"'Tisn't every girl that's as plucky as my little sister," said Graham, tightening his clasp about her. Ruth's laughter ended abruptly. "Oh, don't, Graham," she pleaded, as if distressed by his praise. "If you only knew—" And there she stopped. It was quite enough for Ruth Wylie to know the true inwardness of that day; a day, Ruth was certain, that would never, never be duplicated in her experience.



CHAPTER X

MRS. SNOOKS' EDUCATION

For the next few days Ruth continued to be the centre of the life of the cottage. All the fun was planned with due regard to her lack of strength. At almost every meal some little extra delicacy appeared beside her plate. Whatever impatience Graham and Jack may have felt over the further postponement of their tramp, they concealed the feeling with remarkable tact. There was little danger however, that the unusual attentions showered on Ruth would turn her head, as she had a counter-irritant in the shape of a firm conviction that she did not deserve any of this spontaneous kindness.

It was a day or two after her unsuccessful attempt to enact the role of heroine that Graham arrived at the cottage at an early hour and in a noticeable state of indignation. In spite of Ruth's protests that she was quite well enough to assist in the work of the morning, the girls had unanimously scoffed at the suggestion, and had forcibly seated her in one of the porch rockers and thrust a late magazine in her hands. But by the time Graham arrived, the magazine had slipped to the floor and Ruth sitting with folded hands, was able to give her brother her undivided attention.

"It's the most extraordinary thing," Graham sat down on the steps at Ruth's feet, and fanned his flushed face with his hat. "Have you missed anything that belongs to you, lately?"

"Why, no! Have you found anything?"

"That's what I'm going to tell you. To start at the beginning, the first night Jack and I slept at Mrs. Snooks', we weren't warm enough. There weren't many covers on the bed, and in this hilly country the nights are cool, even when the days are pretty warm. So, in the morning, I spoke to Mrs. Snooks, and said we'd like some extra bedding, and she promised to attend to it."

Ruth's face had crinkled suddenly into a smile of comprehension, which Graham was too absorbed to notice.

"Well, that night a steamer rug appeared on the bed. It wasn't exactly a success. You know a steamer rug's too narrow to cover two people properly. If it was over Jack, I was left out in the cold, and vice versa. We had to take turns shivering. After one of us got to the point where his teeth chattered, he'd snatch the rug off the other fellow and warm up. But it wasn't till this morning that I took any particular notice of that rug. And Ruth, it belongs to us!"

Graham looked at his sister with an air of expecting her to be greatly surprised. Translating her smile into an expression of incredulity, he began to prove his assertion.

"Yes, I know it sounds absurd, but I'm not mistaken, Ruth. I suppose two rugs might be of the same pattern, but it's hardly likely they would have the identical ink-spots. Don't you remember how I spilled the ink on that rug when I was getting over the measles? And down in the corner is part of a tag Uncle John had sewed on, when he borrowed it for his trip abroad. The 'Wylie' is torn off but 'John G.' is left. And now the question is—"

Ruth's laughter could no longer be restrained. "Oh, Graham, she borrowed it."

"Borrowed it!" repeated the amazed Graham. "Well, I like that."

"She rushed down here the morning after you came and said she had an extra bed to make, and would we lend her a little bedding. Of course we didn't have any bedding to spare. We'd only brought enough for ourselves and hardly that, for it's cooler here than we expected. But the steamer rug was lying around and we thought we could let her take that."

"But she must have bedding of her own," insisted Graham. "What does she do in the winter time?"

"That's the funny thing about Mrs. Snooks. She borrows dust-pans, and flat-irons and all sorts of necessary things and you feel sure that she hasn't been doing without them all her life. And the queerest part of all is that she acts so aggrieved if we refuse. If we tell her that we're out of sugar, she seems as indignant as if we kept a store, and it was our business to have sugar for everybody."

Peggy came out on the porch at that moment, and listened with interest, not unmixed with indignation, to Graham's account of his discovery. "Sometimes I think the trouble with that woman is that she's formed an appetite for borrowing, just like an appetite for drugs, you know." Peggy laughed as she added, "Perhaps I ought not to say a great deal just now, as long as I'm going borrowing myself. I've just discovered that we haven't any ginger in the house, and I've set my heart on gingerbread for dinner."

"Why don't you borrow it of Mrs. Snooks?" cried Ruth. "It's time we were getting a little return for what we've lent her."

Peggy hesitated. "I don't know why I shouldn't," she acknowledged frankly. "If it isn't very convenient for her to lend it, perhaps she'll realize that her borrowing may inconvenience other people sometimes."

It was while Peggy was absent on this errand that the plot was formed. Gradually the group on the piazza had increased till only Peggy and Dorothy were missing. Not unnaturally the conversation concerned itself with Mrs. Snooks' peculiarities, and the undeniable disadvantages of having her for a neighbor. Graham's story of the steamer rug was matched by equally harrowing tales of useful articles borrowed with the promise of an immediate return, and missed when wanted most.

"Peggy imagines that she's going to teach Mrs. Snooks a lesson by borrowing a little ginger of her," Ruth said with a shake of her head. "It's my opinion it'll take a good deal more than that to teach Mrs. Snooks anything."

A sudden mischievous light illumined Amy's eyes. "Let's give her a real lesson," she cried. "Let's show her how it seems to have your neighbors always borrowing things. Peggy's gone after a little ginger, you say?"

"Yes," nodded Ruth fascinated by the possibilities she saw unfolding in Amy's plan.

"Well, when Peggy gets home, I'll go down and do some borrowing. And it won't be anything like ginger, you understand. I'll pick out some real useful article, that she'll miss every minute. That's the way she does. And when I get back, Priscilla will take her turn."

Had Peggy been present it is doubtful whether the project would have been received with such unanimous enthusiasm. Peggy's softness of heart interfered sadly, at times, with her theories of discipline. But in her absence the conspiracy against Mrs. Snooks' peace of mind was discussed and elaborated without a dissenting voice. Even Aunt Abigail tacitly approved, and Jack Rynson, who, it appeared, had been solicited to lend a handkerchief and a black necktie, that Mr. Snooks might be properly attired for attending a funeral in the village, gave the schemers the benefit of several valuable suggestions.

Peggy made her appearance dimpling with amusement, and was greeted with a shout of interrogation. "Did you get it?" cried half a dozen voices in chorus.

"Yes, I got it, but you never saw anybody so surprised and unwilling. She hinted and fussed, and dropped hints that she'd been thinking of making gingerbread for supper herself. It really made me uncomfortable to take it, but I felt it was time that she had a lesson."

"High time!" agreed Amy with a droll glance at her fellow-conspirators. The unsuspecting Peggy looked about with mild surprise on the laughing group. "Well, we're sure of our gingerbread, anyway," she said and passed into the house. Amy was instantly on her feet.

"Oh, Amy," exclaimed Ruth, half admiringly, and half in remonstrance, "do you really dare?"

"Dare? Why, I don't need any great amount of courage. I'm only Number Two. It's Number Five or Number Six who'll have to be brave." Amy went gaily down the path, and Peggy as she stirred the soda into the molasses, wondered at the laughter on the front porch and reflected that the crowd was in unusually jolly spirits.

About the time that the gingerbread was beginning to diffuse its savory odors through the house, Amy returned. A glance at her triumphant face furnished sufficient proof that her undertaking had been successful, even without the silent testimony of a large object concealed by a napkin, and carried with ostentatious care. "Oh, Amy, what have you there?" cried Priscilla, finding some difficulty in making her voice heard above the chorus of exclamations and laughter.

"An apple-pie." Amy's tone indicated immense satisfaction with herself.

"Amy, not really? You couldn't!" Ruth protested, choking with laughter.

"Seeing's believing, isn't it?" Amy whisked off the napkin, and revealed the pie still steaming. When order was sufficiently restored, she told her story.

"I hadn't exactly made up my mind what I'd ask for, but the minute I was inside the kitchen, I saw the pie set in the window to cool and I decided on that. Poor Mrs. Snooks couldn't believe her ears. She asked me over twice, and then she said she'd never heard of anybody's borrowing a pie. And I said that we happened to be out of pies, and were going to have company to dinner. You and Jack will have to stay," she added to Graham, who accepted with as profound a bow as if he had not been counting confidently on the invitation.

"Did she act very cross?" questioned Priscilla, who was beginning to wonder if Mrs. Snooks' education had not progressed sufficiently for that day, without any further assistance.

"Oh, not particularly. She looked rather sad, and you couldn't call her manner obliging, but it isn't likely that she'd say very much, considering that she's borrowed something from us once a day on an average, ever since we came."

"I wish you'd let me take my turn next," said Claire a little nervously. "I don't want to wait till she gets to the exploding point, and then be the one to be blown up."

"Oh, go ahead, I don't mind." As a matter of fact, Priscilla shared Claire's qualms, but would not for the world have admitted as much. Ruth watched Claire moving down the path, reluctance apparent in every step, and declared that it didn't seem fair. "You girls are bearding the lioness in her den and I'm having all the fun without doing a thing. Aunt Abigail and I are the lucky ones."

"Bless you, child, I'm going to take my turn," said the old lady, with a twinkle in her eye which indicated that her requisition on the generosity of Mrs. Snooks would mark a distinct advance in the education of that lady. "I'm going when Priscilla gets back."

But, as it happened, Aunt Abigail was not called on to redeem her boast. Claire returned with a small package of salt, folded up in brown paper, her courage having failed her when it came to the point of requesting the loan of a more useful article. Priscilla, having joined in the scoffing called out by this evidence of faint-heartedness, was on her guard against a similar display of timidity.

Mrs. Snooks was ironing as Priscilla appeared in the doorway, and the flush that stained her sallow cheeks was not altogether due to the proximity of a glowing stove.

"Mrs. Snooks," Priscilla began, finding the ordeal rather more trying than she had expected, "I've come to see if you'll lend us your coffee-pot till to-morrow."

Mrs. Snooks tested her flat-iron with a damp forefinger, and then resumed her work. Her answer was so long coming that Priscilla began to wonder if she were not intending to reply.

"There's been a good deal of borrowing 'round in this neighborhood first and last," Mrs. Snooks remarked at length, with impressive dignity. "And lately I've been laying in a considerable stock of new things, including a coffee-pot. I've made up my mind that I'll neither borrow nor lend. While I don't like to seem unneighborly," concluded Mrs. Snooks, setting down her flat-iron with a startling thud, "it's a matter of principle. I've done the last lending or borrowing that I'm a-going to."

It was apparent that Amy's ruse had worked, and that Mrs. Snooks had learned her lesson, but it needed the girls' united efforts to dissuade Aunt Abigail from following up Priscilla's visit, by a call of her own. Aunt Abigail argued that in order to make the effects of the lesson permanent, it was necessary to "rub it in." From a hint she finally let fall, the girls gathered that she was disappointed in not being able to carry out a brilliant idea that had flashed into her mind while the plot was developing.

"What was it you were going to borrow, Aunt Abigail?" Ruth asked, but Aunt Abigail shook her head. "If I had succeeded in getting it from Mrs. Snooks," she replied, "you should have known. Not otherwise." And as Peggy who happened out on the porch at that moment, threw the weight of her influence on the side of those who were protesting against any further visits to Mrs. Snooks, it seemed probable that the curiosity of the company would remain ungratified. Aunt Abigail was an old lady abundantly able to keep her own counsel.

Peggy viewed the apple-pie with an air of disquiet. "Now, we'll have to buy some apples, right away. We're out."

"Well, what of it?"

"Why, we must make a pie in the morning to return to Mrs. Snooks."

"Return!" cried Amy. "Why, Peggy, you're going to ruin everything. This is 'spoiling the Egyptians.' What did Mrs. Snooks ever return that we didn't send for?" As Peggy refused to alter her determination, a little murmur of dissatisfaction arose.

"I think we're getting the worst of that bargain," Jack Rynson said with feeling. "Swapping one of Miss Peggy's pies, for one of Mrs. Snooks'. I've tried both, and I ought to know."

"Then we'll send it back just as it is," declared Amy with another happy inspiration. "We'll change it to another plate, and she won't know whether it is her pie or not. And, even if she suspects the truth, what difference does it make?"

This brilliant idea was actually carried out, after some demurring on the part of Peggy, who was afraid that Mrs. Snooks' feelings might be hurt. Graham was delegated to return the pie and did so that evening, with a suitable expression of thanks which Mrs. Snooks received without returning the usual assurance that every one concerned was perfectly welcome.

Graham turning to go up-stairs, halted by the door. "Oh, by the way, Mrs. Snooks, if you could let me have—"

"I'm entirely out," replied Mrs. Snooks, without waiting for him to finish.

Graham stared. Then he understood that Mrs. Snooks was suspecting him of complicity in the plot, and his amusement came very near getting the better of his politeness. In his effort not to laugh, his handsome young face flushed a not unbecoming scarlet.

"It was only that I lost a button on the way home, Mrs. Snooks, and I thought if you would—"

"I've lent my last spool of thread," said Mrs. Snooks, "and I haven't a needle to my name. Henney dropped my thimble down the well last week, and as for buttons, the only ones I own are on the children's clothes. But if you want any of them things, Mr. Wylie, you'll find a right good assortment at Dowd's. He keeps a good stock, if 'tis nothing but a country store."

Graham thanked her and went to his room. He reflected that Mrs. Snooks had not only learned her lesson, but had applied it, which is not always the case with promising pupils.



CHAPTER XI

DOROTHY GETS INTO MISCHIEF

The experiment which had marked such an advance in the education of Mrs. Snooks had proved equally beneficial to Ruth's health. There is no panacea like laughter. Since Ruth had been spared the ordeal of requesting the loan of any of Mrs. Snooks' belongings, her enjoyment of the situation had been unqualified and she had laughed most of the day, and even waked once or twice during the night to find herself still chuckling. By morning her manner had lost every trace of lassitude and her assurance that she felt as well as ever was accepted by the household without question.

The final obstacle in the way of the boys' long deferred tramp was now removed. Still another last day was celebrated with fitting ceremonies, and the Snooks' roof sheltered the wanderers for positively the last time. Graham and Jack had made their farewells the previous evening, as they were to start early, and Ruth's suggestion of rising to see them off was immediately vetoed by her brother.

"You won't do any such thing. Why should you miss two or three hours of sleep for the sake of saying good-by to-morrow morning, when you can just as well say it to-night?" Yet for all his masculine assumption of superiority to sentiment Graham was conscious of a little pang of disappointment as he and Jack passed Dolittle Cottage, in the dewy freshness of the summer morning. He had more than half expected to see a hand or two flutter at a window, in token that their departure was not unnoticed.

"'How can I bear to leave thee,'" hummed Jack under his breath, and his smile was a little mischievous. Graham regarded him disdainfully, and Jack, breaking off his song, hastened to say: "Well, they're as nice a crowd of girls as we'd find anywhere, if we tramped from here to the Pacific coast."

"You're right about that," Graham returned, mollified, and then the boys, turning the bend of the road, halted as abruptly as if a highwayman had checked their advance. For hidden from sight by a tangled thicket of underbrush and vines, five girls in white shirt-waists and short skirts were waiting their arrival. The girls shrieked delightedly at the amazement depicted on the countenances of the two knights of the road.

"Now, don't try to pretend that you were expecting this all the time. You know you never thought of it," Ruth cried, slipping her hand through her brother's arm, and giving it a fond squeeze.

"Of course I never thought of it. Only a girl could originate such a brilliant idea." The assumed sarcasm of Graham's rejoinder could not conceal his pleasure, and Ruth flashed a satisfied glance at Peggy, who met it with a twinkle of understanding.

"We're only going to walk about a mile," explained Peggy, as the procession moved forward. "We know you want to make a record, your first day out. And, besides, we haven't had a real breakfast yet, only crackers and milk."

It was a long mile that they traversed before parting company, as the girls found when they came to retrace their steps. Familiar as they thought themselves with the vicinity, the sunrise world was full of delightful surprises. There was magic in the air, and the winding road lured them ahead, as if it had been an enchanted path leading to fairyland.

"I wish somebody'd go away early every morning," Amy sighed from a full heart, "and give us an excuse for getting up early. To think of sleeping away hours like this."

"It's a pity we didn't leave long ago," suggested Jack Rynson, between whom and Amy there existed a sort of armed truce, "so that you could discover what a country morning was like." But before Amy could form a sufficiently withering reply, a tiny bird, perched on the topmost bough of a neighboring tree, had burst into such music that the little party stood silenced, and even playful bickering was forgotten.

Something of the magic of the morning vanished, it must be confessed, when the farewells could no longer be postponed, and the girls turned their faces toward Dolittle Cottage. "The worst of nice things," said Ruth crossly, "is that you miss them so when they stop."

"It's only half-past six now," announced Priscilla, consulting her watch. "Goodness! What are we going to do with a day as long as this?"

"I know what I'm going to do with part of it," said Peggy. "I'm going to give Lucy Haines a good boost on her algebra. There's been so much going on since the boys came, that she's felt shy about dropping in. Afraid of interfering, you know. But I sent word to her by Jerry, yesterday, that I should expect her this afternoon."

As it proved, it was not a difficult matter to occupy the long day, since each hour brought its own occupation and a little to spare. At the threshold of the cottage they were met by startling news, Dorothy hurrying out importantly to make the announcement.

"One of your little chickens has goned to Heaven, Aunt Peggy. A big bird angel took it."

"What on earth does she mean?" Peggy demanded in a perplexity not unnatural, considering the highly idealized character of Dorothy's report. It was left to Aunt Abigail to translate the catastrophe into prose. The Dolittle Cottagers were not the only early risers that fine morning. A big hawk, up betimes, and looking for his breakfast, had selected as a choice tit-bit, one of the yellow hen's fast diminishing brood. Peggy felt that she could have borne it better had it not been for the unimpaired cheerfulness of the yellow hen's demeanor.

The discussion of the tragedy delayed breakfast, and when the household finally gathered about the round table, it was a little after the regular breakfast hour rather than earlier. And, as sometimes happens, dinner seemed to follow close on the heels of breakfast, and directly after dinner, came Lucy Haines. Lucy's manner of accepting a kindness always betrayed a little hesitancy, as if her independent spirit dreaded the possibility of incurring too heavy a weight of obligation. But usually after a little time in Peggy's society, that air of constraint disappeared, greatly to Peggy's satisfaction.

That afternoon session was a protracted one. Lucy's attempt to master algebra without a teacher, had been not unlike the efforts of a mariner to navigate without a chart. Lucy's little craft had struck many a reef, and was aground hard and fast, when the tug "Peggy" steamed up alongside. The fascination of discovering a key to mysteries seemingly impenetrable rendered Lucy as oblivious to the flight of time as Peggy herself. When the girls on the porch called in to ask the time, and Peggy glancing at the clock in the corner, replied that it was half-past four, Lucy let her book drop in her consternation. Instantly her face was aflame.

"Oh, it can't be," she said in dismay. "I can't have been here three hours. What must you think of me?"

Peggy looked at her in a surprise more soothing to the girl's sensitive pride than any amount of polite protest.

"Why, I've enjoyed every minute," she said simply. "And I think we're beginning to see daylight, don't you?"

"Indeed I do. I didn't believe that such puzzling things could get so clear in one afternoon. And I can't begin to thank you." Lucy gathered up her belongings and made a hasty exit, while Peggy followed her out upon the porch.

"Hasn't Dorothy come yet, girls? Then wait a minute." This last to Lucy. "I'll get my hat and walk part way with you. I told Dorothy she might play with little Annie Cole this afternoon but it's time she was home."

The two girls had covered about half the distance to the farmhouse, when they were met by Rosetta Muriel who nodded, cordially to Peggy, and stiffly to her companion. "We thought it was time Annie was coming home," she explained. "Ma said you folks would get tired having her 'round. So I was just going for her."

The color had receded from Peggy's face in the course of this explanation. "Annie! Why, I thought—"

"Ma told her she could go over to play with Dorothy. Didn't she come?"

"Why, I haven't seen her. I told Dorothy she might go to play with Annie."

There was a frightened catch in Peggy's voice. Rosetta Muriel hastened to reassure her, though with a distinct touch of patronage.

"It's nothing to get fidgety about. Those young ones are up to some mischief, that's all. Our Annie's a whole team all by herself as far as cutting up goes, and I guess your Dorothy is another of the same kind."

"But where can they be?" faltered poor Peggy, too engrossed with that all-important question to be concerned as to the implied criticism of her small kinswoman.

"Oh, they're about the farm somewhere, I s'pose. You needn't worry. That Annie of ours is always getting into the awfulest scrapes, but, you see, she hasn't been killed yet."

With this modified comfort, Rosetta Muriel led the searching party. Peggy followed, looking rather white in spite of repeatedly assuring herself that the children were sure to be safe. Lucy Haines brought up the rear, because she could not bear to go her way till Peggy's anxiety was relieved.

The investigation of several of Annie's favorite haunts proved fruitless, and Rosetta Muriel began to show signs of temper. "Looks like they've gone down to the pond. That's a good quarter of a mile, and I've got on satin slippers." She held out an unsuitably clad foot for Peggy to admire, but Peggy was thinking of other matters than French heeled slippers. "The pond! Is it very deep?"

"No, indeed. But ma don't like—"

Lucy Haines interrupted the explanation by a stifled cry, which from a girl so self-controlled meant more than a fit of hysterical screaming on the part of one differently constituted. Peggy whirled about.

In the adjoining pasture separated from them by a low stone wall, was a fantastic spectacle, worthy a midsummer night's dream. Down the slope, snorting as he ran, galloped a full sized boar, his formidable tusks grotesquely emphasizing his terrified demeanor. The fairy-like figure perched on his back and holding fast by his ears, was Dorothy. And behind ran Annie, plying a switch and shouting commands intended to hasten the speed of the frightened charger.

As if she were in a dream, Peggy heard behind her the horrified whisper of Rosetta Muriel. "They'll be killed!" gasped the girl. "Why, that boar's dangerous!" Then her fear found voice and she screamed. At the sound Annie looked up, and halted in her tracks. Dorothy, too, lifted her eyes and straightway fell off her flying steed. And the boar, apparently uncertain as to what might happen next, lost no time in putting space between himself and his late tormentors. He turned and galloped up the slope in a frenzy of fear highly ludicrous under the circumstances. Unluckily none of the lookers-on were in a mood to appreciate the humor of the situation.

Peggy reached Dorothy about the time that the fallen equestrienne was picking herself up, her face rueful, for she realized that the hour of reckoning had come. A moment later Rosetta Muriel had pounced on Annie, and, as an indication of sisterly authority, was boxing both ears impartially.

"You little piece! You might have been killed, and it would have served you right. I don't believe you'll ever be anything better than a tomboy as long as you live. If I was ma, I'd lick these tricks out of you, you bet."

The frantic child, between her sister's blows and angry words, was more like a furious little animal than a human being. Struggling in Rosetta Muriel's grip, her face crimson with passion, she showed herself ready to use tooth and nail indiscriminately in order to free herself. For all her advantage in size and strength, Rosetta Muriel was unable to cope with so ferocious an antagonist. She solved the problem by giving Annie a violent push, as she released her hold. The child struck the ground at some distance and with a force which brought Peggy's heart into her mouth. But immediately Annie scrambled to her feet, her face scratched and bleeding, and started toward home, screaming as she went, though less from pain than from anger.

"That brat!" cried Rosetta Muriel breathing fast. Then her eyes fell on Peggy, standing in disdainful quiet, and her expression showed uncertainty. Rosetta Muriel was hardly capable of appreciating that for one in a fit of passion to attempt to correct a child is the height of absurdity, but she recognized the indignation Peggy took no pains to hide.

"Does seem sometimes," observed Rosetta Muriel with an unsuccessful effort to regain the air of languor which she imagined the badge of good breeding, "as if nothing I could do would make a lady out of that young one."

"I should think not," replied Peggy, and it was not her fault if Rosetta Muriel thought the remark ambiguous. "Good night," she added hastily and turned away, fearful that a longer interview would bring her to the point of speaking her mind with a plainness hardly allowable on slight acquaintance. Like many people noted for tact and consideration, Peggy, when driven to frankness, left nothing unsaid that would throw light on the situation.

Dorothy walked at her aunt's side with chastened step. In the chaos of feeling into which Rosetta Muriel's unwise discipline had plunged her small sister, there was little chance for the voice of Annie's conscience to make itself heard. But Dorothy, on the other hand, was the prey of conscientious qualms. She had been naughty. Annie's angry big sister had said they might have been killed, which, from Dorothy's standpoint, was censurable in the extreme.

"Aunt Peggy," she began at last, in such a forlorn little pipe that Peggy was forced to steel herself against an immediate softening of heart. "Aunt Peggy, I guess you'd better whip me. If you send me to bed 'thout any supper it wouldn't make me a good girl a bit, 'cause me and Annie ate lots of cookies and I don't want any supper, anyway."

Peggy studied the sunset earnestly before she could trust herself to reply.

"Dorothy, how often have you and Annie done what you did to-day?"

Dorothy was not certain, but it was evident that the diversion had been tried on several occasions and Peggy's heart almost stood still, realizing the peril to which the children had exposed themselves. Without doubt their immunity was due to their very audacity. Apparently the boar had not connected these fearless mites with human beings whom he knew to be vulnerable, but had fancied them sportive elves, against whom his tusks would be powerless. Peggy registered a vow not to let Dorothy out of her sight again while the summer lasted.

"Why didn't you tell Aunt Peggy what you and Annie were playing?"

The candid Dorothy had an instant reply. "'Cause I didn't want you to make me stop." It was clear that the sin had not been one of ignorance. Peggy resolved to act upon Dorothy's counsel.

After the two reached home, the story had so many tellings that there seemed a little danger of Dorothy's penitence evaporating in self-importance. "I had the last turn, anyway," she boasted; "and he runned faster with me on his back, too."

"Oh, if I'd only been there with my camera," lamented Amy. "Think what a snap-shot it would have made." Then as Peggy frowned at her behind Dorothy's shoulder, she subsided with a grimace of comprehension.

As Dorothy climbed the stairs to bed, it was understood that the hour of retribution had arrived. Dorothy wept softly while undressing, and uttered agonizing shrieks as she underwent her chastisement. Down-stairs the girls looked at one another aghast, and Hobo whined uneasily, as if asking permission to interfere. Then the uproar ended abruptly, and Dorothy climbing upon Peggy's knee, pledged herself solemnly never again to ride boar-back, a promise which stands more than an even chance of being religiously kept.

Altogether Peggy was inclined to regard her methods of discipline as highly successful. It was not till a penitent and altogether adorable Dorothy had been tucked into bed, and kissed uncounted times, that doubt assailed her. She was moving toward the stairs, when a small voice arrested her steps.

"Aunt Peggy," Dorothy said dreamily, "you don't spank as hard as my mamma does. You whipped me just the way Hobo whips himself with his tail."



CHAPTER XII

THE NEW LUCY

In the week that followed, the education of Lucy Haines progressed rapidly. After that first afternoon when the time had slipped away without her knowing it, she kept her eye on the clock and was careful not to over-stay the hour. But as she came every day, and her enthusiasm for learning fully matched Peggy's enthusiasm for teaching, the results were all that could be wished.

Then one afternoon her pupil failed to appear, and Peggy wondered. A second afternoon brought neither Lucy nor an explanation of her absence. "I'm afraid she's sick," said Peggy, who never thought of a discreditable explanation for anything till there was no help for it.

"Sick of algebra, more likely," suggested Claire. "I thought such zeal wouldn't last."

"She doesn't seem like that sort of a girl," declared Amy, who was developing a tendency to disagree with Claire on every possible pretext. "She's one of the stickers, or I don't know one when I see it."

A little assenting murmur went the rounds, and Claire glanced reproachfully at Priscilla, who had sided against her. "Two souls with but a single thought," represented Claire's ideal of friendship. That two people could love each other devotedly, and yet disagree on a variety of subjects, was beyond her comprehension. She was ready at a moment's notice to cast aside her personal convictions, and agree with Priscilla, whatever stand the latter cared to take, and it seemed hard, in view of such unquestioning loyalty, that Priscilla should persist in having opinions of her own.

But Claire's hour of triumph was on its way. When Jerry Morton came in the morning with a string of freshly caught fish, he produced from the depths of an over-worked pocket a folded paper, which, to judge from its worn and soiled appearance, had served as a hair-curler or in some equally trying capacity. This he handed to Peggy, who regarded it with natural misgiving.

"That Haines girl sent it," Jerry explained. "I put it in the pocket where I carry the bait, but I guess the inside is all right."

Thus encouraged, Peggy unfolded the dingy scrap, but the changes of her expressive face did not bear out Jerry's optimistic conjecture that the "inside" was all right. Judging from Peggy's crestfallen air, it was all wrong. The note was not written in Lucy's usual regular hand. The letters straggled, the lines zig-zagged across the page, and the name signed was almost an unintelligible scrawl. But Peggy thought less of these superficial matters than of the unwelcome news communicated.

"Dear Friend:—I shan't come to study algebra any more. I've given up the idea of going to school any longer. I thank you very much for trying to help me, but it's no use.

"Yours truly, "Lucy Haines."

"I thought it was something like that," Claire remarked triumphantly when the note was read aloud, and she reflected with some satisfaction that she alone had suggested the rightful explanation of Lucy's action.

"I must say I'm disappointed in that girl," declared Peggy, absently smoothing out the crumpled paper. Her bright face was clouded. "Wednesday she was just as interested and ambitious as she could be. And now she's given up. It doesn't seem like her."

"I must say she doesn't show a great deal of gratitude," exclaimed Ruth, always ready to rush to Peggy's defence. "Here you've been using your vacation to teach her, when you might have been enjoying yourself, and then all at once she gets tired of it. It doesn't seem to occur to her that if you were like most girls, you'd be the one to give up."

The expression of Peggy's face suggested that she was rather absorbed in her own thoughts, and giving but scant heed to the words of her champion.

"Do you know, girls," she said slowly, "I'm going over to see Lucy and find out what this means."

There was a chorus of protests. "Don't you do it, Peggy," Amy cried indignantly. And Priscilla remarked, "I wouldn't tease her into accepting a kindness that she hadn't the sense to appreciate."

"It was too much for you to do anyway," Ruth chimed in. "I think it's a good thing she's tired of it, myself." But Peggy was not to be dissuaded from her purpose. Under the uncompromising statements of the bald little note, there was something that claimed her sympathy. Even the straggling lines, so little suggestive of the Lucy Haines she knew, carried the suggestion of appeal. "I'm not going to coax her into doing anything," Peggy explained. "But—" and this with unmistakable firmness—"I'm going to find out."

After dinner, when the other girls were indulging in afternoon naps, or lounging on the porch, Peggy donned a broad-brimmed shade hat, and with Hobo at her heels, started toward Lucy's home. The zig-zag path crossing the pastures was both shorter and pleasanter than the road, and Peggy rather enjoyed getting the better of such obstacles as snake fences and brooks that must be crossed on stepping stones. Such things gave to an otherwise prosaic ramble the fine flavor of adventure.

She was flushed and warm, and looking, had she known it, unusually pretty, with her moist hair curling in rings about her forehead, when she came in sight of Lucy's home, a straggling cottage which would have been improved by paint and the services of a carpenter. Both lacks were partially concealed by vines which climbed over its sagging porch, and tall rows of hollyhocks, generously screening with their showy beauty its weather-beaten sides. A girl was in the back yard chopping wood, a rather slatternly girl with disordered hair. Peggy descended on her briskly to ask if Lucy were at home.

Hatchet in hand, the girl faced about. Peggy's head whirled. She made a confused effort to recall whether Lucy had ever mentioned a sister, a sister considerably older, and not nearly so nice. Then her momentary confusion passed, and she realized she was facing Lucy herself. The shock of her discovery showed in her voice as she exclaimed, "Why, it's you!"

"Of course," said Lucy a little coldly, but she cast a half-apologetic downward glance at her untidy dress, and her color rose. With obvious reluctance she asked, "Won't you come in?"

Peggy was conscious of a thrill of righteous indignation. She stood very straight and her eyes met those of the other girl squarely. "Lucy, are you angry with me?"

Lucy Haines did not answer immediately. Her bared throat twitched hysterically and all at once the eyes which looked into Peggy's brimmed over.

"Don't, please!" she said in a choked voice. "Me angry! Why, you're the kindest girl I ever dreamed of. Till I'm dead I'll love to think about you and how good you are. But it's no use."

Peggy seated herself on the woodpile. Her native cheerfulness had returned with a rush.

"Now, Lucy Haines, let's talk like two sensible people. If I'm as nice as all that, you ought to be willing to trust me a little. What's the reason it's no use? What's made all the difference since Wednesday?"

Lucy's silence was like a barrier between them. If it had not been for the tears upon her cheeks, Peggy would have been inclined to distrust her memory of that momentary softening. The girl's confidence came at last reluctantly, as if dragged from depths far under the surface, like water raised in buckets from a well.

"My money's gone."

Peggy had an uncomfortable feeling that she must grope her way. "Your money's gone?" she repeated, to gain time.

"Yes, the money I've been saving up. The money that was to help me get through school next year. You know how I've worked this summer. And there isn't a thing to show for it."

"How much was it?"

"Forty dollars."

All at once Peggy felt an insane desire to laugh. The impulse was without doubt, purely nervous. For though there seemed to her a surprising discrepancy between the sum named and the despair for which it was responsible, the humorous aspect of the case was not the one which would naturally appeal to a disposition like Peggy's. Desperately she fought against the impulse, coughed, bit her twitching lips, and finally acknowledged defeat in a little hysterical giggle. Lucy stared at her, too astonished to be angry.

"There!" Now that the mischief was done, Peggy felt serious enough to meet all the requirements of the case. "I've laughed and I'm glad of it. For it's a joke. Forty dollars! A girl as bright as you are, ready to sell out for forty dollars. It's enough to make anybody laugh."

Lucy put her hand to her forehead. "But it was all I had," she said rather piteously.

"All you had. But not all you can get. Why, I had a friend who went into a business office last winter. She's earning forty dollars a month now, and they'll raise her after she's been with them a year. Forty dollars means a month's work for a beginner. You've lost a month, and you talk as if everything had been lost."

The rear door of the cottage opened, and a young man appeared, a distinctly unprepossessing young man, whose shabby clothing somehow suggested a corresponding shabbiness of soul. He stood irresolute for a moment, then turned and struck off across the fields, his shambling gait increasing the unfavorable impression that Peggy had instantly formed.

Lucy regarded her visitor with burning eyes.

"I didn't mean to tell anybody," she said. "I thought my pride wouldn't let me, but what's the use of my being proud? That was my brother, and he drinks. I guess you'd know it to look at him, wouldn't you? It was he who stole my money. That's the kind of people I belong to."

Peggy got to her feet. She had an odd feeling that she could not do her subject justice sitting on a woodpile, with her feet dangling.

"Lucy Haines," she said with a severity partly contradicted by the kindness of her eyes, "I'm ashamed of you. I can tell just by the little I know of you, what kind of ancestors you had, and you ought to be thankful for them every day you live. Think of all the sickly people in the world, that can't more than half live at best, and you with your splendid, strong body. And think of the stupid ones, who try to learn and can't, and you seeing through everything like a flash. I know what kind of people you belong to, Lucy Haines, and you ought to be proud and thankful, too."

The immediate effect of this outburst was a surprise. Lucy Haines sat down on the chopping-block and began to cry. She cried as if the pent-up sorrows of her life were at last finding outlet, cried as if she never meant to stop. Peggy in her dismay tried coaxing, scolding, petting, each in turn, and at last gave up the vain endeavor, and took her old place on the woodpile, to wait till Lucy should have come to the end of her tears.

At last the figure in the soiled calico was no longer shaken by convulsive sobs. Lucy turned toward the patient watcher on the woodpile, and in spite of her swollen lids and blood-shot eyes, Peggy knew it was the old Lucy looking up at her. "Well?" she demanded cheerfully. "It's all right, isn't it?"

"Yes," Lucy agreed hesitatingly. "I'm going to try again, if that's what you mean."

"And you'll come to-morrow?"

"Yes, I'll come to-morrow, if you're not too disgusted to bother with me any longer," said Lucy humbly.

"Well, it's time for Hobo and me to be going home." Peggy jumped to her feet, crossed briskly to the unkempt figure, and stooping, kissed a tear-stained cheek. And then Lucy's arms went about her, and clasped her close in passionate gratitude.

"Peggy Raymond," said a stifled voice, "I can't do anything to pay you back, but this. I promise you I'll make you proud of me yet. You were ashamed of me to-day, but if I live, I'll make you proud of me." And Peggy had one more bewildering impression to add to the varied catalogue of characteristics which made up the Lucy Haines, whom she was beginning to think she had never known till that day.

In spite of this triumphant conclusion to her enterprise, Peggy returned to the cottage heavy of heart. There is always a danger that the sensitive and sympathetic will find the revelation of the misery in the world overwhelming, bringing the temptation to shut one's eyes to suffering, or else in its contemplation, to lose the joy out of life. And as it only takes an added drop to cause a full cup to brim over, Peggy's dejection reached the overflowing point, through no other agency than the yellow hen.

The girls all noticed that Peggy was silent, as well as uncommunicative. She fenced skilfully to evade direct answers to their questions, but she did not seem inclined to introduce new topics of conversation. And when Amy called her from the kitchen, where she and Ruth were getting supper, Peggy sat staring abstractedly ahead of her till the call was repeated.

Priscilla glanced up from her magazine. "Say, Peggy, the girls are calling you. Probably they are having trouble with the muffins."

"Oh, I didn't hear," Peggy sprang to her feet, and went hastily through the house to the kitchen. But it was not domestic difficulties which accounted for Amy's summons. She stood at the window, flattening her nose against the screen.

"Peggy, I wish you'd tell me what this old vixen is about. Is she trying to punish one of the chickens, or is it only a game?"

For ten days past the yellow hen had been freed from the restraints of the coop, and by day had led her brood in adventurous quest of grasshoppers, and at sunset had conducted them to the waiting nest in the rear of the woodshed. But at the present moment, a peculiar scene was being enacted. At the open door of the woodshed, a sleepy brood huddled close, awaiting the return of their mother, who with an air of determination was pursuing a squawking chick, running as if for his life.

Around the cherry-tree they circled, once, twice, thrice. Then the pursuer overtook her foster-child, and pecked him savagely. It was not a game.

The yellow hen strutted off in the direction of her peeping brood, clucking complacently, as if she congratulated herself on solving some problem satisfactorily. The poor little outcast followed with a piteous pipe, which caused the Spartan mother to turn and repeat her admonition.

For a moment Peggy was at a loss for an explanation. Then she understood. "I know," she cried. "He's a different breed from the others, and he's outgrown them, and the senseless old creature thinks he doesn't belong to her. She's just got to be nice to him, that's all."

But Peggy's efforts at discipline were unavailing. The speckled chicken surreptitiously introduced under the yellow hen's hovering wings, enjoyed the briefest possible period of maternal protection. Before Peggy could get back into the house, the yellow hen was chasing him all around the woodshed, and Peggy found it necessary to make him comfortable for the night in a basket set behind the stove.

And this was the little drop which made her cup overflow. The forlorn peeping of the outcast chicken seemed to blend with poor Lucy's sobs. Peggy wondered if it could be that the voice of earth's suffering was like the hum of the insects on a summer night, so constant that one might not hear it at all, but an overwhelming chorus if one listened.

"Peggy Raymond, do you think you're coming down with anything?" Amy demanded crossly, at half-past nine o'clock that evening. "Because you're about as much like yourself as chalk is like cheese."

Peggy stood up.

"No, I'm not coming down with anything," she said lightly, "but I'm going up to something, and that's my bed. I believe I'm sleepy."

Before she climbed the stairs, she went out into the kitchen to be sure that the speckled chicken was comfortable. As she touched the basket he answered with a soft, comfortable sound like the coo of a baby, or the chirp of a sleepy little bird, the sound that speaks of warmth and contentment. Peggy stood beside the basket thinking.

"There! I knew something was wrong." Amy had followed her friend out into the kitchen. "You're crying over that chicken. Why, you silly Peg!"

But Amy had misinterpreted the moist eyes. That little contented sound from the basket back of the stove had brought a message to Peggy. She had made the chicken comfortable in spite of its unnatural mother. She had rekindled ambition in Lucy's heart in spite of her thieving brother. All at once Peggy understood that the compensation for insight is the joy of helpfulness. It was not meant for any heart to bear the burden of earth's grief, but only to lighten it as one can, and be glad.

And so, after all, Peggy went up to bed comforted.



CHAPTER XIII

A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE

Peggy had a bright idea. Any one familiar with the Peggy disposition would have guessed as much from a number of infallible signs. There were periods of abstraction, characterized by long silences or random replies. There were thoughtful little frowns, and sudden dimpling smiles, all for no reason apparent. And when Peggy reached the point of saying to herself in a confidential undertone, "There! That's just the thing!" speculation ran riot in Dolittle Cottage.

But though the guessing was both varied and ingenious, it was all wide of the mark. The announcement of Peggy's project at the breakfast-table one morning took everybody by surprise. "Look here, girls," began Peggy, betraying a degree of nervous excitement in her reckless salting of her scrambled eggs, "what would you think of our giving a benefit performance?"

"Performance of what?" asked half the table. And the other half wanted to know, "Whose benefit?" Peggy answered the last question first.

"Lucy Haines'. She's had—that is, she isn't going to have some of the money she was counting on for next year," Peggy flattered herself that this discreet statement gave no hint of the heartache and humiliation poor Lucy had undergone. "And even if we didn't make very much, a little would help her out."

"But, Peggy, what could we do?" cried Amy, setting down her glass of milk with an emphasis that sent part of its contents splashing over the brim. "None of us sing any to speak of, except Priscilla, and she and Claire are the only ones who play. I don't see—"

"Well, I've been wondering why we couldn't repeat that little farce we gave at school last June. It wouldn't be much work, for we all know our parts. Beside ours, there was only one that amounted to anything. I thought maybe Claire would take that. The other characters have so little to do that we could easily pick up girls for the parts. Lucy herself might take one."

"And Rosetta Muriel," suggested Amy, rather maliciously. It was so seldom Peggy really disliked anybody that the temptation to make frequent mention of their pretentious neighbor was too much for Amy's fun-loving disposition. Unconsciously Peggy's face assumed an expression suggestive of just having swallowed a dose of quinine. "I suppose so," she agreed grudgingly, and Amy indulged in a wicked chuckle.

"But where could we give it, Peggy?" Ruth asked with animation. It was easy to see that the suggestion had made a most favorable impression on the company. The little comedy had been given during commencement week and had proved the most popular feature of that festive period. The performers had not had time to forget their parts, and a very few rehearsals would be sufficient to assure a smooth presentation. Peggy, delighted with the friendly reception accorded her plan, continued her explanation.

"Why, I think they'll let us have it in the schoolhouse. It's just standing empty all summer. I'll have to see Mr. Robbins about that, Mr. Silas Robbins. He's the committee man who hires teachers, and everything of that sort. And, of course, Lucy ought to know what we are planning before we do anything further. It won't be necessary to have her name put in the paper, or anything like that, but I'm sure the people will be more interested if they know it is a benefit for one of their own girls."

Lucy Haines, on learning the latest of Peggy's schemes for her advantage seemed rather overwhelmed. As a matter of fact, she exaggerated the generosity of the girls who had so cordially endorsed Peggy's plan. The summer days were all very delightful, but the presentation of the little play promised that agreeable variety without which all pleasures pall. Indeed, Lucy's expression of gratitude, fervent if not fluent, rendered Priscilla really uncomfortable.

"I wish you'd make her understand, Peggy," she said, "that though we're awfully glad to help her, we're not a collection of philanthropists. I'm afraid she doesn't understand that this play is going to be lots of fun."

Other misunderstandings had to be cleared up before everything was running smoothly. When Peggy called on Mr. Silas Robbins, and stated her errand, that excellent man failed to grasp her explanation, and took her for the manager of a theatrical troupe.

"You don't mean that you're running a show at your age! I call it a shame. You don't look a day older than my Ettie. Haven't you got a home and folks, child, or what is it that's druv you into this dog's life?"

Of course it was necessary for Peggy to begin at the beginning, and in the course of twenty minutes or so, the good man began to understand. As the extent of his blunder gradually dawned upon him, he threw back his head and broke into a hearty guffaw whose enjoyment was contagious. Peggy joined him, and then there was an exultant note in her laughter. Observation had taught her that when a man is laughing, it is one of the hardest things in the world for him to say no.

"Now, suppose we start over again, and go kind of slow," said Mr. Silas Robbins. "I've got as far as this, that you're all high-school girls and want to give a show. It would take a reg'lar racehorse of a brain to keep up with that tongue of yourn."

Peggy's further explanations were characterized by the utmost deliberation, so that Mr. Robbins had time to ask any questions that occurred to him, and the outcome justified her expectation. Not only did she secure the use of the school building, but Mr. Silas Robbins agreed to purchase tickets for himself and family.

"And to think I took you for a perfessional," said Mr. Robbins, smiling very broadly as he turned back to his waiting horses. "If there's anything in your show funnier'n that, it'll be wuth the price. Going to ask a quarter, be you? That's right. Folks don't appreciate a cheap ten-cent show, the way they do one they've got to pay a good price for."

Peggy met a similarly cordial reception at the office of the Weekly Arena, the country paper, on which she was relying for free advertising. Mr. Smart, the editor, was a careworn little man, whose frayed and faded business suit suggested that too many subscriptions were paid in potatoes and cord wood, and too few in the coin of the realm. He agreed to her request with a readiness Peggy thought wonderfully kind, though it would have surprised her less, had she realized with what eagerness Mr. Smart was continually seeking items with a news value.

"I'll make one or two references to it in this issue," Mr. Smart promised, "to sort of pique curiosity, you know. And next week you might give me a little write-up of the thing. Outline the plot, without giving away the surprises, and put it on thick about its being funny. It is funny, ain't it?"

"Oh, yes, very."

"That's the talk," said Mr. Smart approvingly. "I don't know how it is with city people. Sometimes it seems to me that they must like to have their feelings harrowed up, judging from the kind of plays they go to see. But here in the country, we like to get our money's worth of laughing. And, by the way, I suppose you understand, Miss, that it's customary for the Press to receive two complimentary tickets."

Notwithstanding this cordial and valuable support, Peggy was to find that the lot of an actor-manager is not altogether free from thorns. Claire had obligingly agreed to accept the vacant role in the cast, but after one reading of the little play, a marked decrease in her enthusiasm was observable.

"Do you know I don't like the part of Adelaide a bit," she confided to Priscilla. "I'd like to play Hazel. I'm going to ask Amy if she'd mind changing with me."

Priscilla stared.

"Of course she'd mind. She knows her part and has played it once. You couldn't ask her to learn a new one just because you prefer hers."

Claire's air of depression became more marked.

"Priscilla," she quavered, "I don't see how I'm going to play that part. I don't know how I'll endure it."

Priscilla's amazement grew. "Why, what's wrong with it? I think it's particularly cute."

"Why, we're quarrelling every minute, you and I. And at the end of the second act, you say—" Claire's voice died away in a dejected whimper. But there was little balm for her grievance in Priscilla's unfeeling laughter.

"Well, what of it? There's nothing real about it. A quarrel in a play isn't anything."

"It's something to me," replied Claire, in tones nicely balanced between despondency and tenderness. "When I think of your glaring at me and saying such cruel, cruel things, it seems as if it would almost kill me." She found her handkerchief, and actually shed a few tears, while Priscilla choked down her exasperation, and tried to answer with fitting nonchalance.

"Sorry you feel that way. We might ask Dorothea Clarke, the girl who took the part before, to come up for a week, just to play it. Though I must say," concluded Priscilla, her irritation getting the better of her good resolutions, "that your idea impresses me as too silly for words."

The suggestion that Claire's cooperation was not necessary to the success of the undertaking was all that was needed. Claire had no intention of being reduced to the position of an on-looker, while the others enjoyed the fun and reaped the plaudits of the enterprise. Nothing more was heard of Claire's giving up her part, but in the rehearsals she showed such a total lack of spirit, and played the role assigned her with so unmistakable an air of injury, that patient Peggy was driven to the verge of desperation.

Nor were her troubles confined to Claire. Rosetta Muriel who had been offered an unexacting part in the cast, confided to Peggy her intentions in regard to costume. "I'm going to have an apple-green silk. The skirt'll be scant, of course, and draped a little right here. And which do you think would be stylisher, a square neck or—"

Peggy had by now recovered herself sufficiently to interrupt. "Why, you're cast for a parlor-maid."

"I know it," said Rosetta Muriel, indifferently.

"You can't dress in apple-green silk. You ought to have a plain black dress and a little white apron."

Rosetta Muriel flushed and tossed her head.

"I don't know what difference that makes. If you're going on the stage you want to look as nice as you can, I should think."

"One can look very nice in a black dress and a white apron. I'm going to be a frumpy old woman, with the worst rig you ever saw. But of course," concluded Peggy firmly, perceiving that Rosetta Muriel was inclined to argue the point, "If you'd rather not take the part, I can probably find some one else. But whoever takes it, will have to be dressed suitably."

That argument was as effective with Rosetta Muriel as it had been with Claire. She yielded as the other girl had done, and as ungraciously. "It's easy enough to see through that," she told herself angrily. "Those city girls want to be the whole thing. They're afraid to let me dress up nice, for fear folks will look at somebody else." And it argues well for the strength of Rosetta Muriel's vanity that for the moment she actually believed her preposterous charge.

Plans for the play absorbed the leisure of the cottagers. Little else was talked of. To Jerry Morton had been assigned the responsibility of organizing an orchestra of local talent, and he came twice a day or oftener, to report progress or ask counsel. The tan shoes, whose excessively pointed toes betrayed that probably they were as old, if not older than Jerry himself, but which in Jerry's estimation were synonymous with unpretentious elegance, appeared so frequently that the razor-like tips began to look somewhat scarred and battered, as if they might perhaps retire from active service in ten years' time, or so. But the tan shoes were not Jerry's only concession to the social amenities. An unwonted attention was given to grimy knuckles and finger-nails. More than once he made his appearance with his usually frowsy hair as sleek as the coat of a water rat, and dripping, in further likeness to the animal mentioned. Peggy, whose original interest in Jerry had been intensified by the favorable impression he had made on Graham, hailed these signs of awakening with satisfaction, and laid plans to bring about still more startling changes.

The little comedy did not require much in the way of scenery. But to present even a simple home scene on the schoolhouse platform, necessitated considerable planning, to say nothing of hard work. Arrangements were made for extra benches to put back of the battered desks, for the Weekly Arena had exhibited a noble determination to earn the two complimentary tickets, and Peggy felt sure of a full house. Farmer Cole had agreed to lend Joe for the important day, and it looked as if the hired man would not find his post a sinecure.

"If ever a place was misnamed," Aunt Abigail remarked one day, "this is the spot. Dolittle Cottage. Do-little Cottage," she repeated, with an emphasis calculated to make her meaning apparent to the most obtuse. "In the course of a few weeks we have become a preparatory school and an orphan asylum." She looked significantly at Peggy who sat on the steps, feeding the speckled chicken from a spoon. "And our last development is a theatrical agency. Well, I can't say that it is exactly my idea of a quiet, restful summer."

The hour of preparation was at its height, and the great occasion less than a week away, when Peggy received news which sent her already buoyant spirits climbing like a rocket. The rural delivery had brought her several letters, and as Priscilla noticed, she pounced first on a missive in a business-like envelope, with a typewritten address. She had hardly read two lines before she interrupted herself with a joyous squeal.

"Girls, isn't it glorious! Elaine is coming Saturday."

"Elaine! Why, I thought she said she couldn't." Priscilla's answer was a little less spontaneous than usual.

"Her mother and Grace have been invited somewhere, and they insisted on her coming here. She's worked so hard, and they feel she needs a change." Peggy was reading down the page, her bright face aglow with anticipation, but Priscilla's look indicated no corresponding pleasure, and she answered with a non-committal murmur, when Peggy added, "She'll be here for the play. I'm so glad."

And Priscilla struggling to express a degree of satisfaction in the prospect, did not guess how soon she would echo Peggy's words from the bottom of her heart.



CHAPTER XIV

AUNT ABIGAIL IS MISLAID

The little country schoolhouse had been the scene of varied activity that morning. Even in term time, when the battered desks were occupied, it is a question whether a forenoon's program would have been more strenuous. Equipped with tape-measures the girls had calculated to a nicety just how much furniture the platform could accommodate, and still give the performers room to make their entrances and exits without colliding with the armchair or overturning the small table. The question of extra benches had also come up for consideration, and the girls had demonstrated to their complete satisfaction that two people of ordinary size could be seated comfortably at each desk. Absorbed in these fascinating calculations, they had failed to notice how rapidly the time was passing, till Dorothy began to complain of being hungry.

"You're as good as an alarm-clock," declared Priscilla, consulting her watch. "It's half-past eleven, Peggy."

"Is it? Then we mustn't wait another minute. If Aunt Abigail is back from her walk, she may be hungry too." Aunt Abigail had been invited to attend the preliminary inspection of the schoolroom, but had declined, frankly avowing her preference for a walk. Jerry had told her of a somewhat rare fern growing half a mile from the cottage, and Aunt Abigail who intermittently was an enthusiastic amateur botanist had professed a desire to see this particular species in its native haunts.

"Don't hurry, Peg," pleaded Amy, as the procession headed for the cottage at a more rapid pace than Amy approved on a summer morning. "It's more than likely that she isn't home yet. You know she never thinks anything about the time if she's interested."

As Amy's conjecture was based on an intimate knowledge of Aunt Abigail's peculiarities, no one was surprised to find it correct. The front door of the cottage was locked, and the key was hanging on a nail in full view, a custom of the trusting community which had gradually come into favor at Dolittle Cottage. The girls trooped indoors, and preparations for dinner began forthwith, even Dorothy lending her aid. Dorothy loved to shell peas, that ordinarily prosaic task being enlivened by the certainty that she would drop at least two-thirds of the agile vegetables, and be compelled to pursue them into the most unlikely hiding-places.

The peas were shelled at last, and Dorothy comforted for the untimely fate of several luckless spheres which had rolled under the feet of preoccupied workers, and, according to Dorothy, had been "scrunched." Another twenty minutes and Peggy announced that dinner was ready. "If Aunt Abigail would only come. Things won't be so good if they wait."

"I won't be so good if I wait, either," Dorothy declared. "'Cause it makes me cross to get hungry."

Dorothy was provided with an aid to uprightness in the shape of a slice of bread and butter, and the others seated themselves on the porch to await Aunt Abigail's return. It is an open secret that time spent in waiting invariably drags. The wittiest find their ideas deserting them under such circumstances. The most congenial friends have nothing to say to each other. There are, as a rule, any number of things one can do while one is waiting, but unluckily there is nothing one feels inclined to do. Up till one o'clock conversation was spasmodic. For the next half hour silence reigned, and each face became expressive of a sense of injury and patient suffering. At quarter of two, open revolt was reached.

"Peggy, how much longer are you going to wait?" Amy demanded. "Everything is probably spoiled by now."

Peggy did her best to be encouraging. "Oh, not exactly spoiled. But it doesn't do a dinner any good to wait an hour or two after it is cooked."

"Why not sit down? She's sure to be here by the time we're fairly started," suggested Ruth.

"I'd as soon wait as not." Claire's face was angelically patient. "I haven't a bit of appetite any more. I suppose it's because my head always begins to ache so if I don't eat at the regular hour."

Peggy rose to her feet rather hastily. "Come on," she said briskly. "We'll begin. Probably that'll be just the way to bring her." And she wondered why it was that Claire's patient sweetness was so much more trying than Amy's fretful complaint.

But the device for bringing Aunt Abigail home proved unsuccessful. Peggy put her dinner on the back of the stove to keep warm, and it was still simmering, undisturbed, when the platter and the various serving dishes on the table had been scraped clean, for the loss of appetite of which Claire complained was by no means universal. The work of clearing the table and washing the dishes was usually protracted, for every other minute some one ran out on the porch to see if Aunt Abigail were approaching. By three o'clock a general uneasiness began to make itself evident.

"I believe I'll go over to the place where those ferns grow," Peggy declared. "Even if she's forgotten all about her dinner, it can't be good for her to go so long without eating. Don't you want to come with me, Amy?"

Amy, who seemed less concerned than any of the company, blithely accepted the invitation. "We'll probably find her with a great armful of ferns and her hat tipped over one ear, and she'll be perfectly astonished to know that it's after twelve o'clock. Oh, you don't know Aunt Abigail as well as I do."

But though they searched the section of the woods Jerry had designated as the habitat of the rare fern, and called Aunt Abigail's name at frequent intervals, there was no answer, nor did they find anything to indicate that there had been an earlier visitor to the locality. Amy's confidence seemed a little shaken by this discovery and she made no objection to the rapidity of their return to the cottage. Ruth came hurrying out to meet them. "Has she come?" Amy called, her voice betraying her change of mood.

"No. Haven't you found her?" It was of course an unnecessary question, for the anxious faces of the two girls would have told that their quest had been unsuccessful, even if their failure had not been sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that Aunt Abigail was not accompanying them.

"We'd better go right over to Coles'," Peggy said after a minute's pause. "Perhaps Mrs. Cole found she was alone, and asked her to dinner."

"I've been there," was Ruth's disappointing reply. "And I went down to Mrs. Snooks', too. I thought Aunt Abigail might have gone there to borrow something. You know she was so unwilling to give up the idea. But Mrs. Snooks was sitting out on the porch, and she said she hadn't seen her."

The others had gathered around them as they stood talking. The speckled chicken, who, as a result of being brought up "by hand," was developing an extravagant fondness for human society, came up peeping shrilly, evidently under the impression that in so sizable a gathering, there must be some one who had nothing better to do than minister to his wants. Hobo, too, made his appearance, and he alone of the company gave no sign of mental disturbance. Amy pushed him away impatiently as he rubbed against her, the effect of worry on Amy's temperament having the not unusual result of making her short-tempered. Then a bright idea flashed into her head.

"Peggy, maybe he could track her."

"Who could?"

"Why, Hobo. We can let him smell something Aunt Abigail has worn, and then if he's any good, he ought to be able to follow the trail. I don't see how we're going to hunt for her, unless we try something like that."

Peggy did not regard the suggestion in a particularly hopeful light, but at the same time she had nothing better to suggest. To continue the search for Aunt Abigail without a single clue as to the direction she had taken, was not unlike looking for the proverbial needle in the haymow. Accordingly, Peggy followed without protest, while the other girls, relieved by the mere suggestion of a definite program, hurried into the house and up the stairs to Aunt Abigail's room. A moment later they reappeared, each bearing something selected from Aunt Abigail's belongings.

The various articles were deposited in a circle about Hobo, as if he had been a heathen idol, and Aunt Abigail's worsted shawl and silk work-bag, votive offerings. Hobo did not in the least understand the meaning of this new game, but he was pleased to find himself the centre of attention, and thumped his tail against the porch with a sound like persistent knocking.

"I don't believe I'd give him this," exclaimed Peggy, picking up the work-bag and sniffing thoughtfully. "It smells so strong of peppermint that it's likely to mislead him."

"She always carried peppermint drops in that bag," said Amy. The use of the past tense was such an unconscious admission of fearing the worst, that the girls looked at one another aghast. And then Peggy, with a desperate realization that something must be done, and that immediately, seized the worsted shawl, and knelt down before Hobo. "Find her, good fellow," she urged, holding the wrap close to the dog's nose.

Over the fleecy mound, Hobo regarded Peggy with bright, intelligent eyes. "He's smelling of it," said a thrilled voice in the background.

"Yes, and he looks as if he understood," cried another voice. "See how his eyes shine."

Even Peggy's doubts were vanishing before Hobo's air of absorbed attention. "Find her, Hobo," she insisted. "Find Aunt Abigail."

The little group stood breathless, while Hobo descended the steps, and nose to earth, followed the winding gravelled path for half its distance. Then taking an abrupt turn, he struck off across the lawn. Their hearts in their mouths the girls hurried after. Peggy heard Priscilla just behind her, saying that it was perfectly wonderful. Priscilla had always retained a trace of her first disapproval of Hobo's admission into the family circle, and even at that anxious moment, Peggy felt a little thrill of satisfaction over the fact that the wisdom of her charity had been vindicated.

Hobo ambled across the lawn, stopped abruptly at the foot of the pear-tree, and there seated himself, looking up into the branches, and wagging his tail, with an air of having abundantly satisfied his own expectations. Peggy's efforts to induce him to take up the trail were useless. Familiar as they all were with Aunt Abigail's eccentricities, it was impossible to believe that she had improved the occasion of their absence to climb a pear-tree, especially as its fruit had been gathered weeks earlier. Moreover, even granting the possibility of so erratic a proceeding, she must have descended from her perch, unless she had continued her journey by airship. Peggy brought the worsted shawl, and renewed her appeals and commands, while Hobo continued to wag his tail, apparently under the impression that he was being praised for some remarkable achievement.

"There's no use wasting any more time," Amy cried at last, "on a dog as stupid as that one."

"He never pretended to be a bloodhound," said Peggy, her sense of justice driving her to the defence of her protege. And then she dropped the shawl and ran to meet Jerry Morton, whose cheery whistle usually announced his coming some time in advance of his actual arrival.

Jerry had come to ask the opinion of the company as to the advisability of occupying the second intermission by a banjo duet. But before he could introduce the subject, his attention was claimed by the news of Aunt Abigail's mysterious disappearance. As all the girls talked at once, the resulting explanation was somewhat confused, and Jerry gathered the impression that Hobo was being held responsible for driving Aunt Abigail into the pear-tree. Corrected on this point, his face suddenly acquired an expression of extreme seriousness.

"I saw long 'bout noon—but 'tain't likely that had anything to do with it."

"What was it?" cried the girls in chorus, each conscious of a chilly sensation in the neighborhood of the spine. And Amy added fiercely, "If you know anything, Jerry, tell it quick! We're losing lots of time."

"Well, it was a band of gypsies."

There was a minute of awed silence. "But you don't think—" Amy began, and paused helplessly.

"I don't think anything but—well, they had three wagons—you know the kind—and in the bottom of the last one, I could see somebody lying stretched out and all covered over with a blanket. I thought most likely one of the men had been drinking and was just sleeping it off. But, of course—"

Jerry paused, overwhelmed at the sight of the horror depicted on the faces of his auditors. Vainly he racked his brain for a less harassing explanation of the fact that Aunt Abigail had disappeared some time during the forenoon, and at five o'clock was still missing. Peggy, her lips very white, attempted to reassure herself and the others, by attacking the theory he had suggested.

"But, Jerry, what would gypsies want with an old lady like Aunt Abigail? I thought they only stole babies."

"Yes, and they come back after a while and claim their fathers' estates," chimed in Amy hysterically.

Jerry would have liked to be consoling, but did not see his way clear to that end. He accordingly observed that real gypsies would steal anything they could lay their hands on. And when he had finished this expression of his inmost convictions, Amy burst into tears.

"Oh, why are we wasting time?" she cried. "We ought to get Mr. Cole and Joe and all the men around to drive after those people and see who was under that blanket. Oh, dear. Oh, dear!"

Dorothy was pulling Peggy's skirt. "Aunt Peggy! Aunt Peggy, listen!"

"Oh, hush, Dorothy. I can't attend to you."

"But listen, Aunt Peggy—"

"Dorothy, you're a naughty girl. I can't listen."

Dorothy too burst into sobs. "I just wanted to tell you," she wailed, "that Aunt Abigail was a-sitting on the porch."

Peggy spun about. The astonishing news was true. On the porch sat Aunt Abigail, swaying slightly in one of the willow rockers, with her meditative gaze fixed on the western sky. After the first inevitable half minutes of stupefaction, there was a wild rush for the house.

"It seems to me I never saw the sky prettier," was Aunt Abigail's astonishing beginning. But no one was in the mood to join her in discussing the beauties of nature. "Where have you been?" was the cry echoed from lip to lip.

Aunt Abigail smoothed a wrinkle in her skirt, and for the first time since undertaking the chaperonage of the Terrace girls, she looked a trifle discomfited.

"I found such an interesting story in the garret," she said, "a continued story it was, and it ran through an entire year, fifty-two numbers. I had a little difficulty in finding every instalment, but I succeeded at last. You girls will enjoy reading it. I am afraid—" Aunt Abigail glanced uneasily at the rosy west, and left the sentence unfinished. "I hope," she said instead, "that you didn't wait dinner for me."

"But the door was locked," said Peggy, finding it almost impossible to believe that their alarm had been groundless.

"Yes. I thought it wasn't quite safe to leave the door unlocked, when I would be in the third story, but I didn't want to have to hurry down to let you in. I locked the front door on the outside, and hung up the key. Then I went in by the back door and locked it on the inside."

"And you mean that you've been in the garret all these hours?" cried Amy in accents of exasperation. Her face gave no hint of its usual easy-going good-nature. Though the tears were still undried upon her cheeks, ominous lightning played in her eyes. It really looked as if she could not easily forgive Aunt Abigail for her failure to be kidnapped by gypsies.

And just at the right moment somebody giggled. Among other benefits that laughter confers on the race, it not infrequently serves as a lightning conductor. With all the anxiety they had suffered, the situation was ludicrous nevertheless. While they had agonized below stairs, Aunt Abigail had sat on the garret floor, absorbed in a sensational serial story, oblivious to everything but the next chapter. An uncontrollable titter went the rounds. It gained volume, like a seaward flowing brook. It swelled to a roar. And Amy, who for a moment had stood silent and disdainful, as if she defied the current to sweep her off her feet, gave up all at once, and laughed with the rest.

Aunt Abigail laughed too, though more as if she wished to appear companionable than because she really saw the joke. When the silence of exhaustion followed the uproar, and the girls were wiping their wet eyes and each avoiding the glances of her neighbor, for fear of going off into another paroxysm, Aunt Abigail made a remark which helped to explain her failure to enter into the fun.

"I really hope you didn't wait dinner," repeated Aunt Abigail politely. "And if—if it's the same to the rest of you, I vote for an early supper."



CHAPTER XV

PRISCILLA'S LOOKING-GLASS

"In less than twenty-four hours Elaine will be here."

"You've been saying that for a week," Priscilla commented tartly. The two girls had the porch to themselves, Priscilla stretched her lazy length in the hammock, while Peggy had curled herself into the biggest chair in a position which only a kitten or a school girl could by any possibility consider comfortable. Life at Dolittle Cottage was not favorable to tete-a-tetes, and Priscilla found ground for a grievance in the fact that on one of the rare occasions when they were alone together, Peggy should occupy the time in discussing the approaching visit of another friend. Though Priscilla had been making a gallant fight against her besetting weakness, it occasionally took her off her guard.

"If I've been saying that for a week," observed Peggy with unruffled good nature, "I've been talking nonsense. For this is the first day it's been true."

"Don't be silly, Peggy. You know perfectly well what I mean. For a week you haven't been able to talk of anything but Elaine's coming."

Peggy made no reply. There was a critical note in the accusation which she found vaguely irritating, and it seemed to her the wisest course to let the matter drop where it was. But Priscilla was in the unreasonable mood when even silence is sufficient ground for resentment.

"Dear me, Peggy, I didn't mean to reduce you to absolute dumbness. By all means talk of Elaine, if that's the only topic of interest."

"See here, Priscilla!" Peggy straightened herself, an unwonted color in her cheeks. For all her sweetness of disposition, she had a temper of her own, and was perhaps no less lovable on that account. "I thought we'd settled this thing long ago. You know I'm fond of Elaine," she went on steadily, "and after her hard year, I'm delighted that she can have an outing up here with the rest of us. It isn't anything I'm ashamed of, and it isn't anything you've a right to call me to account for. I don't care any the less for you because I care for Elaine, too."

There are few better tests of character than its response to frankness. A girl of another sort would have found in this straightforward speech additional cause for umbrage. Priscilla showed that her faults were only superficial after all, by her immediate surrender.

"Oh, Peggy," she exclaimed, a choke in her voice. "You don't need to tell me that. I don't know what ails me sometimes. I should think you'd lose all patience with me."

A tear splashed down upon her cheek, and Peggy, surprised and touched, leaned forward to pat the heaving shoulder consolingly. "Never mind, dear. We won't say another word about it."

"Just one more," pleaded Priscilla. "You know, Peggy, that even when I'm hateful, I love you better than anybody in the world except my father and mother. But if you weren't the dearest girl on earth—"

The screen door flew open, and slammed shut with an explosive effect which might have startled listeners unused to such phenomena. But in a cottage filled with young folks, doors are so likely to slam that this miniature thunder-clap did not cause either head to turn. It was rather the singular silence following which led Peggy to lift her eyes, and it was the expression on Peggy's face which brought Priscilla to the realization that something out of the ordinary was taking place.

Claire stood by the screen door, her hands clenched, her face scarlet, her whole demeanor indicating the intensity of her struggle for self-control. Priscilla looked at her aghast, all sorts of alarming speculations racing through her mind. "Oh, what is the matter?" she cried.