaining up. Only five minutes 
 left her when she hurried up the sideway, and out into 
 the stream and whirlpool of teams and jostling people. 
 
 " I can at least jump on board and go with him ! " she 
 thought desperately. " If only I can run over or through 
 this crowd that has no business ! " One always does feel 
 irrationally, that the rest of the crowd is intrusively su 
 perfluous. 
 
 She made the two squares distance somehow ; slipping, 
 stumbling, bewildered by lights and darkness, she hurried 
 down another sideway, ominously clear of passers. 
 
 Arrived at the open landing-doors, behold the gang 
 plank just flung aside a void beyond, with water heav 
 ing and plashing against the pier, not yet stilled from the 
 outgoing of the steamer. The Providence was it a sar 
 casm ? gone on its way, leaving her and her errand in the 
 lurch ! 
 
 One feels at such a time as if the world had slipped 
 from underfoot, taking away all purpose and connection 
 one had with it. For an instant, Thankful stood, stunned, 
 still ; then every faculty in her sprang up keen and swift 
 to the emergency. 
 
 There s another way to Boston, yet ! " she said, as if 
 Boston had been at best a distance of minutes, and it were 
 but a question of street-car or steam. " And it s so good 
 that Laura will settle me in her mind at Thirty-first 
 street ! Nobody to worry ; nobody to know. The train 
 is in at the Albany an hour, sometimes, before the other 
 from Fall River ; I 11 just go ! " 
 
 And she walked up Barclay street the loneliest, bravest 
 little woman afoot there or perhaps in all New York. 
 
 Up town by the Elevated Road. Now there would only
 
 88 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 be that stretch of Forty-second street to the Grand Central. 
 Yet " nobody tQ know " repeated itself with a thrill of 
 something that could just feel like if it were not fear, 
 as the car whirled on between the upper stories that gave 
 glimpses of all sorts of homes to her who was out of home 
 to-night ! As the passengers stamped in and out, shrug 
 ging themselves with cold, she felt drearily how she had 
 isolated herself, effaced her trail. Nobody to speak to ; 
 nobody to know anything of her. Would anybody find 
 out what had become of her, should accident or illness 
 befall her ? Her head was giddy with the painful brac 
 ing of the cold, and the rush of excited thought. 
 
 Still she did not waver from her resolve. It would be 
 cheerful in the great station ; there would be plenty of 
 people ladies among them going to Boston in the 
 train. Boston - ward was homeward. She should be 
 among familiar things in the morning ; she should find 
 Stewart ; then he would take care. She should return 
 so cosily with him. He would have had his money with 
 him his own that was buttoned safe in the breast of 
 her jacket, and would never have touched that little por 
 tion of his wife s. How glad his pride would be ! Oh, 
 yes, she would keep on ! 
 
 Along Forty-second street, in what seemed like night 
 time, though she knew it was not yet six o clock. There 
 was a train at nine, she thought. Three hours to wait ; 
 that was the hardest. And how bitter the night was grow 
 ing ! 
 
 Arrived at the station, she went to the time-table. No 
 train till half-past nine, and that she glanced down the 
 column only to Springfield ! The puttings off were 
 like a nightmare ! She looked again. A train at ten. 
 That was the Shore Line. It would not do ; it would 
 take her in at the Providence station. How "Provi-
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 89 
 
 dence " seemed to mock her all along ! Yet she said to 
 herself bravely and faithfully, " There s a plan across all 
 crosses. I must just keep on." 
 
 The through train by Springfield would leave at ten- 
 thirty. Four hours, and more ! She would spend half 
 the weary night before she could be on her way. All 
 this time to be thinking whether or not it were a wild- 
 goose chase a burning of the candle for a game not 
 vitally enough worth while. If she had known all before 
 hand, she might not have begun. But it had been meant 
 she should begin ! 
 
 She went to the office for " sleeper " tickets. A kind- 
 looking, fatherly old German occupied the bureau. " I 
 should like a whole section," she said to him. " I am 
 suddenly obliged to go alone." 
 
 " So ! " he said, looking gently earnestly at her above 
 his glasses. "Very veil; here it ees. Number ten; 
 lower berth vas taken, but I shall put him in t irteen. 
 Can I do more for you any vay ? " 
 
 " Unless you can manage neighbors for me," answered 
 Thankful, smiling gratefully. " I wish I were sure of 
 ladies near." 
 
 " See ! " said the ticket-seller, with still warming friend 
 liness, " here in eleven will be an old zhentleman and ees 
 vife ; nice people, I know dhem. And in number twelve 
 
 ah, number twelve is not engage. It will have to be 
 very crowded before I gif number twelve vidhout I chose 
 the people for you, young lady. I lief my own daughters 
 
 see?" 
 
 Thankful had put some biscuits in her bag, in case of 
 detention. She sat down to eat them now, and found 
 also a little paper of chocolates, bought in her shopping 
 two days before. She comforted herself with these, and 
 tried to feel composed, like a traveler on a planned, pro-
 
 90 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 vided journey. She would buy her ticket later among 
 regular comers. But people looked almost cruel to her, 
 passing to and fro in safe and happy escort ; and the long 
 clock-hand crept so unwillingly round the great dial that 
 seemed made to measure magnified hours. 
 
 Half-past six ; a long up-grade to seven ; down to the 
 half-hour again. Did it climb slower than it fell ? Two 
 more whole rounds after eight ; then, perhaps, the train 
 would be ready. 
 
 Twenty minutes to eight suddenly she stood up, 
 made one step forward. " Oh ! " 
 
 The sound slightly arrested the movement of a person 
 who had just entered ; a tall, high-bred looking man. He 
 looked round, and turned toward her. " Miss Holme ! " 
 he said, surprised. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Shatoraine ! " And then something came 
 over her that drew her back and up, in a proud, shy, re 
 ceding way. " I beg pardon," she said, very quietly. 
 
 " But why ? Is there anything you have just ar 
 rived, perhaps ? Is there anything that I can do ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, indeed. I spoke without thinking. I have 
 been waiting so long, and there was nobody I ever saw 
 before, till you came in. I was getting nervous, that was 
 all." 
 
 " Waiting? My dear Miss Holme, what is it? Have 
 you missed any one ? Are you all alone ? " 
 
 " Yes. But oh, it is all right ! I was too late to 
 meet my brother-in-law at the boat ; and now I am only 
 going by the Springfield train myself to catch him in the 
 morning." It seemed all at once quite simple again, and 
 as if she were restored to her place in the line of human 
 relation and event, since she had found a face and voice 
 she knew. " It is really nothing ; only I never was 
 quite so nearly astray before, and the time seemed so 
 long ! "
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 91 
 
 " Going ! By the night train ! " Mr. Shatoraine 
 looked but half comprehending, and wholly astonished. 
 
 " It may seem very strange to you," said Thankful, with 
 that receding air again. " But it is an errand. Most 
 strangeness is the not understanding people s errands, I 
 suppose." 
 
 This time Mr. Shatoraine begged pardon. 
 
 " I have some papers for him from home ; I came in 
 from Broadtop with them, and the boat had just gone ; we 
 had no address, and he would not look for them by mail ; 
 there s no other way and there is this ; so it can t be 
 really out of the way ! And Thankful smiled in a 
 bright, sure, true fashion. 
 
 "Of course not that," said Mr. Shatoraine hastily. 
 He spoke to the smile and the sweet, brave intent, though, 
 rather than to the fact. I mean, there s no reason ; 
 but the night will be tremendous. Is it only the pa 
 pers ? " he asked with a sudden inspiration. " I m going 
 myself, if you would trust me with them." In order of 
 phrasing, he spoke straight truth. " I m to meet my 
 mother directly in the train from New Haven. I must 
 see her home ; but if you would just tell me at once we 
 shall have ten minutes ; can t I do your errand for you ?" 
 
 Everything flashed together through Thankful s head. 
 
 Mrs. Shatoraine. proud, punctilious woman, how strange 
 all this would look to her, whose non-understanding last 
 year of a little strangeness had been the suspending of a 
 pleasant intimacy for Thankful, and had pulled the mus 
 cles of her own pride now, in meeting with the lady s 
 son ! She would not have Mrs. Shatoraine lifting her 
 eyebrows at her again and asking no explanation. And 
 if she were released from this journey that had grown 
 terrible to her ? Thirty -first street ? Miss Sluyterhand 
 might be at Pekeansneke : cook and butler anywhere. 
 Anyhow, it was hateful.
 
 92 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Ferry for Broadtop train at eight-thirty. Possible, cer 
 tainly ; but the great seething city to cross ; the dark places 
 near the piers ; the icy river, even the five minutes walk 
 at Broadtop from a ten-o clock arrival. Yet, oh, if she 
 could get home ! 
 
 Her eye fell on a messenger boy, a bright, capable, 
 honest-faced lad of fifteen, just reporting himself at the 
 office. 
 
 " I wonder if I could send myself home like a parcel ? " 
 she thought suddenly. 
 
 " Would you ? " she asked of Raynald Shatoraine, with 
 depths of thanks and obligation in the question. 
 
 " Most certainly, gladly and easily. Your brother-in- 
 
 lory _ __, 
 
 " Mr. Stewart Frost. You know him ? " 
 
 " Oh yes. He arrives by steamboat train ? And these 
 papers ? " 
 
 " Are important to him to-morrow. There will be at 
 least a half-hour between the two arrivals, likely more." 
 
 " And if we two men both reach Boston, they shall be 
 put into his hands as he leaves the cars. You could do no 
 more yourself. Depend upon me." 
 
 Thankful unclasped her sealskin jacket, and drew from 
 its inner pocket the Blue Bluff letter. " Only that," she 
 said. " But it will make a great difference to him." 
 
 " I can suppose so, since you would have undertaken 
 such an errand." And Raynald Shatoraine looked upon 
 Thankful s proud, shy, tremulous face, and measured in 
 his mind the courage and the kindness that must dwell 
 together with what he saw there, to have sent her with 
 this charge to-night. 
 
 " I did n t undertake it altogether ; it grew upon me ; 
 and grew rather grewsome at the last," she said, with the 
 tone relief makes laughing, out of almost tears.
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 93 
 
 "But now? How will you do?" Things began to 
 rush all at once through Raynald Shatoraine s head. 
 Could she wait ? Would his mother wait ? How could 
 he see her on her way home ? And he also shrunk 
 from that what would his mother say, or think, until it 
 all could be told as it deserved to be ? 
 
 " I will send myself home by a messenger boy ! " said 
 Thankful ; and she walked straight over to the office with 
 the word. Mr. Shatoraine stood by, a little apart, to see 
 what would come of it, and to judge for her ; to protect, 
 if need be. 
 
 " Can you send a messenger with a person, sir ? " asked 
 Thankful of the chief. 
 
 " Oh yes ; do it quite often. People miss their friends, 
 or get left ; can send you safely anywhere." 
 
 " But it is out of town ; I am going to Broadtop ; I 
 must take the ferry at eight-thirty for the train an hour 
 from the Jersey station. And I must have an escort all 
 the way home. There is a signal-train back through 
 Broadtop at ten-ten. There would be time for the mes 
 senger to take that." 
 
 " All right." The officer turned to his tables. " Two 
 dollars and forty cents. You pay your fares, he pays his ; 
 charge includes all. You take a certificate of delivery, 
 and sign when you reach home." With that he rapidly 
 made it out, calling at the same time to the handsome, 
 honest-faced boy in buttons. 
 
 " Stephen ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " 
 
 " You take this young lady elevated road to Barclay 
 Street Ferry train to Broadtop ; see her home ; come 
 back by ten-ten signal-train ; report here before twelve." 
 
 " All right, sir." 
 
 Mr. Shatoraine could scarcely consider, much less ex-
 
 94 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 postulate ; it was all wonderful ; unusual, but seemingly 
 as sure as telegraphing. He must meet his mother ; 
 Thankful must hasten on her way. She held out her hand 
 to him, said " I thank you," three syllables in which the 
 pronoun put intensification far beyond the meaning of the 
 ordinary two, to say nothing, as it deserves, of that merest 
 toss-off, the modern monosyllable ; then she added hur 
 riedly, " Oh, here is this ! " and transferred to him a 
 paper slip which he did not look at till afterward ; and 
 without further word was gone. 
 
 The slip was her ticket for section number ten. 
 
 Mr. Raynald Shatoraine found himself accompanied in 
 the long railway journey afterward with many freshened 
 and strengthened ideas. 
 
 " Quick, thorough, ready, true, brave ; full of service ! 
 That makes a woman indeed ! " was a kind of refrain to 
 his leisurely recollection of swift details. And on the re 
 turn trip, next night, with Stewart Frost for companion, 
 there were not wanting more details naturally drawn 
 forth ; nor more refrain, naturally, though silently repeat 
 ing and augmenting itself. 
 
 I must finish my crusts with three crisp scraps. 
 
 There were no delays in Thankful s homeward trip, be 
 yond the few minutes of the slower ferry passage. She 
 presented herself with Stephen Buttons at the door, just 
 as Mrs. Laura was peering forth anxiously, before locking 
 up. She signed the delivery ticket, gave Stephen a hand 
 some Christmas gratuity, and bade him good-night with 
 great kindliness. The interest she had formed for him by 
 the way might begin another little story ; and did, though 
 it remain here untold. 
 
 The adventure was too fine to be kept quite quiet, in 
 that household. It came to Aunt Salva s ears, alert, and
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 95 
 
 flexible like a cat s. Stewart s arrival on Christmas Eve 
 put an end to whatever little ambiguities had been fenced 
 with before. A man never keeps anything to himself, 
 which is why women have more secrets intrusted to them 
 than they can keep. 
 
 " Well, we re both /tome, and I m thankful ! " was his 
 blurting out of gratitude and all. Another man-fashion. 
 The grip of his fingers over his young sister-in-law s said 
 more. And then came questions, answers, a full recount. 
 
 " But how did you dare ? With the crowds in the 
 streets oh, Aunt Thankye ! " 
 
 " The crowd was the comfort. So many of them were 
 Christmas people. It was the safest time in the whole 
 year." 
 
 " And Providence ivas at both ends ; and in the middle, 
 at the Grand Central ! " confessed Stewart, with mischief 
 and earnest mixed. 
 
 On Christmas morning (scrap number two) the 
 stocking-jollity being kept as hushed as possible there 
 came an unexpected early summons from Aunt Salva. 
 She wanted " Laura and the girls." Thankful included 
 herself, unchallenged. 
 
 " It s a good day to settle things," said Aunt Salva, 
 bolstered well up in bed, and looking dignified. " I ve 
 been here, Laura, three weeks, and there will be three 
 more. There s my board and lodging." And she put a 
 package into Mrs. Laura s hand. That lady looked as 
 tonished and apprehensive. 
 
 u I think I must open it before I accept," she said ; and 
 Aunt Salva smiled grimly. 
 
 Laura unfastened a thick envelope, tied with pink tape. 
 She drew forth six familiar-looking folded sheets inscribed 
 in pairs, each two with a like name : " Laura Peniworth
 
 96 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Frost," " Ethelind Holme Frost," " Celia Charlotte Frost." 
 Each sheet a " Liberty Loan and Trust " bond for one 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 " Aunt Salva, this is insufferable ! " But the paused- 
 for word came forth with a most contradictory tremble. 
 
 " You can t help it Christmas Day ! " shouted Aunt 
 Salva. " And now, hear. I always speak the truth right 
 out when I see it to myself, or another. My tongue s 
 as rough inside my mouth as at the tip. I ve been a fool. 
 I ve been twenty years finding out that you was n t, Laura 
 Peniworth. You were right about the spider, and the 
 crusts, Thankful Holme. And you ve buttered the big 
 gest one in the basket, and that s me. Laura Peniworth, 
 do as you d be done by ; heap coals of fire ! " 
 
 But if there were any fieriness or coals coming, there 
 were clear, soft drops in Aunt Salva s splendid old gray 
 eyes, ready to put them out. 
 
 " Mother," said Raynald Shatoraine, four weeks later 
 (and this is scrap number three), "Miss Holme is 
 at Miss Salva Peniworth s ; won t you call ? " 
 
 Mr. Shatoraine had decided, during that night trip to 
 Boston, to withhold somewhat indefinitely its explanation 
 from his mother. But now he felt like bringing it about, 
 with proper preface. 
 
 " Why should I, my dear ? Our acquaintance had 
 dropped, I thought." 
 
 " You ought to pick it up again, as if you had dropped 
 a diamond. You have mistaken Thankful Holme." 
 
 "Not her ignorance, Raynald, if it were not rudeness, 
 or worse. A lady couldn t be ignorant like that." 
 
 " To ask you to excuse her from her engagement, be 
 cause her grandmother could not spare her, after all ? " 
 
 " When I sat in the carriage at the door, and she with
 
 BUTTERED CRUSTS. 97 
 
 hat and gloves on, at the last moment ! and then that she 
 should appear later, with those Heyripps ! And her man 
 ner with Arthur Sturgeon ! And his driving her home ! 
 You can t explain it, Raynald." 
 
 " No. But she could. You never asked her. She is 
 as proud as you." 
 
 " I am much the older." 
 
 " And can so be the more gracious." 
 
 " It is too slight a matter, and was so long ago. Why 
 do you care ? " 
 
 " When you are satisfied, I will tell you." 
 
 Mrs. Shatoraine did call in Thirty-first street. Thank 
 ful was a little high and straight with her. But the gra 
 cious lady took her way, now, with a true queenship. 
 
 " My dear, can you remember a small thing a long 
 while ? " 
 
 "Some small things, Mrs. Shatoraine." 
 
 " Why did you throw me over in our engagement for 
 the Hering s garden party, when I was in Norchester, 
 summer before last ? " 
 
 "It was grandmamma. One of her nerve attacks." 
 
 " Why did you come afterward with the Miss Hey 
 ripps ? " 
 
 " They came for me, and said that the Sturgeons had 
 got back, and would be there, and I must come," answered 
 Thankful sweetly, with gentle malice. 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " And then grandmamma would have it," continued 
 Thankful, still sweetly, without the malice. " She was 
 very anxious to hear from Mr. Arthur Sturgeon ; the 
 banker, you know." 
 
 " I know." 
 
 " She was worried about her O. P. and Q. stocks." 
 
 " And he returned with you ? " 
 7
 
 98 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Yes ; to see grandmamma. I only stayed long enough 
 to do my errand." 
 
 " I see. And people cannot always quite see through 
 the errands of other people." Which was precisely what 
 Thankful had told Raynald Shatoraine. 
 
 Mrs. Shatoraine kissed her, begged her to forgive an 
 old woman s touchy stupidity, and to come, in token, for 
 a day in Gramercy Park." 
 
 Meanwhile, being "satisfied," she heard the rest from 
 Raynald. 
 
 " She is a whole pearl, unset," said Mrs. Shatoraine. 
 
 When Thankful went back to Broadtop, Raynald Shat 
 oraine went with her and dined at the Frosts . 
 
 " There s one thing," said Stewart, that evening, when 
 the other had gone. " I hope you don t mean to be done 
 with us, sister-in-law ? You re welcome to my last crust, 
 I m sure ! " 
 
 " For the buttering, crafty man ! " put in his frau. 
 
 " Why not, blessed woman ? It s the woman-blessed 
 ness. Wherever she is, there 11 always be a thankful 
 home, at any rate ! " 
 
 " Yes. And there could n t be more, even though she 
 should be a castle-queen ! " 
 
 Which remote allusion I leave for girl-readers to apply 
 and translate.
 
 THE SOAP-BUBBLE QUESTION. 
 
 TWO OPEN LETTERS. 1 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 PINE POND, December 1, 1883. 
 MY DEAR AND VERITABLE THANKFUL HOLME : 
 
 Although I cannot claim your actual personal acquaint 
 ance having only held telephonic communication with 
 you when listening (as a reporter) for the transmissions 
 from Innerland I am venturing upon this direct appeal 
 in the confidence that one whom I have so closely ap 
 proached with a sympathy that has almost made us for 
 the time identical may suffer the liberty graciously, and 
 give me, if possible, some response. I do not even know 
 precisely how to address you ; as since I last hailed and 
 heard from you over the Innerland lines, it may easily 
 have happened that you should have changed both abiding 
 and name ; but I risk this through the official centre, 
 trusting that its call may find you by some tingle of the 
 wire not yet loosened or cast off, which holds between the 
 utterance of you there received, and your substantial 
 somewhereness, which I doubt not. 
 
 Will that do for regulation preamble, and may I rush at 
 once, now, to my purpose ? The fact is, dear Thankful, I 
 am in a scrape through you. I find myself involved in a 
 kind of " Hatchet" game, if you know what that is, and 
 obliged to turn to you for an answer to pass on. 
 
 " I have a hatchet." 
 
 1 Printed in " Wide Awake," in response, as apparent, to many 
 "notes and queries," elicited by " Buttered Crusts."
 
 100 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " A hatchet." 
 
 " Hatchet." " What ? " " What ? " " Hatchet," 
 " HATCHET ! " 
 
 " HATCHET ! " " What ? " " What ? " " WHAT ? " 
 " Hatchet" " Hatchet," " HATCHET," " HATCHET ! " 
 
 And so on, down and up the line, with the followings 
 of : " Where did you get it ? " " d you get it ? " " you 
 get it ? " " Did you buy it ? huy it ? buy it ? steal 
 it ? steal it ? " and the confusions and repetitions of 
 " Hatchet." " D d ye buy it ? steal it ? Sh-h ! Hatchet ! " 
 mingling and echoing like haunting cries and whispers of 
 some mocking taunt and imputation. With me it is 
 " Bubble ! " " Bubble ! " " D d y make it ? " " D d y 
 see it ? " " D d y MIX it ? " " What was it ? " " t was 
 it?" "WAS it?" "Bubble." "Bubble!" "Sh-h!" 
 "Psha!" " T wasn t!" 
 
 I feel indeed to have sought the bubble reputation, or 
 risked it, as in the cannon s mouth, or over dynamite. 
 To have started a bubble speculation, blown of air and 
 watered stock to tempt confiding people to their disap 
 pointment and demolition. On all sides the demand 
 comes back to me " What was it ? " " How do you 
 make it ? " " Will you tell me by return mail ? " " Soap- 
 bubbles : Buttered Crusts : Want some ! " WIDE AWAKE : 
 " Recipe " " recipe " " Recipe ! " 
 
 Even the unhappy editor is implored of ; and the WISE 
 BLACKBIRD a-perch behind the editor s shoulder. It is a 
 fresh case of 
 
 Old King Cole, 
 
 The jolly old soul, 
 (And a jolly old soul was he) 
 
 Who called for his pipe 
 
 And called for his bowl, 
 And called for his fiddlers three.
 
 THE SOAP-BUBBLE QUESTION. 101 
 
 While, as in the picture in Baby s Opera, the pipe and 
 the bowl and the fiddlers are come, and they wait for 
 their orders then and there ; but the little gray owl sits 
 solemn and dumb, and blinks from the back of his Majes 
 ty s chair. 
 
 They know nothing about it ; so they turn upon me ; 
 and I have no recourse but to pass the query back and up 
 to you, through the looking-glass, or what way soever you 
 and your bubbles may indeed be got at. 
 
 I have not come to you until I have tried to do my best 
 without you. Of course I could not get truly pipes and 
 truly soap-suds through that shadowy transmitter ; I ar 
 rived at no practical knowledge ; I could only tell again 
 what I supposed myself to have heard accurately. Maybe 
 there was some mistake running wild along the wires. 
 Or some cross-contact mixing up exclamations over, say, 
 a sky-glow, a stained-glass window, a new set of finger- 
 bowls, iridescent or of crackled sunshine with those at 
 the Broadtop supper-table. 
 
 I was sure of two things, anyhow : of that newspaper 
 paragraph which indeed was the only ingredient I had 
 to begin with and of a lovely experiment I had seen 
 with my own eyes years ago, shown by the late Professor 
 "William B. Rogers in a friend s parlor ; where he blew a 
 bubble which he rested in a little silver frame and set up 
 before us, that we might watch the coming and changing 
 and vanishing of the crimson and golden and violet hues, 
 according to the fixed and mighty laws that rule the rush 
 ing splendors of the comet, or lend their tender touch to 
 the thinning out of faint, impalpable light-waves spelling 
 the prism alphabet upon a little globe of watery film. 
 
 I knew I was right about that ; that it stayed, and 
 stayed, and turned from flame-color to amber-yellow, and 
 to green and blue and purple ; trailed over at last with a
 
 102 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 flickering breath of palest violet like the mere whisper of 
 a tint ! That we almost handled it, as we gathered about 
 it, and pointed out its wonders to each other, and asked 
 our teacher what it was made of besides light ! And I 
 know he told us that he had put glycerine into the mix 
 ture. 
 
 So, when that item came to my eyes about " London 
 bubble parties " " oleate of soda " (you know I did n t 
 tell a bit more than was told me, and that I discreetly sent 
 you to a chemist, and left the matter between you and 
 him, with the facilities you have in Innerland), I felt quite 
 authorized (and that is not a pun) to put my equal part 
 of imagination to my fact of newspaper scrap, add all that 
 you whispered to me, and leave the pleasure of investiga 
 tion to those who should " take stock " in my story. 
 
 Only, as I have told you, I was not to be let off so. 
 On the contrary, I was to be lettered. The mails began 
 to bring me catechetical inquiries ; in short, to bring me 
 to book. I was either to grovel down and " fess," like 
 Topsy, or to rise like Truthful James and explain. 
 
 And see how helpless I was ! Up here at Pine Pond 
 how I was to catch a chemist ? I did n t even have a 
 pipe. 
 
 In the palpitation of dismay upon receiving that first 
 politely worded 
 
 " If not too much trouble, dear Mrs. Whitelie, would 
 you please send me the exact proportions, etc.," which 
 threw my innocent story-teller s license in my face with 
 the look of a humbug, I rushed away half a mile in the 
 wind s eye, to a small grocery, and bought half a dozen 
 clay pipes ; thence straight out, the length of the village, 
 to the drug shop, hard by the desolate, sandy cemetery, 
 and asked the man if he knew of such a thing as " oleate 
 of soda." Of course he did n t ; I began to doubt if any-
 
 THE SOAP-BUBBLE QUESTION. 103 
 
 body did. But he said he was going to Old Knick 
 the city, I mean, in a day or two, and he would in 
 quire. Meantime, I rushed home again, bound to try 
 something. My credit was at stake. My draft upon 
 the Public Confidence Bank had come home protested 
 " no effects." I knew they had been trying, and 
 had n t got any. 
 
 I hoisted up Webster s Unabridged from the floor in 
 the window corner, where I had established my Shaker 
 chair with the Lexicon for a footstool ; looked up " oleate," 
 and received the information that it was " a compound of 
 oleic acid with a salifiable base. Then I dragged down 
 an encyclopedia Chambers, vol. vii., N u M to P u E 
 and searched out " oleic acid." 
 
 " Colorless, limpid fluid " " solidifies into firm, white 
 crystalline mass " " constituent of oleine " " exists in 
 most of the fats " " difficult to obtain in purity " 
 forms neutral and acid salts " " only compounds re 
 quiring notice are normal salts of the alkalies " " all 
 soluble, and by the evaporation of their aqueous solution, 
 form soaps ! " 
 
 " Oleate of potash forms a soft soap, chief ingredient 
 in Naples soap ; oleate of soda forms hard soap en 
 ters largely into composition of Marseilles soap ! " From 
 which followed learnedly the deduction that the chief in 
 gredient in soap-bubbles is soap. Q. E. D. 
 
 The druggist had told me that he could yet oleate of 
 soda for me ; he knew there was such a thing, though not 
 exactly what it was. Well, I knew both things now ; and 
 I could get it for myself ; but I forgot to call and tell 
 him so. I comfortably dismissed the matter from my 
 mind, answered that first letter with my information to 
 date, put my good gown and some collars and pocket- 
 handkerchiefs into my smallest visiting valise, and went
 
 104 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 off from Pine Pond to Little Valley, to stay a few days 
 with my friend, Mrs. Ernest Seker, in company with my 
 old friend, Miss Patience Strong. 
 
 We had a lovely time, and I forgot all my bubbles and 
 my troubles. But on my return, lo ! upon my swept and 
 garnished writing-table, seven other letters more implor 
 ing and importunate than the first making up the oc 
 tave of my perplexity and self-reproach ; a note also from 
 the Wise Blackbird, asking what WIDE AWAKE might 
 say about it ; and a long verbal report administered in 
 accompaniment by my pleasant hostess, of how the drug 
 gist s boy had knocked them up at eleven o clock one 
 night with " a bottle of Mrs. Whitelie s medicine," which 
 he had forgotten to deliver. 
 
 There it was, upon my dressing-stand, a blue glass jar, 
 paper-encased, carefully labeled in large print, as if it had 
 been poison " Oleate of Soda." 
 
 As if I did n t know what white Castile soap was, even 
 when grated to impalpable powder and bottled up ! I 
 smelled and tasted ; no sort of doubt of its simple sapo- 
 naceousness. I spilled a little into a glass of water, and 
 stirred it up with the handle of my toothbrush. It came 
 to a beautiful white lather, but there was no mystery 
 about it. I seized a pipe and blew a bubble; it was 
 lovely, but it burst like any other bubble. Then I " put 
 glythcerine into it ; " a bubble more brilliant and yes, 
 certainly more tenacious ; but I could not have picked it 
 up and put it upon my mantel, to keep equal company 
 with the Japanese crystal there. What had I said one 
 could do with those buttered-crusty-bubbles ? 
 
 I tried quince bandoline in addition ; I tried mucilage ; 
 I tried pulverized gum-arabic. I asked to have a little 
 starch made, and tried that. I grew very sloppy, very 
 sticky, and very tired ; still I could evolve nothing that
 
 THE SOAP-BUBBLE QUESTION. 105 
 
 would stay evolved as I had sanguinely expected. Then 
 I went to bed ; and in the watches of the night the in 
 spiration came to me to write to your very self, before I 
 replied to one of those seven letters, and to answer the 
 Wise Blackbird by sending our whole correspondence to 
 be printed in the WIDE AWAKE for the benefit of whom 
 it might concern. 
 
 Now, dear Thankful, tell me kindly these two things, 
 and my crusts will be buttered for the present. 
 
 Did I exceed, hyperbolically, what you told me, in 
 straight words, telephonically ? And what is your chem 
 ist s prescription that I may put it into these petition 
 ers pipes and pacify them ? 
 
 Begging your pardon for the intrusion, and enclosing 
 stamps for your reply unless I happen to seal up and 
 forget to, in which case I shall be comforted by remem 
 bering that the new postage is saving you a margin for 
 just such emergencies, 
 
 I am yours in full faith and fellowship, 
 
 A. D. T. w. 
 
 [The above letter, sent to the Central Office, in the ex 
 pectation that through the columns of WIDE AWAKE it 
 would reach the eye of Thankful Holme, who, like Tup- 
 per s " wife of thy youth," was believed to be surely 
 " living somewhere on the earth," since, even with the 
 vision of imagination, you can indeed " see nothing that 
 is n t there " lay for a brief interval in the editor s 
 drawer. Now, to this centre of reality many of the seers 
 and tellers of Innerland drop in ; sometimes, also, they 
 who are lovers and readers only ; and it so happened one 
 day that two or three of them fell to discussing Soap- 
 Bubble Parties and Buttered Crusts. 
 
 " I know quite well it is a fact," said a bright and
 
 106 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 blessed lady ; " I heard of it from an intimate friend who 
 lives at Broadtop. Thankful Holme was a real girl, and 
 she is really now Mrs. Raynald Shatoraine. They are 
 in Italy ; are going to spend the winter in Florence." 
 
 The WIDE AWAKE editor pulled out the manuscript 
 " Open Letter." " We were sure of it ^" she exclaimed. 
 " Of her living and being, I mean. We were only wait 
 ing to add to our faith the knowledge of her whereabouts. 
 Could you get her address ? " 
 
 " Nothing more easy," was the reply. So then and 
 there the " missing link " was discovered and joined on ; 
 the letter was dispatched by the next English steamer ; 
 four weeks later came back the reply ; and the two are 
 now placed on record together.] 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 CASA GUIDI, FLORENCE, December, 1883. 
 
 MY DEAR A. D. T. W. : I reply at once to your 
 letter just received. So the thin defenses are broken 
 down ; Innerland, like Japan, is thrown open to foreign 
 ers ; and not the story-tellers alone, but henceforth the 
 story-people themselves may lie at the mercy of invaders, 
 kind and complimentary, but unaware as individuals that 
 their collective name is legion, and that a legion of any 
 thing may drive a hunted creature into the tombs. I am 
 afraid you have been unwary ; it is a dangerous prece 
 dent to make public. It would have been a grand and 
 charming thing a Columbus discovery kept to you 
 and me, and our convives on either side. What lovely 
 collusions what complete and splendid understandings 
 there might have been ! What bubbles we could have 
 blown putting our pipes together ! But begun in this 
 patent fashion, where is our shelter what becomes of
 
 THE SOAP-BUBBLE QUESTION. 107 
 
 our close corporation which is our power and privilege ? 
 As now the author is approached through the " care " of 
 publishers (would that the care could sometimes be pro 
 tection!), so we story-folk shall be besieged through our 
 chroniclers, until with much explaining and supplement 
 ing of ourselves, and much writing of autographs, we 
 shall find no time left us for being, and shall gradually 
 vanish like the fairies, or dwindle into insignificance like 
 the too delicious and well-beloved lobsters ! 
 
 Dear Bo-Peeps of readers ! When up you tooks your 
 little crooks, determined for to find us just consider ! 
 Be wise for yourselves ; stop asking for more ; keep quiet 
 a little ; let us alone, and we 11 come home, and bring 
 our best tales behind us ! 
 
 This much on the defensive, and in honest answer to 
 your representative preamble. Next for your question 
 ings : 
 
 Even you may not demand too much " more " from 
 Inneiiand. I am not sure that upon any other point 
 say upon how things happened at Aunt Salva s after Mrs. 
 Shatoraine came to see me there, or reason why Mr. Shat- 
 oraine went out and dined with us at Broadtop ; or what 
 I had to wear one evening when we did n t have a soap- 
 bubble party there if those had been the inquiries 
 well, I don t think I could have enlarged your " Scrap 
 No. 3," or have translated any of your " remote allu 
 sions." But I am full of interest in the bubble-builders ; 
 and a mention of that subject sets me off at once, as some 
 people are touched off with a word upon the Pyramids 
 or the Mounds. 
 
 You don t surprise me in the least with your experi 
 ences. I have traveled over the same road. The places 
 in our lives that we ski}), in telephoning to our amanu 
 enses, are full of just the delays and waitings and stayings
 
 108 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 where we were, that you others have. It won t do to put 
 them all in the stories. Readers would n t live through 
 them with us. 
 
 My chemist was of scarcely more use to me than yours. 
 He only explained to me frankly that " oleate of soda " 
 was as nearly as possible the same thing as pure white 
 Castile soap. He also said that oleate of potash soft 
 soap was even better " for a viscous fluid." I began to 
 think there was nothing in it but a vicious fluid that would 
 altogether elude and mock me. In short, all the prescrip 
 tions I could get ran, or might have run, thus : 
 
 Oleate potass : 
 vel 
 
 
 Misee. 
 Suffla. 
 
 
 I stood thinking while the man talked to me. I re 
 membered the bubbles I used to blow at grandmamma s, 
 when old Batsie made the suds for me, with hot soft water 
 and a handful of brown topaz-colored jelly out of the big 
 barrel that was always kept supplied with the real old- 
 fashioned wood-lye-and-honest-kitchen-grease compound. 
 There is no such soft soap now ; at least, I was sure I 
 could not find any ; so I bought the next best thing of the 
 chemist ; the bottled white dust such as was sent to you, 
 and which makes such a soapy tingle in your throat and 
 nostrils when you shake it out. 
 
 Then I, too, went home, shut myself up, and fell ex 
 perimenting. I went through with the glycerine, the 
 gum, the starch ; I tried besides, sugar, white of egg, and 
 gelatine. Starch was the best. Soft warm water just
 
 THE SOAP-BUBBLE QUESTION. 109 
 
 characterized with a fine, well-boiled preparation of it 
 not more substantial than ordinary rice - water made 
 into suds with oleate at discretion, resulted in tenacious 
 bubbles which had a peculiar way of slipping of them 
 selves, one after another, at a certain size, from the pipe- 
 bowl, with the blowing from a single filling. They rolled 
 and bounded in a smooth, elastic way upon my great gray 
 Himalaya shawl, spread across the bed for them. Still, 
 the tendency of such addition was to cause a denseness 
 which seemed to separate itself from the clear water ele 
 ment, settling visibly and cloudily along the sides of the 
 bubble and forming a sort of cup at its base like the cup 
 of an acorn ; in that way finally breaking it by its weight. 
 It was almost a success, though, and I rested in it with a 
 kind of half content for a day or two. 
 
 Then a lovely idea dawned suddenly. Glycerine the 
 " sweet principle of oil," and aqua ammonia, most deli 
 cate and pungent of alkalies ! 
 
 I put these two together, in equal parts ; the glycerine 
 was etherealized. I added this spirit of soap to an 
 " oleate " soap-suds about two teaspoonfuls to a half 
 pint of water, and had a beautiful bubble-pai ty with only 
 myself and the bubbles. 
 
 The soft, dark, blankety shawl stretched over my coun 
 terpane made an elastic level ; and a handkerchief at 
 hand, to brush off any drops, kept it in good condition. 
 The ammonia seemed, while enhancing the sudsiness, to 
 thin the mixture to that consistency which gave the most 
 brilliant colors ; these being always dependent, as you 
 know from Professor Rogers, upon the tenuity of the film, 
 and changing down its surface as the water, settling, 
 leaves the upper part of the bubbles thinnest. Red falls 
 lowest ; then comes orange ; then gold, green, blue, violet, 
 in their order ; the delicate tints only appearing as the
 
 110 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 film grows more and more delicate. This is in accordance 
 with the law of light, like that of sound ; the higher notes 
 the higher hues coming with the more rapid vibra 
 tions or tremblings of the waves of air or light ; these in 
 turn depending upon the subtilty and imponderableness of 
 the medium. (This bit of lecture is for the benefit of the 
 WIDE AWAKES, seeing that you did not put yours all in. 
 They will be coming after us again if we leave any in 
 complete allusions.) 
 
 Well, I blew lots of bubbles, and dropped them one 
 after another, each from the same pipe-full brighter 
 than the last. They did everything I told you; they 
 rolled or dropped against each other without breaking ; 
 sometimes two of medium size would rest against each 
 other for a moment, and then sweetly explode into one, 
 larger and finer than either. They rolled or I blew 
 them across the bed, and they dropped down over the 
 edge, disappearing in glory. I thought, at first, they were 
 out, of course ; but presently I went round to the other 
 side, and lo ! there was the whole pretty company of them 
 sitting meekly about upon the carpet. 
 
 I blew big ones that were simply glorious. I had a 
 little china mug in my hand, which I had filled with soap 
 suds for greater convenience ; and I achieved a new de 
 light by carefully resting a bubble in the process of blow 
 ing, within its rim ; thus supported, I could swell and 
 swell it, drawing cup and pipe gently apart as I did so, 
 until the luminous thing was huge ; at last, often, I could 
 withdraw the pipe cautiously, and hold my liquid balloon 
 magnificently swaying its globe of color, with the china 
 mug like a parachute car below it. Mind, I do not say 
 that it would float the car up with it if I let it go ! 
 
 And this brings me to the second part of your inquiry. 
 Did you intensify ? In nothing whatever that you
 
 THE SOAP-BUBBLE QUESTION. Ill 
 
 stated ; an omission, only, in one particular, heightened 
 the effect. I do not know whether you or I did the omit 
 ting. We did " catch them on our hands and blow them 
 off again," at the party ; but it was very tenderly, very 
 dexterously, and with mittens on ! As to the racing, and 
 the tennis, of course we did not play with bats or drive 
 with whips. We did not kick them, or set foot upon them 
 and croquet them. Gentle breathings, adroit and delicate 
 puffs to these they were altogether tractable ; and we 
 did make sides and a dividing line upon the blanket, and 
 a game of which party should send the most bubbles over 
 into the opposite ground, and whose bubbles should be 
 blown forth and back the longest without falling or break 
 ing. 
 
 I think I cannot tell you very much more ; except that 
 a bit of white Castile soap, in the solid, cut from a cake 
 and kept in the suds, has proved every bit as effectual as 
 the " oleate " powder. 
 
 I will just wind up with a mention of a bubble frolic we 
 had here the other evening in our pleasant salon, with 
 some American and English friends. 
 
 We had a big punch-bowl upon a side-table, full of the 
 well-prepared soap-syllabub. Then each one of our num 
 ber had a tiny, dainty harlequin cup, and a pipe of cor 
 responding color. We had chairs around the long, low 
 frame not board laid upon trestles so as to be just 
 over our laps ; upon the frame a cream-white blanketing 
 was smoothly strained and tacked at the edges. This, 
 with its thick, velvety softness and its elasticity, was 
 simply perfect. At the two ends sat the umpires ; an 
 even number of players on either hand were the " sides." 
 
 First in turn alternating the sides we tried for the 
 " biggest bubble." Next, the most gorgeous each 
 player using discretion as to blowing the first, or any sub-
 
 112 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 sequent bubble from the same dipping. Then followed 
 " the greatest number from a dip ; " then blowing by 
 whole sides in turn which party should get the larger 
 number on the board at once. After that, we changed 
 our sets by dividing across the board, like a tennis court ; 
 and we had the blowing across and back, in a game such 
 as I have indicated before. 
 
 Over our heads was a brilliant gasalier with prism- 
 fringes. I cannot tell you how dazzling and enchanting 
 was the show and concourse of our fairy jewel-globes ; nor 
 how we were fascinated into hours of the beautiful foolish 
 ness. All solid, graspable things looked coarse to me 
 afterward, until I came into fitness with them, and their 
 different beauty again, gradually. Dear A. D. T. W., 
 this is a world of glory and delight that we are born into 
 both the inner and the outer of it ! 
 
 I am yours, literally, to command at the rubbing of 
 the brain-lamp or the whisper at the thought-telephone. 
 (Only don t let them all come and do it again, expecting 
 us to receive and consider their messages ; lest like Dick- 
 ens s boy who kept swallowing the beads, we find ourselves 
 well-nigh rattled to death with the accumulation !) 
 
 THANKFUL HOLME SHATOKAINE.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 
 
 I. 
 
 " GET the boy a new pair of boots ! " said Doctor Ken- 
 cleverly. 
 
 Mrs. Frost had asked him if he did not think Sidney 
 needed a tonic. 
 
 Sidney was the youngest of the Middies, and was 
 slowly recovering from a mixture of mumps and measles. 
 Algernon, the other Middy, stood by his brother s bed, 
 dividing very dissatisfied glances between the doctor, 
 who evidently ought to do something about it, and the 
 sick Middy, who so inertly declined to do anything. It 
 was five o clock in the afternoon, and Sidney had given 
 up for the night. The boys had pasted a few postage 
 stamps, looked over their card-album, and then Algernon 
 had offered to play go-bang, which he did n t care for, but 
 which Sidney ordinarily delighted in ; instead of accepting 
 which self-renouncing proposition, Middy number two had 
 gone bang to bed. 
 
 " Get the boy a pair of new boots." 
 
 Algernon s face lighted up, and he flashed a quick look 
 at Sid. Sid s countenance took no change, unless indeed 
 the corners of the mouth dropped a little farther into dis- 
 consolateness. 
 
 " He don t care a hang ! " muttered Algie ; and went 
 off disgusted. But his disgust, like that of many grown 
 men, was largely affection and anxiety. 
 
 " Is he going to be mumpy and measly all the rest of 
 his life ? " he asked Mrs. Laura, afterward.
 
 114 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Wait till your turn comes," replied Mrs. Laura. 
 " Then you 11 understand." 
 
 " I ve passed," returned Algernon, magnificently. 
 He had just begun to play euchre with his sisters of an 
 early evening half-hour since Sid had gone to being tucked 
 up at four or five, ingloriously. 
 
 The boots came, and were set at the bedside. Sid 
 leaned over, looked at them, and sighed. 
 
 " They look so awfully big and heavy," he said. 
 
 Algernon stared. He wondered if he ever could really 
 feel like that about a stunning pair of brand-new boots. 
 
 " And they look like eggs and lemons and baking- 
 powder and beefsteak and caraway-seeds," added 
 Sidney, forlornly. 
 
 " Oho ! Errands ! " shouted Algie. " You re better, 
 Sid, after all ! " 
 
 " T ain t fair, I know," said Sid. " You ve done a 
 heap of em since I ve been sick, and you ve been awfully 
 tip-top and good-natured. But I don t feel as if I could 
 do another one, ever again." 
 
 " Well, you sha n t," said Algernon. " At least, not 
 in the old, never-know-what-you re-about sort of way. 
 Tell you what, Sid, the reason they call us Middies is be 
 cause they think we re made just to be stopped short in 
 the middle of everything for care away seeds ! " And 
 then Algernon went over and shut the door softly. 
 
 The girls might be in their open room close by, and 
 were not to hear secrets. Besides. Ethelind and Celia had 
 been known to allege another origin for the " Middy " 
 title ; putting the literal fact in a punning way that was 
 not unsuggestive of sarcasm. At certain troublesome times 
 they called these young fellows the u Middy-evils." 
 
 " I ve got a new way of doing errands," said Algie, 
 comfortably, coming back to his brother s bedside. " It
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 115 
 
 works first-rate sometimes, but it wants a plan to it, and 
 you and I 11 make one." 
 
 " Well what ? " asked Sid, slowly. Algie had 
 stopped, like the specimen first page of a New York 
 Ledger story. 
 
 " What what ? " he asked now, in his turn. 
 
 " Why, the new way." 
 
 " Oh, yes. That comes first, to be sure. Didn t know 
 which part of it you meant. Well, you see, mother al 
 ways tells Runy when she goes up and down stairs with 
 things, to take something in both hands, and make her 
 head save her heels. So I made my head save my heels ; 
 for when they sent me for lemons, I got nutmegs, too. 
 And when it was buttons, I got machine-silk, or elastic 
 straps. I kept an eye on the kitchen boxes, and on mum 
 mer s work-things. It did first-rate, most always ; and 
 when it did n t, mummer only laughed and said it was 
 merely a question of time. And if there had n t been 
 change enough out of her money, at Marm Mulligan s 
 when it was thready things she paid me back. I keep 
 a quarter of a dollar going on purpose. And, Sid, I ve 
 found out about capital and business. We could set up 
 shop, you and I, and save our boots." 
 
 Sid fairly got up on his elbow. " Why, that would be 
 kinder worth while getting well ! " he exclaimed. " I 
 have n t been playing possum, either, Al ! " 
 
 " No ; I know that. Though what they call it playing 
 possum for, when they just mean non possum, I can t find 
 out from the Latin grammar," answered Al, with the 
 superiority of a boy just pretty well on in his irregular 
 verbs. 
 
 " Now I sha n t talk to you any more till after your egg- 
 nogg. And here comes Dr. Ken. I ve given him some 
 thing as good as the boots," he remarked to that gentle 
 man, as he relinquished to him his place by the bedside.
 
 116 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " If you meddle with my practice you may take the case, 
 young man," said Dr. Ken, getting his fingers upon Sid 
 ney s pulse. " Stronger : a little quick ; momentary, that, 
 I guess. Color improved is that momentary ? What have 
 you been doing to him ? " 
 
 " That s my practice," said Algernon, stoutly. " Guess 
 if you can improve a minute, you can improve a day, if 
 you keep on." 
 
 " Hullo ! " said the doctor, turning round upon him. 
 " Should n t wonder if I did have to look out for you, one 
 of these days. Going to take to medicine ? " 
 
 " No, sir. Don t like it well enough. Mean to trade 
 in something I do like, when I begin." 
 
 " If you can keep to your likes in any trade, you 11 be 
 an exceptional son of Adam," said Doctor Kencleverly, 
 returning his attention to his patient. 
 
 " And you don t like caraway seeds, nor mustard, nor 
 rennet, nor yeast cakes, nor half the things ; you know you 
 don t, Al," particularized Sidney, in rather a whimsical, 
 invalid way, it must be confessed. 
 
 " Shut up ; you ain t half a boy again, yet," said Alger 
 non. 
 
 II. 
 
 " The first thing," said Algernon, " is capital. How 
 much can you put in ? " 
 
 " Money ? Oh, I ve got lots. A quarter for that castor 
 oil and ten cents for the saffron tea and ten cents a 
 week more of allowance that I had n t a chance to do any 
 thing with but save up and a half that Aunt Lottie gave 
 me and a nickel that I sold those marbles for, cause 
 marble time would be over before measles it s a dollar 
 and twenty ; count up ! " Sid reached out his little buck 
 skin purse from under his pillow. Algernon counted the 
 bright pieces.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 117 
 
 " Well ! that s jolly," he said. " I ve only got my 
 quarter. Cause I have n t gone into regular business, you 
 know ; I only made my time out of it, saving errands. Now, 
 we 11 trade, you see, and have a profit. But look here," 
 he broke out, after a sudden pause, " we ought to be both 
 alike, or else, how shall we divide ? You ve got most 
 five times as much as I have four times, leaving out the 
 twenty cents. Then you ought to have four times as 
 much out of what we make as I do. I d rather be more 
 even, Sid ! " 
 
 " You ain t counted up your side yet," returned Sidney, 
 quickly. "There s that ice-cream you bought me that 
 was twenty, I know ; and the bunch of bananas, that was 
 as much as twenty more. Twenty and twenty is forty ; 
 and then you ve always halved with me ever since they 
 let me have things, and you kept your library book a 
 week more to read it to me when my eyes was weak 
 and " 
 
 " You think I m going to take pay back ! " hooted Al- 
 gie. " Like to see myself! " 
 
 " And you ve got the whole plan, and started it, be 
 sides," concluded Sidney, not minding the interruption at 
 all. 
 
 " Well, that s something, I s pose," admitted square- 
 minded Algie, after another pause. " And I s pose, too, 
 I 11 have to do the running till you re strong enough. 
 P raps it s pretty fair. I 11 tell you what : we 11 go even 
 halves, but I 11 put my half into capital till it s up to 
 yours, and you shall take your share for spendin s ; and 
 when we re even we 11 take out and put in alike. See ? " 
 
 " Won t it take a good while ? " asked Sid. 
 
 " Well, yes ; chargin fair, it will. But there 11 be my 
 allowance, too. And there 11 be tips, maybe. And p raps 
 I could sell out something. Joe Rabin wanted my chame-
 
 118 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Icon top ; I m tired of it. Anyhow," he began again, 
 "we 11 start, on a dollar, say. You seventy-five, and I 
 a quarter. Then you can buy the rest of your paints for 
 the magic-lantern slides, and we 11 have the three-cent 
 show. Ain t it first-rate old Doctor Ken keepin you out 
 of school all summer, hey ? " 
 
 The next question was the purchase of the stock. Sid 
 ney at first was for investing in varieties, that would make 
 a show spread out upon a counter. Big-headed pins, and 
 nickel-sheathed ones, stuck on a red cushion ; buttons and 
 colored twine ; alphabet biscuits in a glass jar, and broken 
 candy in another ; lemons and oranges ; five-cent tins ; 
 emptied fruit-cans, to keep matches or anything in, piled 
 up to look like business. 
 
 But Algie stopped him short. " We ain t playiri" he 
 said. " It s goin to be the real thing. And we can t 
 hold on to tin pans and soap-shakers till somebody that 
 don t want em wants em ; and oranges and candy spoil 
 ing unless we ate em up ; and all our money waiting to 
 be got back again. We want to turn it right round, lively ; 
 make it do one errand, and send it right off again on 
 another. We Ve got to find out what s likely-sure to be 
 wanted next. I Ve studied the market," he finished, 
 grandly ; " I ve been round this morning ; and there ain t 
 but a scrapin of bakin -powder, and Runy always forgets 
 it till the flour s sifted ; and the liquid-rennet bottle s all 
 out, and so is the gelatine. There ain t much of the cook 
 ing-wine, but we can t set up in that yet I 11 have to 
 put em in mind of some things so s to work in the others. 
 And mother 11 come to depend on us for what we keep, 
 you see. It ll be a regular line of trade, after a while. 
 I sha n t try on anything that I don t know at least, 
 not till I ve made enough to enterprise with. Then, maybe, 
 we might start out now and then with things she would n t
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 119 
 
 think of without she saw em ; nice new cheese, or a slice 
 of fresh smoked salmon." 
 
 " Or tea-muffins, and a little jar of ginger," suggested 
 Sidney, bringing forward a combination dear to his own 
 palate. 
 
 " Yes. Folks buy lots of things just because they are 
 put right under their noses. But it won t be pins nor 
 tins, until I notice they re scarce. I don t mean to play 
 sell, nor I don t want anybody to play buy, as father did 
 when we were little, always givin us back the parcels 
 after we had tied em up and taken the money." 
 
 The younger Middy looked at the elder with eyes in 
 which appreciation grew. " You re a great feller, Algie," 
 he said. " You just know how. Go ahead. I 11 leave 
 it to you. Only don t get to be a man way out o sight o 
 me ! " 
 
 " Ho, you 11 catch up ! " answered Algie, with fine en 
 couragement. " It s some use to talk to a person that 
 takes you in. And folks can be a man and a brother too, 
 I expect if they re born so, and not a sculpin ! " 
 
 s 
 
 III. 
 
 " Clo espins ! " said Joe Rabin. 
 
 Joe had been taken into partial confidence. He had 
 bought the chameleon top for fifteen cents ; that had led 
 to a certain explanation. The Middies needed somebody 
 to whom to tell their fine plans, for the sake of apprecia 
 tion. There is something in the wishful and admiring at 
 titude of an outside boy, even if he only stands by during 
 the eating of an apple, which represents the deference of 
 a whole community to the successful man. 
 
 Joe Rabin would gladly have been a partner, though he 
 carefully did not say so. He would have liked a piece of
 
 120 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 the apple. But he did not even say, " Gimme a bite ? " 
 He waited, with a wise patience, which he had learned from 
 such little experiences. The Middies were not sure, in 
 their private counting-house consultations, that they would 
 not have it so perhaps. Joe was good-natured; had 
 plenty of pocket money, and bright ideas. But it was of 
 some of these ideas, added to the possibility of Mrs. 
 Laura s not approving of too large a firm, seeing that her 
 little front attic and the right of way over her back stairs 
 and her entry carpets were concerned, that Algernon was 
 afraid. 
 
 "Too many 11 bust it all up," he said. Which is true 
 of a great many partnerships and stock companies. 
 
 " Clo espins ! " volunteered Joe Rabin, as a suggestion. 
 " They re always gettin shied off under the bushes, an 
 broke in two, an used up fer kindlin s. And when the 
 wash is puttin out my ! wouldn t a corner in clo espins 
 be a good thing ? " 
 
 Joe Rabin belonged to a smart family, who enjoyed 
 smartness, even only through the newspapers. He had 
 heard his uncle who had a broker-and-general-agency 
 sign out, and lived on the horizon-edge of such things 
 talk them over imposingly with his father. 
 
 "We take care of our clothespins," said Algernon. 
 " We have two cents apiece a week for picking them up, 
 and bringing in the line." Algernon was particular about 
 his terminal " g s " and other niceties of speech, when he 
 talked with Joe Rabin, who let so many things slip. 
 
 " Good for you, then. You ve got the inside track ! " 
 
 Algernon stared. His uprightness was mystified for 
 the first instant. In the next, his quick perception saw 
 through the hint. 
 
 " I have four corners to my business," he said, proudly. 
 " It s on the square ! " And it was after that, that he quite
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 121 
 
 made up his mind that Joe Rabin would n t do for a part 
 ner. " Not at any price," he declared to Sid, who was 
 rather impressed with Joe s sharpness, and inclined to be 
 taught of him. It was good for Sid that Algie was First 
 Middy, and head of the house. 
 
 " There s something to hitch on to in that clothespin 
 notion," said Algie, a while after. " But it ain t on Joe 
 Rabin s line. Hiding and cornering, and shoving and 
 shifting " he put on all his " g s " with dignified empha 
 sis " don t make anything, anywhere. You ve got to 
 
 DIAGRAM OF CLOTHESPIN-LINE. 
 
 put in something, if you want to take it out, unless you 
 like stealing, which I don t. I ve been thinking out a 
 thing, and it is this. I m going to make a clothespin- 
 line." 
 
 " What s that ? " 
 
 " A string of em. Screw eyes in em or double tin- 
 tacks will do, and be cheaper and hang em all together 
 on a cord fishline s the thing ; fix some round sticks, 
 or have some long spike-pins, with holes through the top-
 
 122 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ends kind o needle-rods, or nails and drive em into 
 the tops of the clothes-poles ; run the lines through the 
 holes, and put sinkers on the ends, and let em hang down 
 to keep the lines taut, or let em out, as you pull down 
 the pins, you see." 
 
 Sid looked a little as if he did not see ; and Algie 
 picked up a piece of chalk they were in the tool-room 
 together and began to illustrate on a board (see dia 
 gram) : 
 
 " There ; those under lines are the regular clothes 
 lines ; the upper ones are the pin-lines. You hang the 
 sheets and things on the under lines, and pin em down as 
 you go along. There you have it ; pins always ready, 
 clean, up in the air ; the Runies and Biddies won t have 
 to carry em in their teeth any more, nor fling em all 
 round the lot when they pull em out, and then hunt em 
 out of the grass and the gravel, or sing out for more, 
 when they want em again." 
 
 " They 11 get wet, and rot out, sometimes, won t they ? " 
 
 " That 11 be the trade ; they do now. We 11 keep em 
 on hand fishlines and sinkers, and eye-headed clothes 
 pins ; string on a new lot when you want em after 
 you ve got the posts fixed don t you see how good it 11 
 be?" 
 
 " Ye-es," said Sid, slowly. " But how 11 they flop the 
 sheets and things over the line, with the pin-lines in the 
 way ? " 
 
 Algernon looked for a half minute as if there were a 
 missing link in his creation ; but suddenly brightened up 
 to say " Why, they won t flop em over at all ! they 11 
 just double em up in the middle, or take em by the edge, 
 and pin that over the proper way," he boldly asserted, 
 as people do sometimes most boldly assert the thing that 
 has but just occurred to them.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 123 
 
 Nevertheless, Algernon was right ; and came to his 
 Tightness by a process of fit adjustment of one good thing 
 to another. 
 
 " They 11 last a long time," said Sid. " We sha n t 
 have much trade in clothespins." 
 
 "Pho! You ain t any calculator at all !" cried Algie. 
 " Improvements always make business. We Ve got the 
 whole thing to sell. How much should we ever make on 
 three-cents-a-dozen clothespins ? We sha n t have any ex 
 tra cost but the string and the tin-tacks and the spikes, 
 perhaps ; and mummer 11 give us a dollar a set, like s not 
 for the putting up and all." 
 
 Then Sidney fired up all at once with enthusiasm, as 
 slow-match people do when the powder catches. 
 
 " Don t tell anybody ! " he cried. " Let s make a lot 
 of em before we show out at all ; and sell em all over 
 the hill at once, before folks copy ! all fair to hide that 
 much, ain t it ? " 
 
 " Course. That s our patent. Tell you what, Sid, it 11 
 be a first-rate concern, all of itself if folks 11 only buy. 
 Why, think of ten dollars for a capital in the general 
 grocery line ! How s that for high ? " 
 
 The boys really did string their clothespins, and put up 
 the spikes for six separate customers, including Mrs. 
 Laura. They paid fifty cents for two balls of large, 
 strong, smooth English twine they did not afford fish- 
 line in their first venture ; forty more to the blacksmith 
 for a lot of iron pins bored at one end ; two cents a 
 dozen, at wholesale, for clothespins, of which they ar 
 ranged five dozen to the set ; seventy cents for half a 
 dozen boxes of tin-tacks ; two dollars and twenty cents for 
 the whole ; making, as it resulted, a profit of three dollars 
 and eighty cents. To do all this, they had waited till 
 their first capital, by Algie s careful application of the
 
 124 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 principle of demand and supply, had been " turned round 
 lively " several times, with fair increase. Then Sidney 
 put in the fifty-five cents which he had reserved for glass- 
 paints ; notwithstanding which additional sum on his part, 
 Algie had, by the top sale, that of a second-best jack- 
 knife, and one or two lesser bits of personal property, 
 with his weekly allowances, brought his money share of 
 the partnership some thirty cents nearer an equality ; at 
 which point, in consideration of " ideas," and " experi 
 ence," which their father had told them always counted, 
 they decided to go cheerfully on and " call it even." 
 
 They did not buy all their twine and tin-tacks and 
 clothespins at once, and they only had four spikes forged ; 
 with an understanding as to prices according to future 
 purchases. They made Mrs. Laura s lines first, and got 
 her acceptance and encouragement, under stern promise 
 of secrecy. This, Mr. Frost told them, was entering a 
 " caveat." 
 
 They gathered together a quantity of old lead, which 
 they melted and ran in disks with holes through the mid 
 dles, for side-weights, or " sinkers ; " through these they 
 were to knot the ends of their lines. 
 
 A few days busy work with gimlet and string and pins, 
 and a file for smoothing the spike-eyes, completed in the 
 end the whole half-dozen sets ; then Runy was put in 
 possession of hers, and made a Monday s trial brilliantly. 
 A neighbor s girl strolled in from an errand as she was 
 taking in her clothes from drying. Runy ripped off the 
 pins, letting them fly, as she went along, with the most 
 delightful abandonment. When she had piled the four 
 lines-full of white linens and cottons in a sweet, rough 
 heap upon the big clothes-basket, she turned back upon 
 her round without remark, pushed each section of hang 
 ing pins into a big cluster against a post, gave the weight
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 125 
 
 at that end a pull which drew the opposite one up chock, 
 and so, with a quiet ostentation, smoothed the whole ar 
 rangement tidy for the next hanging. No one would 
 have supposed it to be the first time she had made use of 
 the convenience. But then, it is the peculiar genius of 
 the class "girl" and in opposite ratio to its advance 
 in civilization to take for granted most coolly whatever 
 latest improvements the century and the Republic provide 
 for it ; as if it were but a tardy importation from the 
 resources and long familiar use of the luxurious cabins 
 on the other side. To be astonished is as far from the 
 serene highnesses of the " intelligence " order, as from 
 the stoical red Indian or the London dude. I heard, the 
 other day, the calm comment of a woman from the rural 
 depths of New Brunswick, on her first search for a " sit 
 uation " in Boston. She had been sent to an advertise 
 ment address. " It was as big and handsome a private 
 house as I ever seen," was her casual report. She had 
 been to Hotel Vendome. 
 
 " That s a putty good way them lines comes now, is n t 
 it thin ? " asked Nora, with wisely guarded interest. 
 
 " Dade, an they re but jist come, thin, an ther s but 
 the wan place ye can git em," returned Rimy, picking up 
 her heavy basket with a tug of strong muscles and a back 
 ward strain of her whole body, as she partly swung her 
 burden forward with her knees, moving capably toward 
 her kitchen door with it, and sending her words over her 
 shoulder at the same time to her friend who followed. 
 " T ain t the valye o the pins, annyway, but the muss 
 and fuss o droppin em an huntin em out o the dirt. 
 Yer ve alwers got em, ye see, t yer han . Yes it s 
 good enough for wan thing." 
 
 Nora reported at home, in the laundry at " Troopers," 
 as she easily called her place of resident service. And
 
 126 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 the next week the Trupeares had the Middy " eye-and- 
 line attachment." 
 
 It worked excellently well all through the neighbor 
 hood ; the reason it has not spread further is because in 
 ventions always move slowly unless you sell out your 
 patent for a trifle to a company, who will obligingly intro 
 duce it for their own large realizing ; and the Middies 
 preferred a local manufacture, and the securing of such 
 proceeds as might be ; through which little way of the 
 world it is that the world is kept waiting for this, and for 
 many another nice thing. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Custom was dull, sometimes, of course. The house- 
 girls from the Brim did not always stop at the Middies 
 shop to save their time, though Mrs. Laura had allowed 
 the boys to move to the lower floor for the advantages of 
 trade and in consideration of back stairs and carpets. In 
 fact it was only since they had had their quarters in the 
 little basement that used to be a store-room, under the 
 area-steps that led to it and to the cellars, that their more 
 extended custom had come in. Nora, from the Trupeares, 
 making friendly calls in Runy s kitchen, had learned the 
 convenience of the social and domestic combination, and 
 had run in often for yeast-cakes, which of the com 
 pressed sort were a trouble to keep supplied, and of 
 inappreciable profit, though serving a purpose as drawing 
 other trade. But since their basement opening there had 
 been a pretty steady run ; hardly a day without two or 
 three sales at least, besides home consumption ; only vary 
 ing as the house-girls aforesaid fancied the varying of 
 their trips by keeping on into the village or failed of the 
 convenience of small change, which the ladies of the
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 127 
 
 Round might not always have at hand or stop to look 
 for, although they patronized through their servants, in a 
 half-amused and half-accommodated way, the amateur es 
 tablishment so comfortably at hand. 
 
 It was on one of a succession of dull mornings, when 
 only the two young Trupeares had been in and bought 
 cornballs, that Sidney abruptly broke forth : 
 
 " I say, Al ! this ain t much fun, after all. Let s get 
 up a peep-show." 
 
 " No." Algie answered with brief decision. 
 
 " Why not ? The boys would all come. Might be a 
 cent show, or a tenpinner ; and pins help the concern, 
 you know." The shop was usually " the concern," now, 
 in the partners consultations. Pins, strings, and wrap 
 ping-papers were carefully saved and put up in balls, 
 boxes and bundles, as merchandise ; costing nothing but 
 the collecting, so that the very cheap rate at which Mrs. 
 Laura and her older daughters repurchased their waifs 
 was all profit ; there being but one stipulation that the 
 boys, on honor, were to take no pins from cushions or 
 papers for their stock. 
 
 "As if we would ! " Algie had cried, indignantly. 
 " We d as soon crib off Ma am Mulligan s counters ! " 
 
 Mrs. Laura had used to save string herself ; but it was 
 a luxury to hand over the wraps and ties of parcels to the 
 Middies, and to receive them again, for a small tax, 
 neatly sorted, wound, and folded. 
 
 So Sid argued for his peep-show, as a side departure, 
 that it would bring in convertible property at least. But 
 Algie reiterated his " no." 
 
 " I shall stick to my line," he said. " There s always 
 dull times in business. That s part of the experience." 
 He caught himself just in time to substitute the maturer 
 word for the boyish and forbidden " play," that he had 
 been very near using.
 
 128 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " But you went into the clothespins," said Sidney. 
 
 " They warn t off the line," declared Algernon, not per 
 ceiving his pun till he had made it, and then leaving it 
 unnoticed to follow his graver intention. " That grew 
 out of the business, and was to make capital. An inven 
 tion might happen to anybody. But that is n t to be the 
 rule. A peep-show I " 
 
 " Well, you said the three-cent magic lantern, a while 
 ago," persisted Sidney. 
 
 " So I did," acknowledged Algernon. " And that does 
 amount to something on your side. But I don t know as I 
 should say it now. I ve looked into things since then, 
 and I don t believe in mixing up. I would n t set up Bar- 
 num s greatest on earth, if I had it, unless I gave up 
 groceries and domestic varieties first, and went slap into 
 the beastly varieties instead. There s no sense in being 
 in but one thing at a time." 
 
 Mrs. Laura heard this bit of conversation from her 
 little flower - balcony overhead, as she indeed often got 
 scraps of private counting - house conversation, without 
 coming there to listen, or ever listening long without giv 
 ing audible hint, or direct announcement of her presence. 
 " You know I m often out here, boys," she would say. 
 
 " Mother s a gentleman ! " Algernon said of her, once. 
 " Lady " was too limited a term, besides being a matter of 
 course, to express the out-and-out style of nobility that he 
 meant by it ; there was a force in the honor which she 
 practiced and taught them, which nothing short of full 
 manliness in a man s opportunities and exigencies could 
 test and illustrate. 
 
 Mother Laura told her husband of the peep-show talk. 
 Stewart Frost laughed, but his eyes shone. " There s 
 stuff in that boy," he said. " I should like to be sure that 
 the two would be grown-up partners some day," he added
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 129 
 
 presently. " Sid needs just that kind of veto-power and 
 example over him." 
 
 " Well, he 11 have it for half a dozen years to come, 
 said Mrs. Laura, hopefully. " By that time there may be 
 two of them. Sid sees things, when they re put in the 
 right light." 
 
 " But Al never takes a side-squint," said Mr. Frost. 
 " However, there is time, as you say. And their mother s 
 a gentleman ! " 
 
 " This shopkeeping is more than a play," the father re 
 marked again, after an interval in which he had appar 
 ently forgotten it in the reading of the evening paper. 
 
 " Everything is more than a play," said Mrs. Laura. 
 
 " Highly sententious and most intrinsically true," said 
 Stewart. " A good solution to half the difficulties of 
 education. But it is curious, nevertheless, how the princi 
 ples of trade come up and develop in this boy business. 
 I m looking out just now for a corner in lemons. It s the 
 dry time for them, and Porson s stock has been getting 
 low. I noticed Algie examining them the other day, when 
 he stopped in on his way to town with me. He brought 
 out some heavy stuff in your borrowed bag ; but I don t 
 see any display of the article yet on his counter. I never 
 ask him any questions, or make suggestions ; I only hold 
 myself ready to answer anything he may ask me." 
 
 It fitted right on to this, that the very next morning, the 
 two Middies walking down to the train with their father, 
 Algernon put the inquiry " Papa, how much do you 
 think it s fair to put on to the price of things that are per 
 ishable, to pay for the perishing ? " 
 
 " Well," replied Mr. Frost, deliberately, " we 11 put a 
 
 case. A man brings a cargo of oranges and bananas from 
 
 the West Indies and Florida. It costs him a certain sum 
 
 to equip his vessel, feed and pay his men, and buy his 
 
 9
 
 130 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 cargo. He must get back all that, and a fair percentage 
 of profit for carrying on the business. If he does the best 
 he can, sells his fruit as soon as he can after it gets here, 
 takes all the care possible that it is not injured needlessly 
 in the handling, and then finds from experience that a 
 twentieth part, say, is lost from the nature of the goods 
 I suppose that twentieth of the original cost should be 
 added to the valuation of the lot in calculating the average 
 price. It is the same thing as a duty which he has to pay 
 for bringing them in." 
 
 " Well, then," said the boy, " if he saves up for a 
 scarce time, he must n t expect to get back what he loses 
 while he s waiting, must he ? " 
 
 " That s one of the things a man settles with his own 
 mind," said Stewart Frost. " With most men, as the 
 world of business goes, the must n t applies to the losing 
 in any way. Nothing is to be lost that they can make 
 other people pay for." 
 
 Algernon was silent a minute. Then he said, It don t 
 seem to me, father, that that s doing things up square." 
 
 Then his father was silent, and Algernon spoke again. 
 
 " When I play a play, I want the rules to be made 
 plain and fair, all round, and kept to ; or else there is n t 
 any real hang-together to it. And I should think it ought 
 to be so with what men do ; or else there s no fun in the 
 whole big play of the world." 
 
 " In the big play, Algie." said Mr. Frost, " there are 
 some big rules, to be sure ; there are some things that are 
 clearly against the law, and that people would be disgraced 
 and punished for ; but there are ever so many little va 
 riations and exceptions that each one has to decide for 
 himself as he goes along." 
 
 " And if a good many people do the same way, it makes 
 a kind of rule ? " put Algernon, interrogatively.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 131 
 
 " Exactly so. It becomes public opinion ; tone of trade ; 
 the unwritten code of commerce." 
 
 " And I should think everybody would want that to be 
 first-rate," said Algie. 
 
 "Anybody would think so," returned his father. "And 
 yet, come to practice, the world gets into considerable of 
 a snarl." 
 
 "I shouldn t want to be one to put a kink into it," 
 said the boy, manfully. 
 
 " Keep on thinking so, and maybe you 11 help to take a 
 kink out," answered the man, childlikely. 
 
 " It must needs be that offenses come, but woe unto him 
 by whom the offense cometh." Neither of them remem 
 bered the words at the moment ; possibly the child did not 
 yet know them ; but the Word that was nigh them had 
 said to them the same thing, out of the same Life. 
 
 V. 
 
 One afternoon, not long after this, the Ostridges, upon 
 the Round, sat in their summer dining-room, over their 
 dessert. 
 
 " I wonder how many miles we are from a lemon, " 
 said Mrs. Ostridge, as the waitress placed before her some 
 dainty dish in which lemons had been desired, but some 
 thing different substituted. " Cook tells me Porson has 
 nothing but skins and bones left. I think, Talfrey, I 
 must trouble you to inquire in town to-morrow," she 
 added, to her husband. 
 
 Talfrey, Junior, glanced up from his plate. " I know 
 who s got some ; elegant ones, too," he said. 
 
 Mrs. Ostridge looked surprised. 
 
 " It s Frost Brothers," continued the youth, calmly. 
 "Mr. Stewart Frost s boys. They ve got a solemn-ear-
 
 132 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 nest store, father, down in their basement. I saw lemons 
 there this morning." 
 
 " I should like to see a solemn-earnest store particu 
 larly one kept by a firm of boys," said Mr. Talfrey Os- 
 tridge. " In what do the solemnity and earnestness con 
 sist ? " 
 
 " In having it all regular, and keeping it up, and not 
 eating up the goodies, and studying the market " here 
 he was quoting " and laying in supplies of what s sure 
 to be wanted, and doing everything on the fiercest kind of 
 a square," responded Talfrey, Junior. 
 
 " I should like to see it more than ever," said Mr. Os- 
 tridge. " Would it be proper for you to introduce me 
 there to buy a lemon in Mr. Stewart Frost s base 
 ment?" 
 
 " Why, we all go. The servants go, from all round, to 
 do errands ; and we boys get the j oiliest things that they 
 don t keep anywhere else. The Frosts know how to do 
 things, I can tell you, father. Mrs. Shatoraine is up at 
 Lebanon this summer, and she sent em some awfully 
 delicious butternut-and-maple, and those boys put it right 
 into their stock, and sent for more. Why, father, they 
 just know how to do business ! and their father lets em, 
 and anybody can go." 
 
 " Very well ; very interesting, and quite satisfactory," 
 replied Mr. Ostridge ; which his son readily understood to 
 signify "that will do." For there were grown people at 
 the table besides the family, and conversation was now 
 quietly reverted to them and to topics that had gone be 
 fore. But half an hour after dinner was over, Mr. Os 
 tridge, sitting on the terrace, threw away the end of his 
 cigar, and rose up, calling to " Tal." 
 
 " We 11 look in among those impressively intense small 
 groceries," he said.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 133 
 
 " Not if you make fun, father," said young Talfrey, 
 stoutly. " I won t go with you, unless you behave just as 
 if it was men. There s no make-believe about Algie and 
 Sid ; and there is n t anything to make believe to." 
 
 " How could there be, in people and transactions so 
 fiercely vital and on the square ? Come along, Tal, you 
 can trust me, I think," he added, in a different tone. 
 
 Talfrey, Junior, took his father s hand, which he was 
 not yet ashamed to do, saying, " So I can, father, now 
 you re on the square about it," and they walked through 
 the shady Round, and over the Brim, and down the slope, 
 together. 
 
 Algernon and Sidney were busy in their basement 
 room, with the area door pleasantly open toward the grass 
 plot, and the flagged walk between the flower borders that 
 ran round the side and rear of the olive-colored house. 
 They were taking fresh lemons out of their clean, soft pa 
 per wrappings, in which, and then in a keg of sawdust 
 from their carpentry shop, they had carefully repacked 
 them when the fruit had first come home from New York. 
 It was a fine lot that Algie had found and bought quite 
 fortunately just before lemons had " jumped " to the ex 
 tent of two or three cents apiece in price. He had given 
 twenty-eight cents a dozen for them. 
 
 They heard footsteps coming down into the area, and 
 shadows presently darkened the doorway. Mr. Ostridge 
 and young Talfrey stood there. 
 
 " My wife has sent me for a lemon," said the head of 
 the truly grand firm head and shoulders above ordinary 
 ones, in both position and character of Ostridge, Cas- 
 awarie and Company. 
 
 Algernon Frost stood up from his unpacking, and laid 
 a couple of his best specimens, fresh from their wraps, 
 upon his counter an extension -leaf of his mother s
 
 134 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 dining-table, put across from the lowermost of the store 
 room shelves to a stool placed opposite. There was nei 
 ther surprise, nor fun, nor make-believe, nor any assertion 
 against pretense in his manner. He was precisely and 
 thoroughly and simply a dealer answering to a call. 
 
 " There are some, sir," he said, and looked up at Mr. 
 Ostridge, waiting. 
 
 " Why, these are fine ones," said the customer. " Have 
 you many more like these? they are out of market just 
 now, I thought." 
 
 " Yes, sir. I bought them three weeks ago, in New 
 York." 
 
 " Kept for a rise, eh ? " 
 
 "Well, yes, partly. And partly to be sure to sell. 
 When everybody has plenty, sometimes they get left on 
 hand." 
 
 " And if nobody has any at all. except Frost Brothers, 
 they can make a sharp corner in lemons," said Mr. Os 
 tridge, laughing. 
 
 " I guess I don t believe in sharp corners," said Algie 
 Frost. 
 
 " Only right-angled ones," suggested the gentleman. 
 
 " Four to a square," supplemented the boy, brightly. 
 
 " How about Joseph, down there in Egypt ? was n t that 
 rather a sharp corner in wheat ? " went on the purchaser, 
 setting aside, in a half-absent way, some four or five 
 lemons from the heap upon the little counter. It was evi 
 dent the conversation had begun to interest him more than 
 his errand. 
 
 Algernon looked up with consideration in his eyes. 
 
 " Why, no I should think not," he said, after a few 
 seconds pause. " He did n t keep it out of the way when 
 it was wanted. He only saved up what they might have 
 wasted while it was plenty ; and then had it all ready for
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 135 
 
 them when the famine came. I should call that right- 
 angled enough." 
 
 " I suppose he got his price. What do you ask for 
 these lemons ? " 
 
 " Three cents apiece, sir." 
 
 "Why, Person gets four cents for skin and bones. " 
 
 " I thought three cents was fair enough pay. I gave 
 twenty-eight cents a dozen. That leaves me eight cents 
 profit." 
 
 " And that s a percentage ? " 
 
 " Of about twenty-eight," answered Algernon promptly. 
 
 " Oh ! you ve learned to figure percentages, then ? " 
 
 " Well, a fellow must," returned Algernon. 
 
 Mr. Ostridge laughed. " You might have doubled your 
 money, all the same," he said. 
 
 " I like one rule all the way through, and to work it 
 out," said the boy. 
 
 " So do most people ; only rules vary," returned the 
 banker. " The commonest one is Buy cheap, and sell 
 dear ; as cheap and as dear as you can." 
 
 " That ain t so much working things out as grabbin em 
 in, is it? " asked the young grocer. 
 
 " You go in for a system, I see. Of the best general 
 economy. Well ; suppose I buy out your stock ? " 
 
 " Of lemons ? I d rather not sell them all to one per 
 son, sir." 
 
 " Why ? I 11 pay you three and a half cents apiece for 
 the lot." 
 
 " Then maybe somebody else would have to go with 
 out. I m trading for the neighborhood. And how do I 
 know but you d make a corner ? " he added, with a 
 twinkle of voice and eye. 
 
 Again Mr. Ostridge laughed. " I suppose next week, 
 if lemons don t come in meanwhile, you 11 ask four or five
 
 136 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 cents. Why should n t I supply myself, or even corner, 
 against that? " 
 
 " No, I sha n t. They won t he costing me any more." 
 
 " Are you sure of that ? Where s the interest of your 
 money ? " 
 
 Algernon laughed. " Why, the interest of one dollar 
 sixty -eight would n t be much for a week, I guess," he 
 said. 
 
 " But suppose it had heen one hundred and sixty-eight 
 thousand dollars ? " asked Mr. Ostridge. " We re talking 
 about principles of business, you see." 
 
 "Yes," answered the boy, slowly. "I see. I should 
 have to calculate, if I ever came to that. But maybe I 
 could find a right-angle to it somehow." 
 
 Then Mr. Ostridge bought five lemons, laid down a 
 quarter, and received ten cents in change ; said " thank 
 you," and " good-afternoon," and walked away. Talfrey, 
 Junior, his hands in his pockets and a look in his face as 
 if he had got something to think of, followed his father. 
 
 " Talfrey," said Mr. Ostridge, as they walked up the 
 hill into the Round, " I should just like to see a genera 
 tion of boys like that grow up in New York. There would 
 be a few things different on Wall Street, and on Fifth Ave 
 nue, too, I fancy. Do you know you boys have got pretty 
 much everything in your own hands, after all ? " he asked 
 his son, with sudden energy. 
 
 " Except what we come into ready made, and stiffened," 
 returned the son. Talfrey Ostridge was fourteen years 
 old ; and boys of fourteen, in these days of electric lamps 
 and general tremendous illumination, get keen sight of 
 things. 
 
 " Yes ; we boys mustn t leave it all for you to do," said 
 the honorable man of bills and exchanges. 
 
 Frost Brothers went on selling six dozen lemons, at
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 137 
 
 three cents apiece. Every day came some call for them. 
 Algernon turned them over in the basket, wiping each one 
 carefully, every day or two ; so they kept fair and freshly 
 yellow to the end. Meanwhile, the next week, Porson 
 had in a new lot ; average good ; he asked five cents 
 apiece for them. 
 
 Mr. Ostridge, coming up from the train one afternoon, 
 found himself, as different people overtook or passed each 
 other by, alongside Algie Frost. 
 
 " Ah, Frost," he said, " I m glad to see you. What s 
 high for lemons, to-day ? " 
 
 " Same price, with me, sir." 
 
 " Porson says you re underselling. I told him what we 
 were paying you. He thinks you ought to stand by the 
 trade." 
 
 " If I d bought this week, I suppose I should have had 
 to. It is n t my fault if I can afford to ask less. Those 
 things always happen by chances, don t they ? The ad 
 vertisements are full of em, anyway." 
 
 " Have you read up that story of Joseph again, yet ? 
 Do you know what price he put upon wheat in the famine ? 
 It must have been something to suit Pharaoh, and the 
 Egyptian Treasury, we must suppose." 
 
 " Yes, I did read it," said the boy. " I thought I 
 should like to see what it said. And there is n t a word 
 of the price anywhere. Only, that Joseph opened all the 
 storehouses, and sold to all the people of the land what 
 they wanted ; and that all the countries round came to Jo 
 seph to buy corn. And they could n t all have been rich, 
 you know. Besides," he added, gently, " Pharaoh could n t 
 have been a bad sort, that only wanted to grind out money 
 from the people ; for what he said, first of all, about get 
 ting a man to take care of things, was, Can we find a 
 man in whom the spirit of God is ? It ain t exactly the
 
 138 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 way they look up men nowadays for the rings and cor 
 ners, is it? " 
 
 And Algernon flashed up one of his quick looks to Mr. 
 Ostridge s face. 
 
 Mr. Ostridge did not answer. But the boy met noth 
 ing to deter his simple freedom. " So I conclude that the 
 Bible corners were a little different," he ended. 
 
 Mr. Ostridge s head went up a little way into the air, 
 and he took a slightly lengthened breath, as of interroga 
 tion. " There are some other Bible corners you might 
 run against, that might not argue precisely the same," he 
 said. " Some people seem to have learned from further 
 back than Joseph." 
 
 " Maybe some corners are put there to show us the ways 
 not to turn," said Algernon. 
 
 "Are you going to be a grocer, or a minister? " asked 
 his friend, laughing out. But there was a kind of shin 
 ing sympathy in the generous eyes that, in turn, looked 
 down upon the lad. 
 
 " There is n t so much difference between the two, if 
 they re both first-rate of the sort, is there ? " questioned 
 the solemn-earnest shopkeeper. 
 
 " What are you going to do with that oldest boy of 
 yours ? " the banker asked Mr. Frost, walking down the 
 ferry platform beside him the next day, from the morn 
 ing train to New York. 
 
 " I think I shall let him do something with himself, 
 first ; and then help him, if I can." 
 
 " Send him to me, six years hence, if he wants a chance, 
 and I m left to give it. I 11 find him a place, if there s 
 one for anybody, and he likes it." 
 
 But Algernon sold the last of his lemons at three cents, 
 and never knew that the chief of Ostridge, Casawarie & 
 Co. had said a word to his father about him.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 139 
 
 VI. 
 
 Joe Rabin was the apothecary s son. He had learned 
 the knack from Hurse, his father s assistant, of tying up 
 little parcels neatly, and of cleverly twisting the cord into 
 the " trade-knot." He had also got the impression that a 
 bottle, a box, one of these knotted parcels above all a 
 label made instantly the difference of a hundred to five 
 hundred per cent value in the article so bottled, boxed, 
 tied, or labeled. " Putting up " not the prescriptions 
 or stuffs themselves was the essential part of the busi 
 ness. 
 
 " There s where the money is," he confided to Algie 
 Frost. u I ve seen Hurse take in a half a dollar for a 
 bottle of lime water. Did n t cost eight cents bottle, 
 cork, and all. And once, when he made a mistake chang 
 ing a bill, and took seventy-five cents when he meant to 
 charge a dollar and seventy-five, he said, Well, it might 
 a been worse. Made fifteen cents on it, anyhow ! 
 
 " I don t call that business," replied Algie. 
 
 I d just like you to say what you do call it, then ! " 
 retorted Joe. 
 
 u I don t know as there s any name for it," Algernon 
 answered, quietly. 
 
 " Look a-here ! " cried Joe, using privilege and going 
 round behind the counter. " Why don t you put up this 
 butternut-maple ? I can get pill-boxes for nothing 
 most," he added, prudently. " I c d let you have em 
 seein it s you for four cents a dozen ; that s only a 
 third of a cent apiece ; an you c d sell the stuff three 
 cents a box, easy." 
 
 " Pill-boxes ! " ejaculated Sidney, with a laugh. " The 
 ain t much appetite in a pill-box !
 
 140 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 "Well, powder-boxes, then; slidin ones; pink, and 
 blue, and lavender, and straw color. I tell you they d 
 go. And hold more. Could ask five cents f r em, even 
 change ! I 11 help you put up. Say so ? " 
 
 Joe Rabin had been round behind the counter more 
 than ever, and more full than ever of suggestions, since 
 the tin can of sugar-and-butternuts had come from Leb 
 anon. Algie managed to keep a friendly nearness to 
 him, however ; and all Joe could do was to circulate, with 
 the sublimest forbearance, around the can, his eyes keep 
 ing a radius-line with the central attraction, a warm moist 
 ure about his lips, and his hands, with the most obvious 
 virtue, in his pockets. 
 
 " It keeps better where it is," said Algernon. " Guess 
 you d better move out now ; I Ve got these bundles to 
 sort." 
 
 " Lemme help," said the devoted Joe. 
 
 " Well, if you re achin to, there s that twine out there 
 to be weaver-knotted and rolled up. Keep the sizes sepa 
 rate, that s all." He motioned to a big crash pocket that 
 Sidney had left upon the doorstep when Madge had called 
 him away just now, for a " very particular thing indeed ; " 
 Madge and Bobby being in the middle of a pack, to go 
 away for a holiday visit at Aunt Frost s in Norchester. 
 
 " Not much fun in that," said Joe, cloudily, and leaning 
 back upon his elbows across the counter-edge out of Algie s 
 way, with his hands still in his pockets. " Sid 11 be back 
 presently." 
 
 There is n t room in here just now for more than one," 
 said Algernon, plainly. 
 
 At that, Joe Rabin put his hands on the counter behind 
 him, lifted himself to a seat upon the same, and whirled 
 himself around as upon a pivot, till his legs were on the 
 other side.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 141 
 
 " Need n t be so frost-y about it," he remarked, leisurely, 
 remaining as he was for a half-minute. 
 
 " That counter won t stand much of that style of jump 
 ing," said Algernon. " Be careful, won t you? " 
 
 Some glass jars, one holding Salem Gibraltars, bought 
 and sent to the boys order by cousin Kitty Frost, who 
 fortunately lived in the city famed for these and for old 
 East - India - nabob families, were upon the walnut leaf 
 which had slipped startlingly at the stool end, with Joe s 
 movements. 
 
 Joe got down upon the customers side. 
 
 " I was goin to invest a few in butts," he said, care 
 lessly ; " but you re so busy, I 11 call again, p raps." He 
 rattled some pennies in the pockets where he had got his 
 hands again, and sauntered to the door. 
 
 " All right," said Algie, from down behind. " If you re 
 in no hurry, I ain t." At which Joe sauntered back 
 again. 
 
 " Are them real Salems ? " he inquired, lifting the glass 
 cover of a Mason jar. 
 
 " Yes," answered Algie, rising to the question, and tak 
 ing the cover from Joe. " Two for five cents." 
 
 " Tuck it onter them, don t yer ? " 
 
 " Have to. Special article. Comes higher than the 
 common, and there s postage. Cent an ounce, you 
 know." 
 
 Meanwhile, Joe had helped himself to one and taken a 
 bite. " They re good, if they are dear," he said, suavely, 
 with a second crunch at the toothsome confection, and 
 making as if he would so depart. " I 11 take another next 
 time, and pay then." 
 
 " I don t sell that way. Three cents apiece, Mr. Rabin, 
 if you please, and cash down." 
 
 Joe laughed, as if they both knew better in this shop
 
 142 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 play ; but catching Algernon s eye, perceived so plainly 
 what was meant, that he drew a nickel from his pocket. 
 " Down it is, then," he said, gruffly, flinging the coin upon 
 the board with energy. " Give us another." 
 
 Algernon complied, as matter of course, and drew the 
 money over into his till a lock-box, set under the leaf 
 with cleats and slides. "Anything more this morning ? " 
 he asked, civilly. 
 
 " Confound it, no ! You re too shopkeepery a fellow 
 for me, Al. Makes no difference whether you know a 
 feller or not." 
 
 " Oh yes, it does," said Algernon, with his peculiar 
 quietness. But at last Joe Rabin had got out the door. 
 
 No danger but he would come back again. Joe could 
 not take offense were it thrust at him so long as the 
 goodies lasted. Besides being constitutionally of a lym 
 phatic good nature, he purred, like a cat, so much more 
 for the sake of comforts than of company, that even when 
 roused to something like resentment or retort, he always 
 finished his roughest sentence with the familiar and con 
 doning nickname. He plunged into no deep water without 
 a rope round his waist that he could pull back by. 
 
 Algernon had begun by giving him privileges ; even by 
 occasionally standing treat. But he had got very tired 
 and something a little more uncomfortable than tired 
 with the loitering, hankering, soft-mouthed way in which 
 Joe Rabin infested his business premises. It bound him 
 to his charge inconveniently at times. He would not, for 
 a good deal, put mistrust and stinginess into Sidney s mind 
 toward the boy ; but he knew very well that his little 
 brother s shrewdness and decision were not of a sort to 
 stand against Joe s patient and wily parallels and ap 
 proaches. When the elder partner was absent from the 
 shop, Joe could get many a little overweight or overcount,
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 143 
 
 or gratuitous nibble, with a "you know me," out of Sid 
 ney s mistaken politeness or the shamefacedness that the 
 child took on vicariously ; seeing that the big fellow had 
 none of it. 
 
 Of late, the uncomfortableness had become with Alger 
 non a positive doubt and apprehension. There had been 
 a deep pinch once or twice in the butternut can, and a 
 crumbing on the floor beside it, that he knew he had him 
 self never made. His money counted ten cents short one 
 night when he had let Joe Rabin serve a purchaser ; and 
 he missed the very dime that he knew Rob Casawarie had 
 paid in for " Salems." Even more than all this, the 
 trickiness in Joe s talk, and the mean, hankering way he 
 had in the neighborhood of creature - comforts, grew in 
 their repulsion upon him, as they showed more constantly 
 and plainly. He hated them on his own part, and shrunk 
 from their contagious demoralization on the part of Sid. 
 " If he should ever make Sid pilfer from the stock ! ; he 
 thought with horror. He would rather throw up the 
 whole concern, and divide the tempting commodities, once 
 for all ; give up Frost Brothers, and go back into Middy 
 child-life again, than to have that happen ! 
 
 The worst of it all was that it set him to watching Sid. 
 He caught himself at it once and again, in little ways ; and 
 oh ! how he clutched and shook himself mentally, when 
 he suddenly realized it. He felt himself then altogether 
 the meanest of the three. Joe might be innocent ; he 
 might be even resisting great temptations in the very 
 mouth-waterings which were so evident, and which made 
 Algernon so doubt and despise him. And Sidney was a 
 little boy ; he must remember that ; two years, at the age 
 when a boy makes his first spring toward manhood, are 
 such a difference ! Sidney did not notice all that he him 
 self could not help noticing. He had, too, an innocent
 
 144 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 little sweet tooth of his own, which had always been less 
 with Algernon, and which Algernon was fast outgrowing. 
 Every afternoon, the elder partner allowed and provided 
 for this, by giving Sidney, and partaking himself, of a 
 certain prescribed quantity of the Shaker dainty ; making 
 scrupulous distinction between this item of their stock in 
 trade, which had cost them nothing, but had been a gift 
 for their pleasure, and the articles which had really been 
 money investments and represented a portion of their 
 capital. Of these, it was clearly understood that neither 
 should ever take without paying. 
 
 Algernon was learning to keep some small business 
 books properly, under his father s criticism and direction 
 in the evenings. There was added motive of pride for 
 him in this, had he needed any ; he had such strong satis 
 faction in his little weekly balance-sheet, upon which pur 
 chases, sales, and account of stock on hand, came each 
 with its due and clean fitting-in, to the fair and accurate 
 footing up in identical figures 011 the debit and the credit 
 sides. He liked his father to say, as he did once or twice. 
 " That s business-like ; that isn t like boy s play." 
 
 One afternoon, late in the season, it befell that the 
 senior partner of our firm was drafted away by his mother 
 and Ethelind to drive them a distance of three or four 
 miles for a friendly call. He had to leave Sidney in sole 
 charge. 
 
 " I would n t let anybody in to look round, Sid," he 
 said to him in giving instructions. " Don t make talk, or 
 take anybody in behind. Just attend to errands, and 
 stop there." 
 
 " I can t tell em to go," pleaded Sid, perplexed. " It 
 might be Mr. Ostridge, or Talfrey, or Rob Casawarie ; 
 and you always talk to them, you know." 
 
 " If they begin it, yes ; and you may ; but well, I
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 145 
 
 can t explain the difference ; they don t loaf ; only just 
 make up your mind there sha n t be any loafing, and feel 
 your way to steer clear of it. Takes two to make out 
 most anything, let alone quarreling ; and it s a good 
 thing to learn how to keep out of what you don t want. 
 If you can t do anything else, you can lock the door and 
 sit up in the porch and make paper bags. That won t 
 interest a loafer much, and we want some." 
 
 The increase of business had for some time prevented 
 any accumulation of surplus wrapping-paper ; with paste- 
 pot and scissors and a strip of shingle to fold over, this 
 was handily turned into the aforesaid bags for their own 
 use. 
 
 " Well," answered Sidney, somewhat slowly ; " only it 
 don t interest me a great deal, either; not as much as 
 Carrots, anyhow." 
 
 " Well, read Carrots then ; that 11 do as well, or 
 better. Only keep an eye for real customers ; and 
 don t be lonesome, old boy ! " 
 
 The pat on the shoulder with which Algie left him 
 had no less loving compunction of the elder brother in it, 
 for his not being able to feel quite so certain of everything 
 in Sid s care as in his own, than for leaving him alone 
 this bright afternoon with only shopkeeping and " Car 
 rots " to amuse him ; which he was truly very reluctant 
 to do, notwithstanding Sid had had his choice as to shut 
 ting up shop and accompanying them. 
 
 It must be owned, however, that the overtaking of Joe 
 Rabin on the Valley Road, with bat on shoulder, on his 
 way to the base-ball ground at Pixley Pasture was a sud 
 den lightening to his spirits ; insomuch, that, with a hasty 
 pantomime to his mother, he pulled rein. 
 
 " Have a ride, Joe ? " 
 
 " Oh, guess not. s lieves walk. Where goin ? " 
 10
 
 146 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Over to Pine Orchards. Right past your turn." 
 
 A rapid consideration swept its expression across Joe s 
 face. 
 
 " Well, then," he said, as he caught hold of the dasher- 
 frame, sprung up, lowered his bat, slid into the vacant 
 place hy Algernon, and had the furtive grace to give a 
 sidewise lift to his cap to the ladies upon the back seat. 
 " Might as well save wind, I suppose." 
 
 " Who plays to-day ? " asked Algernon, not without a 
 certain genial air of comfortable position as he held the 
 clean russet lines in one hand, and lightly flicked the 
 horse s haunches with the whip in the other. 
 
 " Oh ! not any of the regular nines. But there s sure 
 to be a game of scrub, and some good practice. Unless 
 that cloud means a shower," he added, nodding westward 
 where a pile of beautiful cumuli gave the gentle Jersey 
 landscape a suggestion of far-off mountain grandeur. 
 
 " Oh ! do you think so ? " came Mrs. Laura s voice 
 from behind. Now, Mrs. Laura, sensible woman that 
 she was in other things, had a distinct objection to thun 
 der-clouds, and a slight wavering of mind in regard to 
 horses. 
 
 " Oh, no, not yet awhile," answered Joe. " Looks more 
 like going round north, too." He spoke partly man- 
 fashion, as he had heard men answer the timidities of 
 women, and as it suddenly felt fine to do, and partly in 
 result of that same consideration, which might have been 
 observed, had his companions been studying him as we 
 are, to have flickered more than once across his forehead, 
 and to have settled into a kind of half absentness in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Don t borrow any lightning or tempest, mamma, or 
 any of the rest of the tribulations," quoth light-hearted 
 Master Algie, now thoroughly enjoying his command and
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 147 
 
 his prospect for the afternoon. His mind s eye swiftly 
 glanced toward Sidney again, and beheld him quite cosy 
 and happy, with his charming English story, in the sunny- 
 shady hack stoop, and with Celia, prohably, for neighbor 
 ing company, at her window above. He gave his horse 
 another touch with the tasseled lash. 
 
 " Oh, don t hurry, Algie, I did n t mean that," said 
 mamma Laura, hastily. 
 
 " I never imagined you did, mamma. You re never 
 in a hurry behind a horse. Between a horse and a thun 
 der-storm, you d stand stockstill." Algernon laughed in 
 the uplifted gayety of his heart. 
 
 " Hullo ! here we are. Much obliged," said Joe Rabin, 
 the next minute, springing out upon the ground as Algie 
 halted, and waving a salute with his bat. And they drove 
 on, leaving him standing there at Tulick s Corner. Pres 
 ently they passed a market gardener s wagon, bound in 
 to Broadtop from the Orchards. 
 
 If Algernon could have seen Joe Rabin stand still, 
 waiting there ; then heard him hail the gardener s team, 
 calling out, " Give us a ride, will yer ? " if he had seen 
 him jump to the wagon-front as the man good-naturedly 
 pulled up ; if he had heard him say, in answer to the in 
 quiry about a ball-match " No, t is n t a field day, and 
 I guess I 11 go home ; " if he had known that ten min 
 utes afterward he was tossing his bat over his father s 
 fence and starting to make the best of his way up the 
 Slope to the olive-green house well, I believe he, too, 
 would have been tempted to prophesy a shower, and to 
 advise Mrs. Laura urgently to let him turn the horse and 
 get safe home before it should roll up.
 
 148 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Now I do not suppose Joe Rabin started for Frost Broth 
 ers with deliberate intent of doing what he did do after 
 ward ; I think he only remembered that Sidney would be 
 left alone in charge, and it occurred to him that it would 
 be a favorable time for a visit. I do not suppose half the 
 blamable things Joe, or anybody else, does, are to be re 
 ferred to an intention beforehand of the full wrong-doing. 
 But I know that Joe, and a good many of us, turn at the 
 wrong finger-post at many a corner of our lives, and that 
 if the evil to which we so deliver ourselves does not beguile 
 or urge us over any fatal brink, it is not from any Tightness 
 or strength or wisdom in ourselves, but from a preventing 
 Goodness that saves us from a further chance and choice. 
 
 There is also, it certainly seems, a preventing power in 
 the Evil whether we put it outside of ourselves as a 
 personality, and spell it with a capital letter or not. For 
 to " prevent" mea.ns to " go before," and something does 
 surely often go before, and prepare the way, in a line of 
 opportunity and temptation, for any who once give them 
 selves by a first wrong to such a leading. When Joe 
 Rabin sauntered into the Frosts back-yard, and presented 
 himself with his usual happened-in-on-privilege air at the 
 little area door, something that he saw quite altered and 
 extended, in his favor as he thought, the circumstances on 
 which he had counted. Sidney, tired with the warm af 
 ternoon and with lonely waiting, and having read himself 
 into the sort of quietness that was apt to overtake him now 
 and then since his long illness, had let his book slip from 
 his hands, dropped himself back in the low corner seat be 
 hind the counter, and was in the dead middle of a summer 
 afternoon nap ; the more heavy, doubtless, from the atmos 
 pheric heaviness that precedes a summer shower.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 149 
 
 " Guess I m boss this time," quoth Joe, inwardly. But 
 he did not dare to whisper it in words, or even to chuckle 
 in a whisper over it. In fact, he did not know, just at 
 first, what advantage he would conclude to take from it. 
 He could look round a bit, at any rate. But what made 
 him slip off his easy old half-boots, and go in stocking-footed 
 across the floor, and behind the leaf ? If they had not 
 been those easy old shoes, and if he could not so readily 
 have stepped into them again before Sid could fairly rub 
 his eyes open, he would hardly have done it. He carried 
 them in his hand to the counter-opening, and laid them 
 down noiselessly just outside. Then he changed his mind, 
 picked them up, and took them into the sanctum with him, 
 keeping them in his hand. 
 
 " Wonder if they ve sold much of their but nut ? " he 
 put to himself, still in the same silent way, as a question. 
 There is as much preliminary and pretext with itself in a 
 mind yielding to a gradual temptation, as there ever has 
 to be between it and another, to cover with an innocent 
 and plausible air the step by step of intent or drift. 
 
 Without a word Joe went through the mental process 
 of a cautious conversation, at any point of which, should 
 Sidney wake, he might be prepared to speak out the re 
 mark of the moment, and give color to his proceedings. 
 
 " Funny way to tend store," he went on. " Might help 
 myself, and leave my money on the counter." 
 
 He stopped there, to quietly put on his shoes first ; then 
 he lifted and carefully laid off the cover of the tin can. 
 
 Certainly the contents were most tempting. The rich, 
 loose, moist, crumbly sugar, with the true maple depth of 
 color, filling more than three-fourths of the tall canister 
 the thin, curly, veined and shaded butternut-meats showing 
 their tips and flakes generously through the mass ; the 
 quantity, from which a few mouthfuls could scarcely ever
 
 150 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 be missed ; these were the conditions and allurements in 
 which poor little greedy-mouthed Joe Rabin found himself, 
 as he thought, " boss " of the situation. He was anything 
 but that, miserable little sinner ! 
 
 He did not even try his pockets for that money which 
 should pay for the " helping of himself." He was careful 
 not to do that, for he knew he could not keep up the fiction 
 to himself if he did. Does this seem an impossible self- 
 lie ? Why, he did not look at the lie, any more than he 
 felt in his pockets, lest he should find out the emptiness 
 that he knew all the while was in it. 
 
 But he dipped into the sugar. Pay, or any other con 
 sequences, outward or moral, might come after. The roar 
 ing Evil that was helping itself in him knew well enough 
 now that it had got him. 
 
 And so Joe Rabin first nibbled, picked here and there, 
 keeping a careful level, and then ate on and on, as a boy 
 can of butternut-and-maple, until he suddenly realized that 
 a new moist line, indicating the recent level before he had 
 begun, was traceable around the tin full half an inch above 
 what yet remained. 
 
 That stopped him. He would fain have put some in his 
 pockets ; his conversation with himself had gone deeper 
 down and hushed itself more in the depths by this time, 
 and had become a mere wonder as to how much anybody 
 else not he, Joe Rabin, who was supposed to be safe out 
 at Pixley Pasture, and a shower growling and darkening 
 up, too, that might easily keep folks in the nearest shelter 
 a long time yet might naturally be believed to have 
 eaten, if it was noticed ; and this query got no margin of 
 answer that would include a future supply. 
 
 He pulled off his shoes again, and got up. The growl 
 of the coming shower might be a flash and a clap at any 
 minute ; and that would wake Sidney. Thus far, the
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 151 
 
 darkness had been like a night-soothing-, and a cover also 
 for the small deed of darkness. 
 
 As Joe lifted himself to his feet, somewhat cramped 
 with his long crouching, the shine of the glass Mason jars 
 caught his eyes, and again his opportunity overcame him. 
 " Might as well be caught for an old sheep as for a lamb," 
 he quoted ; the inward talk had grown less compromising 
 now ; " can pay up any time ; " a bold defiance to what he 
 knew his bad purpose of escape to be ; " and thunder ! 
 what a fool I am ; Sid might sell no end and pocket the 
 money ; or anybody might come in while he was asleep ! " 
 With this last curious thought-action, which detached him 
 self altogether from the " anybody," and from the whole 
 scrape, Joe, having already lifted the light cover, grasped 
 the " Salem" jar with one hand, hastily plunged its mouth 
 into the top of one of his half-boots, and so inverted, 
 emptied it into the singular receptacle of half its contents. 
 Then, with a sudden panic, not daring to return to the tin 
 can, as a vivid stream of lightning quivered out of the 
 gloomy sky beyond the open doorway, and a peal began 
 that seemed, even to him, something awful in its immediate 
 echo of his own words he ran noiselessly from the place, 
 not stopping to unload his booty or to reboot his feet, until 
 he turned the corner and could sit down under the outer 
 wall. And here he recollected that he had replaced neither 
 cover of can or jar in his hurry. Never mind ; it 
 was Sid s lookout ; it would n t be tracked to him, out at 
 Pixley Pasture ; and the storm would bewilder recollection 
 and account for almost anything except the missing 
 goods. 
 
 Innocent little Sid started up, bewildered indeed with 
 that crash of thunder. He was afraid in a storm, and 
 when alone could not deny it to himself. When with Al 
 gernon, he borrowed courage ; really received it, as we do
 
 152 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 receive a virtue we admire and emulate. But now he just 
 jumped and ran for dear life, to find companionship and 
 heartening within the house. At the shop entrance, even 
 in his flight, he recollected. Faithful as Casablanca, he 
 paused under the very glittering of another of those blazes 
 across the clouds, and while trembling through the rat 
 tling reverberation that followed, shut the door, turned the 
 big key that under the circumstances he was mortally 
 afraid of, and with a swift valor bore it with him in through 
 the kitchen and up-stairs to his and Algie s sleeping-room, 
 where he flung it far from him upon Algie s bed, and then 
 turned toward the sisters apartment to find Celia. 
 
 Somebody, hurrying up the Hill street over the Slope, 
 caught a strange glimpse of a boy under Mr. Frost s 
 corner wall pulling a handful of some stuff in red and white 
 from an old boot and transferring it to his pocket, after 
 which he put the boot to its proper use and place with some 
 precipitation, sprang to his feet, and was down the hill 
 through the great, scattering bullets of the rain like one 
 possessed, but perhaps only with the inclination to get safe 
 home out of a pelting shower. 
 
 " Queer ! " thought Mr. Talfrey Ostridge to himself, as 
 he kept on up the opposite sidewalk under his umbrella. 
 " Might have been one of these sanguinary - bordered 
 pocket handkerchiefs. But what the boy should dust out 
 his shoes for, with this coming on " 
 
 At this moment a great gust caught the umbrella and 
 its holder, swirled them fiercely and helplessly round, 
 turned the former inside out, and drove real bullets of 
 sudden hail against the gentleman s broad back and broad 
 cloth. A terrible glare of lightning and an instant tear 
 ing avalanche of thunder came almost simultaneously ; 
 and in the struggle with the elements through which Mr. 
 Ostridge gained the Brim and his own dwelling, the
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 153 
 
 smaller incident of the boy and his boot was temporarily 
 swept from his recollection. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Mrs. Frost and Ethelind, with Algie, were kept at the 
 Pine Orchards by the storm until quite after dark. Sid 
 ney had had his supper with Celia, and they were playing 
 Logomachy, when Algie, pretty well tired, came back 
 from returning his " team " to the stable. He was not 
 hungry ; they had all had a fine tea at the Orchards ; so 
 he took his little safety-lamp from the pantry and lit it, 
 to go and give a look to the shop for the night, and then 
 proceed to bed. 
 
 " How was trade, Sid ? " he asked, rather sleepily, as 
 he leisurely scratched his match at the chimney. 
 
 " Cele ! you can t build on my word, you know! " just 
 then exclaimed Sidney to his sister. 
 
 "That is n t building, Sid, it s altering," replied Celia. 
 
 "It s prefixing, " persisted Sidney. "And you said 
 we could n t do that." 
 
 " H O, before nest, is quite honest," laughed Celia, 
 and gathered up the word. 
 
 " Don t see how a fellow is going to tell," said Sid. 
 "You would n t let Ethel make fairly from fair, the 
 other night ; and then mother went and made fairy ! " 
 
 " Of course ; it was n t a derivation. There might be a 
 question, perhaps, in that case ; but it was n t direct ; and 
 this is certainly no derivation, or like word, at all. Don t 
 you see ? " 
 
 " He don t hear," said Algernon, screwing down his 
 wick with a little difficulty, and taking up the lamp to go. 
 " How s trade, Sid ? " 
 
 " Oh ! nobody came, and it thundered, and I came
 
 154 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Locked the door ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. Key s up in our room." 
 
 " Bring away the till ? " 
 
 " No. Did n t think. Was n t much in it." 
 
 " Wish you d get the key, then." 
 
 " Yes, run ; Algie s tired," said Celia. And Sidney 
 ran up-stairs and quickly back again with the key ; in a 
 hurry, now that it was his turn, to make " cheats " out of 
 Celia s " eats." " Then that ain t a prefix, either," he 
 said, triumphantly. 
 
 It was queer that there were those two words and the 
 last one made just so when Algie came in again. He 
 did not look exactly tired, now ; there was no sleep in his 
 eyes ; he walked up to the table, gave a look, but hardly 
 as if that were what he came for ; and asked Sidney once 
 more, " Nobody in while I was gone ? " 
 
 "No, nobody," answered Sid, simply. He did not 
 think of his nap at that moment ; in fact, he had not at 
 all realized that he had more than dropped his book 
 and himself for an instant, when that sudden darkness 
 and thunder-clap had come. 
 
 Algernon looked strangely puzzled ; a boy that made no 
 attempt to cover up his tracks better than that might 
 puzzle anybody ; he turned round without further remark, 
 and walked off to bed. 
 
 The next morning he was up and dressed a good half- 
 hour before Sidney woke. He went down through the 
 kitchen into the shop. Runy presently followed him, and 
 gave him a mail parcel that had come the night before. 
 
 " All right this mornin , Boss ? " she asked the senior 
 partner, in her jocose Irish way, that yet sounded to Al 
 gernon s sensitiveness as if she had some meaning in it. 
 He looked round at her sharply, and spoke as sharply. 
 
 " Right ? of course it s right. What should be 
 wrong ? "
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 155 
 
 " Ah, who knows ? might ha bin signs o mice r the 
 like whin the cat s away, ye mind. Er the cat hersilf , 
 aven," returned Runy, with a half offended and mysterious 
 toss of the head. She was not used to short words from 
 Algernon. 
 
 Algernon went to work in silence, and Runy departed 
 to mould biscuits and stir oatmeal. Algie opened the 
 mail-parcel, and filled the Salem jar to the top with the 
 new supply that had opportunely come ; then he broke up, 
 lightened and evened the butternut maple in the tin can, 
 taking out a little paper bag full which he would carry in 
 to his mother presently. When Sidney came there should 
 not be any manifest necessity for explanation or discovery. 
 Things should not show so plainly as even the boy him 
 self must have expected they would show. He would not 
 have to find his brother out. It should all apparently 
 have got passed by, and covered up. If Sid could have 
 it so if he would not have to tell ! 
 
 Sid s eyes lit upon the Salem jar when he came in, 
 naturally enough. 
 
 " Why, when did you fill that up ? " he asked quickly. 
 " When did they come ? " 
 
 " Last night," replied Algernon, briefly, letting both 
 questions pass as answered with the words that fitted the 
 last, though he hated himself as he did so, for even that 
 accidental prevarication, and for hedging his brother s 
 fault with it. Yet if haste and half-darkness would better 
 account for the escape from reckoning if Sid would 
 think such a thing good luck, and accept it oh ! what 
 difference did it make ? it was all miserable, altogether. 
 
 " I m going to shut up shop to-day," he said, abruptly. 
 " I m going up to the Basin with Rob Casawarie." 
 " You said you could n t," said Sidney, wonderingly. 
 " I ve changed my mind," was all that Algernon an-
 
 156 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 swered, so that Sidney wondered the more ; so much that 
 it left him nothing to say, again, except, forlornly, 
 
 " You were off all yesterday afternoon. You have n t 
 gone away from me so much since I had my collection of 
 complaints." 
 
 That phrase, into which they had quaintly condensed 
 Sidney s involuntary occupation and endurance of the 
 springtime, as if it had been an odd choice, like the gath 
 ering together of buttons or stamps, to see how many he 
 could get touched Algernon with all that lay back of 
 his present trouble, and that seemed put so far away by it. 
 He changed his mind again. 
 
 " I won t go away from you now," he said, with some 
 thing queer in his voice. " I 11 stick by you, old Sid, 
 anyway. But we won t keep shop. We 11 begin to build 
 that parlor in the apple-tree." 
 
 Yet all day, though he remained patient and pleasant 
 in their work-play, there was something that seemed to 
 have dampened Algie down. " He ain t put out," Sid 
 ney puzzled with himself, anxiously ; " but he s kind 
 of blowed out." And something damped down his ques 
 tion, also, when he would, with the old directness, have 
 asked him why. 
 
 It went on so, day after day. There was an evident 
 trouble in Algernon s mind, and a hitch in his life, that 
 nobody could detect the meaning of, or see cause for. 
 Sid, the nearest of all, was most puzzled of all, and most 
 strangely aggrieved. Algie was so queer with him. He 
 did n t act mad, there had been nothing to be mad about. 
 But there was a way with him, part of the time, like 
 the " hold-off " he had with fellows like Joe Rabin ; a 
 kind of " squirm," as Sid used to say, " under the skin," 
 that he should think anybody might feel, if they did n t 
 see it. Now, poor little Sid felt it himself. There was
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 157 
 
 none of the old identification of thought, plan, and inter 
 est ; the instantaneous turning to each other for one 
 could n t squirm without the other shrinking away in spite 
 of himself with every bit of fun, new notion, happen 
 ing, expectation ; poor little Sid found the world all at 
 once different, and could n t think what had made it so. 
 Sometimes Al looked at him suddenly, with a kind of 
 frightened, pitying expression, as he had done when he 
 had the " complaints ; " then again it was as if Algie 
 himself was sick of things ; he would answer a customer, 
 hand out what was wanted, take the change, or brush it 
 into the till, with that half-disgusted, quite indifferent way, 
 and sit down with his elbows on his knees and his chin 
 in his hands, and go to thinking thinking without 
 anything, as Sidney had been used to experience, coming 
 out of it all, of suggestion, purpose, confidence. 
 
 " What ails you, Al? " he did ask him, now and then. 
 And each time Algernon only got up, or shook himself a 
 little, or once let his arm, as he stretched it out 
 wearily, drop with a kind of pathetic recurrence of old 
 habit across Sidney s shoulders, as he answered, in the 
 word that is but the beginning of a sentence that may 
 not be spoken, " Oh, nothing." 
 
 Nothing that can be helped. Nothing that I can 
 say to you. Nothing that may ever be any different. 
 Nothing that I can bear to own is something ! These 
 are the meanings which all we human children hide un 
 der our denying " nothings," and put away to endure, to 
 work out, to experience, to treasure, to fear, to hope for, 
 by ourselves. 
 
 But this state of things could not last forever. It never 
 does. Nothing turns out to be nothing, and evaporates ; 
 or it comes to a head, gets unendurable, brings a crisis, or 
 forces some action which changes everything.
 
 158 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Vacation was drawing to an end. Sidney s long sum 
 mer had built him up in health, and both the Middies 
 were to return to school. But Mr. and Mrs. Frost were 
 beginning to be anxious lest for Algernon the business 
 which he had made so real a thing of might have too 
 closely replaced his book- work to be good for him. They 
 questioned whether they might not have made a mistake 
 in allowing him so to employ himself as practically to have 
 lost his holidays. 
 
 This feeling approached conviction with his father, 
 when one evening he asked Algie, quite casually, how the 
 trial balances were going on. He had not seen one for 
 two or three weeks. 
 
 "Haven t made em out," was the languid reply. 
 
 " Been winding up business in the usual boys way, eh ? 
 eating up balance of stock ? " 
 
 Now, as there were screws and matches and tin-tacks, 
 pins, needles, soap, and hairpins in that same stock, this 
 was really hard upon a boy s appetite and self-control at 
 once. But the tears need not have come into Algie s eyes 
 for it, and it need not have made him turn so quickly 
 aside from his father s look. 
 
 " Anything wrong, my boy ? " asked Mr. Frost, anx 
 iously ; " or are you only tired, or a little disappointed, or 
 What ? " 
 
 Algie looked him full in the face, to reply to that ; and 
 a half-restrained quiver on his lip was drawn in to firm 
 ness. " I don t know, father, so don t ask me," he said. 
 So Mr. Frost knew that there was something, and that he 
 must wait. He respected his son s right to choose his own 
 time. 
 
 " Will you just run down to the post-office with this 
 letter ? " he asked the boy ; but his tone said, " we will 
 leave it now ; I m all ready for you if you want me."
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 159 
 
 And Algernon s " Yes, sir," had a hearty " thank you " 
 hidden in it. 
 
 " And afterward," said his father, " I wish you would 
 go up to Mr. Ostridge s and ask him for that pamphlet 
 he spoke of, if he can spare it. I should like to look at 
 it, and will return it to-morrow." 
 
 Algie took the letter and ran off. It was a comfort, 
 after all, to think of his father, who was so kind and wise, 
 and who was Sidney s father as well. The responsibility 
 was not all on his young shoulders. Only ought he to 
 tell his father this that really he kept indignantly con 
 tradicting to himself, was nothing to tell, after all ? 
 
 At the post-office he received a letter directed to him 
 self. It was in Mrs. Shatoraine s strong, graceful hand, 
 and was postmarked " Lebanon." This was half a chill, 
 again, and half another comfort. They had had such 
 eager pleasure in Aunt Thankful s letters and cooperation, 
 until now that the good seemed gone out of everything ; 
 and yet, again, Aunt Thankful would be coming soon, and 
 she was sure to see and help, without a word said. She 
 would be right into everything. 
 
 He walked up to the Brim, and rang at Mr. Ostridge s 
 door, asked for him, and was shown into a little library 
 where Mr. Ostridge entered presently, and he told his 
 errand. 
 
 The gentleman left the room to look for the pamphlet, 
 which was in an up-stairs study. While he was gone, 
 Algernon, sitting under the light of a bright gas-drop at 
 the table, opened Mrs. Shatoraine s letter and glanced 
 along over the first page. 
 
 " Oh dear ! " he exclaimed, softly and bitterly, in a way 
 too much like a man s moan ; for his trouble all surged 
 back into his mind with the bright plan the letter proposed 
 and unfolded.
 
 160 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 "Pardon me, my boy," said the voice of Mr. Ostridge, 
 behind him. " But why oh dear ? no bad news in your 
 letter, I hope?" 
 
 With the surprise, the kindliness, and the impossibility 
 of explanation, Algernon s throat and eyes filled up. 
 
 " No, sir," he struggled to say, for he must say some 
 thing. " Only something that ought to be jolly and 
 is n t any more ! " It burst forth in spite of him ; and in 
 spite of him he ended with a sob, the breakdown of his 
 long, lonely worry. 
 
 Mr. Ostridge drew up a chair and sat down beside 
 him. " Perhaps, as I think you know I like you, and am 
 your friend, you will tell me what, and why ? " he said, 
 quietly ; for Algie s outburst could not be politely or in 
 differently ignored. "Is it business trouble, maybe ?" 
 the kind business-man went on. " I am used to that sort 
 of thing, you know." 
 
 "It isn t anything" Algie asserted, valiantly; "and 
 yet I d give the whole shop to know it was n t ! " 
 
 " Do you mistrust anybody, then ? " 
 
 When it came to that, Algie stood up, trying to force 
 away his distress again to the secrecy he had kept it in ; 
 but like the genie from the casket, it had come forth, and 
 could not be crowded back. At any rate, the fact of 
 trouble could not. 
 
 " No, sir. There is n t anybody to mistrust. There s 
 only my brother and I," he said, proudly. And then, in 
 an instant, there was quite enough made plain to Mr. 
 Ostridge. 
 
 " Have you investigated ? " he asked. 
 
 " I could n t investigate," was the reply. 
 
 " Would you mind, now, just telling me all about it ? 
 the mere facts, I mean. I can reserve judgment as gen 
 erously as you can ; and two heads are apt to be better 
 than one ; and the other of the two may be the cooler."
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 161 
 
 "I may as well now," said Algie, gathering himself 
 up. " And because you are my friend, I will. It was 
 one afternoon, weeks ago, when I went with my mother 
 and Ethel to Pine Orchards ; and it came on to rain ; that 
 big thunder-storm and hail, you know, sir. We were kept 
 away till after dark ; and I left Sid in the shop. He 
 does n t know that anybody came in ; he might have gone 
 out, you know, sir, and left the door unlocked, and not 
 thought anything about it to tell me. I have n t asked 
 him very much about it." 
 
 Algernon spoke eagerly, and looked intently into Mr. 
 Ostridge s face. 
 
 " Or he might have gone to sleep," said Mr. Ostridge. 
 
 "Why, so he might! I never thought of that but 
 then, who was there ? Nobody that ever comes there 
 that was round that day would have touched any 
 thing." 
 
 " Then there were things meddled with ? " 
 
 " Yes ; the maple sugar and butternuts ; and the Salem 
 Gibraltars oh ! it sounds so small and mean to care ; 
 but it was n t the things ! " 
 
 " I know that," said Mr. Ostridge. " Who was there 
 about the house ? Whom do you have in your kitchen ? 
 and who might come for company, there ? " 
 
 " Oh ! our Runy would n t pick up loose gold except 
 to take care of it for anybody it belonged to ! " said Algie. 
 " Much less a few dimes or goodies ! " 
 
 "Have you inquired of her ? she might be able to give 
 some evidence. You never know where a clue may be." 
 
 " Why, I never inquired of anybody," said Algie. 
 
 " And so kept all this to yourself, to worry over ? The 
 
 best way is to face things at once. I advise you to go 
 
 home and ask Runy if she can remember anything about 
 
 that day. When you ve tried her, come to me again, and 
 
 ll
 
 162 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ask Sidney if he thinks he went to sleep while he was in 
 the shop ; or if he left it at all without shutting up. But 
 probably you asked that of him, at first." 
 
 " No ; I did n t ask him anything, except if anybody 
 had come in ; and when he said there hadn t it did n t 
 seem any use and I did n t want to make him tell 
 me anything." 
 
 Through all these " anys," hesitated over and then 
 spoken with a sort of determined confidence, as if there 
 could be nothing held back behind them, Mr. Ostridge 
 discerned, with a warm liking and sympathy, the boy s 
 character, and experience in this thing ; and it was a good 
 grasp of the hand, and not an ordinary touch of courtesy, 
 that he gave him, as Algernon rose and said, " Well, good 
 night, sir, and thank you." 
 
 Mr. Ostridge went with him to the door, where he said 
 again, "Just ask, and then come to me. I feel pretty 
 sure you 11 get hold of something." 
 
 That up-hill walk in the shower had at once recurred 
 to Mr. Ostridge s recollection, when Algernon had said, 
 " That big thunder-storm and hail, you know." And an 
 instantaneous photograph had flashed back with it upon 
 his mental sight, of a boy under the corner wall in the 
 rain, emptying his shoes, and putting a handful of some 
 thing red and white hurriedly into his pocket. 
 
 " It looked like goody-stuff, then ; and I know the boy, 
 and I never liked him ; and for that reason I won t say 
 anything until I see if somebody else does. There s the 
 making in that boy of such a man as the world wants 
 more of," was Mr. Ostridge s soliloquy, as he closed his 
 front door and walked back to his library. And the last 
 words, there is hardly need to say, did not refer to Master 
 Joe Rabin.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 163 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Runy, do you recollect about that stormy afternoon 
 when I drove out to Pine Orchards ? " 
 
 " Well, I should just think I might," returned Runy. 
 " Me and Miss Cely our loahn in the house an I wish, 
 faith, Madge an Bobby was back from their wisits an 
 their rackets an the blin s all a slatterin wid the win 
 in a minute, an everythin to shut up an shut down afore 
 yer could turn ; I guess I recklets it an why not in 
 deed ? " 
 
 " Do you remember anything well, seeing anybody in 
 about the place or the shop ? " Algernon pursued, with 
 the same old shrinking from direct inquiry. 
 
 " Ah, ye wants ter know, now, diz ye ? Yer might a 
 let me tell ye afore. T would be quare if I had n t for 
 gotten by this time ; fer t wa n t much ter lay up ter min- 
 tion. Only in the time iv it af ye d missed annything 
 but ye see ye did n t t would n t bin me ner the 
 cat ! " 
 
 " Runy, 1 did miss something. Can you help me find 
 out where it went ? I don t care for the miss ; but I d 
 give a good deal to know now." 
 
 "Well, twas jist this, thin ner more ner less," said 
 Runy, stopping in the wringing out of her dish-towel, and 
 regarding him with keen, pleasant eyes ; " I d lift me 
 kitchen tidy, an gone up te me room, an was sittin be- 
 hin me ahnin blin the comfort it is te me ! in the 
 winder perjectin over the arey ; when what wid I see bu 
 that feller that s sore fer good eyes Joe Rabin " 
 
 " Why, Runy ! it could n t have been ! I picked him 
 up out on the Valley Road myself, and took him on to 
 Tulick s Corner, on the way to Pixley, to play base-ball." 
 
 " Thin me story s sp ilt, I s pose," returned Runy, giv-
 
 164 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ing the final wring to her dish-towel and shaking it out 
 over the chimney line. But tone and toss told of a whole 
 flood of information and of certainty dammed up behind 
 her words. 
 
 " Go ahead, Runy. Tell me what you thought you saw. 
 But a fellow can t be in two places at once, you know." 
 
 " I know he can t," said Runy, with awful dignity and 
 wisdom. " That s a nary-buy, an it s agin the law. An 
 Joe Rabin war n t out at Pixley, the more accordin . Fer 
 he walked in here, an down the arey, on his two feet, with 
 his shoes on ; an he kim out awhile after, with his shoes 
 in his hands ; jist when we d got all the blin s in, that was, 
 an a tarmint thim blessed ahnin blin s is in a gale an a 
 hurry ; an I see him from the spare-room gardin win 
 der lookin up an down the house as he did when he 
 kim in, an seein nobody ; but there s alwers eyes set 
 somewhers whin there s a thing that s set to be seen to ; 
 an the win roun the corner took his hat, an he pit up his 
 han s to grab that in the gateway, an a thing dropped out 
 iv his shoe, that I don t wonder he could n t put it on com 
 fortable ; an I picked it up arterwards anunder the bushes, 
 an there s the highdentikill Sailin Jibroliter! " And Runy 
 produced from the depths of the match-jar on the kitchen 
 mantel a dusty, lean, rain-melted, air-eaten specimen of the 
 once delicate dainty, and reached it out with a triumph of 
 proof and of probity, to the confounded Algernon. 
 
 " But where was Sid ? " he asked impetuously. " He 
 didn t sell" And there Algie stopped, with a reflex 
 wave of the old difficulty and uncertainty at his heart and 
 against his speech. 
 
 " Course he did n t. That next thunder-clap was the 
 first thing he d known fer one good hour tell me ! he kim 
 in on that, an up-stairs ter me an Miss Cely, an he said he 
 believed he d bin jist droppin asleep ; but it wod a taken
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 165 
 
 a while ter finish the wakin , if it had n t bin fer the 
 keepin on o the lightnin an the hail an the thunder, all 
 ter once an altergither, I guess ! He was no more stiddy 
 on his legs nor a pisoned fly ! That s how I seen through 
 the stockin -footin . But t was all right, yer said yerself ; 
 an twar n t fer the like r me to be conterdictin , was it ? " 
 
 " You re a brick, Runy ! " shouted Algie, dropping his 
 long load of mistrust and fear, that had made him old and 
 grave beyond his growth, and turning himself on the in 
 stant into a boy again. " You re a solid, no-end, square- 
 cornered, everlasting old brick ! " and he seized her second 
 dish-towel away from her, flung it backward over his head 
 upon the kitchen table as it happened, and caught and 
 shook her two wet hands. 
 
 " Don t see what yer so awful pleased at, though," said 
 Runy, regarding him with her keen look again over her 
 shoulder, as she went and picked up her towel. " If yer 
 took up wid thinkin " 
 
 " I did n t not for a minute, Runy; don t say it ! I 
 only did n t dare to stop to think ! " interrupted Alger 
 non. 
 
 " Ye was jist desarvin not to be conterdicted," finished 
 Runy, leaving out the forbidden hypothesis of his thought, 
 and speaking with a quiet provisional scorn. But she had 
 it, as it were, to herself ; for Algernon was out and off 
 from the kitchen door. 
 
 " Sid ! Sid ! " she heard him calling. " Where are 
 you ? Come along, old boy ! Here s a letter from Aunt 
 Thankful, and there s business in it. No end of a jolly 
 old plan I " 
 
 But she did not hear or see him, after he had found 
 Sidney, and the two had gone through the letter together, 
 and had discussed Mrs. Shatoraine s brilliant idea of a 
 big twenty-eight pound can of first-rate maple sugar, at
 
 166 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ten cents a pound, to be brought down by her from the 
 country, and to be melted and boiled into real, fresh, rich 
 maple syrup, and bottled for sale to their best custom 
 ers at twenty-five cents a bottle a small lot at a time, 
 as wanted and when Sid all at once turned from the 
 project to Algie himself, to say, " Why, it s done you lots 
 of good, Algie ! I did n t think you were ever going to 
 be glad about the shop again ! " she did not hear Algie 
 say nor see him put his arm round Sidney s neck while 
 he did say it "I m glad of everything again ! only, I ve 
 got something that Sid ! do you think you could for 
 give me for something without asking me what ? because 
 it never really was anything, and I could n t tell you what 
 it was if I tried ! " 
 
 Sid stared. " I don t see what I have to do with it, 
 then ! " he said. " Except it s what s made you kind of 
 grouty and don t-care-ish, lately." 
 
 " Forgive that, then." 
 
 " So I will," answered Sid, laughing, " now it s over. 
 But it was n t lively while it lasted." 
 
 And Frost Brothers went down the shady flagged path 
 under the syringas, to the area steps, and down into the 
 very shop door, with their arms across each other s 
 shoulders. 
 
 Algernon walked up to the Brim that afternoon, when 
 the train had been in long enough to allow for dinner 
 time. Mr. Ostridge came down from the veranda and 
 met him, as he saw him coming up the drive. The gentle 
 man had a half-smoked cigar in his fingers which he threw 
 off into the shrubbery as Algie approached. " I do that 
 out of respect to a boy, as I would to a woman," he has 
 been heard to say. " They can t like it, and we don t 
 want them to like it." 
 
 Algernon s bright face told a good story, without a 
 word.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 167 
 
 " All comfortable on exchange to - day, eh ? " Mr. 
 Ostridge asserted, interrogatively. 
 
 " Yes, sir. It s all right for us, at least. It was a 
 boy that I need n t tell of because if it had been some 
 boys I would n t have told of them that came in 
 stocking-footed, sir ! when Sidney was asleep. And he 
 
 did n t either beg or buy." 
 
 "Pretty much as I expected; stocking - feet and all 
 agreeing. For it was a boy that I need n t tell of now 
 
 that I saw, under your father s garden wall, in the hail, 
 pulling lollypops out of an old shoe," said Mr. Ostridge. 
 
 " That day ? " asked Algernon, quickly. 
 
 " Yes. That afternoon of the unmistakable hail-storm," 
 replied his friend. 
 
 Algernon looked intensely satisfied, with a curious shade 
 of puzzle. 
 
 " It s all as clear as Q. E. D.," he said, " except one 
 impossible part, unless you and I saw different boys, and 
 Runy was mistaken. The boy Runy says and I should 
 think, only for this went out to Pixley s ; I took him 
 up myself, and set him down at Tulick s Corner less than 
 an hour before." 
 
 " The boy I mean came in on Semple s wagon from the 
 Orchards, half an hour before," returned Mr. Ostridge, 
 coolly matching query with information, as if armed and 
 equipped beforehand, as the closest law-evidence might 
 require. " I was at the market-house when they drove 
 up. The man came in ; he had some late sweet corn and 
 some fine melons, I remember ; the .boy went up the hill 
 like a rocket I have a habit of noticing things, you see. 
 And I find they get docketed and put away, so that they 
 are usually on call if wanted." 
 
 " I m awfully glad, Mr. Ostridge ! " said Algernon, so 
 glad that he had not another word to pay.
 
 168 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " So am I," said the gentleman. " But it s queer of 
 us both ; for there s somebody in fault, you see, anyway. 
 The bad thing is n t shoved out of the world." 
 
 " I know. I ve thought of that," said Algie, slowly. 
 "But dirt has to go somewhere," he added, brightening 
 suddenly ; " only we want to sweep as clean as we can 
 round us ! " 
 
 Mr. Ostridge laughed heartfully. " Very good ! You 
 keep on sweeping for a few years longer and I guess 
 you 11 find you ve made a place to stand in ! And look 
 here," as Algernon was raising his hand to his cap and 
 taking a step as if of departure, " remember I m your 
 business adviser. Come to me when you want anything 
 that I can say, or do." 
 
 And the two shook hands, then, as friend with friend, 
 and said good-by. 
 
 That very evening, Algernon brought a somewhat long 
 and intricate paper to his father. It was a balance sheet 
 for three weeks. There was one item in it set down 
 thus : 
 
 9 Salem Gibraltara, 23 
 
 Butternut-maple, ab t Ib 15 
 
 .38 
 
 In the balance it was offset with 
 Riddance of rubbish, and finding friend . cheap . .38 
 
 He waited till his father came to that, resting his finger 
 upon the unusual entry, and looking up with a smile 
 and then told him the whole story. 
 
 " It s all the trouble I ever had, father and it was n t 
 any and I m out of it," he said, with delightful con 
 trariety. 
 
 " Why did n t you come to me with it sooner ? " asked 
 Mr. Frost.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 169 
 
 " Because it was n t anything, you know and I 
 did n t want you into it ! " With which clinging to his 
 paradox, and the inevitable laugh from his father that 
 ended none the less with a look of loving gravity quite as 
 paradoxical, the subject was dismissed, or nearly so. 
 
 " What shall you do about the person whose name 
 we are not to mention ? You can t have him coming about 
 the place, I should think ? " Mr. Frost inquired and sug 
 gested. 
 
 " Oh, he won t come now, I guess ! " 
 
 " I m not sure," returned his father. " They say if 
 you lend to a rogue you are rid of him ; but if he helps 
 himself, I should think he might not dare not to come 
 back again." 
 
 Algernon perceived, and considered, rather anxiously. 
 Presently he said, with a half-comic twinkle, " I wonder 
 if I had n t better leave it to Runy ? " and Mr. Frost 
 thought it would be an excellent way to do. 
 
 Mr. Frost was right. 
 
 Joe Rabin had been off, camping out for several weeks, 
 with some other boys from the village. When he got 
 back, he let nearly another week go by without making 
 an appearance at the Olive-colored House. Then, under 
 the working of the very reason foreseen, he loitered sneak- 
 ingly along, one quiet afternoon. The boys were in the 
 shop, and Algie saw the bob of his old hat in good time, 
 behind the garden wall. He slipped round into Runy s 
 pleasant kitchen, on the slope side, and said, " Now, Runy, 
 please ; you re wanted. It s your nary-buy ! " 
 
 So Runy clapped an iron she was testing back upon the 
 stove, put something from the shelf into her pocket, and 
 started forth. 
 
 She met Joe Rabin on the flagged walk. 
 
 " So it s yees that s back ag in ? " she accosted him,
 
 170 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 planting herself full across his way, with one hand on her 
 hip and the other in her pocket. 
 
 Joe looked at her, and stopped. What would otherwise 
 have been mere impertinence took a possibly quite differ 
 ent character in the apprehension of the something in him 
 that had failed to be a conscience, and merely developed 
 into a dread of manifestations. 
 
 He attempted a poor little cowardly laugh. " What of 
 it ? " he asked, and pulled down the bucket of retribution 
 upon his head with that string. 
 
 u It s only that I ve bin a watchin fer yees, ter give 
 yees back phat ye dropped, out yer shoe the last time 
 ye was over," said the Irish Nemesis, more broadly Irish 
 than ever with her warmth. " I m honest I am ; I ve 
 kep it safe barrin dust an flies an there ye ve got 
 it!" 
 
 And the Sailin Jibroliter struck straight against the 
 covetous lips, as Runy tossed it, not violently, but with 
 utterest contempt, full into Joe s mean and frightened 
 face. 
 
 " And I d adwise yees," added the good woman, " ter 
 tek it an go ! av yees 11 lit Frasht Brithers aloahn, it s 
 they 11 lit yees aloahn. An av ye 11 kape the shoes an 
 yer fate, an yer han s from the pickin an sthtalin 
 mebby the Lard 11 hev mercy himsel an the bit av a shole 
 ye ve got lift ! " 
 
 It was like the hanging sentence ; Joe Rabin went 
 away with it, without a word. Let us hope it did him 
 good or may do him good, for there is time yet some 
 how. That somehow the hanging by the neck may have 
 been for the choking of the evil thing in him, and that the 
 soul that had got so much to struggle through may, of 
 very shame and self-contempt, have begun its struggle 
 upward there and then, toward the forgiveness and saving 
 that are waiting, always.
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. Ill 
 
 But we will not say good-by with the hanging 1 sentence. 
 There are pleasanter words to add before we can quite 
 shut up our story-shop. 
 
 That same evening, while they were all at the tea-table, 
 a carriage was driven up and stopped at the door. The 
 whole family was together again, Madge and Bobby hav 
 ing long since returned from their visit. The dainty table, 
 with Mrs. Laura beaming motherly at the head, was set 
 round with happy faces ; and bright, gay sentences and 
 laughs rang back and forth, as the day s varying histories 
 and results and comparisons were exchanged over this 
 cheeriest of family meals. But the brightness and gay- 
 ety had been as nothing to what flashed and resounded 
 when, after that stop of wheels and ring of the bell, steps 
 were heard coming right on through the parlor, and Aunt 
 Thankful, with the same old jolly girl-face as ever the 
 boys said afterward stood smiling in the archway under 
 the portiere ; her tall, handsome husband behind her, a 
 little way back. They had not been here since that 
 Christmas-time two years ago. 
 
 Was n t there room made quickly, though, beside the 
 long, bright-covered board ? Were n t there hot muffins 
 brought in, and fresh-brewed tea, and more cocoa for 
 Aunt Thankye, in the little decorated morning-glory pot ? 
 And did n t Runy s face grow broad with smiles and stay 
 so, as she fetched the things, and Mrs. Shatoraine spoke 
 to her with quick, friendly gladness at still finding her 
 there ? " An where shud I be but where I knows I m 
 sah wull aff ? " she answered, in full Green - Erinish, to 
 the pleasant words. 
 
 Mrs. Raynald Shatoraine was not one of those grown 
 up people not even now that she was married who 
 must get over and through with all the grown impatiences 
 and delights and news, before she could take thought
 
 172 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 for the children, or let their little eagernesses in. She 
 did not say, " wait awhile ; " she did not even wait until 
 they ventured in with their small interests. It was, 
 " How goes the shop, Middies ? " before she had buttered 
 her muffin, or stirred her cocoa-cup. 
 
 And then did n t there pour forth the satisfactions and 
 successes the hopes and plans the thanks, and invi 
 tations of " come and see ! " And next morning, before 
 she had unpacked her trunk except to pull out, to the 
 great confusing of her own neat parcels and foldings, cer 
 tain packages with names upon them, from Ethelind s and 
 Celia s to Bobby s and Madge s and Miss Runcina O Hal- 
 lahan s, for which she would not keep them waiting 
 the minute Mr. Shatoraine was off for New York with his 
 step-brother-in-law, Aunt Thankful was down in the base 
 ment, and behind the counter ; and a big box was opened, 
 and the tall, square tin of real, pure, sirupy maple sugar 
 was uncovered and tested, gauged and estimated, and pro 
 nounced a " bully lot," and an A 1 investment. 
 
 " There s a clear two-fifty profit in it," quoth the head 
 Middy, with a dignified delight. 
 
 " Have you settled what to do with your profits ? " 
 asked Aunt Thankful. 
 
 " Oh, we have n t come to any great need yet," said Al 
 gernon. " We keep it right along in stock, mostly ; or 
 ready to buy with. But when all this sugar s sold out, 
 and other things that take up capital, we shall have to 
 think, I suppose." 
 
 " First, you will each have a right to an income," sug 
 gested Aunt Thankful, nibbling a " Salem," as she sat on 
 a cracker-keg. 
 
 " Well, yes. Only we Ve had all the fun we could 
 have bought anywhere, out of the shop itself ; and we 
 have n t cared for allowances. But I s pose we shall come 
 to want things."
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 173 
 
 " Especially at Christmas," said Aunt Thankful. 
 " "Would n t Thanksgiving be a good time to divide ? You 
 see you are coming to spend that with me at the Ever 
 greens," she added, in a quite degage way ; " and we 
 could talk it all over then, and the Christmas plans be 
 side." 
 
 For an instant the Middies were mute, staring. Then 
 the acclamation broke forth, Aunt Thankful innocently 
 nibbling on, until the nibbling became a danger of chok 
 ing, under the sudden hugs and capers of Frost Brothers, 
 whose sober business partnership suffered momentary dis 
 solution into one of ecstatic surprise and simple little-boy- 
 jollification. 
 
 " Who said that ? " asked Middy Number Two, sub 
 siding, and doubtful of so much blessedness being con 
 sented to and settled. 
 
 " / said it, to mamma Laura, last night." And Mrs. 
 Shatoraine put the last bit of her Gibraltar between her 
 pretty teeth, with the air of one accustomed nowadays to 
 get her way, and eat the sweets of life, without dispute. 
 
 " Stick to it, won t you, Aunt Thankye ? " cried Algie. 
 " Stick to it, like a brick and mortar ! But " he 
 added, suddenly bethinking " the Thanksgiving trade ! " 
 
 Oh, that 11 be over," said Mrs. Shatoraine , " and all 
 the good people baking their last pies and stuffing their 
 turkeys. You re not to leave till Wednesday ; and you re 
 to stay till Monday." 
 
 " You ve said all that, and not been contradicted ? " 
 
 " Every bit ; and not a word," answered Mrs. Shato 
 raine, categorically. 
 
 In fact, it had all been put through both houses of 
 Domestic Congress, and passed without a veto. Aunt 
 Thankful had been planning it for some time in her mind, 
 and had asked it right off on the enthusiasm of arrival
 
 174 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 and privilege of welcome, as she knew how to ask things. 
 Mrs. Laura had as good as yielded overnight, and had 
 presented the idea to her husband in the morning. He 
 had pronounced at once that it would be just the thing 
 for the little fellows, who, each in his different way, 
 would be the better for a brief change. 
 
 And the month s time they had to think of it in, and 
 make plans for it, and say daily to each other how jolly it 
 would be especially the journey on their own respon 
 sibility was by no means the least part of the pleasure 
 and benefit. 
 
 " We must leave the shop open Wednesday, anyhow," 
 said Algernon. " Everybody 11 be forgetting lots of 
 things till they come to the last spicings and stuffings. 
 Who 11 sell for us ? " 
 
 "Win Trupeare," said Sidney. 
 
 And so Win Trupeare did; with Rob Casawarie to 
 help him ; and they shut up shop at four in the afternoon, 
 returning key and till and memorandum of sales to Mrs. 
 Frost ; and the memorandum was duly forwarded to Nor- 
 chester according to arrangement, so that the boys got it 
 on Friday at the Evergreens ; making out the full re 
 turn of their fall trade, up to the lull that was sure to 
 come between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So they sat 
 down by the beautiful big library fire, and talked it all 
 over with Mrs. Shatoraine. 
 
 " We ve made fifteen dollars and sixty cents, counting 
 everything," said Algernon. " The butternut-maple was 
 clear profit, you know ; and the syrup s all sold ; and our 
 peanut candy and cornballs have gone first-rate. Yes 
 we ve got that, net ! " 
 
 " How much do you each expect to draw, regularly, 
 as income or salary ? " 
 
 Algernon considered. Sidney sat by, listening. He
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 175 
 
 was not the financier of the firm. And Algie himself 
 had not thought to a decision on these points, yet. They 
 had thus far been content to put in, for the most part. 
 Their weekly allowances had given the most pleasure in 
 this way. 
 
 " If we are to have our ten cents a week both of us 
 
 it would take pretty near half the average profit. We 
 sha n t always have Shaker windfalls, or Thanksgiving 
 trade, you know." 
 
 " Well, then, say five," said Sidney. 
 
 " We can put it in again if we want to." 
 
 " Of course," said Aunt Thankful. " But it repre 
 sents what grown-up business men have to take out to sup 
 port their families. You must think what you are pretty 
 sure to need, one way or another, and allow that." 
 
 " Well, say five cents a week," said Algernon. " That s 
 
 ten times twenty-three weeks two dollars and thirty 
 cents out." 
 
 " Leaving thirteen dollars and thirty cents." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Now, how much capital do you mean to keep in your 
 business represented by stock on hand ? How much 
 have you in stock now ? " 
 
 Algernon referred to his papers. 
 
 We re pretty well sold out, now," he said. " Have n t 
 but about three and a quarter, I guess." 
 
 " Suppose you say five dollars, then ? " 
 
 " All right. That takes one-seventy-five to make it 
 out." 
 
 " Leaving eleven-fifty-five. Now you can either divide 
 that profit or increase your business with it." 
 
 " We can t do much more, I guess, than five dollars 
 worth will keep going. And here s Christmas. Only 
 that s a good time to sell, too ! "
 
 176 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Suppose you put in five-fifty-five for Christmas stock, 
 then ? that will leave six dollars to divide." 
 
 " All right. And some Christmas things will come out 
 of the shop, at the time, if we like." 
 
 "Exactly. Now, one more thing. Have you ever 
 thought of the tithe ? " 
 
 "What s that?" 
 
 " The tenth part of the increase ; that the old Hebrews, 
 and Christians since, have given back somehow to 
 the Lord." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " To the priests and the preachers in the first 
 place ; so that there might always be priests or preachers 
 to feed the people with the truth, and make that to in 
 crease in the earth." 
 
 " Is that what they put into the plate at church ? " asked 
 Sidney. "And must we put in a tenth of ours? " asked 
 Algernon. 
 
 " Some people might tell you so. But I should n t say 
 exactly that. For one thing, your father, as the head of 
 a family, and as a grown, responsible, property-holding or 
 property-earning man does his share ; as you will do 
 yours when you take your place as a man among respon 
 sibilities. But even so, things are different, I think, from 
 what they used to be when tithes were the law. Then, 
 the clergymen were not only the preachers, but the alms- 
 dispensers, and the physicians ; charities and healing were 
 done through them. Now, there are other ways ; work 
 and needs that must be met by individual men and their 
 consciences. Besides, in the old Jew-tithes themselves, 
 out of the tenth the universal contribution that was 
 paid to the Levites, whose business was to minister gener 
 ally, a tenth of that again was all that was given to the 
 priests the altar ministers. So I think we might, some-
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 177 
 
 times, out of our tenths, give a tenth-tenth or hundredth 
 to the parish plate, provided we know good and urgent 
 use, in the way of personal help to others, to which we are 
 specially called, for our nine other parts of the tithe. 
 And provided, too, that we do not forget about the first- 
 fruits, and the free-will, and the thank-offerings, ac 
 cording to our opportunities. But that is my way of 
 reckoning. I am only sure of one thing that the Lord 
 wants as much, at least, as the tenth of all our power 
 our time, and thought, and sympathy as well as of our 
 money ; and that while we do one thing, we are not to 
 leave the other undone. Now that is long enough for a 
 sermon ; I ve only preached it because it is thank-giving, 
 and thank-offering, time." 
 
 "And I say it s good," answered Algernon, thought 
 fully. After which, he sat silent a minute or two. When 
 he began again, it was to say : 
 
 " I think we ought to begin at the eleven-fifty-five." 
 
 " As the increase ? " 
 
 " Yes. The six dollars is only what we have left after 
 we have put in all we want to make more money with." 
 
 " I think you re right." 
 
 " A tenth of that is a dollar fifteen cents and a half ; 
 say, a dollar and twenty. Look here ! our capital s made 
 up of increase, any way. We did n t have five dollars to 
 start on." 
 
 " Very true." 
 
 " We ve got to go back to the thirteen-thirty." Algie 
 had pencil and paper in hand, and the fresh calculations 
 were before him. 
 
 " If you think so." 
 
 " A tenth of that, then, is a dollar and thirty-three. 
 And the tenth-tenth is thirteen cents and three mills. Say 
 fourteen cents seven apiece for the contribution. 
 There s a dollar nineteen for somebody. Who ? "
 
 178 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " I know of somebody whom a dollar-nineteen or a 
 dollar would set up in business." 
 
 "A boy?" 
 
 " Yes. Here in Norchester. Simmy Fame ; whose fa 
 ther was a brakeman, killed on the railroad. He wants 
 to sell morning papers round here, at people s houses, be 
 fore the gentlemen get to the post-office and the station. 
 The railroad people would bring them out to him on the 
 six o clock train. And if he had a little capital, he could 
 peddle other things such as people come to your store 
 for. He s a bright boy ; he would know how to suit the 
 market. " 
 
 " Good for you, Aunt Thankye ! that s jolly-good ! I d 
 like to set another boy up. The dollar-nineteen belongs 
 to him ; don t it, Sid ? " 
 
 Aunt Thankful leaned over, as if to look at the penciled 
 memorandum. Doing so, she let her arm fall gently 
 across Algie s shoulders. Algie was too old too manly 
 to be kissed and praised. She only said : 
 
 " You ve found another principle of business. Setting 
 your own increase to the increase of ways and work for 
 others. But I think Simmy Fame will soon be able to 
 pay you back. He will only want it as a loan ; which is 
 the best way." 
 
 Algie looked a bit disappointed at first. Then he 
 brightened, and said : 
 
 " Well, it 11 only come back to get another with it, 
 maybe, and start round again, somehow." 
 
 " As the rain does," said Aunt Thankful. 
 
 Now, we must say good-by, for the present at any rate, 
 to our Middies. We leave them in a clear decision as to 
 the final principle of their business life the righteous 
 disposal of the increase. If it ever puzzles business men,
 
 HOW THE MIDDIES SET UP SHOP. 179 
 
 I think it must be only because they have lost the faculty 
 for seeing things as " the children " see them. I do not 
 think Algernon Frost will find himself in the dark, if he 
 should live to be fifty years old, and to handle millions. 
 For it has been surely said that he who has been faithful 
 over small things will be fit to be ruler over many things ; 
 and shall be made ruler over them. 
 
 Possibly for all things are possible, though all things 
 are not promised that are possible we may sometime 
 look in together at the Olive-colored House again.
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE 
 KOCK. 
 
 THEY were not Red Indians. They were only the two 
 children of Mr. Cyrus Savage, farmer, who lived away 
 up in one of the middle counties of Maine. They were 
 eleven and a half, and ten years old ; girl and boy ; 
 names, Catharyne and Luther. Catharyne was spelt with 
 an " i ; " but it was pronounced with a " y ; " and as it was 
 seldom spelt, and often pronounced, and that with a long 
 leaning or a smart emphasis, I decide to spell it as it was 
 spoken. 
 
 They were not christened in honor of the great Prot 
 estant reformer and his wife ; I don t think Mr. and Mrs. 
 Savage knew much about them j though distantly, no 
 doubt, through old Puritan usage, the boy s name had 
 come down to him from the monk of Wittenberg, in about 
 the same sense that Adam s sin had reached him from 
 Eden. 
 
 In the middle of the Savage farm that had been in the 
 family for generations ran a quick little riverlet. I do 
 not misspell that word either. A rivulet is but a trickle ; 
 a brook is not big enough for what I mean. It was al 
 most a river, of consequence enough to be put on the map ; 
 but as it never was, and was only called Moosewood Run 
 until it found the Penobscot, I say it was a riverlet. In 
 the middle of this stream reared up Beetle Rock, a roof- 
 like ridge of cleft and jagged stone, at top ; a precipice, 
 clean and straight, on the north side ; on the south, a grad 
 ual fall of broken slopes and shelves, on one of which,
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 181 
 
 near the base, the farmhouse stood, bright red against the 
 gray and green. Put there because that was the only 
 bit upon the property where nothing could be raised but a 
 house. 
 
 The Savages had a few books ; some old novels that 
 were " Grandma s " in her youth ; two or three " poetry 
 books ; " the children s Readers and Arithmetics ; and a 
 stray half do/en of modern stories and pamphlets, sent 
 within a year or two by some Portland cousins when they 
 had happened to think of the young folks growing up on 
 Beetle Rock. 
 
 Catharyne read these books out loud, over and over, to 
 Luther, as they sat in their "pulpit," a great roomy hol 
 low in the very crest and between what people called the 
 " horns " of the " Beetle-head ; " overlooking from behind 
 high, rough parapets, safely as from tower windows, a 
 splendid view of hills and meadows. 
 
 Lately, they had got hold of Jules Verne s " Mysteri 
 ous Island," a wonderful, intensified and " progressed " 
 " Family Robinson ; " the Swiss pastor s story having been 
 the familiar of their first hardest spelling, and their con 
 tinued and tireless delight. 
 
 They had not so much to wish for or away as or 
 dinary children who take the Crusoe-craving. 
 
 " Cause we re on an island now," said Catharyne. 
 
 " If t wa n t for the old bridges," said Luther, with con 
 tempt. " Swiss Family did n t have a bridge to land both 
 ways, with board gates on the ends to keep the chickens 
 in and the skunks out ! " 
 
 " Well,**the old castles had bridges, and gates. Let s 
 play it s an old castle." 
 
 " Hugh ! With ma hangin out clo es on the door-flat, 
 an Cale Spellick carryin the swill-pail over-east to the 
 barns, an nobody else here but jest you an me ! There
 
 182 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ain t any old castle nor yet mysterious island about 
 that ! " 
 
 " There ain t any about a bundle of printed leaves, 
 either," said Catharyne, tossing over the curled and tum 
 bled sheets of the newspaper edition of Jules Verne. 
 " You have to make believe, anyway. If you want it all 
 real, you 11 have to go to sea and get shipwrecked." 
 
 " Well, that s what I mean to do," said Luther, stoutly. 
 At which Catharyne got frightened in her conscience at 
 having put it in his head, and said pacifyingly : 
 
 " We can play it when ma ain t here, and there ain t 
 any washing nor swill, and there won t be next week when 
 pa and she go to Uncle Mark s. Cale Spellick s wife is 
 going to make cheese and take all the milk ; and you and 
 I and Miss Rebecca won t make any swill to notice." 
 
 " Poh ! Cale 11 be round and the pigs 11 be fed, all the 
 same ; an Miss Rebecca 11 jest spoil the whole ! Why 
 can t she stay at home an leave us to ourselves ? It 
 might be something, with only you an me, an the cats an 
 the hens, an Rover ! " 
 
 " We need n t see her much. She 11 be sewing in the 
 east room when she ain t getting the victuals. I s pose I 
 shall have to wipe dishes," Catharyne admitted, with some 
 ruefulness. 
 
 " An I shall have to pick up chips. An we shall have 
 to eat meals, an go to bed, an mind! So, there ain t 
 any desert island about it, an you can t make any ! " 
 
 " Well, we 11 see," said Catharyne, quoting her mother. 
 " T ain t Monday yet ; and there s time for consid able 
 to happen." Catharyne s chief mission and anxiety, in 
 those days, was the truly feminine one of endeavoring 
 continually to persuade her own little malcontent mascu 
 line that his bit of life was worth the living. And it never 
 occurred to her, any more than it does to some of her el 
 ders, to throw up the responsibility.
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 183 
 
 On Monday, bright and early, the country wagon was 
 at the door ; its one broad, low-backed seat covered with 
 a brown bearskin, and the portmanteau and luncheon-bas 
 ket comfortably stowed beneath. Behind was a folded 
 blanket for the children to sit on, and their little bundles, 
 in checked wraps, were already in ; for " consid able " had 
 happened, as Catharyne foretold, and it had ended that 
 she and Luther were to ride as far as the foot of Biram s 
 Hill with their father and mother, and then trot up with 
 their bundles to Miss Rebecca s house, where they were to 
 stay during the three or four days of their parents ab 
 sence. Once in two years, Mr. and Mrs. Savage made 
 this visit to Uncle Mark s, over in Peru ; and in the alter 
 nate years Uncle Mark and Aunt Myra came to Beetle 
 Rock. It was pleasant fall weather, between the early 
 and late harvestings ; the time generally chosen for these 
 trips. 
 
 Miss Rebecca Biram had sent word on Friday that her 
 sister Lucy had a nice chance to go to Bangor, and she 
 could n t bear to disappoint her ; and that it would n t do 
 to leave the old lady alone with her rheumatism ; so she 
 wanted the children to come and pass the time with her 
 instead of herself taking charge at the Savage farmhouse. 
 Mrs. Savage had replied that unless they concluded to 
 leave them with the Spellicks, closer by, they should come 
 along on Monday. If they did n t, she would know the 
 reason. And then it turned out that Gale Spellick came 
 in on Sunday night to say that Hannermatildy was just 
 coming down with something that might be the measles ; 
 and so it was settled in favor of Miss Biram s plan. Be 
 tween these two alternatives, as between two right-angled 
 forces, it came to pass that a diagonal was taken by the 
 children themselves. 
 
 It was in both their heads before they started. Catha-
 
 184 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ryne was eager to try housekeeping on her own account ; 
 for she had begun to feel herself too old to have Miss Re 
 becca called in when her mother went away ; and Luther 
 was possessed with the mysterious island idea, and the 
 longing to shipwreck himself ; so far, at least, as detach 
 ing himself from all grown-up aid and comfort, and mak 
 ing a Juan Fernandez or a Fortune Island of his home, 
 which it was his good luck should be a water-washed cliff, 
 all ready to his hand. It was just as good, he reasoned, 
 that " the folks " should go away and leave Beetle Rock 
 to them, especially if they did n t know it, as that they 
 themselves should run off and get cast away on some other 
 rock. Or, if not quite so real a thing, they could make it 
 do, seeing that this was their present chance, and not the 
 other. 
 
 It was in both their heads ; but they could not make a 
 deliberate conspiracy of it, and agree to carry out the pre 
 tense with their father and mother of the Monday morn 
 ing setting off and being left at Biram s Hill. They 
 could not so have played the hypocrite before each other s 
 honest little faces. So they did not even resolve ; but let 
 themselves think only how nice it would be. Which is the 
 first step, always, to any conspiracy or iniquity whatever. 
 
 They took their little checked bundles in their hands, 
 and said good-by, and stood in the dusty wheel-ruts, watch 
 ing the wagon as it dropped from sight over the first long 
 dip and water-bar of the steep road beyond ; for Biram s 
 Hill was a long spur, which the highway crossed low 
 down, although over a sharp ridge, high up on which, to 
 the left, above a thick maple grove, stood the dwelling; 
 and deep to the right lay the hollow of Moosewood Run, 
 half a mile away. 
 
 They began to walk up under the maples, crossing two 
 water-bars before they spoke. Then they stopped short,
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 185 
 
 partly to rest, and partly because each was longing, and 
 but half daring, to say something. Luther sat down on 
 a stone and took a bit of gravel out of his shoe. Then 
 he picked up a stick and began to switch off the heads of 
 the golden-rods that grew thick about him. A quick, 
 rumbling noise sounded in the hollow. 
 
 " That s over Alden s Bridge," said Luther. " We 
 could go home that way, any time. It s only down 
 through the orchard and the medder mowin to the cross 
 road." 
 
 " I wish ma had left us at home, and we had n t got to 
 come here at all," said Catharyne. 
 
 " I know what you re thinkin about ! " said Luther, 
 looking up at her sharply, and trying not to laugh. 
 
 " Cause you re thinkin of it too ! Miss Rebecca don t 
 know we re coming. If it wa n t a kind of playin tru 
 ant, we might go home and spend the day, and see how it 
 would seem, all alone. I d make turnovers." 
 
 "Poh! Who ever heard of turnovers the first thing? 
 They always find turtles eggs, and lobsters, and and 
 cocoanuts." 
 
 " They don t say what they 11 find beforehand. They 
 find what there is there. And we d have to. There s 
 bantams eggs. And they always have some kind of a 
 wreck to go to. We d have the house." 
 
 Tiiither looked dubious. He was afraid his sister would 
 get too much out of the wreck. He wanted a real, wild, 
 desert-island play ; and he suspected the truth that Cath 
 aryne would rather make believe at civilized housekeep 
 ing. Only cocoanuts did not grow on Beetle Rock, nor 
 much of anything else, except lichens and a few cedars, 
 and two great white pines that made a pleasant spicy 
 shade. 
 
 " We could get in at the back buttery window," said 
 Luther.
 
 186 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 11 Yes ; but the kitchen door would be hooked." 
 
 " Goody ! " cried Luther. " The butt is all we want." 
 He had never heard of the Scotch " but and ben ; " he 
 only stumbled on precisely what he meant. He did not 
 wish that Catharyne should find it possible to go " ben " 
 the house, and live anything like parlor-fashion. 
 
 While they talked, they had crossed the broken wall, 
 and were walking down the orchard and through the 
 stubbly mowing. 
 
 " Where should we sleep ? " asked Catharyne. 
 
 " There s corn-husks in the shed-chamber," said Lu 
 ther. It was settling itself, as many grown-up plans do, 
 in the talking over. The shoulds and woulds turn into 
 the wills and shalls, by the mere considering. 
 
 They went over Alden s Bridge, and came into the 
 "near wood-lot." Beyond this, along the Run, lay the 
 east pasture, which was the land on the side opposite to 
 that upon which they had left it by the road toward Bi- 
 ram s Hill. They came round cautiously ; heard Gale 
 Spellick calling to his oxen down by the Pine Bend, on the 
 west bank, and slipped unseen across the bridge from the 
 barns to the farmhouse. It was getting late; the fore 
 noon had well worn on ; they were beginning to be hun 
 gry, after their early breakfast, their ride, and their long 
 walk. 
 
 The house looked very still and lonesome, with shut 
 doors and blinds. The lazy craw-craw of the hens, walk 
 ing about the door-flat with high, slow, curving steps, as 
 if they lifted their feet over a log every time, only added 
 to the repose and the stillness. 
 
 " Well," said Luther, as they came round between the 
 blank rock behind and the buttery window, " we re cast 
 ashore. And we ve got to live round here, out of sight ; 
 cause those bridges look as if savages went back and 
 forth over that end of the island."
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 187 
 
 " So they do," answered Catharyne, simply assenting. 
 Rut Luther took her up for what had occurred to himself 
 as he spoke. 
 
 " I did n t mean that," he said, impatiently. " You 
 don t make believe worth a cent, Ryne. You ain t to know 
 anything. We Ve just got to guess, and to look out." 
 
 " I said it looked so," explained Ryne. 
 
 " Oh ! " apologized Luther. " I hope the buttery shutter 
 is n t fastened." 
 
 " How do you know it s a buttery ? And if it is, you 
 can poke the hook with a stick." 
 
 Luther accepted the suggestion of the second sentence, 
 disregarding tli3 retort of the first. A flat chip passed 
 easily behind the warped board of the rough shutter, and 
 lifted the iron hook from the staple. They raised the 
 sash, and climbed in over a broad shelf. 
 
 " People have been here, sometime," suggested Ryne. 
 " And left these things. I m glad there are some tin 
 pans." 
 
 " And this is a good hut," said Luther, approving and 
 consenting to the myth. " But I m glad there is n t any 
 more of it." 
 
 Ryne looked into a stone jar. 
 
 " I thought there might be some doughnuts here," she 
 said. 
 
 " You re thinking a great deal too fast," rebuked Lu 
 ther. 
 
 " Only because folks do keep doughnuts in stone pots." 
 
 " Doughnuts ! These folks have been gone years and 
 years ! " 
 
 They might have been, for anything of cookery left be 
 hind to spoil, by the thrifty housewife. 
 
 " I thought the house was the wreck," said Catharyne, 
 " and we d got to find things in it."
 
 188 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Well, it ain t. It s a hut. And if we find anything 
 from a wreck, it s got to be along on the rocks by the 
 water." 
 
 " I guess we d better go and look, then," said Catha- 
 ryne ; " for I m getting awful hungry ; " and as she spoke, 
 there was a sound of rustling paper. 
 
 " You go first," said Luther, from the shed-room within. 
 " I 11 come presently. I m going to explore up this lad 
 der." 
 
 " Oh Luther ! There s " 
 
 " Hush up ! There ain t. Not as you know of." 
 
 " Must I get out of the window, or can I go through 
 the shed-door ? " 
 
 " If there s a door, you d be a goose not to go through 
 that." 
 
 " Well, I ve found one," said Ryne, comfortably, as Lu 
 ther disappeared overhead through the trap. 
 
 Luther did not arrive until ten minutes afterward at the 
 base of the high, straight face of the great crag. He 
 found his sister settled among the bowlder stones, with 
 a paper bag of crackers, and a big corner of cheese. 
 " There were these washed ashore," she said, calmly offer 
 ing him some, crisp and fresh out of the rattling pack 
 age. " If you don t think, Luther," she added, timidly, 
 " that we re telling too big " 
 
 " We ain t telling anything. It s telling itself. It s a 
 story. And a story has to be a kind of t other. 
 T other s always a story, you know. But come round 
 here, and see what I ve got. I Ve stowed it away behind 
 the rocks." 
 
 Ryne stepped round, and saw, rolled up into a cranny, 
 a cylindrical tin case ; which she carefully pretended not 
 to recognize. 
 
 " That s something like a thing from a wreck ! " Luther
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 189 
 
 exulted. " None of your paper bags. I m going to open 
 it with my knife." 
 
 " Perhaps it s gunpowder," suggested Ryne, with an 
 excessive loyalty to fiction ; and looked on intently, while 
 he loosened the rim of the cover. 
 
 " It s good, prime sugar," said Luther, dipping in and 
 bringing up some on the knife-blade. " Maple sugar, and 
 half full ! And the next thing I find is going to be 
 what goes good with maple sugar ! " 
 
 He could not resist the full glory at once, though he 
 could " find " only one thing well at a time. Ryne stayed 
 on the " beach," as he bade her ; and in ten minutes more 
 he was round the jut again dragging a bag of butternuts. 
 They made a fine dinner, with their biscuits and new sage 
 cheese, and their nuts, cracked upon the stones, and the 
 meats mixed with the soft, scraped sugar. How it would 
 do for tea and breakfast and dinner again, remained for 
 them to try. 
 
 " I ve concluded," said Luther, with the air of a Father 
 Family Robinson, as he also concluded his butternuts, 
 " that we ain t on the real island at all. This is a rock in 
 the mouth of the river, and the big island is each side of 
 us. If it was n t that savages must have made those 
 bridges, and we might meet em, the best thing would be 
 to go over and explore. We might find some fruit-trees." 
 
 " Yes. We might get some September sweetings." 
 
 " What do you name things for, before you find em ? " 
 added Luther, indignantly. Ryne was like Mrs. Flint- 
 winch ; she was always seeing something she had no busi 
 ness to; and her "Jerry " was always making her fling 
 her apron over her face. 
 
 " Well," she answered with feminine invention, " I can t 
 help thinking of things we used to have at home." 
 
 " That s all right enough," said Luther, indulgently. 
 " Baked sweetings would be good, would n t they ? "
 
 190 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " If you d only let me discover a kitchen and a stove," 
 pleaded Ryne. 
 
 " You d want to discover a whole town, next ; and North 
 America ; besides making a smoke and letting the savages 
 discover us ! 
 
 " Why should n t we want to discover what there is 
 when we can t do without it ? " 
 
 " Because we don t want other people s fixings. We 
 want to fix for ourselves," answered Luther, with all the 
 independence of his namesake, or even of a modern 
 Radical. 
 
 " Well, you 11 be glad enough to get back to it," said 
 Ryne. " And I don t believe you d stay here a minute, 
 if you did n t know it was there all the time, just for turn 
 ing round ! " 
 
 " I wish we had Family Robinson to read, anyway," 
 Ryne began again. " We shan t know what to do, cooped 
 up here." They had gone back, now, into the shed, and 
 climbed to the chamber, and were spreading out the corn- 
 husks to make a sleeping-place. Ryne pulled down a 
 dusty " comforter " that hung on an old frame in a far 
 corner. Something made her exclaim a little, suddenly, 
 as she did so ; but she checked herself, and Luther did 
 not notice, as he was ransacking among some barrels. 
 
 " Here s corn ! " he cried. " Left by the folks that 
 built the hut ; a whole barrel full." 
 
 " And I believe my heart it s pop corn ! " said Ryne, 
 coming over. u See here ! May I discover anything I 
 please that I really never knew before ? " 
 
 "Of course," allowed the Autocrat. 
 
 " Even if I get at something I did know ? " 
 
 Luther did not want to commit himself too far. 
 
 "I think s likely. If you really find em, new, 
 and don t start after em." Which was pretty liberal for 
 a Radical.
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 191 
 
 "Well, you go ashore, and find bread-fruit, or some 
 thing ; and I 11 be Mother Robinson, and surprise you 
 when you come back. Like s not, I ve got an Enchanted 
 Bag, too I I ve got a bundle, anyway ; and I m going 
 on an expedition ! " 
 
 " Only don t you expedish any finding of us out," said 
 Luther ; and he picked up an old rusty hatchet that lay 
 among the barrels, flung it over his shoulder for effect, 
 and backed down the little ladder stairway. 
 
 When he came back, he had eggs in his hat, and sweet 
 ings, and redstreaks, and sugar pears in his pockets. 
 Catharyne, on her part, produced from her bundle the 
 checked bandanna bundle that had held her little changes 
 of clothing for four days a tin spoon, a bunch of 
 matches, a salt-sprinkler, two small tin dippers, and the 
 Swiss Family Robinson. 
 
 " You ve been through that kitchen-door ! " charged 
 Luther. 
 
 I haven t," said Catharyne. "I ve found a myste 
 rious passage, in the shed chamber behind the arras ; 
 and it led down to a subterranean caboose. I could 
 make a fire there, and cook an omelette with your eggs." 
 
 " I tell you the smoke ud show," reiterated Luther. 
 " Lemme see where you ve ben." 
 
 Ryne lifted up the end of the old comforter which she 
 had hung on the frame again, and showed behind it a lit 
 tle door formed by a couple of boards that were set on 
 hinges in the partition, and came easily open by a slight 
 prying with the fingers, which a projecting edge invited. 
 Beyond was a large closet full of boxes, pillows, blankets, 
 and bundles of sweet herbs that hung upon the walls. 
 An old cradle stood across their entrance, and a great roll 
 of rag carpet leaned up in it against one side of the open 
 ing. The hook that had secured this rough door on the
 
 192 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 inside had got lifted from the staple in some handling of 
 this same bundle, perhaps ; at any rate, it had not been 
 fastened. They climbed around and over, and opened an 
 opposite door, which led into a low bedroom ; and down 
 from this ran an open flight of bare, unbalustered stairs. 
 These came out into the dark, still, neat little kitchen. Of 
 course the children knew all these precincts, though they 
 had a queer sense, now, of coming to them in a dreain. 
 
 " I never knew in all my life " began Luther, and 
 stopped. 
 
 " The big old meal-chest used to stand " Ryne s 
 word was interrupted by Luther s hand across her lips. 
 
 " This is Captain Nemo s kitchen," he said seriously. 
 " We ve got down into the Nautilus. It was n t all 
 blowed up, you see." 
 
 Ryne looked round at the familiar mops and broom, 
 hanging by the woodshed door, at the tin dipper laid 
 across the waterpail on the drain-board of the sink, at her 
 mother s little kitchen rocking-chair, with its red cushion, 
 by the garden window, and her splint stocking-basket on 
 the broad sill, and felt something odd in her heart or 
 her throat that would not quite let her swallow this last 
 figment with ease and relish. 
 
 " I guess we d better go back," she said. " I d rather 
 make believe in the shed chamber." 
 
 They read Family Robinson awhile, and then the long 
 day began to darken into twilight. They ate some crack 
 ers, apples, and pears, and lay down, tired enough, upon 
 their beds of husks, with pillows and blankets from the 
 clothes-closet, that made them sufficiently comfortable as 
 to outside. Ryne cried before she went to sleep, but very 
 softly ; she would not have let Luther know it on any ac 
 count, she being the oldest. He would have been sure 
 to say it was because she was only a girl.
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 193 
 
 Early in the morning they made a fire of chips on the 
 " beach," in an angle of the great precipitous rock, and 
 there cooked a curious breakfast, quite screened from view 
 at this point by the straight rising walls upon the shores. 
 For and I wish to make it as clear to you as I can in 
 few words this island of Beetle Rock was like a slice 
 left standing in a great granite ridge, by the cutting out 
 of another slice upon each side of it. In its entire form, 
 you could see, if you thought of it, that this ridge or arm 
 had stretched continuously from a chain of hills to the 
 eastward, out hither to a gradual slope and ending ; but 
 at some time or other in the long history of the earth, two 
 enormous rents had split it through, and made the double 
 channel of the Run ; leaving the .terminal cliff upon the 
 west bank, and isolating in the deep, swift little river the 
 middle fragment of Beetle Rock. 
 
 To the north, or up stream, the whole outline was pre 
 cipitous, and overhung what were called the Basin Mead 
 ows ; to the south, or down stream, it shelved rapidly to 
 the level of the surrounding country. If you comprehend 
 distinctly this description, you will better understand what 
 happened on this Mysterious Island, while Ryne and Lu 
 ther played their game of castaways. 
 
 Catharyne, with her tin spoon and a large milk-pan, 
 beat laboriously some eight or nine eggs into a coarse 
 froth ; and then, forgetting the butter for the frying, set 
 her pan across the stones between which the coals were 
 heaped. Part of her large, flat omelette was very much 
 burned and stuck to the pan, and part was still quite 
 liquid, when she was forced to remove it from the fire. 
 But they managed to scrape up on their split crackers 
 enough to eat, and they played they liked it. Ryne se 
 cretly resolved that she would do some better cooking than 
 that before the day was over ; and she pushed the un- 
 13
 
 194 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 happy pan under a cedar-bush, saying that they would 
 keep that now to put all their scraps in, as she was sure 
 she never could clean all the burned egg off, and should 
 not know where to throw it if she did. 
 
 Luther watched his chance to get over the east bridge 
 and go off into the woodland, " hunting." Ryne was 
 glad to have him go, that she might carry out her domes 
 tic projects. They both felt secretly the need of busying 
 themselves with all their might to fight off something that 
 could not be homesickness could it ? Because they 
 were actually at home, all the time ; and only had to re 
 solve to open a door or two, to enter right in among all 
 the accustomed belongings. 
 
 Ryne went to work, therefore, in the buttery, making 
 pies ; the crust with butter and flour, both of which she 
 found there, and used " by guess," mixing with cold wa 
 ter ; the inside of redstreak apples, chopped up with ma 
 ple sugar. 
 
 These were to be a great and wonderful astonishment 
 to Luther, but not till the next day ; for she had laid out 
 her whole plan with due reference to circumstances, and 
 intended to get up after Luther and the neighbors also 
 should be asleep, and make a fire in the kitchen stove 
 for the baking, which was to include at the same time 
 some of those beautiful big sweetings. What a break 
 fast they would have, and what a dinner, without the 
 need of any fire to get them by ! What a manager she 
 was ; and how Luther would stare as she brought out her 
 rich stores from her pantry ! 
 
 She had to be rather in a hurry ; and when all was 
 done, to hide rolling-board and pin behind the flour-bar 
 rel, and carry the pies three of them up through the 
 shed chamber and the clothes-closet, down to the kitchen ; 
 faithful to the stipulation that the ordinary passage back
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 195 
 
 and forth should be ignored. She put them safely into 
 the oven, with the sweetings beside and between them ; 
 ready for the heat when she should supply it. She also 
 laid a fire of chips and light wood, that there might be no 
 noise to make, and no long work to do, in the night-time. 
 She carried a kitchen candlestick up into the staircase 
 bedroom, and put a match in the tray of it. She was 
 glad to see, as she betook herself, at last, to her nest-like 
 seat of corn-husks by the low shed-chamber window, and 
 began to read her newest book of all, " Eight Cousins," 
 that it was raining a little, and looked likely to keep 
 on. Luther would come home now ; the horn had sounded 
 for dinner at the Spellicks ; and he would stay in with 
 her this afternoon. 
 
 He came, presently, bringing fox grapes ; great purple 
 clusters, ripened on a bare south face of rock, rich with 
 sweet, wild flavor. They ate, and talked, and read ; then 
 they played morrice on a chalked board, with corn-ker 
 nels, red and white, for men. The afternoon wore away 
 with clouds and rain that came up black, with thunder 
 and lightning now and then, out of the south, and gradu 
 ally piled themselves away northward, leaving clear 
 weather again. At sunset the wind changed suddenly, 
 and the great black heaps were flung back. It was like a 
 cyclone, returning upon its circuit in a quick fierce gale. 
 Leaves and twigs flew in the air ; there was a roaring in 
 the pines and cedars. The elms out in the meadows bent 
 and streamed like women s hair and garments in a tem 
 pest. Shingles flew from the barns, and the bright- 
 painted weather-jack tossed his legs and arms in frantic 
 convulsions, and was whirled away bodily over the tops of 
 the trees. It lasted nearly an hour ; then everything was 
 calm again. No damage was done near them ; but Gale 
 Spellick was saying to his wife,
 
 196 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " It was jest the edge of a tornado ; there must hev 
 been a middle somewhers." 
 
 Up at Bolder s Mills, where the water of Chindecook 
 Pond came over into its outlet of Moosewood Run, they 
 knew where the middle had heen ; and miles already down 
 the road a man was riding a running horse for dear life ; 
 shouting as he went by the farmhouses and past the peo 
 ple on the way. And as he shouted, the others took it up ; 
 and other men flung themselves on horses, and went hither 
 and thither ; and the word they cried was, " Dam broke 
 at Bolder s ! Water coming down ! " 
 
 And now the time came for Catharyne s baking. Lu 
 ther fell asleep quickly, stretched on the husks, after his 
 supper of crackers and cheese. So she was early in the 
 kitchen, touching her match to the wood in the stove ; and 
 she trusted to the wet and the gray of the weather, and 
 the deepening twilight, to keep people in-doors, and her 
 little thread of smoke unnoticed. 
 
 There began to be a smell of pie-crust, and of apple 
 juice boiling out and simmering on the oven floor. Ryne, 
 waiting for her cookery to be accomplished, opened a door 
 from the kitchen upon a narrow plankway between that 
 and the woodshed building. It was quite dusk now ; she 
 went and stood on the step at the end, listening to the 
 rush of the Run, and watching the stars as they broke 
 slowly through the torn edges of used-up clouds. 
 
 Suddenly, other lights glimmered, down below. Lan 
 terns moved along the ridge from Cale Spellick s house to 
 his barn, and from the Spellicks over to Parson Symes s. 
 Voices called, excitedly ; everything happened in a flash 
 almost ; before she could think or wonder, two men 
 Cale and Hiram were upon the bridge, rushing across 
 with great strides, one calling after the other, " You take
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 197 
 
 the horse, and make for the Back Hollow ; start up New- 
 al s folks, nobody else will. I 11 see to the cattle ! " 
 
 And the other answered, " Drive em up on the 
 Ridge ! Old Beetle-head 11 stand ! It 11 spread there in 
 the medder ; hut it 11 gorge in the cuts. The house 11 go, 
 or it s a wonder ! " 
 
 Nobody to stop for here ; nobody to warn. And yet a 
 little girl stood listening, terrified, to she knew not what ; 
 and a boy lay asleep among the corn-husks in the old 
 shed chamber. And the dam was broke at Bokler s, and 
 the water was coming down ! 
 
 " Flood ! Flood ! " Ryne heard the shouts down the 
 valley-winding at the little settlement where the river bent 
 round to a short air distance across the flats. 
 
 " Freshet ! Freshet ! Quit and run ! " Some instinct 
 helped her to understand, and to remember also the six 
 words of consequence to her in Hiram Spellick s shout. 
 " Old Beetle-head 11 stand ! The house 11 go ! " 
 
 She sprang back through the kitchen ; unfastened the 
 shed-door and flung it back ; scrambled with hands and 
 feet up the steep step-ladder ; seized Luther, by his 
 hair, anyhow. 
 
 " The water s coming ! It s a flood ! Come up to the 
 pulpit ! Hurry ! hurry ! I heard the men say so ! " 
 
 In a dreamy fright, not knowing flood from fire, she 
 dragged him up and made him follow. He missed a step, 
 and fell at the foot of the ladder. Ryne pulled him to 
 his feet, and out at the shed-door upon the rock terrace. 
 
 " Now be wide awake, Luther, or you 11 fall and be 
 killed ! Climb up, the way we always go." 
 
 Something sounded like thunder. Something that rolled 
 nearer, louder, and did not stop. A pale light glimmered 
 about them ; the moon was rising ; they could see their 
 way up the pebbly gullies, and along the splintered gal-
 
 198 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 leries, and over the open platform, wide enough but show 
 ing for nothing on the face of the great steep looked up 
 at from below. 
 
 They came safe into the pulpit. The round moon-lamp 
 was lifted over the hill-line at the east, and swinging 
 softly along the blue between the whitening clouds. 
 
 And the flood was coming down from the north ! 
 
 Roaring and plunging, it was breaking in upon the dis 
 tance ; it darkened down along the landscape, revealing 
 its terrible aspect as it came. A towering mass of black 
 water and white foam and tossing wrecks, roofs, beams, 
 fences, trees, hay, dead and struggling cattle, things 
 they could not distinguish nor comprehend ; hurling itself 
 toward them along the pathway of the Run, spreading and 
 scattering its ruin as it came, high up over the Basin 
 Meadows. 
 
 It struck the Beetle cliff like a sea ; it surged into the 
 narrow cuts ; it drifted its burden of destruction into them 
 and against their openings ; it made a dam for itself, and 
 poured over it into the rocky channels like a cataract ; the 
 water rose and rose, over shelf and terrace ; it raged on, 
 taking the little island bridges before it. 
 
 Now, really, the children were wrecked ; the house it 
 self was wrecked ; the island was cast away. 
 
 The house remained, with the water pouring in through 
 the upper windows. It was shifted on its foundations ; it 
 was driven happily hard up between the old pine- 
 tree whose roots ran far into the fissures of the cliff, and 
 the rock itself toward which the buttery window opened. 
 The little buttery lean-to and part of the shed were quite 
 crushed in and shattered to pieces. But only water 
 reached the dwelling-rooms ; and the force of that was 
 partly spent and broken in the subsidence across the great 
 meadows, and against the barrier of the rock ridge.
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 199 
 
 The flood went on and on ; it filled the little valley below 
 the bend ; it filled and flooded its barns and small houses ; 
 but the great Eiger, the rushing wave, that had come fif 
 teen miles with its uprearing head, stretched itself down 
 slowly to its level, and busily made its broad bed in new 
 lakes spreading back to the feet of the parallel hills. 
 
 Gale Spellick s house was safe ; it was on the high 
 knoll upon the right bank of the Run ; but the knoll was 
 to-night an island. There was many a desert-islander, up 
 and down the Moosewood valley, stranded in his own 
 home, cut off by the spreading waters. There was, the 
 pity ! many a wrecked home ; many a drowned, bruised 
 corpse floating away or lying tangled in the terrible drift- 
 heaps. 
 
 The Symeses were safe at the Spellicks . Their house 
 was gone ; covered, in its low nook under the hill ; whether 
 destroyed or not they could not know. 
 
 Cale Spellick himself was out on the cliff-end of the 
 east-side Ridge, looking down upon the desolation. " I 
 s pose likely thar was more of it at the Delooge," he said 
 to himself. " But I donnoah s Noah could noah r any 
 more ! " And he smiled grimly in the midst of his solem 
 nity, with a dim notion of something curious in his speech 
 now it was spoken ; though Cale Spellick could as soon 
 have made a poem as a pun, on purpose. 
 
 He would have been far from any purpose of the kind 
 at this moment. His mind was fixed on two things : the 
 endeavor to discern if there were any struggling life near 
 him, calling for help ; and if by any means he could him 
 self cross the gulf that lay between him and his house. 
 A tree had swept into the wide mouth of the east cut, and 
 had lodged in its narrowing passage at the swell of the 
 island, just underneath where he stood. Some beams and 
 fragments had been hurled into the clutch of its branches.
 
 200 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 He descended along the edge of the precipice to where, by 
 some dropping and clinging to shelves and crevices, he 
 could get near enough for a leap ; and in a few minutes 
 he was on Beetle Rock, at about half-way to its top. 
 
 " I think it must be because we told so many lies," said 
 a childish voice up above him, shrill and trembling with 
 fear and trouble. The sound seemed to drop down to him 
 through the quieting air, from above the monotonous din 
 of the rushing water. " We was determined to pretend 
 it, and now t is ! " 
 
 " I m so cold ! If we could only get down some- 
 wheres ! " 
 
 " We would n t let on there was a house to get into, and 
 now there is n t. We wanted to fix things for ourselves, 
 and now there ain t anything to fix with," went on the 
 first little self-judging voice, like that of a spirit dropped 
 out of its world, and knowing why it deserved to be left 
 out. 
 
 " Do you s pose we 11 live till pa and ma get home ? " 
 
 " HUL-LO ! / giiess we II see about it ! " 
 
 And the pebbles rolled down from under Gale Spellick s 
 feet as he strode up the gullied path. 
 
 I have not space to tell you much more about it. Gale 
 Spellick got them home ; the boys were out presently with 
 rafts and lanterns, between island and island. They 
 slept with all the young Symeses in a great open garret at 
 Gale s house, the few hours they could sleep before morn 
 ing ; and theirs was one story of the many stories there 
 were to tell, over and over, for long after, of the night of 
 the Great Freshet. 
 
 The news got to Peru ; and the next night brought Mr. 
 and Mrs. Savage traveling until morning back again. 
 
 The children had been taken up to Miss Rebecca s,
 
 THE LITTLE SAVAGES OF BEETLE ROCK. 201 
 
 where their parents would be sure to expect to find them 
 on their way ; and here all our Beetle Rock friends re 
 mained for two or three weeks ; while the waters sub 
 sided, and the house was partially restored, and things 
 made ready for them to begin over again on what Luther 
 never wished afterward was a " real desert island." 
 
 " Cause you see," the little Radical told Miss Rebecca, 
 who talked it over pretty seriously with him, " you may n t 
 mean to go to tilings ; but you kind o want to know 
 they re there to go to ! Besides, I ve concluded," he 
 added, with equal magnificence and magnanimity, " that 
 if I was to make thiilgs all up again myself, I could n t 
 make em up so fur any better than they be now! " 
 
 Ryne stood by, but she did not say, u I told you so ; " 
 and Luther thought he had discovered his wisdom, at 
 least, all himself. 
 
 But Ryne said, regretfully, " There s one thing : we 
 shan t ever know now whether those apple-pies would have 
 been good or not ! "
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 
 
 A REPEAT OF HISTORY. 
 
 [INTRODUCTORY. I was asked by the editor of " St. Nicholas," 
 in which magazine this story first appeared, to prefix a little note 
 of explanation to my analogue, which I therefore reprint here. 
 
 It is not a Repeat of History, as such ; it is a bit of incident 
 in which something that happens bears a parallel likeness to another 
 thing that happened long ago. It was suggested by a visit I made, 
 a summer or two since, with a young party, to an old block-house 
 near the coast of Maine, a genuine relic of the Indian and colonial 
 times. Cooper s novels were among the great delights of my girl 
 hood. His " Pathfinder," in which the lovely Indian girl, Dew-of- 
 June, saves the life of the heroine, Mabel Dunham, by warning her 
 to seek shelter in the log-defense, (telling her, mysteriously, when 
 all seemed safe in the forest-fort where she was staying with her 
 father, the sergeant of the garrison, " Block-house good ; got no 
 scalp ; " ) the adventures that followed ; the plots and rude retrib 
 utive vengeance of Arrowhead ; the fidelity of June coming to shut 
 herself up with Mabel while her savage kindred were besieging the 
 block ; all these had fascinated me over and over again, and im 
 pressed on my mind a clear vision of the place and surroundings as 
 described. So that when I stood in this other similar structure, and 
 found its rough, primitive plan the very same, and when certain 
 little jokes and frights befell and amused us, I thought how easily 
 the same characteristics illustrated themselves, and even circum 
 stances fell into significant resemblance, in the old, wild time and 
 the new, cultivated one. The idea led me into the writing of this 
 story. You who have read, or may now read, the " Pathfinder," 
 will recognize the adaptation and application of names, as well as 
 the spirit and action of the persons, in several cases in the present 
 tale ; as, indeed, they are partly pointed out as it goes along. The 
 tilings unexplained I will leave you the pleasure of discovering for 
 yourselves. A. D. T. W.J
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 203 
 
 "JlJXIA ROYD." 
 
 That was the way it sounded, and that was the way it 
 had come to be spelled in Nonnusquam, as well as in other 
 out-of-the-way new places to which the old family of the 
 Rougheads had scattered and drifted. The girls in Mrs. 
 Singlewell s school hardly knew whether to think it funny 
 or pretentious when it was explained to them. It was ri 
 diculous, anyway, that there should have been an " ori 
 gin " to this village name, or that ancient spelling and 
 present pronunciation should have anything to do with 
 each other. They called it " Rough-head," and so applied 
 it, in the school-girl derision that is so cruel, and that was 
 directed by the common consent of a certain set toward 
 this young girl, against whose admission among them 
 they had scornfully objected that she was " only one of 
 the aborigines." 
 
 Nonnusquam was known farther, but perhaps not bet 
 ter, as the seat of a superior school for girls, and as the 
 summer residence of a few wealthy people who had bought 
 estates and built houses among its lovely heights and along 
 its water-borders, than as the quiet, honest, homely, uncul 
 tivated farm-settlement, which it began by being, and 
 which it had continued to be up to the sudden advent and 
 rush of city discoverers. 
 
 And Junia was a meek, modest, easily oppressed sort 
 of girl, on one side of her character. Strong points 
 lay opposite and in balance, which we may find out, as the 
 people from the great hubs found out the glory of the 
 hills and waters in quiet Nonnusquam. 
 
 One of the brightest things ever said in satire was that 
 concerning our grand, old, noble, mean, persecuted and 
 persecuting New England ancestry : The first thing 
 they did here was to fall upon their knees ; the next was 
 to fall upon the aborigines." That was very like what
 
 204 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 some of the city settlers and improvers had done in Non- 
 nusquam. They had fallen down and worshiped hefore 
 the magnificence of nature, they had built their shrines 
 there ; then they had set foot of pride on the primeval 
 human nature in whose rough simplicity was hid, perhaps, 
 a grandeur also. It came hardest upon the " little ones," 
 for despising whom there is a threatening ; and it came 
 most openly from the other little ones, than to cause whom 
 to offend, by spirit or example, a millstone round the neck 
 is better. 
 
 So Nonnusquam was divided into twain ; yet there were 
 shades in the differences, and crossings in the partings, 
 that were delicate to adjudge. 
 
 Young people are indiscriminate : they could not see the 
 difference between the Royds, or Rougheads, and the Pol- 
 liwocks. They could not appreciate that Redman Royd, 
 late owner of half the pasture-lands and intervales bought 
 up by the new gentry, and still holding craftily certain in 
 terjacent coveted meadow-strips and wooded ridges, a 
 power in town-meeting and political convention, a man 
 with a blaze in his eye under his old straw hat for any too 
 cool or level glance from beneath more stylish brim, was 
 more to be considered or accepted than Stadpole Polli- 
 wock or Evetson Newt. Consequently they could not ap 
 preciate that Junia Royd could have privilege among them 
 at the seminary or in their little social life above the small 
 Polliwocks or Captain Newt s Saramandy. 
 
 " R-o-u-g-h-e-a-d, for Royd ! That s nonsense ! " said 
 Hester Moore. 
 
 a E-n-r-a-g-h-t, for Darby ! That s a fact," said Ama 
 bel Dernham, "in a certain English family name. And 
 there are plenty of others, almost as queer." 
 
 " E-n-r-a-g-e-d, hopping-mad ! That s the fact for me, 
 and for plenty of others in a certain American school," 
 returned Hester.
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 205 
 
 " What s the use ? " asked placid Amabel. 
 
 " Oh, you 11 give in, and be as polite as a pink," charged 
 Hester. " I know. You can t show your mind, ever." 
 
 "I can t tread on anything," said Amabel. "The 
 other side of my mind comes up then, and I show that." 
 
 "No need of treading," said the incipient woman of 
 the world. " You can walk round things, or put them 
 out of the window. But you 11 make right up to em, and 
 cosset em ; see if you don t." 
 
 So Junia Royd was (figuratively) " walked round ; " 
 " put out of the window ; " made to feel like a phantom. 
 The girls, whenever it so suited them, behaved precisely 
 as if she was n t there ; rather, perhaps, as lacking the 
 second sight themselves. For if they could have seen her 
 in the spirit, ah, that is the secret of all our sins against 
 the second Great Commandment ! 
 
 There were a few little Eves whose souls were not 
 strong against odors and colors of apples and plums which 
 came from Squire Royd s garden, and were irresistible at 
 lunch time. These little Eves would take and eat, though 
 they must thereby make acquaintance with second-rate, 
 which is always evil, as well as with first-rate, which is al 
 ways good. 
 
 Then, also, there was Amabel Dernham. 
 
 Mrs. Singlewell was a woman of observation and in 
 stinct. She might find herself in a dilemma, but when 
 she moved she made the best move to be made. She put 
 Junia Royd as desk-mate with Amabel Dernham. I will 
 not say that Amabel did not at first feel secretly a little 
 " put upon." Hester Moore came by within an hour and 
 whispered, " Little Miss Muffet ! " But that rather touched 
 Miss Muffet s pride in the right place ; and she stuck to 
 her tuffet, and to its sharer, like a woman. A real, true 
 woman ; not a feminine creature, afraid of spiders.
 
 206 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Junia Royd was slight and dark ; Amabel was large 
 and fair ; they looked together like a little deep-colored, 
 velvet pansy, and a delicately superb one of white and 
 gold. Junia bent her dusky head to her contrast and wor 
 shiped. The sunshiny contrast bloomed on serenely, and, 
 by very sunshine and serenity, was gracious. 
 
 Amabel shared her Latin Lexicon with Junia ; she 
 showed her how to trace the derivations and disentangle 
 the constructions. She explained " abstracts " and " criti 
 cisms " as school exercises ; she reminded her of the order 
 of lessons and the obligation of rules, until these became 
 familiar to the new-comer. In short, she was just " as 
 polite as a pink," or as a princess pansy. 
 
 Junia would lay a Jacqueminot or a Gloire de Dijon 
 rose on Amabel s desk, coming early to school on purpose ; 
 Amabel would put the crimson flower in her blonde hair, 
 or the golden-colored one against her breast-knot of brown 
 or red ; and one was pleased and the other was happy. 
 But Junia never offered a pear or a peach at that shrine ; 
 she kept those for the sort to whom she would not cast 
 pearls, the sort who would render stolid, narrow-eyed 
 regard, and move grovelingly to her approach, for the sake 
 of them. She gave simply what they came for, asking 
 for no further sign in exchange. One does not care to ca 
 ress that kind of animal ; one would rather have a fence 
 between than not. 
 
 And so, with all, she lived a phantom life among these 
 girls ; even with Amabel, not getting beyond the grace 
 and the politeness, the shy, sweet utterance of thanks, 
 or the matter-of-course chirping over their lessons. If on 
 one side there were creatures in their pen of exclu- 
 siveness, on the other there was but a bird on a bough. 
 Any beautiful, realized friendship was the dream of her 
 own heart. Amabel was claimed on all sides when desk
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 207 
 
 hours were over ; her way did not lie with Junia s ; each 
 drifted to her separate element and belonging between 
 school-out and school-in. Junia made long romances to 
 herself of what these intervals were like to the birds of 
 the air ; as for Amabel, she flitted away and forgot Junia 
 altogether every day, from two in the afternoon till nine 
 next morning, when she lighted again beside her. 
 
 Neal Royd was Junia s brother ; she had a hard time 
 with him, often, in these off hours. She worshiped him 
 also, and first and always ; he was brother and sister 
 and all to her ; tyrant and scoffer, too, with his man-mas 
 terfulness and boy-cynicism. He had the hard, proud na 
 ture of Neal and Roughead ; " Neal," in the old Celtic, 
 stands for "chief." He was bitter against the "high- 
 noses," and bitter with his sister because they snubbed 
 her. He was contemptuous of the girl-noblesse ; yet he 
 would often crush June with scorn of her position with 
 them, that "she could not be anybody as well as any 
 body else." He would have been well content to carry 
 the Royd rights level with the " high-nose " assumptions. 
 His contempt, therefore, was not absolute or successful. 
 
 He was especially mordacious against " Pester More." 
 He had his own grudges against the name, belonging also 
 to "Alexander the Great," her brother. "He ll never 
 weep for more worlds to conquer. The world s all More, 
 already, for small Shandy," quoth Neal Royd. He would 
 give him both titles, the great and the small, in one sen 
 tence. " Small body and high strut," " big spread and 
 little spunk," he said of him, and not untruly. 
 
 Hester Moore had turned her back upon Neal once, 
 long ago, as only raw rudeness could have done, and left 
 him plante la, in the face of bystanders, when he would 
 have handed her a handkerchief that she had dropped ; 
 and Sandie had served him a mean trick, and never given
 
 208 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 him a chance to pay it off. -It was up at the Little "Wit- 
 taquee the brook that feeds the Big Wittaquee before 
 it runs past Nonnusquam. Neal was trout-fishing ; he 
 knew a place that few others knew, and he had just got 
 a splendid fellow playing around his line, when " ploomp ! " 
 came a stone from right over his head into the pool ; and 
 ploomp ! ploomp ! " another and another, breaking great 
 circles in the still water, and scattering the fish, of course ; 
 besides (which was even worse), a voice jeeringly adver 
 tising the discovery of his secret. Starting to his feet, 
 and facing about and upward, he saw small Shandy coolly 
 looking over, not at him, but upon the farther water, as 
 if simply bent upon his own amusement, and as if not 
 knowing that " Neal was there." 
 
 Down went the rod upon the bank, and up the rough 
 steep went Neal, scrambling and grasping, making with 
 swift vengeance for the petty foe, whom, even after the 
 breathless ascent, he knew he could overtake in a fair run 
 upon the level above. But, lo ! reaching the ridge, from 
 which the down-like table spread away for half a mile 
 toward another climb, there was Master Alexander upon 
 his pony Bucephalus, putting four legs to their best 
 against his two ! 
 
 " Another time ! " articulated Neal Royd, with deliber 
 ation, standing stock-still in black wrath, not even raising 
 a fist to shake impotently after the " meaching minnum." 
 " Another time ! If it is n t till we re both men ! " 
 
 And that was what, indeed, seemed most likely, since 
 Sandie Moore was off the next day to Mount Desert, to 
 meet a yachting party for his holidays, and at their end, 
 at Exeter Academy again ; and in the intermediate short 
 space that he had been at Nonnusquam, had shown the 
 small, conscious shrewdness of his sort in keeping well out 
 of " the Roughead s " way.
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 209 
 
 Neal Royd was not without his untrimmed points of 
 human nature, though there was better blood in him than 
 in Sandie Moore. He was an aborigine yet, in that he 
 was the enemy of a girl for her own offenses and those 
 of her kin. A savage will ambush and will take scalps 
 of women. Neal Royd thirsted for a chance or a . con 
 trivance to " pay off " to " Pester More " the interest, at 
 least, upon the accumulating family debt. He was only 
 fourteen ; there was hope for better things in him, since 
 he began with something generous enough to resent a 
 meanness even more than a malice. It would be his turn 
 now, though, if a way should show ; and fair enough, if 
 he served them in their own fashion. They, not he, had 
 set it. " June would let a grasshopper kick her ! " 
 
 All this has been historical introduction. We come 
 now to the beginning of our " repeat." 
 
 A gypsy party at the old block-house. A straw ride to 
 Mill Creek Landing ; the steamer, touching at ten o clock, 
 for Penbassett ; the lovely river sail, the quiet cove, the 
 steep rocks, the cavern, the woody summit, the oak-glade 
 in the farm-edge ; above all, the real, true, old-settlement 
 block-house that the colonists had taken refuge in, the In 
 dians had invested, with the bullet-holes in its timbers, 
 the places charred and blackened by flames against its 
 massive sides, the excavation beneath in solid ledge, and 
 the tradition of an underground passage to the cavern by 
 the river. 
 
 All Mrs. Singlewell s young ladies were to go ; the great 
 difficulty was male attendance. It was September, and 
 the youths " high-nose " were just away at academy 
 or college. The youths, snub-nose, even if they were 
 to be asked, would hardly go, merely as " Polly -put-the- 
 kettle-ons," and to be snubbed some more. One of the
 
 210 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 inconveniences of a small town, cleft in social twain, 
 arose. Early harvest occupied the able-bodied men ; corn 
 and barley were of more consequence than a day s chore. 
 Who should carry baskets up and down, fetch wood and 
 water, and hang the kettle for the picnic party ? 
 
 Amabel Dernham thought " Mamma would let Zibbie 
 go " (Zibbie was short for Zorayda Brunhilda, Z. B., 
 the magnificent Moorish and Teutonic prefixes to the ple 
 beian Yankee of Spodge); "besides, it would be only fun 
 to do it nearly all ourselves." 
 
 Hester Moore went unblushingly to Junia Royd, and 
 invited her to invite her brother. 
 
 " You are the only one who has a brother at home," she 
 said, with an air of conscious penalty-for-honor. " They 
 would all go if they were here, of course ; only Mrs. Sin- 
 glewell s mother had to be sick at just the wrong time 
 when they were here and put us into the wrong time 
 now." 
 
 Hester Moore had probably never spoken so many con 
 secutive words to Junia before in their whole school year. 
 
 " I will tell him," said June, not without her own dig 
 nity, " if you mean it for a message ; but very likely he 
 will think it a wrong time for him to be in." 
 
 " Oh, I don t see why," said Hester, carelessly. 
 
 To Junia s amazement, Neal said that he would go. 
 Then something in the set of his face startled her dif 
 ferently. 
 
 " O Neal ! " she said, " don t ! I mean don t do 
 anything ! " 
 
 " Why, what do you suppose they want me for ? " asked 
 Neal. " I shall make myself of service to the interests 
 of society in general in any way that I see chance for." 
 
 " Neal ! don t look for chances ! That s just what 
 I mean." Junia had heard the word too often not to be 
 apprehensive of it.
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 211 
 
 " You may be sure I won t waste time in looking, if I 
 can make one," was all that Neal vouchsafed. " And I 
 shall go." 
 
 Poor little June ! With her awe of Neal s tremen- 
 dousness, and her gentle dread of harm or pain to any, 
 she shivered with vague imagination of little less than an 
 upset canoe on the river in the pleasure-boating, or a 
 block-house blown up, in good earnest, with dynamite ! 
 If she could only warn her Amabel, or knew what to 
 warn her of ! From that moment the gypsy party had 
 only trembling and terrors for her ; at all events, in the 
 looking forward. When they were fairly embarked, the 
 delights of the way asserted themselves and absorbed her 
 temporarily ; in the pauses, or recurrences of thought, 
 she remembered to look forward again, and the nameless 
 dread began anew. Neal was so reckless of what he did 
 when the freak was on ! She was sure there would be 
 some disaster, something to make them wish they had 
 not gone. 
 
 Amabel, sitting between her and Hester Moore in the 
 wagon, told Hester something that gave Junia a cold 
 shudder at the outset. 
 
 " If I were superstitious, I d hardly dare be here," 
 said the girl. " Old Sabina said such a queer thing this 
 morning. She brought up my dress, this," touching 
 the light cambric frills that lay about her in white fresh 
 ness, " into my room last night, and I spread it out so 
 nicely on my lounge. Then I got out my ribbons and my 
 neckerchief, and put everything together just as it was to 
 go ; and this morning I tied up my flowers, evenly, and 
 laid the bunch at the side, where it is now ; and there I 
 was, you see, all but me, just as straight and prim and 
 complete. And old Sabina came in, and I showed her. 
 I was doing my hair. See how nice it looks, I said ;
 
 212 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 and, do you think, she just gave a screech, and flew at it, 
 and tossed everything apart, and flung the dress on a 
 chair. For goodness sake, Miss Amy, don t ever do a 
 thing like that again ! Don t streek out things you re go 
 ing to wear and make em look like that ! Why, my sis 
 ter, that s a widcler, laid out just a long frilled counterpin 
 once, over two chairs, not to muss it while it aired ; and it 
 looked so goshly, mother made her take it away. And do 
 you b lieve, Miss Amy, t war n t a week fore my brother 
 David he come up dead, in a letter ! 
 
 " Oh, don t ! " cried Junia, excitedly ; and Amabel, 
 turning with a laugh on her lips, saw June as white as the 
 dress. 
 
 " Why, do you mind such things ? " she asked. " It 
 sounded so funny ! " 
 
 "So ffoshly, " replied Junia, trying feebly to turn 
 off her nervousness by the quotation. 
 
 " I don t see what she has to do with it," remarked 
 Hester, remotely. 
 
 Junia, put in the third person, stayed put, and held her 
 self aside. Put down ? Easily quenched ? These easily 
 quenched persons are not always " down." There is a 
 fine inward retreat, of which the putter-down may scarcely 
 be capable even of supposing. 
 
 In this retreat Junia troubled herself afresh for Ama 
 bel. She was always with Hester Moore ; and June was 
 sure that Hester Moore would be that day like a tree in a 
 thunder-storm, for whatever bolt should fall. 
 
 " If you would just keep with me to-day, some of 
 the time," she entreated, and then shyly qualified, 
 standing by Amabel upon the pier. 
 
 She had never asked for herself or put herself in the 
 way before. Amabel gave a glance of surprise. 
 
 " It is such a wild, great place," said June.
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 213 
 
 " Wo shall all be there," returned Amabel. " Of course, 
 we shall be together." 
 
 Amabel had said truly ; there were two sides to her 
 mind, and she was sometimes a little vacillating in her ac 
 tion between them. 
 
 The bright little steamer, with its pretty lattices of 
 white-painted rope, its striped awnings, its flying colors, 
 came around a green promontory and glided to the land 
 ing. There was a warping in, close to the pier-head ; a 
 shock and tremble of the tall timbers as it swept suddenly 
 against them ; a flinging of the foot-plank ; a hurrying on 
 board ; and instantly, like a flock of butterflies, the girls, 
 in their white and dainty-colored dresses, and shady, 
 veiled or feathered hats, had fluttered and settled here 
 and there, brightening up the decks with their motion and 
 alighting. 
 
 Mrs. Singlewell was coining last, Miss Fidelia Po- 
 sackley, the assistant, was just on board, when a boy on 
 a gray pony came galloping down the road, reining up 
 just in time on the wharf, and waving a yellow envelope 
 above his head, as he kept on at slackened speed toward 
 the steamer. 
 
 " Mrs. Singlewell ! " he shouted ; and the lady took her 
 foot from the plank and turned around. 
 
 " All aboard ! " was called impatiently from the boat, 
 and two men already held the gang-plank, ready to draw 
 it in. 
 
 "A telegram ! " 
 
 Mrs. Singlewell tore it open ; there was only an instant 
 for deciding anything ; she passed down the gang-plank, 
 despatch in hand. 
 
 " It is from Fordstoke," she said to Miss Posackley. 
 " My mother is ill again. I shall have to go on to Rigs- 
 ton, leaving you in charge at Penbasset. I am very 
 sorry. I shall be very anxious."
 
 214 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Miss Fidelia assured her of all possible care. But Miss 
 Fidelia Posackley was one of those who can only move 
 between ruled lines of duty and precedent, and, by very 
 adherence to them, go straight to grief or stand and 
 take it when sudden deviation is demanded. They 
 turn into pillars of salt instead of getting out of Sodom. 
 Miss Posackley was invaluable in school routine ; she 
 was worse than nothing for an emergency. It was with a 
 great misgiving, therefore, that Mrs. Singlewell saw her 
 flock of butterflies flutter up the bank into the oak glades 
 at Penbasset ; Miss Fidelia, with her green lawn over-dress, 
 looped in two precisely similar, long-pointed festoons be 
 hind, walking among them like a solemnized Katydid. It 
 was too late to have helped it ; there would be no boat 
 back that stopped at Nonnusquam till the one at six 
 o clock, which they were to take. 
 
 " Get them all together by half-past five," charged Mrs. 
 Singlewell at parting ; " and let there be no going in 
 canoes." 
 
 At those words, one dread was lifted from Junia Royd s 
 imagination. 
 
 "Your sign is read out now," said Hester Moore to 
 Amabel. " It s only the old lady that s come up worse 
 again in a telegram." 
 
 Junia would not have spoken so, or allowed herself that 
 " only ; " nevertheless, another weight or, rather, a 
 dim, grim sense of one was eased within her mind. 
 
 She was able, with a released spring of enjoyment, to 
 hasten up the cliff -path and over the beautiful oak-open, 
 in the little party that instantly sought the famous old 
 block - house. Another detachment took the shore way 
 along the rocks toward the traditionary cavern. 
 
 Junia had read with enthusiasm Cooper s fascinating 
 stories of border life and forest warfare. The legends of
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 215 
 
 Deerslayer and Pathfinder were realities to her in that 
 realm where fancy shapes its facts and maps its terri 
 tories. She had not more surely come to this actual spot 
 than she had gone through the wilderness, drifted upon 
 the water, and dwelt in the lonely fort or on the rudely 
 fortressed island, with Judith and Hetty and the young 
 hunter, the brave old sergeant, the captious Cap, Eau- 
 douce, the honest scout, and Mabel Dunham. But to 
 come here to-day was to make that strange join of things 
 dreamy and things tangible which causes the visible to 
 seem a dream and the vision a substance. To say, 
 " Right here those, or such, things have been," was to 
 narrow down to touch and presence what she had before 
 gone far away into wide thought-land to find and get con 
 ception of. 
 
 " Mabel Dunham ! " All at once that came and fitted. 
 Her very heroine was here Amabel. How strange that 
 the name should happen so ! Amabel Dernham. And 
 herself, why, she, little, dusky, insignificant, secretly 
 worshiping friend, what was she but the very Indian 
 June of the wild-wood story ? 
 
 She rehearsed it all to Neal, who walked up with her,, 
 and who knew the old tale by heart as well as she. 
 
 " And I m Neal Roughead, Chief Arrowhead ! " 
 cried the boy. 
 
 " And if I knew what you d do to Amabel, my 
 Mabel, I d go and tell her, as June did Mabel Dun 
 ham ! " retorted quiet Junia, in a quick, low, angry tone. 
 
 " T is n t your Amabel, she s well enough ; it s the 
 rest of em. It s that Pester More ! " 
 
 " She s always with that Hester Moore ; what happens 
 to one will happen to the other." 
 
 " Let it, then. Good for her ! Why is n t she some 
 times with you ? "
 
 216 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " What is it, Neal ? " asked Junia, pleadingly. 
 
 " Don t know myself. Time enough when the time 
 comes. Only you look out, and keep yourself in a clear 
 place, and clear of Pester More." 
 
 Junia was silent then, but her eyes, full of helpless 
 trouble, would not leave her brother s ; and somehow the 
 trouble would not let her see the half-fun half hid in his, 
 or that he was already amusing himself in advance with 
 her. 
 
 " Sho, June ! Don t work yourself up to concert pitch 
 like that. You girls always suppose the end of the world, 
 or nothing. I sha n t tomahawk anybody. But I can 
 scare their fish, or make em feel small, I guess, one way 
 or another, before it s been their turn much longer." 
 
 With that, June had to make much of the relief again, 
 and go on with the others to the block-house. Neal 
 stopped at the " big flat " with some baskets, and was to 
 return to the pier for more. 
 
 Not all the girls had read " The Pathfinder ; " still fewer 
 were acquainted with, or cared much for, the early history 
 of Penbasset, in which this old block-house figured, as 
 the other did in the novel. Miss Posackley dutifully en 
 larged to them upon the one ; the girls who knew the en 
 chanting fiction broke up the solid lecture with interpola 
 tions of the romance, and finally got the audience all 
 that was audience, and not restlessness and chatter to 
 themselves. June, knowing it all better than any, stood 
 silent, and gazed intently about her, recognizing the points 
 and landmarks of her dream. For one of these old block 
 houses was nearly a duplicate of another. 
 
 The heavy door of the structure had been long off its 
 hinges ; some of the great timbers leaned up against its 
 side ; an open space where its leaf had hung gave wide 
 entrance into the dusty, empty, ancient interior. The nar-
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 217 
 
 row loops would else have let in little light. As it was, 
 low-raftered, deep, and heavily built, there was enough 
 of the shadow-charm of mystery for the young explorers, 
 as they stepped across the great, rude, uncrumbled sill, 
 and went peering in toward the far, dark corners. 
 
 " Such beams ! " they exclaimed. " Whole trees ! and 
 big ones ! And such bolts and clampings ! " 
 
 " Here are the holes they fired their rifles from ! " 
 
 " And here are bullet-holes at the edges, where the 
 Indians tried to fire in ! " 
 
 " But this, girls, is the trap-door take care! Down 
 here are the mysteries and the underground passage ! " 
 
 " / in going down ! " cried Clip Hastings, always first, 
 and often head-first. 
 
 " My dear ! " remonstrated Miss Posackley, " it s five 
 or six feet, and no steps ! " 
 
 No matter. Here I am ! " replied Clip from the cel 
 lar, into which she had swung herself while the words were 
 spoken. And half a dozen others had followed before Miss 
 Posackley could call up rule or precedent for determined 
 opposition. 
 
 There ! Stop, my dears ! No more of you must go 
 down ! " she said, with outstretched, hindering hands, to 
 the others. <k I can t see how they are to get back again, 
 I m sure." And she fluttered to the brink, like a hen whose 
 ducklings are in the water. 
 
 " Round by the cavern ! " called back Clip. " Good- 
 by ! " Then the voices grew smothered under the solid 
 floor, as the rebels groped away into the darkness. 
 
 " My dears ! Young ladies ! Really, this will not do ! " 
 called Miss Posackley. " Come back instantly ! " 
 
 Were they out of hearing ? No answer no sound of 
 one returned. How far did the excavation reach ? And 
 what might be there ? Water, possibly ! An old well !
 
 218 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 What might they grope or stumble into ? Miss Posackley 
 was in an agony. 
 
 The stillness that had occurred so suddenly continued. 
 Some of the girls were frightened, some eagerly excited. 
 
 " Oh, where do you think it goes to ? Have they fallen 
 into anything ? " cried the first. 
 
 And " They ve found it ; they ve gone down to the 
 river ! Let us go too, please, Miss Posackley ? " declared 
 and besought the second. 
 
 " Not one of you ; on no account ! " said Miss Posackley, 
 unsparing of her negatives in her vehemence. 
 
 Hester Moore was one of the explorers. Junia held 
 Amabel by the arm, above. She had barely hindered her 
 from following ; not that she had really thought of danger, 
 at the first, but simply that she saw Hester go, and she was 
 to keep those two apart. If she could do but that all day 
 long, not knowing why ! Not waiting to know, only 
 clinging to the warning of Neal s words : " A clear place, 
 and clear of Pester ! " There would be mischief some 
 how ; and this would be the only sure exemption from it. 
 
 Neal Royd is not the first who has been terrible by hint 
 and mystification, while tolerably mystified himself as to 
 fulfillment. He walked up at this moment from the kettle- 
 hanging, and looked in at the open door. He was " behav 
 ing so well," the girls thought ; not putting himself where 
 he did not belong. But then, what could one strange boy 
 do among all of them ? They were not at all in doubt 
 of their veritable and sufficient terribleness these little 
 women in their millinery and manners ! 
 
 " Master Royd ! " exclaimed proper Miss Posackley. 
 " They have gone down there half a dozen of them. 
 Where do you suppose that underground way leads ? They 
 seem to be quite out of hearing. I am very much con 
 cerned."
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 219 
 
 " They say," returned Neal, with great gravity and 
 weight of manner, " that there s a steep underground way 
 to the river. But I should think it could n t be very safe ; 
 it must be very blind, anyhow. I 11 see what I can find 
 out." 
 
 And he dropped himself down into the blackness, where 
 he stooped and peered about ; then moved with apparent 
 caution away from the opening, and out of sight. 
 
 " The place is as still as death," he called back from 
 beneath. " It s very curious." 
 
 " Oh, what shall we do ? " cried Miss Posackley, in 
 terror. 
 
 " If they only come out at the other end, it 11 be all 
 right. But if they get down anywhere and can t get up 
 again ; or get stuck in the middle I declare ! here is a 
 hole ! " 
 
 " Miss Posackley," he said, returning to the trap, " I 
 think you d better just step down here yourself." A queer 
 little smothered sound interrupted him. " Hark ! I thought 
 I heard something. I really don t believe they can have 
 got far. If you would just come down, it is n t at all 
 bad here, and call to them, they would n t mind me, 
 you know, it would be the best thing. And then you 
 would have done all you could, you see ; and if you want 
 me to, I 11 try the burrow." 
 
 " Oh, how can I ? " faltered poor, shocked Miss Po 
 sackley, wringing her hands over the chasm. 
 
 " You 11 have to be quick, I in afraid," urged Neal, 
 mercilessly solemn. 
 
 " Go back, young ladies," commanded Miss Posackley 
 to the rear squad, who huddled about her, divided between 
 frightened faith and most diverted skepticism. " Go down 
 to the big flat and wait for me. Oh, how can I ever ? " 
 
 " Oh, what a lark ! " laughed out Kitty Sharrod, the
 
 220 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 minute she was outside, and turning short around to look in 
 through the great doorway. " Can t she see it s nothing but 
 a lark all round ? I d give a coach and horses to he down 
 there ! She called me just as I was over the edge. It just 
 stopped at me, my luck ! She s actually gone down ! 
 How do you suppose she will come up again ? " the girl 
 added, slowly and sepulchrally, to her companions, who 
 lingered, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. 
 
 " Come back and see it out ! She won t mind now she s 
 down, and thinks we did n t see her go. Do take care, 
 Miss Posackley ! We can t go off and leave you there ! 
 You 11 want us to help you up again," shouted Kitty, lean 
 ing boldly down the trap. 
 
 A match flashed below ; Neal held it right above Miss 
 Posackley s head. Kitty Sharrod, gazing after its illumi 
 nation, saw what Miss Posackley also saw a row of crouch 
 ing figures, two or three feet apart, each with hands on 
 knees, flat against the low, rough wall of the far side. 
 From the motionless rank burst a sudden, laughing salute. 
 
 Miss Fidelia s position before them, alone, would have 
 been like that of a general at a review. Only, she had to 
 crouch also, which impaired her dignity, and made the 
 tableau irresistible. The floor was not more than four and 
 a half feet instead of five or six from the ground be 
 low. 
 
 Neal Royd struck a light again, a whole card of 
 matches. 
 
 " Won t they get it ? " exclaimed Kitty Sharrod, in an 
 excited whisper, clapping noiseless hands. " But I d give 
 a Newport cottage to be there, and to see her face ! "
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 221 
 
 II. 
 
 "Young ladies!" said Miss Posackley, in her most 
 assured official voice. But the attitude neutralized it too 
 absurdly. The doubled-up young ladies tittered all along 
 the line. 
 
 " Master Neal Royd, put out those matches, please. 
 And light no more. They are most dangerous." 
 
 " And disillusionizing," said a low voice somewhere in 
 the dimness, as the little blaze expired beneath Neal s 
 boot. 
 
 " This will all be laid before Mrs. Singlewell," said 
 Miss Posackley, just as if she had been at full height 
 upon the platform at the top of the long school-room. 
 " At present, you have to go up as you came down. Mas 
 ter Royd, you will go before, if you please. Miss Has 
 tings, you led the way ; lead back again." 
 
 There came a scrambling, with laughs and outcries. 
 Neal Royd was in the trap-way, head up, ready to spring 
 forth. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! I ve lost I ve dropped something, Miss 
 Posackley. I must look ! " sounded suddenly in distress. 
 It was Hester Moore s voice. " Just let me have a match 
 one minute ! " 
 
 " On no account," replied Miss Posackley. " Go up, 
 Master Neal. Go up, young ladies. This is very ex 
 traordinary ! " she concluded ; but she gasped the word 
 out, with a distressed puff between the syllables, quite 
 irrelevantly. 
 
 " She meant ex-hausting," whispered Kitty Shai-rod. 
 " There 11 have to be more ex-hoisting before they all get 
 out. And she s bound to come up last ! For shame, 
 girls ! " she cried aloud. " Make haste ! "
 
 222 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Hush up, Kitty Sharrod ! Oh dear, I can t find it. 
 Don t tread all around, girls ! " 
 
 " Is it your handkerchief, Miss Moore ? I may be able 
 to pick it up for you presently," Neal Royd said, most 
 suavely, giving his hands to Clip Hastings, who, short but 
 springy, came lightly, with that aid, to the upper floor 
 again. 
 
 Hester Moore suddenly hushed up herself. 
 
 " Have you found it ? What was it ? " they asked her, 
 as they crowded forward from below. 
 
 " Never mind ; it s all right now," said Hester, gruffly. 
 
 " She s found she never lost it. That always makes 
 people cross," said little Lucy Payne, while Neal reached 
 down and lifted her from the arms of Sue Merriman, 
 who held her up to him. 
 
 Neal gave a keen glance sidewise at Hester s face 
 when she grappled with the outer edge of the trap, and 
 struggled up heavily, and with much pushing from her 
 comrades, through the aperture, scrambling ignominiously 
 out on hands and knees. 
 
 " She has n t found it. And it s no handkerchief. 
 And she s in some scrape," he said to himself. 
 
 " O Hester ! have n t you lost something else ? Where s 
 that lovely " 
 
 " In my pocket, silly ! Do be quiet ! " interrupted 
 Hester, pushing Lucy Payne aside, and making sullenly 
 for the door. 
 
 " Hester ! Hetty ! She s missing the greatest fun of 
 all," said mischievous Clip Hastings in a low tone, 
 " the seeing Miss Fidelia emerge. What will she do 
 with her dignity ? " 
 
 " I 11 take care of Miss Fidelia and her dignity," said 
 Neal Royd. " Though, perhaps, that is quite as much 
 your own business." There was a chivalrous indignation
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 223 
 
 in the boy s tone. " Girls never know when a joke or a 
 torment has gone far enough," he thought. 
 
 He jumped down through the trap as the last of Miss 
 Posackley s charge gained foothold above, and then he 
 dropped on all fours in the dust and rubbish, putting his 
 head down, and his shoulders up, to the full stretch of his 
 strong-braced arms. 
 
 " Step on my back, Miss Posackley. June, reach Miss 
 Posackley your hands." 
 
 And Miss Posackley, who had a neat, small, light- 
 booted foot, and nothing lumbering in her measured mo 
 tions, first spread a little scarf she carried across the 
 young Raleigh s coat, and then stepped with a truly Eliza 
 bethan air upon the offered support, and so, with not too 
 ungainly struggle, up into the main room. 
 
 " I am exceedingly obliged, and really quite ashamed," 
 she said, turning to Neal as he sprang out again and 
 handed her the silken strip, with a quiet " Thank you " 
 of his own, proceeding to dust his knees with his handker 
 chief. " But why not, of course, that any of us should 
 expect such aid from you did you only think of it for 
 me ? " 
 
 " Perhaps because my jacket is n t for everybody s 
 dust," he said. " Some people use you gently ; and some 
 tread upon you as if they meant it. It s your own fault 
 if you can t guess the difference beforehand." 
 
 From that moment Miss Posackley had a respect for 
 Neal Roycl, and put a friendly confidence in him. 
 
 " No more going into the block-house, young ladies, 
 without express permission," was Miss Fidelia s general 
 order, as she came out and headed her flock once more, 
 taking the way down to the big rock. 
 
 The kettle was filled and hung ; the fire laid ; the 
 baskets and parcels all placed comfortably at hand. Neal
 
 224 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 struck a match and touched it to the hrush and pine chips, 
 and a hlaze went up. Then he judiciously withdrew him 
 self in his former unpretentious manner, and sauntered off 
 toward the block-house. He had more matches in his 
 pocket, and he was not included in the forbiddance to the 
 "young ladies." Ten minutes later, he sauntered back 
 again to Miss Posackley and her party, to see if anything 
 were wanted. He had something else in another pocket, 
 a dainty little golden chatelaine watch. 
 
 " June," said Hester Moore, a little while after dinner 
 was over ; " just ask your brother for some matches, will 
 you?" 
 
 June looked up with a triple amaze at the allocution, 
 the name, and the request. " What for ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, we shall go into the cavern presently, and I want 
 some for myself. I won t be caught again, as I was in the 
 old block-house. I did n t half see that either. We went 
 right down into that miserable hole. See here, June ! 
 Mabel and I are determined we will see it again, whether 
 or no. You come, too, that s a good child. You know 
 all about it. But now, just get the matches. I ll do as 
 much for you any time." 
 
 " I do not think I shall need you to," said June, rather 
 coolly. " And I don t believe Neal will let us have any 
 matches. And we had better not disobey Miss Posackley. 
 I 11 ask Neal, though." And she went off at once, and 
 did it. 
 
 Neal laughed. 
 
 " Cunning, is n t she ? In a small way. But I guess 
 I m her match though I ve got no matches for her. 
 She might set the cavern on fire, eh ? " 
 
 " You re quite right, Chiefie ; only I thought I had 
 better give her your own answer." 
 
 " Well, that s it ; only you need n t tell her the whole
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 225 
 
 of it. I say, June, what do you suppose she lost clown 
 there ? What did she have did n t you notice ? that 
 she might lose ? that she might be afraid to lose or 
 tell of, if she had lost it ? " 
 
 Something flashed suddenly across June s mind. 
 
 " Why ! she had a lovely chatelaine watch, just 
 like " - 
 
 "That?" 
 
 " Chiefie ! Where did you get it ? Why, it is Grade s ! " 
 she exclaimed, when she had taken the trinket into her 
 hand and glanced at it on each side. " See, there is the 
 monogram G. V. She would n t let us look at it closely ; 
 I thought it was her sister s. She was crazy to wear 
 Grace Vanderbroke s when it first came ; I used to hear 
 her teasing for it. It was at the jeweler s to be regulated, 
 when Grace was sent for ; she begged leave to get it and 
 keep it for her till she came back. But she said Blanche 
 Hardy would do that," June went on, with girlish am 
 biguity of pronouns. " Then Hester was provoked, and 
 said it did n t matter other people had chatelaine 
 watches ; she could borrow one from her own home if she 
 wanted to ; her mother and her sister who is engaged 
 both had them ; she only wanted to do her a kindness. 
 And then to-day oh ! when she half showed it, she did 
 make us think, if she did n t say out and out, that it was 
 her sister s. And Blanche Hardy went yesterday with 
 her sister, the bride, to Lake Rinklepin. Oh, Neal ! She 
 must have borrowed it out of Blanche s trunk ! " 
 
 "All right. Now let her whistle for her matches and 
 her chances ! I ll go and put it back where I found it. 
 It was safe enough. Block-house good. Got no scalp. " 
 
 " Don t be horrid, Neal. If you would only help her 
 out of it think ! It would be it would be being a 
 real Chiefie to do that." 
 15
 
 226 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " I m only a chief in the rough, Junie. And set a 
 chief to help a thief ! There s no such saying as that, 
 even in the New Testament ! " And Neal strode off. 
 
 He had two or three strokes of revenge to choose from. 
 He could walk up innocently to Miss Posackley before 
 them all, and give into her charge what he had found, 
 which would bring the whole disclosure down upon Pester 
 More s head ; or he could let her worry all day, and spoil 
 her good time, reserving to himself the alternative of 
 showing mercy at the last, and shaming her of her own 
 meannesses, or of still finishing her off with the public 
 exposure which she deserved. Or, again, he could put 
 the thing back where he had found it, as he had said ; 
 leaving it and her to take the " chances," the probabilities 
 of which he had his own ideas about. 
 
 He rejected the first and most summary method ; for 
 the rest, he postponed the matter. An Indian chief post 
 pones the tomahawk ; he understands the fine torture of 
 suspense. 
 
 June was too tender for that, even with her foe. She 
 could say nothing about Neal ; she must leave him to 
 manage his own affairs ; but she did go to Miss Posackley 
 believing that her brother would do as he had said, 
 and that the watch would have to be found over again in 
 the block-house cellar and asked her if " Miss Dernham 
 and Miss Moore and I " could go up there again, " just 
 for a few minutes." 
 
 Miss Posackley refused. It would be a precedent for 
 all the rest. They had all seen it ; that must now be 
 enough. 
 
 " No more block-house to-day, my dear. I have quite 
 made up my mind on that point. It is growing late, be 
 sides ; and we are going to the cavern." 
 
 " Glad of it ! " was Hester Moore s comment. " They all
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 227 
 
 would come tumbling after. Amabel, I want you. There 
 are lovely rock-mosses up on the steep knoll." And she 
 turned off without further notice of Junia, who had done 
 her the kindness. Amabel followed, longing for rock- 
 mosses, but demurring about cows. 
 
 " Cows don t go up the side of a house," retorted Hes 
 ter. " And the fences are beyond it, too." 
 
 The rock-knoll rose from the extremity of the low, nat 
 ural bank-wall which separated the block-house level on 
 the front from the terrace below, the verge of which was 
 the broad " big flat," and whence descended again, in 
 abrupt declivity, the real precipice, in the face of which, 
 upon the river-brink, was the traditional cave. The knoll 
 jutted, like a steep headland, over into an adjoining 
 meadow on its farther side ; on the right, its ridge, bushy 
 with sweet-fern and brambles, trended gradually to the 
 plane of the fortress field. Toward the block-house, these 
 wild growths gave a cover nearly all the way. Elsewhere, 
 all was visible upon this plane to those upon the flat be 
 low. 
 
 A walled-in lane led from the left upper corner of the 
 block-house field, between the meadow and some corn- 
 land, up to the high, wooded pastures ; at its head, a 
 stout, heavy " pair of bars " stretched across. Up this 
 lane Neal Royd was walking, whistling, having mended 
 Zibbie s fire and filled her kettle for her dish-washing. 
 
 " I guess it 11 keep that girl-flock to the lower lot faster 
 than any commandment," he said to himself, as he came 
 and leaned for a moment upon the bars. Out beyond, 
 some seven or eight cows were quietly feeding. 
 
 Royd let down the bars and stood there watching the 
 cows. 
 
 " They can t get farther than the block-house flat," he 
 said again. "There ll be a red -skin blockade, sure
 
 228 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 enough ; Pester More won t dare run that blockade, either. 
 I like to see that laws are kept. I was to he useful ; I ll 
 be as useful as I can." 
 
 He had no notion that Hester Moore and Amabel were 
 at the very moment on that side of the terrace wall, hurry 
 ing along the sheltered dip of ground toward the block 
 house. He only meant they should not find it possible to 
 get there. When he turned and walked down the lane 
 again, they were already within the ancient wooden walls. 
 
 The cows had seen him, had lifted their heads at his 
 coaxing " Co ! co ! " and with their kinely instinct were 
 heading slowly toward the opened way, possibly anticipat 
 ing a pan of salt. 
 
 Neal made straight for the big flat and the descent to 
 the cavern. On the picnic ground he overtook June, 
 lingering there alone. She had been helping Zibbie 
 gather up the fragments ; Zibbie had now gone down to 
 the pier, her arms laden with baskets. 
 
 " Where s the crowd ? " Neal asked his sister. " What s 
 left you out?" 
 
 " The crowd is in the cavern, and on the shore, and all 
 along," she replied. " I waited with Amabel. She went 
 with Hester Moore to get mosses on the knoll." 
 
 " Whe-ew ! " whistled Neal, taking in the situation, and 
 glancing up behind them. Nothing was moving on the 
 knoll but great, red, horned creatures, wending their way 
 down and deploying themselves around the block-house. 
 Yes, another creature, too, which he had not seen in his 
 reconnaissance at the bar place ! 
 
 A grand old sachem of the herd and two young braves 
 of steers had been in the wood edge, and had followed the 
 gentle mothers down. The big horns and massive brute 
 forehead of the patriarch were rearing with a proud, in 
 vestigating toss, as he came magnificently through the 
 lane-way.
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 229 
 
 The block-house was nearer the bank-wall than to the 
 upper field and the lane by nearly three fourths of the 
 whole distance. 
 
 " What is it, Neal? What do you mean ? " cried June, 
 hurriedly. 
 
 " They re well caught in their own trap," he answered. 
 " Now let em stay awhile. You come along down." And 
 he picked up an armful of baskets and turned to descend 
 the cliff pathway. 
 
 Now June knew that they were in the block -house, 
 though she had spoken truly in saying that they had left 
 her to go upon the knoll. She, too, grasped the situation ; 
 she discerned what Neal had suspected and had done. 
 
 "You mean boy! " she exclaimed, in bitter, force 
 ful indignation. There is nothing so keen, so cutting, 
 cruel, as the two-edged sword which smites at once an 
 offender and the offended, loving heart. 
 
 If she had not said that, Neal would have looked 
 around, at least, to know if she were following ; as it 
 was, he kept his head quite straight away from her and 
 marched on, disappearing down the rapid slope. June 
 gave one swiftly measuring gaze upward, and then sprang 
 to the low wall, scaled it, scarce knowing where the 
 tips of feet and fingers clung, and flew along the 
 ground to the block-house. She felt sure they were in the 
 cellar and would not see. She rounded the building in a 
 flash, and darted in at the open door. 
 
 " Amabel ! Hester !" she called. "Come, quick! There 
 are cattle in the field ! Hurry ! hurry ! They re stand 
 ing still and feeding ; you can get out ; only make haste ! " 
 
 The bull was at the lane foot ; he paused there, with 
 his stately air of survey ; he gave a low snort of question ; 
 he sniffed, as if suspecting something for his interference. 
 
 June stood in the doorway, watching ; calling eagerly
 
 230 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 again to her companions, who lingered, Hester divided 
 between the distress of her loss and her fear of the cattle. 
 
 " Girls ! come ! He s moving ! " 
 
 That masculine pronoun sent them up with a struggle. 
 Hester clambered out of the trap, pushed up by Amabel ; 
 then was actually on the point of rushing forth, leaving 
 Amabel to her own unaided effort. 
 
 "Shame! stop!" cried Junia, in a voice that her 
 school-fellow never she herself scarcely ever till to-day 
 had known for hers. " Take hold of her other hand ! " 
 
 June already had Amabel by one hand ; and Hester, 
 constrained doubly, for she could not have confronted 
 the creatures alone, obeyed. Meantime, the Bos (is 
 that what " boss " comes from ?) seeing and hearing and 
 moving with something more of purpose, was tramping 
 down toward the open doorway. The three girls saw 
 him so, as they turned, and not twenty paces from the 
 entrance. 
 
 " Oh, we can t ! " cried Amabel. 
 
 " He 11 come in ! " shrieked Hester. 
 
 " Go up the ladder," said June ; and remarked as in a 
 dream, as she said it, how that other June and Mabel 
 Dunham had gone up that very ladder, into that very loft, 
 long before, in the old time in the story. It was as if it 
 had stood there a hundred years, waiting for them to 
 come back and live their terrors over again together. 
 
 Hester and Mabel hurried up ; June came last. Then 
 the great animal actually walked in upon the floor below, 
 and raised his voice in a mutter that trembled along the 
 timbers under their feet. 
 
 Hester cried. Amabel shook with fright. June went 
 over to a loop-hole that looked toward the flat. " There 
 is no danger," she said, quietly, and reached out through 
 the narrow aperture, waving her white handkerchief.
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 231 
 
 Amabel looked at her watch. " It is a quarter to five 
 now," she said ; and this is slow, too." 
 
 There was nobody in sight. The flat was cleared, and 
 they were all down upon the shore, hidden and unseeing 
 beneath the high, overhanging rocks. 
 
 June absolutely smiled. "Block -house good; got no 
 scalp," she quoted. " They 11 soon come up, and miss us. 
 And there ll be Mrs. Singlewell s wise halt-hour." 
 
 She picked up a strip of old split board that lay near, 
 pulled her handkerchief fast into a cleft at its end, and 
 thrust it far out through the opening. 
 
 " Chiefie will take care," June said again. 
 
 She spoke his name proudly and tenderly, sorry in her 
 heart for her quick bitterness, and sure of how sorry he 
 would be for any trouble to her. 
 
 " The worst that could happen would be for him to have 
 to go up to the farm, and us to get belated. But we know 
 the Ronnquists, and they 11 take care of us, somehow. " 
 It s so like the story, Mabel ! " she added, with a loving 
 movement toward the girl, that might have been the gen 
 tle grace of the Tuscarora June herself. 
 
 This half comforted Hester. If she could only have 
 one more search, properly, with a light, and if then 
 they could only get to Nonnusquam before Blanche Hardy, 
 the next day ! Blanche Hardy was so " awfully " true, 
 so hard on any little slip or quibble. She began to feel 
 quite bold with the reaction ; and to her small nature the 
 rebound from fear was impulse to some safe insolence. 
 She stamped upon the floor, below which the great beast 
 was tramping. She even went to the upper trap-way and 
 through the opening began to unfurl her parasol, with 
 which she had been groping in the cellar. 
 
 " Pester More ! " cried June, using involuntarily and 
 most appropriately Neal s sobriquet, " do you know what 
 you re about ? That cardinal-red thing ! "
 
 232 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " He can t touch us now," said the girl. " You said 
 so." 
 
 " Us ! " ejaculated June, contemptuously. " Somebody 
 else has got to come, I suppose you know." And she took 
 the sunshade unceremoniously into her own keeping. 
 
 Miss Posackley s little conductor s whistle sounded just 
 before the half hour. The prisoners could see from the 
 loop-holes the gathering from different directions, as the 
 stragglers came in sight along the rocks and drew toward 
 the pier. 
 
 The bull was pawing and snorting ; occasionally a growl 
 ing bellow broke forth, quite audible as far as the river ; 
 and the three girls saw many a quick start and turn, and a 
 general air of huddling and questioning among their com 
 panions, as they hurried down the plank-way and pressed 
 around Miss Posackley, with glances backward, and point 
 ings, and gestures of wonder, if not of apprehension. 
 
 Miss Posackley looked tranquil. " Down in the meadow, 
 probably," she was saying ; " there is certainly nothing in 
 sight." 
 
 But all at once there was a greater stir ; a looking 
 everywhere. There came a calling of voices. 
 
 June worked her heavy flag-staff up and down with 
 difficulty. Then a dozen fingers pointed to the block 
 house and the white signal. Then Miss Posackley began 
 to flurry and agitate. There were no provisional orders 
 for a thing like this. She was off her tramway. 
 
 They could already see the white steam-wreath of the 
 boat stealing along behind Long Point, a mile or so below. 
 It had to make one stop at Burt s Landing ; then another 
 five minutes would bring it up. It was a little in advance 
 of its usual time to-night. 
 
 Neal Royd came up the water-steps from the river to 
 the wharf. There had been no prohibition against his
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 233 
 
 canoeing, and lie had gone up the little creek beyond the 
 meadow, thinking to reach the back-lying farm-house by 
 the shortest way, and bring down help to get the cattle 
 up again. Since the pasture-autocrat had appeared upon 
 the scene, the conditions were changed. The girls were 
 safe in the block-house, but to release them, another hand 
 and one used to the management of the herd might 
 be needed. From the upland path into which he struck 
 on leaving his canoe, and by which, in a few minutes 
 walk, he gained the ridge, he looked across and perceived, 
 as he supposed, the whole herd, returned meanwhile into 
 its proper pasture, taking its slow afternoon way along 
 the dips and windings in the direction of the twilight 
 home-going. Brush copses and swells of land prevented 
 his being certain of individuals or of the entire number ; 
 but the open level about the block-house was in full view, 
 and was quite empty of intruders. 
 
 He had crossed to the head of the lane, a little beyond 
 which he had been walking while on the ridge, had taken 
 one more survey downward, put up the bars again, and 
 gone back to his boating, relieved of further responsibility. 
 
 Rowing down under the woody banks of the creek, and 
 again while beneath the cliffs upon the river, he heard, 
 with some misgiving of uncertainty, that low roar, 
 muffled in the distance. Was it in the distance of the 
 pasture ? 
 
 Springing up the pier-steps, he saw the excited, restless 
 groups ; the roar now came distinctly, and pronounced 
 and heavy ; the handkerchief-flag was waved once and 
 wildly from that upper aperture in the block-house, then 
 hastily dragged in by its clumsy pole. 
 
 Junia was missing from among the school-girls. Neal 
 saw that with quick eyes, before he had seemed to look at 
 all. And the fact that she was missing spurred him to
 
 234 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 instant action. He ran up the long side incline of the 
 roadway, and leaped the wall into the block-house field. 
 
 June s voice came clear and shrill from the loop-hole. 
 
 " Keep away, Neal ! He s angry now. Don t come 
 alone. We re safe up here ; only bring somebody soon ! " 
 
 Neal leaped the wall again, and ran down to Miss 
 Fidelia. 
 
 " You had better leave this to me, Miss Posackley," he 
 .said. " Let Zibbie stay, to look after the young ladies. 
 I 11 get some one from the farm, if I can t do better. 
 There s a train up from Hopegood s at seven ; Ben Ronn- 
 quist will take us over ; let somebody meet us at the Cor 
 ners. Or, if we should miss that, Mrs. Ronnquist will 
 keep the girls safe till morning. You need n t be the least 
 uneasy. The old block-house is good for a worse siege, 
 and you see they know what they re about ! I ll run no 
 risk." 
 
 Miss Posackley vibrated, rotated. Her bonnet whirled 
 like a weather-vane between the opposite quarters of her 
 alarmed anxieties. From the block-house came the hor 
 rible brute voice ; from the advancing steamer the warning 
 shriek of its arrival. 
 
 " Go on, girls ! " Neal shouted, without ceremony, to the 
 hesitating damsels. " Go on board at once. Come here, 
 Zibbie." 
 
 By the pure force of his decision he had his way ; Miss 
 Posackley s young ladies turned, with shuddering submis 
 sion, to the gang-plank. Miss Posackley gave one or two 
 more spasmodic spins, and followed. She took in the 
 wisdom of her forced conclusion gradually as she calmed. 
 By the time she reported herself at Nonnusquam, she had 
 innocently adopted it as her own. " It was the only thing 
 to be done," she said. And the next day, when all was 
 safe, and Mrs. Singlewell had returned to hear the story,
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 235 
 
 the subject had so grown upon her that she covered herself 
 with quiet glory. 
 
 " It was no time to hesitate," she explained. " If there 
 had been a minute more of excitement, we all might have 
 been left." 
 
 " You acted most wisely and promptly, Miss Posackley," 
 said Mrs. Singlewell, amazed at the fact in her own mind. 
 " But there is never any knowing," she said to herself, 
 " what latent energies a great emergency may draw forth." 
 
 Miss Posackley took the commendation with a meek 
 pleasure. She had had no idea of falsifying ; she simply 
 had not seen herself as a weather-vane. 
 
 There is not very much more to be told of this little 
 analogy of adventure and character. 
 
 Neal, left alone in command, considered briefly, then 
 ordered his campaign. He did not like to leave the girls 
 alone with their formidable neighbor and their own nerves, 
 safe though they were from actual danger ; nor would 
 Zibbie consent to be " left around loose with that old ring- 
 in-the-nose." He approached the block-house on the lower 
 side, and called up to the loop-hole : 
 
 " June ! Fling out a scarf, or something ; red, if you 
 have it." 
 
 June poked out Hester s cardinal sunshade. 
 
 " This ? " she asked. 
 
 " Just the ticket. Drop it ! " 
 
 " But oh, Chiefie ! Please take care ! Don t be ven 
 turesome ! " 
 
 " Don t worry nor weep, June. The harbor bar is n t 
 moaning." And with the ambiguous comfort of this allu 
 sion he seized the red parasol and made swift way around 
 the field to the head of the lane, let down the bars again, 
 and came through walking toward the block-house. He 
 watched his moment when the creature faced toward him, 
 and then unfurled the parasol and waved it defiantly.
 
 236 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Auld Hornie " thought, perhaps, it was a girl-enemy ; 
 at any rate, he took the bait and challenge, and made 
 furiously for the insolent hit of color. 
 
 Neal rushed up the narrow way, well ahead of him, 
 through the hars, and along by the wall, for a sufficient 
 distance ; then he jumped into the corn-field, and thence 
 back into the lane ; and he had the bars up while the bull 
 was still following his roundabout track, and raging at its 
 doublings and interceptions. And in a moment more 
 Neal returned, demurely holding over his head the red 
 sunshade, somewhat damaged by its flight across two 
 fences, to find the block-house garrison just cautiously 
 and timidly emerging from its shelter. 
 
 He gave the parasol to his sister without apology, and 
 ignoring ownership. 
 
 " Come along now ; we ve no time to lose," he said, 
 and led the way to the rough cart-road, and up its rutty 
 ascent to the farm buildings, visible half a mile off upon 
 the hill. 
 
 As they walked, he made opportunity to come into line 
 with, but scarcely alongside, Miss Hester Moore. He 
 drew something from his pocket, which he held out to her 
 at a fair arm s length, as if he had another dangerous 
 creature to deal with. 
 
 " You may as well have this back," he said. " Two 
 mean things don t make a smart one." 
 
 Hester clutched the trinket eagerly, then flamed at him : 
 
 " Two mean things ! Then you let in those cattle ! " 
 
 " Well, I did. But that was n t the mean thing I 
 meant." And he left her, scorning to explain himself, or 
 to rebuke her further. 
 
 " A regular meanie can t be made to be ashamed," he 
 said to June afterward. " I give it up." 
 
 Ben Ronnquist, when he had heard from Neal the par-
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 237 
 
 ticulars of their having been left behind by the boat, 
 hitched his horse to the broad-seated family wagon, which 
 was to take them to the cars. Hester and Amabel were 
 helped in first. A small boy was to go with the team to 
 bring it back ; and there was also Zibbie to ride in front 
 with Neal. 
 
 " I wonder if there s room in here for June ? " Hester 
 asked, disfavoringly, from behind, when she and Amabel 
 were seated. 
 
 " Well, I guess there d better be ! " said Neal Roughead, 
 in a short, strong way. 
 
 Whether she took a cue at last from this utterance, or 
 whether with her, as with Miss Posackley, the things that 
 had been beyond her began to come to her by degrees, at 
 least in so far as to reveal to her certain probabilities of a 
 knowledge that might be power, Miss Moore sat awhile in 
 the darkness, silent ; and she spoke at length in quite dif 
 ferent fashion. 
 
 " We ve seen a good deal of each other to-day, June. 
 We 11 get together rather more after this, I think." 
 
 " Will we ? " responded simple June. " It s only peo 
 ple that belong that get together, I think. To-day was 
 an accident." 
 
 After they were in the cars, Amabel came and took a 
 place by June. There was plenty of room ; Hester, Zib 
 bie, and Neal had each a whole seat. 
 
 " Don t you think, Junie, that people who want to, get 
 to belong ? I d like to belong to people like you and 
 Neal." 
 
 " Neal is a dear chiefie," responded gentle June. 
 
 (" Arrowhead great chief," had said the Tuscarora 
 woman in the story.) 
 
 When Blanche Hardy heard of June s behavior at the
 
 238 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 block-house, she came to her, not with sudden patroniz 
 ing, or conscious compliment of approval, but with the 
 warm impulse of like to like. 
 
 She stopped where June was standing, laid a hand 
 lightly on her shoulder and another on her arm, leaning 
 toward her as if drawn. 
 
 " You were courageous to do that," she said. " And 
 generous." 
 
 June flushed brightly, but answered simply : 
 
 " I was not afraid. And how could I do anything 
 else ? " 
 
 Then Blanche Hardy leaned closer and kissed her. 
 " You could n t, I know," she said. 
 
 Now "Blanche Hardy, from pure height of character 
 and its noble presence and showing, was the real queen of 
 the school, not by any means merely of a little artificial 
 clique. 
 
 From that day June went naturally and as one 
 " belonging " up higher. Blanche Hardy became her 
 fast and intimate friend. Nobody, any more, could snub 
 or condescend to her. She was of a peerage above clan 
 or coterie. Yet she remained in all sweet loyalty and 
 non-pretense as aboriginal as ever. 
 
 Amabel, loving and seeking June also, was won to her 
 own true place among those who " belonged " through the 
 longing to be. 
 
 It is only the half, or spurious, attainment, like half 
 faith, or cant, that holds itself within marked and exclud 
 ing lines ; the true noblesse is as catholic as the household 
 of God s saints. 
 
 In Cooper s story, the miscreant Muir had died. All 
 deaths are not by tomahawking. There is a deeper de 
 cease by very miscreancy itself. I have nothing further
 
 GIRL-NOBLESSE. 239 
 
 that it really matters to mention concerning Miss Pester 
 More. Of course her disobedience in returning to the 
 block-house was punished with an appropriate school pen 
 alty and disgrace ; notwithstanding that she muttered 
 some blundering expostulation about " going back for 
 something she had dropped, that did n t belong to her, 
 her sister lent her." She did not dare to make a broader 
 statement, or to emphasize the importance of her excuse ; 
 she only smooched herself feebly with that additional 
 blackening of falsehood ; and as she spoke, met Junia 
 Royd s eyes that flashed a swift, unconscious, condemning 
 astonishment at her. She was glad, then, to smother 
 her half-remonstrance in silence. After that day she fell 
 off from Junia, not as one who turns from that which is 
 unworthy or inferior, but as Lucifer might slink away 
 from Michael. 
 
 Junia never uttered word again even to Neal concern 
 ing the affair of the watch ; it seemed a thing quite cov 
 ered, an exposure quite escaped. But a bird of the air 
 was abroad, in some flitting invisibility, in the atmosphere 
 of the little school world ; and " something queer about 
 it " grew to be a tacit conclusion and an unspoken public 
 opinion. Blanche Hardy and Grace Vanderbroke had an 
 especial quiet way and look when Hester happened near 
 or her name was spoken. " They knew something," the 
 girls thought ; and without investigation or explanation, 
 we may safely assume they did. 
 
 So, morally and that is the only way that is of reality 
 or consequence Hester Moore died, and went to her 
 own place. 
 
 It is human nature that repeats itself in young or old, 
 in wild or civilized ; history and romance are but the 
 facts and pictures of it.
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 
 
 A BOARDING-SCHOOL STORY IN EIGHT CHAPTERS. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE stage came in late at Oakhaven on the river. The 
 Girls School would be all quiet under night rules ; and 
 Mrs. Gibson went at once with Sally to the Mansion House. 
 At any other time Sally would have been delighted. She 
 had never been in a hotel in her life. This was almost fifty 
 years ago, in the days of real stages and hotels ; when 
 travelers were few and of consequence, and broiled chick 
 ens were genuine, and omelettes a true delicacy, and a 
 mystery to modest private tables. 
 
 To arrive at nine o clock, have a chicken and toast sup 
 per ; to go up two flights of broad stairs, and along great 
 wide entries to her bedroom ; to get up to omelette and 
 coffee and waffles for breakfast, at a long table with twenty 
 other illustrious persons who were away from home and 
 out in the world, would have been a point at once of history 
 and romance to Sally, even if she had not come to Oak- 
 haven to become a boarding-school girl at Miss Wilcroft s 
 seminary. 
 
 A traveler was something ; it was very well ; but a board 
 ing-school girl was a heroine of adventure, a creature to 
 make a story out of. 
 
 Her cousin, Felicia Ingram, had preceded her here. She 
 had used to stop at Rexford on her way, each half-year, 
 from Boston, and stay a night with Sally ; a night in which
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 241 
 
 the two girls slept scarcely a wink. The well-packed trunk 
 was routed to the bottom, the new gowns displayed, the 
 neckerchiefs tried on, and the gifts of ornaments Felicia 
 had had in the holidays admired. And. best of all, the 
 bags and packages of " goodies," that were to astonish the 
 country scholars with city confections, were brought forth, 
 plentiful enough to spare a half-way feast with cousin 
 Sally. 
 
 But the trunk and the goodies were nothing to the 
 stories. All the daring " scrapes," all the jolly feast- 
 ings, the games, and the excursions, and the friendships, 
 and the quarrels ; who roomed with whom, and how the 
 bedrooms ranged along the " upper hall " and through 
 " the wing ; " what number Filly s was last term, and 
 which she meant to get this ; above all, her comradeship 
 with the very specimen girl, and queen of the whole frol 
 icking set, whose school-name was " Crack," and made 
 with her the sublime style and copartnership of " Crack 
 and Fling." Quite naturally, you see : Cora Ackworth 
 and Felicia Ingram. 
 
 " I wonder what they would call me," Sally said once. 
 " Anything, do you think ? " 
 
 "That would depend: you d have to earn it. There 
 is n t much to make it out of. Stop, let s see ! Why, 
 your middle name is Punchard, is n t it ? It s perfectly 
 splendid ! You d be Spunk ! That is, if you were 
 spunky." 
 
 " I would be. Sally Punchard ought to be." And no 
 knight of chivalry ever made his vow with more earnest 
 devotion. 
 
 Felicia did not know a certain old story or perhaps it 
 had never made such impression upon her that she could 
 recall it now which came to Sally s mind and made 
 her say this. And Sally did not tell it over again then. 
 1C
 
 242 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 She only asked, presently, as if asking it of herself, " I 
 wonder if they did n t call her Spunk ? Perhaps they 
 did for a while, before she grew old ; but for anybody to 
 call my grandmother anything but Madam Sally Punch- 
 ard ! " 
 
 Felicia had gone now to New York. Her sister, ten 
 years older, was married there, and was to take Felicia in 
 charge for social training, for lessons and accomplishments. 
 Altogether, Oakhaven and the copartnership had not done 
 for the girl precisely what had been expected, which was 
 not the fault of Oakhaven or Miss Wilcroft. 
 
 And Sally scarcely ate or slept at the Mansion House, 
 so eager she was to get to the Wilcroft School, be fairly 
 enrolled, take her place as one of "the girls," and begin 
 her pranks. 
 
 Crack was there still, and she hoped for the high honor 
 of her friendship. Felicia had promised to write about 
 her and tell Crack she was coming. She even proposed 
 to suggest the sobriquet which Sally longed to be degreed 
 with ; but Sally said, valorously, " No, she would earn it." 
 
 " You d better spell your name i e" said Felicia. 
 " All the girls are getting to. I m Felicie in New York. 
 Lucie has started it for me. She s been i e for ever so 
 long ; though it don t make much difference, unless you re 
 very French and particular in the accent." 
 
 " No, I won t," said Sally, stoutly. " I won t have any 
 lie tacked on to me, whatever I do. " I 11 be Spunk if I 
 can, but I won t be that. I was named for Grandma, and 
 I m Sally Punchard, and I 11 stick to it." 
 
 " You can t at Oakhaven. You 11 have to be Sarah, 
 anyhow, on parade. Nicknames are against the rules. 
 That s the very fun of em." 
 
 " They can t make me Sarah any more than they can 
 make me Sapphira. And they won t try."
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 243 
 
 Sally said it quietly, but she meant it. She generally 
 did mean things. Felicia saw that there was no danger but 
 that she would begin on her spunk at once, and almost too 
 thoroughly. Only the girls might not hit on that splendid 
 combination with the middle name. Sally was afraid of 
 it herself, and that was just why she said she would never 
 " punch the Punchard at them." 
 
 Miss "Wilcroft came to them in the parlor when Mrs. 
 Gibson sent word modestly, without card, that they were 
 there. Miss Wilcroft was very courteous ; as much so to 
 plain Mrs. Gibson of the Three Hill Farm at Rexford, as 
 she had ever been to Dr. Ingram of Boston, or Mrs. Sen 
 ator Ackworth of Birksfield. Mrs. Gibson was a mother 
 leaving her child in her care. That was as much as any 
 body could be. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft was a lady of forty, perhaps. She wore 
 what ladies of forty were apt to wear in those days, when 
 neither dyeing nor gray hair was fashionable, a cap and 
 a glossy brown front. The brown front was quietly parted, 
 and the cap was a neat little one tied under the chin, and 
 ornamented in the lace border with rose-pink ribbons. 
 
 She was peculiarly nice and refined in word and manner ; 
 and she smiled a smile that in its sweetness had a look of 
 rarity one that a good school-girl would be glad to earn. 
 But our Sally was not thinking just then of earning 
 smiles. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft did not, in the girl s presence, talk the girl 
 over with her mother. She rang the bell, and sent for 
 Miss Southernwood, introduced the pupils to each other, 
 and bade the elder take the new one to her room, which 
 she would share, No. 5, in the wing. 
 
 It sounded very fine to Sally. She was numbered, lo 
 cated. She belonged now. She was of No. 5, in the wing. 
 If she had inherited an estate and title in England, she
 
 244 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 would have felt no stronger impression of her place and 
 dignity in the world. 
 
 If Miss Wilcroft had known quite thoroughly what El 
 len Southernwood was, or what Sally Gibson s ambitions 
 were, she might not have paired the room-mates as she 
 did. But the wisest can only act from one standpoint of 
 wisdom, commonly. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft knew Miss Southernwood for a well-man 
 nered girl, tolerably subservient to the rules, only a little 
 beyond her years in certain would-be-young-lady ways; 
 fond of dress, and the company of the grown ones of the 
 gayer sort, who dressed and visited most ; apt to make 
 acquaintance out of school, and get invited in the town. 
 
 Here was a simple country girl, fresh, bright, and inde 
 pendent. They would counterbalance each other as fairly 
 as girls ordinarily could be made to do. It was not easy 
 to arrange the intimate companionships of a dozen or fifteen 
 couples according to the most perfect and salutary laws of 
 influence and affinity. The man who had but one fox, 
 goose, and basket of corn to defend from each other, had 
 an easy time of it. 
 
 As the two passed up the staircase, a great bustle hap 
 pened at the door. There was a loud ring, a rush from 
 the sitting-room, a word quickly sent along from mouth to 
 mouth until it echoed up the stairs, and a gathering at the 
 balusters above of eager figures and faces. 
 
 "Crack s come!" was the cry; a little repressed, be 
 cause of the law against nicknames ; but the leniency of 
 first days, and the unorganized interval in which term- 
 rules waited their solemn and regular announcement, gave 
 a liberty that there were enough to seize and use. 
 
 " Ah, Biddy ! You re back, too ! An whaur s me 
 Hie lan Laddie ? I m to have the same room, ain t I ? 
 She promised I should. No. 2, front corner ! " Cora
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 245 
 
 Ackworth was giving her own directions to the porter- 
 boy, when the stout form of the housekeeper appeared, 
 moving grandly upon the scene from the unknown regions 
 beyond the staircase below. Cora turned playfully, and 
 embraced her portly figure. " Dread and delight of me 
 life ! " she called her, saucily. 
 
 If Sally Gibson had heard, or remarked, in the con 
 fusion of names and greetings, how that stately and be 
 nignant woman was addressed, she might have compre 
 hended the point of Cora s first inquiry after her, and 
 might not have done the extraordinary thing herself 
 which she did do two hours later. 
 
 Cora came flying up the stairs, gave Miss Southern 
 wood a whirl, kissed her, called her " Boy s love," and 
 then drew her significantly back into a recess at the stair 
 head with a whisper. It evidently had to do with the 
 new-comer. Crack was a girl to have a quick eye for the 
 new ones, and a joke ready. 
 
 " Mind you do ! " she cried, as they turned different 
 ways along the passage. " I was in hopes there d be one ; 
 of course I knew there would ; but Imndy, you know. 
 I ve had that handy this half hour. Is n t it complete ? " 
 
 " Crack, I don t believe I dare ! " 
 
 " Dare ! " repeated Crack. There is no especial type 
 which will represent that mixture of incredulity, challenge, 
 spur, and threatened contempt. But the school-girl ear 
 translated it ; and after that Nellie Southernwood did not 
 dare to fail of, or to encounter, what it signified. 
 
 II. 
 
 Sally could hardly spare time to realize the parting 
 with her mother, who was to return to Rexford by the 
 noon stage. She cried a little, and there was a pitiful
 
 246 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ache at her heart for a minute, when she saw the black 
 silk dress and the best shawl disappear so quietly out of 
 the gateway and down the road ; the dear mother walk 
 ing off, lonely, to take her eight hours journey, presently, 
 without Sally ; because Sally was to get such a six months 
 good here at the Young Ladies Seminary of Oakhaven. 
 Something twinged, too, with a fleeting sense of the dif 
 ference between her mother s hope about it and her own. 
 Yet she meant to study, and not to do anything that she 
 or her mother could really be ashamed of. 
 
 Nell Southernwood took her over from the boarding- 
 house to the Seminary building, a pretty stone struc 
 ture, set at the head of an ellipse of miniature park, fenced 
 in with a walk around it ; and at back and sides looking 
 forth into a green, shady orchard space. Its four doors 
 opened each way upon its four aspects. 
 
 Sally was shoAvn through the great L-shaped school 
 room, filled with rows of desks, and including two of the 
 wide orchard doors, glazed half-way ; the gymnasium 
 room, very simple in its appliances in those days, upon 
 the opposite side ; the music-room in the front corner, 
 communicating, so that the piano was played for the 
 marching exercises ; the centre room, open to the high 
 skylight, and railed above, making a gallery of the re 
 maining extent of the upper floor, in whose four sides 
 were ranged the benches and platforms used hy the school 
 upon its great examination day, when the arches of the 
 windows and the rails of the balustrade were all hung 
 with garlands of green and flowers. 
 
 " And we all have new dresses, and the whole town 
 comes, and the hotel is full of friends of the girls ; and 
 the best scholars get the best of it then, though we have 
 our fun all term-time. I don t belong to the prize-set, 
 I may as well tell you. I go for a good time as I go
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 247 
 
 along. But when they come to the music, they can t do 
 without me ; and the music is in the evening, and the 
 piano is on the platform in the corner of the L-room, all 
 arbored over with green ; and the seats and aisles are all 
 just jammed with spectators, and the girls who play and 
 sing have wreaths in their hair ; and it is n t everybody 
 that has a part that night." 
 
 And Miss Southernwood sat down to the open piano 
 in the room where they had stopped, and rattled off an 
 amazing quickstep. She was just plunging into a hurri 
 cane of variations, when a bell rang. 
 
 " ^-7 gracious me ! " she exclaimed, starting up and 
 flinging down a crashing chord by way of period. " That s 
 dinner ! I never heard the dressing-bell, did you ? But 
 we don t need to dress to-day. We re in our just-come 
 gowns, and have n t been chalking on blackboards, or 
 mending lead-pencils. Come ! " And she hurried Sally 
 down the avenue and in at the side piazza door. In the 
 little cloak-lobby, before they reached the long room, she 
 stopped. 
 
 " I forgot !" she exclaimed again; "I was to tell you 
 of a rule. After Miss Wilcroft has said the blessing, the 
 first girl on Miss Ferrington s right hand that s the 
 teacher at the opposite end of the table is to rise and 
 say a Scripture text. Something about food, or daily 
 bread, or manna in the wilderness, or that sort ; what we 
 want, and what we get, you know. You d better recol 
 lect something quick, for you 11 as likely as not be the 
 very one. The new ones are always put there- It 11 be 
 the next girl s turn to-morrow." 
 
 Sally s heart beat a little at this, plucky as she meant 
 to be ; and as the crowd of girls, nearly all arrived now, 
 poured in and took places at the long table, finding their 
 napkins, and their names upon their plates, and she dis-
 
 248 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 covered hers at the very corner she apprehended, she felt 
 the throb quite up in her ears and struggling with her 
 breath. 
 
 The stout housekeeper sat at the middle of the opposite 
 side ; before her two large dishes of broiled fish ; up and 
 down, at intervals, were arranged cut loaves of bread. 
 Covered dishes stood at the sides, but the fish and bread 
 were all that were revealed. 
 
 Only one possible thing entered and took possession of 
 Sally s head. She could remember nothing at that mo 
 ment of the whole Bible, except the story of the loaves and 
 fishes. 
 
 Heads were bent while Miss Wilcroft said the little 
 prayer for blessing, and then came the instant s pause be 
 fore the helping began. 
 
 Up like a rocket, in her desperation, sprang Sally Gib 
 son, feeling that it must be done, and that she would not 
 be silly and shamefaced at the very first thing. 
 
 " There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and 
 two small fishes ; but what are they among so many ? " 
 
 In a voice a little shrill with excitement, she repeated 
 these words. 
 
 There was an awful start, and then a hush all down the 
 table. Some girls flushed up ; some really turned pale ; all 
 stared ; then an involuntary laughter broke forth, which, 
 once yielded to, became almost a shout. Miss Wilcroft s 
 rap upon the table silenced it. 
 
 " That will do," she remarked gravely. " You may sit 
 down, Miss Gibson." 
 
 " I could n t think of anything else to save my life," 
 said Sally, in a low, indefinite tone, and dropping into her 
 chair, with her face in a scarlet flame. 
 
 A titter began again, and was again silenced. 
 
 "Miss Ladd, we wait, if you please," said Miss 
 Wilcroft to the housekeeper.
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 249 
 
 That, then, was what she had done ! And this was 
 Miss Gibson s introduction to her schoolmates. Why had 
 not Miss Wilcroft sent her away from the table ? That 
 would have been mercy. But she had to stay and eat her 
 dinner, and bear those swift recurring bayonet-thrusts of 
 twenty pairs of school-girls eyes ! 
 
 There was one girl yet more secretly uneasy than she, 
 though not outwardly so abashed. Nell Southernwood 
 knew that it would be seen through as a hoax, though 
 Sally had unexpectedly done her part so much beyond 
 perfection. The tracing of the joke would be direct 
 enough. 
 
 Miss Southernwood found more than bones in her por 
 tion of fish that day, to make her eating difficult. As 
 to Crack, she was in suppressed transports, without any 
 mingling of fear at all. She was the leader and general 
 of the pranking party ; but who ever expected a general 
 to come under fire, or to follow a poor little skirmisher 
 into danger, to help him back to camp ? 
 
 Half-way through dinner, a carriage was heard to drive 
 up, and the hall-door was gently opened. A trunk was 
 evidently set down within, and then the door closed, and 
 that was all, until five minutes later, when a servant, dis 
 patched by Miss Ladd, returned to her with answer that 
 Miss Summerway had arrived. 
 
 " That was so like Louise ! " Miss Wilcroft said, with 
 a soft approval in her tone, as Miss Ladd informed her. 
 " Gentle, unobtrusive, always. Will she come to dinner ? " 
 And just as she spoke, a tall, sweet-faced girl, in a dark 
 lilac mousseline dress, stood for a second in the door 
 way, and in response to Miss Ladd s friendly beckoning 
 passed round, with a modest salutation to the principal 
 and Miss Ferrington, to a vacant place at the house 
 keeper s side.
 
 250 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 An old scholar, by the smiles and nods of welcome, hut 
 slipping in so unpretentiously, so self-effacingly almost, 
 in avoidance of any confusion for her sake. 
 
 Sally Gibson, glad of a new interest coming forward, 
 found herself questioning, suddenly, which effect she 
 really liked the best, that of Miss Ackworth s dashing 
 arrival, or this grace of quietness that marked Louise 
 Summerway s. Sally had got to choose a style for herself. 
 
 She was at that facile age when girls of her tempera 
 ment can choose any one of half a dozen styles which 
 may become, if persisted in, really character as readily 
 as they may adopt a fashion of handwriting ; and some 
 times they do successively and contradictorily adopt so 
 many, that the character, or the handwriting, becomes a 
 kind of polyscript. 
 
 Just now she was contrasting with grief Louise Sum 
 merway s lovely and commended bearing, inheriting its 
 crown by its meekness, and her own remarkable exhibition 
 of herself, which came by her ambition for readiness, 
 prominence, and " spunk." But her ambition held her 
 yet, and came uppermost presently again. 
 
 After dinner, Miss Wilcroft called her into her own 
 sitting-room, and said to her, quietly, " I am quite sure, 
 Miss Gibson, that you were partly, at least, the victim of 
 a joke ; and I cannot think that a perfect stranger would 
 be guilty of a planned impertinence or an open irreverence. 
 You did not know Miss Ladd s name ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, ma am," said Sally, earnestly, with her 
 simple, country-bred breadth upon the double vowel. 
 
 " Nor did any one dictate that particular text to you ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, ma am," Sally said again. " I only 
 could not possibly think of anything else when I saw the 
 loaves and fishes. They said I must repeat something 
 appropriate. But please don t ask me who," she added
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 251 
 
 quickly, " for I don t mean to be a telltale, if I am a 
 fool ! " 
 
 Miss Wilcroft could not help smiling. " I do not ask 
 you. I am not anxious to begin with discipline so soon. 
 But you may say," she added, gravely, " to whomever you 
 think it may concern, that I shall ask the whole school 
 who has originated it, if another such joke transpires." 
 
 Sally departed with a lightened heart. She met Miss 
 Ladd in the hall, and walked straight up to her. " I did 
 not know the least thing about it, Miss Ladd," she said. 
 " I knew it was dreadful, anyway, but I was frightened 
 off my head, and I could n t help saying it." 
 
 Miss Ladd laughed good-naturedly till her comely 
 shoulders shook. Then she patted Sally s shoulder kindly. 
 " We can afford to see the fun of it, my dear, though the 
 fun must n t happen again ; because the two small fishes 
 were not quite all the Ladd had, you know, in this case. 
 Some of our young ladies do not eat fish, and some of 
 them do not quite so easily swallow a bait. Only don t 
 go and set yourself up on a wrong pinnacle because you 
 have made a new tradition in the school. 
 
 " Come to me, my dear, if you want to know about 
 house rules. For seminary rules, go straight to Miss 
 Wilcroft, or to one of the teachers. And for your own 
 rules," she added, with a pleasant seriousness, " take 
 them from the book where the story of the loaves and 
 fishes is." 
 
 When Nell Southernwood and Cora Ackworth heard 
 the sequel, they were moved to high approbation of their 
 neophyte. 
 
 " She 11 do," Crack said, nodding her emphasis. " She s 
 got stuff. I d call you Stuffy right off, my dear," she 
 remarked, patronizingly, as if offering knighthood ; " but 
 that means ugly and contrary, too. We had a Stuffy 
 here once, and everybody hated her, teachers and all."
 
 252 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 The next morning, at the Seminary, the roll was called, 
 the names were recorded, and the desks assigned. " Miss 
 Gibson " rose promptly to the summons. 
 
 " Your full name ? " asked Miss Wilcroft, as usual. 
 
 " Sally Punchard Gibson," was the distinct reply. 
 
 " Sarah Punchard Gibson," dictated the principal to 
 Miss Ferrington, who was recording. " We do not use 
 nicknames here, my dear," she said to Sally. 
 
 "It is n t a nickname, ma am ; it s my real name, the 
 whole of it." 
 
 " Were you baptized Sally ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma am. I m named after my grandmother, 
 Madam Sally Punchard. She was baptized Sally, and 
 it s Sally on her gravestone." 
 
 The whole school was in a smile and rustle. It seemed 
 as if Sally were fated to make a figure before it on each 
 possible occasion. 
 
 " Write the name as the young lady gives it," Miss 
 Wilcroft said, turning to her assistant to save her own 
 composure. 
 
 " Madame Sally Punchard?" whispered Miss Ferring 
 ton, a little wickedly. Sally caught the whisper. 
 
 " I was n t baptized Madam, " she said, gravely. " I 
 did n t mean that." 
 
 " Your age ? " Miss Wilcroft went on, abruptly, to be 
 done with this young person, dangerous to the decorum of 
 platform and benches. 
 
 "Fifteen last October." Then Miss Wilcroft had to 
 ask the day, because Margeret Charney was also fifteen 
 last October. And then Sally was placed, at last, between 
 Nell Southernwood, who was sixteen, and Margeret Char 
 ney, in one of the rows of three, close by the east-orchard 
 door, that stood pleasantly open this warm April day. 
 
 The call and numbering finished, and the rules read,
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 253 
 
 the dismissal came for the recess ; and it was then that 
 Sally found her school title already attached to her. 
 
 "Come here, girls! " called out Crack, following with 
 two companions from a row farther up on the same side, 
 and running down the steps after them, as they went out 
 into the orchard. " Let me introduce you to My Grand 
 mother, Madam Sally Punchard. We shall get a for- 
 short for it, never fear ; it is n t going to be all that every 
 time. And it won t he Granny, either, if you don t act 
 granny. Let me catch one of you calling her that ! " 
 
 Crack gave the law. It was " My Grandmother," or 
 " Madam Sally," or, for emphasis, " Madam Sally Punch 
 ard," after that. All in good part, and something, cer 
 tainly, so far ; but why could n t they have thought of 
 " Spunk " ? 
 
 Sally Gibson was not the first candidate for honor or 
 compliment who could think of something for herself that 
 did not occur in time to other people. 
 
 III. 
 
 It does not take much material to make a "prank" out 
 of at a girls school. Laws begin low down in those early 
 little communities. They hedge in to the inch ; the ell is 
 a horror undreamed of ; nevertheless, without dreaming 
 of, it is hedged out. We laugh, perhaps, to think what 
 were our bounds and what were our trespasses in those 
 days. It is only the yes or no of it, after all ; it is the 
 question of faithfulness or unfaithfulness, merely ; and 
 once a word was spoken from as far on above the little 
 things of our whole life as we can speak from beyond our 
 childhood now ; and it was said that to be faithful in 
 those little first things was to be faithful in the large eter 
 nal ones.
 
 254 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Sally Gibson had not found out these wide relations yet, 
 nor the depths of the reach of a true faithfulness. 
 
 It was the ruler s rule at Oakhaven to make as few 
 laws as possible ; but if any escapade unprovided for by 
 law, and not to be tolerated as a precedent, were com 
 mitted, the constitution was speedily amended. 
 
 It was Sally Gibson s ambition to keep the constitution 
 under as continual revision as possible. Pure fun it all- 
 was. She never did a radically wrong thing in it all. 
 She scorned a meanness, and she was quick to feel what 
 is at the basis of all law the obligation to the general 
 good. This was what would " bring her up all standing," 
 sometimes, in the very midst of a mischief, or an adven 
 ture such a little one as I will tell of presently. 
 
 Every teacher in the school liked her, almost against 
 school-conscience ; every scholar, good or bad, was more 
 or less bewitched with her. The scapegrace set claimed 
 her, but could not always hold her ; the steady ones 
 wished she would belong more avowedly to them. 
 
 Who could make rules against what could never be 
 successfully attempted more than once ? Or who could 
 tell where the lightning would flash out next ? What use 
 was there in legislating about strings and hooks fastened 
 secretly to bed-clothing, or to wrists and ankles of sleep 
 ing girls, and the lines carefully trained along under rugs 
 or furniture to the doorways, so that at midnight, shrieks 
 and shouts of fright, anger, and fun resounded through 
 the corridors ? Or to prevent half a dozen bed-slats being 
 withdrawn from every bedstead in a row of rooms, so that 
 one after another would tumble into noisy confusion the 
 moment the lights were put out, and the first stillness of 
 closed doors had settled upon the dormitories ? 
 
 And what ordinance was violated when, according to 
 requirement, all the girls having covered their text-books
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 255 
 
 with " substantial material," Sally appeared at lesson 
 after lesson with such illustrative ornamentation upon 
 hers as sent the classes into but half-subdued convul 
 
 sions 
 
 
 Her botany was gorgeous with a flora that never was 
 indigenous to any zone between the poles, impossible 
 blossoms cut from furniture chintzes ; her geography was 
 rampant with tigers, crocodiles, anacondas, white bears 
 promiscuous among icebergs, palm-trees, and pyramids. 
 
 Her history had on one side a confusion of original and 
 applied devices, the lion and the unicorn, in brilliant 
 colors, fighting for the crown ; crosses and crescents inter 
 locked and struggling ; caricatures of teachers and pupils 
 as martyrs in rows at opposite stakes ; thrones rocking 
 like cradles, and sceptres flying through the air like darts ; 
 and the whole opposite cover emblazoned with the stars 
 and stripes, with a bird of freedom crowing at the top. 
 
 Her astronomy was resplendent with a solar system in 
 gilt paper and India ink ; a jolly fat Sun sitting in the 
 middle, with flaming hair, and outstretched, pudgy arms 
 waving on his planets ; the planets, on strenuous little 
 legs, scampering and somersaulting along their orbits ; 
 the far-off fixed stars shown as grotesque little winking 
 eyes, and a comet blazing among the whole, with a tail 
 whisking around the back binding. 
 
 Remonstrated with, she only stated, gravely, that " it 
 was such a good way to tell them apart ; if they were 
 all in sr.iooth brown linen, like Miss Summerway s, she 
 should always be bringing the wrong book ; and she 
 thought she would have them as appropriate as she could." 
 
 There could be no enactment as to the style of placing 
 a French verb upon the blackboard that would forefend 
 the inspiration that seized her one day when Monsieur 
 Bienlasse was absent, and Miss Ferrington had the class,
 
 256 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 to strike off her pronoun for the first person singular 
 in the outline of the upper part of a face, and follow on 
 with the next parts of the tense in upright, streaming 
 lines, like monsieur s hair, making the last ones curve 
 gradually down and around, till a graceful looped letter 
 of the closing word, and her own name signed beneath, 
 whose crooked initial served for mouth and chin, met to 
 gether in rough outline of a high, old-fashioned stock and 
 coat-collar, and completed a clever profile sketch of the 
 old professor s head. 
 
 It was as useless to follow her with edicts as to follow 
 a bird with a noosed string. She scorned the poverty 
 of repetition in the letter of her jokes ; the spirit was 
 unhinderable. 
 
 One afternoon, the four great doors stood open upon 
 avenue and orchard, and through the vacant halls and 
 rooms, and among the out-door nooks, the girls were 
 playing hide-and-seek. Sally Gibson was hid repeatedly, 
 and never found. She would emerge in some stealthy 
 manner when all were tired, and come walking along in 
 open view ; and when demanded of, tumultuously, where 
 she had been, would say, " in her invisible cloak." 
 
 " Just like her ! " some girls said ; and others, " Like 
 her to go invisible ? She s the visiblest girl that ever 
 came to Oakhaven ! " Right enough, both ways, and 
 further than they meant. 
 
 She was hidden now for the fourth time ; and at this 
 present moment she was nearer breaking a known rule 
 and making a moral trespass than she had ever been yet, 
 though she had done more startling things. She had got 
 behind a rule, and had there encountered a sudden and 
 irresistible little temptation. 
 
 There was a tall hedge across the head of the flower- 
 garden which lay beneath the windows of the Long Room,
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 257 
 
 and formed part of the pleasure grounds for the pupils. 
 Behind this hedge, and closed in again beyond, and from 
 the orchard, by a board fence which extended at right 
 angles from a line of wood-sheds to the outside wall, was 
 a sort of kitchen yard and drying-ground, into which, or 
 "through the hedge," as the rule worded it, it was for 
 bidden to go. There was no known temptation to do so ; 
 and besides, it was too completely overlooked by three 
 tiers of windows for any one to venture, if there had been. 
 
 Sally had come across from the orchard to the wood 
 sheds. It was no new thing for the girls to hide in the 
 corners of these in their favorite evening game. But 
 Sally who but she ? had climbed a diminished wood 
 pile ; had let herself down behind it, and discovered there 
 a partly loose board in the back closing. Through this 
 she had slipped, pressing the board again to its fitting, 
 where it stayed firmly enough till pulled off or pushed 
 upon ; and she stood there in an angle of the house with 
 the outbuildings, exactly corresponding to one made in 
 like manner upon the front side of the shed. A low area 
 door opened out here, which she had never seen before ; 
 otherwise, she considered not her whereabouts, until, at 
 her third hiding, she peeped around the house-corner, and 
 discovered that before her lay the interdicted little square 
 " beyond the hedge." 
 
 She had set no foot into it ; she had drawn back to her 
 watching ; and hearing presently the sound of the hunt 
 raging afar off, had emerged as before, and skirted the 
 field to meet it. But at this fourth time she had no 
 sooner slipped through her panel than a delicious spicy 
 odor met her nostrils, keen with the hunger of a school 
 girl at almost tea-time. Upon the area ledge outside the 
 sunken door, which was safely shut, stood a pan heaped 
 up with ginger cookies, just cooling from the oven. 
 17
 
 258 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Would it be very bad ? It would be great fun ! To 
 come out from her invisibility this last time with such a 
 visible miracle ! To treat the girls, only a little before 
 hand, with what of course was made and meant for them, 
 and could at any rate only be eaten once ! It was like 
 grapes of Eshcol ! She did not stop to think further ; 
 the door might open at any moment ; that, indeed, was 
 the splendor of the achievement. She went down one 
 step ; she stooped ; she reached ; she grasped, once, 
 twice, three times, as many as her hand could hold. 
 
 She filled the crown of her sun-bonnet, that hung upon 
 her arm, and hurriedly retreated. She could have passed 
 easily through the little gap between the last old stems of 
 the hedge and the house, gone unchallenged through the 
 flower-garden, and met her puzzled companions serenely 
 from the front. But she stopped there. The curious 
 ethics of a school-girl s mind withheld her from crossing 
 the interdicted little square. She was virtually within 
 it ; she was just where she knew the rule was meant to 
 prevent them from trespassing ; but she had not been 
 " through the hedge." No ; she kept her probity, strug 
 gled back through the narrow board opening, climbed the 
 wood-pile, skirted the orchard fence, and darted across to 
 the old, bent apple-tree ! Three minutes later, the girls, 
 returning from a fruitless quest beyond the seminary 
 building, found her quietly sitting in the arm-chair crotch 
 of the tree, with her hands folded over a lapful of ginger 
 cookies. 
 
 " I m waiting to treat," she said. " What a time you 
 have been ! Here ! and here ! and here ! " and she tossed 
 the cookies into the readily upstretched hands. 
 
 " Where did they come from ? Why, they re hot ! 
 Grandmother Punchard, where have you been ? " the girls 
 ejaculated, eagerly.
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 259 
 
 " I Ve been an awful sinner, I expect. But a saint 
 would have sinned. I was invisible, and the cookies were 
 made manifest. I vent 1 vided I viced ; I went 
 I saw I grabbed ! " 
 
 " "Well, they won t went round at tea-time, that s all," 
 said Crack, beginning on a second. " There ain t enough 
 per-vided. That s the vice of it ! Old Scott makes 
 just so many in a pan, and just two panfuls. Cookies 
 always come after fruit ; big cakes when there is n t any 
 sauce. Fifteen strawberries apiece, and after them a 
 ginger. Only they won t go round." 
 
 Sally looked suddenly crestfallen. " I did n t suppose 
 they counted them," she said. 
 
 " Of course they do," said Nell Southernwood, mali 
 ciously. " You re in for it." And she helped herself 
 again. 
 
 Sally drew the sun-bonnet away and put her elbow out 
 over it. 
 
 " I did n t mean that," she said, with deep contempt. 
 " I did n t know there would n t be a plenty." 
 
 "There is, for us," said Cora Ackworth, trying to put 
 Sally s arm aside and reach the plunder again. 
 
 " Nobody shall have another one ! " cried Sally, crum 
 pling the fresh white cambric together, and closing it be 
 tween her two resolute hands like a bag. " And none of 
 its where are you ah 1 ? need take any to-night at the 
 table." 
 
 Crack laughed a laugh that said things that words 
 would have been ashamed to say. It told Sally that she 
 had done what could not be mended, let her be ever so 
 high and determined. 
 
 Her eyes flashed. " / don t steal people s suppers ! " 
 she exclaimed. And she stood upon the foot-rest of a 
 lower limb, still guarding her crushed-up bonnet defiantly.
 
 260 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 11 Where s your treat, then ? " cried Crack, with her 
 mocking laugh again. " And how are we to manage 
 going without two or three apiece, to straighten things 
 and pacify your conscience, when we sha n t have a 
 chance at more than one ? The sum won t prove." 
 
 " My treat was the beforehand and the fun. But 
 there s no fun in a mean thing. Let me down ! " and she 
 struggled with Cora, who had climbed the branch beside 
 her. 
 
 " You can t help it now," repeated Crack. Sally 
 pushed at her vehemently. Crack braced herself against 
 the arm-chair crotch, and laughed on. " Yes, you can," 
 she said. " You can treat the sufferers next time ; or out 
 of your next box from home ; or with your candy money 
 when the old man comes round. You can put all their 
 names down, as particular as you please. But if the 
 cookies begin at my end of the table, I shall have to take 
 one, if it s only not to look like having lost my appetite. 
 It s those that don t want cake to-night that 11 be found 
 out ! " Sally ignored the last half of that speech. 
 
 " As if you could make up things that way ! " she said. 
 " They d have had both, and you know it. One thing 
 don t put back another." 
 
 " What a fuss about a cookie ! " said Nell Southern 
 wood. " You did n t know they were counted. We Ve a 
 right to our board ; and that means, I guess, being fed 
 when you re hungry. It s your own scrape, and you 
 might as well hold on to the glory of it. I d be one 
 thing or the other if I were you." 
 
 Angry tears came to Sally s eyes. 
 
 Crack thought they had her at advantage, and spoke 
 again. Crack never " got mad." 
 
 " You re a curious one," she said. " And you ve got 
 a funny sort of spunk for a girl that can begin so spunky ! "
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 261 
 
 Sally was struck silent for an instant. The very word 
 she had been waiting for came now, not with intended 
 honor, but reproach. " I ve got my grandmother s spunk," 
 she said then, loftily, and quietly stepped, rather than 
 jumped, down from the low limb upon the grass. " I m 
 going to Miss Ladd." 
 
 " No ! Stop ! " 
 
 " You need n t be afraid. I m the only one that s lost 
 my appetite. You won t be found out." 
 
 " Keep her ! Stop her ! " Cora called, as Sally walked 
 away. " Tell us first what your grandmother s spunk 
 
 " You 11 see. 1 11 tell you when you can understand," 
 said Sally, without looking round. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sally had to cross the orchard, for the old apple-tree 
 was around the seminary corner at the back. As she 
 came into the avenue, she saw Miss Wilcroft go from it 
 into the house by the side piazza-door, and at the same 
 moment the clock gave the single stroke. It must be half- 
 past six. She was too late. The bell must be just going 
 to ring. But the bell did not ring. It was five minutes 
 too late itself that night. A very breathless little per 
 son ran into the housekeeper s room, and Miss Wilcroft 
 passed on into her own. 
 
 There was a basket of jumbles that night for the " little 
 girls elbow," as a right-angled addition to the upper end 
 of the long table was called. Miss Ladd glanced at Miss 
 Wilcroft as the dishes were passed. 
 
 " There was some mistake about the cookies," she said. 
 " Scott had not quite so many as usual." 
 
 Miss Wilcroft smiled and bent her head.
 
 262 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " There have been mistakes about several things, I 
 think," she said, with a significance. 
 
 Miss Ladd had not broken Sally Gibson s counsel, any 
 more than Sally had confessed for any but herself. The 
 housekeeper was a lady of broad faith, who believed in 
 the first thing for a forgiver to do being to help the for 
 given out of trouble. She got that command and its com 
 fort out of her New Testament and the Lord s Prayer. 
 
 There was plenty of cake for all. Sally thought one of 
 the mistakes had been about the counting of the cookies; 
 for even of them there would have been certainly one 
 apiece. Every girl tranquilly took her share except herself. 
 Neither at that tea nor for ten more did she appropriate 
 her part. The orderly ones may have guessed that she 
 was in penance for something not transpired. The dis 
 orderly ones thought they knew all about it. 
 
 There were three persons who really understood, and 
 they without exchange of word or notice. Even Miss 
 Ladd did not know that it had been Miss Wilcroft herself 
 who stopped the bell just as Hannah was ringing it, and 
 made the tea five minutes late. And the " making up" was 
 a wholly voluntary atonement on Sally s part. Sally did 
 one other little justice while she was about it. She counted 
 her strawberries, and found the fifteen to be nine and 
 twenty. She took pains to tell Crack Ackworth so. 
 
 It was a pity the good set was beginning to give her 
 over to the reprobates, for the reprobates were beginning 
 not to know exactly what to do with her. 
 
 Two nights after, as the bell rang for evening study, 
 Sally was hurrying from the Seminary with a lexicon she 
 had forgotten to bring before, and Miss Wilcroft met her 
 in the avenue. She stopped her in the shadow of the 
 linden-trees. 
 
 " My dear," she said kindly, laying her hand upon her
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 263 
 
 shoulder, " will you tell me what your grandmother s spunk 
 that seems to have been your inheritance was ? " 
 
 It all flashed upon Sally in an instant. Miss Wilcroft 
 had come through the Seminary while she had crossed the 
 orchard. She had heen in her own little gallery room that 
 almost overlooked the apple-tree. She had heard per 
 haps seen how much of it ? 
 
 " It was all my fault, ma am," she burst forth eagerly. 
 " You won t lay it to the rest ? " 
 
 " I think not," said Miss Wilcroft, with an amused 
 application of the word. " They do not seem to have in 
 herited it, or its like. It s your grandmother, my child, 
 whom I should like to hear about. Will you tell me ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma am," was the reply to that, in a subdued way 
 for Sally Gibson, but with an undertone of pride for 
 Madam Punchard. It was comfortable to have her grand 
 mother to lean back upon. She felt very small just then, 
 for herself. 
 
 She picked herself up, as it were, by Madam Sally 
 Punchard s dignity, as a cipher in the unit place may bor 
 row one from a ten, when it finds itself subtracted from. 
 
 " It was my grandmother that I was named for," she 
 said. " Madam Sally Punchard. She lived in New York 
 State in the time of the Revolution, when the fighting was 
 all up and down there, and a piece of the country would 
 be sometimes in the hands of the Continentals and some 
 times of the British, and sometimes of anybody that could 
 ravage, and skirmish, and spy, tories and cowboys and 
 everything. And my grandfather," she went on rapidly, 
 warming with her narrative, and half forgetting what had 
 called it up, " my grandfather, Colonel Punchard, was 
 away with the army. Madam Sally had to keep the house, 
 that was in a lonely place, away from the town, on a big 
 farm. The nearest other house was half a mile away ;
 
 264 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 but a little further from there was quite a settlement of a 
 lot of people all family related ; and Grandmother Punch- 
 ard looked to them for neighbors in case anything hap 
 pened ; only she was n t very sure of getting at them just 
 when she wanted them most. 
 
 * She had all the money, and the silver, and my grand 
 father s letters and papers hidden away ; and they only 
 used pewter spoons and things, for fear of the marauders. 
 
 " Well, one night the marauders came ; and my grand 
 mother and Palmyra, her colored maid, were all alone ; so 
 they met the men at the door, and grandmother looked so 
 calm and cool, and Palmyra held her turban up so high and 
 proud, as if she was only the head one of a whole lot of 
 servants, men and women, that the leader of the gang, who 
 pretended to be a British officer, took off his cap. 
 
 " Grandmother and Palmyra had both made up their 
 minds beforehand what to do if such a thing happened, 
 only they had made them up different ways. 
 
 * Palmyra stepped to the door of the empty sitting- 
 room, and began to ask Mr. Jim if he was there. 
 
 " What is that for, Palmyra, my grandmother said. 
 
 " I se lookin fer de cunnel s o d ly, ma am, says she. 
 Don t yer tink he s bes step en let de cunnel know 
 dere s cump ny come ? 
 
 " Palmyra, says my grandmother ! a lie won t save 
 us, but the Lord may. 
 
 " And then she told the leader of the men that the 
 things were there, and there was nobody to hinder, but 
 he d have to look for them. 
 
 " He said he should n t look long without asking her ; 
 he d give her just half an hour to think about it, while 
 his men got something to eat, and picked up what was 
 lying round, and then he meant to be off. 
 
 " And my grandmother did n t say another word, but
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 265 
 
 walked away into a little end room, and carried a light in 
 with her, and sat down and read her Bible. And the 
 light was a sign to the house that was half a mile off ; and 
 the people there put up their signal, and before the robbers 
 had got all they wanted, ten men on horseback rode into 
 the yard, and more were coming ! and the plunderers 
 were all taken, that s all." 
 
 " Thank you. I think, my dear, that you will find your 
 grandmother s spunk a very good corrective for what 
 school-girls are apt to mistake for the quality. Perhaps 
 you have not begun quite right here, in all things, Sally ! " 
 
 She dismissed her without even a word about anything 
 more, and nothing more was ever heard of it. She said to 
 herself, the wise lady, " The girl has a better reprover 
 than I could be ; and a better leaven for the rest than ex 
 posures and punishments. There s enough grandmother 
 in her to set her right, and to work wider in the end, if 
 the girls without grandmothers don t get, meanwhile, 
 where I shall be forced to interfere." 
 
 The most unfortunate result of the whole occurrence 
 was that Sally got her name by it. The " girls without 
 grandmothers " found it good policy to admire as if 
 they could appreciate the real nobleness into which her 
 mettle had blazed ; to drop, also, the " Madam Punchard " 
 reminder, which stirred too high a loyalty for their regu 
 lar convenience. They were really grateful, too, for her 
 stanch bearing of the whole blame, and of what they be 
 lieved the imposed penalty. They began to call her 
 "Spunk" and " Spunkie," without the " Grandmother," 
 and Sally felt bound to live up to it. 
 
 Anything that called for clear daring, without essential 
 unfaithfulness or meanness, they knew they could at any 
 time put her up to ; and at most times she did not wait 
 for putting up. But when they had a real scheme of their
 
 266 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 own to further, they often had to get her share of the 
 work done through some withholding or pretense. 
 
 Thus Sally was involved in several matters, the whole 
 extent of which was never confided to her, and concerning 
 which a quiet vigilance was being kept by the authorities 
 of the school. 
 
 The summer deepened ; the long, hot evening? and 
 nights came. Studies were given up after eight o clock, 
 and the girls were allowed as much wholesome liberty as 
 they could take without exceeding into unwholesomeness. 
 
 Once in a while, one or two were permitted to " take 
 tea out," at Dr. Archer s, or Judge Lewis s, or at Madam 
 Wilcroft s cottage. Miss Wilcroft herself would some 
 times invite a pupil to accompany her to her mother s on 
 an informal visit. 
 
 These were great privileges, and the accepting of invi 
 tations to good houses " in the town " could not always be 
 withheld, even from those girls who would encroach upon 
 their opportunity. 
 
 Commencement came on at Anmouth, a half-day s trip 
 up the river ; and several students who had sisters, or 
 cousins, or acquaintances in the school at Oakhaven, and 
 were often in town, would be there now for the vacation, 
 either at their homes, or visiting the residents. 
 
 John Archer, whose sister Fanny was a day scholar at 
 Miss Wilcroft s, and Gorham Lewis, who was cousin to 
 the Archers, were to have for guests Dick Southernwood 
 and Harry Ackworth, brother and cousin respectively to 
 Cora and Nell. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft had a ticklish tiller to hold, in those days, 
 to steer faithfully, impartially, wisely, her boat and its 
 sprightful company among the stumps and shallows, and 
 against the risky currents. 
 
 Endless were the devices and combinations made by
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 267 
 
 certain of these insiders and outsiders to meet frequently 
 together. The claims of relationship were unanswerable ; 
 but these relationships were so easily and large-heartedly 
 exchanged ! 
 
 Every year there was more or less of this. Rules and 
 conditions were imposed and evaded. Hours were ex 
 ceeded, even to the incurring of penalties in denials to 
 succeeding pleasures. 
 
 It had been more than suspected that surreptitious ex 
 cursions were planned and made, and that much inter 
 course not to be approved or allowed for school-girls in 
 their term-time, away from home, and in the mixed asso 
 ciation of numbers, had gone on, in spite of the most 
 solicitous watchfulness that could be maintained without 
 being suspicious and suggestive. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft entered, this year, with somewhat more 
 than usual apprehension, what she called the meteoric 
 field of her annual orbit. 
 
 It was at about this time, and upon the arrival of a new 
 pupil, that she had judged it well to make some changes 
 in rooms and room-mates, which were not quite compre 
 hended, in their policy, by the school at large. 
 
 Sally Gibson was removed from the room she had 
 shared with Ellen Southernwood, and put in what the 
 girls knew as " the cherry-tree bedroom," a little single- 
 bedded apartment in the far corner of the wing, which 
 had been carefully closed since occupied a year before by 
 Miss Praid, the teacher of English Literature, who had 
 been succeeded by Miss Porter, a resident of Oakhaven. 
 
 Cora Ackworth was placed with Nell, an arrange 
 ment they had been " dying for for ages," when they had 
 not been " dying " separately for permission to occupy 
 " the cherry-tree room." 
 
 Perhaps it was easier to keep her eye on the two
 
 268 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 together, in some ways ; perhaps, also, Miss Wilcroft 
 recognized something of the principle enunciated by the 
 old lady who approved a certain desperate sort of marriage 
 between two persons, each undesirable for anybody else 
 to marry, that " it was better than to spoil two families." 
 
 As to Sally, Cora and Nell were quite wild over her 
 unaccountable good luck, and reckoned securely upon 
 sharing its advantages. The cherry-tree was a perfect 
 Jack s Beanstalk of opportunity. Its stout, gnarled limbs 
 grated their boughs against the very clapboards and 
 window-sill, when a wind blew ; and down below, the 
 rugged trunk leaned close to the low roof of the very 
 shed through which Sally had found her way to the De 
 batable Land and the placer of ginger cookies. Besides, 
 the room was on the further side of the wing stairway, 
 and opened at its very head. 
 
 u You don t know your chances ! " Crack had said to 
 Sally, the day the latter was moving in her boxes. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft had quietly stepped in beforehand. 
 
 " My dear," she said to Sally, " I have to ask a prom 
 ise of you. I am sure you will enjoy this room, and I 
 give you every liberty in and about it consistent with the 
 established rules. But I know you will be quick enough 
 to discover its availabilities for fun, and I ask you, plainly, 
 to say that you will never climb either up or down, or 
 let any one else do so that cherry-tree ! It is an ex 
 traordinary request to make of a young lady, but I make 
 it ; and you promise ? " 
 
 Sally looked out into the cherry-tree, giving it full con 
 sideration. 
 
 " I may n t sit there in the branches and study ? " 
 
 "No." Another pause. 
 
 " Suppose the house catches fire ? " she asked, gravely, 
 as one who must take in all contingencies.
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 269 
 
 "I do not ask you to reenact Casablanca," Miss Wil- 
 croft answered, as gravely. " I will take your word of 
 honor for the keeping of the spirit of my request, and 
 trust you for any severe and uncalculated emergency." 
 
 " Thank you, ma am," said Sally ; and from that mo 
 ment as Miss Wilcroft knew she would felt herself 
 bound. 
 
 V. 
 
 The 21st of June was always, weather permitting, an 
 excursion holiday. School was suspended, and a party 
 made of teachers and scholars, to Thunder Glen, Toma 
 hawk Mountain, or over the river to Widefield and the 
 lake. It came in well as a safety-valve for the dangerous 
 season of accumulated electricities. 
 
 For days beforehand the restless ones were quieter, 
 satisfied with the plans in prospect, fearing to forfeit 
 them, and less tempted to contrive for themselves. 
 
 Sally was at this time just settled in her room, and 
 that novelty pleased and satisfied her. She had not tired 
 yet of lawful occupations in that shaded window, where 
 the scarlet-fruited boughs thrust themselves in at her, till 
 the bright little globes were all gone as far as her arms 
 and her visitors could reach among them, and only the 
 pleasant leaves stayed to keep her summer company, and 
 fan and whisper to her in the wind. 
 
 Louise Summerway had been in to see her. Miss 
 Ladd, truly, had suggested this, for Sally little knew, 
 any more than the rest of us, how the forces of right and 
 hope and kindness were at work for her ; and it was 
 apropos of some new knotted wool-work for fancy mats, 
 that all the girls who liked pretty feminine finger-craft 
 were busy with, and that Sally had taken to with the zeal 
 that characterized all her takings.
 
 270 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 So Miss Summerway had sat with her for an hour on 
 Wednesday afternoon, in the cherry-tree window, and 
 Sally had really felt lifted up into an ambition of higher 
 companionship ; for she had found Louise simple and 
 sweet, and not " high-righteous," as the frolickers called 
 her ; and Louise had found Sally bright and worth while. 
 
 Crack and her coterie began to be dismayed. 
 
 " She s turning pious," they said. " She has n t cut up 
 a dido for nearly a week. T won t do. We must get her 
 into something, or she 11 be out of everything." And they 
 knew they could not spare her wits or her intrepidity. 
 
 For good reasons of her own, Miss Wilcroft did not 
 divulge the intended direction of the party until the even 
 ing of the day before. 
 
 Whether it were to be mountain, glen or lake, or some 
 quite new exploration, was the exciting uncertainty. But 
 before the days of electric telegraphy, signals were pos 
 sible ; and even from behind the fences of a boarding- 
 school there are ways enough ; and there were those 
 interested who knew, almost as soon as the pupils them 
 selves, that Thunder Glen was the destination of the com 
 pany on this particular 21st. 
 
 Now Thunder Glen was just about equidistant, though 
 not upon the direct road, between Anmouth and Oak- 
 haven ; and it was graduation day at Anmouth on the 20th. 
 
 There was a question of dress for the picnic. Miss 
 Wilcroft advised, as usual, plain, strong, white gowns, and 
 most wore them ; but Cora Ackworth appeared in buff 
 linen, and was fine with a butterfly brooch and broad 
 filigree bracelets of Berlin iron. Ellen Southernwood had 
 a rose-colored jaconet. 
 
 " Why don t you wear your blue ? " they asked of Sally. 
 
 " You look a great deal nicer in it. You always get so 
 red, you know."
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 271 
 
 Sally got a little red at once. " I like my dimity," she 
 said. 
 
 " And her blue is best," said Nell Southernwood, who 
 had a dozen summer dresses, and knew that Sally had but 
 a third as many. 
 
 " Tis n t that," said Cora, with more disdain. " She 
 wants to walk in white among the worthy. Let her try." 
 
 If Sally wanted to " walk in white," she would try to 
 do it when nobody was by. Crack s speech kept her more 
 aloof from her beginnings of friendship with the white 
 ones than any coaxing could have done. Besides, she 
 had a horror of what she called " flapjacking," which was 
 the thing that a more legitimate use of language would 
 term apostasy. She had chosen her style and party ; she 
 would not suddenly turn or desert. 
 
 So she was with the " colored people," as they called 
 themselves, when they got apart from the rest a little way 
 among the bowlders and crags of Thunder Glen. 
 
 Cora, who was as clever at drawing as Ellen Southern 
 wood at music, perched herself on a lone, unsharable point, 
 with her sketch-book, to get a view of Little Ferny Fall. 
 
 She \vas quite conspicuous to the whole party, though 
 separated from them, as they gathered mostly in the wide, 
 cool, cavern-like space below the fall, upon the big, 
 smooth rock, over whose face the calming water lapsed in 
 gentle overflow, or found trickling channels in its worn 
 clefts. Nobody thought that that leading spirit of mis 
 chief could be better placed than she had chosen to place 
 herself. 
 
 Nell Southernwood s dress was just visible by a floating 
 fold over the round of rock below where Cora sat ; and 
 along the tangled marginal bank of the waterfall, Sally 
 Gibson, Margeret Charney, and others, were gathering 
 mosses and ferns that dripped and waved in its very edges.
 
 272 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Nobody but one or two and Sally Gibson least of all 
 knew or suspected that there had been any covert mean 
 ing in the buff and rose color ; that the flutter of their 
 distinguishing tints had served as guide to other eyes and 
 footsteps, and that, in the shade of the thick, low, cedar 
 copse that overgrew the shoulder of hill from which Cora s 
 rock projected, and quite near enough for the girls low 
 tones to reach, and their ears to catch reply, were already 
 comfortably placed a group of the other persons, who 
 had, of course, as good a right to search and track old 
 Thunder Glen as the Seminary party had. 
 
 And what if there were ? Two were but brother and 
 cousin after all, and the third a friend of these, who had 
 come riding over the upland from the high-road, and had 
 tied their horses out in the pasture margin of the wood. 
 
 They could not have been openly invited, though, and 
 the fun was in their being there without it ; in sitting and 
 chatting with the young girls, so demurely occupied, almost 
 in the face and hearing of authority which they delighted 
 to deal with as a great deal more despotic than it really 
 was. It was so audacious, and yet so cleverly secure. 
 
 There was only one way to climb directly to the thicket 
 from the water-side, and that was by the narrow shelvy 
 path that led to just where the two young ladies had fixed 
 themselves, and where nobody, of course, could pass while 
 they remained. 
 
 Nobody knew of the walk through the cedars when 
 Cora and Nell disappeared from their high places and 
 chose the long way round, coming in among their com 
 panions a little while after from the under-ledge path upon 
 the north. 
 
 And nobody understood, when one of those quick, heavy 
 afternoon showers, that happen any summer day, drove 
 them all hurriedly to the big hay-rigging, and then forced
 
 SALLY GIBSOA r S SPUNK. 273 
 
 them to a refuge in the first farm-house on their way, 
 how it was that the same necessity sent four horseback 
 riders just after them into the farmer s barn, whence he 
 hospitably brought them into the great kitchen to get their 
 share of the drying, where shawls and sun-bonnets were 
 being spread beside the fire. 
 
 Thunder and lightning and wildly-pouring torrents kept 
 them a good two hours ; during which the unavoidable 
 was politely made the matter-of-course ; and John Archer, 
 and Richard Southernwood, and Harry Ackworth, and 
 Mr. Oldridge, the newly-introduced stranger, talked and 
 laughed openly with governesses and pupils, assisted them 
 in all sorts of courteous ways, watched and reported the 
 weather, helped them up at last into the hay- wagon, lifted 
 their hats as the vehicle got lumberingly under way, and 
 then sprang upon their steeds and caracoled gayly beside, 
 before, and behind them, along the gleaming wet roads 
 and under the dripping branches in the golden light of 
 the rain-sweet sunset. 
 
 Crack and Nell had to tell somebody or die ; so they 
 told Sally Gibson. What was the use of their clever trick, 
 indeed, except to explain the cleverness afterward, and 
 get it admired ? 
 
 But Sally did not admire quite so enthusiastically as 
 they had expected. She did not seem to envy at all. In 
 fact, she looked just a little bit disgusted. She liked girl- 
 fun and rule - dodging ; but a certain delicacy of her 
 homely training made her think it not so funny to cir 
 cumvent when young persons of the opposite division of 
 creation were concerned and concurrent. 
 
 " John Archer did not come till afterward," Nell South 
 ernwood remarked. " He rode out to meet them half 
 way. It was Fan that fixed it all. She sent my note to 
 Longbridge by the early stage this morning ; and when 
 
 18
 
 274 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 John got there Dick had left word that they were gone 
 round to Thunder Glen to meet the picnic. John knew 
 he was n t asked ; and he got his lunch, and then came 
 plodding back to the Six Corners. John is slow ; a real 
 honest old poke, like the doctor." 
 
 " I like John Archer," Sally Gibson said. 
 
 " Well, that s straightforward ! " cried the two girls, 
 and stared at her. 
 
 " She 11 never do it in all the world, I don t believe," 
 said Nell Southernwood, with miserable syntax and jfet 
 more miserable accent. " She s got an awful sober side 
 to her when it gets uppermost, and it s uppermost now, it 
 seems to me." 
 
 " We must get her in some scrape first," said Cora. 
 
 " We ve only two days to do it in," was the reply. 
 
 " Five," said Cora. " I don t care so much for Satur 
 day ; but Tuesday I will go, if I never enter the old sera 
 again ! " 
 
 " Don t you imagine " 
 
 " Hush ! " interrupted Crack, peremptorily. " I am 
 imagining. Don t speak till I get through. It s just 
 dawning." 
 
 She sat down on the floor, put her elbows on her knees 
 and her fingers in her ears, and shut her eyes, as she was 
 apt to do at a hard place in a lesson. 
 
 Nell stood stock-still and let it dawn. In two minutes, 
 Cora flew to her feet again. 
 
 " She shall help us, and she sha n t know it ! Then if 
 she does n t have to help us again, my name s not Crack 
 Ackworth ! " And Crack snapped all her fingers over her 
 head, like a pair of castanets. 
 
 " Saturday night is Midsummer Eve, did you know 
 it?"
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 275 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Thought you did n t. And that s the Eve of St. John. 
 Know that ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Knew you did n t. It s the night for tricks, and 
 signs, and ghosts, and dreams. Ever hear of Midsum 
 mer Night s Dream ? " 
 
 " That s in Shakespeare." 
 
 " So s everything." 
 
 I have not room, in telling this little story, to say all 
 my own say. Perhaps the say of these girls is of even 
 less value. I must, at any rate, pass over most of it to its 
 result. 
 
 " It won t do," said Crack, as a finality, " to talk to her 
 about husbands and trash. Tell her she 11 dream out 
 the next ten years, and all the luck and happening of 
 them, for herself and her folks, as she calls them. And 
 tell her the imps are all out, and she won t dare. That 11 
 fire her up to it. And the imps will be out some of 
 em ! " 
 
 So the Eve of St. John, with its traditions and omens, 
 was talked over in the regulation " mile walk " that next 
 afternoon, between the three ; and it was absolutely as 
 serted that if anybody had the spunk " and here s 
 Spunkie ! " Crack interpolated to go through the pre 
 scribed forms, they could behold and read in a vision the 
 whole story of ten years to come, concerning themselves 
 and their friends. 
 
 " But it would be like looking over to the end of a 
 book," Sally demurred, " would n t it ? I think the in 
 terest would be all used up. There might be dreadful 
 things, besides, you know." 
 
 " Oh," said Crack, supplementing with ready wit, " in 
 these kind of visions you are n t obliged to look any longer
 
 276 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 than you like. You can dream one thing all out and drop 
 another. They come just as fast as you sort of ask 
 for them. Did n t you ever manage a dream ? Spin it 
 out, or turn over and change it ? Well, you can always 
 do that at Midsummer Eve ; only what you do dream will 
 be certain true. But it s the charm, part I don t believe 
 you d dare to do. I don t believe / should." 
 
 " Poh ! " said Spunkie. 
 
 " I 11 bet you half a pound of gumdrops you would n t," 
 said Nell. 
 
 " Poh ! " said Spunkie again, whether in contempt or 
 acceptance, they could hardly tell. But they left it there, 
 being tolerably sure she would do it, for the daring if not 
 for the drops. If she did not, they had another way, 
 though they would rather not be driven to it. 
 
 It would probably lose them their Tuesday plan. 
 
 It would be taking beforehand what they meant to beg 
 for then ; but this they had little hope about, anyhow, un 
 less Sally s new soberness was broken up, and she were 
 " tuned to concert pitch " for the occasion. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In the last hour, between eleven and twelve, with 
 out speaking or looking over her shoulder, to go out of 
 the house, leaving the doors a crack ajar behind her; to 
 walk straight to the well, draw up some water, and drink 
 out of the palm of the left hand ; to put a pinch of salt 
 upon her tongue, which the salt she should have car 
 ried in the thumb and finger of her right ; to go still 
 without turning to the nearest fruit-tree or bush, pick a 
 fruit and eat it while she counted a hundred backwards ; 
 walk round the tree three times, always keeping her 
 face in the same direction, and never glancing to the right
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 277 
 
 or left, there was no knowing what she might not see 
 or have happen to her if she did, then to come back. 
 That, in hrief, was the prescription as they gave it to her. 
 
 What they prescribed for themselves at the same time, 
 without mentioning it to her, was also, in brief, this : 
 
 To have leave to take early tea at the Archers ; there, 
 a walking party would be improvised to go over Round 
 Top through the Pine Avenue by moonlight. To run 
 home at eight o clock, when this plan should be set on 
 foot, and "get leave" of each other; to be seen, 
 thus, at this hour, apparently returned for the night ; to 
 slip out again, by ways they knew, and join their friends 
 at the foot of the park. To come back as might happen, 
 they would have a delicious wide margin for their 
 hours, to say good-by to the party at the entrance to the 
 seminary grounds, pass around to the basement door in 
 the wing, and there conceal themselves to wait until Sally 
 should go out, " not looking over her shoulder," and " leav 
 ing the door a crack ajar." 
 
 " It would be something to tell of till they were gray ! " 
 Crack said. 
 
 It was settled at school with Fanny Archer on Friday 
 afternoon. She was to have the outside management. 
 There were to be Dick and Harry, of course, Gorham 
 Lewis and the quiet Olivers, brother and sister, next 
 neighbors to the Archers, " for ballast," Fanny said. She 
 knew very well that quiet John must see some such make 
 weight in it, or he would not help it through. The " leave," 
 too, was to b asked for his sake. 
 
 The Archers mother was not living ; the doctor was 
 busy day and night ; and John was at once mother and 
 elder brother to this only sister, who gave him, it must be 
 owned, enough to do. 
 
 Cora and Nell looked in at the cherry-tree room, as 
 they went off for their tea-visit.
 
 278 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " How is it to be about the Midsummer Dream, Spun- 
 kie ? " they asked. 
 
 Sally looked up with a flash in her eyes. " I 11 tell you 
 Monday," she said. Then they knew she would do it. 
 
 " May be we 11 tell you Monday, too," said Crack ; 
 and they ran back along the corridors, and, in full per 
 mission and fearlessness, down the front staircase and out 
 at the front door. 
 
 With all her own invention, quickness, and merry mis 
 chief, Sally Gibson was the most innocent of young hu 
 man beings as to the trickiness which accomplished its 
 own ends by putting the risk of their accomplishment 
 upon other people. She was thorough and honest in every 
 game and project ; she played her part precisely as agreed 
 upon. She had made up her mind to try this prank, and 
 she would be certain to try it full and fair. 
 
 There would be two doors for her to unfasten and pass 
 through ; one at the foot of the wing staircase, and open 
 ing upon the landing of a short flight to the basement en 
 trance, then the outer door in this lower passage. The 
 well was around the corner, at the back, a few paces from 
 the end of the house ; she would have to go forty yards 
 beyond, into the orchard, and get a green apple. 
 
 It would be queer if she should not dream after all 
 that, especially the apple. But Eve was strong in her, 
 and so was her grandmother ; there was no harm in it, 
 as far as she could see, unless to herself ; and eleven 
 o clock found her up and watching, in her little brown 
 double-gown, and her bedroom slippers, soft, warm, and 
 noiseless. 
 
 She flitted along the passages, and down the staircase 
 in the stillness ; not without that eerie feeling that one has 
 in the most familiar places, when out of one s snug nest 
 in the night time. She left the doors, in the breathless
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 279 
 
 June air, a crack ajar. The bolts slipped easily ; Crack 
 had told her they did, and Crack knew ; it had been her 
 care that they should, more than once before now. She 
 and her comrades were daring more, though, now, than 
 they had ever dared before ; and comrades were fewer 
 this term ; in an escapade of this sort Cora and Nell had 
 only themselves and Sally Gibson s spunk if they could 
 enlist or entrap that to depend upon. 
 
 She passed, with a growing beat and flutter in her 
 bosom, from the porchway to the well. She never looked 
 behind, or thour/ht behind, to suspect or discover two 
 other figures that emerged from their narrow hiding be 
 yond the little porch, and slipped themselves in. She 
 drew the water with steady hands, notwithstanding the 
 grains of salt held tight in thumb and finger. She knew 
 she must, or betray the movement by a shaking windlass 
 or a clattering bucket. It came up, cool and dark, from 
 the cool, dark depths, and she swung it noiselessly to the 
 damp, soft rest-board. She dipped her left hand in ; 
 what was that sound in the house behind her ? 
 
 A great rattle, and crash and smash, it seemed ; as if a 
 tin or a china closet had spilled itself inside out. this night 
 of imps and witchery. It was only one tin pail, that the 
 housemaid had left standing at the corner of the upper 
 step, upon the landing. Sally, in her close double-gown, 
 had come safely by. Two, in full muslin skirts, had swept 
 hurriedly up abreast, in single eagerness each for herself, 
 and the house was startled. 
 
 Not for a moment or two, however. It takes a minute 
 or two between a noise and a thorough rousing. We 
 must leave Sally, listening, trembling, outside, and whisk 
 ourselves, Midsummer Night fashion, into the inside scene. 
 
 " Bolt the door ! let out the cat I run, hide ! " cried 
 Nell Southernwood, in a terrified whisper, to her com-
 
 280 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 parion, and ran herself on into their own room, and fast 
 ened herself in there. 
 
 They had their shoes in their hands. Cora flew down 
 the five steps, bolted the door into the porch, flew up, 
 opened a door upon the landing into a clothes-closet, 
 jerked out poor pussy by the nape of her neck from her 
 nap in the wash-basket, shut and bolted, with a practiced 
 hand, the upper door, and whirled herself into Sally s 
 room just in time. 
 
 A light appeared at the far end of the wing, coming 
 from the housekeeper s bedroom. There were sounds of 
 moving in other rooms. 
 
 Miss Ladd laid her hand upon the knob as she passed 
 the Ackworth-Southernwood apartment. 
 
 " Young ladies, are you here ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes m ! What is it ? " came in answer, in Miss 
 Southernwood s voice, and the housekeeper could hear her 
 start up in bed. She stopped again at Sally s door. 
 
 " Miss Gibson ! " 
 
 " Ma am ! " somebody said, with Sally s indescribable 
 flattened Yankee length upon the vowel, but in a breath 
 less sort of gasp, in which the voice was half lost. 
 
 Miss Ladd unbolted the door upon the landing. The 
 cat rushed up, with glittering eyes, out of the darkness. 
 
 " A very careless piece of business altogether ! " said 
 Miss Ladd to herself and the cat. If pussy could have 
 spoken, she might have assured the lady how very careful 
 it had been, and how many times before she had been 
 shut up in wise reserve. 
 
 Doors were " a crack ajar " all along the passages, and 
 noses out, Cora s and Nell s no less than all the rest. 
 
 " Return to your beds, young ladies," said the house 
 keeper, in a general way, as she walked along. " There 
 is nothing the matter. Only a carelessness of Hannah s,"
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 281 
 
 she added, over the balusters, to Miss Wilcroft s own 
 inquiry from the front hall below. 
 
 " Return to your beds, young ladies," repeated Miss 
 Wilcroft, " and remember the rules." 
 
 " It was an awful noise ! " panted Nell. " We are 
 frightened just to death." 
 
 The two confederates left each the other serenely to 
 her own devices. As to Sally, " She 11 climb up by the 
 cherry-tree, of course," said Crack to herself. "She isn t 
 a fool. And then we shall have her ! " 
 
 She looked to the window, found it open to the first 
 catch of the spring, softly lifted it to the highest, and 
 presently slid off to her own quarters. There she said, 
 solemnly addressing an article of furniture, before which 
 she sat down on the floor to take off her stockings, " Bureau, 
 my dear, that was the very scrapiest scrape you and I ever 
 got into yet ! " 
 
 It was a rule " that the young ladies were not to con 
 verse with each other in their bedrooms after ten o clock, 
 and they reported themselves daily in regard to the keep 
 ing of these ordinary rules. An apostrophe to a bureau 
 was not upon the consciences of some in these reports. 
 
 Sally listened, with her back to the door, and the pinch 
 of salt held fast in her fingers. The noise ceased, and 
 the hush of safety came. She had heard no footsteps, nor 
 the drawing of the bolt. How should she, out there at 
 the well, when the house inmates could not ? She won 
 dered if Crack and Nell had not watched her and then 
 made some racket to frighten her into turning back again. 
 
 " And get caught, too ! " she exclaimed within herself, 
 indignantly. " Little they d care ! " All the more she 
 kept on, now, to the apple-tree. She felt like the Princess 
 Parizadc. 
 
 Over by the little pr.rk somebody else leaned quietly
 
 282 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 against a tree, its trunk between him and the boarding- 
 house building. Over his shoulder he watched the soli 
 tary little figure as it passed from the well on into the dark 
 ness of the orchard. " Sleep-walking?" he wondered. Or 
 what were all these tangled mysteries of school-girl life ? 
 
 John Archer had not felt satisfied when the two young 
 ladies had left them, begging, commanding, not to be 
 accompanied further than the park corner. 
 
 " The truth is," Cora said, when he objected, " it is 
 Saturday night, and " 
 
 That truth was patent. It was as far as she could go 
 with the truth ; the " and " stopped her. Nell finished, 
 abruptly, 
 
 " We are out of hours, and shall have to get in our own 
 way. Now go, please. It s all right." 
 
 They had even spoken a little crossly. It had been 
 but a stupid frolic, after all, to risk so much for. Fan 
 had not been able to arrange everything. She had given 
 Dick Southernwood a hint the night before that the moon 
 light walk might be ; but he had been off all day with 
 Ackworth and Oldridge and the Lewises ; and it turned 
 out that they had gone to Widefield, fishing, and got back, 
 in the usual plight of fishermen, just as the party reached 
 Judge Lewis s gates, on the first slopes of Round Top, 
 where it had been confidently counted on that they would 
 join. There had only been Fanny, themselves, slow John, 
 and the quiet Olivers. The excitement had been the 
 tracing of Mars and Saturn s places as they came up in 
 the bright southeastern constellations. They were a little 
 vehement in dismissing " slow, honest John." 
 
 But John had let his sister go on with the Olivers, and 
 meant to see for himself that their " all right " was right, 
 so far, at least, as their safety was concerned. 
 
 Not to annoy or compromise them, he let them go their
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 283 
 
 own way up the avenue on the east side, keeping all the 
 park shrubbery between them and the house ; but he fol 
 lowed, at a little distance, as far as the Seminary front. 
 He saw them, in the faint light of the low, early-setting 
 moon, flit off around the great gray building, instead of 
 crossing the avenue direct, and so throwing their light 
 dresses in relief against the dark fence and hedges, in 
 view from the windows. 
 
 He saw them scud out from the orchard, and gain the 
 cover of the well-curb ; then, close under the shed, pass 
 along to the little porchway ; its black, shut door gave 
 their white figures clearly as they went by ; and then, 
 upon a bulkhead, or something like, beyond, he saw them 
 crouch, in a little cloudy heap, and wait motionless. 
 
 He looked at his watch in the moonlight, holding it 
 carefully to catch a glinting ray direct upon it. The 
 black hands upon the white face stood at half-past ten. 
 All was dark in the Seminary boarding-house ; the lights 
 were always out at ten. The moon went out, now, at her 
 hour, behind Round Top, and there was only the thin, 
 tremulous starlight. 
 
 " Queer," the young man thought, settling himself in 
 the corner of the deep, recessed entrance to the Seminary. 
 " But I can stand it as long as they can." 
 
 He waited there the half hour, till the heavy bell near 
 by sounded eleven. He saw the door open, showing the 
 blacker shade of space within ; he saw Sally step out and 
 turn away ; then the swift gliding in behind of the two 
 stealthy figures, that he began to think wore all their 
 white, like the whited sepulchres, on the outside ; and 
 then came the noise, the glancing light, and the dead still 
 ness again, with that one solitary girl-form, in its straight, 
 dusky wrapper, standing by the well.
 
 284 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Princess Parizade came back, having counted her 
 hundred, and eaten her green apple. Looking neither to 
 the right nor left, she walked to the door and found it 
 fast. Still thinking it a joke, she waited, listened, tried 
 again. She thought they meant to terrify her to try 
 her spunk to the utmost ; to make her speak, and break 
 the charm, perhaps. 
 
 She scratched lightly, like a mouse, upon the panels. 
 She would let them know she understood, and was not 
 afraid. She listened, tried again. Dead stillness, and the 
 door as solid as the wall. 
 
 Without turning, she slipped along to the house-corner, 
 and into the angle under the cherry-tree. Above her was 
 her own window, wide open. She knew she had not left 
 it so. 
 
 She was sure now that the girls were teasing her. They 
 were in her room, perhaps, and would look out presently. 
 But, in the stillness, she could almost have heard a breath, 
 she drew a long and audible one herself, as a call, 
 and yet in five minutes more, that seemed half an hour, 
 she caught no breath or rustle. She felt as if she had 
 searched the space with ears like eyes, and found it 
 empty. 
 
 Well there was the cherry-tree. And was n t this 
 an emergency ? She had her hand upon one of the heavy 
 green blind-slats of the wood-house, and grasped it firmly. 
 It would have been as easy as going up-stairs. But the 
 thought flashed clearly into her mind, was it any more 
 an innocent emergency than it would have been to have 
 had to get out that way, or not try her Midsummer charm 
 at all ?
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 285 
 
 It was an emergency of her own making, for her own 
 fun, in a daring exploit. Had she any more right to finish 
 than to begin it by a breaking of her word ? 
 
 Sally Gibson s spunk was getting too much for her. 
 She had it in two sorts, it seemed, and the one was always 
 running itself up against the other, and getting annihi 
 lated. 
 
 She went back to the doorstep, turned the latch once 
 more, and then sat down to think. She came pretty near 
 the truth. They had set her window wide open, that she 
 might get in after she had been sufficiently frightened by 
 the locking out ; and they had gone to bed. 
 
 Knock, and alarm the house, she could not. Even if 
 she had dared for herself, almost Sunday morning as it 
 was, there was the locking out ; and, mean as it had 
 been, she would not get the others into the scrape. They 
 did not know that she could not come in by the tree and 
 the window. 
 
 John Archer had changed his post, crossing to the big 
 linden at the head of the park. The brown figure rose 
 slowly from the doorstep and walked directly towards 
 him. He knew how to dodge round a tree-trunk, and he 
 coolly kept it between her and himself till she reached the 
 seminary building, and he saw her go up the two long, 
 broad steps to the main door. 
 
 " Will she get in ? And will she dare to stay there all 
 night ? And will it be fit to let her ? " He thought all 
 that while she tried the great latch and found it fastened. 
 Then he stepped out, and said, in a calm, gentle voice, 
 " I am John Archer. Can I help you ? " 
 
 " Oh dear ! " cried poor little Sally, starting wildly, and 
 forgetting all about her St. John s Eve charm ; if, indeed, 
 that had not been the last thing in her thoughts for a 
 quarter of an hour. " How came you here ? Oh dear ! "
 
 286 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " How came either of us here, oh dear ? " said John 
 Archer, a little bit contemptuously, notwithstanding his 
 kindness. " And how came those other two to go in and 
 shut you out ? " 
 
 " Did they go in ? Perhaps they thought they would 
 come too, and got frightened." 
 
 " Come ? What do you mean ? They had been, I should 
 think." 
 
 " Been ? Don t tell me, if it s anything I don t know. 
 I d rather keep my own part to myself," said Sally, with 
 all the real Grandmother Punchard alive in her now, and 
 her wits about her. 
 
 " And won t you please go home ? " It was the second 
 time that night a young lady had told him to go home. 
 
 " Of course I will go home," he said, almost as if it had 
 been Sally both times ; " but I should like to see you safe 
 first. What are you going to do ? " 
 
 " I am not sure yet," said Sally, coolly, looking down 
 at him from the top step, but covering up, none the less, a 
 great anxiety with her coolness. " I can ring the bells," 
 she mused. 
 
 " I think you had better," said John Archer. 
 
 " I won t if I can help it," said Sally to that, quite 
 stoutly. " I don t think I deserve to get into an awful 
 scrape, and that would be one. If the gallery door is n t 
 locked, I can get in here ; " and she turned round and 
 tried it as she spoke. It opened from the end of the 
 porched recess upon the foot of a narrow little flight of 
 stairs. She stepped inside. 
 
 " I m all right now," she said. " Please go. Good 
 night." She would have shut the door, but John Archer, 
 although it was the third time of asking, made a long step 
 to the threshold, and stood in such a way there that she 
 could not do so without almost pushing it upon him.
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 287 
 
 " I don t like this," he said, as stoutly as she. " It s 
 none of my business ; but I m here, and I feel responsible 
 about leaving you so. I wish I knew at least enough to 
 understand " 
 
 John Archer had thought Sally Gibson a nice, simple 
 girl ; lively enough, but he had noticed that her liveliness 
 stopped short of some things where that of the other girls 
 sprang into fullest play. He did not like leaving her 
 where she stood now, in more ways than one. 
 
 " You d like to know what I was out in the orchard 
 for ? I d rather tell you than not. I went to get a green 
 apple, and a Midsummer Night s dream. I guess I 
 shall have it. Now go. And thank you." 
 
 She spoke with the brusqueness of fifteen, and of a girl 
 whose habit it was to say exactly what she meant. 
 
 " Here s Fanny s shawl," he said, and thrust it in 
 through the closing door. "She lent it to" but the 
 door shut. She would not hear whom it had been lent to. 
 
 Curled up in the corner of one of the great bowed win 
 dows, rolled in Fanny Archer s Rob Roy plaid, her 
 head upon an old leather cushion from a platform chair, 
 Sally Gibson dreamed out several things that midsummer 
 night that had not been in her philosophy before. 
 
 After the first, she ceased to be afraid. There was 
 companionship in the stir of the silver poplars softly 
 rustled by the faint rising breeze. Now and then a bird 
 nestled and chirped, and at first daylight, a flock of black 
 birds came fluttering and " chucking " among the boughs 
 of the orchard. 
 
 If it had been the right sort of adventure that had 
 brought her there, there would have been a good deal of 
 exciting and sweet relish about it. She seemed to be 
 abroad with the night, and to find out the story of it by 
 being one of the happy, homeless things who need not
 
 288 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 hide away from it, because the darkness and the sweet 
 stillness are themselves their house. 
 
 At six o clock she hung up Fanny s shawl in the cloak 
 room below, walked straightforwardly from the Seminary 
 to the boarding-house, and let what would come of it. 
 She scorned any skulking. If she had skulked, she would 
 have been sooner suspected. A housemaid saw her, and 
 thought she had been over to the school-rooms to fetch 
 something. Nobody else met her. 
 
 Sunday rules were strict. Prayers, singing, Bible les 
 sons, meals, church, writing of sermon notes, these took 
 up hour after hour. 
 
 Nobody guessed unless it were John Archer, looking 
 down from the choir gallery the thoughts that lurked, 
 and waited, and grew, that day, under three of the cot 
 tage-bonnets in the long Seminary pew. Sweet and maid 
 en-like, all three, with their little round face-caps and 
 wreaths ; Cora s of pink daisies, and Nell s of blue forget- 
 me-nots, and Sally s of small rosebuds. 
 
 In the half hour of liberty between tea and evening 
 singing, Cora and Nell came arm in arm down the long 
 hall to where Sally was standing in the doorway. 
 
 "Did you get your dream last night?" Cora asked 
 her. All the def errings of the day had given her no more 
 time than she was glad of, before the asking of that ques 
 tion, which she was yet too anxious to let wait longer. 
 There had been something a wee bit unapproachable and 
 ominous in Sally Gibson s air. Yet Crack inquired of her 
 with a jolly nonchalance. 
 
 "Yes, I did," said Sally. 
 
 " Oh, what was it ? " cried Nell, excitedly. A little 
 obtuse Nell was, and took things at the foot of the letter ; 
 apt, too, as such literal people are, to jump readily at the 
 marvelous.
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPVNK. 289 
 
 " I dreamt I saw my grandmother," said Sally, " and 
 she said to me, You ve got my best coat and mantle, of 
 good, handsome stuff ; but you re determined to put it on 
 wrong side out ; and you don t keep out of the dust and 
 mud with it. If you want to settle about the next ten 
 years, you 11 have to settle first which way you re going 
 to wear things. " 
 
 " Was that all ? " asked Nell. 
 
 " All there is to tell," said Sally, and walked away. 
 
 " Do you expect she really did dream that, Crack ? " 
 
 " Probably," Crack answered, looking after Sally rather 
 uneasily. " We told her she could dream pretty much 
 what she was o mind to ; and I presume she was o mind 
 to dream that." 
 
 * Do you believe she s mad ? " 
 
 " She s something when she spits like that. But she 
 can t say anything, after all. She s done it herself, and 
 now she can t hinder us. She s fair enough to see that." 
 
 On Monday noon, armed with the half-pound of gum- 
 drops, the twain came to Sally s room. 
 
 Cora began, with an insinuating blandness, springing at 
 once all fences, and landing herself in close intimacy and 
 privilege. 
 
 " See here," she said. " We want a favor of you. We 
 want you to lind us the loan of yer gridiron, as the 
 Irishman said. Nobody s got a gridiron but you. And 
 you won t keep it all to yourself, will you, Spunkie ? " 
 
 " I don t know what you mean." 
 
 " Here s your bet," put in Nell, thinking it a good 
 time to parenthesize with the gum-drops, and holding 
 forth the parcel. 
 
 " I did n t bet," said Sally. " I don t want it. I don t 
 know what you mean," she repeated to Cora. 
 
 " Well, I mean this : (Nell, you re a goose !) there s to
 
 290 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 be a row on the river to-morrow evening, all the way up 
 to Tomahawk, by moonlight. And Nell and I are asked. 
 And we want you to let us out and in, your way, you 
 know." 
 
 " You re welcome to my way, if you like it. But you 
 can take it for yourselves, without coming to me, I should 
 think." 
 
 " If you 11 leave your door unlocked," said Cora, de 
 lighted. " And let your window be way up till we come 
 back. We 11 all go next time. You ve never been on 
 the river, Sally. What a blessing that old cherry-tree is, 
 now that one of us has got this room ! Only it s almost 
 too easy." 
 
 " Wait a minute. You ve made a mistake. That is n t 
 my way, and it is n t going to be yours." 
 
 " You won t let us through ? Is that what you mean ? " 
 and Cora s face changed swiftly as she turned from the 
 window upon her. 
 
 " Yes. Exactly." 
 
 " You re high and mighty, I should think ! Who came 
 up that way at midnight, Saturday ? And who s going 
 to be monitor now?" 
 
 " Nobody," said Sally, quietly, letting the word stand 
 for whichever answer it might. Cora chose, not really 
 believing, to take it for the first, and pursued her point. 
 
 " How did you get into the house, then ? We know 
 you had to, for there was a scrimmage between the cat 
 and a tin pail on the little stairway, and everybody was 
 scared up, and the doors got locked. You could n t have 
 got in any other way, and I went and fixed the window 
 for you. Much thanks I get ! " 
 
 " I did n t get in. I stayed out all night." 
 
 " Oh my soul ! " ejaculated Crack, and Nell Southern 
 wood turned pale and choked, trying to speak.
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 291 
 
 " And after that, you 11 undertake to dictate ? That 
 would be a pretty story to tell ! " 
 
 "Tell!" said Sally, like a thunder-clap. " You say 
 tell!" 
 
 " Well, yes," said Cora, doggedly. " I don t say tattle. 
 But things come out if they are n t kept in. And you d 
 find you d have to tell." 
 
 Sally looked right at her. Not a look on purpose for a 
 look of wrath or scorn. A look for the sake of see 
 ing what sort of animal this girl might be. Cora Ack- 
 worth felt the look and the seeing through and through 
 her. Sally had been sitting. She got up now. 
 
 " You have n t made me find anything that I had to do 
 or had not. Remember that, please. I found it all be 
 fore ; " and with that she walked out of the room. 
 
 " She s gone to tell ! " gasped Nelly Southernwood. 
 " Grandmother Punchard s waked up again ! " The cer 
 tainty flashed sharp across her dullness, like lightning 
 across the night. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft was always in the little study at this hour. 
 She sat there now, some books and papers before her on 
 her table at the window. 
 
 A knock came. She called, "Come! " and Sally Gib 
 son entered. Miss Wilcroft laid down her pencil, looked 
 up at her pupil, and waited for her to speak. 
 
 " I ve come, ma am, to tell you something. It is very 
 bad, but I can t make it any better by a long story. I 
 was out after hours Saturday night, and when I tried to 
 get in the doors were locked. I had to stay out." 
 
 Anything like this, so calmly acknowledged, Miss Wil 
 croft had never encountered before in her whole experi-
 
 292 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 ence. Her large, serious eyes widened with astonish 
 ment. The little pink bow under her chin thrilled. 
 " You stayed out ? " she repeated, slowly. 
 " Yes, ma am. I had no way to get in except the 
 window. I thought of that, but I concluded that it was n t 
 a real emergency that I could n t have helped and I 
 had n t any right." 
 
 " What were you out for ? Where did you go ? " Miss 
 Wilcroft rarely asked two questions at once, but ten would 
 not have met the points of her perplexity. 
 
 " It was nonsense. Something I had heard about Mid 
 summer Eve, and a charm, and a dream. I thought I d 
 try it, because it was a little scaring. I went as far as 
 the orchard." 
 
 " How did you get out ? " 
 
 " I opened the doors." 
 
 " And they were locked when you came back ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma am. There was a noise in the house. I be 
 lieve the cat had upset something. And I suppose some 
 body found the doors unlocked, and fastened them." 
 
 " Sit down. I must understand this. The noise hap 
 pened at near midnight. Were you out then? " 
 
 " Yes, ma am. I went out after it struck eleven. That 
 was the time for it." 
 
 " And this was pure fun ? Of your own ? There was 
 no one else nothing else concerned ? " 
 
 " I was all alone. It was all my own concern." 
 
 " No one with you at any moment ? You spoke with 
 no one before or after ? " 
 
 " Accidentally, yes, ma am." Sally said it slowly, 
 reluctantly. 
 
 " With whom, if you please ? " 
 
 " Mr. John Archer." The words fell into a silence that 
 felt tremendous.
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 293 
 
 " Explain, Miss Gibson ! " Miss Wilcroft s tone was 
 really shocked and awful now. 
 
 " I cannot explain. He appeared to be going through 
 the grounds, and he stopped when he saw me and 
 thought I was locked out and asked if he could help me 
 any way." 
 
 " And you ? " 
 
 " I thanked him, and asked him to go home ; and I 
 went up into the Seminary gallery, and stayed there." 
 
 " Is this all that happened, and all you know ? " 
 
 " It is all that happened to me, and it is all I know that 
 happened at all." 
 
 " I suppose you see," said Miss Wilcroft after a pause, 
 and her voice had a tone of real trouble, "that this 
 is a most serious thing ? So serious " 
 
 Sally was struck with a terror she had not felt before. 
 
 "You won t send me away, Miss Wilcroft?" 
 
 " I do not know what to do with you, Sally," Miss Wil 
 croft said ; and the monosyllables fell separately and heavy 
 from her lips. " You are not a bad girl, yourself ; you 
 have some noble traits ; there are noble traits even in 
 this wrong business, and your confession of it ; but you 
 demoralize my school. You are dangerous." 
 
 " I do not mean to be any more," said Sally, stoutly 
 meek. " I have been wrong side out. Now I am going 
 to turn, whatever you do to me." 
 
 " You must go to your own room, and remain there. 
 This thing is not ended. No one is to come to you, and 
 you are to speak to no one, until I send for you." 
 
 Sally took her sentence and left the room. She met 
 four or five girls on the way, neither Cora nor Nell 
 were among them, but she passed on without a word, 
 reached her room, and locked herself in. In the midst 
 of her trouble she was proud to be trusted so far.
 
 294 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Nobody saw her again, either that day or the next. All 
 else seemed to be going on as usual. But there was a 
 terrible vague rumor afloat that Spunkie had done some 
 thing beyond forgiveness. It was evident that she was in 
 deep disgrace, and that some mysterious event was im 
 pending. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft sent for the housekeeper to come to her 
 in her study. She told the story to her. " It is all the 
 child knows, evidently," she said. 
 
 " But there is more which we ought to know. The ques 
 tion is, Who locked those doors ? " 
 
 It was all over with the rowing-party for Nell and Cora. 
 Yet they were in relieved, self-gratulatory spirits ; almost 
 as if the thing they had planned to do were an involuntary 
 danger that had been lifted from them. They felt so in 
 nocent in that which they had been interrupted in. They 
 had not stayed out all night. 
 
 In all this overhanging mystery and threatening, no 
 questions had been asked of them. They were bright 
 enough to know the point wherein their imminent peril 
 lay; but that did not seem to have been inquired into. 
 Sally had evidently made but the simplest possible confes 
 sion of herself, out of pure grit, that would not take or 
 remain under a menace. That she should have seen John 
 Archer, or had anything to answer to what so nearly 
 touched their own little safe affair, they never dreamed.. 
 
 There were other things they never dreamed of. 
 
 Hannah, the housemaid, who had been reproved for her 
 negligence, came to Miss Ladd on the Monday afternoon, 
 with a scrap of blue figured lawn in her thumb and finger. 
 
 " If the cat tipped over that pail, mum, the cat had on 
 a musling gownd the living likeness of Miss Ackworth s. 
 I found this sticking in the ear of it." 
 
 "The cat!"
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 295 
 
 " The pail, mum," explained Hannah. " And I would n t 
 meddle in the matter out of any spite ; but if there s to be 
 a hanging, I think there d better be a ketching of all the 
 killprits first. And since it s begunned upon, I must say 
 it s borne in upon me that it ain t the first time ; and if 
 things continyers, we 11 all be in tin pails, or worse 
 scrapes, when we re slumbering like babes in our beds." 
 
 Miss Ladd took the bit of torn muslin, with its peculiar 
 pretty little dropping blue-bell on it, to Miss Wilcroft s 
 room. 
 
 That lady had just sent this note, of stately old fashion, 
 to John Archer : 
 
 " Miss Wilcroft presents compliments to Mr. John 
 Archer, and would like to see him on a matter of impor 
 tance. She will esteem it a particular favor if Mr. Archer 
 will call upon her at the cottage this afternoon." 
 
 Mr. John Archer called. Mr. John Archer behaved 
 like a gentleman, a gentleman in a dilemma. He ex 
 plained his presence in the Seminary grounds on Saturday 
 night ; but frankly declared that he would rather not be 
 pressed for the names of the two young ladies who had 
 been of the party that evening, since it seemed to have 
 been without permission. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft was glad to assure him, politely, in her 
 turn, that it would be needless for her to insist, as quite 
 other testimony already pointed to the fact which it was 
 necessary to elucidate. 
 
 Mr. Archer avoided, dexterously, the details of hour 
 and incident that would most aggravate the matter ; but 
 was obliged to own that he had delayed " awhile " in anx 
 iety to be certain if his charge entered the house in safety, 
 and that they had apparently taken advantage of the " un 
 expected " opening of the door to do so. 
 
 He clearly established Sally Gibson s story of herself ;
 
 296 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 and it was pretty evident, through all his chivalry for the 
 delinquents, that his sentiment in regard to their conduct 
 or fate went no further than a manly unwillingness to pre 
 cipitate the revelation or its ill consequence upon them ; 
 while for Miss Sally there was an irrepressible tone of 
 championship in what he believed to have been some sly 
 ill usage of her ; and his appreciation of her spirit and 
 straightforwardness he took no trouble to conceal. 
 
 " I don t pretend to know the right and wrong of it," 
 he said ; " and I would rather not answer questions if I 
 did ; but if my sister made a mistake, I hope she would 
 walk out of it with as much pluck and dignity as Miss 
 Sally did out of hers, that s all." 
 
 A ball of yarn may be big ever so big have hun 
 dreds of yards in it and be tightly wound together ; but 
 it is unrolled very easily when once the end is found. A 
 good many little twists that had puzzled excellent Miss 
 Wilcroft and her assistants came out and showed a clear, 
 continued thread in this winding up that they had got 
 hold of. 
 
 Miss Wilcroft quietly gathered all into her own hands 
 as it came forth, stopped all gossip and spread, said 
 her word of authority or influence here and there. 
 
 The only thing that appeared was that Sally Gibson 
 was in punishment, and that something had been thor 
 oughly inquired into and as thoroughly hushed up. This 
 was not a novelty in Miss Wilcroft s serenely autocratic 
 administration. 
 
 Nobody knew, except Miss Ladd and herself, that these 
 two made an official visit to Number 5 in the wing, just 
 after the lights were out, at ten on Tuesday evening. 
 Nobody knew, of course, then, how long that visit was, 
 nor how much was accomplished. 
 
 Everybody knew next morning at dressing-time, that
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 297 
 
 the Eastern stage had come, with an awful lumbering, up 
 to the front door at half-past five, and that baggage had 
 been taken down-stairs ; but only two bedroom windows 
 opened to the front, and the great coach was driven close 
 to the piazza, and nobody could see what miserable pas 
 senger got in with her disgrace. Yet everybody thought 
 she knew, and everybody was dismayed. 
 
 There was a ring at the door-bell just before the great 
 house-bell sounded its second summons at seven o clock. 
 It was hardly noticed, in the excitement already reigning, 
 although a gentleman s voice was heard in the hall, and 
 the reception-room door was opened and closed, and then 
 immediately the front door was shut again, and two per 
 sons, though nobody looked out to see that, walked quickly 
 away together down the drive to the foot of the park, 
 where a light carriage waited. It was scarcely a pleasant 
 drive that Harry Ackworth and his sister took that morn 
 ing, to meet the Birksfield stage at Longbridge. 
 
 There was a breathless hush as one after another came 
 down into the long room for prayers. All but three or 
 four Nell and Cora were always among the last were 
 seated, when Miss Wilcroft entered, followed gravely and 
 subduedly by Sally Gibson ! 
 
 The lady principal directed the young girl to take her 
 usual seat, walked to her own at the head of the room, 
 turned and paused, standing there till every eye was 
 fixed upon her. 
 
 " I have a very few words to say to you all before our 
 morning service. The young lady who came in with me 
 is now, I am happy to tell you, in entire understanding 
 with myself. There will be no explanation of the mistake 
 in consequence of which she has been, not without fault 
 on her own part, separated from you for these last two 
 days. She will take her place among you now, 1 think, 
 on a higher footing than ever before.
 
 298 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " It is only through some faults and mistakes that most 
 of us rise to our best and final character. I wish you to 
 feel that she is in no disgrace. Beyond that, there is no 
 need to explain, and I would request that there be no in 
 quiry or discussion. Two others of your number have 
 left you altogether this morning. It has been thought 
 best that Miss Cora Ackworth and Miss Ellen Southern 
 wood should return to their homes." 
 
 The color burned higher and higher in Sally Gibson s 
 face, which she tried hard to keep steadfast ; the lips 
 quivered a little, and she was glad when the reading of 
 the Scripture gave her time to calm herself, and yet more 
 when she could kneel down in prayer and hide both head 
 and heart away, as if she laid her face in the lap of her 
 mother. 
 
 Louise Summerway was the first to come and speak 
 after breakfast, in her gentle way, with Sally. She did it 
 as nobody else could have done it, without seeming as 
 if it were in the least a particular thing to do. She asked 
 some question, I believe, about the Virgil lesson, which 
 only came on Wednesdays and Saturdays ; and then they 
 walked over to the Seminary together. 
 
 From that time a friendship began that lasted through 
 the three years that they remained at Oakhaven school, 
 where the saying was that Louise Summerway and Sally 
 Gibson went together like mouse-color and scarlet ; one 
 just set off the other. 
 
 " Only," Sally used to say, " you must have a good deal 
 of the mouse-color, and just touch it up a little here and 
 there with the scarlet." And Madam Sally says to-day 
 that " spunk was n t meant to keep a steady light with ; 
 you must have a quiet little candle-flame for that." 
 
 I said at the beginning that this all happened nearly 
 fifty years ago. But I know it is all true, almost even to
 
 SALLY GIBSON S SPUNK. 299 
 
 the very words ; for I have heard it, in the separate hits, 
 ever so many times, from one and another of them, to 
 whom it has been all their lives a very particular beginning 
 and remembrance. 
 
 I am Louise Summerway s youngest daughter ; and 
 my mother and I have made long, lovely visits many a 
 time together, at the old Three Hill Farm in Rexford, 
 where Sally s children and grandchildren, friends and 
 friends children, gather by the houseful in the summer 
 holidays. 
 
 Dr. John Archer splendid old gentleman that he 
 is tells the Midsummer Eve part, "pars magna " of 
 which he says he was. " Of course," puts in Madam 
 Sally, " since it was the Eve of Saint John ! " She pre 
 tends it for fun, but she means it just as honestly as she 
 means everything. 
 
 Madam Sally herself, being coaxed by us youngers, 
 has told us the pranky parts ; and my mother has filled 
 up with what " Spunkie " would never think of telling ; 
 for, from "making traditions" for the wild ones, Sally 
 Gibson ended, you see, by making a real, splendid tradi 
 tion of high character, that was told for a memorial of 
 her in the school, and was an influence in it for truth and 
 courage and generosity, for ever after. 
 
 And dear, beautiful Miss Wilcroft, who lived to be 
 yond eighty in a world of love and friendship that she 
 made for herself in hearts and homes of women who 
 had been girls with her at Oakhaven, Miss Wilcroft 
 rounded out the whole with what her own oversight and 
 understanding discerned of it at the time, and watched to 
 its fulfillment after. 
 
 There was a great deal fulfilled, indeed, that it would 
 take a very big book to tell of, from the working of the 
 spell which Sally tried so unsuspectingly that twenty-
 
 300 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 third of June. If it did not unfold all at once the his 
 tory of a coming decade, it began the chronicle and 
 settled the relations of half a century for certain human 
 lives. 
 
 Doctor John Archer came to Rexford when he had got 
 his diploma, and took an opening practice there. He is 
 the beloved physician of twenty miles of country round ; 
 and did n t I say that Madam Sally is Doctor John 
 Archer s wife ? Of course she is ; and has been for forty 
 years. Forty years of a Midsummer Night s Dream, I 
 believe, if long, sunshiny, happy days, and brief, calm, 
 comforted nights, and warmth and sweetness, and every 
 thing bright and full and generous and strong, can make 
 up a midsummer dream or reality.
 
 HOW BEL CAUGHT THE "BURGLAR." 
 
 IT was a favorite story ; but these girls had never heard 
 it. It was the very hour and mood, also, for the story. 
 
 There had been company young company and a car 
 pet dance and it was twelve o clock before Bel and her 
 three staying visitors Esther, and Jeannie, and Fly 
 (Fly s name was Phyllis, but they called her Fly, it was 
 so like her) were all in Bel s bedroom, from which doors 
 opened each way into her own special young-guest cham 
 bers, and, too excited to sleep, were all eager for a last 
 bit of fun or wonder. 
 
 "It makes me think," said Bel, "of my Spanish aunt, 
 my name-aunt, Isabelita, who came here to New 
 York, I mean to school, and then married Uncle Rod. 
 She caught a burglar once ; and it was right after a party, 
 like this, when she and three other girls were together, 
 talking and laughing, exactly as we are." 
 
 Fly slid down close to Bel s side on the sofa, from the 
 arm of it where she had been perching ; Esther drew her 
 hassock nearer, along the rug, and Jeannie gave a quick 
 look at the Indian screen which stood across the open 
 door into the hall, as she turned round, brush in hand, 
 from the dressing-table. " Oh, tell us ! " they all cried ; 
 and the concerted syllables rung girlish-clear, and were 
 heard in the " boys room," where Geoff and his crony 
 Jack were as much up and awake as Bel and her friends. 
 
 " There goes the immortal burglar story again ! " said 
 Geoff to Jack. " It s Bel s one sensational, and she keeps
 
 302 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 it wound up like a peg-top, ready for a spin at a chance. 
 She turns up her nose awfully at a dime novel ; but I d 
 like as many dimes as times she s got off that yarn, any 
 how. Never heard it ? That s a wonder. Come along, 
 then. All fair ; take care of yourself, though, when she 
 comes to the wind-up ; for as soon as they get through 
 with the shudders, they 11 be peeping round all the corners 
 after the forty thieves." 
 
 Whereupon the two youths betook themselves noiselessly 
 into the wide, matted hall, established themselves on a 
 bamboo settee, and infamously listened. 
 
 " They were brushing their hair," said Bel, " and talk 
 ing over the party. And they got into a great gale about 
 something one of them was telling ; and Aunt Lita laughed 
 and laughed, till she cried. And she was holding her 
 hands on her sides, and saying, Oh, don t ! and then 
 screaming with laughter again, at the mimicking that was 
 going on with the story, when all of a sudden, girls, in 
 the very middle of a spasm, she happened to look across 
 the room. And under the bed just under the edge of 
 the valance," Bel spoke most slowly and impressively, 
 "she saw, as plain as day, the heel of a man s boot! " 
 
 There was the sound of a sighing and a soft rustling 
 together in the girls room ; out on the bamboo couch, the 
 two boys were flinging their heels up in carefully hushed 
 convulsions, and holding their doubled fists across their 
 mouths. 
 
 " What did she do ? " Fly buzzed, tremblingly, into 
 Bel s ear. 
 
 " She just kept on laughing," said Bel, with a proud 
 calmness. " She laughed, and laughed, and laughed ; and 
 watched the boot all the time. Presently she saw it move. 
 Just a hair s breadth ; but it did move. Then she laughed 
 harder. The other girls were half frightened at her, not 
 knowing anything else to be frightened at.
 
 HOW BEL CAUGHT THE "BURGLAR." 303 
 
 " Don t, Lita ! they said. You 11 raise the neighbor 
 hood. 
 
 " I don t care ; I mean to, said Aunt Lita. I mean 
 Sue to hear us over the way. And she went to the win 
 dow and threw it up, and stood there in her white night 
 gown, in the bright gaslight, and laughed with all her 
 might. 
 
 " She laughed till a policeman came and stopped oppo 
 site the window, and looked up at her. Then she beckoned 
 to him with both hands, and before the others knew what 
 she was about, she flew off through a little open dressing- 
 room like that and down-stairs, and let him in at the 
 front door ; and she got him up-stairs just in time to catch 
 the fellow, who began to be scared, crawling out from 
 under the bed, and the other girls all going into fits." 
 
 " That s the cue, Jack ! " whispered Geoff. " Going 
 into fits. " 
 
 And the two just waited for the gasping voices to begin 
 with their horrified and wondering, but half-stifled excla 
 mations, to steal off as they had come, stocking-footed and 
 noiseless. 
 
 " I will say," Geoff remarked, when they were safe in 
 the end bedroom again, and continuing their preparations 
 for the night, " that she does n t tell it word for word 
 alike any two times. She just lives it out again, fresh, 
 every telling." 
 
 " I believe," said Jack, " she d do just the same thing 
 herself. She s exactly the girl to." 
 
 " Not much," said Geoff, cavalierly. "I know her lots 
 better. She s my sister ! " 
 
 " Bel," Esther was saying, leaning close, with her arms 
 across Bel s lap, " what would you do, if you found a 
 burglar hid in your room ? " 
 
 "I d hide him! Or get somebody else to, as Aunt
 
 304 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Lita did," said Bel, who could n t resist a pun when it flew 
 right in her face. 
 
 " Really and truly, though," she proceeded, " I d catch 
 him ; and I Ve thought over half a dozen different ways." 
 
 " You d forget them all if you saw the heel of his boot," 
 said Fly. " I should." 
 
 " I don t mean to," said Bel. " I Ve made up my whole 
 mind to catch that burglar whenever he comes." 
 
 " How do you know " began Esther, in a breathless 
 kind of way, glancing round from corner to corner, and 
 from piece to piece of the pretty furniture, and most lin- 
 geringly at the screens and hangings, " how do you 
 know there is n t this minute " 
 
 " I ve a way of looking," interrupted Bel, serenely ; 
 " and I ve looked. That s part of the plan." 
 
 Jeannie slid softly across the room to the door behind 
 the screen, pushed it to, and bolted it. 
 
 " I was sure I heard something move in the hall, a 
 minute or two ago," she said. 
 
 "And you ve left it to go into those innocent boys 
 room ? " demanded Bel, indignantly ; and she walked to 
 the door, flung it open, and stood listening. 
 
 Those innocent boys were breathing deep, peaceful 
 breaths of sleep, and there was only the faint sound of 
 these, and no stir else in the wide house. 
 
 Bel turned back, satisfied. " There s nothing at all," 
 she said to Jeannie. " It was nerves, that s all. I ve 
 had em. They re preliminary exercises. I ve got pretty 
 nearly through with them." 
 
 " I would n t talk so for ah 1 the world," said Fly. " It s 
 taking fate upon yourself. You 11 have to catch a burg 
 lar some time ; see if you don t." 
 
 " And see if I don t, then ! " retorted Bel. " I do feel 
 as if I were being led up to it," she declared, with a grand 
 simplicity.
 
 HOW BEL CAUGHT THE "BURGLAR." 305 
 
 Fly entreated to stay here, with her, to sleep. " I can 
 never go alone into my room," she said, 
 
 So they fastened the door into the little rose chamber ; 
 and Esther and Jeannie left theirs very wide open into 
 the double blue room. 
 
 Three days afterwards there was an afternoon party at 
 the Eager Place. A row on Opal Pond, gathering water- 
 lilies, tea on the terrace when they returned, illumi 
 nated croquet in the evening. 
 
 The boys came to tea and croquet, but there had been 
 a boy-engagement off somewhere else in the afternoon. 
 It was eleven o clock when Mr. Derby s carriage took all 
 his young people Bel and her friends, and the two boys 
 home ; and again there was the chatty undressing, and 
 last best fun of going over the whole together in Bel s 
 room. 
 
 The boys had been pointedly quiet during the return 
 drive ; to be sure they had to sit outside ; and they said 
 good-night in the upper hall with solemnity, when they 
 had carried up the girls candles and wraps. Geoffrey 
 always wondered " what girls wanted to talk a thing to 
 death for, over again, after they had had all the life out 
 of it while it was going." 
 
 Bel was as nice as any little old maid. Fly just flirted 
 off her fineries anyhow. Jeannie and Esther laid theirs 
 in tolerable care and order, but they got no further than 
 chairs and sofas for over-night disposing. Bel stood at 
 least five minutes, with her pretty basque and overskirt 
 upon her arm, waiting for Fly to finish a ridiculous story, 
 that was, as she meant them to know, half fact, and half 
 quick-witted, droll, impromptu fib. 
 
 " But listen ! " Fly cried, as, in a breath s pause, Bel 
 made a restless movement to the door. " That was 
 merely to go back ; now I ve to go forward ; to 
 20
 
 306 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 conclude and to recapitulate don t come for ever so 
 long!" 
 
 " Then, really," said Bel, " you must let me hang these 
 up in the big closet first, and get on my dressing-gown. 
 I can t be comfortable " 
 
 " To lay a thing down a minute ! " said Fly, whose 
 loosened robings were fallen in a bright, gauzy heap about 
 her, and whose lap was full of lilies from her hair, tum 
 bled together with bracelets, earrings, fan and fan chain, 
 gloves and every little removable that she had divested 
 herself of while she told her story. 
 
 " You live the life of a perfect catamount with 
 yourself ; always pouncing down upon every little acci 
 dental comfort and choking it, by way of taking it after 
 wards in peace ! You only get it in pieces \ " 
 
 " She s Bel and the Dragon, " said Esther, not really 
 knowing whether that was Hebrew or Saxon apocrypha, 
 or what either Bel or Dragon were or did. 
 
 " If the Dragon got the best of it, she is," said Fly. 
 " But I don t suppose any of you know." 
 
 " I know what Bel s Bub did," whispered Bel, mis 
 chievously, dancing softly back and leaning down an in 
 stant over Fly s low seat. " He lorded it over the Flies ! " 
 
 Now Geoffrey Derby had quite monopolized little Phyl 
 lis with his sixteen-year-old devotions ; and Fly, on her 
 part, had no voice in any play or plan that did not second 
 Geoff s imperial suggestions ; so she colored red under the 
 white lilies that she tossed up over her head at Bel, and 
 that fell back upon her own fair tangles of hair, and hung 
 in them about face and neck. And in the minute that she 
 had no other answer ready, Bel danced off again, and 
 was in the hall and at the door of the " Big Closet." 
 
 The Big Closet was quite at the far end of the hall, too 
 - that is, the door of it was. The closet itself ran along to
 
 HOW BEL CAUGHT THE "BURGLAR." 307 
 
 a dark depth ; a great roomy " press," where nothing was 
 pressed, but where all the nice, light, flounced things hung 
 unrumpled ; and Bel never failed to put her delicate 
 dresses carefully away there the moment she had taken 
 them off. 
 
 The gaslight, half turned down, was midway of the 
 hall ; the Big Closet door opened outward and from the 
 light, so that this shone in towards the left, and gave Bel 
 glimpse enough to find any empty peg, and to see that she 
 did not leave one thing " mussing " another. 
 
 If possible burglars were ever out of her thought, I should 
 say that for that moment she did forget them, as she 
 threw back the door and was stepping in with her pretty 
 muslins on her arm. Their fun had not been in the burg 
 lar vein to-night ; all was cheery and everyday if that 
 be the word for the mood and chatter of an hour when it 
 was nearly next day, to be sure, but next day had yet to 
 struggle to its being through the midnight. 
 
 She was taken as unaware as her u whole made up 
 mind " could ever be. She was going straight in, aiming 
 for a peg on the far side, when the light, falling in over 
 her shoulder, struck upon something from which it came 
 back to her startled eyes with a strange kind of blow, that 
 she almost recognized as if she had felt it before, that 
 now it came, at least, she knew for the very shock she 
 had expected ! It was as if one had dreamed often of 
 being struck by lightning ; and then, some terrible in 
 stant, the flash should come, and in the very enveloping 
 of it, the thought quick as itself should flash, too, 
 " This is it ! The very awful thing that I have dreamed ! " 
 
 From behind and between the ruffles and folds of her 
 mother s beautiful crimson silk dress and a heavy black 
 one, which hung side by side, projected a coarse gray 
 trouser-knee, and below stood two big feet.
 
 308 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 No boots, heels or tips ; something more fearfully 
 significant of stealth and purpose ; stockings, with villain 
 ous-looking, stumpy ankles, and bulgy insteps and clumpy, 
 conspicuous, dingy-white toes ! 
 
 She felt as if there were lead in her own feet ; as if she 
 could never move or get away. 
 
 Scream ? Of course not ! Fixed in her mind was one 
 principle : to keep on if she saw a piece of hidden 
 burglar doing just what she had been doing before. 
 But all she was about doing now was to hang up these 
 muslin things ; she must do that, and then she must just 
 turn round quietly and walk away. Not run, although she 
 felt those two feet after her the minute she turned her 
 back. She thought she had been staring at them a quarter 
 of an hour, and that she had plainly been seen staring. 
 Still, she did turn and walk out of the closet. She shut 
 the door gently. There was a lock, but the key was gone. 
 There was a thin, flat button, rather high up ; she reached 
 and turned it, noiselessly, in the instant of her closing of 
 the door. She went back to her own room where the 
 girls were, stepped into her own closet, and put on her 
 flannel wrapper. She felt pale and would not let them 
 see her face. She took a little porcelain candlestick from 
 the etagere near the door, went out to the hall gaslight, 
 and lit the candle there. 
 
 " What in the world are you doing, Bel ? " came from 
 Fly, inside. 
 
 " Going down for a glass of water. You Ve made me 
 so thirsty, laughing. Want some ? " 
 
 " Yes. Are n t you afraid ? I 11 come, too." 
 
 " No ; don t. We might wake mamma. I 11 bring it. 
 Would you like some cake, or an orange, or anything ? " 
 
 Her thought, all the time, was going ahead of her, 
 through the whole, long, shut-up house.
 
 HOW BEL CAUGHT THE "BURGLAR." 309 
 
 Geoffrey and Jack ? No ; not those innocent boys. 
 They would n t believe, to begin with ; and to end with, 
 they d get shot, maybe. 
 
 Papa ? But mamma, with her neuralgia and her poor 
 nights, would be waked and frightened ; and papa would 
 just rush up, barefooted and barehanded. He never kept 
 pistols and things ; and he would n t stop to think. 
 
 Uncle Prescott if he were only in his room. She 
 must go and see. 
 
 Down the long stairway, through the hall ; past mam 
 ma s door, with her hand round the light ; that eerie feel 
 ing, all the way of soundless following, and of ambushes 
 everywhere. Then there was the veranda door to open, 
 and perhaps let a whole troop of them in. She must look 
 out there, and go very softly ! 
 
 She went into the dining-room and set down her light ; 
 came and peered behind the fluted muslin screen of the 
 sashed door, and could just see by the starlight that the 
 veranda was clear, and no motion or strange shadow on 
 the grass slope beyond. At the other end of the veranda, 
 in the wing, a door opened upon young Dr. Prescott Der 
 by s office, and the stairway to his room above. There 
 was the usual speaking-tube from doorside to bedside. 
 
 " Uncle Prescott ! Uncle Prescott ! " 
 
 The low, hoarse call would have hardly roused any 
 body but a doctor, used to " sleeping on the edge of his 
 ear ; " but Uncle Prescott heard it dreamily, and at the 
 third call was wide awake. His " Hallo ! " came down 
 the tube ; then Bel called : 
 
 " It s Bel. Come quick. There s somebody in the 
 house." 
 
 " Bel s burglar ! " half laughed Uncle Prescott to him 
 self. But he was up in a second ; put feet and arms with 
 simultaneous movement into slippers and dressing-gown,
 
 310 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 took something from the table at his bed - head, came 
 quickly down to Bel, and followed her, as she turned 
 without a word and sped quickly and noiselessly back all 
 the way that she had come. Arrived in the upper hall, 
 Bel pointed to the big closet door. 
 
 Dr. Derby opened it, and Bel pointed to the feet. 
 
 Dr. Derby pointed his pistol. " My friend," he said in 
 a low, quiet voice, " show me an empty pair of hands, and 
 come forward, or I fire." 
 
 Still nothing showed but the feet, and the gray knee, 
 that never stirred. 
 
 Then Dr. Derby said, " If you move hand or foot, you 
 are a dead man ; " and, with his leveled revolver, walked 
 into the closet. 
 
 There was a fearful explosion. 
 
 It was of laughter, overcharged and dangerously 
 rammed down, and it came from the room of those 
 innocent boys. 
 
 And " Oh, what is it ? What is it ? " sounded from 
 Bel s doorway, where three frightened faces peered round 
 the screen. 
 
 Bel ran in and caught them, all in a huddle, by arms 
 and shoulders, pushed them before her into the room 
 again, and half sobbed, half chuckled out, in a queer, 
 hysterical fashion : 
 
 " It s my Burglar ! and it s those wretched, unprin 
 cipled boys ! " and with that she just broke down and 
 cried. 
 
 Dr. Derby and his pistol meanwhile presented them 
 selves at the door of Geoff s apartment. 
 
 " I Ve half a mind to shoot you ! " he said. " If I d a 
 cane here, instead ! " 
 
 " Are you all right, Bel dear ? " he inquired, a moment 
 after, leaving the boys in a hush of mingled and sup-
 
 HOW BEL CAUGHT THE "BURGLAR." 311 
 
 pressed jubilance and consternation, and pausing between 
 Bel s door and screen. 
 
 Now Dr. Derby had scarcely ever been known to say 
 " dear" to any one before. 
 
 Bel came round to him instantly. 
 
 " Oh, you re so good ! " she cried, still with a nervous 
 catch in her voice, and with wide, wet, shining, excited 
 eyes. " And I m so sorry to have disturbed you ! " 
 
 " You re a heroine," said Dr. Derby. " Now be brave 
 enough to calm down and go to sleep." And he stooped 
 and gently kissed her. 
 
 " To think if you had fired at a dummy, and riddled 
 mamma s red silk ! " said Geoffrey at the breakfast-table 
 next morning, when all was well over, and everybody had 
 slept upon it. 
 
 " And to think that Bel has n t caught her burglar yet, 
 after all ! " said Fly, sympathizing meanly in her heart 
 with Geoff s side of the joke. 
 
 " I think she has, and valiantly," remarked Mr. Derby. 
 
 " Walked up to a Quaker gun ! " said Geoff, growing 
 bold enough for satire, now that nobody was shot. 
 
 " Walking up to a Quaker gun has taken the position 
 before now, young man," said Uncle Prescott. 
 
 "And I ve heard of a certain Christian," said Mr. 
 Derby, " who was as brave as if the lion had not been 
 chained." 
 
 "Well, she teas brave till she cried," acknowledged 
 remorseless Geoff. 
 
 " If she had not cried, I might have been wanted for 
 something apart from shooting," the doctor said, quite 
 gravely. " Do you know what you put her nerves 
 through?" And he looked sternly into Geoffrey s face. 
 
 " Never mind, Uncle Pres ! " said Bel, her heart
 
 312 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 warming with the defense of her, so that her temper kept 
 perfectly cool. " I ve found out I coidd, if it had been 
 real. And that was the thing I wanted to know. I don t 
 care for the glory. I think I m indebted to you, Geof- 
 frey." 
 
 Bel had decidedly the best of it. And everybody said 
 so, one way or another, except Fly. 
 
 Mamma had her kissing of her all to herself, when she 
 got her for a minute in her own room after breakfast. 
 And she said, softly : 
 
 " If my darling makes up her whole mind about 
 catching everything that has no business upon her prem 
 ises as she did about the burglar, I shall have no fear for 
 the peace and the beauty of her house."
 
 TRYING ON BONNETS. 
 
 Miss AXIE sat at the little parlor window that looked 
 out into the front yard. She was delicately darning a 
 fine cotton stocking over a stone apple. Every morning, 
 after she had watered her plants, she sat there and darned 
 one pair, or more, if Maggie were slow ; and Maggie 
 usually was either slow, or so negligent that it was worse. 
 Good old-fashioned Winifred took out the breakfast things. 
 She would not let her mistress wash the cups except on 
 Mondays. Mrs. Keene, Miss Axie s mother, sat by the 
 low wood fire, and knit upon a long stripe of a resplendent 
 afghan. She liked the touch of the soft wool, as it slipped 
 off the large needles ; and the clear, brilliant colors were 
 easy to her fading vision, and it was restful work after a 
 long life busied with many wearing things. She always had 
 something of the sort to do, and sat placidly in her arm 
 chair, the bright hues heaped about her upon basket and 
 light-stand, like sunset clouds about her hour of calm. 
 Above, the windows were wide open, taking in the soften 
 ing air of early spring ; and Maggie stood among blankets 
 and bolsters, and all the disarray of things that once in 
 every twenty-four hours must be laid in fair and perfect 
 order, to the express end of being put into a tumble again. 
 
 Miss Axie liked this half-hour in the morning. She 
 thought it was the stocking, and the filling up a nick of 
 time with economy and usefulness ; but I think it was as 
 much the window and the broad, down-hill street that led 
 to the village, just in the edge of which they lived ; and
 
 314 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Mrs. Mackie s pretty children going up to school; and 
 young Howell hastening by to catch the train to town, 
 so grand he looked in the fair nobility of his fresh man 
 hood, whereon a holy chrism had been laid by the awful 
 hand of war ; and the dreams she dreamt about them all, 
 dreams that grew out of knowledge, for had not her 
 life for forty years, here in Riverly, among their fathers 
 and mothers, included theirs ? 
 
 Achsah Keene had not had a bright life of hrr own. 
 She had been the eldest of five children, well educated 
 and comfortably brought up ; that is, they had always 
 been to good schools, and had proper gowns and coats to 
 wear, and they belonged to " nice people," and all their 
 ideas were well-bred and delicate. But around their life 
 was a line drawn, a line of limit that pressed always 
 just where these very ideas longed most to expand them 
 selves ; and, next to father and mother, the eldest had felt 
 it most. Who knows where it had stopped her, beside 
 where she was conscious ? At any rate, the things that 
 had come to her had been, many times, what she could 
 not care to take ; and those she would have reached for in 
 gladness had stayed themselves beyond her grasp. So she 
 was only an old maid now, living with her mother ; sisters 
 and brothers married and settled, or gone forth into the 
 wide world ; the father only a thought and a memory, 
 now, in the earthly home, for fifteen years. 
 
 Everybody said it was bright and pleasant here, where 
 the two ladies, with their birds and flowers, their fancy 
 work, and their charity work, and their books, and their 
 serving-women, so different from the drift and float that 
 pervaded neighboring households, old Winifred, who 
 would as soon think of moving, and no sooner, than the 
 hearth-stone itself ; and young Maggie, who, with all her 
 heedlessness and exasperations, was loyal at heart, and
 
 TRYING ON BONNETS. 315 
 
 had nowhere else on earth to go, where these two dwelt 
 so, in a safe, simple plenty, and in their heart-comfort 
 together. 
 
 Yet with Miss Axie it was, after all, a great deal 
 out of window. 
 
 Miss Axie was a little sharp now and then. Life had 
 demanded a good deal of her ; and she, on her part, some 
 times turned round and demanded a good deal of other 
 human nature, that was but human, notwithstanding. 
 
 " Maggie is idling, as usual. I ve not heard the broom 
 yet. It is really marvelous what that girl does manage 
 to do with her mornings ! " Miss Axie dropped the stone 
 apple from the last stocking, rolled them neatly, the two 
 pairs, and laid them back, with scissors, cotton ball, 
 thimble, and apple, in her basket. Then she took down 
 into her lap a little writing-desk, and penciled a note. 
 
 * This ought to go at once," she said. " Mrs. Ircutt 
 will be longing for the second volume ; and it is such a 
 mean selfishness to let a club-book lie till the last minute, 
 out of mere laziness, when one has finished it one s self. 
 I 11 send Maggie right up with it, whether or no ! " Poor 
 Maggie ! " Whether or no ! " 
 
 Miss Axie came up-stairs. Her foot fell lightly, always ; 
 and Maggie was absorbed. The chamber-door opened, 
 like a flash of fate, upon her. And then there was a 
 tableau. 
 
 Miss Axie stood with the door-knob in her hand. 
 Along the sofa and upon the arm-chair were flung blankets 
 and pillows ; the sheets were thrown across the sill of the 
 garden window ; on the floor lay, still, the shreds of yes 
 terday ; and inside the little dressing-room stood her bath, 
 just emptied, but the pail not carried away. A closet 
 door, half opened also, showed within an uncovered band 
 box on the floor.
 
 316 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Miss Axie s new spring bonnet was on Maggie s head. 
 Shoes down at heel, Maggie would tread them so in 
 three days time, a brown calico gown that had seen a 
 week or more of morning service, and had got a rent 
 within an hour from the ear of a water-pail, bare, red 
 arms, a broad face, and a chunky neck, purple now with 
 a helpless shame, fright and consternation in her eyes, 
 turned in a magnetic transfixment toward Miss Axie s 
 own, a mouth set in a miserable grin, for Maggie always 
 grinned when she did n t know what else to do, and sur 
 mounting all, above the rough brown hair, the offense and 
 retribution of the bonnet ! 
 
 Miss Axie was angry, and no wonder. She was too 
 angry, for a moment, to exclaim. She looked straight 
 into those petrified eyes without any mercy ; and the 
 purple turned to white about the lips, and the grin grew 
 almost ghastly. 
 
 "I hope you think it is becoming," Miss Axie said 
 quite quietly. " Look again," for the girl stood fronting 
 her large dressing-glass. Then Maggie s foot began to 
 scrape the carpet, awkwardly, to and fro, and her eyes 
 fell, and the lips trembled down out of their rigidity, and 
 there was only the shame left in the face. 
 
 But Miss Axie made up her mind in the moment what 
 to do. 
 
 " I want these," she said, holding out the book and note, 
 " carried up to Mrs. Ircutt s. You may go now, just as 
 you are." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Axie ! " cried the girl, driven to speech in her 
 distress. And her hands went up, involuntarily, to remove 
 the bonnet, and fell again, not daring the profane touch 
 before Miss Axie s eyes. 
 
 " Just as you are," repeated her mistress. 
 
 Tears rushed up to Maggie s face, and convulsed it;
 
 TRYING ON BONNETS. 317 
 
 but she could n t give way, and let them fall. Cry, all 
 over Miss Axie s new bonnet-strings, and rub her cheeks 
 grimy under the lace and flowers! She recollected in 
 time, and put them back in a grotesque agony. She was 
 not the first, nor the last. Many a weeping has been 
 judiciously suspended because the pocket-handkerchief has 
 been forgotten or laid astray. Then Miss Axie put the 
 book and note down upon the dressing-table, and turned 
 and left the room. 
 
 " A-ah, what am I to do then ? " moaned the culprit to 
 herself. " She s the one that 11 let nothin off when she 
 has said it. An the work waitin , an all ! An am I to 
 go by the street, an all the people lookin ? An if I go 
 by the back there s Winny ! An who 11 be comin to 
 the door, I wonder ! " It never entered her simple head 
 to refuse her punishment, defy her mistress, and throw 
 up her place. The drift and the float can do that, but 
 there was a moral force upon Maggie. She had seen hard 
 lines from ten years old to fifteen. She had been here 
 since then, and she knew nowhere else to go. 
 
 She went and listened at the back stairs. She heard 
 Winny go into the breakfast-parlor with the tray of 
 washed-up dishes. Now, then, it must be, since there 
 was no help for it. She flew, desperately, down the 
 stairway, and through the kitchen, out into the garden, 
 and along the walk, till she got behind the currant hedge. 
 Then there was a wall to climb, and a field to cross, and 
 another wall, and then to go up through Mrs. Ircutt s gar 
 den. Sorely tempted she was to pull off the bonnet, 
 leave it somewhere under the shrubbery, and run on bare 
 headed. But the dog might get it. Besides, there were 
 the overlooking windows. 
 
 If only John Mullen might be anywhere but in the gar 
 den. But he would n t have wanted her to face the street,
 
 318 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 and he d be pitiful. Only it was almost a prayer in the 
 poor foolish child s heart that he might have been sent off 
 ten miles, rather. 
 
 Miss Axie had thought of the back way in the midst of 
 her resentment ; else, perhaps, she would hardly have 
 given such a sentence. But she never thought of John 
 Mullen. She could not know when can we ever ? all 
 the force of what she did. 
 
 But John Mullen was there, turning over the muck be 
 hind the lower barn, as Maggie came crouching, fearfully, 
 round the corner of the hedge. She would have run 
 back ; but he had seen her, and dropped his fork. She 
 stood much as she had stood under Miss Axie s terrible 
 eye, only without the grin. When he came close, and 
 stopped before her, she had to battle with the tears again. 
 
 " Arrah, Maggie ! is it you ? " cried out the honest fel 
 low, and uttered never a word about her wonderful array, 
 seeing her trouble, and guessing something of it in the 
 midst of his amaze. 
 
 " I m a big fool, jist, lavin my work for anny non 
 sense ; an I m jist come up with, that s the truth of 
 it," said Maggie, with a sudden noble bravery, trusting it 
 all to him. Hers was a poor and homely love, maybe ; 
 but it was of the kind that casts out fear. 
 
 " She told me to go as I was ; an troth, I was this 
 way ! " At that, the absurdity came over them, and they 
 both laughed outright. Then Maggie s trouble was as 
 good as over. It was better that she had met John Mul 
 len face to face. 
 
 "It s not a bad-lookin thing, naythur," he said; "an 
 your face doan t shame it. An if iver I gits me rise o 
 wages, Maggie, well, well ! Give me the billet and the 
 parcel, thin ; an shtick the billet within. An you wait 
 here, jist, till I m back agin." He took the book be-
 
 TRYING ON BONNETS. 319 
 
 tween thumb and finger, charily, and away he went, with 
 his big, muddy boots, as clumsy as ever carried a true 
 heart along above them. When he came back, his hands 
 were clean ; and he brought with him a great, red, spotted 
 silk handkerchief, his own, and quite clean, likewise. 
 
 " Was there iver a word about wearin it back agin ? " 
 he asked shrewdly. And with that, he spread the hand 
 kerchief out upon the fresh-springing grass. Maggie, with 
 a lightened heart, took off her head-gear, and laid it down 
 carefully upon the crown, as she had seen her mistress do. 
 Then together they tied up the corners of the kerchief in 
 knots, true lovers knots they were, verily ; and, with 
 something else that I don t feel bound to tell of, they 
 parted. 
 
 " I ain t bad, John," said the girl. " It s only that I 
 never had a whole play-time in my life, and I has to git it 
 by grabs." 
 
 Sunday morning came, bright and balmy. Miss Axie 
 had smoothed out the ribbons of her bonnet with a bit of 
 flannel dampened in cologne-water, had dabbed with the 
 same at the oiled tissue crown-lining, and freshened the 
 flowers and lace as best she might. They were comfort 
 ably well off, the Keenes ; but she could not afford con 
 temptuously to toss aside a bonnet she had just paid four 
 teen dollars for, and cheap at that, with prices running all 
 the way up to sixty. Besides, after all, it was not much 
 the worse for its adventures ; and, if Maggie had only 
 learned a good lesson Well, Miss Axie went to church 
 now to learn her own lesson. 
 
 The Randalls came down the hill, in their pretty, light 
 buggy, young, happy, loving. Miss Axie sighed, pick 
 ing her way along in India-rubbers. The " might have 
 been " was whispering again at her heart, yet not all sadly,
 
 320 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 either ; for she could catch a sympathetic joy, and under 
 her forty years there was somewhere the heart of twenty, 
 hiding waiting. 
 
 All the Mackies came in together, six of them, father, 
 mother, the three handsome boys, and the little, winsome 
 girl. And Susan Mackie was two years younger than she. 
 She was glad of all that, too, glad that it could be. 
 She was like a child, in her inmost heart, before God, 
 one of many, waiting for her share. Not this, but some 
 thing. He has plenty ; and everybody gets his own at 
 last. 
 
 The sermon was dull. The soul of it had been a glow 
 ing thought that had come to the preacher in the night 
 time, standing beside his pillow, as the angels stood of old. 
 But he had had to elaborate ; for a man must preach his 
 five-and-twenty minutes, at the least. That had thinned 
 it out, and almost killed it ; and then came " solution of 
 continuity " between him and his hearers. He felt that, 
 and it killed his delivery. For the first three minutes, 
 the angel had stood beside each spirit. Then they had 
 got the whole ; and they went off wandering, every one 
 his way. 
 
 Miss Axie let her eyes go round from pew to pew, from 
 group to group. It was the Sunday " out of window." 
 She could not help it. Her thought thrust itself into each 
 life there, and would have some of it, for these moments 
 at least. And they all lived for her in part, whether they 
 knew it or not, every one of those filled and answered 
 and well-nigh satisfied souls. And she dreamed her 
 dreams, lived her life over, and fitted it with that which 
 had never been hers. 
 
 But she came to her present self with a start by and by, 
 when the sermon seemed to break off suddenly, and had 
 really reached its slow and lingering end, dying hard,
 
 TRYING ON BONNETS. 321 
 
 as people do sometimes, though they have nothing left to 
 live for. 
 
 She abased herself in the last prayer, blaming herself 
 before God ; yet He knew she could not help it. 
 
 She went home, and took up her Bible to read, in the 
 quietude of her own chamber, just where she had con 
 fronted Maggie yesterday. Where should she open it 
 but at the parable of the unforgiving debtor ? And it 
 came to her then that she herself had gone to do her 
 Master service, in his house, and had been spiritually 
 trying on bonnets ! 
 
 What if she had been taken to task, and made to pay 
 the penalty ? What if her thought had been unmasked 
 before her fellow-worshipers, and shown there in all its 
 foolish guise ? What if they had all seen her there 
 "just as she was " ? 
 
 She had hurt no one ; she had diminished not, by the 
 value of a hair, the worth of that which she had borrowed 
 from her fellows ; she had infringed no ever so trivial 
 right. But the work that she had gone into her Master s 
 house to do, and had put by ! The wider work, perhaps, 
 that she had come into His house of life for, and had cur 
 tailed and defrauded daily somewhat, through her dreams ! 
 In their lower range, what were her little handmaiden s 
 temptations but the types of hers ? 
 
 She sat awhile with her Bible in her hand. Then she 
 got up and rang the bell ; and Maggie came, ashamed 
 and grieved and downcast still. She had not lifted her 
 eyes to her mistress s face all day. Miss Axie went and 
 opened a green box on her bureau, I am afraid Mag 
 gie had peeped into it before now, when she should have 
 been making the bed, and took out a rose, a pink 
 rose with green leaves. It had only been worn on a 
 21
 
 322 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 cap. It was quite fresh and delicate. You might almost 
 smell of it. 
 
 " You behaved well, Maggie, yesterday, after your 
 fault. I am afraid I was a little hard upon you. Put 
 this in your own bonnet, to wear when you go out this 
 afternoon. And don t be idle, Maggie ; though we all 
 have our idle ways, at times." 
 
 The tears came up again ; and she had no fine bonnet 
 in the way now a and Maggie clapped her hands to her 
 eyes. 
 
 " I ain t bad, Miss Axie," she repeated, with the self 
 same plea she had made to John Mullen ; and, unknown 
 to her, the type was running still, all through. " But I 
 never had a whole long play -time in my life, an I has 
 to git it " She broke down. 
 
 But the love that leaned over them both knew the rest 
 of it, and the appeal of neither came up before its tender 
 ness in vain. 
 
 Maggie went down-stairs with a glad face and her rose- 
 blessing. It was a Sunday gift into her dull, hard life. 
 It was a great deal more than just a milliner s flower for 
 a straw bonnet. 
 
 Miss Achsah took up her Bible again. She felt as if 
 she would like somebody to give her a rose ; something 
 that would make her as simply glad ; that she could put 
 into what she had to wear in the world and freshen it all 
 up with some summer beauty. 
 
 She opened to the Old Testament : the leaves parted 
 at the beginning of the book of Judges. And she found 
 her own name there. The story of how Achsah, the 
 daughter of Caleb, went to her father, and complained 
 that he had given her the south the dry land. 
 
 " Give me also springs of water," she said.
 
 TRYING ON BONNETS. 323 
 
 " Ah, yes ; springs of water ! " sighed Miss Axie, stop 
 ping at the line. And then her returning glance read the 
 rest : 
 
 " I will give thee the upper springs and the nether 
 springs." 
 
 Miss Achsah shut the Book with a thanksgiving.
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 
 I. 
 
 HOW ZERUB LEFT TT ALL TO PROVIDENCE. 
 
 ZERUB THROOP sat in his spring-lock sanctum. It was 
 a contrivance of his, whereby it might never be precisely 
 known whether he was out or in ; also, no other person, 
 curious or dishonest, could invade the place to occupy it 
 even for a moment, except with door carefully set wide. 
 He carried the key in his pocket. Once swung to, the 
 heavy leaf fastened itself instantly ; then he and his cigar 
 and his black cat were walled up together. Zerub always 
 kept a black cat. He had had six generations of them, 
 all precisely alike. Where the type varied, the kitten was 
 drowned. 
 
 A staircase led down from the passage without to the 
 side entrance of his house. People on errands, or with 
 bills, or to pay money, or receive orders, came here. Zerub 
 could see from his window who it might be. 
 
 He had an office directly below, where he made pay 
 ments, and signed receipts, and gave such other audiences 
 as he chose, holding thus pretty much all his limited in 
 tercourse with his kind. Unless he owed a man, or a man 
 owed him, or one or the other wanted for money, money s 
 worth of use, property, or service, what should there be 
 between them ? Zerub Throop always wanted to know 
 that. 
 
 He had a little dining-room beyond his office. His
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 325 
 
 sleeping-room was within his sanctum. What if he should 
 die there some night with his oak sported ? 
 
 The whole front of his large old house, a place he had 
 taken a whim to buy furnished as it stood, was unused. 
 
 He had his head out at his window at this moment at 
 which we take him up. He was watching a woman who 
 had come to the door below with something to sell. She 
 had come from a good way off, peddling her wares, or she 
 would never have climbed Tliroop Hill. 
 
 " Tell the mistress it will be sure to make the hair 
 grow, if it s gone ever so." 
 
 " It is n t a mistress, it s a master," said the servant 
 Sarah, from within. " And he don t buy hair-grease ; 
 and he won t have peddlers." 
 
 " It is n t grease ; it s Phoanix Regenerator. It 11 " 
 
 " It s no use, I tell you. Not if it would save souls. 
 I tell you he don t buy things." And Sarah, bethinking 
 of her half-ironed shirt-bosom, and her cooling flats, shut 
 the door summarily. 
 
 Zerub Throop laughed. The woman looked up. 
 
 " My hair never comes out, madam, I assure you," said 
 he with a mocking blandness, and a half bow of his 
 thickly-covered, close-trimmed, grizzled head. " I m not 
 in the habit of losing things." 
 
 " You might, though," she answered, as ready as he. 
 " You might begin ; and it s things that never went be 
 fore that goes worst if they once sets out. When it once 
 begins to drop, you 11 " 
 
 " Hammer it in, ma am ! and rivet it on the other side. 
 Good-morning ; " and Zerub shut his window. 
 
 " Hammer it in ! I guess you re used to hammerin 
 in ; feelins and Christian charities and such. Done the 
 undertakin business pretty much all along, I should say. 
 Well, wait till you re hammered in, and riveted on the 
 other side ! "
 
 326 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 As she walked out of the upper gate upon the hill, an 
 other woman rang the bell at the front door. The sound 
 pealed through the house startlingly. 
 
 Hardly once in a year did any one ring at Zerub 
 Throop s front door. One had to turn aside from the 
 graveled drive to reach it, across a grass plot. Old vines, 
 little trained or cared for, tangled up the porch-way ; but 
 Mrs. Whapshare came to the front door. She had been 
 ten years making up her mind to come at all, ever since 
 her husband died, and left her poor. Now that her little 
 children were growing up, she had a hundred needs for 
 them that pressed her sorer than the needs of ten years 
 ago. They might go out into the world to make their 
 way ; but she wanted life-tools to give them to go out 
 with. Training, knowledge, opportunity, these things, 
 in the outset, must always cost somebody something. She 
 could not give them bread and butter now and send them 
 to bed. There was other feeding that they were hungry 
 for. 
 
 Zerub Throop knew Mrs. Whapshare by sight, as he 
 knew nearly every man and woman in the town ; but he 
 had never spoken to her. Why should he ? She was no 
 tenant of his. He wanted nothing of her ; she could buy 
 nothing of him. The human relation, as Zerub under 
 stood it, failed. The wires were down. 
 
 Yet Mrs. Whapshare came, and rung at his front door. 
 
 " There is a lady, sir, in the northeast room, askin to 
 speak to you," called Sarah, from outside the oak, not 
 knocking, for she knew now that he was there. 
 
 " Why did n t you get rid of her, as you did of the 
 Regenerator ? " half pleased, half surly, at her manage 
 ment ; first good, then bad. 
 
 " She is n t the regeneratin sort. She ain t got bottles, 
 nor yet books, nor yet fortygraphs of President Grant
 
 ZERUB THR OOP S EXPERIMENT. 327 
 
 and Mr. Bismarck Brown. There ain t nothin to send her 
 off on. She jest wants to see you. I can tell you who 
 t is. It s Mis Whapshare, down Ford Street way. She 
 stepped in as if she d made up her mind ; and it s one of 
 the little ones that makes up with a twist." 
 
 Sarah Hand was almost the only person who ever made 
 many words with Zerub Throop ; but her words suited 
 and amused him, and she knew it. It was with a sort of 
 crusty good-humor that he went down into the dim and 
 musty northeast parlor, where Sarah had folded back a 
 single shutter, to see Mrs. Whapshare. 
 
 The lady rose as he entered, stirring the gloom and 
 must of the corner in which she had seated herself, and 
 gathering up, as it were, the darkness into shape with the 
 shadowy movement of her black dress. 
 
 Zerub bowed. 
 
 " Mrs. Whapshare," said the lady, " Mrs. Miles Whap 
 share." 
 
 Zerub sat down, and waited for more. 
 
 " I have come to ask you something, Mr. Throop." 
 
 " Of course, madam. They all do," answered Mr. 
 Throop politely, drawing down his waistcoat, and leaning 
 back in his chair, laying his right foot across his left knee, 
 and folding his arms, as a human being in a state of siege 
 instinctively barricading himself. 
 
 Mrs. Whapshare looked at him quickly. She changed 
 her tone and approach. She was not a timid woman, 
 though she had been ten years making up her mind. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir, I began wrong. I mean, I 
 carne to tell you something." 
 
 Mr. Throop bowed. 
 
 " You owed my husband, Miles Whapshare, fifteen 
 thousand dollars." 
 
 " Once I did," answered Mr. Throop.
 
 328 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Don t you think I mean / do think you owe his 
 children something now." 
 
 " In this country, madam, no one is persecuted for opin 
 ion s sake. You have a perfect right to think so, and 
 to continue thinking so." 
 
 Mrs. Whapshare was forced back to her questions. 
 " Don t you think so, Mr. Throop ? " 
 
 " No, madam. I am quite willing to answer any inquiry 
 you would like to make. I do not think so." 
 
 Mrs. Whapshare had to put it interrogatively again. 
 Otherwise, it was plain the conversation was to drop, and 
 in like manner would perpetually drop. 
 
 " Why, sir ? " 
 
 " In the first place, madam, three and twenty years ago 
 Miles Whapshare had n t any children. Whatever re 
 sponsibilities he undertook afterwards, he undertook in the 
 face of his business loss. He began the world again, as I 
 did. / could n t afford children, ma am. In the second 
 place, I paid him, as I did everybody else, twenty-five 
 cents on the dollar, and was discharged. I began again, 
 and worked up. If Miles Whapshare did n t work up, 
 that is simply the difference between us. In the third 
 place, if I were to call it a debt now, how much do you 
 think the debt would be ? " 
 
 " I don t know. I don t know as that alters it." 
 
 " I 11 tell you, then. Upon fifteen thousand dollars I 
 paid Miles Whapshare three thousand seven hundred and 
 fifty, leaving eleven thousand two hundred and fifty. 
 That, at simple interest, would by this time just about 
 have increased by one and a half. Do you think I owe 
 Miles Whapshare s children to-day twenty-eight thousand 
 one hundred and twenty-five dollars ? It is either that or 
 nothing." 
 
 "I think it is likely it is that, then," replied Mrs.
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 329 
 
 Whapshare, with a calm indifference to the figures. But 
 they would be glad of a very small proportion." 
 
 " Possibly. Miles Whapshare was. But you leave the 
 argument. The grandchildren might come back with 
 their claim, by and by. The world does n t go trailing on 
 after that fashion. When things are squared up, they are 
 squared. There had to be a deluge, once, ma am, and 
 the race began again. Pope Gregory had to strike ten 
 days out of the year 1582, to bring the world s account 
 down to what the sun could pay : and I believe you think 
 your sins are settled for on much the same principle, don t 
 you ? Bankruptcy and discharge seem to be taken into 
 the original plan of things. At any rate, that is what 
 occurs, and there is an accepted order for it. Is this all, 
 madam ? and is your mind satisfied ? " 
 
 And Zerub Throop put down his foot, and arose. 
 
 The woman s figure in black moved again also, making 
 that shape of shadow in the gloomy sofa-corner. A voice 
 that trembled now came out of the shade. 
 
 " It seemed to me as if it ought to have been, some 
 how ; a few thousand dollars would have been so much to 
 us all this time ! and I knew you owed it once. You are 
 rich, Mr. Throop ; and you have nobody to keep your 
 money for." 
 
 " I can leave it to cats and dogs if I like. I can do as 
 I please with my own." 
 
 " You may think you can," said the widow, speaking 
 firmly again ; " but it will be as Providence pleases, after 
 all. Even the king s heart is in the hand of the Lord." 
 
 " Very well ! try Providence ; but if Providence is any 
 thing like Zerub Throop, it won t do to begin by telling 
 him he owes you an old debt on somebody s else account." 
 
 " You know about that Mrs. Whapshare ? " Mr. Throop
 
 830 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 said, interrogatively, to Sarah Hand, when she was bring 
 ing in his dinner, a roasted duck with port-wine sauce. 
 " She s a pretty comfortable sort of person, I should 
 think." 
 
 " Well," answered Sarah, " folks is most alwers pretty 
 comfortable, ain t they, xcept the regular give-up starva 
 tion ones ? You see em goin round ; and they has shoes 
 an stockins on, an gowns, an bunnits, or coats and hats ; 
 an they goes in somewheres when it rains, or it comes 
 night ; an they git breakfast, an dinner, an supper, I 
 s pose, or else they would n t be goin round. You don t 
 see em droppiu nowheres. Of course, they re comfort 
 able. Everybody gets shook down into some sort of a 
 place. The world s like a hoss-car : they git in an they 
 git out ; an they ve been took along between. Some sets 
 down, and some stands up, and some hangs on to the 
 straps. Some gits into a place at the beginning, and some 
 slips into one when somebody else gits out. There don t 
 seem to be no rule about it ; it regilates itself." 
 
 " But Mrs. Whapshare ? she lives in a good house." 
 
 " They can t eat shingles and timbers, though. T ain t 
 like little King Boggins." 
 
 " She has a roof over her head, however, and it is her 
 own. She has several children." 
 
 " More. She s got six." 
 
 " All grown up ? " 
 
 " Well, the everidge of em is. Charlotte, she s eleven. 
 Miles Whapshare died ten years ago, and did n t leave 
 much of anything but the old house and the garding and 
 the six children and a mess of old store-books full of 
 bad debts and tribulations." 
 
 " Been to school? " 
 
 " Children ? Yes, an meetin , an Sunday-school, right 
 straight along. John, he s got a place in a store. They re
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 331 
 
 nice folks enough. Mis Whapshare ain t got much force 
 to her, though." 
 
 " I should think she had done pretty well under the 
 circumstances." 
 
 " That s just it. She s a woman that s always been 
 under a lot of em, clear down. What business do 
 folks have to be under the circumstances, I wonder ? Why 
 don t they get on top of em ? What is circumstances 
 made for? " 
 
 " To stand round, Sarah," said Mr. Throop, in italics. 
 " If you knew Latin, you d see. That s what we ve 
 got to do with em. Keep em in their places. Make em 
 stand round ! " 
 
 Or git," said Sarah, sententiously. 
 
 Mr. Throop laughed. 
 
 " Bring me a lemon," he said ; and Sarah, having done 
 that, understood that the conversation was at an end, and 
 withdrew, like a circumstance, into the kitchen. 
 
 The one course over, Zerub went, as was his custom, up 
 stairs to his wine, his dessert, and his cigar. He never ate 
 pastry. A little fruit was set upon the round table in his 
 sanctum, also a basket of small sweet biscuits, these 
 more especially for the benefit of the cat, to whom he fed 
 them ; beside these, a bottle with cap of tinfoil over the 
 cork, his cigar-holder, tray, and match-box In this com 
 pany Mr. Throop always read his papers after dinner for 
 an hour. The cat, when she had got biscuits enough, dozed 
 beside him on a soft, square sofa-cushion, flung down, for 
 her use, upon the floor. Zerub pulled her ears once in a 
 while, and woke her up to tell her the news and what he 
 thought about it. 
 
 " She knows, and she don t contradict," said he. To 
 day, he did not read long. 
 
 They 11 get into a nice mess in Europe ; won t they,
 
 332 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Tophet ? They ve got to, sooner or later ; that s what I 
 told the Whapshare woman. The world s never safe from 
 a muddle but when it s just out of one ; and if you can t 
 be safe then for a while, what s the use of the muddle ? 
 Hey, old cat ? " 
 
 Tophet rose lazily, stretched out her fore-legs to their 
 farthest possible extent, stretched up her hind ones, lifting 
 her back into a heap, and dropping her neck into a hollow ; 
 then gathered herself together again, with raised and 
 vibrant tail, and rubbed and coiled herself round her 
 master s ankles. 
 
 " I wonder how it would seem to do it, old cat ? I won 
 der what she would think herself, if I really did ? See here 
 now ; " and Mr. Throop drew forth his great wallet, and 
 therefrom took a slip of white paper, such as he kept 
 ready for bills and receipts. He dipped a pen into an ink 
 stand that stood upon the table, and wrote four lines. 
 
 " That would do it." 
 
 He was only thinking now, not soliloquizing. Mr. 
 Throop never did that foolish thing ; he only talked out 
 now and then, in scraps, to the cat. 
 
 He sat holding that which he had from a queer impulse 
 written, fancying queer what -if s about it. 
 
 " That would do it. Give that woman this slip of 
 paper, and it turns her life right over for her, t other side 
 up again, the side she has n t seen for ten, twenty years, 
 perhaps, by that time, no, nor ever ; and it alters six lives 
 after hers. , 
 
 " I don t suppose anybody ever wrote exactly such a 
 note as that ; could n t be discounted. It would stand 
 good, though, when the time came. Mrs. Whapshare, 
 two things are between you and this slip of paper, my 
 will, and my life. I can, and I can not. There comes in 
 free agency, and all the rest of it. It is certain that I
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 333 
 
 either shall or shall not turn this freak into fact. Certain 
 somewhere. Where ? In time, or Providence ? Provi 
 dence may meddle with such things ; hut I never came 
 across Providence amongst em, that s all. I ve had my 
 way to woi k up ; and I ve heen left pretty much to my 
 self ; and I ve worked it. I m left to myself now. Am 
 I, though ? How do I know ? 
 
 " See here, what if I do neither ? What if I leave it 
 to Providence to finish it. if it will ? " 
 
 There was a small blank in one of the four lines. 
 Zeruh Throop dipped his pen again, and filled the space 
 with two words. He turned it over, and indorsed it with 
 a date and a sentence. Then he laid down the pen, and 
 sat folding and rolling the paper abstractedly several min 
 utes until he held it in a tight round, like a very small 
 Catherine-wheel, between his finger and his thumb. 
 
 " Would it ever fire off? " he wondered. 
 
 In the same whimsical, half voluntary way, as if letting 
 his vagary, that he might stop at any point, run on with 
 him, he tore a bit of tinfoil from the sheath that had cov 
 ered his bottle, and rolled it again, carefully and com 
 pactly, in that. He folded and pressed and smoothed the 
 foil around it, and welded it into a silvery ball. 
 
 " Did you ever see a secret, Tophet ? " he said to the 
 cat. " That s a secret. That s the sort of thing it is, 
 when you take it out of your mind and look at it." 
 
 Then he sat holding it again, amusing himself so, 
 playing passively, as it were, with fate and possibility, 
 others fate that he thought he held ; first in his own mind 
 and will, now, since he had taken it out and looked at 
 it, between his thumb and finger. 
 
 But what was he to do next, or not to do, seeing he had 
 given it up to Providence ? Providence would neither 
 put it by, out of his thumb and finger, nor throw it away.
 
 334 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " I won t destroy the thing," he said. " I 11 go as far 
 as that, and then it is out of my hands. I 11 leave it 
 loose on creation. Things have to go somewhere. What 
 difference will it make to me ? " 
 
 He laid it out of his fingers on the table, anywhere, 
 as it happened to fall. 
 
 " That s all between you and me, Tophet," he said. 
 
 " Ni ai o ! " answered the cat. 
 
 " And the post, Tophet ; you and me and the post. 
 What do people mean by the post ? " 
 
 Then he took his hat and cane, and went off for his 
 afternoon walk. 
 
 Zerub Throop was not an ill-souled man ; he was only 
 a strange, solitary one, grown selfish and one-viewed 
 through solitariness, and through having " worked his way 
 up." 
 
 Sarah Hand came up-stairs, found the door hooked back 
 that she might enter, carried off the empty bottle, the 
 fruit-basket, and the torn bit of tinfoil that was evidently 
 rubbish, beside it. She picked up the round bright ball, 
 looked at it, turned it over, saw that it was folded, not 
 crumpled, and laid it into the little grooved lid at the top 
 of Mr. Throop s writing-desk, to keep company with an 
 old knife, a bit of sealing-wax, some used pens, and a 
 piece of India-rubber. Sarah Hand never " cleared up " 
 anything that could by any possibility ever be called for 
 or thought of again. There were old bits of paper, scrib 
 bled with temporary calculations, tucked between the 
 leaves of his blotting-book, thrust into his match-box, and 
 clasped among the notes and scraps in his little gilt finger- 
 clip, that had been dusted over and replaced for month 
 after month, even year after year. 
 
 So, when Zerub came home, there the secret lay, taken 
 care of by Providence and Sarah Hand. There it con-
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 335 
 
 tinned to lie for several weeks ; till, one day, when he 
 lifted the grooved lid to find something that was under 
 neath, the silvery ball rolled out at the end, and upon the 
 table, and down to the floor. 
 
 Zerub looked at it. " It s out of my keeping," said he ; 
 " I ve nothing to do with it." And he let it lie. 
 
 Sarah Hand picked it up when she swept next day, and 
 dropped it into the bronze match-box, where it fell to .the 
 bottom, among some stray tacks and screws and buttons 
 that were safe there from being lost or wasted, and also 
 from ever being drafted to any earthly use. 
 
 Zerub did not ask for it, or look for it. It had fairly 
 got beyond his knowledge now, as when one willfully loses 
 count of some sound or motion one has pained one s self 
 involuntarily in following, and is thankful to let go. One 
 night, months after, he upset his match-box in the dark. 
 The dust that fell from it got brushed up in the morning, 
 the tacks and screws and buttons put back again, and no 
 body, of course, thought of or recollected anything more ; 
 until, that same afternoon, sitting with his wine and his 
 paper and his cigar, Zerub saw the cat claw something 
 from under the edge of the low, broad base of his round 
 table, give it a pat, to try if it had life and fun in it, and 
 send it shining across the floor. 
 
 " Why, that s " said Zerub ; but before he came to 
 the exclamation-point at the end of his sentence, Tophet 
 was after it again ; and a second buffet drove it straight 
 before his eyes to the one possible spot where it could get 
 lost out f that room, down the open lips of the old- 
 fashioned, brass-valved register. 
 
 "That s all!" said Zerub, with a deliberate period. 
 "Nothing is lost while you know where it is. But it s 
 none of our business; is it, black cat? " 
 
 They two knew ; and they never told.
 
 336 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Afterwards, Zerub Throop lived on for the space of 
 two years and five months, and gathered to himself his 
 interests and his dividends, and smoked his cigar daily 
 after his dinner ; but he never spoke again with Miles 
 Whapshare s widow, or put her name again to any paper 
 that he wrote or caused to be written ; and at the end of 
 this time, suddenly, and in the midst of his strength, he 
 turned away from all these things, as if he had never 
 striven for or possessed them, and went, as we all go, to 
 " work his way " up farther. 
 
 II. 
 
 HOW IT WAS WITH THE WHAPSHARES. 
 
 Mrs. Whapshare went out through the tangled porch, 
 and heard Mr. Throop draw the rusty bolt behind her. 
 There was an odd blank in her mind as she walked down 
 the hill into the town again, as if she had taken some 
 hope up there with her that she had been long used to, 
 and had buried it, and was coming back into her life 
 alone, without it. 
 
 It had been, all these ten years, a kind of vague assur 
 ance to her to see Zerub Throop go by, up and down the 
 street, and to think to herself, " That man failed, and owed 
 my husband eleven thousand dollars that he could not pay. 
 He has got it now, and plenty more ; I ve a great will to 
 go, some day, and remind him of it." 
 
 It helped her, this undefined hope and half -intent, 
 almost unconsciously, through many a hard pinch. She 
 had a nut that she might yet crack, as they do in fairy 
 tales, when they get to the worst ; and who knew what 
 might come of it ? Anything, everything, might ; and, so 
 long as there is a " might " in one s life, one can go on ; 
 it is a reserve in the army of one s forces.
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 337 
 
 This morning she had gone and cracked her nut ; and 
 there had come out of it black ashes. 
 
 She looked so tired when she came in, that Martha, her 
 daughter, did not tell her that the soup was burned ; but 
 she smelled it, coining in out of the fresh air. Burnt 
 peas are pungent. 
 
 " There s our dinner gone ! " said she. 
 
 " No," spoke out Caroline from the kitchen ; and she 
 opened, with a gay clatter, the oven-door. " Smell my 
 potato puff ; and we ve an omelet just ready ; and you re 
 to have a cup of tea, with a tablespoonful of cream that 
 I got off the bowl for you this morning." 
 
 That was Caroline Whapshare s way with things. Mar 
 tha took them harder. 
 
 " I think the soup is always burned for us," she would 
 say. " There s a wrong somewhere, that things should 
 be so." 
 
 She was like the Jews, who asked, " Who hath sinned, 
 this man or his parents ? " 
 
 Caroline had the Christ-answer ready. 
 
 " Not so much a wrong, maybe, as something to be set 
 gloriously right. How good it will be when the sun 
 breaks out in the west, Mattie ! " 
 
 " Yes, away down ; just a strip for the last minutes 
 under the clouds, when the day is all gone." 
 
 " Even then, it is not as if there were not another 
 coming." 
 
 " That does not help the Johnnie feeling." 
 
 Now, when John Whapshare had been a little boy, he 
 had given the household this compound substantive and a 
 proverb. They were trying to comfort him for a child 
 ish disappointment, by telling him of the good time he 
 was to have next week, at Thanksgiving. " Ye-e-s," he 
 persisted, sobbing with undiniinished vigor ; " but what 
 kind of a time be I a-havin now ? "
 
 338 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Martha thought the family had been brought up on the 
 Johnnie feeling. 
 
 " Mother has lost something," she said to Caroline, 
 over the dinner dishes, that day. " She looks as if she 
 had had something put away, and had gone to get it, and 
 it was not there." 
 
 " What queer ideas you have, Mattie ! " 
 
 " Maybe. I feel all sharpened up, as if I knew things 
 through the ends of my fingers. Queer ideas come of 
 queer living. What are we going to do with that old 
 straw matting for winter? " 
 
 " It was rather a pity in the beginning. Children do 
 scrape their chairs so ! " 
 
 " Well, it s the end now ; and it has only lasted a year. 
 It is terribly expensive to be poor, Car. If we had had 
 a good ingrain for half as much again, it would have 
 lasted six years." 
 
 " I 11 tell you what I have thought of," said Car. 
 " That northeast parlor, we cannot do much with it in 
 cold weather. What is the use of having a best room 
 when you cannot have an every-day one ? We are right 
 on the corner of the street ; we might let it for fifty or 
 sixty dollars a year ; and then there would be the carpet 
 and all the things to spare. We could fill up with them 
 splendidly for ever so long." 
 
 " That very best Brussels carpet ? " 
 
 " Well, yes ; twenty-two years old, is it not ? Older 
 than either you or I, Mattie ; which is all the reason we 
 venerate it so. It was the best when we were born ; and 
 we were never allowed to have any crumbs over it. It is 
 not handsome." 
 
 " But let a room ? Who to, or what for ? " 
 
 " To some comfortable old maid ; or for an office, or a 
 shop, or anything. Why should we care ? I believe I 
 shall put it into mother s head."
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 339 
 
 " How we should miss it in summer ! our only cool, 
 shady place ! " 
 
 " It is a good thing to let things go when you do not 
 miss them. Then, when the missing time comes round, 
 you rub along somehow. That s the way, too, for poor 
 folks to give. I ve something else to propound, Mattie, 
 some time ; and I don t know whether to do it all in a 
 heap, or to wait another year. For it must be a winter- 
 strained notion too." 
 
 " I think when you are pretty well thumped already is 
 the time to take another. You might as well keep on 
 hammering." 
 
 " We might sell our garden for fifteen hun 
 dred dollars, Martha Whapshare ! " 
 
 The first few words came slow and hard, trying their 
 way as they came, Caroline s eye fixed closely upon Mar 
 tha s face. The last all ran together in a great hurry and 
 triumph. 
 
 "We might all get into our caskets!" answered 
 Martha, with a sepulchral indignation. " You would 
 leave us just about room enough." 
 
 " Lydia ought to have those organ lessons that she 
 wants so much, and an organ to practise on. It would 
 be a profession for her." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 Caroline opened her eyes at her sister. " Why, of 
 course it would. Are they not building new churches 
 everywhere, all the time ? and are not all the women 
 taking to preaching, which will leave a capital chance for 
 anybody that is willing just to glorify at the other end, 
 without being seen of men ? " 
 
 " Pshaw ! I don t mean that. How do you know about 
 the garden ? " 
 
 " I asked Rufus Abell. He knows. I would n t go at 
 mother, and stir her up for nothing, you see."
 
 340 HOMESPUtf YARNS. 
 
 Martha rubbed the cover of a potato-dish silently for a 
 full minute, looking at nothing, with that " setness " in 
 her features, her eyelids fixed at half-mast, neither lift 
 ing nor falling, a white pinch in the end of her nose, and 
 the corners of her mouth crowded down with the close 
 shutting of her small jaws, as if her indignation at life 
 were held in somewhere behind her face, as a smoker 
 takes in and holds tobacco smoke. 
 
 " She held her breath, and the mad went out at her 
 ears," she said once of herself when she was a child. 
 
 " I think it is a very prettily managed world," she re 
 marked quietly, when she had put the dish-cover down 
 and shaken out the towel. " All Oregon and Alaska 
 empty at one end, and people crowded out of their door- 
 yards at the other. I m going to talk to mother about it." 
 
 While " the mad went out at her ears," Martha s 
 mind was always calmly made up to the inevitable. Her 
 mother had lost some might, could, would, or should, to 
 day ; she had seen that ; she might as well piece out the 
 conditionals for her. Martha Whapshare said her mother 
 lived in the conditional mood. 
 
 Caroline knew how it would be beforehand ; it was 
 the regular circumlocution of things in the family. She 
 had the ideas. Martha growled at and presented them ; 
 Mrs. Whapshare laid them up among the mights, coulds, 
 woulds, shoulds ; now and then one was drawn out in an 
 emergency, and acted upon. 
 
 Rufus Abell came, and measured the garden-piece. 
 Rufus Abell was surveyor, real-estate agent, broker, law 
 yer, executor, what-not, to half the people, living or dead, 
 who had, or had had, interests in Rintheroote. 
 
 There were thirty-two hundred square feet : " it would 
 sell," he said, " for fifty cents a foot ; that would be six 
 teen hundred dollars." Mrs. Whapshare went to bed
 
 ZERUB THRO OP S EXPERIMENT. 341 
 
 with sixteen hundred dollars in her pocket of possibilities. 
 On the strength of that, they had sirloin steak for dinner 
 the next day. That did all the family good ; in regular 
 turn, it would have heen salt fish, " one of the make- 
 believe days," Martha called it ; when the dinner was got 
 over, and no one dined. They made believe, at regular 
 intervals, with salt cod, baked beans, pea-soup, and liver. 
 That left three days in the week for something real, 
 two at first-hand, and one warmed up. 
 
 Mr. Abell also put a notice up at the post-office, and 
 into the village paper, of a desirable corner-room to let in 
 a dwelling-house, in a central locality, suitable for a single 
 lady or a professional man ; apply to him. 
 
 A great many people applied, two washer-women ; a 
 horse-car conductor with a wife and seven children ; an 
 intelligence-office keeper ; the teacher of a boys private 
 school. At last a young doctor, newly come to the neigh 
 borhood, Arthur Plaice, got it ; paid twenty dollars in 
 advance for the first quarter, twelve of which Caroline 
 Whapshare took to the city the next day, and paid, also 
 in advance, for the same length of time, for a Mason and 
 Ilamlin organ. This came out on the same express-wagon 
 that brought Dr. Plaice s desk and arm-chair and book 
 shelves. 
 
 They got acquainted with their tenant over the unload 
 ing and bringing in. The ladies Whapshare had been 
 rather shy of him before. 
 
 He helped the expressman bring in the great box into 
 their sitting-room ; then he stayed, and unscrewed it for 
 them, and drew the instrument safely out, according to 
 directions ; then, when they opened it, and wondered how 
 it would sound, and what Lydia would say when she came 
 home, he put a chair before it, and seated himself, opened 
 the stops, and touched the keys with a few beautiful glad
 
 342 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 chords, and played what Caroline always called afterward, 
 the " Which being interpreted." It had in it struggles 
 and changes, and snatches of comfort, and little climbing- 
 up-hill notes, and sure high ones, and droppings and sob 
 bings down again ; yes, and " the very little pinches too, 
 that nobody noticed but the pinched people ; " and it had 
 the great reach and longing ; and, at last, a grasp and a 
 joy, and a gentle flood of bright content, that filled the 
 room and all their hearts as they listened, just as the sunset 
 and the home pleasantness filled it, and glorified its new 
 aspect ; with the best things brought in for every day, and 
 the " real Brussels," faded though it might be, on the floor, 
 and the organ standing in the shady corner. 
 
 The old maid, Miss Suprema Sharpe, lived right opposite, 
 and could see, over her blinds, all that occurred. What 
 she did not see, she heard ; and what she did not hear, 
 she imagined ; and what she saw, heard, or imagined, of 
 a morning, for example, she ran up street, of an afternoon, 
 and told to her friend, Mrs. Benny Dutell, while it was 
 warm ; just as she might carry ginger-cakes. 
 
 She was not a bad old maid, either ; that is, she did not 
 mean to be. She only lived all alone, and there did not 
 much happen to her. Nine from four you can t ; so you 
 borrow ten. Miss Suprema went borrowing ten all along 
 the line. She got things mixed up sometimes, and her 
 sums would n t prove. 
 
 Mrs. Benny Dutell was the postmaster s wife ; what 
 came to her never grew cool in her hands ; so that you 
 had your own story passed round to you again presently, 
 or even beforehand ; as if it had got ahead of the sun 
 round the world, by the way of Upper Five Corners, or 
 Lower Green Point. 
 
 Dr. Plaice had hardly gone away into his office, when 
 Miss Suprema came " perpendiculating " over. She walked
 
 ZERUB THRO OP S EXPERIMENT. 343 
 
 very stiff and straight and quick ; so that she seemed like 
 a stick shot broadside, instead of endwise, keeping its up 
 rightness as it went ; or as a water-spout or a sand-column, 
 that slides tall and swift from horizon to horizon, without 
 a motion or a swaying, save determinately on. 
 
 Nothing prevented Miss Suprema from getting over 
 sooner, and meeting Dr. Plaice there, but an embarras 
 des richesses. She stood in the middle of her bedroom, 
 and fairly spun when she saw the furniture going in, and 
 the big box, marked " Cabinet Organ," slid over the 
 threshold along a board ; when she spied by the strong 
 western light shining in level through the room, the busy 
 group about it unpacking ; and when Dr. Plaice sat down 
 and began to play. Her bonnet was in the closet ; and 
 she would have to turn her back, and disturb her hearing, 
 to fetch it and put it on ; besides, if she did, which 
 way ? She was in a hurry to get to Mrs. Benny s before 
 the sun went down upon her pheese ; and she was eager 
 to gather more to go with to-morrow. She wanted to run 
 right in among the Whapshares, and she did not want to 
 " stop things ; " the end was, that she came in upon their 
 comfortable twilight complacency, waiting for Lydia s 
 return and rapture. 
 
 "Well, I declare! You are spread out!" 
 
 Miss Suprema looked round the room beamingly. She 
 looked at the carpet, and the gray moreen curtains, and 
 the marble-topped pier-table ; she did not mean to see 
 everything all at once ; she let the organ wait in its shady 
 corner. 
 
 " No, Miss Suprema," said Caroline ; " not spread out ; 
 only drawn in. The syrup is boiled down, that is all." 
 
 " To a richness ! Well, how elegant you do look ! You 
 won t let it make any difference towards me, will you ; 
 but I may run in neighborly just the same, if I rub my 
 feet well? "
 
 344 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Miss Suprema had quick little looks,, that she sent every 
 where out of her round brown eyes like a squirrel s ; never 
 moving her body, that sat straight up from the edge of 
 her chair, but only her head. Lydia Whapshare said 
 all she wanted was a bushy tail, and a nut between her 
 forepaws. But, to do her full credit, the nut was seldom 
 lacking, metaphorically ; and the tale was bushy enough 
 by the time she ran up the road again with it, along under 
 the wall. 
 
 5jith her swift continued peeps, she was the first to see 
 Dr. Arthur Plaice, standing again in the doorway of the 
 room in the increasing twilight. 
 
 " Can you lend me a hammer for a moment, Mrs. 
 Whapshare ? " he asked. 
 
 And while Mrs. Whapshare went for the hammer, 
 Suprema Sharpe had a good look at him, with what light 
 there was at her own back, and full in his face. 
 
 He was a very handsome man, she saw that, with a 
 square, firm figure, not over-tall, a calm equipoise in look 
 and attitude, and all the indescribable bearing of a gentle 
 man, that shows itself whether he stands quietly waiting, 
 or moves and speaks. 
 
 He neither came into the room, nor withdrew shyly, but 
 simply stood where the last natural act left him, until it 
 should be time for the next. Self-consciousness, which is 
 neither ladylike nor gentlemanly, always has to do some 
 thing between. Dr. Plaice could make a pause. When 
 Mrs. Whapshare brought him the hammer, he thanked 
 her and turned away. 
 
 " So that s him ? " said Miss Suprema. 
 
 " That is Dr. Plaice," replied Mrs. Whapshare. 
 
 " Young, is n t he?" 
 
 " I dare say. I do not know his age." 
 
 " Just beginning. Well, you won t be much knocked
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 345 
 
 up nights yet a while. To be sure, he s got the little east 
 door to himself. It 11 be sociable evenings. It s a good 
 plan to have somebody there. I wonder you never 
 thought of it before. You did n t really want that room. 
 If you had only made up your mind last year, there was 
 little Lot Green looking everywhere for a place to put up 
 his sign, and begin turnin at law. You would n t have 
 had much company of him, though, for his evenings were 
 spoken for ; and it would n t have been permanent, be 
 cause he s married now, and keeping house and office all 
 together. I guess it happened right as it is." 
 
 " We had only just come through to the bare floor 
 here," said Martha, bluntly ; " and I don t suppose we 
 shall have much to do with Dr. Plaice s evenings." 
 
 " He s right in the house, anyway ; and there s always 
 hammers and things ; you 11 get acquainted. Well, I must 
 go. I only looked in for a minute. I 11 come again. If 
 anything should happen that I should n t be able to come, 
 you know, why, there s the doctor ; and one of my little 
 quinsies might be an encouragement to him." 
 
 She fairly forgot the organ, after all. 
 
 She stood on the sidewalk for a moment, when she had 
 got out, with a flapping in her mind that she was subject 
 to, like a sail in a flaw of wind. She trimmed her decis 
 ions, however, quickly, and laid her course direct for Mrs. 
 Dutell s. 
 
 She must go, sundown or not. She had a little joke on 
 the tip of her tongue that tingled. Keep it overnight ? 
 She might as well have tried to keep a Spanish fly there. 
 
 She was in too much of a hurry with it, though, when 
 she reached Mrs. Benny s. 
 
 " It s easy enough to guess now what will take 
 Plaice ! " she cried right out, without preface. 
 
 " La ! what ? " said Mrs. Benny Dutell.
 
 346 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Then Miss Suprema saw that she had begun at the 
 wrong end of her little joke, and spoiled it. I am viciously 
 glad she did. I am glad she found out once in a while, in 
 her own small way, which was all the way she could, how 
 good it is to have things tipped out in a hurry, wrong end 
 foremost. There are two kinds of gossip, the one that 
 purely invents or recklessly misrepresents ; and the one 
 that shrewdly spies, puts this and that together, guesses, 
 and anticipates ; and the latter is indescribably the most 
 aggravating. It was Miss Suprema s sort. 
 
 You can sit in your own room complacently, with a three 
 weeks influenza, and be told from outside that you have 
 got the varioloid, or a softening of the brain ; or that you 
 have quarreled with your wife or husband, and run away. 
 All that will right itself ; but to be informed that you 
 are about to give out invitations to a party, or publish a 
 book, or go to Europe, when you can t say you have n t it 
 in your mind, or to be " speered at " in regard to an im 
 pending engagement in your family, which you can neither 
 declare nor deny, to be told your own news before it is 
 news, I wonder if that was not the devil s fine art in 
 torturing Job ? His friends came to tell him of all these 
 things, which was all they were left alive for. I think he 
 must have wished they had not been left alive, and that 
 he could have found the things out quietly in time for him 
 self. 
 
 This looking over shoulders spiritually into the page of 
 a life that is barely being written, this picking pockets of 
 personal experience, is the mean enormity of which the 
 literal prying into private letters, or stealing porte-mon- 
 naies, are only feeble types. Yet the social pickpockets 
 run about safely and respectably, spending their stolen 
 change, and there is no house of correction for them. 
 
 Arthur Plaice had not got his clothes hung up in his
 
 ZERUB TH ROOF S EXPERIMENT. 347 
 
 closet, or his books put up on their shelves, before all that 
 might happen, well, all that did happen, for what is the 
 use of trying to keep the story back after a Miss Suprema 
 has seized hold of it ? was an " I told you so ! " in 
 Rintheroote. 
 
 There are two ways in which very ordinary men are in 
 fluenced by this social force which is brought to bear upon 
 their doings (doings, I mean, which tend, or may drift, 
 matrimonially), and of which they usually become aware 
 before the women do. It either frightens them off, or 
 frightens them on. Arthur Plaice showed his manhood 
 in that it did neither with him. 
 
 He was probably well aware that all Rintheroote was 
 peeping and noticing, guessing and prophesying ; yet he 
 went in and out just the same, coming into easy and nat 
 ural contact with the Whapshare family, living along pre 
 cisely as if his life had been let alone. 
 
 Caroline, the pretty one, and the obvious one, of the 
 Whapshare girls, shielded by this simple " grit," as 
 Robert Collyer would call it, of the young doctor, from the 
 shame and harassment that many a delicate girl does 
 have to go through, that I have seen delicate girls suf 
 fer from, of knowing that a thing has been surmised 
 impertinently, and that he has heard it, and is shy or cool 
 in consequence, Caroline Whapshare went on inno 
 cently and quietly, and kept her little school up-stairs. 
 
 There was nothing said about the school before ? No ; 
 because we came in at the Whapshares , out of school- 
 hours, at dinner-time, when the pea-soup was burning ; 
 and in the afternoons the little children did not come. 
 
 Caroline Whapshare had not served an apprenticeship 
 to any system. She had never been inside a kindergar 
 ten ; but she had a garden for little children in her heart, 
 as every woman has who is born with the genius of
 
 348 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 motherhood in her, a place full of blessed waiting 
 growths and living images of truth, vital and simple with 
 the child-instinct in them, that has never died out of 
 her, but flowers forth in its heavenly use when the chil 
 dren come, as it was ordained. 
 
 She was full of little, bright teaching thoughts. Things 
 came to her in clear, happy object-fashion. She delighted 
 to tell them again to little, growing souls, or even to think 
 how she might do it. She felt always, going through the 
 pleasant mind-and-spirit places, just as she did once in 
 riding through a beautiful country, full of farm cheeriness 
 and woodland beauty, and far-away, unhaunted nooks 
 and seclusions. " Oh, what lovely places to be a little 
 child in ! " 
 
 So she brought out of all her school knowledge and her 
 later readings, fresh, charming applications. There was 
 nothing old and trite with her ; nothing that only letters 
 and syllables stood for. The object, the very thing itself 
 taught of, was palpable to her imagination ; and she made 
 it palpable to the child, in words quick from the live sense 
 in herself, or in some quaint, clever, bewitching little im 
 provised play. She kept a kindergarten without knowing 
 it, or setting it up to be such. 
 
 Martha could not keep school ; she should not have the 
 patience, she said. She did the Martha-work, and was 
 cumbered, and sometimes cross, poor girl ! with much 
 serving. 
 
 There were times in that square upper south chamber, 
 where the sun came in on the bare floor, and where three 
 benches and three little rows of desks formed three sides 
 of a quadrangle, and the fireplace was the fourth, with 
 the teacher s table in the corner between it and the win 
 dow, times that those little souls will never forget for 
 their early blessedness ; times of reciting that were like
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 349 
 
 play, and play-times that were like oh ! what were they 
 like? when they went "round the barberry-bush," or 
 " hunted the squirrel through the wood, and lost him and 
 found him; " or sang Chickany, chickany, craney crow," 
 and ran from the fox that was after the brood of them. 
 AVhy, those four plain walls, and that bare floor, and the 
 three little low benches that they jumped over for safety, 
 were to them all wild and beautiful nature, full of fables 
 and fairy tales that they were playing out. And Caroline 
 Whapshare was just as young and as pleased, and as full 
 of " make-believe " and " certain-true " as any of them. 
 
 I think it was the little school, as much as anything, 
 that Arthur Plaice fell in love with. 
 
 All winter long the little feet, trudging up and down 
 the long back stairs, and the little voices, shrill and sweet 
 and happy, sounded into his heart, and told tales there ; 
 and all winter long the sight of Caroline Whapshare s 
 face, fair and sunshiny, grew to be to him a daily bread 
 of blessing that his life had waited for. 
 
 He did spend many an evening in the cosy home room, 
 where they were " having the good of their best things ; " 
 he helped Charlotte with her sums, and he mended Miles s 
 skates ; he went off skating with them all, boys and girls, 
 up the shining river, in the still, keen moonlight ; he 
 brought home nuts sometimes, and cracked and picked 
 them, and Martha made pan-candy ; he read aloud lovely 
 stories, and books of curious fact, while the sewing-baskets 
 were out and the needles were busy ; he showed John 
 how to carve brackets and boxes ; he played for them 
 upon the organ ; and on Sunday evenings they all sang 
 together glorious and tender hymns, or listened while he 
 drew forth from the stops and keys the grand, beautiful 
 meanings of Handel and Beethoven. 
 
 He brought into the house a wealth of resource and
 
 350 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 companionship ; and in return he received home. He 
 had not had a home before for fifteen years ; there had 
 only been for him school and college, and the world. 
 
 Why could not people let them all alone, to take what 
 God was giving, and to make their simple history ? 
 
 All the while, the vulgar, hurrying gossip was going 
 about, robbing the sweet, unconscious time that lives have 
 a right to before they find out their own whole secrets ; 
 interfering, concluding, spoiling. For while Caroline 
 knew nothing of it, because they guarded her so, and 
 because she had that kind of dignity that silly imperti 
 nence could never approach directly, Arthur Plaice and 
 her mother each came to know it separately quite well ; 
 and each felt at last uncomfortably responsible. 
 
 Dr. Plaice was not scared nor small about it. He had 
 no little pitiful, provoked corner in his mind, ever so far 
 back, in which he visited upon Caroline "Whapshare the 
 annoyance he certainly did feel. Her face was just as 
 dear and sunshiny to him as ever ; and he let her see just 
 as plainly the reflected shine in his. But he knew that 
 he had a long waiting-time before him in his life ; and he 
 had a conscience : these two things made a difference. 
 
 He began to be busy in his office, or to be called away 
 now and then, more frequently than he had used. Mrs. 
 Whapshare had ripping, untidy, or bulky work up-stairs 
 sometimes, and carried off the large kerosene lamp from 
 below to do it by ; and where mother was, there was al 
 ways the household. Even Miss Suprema could see that 
 they were not always now " lit up and waiting " in the 
 curtained room. Lydia had a candle, and practised all 
 alone, often ; that was dull. It was all duller than it had 
 been ; they hardly knew when it began to change, but the 
 winter grew a great deal wearier toward the end. 
 
 It made no difference ; they could not defend them-
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 351 
 
 selves ; gossip would have something. Dr. Plaice was 
 "cooling off" now; the AVhapshares had "taken hold 
 rather too strong;" "all the time never held out ;" "it 
 would do Dr. Plaice more good, as a young physician, to 
 go about and become acquainted generally." " And what 
 could it amount to ? Neither of them had anything." " It 
 was strange a woman of Mrs. Whapshare s experience 
 had n t had more judgment." 
 
 Some of these things crept round at last to Martha s 
 knowledge. They made her harder and sharper than 
 ever. She said nothing about them ; but she was brusque, 
 even rude, now and then, to Arthur Plaice ; she was 
 abrupt with her mother, and with Caroline she was like a 
 thorn-hedge, bristling and thrusting sharp points at her 
 continually, by way of sheltering her in. 
 
 Yet, as Suprema Sharpe herself had said, he was " there 
 right in the house ; and there were always hammers and 
 things." Some pleasant hours were natural, inevitable ; 
 he could not always be denying himself ; neither could 
 even Martha be always on guard against what there might 
 be no real danger of, and at any rate was nobody s busi 
 ness. 
 
 The days lengthened, and the spring came round. Mrs. 
 Whapshare had taken Rufus Abell s advice, and, instead 
 of selling her garden lot, had given him a two-years mort 
 gage upon the whole place, for which he had lent her the 
 sixteen hundred dollars. At the end of that time, he told 
 her, if things were not easier for her somehow, she could 
 sell at an advanced value, pay up the mortgage, and have 
 something left. Meanwhile, as Mrs. Whapshare said, the 
 children would have two years more of breathing-time be 
 fore she walled them in.
 
 352 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 III. 
 
 HOW THE COMET TOLD TALES, AND SET THE SOLAR SYS 
 TEM IN COMMOTION. 
 
 The houses on the east, or rather southeast side of Ford 
 Street opened by their front and back doors into two dif 
 ferent worlds, as the lives of men also do. 
 
 One way, there was the dusty, glaring highroad, with 
 the street-cars running up to the corner ; the bank, the 
 post-office, the shops, the town-pump, and the hay-scales, 
 all in sight, and constituting what New England people 
 call " the prospect." 
 
 The other way, there was green grass, a sloping bank, 
 the shade of trees and wild shrubs, secret stillness and 
 beauty ; and the broad, slow river widened out above the 
 dams. 
 
 Nobody would have thought it, going by along the front. 
 Nobody would have thought that behind the common 
 place village, with its houses crowding right on to the 
 thoroughfare, was this escape into a hidden and wonder 
 ful delight. People did not remember it, although they 
 knew, who lived on the other side, and had close back 
 yards, stopped short by the yards of Chaffer Street. 
 
 The little children knew. Little children always know. 
 
 Half Caroline Whapshare s teaching was done, in pleas 
 ant weather, out on the back slope." There was a real 
 barberry-bush to run around ; there were beautiful hiding- 
 places for the "chickens," and sly corners for the "fox." 
 Above all, there was room for the planets. 
 
 Dr. Plaice came through the long hall of the old house, 
 one day in May, drawn by the open-air chatter of little 
 voices like loosened brooks. He stood there a minute or
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 353 
 
 two in the end door, looking on at a wonderful game, 
 no less than the game of the Stars in their Courses. 
 
 The roundabout, which dried the clothes on Monday, 
 had its long arms taken out, and piled away heside the 
 fence. To the swivel at the top of its centre-post were 
 fastened stout twine strings, longer and shorter ; and each 
 of these was held at its farther end by a little scholar, 
 who, drawing by its tether to a greater or less distance, 
 and keeping the line taut, was joyously revolving in a 
 prescribed orbit, to the time of a tune which Caroline, 
 seated on a low stool at the centre, and personating the 
 Sun, sang to them as the music of the spheres. 
 
 Little golden-haired Mercury the youngest pet pupil, 
 Robie Lewiston trotted around close by her feet ; oc 
 culted now and then against her lap when he grew tired. 
 A pretty eight-years-old Venus, sunny-eyed and ringleted, 
 came next ; and then sober, clear-faced, pleasant Ruth 
 Fellman, for Earth. Mars was a sturdy, rollicking, 
 rather unmanageable fellow ; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, 
 were the big scholars, in the edge of their teens. Farther 
 into space Caroline did not try to go ; nor could she, with 
 out getting into the river. It was enough for all practical 
 purposes. 
 
 By and by (this was the best part of the play) Caroline 
 lifted up her hand, and forth started a comet from behind 
 a gooseberry-bush. From away down by the bank of the 
 river he came, describing his parabola among the planets, 
 bearing down toward the Sun, crossing orbit after orbit, 
 but never when the heavenly body was there. This was 
 the " steering." It was as great fun as coasting down hill 
 among multitudinous sleds. He took his sight from the 
 start, and threaded his way, bobbing under the lines, and, 
 wheeling at length close around with little Mercury, shot 
 off again upon the other side. Dimmy Pickett did it ; a
 
 354 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 pennon of white muslin, fastened around his head, flew 
 behind him. This was the comet s tail. Dimmy was 
 only seven years old, little, and bright. A larger, duller 
 boy could not have done it. 
 
 When the play was over, the planets, out of breath, 
 came up around the Sun ; and the Sun asked them ques 
 tions, 
 
 " What are the strings meant for ? " 
 
 " Gravitation, that ties them to the sun." 
 
 " What is your pulling away as far as you can for ? " 
 
 " Centrifugal force, that makes them fly off." 
 
 " What do both together do ? " 
 
 " Keep them going round and round just in their own 
 separate places." 
 
 " Are there really strings up in the sky ? " asked little 
 Venus. 
 
 Caroline held up her finger and beckoned to Venus. 
 Venus came. 
 
 " Why did you come to me ? I did not pull you with 
 the string." 
 
 " You beckoned." 
 
 " God beckons." 
 
 All the little planets were still. There was silence in 
 their heaven for the space of half a minute. 
 
 Then Dimmy Pickett spoke. 
 
 " Suppose she had had her back turned ? " 
 
 " Every little atom in the whole world of worlds has its 
 face toward God." 
 
 " What do they pull away for, then ? " 
 
 " God gives them a will of their own, to go a little way 
 of their own ; but they cannot get beyond his will. The 
 two wills make the beautiful glad motions, and all the life 
 and the glory. 
 
 " There are anemones down by the spring. Who will 
 come this afternoon and go with me to gather them ? "
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 355 
 
 Caroline had given them their bit of physics and meta 
 physics. It was enough for this time. 
 
 Everybody would go and gather anemones, every 
 body but big Jupiter. He did not say anything ; he 
 wanted to play football. 
 
 " May I go too ? " asked Dr. Plaice, coming over from 
 the door. 
 
 Caroline had sat with her back toward him. She started 
 a little, and flushed. 
 
 It is the children s walk. Will you have Dr. Plaice 
 go too ? " she asked them. 
 
 " He does n t belong," whispered Venus, shyly. 
 
 " Oh ! I m the new planet, the far, far-away one, 
 that only comes in sight once in ever so long. I Ve 
 been a good while getting here. But I m discovered 
 now, and must be counted in. I belong ; truly I do." 
 
 Something made the pretty Sun change color yet more 
 at this. Among them all, nobody had the presence of 
 mind to say him nay. So the doctor said he would come, 
 and bring his microscope with him. After the tremen- 
 dousness of things in general, they might like to descend 
 to something small and particular. 
 
 Dimmy Pickett stood staring, in a queer, bright, eager 
 way, while the plan was settled. He looked at the doctor 
 and at Caroline, as if he were making a bewildering com 
 putation, astronomical or otherwise, too large for his small 
 head. 
 
 Caroline did not notice ; she was busy with little Mer 
 cury. But the doctor saw it, and had an end-of-the-world 
 instinct that the comet was bearing down upon him. 
 
 All at once, the erratic little luminary did bear down 
 upon the Sun, displacing Mercury. 
 
 " See here ! " said he, breaking out with a shy bravado 
 in a child s loud whisper. " I know something, Miss 
 Caroline, I do ; only Flipper told me not to tell."
 
 356 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Then," said innocent Caroline, " be sure you don t. 
 You won t ever be a man, a splendid, honorable man, 
 if you tell things that you ought not. And say Phi- 
 lippa. Your sister has a pretty name ; but Flipper is n t 
 pretty." 
 
 " Everybody calls her Flipper. She is Flipper ! " 
 returned the Comet, half inclined to be a little sulky. He 
 had expected to have his secret teased out of him. 
 
 Dr. Plaice caught the last sentences as he turned away 
 quickly, for fear of what might come next. He walked 
 back into his office with an excited perplexity in his mind. 
 
 How long could he save Caroline from this ? And 
 what ought he to do ? Go away ? or stay, and do that 
 which he had hardly made up his mind would be right 
 to do? 
 
 He sat down in his corner-chair, near which the little 
 passage and the blinded east door were open, letting in 
 the soft summer of a few hours that the May day was 
 giving. 
 
 He had hardly sat there two minutes, when little steps 
 came by around the corner, and little heavenly bodies 
 three or four made a constellation just outside the 
 folded blinds. 
 
 He could see them as they stood. The Comet looked 
 big and red and portentous ; little Venus was sparkling 
 and coaxing. 
 
 " Tell me, Dimmy ; just me, you know." 
 
 And Earth and Jupiter crowded up close also to hear. 
 " I s pose Flipper meant not to tell her ; besides, she s 
 always telling everybody not to tell everything. And they 
 do. She does." 
 
 " Grown-up people tell the most, I think," said Venus, 
 gravely. " They keep all the telling and all the cake, 
 and say it is n t good for children. Is it about us, 
 Dimmy ? "
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 357 
 
 " I told you t was. By least it would be some time. 
 She said it would be a forever vexation." 
 
 " Vacation, you mean, Dimmy," said elder Earth. 
 
 " I say vexation at home ; and Flipper says it is vexa 
 tion. So now," said Dimmy. 
 
 " I should n t like a forever vacation," said Ruth Fell- 
 man, waiving the point. 
 
 " But it would be," persisted Dimmy, " if she went and 
 got married. And Dr. Plaice is her beau. Flipper said 
 so." 
 
 " Poh ! " said big Jupiter, and walked off. 
 
 Earth and Venus looked at each other with a wide 
 wonder in their eyes, and set their little white teeth sud 
 denly very tight upon their under lips. It was a tre 
 mendous secret 
 
 Venus came to first. 
 
 " Well, it must be pretty nice to have a beau," she 
 said. 
 
 " Mr. Dimmy Comet ! " said a voice behind them. The 
 blind opened, and the doctor stood there. 
 
 " Allow me to beg the honor of a further acquaintance 
 with so well-informed a gentleman. You will please to 
 walk into my office here." 
 
 Dr. Plaice s hand was on Dimmy s shoulder. 
 
 " Oh, my gracious ! " cried Earth and Venus simultane 
 ously, and simultaneously rushed down a broad vista of 
 space, that is, the village street, that turned between the 
 tin-shop and the tailor s. 
 
 That light hand on Dimmy s shoulder was not to be 
 mistaken. He walked in up the step as a little boy does 
 walk in when his sins have found him out. 
 
 Dr. Plaice closed the door. 
 
 "Take a seat, Mr. Comet," he said politely. "The 
 arm-chair, if you please."
 
 358 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 If he had put him on a cricket, or let him stand, it 
 would not have been half so bad. The arm-chair was 
 high, formidable, and awfully suggestive. The tone of 
 the " if you please " was unrelenting. The doctor might 
 be going to pull all his teeth out ; but he was without 
 remedy. 
 
 Dimmy hitched up backwards into the great chair, put 
 ting his heel upon the forward rung, and hoisting himself 
 by the arm. Seated there, his legs hung ridiculously short 
 and small. 
 
 " The leading object of my life," said the terrible doc 
 tor, turning to the mantel, and taking up his meerschaum, 
 " is enlightenment. You have enlightened me very much 
 indeed within the last five minutes, Mr. Comet. I feel 
 exceedingly obliged to you, and to Flipper." And the 
 doctor filled leisurely the bowl of his pipe, pressing the 
 tobacco down evenly. 
 
 " Smoke, Mr. Comet ? No, I thought not. Judging 
 professionally, I should say that your constitution was not 
 quite up to it." 
 
 Dr. Plaice struck a match, held it to the pipe, and took 
 a whiff or two, then drew a chair, and sat down himself. 
 
 This was awful ! How long was it to go on ? How 
 long did it take the doctor to smoke his pipe ? Would he 
 keep him there all day mocking at him ? "Would he ever 
 let him go ? And what would Flipper say ? 
 
 Dimmy twisted his short legs desperately, and untwisted 
 them hazardously, and recklessly twisted them again. He 
 squeezed the rim of his little soft felt hat into a great 
 many doubles, to correspond with his legs ; then he let it 
 out, and squeezed it up again. He began to grow alarm 
 ingly red and swelled in the face, with mingled shame and 
 fear and indignation. 
 
 " Your news was very interesting, Mr. Comet," resumed
 
 ZERUR THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 359 
 
 the doctor ; " especially to myself. For that reason, and 
 for another that I will mention presently, I should prefer 
 that it should not be spoken of in like manner again. Do 
 you understand ? " 
 
 For all answer, Dimmy struggled with his legs again, 
 and obliterated his cap. 
 
 " The second reason is, that it does not happen to he 
 true. If it were, I should be likely to tell of it myself. 
 A gentleman, Mr. Comet, does not speak of other people s 
 personal affairs until he is authorized ; and he never re 
 peats things that he hears in a whisper, with a Don t tell! 
 neither, I think, does a lady. In the first place, ladies 
 and gentlemen do not very often hear those things at all." 
 
 Dimmy s redness grew ominous. He winked very 
 hard. These were very grown-up words of the doctor s ; 
 but instinct translated them. He learned a half-page of 
 dictionary at least, in these five minutes, that he never 
 forgot. He was very much ashamed, and he was very 
 mad. His legs were in such a snarl with the chair by 
 this time that it was hai d to tell which was human and 
 which was mahogany ; his face was big with tears that he 
 would not cry, and his hat was pretty nearly hopeless. 
 
 At last, two words came forth, very much thickened 
 and swollen themselves with their long restraint : 
 
 " By George ! " 
 
 Dimmy lisped a little on his g s ; and the expletive 
 sounded like something huge and soft, flung with great 
 force, and hitting as hard as it could. Dr. Plaice laughed 
 out ; he could not help it ; but then he immediately got 
 up, and came over toward Dimmy, with his hand held 
 out. He did not wish to humiliate and enrage him utterly. 
 He meant to treat him really like a man at last. 
 
 " That is all, Dimmy. Now let s shake hands, and be 
 friends. You don t like being talked to like a mean little
 
 360 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 man ? Well, you can wake up from that bad dream all 
 safe at seven years old, with twice your age yet to grow 
 in, and to make what kind of a man you will. Miss Car* 
 oline told you : if you want to be a splendid, honorable 
 one, don t do any small meddling things, or tell any small, 
 meddling tales." 
 
 And Dr. Plaice kept hold of Dimmy s hand till his legs 
 untwisted, and he was slid safely down out of the big 
 chair. Then Dimmy put on his cap, pulled it very much 
 over his eyes, and departed meekly and swiftly. When 
 he was around the corner, however, behind the tin-shop, 
 he paused, pushed his cap up into its place, took a good 
 long breath, and said " By George ! " again. But there 
 were things in this " By George ! " that had not been in 
 the other. Out of it came a good deal in the boy s life 
 that would not else have been there, and that we shall not 
 follow him on to tell about. 
 
 The first resultant was his going with the walking-party 
 that afternoon, in spite of the tingle with which he thought 
 of it ; which, if he had not been in a pretty fair sense a 
 " by-George " character, one would hardly have expected 
 him to do. He had two minds about it ; but the spirit 
 that swore by the king that was in him prevailed. He 
 would n t sneak off, afraid. He would face the doctor 
 and those girls. Besides, he would stop the tattle ; that 
 is, he thought he would. There was a good deal of the 
 royal in this for seven years old. 
 
 Venus was in the middle of a knot of girls when Dimmy 
 came upon the field. He watched and loitered until she 
 emerged for a minute, and he caught her upon the edge. 
 Then he sauntered by, close to her, his hands in his 
 pockets. 
 
 " I say," he said low, over his shoulder, " don t tell of 
 that, you know. T ain t true."
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 361 
 
 " My sakes ! " cried little Venus, coming quite away, 
 and going on with him ; " I have told." 
 
 " Poll ! " exclaimed Dimmy, in disgust. " Who ? " 
 
 " Just Aurora, my best friend, you know." 
 
 Now Aurora was just the biggest little chatterbox in 
 the whole school. 
 
 Poor Dimmy began to find out, to his dismay, how hard 
 it is to catch up with a mistake. He thought of Jupiter, 
 too, off in his bigger orbit, with the village fellows. 
 What might not he say, in his big-boy fashion, worst of 
 all, notwithstanding his " Poh " ? The little Comet was 
 very uncomfortable, and wished with all his heart that 
 he had kept his tale to himself. 
 
 Aurora was nudging and whispering, walking behind 
 the doctor and Miss Caroline, with her other best friend, 
 a larger girl, Laura Frances. It was plain there was no 
 knowing what might come of it. The whole solar system 
 would have hold of it, and what a blaze and whirl that 
 would be ! 
 
 Dimmy marched up to Dr. Plaice, at his open office- 
 door, when they were back again, and the girls had gone. 
 
 " I can t help it. after all," he said, without any antece 
 dent to the " it." " I tried to stop it, and it won t." 
 
 " It isn t easy to stop a thing that is once started. 
 There s a law of nature against it. But 1 11 see what I 
 can do, Dimmy ; and it is all right between you and me, 
 anyway." 
 
 Dimmy s throat felt queer ; and he came very near 
 saying " By George ! " again. 
 
 The sun was going down, and the air was just as sweet 
 and tender as it had been all the day. Windows and 
 doors stood wide, gathering in the rich feeling of June 
 from the May air. Dr. Plaice came round through the 
 hall again.
 
 362 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " Miss Caroline," he said, " the Golden Gate is open. 
 Will you go down and see ? " 
 
 The Golden Gate was the opening up the river where 
 the west shone in, and filled up all the water aisle with a 
 mist of glory. Far and deep between the trees that closed 
 on either side lay the burning splendor whence the tide 
 flowed down ; and violet or crimson bars would lie across 
 as the flame faded, or flecks and burnished lines of yet 
 intenser fire be thrown up like isles and coasts along a 
 dazzling sea, and all gathered, as it were, into one focus 
 of light, for the wooded fringe and the high banks of the 
 stream covered at right and left the stretch of the horizon, 
 and left all heaven to be imagined from its single unclosed 
 door. 
 
 So they went down to the river-side. The sloping bank 
 shut out house and street and all the village sounds, 
 Office and school-room, and all the ways by which their 
 living and everybody s else went on, were behind them. 
 Nothing was here but God s beautiful world that his souls 
 are born into, and before them the Golden Gate lay open. 
 
 " It is like a beautiful secret," said Arthur Plaice. 
 
 " It is like the heaven inside and behind," said Caroline, 
 softly. 
 
 " Yes ; it is like that. It is that heaven is the great, 
 beautiful secret. There is a piece of it, Caroline, that I 
 have wished to tell you. Only the other side, there is still 
 the dusty street." 
 
 Caroline stood utterly still. 
 
 " I am afraid I have no right ; because " his pause 
 became a period. " I have earned just one hundred and 
 fifty dollars all this last year beyond what absolutely had 
 to keep me," he said, speaking it out quickly. " Your 
 little school is better than that ; and so I have no right to 
 tell you beautiful secrets by the river-side, and then lead 
 you out into the toil and dust."
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 363 
 
 "You mean that you have been paid just one hundred 
 and fifty dollars," said Caroline, looking at him very 
 proudly, and then turning away again ; " and I don t 
 care for the dusty street." 
 
 " And you do care ? " asked Arthur, eagerly, bend 
 ing down to look after the shy face. 
 
 Caroline flushed up like the sunrise that tells God s 
 morning story without any words. 
 
 Arthur Plaice felt the joy of his morning ; but he was 
 a man, and wanted speech, just a word, ever so shy, 
 ever so small. He forgot his own unfinished speaking. 
 
 " Translate," he whispered. 
 
 " I do care," said Caroline, quaintly and tremulously, 
 " for the beautiful secret which you did n t tell me." 
 
 And then the secret was told. 
 
 " I think they have gone through the Golden Gate," 
 said Lydia, turning round from her organ, when she could 
 no longer see her notes. 
 
 " I believe so too," said the mother, seeing them come 
 up the old stone step at the end door ; but she said it to 
 herself. 
 
 She stepped out from the little dining-room where the 
 tea was ready, split-cake toast and a pink square of del 
 icately broiled smoked salmon, and met them in the 
 dusk of the long, old hall. 
 
 " Will you come in ? " she said to Dr. Plaice. " We 
 are just ready." 
 
 " I will come if you will let me, mother ! " 
 
 He had got her hand fast with Caroline s in his own, as 
 he said it. 
 
 " O you two children ! " Mrs. Whapshare answered, 
 when she had got over a little sob. " How long you have 
 got to wait ! "
 
 364 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 " We can t help that," said Arthur. " It won t be any 
 longer than it was before. And we should have waited. 
 I suppose we have been waiting ever since we both were 
 born." 
 
 Dr. Plaice took care to meet Dimmy Pickett the next 
 morning. 
 
 " I ve stopped it, Dimmy," said he, holding out his 
 hand. 
 
 " How ? " said Dimmy, explosively. 
 
 " As the Indians stop the fire from chasing them on the 
 prairies, kindled it at my own end. I want your con 
 gratulations, Dimmy. I am engaged to be married 
 some time to Miss Caroline Whapshare." 
 
 Dimmy drew back his hand to pull his hat down over 
 his eyes. He shuffled with one foot back and forth upon 
 the ground. He was overwhelmed by this real, grown-up 
 news, told him with his hand in his friend s just as if he 
 had been big enough. He did not know what to do with 
 it, or how to get away and leave it. All at once he pushed 
 his hat back again, stood square upon his feet, and looked 
 up. 
 
 " Are you making fun of me now, Dr. Plaice ? " 
 
 " No, indeed. I am telling you my good news as my 
 particular friend, whom I told yesterday that it was n t 
 true. You 11 wish me joy, won t you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Dimmy. " But if you want anybody else 
 to know it now, I guess you 11 have to tell em yourself. 
 There s Miss Suprema coming." 
 
 And Dimmy vanished round the corner and into the 
 school-room door. 
 
 Dr. Plaice stood still and laughed. " That s the bright 
 est boy in Rintheroote," said he to himself. 
 
 Miss Suprema came up. 
 
 " Why, doctor, Avhat is it ? What have you done to 
 Dimmy Pickett ? "
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 365 
 
 " Told him some news, and got his advice- The advice, 
 I think, was excellent ; and I am sure my news was." 
 
 Then he told her the news ; and she forgot to ask him 
 anything about the advice. 
 
 When he went back into his office, he saw her, through 
 the blinds, standing in one of her awful equilibriums. 
 Whether she should keep on down the village street, tak 
 ing her chances as she went, or turn about and go straight 
 up to Mrs. Benny Dutell s, before she heard of it from 
 anybody else ? She could not expect to be first with 
 everybody ; she must be first with Mrs. Dutell. So the 
 great whirl within her set her off in a right line at last, 
 and she went up the street like a cyclone. 
 
 The doctor drew up his shoulders with a laughing shake, 
 turned to his desk, and sat down. 
 
 Sat down to his desk and his books ; and knew that he 
 began, that moment, the days of a hard, uncertain wait 
 ing. The news was told ; the fire had run ; he had made 
 a safe place to stand in ; and now he must only stand. 
 That makes a long chapter ; the Apostle Paul knew that, 
 but it is not a chapter for a small story-book. 
 
 " It is all there can be about it for ever so long, Ar 
 thur," Caroline herself had said to him, in the first, 
 blessed, sober, certain " talking-over." 
 
 " Mother could not do without me, and my little school, 
 until Lydia is ready with her music, and John gets some 
 sort of salary that will more than pay for his tickets in the 
 cars and his lunches in the city. I must stay by home, you 
 see. I should n t be worth taking away if I would n t." 
 
 For two years there was no new point reached in this, 
 their story ; none but the little shining points that count 
 in " the kingdom ; " in the inside beauty that lies away 
 from the dusty street ; that holds all the loveliest secrets, 
 and the least of them sometimes the loveliest ; and where
 
 366 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 the Father that seeth in secret keeps his own inner bless- 
 edness hidden fast with the hearts of his children. 
 
 But in two years the outward may halt step with the 
 inward till the hobhle grows wearisome and painful. 
 
 In two years Dr. Plaice had put into the hank only four 
 hundred dollars more. In two years Mrs. Whapshare s 
 face had gathered new lines, and Caroline s had grown a 
 little thin and pale with the constant pull of school. 
 
 Martha was two years crustier, and more like an old 
 maid, while her service in the household was more com 
 prehensive and invaluable than ever. Lydia and John 
 were growing up to the realization of the hard tug of life, 
 and the knowledge of the many wants and wishes that 
 must go unmet. 
 
 Suprema Sharpe had had two years in which to find 
 herself often at default for fresh aliment of news, and 
 driven to turn and worry and recrunch the old : as a dog 
 keeps a bone buried, and digs it up once in a while to try 
 for a little more marrow in it. 
 
 Every now and then she dug up the Plaice-Whapshare 
 bone ; and every time she set it forth in sorrier fashion, 
 and yet " bonier " light. 
 
 " The doctor was tired of his bargain ; he had n t much 
 the look of a satisfied man ; if it was ever coming to any 
 thing, why did n t it come ? The Whapshares held on 
 well ; she would say that for them." 
 
 Or, it was "a shame for Mrs. Whapshare to keep Car 
 oline toiling on at her school for her. Why could n t she 
 marry, and keep school to help herself ? Car was grow 
 ing old ; she had got gray hairs on her temples. No 
 doubt they were awful poor ; everybody knew the place 
 was mortgaged ; and old Rufus Abell did n t lend his 
 money just to get it back again. There was Lydia flour 
 ishing away on that organ. Much she d ever make of it ! 
 She d better have been running a sewing-machine."
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 367 
 
 In two years, Zerub Throop was dead, and nobody 
 could find out, for a good while, what he had done with 
 his money. By and by it came out that there was a will, 
 and that Ruf us Abell was executor. Of course ; Rufus 
 Abell executed everything. 
 
 Mrs. Whapshare took to having little nervous starts 
 every time Rufus Abell came round the corner. She 
 could not shake off the notion that news was coming to 
 her yet, from old Zerub ; from old Zerub and the Lord ; 
 for she remembered always that about the king s heart ; 
 and she knew that in the inward light of things she had a 
 right, and that the Lord and his angels live and work con 
 tinually in the inward light, where man can neither see 
 nor reach. 
 
 But Rufus went and came, and never stopped, or even 
 looked up at the Whapshare windows. It was plain that 
 he had no thought of any contingency for them. 
 
 All that was known about the will was, that it was an 
 odd one ; as it would not have been Zerub Throop s if it 
 were not. That nothing was to be settled, save certain 
 legacies, the chief of which was to Sarah Hand, provid 
 ing for her and for the cat, for five years ; only the 
 property to be taken care of, rents and dividends col 
 lected, and all to wait that time, for any claim that might 
 arise ; failing which, it was then to be devoted to certain 
 specified public uses. 
 
 Rintheroote was exercised to conjecture what that pos 
 sible claim might be. A secret marriage, a child, 
 half a dozen children, perhaps, adrift somewhere, liable to 
 turn up ? 
 
 Rufus Abell held his peace ; indeed, he had nothing 
 else to hold ; the will registered, and open to any reading, 
 only said just that : " For any claim upon said estate that 
 may legally and within that time arise."
 
 368 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 But Rufus Abell did call one day. The mortgage-debt 
 was falling due, and the garden-lot would have to be sold. 
 
 This was how it was with the Whapshares at the time 
 the queer thing happened which nobody will believe, and 
 which Mrs. Eylett Bright will tell of in the next chapter. 
 
 IV. 
 
 HOW THE GHOST MANAGED. MRS. EYLETT BRIGHl s 
 STORY. 
 
 My dear, I will tell yon all about it. It was a haunted 
 house. It was all explained by simple causes, yes ; 
 but it was a haunted house, nevertheless. It is a haunted 
 world we live in, for that matter, Dora Button. 
 
 You see there are so many of us, so many little 
 Eylett Brights ; I like to call them by their whole pat 
 ronymic, it suits them so well, Button, dear. 
 
 We all needed the country that summer. I was run 
 down with change of servants, and nursing ; little Thode 
 had just crept out of scarlet fever, with the tattered shreds 
 of his dear little mortality about him, wanting all sorts of 
 patching up ; and the other children had had it too, more 
 or less ; mostly less, thank the good Providence ! We all 
 needed the country, doctor said we must have it ; but 
 there was Eylett tied down to his desk, and the two thou 
 sand was n t any bigger for us this year than ever before. 
 
 The country is so wide and free ; and yet it is so hard 
 to get a place in it, a place for ever so many little Ey 
 lett Brights ! 
 
 We wanted a large house, and we wanted it furnished ; 
 there must be plenty of out-of-doors, and yet we did not 
 want a " place " that would have to be kept up. People 
 who were going to Europe, and had out-of-town residences
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 369 
 
 to leave, must leave them to their own sort, you know ; 
 carriage and lawn and garden people, who would have 
 gardeners and grooms. It was as much as ever we could 
 do to have Onie and Ann. More ; for they were hoth 
 going to leave. They had objections to the country. So 
 we got Margaret and Ellen from the intelligence office, 
 the same article, you know, with a new label ; and there 
 is n t much variety in the labels, either. It is wonderful 
 how we have rung over the changes, Margaret, and 
 Katy, and Ann ; Bridget, and Ann, and Katy ; Bridget, 
 and Margaret, and Ellen ; and how natural and of course 
 the name sounds, whichever it is, when they tell it ; and 
 how the impression of the whole successive multitude 
 drifts and runs together in our minds into the image of 
 one great, awful, representative kitchen creature ! 
 
 Well, we searched the papers, and we searched the 
 country ; we had spent fifteen dollars before we knew it, 
 running out and in to see things, and conclude they 
 would n t do. So we kept quiet a while, and almost gave 
 it up. Eylett said we might hit upon something by and 
 by, when somebody s house was left on their hands, too 
 late for a high rent or a whole season. I did n t see how, 
 though. I told him it would have to come and hit upon 
 us ; we could n t afford to go after it any more. 
 
 Things do come and hit you if you only stand still be 
 cause you must, not because you re lazy. 
 
 One day, at the counting-room, Mr. Haughton was ask 
 ing Eylett after his family. Eylett told him he was get 
 ting along ; but they needed a change, and it was not easy 
 to make a plan that would suit in all ways. 
 
 >k Take a house a little way out of town," said Mr. 
 Haughton. 
 
 " I ve been trying to," said Eylett, " but the house I 
 want does n t seem to be anywhere."
 
 370 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 One of the boys came in from the bank just then and 
 heard it. 
 
 " I know of a house, Mr. Bright," he said ; " but it s 
 rather a queer one, up over the hill, out of our village ; 
 and to let cheap, I guess, old Zerub Throop s. He s 
 dead, and things are n t to be touched for five years. But 
 the house can be hired just as it is, if anybody likes. It 
 is a jolly big one, and an old garden and fields all round 
 it. Why don t you come out and see it ? " 
 
 Eylett guessed he would. 
 
 And so one day we went out to Rintheroote. 
 
 Why, you see it was splendid ! All that great hill, and 
 the sunrise on one side, and the sunset on the other ! But, 
 as to the house, it seemed as if the day had always had to 
 climb over and round it, and had never shone through it. 
 Such a musty, shady, lo-from-the-tombs old place you 
 never got into ! The front door was all grown up with 
 weeds and vines. It was tall and narrow, with an old- 
 fashioned fan-light over it. It looked as if nothing had 
 ever gone in and out but coffins, I told Eylett. 
 
 We found a woman in the village who had kept house 
 there ; and she went up with us, and showed it. 
 
 " It s in good order," she said ; " the front part s 
 clean, because it ain t never been dirtied ; and the back 
 part s clean, because I done the scrubbin ." 
 
 There was one real lovely room across the ell, up-stairs, 
 at the end. Four windows, east, south, and west, 
 the sun and the soft wind just rioting through. 
 
 " O Eylett ! " I cried, standing in the middle, " here s 
 the summer-time and the beauty ! Here s the life of the 
 house! " 
 
 " Yes m," said Mrs. Hand, " here s where t was. But 
 I 11 tell you one thing : t ain t more n fair to let you 
 know. I don t believe it s ah 1 gone out of it. / don t be 
 lieve, in my soul, Zerub s done with it ! "
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 371 
 
 She spoke in a hushed way, as if there might be some 
 one listening. 
 
 " Done with it ? He s dead ! " 
 
 " Yes m ; that s just why you can t tell. I stayed here 
 a month afterwards, and I had well, experiences. If I 
 was you, I d shet it up." 
 
 " Shut it up ! I shall put the children into it." 
 
 " That may do. Maybe he 11 quit, then." 
 
 I had my doubts about that conclusion, if I had n t 
 about the ghost. I could n t think, if he wanted to come 
 at all, that old Zerub, or any other rational spirit, would 
 come back the less for, you need n t laugh, Button ; I 
 don t care if they are mine ! 
 
 " See here, my good woman ! " says Eylett, turning 
 round sharp, " I can t come here if my servants and chil 
 dren are to get hold of this nonsense. Has it been talked 
 round in the village ? " 
 
 " Not from me ; I ve held my tongue too long for 
 Zerub to begin chattering now. I always left all his 
 affairs to hisself, an I do yit. But this is your affair, 
 kinder, if you re comin . I jest eased my mind." 
 
 "It shall be the play-room, the day-nursery," I re 
 peated, ignoring the nonsense once and forever. " And 
 here," said I, going back into a small adjoining chamber, 
 " I 11 have my sewing-machine and my writing-desk, and 
 all my little things and doings that I want close by the 
 children, but not mixed up and crowded with them. We 
 can be grand here, Eylett. There is no end of room. As 
 to those front parlors and bedrooms, we 11 fasten back 
 every blind, and fling up every window, and let June do 
 the rest. We 11 come, Eylett, won t we ? " I concluded 
 after my wife-fashion, a decision first, and a question 
 afterward. 
 
 So we went down into Rintheroote, and found Mr.
 
 372 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Rufus Abell, the agent ; and Eylett put in the ghost story 
 in the way of business, and got off fifty dollars for that; 
 though I told him men always came out with the very 
 thing they did n t want mentioned ; and we took the house 
 for three hundred and fifty dollars, and could stay the 
 season, three months, or six, as we had a mind. 
 
 But we were not to ask to have the first thing done for 
 us, and we were to alter nothing ourselves. These were 
 the conditions. 
 
 We had a splendid time moving. You know I don t 
 mind trouble ; and the children were as gay as larks. We 
 did n t have much to move, either ; only our clothes, and 
 the few things we could n t live without, and to send the 
 rest right off to a store-room ; for we gave up our house 
 in town, of course. 
 
 Margaret and Ellen gave warning the second morning 
 after we got there ; that we expected. All we hoped for 
 from them was to get through the flitting ; though how 
 they could, with the sun shining as it did, and the clover 
 smelling, and the birds singing, I don t see. I should as 
 soon have given warning in heaven, as, to be sure, I 
 suppose some folks will! 
 
 Well, we did n t care. It was all fun ; nobody was going 
 to call. I could just put on a calico wrapper, keep it on, 
 I mean, and take right hold, if it came to that ; and we 
 set Mrs. Hand to inquiring for us in the village. In result 
 of which, after three days of the " warning," and three 
 days more of the " week " that they would n t stay, and 
 hardly ever will, and you hardly ever care to have them, 
 since the days of warning are in themselves so like the 
 days of doom ; and after yet three other days of expecta 
 tion and hard work, and baker s bread, there came to 
 "our ha door," and when that was opened into the 
 best I mean the dingiest parlor, a well these 
 presents :
 
 ZERUB THROOP 1 S EXPERIMENT. 373 
 
 A hat and feather, that is, a very remarkahle and 
 exaggerated piece of a bird, that was neither wing, tail, 
 nor breast, but enough of it for all three, attached mys 
 teriously to the middle of a forehead ; an emphatic chignon, 
 a very much fluted and hitched-up alpaca overskirt, and a 
 pair of tall-heeled boots, on which all the rest walked in. 
 
 What else should have come, unless, indeed, it had hap 
 pened to be a man ? These, you know, are the things which 
 stand for a woman nowadays, and make up the general 
 presentment and expression of her, confounding distinc 
 tions ; so that the pieces of a woman in the windows of 
 the great furnishing shops, " articulated " on wires, hint 
 out something rather superior, on the whole, to most of 
 the specimens which articulate themselves, and are seen 
 about the streets. 
 
 The " articulation," in this instance, announced herself 
 to me, looking at her with a puzzle and a question in my 
 face, as " a girl." An American girl she was, too ; no 
 Irish, we found out gradually, would apply. Although 
 Sarah Hand had been reticent, Terence Muldoon who 
 chored, and chopped wood, and " fought and carried " for 
 old Mr. Zerubbabel Throop, and who stayed by to " garrud 
 the hoose," with Mrs. Hand, during the month of her 
 closing-up services and administration had not been so ; 
 and there were vague and terrible rumors afloat in the 
 Irish stratum of society, and the universal Irish mind was 
 set against the " owld Throop place an its divilments." 
 This came to us by degrees, as our own experience 
 developed. 
 
 " I in the girl," said the articulation, " that Mis Hand 
 was to look up. She s my Aunt Sarah. I m a dasher." 
 
 " You re a what ? " said I, explosively, in my astonish 
 ment. 
 
 " A dasher : a dasher down."
 
 374 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 I just stared. I began to think she must be a lunatic. 
 And a lunatic who announced herself as a dasher down 
 might not be the subject of a form of hallucination one 
 would like to have illustrated in one s parlor. 
 
 But while I stared, she added mildly, " That s my 
 name." 
 
 " Oh ! " said I, relieved, and catching my breath. " Just 
 spell it, if you please." 
 
 " A,d,a,s,h,a Adasha ; D,o,w,n,e Downe ; Adasha 
 Downe." 
 
 " Thank you. It sounds rather terrific, you see, before 
 one knows, especially for a person who is to handle cups 
 and saucers." 
 
 Adasha gave a bright look out of her eyes without mov 
 ing a muscle of her very round, and very large, and very 
 solid face. 
 
 " There s many a one gets a name, you know, for a 
 thing they never did." Then she smiled widely. She 
 could not help it ; she must do it widely, if she smiled at 
 all. It took very little exertion, and but slight play of her 
 lips ; for her lips were ample, and behind them were white 
 teeth that needed generous accommodation. 
 
 I liked the smile and the bright look. I began to think 
 of engaging her ; up to that moment I had only thought 
 how to get rid of her. I asked her if she could make 
 bread and hop-yeast ; if she could wash and iron ; and if 
 she would do anything else that I might ask of her, and 
 tell her how. 
 
 She could and she would. 
 
 " Will you take off your things and stay now ? " 
 
 " Well, ma am, you see, in my suit and my heeled boots 
 and my hair, I don t really see how I could. But 1 11 get 
 a bag o clo es, and come back in half an hour." 
 
 " Very well."
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 375 
 
 She did. And so we had Aclasha Downe. 
 
 That was all we had ; and we found it was all we had 
 to hope for. For love, nor money, nor for Christian char 
 ity, we could get no soul to offer or consent. We tried 
 for three weeks ; and then we settled down, until the pre 
 judice should wear away, to a plan that we fitted to the 
 case. A hoy to do chores, and a woman to come three 
 times a week, and wash and iron and scrub. Then, with 
 all the children, and their summer liberty, on my hands, 
 I thought of another expediency, a young girl as a 
 sort of governess-companion, who might keep them up in 
 their A-B-C, and their tables, tell them which side of the 
 world they were on, and a few preliminary items of like 
 importance ; sew on a string or a button now and then, 
 and help me in such tilings as I daily put my practical 
 hands to. 
 
 We found her ; she was foreordained. 
 
 Do you remember little Car Whapshare, the youngest 
 girl at dear old Cradley School the last year we were 
 there ? She lives right here in Rintheroote ; and she had 
 kept school until she had n t much face left ; though what 
 she had still kept the pretty in it, as the child s barley-sugar 
 keeps the clear and the sweet down to the last thin needle 
 of identity. She was engaged to marry in this life or in 
 the life everlasting a splendid fellow, the young doctor 
 of the place. But the old doctor would n t let go, and the 
 old patients would n t change ; and so he was getting 
 excellent practice and very limited pay ; and Car s mother 
 was poor. And that s the way things were with them ; 
 and they could n t be much more wayward. 
 
 Arthur Plaice her doctor said she must give up 
 teaching, for all summer at least. She was in a worry. 
 But then, there was I in a worry too, up there on the 
 hill ; and the worries of the world do, once in a while,
 
 376 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 when the right ones are thrown together, turn suddenly, 
 by the beautiful chemistry of things, into a blessed mutual 
 content. 
 
 Car Whapshare came to live with us all summer. 
 
 And it was just after she came, mind you, that the signs 
 and wonders began. 
 
 How we three Car, Adasha, and I did work, let 
 ting the besieging pleasantness into that old house ! 
 Adasha, cleared for action, without her heeled boots and 
 her hair, that is, with only a reasonable amount that 
 you might believe in, gathered up with a screw and a 
 double behind, and fastened with a rubber-comb, with 
 out any humps or hitchups, turned suddenly into an in 
 dividual. That was a refreshment and a confidence. I 
 suppose there is a beauty of " the all," Emerson says 
 so ; but you do want eaches ; the world will never make 
 up the nicest kind of total by rubbing out its units. 
 
 We could not alter ; but we could innovate and reno 
 vate. We rolled back the heavy worsted damask curtains 
 on their old-fashioned gilded poles, threw wide the blinds, 
 and let the summer in. We turned the musty old chairs 
 and sofas out on the grass ; we cut away the thorn- 
 branches, and the twisted stems of creepers, from the 
 choked-up porch ; and we left the high, narrow door open 
 all day long, so that a column of sunshine poured itself 
 through that way in the morning, and bars of gold shot 
 slanting across from the windows of the south parlor 
 through the noontime. When the house was sweetened 
 full of it, we began to shut the green blinds again in the 
 mid-day, and only leave the air to filter in from over sun- 
 basked fields and tops of clover. 
 
 " We 11 drive the ghosts out," I said, gayly. 
 
 " They 11 be driv out or stirred up," said Adasha 
 Downe. " I don t s pose we can tell which till we ve 
 tried."
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 377 
 
 Mrs. Hand came up several times to see us. Partly 
 because of her niece ; partly because of the cat, which was 
 her charge, but which she could not coax away with her ; 
 and partly to ask me privately every time, and with solemn 
 emphasis, just before she went away, "if we had noticed 
 anything." 
 
 " Nothing," I told her at last, " but that black cat. 
 She haunts the house. There s something awful about 
 her. She steals round everywhere, like an uneasy spirit ; 
 but she won t come in and be tame. I have met her in 
 the rooms and on the stairs ; but the minute she sees any 
 body, she s off like a black rocket, with her tail straight 
 up in the air, and as big ! The children have found a 
 kitten ; they pet that, and the old cat stands away off and 
 watches. She is like a human mother that lets her child 
 be taken in where she does n t feel willing or worthy to 
 go. She behaves like a bad conscience." 
 
 " Zerub Throop had n t a bad conscience. He war n t 
 givin , nor he war n t pious ; but he was a real righteous 
 pertickeller man." 
 
 " I never thought of Mr. Throop, Mrs. Hand. I was 
 speaking of the cat." 
 
 " All the same. She s in it. She knows," said Mrs. 
 Hand, impressively. 
 
 " Cats are signful creaturs, about weather, an sickness, 
 an sech ; an they have a feelin for other-world things, 
 too, you may depend they do. They see in the dark. 
 What does that mean ? It jest corresponds. Do you 
 know how hard it is to keep a cat out of a dyin room, or 
 where a corpse is ? You jest wait and notice." 
 
 " Oh, for mercy s sake, don t ! " I cried out, almost 
 with a shriek. 
 
 The woman was growing ghastly. 
 
 " La ! I did n t mean anything. Like as not you 11
 
 378 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 never have a chance. But that s a fact. It s the reason 
 why they stay round places so. Everything is n t gone, 
 and they know it. Why, live folks leaves something of 
 theirselves in the places where they ve heen and acted. 
 Now, whenever I heerd them noises, that cat was alwers 
 yowlin alongside, way off, maybe, or even afterwards ; 
 but she always jined in or Amenned." 
 
 " Mrs. Hand, what were the noises ? " 
 
 " I don t know. Kind of stirrins, soundins ; every 
 where to once, distant and down-like, but strugglin an 
 risin up. I can t tell you what they were ; but the old 
 house seemed all breathin alive with em, as if they might 
 bust out anywheres. I 11 tell you what I think. If ever 
 you hear anything, you 11 hear more. It seemed to me 
 as if t was only a kind of gettin ready, a-gropin out. 
 You wait and notice." 
 
 " If only you would n t please say that ! " cried I, ner 
 vously. The words were growing awful to me. And 
 then I laughed at myself for minding them, or any of it, 
 as I bade Mrs. Hand good-morning at that pleasant east 
 side-door, opening out into the warm, living breath and 
 glory of the perfect June day. 
 
 Well, the children had their games all day long ; their 
 blocks and their baby-house, their tea-parties and their 
 soap-bubbles, in the bright ell-chamber ; and they played 
 horse, driving each other with gay, knitted harness and 
 reins, up and down the long passages of the old house ; 
 and they went to bed at night in the west rooms, back of 
 ours, where the twilight lingered till they were fast asleep ; 
 and I said to myself, " They take up all the time, and 
 they fill the house full ; what else if there were anything 
 could creep in ? Their little plays, and their little 
 prayers, and their little dreams, and their sweet sleeping 
 breath, why, it s a home now, brimming over with
 
 ZERUB THE OOP S EXPERIMENT. 379 
 
 them. Bad vapors could n t come up through the fair, 
 full fountain." 
 
 And so, after the happy, tired day, I went to sleep 
 myself, and slept as having angels about me. 
 
 There was one thing we had to do to that ell-chamber. 
 We had to take the door down. It was a modern door, 
 put up since Mr. Throop came ; and it lifted off its hinges. 
 The reason we could not have it on was, that it shut with 
 a horrid spring-lock. We couldn t have the children 
 getting shut in there every day, and having to be taken 
 down outside, you know, with ladders. 
 
 Eylett and I had the northwest front bedroom. There 
 were two large rooms, and a little one tucked in between, 
 on each side the hall in the main house ; then the long ell 
 ran back, and there were three or four in that, besides the 
 attics. Caroline Whapshare slept in the large one back, 
 on the southeast side, and the children, as I said, were in 
 the rooms behind ours. Nobody slept in the ell. Adasha 
 Downe had the little room next to Miss Whapshare s. 
 
 Somehow, in the great rambling place, we did like to 
 keep all together at night. There would be thunder- 
 showers, and there might be burglars ; nobody believed in 
 anything else or farther off. The children never heard a 
 word. I found I could really trust Adasha Downe. 
 
 Whether it was the fatigue that gave us such sound 
 nights, or whether there never was anything to wake us 
 up until the night I am going to tell of, I don t know ; but 
 so it was, that, for a week or two after my talk with Sarah 
 Pland, we might have been the builders and first dwellers 
 at Throop Hill, for all sign we had from the " soul of 
 things " in its old timbers or out from its far corners. 
 
 Then, all at once, something happened. 
 
 I had gone to bed one evening at ten, and had had my 
 first two hours nap. Suddenly I sat up, wide awake.
 
 380 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 Something crashed me awake ; a great resounding came 
 with me out of my dream ; and I listened mentally in as 
 great an outward silence, to hear what it had been like. 
 
 A ringing, clattering, metallic sound, as if a tin-man s 
 cart had been upset outside, or a great sheet of thin iron 
 been shaken or struck upon somewhere in the house. 
 
 Had I heard it ? or was it only that all my nerves had 
 suddenly vibrated with some tingling shock, and waked 
 me with a feeling of such sound ? It was " all over 
 everywhere," as Mrs. Hand had expressed it ; either all 
 over me, or creation perhaps. 
 
 Why did not everybody in the house wake up ? 
 
 While I held my breath and wondered, it came again. 
 Now I knew that I heard it with my bodily ears. But 
 what I heard, I could neither conceive nor tell. 
 
 " My gracious, Eylett ! what was that noise ? " 
 
 I had my hand tight upon my husband s shoulder. But 
 Eylett was lying on his right side ; and he could not hear 
 with his left ear. 
 
 " Noise ? I don t hear any. Let me move. Let me 
 get my good ear up. What was it like ? " 
 
 " I don t know. Like a ringing, or scraping, a rattling, 
 a reverberating, crashing, and hollow, far off and all 
 round. In the air. As if the house was a Chinese gong, 
 and somebody was trampling in the middle of it." 
 
 " All that ? Pooh ! You ve been dreaming." 
 
 " No, I have n t. I ve been sitting straight up with 
 my eyes open." 
 
 We both sat straight up for ten minutes, and in those 
 ten minutes everything was deadly still. At the end of 
 them, we heard a cat s dolorous cry, away off, down be 
 low, somewhere. 
 
 How can that cat have got in ? " 
 
 " She is n t in ; she s under the piazza, probably. She
 
 ZERUB THR OOP S EXPERIMENT. 381 
 
 does go there. You d better go to sleep, Lizzie." And 
 Eylett laid himself down again, as men do when there 
 is n t a fire nor anybody to shoot. 
 
 I knew I had better go to sleep ; but I did n t for two 
 good hours. By that time, I could hardly have declared 
 that I had heard anything, it was so long ago, and I had 
 so studied my impression to pieces, trying to match it to 
 any possibility of causation. 
 
 Of course, Eylett laughed at me in the morning ; and 
 of course, I let him laugh, and did n t say anything till he 
 got through. Women never do. Only when I thought 
 he had had it out reasonably, I hushed him up as re 
 garded the rest of the family. ; Don t talk about it down 
 stairs," I said. 
 
 He thought I wanted to be let alone on my own ac 
 count. It was not that. I wanted the fact let alone. If 
 it was not a noise, it Avas an experience. That was what 
 Mrs. Hand had called it. If you have the experience, 
 what difference does the noise, or whatever else it may be, 
 make, one way or the other ? 
 
 The next night I went to bed in a perfectly calm and 
 equable state of mind. I can positively affirm that I ex 
 pected nothing except to sleep. And I did sleep, as I 
 always do, instantly and soundly, after my little read, 
 which I always indulge in at night, with a candle on my 
 small book-table beside my bed, in defiance of all old- 
 time superstitions handed down from the days of volumi 
 nous bed-curtains and top-hamper, and absurdly repeated 
 now, when we lie down on our flat mattresses in their low 
 French boxes, with nothing combustible within a yard of 
 the light. 
 
 I slept my three or four early hours. I am glad they 
 are the hours of " beauty-sleep ; " for they are the only 
 hours I am perfectly sure of. After that, I begin to nap
 
 382 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 and dream, to wake, and think of things, the beans I 
 meant to have told Adasha to put to soak, the jam that 
 must be scalded over, the twist and buttons to be got 
 for the tailoress who is coming Thursday ; then, being 
 thoroughly roused, to go round and regulate open win 
 dows, and cover up the children. 
 
 It was, perhaps, about two o clock when I was again 
 electrified into full and instant consciousness. The same 
 reverberating, radiating noise, ringing, rattling, metallic, 
 with a queer sound of struggle in it, too, that suggested 
 Pandemonium as one great tin kettle, and all the little 
 imps clawing frantically to get out. 
 
 Then there came a bang. That woke Eylett. Neither 
 of us said a word, but both were instantly out of bed and 
 into dressing-gown and slippers. 
 
 We went into the great upper hall, and stood still. 
 Everything else stood still, too. We could hear the old 
 Willard clock ticking away composedly down in the 
 dining-room, and not a breath or movement of anything 
 else. 
 
 We went on, down between the rooms ; as we went, 
 there came winding up from somewhere, the eerie, weary, 
 wandering wail of that uncanny cat. 
 
 Two doors moved their open cracks a little as we 
 passed, and two noses were put forth. 
 
 " Marm ! Sir ! " cried Adasha Downe, in a tremulous 
 whisper, " what was that racket ? " 
 
 " What can have happened? " said Car Whapshare. 
 
 " Don t wake the children," whispered I. " We are 
 going to see." 
 
 We went everywhere ; up and down all the stairs, into 
 the kitchen and pantries and out-rooms. We opened the 
 side-door and looked out into the starlight. Something 
 black dashed out between Eylett s legs.
 
 ZERUB THR OOP S EXPERIMENT. 383 
 
 " I told you that cat was in," said I. 
 
 " Well, she s out," replied Eylett. " She could n t have 
 done it." 
 
 We found nothing to account for the clatter, not even 
 a dipper or tin pan fallen down. 
 
 We went up-stairs again, and encountered the noses 
 waiting. 
 
 " What was it ? " came the two whispers again. 
 
 " It does n t seem to have been anything," answered 
 Eylett. 
 
 "Marm!" said Adasha Downe, breathlessly, "that s 
 awful ! " 
 
 " Xo, it is n t," I retorted, with decision. " It s quite 
 comfortable. Don t frighten the children." 
 
 In the morning I was dressed early, and went through 
 the rooms up-stairs with a vague feeling as if I might see 
 by daylight where the sound had been. 
 
 There was a tin horse on the entry floor, lying peaceably 
 upon its side, with that touchingly helpless and resigned 
 expression that children s dolls and horses have in the cast- 
 off positions in which little hands have left them ; there 
 was the usual litter of blocks and toys in the play-room, 
 but nothing seemed as though it had borne part in any 
 mystical orgie. The summer sun streamed in, and filled 
 the chambers to the brim with cheer and splendor. 
 
 Coming out of the ell-room, I noticed the register-valve 
 slipped slightly out of its place, and resting with one edge 
 just over upon the floor. I pushed it back, and wondered 
 who had moved it. I supposed Adasha must have lifted 
 it out, in sweeping, to brush the dust from the spreading 
 mouth of the pipe. I mentioned it to her when I went 
 down-stairs, and asked her to be careful. It would not do 
 for the children to get an idea of its coming off. Adasha 
 told me she had not "tetched" it. She didn t know it
 
 384 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 would come off. It was queer ; but I supposed it " hap 
 pened " somehow, and then I forgot all about it. 
 
 We had two still nights, and then in the third a rattle 
 and a slam woke me up. I missed the reverberation, if it 
 had occurred. In fact, I did not connect this with the 
 other. It sounded like some one fumbling at a blind or 
 lock, and then a sudden jar, as of blind or door flung back. 
 
 " It s burglars this time ! " I whispered loudly in Ey- 
 lett s ear. " I heard them trying something, and then it 
 banged." 
 
 " Burglars don t bang," said Eylett, sleepily. 
 
 " There is n t any wind, and things don t bang them 
 selves," said I. " You d better get up." 
 
 So we had another promenade. It came to nothing, 
 like the rest. 
 
 " Are we never to get any sleep in this house? " asked 
 Eylett, in a melancholy way. " Don t hear anything 
 more, Lizzie, if you can help it." 
 
 " No, I won t," I replied, dutifully, keeping the rest of 
 my thoughts to myself. 
 
 In the morning, before I went down the back stairs to 
 the kitchen to look after breakfast, stopping at the play 
 room, as I had a habit of doing, drawn by the pleasant 
 ness of the place, where the children had been yesterday 
 and were going to be to-day, and taking a glance at the 
 sunshine and the toys that seemed conspiring a good time 
 together, I saw that register off again, really off, this 
 time, an inch or two. 
 
 Could it have been that which banged in the night ! I 
 went back and called Eylett. 
 
 "Just look!" said I. "How do you suppose it came 
 so?" 
 
 " Children," said he. 
 
 " No," I affirmed positively. " I found it so before ; and
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 385 
 
 I have watched. They never meddle with it ; and, be 
 sides, it was not so at bedtime. We undressed them here. 
 Do you suppose I should n t have noticed it ? " 
 
 " Spirits, then," suggested Eylett, meekly, as driven to 
 a logical end. " It s their style. Like their impudence." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said I, which was precisely what he wanted 
 me to say. 
 
 For all that, the same night there was a greater din and 
 rampage than ever ; and the next morning there was the 
 register fairly off and away, wheeled completely from the 
 hole, and laid with nearly its entire circumference upon 
 the carpet. 
 
 I called them all then, Eylett, Caroline, and Adasha 
 Do \vne. It was early. The children were only just wak 
 ing up, and beginning to throw the pillows at each other, 
 or to pull on stockings heel-side before. 
 
 "That ghost comes up the register-pipe," said Adasha 
 Downe, solemnly, looking into the hole as into the mouth 
 of the pit. 
 
 " And the ghost is " cried I, with a sudden illumina 
 tion. 
 
 " Never in this world ! " broke in Eylett, catching my 
 idea, and putting the extinguisher on before I had fairly 
 shown its little blaze. " Just lift that register," said he. 
 
 I put my hands under the two valves, an iron and a 
 brass one. I suppose they weighed six or seven pounds. 
 Could indeed a well, the object of my suspicion lift 
 them up ? 
 
 " I don t care," said I. " We 11 see. I 11 sit up this 
 very night." 
 
 On the whole, however, when bedtime came, I decided 
 to take that first nap, and trust to the usual reveille for 
 warning. If I was right in my convictions, it would give 
 me time enough. I am a light sleeper. I always hear 
 the first stir.
 
 386 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 I put a light in one of the ell-rooms, and set the door 
 open upon the passage. I left another burning in my lit 
 tle sewing-room, back in its farther corner, and shaded so 
 that it shone faintly out through the play-room. 
 
 A cross passage led over from opposite the head of the 
 back staircase, between the rooms, to a linen-closet. 
 Standing in this opening, or just down the first step of the 
 staircase, one could command the whole scene of action, 
 and nothing could pass in or out without observation. 
 
 I laid my dressing-gown and slippers in instant readi 
 ness. In fact, everybody else did the same ; and we all 
 slept, so to say, upon our arms ; for everybody had peti 
 tioned, " Call me, if you hear anything." 
 
 Somehow, we were a little later that evening than usual ; 
 so that, with my ordinary and extraordinary preparations 
 for the night, it was eleven o clock, and the others were 
 all asleep, when I was about to put out my own candle. 
 Just as I had my hand upon the extinguisher, it began 
 the noise. 
 
 That frantic, struggling, scratching, ringing, infernal 
 sound, coming away up from depths below, and echoing 
 everywhere. 
 
 " Quick ! there it is already ! " I cried to Eylett, and 
 in the same moment was off myself. I darted in at the 
 two doors on my way, and wakened the girls with one 
 shake each. " Don t be ten seconds, or else don t come ! " 
 I said, and hurried on. And in less than a minute we 
 were all upon the spot, huddled, listening, lying in wait, 
 in staircase and entry. 
 
 There was no doubt, standing there, where the sound 
 came from. Up that long pipe from two floors below, it 
 tore and grappled, grated and resounded ; came on, with 
 pauses, higher and higher ; at last was on a level with our 
 selves. Then a fierce stirring and grinding, a seizing of
 
 ZERUB THR OOP S EXPERIMENT. 387 
 
 hold and purchase. And then the valves clattered, as if 
 pushed against, ineffectually, once or twice ; then, with a 
 great hoist, they raised, swiveled, clashing round, and fell 
 with an awful bang upon the floor. 
 
 That demoniac cat walked forth. 
 
 It was a positive fact. We saw it with our eyes. If 
 anything in this story my part or anybody s else is 
 embellished, it is not that. 
 
 " I told you so ! " said I to Eylett. 
 
 And Eylett could not say a word. 
 
 We were all down cellar next morning, after our early 
 breakfast, investigating ; and the more we investigated, 
 the more we wondered. 
 
 Out of the brick dome of the furnace, high up, came 
 the tin pipe that ran horizontally one third or more the 
 length of the house, then up, twelve feet perhaps, through 
 the lower story and the two floors. 
 
 We opened the iron door of the air-chamber from which 
 the pipes radiated, and looked in. There was only this 
 one that started laterally ; all the rest sprung from the 
 top. The furnace itself was built close against a brick 
 partition which divided the cellar. A heavy padlocked 
 door shut off the forward part, which had been Mr. 
 Throop s wine-cellar, and where all remained as he had 
 left it. Through some opening in the back, accessible only 
 from this locked division, must come the supply of air to 
 feed the furnace-chamber, and circulate in the pipes. 
 Through this, also, by ways known only to herself, must 
 have crept the cat, and likewise circulated. 
 
 Into that dark, hollow space, up its rough-cast sides, 
 into the small, utterly obscure aperture, along those twenty 
 feet of mystery and uncertainty, one would think this 
 was exploit and marvel enough ; but up that twelve feet 
 perpendicular, with nothing but the lapping of the tin
 
 388 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 sheets to claw by, and the bracing of her body between 
 the narrow sides ! Beyond that, the closed register at the 
 top ! What sort of faith, or instinct, or impishness, was 
 it that led her on ? We stood in utter, awed bewilder 
 ment. It was almost stranger than a ghost. 
 
 One thing was certain : we could not let the play have a 
 run of a hundred nights. Something must be stopped up, 
 or come down. 
 
 " The hole in the furnace," suggested Caroline. 
 
 " We can t get at it." 
 
 " Nail something over the register." 
 
 " Then we should have the noise all the same, and the 
 poor cat would have to tumble twelve feet, and crawl 
 twenty backward. She deserves better for her smartness." 
 
 " Unhitch the pipe." 
 
 " We can t have workmen into the house, or alter any 
 thing." 
 
 " I 11 do it myself," said Adasha Downe. And she 
 straightway ran up the cellar staircase, beside which passed 
 the pipe, and laid brave hold. 
 
 A neck of iron was set in the brick-work of the furnace, 
 around which fitted the tin sheet. Adasha pulled and 
 pulled ; but what could she do with twenty or thirty feet 
 of metal cylinder, and years of rust ? Eylett stood still 
 considering, while she strove unheeded. Then he went 
 and got a hammer and a chisel. Then I climbed up on a 
 barrel, on the other side of the pipe to where Adasha was. 
 Caroline took the children up the staircase, and kept them 
 there peering down at us in a little eager heap from its head. 
 
 Eylett hammered and loosened, and we pulled. We all 
 pulled. Eylett twisted; and presently, all of a sudden, 
 some weak joint gave way above, and, at the same moment, 
 the neck yielded, and crash ! down came the whole 
 thing, revenging itself upon us by its compliance.
 
 ZERUB THROOP S EXPERIMENT. 389 
 
 " Oh, mamma ! mamma ! " cried out Robbie ; for I and 
 my barrel had tumbled down. Adasha seated herself very 
 hard upon the stairs. 
 
 "Are you hurt, Lizzie?" cried Eylett, coming in a 
 hurry. 
 
 No. Nobody was hurt. Only the pipe was separated 
 in two or three places, the air was full of dust, and we felt 
 as if we had pulled half the house down. 
 
 "Phew! phew!" said Eylett; and brushed his hands 
 against each other, and looked at the wreck. 
 
 He lifted a long piece, and set it up on end against the 
 wall. Out of it, as he did so, fell a great deal more dust, 
 and other things which we perceived as the dust subsided. 
 A great many pins of course ; an old piece of black 
 comb ; a red chessman ; nutshells ; a brass thimble ; hair 
 pins ; corks ; a handful of coppers that probably used to 
 roll out of Zerub Throop s trousers-pockets when he pulled 
 them off ; in the midst of the heap, something round and 
 bright, like a silver ball. 
 
 The children little wreckers that they always are 
 were down again by this time, notwithstanding remon 
 strances. They could n t help it ; they kept minding, and 
 going up, and irresistibly gravitating down again, in little 
 sprinkles, one and two at a time. 
 
 Robbie pounced upon the shining thing. 
 
 " Oh, I speak for that ! Is it a silver dollar, mamma? " 
 
 Poor Robbie had heard traditions of silver dollars, 
 earned and saved up in his father s childhood ; but his 
 little experimental knowledge stretched not beyond the 
 days of scrip. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " I said, foolishly. " That is n t a dollar. It 
 is n t anything." 
 
 " Not anything, mamma ? Why why here it is ! " 
 
 " I 11 tell you what it is," said Blossom, standing daintily
 
 390 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 on the stairs out of the dust, with her fresh pique frock, 
 and her little white stockings. " It s a fairy ball, and 
 Miss Whapshare will tell us a story about it." 
 
 " So I will," said Car, seizing her opportunity. And 
 she got them all away, up out of the cellar. 
 
 What she told them I don t know, about fairy balls 
 that opened, and had wonders inside ; and fairy balls that 
 only rolled and rolled and rolled, and led people along 
 through forests and among mountains, and out into some 
 paradise perhaps, of elf-land, at last. But when I had 
 changed my dusty dress, and washed my face and hands, 
 and seen Eylett brushed up and off to the train, I found 
 them all together in the play-room ; Car, with the ball 
 in her hand, and Robbie and Blossom beseeching her to 
 open it. 
 
 " Then it will be spoiled," she said, " if it is n t an 
 opening ball. I think it is a rolling one. It must have 
 rolled down the register. Who knows where it will roll 
 next ? " 
 
 Behind me up the stairs, in a fashion of privilege she 
 had taken, came suddenly Sarah Hand. 
 
 And, of course, then came the story, all about the 
 cat, and the pipe, and the ball. 
 
 " You see a great tin piece of the house came down 
 when they pulled," said Robbie, " and broke ; and every 
 thing came out, cents and pencils and everything." 
 
 " Droppins and sweepins," said Sarah Hand. " That s 
 how they came there." 
 
 " Not my fairy ball," said Robbie. " That rolled itself. 
 Nobody knows where it rolled from. Way down and 
 down, and over and over, and all through the world." 
 
 "I 11 tell you where it rolled from." said Sarah Hand, 
 taking it up. " I remember it. It s one of the things 
 that used to lay round on Zerub Throop s table. I know
 
 ZERUB THRO OP S EXPERIMENT. 391 
 
 em all by heart ; the things I used to turn over and dust, 
 and put back careful. I noticed that, because it looked 
 as if there might be something did up in it. He fixed it 
 his own self one day after dinner. I recollect the day 
 
 too. Cause Mis Wh he d had a visitor, and we d 
 
 had a talk. I s pose he was jest settin thinkin . It s 
 kinder awful, comin across things so, after folks is dead 
 and gone." 
 
 And Mrs. Hand laid back the ball on Caroline Whap- 
 share s lap. 
 
 Caroline took it up as if by a sudden impulse, and 
 picked out one edge of the folded foil. A little tremor 
 passed over her. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " said I. 
 
 " Nothing. I shivered, I don t know why." 
 
 " H-m-m ! " said Mrs. Hand, and looked solemn. 
 
 " I think that might as well be unrolled, and done with, 
 now the story is told," I said briskly ; for the children s 
 eyes were getting big. " We shall be having little night 
 mares of the ball traveling about, if we don t take care." 
 
 Then Caroline turned back corner after corner, edge 
 after edge, until two ends were opened out. It was no 
 longer a ball, but a little roll. There was something in 
 it. 
 
 Paper, written paper, folded and coiled. 
 
 " I feel as if it were a secret," said Caroline, as the last 
 doubling of tin-foil fell away, and left it in her hand. 
 
 "Perhaps it is. But there is nothing hidden" I 
 stopped. Car had got the paper open, had given one 
 glance at it, and every bit of color had flashed instantly 
 out of her face. 
 
 " Mrs. Bright ! What does it mean ? " 
 
 And poor little Caroline burst out crying. That saved 
 her from fainting away.
 
 392 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 I took the creased and curled-up scrap. 
 
 For value received of Miles Whapshare, in the year 
 one thousand eight hundred and forty-five, I promise and 
 direct to be paid to Mrs. Miles Whapshare, widow of said 
 Miles Whapshare, or her heirs-at-law, six months after my 
 decease, or on the presentation of this paper to my execu 
 tors at any time within five years from such decease, 
 Thirty-five thousand dollars. 
 
 ZERUBBABEL THROOP. 
 
 I turned it over. 
 
 " October 19th, 1866. 
 
 " Left to Providence. 
 
 " Payable to order ; that is, on turning up." 
 
 We sent for Rufus Abell and for Dr. Plaice. 
 
 It was all quite plain and strong ; as strong as it was 
 queer. 
 
 " This is the thing that was provided for," said Rufus 
 Abell, just as unmoved as if he could possibly have ex 
 pected it. I suppose Mr. Abell had got over surprises 
 long ago. 
 
 Arthur and Caroline went home together to tell Mrs. 
 Whapshare. 
 
 I watched them go down the hill in the sunshine, gath 
 ering it, as it were, around and after them, to carry down 
 in one great golden rush into the corner house that had 
 been full of little crowding clouds of care so long. I 
 thought of that bit of creased-up paper in Rufus Abell s 
 wallet, and how it would go to probate with the will, and 
 settle everything, and how strange, and changed, and 
 wonderful it all was. And I bit my tongue to try if I 
 was awake ; and then I turned round and said to Mrs. 
 Hand :
 
 ZERUB THRO OP S EXPERIMENT. 393 
 
 " To think it should all be by means of that cat ! " 
 
 "It s very well," said Mrs. Hand, with slow signifi 
 cance, " to lay it all off on to her. But what possessed 
 the cat ? It s like the pigs in the New Testament. If 
 a ghost wanted something out of a register-pipe, 
 he might very likely need some sort of a cat s-paw 
 to help hisself with." 
 
 Was it a cat, or was it a ghost, or was it simply Provi 
 dence ? It was the question left on our minds. We 
 thought, humbly and honestly, that it might be all three. 
 We put this and that together that we had learned, and 
 we believed it just possible, among the mysteries, that 
 Zerub Throop had at last " come across Providence," and 
 had been set to work perhaps with such links and agencies 
 on earth as he had established for himself. 
 
 At any rate, the Ghost Story and the Cat Story got so 
 mixed up and merged that they were never popularly dis 
 entangled. 
 
 We could never get any other girl than Adasha Downe 
 to live with us at Throop Hill, though we came there three 
 summers. 
 
 " The owld man might ha left somethin else that 
 needed seein af ther ; who knows?" the Irish said. 
 
 Caroline Whapshare and Arthur Plaice were married 
 in September. Mrs. Whapshare gave them five thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 " There would be that," she said, "for each of the chil 
 dren, and the same for her own part. They should have 
 their share as they came to want it. She d done waiting 
 enough herself for the whole family." 
 
 Miss Suprema Sharpe had a kind of congestive fever 
 that fall. She took cold at the wedding. But the doctor 
 did not think that was quite the whole of it. There was
 
 394 HOMESPUN YARNS. 
 
 a feverish fullness that must determine somewhere, a 
 greater pressure than the ordinary circulation could carry 
 off. 
 
 A ghost-story, a fortune, and a wedding, what they 
 did with the money, and how they behaved about it, all 
 this, you see, to come right in here, like an avalanche, at 
 the corner, to be thoroughly sifted and discussed, and 
 realized and criticised. Well, it could not have gone much 
 harder with Suprema Sharpe ; and if you knew her as 
 we do, Dutton, you would understand. 
 
 It is n t a matter to make fun of, though, and I would n t 
 have you think I do. It s an awful fact, and a solemn 
 retribution. There is such a thing as a vacuum in heart, 
 or brain, or life, by which the surrounding atmosphere has 
 to press in with fifteen uncompensated pounds to the inch. 
 And that is the way the burden of everybody s else af 
 fairs comes down at last upon the Sharpes. 
 
 That couldn t have been in Dante; could it, Dutton 
 dear? 
 
 But if Dante had come after Kepler and Newton 
 and a few other folks I guess it would have been.
 
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