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 CL.ARK, Kate ITpsoii, author; b. Camden, 
 Ala., Feb. 22, 1851; </. Edwin and Priscilla 
 (Maxwell) Upson ; grad. Wheaton Sem., 
 Norton, Mass., 1869, Westfleld (Mass.) Nor 
 mal Srh., 1872: m. Milwaukee, Jan. 1, 1874, 
 Edward Perkins Clark, journalist (died Feb. 
 16, 1903). Taught in Cleveland (O.) Central 
 High Sch., 1872-3. Clubs: Wheaton (pres. 
 
 since 188(5), Meridian (New York). Editor: 
 Good Cheer, 1882-7; "Helping Hand" dept., 
 Phila. Press., 1S83-6; Romance, 1892-5. Con- 
 tb r to Harper publications, Wide Awake, 
 St. Nicholas, Youth s Companion, Atlantic 
 Monthly, etc.; also to religious weeklies. 
 Author: That Mary Ann, 1892 L9; Bringing 
 ~ Up Boys, 1900 C7; White Butterflies, 1900 
 T8; How Dexter Paid His Way, 1901 C7; 
 Move Upward, 1902 C7; On the Witch Brook 
 Road, 1902 T8. Address: 545 A Quincy St., 
 Brooklyn.
 
 "THAT MARY ANN
 
 THAT MARY ANN" 
 
 BY 
 
 KATE UPSON CLARK 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 MARIA L. KIRK 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 D. LOTHROP COMPANY 
 
 1893
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1893, 
 
 BY 
 D. LOTHROF COMPANY. 
 
 A II rights reserved. 
 
 XortoooU I3rtss : 
 Berwick & Smith, Boston, U.S.A.
 
 c/> 
 
 LU 
 OO 
 
 TO 
 o= 
 
 THE DEAR AUNTS 
 
 Who have done so much to make " Val," " Max," 
 M " Kirk," " Charles " and " That Mary 
 
 in Ann " happy, this little story is 
 
 g affectionately dedicated 
 
 by the Author. 
 
 d 
 a 
 
 ; 
 
 : 
 
 O 
 
 uj 
 
 Li 
 
 452G01
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED ... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER 34 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE ... 64 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE ... 94 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT 125 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL ..... 1G2
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Talking it over . . . . . Frontis. 
 
 "Mary Ann!" groaned Charles; "what 
 
 a name ! " 17 
 
 " This is a Chauliognathus Pennsylva- 
 
 nicus," said Charles ..... 51 
 
 Val enlightens Marian on the subject of 
 
 butterflies 109 
 
 She lifted the child in her arms . . . 139 
 " We all want to know about everything " . 179
 
 THAT MARY ANN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 THE church in the little country village 
 near which the Curry family was spending 
 the summer, was undergoing repairs, and 
 consequently the Sunday services were held 
 in the chapel, Charlie Curry, the eldest of 
 the four Curry boys, was therefore excusable 
 (though he was fifteen years old and large 
 for his age) in getting somewhat confused 
 about rinding the first hymn. He had taken 
 pains to carry one of the regular church hymn- 
 books, while the minister had the one com 
 monly used at the chapel prayer-meetings. 
 
 " Hymn 318," announced the minister. 
 
 Charlie had noticed that the young lady in 
 front of him had no book. He therefore 
 l
 
 "2 THE CUltHY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 hurried very fast to find the hymn indicated. 
 Having reached the number given, and with 
 out stopping to see whether the words cor 
 responded with those which were being read 
 from the pulpit, lie handed the book to the 
 girl with a polite bow. 
 
 His brothers, Kirk and Max, who were 
 thirteen and nine respectively, "snickered" 
 almost aloud at seeing this performance, for 
 they knew the secret of the hymn-books. 
 
 While they were eating dinner Charles 
 seized the opportunity to reprove them. 
 
 "Fortunately, mamma," he explained with 
 dignity, "their laughing in that rude way did 
 not embarrass the girl so much as it otherwise 
 would, because she was clever, and she saw 
 what the trouble was right away. She turned 
 to the index of first lines, and of course she 
 found the hymn at once." 
 
 " You never were more mistaken in your 
 life," broke in Kirk. " It was the Perkins 
 boy who sat next to her. She was fumbling 
 around as helpless as you please, when he saw 
 what was the fix, and took the book and 
 turned to the hymn. A girl never would 
 think of looking in the index. " 
 
 "Kirk!" exclaimed his mother warningly.
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 3 
 
 " Well, mamma," apologized Kirk in a very 
 lame way, and with an exasperating air of 
 condescension, " girls may be smart in some 
 ways. I know you are always saying they 
 are, but it isn t that way. In such a case as 
 that, a girl wouldn t think to look in the 
 index half so quick as a boy would." 
 
 " It would depend upon the girl," responded 
 his mother quietly. " If she did not think, it 
 would be because she was stupid ; not because 
 she was a girl. For instance, Max s friend 
 - Seth Mellows though, I understand, an 
 authority on hens, would hardly have seen a 
 way out of the dilemma this morning. On 
 the contrary, that Anna Bassett " 
 
 " Oh ! she," cried Kirk. His face began to 
 flame up a little. Anna Bassett was a girl 
 who had persistently distanced him in every 
 study at school during the last year, much to 
 his mother s delight. The three head scholars 
 in his class at school had happened to be, for 
 two or three years, boys. The four or five 
 girls in it were all of them dull and common 
 place. Suddenly, a certain Anna Bassett had 
 entered the class, and the boys, who had not 
 unnaturally become insufferably contemptu 
 ous of giils, had been compelled to change
 
 4 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 their attitude, for Anna Bassett had easily 
 taken first rank in the class, and they had 
 heen obliged to treat her with the highest 
 respect. 
 
 The opinion of the feminine mind which is 
 held by boys and men is almost always deter 
 mined by the kind of girls and women with 
 whom they have been associated. If a man 
 talks much of the silliness and inferiority of 
 women, it is very nearly the same thing as 
 though he were accusing his own wife or sis 
 ters of stupidity, though he may love them 
 dearly, and would not say a word against 
 them personally for the world. 
 
 Kirk recovered himself enough presently to 
 add, though his remark was rather beside the 
 point, " Anna Bassett is a year older than 
 I am." 
 
 That does not prevent her from being a 
 girl, and would not have kept her from find 
 ing the hymn in a case like that of this morn 
 ing," said his mother cuttingly. And now we 
 will go into the parlor. I have something to 
 read to you which you will like, and then we 
 will study the Sunday-school lesson for next 
 week." 
 
 " The funniest thing happened in Sunday-
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 5 
 
 school this morning," said Charles. "Kirk 
 and I were sitting behind the others, and 
 waiting to see what class we were going to be 
 put into, when the superintendent came up 
 and told us that we ought to go into Mrs. 
 Sparrow s class. Then he went to ask her 
 about it. She turned around and looked 
 right at us, and I said to Kirk that she seemed 
 to be taking a bird s eye view of us. He 
 went to laughing as hard as he could, but I 
 never saw any pun until he explained it 
 to me." 
 
 " And then I told Mrs. Sparrow ; because I 
 thought it was so funny," added Kirk; "and 
 I suppose it must have been a dreadful thing 
 to do, for she glared at me as cross as could 
 be. Women and girls haven t any fun in 
 them, somehow." 
 
 " Kirk Curry," cried his mother in despair, 
 " it doesn t seem to occur to you that you are 
 reflecting on me every time you speak in that 
 way. " 
 
 " No, I m not," disputed Kirk sturdily ; 
 " you re different. You know yourself you 
 are. I heard you say to papa, only the other 
 day, that you didn t think women had much 
 sense of humor."
 
 THE CUJiltY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 Mrs. Curry colored, and murmuring a few 
 words to the effect that she was speaking of 
 a particular case, began to read. The read 
 ing gave great satisfaction, but the study 
 which followed was not entered into so 
 heartily. The boys seemed to be feeling 
 unusually active, even for them, and it was 
 hard work to keep them quiet. Lydia, the 
 seller of purple, was the subject of the 
 lesson. 
 
 " What color, according to our modern 
 names, was the ancient purple ? " inquired 
 Mrs. Curry. 
 
 " Red," piped up Max proudly. 
 
 " Oh ! I understood that readily," giggled 
 Kirk. 
 
 This led to spasms of uncontrollable laughter 
 on the part of all the boys, even little three- 
 year-old Valentine joining in, though he had 
 no idea of what the laugh was about. 
 
 " Well, boys," sighed their mother, who 
 was tired out with trying to interest them in 
 the lesson, " this just means that you will 
 have to take a part of a week-day for this 
 lesson. Now you may go." 
 
 Charles begged that the study might con 
 tinue until the lesson was learned. He dis-
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 1 
 
 liked to give up his week-days to studying 
 the Sunday-school lesson, but his mother was 
 firm, and as the younger boys were delighted 
 with the idea of postponing their task, Charles 
 had to succumb. 
 
 On the following day, the three older boys, 
 coming home to supper from an all-day fish 
 ing? excursion, met little Val at some distance 
 
 o 
 
 from the house. He was evidently watching 
 for them and had important news to com 
 municate. 
 
 " May an tummin," lisped the little boy. 
 It seemed as though he never would learn to 
 talk plainly, especially as all of the family 
 loved so well to hear his broken words that 
 they took no pains to teach him to talk 
 better. 
 
 " May an ? " repeated Kirk suspiciously. 
 " Who under the sun is May an ? 
 
 " May an tummin," reiterated Val gravely. 
 He took hold of Charlie s hand and trotted 
 solemnly along beside him, the strings of his 
 sensible gingham apron fluttering from his 
 back. 
 
 u Yon heard anything about it, Charlie ? " 
 asked Kirk. 
 
 " Nary word."
 
 8 THE CUliRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 "You, Max?" 
 
 Max shook his head. " Course I haven t." 
 
 Oh! there isn t any body Hum rain. You re 
 just fooling us," said Kirk to Val. 
 
 "May an tuinmiu," insisted Val, now rather 
 impatiently. " Mamma dot letter. May an 
 tummin." 
 
 " Oh ! you can talk ever so much plainer 
 than that," teased Kirk. Come, tell us 
 about it." 
 
 " For pity s sake, hurry up ! " cried Charles. 
 " T want to know what this mysterious an 
 nouncement means. The only May an that 
 I ever heard anything about was a sister of 
 papa s who lived out in California, or some 
 where like that; but seems to me she died a 
 good while ago. Maybe there was a cousin 
 named after her." 
 
 Oh ! a fellow can t keep track of his 
 cousins out of all creation," exclaimed Kirk 
 impatiently. " People have got to show up 
 sometimes if they expect anybody to know 
 about them. I can t remember hearing any 
 thing about her." 
 
 Kirk reached the house first, and found his 
 mother reading with red eyes, and for the 
 fourth or fifth time, a long letter which she
 
 THE CURBY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 9 
 
 held in her hand. In the other hand she held 
 a handkerchief. Kirk saw that she had been 
 crying, and his voice softened a little as he 
 asked, " What s up, mamma ? " 
 
 The other boys were by this time crowding 
 around her. 
 
 u Your Uncle Robert Fowler is dead," re 
 plied his mother. " You ought to know, but 
 perhaps you have forgotten hearing us speak 
 of it, that your father s sister Marian mar 
 ried a Mr. Fowler. They moved to California 
 soon after their marriage. She was an in- 
 
 o 
 
 valid and unable to travel, and as I have 
 never been to California, I have never seen 
 them since they left the East. Your father 
 went out there six years ago, as Charles, and 
 perhaps Kirk, will remember. Shortly after 
 ward your Aunt Marian died. She left one 
 little girl. She must be as old as Kirk is 
 now perhaps half-way between Kirk s and 
 Charlie s ages. Her name is like her mother s, 
 Marian. Just think, boys, this poor girl is left 
 without father or mother. Your Uncle Wil 
 liam wants her, but your Aunt Marian was 
 very fond of your father and of me, and the 
 friend who has written us this letter says 
 that Uncle Robert expressed a wish that we
 
 10 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 might adopt her. Marian herself has written 
 us a little letter which is inclosed with the 
 other, but she does not, of course, say any 
 thing about such matters, except that she is 
 coming to make us a visit at once and is 
 looking forward to it with much pleasure. 
 She was deeply attached to her father 
 more than most children of her age. That 
 was natural, because she was all he had, and 
 he made her his constant companion. Her 
 letter is very sad. They are sending her 
 away for a change of scene, and I can see 
 that she needs it. We must try and cheer 
 her up all that we can. I don t know that 
 we ought to take her entirely away from 
 Uncle William, for he is rich, while we are 
 not, and he could do a great many things for 
 her which we cannot. lie has been settling 
 up Uncle Robert s affairs there, for, as per 
 haps you older boys know, he lives only a 
 few miles from Marian s home. He tele 
 graphed us this letter says but as we have 
 never received any telegram on the subject it 
 must have been lost. Perhaps in the confu 
 sion it was not even sent, or was misdirected. 
 Poor Uncle William had to see to everything, 
 and he must have been deeply agitated, for
 
 THE C URE Y BO YS AEE D1SPLEA SED. \ I 
 
 he thought a great deal of Uncle Robert. 
 Any way, it was thought best that Marian 
 should at once have a change, and so she is 
 coming here for a time, at least. If, after 
 she has been with us a while, she does not 
 care to stay, of course we must let her do 
 whatever seems best. If she prefers to go 
 and live with Uncle William we must not in 
 sist on keeping her here ; but I am in hopes 
 that she will like us, and that you and all of 
 us will make it so pleasant for her that she 
 will feel that she has come to a home where 
 everybody loves her." 
 
 The boys had dropped into chairs, and 
 flung their hats on the floor. They sat 
 listening with intense eagerness until their 
 mother paused. 
 
 " Will she stay with us after we go back 
 to the city, too ? " asked Charles presently. 
 
 " Certainly," replied his mother ; " I hope 
 she will stay with us alwa} 7 s." 
 
 " Where will she sleep ? " asked Charles 
 cautiously. 
 
 " I hadn t thought so far as that," remarked 
 Mrs. Curry with some asperity. " But when 
 a poor orphaned girl, bound to us by ties of 
 blood, comes into my family, I expect my
 
 12 THE CURRY BOYS AUK DISPLEASED. 
 
 boys to almost run over one another in wel 
 coming her; and I expect each of them to 
 offer her his room, and that the one whose 
 offer she accepts will feel glad and honored." 
 
 " O, my ! You re joking no\v, I guess, 
 mamma," exclaimed Max, aghast. 
 
 Each one of the Curry boys had at home, 
 it must be remarked, a pleasant room all to 
 himself. There was only one guest-chamber. 
 The boys were very fond of their respective 
 apartments and did not like to give them up. 
 As no one knew this fact better than Mrs. 
 Curry, it is not strange that Kirk, on hearing 
 Max s little wail, laughed sarcastically. 
 
 i% Of course," continued Charles, who felt 
 it incumbent upon him to do something which 
 should atone for the evident lack of hearti 
 ness in the others, and yet who did not feel 
 so over-poweringly hearty himself, "of course 
 we are sorry for Cousin Marian, and all that. 
 We never saw Uncle Robert, so of course we 
 can t realize anything about his death. It is 
 too bad to have her left an orphan, though ; 
 but, O, mamma ! why wasn t she a boy ? " 
 
 k Yes," echoed Kirk forlornly. " Why 
 wasn t she a boy ? That s it ! A boy, now, 
 would be some fun."
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 13 
 
 "I will, of course, give up my room at 
 home to her, as it is the largest," pursued 
 Charles, with an air of heroic martyrdom. 
 
 " It s pretty mean to make Charlie give up 
 his nice room," protested Kirk, who well 
 knew how much Charles delighted in his 
 " den." 
 
 " Well," interrupted his mother hastily, 
 "it will be two months yet before we go 
 back to the city, and there is time for a great 
 deal to happen before then. It isn t worth 
 while to worry over any little sacrifices that 
 you will be forced to make. Perhaps Marian 
 will not like us at all. Very likely she has 
 formed as absurd notions about boys as you 
 have about girls. Uncle William was to tele 
 graph to papa in New York in regard to 
 meeting her there. She will probably have 
 to stay with him for a day or two, and then 
 he will either send or bring her up here. 
 She will doubtless be here soon, for she was 
 to start within three days after this letter." 
 
 " O, horrors ! " groaned Kirk, as the boys 
 strolled meditatively out to the woodshed to 
 clean their fish. " Think of a girl puttering 
 round here ! She ll spoil everything I Now 
 what fun it would have been to have another
 
 14 THE CUlt 11 Y BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 boy ! What games of ball we might have 
 played ! Never should have had to scour 
 the neighborhood to liud another fellow, as 
 we generally do have to up here. And we 
 might have had a military company. And 
 then when Max got huffy we should have 
 had another " 
 
 I don t get huffy any more than you do ! 
 And I don t know as you ve any right " 
 
 " Max," interrupted Charles sternly, kt you 
 have got to stop this saying I don t know 
 as. It s vile grammar, and mamma has told 
 you time and time again " 
 
 " I m sick of hearing you trying to fix my 
 grammar !" protested Max, with a very red 
 face. 
 
 " Well, then, why don t you talk better?" 
 said Charles sharply. " You make me as 
 nervous as this sucker here. It is as natural 
 for you to talk bad grammar as it is for him 
 to wiggle. My ! wouldn t you think he d be 
 dead by this time? But he isn t by a long 
 shot." 
 
 The sucker had been caught for several 
 hours, but he was almost as lively as when 
 he had first encountered Charlie s hook. 
 
 The boys were fond of fish, and they were
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 15 
 
 willing to work hard at cleaning them for 
 good Mrs. Wellman, the lady with whom 
 they were boarding, and had boarded for 
 several summers. As they labored, they 
 gradually fell away from the subject of gram 
 mar, fascinating as Charles seemed to find it, 
 and even from that more generally interest 
 ing one, fish and fishing, and reverted to the 
 obnoxious cousin. For the misfortune of be 
 ing a girl, for which she was not in the least 
 to blame, she appeared likely to be quite de 
 frauded of her welcome from cousins who 
 were in the main very kind-hearted boys. 
 
 " Mary Ann ! " groaned Charles as he 
 scraped away ; " what a name ! " 
 
 " Tisn t Mary Ann. It s May-rian," cor 
 rected Max, who was oppressively truthful, 
 when not expected to be. 
 
 " What s the difference ? " asked Kirk 
 crossly. 
 
 " Oh ! I m called little Mary Ann, 
 
 Dear little Mary Ann, 
 
 Though I can scarcely tell why," 
 
 warbled Charles to the tune of " Buttercup." 
 " Good ! First-rate, Charlie ! " chuckled 
 Kirk rapturously. " Give us some more ! "
 
 16 THE CURRY SOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 Thus encouraged, Charles proceeded to de 
 scend into the depths of bass, winding up 
 shrilly with 
 
 " Sweet little Mary Ann, I," 
 
 at the end. 
 
 They all laughed uproariously, little Val, 
 who had been standing by all the time, join 
 ing in as usual, though, as usual, also, he had 
 no idea of what the fun was about. 
 
 " Mary Ann ! what a name ! " repeated 
 Kirk, when they had somewhat sobered 
 down. " I should say so ! " 
 
 Oh ! we might as well get used to it. 
 It s plain to see that mamma s set on it, 
 grumbled Charles. 
 
 u Maybe she ll be nice now," urged Max, 
 who was always inclined to optimism. 
 
 k * Oh ! you think she ll like cats probably, 
 or your precious hens ! " cried Kirk scornfully. 
 "That won t make her nice. Nice? A girl? 
 I should say not ! " 
 
 " There is nice girls," insisted Max. " The 
 trouble is you don t know no girls hardly, 
 Kirk Curry! " 
 
 . " Is nice girls ! Don t know no girls 
 hardly ! Max, you ll drive me wild ! " fretted
 
 THE CUREY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 19 
 
 Charles. " You know better than that ; you 
 know you do. If you re going to talk Choc- 
 taw, talk it ; but if you pretend to talk the 
 English language, for pity s sake, talk that! " 
 
 Max was about to retort angrily, when a 
 sudden mewing caught his ear. He was de 
 voted to cats, and the new sound struck him 
 as resembling the wail of his own special 
 black kitten, which he had christened by the 
 romantic name of Charcoal. 
 
 "What s that?" he shrieked. 
 
 "Sounds like your precious Charcoal," sug 
 gested Kirk crossly. u There s another name 
 for you. ; Charcoal will do to go with 
 Mary Ann. Why didn t you call her Le- 
 high Valley, and done with it ? " 
 
 All of this irony was lost upon Max, who 
 was rushing in every direction, and peering 
 into all the corners to find out whence the 
 heart-rending sound proceeded. 
 
 " She isn t around here. That mewing is out 
 in the lot somewhere. Here ! take these fish- 
 things to her. They ll shut her up, I guess." 
 
 As he spoke, Charles tossed Max a news 
 paper full of fish-pickings, and the poor little 
 boy was out in " the lot " in an instant, while 
 the others finished up their task.
 
 20 TUE CURlfY HOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 Just as they were ready to wash their 
 hands for supper, and the fish were frying 
 merrily over the fire, Max came rushing in. 
 His face was white, and tears were streaming 
 down his cheeks. 
 
 " She s up a tree ! " he howled piteously. 
 " My dear little kitty is up a tree the great 
 big elm-tree and she can t get down. Oh ! 
 oh! what shall I do? O, Mrs. Wellman ! 
 u-hatshalll do?" 
 
 " I saw her up there an hour or two ago," 
 said good Mrs. Wellman. " I want to know 
 if she hasn t got down yet ? " 
 
 She pushed the frying-pan back on the 
 stove, and went to the door to look out. 
 
 " Have you tried to coax her with the fish?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " Oh ! I begged her and begged her to 
 come down," sobbed Max ; " n I tried to 
 shin up the tree, n the tree s too big around. 
 Say, mamma, how ll I make my Charcoal get 
 down ? See her up in the big elm-tree there ; 
 see ! " 
 
 Mrs. Curry joined the group at the door, 
 and they all sallied out to the great tree, 
 which was only a few rods away, to see 
 what could be done.
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 21 
 
 The elm had no branches for more than 
 fifty feet above the ground. It was a grand 
 specimen of its class. A dog or some other 
 animal had evidently chased the half-grown 
 kitten up the trunk. Now she stood in the 
 first crotch mewing with that peculiar, shrill, 
 rasping noise that her kind make when they 
 are scared nearly to death. Now and then 
 she would thrust her little black paws down 
 ward, clutch the bark with her claws, and 
 make as though she were going to descend ; 
 but the height apparently terrified her, and 
 mewing mournfully, she would retreat to the 
 crotch again. 
 
 Little Val stood looking up at Max s pet, 
 with great tears rolling down his cheeks, too, 
 though he did not sob after the tempestuous 
 style of his brother. All of the boys were 
 profoundly moved by the kitten s distress. 
 There was no ladder in the barn long enough 
 to reach within a number of feet of the crotch, 
 and even Mr. Wellrnan, when he came in from 
 his work a little later, had no suggestions to 
 offer as to a method of relief for the unfortu 
 nate kitten. He " guessed " she would come 
 down during the night. Cats had a way of 
 doing "these kind of things." (Charles
 
 22 T1IE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 winced, but, to do him justice, he corrected 
 nobody s grammar but his brother s.) The 
 best way to do, aceordiiig to Mr. Well man s 
 ideas, was to go in, eat a hearty supper, sleep 
 soundly all night, and in the morning they 
 would find Miss Charcoal running around 
 the kitchen as usual. Why, if she should 
 jump down from there it wouldn t hurt her. 
 
 These positive assertions, delivered in the 
 calm and reasonable tone with which Mr. 
 Wellman could always convince the boys, 
 partially comforted Max, and they went in 
 at last, to partake of their fried tisli. After 
 supper it was cool, and behind closed doors 
 and windows the mewing of the kitten was 
 lost. The whole family engaged in a fine 
 game of logomachy. Max won ; and this 
 put him into such good spirits that he quite 
 forgot his kitty until the next morning. 
 
 Then, however, he remembered her \\li\i a 
 pang, and, rising shortly after daybreak, he 
 found her still imprisoned in the tree. Her 
 mew was fainter, and Max was sure that she 
 was going to die right away; but Mr. Well 
 man was still confident that if left to herself 
 she would come down. Cats often lived for 
 weeks without food, he said. There was no
 
 r lIIE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 23 
 
 danger of her dying ; before night she would 
 get up courage to scramble to the ground. 
 
 Max was a credulous little being, and upon 
 hearing these words lie smoothed out his 
 pudgy little face and went to feeding his 
 hens, which he loved next best to the kitty. 
 Little Val accompanied him back and forth, 
 as Max went to get scraps and meal for his 
 favorites. " The baby " made a pretty picture 
 as he stood by Max s side helping to supply 
 the greedy hens and chickens. 
 
 For a week or two, the boys had been plan 
 ing to spend this particular day in an excur 
 sion to Parker s Hill, the highest point of 
 land in the vicinity. The weather was fine, 
 and Charles and Kirk wished the original 
 programme to be carried out. Max wailed 
 at the idea of going off and leaving the kitten 
 suffering in the tree, but as Val, who was 
 not going on the trip to the hill, promised 
 faithfully to see to her, and to feed her at 
 once if she should come down, Max was 
 finally induced to accompany the older boys. 
 They carried sandwiches and apples for their 
 lunch, six eggs to boil, and a tin pail to boil 
 them in, a paper of salt, several potatoes to 
 roast, a cup and a large empty bottle.
 
 24 THE CL HIiY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 In addition to these articles, they carried 
 two things which were never forgotten where 
 ever they went. These were a bat and a ball. 
 
 It was four or more steep miles up to the 
 top of Parker s Hill from the Wellinans , but 
 the boys had stout legs and were used to 
 climbing. At the " Icy Spring," about half 
 way on their journey, they filled their bottle, 
 and stopped to enjoy a refreshing draught. 
 Then they trudged on. There were a good 
 many raspberry bushes on the way, and prog 
 ress was not very rapid. At a fine level spot, 
 they laid down their burdens, and had a game 
 of ball. This was brought to an abrupt con 
 clusion, after half an hour of capital sport, by 
 a throw from Kirk, which, as Max declared 
 with many wails, sent the ball "right square 
 .against his brain/ Kirk sniffed disdainfully, 
 and had a good deal to say about "cry 
 babies," under his breath ; but Charles com 
 forted his little brother, dried his tears, and 
 said that it was time to stop anyhow, for 
 there was going to be a lot to do to get the 
 unch read} . They therefore fared onward, 
 once more enjoying peace and harmony. 
 
 Arrived at a great rock not far from the 
 summit of the hill, the boys built a fire in its
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 25 
 
 shadow, cut two crotchet! sticks on which to 
 hang their pail, got some brook-water from a 
 little stream close by for boiling their eggs, 
 and dug a hole in the earth for their potatoes. 
 B}" this time they were, after the manner of 
 boys, ravenously hungry, and sat impatiently 
 waiting for their potatoes to cook. Charles 
 moused around a while hunting for beetles of 
 which he was making a collection ; but finally, 
 he, too, stretched himself out beside the fire, 
 where the other boys were already reclining. 
 They had gathered a pile of sticks, from 
 which they threw one occasionally on the fire. 
 
 " I suppose we can t have many more of 
 these lovely times," grumbled Kirk. " That 
 Mary Ann will want to poke around with us 
 everywhere we go after this. A girl in the 
 party just spoils everything." 
 
 " Mamma don t want you to call her Mary 
 Ann, " protested dear little Max. 
 
 "You shouldn t say mamma don t, " cor 
 rected Charles. " When it s one person that 
 you re talking about you should always say 
 doesn t, " 
 
 " I think when we re off on a picnic we 
 might talk just as we choose," appealed Max, 
 drawing his mouth down ominously. " Spe-
 
 26 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 cially when I got such a lot of wood, and cut 
 the crotch myself, while that lazy Kirk just 
 dug the hole, and you hunted after beetles, 
 now, and when I was telling what was right 
 to do for mamma, besides. She don t want 
 her called Mary Ann so." 
 
 This diverted Kirk s rising wrath from -Max 
 whose insinuations he resented bitterly 
 to the original subject. 
 
 "Anyhow, that s her name," he insisted 
 wrathfully. " Any girl who will call her 
 name Marian, when it s Mary Ann. I ve got 
 my opinion of. Oh ! they re a nice set 
 girls are. Don t I know what I m talking 
 about ? Squeezing themselves up in corsets 
 till they can t run, or even walk, or lift up 
 their arms to reach things ! And then some 
 of em wear false hair, and paint their faces. 
 It s bad enough to have to dance with em at 
 parties, and talk to em, and have cm in your 
 classes at school. And then to think that 
 we ve got to have one of em tagging around 
 everywhere we go ! I s pose we ll have to 
 slow up whenever we go walking because 
 she can t keep along! O, gracious! I do 
 hope Uncle William ll take her. I should 
 think mamma d see that we don t want her.
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 27 
 
 I don t believe she ll want her herself, when 
 she sees her silly, mincing ways. I presume 
 she s saucy, too, like that horrid Elsie Ten- 
 nant in Max s class. She s a tearer ! I do 
 hope Mary Ann is like her, for then marama ll 
 send her kiting pretty quick." 
 
 "Oh! come now,". protested Charles, who 
 did not like the idea of "that Mary Ann" any 
 more than Kirk did, but who was far more 
 yielding, and was for having justice though 
 the heavens fell. " All girls aren t as bad 
 as you say, Kirk. You re too sweeping. 
 Mamma must have been a decent sort of a 
 girl, and if this Mary Ann is anything like 
 what she ought to be, she can help a lot 
 about taking care of Val, now that mamma 
 doesn t have any nurse, and maybe she ll 
 make nice desserts. Oh ! perhaps she can 
 get up enough fun to pay for having her 
 around." 
 
 Charles sighed lugubriously, however, as 
 he concluded, and Kirk poked the fire 
 savagely. Max looked resigned, and rubbed 
 the bump on his " brain." 
 
 " Maybe she ll help me bout my rithmetic," 
 he suggested presently. 
 
 "I should think you needed it," snarled
 
 28 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISl LEASED. 
 
 Kirk, whose temper always suffered under 
 the stress of hunger. u You re the boy, I be 
 lieve, who said that the difference between a 
 common and a decimal fraction was that a 
 decimal fraction had a point in it and a com 
 mon one didn t. You re a dandy on arith 
 metic, you are ! Wasn t that the best, 
 Charlie ? " 
 
 Kirk threw himself back on the ground and 
 laughed immoderately. Max s dear little 
 face puckered and puckered, and he was just 
 about to burst into angry tears, when Charles 
 suggested that the eggs, which had been boil 
 ing merrily for a half-hour or more, must be 
 hard and tender by this time done enougli 
 to suit " even mamma," who insisted that eggs 
 should be boiled for an hour, if boys would 
 be so unreasonable as to like them hard. 
 
 " They haven t boiled quite an hour," ad 
 mitted Charles virtuously, "but it must have 
 been long enough. We ll have lunch in three 
 courses. We must begin, or we shall starve 
 within an hour ; and those potatoes are as 
 hard as rocks yet. First, we ll have sand 
 wiches with eggs. Then, cake and fruit, 
 and when they are done, roasted potatoes 
 with salt. How s that for a menu?"
 
 THE CURRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 29 
 
 " Daisy ! " shouted Max, his troubles all 
 forgotten. 
 
 They accordingly set to work eating. 
 Charlie s fastidiousness as to grammar did 
 not extend to his table manners, and some of 
 the mouthfuls munched that day on Parker s 
 Hill would have shocked anybody not accus 
 tomed to boys. The lunch was pronounced 
 incomparable. The potatoes, it was admitted, 
 might have been benefited by longer cooking, 
 but the hard parts in the middles were thrown 
 away, and the remainder was voted excellent. 
 
 When they had rested a while after their 
 meal was concluded, they climbed the various 
 rocks in the vicinity, and several high trees, 
 and thus obtained magnificent views. It 
 then occurred to them to partially wash from 
 their very disreputable-looking hands and 
 faces, the black which had rubbed off from 
 the outsides of the potatoes, and having thus, 
 as they considered, made a sufficient conces 
 sion to civilization, they prepared to descend. 
 A little down the hill they found another 
 " dandy " place for a game of ball, which 
 they straightway proceeded to enjoy. Dur 
 ing the progress of this game, Max s " brain " 
 received no further injury.
 
 IJO THE CURRY SOYS AltE DISPLEASED. 
 
 It was five o clock when they came trailing 
 up the road toward Mrs. Wellman s. In the 
 yard stood a tall, well-shaped girl, bearing at 
 a casual glance no trace of the awful vices 
 which Kirk had attributed to her kind. She 
 wore a plain black gown, and her long, light- 
 brown hair hung in a thick braid at her back. 
 She was shading her eyes with her hand, and 
 looking intently toward the kitten in the elm- 
 tree, which was evidently as far as ever from 
 fulfilling Mr. Wellman s prophecy. 
 
 As Mrs. Curry saw the boys approaching, 
 she hastened to meet them, and to present 
 them to the tall, fair girl, who proved to be. as 
 they had instantly surmised, the new cousin. 
 As the} drew close to her, they saw that she 
 had very bright, kind brown eyes, under beau 
 tifully-curved brown brows: that her nose was 
 rather short, and had a decided tilt upward ; 
 that her teeth were strong and white, and 
 filled her mouth a trifle too full, so that her 
 red lips usually parted a little over them ; 
 that her complexion was very fair, while her 
 cheeks were rosy ; that her expression was 
 affectionate and merry, and not at all "glum," 
 as they had all expected that it would be, 
 since she had so recently passed through
 
 THE CU11EY BOYS AEE DISPLEASED. 31 
 
 such troubles. On the whole, though they 
 could not have said that she was exactly 
 " pretty," she was certainly very " nice-look 
 ing," and the boys, even Kirk, could not help 
 smiling when they looked into her eager face. 
 
 She made no movement to kiss them, which 
 was a strong point in her favor, but grasped 
 them warmly by the hand, as their mother 
 brought them forward, one by one, and looked 
 closely into their faces ; Charlie s broad, fair 
 when not too terribly tanned and gentle, 
 with spectacles shading his near-sighted eyes ; 
 Kirk s narrower, sharper and darker ; and 
 Max s, pudgy and snub-nosed, with big, 
 manly blue eyes, which would lead one to 
 infer anything rather than that their owner 
 had the slightest tendency toward what Kirk 
 called " cry-baby-ism," all of them brown as 
 berries, and arrayed in their comfortable sum 
 mer uniform of flannel blouses and corduroy 
 trousers. 
 
 " I suppose you are very tired from your 
 long journey ? " said Charles politely. 
 
 "Not a bit," returned this unexpected 
 u Mary Ann" promptly, and in a full, sweet, 
 honest voice. " You see, your father took 
 the best of care of me in New York yester-
 
 32 TUB CURRY 1)0 YX ARE DISPLEASED. 
 
 day, and made me rest a great deal, and I 
 had a long night s sleep. But. even if I were 
 tired, I should forget myself entirely in seeing 
 the misery of that dear little kitten. Isn t it 
 too bad ! Boys, \ve must get her down ! " 
 
 "Just so," assented Charles heartily, "* that s 
 what we all think. The only question is, how 
 is it to be done ? " 
 
 " We must simply make a how, " declared 
 this energetic young woman. " They say 
 there isn t any ladder long enough to reach 
 up to that high crotch ; but surely, boys, 
 there must be two ladders in this neighbor 
 hood, and why can t we lash them together?" 
 
 " Oh-h ! wouldn t they break apart?" asked 
 Kirk suspiciously. 
 
 " Not if we lash them, I think," returned 
 Miss Marian, with confidence. " The name 
 of the man who lives down at that next 
 house is Mr. Houston, they say. If you will 
 go down there and borrow his ladder, we 
 might at least make the attempt. We shall 
 feel more comfortable to be doing something, 
 even if we don t succeed. While you are 
 gone, your mother and Mrs. Wellman and 
 Val and I will be getting clothes-lines and 
 things ready to help."
 
 THE CUHRY BOYS ARE DISPLEASED. 33 
 
 The three boys ran off to obey her bidding 
 without a word. Max s face was beaming. 
 None of them thought that they were being 
 very docile until they had nearly reached Mr. 
 Houston s. Then it struck Kirk first, of 
 course. He slackened his pace, drew himself 
 up stiffly, and said with a very hateful accent, 
 " Well ; that Mary Ann bosses things pretty 
 lively, I should say." 
 
 " She seems to have some first-class ideas, 
 anyhow," pronounced Charles judiciously ; 
 "and her grammar, I observe, is as good as 
 her ideas." 
 
 " I don t care how much she bosses, if she 
 will only get my kitty down," said Max 
 briskly. 
 
 " That s the point, Max," commended 
 Charles. " People that boss, if they only 
 1 boss well, aren t the worst lot in the world. 
 Besides, she didn t mean to boss. She was 
 only thinking of getting your kitty down the 
 quickest way there is. I ll bet you she isn t 
 so bad as you thought." 
 
 " Humph ! " croaked Kirk ; but he kept 
 along with the rest and helped them carry 
 the ladder.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 
 
 UNDER Marian s direction, though the boys 
 were now at a point where they could go 
 forward by themselves, since they were natu 
 rally painstaking and thorough, the ladders 
 were soon lashed strongly together, and then 
 Max himself was allowed to ascend them and 
 get his treasure, while the others steadied 
 the ladder from below. Max s face was 
 quite pale from excitement, and litile Val 
 was holding tight to his mother s hand and 
 crying with the stress of his mingled emo 
 tions. It seemed a long five minutes, and 
 everybody held their breath while Max made 
 his way up the tall ladder, clutched his kitty, 
 and stepped carefully down again, ushering 
 the half-starved little creature into a land 
 flowing with milk and other edibles, dear to 
 84
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 35 
 
 her heart. She was too weak to eat more 
 than a little warm milk at first ; between her 
 spurts of lapping, she reposed peacefully in 
 Max s arms. Max even ate his supper after 
 the rest, in order to superintend her properly. 
 They were all very happy, and though Marian 
 had retired modestly to the background after 
 the kitten s rescue, Mrs. Curry did not forget 
 to thank her warmly for the part which she 
 had taken in the little drama. 
 
 As the boys were standing by themselves 
 on the broad front doorstone, on their way in 
 to supper, Kirk grumbled : " I should think 
 there was fuss enough made over that Mary 
 Arm. I d like to know what it amounted to 
 anyhow just having two ladders lashed 
 together to get that cat ! As though any 
 one of us couldn t have thought of that 
 simple thing." 
 
 " But the fact remains that we didn t," 
 Charles reminded him shortly. 
 
 " Well, but we would as soon as it turned 
 out, as it was only just beginning to, that 
 Mr. Wellman didn t know what he was talk 
 ing about, and the cat wouldn t come down. 
 The fact is, she might have come down by 
 herself this very night."
 
 36 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 
 
 " Oh ! she was too little, and her strength 
 was too nearly gone. That had been proved 
 plain enough." 
 
 " That s what Mary Ann says. Anybody d 
 think that that girl knew everything. I 
 think she s inclined to boss us around. She ll 
 find she s got her match in one of us." 
 
 They talked a while in the twilight after 
 supper, and then Max began to tease for 
 his favorite game of logomachy generally 
 known in the family as " letters." He was 
 wild with delight to find that Marian knew 
 how to play it and was as fond of it as he. 
 
 They accordingly gathered around a large 
 lap-board of Mrs. Wellman s, which was more 
 convenient than any table, and that lady her 
 self came in to participate in the game. 
 
 And after two hardly-fought games the 
 first won by Marian, the second by Max - 
 they all went to bed in high spirits. Max 
 was especially delighted to find that the new 
 cousin, girl though she was, was fond of his 
 pet game. Now he would have somebody to 
 play it with him, he thought, when, as often 
 happened, the older boys wouldn t and his 
 mother couldn t. Val, to be sure, was always 
 ready, but as he could not spell anything but
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVEJt. 37 
 
 two or three words like " cat " and " dog," 
 playing with him was not the most exciting 
 thing in the world. 
 
 Marian s brown eyes shone with pleasure 
 at the grateful look which Max cast upon her 
 as he said good-night, but after he had dis 
 appeared from the room, she was glad to 
 change the subject of the kitten s rescue, 
 which she fancied seemed a trifle distasteful 
 to the older boys, by asking them if they 
 knew how to swim. 
 
 " O, yes ! " replied Charles eagerl} r . 
 " There s a fine deep place in the river, not 
 far from the village, where there isn t any 
 eddy nor under-current, nor any such thing 
 to alarm mamma, so she lets us go down 
 there every warm day and stay in twenty 
 minutes." 
 
 " Which frequently runs over into a half- 
 liour or more," remarked his mother. 
 
 " O, mamma ! You re too hard on us," 
 laughed Charles, in some embarrassment; "it s 
 generally twenty minutes, just, isn t it, Kirk?" 
 
 " To a second," asserted Kirk positively. 
 
 " But it s quite a walk down there," pro 
 ceeded Charles, not anxious, evidently, to 
 linger on the subject of time. 
 
 452G01
 
 38 CHAP LIE IS WON OVER. 
 
 " I don t know that you would care to have 
 me go with you, would you ? * asked Marian 
 timidly. "Perhaps the girls here don t swim 
 much, do they ? " 
 
 Kirk gave a low groan, which Charles was 
 so ashamed of that he hastened to answer 
 politely : " No ; the girls here don t go in 
 much, but I don t see why you shouldn t go 
 with us, if you like. The place we swim in 
 isn t very long, but there s plenty of room for 
 several people. It is deep, though. You 
 wouldn t be afraid, I suppose? " 
 
 " O, no ! I ve known how to swim ever 
 since I could remember. My father taught 
 me when I wasn t more than a baby." 
 
 Charles could not help a little glow of 
 amusement at Kirk s expression when Marian 
 said this. His jaw dropped, and his eyes 
 grew very round and incredulous, but he 
 didn t dare to say a word. 
 
 k *If it is a good day to-morrow, we ll 
 all go down," went on Charles cordially. 
 " Mamma s friend, Mrs. Warren, lives close 
 by, and you can put on your bathing-suit at 
 her house. It will be just as convenient as 
 it can be, and I know Mrs. Warren would be 
 glad to have her, wouldn t she, mamma? "
 
 CHARLIE IS WON O VEIL 39 
 
 " She would be delighted, I am sure," as 
 sented Mrs. Curry, who was charmed with 
 the turn which affairs were taking. 
 
 " How nice ! " murmured Marian. 
 
 u I ll see if we can have Old Hundred," 
 went on Charles, a slight air of martyrdom 
 creeping over him. 
 
 " What for ? " asked Marian. 
 
 " Oh ! of course, you wouldn t want to 
 walk way down there, just as you were going 
 in swimming." 
 
 u I don t know why," laughed Marian, with 
 some spirit, "I am a famous walker. How 
 far is it?" 
 
 44 It ih two miles easy enough to go down, 
 but a hard climb coming back. Mamma 
 doesn t mind it, but none of the other women 
 around here ever think of walking it." 
 
 44 Two miles ! " exclaimed Marian, " I 
 thought it must be ten or twelve by the way 
 you spoke. I don t mind two miles in the 
 least, and the climb back will warm us up 
 after our bath." 
 
 Kirk winced very hard at this ; even Charles 
 could hardly believe that Marian was sincere. 
 
 " You see there are only two horses on the 
 place here," he went on, still under this
 
 40 CHARLIE IS WON VER. 
 
 impression. " One of them goes splendidly. 
 That s Put ; so called because of his color, 
 which is exactly that of putty. Put is sel 
 dom at our disposal, because he has to do 
 most of the farmwork. The other horse is 
 Old Hundred. You won t need to have his 
 name explained after you have had one ride 
 after him. He stumbles dreadfully, too, and 
 falls down at all sorts of odd times. We can 
 generally have him, but we don t generally 
 want him. Still he can take us down to the 
 river well enough." 
 
 "But, really, Charlie, I d rather walk," 
 insisted Marian. 
 
 " But I cannot allow you to overdo, my 
 dear," remonstrated her aunt gently. "I am 
 going to be very careful of you, and it seems 
 to me that perhaps you had better drive when 
 you are going to have a swim, for, as Charles 
 says, a lively swim is somewhat exhausting." 
 
 " Oh ! you needn t worry in the least," 
 cried Marian, with very bright eyes. " I am 
 used to taking good care of myself you 
 know how particular papa was about all mat 
 ters pertaining to health, and he has brought 
 me up to be very, very careful. That is the 
 reason why I am so well. Just think, I have
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 41 
 
 never been really ill in my life. I won t 
 overdo, truly ; you can trust me safely. 
 Why, papa and I used to walk ten or twelve 
 miles often, and I make nothing of four or 
 five. And I swim without any effort. Papa 
 always said that I was half a mermaid, and I 
 believe I am. I know I have grown fast dur 
 ing the last two years, and that when one is 
 growing one should be uncommonly careful ; 
 so I have tried to be. I judge that Charlie 
 has had that caution drummed into him, too." 
 
 " Yes, I have," admitted Charles ; "I think 
 I am a little taller than you." 
 
 They stood up and measured, and found 
 that Charles, though he was five feet ten, 
 was less than half a head taller than his new 
 cousin. However, he was a year older. 
 
 " I do hope I have finished growing now," 
 laughed Marian. "It is well enough for you, 
 Charlie. Men can afford to be tall, but if I 
 keep on any longer I shall be what we call 
 out in California a spook. " 
 
 " Oh ! it is nice to be tall," said Charles. 
 " One can reach things, and then people do 
 not impose quite so much on tall people as 
 they do on short ones, who can t help them- 
 selves."
 
 42 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 
 
 " Very true," sighed Mrs. Curry, \vho \v;\a f 
 short. 
 
 " Oil ! we will have no end of a good time, 
 said Marian gayly, as they sat down again. 
 " You can t think how pleasant it is for me 
 to have some cousins to play with. Uncle 
 William hasn t any children, you know, and 
 I haven t had many playmates. Out on the 
 ranch there wasn t anybody, unless I took 
 out some of my girl-friends from town. I 
 don t know anything about plaving with 
 boys." 
 
 "And we have never had a girl to play 
 with, said Charles. 
 
 They all laughed, even Kirk giving a me 
 chanical giggle, and presently they separated 
 for the night. Mrs. Curry felt greatly pleased 
 with the manner in which her new niece had 
 conducted herself on this first afternoon. 
 
 " She is a sweet girl, I can see," she wrote 
 to her husband, " and the boys prejudices 
 must give way, if she keeps on as she has be 
 gun. They were afraid that she was going 
 to be so sad after all the trouble she has been 
 through, that she would cast a gloom over 
 everything, but she is really very cheerful. 
 Her face is sad when she is not interested in
 
 CUAttLlE IS WON OVER. 43 
 
 anything, but I can see that she is battling 
 bravely with her grief. She is a noble, whole 
 some, sweet-souled girl. The boys, even our 
 naughty, obstinate little Kirk, must come to 
 love her." 
 
 But she sighed after she had written these 
 words, and turned out the light ; for she knew 
 that there was sure to be a struggle before 
 Kirk ever gave up anything on which he had 
 once taken issue. 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Curry heard voices 
 outside of her window as she was dressing 
 herself and Val. Glancing between her shut 
 ters, she found that they belonged to Marian 
 and Max. Max was an incorrigibly early 
 riser, and had probably been up for two hours 
 already, though it was now only seven 
 o clock. Mrs. Curry was glad to think that 
 Marian shared his taste in this respect, for 
 it would be a new bond between them. The 
 affair of the kitten had already won Max s 
 favor. If he and Charles could but become 
 attached to the new cousin, she could not 
 help hoping that Kirk would follow in time. 
 Val was sure to love her, if she continued to 
 be the gentle and affectionate girl that she 
 had so far appeared to l>e.
 
 44 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 
 
 As the voices of the young people were 
 just beneath her window, Mrs. Curry could 
 not help overhearing what they said. Max 
 was holding his precious kitty and was de 
 scribing his hens to Marian, who was listen 
 ing to his remarks with flattering interest. 
 
 k This one here s the only Plymouth Rock 
 I ve got," he was saying. " She s splendid 
 to bring up chicks, but she isn t so good a 
 layer as that big Wyandotte there. She s a 
 dandy ; lays every day as regular s a clock. 
 It don t seem as if she could keep on that 
 way all summer, but maybe she will. She 
 hasn t skipped more n two or three days since 
 we came here, and it s three weeks now. She 
 lays quick, too. It don t take her more n 
 fifteen minutes ever to lay her egg. I often 
 see her go on her nest, an then I hang around 
 and wait for her to come off. Tain t ever 
 more n fifteen minutes. Some of them 
 dawdle awfully. It takes that old yellow 
 liiddy there an hour or two to lay her egg, 
 an when she s done with it, tisn t anything 
 but a kind o Banty egg, s you might sav. 
 She lays the littlest eggs you ever saw for 
 such a big hen ; an to think she takes such 
 an awful time to do it ! Wh} , one day I
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 45 
 
 waited an waited for her, sitting out on the 
 stone wall there Charcoal an me an 
 mamma came out to see where I was, an 
 Charcoal an me was both of us fast asleep." 
 Charles had not yet appeared, and Max 
 was indulging in his favorite idioms to his 
 
 o o 
 
 heart s content. 
 
 Marian s interest was so manifest, and Max 
 was so charmed to find anybody who would 
 listen to him that he went on. 
 
 " This is my Corn-barrel hen," he remarked 
 gravely. "She s a mixed breed, and cross as 
 cross ! My ! You jest oughter to see how 
 cross she is. But you ll prob ly see her 
 fightin any time now. She d rather fight 
 than eat her supper. I have all that I can 
 do to keep her from pecking out the other 
 chicks eyes." 
 
 Max sighed with a sense of his responsi 
 bilities. 
 
 " I call her the Corn-barrel hen," he con 
 tinued presently, " because she s forever 
 perching on the edge of the corn-barrel. 
 She s smart, an she knows the corn s there, 
 an T s pose she keeps hoping that some day 
 I ll leave the top off so t she can get all the 
 corn she wants, but she ain t caught me yet.
 
 46 CHARLIE 1H WON OVER. 
 
 These are my new little chicks" as a troop 
 of little yellow balls came fluttering by "I 
 hatched em myself ; that is, I stood right by 
 an saw em come out of the shells, an every 
 thing. I didn t hardly stop to eat a thing all 
 that day." 
 
 " Max," cried Charles, thrusting his head 
 out of an upper window, to the confusion of 
 his unsuspecting little brother, u I ve told 
 you and told you that you mustn t say 
 ain t and hain t but I ve stood them this 
 morning quite patiently. You sha n t say 
 4 didn t hardly, though! Now I mean it. 
 You sha n t ! " 
 
 " O, my ! " laughed the good natured little 
 boy, looking up at his brother, while Marian 
 almost choked herself with giggling, "I didn t 
 know you was there. I wasn t being a mite 
 careful." 
 
 " You was ! There s another," groaned 
 diaries. 
 
 " Well, maybe after I ve had breakfast I 
 can talk better grammar," said Max encourag 
 ingly. Somehow, he couldn t be made to see 
 the enormity of his sins in the line of bad 
 grammar. 
 
 Charles drew in his head and slammed
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 47 
 
 down his window, so that his nerves should 
 not be further irritated by Max s maltreat 
 ment of his mother tongue, while that un 
 ruffled young man went on placidly elucidat 
 ing to Marian the beauties and virtues of his 
 flock of hens. 
 
 " I scold em an scold em," lie declared, 
 " an then again I praise em an praise em. 
 Mamma says praisin boys does em more 
 good than scoldin em, but I don t see as it 
 makes much difference with hens." 
 
 " Oh ! you talk to them, do you ? " said 
 Marian, putting out her arms to Val, who, 
 fresh and sweet from his bath, came smiling 
 out at that moment to wish them good- 
 morning. 
 
 " Of course I do," replied Max, with some 
 contempt. " They understand a lot more n 
 you d think. I believe they understand every 
 word that I say. They roll up their eyes and 
 sorter growl at some things, in the queerest 
 way you ever saw. My tame hen now 
 there she is ; come here, Wudge." 
 
 A staid Biddy came waddling up evidently 
 expecting a substantial reward for her docility, 
 and much offended when, after waiting a 
 moment, she failed to receive it.
 
 48 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 
 
 "What do you call her Wudge for?" 
 asked Marian. 
 
 "Oh! she sorter looks as if that oughter 
 be her name don t you think so ? " 
 
 Marian laughed. 
 
 " I don t know but she does," she admitted. 
 " I m sure I never thought there was so much 
 character in a flock of hens before, Max, but 
 I presume it s all as you say. I ve kept hens 
 out on the ranch at home all my life, but I 
 just fed them and got their eggs, and all that. 
 I never talked to them and studied their in 
 dividual natures, as you seem to." 
 
 " Didn t you put kerosene on their roosts, 
 and give em oyster shells and such things?" 
 inquired Max reprovingly. 
 
 " (), yes I I took care of their bodies ac 
 cording to the best rules I had, but I m afiaid 
 I never gave them credit for having any 
 minds and souls, as you do." 
 
 "Souls! " cried Max warmly ; "they ve got 
 souls as much as folks have. They would 
 know as much, too, if they could only go to 
 school. But some of em is brighter an some 
 of em is stupider, like l>oys. They re jest as 
 different! They ain t no two of em alike." 
 
 " Max ! exclaimed Charles, bursting ex-
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 49 
 
 citedly upon the scene, " I m going to ask 
 mamma to stop your talking about hens at 
 least until you learn to talk right. Your 
 grammar is never so bad as when you talk 
 about hens, and I know why. It is because 
 you talk hens so much with that Mellows 
 boy, and he can t put two words together 
 right." 
 
 They all laughed until the frown on 
 Charlie s brow abated somewhat. His bal 
 ance was presently restored entirely by the 
 ringing of the breakfast-bell. 
 
 After breakfast they had a game of cro 
 quet, in which Marian and Max beat Charles 
 and Kirk. Kirk had hitherto figured as the 
 champion croquet-player, but when he saw 
 Marian s good planning and straight shots, 
 he felt a new respect for girls, and especially 
 for "that Mary Ann." 
 
 The game finished, Marian came into the 
 house at Charlie s request, and sat down to 
 examine his precious beetles. Charles was a 
 student and a book-worm, though he was 
 fond also of out-door sports, and the combina 
 tion of the two, as it were, in the collecting 
 of beetles, was his especial delight. 
 
 " It is good in you to be interested in my
 
 50 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 
 
 bugs, Cousin Marian, he said feelingly. 
 " Most people think it is a regular bore to 
 look at them." 
 
 " Oh ! I am always interested in such 
 things," rejoined Marian. "I made a pretty 
 fair collection of; our California butterflies 
 once, but I don t know anything about other 
 kinds of collecting. I want to learn, though, 
 and I m interested in everything more than 
 usual just now, you know, Charlie, for I 
 must keep thinking hard or else I get to cry 
 ing. That would make you blue, and make 
 me just sick, and my father would think I 
 was inexcusable for doing it. I don t mean 
 to brood over my trouble one minute, if I can 
 help it." 
 
 Her voice nearly broke as she uttered these 
 brave words, and Charlie s near-sighted eyes 
 glowed with sympathy, though he could only 
 murmur a few vague words to show his feel 
 ing. They were so sincere, however, that 
 they answered the purpose better, perhaps, 
 than the most eloquent periods might have 
 done without so much heart behind them, 
 and Marian hastened to add, " So go ahead 
 and show me your bugs, and don t mind if 
 you find me pretty stupid."
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 53 
 
 Such encouragement was sufficient to make 
 Charles open box after box, so redolent of 
 naphtholine that Marian had to cough again 
 and again, but she admired. to his heart s con 
 tent the boxes, neatly lined with cork, and 
 containing row after row of insect-pins, each 
 one impaling its beetle, and many of them 
 already named and classified. 
 
 "This one is a Chauliognathus Pennsylva- 
 nicus, and this is a Macrodactylus Subspi- 
 nosus. This beauty here is the Chrysobothris 
 Harris!! a splendid specimen and these 
 are the Phyllodecta Vulgatissima, Galeruca 
 Rufosanguinea, Coccinella Transversoguttata, 
 and Corymbites Hieroglyphicus. You see 
 the longer the names, generally, the smaller 
 the beetles. This one is very rare, and is for 
 
 my friend, Mr. B , the curator of the 
 
 Museum. If you should happen to see one 
 like this when you are out, I hope you will 
 save it for me." 
 
 " Oh ! may I help you collect ? " cried 
 Marian. 
 
 " May you? Why, I should take it as the 
 greatest possible favor if you only would. 
 Nearly every boy and girl in town has one of 
 my little homeopathic bottles in his pocket,
 
 54 CHARLIE 7,S H O.V OVER. 
 
 for collecting. They have got scores for me 
 since we came here, and some of them have 
 been very valuable, though a good many I 
 have had to throw away. I don t tell them 
 that, though. It might hurt their feelings. 
 When you bring in some little fellows in a 
 small bottle here, you may have this one 
 just tumble them into this cyanide jar 
 here; you see there are five or six in there 
 now, and it will make short work witli them. 
 Then I put them into this large bottle of 
 alcohol until I shall get home. I used to 
 think I must mount them right away, but it 
 isn t the best plan. It is too delicate a job to 
 carry them home in a trunk mounted. I am 
 not going to mount any more than these I 
 have shown you, this summer. The baggage 
 men make the trunks fly, you know, and then 
 my precious bugs go helter-skelter. When I 
 was younger than I am now, my tears have 
 flowed freely upon opening my boxes after we 
 reached home in the fall." 
 
 Oh ! I don t believe you cried," protested 
 Marian, gazing with admiring eyes upon her 
 big cousin. 
 
 " Oh ! I dpn t cry often ; not as often as 
 Max, for example," laughed Charles ; " and
 
 CHARLIE 13 WON OVER. 55 
 
 of course I never expect to cry again, since I 
 haven t for two or three years now ; but it is 
 trying to find your dearest possessions re 
 duced to pi, as I found my bugs, some of 
 them, on getting home last summer. Ask 
 Kirk," he continued, as that young man ap 
 peared in the doorway, " if I didn t look 
 pretty mad? but my language wasn t so 
 bad as you might think from the provo 
 cation." 
 
 " Kirk never cries, of course." 
 
 " Not unless he gets too awfully provoked 
 with Max or Val." 
 
 " What s that ? " asked Kirk, pricking np 
 ears as he heard his name spoken. 
 
 " Oh ! nothing, nothing," said Charles. 
 
 "Nothing? Tell that to the marines!" 
 exclaimed Kirk incredulously. " I heard my 
 name." 
 
 " Charlie was just saying that you were 
 very manly and had much self-control, or 
 words to that effect," explained Marian 
 sweetly. 
 
 " I guess so ! " cried Kirk, now looking 
 fairly savage, and growing more and more 
 suspicious as lie gazed from one of them to 
 tlio other. u That Mary Ann " had evidently
 
 56 CIIAI1L1E 7,S U O.V OVER. 
 
 been making rapid progress in Charlie s good 
 graces, by admiring his precious bugs. Kirk 
 had little regard for beetles, and he felt less 
 than ever now. In his naughty, jealous little 
 soul he was thinking that Charles ought to 
 see that all this scheming girl wanted was to 
 worm herself into his confidence. Girls were 
 always plotting to make people like them. 
 He had read about them, and hadn t he seen 
 them at school with their prim, mincing little 
 ways, and their transparent little hypocrisies, 
 trying to get into the favor of the teachers, 
 and then talking all manner of treason about 
 them behind their backs ? 
 
 These very discreditable thoughts passed 
 swiftly through Kirk s mind as lie stood 
 looking at Charles and Marian, and he made 
 up his mind that his new cousin was stealing 
 his brother s affections away from himself. 
 For an instant he hated her. lie turned 
 sharply to Charles, rankling under Marian s 
 innocent little -joke, which she had expected 
 him to enjoy as much as Charles and herself, 
 and said curtly : " I came in to see if you 
 cared to come out and have a game of ball 
 with Fred Houston and the Mellows boy and 
 Max and me, but probably you d rather moon
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 57 
 
 around over your bugs, and enjoy yourself 
 with talking good grammar with the girls ; 
 so I ll go along." 
 
 With this cutting remark, Kirk turned on 
 his heel and inarched off as fast as he could. 
 
 "If you ll excuse me, Cousin Marian, I 
 think 111 go," began Charles hastily, and 
 flushing very red. 
 
 " O, yes ! go, by all means. I ll put every 
 thing away neatly ; go ! " 
 
 Marian nervously half-pushed him toward 
 the door, where he caught up his hat and \vas 
 soon close upon Kirk, to whom Marian knew 
 that he was giving " a piece of his mind," 
 though she could not distinguish his words ; 
 indeed, she tried to busy herself about the 
 room and thus lose the sound of the angry 
 boyish voices. 
 
 " You little spit-fire ! " Charles was vocifer 
 ating, " you talk to me that way again, and 
 I ll punch your head I will now, you see. 
 Right before Marian, too. You ought to be 
 spanked, you contemptible little wasp, you." 
 
 " Oh ! Mary Ann can stand it, I guess," 
 blurted Kirk insolently. " She s as good a 
 boy as any of us. She s what I call a regular 
 tomboy."
 
 58 CIIARL1E IS WON OVER. 
 
 "She s just as ladylike as she can be, you 
 little rascal ! " shrieked Charles, now warmed 
 to the striking point ; but Kirk hurled back 
 a derisive laugh at him from a big rock a rod 
 or more away, where he had judiciously estal>- 
 lished himself, and at just that moment Fred 
 Houston, who was the son of a neighboring 
 farmer, and just about Kirk s age, came up 
 with the Mellows boy aild Max, and in the 
 activities of a good game of ball, Charles, 
 who was of an almost too forgiving dispo 
 sition, soon recovered from his desire to visit 
 condign punishment upon his brother. 
 
 On the following day Mr. Curry came up 
 from the city to spend a da}- or two. It had 
 been planned that he and Mrs. Curry and 
 Val were to drive over to an adjacent town 
 on this Saturday afternoon, and spend Sun 
 day with some old friends. They were to 
 bike Put, and were to return on Monday 
 afternoon. Marian insisted that this scheme 
 should be carried out, though she had so re 
 cently arrived. She felt quite at home, she 
 said, arid she knew the boys and Mr. and 
 Mrs. Wellman would take good care of her ; 
 so Mr. and Mrs. Curry proceeded with their 
 preparations to depart at the appointed time.
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 59 
 
 They started just after dinner on Saturday, 
 as they had fully fifteen miles to ride. Mr. 
 Wellman saw them off, and then, as he had 
 lately been hindered by a good many showery 
 days from getting in his hay, he hurried at 
 once to the distant meadow where his work 
 lay. Joe, the hired man, was mending a rake 
 in the barn, but was to follow Mr. Wellman 
 as soon as his job was done. Mrs. Wellman, 
 seeing Inez, the maid, well started on her 
 afternoon duties, went over to Mrs. Hous 
 ton s to help that lady " tie a comfortable." 
 Charles and Kirk sat in a hammock which 
 was- suspended from the boughs of a spread 
 ing butternut-tree which shaded the croquet 
 ground. They were swinging hard and alter 
 nately laughing and squabbling as they dis 
 cussed an offer which Mr. Wellman had just 
 made them to go up in the " Parker lot " and 
 help him "hay," for seven cents an hour. 
 Max: sat on a barrel which overlooked the 
 hen-yard. He had his beloved Charcoal in 
 his arms, as usual. Marian had her portfolio 
 and her fountain pen, and was sitting on the 
 broad doorstone writing letters, and stopping 
 now and then to listen to the boys silly 
 remarks.
 
 60 ClIAHLIE IS W0.\ OVER. 
 
 "What are you laughing at, boys?" she 
 called, as a louder peal of laughter than usual 
 greeted a mumbled story of Kirk s. 
 
 "Oh! nothing much," explained Charles. 
 scarcely able to speak for giggling. "He 
 was only telling me, apropos of a hit which I 
 just gave him, that one of the boys in his 
 class was asked to compare ill, and he com 
 pared it O, goodness ! " .Charles went off 
 again into spasms of laughter " really did, 
 Cousin Marian, ill, sick, dead. Just think 
 of that." 
 
 Marian laughed, too. 
 
 "I m so glad it wasn t a girl who did it," 
 she exclaimed mischievously, and fixing her 
 bright brown eyes on Kirk. It hadn t taken 
 her long to ascertain Kirk s views on the sul>- 
 ject of girls. 
 
 " O, my ; girls ! " sniffed Kirk, eagerly 
 catching up the gage of battle ; " our teacher 
 told us a worse story than that about a girl. 
 It was one of her classmates at the Normal 
 School, who had almost graduated. The 
 principal asked her what that science was 
 that treated of our relations to God and to 
 our fellowmen, and she drawled out, Higher 
 mathematics.
 
 CHAltLIE IS WON OVER. 01 
 
 " That was pretty bad," admitted Marian, 
 " but it wasn t any sillier than the doings of 
 a young- sprig of the English aristocracy who 
 had a ranch near ours in California. He was 
 out one day driving his own oxen, and he 
 couldn t remember, to save him, just what 
 haw and gee meant, so he would say 
 haw at the wrong time, and then he would 
 politely remark, Beg pardon, I mean gee. 
 And he was a boy and a grown-up boy at 
 that. And," continued Marian, pleased to 
 see that she was amusing Kirk, in spite of 
 the fact that her stories were at the expense 
 of his own much-vaunted sex, " that same 
 young man told one of my friends that al 
 though he could not tell one note from an 
 other himself, he had a sister who sang 
 beautifully. My friend asked what kind of 
 a voice she had, meaning of course whether 
 she had a soprano or an alto voice, and he 
 said he couldn t be sure, but he believed it 
 was tenor." 
 
 The boys, who had both of them been 
 pretty well drilled in music, laughed, but 
 Charles presently recovered himself enough 
 to remember that Mr. Wellman would really 
 like some help about his haying.
 
 C2 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 
 
 " This is great fun, sitting here giggling, 
 you lazy Kirk, you. But as Napoleon or 
 somebody else said, it isn t war. Jf we are 
 going up to the Parker lot, why, we ought 
 to get along. I think Mr. Wellman wants 
 us, and that we ought to go." 
 
 Kirk replied by turning comfortabl\ r over 
 in the hammock, and placing his heavily-shod 
 feet on top of his brother s head. After the 
 pommeling and shouting consequent upon 
 this proceeding had somewhat died away, 
 Charles remarked that he had got to buy a 
 lot more of insect-pins and sheet-cork, and 
 that every little seven cents would help to 
 purchase these commodities. He accordingly 
 announced his intention of repairing* at once 
 to the hay-field. 
 
 Kirk evidently came to a similar conclusion 
 presently, for after gathering himself up, and 
 then stretching himself out several times in a 
 most luxurious manner, lie finally scrambled 
 out of the hammock and went tearing after 
 Charles, calling out, Wait, you, Charlie, I 
 say ! Wait, you mean boy, I say ! " while 
 Max. incited by their example, dropped his 
 kitty and followed on, creating a sudden 
 breeze of cackles by his sudden movements.
 
 CHARLIE IS WON OVER. 63 
 
 The goal of his ambition was no higher than 
 lime-juice drops, but he wanted them as much 
 as Charles wanted his insect-pins. 
 
 The noise of their voices gradually sub 
 sided in the distance, and Marian wrote 
 rapidly along on her comfortable perch. A 
 sudden noise in the barn made her look up. 
 A moment later the boys saw a pale-faced 
 girl, with her eyes blazing and her braids fly 
 ing, rushing up the road after them. 
 
 " Boys ! " she shrieked breathlessly, " come 
 quick ! Max, you go and call Mr. Wellman ! 
 The barn is on fire ! "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 THE boys never knew how they got clown 
 the hill, but the barn was standing all solid 
 and safe apparently when they caught sight 
 of it. They felt as though Marian must 
 have made some mistake, but as the} drew 
 nearer, they detected smoke issuing from a 
 little door underneath it. Presently they 
 saw Joe racing excitedly back and forth 
 between the cistern in the barnyard and the 
 barn with pails of water, which, as nearly as 
 they could judge, he was spilling mostly on 
 the way. 
 
 " The cows are in the pasture," Marian 
 was saying, u and Put and the carriage are 
 away. That s lucky." Her teeth were chat 
 tering and her voice was strained and un 
 natural, but her head was evidently quite 
 04
 
 THE GIUL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 65 
 
 clear. " The farm wagons, though, are 
 Under the shed, and Old Hundred ought to 
 be led out and tied tight somewhere. Fling 
 off your coats, boys" she was pinning up 
 her gown as she spoke "and we ll go right 
 to work. Charlie, you had better help Joe 
 throNv on water, and, Kirk, you had better 
 back out the wagons and get Old Hundred 
 out. It looked to me when I started as 
 though Joe was not going to put out the fire, 
 but maybe he can, with Charlie s help. In 
 the meantime, I will go in and get some 
 blankets to use if the house is threatened. 
 One of our barns burned down out at the 
 ranch once. It was a barn near the house, just 
 as this is." 
 
 By this time i-hey were in the thick of 
 things. The boys, without a thought of 
 demurring, were following out Marian s 
 directions. There was an unconscious power 
 about her which they could not help respect 
 ing, without knowing it. Shudder after 
 shudder was passing over her frame, but she 
 remained perfectly firm and resolute. 
 
 As she came downstairs, followed by Inez, 
 both of them witli their arms full of blankets, 
 Charles met them at the door. He had for-
 
 06 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 gotten all of his brave words about shedding 
 tears, and he was crying like a baby, with the 
 excitement and fear. 
 
 "It s no use, Marian!" he cried. "The 
 fire is all up in the hay. It s spreading like 
 all possessed. We can t stop it ! " % 
 
 His voice ended in a doleful wail, like the 
 f 01 lorn closing bellow of a railroad whistle 
 upon entering a tunnel. 
 
 "All right," said Marian, as though this 
 were the most cheerful news in the world. 
 " It is just what I expected. We must let 
 the barn go. But don t worry. I think I 
 know what is best to do, if we can just work 
 together fast and steady. Tell Joe to get 
 out all that he can from the barn, with Kirk 
 to help him. They must not run any risk of 
 getting burned, remember. Then we ll tix 
 the ell-part here, or else it will blaze up like 
 tinder. Hurry out to Joe, and then come 
 back and I ll dress you for your work." 
 
 In less than three minutes, Charles had 
 passed the word on to Joe, and Marian and 
 he were planning to save the house. It was 
 none too soon, for a burst of flame had 
 already appeared from the barn on the side 
 toward the kitchen ; and as it was not more
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 6T 
 
 than ten rods away, the showers of sparks 
 which were already falling and the intense 
 heat, would certainly ignite the dry old 
 wooden walls of the " ell-part." 
 
 Presently Marian had a wet blanket pinned 
 around Charles with safety-pins in such a 
 way that his arms were free. She then 
 pinned a piece of heavy wet flannel around 
 his head with holes cut in it for peep-holes. 
 
 Then the ladder, which Kirk had just flung 
 out upon the grass, was raised to the ell- 
 roof, and Charles clambered up it with his 
 arms full of wet blankets, while Marian and 
 Inez followed him, carrying also as many as 
 they could. Marian had found several papers 
 of safety-pins in Mrs. Curry s room, and by 
 means of these the young people were able 
 to adjust the blankets over the ridge-pole. 
 Astride of this Charles perched himself, 
 while Marian handed him up a pail of water, 
 and Irfcz followed with another one. The 
 poor frightened girl, completely upset by the 
 swiftness of Marian s movements and the 
 volley of directions which were being given 
 her, fainted after handing up the first pailful, 
 but Marian, knowing well that such weak 
 ness would never do just now, brought her
 
 68 THE G1IIL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 to in an instant, by flinging some water in 
 her face, and then gave her such a tierce 
 scolding that the poor girl did not dare to 
 faint again. 
 
 It was just as she was starting up for her 
 second pail of water, still as white as a sheet, 
 and all the machinery which Marian had 
 devised was well in motion, that Mr. Well- 
 man and Max came racing from the Parker 
 lot. It was every bit of a mile away, but 
 they had run as fast as their legs would 
 carry them. They were dripping with per 
 spiration, but their faces were as pale as that 
 of poor Inez. 
 
 There was no time for talking or explana 
 tions. 
 
 " More water ! More water ! " Charles 
 was shrieking from his perch on the ridge 
 pole, and as Mr. Wellman came up, a spray 
 from the pailful which Inez had brought, and 
 which Charles had flung in all directions 
 over the roof, came trickling down on his 
 head. 
 
 " That s a fine idea ! " said Mr. Wellman. 
 " Here, Max, hunt up all the buckets in the 
 house. The men will be coming from all 
 around but they can t save my barn ! "
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 69 
 
 The good farmer s face twitched and his 
 voice trembled as he gazed upon the black 
 clouds of smoke rising from the doomed 
 building, and the bright tongues of flame 
 which were shooting out against them here 
 and there. The fire had not been burning 
 twenty minutes since the first spark had 
 kindled. Marian and her little battalion had 
 worked fast. 
 
 Max had bewilderedly obeyed Mr. Well- 
 man s direction to get all the buckets that he 
 could find, and he came running out in front 
 with two or three in his hand, in a moment. 
 Then the realities of the occasion began to 
 press upon him and he appreciated that he, 
 too, had heavy interests at stake. 
 
 " Where s my kitty ? " he bawled, begin 
 ning to cry at the top of his voice. The 
 flames, which at that moment burst through 
 the barn roof with a crash of falling beams, 
 scared him almost to death, and made him 
 feel as though the universe were melting. 
 Nobody paid the slightest attention to him, 
 and he went on wailing all alone, under the 
 great elm-tree, where he had established him 
 self for combined purposes of safety and a 
 good view.
 
 70 TUB GI11L WHO SAVED TUP: HOUSE. 
 
 "And my Biddies!" he sobbed despair 
 ingly. u My Five-toe hen was setting in the 
 barn! Oh! get her out! Get her out, 
 somebody ! " 
 
 lint nobody could save the Five-toe hen, 
 nor pay heed to the somewhat extended 
 ravings in which the frightened and bewil 
 dered little fellow proceeded to indulge. 
 lie succeeded at last in finding his kitty all 
 by himself, and sat down at a prudent 
 remove to sooth Charcoal s nerves by petting 
 her, and to enjoy himself in watching the 
 fire, which was now in the height of its 
 splendor, and presented a truly glorious 
 spectacle. Even the thought of his hens, 
 which he mentally resigned forever, as un 
 doubtedly burned up, could not prevent Max 
 from reveling in the sight. lie would weep 
 softly for a moment, murmuring to himself, 
 " My poor Biddies ! Oh ! my poor Biddies ! " 
 and then he would forget everything in some 
 more daz/ling flash of fire, or more thunder 
 ous fall of timbers than before. 
 
 Marian found him when he was under 
 going these rapid alternations of dismal woe 
 and boyish elation, and she laughs to this 
 day whenever she thinks of it.
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 71 
 
 The news of the fire spread over the quiet 
 hills, and down into the village in the valley, 
 almost as fast as the fire itself spread in the 
 barn. The Wellman buildings stood on a 
 lofty site, and were visible for miles around. 
 Mrs. Wellman arrived on the scene shortly 
 after Mr. Wellman and Max, and all the men 
 came running from the hay-fields. 
 
 Though fires were not common in this part 
 of the country, nearly everybody brought 
 buckets with them, having learned so much 
 from even their slight experience in such 
 matters. The spectacle of Charles, envel 
 oped in steaming blankets, and throwing 
 care fully-aimed missiles of water here and 
 there over the roof from his advantageous 
 post astride the ridge-pole, excited great 
 merriment. 
 
 Even when Mr. Wellman came, it was, as 
 he saw at once, unsafe to enter the barn, so 
 that all there was to do was to keep the fire 
 from the house, and to watch the work of 
 destruction. This occupied a full hour, for 
 the barn was large and strongly built, and 
 there was little wind to hasten the progress 
 of the flames. 
 
 " I ve been worrying because I hadn t got
 
 72 THE U1RL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 in more hay," remarked Mr. Wellman whim- 
 siciilly, as lie stood among a group of his 
 sympathizing neighbors ; k * but now I never 
 was so glad of anything in all my life." 
 
 "And Old Hundred is saved ! " he cried, as 
 he proceeded to examine the piles of stuff 
 which Joe and Kirk had heaped up wildly at 
 the nearest point to the barn which they had 
 felt to be safe. "Tied up tight behind the 
 tree here, with not a hair of the old creature s 
 hide hurt! Well, well! Horses generally 
 cling so to their stalls when there s a lire, I 
 thought right away, Old Hundred s gone, 
 likely. Not that he s a valuable animal 
 but he is of use sometimes. And here are 
 the carts and the harnesses ! And you got 
 them out, Kirk ? Well, you did first-rate, I 
 must say ! And here s the corn-sheller ! How 
 under the sun did you manage to get that 
 way out here ? " 
 
 Poor little Kirk, who had indeed worked 
 "like a Trojan," and had singed all of his 
 hair and burned his very eyebrows off to get 
 the corn-sheller, felt quite repaid when he 
 heard these approving words, especially when 
 the neighbors joined heartily in his praise. 
 The truth was, that Joe, who was, under the
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 73 
 
 most favorable circumstances, what is prop 
 erly called " fat-witted," had been utterly 
 panic-stricken when the fire broke out, and 
 if he had not had Kirk s example and direc 
 tion would have been absolutely worthless. 
 As that young man, with all his faults, was 
 of a kind to shine in an emergency like the 
 present one, however, Joe, under his leader 
 ship, had been able to render some help in 
 getting the heavier articles out of the barn. 
 
 Charles and Inez and Marian had been re 
 lieved before they had thrown many buckets- 
 ful on the roof. There were so many men 
 anxious to help, that women and boys were 
 able to take a rest from the more active labors 
 of the hour. The cisterns had been soon ex 
 hausted, and though a good stream was flow 
 ing into both the one in the barnyard and 
 that in the kitchen, it was impossible to fill 
 the pails as fast as they were emptied. A 
 line of men was therefore formed from the 
 house to the brook, about thirty rods away. 
 These men handed one to another overflowing 
 pails of brook-water, so that the roof of the 
 house was kept pretty well wet, though it 
 blazed up a little two or three times when the 
 fire was at its height.
 
 74 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 " I always said that I would have a rain 
 water cistern for use in case of tire," groaned 
 Mr. Wellman, when he found that the cis 
 terns had given out. And I thought I d 
 have a hose-pump, too but who would 
 ever have expected that ray barn would really 
 burn up like this ? There it lias stood ever 
 since I was born yes, and for ten years or 
 more before that and never so much as a 
 thought of its burning has ever entered my 
 head, unless I read about some such thing in 
 the papers. Then I would sort of plan to 
 build a cistern when a dull time came, but I 
 never got to it." 
 
 In about an hour and ten minutes, the 
 whole structure with the sheds, pig-pen, corn- 
 house, and other outbuildings which had been 
 attached to it. was leveled to the ground, and 
 a crowd of a hundred or more people had col 
 lected. By this time all danger to the house 
 was past and people had leisure to talk a 
 little. It took only a few inquiries to ascer 
 tain the cause of the fire. Joe Pirie, the 
 hired man, was a Canadian Frenchman, and 
 at first he insisted that he know not how 
 dat fire come by." Hut by degrees it leaked 
 out that he had lighted his pipe there; and
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 75 
 
 the men who were familiar with the careless 
 habits of his race, surmised in an instant, and 
 no doubt correctly, that the match with which 
 the pipe had been lighted, had been thrown 
 down while it was still burning, and very 
 likely into loose hay or grain, sucli as is 
 always lying around barns. Joe s smoke that 
 day was an expensive one for Mr. Wellman, 
 who dismissed him on the spot, and hired, a 
 day or two later, a man who did not smoke. 
 
 " I never smoke nor chew myself." Mr. 
 Wellman said, " and I always thought smok 
 ing wasn t quite so bad as chewing, though 
 it s a filthy enough habit. But, for us farm 
 ers, it s a sight safer to have a chewing man 
 around than a smoking one." 
 
 It was, therefore, no slight thing which 
 was accomplished in the interests of civiliza 
 tion that day ; for years after the burning of 
 the Wellman barn, no man was hired by the 
 farmers in the vicinity, if it was known that 
 he smoked. 
 
 When the last part of the frame of the 
 barn had dropped hissing and quivering into 
 the embers below, the men on top of the 
 house began to relax their efforts, and pres 
 ently those who did not have to hurry off to
 
 71] THE GIRL 117/0 SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 their work were all sitting around on the 
 grass underneath the great butternut-tree, 
 talking and laughing in the nervous and ex 
 cited way peculiar to such occasions. 
 
 Mrs. Wellman (who had not been so much 
 upset by the general panic but that she had 
 seized the opportunity to scrub out her cistern 
 while it was empty ) began, with the help 
 of several neighbors, who had come over to 
 see the sight, and to assist in whatever way 
 they could, to serve raspberry shrub and 
 cake to all. 
 
 " I declare, I hadn t thought of my tool- 
 chest. It was right in the middle of the barn 
 in a little room I had had made there for it. 
 It is a pile of ashes by this time. I declare," 
 Mr. Wellman sighed as he reflected upon this 
 new loss, and tried to drown his sorrows in 
 a generous draught of raspberry shrub, " I 
 had a good lot of tools. I don t know when 
 I ll get so many together again." 
 
 I wouldn t worry about them till you have 
 looked behind those bushes back of the barn. 
 Mr. Wellman," said Kirk reassuringly; -I 
 wouldn t wonder if you found all of the 
 tools there, and some of the tool-chest. 1 
 pushed it out of the south door as hard as I
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 77 
 
 could, and I saw it go kiting over the tops of 
 those bushes and roll down the hill quite a 
 distance. It probably broke up, but I flung 
 out most of the tools separately first, and I 
 don t believe they can be much hurt. The 
 bushes were pretty green. They are only 
 scorched. They didn t burn all up." 
 
 " You don t mean to say that you pushed 
 that chest out?" cried Mr. Wellman, who 
 had been staring incredulously at Kirk all 
 the time that he had been speaking. " Why, 
 you couldn t do it." 
 
 " I don t think I could in cold blood," ad 
 mitted Kirk modestly, " but I was about twice 
 as strong as usual an hour or so ago. I 
 managed to give the chest an awful shove, 
 and then it went where it was a mind to." 
 
 The Currys had staid with the Wellmans 
 so many summers that Mr. Wellman natur 
 ally felt as though he had assisted materially 
 in the boys bringing-up. It was therefore 
 entirely proper that he should now say jo 
 cosely, " Well, well, Kirk ! I rather thought 
 I had trained you pretty well, and now I am 
 getting my reward." 
 
 Kirk blushed with pleasure, and remarked 
 in a rather embarrassed way, in order to dis-
 
 78 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 tract attention from himself (and his articu 
 lation was somewhat impeded by a vast 
 mouthful of cake): ** Right in the middle of 
 everything, when I was lugging out things 
 as fast as I could, and was so seared that 
 I was all of a tremble, I saw Charlie come 
 straggling out on the ridge-pole, done up in 
 his fancy rig, and perch himself up there, 
 and all that I could think of was, There s a 
 sweet little cherub who sits up aloft. 
 
 They all laughed at this. It took very 
 little to make such a weary and overwrought 
 company laugh. 
 
 " You don t laugh much like a man who 
 has just lost one of the best barns in town," 
 said Fred Houston s father to Mr. Wellman, 
 when lie saw how heartily he entered into 
 the fun. 
 
 " Oh ! there s no more use in crying over 
 burned barns than there is in crying over 
 spilt milk," rejoined Mr. Wellman. "I had 
 a little insurance on it, and as likely as not 
 I ll have a new barn up here before snow 
 flies." 
 
 " Go ahead, and we ll help you." said 
 several voices. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," rejoined Mr.
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 79 
 
 Wellman heartily ; "I know you will. But 
 speaking of that little cherub who sat up 
 aloft there until the sparks fell around him 
 like flakes of snow in a snow-storm he did 
 some pretty tall work. I wouldn t wonder if 
 he had a blister or two on his hands to pay 
 for it." 
 
 " Ten of them," said Charles, opening his 
 hands stiffly and dropping a cooky to do it. 
 
 The men all looked at the blisters with 
 great interest. It was amazing to see with 
 what zest every item of news in regard to 
 the fire was gleaned and repeated. 
 
 " Those blisters saved the house, I guess," 
 said Mr. Wellman slowly, but with some 
 feeling. 
 
 " But back of all the blisters and tired 
 muscles and nil that," said Charles manfully, 
 "there had got to be a brain and the brain 
 which put all this machinery into operation 
 is over there." 
 
 He pointed to where Marian, very pale, 
 but laughing and talking with the others, 
 was drinking shrub in the hammock. She 
 was not so far away, however, but that she 
 heard Charlie s generous allusion, and she, 
 too, flushed with pleasure.
 
 80 THE (URL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 " Oh! I had been in similar circumstances 
 before," she cried modestly. kt I didn t think 
 up a thing all of myself. Our barn caught 
 fire out on my father s ranch in California." 
 she went on to explain to the company, "and 
 it happened that the house was near, just as 
 this one was, so all that I had to do was 
 to try and keep my head clear enough to 
 remember." 
 
 No, indeed, it wasn t," cried Charles, 
 who, the more he thought of it, admired 
 Marian s admirable management in the di 
 lemma in which they had so lately been 
 placed. " Indeed, that didn t begin to be 
 all. You put me to work on the roof, and 
 sent Max to get Mr. Wellman, and set Kirk 
 and Joe to getting out tilings, and Inez to 
 picking up blankets and buckets and things, 
 and all the while you worked yourself. 
 Why. you planned the whole campaign, like 
 a a" Charles wasn t so well up in his 
 tory as in beetles "like Boadicea, or some 
 of those famous military ladies." 
 
 " It was easy enough," muttered Kirk 
 under his breath. Hut nobody heeded, nor 
 indeed heard, his ungenerous grumble. One 
 of the gallant young men of the neighbor-
 
 THE GUI& WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 81 
 
 hood, who had been deeply impressed by 
 what he had heard of the doings of this tall 
 little girl in tjiis difficult emergency, sprang 
 to his feet on hearing Charlie s words and 
 -exclaimed: u I give you the health of the 
 California girl who saved Mr. Wellman s 
 house. Long may she live, and may her 
 shadow never grow less." 
 
 Everybody drained their glasses to the 
 blushing Marian s honor, and then they gave 
 her three times three rousing cheers, which 
 ebullition was a great relief all around, in the 
 strained and unnatural condition in which 
 they all found themselves after their un 
 wonted experiences. Borne away by the 
 general enthusiasm, even the naughty Kirk 
 joined in the shout. 
 
 Shortly after the noise of the "tiger" sub 
 sided, the crowd began to separate for their 
 homes. Two or three of the women remained 
 behind to help Mrs. Wellman in her clearing- 
 up, and to " bake," for her hospitality had 
 completely exhausted her larder, and the 
 next day was Sunday. 
 
 Several of the men, too, had promised to 
 help Mr. Wellman to get in his hay. Others 
 offered to stow it for him until he could erect
 
 82 THE GIRL WHO SAVED TIIK HOUSE. 
 
 some sort of a shed, and also to keep his live 
 stock for him. Charles and Kirk brought 
 down the blankets from the roof, and then 
 they and Marian came out in front of the 
 house, and threw themselves down in the 
 shadow of the waving butternut boughs, 
 which had fortunately preserved their luxu 
 riant greenness through all the fierce heat 
 and smoke which had been so near them. 
 The wickets and stakes of the croquet- 
 ground were uprooted, and trampled, and 
 flung hither and thither. The greensward 
 in all directions looked as if an invading 
 army had passed over it, as indeed it had. 
 Five o clock had just struck. Fanciful, 
 fluttering shadows were playing about the 
 hillsides. A soft, warm breeze was blowing. 
 The black, smoking ruins of the barn were 
 nearly concealed by the jutting " ell-part" of 
 the house. If it had not been for the tram 
 pled and torn turf, and the smell of burned 
 timbers in the air, it would have been hard 
 to realize that the peace of the summer after 
 noon had been so lately and so horribly 
 disturbed. 
 
 The young people felt a sense of blessed 
 rest and relief as they lay Avithout speaking
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 83 
 
 for several minutes, enjoying the sweet calm. 
 They were all of them aching with the hard 
 physical exertions which they had so recently 
 made, and their minds were naturally some 
 what dazed after the rapid and intense action 
 to which they had been so recently sub 
 jected ; but even now Charlie s tender con 
 science would not let him rest quietly. 
 
 " The fact is, Kirk," he remarked dolefully, 
 "you and I ought to go up into the Parker 
 lot and help Mr. Wellman get in his hay. 
 Of course, we mustn t let him pay us a cent 
 after all the loss he lias suffered from the 
 fire, but he needs our help more than ever 
 now." 
 
 " Oh! that s too bad," grumbled Kirk. " I 
 don t believe I can crawl up there. I m all 
 covered with bumps and bruises, and my 
 arms ache yet with tugging at those great 
 heavy harnesses and things. Mr. Wellman 
 is going to have some men to help him. He 
 won t expect us. I feel like telling you, as 
 our German teacher does, to close up! 
 
 Marian had not heard this little joke before, 
 and she laughed out of her hammock, though 
 she was too tired to say anything. 
 
 " Well," yawned Charles, who was too
 
 84 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 weary to go, and who recognized the justice 
 of Kirk s plea, " I suppose we can perhaps 
 make it up next week. My ! One realizes 
 that what the boy said is true that the 
 surface of the earth is made up of land and 
 water, otherwise mud ; " he pointed rue 
 fully to the puddles which everywhere de 
 faced the greensward and the road\vay 
 leading to the barn -and just think! 
 three hours ago, or a little over, how pretty 
 it all was here a dead clam, as the man 
 said. I never realized before what a little 
 time it took to burn things up." 
 
 "And how the folks came, added Kirk; 
 I never saw so many together in this town, 
 unless there was a cattle-show or something 
 like that. They were thicker n spatter, as 
 the Mellows boy says." 
 
 " That funny old Mrs. Biggin was here," 
 he continued a moment later, "and she asked 
 me if my mother was smart. What do you 
 suppose she meant ? " 
 
 " Why, I know ! " exclaimed Marian. "They 
 say that out in California. She meant, was 
 your mother well, and able to do as much as 
 usual." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Kirk, with a mortified air.
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 85 
 
 " Seems to me you ought to know what 
 that means," said Charles, with some scorn. 
 " I ve heard it around here a good many 
 times." 
 
 " Well, what did you answer ? " inquired 
 Marian. 
 
 " Oh ! " began Kirk, blushing furiously, " I 
 didn t want to say my mother was smart. 
 Of course, I thought she was, but I thought 
 it wouldn t sound exactly nice to say so. 
 And yet I didn t want to go back on her, and 
 say she wasn t smart, so I just said, Smart 
 as ever. Was that very bad ? " 
 
 Marian and Charles could not help laugh 
 ing at Kirk s ingenuity, but Marian hastened 
 to congratulate him on thinking so promptly 
 of a way out of his dilemma, and Kirk, who 
 had felt a little sensitive when they first be 
 gan to laugh, was appeased. 
 
 " I thought of the queerest things while I 
 was hustling about in the barn," he went on 
 presently. "There I was, as scared as I could 
 be, and afraid every minute that the fire 
 would burst through under my feet, and yet 
 I thought of a definition of stability, that I 
 had heard not long ago, and it made me laugh 
 right out loud. A boy in our class said
 
 80 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 that it was cleaning out a stable, and I 
 thought I had a good deal of stability just 
 then. My! how that fire crackled." 
 
 Kirk shuddered, and they all sat silent for 
 several minutes. Suddenly there was a dis 
 mal sound heard in the distance. Every 
 moment it grew louder. 
 
 "Goodness! There s Max crying, groaned 
 Charles. " I had forgotten all about him. I 
 wonder what is the matter now. Hear him 
 go on ! " 
 
 Loud, drawling " aws," delivered in an ex 
 plosive manner, and followed by crescendoes 
 ending in prolonged howls, filled the surround 
 ing air, and presently Max appeared in sight 
 around the corner of the house. His hat was 
 torn and wet, and his clothes were muddy 
 and very much disordered generally, but he 
 held his kitty closely in his arms. Charcoal 
 was used to Max s violent expressions of sor 
 row, and bore them as though she were really 
 made of the diamond dust which her name 
 implied. 
 
 "Aw-w-w-w!" bellowed Max, increasing 
 his wind-power as he neared an audience ; k% I 
 can t find em. I ve been a-lookin for Yin 
 everywhere, an I guess they re all burned
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 87 
 
 up. Oh ! my Biddies are all burned up. 
 Aw-w-w! I ve been down under the quince- 
 bushes, an I ve been under the grape-vines, 
 an I ve crawled under the shed where it s all 
 wet, an I can t find any of em only my Corn- 
 barrel hen an my speckled Banty. An I 
 didn t have any cake an shrub cause I was 
 a-lookin for em aw-w ! an now Inez 
 says the cake an shrub s all gone aw-w ! " 
 
 " I don t see what under the sun she told 
 you we had any for," grumbled Charles, " as 
 long as you weren t around then. Why 
 weren t you here when the rest of us had 
 them ? " 
 
 u You sha n t speak so cross to me, Charlie 
 Curry ! " wept Max. " Mamma wouldn t let 
 you if she was here. I had to look for my 
 Biddies course I did. I guess you d a 
 had to look for your bugs, if they d a been 
 burned up in the barn." 
 
 " You re the one that would have been her 
 in that story," groaned Kirk. 
 
 " I dunno what you mean," sobbed Max, 
 with suspicions of treachery in his voice. 
 
 " Why, in that story mamma read in the 
 paper about the four boys. She told one of 
 her callers that one of her boys ought to have
 
 88 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 been a girl, and one of them heard her and 
 said he didn t know who d a been her lie 
 wouldn t a been her, and Ed wouldn t a 
 been her, and Sam wouldn t a been her, 
 and Dick wouldn t a been her, and he didn t 
 know who d a been her. You d have been 
 her. You re a girl-boy if ever there was 
 one." 
 
 " I ain t a girl-boy ! " roared Max, now furi 
 ously angry, and dropping Charcoal with the 
 evident intention of trying pugilistic conclu 
 sions with Kirk ; " Kirk sha n t talk so, shall 
 he, Charlie ? I ain t a mite like a girl." 
 
 " I don t think it s much of a time to be 
 making light of girls, after what your Cousin 
 Marian has done to-day," remarked Mrs. Well- 
 man from the doorway, whither she had just 
 come, unobserved by the young people. 
 
 Her voice calmed and checked Max s rising 
 wrath. His pudgy little hands fell to his 
 sides oh ! the wails and the scars on those 
 busy little hands and he began to scramble 
 for his cat again. Kirk muttered something 
 to the effect that girls did cry a lot, anyhow. 
 To this, Mrs. Wellman rejoined significantly 
 that little boys cried about as much as little 
 girls, if she could judge from some little boys
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 89 
 
 with whom she had been associated for sev 
 eral summers, and Max was not the only one. 
 
 This effectually " closed up " Kirk for a 
 while. Marian maintained throughout this 
 whole discussion a discreet silence. 
 
 This silence seeming to become a little 
 embarrassing after a few moments, she asked 
 Max if he were going to raise hens when he 
 grew up. 
 
 " Yes, I am," returned Max emphatically ; 
 " I m going to have the biggest poultry-farm 
 in the world. And that reminds me, maybe 
 my hens have gone off to Mr. Houston s. 
 I m going over to see." 
 
 " O, no ! They are all burned up. You 
 know they are," said Kirk, mockingly ; but 
 Max was already out of hearing, and with 
 Charcoal bobbing up and down over his 
 shoulder, was soon out of sight on his way 
 to Mr. Houston s. 
 
 " What a funny boy he is," mused Marian, 
 as she watched him disappear. " I wonder if 
 he really will be a poultry-farmer." 
 
 "In the summers he thinks he will, but in 
 the spring and fall \vhen we are in the city, 
 he is going to be a crack ball-player. He ex 
 pects to be the leading pitcher in the world,
 
 90 THE (1IUL \\-JIO SAVED THE 110 VISE. 
 
 and I must say he pitches better than any 
 other boy on our block." 
 
 k% (), dear ! I hadn t heard of that," laughed 
 Marian. 
 
 " And in the winter, when there isn t any 
 ball going on, he thinks differently still," con 
 tinued Charles. " He is absurdly fond of 
 poetry. He knows yards and yards of it if 
 he hasn t forgotten it since vacation set in. 
 He makes it a point generally to forget dur 
 ing vacation all that he learns throughout 
 the rest of the year." 
 
 "Oh! we all do that," suggested Marian, 
 charitably. " But I must see if he can t re 
 member some of his poetry to repeat to me." 
 
 " Then you want to strike him just right," 
 Charles warned her. "If he isn t in just the 
 right mood when you ask him, he will say 
 that he doesn t know any and never did, and 
 get awfully mad because anybody has told 
 you about it. lie thinks it is a great weak 
 ness, you see, because it isn t like the other 
 boys in his class at school ; but if you take 
 him when he is feeling pretty good when 
 he has been beating at letters, for instance 
 maybe you can get something out of him. 
 He was teasing all the time last fall for a
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 91 
 
 velocipede, but one day he came in and asked 
 mamma if she had a copy of Holmes s Poems. 
 Mamma said she hadn t any, and that made 
 him feel very bad. Presently he came up and 
 asked her, with a great sigh, Please, I wish 
 you would get me a copy of Holmes s Poems. 
 Now, I tell you what; if you can t afford to 
 get me a velocipede and the Poems, too, for a 
 Christmas present, why, get me the Poems." 
 
 " Of course, that tickled mamma almost to 
 pieces," interposed Kirk. 
 
 Yes," went on Charles, "but the best 
 came afterward. Mamma said to papa, I 
 think we must be going to have a poet in the 
 family, upon which Max chipped in as 
 quick as could be, O, no ! I m going to 
 be a baseball-player, you know. Then he 
 thought a minute, and burst out: But I 
 sha n t have to play ball in the winters. I 
 tell you what, mamma ! I might be a base 
 ball-player summers and a poet winters. 
 That brought us all down, of course." 
 
 It brought down" Marian, too, and she 
 nearly suffocated herself laughing. 
 
 Max had assured himself that in spite of 
 the ominous absence of the hens, which the 
 Iloustons had not seen, after all, the three
 
 92 THE OWL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 
 
 cats belonging to the family were all right. 
 He appeared at this moment with all three of 
 them in his arms. Poor little Max was trying 
 to extract from the cats all of the comfort 
 which he had been wont to find in them, 
 added to that which his liens had supplied. 
 
 "O, dear! he sighed, as he sat down, 
 and gripped his cats hard to prevent them 
 from running away, " I do feel so badly " 
 
 Max," said Charles, severely, "just be 
 cause the barn has burned you are not going 
 to be allowed to talk bad grammar. How 
 would it sound to say I feel hotly, or I 
 feel anxiously ? Say I feel bad, for pity s 
 sake." 
 
 " I shouldn t think you d want me to feel 
 bad," urged Max, with a gleam of humor, 
 veiled in a doleful whimper. 
 
 Charles was about to retort in kind, when 
 a sudden rattle of wheels was heard. This 
 was immediately drowned by the ringing of 
 the tea-bell. The young people rose to go in, 
 but Kirk stopped a moment. 
 
 " Seems to me I hear somebody driving up 
 the hill," lie said, peering over the stone wall 
 to catch the first glimpse of whoever might 
 be coming.
 
 THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE HOUSE. 93 
 
 " It sounds like Put," ventured Max. " It 
 is Put, as sure as I live ! What can have 
 brought the folks home ? " 
 
 And Mr. and Mrs. Curry and Yal, all of 
 them as pale as ashes, came driving rapidly 
 up to the door.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A PICNIC AT THK MAPLE GROVE. 
 
 THERE is nothing more mysterious than 
 the way in which news travels in the country. 
 In the city, people expect to hear tidings 
 quickly, there are so many avenues of com 
 munication. In the country, there are no 
 messenger boys, no district telegraph wires, 
 few telephones ; yet ten miles from home, on 
 a lonely road, the information had reached 
 Mr. and Mrs. Curry that Mr. \Yi llman s barn 
 was on (ire. A certain farmer, who dwelt on 
 a remote hill-top, which happened to com 
 mand a view of the Wt-llman place, had seen 
 the flames, just as he \\as about starting for 
 ki town " to do some errands. Of course, he 
 told everybody whom he happened to meet, 
 according to the custom in that part of the 
 country. Among these individuals were Mr.
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 95 
 
 and Mrs. Curry and Val, who turned about 
 immediately and made -for home as fast as 
 they could. They were, fortunately, able to 
 send word to the friends who were expecting 
 them, of the reason of their non-appearance 
 at the appointed time, and so no one was 
 especially inconvenienced. 
 
 Poor Put, who had had a hard time, as the 
 roads over which he had come so fast were 
 very rough and hilly, was unhitched and 
 given some oats in a " horse-basket " in the 
 woodshed. It had seemed to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Curry that the poor animal had merely 
 crawled all the way home ; but indeed, few 
 steeds would have been able to o-o at the rate 
 
 O 
 
 at which Put had brought them. The faith 
 ful beast was tired, and he looked disgusted 
 enough when, instead of his comfortable stall, 
 lie found himself in the woodshed, and fed 
 so awkwardly. 
 
 Put disposed of temporarily, the family sat 
 down to a late supper. The boys, who were 
 naturally not very hungry after the cake and 
 shrub (excepting Max ), vied with each 
 other in graphic descriptions of the events of 
 the afternoon. Kirk held the floor to begin 
 with, and it was noticeable that in his versior
 
 93 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 
 
 Marian was almost entirely ignored. Charles 
 felt this to be so mean, that he, when his turn 
 came, painted that young person s part in the 
 achievements of the day, in glowing colors. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Wellman joined in her praise 
 so enthusiastically that poor Marian fairly 
 radiated pinkness from her blushing face, 
 and threatened to leave the table if her name 
 were mentioned again. She linally obtained 
 a hearing in the excitement, the boys had 
 paid no attention to the laws of eticpuette 
 and then she dwelt with emphasis upon the 
 way in which Kirk had removed the things 
 from the barn, especially lauding his manage 
 ment of Joe, who had lost his head entirely, 
 and would have been of no use at all, if Kirk 
 had not assumed, as he was fairly forced to 
 do, the right to command him, and really 
 brought the stupid fellow to his senses. This 
 made Kirk blush even more fiercely than 
 Marian had done ; but there was another 
 sentiment besides modesty which caused the 
 color to mount to his obstinate, naughty little 
 face. Mrs. Curry saw it, and hoped that 
 good results might flow therefrom ; but if 
 she expected Kirk to yield at once to his 
 cousin s noble conduct, she was destined to
 
 A P1CX1C AT THE MAPLE GHOVE. 97 
 
 be disappointed, for that evening, as she was 
 passing the room in which he and Charles 
 slept together, she heard Kirk say sleepily, 
 but with a distinct sneer in his voice, some- 
 tiling about " that Mary Ann." 
 
 Enough has not been said in this chronicle 
 of the doings of Master Valentine Curry, who 
 was one of the very dearest little fellows who 
 ever lived. To see him inarching about the 
 Wellman farm u helping hay,* or feeding the 
 hens with Max, and being allowed, upon oc 
 casion, to hold in his arms that precious 
 organism, Charcoal, was worth going many a 
 mile. With one of the checked gingham 
 aprons, of which mention has been made, over 
 his pretty kilts, and with a broad-brimmed, 
 brown straw hat set well back from his 
 round, fair, sober little face, he made his pil 
 grimages to the berry -patch in the garden, to 
 the clover-lield hunting four-leafed clovers, 
 
 o 
 
 to the ploughed fields to assist in the labors 
 there, or to the croquet-ground underneath 
 the great butternut-tree. Here it was very 
 funny to watch him as he carried on an alleged 
 game, which he usually played with himself. 
 As he was several years younger than Max, 
 that eccentric young man did not consider 
 
 / o
 
 98 A P1CXIC AT THE MAPLE GliOVI-J. 
 
 Val really worth playing with, though he 
 tolerated " the baby," as he usually called his 
 little brother, with much patience, and even 
 affection, considering the circumstances. Vul 
 usually bore the slings and arrows of Max s 
 condescension with equanimity, but occasion 
 ally he, too, assumed authority. 
 
 Thus, he was one day busily devouring 
 berries up in the berry-patch when he saw 
 Max coming with, as he fancied, an unmis 
 takably hungry look upon his countenance. 
 As there did not seem to Val to be really 
 berries enough for two, and as he was enjoy 
 ing himself very much in hunting out and 
 devouring such as there were, he decided 
 to oppose Max s progress. Accordingly, he 
 shouted out warningly, waving his hands 
 frantically at the same time: "Don t oo come, 
 Max ! Ye paf s awful slippery, Max ! Oo ll 
 fall down n hurt nrseff, if oo comes affer ese 
 be wies ! Sides, Max," seeing that Max was 
 sturdily forging ahead, regardless of the hor 
 rible dangers of the slippery path, " e steer 
 in e barn ll get loose, n scare oo awful ! 
 Don oo come ! " 
 
 But Max was ready for him. 
 
 " I ve got some harvest apples here, Val,"
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 99 
 
 he urged insinuatingly; "awful nice harvest 
 apples." 
 
 Yal fell into the trap and left his berries at 
 once. 
 
 tv I would devise oo, Max," he said, with 
 grave dignity, " I would devise oo to give 
 me some of zose hard, sour apples," He had 
 not quite understood Max s adjectives. 
 
 He and Max sat down on the stone wall 
 beside the berry-patch, and Val continued, 
 " Now, Max, get off e parin schkins for 
 me, an cut off e handle." 
 
 This done, and the apple proving highly 
 satisfactory, he allowed Max to eat all the 
 berries he wanted, without making the slight 
 est objection. 
 
 At night, when he knelt beside his mother s 
 knee to say his prayer, which he always re 
 peated at an express-train rate, he would in 
 variably say when he got through, " Did I 
 wattle it off ? " 
 
 His air of profound anxiety afforded the 
 older boys, who were often present, great 
 amusement, but there was never any sign 
 that the child was not perfectly sincere in his 
 question. His mother would reply, "Rather, 
 my dear. You must try to speak more slowly
 
 100 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE UltOVE. 
 
 next time." Upon this lie would s;iy re 
 signedly, " Es, I will," and in two minutes 
 he would be fast asleep. 
 
 One da}-, Marian, who had readily won 
 "the baby s" heart this member of the 
 family having as yet imbibed no prejudice 
 against "gills" was shocked to see Yal, 
 while chasing a white butterfly, and finally 
 catching it in his hat, knock it down and 
 begin to stamp viciously upon it. 
 
 "Don t, dear, don t! she cried, rushing 
 forward to stop him. 
 
 He turned toward her with a look of re 
 proachful surprise upon his face. 
 
 " Di n t oo know, Ma an," he asked soberly, 
 " at ese whi bu flies make ol cabbage-worms 
 to eat up Misser Wellman s cabbages? " 
 
 No, Marian did not know it. Though she 
 had collected butterflies in California, she 
 had not studied them very thoroughly, and 
 she had not had the privilege of Charlie s in 
 structions for so long a period as Val had en 
 joyed them. She retreated in abashed silence 
 before Yal s superior wisdom. 
 
 One day Kirk hugged him ven bard, and 
 Val expostulated sternly with him: -If oo 
 keep /e air out of me like at. Kirk, I ll die.
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 101 
 
 It would be pleasant to go on telling anec 
 dotes of Val for a whole chapter, at least; 
 but as an incident occurred a few days after 
 the tire of which an account must be given 
 soon, and of which Val was the hero, it will 
 not do to linger longer on reminiscences of 
 the family favorite. 
 
 The strain and nervousness had kept Mrs. 
 Wellman and Marian awake a large part of 
 the night, and even the boys, who had never 
 been known to have a sleepless night in 
 their lives, confessed to bad dreams, Monday 
 came, and yet the family had far from re 
 gained their balance. Only those who have 
 been through a similar experience can realize 
 the weariness and nervousness which they 
 all felt. Seeing how unstrung and one 
 might as well speak plainly and say cross 
 they were, Mrs. Curry proposed that they 
 should go up to " the maple grove " - a 
 favorite picnicking resort of the family - 
 and take their Monday s lunch. It was situ 
 ated delightfully, well up on the pasture-hill 
 behind the house, and in its peaceful shades, 
 Mrs. Curry thought that her family might re 
 gain somewhat of that quiet of soul in which 
 Lhey all seemed to 1)3 lacking.
 
 102 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 
 
 " After the lunch," she said, " we will have 
 some true stories some new ones which 
 none of us have ever told before. Every one 
 must tell a story. Even Yal will do his 
 share. He has promised me solemnly that 
 he will do so." 
 
 The plan was received with unexpected 
 favor. Mrs. Curry feared that the boys 
 might pronounce her scheme a little " slow." 
 But they fell in witli it right heartily, and 
 shouldered uncomplainingly the baskets and 
 pails which were necessary to the carrying out 
 of the enterprise. Mrs. Wellman could not 
 come up to eat luncheon, but she prom 
 ised to appear about two o clock, when she 
 judged that the story-telling tournament 
 might begin. There was a good deal doing 
 about the house that day. Mr. Wellman, with 
 the help of some of the neighbors, was busy 
 putting up a small temporary barn and shed, 
 which should serve until he could erect some 
 thing better. The boys and Mr. Curry 
 helped actively upon this work, until nearly 
 noon, when they took up their burdens, as 
 has been described, and started for the "maple- 
 grove." It was a good half-hour s climb to 
 the spot, and then a fire was to be built, and
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 103 
 
 the cloth laid for dinner. A bubbling spring 
 near by supplied them with an abundance of 
 cool water, and the birds sang their sweetest 
 music while the feast was in progress. 
 
 By two o clock, as Mrs. Wellman had pre 
 dicted, the edibles which had been provided 
 had nearly disappeared, and she was seen 
 coming slowly up the picturesque ascent. 
 The boys could not at once settle down to 
 their stories, but after climbing the tallest 
 trees in the surrounding woods, they began 
 to feel more like resting. " Charcoal " was 
 discovered to have " tagged " the party over 
 the somewhat long and toilsome road, and 
 was soon safe in Max s arms, though Val had 
 intimated that he would like her for a little 
 while. Max insisted selfishly upon having 
 his pet to himself, however, and Val was 
 comforted only by being taken into his 
 father s lap, where he presently fell asleep. 
 
 It devolved upon Mr. Curry, when the 
 the boys had all found comfortable positions 
 around him, to "open the ball," which lie 
 proceeded to do, by telling a story of his 
 grandfather when he was a student at Yale 
 College in 1796. 
 
 u I don t know what would be thought by
 
 104 A P1CXIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 
 
 the excellent members of the college faculty 
 in my father s time," began Mr. Curry, " if 
 they could step into one of our modern par 
 lors, and see the family, from father to baby, 
 playing hearts or muggins or casino. 
 Card-playing was considered a cardinal sin " 
 (" Oh! oh ! oh ! " groaned the boys) in those 
 days, and, as might have been expected, the 
 college boys thought it much more amusing 
 to play cards then than they do no\v. One 
 night, my grandfather and three of his class 
 mates were having a game of whist. The 
 door was locked, the windows were darkened, 
 and some hasty pudding the students were 
 forbidden to eat such tilings in their rooms, 
 and hasty pudding was then considered a 
 great luxury was simmering in a pot 
 which hung from a hook on the crane over 
 the open fire. Suddenly a noise was heard 
 in the corridor. The cards were hurriedly 
 tucked hither and thither, and one of the 
 young men took the pot of boiling pudding 
 and emptied it into the two capacious coat- 
 tail-pockets of my grandfather. They had 
 only time to accomplish these concealments, 
 when there was a sharp knock at the door. 
 Three of the bovs became at once absorbed
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 105 
 
 in their books. Grandfather, who, of course, 
 could not sit down, and who trusted to the 
 dim light to hide the size of his pockets, 
 opened the door politely. 
 
 " I heard a noise in this room, sir," re 
 marked the stern tutor who stood there. " I 
 suspect that there has been card-playing go 
 ing on here. What is this, sir?" seizing 
 my grandfather s arm. " What have you in 
 this pocket ? " 
 
 "If you suspect me of having cards there," 
 replied my grandfather, putting on a deeply 
 injured air, while the boys at the table were 
 nearly bursting with laughter, " you have 
 only to search me. I suppose you would not 
 believe me if I should say that I have not ? " 
 
 "It is my intention to search you," said 
 the tutor loftily. As he spoke, he thrust his 
 hand deep into the scalding pudding. 
 
 " What happened then ? " inquired Kirk, 
 as his father paused amid a general laugh. 
 
 " That, my son, was always left by my 
 grandfather to the imagination of his hearers." 
 
 "But, honest, what did the tutor do?" 
 asked Charles. 
 
 " What would you have done ? " asked 
 Mrs. Curry, in turn.
 
 106 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 
 
 " 1 know what I should have done. I 
 should have howled," exclaimed Max so em 
 phatically they all burst out laughing afresh. 
 
 ** I believe you," said Kirk, in the dis 
 agreeably hearty way in which older brothers 
 sometimes make such remarks. 
 
 " Did he burn hisself ? " asked Val, who 
 had been roused by the laugh at the end of 
 his father s story, and who had been question 
 ing Charles as to the cause thereof. As lie 
 spoke, he rolled his sweet dark eyes toward 
 his mother, and revealed the fact that tears 
 were forming rapidly there. 
 
 " You bet your life he did," replied Kirk for 
 her. " But it was a good while ago, honey. 
 He s got over it by this time. I wouldn t 
 cry." 
 
 Thus reassured, Val relinquished his evi 
 dent intention of waking, and Mrs. Curry 
 was informed that it was her turn next. 
 " And don t you try to get off with such a 
 stingy little story as papa gave us," Kirk 
 warned her. 
 
 " Oil ! quality must be reckoned, as well as 
 quantity," she laughed in return. " The 
 only thing I have thought of is not very long, 
 but I think it will amuse you. It is a college
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GKOVE. 107 
 
 story, too. I was reminded of it the other 
 day, though I haven t heard it for many 
 years. My Aunt Elinor used to tell it to us. 
 You know that grandfather s family lived in 
 a college town ? Of course, when Commence 
 ment time came around each year, a great 
 cro\vd filled every house in the place. Aunt 
 Elinor and her three sisters, therefore, were 
 made to move out of their large, comfortable 
 rooms, and give them up to guests, while 
 they themselves slept in the attic. In this 
 lofty refuge there was one bedstead. In 
 this only two girls could sleep. The other 
 two had to put up with a mattress which 
 was laid upon the floor. The two girls who 
 first went to bed took possession of the 
 bedstead. The other two got left, as you 
 boys say, and had to make the best of the 
 hard floor. Aunt Elinor and her sister Olive 
 were the two eldest girls, and when they re 
 tired one Commencement night, they found 
 that Jessie and Emma, the two youngest sis 
 ters, had stolen a march upon them, and were 
 apparently fast asleep on the comfortable 
 couch. Their eyelids twitched, and Aunt 
 Elinor knew that they were no more asleep 
 than she was, but she and Aunt Olive were
 
 108 A PICXIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 
 
 too tired to protest, and so they meekly 
 sought their hard mattress on the floor. In 
 the middle of the night there was a loud re 
 port, and it was soon discovered that the cord 
 in the old-fashioned bedstead had given way. 
 Shaking with suppressed laughter, the elder 
 girls heard the younger ones bewailing the 
 mishap. The greedy things have been come 
 up with, they thought virtuously, but they 
 uttered nothing aloud. I shall never for 
 get, Aunt Elinor used to say in conclusion, 
 how funny those girls looked in the morning, 
 when we got up. They had been awake half 
 the night, and naturally they were tired 
 enough to sleep almost any way ; but I never 
 saw two more uncomfortable creatures than 
 they appeared, doubled up like the letter V, 
 with their feet as high as their heads. Yet 
 there they were, sleeping away as though 
 they were as well fixed as anybody." 
 
 They all laughed at the fate of the greedy 
 girls, and Charles was requested to take tin- 
 next turn. He had spent two summers in a 
 boy s camp in New Hampshire, and his stories, 
 for which Max and Val were forever teasing 
 him, usually embodied some phase of his 
 experience while there.
 
 mxfr* f m 
 
 MAIMAN <>N TII
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. HI 
 
 " I suppose," he began now with a little 
 sigh, " that I shall have to fall back upon my 
 camp-stories. You will have to excuse me 
 from one of your conditions. I can t tell any 
 true stories out of my own experience with 
 out repeating. Max and Val have drained 
 me dry. The rest of you haven t been teased 
 as I have by them, 1 know." 
 
 " Well," admitted his mother leniently, 
 " since we are so fond of hearing your camp- 
 stories, and since the little boys have worked 
 you rather hard, we won t be too strict. 
 Marian hasn t heard your yarns, any way." 
 
 u I feel almost ashamed to tell them, they 
 seem to me so threadbare," Charles apolo 
 gized ; " but I will try to pick out the least 
 venerable. You see, Marian," he continued, 
 " we had a camp-lire every night, and we 
 told stories around it. I put down sketches 
 of the most interesting of them in my diary, 
 and those, with what really happened to us 
 up there, form the stock upon which I have 
 to draw for my contributions to our story 
 telling tournaments, as mamma calls them." 
 
 " I m sure that is lovely," rejoined Marian 
 courteously; u I should think they would be 
 the most entertaining kind of stories, and I
 
 112 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 
 
 hope you will have to tell them all so that I 
 can hear them/ 
 
 " They were pretty good once," commented 
 Kirk characteristically. 
 
 " No one has been more anxious than you, 
 Kirk Curry, to hear those stories," reproved 
 his mother warmly. 
 
 "You needn t listen," said Charles, turning 
 to his brother with considerable resentment 
 in his manner. " Or, better still, I think I 
 won t tell any story at all this time." 
 
 " Now that s a skin ! " elegantly complained 
 Max, beginning to pucker up his face a 
 proceeding which Val always contemplated 
 with calm curiosity. 
 
 Charles colored, and was about to make a 
 sharp reply, when his father interposed se 
 verely: "Go ahead, Charles. You know we 
 all like to hear your camp-yarns. 1 wish you 
 might leain not to be so easily teased." 
 
 Charles swallowed his wrath in his usual 
 amiable manner, and opening a little black 
 diary, studied it intently for a moment. 
 
 Suppose I tell you one of Perriif s stories? " 
 he suggested at last. 
 
 " A good idea," commented his father 
 cheerfully. " I had almost forgotten Perrin/
 
 A PICXIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 113 
 
 " And remember that I never even heard 
 of him," added Marian. 
 
 "What s the matter with the catamount 
 story ? " asked Kirk conciliatingly. Kirk 
 was really very fond of Charles s camp-stories, 
 and it was only his contrary spirit, which had 
 been " on the rampage " ever since the fire, 
 which had made him belittle them. Perhaps, 
 too, Marian s evident anxiety to hear them 
 had had something to do with Kirk s posi 
 tion. The work of harmony was completed 
 by Max s singing out in reply to Kirk s ques 
 tion, u Oh ! that s all right," whereupon there 
 was a laugh all around, which quite restored 
 that mercurial young person to his usual 
 serenity, and Charles proceeded with his 
 tale. 
 
 " You see, Perrin this is for your benefit, 
 Marian was a great White Mountain hunter 
 and guide. I wish I could tell his story just 
 as he did, but of course I can t. lie was a 
 grizzled old fellow, nearly seventy years old, 
 and chock-full of the information which a 
 man gets who has done nothing all his life 
 except to range the woods and mountains, 
 and kill bears and wild-cats by the score, and 
 such."
 
 114 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GUOVE. 
 
 u I don t think that saying such just that 
 way, is very good grammar. Tain t elegant, 
 anyhow," criticised Kirk slyly. 
 
 - Oh ! ain t, ain t it? " rejoined Charles, not 
 quite good-humoredly, for he was warming 
 up to his subject, and did not like to be in 
 terrupted. " You want to l close up, young 
 man, or there will be trouble." 
 
 " Oh ! the story, the story," cried their 
 mother, with an appealing look at both of 
 them. u Kirk, Mr. Perrin doesn t pretend to 
 talk good grammar, and Charles, you know, 
 is, as it were, partially appearing in the char 
 acter of Mr. Perrin." 
 
 " Oh ! that s too thin," grumbled Kirk. 
 " He s forever correcting Max and me, and 
 now when we catch him up, it s (), no ! and 
 all sorts of excuses." 
 
 Mr. Curry could not help laughing, and he 
 admitted that Charles ought to be compelled 
 to take his own medicine when it was neces 
 sary ; but it did not seem to him to be just 
 the time now, for his mistake, if mistake it 
 were, was not bad enough. He therefore 
 commanded Kirk to keep quiet, and not to 
 speak until the story was done. 
 
 >v lf lie will keep still, I can go on, and I
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 115 
 
 can t till he does," muttered Charles, still 
 with an air of offended dignity. 
 
 A gratifying silence followed this remark, 
 and Charles, somewhat mollified, again took 
 up the thread of his discourse : " Well, one 
 afternoon, a party of people came to Mr. Per- 
 rin s, and said that the} wanted to climb 
 Chocorua, and wouldn t he take them up? 
 He told them that it was too late ; that they 
 couldn t possibly get up there and down again 
 before dark ; but it was of no use. They 
 insisted that it was their only chance, and 
 with him to guide them, they were not in the 
 least afraid. Besides, it was a beautiful, 
 clear day, and the air was crisp and cool. 
 They promised to pay him a good sum, and 
 after arguing a while, he finally consented to 
 convoy them up. There were two women 
 and three or four men, none of them much 
 used to mountain climbing, or else, as Perrin 
 said, they would have known better than to 
 start out at three in the afternoon to ascend a 
 rough old peak like Chocorua. Besides, as 
 they kept getting out of breath, and having 
 to stop to rest, they had to go awfully slow." 
 
 " Mamma, is it correct to say " inter 
 rupted the irrepressible Kirk.
 
 11(3 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE UROVK. 
 
 " Hush ! " said his mother sternly, though 
 slie felt us though Kirk were not unjustifiable. 
 Her look and tone had their etl ect, and Kirk 
 unwillingly subsided. 
 
 " They reached the top of the mountain," 
 proceeded Charles calmly, "at about six 
 o clock " 
 
 " Oh ! now, pretty soon it begins to get 
 awfully exciting," murmured Max. 
 
 This flattery still further restored Charles s 
 equanimity, and he began to enter more fully 
 than before into the spirit of his tale. 
 
 " As I was saying,* he repeated, they 
 reached the top of the mountain about six 
 o clock, and Perrin said that he never saw 
 the view from there as he saw it that day. 
 The sun was low, of course, and the sky 
 lighted up with rainbow colors, and the fields 
 below looked as though one might almost 
 touch them by stretching out one s hand. 
 Of course, all these people, who were, as old 
 Perrin said, of the most "romantic kind, 
 were almost wild over the grandeur of the 
 sight, and stood there ohing and ahing 
 until he thought he should never get them to 
 turn toward home. After nearly an hour of 
 delay, he finally got them started, and by
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 117 
 
 half an hour more they had managed to 
 scramble down the rocks. I have been over 
 them myself, and it is a nerve-trying trip 
 even in the brightest daylight. In the twi 
 light it must have been pretty ticklish work. 
 13y the time they had fairly come to the 
 woods, it was dark. Old Perrin went ahead 
 with a lantern, and they all came trooping 
 after him, as close to him as they could get. 
 Some of them were talking and laughing, but 
 most of them were too nervous to talk, and 
 went picking their way, screeching and ex 
 claiming at every little thing. Of course, 
 they were scared almost to death, just as he 
 warned them that they would be, when they 
 insisted upon going up at so late an hour. 
 
 " It s an awful thing, old Perrin always 
 says, to find yourself in the lone woods way 
 up old Corway, when the night comes on, 
 and these people discovered that he hadn t 
 exaggerated the solemnity of the situation 
 a bit. They knew that the hill was just 
 alive with bears and things, for he had told 
 them so. 
 
 " Well, when old Perrin saw that they 
 were almost on the point of a panic, he tried 
 to chirk them up the best he could, and he
 
 118 A PIC X 1C AT THE MAPLE (iROVK. 
 
 began to tell encouraging soils of stories, and 
 to make jokes ; but all the time he had to 
 be keeping a sharp lookout, for there wasn t 
 a gun in the party, and nobody had a knife 
 except himself he always carries one in a 
 leather sheath at his side. 
 
 " All of a sudden, when he was spying 
 around, he saw, as plain as day, a pair of 
 glaring 1 bright eyes looking down upon him 
 from far up in a tree just above him. lie 
 knew well enough what they were. They 
 were the eyes of a catamount." 
 
 Charles paused a moment. 
 
 " O, misery ! Do go ahead," groaned 
 Max, who had scarcely breathed since he 
 had spoken last. " I ve most forgotten what 
 comes next." 
 
 Do let me get my breath," pleaded 
 Charles. Well, as I was saying, he hadn t 
 any gun, and he didn t dare to say a word 
 for fear of plunging the whole party into a 
 panic. So on they went, just as if he hadn t 
 seen anything at all. He laughed and joked 
 harder than ever ; but his eyes were open 
 for that catamount, you d better believe. lie 
 knew that, as long as the talk was good and 
 loud, the creature wouldn t spring. Cata-
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 119 
 
 mounts are kept off more or less by noise. 
 Pen-in used to say that by whooping at just 
 the rig-lit time, even in a bear s face, when he 
 was pursuing you, you could make him turn 
 tail and trot away. There was such a fierce 
 gleam in this fellow s eyes, that Perrin felt 
 morally sure that if there were a few mo 
 ments of quiet in the party, the catamount 
 would spring ; and a catamount, as you 
 know, is a terrible thing among ladies, to 
 say nothing about gentlemen." 
 
 " Oh ! don t stop for moral reflections," 
 grumbled Kirk. " What we want to know 
 is, did he spring ? " 
 
 u When the time comes, I shall tell, but 
 not before," said Charles, with impressive 
 seriousness. " The party went on, exclaim 
 ing at every twig which crackled under their 
 feet, and Perrin laughing and singing and 
 keeping the rest as noisy as he could, and 
 all the while hearing the branches give and 
 sway above his head, as the great catamount 
 jumped from one tree to another, in his 
 efforts to keep abreast of the part}-. It was 
 all that Perrin could do to make his observa 
 tions of the beast s movements in such a way 
 that nobody should detect those fierce eyes
 
 PICX1C AT THE MAPLE -(iltOVK. 
 
 besides himself, but he managed it somehow. 
 Perrin says that it seemed two hours after 
 they got into the woods, and lie saw the 
 varmint first, to the time they got out into 
 the open near the house, but in point of 
 fact, it was only a short hour. It is a good 
 deal easier, you know, to go down hill than 
 it is to go up. Well, just before they 
 reached the open, his son met them, carry 
 ing another lantern and a gun. He had 
 begun to get worried about them, and had 
 thought that maybe they needed some assist 
 ance. He came in the nick of time, for just 
 then Perrin got a tine view of the catamount 
 a ray of light from the lantern struck full 
 on him and he dropped the lantern so 
 quickly that it went out like a flash ; but the 
 son s lantern gave light enough for his pur 
 pose. He seized the gun it was already 
 loaded sighted the beast for just a quarter 
 of a second, aimed as nearly as he could 
 between the creature s eyes, and down he 
 fell, exactly at the feet of one of the ladies. 
 Of course, she fainted dead away" ("Of 
 course," murmured Kirk, with an air of inef 
 fable disdain), " and as soon as she was 
 brought to and heard how the catamount
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 121 
 
 had been leaping along through the tree-tops 
 right above her head, almost ever since they 
 had entered the woods, she fainted again, 
 and the other one went into hysterics." 
 ( You bet your life she did," Kirk muttered 
 again with demoniac glee, which led his 
 mother to remark: " Kirk, your language is 
 getting altogether too strong. You must 
 not use these semi-profane expressions.") 
 
 "Perrin said that none of those people 
 slept a wink that night," went on Charles. 
 " They all staid at his house ; but he showed 
 us a splendid rifle which they gave him for 
 his pluck and presence of mind, and lie said 
 he guessed that they never would set out to 
 climb a wild mountain like Chocorua again 
 on the verge of sunset. Why, just think, 
 if he had told them anything about their 
 danger before he did, as likely as not it would 
 have killed them, just about." 
 
 "My! I wisht I d V been there," sighed 
 Max. " How big was he, Charlie ? " 
 
 O 
 
 " I can t just remember, but I believe it 
 was about fifty pounds or so." 
 
 " O, my ! I do wisht I d a been there," 
 wailed Max again. 
 
 " You ! Yes, you d have howled and cried
 
 \-2-2 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE tiKOVE. 
 
 and kept the catamount off, sure enough," 
 remarked Kirk. "Nobody else would have 
 needed to make a noise if you had been 
 there." 
 
 " Kirk, Kirk, reproved his mother. 
 
 " Well, he would," insisted Kirk. Great 
 cry-baby ! And, mamma, did you notice 
 how many times Charlie said well ! 
 
 " I don t think he says it any more than 
 you do," replied his mother ; " but lie did 
 use it more than he ought we all do. 
 And now, Mrs. Wellman, it is your turn." 
 
 " I thought that Kirk came next," pro 
 tested Mrs. Wellman. 
 
 " Generally, you come after Charles, Mrs. 
 Wellman," Kirk reminded her. 
 
 "But if Mrs. Wellman wishes, you \\ill 
 bear your share next, Kirk," said his mother, 
 in a low voice. 
 
 Mr. Curry, who had been half-dozing in a 
 particularly comfortable attitude, opened his 
 eyes long enough to glare admonishingly at 
 Kirk, and that young man began to prepare 
 himself, with a slight scowl on his forehead, 
 for reciting the tale which was expected of 
 him, when there was a sudden diversion. 
 
 Val had trudged off just before Charlie
 
 A PICNIC AT THE MAPLE GliOVE. 123 
 
 had begun his story, and was in plain sight 
 of the whole party, picking raspberries on 
 the edge of the woods, about twenty rods 
 away. As Mrs. Curry uttered her appeal to 
 Kirk, and as Mr. Curry opened his eyes, 
 Marian started up with a little scream, 
 which, though a tiny noise, yet revealed in 
 tense feeling, and darted toward Val. She 
 paused only long enough to say, with the 
 most earnest emphasis : 
 
 " Don t be frightened. I think I can man 
 age everything without any help, only just 
 as soon as Val turns to come to you when 
 you hear me tell him to come to you beat 
 on the tin pail as hard as you can. Don t 
 forget it for anything. Beat on the tin pail 
 as hard as you can until I ask you to stop." 
 
 As she had been speaking, she was emp 
 tying the water from the tin pail in which 
 they had brought it from the spring, and as 
 she concluded, amid the dazed silence of 
 them all she threw it into Mrs. Curry s lap. 
 Then she ran, as Max described it afterward 
 to the Mellows boy, " with all her dead 
 might," in the direction of the woods and 
 Val. 
 
 " What is it ? What do you mean ? "
 
 121 A PICMC AT THE MAPLE GROVE. 
 
 gasped one after another, as they heard 
 Marian s hasty words, and sa\v how fright 
 fully in earnest she was. 
 
 But there was no need of any explanation 
 when they looked in the direction in which 
 she was running. There stood little Val, ap 
 parently paralyzed with terror, while around 
 his head and shoulders was a dark swarm, 
 composed, as it seemed, of thousands of bees, 
 wavering back and forth, rising and falling, 
 as they buzzed as with a fatal menace over 
 the darling of the ilock.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 MARIAX approached little Val swiftly and 
 fearlessly, but very quietly. Mr. Curry, on 
 taking in the situation, had rushed forward 
 to interfere himself and to call her back, but 
 the intelligent and confident words which 
 
 o 
 
 she had spoken when she was leaving them 
 all, and the rapidity of her motions, ren 
 dered it impossible to stop her. He there 
 fore could do nothing but groan to himself, 
 and wait. 
 
 With what seemed to the terrified be 
 holders perfect foolhardiness, she lifted the 
 alarmed child in her arms, and the bees were 
 seen to be passing from him to her. In a 
 black cloud they settled upon her waving 
 light-brown hair, all over her fair neck, up 
 and down her dress of black nun s veiling. 
 125
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 Then the agonized family saw her push Val 
 away from her, as though she were telling 
 him to run to his mother, and the beautiful 
 boy came scampering over the rough pasture 
 ground toward that haven of rest. Then 
 Charles remembered Marian s directions, and 
 he began to move slowly toward her, beating 
 " as hard as he could " upon the tin pail, 
 with a stone which he had caught up for the 
 purpose. 
 
 Marian walked deliberately up to a great, 
 broken tree-trunk near by, where Val had 
 been standing, and calmly wiped off the bees 
 from her arms and neck as though they had 
 been flowers. They seemed to be stunned by 
 the noise, and made no resistance to her 
 motions, so that in less than fifteen minutes, 
 she came toward Charlie without a bee upon 
 her person. 
 
 In a speechless agony of gratitude, her 
 aunt folded her in a long, silent embrace. 
 Marian was evidently laboring, in spite of her 
 outward composure, under a great emotional 
 strain, and trembled like the blossoms on the 
 hop-vine which grew over her window at the 
 farmhouse. " We must get home ! " cried 
 Mrs. Currv, almost hysterically, as she broke
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 127 
 
 away from Marian, after having almost stran 
 gled her in the excess of her feeling. " Those 
 horrible bees may attack us again if \ve don t. 
 Gather up the things, boys. Stay not on the 
 order of your going. Hurry ! " 
 
 In almost a panic, they cleared the ground 
 of their picnicking dishes and baskets, and 
 rushed pell-mell down the hill, even Mr. 
 Curry making no very violent protest against 
 this summary way of doing things. 
 
 They scarcely spoke on their way down, 
 and nobody remembered, until Mrs. Wellman 
 wished to use it the next day, that the tin pail 
 which Charles had employed as a drum had 
 been left behind. As Mr. Curry had gone 
 back to the city by that time, and the boys 
 openly avowed themselves afraid to go near 
 the bee-haunted spot, and as Mrs. Curry was 
 even more afraid to have them than they 
 were to go themselves, the pail might have 
 remained up there all winter, had not Mr. 
 Wellman been obliged to pass near the spot 
 in searching for a wandering cow, and thought 
 of the pail, and hunted it up. 
 
 It was not until they were safe in the cool, 
 quiet parlor of the farmhouse, that Marian 
 could get breath and composure enough to
 
 128 KIEK STILL HOLDS OUT, 
 
 tell them what she had done, and how she 
 had happened to be able to do it. 
 
 " You see," she explained, when they had 
 all gathered around her, " we used to keep 
 ever so many bees out in California, and I 
 found when I was a very little girl that I 
 was what they call out there a natural bee- 
 charmer. The bees would always come to ma 
 from anybody else, and I have hived probably 
 a hundred swarms. When I saw Val with 
 those bees around his head, for a moment my 
 heart stood still. I was afraid he would be 
 stung to death, but a kind Providence kept 
 him from struggling,- or even moving, until I 
 could get to him. Then it was all easy. It 
 did not occur to me, until I was almost beside 
 him, that I might not have the power over 
 these bees that I had over those at home 
 that they might be of a very different sort 
 but I saw that I must not even think of fail 
 ing, so I went right on, and it was all right. 
 Of course, it was a mere chance that I was 
 born a bee-charmer, but wasn t it a fortunate 
 chance? I am so glad." 
 
 I should think it was," sobbed Mrs. 
 Curry, throwing her arms around Marian 
 again, and kissing her over and over with
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 129 
 
 profound feeling. " You have saved the 
 life of our darling baby. They do not keep 
 bees up here, and none of us know anything 
 about bees. If you hadn t been with us, I 
 don t know what we should have done." 
 
 " You did it as prompt and clean as though 
 you had been forty instead of fourteen," 
 echoed Mrs. Wellman. " I shall tell every 
 body about it for years to come what a 
 master hand you are with bees." 
 
 4i No family should be without a Mary 
 Ann," muttered Kirk, as, each with a basket 
 in his hand, they strolled toward the kitchen 
 after Marian had explained things. 
 
 " Kirk Curry, I believe you are the meanest 
 boy on the face of the earth ! " cried Charles, 
 flushing red with indignation at Kirk s un- 
 
 o o 
 
 worthy thrust. " I ll put a head on you as 
 sure as I live, if you say another word like 
 that you just got off." 
 
 " Oh ! she s too important altogether," 
 grumbled Kirk, loftily ignoring Charles s 
 threat. "I rather guess we should have man 
 aged to worry along somehow if she had 
 staid in California. She s too fresh; that s 
 what ails her." 
 
 u And you have the face to talk so about a
 
 13) KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 girl who has just saved your brother s life. 
 And to call her 4 Mary Ann ! " Charles fairly 
 hissed between his teeth, while his cheeks 
 were white with rage. " Take that, you 
 you puppy, you ! " and in another moment 
 Kirk was lying in the trampled grass of the 
 dooryard, with astronomical wonders of vari 
 ous kinds dancing before his eyes. His plac 
 able and gentle brother, who h;id not struck 
 him for years before, had actually knocked 
 him down, and then he marched out to the 
 kitchen and delivered his basket, without so 
 much as stopping to pick the howling boy 
 from the sandy turf on which he had fallen. 
 Mrs. Curry, however, hastened to the scene 
 and endeavored to elicit from Kirk the 
 history of the fracas; but Kirk, who was 
 enraged with mollification and pain for 
 Charlie s fist was heavy returned only very 
 vague and incoherent replies to her questions. 
 Subsequently, Charles explained the whole 
 situation to his father and mother, and it is 
 needless to say that he was let off with a very 
 moderate reprimand. He was not even made 
 to apologize to Kirk, which Kirk felt to be a 
 bitter insult, thouirh he knew he had deserved 
 
 o 
 
 a worse punishment than even Charles gave
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 131 
 
 him. It wasn t Charlie s place, he argued, to 
 be knocking his brothers about, and this 
 was undoubtedly true. 
 
 The summer passed on. In the shade of 
 the great butternut-tree, the children played 
 croquet. They fished up and down the trout- 
 brook, and they picked berries whole days at 
 a time. The larger boys did many a good 
 day s work in the hay-field for Mr. Wellman, 
 and, later, on the new barn, which was slowly 
 going up. Two or three times a week all the 
 young people went down to the river, two 
 miles away, and bathed. Marian proved to 
 be an expert swimmer ; in strength and en 
 durance even Mr. Curry, who called himself 
 a more than commonly vigorous swimmer, 
 was no match for her. She had, indeed, been 
 trained to the water from her babyhood. 
 
 Charles, Max and Val were by this time 
 very fond of her. She was, indeed, of so 
 sunny and affectionate a nature that she was 
 a most lovable companion. She had a quick 
 temper, which sometimes blazed out in spite 
 of the efforts which she made to control it, 
 and in spite of the strong religious princi 
 ples, which no one who watched her long 
 could fail to see were the guiding ones of her
 
 132 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 sweet young life. But Kirk still held aloof. 
 When with his brothers, he would never 
 allude to his cousin in any other way than as 
 "that Mary Ann," and, as might have been 
 expected, he now and then called her u Man- 
 Ann" to her face, \\hich naturally made her 
 angry. At such times, her very forehead 
 would flush darkly, and wrathful tears would 
 gather in her eyes, but so far she " had had 
 grace given her," as she expressed it, in writ 
 ing home to her dearest girl-friend, to hold 
 her tongue through all of Kirk s thousand 
 and one clever little provocations. She 
 treated him, too, with perfect justice, tried to 
 conciliate him when he was cross, and to 
 comfort him when his side was beaten at cro 
 quet (he always managed to get on the side 
 against her), and seemed to try to make her 
 self as agreeable to him as to the others ; 
 though when she found, as she did very early 
 in her acquaintance with him, that he was 
 not as cordial to her as he should have been, 
 she ceased to try as hard as she had during 
 the first few days of her stay to be good com 
 rades with him. She collected bugs with 
 Charles, fed and nursed the hens, and petted 
 Charcoal and her kittens, with Max, and
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 133 
 
 played letters and go-bang with him and 
 Val. 
 
 " If Marian had been made expressly to fit 
 into this family, she could not have been bet 
 ter planned," Mrs. Curry said to her husband. 
 " All of us love her but Kirk, and it is only 
 his own naughty spirit which stands between 
 them." 
 
 " It seems as though even he couldn t hold 
 out, when he sees how clever she is," re 
 marked Mr. Curry. " Kirk is very quick to 
 appreciate ability." 
 
 " I am afraid that is the secret of his jeal 
 ousy of Marian," rejoined Mrs. Curry signifi 
 cantly. "She beats him so easily at all of 
 his sports, and solves so quickly the algebra 
 problems upon which he has been at work 
 since he came up here, that it chagrins him. 
 But it is a good lesson for him, and in 
 some way the latent nobility of his nature 
 will assert itself in the end. It is hard for 
 Kirk to own himself in the wrong. I don t 
 know that he will ever get into a right frame 
 of mind toward Marian. Sometimes I feel 
 completely discouraged over him." 
 
 And, indeed, she might well feel discour 
 aged, for the first week in September arrived,
 
 134 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 and still Kirk maintained his half-defiant, 
 half -teasing attitude toward his sweet girl- 
 cousin. He was apparently as unsubdued 
 as ever. 
 
 It was a grand season that year for black 
 berries. The pastures around the Wellnian 
 farm were full of them. The great, prickly 
 bushes drooped fairly to the earth under their 
 luscious burden. Many of the berries were an 
 inch or more in length, and as plump and 
 juicy as the richest oranges. Marian was not 
 used to such fruit, and she grew to be raven 
 ously fond of them. 
 
 On a certain evening when the heat was 
 more -than summery in its fierceness, and 
 when the whole family were exhausted by a 
 long siege of such weather, which had been 
 worse than any that August had brought 
 them, Marian begged that they might go 
 berrying "just once more" on the follow 
 ing day. 
 
 " We haven t been for a week now, on ac 
 count of the heat," she pleaded, "and the 
 season is getting so late we may not be able 
 to go at all, if we don t go soon." 
 
 " That is what you said the last time we 
 went," commented Kirk.
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 135 
 
 " I know it, and it is what I may say the 
 next time I speak of going," retorted Marian, 
 good-hum oredly, but not without spirit, 
 
 " Besides, you tore your dress all to flinders 
 the last time we went," he continued. 
 
 4 - 1 have two or three more left." 
 
 " You tore your clothes as badly as Marian, 
 Kirk," interposed his mother. " Maybe that 
 is why you seem opposed to going again." 
 
 " And you fell down lower than McGinty," 
 added Max, with a vague idea of protecting 
 Marian. 
 
 " What if I did ? " snapped Kirk. 
 
 " Oh ! you was so awful prompt tellin 
 what other folks did, I thought maybe you d 
 like to know what you did yourself." 
 
 "Max, Max!" groaned Charles, " Xou 
 was! and do put on your y s. There is 
 nothing so vulgar as leaving off # ." 
 
 " Well, shall we put on our blackberry 
 clo es when we get up in the morning?" 
 asked Max, impatiently ignoring his con 
 scientious brother s attempts to improve his 
 grammar. 
 
 k I am willing," consented Mrs. Curry. 
 
 " We ll go uj) in the peck pasture," said 
 Charles. "That is the very best place in the
 
 136 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 whole country round for late berries ; and 
 there are lots of beetles up there among- all 
 those dead pines. There are ever so many 
 tiger-beetles, and while the rest of you are 
 picking berries, I will get a stack of beetles. 
 
 "And then you ll be wanting to eat our 
 berries," sniffed Kirk. I think I see myself 
 picking berries for you to eat, while you 
 calmly snoop around for beetles. If you go, 
 you ve got to help iill the baskets ; hasn t he, 
 mamma?" 
 
 "No, indeed, he hasn t," interrupted Marian 
 warmly. " Of course, he shall get all the 
 beetles he wants. And, Charles, you shall 
 have all my berries to eat that you like. 
 Kirk evidently doesn t care whether science 
 gets on or not. I do." 
 
 " Oh ! don t I ? " said Kirk, in his ugliest 
 tone. " You talk as though you were the 
 01113- one who cared anything about Charlie." 
 
 "Kirk, Kirk!" called his mother, in her 
 most penetrating tones. 
 
 Kirk dropped his head, and changed the 
 subject by remarking that he guessed he 
 would go to bed, which he straightway pro 
 ceeded to do, Max following him. Mrs. 
 Curry went to their rooms shortly afterward
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 137 
 
 to see about their clothes, and Charles and 
 Marian were left alone. 
 
 " What are you going to be, Charlie, when 
 you are a man?" inquired Marian, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Oh ! I don t really know," answered 
 Charles, hesitatingly. " I am awfully fond 
 of my Greek and German, and the other 
 languages. I love to trace the words down 
 to their roots, and see how similarly many 
 of them are derived. Last spring I thought 
 about it a good deal. The study of that sort 
 of thing is called Comparative Philology, 
 isn t it?" 
 
 " I believe so," laughed Marian ; " but I 
 don t know anywhere near as much about 
 those things as you do." 
 
 " Oh ! yes, }*ou do," declared Charles, 
 coloring modestly ; " well, for a while, I 
 thought comparative philology would be 
 pretty good fun, but after all, I couldn t do 
 justice to that and to beetles, too, and I 
 must study beetles. Why, if I should give 
 my whole lifetime to beetles, Marian, I 
 should never begin to know them all, and 
 their habits and history. I couldn t, as you 
 might say, so much as scratch the ground, if
 
 138 KIKK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 I should work at them all the time till I was 
 a hundred. But I propose to give my whole 
 life to beetles, just the same." 
 
 " Oh ! dear me," was all that Marian could 
 say. 
 
 " Yes; everything has got to slide," con 
 tinued Charles oracularly. " I m just going 
 for beetles with all my dead might, as Max 
 says." 
 
 Marian laughed outright now. 
 
 " Oh ! you dear, funny old boy," she said, 
 patting his shoulder affectionately; u l m sure 
 I wish you all success, and I will help you 
 all I can ; but if we are going to accomplish 
 anything in this world, we must, as your 
 mother says, get our regular sleep : so good 
 night." 
 
 The blackberrying plan was carried out 
 the next day. It had been decided that they 
 should all go to the peck pasture, as Charles 
 had suggested. This resort was so called lie- 
 cause no one was supposed to go blackberry- 
 ing there without bringing away at least a 
 peck of berries. 
 
 It was a merry party that tumbled into the 
 farm wagon at eight o clock the next morn 
 ing. Everybody wore their oldest clothes,
 
 fsii} : MI-TKP TIII-: < -1111,1) IN MKK AUMS.
 
 KIKK STILL HOLDS OUT. 141 
 
 and felt correspondingly reckless. Three 
 seats otherwise plain boards had been 
 placed across the wagon, and on these Mrs. 
 Curry, Mrs. Wellman and Marian sat, while 
 the four boys capered about, wrestling, 
 punching each other, singing snatches of 
 songs, knocking each other s hats oft , and 
 otherwise enjoying themselves after the in 
 comprehensible manner of boys. The floor 
 of the wagon was filled with baskets and 
 pails, though Mrs. Wellman had taken pains 
 to see that these were not exposed to the 
 ravages of the boys. 
 
 It is impossible to imagine a more beauti 
 ful scene than that through which they rode. 
 It was four miles to the peck pasture, mostly 
 up hill. A large part of the way took them 
 through dense woods, which were full of the 
 soft, mysterious vapors of the warm Septem 
 ber weather. The dew lay thick on every 
 thing, and the soft sunshine lighted up the 
 whole with waving streaks of light. It was 
 not strange that they were all of them in the 
 highest spirits. 
 
 Once arrived at the pasture, it seemed im 
 possible to decide which direction to take, 
 for heavily laden bushes beckoned from
 
 \4"2 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 every point, and each person obeyed his own 
 sweet will in the matter, Val tugging at Ins 
 mother s skirts, with a little basket hanging 
 in a business-like manner, from his arm. 
 Marian went off by herself, and after picking 
 hard for an hour, and rinding the largest and 
 sweetest berries, as she afterward declared, 
 that she had ever seen in her life, sat down 
 on a fallen log to rest. Here she was sur 
 prised by Charles, who, with a little bottle in 
 his hand, and poking among the ruins of 
 neighboring logs with a sharp stick, almost 
 ran over her before he saw her. 
 
 "I m having the most remarkable luck, 
 Marian," he said joyfully. " Just see ! " 
 
 He held up his bottle full of wriggling 
 specimens. 
 
 " I ve emptied this twice into my alcohol 
 bottle in the wagon," he continued, "and 
 here I have it twice full again. My ! but 
 I m tired. I haven t had an instant s let-up 
 since I began." 
 
 "Neither have I," said Marian; "but I 
 have had such good success, too, that I 
 thought I might indulge myself in a mo 
 ment s repose. See ! You are not going 
 without blackberries, Charlie."
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 143 
 
 Charles tasted of a few from the top of her 
 heaping two-quart measure, and pronounced 
 them unexceptionable. As they sat together 
 upon the old log they managed to make quite 
 a luncheon from the measure. The two 
 quarts were seriously reduced when they had 
 finished, though fortunately Marian had filled 
 it once before since they had arrived. 
 
 " Queer about blackberries, isn t it, Mar 
 ian ? " said Charles, as he munched away. 
 k You eat so many of them one day that it 
 seems as though you never could bear the 
 sight of one again, and the next day you can 
 eat twice as many of them as you ate the day 
 before. Every summer we are up here it is 
 the same way. But some summers the supply 
 runs short. The buds get blasted, or there 
 is a drought or something. Then we fairly 
 suffer, I can tell you. We almost wish we 
 had never known how good blackberries are, 
 and then we shouldn t miss them so." 
 
 u Just look at that bush over there, Charlie," 
 remarked Marian reflectively; "it is almost 
 breaking under its load of rich, lovely berries. 
 And see this one here. It isn t six feet away 
 from the other, and yet the berries are just 
 as seedy and poor as they can be."
 
 144 KlIiK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 "Oh! it isn t so very queer, explained 
 Charles, philosophically. " The roots go 
 down pretty deep, you know, and the roots 
 of that one probably strike some rich moist 
 soil, while the roots of this one go into rocks 
 and sand." 
 
 " Very likely that s it," assented Marian,. 
 
 "It s like people," continued Charles alle- 
 gorically. " Some people s lives are rich and 
 full, because they have laid hold on deep 
 things, as the Bible says, you know, and 
 others close by them live poor, meager lives 
 because they haven t." 
 
 "Charles, you mustn t be a philologist nor 
 a naturalist," exclaimed Marian, with convic 
 tion. " You must be a minister." 
 
 "That s just what mamma says sometimes," 
 conceded Charles ; "but you know I must get 
 beetles." 
 
 " You re just a precious old goose," laughed 
 Marian, regarding him with fond affection. 
 " I wonder if you really will stick to it." 
 
 " At any rate," rejoined Charles, rising, 
 " I m sticking to it to-day better than you are 
 to your berry-picking, unless you go at it 
 pretty soon." 
 
 He began to prowl around after his beloved
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 145 
 
 bugs with renewed ardor, and Marian, being 
 thus admonished, resumed her picking, and 
 in a few minutes had refilled the two-quart 
 measure which she and Charles had so wo- 
 fully depleted. By a half-hour more, she 
 had filled the six-quart pail, which she had 
 kept within a convenient distance of her on 
 the ground, and had also piled to the top for 
 a fourth time the two-quart measure. She 
 was just thinking, as she sat resting a moment 
 from her labors, that she would call as loud 
 as she could, and see if she could not summon 
 Charles to help her in carrying the large pail 
 to the wagon, when the sound of a famil 
 iar wail struck upon her ear. Following its 
 stentorian guidance, she soon came upon 
 Max, who was sitting on a mossy knoll in 
 the woods, whither he said that he had run, 
 after having stumbled into a hornet s nest, 
 and having been stung by a number of its in 
 habitants. Marian plastered his stings, Avhich 
 finally dwindled to two, with mud. This 
 soon relieved the pain, and, as Charles had 
 also come up, attracted by Max s cries, the 
 three young people made their way to 
 Marian s pail, and lugged it and the smaller 
 receptacle back to the vicinity of the wagon.
 
 140 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 The figures of the others were visible from 
 time to time, us they flitted about among the 
 clumps of bushes on the hillside above them. 
 They had evidently failed to gather as many 
 berries as they wished, and the three young 
 people found a comfortable place to sit down, 
 and then waited patiently for the rest to come. 
 
 " Seems to me you haven t been at work 
 much, Max," remarked Charles, with an air 
 of reproof. All that Max had to show for 
 the two or three hours which he had spent in 
 the pasture, was a six-quart-pail about half- 
 full of rather " scrawny " berries. 
 
 This chiding remonstrance made Max s 
 face pucker up ominously. 
 
 "At work!" he whined protestingly; "I 
 guess I filled this pail once, and emptied it 
 into Mrs. Wellman s big basket up on the 
 hill there. And then I most filled it agahi, 
 and the hornets came after me." 
 
 " I dare say they were yellow-jackets," 
 commented Charles, severely, "only I never 
 can make you see the difference." 
 
 " I don t care what they ?<vjx," muttered 
 Max; "I know they bit me like everything, 
 and seared me so that I spilled my berries all 
 over. Why, I had this pail most full."
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 147 
 
 " Oh ! you needn t tell me you have filled 
 that pail twice this morning," cried Charles 
 incredulously. 
 
 " Well, not quite full," admitted Max con 
 scientiously, "but pretty near full a good 
 deal fuller," he added, brightly, bethinking 
 himself of Charles s probable morning occu 
 pations, " than you have rilled anything, 
 Charlie Curry." 
 
 " I ve filled four bottles with bugs, 1 tell 
 you, "answered Charles defensively, "and" 
 
 " By the way," interrupted Marian, who 
 detested these little bickerings among the 
 boys, and always tried to change the subject 
 when she possibly could, " look at that old 
 black house up there on the hillside. It 
 must be a mile or more from any of the 
 others. There are people living there, too, 
 for I can see clothes hung out on a line to 
 dry. I wonder who it is ? " 
 
 " I don t know their names," replied 
 Charles; "but, as a friend, I would advise 
 you to keep away from there, for they have 
 an awful dog. He scared Kirk and me 
 almost to death, showing his teeth and 
 growling at us, one day when we were ex 
 ploring the country. I don t mind a bark
 
 148 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 ing dog, but this kind that shows its teeth, 
 and makes no remark hut a series of low 
 growls, I have my opinion of." 
 
 "You don t mean to say that Kirk really 
 gave up that there was anything on earth 
 that he is afraid of? " inquired Marian. 
 
 lk Oh ! we didn t either of us say anything," 
 said Charles. " We just took to our heels, 
 and never looked behind us till we had 
 reached the cold spring. By that time, we 
 were wetter than the spring, a good deal. 
 We don t go up that way now unless we are 
 armed. That makes me think. There s a 
 story connected with that old house. Mr. 
 Wellman told it to us the day we had our 
 little adventure up there. He said that 
 when his father was a little boy, on the old 
 farm here, a family by the name of Liscum 
 lived up there. There were several boys in 
 it, and one of them, Sam, was a great cow 
 ard. In those days, all the men belonged to 
 the militia, and as soon as these Liscum boys 
 grew big enough to handle a musket, they 
 enlisted in the militia companies, like all the 
 rest. Sam had disgraced himself on several 
 training days, by being afraid to fire off his 
 gun, and when the third one came around,
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 149 
 
 his mother gave him an awful talking to, and 
 told him if he did not behave himself that 
 day, there would be trouble. During the 
 day, Sam s company drilled like all the rest, 
 and they loaded and fired six times, in the 
 course of the drill. Sam went through all 
 the motions, except the firing. He was 
 afraid to do that. At night, his mother 
 asked him if he had done all right, and he 
 said he had ; but one of his brothers, who had 
 been watching him, declared that Sam hadn t 
 fired off his gun once ; that if lie had, the 
 men next to him did not know it. The old 
 lady was, of course, very angry, and told Sam 
 to come out in the yard with her. I ll show 
 you, said she, how to fire a gun. So she 
 shouldered the old musket, totally unaware 
 that it contained six charges, and fired. Of 
 course, the old thing kicked like all possessed, 
 and landed her flat on her back about six 
 yards away, whereupon Sam sang out, Take 
 care, mother ! There s five more charges 
 coming. 
 
 What a goose," laughed Marian. 
 
 " I should say so. But I never see that 
 old house you know it can be seen from 
 almost every hilltop around here without
 
 150 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 thinking of Sam Liscum and his poor old 
 mother." . 
 
 " That s a pretty good story," sa>d Max, 
 getting up and stretching himself; " but I m 
 sick of sitting still. Come on, Charlie. 
 Let s have a game of ball/ 
 
 " Oh ! it is too warm," protested Marian. 
 " Besides, they must start for home pretty 
 soon. It is a good hour s ride, and Mr. 
 Wellman will want his dinner at twelve 
 o clock." 
 
 "I m afraid I ll forget all those dandy new 
 curves I learned just before we left home," 
 sighed Max. " We haven t had time to play 
 any hardly, lately, and I m getting all out of 
 practice." 
 
 " Haven t hardly ! " sighed Charles, with 
 a look of difficult resignation. " Well, Max, 
 you ought to keep in practice, sure enough. 
 Crack pitchers have to." 
 
 Max glanced up suspiciously, but Charles 
 only began to whistle, and looked off into 
 space. 
 
 kt I don t care. I can pitch a good game, 
 now, you Charlie Curry," cried Max, begin 
 ning to pout. 
 
 " Oh ! you pitch well enough," admitted
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 151 
 
 Charles condescendingly. " You ve got some 
 daisy curves." 
 
 Max s dear little pudge of a face cleared 
 beamingly. "Which do you think pitches 
 best, Charlie," he asked confidingly, " Ruddy 
 or Covell ? " naming two of the most famous 
 pitchers in the country. 
 
 " Oh ! I never saw Ruddy pitch more than 
 once or twice," replied Charles discriminat 
 ingly ; " but I should say he had a better 
 method than Covell." Max s face fell again. 
 
 " Now, I ve been try in to pitch like 
 Covell, jes as near as I could. I m sure 
 I ve gotten some of his curves." 
 
 " Well, where did you get hold of got 
 ten? " cried Charles, in deep disgust. "You 
 do come out with the strangest words! 
 There isn t a soul in the family, nor in this 
 town, that says gotten, so far as I know, 
 and here you have picked it up. For pity s 
 sake, where did you find it ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I saw it in a paper," admitted Max, 
 " and I thought you would think I was 
 gettin to use awful good grammar, if I said 
 such a nice word as that; and here, the first 
 chance I had to say it, you pitch into me." 
 
 " Oli ! it is a dreadful word, isn t it,
 
 152 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 Marian?" said Charles, looking as though 
 he were inhaling ver\ r disagreeable odors. 
 kk You didn t see it in any good papers. The 
 best writers never use it. It is an affected 
 word. Say good, old-fashioned got when 
 you need to, but give us a rest on gotten. 
 If you would pay less attention to base-ball 
 and more to grammar, you would make a 
 good deal more of a man." 
 
 " Oh ! come now," expostulated Marian, 
 "you might let him have a day off from 
 grammar when he goes blackberrying, espe 
 cially when he gets stung by hornets." 
 
 " A da} off," grumbled Charles; " he has 
 a day off from grammar evory day of his 
 life. He knows the namo of every ball 
 player in the national league, and just what 
 his record is ; but in his talk, as I said the 
 other day, a singular noun lies down with 
 a plural verb, and a little conjunction, sure 
 to be the wrong one, leads them. There s 
 a hole in Max s head where the grammar 
 ought to be." 
 
 " (), well ! that isn t the worst thing in the 
 world," said Marian, smoothing Max s brown 
 head gently, for she saw that he was chafing 
 under Charlie s scathing arraignment.
 
 KIEK STILL HOLDS OUT. 153 
 
 " I d a good deal rather play base ball than 
 fuss over grammar," sighed Max, emboldened 
 by Marian s support. " You might know 
 how to talk good, and yet not know how to 
 pitch a single curve. I d enough sight rather 
 pitch good than talk good." 
 
 Just think of all papa s and mamma s 
 friends who come to the house to see them," 
 Charles reminded him, endeavoring to appeal 
 to his pride. " Just think how they would 
 stare to hear you get off some of those choice 
 expressions of yours." 
 
 " I shouldn t care how much they stared," 
 blurted Max, truthfully, " long s I could 
 pitch good." 
 
 " Pitch good ! " moaned Charles ; but he 
 had no further opportunity to coach Max 
 just then, for one by one the rest of the 
 party, tired and heated, but pleased with 
 their success, began to come up, and other 
 topics suggested themselves. 
 
 That night they had a famous game of 
 logomachy. Max took " thin " from his 
 mother by making it " plinth," a word which 
 no one had any idea that he had ever heard 
 before, and, later, won "prod" from Marian, 
 by making it " torpid."
 
 154 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 " Torpid ! " exclaimed his mother. " Wliv, 
 honey, I had no suspicion that you knew 
 there was such a word as torpid. " 
 
 " I guess you can t have looked very sharp 
 on the telegraph poles down by the river," 
 said Max, by way of explanation. "On 
 most every one of em, it tells you that 
 Gullerton s Tills are the best thing in the 
 world for a torpid liver. I don t know what 
 a torpid liver is, but I do know there s such 
 a word as torpid, you see." 
 
 " O, horrors ! Max," cried his alarmed 
 parent. " Haven t you anything better to do 
 than to read those dreadful patent medicine 
 advertisements? Don t read them." 
 
 "Why not?" argued Max. "If I hadn t 
 read em, I shouldn t a got torpid, for I 
 never heard of that word anywhere else, and 
 it is an awful good word." 
 
 What could be advanced to gainsay this? 
 
 Later, he made "mobbed" from Kirk s 
 " bomb," and " novice " from Charles s 
 "voice." By the time that Mrs. Curry an 
 nounced the end of the game, in order that 
 they might have a half-hour to read before 
 bedtime, they were all behind that young 
 champion, as usual.
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 155 
 
 " And yet," murmured Charles, as he set 
 tled himself to listen while his mother read 
 a chapter or two from " The Old Curios 
 ity Shop," " and yet, that boy can t put a 
 dozen words together straight to save his 
 life. I can t understand it." But it was 
 a fact. 
 
 The next morning, Marian begged Mr. 
 Wellman for the privilege of taking a ride 
 on Put. Put was a fairly good saddle-horse, 
 and early in the summer Marian had had 
 several long rides on him. One day, she 
 had essayed a ride upon Old Hundred, when 
 Put was employed upon the farm, but as he 
 had stumbled and pitched her over his head 
 before he had gone a mile, leaving her sore 
 and lame for a number of days afterward, 
 she had not attempted to utilize him as 
 a saddle-horse since then. Put had been 
 pretty steadily worked lately, and Marian 
 had been pining in vain for a ride for two 
 or three weeks. 
 
 " My habit will get moth-eaten, I fear, if I 
 don t use it pretty soon, Mr. Wellman," she 
 protested. " Can t I have him just from 
 say three to four, this afternoon ? " 
 
 Mr. Wellman really did not know how to
 
 156 K1KK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 get along without Put that afternoon, but as 
 he was very fond of Marian, and knew that 
 she had no other horse available but Put, 
 and that she had been very reasonable in her 
 requests for the use of horses, he consented. 
 Mrs. Curry had at first been unwilling to 
 have Marian go riding alone, and had made 
 " herculanean " efforts (as Mr. Wellman s 
 new hired man said), to send Charles, or 
 Kirk, or some other eseort with her, on Old 
 Hundred or Mr. Houston s horse, or some 
 steed which she had been able, after much 
 difficulty, to obtain from the village. Mar 
 ian had proved to be so capable and steady- 
 nerved a rider, however, never having met 
 with any accident, except in the affair of Old 
 Hundred, that she had finally overcome her 
 scruples, and allowed the girl to go by her 
 self. Old Hundred usually unseated every 
 body who mounted him, any way, and the 
 boys declared that it had not been any dis 
 grace to Marian that she had been thrown. 
 Put never stumbled, and Marian declared 
 that she was as safe on his back on the most 
 lonely and unfrequented road in the vicinity, 
 as she would be sitting in the parlor cro 
 cheting. As she had been bred to the sad-
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 157 
 
 die from her babyhood, and as everybody 
 agreed that she was an admirable rider, she 
 had, ever since the first two or three weeks 
 of her stay at the farmhouse, taken her rides 
 alone, until her aunt had quite recovered 
 from her nervousness at having her go off so. 
 
 Promptly at three o clock, therefore, Put 
 appeared, saddled and bridled, at the farm 
 house door, and at the same moment Marian 
 issued thence, equipped for her ride. The 
 boys, who had promised to assist Mr. Curry 
 in the potato field for the usual seven cents 
 an hour, were hanging about, only waiting to 
 see her off. They all bade her good-by gayly, 
 but not without a little envy, and watched 
 her until she had disappeared around a bend 
 in the road, giving them a merry wave of the 
 hand. Then the boys sought the potato field, 
 and Mrs. Curry returned to her sewing in 
 the parlor. She was embroidering a cloth 
 jacket for Val. There was going to be a cap 
 to match, on which Marian had been for some 
 weeks at work, and Mrs. Curry, as she stitched 
 away, pictured her beautiful boy as he would 
 appear when tricked out in all his bravery in 
 the winter. 
 
 Max soon returned from the potato field,
 
 158 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 declaring that his back " would break if he 
 kept that up much longer," and Mrs. Curry 
 heard him " shooing " and otherwise talking 
 to his hens, most of whom had eventually re 
 turned from the caves and holes in the earth, 
 in which, according to Mr. Wellman s the 
 ory, fowls usually take refuge when over 
 taken by a panic such as that caused by 
 the fire. Val was monotonously rendering a 
 roundelay, which was a sort of a cross be 
 tween "Annie Rooney " and "Comrades," as 
 he picked berries in the garden. A carpenter 
 was hammering and sawing in the new barn. 
 An occasional jingle or crash proceeded from 
 the kitchen. These were all the sounds that 
 disturbed the stillness of the peaceful Sep 
 tember afternoon. The droning quiet and 
 the sultry warmth made Mrs. Curry irre 
 sistibly drowsy. Her work dropped from 
 her hands, and she sat gazing off across the 
 green fields and woods. What a change it 
 was going to be to the dull rows of houses 
 and the dusty streets of the city ! It seemed 
 a real trial to go back to them. 
 
 From the little piazza beside her window, 
 the Wellman grounds sloped away to the 
 brook. She could hear its sleepy babble as
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 159 
 
 she sat gazing. In the night it sometimes 
 seemed to roar like thunder. Across the 
 brook rose a hillside, partly given over to 
 woods, and partly to pasture-land. She could 
 see the grass-grown road which wound 
 through the midst of these woods and past 
 ures. It passed a farmhouse similar to the 
 Wellmans , and, a little farther on, a tiny 
 evergreen-strewn graveyard, its white stones 
 si lining in the westering sunlight. Some 
 distance beyond this rose a diminutive school- 
 house. 
 
 The dreamy September haze rested upon 
 everything, and made it seem unreal, and 
 Mrs. Curry felt that she was rapidly drift 
 ing off into the realm of visions, when sud 
 denly she was rudely awakened. A horse 
 went cantering by the schoolhouse, and 
 turned there into the road which led up to 
 the Well in an place. No vehicle was at 
 tached to it. No one seemed to be riding it. 
 The horse was presently lost to sight in the 
 woods. It emerged from them at a gallop. 
 Mrs. Curry s breath came so fast that she was 
 almost suffocated. A spy-glass hung always 
 on the little piazza. She hurried out to look 
 through it. By this time, the horse had
 
 1GO KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 
 
 reached the opposite farmhouse, and stood 
 out plainly against the treeless hillside be- 
 3 ond. It was Put without a doubt and 
 Marian was not on him. 
 
 In a moment she had aroused all the people 
 on the farm. Mr. Wellman and the boys, 
 summoned by a terrible blast on the dinner- 
 horn, came running with ashen faces to see 
 what was the matter. They started down 
 the road at once, and presently they sent 
 Max up to the house, leading Put. lie was 
 trembling all over, and was covered on one 
 side with mud. The stirrup was broken. 
 These signs completed Mrs. Curry s grief 
 and dismay, but she did not swoon nor burst 
 into tears. The men and boys had gone off 
 on their feet ; in their haste and excitement 
 they had not thought of harnessing a horse. 
 It occurred to Mrs. Curry that she herself 
 could harness Old Hundred, who was stand 
 ing in the barn, and that she and Mrs. Well 
 man might set out to hunt np Marian in the 
 opposite direction from that which the men 
 had taken. Marian had gone out one way. 
 The horse had come in from another. This 
 assured Mrs Curry that the girl had taken a 
 favorite route of hers, which was in the form
 
 KIRK STILL HOLDS OUT. 161 
 
 of a square. This square embraced a great 
 swamp where grew many rare flowers, which 
 she was very fond of gathering. 
 
 Upon consultation with Mrs. Wellman, 
 however, that judicious lady decided that, in 
 case Marian should be brought home injured 
 in any way by a fall from her horse, either 
 she or Mrs. Curry should be at home to re 
 ceive her. Mrs. Curry agreed perfectly with 
 this view, and accordingly she and Inez 
 started out together, both of them almost 
 wild with terror and apprehension.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 POOR Old Hundred luid not gone a mile 
 on his way up the hill, when he was over 
 taken by another team. Upon hearing the 
 rapid footsteps behind her, Mrs. Curry turned. 
 She found that Put, who was a wonderfully 
 rapid walker, had been harnessed by Kirk 
 and Sim, the hired man, and would be at the 
 top of the hill, according to present appear 
 ances, long before Old Hundred had covered 
 a half-mile farther. She thought of telling 
 Sim that she would exchange places with 
 Kirk. Sim was a level-headed and very 
 strong young man, and she knew that if 
 Marian should have fallen from her horse, 
 and should be found helpless Mrs. Curry 
 would not admit that anything worse could 
 have befallen the dear girl whose fate was 
 1C*
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 103 
 
 just now so mysterious why, tlien Sim s 
 strength would be absolutely necessary. It 
 would not do, on this account, for her to 
 order Sim to take Old Hundred, and drive 
 on with Inez. Therefore, she felt that she 
 must order Kirk to give his place to her. 
 But the boy s face and demeanor, as she drew 
 Old Hundred aside in order that Put might 
 pass him, made her feel that she ought not 
 to prevent him from going with Sim. 
 
 " There are a lot of us out hunting for 
 Marian, mamma," he said, in a tremulous 
 voice ; " Mr. Wellman and Charlie and Max 
 have gone up the road, and two men have 
 gone down toward the village Mr. Houston 
 and Mr. Mellows. Fred and the Mellows 
 boy have just harnessed up Mr. Houston s 
 horse, and started up the road after Mr. Well 
 man as hard as they could tear. They have 
 got the long farm wagon, just as we have, so 
 that so that" 
 
 Kirk s voice gave out a little just here, and 
 he hurried to add, " But we mustn t stop. 
 We shall get to the swamp long before the 
 others do, and we ll search every inch over 
 till we find her if she is in there. You 
 needn t be afraid, mamma; we will look every-
 
 104 MAItlAX COXQUEJiS ALL. 
 
 where," lie ended, as they dashed off up the 
 road, Put with some of the mud still clinging 
 to his side, which lie had brought with him 
 when he came in without the beautiful rider 
 who had gone out so gayly upon his back one 
 short hour before. 
 
 Mrs. Curry and Inez drove on as fast as 
 poor Old Hundred could carry them, but be 
 fore they had gone a half-mile farther, the 
 old beast fell flat down in the road. Fearful 
 that he would strangle in his twisted harness, 
 Mrs. Curry and Inez tugged feverishly at 
 every strap and buckle until they had com 
 pletely freed him from it. Even then the 
 old horse could not rise, and after dragging 
 the wagon off to one side of the road where 
 it was in no danger, as it had been as soon as 
 Old Hundred was well out of the thills, of 
 slipping backward down the steep hill, Mrs. 
 Curry, leaving Inez to watch the panting and 
 struggling by spasms old creature, hur 
 ried back down the road to find somebody to 
 help in raising him up. 
 
 This road was always a quiet one, but that 
 afternoon it was perfectly deserted. It wound 
 along beside a rapid mountain stream, and 
 between two high hills, both of which were
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 165 
 
 heavily wooded, except where here and there 
 they had been cleared to give the cattle 
 a grazing-place. No men, no teams were 
 visible anywhere. Wringing her hands, and 
 moaning aloud in her almost maddening per 
 plexity and affright, she ran breathlessly 
 down the road until she had fairly reached 
 the Wellman house. There, she and Mrs. 
 Wellman consulted together the image of 
 Marian s sunny face, crowned with its waves 
 of light-brown hair, and appealing to them 
 for help, contrasting with the picture which 
 Mrs. Curry was drawing of the poor, blunder 
 ing old horse stretched helplessly out in the 
 highway, his hind feet reposing on the abrupt 
 " thank-you-marm " on which he had had the 
 bad taste to stumble. They laughed hysteri 
 cally at the vision, and then as hysterically 
 burst into tears. 
 
 " I don t see what we are to do, but leave 
 him there," said Mrs. Wellman at length. 
 "A team will come along sometime, and a 
 man will probably accompany it. With the 
 help of Inez, he can then be brought home. 
 In any case, some of the men must be back 
 here soon, and then they can go and get him. 
 Inez will stay by him in the meantime. He
 
 166 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 never gets up alone when he falls so. There 
 fore he can t run away." 
 
 The imaginary spectacle of Old Hundred 
 running away, convulsed them again with 
 hysterical laughter, from which Mrs. Curry 
 rallied to burst into tears a second time, with 
 the words, " To think that by this time, if 
 that wretched old thing hadn t fallen down, 
 I might have been at the swamp ; and if 
 nothing had turned up there, a half-mile be 
 yond. And Marian may need me so cruelly. 
 Oh ! why didn t I insist upon going on with 
 Sim and making Kirk take my place ? " 
 
 " Then you would have blamed Kirk al 
 ways for letting Old Hundred fall down," 
 Mrs. Wellman reminded her. " There is no 
 use in fretting about it now. Why, where 
 lias Val been ? Just before you came in he 
 was out in the shed holding Charcoal tak 
 ing advantage of Max s absence and there 
 he comes, running down the road." 
 
 Val came in breathlessly an instant later. 
 
 " Man tummin ," he announced cheerfully. 
 
 "Oh ! did he pick up Old Hundred?" ex 
 claimed Mrs. Curry. 
 
 " He said Ma an tummin ," he continued. 
 k * He di n t say anything about Ole Hundred."
 
 MAE I AN^ CONQUERS ALL. 167 
 
 "Marian!" screamed Mrs. Curry. 
 
 " Marian ! " echoed Mrs. Wellman. 
 
 They flew to the door. Sure enough, a 
 man was " tummin ." He was driving a horse 
 which seemed to Mrs. Curry s impatient spirit 
 to go about half as fast as that mettled courser, 
 Old Hundred. Val had actually exchanged 
 several words with its driver a few rods up 
 the road, and then had reached the house at 
 least two minutes in advance of him. 
 
 At last he came "lowging," as Mrs. Well- 
 man expressed it, up to the door. 
 
 "Is is my niece found?" queried Mrs. 
 Curry, without stopping to salute him, 
 though she knew him as a stupid, and not 
 very respectable farmer, who had lived on a 
 hill-farm some miles above the Well mans , 
 all of his dense, inefficient life. 
 
 " Yor folks is a-comin ," began the man 
 haltingly, " an Sim Tubbs, he s a-drivin , an 
 one o your boys the one that: wears the 
 yaller an" black " 
 
 "But was my niece with them? Did you 
 tell my little boy that she was coming?" 
 inquired Mrs. Curry, almost crazy with the 
 man s delay. 
 
 " I was a-goin to tell ye," said the man re-
 
 108 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 provingly, as he shifted his quid of tobacco 
 from one cheek to the other, " I was a-goiif to 
 tell ye was that your old hoss lyin" in the 
 road, a spell back here, Mis \Vellman ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes ! broke in Mrs. Curry feverishly. 
 "Never mind him ! Was my niece that 
 tall, fair girl, with a great braid of light 
 hair you must have seen her when you 
 drove past here sometimes, was she with 
 them ? " 
 
 " I was a-going to tell ye, as I said before," 
 continued the man, " only ye wouldn t let 
 me. Sim, he stopped to pick up the old 
 hoss " 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Curry gave a wild 
 shriek, and following it up with a shrill 
 "Thank God! Marian, Marian! dashed 
 past her exasperating interlocutor. Down 
 the road came Put, and on the seat of the 
 farm wagon the lost girl sat bravely up, sup 
 ported on one side by Kirk and on the other 
 by Inez. As Mrs. Curry flew to meet them, 
 the stupid farmer in the doorway stared after 
 her as though she had been a ghost. 
 
 41 Is she that way often ? " he asked Mrs. 
 Wellman in a dazed way. " Looks to me as 
 though she was a leetle mite tetched." (The
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 169 
 
 local expression for slight aberration of mind.) 
 " Wai, I must be goin along." 
 
 He nodded to Mrs. Wellman, and had just 
 time to clear the narrow private way which 
 led up to the Wellmans door from the main 
 road, when Put came swiftly into it, and in 
 a moment more, Marian was sobbing in her 
 aunt s arms. 
 
 When they had all quieted down a little, 
 and Marian, who was very pale and weak, 
 had been laid to rest upon the lounge, Mrs. 
 Curry said, " Now, Marian, we all want to 
 know about everything, but I can see that 
 you are very weak, and hadn t you better lie 
 still awhile before you talk any ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I couldn t keep you on tenterhooks 
 like that," laughed Marian faintly. " It 
 won t take me long to tell you, and I want 
 you to know how it was. Do, do forgive me 
 for causing you such a dreadful fright. In 
 deed, I didn t mean to." 
 
 The tears gathered in her eyes. She was 
 evidently distraught by the trying experi 
 ences, whatever they were, through whicl 
 she had passed. 
 
 " There, there ! " said Mrs. Curry, soothing 
 her as though she had been a baby, "of course
 
 170 MAR I AX CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 you didn t mean to, and I sha n t scold you, 
 if you were a little careless. I presume 
 you were a trifle careless or were you 
 taken by surprise, or what was it ? But 
 don t tell until you are quite ready, dear/ 
 
 " Oh ! I wasn t thrown off. You don t 
 understand," began Marian. 
 
 " You don t understand in the least," broke 
 in Kirk, glowering darkly at his mother. 
 "She wasn t careless at all, not at all." 
 
 "I m not so sure of that, Kirk dear," smiled 
 Marian, weakly ; " perhaps I ought to have 
 fastened Put ; but there comes Sim. lie 
 stopped to put the harness on Old Hundred, 
 and hitch him into the wagon. He said the 
 old fellow wasn t hurt a mite. Isn t that 
 strange ? " 
 
 Sure enough, there was Sim, patiently 
 guiding Old Hundred s tottering footsteps 
 toward the barn, while behind him came 
 a sudden clatter, and Mr. Wellman, with 
 Charles and Max and Fred Houston, driving 
 Mr. Houston s horse, appeared around the 
 corner of the stone wall. Fred came in so as 
 to hear Marian s story. The others, with a 
 shower of broken questions and exclamations, 
 iinally settled down enough to sit quietly in
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 171 
 
 chairs in the parlor, while Marian drew her 
 self up against her pillow, and after swallow 
 ing a cup of hot, strong tea, which brought 
 the first gleam of color into her pale face, be 
 gan her tale : 
 
 " I thought when I started, since I had 
 promised Mr. Wellman that I would be gone 
 only an hour, I wouldn t stop an instant at 
 the swamp. You know how hard it is for 
 me to go by it without stopping, now that 
 those wonderful red orchids have come out 
 up there ; but, as I said, I was bound that I 
 would resist temptation. So I didn t look that 
 way at all until I was nearly past it. Then 
 I turned just for an instant, and what should 
 I see but the most perfect bunch of orchids 
 that I ever beheld and it wasn t a rod 
 from the fence or didn t seem to be. Of 
 course, all of my good resolutions vanished 
 like like well like Mr. Wellman s 
 barn, only a good deal quicker, and off I 
 jumped to get my flowers. They turned out 
 to be on a little knoll that was why I could 
 see them so plainly and they were some 
 what farther off than I had at first supposed. 
 I tried to pick my way carefully, but you 
 know what the footing is in there, and I
 
 172 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 was over my shoes in mud before I knew it. 
 Then, just Ifefore I readied the hummock, 
 I slipped in, trying to leap across a bad place, 
 and down I went, flat, into the most loath 
 some kind of a mud-hole. When I got up my 
 habit was just plastered with mud, and my 
 head was a little giddy, for I struck hard on 
 it, when I went down. But I managed to 
 get back to the road, floundering through the 
 soft places almost anyhow, with my flowers 
 in my hand. Put was standing there like a 
 lamb, and I clambered on his back and pur 
 sued my way. In getting up, with my wet, 
 heavy habit, and stiff as I was after my fall, 
 I broke the stirrup. I have noticed that it 
 seemed weak all summer. By this time I 
 was pretty cross, as you may imagine. 
 
 " Then, what do you think ! I rode on 
 three or four rods farther, and what should I 
 see, quite a distance inside the fence, but an 
 other bunch of the flowers. I reflected that 
 my feet were already about as wet as they 
 could be. and I was all covered with mud, so 
 that I couldn t l>e more favorably equipped 
 for getting swamp-flowers. I felt lame, 
 but the spell was upon me, I suppose. At 
 any rate, I slid off Put again, and dashed
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 173 
 
 into the dimness of the swamp. I managed 
 to get to this bunch without falling down; 
 but just as I reached it, I saw another just 
 beyond, and another just beyond that, and 
 then when I turned to get back to Put I 
 couldn t I found that I was lost." 
 
 "Or you lost that you were found," inter 
 rupted Kirk, who was just tired and excited 
 enough to be silly. 
 
 "Anyhow, I was lost," went on Marian, 
 giving Kirk an affectionate little hug, to the 
 great surprise of his mother. "I suppose that 
 my head had been sort of muddled ever since 
 I fell. If it hadn t been, I don t think I 
 should have been such a goose as to get off 
 Put the second time, when I was so lame 
 and weak. Why, to have seen me, I am 
 sure you would have thought that I was 
 crazy. All that I can remember is that I ran 
 hither and thither, and that whichever way I 
 turned I found nothing that seemed familiar 
 to me nothing but the everlasting green 
 hummocks, and the dim shade, and tangles 
 of vines, and pools of shiny, black-and-blue 
 water. At last I sat down on a dry rock. I 
 was so bewildered that I feit I must compose 
 myself or else I should never get out in
 
 174 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 the world ; and whether I fainted or fell 
 asleep I don t know ; all that I can recollect 
 is that I wondered what made my head feel 
 so dizzy ; and even in the midst of my giddi 
 ness and fright, I thought that maybe drunken 
 men felt something as I did. The next tiling 
 that I can remember clearly was that my dear 
 Cousin Kirk was kissing me and saying, Wake 
 up, Marian ! For pity s sake, wake up ! and 
 his precious old tears were falling on my 
 face as though there wasn t water enough 
 in the swamp to dash over me if necessary ! " 
 and Marian stopped again to give Kirk s 
 head another loving little squeeze with her 
 hands, at which Kirk turned red, but seemed 
 immensely pleased. 
 
 " And presently I seemed to come out of a 
 sort of trance," she proceeded seriously, "and 
 Kirk took hold of one of my arms and Sim 
 the other, and helped me to the road, which 
 wasn t so very far off after all my trouble - 
 and I managed to climb into the wagon, and 
 here I am. It didn t occur to me. until I 
 got out of the swamp, that Put would have 
 galloped home after waiting a reasonable 
 time for me to come out ; and I felt more 
 dazed than ever when I saw him standing
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 175 
 
 there, all harnessed into the wagon. Then I 
 saw that the sun was setting, and I realized 
 that a long time must have elapsed since I 
 went into the swamp. How it must have 
 scared you to have him come galloping home 
 without me, and with the stirrup broken, 
 and the mud all over him. What an awful 
 start it must have given you. You must 
 have thought that I was dead." 
 
 Marian shuddered, and her dark eyes were 
 swimming in tears, as her aunt enfolded her 
 again in a glad embrace. 
 
 " Can you ever forgive me ?" begged Marian 
 again, when she had been released and held 
 off at arm s length, so that her aunt could 
 give her face an ecstatic perusal. 
 
 u Can we, Kirk?" asked Mrs. Curry of her 
 son, who had been comporting himself so 
 strangely during the last few hours. 
 
 " Well, I guess ! " rejoined Kirk witli boyish 
 succinctness. " Now we ve got her home 
 safe, I guess we can forgive most any thing 
 that is," he added, swallowing hard, and 
 choking up a little, after all, tk if if she 
 can." 
 
 Kirk spoke with the air of a boy who was 
 turning a new leaf, and who was bound to
 
 17G MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 turn it, no matter what it cost him. His 
 mother gave him a rapturous kiss, while 
 Marian murmured softly, " It s all right, 
 Kirk, and more than right : " but Charles 
 hud human nature enough to give a long, 
 low whistle at this juncture. This made 
 Kirk turn and glare at him fiercely, while his 
 lip trembled, as though he were about to 
 break loose in one of his most scathing re 
 bukes ; but Mrs. Curry silenced Charles with 
 an awful glance, and proceeded to ask Marian 
 questions, meanwhile petting Kirk as hard as 
 she could, until his wrath had subsided. No 
 one could understand, like his mother, how 
 hard it was for her self-willed boy to admit 
 that he had been in the wrong, and to try to 
 make noble amends, as Kirk was evidently 
 now bent upon doing. 
 
 "And you don t feel as though you had 
 caught cold, dear?" she inquired anxiously. 
 
 "Not a bit," returned Marian reassuringly. 
 " I only feel tired and a little bewildered, and 
 I find that I bent my wrist in some way when 
 I fell. That hot tea threw me into a perspi 
 ration which seems to have broken up what 
 ever cold I may have had. I shall be all 
 right to-morrow ; but there s no knowing
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 177 
 
 where I should have ended if it hadn t been 
 for this clever little cousin of mine," and she 
 patted Kirk tenderly on the shoulder. 
 
 " Oh ! some of the rest would have found 
 you if I hadn t," protested Kirk modestly. 
 
 " They might, and again they mightn t. 
 Anyhow, the fact remains that you did it; 
 and to you belongs all the credit. Just be 
 cause another man might sometime have in 
 vented the phonograph does not alter the fact 
 that Edison really did invent it." 
 
 Kirk continued to blush deeply, and mur 
 mured some unintelligible words of depreca 
 tion. 
 
 " We seem to have entered upon an era 
 of good feeling, laughed Charles, with a 
 little touch of injury in his voice. (Per 
 haps he thought of the parable of the prodi 
 gal son, which was certainly not inapplicable.) 
 " Max and I and some others did our best ; 
 but we don t seem to be in it, do we, Max? " 
 
 "O, Charles, don t! " tears rose to Marian s 
 eyes. " You are in it, too, and Max and 
 all of you. How you must all have rushed 
 around looking for me ! Don t think me un 
 grateful don t." 
 
 " Oh ! that s all right," laughed Charles, a
 
 178 MARIAN COXQUEBS ALL. 
 
 little ashamed of his outburst. " But you 
 know we don t want the head of that young 
 brother of mine to be enlarged beyond its 
 normal dimensions." 
 
 " You just attend to your own head, and 
 I ll look after mine," rejoined Kirk, some 
 what resentfully ; but nobody took offense 
 at his tone. They all realized that he had 
 been through a good deal, and, as he himself 
 remarked later to his mother, a boy can t put 
 up with everything. 
 
 If Max can stand it to be parted a mo 
 ment from that dreadful cat," suggested 
 Charles, thinking more of giving Marian a 
 chance to rest than of anything else, " we 
 might have a game of ball." 
 
 " Can t we play something that Marian 
 can play, too?" asked Kirk, with unex 
 pected gallantry, and quite failing to grasp 
 Charles s intention. The eyes of both of 
 the other boys quite stood out from their 
 heads with astonishment, but Charles man 
 aged to answer calmly: "Certainly, if she 
 feels able to play anything." 
 
 " No, I shall not let her," said Mrs. Curry 
 decidedly. " She must rest quietly here 
 now until tea is served. Hun out, all of
 
 MAEIAN CONQUERS ALL. 181 
 
 you. But it was lovely in you to think of 
 it, just the same, Kirk dear," she whispered, 
 as she passed that metamorphosed young 
 man on her way to her own room, a moment 
 later. 
 
 The next day, Marian felt quite like her 
 self again. It was fortunate that she was so 
 well, for all of Mrs. Wellman s and of Mrs. 
 Curry s friends in the vicinity called or 
 pretty nearly all in order to hear the tale 
 of Marian s adventure at first hand. Most 
 extraordinary stories were flying around the 
 neighborhood. It was positively asserted 
 that Marian s horse had thrown her off ; that 
 she was lamed for life ; that her nose was 
 broken, and her visage otherwise irreparably 
 scarred ; that Mr. Wellman was going to 
 sell Put on account of this new caper ; that 
 Mrs. Curry had ordered him to be shot, in 
 the first flush of her indignation, and many 
 other tilings, equally absurd. Marian and 
 the rest of the family became very weary of 
 relating the details of the affair, and Marian 
 suggested that a tablet containing its main 
 features should be hung outside of the front 
 door, so that all who came merely to hear 
 that now old, old story, might read it there,
 
 18-2 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 and pass on, without further troubling the 
 peaceful residents of the farmhouse. But 
 the best part of the tale could not be told 
 abroad, and Mrs. Curry 1 merged it close in 
 her heart. It seemed to her to mark an 
 epoch in Kirk s development, and she could 
 hardly wait to tell it to his father, when he 
 should make his next visit to the farm. 
 
 Beautiful, dreamy September days fol 
 lowed this disquietude. On the twentieth 
 they were to go home. It was a " blow," as 
 Marian said, to think of returning to the 
 city. It would be wise, she intimated play 
 fully, to imitate the lotos-eaters to give up 
 the world, and in this 
 
 " hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined 
 On tlie hills like gods together, careless of mankind." 
 
 She and Max talked it over one day 
 beneath Mrs. Curry s window, much to tho 
 latter s amusement. Max had been feeding 
 his flock of hens, and, in company with 
 Charcoal, was watching his darlings as they 
 picked up their morsels. 
 
 " I don t want to go back to the city, do 
 you, Marian?" asked the little boy.
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 183 
 
 " I think it is perfectly lovely up here," 
 replied Marian discreetly. 
 
 " My Wyandotte s got horrid sneezes," 
 went on Max, in very much of a minor key ; 
 " an if I don t stay an see to her, likely 
 she ll die. Mrs. Wellman jest laughs when 
 ever I tell her anything about it. There 
 don t anybody up here half look out for the 
 hens when I ain t here. I know that. But 
 mamma won t hear a word about takin the 
 hens home. If I could take my Wyandotte 
 home now, it would be all right. Mrs. 
 Wellman is willing, but mamma ain t." 
 
 "Oh! I shouldn t judge, from what they 
 all say, that there is room for hens, and to 
 hang out the clothes, and everything, in 
 your back yard. Your mother doesn t think 
 there is." 
 
 " It s plenty big enough," insisted Max 
 irritably ; " an I could mostly make, a lien- 
 house myself. I know just how to make it. 
 I d have a window with glass in it on the 
 southeast side, and a door opening on the 
 north. I ve read all about how to build it 
 in the Poultry Yard. That s the paper that 
 papa sends me every week. My Wyandotte 
 lays lots of eggs. It would save papa a
 
 184 M AH IAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 sight of money, if he would only let me 
 keep hens." 
 
 Max sighed and looked very forlorn. 
 
 " That black hen out there seems to keep 
 away from the rest," remarked Marian, hop 
 ing to divert Max s mind to the present from 
 the henless future which lie was so gloomily 
 contemplating. "I ve noticed her several 
 times. She always seems to be grubbing for 
 worms and bugs, instead of eating the good 
 things which you bring out." 
 
 " She s jest the contrariest hen I ve got, 
 complained Max. I get as mad as fury 
 with her. Do you see how thin she is ? 
 Well, that s jest because she won t eat my 
 good corn and scraps and things. If I had 
 her at home, I could see to her, but now 
 I suppose she ll go on eating bugs and 
 worms, an nothing else, an gettin thinner 
 an thinner, until she up n dies." 
 
 Max s tone was one of distressing mel 
 ancholy. 
 
 " Oh ! may l>e not. Maybe she ll reform," 
 suggested Marian hopefully. That s a 
 pretty hen marching up the hill there, with 
 that big scrap in her mouth. She must be 
 one of your nicest hens, isn t she ? "
 
 MARIAN CONQUEES ALL. 185 
 
 " A nice hen ! " repeated Max, as though 
 he thought Marian must be joking. " Why, 
 Marian, I should think you might see by 
 her eyes that she s a cross hen. She s an 
 awful cross hen. She s been in more fights 
 since we came up here than all the other 
 hens put together. That s the one I told 
 you about when you first came, don t you 
 remember? I wish I knew what to do with 
 her to make her better tempered. Now, 
 that Plymouth Rock hen over there s jest 
 as different. Why, she s the swe-e-test dis- 
 positioned hen in the whole flock. It s 
 exactly like folks. Some of em you jest 
 love, an some of em you jest hate." 
 
 "Oh! you shouldn t hate anybody," inter 
 polated Marian morally. 
 
 " Well, folks do. I do, an I can t help it. 
 Kirk does, too. Kirk hates piles and piles o 
 folks. He hates all girls." 
 
 " O, no ; he doesn t." Marian said quickly. 
 
 " Well, he used to. If he don t now, he s 
 got over it awful lately," persisted Max. 
 
 " lie s seen the error of his ways," laughed 
 Marian. 
 
 " I thought he did act kinder different," 
 admitted Max.
 
 186 MA/UAX CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 "You see, he didn t know until within ;i 
 little while that girls were just as jolly as 
 boys, because he hadn t known girls except 
 in classes in school, you see," explained 
 Marian. 
 
 44 Did he tell you that?" inquired Max, 
 incredulously. 
 
 " Certainly ; and apologized handsomely 
 for having thought that I was no good at 
 first, just because I was a girl." 
 
 " Did Kirk apologize ? " cried Max won- 
 deringly. 
 
 " He surely did. Oli ! he s one of the 
 nicest boys going, Kirk is." 
 
 Max meditated for a moment. Then his 
 curiosity crot the letter of his discretion, and 
 
 */ O 
 
 he asked under his breath : 
 
 "Did he tell you that he used to always 
 call you Mary Ann ? 
 
 "lie didn t need to tell me that." Marian 
 laughed, and colored a little. "He knew 
 that I had heard him." 
 
 "Didn t it make you awful mad ?" 
 
 "Rather," admitted Marian; "but, of 
 course, I knew he would come around all 
 right after a while. Kirk s got good prin 
 ciples, you know, Max.
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 187 
 
 Max looked a little puzzled, and hinted 
 that Kirk was "meaner n pusley to Charcoal 
 sometimes," to say nothing of more highly 
 organized beings related to himself by ties 
 
 o o *f 
 
 of consanguinity or words to that effect ; 
 but Marian leniently remarked that the best 
 of boys were not perfect, with which emi 
 nently true generalization, Max, especially as 
 he was really very fond of Kirk, subsided. 
 lie was the more ready to let the matter go 
 just now, because he heard at this juncture a 
 rooster crowing in a violent and unusual 
 manner, which indicated, to his practiced 
 ear, as he informed Marian, that a hen-hawk 
 was hovering near. 
 
 " It s as plain to me as a b c is to you, 
 Marian, what that yellow rooster s saying. 
 He says Hurry up an get into the corn or 
 somewhere, or else a lien-hawk 11 nab you. 
 He don t seem to you, I s pose, to be sayin 
 much, but he is." 
 
 " Max," said Charles, with sudden force, 
 as he shot around an unexpected corner, 
 " I ve heard you talking for some time now, 
 and I ve counted the mistakes you have 
 made within about ten minutes. By my 
 count and I dare say I lost several mis-
 
 188 MARIAS COSQUERS ALL. 
 
 takes you have made ten. You might at 
 least remember to say he doesn t, instead 
 of he don t. The Phonographic Dictionary 
 allows it, but the International doesn t, and 
 that s the one to go by. Why can t you 
 remember?" 
 
 k 1 don t guess I ever will," replied Max, 
 with a cheerfulness as discouraging as his 
 constructions. "Somehow I don t seem to 
 care, long s I can make folks understand what 
 I want to have em. Long s I can do that, 
 I don t know as it makes much difference. 
 
 " Don t know as, moaned Charles. 
 " That child s grammar will bring mamma s 
 gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." 
 
 " Yet she doesn t seem to mind it as much 
 as you do," laughed Marian. 
 
 " Oh ! she s given him up long ago. She 
 says that nothing but Time will ever fetch 
 him around." 
 
 " And can t you wait for Time ? " asked 
 Marian playfully. 
 
 "I can t resist trying to help him along a 
 little," said Charles. " I m mostly concerned 
 for the reputation of the family. What sort 
 of a father and mother can people think that 
 Max has ? "
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 189 
 
 Even Marian s merry laugh at Charles s 
 long face, could not rid Max of a feeling 
 of uncomfortable guilt, and he hastened to 
 change the subject by inviting that devoted 
 reformer to join him in a game of ball. He 
 probably hoped to remind him that though 
 he was not good for much in some directions, 
 he was not to be despised in others. Charles 
 gloomily consented, and in a few moments 
 more had entirely lost his shadowy brow in 
 a lively game. 
 
 The twentieth fell that year on a Saturday. 
 Mr. Curry, after installing the trustworthy 
 woman who always attended to putting the 
 house in order for the family s home-coming, 
 was to arrive on Thursday in order to assist 
 in packing and starting off the numerous 
 articles which must be carried home. What 
 with Charlie s boxes and bottles of beetles, 
 the bats and bicycles, Mrs. Curry s barrels of 
 jellies and canned fruits, and various barrels 
 of vegetables for winter, there was a formid 
 able array of things to be transported to the 
 station on Friday in the farm wagon. The 
 whole family must start early on Saturday 
 morning, so that even the trunks had to be 
 packed on Friday night.
 
 100 MAIUAX CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 Mrs. Curry was through with her work by 
 seven o clock, and she hastened then to join 
 Mr. Curry and the boys. in the parlor, where 
 they were gathered ever so cosily around an 
 open fire. During the last few days, the real 
 fall weather had come on, and the lire was 
 very grateful. Marian had not yet come 
 down from her room. Yal had just been put 
 to bed. 
 
 The boys were unusually quiet. Now and 
 then one of them yawned or stretched him 
 self, but they did not seem to care to talk, 
 nor to engage in reading or games. 
 
 "What makes you all so still?" asked 
 Mrs. Curry, when she had sat long enough 
 to get a little rested. 
 
 "Oh ! " remarked Mr. Curry, with portent 
 ous gravity, "constant loquacity is not es 
 sential to our happiness, is it, boys?" 
 
 " It isn t essential to mamma s, either," 
 affirmed Charles, looking with a gallant smile 
 toward his mother. 
 
 " Well, girls do like to talk more than 
 boys do, don t they, papa?" queried Kirk, 
 with a return to his old hateful manner. 
 
 "Does Marian talk any more than you do, 
 I should like to know?" demanded Max.
 
 MAS TAX COXQUEBS ALL. 191 
 
 " Oh ! Marian s an exception," admitted 
 Kirk humbly. Habit was strong, or else he 
 would not have said what he did at first. 
 
 " By the way, boys," said Mrs. Curry, " I 
 have something to talk over with you before 
 Marian comes in. I had a letter from your 
 Uncle William to-day, and he is anxious to 
 have Marian return to California, and live 
 with him. He says that we have had her all 
 summer, and that her letters show that she 
 is greatly improved in her condition, both of 
 mind and body, and so he wants her to come 
 back to him. Of course, Marian herself must 
 decide the matter, but I would like to know 
 what you would prefer." 
 
 " Oh ! I should think you would better 
 have her stay, if she will," said Charles 
 promptly. "Kirk s room at home is plenty 
 large enough for him and for me, too, and 
 she can have mine as well as not. It is a 
 good deal nicer having a girl in the family 
 than I thought it would be T mean, an 
 
 o 
 
 extra nice girl like Marian." 
 
 " Aw-w-w-w ! " suddenly burst forth from 
 Max s corner, where he was sitting on a 
 cricket, with his head in his mother s lap. 
 "A \v-\v-w!" the wail was at first subdued,
 
 192 MARIAN COXQUEJtS ALL. 
 
 but it presently swelled out in his loudest 
 crescendo ; " I don t want my Marian to 
 go away. What s she got to go fer? I 
 don t want my Marian to go away. She s 
 go-od to my hens an to my Charcoal 
 an I don want her to go away ! Hoo-o-o ! 
 Aw-w-w ! " 
 
 " There you have it in a nutshell," com 
 mented Charles ironically, as soon as Max 
 paused for breath. 
 
 " I wish she d break you of crying," ex 
 claimed Kirk. " You cry more to-day than 
 Val does, you great baby ! I d be ashamed ! " 
 
 " There, there ! " interposed Mrs. Curry, 
 " Max is improving ; he is a great deal more 
 self-controlled than he was a year ago. There, 
 darling," as Max s howls, which had burst 
 out with fresh vigor upon hearing Kirk s 
 cutting indictment, began to moderate under 
 his mother s praises, " perhaps Cousin Marian 
 won t go away. It seems to me that she 
 can t have the heart to leave us when she 
 finds out how we all feel." 
 
 " But Kirk hasn t spoken," remarked his 
 father, turning suddenly and gazing into the 
 boy s face. " How is it, Kirk ? Shall we let 
 Uncle William have Marian ? "
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 193 
 
 " I should think I had shown how I feel 
 about it," replied Kirk, with an evident effort. 
 
 " I should say so," interrupted Charles 
 significantly, and under the circumstances 
 rather unkindly. But Kirk bore the innu 
 endo bravely. He knew in his soul that he 
 had deserved it. 
 
 " I thought she was going to be horrid, 
 because she was a girl," he resumed, only 
 stopping to glare at Charles speechlessly a 
 moment ; " but of course it stands to reason 
 that all girls ain t horrid for mamma was a 
 girl once, and other nice ladies. I don t pre 
 tend to think yet that girls are as nice as boys ; 
 bufr I do think that Marian is splendid, and 
 I have asked her to forgive me for treating 
 her so at first and of course I sha n t 
 call her Mary Ann any more and 
 and"- 
 
 Kirk s voice died away rather tremulously, 
 but he managed by winking very hard not to 
 shed any tears, and was just going on to say 
 something further, when the door opened, 
 and Marian herself walked into the room. 
 
 " Well, I m tired," she exclaimed, flinging 
 herself into a chair with a sigh and a weary 
 laugh.
 
 194 MAR/AX CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 " Are you too tired to hear about a letter I 
 have had to day from your Uncle William ? " 
 asked Mrs. Curry. 
 
 " O, no!" cried Marian, sitting up straight 
 at once. " What did he say ? " 
 
 " He wants to know if we are going to let 
 you go back to him pretty soon." 
 
 " O, dear ! does he ? " 
 
 " And he seems to tliink that you would 
 better come at once, and stay with him all 
 the time now." 
 
 Marian s bright face fell perceptibly. 
 
 "But," put in Mr. Curry, "we feel as 
 though we could not let you go." 
 
 "Oh! do you?" cried Marian, turning to 
 him as though she would throw her arms 
 around his neck and kiss him if she dared ; 
 but kind as he was to her, he was very digni 
 fied, and she stood in considerable awe of 
 him. 
 
 " Uncle William has been very good to me 
 always," she added presently ; " I wouldn t 
 hurt his feelings for the world --but but 
 I really feel as though he were sending for 
 me from a sense of duty more than anything 
 else. He isn t much used to young people, 
 and they put him out terribly and and
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 195 
 
 it seems as though I couldn t go back to 
 California and not find my father there." 
 
 Marian threw her head down upon her 
 aunt s shoulder and sobbed softly for a mo 
 ment. The boys felt wretchedly uncomfort 
 able. Of all things, the worst was to have 
 anybody cry and make a scene. Max in 
 stinctively tried to stave it off. 
 
 "Say, you better stay with us won t you, 
 Marian ? " he murmured hesitatingly, but 
 very sincerely. 
 
 " Oh ! you dear little Biddy-boy," cried 
 Marian, as she lifted her face, half-laughing 
 and half-crying, and looked into Max s big, 
 blue eyes. " And do you want me to stay, 
 too?" 
 
 " I guess you d have thought so if you had 
 heard him wailing here a minute ago because 
 he thought you were going away," laughed 
 Charles. 
 
 " Oh ! was that what he was crying for ? 
 I heard him. Bless his precious little heart ! 
 But but really I don t like to be called 
 4 Mary Ann ; " she turned roguishly to Kirk, 
 " and you know that girls all chew gum so, 
 and lace so, and mince around so, and are such 
 hypocritical, treacherous things, that I truly
 
 196 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 
 
 don t see how you can bear to have one of 
 them stay in the family," she looked archly 
 from Charles to Kirk and then back again, 
 and at last burst into a merry laugh. 
 
 " Oh ! if your scruples are founded on 
 such little matters, maybe we can overcome 
 them," said Kirk, flushing, but returning 
 Marian s look affectionately. " We can t 
 accuse you of having any of those interesting 
 little ways that you have mentioned. There 
 fore we have no objections to your sort of 
 girl." 
 
 " O, Kirk dear ! are you sure?" 
 
 " Sure," responded Kirk, with feeling. 
 
 " But I m awfully disagreeable sometimes," 
 murmured Marian repentantly, " and I don t 
 see how you can " 
 
 Mrs. Curry kissed Marian s mouth at this 
 point, and Kirk seized the opportunity to say, 
 as though he had endured the suspense as 
 long as he possible could, " Well, then you ll 
 stay, won t you ? " 
 
 There were tears of joy in Marian s eyes as 
 she answered, " Oh ! I d love to, if you think 
 I m worth keeping." 
 
 "Hooray ! " shouted Max, jumping up, and 
 swooping across the room ; "I m going to get
 
 MARIAN CONQUERS ALL. 197 
 
 up awful early, so s I can tell the hens and 
 Charcoal, an they ll be jest tickled." 
 
 "Oh! you goose, " said Kirk disgustedly, 
 " tell the hens ! O, my ! " 
 
 " Max," began Charles oracularly, " I ll ask 
 Marian not to stay, if you don t stop saying 
 jest for just. " 
 
 " Oh ! we re none of us on dress parade to 
 night," interrupted Mr. Curry mercifully, 
 " from now till bedtime I move that Max be 
 allowed to talk any kind of grammar that he 
 likes." 
 
 The motion was carried, and the dear little 
 black sheep of the family reveled for one 
 enchanted hour amid the wrecks and ruins 
 of syntax and pronunciation in which his 
 lawless soul so much delighted.
 
 PS Clark - 
 5505 "That Vary 
 C541t Ann". 
 
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