"This is the Czar of all the Rooshia," Pearl answered gravely, "and I'm his body-guard."

The doctor's face showed no surprise as he stepped back to get a better look at the czar, who began to squirm at the delay.

"See the green plush on his kerridge," Pearl said proudly, "and every stitch he has on is hand-made, and was did for him, too, and he's fed every three hours, rain or shine, hit or miss."

"Think of that!" the doctor exclaimed with emphasis, "and yet some people tell us that the Czar has a hard time of it."

Pearl drew a step nearer, moving the carriage up and down rapidly to appease the wrath of the czar, who was expressing his disapproval in a very lumpy cry.

"I'm just 'tendin', you know, about him bein' the czar," she said confidentially. "You see, I mind him every day, and that's the way I play. Maudie Ducker said one day I never had no time to play cos we wuz so pore, and that started me. It's a lovely game."

The doctor nodded. He knew something of "'tendin' games" too.

"I have to taste everything he eats, for fear of Paris green," Pearl went on, speaking now in the loud official tone of the body-guard. "I have to stand between him and the howlin' mob thirstin' for his gore."

"He seems to howl more than the mob," the doctor said smiling.

"He's afraid we're plottin'," Pearl whispered. "Can't trust no one. He ain't howlin'. That's his natcheral voice when he's talkin' Rooshan. He don't know one English word, only 'Goo!' But he'll say that every time. See now. How is a precious luvvy-duvvy? See the pitty man, pull um baby toofin!"

At which the czar, secure in his toothlessness, rippled his fat face into dimples, and triumphantly brought forth a whole succession of "goos."

"Ain't he a peach?" Pearlie said with pride. "Some kids won't show off worth a cent when ye want them to, but he'll say 'goo' if you even nudge him. His mother thinks 'goo' is awful childish, and she is at him all the time to say 'Daddy-dinger,' but he never lets on he hears her. Say, doctor"—Pearlie's face was troubled—"what do you think of his looks? Just between ourselves. Hasn't he a fine little nub of a nose? Do you see anything about him to make his mother cry?"

The doctor looked critically at the czar, who returned his gaze with stolid indifference.

"I never saw a more perfect nub on any nose," he answered honestly. "He's a fine big boy, and his mother should be proud of him."

"There now, what did I tell you!" Pearlie cried delightedly, nodding her head at an imaginary audience.

"That's what I always say to his mother, but she's so tuk up with pictures of pretty kids with big eyes and curly hair, she don't seem to be able to get used to him. She never says his nose is a pug, but she says it's 'different,' and his voice is not what she wanted. He cries lumpy, I know, but his goos are all right. The kid in the book she is readin' could say 'Daddy-dinger' before he was as old as the czar is, and it's awful hard on her. You see, he can't pat-a-cake, or this-little-pig-went-to-market, or wave a bye-bye or nothin'. I never told her what Danny could do when he was this age. But I am workin' hard to get him to say 'Daddy-dinger.' She has her heart set on that. Well, I must go on now."

The doctor lifted his hat, and the imperial carriage moved on.

She had gone a short distance when she remembered something:

"I'll let you know when he says it, doc!" she shouted.

"All right, don't forget," he smiled back.

When Pearlie turned the next corner she met Maudie Ducker. Maudie Ducker had on a new plaid dress with velvet trimming, and Maudie knew it.

"Is that your Sunday dress," she asked Pearl, looking critically at Pearlie's faded little brown winsey.

"My, no!" Pearlie answered cheerfully. "This is just my morning dress. I wear my blue satting in the afternoon, and on Sundays, my purple velvet with the watter-plait, and basque-yoke of tartaric plaid, garnished with lace. Yours is a nice little plain dress. That stuff fades though; ma lined a quilt for the boys' bed with it and it faded gray."

Maudie Ducker was a "perfect little lady." Her mother often said so; Maudie could not bear to sit near a child in school who had on a dirty pinafore or ragged clothes, and the number of days that she could wear a pinafore without its showing one trace of stain was simply wonderful! Maudie had two dolls which she never played with. They were propped up against the legs of the parlour table. Maudie could play the "Java March" and "Mary's Pet Waltz" on the piano. She always spoke in a hushed vox tremulo, and never played any rough games. She could not bear to touch a baby, because it might put a sticky little finger on her pinafore. All of which goes to show what a perfect little lady she was.

When Maudie made inquiries of Pearl Watson as to her Sabbath-day attire, her motives were more kindly than Pearl thought. Maudie's mother was giving her a party. Hitherto the guests upon such occasions had been selected with great care, and with respect to social standing, and blue china, and correct enunciation. This time they were selected with greater care, but with respect to their fathers' politics. All conservatives and undecided voters' children were included. The fight-to-a-finish-for-the-grand-old-party Reformers were tabooed.

Algernon Evans, otherwise known as the Czar of all the Rooshias, only son of J. H. Evans, editor of the Millford Mercury, could not be overlooked. Hence the reason for asking Pearl Watson, his body-guard.

Millford had two weekly newspapers—one Conservative in its tendencies and the other one Reform. Between them there existed a feud, long standing, unquenchable, constant. It went with the printing press, the subscription list and the good-will of the former owner, when the paper changed hands.

The feud was discernible in the local news as well as in the editorials. In the Reform paper, which was edited at the time of which we write by a Tipperary man named McSorley, you might read of a distressing accident which befell one Simon Henry (also a Reformer), while that great and good man was abroad upon an errand of mercy, trying to induce a drunken man to go quietly to his home and family. Mr. Henry was eulogised for his kind act, and regret was expressed that Mr. Henry should have met with such rough usage while endeavouring to hold out a helping hand to one unfortunate enough to be held in the demon chains of intemperance.

In the Conservative paper the following appeared:

We regret to hear that Simon Henry, secretary of the Young Liberal Club, got mixed up in a drunken brawl last evening and as a result will be confined to his house for a few days. We trust his injuries are not serious, as his services are indispensable to his party in the coming campaign.

Reports of concerts, weddings, even deaths, were tinged with partyism. When Daniel Grover, grand old Conservative war-horse, was gathered to his fathers at the ripe age of eighty-seven years, the Reform paper said that Mr. Grover's death was not entirely unexpected, as his health had been failing for some time, the deceased having passed his seventieth birthday.

McSorley, the Liberal editor, being an Irishman, was not without humour, but Evans, the other one, revelled in it. He was like the little boys who stick pins in frogs, not that they bear the frogs any ill-will, but for the fun of seeing them jump. He would sit half the night over his political editorials, smiling grimly to himself, and when he threw himself back in his chair and laughed like a boy the knife was turned in someone!

One day Mr. James Ducker, lately retired farmer, sometimes insurance agent, read in the Winnipeg Telegram that his friend the Honourable Thomas Snider had chaperoned an Elk party to St. Paul. Mr. Ducker had but a hazy idea of the duties of a chaperon, but he liked the sound of it, and it set him thinking. He remembered when Tom Snider had entered politics with a decayed reputation, a large whiskey bill, and about $2.20 in cash. Now he rode in a private car, and had a suite of rooms at the Empire, and the papers often spoke of him as "mine host" Snider. Mr. Ducker turned over the paper and read that the genial Thomas had replied in a very happy manner to a toast at the Elks' banquet. Whereupon Mr. Ducker became wrapped in deep thought, and during this passive period he distinctly heard his country's call! The call came in these words: "If Tom Snider can do it, why not me?"

The idea took hold of him. He began to brush his hair artfully over the bald spot. He made strange faces at his mirror, wondering which side of his face would be the best to have photographed for his handbills. He saw himself like Cincinnatus of old called from the plough to the Senate, but he told himself there could not have been as good a thing in it then as there is now, or Cincinnatus would not have come back to the steers.

Mr. Ducker's social qualities developed amazingly. He courted his neighbours assiduously, sending presents from his garden, stopping to have protracted conversations with men whom he had known but slightly before. Every man whose name was on the voters' list began to have a new significance for him.

There was one man whom he feared—that was Evans, editor of the Conservative paper. Sometimes when his fancy painted for him a gay and alluring picture of carrying "the proud old Conservative banner that has suffered defeat, but, thank God! never disgrace in the face of the foe" (quotation from speech Mr. Ducker had prepared), sometimes he would in the midst of the most glowing and glorious passages inadvertently think of Evans, and it gave him goose-flesh. Mr. Ducker had lived in and around Millford for some time. So had Evans, and Evans had a most treacherous memory. You could not depend on him to forget anything!

When Evans was friendly with him, Mr. Ducker's hopes ran high, but when he caught Evans looking at him with that boyish smile of his twinkling in his eyes, the vision of chaperoning an Elk party to St. Paul became very shadowy indeed.

Mr. Ducker tried diplomacy. He withdrew his insurance advertisement from McSorley's paper, and doubled his space in Evans's, paying in advance. He watched the trains for visitors and reported them to Evans. He wrote breezy little local briefs in his own light cow-like way for Evans's paper.

But Mr. Ducker's journalistic fervour received a serious set back one day. He rushed into the Mercury office just as the paper went to press with the news that old Mrs. Williamson had at last winged her somewhat delayed flight. Evans thanked him with some cordiality for letting him know in time to make a note of it, and asked him to go around to Mrs. Williamson's home and find out a few facts for the obituary.

Mr. Ducker did so with great cheerfulness, rather out of keeping with the nature of his visit. He felt that his way was growing brighter. When he reached the old lady's home he was received with all courtesy by her slow-spoken son. Mr. Ducker bristled with importance as he made known his errand, in a neat speech, in which official dignity and sympathy were artistically blended. "The young may die, but the old must die," he reminded Mr. Williamson as he produced his pencil and tablet. Mr. Williamson gave a detailed account of his mother's early life, marriages first and second, and located all her children with painstaking accuracy. "Left to mourn her loss," Mr. Ducker wrote.

"And the cause of her death?" Mr. Ducker inquired gently, "general breaking down of the system, I suppose?" with his pencil poised in the air.

Mr. Williamson knit his shaggy brows.

"Well, I wouldn't say too much about mother's death if I were you. Stick to her birth, and the date she joined the church, and her marriages—they're sure. But mother's death is a little uncertain, just yet."

A toothless chuckle came from the adjoining room. Mrs. Williamson had been an interested listener to the conversation.

"Order my coffin, Ducker, on your way down, but never mind the flowers, they might not keep," she shrilled after him as he beat a hasty retreat.

When Mr. Ducker, crestfallen and humiliated, re-entered the Mercury office a few moments later, he was watched by two twinkling Irish eyes, that danced with unholy merriment at that good man's discomfiture. They belonged to Ignatius Benedicto McSorley, the editor of the other paper.

But Mrs. Ducker was hopeful. A friend of hers in Winnipeg had already a house in view for them, and Mrs. Ducker had decided the church they would attend when the session opened, and what day she would have, and many other important things that it is well to have one's mind made up on and not leave to the last. Maudie Ducker had been taken into the secret, and began to feel sorry for the other little girls whose papas were contented to let them live always in such a pokey little place as Millford. Maudie also began to dream dreams of sweeping in upon the Millford people in flowing robes and waving plumes and sparkling diamonds, in a gorgeous red automobile. Wilford Ducker only of the Ducker family was not taken into the secret. He was too young, his mother said, to understand the change.

The nomination day was drawing near, which had something to do with the date of Maudie Ducker's party. Mrs. Ducker told Maudie they must invite the czar and Pearl Watson, though, of course, she did not say the czar. She said Algernon Evans and that little Watson girl. Maudie, being a perfect little lady objected to Pearl Watson on account of her scanty wardrobe, and to the czar's moist little hands; but Mrs. Ducker, knowing that the czar's father was their long suit, stood firm.

Mr. Ducker had said to her that very morning, rubbing his hands, and speaking in the conspirator's voice: "We must leave no stone unturned. This is the time of seed-sowing, my dear. We must pull every wire."

The czar was a wire, therefore they proceeded to pull him. They did not know he was a live wire until later.

Pearl Watson's delight at being asked to a real party knew no bounds. Maudie need not have worried about Pearl's appearing at the feast without the festal robe. The dress that Camilla had made for her was just waiting for such an occasion to air its loveliness. Anything that was needed to complete her toilet was supplied by her kind-hearted mistress, the czar's mother.

But Mrs. Evans stood looking wistfully after her only son as Pearl wheeled him gaily down the walk. He was beautifully dressed in the finest of mull and valenciennes; his carriage was the loveliest they could buy; Pearl in her neat hat and dress was a little nurse girl to be proud of. But Mrs. Evans's pretty face was troubled. She was thinking of the pretty baby pictures in the magazines, and Algernon was so—different! And his nose was—strange, too, and she had massaged it so carefully, too, and when, oh when, would he say "Daddy-dinger!"

But Algeron was not envious of any other baby's beauty that afternoon, nor worried about his nose either as he bumped up and down in his carriage in glad good humour, and delivered full-sized gurgling "goos" at every person he met, even throwing them along the street in the prodigality of his heart, as he waved his fat hands and thumped his heavy little heels.

Pearl held her head high and was very much the body-guard as she lifted the weighty ruler to the ground. Mrs. Ducker ran down the steps and kissed the czar ostentatiously, pouring out such a volume of admiring and endearing epithets that Pearl stood in bewilderment, wondering why she had never heard of this before. Mrs. Ducker carried the czar into the house, Pearl following with one eye shut, which was her way of expressing perplexity.

Two little girls in very fluffy short skirts, sat demurely in the hammock, keeping their dresses clean and wondering if there would be ice-cream. Within doors Maudie worried out the "Java March" on the piano, to a dozen or more patient little listeners. On the lawn several little girls played croquet. There were no boys at the party. Wilford was going to have the boys—that is, the Conservative boys the next day. Mrs. Ducker did not believe in co-education. Boys are so rough, except Wilford. He had been so carefully brought up, he was not rough at all. He stood awkwardly by the gate watching the girls play croquet. He had been left without a station at his own request. Patsey Watson rode by on a dray wagon, dirty and jolly. Wilford called to him furtively, but Patsey was busy holding on and did not hear him. Wilford sighed heavily. Down at the tracks a freight train shunted and shuddered. Not a boy was in sight. He knew why. The farmers were loading cattle cars.

Pearl went around to the side lawn where the girls were playing croquet, holding the czar's hand tightly.

"What are you playin'?" she asked.

They told her.

"Can you play it?" Mildred Bates asked.

"I guess I can," Pearl said modestly. "But I'm always too busy for games like that!"

"Maudie Ducker says you never play," Mildred Bates said with pity in her voice.

"Maudie Ducker is away off there," Pearl answered with dignity. "I have more fun in one day than Maudie Ducker'll ever have if she lives to be as old as Melchesidick, and it's not this frowsy standin'-round-doin'-nothin' that you kids call fun either."

"Tell us about it, Pearl," they shouted eagerly. Pearl's stories had a charm.

"Well," Pearl began, "ye know I wash Mrs. Evans's dishes every day, and lovely ones they are, too, all pink and gold with dinky little ivy leaves crawlin' out over the edges of the cups. I play I am at the seashore and the tide is comin' in o'er and o'er the sand and 'round and 'round the land, far as eye can see—that's out of a book. I put all the dishes into the big dish pan, and I pertend the tide is risin' on them, though it's just me pourin' on the water. The cups are the boys and the saucers are the girls, the plates are the fathers and mothers and the butter chips are the babies. Then I rush in to save them, but not until they cry 'Lord save us, we perish!' Of course, I yell it for them, good and loud too—people don't just squawk at a time like that—it often scares Mrs. Evans even yet. I save the babies first, I slush them around to clean them, but they never notice that, and I stand them up high and dry in the drip-pan. Then I go in after the girls, and they quiet down the babies in the drip-pan; and then the mothers I bring out, and the boys and the fathers. Sometimes some of the men make a dash out before the women, but you bet I lay them back in a hurry. Then I set the ocean back on the stove, and I rub the babies to get their blood circlin' again, and I get them all put to bed on the second shelf and they soon forget they were so near death's door."

Mary Ducker had finished the "Java March" and "Mary's Pet Waltz," and had joined the interested group on the lawn and now stood listening in dull wonder.

"I rub them all and shine them well," Pearl went on, "and get them all packed off home into the china cupboard, every man jack o' them singin' 'Are we yet alive and see each other's face,' Mrs. Evans sings it for them when she's there.

"Then I get the vegetable dishes and bowls and silverware and all that, and that's an excursion, and they're all drunk, not a sober man on board. They sing 'Sooper up old boys,' 'We won't go home till mornin' and all that, and crash! a cry bursts from every soul on board. They have struck upon a rock and are going down! Water pours in at the gunnel (that's just me with more water and soap, you know), but I ain't sorry for them, for they're all old enough to know that 'wine is a mocker, strong drink is ragin', and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.' But when the crash comes and the swellin' waters burst in they get sober pret' quick and come rushin' up on deck with pale faces to see what's wrong, and I've often seen a big bowl whirl 'round and 'round kind o' dizzy and say 'woe is me!' and sink to the bottom. Mrs. Evans told me that. Anyway I do save them at last, when they see what whiskey is doin' for them. I rub them all up and send them home. The steel knives—they're the worst of all. But though they're black and stained with sin, they're still our brothers, and so we give them the gold cure—that's the bath-brick, and they make a fresh start.

"When I sweep the floor I pertend I'm the army of the Lord that comes to clear the way from dust and sin, let the King of Glory in. Under the stove the hordes of sin are awful thick, they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil! But I say the 'sword of the Lord and of Gideon!' and let them have it! Sometimes I pertend I'm the woman that lost the piece of silver and I sweep the house diligently till I find it, and once Mrs. Evans did put ten cents in a corner just for fun for me, and I never know when she's goin' to do something like that."

Here Maudie Ducker, who had been listening with growing wonder interrupted Pearl with the cry of "Oh, here's pa and Mr. Evans. They're going to take our pictures!"

The little girls were immediately roused out of the spell that Pearlie's story had put upon them, and began to group themselves under the trees, arranging their little skirts and frills.

The czar had toddled on his uncertain little fat legs around to the back door, for he had caught sight of a red head which he knew and liked very much. It belonged to Mary McSorley, the eldest of the McSorley family, who had brought over to Mrs. Ducker the extra two quarts of milk which Mrs. Ducker had ordered for the occasion.

Mary sat on the back step until Mrs. Ducker should find time to empty her pitcher. Mary was strictly an outsider. Mary's father was a Reformer. He ran the opposition paper to dear Mr. Evans. Mary was never well dressed, partly accounted for by the fact that the angels had visited the McSorley home so often. Therefore, for these reasons, Mary sat on the back step, a rank outsider.

The czar, who knew nothing of these things, began to "goo" as soon as he saw her. Mary reached out her arms. The czar stumbled into them and Mary fell to kissing his bald head. She felt more at home with a baby in her arms.

It was at this unfortunate moment that Mr. Ducker and Mr. Evans came around to the rear of the house. Mr. Evans was beginning to think rather more favourably of Mr. Ducker, as the prospective Conservative member. He might do all right—there are plenty worse—he has no brains—but that does not matter. What need has a man of brains when he goes into politics? Brainy men make the trouble. The Grits made that mistake once, elected a brainy man, and they have had no peace since.

Mr. Ducker had adroitly drawn the conversation to a general discussion of children. He knew that Mr. Evans's weak point was his little son Algernon.

"That's a clever looking little chap of yours, Evans," he had remarked carelessly as they came up the street. (Mr. Ducker had never seen the czar closely.) "My wife was just saying the other day that he has a wonderful forehead for a little fellow."

"He has," the other man said smiling, not at all displeased. "It runs clear down to his neck!"

"He can hardly help being clever if there's anything in heredity," Mr. Ducker went on with infinite tact, feeling his rainbow dreams of responding to toasts at Elk banquets drawing nearer and nearer.

Then the Evil Genius of the House of Ducker awoke from his slumber, sat up and took notice! The house that the friend in Winnipeg had selected for them fell into irreparable ruins! Poor Maudie's automobile vanished at a touch. The rosy dreams of Cincinnatus, and of carrying the grand old Conservative banner in the face of the foe turned to clay and ashes!

They turned the corner, and came upon Mary McSorley who sat on the back step with the czar in her arms. Mary's head was hidden as she kissed the czar's fat neck, and in the general babel of voices, within and without, she did not hear them coming.

"Speaking about heredity," Mr. Ducker said suavely, speaking in a low voice, and looking at whom he supposed to be the latest McSorley, "it looks as if there must be something in it over there. Isn't that McSorley over again? Low forehead, pug nose, bulldog tendencies." Mr. Ducker was something of a phrenologist, and went blithely on to his own destruction.

"Now the girl is rather pleasant looking, and some of the others are not bad at all. But this one is surely a regular little Mickey. I believe a person would be safe in saying that he would not grow up a Presbyterian."—Mr. Evans was the worshipful Grand Master of the Loyal Orange Lodge, and well up in the Black, and this remark Mr. Ducker thought he would appreciate.

"McSorley will never be dead while this little fellow lives," Mr. Ducker laughed merrily, rubbing his hands.

The czar looked up and saw his father. Perhaps he understood what had been said, and saw the hurt in his father's face and longed to heal him of it; perhaps the time had come when he should forever break the goo-goo bonds that had lain upon his speech. He wriggled off Mary's knee, and toddling uncertainly across the grass with a mighty mental conflict in his pudgy little face, held out his dimpled arms with a glad cry of "Daddy-dinger!"

That evening while Mrs. Ducker and Maudie were busy fanning Mr. Ducker and putting wet towels on his head, Mr. Evans sat down to write.

"Some more of that tiresome election stuff, John," his pretty little wife said in disappointment, as she proudly rocked the emancipated czar to sleep.

"Yes, dear, it is election stuff, but it is not a bit tiresome," he answered smiling, as he kissed her tenderly. Several times during the evening, and into the night, she heard him laugh his happy boyish laugh.

James Ducker did not get the nomination.



CHAPTER X

THE BUTCHER-RIDE

Patsey Watson waited on the corner of the street. It was in the early morning and Patsey's face bore marks of a recent and mighty conflict with soap and water. Patsey looked apprehensively every now and then at his home; his mother might emerge any minute and insist on his wearing a coat; his mother could be very tiresome that way sometimes.

It seemed long this morning to wait for the butcher, but the only way to be sure of a ride was to be on the spot. Sometimes there were delays in getting away from home. Getting on a coat was one; finding a hat was the worst of all. Since Bugsey got the nail in his foot and could not go out the hat question was easier. The hat was still hard to find, but not impossible.

Wilford Ducker came along. Wilford had just had a dose of electric oil artfully concealed in a cup of tea, and he felt desperate. His mother had often told him not to play with any of the Watson boys, they were so rough and unladylike in their manner. Perhaps that was why Wilford came over at once to Patsey. Patsey did not care for Wilford Ducker even if he did live in a big house with screen doors on it. Mind you, he did not wear braces yet, only a waist with white buttons on it, and him seven! Patsey's manner was cold.

"You goin' fer butcher-ride?" Wilford asked.

"Yep," Patsey answered with very little warmth.

"Say, Pat, lemme go," Wilford coaxed.

"Nope," Patsey replied, indifferently.

"Aw, do, Pat, won't cher?"

Mrs. Ducker had been very particular about Wilford's enunciation. Once she dismissed a servant for dropping her final g's. Mrs. Ducker considered it more serious to drop a final g than a dinner plate. She often spoke of how particular she was. She said she had insisted on correct enunciation from the first. So Wilford said again:

"Aw, do, Pat, won't cher?"

Patsey looked carelessly down the street and began to sing:

How much wood would a wood-chuck chuck If a wood-chuck could chuck wood.

"What cher take fer butcher-ride, Pat?" Wilford asked.

"What cher got?"

Patsey had stopped singing, but still beat time with his foot to the imaginary music.

Wilford produced a jack-knife in very good repair.

Patsey stopped beating time, though only for an instant. It does not do to be too keen.

"It's a good un," Wilford said with pride. "It's a Rodger, mind ye—two blades."

"Name yer price," Patsey condescended, after a deliberate examination.

"Lemme ride all week, ord'rin' and deliv'rin'."

"Not much, I won't," Patsey declared stoutly. "You can ride three days for it."

Wilford began to whimper, but just then the butcher cart whirled around the corner.

Wilford ran toward it. Patsey held the knife.

The butcher stopped and let Wilford mount. It was all one to the butcher. He knew he usually got a boy at this corner.

Patsey ran after the butcher cart. He had caught sight of someone whom Wilford had not yet noticed. It was Mrs. Ducker. Mrs. Ducker had been down the street ordering a crate of pears. Mrs. Ducker was just as particular about pears as she was about final g's, so she had gone herself to select them.

When she saw Wilford, her son, riding with the butcher—well, really, she could not have told the sensation it gave her. Wilford could not have told, either, just how he felt when he saw his mother. But both Mrs. Ducker and her son had a distinct sensation when they met that morning.

She called Wilford, and he came. No sooner had he left his seat than Patsey Watson took his place. Wilford dared not ask for the return of the knife: his mother would know that he had had dealings with Patsey Watson, and his account at the maternal bank was already overdrawn.

Mrs. Ducker was more sorrowful than angry.

"Wilford!" she said with great dignity, regarding the downcast little boy with exaggerated scorn, "and you a Ducker!"

She escorted the fallen Ducker sadly homeward, but, oh, so glad that she had saved him from the corroding influence of the butcher boy.

While Wilford Ducker was unfastening the china buttons on his waist, preparatory to a season of rest and retirement, that he might the better ponder upon the sins of disobedience and evil associations, Patsey Watson was opening and shutting his new knife proudly.

"It was easy done," he was saying to himself. "I'm kinder sorry I jewed him down now. Might as well ha' let him have the week. Sure, there's no luck in being mane."



CHAPTER XI

HOW PEARL WATSON WIPED OUT THE STAIN

Mrs. Motherwell felt bitterly grieved with Polly for failing her just when she needed her the most; "after me keepin' her and puttin' up with her all summer," she said. She began to wonder where she could secure help. Then she had an inspiration!

The Watsons still owed ten dollars on the caboose. The eldest Watson girl was big enough to work. They would get her. And get ten dollars' worth of work out of her if they could.

The next Saturday night John Watson announced to his family that old Sam Motherwell wanted Pearlie to go out and work off the caboose debt.

Mrs. Watson cried, "God help us!" and threw her apron over her head.

"Who'll keep the dandrew out of me hair?" Mary said tearfully, "if Pearlie goes away?"

"Who'll make me remember to spit on me warts?" Bugsey asked.

"Who'll keep house when ma goes to wash?" wee Tommy wailed dismally.

Danny's grievance could not be expressed in words. He buried his tousy head in Pearl's apron, and Pearl saw at once that her whole house were about to be submerged in tears, idle tears.

"Stop your bleatin', all of yez!" she commanded in her most authoritative voice. "I will go!" she said, with blazing eyes. "I will go, I will wipe the stain off me house once and forever!" waving her arm dramatically toward the caboose which formed the sleeping apartment for the boys. "To die, to die for those we love is nobler far than wear a crown!" Pearl had attended the Queen Esther cantata the winter before. She knew now how poor Esther felt.

On the following Monday afternoon everything was ready for Pearl's departure. Her small supply of clothing was washed and ironed and neatly packed in a bird-cage. It was Mary who thought of the bird-cage "sittin' down there in the cellar doin' nothin', and with a handle on it, too." Mary was getting to be almost as smart as Pearl to think of things.

Pearl had bidden good-bye to them all and was walking to the door when her mother called her back to repeat her parting instructions.

"Now, mind, Pearlie dear, not to be pickin' up wid strangers, and speakin' to people ye don't know, and don't be showin' yer money or makin' change wid anyone."

Pearl was not likely to disobey the last injunction. She had seventeen cents in money, ten cents of which Teddy had given her, and the remaining seven cents had come in under the heading of small sums, from the other members of the family.

She was a pathetic little figure in her brown and white checked dress, with her worldly effects in the bird-cage, as she left the shelter of her father's roof and went forth into the untried world. She went over to Mrs. Francis to say good-bye to her and to Camilla.

Mrs. Francis was much pleased with Pearl's spirit of independence and spoke beautifully of the opportunities for service which would open for her.

"You must keep a diary, Pearl," she said enthusiastically. "Set down in it all you see and feel. You will have such splendid opportunities for observing plant and animal life—the smallest little insect is wonderfully interesting. I will be so anxious to hear how you are impressed with the great green world of Out of Doors! Take care of your health, too, Pearl; see that your room is ventilated."

While Mrs. Francis elaborated on the elements of proper living, Camilla in the kitchen had opened the little bundle in the cage, and put into it a pair of stockings and two or three handkerchiefs, then she slipped in a little purse containing ten shining ten-cent pieces, and an orange. She arranged the bundle to look just as it did before, so that she would not have to meet Pearl's gratitude.

Camilla hastily set the kettle to boil, and began to lay the table. She could hear the velvety tones of Mrs. Francis's voice in the library.

"Mrs. Francis speaks a strange language," she said, smiling to herself, "but it can be translated into bread and butter and apple sauce, and even into shoes and stockings, when you know how to interpret it. But wouldn't it be dreadful if she had no one to express it in the tangible things of life for her. Think of her talking about proper diet and aids to digestion to that little hungry girl. Well, it seems to be my mission to step into the gap—I'm a miss with a mission"—she was slicing some cold ham as she spoke—"I am something of a health talker, too."

Camilla knocked at the library door, and in answer to Mrs. Francis's invitation to enter, opened the door and said:

"Mrs. Francis, would it not be well for Pearl to have a lunch before she starts for her walk into the country; the air is so exhilarating, you know."

"How thoughtful you are, Camilla!" Mrs. Francis exclaimed with honest admiration.

Thus it happened that Pearlie Watson, aged twelve, began her journey into the big unknown world, fully satisfied in body and soul, and with a great love for all the world.

At the corner of the street stood Mrs. McGuire, and at sight of her Pearl's heart stopped beating.

"It's bad luck," she said. "I'd as lief have a rabbit cross me path as her."

But she walked bravely forward with no outward sign of her inward trembling.

"Goin' to Sam Motherwell's, are ye?" the old lady asked shrilly.

"Yes'm," Pearl said, trembling.

"She's a tarter; she's a skinner; she's a damner; that's what she is. She's my own first cousin and I know HER. Sass her; that's the only way to get along with her. Tell her I said so. Here, child, rub yer j'ints with this when ye git stiff." She handed Pearl a black bottle of home-made liniment.

Pearl thanked her and hurried on, but at the next turn of the street she met Danny.

Danny was in tears; Danny wasn't going to let Pearlie go away; Danny would run away and get lost and runned over and drownded, now! Pearl's heart melted, and sitting on the sidewalk she took Danny in her arms, and they cried together. A whirr of wheels aroused Pearl and looking up she saw the kindly face of the young doctor.

"What is it, Pearl?" he asked kindly. "Surely that's not Danny I see, spoiling his face that way!"

"It's Danny," Pearl said unsteadily. "It's hard enough to leave him widout him comin' afther me and breakin' me heart all over again."

"That's what it is, Pearl," the doctor said, smiling. "I think it is mighty thoughtless of Danny the way he is acting."

Danny held obstinately to Pearl's skirt, and cried harder than ever. He would not even listen when the doctor spoke of taking him for a drive.

"Listen to the doctor," Pearl commanded sternly, "or he'll raise a gumboil on ye."

Thus admonished Danny ceased his sobs; but he showed no sign of interest when the doctor spoke of popcorn, and at the mention of ice-cream he looked simply bored.

"He's awful fond of 'hoo-hung' candy," Pearlie suggested in a whisper, holding her hand around her mouth so that Danny might not hear her.

"Ten cents' worth of 'hoo-hung' candy to the boy that says good-bye to his sister like a gentleman and rides home with me."

Danny dried his eyes on Pearl's skirt, kissed her gravely and climbed into the buggy beside the doctor. Waterloo was won!

Pearl did not trust herself to look back as she walked along the deeply beaten road.

The yellow cone-flowers raised their heads like golden stars along the roadside, and the golden glory of the approaching harvest lay upon everything. To the right the Tiger Hills lay on the horizon wrapped in a blue mist. Flocks of blackbirds swarmed over the ripening oats, and angrily fought with each other.

"And it not costin' them a cent!" Pearl said in disgust as she stopped to watch them.

The exhilaration of the air, the glory of the waving grain, the profusion of wild flowers that edged the fields with purple and yellow were like wine to her sympathetic Irish heart as she walked through the grain fields and drank in all the beauties that lay around, and it was not until she came in sight of the big stone house, gloomy and bare, that she realised with a start of homesickness that she was Pearl Watson, aged twelve, away from home for the first time, and bound to work three months for a woman of reputed ill-temper.

"But I'll do it," Pearl said, swallowing the lump that gathered in her throat, "I can work. Nobody never said that none of the Watsons couldn't work. I'll stay out me time if it kills me."

So saying, Pearl knocked timidly at the back door. Myriads of flies buzzed on the screen. From within a tired voice said, "Come in."

Pearl walked in and saw a large bare room, with a long table in the middle. A sewing machine littered with papers stood in front of one window.

The floor had been painted a dull drab, but the passing of many feet had worn the paint away in places. A stove stood in one corner. Over the sink a tall, round-shouldered woman bent trying to get water from an asthmatic pump.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" she said in a tone so very unpleasant that Pearl thought she must have expected someone else.

"Yes'm," Pearl said meekly. "Who were ye expectin'?"

Mrs. Motherwell stopped pumping for a minute and looked at Pearl.

"Why didn't ye git here earlier?" she asked.

"Well," Pearl began, "I was late gettin' started by reason of the washin' and the ironin', and Jimmy not gettin' back wid the boots. He went drivin' cattle for Vale the butcher, and he had to have the boots for the poison ivy is that bad, and because the sugar o' lead is all done and anyway ma don't like to keep it in the house, for wee Danny might eat it—he's that stirrin' and me not there to watch him now."

"Lord! what a tongue you have! Put down your things and go out and pick up chips to light the fire with in the morning."

Pearl laid her bird-cage on a chair and was back so soon with the chips that Mrs. Motherwell could not think of anything to say.

"Now go for the cows," she said, "and don't run them home!"

"Where will I run them to then, ma'am?" Pearl asked innocently.

"Good land, child, have I to tell you everything? Folks that can't do without tellin' can't do much with, I say. Bring the cows to the bars, and don't stand there staring at me."

When Pearl dashed out of the door, she almost fell over the old dog who lay sleepily snapping at the flies which buzzed around his head. He sprang up with a growl which died away into an apologetic yawn as she stooped to pat his honest brown head.

A group of red calves stood at the bars of a small field plaintively calling for their supper. It was not just an ordinary bawl, but a double-jointed hyphenated appeal, indicating a very exhausted condition indeed.

Pearl looked at them in pity. The old dog, wrinkling his nose and turning away his head, did not give them a glance. He knew them. Noisy things! Let 'em bawl. Come on!

Across the narrow creek they bounded, Pearl and old Nap, and up the other hill where the silver willows grew so tall they were hidden in them. The goldenrod nodded its plumy head in the breeze, and the tall Gaillardia, brown and yellow, flickered unsteadily on its stem.

The billows of shadow swept over the wheat on each side of the narrow pasture; the golden flowers, the golden fields, the warm golden sunshine intoxicated Pearl with their luxurious beauty, and in that hour of delight she realised more pleasure from them than Sam Motherwell and his wife had in all their long lives of barren selfishness. Their souls were of a dull drab dryness in which no flower took root, there was no gold to them but the gold of greed and gain, and with it they had never bought a smile or a gentle hand pressure or a fervid "God bless you!" and so it lost its golden colour, and turned to lead and ashes in their hands.

When Pearl and Nap got the cows turned homeward they had to slacken their pace.

"I don't care how cross she is," Pearl said, "if I can come for the cows every night. Look at that fluffy white cloud! Say, wouldn't that make a hat trimming that would do your heart good. The body of the hat blue like that up there, edged 'round with that cloud over there, then a blue cape with white fur on it just to match. I kin just feel that white stuff under my chin."

Then Pearl began to cake-walk and sing a song she had heard Camilla sing. She had forgotten some of the words, but Pearl never was at a loss for words:

The wild waves are singing to the shore As they were in the happy days of yore.

Pearl could not remember what the wild waves were singing, so she sang what was in her own heart:

She can't take the ripple from the breeze, And she can't take the rustle from the trees; And when I am out of the old girl's sight I can-just-do-as-I-please.

"That's right, I think the same way and try to act up to it," a man's voice said slowly. "But don't let her hear you say so."

Pearl started at the sound of the voice and found herself looking into such a good-natured face that she laughed too, with a feeling of good-fellowship.

The old dog ran to the stranger with every sign of delight at seeing him.

"I am one of the neighbours," he said. "I live over there"—pointing to a little car-roofed shanty farther up the creek. "Did I frighten you? I am sorry if I did, but you see I like the sentiment of your song so much I could not help telling you. You need not think it strange if you find me milking one of the cows occasionally. You see, I believe in dealing directly with the manufacturer and thus save the middleman's profit, and so I just take what milk I need from So-Bossie over there."

"Does she know?" Pearl asked, nodding toward the house.

"Who? So-Bossie?"

"No, Mrs. Motherwell."

"Well, no," he answered slowly. "You haven't heard of her having a fit, have you?"

"No," Pearl answered wonderingly.

"Then we're safe in saying that the secret has been kept from her."

"Does it hurt her, though?" Pearl asked.

"It would, very much, if she knew it," the young man replied gravely.

"Oh, I mean the cow," Pearl said hastily.

"It doesn't hurt the cow a bit. What does she care who gets the milk? When did you come?"

"To-night," Pearl said. "I must hurry. She'll have a rod in steep for me if I'm late. My name's Pearl Watson. What's yours?"

"Jim Russell," he said. "I know your brother Teddy."

Pearl was speeding down the hill. She shouted back:

"I know who you are now. Good-bye!" Pearl ran to catch up to the cows, for the sun was throwing long shadows over the pasture, and the plaintive lowing of the hungry calves came faintly to her ears.

A blond young man stood at the bars with four milk pails.

He raised his hat when he spoke to Pearl.

"Madam says you are to help me to milk, but I assure you it is quite unnecessary. Really, I would much prefer that you shouldn't."

"Why?" Pearl asked in wonder.

"Oh, by Jove! You see it is not a woman's place to work outside like this, don't you know."

"That's because ye'r English," Pearl said, a sudden light breaking in on her. "Ma says when ye git a nice Englishman there's nothing nicer, and pa knowed one once that was so polite he used to say 'Haw Buck' to the ox and then he'd say, 'Oh, I beg yer pardon, I mean gee.' It wasn't you, was it?"

"No," he said smiling, "I have never driven oxen, but I have done a great many ridiculous things I am sure."

"So have I," Pearl said confidentially, as she sat down on a little three-legged stool to milk So-Bossie. "You know them fluffy white things all made of lace and truck like that, that is hung over the beds in rich people's houses, over the pillows, I mean?"

"Pillow-shams?" he asked.

"Yes, that's them! Well, when I stayed with Camilla one night at Mrs. Francis's didn't I think they were things to pull down to keep the flies off ye'r face. Say, you should have heard Camilla laugh, and ma saw a girl at a picnic once who drank lemonade through her veil, and she et a banana, skin and all."

Pearl laughed heartily, but the Englishman only smiled faintly. Canadian ways were growing stranger all the time.

"Say," Pearl began after a pause, "who does the cow over there with the horns bent down look like? Someone we both know, only the cow looks pleasanter."

"My word!" the Englishman exclaimed, "you're a rum one."

Pearl looked disappointed.

"Animals often look like people," she said. "We have two cows at home, one looks like Mrs. White, so good and gentle, wouldn't say boo to a goose; the other one looks just like Fred Miller. He works in the mill, and his hair goes in a roll on the top; his mother did it that way with a hair-pin too long, I guess, and now it won't go any other way, and I know an animal that looks like you; he's a dandy, too, you bet. It is White's dog, and he can jump the fence easy as anything."

"Oh, give over, give over!" the Englishman said stiffly.

Pearl laughed delightedly.

"It's lots of fun guessing who people are like," she said. "I'm awful smart at it and so is Mary, four years younger'n me. Once we could not guess who Mrs. Francis was like, and Mary guessed it. Mrs. Francis looks like prayer—big bug eyes lookin' away into nothin', but hopin' it's all for the best. Do you pray?"

"I am a rector's son," he answered.

"Oh, I know, minister's son, isn't that lovely? I bet you know prayers and prayers. But it isn't fair to pray in a race is it? When Jimmy Moore and my brother Jimmy ran under twelve, Jimmie Moore prayed, and some say got his father to pray, too; he's the Methodist minister, you know, and, of course, he won it; but our Jimmy could ha' beat him easy in a fair race, and no favours; but he's an awful snoopie kid and prays about everything. Do you sing?"

"I do—a little," the Englishman said modestly.

"Oh, my, I am glad," Pearl cried rapturously. "When I was two years old I could sing 'Hush my babe lie,' all through—I love singin'—I can sing a little, too, but I don't care much for my own. Have they got an organ here?"

"I don't know," he answered, "I've only been in the kitchen."

"Say, I'd like to see a melodeon. Just the very name of it makes me think of lovely sounds, religious sounds, mountin' higher and higher and swellin' out grander and grander, rollin' right into the great white throne, and shakin' the streets of gold. Do you know the 'Holy City,'" she asked after a pause.

The Englishman began to hum it in a rich tenor.

"That's it, you bet," she cried delightedly. "Just think of you coming all the way across the ocean and knowing that just the same as we do. I used to listen at the keyhole when Mrs. Francis had company, and I was there helping Camilla. Dr. Clay sang that lots of times."

The Englishman had not sung since he had left his father's house. He began to sing now, in a sweet, full voice, resonant on the quiet evening air, the cows staring idly at him. The old dog came down to the bars with his bristles up, expecting trouble.

Old Sam and his son Tom coming in from work stopped to listen to these strange sounds.

"Confound them English!" old Sam said. "Ye'd think I was payin' him to do that, and it harvest-time, too!"

When Dr. Clay, with Danny Watson gravely perched beside him, drove along the river road after saying good-bye to Pearl, they met Miss Barner, who had been digging ferns for Mrs. McGuire down on the river flat.

The doctor drew in his horse.

"Miss Barner," he said, lifting his hat, "if Daniel Mulcahey Watson and I should ask you to come for a drive with us, I wonder what you would say?"

Miss Barner considered for a moment and then said, smiling:

"I think I would say, 'Thank you very much, Mr. Watson and Dr. Clay, I shall be delighted to come if you have room for me.'"

Life had been easier for Mary Barner since Dr. Clay had come to Millford. It was no longer necessary for her to compel her father to go when he was sent for, and when patients came to the office, if she thought her father did not know what he was doing, she got Dr. Clay to check over the prescriptions.

It had been rather hard for Mary to ask him to do this, for she had a fair share of her father's Scotch pride; but she had done too many hard things in her life to hesitate now. The young doctor was genuinely glad to serve her, and he made her feel that she was conferring, instead of asking, a favour.

They drove along the high bank that fell perpendicularly to the river below and looked down at the harvest scene that lay beneath them. The air was full of the perfume of many flowers and the chatter of birds.

The Reverend Hugh Grantley drove swiftly by them, whereupon Danny made his presence known for the first time by the apparently irrelevant remark:

"I know who Miss Barner's fellow is! so I do."

Now if Dr. Clay had given Danny even slight encouragement, he would have pursued the subject, and that might have saved complications in the days to come.



CHAPTER XII

FROM CAMILLA'S DIARY

It is nearly six months since I came to live with Mrs. Francis, and I like housework so well and am so happy at it, that it shows clearly that I am not a disguised heiress. My proud spirit does not chafe a bit at having to serve meals and wear a cap (you should see how sweet I look in a cap). I haven't got the fear on my heart all day that I will make a mistake in a figure that will rise up and condemn me at the end of the month as I used to be when I was book-keeping on a high stool, for the Western Hail and Fire Insurance Company (peace to its ashes!). "All work is expression," Fra Elbertus says, so why may I not express myself in blueberry pie and tomato soup?

Mrs. Francis is an appreciative mistress, and she is not so entirely wrapped up in Browning as to be insensible to a good salad either, I am glad to say.

One night after we had company and everything had gone off well, Mr. Francis came out into the kitchen, and looked over his glasses at me. He opened his mouth twice to speak, but seemed to change his mind. I knew what was struggling for utterance. Then he laid fifty cents on the window sill, pointed at it, nodded to me, and went out hurriedly. My first impulse was to hand it back—then I thought better of it—words do not come easily to him. So he expressed himself in currency. I put the money into my purse for a luck penny.

Mrs. Francis is as serene as a summer sea, and can look at you without knowing you are there. Mr. Francis is a peaceful man, too. He looks at his wife in a helpless way when she begins to explain the difference between the Elizabethan and the Victorian poets—I don't believe he cares a cent for either of them.

Mrs. Francis entertains quite a bit; I like it, too, and I do not go and cry into the sink because I have to wait on the guests. She entertains well and is a delightful hostess, but some of the people whom she entertains do not appreciate her flights of fancy.

I do not like to see them wink at each other, although I know it is funny to hear Mrs. Francis elaborate on the mother's influence in the home and the proper way to deal with selfishness in children; but she means well, and they should remember that, no matter how funny she gets.

April 18th.—She gave me a surprise to-day. She called me upstairs and read to me a paper she was preparing to read before some society—she belongs to three or four—on the domestic help problem. Well, it hadn't very much to do with the domestic help problem, but of course I could not tell her that so when she asked me what I thought of it I said:

"If all employers were as kind as you and Mr. Francis there would be no domestic help problem."

She looked at me suddenly, and something seemed to strike her. I believe it came to her that I was a creature of like passions with herself, capable of gratitude, perhaps in need of encouragement. Hitherto I think she has regarded me as a porridge and coffee machine.

She put her arm around me and kissed me.

"Camilla," she said gently—she has the softest, dreamiest voice I ever heard—"I believe in the aristocracy of brains and virtue. You have both."

Farewell, oh Soulless Corporation! A long, last, lingering farewell, for Camilla E. Rose, who used to sit upon the high stool and add figures for you at ten dollars a week, is far away making toast for two kindly souls, one of whom tells her she has brains and virtue and the other one opens his mouth to speak, and then pushes fifty cents at her instead.

Danny Watson, bless his heart! is bringing madam up. He has wound himself into her heart and the "whyness of the what" is packing up to go.

May 1st.—Mrs. Francis is going silly over Danny. A few days ago she asked me if I could cut a pattern for a pair of pants. I told her I had made pants once or twice and meekly inquired whom she wanted the pants for. She said for a boy, of course—and she looked at me rather severely. I knew they must be for Danny, and cut the pattern about the size for him. She went into the sewing-room, and I only saw her at meal times for two days. She wrestled with the garment.

Last night she asked me if I would take a parcel to Danny with her love. I was glad to go, for I was just dying to see how she had got along.

When I held them up before Mrs. Watson the poor woman gasped.

"Save us all!" she cried. "Them'll fit none of us. We're poor, but, thank God, we're not deformed!"

I'll never forget the look of those pants. They haunt me still.

May 15th.—Pearl Watson is the sweetest and best little girl I know. Her gratitude for even the smallest kindness makes me want to cry. She told me the other day she was sure Danny was going to be a doctor. She bases her hopes on the questions that Danny asks. How do you know you haven't got a gizzard? How would you like to be ripped clean up the back? and Where does your lap go to when you stand up? She said, "Ma and us all have hopes o' Danny."

Mrs. Francis has a new role, that of matchmaker, though I don't suppose she knows it. She had Mary Barner and the young minister for tea to-night. Mary grows dearer and sweeter every day. People say it is not often one girl praises another; but Mary is a dear little gray-eyed saint with the most shapely hands I ever saw. Reverend Hugh thinks so, too, I have no doubt. It was really too bad to waste a good fruit salad on him though, for I know he didn't know what he was eating. Excelsior would taste like ambrosia to him if Mary sat opposite—all of which is very much as it should be, I know. I thought for a while Mary liked Dr. Clay pretty well, but I know it is not serious, for she talks quite freely of him. She is very grateful to him for helping her so often with her father. But those gray-eyed Scotch people never talk of what is nearest the heart. I wonder if he knows that Mary Barner is a queen among women. I don't like Scotchmen. They take too much for granted.



CHAPTER XIII

THE FIFTH SON

Arthur Wemyss, fifth son of the Reverend Alfred Austin Wemyss, Rector of St. Agnes, Tilbury Road, County of Kent, England, had but recently crossed the ocean. He and six hundred other fifth sons of rectors and earls and dukes had crossed the ocean in the same ship and had been scattered abroad over Manitoba and the Northwest Territories to be instructed in agricultural pursuits by the honest granger, and incidentally to furnish nutriment for the ever-ready mosquito or wasp, who regarded all Old Country men as their lawful meat.

The honest granger was paid a sum varying between fifty and one hundred fifty dollars for instructing one of these young fellows in farming for one year, and although having an Englishman was known to be a pretty good investment, the farmers usually spoke of them as they would of the French-weed or the rust in the wheat. Sam Motherwell referred to his quite often as "that blamed Englishman" and often said, unjustly, that he was losing money on him every day.

Arthur—the Motherwells could not have told his other name—had learned something since he came. He could pull pig-weed for the pigs and throw it into the pen; he had learned to detect French-weed in the grain; he could milk; he could turn the cream-separator; he could wash dishes and churn, and he did it all with a willingness, a cheerfulness that would have appealed favourably to almost any other farmer in the neighbourhood, but the lines had fallen to Arthur in a stony place, and his employer did not notice him at all unless to find fault with him. Yet he bore it all with good humour. He had come to Canada to learn to farm.

The only real grievance he had was that he could not get his "tub." The night he arrived, dusty and travel-stained after his long journey, he had asked for his "tub," but Mr. Motherwell had told him in language he had never heard before—that there was no tub of his around the establishment, that he knew of, and that he could go down and have a dip in the river on Sunday if he wanted to. Then he had conducted him with the lantern to his bed in the loft of the granary.

A rickety ladder led up to the bed, which was upon a temporary floor laid about half way across the width of the granary. Bags of musty smelling wheat stood at one end of this little room. Evidently Mr. Motherwell wished to discourage sleep-walking in his hired help, for the floor ended abruptly and a careless somnambulist would be precipitated on the old fanning mill, harrow teeth and other debris which littered the floor below.

The young Englishman reeled unsteadily going up the ladder. He could still feel the chug-chug-chug of the ocean liner's engines and had to hold tight to the ladder's splintered rungs to preserve his equilibrium.

Mr. Motherwell raised the lantern with sudden interest.

"Say," he said, more cheerfully than he had yet spoken, "you haven't been drinking, have you?"

"Intoxicants, do you mean?" the Englishman asked, without turning around. "No, I do not drink."

"You didn't happen to bring anything over with you, did you, for seasickness on the boat?" Mr. Motherwell queried anxiously, holding the lantern above his head.

"No, I did not," the young man said laconically.

"Turn out at five to-morrow morning then," his employer snapped in evident disappointment, and he lowered the lantern so quickly that it went out.

The young man lay down upon his hard bed. His utter weariness was a blessing to him that night, for not even the racing mice, the musty smells or the hardness of his straw bed could keep him from slumber.

In what seemed to him but a few minutes, he was awakened by a loud knocking on the door below, voices shouted, a dog barked, cow-bells jangled; he could hear doors banging everywhere, a faint streak of sunlight lay wan and pale on the mud-plastered walls.

"By Jove!" he said yawning, "I know now what Kipling meant when he said 'the dawn comes up like thunder.'"

A few weeks after Arthur's arrival, Mrs. Motherwell called him from the barn, where he sat industriously mending bags, to unhitch her horse from the buggy. She had just driven home from Millford. Nobody had taken the trouble to show Arthur how it was done.

"Any fool ought to know," Mr. Motherwell said.

Arthur came running from the barn with his hat in his hand. He grasped the horse firmly by the bridle and led him toward the barn. As they came near the water trough the horse began to show signs of thirst. Arthur led him to the trough, but the horse tossed his head and was unable to get it near the water on account of the check.

Arthur watched him a few moments with gathering perplexity.

"I can't lift this water vessel," he said, looking at the horse reproachfully. "It's too heavy, don't you know. Hold! I have it," he cried with exultation beaming in his face; and making a dash for the horse he unfastened the crupper.

But the exultation soon died from his face, for the horse still tossed his head in the vain endeavour to reach the water.

"My word!" he said, wrinkling his forehead, "I believe I shall have to lift the water-vessel yet, though it is hardly fit to lift, it is so wet and nasty." Arthur spoke with a deliciously soft Kentish accent, guiltless of r's and with a softening of the h's that was irresistible.

A light broke over his face again. He went behind the buggy and lifted the hind wheels. While he was holding up the wheels and craning his neck around the back of the buggy to see if his efforts were successful, Jim Russell came into the yard, riding his dun-coloured pony Chiniquy.

He stood still in astonishment. Then the meaning of it came to him and he rolled off Chiniquy's back, shaking with silent laughter.

"Come, come, Arthur," he said as soon as he could speak. "Stop trying to see how strong you are. Don't you see the horse wants a drink?"

With a perfectly serious face Jim unfastened the check, whereupon the horse's head was lowered at once, and he drank in long gulps the water that had so long mocked him with its nearness.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Russell," the Englishman cried delightedly. "Thanks awfully, it is monstrously clever of you to know how to do everything. I wish I could go and live with you. I believe I could learn to farm if I were with you."

Jim looked at his eager face so cruelly bitten by mosquitoes.

"I'll tell you, Arthur," he said smiling, "I haven't any need for a man to work, but I suppose I might hire you to keep the mosquitoes off the horses. They wouldn't look at Chiniquy, I am sure, if they could get a nip at you."

The Englishman looked perplexed.

"You are learning as well as any person could learn," Jim said kindly. "I think you are doing famously. No person is particularly bright at work entirely new. Don't be a bit discouraged, old man, you'll be a rich land-owner some day, proprietor of the A. J. Wemyss Stock Farm, writing letters to the agricultural papers, judge of horses at the fairs, giving lectures at dairy institutes—oh, I think I see you, Arthur!"

"You are chaffing me," Arthur said smiling.

"Indeed I am not. I am very much in earnest. I have seen more unlikely looking young fellows than you do wonderful things in a short time, and just to help along the good work I am going to show you a few things about taking off harness that may be useful to you when you are president of the Agricultural Society of South Cypress, or some other fortunate municipality."

Arthur's face brightened.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Russell," he said.

That night Arthur wrote home a letter that would have made an appropriate circular for the Immigration Department to send to prospective settlers.



CHAPTER XIV

THE FAITH THAT MOVETH MOUNTAINS

When supper was over and Pearl had washed the heavy white dishes Mrs. Motherwell told her, not unkindly, that she could go to bed. She would sleep in the little room over the kitchen in Polly's old bed.

"You don't need no lamp," she said, "if you hurry. It is light up there."

Mrs. Motherwell was inclined to think well of Pearl. It was not her soft brown eyes, or her quaint speech that had won Mrs. Motherwell's heart. It was the way she scraped the frying-pan.

Pearl went up the ladder into the kitchen loft, and found herself in a low, long room, close and stifling, one little window shone light against the western sky and on it innumerable flies buzzed unceasingly. Old boxes, old bags, old baskets looked strange and shadowy in the gathering gloom. The Motherwells did not believe in giving away anything. The Indians who went through the neighbourhood each fall looking for "old clo'" had long ago learned to pass by the big stone house. Indians do not appreciate a strong talk on shiftlessness the way they should, with a vision of a long cold winter ahead of them.

Pearl gazed around with a troubled look on her face. A large basket of old carpet rags stood near the little bed. She dragged it into the farthest corner. She tried to open the window, but it was nailed fast.

Then a determined look shone in her eyes. She went quickly down the little ladder.

"Please ma'am," she said going over to Mrs. Motherwell, "I can't sleep up there. It is full of diseases and microscopes."

"It's what?" Mrs. Motherwell almost screamed. She was in the pantry making pies.

"It has old air in it," Pearl said, "and it will give me the fever."

Mrs. Motherwell glared at the little girl. She forgot all about the frying pan.

"Good gracious!" she said. "It's a queer thing if hired help are going to dictate where they are going to sleep. Maybe you'd like a bed set up for you in the parlour!"

"Not if the windies ain't open," Pearl declared stoutly.

"Well they ain't; there hasn't been a window open in this house since it was built, and there isn't going to be, letting in dust and flies."

Pearl gasped. What would Mrs. Francis say to that?

"It's in yer graves ye ought to be then, ma'am," she said with honest conviction. "Mrs. Francis told me never to sleep in a room with the windies all down, and I as good as promised I wouldn't. Can't we open that wee windy, ma'am?"

Mrs. Motherwell was tired, unutterably tired, not with that day's work alone, but with the days and years that had passed away in gray dreariness; the past barren and bleak, the future bringing only visions of heavier burdens. She was tired and perhaps that is why she became angry.

"You go straight to your bed," she said, with her mouth hard and her eyes glinting like cold flint, "and none of your nonsense, or you can go straight back to town."

When Pearl again reached the little stifling room, she fell on her knees and prayed.

"Dear God," she said, "there's gurms here as thick as hair on a dog's back, and You and me know it, even if she don't. I don't know what to do, dear Lord—the windy is nelt down. Keep the gurms from gittin' into me, dear Lord. Do ye mind how poor Jeremiah was let down into the mire and ye tuk care o' him, didn't ye? Take care o' me, dear Lord. Poor ma has enough to do widout me comin' home clutterin' up the house wid sickness. Keep yer eye on Danny if ye can at all, at all. He's awful stirrin'. I'll try to git the windy riz to-morrow by hook or crook, so mebbe it's only to-night ye'll have to watch the gurms. Amen."

Pearl braided her hair into two little pigtails, with her little dilapidated comb. When she brought out the contents of the bird-cage and opened it in search of her night-dress, the orange rolled out, almost frightening her. The purse, too, rattled on the bare floor as it fell.

She picked it up, and by going close to the fly-specked window she counted the ten ten-cent pieces, a whole dollar. Never was a little girl more happy.

"It was Camilla," she whispered to herself. "Oh, I love Camilla! and I never said 'God bless Camilla,'"—with a sudden pang of remorse.

She was on her knees in a moment and added the postscript.

"I can send the orange home to ma, and she can put the skins in the chist to make the things smell nice, and I'll git that windy open to-morrow."

Clasping her little purse in her hand, and with the orange close beside her head, she lay down to sleep. The smell of the orange made her forget the heavy air in the room.

"Anyway," she murmured contentedly, "the Lord is attendin' to all that."

Pearl slept the heavy sleep of healthy childhood and woke in the gray dawn before anyone else in the household was stirring. She threw on some clothing and went down the ladder into the kitchen. She started the fire, secured the basin full of water and a piece of yellow soap and came back to her room for her "oliver."

"I can't lave it all to the Lord to do," she said, as she rubbed the soap on her little wash-rag. "It doesn't do to impose on good nature."

When Tom, the only son of the Motherwells, came down to light the fire, he found Pearl setting the table, the kitchen swept and the kettle boiling.

Pearl looked at him with her friendly Irish smile, which he returned awkwardly.

He was a tall, stoop-shouldered, rather good-looking lad of twenty. He had heavy gray eyes, and a drooping mouth.

Tom had gone to school a few winters when there was not much doing, but his father thought it was a great deal better for a boy to learn to handle horses and "sample wheat," and run a binder, than learn the "pack of nonsense they got in school nowadays," and when the pretty little teacher from the eastern township came to Southfield school, Mrs. Motherwell knew at one glance that Tom would learn no good from her—she was such a flighty looking thing! Flowers on the under side of her hat!

So poor Tom grew up a clod of the valley. Yet Mrs. Motherwell would tell you, "Our Tom'll be the richest man in these parts. He'll get every cent we have and all the land, too; and I guess there won't be many that can afford to turn up their noses at our Tom. And, mind ye, Tom can tell a horse as well as the next one, and he's a boy that won't waste nothin', not like some we know. Look at them Slaters now! Fred and George have been off to college two years, big over-grown hulks they are, and young Peter is going to the Agricultural College in Guelph this winter, and the old man will hire a man to take care of the stock, and him with three boys of his own. Just as if a boy can learn about farmin' at a college! and the way them girls dress, and the old lady, too, and her not able to speak above a whisper. The old lady wears an ostrich feather in her bonnet, and they're a terrible costly thing, I hear. Mind you they only keep six cows, and they send every drop they don't use to the creamery. Everybody can do as they like, I suppose, but I know they'll go to the wall, and they deserve it too!"

And yet!

She and Mrs. Slater had been girls together and sat in school with arms entwined and wove romances of the future, rosy-hued and golden. When they consulted the oracle of "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief," the buttons on her gray winsey dress had declared in favour of the "rich man." Then she had dreamed dreams of silks and satins and prancing steeds and liveried servants, and ease, and happiness—dreams which God in His mercy had let her forget long, long ago.

When she had become the mistress of the big stone house, she had struggled hard against her husband's penuriousness, defiantly sometimes, and sometimes tearfully. But he had held her down with a heavy hand of unyielding determination. At last she grew weary of struggling, and settled down in sullen submission, a hopeless heavy-eyed, spiritless women, and as time went by she became greedier for money than her husband.

"Good-morning," Pearl said brightly. "Are you Mr. Tom Motherwell?"

"That's what!" Tom replied. "Only you needn't mind the handle."

Pearl laughed.

"All right," she said, "I want a little favor done. Will you open the window upstairs for me?"

"Why?" Tom asked, staring at her.

"To let in good air. It's awful close up there, and I'm afraid I'll get the fever or somethin' bad."

"Polly got it," Tom said. "Maybe that is why Polly got it. She's awful sick now. Ma says she'll like as not die. But I don't believe ma will let me open it."

"Where is Polly?" Pearl asked eagerly. She had forgotten her own worries. "Who is Polly? Did she live here?"

"She's in the hospital now in Brandon," Tom said in answer to her rapid questions. "She planted them poppies out there, but she never seen the flowers on them. Ma wanted me to cut them down, for Polly used to put off so much time with them, but I didn't want to. Ma was mad, too, you bet," he said, with a reminiscent smile at his own foolhardiness.

Pearl was thinking—she could see the poppies through the window, bright and glowing in the morning light. They rocked lightly in the wind, and a shower of crimson petals fell. Poor Polly! she hadn't seen them.

"What's Polly's other name?" she asked quickly.

"Polly Bragg," he answered. "She was awful nice, Polly was, and jolly, too. Ma thought she was lazy. She used to cry a lot and wish she could go home; but my! she could sing fine."

Pearl went on with her work with a preoccupied air.

"Tom, can you take a parcel for me to town to-day?"

"I am not goin'," he said in surprise. "Pa always goes if we need anything. I haven't been in town for a month."

"Don't you go to church?" Pearl asked in surprise.

"No, you bet I don't, not now. The preacher was sassy to pa and tried to get money. Pa says he'll never touch wood in his church again, and pa won't give another cent either, and, mind you, last year we gave twenty-five dollars."

"We paid fourteen dollars," Pearl said, "and Mary got six dollars on her card."

"Oh, but you town people don't have the expenses we have."

"That's true, I guess," Pearl said doubtfully—she was wondering about the boot bills. "Pa gets a dollar and a quarter every day, and ma gets seventy-five cents when she washes. We're gettin' on fine."

Then Mrs. Motherwell made her appearance, and the conversation came to an end.

That afternoon when Pearl had washed the dishes and scrubbed the floor, she went upstairs to the little room to write in her diary. She knew Mrs. Francis would expect to see something in it, so she wrote laboriously:

I saw a lot of yalla flowers and black-burds. The rode was full of dust and wagging marks. I met a man with a top buggy and smelt a skunk. Mrs. M. made a kake to-day—there was no lickens.

I'm goin' to tidy up the granary for Arthur. He's offel nice—an' told me about London Bridge—it hasn't fallen down at all, he says, that's just a song.

All day long the air had been heavy and close, and that night while Pearl was asleep the face of the heavens was darkened with storm-clouds. Great rolling masses came up from the west, shot through with flashes of lightening, and the heavy silence was more ominous than the loudest thunder would have been. The wind began in the hills, gusty and fitful at first, then bursting with violence over the plain below. There was a cutting whine in it, like the whang of stretched steel, fateful, deadly as the singing of bullets, chilling the farmer's heart, for he knows it means hail.

Pearl woke and sat up in bed. The lightning flashed in the little window, leaving the room as black as ink. She listened to the whistling wind.

"It's the hail," she whispered delightedly. "I knew the Lord would find a way to open the windy without me puttin' my fist through it—I'll have a look at the clouds to see if they have that white edge on them. No—I won't either—it isn't my put in. I'll just lave the Lord alone. Nothin' makes me madder than when I promise Tommy or Mary or any of them something and then have them frettin' all the time about whether or not I'll get it done. I'd like to see the clouds though. I'll bet they're a sight, just like what Camilla sings about:

Dark is His path on the wings o' the storm.

In the kitchen below the Motherwells gathered with pale faces. The windows shook and rattled in their casings.

"Keep away from the stove, Tom," Mrs. Motherwell said, trembling. "That's where the lightnin' strikes."

Tom's teeth were chattering.

"This'll fix the wheat that's standing, every—bit of it," Sam said. He did not make it quite as strong as he intended. Something had taken the profanity out of him.

"Hadn't you better go up and bring the kid down, ma?" Tom asked, thinking of Pearl.

"Her!" his father said contemptuously. "She'll never hear it." The wind suddenly ceased. Not a breath stirred, only a continuous glare of lightning. Then crack! crack! crack! on the roof, on the windows, everywhere, like bad boys throwing stones, heavier, harder, faster, until it was one beating, thundering roar.

It lasted but a few minutes, though it seemed longer to those who listened in terror in the kitchen.

The roar grew less and less and at last ceased altogether, and only a gentle rain was falling.

Sam Motherwell sat without speaking, "You have cheated the Lord all these years, and He has borne with you, trying to make you pay up without harsh proceedings"—he found himself repeating the minister's words. Could this be what he meant by harsh proceedings? Certainly it was harsh enough taking away a man's crop after all his hard work.

Sam was full of self-pity. There were very few men who had ever been treated as badly as he felt himself to be.

"Maybe there'll only be a streak of it hailed out," Tom said, breaking in on his father's dismal thoughts.

"You'll see in the mornin'," his father growled, and Tom went back to bed.

When Pearl woke it was with the wind blowing in upon her; the morning breeze fragrant with the sweetness of the flowers and the ripening grain. The musty odours had all gone, and she felt life and health in every breath. The blackbirds were twittering in the oats behind the house, and the rising sun was throwing long shadows over the field. Scattered glass lay on the floor.

"I knew the dear Lord would fix the gurms," Pearl said as she dressed, laughing to herself. But her face clouded in a moment. What about the poppies?

Then she laughed again. "There I go frettin' again. I guess the Lord knows they're, there and He isn't going to smash them if Polly really needs them."

She dressed herself hastily and ran down the ladder and around behind the cookhouse, where a strange sight met her eyes. The cookhouse roof had been blown off and placed over the poppies, where it had sheltered them from every hailstone.

Pearl looked under the roof. The poppies stood there straight and beautiful, no doubt wondering what big thing it was that hid them from the sun.

When Tom and his father went out in the early dawn to investigate the damage done by the storm, they found that only a narrow strip through the field in front of the house had been touched.

The hail had played a strange trick; beating down the grain along this narrow path, just as if a mighty roller had come through it, until it reached the house, on the other side of which not one trace of damage could be found.

"Didn't we get off lucky?" Tom exclaimed "and the rest of the grain is not even lodged. Why, twenty-five dollars would cover the whole loss, cookhouse roof and all."

His father was looking over the rippling field, green-gold in the rosy dawn. He started uncomfortably at Tom's words.

Twenty-five dollars!



CHAPTER XV

INASMUCH

After sundown one night Pearl's resolve was carried into action. She picked a shoe-box full of poppies, wrapping the stems carefully in wet newspaper. She put the cover on, and wrapped the box neatly.

Then she wrote the address. She wrote it painfully, laboriously, in round blocky letters. Pearl always put her tongue out when she was doing anything that required minute attention. She was so anxious to have the address just right that her tongue was almost around to her ear. The address read:

Miss Polly Bragg, english gurl and sick with fever Brandon Hospittle Brandon.

Then she drew a design around it. Jimmy's teacher had made them once in Jimmy's scribbler, just beautiful. She was sorry she could not do a bird with a long strip of tape in his mouth with "Think of Me" or "From a Friend" or "Love the Giver" on it. Ma knew a man once who could do them, quick as wink. He died a drunkard with delirium trimmings, but was terrible smart.

Then she stuck, under the string, a letter she had written to Camilla. Camilla would get them sent to Polly.

"I know how to get them sent to Camilla too, you bet," she murmured. "There are two ways, both good ones, too. Jim Russell is one way. Jim knows what flowers are to folks."

She crept softly down the stairs. Mrs Motherwell had left the kitchen and no one was about. The men were all down at the barn.

She turned around the cookhouse where the poppies stood straight and strong against the glowing sky. A little single red one with white edges swayed gently on its slender stem and seemed to beckon to her with pleading insistence. She hurried past them, fearing that she would be seen, but looking back the little poppy was still nodding and pleading.

"And so ye can go, ye sweetheart," she whispered. "I know what ye want." She came back for it.

"Just like Danny would be honin' to come, if it was me," she murmured with a sudden blur of homesickness.

Through the pasture she flew with the speed of a deer. The tall sunflowers along the fence seemed to throw a light in the gathering gloom.

A night hawk circled in the air above her, and a clumsy bat came bumping through the dusk as she crossed the creek just below Jim's shanty.

Bottles, Jim's dog, jumped up and barked, at which Jim himself came to the door.

"Come back, Bottles," he called to the dog. "How will I ever get into society if you treat callers that way, and a lady, too! Dear, dear, is my tie on straight? Oh, is that you Pearl? Come right in, I am glad to see you."

Over the door of Jim's little house the words "Happy Home" were printed in large letters and just above the one little window another sign boldly and hospitably announced "Hot Meals at all Hours."

Pearl stopped at the door. "No, Jim," she said, "it's not visitin' I am, but I will go in for a minute, for I must put this flower in the box. Can ye go to town, Jim, in a hurry?"

"I can," Jim replied.

"I mean now, this very minute, slappet-bang!"

Jim started for the door.

"Howld on, Jim!" Pearl cried, "don't you want to hear what ye'r goin' for? Take this box to Camilla—Camilla E. Rose at Mrs. Francis's—and she'll do the rest. It's flowers for poor Polly, sick and dyin' maybe with the fever. But dead or alive, flowers are all right for folks, ain't they, Jim? The train goes at ten o'clock. Can ye do it, Jim?"

Jim was brushing his hair with one hand and reaching for his coat with the other.

"Here's the money to pay for the ride on the cars," Pearl said, reaching out five of her coins.

Jim waved his hand.

"That's my share of it," he said, pulling his cap down on his head. "You see, you do the first part, then me, then Camilla—just like the fiery cross." He was half way to the stable as he spoke.

He threw the saddle on Chiniquy and was soon galloping down the road with the box under his arm.

Camilla came to the door in answer to Jim's ring.

He handed her the box, and lifting his hat was about to leave without a word, when Camilla noticed the writing.

"From Pearl," she said eagerly. "How is Pearl? Come in, please, while I read the letter—it may require an answer."

Camilla wore a shirt-waist suit of brown, and the neatest collar and tie, and Jim suddenly became conscious that his boots were not blackened.

Camilla left him in the hall, while she went into the library and read the contents of the letter to Mr. and Mrs. Francis.

She returned presently and with a pleasant smile said, holding out her hand, "You are Mr. Russell. I am glad to meet you. Tell Pearl the flowers will be sent to-night."

She opened the door as she spoke, and Jim found himself going down the steps, wondering just how it happened that he had not said one word—he who was usually so ready of speech.

"Well, well," he said to himself as he untied Chiniquy, "little Jimmy's lost his tongue, I wonder why?"

All the way home the vision of lovely dark eyes and rippling brown hair with just a hint of red in it, danced before him. Chiniquy, taking advantage of his master's preoccupation, wandered aimlessly against a barbed wire, taking very good care not to get too close to it himself. Jim came to himself just in time to save his leg from a prod from the spikes.

"Chiniquy, Chiniquy," he said gravely, "I understand now something of the hatred the French bear your illustrious namesake. But no matter what the man's sins may have been, surely he did not deserve to have a little flea-bitten, mangey, treacherous, mouse-coloured deceiver like you named for him."

When Camilla had read Pearl's letter to Mr. and Mrs. Francis, the latter was all emotion. How splendid of her, so sympathetic, so full of the true inwardness of Christian love, and the sweet message of the poppy, the emblem of sleep, so prophetic of that other sleep that knows no waking! Is it not a pagan thought, that? What tender recollections they will bring the poor sufferer of her far away, happy childhood home!

Mrs. Francis's face was shining with emotion as she spoke. Then she became dreamy.

"I wonder is her soul attune to the melodies of life, and will she feel the love vibrations of the ether?"

Mr. Francis had noiselessly left the room when Camilla had finished her rapid explanation. He returned with his little valise in his hand.

He stood a moment irresolutely looking, in his helpless dumb way, at his wife, who was so beautifully expounding the message of the flowers.

Camilla handed him the box. She understood.

Mrs. Francis noticed the valise in her husband's hand.

"How very suddenly you make up your mind, James," she said. "Are you actually going away on the train to-night? Really James, I believe I shall write a little sketch for our church paper. Pearl's thoughtfulness has moved me, James. It really has touched me deeply. If you were not so engrossed in business, James, I really believe it would move you; but men are so different from us, Camilla. They are not so soulful. Perhaps it is just as well, but really sometimes, James, I fear you give business too large a place in your life. It is all business, business, business."

Mrs. Francis opened her desk, and drawing toward her her gold pen and dainty letter paper, began her article.

Camilla followed Mr. Francis into the hall, and helped him to put on his overcoat. She handed him his hat with something like reverence in her manner.

"You are upon the King's business to-night," she said, with shining eyes, as she opened the door for him.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but only waved his hand with an impatient gesture and was gone.



CHAPTER XVI

HOW POLLY WENT HOME

"We'll have to move poor Polly, if she lives thro' the night," the nurse said to the house doctor in the hospital that night. "She is making all the patients homesick. To hear her calling for her mother or for 'someone from 'ome' is hard on the sick and well."

"What are her chances do you think?" the doctor asked gravely.

He was a wiry little man with a face like leather, but his touch brought healing and his presence, hope.

"She is dying of homesickness as well as typhoid," the nurse said sadly, "and she seems so anxious to get better, poor thing! She often says 'I can't die miss, for what'll happen mother.' But for the last two days, in her delirium, she seems to be worrying more about her work and her flowers. I think they were pretty hard people she lived with. 'Surely she'll praise me this time,' she often says, 'I've tried my 'ardest.' The strenuous life has been too much for poor Polly. Listen to her now!"

Polly was singing. Clear and steady and sweet, her voice rang over the quiet ward, and many a fevered face was raised to listen. Polly's mind was wandering in the shadows, but she still sang the songs of home in a strange land:

Down by the biller there grew a green willer A weeping all night with the bank for a piller.

And over and over again she sang with a wavering cadence, incoherently sometimes, but always with tender pleading, something about "where the stream was a-flowin', the gentle kine lowin', and over my grave keep the green willers growin'."

"It is pathetic to hear her," the nurse said, "and now listen to her asking about her poppies."

"In the box, miss; I brought the seed hacross the hocean, and they wuz beauties, they wuz wot came hup. They'll be noddin' and wavin' now red and 'andsome, if she hasn't cut them. She wouldn't cut them, would she, miss? She couldn't 'ave the 'eart, I think."

"No indeed, she hasn't cut them," the nurse declared with decision, taking Polly's burning hand tenderly in hers. "No one could cut down such beauties. What nonsense to think of such a thing, Polly. They're blooming, I tell you, red and handsome, almost as tall as you are, Polly."

The office-boy touched the nurse's arm.

"A gentleman who gave no name left this box for one of the typhoid patients," he said, handing her the box.

The nurse read the address and the box trembled in her hands as she nervously opened it and took out the contents.

"Polly, Polly!" she cried, excitedly, "didn't I tell you they were blooming, red and handsome."

But Polly's eyes were burning with delirium and her lips babbled meaninglessly.

The nurse held the poppies over her.

Her arms reached out caressingly.

"Oh, miss!" she cried, her mind coming back from the shadows. "They have come at last, the darlin's, the sweethearts, the loves, the beauties." She held them in a close embrace. "They're from 'ome, they're from 'ome!" she gasped painfully, for her breath came with difficulty now. "I can't just see them, miss, the lights is movin' so much, and the way the bed 'eaves, but, tell me, miss, is there a little silky one, hedged with w'ite? It was mother's favourite one of hall. I'd like to 'ave it in my 'and, miss."

The nurse put it in her hand. She was only a young nurse and her face was wet with tears.

"It's like 'avin' my mother's 'and, miss, it is," she murmured softly. "Ye wouldn't mind the dark if ye 'ad yer mother's 'and, would ye, miss?"

And then the nurse took Polly's throbbing head in her strong young arms, and soothed its restless tossing with her cool soft touch, and told her through her tears of that other Friend, who would go with her all the way.

"I'm that 'appy, miss," Polly murmured faintly. "It's like I was goin' 'ome. Say that again about the valley," and the nurse repeated tenderly that promise of incomparable sweetness:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

"It's just like 'avin' mother's 'and to 'old the little silky one," Polly murmured sleepily.

The nurse put the poppies beside Polly's face on the pillow, and drawing a screen around her went on to the next patient. A case of urgent need detained her at the other end of the ward, and it was not until the dawn was shining blue in the windows that she came back on her rounds.

Polly lay just as she had left her. The crimson petals lay thick upon her face and hair. The homesickness and redness of weeping had gone forever from her eyes, for they were looking now upon the King in his beauty! In her hand, now cold and waxen, she held one little silky poppy, red with edges of white. Polly had gone home.

There was a whisper among the poppies that grew behind the cookhouse that morning as the first gleam of the sun came yellow and wan over the fields; there was a whisper and a shivering among the poppies as the morning breezes, cold and chill, rippled over them, and a shower of crystal drops mingled with the crimson petals that fluttered to the ground. It was not until Pearl came out and picked a handful of them for her dingy little room that they held up their heads once more and waved and nodded, red and handsome.



CHAPTER XVII

"EGBERT AND EDYTHE"

When Tom Motherwell called at the Millford post office one day he got the surprise of his life.

The Englishman had asked him to get his mail, and, of course, there was the Northwest Farmer to get, and there might be catalogues; but the possibilities of a letter addressed to Mr. Thos. Motherwell did not occur to him.

But it was there!

A square gray envelope with his own name written on it. He had never before got a real letter. Once he had a machinery catalogue sent to him, with a typewritten letter inside beginning "Dear Sir," but his mother had told him that it was just money they were after, but what would she say if she saw this?

He did not trust himself to open it in the plain gaze of the people in the office. The girl behind the wicket noticed his excitement.

"Ye needn't glue yer eye on me," Tom thought indignantly. "I'll not open it here for you to watch me. They're awful pryin' in this office. What do you bet she hasn't opened it?" He moved aside as others pressed up to the wicket, feeling that every eye was upon him.

In a corner outside the door, Tom opened his letter, and laboriously made out its contents. It was written neatly with carefully shaded capitals:

Dear Tom: We are going to have a party to-morrow night, because George and Fred are going back to college next week. We want you to come and bring your Englishman. We all hope you will come.

Ever your friend,

NELLIE SLATER.

Tom read it again with burning cheeks. A party at Slater's and him invited!

He walked down the street feeling just the same as when his colt got the prize at the "Fair." He felt he was a marked man—eagerly sought after—invited to parties—girls writing to him! That's what it was to have the cash!—you bet pa and ma were right!—money talks every time!

When he came in sight of home his elation vanished. His father and mother would not let him go, he knew that very well. They were afraid that Nellie Slater wanted to marry him. And Nellie Slater was not eligible for the position of daughter-in-law. Nellie Slater had never patched a quilt nor even made a tie-down. She always used baking powder instead of cream of tartar and soda, and was known to have a leaning toward canned goods. Mrs. Motherwell considered her just the girl to spend a man's honest earnings and bring him to seedy ruin. Moreover, she idled away her time, teaching cats to jump, and her eighteen years old, if she was a day!

Tom knew that if he went to the party it must be by stealth. When he drove up to the kitchen door his mother looked up from her ironing and asked:

"What kept you, Tom?"

Tom had not been detained at all, but Mrs. Motherwell always used this form of salutation to be sure.

Tom grumbled a reply, and handing out the mail began to unhitch.

Mrs. Motherwell read the addresses on the Englishman's letters:

Mr. Arthur Wemyss, c/o Mr. S. Motherwell, Millford P.O., Manitoba, Canada, Township 8, range 16, sec't. 20. North America.

"Now I wonder who's writing to him?" she said, laying the two letters down reluctantly.

There was one other letter addressed to Mr. Motherwell, which she took to be a twine bill. It was post-marked Brandon. She put it up in the pudding dish on the sideboard.

As Tom led the horse to the stable he met Pearl coming in with the eggs.

"See here, kid," he said carelessly, handing her the letter.

Tom knew Pearl was to be trusted. She had a good head, Pearl had, for a girl.

"Oh, good shot!" Pearl cried delightedly, as she read the note. "Won't that be great? Are your clothes ready, though?" It was the eldest of the family who spoke.

"Clothes," Tom said contemptuously. "They are a blamed sight readier than I am."

"I'll blacken your boots," Pearl said, "and press out a tie. Say, how about a collar?"

"Oh, the clothes are all right, but pa and ma won't let me go near Nellie Slater."

"Is she tooberkler?" Pearl asked quickly.

"Not so very," Tom answered guardedly. "Ma is afraid I might marry her."

"Is she awful pretty?" Pearl asked, glowing with pleasure. Here was a rapturous romance.

"You bet," Tom declared with pride. "She's the swellest girl in these parts"—this with the air of a man who had weighed many feminine charms and found them wanting.

"Has she eyes like stars, lips like cherries, neck like a swan, and a laugh like a ripple of music?" Pearl asked eagerly.

"Them's it," Tom replied modestly.

"Then I'd go, you bet!" was Pearl's emphatic reply. "There's your mother calling."

"Yes'm, I'm comin'. I'll help you, Tom. Keep a stout heart and all will be well."

Pearl knew all about frustrated love. Ma had read a story once, called "Wedded and Parted, and Wedded Again." Cruel and designing parents had parted young Edythe (pronounced Ed'-ith-ee) and Egbert, and Egbert just pined and pined and pined. How would Mrs. Motherwell like it if poor Tom began to pine and turn from his victuals. The only thing that saved Egbert from the silent tomb where partings come no more, was the old doctor who used to say, "Keep a stout heart, Egbert, all will be well." That's why she said it to Tom.

Edythe had eyes like stars, mouth like cherries, neck like a swan, and a laugh like a ripple of music, and wasn't it strange, Nellie Slater had, too? Pearl knew now why Tom chewed Old Chum tobacco so much. Men often plunge into dissipation when they are crossed in love, and maybe Tom would go and be a robber or a pirate or something; and then he might kill a man and be led to the scaffold, and he would turn his haggard face to the howling mob, and say, "All that I am my mother made me." Say, wouldn't that make her feel cheap! Wouldn't that make a woman feel like thirty cents if anything would. Here Pearl's gloomy reflections overcame her and she sobbed aloud.