"Now, Mirandy Thayer, I'd like to know this minute where you've been?" demanded Eliza.

Mirandy jerked her head backward.

"You 'ain't been over in Cap'n Moseby's pasture?"

Mirandy nodded.

"She's been over in Cap'n Moseby's pasture," announced Eliza to the others.

They all stared at Mirandy, and paid no heed to Jonathan's wails.

Suddenly Mirandy flung her little blue apron over her face and began to weep.

"Did you get scared?" asked Harriet.

"Did the dog chase you?" asked Mary Ann, very excitedly.

Mirandy shook her head, and sobbed harder.

"Did you see Cap'n Moseby with his gun?" asked Daniel.

Mirandy shook her head.

"I wouldn't be such a baby for nothing, then," said Daniel.

"I've lost my bucket!" sobbed Mirandy.

"Lost your bucket!" repeated Eliza. She was the oldest sister there.

Mirandy nodded.

"You're a wicked girl!" Eliza said, severely. "I don't know what mother'll say. Here's Jonathan all scratched up, too. Did you take him over there?"

"Yes," sobbed Mirandy.

"You're a dreadful wicked girl! Didn't you know 'twas stealing?"

"Harriet said—it wasn't," returned Mirandy, in feeble defence.

"It was. I shouldn't think you'd said such a thing, Harriet."

"Of course it's stealing," said Daniel, soberly.

"Here you've been stealing," scolded Eliza; "and your bucket's gone, and Jonathan is all scratched up with blackberry vines. I don't know what mother'll say."

She took Jonathan out of his wagon and hushed him, and then they had a consultation as to what was best to be done. Mirandy related, with tearful breaks, the story of her well-filled bucket and its mysterious disappearance.

"Of course Cap'n Moseby was watching out there with his gun and took it," said Daniel.

It was finally agreed that they would all go in a body to Cap'n Moseby's, and try to recover Mirandy's bucket, that she might not have to face her mother without it. When they reached the Moseby house the doors were closed and the windows looked blank. They knocked as loudly as they dared, and there was not a sound in response. They looked at one another.

"S'pose he ain't at home?" whispered Harriet.

"Dan'l, you pound on the door again," said Eliza.

And Daniel pounded. Abijah pounded, too, and Eliza herself rattled away on one panel, with her freckled face screwed up, but nobody came.

"If he's there, he won't come to the door," said Daniel.

Suddenly the silence within the house was broken. Then came a volley of quick barks, and the children all fell back in a panic, and scurried into the road.

"He's in there," said Daniel; "an' he's been keeping the dog still, but he can't any longer."

"Just hear him!" whispered Harriet, with a shudder.

The dog was not only barking and growling, but leaping at the door.



Mary Ann began to cry. "I'm going home," she sobbed. "S'pose that door should break;" and she started down the road.

Eliza grasped the handle of Jonathan's wagon. "I guess we might just as well go," she said. "I don't b'lieve he'll come to the door if we stand there a week. I don't know what mother'll say when she finds that good bucket's gone. I guess Mirandy'll catch it. An' when she finds out she's been stealing, too, I don't know what she will say."

The sorry procession started. Jonathan's wagon creaked; but Mirandy stood still, with a stubborn pout on her mouth, and her brows contracted over her blue eyes.

"Come along, Mirandy," called Eliza, with a foreboding voice.

But Mirandy stood still.

"Why don't you come?" Harriet said.

"I ain't coming," said Mirandy.

"What?"

"I ain't coming till I get my bucket."

Then the whole procession stopped, and reasoned and argued, but Mirandy was unmoved.

"What are you going to do? You can't get in," said Eliza.

"I'm going to sit on the door-step till Cap'n Moseby comes out," answered Mirandy.

"You'll sit there all day, likely's not," said Eliza. "What do you s'pose mother'll say? I'm a-going to tell her."

"She'll send me right back again if I don't stay," said Mirandy.

And there was some show of reason in what she said. It was indeed quite probable that Mrs. Josiah Thayer would send Mirandy straight back again to confess her sins and get the bucket.

"I don't know but mother would send her back," said Eliza; and Daniel nodded in assent.

"I'll stay with you," said Mary Ann, although she was still trembling with fear of the dog.

"Don't want anybody to stay," protested Mirandy.

Finally she sat on Cap'n Moseby's door-step, and watched them all straggle out of sight. The creak of Jonathan's wagon grew fainter and fainter, until she could hear it no longer. The dog was quiet now. Mirandy sat up straight in front of the panelled door.

She waited and waited; the time went on, and it was high noon. She heard a dinner-horn in the distance. She wondered vaguely if Cap'n Moseby didn't have any dinner because he lived alone. She began to feel hungry herself. There was not a sound in the house. She wanted to cry, but she would not. She sat perfectly still. Once in a while she said over to herself the questions she had learned from the catechism, and she reflected much upon the two boys in the Pilgrim's Progress. She had eaten a few of the Cap'n's berries as she filled her bucket, and she wondered that they did not make her ill, as the fruit did the boys.

Nobody passed the house, the insects rasped in her ears, she thought her forlorn childish thoughts, and it was an hour after noon. She did not see a curtain trimmed with white balls in a window overhead pulled cautiously to one side, and a grizzled head thrust out; but this happened several times.

About two o'clock there was a sudden puff of cool wind on her back; she glanced around, trembling, and there stood Cap'n Moseby in the open door, with his great black dog at his heels. His old face was the color of tanned leather, and full of severe furrows; his shaggy brows frowned over sharp black eyes. He leaned upon a stout oak staff, for he had been lamed by a British musket-ball.

"Who's this?" he asked, in a grim voice.

Mirandy arose and stood about, and courtesied. She could not find her tongue yet.

"Hey?" said Cap'n Moseby.

"Mirandy Thayer," she answered then, in a shaking voice that had yet a touch of defiance in it.

"Mirandy Thayer, hey? Well, what do you want here, Mirandy Thayer?"

Mirandy dropped another courtesy. "My bucket."

"Your bucket! What have I got to do with your bucket?"

"I left it out in—your berry pasture."

"Out in my berry pasture! So you have been stealing my berries, hey? What about your bucket?"

Mirandy's little hands clutched and opened at her sides, her face was quite pale, but she looked straight up at Cap'n Moseby. "You took it," said she.

Cap'n Moseby looked straight back at her, frowning terribly; then, to her great astonishment, his mouth twitched as if he were going to laugh. "You think I took your bucket, and you have been waiting here all this time to get it back, hey?" said he.

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't you feel afraid that I'd set the dog on you, or shoot you out of the window with my gun?"

"No, sir," said Mirandy.

"Well," said Cap'n Moseby. He paused a minute, his mouth twitched again. "You have got to come into the house and settle with me if you want your bucket," he continued, and his voice was still very grim.

Mirandy stepped up on the threshold, and the black dog growled faintly.

"Be still, Lafayette!" said Cap'n Moseby. "I'm going to settle with her. You lay down."

She followed Cap'n Moseby into his kitchen, and he pushed a little stool towards her. "Sit down," said he.

And Mirandy sat down. Directly opposite her, on a corner of the settle, was her berry bucket, and near it stood the gun, propped against the wall. She eyed it. There was a vague fear in her mind that settlement was in some way connected with that gun; but she never flinched. She was resolved to have that bucket.

Cap'n Moseby went to the dresser and got out a large china bowl with green sprigs on it, and a pewter spoon. He filled the bowl with berries from Mirandy's bucket, and then poured on some milk out of a blue pitcher. Mirandy watched him.

He carried the bowl over to her, and set it in her lap. "Eat 'em all up, now, every one," he commanded.

Mirandy looked up at him pitifully. Her courage almost failed. She thought of the boys and the stolen fruit in the Pilgrim's Progress, and she almost felt premonitory cramps.

"Eat 'em," ordered Cap'n Moseby.

And Mirandy ate them, thrusting the pewter spoon, laden with those stolen berries, desperately into her mouth. Never berries tasted like those to her. There was no sweetness in them. But she kept thinking how her mother could give her boneset tea if they made her sick, and she was determined to have the bucket back.

Cap'n Moseby watched her as she ate. He emptied the remaining berries out of the bucket into a large bowl. Then he sat opposite, on the settle. Lafayette lay at his feet.

Mirandy finished the berries, and sat with the empty bowl in her lap.

"Finished 'em?" asked Cap'n Moseby.

"Yes, sir."

"Now, Mirandy Thayer, I'm going to ask you a question." Cap'n Moseby's eyes looked into hers, and she looked back into his. "If you hadn't been a little gal, Mirandy Thayer, what would you have been?"

Mirandy hesitated.

"Hey?" said Cap'n Moseby.

"One of my brothers," said Mirandy, doubtfully.



"No, you wouldn't. I'll tell you what you would have been. You would have been a soldier, and you would have gone right up to the redcoats' guns. Well, you must tend to your knittin'-work and your spinnin'. Now what did you steal my berries for, hey?"

"To earn my shoes," faltered Mirandy; she felt a little bewildered.

"Earn your shoes?"

"Yes, sir; I 'ain't got any to wear to meetin'."

"Have to go barefoot?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, they went barefoot at Valley Forge; that's nothing. You wait a minute, Mirandy Thayer."

And Mirandy waited until Cap'n Moseby had limped into another room and back again. He had a pair of little rough shoes dangling in his hand.

"Here," said he, "these belonged to my Ezra that died. He had some grit in him; he'd have done some marchin' in 'em if he'd lived. They'll jest about fit you. It's a pity you're a little gal. Well, you must tend to your knittin'-work and your spinnin'. Now you'd better run home, an' don't you ever come stealin' my berries again, or you'll run faster than they did at Lexington."

And so it happened that Mirandy went home, about three o'clock of that summer afternoon, carrying her new shoes in her berry bucket, and Cap'n Moseby limped along at her side. Mirandy did not know that he went to explain matters to her mother, so that she should not be dealt with too severely, but she was surprised that she received so small a chiding.

"Don't you ever let me hear of your doing such a thing again," said her mother; and that was all she said.

The next Sunday Mirandy went up the aisle clattering bravely in little Ezra Moseby's shoes, and she could not help looking often at them during the sermon.



A PARSNIP STEW

Ruth stood by with a dish and spoon, while her mother stirred the stew carefully to be sure that it was not burning on the bottom of the kettle. Her sister Serena was paring apples and playing with the cat, and her father and her uncles Caleb and Silas sat before the fire smoking, sniffing the stew, and watching solemnly. The uncles had just come in, and proposed staying to dinner.

Mrs. Whitman squinted anxiously at the stew as she stirred it. She feared that there was not enough for dinner, now there were two more to eat.

"I'm dreadful afraid there ain't enough of that stew to go round," she whispered to Ruth in the pantry.

"Oh, I guess it'll do," said Ruth.

"Well, I dun know about it. Your father an' Caleb an' Silas are dreadful fond of parsnip stew, an' I do hate to have 'em stinted."

"Well, I won't take any," said Ruth. "I don't care much about it."

"Well, I don't want a mouthful," rejoined her mother. "Mebbe we can make it do. Caleb an' Silas don't have a good hot dinner very often, an' I do want them to have enough, anyway."

Caleb and Silas Whitman were old bachelors, living by themselves in the old Whitman homestead about a mile away, and their fare was understood to be forlorn and desultory. To-day they watched with grave complacency while their sister-in-law cooked the stew.

Over on the other side of the kitchen the table was set out with the pewter plates and the blue dishes. The stew was almost done, Mrs. Whitman was just about to dip out the slices of pork into the dish that Ruth held, when there was a roll of wheels out in the yard, and a great shadow passed over the kitchen floor.

"Mother, it's the Wigginses!" said Ruth, in a terrified whisper.

"Good gracious!" sighed her mother; "they've come to dinner."

Everybody stared for a second; then Mrs. Whitman recovered herself. "Father, you go out an' help them put the horse up. Don't sit there any longer."

Then she threw open the door, and thrust her large handsome face out into the rain. "Why, how do you do, Mis' Wiggins?" said she, and she smiled beamingly.



The wagon looked full of faces. On the front seat were a large man and two little boys; out of the gloom in the rear peered two women and a little girl. They were Mr. Wiggins, his wife and three children, and his mother. They were distant relatives of Mrs. Whitman's; they often came over to spend the day, and always unannounced.

Mr. Whitman came out clumsily and opened the barn doors, and Mr. Wiggins led the horse into the barn. "I hope you 'ain't got wet," Mrs. Whitman said. Nothing could have exceeded her cordiality; but all the time she was thinking of the parsnip stew, and how it surely would not go around now.

Ruth had not followed the others out to greet the guests. She stayed by the kettle and stirred the stew, and scowled. "I think it's downright mean for folks to come in this way, just dinner-time," said she to the uncles, who had not left their chairs. And they gave short grunts which expressed their assent, for neither of them liked company.

They watched soberly as Ruth stirred the stew, but they did not dream that there was not enough to go around.

When her mother and the guests entered, Ruth turned around and bobbed her head stiffly, and said, "Pretty well, thank you," and then stirred again. Serena helped the Wigginses take off their things. She untied old Mrs. Wiggins's pumpkin hood, and got her cap out of her cap basket and put it on for her. She also took off little Mary Wiggins's coat, and set her in a little child's arm-chair and gave her a kiss. Little Mary Wiggins, with her sober, chubby face and her rows of shiny brown curls, in her best red frock and her scalloped pantalets, was noticed admiringly by everybody but Ruth.

As soon as she could Ruth cornered her mother in the pantry. "Mother, what are you going to do?" said she.

"I'm goin' to do jest the best I can," she whispered, severely. "I'm goin' to tell father an' Caleb an' Silas they mustn't take none of that stew; they can have some bread an' apple-sauce. I guess they'll git along."

"Well, I don't care," said Ruth, in a loud voice. "I think it's mean and a downright imposition on folks, coming in this way, just dinner-time."

"Ruth Whitman, if you care anything about me, you'll keep still. Now you get the salt-cup an' go out there, an' put some more salt in that stew. It tasted dreadful flat, I thought. I jest tasted of it when they drove in. I've got to get out the other knives."

Ruth caught up a cup with a jerk. "Well, how much shall I put in?" she inquired, sulkily.

"Oh, quite a lot. You can tell. It was dreadful flat. Taste of it."

But Ruth did not taste of it. She scattered the contents of the cup liberally into the stew, gave it a stir, returned to the pantry, and set the cup down hard. "Well," said she, "I've put it in, and now I'm goin'."

"Ruth Whitman, you ain't goin' off to school without any dinner."

"I don't see as there is anything for dinner but bread and apple-sauce, and I'm sure I don't want any."

"I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself, actin' so."

"I think there are other folks that ought to be ashamed of themselves. Before I'd go into folk's houses that way—"

"Ruth Whitman, they'll hear you!"

"I don't care if they do. I've got to go, anyway. It's late. I couldn't stop for dinner now if I wanted to."

She went through the kitchen, where Serena now tended the stew, only stopping to take her shawl off the peg.

"Why, you going?" Serena called after her.

"I've got to; it's late," replied Ruth, shortly. She faced about for a second and gave a stiff nod, which seemed directed at the stew-kettle rather than at the Wigginses. "Good-bye," said she. Then she went out.

It was raining with a hard, steady drizzle. Ruth had no rubbers nor water-proof—they were not yet invented. She sped along through the rain and mist. She had to walk half a mile to the little house where she taught the district school, and before she got there she felt calmer.

"I suppose I was silly to act so mad," she said to herself. "I know it plagued mother."

It was early in the spring; the trees were turning green in the rain. Over in the field she could see one peach-tree in blossom, showing pink through the mist. "I suppose Mr. Wiggins couldn't work out to-day, and that's how they happened to come. They could have the horse. But they ought to have come earlier," reflected Ruth. "There are a good many of 'em for Mrs. Wiggins to get ready," mused Ruth. "There's old Mrs. Wiggins and Johnny and Sammy and Mary and Mr. Wiggins."

By the time Ruth was seated at her table in the school-room, and the scholars were wriggling and twisting before her on their wooden benches, she saw the matter quite plainly from the Wiggins side. She made up her mind that she would behave just as well as she knew how to the Wigginses when she got home. She planned how she would swing little Mary out in the barn and play with the boys, and how she would help her mother get tea.

When school was done and Ruth started for home the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. The rain-pools in the road glittered, and she noticed a cherry-tree in blossom. When she reached home Serena met her at the door.

"Oh, Ruth Whitman!" she cried, "we have had such a time!"

Ruth stared. "What do you mean?" said she. "Where are the Wigginses?"

"They've gone. Mrs. Wiggins and old Mrs. Wiggins were dreadful mad. Oh, Ruth, you didn't do it on purpose, did you?"

"Do what on purpose?" said Ruth, pushing into the house, and looking around the empty kitchen in a bewildered way. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you know what you put into that parsnip stew?"

"No; I don't know of anything I put in but some salt, just before I went to school; mother told me to. Why?"

"Oh, Ruth, you put in—saleratus!"

"I don't believe it."

Ruth flew into the pantry, and came out with a cracked blue cup. "Here," said she—"here's the salt-cup, and this is the one I got it out of, I know."

"Taste of it," said Serena, solemnly.

Ruth tasted. "It is saleratus," said she, looking at her sister in horror. "Did it spoil the stew?"

"It was—dreadful."

"I don't see how it happened," Ruth said, slowly, puckering her forehead, "unless mother dipped out some saleratus in the salt-cup to bring out in the kitchen when she mixed the sour-milk cakes for breakfast. I don't know anything about it, true's I live and breathe. I hope they didn't think I did such a mean thing as that on purpose."

"Well, I don't know as they really thought you did, but you know you did kind of jerk round, Ruth, and the Wigginses saw it."

"What did they say?"

"Well," said Serena, "we all sat down to the table, and mother had put on the bread and apple-sauce for the rest of us, and she helped the Wigginses to the stew. There wasn't more'n enough to go around, but she kept the cover over the dish so they shouldn't suspect, and all the rest of us said we wouldn't take any.

"Well, Mrs. Wiggins she tasted, and old Mrs. Wiggins she tasted. Then they looked at mother. Mother she didn't know what it meant, and she kept getting redder and redder. Finally she spoke up. 'Is there anything the matter with the stew?' says she.

"Then Mrs. Wiggins she pushed over her plate for mother to taste of the stew, and the first thing we knew they were all talking at once. Old Mrs. Wiggins said she'd noticed how we acted kind of stiff, and as if we wasn't glad to see them, the minute she come, and Mrs. Wiggins said she had, too, and she'd seen you put the saleratus into the stew, and she thought from the way you switched around you were up to something. Mother she tried to excuse it off, but they wouldn't hear a word. They said it didn't look very likely that it was an accident, and they noticed none of us took any of it, and mother wouldn't tell them the reason for that. So they just got up and put on their things, and Mr. Wiggins backed out the horse, and they went home. Mother asked them to come again, and she'd try and have a better dinner, but they said they'd never set foot in the house again if they knew it."

"Didn't anybody eat the stew?"

"Nobody but Sammy Wiggins; he ate his whole plateful, saleratus and all, before anybody spoke."

"Oh dear!" said Ruth; "I suppose mother feels dreadfully. Where is she?"

"She's gone over to Lucy Ann's to help her take care of the baby; he was real sick last night. I don't believe she'll come home till after supper. She felt dreadful."

"The Wigginses are dreadful touchy folks, anyhow."

"Course they are. It don't seem as if anybody with any sense would get mad at such a thing. But they're always suspecting folks of meaning something."

Ruth looked sternly reflective. She took off her thick dingy shawl, and got from its peg a bright red and green plaid one that she wore in pleasant weather.

"Where are you going?" asked Serena.

"I'm going over to the Wigginses'."

"What for?"

"I'm going to ask them to come over here to-morrow and spend the day."

"Why, Ruth Whitman, ain't you afraid to?"

"No, I ain't afraid. I'm going to carry over a jar of the honey—mother 'll be willing—and I'm going to tell Mrs. Wiggins just how it was."

"She won't hear a word you say."

"I'll make her hear."

"They won't come a step."

"You see."

The Whitmans kept bees, and their honey was the celebrated luxury of the neighborhood. Ruth got a jar of clear white honey out of the closet, put it under her shawl, and was off. First, though, she instructed Serena to go out in the garden and dig a good supply of parsnips and clean them for the next day's dinner.

It was a mile to the Wigginses', and it took Ruth over an hour to accomplish her errand and return. When she got home she found Serena getting supper, and her father was washing his hands out in the shed; her mother had not returned. On the kitchen sink lay a tin pan with four or five muddy parsnips. Serena looked up eagerly when her sister entered. "They coming?" said she.

"Yes, they are," replied Ruth, with a triumphant smile.

But Serena walked over to the sink and extended her arm with a tragical gesture towards the parsnips. "Well, you've gone and done it now, Ruth Whitman," said she. "There's every single parsnip that's fit to eat that I could find in the garden."

"H'm! I guess I can find some."

"No, you can't; they've rotted. I heard mother say to-day she was afraid they had. More'n half those father brought in this morning weren't good for anything. When mother finds out that all the Wigginses are coming, and there's just five parsnips for dinner, I don't know what she will do; I don't know but it will kill her. And she's asked Uncle Caleb and Uncle Silas over, too."

Ruth gave a desperate glance at the parsnips. "I said we were going to have parsnip stew," said she, "Mrs. Wiggins had been crying; she looked dreadful tired out; and Sammy had just bumped his head, and there was a great lump over one eye. She took the honey, and said she'd be real happy to come if they could have the horse, and old Mrs. Wiggins acted dreadful tickled."

"The Wigginses have got parsnips," said Serena. "I heard Mrs. Wiggins say they'd got a splendid lot, she expected, but they hadn't dug any yet."

Ruth looked at her sister. "Serena!"

"What?"

"I'm going to send over and buy some of the Wigginses' parsnips."

"Ruth!" But it seemed to Serena as if there was a flash of red and green light through the room, and Ruth had gone. Serena gave a little gasp, and stood looking.

"What's the matter?" asked her father, coming in—an old man in checkered shirt sleeves, yet with a certain rustic stateliness about him.

"Oh, nothing," said Serena; and she fell to slicing the bread for supper.

While her father had gone to the well to draw a pail of water Ruth came in, breathless, but rosy with daring and triumph. Ben White, Mrs. White's grown-up son, was going to drive over to the Wigginses and buy some parsnips; his mother was to have some, and Ruth a noble portion for the next day's stew.

Serena dropped into a chair and giggled feebly; the humor, of it was so forcible that it seemed to fairly rebound in her face. "Ask the Wigginses to dinner to have a parsnip stew, and then—buy their own parsnips for it!" she gasped.

Ruth did not laugh at all; she saw nothing but the seriousness of the situation. "Mind you don't tell mother till after it's all over," said she. "I don't want her to know where those parsnips came from till after the Wigginses have gone, she'll be so upset. I'm just going to tell her how I carried the honey over there, and how they're coming. I do hope Ben will bring the parsnips before mother gets home."

"Suppose Ben should bring 'em in when mother was here," chuckled Serena.

"I told him to shy into the shed with 'em," replied Ruth, severely. "Hush! father's coming, and we'd better not say anything to him till afterwards."

Mrs. Whitman did not return until quite late; her married daughter Lucy Ann and her teething baby did not generally release her in very good season. When she came into the kitchen she found a great pan of parsnips all washed and scraped, and heard the news how the Wigginses were over their ill-tempers and were coming the next day. Mrs. Whitman dropped into a chair, her large mild face beamed, and tears stood in her eyes. "Well, I'm dreadful glad if we can patch it up," said she; "I never had any fuss with any of my folks before in the world, and I hate to begin now. I've always thought a good deal of the Wigginses." And her mouth quivered.

The next morning a parsnip stew of noble proportions was prepared. At eleven o'clock the great kettle, full to the rim, hung over the fire, and the room was cloudy with savory steam. The Wigginses were expected every minute. Uncles Silas and Caleb Whitman could be seen from the kitchen window out in the field with their brother bending over the plough furrows, and they kept righting themselves and looking at their old silver watches. At half-past eleven Mrs. Whitman and Serena began to think it was strange that the Wigginses did not come. At quarter of twelve there was a little stir out in the yard, and they ran to the windows. There was Mr. Wiggins with a wheelbarrow and an empty grain sack and a half-bushel basket of russet apples in it.

Mrs. Whitman and Serena stood wonderingly in the door. "Where's the folks?" asked Mrs. Whitman.

Then Mr. Wiggins, standing by the wheelbarrow, explained how Hiram Green had had to use the horse for ploughing up in the six-acre lot, how he had promised to hire it to him, and his wife hadn't known it, and how he had had to go to the store for grain with the wheelbarrow, and his wife had got him to stop and tell Mis' Whitman she was dreadfully sorry it happened so, but she didn't see how they could walk, and they would come over the first day they could have the horse; and she didn't know but what Mis' Whitman's apples had give out, so she sent her over a few of their russets; they had 'most two barrels left, and they were spoiling fast, and they wanted to get rid of them.

When Ruth came home from school she found an immense kettle of parsnip stew, her father and her uncles Silas and Caleb again forming a pleasant expectant semicircle before the fire, but no Wigginses. To-day the stew was seasoned daintily, and salt had taken the place of saleratus. There was no stint as to quantity, but there were not enough partakers. Mrs. Whitman filled a great bowl for Lucy Ann; she sent a dish over to the Whites; father and Caleb and Silas ate manfully, and passed their plates again and again; Serena and Ruth and their mother ate all they could, and the cat had her fill; but the Whitmans, with all their allies, could not eat their own share and that of the Wigginses. But the stew was delicious, and as the family ate, their simple homely little feud was healed, and the parsnip stew smoked in their midst like a pipe of peace.



THE DICKEY BOY

"I should think it was about time for him to be comin'," said Mrs. Rose.

"So should I," assented Miss Elvira Grayson. She peered around the corner of the front door. Her face was thin and anxious, and her voice was so like it that it was unmistakably her own note. One would as soon expect a crow to chick-a-dee as Miss Elvira to talk in any other way. She was tall, and there was a sort of dainty angularity about her narrow shoulders. She wore an old black silk, which was a great deal of dress for afternoon. She had considerable money in the bank, and could afford to dress well. She wore also some white lace around her long neck, and it was fastened with a handsome gold-and-jet brooch. She was knitting some blue worsted, and she sat back in the front entry, out of the draft. She considered herself rather delicate.

Mrs. Rose sat boldly out in the yard in the full range of the breeze, sewing upon a blue-and-white gingham waist for her son Willy. She was a large, pretty-faced woman in a stiffly starched purple muslin, which spread widely around her.

"He's been gone 'most an hour," she went on; "I hope there's nothin' happened."

"I wonder if there's snakes in that meadow?" ruminated Miss Elvira.

"I don't know; I'm gettin' ruther uneasy."

"I know one thing—I shouldn't let him go off so, without somebody older with him, if he was my boy."

"Well, I don't know what I can do," returned Mrs. Rose, uneasily. "There ain't anybody to go with him. I can't go diggin' sassafras-root, and you can't, and his uncle Hiram's too busy, and grandfather is too stiff. And he is so crazy to go after sassafras-root, it does seem a pity to tell him he sha'n't. I never saw a child so possessed after the root and sassafras-tea, as he is, in my life. I s'pose it's good for him. I hate to deny him when he takes so much comfort goin'. There he is now!"

Little Willy Rose crossed the road, and toiled up the stone steps. The front yard was terraced, and two flights of stone steps led up to the front door. He was quite breathless when he stood on the top step; his round, sweet face was pink, his fair hair plastered in flat locks to his wet forehead. His little trousers and his shoes were muddy, and he carried a great scraggy mass of sassafras-roots. "I see you a-settin' out here," he panted, softly.

"You ought not to have stayed so long. We began to be worried about you," said his mother, in a fond voice. "Now go and take your muddy shoes right off, and put on your slippers; then you can sit down at the back door and clean your sassafras, if you want to."

"I got lots," said Willy, smiling sweetly, and wiping his forehead. "Look-a-there, Miss Elviry."

"So you did," returned Miss Elvira. "I suppose, now, you think you'll have some sassafras-tea."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I guess I'll steep him a little for supper, he's so crazy for it," said Mrs. Rose, when Willy had disappeared smilingly around the corner.

"Yes, I would. It's real wholesome for him. Who's that comin'?"

Mrs. Rose stared down at the road. A white horse with an open buggy was just turning into the drive-way, around the south side of the terraces. "Why, it's brother Hiram," said she, "and he's got a boy with him. I wonder who 'tis."

The buggy drew up with a grating noise in the drive-way. Presently a man appeared around the corner. After him tagged a small white-headed boy, and after the boy, Willy Rose, with a sassafras-root and an old shoe-knife in his hands.

The man, who was Mr. Hiram Fairbanks, Mrs. Rose's brother, had a somewhat doubtful expression. When he stopped, the white-headed boy stopped, keeping a little behind him in his shadow.

"What boy is that, Hiram?" asked Mrs. Rose. Miss Elvira peered around the door. Mr. Fairbanks was tall and stiff-looking. He had a sunburned, sober face. "His name is Dickey," he replied.

"One of those Dickeys?" Mrs. Rose said "Dickeys," as if it were a synonym for "outcasts" or "rascals."

Mr. Fairbanks nodded. He glanced at the boy in his wake, then at Willy. "Willy, s'pose you take this little boy 'round and show him your rabbits," he said, in an embarrassed voice.

"Willy Rose!" cried his mother, "you haven't changed those muddy shoes! Go right in this minute, 'round by the kitchen door, and take this boy 'round with you; he can sit down on the door-step and help you clean your sassafras-root."

Willy disappeared lingeringly around the house, and the other boy, on being further bidden by Mr. Fairbanks, followed him. "Willy," his mother cried after him, "mind you sit down on the door-step and tie your shoes! I ain't goin' to have that Dickey boy left alone; his folks are nothin' but a pack of thieves," she remarked in a lower tone. "What are you doing with him, Hiram?"

Hiram hesitated. "Well, 'Mandy, you was sayin' the other day that you wished you had a boy to run errands, and split up kindlin's, and be kind of company for Willy."

"You ain't brought that Dickey boy?"

"Now, look here, 'Mandy—"

"I ain't going to have him in the house."

"Jest look here a minute, 'Mandy, till I tell you how it happened, and then you can do jest as you're a mind to about it. I was up by the Ruggles's this afternoon, and Mis' Ruggles, she come out to the gate, and hailed me. She wanted to know if I didn't want a boy. Seems the Dickey woman died last week; you know the father died two year ago. Well, there was six children, and the oldest boy's skipped, nobody knows where, and the oldest girl has just got married, and this boy is the oldest of the four that's left. They took the three little ones to the poorhouse, and Mis' Ruggles she took this boy in, and she wanted to keep him, but her own boy is big enough to do all the chores, and she didn't feel as if she could afford to. She says he's a real nice little fellow, and his mother wa'n't a bad woman; she was jest kind of sickly and shiftless. I guess old Dickey wa'n't much, but he's dead. Mis' Ruggles says this little chap hates awful to go to the poorhouse, and it ain't no kind of risk to take him, and she'd ought to know. She's lived right there next door to the Dickeys ever since she was married. I knew you wanted a boy to do chores 'round, long as Willy wasn't strong enough, so I thought I'd fetch him along. But you can do jest as you're a mind to."

"Now, Hiram Fairbanks, you know the name those Dickeys have always had. S'pose I took that boy, and he stole?"

"Mis' Ruggles says she'd trust him with anything."

"She ain't got so much as I have to lose. There I've got two dozen solid silver teaspoons, and four table-spoons, and my mother's silver creamer, and Willy's silver napkin-ring. Elviry's got her gold watch, too."

"I've got other things I wouldn't lose for anything," chimed in Miss Elvira.

"Well, of course, I don't want you to lose anything," said Mr. Fairbanks, helplessly, "but Mis' Ruggles, she said he was perfectly safe."

"I s'pose I could lock up the silver spoons and use the old pewter ones, and Elviry could keep her watch out of sight for a while," ruminated Mrs. Rose.

"Yes, I could," assented Miss Elvira, "and my breastpin."

"I s'pose he could draw the water, and split up the kindlin'-wood, and weed the flower-garden," said Mrs. Rose. "I set Willy to weedin' this morning, and it gave him the headache. I tell you one thing, Hiram Fairbanks, if I do take this boy, you've got to stand ready to take him back again the first minute I see anything out of the way with him."

"Yes, I will, 'Mandy; I promise you I will," said Mr. Fairbanks, eagerly. He hurried out to the buggy, and fumbled under the seat; then he returned with a bundle and a small wooden box.

"Here's his clothes. I guess he ain't got much," said he.

Mrs. Rose took the newspaper bundle; then she eyed the box suspiciously. It was a wooden salt-box, and the sliding cover was nailed on.

"What's in this?" said she.

"Oh, I don't know," replied Mr. Fairbanks; "some truck or other—I guess it ain't worth much."

He put the box down on the bank, and trudged heavily and quickly out to the buggy. He was anxious to be off; he shook the reins, shouted "ge lang" to the white horse, and wheeled swiftly around the corner.

"I'd like to know what's in that box," said Mrs. Rose to Miss Elvira.

"I hope he ain't got an old pistol or anything of that kind in it," returned Miss Elvira. "Oh, 'Mandy, I wouldn't shake it, if I were you!" For Mrs. Rose was shaking the wooden box, and listening with her ear at it.

"Something rattles in it," said she, desisting; "I hope it ain't a pistol." Then she entered with the newspaper bundle and the box, and went through the house, with Miss Elvira following. She set the bundle and box on the kitchen table, and looked out of the door. There on the top step sat the Dickey boy cleaning the sassafras-roots with great industry, while Willy Rose sat on the lower one chewing some.

"I do believe he's goin' to take right hold, Elviry," whispered Mrs. Rose.

"Well, maybe he is," returned Miss Elvira.

Mrs. Rose stowed away the boy's belongings in the little bedroom off the kitchen where she meant him to sleep; then she kindled the fire and got supper. She made sassafras-tea, and the new boy, sitting beside Willy, had a cup poured for him. But he did not drink much nor eat much, although there were hot biscuits and berries and custards. He hung his forlorn head with its shock of white hair, and only gave fleeting glances at anything with his wild, blue eyes. He was a thin boy, smaller than Willy, but he looked wiry and full of motion, like a wild rabbit.

After supper Mrs. Rose sent him for a pail of water; then he split up a little pile of kindling-wood. After that he sat down on the kitchen door-step in the soft twilight, and was silent.

Willy went into the sitting-room, where his mother and Miss Elvira were. "He's settin' out there on the door-step, not speakin' a word," said he, in a confidential whisper.

"Well, you had better sit down here with us and read your Sunday-school book," said his mother. She and Miss Elvira had agreed that it was wiser that Willy should not be too much with the Dickey boy until they knew him better.

When it was nine o'clock Mrs. Rose showed the Dickey boy his bedroom. She looked at him sharply; his small pale face showed red stains in the lamplight. She thought to herself that he had been crying, and she spoke to him as kindly as she could—she had not a caressing manner with anybody but Willy. "I guess there's clothes enough on the bed," said she. She looked curiously at the bundle and the wooden box. Then she unfastened the bundle. "I guess I'll see what you've got for clothes," said she, and her tone was as motherly as she could make it towards this outcast Dickey boy. She laid out his pitiful little wardrobe, and examined the small ragged shirt or two and the fragmentary stockings. "I guess I shall have to buy you some things if you are a good boy," said she. "What have you got in that box?"—the boy hung his head—"I hope you ain't got a pistol?"

"No, marm."

"You ain't got any powder, nor anything of that kind?"

"No, marm." The boy was blushing confusedly.

"I hope you're tellin' me the truth," Mrs. Rose said, and her tone was full of severe admonition.

"Yes, marm." The tears rolled down the boy's cheeks, and Mrs. Rose said no more. She told him she would call him in the morning, and to be careful about his lamp. Then she left him. The Dickey boy lay awake, and cried an hour; then he went to sleep, and slept as soundly as Willy Rose in his snug little bedroom leading out of his mother's room. Miss Elvira and Mrs. Rose locked their doors that night, through distrust of that little boy down-stairs who came of a thieving family. Miss Elvira put her gold watch and her breastpin and her pocket-book, with seventeen dollars in it, under the feather-bed; and Mrs. Rose carried the silver teaspoons up-stairs, and hid them under hers. The Dickey boy was not supposed to know they were in the house—the pewter ones had been used for supper—but that did not signify; she thought it best to be on the safe side. She kept the silver spoons under the feather-bed for many a day, and they all ate with the pewter ones; but finally suspicion was allayed if not destroyed. The Dickey boy had shown himself trustworthy in several instances. Once he was sent on a test errand to the store, and came home promptly with the right change. The silver spoons glittered in the spoon-holder on the table, and Miss Elvira wore her gold watch and her gold breastpin.

"I begin to take a good deal more stock in that boy," Mrs. Rose told her brother Hiram.

"He ain't very lively, but he works real smart; he ain't saucy, and I ain't known of his layin' hands on a thing."

But the Dickey boy, although he had won some confidence and good opinions, was, as Mrs. Rose said, not very lively. His face, as he did his little tasks, was as sober and serious as an old man's. Everybody was kind to him, but this poor little alien felt like a chimney-sweep in a queen's palace. Mrs. Rose, to a Dickey boy, was almost as impressive as a queen. He watched with admiration and awe this handsome, energetic woman moving about the house in her wide skirts. He was overcome with the magnificence of Miss Elvira's afternoon silk, and gold watch; and dainty little Willy Rose seemed to him like a small prince. Either the Dickey boy, born in a republican country, had the original instincts of the peasantry in him, and himself defined his place so clearly that it made him unhappy, or his patrons did it for him. Mrs. Rose and Miss Elvira tried to treat him as well as they treated Willy. They dressed him in Willy's old clothes; they gave him just as much to eat; when autumn came he was sent to school as warmly clad and as well provided with luncheon; but they could never forget that he was a Dickey boy. He seemed, in truth, to them like an animal of another species, in spite of all they could do, and they regarded his virtues in the light of uncertain tricks. Mrs. Rose never thought at any time of leaving him in the house alone without hiding the spoons, and Miss Elvira never left her gold watch unguarded.

Nobody knew whether the Dickey boy was aware of these lurking suspicions or not; he was so subdued that it was impossible to tell how much he observed. Nobody knew how homesick he was, but he went about every day full of fierce hunger for his miserable old home. Miserable as it had been, there had been in it a certain element of shiftless ease and happiness. The Dickey boy's sickly mother had never chided him; she had not cared if he tracked mud into the house. How anxiously he scraped his feet before entering the Rose kitchen. The Dickey boy's dissipated father had been gentle and maudlin, but never violent. All the Dickey children had done as they chose, and they had agreed well. They were not a quarrelsome family. Their principal faults were idleness and a general laxity of morals which was quite removed from active wickedness. "All the Dickeys needed was to be bolstered up," one woman in the village said; and the Dickey boy was being bolstered up in the Rose family.

They called him Dickey, using his last name for his first, which was Willy. Mrs. Rose straightened herself unconsciously when she found that out. "We can't have two Willies in the family, anyhow," said she; "we'll have to call you Dickey."

Once the Dickey boy's married sister came to see him, and Mrs. Rose treated her with such stiff politeness that the girl, who was fair and pretty and gaudily dressed, told her husband when she got home that she would never go into that woman's house again. Occasionally Mrs. Rose, who felt a duty in the matter, took Dickey to visit his little brothers and sisters at the almshouse. She even bought some peppermint-candy for him to take them. He really had many a little extra kindness shown him; sometimes Miss Elvira gave him a penny, and once Mr. Hiram Fairbanks gave him a sweet-apple tree—that was really quite a magnificent gift. Mrs. Rose could hardly believe it when Willy told her. "Well, I must say I never thought Hiram would do such a thing as that, close as he is," said she. "I was terribly taken aback when he gave that tree to Willy, but this beats all. Why, odd years it might bring in twenty dollars!"

"Uncle Hiram gave it to him," Willy repeated. "I was a-showin' Dickey my apple-tree, and Uncle Hiram he picked out another one, and he give it to him."

"Well, I wouldn't have believed it," said Mrs. Rose.

Nobody else would have believed that Hiram Fairbanks, careful old bachelor that he was, would have been so touched by the Dickey boy's innocent, wistful face staring up at the boughs of Willy's apple-tree. It was fall, and the apples had all been harvested. Dickey would get no practical benefit from his tree until next season, but there was no calculating the comfort he took with it from the minute it came into his possession. Every minute he could get, at first, he hurried off to the orchard and sat down under its boughs. He felt as if he were literally under his own roof-tree. In the winter, when it was heavy with snow, he did not forsake it. There would be a circle of little tracks around the trunk.

Mrs. Rose told her brother that the boy was perfectly crazy about that apple-tree, and Hiram grinned shamefacedly.

All winter Dickey went with Willy to the district school, and split wood and brought water between times. Sometimes of an evening he sat soberly down with Willy and played checkers, but Willy always won. "He don't try to beat," Willy said. Sometimes they had pop-corn, and Dickey always shook the popper. Dickey said he wasn't tired, if they asked him. All winter the silver spoons appeared on the table, and Dickey was treated with a fair show of confidence. It was not until spring that the sleeping suspicion of him awoke. Then one day Mrs. Rose counted her silver spoons, and found only twenty-three teaspoons. She stood at her kitchen table, and counted them over and over. Then she opened the kitchen door. "Elviry!" she called out, "Elviry, come here a minute! Look here," she said, in a hushed voice, when Miss Elvira's inquiring face had appeared at the door. Miss Elvira approached the table tremblingly.

"Count those spoons," said Mrs. Rose.

Miss Elvira's long slim fingers handled the jingling spoons. "There ain't but twenty-three," she said finally, in a scared voice.

"I expected it," said Mrs. Rose. "Do you s'pose he took it?"

"Who else took it, I'd like to know?"

It was a beautiful May morning; the apple-trees were all in blossom. The Dickey boy had stolen over to look at his. It was a round hill of pink-and-white bloom. It was the apple year. Willy came to the stone wall and called him. "Dickey," he cried, "Mother wants you;" and Dickey obeyed. Willy had run on ahead. He found Mrs. Rose, Miss Elvira, Willy, and the twenty-three teaspoons awaiting him in the kitchen. He shook his head to every question they asked him about the missing spoon. He turned quite pale; once in a while he whimpered; the tears streamed down his cheeks, but he only shook his head in that mute denial.

"It won't make it any easier for you, holding out this way," said Mrs. Rose, harshly. "Stop cryin' and go out and split up some kindlin'-wood."

Dickey went out, his little convulsed form bent almost double. Willy, staring at him with his great, wondering blue eyes, stood aside to let him pass. Then he also was sent on an errand, while his mother and Miss Elvira had a long consultation in the kitchen.

It was a half-hour before Mrs. Rose went out to the shed where she had sent the Dickey boy to split kindlings. There lay a nice little pile of kindlings, but the boy had disappeared.

"Dickey, Dickey!" she called. But he did not come.

"I guess he's gone, spoon and all," she told Miss Elvira, when she went in; but she did not really think he had. When one came to think of it, he was really too small and timid a boy to run away with one silver spoon. It did not seem reasonable. What they did think, as time went on and he did not appear, was that he was hiding to escape a whipping. They searched everywhere. Miss Elvira stood in the shed by the wood-pile, calling in her thin voice, "Come out, Dickey; we won't whip you if you did take it," but there was not a stir.

Towards night they grew uneasy. Mr. Fairbanks came, and they talked matters over.

"Maybe he didn't take the spoon," said Mr. Fairbanks, uncomfortably. "Anyhow, he's too young a chap to be set adrift this way. I wish you'd let me talk to him, 'Mandy."

"You!" said Mrs. Rose. Then she started up. "I know one thing," said she; "I'm goin' to see what's in that wooden box. I don't believe but what that spoon's in there. There's no knowin' how long it's been gone."

It was quite a while before Mrs. Rose returned with the wooden box. She had to search for it, and found it under the bed. The Dickey boy also had hidden his treasures. She got the hammer and Hiram pried off the lid, which was quite securely nailed. "I'd ought to have had it opened before," said she. "He hadn't no business to have a nailed-up box 'round. Don't joggle it so, Hiram. There's no knowin' what's in it. There may be a pistol."



Miss Elvira stood farther off. Mr. Fairbanks took the lid entirely off. They all peered into the box. There lay an old clay pipe and a roll of faded calico. Mr. Fairbanks took up the roll and shook it out. "It's an apron," said he. "It's his father's pipe, and his mother's apron—I—swan!"

Miss Elvira began to cry. "I hadn't any idea of anything of that kind," said Mrs. Rose, huskily. "Willy Rose, what have you got there?"

For Willy, looking quite pale and guilty, was coming in, holding a muddy silver teaspoon. "Where did you get that spoon? Answer me this minute," cried his mother.

"I—took it out to—dig in my garden with the—other day. I—forgot—"

"Oh, you naughty boy!" cried his mother. Then she, too, began to weep. Mr. Fairbanks started up. "Something's got to be done," said he. "The wind's changed, and the May storm is comin' on. That boy has got to be found before night."

But all Mr. Fairbanks's efforts, and the neighbors' who came to his assistance, could not find the Dickey boy before night or before the next morning. The long, cold May storm began, the flowering apple-trees bent under it, and the wind drove the rain against the windows. Mrs. Rose and Miss Elvira kept the kitchen fire all night, and hot water and blankets ready. But the day had fairly dawned before they found the Dickey boy, and then only by the merest chance. Mr. Fairbanks, hurrying across his orchard for a short cut, and passing Dickey's tree, happened to glance up at it, with a sharp pang of memory. He stopped short. There, among the blossoming branches, clung the Dickey boy, like a little drenched, storm-beaten bird. He had flown to his one solitary possession for a refuge. He was almost exhausted; his little hands grasped a branch like steel claws. Mr. Fairbanks took him down and carried him home. "He was up in his tree," he told his sister, brokenly, when he entered the kitchen. "He's 'most gone."

But the Dickey boy revived after he had lain a while before a fire and been rolled in hot blankets and swallowed some hot drink. He looked with a wondering smile at Mrs. Rose when she bent over him and kissed him just as she kissed Willy. Miss Elvira loosened her gold watch, with its splendid, long gold chain, and put it in his hand. "There, hold it a while," said she, "and listen to it tick." Mr. Fairbanks fumbled in his pocket-book and drew out a great silver dollar. "There," said he, "you can have that to spend when you get well."

Willy pulled his mother's skirt. "Mother," he whispered.

"What say?"

"Can't I pop some corn for him?"

"By-and-by." Mrs. Rose smoothed the Dickey boy's hair; then she bent down and kissed him again. She had fairly made room for him in her stanch, narrow New England heart.



A SWEET-GRASS BASKET

Nancy and Flora were going through the garden, stepping between the squash and tomato vines. Nancy's mother stood in the kitchen door looking after them.

"Mind you don't hit your clothes on the tomatoes!" she called out.

"No, we won't," they answered back. After they had passed the last bean pole they walked single file along the foot-path down the hill. The tall timothy-grass rustled up almost to their waists. Flora went first, with a light little tilt of her starched skirts. Nancy trudged briskly and sturdily after. Nancy's old buff calico dress, which had been let down for her every spring since she was seven years old, and marked its age, like a tree, by rings of a brighter color where the old tucks had been, did not look very well beside Flora's pretty new blue cambric. Neither did Nancy's old Shaker bonnet show to advantage beside Flora's hat, with its beautiful bows and streamers; but Nancy was not troubled about that. She cared very little what she wore, so long as she went somewhere. Flora always had nicer things, but she never minded. Flora was her cousin; she had come to live with her when her mother died, ten years before, and her father had considerable money. He lived in the city.

The two girls were nearly the same age, but Nancy was much the larger; she looked clumsy and overgrown following slender little Flora. It was like a dandelion in the wake of a violet. After they had reached the foot of the hill, they crossed some low meadow-land. It was quite wet, little dark pools glimmered between the clumps of rank grasses. Some fine pink orchid flowers were very thick, but they did not stop to pick any. They were going to see the Indians. Their eyes were fixed upon some white tents ahead. They had been there once before with Nancy's father, but the same sensations of curiosity and exhilarating fear were upon them now.

"Nancy," whispered Flora, fearfully.

"What say?"

"Is that a—tomahawk in that tent door?"

"No; it's a hoe," returned Nancy, peering with anxious eyes.

Several Indian women and children were moving about; one Indian man was scraping some birch bark at a tent door. They did not pay any attention to the visitors.

Flora nudged Nancy. "Go along," said she.

"No, you," returned Nancy, pushing Flora.

"I don't dare to."

They stood hesitating. Finally Nancy gave her head a jerk. "I don't care; I'm going, if you ain't," said she, and forward she went. Flora followed.

The tents were arranged like houses on a street, with the open doors fronting each other. In each tent was a counter loaded with baskets and little birch-bark canoes, and an Indian woman sat behind it to sell them.

The girls went from one tent to another and stared about them. Besides the baskets and canoes, there were sea-gulls' wings and little fur slippers and pouches. They saw everything. The Indian women offered to sell, but they shook their heads shyly and soberly.

Finally they went into the tent where the Princess kept store. She was a large stout woman and a real Indian Princess. Under the counter a little Indian baby, fast asleep, was swinging in a tiny hammock. Nancy and Flora nudged each other and eyed it with awe. But it was on the Princess's counter that they saw the sweet-grass basket. They both looked at it, then at each other. It was made of sweet-grass, it was oblong, and had a cover and long handles.

Finally Flora pointed one slim little finger at it. "How much does that cost?" she asked the Princess.

"Fifty cent," replied the Princess.

Nancy had just eight cents at home. Flora had nothing at all. Her father sent her money every month, and the last instalment was all spent. Neither of them could buy the basket, and fifty cents sounded enormous, but their faces were quite dignified and immovable. It might have been the echo of their strange surroundings, but they acted as if they had Indian blood themselves.

They turned about and went out of the tent; they crossed the old road and climbed the stone-wall. Flora spoke as she picked her way across the meadow. "Guess I'll buy that basket when my money comes next week," said she.

Nancy said nothing; she looked gloomy. She stepped in an oozy place and wet one foot, but she did not mind it. She thought of her eight cents, and did an example in mental arithmetic. "Eight from fifty leaves forty-two," she calculated. For the first time she was envious of Flora. Everybody finds some object to grudge to another. Nancy had found hers—the sweet-grass basket. If she had expressed her feelings, she would have said, "Must she have all those pretty dresses and hats and the sweet-grass basket, too?"

The girls went home silently; they were never great talkers. Flora sat down in the sitting-room with her aunt; Nancy went up-stairs to the chamber where she slept with Flora, and got her little purse out of the corner of her bureau drawer. She counted the eight cents, and puzzled over the problem how to increase it to fifty. She puzzled over it all the rest of that day until she went to sleep at nine o'clock. The next day was Sunday; she puzzled over it as she sat in the pew in church, but she could not arrive at any solution.

However, the next morning she had an inspiration. Her mother sent her over to Aunt Lucretia's on an errand. Flora was not allowed to go; it was a very hot morning, and she was rather delicate. Nancy on her way to Aunt Lucretia's thought of a way to swell eight cents to fifty. She trudged down the sunny road in a cloud of dust, her face was scarlet with the heat, but she ignored all little discomforts.

Aunt Lucretia lived in a nice square white house with a green lattice-work porch over the front door. She was an elderly lady and quite rich. She had a Brussels carpet in the parlor and kept a servant-maid.



Nancy went in the side door, and through the sitting-room into the front entry. The parlor door stood open. Aunt Lucretia and her servant, Henrietta, were in there. Nancy stood looking in.

"Aunt Lucretia," said she.

Aunt Lucretia came forward, with Henrietta following.

"Well, Nancy, what do you want?" said Aunt Lucretia. She was quite a majestic old lady, very tall and large and short-waisted. She wore her gray hair in two puffs each side of her face.

"Mother sent your Stanford paper back," replied Nancy.

"Well, you can lay it on the sitting-room table," said Aunt Lucretia. "Is your mother well this morning?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Nancy laid the Stanford paper on the sitting-room table; then she followed on into the kitchen after Aunt Lucretia and Henrietta.

"Is there anything else you want, Nancy?" asked Aunt Lucretia.

"I wanted to know if—I didn't know but—you'd like to have me pick some blackberries for you, Aunt Lucretia."

"Blackberries?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Aunt Lucretia stared reflectively at Nancy. "Do you suppose your mother would be willing? The sun's pretty hot."

"Yes, ma'am. I know she wouldn't care."

"Well, I do want two quarts of blackberries dreadfully, and there 'ain't a boy been along. I'm going to have the minister and his wife to tea to-night, and I want to have blackberry shortcake. Do you suppose you could pick me two quarts before four o'clock this afternoon?"

"Yes, ma'am. I know where they're real thick."

"Well," said Aunt Lucretia, "you can go home and ask your mother, and if she's willing, you can go and pick them. Mind you keep out of the sun all you can. I'll give you seven cents a quart; that's a cent more than the boys ask."

"Don't you want more'n two quarts, Aunt Lucretia?" asked Nancy, timidly.

"I guess two quarts will be about all you'll want to pick," returned Aunt Lucretia, grimly.

"No, ma'am; it won't."

"Well, we'll see how you hold out. I want four quarts for jell the last of the week; but you pick two quarts first, and see."

Nancy went home. She ran nearly all the way.

"You go right into the sitting-room, and sit down with the palm-leaf fan, and cool off before you do anything else," said her mother, when she proposed the plan; "you'll have a sun-stroke."

So Nancy had to sit in the dark, cool sitting-room and fan herself for full twenty minutes before she was allowed to put on her old dress and Shaker and start on her berrying excursion. Flora wanted to go, too, but her aunt thought it was too hot; she was apt to have headaches. She sat on the back door-step shelling pease when Nancy started.

Nancy, bustling off with her two-quart tin pail, glanced back at Flora's little yellow shaven head bending patiently over the pan of pease in the doorway. She felt guilty. Was she not going off with the secret intention of earning money enough to buy that sweet-grass basket before Flora could? Flora would not have her money until Saturday; this was Monday. If she could only earn the forty-two cents in the mean time.

Nancy worked hard that week. Her hands and arms got scratched; she had even a scratch across her nose. The blackberry vines seemed almost like tangible foes; but she pushed and tussled with them until she had picked the six quarts.

On Monday Aunt Lucretia had the minister and his wife to tea, and made blackberry shortcake; on Friday she made blackberry jelly. All Nancy's part of the contract was promptly fulfilled, but Aunt Lucretia's was not. She had not a cent of change in her purse when Nancy brought in the last instalment of berries.

"You'll have to wait two or three days until I can get this bill changed," said she. "You've been real smart about picking 'em. You've picked 'em clean, too. Here's a piece of sweet-cake for you."

Nancy went home in the hot sun. Her red, scratched face looked gloomy and discouraged in the depths of the Shaker bonnet. She nibbled at the sweet-cake as she went along, but she did not care for it. Here it was Friday forenoon, and she had to wait two or three days for her forty-two cents. Flora's money would come, and she would buy the sweet-grass basket. Nancy felt quite desperate. That afternoon she teased her mother to let her go over to Aunt Lucretia's again.

"No; you don't go a step," said her mother. "She's making jell', and you've been over there once to-day. You can sit down with your knitting-work this afternoon, and be contented."

Nancy sat down with her knitting-work, but she was not contented. It seemed to her that she must have those forty-two cents. After tea she begged again for permission to go to Aunt Lucretia's. "It's real nice and cool out now, mother," she pleaded.

"I don't care how cool it is," said her mother, "you can't go. I don't see what has got into you."

But the next morning Nancy was really sent over to Aunt Lucretia's on an errand. She did the errand, then she stood waiting.

"Did your mother want anything else?" asked Aunt Lucretia.

"No, ma'am."

"Well, I guess you had better run home then. It's baking day, and maybe you can help your mother some. You'd ought to help her all you can, you're getting to be a big girl. I used to do a whole week's baking before I was your age."

"Aunt Lucretia!"

"What say?"

"Have you—got that—bill—changed yet?"

"No, I haven't. You mustn't tease. I'm going down to the store in a day or two, and then you can have it."

So Nancy went home again without her forty-two cents. She wept a little on the way. Here it was Saturday, and Flora expecting her money on the noon mail. But it did not come on the noon mail. It did not come until six o'clock at night, and Flora did not think of buying the basket that day.

After tea that night, about half-past seven o'clock, Nancy did something that she had never done before in her life. She went over to her Aunt Lucretia's without permission. Her mother had gone to one of the neighbor's. Flora was in the sitting-room reading a story-book. Nancy stole out of the front door, and hurried down the road.

"What are you over here again for, child?" Aunt Lucretia cried when she went in.

Aunt Lucretia and Henrietta were in the kitchen, sticking papers over the jelly tumblers.

Nancy hesitated, and blushed.

"What is it?" asked Aunt Lucretia.

"I—didn't know but—what—you might have got—that bill changed."

"Why, I never saw such an acting child! Can't you wait a minute? Henrietta, have you got any change?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Henrietta. And she got her purse, and they counted out forty-two cents. Twenty-two of them were in pennies.

"Now I hope you're satisfied," said Aunt Lucretia, sharply. "Did your mother know you came over here?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, you're a naughty girl. I'm surprised at you. I sha'n't want to hire you to pick berries again if this is the way you do. Go right home, and mind you tell your mother you've been here."

The forty-two cents, twenty-two of which were pennies, jingled and weighed heavily in Nancy's pocket. She was not happy going home. She had meditated going to the Indian encampment that night to buy the basket, but it looked so dark over the fields that she was afraid to; so she went straight home. Her mother had returned from the neighbor's; there she stood in the front door, watching for her.

"Nancy Mann, I want to know where you've been," she cried out, as soon as Nancy opened the gate.

"Over to—Aunt Lucretia's."

"You went over there, after all the times I told you not to?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What for?"

"I wanted my—forty-two cents."

"Forty-two cents! What do you suppose your Aunt Lucretia thinks of you, dunning her up this way? Now you come in and light your candle, and go straight up-stairs to bed."

It was only half-past eight o'clock. Nancy went to bed. Flora sat up and read her story-book, and did not go up-stairs until after nine. Nancy pretended to be asleep when she came in, but she was not. She did not go to sleep for an hour after that. She lay there and cried softly, and planned.

The next morning was very pleasant. It was Sunday, and all the family went to church. After church, Nancy and Flora went to Sunday-school. Sunday-school was out about one o'clock; then they walked homeward together. Nancy lagged behind, and Flora kept waiting for her.

"Go along; do," said Nancy. "I want to pick these flowers."

Flora wondered innocently what Nancy wanted to pick so many flowers for. The flowers were mostly yarrow and arnica blossoms, and Flora had always regarded them as the very commonest kind of weeds.

They were quite near home, when Nancy climbed swiftly over the stone-wall and lay down behind it. Flora went on without turning her head. Nancy had spoken so shortly to her that her feelings were hurt. When she went into the house her aunt asked where Nancy was.

"She's coming," said Flora. "She stopped to pick flowers."

But it was a half-hour before Nancy came. Running as fast as she could over the meadows, it took some time to reach the Indian encampment and return. When she finally approached the house, her mother stood in the doorway, watching. She did not say a word until she came close to her.

"Where have you been?" she inquired.

Nancy hung her head, and was still. She kept one hand behind her.

"Answer me this minute."

"Down to—the Injuns."

"What for? What are you holding behind you?"

Nancy did not answer.

"Bring your hand round!" commanded her mother.

Nancy slowly swung around the hand holding the sweet-grass basket.

"Did you go down to the Injuns to-day, and spend that money you earned for that basket?" asked her mother.

"Yes, ma'am."

Her mother looked at her. The tears were streaming over her hot cheeks and her scratched nose; her best hat had slipped back, and the brim was bent; there was a great green stain on the front of her best dress, and a rent on the side.

"I can never get that green off your dress in the world," said her mother. "You'll have to wear it so. Going down to the Injuns to buy baskets on Sunday, in your best dress and hat! And you went so Flora shouldn't get it. I can see right through you. Now, Nancy Mann, you just march straight back with that basket. You ain't going to do any trading on the Sabbath day while you belong to me."

"Oh, mother!" sobbed Nancy; but she had to go. Her forlorn little figure disappeared lingeringly between the garden vines and bean poles.

"Hold your dress back," called her mother. "Don't you spoil it any more than you've done already."

To Nancy, looking through a mist of tears, the green-clad bean poles seemed dancing forward and the tomato vines creeping to meet her. Crossing the meadow she wet her feet in her best shoes. But all this was nothing. That stout Indian Princess displayed suddenly a sense of humor and a witty shrewdness which seemed abnormal. Her stolid eyes twinkled under their heavy brows when Nancy explained, tremblingly, how she had brought the basket back; her mother would not let her buy it on Sunday.

"Me no buy basket Sunday," said the Princess, and she looked loftily away from the sweet-grass basket shaking in Nancy's shaking hand. She was not in the least moved by Nancy's horrified, distressed face. Perhaps something of the ancient cruelty of her race possessed her; perhaps it was only the contagion of Yankee shrewdness. Nancy dared not go home with the basket; she went home without it or her fifty cents.

All that afternoon Nancy stayed up in her chamber and wept, while her best dress was soaking to remove the green stain, if it was Sunday. She felt as if her heart were broken. She had lost her self-respect, the sweet-grass basket, and her fifty cents, besides getting a great green stain on her best dress. Flora tried to comfort her.

"Don't cry," said she. "It's too bad! The Princess is real mean." And then Nancy sobbed harder.

When her mother was getting supper, her father followed into the pantry.

"I declare I feel sorry for the child," said he. "She's worked real hard to get that money, and she'ain't ever had so much as Flora. If it wasn't Sunday I'd go down there this minute, and get back the money or the basket from those Injuns."

"You'd look pretty going, and you a deacon of the church, after the way the Princess put it," returned Nancy's mother. "I'm sorry enough for Nancy, but she ought to have a little lesson. You can go over there to-morrow morning and get the basket back."

There was a beautiful custard pudding for supper, but Nancy did not want any.

"Sit up and eat your supper," said her mother. "Your father's going down to the Injuns in the morning, and see what he can do about it."

However, Nancy still did not care for the custard pudding; everything tasted of tears.

The next morning, before Nancy's father had a chance to go to the Indians, the Princess herself came to the back door. Whether she came from honesty or policy nobody could tell; but she came, and she brought the sweet-grass basket. She rapped on the door, and Nancy opened it. The Princess extended the basket without a word. Nancy wiped her hands, which were damp from washing the breakfast dishes, on her apron, then she took the basket. Then the Princess struck off across the garden.

Nancy carried the basket into the kitchen. She had a shamefaced and resolute expression. Flora was in there, and her father and mother.

She went straight to Flora, and held out the basket. Flora drew back, and looked at her.

"Take it," said Nancy. "It's for you."

Flora looked at her aunt.

"Take it, if she wants you to," said Mrs. Mann.

Flora took it. "Thank you," said she. She went soberly out of the room with the basket. Nancy returned to her dish-washing at the sink, her father stared out of the window, her mother came and shoved her aside, and took the dish-cloth out of her hands.

"There, I'll wash this heavy spider," said she. "You can go and put on your other dress. I want you to go down to the store for me, and I'm going to let you buy a couple of yards of that pretty pink calico for a new apron."

Nancy had admired that pink calico. As she went out of the kitchen her father caught her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake; then he patted her head.

"Don't run too fast, and get all tired out," said he.

Nancy put on her buff calico, and went to the store. It was an errand to take about an hour. She had been gone about a half-hour when the Indian Princess again came through the bean poles and tomato vines. This time she was all strung about with baskets. She stood at the kitchen door, and parleyed with Mrs. Mann and Flora. When she went away she had a fifty-cent piece in one brown fist, and she was eating a molasses cooky.

Nancy came home with the pink calico, and half a pound of cream of tartar; her mother and Flora were in the sitting-room, and they laughed when she entered.

Nancy looked soberly at them. "Here's the calico, and the cream tartar," said she.

"See what Flora has got for you," said her mother.

Nancy stared around. There on the table stood two sweet-grass baskets exactly alike.

"The Princess came again, and she had another basket. I got it for you," said Flora.

"Thank you," said Nancy, in a sober voice, but the dark depths of the Shaker bonnet seemed fairly illumined with smiles.



MEHITABLE LAMB

Hannah Maria Green sat on the north door-step, and sewed over and over a seam in a sheet. She had just gotten into her teens, and she was tall for her age, although very slim. She wore a low-necked, and short-sleeved, brown delaine dress. That style of dress was not becoming, but it was the fashion that summer. Her neck was very thin, and her collar-bones showed. Her arms were very long and small and knobby. Hannah Maria's brown hair was parted from her forehead to the back of her neck, braided in two tight braids, crossed in a flat mass at the back of her head, and surmounted by a large green-ribbon bow. Hannah Maria kept patting the bow to be sure it was on.

It was very cool there on the north door-step. Before it lay the wide north yard full of tall waving grass, with some little cinnamon rose-bushes sunken in it. Hardly anybody used the north door, so there was no path leading to it.

It was nearly four o'clock. Hannah Maria bent her sober freckled face over the sheet, and sewed and sewed. Her mother had gone to the next town to do some shopping, and bidden her to finish the seam before she returned. Hannah Maria was naturally obedient; moreover, her mother was a decided woman, so she had been very diligent; in fact the seam was nearly sewed.

It was very still—that is, there were only the sounds that seem to make a part of stillness. The birds twittered, the locusts shrilled, and the tall clock in the entry ticked. Hannah Maria was not afraid, but she was lonesome. Once in a while she looked around and sighed. She placed a pin a little way in advance on the seam, and made up her mind that when she had sewed to that place she would go into the house and get a slice of cake. Her mother had told her that she might cut a slice from the one-egg cake which had been made that morning. But before she had sewed to the pin, little Mehitable Lamb came down the road. She was in reality some years younger than Hannah Maria, but not so much younger as Hannah Maria considered her. The girl on the door-step surveyed the one approaching down the road with a friendly and patronizing air.

"Holloa!" she sang out, when Mehitable was within hailing distance.

"Holloa!" answered back Mehitable's little, sweet, deferential voice.

She came straight on, left the road, and struck across the grassy north yard to Hannah Maria's door-step. She was a round, fair little girl; her auburn hair was curled in a row of neat, smooth "water curls" around her head. She wore a straw hat with a blue ribbon, and a blue-and-white checked gingham dress; she also wore white stockings and patent leather "ankle-ties." Her dress was low-necked and short-sleeved, like Hannah Maria's, but her neck and arms were very fair and chubby.

Mehitable drew her big china doll in a doll's carriage. Hannah Maria eyed her with seeming disdain and secret longing. She herself had given up playing with dolls, her mother thought her too big; but they had still a fascination for her, and the old love had not quite died out of her breast.

"Mother said I might come over and stay an hour and a half," said Mehitable.

Hannah Maria smiled hospitably. "I'm keepin' house," said she. "Mother's gone to Lawrence."

Mehitable took her doll out of the carriage with a motherly air, and sat down on the door-step with it in her lap.

"How much longer you goin' to play with dolls?" inquired Hannah Maria.

"I don't know," replied Mehitable, with a little shamed droop of her eyelids.

"You can't when you get a little bigger, anyhow. Is that a new dress she's got on?"

"Yes; Aunt Susy made it out of a piece of her blue silk."

"It's handsome, isn't it? Let me take her a minute." Hannah Maria took the doll and cuddled it up against her shoulder as she had used to do with her own. She examined the blue silk dress. "My doll had a real handsome plaid silk one," said she, and she spoke as if the doll were dead. She sighed.

"Have you given her away?" inquired Mehitable, in a solemn tone.

"No; she's packed away. I'm too old to play with her, you know. Mother said I had other things to 'tend to. Dolls are well 'nough for little girls like you. Here, you'd better take her; I've got to finish my sewin'."

Hannah Maria handed back the doll with a resolute air, but she handed her back tenderly; then she sewed until she reached the pin. Mehitable rocked her doll, and watched.

When Hannah Maria reached the pin she jumped up. "I'm comin' back in a minute," said she, and disappeared in the house. Presently Mehitable heard the dishes rattle.

"She's gone after a cooky," she thought. Cookies were her usual luncheon.

But Hannah Maria came back with a long slice of one-egg cake with blueberries in it. She broke it into halves, and gave the larger one to Mehitable. "There," said she, "I'd give you more, but mother didn't tell me I could cut more'n one slice."

Mehitable ate her cake appreciatively; once in a while she slyly fed her doll with a bit.

Hannah Maria took bites of hers between the stitches; she had almost finished the over-and-over seams.

Presently she rose and shook out the sheet with a triumphant air. "There," said she, "it's done."

"Did you sew all that this afternoon?" asked Mehitable, in an awed tone.

"My! yes. It isn't so very much to do."

Hannah Maria laid the sheet down in a heap on the entry floor; then she looked at Mehitable. "Now, I've nothin' more to do," said she. "S'pose we go to walk a little ways?"

"I don't know as my mother'd like to have me do that."

"Oh yes, she would; she won't care. Come along! I'll get my hat."

Hannah Maria dashed over the sheet into the entry and got her hat off the peg; then she and Mehitable started. They strolled up the country road. Mehitable trundled her doll-carriage carefully; once in a while she looked in to see if the doll was all right.

"Isn't that carriage kind of heavy for you to drag all alone?" inquired Hannah Maria.

"No; it isn't very heavy."

"I had just as lief help you drag it as not."

Hannah Maria reached down and took hold by one side of the handle of the doll-carriage, and the two girls trundled it together.

There were no houses for a long way. The road stretched between pasture-lands and apple-orchards. There was one very fine orchard on both sides of the street a quarter of a mile below Hannah Maria's house. The trees were so heavily loaded with green apples that the branches hung low over the stone walls. Now and then there was among them a tree full of ripe yellow apples.

"Don't you like early apples?" asked Hannah Maria.

Mehitable nodded.

"Had any?"

"No."

"They don't grow in your field, do they?"

Mehitable shook her head. "Mother makes pies with our apples, but they're not mellow 'nough to eat now," she replied.

"Well," said Hannah Maria, "we haven't got any. All our apples are baldwins and greenin's. I havn't had an early apple this summer."

The two went on, trundling the doll-carriage. Suddenly Hannah Maria stopped.

"Look here," said she; "my aunt Jenny and my uncle Timothy have got lots of early apples. You just go along this road a little farther, and you get to the road that leads to their house. S'pose we go."

"How far is it?"

"Oh, not very far. Father walks over sometimes."

"I don't believe my mother would like it."

"Oh yes, she would! Come along."

But all Hannah Maria's entreaties could not stir Mehitable Lamb. When they reached the road that led to Uncle Timothy's house she stood still.

"My mother won't like it," said she.

"Yes, she will."

Mehitable stood as if she and the doll-carriage were anchored to the road.

"I think you're real mean, Mehitable Lamb," said Hannah Maria. "You're a terrible 'fraid cat. I'm goin', anyhow, and I won't bring you a single apple; so there!"

"Don't want any," returned Mehitable, with some spirit. She turned the doll-carriage around. Hannah Maria walked up the road a few steps. Suddenly she faced about. Mehitable had already started homeward.

"Mehitable Lamb!" said she.

Mehitable looked around.

"I s'pose you'll go right straight home and tell my mother just as quick as you can get there."

Mehitable said nothing.

"You'll be an awful telltale if you do."

"Sha'n't tell," said Mehitable, in a sulky voice.

"Will you promise—'Honest and true. Black and blue. Lay me down and cut me in two'—that you won't tell?"

Mehitable nodded.

"Say it over then."

Mehitable repeated the formula. It sounded like inaudible gibberish.

"I shall tell her myself when I get home," said Hannah Maria. "I shall be back pretty soon, anyway, but I don't want her sending father after me. You're sure you're not goin' to tell, now, Mehitable Lamb? Say it over again."

Mehitable said it again.

"Well, you'll be an awful telltale if you do tell after that!" said Hannah Maria.

She went on up one road towards her uncle Timothy Dunn's, and Mehitable trundled her doll-carriage homeward down the other. She went straight on past Hannah Maria's house. Hannah Maria's mother, Mrs. Green, had come home. She saw the white horse and buggy out in the south yard. She heard Mrs. Green's voice calling, "Hannah Maria, Hannah Maria!" and she scudded by like a rabbit.

Mehitable's own house was up the hill, not far beyond. She lived there with her mother and grandmother and her two aunts; her father was dead. The smoke was coming out of the kitchen chimney; her aunt Susy was getting supper. Aunt Susy was the younger and prettier of the aunts. Mehitable thought her perfection. She came to the kitchen door when Mehitable entered the yard, and stood there smiling at her.