The morning slipped by so quickly that they could hardly believe their ears when they heard the farm bell ringing for noon. After dinner, Jake and Peter went by the settlement, on their way to the tobacco-field, to help build Powhatan's rock chimney. The boys made bows and arrows and became so interested in playing Indian that Mr. Collins came for them. He scolded them roundly and said that no boy who didn't work in the tobacco-field would get any supper at his house that night.

"I'm the play Captain Smith," laughed Anne, looking up at the rough-speaking, soft-hearted man; "but you talk like the real captain. 'I give this for a law,' he said, 'that he who will not work shall not eat.'"

Mrs. Collins said that night that the girls must not play Jamestown settlers any more. They might get ill or hurt or snake-bit; and who ever heard of such a game for little girls? they ought to stay in the house and keep their faces white and their frocks clean and play dolls. Anne and Lizzie, however, teased next day until she relented and even waddled down the hill to see their settlement.

"I told them chillen they shouldn't put thar foots in that ma'sh on the branch, gettin' wet and draggled and catchin' colds and chills," she explained to her husband. "But they begged so hard I told 'em to go on and have a good time. Maybe it won't hurt 'em. They're good-mindin' gals. And I never did believe in encouragin' chillen to disobey you by tellin' 'em they shouldn't do things you see thar heads set on doin'. Don't be so hard on the boys, Peter, for stoppin' awhile to play. If the Lord hadn't 'a' meant for chillen to have play-time, He'd 'a' made 'em workin' age to begin with."

The Jamestown colony, like the great undertaking after which it was patterned, had many ups and downs,—flourishing when Jake and Peter could steal off to be Indians and new settlers, and then being neglected and almost deserted. Anne and Lizzie found the most beautiful place to play keeping house. On the hillside, there were two great rocks, full of the most delightful nooks and crevices. One of these rocks was Anne's home, the other was Lizzie's. In the moss-carpeted rooms, lived daisy ladies, with brown-eyed Susans for maids. They made visits and gave dinner parties, having bark tables set with acorn-cups and bits of broken glass and china. They had leaf boats to go a-pleasuring on the spring brook where they had wonderful adventures.

Rainy days put an end to outdoor delights, but they only gave more time for indoor games with their neglected dolls.

After breakfast one rainy morning, Lizzie asked her mother for some scraps—she didn't want any except pretty ones—to make dresses for Honey-Sweet and Nancy Jane. Mrs. Collins replied that she had no idea of wasting her good bed-quilt and carpet-rag pieces on such foolishness as doll dresses. But when ten minutes later the girls went back to repeat their request, they found Mrs. Collins rummaging a bureau drawer. Thence she produced two generous pieces of pretty dimity,—Honey-Sweet's was buff with little rose sprigs and Nancy Jane's had daisies on a pale-blue ground.

While Lizzie was busy making doll dresses, Anne got a book with pictures in it and gave forth a story with a readiness that amazed Mrs. Collins.

"Ain't you a good reader!" she exclaimed. "You read so fast I can't understand half you say."

"I'm not reading all that," honesty compelled Anne to confess, as she beamed with pleasure at Mrs. Collins's praise. "I read when the words are short, and when they're long and the print's solid, I make it up out of my head to fit the pictures."

"Ah! you come of high-learnt folks," said Mrs. Collins, admiringly. "Now, my Jake and Peter, they can't read nothing but what's in the book and that a heap of trouble to 'em. And Lizzie here, she's wore out two first readers and don't hardly know her letters yet."

Lizzie soon tired of sewing and she and Anne pattered off through the halls to the bareness and strangeness of which Anne could not get used. Where, she wondered, were the people in tarnished gilt frames—slim smiling ladies and stately gentlemen with stocks and wigs—that used to be there? The two girls played lady and come-to-see in the bare up-stairs rooms awhile. Then Anne said, "Lizzie, I'm going up the little ladder into the attic and walk around the chimneys."

"Don't! It's dark up there," shuddered Lizzie.

"Dark as midnight," agreed Anne; "heavy dark. You can feel it. It's the only place I used to be afraid of. I have to make myself go there."

"Why?" asked Lizzie.

"I—don't just know—but I do. You wait here." She came back a little later, dusty, cobwebby, flushed. "I knew there wasn't anything there—in the dark more'n the light," she said. "I know it, and still I just have to make myself not be scared. Whew! It's hot up there. Lizzie, let's go in the parlor. I've not been in there yet."

"No," objected Lizzie. "The little old lady's in there—or in the room back of it. Them's her rooms."

"The little old lady? who is she?" inquired Anne.

"She's the one I take breakfast and dinner and supper to. She comes here in the summer and she sits in there and rocks and reads."

"Doesn't she ever go out?" Anne wanted to know.

"Oh, yes! she walks in the yard or garden every day. You just ain't happened to see her. We've played away from the house so much."

"What kind of looking lady is she?" asked Anne.

"Oh, she's just a lady. Ma says she's mighty hotty. What's hotty, Anne?" inquired Lizzie.

Haughty was a new word to Anne. But she hated to say "I don't know," and besides words made to her pictures—queer ones sometimes—of their meaning. "It means she warms up quick," she asserted. "Tell me about her, Lizzie. How does she look?"

"She ain't so very tall and she's slim as a bean-pole," said Lizzie. "Her hair's gray and her skin is white and wrinkly. And she wears long black dresses. That's all I know."

"I want to see her. Let's sit at the head of the steps and watch for her to come out," suggested Anne.

They sat there what seemed a long time but as the little old lady did not appear, they finally ran off to play with Honey-Sweet and Nancy Jane.

While they were thus engaged, Mr. Collins came from the mill. He shook his dripping hat, and hung up the stiff yellow rain-coat that he called a 'slicker.'

"I come by the station, wife," he announced. "And what you think? Thar's a gre't big sign up, 'Lost child.'"

"Sho! Whose child's lost?" inquired Mrs. Collins.

"It's Anne," was the reply. "The printed paper give her name and age and all. And it tells anybody that's found her or got news of her to let them 'sylum folks know."

"As if anybody with a heart in their body would do that!" commented Mrs. Collins. "I bound you let folks know she was here. If you jest had sense enough to keep yo' mouth shet, Peter Collins! That long tongue of yours goin' to be the ruin of you yet."

"I ain't unparted my lips," asserted her husband.

"Now ain't that jest like a man?" Mrs. Collins demanded of the clock. "'Stead of trying to throw folks off the track, saying something like 'What on earth's a lost child doing here?' or 'Nobody'd 'spect a lost child to come to my house!'"

"I wish you'd been thar, Lizbeth," said her admiring husband. "You'd fixed it up. Well, anyhow, I ain't said a word, so don't nobody know nothin' from me. All she's got to do is to lay low till this hub-bub's over."

In that out-of-the-way place there seemed little danger of Anne's being discovered. Mrs. Collins, however, made elaborate plans for her concealment.

"Anne," she said, "would you mind me callin' you my niece Polly?"

Anne looked at her in questioning surprise.

"If so be people from the 'sylum was to look for you, you wouldn't want to go back thar, would you?"

"Oh, no! I'd much rather stay here," answered Anne.

"Bless your heart! and so you shall," exclaimed Mrs. Collins. "I'll trim your hair and part it on the side and call you my niece Polly. And can't nobody find out who you are and drag you back to that 'sylum. You shall stay here forever."

"Goody, goody!" cried Anne. Then she said thoughtfully, "I do wish I had some of my things from there. It doesn't matter so much about my clothes. Lizzie's are most small enough and I s'pose I'll grow to fit them. But I do wish Honey-Sweet had her dresses, 'spressly her spotted silk and her blue muslin. And there are some other things. Uncle Carey said they were my mother's and I don't want Miss Farlow to keep them always."

"When you are grown up, you can go and get them," suggested Mrs. Collins.

"Oh, so I will," said Anne. "And please, may Lizzie go with me?"



CHAPTER XXIII

A day or two later, Anne wandered alone into the old-fashioned garden. She had just recalled—bit by bit things from the past came back to her—a damask rose at the end of the south walk that was her mother's special favorite. It was bare now of its rosy-pink blossoms and Anne gathered some red and yellow zinnias to play lady with. The red-gowned ladies had their home under the Cherokee rose-bush and yellow-frocked dames were given a place under the clematis-vine; then they exchanged visits and gave beautiful parties.

Presently a slim, black-robed lady sauntered down the box-edged turf walk and stopped near Anne.

"What are you doing, little girl?" she asked.

Anne looked up at the lady. "How do you do, cousin?" she said, scrambling to her feet and putting up her mouth to be kissed. It was one of the cousins, she knew, and it was the most natural thing in the world to see her come down the box-edged walk to the rose-arbor; but whether it was Cousin Lucy or Cousin Dorcas or Cousin Polly, Anne was not sure.

It was Cousin Dorcas and she stared at the child for a moment, too amazed to speak.

"It cannot be little Nancy!" she exclaimed at last. "Child, who are you?"

"Why, of course, I'm little Nancy," Anne laughed.

"What are you doing here? Where did you come from?"

"I am playing flower dolls." Anne answered the questions gravely in order. "I got off the train because I wanted to come home. I thought Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard were here."

Miss Dorcas Read sat down on a rustic seat and questioned her small cousin until she drew forth the story of the child's wanderings.

"I am glad I have found you," the lady said when Anne's story was finished. "You ought to be with your own people, of course, and I am your near kinswoman. Your great-grandmother and my grandmother were sisters. It is little that I have, but that little I shall gladly share with you. I must take you with me when I go home next week."

"Where is your home?" asked Anne.

"In Washington City. I am one of the little army of government clerks," Miss Dorcas explained. "I come back every summer to spend my vacation here. I walk in the dear old garden and read the dear old books and live again in the dear old days. You do not understand now, child; but some day, if you live long enough, you will understand."

Lizzie wailed aloud when she learned that Anne was to leave 'Lewis Hall,' and in her heart Anne preferred her old home to her old cousin.

"You shouldn't never have gone to a 'sylum," said Mrs. Collins, wiping her eyes with her apron. "But when one of your blood-kin lays claim to you, that's diff'rent and I ain't got no call to interfere. I got sense enough to know my folks ain't like yo' folks. Yours is the real old-time quality folks and you ought to be brung up with your own kind. Now, we is a bottom rail that's done come to the top. My chillen's got to be schooled and give book-learnin'. Some day they'll forget they was ever anything but top rails, and look down on their old daddy and mammy."

"I ain't, mammy; I ain't never gwi' look down on you," declared Lizzie.

"That's all right, honey," answered Mrs. Collins. "I want you to be hotty and look down on folks. I never could l'arn to do it. I was always too sociable-disposed."

"No one can ever look on you except with respect, dear Mrs. Collins," Miss Dorcas insisted. "Certainly, Anne and I shall always regard you as one of her best friends. She will want to come to see you next vacation, if you will let her."

"Let her! and thank you, ma'am," exclaimed Mrs. Collins. "Now I'm going to unload them pantry shelves. You shall have sweetmeats and jam and preserves and pickle for yo' snacks, Anne, and I want you to think of Lizbeth Collins when you eat 'em."

Before Anne and Cousin Dorcas went to Washington, it was resolved that they should visit Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard, who lived on a plantation eight miles from 'Lewis Hall.' Mrs. Collins doubted the wisdom of the plan, fearing lest some of the 'sylum folks on the lookout for Anne would be met on the public road. Miss Dorcas, too, was a little uneasy. It was finally decided that Anne should wear one of Lizzie's frocks and her sunbonnet and that if they met any one on the road, Miss Dorcas was to say in a loud voice, "Lizzie!" and Anne was to answer, "Yes, ma'am."

Mr. Collins brought out an old buggy with an old horse called Firefly and helped Miss Dorcas in, explaining carefully, "This ain't no kicker and it ain't no jumper. It's jest plain horse with good horse-sense. If you don't cross yo' lines, you can drive him anywhere."

"I don't know much about driving," confessed Miss Dorcas. "That is, I've been driving a great deal but I've never held the lines.—Whoa! get up, sir!" She gave a gurgly cluck, and flapped the lines up and down on Firefly's back, with her elbows high in air. Firefly started meekly off on a jog trot. Mr. Collins looked after them.

"Dumb brutes is got heap more sense than humans," he exclaimed. "They understands women. Now, Miss Dorcas she's whoain' and geein' and hawin' that horse at the same time, but somehow he knows what she wants him to do and he's gwine to do it."

Firefly followed the winding of the river-road mile after mile, along meadows, fields, and wooded hills, fair in the hazy sunlight. How many times Anne had travelled this road on visits to the numerous cousins!

Firefly turned at last from the highway to a plantation road and stopped at a log cabin. It was a neat, whitewashed little house, with rows of zinnias and marigolds on each side of a walk leading from the road. Over the door, hung a madeira vine covered with little spikes of fragrant white blossoms. Charity, in a blue-and-white checked cotton gown, with a bandanna around her head, was working in her garden beside the house.

"Don't speak to her, Cousin Dorcas," whispered Anne. "Let me s'prise her." She jumped lightly out of the buggy and ran to Aunt Charity. "Boo!" she said.

Charity dropped her hoe with a scream. "Lawd 'a' mercy!" she exclaimed, backing toward the cabin. "My child's ghost in de broad daylight!"

Anne laughed till tears ran down her cheeks. "There!" she said, pinching Charity's fat arm. "Does that feel like a ghost, Aunt Charity?"

Charity seized Anne in her arms and jumped up and down, exclaiming, "My child in de flesh and blood! my child in de flesh and blood!" At last she recovered herself enough to "mind her manners" and help Miss Dorcas out of the buggy.

"You all ain' gwine away a step till you eat a snack," she insisted. "I got a chicken in dyar I done kilt to take to church to-morrow. Ain't I glad it's ready for my baby child! And I'll mix some hoecakes and bake some sweet taters and gi' you a pitcher o' cool sweet milk. My precious baby, you set right dyar in de do'. I can't take my eyes off you any more'n if dee was glued to you."

A table was set under the great oak and Charity, beaming with joy, waited on her guests. "Richard ain't gwi' forgive hisself for goin' to mill to-day," she said. "Dunno huccome he went, anyway. He could 'a' put it off till Monday. But if you gwi' be at de old place till Chewsday, me an' him will sho hobble up to see you."

As the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, Miss Dorcas and Anne started on their homeward journey. Miss Dorcas clucked and jerked the lines, and Firefly ambled homeward, now jog-trotting along the road, now pausing to nibble grass on the wayside.



CHAPTER XXIV

All too soon for Anne, came the day that was to take her to the city. Generous Mrs. Collins insisted on slipping into Miss Dorcas's trunk a liberal supply of Lizzie's clothes, and she gave Anne one of Lizzie's best frocks to travel in and a muslin hat that flopped over her face. Disguised in these, she was to be smuggled away on a night train to prevent her being discovered and taken back to the asylum. They were the more concerned about the matter because Mr. Collins heard at the blacksmith shop new inquiries about the lost child. Miss Dorcas charged Charity and Richard, who trudged the long eight miles to visit their "precious baby child," not to mention having seen Anne. Richard brought on his shoulder a great bag full of things "for Marse Will Watkins's child"—apples, popcorn, potatoes. For days Mrs. Collins had been baking cakes and pies and selecting sweetmeats, preserves, and pickles from her store. The supplies were so liberal that after a barrel was packed and repacked and re-repacked there were almost as many things left out as were put in. Mrs. Collins wanted to put them in another barrel, but Miss Dorcas said that the supply already packed would more than fill her tiny pantry.

Mrs. Collins consoled herself as best she could. "Christmas is coming," she said; "it's slow but it's on the way. And when it do get here, I'll send you a barrel packed to show you what a barrel can hold."

The morning after Anne's regretful farewell to her old home and her new friends, found her eagerly examining her cousin's small apartment in Georgetown. The house was a red-brick mansion built for the residence of an early Secretary of the Navy, and now made over into cheap flats. The stately, old-fashioned place was surrounded by small shops and cheap, dingy houses. "It makes me think," Miss Dorcas said with a sigh, "how Jefferson would look to-day in a Democratic party meeting or Hamilton among modern Republican politicians."

Anne didn't know who Hamilton was but she thought Jefferson, whose picture hung in the sitting-room, looked as if he might have lived here. It was a place still full of charm. In the rear of the mansion was an old-fashioned flower garden with box-bordered gravel walks dividing the formal beds and leading here to a stone seat, there to a broken fountain. In the centre of the garden, was a sun-dial which a century before told the shining hours; now, its days went in shadow under the crowding trees,—a coffee-tree from Arabia, a mulberry from Spain, and other relics of the wanderings of the long-ago secretary. Anne felt like a bird in a nest as she sat on the roomy, white-columned porch overlooking the garden, catching glimpses through a leafy screen of the broad Potomac and the wooded hills of Virginia.

"Ah! when the leaves fall it is beautiful, beautiful," said her cousin; but Anne was sure that it could never be more beautiful than now, in the green-gold glory of a late summer afternoon.

After a few idle days, Anne was enrolled in the city free school. Miss Dorcas mourned over the fact that she was unable to send her small cousin to a select private school, and urged her to study hard, behave well, and, above all, never to have anything to do with 'the common herd' of other children. Anne obeyed the last command very unwillingly. It would be dreadful to be "contaminated,"—which she supposed to mean infected with a bad kind of measles,—as Cousin Dorcas said she would be if she played with her grade-mates; but it was hard to sit primly alone instead of joining the recess games.

At first some of the children tried to make friends with her but, being met coolly, they left her to lonely dignity.

"It's goot," wonderingly explained Albert Naumann, a sturdy, blond little German, when she refused a bite of the crimson-cheeked winesap apple that he offered.

"Why not?" asked merry-faced Peggy Callahan, when Anne declined her dare to a foot-race. "You're not sick, are you?"

"No, indeed!" answered Anne.

"Oh! you look sorter like I feel when I've a pain in my stomach," said Peggy, running off in reply to a playmate's call.

Anne looked after her longingly. Peggy was a bright, merry, friendly child with whom she would have liked to play, but for being sure Cousin Dorcas would object. Peggy was certainly one of the 'common herd'—her clothes ragged or patched and her person rather dingy.

Anne was lonely.

"It's worse than being all by myself," she reflected soberly, "to see the other children's good times and be out of them all."

She consoled herself as best she could with Honey-Sweet, disagreeing stoutly with Miss Dorcas who thought that she was too large a girl to play with dolls.

"Honey-Sweet isn't just a doll—not like those in shops," Anne explained. "Dear Mrs. Patterson made her. And she's been everywhere with me. And, Cousin Dorcas, she really is useful. I study all my lessons with her. That's how I learn them so good—making believe I'm teaching them to Honey-Sweet. And she helps me keep still. You know you do like me to be quiet, Cousin Dorcas."

"Yes. I don't want to seem severe, but I cannot bear a noise. I am so worn out when I come from the office. It seems each day my head aches worse than it did the day before." Miss Dorcas sighed. "And if it isn't a downright ache when I come home, it begins to pound as soon as I look at this book—" she eyed the account-book open before her—"I hoped you could have some new shoes this month. Those are downright shabby. But there isn't any money for them. I don't see how I am going to pay the gas bill unless we stop eating. It costs so much to live!"

"Perhaps Miss Santa Claus will give us something," suggested Anne.

"Perhaps so," answered Miss Dorcas, absently, poising her pencil above a column of figures in her account-book.

'Miss Santa Claus' was the name that Anne had given to a gentlewoman in the apartment below. Anne had a smiling acquaintance with her and was deeply interested in glimpses of her visitors. Miss Santa Claus's real name was Margery Hartman. Her fair hair was growing silvery, but her cheeks were pink and soft with lingering girlhood and the spirit of eternal youth looked from her clear blue eyes. She was the district agent of the Associated Charities, and worked untiringly with kind heart and clear head to aid and uplift the poor around her.

One September afternoon, Anne, running up-stairs, bumped against the Charities lady.

"Oh! I beg your pardon, Miss Santa Claus," she exclaimed.

The lady laughed. "That's a new name for me," she said.

Anne reddened. "It just slipped out. I don't know your other-folks' name. And I call you Miss Santa Claus to myself because you are always giving people things. I don't mean to listen," she explained, "but I can't help hearing them ask you for coal and shoes and grocery orders."

"You are my little neighbor on the floor above, aren't you?" asked the lady.

Anne assented.

"It's a nice name you've given me—very much nicer than my own real name which happens to be Margery Hartman. I know your name. I heard Albert Naumann call you Anne Lewis."

"You gave Albert shoes to wear to school," said Anne.

"Yes. That is my business—to give things to people who need them. Kind people provide money for me to help the poor. Isn't that good of them?"

"It's very good," said Anne, earnestly. "Do you give them—shoes, I mean—to all the children that need them?"

"Not all." Miss Hartman smiled and then she sighed. "I wish I could."



CHAPTER XXV

The new acquaintance soon ripened into friendship. Miss Hartman grew very fond of the quaint, affectionate child and Anne said Miss Hartman was "nice as a book." She would tell story after story about the children she met in her Charity work and then she would sit at the piano and sing old songs in a sweet, clear voice of the quality that reaches the heart.

Sometimes Anne went to the Charity office and sat mouse-like watching the people who came and went. One Saturday afternoon, Peggy Callahan hurried into the room, untidy as usual, her eyes shining with excitement.

"Are you the head lady of the Charity?" she asked the lady at the desk.

Miss Margery answered that she was.

"If you please, ma'am, we don't want to be put away," Peggy announced.

"Who wants to put you away? Tell me about it," said Miss Margery.

"The folks over there." The girl nodded her head vaguely. "They say as how mommer can't take care of us—popper he's got to go to the work'ouse again. He wa'n't so very drunk this time but the judge sent him there—mean old thing! And they say mommer can't take care of us and we'll have to be put away in 'sylums. And we don't want to go. She says if the Charity folks will help with the rent, we can get on. Don't none of us eat much and we can do with terrible little," Peggy concluded breathlessly.

"What is your name? where do you live? I shall have to see your mother and talk to her," said Miss Margery.

"My name's Peggy Callahan and we live out that way," waving her hand northward. "There ain't no number to the house. You go down this street till it turns to a road and you come to a gate marked 'No Thoroughfare' and you go straight through it and follow the path and you come to a little brown house with red roses on the porch. That's our house. Oh! there's two with roses! One is a colored lady's. Ours is the one with the so many children."

"I know your mother. And I remember the place," said Miss Margery, writing a few lines in her notebook. "I am going out that way this afternoon and we will see what can be done."

"Thank you, lady," said Peggy, and bounded away.

"I'd better send you home, Anne," said Miss Margery, with a little sigh, "and let you go with me some other time. This place is a long way off, much farther than I had expected to go this afternoon."

"Please, Miss Margery, let me go," pleaded Anne. "I never get tired. And I do want to go through the 'No Thoroughfare' gate, and see the little brown house with the red roses and the children."

Miss Margery hesitated, then consented, and she and Anne trudged through the dingy suburb of shabby, scattered houses.

"P'rhaps I oughtn't to have come," said Anne, rather doubtfully. "It's cobblestones. They skin shoes. Cousin Dorcas says she doesn't know where money's coming from to buy another pair. I asked her if we couldn't get you to give me some shoes, like you do Albert and those other children, and it made her cry. She said that would be a disgrace. Why, Miss Margery?"

"Miss Dorcas does not like to have people give her things," said Miss Margery.

"But Mrs. Collins gave me a dress and a hat and ever so many things. And I need shoes. I need them bad as Albert did. If I don't get some pretty soon, I can't go to school. Why mustn't you give them to me?"

Miss Margery did not undertake to explain. "Don't worry about shoes to-day," she said. "Be careful where you walk and don't stump your toes. Those shoes look pretty well still. Miss Dorcas crosses bridges sometimes before she comes to them. Why, there's Albert Naumann. Good-afternoon, Albert. Have you any pennies for the saving bank to-day?"

"No, madam, lady," answered Albert. "I have no time for to earn the pennies to-day. I have for to pick up the coal for mine Mutter. It makes the hands to be dirty"—looking at his blackened fingers—"but it saves the to buy coal."

"That is good, Albert," said Miss Margery, heartily, "better than earning pennies for yourself. Can you show me where the Callahans live? Anne tells me Peggy is your classmate."

"Yes, madam, lady," answered Albert, "it's the second house on the path back of those trees."

"There's the house," exclaimed Anne, a few minutes later. "I know that's it. It's little and it's brown and look at the roses—and the children! It's like the old woman that lived in a shoe."

Indeed, the little brown house was overflowing with children. Peggy, with a baby in her arms, sat in a broken rocking-chair on the porch. Two little girls were making mud-pies near by. A tow-headed boy, watched from an up-stairs window by two admiring small boys, was walking around the edge of the porch roof, balancing himself with outstretched arms. A neat negro woman, emptying an ash-can in the adjoining yard, caught sight of him and shrieked, "Uh, John Edward! is that you on the porch roof? or is it Elmore? Whichever you be, if you don't go right in, I'll tell yo' ma. You Bud and tother twin, you stop leanin' out of that window. Peg, uh Peg! thar's a boy on the porch roof and two leanin' out the window. They all goin' to fall and break their necks."

The boy on the roof stuck out his tongue, and said, "Uh, you tell-tale!" then walked on around the porch and climbed in the window.

"I done it," he shouted to his twin brother. "You dared me to and I done it. Now I double-dare you to climb the chimbley."

Peggy came out to reprove the reckless climber, and then, seeing the approaching visitors, came forward to greet them. She invited Miss Margery and Anne into the front room where her mother sat at a sewing-machine that was running like a race-horse. Mrs. Callahan shook hands and then took a garment from her work-basket and began to make buttonholes.

"My machine makes such a racket," she explained, "I always keep finger jobs for company work. There's so many fact'ries nowadays that Keep-at-it is the only sewin'-woman that makes a livin'. You'd be s'prised to see how much Peggy helps me. She can rattle off most as many miles as me on that old machine in a day."

"Peggy tells me you are in trouble, Mrs. Callahan," said Miss Margery, coming directly to the cause of her visit.

"Well, not exactly. Nobody ain't dead or sick," Mrs. Callahan answered cheerfully. "I told Peggy to tell you we could do with a little help. Pa—that's my old man—he's the best man that ever lived, ma'am. He'd never do nothin' wrong. It's just the whiskey that gets in him. He's kind and good-tempered and hard-workin'—long as he can let liquor alone. It's made him lose his place."

"Our books show that you had help from the Charity office last winter," Miss Margery reminded her.

"Yes'm," responded Mrs. Callahan, "that was after his Christmas spree. The man might 'a' overlooked that. But he got mighty mad. Some bad boys, they see pa couldn't take care of the dray and they stole some things offn it. Pa he couldn't get a job right away and I couldn't keep up my reg'lar sewin'—the baby just being come—and so pa was up before the judge for non-support. And the judge made him sign the pledge for a year. Pa tried to keep it, ma'am, but his old gang wouldn't let him. They watched for him goin' to work and they watched for him comin' from work. He'd dodge 'em and go and come diff'rent ways. But they'd lay for him here and there, with schooners of beer in their hands. Next thing, he was drunk. The cops didn't catch him that time. But the pledge bein' broke, look like he give up heart. He kept on with the drink, and lost his job. Then the policeman nabbed him."

Mrs. Callahan did not tell that the drunken man had struck her and that the children—seeing her fall to the floor as if dead—ran out screaming, and that the frightened neighbors called a doctor and a policeman. She made the tale as favorable to 'pa' as she could. She went on to say that, having broken the pledge, he was sent to the workhouse for sixty days and she was left without money, with seven children to care for.

"They want me to put the children away to the 'sylums, but we want to stay together, ma'am. We can get on elegant with a little help with the rent and a teenchy bit grocery order now and then. Mine is helpful children, ma'am, and t'ain't as if they were all little. Peggy's near 'leven though she's small for her age. And even them twins, ma'am, they pick up sticks for kindlin' and help in ways untold."

"What have you to eat in the house?" asked Miss Margery.

"There's some potatoes, ma'am. They're mighty filling when they're cold."

Miss Margery knit her brows and considered. There were many calls on the limited fund at her command. "The money from the workhouse for your husband's labor will pay the rent," she calculated. "I will give you a small grocery order twice a week. You can manage with that?"

"Oh, yessum, splendid, and thank you kindly, ma'am," said Mrs. Callahan. "Don't put down meat—just a little piece onct a week so's not to forget the taste. And a leetle mite coffee. Put in mostly fillin' things—rice and beans and dried apples. You got to cram seven hearty children. Thank'e, thank'e, ma'am. Peggy, give the little lady some roses, the purtiest ones where the frost hasn't nipped 'em."

While Miss Margery talked with Mrs. Callahan, Anne was getting acquainted with the children. She chattered gleefully about them on her homeward way. "Peggy says a lady her mother sews for gave them a lot of clothes. Peggy has a pink velvet waist and a red skirt, and her mother has a lace waist and a blue skirt with rows and rows of blue satin on it. They're very int'resting children, Miss Margery, but do you think they always tell just the very exact truth?" asked Anne.

"I'm afraid they do not. I'm afraid their mother doesn't set them a very good example," answered Miss Margery who knew the Callahans of old.

"Peggy says it isn't harm to tell a fib that don't hurt anybody," said Anne.

"I hope you told her it was."

"Yes, Miss Margery. I told her we thought it was low-down to tell stories. And Peggy just laughed and said they wouldn't act so stiff as to tell the truth all the time.—Miss Margery, when are you going there again? I do want to go with you. The baby has a new tooth coming. You can feel it. I want to see it when it comes through. May I go with you another Saturday?"

"Perhaps."



CHAPTER XXVI

Two weeks passed. Peggy or John Edward or Elmore came duly on Wednesdays and Saturdays for the grocery orders and reported that the family was getting on "elegant" or "splendid." One Friday afternoon, a neighbor of the little brown house flounced into the office.

"It's my dooty to come to you, lady," said Mrs. Flannagan, "and I does my dooty when it's hard on other folks. You wouldn't give me a bit of groceries last week, but they tell me you rain down grocery orders on Mrs. Callahan, and she spendin' money like she was President Bill Taft or Johnny Rockefeller."

"What do you mean, Mrs. Flannagan? Please explain," said the long-suffering Charity lady.

"I mean this," said Mrs. Flannagan. "With my own two eyes I seen 'em yestiddy afternoon—Mrs. Callahan and them four biggest children walkin' down the street like a rainbow in silk and satin and lace, goin' past my house 'thout lookin' at me any more'n I was one of them cobblestones. 'Good-day,' I says, and Mrs. Callahan says, says she, 'Good-day. It's Mrs. Flannagan, ain't it?'—like she hain't been in and out of my house these two years! 'Whar's the kittle-bilin' of you goin' to-day?' I asked, and she tosses her head and says, says she, 'Oh, it don't agree with the children's health to stay at home so clost. I'm takin' 'em on a 'scursion down the river to see the shows.' And they ain't come back till dark, for I sat at my front window to see. There's where your Charity money goes, ma'am."

Miss Margery sighed as her informer flaunted away. She must look into the matter before giving any more grocery orders, and if Mrs. Callahan was really wasting money, as Mrs. Flannagan declared, the Charities' aid must be withdrawn.

The next morning, Peggy entered the office, her usually smiling face very sober. Before Miss Margery had time to mention excursions and grocery orders, Peggy made a request.

"If you please'm, lady," she said, "mommer says won't you give us a help with the rent? It's due to-day and we're three dollars short."

"Didn't officer McFlaerty bring the money from your father on Monday?"

"Yessum, lady," confessed Peggy.

"Your mother told me she would put that aside for the rent—every cent of it—and that it would leave her lacking only one dollar of the rent money. Now you say she is three dollars short. Peggy, I am afraid your family has been wasting money." The Charity lady spoke severely, mindful of Mrs. Flannagan's tale. Peggy did not answer. She looked embarrassed, and twisted her toe under a loose strip of matting. Miss Margery continued, after a pause, "Mrs. Flannagan told me that you went on an excursion Thursday."

Peggy brightened and dimpled. "Yessum, lady. We told her we was a-goin'. It made her so mad. I wisht you could 'a' seen her flirt in and slam her door." Peggy's merry laugh pealed forth. "And we told her we was a-goin' to the shows, too."

"Peggy! do you think I ought to help you with the rent when you are wasting money on excursions and shows?" Miss Margery frowned on Peggy's mirth.

"Oh! why, ma'am!" Peggy seemed amazed that it was necessary to explain. "We didn't go to no shows or no 'scursions. We weren't thinkin' 'bout goin'. That was a lie. It was just to make Mrs. Flannagan mad. She put on so many airs 'bout goin' street-car-ridin' last Sunday."

"You really didn't go?" Miss Margery asked. "But Mrs. Flannagan says you passed her house—five of you—dressed for the excursion."

"Yessum, lady," Peggy agreed, dimpling. "I wisht you could 'a' seen us. It cert'ny is nice livin' when you can wear fussy-fixy velvet and silk clothes and lacey waists. John Edward and Elmore, bein' boys, couldn't get no good of them, so we give John Edward the little lace-flounced umberill to carry and Elmore a painted open-and-shut fan.—Them's the things the lady give us where mommer sews for," she explained, in answer to Miss Margery's bewildered look. "We went to see her like she asked us. 'Twas too far for the baby and Bud and Lois to walk, so we left them with Mrs. Mooney—she's the nice colored lady next door. We wisht they could 'a' gone. Mrs. Peckinbaugh gave us sandwiches and lemonade and little icin' cakes and street-car tickets to ride home on. I never did have such a good time. Oh," Peggy laughed merrily, "and when we came back by Mrs. Flannagan's, I said out loud 'twas most too cool on the boat up the river and John Edward he asked if the monkeys wa'n't cute!"

"Peggy, Peggy, my child!" said Miss Margery. "Don't you know it's sinful to tell lies?"

"Yessum—lies that hurt folks. Them's little white lies. They don't do no harm."

"There aren't any white lies, Peggy. They are all black. It is wrong, it is sinful, to tell a falsehood. Remember that, my child," Miss Margery urged. "Always speak the truth."

"Yessum, lady." Peggy's brow was unclouded and her clear blue eyes looked straight into the clear blue eyes of the Charity lady. "Can I tell mommer you'll come? or can't you give me the money? She's awful worried."

"I do not understand," said Miss Margery. "I know she had that money for the rent."

"Did she, ma'am?" Peggy looked surprised, then suggested, "I 'spect she lost it. She keeps the rent money in a china mug on the mantel-piece, and this might 'a' been paper money and blowed in the fire and got burnt up."

Miss Margery looked unconvinced. "Tell your mother I'll come there this afternoon," she said. Peggy, with an engaging smile, tripped away.

Anne was delighted to learn that another visit was to be paid to the Callahans. She ran home to get Honey-Sweet.

"I told them about her and they want to see her," she said. "I think she's taller than the baby. Oh! I hope that cunning baby has another tooth."

Miss Margery paused a moment at the door of the Callahans' neighbor, the 'nice colored lady.' "Do you happen to know," she inquired, "where Mrs. Callahan was last Thursday afternoon?"

"She was visitin', lady," was the ready answer. "She took the biggest children to see a lady she sews for that's give them a lot of things. I had them three youngest children under my feet all afternoon. Not but that I was glad to mind them for her to go visitin', for she's a splendid lady and they're real lovely children. She's to home now. The sewin'-machine's been rattlin' since daylight."

"I cert'ny am glad to see you at last, lady," said Mrs. Callahan, with rather an offended air, when Peggy and John Edward and Elmore and Susie ushered in the visitors. "I been lookin' for you to bring me that rent-money. I told the agent's young man he should have it early this afternoon."

"I did not promise to let you have any money, Mrs. Callahan." Miss Margery's tone was crisp and firm. "On Monday you had all your rent-money except one dollar. You said you expected to get that this week for sewing."

"I ain't got no sewin' money," said Mrs. Callahan. "The lady she couldn't make the change and she told me to come back Monday. That's why I had to send and ask you to lend me the loan of three dollars."

"But it was one dollar you needed for the rent, Mrs. Callahan," said Miss Margery, resolved to get to the bottom of the matter.

"Well, I did have two dollars but I had to spend it," said Mrs. Callahan. "I was thinkin' I could get it somehow. And I knew you could let me have it. Ain't that what the Charity's for?"

That was what many of the 'poor things' thought, Miss Margery knew to her regret,—that the Charity was merely a reservoir for the wasteful and the thriftless to draw from at will. Could it ever be, she wondered, what it ought to be,—a crutch to be cast aside with regained health, a hand of brotherhood to lift the fallen and teach them to stand alone, to steady the weak and make them strong? How hard it was to give help, and at the same time to teach the poor to be self-helpful! Miss Margery sighed, but she knew it was useless to argue the matter, so she only answered reprovingly, "I fear you have wasted money, Mrs. Callahan. A neighbor told me you had been off with the children on an excursion."

When Mrs. Callahan dimpled and chuckled as she did now, she looked like Peggy's older sister. "Peg told me Mrs. Flannagan went to you with that tale. I cert'ny did fool her. Why, Miss Margery, I ain't been on no more 'scursions than this old machine settin' here. When I took Mrs. Peckinbaugh's sewin' home, I carried the children with me, like she told me, for her to see how I'd fixed the clothes she give me. She give us a reception like the president's,—sandwiches and lemonade and iced cakes and street-car fare back home. I laugh every time I think how I fooled Mrs. Flannagan. I told her that bundle of sewin' was our lunch and wraps. And she fool enough to believe me!" Mrs. Callahan laughed till tears stood in her eyes.

"Mrs. Callahan, aren't you ashamed to tell falsehoods—and before your little children, too? How can you expect them to believe you? And how can you expect them to tell the truth when you set them such an example?"

"Why, I wouldn't tell a lie to harm anybody for the world," said Mrs. Callahan. "But there wouldn't be no fun in livin' if you didn't tell white lies."

Miss Margery saw that it was useless to protest. "I think I ought not to give you any money, Mrs. Callahan," she said, rising to go. "You had it in your hand and you spent it. If we give in such cases as this, we will not have funds to meet real need."

"If you must know," said Mrs. Callahan, "I lent them two dollars to the colored lady next door. Her rent was due on Wednesday and she'll get the money for her wash to-night. I told Peggy not to tell you, for you'd told me so partic'lar not to spend a cent of that money—but if you must know, you must. She was needin' it worse than me."

"Is this the truth?" asked Miss Margery.

"It's the gospel truth, ma'am," declared Mrs. Callahan. "You ask Mrs. Mooney, ma'am."

As the two women promised faithfully to repay it on Monday, Miss Margery lent the lacking rent-money and then rose to go.

Meanwhile, Anne and Honey-Sweet were the centre of an admiring group. Anne allowed the little Callahans one by one to touch Honey-Sweet and the older ones were even permitted to hold her for a minute.

As Honey-Sweet made the rounds of the group, she was followed admiringly by the beadlike, black eyes of Lois, the second from the baby. She put out her chubby hand and solemnly touched the doll's dress with her fingertip, saying over and over, "Pretty sweet Honey! pretty sweet Honey!" When Miss Margery said they must go, Lois caught Anne's frock in her little fat hands and lisped, "Don't go away, sweet Honey. Stay here two, five minutes."

Miss Margery smiled and patted the tangled curls. "It is getting late, dearie, and we must hurry home," she said.

But Lois followed them down the path, crying, "Wait, lady, wait." She smiled up into Anne's face. "I dess want kiss sweet Honey one time," she said. "I ain't done kiss her yet." Then she pressed her lips on the lace-ruffled flounces and toddled back to the house.



CHAPTER XXVII

Several weeks passed during which Miss Margery saw nothing of the Callahans. Mr. Callahan came back from the workhouse and, with fear of another term before his eyes, he managed to keep away from his old comrades and to provide for his family. Anne saw Peggy at school and, with Cousin Dorcas's permission, talked to her sometimes in recess and kept informed as to how many teeth the baby had and the new words Bud could say. All the children had bad colds, Peggy said one day, "terrible bad, and the doctor he says mommer must keep the windows open and she lets 'em stay up while he's there to pleasure him and shuts 'em soon as he goes away."

The next day and for several days thereafter, Peggy was absent from school. Anne looked eagerly forward to Saturday when she was to put on her old shoes—she had new ones now—and go with Miss Margery to inquire about the little Callahans.

Friday afternoon, however, brought Peggy to the door, asking for Anne. It was an anxious-faced Peggy. "I ain't been to school 'cause Lois is sick," she explained. "She been sick all week and she gets no better all the time. And she keeps on frettin' to see that doll of yours. She been talkin' 'bout it ever since you was there. And she say if she can just see that doll—she don't ask to touch it—she'll take her medicine. That's why she's so bad off. She won't take her medicine. And mommer sent word to know, won't you please come over and bring your doll for her to see."

"What is the matter with Lois?" asked Miss Dorcas.

"Doctor says she's threatened with the pneumony and she's terrible bad off," said Peggy.

As Miss Margery was not at home, Miss Dorcas herself went with Anne and Honey-Sweet to see the sick child. They walked down the dingy street, took short cuts across vacant lots, passed through the 'No Thoroughfare' gate, and followed the straggling path that led to the little brown house.

Their knock at the door was followed by a scrambling and scampering within, and a hoarse wail from Lois. Then a window was raised, a little face peeped out, and a relieved voice said: "'Tain't the doctor-man. It's Honey-Sweet's girl and a lady."

Peggy opened the door. "Come right in," she said. Then she explained: "We was tryin' to get Lois back in bed. The doctor says she must stay in bed and she hates it, so she will get up and have a pillow-pallet on the floor."

There the child was lying, tossing restlessly about, while Mrs. Callahan's machine rattled away as usual.

Lois gave a cry of delight when Anne came in with Honey-Sweet. "Pretty sweet Honey!" she exclaimed. "Le' me kiss her one time."

"You wait," said Mrs. Callahan. "That dolly ain't coming nigh you till you take your dost of medicine. Then I'll ask the lady to let her lay on the pillow."

Lois looked inquiringly at Anne.

"Take your medicine like a good girl," said Honey-Sweet's little mother, "and I'll let you hold my baby doll in your own hands."

Lois opened her mouth to receive the bitter draught and then stretched out her arms for Honey-Sweet. She touched shoes and dress and hair with light, admiring fingers.

"Pretty sweet Honey," she murmured.

Mrs. Callahan breathed a sigh of relief. "That's the first dost of medicine we've got her to take to-day," she said. "We've all been tryin' to worrit it down her. We've give her everything in the house she fancied. Pa he paid her a bottle of beer to take a spoonful last night. Bless you, no'm"—even in her distress she laughed at Miss Dorcas's shocked look—"she didn't drink a drop of it. She likes to see it sizzle, and she had him pull off the cap and let it foam and drizzle on the floor."

"I would whip her," said Miss Dorcas, drawing her mouth down at the corners.

"No'm, you wouldn't," said Mrs. Callahan, "not if you was her mother and she sick. But it do worrit me awful. These two days I been pourin' out a spoonful of her medicine every two hours—time she ought to take it—and a-throwin' it away. It's a dreadful waste. But I got to do something to make the doctor think she's took it. It makes him so mad when she don't."

Miss Dorcas exclaimed in dismay. "Aren't you afraid the child will die if she doesn't take the medicine?"

"Yessum, I am. But what can I do?" said Mrs. Callahan. "I try to get her to take it every time she ought to have a dost. And what's the use of worritin' the doctor if she won't? It makes him so mad."

Lois, meanwhile, was having a happy time with Honey-Sweet. Anne showed how her shoes came off and on and untied her cap to display her curls. "Here's how she goes to sleep at night," she said. "I put her to bed by me and I sing to her:—

'Honey, honey! Sweet, sweet, sweet! Honey, honey! Honey-Sweet!'"

As she crooned the lullaby, Lois lisped it after her.

It grew late and Miss Dorcas rose to go.

"If you'll take your medicine to-night, like a little lady," said Anne, "we will come back to see you to-morrow—Honey-Sweet and I. Mayn't we, Cousin Dorcas?—Oh, oh! if you cry, we can't come! Will you promise to take your medicine?"

"I take it now if pretty Honey stay," said Lois.

"No, no! it isn't time now. But if you take it at the right time, we'll come back, and Honey-Sweet may lie on the pillow beside you."

The next afternoon, Anne brought Honey-Sweet, dressed in a blue muslin frock and a new hat that Miss Margery had made of lace and rosebuds and blue ribbon.

Lois's face beamed when she saw this finery. "Can I kiss her dwess?" she asked, gulping down the bitter draught. "Bad medicine gone now. Oh, the pretty flowers!" and she counted on her fingers the rosebuds on Honey-Sweet's hat: "One, two, free, five, seben, leben, hundred beauty flowers."

Mrs. Callahan was, as she said, 'flustered.' Her thread snarled and snapped as she sewed on buttons. "Doctor was here after you left yestiddy," she said. "You'd 'a' thought he'd been at that window peekin' in. He didn't believe me at all when I told him Lois was takin' her medicine reg'lar. He says she's gettin' worse every day since Choosday, and if she don't take her medicine reg'lar, he can't do her no good. She took it two—three times after you left with me a-tellin' her 'bout that beauteous doll that was comin' to-morrow. But she's little and to-morrow looked slow in comin', so after 'while when I'd hold out the spoon, she'd just shake her head and say, 'No, no, no! Mammy tellin' story! Sweet Honey ain't comin'.'"

"It is as I told you it would be, Mrs. Callahan," said Miss Margery. "Your child doesn't trust you. You have told her falsehoods and now she doesn't believe you."

"Ain't it smart of her to take that much notice and she so little!" said Mrs. Callahan, admiringly. "Well, glory be, she's got one more dost down her."

When it was time for Anne to go, Lois wailed aloud. "I don't want sweet Honey to go! I don't want sweet Honey to go!"

"If you'll take your medicine, she'll come back to see you," promised Anne.

"Don't want her to come back—want her to stay," sobbed Lois.

Anne tried to soothe her with promises that she would bring Honey-Sweet back soon, dressed in a pink hat and a pink-flowered muslin. But Lois would not be consoled and Anne left her at last in tears.

Monday morning before school time, Peggy and John Edward and Elmore came to Miss Dorcas's door and asked for Anne. Would she please lend them Honey-Sweet that day? They'd be ever and ever so careful.

"Lend Honey-Sweet!" exclaimed Anne.

They hated to ask it but Lois would not take her medicine. She had pushed aside and spilled dose after dose. "She says she won't take that nasty old bitter old stuff. And her cheeks are so red and she breathes so rattly. Mommer's scairt. And the doctor man'll be so mad. Mommer asked her if she'd take her medicine for Honey-Sweet and she said 'Yes.' So mommer say for us to run and beg you do please lend us your baby-doll to-day."

"If Lois is so sick,—oh, I suppose I must," said Anne; "but—Peggy, will you be careful of her every minute of the time and bring her back this afternoon—sure and certain?"

Peggy promised, and Peggy did. "Lois took her medicine fine," she said, smiling and dimpling. "Mommer give her a dost a hour before time so's I could bring your baby-doll and get home before dark. Here she is. See! I ain't even mussed her curls."

The next day, Lois was worse again. Her mother confessed that they had "worrited half the night with her and not got a dost down her," but Honey-Sweet brought her to terms.

When Miss Margery rose to go, Anne hesitated a minute, then said, "Mrs. Callahan, if I let Honey-Sweet stay here to-night with Lois, can you take good, good care of her?"

Mrs. Callahan's face beamed. "That I can, and that I will. I been wantin' to ask you to let her stay and hatin' to do it, seein' how much you set store by her. I'll take care of her good as if she was my own baby."

The next afternoon, Anne found Honey-Sweet sitting in state on the mantel-piece beside the medicine bottle.

"She comes down with it and she goes back with it," said Mrs. Callahan. "The doctor was here this noon and he says she's better and if she takes her medicine reg'lar and keeps on the mend till Sadday he thinks she'll be all right. I hope she'll take it. She does every time for that doll." And the worried mother looked anxiously at Anne.

"I reckon I'll have to spare Honey-Sweet till Saturday," said Anne, with an effort. She missed her pet and the Callahan family was so big and so careless! "Please, Mrs. Callahan, be careful with her every minute. I love her so very dearly."

"Bless your heart, I wouldn't have harm come to her for the world. There she sits like a queen on her throne, and ain't took down but by my own hands with the medicine bottle. I've told the kids I'll skin 'em alive if they put finger on her."

Saturday morning brought Peggy to see Anne,—a sad Peggy with downcast eyes and red nose and croaking voice.

"You've a bad cold, Peggy, haven't you?" said Miss Dorcas.

Peggy nodded. "Yessum, lady. Terrible bad. Maybe so I'll have the pneumony, like Lois, and maybe so I'll die."

"Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Anne who had hastened out when she heard Peggy. She hoped Honey-Sweet was in that bundle—though she knew it was too small.

"Mommer sent me," said the saddened Peggy with the downcast eyes, "to ask you ladies, please'm, not to come home to-day."

"Is Lois worse?" was Miss Dorcas's anxious question.

"No'm. The doctor says she's lots better, but"—Peggy hesitated—"he says she mustn't have no company and I think he says she mustn't have no company till Monday. And here's something for you." She thrust into Anne's hand a newspaper package which being opened revealed a gauze fan spangled with silver, soiled and frayed, but the pride of Peggy's heart. "And you won't come till Monday, ma'am?" she urged.

Miss Dorcas agreed, but Miss Margery, when she heard the tale, shook her head.

"That's one of Peggy's tales that I'm going to look into," she said. "I have to see a girl in that neighborhood and I'll go there this afternoon."

"And you'll let me go with you? Please," pleaded Anne. "I'm so homesick for Honey-Sweet. She's never been away from me before. You can hand her out the window and let me visit her, if I can't see Lois."

It was a raw December day and none of the Callahan children were playing, as usual, in front of the little brown house. The sewing-machine was rattling away at such furious speed that Miss Margery's knock at the door was unheard. The Charity lady hesitated a moment. "If Lois can stand that rattle-ty-banging, she can stand sight and sound of us. Let's go in," she said and she opened the door.

Anne's eyes went straight to the mantel-piece. Honey-Sweet was not there. Anne looked down at the pallet, where Lois lay asleep. No Honey-Sweet there. The child's questioning, appealing eyes turned to Lois's mother.

Mrs. Callahan dropped her face in her apron. "I wouldn't 'a' had it happen for the world!" she sobbed. "Not for all the world."

"What is the matter, Mrs. Callahan?" inquired Miss Margery.

"Where's Honey-Sweet?" asked Anne.

"I wouldn't 'a' had that doll ruint for nothin'," wailed Mrs. Callahan.

"Honey-Sweet? ruined?" stammered Anne.

"What has happened to Anne's doll, Mrs. Callahan? Will you please explain at once?" Miss Margery was at her sternest.

"Peggy done it—and she's cried herself 'most sick. 'Twas yestiddy. I'd gone to take home some sewin'. Peg she's been possessed to show that doll to the Flannagan children. Bein' as I was gone and Lois 'sleep, she slipped out. And while they were all mirationin' over the doll's shoes and stockin's, that low-down Flannagan dog grabbed the doll and made off with it. And they couldn't get it away from him—he tore it to pieces, worritin' it like 'twas a cat. He ought to be skinned alive, I say. It's low-down to keep such a dog."

"If Peggy had obeyed—" began Miss Margery.

"Yessum," interrupted Mrs. Callahan. "And nobody's got any business to keep such a dog! We wouldn't 'a' had it happen for the world, ma'am. I sent you that word 'bout Lois," she went on, addressing Anne, "so's you wouldn't come. We didn't want you to know 'bout it till Monday. Pa he draws his pay to-night and John Edward, too. John Edward he's errant boy for a grocer down on M Street. They're going to take all their money and buy you the finest doll in Washington, rent or no rent, victuals or no victuals."

"No, no, no," protested Anne.

"Don't you look so white and pitiful," sobbed Mrs. Callahan. "I wouldn't 'a' had it happen for the world. You shall have the finest doll—"

"I don't want a doll," Anne spoke with difficulty. "Tell them not to, Miss Margery. It wouldn't be Honey-Sweet. Please, oh, please, let's go home, Miss Margery."

Poor little Anne! Miss Margery had her downstairs to tea that evening, and gave her milk toast and pink iced cakes and candy in a Santa Claus box that was to have waited till Christmas. Then she sang Anne's favorite songs. But the shadow did not lift. Anne kissed her friend good-night and crept away to bed before nine o'clock. An hour later, Miss Dorcas and Miss Margery tiptoed into her room. There she lay, her face swollen with weeping and her breath coming in sobbing gasps. She stirred and crumpled a pillow in her arms, and crooned in her sleep the old lullaby:—

"'Honey, honey! Sweet, sweet, sweet! Honey, honey! Honey-Sweet!'"



CHAPTER XXVIII

All this time—so little is our big world—Miss Drayton was hardly a stone's throw from Anne. She was keeping house for her brother-in-law who was busy with office work in Washington. Pat was at home, having entered classes to prepare for George Washington University. It was strange that Anne and her old friends went to and fro, back and forth, so near together and yet did not meet. They must have missed one another sometimes by only a minute or two in a shop or on a street-car or at a street corner. But week after week passed without bringing them together.

One morning, as Mr. Patterson was glancing over his newspaper at breakfast, he uttered an exclamation of surprise. "This is something you'll want to hear," he said to Miss Drayton—and then he read aloud an article with these headlines:—

Truth Stranger than Fiction

"Felon Gives himself up

"Returns to take his Punishment."

Mr. Carey Mayo of New York City, who had used funds of the Stuyvesant Trust Company and had disappeared two years before just as he was about to be arrested, had surrendered himself to the officers of the law. His trial was set for an early day. As he had given himself up of his own free will, it was thought that his sentence would be light.

Fuller explanation came in a letter to Miss Drayton, forwarded by the consul at Nantes. Mr. Mayo thanked her for her care and goodness to Anne—the words smote her heart. He had spent these two years at work in South Africa and had laid aside every possible penny of his earnings in order to keep his niece from being a burden on strangers. This money he was putting in a certain New York banking-house for Miss Drayton in trust for Anne. He requested her to use it to educate Anne and to buy back the child's old home. It would be better, when Anne was old enough to understand the matter, to tell her the truth about him. He asked Miss Drayton to say that his regret, his repentance, were as great as his sin. He had come to realize that the disgrace was in the deed he had done and not in its punishment. So, having righted affairs for Anne as well as he could, he was going to surrender himself to the officers of the law. He was tired of being followed everywhere by fear of discovery, tired of being an outcast from his own land and people. The worst hurt was to think that Anne must some day know that he was in a felon's cell.

Only one course lay open to Miss Drayton, and how painful that was! She must inform Anne's uncle that she had not taken care of Anne, as he thought, and that the child had been sent to an orphan asylum, from which she had wandered away, no one knew where. If only he need not be told! But he must.

Miss Drayton and Mr. Patterson resolved to go to see Mr. Mayo. But the proposed journey was never made. A day or two before they were to start, the newspapers announced that Mr. Carey Mayo had died in the prison to which he had been committed to await trial. He had heart disease, and strain and excitement had brought on a fatal attack.

What was to be done about the property left to Miss Drayton in trust for Anne? Mr. Patterson advised his sister-in-law to let the matter rest for the present. Anne might be found. Mrs. Marshall wrote that they had a clew which they were following. A little girl, answering in general the description of Anne, had been seen near Westcot with a gypsy band. They would continue the search and never give up hope.

Christmas was now at hand and Miss Drayton, always ready for deeds of charity, resolved to send holiday gifts and dinners to several poor families.

Telephoning to the district agent of the Associated Charities, she obtained the names of some 'deserving poor,' and a crisp, clear December morning found her driving from one home to another, talking with mothers and receiving children's messages to Santa Claus. On the ragged edge of the city, her coachman halted before a little brown house from the porch of which hung a leafless rose-bush. Miss Drayton consulted the card in her hand: "John Edward Callahan, wife, and seven children." Two or three smiling children, not yet of school age, were peeping out of the window and a woman left her sewing-machine to open the door.

Miss Drayton explained the purpose of her visit. "I understand you have several children," she said.

"Only seven, lady," said Mrs. Callahan. "Peggy and John Edward and Elmore and Susie and Lois and Bud and the baby."

"Ah! Only seven! And their ages?"

"Peggy she's near on 'leven and the baby's a year old this last gone November and the others are scattered 'long between," explained Mrs. Callahan.

"And what—" Miss Drayton smiled back at Lois and Bud and the baby—"must I tell Santa Claus to bring you for Christmas, if I happen to see him?"

"A doll, lady, please," answered Mrs. Callahan, eagerly, "a gre't big doll—big as that baby—pretty as a picture—open-and-shut eyes—real hair and curly. Lady, they'd rather have a real elegant doll than anything in the world."

"Oh, but not the boys," protested Miss Drayton.

"Yessum—boys and girls and pa and me—all of us," insisted Mrs. Callahan. "Lump us so as to make it splendiferous. Oh, bless you, 'tain't for us. It's for the little girl that lent us the loan of her doll to get Lois to take her medicine. And the doll got ruint. Miss Margery—that's the Charity lady—she's awful cross sometimes—said we shouldn't buy a doll with the wages. But she couldn't fault a present. I never see a child love a doll like she did that Honey-Sweet."

"Honey-Sweet!" exclaimed Miss Drayton.

"Yessum, lady. Wasn't that a funny name for a doll? It was the purtiest rag baby I ever see."

"A rag baby, named Honey-Sweet!" repeated Miss Drayton. "Was the little girl—what was her name?"

"Anne. Anne Hartman. She's niece to Miss Hartman, the head lady of the Charity."

"Oh!" Could this be her little Anne? Or was there another child named Anne with another rag doll named Honey-Sweet? Anne Hartman? And her Anne had no aunt Miss Hartman. It was queer, very queer, and puzzling. "What kind of looking child is Anne Hartman?" Miss Drayton asked.

"She's a little girl," answered Mrs. Callahan. "Tall as my Peggy, but slimmer. Not pretty.—Well, I dunno. She's beautiful, times when she's happy-looking. She's got a perky little nose and long, twinkly eyes. Molasses-candy-colored hair. And her mouth—Peggy says it's like one of our red rosebuds when they begin to open."

Ah! Whatever name and kinswoman she had now, that was Anne.

"Where does she live?" inquired Miss Drayton, eagerly.

"At the corner of Fairview Avenue, in the big old house that's turned into flats. Was the doll too much to ask, lady?" asked Mrs. Callahan, as Miss Drayton rose to go.

"No, oh, no, indeed! You shall have the doll, and things for all the children besides," said Miss Drayton. "Good-morning, Mrs. Callahan. George, drive down Fairview Avenue. Drive fast. I'll tell you where to stop."

There was no one named Anne Hartman in that building, the janitor informed her. A little girl named Anne? Perhaps she meant Anne Lewis, that lived here with her cousin, Miss Dorcas Read. The top apartment. She was not at home now, he knew. She came from school about two o'clock. No, her cousin was not at home either. She was a government clerk and never came in before five.

Miss Drayton would wait. She wished to see the little girl the very minute that she came in. The janitor invited the lady into his dingy office but she shook her head. She would wait, if he pleased, in the pleasant old garden, of which she caught a glimpse through the open door.

Up and down, down and up, the gravelled walks she paced, restless and impatient. Suppose there was some mistake. Suppose this Anne Lewis was not her little Anne. Surely it was time for the child to come from school. Only one o'clock? Her watch must be wrong. No, it had not stopped. And the old dial, catching the sunlight through leafless trees, told the same hour. Drawing her furs about her, Miss Drayton sat down on a stone bench.

From below, came the street noises,—jangle of cars, rumble of wagons, clatter and clamor of passers-by. In the old garden, withered leaves drifted down on the still air or rustled underfoot, bare branches wavered against the clear blue sky, and purple shadows flickered on the leaf-strewn walk. How quiet it was! how peaceful! By degrees, the quiet and the peace crept into Miss Drayton's heart. She was content to wait. In this good world of ours, everything is sure to come out right in the end.

And then, in the mellow sunlight, down the box-bordered walk, past the sun-dial, toward the stone bench, came a little figure.

"Mr. Brown said that a lady—oh! oh! it's you!"

"Dear little Anne! dear little Anne!" She was clasped in the arms—dear, cuddly arms!—of her friend.

What laughter, tears, and chatter there were!

"But we must go home," said Miss Drayton, presently. "Pat will be there now. We'll come back to see your cousin."

As they entered the hall, they heard from above the click-click of dumb-bells. Miss Drayton put her finger on Anne's lips, and they tiptoed into the cozy sitting-room.

Then Miss Drayton called in an offhand way: "Pat, oh, Pat! There's a child in the sitting-room that wants to see you."

"Who is he?"

His aunt did not seem to hear. Anyway, she did not answer. Pat, whistling ragtime, sauntered into the sitting-room.

Anne flew into his arms.

"Why, what—" and then he realized that it was Anne. Anne! He gave her a bear's hug and danced about the room, holding her high in his arms. Miss Drayton laughed till tears came.

"Where did you come from? How did you get here? Did Aunt Sarah find you? Does dad know you've come? When—"

"There, there, Pat! Not more than three questions at a time, please," interrupted his aunt. "And you're not leaving Anne breath to answer one."

How much there was to ask and to tell! Anne gave an account of her wanderings. Pat told how they had searched for her, how grieved the asylum people and the Marshall family were at not being able to find her. "Why, there's that little chap Dunlop. He asked if you had any jam for your supper—and I told him 'No'—and he wouldn't touch it—said he didn't want it, if Anne didn't have any."

"Dunlop! Dunlop did that!"

"He and his small brother weep a little weep every time your name is mentioned."

"Oh, Pat! Why, I never thought they'd care so much," said Anne. "I miss them. But I was afraid to write to them. I didn't want to go back there. Can they make me go back, if I write and tell them where I am?"

"No, indeed," answered Miss Drayton.

"Bet your life they can't," said Pat. "You're coming to live with us. Isn't she, Aunt Sarah?"

"I'm so glad! I'm so glad!" Anne was radiant. "I love Cousin Dorcas," she hastened to explain. "She's just as kind to me as can be and she's awful good. But—she's one of the good people you don't want to live with. She has nerves, you know, and so many troubles. And her arms aren't cuddly. Not like yours, Miss Drayton. I think she likes me—a cousin-like, you know,—but I'm sure she'll be glad not to have me live with her. She hasn't much money and I cost so much. Shoes are the worst. I wear them out so fast."

"You can wear out all you want to now,—shoes and everything. And give Cousin Dorcas some, too," said Pat.

While they were chattering away, a measured step was heard in the hall. "There's father," said Pat. "Oh, dad, we've found Anne," he called. "Here she is."

Mr. Patterson hurried into the room. Anne rose timidly to shake hands, and was caught in a hearty embrace. "Welcome, little one! Welcome home," said Mr. Patterson.

"Hooray! hooray for the star-spangled banner!" Pat shouted so loud that the cook and both the maid-servants came running to see what was the matter. Whereupon Mr. Patterson told them that they were to have the Christmas turkey that day and the best dinner they could prepare on such short notice, to celebrate Miss Anne's coming home.

"We want your cousin to join us," said Miss Drayton. "Has she a telephone?"

"We use Miss Margery's," replied Anne. "Please, do you mind—would you ask Miss Margery, too?"

"Of course, dear. We shall be happy to have her. Before dinner let's write some little letters—really we ought—to let your other friends know that we've found you."

"Bully Mrs. Collins," said Pat.

"And poor Miss Farlow," added Miss Drayton.

"Don't forget our friend 'Lop," suggested Mr. Patterson.

"And—it's far away and long ago—" said Anne, "but I want Mademoiselle Duroc to know and to tell the girls, if any of the old ones are there, that you know about the jewels and it's all right."



CHAPTER XXIX

"Time you youngsters were doing your Christmas shopping," said Mr. Patterson the next morning, laying a generous banknote by Pat's plate and two crisp notes by Anne's. "She has to have a double portion," he explained, "because she's a girl—and little—and has to make up lost time."

"Yep, dad," said Pat, nodding agreement to each of these reasons and adding another, "and she has such gangs of people to send things to. You'll have to go to the ten-cent shop, Nancy Anne, or borrow from my bank. Wherever you've been, you've picked up friends, like—like a little woolly lambie gathers burs."

They all laughed at Pat's speech; they were in the joyous frame of mind when laughter comes easily.

"I want to join you in Christmas remembrances to the people who have been so good to you," said Miss Drayton.

"I'll send Jake Collins a ball and Peter a pocket-knife," said Pat, "or would Jake rather have a knife, too?"

"Mrs. Collins shall have a silk dress," said Miss Drayton.

"Oo-ee! That will be glorious," exclaimed Anne. "Let it be the rustly kind. And red. She loves red."

"Mr. Collins shall have an umbrella with a gorgeous silver handle," said Mr. Patterson. "That will be silk. Must it be rustly and red, too?"

Anne laughed. "Lizzie would just love a pink parasol," she said. "And I know what Aunt Charity would like—a pair of big, gold-rimmed spectacles. I heard her say she'd rather have them than anything else in the world."

"Is her eyesight very bad?" asked Miss Drayton.

"Why—I don't know. I reckon not." Anne looked puzzled. "Oh! she just wants them for dress-up. She has a pair of steel-rimmed ones now. She pulls them down on her nose so she can see over them, you know."

Mr. Patterson threw back his head and laughed till he was red in the face. "She shall have them," he said, as soon as he could speak. "She shall have the very biggest pair of gold-rimmed spectacles with plain glass lens that Claflin's shop affords. May I live to see her wear them! And we'll send her a good warm shawl besides and Uncle Richard shall have—shall have a blue overcoat with brass buttons."

"Goody, goody, goody!" cried Anne, clapping her hands. "Oh, please, I just must kiss you."

"Good pay—and in advance," said Mr. Patterson. "But I charge two kisses," which he proceeded to take.

"What would Miss Farlow like?" inquired Miss Drayton.

"I know," said Anne. "Gloves. You just ought to see her shoe-polishing her rusty finger-tips. And she looks like she likes herself so much better when she has a new pair."

"She shall have a boxful," Miss Drayton declared; "and the girls—would they be allowed to wear red hair-ribbons and embroidered collars?"

"Oh, please, Miss Drayton—Aunt Sarah, I mean," said Anne, "don't let's send them a single useful thing. Just a box full of games and story-books and a box of candy for each one, with a ribbon round it and little silver tongs inside."

"Good! That's the thing," agreed Mr. Patterson, consulting his watch and jumping up from the table. "Here! can't you all join me in the Boston House to-day at twelve-thirty to select a gift for 'Lop? I want the noisiest mechanical toy there is."

"Poor Mrs. Marshall!" laughed Miss Drayton.

We may not follow the merry party on that shopping trip. But let me assure you that boxes were sent to all the Virginia friends and that there were generous gifts for Cousin Dorcas and Miss Margery. They were certainly well selected, for each person said that his or her gift was just exactly what was most desired.

The maid who opened the door that afternoon to the weary, happy, home-coming party of Christmas shoppers said, "Please, Miss Drayton, there's a lady and two little boys in the back parlor to see Miss Anne. They've been waiting an hour. The biggest boy's dreadful impatient and he stamped and screamed awful because I couldn't go and bring her home."

"Why, it must be 'Lop," exclaimed Anne.

Dunlop it was, with his mother and Arthur.

"He would come," said Mrs. Marshall. "He clamored to start as soon as we read the letter this morning. I feared he'd worry himself sick. He's so nervous and high-strung," she explained to Miss Drayton.

"Papa promised me a little automobile if I'd stay at home," said Dunlop, hanging to Anne's hand. "I told him I'd rather see Anne."

"Oh!" Anne kissed him.

"'Spect I'll get the automobile anyway," reflected Dunlop. "And, Anne, I know now 'bout Santa Claus," with a cautious glance at Arthur who was cuddled in her arms.

Mrs. Marshall produced a packet which Miss Farlow had asked her to deliver,—Anne's gold beads and coral pins, and the rings, locket, and purse given by her uncle. Miss Drayton looked thoughtfully at the jewels.

"These were your mother's, you know, Anne," she said. "You must keep and prize them always, dear. And I have a story to tell you some day, little Anne—some far-off, 'most-grown-up day."

The next morning was Christmas. When Anne awakened, she found around her wrist a red ribbon on which was a card bearing these words:

"Follow, follow where I wind, Christmas tokens you will find."

After many wanderings about the chairs and tables, the ribbon led to the top shelf of the closet, where there was a box of games, "With love from brother Pat." Then it conducted Anne back to the bed and when she stooped to unwind it from the bed-post she touched a soft, furry thing and gave a squeal, thinking it was a live creature; she gave another squeal of delight when she found that it was a muff and a little fur coat from Mr. Patterson. From the bed, the ribbon guided Anne to the window-seat, and there "from Aunt Sarah" was a book-shelf with Little Lord Fauntleroy first in a row of beautiful books. Anne clapped her hands and danced and ran to hug and kiss Miss Drayton who was standing in the doorway, enjoying the gift-hunt. The red ribbon led to other nooks and corners where there were various other presents, including a silver toilet-set from Mrs. Marshall, a box of candy from Dunlop, a cup and saucer from Arthur, and a pair of pink and red slippers knit by Mollie, the cook at the Home.

Downstairs, Anne found a box which had been left at the door by Peggy and John Edward and Elmore and Susie. It contained a gorgeous big doll and a slip of paper on which was written: "For Miss Anne, with all our loves from her respectful friends, Mr. and Mrs. Callahan, Peggy, John Edward, Elmore, Susie, Lois, Bud, and Baby."

Anne was very grateful but very sure that she did not want a doll and that she would like Susie and Lois to have it. So Christmas afternoon, she and Pat, accompanied by Miss Drayton and Mr. Patterson, went to re-present the doll. The sewing-machine was silent for once, and the Callahan family was seated around a table spread with turkey, cranberry sauce, ham, pickles, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, cabbage, cake, mince pie, ice-cream, apples, and oranges.

"They say some folks put things on the table one by one, but we likes to have them where we can see them all one time," remarked Mrs. Callahan who was feeding the baby with turkey and pickle.

"We'se eated two dinners a'ready," said Lois.

"Mommer told all the ladies that asked us as how we wanted a Christmas dinner and we got three," explained Peggy.

"And et 'em, too," Mrs. Callahan declared. "The Charity lady told me just to ask for one—stingy old thing! I knowed my children's stomachs and I got 'em filled up good. Run around the table again now, you John Edward and Elmore, so's to jostle your victuals down and make room for the cake and ice-cream."

Miss Drayton presently heard a great smacking of lips from the corner where the twins sat. They had put their ice-cream together on one plate and were feeding each other. Elmore put a generous spoonful in John Edward's mouth.

"Smack your lips—loud—so I can taste it," he said. "Now it's your turn to give me a spoonful."

"M-m-m! ain't it good?" exclaimed John Edward. "I smacked my lips loudest—didn't I, Peggy?"

But Peggy, talking aside with Anne, did not heed him.

"It was very, very, very good of you all to send me the doll," said Anne; "but truly, I'd rather you'd keep it for Susie and Lois. I'm getting too big to play dolls, anyway."

Skipping homeward with her hands snuggled in her new muff, Anne confided to Miss Drayton, "I don't hate it near so bad about Honey-Sweet now. I love her just the same most dearly. And, just think! it was her being lost that made you find me. Peggy says they had a be-yu-tiful funeral for her. Mrs. Callahan covered the coffin with white paper and they shovelled in the dirt and put on the grave some real roses that John Edward found in an ash barrel. Wasn't that nice? Oh! this is such a nice world!"



* * * * *



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