(ARTLEY *^ THE GRAY ANGELS THE GRAY ANGELS BY NALBRO BARTLEY Author of "A Woman's Woman," "Paradise Auction," etc. BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1920, BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCOBPOBATED) THE GRAY ANGELS CHAPTER I The younger generation of Birge's Corners insisted that nothing exciting had happened since Abigail Clergy's love affair in 1867, and the older generation retorted that Thurley Precore, who must have been born in Arcadia, was bound to create excitement. The older generation were content to have time snail over their doorsteps. To their placid minds much had happened and was happening to content any one of nor- mal makeup. Take the Hotel Button what more did any one want than that two-story establishment with ram- shackle outbuildings and a crazy wooden fence about the whole of it? Commercial travellers making the town annually never complained about Prince Hawkins' hos- pitality or Mrs. Prince Hawkins' cooking never. And during one of those comical cold spells, when twenty below zero was registered on the thermometer, the younger gen- eration were mighty glad to end a sleigh ride before the Hotel Button, and have one of Mrs. Prince Hawkins' oyster suppers she had been Lena Button, an only child, and her working like a slave now ... I Also, the upstairs parlor with its flowered carpet and tortured walnut furniture and the same square piano on which Lena Button had learned her " Battle of Prague " the younger generation never thought of refusing the upstairs parlor in which to have a wind-up dance. None of them complained about the slowness of Birge's Corners until the next day I I 2040684 THE GRAY ANGELS As for stores: there was Oyster Jim's confectionery store with a balcony overlooking Lake Birge, and here the younger generation gathered to eat ice cream and drink cream soda. Of course, Oyster Jim's store was not like New York tea-rooms which some of the younger generation had visited and drawn unkind comparisons about, but the ice cream was homemade, and, if he did dilute the cream, the water from Lake Birge was about as good as there was in the state; a chemist had said so. Besides, Oyster Jim's other specialty was canary birds, yellow-throated songsters in every corner of the balcony, and it took a pretty smart man to keep an ice cream store and raise canary birds, to say nothing of selling Ford sup- plies to distressed tourists! Then there was Submit Curler's general store. She was always taking maga- zines to keep "up to snuff" and as for patterns of ginghams and calicos, there were no prettier patterns to be had. When the younger generation said why did Miss Curler insist on selling horse whips and lanterns and year-old hard candies and marbles and soft soap and acorn picture frames and knitted things she made in be- tween rings of the bell, and why didn't she have decent silk waists and neckties and stop calling you by your first name long after your engagement had been an- nounced, to say nothing of wrapping things in newspapers and expecting you to carry them through the streets the older generation sniffed in answer that Submit Curler was one of God's own, and, although Algebra might have been the capital of a foreign country as far as she knew, she had crooned countless teething babies to sleep to give their mothers a rest, and helped lay out the dead and then stayed " behind " to have a piping hot dinner ready when the mourners " came back." Of course the younger generation were not silenced by 2 THE GRAY ANGELS this. They began a complaint about the weekly paper, a ridiculous affair running three-year-old detective serials and month-old national happenings, telling whose veranda was to be painted and who had bought a pair of new ear- laps ! To which the older generation magnanimously re- marked that, as long as " Ali Baba " and Betsey Pilrig had their health, there would be no need for an up-to-date daily newspaper. One did not have to wait until news was gathered, edited and printed. Ali Baba, Abby Clergy's coachman, and Betsey Pilrig, who lived in the yellow house across from Thurley Precore's box-car wagon, kept the village informed of every happening in such rapid-fire fashion that the need for a daily sheet was never experienced ! Granting this where was there any society? To which the older generation answered, indignantly, that nowhere in the United States of America HAD there existed such society, elegance and grandeur as at the sum- mer colony on Birge's Lake, and, if those days were con- temporary with Abigail Clergy's great sorrow, what mat- tered it? The aroma of past grandeur lingers long, and even yet the stately mansions with endless turrets and towers stood about the shores of the lake causing one to respect their closed shutters. To this the younger generation, although protesting that the society was entirely a memory, had no reply. For the older generation had spoken the truth. About the perfect little lake, an emerald in its coloring and flanked by pungent pine woods and an amphitheater of tiny hills, some half a century before, had been built the summer homes of the oldest of America's aristocracy. In those days when Birge's Corners was but a post office and a few stray dogs, the lake had been an oasis for the tired rich; here families came to grow tanned 3 THE GRAY ANGELS and rosy, while love affairs ripened and wedding bells were listened for and the elders sat back in pleased approval. The rich owned the lake, so the saying went but Daniel Birge owned the Corners and the rich! Daniel Birge was steward to the rich. If they desired an improvement in the way of carriage sheds or certain grades of merchandise which were daily necessities, Dan- iel Birge, founder of Birge's Corners, saw to it that it was accomplished. The lake had been named for his great-great-grandfather, who discovered it, and, when the richest of the rich suggested that " Birge's Lake " was a trifle commonplace name for such a bit of paradise " Fairy Lake " would be more appropriate they met their Waterloo. This was the only thing Daniel Birge refused the rich the re-naming of the little lake. " Great-great-grandpap found it, and it'll keep his name," was all he said. And because Dan Birge " had a way with him " even as his grandson, the present Dan Birge, had a " way with him " the summer colony never questioned the matter again. Birge's Lake and Birge's Corners were chris- tened for eternity. Meanwhile, middle class inhabitants came to live at the Corners, houses multiplied from season to season, the Hotel Button came into existence, as did rival black- smiths' shops and Submit Curler's store. Even a travel- ling dentist took rooms at Betsey Pilrig's for every Thurs- day, and the Methodist and Baptist churches ran a race as to the height of their steeples. Time soon enough changed the ways and the likings of the rich. The old homes came to be rented out or closed for two and three years at a time. Some were put on the market, but no one ever bought them. Well-built man- sions they were, with twenty and thirty rooms and 4 grounds extending back for half an acre, stables with rooms for the coachman's family, private boat landings, romantic rustic arbors where tea used to be served, and summer houses with lacey latticework where debutantes gathered to read Tennyson and their own love letters. Birge's Corners built up so rapidly that the decline of Birge's Lake was scarcely noticed. One by one the fam- ilies stopped coming to the lake for the summer. There were newer, more luxurious or more isolated places their younger generation complained of the lack of thrill- ing events. The " ghost village " it was truthfully called, house after house lying idle, save for stray spar- rows or squirrels who burrowed snugly in the eaves. " Ali Baba " Joshua Maples in writing was made general caretaker. One by one the families left him in charge of the ghost mansions. He knew just which room it was where the Confederate captain married the Boston belle, and how many roses had been used in the decora- tions. He could tell the exact spot in the Luddington house where young Luddington had shot himself the night before his theft of bank funds should be made pub- lic. A stranger could not point at any of the deserted man- sions but what Ali Baba, taking off his tattered hat and scratching his white, curly head philosophically, would summon a word picture of the past, when the curly head had been black and the wrinkled face smooth and boyish. ' They say society has all gone to live at Newport in the summer," Ali Baba would summarize. " Well, mebbe they has. All I know is this that right here at Birge's Lake from 1860 to 1890 for nigh thirty years, there wasn't no place in the land that could boast of entertaining any finer. We've had three presidents come fishing right there by that landing and Patti 5 THE GRAY ANGELS sang ' The Last Rose of Summer ' in that big house over there the one with the gables. I passed the punch afterwards yes, sir, right up to time I was, in a new dress suit Major McAndrews bought me. I never heard nobody sing as she did and the wimmen said her pink satin train was six feet long. Well, I'll take that back I have heard it sung as good and mebbe better by a girl right in this village a nightingale girl named Thurley Precore. "That Swiss cha-/#y over there was built in 1878 by Hugo Fiske he and his bride were going to come here summers she died the day before the wedding, and he come on here, as soon as she was buried, and stayed all alone, his wedding bags and finery stacked in the hall and never unpacked. He kept trampin', trampin', trampin' through the woods and around the lake, never speakin' to a soul. By and by, when he had walked it all out, he come to the livery and asked to be taken to the train. I happened to be handy then, and so I drove him over. When I helped him out and toted his bags, he says to me, ' Ali Baba, tell Abby Clergy I under- stand ' and he never come back again." Here the old man would become uncommunicative, and, when the stranger would idly ask, " Who was Abby Clergy? " all the answer would be was: " His neighbor." Then the stranger might suggest the danger of bur- glars. To which Ali Baba would answer: " I guess you don't know these parts oh, we got a few burglars robins and chipmunks and that kind. If the stranger asked u Why are you called Ali Baba? " looking with interest at his rosy old face, Ali Baba would bid him good-by without further ado and make his way homeward, past Birge's Corners to Birge's Lake to a 6 THE GRAY ANGELS certain red brick mansion, with every shuttered window fastened tight, save those at the back, and the gleam of lights showing from upper front windows. AH Baba would find his way to the back of the house, tiptoeing meekly inside an immaculate summer kitchen to find his widowed sister, Hopeful Whittier, to whom he would say: " Land sakes and Mrs. Davis, I got talkin' again over to Oyster Jim's a fellow in one of those gosh-darn leather coats seems to me he never would stop askin' questions! " Hopeful, stern and forbidding in her slate-colored calico, would answer, " AH Baba, do you know Miss Abby has been waiting it is PAST four o'clock? " Without delay AH Baba would rush to the barn and in magical order arrange a shining, old-style harness on an iron gray mare, hitch the same to an old-style, closed coupe padded with scarlet silk, shades of past glory! On the coupe door was a monogram A. C., entwined with plumes and fleur-de-lis. Donning a black frock coat and silk hat, both slightly green when the sun met them unex- pectedly, Ali Baba would mount the coach seat, and, with a grave " Come on, Melba," to the mare, would cause her to stalk sedately out of the barn, down the gravel path to the side porch where the carved door would open and a peculiar little person, seemingly very old, would step outside. She would be dressed in a long out-of-date black coat and a round, felt hat fastened under her chin by an elastic. Her shoes would be rough and shabby, and her gray hair betray itself as fastened in an unbecom- ing " button " under her hat. As she would put one hand on the coupe door, it would show itself to be yel- lowed and feeble. She never wore gloves, but the most beautiful rings in the world sparkled innocently on the 7 THE GRAY ANGELS small fingers, pigeon blood rubies, white water diamonds, a black pearl, emeralds and sapphires, and on her thumb was a great cameo ring held in place by a jewelled guard. Around this small person's neck would be a thick, old- style braided watch chain, at the end of which dangled glassless, gold lorgnettes which she never used. As she lifted her face to Ali Baba's respectfully inclining ear to say the same phrase she had said for thirty-five years " An hour's drive, Ali Baba, not too fast," one could see that she had dark, restless eyes and a thin, sharp face, a flexible mouth drawn into a melancholy expression and a bulging forehead bespeaking more brains than are usual. The coupe door would close and down would come the faded scarlet curtains. Ali Baba, laying the whip a full eight inches above Melba's iron-gray back, would then effect a triumphant exit out of the driveway. So it was that Miss Clergy, sole occupant of the ghost village, drove at four each day of the year, rain or shine, save when the snow piled too high to let the old-fashioned sledge proceed. " An hour's drive, Ali Baba, not too fast " had become a village slogan. No one ever questioned Ali Baba concerning Miss Clergy, or commented on the appearance of the coupe with its white-haired driver and curtained occupant, until, in the year nineteen hundred and twelve, something else very thrilling happened in Birge's Corners, something which made Abigail Clergy's love tragedy seem remote, scarcely worth remembering. The person concerned in the event had been told the real story of Abigail Clergy, and why Joshua Maples was called " Ali Baba," and why Miss Clergy drove at four, always alone and with the curtains drawn, and why the children were afraid of her and called her witch, trying 8 THE GRAY ANGELS to make their mothers admit that the Clergy house was haunted. That person was Thurley Precore born in Arcadia, the Corners admitted, although they did not call it by that name. They said, " Wherever Thurley Pre- corne managed to get that smile and face and voice of hers and to sing more and more like an angel when every one knew " and so forth and so on, the deduction ar- rived at being that God had let Himself realize His dream of beauty when He created Thurley Precore Thurley with the most worthless, indifferent parents about whom the Corners had ever heard tell. Thurley was twenty when the " thrilling event " hap- pened. But her advent into the Corners ten years before is worth recording. To the older generation, in fact, it had been a happening of great interest, and, had it not taken place, the really thrilling event in 1912 could never have occurred. But younger generations never consider the law of cause and effect, so they shrugged their shoul- ders in impatience when their elders insisted on re-telling to out-of-town visitors how Thurley Precore first " sang for her supper." CHAPTER II There had driven into the stableyard of the Hotel Button a queer box-car wagon on rickety yellow wheels, unwillingly pulled by tired nags. The wagon had a hope-to-die roof and a smokestack. On the driver's seat was a ragged man and an impetuous young person in faded blue gingham. The impetuous young person was driving and singing " God Be With Us Till We Meet Again" unconscious of the beauty of her voice. Her father nodded approval, as the song ended and the wagon halted before the stable door. As the story goes, young Dan Birge and Lorraine McDowell, the minister's only child, were playing hop-scotch in imminent danger of the horses' feet. They paused to stare at the newcomers. The young person had begun in business- like fashion: " I want to speak to the pro-pry-e-tor. My name is Thurley, Thurley Precore, and this is my dad. He's awful sick. We come all the way from Boulder, out in Colorado I guess you don't know where that is, but it's miles'n' miles from here. My ma is sick, too, she's lyin' down inside, and she'll have to see a doctor right off. Where is the pro-pry-e-tor? Ain't you listening to me? We sell tinware why, say, our pots and pans can't be beat nor matched. Even the gypsies said so when we camped with 'em at Lisbon, Ohio. Isn't it so, pa?" turning her flushed, lovely face to the man beside her. "I guess if you says it is it is," he chuckled. " Ladies and gentlemen," he added to the astonishment 10 THE GRAY ANGELS of the boy and girl, " what Thurley says goes she's been runnin' this family for enough years to prove that she kin," the chuckle ended in a hollow cough. Then, the wretched lace-curtained window was pushed open, and a woman's faded face appeared, a vapid, sense- less face with dyed blond hair and china-doll blue eyes; a wisp of pink ribbon showed about her drawn throat. " Dear me, Cornelius, don't stand here all day," she began fretfully. " Thurley, come right inside and git on some decent duds. I guess folks think, because we're travellin' in a wagon, that we ain't no better than gypsies well, every one has their high days AND their low ones. If my father could see me now ! " Her thin hands loaded with cheap rings lifted into view and twelve-year- old Daniel Birge, counted as the gallows' brightest pros- pect, nudged Lorraine McDowell, the only girl he ever played with because his father made him until they both laughed. " Of all the bringin' up ! " floated out in thin, melan- choly tones. " Cornelius, are you goin' to set there like a bump on a log and have me laffed at? " But Thurley had jumped down and with clenched fists approached Daniel and Lorraine. She paused, woman- like, to give vent to her opinion before she should strike. Just then Prince Hawkins and his wife and Betsey Pilrig and her lame grandchild, Philena, gathered as spectators. They said afterwards that all the devils in the world seemed flashing from the strange child's blue eyes. She was barefoot and ragged; her dress far too short for her long-legged, awkward self, and her mop of brown hair in a disorderly braid. But she had a fine, strong body, despite the ragged dress, and, although she possessed not a single regular feature, there was a prophecy of true greatness in her face. ii THE GRAY ANGELS Daniel and Lorraine stared at the brown, clenched fists. They were the ordinary, well-dressed, well-nour- ished children to be seen in such a backwoods town as Birge's Corners. " Now you laff again," Thurley commanded. " Laff go on let me hear you. I want to tell you I got a sick pa and ma, and we certainly have played hard luck all the way from Boulder, Colorado. I guess, if you had any manners, you'd not laff at us. Not if we do peddle tinware and tell fortunes by tea leaves. We ain't always done it, and we ain't always goin' to. But we're in hard luck don't you understand? And don't you dare to laff when my ma talks or call us gypsies. We're white folks, but we're just a little bit discouraged," her angry voice betrayed a quiver. The others had gathered nearer to hear what was being said, looking up at the driver's seat to where the wreck of a man sat smoking his corn-cob pipe, secure in the defense established by his small virago. " I tell you right now," Thurley's mother supple- mented, " that, when I had my health and was on the stage, I could have bought and sold the whole town. My father was a real Kentucky colonel, and I was brought up to never lift a finger " At which Thurley's father took his pipe from his mouth long enough to say, " Shut up, Jen; let the kid give it to 'em she knows how." Thurley took up the burden of defense. " We want the pro-pry-e-tor. We want to camp here to-night, and get some vittles and we'll give him the loveliest new tins as bright as silver. Where is the pro-pry-e-tor? " Prince Hawkins and his wife, taking pity on the child, came to her rescue. " Oh, pshaw, I don't believe we want none of them 12 THE GRAY ANGELS tins ! " Mrs. Hawkins said. " We got more now than we ever use." Tears gathered in Thurley's eyes. She turned her head so they would remain a secret. "Maybe you'd like your fortunes told?" suggested Mrs. Precore from the window ledge. " Honest, I cer- tainly have told some remarkable things why, a Chi- cago finan-seer wanted me to settle in Chicago so he could get my advice as to the stock exchange " Here she gave way to coughing and vanished completely. u My ma and pa is too sick to work," Thurley added, determined to gain her point. " I got to get a doctor for them to-morrow. We was headin' for a city, but we sort of run out of supplies " She bit her underlip. " Maybe you'd like a stewpan? " she coaxed of Betsey Pilrig. " Take it, granny," Philena whispered. " Lemme see it," Betsey answered. Thurley tore inside the wagon to re-appear with a motley collection of flimsy tins, bent and battered from their long journey. A titter ran around the crowd. With the courage born of despair Thurley threw back her head and cried out, "Well, then, if nobody wants to buy anything I kin sing for our supper! " " All right, you poor lamb," Mrs. Prince Hawkins answered, " sing for us, and we'll see that you get a good hot supper." Thurley's father took his pipe out of his mouth again to say, " She kin sing, ma'am." So Thurley, mounting a step of the wagon, began " Be- lieve Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms," the sun shining on her dark head, lighting up unexpected glints of Titian red. A passing teamster paused to listen, THE GRAY ANGELS and applauded when she had finished, and the circle of critics were awed and quiet. For the ragged child seemed to vanish; she was merely the instrument for the glorious voice unhampered by artificial notions. Thurley sang as she had always done, winning for the inefficient parents "life's sinking ships," some one had called them their food and keep. " Sing us another, and you can stay another day," Prince Hawkins called out as the applause ceased. Thurley responded graciously with : There was an old man and he had a wooden leg, He had no tobacco, nor tobacco could he beg. Another old man had a wooden box, And he always kept tobacco in the old tobacco box. Said the first old man, " Gimme a chew." Said the second old man, " Durned if I do. Take my advice and save up your rocks And you'll always have tobacco in the old tobacco box ! " " I know dozens," she announced happily, as she hopped down on to the ground, " but, if you don't mind, I'd rather have supper now and sing some more to- morrow." " Drive into that shed," Prince Hawkins told her. " You come around to the kitchen I guess your pa can unhitch, can't he? " Thurley laughed. " Dear, no makes him cough he's got a pain in his side, too. I sang four songs in the last town for painkiller, but it didn't do him any good over there, pa, dear I'll be with you in a minnit." She watched the rickety wagon creak towards the shed. Betsey Pilrig and Philena crowded about Thurley. " Is your mother awful sick, too? " Betsey asked. Thurley nodded. " Always been sick guess she al- 14 THE GRAY ANGELS ways will be. Pa has been sick, too . ever since I re- member anything." "Where are their folks?" Mrs. Hawkins demanded. " Somebody ought to look after them I " " Guess they haven't any," Thurley answered easily. u Guess they're all dead or something." She looked reproachfully at Daniel and Lorraine, who had retreated several feet away. " Guess you won't laff again," she said imperiously. She passed them with an absurd swagger, and a mo- ment later they saw her unhitching the tired nags with the dexterity of a groom. " I swan," Mrs. Hawkins said to Betsey Pilrig, w that mite carin' for those worthless beggars gettin' her to sell their old pans did you ever see such blue eyes and did you ever, ever hear any one sing like that? She'll be famous, if she don't starve to death takin' care of them first!" " Granny," said Philena Pilrig, being lame Philena never played with other children "I love that little girl; ask her to come see me." " She don't have time for visiting, I guess," her grand- mother answered. " We'll send her something nice t5 eat; she'd rather have that." Behind the woodpile Daniel and Lorraine were talking it over. u I'm sorry I laughed," Lorraine said penitently. " You made me my father don't let me laugh at poor folks." " Because he's a minister I laughed because it was funny," Dan retorted, his dark eyes flashing, " and I bet now that what's her name? Thurley would have laughed too, if she could have looked in a glass and seen herself. I like her. I bet she wouldn't cry, if she got 15 THE GRAY ANGELS lost in the woods." This with a reproachful expression. Lorraine moved nearer him. " Dan, I didn't really cry; I was just nervous. Maybe I can do things this girl can't; anyhow, I don't go around in a ragged dress and my hair all rumpled," and she smoothed the pattern of her pink frock proudly. She was fair-haired with dove- colored eyes and tiny, dainty features. Dan did not answer. Lorraine touched his arm. " Are you mad? " she whispered earnestly. " Not mad, but you know, Lorraine, I only play with you because my father makes me because your father's the minister and pa thinks it looks well." Daniel pos- sessed the aggressive frankness of the Birge family, but he had no* acquired their customary diplomacy. Lorraine's underlip quivered. " Wouldn't you play with me, unless I was? " she asked wistfully. " I always liked you best of every one." Daniel stared at her in contempt. " I like you but you're a girl, and I like the gang better I bet though that now what was it? Thurley I bet Thurley would be one of the gang, as if she were a fellow." "So you like that ragged girl?" Lorraine asked in alarm. Dan nodded. " When she sang, my heart beat loud, and she looked at me more'n she did the rest. I'm going to tell her I'm sorry I laughed." Lorraine turned to leave him. " My father won't want me playing with you, Dan, even if your great-great- great-grandfather did discover the lake and your father has money. Everybody knows your father has a gam- bling room and sells beer on Sunday now ! And if you play with a tin peddler's girl, my father won't let me play with you tra-la-la " She began singing shrilly. 16 THE GRAY ANGELS " If I was you, I wouldn't try to sing after what we've just heard," Dan flung back defiantly, " and, when your father wants a new roof on his old church or another carpet, he'll be glad enough to take my father's saloon money." With which they parted, Lorraine repairing to the parsonage with her budget of woes, and Dan striding across to the box-car wagon, to knock at the door. Thurley's mother appeared. "What is it, boy?" she demanded fretfully. " Dear me, I was napping and you woke me up with such a start my head aches. Thurley, here's that boy that laffed." Dan took the opportunity to peer inside the wagon. To his mind such an existence would be unquestionably jolly, traveling, traveling, traveling, with no school, no rules or regulations whatsoever. He had a good mind to bind himself out to the Precore family then and there, despite the fact of being Daniel Birge's only child and the wealthiest boy in the place, as his father often told him. Inside the wagon was a rude partition. Thurley was busied with something in the front. The stock in trade of tins lined the walls, jangling discordantly on the slightest provocation. Faded stage photographs in plush frames punctuated the row of cakepans from the stewing kettles, and between the stewing kettles and the frying pans were some of Thurley's contraptions hand-colored " ladies," which she had cut from fashion books or magazines and pasted on the wall. There was a rickety lounge with a red velvet " throw," and an attempt at an easy chair, a tiny oil stove and a wretched cupboard which resembled Mother Hubbard's concerning contents. Scraps of car- pet were on the floor, a packing trunk held the Precore wardrobe. An alarm clock minus one hand, but ticking THE GRAY ANGELS bravely, a copy of " Dreams and Premonitions," a palm leaf fan, an old accordion, some greasy playing cards, whiskey bottles, kerosene lamps, a green penholder with- out any point and a few yellow-backed novels were the ornaments. The other side of the partition was evi- dently sleeping quarters. Thurley appeared to demand indignantly, "Well going to laff again? " " Come outside," Dan ordered, looking darkly at Thurley's mother. Thurley followed, her mother flopping down on the lounge and calling to Cornelius to bring her some tea. Outside the wagon Daniel halted, coming up close to Thurley and adopting a confidential tone of voice. " I'm Daniel Birge," he said. " My great-great-great- grandfather discovered this lake, and I guess you'll hear all about our family if you stay here long enough. My father owns that brick building down there. It's a sa- loon and a blacksmith shop and a real estate office all in one. Ain't that awful?" This with a boy grimace. u When I'm a man, it's going to be a big department store. All the good folks in this town expect to see me go to hell." Being the only boy officially allowed to swear, Dan waited for her to be shocked. But Thurley settled herself on the steps of the wagon, hugging her long legs up under her. " I suppose there'll be some nice people in hell," she commented by way of comfort. Daniel drew out a sheet of paper. " I'm going to have Ali Baba print this in big letters on a card and stick it up over the barn, but maybe it would show better if I put it on your wagon 'cause everybody will come to see that, and so they'd see my card." Thurley read the offered paper: 18 THE GRAY ANGELS Big Show to-morrow in D. Birge's barn D. Birge manager Peple our age ten pins. Children five pins See the great swinging man and Mising link. Come early but one performance so why mis it ? "Are you twelve years old?" was all Thurley com- mented, handing it back. Dan nodded. " Can't I put it on your wagon, Thur- ley? " He spoke her name softly, as if uncertain of his right. " You haven't spelled people nor missing as it is in books," she corrected, a small finger pointing out his errors. " What difference does that make? Folks know what you mean. As long as you make folks know what you mean, you don't have to waste time learning how to spell and that truck my father don't make me go to school, no siree, not if I don't want to go; he never went much nor his father nor his father nor his father ! " he asserted. " We just about own the Corners, too. There ain't any- body for miles around that dares sass my father. We started the rich folks coming to this lake, and we got a lot of their trade, and my father can buy any man in this town and then tell him where to get off even the minis- ter so there 1 What's the good of spelling words right?" For the first time in his life, however, Dan seemed anxious to meet with approval. When he told the gang his opinions, they listened respectfully, for did not Dan Birge have hip-boots and a bicycle with a coaster brake, to say nothing of unlimited spending money and permission cruel, unjust world ! to skip school and go swim- 19 THE GRAY ANGELS ming whenever he liked! True, there were things Dan Birge did not have he had no mother, no one to take care of him when he was sick, no home but boys did not analyze these things. They only knew that Dan Birge and his father lived at the Hotel Button like real travelling-men, and young Dan wore better clothes and swore more profusely and had his own way more than any one else in the Corners. His father, rough, shaggy- haired, black-eyed pirate that he was, feared by all, treated this only child as something to be revered and indulged to the point of absurdity. He was the only human being Dan Birge had ever loved, for he had not loved the frail little woman who had taken his name and his tempers borne his son and died with a faint sigh of relief. Some claimed there was Indian blood in Dan Birge. The ancestor discovering the lake had been a trapper and hunter, and many said this ancestor's wife was no less than a Mohawk squaw. Certain it was that Dan's grace- ful self, with dark eyes and olive skin and the mop of blue-black hair which would not " stay put," could have been called proof of the rumor, also his loyal, gener- ous actions towards the few he liked, and the cold-blooded revenge he executed towards an enemy. As for the Birge temper, surely it suggested tomahawks, scalping and being burnt at the stake, with its relentless whirlwind of expression once roused. Dan Birge's father had the sense to know he was a madman when he was in a rage and he would lock himself in a room, because he was not responsible for his actions, and wait until the spasm had been expended. His son Dan, having had little to rouse his temper, had not yet been forced to such a procedure. Something in the boy's dignified manner, a deviation from his father's 20 THE GRAY ANGELS blustering self, would indicate that young Dan's temper could remain at white heat, influencing his actions almost to madness long after his father's more dramatic rage had died away and humiliating remorse set in. There was, as well, a superstition about the fate of a woman who would marry a Birge, for all the Birges' wives, excepting the rumored squaw, had been adoring, meek individuals who lived until they bore a son and then died, leaving some one else to bring him up ! Dan had been raised by Submit Curler, Oyster Jim, Ali Baba, Betsey Pilrig, Hopeful Whittier and him- self. He began domineering over his father, as a new tyrant always wins easily over an old one, before he was a year old. At three the Corners looked aghast at his antics, and shivered at his vocabulary. " Well," Thurley Precore answered with spirit equal to Dan's, " you think you're smart, because your pa has money, but there's lots of people smarter than your pa, and I think, if a man has to choose between knowing how to spell and everything and having a little money, he bet- ter choose learning. Because he'll be smart enough to think up a way to take money from the man that don't know anything. Wait and see. You better go to school while you got the chance and learn you'll need it some day. My goodness, I wisht we'd ever stop in one place long enough to let me go to school. I have to just grab for all I know. The longest we stay anywheres is win- ters out in Iowa and an old hoss thief, Aggie Tim, traveled with us for awhile and he taught me my tables and lightnin' calculating. I bet you don't know any I bet I know more'n you do " " I bet you don't," Dan retorted. " Name the presidents of the United States," pointing an accusing finger at him. 21 THE GRAY ANGELS " McKinley but he's shot and we got Roosevelt," Daniel bragged. " I mean from the start of this country Washing- ton" " Oh, sure, everybody knows about him, he never told a lie like fun he didn't we don't have school on his birthday. But I never have to go to school, if I don't want to. I can stay in bed until nine o'clock and have pork sausage and griddle cakes and coffee sent up to my room. I can make Mrs. Hawkins send 'em up, even if she puts it on the bill my father lets me and he gives me a dollar at a time and lets me spend it as I like. Sometimes he gives me beer to drink, and he takes me to cities on convention trips he belongs to lodges and he gets himself made delegate you ought to see the hotels we stay at with music playing for all the meals. I get a new suit and a whole lot of stuff to play with and so much candy that I have to stay in bed and just holler with the stomach-ache there ! " He paused with a characteris- tic Birge tilt of the head. Thurley's eyes were serious as she answered, " I'm sorry for you. When you're a man and have a little boy, I hope you'll bring him up better than you have been brought up. You'll go to jail, if you keep on acting so wicked." " Jail? Why, my pa knows the sheriff an' everybody. I guess he knows the president." " If he knows so many people and is so smart, why don't he live some place besides this funny town? " Thur- ley demanded. This stumped Dan for a moment, then he answered, " His property is here and he can do what he's a mind to. If he moved to a city, he'd have to get acquainted with all the police and everything see? " 22 THE GRAY ANGELS " I don't like that. I guess you better not introduce me to your father; I wouldn't approve of him. I won't live in a little town. I want to be famous and have every one know me, when I drive through the streets, and have people throw flowers at me, when I sing. I want to do something wonderful and good!" she ended em- phatically. 44 What could you do? " sneered Dan. Stung by the inference, she took hold of his shoulders and gave him a sound shaking. " I told you sing sing sing, you silly boy that can't spell and eats too much candy. I can sing, and nobody can take that away from me or make me stop." She released him unexpectedly, and he fell backwards over the step. He picked himself up in amazement, col- lecting his thoughts and saying slowly, " If you were a boy, I'd lick you." " Dare you go on pretend I am a boy." She thrust her bare foot across the imaginary, forbidden line drawn by opponents. Dan laughed. " Honest, I like you too much. You ain't a coward like Lorraine McDowell; she cries if a little bit of a toad hops her way. She likes me more'n I like her and I hate that." " Was that Lorraine with the pretty dress? " Thur- ley's red lips twitched impatiently. " Oh, she's got lots of dresses she's always having parties and speaking in school, but she's a cry-baby. Just because she's the minister's daughter she thinks she's got to be in everything. . . . Thurley, what words was spelled wrong in that circus poster?" Dan's dark eyes looked humbly at the new tyrant. " I'm taller'n you," he could not refrain from adding. " People p-e-o-p-l-e and two ss's in missing." 23 THE GRAY ANGELS " I'll change 'em, if you'll come." " If I can find the pins." " No, you come and sing, and I'll write on here, ' Hear the wonderful singer from way out west; she has travelled miles to get here.' It'll be the next best thing to the swinging man." " All right." Thurley clapped her hands. " Who is the swinging man? " " Why, me," he answered, in innocent surprise at her question. " Is Lorraine going to be in it? " " Not much ! She's got to get pins and come and watch us." " Then I'll sing, because I don't think I like ministers' children." This was another bond between them. But Dan's way of showing it was to ask, " Where do you go to win- ters?" " Mostly the winter quarters of O'Brien's circus. Ma used to pose in living pictures with one of the O'Brien girls and that's why we got invited. The quarters are out in Iowa, and it's just like having a real house and home. Sometimes acrobats that got hurt during the sea- son rest up, or clowns, and one winter we had the india- rubber man and his wife, the bearded woman; and he taught me a lot of songs and she showed me two fancy steps in dancing. Of course, the nicest part is having the animals." "Animals?" demanded Dan incredulously. "You mean circus animals? " " Sure, that's what the quarters are for tigers and bears and monkeys and an elephant or two and a lion, and, for the last two winters, I was big enough to help rub in the tonic." 24 THE GRAY ANGELS Dan's eyes were aflame with curiosity. " Tonic? " he whispered. " What are you trying to hand me? " New worlds were rapidly opening for the young czar. " Skin tonic to get their coats in shape for the open- ing on Decoration Day. Sometimes they're as glossy as silk by spring. Pa and Ma used to do it when I was too little, but their coughs got awful bad, so I took the job." " You mean you swear to goodness," Dan's voice sunk to an excited whisper, " you rubbed tonic on on a tiger?" Thurley nodded carelessly; she saw no cause for agi- tation. " Yes, they need a lot almost as much as the giraffe his neck's so long. After we used pails of it on the giraffe, he died wasn't that tough beans? The men holds 'em and we keep pouring it on and rubbing it on they get real used to it after awhile most of 'em haven't any teeth anyhow. I wouldn't be scared of any circus animal, if I had a pail of our tonic with me they all know it for an old friend. It comes in a big, red pail labelled 'Ma Thorpe's Sheep Dip Cures Man and Beast Alike.' Why, one clown was the baldest thing you ever saw and he nearly beat the Sutherland Sisters at their own game when spring came, and the bearded lady never sat down for a moment that she wasn't dipping her hand in a little saucer of it and rubbing it on her chin." '* I declare," sighed Dan, fairly writhing with envy. "What else do you do?" " Paint the props over, and the clown practises his shines, and Ma and the bearded lady went over all the property tights and costumes and darned and washed 'em and sewed on new spangles. It was like a real family. You know," she edged up confidentially, " I always played that it was a family with the india-rubber man and his wife for the father and mother, and the clowns and acro- 25 THE GRAY ANGELS bats for uncles and aunts, and all the animals except the snakes were my brothers and sisters. I played the snakes were out-of-town relations." " And what were your own father and mother? " Dan managed to inquire. 11 Merely neighbors," Thurley said with chilly polite- ness. Presently Dan sighed, " I wisht you'd stay in this town. Don't your father or mother ever work or anything? " " They're sick. I guess I ought to have been their father and mother. All the way here I sung for food and sold tins. Ma didn't tell but two fortunes all the time. She got a summer squash for one and some lake trout for the other." " Then you're dead poor," the boy was thinking out loud. " Yes, but when I'm big and can sing in a hall and get a dollar a night then we won't be poor. We can travel in steam cars and Pa can have all the painkiller he likes, and Ma can just lay on a sofa and read novels and cry." Dan put his hand in his pocket and drew out some money. " Thurley, I want to honest buy some pans can I how much ? " u You're giving me money for something you don't want! " "By George, listen to her!" he informed the tired horses nibbling at posts. " I do, too I want to put 'em away for Mrs. Hawkins' Christmas present." " She said she didn't need any. Didn't you hear? " " But presents ain't what you need, but what you get." " I couldn't you're just being nice." " Well, I tell you I'm manager of the show and I can pay you to sing, can't I? " 26 THE GRAY ANGELS Thurley's eyes brightened. Dreams do come true, if one is patient. " Yes, I'd take money for singing," she admitted. "How much?" " A cent a song to begin with if I take well, you can make it two." Dan emptied the money into her ragged lap. " It's about a dollar and you can sing a hundred songs." " At one performance? " " No, we're going to South Wales and Pike and give our show." " Thurley, come in quick, your ma's took bad," called a weak voice from within. " I guess she'll have to be rubbed." " I'll have to go thanks, Dan." " Good-by, Thurley; I hope she's not awful sick to-morrow " " To-morrow," she waved one hand, the other holding the tattered dress skirt with its burden of coins. Half an hour later Mrs. Hawkins, coming to the box wagon to find out why the travellers had not appeared for their supper, found Thurley and her father kneeling be- side the lounge. " She must have died just as I come in," Mrs. Haw- kins told the neighbors. " Poor little lamb, blessed if she didn't start right in to comfort that miserable dad of hers ! Well, I guess them bosses will stay unhitched for some time to come ! " 27 CHAPTER III The sale of the nags brought enough to pay for the burial of Mrs. Precore. After which Betsey Pilrig sent word to have some one wheel the wagon up to the empty pasture land, across from her house, where it could stay as long as was necessary, at least until they had enough money to buy more horses and go somewhere else. So the dingy white wagon was anchored across from Betsey Pilrig's, to Philena's delight, and, while Thurley's father stayed inside to sob in half-drunken fashion about " his loss," Thurley made rapid inroads on Betsey's and Philena's hearts. For that matter, she had made inroads upon the hearts of Birge's Corners en masse. Even Lorraine loaned her a black hat for the funeral and stripped her garden of late blossoms to lay in the wasted fingers. Thurley had sung at her mother's funeral. " They always have music," she told them, and, besides, " it made her feel better inside." So, standing at the newly dug grave, the curious mourners watched this long-legged, blue-eyed child-woman in every one's discarded black clothes sing bravely: Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me, Bless thy little lambs to-night, In the darkness hear me calling, Lead me to eternal light " It's a wonder she knows any hymn tunes," Submit Curler had whispered to All Baba. 28 THE GRAY ANGELS " Says she learned 'em from a gypsy evangelist," Ali Baba answered, happy to be able to inform Submit Cur- ler, rather than be informed. " She hasn't a shoe for the winter," Betsey Pilrig was telling Hopeful. " Don't it seem sinful to think of Abby Clergy with her thousands? " Hopeful nodded. " But I wouldn't dare to mention it. I've got some things of my own, Betsey. Come around after dark. Ain't it a disgrace to have that man come drunk to his wife's funeral? If God is just, Betsey, tell me why He gave that beautiful young'un with an angel's voice those parents? " But the minister began to pray, so Betsey was spared answering. After the funeral, Thurley and her father had retired within the box-car wagon to " grieve proper," Ali Baba summarized, and every one left them alone, except Dan Birge, junior, who promptly knocked at the wreck of a door. Ali Baba tried to stop him, although it was nearing four o'clock, sacred hour for Miss Clergy's drive. "Hi, you ain't you no reverence?" he demanded. " There's been death in that that household." " I got business with her," Dan retorted, knocking more boldly. " You don't own this town any more'n I do. You come down off that step, you upstart." " Chase yourself I got to speak to Thurley." Dan made a tantalizing face. " You don't dare touch me you ghost coachman aha aha " Thurley opened the door just in time to allow Dan to make good his escape. Within, he stood back, abashed and silent. " What is it, Dan? " she asked mournfully. " If it's 29 THE GRAY ANGELS the money you gave me it's gone. I'm sorry, but Pa needed * comfort ' for the burial." " Oh, that's nothing he got the ' comfort ' at my pa's store, so it's back in the till. I wanted to say I was sorry and we won't have the circus until you're feeling fit."' Thurley's eyes filled with tears. " Your mother's dead, too, ain't she?" she asked. " My mother died when I was born," he confided. " I guess I'd rather have it that way. It would hurt worse to lose your mother, after you really knew her. Say, Thurley, I wanted to tell you I'd like to have you join our gang. There's about eight of us now all boys but I think you'd be just as good. Maybe it would make you forget; maybe your father will go to work and you'll never go away from here; maybe my father will give him a job, if he can tote barrels. I'll ask him and you join our gang and we'll be happy." " I'll have to work," Thurley corrected. " Pa's aw- ful sick; Ma thought he would die when we was on the road. He can't tote barrels and neither can I, but I'd like to join the gang, Dan, if I have time. And when your circus plays at South Wales, I'll come and sing." She held out her hand in gratitude. The boy took it awkwardly. " I liked you right off," he admitted. " If you see me getting too fresh or mis- spelling words or things like that tell me. I'll take it from you. Everybody thinks because my father made money selling beer that I'm going to be hung. Maybe I'll go to school like you said I'm not going to be any old bum, anyhow and, if you decide to join the gang, we meet at Wood's Hollow by Dog Creek every after- noon it ain't raining, but don't tell Lorraine McDowell, 30 THE GRAY ANGELS because she wanted to be my girl this winter and I won't let her." With which he strutted out of the wagon with the seri- ous feeling of a muchly married man. Somehow Dan had " adopted " Thurley. He felt personally responsi- ble for her happiness and support, and, when he tried con- vincing his father that Thurley ought to get nine dollars a week for doing nothing and his father jokingly dis- missed the matter, Daniel registered a vow that he must see to it that she had everything for which her feminine soul should desire ! It was the first time in his life that the finer part of the lad had had a chance to show itself. Philena Pilrig told her grandmother after Thurley's first visit, " She makes my fingers tingle down at the ends, and, when she smiles, I want to hug her, and, when she sings, I want to cry and dance all at once." Philena, who was eleven but small because of the twisted spine, sat in the window facing the old wagon car, so she could catch glimpses of Thurley striding about bare-legged, her ragged dress fluttering gracefully in the breeze, whistling or singing or calling out to her father who lay on the lounge and coughed and complained. Having invited the Precores to camp on her land, Bet- sey Pilrig also felt responsible for their welfare. She saw to it that Thurley washed dishes and ran errands in return for food, and, once, when she ventured over to interview her father as to his intentions of ever working, Thurley stood guard on the steps to tell her " Pa was sleeping he's getting that gray look around his lips." "Thurley, did you ever go to Sunday school?" she asked one afternoon when Thurley and Philena were in- tent on paper dolls. 31 THE GRAY ANGELS " No, but it's where you learn about the Lord and you have a Christmas tree the evangelist told me." " Philena gets there except in bad weather maybe you and she could go together," Betsey suggested. "I've the loveliest teacher!" Philena supplemented. " Her name is Kate Sills, and she's going to marry the postmaster she has a beautiful white plume on her hat." " I'd like to go, if I had shoes. I guess you can't get in barefoot." " Maybe we can find shoes, if that's all that's wrong." " I can be a home missionary, granny," Philena's little old face lighted with smiles. " You know the money in my bank." Thurley flushed. " I don't want any one's money least of all Philena's. What is a home missionary? " " I'm going to be a foreign missionary when I'm big and strong," Philena answered. " It's some one who sails off to China or Africa where they find heathens ready to eat them up; the heathens throw their babies into the river and don't believe in God, and the mission- aries teach them to build nice houses and dress their babies in white and sing songs. I heard a real true one tell about it last winter she stayed two days at Lor- raine's house and that's what I'm going to be, isn't it, granny? " " If you're well enough." " Why couldn't I go with you to Africa or China and sing the songs, and you could pray and teach and I'd mind the babies while you stitched up the white dresses?" Thurley rattled on. " Let's be missionaries together listen, I'll sing some songs." " Granny, fetch all the dolls they can be heathen that's the ship we're going on and there is Africa all 32 THE GRAY ANGELS full of savages get my Bible, Thurley, and my bag we'll pretend we're there now." Philena's crutch tapped quickly over the floor. Betsey Pilrig, supposed to be busy with her mending, paused to listen to Philena pray for the heathen, her crutch laid aside, kneeling on the floor of " awful Africa," alias the south room alcove. The heathen, six subdued, disinterested dolls and a fast unravelling Teddy-bear, stood in a row listening to her sweet, thin voice conclude : " Oh, Lord, you have sent us here to save these peo- ple, and, if they don't understand what I mean and how wrong it is to sacrifice their young and eat us up Thurley, isn't it awful to have to say that to the Lord? but it's so may their hearts be inspired by the sweet, sweet voiced singer who has come with me into the wilder- ness, forsaking wealth and love to serve the cause. Amen. Now, ladies of Africa," finished Philena, open- ing her eyes, " Miss Precore will sing." She picked up her crutch and gave way to Thurley. Whereat Thurley, balancing Philena's pink parasol with one hand and a pretended hymnal in the other, sang ' Throw Out the Life Line " and " Onward, Christian Soldiers," until Betsey Pilrig, unable to remain incognito any longer, came to the doorway to say, ' Thurley, Thurley, how did you ever learn to sing? " Annoyed that the game be interrupted Thurley an- swered shortly, " God taught me, I guess, but He made my long legs, too. And now, Mrs. Pilrig, unless we fin- ish, we may be taken prisoner any minute and roasted to ashes look out, Philena, that big one is after you," brandishing her parasol to ward him off. Properly rebuked Mrs. Pilrig stole away to prepare the missionaries' supper, while Thurley and Philena drew up a compact, signing and dating it to read as follows : 33 THE GRAY ANGELS " Thurley Precore and Philena Pilrig of Birge's Cor- ners do swear they will go as missionaries to convert the heathen from eating flesh and all the other bad things they do. Thurley will sing the songs and mind the babies so the mothers can attend the meetings and Philena is to preach and pray and make white dresses for every one. If Lorraine McDowell wants to she can travel in America and raise funds for the cause but nobody shall ever be the same dear friends as Thurley Precore and Philena Pilrig. Amen. " THURLEY PRECORE and PHILENA PILRIG." They put it between the pages of the illustrated Bible and then, descending to things of the earth earthy, fell upon a batch of newly-baked cookies with the ferocity of the unconverted savages. In the midst of her cookie Philena paused to remark, ' Thurley, do you think my being lame will make any difference you're so straight and strong " Thurley finished her cookie, while she thought up her defense. Spying tears in Philena's eyes she went over to fling her arms about the crooked back and declare, " Phi- lena Pilrig, you'll be armed with your crutch like a soldier with a gun. You'll really be better to go as a missionary than folks that haven't crutches," clapping her hands in delight at the rainbow smile. " But nobody ever thinks much of cripples Oyster Jim fought in the Civil War, and, when he came back lame, nobody married him and he started in having a store they say he wanted to be a lawyer." " Then he should have been a lawyer just the same. Wait, Philena, I guess God wants to say something ssh ! " Her eygs were like stars, and she warded off Philena's outstretched arm as if afraid mortal touch 34 THE GRAY ANGELS might dim the celestial message. " Oh, lots of times," she added a moment later, " God does tell me things queer things. Sometimes they rhyme like poems in books and sometimes they're cross 'cause some one has to scold little girls and Pa and Ma never said anything to me so God had to scold me, and now He's telling me something to comfort you, Philena. What do you think it is? " " Oh, you scare me most talking like a book God never tells folks things, except what He wrote down in the Bible whisper it, Thurley " " He says, ' Tell Philena that cripples can be conquer- ors,' " sang Thurley in a clear monotone, " cripples can be conquerors there I guess you'll be as good a mis- sionary as ever lived." Philena repeated it in an awed tone. " That's beauti- ful now I don't care about my crutch . . . but how can you tell for sure it's God talking? " Thurley's eyes were like sapphires in the sun. " Some- thing taps at my heart and I know I'm going to have a wonderful something told me or a terrible scolding and then whatever it is God wants to say is just sung into my head and I know I do know, Philena, I am right." " I wouldn't tell any one, if I was you," Philena sug- gested enviously. " No, there's as much about children that grownups don't understand, as there is about grownups we don't understand," Thurley said sagely. " But you can al- ways remember that God said that straight to me 1 cripples can be conquerors ' just like He told me at Midland City, Illinois, ' You let me catch you cutting off your hair and trying to run away and I'll stop your singing mighty quick! ' See, Philena? " 35 THE GRAY ANGELS " Isn't it funny? " Thurley told her father that night, " I'm to belong to the gang and play robbers and Indians, and I'm to be a missionary with Philena, and there must be different halves of me, and Dan has seen one half and thinks it is a whole, and so has Philena. I wonder what I'd do if the gang met the same day I'd promised to play missionary? " A cough answered her. " Is there any more rum? " he fretted. Regretfully Thurley produced the bottle. " Don't drink until you see things," she begged. " Makes me shiver when you talk down low there that's enough for now. ... I guess if the gang met on missionary day, I'd make 'em all sit down in front of me and I'd sing to 'em something awful different from gang stuff or missionary hymns, and then neither could be cross." " I guess," her father hiccoughed, " you'll hie al- ways be a good fellow." CHAPTER IV It was not until Thurley allied herself with the gang at Wood's Hollow that she came into possession of the Corners' great mystery Abigail Clergy who lived in solitary grandeur in the red brick mansion overlooking the lake. After Thurley had proved herself as great a success as a good fellow to the gang as she had at convincing Philena of her possibilities as a missionary, and had played hi-spy half the afternoon, she wandered by chance towards the first of the deserted summer houses in lieu of a new hid- ing place and became fascinated by these silent buildings. She began exploring one after the other, forgetful of the faint " Hul-1-o-o Thur-lee " which the gang sent in her direction. Boarded-up windows did not yield to her strong fin- gers nor tottering verandas offer a cordial invitation to rest. There was a chill in the October air, and Thurley gladly scampered up and down one pair of steps after an- other, peering into one dark room and then another, wandering through weed-choked gardens and pausing un- der apple trees to make up stories to suit each house. In her imaginative way she peopled the places with golden-haired ladies and blue-eyed babies, handsome gen- tlemen driving smart horses, and then every one sitting down to eat tons of good things served by colored wait- ers. In her motley travels through the country Thurley had obtained glimpses of such elegance, if not actually experiencing it. The gang was forgotten, so was Philena, and the fact 37 THE GRAY ANGELS that she had promised to play missionary at five o'clock. She forgot, as well, that her father was out of " com- fort," and would complain all night unless he was sup- plied, and that she had been worrying all morning as to what they should do when snow carpeted the meadow and the box-car wagon proved inefficient against wind and frost ! Thurley was living in an enchanted land all her own these houses were hers! One by one she made the im- aginary tenants leave and go elsewhere, while she be- came an imprisoned princess doomed to spend a year in each house before she could be free of the ten-headed dragon ! She ran along the shore in delight as she con- templated her prisons. Each day she would come and camp on the outside of the house in which she was im- prisoned, playing princess in spangled crimson and lace and pretending the ten-headed dragon lived in a cave in the bottom of the lake and could poke one of his heads up at unexpected moments to see if his prisoner was be- having as he desired! Then she spied a light burning in the last of the houses. She wondered if she had imagined " until it was better than real," a favorite experience. But as she came closer, she saw several lights and unmistakable signs of long-accustomed habitation. " This was the loveliest house of all," she thought mournfully, " and it had to be lived in! " Yet this house betrayed signs of decay; the shutters on one side were fastened tightly and bricks dislodged from an unused chimney. Thurley could not refrain from tak- ing an extra peek. She made her way to the side and crept up the steps gently to push at the carved old door with its tarnished knocker. It opened ! Taut with excitement and fearless, Thur- 38 THE GRAY ANGELS ley felt that she ought to repeat a charm to save herself from being changed into a mouse or a rubber plant or some such helpless creation. Inside the house burned a jewelled lamp; bulky objects were shrouded with covers. The boards creaked under her sturdy feet as she tiptoed about. A musty smell per- vaded everything, and there were several doors, one of which she was about to open when a voice from the stair- way made her halt. " All Baba, it isn't four o'clock. How dare you come inside?" said the voice. Looking up, Thurley saw a bent-over lady in an old black dress, her yellowed fin- gers shining with rings as they clutched the banister. Her thin, pointed face with its restless eyes was looking over towards the opened door; she had not spied Thur- ley. " Close that door, you stupid AH Baba ; never dare to come here again where are you? Why" this with a hysterical scream " it's a child a child " and the little old lady began running down the stairs, beating her hands in the air, as if trying to strike at Thurley. Thurley turned, throwing back her head in defiance and calling out, " Lock your doors, if you don't want com- pany," making a hasty retreat at the same time. Racing down the path, Thurley came into collision with Ali Baba, who was on his way to hitch Melba to the coupe. "For cat's sake, where do you come from?" he de- manded, holding Thurley by her arm. Thurley, making sure the door of the house had closed and the little old lady vanished, whispered, " I thought I'd have a look, so I went inside and some one came down the stairs and said, 'Ali Baba, it isn't four o'clock!' and when she saw me, she was cross." 39 THE GRAY ANGELS Ali Baba dropped her arm. " Have you been inside that house? " Thurley nodded. " Just in the hallway she found me there." " Land sakes and Mrs. Davis," Ali Baba said, smiling in spite of himself. " I guess you've done what no other kid in the Corners has ever dared to try. But don't do it again children should not be seen nor heard, according to Miss Abby," and he brushed by her on his way to the barn. Thurley was not satisfied with this answer. She went back to the Corners to find Philena's pale face pressed against the window glass watching for her missionary partner's tardy appearance. " Philena, I have been in a funny brick house at the lake," Thurley said, " and I want your granny to tell me why it is so queer and who that old woman is, and who is Ali Baba and why can't any one ever go there? " Betsey Pilrig, who was passing through the room, stopped in amazement. " Have you been inside the Clergy house? " she demanded. Thurley told her experience. Betsey sought refuge in the nearest rocking-chair. " Then, listen, Thurley, for as long as you've come to stay a spell, you ought to know and I guess I can tell you as well as Hopeful Whittier or Ali Baba. A long time ago, most thirty-five years, that house was lived in by Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel Clergy, of New York City, and they were worth more money than they could count, but all they cared for was Abigail, their daughter, and they were going to leave her everything they owned just be- cause they loved her so much. But they always planned she would marry some one and be as happy as a queen." Betsey paused for a properly doleful sigh. " As I was 40 THE GRAY ANGELS sayin', my cousin, Hopeful Whittier, had married, and her husband, Jim Whittier, was drowned on the Great Lakes three months after their weddin' day. Hopeful came back to Birge's Corners, just like to die of grief. Mrs. Clergy heard of it and came to see her, and she says, ' My dear, come and live with us Abby needs a maid of her own these days, and I think she'd like you.' Of course poor Hopeful didn't know about bein' a lady's maid and fixin' hair and lace and all that Miss Abby wanted done. But she was so heartbroken for Jim they never found his body that she was glad to go, and the Clergys were so good to her and Miss Abby so kind and willin' to show her how she wanted everything fixed that Hopeful was as happy as she could be without forgettin' Jim. "In them days the Clergy house The Fincherie is its name was never without guests. My stars, I've known as many as thirty extra people packed in there for a week at a time, and every other house on the shore the same with balls and basket picnics, charades and corn bakes and sailin' trips every minute in the day! But out of every one there and there was the grandest and the finest in the land there was no one half so beautiful nor gay nor kindhearted as Abby Clergy no one could deny but what it was so. Her father's money and her fine clothes and jewels and her beauty didn't turn her head a mite. " Let me see I guess she was around seventeen when Hopeful first went there girls was more advanced at seventeen than they are now. That fall, when it came time to close the house and go to New York, Abby Clergy tells Hopeful she wants her to come and live in their New York house the same as if she was one of these high- flyer maids they bring from Paris. Of course Hopeful 41 THE GRAY ANGELS was mighty glad, for she had come to love Miss Abby and she knew Jim would have told her to go, if he could have done it. But before they closed the house, they give a harvest dance, so they called it late in Sep- tember it was and I never did see such a time. The stables were packed with teams, and the steam cars ran a special train to South Wales for some of the people, and a fellow in New York sent the food, and champagne just flowed like the lake water. They had fiddlers from New York, and a florist with a load of flowers to fix up every room, and nobody else on the lake shore thought of going home until the Clergys' harvest dance was over. u Hopeful used to tell me everything that was goin' on and she often says, ' Betsey, that girl is too beautiful and good to live I'm afraid she is goin' to be taken.' I laffed at her and said she'd marry a fine gentleman, and Hopeful would watch their children playin' on the beach, but Hopeful always said no, she had a feeling things wouldn't be right. Now Abby Clergy was beautiful just five feet tall, she was, and slight as a reed. She had big, black, satiny eyes and an ivory skin. It was natural for her never to have color and her hair was blue black, combed up high and fastened with a carved comb, and, when she laffed, Ali Baba said her teeth was prettier than her strings of pearls real pearls they was, too but I must tell you something about Ali Baba. " Nobody never thought of calling Joshua Maples any- thing but Josh, until Miss Abby named him Ali Baba after he started bein' her father's summer coachman and winter caretaker. One day he says to her, ' Miss Abby, don't you ever worry about anybody's stealin' this house. Just dismiss it from your mind the minute you leave here in the fall and I ain't goin' to let any one steal you, neither.' And she laffs and says, ' Why, who wants to 42 THE GRAY ANGELS steal me?' And that was a joke, because Abby Clergy had more beaux than she could remember their names, but she just smiled at them all and never cared any more for any particular one than she did for any particular rose that was bloomin' outside her window. ' A lot of thieves,' says Josh he was pretty smart in talking ' and I guess you'll have to ask me as well as your Pa before I give my consent.' That sort of tickled her and she jumped up and down and says, ' You be AH Baba, and I'll let you watch over the forty thieves,' and from then on he was All Baba to her, and nobody else ever called him any other name. " So the harvest party was a grand success. But there come down from New York a stranger, Count Se- bastian Gomez, who was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Clergy as an Eyetalian nobleman with a lot of castles and such truck over in Europe and more money than he wanted. He was a fine-lookin' fellow, tall and straight as an arrow, and he had a curled-up mustache and big, bold eyes that looked you clean through. He was dressed way up in G, and could talk a lot of these here foreign languages, and he wanted to kiss all the ladies' hands and everybody thought he was the finest sort of fellow they could ever wish to see. . . . " But Hopeful Whittier didn't like him, and she says, when she saw how he was makin' up to Miss Abby, flat- terin' her and kissin' her hand and writin' his name down for all the dances and starin' angry-like at any other fel- low who tried to look at her she thought then that Miss Abby was makin' a mistake. But if this count hadn't eyes for any one but Miss Abby, Miss Abby didn't have eyes for any one but the count. And Hopeful told me that, when she undressed Miss Abby that night, Miss Abby says to her, ' Hopeful, I am a happy girl 43 THE GRAY ANGELS I'm so happy I don't know how to understand it I've seen some one I could love better than my own dear fa- ther and mother.' Hopeful tried to warn her, she didn't know why, but Miss Abby wouldn't listen, and she sat up half the night, Hopeful says, thinkin' about him. " The next day the guests went drivin', and the count managed to set beside Miss Abby when they rode and at the basket picnic and never to let her out of his sight. Abby's Pa and Ma seemed pleased about it, and they told their friends Count Gomez was of royal blood and he had letters provin' he was all he said he was. Well, that didn't win over Hopeful Whittier nor Ali Baba, but they didn't matter, of course. So Hopeful went back to New York with the family, and Ali Baba closed up the place. In the middle of the winter I got a letter from Hopeful sayin' that the count and Miss Abby were engaged, and all New York was talkin' about the foreign alliance, and how grand it was to marry a nobleman and be a real Eyetalian countess. She said Miss Abby was so happy she just floated about and that she was having trunks and trunks of dresses made because