" PRUDENCE SAYS SO JBttK. OE CALIF, &IBRAHY, IDS ANGELES PRUDENCE SAYS SO ETHEL HUESTON Authir if Prudence of the Parsonage WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR WILLIAM BROWN INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT 1916 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PRESS or BRAUNWORTH i CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS JUiOOKLYN. N. Y. r. MY LITTLE DAUGHTIB ELIZABETH MT COMRADE AND MT IN8PIKATJON 213O182 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAG I THE CHAPERON ' " .' 1 II SCIENCE AND HEALTH 19 III A GIFT FROM HEAVEN 39 IV How CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING ... 68 V THE SERENADE 80 VI SUBSTITUTION 95 VII MAKING MATCHES 114 VIII LARK'S LITERARY VENTURE 130 IX A CLEAR CALL 154 X JERRY JUNIOR 179 XI THE END OF FAIRY 193 XII SOWING SEEDS 209 XIII THE CONNIE PROBLEM 222 XIV BOOSTING CONNIE 238 XV A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 252 XVI THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 277 XVII THE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE 297 PRUDENCE SAYS SO PRUDENCE SAYS SO CHAPTER I THE CHAPERON 44^^ IRLS, come down ! Quick ! I want to see Vj how you look!" Prudence stood at the foot of the stairs, deftly drawing on her black silk gloves, gloves still good in Prudence's eyes, though Fairy had long since discarded them as unfit for service. There was open anxiety in Prudence's expression, and puckers of worry perpendicularly creased her white forehead. "Girls !" she called again. "Come down ! Father, you'd better hurry, it's nearly train time. Girls, are you deaf !" Her insistence finally brought response. A door opened in the hallway above, and Connie started down the stairs, fully dressed, except that she limped along in one stocking- foot, her shoe in her hand. I 2 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "It's so silly of you to get all dressed before you put on your shoes, Connie," Prudence reproved her as she came down. "It wrinkles you up so. But you do look nice. Wasn't it dear of the Ladies' Aid to give you that dress for your birth- day? It's so dainty and sweet, and goodness knows you needed one. They probably noticed that. Let me fix your bow a little. Do be careful, dear, and don't get mussed before we come back. Aunt Grace will be so much gladder to live with us if we all look sweet and clean. And you'll be good, won't you, Connie, and Twins, will you come!" "They are sewing up the holes in each other's stockings," Connie vouchsafed. "They're all dress- ed." The twins, evidently realizing that Prudence's patience was near the breaking point, started down- stairs for approval, a curious procession. All dressed as Connie had said, and most charming, but they walked close together, Carol stepping gingerly on one foot and Lark stooping low, carrying a needle with great solicitude, the thread reaching from the needle to a small hole on Carol's instep. "What on earth are you doing?" THE CHAPERON 3 "I'm sewing up the holes in Carol's stocking," Lark explained. "If you had, waited a min- ute I would have finished Hold still, Carol, don't walk so jerky or you'll break the thread. There were five holes in her left stocking, Prudence, and I'm" Prudence frowned disapprovingly. "It's a very bad habit to sew up holes in your stockings when you are wearing them. If you had darned them all yesterday as I told you, you'd have had plenty of Mercy, Lark, you have too much power on!" "I know it, Carol did it. She said she wanted me to be of an intellectual pallor." Lark mopped her face with one hand. "You'd better not mention to papa that we powdered to-day," Carol suggested. "He's upset. It's very hard for a man to be reasonable when he's upset, you know." "You look nice, twins." Prudence advanced a step, her eyes on Carol's hair, sniffing suspicious- ly. "Carol, did you curl your hair?" Carol blushed. "Well, just a little," she con- fessed. "I thought Aunt Grace would appreciate me more with a crown of frizzy ringlets," 4 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "You'll spoil your hair if you don't leave it alone, and it will serve you right, too. It's very pretty as it is naturally, plenty curly enough and Oh, Fairy, I know Aunt Grace will love you," she cried ecstatically. "You look like a dream, you "Yes, a nightmare," said Carol snippily. "If I saw Fairy coming at me on a dark night I'd "Papa, we'll miss the train!" Then as he came slowly down the stairs, she said to her sisters again anxiously : "Oh, girls, do keep nice and clean, won't you ? And be very sweet to Aunt Grace ! It's so awfully good of her to come and take care of us, " Prudence's voice broke a little. The admis- sion of another to the parsonage mothering hurt her. Mr. Starr stopped on the bottom step, and with one foot as a pivot, slowly revolved for his daughters' inspection. "How do I look ?" he demanded. "Do you think this suit will convince Grace that I am worth taking care of ? Do I look twenty-five dollars better than I did yesterday?" THe girls gazed at him with" most adoring and exclamatory approval. THE CHAPERON 5 "Father! You look perfectly grand! Isn't it beautiful? Of course, you looked nicer than any- body else even in the old suit, but it well, it was " "Perfectly 'disgracefully shabby," put in Fairy quickly. "Entirely unworthy a minister of your er lovely 'family!" "I hope none of you have let it out among the members how long I wore that old suit. I don't believe I could face my congregation on Sundays if I thought they were mentally calculating the wearing value of my various garments. We'll have to go, Prudence. You all look very fine a credit to the parsonage and I am sure Aunt Grace will think us well worth living with." "And don't muss the house up," begged Pru- dence, as her father opened the door and pushed her gently out on the step. The four sisters left behind looked at one another solemnly. It was a serious business, most seri- ous. Connie gravely put on her shoe, and but- toned it. Lark sewed up the last hole in Carol's Stocking,- Carol balancing herself on one foot with nice precision for the purpose. Then, all ready, 6 PRUDENCE SAYS SO they looked at one another again, even more sol- emnly. "Well," said Fairy, "let's go in and wait." Silently the others followed her in, and they all sat about, irreproachably, on the well-dusted chairs, their hands folded Methodistically in their smooth and spotless laps. The silence, and the solemnity, were very op- pressive. "We look all right," said Carol belligerently. No one answered. "I'm sure Aunt Grace is as sweet as anybody could be," she added presently. Dreary silence! "Don't we love her better than anybody on earth, except ourselves?" Then, when the silence continued, her courage waned. "Oh, girls," she whimpered, "isn't it aw- ful? It's the beginning of the end of everything. Outsiders have to come in now to take care of us, and Prudence'll get married, and then Fairy will, and maybe us twins, I mean, we twins. And then there'll only be father and Connie left, and Miss Greet, or some one, will get ahead of father THE CHAPERON 7 after all, and Connie'll have to live with a step- mother, and it'll never seem like home any more, and" Connie burst into loud and mournful wails. "You're very silly, Carol," Fairy said sternly. "Very silly, indeed. I don't see much chance of any of us getting married very soon. And Pru- dence will be here nearly a year yet. 'And Aunt Grace is as sweet and dear a woman as ever lived mother's own sister and she loves us dearly and" "Yes," agreed Lark, "but it's not like having Prudence at the head of things." "Prudence will be at the head of things for nearly a year, and I think we're mighty lucky to get Aunt Grace. It's not many women would be willing to leave a fine stylish home, with a hun- dred dollars to spend on just herself, and with a maid to wait on her, and come to an ugly old house like this to take care of a preacher and a riotous family like ours. It's very generous of Aunt Grace very." "Yes, it is," admitted Lark. "And as long as she was our aunt with her fine home t and her hun- 8 PRUDENCE SAYS SO dred dollars a month, and her maid, I loved her dearly. But I don't want anybody coming in to manage us. We can manage ourselves. We "We need a chaperon," put in Fairy deftly. "She isn't going to do the housework, or the managing, or anything. She's just our chaperon. It isn't proper for us to live without one, you know. We're too young. It isn't conventional." "And for goodness' sake, Connie," said Carol, "remember and call her our chaperon, and don't talk about a housekeeper. There's some style to a chaperon." "Yes, indeed," said Fairy cheerfully. "And she wears such pretty clothes, and has such pretty man- ners that she will be a distinct acquisition to the parsonage. We can put on lots more style, of course. And then it was awfully nice of her to send so much of her good furniture, the piano, for instance, to take the place of that old tin pan of ours." Carol smiled a little. "If she had written, 'Dear John: I can't by any means live in a house with furniture like that of yours, so you'll have to let me bring some of my own,' wouldn't we have THE CHAPERON 9 been furious? That was what she meant all right, but she put it very neatly." "Yes. 'I love some of my things so dearly,' ' Lark quoted promptly, " 'and have lived with them so long that I am too selfish to part with them. May I bring a few pieces along ?' Yes, it was pretty cute of her." "And do remember, girls, that you mustn't ask her to darn your stockings, and wash your hand- kerchiefs, and do your tasks about the house. It would be disgraceful. And be careful not to hint for things you want, for, of course, Aunt Grace will trot off and buy them for you and papa will not like it. You twins'll have to be very care- ful to quit dreaming about silk stockings, for in- stance." There was a tinge of sarcasm in Fairy's voice as she said this. "Fairy, we did dream about silk stockings you don't need to believe it if you don't want to. But we did dream about them just the same!" Carol sighed. "I think I could be more reconciled to Aunt Grace if I thought she'd give me a pair of silk stockings. You know, Fairy, sometimes lately I almos-t don't like A'unt Grace any more." io PRUDENCE SAYS SO "That's very foolish and very wicked," declared Fairy. "I love her dearly. I'm so glad she's come to live with us." "Are you?" asked Connie innocently. "Then why did you go up in the attic and cry all morning when Prudence was fixing the room for her?" Fairy blushed, and caught her under lip between her teeth for a minute. And then, in a changed voice she said, "I I do love her, and I am glad but I keep thinking ahead to when Prudence gets married, and and oh, girls, Prudence was all set- tled in the parsonage ^vhen I was born, and she's been here ever since, and when she is gone it it won't be any home to me at all !" Her voice rose on the last words in a way most pitifully suggestive of tears. For a moment there was a stricken silence. "Oh, pooh!" Carol said at last, bravely. "You wouldn't want Prue to stick around and be an old maid, would you? I think she's mighty lucky to get a fellow as nice as Jerry Harmer myself. I'll bet you don't make out half as well, Fairy. I think she'd be awfully silly not to gobble him right up THE CHAPERON n while she has a chance. For my own part, I don't believe in old maids. I think it is a religious duty for folks to get married, and and you know what I mean, race suicide, you know." She nodded her head sagely, winking one eye in a most intelligent fashion. "And Aunt Grace is so quiet she'll not be any bother at all," added Lark. "Don't you remem- ber how she always sits around and smiles at us, and never says anything. She won't scold a bit. May- be Carol and I will get a chance to spend some of our spending money when she takes charge. Pru- dence confiscates it all for punishment. I think it's going to be lots of fun having Aunt Grace with us." "I'm going to take my dime and buy her some- thing," Connie announced suddenly. The twins whirled on her sharply. "Your dime !" echoed Carol. "I didn't know you had a dime," said Lark. Connie flushed a little. "Yes, Oh, yes, " she said, "I've got a dime. I I hid it. I've got a dime all right." "It's nearly time," said Fairy restlessly. "Num- 12 PRUDENCE SAYS SO her Nine has been on time for two mornings now, so she'll probably be here in time for dinner. It's only ten o'clock now." "You mean luncheon," suggested Carol. "Yes, luncheon, to be sure, fair sister." "Where'd you get that dime, Connie?" "Oh, I've had it some time," Connie admitted re- luctantly. "When I asked you to lend me a dime you said" "You asked me if I had a dime I could lend you and I said, No, and I didn't, for I didn't have this (dime to lend." "But where have you had it?" inquired Lark. "I thought you acted suspicious some way, so I went around and looked for myself." "Where did you look?" [The twins laughed gleefully. "Oh, on top of the windows and doors," said Carol. "How did you know " began Connie. "You aren't slick enough for us, Connie. We knew you had some funny place to hide your money, so I gave you that penny and then I went up-stairs very noisily so you could hear me, and Lark sneaked THE CHAPERON 13 around and watched, and saw where you put it. We've been able to keep pretty good track of your finances lately." The twins laughed again. "But I looked on the top ledge of all the win- dows and doors just yesterday," admitted Lark, "and there was nothing there. Did you put that dime in the bank?" "Oh, never mind," said Connie. "I don't need to tell you. You twins are too slick for me, you know." The twins looked slightly fussed, especially when Fairy laughed with a merry, "Good for you, Con- nie." Carol rose and looked at herself in the glass. "I'm going up-stairs," she said. "What for?" inquired Lark, rising also. "I need a little more powder. My nose is shiny." So the twins went up-stairs, and Fairy, after call- ing out to them to be very careful and not get dis- heveled, went out into the yard and wandered dole- fully about by herself. Connie meantime decided to get her well-hidden dime and figure out what ten cents could buy for 14 PRUDENCE SAYS SO her fastidious and wealthy aunt. Connie was in many ways unique. Her system of money-hiding was born of nothing less than genius, prompted by necessity, for the twins were clever as well as grasp- ing. She did not know they had discovered her plan of banking on the top ledge of the windows and doors, but having dealt with them long and bitter- ly, she knew that in money matters she must give them the benefit of all her ingenuity. For the last and precious dime, she had discovered a brand-new hiding-place. The cook stove sat in the darkest and most re- mote corner of the kitchen, and where the chimney fitted into the wall, it was protected by a small zinc plate. This zinc plate protruded barely an inch, but that inch was quite sufficient for coins the size of Connie's, and there, high and secure in the shadowy corner, lay Connie's dime. Now that she had decided to spend it, she wanted it before her eyes, for ten cents in sight buys much more than ten cents in memory. She went into the kitchen cautiously, careful of her white canvas shoes, and put a chair beside the stove. She had discovered that the dishpan turned upside down on the chair, THE CHAPERON 15 gave her sufficient height to reach her novel bank- ing place. The preparation was soon accomplished, and neatly, for Connie was an orderly child, and loved cleanliness even on occasions less demand- ing than this. But alas for Connie's calculations ! Carol was born for higher things than dish washing, and she had splashed soap-suds on the table. The pan had been set among them and then, neatly wiped on the inside, it had been hung up behind the table, with the suds on the bottom. And it was upon this same dishpan that Connie climbed so carefully in search of her darling dime. The result was certain. As she slowly and breathlessly raised herself on tiptoe, steadying her- self with the tips of her fingers lightly touching the stove-pipe, her foot moved treacherously into the soapy area, and slipped. Connie screamed, caught desperately at the pipe, and fell to the floor in a sickening jumble of stove-pipe, dishpan and soot beyond her wildest fancies! Her cries brought her sisters flying, and the sight of the blackened kitchen, and the unfortunate child in the midst of disaster, banished from their minds all memory of the coming 1 6 PRUDENCE SAYS SO chaperon, of Prudence's warning words : Connie was in trouble. With sisterly affection they res- cued her,. and did not hear the ringing of the bell. They brushed her, they shook her, they kissed her, they all but wept over her. And when Prudence and her father, with Aunt Grace in tow, despaired of gaining entrance at the hands of the girls, came in unannounced, it was a sorry scene that greeted them. Fairy and the twins were only less sooty than Connie and the kitchen. The stove-pipe lay about them with that insufferable insolence known only to fallen stove-pipe. And Connie wept loudly, her tears making hideous trails upon her blackened face. "I might have known it," Prudence thought, with sorrow. But her motherly pride vanished before her motherly solicitude, and Connie was soon quiet- ed by her tender ministrations. "We love you, Aunt Grace," cried Carol earnest- ly, "but we can't kiss you." Mr. Starr anxiously scanned the surface of the kitchen table with an eye to future spots on the new suit, and then sat down on the edge of it and THE CHAPERON 17 laughed as only a man of young heart and old ex- perience can laugh! "Disgraced again," he said. "Prudence said we make a mistake in not taking you all to the sta- tion where we could watch you every minute. Grace, think well before you take the plunge. Do you dare cast in your fortunes with a parsonage bunch that revels in misfortune? Can you take the re- sponsibility of rearing a family that knows trouble only? This is your last chance. Weigh well your words." The twins squirmed uncomfortably. True, she was their aunt, and knew many things about them. But they did think it was almost bad form for their father to emphasize their failings in the presence of any one outside the family. Fairy pursed up her lips, puffing vainly at the soot that had settled upon her face. Then she laughed. "Very true, Aunt Grace," she said. "We admit that we're a luckless family. But we're ex- pecting, with you to help us, to do much better. You see, we've never had half a chance so far, with only father behind i." 18 PRUDENCE SAYS SO The twins revived at this, and joined in the laughter their father led against himself. Later in the day Prudence drew her aunt to one side and asked softly, "Was it much of a shock to you, Aunt Grace? The family drowned in soot to welcome you ? I'm sure you expected to find every- thing trim and fresh and orderly. Was it a bitter disappointment ?" Aunt Grace smiled brightly. "Why, no, Pru- dence," she said in her slow even voice. "I really expected something to be wrong ! I'd have been dis- appointed if everything had gone just right 1" CHAPTER II SCIENCE AND HEALTH AFTER ALL, the advent of a chaperon made surprisingly little difference in the life of the parsonage family, but what change there was, was all to the good. Their aunt assumed no active directorate over household matters. She just slipped in, happily, unobtrusively, helpfully. She was a gentle woman, smiling much, saying little. Indeed, her untalkativeness soon became a matter of great merriment among the lively girls. "A splendid deaf and dumb person was lost to the world in you, Aunt Grace," Carol assured her warmly. "I never saw a woman who could say so much in smiles, and be so expressive without words." Fairy said, "She carries on a prolonged discus- sion, and argues and orates, without saying a word." 20 PRUDENCE SAYS SO The members of the Ladies' Aid, who hastened to call, said, "She is perfectly charming such a fine conversationalist !" She was always attractively dressed, always self- possessed, always friendly, always good-natured, and the girls found her presence only pleasing. She relieved Prudence, admired Fairy, laughed at the twins, adored Connie. Between her and Mr. Starr there was a frank camaraderie, charming, but seldom found between brothers- and sisters-in-law. "Of course, Aunt Grace," Prudence told her sweetly, "we aren't going to be selfish with you. We don't expect you to bury yourself in the par- sonage. Whenever you want to trip away for a while, you must feel free to go. We don't intend to monopolize you, however much we want to do so. Whenever you want to go, you must go." "I shan't want to go," said Aunt Grace quickly. "Not right away, of course," Prudence agreed. "But you'll find our liveliness tiring. Whenever you do want to go " "I don't think I shall want to go at all," she an- swered. "I like it here. I I like liveliness." Then Prudence kissed her gratefully. SCIENCE AND HEALTH 21 For several weeks after her initiation in the par- sonage, life rolled along sweetly and serenely. There were only the minor, unavoidable mishaps and dis- ciplinary measures common to the life of any fam- ily. Of course, there were frequent, stirring verbal skirmishes between Fairy and the twins, and be- tween the twins and Connie. But these did not dis- turb their aunt. She leaned back in her chair, or among the cushions, listening gravely, but with eyea that always smiled. Then came a curious lull. For ten entire and successive days the twins Had lived blameless lives. Their voices rang out gladly and sweetly. They treated Connie with a v sisterly tenderness and gentleness quite out of ac- cord with their usual drastic discipline. They obeyed the word of Prudence with a cheerful readiness that ;was startlingly cherubimic. The most distasteful of orders called forth nothing stronger than a bright, "Yes, Prudence." They no longer develop- ed dangerous symptoms of physical disablement at times of unpleasant duties. Their devotion to the cause of health was beautiful. Not an ache dis- turbed them. Not a pain suggested a substitute. 22 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Prudence watched them with painful solicitude. Her years of mothering had given her an almost supernatural intuition as to causes, and effects. On Wednesday morning, Mr. Starr bade his fam- ily good-by and set out on a tour of Epworth League conventions. He was to be away from home until the end of the following week. A prospective Presbyterian theologian had been selected from the college to fill his pulpit on the Sabbath, and the girls, with their aunt, faced an unusually long period of running the parsonage to suit themselves. At ten o'clock the train carried their father off in the direction of Burlington, and at eleven o'clock the twins returned to the parsonage. They had given him a daughterly send-off at the station, and then gone to the library for books. Prudence, Fairy and Aunt Grace sat sewing on the side porch as they cut across the parsonage lawn, their feet crinkling pleasantly through the drift of autumn leaves the wind had piled beneath the trees. "We're out of potatoes, twins," said Prudence, as they drew near. "You'll have to dig some Before dinner." SCIENCE AND HEALTH 23 For one instant their complacent features clouded. Prudence looked up expectantly, sure of a break in their serene placidity. One doubtful second, then "Certainly, Prudence," said Carol brightly. And Lark added genially, "We'd better fill the box, I guess-r-so we'll have enough for the rest of the week." And singing a light but unharmonic snatch of song, the twins went in search of basket and hoe. The twins were not musical. They only sang from principle, to emphasize their light-heartedness when it needed special impressing. Prudence's brows knitted in anxious frowns, and she sighed a few times. "What is the matter, Prue? You look like a rainy Christmas," said Fairy. "It's the twins," was the mournful answer. "The twins!" ejaculated Fairy. "Why, they've acted like angels lately." Even Aunt Grace lifted mildly inquiring eye- brows. "That's it! That's just if. When the twins act 24 PRUDENCE SAYS SO like angels I get uneasy right away. The better they act, the more suspicious I feel." "What have they been doing?" "Nothing! Not a thing! That's why I'm wor- ried. It must be something terrible !" Fairy laughed and returned to her embroidery. Aunt Grace smiled, and began plying her needles once more. But Prudence still looked troubled, and sighed often. There was no apparent ground for her alarm. The twins came back with the potatoes, peeled some for luncheon, and set the table, their faces still bright and smiling. Prudence's eyes, often fastened upon their angelic countenances, grew more and more troubled. In the afternoon, they joined the little circle on the porch, but not to sew. They took a book, and lay down on a rug with the book before them, read- ing together. Evidently they were all absorbed. An hour passed, two hours, three. At times Carol pointed to a line, and said in a low voice, "That's good, isn't it?" And Lark would answer, "Dandy! Have you read this?" Prudence, in spite of her devotion to the em- SCIENCE AND HEALTH 25 broidering of large S's on assorted pieces of linen, never forgot the twins for a moment. "What are you reading?" she asked at last aim- lessly, her only desire -to be reassured by the sound of their voices. There was an almost imperceptible pause. Then Carol answered, her chin was in her palms which may have accounted for the mumbling of the words. "Scianceanelth." "What?" Another pause, a little more perceptible this time. "Science and Health" Carol said at last, quite dis- tinctly. "Science and Health" Prudence repeated, in a puzzled tone. "Is it a doctor book?" "Why something of the sort, yes," said Carol dubiously. "Science and Health? Science and Health" mused Fairy. "You don't mean that Christian Sci- ence book, do you? You know what I mean, Pru- dence Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health, that's the name of it. That's not what you twins are devouring so ravenously, is it?" Carol answered with manifest reluctance, glanc- 26 PRUDENCE SAYS SO ing nervously at Prudence, "Y-yes, that's what it is." Ominous silence greeted this admission. A slow red flush mantled the twins' cheeks. Aunt Grace's eyes twinkled a little, although her face was grave. Fairy looked surprised. Prudence looked dum- founded. .When she spoke, her words gave no sign of the cataclysmic struggle through which she had passed. "What are you reading that for ?" "Why it's very interesting," explained Lark, coming to Carol's rescue. Carol was very good at meeting investigation, but when it came to pro- longed explanation, Lark stood preeminent. "Of course, we don't believe it yet. But there are some good things in it. Part of it is very beautiful. We don't just understand it, it's very deep. But some of the ideas are very fine, and er uplifting, you know." Prudence looked most miserable. "But twins, do you think minister's daughters ought to read things like that?" "Why, Prudence, I think minister's daughters ought to be well-informed on every subject," de- SCIENCE AND HEALTH 27 clared Lark conscientiously. "How can we be an influence if we don't know anything about things? And I tell you what it is, Prue, I don't think it's right for all of us church people to stand back and knock Christian Science when we don't know any- thing about it. It's narrow-minded, that's what it is. It's downright un-Christian. When you get into the book you will find it just full of fine in- spiring thoughts something like the Bible, only er and very good, you know." Prudence looked at Fairy and her aunt in help- less dismay. This was something entirely new in her experience of rearing a family. "I I don't think you ought to read it," she said slowly. "But at the same time " "Of course, if you command us not to read it, we won't," said Carol generously. "Yes. We've already learned quite a lot about it," amended Lark, with something of warning in her tone. "What do you think about it, Aunt Grace?" "Why, I don't know, Prudence. You know more about rearing twins than I do." Prudence at that moment felt that she knew very 28 PRUDENCE SAYS SO little about it, indeed. She turned to Fairy. There was a strange intentness in Fairy's fine eyes as she studied the twins on the floor at her feet. "You aren't thinking of turning Christian Sci- entists, yourselves, are you?" asked Prudence rather humbly. "Oh, of course, we aren't Scientists, Prudence," was the quick denial. "We don't know anything about it yet, really. But there are lots of very help- ful things in it, and people talk about it so much, and they have made such wonderful cures, you know, and we'd thought we'd just study up a little." "You take the book and read it yourself, Prue," urged Carol hospitably. "You'll see what we mean." Prudence drew back quickly as though the book would sear her fingers. She looked very forlorn. She realized that it would be bad policy to forbid the twins to read it. On the other hand, she realized equally strongly that it was certainly unwise to al- low its doctrines to take root in the minds of par- sonage daughters. If only her father were at home, SCIENCE AND HEALTH 29 ten days between herself and the lifting of re- sponsibility ! "When father comes home " she began. And then suddenly Fairy spoke. "I think the twins are right," she said emphatical- ly, and the twins looked at her with a surprised anxiety that mated Prudence's own. "It would be very narrow-minded of us to refuse to look into a subject as important as this. Let them go on and study it; we can decide things later." Prudence looked very doubtful, but a warning movement of Fairy's left eyelash the side re- moved from the twins comforted her. "Well" she said. "Of course, Prudence, we know it would nearly break father's heart for us to go back on our own church, but don't you think if folks become truly convinced that Christian Science is the true and good religion, they ought to stand by it and suffer, just like the martyrs of old?" suggested Lark, and the suggestion brought the doubt-clouds thick about Prudence's head once more. "We may not be convinced, of course," added 30 Carol, "but there is something rather assuring about it." "Oh, twins," Prudence cried earnestly, but stopped as she caught again the slight suggestive movement of Fairy's left eyelash. "Well, let it go for this afternoon," she said, her eyes intent on Fairy's face. "I must think it over." The twins, with apparent relish, returned to their perusal of the book. Fairy rose almost immediately and went into the house, coming back a moment later with her hat and gloves. "I'm going for a stroll, Prue," she said. "I'll be back in time for supper." Prudence gazed yearningly after her departing back. She felt a great need of help in this crisis, and Fairy's nonchalance was sometimes very sooth- ing. Aunt Grace was a darling, of course, but she Jiad long ago disclaimed all responsibility for the rearing of the twins. It was two hours later when Fairy came back. Prudence was alone on the porch. "Where are the twins?" asked Fairy softly. "Up-stairs," was the whispered reply. "Well ?" SCIENCE AND HEALTH 31 Then Fairy spoke more loudly, confident that the twins, in their up-stairs room, could hear every word she said. "Come up-stairs, Prue. I want to talk this over with you alone." And then she whis- pered, "Now, you just take your cue from me, and do as I say. The little sinners! We'll teach them to be so funny !" In their own room she carefully closed the door and smiled, as she noted a creaking of the closet door on the twins' side of the wall. Eavesdropping was not included among the cardinal sins in the twins' private decalogue, when the conversation con- cerned themselves. "Now, Prudence," Fairy began, speaking with an appearance of softness, though she took great pains to turn her face toward the twins' room, and enun- ciated very clearly indeed. "I know this will hurt you, as it does me, but we've got to face it fairly. If the twins are convinced that Christian Science is the right kind of religion, we can't stand in their way. It might turn them from all religion and make them infidels or atheists, or something worse. Any re- ligion is better than none. I've been reading up a little myself this afternoon, and there are some 32 PRUDENCE SAYS SO good points in Christian Science. Of course, for our sakes and father's, the twins will be generous and deny that they are Scientists. But at heart, they are. I saw it this afternoon. And you and I, Prudence, must stand together and back them up. They'll have to leave the Methodist church. It may break our hearts, and father's, too, but we can't wrong our little sisters just for our personal pride and pleasure in them. I think we'll have them go before the deacons next Sunday while father is gone then he will be spared the pain of it. I'll speak to Mr. Lauren about it to-morrow. / We must make it as easy for them as we can. They'll probably dismiss them I don't suppose they'll give them letters. But it must be all over before papa comes back." Then she hissed in Prudence's ear, "Now cry." Prudence obediently began sniffing and gulping, and Fairy rushed to her and threw her arms about her, sobbing in heart-broken accents, "There, there, Prue, I know I felt just the same about it. But we can't stand between the twins and what they think is right. We daren't have that on our con- sciences." SCIENCE AND HEALTH 33 The two wept together, encouraged by the death- like stillness in the closet on the other side of the wall. Then Fairy said, more calmly, though still sob- bing occasionally, "For our sakes, they'll try to deny it. But we can't let the little darlings sacrifice themselves. They've got to have a chance to try their new belief. We'll just be firm and insist .that they stand on their rights. We won't mention it to them for a day or two we'll fix it up with the elders first. And we must surely get it over by Sun- day. Poor old father and how he loves " Fairy indulged in a clever and especially artistic bit of weeping. Then she regained control of her feel- ings by an audible effort. "But it has its good points, Prue. Haven't you noticed how sweet and sunny and dear the twins have been lately? It was Science and Health working in them. Oh, Prudence dear, don't cry so." Prudence caught her cue again and began weep- ing afresh. They soothed and caressed and comforted each other for a while, and then went down-stairs to finish getting supper. In the meantime, the shocked and horrified twins 34 PRUDENCE SAYS SO in the closet of their own room, were clutching each other with passionate intensity. Little nervous chills set them aquiver, their hands were cold, their faces throbbing hot. When their sisters had gone down-stairs, they stared at each other in agony. "They they wo- won't p-p-put us out of the ch- ch-church," gasped Carol. "They will," stammered Lark. "You know what Prudence is ! She'd put the whole church out if she thought it would do us any good." "Pa-p-pa'll papa'll " began Carol, her teeth chattering. "They'll do it before he gets back." Then with sudden reproach she cried, "Oh, Carol, I told you it was wicked to joke about religion." This unexpected reproach on the part of her twin brought Carol back to earth. "Christian Science isn't religion," she declared. "It's not even good sense, as far's I can make out. I didn't read a word of it, did you ? I I just thought it would be such a good joke on Prudence with father out of town." The good joke was anything but funny now. "They can't make us be Scientists if we don't want to," protested Lark. "They can't. Why, I SCIENCE AND HEALTH 35 wouldn't be anything but a Methodist for anything on earth. I'd die first." "You can't die if you're a Scientist anyhow, you oughtn't to. Millie Mains told me " "It's a punishment on us for even looking at the book good Methodists like we are. I'll burn it. That's what I'll do." "You'll have to pay for it at the library if you do," cautioned frugal Carol. "Well, we'll just go and tell Prudence it was a joke, Prudence is always reasonable. She won't " "She'll punish us, and it'll be such a joke on us, Larkie. Even Connie'll laugh." They squirmed together, wretchedly, at that. "We'll tell them we have decided it is false." "They said we'd probably do that for their sakes." "It it was a good joke while it lasted," said Carol, with a very faint shadow of a smile. "Don't you remember how Prudence gasped? She kept her mouth open for five minutes !" "It's still a joke," atfded Lark gloomily, "but it's on us." "They can't put us out of the church !" 36 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "I don't know. You know we Methodists are pretty set! Like as not they'll say we'd be a bad influence among the members." "Twins!" The call outside their door sounded like the trump of doom to the conscience-smitten twins, and they clutched each other, startled, crying out. Then, sheepishly, they stepped out of the closet to find Fairy regarding them quizzically from the doorway. She repressed a smile with difficulty, as she said quietly: "I was just talking to Mrs. Mains over the phone. She's going to a Christian Science lecture to-night, and she said she wished I wasn't a min- ister's daughter and she'd ask me to go along. I told her I didn't care to, but said you twins would enjoy it. She'll be here in the car for you at seven forty-five." "I won't go/' cried Carol. "I won't go near their old church." "You won't go." Fairy was astonished. "Why > I told her you would be glad to go." "I won't," repeated Carol, with nervous passion. "I will not. You can't make me," SCIENCE AND HEALTH 37 Lark shook her head in corroborative denial. "Well, that's queer." Fairy frowned, then she smiled. Suddenly, to the tempest-tossed and troubled twins, the tall splendid Fairy seemed a haven of refuge. Her eyes were very kind. Her smile was sweet. And with a cry of relief, and shame, and fear, the twins plunged upon her and told their lit- tle tale. "You punish us this time, Fairy," begged Carol. "We we don't want the rest of the family to know. We'll take any kind of punishment, but keep it dark, won't you? Prudence will soon forget, she's so awfully full of Jerry these days." "I'll talk it over with Prudence," said Fairy. "But I think we'll have to tell the family." Lark moved her feet restlessly. "Well, you needn't tell Connie," she said. "Having the laugh come back on us is the very meanest kind of a punishment." Fairy looked at them a moment, wondering if, indeed, their punishment had been sufficient. "Well, little twins," she said, "I guess I will take charge of this myself. Here is your punishment." 38 PRUDENCE SAYS SO She stood up again, and looked down at them with sparkling eyes as they gazed at her expectantly. "We caught on that it was a joke. We knew you were listening in the closet. And Prudence and I acted our little parts to give you one good scare. Who's the laugh on now? Are we square? Sup- per's ready." And Fairy ran down-stairs, laughing, followed by two entirely abashed and humbled twins. CHAPTER III A GIFT FROM HEAVEN THE first of April in the Mount Mark parson- age was a time of trial and tribulation, fre- quently to the extent of weeping and gnashing of teeth. The twins were no respecters of persons, and feeling that the first of April rendered all things justifiable to all men, they made life as burdensome to their father as to Connie, and Fairy and Pru- dence lived in a state of perpetual anguish until the twins fell asleep at night well satisfied but worn out with the day's activities. The twins were bor- dering closely to the first stage of grown-up wom- anhood, but on the first of April they swore they would always be young! The tricks were more dignified, more carefully planned and scientifically executed than in the days of their rollicking girl- hood, but they were all the more heart-breaking on that account. 40 PRUDENCE SAYS SO The week before the first was spent by Connie in a vain effort to ferret out their plans in order that fore-knowledge might suggest a sufficient safe- guard. The twins, however, were too clever to permit this, and their bloody schemes were wrapped in mystery and buried in secrecy. On the thirty- first of March, Connie labored like a plumber would if working by the job. She painstakingly hid from sight all her cherished possessions.' The twins were in the barn, presumably deep in plots. Aunt Grace was at the Ladies' Aid. So when Fairy came in, about four in the afternoon, there was only Pru- dence to note the vengeful glitter in her fine clear eyes. And Prudence was so intent upon feather- stitching the hems of pink-checked dish towels, that she did not observe it. "Where's papa?" Fairy asked. "Up-stairs." "Where are the twins?'* "In the barn, getting ready for THE DAY." Fairy smiled delightfully and skipped eagerly up the stairs. She was closeted with her father for some time, and came out of his room at last with a small coin carefully concealed in the corner of A GIFT FROM HEAVEN 41 her handkerchief. She did not remove her hat, but set briskly out toward town again. Prudence, startled out of her feather-stitching, followed her to the door. "Why, Fairy," she called. "Are you going out again?'* Fairy threw out her hands. "So it seems. An errand for papa." She lifted her brows and pursed up her lips, and the wicked joy in her face pierced the mantle of Prudence's absorption again. "What's up?" she questioned curiously, follow- ing her sister down the steps. Fairy looked about hurriedly, and then whispered a few words of explanation. Prudence's look changed to one of unnaturally spiteful glee. "Good! Fine! Serves 'em right! You'd better hurry." "Tell Aunt Grace, will you? But 3on't let Con- nie in until morning. She'd give it away." At supper-time Fairy returned, and the twins, their eyes bright with the unholy light of mischief, never looked at her. They sometimes looked heavenward with a sublime contentment that drove Connie nearly frantic. Occasionally they uttered cryptic words about the morrow, an'd the older 4* PRUDENCE SAYS SO members of the family smiled pleasantly, but Con- nie shuddered. She remembered so many April Fool's Days. The family usually clung together on occasions of this kind, feeling there was safety and sympathy in numbers as so many cowards have felt for lo, these many years. And thus it happened that they were all in the dining-room when their father ap- peared at the door. He had his hands behind him suggestively. "Twins," he said, without preamble, "what do you want more than anything else?" "Silk stockings," was the prompt and unanimous answer. He laughed. "Good guess, wasn't it?" !And tossed into their eager hands two slender boxes, nicely wrapped. The others gathered about them with smiling eyes as the twins tremulously tore off the wrappings. "A. Phoole's Pure Silk Thread Hose, Guaran- teed !" This they read 'from the box neat golden lettering. It was enough for the twins. With cries of perfect bliss they flung themselves upon their 43 father, kissing him rapturously wherever their lips might touch. "Oh, papa !" "Oh, you darling!" And then, when they had some sort of control of their joy, Lark said solemnly, "Papa, it is a gift from Heaven 1" "Of course, we give you the credit, papa," Carol amended quickly, "but the thought was Heaven- prompted." Fairy choked suddenly, and her fit of coughing interfered with the twins' gratitude to an all-sug- gesting Providence ! Carol twisted her box nervously. "You know, papa, it may seem very childish, and silly to you, but actually we have well, prayed for silk stockings. We didn't honestly expect to get them, though not until we saved up money enough to get them ourselves. Heaven is kinder to us than we" "You can't understand such things, papa," said Lark. "Maybe you don't know exactly how how they feel. When we go to Betty Hill's we wear her silk stockings and lie on the bed and she won't let us walk in them, for fear we may wear holes. 44 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Every girl in our class has at least one pair, Betty has three, but one pair's holey, and we felt so awfully poorl" The smiles on the family faces were rather stereo- typed by this time, but the exulting twins did not notice. Lark looked at Carol fondly. Carol sighed at Lark blissfully. Then, with one accord, they lifted the covers from the boxes and drew out the shimmering hose. Yes, shimmering but they shook them out for inspection! Their faces paled a little. "They they are very " began Carol courage- ously. Then she stopped. The hose were a fine tissue-paper imitation of silk stockings! The "April Fool, little twins," on the toes was not necessary for their enlightenment. They looked at their father with sad but unresent- ful reproach in their swiftly shadowed eyes. "It it's a good joke," stammered Carol, moist- ening her dry lips with her tongue. "It's one on us," blurted Lark promptly. "Ha, ha, ha," laughed Carol, slowly, dryly, very dully. "Yes ha, ha, ha," echoed Lark, placing the bit- 45 ter fruit carefully back in its box. Her fingers actually trembled. "It's a swell joke, all right," Carol said, "we see that well enough, we're not stupid, you know. But we did want some silk stockings so awfully bad. But it's funny, ha, ha, ha!" "A gift from Heaven!" muttered Lark, with clenched teeth. "Well, you got us that time." "Come on, Lark, we must put them sacredly away Silk stockings, you know, are mighty scarce in a parsonage, " "Yes, ha, ha, ha," and the crushed and broken twins left the room, with dignity in spite of the blow. The family did not enjoy the joke on the twins. Mr. Starr looked at the others with all a man's confused incomprehension of a woman's notions! He spread out his hands an orthodox, ministerial gesture I "Now, will some one kindly tell me what there is in silk stockings, to " He shook his head help- lessly. "Silk stockings! A gift from Heaven!" He smiled, unmerrily. "The poor little kids !" Then he left the room. 46 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Aunt Grace openly wiped her eyes, smiling at herself as she did so. Fairy opened and closed her lips several times. Then she spoke. "Say, Prue, knock me down and sit on me, will you? Whatever made me think of such a stupid trick as that?" "Why, bless their little hearts," whispered Pru- dence, sniffing. "Didn't they look sorry ? But they were so determined to be game." "Prudence, give me my eight cents," demanded Connie. "I want it right away." "What do you want it for?" "I'm going down to Morrow's and get some candy. I never saw a meaner trick in my life! I'm surprised at papa. The twins only play jokes for fun." And Connie stalked grimly out of the parsonage and off toward town. A more abashed and downcast pair of twins probably never lived. They sat thoughtfully in their room, "A. Phoole's Silk Thread Hose" care- fully hidden from their hurt eyes. "It was a good joke," Lark said, now and then. "Yes, very," assented Carol. "But silk stockings, Larkie!" A GIFT FROM HEAVEN 47 And Lark squirmed wretchedly. "A gift from Heaven," she mourned. "How they must be laughing !" But they did not laugh. Connie came back and shared her candy. They thanked her courteously and invited her to sit down. Then they all ate candy and grieved together si- lently. They did not speak of the morning's disas- ter, but the twins understood and appreciated the tender sympathy of her attitude, and although they said nothing, they looked at her very kindly and Connie was well content. The morning passed drearily. The twins had lost all relish for their well-planned tricks, and the oth- ers, down-stairs, found the usually wild and hilarious day almost unbearably poky. Prudence's voice was gentle as she called them down to dinner, and the twins, determined not to show the white feather, went down at once and took their places. They bore their trouble bravely, but their eyes had the surprised and stricken look, and their faces were nearly old. Mr. Starr cut the blessing short, and the dinner was eaten in silence. The twins tried to start the conversation. They talked of the. '48 PRUDENCE SAYS SO weather with passionate devotion. They discussed their studies with an almost unbelievable enthusiasm. They even referred, with stiff smiles, to "papa's good joke," and then laughed their dreary "ha, ha, ha," until their father wanted to fall upon his knees and beg forgiveness. Connie, still solicitous, helped them wash the dishes. The others disappeared. Fairy got her hat and went out without a word. Their father fol- lowed scarcely a block behind her. Aunt Grace sought all over the house for Prudence, and finally found her in the attic, comforting herself with a view of the lovely linens which rilled her Hope Box. "I'm going for a walk," announced Aunt Grace briefly. "All right," assented Prudence. "If I'm not here when you get back, don't worry. I'm going for a walk myself." Their work done irreproachably, the twins an<} Connie went to the haymow and lay on the hay, still silent. The twins, buoyant though they were, could not so quickly recover from a shock like this. So intent were they upon the shadows among the ,cobwebs that they heard no sound from below un- A GIFT FROM HEAVEN 49 til their father's head appeared at the top of the ladder. "Come up," they invited hospitably but seri- ously. He did so at once, and stood before them, his face rather flushed, his manner a little constrained, but looking rather satisfied with himself on the whole. "Twins," he said, "I didn't know you were so crazy about silk stockings. We just thought it would be a good joke but it was a little too good. It was a boomerang. I don't know when I've felt so con- temptible. So I went down and got you some real silk stockings a dollar and a half a pair, and I'm glad to clear my conscience so easily." The twins blushed. "It it was a good joke, papa," Carol assured him shyly. "It was a dandy. But all the girls at school have silk stockings for best, and we've been wanting them forever. And honestly, father, I don't know when I've had such a such a spell of indigestion as when I saw those stockings were April Fool." "Indigestion," scoffed Connie, restored to nor- mal by her father's handsome amends. 50 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "Yes, indigestion," declared Lark. "You know, papa, that funny, hollow, hungry feeling when you get a shock. That's nervous indigestion, we read it in a medicine ad. They've got pills for it. But it was a good joke. We saw that right at the start." "And we didn't expect anything like this. It is very generous of you, papa. Very !" But he noticed that they made no move to un- wrap the box. It still lay between them on the hay, where he had tossed it. Evidently their confidence in him had been severely shattered. He sat down and unwrapped it himself. "They are guaranteed," he explained, passing out the little pink slips gravely, "so when they wear holes you get another pair for nothing." The twins' faces had brightened wonderfully. "I will never play that kind of a trick again, twins, so you needn't be suspicious of me. And say ! Whenever you want anything so badly it makes you feel like that, come and talk it over. We'll manage some way. Of course, we're always a little hard up, but we can generally scrape up something extra from somewhere. And we will. You mustn't feel like that about things. Just A GIFT FROM HEAVEN 51 tell me about it. Girls arc so kind of funny, you know." The twins and Connie rushed to the house to try the "feel" of the first, adored silk stockings. They donned them, admired them, petted Connie, idolized their father, and then removing them, tied them carefully in clean white tissue-paper and deposit- ed them in the safest corner of the bottom drawer of their dresser. Then they lay back on the bed, think- ing happily of the next class party ! Silk stockings ! Ah! "Can't you just imagine how we'll look in our new white dresses, Lark, and our patent leather pumps, with silk stockings! I really feel there is nothing sets off a good complexion as well as real silk stockings!" They were interrupted in this delightful occupa- tion by the entrance of Fairy. The twins had quick- ly realized that the suggestion for their humiliating had come from her, and their hearts were sore, but being good losers at least, as good losers as real live folks can be they wouldn't have admitted it for the world. 52 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "Come on in, Fairy," said Lark cordially. "Aren't we lazy to-day ?" "Twins," said Fairy, self-conscious for the first time in the twins' knowledge of her, "I suppose you know it was I who suggested that idiotic little stock- ing stunt. It was awfully hateful of me, and so I bought you some real silk stockings with my own spending money, and here they are, and you needn't thank me for I never could be fond of myself again until I squared things with you." The twins had to admit that it was really splen- did of Fairy, and they thanked her with unfeigned zeal. "But papa already got us a pair, and so you can take these back and get your money again. It was just as sweet of you, Fairy, and we thank you, and it was perfectly dear and darling, but we have papa's now, and " "Good for papa!" Fairy cried, and burst out laughing at the joke that proved so expensive for the perpetrators. "But you shall have my burnt offering, too. It serves us both right, but especially me, for it was my idea." A GIFT FROM HEAVEN 53 And Fairy walked away feeling very gratified and generous. Only girls who have wanted silk stockings for a "whole lifetime" can realize the blissful state of the parsonage twins. They lay on the bed planning the most impossible but magnificent things they would do to show their gratitude, and when Aunt Grace stopped at their door they leaped up to over- whelm her with caresses just because of their glad- ness. She waved them away witH a laugh. "April Fool, twins," she said, with a voice so soft that it took all the sting from the words. "I brought you some real silk stockings for a change." And she tossed them a package and started out of the room to escape their thanks. But she stopped in sur- prise when the girls burst into merry laughter. "Oh, you silk stockings!" Carol cried. "Three pairs ! .You darling sweet old auntie ! You would come up here to tease us, would you? But papa gave us a pair, and Fairy gave us a pair, and " "They did! Why, the silly things!" And the gentle woman looked as seriously yexed as she ever 54 PRUDENCE SAYS SO did look she had so wanted to give them the first silk-stocking experience herself. "Oh, here you are," cried Prudence, stepping quickly in, and speaking very brightly to counter- balance the gloom she had expected to encounter. She started back in some dismay when she saw the twins rolling and rocking with laughter, and Aunt Grace leaning against the dresser for support, with Connie on the floor, quite speechless. "Good for you, twins, that's the way to take hard knocks," she said. "It wasn't a very nice trick, though of course papa didn't understand how you felt about silk stockings. It wasn't his fault. But Fairy and I ought to be ashamed, and we are. I went out and got you some real genuine silk ones myself, so you needn't pray for them any more." Prudence was shocked, a little hurt, at the out- burst that followed her words. "Well, such a family!" Aunt Grace exclaimed. And then Carol pulled her bodily down beside her on the bed and for a time they were all incapable of explanations. "What is the joke?" Prudence asked, again and A GIFT FROM HEAVEN 55 again, smiling, but still feeling a little pique. She had counted on gladdening their sorry little hearts! "Stockings, stockings Oh, such a family!" shrieked Carol. "There's no playing jokes on the twins," said Aunt Grace weakly. "It takes the whole family to square up. It's too expensive." Then Lark explained, and Prudence sat down and joined the merriment, which waxed so noisy that Mr. Starr from the library and Fairy from the kitchen, ran in to investigate. "April Fool, April Fool," cried Carol. "We never played a trick like this, Larkie this is our master- piece." "You're the nicest old things that ever lived," said Lark, still laughing, but with great warmth and tenderness in her eyes and her voice. "But you can take the stockings back and save your money if you like we love you just as much." But this the happy donors stoutly refused to do. The twins had earned this wealth of hose, and final- ly, wiping their eyes, the twins began to smooth their hair and adjust their ribbons and belts. 56 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "What's the matter?" "Where are you going?" "Will you buy the rest of us some silk stockings?" queried the family, comic-opera effect. "Where are we going?" Carol repeated, sur- prised, seeming to feel that any one should know where they were going, though they had not spoken. "We're going to call on our friends, of course," explained Lark. "Of course," said Carol, jabbing her hair pins in with startling energy. "And we've got to hurry. We must go to Mattie's, and Jean's, and Betty's, and Fan's, and Birdie's, and Alice's, and say, Lark, maybe we'd better divide up and each take half. It's kind of late, and we mustn't miss any." "Well, what on earth!" gasped Prudence, while the others stared in speechless amazement. "For goodness' sake, Carol, hurry. We have to get clear out to Minnie's to-night, if we miss our supper." "But what's the idea? What for? What are you talking about?" "Why, you silly thing," said Carol patiently, "we have to go and tell our friends that we've got [four pairs of silk stockings, of course. I wouldn't A GIFT FROM HEAVEN 57 miss this afternoon for the world. And we'll go the rounds together, Lark. I want to see how they take it," she smiled at them benignly. "I can imagine their excitement. And we owe it to the world to give it all the excitement we can. Pru- dence says so." Prudence looked startled. "Did I say that?" "Certainly. You said pleasure but excitement's very pleasing, most of the time. Come on, Larkie, we'll have to walk fast." And with a fond good-by to the generous family, the twins set out to spread the joyful tidings, Lark pausing at the door just long enough to explain gravely, "Of course, we won't tell them er just how it happened, you know. Lots of things in a parsonage need to be kept dark. Prudence says so herself." HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING A DAY in June, the kind of day that poets have rhymed and lovers have craved since time began. On the side porch of the parsonage, in a wide hammock, lay Aunt Grace, looking lan- guidly through half -closed lids at the girls beneath her on the step. Prudence, although her face was all a-dream, bent conscientiously over the bit of linen in her hands. And Fairy, her piquantly bright fea- tures clouded with an unwonted frown, crumpled a letter in her hand. > "I do think men are the most aggravating things that ever lived," she declared, with annoyance in her voice. The woman in the hammock smiled slightly, and did not speak., Prudence carefully counted ten threads, and solemnly drew one before she voiced her question. 58 "What is he saying now ?" "Why, he's still objecting to my having dates with the other boys." Fairy's voice was vibrant with grief. "He does make me wild ! Aunt Grace, you can't imagine. Last fall I mentioned casually that I was sure he wouldn't object to my having lecture course dates I was too hard up to buy a ticket for myself; they cost four dollars, and aren't worth it, either. And what did he do but send me eight dollars to buy two sets of tickets ! Then this spring, when the baseball season opened, he sent me season tickets to all the games suggesting that my financial stringency could not be pleaded as an excuse. Ever since he went to Chicago last fall we've been fighting because the boys bring me home from parties. I suppose he had to go and learn to be a pharmacist, but it's hard on me. He wants me to patter along by myself like a like like a hen!" Fairy said "hen" very crossly ! "It's a shame," said Prudence sympathetically. "That's just what it is. You wouldn't say a word to his taking girls home from things, would you?" "Hum, that's a different matter," said Fairy 60 PRUDENCE SAYS SO more thoughtfully. "He hasn't wanted to yet. You see, he's a man and can go by himself without hav- ing it look as though nobody wanted to be seen with him. And he's a stranger over there, and doesn't need to get chummy with the girls. The boys here all know me, and ask me to go, and a man, you see, can just be passive and nothing hap- pens. But a girl's got to be downright negative, and it's no joke. One misses so many good times. You see the cases are different, Prue." "Yes, that's so," Prudence assented absent-mind- edly, counting off ten more threads. "Then you would object if he had dates ?" queried Aunt Grace smilingly. "Oh, no, not at all, if there was any occasion for it but there isn't. And I think I would be justified in objecting if he deliberately made occasions for himself, don't you?" "Yes, that would be different," Prudence chimed in, such "miles away" in her voice, that Fairy turned on her indignantly. "Prudence Starr, you make me wild," she said. "Can't you drop that everlasting hemstitching, em- broidering, tatting, crocheting, for ten minutes to HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING 61 talk to me ? What in the world are you going to do with it all, anyhow? Are you intending to carpet your floors with it?" ".This is a napkin," Prudence explained good- naturedly. "The set cost me fifteen dollars." She sighed. "Did the veil come ?" The clouds vanished mag- ically from Fairy's face, and she leaned forward with that joy of wedding anticipation that rules in [woman-world. "Yes, it's beautiful. Come and see it. Wait until I pull four more threads. It's gorgeous." "I still think you're making a great mistake," de- clared Fairly earnestly. "I don't believe in big showy church weddings. You'd better change it yet. A little home affair with just the family, that's the way to do it. All this satin-gown, orange- blossom elaboration with curious eyes staring up and down ugh ! It's all wrong." Prudence dropped the precious fifteen-dollar-a- set napkin in her lap and gazed at Fairy anxiously. "I know you think so, Fairy," she said. "You've fold me so several times." Fairy's eyes twinkled, but Prudence had no intention of sarcasm. "But 62 PRUDENCE SAYS SO I can't help it, can I ? We had quite settled on the home wedding, but when the twins discovered that the members felt hurt at being left out, father thought we'd better change over." "Well, I can't see that the members have any right to run our wedding. Besides, it wouldn't sur- prise me if the twins made it up because they wanted a big fuss." "But some of the members spoke to father." "Oh, just common members that don't count for much and it was mighty poor manners of 'em, too, if you'll excuse me for saying so." "And you must admit, Fairy, that it is lovely of the Ladies' Aid to give that dinner at the hotel for us." \ "Well, they'll get their money's worth of talk out of it afterward. It's a big mistake. What on earth are the twins doing out there? Is that Jini Forrest with them ? Listen how they are screaming with laughter ! Would you ever believe those twins are past fifteen, and nearly through their junior year? They haven't as much sense put together as Connie has all alone." "Come and see the veil," said Prudence, rising. But she dropped back on the step again as Carol came rushing toward them at full speed, with Lark and a tall young fellow trailing slowly, laughing, behind her. "The mean things !" she gasped. "They cheated !" She dropped a handful of pennies in her aunt's lap as she lay in the hammock. "We'll take 'em to Sun- day-school and give 'em to the heathen, that's what we'll do. They cheated!" "Yes, infant, who cheated, and how, and why? And whence the startling array of pennies? And why this unwonted affection for the heathen?" mocked Fairy. "Trying to be a blank verse, Fairy? Keep it up, you haven't far to go! There they are! Look at them, Aunt Grace. They cheated. They tried to get all my hard-earned pennies by nefarious meth- ods, and " "And so Carol stole them all, and ran ! Sit down, Jim. My, it's hot. Give me back my pennies, Carol." "The heathen! The heathen!'* insisted Carol. "Not a penny do you get. You see, Aunt Grace, we were matching pennies,- you'd better not men- 64 PRUDENCE SAYS SO tion it to father. We've turned over a new leaf now, and quit for good. But we were matching and they made a bargain that whenever it was my turn, one of them would throw heads and one tails, and that way I never could win anything. And I didn't catch on until I saw Jim wink, and so of course I thought it was only right to give the pen- nies to the heathen." "Mercy, Prudence," interrupted Lark. "Are you doing another napkin ? This is the sixteenth dozen, isn't it? You'd better donate some of them to the parsonage, I think. I was so ashamed when Miss Marsden came to dinner. She opened her napkin out wide, and her finger went right through a hole. I was mortified to death and Carol laughed. It seems to me with three grown women in the house we could have holeless napkins, one for company, anyhow." "How is your mother, Jim ?" "Just fine, Miss Prudence, thank you. She said to tell you she would send a basket of red Junes to- morrow, if you want them. The twins can eat them, I know. Carol ate twenty-two when they were out Saturday." "Yes, I did, and I'm glad of it," said Carol stoutly. "Such apples you never saw, Prudence. They're about as big as a thimble, and two-thirds core. They're good, they're fine, I'll say that, but there's nothing to them. I could have eaten as many again if Jim hadn't been counting out loud, and I got kind of ashamed because every one was laughing. If I had a ranch as big as yours, Jim, I'll bet you a dollar I'd have apples bigger than a dime!" ' 'Bet you a dollar,' " quoted Fairy. "Well, I'll wager my soul, if that sounds more like Shakespeare. Don't go, Jim, we're not fight- ing. This is just the way Fairy and I make love to each other. You're perfectly welcome to stay, but be careful of your grammar, for now that Fairy's a senior will be next year, if she lives she even tries to teach father the approved method of doing a ministerial sneeze in the pulpit." "Think I'd better go," decided the tall good- looking youth, laughing as he looked with frank boyish admiration into Carol's sparkling face. "With Fairy after my grammar, and you to criti- cize my manner and my morals, I see right now 66 PRUDENCE SAYS SO that a parsonage is no safe place for a farmer's son." And laughing again, he thrust his cap into his pocket, and walked quickly out the new cement parsonage walk. But at the gate he paused to call back, "Don't make a mistake, Carol, and use the heathen's pennies for candy." The girls on the porch laughed, and five pairs of eyes gazed after the tall figure rapidly disappear- ing. "He's nice," said Prudence. "Yes," assented Carol. "I've got a notion to marry him after a little. That farm of his is worth about ten thousand." "Are you going to wait until he asks you?" "Certainly not ! Anybody can marry a man after he asks her. The thing to do, if you want to be really original and interesting, is to marry him be- fore he asks you and surprise him." "Yes," agreed Lark, "if you wait until he asks you he's likely to think it over once too often and not ask you at all." "Doesn't that sound exactly like a book, now?" demanded Carol proudly. "Fairy couldn't have said that !" HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING 67 "No," said Fairy, "I couldn't. Thank goodness! I have what is commonly known as brains. Look it up in the dictionary, twins. It's something you ought to know about." "Oh, Prudence," cried Lark dramatically, "I forgot to tell you. You can't get married after all." For ten seconds Prudence, as well as Fairy and their aunt, stared in speechless amazement. Then Prudence smiled. "Oh, can't I? What's the joke now?" "Joke! It's no joke. Carol's sick, that's what's the joke. You can't be married without Carol, can you?" A burst of gay laughter greeted this announce- ment. "Carol sick! She acts sick!" "She looks sick!" "Where is she sick?" Carol leaned limply back against the pillar, trying to compose her bright face into a semblance of ill- ness. "In my tummy," she announced weakly. This called forth more laughter. "It's her con- science," said Fairy. 68 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "It's matching pennies. Maybe she swallowed one." "It's probably those two pieces of pie she ate for dinner, and the one that vanished from the pantry shortly after," suggested Aunt Grace. Carol sat up quickly. "Welcome home, Aunt Grace !" she cried. "Did you have a pleasant visit ?" "Carol," reproved Prudence. "I didn't mean it for impudence, auntie," said Carol, getting up and bending affectionately over the hammock, gently caressing the brown hair just beginning to silver about her forehead. "But it does amuse me so to hear a lady of your age and dignity Indulge in such lavish conversational exercises." Lark swallowed with a forced effort. "Did it hurt, Carol? How did you get it all out in one breath?" "Lark, I do wish you wouldn't gulp that way when folks use big words," said Fairy. "It looks awful." *'WelI, I won't when I get to be as old and crabbed as father," said Lark. "Sit down, Carol, and remember you're sick." HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING 69 Carol obediently sat down, and looked sicker than ever. "You can laugh if you like," she said, "I am sick, at least, I was this afternoon. I've been feel- ing very queer for three or four days. I don't think I'm quite over it yet/' "Pie! You were right, Aunt Grace! That's the way pie works." "It's not pie at all," declared Carol heatedly. "And I didn't take that piece out of the pantry, at least, not exactly. I caught Connie sneaking it, and I gave her a good calling down, and she hung her head and slunk away in disgrace. But she had taken such big bites that it looked sort of unsani- tary, so I thought I'd better finish it before it gath- ered any germs. But it's not pie. Now that I think of it, it was my head where I was sick. Don't you remember, Lark, I said my head ached?" "Yes, and her eyes got red and bleary when she was reading. And and there was something else, too, Carol, what " "Your eyes are bloodshot, Carol. They do look bad." Prudence examined them closely. "Now, 70 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Carol Starr, don't you touch another book or maga- zine until after the wedding. If you think I want a bloodshot bridesmaid, you're mistaken." They all turned to look across the yard at Con- nie, just turning in. Connie always walked, as Carol said, "as if she mostly wasn't there." But she usually "arrived" by the time she got within speaking distance of her sister. "Goodness, Prue, aren't you going to do anything but eat after you move to Des Moines ? Carol and I were counting the napkins last night, was it a hundred and seventy-six, Carol, or some awful number I know. Carol piled them up in two piles and we kneeled on them to say our prayers, and I can't say for sure, but I think Carol pushed me. Anyhow, I lost my balance, and usually I'm pretty well balanced. I toppled over right after 'God save/ and Carol screamed 'the napkins' Prue's wedding napkins ! It was an awful funny effect ; I couldn't finish my prayers." "Carol Starr! Fifteen years old and " "That's a very much exaggerated story, Prue. Connie blamed it on me as usual. She piled them up herself to see if there were two feet of them, < HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING 71 she put her stockings on the floor first so the dust wouldn't rub off. It was Lark's turn to sweep and you know how Lark sweeps, and Connie was very pareful, indeed, and " "Come on, Fairy, and see the veil !" "The veil! Did it come?" With a joyous undignified whoop the parsonage girls scrambled to their feet and rushed indoors in a fine Kilkenny jumble. Aunt Grace looked after them, thoughtfully, smiling for a second, and then with a girlish shrug of her slender shoulders she slipped out and followed them inside. The last thing that night, before she said her prayers, Prudence carried a big bottle of witch hazel into the twins' room. Both were sleeping, but she roused Carol, and Lark turned over to listen. "You must bathe your eyes with this, Carol. I forgot to tell you. What would Jerry say if he had a bleary-eyed bridesmaid !" And although the twins grumbled and mumbled about the idiotic nonsense of getting-married folks, Carol obediently bathed the bloodshot eyes. For in their heart of hearts, every one of the parsonage 72 PRUDENCE SAYS SO girls held this wedding to be the affair of prime importance, national and international, as well as just plain Methodist. The twins were undeniably lazy, and slept as late of mornings as the parsonage law allowed. So it was that when Lark skipped into the dining-room, three minutes late for breakfast, she found the whole family, with the exception of Carol, well in the midst of their meal. "She was sick," she began quickly, then inter- rupting herself, "Oh, good morning! Beg par- don for forgetting my manners. But Carol was sick, Prudence, and I hope you and Fairy are ashamed of yourselves and auntie, too for mak- ing fun of her. She couldn't sleep all night, and rolled and tossed, and her head hurt and she talked in her sleep, and " "I thought she didn't sleep." "Well, she didn't sleep much, but when she did she mumbled and said things and " Then the dining-room door opened again, and Carol her hair about her shoulders, her feet bare, envoleped in a soft and clinging kimono of faded HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING 73 blue stalked majestically into the room. There was woe in her eyes, and her voice was tragic. "It is gone," she said. "It is gone !" Her appearance was uncanny to say the least, and the family gazed at her with some concern, despite the fact that Carol's vagaries were so common as usually to elicit small respect. "Gone!" she cried, striking her palms together. "Gone!" "If you do anything to spoil that wedding, papa'll whip you, if you are fifteen years old," said Fairy. Lark sprang to her sister's side. "What's gone, Carrie?"' she pleaded with sympathy, almost with tears. "What's gone? Are you out of your head?" "No ! Out of my complexion," was the dramatic answer. Even Lark fell back, for the moment, stunned. "Y-your complexion," she faltered. "Look ! Look at me, Lark. Don't you see ? My complexion is gone my beautiful complexion that I loved. Look t me ! Oh, I would gladly have sacrificed a leg, or an arm, a rib or an eye, but not my dear complexion!" 74 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Sure enough, now that they looked carefully, they could indeed perceive that the usual soft cream- iness of Carol's skin was prickled and sparred with ugly red splotches. Her eyes were watery, shot with blood. For a time they gazed in silence, then they burst into laughter. "Pie!" cried Fairy. "It's raspberry pie, coming out, Carol!" The corners of Carol's lips twitched slightly, and it was with difficulty that she maintained her wounded regal bearing. But Lark, always quick to resent an indignity to this twin of her heart, turned upon them angrily. "Fairy Starr! You are a wicked unfeeling thing! You sit there and laugh and talk about pie when Carol is sick and suffering her lovely com- plexion all ruined, 'and it was the joy of my life, that complexion was. Papa, why don't you do something ?" But he only laughed harder than ever. "If there's anything more preposterous than Carol's vanity be- cause of her beauty, it's Lark's vanity for her," he said. Aunt Grace drew Carol to her side, and examined HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING 75 the ruined complexion closely. Then she smiled, but there was regret in her eyes. "Well, Carol, you've spoiled your part of the wedding sure enough. [You've got the measles." Then came the silence of utter horror. "Not the measles," begged Carol, wounded afresh. "Give me diphtheria, or smallpox, or or even leprosy, and I'll bear it bravely and with a smile, but it shall not be said that Carol's measles spoiled the wedding." "Oh, Carol," wailed Prudence, "don't have the measles, please don't. I've waited all my life for this wedding, don't spoil it." "Well, it's your own fault, Prue," interrupted Lark. "If you hadn't kept us all cooped up when we were little we'd have had measles long ago. Now, like as not the whole family'll have 'em, and serve you right. No self-respecting family has any busi- ness to grow up without having the measles." "What shall we do now?" queried Constance practically. "Well, I always said it was a mistake," said Fairy. "A big wedding " "Oh, Fairy, please don't tell me that again. I 76 PRUDENCE SAYS SO know it so well. Papa, whatever shall we do? Maybe Jerry hasn't had them either." "Why, it's easily arranged," said Lark. "We'll just postpone the wedding until Carol's quite well again." "Bad luck," said Connie. "Too much work," said Fairy. "Well, she can't get married without Carol, can she?" ejaculated Lark. "Are you sure it's measles, Aunt Grace ?" "Yes, it's measles." "Then," said Fairy, "we'll get Alice Bird or or Katie Free to bridesmaid with Lark. They are the same size and either will do all right. She can wear Carol's dress. You won't mind that, will you, Carol?" "No," said Carol moodily, "of course I won't. The only real embroidery dress I ever had in my life and haven't got that yet! But go ahead and get anybody you like. I'm hoodooed, that's what it is. It's a punishment because you and Jim cheated yesterday, Lark." "What did you do?" asked Connie. "You seem to be getting the punishment !" HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING 77 "Shall we have Alice or Katie? Which do you prefer, Lark?" "You'll have to get them both," was the stoic answer. "I won't bridesmaid without Carol." "Don't be silly, Lark. You'll have to." "Then wait for Carol." "Papa, you must make her." "No," said Prudence slowly, with a white face. "We'll postpone it. I won't get married without the whole family." "I said right from the start "Oh, yes, Fairy, we know what you said," inter- jected Carol. "We know how you'll get married. First man that gets moonshine enough into his head to propose to you, you'll trot him post haste to the justice before he thinks twice." In the end, the wedding was postponed a couple of months, for both Connie and Fairy took the measles. But when at last, the wedding party, mar- shalled by Connie with a huge white basket of flow- ers, trailed down the time-honored aisle of the Meth- odist church, it was without one dissenting voice pronounced the crowning achievement of Mr. Starr's whole pastorate. 78 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "I was proud of us, Lark," Carol told her twin, after it was over, and Prudence had gone, and the girls had wept themselves weak on each other's shoulders. "We get so in the habit of doing things wrong that I half expected myself to pipe up ahead of father with the ceremony. It seems awful without Prudence, but it's a satisfaction to know that she was the best married bride Mount Mark has ever seen." "Jerry looked awfully handsome, didn't he? Did you notice how he glowed at Prudence? I wish you were artistic, Carol, so you could illustrate my books. Jerry'd make a fine illustration." "We looked nice, too. We're not a bad-looking bunch when you come right down to facts. Of course, it is fine to be as smart as you are, Larkie, but I'm not jealous. We're mighty lucky to have both beauty and brains in our twin-ship, and since one can't have both, I may say I'd just as lief be pretty. It's so much easier." "Carol!" "What?" "We're nearly grown up now. We'll have to be- gin to settle down. Prudence says so." HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING 79 For a few seconds Carol wavered, tremulous. Then she said pluckily, "All right. Just wait till I powder my nose, will you? It gets so shiny when I cry." "Carol!" "What?" "Isn't the house still?" "Yes ghastly." "I never thought Prudence was much of a chat- ter-box, but listen! There isn't a sound." Carol held out a hand, and Lark clutched it des- perately. "Let's let's go find the folks. This is awful! Little old Prudence is gone!" CHAPTER V THE SERENADE A SUBJECT that never failed to arouse the sarcasm and the ire of Fairy was that of the Slaughter-house Quartette. This was composed of four young men men quite outside the pale as far as the parsonage was concerned the disreput- able characters of the community, familiar in the local jail for frequent bursts of intoxication. They slouched, they smoked, they lounged, they leered. The churches knew them not. They were the slum element, the Bowery of Mount Mark, Iowa. Prudence, in her day, had passed them by with a shy slight nod and a glance of tender pity. Fairy and Lark, and even Connie, sailed by with high heads and scornful eyes, haughty, proud, icily re- moved. But Carol, by some weird and inexplicable fancy, treated them with sweet and gracious solici- tude, quite friendly. Her smile as she passed was 80 THE SERENADE 81 as sweet as for her dearest friend. Her "Good morning, isn't this glorious weather?" was as af- fably cordial as her, "Breakfast is ready, papa!" This was the one subject of dispute between the twins'. "Oh, please don't, Carol, it does make me so ashamed," Lark entreated. "You mustn't be narrow-minded, Larkie," Carol argued. "We're minister's girls, and we've got to be a good influence, an encouragement to the er, weak and erring, you know. Maybe my smiles will be an inspiration to them." And on this point Carol stood firm even against the tears of her precious twin. One evening at the dinner table Fairy said, with a mocking smile, "How are your Slaughter-house 'friends to-day, Carol ? When I was at the dentist's I saw you coming along, beaming at them in your own inimitable way." "Oh, they seemed all right," Carol answered, with a deprecating glance toward her father and her aunt. "I see by last night's paper that Guy Fleisher is just out after his last thirty days up," Fairy con- 82 PRUDENCE 'SAYS SO tinued solicitously. "Did he find his incarceration trying?" . "I didr?t discuss it with him," Carol said indig- nantly. "I never talk to them. I just say 'Good morning' in Christian charity." Aunt Grace's eyes were smiling as always, but 'for the first time Carol felt that the smiles were at, instead of with, her. "You would laugh to see her, Aunt Grace," Fairy explained. "They are generally half intoxicated, sometimes wholly. And Carol trips by, clean, white and shining. They are always lounging against the store windows or posts for support, bleary-eyed, dissipated, swaggery, staggery. Carol nods and smiles as only Carol can, 'Good morning, boys! Isn't it a lovely day ? Are you feeling well ?' And they grin at her and sway ingratiatingly against one another, and say, 'Mornin', Carol.' Carol is the only really decent person in town that has anything to do with them." "Carol means all right," declared Lark angrily. "Yes, indeed," assented Fairy, "They call them the Slaughter-house Quartette, auntie, because whenever they are sober enough to walk without THE SERENADE 83 police assistance, they wander through the streets slaughtering the peace and serenity of the quiet town with their rendition of all the late, disgrace- ful sentimental ditties. They are in many ways striking characters. I do not wholly misunder- stand their attraction for romantic Carol. They are something like the troubadours of old only more so." Carol's face was crimson. "I don't like them," she cried, "but I'm sorry for them. I think maybe I can make them see the difference between us, me so nice and respectable you know, and them so animalish! It may arouse their better natures I suppose they have better natures. I want to show them that the decent element, we Christians, are sorry for them and want to make them better." "Carol wants to be an influence," Fairy continued. "Of course, it is a little embarrassing for the rest of us to have her on such friendly terms with the most unmentionable characters in all Mount Mark. But Carol is like so many reformers, in the pres- ence of one great truth she has eyes for it only, ignoring a thousand other, greater truths." "I am sorry for them," Carol repeated, more 84 PRUDENCE SAYS SO weakly, abashed by tHe presence of tHe united family. Fairy's dissertations on this subject had usually occurred in private. Mr. Starr mentally resolved that he would talk this over with Carol when the others were not present, for he knew from her face and her voice that she was really sensitive on the subject. And he knew, too, that it is difficult to explain to the very young that the finest of ideas are not applica- ble to all cases by all people. But it happened that he was spared the necessity of dealing with Carol privately, for matters adjusted themselves without his assistance. The second night following was an eventful one in the parsonage. One of the bishops of the church was in Mount Mark for a business conference with the religious leaders, and was to spend the night at the parsonage. The meeting was called for eight- thirty for the convenience of the business men con- cerned, and was to be held in the church offices. The men left early, followed shortly by Fairy whd designed to spend the evening at the Averys' home, testing their supply of winter 1 apples. The twins and Connie, with the newest and most thrilling book THE SERENADE 85 Mr. Carnegie afforded the town, went up-stairs to lie on the bed and take turns reading aloud. And for a few hours the parsonage was as calm and peace- ful as though it were not designed for the housing of merry minister's daughters. Aunt Grace sat down-stairs darning stockings. The girls' intentions had been the best in the world, but in less than a year the family darning had fallen entirely into the capable and willing hands of the gentle chaperon. It was half past ten. The girls had just seen their heroine rescued from a watery grave and mar- ried to her bold preserver by a minister who hap- pened to be writing a sermon on the beach no mention of how the license was secured extempo- raneously and with sighs of gratified sentiment they lay happily on the bed thinking it all over. And then, from beneath the peach trees clustered on the south side of the parsonage, a burst of melody arose. "Good morning, Carrie, how are you this morn- ing?" The girls sat up abruptly, staring at one another, as the curious ugly song wafted in upon them. 86 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Conviction dawned slowly, sadly, but unquestion- ably. [The Slaughter-house Quartette was serenading Carol in return for her winsome smiles ! Carol herself was literally struck dumb. Her face grew crimson, then white. In her heart, she repeated psalms of thanksgiving that Fairy was away, and that her father and the bishop would not be in until this colossal disaster was over. Connie was mortified. It seemed like a whole- sale parsonage insult. Lark, after the first awful realization, lay back on the bed and rolled con- vulsively. "You're an influence all right, Carol," she gur- gled. "Will you listen to that?" For Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown was the second choice of her cavaliers below in the darkness. "Rufus Rastus," Lark cried, and then was choked with laughter. "Of course, it would be proper if they sang hynins but oh, listen !" ^The rollicking strains of Budweiser were swung gaily out upon the night. Carol writhed in anguish. Jhe serenade was THE SERENADE 87 bad enough, but this unmerciful mocking derision of her adored twin was unendurable. Then the quartette waxed sentimental. They sang, and not badly, a few old southern melodies, and started slowly around the corner of the house, still singing. It has been said that Aunt Grace was always kind, always gentle, unsuspicious and without guile. She had heard the serenade, and promptly con- cluded that it was the work of some of the high- school boys who were unanimously devoted to Carol. She had a big box of chocolates up-stairs, for Connie's birthday celebration. She could get them, and make lemonade, and She opened the door softly and stepped out, di- rectly in the path of the startled youths. Full of her hospitable intent, she was not discerning as parsonage people need to be. "Come in, boys," she said cordially, "the girls will be down in a minute." The appearance of a guardian angel summoning them to Paradise could not have confounded them more utterly. They stumbled all over one another I 88 PRUDENCE SAYS SO in trying to back away from her. She laughed softly. "Don't be bashful. We enjoyed it very much. Yes, come right in." Undoubtedly they would have declined if only they Could have thought of the proper method of doing so. As it was, they only succeeded in shamb- ling through the parsonage door, instinctively con- cealing their half-smoked cigarettes beneath their fingers. Aunt Grace ushered them into the pleasant living- room, and ran up to summon her nieces. Left alone, the boys looked at one another with amazement and with grief, and the leader, the touch- ing tenor, said with true musical fervor, "Well, this is a go !" In the meantime, the girls, with horror, had heard their aunt's invitation. What in the world did she mean? Was it a trick between her and Fairy? Had they hired the awful Slaughterers to bring this disgrace upon the parsonage? Sternly they faced her when she opened their door. "Come down, girls I invited them in. I'm THE SERENADE 89 going to make lemonade and serve my nice choco- lates. Hurry down." "You invited them in !" echoed Connie. "The Slaughter-house Quartette," hissed Lark. Then Aunt Grace whirled about and stared at them. "Mercy!" she whispered, remembering for the first time Fairy's words. "Mercy ! Is it that ? I thought it was high-school boys and mercy !" "Mercy is good," said Carol grimly. "You'll have to put them out," suggested Connie. "I can't! How can I? How did I know? i What on earth, Oh, Carol whatever made you smile at them ?" she wailed helplessly. "You know how men are when they are smiled at ! The bishop " "You'll have to get them out before the bishop comes back," said Carol. "You must. And if any of you ever give this away to father or Fairy I'll " "You'd better go down a minute, girls," urged their aunt. "That will be the easiest way. I'll just pass the candy and invite them to come again and then they'll go. Hurry now, and we'll get rid of them before the others come. Be as decent as you can, and it'll soon be over," 90 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Thusiadjured, with the dignity of the bishop and the laughter of Fairy ever in their thoughts, the girls arose and went down, proudly, calmly, loft- ily. Their inborn senses of humor came to their as- sistance when they entered the living-room. The Slaughter boys looked far more slaughtered than slaughtering. They sat limply in their chairs, ner- vously twitching their yellowed slimy fingers, their dull eyes intent upon the worn spots in the carpet. It was funny! Even Carol smiled, not the serene sweet smile that melted hearts, but the grim hard smile of the joker when the tables are turned ! She flattered herself that this wretched travesty on par- sonage courtesy would be ended before there were any further witnesses to her downfall from her proud fine heights, but she was doomed to disap- pointment. Fairy, on the Averys' porch, had heard the serenade. After the first shock, and after the helpless laughter that followed, she bade her friends good night. "Oh, I've just got to go," she said. "It's a joke on Carol. I wouldn't miss it for twenty-five bush- els of apples, even as good as these are." Her eyes twinking with delight, she ran home THE SERENADE 91 and waited behind the rose bushes until the mo- ment for her appearance seemed at hand. Then she stepped into the room where her outraged sisters were stoically passing precious and luscious choco- lates to tobacco-saturated youths. "Good evening," she said. "The Averys and I enjoyed the concert, too. I do love to hear music outdoors on still nights like these. Carol, maybe your friends would like a drink. Are there any lemons, auntie ? We might have a little lemonade." Carol writhed helplessly. "I'll make it," she said, and rushed to the kitchen to vent her fury by shaking the very life out of the lemons. But she did not waste time. Her father's twinkles were nearly as bad as Fairy's own and the bishop ! "I'd wish it would choke 'em if it wouldn't take so long," she muttered passionately, as she hurried in with the pitcher and glasses, ready to serve the "slums" with her own chaste hands. She was just serving the melting tenor when she heard her father's voice in the hall. "Too late," she said aloud, and with such despair in her voice that Fairy relented and mentally prom- ised to "see her through." 92 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Mr. Starr's eyes twinkled freely when he saw the guests in his home, and the gentle bishop's puzzled interest nearly sent them all off into laugh- ter. Fairy had no idea of the young men's names, but she said, quickly, to spare Carol: "We have been serenaded to-night, Doctor you just missed it. These are the Mount Mark trouba- dours. You are lucky to get here in time for the lemonade." But when she saw the bishop glance concernedly 'from the yellow fingers to the dull eyes and the brown-streaked mouth, her gravity nearly forsook her. The Slaughterers, already dashed to the ground by embarrassment, were entirely routed by the presence of the bishop. With incoherent apolo- gies, they rose to their unsteady feet and in a cloud of breezy odors, made their escape. Mr. Starr laughed a little, Aunt Grace put her arm protectingly about Carol's rigid shoulders, and the bishop said, "Well, well, well," with gentle in- quiry. "We call them the Slaughter-house Quartette," Pairy began cheerfully. "They are the lower strata THE SERENADE 93 of Mount Mark, and they make the nights hideous with their choice selection of popular airs. The par- sonage is divided about them. Some of us think we should treat them with proud and cold disdain. Some think we should regard them with a tender, gentle, er smiling pity. And evidently they ap- preciated the smiles for they gave us a serenade in return for them. Aunt Grace did not know their his- tory, so she invited them in, thinking they were just ordinary schoolboys. It is home mission work run aground." The bishop nodded sympathetically. "One has to be so careful," he said. "So extremely careful with characters like those. No doubt they meant well by their serenade, but girls especially have to be yery careful. I think as a rule it is safer to let men show the tender pity and women the fine disdain. I don't imagine they would come serenading your father and me ! You carried it off beautifully, girls. I am sure your father was proud of you. I was myself. I'm glad you are Methodists. Not many girls so young could handle a difficult matter as neatly as you did." 94 "Yes," said Mr. Starr, but his eyes twinkled to- ward Carol once more; "yes, indeed, I think we are well cleared of a disagreeable business." But Carol looked at Fairy with such humble, passionate gratitude that tears came to Fairy's eyes and she turned quickly away. "Carol is a sweet girl," she thought. "I wonder if things will work out for her just right to make her as happy as she ought to be. She's so lovely." CHAPTER VI SUBSTITUTION THE twins came in at dinner-time wrapped in unwonted silence. Lark's face was dark- ened by an anxious shadow, while Carol wore an expression of heroic determination. They sat down to the table without a word, and helped themselves to fish balls with a surprising lack of interest. "What's up?" Connie asked, when the rest of the family dismissed the matter with amused glances. Lark sighed and looked at Carol, seeming to seek courage from that Spartan countenance. Carol squared her shoulders. "Well, go on," Connie urged. "Don't be silly. You know you're crazy to tell us about it, you only want to be coaxed." Lark sighed again, and gazed appealingly at her stout-hearted twin. Carol never could resist the appeal of those pleading eyes. 95 96 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "Larkie promised to speak a piece at the Sunday- school concert two weeks from to-morrow," she vouchsafed, as unconcernedly as possible. "Mercy!" ejaculated Connie, with an astonish- ment that was not altogether complimentary. "Careful, Larkie," cautioned Fairy. "You'll dis- grace the parsonage if you don't watch out." "Nonsense," 'declared their father, "Lark can speak as well as anybody if she just keeps a good grip on herself and doesn't get stage fright." Aunt Grace; smiled gently. Connie frowned. "It's a risky business," she said. "Lark can't speak any more than a rabbit, and" "I know it," was the humble admission. "Don't be a goose, Con," interrupted Carol. "Of course Lark can speak a piece. She must learn it, learn it, learn it, so she can rattle it off backwards with her eyes shut. Then even if she gets scared, she can go right on and folks won't know the dif- ference. It gets to be a habit if you know it well enough. That's the whole secret. Of course she can speak." "How did it happen ?" inquired Fairy. SUBSTITUTION 97 "I don't know," Lark said sorrowfully. "Noth- ing was ever farther from my thoughts, I assure you. The first thing I knew, Mrs. Curtiss was thanking me for my promise, and Carol was march- ing me off like grim death." Carol smiled, relieved now that the family com- mentary was over. "It was very natural. Mrs. Curtiss begged her to do it, and Lark refuse^. That always happens, every time the Sunday-school gives an entertainment. But Mrs. Curtiss went on to say how badly the Sunday-school needs the money, and how big a drawing card it would be for both of us twins to be on the program, one right after the other, and how well it would look for the par- sonage, and it never occurred to me to warn Lark, for I never dreamed of her doing it. And all of a sudden she said, 'All right, then, I'll do it,' and Mrs. Curtiss gave her a piece and we came home. But I'm not worried about it. Lark can do any- thing if she only tries." "I thought it wouldn't hurt me to try it once," Lark volunteered in her own defense. Aunt Grace nodded, with a smile of interested approval. 98 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "I'm proud of you, Lark, quite proud of you/* her. father said warmly. "It's a big thing for you to make such a plunge, just fine." "I'm proud of you now, too," Connie said dark- ly. "The question is, will we be proud of you after the concert?" Lark sighed dolorously. "Oh, pooh!" encouraged Carol. "Anybody can speak a silly little old piece like that. And it will look so nice to have our names right together on the program. It'll bring out all the high-school folks, sure." "Yes, they'll come to hear Lark all right," Fairy smiled. "But she'll make it go, of course. And it will give Carol a chance to show her cleverness by telling her how to do it." So as soon as supper was over, Carol said de- cidedly, "Now, Connie, you'll have to help me with the dishes the next two weeks, for Lark's got to practise on that piece. Lark, you must read it over, very thoughtfully first to get the meaning. Then just read it and read it and read it, a dozen times, a hundred times, over and over and over. !A"nd pretty soon you'll know it." SUBSTITUTION 99 "I'll bet I don't," was the discouraging retort, as Lark, with pronounced distaste, took the slip of paper and sat down in the corner to read the "blooming thing," as she muttered crossly to her- self. Connie and Carol did up the dishes in dreadful silence, and then Carol returned to the charge. "Plow many times did you read it?" "Fourteen and a half," was the patient answer. "It's a silly thing, Carol. There's no sense to it. 'The wind went drifting o'er the lea/ * "Oh, that's not so bad," Carol said helpfully. "I've had pieces with worse lines than that. 'The imprint of a dainty foot,' for instance. When you say, 'The wind went drifting o'er the lea,' you must kind of let your voice glide along, very rhyth- mically, very " "Windily," suggested Connie, who remained to witness the exhibition. "You keep still, Constance Starr, or you can get out of here! It's no laughing matter I can tell you, and you have to keep out or I won't help and then" "I'll keep still. But it ought to be windily you IOQ PRUDENCE SAYS SO know, since it's the wind. I meant it for a joke," she informed them. The twins had a very dis- heartening way of failing to recognize Connie's jokes it took the life out of them. "Now read it aloud, Lark, so I can see if you get the proper expression," Carol continued, when Con- nie was utterly subdued. Lark obediently but unhappily read the quaint poem aloud and Carol said it was very good. "You must read it aloud often, very often. That'll give you a better idea of the accent. Now put it away, and don't look at it again to-night. If you keep it up too long you'll get so dead sick of it you can't speak it at all." For two entire weeks, the twins were change" THE END OF FAIRY 195 "Oh, only in the most honorable way, of course. You see," he gave his explanation with an air of relief, "Prudence always says I must keep an eye on Carol. She's so pretty, and the boys get stuck on her, and that's what Prudence says. I forgot all about it for a while. But lately I have begun to notice that the boys are older, and we don't want Carol falling in love with the wrong man. I got uneasy. I decided to watch out. I'm the head of this family, you know." "Such an idea!" scoffed Aunt Grace, who was not at all of a scoffing nature. "Carol was born for lovers, Prudence says so. And these men's girls have to be watched, or the wrong fellow will get ahead, and " "Carol doesn't need watching not any more at least." "I'm not really watching her, you know. I'm just keeping my eyes open." "But Carol's all right. That's one time Pru- dence was away off." She smiled as she recognized a bit of Carol's slang upon her lips. "Don't worry about her. You needn't keep an eye on her any more. She's coming, all right." 196 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "You don't think there's any danger of her fall- ing in love with the wrong man ?" "No." 'There aren't many worth-having fellows in Mount Mark, you know." "Carol won't fall in love with a Mount Mark fel- low." "You seem very positiv_e." "Yes, I'm positive." He looked thoughtful for a while. "Well, Pru- dence always told me to watch Carol, so I could help her if she needed it." "Girls always need their fathers," came the quick reply. "But Carol does not need you particularly. There's only one of them who will require especial attention." "That's what Prudence says." "Yes, just one not Carol." "Not Carol!" He looked at her in astonishment. "Why, Fairy and Lark are different. They're all right. They don't need attention." "No. It's the other one." "The other one! That's all." "There's Connie." THE END OF FAIRY 197 "Connie?" "Yes." "Connie?" "Yes." "You don't mean Connie." r A.unt Grace smiled. "Why, Grace, you're you're off. Excuse me for saying it, but you're crazy. Connie why, Connie has never been any trouble in her life. Con- nie!" "You've never had any friction with Connie, she's always been right so far. One of these days she's pretty likely to be wrong, and Connie doesn't yield very easily." "But Connie's so sober and straight, and " "That's the kind." "She's so conscientious." "Yes, conscientious." "She's look Here, Grace, there's nothing the matter with Connie." "Of course not, William. That isn't what I mean. But you ought to be getting very, very close to Connie right now, for one of these days she's going *o need a lot of that extra companionship Prudence 198 PRUDENCE SAYS SO told you about. Connie wants to know every- thing. She wants to see everything. None of the other girls ever yearned for city life. Connie does. She says when she is through school she's going to the city." "What city?" "Any city." "What for?" "For experience." Mr. Starr looked about him helplessly. "There's experience right here," he protested feebly. "Lots of it. Entirely too much of it." "Well, that's Connie. She wants to know, to see, to feel. She wants to live. Get close to her, get chummy. She may not need it, and then again she may. She's very young yet." "All right, I will. It is well I have some one to steer me along the proper road." He looked regretfully out of the window. "I ought to be able to see these things for myself, but the girls seem perfectly all right to me. They always have. I suppose it's because they're mine." Aunt Grace looked at him affectionately. "It's because they're the finest girls on earth," she de- THE END OF FAIRY 199 dared. "That's why. But we want to be ready to help them if they need it, just because they are so fine. They will every one be splendid, if we give them the right kind of a chance." He sat silent a moment. "I've always wanted one of them to marry a preacher," he said, laughing apologetically. "It is very narrow-minded, of Bourse, but a man does make a hobby of his own profession. I always hoped Prudence would. I thought she was born for it. Then I looked to Fairy, and she turned me down. I guess I'll have to give up the notion now." She looked at him queerly. "Maybe not." "Connie might, I suppose." "Connie," she contradicted promptly, "will prob- ably marry a genius, or a rascal, or a millionaire.'* He looked dazed at that. She leaned forward a little. "Carol might." "Carol" "She might." She watched him narrowly, a smile in her eyes. "Carol's too worldly." "You don't believe that." "No, not really. Carol she why, you know; 200 PRUDENCE SAYS SO when I think of it, Carol wouldn't be half bad for a minister's wife. She has a sense of humor, that is very important. She's generous, she's patient, she's unselfish, a good mixer, some of the ladies might think her complexion wasn't real, but Grace, Carol wouldn't be half bad!" "Oh, William," she sighed, "can't you remember that you are a Methodist minister, and a grand- father, and grow up a little ?" After that Mr. Starr returned to normal again, only many times he and Connie had little outings together, and talked a great deal. And Aunt Grace, seeing it, smiled with satisfaction. But the twins and Fairy settled it in their own minds by saying, "Father was just a little jealous of all the beaux. He was looking for a pal, and he's found Connie." But in spite of his new devotion to Connie, Mr. Starr also spent a great deal of time with Fairy. "We must get fast chums, Fairy," he often said to her. "This is our last chance. We have to get cemented for a lifetime, you know." And Fairy, when he said so, caught his hand and laughed a little tremulously. Indeed, he was right when he said it was his last THE END OF FAIRY 201 chance with Fairy in the parsonage. Two weeks before her commencement she had slipped into the library and closed the door cautiously behind her. "Father," she said, "would you be very sorry if I (didn't teach school after all?" "Not a bit," came the ready answer. "I mean if I you see, father, since you sent me to college I feel as if I ought to work and help put." "That's nonsense," he said, drawing the tall girl down to his knees. "I can take care of my own 'family, thanks. !Are you trying to run me out of my job? If you want to work, all right, do it, but 'for yourself, and not for us. Or if you want to do anything else," he did not meet her eyes, "if you want to stay at home a year or so before you get married, it would please us better than anything else. And when you want to marry Gene, we're expecting it, you know." "Yes, I know," she fingered the lapel of his oat uneasily. "Do you care how Soon I get married?" "Are you still sure it is Gene?" "Yes, I'm sure." "Then I think you should choose your own time. I am in no hurry. But any time, it's for you, and Gene, to decide." "Then you haven't set your heart on my teach- ing?" "I set my heart on giving you the best chance possible. And I have done it. For the rest, it de- pends on you. You may work, or you may stay at home a while. I only want you to be happy, Fairy." "But doesn't it seem foolish to go clear through college, and spend the money, and then marry without using the education ?" "I do not think so. They've been fine years, and you are finer because of them. There's just as much opportunity to use your fineness in a home of your own as in a public school. Jhat's the way I look at it." "You don't think I'm too young?" "You're pretty young," he said slowly. "I can hardly say, Fairy. You've always been capable and self-possessed. When you and Gene get so crazy about each other you can't bear to be apart any longer, it's all right here." She put her arm around his neck and rubbed Hef fingers over his cheek lovingly. [THE END OF FAIRY 203 "You understand, don't you, father, that I'm just going to be plain married when the time conies? Not a wedding like Prudence's. Gene, and the girls, and Prue and Jerry, and you, father, that is all." "Yes, all right. It's your day, you know." "And we won't talk much about it beforehand. .We all know how; we feel about things. It would be silly for me to try to tell you what a grand sweet father you've been to us. I can't tell you, if I tried I'd only cry. You know what I think." His face was against hers, and his eyes were away from her, so Fairy did not see the moisture in his eyes when he said in a low voice : "Yes, I know Fairy. And I don't need to say what fine girls you are, and how proud I am of you. You know it already. But sometimes," he added slowly, "I wonder that I haven't been a bigger man, and haven't done finer work, with a houseful of girls like mine." Her arm pressed more closely about his neck. "Father," she whispered, "don't say that. L We think you are wonderfully splendid, just as you are. It isn't what you've said, not what you've 204 PRUDENCE SAYS SO t done for us, it's just because you have always made us so sure of you. We never had to wonder about father, or ask ourselves we were sure. We've always had you." She leaned over and kissed him again. "There never was such a father, they all say so, Prudence and Connie, and the twins, too! There couldn't be another like you! Now we understand each other, don't we?" "I guess so. Anyhow, I understand that there'll only be three daughters in the parsonage pretty soon. All right, Fairy. I know you will be happy." He paused a moment. "So will I." But the months passed, and Fairy seemed content to stay quietly at home, embroidering as Prudence had done, laughing at the twins as they tripped gaily, riotously through college. And then in the early spring, she sent an urgent note to Prudence. "You must come home for a few days, Prue, you and Jerry. It's just because I want you and I need you, and I know you won't go back on me. I want you to get here on the early afternoon train Tues- day, and stay till the last of the week. Just wire that you are coming the three of you. I know; you'll be here, since it is I who ask it." THE END OF FAIRY 205 It followed naturally that Prudence's answer was satisfactory. "Of course we'll come." Fairy's plans were very simple. "We'll have a nice family dinner Tuesday evening, we'll get Mrs. Green to come and cook and have her niece to serve it, that'll leave us free to visit every min- ute. I'll plan the dinner. Jhen we'll all be to- gether, nice and quiet, just our own little bunch. Don't have dates, twins, of course Gene will be here, but he's part of the family, and we don't want outsiders this time. His parents will be in town, and I've asked them to come up. I want a real family reunion just for once, and it's my party, 'for I started it. So you must let me have it my own way." Fairy was generally willing to leave the initia- tive to the eager twins, but when she made a plan it was generally worth adopting, and the other members of the family agreed to her arrangements without demur. After the first confusion of welcoming Prudence home, and making fun of "daddy Jerry," and test- ing the weight and length of little Fairy, they all settled down to a parsonage home-gathering. Just o6 PRUDENCE SAYS SO a few minutes before the dinner hour, Fairy took her father's hand. "Come into the lime-light," she said softly, "I want you." He passed little Fairy over to the out- stretched arms of the nearest auntie, and allowed himself to be led into the center of the room. "Gene," said Fairy, and he came to her quickly, holding out a slender roll of paper. "It's our li- cense," said Fairy. "We think we'd like t6 be mar- ried now, father, if you will." He looked at her questioningly, but understand* ingly. The girls clustered about them with eager outcries, half protest, half encouragement. "It's my day, you know," cried Fairy, "and this is my way." She held out her hand, and Gene took it yery ten- derly in his. Mr. Starr looked at them gravely for a moment, and then in the gentle voice that the parsonage girls insisted was his most valuable ministerial asset, he gave his second girl in mar- riage. It surely was Fairy's way, plain and sweet, with- out formality. And the dinner that followed was just a happy family dinner. Fairy's face was so . THE END OF FAIRY 207 glowing witH content, and Gene's attitude was so tender, and so ludicrously proud, that the twins at last were convinced that this was right, and all was well. But that evening, when Gene's parents had gone away, and after Fairy and Gene themselves had taken the carriage to the station for their little va- cation together, and Jerry and Prudence were put- ting little Fairy to bed, the three girls left in the home sat drearily in their bedroom and talked it over. "We're thinning out," said Connie. "Who next?" "We'll stick around as long as we like, Miss Connie, you needn't try to shuffle us off," said Lark indignantly. "Prudence, and Fairy, it was pretty cute of Fairy, wasn't it?" "Let's go to bed," said Carol, rising. "I sup- pose we'll feel better in the morning. r A good sleep is almost as filling as a big meal after a blow like this. Well, that's the end of Fairy. We have to make the best of us. Come on, Larkie. L You've still got us to boss you, Con, so you needn't feel too forlorn. My, but the house is still ! In some ways 208 PRUDENCE SAYS SO I think this family is positively sickening. Good night, Connie. And, after this, when you want to eat candy in bed, please use your own. I got Chocolate all over my foot last night. Good night, Connie. Well, it's the end of Fairy. The family is going to pieces, sure enough." CHAPTER XII SOWING SEEDS 44T T AYE you seen Mrs. Harbert lately, Carol?" JLJ. "Yes, she's better, father. I was there a few minutes yesterday." "Yesterday? [You were there Juesday ? jyeren't you?" Carol looked uncomfortable. ".Why, yes, I was, just for a second." "She tells me you've been running in nearly every day since she took sick." Carol bent sharply inquiring eyes upon her father. "What else did she tell you?" "She said you were an angel." "Y-yes, she seems somehow to think I do it for kindness." "And don't you?" "Why, no, father, of course I don't. It's only two blocks out of my way and it's such fun to pop 209 aioj PRUDENCE SAYS SO in on sick folks and show them how disgustingly strong and well I am." "Where did you get the money for that basket of fruit?." "I borrowed it from Aunt Grace." Carol's face was crimson with mortification. "But it'll be a sweet time before Mrs. Harbert gets anything else from me. She promised she wouldn't tell." "Did any of the others know about the fruit?'" "Why not exactly." "But she thinks it was from the whole family. She thanked me for it." "I I made her think that," Carol explained. "I want her to think we're the nicest parsonage bunch they've ever had in Mount Mark. Besides, it really was from the family. Aunt Grace loaned me the money and I'll have to borrow it from you to pay her. [And Lark did my dusting so I could go on the errand, though she did not know what it was. And I er accidentally took one of Con- nie's ribbons to tie it with. Isn't that a family "Mr. Scott tells me you are the prime mover in the Junior League now," he continued. SOWING SEEDS ten "Well, goodness knows our Junior League needs a mover of some sort." "And Mrs. Davies says you are a whole Mercy and Help Department all by yourself." "What I can't understand," said Carol mourn- fully, "is why folks don't keep their mouths shut. I know that sounds very inelegant, but it expresses my idea perfectly. Can't I have a good time in my own way without the whole church pedaling me from door to door?" The twinkle in her father's eyes deepened. "What do you call it, Carol, 'sowing seeds of kind- ness'?" "I should say not," came the emphatic retort. "I all it sowing seeds of fun. It's a circus to gb around and gloat over 'folks when they are sick or sorry, or " "But they tell me you 'don't gloat. Mrs. Marling says you cried with Jeanie half a day when her dog died." "Oh, that's my way of gloating," said Carol, nothing daunted, but plainly glad to get away with- out further interrogation. It was a strange thing that of all the parsonage 212 PRUDENCE SAYS SO girls, Carol, light-hearted, whimsical, mischievous Carol, was the one most dear to the hearts of her father's people. Not the gentle Prudence, nor charming Fairy, not clever Lark nor conscientious Connie, could rival the "naughty twin" in Mount Mark's affections. And in spite of her odd curt speeches, and her openly-vaunted vanity, Mount Mark insisted she was "good." Certainly she was willing! "Get Carol Starr, she'll do it," was the commonest phrase in Mount Mark's vocabulary. Whatever was wanted, whatever the sacrifice in- volved, Carol stood ready to fill the bill. Not for kindness, oh, dear no, Carol stanchly disclaimed any such niceness as that. She did it for fun, pure and simple. She said she liked to show off. She insisted that she liked to feel that she was the pivot on which little old Mount Mark turned. But this was only when she was found out. As far as she could she kept her little "seeds of fun" carefully up her sleeve, and it was only when the indis- creet adoration of her friends brought the budding plants to light, that she laughingly declared "it was a circus to go and gloat over folks." SOWING SEEDS 213 Once in the early dusk of a summer evening, she discovered old Ben Peters, half intoxicated, slum- bering noisily on a pile of sacks in a corner of the parsonage barn. Carol was sorry, but not at all frightened. The poor, kindly, weak, old man was as familiar to her as any figure in Mount Mark. He was always in a more or less helpless state of in- toxication, but also he was always harmless, kind- hearted and generous. She prodded him vigorously with the handle of the pitch-fork until he was aroused to consciousness, and then guided him into the woodshed with the buggy whip. When he was seated on a chunk of wood she faced him sternly. "Well, you are a dandy," she said. "Going into a parsonage barn, of all places in the world, to sleep off an odor like yours! Why didn't you go down to Fred Greer's harness shop, that's where you got it. We're such an awfully temperance town, you know ! But the parsonage ! Why, if the trustees had happened into the barn and caught a whiff of that smell, father'd have lost his job. Now you just take warning from me, and keep away |rpm this parsonage until you can develop a good 214 PRUDENCE SAYS SO. Methodist odor. Oh, don't cry about it ! Your very tears smell rummy. Just you hang on to that chunk p'f wood, and I'll bring you some coffee." Like a thief in the night she sneaked into the house, and presently returned with a huge tin of coffee, steaming hot. He drank it eagerly, but kept a wary eye on the haughty twin, who stood above him with the whip in her hand. "That's better. Now, sit down and listen to me. Jf you would come to the parsonage, you have to take your medicine. Silver and gold have we none, but such as we have we give to you. And religion's all we've got You're here, and I'm here. We haven't any choir or any Bible, but parsonage folks have to be adaptable. Now then, Ben Peters, you've got to get converted." The poor doddering old fellow, sobered by this awful announcement, looked helplessly at the win- dow. It was too small. And slender active Carol, with the buggy whip, stood between him and the idoor. "No, you can*t escape. [You're clone for this time, it's the straight and narrow from this on. Now listen, it's really very simple. And you need SOWING SEEDS 215 it pretty badly, Ben. Of course you don't realize it when you're drunk, you can't see how terribly dis- gusting you are, but honestly, Ben, a pig is a ray of sunshine compared to a drunk man. You're a blot on the landscape. You're a you're a " She fished vainly for words, longing for Lark's literary flow of language. "I'm not drunk," he stammered. "No, you're not, thanks to the buggy whip and that strong coffee, but you're no beauty even yet. Well now, to come down to religion again. You can't stop drinking " "I could," he blustered feebly, "I could if I wanted to." "Oh, no, you couldn't. You haven't backbone enough. You couldn't stop to save your life. But," Carol's voice lowered a little, and she grew shy, but very earnest, "but God can stop you, because He has enough backbone for a hundred thousand er, jellyfishes. And you see, it's like this. God made the world, and put the people in it. Now listen carefully, Ben, and I'll make it just as simple as possible so it can sink through the smell and get at you. God made the world, and put the people in it. 216 PRUDENCE SAYS SQ And the people sinned, worshiped idols and went back on God, and did a lot of other mean things. So God was in honor bound to punish them, for that's the law, and God's the judge that can't be bought. He had to inflict punishment. But God and Jesus talked it over, and they felt awfully bad about it, for they kind of liked the people anyhow." She stared at the disreputable figure slouching on the chunk of wood. "It's very hard to understand, yery. I should think they would despise us, some of us," she added significantly. "I'm sure I should. But anyhow they didn't. Are you getting me ?" The bleary eyes were really fastened intently on the girl's bright face, and he hung upon her words. "Well, they decided that Jesus should come down here and live, and be perfectly good, so He would not deserve any punishment, and then God would allow Him to receive the punishment anyhow, and the rest of us could go free. That would cover the law. See? Punishing Him when He deserved no punishment. Then they could forgive us heathens that didn't deserve it. Dp you get that?" She looked at him anxiously. "It all hinges on that, you know. I'm not a preacher myself, but that's SOWING SEEDS 217 the idea. So Jesus was crucified, and then God said, 'There He is ! Look on Him, believe in Him, wor- ship Him, and in His name you stand O. K.' See? That means, if we give Him the chance, God'll let Jesus take our share of the punishment. So we've just got to let go, and say, 'All right, here I am. I believe it, I give up, I know I don't amount to a hill of beans and you can say it very honestly but if you want me, and will call it square, God knows I'm willing.' And there you are." "Won't I drink any more?" "No, not if you let go hard enough. I mean," she caught herself up quickly, "I mean if you let clear go and turn the job over to God. But you're not to think you can keep decent by yourself, for you can't it's not born in you, and something else is just let go, and stay let go. After that, it's God's job, and unless you stick in and try to manage your- self, He'll see you through." "All right, I'll do it." Carol gasped. She opened her lips a few times, and swallowed hard. She didn't know what to do next. Wildly she racked her brain for the next step in this vital performance. 218 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "I think we ought to pray," she said feebly. "All right, we'll pray." He rolled curiously off the stick of wood, and fell, as if by instinct, into the attitude of prayer. Carol gazed about her helplessly. But true to her training, she knelt beside him. Then came silence. "I well, I'll pray," she said with grim deter- mination. "Dear Father in Heaven," she began weakly, and then she forgot her timidity and her fear, and realized only that this was a crisis in the life of the drunken man. . "Oh, God, he'll do it. He'll let go, and turn it over to you. He isn't worth anything, God, none of us are, but You can handle him, for You've had worse jobs than this, though it doesn't seem possible. You'll help him, God, and love him, and show him how, for he hasn't the faintest idea what to do next, and neither have I. But You brought him into our barn to-night, and You'll see him through. Oh, God, for Jesus' sake, help Ben Peters. Amen. "Now, what shall I do?" she wondered. "What's your father for?" She looked quickly at Ben Peters. He had not spoken, but something certainly had asked, "What's your father for?" SOWING SEEDS 219 "You stay here, Ben, and pray for yourself, and I'll send father out. I'm not just sure what to say next, and father'll finish you up. You pray for all you're worth." She was gone in a flash, through the kitchen, through the hall, up the stairs two at a time, and her arm thrown closely about her father's shoulder. "Oh, father, I got stuck," she wailed. "I'm so ashamed of myself. But you can finish him off, can't you? I honestly believe he's started." He took her firmly by the arms and squared her around on his lap. "One, two, three, ready, go. Now, what?" "Ben Peters. He was drunk in the barn and I took him into the wood-shed and gave him some hot coffee, and some religion, but not enough to hurt him. I told him he had to get converted, and he said he would. So I told him about it, but you'd better tell him again, for I'm afraid I made quite a mess of it. And then we prayed, and I was stuck for fair, father, for I couldn't think what to do next. But I do believe it was God who said, 'What's your father for?' And so I left him pray- ing for himself, and you'd better hurry, or he may 220 PRUDENCE SAYS SO get cold feet and run away. Be easy with him, father, but don't let him off. This is the first chance we've ever had at Ben Peters, and God'll never forgive us if we let him slip through our fingers.'* Carol was dumped off on to the floor and her father was half-way down the stairs before she caught her breath. Then she smiled. Then she blushed. "That was one bad job," she said to herself sadly. "I'm a disgrace to the Methodist church. ^Thank goodness the trustees'll never hear of it. I'll bribe Ben Peters to eternal silence if I have to do it with kisses." Then her face grew very soft. "Poor old man I Oh, the poor old man !" A quick rush of tears blinded her eyes, and her throat throbbed. "Oh, why do they, what makes men like that? Can't they see, can't they know, how awful they are, how " She shuddered. "I can't see for the life of me what makes God treat us decently at all." Her face brightened again. "I was a bad job, all right, but I feel kind of pleased about it. I hope father won't mention it to the girls." And Ben Peters truly had a start, incredible as SOWING SEEDS it seemed. Yes, as Carol had warned him, he for- got sometimes and tried to steer for himself, and always crashed into the rocks. Then Carol, with angry eyes and scornful voice, berated him for try- ing to get hold of God's job, and cautioned him anew about "sticking in when it was not his affair any more." It took time, a long time, and hard work, and many, many prayers went up from Car- ol's bedside, and from the library at the head of the stairs, but there came a time when Ben Peters let go for good and all, and turned to Carol, standing beside the bed with sorry frightened eyes, and said quietly : "It's all right, Carol. I've let go. .You're a mighty nice little girl. I've let go for good this time. I'm just slipping along where He sends me, it's all right," he finished drowsily. And fell asleep. CHAPTER XIII THE CONNIE PROBLEM MR. STARR was getting ready to go to con- ference, and the girls hovered about him with anxious eyes. This was their fifth conference since coming to Mount Mark, the time limit for Metho- dist ministers was five years. The Starrs, therefore, would be transferred, and where ? Small wonder that the girls followed him around the house and spoke in soft voices and looked with tender eyes at the old parsonage and the wide lawn. They would be leaving it next week. Already the curtains were down, and laundered, and packed. The trunks were filled, the books were boxed. Yes, they were leaving, but whither were they bound ? "Get your ecclesiastical dander up, father," Carol urged, "don't let them give us a church fight, or a twenty-thousand-dollar debt on a thousand-dollar congregation." 222 THE CONNIE PROBLEM 223 "We don't care for a big salary or a stylish con- gregation," Lark added, "but we don't want to go back to washpans and kerosene lamps again." "If you have to choose between a 6ath tub, with a church quarrel, and a wash basin with peace and harmony, we'll take the tub and settle the scrap!" The conference was held in Fairfield, and he in- formed the girls casually that he would be home on the first train after the assignments were made. He said it casually, for he did not wish them to know how perturbed he was over the coming change. Dur- ing the conference he tried in many and devious ways to learn the will of the authorities regarding his future, but he found no clue. And at home the girls were discussing the matter very little, but thinking of nothing else. They were determined to be pleased about it. "It really doesn't make any difference," Lark said. "We've had one year in college, we can get along without any more. Or maybe father would let us borrow the money and stay at the dorm. And Connie's so far along now that she's all right. Any good high school will do for her. It doesn't make any difference at all." 224 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "No, we're so nearly grown up that one place will do just as well as another," agreed Carol uncon- cernedly. "I'm rather anxious to move, myself," said Con- nie. "I'm afraid some of the ladies might carry out their designs on father. They've had five years of practise now, you know." "Don't be silly, Con. Isn't Aunt Grace here on purpose to chaperon him and keep the ladies off? I'd hate to go to New London, of Mediapolis, or but after all it doesn't make a bit of difference." Just the same, on Wednesday evening, the girls sat silent, with intensely flushed faces and painfully shining eyes, watching the clock, listening for the footstep. They had deliberately remained away from the station. They thought they could face it better within the friendly walls of the parsonage. It was all settled now, father knew where they were going. Oh, why hadn't he wired? It must be ter- ribly bad then, he evidently wanted to break it to them gently. Maybe it was a circuit! There was the whistle now! Only a few minutes now. Suppose his sal- ary were cut down, good-by to silk stockings THE CONNIE PROBLEM 225 and kid gloves, cheap, but kid, just the same ! Sup- pose the parsonage would be old-fashioned! Sup- pose there wasn't any parsonage at all, and they would have to pay rent! Sup Then the door slammed. Carol and Lark picked up their darning, and Connie bent earnestly over her magazine. Aunt Grace covered a yawn with her slender fingers and looked out of the window. "Hello!" "Why, hello, papa ! Back already?" They dropped darning and magazine and flew to welcome him home. "Come and sit down!" "My, it seemed a long time !" "We had lots of fun, father." "Was it a nice conference?" "Mr. James sent us two bushels of po- tatoes !" "We're going to have chicken to-morrow the Ladies' Aiders sent it with their farewell love." "Wasn't it a dandy day ?" "Well, it's all settled." "Yes, we supposed it would be. Was the con- ference good? We read accounts of it every day, and acted stuck-up when it said nice things about you." 226 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "We are to" "Ju-just a minute, father," interrupted Connie anxiously. "We don't care a snap where it is, hon- estly we don't. We're just crazy about it, wherever it is. We've got it all settled. You needn't be afraid to tell us." "Afraid to tell us!" mocked the twins indig- nantly. "What kind of slave-drivers do you think we are?" "Of course we don't care where we go," ex- plained Lark. "Haven't we been a parsonage bunch long enough to be tickled to death to be sent any place?" "Father knows we're all right. Go on, daddy, who's to be our next flock ?" "We haven't any, we " The girls' faces paled. "Haven't any? You mean " "I mean we're to stay in Mount Mark." "Stay in What?" "Mount Mark. They" "They extended the limit," cried Connie, spring- ing up. THE CONNIE PROBLEM 227 "No," he denied, laughing. "They made me a presiding elder, and we're " "A presiding elder! Father! Honestly? They" "They ought to have made you a bishop," cried Carol loyally. "I've been expecting it all my life. That's where the next jump'll land you. Presiding elder! Now we can snub the Ladies' Aid if we want to." "Do you want to?" "No, of course not, but it's lots of fun to know we could if we did want to." "I pity the next parsonage bunch," said Connie sympathetically. "Why? There's nothing the matter with our church!" "Oh, no, that isn't what I mean. But the next minister's family can't possibly come up to us, and so" The others broke her sentence with their laugh- ter. "Talk about me and my complexion !" gasped 'Carol, wiping her eyes. "I'm nothing to Connie PRUDENCE SAYS SO and her family pride. Where will we live now, father?" "We'll rent a house any house we like and live like white folks." "Rent! Mercy, father, doesn't the conference furnish the elders with houses? We can never afford to pay rent ! Never !" "Oh, we have a salary of twenty-five hundred a year now," he said, with apparent complacence, but careful to watch closely for the effect of this state- ment. It gratified him, too, much as he had ex- pected. The girls stood stock-still and gazed at him, and then, with a violent struggle for self -com- posure Carol asked: "Did you get any of it in advance? I need some new slippers." So the packing was finished, a suitable house was found modern, with reasonable rent on Maple Avenue where the oaks were most magnificent, and the parsonage family became just ordinary "folks," a parsonage household no longer. "You must be very patient with us if we still try; to run things," Carol said apologetically to the 4 president of the Ladies' Aid. ".We've been a par-* THE CONNIE PROBLEM 229 sonage bunch all our lives, you know, and it's got to be a habit. But we'll be as easy on you as we can. We know what it would mean to leave two ministers' families down on you at once." Mr. Starr's new position necessitated long and frequent absences from home, and that was a drawback to the family comradeship. But the girls' pride in his advancement was so colossal, and their determination to live up to the dignity of the eldership was so deep-seated, that affairs ran on quite serenely in the new home. "Aren't we getting sensible?" Carol frequently asked her sisters, and they agreed enthusiastically that they certainly were. "I don't think we ever were so bad as we thought we were," Lark said. "Even Prudence says now that we were always pretty good. Prudence ought to think so. She got most of our spending money for a good many years, didn't she?" "Prudence didn't get it. She gave it to the heathen." "Well, she got credit for it on the Lord's ac- counts, I suppose. But she deserved it. It was no joke collecting allowances from us." 230 PRUDENCE SAYS SO One day this beautiful serenity was broken in upon in a most unpleasant way. Carol looked up from De Senectute and flung out her arms in an all-relieving yawn. Then she looked at her aunt, asleep on the couch. She looked at Lark, who was aimlessly drawing feathers on the skeletons of birds in her biology text. She looked at Connie, sitting upright in her chair, a small book close to her face, alert, absorbed, oblivious to the world. Connie was wide awake, and Carol resented it. "What are you reading, Con?" she asked re- proachfully. Connie looked up, startled, and colored a little. "Oh, poetry," she stammered. Carol was surprised. "Poetry," she echoed. "Poetry? What kind of poetry? There are many poetries in this world of ours. 'Life is real, life is earnest.' 'There was a young lady from Bangor/ 'A man and a maiden decided to wed.' 'Sunset and evening star,' oh, there are lots of poetries. What's yours?" Her senseless dissertation had put her in good humor again. Connie answered evasively. "It is by an old THE CONNIE PROBLEM 231 Oriental writer. I don't suppose you've ever read it. Khayyam is his name." "Some name," said Carol suspiciously. "What's the poem ?" Her eyes had narrowed and darkened. By this time Carol had firmly convinced herself that she was bringing Connie up, a belief which afford- ed lively amusement to self-conducting Connie. "Why, it's The Rubaiyat. It's" "The Rubaiyat!" Carol frowned. Lark looked up from the skeletons with sudden interest. "The Rubaiyat? By Khayyam? Isn't that the old fellow who didn't believe in God, and Heaven, and such things you know what I mean, the man who didn't believe anything, and wrote about it? Let me see it. I've never read it myself, but I've heard about it." Carol turned the pages with critical dis- approving eyes. "Hum, yes, I know about this." She faced Connie sternly. "I suppose you think, Connie, that since we're out of a parsonage we can do anything we like. Haven't we any standards? Haven't we any ideals? Are we are we well, anyhow, what business has a minister's daughter reading trash like this?" 232 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "I don't believe it, you know," Connie said cool- ly. "I'm only reading it. How can I know whether it's trash or not, unless I read it ? I " "Ministers' daughters are supposed to keep their fingers clear of the burning ends of matches," said Carol neatly. "We can't handle them without get- ting scorched, or blackened, at least. We have to steer clear of things folks aren't sure about. Pru- dence says so." "Prudence," said Connie gravely, "is a dear sweet thing, but she's awfully old-fashioned, Carol; you know that." Carol and Lark were speechless. They would as soon have dreamed of questioning the catechism as Prudence's perfection. "She's narrow. She's a darling, of course, but she isn't up-to-date. I want to know what folks are talking about. I don't believe this poem. I'm a Christian. But I want to know what other folks think about me and what I believe. That's all. Pru- dence is fine, but I know a good deal more about some things than Prudence will know when she's a thousand years old." The twins still sat silent. THE CONNIE PROBLEM 233 "Of course, some folks wouldn't approve of par- sonage girls reading things like this. But I approve of it. I want to know why I disagree with this poetry, and I can't until I know where we disagree. It's beautiful, Carol, really. It's kind of sad. It makes me want to cry. It's " "I've a big notion to tell papa on you," said Carol soberly and sadly. Connie rose at once. "What's the matter?" "I'm going to tell papa myself." Carol moved uneasily in her chair. "Oh, let it go this time. I I just mentioned it to relieve my feelings. I won't tell him yet. I'll talk it over with you again. I'll have to think it over first." "I think I'd rather tell him," insisted Connie. Carol looked worried, but she knew Connie would do as she said. So she got up nervously and went with her. She would have to see it through now, of course. Connie walked silently up the stairs, with - Carol following meekly behind, and rapped at her father's door. Then she entered, and Carol, in a hushed sort of way, closed the door behind them. 234 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "I'm reading this, father. Any objections?" Connie faced him calmly, and handed him the little book. He examined it gravely, his brows contracting, a sudden wrinkling at the corners of his lips that might have meant laughter, or disapproval, or any- thing. "I thought a parsonage girl should not read it," Carol said bravely. "I've never read it myself, but I've heard about it, and parsonage girls ought to read parsonage things. Prudence says so. But" "But I want to know what other folks think about what I believe," said Connie. "So I'm read- ing it." "What do you think of it?" he asked quietly, and he looked very strangely at his baby daugh- ter. It was suddenly borne in on him that this was one crisis in her growth to womanhood, and he felt a great yearning tenderness for her, in her innocence, in her dauntless courage, in her reach- ing ahead, always ahead! It was a crisis, and he must be very careful. "I think it is beautiful," Connie said soft- THE CONNIE PROBLEM 235 ly, and her lips drooped a little, and a wistful pathos crept into her voice. "It seems so sad. I keep wishing I could cry about it. There's nothing real- ly sad in it, I think it is supposed to be rather jo- vial, but it seems terrible to me, even when it is the most beautiful. Part of it I don't understand i very well." He held out a hand to Connie, and she put her own in it confidently. Carol, too, came and stood close beside him. "Yes," he said, "it is beautiful, Connie, and it is yery terrible. We can't understand it fully because we can't feel what he felt. It is a groping poem, a struggling for light when one is stumbling in darkness." He looked thoughtfully at the girls. "He was a marvelous man, that Khayyam, years ahead of his people, and his time. He was big enough to see the idiocy of the heathen ideas of God, he was beyond them, he spurned them. But he was not quite big enough to reach out, alone, and get hold of our kind of a God. He was reaching out, he was struggling, but he couldn't quite catch hold. It is a wonderful poem. It shows the weakness, the helplessness of a gifted man who 236 PRUDENCE SAYS SO has nothing to cling to. I think it will do you good to read it, Connie. Read it again and again, and thank God, my child, that though you are only a girl, you have the very thing this man, this genius, was craving. We admire his talent, but we pity his weakness. You will feel sorry for him. You read it, too, Carol. You'll like it. We can't under- stand it, as I say, because we are so sure of our God, that we can't feel what he felt, having noth- ing. But we can feel the heartbreak, the fear, the shrinking back from the Providence that he called Fate, of course it makes you want to cry, Connie. It is the saddest poem in the world." Connie's eyes were very bright. She winked hard a few times, choking back the rush of tears. Then with an impulsiveness she did not often show, she lifted her father's hand and kissed it passionately. "Oh, father," she whispered, "I was so afraid you wouldn't quite see." She kissed his hand again. Carol looked at her sister respectfully. "Connie," she said, "I certainly beg your pardon. I just wanted to be clever, and didn't know what I was talking about. When you have finished it, give it THE CONNIE PROBLEM 237 to me, will you? I want to read it, too; I think it must be wonderful." i She held out a slender shapely hand and Connie took it quickly, chummily, and the two girls turned toward the door. "The danger in reading things," said Mr. Starr, and they paused to listen, "the danger is that we may find arguments we can not answer; we may feel that we have been in the wrong, that what we read is right. There's the danger. Whenever you find anything like that, Connie, will you bring it to me? I think I can find the answer for you. If I don't know it, I will look until I come upon it. For we have been given an answer to every argument. You'll come to me, won't you ?" "Yes, father, I will I know you'll find the an- swers." After the door had closed behind them, Mr. Starr sat for a long time staring straight before him into space. "The Connie problem," he said at last. And then, "I'll have to be better pals with her. Connie's go- ing to be pretty fine, I believe." CHAPTER XIV BOOSTING CONNIE CONNIE was past fifteen when she announced gravely one day, "I've changed my mind. I'm going to be an author." "An author," scoffed Carol. "You! I thought you were going to get married and have eleven chil- dren." Even with the dignity of nineteen years, the nimble wits of Carol and Lark still struggled with the irreproachable gravity of Connie. "I was," was the cool retort. "I thought you were going to be a Red Cross nurse and go to war." Carol blushed a little. "I was," she assented, "but there isn't any war." "Well," even in triumph, Connie was imperturb- able, "there isn't any father for my eleven children either." The twins had to admit that this was an obstacle, and they yielded gracefully. 238 BOOSTING CONNIE 239 "But an author, Connie," said Lark. "It's very hard. I gave it up long ago." "I know you did. But I don't give up very easily." "You gave up your eleven children." "Oh, I've plenty of time for them yet, when I find a father for them. Yes, I'm going to be an author." "Can you write?" "Of course I can write." "Well, you have conceit enough to be anything," said Carol frankly. "Maybe you'll make it go, after all. I should like to have an author in the family and since Lark's lost interest, I suppose it will have to be you. I couldn't think of risking my complexion at such a precarious livelihood. But if you get stuck, I'll be glad to help you out a little. I really have an imagination myself, though perhaps you wouldn't think it." "What makes you think you can write, Con?" inquired Lark, with genuine interest. "I have already done it." "Was it any good?" "It was fine." 24Q PRUDENCE SAYS SO Carol and Lark smiled at each other. "Yes," said Carol, "she has the long-haired in- stinct. I see it now. They always say it is fine. Was it a masterpiece, Connie ?" And when Connie hesitated, she urged, "Come on, confess it. Then we shall be convinced that you have found your field. They are always masterpieces. Was yours?" "Well, considering my youth and inexperience, it was," Connie admitted, her eyes sparkling ap- preciatively. Carol's wit was no longer lost upon her, at any rate. "Bring it out. Let's see it. I've never met a masterpiece yet, except a dead one," said Lark. "No no," Connie backed up quickly. "You can't see it, and don't ask any more about it. Has father gone out?" The twins stared at her again. "What's the mat- ter with you?" "Nothing, but it's my story and you can't see it. That settles it. Was there any mail to-day ?" Afterward the twins talked it over together. "What made her back down like that?" Carol wondered. "Just when we had her going." "Why, didn't you catch on to that ? She has sent BOOSTING CONNIE 241 it off to a magazine, of course, and she doesn't want us to know about it. I saw through it right away." Carol looked at her twin with new interest. "Did you ever send 'em off?" Lark flushed a little. "Yes, I did, and always got 'em back, too worse luck. ^That's why I gave it up." "What did you do with them when they came back?" "Burned them. ^They always burn them. Con- nie'll get hers back, and she'll burn it, too," was the laconic answer. "An author," mused Carol. "Do you think she'll ever make it?" "Well, honestly, I shouldn't be surprised if she did. Connie's smart, and she never gives up. Then she has a way of saying things that well, it takes. I really believe she'll make it, if she doesn't get off on suffrage or some other queer thing before she gets to it." "I'll have to keep an eye on her," said Carol. "You wait until she can't eat a meal, and then you'll know she's got it back. Many's the time 242 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Prudence made me take medicine, just because I got a story back. Prudence thought it was tummy- ache. The symptoms are a good bit the same." So Carol watched, and sure enough, there came a day when the bright light of hope in Connie's eyes gave way to the sober sadness of certainty. Her light had failed. And she couldn't eat her dinner. Lark kicked Carol's foot under the table, and the two exchanged amused glances. "Connie's not well," said Lark with a worried air. "She isn't eating a thing. You'd better give her a dose of that tonic, Aunt Grace. Prudence says the first sign of decay is the time for a tonic. Give her a dose." Lark solemnly rose and fetched the bottle. Aunt Grace looked at Connie inquiringly. Connie's face was certainly pale, and her eyes were weary. And she was not eating her dinner. "I'm not sick," the crushed young author pro- tested. "I'm just not hungry. You trot that bottle back to the cupboard, Lark, and don't get gay." "You can see for yourself," insisted Lark. "Look at her. Isn't she sick? Many's the long illness BOOSTING CONNIE 24 Prudence staved off for me by a dose of this magic tonic. You'd better make her take it, father. YOU can see she's sick." The lust of a sweeping family revenge showed in Lark's clear eyes. "YouM better take a little, Connie," her father decided. "You don't look very well to-day." "But, father," pleaded Connie. "A dose in time saves a doctor bill," quoted Carol sententiously. "Prudence says so." And the aspiring young genius was obliged to swallow the bitter dose. Then, with the air of one who has rendered a boon to mankind, Lark returned to her chair. After the meal was over, Carol shadowed Connie tlosely. Sure enough, she headed straight for her own room, and Carol, close outside, heard a crump- ling of paper. She opened the door quickly and went in. Connie turned, startled, a guilty red staining her pale face. Carol sat down sociably on the side of the bed, politely ignoring Connie's feeble attempt to keep the crumpled manuscript 'from her sight. She engaged her sister in a broad- minded and sweeping conversation, adroitly leading it up to the subject of literature. But Connie would 244 PRUDENCE SAYS SO not be inveigled into a confession. Then Carol took a wide leap. "Did you get the story back?" Connie gazed at her with an awe that was al- most superstitious. Then, in relief at having the confidence forced from her, tears brightened her eyes, but being Connie, she winked them stubbornly back. "I sure did," she said. "Hard luck," said Carol, in a matter-of-fact voice. "Eet's see it." Connie hesitated, but finally passed it over. "I'll take it to my own room and read it if you don't mind. What are you going to do with it now?" "Burn it" "Let me have it, won't you ? I'll hide it and keep it Tor a souvenir." "Will you keep it hidden? L You won't pass it around for the family to laugh at, will you ?" Carol gazed at her reproachfully, rose from the bed in wounded dignity and moved away with the story in Her hand. Connie followed her to the door and said humbly : BOOSTING CONNIE 245 "Excuse me, Carol, I know you wouldn't do such a thing. But a person does feel so ashamed of a story when it comes back." "That's all right," was the kind answer. "I know just how it is. I have the same feel- ing when I get a pimple on my face. I'll keep it dark." More eagerly than she would have liked Connie to know, she curled herself upon the bed to read Connie's masterpiece. It was a simple story, but Connie did have a way of saying things, and Carol laid it down in her lap and stared at it thoughtfully. Then she called Lark. "Look here," she said abruptly. "Read this. It's the masterpiece." She maintained a perfect silence while Lark perused the crumpled manuscript. "How is it?" "Why, it's not bad," declared Lark in a sur- prised voice. "It's not half bad. It's Connie all right, isn't it? Well, what do you know about that?" "Is it any good?" pursued Carol. "Why, yes, I think it is. It's just like folks you 246 PRUDENCE SAYS SO know. They talk as we do, and I'm surprised they didn't keep it. I've read 'em a whole lot worse !" "Connie's disappointed," Carol said. "I think she needs a little boost. I believe she'll really get there if we kind of crowd her along for a while. She told me to keep this dark, and so I will. We'll just copy it over, and send it out again." "And if it conies back?" "We'll send it again. We'll get the name of every magazine in the library, and give 'em all a chance to start the newest author on the rosy way." "It'll take a lot of stamps." "That's so. Do you have to enclose enough to bring them back? I don't like that. Seems to me it's just tempting Providence. If they want to send them back, they ought to pay for doing it. I say we just enclose a note taking it for granted they'll keep it, and tell them where to send the money. And never put a stamp in sight for them to think of using up." "We can't do that. It's bad manners." "Well, I have half a dollar," admitted Carol reluctantly. BOOSTING CONNIE 247 After that the weeks passed by. The twins saw finally the shadow of dissappointment leaving Con- nie's face, and another expression of absorption take its place. "She's started another one,'* Lark said, wise in her personal experience. And when there came the starry rapt gaze once more, they knew that this one, too, had gone to meet its fate. But before the second blow fell, the twins gained their victory. They embraced each other feverishly, and kissed the precious check a hundred times, and insisted that Connie was the cleverest little darling that ever lived on earth. Then, when Connie, with their father and aunt, was sitting in unsuspecting quiet, they tripped in upon her. "We have something to read to you," said Carol beaming paternally at Connie. "Listen attentively. Put down your paper, father. It's important. Go on, Larkie." "My 'dear Miss Starr," read Lark. "We are yery much pleased with your story/' Connie 248 PRUDENCE SAYS so sprang suddenly from her chair "your story, 'When the Rule worked Backwards.' We are plac- ing it in one of our early numbers, and shall be glad at any time to have the pleasure of examining more of your work. We enclose our check for forty-five dollars. Thanking you, and assuring you! of the satisfaction with which we have read your story, I am, "Very cor'dially yours," "Tra, lalalalala!" sang the twins, dancing around the room, waving, one the letter, the other the check. Connie's face was pale, and she caught her head with both hands, laughingly nervously. "I'm going round," she gasped. "Stop me." Carol promptly pushed her down in a chair and sat upon her lap. "Pretty good, eh, what ?" "Oh, Carol, don't say that, it sounds awful," cautioned Lark. "What do you think about it, Connie? Pretty fair boost for a struggling young author, don't you BOOSTING CONNIE 249 think? Family, arise! The Chautauqua salute! We have arrived. Connie is an author. Forty- five dollars!" "But however did you do it?" wondered Connie breathlessly. "Why, we sent it out, and " "Just once?" "Alas, no, we sent it seven times." "Oh, girls, how could you ! Think of the stamps ! I'm surprised you had the money." "Remember that last quarter we borrowed of you? Well!" Connie laughed excitedly. "Oh, oh! forty-five dollars ! Think of it. Oh, father !" "Where's the story," he asked, a little jealously. "Why didn't you let me look it over, Connie?" "Oh, father, I couldn't. I I I felt shy about it. You don't know how it is father, but we want to keep them hidden. We don't get proud of them until they've been accepted." "Forty-five dollars." Aunt Grace kissed her warmly. "And the letter is worth a hundred times more to us than that. And when we see the story" 25Q PRUDENCE SAYS SO "We'll go thirds on the money, twins," said Con- nie. The twins looked eager, but conscientious. "No," they said, "it's just a boost, you know. We can't take the money." "Oh, you've got to go thirds. You ought to have it all. I would have burned it." "No, Connie," said Carol, "we know you aren't worth devotion like ours, but we donate it just the same it's gratis." "All right," smiled Connie. "I know what you want, anyhow. Come on, auntie, let's go down town. I'm afraid that silver silk mull will be sold before we get there." The twins fell upon her ecstatically. "Oh, Con- nie, you musn't. We can't allow it. Oh, of course if you insist, dearest, only " And then they rushed to find hats and gloves for their generous sister and devoted aunt. The second story came back in due time, but with the boost still strong in her memory, and with the fifteen dollars in the bank, Connie bore it bravely and started it traveling once more. Most of the stories never did find a permanent lodging place, and BOOSTING CONNIE 251 Connie carried an old box to the attic for a reposi- tory for her mental fruits that couldn't make friends away from home. But she never despaired again. And the twins, after their own manner, calmly took to themselves full credit for the career which they believed lay not far before her. They even boasted of the way they had raised her and told fatuous and exaggerated stories of their pride in her, and their gentle sisterly solicitude for her from the time of her early babyhood. 'And Connie gave assent to every word. In her heart she admitted that the twins' discipline of her, though exceedingly drastic at times, had been splendid literary experi- ence. CHAPTER XV A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 44 TF Jim doesn't ask for a date for the concert JL next week, Lark, let's snub him good." "But we both have dates," protested Lark. "What difference does that make? We mustn't let him get independent. He always has asked one of us, and he needn't think we shall let him; off now." "Oh, don't worry," interrupted Connie. "He always asks. You have that same discussion every time there's anything going on. It's just a waste of time." Mr. Starr looked up from his mail. "Soup of boys, and salad of boys, they're beginning to pall on my palate." "Very classy expression father," approved Carol. "Maybe you can work it into a sermon." "Complexion and boys with Carol, books and boys with Lark, Connie, if you begin that nonsense 252 A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 253 you'll get spanked. One member of my family shall rise above it if I have to do it with force." Connie blushed. The twins broke into open derision. "Connie! Oh, yes, Connie's above that nonsense." "Connie's the worst in the family, father, only she's one of these reserved, supercilious souls who doesn't tell everything she knows." " 'Nonsense.' I wish father could have heard Lee Hanson last night. It would have been a revelation to him. 'Aw, go on, Connie, give us a kiss/ " Connie caught her lips between her teeth. Her face was scarlet. "Twins!" "It's a fact, father. He kept us awake. 'Aw, go on, Connie, be good to a fellow.' ' "That's what makes us so pale to-day, he kept us awake hours!" "Carol!" "Well, quite a while anyhow." "I I " began Connie defensively. "Well, we know it. Don't interrupt when we're telling things. You always spoil a good story by 254 PRUDENCE SAYS SO cutting in. 'Aw, go on, Connie, go on now!' And Connie said " The twins rocked off in a parox- ysm of laughter, and Connie flashed a murderous look at them. "Prudence says listening is " "Sure she does, and she's right about it, too. But what can a body do when folks plant them- selves right beneath your window to pull off their little Romeo concerto. We can't smother on nights like these. 'Aw, go on, Connie/ ' "I wanted to drop a pillow on his head, but Carol was afraid he'd run off with the pillow, so we just sacrificed ourselves and let it proceed." "Well, I" "Give us time, Connie. We're coming to that. And Connie said, Tm going in now, I'm sleepy.' ' "I didn'tfather, I didn't!" "Well, you might have said a worse thing than that," he told her sadly. "I mean I" "She did say it," fcried the twins. " 'I'm sleepy.' Just like that." "Oh, Connie's the girl for sentiment," exclaimed Lark. "Sleepy is not a romantic word and it's not A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 255 a sentimental feeling, but it can be drawled put so it sounds a little mushy at least. 'I sleep, my love, to dream of thee/ for instance. But Connie didn't do it that way. Nix. Just plain sleep, and it sounded like 'Get out, and have a little sense.' ' "Well, it would make you sick," declared Connie^ wrinkling up her nose to express her disgust. "Are boys always like that father?" "Don't ask me," he hedged promptly. "How; should I know?" "Oh, Connie, how can you! There's father now, he never cared to kiss the girls even in his bad and balmy days, did you, daddy? Oh, no, father was all for the strictly orthodox even in his youth !" Mr. Starr returned precipitately to his mail, and the twins calmly resumed the discussion where it had been interrupted. A little later a quick exclamation from their father made them turn to him inquiringly. "It's a shame," he said, and again: "What a shame!" The girls waited expectantly. When he only continued frowning at the letter in his hand, Carol spoke up brightly, "Yes, isn't it?" 256 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Even then he did not look up, and real concern settled over their expressive faces. "Father ! Can't you see we're listening?" He looked up, vaguely at first, then smiling. "Ah, roused your curiosity, did I ? Well, it's just another phase of this eternal boy question." Carol leaned forward ingratiatingly. "Now in- deed, we are all absorption." "Why, it's a letter from Andrew Hedges, an old college chum of mine. His son is going west and Andy is sending him around this way to see me and meet my family. He'll be here this afternoon. Isn't it a shame?" "Isn't it lovely ?" exclaimed Carol. "We can use him to make Jim Forrest jealous if he doesn't ask for that date?" And she rose up and kissed her father. "Will you kindly get back to your seat, young lady, and not interfere with my thoughts?" he re- proved her sternly but with twinkling eyes. "The trouble is I have to go to Fort Madison on the noon train for that Epworth League convention. I'd like to see that boy. Andy's done well, I guess. I've always heard so. He's a millionaire, they say." A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 257 For a long second his daughters gazed at him speechlessly. Then, "A! millionaire's son," Lark faltered feebly. "Yes." "Why on earth didn't you say so in the first place?" demanded Carol. "What difference does that make?" "It makes all the difference in the world! Ah! A millionaire's son." She looked at Lark with keen speculative eyes. "Good-looking, I suppose, young, of course, and impressionable. A million- aire's son." "But I have to go to Fort Madison. I am on the program to-night. There's the puzzle." "Oh, father, you can leave him to us," volunteered Lark. "I'm afraid you mightn't carry it off well You're so likely to run by fits and jumps, you know I should hate it if things went badly." "Oh, father, things couldn't go badly," protested Carol. "We'll be lovely, just lovely. A million- aire's son ! Oh, yes, daddy, you can trust him to us all right." At last he caught the drift of their enthusiasm. 258 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "Ah! I see! That fatal charm. You're sure you'll treat him nicely?" "Oh, yes, father, so sure. A millionaire's son. We've never even seen one yet." "Now look here, girls, fix the house up and carry it off the best you can. I have a lot of old friends in Cleveland, and I want them to think I've got the dandiest little family on earth." "'Dandiest'! Father, you will forget yourself in the pulpit some day, you surely will. And when we take such pains with you, too, I can't understand where you get it! The people you associate with, I suppose." "Do your best, girls. I'm hoping for a good report. I'll be gone until the end of the week, since I'm on for the last night, too. Will you do your best?" After his departure, Carol gathered the 'family forces about her without a moment's delay. "A millionaire's son," she prefaced her remarks, and as she had expected, was "rewarded with im- mediate attention. "Now, for darling father's sake, we've got to manage this thing the very best we can. We have to make this Andy Hedges, A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 259 Millionaire's Son, think we're just about all right, for father's sake. We must have a gorgeous din- ner, to start with. We'll plan that a little later. Now I think, Aunt Grace, lovely, it would be nice for you to wear your lavender lace gown, and look delicate, don't you? A chaperoning auntie in poor health is so aristocratic. You must wear the laven- der satin slippers and have a bottle of cologne to lift frequently to your sensitive nostrils." "Why, Carol, William wouldn't like it!" "Wouldn't like it!" ejaculated the schemer in surprise. "Wouldn't like it! Why wouldn't he like it? Didn't he tell us to Create a good im- pression? Well, this is it. You'll make a lovely semi-invalid auntie. You must have a faintly per- fumed handkerchief to press to your eyes now and then. It isn't hot enough for you slowly to wield a graceful fan, but we can get along without it." "But, Carol" "Think how pleased dear father will be if his old college chum's son is properly impressed," inter- rupted Carol hurriedly, and groceeded at once with her plans. "Connie must be a precocious younger sister, all 2-6o PRUDENCE SAYS SO in white, she must come in late with a tennis racquet, as though she had just returned from a game. That will be stagey, won't it? Lark must be the sweet young daughter of the home. She must wear her silver mull, her gray slippers, and " "I can't," said Lark. "I spilt grape juice on if. And I kicked the toe out of one of my slippers." "You'll have to wear mine then. Fortunately that silver mull was always too tight for me and I never comported myself in it with freedom and destructive ease. As a consequence, it is fresh and charming. You must arrange your hair in the most Ladies' Home Journal style, and " "What are you going to wear?" "Who, me? Oh, I have other plans for myself." Carol looked rather uneasily at her aunt. "I'll come to me a little later." "Yes, indeed," said Connie. "Carol has some- thing extra up her sleeve. She's had the million- aire's son in her mind's eye ever since father intro- duced his pocketbook into the conversation." Carol was unabashed. "My interest is solely from a family view-point. I have no ulterior motive." A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 261 Her eyes sparkled eagerly. "You know, auntie 'darling " "Now, Carol, don't you suggest anything " "Oh, no indeed, dearest, how could you think of such a thing?" disclaimed Carol instantly. "It's such a very tiny thing, but it will mean a whole lot on the general impression of a millionaire's son. We've simply got to have a maid! To open the door, and curtesy, and take his hat, and serve the dinner, and He's used to it, you know, and if we haven't one, he'll go back to Cleveland and say, 'Ah, bah Jove, I had to hang up my own hat, don't you know ?' ' "That's supposed to be English, but I don't be- lieve it. Anyhow, it isn't Cleveland," said Connie flatly. "Well, he'd think we were awfully cheap and hard up, and Andy Hedges, Senior, would pity father, and maybe send him ten dollars, and no, >ve've got to have a maid !" "We might get Mamie Sickey," suggested Lark. "She's so ugly." "Or Fay Greer," interposed Aunt Grace. "She'd spill the soup." '2.62 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "Then there's nobody but Ada Lone," decided Connie. "She hasn't anything fit to wear," objected Carol. "Of whom were you thinking, Carol?" asked her iaunt, moving uneasily in her chair. Carol flung herself at her aunt's knees, "Me!" she cried. "As usual," Connie ejaculated dryly. "Oh, Carol," wailed Lark, "we can't think of things to talk about when you aren't there to keep us stirred up." "I'm beginning to see daylight," said Connie. She looked speculatively at Lark. "Well, it's not half bad, Carol, and I apologize." "Don't you think it is a glorious idea, Connie?" pried Carol rapturously. "Yes, I think it is." Carol caught her sister's hand. Here was an ally worth having. "You know how sensible Con- nie is, auntie. She sees how utterly preposterous if would be to think of entertaining a millionaire's son without a maid." "You're too pretty," protested Lark. "He'd try to kiss you." A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 263 " 'Oh, no, sir, oh, please, sir/ " simpered Carol, with an adorable curtesy, " 'you'd better wait for the ladies, sir.' ' "Oh, Carol, I think t you're awful," said their aunt unhappily. "I know your father won't like it." "Like it? He'll love it. Won't he, Connie?" "Well, I'm not sure he'll be crazy about it, but it'll be all over when he gets home," said Connie. "And you're very much in favor of it, aren't you, Connie precious?" "Yes, I am." Connie looked at Lark critically again. "We must get Lark some bright flowers to wear with the silver dress sweet peas would be good. But I won't pay for them, and you can put that down right now." "But what's the idea?" mourned Lark. "What's the sense in it? Father said to be good to him, and you know I can't think of things to say to a millionaire's son. Oh, Carol, don't be so mean." "You must practise up. You must be girlish, and light-hearted, and ingenuous, you know. That'll be very effective." "You do it, Carol. Let me be the maid. You're lots more effective than I am." 264 PRUDENCE SAYS SO But Carol stood firm, and tHe others yielded to her persuasions. They didn't approve, they didn't sanction, but they did get enthusiastic, and a merrier houseful of masqueraders was never found than that. Even Aunt Grace allowed her qualms to be quieted and entered into her part as semi-invalid auntie with genuine zest. At three they were all arrayed, ready for the presentation. They assembled socially in the parlor, the dainty maid ready to fly to her post at a sec- ond's warning. At four o'clock, they were a little fagged and near the point of exasperation, but they still held their characters admirably. At half past four a telegraph message was phoned out from the station. "Delayed in coming. Will write you later. Very sorry. Andy Hedges, Jr." Only the absolute ludicrousness of it saved Carol 'from a rage. She looked from the girlish tennis girl to the semi-invalid auntie, and then to the sweet young daughter of the home, and burst out laughing. The others, though tired, nervous and A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 265 disappointed, joined her merrily, and the vexation was swept away. The next morning, Aunt Grace went as usual to the all-day meeting of the Ladies' Aid in the church parlors. Carol and Lark, with a light lunch, went out for a few hours of spring-time happiness be- side the creek two miles from town. "We'll come back right after luncheon," Carol promised, "so if Andy the Second should come, we'll be on hand." "Oh, he won't come to-day." "Well, he just better get here before father comes home. I know father will like our plan after it's over, but I also know he'll veto it if he gets home in time. Wish you could go with us, Connie." "Thanks. But I've got to sew on forty buttons. 'And if I pick the cherries on the little tree, will you make a pie for dinner ?" "Yes. If I'm too tired Larkie will. Do pick them, Con, the birds have had more than their ishare now." After her sisters had disappeared, Connie con- sidered the day's program. "I'll pick the cherries while it's cool, Then I'll 266 PRUDENCE SAYS SO sew on the buttons. Then I'll call on the Piersons, and they'll probably invite me to stay for luncheon." And she went up-stairs to don a garment suitable for cherry-tree service. For cherry trees, though lovely to behold when laden with bright red clusters showing among the bright green leaves, are not at all lovely to climb into. Connie knew that by ex- perience. Belonging to a family that wore its fclothes as long as they possessed any wearing vir- tue, she found nothing in her immediate wardrobe fitted for the venture. But from a rag-bag in the closet at the head of the stairs, she resurrected some remains of last summer's apparel. First she put on a blue calico, but the skirt was so badly torn in places that it proved insufficiently protecting. Further search brough to light another skirt, pink, in a still worse state of delapidation. How- ever, since the holes did not occur simultaneously in the two g-arments, by wearing both she was amply covered. For a waist she wore a red crape dress- ing sacque, and about her hair she tied a broad, ragged ribbon of red to protect the soft waves from the ruthless twigs. She looked at herself in the mirror. Nothing daunted by the sight of her own A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 267 unsightliness, she took a bucket and went into the back yard. Gingerly she climbed' into the tree, gingerly be- cause Connie was not fond of scratches on her anatomy, and then began her task. It was a glori- ous morning. The birds, frightened away by the living scare-crow in the tree, perched in other, cherry-less trees around her and burst into derisive song. And Connie, light-hearted, free from care, in love with the whole wide world, sang, too, paus- ing only now- and then* to thrust a ripe cherry be- tween her teeth. She did not hear the prolonged ringing of the front-door bell. She did not observe the young man in the most immaculate of white spring suits who came inquiringly around the house. But when the chattering of a saucy robin became an- noying, she flung a cherry at him crossly. "Oh, chase yourself!" she cried. And nearly fell 'from her perch in dismay when a low voice frorq beneath said pleasantly: "I beg your pardon ! Miss Starr ?" Connie swallowed hard, to get the last cherry and the mortification out of her throat. ft 268 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "Yes," she said, noting the immaculate white spring suit, and the handsome shoes, and the costly Panama held so lightly in his hand. She knew the Panama was costly because they had wanted to buy one for her father's birthday, but decided not to. "I am Andrew Hedges," he explained, smiling sociably. Connie wilted completely at that. "Good night," she muttered with a vanishing mental picture of their lovely preparations the day previous. "I mean good morning. I'm so glad to meet you. You you're late, aren't you? I mean, aren't you ahead of yourself? At least, you didn't write, did you?" "No, I was not detained so long as I had antici- pated, so I came right on. But I'm afraid I'm in- conveniencing you." "Oh, not a bit, I'm quite comfortable," she as- sured him. "Auntie is gone just now, and the twins are away, too, but they'll all be back pres- ently." She looked longingly at the house. "I'll have to come down, I suppose." "Let me help you," he offered eagerly. Connie in the incongruous clothes, with the little curls A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 269 straying beneath the ragged ribbon, and with stains of cherry on her lips, looked more presentable than Connie knew. "Oh, I" she hesitated, flushing. ,"Mr. Hedges," she cried imploringly, "will you just go around the corner until I get down. I look fearful." "Not a bit of it," he said. "Let me take the cher- ries." Connie helplessly passed them down to him, and saw him carefully depositing them on the ground. "Just give me your hand." And what could Connie do ? She couldn't sternly order a millionaire's son to mosy around the house and mind his own business until she got some decent clothes on, though that was what she yearned to do. Instead she held out a slender hand, grimy and red, with a few ugly scratches here and there, and allowed herself to be helped ignominiously out from the sheltering branches into the garish light of day. She looked at him reproachfully. He never so much as smiled. "Laugh if you like," she said bitterly. "I looked in the mirror. I know all about it." 270 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "Run along," he said, "but don't be gone long, will you? Can you trust me with the cherries?" Connie walked into the house with great decorum, afraid the ragged skirts might swing revealingly, but the young man bent over the cherries while she made her escape. It was another Connie who appeared a little later, a typical tennis girl, all in white from the velvet band in her hair to the canvas shoes on her dainty Teet. She held out the slender hand, no longer grimy and stained, but its whiteness still marred with sorry scratches. "I am glad to see you," she said gracefully, "though I can only pray you won't carry a mental picture of me very long." "I'm afraid I will though," he said teasingly. **Tlien please don't paint me verbally for my sisters' ears; they are always so clever where I am concerned. It is too bad they are out. You'll stay for luncheon with me, won't you ? I'm all alone, - we'll have it in the yard." "It sounds very tempting, but perhaps I had better come again later in the afternoon." "You may do that, too," said Connie. "But since A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 271 you are here, I'm afraid I must insist tHat you Help amuse me." And she added ruefully, "Since I have done so well amusing you this morning." "Why, he's just like anybody else," she was think- ing with relief. "It's no trouble to talk to him, at all. He's nice in spite of the millions. Prudence says millionaires aren't half so dollar-marked as they are cartooned, anyhow." He stayed for luncheon, he even helped carry the folding table out beneath the cherry tree, and trotted docilely back and forth with plates and glasses, as Connie decreed. "Oh, father," she chuckled to herself, as she stood at the kitchen window, twinkling at the sight of the millionaire's son spreading sandwiches ac- cording to her instructions. "Oh, 'father^ the boy question is complicated, sure enough." It was not until they were at luncheon that the grand idea visited Connie. Carol would have of- fered if harborage long before. Carol's mind worked best along that very line. It came to Connie slowly, but she gave it royal welcome. Back td her remembrance flashed the thousand witty sallies o'f Carol and Lark, the Hundreds o'f times she had 272 PRUDENCE SAYS SO suffered at their hands. And for the first time in her life, she saw a clear way of getting even. And a millionaire's son! Never was such a revenge fairly crying to be perpetrated. "Will you do something for me, Mr. Hedges?" she asked. Connie was only sixteen, but something that is born in woman told her to lower her eyes shyly, and then look up at him quickly beneath her lashes. She was no flirt, but she believed in utiliz- ing her resources. And she saw in a flash that the ruse worked. Then she told him softly, very prettily. "But won't she dislike me if I do?" he asked. "No, she won't," said Connie. "We're a family of good laughers. We enjoy a joke nearly as much when it's on us, as when we are on top." So it was arranged, and shortly after luncheon the young man in the immaculate spring suit took his departure. Then Connie summoned her aunt by phone, and told her she must hasten home to help "get ready for the millionaire's son." It was after two when the twins arrived, and Connie and their aunt hurried them so violently that they hadn't time to ask how Connie got her information. A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 273 "But I hope I'm slick enough to get out of it without lying if they do ask," she told herself. "Prudence says it's not really wicked to get out of telling things if we can manage it." He had arrived ! A millionaire's son ! Instantly their enthusiasm returned to them. The cushions on the couch were carefully arranged for the reclin- ing of the semi-invalid aunt, who, with the sweet young daughter of the home, was up-stairs waiting to be summoned. Connie, with the tennis racquet, was in the shed, waiting to arrive theatrically. Carol, in her trim black gown with a white cap and apron, was a dream. And when he came she ushered him in, curtesy- ing in a way known only on the stage, and took his hat and stick, and said softly: "Yes, sir, please come in, sir, I'll call the ladies." She knew she was bewitching, of course, since she had done it on purpose, and she lifted her eyes just far enough beneath the lashes to give the prop- erly coquettish effect. He caught her hand, and drew her slowly toward him, admiration in his eyes, but trepidation in his heart, as he followed Connie's 274 PRUDENCE SAYS S6 coaching 1 . But Carol was panic-seized, she broke away from him roughly and ran up-stairs, forget- ( ting her carefully rehearsed. "Oh, no, sir, oh, please, sir, you'd better wait for the ladies." But once out of reach she regained her com- posure. The semi-invalid aunt trailed down the stairs, closely followed by the attentive maid to arrange her chair and adjust the silken shawl. Mr. Hedges introduced himself, feeling horribly foolish in the presence of the lovely serving girl, and wish- ing she would take herself off. But she lingered effectively, whisperingly softly: "Shall I lower the window, madame? Is it too cool ? Your bottle, madame !" And the guest rubbed his hand swiftly across his face to hide the slight twitching of his lips. Then the model maid disappeared, and presently the sweet daughter of the house, charming in the gray silk mull and satin slippers, appeared, smiling, talking, full of vivacity and life. And after a while the dashing tennis girl strolled in, smil- ing inscrutably into the eyes that turned so quizzi- cally toward her. For a time all went well. The chaperoning aunt occasionally lifted a dainty A MILLIONAIRE'S SON 275 i cologne bottle to her sensitive nostrils, and the daughter of the house carried out her girlish vivacity to the point of utter weariness. Connie said little, but her soul expanded with.the foretaste of triumph. "Dinner is served, madame," said the soft voice at the door, and they all walked out sedately. Carol adjusted the invalid auntie's shawl once more, and was ready to go to the kitchen when a quiet: "Won't Miss Carol sit down with us?" made her stop dead in her tracks. He had pulled a chair from the corner up to the table for her, and she dropped into it. She put her elbows on the table, and leaning her dainty chin in her hands, gazed thoughtfully at Connie, whose eyes were bright with the fires of victory. "Ah, Connie, I have hopes of you yet,- you are improving," she said gently. "Will you run out to the kitchen and bring me a bowl of soup, my child?" And then came laughter, full and free, and in the midst of it Carol looked up, wiping her eyes, and said: 276 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "I'm sorry now I didn't let you kiss me, just to shock father !" But the visit was a great success. Even Mr. Starr realized that. The millionaire's son remained in Mount Mark four days, the cynosure of all eyes, for as Carol said, "What's the use of bothering with a millionaire's son if you can't brag about him." And his devotion to his father's college chum was such that he wrote to him regularly for a long time after, and came westward now and again to renew the friendship so auspiciously begun. "But you can't all him a problem, father," said Carol keenly. "They aren't problematic until they 'discriminate. And he doesn't. He's as fond of Connie's conscience as he is of my complexion, as far as I can see." She rubbed her velvet skin regretfully. She had two pimples yesterday and he never even noticed them. Then she leaned for- ward and smiled. "Father, you keep an eye on Connie. There's something in there that we aren't on to yet." And with this cryptic remark, Carol turned her attention to a small jar of cold cream the druggist had given her to sample. CHAPTER XVI THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL IT was half past three on a delightful summer afternoon. The twins stood at the gate with two hatless youths, performing what seemed to be the serious operation of separating their various tennis racquets and shoes from the conglomerate jumble. Finally, laughing and tailing back over their shoulders, they sauntered lazily up the walk toward the house, and the young men set off in the direction from which they had come. They were hardly out of hearing distance when the front door opened, and Aunt Grace beckoned hurriedly to the twins. "Come on, quick," she said. '"Where in the world have you been all day? Did you have any luncheon? Mrs. Forrest and Jim were here, and they invited you to go home with them for a week in the country. I said I knew you'd want to go, 277 278 PRUDENCE SAYS SO and they promised to come for you at four, but I couldn't find you any place. I suppose it is too late now. It's " "A week!" "AtForrests'F" "Come on, Lark, sure we have time enough. We'll be ready in fifteen minutes." "Come on up, auntie, we'll tell you where we've been." The twins flew up the stairs, their aunt as close behind as she deemed safe. Inside their own room they promptly, and ungracefully, kicked off their loose pumps, tossed their tennis shoes and racquets on the bed, and began tugging at the cords of their middy blouses. "You go and wash, Carol," said Lark, "while I comb. Then I can have the bathroom to myself. And hurry up! You haven't any time to primp." "Pack the suit-case and the bag, will you, auntie, and" "I already have," she answered, laughing at their frantic energy. "And I put out these white dresses for you to wear, and " "Gracious, auntie! They button in the back ,THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 279 and have sixty buttons apiece. We'll never have time to fasten them," expostulated Carol, without diminishing her speed. "I'll button while you powder, that'll be time enough." "I won't have time to powder," called back Carol from the bathroom, where she was splashing the water at a reckless rate. "I'll wear a veil and powder when I get there. Did you pack any clean handkerchiefs, auntie? I'm clear out. If you didn't put any in, you'd better go and borrow Con- nie's. Lucky thing she's not here." Shining with zeal and soap, Carol dashed out, and Lark dashed in. "Are there any holes in these stockings?" Carol turned around, lifting her skirts for inspection. "Well, I'm sorry, I won't have time to change them. Did they come in the auto? Good!" She was brushing her hair as she talked. "Yes, we had a luncheon, all pie, though. We played tennis this morning; we were intending to come home right along, or we'd have phoned you. [We were playing^ with George Castle and Fritzie Zale. Is it sticking out any place?" She lowered her Head backward 280 PRUDENCE SAYS SO for her aunt to see. "Stick a pin in it, will you? Thanks. They dared us to go to the pie counter and see which couple could eat the most pieces of lemon pie, the couple which lost paying for all tne pie. It's not like betting, you know, it's a kind of reward of merit, like a Sunday-school prize. No, I won't put on my slippers till the last thing, my heel's sore, my tennis shoe rubbed the skin off. My feet seem to be getting tender. Think it's old age ?" Lark now emerged from the bathroom, and both twins performed a flying exchange of dresses. "Who won?" "Lark and George ate eleven pieces, and Fritzie and I only nine. So Fritzie paid. Then we went on the campus and played mumble-te-peg, or what- ever you call it. It is French, auntie." "Did they ask us to stay a whole week, auntie?" inquired Lark. "Yes. Jim was wearing his new gray suit and looked very nice. I've never been out to their home. Is it very nice?" "Um, swell !" This was from Carol, Lark being less slangily inclined. "They have about sixteen rooms, and two maids they call them 'girls'* and THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 281 electric lights, and a private water supply, and and horses, and cows oh, it's great! We've always been awfully fond of Jim. The nicest thing about him is that he always takes a girl home when he goes to class things and socials. I can't endure a fellow who walks home by himself. Jim always asks Larkie and me first, and if we are taken he gets some one else. Most boys, if they can't get first choice, pike off alone." "Here, Carol, you have my petticoat. This is yours. You broke the drawstring, and forgot " "Oh, mercy, so I did. Here, auntie, pin it over for me, will you? I'll take the string along and put it in to-night." "Now, Carol," said Aunt Grace, smiling. "Be easy on him. He's so nice it would be a shame to" Carol threw up her eyes in horror. "I am shocked," she cried. Then she dimpled. "But I wouldn't hurt Jim for anything. I'm very fond of him. Do you really think there are any er indi- jcations " "Oh, I don't know anything about it. I'm just judging by the rest of the community." 282 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Lark was performing the really difficult feat of putting on and buttoning her slippers standing on one foot for the purpose and stooping low. Her face was flushed from the exertion. "Do you think he's crazy about you, Carol ?" she inquired, rather seriously, and without looking up from the shoe she was so laboriously buttoning. "Oh, I don't know. There are a few circum- stances which seem to point that way. Take that new gray suit for instance. Now you know your- self, Lark, he didn't need a new gray suit, and when a man gets a brand-new suit for no apparent rea- son, you can generally put it down that he's waxing romantic. Then there's his mother she's begun telling me all his good points, and how cute he was when he was born, and she showed me one of his curls and a lot of his baby pictures it made Jim wild when he came in and caught her at it, and she tells me how good he is and how much money he's got. That's pointed, very. But I must con- fess," she concluded candidly, "that Jim himself doesn't act very loverly." "He thinks lots of you, I know," said Lark, still THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 283 seriously. "Whenever he's alone with me he praises you every minute of the time." "That's nothing. When he's alone with me he praises you all the time, too. Where's my hat, Lark? I'll bet Connie wore it, the little sinner! Now what shall I do ?" "You left it in the barn yesterday, don't you remember you hung it on the harness hook when we went out for eggs, and " "Oh, so I did. There comes Connie now." Carol thrust her head out of the window. "Con- pie, run out to the barn and bring my hat, will you? It's on the harness hook. And hurry! Don't stop to ask questions, just trot along and do as you're told." Carol returned again to her toilet. "Well, I guess I have time to powder after all. I don't sup- pose we'll need to take any money, auntie, do you? tWe won't be able to spend it in the country." "I think you'd better take a little. They might drive to town, or go to a social, or something." "Can't do it. Haven't a cent." "Well, I guess I can lend you a little," was the 84 PRUDENCE SAYS SO smiling reply. It was a standing joke in the family that Carol had been financially hard pressed ever since she began using powder several years previous. "Are you fond of Jim, Carol?" Lark jumped away backward in the conversation, asking the ques- tion gravely, her eyes upon her sister's face. "Hum! Yes, I am," was the light retort "Didn't Prudence teach us to love everybody?" "Don't be silly. I mean if he proposes to you, are you going to turn him down, or not?" "What would you advise, Lark?" Carol's brows were painfully knitted. "He's got five hundred acres of land, worth at least a hundred an acre, and a lot of money in the bank, his mother didn't say how much, but I imagine several thousand any- how. And he has that nice big house, and an auto, and oh, everything nice ! Think of the fruit trees, Larkie! And he's good-looking, too. And his mother says he is always good natured even before breakfast, and that's very exceptional, you know! Very! I don't know that I could do much better, do you, auntie? I'm sure I'd look cute in a sun- bonnet and apron, milking the cows ! So, boss, so, there, now! So, boss!" THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 285 "Why, Carol!" "But there are objections, too. They have pigs. I can't bear pigs! Pooooey, pooooey! The filthy little things ! I don't know, Jim and the gray suit and the auto and the cows are very nice, but when I think of Jim and overalls and pigs and onions and freckles I have goose flesh. Here they come! Where's that other slipper? Oh, it's clear under the bed !" She wriggled after it, coming out again breathless. "Did I rub the powder all off?" she asked anxiously. The low honk of the fcar sounded outside, and the twins dumped a miscellaneous assortment of toilet articles into the battered suit-case and the tattered hand-bag. Carol grabbed her hat from Connie, leisurely strolling through the hall with it, and sent her flying after her gloves. "If you can't find mine, bring your own," she called after her. Aunt Grace and Connie escorted them trium- phantly down the walk to the waiting car where the young man in the new sentimental gray suit stood beside the open door. His face was boyishly eager, and his eyes were full of a satisfaction that had a sort of excitement in it, too. Aunt Grace 286 PRUDENCE SAYS SO looked at him and sighed. "Poor boy," she thought. "He is nice! Carol is a mean little thing!" He smiled at the twins impartially. "Shall we flip a coin to see who I get in front?" he asked them, laughing. His mother leaned out from the back seat, and smiled at the girls very cordially. "Hurry, twin- nies," she said, "we must start, or we'll be late for \upper. Come in with me, won't you, Larkie?" "What a greasy schemer she is," thought Carol, climbing into her place without delay. Jim placed the battered suit-case and the tattered bag beneath the seat, and drew the rug over his mother's knees. Then he went to Lark's side, and tucked it carefully about her feet "It's awfully dusty," he said. "You shouldn't have dolled up so. Shall I put your purse in my pocket? Don't forget you promised to feed the chickens I'm counting on you to do it for me." Then he stepped in beside Carol, laughing into her bright face, and the good-bys rang back and forth as the car rolled away beneath the heavy arch of oak leaves that roofed in Maple Avenue. The twins fairly reveled in the glories of the THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 287 country through the golden days that followed, and enjoyed every minute of every day, and begrudged the hours they spent in sleep. The time slipped by "like banana skins," declared Carol crossly, and refused to explain her comparison. And the last day of their visit came. Supper was over at seven o'clock, and Lark said, with something of wistful- ness in her voice, "I'm going out to the orchard for a farewell weep all by myself. !And don't any of you disturb me, I'm so ugly when I cry." 'So she set out alone, and Jim, a little awkwardly, suggested that Carol take a turn or so up and down the lane with him. Mrs. Forrest stood at the win- dow and watched them, tearful-eyed, but with ten- derness. "My little boy," she said to herself, "my little boy. But she's a dear, sweet, pretty girl." In the meantime, Jim was acquitting himself badly. His face was pale. He was nervous, ill at ease. He stammered when he spoke. Self-con- sciousness was not habitual to this young man of the Iowa farm. He was not the awkward, ignor- ant, gangling farm-hand we meet in books and see on stages. He had attended the high school in Mount 288 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Mark, and had been graduated from the state agri- cultural college with high honors. He was a farm- er, as his father had been before him, but he was a farmer of the new era, one of those men who takes plain farming and makes it a profession, al- most a fine art. Usually he was self-possessed, as- sertive, confident, but, in the presence of this spark- ling twin, for once he was abashed. Carol was in an ecstasy of delight. She was not a man-eater, perhaps, but she was nearly romance- mad. She thought only of the wild excitement of having a sure-enough lover, the hurt of it was yet a little beyond her grasp. "Oh, Carol, don't be so sweet," Lark had begged her once. "How can the boys help being crazy about you, and it hurts them." "It doesn't hurt anything but their pride when they get snubbed," had been the laughing answer. "Do you want to break men's hearts?" "Well, it's not at all bad for a man to have a broken heart," the irrepressible Carol had insisted. "They never amount to anything until they have a real good disappointment. Then they brace up and amount to something. See? I really think it's a THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 289 kindness to give them a heart-break, and get them started." The callow youths of Mount Mark, of the Ep- worth League, and the college, were almost unani- mous in laying their adoration at Carol's feet. But Carol saw the elasticity, the buoyancy, of loves like these, and she couldn't really count them. She felt that she was ripe for a bit of solid experience now, and there was nothing callow about Jim he was solid enough. And now, although she could see that his feelings stirred, she felt nothing but excitement and curiosity. A proposal, a real one! It was imminent, she felt it. "Carol," he began abruptly, "I am in love." "A-are you?" Carol had not expected him to begin in just that way. "Yes, I have been for a long time, with the sweetest and dearest girl in the world. I know I am not half good enough for her, but I love her so much that I believe I could make her happy." "D-do you?" Carol was frightened. She re- flected that it wasn't so much fun as she had ex- pected. Jhere was something wonderful in his 2 9 o PRUDENCE SAYS SO eyes, and in his voice. Maybe Lark was right, maybe it did hurt! Oh, she really shouldn't have been quite so nice to him! "She is young so am I but I know what I want, and if I can only have her, I'll do anything I " His voice broke a little. He looked very handsome, very grown-up, very manly. Carol quiv- ered. She wanted to run away and cry. She wanted to put her arms around him and tell him she was very, very sorry and she would never do it again as long as she lived and breathed. "Of course," he went on, "I am not a fool. I know there isn't a girl like her in ten thousand, but she's the one I want, and Carol, do you reckon there is any chance for me? You ought to know. Lark doesn't have secrets from you, does she? Do you think she'll have me?" Certainly this was the surprise of Carol's life. If it was romance she wanted, here it was in plenty. She stopped short in the daisy-bright lane and Stared at him. "Jim Forrest," she demanded, "is it Lark you want to marry, or me ?" "Lark, of course!" THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 291 Carol opened her lips and closed them. She did it again. Finally she spoke. "Well, of all the idiots! If you want to marry Lark, what in the world are you out here proposing to me for ?" "I'm not proposing to you," he objected. "I'm just telling you about it." "But what for? What's the object"?! [Why don't you go and rave to her?" He smiled a little. "Well, I guess I thought telling you first was one way of breaking it to her gently." "I'm perfectly disgusted with you," Carol went on, "perfectly. Here I've been expecting you to propose to me all week, and " "Propose to you ! My stars !" "Don't interrupt me," Carol snapped- "Last night I lay awake for hours, look at the rings be- neath my eyes " "I don't see 'em," he interrupted again, smiling more broadly. "Just thinking out a good flowery rejection for you, and then you trot me out here and propose to Lark! Well, if that isn't nerve!" 1 Jim laughed loudly at this. He was used to 292 PRUDENCE SAYS SO Carol, and enjoyed her little outbursts. "I can't think what on earth made you imagine I'd want to propose to you," he said, shaking his head as though appalled at the idea. Carol's eyes twinkled at that, but she did not per- mit him to see it. "Why shouldn't I think so? Didn't you get a new gray suit? And haven't I the best complexion in Mount Mark? Don't all the men want to propose to a complexion like mine?" "Shows their bum taste," he muttered. Carol twinkled again. "Of course," she agreed, "all men have bum taste, if it comes to that." He laughed again, then he sobered. "Do you think Lark will " "I think Lark will turn you down," said Carol promptly, "and I hope she does. You aren't good enough for her. No one in the world is good enough for Lark except myself. If she should ac- cept you I don't think she will, but if she has a mental aberration and does I'll give you my blessing, and come and live with you six months in the year, and Lark shall come and live with me the other six months, and you can run the farm and THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 293 send us an allowance. But I don't think she'll have you; I'll be disappointed in her if she does." Carol was silent a moment then. She was re- membering many things, Lark's grave face that day in the parsonage when they had discussed the love of Jim, her unwonted gentleness and her quiet manners during this visit, and one night when Carol, suddenly awakening, had found her weeping bitterly into her pillow. Lark had said it was a headache, and was better now, and Carol had gone to sleep again, but she remembered now that Lark never had headaches! And she remembered how very often lately Lark had put her arms around her shoulders and looked searchingly into her face, and Lark was always wistful, too, of late! She sighed. Yes, she caught on at last, "had been pushed on to it," she thought angrily. She had been a wicked, blind, hateful little simpleton or she would have seen it long ago. But she said nothing of this to Jim. "You'd better run along then, and switch your proposal over to her, or I'm likely to accept you on my own account, just for a joke. And be sure 294 PRUDENCE SAYS SO and tell her I'm good and sore that I didn't get a chance to use my flowery rejection. But I'm al- most sure she'll turn you down." Then Carol stood in the path, and watched Jim as he leaped lightly over fences and ran through the sweet meadow. She saw Lark spring to her 'feet and step out from the shade of an apple tree, and then Jim took her in his arms. After that, Carol rushed into the house and up the stairs. She flung herself on her knees beside her bed and buried her face in the white spread. "Lark," she whispered, "Lark!" She clenched her hands, and her shoulders shook. "My little twin," she cried again, "my nice old Lark." Then she got up and walked back and forth across the floor. Sometimes she shook her fist. Sometimes a little crooked smile softened her lips. Once she stamped her foot, and then laughed at herself. For an hour she paced up and down. Then she turned on the light, and went to the mirror, where she smoothed her hair and powdered her face as care- fully as ever. "It's a good joke on me," she said, smiling, "but it's just as good a one on Mrs. Forrest. I think ,THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL 295 I'll go and have a laugh at her. And I'll pretend I knew it all along." She found the woman lying in a hammock on the broad piazza where a broad shaft of light from the open door fell upon her. Carol stood beside her, smiling brightly. "Mrs. Forrest," she said, "I know a perfectly delicious secret Shall I tell you?" The woman sat up, holding out her arms. Carol dropped on her knees beside her, smiling mis- chievously at the expression on her face. "Cupid has been at work," she said softly, "and your own son has fallen a victim." Mrs. Forrest sniffed slightly, but she looked lov- ingly at the fair sweet face. "I am sure I can not wonder," she answered in a gentle voice. "Is it all settled?" "I suppose so. A any rate, he is proposing to her in the orchard, and I am pretty sure she's going to accept him." Mrs. Forrest's arms fell away from Carol's shoulders. "Lark!" she ejaculated. "Yes, didn't you know it?" Carol's voice was mildly and innocently surprised. 296 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "Lark!" Mrs. Forrest was plainly dumfound- cd. "I I thought it was you !" "Me!" Carol was intensely astonished. "Me? Oh, dear Mrs. Forrest, whatever in the world made you think that?" "Why I don't know," she faltered weakly, "I just naturally supposed it was you. I asked him once where he left his heart, and he said, 'At the parsonage,' and so of course I thought it was you." Carol laughed gaily. "What a joke," she cried. "But you are more fortunate than you expected, for it is my precious old Larkie. But don't be too glad about it, or you may hurt my feelings." "Well, I am surprised, I confess, but I believe I like Lark as well as I do you, and of course Jim's the one to decide. People say Lark is more sensi- ble than you are, but it takes a good bit of a man to get beyond a face as pretty as yours. I'm kind o' proud of Jim t" CHAPTER XVII THE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE IT took a long time for Carol to recover from the effect of Lark's disloyalty, as she persisted in calling it. For several weeks she didn't twinkle at all. But when at last the smiles came easy again, she wrote to Mr. Duke, her p'fessor no longer, but now a full-fledged young minister. She apologized sweetly for her long delay. "But you will forgive me when you have read this," she wrote. "Cupid is working havoc in our family. Of course, no one outside the home circle knows yet, but I insisted on telling you because you have been such a grand good friend to us for so long. We may seem young to you, because you can't for- get when we were freshmen, but we are really very grown up. We act quite mature now, and never think of playing jokes. ^ But I didn't finish my news, did I? 297 298 PRUDENCE SAYS SO "It is Jim Forrest He was in high school when we were. Remember him? Larkie and I were out to spend a week, and but I needn't go into parti- culars. I knew you would be interested. The whole family is very happy about it, he is a great 'favorite with every one. But how our family is going to pieces! Still, since it is Jim ! He is nice, isn't he? But you wouldn't dare say no." Carol's eyes glittered wickedly as she sealed this letter, which she had penned with greatest care. And a few days later, when the answer came, she danced gleefully up the stairs, not at all "mature" in manner, and locked the door behind her while she read: "Dear Carol: "Indeed I am very interested, and I wish you all the joy in the world. Tell Jim for me how very much I think he is to be congratulated. He seems a fine fellow, and I know you will be happy. It was a surprise, I admit I knew he was doing the very devoted-^-but you have seemed so young to ine, always, I can't imagine you tod grown up ' GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE 299 jokes, though you do sound more 'mature* in this letter than you have before. Lark will be lonely, I am afraid. "I am very busy with my work, so you will un- derstand if my letters come less frequently, won't you? And you will be too busy with your own happiness to bother with an old professor any more anyhow. I have enjoyed our friendship, very much, more than you will ever know, and I want once more to hope you may be the happiest wQjnan in the world. You deserve to be. "Very sincerely your friend, "DAVID A. DUKE/' Carol lay down on the bed and crushed the letter ecstatically between her hands. Then she burst out laughing. Then she cried a little, nervously, and laughed again. Then she smoothed the letter affec- tionately, and curled up on the bed with a pad of paper and her father's fountain-pen to answer the letter. "My dear Mr. Duke: However in the world could you make such a mistake. I've been laugh- 300 PRUDENCE SAYS SO ing ever since I got your letter, but I'm vexed too. He's nice, all right; he's just fine, but I don't want him! And think how annoyed Lark would be if she could see it. I am not engaged to Jim For- rest, nor to any one. It's Lark. I certainly didn't say it was I, did I ? We're all so 'fond of Jim that it really is a pleasure to the whole family to count him one of us, and Lark grows more deliriously joyful all the time. But I! I know you're awfully busy, of course, and I hate to intrude, but you must write one little postal ard to apologize for your error, and I'll understand how hard you are work- ing when you do not write again. "Hastily, but always sincerely, "CAROL." Carol jumped up ancl caught up her hat and rushed all the way down-town to the post-office to get that letter started "for Danville, Illinois, where the Reverend Mr. Duke was located. Her face was so radiant, and her eyes were so heavenly blue, and so sparkling bright, that people on the street turn- ed to look after her admiringly. SHe was feverishly impatient until the answer GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE 301 arrived, and was not at all surprised that it came under special delivery stamp, though Lark lifted her eyebrows quizzically, and Aunt Grace smiled suggestively, and her father looked up with sud- den questioning in his face. Carol made no com- ment, only ran up to her room and locked the door once more. "Carol, you awful little scamp, you did that on purpose, and you know it. You never mentioned Lark's name. Well, if you wanted to give me the scare of my life, you certainly succeeded. I didn't want to lose my little chum, and I knew very well that no man in his proper senses would allow his sweetheart to be as good a comrade to another man as I want you to be to me. Of course I was disappointed. Of course I expected to be busy for a while. Of course I failed to see the sterling worth of Jim Forrest. I see it now, though. I think he's a prince, and as near worth being in your family as anybody could be. I'm sure we'll be great friends, and tell Lark for me that I am wax- ing enthusiastic over his good qualities even to the point of being inarticulate. Tell her how happy I 302 PRUDENCE SAYS SO am over it, a good deal happier than I've been for the past several days, and I am wishing them both a world of joy. I'm having one myself, and I find it well worth having. I could shake you, Carol, for playing such a trick on me. I can just see you crouch down and giggle when you read this. .You wait, my lady. My turn is coming. I think I'll run down to Mount Mark next week to see my uncle he's not very well. Don't have any dates. "Sincerely, D. D." !A!nd Carol laughed again, and wiped Her eyes. The Reverend Mr. Duke's devotion to his elderly uncle in Mount Mark was a most beautiful thing to see. Every few weeks he "ran 1 down for a few: days," and if he spent most of his time recounting his uncle's symptoms before the sympathetic Starrs, no one could be surprised at that. He and Mr. Starr naturally had much in common, both minis- ters, and both at any rate, he was very devoted to his uncle, and Carol grew up very, very fast, and smiled a great deal, but laughed much less fre- quently than in other days. There was a shy sweet- ness about her that made her father watch her anx- iously. "Is Carol sick, Grate?" he asked one day, turn- ing suddenly to his sister-in-law. She smiled curiously. "N-no, I think not Why?" "She seems very sweet." "Yes. She feels very sweet," was the enig- matical response. And Mr. Starr muttered some- thing about women and geometry and went away, shaking his head. And Aunt Grace smiled again. But the months passed away. Lark, not too ab- sorbed in her own happiness to find room for her twin's affairs, at last grew troubled. She and Aunt Grace often held little conferences together when Carol was safely out of the way. "Whatever do you suppose is the matter'?" Lark would wonder anxiously. To which her aunt al- ways answered patiently, "Oh, just wait. He isn't sure she's grown-up enough yet." Then there came a quiet night when Carol and Mr. Duke sat in the living-room, idly discussing the weather, and looking at Connie who was deeply 304 PRUDENCE SAYS SO immersed in a book on the other side of the big reading lamp. Conversation between them lagged so noticeably that they sighed with relief when she finally laid down her book, and twisted around in her chair until she had them both in full view. "Books are funny," she began brightly. "I don't believe half the written stuff ever did happen I don't believe it could. Do girls ever propose, Mr. Duke?'* "No one ever proposed to me," he answered, laughing. "No?" she queried politely. "Maybe no one wanted you badly enough. But I wonder if they ever do? Writers say so. I can't believe it some- how. It seems so well unnecessary, someway. Carol and I were talking about it this afternoon." Carol looked up startled. "What does Carol think about it ?" he queried. "Well, she said she thought in ordinary leases girls were clever enough to get what they wanted without asking for it." Carol moved restlessly in her chair, her lace drooping a little, and Mr. Duke laughed. "Of course, I know none of our girls would doi GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE 305 such a thing," said Connie, serene in her family pride. "But Carol says she must admit she'd like to find some way to make a man say what anybody could see with half an eye he wanted to say any- how, only " Connie stopped abruptly. Mr. Duke had turned to Carol, his keen eyes searching her face, but Carol sank in the big chair and turned her face away from him against the leather cushion. "Connie," she said, "of course no girl would propose, no girl would want to I was only jok- ing-" Mr. Duke laughed openly then. "Let's go and take a walk, shan't we, Carol ? It's a grand night." "You needn't go to get rid of me," said Connie, rising. "I was just going anyhow." "Oh, don't go," said Mr. Duke politely. "Don't go," echoed Carol pleadingly. Connie stepped to the doorway, then paused and looked back at them. Sudden illumination came to her as she scanned their faces, the man's clear-cut, 'determined, eager Carol's shy, and scared, and hopeful. She turned quickly back toward her sis- ter, pain darkening her eyes. Carol was the last of 306 PRUDENCE SAYS SO all the girls, it would leave her alone, and he was too old for her. Her lips quivered a little, and her face shadowed more darkly. But they did not see it. The man's eyes were intent on Carol's lovely features, and Carol was studying her slender fingers. Connie drew a long breath, and looked down upon her sister with a great protecting tender- ness in her heart. She wanted to catch her up in her strong young arms and carry her wildly out of the room away from the man who sat there waiting for her. Carol lifted her face at that moment, and turned slowly toward Mr. Duke. Connie saw her eyes. They were luminous. Connie's tense figure relaxed then, and she turn- ed at once toward the door. "I am going," she said in a low voice. But she looked back again be- fore she closed the door after her. "Carol," she said in a whisper, "you you're a darling. I I've always thought so." Carol did not hear her, she did not hear the door closing behind her she had forgotten Connie was there. GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE 307 Mr. Duke stood up and walked quickly across the room and Carol rose to meet him. He put his arms about her, strongly, without hesitating. "Carol," he said, "my little song-bird," and he laughed, but very tenderly, "would you like to know how to make me say what you know I want to say ?" "I I " she began tremulously, clasping her hands against his breast, and looking intently, as if fascinated, at his square firm chin so very near her eyes. She had never observed it so near at hand before. She thought it was a lovely chin, in an- other man she would have called it distinctly "bossy." "You would try to make me, when you know; I've been gritting my teeth for years, waiting for you to get grown up. You've been awfully slow about it, Carol, and I've been in such a hurry for you." She rested limply in his arms now, breathing in little broken sighs, not trying to speak. "You have known it a long time, haven't you? And I thought I was hiding it so cleverly." He 3 o8 PRUDENCE SAYS SO drew her closer in his arms. "You are too young for me, Carol," he said regretfully. "I am very old." "I I like 'em old," she whispered shyly. With one hand he drew her head to his shoulder, where he could feel the warm fragrant breath against the "lovely chin." "You like 'them' old," he repeated, smiling. "You are very generous. One old one is all I want you to like." But when he leaned toward her lips, Carol drew away swiftly. "Don't be afraid of me, Carol. You didn't mind once when I kissed you." He laid his hand softly on her round cheek. "I am too old, dearest, but I've been loving you for years I guess. I've been waiting for you since you were a little freshman, only I didn't know it for a while. Say something, Carol I don't want you to feel timid with me. You love me, don't you? Tell me, if you do." "I I." She looked up at him desperately. "I well, I made you say it, didn't I ?" "Did you want me to say it, dearest? Have you been waiting, too? How long have you " GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE 309 "Oh, a long time; since that night among the rose bushes at the parsonage." "Since then?" "Yes; that was why it didn't break my pledge when you kissed me. Because I was waiting then." "Do you love me?" "Oh, P'fessor, don't make me say it right out in plain English not to-night. I'm pretty nearly going to cry now, and " she twinkled a little then, like herself, "you know what crying does to my gom- plexion." But he did not smile. "Don't cry," he said. "We want to be happy to-night. You will tell me to-morrow. To-night " "To-night," she said sweetly, turning in his arms so that her face was toward him again, "to- night " She lifted her arms, and put them softly about his neck, the laces 'falling back and showing her pink dimpled elbows. "To-night, my dear- est, " She lifted her lips to him, smiling. THE END UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 121 397 4