1 / ^V-r^ A A > s 7 Up^ \ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA r^\c A . i- <T ~ s ^-- cr ^ r: o ^"o.^ ^ S ;^~ = 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". PS 3505 C541t UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000919248 5