WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
BOOKS ABOUT CHILDREN
BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
THE MADNESS OF PHILIP
MEMOIRS OF A BABY
BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
THE IMP AND THE ANGEL
SISTER'S VOCATION
TEN TO SEVENTEEN
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NBW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO
SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
WHILE CAROLINE
WAS GROWING
BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
ILL V ST RA TED
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
All rights reserved
LIC L:
8M7QB
It !0 L
Copyright. 1906, by P. P. Collier & Son
Copyright, 1907, by the S. S. McClure Co.
Copyright, 1909, by the S. S. McClure Co.. Benjamin B. Hampton,
P. F. Collier & Son, and by the Phelps Publishing Company
Copyright, 1911, by The Macmillan Company
Set up and Electrotyped. Published March, 1911
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Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Caroline's
torn 3.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. AN IDYL OF THE ROAD i
II. A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 38
III. THE PRIZE 77
IV. WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN 113
V. A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 158
VI. His FATHER'S HOUSE 202
VII. THE PRETENDERS 235
VIII. A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 269
IX. THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 297
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAOB
With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portiere
and disappeared 66
" Sh ! sh ! " he whispered excitedly, " not a vordt ! Not a vordt !
Mein Gott ! but it is marvellous." 74
"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly 118
Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched
abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain 274
Across the court was a lighted room with a long French
window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high,
carved chair a very old woman 282
Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a
heavy arbor vitae, flat on her stomach 299
WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD
CAROLINE rocked herself back and forth
from her waist, defying the uncompromis-
ingly straight chair which inclosed her
portly little person.
" Bounded'n th' north by Mass'joosetts; bounded
'n th' north by Mass'joosetts', bounded 'n th*
north by Mass'joosetts" she intoned in a monot-
onous chant. But her eyes were not upon the
map; like those of the gentleman in the poem,
they were with her heart, and that was far away.
Out of the window the spring was coming on,
in waves of tree-bloom and bright grass; the
birds bickered sweetly in the sun-patches; every-
thing was reaching on tiptoe for the delicious
2 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
thrill of May and she was bounding Connec-
ticut! It was idiotic. What was a knowledge
of the uninteresting limits of her native State
compared to that soft fresh wind on her cheek,
that indescribable odor of brown earth?
Two fat birds descended with a twitter into
a crystal rain-pool, and bathed, with splashes
of spray; Caroline's feet itched in her ribbed
stockings. A soiled and freckled boy, bare from
the knees, whistled by the window, jangling a
can of bait, his pole balanced prettily on one
ragged shoulder. As he reached the puddle, a
pure inconsequence of good feeling seized him,
and he splashed deliberately in it, grinning around
him. Caroline mechanically bent and unbuttoned
the top button of her stout boots. He caught
her eye.
"Where you going?" she called through the
glass.
" Oh, I d'no anywheres, I guess!" he answered
invitingly. "Want to come?"
" I can't. I have to go to school," she said
shortly.
" And so ought he you ought to be ashamed
*
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 3
of yourself, calling through the window to that
Simms boy!" cried a disgusted voice. Caroline
twitched her shoulder spitefully.
"A great girl like you, too! Why, he's no
better than a common tramp, that boy," pro-
ceeded the voice. "Look at his clothes!' !
" Nobody wears good clothes to go fishing,"
Caroline grumbled. " I wish he had mine!"
" Fishing! He never wears them anywhere.
He hasn't got them to wear. And he'd be glad
enough to get yours, I can tell you."
" He wouldn't do any such thing! He told
me Saturday he'd rather be a dog than a girl;
he'd get more use of his legs!"
There was a scandalized silence. Caroline
waited grimly.
"What are you doing?'" said the voice at last.
" Studying my jography," she replied.
" Well, mind you do, then."
" I can't, if everybody talks to me all the time,"
she muttered sullenly.
Nevertheless she resumed her rocking and
crooning.
" Bounded 'n th' east by Rho Disland; bounded
4 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
'n th' east by Rho Disland; bounded 'n th' east
by Rho Disland."
The housemaid appeared just under the window,
dragging a small step-ladder and a pail of glisten-
ing, soapy water. Her head was coifed in a fresh
starched towel, giving her the appearance of a
holy sister of some clean blue-and-white order;
her eyes were large and mournful. She appealed
instantly to Caroline's imagination.
"Oh, Katy, what a lovely Mother Superior
you would make!" she cried enthusiastically.
" I'm a Presbyterian, Miss Car'line," said Katy
reprovingly. " You'd better go on with your
lessons," and she threw up the window from the
outside.
A great puff of spring air burst into the room
and turned it into a garden. Moist turf and
sprouting leaves, wet flagstones and blowing
fruit-blossoms, the heady brew of early morning
in the early year assailed Caroline's quivering
nostrils and intoxicated her soul.
"Oh, Katy, don't it smeU grand!" she cried.
Katy wrung the soapy cloth and attacked the
upper sash.
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 5
" You've got the nose of a bloodhound," she
observed. " I b'lieve you'd smell molasses cookies
half a mile."
Caroline sighed.
I didn't mean them," she said. " I meant
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You'd better be at your lesson; your aunty'll
be here in a minute if she hears you talking, now!"
Katy was severe, but fundamentally friendly.
Caroline groaned and applied herself.
" Bounded 'n th' south by Long Island Sound;
bounded 'n th' south by Long Island Sound;
bounded 'n th' south oh, look!"
Up the neat flagged path of the side yard a
spotted fox-terrier approached, delicately erect
upon his hind legs, his mouth spread in cheerful
smiles, his ears cocked becomingly. He paused,
he waved a salute, and as a shrill whistle from
behind struck up a popular tune, he waltzed
accurately up to the side porch and back, retaining
to the last note his pleased if painstaking smile.
Caroline gasped delightedly; Katy's severity
relaxed.
" That's a mighty cute little dog," she admitted.
6 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Another shrill whistle, and the dog returned,
limping on three legs, his ears drooping, his stumpy
tail dejected. He paused in the middle of the
walk, and at a sharp clap, as of two hands, he
dropped limply on his side, rolled to his back, and
stiffened there pathetically, his eyes closed.
Caroline's chin quivered; Katy's position on
the ladder was frankly that of one who has paid
for an orchestra-chair; Maggie had left the
cookies and stood grinning in the kitchen door;
an aunt appeared in an upper window.
One more clap, and the actor returned to life
and left them, but only for a moment. He was
back again, erect and smiling, a small wicker
basket balanced on his paws. Marching sedately
up to Maggie, he paused, and glanced politely
down at the basket, then up at her.
Flesh and blood could not resist him. Has-
tily tugging out from her petticoat a bulging
pocket-book, she deposited a dime in the basket;
the aunt, with extraordinary accuracy, dropped
a five-cent piece from the window; Katy mourned
her distance from her own financial center, and
Caroline ran for her bank. It was a practical
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 7
mechanism, the top falling off at her onslaught
with the ease of frequent exercise, and she
returned in time to slip six pennies under the
two hot cookies that Maggie had added to her
first contribution. At each tribute the terrier
barked twice politely, and only when there
was no more to be hoped for did he trot off
around the corner of the house, the cookies
swaying at a perilous angle under his quivering
nostrils.
A moment later a tall young man stepped
across the grass and lifted a worn polo-cap from
a reddish-yellow head.
" Much obliged, all," he said, with an awkward
little bow. " Good day!"
He turned, whistled to the terrier, and was
going on, when he caught the heartfelt admiration
of Caroline's glance.
"Want to pat him?" he inquired.
She nodded and approached them.
"Shake hands with the lady, William Thayer,
and tell her how d'you do," he commanded, as
she knelt beside the wonderful creature.
The terrier offered a cool, tremulous paw,
8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
and barked with cheerful interrogation as she
shook it rapturously.
" Those were fine cookies," said the young man.
" I had 'em for breakfast. I'm going to buy a
bone for William Thayer, and then he'll have
some, too."
"Was that all you had?'" she inquired, horror-
stricken. He nodded. " But I'll make it up on
dinner," he added lightly.
Caroline sprang to her feet.
" You go over there behind that barn and wait
a minute," she commanded.
The young man he was only a boy blushed
under his tan and bit his lip.
" I didn't mean I'll get along all right; you
needn't bother," he muttered, conscious of Katy's
suspicious eye.
"Oh, do! Please do!" she entreated. "I'll
be out there in just a minute; hurry up, before
Maggie gets through those cookies!"
He turned toward the barn, and Caroline
ran back to the house.
" Is that man gone? What are you doing,
Caroline?" called the invisible voice.
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 9
" Yes, he's gone. I was patting the dog,"
she answered boldly, stepping through the din-
ing-room into the pantry and glancing has j
tily about. Only a plate of rolls was in sight;
the place was ostentatiously clean and orderly.
She sighed and pushed through the swinging
door; the refrigerator was a more delicate affair.
But Maggie's broad back was bent over her oven-
ful, and Caroline clicked the door-knob un-
challenged.
Two chops sat sociably on a large plate; a
little mound of spinach rested on one side of
them, a huge baked potato on the other. She
slid the plate softly from the metal shelf, peep-
ing apprehensively at Maggie, tumbled the rolls
on to the top, and sped into the dining-room.
From a drawer in the sideboard she abstracted
a silver fork which she slipped into her pocket,
adding, after a moment of consideration, a salt-
shaker. Stepping to the door, she paused on
the little porch for a hasty survey. The coast
seemed clear, and she sped across the yard, the
silver jingling in her pocket. She was safe from
the back, but a flank movement on Maggie's
io WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
part would have been most disastrous, and it
was with full appreciation of the audacity of
her performance that she scudded around the
barn and gained the cherry-tree behind it.
The young man was sitting on the grass,
his head against the tree; his eyes brightened
as she approached.
" Have any luck?" he inquired.
She held out the plate, and, as he took it,
fumbled in her pocket for the fork.
"It's all cold," she murmured apologetically,
"but I knew Maggie' d never warm it. Do you
mind?"
"Not a bit," he answered, with a whimiscal
glance at her eagerness to serve him. " I always
did like greens," he added, as he accepted the
fork and attacked the spinach.
" Here, William Thayer!"
He handed one of the chops to the dog, and
stared as Caroline drew out the salt-cellar.
"Did you well, by that's pretty kind,
now!"
'Potatoes are so nasty without it," she ex-
plained.
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD n
" Yes, that's why I don't us'ally eat 'em," he
replied.
There was a moment's silence, while he ate
with the frank morning appetite of twenty, and
Caroline watched him, her sympathetic jaws
moving with his, her eyes shining with hospitality.
" Nice place you've got here," he suggested,
breaking a roll.
"Yes. I wish I'd brought you some butter,
but I didn't dare cut any off; it was in a jar, and
it clatters so. (" Oh, that's all right!") This
is nicer than it used to be out here. It was the
chicken-yard, and ashes and things got put here;
but nobody keeps chickens any more, and this
is all new grass. They took down the back part
of the barn, too, and painted it, and now it's
the stables, or you can say carriage-house," she
explained instructively.
He threw his chop-bone to William Thayer
and drew a long breath.
"That was pretty good," he said, "and I'm
much obliged to you, Miss." Caroline swelled
with importance at the title. "I must have
walked four or five miles, and it's not such fun
12 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
with an empty stomach. I came from Deep-
dale."
"Oh, how lovely!" cried she. "By the
pond?"
" Yes, by the pond. I gave William Thayer
a swim, and I had a little nap. It's nice and
pretty all around there. I cut some sassafras
root; want some?"
He felt in his pockets, and produced a brown,
aromatic stump; Caroline sucked at it with a
relish.
"Where are you going now?" she asked re-
spectfully, patting William Thayer's back while
his master caressed his ear.
" Oh, I don't know exactly. There's some
nice woods back of the town; I think I'll look
'em through, and then go on to New Derby. I
read in the paper about some kind of a firemen's
parade there to-morrow, and if there's a lot of
people, we'll earn something. We haven't made
much lately, because William Thayer hurt his
leg, and I've been sparing of him haven't I,
pup? But he's all right now."
He squeezed the dog's body and tickled him
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 13
knowingly; the little fellow grinned widely and
barked. Caroline sighed.
" It must be grand," she said wistfully, " to
walk from one town to another, that way.
Where do you sleep?"
" In barns, sometimes, and there's lots of cov-
ered wagons all around the farm-houses, out-
side the towns, you know. A church shed's as
good a place as any. I don't like the towns as
big as this, though; I like the country this time
o' year."
Caroline nodded comprehendingly, breathing
deep breaths of the fresh, earth-scented air.
" I wish there never were any houses in the
world nor any schools, either!'' she cried.
He smiled. " I never was much for schools,
myself," he said. "They don't smell good."
Caroline looked at him solemnly. She felt
that the resolution of her life was taken. In
one ecstatic flash she beheld her future.
"I shall never go to school again," she announced.
"I shall " A wave of joyous possibility broke
over her, but modesty tied her tongue.
"Could I would you I'm a real good walker!"
i 4 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
she burst out, and blushed furiously. Who was
she to associate with a dog like William Thayer?
The young man looked curiously at her. A
kind of anxiety clouded his frank gray eyes.
"Oh, you mustn't talk like that," he urged,
laying one brown hand on her apron. "That
wouldn't do for a young lady like you. I guess
you better go to school. Girls, you know!"
He waited a moment, but she scowled silently.
He began again:
"I guess it's different with girls, anyway.
You see, you have to get your education. A
young lady "
"I'm not a young lady," snapped Caroline.
"I'm only ten 'n' a quarter!' 1
"Well, anyway, it isn't respectable," he ar-
gued hastily. Caroline opened her eyes wide
at him.
"Aren't you respectable?' 1 she demanded,
appraising unconsciously his clothes, which were,
if not fine, at least clean and whole, his flannel
shirt finished with a neat blue tie, his shoes
no dustier than the country roads accounted
for.
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 15
He flushed under his thick freckles, and plucked
at the grass nervously.
" N-n yes, I am!" he shouted defiantly. " I
know lots of people don't think so, but I am!
We earn our way, William Thayer an' me, an'
we don't want much. I don't see as we do any
harm. It don't take much to live, anyhow; it's
coal-scuttles an' lookin'-glasses an' an' carpets
that cost money. And if you don't want them
oh, what's the use talking? I never could live
all tied up."
"Caroline! Caroline!' 1 A loud voice cut across
her meditative silence. She shrugged her shoul-
ders stubbornly and put her finger on her lip.
The boy shook his head.
"You better go," he said soothingly. "You'll
have to sometime, you know. Here, take these,"
as she jumped up, forgetting the fork and the
salt-shaker. "Be sure to put 'em back where
you got 'em, won't you?"
"Oh, leave 'em here. I'll come back," she
said carelessly, but the boy insisted.
"No, you take 'em right now," he commanded.
"I wouldn't want any mistake made."
16 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
"Just wait a minute I'll come back," she
repeated, as the call sounded again.
"Caroline! where are you?"
The boy stood up, holding out the silver. "You
you don't want 'em to say I I took s em?' :
he blurted out.
Her eyes opened wide; she looked all the
incredulous horror she felt.
"Steal?" she cried, "with a dog like
that?"
He nodded. "That's the way I look at it,
but some don't," he said shortly. "You better
go now. Much obliged for the breakfast. If
I come back this way, maybe I'll stop in again,
if you'd like to see W T illiam Thayer."
"I think she went across behind the stable,
Miss Carrie," Katy called helpfully.
Caroline thrust the silver into her pocket and
turned to go.
"I'm coming!" she cried desperately, and,
patting William Thayer, she took a few back-
ward steps.
"There's a nice brook in those woods," she
observed irrelevantly, "if you should want to
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 17
take another nap," and, turning her back
resolutely, she rounded the barn and disap-
peared.
The boy picked up the empty plate and slipped
it into a door at the back of the stable. Then,
lifting the dog over the nearest fence, he climbed
it and stepped through the next yard into the
street.
" That was a mighty nice little girl, William
Thayer," he said thoughtfully. " She seemed to
understand a lot, for such a little one."
Caroline stalked aggressively into the dining-
room, and finding it for the moment empty,
hastily replaced the salt-shaker. The fork she
laid in the pantry. Hardly was her pocket clear
of the telltale stuff when her aunt appeared
before her.
" I suppose you know you're late for shcool,
Caroline," she began, with evident self-control.
" If you think I am going to write you an excuse,
you are very much mistaken."
" All right," Caroline returned laconically. " Is
my lunch ready?"
It was nothing in the world but that dog;
tc
i8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
I cannot understand the fascination that tramps
and loafers have for you! You never got it from
this family. Why do you like to talk to dirty
tramps! Some day a strange dog will bite you.
Then you'll be sorry!"
" He wasn't a bit dirty. If you weren't so
afraid of dogs, you'd know William Thayer
wouldn't bite!" she retorted indignantly. " I
think I might have three cookies those are
nasty little thin ones. And you never put
enough butter."
Caroline and her namesake-aunt were as oil
and water in their social intercourse.
" Now, that's another thing. I cannot see
where you put all the food you eat! You get
more than the boys, a great deal. And boys
are supposed not that any one grudges it to
you, child, but really "
' I'm getting later all the time," Caroline re-
marked impartially. " You needn't cut the crusts
off; I like 'em."
Her aunt sighed, and handed her the lunch-
basket; a fringe of red-and- white napkin dan-
gled invitingly from the corner.
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 19
" Now run along; what are you going in there
for?"
" My jography."
She stood for a moment looking out at the flag-
stone where William Thayer had waltzed so
seductively, then strolled slowly out, along the
porch and by the house. The lilies-of -the- valley
were white in the sidebeds; their odor, blown
to her on quick puffs of west wind, filled her with
a sort of pleasant sadness, the mingled sorrow
and delight of each new spring. She bent her
strong little legs and squatted down among them,
sniffing ecastatically. What was it she was
trying to remember? Had it ever happened?
Years ago, when she was very little
" Caroline! are you trying purposely to be
naughty! It is twenty minutes past nine!"
She muttered impatiently, stamped her foot
deliberately upon the lilies, and ran out of the
yard.
It will never be known what Caroline's defi-
nite intentions were on that morning. It is not
improbable that she meant to go to school. She
undoubtedly walked to the building devoted to
2 o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
the instruction of her generation and began to
mount the steps. What power weighted her
lagging feet and finally dragged her to a sitting
position on the top step, she could not have told;
but certain it is that for ten minutes she sat
upon the text-book of geography, thoughtfully
interposed between her person and the cold stone,
her chin in her hand, her eyes fixed and vague.
Behind her a chorus of voices arose in the melody
that accompanied a peculiarly tedious system
of gymnastics; she scowled unconsciously. Before
her, clear to the inward vision, lay a pleasant
little pond, set in a ring of new grass. Clear lay
the pebbles and roots at the bottom; clear was
the reflection of the feathering trees about it;
clear shone the eyes of William Thayer as he
joyously swam for sticks across it. Great patches
of sun warmed the grass and cheered the hearts
of two happy wanderers, who fortified themselves
from a lunch-basket padded with a red-fringed
napkin. Happy yellow dandelions were spotted
about, and the birds chirped unceasingly; the
wind puffed the whole spring into their eager
nostrils. Truly a pleasant picture! As in a dream,
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 21
Caroline walked softly down the steps and toward
the north.
For ten minutes she kept steadily on, looking
neither to the right nor to the left, when the
rattle of a particularly noisy wagon attracted her
attention. She caught the eye of the driver;
it was the egg-and-chicken man. He nodded
cheerfully.
"Hello, there!" said he.
" Hello!'* Caroline returned. "You going
home?"
" Sure," said the egg-and-chicken man. " Want
a ride?"
Caroline wasted no breath in words, but clam-
bered up to the seat beside him.
" Startin' out early, ain't you?" he queried.
" Coin' far up my way?"
"Pretty far," she answered cautiously, "but
not so very."
"Oh!" said he, impressed by such diplomacy.
" 'Bout where, now?"
"Have you sold many eggs this morning?' 1
she inquired with amiable interest.
"Twenty-three dozen, an' seven pair o*
22 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
broilers," he informed her. " Goin' as far as
my place?"
" I s'pose it's pretty cold as early as you get
up," Caroline suggested pleasantly.
The egg-and-chicken man surrendered. " Mid-
dling," he answered respectfully, " but it smells
so good and things looks so pretty, I don't mind.
I'm glad I don't live in the city. It's all pavin'-
stone an' smoke. This time o' year I like to
feel the dirt under m' feet, somehow."
" So do I," said Caroline fervently. They
jogged on for a mile in silence.
" I have to get out here," said he, finally, " but
don't be scared. That horse won't move a peg
without me. I'll be back in a minute."
But when he returned she was not there.
The houses were thinning out rapidly; one
side of the road was already only a succession
of fields, and along a tiny worn path through
one of these Caroline was hurrying nervously.
She crossed the widening brook, almost a little
river now, and kept along its farther bank for
half an hour, then left it and struck into the fringe
of the woods.
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 23
It was very still here; the road was far away,
and only the chatter of the birds and the liquid
cluck of the little stream disturbed the stillness
of the growing things. She walked softly, ex-
cept for the whisper of brushing against the
spreading branches that choked the tiny path.
The heat of noon was rising to its climax, and
the shafts of light struck warm on her cheeks.
Suddenly a sound disturbed the peace of the
woods a scratching, rattling, scurrying sound.
Something was moving through the dead leaves
that had gathered among the roots and trunks.
She started back nervously, but jumped forward
again with a cry of delight, and caught William
Thayer in her arms.
Even as he was licking her cheek, the path
widened, the trees turned into bushes, the under-
brush melted away, and the brook, a little river
now, bent in upon them in a broad curve, spanned
only by stepping-stones. It ran full between
its grassy banks, gurgling and chuckling as it
lapped the stones, a mirror for the fat white clouds
where it lay in still pools.
In the shelter of a boulder, a lad crouched
24 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
over a fire, coaxing it with bits of paper and
handfuls of dry leaves. Just as the flames shot
up, the dog barked cheerily, and the lad turned
to welcome him. His eye fell on Caroline; amaze-
ment and real pleasure grew into a delighted
laugh.
" Well, if you don't beat the Dutch!" he cried.
" How'd you get here?"
" I came in the wagon with the egg-and-chicken
man," said she happily, " and then I walked
'cross lots. William Thayer knew me just as
well!"
" 'Course he did. He always knows his friends.
Now, see here. You can stay and watch this
fire, an' I'll go over there a ways where those
men are buildin' a fence; I'll bet they'll give
us something. You look after the fire an* put
on these old pieces of rail; it was hard work
gettin' dry stuff to-day. We won't be long."
They disappeared between the trees, and
Caroline sat in proud responsibility before the
delightful little fire. The minutes slipped by;
from time to time she fed the blaze with bits
of bent twigs, and at the proper moment, with
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 25
a thrill of anxiety, she laid two pieces of the old
fence-rail crosswise on the top. There was a
second of doubt, and then they broke into little
sharp tongues of flame. With a sigh of pleasure,
she turned from this success, and, opening the
lunch-basket, laid the napkin on the ground and
methodically arranged four sandwiches, two cook-
ies, and an orange on it. Then, with her fat
legs crossed before her, she waited in silence.
Between the sun at her back and the fire on her
face, she grew pleasantly drowsy; the sounds
about her melted imperceptibly to a soft, rhythmic
drone; her head drooped forward. . . .
" Hello, hello!"
She jumped and stared at the boy and the
dog. For a moment she forgot. Then she
welcomed them heartily and listened proudly
to his admiring reception of her prepara-
tions.
" Well, William Thayer, will you look at that!
How's this for a surprise? And see what we've
got." He balanced a tin pail carefully between
the two crossed sticks in the heart of the fire,
and unfolded from a newspaper two wedges of
26 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
pumpkin-pie. In William Thayer's little basket
was a large piece of cheese.
" It's coffee 'n milk mixed together; they had
bottles of it," he explained. " William Thayer
'11 take back the pail. Are you hungry?"
Caroline nodded.
' Awful," she stated briefly.
"Well, then," he said with satisfaction, "let's
begin."
Caroline attacked a sandwich, with shining
eyes, and when in another minute the boy took
from his pocket a tin ring that slipped miracu-
lously out of itself into a jointed cup, and dipped
her a mug of hot coffee from the bubbling pail, she
realized with a pang of joy that this was, beyond
any question, the master moment of her life.
" I take this along," he explained, " so's when
I go by, and they're milking, I can have some
warm. Anybody'd give me all I want if William
Thayer dances and drops dead for 'em. It tastes
good early in the morning, I tell you."
She sighed with pleasure. To drink warm
milk in the cool, early dawn, with the cows
about you, and the long, sweet day free before!
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 27
They sipped turn about; the boy divided the
orange mathematically; the pie was filled with
fruit of the Hesperides.
" That was mighty good, that dinner," he
announced luxuriously, " an' now I'll have a
pipe."
The pungent, fresh odor of the burning tobacco
was sweet in the air; a dreamy content held them
quiet.
He did not ask her whence or whither; she
had no apologies or regrets. Two vagabonds
from every law of home and duty, they were
as peaceful and unthoughtful of yesterday's
bed and to-morrow's meal as William Thayer,
who slept in the sun at their feet.
For long they did not talk. An unspoken
comprehension, an essential comradeship, filled
the deep spaces of silence that frighten and
irritate those whom only custom has associated;
and Caroline, flat on her filled stomach, her nose
in the grass, was close in thought and vague
well-being to the boy who puffed blue rings toward
the little river, his head on his arms.
" I put the plate into that door in the barn,"
28 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
he said, finally. " Did you put those silver things
back?"
Caroline grunted assent.
" But they wouldn't think that you what
you said," she assured him earnestly. " It's
only tramps they're afraid of."
He glanced quickly over at her, but she was
utterly innocent.
" One came to the kitchen once, and asked
Mary for some hot tea or coffee, and she hadn't
any, but she said if he was very hungry she'd
give him a piece of bread and butter, and he
said to go to hell with her bread and butter. So
she doesn't like them."
The boy gasped.
" You oughtn't to had you that isn't just
right for you to say, is it?'' he asked awk-
wardly.
"What hell?" Caroline inquired placidly.
" No, I s'pose not. Nor damn nor devil, either.
But, of course, I know 'em. Those are the only
three I know. I guess they're about the worst,
though," she added with pardonable pride. " My
cousin, the Captain, knows some more. He's
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 29
twelve 'n a half. But he won't tell 'em to me.
He says boys always know more than girls. I
suppose," respectfully, "you know more than
those three, yourself?"
Her companion coughed.
" A boy " he began, then paused, confronted
with her round, trustful eyes.
" A boy " he started again, and again he
paused.
"Oh, well, a boy's different," he blurted,
finally.
Caroline nodded humbly.
" Yes, I know," she murmured.
There was silence for a while. The river slipped
liquidly over the stones, the white clouds raced
along the blue above them, the boy smoked.
At length he burst out with:
" You're all right, now! You're just a regular
little chum, aren't you?"
She blushed with pleasure.
" I never had anybody along with me," he
went on dreamily. " I always go alone. I I
didn't know how nice it was. I had a chum once,
but he he "
3 o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
The boy's voice trembled. Caroline's face
clouded with sympathy.
" Did he die?" she ventured.
" No," he said, shortly; " no, he didn't die.
He's alive. He couldn't stand my ways. I
tried to stay in school and and all that, but
soon as spring came I had to be off. So the last
time, he told me we had to part, him and
me."
"What was his name?" she asked gently.
The boy jerked his head toward the
dog.
" ThaPs his name," he said, " William Thayer."
A little frown gathered on Caroline's smooth
forehead; she felt instinctively the cloud on all
this happy wandering. The spring had beckoned,
and he had followed, helpless at the call, but
something what and how much? tugged at
his heart; its shadow dimmed the blue of the
April sky.
He shrugged his shoulders with a sigh; the
smile came again into his gray eyes and wrinkled
his freckled face.
" Oh, well, let's be jolly," he cried, with a
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 31
humorous wink. " The winter's comin' soon
enough!" and he burst into a song:
" There was a frog lived in a well,
Kitty alone, Kitty alone;
There was a frog lived in a well;
Kitty alone and I !"
His voice was a sweet, reedy tenor; the quaint
old melody delighted Caroline.
"This frog he would a- wooing ride,
Kitty alone, Kitty alone.
She began to catch the air, and nodded to the
time with her chin.
"Cock me cary, Kitty alone,
Kitty alone and I!"
The boy lifted his polo-cap in a courtly manner,
and began with grimaces and bows to act out
the song. His audience swayed responsive to
his every gesture, nodding and beaming.
"Quoth he, ' Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee'
Kitty alone, Kitty alone;
Quoth he, ' Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee,
To see if thou canst fancy me.'
Cock me cary, Kitty alone,
Kitty alone and I!"
32 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Caroline swung her hat by its ribbons and
shrilled the refrain, intoxicated with freedom
and melody:
"Cock me cary, Kitty alone,
Kitty alone and I!"
She drummed with her heels on the ground,
the boy waved his cap, and William Thayer
rolled over and over, barking loudly for the
chorus. Suddenly the boy jumped up, pulled
her to her feet, and with grotesque, skipping
steps pirouetted around the dying fire. The
dog waltzed wildly on his hind legs; Caroline's
short petticoats stood straight out around her
as she whirled and jumped, a Bacchante in a
frilled pinafore. The little glade rang to their
shouting:
"Kitty alone and I!"
He darted suddenly through an opening in
the bushes, William Thayer close behind, Caro-
line panting and singing as she gave chase.
Through a field, across a little bridge they dashed.
He flung the empty coffee-pail at an astonished
group of men, who stopped their work, their
fence-posts in hand, to stare at the mad trio.
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 33
Breathless at last, they flung themselves on a
bank by the road and smiled at each other. Caro-
line laughed aloud, even, in sheer, irresponsible
light-headedness, but over the boy's face a little
shadow grew.
" It won't seem so nice alone after this, will
it, William Thayer?" he said, slowly.
Caroline stared.
"But but I'm coming! I'll be there," she
cried. " I'm coming with you!"
He went on as if he had not heard.
" Who'll there be to eat our dinner with us
to-morrow, W r illiam Thayer? ' he questioned
whimsically.
Caroline moved nearer and put her hand on
his knee.
" There'll be won't there be me?" she begged.
He shook his head.
" I guess not," he said bluntly.
Her eyes filled with tears.
" But but you said I was a a regular little
chum," she whispered. " Don't you like
me?"
He was silent:
34 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Don't you? Oh, don't you?" she pleaded.
" I don't need much to eat, really! '
The lad looked at her with a strange longing.
The fatherhood that lives in every boy thrilled
at the touch of her fat little hand on his knee;
the comradely glow in her round brown eyes
warmed his restless, lonely heart. He shook
her off almost roughly.
" I guess they'd miss you more'n that salt-
shaker," he said grimly. " I wish I could take
you with me honest, I do. But you better
stay home and go to school. You don't want
to grow up ignorant, and have your folks ashamed
of you."
" But you you aren't ignorant!" she urged
warmly, her admiration shining in her eyes.
He blushed and kicked nervously at the grass.
" I am," he said angrily. " I am, too. Oh,
dear, I wish I wish "
They looked at each other, troubled and un-
certain.
" You're a girl," he began again, " and girls
can't; they just can't. They have to stay with
their folks and keep nice. It's too bad, but
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 35
that's the way it is. You'd want to see 'em, too.
You'd miss 'em nights."
Caroline winced, but could not deny. " Oh,"
she cried passionately, " why do girls have to
do all the missing? It's just what that Simms
boy says; * If I couldn't be a boy, I'd rather be
a dog! ' "
" There, there," he said soothingly, "just think
about it. You'll see. And you're not exactly
like a girl, anyhow. You're too nice."
He patted her shoulder softly, and they lay
quietly against the bank. Her breathing grew
slow and regular; raising himself cautiously on
one elbow, he saw that she had fallen asleep, her
arm about William Thayer, her dusty boots
pathetically crossed. He watched her tenderly,
with frequent glances up and down the road.
Presently an irregular beat of hoofs sounded
around a bend, and a clattering wagon drew
steadily nearer.
The egg-and-chicken man jumped out and
strode angrily toward the little group.
" I've caught you, have I, you young "
" 'Sh!"
36 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
The boy put up a warning hand.
" She's fast asleep," he whispered. " Are you
goin' to take her home?"
The man stared.
" Oh, I'm no child-stealer," said the boy lightly.
" Here, just lift her soft with me, and I'll bet
we can put her in without waking her up at all."
Without a word, the man slipped his hands
under Caroline's shoulders, the boy lifted her
dusty boots, and gently unloosing her arm from
the dog, they carried her lax little body carefully
to the wagon and laid her on the clean straw in
the bottom, her head on a folded coat. She
stirred and half opened her eyes, murmured
broken words, and sank yet deeper into her dream.
The man pointed to a book on the seat.
" That's her lesson-book," he whispered hoarsely.
It was the despised geography.
" Her folks think a heap of her, I tell you,"
he added, still eying the boy uncertainly. " She's
about as bright as they make 'em, I guess."
" I guess she is," said the lad simply. " She'd
ought to have been a boy. She'd have made a
fine one."
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 37
The man's face cleared.
" Do do you want a job?" he said abruptly.
"We're short up at my place, and I wouldn't
mind the dog. I remember you, now. You
caught a chicken for me once; my wife gave you
a hot supper."
The boy smiled faintly and shook his head.
" I remember," he said. " No, I don't believe
I want any job, thank you. I I'm sort of I
have to keep along."
" Keep along? Where?"
He waved his hand vaguely.
" Oh, just along," he repeated. " This year,
anyhow. Maybe well, good-by. Her folks might
be gettin' anxious."
He stepped up to the cart and looked once
more at the flushed cheeks and brown hands,
then strode off up the road.
The egg-and-chicken man gathered up the
reins and the wagon started. Caroline scowled
a little at the motion, but slept on. The boy
whistled to the dog.
"Come on, William Thayer," he said. "I
guess it's just you and me now."
n
A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL
CAROLINE, Miss Honey, and the General
were taking the morning air. Caroline
walked ahead, her chin well up, her nose
sniffing pleasurably the unaccustomed asphalt,
the fresh damp of the river and the watered
bridle path. The starched ties at the back of
her white pinafore fairly took the breeze, as she
swung along to the thrilling clangor of the mon-
ster hurdy-gurdy. Miss Honey, urban and blast,
balanced herself with dignity upon her roller-
skates and watched with patronizing interest
the mysterious jumping of young persons with
whom she was unacquainted through compli-
cated diagrams chalked on the pavement.
The General sucked a clothespin meditatively:
his eyes were fixed on something beyond his
immediate surroundings. Occasionally a ravish-
ing smile swept up from the dimples at his mouth
38
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 39
to the yellow rings beneath his cap frill; he flapped
his hands, emitting soft, vague sounds. At such
times a wake of admiration bubbled behind him.
Delia, who propelled his carriage, which resembled
a victoria except for the rearward position of its
motor power, pursed her lips consciously and
affected not to hear the enraptured comments
of the women who passed them.
To the left the trees, set in a smooth green
carpet, threw out tiny, polished, early May
leaves; graceful, white-coated children dotted
the long park. Beyond them the broad blue
river twinkled in the sun, the tugs and barges
glided down, the yachts strained their white
sails against the purple bluffs of the Palisades.
To the right towered the long, unbroken rows
of brick and stone: story on story of shining
windows, draped and muffled in silk and lace;
flight after flight of clean granite steps; polite,
impersonal, hostile as the monuments in a grave-
yard.
Immobile ladies glided by on the great pleasure
drive like large tinted statues; dressed altogether
as the colored pictures in fashion books, holding
40 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
white curly dogs in their curved arms; the
coachmen in front of them seemed carved in
plum-colored broadcloth; only by watching the
groom's eyelids could one ascertain that they
were flesh and blood. Young girls, two, three,
and four, cantered by; their linen habits rose
and fell decorously, their hair was smooth.
Mounted policemen, glorious in buttons, breath-
ing out authority, curvetted past, and every-
where and always the chug-chug-chug of the
gleaming, fierce-eyed motor cars rilled one's ears.
They darted past, flaming scarlet, sombre olive
and livid white; a crouching, masked figure,
intent at the wheel, veiled, shapeless women
behind a whirr of dust to show where they had
been a breath before.
And everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, a
thin stream of white and pink and blue, a tumbling
river of curls and caps and bare legs, were the
children. A babble of shrill cries, of chattering
laughter, of fretful screams, an undercurrent of
remonstrance, of soothing patience, of angry
threatening, marked their slow progress up and
down the walk; in the clear spaces of the little
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 41
park they trotted freely after hoops and balls,
rolled and ran over the green, and hid, shouting,
behind the bushes. It was a giant nursery,
and the mere man who trespassed on its borders
smiled deprecatingly, and steered a careful
course among the parasols and tricycles, stoop-
ing now and then to rescue some startled
adventurer, sprawling from the disgusted
shock of encounter with this large and rapidly
moving object.
To Caroline, fresh from untrammeled sporting,
through neighborly suburban yards, this disciplined
procession, under the escort of Delia and the Gen-
eral, was fascinating to a degree. Far from resent-
ing the authority she would have scorned at home,
she derived an intense satisfaction from it, and
pranced ostentatiously beside the perambulator,
mimicking Miss Honey's unconscious deference to
a higher power in the matter of suitable crossings
and preferred playfellows with the absorbed gravity
of the artist.
" See! General, see the wobbly bubble," Delia
murmured affectionately. "(Will you see that
child turn his head just like a grown person?
42 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Did you ever see anything as smart as that?)
Did he like the red one best? So does Delia.
We'll come over here, and then you won't get the
sun in your precious eyes. Do you want me to
push you frontwards, so you can see me? (Watch
him look at me he knows what I mean just
as well, the rascal!) Just wait till we get across,
and I will. Look out, Miss Honey! Take hold
of your cousin's hand and run across together,
now, like good girls."
Miss Honey made an obedient snatch at Caro-
line's apron strings, and darted forward with a
long roll of her skates. The road was clear for
a block. Delia, with a quick glance to left and
right, lowered the perambulator to the road-
level and forged ahead. Caroline, nose in air,
studied the nearest policeman curiously.
" Look out, there! Look out!"
A man's voice like a pistol shot crashed behind
them. Caroline heard quick steps and a woman's
scream, looked up at the huge, blood-red bulk
of an automobile that swooped around the corner
and dashed forward. But Miss Honey's hand
was clutching her apron string, and Miss Honey's
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 43
weight as she fell, tangled in the skates, dragged
her down. Caroline, toppling, caught in one
dizzy backward glance a vision of a face in the
automobile staring down on her, white as chalk,
under a black moustache and staring goggles,
and another face, Delia's, white too, with eyes
more strained and terrible than the goggles them-
selves. One second that look swept her and
Miss Honey, and then, shifting, fell upon the
General strapped securely into his carriage. Even
as Caroline caught her breath, he flew by her like
an arrow, his blue eyes round with surprise under
a whirl of white parasol, the wicker body of the
perambulator swaying and lurching. With that
breath still in her nostrils, she was pushed violently
against Miss Honey, who was dragged over her
from the other side by a large hairy hand. A
sharp blow from her boot heel struck Caroline's
cheek, and she screamed with the pain; but her
cry was lost in the louder one that echoed around
her as the dust from the red monster blew in her
eyes and shut out Delia's figure, flat on the ground,
one arm over her face as the car rushed by.
" My God! She's down!" That was the man.
44 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Take his number!" a shrill voice pierced the
growing confusion.
Caroline, crying with pain, was forced to her
feet and stumbled along, one apron string twisted
fast in Miss Honey's hand. Instantly they were
surrounded by a crowd of nurses, and Miss Honey,
dazed and obedient, was shoved and pulled from
one to another.
" Here, get out o' this don't let the children
see anything! Let's get home."
" No, wait a minute. Let's see if she's alive,
Have they got the ambulance?"
" Look out, there, Miss Dorothy, you just stop
by me, or you'll be run over, too!"
" See! She's moving her head! Maybe she's
not"
Sobbing with excitement, Caroline wrenched
herself free from the tangle of nurses and carriages,
and pushed her way through the crowd. Against
the curb, puffing and grinding, stood the great
red engine; on the front seat a tall policeman sat,
one woman in the back leaned over another,
limp against the high cushions, and fanned her
with the stiff vizor of her leather cap.
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 45
" It's all right, dear, it's all right," she repeated
monotonously, with set lips, "the doctor's com-
ing. It wasn't Pullton's fault. It's all right."
Caroline wriggled between two policemen, and
made for a striped blue and white skirt that lay
motionless on the ground. Across the white
apron ran a broad dirty smudge.
Caroline ran forward.
" Delia! Delia!" she gulped. " Is she is she
dead?"
A little man with eyeglasses looked up from
where he knelt beside the blue and white skirt.
" I don't believe so, my dear," he said briskly;
" is this your nurse? See, she's opening her
eyes, now speak to her gently."
As he shifted a leather-covered flask from one
hand to the other, Caroline saw a strange face with
drawn purplish lids when she had always known
two merry gray eyes, and tight thin lips she could
not believe Delia's. The head moved a little from
side to side, the lips parted slightly. A nervous
fear seized her and she turned to run away; but she
remembered suddenly how kind Delia had been to
her; how that very morning it seemed so long
46 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
now Delia had helped her with her stubby braids
of hair, and chided Miss Honey for laughing at her
ignorance of the customs of the park. She
gathered her courage together and crouched down
by the silent, terrifying figure.
' Hel hello, Delia!" she began jerkily, wincing
as the eyes opened and stared stupidly at the
ring of anxious faces. " How do you f-feel,
Delia?"
"Lean down," said the little man softly, "she
wants to say something."
Caroline leaned lower.
"General," Delia muttered. "Where's Gen-
eral?"
The little man frowned.
" Do you know what she means?" he asked.
Caroline patted her bruised cheek.
" Of course I do," she said shortly. " That's
the baby. Oh," as she remembered, "where is
the General?"
" Here here's the baby," called some one.
" Push over that carriage," and a woman breath-
ing heavily, crowded through the ring with the
general, pink and placid, under his parasol.
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 47
" Lift him out," said the little man, and as
the woman fumbled at the strap, he picked the
baby out neatly, and held him down by the girl
on the ground.
" Here's your baby, Delia," he said, with a
kind roughness in his voice. "Safe and sound
not a scratch! Can you sit up and take him?"
And then, while the standing crowd craned
their necks and even the steady procession mov-
ing in the way the police kept clear for them,
paused a moment to stare, while the little doctor
held his breath and the ambulance came clanging
up the street, Delia sat up as straight as the
mounted policeman beside her and held out her
arms.
" General, oh, General!" she cried, and buried
her face in his fat warm neck.
The men coughed, the women's faces twisted,
but the little doctor watched her intently.
" Move your leg," he said sharply. " Now
the other. Hurt you? Not at all?"
He turned to the young man in a white jacket,
who had jumped from the back of the ambulance.
I thought so," he said. " Though it didn't
<c
48 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
seem possible. I saw the thing go over her. Right
over her apron never touched her. Half an inch
more "
"Please, is Miss the other little girl is
she"
This was Delia's old voice, and Caroline smiled
happily at her.
" She's all right, Delia here she is!"
Miss Honey limped across on one roller skate,
pale, but conscious of her dramatic value, and the
crowd drew a long breath of relief.
" You are a very brave girl," said the doctor,
helping Delia to her feet and tucking the General,
who alternately growled and cooed at his clothes-
pin, into the perambulator. "You have un-
doubtedly saved the lives of all three of these
children, and their parents will appreciate it,
you may be sure. The way you sent that
baby wagon flying across the street . . . !
Well, any time you're out of a job, just come to
me, that's all. Dr. Gibbs, West Forty-ninth.
Can you walk now? How far do you have to
go?"
The crowd had melted like smoke. Only the
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 49
most curious and the idlest lingered and watched
the hysteria of the woman in the automobile,
who clutched her companion, weeping and laugh-
ing. The chauffeur sat stolid, but Caroline's
keen round eyes saw that he shook, from the
waist down, like a man in a chill.
" Yes, sir, I'm all right. It's not so very far."
But Delia leaned on the handle she pushed, and
the chug-chug of the great car sent the blood out
of her cheeks. The little doctor frowned.
" Look here," he said, " I'll teU you what you'll
do. You come down these steps with me, there
aren't but three of them, you see, and we'll just
step in here a moment. I don't know what house
it is, but I guess it'll be all right. Oh, yes, you
can take him out; he is safe, you know. Come
on, youngsters."
Before Delia could protest he had pressed
the button, and a man in livery was opening the
door.
''We've just escaped a nasty accident out
here," said the little doctor easily. " You were
probably looking out of the window? Yes.
Well, this young woman is a sort of a patient
5 o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
of mine Dr. Gibbs, West Forty-ninth Street
and though she's very plucky and perfectly un-
injured, I want her to rest a moment in the hall
here and have a drink of water, if your mis-
tress doesn't object. Just take up this card and
explain the circumstances, and" his hand went
into his pocket a moment "that's about all.
Sit down, my dear."
The man took in at a glance the neat uniform
of the nurse, the General's smart, if diminutive,
apparel, and the unmistakable though somewhat
ruffled exterior of Miss Honey.
" Very well, sir," he said politely, taking the
card. " It will be all right, sir, I'm sure. Thank
you, sir. Sit down, please. It will be all right.
I will tell Madame Nicola."
"Well, well, so this is Madame Nicola's!"
The little doctor looked around him apprecia-
tively, as the servant ran up the stairs.
" I wish I could stay with you, chickens, but
I'm late for an appointment as it is. I must
rush along. Now, mind you, stay here half an
hour, Delia, and sit down. You're no trouble
at all, and Madame Nicola knows who I am
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 51
if she remembers. I sprayed her throat once,
if I'm not mistaken she was on a tour, at Pitts-
burg. She'll take care of you." He opened
the door. " You're a good girl, you biggest one,"
he added, nodding at Caroline. " You do as
you're told. Good-bye."
The door shut, and Caroline, Miss Honey and
Delia looked at each other in a daze. Tears
filled Delia's eyes, but she controlled her voice,
and only said huskily, " Come here, Miss Honey,
and let me brush you off you look dreadful.
Let me take your handkerchief. Did it were
you are you hurt, dear?"
" No, but you pushed me awful hard, Delia,
and a nasty big man grabbed me and tore my
guimpe see! I wish you'd told me what you
were going to do," began Miss Honey irritably.
" And you gave me a big kick it was me he
grabbed look at my cheek!" Caroline's lips
began to twich; she felt hideously tired, suddenly.
" Children, children, don't quarrel. General,
darling, won't you sit still, please? You hurt
Delia's knees, and you feel so heavy. Oh, I wish
we were all home!"
52 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
The man in livery came down the stairs.
"Will you step up, Madame says, and she has
something for you up there. I'll take the
baby," as Delia's eyes measured the climb.
" Lord, I won't drop her I've got two o' my
own. 'Bout a year, isn't she?"
" He's a boy," panted Delia, as she rested her
weight on the rail, " and he's only eight months
last week," with a proud smile at the General's
massive proportions.
" Well, he is a buster, isn't he? Here is the nurse,
Madame, and the children. The doctor has gone."
Caroline stretched her eyes wide and abandoned
herself to a frank inspection of her surroundings.
For this she must be pardoned, as every square
inch of the dark, deep-colored room had been
taken bodily from Italian palaces of the most
unimpeachable Renaissance variety. With quick
intuition, she immediately recognized a back-
ground for many a tale of courts and kings hitherto
unpictured to herself, and smiled with pleasure
at the Princess who advanced, most royally clad
in long shell pink, lace-clouded draperies, to meet
them.
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 53
" You are the brave nurse my maid told me
about," said the Princess; " she saw it all. You
ought to be very proud of your quick wits. I
have some sherry for you, and you must lie down
a little and then I will send you home."
Delia blushed and sank into a high carved chair,
the General staring curiously about him. " It
wasn't anything at all," she said, awkwardly,
" if I could have a drink "
Caroline checked the Princess as she moved
toward a wonderful colored decanter with wee
sparkling tumblers like curved bits of rainbow
grouped about it.
" She means a drink of water," she explained
politely. " She only drinks water sometimes a
little tea, but most usu'lly water."
" The sherry will do her more good, I think," the
Princess returned, noticing Caroline for the first
time, apparently, her hand on the decanter.
At this point Miss Honey descended from a
throne of faded wine-colored velvet, and addressed
the Princess with her most impressive and explan-
atory manner.
" It won't do you any good at all to pour that
54 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
out," she began, with her curious little air of deliv-
ering a set address, prepared in private some time
before, " and I'll tell you why. Delia knew a
nurse once that drank some beer, and the baby got
burned, and she never would drink anything if you
gave her a million dollars. Besides, it makes her
sick."
The Princess looked amused and turned to a
maid who appeared at that moment with apron
strings rivalling Caroline's.
" Get me a glass of water, please," she said,
" and what may I give you milk, perhaps? I
don't know very well what children drink."
" Thank you, we'd like some water, too," Miss
Honey returned primly, " we had some soda-
water, strawberry, once to-day."
Caroline cocked her head to one side and tried
to remember what the lady's voice made her
*/
think of; she scowled in vain while Delia drank
her water and smiled her thanks at the maid.
Suddenly it came to her. It was not like a person
talking at all, it was like a person singing. Up
and down her voice traveled, loud and soft; it was
quite pleasant to hear it.
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 55
" Do you feel better now? I am very glad.
Bring in that reclining chair, Ellis, from my room;
these great seats are rather stiff," said the Prin-
cess, and Delia, protesting, was made comfortable
in a large curved lounging basket, with the Gen-
eral, contentedly putting his clothespin through
its paces, in her arm.
"How old is it?' : the Princess inquired, after
an interval of silence, during which Miss Honey
and Caroline regarded her with a placid interest,
and Delia stroked the General's hair, from which
she had taken the absurb lace cap.
" He's eight months, Madam, last week eight
months and ten days, really."
" That's not very old, now, is it?' 1 ' pursued the
lady. " I suppose they don't know very much,
do they, so young?"
" Indeed he does, though," Delia protested.
" You'll be surprised. Just watch him, now.
Look at Delia, darlin'; where's Delia?"
The General withdrew his lingering gaze from
the clothespin, and turned his blue eyes wonder-
ingly up to her. The corner of his mouth trembled,
widened, his eyelids crinkled, and then he smiled
56 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
delightfully, straight into the eyes of the nurse,
stretched up a wavering pink hand, and patted
her cheek. A soft, gurgling monosyllable, difficult
of classification but easy to interpret, escaped
him.
The Princess smiled appreciatively, and moved
with a stately, long step toward them.
" That was very pretty," she said, but Delia
did not hear her.
" My baby, my own baby!" she murmured
with a shiver, and hiding her face in the General's
neck she sobbed aloud.
Miss Honey, shocked and embarrassed, twisted
her feet nervously and looked at the inlaid floor.
Caroline shared these feelings, but though she
turned red, she spoke sturdily.
" I guess Delia feels bad," she suggested shyly,
"when she thinks about about what happened,
you know. She don't cry usu'lly."
The Princess smiled again, this time directly
at Caroline, who fairly blinked in the radiance.
With her long brown eyes still holding Caroline's
round ones, she patted Delia's shoulder kindly,
and both the children saw her chin tremble.
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 57
The General, smothered in that sudden hug,
whimpered a little and kicked out wildly with his
fat white-stockinged legs. Seen from the rear he
had the appearance of a neat, if excited, package,
unaccountably frilled about with embroidered
flannel. Delia straightened herself, dabbed apol-
ogetically at her eyes, and coughed.
" It's bottle-time," she announced in horror-
stricken tones, consulting a large nickel watch
hanging from her belt, under the apron. " It's
down in the carriage. Could I have a little
boiling water to heat it, if you please?"
"Assuredly," said the Princess. " Ellis, will
you get the the bottle from the baby's carriage
and some boiling water, please. Do you mix it
here?"
" Mix the food is all prepared, Madam."
Delia spoke with repressed scorn. " I only want
to heat it for him."
" Oh, in that case, Ellis, take it down and have
it heated, or," as the nurse half rose, " perhaps
you would feel better about it if you attended to
it yourself?"
" Yes, I think I will go down if you don't mind
58 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
when persons aren't used to 'em they're apt to
be a little careless, and I wouldn't have it break,
and him losing his three o'clock bottle, for the
world. You know how it is. . . ."
The Princess shook her head whimsically.
" But surely you will leave the baby," and she
moved toward them again. " I will hold it,"
with a half grimace at her own condescension.
" It seems so very good and cheerful I thought
they cried. Will it come to me?"
Delia loosened her arms, but tightened them
again as the little creature leaned forward to
catch at the swinging lace on the lady's gown.
" I I think I'll take baby with me. Thank
you just the same, and he'll go to any one yes,
indeed but I feel so sort of nervous, I think
I'd better take him. If anything should happen.
. . . Wave your hand good-bye now, General!"
The General flapped his arms violently, and
bestowed a toothless but affectionate grin upon
the wearer of the fascinating, swaying lace, before
he disappeared with the delighted Ellis in the
van.
cc
And can you buy all that devotion for twenty,
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 59
thirty, or is it forty dollars a month, I wonder?"
mused the Princess.
" Dear me," she added petulantly. " It really
makes one actually want to hold it! It seems a
jolly little rat they're not all like that, are they?
They howl, I'm sure."
Again Miss Honey took the floor.
" When babies are sick, or you don't treat them
right," she announced didactically, " they cry, but
not a well baby, Delia says. I " with conscious
pride " screamed night and day for two weeks!"
" Really! " observed the Princess. " That must
have been er trying for your family!"
" Worried to death!" Miss Honey rejoined airily,
with such an adult intonation that the Princess
started.
" The General, he just laughs all the time,"
Caroline volunteered, " unless you tease him,"
she added guiltily, " and then he squawks."
" Yes, indeed," Miss Honey bore witness,
jealous of the lady's flashing smile to Caroline,
* 6 my mother says I'm twice the trouble he is!"
The Princess laughed aloud. " You're all
trouble enough, I can well believe," she said care-
6o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
lessly, " though you particular three are certainly
amusing little duds for an afternoon. But for a
steady diet Pm afraid I'd get a bit tired
of you, eh?"
She tapped their cheeks lightly with a cool,
sweet-smelling finger. Miss Honey smiled un-
certainly, but Caroline edged away. There was
something about this beautiful tall lady she could
not understand, something that alternately attract-
ed and repelled. She was grown up, certainly;
her skirts, her size and her coiled hair proved that
conclusively, and the servants obeyed her without
question. But what was it? She was not like the
other grown up people one knew. One moment
she sparkled at you and the next moment she
forgot you. It was perfectly obvious that she
wanted the General only because Delia had not
wanted to relinquish him, which was not like
grown people; it was like yes, that was it: she
was like a little girl herself, even though she was
so tall and had such large red and blue rings on
her fingers.
Vaguely this rushed through Caroline's mind,
and it was with an unconscious air of patronage,
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 61
that she said, as one making allowances for inex-
perience, "When you get married, then you'll
have to get tired of them, you know."
"But you'll be glad you've got 'em, when
they're once in bed," Miss Honey added en-
couragingly. " My mother says I'm a real
treasure to her, after half past seven!"
The Princess flushed; her straight dark eye-
brows quivered and met for an instant.
" But I am married," she said.
There was an utter silence.
" I was married five years ago yesterday, as it
happens," she went on, " but it's not necessary
to set up a day nursery, you know, under those
circumstances."
Still silence. Miss Honey studied the floor, and
Caroline, after an astonished stare at the Princess,
directed her eyes from one tapestry to another.
" I suppose you understand that, don't you?"
demanded the Princess sharply. She appeared
unnecessarily irritated, and as a matter of fact
embarrassed her guests to such an extent that they
were utterly unable to relieve the stillness that
oppressed them quite as much as herself.
62 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
The Princess uttered an angry exclamation and
paced rapidly up and down the room, looking
more regal and more unlike other people than
ever.
" For heaven's sake, say something, you little
sillies!" she cried. " I suppose you want me to
lose my temper?"
Caroline gulped and Miss Honey examined her
shoe ties mutely.
Suddenly a well-known voice floated toward
them.
" Was his nice bottle all ready? Wait a minute,
only a minute now, General, and Delia'll give it
to you!"
The procession filed into the room, Delia and
the General, Ellis deferentially holding a tiny white
coat, the man in livery bearing a small copper
saucepan in which he balanced a white bottle
with some difficulty. His face was full of anxious
interest.
Delia thanked them both gravely, seated her-
self on the foot of the basket chair, arranged the
General flat across her knees, and amid the excited
silence of her audience, shook the bottle once or
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 63
twice with the air of an alchemist on the brink
of an epoch-making discovery.
"Want it? Does Delia's baby want it?" she
asked enticingly. The General waved his arms
and legs wildly; wreathed in smiles, he opened
and shut his mouth in quick alternation, chirp-
ing and clucking, as she held it up before him;
an ecstatic wriggling pervaded him, and he
chuckled unctuously. A moment later only
his deep-drawn, nozzling breaths could be heard
in the room. They watched him in hushed
satisfaction; once, as he smiled gratefully at
Delia, Ellis sighed with pleasure.
"Ain't he sweet, though!" she murmured,
and then glancing at the butler, giggled impressibly
as the strained attitudes of the circle struck her.
" That will do, thank you, Haddock," said the
Princess quickly, drawing a long breath and seat-
ing herself, and the two servants withdrew.
Delia noted nothing, her eyes fixed on her charge;
clearly, it would not have surprised her in the
least if they had all stood, rapt, till the meal was
over.
it
He takes it beautiful," she said in low tones,
64 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
looking confidentially at the Princess; " I didn't
know but being in a strange place might make
a difference with him, but he's the best baby! "
She wiped his mouth and lifting him, still
horizontal, approached her hostess.
" You can hold him now," she said superbly,
" but keep him flat for twenty minutes, please.
I'll go and take the bottle down, and get his
carriage ready. He'll be good. He'll take a
little nap, most likely."
She laid him across the rose-colored lap of
the Princess, who looked curiously down on him,
and offered him her finger tentatively. " I never
held one before," she explained. " I I don't
know. ..." The General smiled lazily and
patted the finger, picking at the great sapphire.
" How soft its hands are," said the Princess.
" They slip off, they are so smooth! And how
good does it never cry?" This she said half
to herself, and Caroline and Miss Honey, know-
ing there was no need to answer her, came and
leaned against her knee unconsciously, and
twinkled their fingers at the baby.
"Hello, General! Hello!" they cried softly,
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 65
and the General smiled impartially at them and
caressed the lady's finger.
The Princess stroked his cheek. "What a
perfectly exquisite skin!" she said, and bending
over him, kissed him delicately.
"How good it smells how how different!"
she murmured. " I thought they I thought they
didn't."
Miss Honey had taken the lady's other hand, and
was examining the square ruby with a diamond on
either side.
" My mother says that's the principal reason to
have a baby," she remarked, absorbed in the glit-
tering thing. "You sprinkle 'em all over with
violet powder just like doughnuts with sugar
and kiss 'em. Some people think they get germs
that way, but my mother says if she could'nt kiss
'em she wouldn't have 'em!"
The Princess bent over the baby again.
" It's going to sleep here!" she said, half fear-
fully, with an inquiring glance at the two.
" Oughtn't one to rock it?"
Miss Honey shook her head severely. "Not
General," she answered, " he won't stand it. My
66 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
mother tried again and again could I take that
blue ring a minute? I'd be awful careful but he
wouldn't. He sits up and he lies down, but he
won't rock."
" I might sing to him," suggested the Princess,
brushing a damp lock from the General's warm
forehead and slipping her ringless finger into his
curved fist carefully. " Would he like it?"
" No, he wouldn't," said Miss Honey bluntly,
twisting the ring around her finger. " He only
likes two people to sing Delia and my mother.
Was that ruby ring a 'ngagement ring?"
Caroline interfered diplomaticalty. " General
would be very much obliged," she explained
politely, " except that my Aunt Deedee is a
very good singer indeed, and Uncle Joe says
General's taste is ruined for just common singing."
The Princess stared at her blankly.
" Oh, indeed!" she remarked. Then she smiled
again in that whimiscal expressive way. " You
don't think I could sing well enough for him as
well as your mother?"
Miss Honey laughed carelessly. " My mother
is a singer," she said, "a real one. She used to
With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portiere
and disappeared.
PU1
Iff
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 67
sing in concerts real ones. In theatres. Real
theatres, I mean," as the lady appeared to be
still amused.
" If you know where the Waldorf Hotel is,"
Caroline interrupted, "she has sung in that, and
it was five dollars to get in. It was to send the
poor children to a Fresh Air Fund. It it's not
the same as you would sing or me," she added
politely.
The lady arose suddenly and deposited the
General, like a doll, with one swift motion in the
basket chair. Striding across the room she
turned, flushed and tall, and confronted the
wondering children.
" I will sing for you," she said haughtily, " and
you can judge better!"
With a great sweep of her half bare arm, she
brushed aside a portiere and disappeared. A
crashing chord rolled out from a piano behind
the curtains and ceased abruptly.
" What does your mother sing?" she demanded,
not raising her voice, it seemed, and yet they
heard her as plainly as when they had leaned
against her knee.
68 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" She sings, ' My Heart's Own Heart,' " Miss
Honey called back defiantly.
" And it's printed on the song, e To Madame
Edith Holt!' " shrilled Caroline.
The familiar prelude was played with a firm,
elastic touch, the opening chords struck, and a
great shining voice, masterful, like a golden
trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb;
Miss Honey, instinctively humming the prelude,
got up from her footstool and followed the music,
unconscious that she walked. She had been
privileged to hear more good singing in her eight
years than most people have in twenty-four, had
Miss Honey, and she knew that this was no or-
dinary occasion. She did not know she was listen-
ing to one of the greatest voices her country had
ever produced perhaps in time to be known
for the head of them all but the sensitive little
soul swelled in her and her childish jealousy was
drowned deep in that river of wonderful sound.
Higher and sweeter and higher yet climbed
the melody; one last triumphant leap, and it
was over.
" My heart my heart my heart's own heart!"
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 69
The Princess stood before them in the echoes
of her glory, her breath quick, her eyes brilliant.
"Well?" she said, looking straight at Miss
Honey, " do I sing as well as your mother?"
Miss Honey clenched her fists and caught her
breath. Her heart was breaking, but she could
not lie.
"You you " she motioned blindly to Caro-
line, and turned away.
"You sing better," Caroline began sullenly;
but the lady pointed to Miss Honey.
" No, you tell me," she insisted remorselessly.
Miss Honey faced her.
"You you sing better than my m-mother,"
she gulped, " but I love her better, and she's nicer
than you, and I don't love you at all!"
She buried her face in the red velvet throne,
and sobbed aloud with excitement and fatigue.
Caroline ran to her: how could she have loved
that cruel woman? She cast an ugly look at the
Princess as she went to comfort Miss Honey, but
the Princess was at the throne before her.
" Oh, I am abominable," she cried. " I am too
horrid to live! It wasn't kind of me, chtrie, and
70 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
I love you for standing up for your mother.
There's no one to do as much for me, when Pm
down and out no one!" Sorrow swept over her
flexible face like a veil, and seizing Miss Honey
in her strong nervous arms she wept on her
shoulder.
Caroline, worn with the strain of the day, wept,
too, and even the General, abandoned in the
great chair, burst into a tiny warning wail.
Quick as thought the Princess was upon him,
and had raised him against her cheek.
" Hush, hush, don't cry don't cry, little
thing," she whispered, and sank into one of the
high carved chairs with him.
" No, no, I'll hold him," she protested, as
Delia entered, her arms out. " I'm going to
sing to him. May I? He's sleepy."
Delia nodded indulgently. " For half an hour,"
she said, as one allowing a great privilege, ' and
then we must go. The children are tired."
" What do you sing to him?" the Princess
questioned humbly.
" I generally sing c Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,'
the nurse answered. "Do you know it?"
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 71
" I think so," and the Princess began a sort of
glorified humming, like a great drowsy bee, all
resonant and tremulous.
"Tell me the words," she said, and Delia re-
cited them, as a mother would, to humor a petted
child.
The Princess lifted her voice and pressing
the General to her, began the song,
"Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I '11 sing thee a song in thy praise."
Soft the great voice was, soft and widely
flowing; to Caroline, who had retreated to the
further end of the music-room, so that Delia
should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia
herself, a wonderful new Delia, were singing her,
a baby again, to sleep. She felt soothed, cradled,
protected by that lapping sea of melody that
drifted her off her moorings, out of the room. . . .
Vaguely she saw Miss Honey, relaxed on the
red throne, smile in her sleep, one arm falling
over the broad seat. Was it in her dream that
some one in a blue and white apron not Delia,
for Delia was singing leaned back slowly in the
72 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
long basket chair and closed her tired eyes?
Who was it that held the General close in her
arms, and smiled as he patted her cheek at the
familiar song and mumbled her fingers with happy
cooing noises?
"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream!"
Soft as plush, sweet as honey, the warm voice
dipped and rose to the old tune. The General's
head was growing heavy, but he smiled confidingly
into the dark eyes above him and stretched himself
out in full-fed, drowsy content. One hand slipped
through the lace under his cheek and rested on the
singer's soft breast. She started like a frightened
woman, and her voice broke.
Down in the hall the butler and the maid sat
on the lower stair.
" Ain't it grand?" she .whispered, and Haddock
nodded dreamily.
" Mother used to sing us that in the old country,"
he said. " There was Tom and 'Enry an' me
Lord, Lord!"
The General was asleep. Sometimes a tiny
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 73
frown drew his eyebrows together. Sometimes she
clenched and uncurled his warm hands. Some-
times he sucked softly at nothing, with moist,
reminiscent lips. But on and on, over and over,
rose and fell the quaint old song,
"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream!"
It flooded the listening house, it spread a net of
dreams about the happy people and coaxed them
back to childhood and a child's protected sleep.
It seemed a song that could not stop, that
must return on its simple refrain so long as
there were arms to encircle and breasts to lean
upon.
Two men came softly up a smaller stair than the
grand entrance flight, and paused in amazement at
sight of Caroline stretched, full length, across the
threshold. The older and smaller of the men had
in fact stepped on her, and confused and half awake
she listened to his apologies.
" Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, " not a vordt!
not a vordt! Mein Gott! but it is marvellous! A
voice of velvet! Hey? A voice of the heart. My
friend, what is this?"
74 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
He peeped behind the drawn curtains, and with-
drew a face of wonder.
"It is nothing but children and they sleep!"
he whispered. " Oh, but listen, listen! And I
offered her fifteen hundred dollars for two hours
only of that!"
The other man peeped behind the curtain in
his turn, and seizing Caroline by the arm tip-toed
with her to a further room.
"What who what is the meaning of this?"
he whispered hoarsely. " That child where "
Caroline rubbed her eyes. The golden voice
rose and fell around her.
" General Delia," she muttered, and stumbled
against him. He lifted her limp little body and
laid it gently on a leather sofa.
"Another time," he said softly to the other
man, " I we cannot talk with you now. Will
you excuse us?"
The man looked longingly at the curtains.
" She will never do more well than that.
Never!" he hissed. " Oh, my friend, hear it grow
soft! Yes, yes, I am going."
It seemed to Caroline that in a dream some one
"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a vordt!
Mein Gott! but it is marvellous/'
*"*-
.-, ... <?
\,$'oa?''!>
A VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 75
with a red face and glasses askew, shook her by the
shoulder and said to her sternly, " Sh! sh! Listen
to me. To-day you hear a great artist hey?
Will you forget it? I must go because they do not
vant me, but you will stay and listen. There is
here no such voice. Velvet! Honey! Sh! sh!"
and he went the way of dreams.
The man who stayed looked long through the
curtains.
As a swing droops slow and slower, as the
ripples fade from a stone thrown in the stream,
the song of the Princess softened and crooned
and hushed. Now it was a rich breath, a resonant
thread,
4 * Flow gently, sweet Afton "
The man stepped across the room and sank
below the General at her feet. With her finger
on her lips she turned her eyes to his and looked
deep into them. He caught his breath with a sob,
and wrapping his arm about her as he knelt, hid
his face on her lap, against the General. She
laid her hand on his head, across the warm little
body, and patted it tenderly. Around them lay
76 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
the sleepers; the General's soft breath was in
their ears. The man lifted his head and looked
adoringly at the Princess: her hand caressed his
cheek, but her eyes looked beyond him into the
future.
Ill
THE PRIZE
CAROLINE sniffed her way luxuriously
through the dusky panelled library.
" I think it smells awfully good here,
don't you?" she inquired of her hostess.
The lady's wonderful velvet train dragged
listlessly behind her. Her neck and arms were
dressed in heavy yellowish lace, but all around
her slim body waves of deep colored, soft velvet
held the light in lustrous pools or darkened into
almost black shadows. It was like stained glass
in a church, thiroughT Caroline, stroking it sur-
reptitiously, and like stained glass, too, were the
lovely books, bloody red, grassy green and brown,
like Autumn woods, with edges of gold when the
sunlight struck them. They made the walls
like a great jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to
ceiling: here and there a niche of polished wood
held a white, clear-cut head. From the ceiling
77
78 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass
chains; they swayed ever so slightly when one
watched them closely.
: This is my favorite room, Duchess," said
Caroline, " isn't it yours?"
" Do you really think I look like one?" returned
the lady, " the only duchess I ever saw was fat
horribly fat. It is a very handsome library,
of course."
" Then she didn't look like a duchess, that's
all," Caroline explained. "What I like about
this library is, it's so clean. And you can pull
the chairs out and show those big, shiny yellow
ones on the bottom shelf."
" Of course; why not?" said the Duchess,
dropping into a great carved chair with griffins'
heads on the top.
"Why, you can't do that at Uncle Joe's,"
Caroline confided, sitting on a small griffin stool
at the lady's feet, " because General gets at the
bottom row and smears 'em. You see he's only
two, and you can't blame him, but he licks himself
dreadfully and then rubs it on the backs. He
marks them, too, inside, with a pencil or a hatpin,
THE PRIZE 79
or even an orange-wood stick that you clean your
nails with. Yours is made of pearl, you know,
but most a great many, I mean people have
them wood. And so the chairs have to be all
leaned around against the walls to keep him from
the books."
The Duchess drew a long breath. " And your
uncle objects?" she said, between her teeth.
" Uncle Joe says," Caroline returned, patting
the griffin heads on her little stool, " that if the
President had General in his library for half an
hour he'd feel different about race suicide."
The Duchess laughed shortly.
" That is possible, too," she agreed. " You
said Cousin Joe was well and Edith?"
" Oh, yes, they're well I mean, they're very
well indeed, thank you," said Caroline. " Uncle
Joe says they have to be, with the General's
shoes two dollars and a half a pair! You see
he has quite thick soles, now he runs about
everywhere. Aunt Edith says he needs a mounted
policeman 'stead of a nurse."
" Did Edith get rested after the moving?"
" Oh, yes," Caroline answered absently. She
8o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
was watching the opal globes sway. " Aunt
Edith says before she was married she'd have
*/
gone South with a trained nurse after such an
experience, but now she has to save the nurse
for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down after
lunch."
The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the
griffin chair, but sank back again.
" And you have a trained nurse all the time,"
Caroline mused, stroking the glistering velvet,
" isn't that funny? Just so in case you might
be sick. . . ." The sunlight peeped and winked
on the gold book-edges.
" It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding
very low, " but she is not likely to be needed for
measles."
" No," Caroline assented, " you and cousin
Richard are pretty old for measles. It's children
that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But
you don't seem to ever have any children. And
such a big house, too! And you're very fond
of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that
when you like them you can't manage to have
any. And people that don't care about them
THE PRIZE 81
have them all the time. It was only Christmas
time that Norah Mahoney she does the extra
washing in the summer had another. That
makes seven. It's a boy. Joseph Michael, he's
named, partly after Uncle Joe. Norah says there
don't seem to be any end to your troubles, once
you're married to a man."
The Duchess turned aside her head, but Caroline
knew from the corner of her mouth that her eyes
were full of tears. She stroked the hands that
clenched the griffin's crest.
" Never mind," she urged, " maybe you'll have
some. Most everybody has just one, anyway."
The Duchess shook her head mutely; a large
round tear dropped on the griffin.
"Well, then," said Caroline briskly, "why
don't you adopt one? The Weavers did, and she
was quite a nice girl; I used to play with her.
She sucked her thumb, though. But prob'ly
they don't, all of them."
" I wouldn't mind, if she did," the Duchess
declared. Already she spoke more brightly. " I
wanted to adopt one one could take it when it
was very little. But Richard won't hear of it."
82 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Not a bit?" Caroline looked worried; she
knew Richard.
" Not a bit," the Duchess repeated, " that is,
he says he is willing under certain conditions,
but they are simply impossible. Nobody could
find such a child."
" There are lots of 'em in the Catholic Found-
ling," said Caroline thoughtfully, " all kinds.
Aunt Edith went there to sing for them and she
took Miss Honey and me. They're all dressed
differently and they look so sweet. You can take
your choice of them; Aunt Edith cried. But
you must let them be Catholics."
" Richard wouldn't let me take one from an
institution," the Duchess said, " and somehow
I wouldn't care to, myself. But there is a woman
I know of who is interested in children that
that aren't likely to grow up happily, and she
will get one for anybody, only one can't ask any
questions about them. You may have all the
rights in them, but you will never know where
they came from. And Richard won't have that.
I suppose he's right."
" But there are plenty of people who would
THE PRIZE 83
let you have one, if you would give her a good
home and be kind to her," Caroline began, lapsing
for the moment into her confusing, adult man-
ner.
" Yes, but Richard says that no people nice
enough to have a child we could want would ever
give us the child, don't you see," the Duchess
interrupted eagerly. " He says the father must
be a gentleman and educated and the mother
a good woman. He says there must be good
blood behind it. And they must never see it,
never ask about it, never want it. He says he
doesn't see how I could bear to have a child that
any other mother had ever loved."
Caroline sighed.
" Cousin Richard does make up his mind,
so!" she muttered.
"He is unreasonable," said the Duchess sud-
denly, " unreasonable! He must know all about
the child, but the parents must not know about
us! Not know our name, even! Just give up
the child and withdraw why, the poorest, com-
monest people would not do that, and does he
expect that people of the kind he requires would
84 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
be so heartless? We shall never be able to get
one never. And yet he wants one so almost
as much as I!"
The Duchess had forgotten Caroline. Staring
at the opal globes she sat, and again the tears
rose, brimmed and overflowed.
Caroline slipped off the little stool and walked
softly out of the beautiful room. The books
glowed jewel-like, the four milky moons swayed
ever so little on their brass chains, the white
busts looked coldly at the Duchess as she sat cry-
ing in her big carved chair, and there was nobody
that could help at all.
Through the dark, shiny halls she walked
cautiously, for she had had embarrassing lessons
in its waxy polish and paused from force of
habit to pat the great white polar bear that made
the little reception room such a delightful
place. More than the busts in the library even,
he set loose the fancy, and whiled one away to
the enchanted North where the Snow Queen
drove her white sledge through the sparkling
glades, and the Water Baby dived beneath the
dipping berg.
THE PRIZE 85
Miss Gmndman, the trained nurse, appeared
in the doorway.
xt Did you care to go out with the brougham,
to-day, dear?" she asked. " Hunt tells me he
has to go 'way down town."
" Yes, I'd like to can you take care of babies,
too?" Caroline returned abruptly.
Miss Grundman started.
" What an odd child you are of course I can!"
she said. " All nurses can; it's part of the train-
ing. Have you any you're worried about?"
she added pointedly. Caroline flushed.
" You're making fun o' me," she muttered,
"you know very well only grown people have
them! I don't mean if they're sick, but can you
wash them, and cook the milk in that tin thing,
and everything like that?"
" Bless the child, of course I can!" Miss Grund-
man cried, "you bring me one and I'll show
you!"
" Oh, I b'lieve you, Miss Grundman, if you
say so," Caroline assured her, and slid carefully
along the hall for the stairs that led to her hat
and coat.
86 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
They spun smoothly down the avenue with an
almost imperceptible electric whir, Caroline bolt
upright on the plum-colored cushion, Hunt and
Gleggson bolt upright on the seat outside. It
was a matter for congratulation to Caroline
that of all the vehicles that glided by them, none
boasted a more upright pair than Hunt and
Gleggson.
The tall brown houses were gradually changing
into bright shops; the carriages grew thicker
and thicker; the long procession stopped and
waited now almost every moment, so crowded
was the brilliant street. Once a massive police-
man actually smiled at her as Hunt stopped the
brougham close to him, and Caroline's admiring
soul crowded to her eyes at the mighty wave of
his white, arresting hand. They drew up before
a great window filled with broughams and vic-
torias displayed as lavishly as if they had been
hats or bonbon boxes it was like a gigantic
toy-shop. Hunt dropped acrobatically to the
pavement and was seen describing his mysterious
desires to an affable gentleman behind the plate-
glass; he measured with his knuckles and illus-
THE PRIZE 87
trated in pantomime the snapping of something
over his knee; the clerk shook his head in com-
miseration and signalled to an attendant, who
darted off. Soon Hunt appeared with a small
package and they started on again, turning a
corner abruptly and winding through less excit-
ing streets. The shops grew smaller and din-
gier; drays passed lumbering by and street cars
jarred along beside them, but vehicles like their
own were noticeably lacking. It was plain that
they attracted more attention, now, and more
than one group of children dancing in the street
to the music of the hurdy-gurdy lingered daringly
to provoke the thrilling, mellow warning of their
horn. At last they stopped at a corner and Hunt
dropped again to the pavement, lingering for a
short consultation with Gleggson who pointed
once or twice behind them to the small occupant
of the brougham. On this occasion he took with
him a mysterious and powerful handle, and
Caroline knew that this was precisely equivalent
to running away with the horses. He hurried
around an unattractive corner, and Gleggson
sat alone in front. Five, ten minutes passed;
88 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
They seemed very dull to Caroline, and she
reached for the plum-colored tube and spoke
boldly through it.
" What are we waiting for, please, Gleggson?
Where is Hunt?"
" 'E just stepped off, Miss, for a minute, like.
"'E'll be 'ere directly. Would you wish for me
to go and look 'im up, Miss?"
Gleggson spoke very cordially.
"We-ell, I don't know," Caroline said doubt-
fully. " If you think he'll be right back . . .
I can wait. ..."
" Pre'aps I'd better, as you say, Miss," Glegg-
son continued, " for 'e '0s been gone some time,
and I think I could lay me 'and on 'im. You'll
not get out, of course, Miss, and I'll be back
before you know it."
He clambered down and took the same general
course as Hunt had taken, deflecting, however,
to enter a little door made like a window-blind,
that failed to reach its own door-sill.
" Hunt didn't go there at all," Caroline mut-
tered resentfully, and deliberately opening the
door of the brougham, she stepped out.
THE PRIZE 89
She had followed Hunt's track quite accurately
till a sudden turn confused her, and she realized
that after that corner she had no idea in which
direction he had gone. She paused uncertainly;
the street was dirty, the few children in sight were
playing a game unknown to her and not playing
very pleasantly, at that; the women who looked
at her seemed more curious than kindly. The
atmosphere was not sordid enough to be alarming
or even interesting J it was merely slovenly and
distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to
go back when a young girl stopped by her and
eyed her inquisitively.
"Were you lookin' for any particular party?"
she asked.
"I was looking for Hunt," said Caroline, "he
went this way, I think."
" There's some Hunts across the street there,"
the girl suggested, "right hand flat, second floor.
I seen the name once. I guess you're lost all
right, ain't you?"
" Oh, no," Caroline assured her, " I'm not
lost. I can go right back. I'll see if Hunt's
there."
90 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
The threshold was greasy and worn, the stairs
covered with faded oil cloth, the side walls defaced
and over-scrawled. At the head of the stairs
three dingy doors opened in three different direc-
tions, and a soiled card on the middle one
bore the name of Hunt. A man's voice some-
where behind it talked in a strange loud sing-
song; he seemed to be telling a long, confusing
story. At the moment of Caroline's timid knock
he was saying over and over again,
" Isn't that so? Isn't that so? Who wouldn't
have done the same? Put your finger on the place
where I made the mistake! Will you? Will
anybody? I ask it as a favor "
"Hush, won't you?" a woman's voice inter-
rupted, " wasn't that a knock?"
Caroline knocked agian.
There was a hasty shuffling and a key turned
in the door.
" Who is it?" the woman's voice asked. " What
do you want? The auction's all over there's
nothing left. We're moving out to-morrow."
Surprise held Caroline dumb. How could one
have an auction in such a place? At auctions
THE PRIZE 91
there were red flags, and horses and carriages
gathered around the house, and people brought
luncheon; they had often driven to auctions out
in the country.
The door opened.
" Why it's only a child !" said the woman,
thin and fatigued, with dark rings under her
not ungentle eyes. "What do you want here?"
" I'm looking for Hunt," Caroline answered,
" doesn't he live here?"
" Heavens, no !" the woman said, " that old
card's been there long before we moved in, I
guess. They were old renters, most likely. What's
the party to you, anyway? Is he your "
She paused, studying Caroline's simple but
unmistakeable clothes and manner.
" He drives the automobile," Caroline ex-
plained, " I thought he came this way."
" Come in, won't you?" said the woman,
" there's no good getting any more lost than
you are, I guess. There's not much to sit on,
'specially if you're used to automobiles, but we
can find you something, I hope. I try to keep
it better looking than this gen'ally, but this is
92 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
my last day here. I'm going out West to-
morrow."
An old table, two worn chairs and an over-
turned box furnished the small room; through
an open door Caroline spied a tumbled bed.
A kitchen, dismantled and dreary, faced her.
" The agent gave me five dollars for all I
left," the woman said, " I don't know which of
us got the best o' the bargain. Now, about
you. Where do you live ? I s'pose they're
looking for you right now while we're talking.
Do you know where you left the automobile?"
" Oh, yes." Caroline stared frankly about
her. "Wasn't there a man in here? Where
did he go?"
The woman grunted out a sort of laugh. " If
you're not the limit!" she murmured. She
stepped to the door of the kitchen, looked in,
and beckoned to Caroline.
" I suppose you heard him carrying on," she
said, " he's in there. Poor fellow, he's all worn
out."
Caroline peered into the kitchen. With his
rough, unshaven face resting on his arms, his
THE PRICE 93
hair all tossed about, his face drawn in misery,
even in his heavy sleep, a young man sat before
a table, half lying on it, one hand on a soiled
plate still grasping a piece of bread.
"Is he sick?" whispered Caroline.
* N no, I wouldn't say sick, exactly, but
I guess he'd be almost as well off if he was,"
said the woman. " It would take his mind off.
He's had a lot of trouble."
The man scowled in his sleep and clenched his
hand, so that the bread crumbled in it.
" And so I won the prize," he muttered, " just
as I told her I would. Did I have any pull ?
Was there any favoritism ? No you know it
as well as I do it was good work won that
prize!"
"Was it a bridge prize?" Caroline inquired
maturely. The woman stared.
" A bridge prize?" she repeated vaguely.
" Why, no, I guess not. It was for writing a
story for one of those magazines. He won a
thousand dollars."
The man opened his eyes suddenly.
" And if you don't believe it," he said, still
94 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
in that strange sing-song voice, "just read that
letter."
He pulled a worn, creased sheet from an inner
pocket and thrust it at Caroline.
" It's typewritten," he added, " it's easy
easy enough to see if I'm lying. Just read it
out."
Caroline glanced at the engraved letter-heading
and began to read in her careful, childish voice:
MY DEAR MR. WILLISTON:
It is with great pleasure that I have to announce
the fact that your story, " The Renewal" has been
selected by the judges as most worthy of the thousand-
dollar prize offered by us.
The woman snatched the paper from her hand.
" The idea!" she cried, " let the child alone,
Mr. Williston! Don't you see she's lost?"
The man dropped like a stone on the table.
"Lost!" he whispered, "lost! Oh, that
dreadful word ! Yes, she's lost. Poor little Lou.
It's all over."
The woman drew Caroline back into the sitting
room.
THE PRIZE 95
" I'm sorry you should see him," she said. " You
must excuse him he don't really know what he's
doing. He lost his wife a week ago and he's
hardly slept since. It's real sad. I was as sorry
as I could be for 'em, and I'd have kept 'em even
longer if she'd lived, though they couldn't pay.
I'd keep the baby, too, if I could, it's such a cute
little thing, but I can't, and I'm to take it to the
Foundling to-day. I'll go right out with you,
and see that the police "
" Oh, is there a baby? Let me see it! " Caro-
line pleaded. " How old is it?"
"Just a week," said the woman. "Yes, you
can see him. He's good as gold, and big ! He
weighs nine pounds."
In the third room, lying in a roll of
blankets on a tumbled cot, a pink, fat baby
slept, one fist in his dewy mouth. The red-
gold down was thick on his round head; he
looked like a wax Christ-child for a Christmas
tree.
Caroline sighed ecstatically.
" Isn't he lovely!" she breathed.
" He's a fine child," the woman agreed. " And
96 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
his mother never saw him, poor little thing. Nor
his father either, for that matter."
Caroline looked in amazement toward the
kitchen.
" Never laid his eyes on him," the woman
went on sadly, " as if it was any good, to blame
the poor baby! He's taken a terrible grudge on
the little thing. He was awfully fond of his
wife, though. He told me he was going to leave
him right here, and then, of course, somebody
in the house would notify the police, if I didn't
take him to the Foundling. And of course he'd
get better care, for that matter there's no doubt
about that. It's too bad. There's people that
would give their eyes for a fine baby like that,
you know."
" I know it," said Caroline simply, " my cousin
Richard would be glad to have him he wants
one very much. But he's very particular."
The woman looked at her sharply. "What
do you mean?" she asked. " How particular?"
Suddenly she laughed nervously. " I ought
to be ashamed of myself," she said, " you ought
to be at the police station now. But I'm all
THE PRIZE 97
worn out, and it does me good to talk to anybody.
I don't let the neighbors in much it's a cheap
set of people around here, and Mr. Williston's
different from them and I hate to hear him talking
to them the way he will. He don't know what
he's doing. He tells 'em all about that prize
and it's true, you know, he did get it; that's
what they married on, and he thought he could
get plenty more that way, and then he never
sold another story. It was too bad. He's a
real gentleman, though you might not think
it to look at him now, not shaved, and all. He
thought he could earn a thousand every week, I
s'pose, poor fellow. He got work in a depart-
ment store, fin'ly, and it took all he made to
bury her. She was a sweet little thing, but soft.
I was real sorry for 'em."
She wiped her eyes hastily.
" Do you know whether he went to Harvard?"
Caroline inquired, in a business-like tone.
The woman was heating some milk in a bottle,
over a lamp, and did not answer her, but a voice
from the door brought her sharply around. The
young man stood there. Though still unshaven,
98 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
he was otherwise quite changed. His hair was
parted neatly, his coat brushed, his face no longer
flushed, but pale and composed.
" If your extraordinary question refers to me,
yes, I went to Harvard," he said in a grating,
disagreeable voice. " I have in fact been called
a ' typical Harvard man.' But that was some
time ago. May I ask who you are?"
The woman lifted the bottle from the tin cup
that held it and picked up the baby; the young
man shifted his eyes from her immediately and
looked persistently over Caroline's head.
" Her family's coachman's name is Hunt,"
said the woman, " and she thought he lived here,
she says. He'd no business to go off and leave
her alone. Her family 'd be worried to death.
When I go out with the baby I'll take her. I
suppose you haven't changed your mind about
the baby, Mr. Williston? now you're feeling
more like yourself," she added.
" I cannot discuss that subject, Mrs. Ufford,"
the young man answered, in his rasping, unnatural
voice. " When you have disposed of the matter
along the lines you yourself suggested, I am at
THE PRIZE 99
your service till you take the train. After that
after that " his lips tightened in a disagreea-
ble smile " I may be able to get to work and
win another prize!"
" There, there!" she cautioned him, " don't
talk about that, Mr. Williston, don't, now ! Why
don't you go out with the little girl and see if
you can find her automobile? That'll be less
for me to do. Why don't you?"
He turned, muttering something aoout his hat,
but Caroline tugged at his coat.
"Wait, wait!" she urged him, "I want you
to tell her to let me take the baby ! If you went
to Harvard, that's all Cousin Richard said, except
about a gentleman " she paused and scrutinized
him a moment. " You care a gentium an, aren't
you?" she asked.
He looked at her. "My father was," he
answered briefly. " In my own case, I have
grave doubts. What do you think?" he
asked the woman, looking no lower than her
eyes.
She fed the baby deftly. " Oh, Mr. Williston,
don't talk so of course you're a gentleman!"
81470B
ioo WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
she cried, " you couldn't help about the money.
You did your best."
His mouth twisted pitifully.
" That'll do," he said, " what does this child
mean? Who is your cousin? Where does he
live?"
" He lives on Madison Avenue," Caroline began
eagerly, " but I mustn't tell you his last name,
you know, because he doesn't want you to know.
That's just it. But he'd love the baby. I could
take it right back in the automobile."
The man felt in under his coat and detached
from his waistcoat a small gold pin. He tore a
strip of wrapping paper from the open box near
him and wrote rapidly on it.
" There," he said, fastening the pin into the
folded paper, " I'm glad I never pawned it. If
your cousin is a Harvard man, the pin will be
enough, but he can look me up from this paper
all he wants. They're all dead but me, though.
Here, wait a moment!"
He went back into the sitting room and
fumbled in a heap of waste paper on the
floor, picked out of it a stiff sheet torn once
THE PRIZE 101
through, and attached it with the gold pin to
the bit of writing.
: That's her marriage certificate," he said to
the woman. She stared at him.
"Mr. Williston, do you believe that child?"
she burst out, loosening her hold on the bottle
in her hand. "Why, she may be making it all
up ! I I you must be crazy ! You don't
even know her name ! I won't allow it "
He broke into her excited remonstrance gravely.
' 1 don't believe a child could make up such
details, in the first place, Mrs. Ufford," he said,
' she is repeating something she's heard, I think.
Did your cousin mention anything else?" he
said abruptly to Caroline.
She smiled gratefully at him. " The mother
must be a good woman," she quoted placidly.
Both of them started.
" Do you think a child would invent that?"
he demanded. " Now, see here. You take Mrs.
Ufford home with you in the automobile and she
can see if there's anything in what you say,
really. If there's not, she can go right on with
the with it, and do as as we arranged before.
102 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
It's all written on the paper, and my full consent
to the adoption, and if there's anything legal
to do about it, Mrs. Ufford can attend to it. But
nobody'll trouble 'em they can be sure of that.
My people all died long ago and and hers
hers. . . ."
He stopped short. With eyes filled and lips
vaguely moving he fell into a strange revery, a
sort of tranced stupor. So intense were his
absent thoughts that they impressed the woman
and the child; they knew that he was back in
the past and waited patiently while for a few
kind moments he forgot. At length his eyes
shifted and he took up his broken phrase, uncon-
scious, evidently, of the pause. " her's are
back in New England. They never knew. . . .
I had some pride. They're the I-told-you-so sort,
anyhow. And they told her, all right. Oh
yes, they told her! Narrow-minded, God-fearing
prigs!" He stared at Mrs. Ufford curiously.
" But they paid their debts, all the same," he
added with a harsh laugh, " and that's more than
I've been able to do, I suppose you're thinking."
But almost before the dark red had flushed
THE PRIZE 103
her tired, lined face, he leaned forward and
touched her shoulder kindly.
" I didn't mean that," he apologized. " I'm
half crazy, I think. You've been as good as
gold, and even when I've paid you the money
I owe you, I'll owe you more than I can ever pay.
I know that. And you're New England, too."
His sudden softening encouraged the woman,
and she looked appealingly up at him, while she
patted the bundle on her lap.
" Folks have hearts in New England, Mr.
Williston," she began, " and if you was to go to
her folks or write to 'em, I guess you'd find oh,
couldn't you?"
His impatient hand checked her.
" He might grow up to be a real comfort to you,"
she murmured persistently, " and you could look
out for him well enough, once you get started.
Just see how smart you are, Mr. Williston look
at that prize you got; she was awful proud of
it."
His face twisted painfully.
" I looked out for her well, didn't I?" he said
coldly, " I was a ' good provider,' as they say
104 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
up there, wasn't I? Do you think " his voice
rang harshly and he struck the table by his side
till it rattled on its unsteady legs " do you
think if I couldn't look out for her, I would look
out for that? Get it ready."
The woman rose, her lips pressed together, and
rolled the blankets tightly about the quiet child.
With one gesture she put on a shabby hat and
pinned it to her hair.
" I'll leave the bottle with you," she said to
Caroline; "it'll help keep him quiet, when I'm
gone. Come on."
The man turned away his head as they passed
him. At the outer door she paused a moment,
and her face softened.
" I know how you feel, Mr. Williston, and I
don't judge you," she said gently, " for the Lord
knows you've had more than your share of trouble.
But won't you kiss it once before before it's
too late? It's your child, you know. Don't
you feel "
" I feel one thing," he cried out, and the bitter-
ness of his voice frightened Caroline; " I feel that
it murdered her! Take it away!"
THE PRIZE 105
They shrank through the door.
The woman sobbed once or twice on the stairs,
but Caroline patted the flannel bundle excitedly.
They had rounded the corner in a moment, and
the woman pointed ahead with her free hand.
" Is that the automobile?" she asked.
Caroline nodded. The brougham stood empty
and alone where she had left it.
: They're not back yet!" she cried in disgust,
" the idea!"
" Maybe they're looking for you," Mrs. Ufford
said shortly.
' Aren't you glad we've got it?" Caroline
inquired timidly. " I am, awfully. I didn't
expect to get such a good one, so soon," she went
on more easily, " but I don't like that man much.
He's so cross."
"Child, child, you don't know what you're
talkin' about!" the woman cried impatiently.
" He's not cross but his heart's just about
broke. He thinks more money would've saved
her. And I guess he's right about that. She
was a soft little thing. But she stuck to him."
They walked a few steps in silence.
io6 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
' I don't know as I was actin' right, either,
to talk as I did," she continued abruptly. " I
s'pose it is better as 'tis, 'specially if your folks
will take the baby. They'll do a lot more for
it than ever he could, prob'ly. I s'pose they're
real rich regular swells ? I can see they've
got a fine automobile."
" Oh, yes. Cousin Richard's very rich," Caro-
line answered, indifferently, " that's only the
brougham there are two more. I have more
fun at Aunt Edith's, though."
" *Twas queer about all those things your
cousin wanted, wasn't it?" the woman said,
musingly. " 'seemed like kind of a sign to him,
I could see going to Harvard College and all.
I s'pose it was a sign maybe."
She walked slowly, perhaps because of her
burden.
" That's a fine college, I s'pose?" she said,
inquiringly.
" It's good enough," Caroline allowed, " of
course Yale's the best. We all go to Yale. Uncle
Joe says there had to be something for Yale to
beat, so they founded Harvard!"
THE PRIZE 107
" You don't say," Mrs. Ufford returned, " that's
funny."
M
They were very near the brougham now. It
stood as deserted as when Caroline had left it.
The baby in the bundled blanket neither cried
nor stirred.
" He's the best child," said the woman, with
her tired, kindly smile. " He's next to nothing
to tend to. If he'd felt to go back to her folks
with it, I'd 'a' gone with him to look after it.
I've got enough for that the things sold real
well, and he'd never let me lose, anyhow. He
isn't that kind. I took a real likin' to both of
'em. I've kept boarders, all over, for fifteen
years and I never lost a cent from anybody like
him, not one. You get to know all sorts, keepin'
boarders, and Mr. Williston's all right though
you mightn't think so," she ended loyally.
Caroline hardly listened. She saw herself in
V
the bearskin reception room, up the stairs, in the
library, her baby in her arms; she heard the
incredulous joy of the Duchess, she explained
importantly with convincing detail, to Cousin
Richard the critical. To her eager soul this
io8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
thin, friendly woman was merely an incident;
that irritable, incoherent man less than a dream.
They paused on the curb, and she opened the
brougham door hospitably.
" You get in first," she said, " and then I
can hold him a little while, can't I?"
" I never was in one o' these," Mrs. Ufford
answered doubtfully, " s'pose you go in first.
It can't go or back, or anything, can it?"
" No, no, of course not," said Caroline im-
patiently. " There's Hunt 'way up the street
he doesn't see us how he's hurrying!"
The woman paused, her foot on the broad step.
"Taint Hunt it's Mr. Williston," she an-
nounced. " What's he want, I wonder ? Look
he's wavin' at us ! I guess he forgot some
paper he wants you to take he's bound to
have it legal," she added with a sigh. "No,
dear, let me be. I'll see what he wants before
I get in."
The young man was running fast; his face
was red, his eyes anxious.
" Have you got it? Is it here?" he cried,
panting, and as she lifted the bundle high, his
THE PRIZE 109
face cleared and Caroline saw that he was very
handsome.
"Oh, Mrs. Ufford," he gasped, "read this!
Just read it! I found it in my pocketbook
I thought you might be gone she put it there
for me my poor little Lou! My God, what a
brute what a brute!"
The woman, one foot still on the step of the
brougham, supported the child on her raised
knee and held the paper in her free hand.
" My dearest husband'' she read aloud, " if
I get well you will never see this, for I will take it
out, but I don't believe I will take it out, for I don't
believe I will get well. They say everybody thinks
they will die, and of course a great many don't,
but some do, and I think I will, I don't know why,
but I am sure. But you will have the little girl.
I am sure she will be a girl, and I hope she will look
like me and be a comfort to you. You will take
good care of her, I know. Think how nicely you
took care of me and how hard you worked. You
take her to my sister, and when she gets big enough,
then you take her. She will not be a burden for
you will earn lots of money when you can stop
no WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
working in that horrid store on my account, and
have time to do your writing. You must not get
discouraged, for your writing is fine. Remember
that prize you took. They will all be proud of
you some day. You have been so good to me.
Your loving wife, Lou."
Her voice broke, and with no further word
she held the child out to the young man. With-
out a word he took it and stared eagerly into its
face, pushing the wrappings aside.
" He has her eyes," he murmured, " Lou's
eyes!"
The baby felt the grip of a stronger arm,
wrinkled its features and appeared to scan the
dark, trembling face above it.
" He knows me! Mrs. Ufford, he knows me!"
cried the man.
" Maybe so, maybe so," she said, soothingly.
" You'll keep him, won't you, now?"
" Keep him? Keep him?" he repeated, " why
he's all I've got of hers all ! He's Lou's and
mine, together! He's "
" Hush, hush!" she warned him, " here's a
crowd already! We're right out in the street,
THE PRIZE in
Mr. Williston! Come back with me. Yes, keep
him if you want to."
She turned to Caroline, neglected and wide-
eyed, in the brougham.
" You see how it is, dear," she said hastily,
" he wants it, after all. I can't help bein' glad.
It ain't always that money does the most, you
know. And he's the baby's father. Don't you
mind, will you?"
Caroline gulped.
" I I guess not," she answered bravely. " But
I did want him!"
" I know. You meant all right," the woman
assured her. " You're real there's your coach-
man runnin'. He saw the crowd gatherin',
prob'ly. Good-bye, dear."
She slipped through the curious street children
after the tall figure that hurried on with his
bundle, a block ahead. Gleggson dashed up to
the brougham.
" Were was you, Miss, for goodness' sake?"
he gasped out, " h'I've been h'all over after yer!
Don't, don't tell Hunt on me, will you, Miss?
He'd fair kill the life out o' me! He's comin'
ii2 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
now. 'e 'ad to go, Miss, fer his little boy was
took sick last night and callin' for 'im. So 'e
made up the errant. But it'll cost us both our
place, y' know, Miss! '
The man's voice shook. Hunt was very near
them now, walking hard.
" I'd no business to leave, I know will you
h'overlook it for once, Miss, and keep mum?"
the man pleaded.
" All right, Gleggson all right," she said
wearily, " I won't tell."
Confused, disappointed, and yet with a curious
sense of joy in the joy of the two even now
rounding the corner, she leaned back in the
brougham.
" I'm afraid he'll go to Harvard, anyway,"
she sighed.
IV
" WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN."
ONE glance at Caroline's shoulders, hunched
with caution, the merest profile, indeed,
of her tense and noiseless advance up the
narrow gravel path, would have convinced the
most casual observer that she was bent upon
arson, at the least. At the occasional crunch of
the gravel she scowled; the well meant effort
of a speckled gray hen, escaped from some distant
part of the grounds, to bear her company, pro-
duced a succession of pantomimic dismissals
that alarmed the hen to the point of frenzy, so
that her clacks and cackles resounded far beyond
the trim hedge that separated the drying-ground
from the little kitchen garden.
Caroline scowled, turned to shake her fist at
the hen, now lumbering awkwardly through
the hedge, and sat down heavily on a little bed
of parsley.
"3
ii 4 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Nasty old thing!" she gulped, " anybody
could' ve heard me! And I was creeping up so
still. . . ."
She peered out from behind a dwarf evergreen
and made a careful survey of the situation. The
big square house stood placid and empty in the
afternoon sun; not a cat on the kitchen porch,
not a curtain fluttering from an open window.
All was neat, quiet and deserted. Caroline set
her lips with decision.
"We'll pretend there wasn't any hen," she
said, in a low voice, " and go on from here, just
the same."
Rising with great caution she picked her way,
crouching and dodging, from bush to bush;
occasionally she took a lightning peep at the silent
house, then dipped again and continued her
stalking. Following the evergreen hedge around
a final corner, she emerged stealthily in the lee
of the latticed kitchen porch and drew a breath
of relief.
" All right so far," she muttered; " I wonder if
that old gray cat with the new kittens is fussing
around here?"
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 115
But no breath of life stirred under the porch
as she stooped to peer through a break in the
lattice, and with a final survey of the premises,
inserted her plump person into the gap and
wriggled, panting, into the darkness below.
It was stuffy and dusty there; the light filtered
dimly through the diamond spaces, and the adven-
turer, crawling on hands and knees, bumped into
a shadowy pile of flower-pots, sneezed violently
and grovelled wrathfully among the ruins for at
least five minutes, helplessly confused. Quite
by accident she knocked her cobwebbed head
against a narrow, outward swinging window,
seized it thankfully, and plunged through it.
Hanging a moment by her grimy hands she swayed,
a little fearfully, then dropped with a quick breath
to the concrete floor beneath, and smiled with
relief as the comparative brightness of a well kept
cellar revealed her safety. Vegetable bins, a
neat pile of kindling wood, a large portable closet
of wire netting, with occasional plates and covered
dishes suggestively laid away in it, met her eye;
on the floor in front of this last rested a little
heap of something wet and glistening. Untidy
n6 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
as it looked, it had an eatable appearance to
Caroline, whose instinct in these matters was
unimpeachable, and bending over it she inserted
one finger.
" Current jelly!" she whispered, thoughtfully
licking the inquiring member. " The idea!"
vShe approached the wire closet and peered
along the shelves; there was no jelly there.
" 'Dropped it getting it out," she pursued,
" I wonder why Selma didn't wipe it up."
Suddenly her face brightened.
" We'll keep right on and pretend 'twas burg-
lars," she announced to the quiet cellar, " and
they stole the jelly in a hurry and dropped this
and never noticed, and went upstairs to eat it
and get the silver! And so I found 'em, after
all!"
Still on tiptoe, she left the cellar, stole through
the laundry, and crept mysteriously up the back
stairs. So absorbed she was that a cracking
board stopped her heart for a breath, and a slip
on the landing sent her to her knees in terror.
The empty quiet seemed to hum around her;
strange snappings of the old woodwork dried her
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN' 117
throat. With her hand on the swing door that
led into the dining-room, she paused in a delicious
ecstacy of terror, as the imagined clink of glass
and silver, the normal clatter of a cheerful meal,
seemed to echo in the air.
It was always difficult for Caroline in such
moments of excitement to distinguish between
what she saw and heard and what she wished
to see and hear, and at this ghost of table music
she smiled with pleasure.
" The house is empty," said her common-sense,
but she pursed her lips and whispered, " they're
up here eating they've come for the silver!"
By fractions of inches she pushed the door on
its well-oiled hinge and slipped noiselessly into
the dining-room.
A broad beam of light fell across the dark,
wainscoted room, and in the track of it sat a
handsome well-dressed man, busily eating. In
front of him was a roast chicken, a cut-glass dish
of celery and a ruby mound of jelly; a crusty
loaf of new bread lay broken at his right; at his
left, winking in the sunbeam, stood a decanter
half filled with a topaz liquor. He was daintily
n8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
poising a bit of jelly on some bread, the mouthful
was in the air, when his eyes fell on Caroline,
an amazed and cobwebbed statue in front of
him.
The hand that held the bread grew rigid. As
spilled milk spreads over a table, the man's face
was flooded with sudden grayish white; against
it his thin lips were marked in lavender. While
the grandfather clock ticked ten times they stared
at each other, and then a wave of deep red poured
over his face and his mouth twitched.
" What are you doing here, little girl?" he
demanded sternly, pointedly regarding her dusty
rumpled figure.
Caroline gulped and dropped her eyes.
" I I nothing particular," she murmured
guiltily.
The man laid the piece of bread down carefully
and wiped his fingers on the napkin spread across
his knees.
4 Some time," he said, in a leisurely drawl,
1 you'll burst into a room like that, where a
person with a weak heart may be sitting, and
that'll be the last of 'em."
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"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 119
" The last of 'em?" Caroline repeated vaguely.
"Just so. They'll die on you," he explained
briefly.
Caroline stepped nearer.
" Is is your heart weak?" she inquired fear-
fully. " I'm so sorry. So is my Uncle Lindsay's."
" What were you sneaking about so soft for?"
he demanded.
She flushed.
" I I was playing burglars," she confessed,
" and I got to where they were in here with the
silver, and and I was coming in to to get them,
and I didn't expect anybody would be herie,.
really, you know, and I was surprised when I
saw you. I didn't know about your heart."
" Burglars?" said the man, laughing loudly.
"Well, that's one on me! I must say you're
a nervy young party. So you thought I was a
burglar, did you?"
" Oh, no!" Caroline cried, " of course not
I meant I was playing it was burglars; I didn't
mean you. I I didn't know anybody was here."
"Humph!" said he. "What made you play
burglars? Anything in that line yourself, ever?"
120 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Caroline stared uncomprehendingly.
" My mother doesn't think it's right for Aunt
Edith to go off and leave the house all alone the
way she does," she explained; " she's always
telling her some one will break in if she doesn't
leave Selma or a dog. And she never locks a
thing, you know she says if they intend to get
in, they will, and that's all there is about it. So
this time she went for three days, and Miss Honey
and the General and Delia; and Selma and Anna
went to a wedding and Ed went somewhere about a
lawn-mower, and little Ed was going to get the
pony shod. I told Aunt Edith I'd " she
coughed importantly " keep an eye on the
house."
" I see," said the man.
He poured himself two inches of the topaz
liquor; it rocked in the glass.
Caroline sniffed inquiringly.
" That's the Scotch," she said; " I know by
the smell, partly like cologne and partly smoky.
Do you like it?"
The man raised the glass to the level of his
eyes and watched the light play through it, then
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 121
made a slight movement of his arm and the whisky
disappeared smoothly.
" Your Aunt Edith's taste is as good as her
voice," he said, eyeing Caroline carefully.
"Oh, that's not Aunt Edith's that's Uncle
Joe's," she explained. Then, as it flashed across
her suddenly.
" Did you want to see him ? He's in New
York, too. They're going to have pictures
taken of Miss Honey and General. But after
that, Uncle Joe's going to Chicago. Did you
want him?"
" N-no, not exactly," said the man, study-
ing his well-kept finger-nails. " I can't say I do.
No, my businesses with is more "
He stopped suddenly and followed the direc-
tion of Caroline's eyes.
There on the sideboard behind him stood a
leather suit-case, long and solid looking. It
was open and tight rows of forks and spoons
filled it.
The room was quite still for a moment. Caro-
line wanted to show by some intelligent remark
that she understood the situation, and could
122 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
easily imagine what the man was doing with the
silver, but she found this difficult.
Strange people came to Aunt Edith's house.
Dark, foreign-looking men ate meals there at
unusual hours; once Caroline had seen with her
own eyes a plump, yellow German fall suddenly
on his knees at Aunt Edith's feet, as a hand-organ
struck up its brassy music under the window,
and burst into passionate singing, waving a whisk-
broom in the air and offering it to Aunt Edith
with the most extraordinary force of manner.
And her aunt, who wore at the time a raincoat
and tarn o'shanter cap, had leaned forward
graciously, gurgled out a most delicious little
tune, accepted the whisk-broom, affected to
inhale its fragrance rapturously, and whirled
into a big and beautiful song in which the plump,
yellow gentleman joined, and rising seized her
in his arms, at which point they drowned the hand-
organ completely, and the hand-organ man and
Uncle Joe applauded loudly, and they gave the
hand-organ man all he could eat and a dollar.
You may see from this that one did not look
for the common-place in Aunt Edith's house.
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 123
Moreover, the stranger was not unlike some of
her aunt's friends; though he was handsome
and assured and noticeably at his ease, Caroline
felt that his manner was subtly different from
that of the friends of her own family. But even
the most unconventional guest had never collected
the sideboard silver, and a little feeling was grow-
ing in the air ... doubt and a bit of what might
have begun to be fear . . . when suddenly the
man began to laugh. It was abrupt and it
rang harshly at first, but grew with every moment
warmer and more infectious, so that Caroline,
though she felt that she was in some way the cause
of it, joined in it finally, in spite of herself.
" If you knew what a sight you were!" he
exclaimed, wiping his eyes with the napkin,
"with your hair all cobwebs and all that dirt
on your knees and those finger-marks on your
apron, and being so small and all" he began
to chuckle again.
" Small?" she repeated portentously.
" Oh, I didn't mean small compared with
with anybody else the same size," he assured
her quickly.
124 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Catching her mollified glance, he went on more
soberly.
" And how did you get in, now ? No doors,
I'll bet."
" Under the kitchen porch, through the little
cellar window and up the back stairs," she ex-
plained.
" You mean to say you were out in that little
back hall and I never heard you?"
She nodded. " I took pains to be still," she
added, "so as to surprise the so if there had
been"
" I understand," he said gravely, " so as to
get them if they had been there. Well,
you'd have done it. You're all right. Now,
I suppose you're wondering what all this
means, aren't you? You haven't got any
idea who I am, have you ? You don't
know one single thing about me, and you
may be thinking "
" I know one thing about you," she inter-
rupted, " I know you went to Yale."
The man's jaw dropped, his hands gripped
the arm of the chair.
" WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN' 125
" And how in how did you know that?" he
cried roughly, with blazing eyes.
Caroline shrank a little but faced him.
" Your pin," she said, pointing to his vest,
" I saw it when you held your arm up."
The man sank back in his chair and fingered
the little jeweled badge unconsciously.
" Well, of all the cute ones ... so you've seen
this before?" he suggested.
' Of course I have my brother has one, and my
Uncle Joe and Uncle Lindsay and Cousin Lindsay
and Cousin Joe."
" All went to Yale?" he inquired.
" Lindsay and Joe are there now they're
seniors," she informed him. The General's going
when he grows up. All the Holts go there.
Grandfather Holt went."
" You don't say," said the man, bending
forward in genuine interest, ' I guess it's a
pretty good college, eh?"
" The best of them all," she assured him.
" I'll tell you an awful funny thing," she went
on abruptly, " you know all the Holts look alike.
Well, when Uncle Lindsay first went to Yale,
126 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
he was walking along the Campus, and right
by Old South Middle he met the President. And
the President stopped and said, 'Well, well, I
see the race of Holts is not yet extinct. Good
afternoon, sir!' The President. And he never
saw him before!"
The man shook his head thoughtfully.
"You don't say," he repeated. "Old South
Middle that's it. That's the one."
Suddenly he shrugged his shoulders and took
out his watch. "This'll never pay the rent!"
he said briskly. " Now let's get to business. I
suppose you were surprised to see all that stuff
in the suit-case?"
Caroline nodded and grinned back at him, his
own quick smile was so friendly and compelling.
"Well," he continued, rising and bunching
the napkin beside his plate, " I don't blame
you. Not a bit. I'd have been the same myself.
And you'll be even more surprised when you
find out what I'm doing that is," he stopped
abruptly, " unless your Uncle Joe has told you
already and sent you over to help?"
She shook her head.
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 127
" Didn't, eh?" he stepped over to the side-
board, wiping off the knife and fork he had been
using, and packed them with the others. Caro-
line, watching his hands, noticed in the corner
of the case a familiar chamois skin bag; she had
often seen it on Aunt Edith's bureau.
" Well, now," he continued, " If I had a niece
as sharp and smart and quiet as you are, Missy,
I'd tell her my plans, I would, and get her to
help me. I wonder your uncle didn't. Sure
he didn't mention me Mr. Barker?"
Again she shook her head, her eyes fastened
to the bag.
" Well," said the man, shutting down the cover
of the suit-case and strapping it tightly, " it's
this way. You may have heard your uncle
say something about it being kind o' careless,
leaving the house so much alone ? Anyhow,
whether he's talked to you or not about it, he
has to me often enough."
" Oh, yes!" Caroline was conscious of a
distinct sense of relief. "I've often heard him.
Then you do know Uncle Joe?"
The man faced her, starting in violent surprise.
128 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Do I know Uncle Joe?" he repeated; " do
I know him?" He shook his head feebly and
gazed about the room. " She says, do I know
Joe Holt ! And what should I be doing, eating
my lunch here, if I didn't?" he demanded.
" What should he tell me about his troubles for,
and ask me to help him, if I didn't know him ?
Is it likely I'd be packing his silver in my suit-
case if I didn't know him?"
Caroline stood abashed.
" I should think you might guess by this time
what the joke is," he went on forgivingly, seeing
that she was quite overcome with her own stu-
pidity, " but as I have to get away pretty
quick now, I'll tell you. You see, Joe isn't com-
ing right back with your aunt; he's going on to
Chicago, and that may keep him some time
away "
("I know," Caroline interpolated), "and he
wanted your aunt to have somebody stay in the
house to look after it he felt worried. But no,
she wouldn't. Wouldn't even get a dog that
is," eyeing Caroline steadily, " unless she's got
one lately, but when I last heard '
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN' 129
" No," she assured him, " she wouldn't. Aunt
Edith hates dogs."
" So Joe told me. ' Now what would you do,
Henry,' says Joe to me, that's my name, Henry
Barker, * what would you do with a woman like
that?'
"'Do, Joe?' says I, 'why, I'll teU you
what I'd do, I'd teach her a lesson, that's
what. I'd I'd give her one good scare, and
then you'd find she'd take your advice, after
that.' "
At this point the man reached for his overcoat
and began to struggle into it.
" ' But I don't know how to, Henry,' says he.
' You don't?' says I, ' nothing easier. Just tip
somebody off when the house is empty and they'll
run up and slip in, take what silver and jewelry
they can find in a hurry, pack it up careful and
hide it away wherever you say. Then when your
wife gets back and finds 'em gone, there'll be the
d there'll be a row, and when she says it's her
fault for not leaving the servants in the house,
and she'll never do it again, then you say, ' All
right, my dear, I'm glad you've learned your
130 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
lesson,' and step out and get the bag! How's
that?' I said."
He put his hat on, drew a pair of gloves from
his pocket, and looked hard at Caroline; her
answering glance was troubled and non-com-
mittal. He scowled slightly and rested one hand
on the bag.
" * All very well, Henry,' says Joe to me, c but
who's to do all this? I don't know anyone
that would dare to, let alone be willing,' ' he
went on, glancing hurriedly around the room.
" ' You know as well as I do that if they should
get caught doing it, anybody would swear 'twas
burglary plain and simple, and run' em right in.
They'd call the police. It would look bad for
whoever did it, you know,' he said."
" He might have asked me. I'd love to do
it," Caroline muttered resentfully.
As a matter of fact the scheme was sufficiently
like many a practical joke of her irrepressible
uncle. Better than anyone, Caroline, his con-
spirator elect, knew the lengths he was capable
of going to confound or scandalize his adjacent
relatives.
u
WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 131
' Of course," said the man, with relief in his
voice, " that's why I asked you if he hadn't. I
guess he was afraid you wouldn't dare. I ? d
have trusted you, though, myself."
She looked gratefully at him.
" Then, I said, ' Why, Joe, if that's the way
you feel about it, I'll do it myself,' he con-
cluded, lifting the suit-case from the sideboard
and grimacing at its weight. " ' What's the
good,' says I, ' of calling yourself a friend, if you
can't run a little risk ? Just tell me the day to
come and where you want 'em put be sure you
pick a good safe place and I'll 'tend to it for
you,' I said, ' and you'll do as much for me
some day when I'm in a tight place.'
He settled his hat firmly and moved to the
long window.
"I'll have to hurry if I don't want to lose my
train," he explained.
" But where's the place?" Caroline cried
excitedly; " what place did Uncle Joe pick out?
Won't you tell me? I won't tell truly, I won't!"
The man paused with one hand on the win-
dow button, and looked thoughtfully at her.
i 3 2 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" By George," he announced, " I've a good
mind to tell you! I'm not supposed to tell a
soul, you know, but you've been such a brick,
and being his own niece and all, I think you've
got a right to know, I really do."
Caroline nodded breathlesslv.
H
"Look here!" he cried, "I'll trust you if
your uncle won't. I don't like the place he
told me, much it isn't safe enough. There's
two thousand dollars' worth of stuff here, count-
ing the counting everything, and an old barn's
no place for it. See here. You promise me to
stay here for an hour one hour exactly, by the
clock and I'll leave this bag at your house for
you. Then you can hide it under your bed, or
anywhere you want, till to-morrow, and then
you can manage the rest to suit yourself. How's
that?"
" Oh, that would be grand!" she gasped.
" You can just tell your uncle that I saw you
were game and I trusted you, if he wouldn't,"
he concluded, opening the window, " and I'll take
this to your house in half an hour. Will you
promise not to leave for an hour? We mustn't
" WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN ' 133
be seen together, you know, or people might
suspect and then the game'd be up. And will
you lock this window after me and go out the
same way you came?"
"Yes, yes! I promise, I promise solemnly!"
she assured him, flushed with importance, ' and
tell 'em not to open it, will you? They might.
Say it's private for me, will you?"
"All right," he said soberly. "I'm kind o 5
sorry they went to Yale," he added abruptly.
" I'd rather sh! what's that?"
He stood rigidly listening; his eyes rolled back,
his hand raised in warning.
" I don't hear " she began, but his angry
gesture and the furious whisper that went with
it cowed her into a silence as strained as his
own.
For a moment it seemed to Caroline that she
heard a faint snap as of a board released from
pressure, but dead quiet followed; she held her
breath with excitement as the man lifted the suit-
case over the ledge, and peering over the balcony
stepped out. Suddenly he paused, one leg over
the sill; his eyes rolled back towards the room,
i 3 4 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
his lips tightened. So terrible, and so despairing
his face had turned that Caroline rushed to the
window. Even as she started she heard quick
soft steps in the hall, and pointed to the freedom
outside.
"Jump, oh, jump, Mr. Barker!" she whis-
pered in a glow of terror, " hurry! It is some-
body!"
He pointed silently to the ground below, and
with her heart pounding heavily she peered over
the sill. Directly below them crouched a Great
Dane, brindled, enormous, one eye fixed sternly
on the window.
The soft steps paused: perhaps she had imagined
them! Perhaps, if they kept quite still, that
quaking pair, perhaps. . . . The man breathed
like a drowning swimmer; it seemed to Caroline
she must scream.
The door flew open.
" Look out, there it's loaded!" the voice
came sharp as a cracked whip.
Caroline gave a shriek of joy.
"Why, it's Lindsay!" she cried, "it's just
Cousin Lindsay!"
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 135
A tall, powerful young man came in behimd
a leveled revolver.
" Car what be still, there!" he gasped,
steadying the weapon. The man stood motion-
less, his eyes on the ground.
" It's all right I never carried a gun in my
life," he said quietly.
" Oh, Lindsay, it's only a joke!"
Caroline ran towards him, stopping in horror
at the ugly winking eyes of the revolver.
" Mr. Barker only meant tell Lin about
it!" she entreated, sick with forboding at the
dogged man before her, the scornful flushed boy
at her side.
" I guess you better tell him, Missy," said the
man in a low empty voice.
" Go home, Caroline; go straight home this
moment."
Caroline had never heard her cousin speak in
that tone, and it was partly in tears, partly in
wrath that she answered,
" I will not go straight home, Lindsay Holt,
and you needn't talk to me that way, either!
Uncle Joe himself asked Mr. Barker "
136 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
She bagan glibly enough, but even to her
simple consciousness the story wavered and rang
false, with this stricken, passive man before
her. Her voice faltered, she choked. . . . Had
Uncle Joe really asked this man to get the emeralds?
Was it possible that Lindsay laughed disagree-
ably.
" If you've quite finished, Caroline, will you
go home?" he demanded, his eyes still on the
revolver.
She gulped painfully; her faith tottered on the
last brink.
" Oh, let it go at that; can't you?" the man
broke in roughly. "What difference does it
make to you, eh, how this part of the job gets
done? Have I made you any trouble yet?
My goose is cooked, all right, and we'll we'll
talk that over, later, when Missy goes, but but
couldn't you" he looked almost appealingly at
the young fellow, " couldn't we it's all there
in the suit-case "
" It was going under my bed Lin I'd have
been careful," Caroline was hoping against hope,
now.
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN' 137
" You see, Missy," said the man quickly,
in almost his old manner, " you see how it turns
out. It was a bad plan, I guess you can see
how your cousin takes it. You'll have to to
tell your uncle how it worked; it's one on me,
all right."
" Suppose we put it all back and oh Lord,
what's the use? " he ended suddenly.
" Cut it short what the hell do I care?"
He dropped suddenly into the chair behind
him; his head fell over on his arms, and the stiff
hat rolled along the floor.
The young man stared curiously at him, but
the weakness was genuine; every muscle was
relaxed.
Lindsay's face softened a little. " As far as
that goes, you're quite right," he said curtly,
" though it's a little late in the day. Look here,
Caroline. Mr. Mr. Barker and I don't agree
very well on the best way to teach people to lock
their houses. I it seems to me a pretty poor
joke. Uncle Joe never meant it to go quite so
far, I'm quite sure," he concluded jerkily. " I
I want to do the best thing all round, but," look-
138 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
ing anxiously towards her for a second, " this is
a little too a little too "
Her face cleared at his change of tone. 4 1
know," she returned eagerly, " I know just what
you mean, Lindsay. I think so, too. Any-
body would think "
" That's it," he said briefly.
" You say you thought so yourself at first,"
she added, looking uncomfortably at the bent
figure in the chair, " and that made him
feel"
"Well, well, I understand now," Lindsay
interrupted irritably, "it's all right now, Car-
oline. Hadn't you better go ? Mr Mr. Barker
and I will come along later."
" Oh, I'll wait and go with you, Lin," she re-
turned, almost assured, now, " why do I have to
go first?"
The man lifted his head; at sight of the
young fellow's nervous perplexity he smiled
faintly.
" Suppose you run along, Missy," he suggested;
" your cousin and I want to talk business, and
and then I must be hurrying on hurrying on,"
" WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN ' 139
he repeated vaguely, with dazed eyes. He
raised his hand to his head; Lindsay started
forward, the revolver loose in his hand.
"Where did you get that pin?" he cried
sharply. " Give that to me."
The man fingered the pin thoughtfully. " You're
'way off there," he said. "That's not that's
not"
" Not one of your ' jokes '?" Lindsay's voice
rang disagreeably. " I happen to know the con-
trary. I'll trouble you to hand it over. I'll
soon know to whom it belongs."
Caroline, hanging over the sill, lost in talkative
admiration of the Great Dane, was oblivious for
the moment of the room behind her.
" It belongs to my son," said the man. There
was a moment of silence. Outside the great
hound whined softly.
"His name Barker, too?" Lindsay asked
coldly, half rising.
"No, sir. His name is James Wardwell," said
the man defiantly.
Lindsay sprang to his feet.
"That's a dirty lie!" he shouted. He stood
140 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
over the man, careless of the revolver. " And
you'll pay for it, too!"
Caroline stared aghast at them.
" Look out for the gun," the man warned him,
and, as with a flush of mortification Lindsay
mastered his weapon, he added quietly, " you
can't be too careful with firearms."
Lindsay gritted his teeth.
" You you " he began furiously. The man
met his eyes for a second, then with a dark, slow
blush, dropped his arm.
The boy drew back uncertainly.
" What's the good of lying like that?" he said,
" how's it going to help you?"
The man looked at the floor.
" Don't be a fool how's it going to? Lindsay
repeated irritably.
The other did not move.
" Is that the truth?" Lindsay's voice was
strained and worried.
The man drew a long, uneven breath. Yes,"
he answered.
Lindsay glanced at the suit-case, at the man
in the chair, at the revolver.
" WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN ' 141
"Jimmy!" he muttered, "Jimmy B.!" For
the first time since he had last addressed her, he
noticed Caroline. He frowned, then suddenly
his face cleared.
" Look here," he said, his eye again on the
man, " do you know where all that silver
belongs?"
She nodded.
" I help Selma sometimes."
" Could you put it back so nobody would
know?"
" Oh, yes," she answered him, " and the
things from the bureau, too?"
His lips curled scornfully and his hold on the
revolver tightened.
" A thorough job, wasn't it?" he muttered,
then controlling himself he answered evenly,
" Oh, yes, might as well get 'em all back. We'll
just step in the library a minute."
The man got up and went before him into the
library, stumbling as he walked.
Lindsay watched him drop into a seat and
stood in front of him.
" W^hat proof have you got that what you said
1 42 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
in there is true?" he asked abruptly, " before
we leave the house, I must know.
" Proof?" the man repeated, " proof?" He
stared almost vacantly at Lindsay.
"Why, yes," the boy answered impatiently.
" You say you're the father of one of the most
brilliant men in my class, you wear the pin of
his society a pin I happen to know he lost
recently and I find you stealing my aunt's
spoons! For God's sake, what's the meaning
of it?"
The man twisted his fingers together and
moistened his lips.
" It kind of settled on me all at once," he said
in a hollow voice, " I felt it since morning. She
scared me so to begin with she came like a ghost
and then the dog finished me. I had one o'
them once and he nearly did me up turned on
me. Jim pulled him off," he added, "but they
give me a turn whenever I see 'em."
Lindsay stamped angrily.
" Will you prove what you say? Or shall we
discuss it at the station-house?"
The man raised his hand deprecatingly. " No,
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 143
no," he said hastily, " no that's what I don't
want. That's why I that's the reason I don't
good Lord, don't you know you've given me
a half a dozen chances, if I'd had the nerve for the
risk? Why, I c'd've butted that gun out of your
hand twice in the last ten minutes, you young
fool ! How long d'ye suppose it would take a
Imsky man to back you into one closet and Missy
into another and walk off with the stuff?
Hey?"
His eyes flashed, he threw back his head and
breathed hard, a cornered animal. Lindsay felt
a tingle of excitement run down his spine; for
a moment there was danger in the air.
" I I notice you didn't see your way to all
this," he said scornfully. But he blushed as he
spoke, the man saw it, and Lindsay knew he saw
it; he winced and drew himself up in a boyish
attempt to save the situation.
" It's quite true I'm not in the habit of catch-
ing house thieves," he said, drawling a little,
" and I doubt if many of them are quite such
accomplished liars as you appear to be; out
my stroke will improve, I've no doubt, as we go
i 4 4 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
on. Would you mind getting up and * coming
along with me ' as they call it, I believe?"
The man made no answer, but raised his hands
high above his head.
" If you'll look in that left vest pocket, there's
a little leather case there," he said, " and and
you'd better take the pin, too, I guess. I'd be
obliged if you'd say you found it somewhere;
I never should've put it on."
Somewhat clumsily Lindsay extricated the
leather case, cursing his awkwardness and the
patience of the man.
A worn little photograph of a boy of eight or
nine was in his hand; across the bottom was
scrawled in a childish hand, " Daddy, from your
son James."
He drew a long breath.
" That's Jimmy, all right," he said dully.
" If you'll just tear it up," said the man. " It's
all I've got, and nobody'd know but some friend
that that would be lookin' for the likeness."
Lindsay threw the picture on the floor.
" I won't believe it its too sickening!" he
cried, " Jim Wardwell's a gentleman! I I
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 145
why I admired him more than good God, he's
a friend of mine!"
The man smiled faintly.
" Oh, Jimmy has fine friends," he said almost
complacently, " he's always gone with the best.
He's very particular."
Lindsay's forehead was a network of pain and
doubt.
" But Jimmy has plenty of money," he insisted,
" he always had the his things oh, it's idiotic!
You're crazy, that's all."
" Oh, yes, he always had plenty," the man said
simply.
In the pause that followed they heard the soft
chink of silver through the wall; Caroline was
evidently busy.
Lindsay twisted his face into an ugly smile.
"And I thought he was the squares t of the
lot," he said slowly, " I've said so often. We all
did. Pretty easy, weren't we?"
" He is!" The man half rose, but fell back
with a grunt of pain.
" Oh, damn this heart!" he complained fret-
fully. " I don't know what's the matter with
i 4 6 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
me. That fortune woman, she knew. Last week
it was I went. ' You're making a plan to end
up your business,' she says to me, * and so you
will, mister, but not the way you think. There's
some trouble coming to you and a child's mixed
up in it. Look out for strange dogs,' she says,
they all tell me that * and run no risks this month.
I don't just like the looks of your hand,' she says.
And when I saw that child, it was all up with me,
I thought. I didn't think the machine would
ever get started again. And then that infernal
dog. . . ."
" We were speaking of of did you say that
Jim " Lindsay's voice sounded strange, even to
himself.
The man blinked a moment.
"What?" he said vaguely, "w r hat about
Jim? Oh he don't know anything about it,
of course. I sh'd think you'd know enough for
that. That's what I'm telling you, if you'd keep
still a minute."
He stared thoughtfully at the floor and Lindsay
waited. Caroline ran up the front stairs, and
he had counted each step before the man went on.
" WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN " 147
" So I sent the money regular every quarter,"
he muttered, as if continuing some tale, " and
I'd go to see him sometimes all dressed up, and
I tried to talk like he did. He thought I was
traveling and didn't want to be bothered. But
I couldn't see him much was I going to drag
him down, just as I'd got him started right? Not
much. ' Go and visit your friends, o' course,'
I used to tell him, * and you can write to me.'
The best schools I picked out, the very best. And
they came high. But I was good for it."
He shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
" I had a hunch when I bought the ticket,"
he muttered. " It just come over me * you
ought not to go to a place you got the idea of
from Jim,' something seemed to say to me, ' it's
unlucky.' And everything so still, and the stuff
so easy 'twas like finding it in the road. And
the last time, too the last time."
" But Jim he thought " Lindsay prompted.
A dreadful curiosity held him.
" So then he wrote, * of course it's Yale, dad,'
he wrote, 'we're all going up together. You
don't mind if it costs a little to get settled, do
i 4 8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
you?' And was I going to go to him he was
head of his class, mind you and say, the Trust
has treated me the way I wouldn't treat a dog
it's all up with me and you? I can go back and
be foreman again at the works we're bought up,
chewed up and spit out like a wad o' paper?'
Not much, I guess. No. Here's where I quit
the honesty game, I said, for it don't pay. You
stole my patent, and I shut up because I couldn't
afford to fight you, and you raised me and raised
me and let me into the firm when you knew it
was going to bust! Now, I says, since my boy's
education has been stole from me, I'll steal it back,
I says, and only from them that can afford it, too!
And I'll use no lawyer to do it, either, and we'll
have no trick- work with papers. I'll get it straight
from the wives and daughters of the big thieves
that pass the plate on Sundays."
Lindsay listened to Caroline moving over their
heads; her steps seemed the only reality in this
horrid dream.
" It it will just about kill Jim," he said
slowly.
" It would have killed him not to go to college,"
" WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN " 149
the man returned sharply, " and he had a right
to go."
" But, good heavens, there are ways he could
have earned money he's clever enough to work
his way through a dozen colleges!" Lindsay
cried despairingly.
" There wasn't any working his way through
for my boy," said the man, with a cunning grin;
" Pve done enough o' that for the family, thank
you. So did his mother she died of it. No,
there's money enough for all, and it only needs
a little planning. The thing is, never take a
risk. Wait for a sure thing. Take from the
kind that takes from your kind they'll never
miss it. Work alone, and never try to get too
much. Who are the ones that get caught? The
' pals '! No, I've just done for myself, and con-
tented to sell at a big loss, and only wanted to
get my twenty-five hundred a year for Jim, and
something over for his vacations those camps
cost a lot and enough to dress as I may need to."
Lindsay cleared his throat.
" Do you mean to say that Jim never asked you
what your business was?"
150 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" He didn't know I ever changed till last month.
He thought I traveled for the Comp'ny. Of
course he didn't like that any too well you know,
you wouldn't expect him to, brought up as he's
been and I guess he thought 'twould be kinder
to me not to mention it much. He thought
I didn't know, but I did. Last month last
month " the man paused and his mouth worked,
though he bit his lips.
"Well, last month?" Lindsay repeated piti-
lessly.
" I got my hunch to quit. That fortune woman
and and other things. The doctor told me to
keep quiet and not get on my nerve. And I sort
of fixed it up with Jim in a letter. I told him
I'd sold out my interest in the firm and I was
going to send him one more thousand for gradu-
atin' with and I was going to let him try for himself
after that. I knew that was all right, because
he's told me of plenty of rich young swells who
had to. Fathers believed in it."
" He was going with Buck Williamson on the
ranch," said Lindsay slowly.
" That's it! Buck Williamson. He asked me
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN' 151
wouldn't I look 'em up after they got settled and
try it out there. It was an awful nice letter,"
said the man softly, " he's a real gentleman."
Lindsay jerked his head toward the dining-room.
" Was this the * thousand '?" he asked coldly.
The man nodded.
" I've never been with him more than a day
or two, you see, and I thought I'd go up to New
Haven this spring when he graduated, and see
him. Just a day or two. And then I was planning
to drop out. Of course I never meant to see him
much. I was always deadly afraid something' d
happen, and I didn't want to get connected up
with Jim. But I've been careful. There's not
a line o' writing anywhere, and the man that sold
the stuff for me in Jersey City is close as wax."
" But your friends " Lindsay was wrung
with an angry pity.
" I don't care for much of anybody but Jim,"
said the man.
Caroline was moving restlessly about in the
dining-room again. Lindsay shook himself ner-
vously.
" Of course, this is very awkward for me,"
152 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
he began, " I mean I oh, the devil! You
know what I've got to do, of course?"
The man looked appealingly at him. " You've
got it all back," he said quickly, " and you know
Jim-"
" Yes, plague take it I know Jim," the boy
muttered, "we all know Jim."
" Known well, isn't he?" the man inquired
eagerly, " there's no cleverer scholar there, much
cleverer, I mean, is there?"
Lindsay shook his head. " Not that amounts
to anything," he said shortly.
" I'll bet there's no better fellow there than Jim
none of the big bugs?"
" There is no better fellow anywhere," said
Lindsay.
Caroline tapped fretfully on the door. " Aren't
we ever going, Lin?" she begged; "it's all put
back."
" Yes, yes, in a minute!" he answered, and
turned to the man. " I'm damned sorry to have
to do it," he began, " it's a horrible thing to do,
but I can't see that there are any two ways about
it. I don't want to hear you say any more. If
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 153
you'll come quietly, well and good. If it was
anybody else but in my uncle's house and the
community and well, will you come?"
The man sighed. He looked ten years older.
" All right," he said, " I didn't know but well,
never mind. My nerve's gone. I never had a
failure, you see. An' I always knew I couldn't
stand one. Never even left a trail. I couldn't
afford to, workin' as I did. I always knew 'twas
bound to come, though, and here it is. But it's
hard. Jim was telling me last month about this
singer that he'd heard was so careless, and I noted
it down for use some day. You have to notice
those things. He never said his friends lived
here. I it makes me feel dreadful when I think
how he'd feel if he knew I'd been working his
friends this way he'd never stand for that, Jim
wouldn't. It makes me feel oh, well, what's
the odds? But I wish you didn't belong to Yale
College."
Lindsay scowled and motioned to the
door.
" Shut up and come on, will you?" he blurted.
The man got up.
154 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" I guess I won't see Jim again, then," he said,
"will I? Of course there isn't one chance in a
hundred he'll ever know. But I couldn't explain
why I didn't go up to New Haven, nor send the
thousand, and it'll be five years, anyhow ten,
maybe. And I shan't hold out that. The doctor
only gave me two."
" Ten years? Oh, no!" Lindsay cried.
" It's grand larceny," said the man simply.
" Lin, Lin, come on! " called Caroline.
" You've got the pin, and I'll tear the picture
up," said the man. " I've got it all planned,
o' course I give the name of Barker. And
and if Jim ever says anything to you or any of
his friends about me being mean about the thou-
sand, when I'd promised it, just kind of give a
hint, will you, that things may have happened
so's I couldn't? I hope he'll think I died. I
wish he was through Yale, though. The thousand
won't make any difference with graduatin', will
it?"
Lindsay swallowed hard; his nerves were
strained to snapping.
" Good God, no!" he shouted. He stepped
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 155
to the French window, opened it, and threw the
revolver over the sill.
" Get out!" he said briefly, turning to the
man, " get out of my sight! If Jim ever re-
ceives another penny from you, I'll tell him all
I know."
The man swayed towards the chair. ' Do
you mean it?" he gasped, " honest?"
He began to sob and choke a little, and turn-
ing half bent over the chair, hunted with his
hand for his hat.
" Get out!" Lindsay repeated violently, look-
ing persistently sidewise.
The man leaned over and fumbled for the
picture on the floor, found it and straightened
himself.
Suddenly he leaped back and fell into the
chair again; a dreadful pallor reached the roots
of his hair.
" All up, I guess twice to-day 'Jim good-by,"
he said very quickly, and rolled against Lindsay,
the picture tight in his hand.
" Lin ! If you don't come pretty soon "
Caroline pushed open the door a little.
156 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Hush! Run and bring that whisky!'* her
cousin whispered, his face drawn and frightened.
She waited outside while he labored mysteri-
ously, breathing hard.
" Is Mr. Barker sick, Lin?" she whispered
fearfully when he came back to the door.
" Y yes. I guess he's pretty sick," he said
slowly, stepping out with her and turning the
knob carefully. The dining-room reeked with
the whisky on his hands and his coat.
" We'll go for the doctor," he went on, " both
of us, because we'll have to fix I'll have to talk
to you on the way. You needn't hurry so, Car-
oline. There's no we don't have to hurry."
He tried the outside door twice, to make sure it
was latched, and glanced hastily at the library
windows.
" I'd better wire Uncle Joe," he said half to
himself; " he'll know what to do oh, there's
the dog. Come on, Hamlet he's Buck Wil-
liams's gentle as a kitten."
" Yes, he'll know," she repeated, contentedly,
reaching for Hamlet's black muzzle.
" But I don't think that was right, do you,
"WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN" 157
Lin, even for a joke?" she queried, following
him down the side path. The big hound padded
on behind them.
" No," he agreed briefly.
" W 7 asn't it funny he had one of your pins?"
She was trotting rapidly, to keep up with him.
Lindsay stopped short and almost faced her,
He looked very young and tired.
" I swear, Caroline, I believe worse men have
worn it!" he said.
V
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY
CAROLINE slipped out of the woodshed
with Henry D. Thoreau barking under his
breath at her heels, and struck across the
dusty mountain road into the trail. The advant-
ages of the woodshed were many: it was cool
and dark, the stacked wood had a soothing odor
and a neat, restful appearance, and one was
more or less forgotten there. More important, it
lay directly under the long living-room, and sounds
carried easily through the primitive plank floor.
Up to now the murmur of the company's voices
had been a negligible quantity, a background
for thought, merely, but suddenly a familiar
intonation had risen higher.
"Why, certainly, Caroline can show you
she knows all the trails. Yes, indeed, she'd be
delighted, I'm sure. ... Oh, any time you prefer.
Don't let her dawdle along, though; she's such
158
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 159
a strange child sometimes it will take her ten
minutes to get across the road, and then another
time she will be as quick as a flash. I'll see where
she is."
But even as the boards squeaked above her
head, Caroline had fled, and Henry D. Thoreau,
smarting from the indignity of her brown, berry-
stained hand circling his muzzle, was expressing
his feelings to the yellow birches and ground
pine.
" Oh shut up, won't you, Henry D.?" she
urged him indignantly, " do you want to take
that fat old tiresome lady around our nice moun-
tain? I don't b'lieve you do. You can be
called 'girlie' if you want to I don't. She is
so hot and she creaks so when she walks! I had
to hold your nose."
Henry D., who had only wanted an explanation,
subsided, and they trudged on in silence, Indian
file, along the narrow trail.
The early afternoon sun filtered down through
the birch and beech leaves on Caroline's brown
head and Henry D.'s brindled back, pine needles
crunched under their feet, thick glossy moss
160 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
twinkled with last night's rain. They sniffed
the damp, wholesome mold delightedly; from
time to time Caroline kicked the rotten stump
of some pithy, crumbling trunk or marked pat-
terns with her finger nail in the thin new moss
of some smooth slab. Indian pipes and glow-
ing juniper berries embroidered the way; pale,
late anemones, deceived by the cold mountain
weather, sprang up between the giant mush-
rooms. It was as still as eternity.
The wood grew steadily thicker, the light
pierced down in golden arrows only, the silence
was almost oppressive. Caroline stepped sud-
denly out of the tiny path, pushed aside a clump
of fern, buried her arm up to the elbow in a hol-
low stump and produced a large crumbling
molasses cooky.
"Just where I left it, Henry D., just exactly!"
she whispered delightedly. " I wish now I'd
left 'em both, but I didn't feel able to spare 'em
at the time."
They ate the cooky pleasantly, Henry D.
receiving every third bite with scrupulous accuracy.
" I used to think maybe that huckleberry-
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 161
boy followed us up and discovered our places,
but this proves he don't," she announced, as the
last crumb disappeared; " he's not so smart as he
thinks he is, is he, Henry D.?"
They trotted on, moving more quickly as the
faint, regular crash of an axe on wood came nearer
and nearer. A barbed-wire fence had sprung
up unaccountably in the wood, following a devious
course among the thick trees, and as they scrambled
carefully under it, Henry D. pausing with accus-
tomed gallantry while his mistress disentangled
two petticoats and an unfortunate stocking, a
little gray-shingled cottage jumped out suddenly
from the gray beeches, and they emerged into its
front yard.
It was a ridiculously operatic little cottage,
composed chiefly of bulging balconies, scarlet
and yellow with geraniums and nasturtiums,
casement windows with tiny leaded panes, and
double Dutch doors, evidently practicable. It
had all the air of having retired from the other
scenery to practice for its own act, and it seemed
highly probable that a chorus of happy short-
skirted peasantry would skip out from behind
162 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
it and tunefully relate the fortunes of the heroine
within.
But the only person in sight was obviously
impossible of such classification. Though she
was chopping wood, and chopping it very well,
though she wore what is sometimes called a
Mother Hubbard wrapper and a stiff, clean blue-
checked apron, she was not in the least a peasant.
Her figure was tall and spare, her hair gray and
drawn into an uncompromising knot, her face
wrinkled and shrewd, her eyes soft, and full
of the experience that middle-age brings to the
native American woman who has lived all her
life in the sparsely-settled country districts.
Her face relaxed at sight of her visitors. " How
d'ye do?" she called cheerfully, " ma want
anything?"
* I don't believe so," Caroline returned sociably,
" I've just come up, that's all."
' I thought maybe your ma was worried about
them shirt-waists, but she needn't be: I'll have
'em back by Friday, sure. It'll be all I can do,
though he's on the rampage these days, and
I've got my hands full, I tell you."
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 163
" Is Old Grumpy bad to-day?" Caroline
inquired.
" Bad? Child, that old fellow is just about
the worst I ever saw, and I've seen plenty. What's
on his mind the Lord knows, but it's a lesson to
us all to keep our tempers and not have secret
thoughts preying on us night and day! Just
now he told me the truth for once. c I'm so
worried I can't digest, Luella,' he says to me,
' and I digest so damnably that it's enough to
worry an archangel! ' There I shouldn't V
said that before you, but "
" Oh, I know ' damn,' Luella," Caroline as-
sured her, "and it isn't as if you said it purposely,
anyway; you just repeated it. It makes all
the difference."
" I guess it does," Luella assented, " s'long's
you understand it. But then, you understand
everything, more or less, 'seems to me. Where
you picked it all up at your age "
"What's that, Luella? Who is talking out
there? What's going on now behind my back?"
A petulant and gray-haired gentleman rushed
out at them, very much like a wiry Scotch terrier,
1 64 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
and glared fiercely at Caroline and Henry D.
Thoreau.
" Nothin's goin* on hehind your back that I
know of, Mr. Wortley," Luella returned com-
posedly. " This little girl comes up to see me
every once 'n a while I do washing for her mother
at one of the cottages and we were just talkin'
back and forth, that's all."
" You fried that liver!" the gentleman burst
forth abruptly, " you know you fried it, Luella !
I might as well have eaten a shingle off the cottage
it's killing me ! Ugh ! As if I hadn't enough
to bear without being murdered with fried
liver!"
" I do' know what you've got to bear, Mr.
Wortley," and Luella gathered her apron full of
kindlings, " but you needn't add fried liver to it,
'cause it was broiled."
" Never!' 1 exploded the fiery gentleman.
" I'd ought to know," said Luella firmly, " I
had the grid-iron to wash."
"As for children," he veered off again, " you
couldn't have poorer company. Think what
they'll grow into think!"
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 165
" Some don't turn out so bad," she reminded
him, starting toward the house.
" Ah, but when are you going to decide that
they have 'turned out'?" he demanded, trotting
angrily beside her, " tell me that, will you? Per-
haps you imagine that when they're of age,
legally men and women, and you've managed to
keep 'em out of the State Reform School up to
then, you're justified in thinking they've ' turned
out'? Hey?"
" Oh, now, I wouldn't go on so about the State
Reform School, Mr. Wortley," Luella urged
pacifically, " that's awful. I always say the
young ones mean well, mostly; there ain't many
that set out to be bad a-purpose. Only, accordin'
to their judgment "
' ' Their j udgment ! Their j udgment ! For God's
sake!" he thundered, and darted into the house,
slamming the door so that the casements rattled.
" I guess you'd better run on, dear," Luella
suggested, " he's bad to-day. Some days I just
have my hands full with him, and then again
he'll be real pleasant and amusin' he'll say the
cutest things. But he's perturbed to-day, and
i66 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
that's a fact. You stop in 'long in the afternoon,
when he takes his nap and I'm at my ironing,
and we'll have a good visit."
Caroline nodded soberly and took up her
journey again, not a little depressed: he had been
such a whirlwind of a gentleman.
Unconsciously she followed a tiny, all-but-
overgrown trail that led straight up the hill
against which the cottage was built and lost
itself, apparently, in the thick wood at the top.
A belt of tall beeches half way up blotted out
everything behind it, and the dozens of chip-
munks and red squirrels that scurried hither and
yon, the fat hen-partridge schooling her brood
under Caroline's very nose, the flame-colored,
translucent lizards slipping under mossy roots
at her feet, showed the neglect into which the
trail had fallen. She pushed on, hardly certain
now that she had not lost it, or that it had ever
led anywhere, when she stumbled suddenly over
a handsome meerschaum pipe, still warm, and
colored to a nicety. She picked it up, poked
experimentally at the ashes with a twig, smelled
it distastefully and stared about her. No one
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 167
was in sight, and she had walked at least a quarter
of a mile before she encountered a young man
sitting in a dejected attitude on the stump of a
yellow birch.
He was peering gloomily into the hemlocks
opposite him, his hands were deep in his pockets,
his feet crossed at an uncomfortable angle. He
was a pale young man with dark circles under
darker eyes, and an expression of such settled
melancholy that Caroline lost no time in assuaging
it as far as she could.
" Here it is," she remarked, holding out the
pipe, " how do you do?"
The young man started violently.
" Holy Bridget, who are you?" he demanded.
"How did you get here? This is private property
didn't you see the sign? '
" There wasn't any sign the way we came,"
she returned placidly, " we came over the moun-
tain. Don't you want your pipe? '
The young man blushed and scowled. " Thank
you very much," he said, extending a thin, brown
hand, "I'm afraid I was rather rude. Where
did you find it?"
i68 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
' Oh, down there," she answered vaguely.
He handled the pipe lovingly, knocked it
against the birch stump and cleared it further
with a curl of the polished, champagne-tinted
bark.
" Nice dog," he suggested, " what's his name?"
" Henry D. Thoreau," she replied, studying
the green scarab in his necktie and the heavy
seal-ring on his left hand.
" For heaven's sake! Who named him?"
" My Uncle Joe," she returned simply, " be-
cause he takes to the woods whenever he gets the
chance. Was that pin a bug once?"
" Not since I ran across it," said the young
man, " before that, I can't say. Has your uncle
any other animals ? '
' Oh, yes," she assured him. " There's the
donkey, his name is Rose-Marie; and the baby's
cat, his name is Pharaoh Meneptah, but the baby
calls him Coo-coo; and there's Miss Honey's
rabbits, they're all named Eleanor, because you
can't tell them apart, and one name does just as
well; and the canary, his name is Jean and
Edouard de Reszke."
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 169
The young man burst into laughter and fell
off the stump abruptly.
" Those are fine names, all of them," he
declared, picking himself up with great solici-
tude for the pipe, " but why did the canary get
two?"
" Because Aunt Edith likes Jean the best, but
Uncle Joe says there's more to Edouard," she
explained, " so they named him both, because
Uncle Joe said anything was better than a divided
family."
" That's right," said the young man, " any-
thing is."
His face, which had looked for a moment merry
and boyish, darkened again, and his big eyes
glowered intently at the shadowy hemlocks.
" Anything," he added, in a low voice, " but
a sacrifice of principle, a sacrifice of truth, as it
actually is, to the petty conventions of a rotten
society!"
With that he sat his teeth hard and pulling a
leather pouch out of his pocket, began stuffing
the pipe decisively. Caroline waited for him
to continue, but as he lit the pipe and puffed at
1 70 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
it in silence, she concluded that the interview
was at an end, and started up the path.
" You'd better not " he began, but stopped
suddenly and appeared to reconsider. " Oh,
I don't know," he added, "it might be better,
after all. Go along."
The trail was little more than a worn line in the
grass, now; soon it turned sharply to the left,
skirted the wood, and led to a tiny, dilapidated
cottage. Caroline had more than once passed
it by under the impression that it was abandoned,
or used perhaps for storing ice or wood; but to-
day a thin curl of smoke stained the blue above
it and through the open door of the one living-
room that formed its ground-floor she saw a
scarlet Navajo blanket, on which reposed a
magnificent snowy Angora cat. A great green
bough covered one of the walls, and a few chairs,
a square pine table and a guitar flung against a
pile of bright cushions, completed the furniture.
At the further end of the room, stretched upon
the mate to the Angora's blanket, lay a young
woman, sobbing violently.
Caroline hesitated, but Henry D. Thoreau
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 171
recognized grief, and knew perfectly well what to
do. Stepping quietly over to the prostrate
figure he encircled it once, looking for a point
of vantage, then selecting two little white,
pink-tipped fingers, he licked them caress-
ingly.
The sobbing ceased: the girl drew a longer
shaking breath.
" Is that you, Mimi?" she said huskily, " I
didn't know you cared as much as oh, what
is that?"
Her hand had fallen on the little bull-dog's
smooth, stiff coat and she started up in surprise.
Caroline smiled shyly into her big, stained gray
eyes.
" It's all right Henry D. never bites do you
feel bad?" she asked.
The girl pushed back a handful of crinkly,
chestnut hair from her damp face and rose, shak-
ing out her skirts.
" Y yes," she said, frankly, " yes, I do.
Do you know why?"
" No. Why?" Caroline inquired.
" Because I can't make huckleberry bread,"
172 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
the girl assured her solemnly. " I I've been
trying all the morning. Look in there."
Caroline peered into the little lean-to, filled to
over-flowing with a stove, some tin cooking pans,
a table full of soiled dishes and a case of kitchen
sundries, half unpacked.
" You did get it all over, didn't you?" she
observed cheerfully, noting the prints of doughy
fingers on oven and chairs and the burned, odor-
ous wreck, resting in soggy isolation in the middle
of the floor. " You cooked it a little too much,
maybe."
" Maybe," the girl assented listlessly. " I
was going to have it for luncheon. The woman
promised to be here by ten o'clock, and I got
the breakfast well enough after a fashion
but she hasn't come, and I'm s-so hungry!"
Her eyes rilled again. " It's simply filthy
here," she murmured. " Do you know any-
body we could depend on oh, how stupid of
me, of course you don't."
" There's Luella," Caroline suggested, " she's
right near here, and she makes lovely huckle-
berry bread. Shall I go get her ? Old Gr'
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 173
the gentleman that she keeps house for takes
his nap now, and I know she could come."
The look of relief on the girl's face was enough,
and Caroline hurried out, leaving Henry D.
Thoreau, who seemed to feel responsible for his
hostess's peace of mind, snuggled in her lap.
She burst into Luella's placid afternoon kitchen,
big with her news, bustling about excitedly,
while Luella methodically packed a market-
basket with half a cold chicken, an untouched
loaf of huckleberry bread, a pan of tiny biscuits
and a glass of currant jelly.
" Butter I know they've got, and milk, for
I see Wilkins stop up there this mornin' as I
come down, and I wondered who on earth had
taken that God-forsaken little cottage. 'Twasn't
occupied last season. Cryin' right out loud,
was she? She must 'a been all tired out to make
such a fuss over a tin o' huckleberry bread. I
s'pose she hasn't got many breakfasts in her
life. Ten to one 'twas Myra Tenny that dis-
appointed her: it sounds like her. Always
undertakin' more 'n any one woman c'd pos-
sibly attend to, and then goin' back on you. Pretty
174 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
cross himself, was he? Well, they'd had words,
most likely, They take it hard at first. They
ain't long married, of course, if they're young
as you say. Poor things. There, I guess that's
about all."
Luella closed the kitchen door softly and they
hurried along the trail.
" He's off as sound as a baby," she confided
to Caroline, " sometimes he'll sleep two hours,
he's up so much in the night."
As the relief expedition neared the cottage,
Henry D. Thoreau bounded out to greet them, the
girl behind him, still flushed and swollen-eyed,
but with her thick, reddish hair newly braided
in a crown around her head.
" Good afternoon," Luella called cheerily, " I
hear you're in trouble up here ! You ought to
let me known I'm the one for jobs like this.
Just let me into the kitchen, Miss' " She
paused, but as the girl made no attempt to help
her, continued easily, " well, I should say so !
Got a little burnt, didn't it? Never mind, you
ought to a' seen my first corn-meal muffins!
Now you just step out and rest a minute, dear,
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 175
and by the time you've called your husband I'll
have a little lunch scratched up and you'll feel
so different you won't know yourself. It's sur-
prisin' how distressed you c'n get on an empty
stomach. Tis your husband, isn't it, or is it
your brother?"
" No, it's not yes. It it's not my brother,"
the girl said in a low voice.
" No," Luella repeated soothingly, " no, I see.
That's a fine cat, ain't it? I've read of 'em
Angora, ain't it ? but I never saw one. They
say they're mostly deaf. Is that one?"
" Yes. No I don't know. I don't believe
she is," the girl murmured, brokenly. She seemed
newly distressed; her lips, very red against her
white cheeks, quivered, her full breast strained
against her white linen blouse.
Luella strode lightly about the disorderly little
kitchen; she had forgotten the very presence of
the girl, it seemed, for as she gathered the soiled
dishes, coaxed the fire, filled the kettle and hastily
removed the traces of the ill-fated huckleberry
bread, she hummed a tune and appeared to see
only her work.
176 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Caroline was on her knees before the Angora
and knew nothing of the flight of time, though
it was really hardly more than a quarter of an
hour before the kitchen rivalled Luella's in neat-
ness and the pine table in the living-room, covered
with a fresh cloth, and shiny plated silver, only
waited its host.
" Now if you'll step out and call your husband,
Miss I didn t just get the name?" said Luella
invitingly.
The girl rose from the chair where she had been
sitting, motionless, except for her eyes, which
had followed every movement of the older woman.
She stood very straight and threw her head back
with a gesture almost defiant.
" My name is Dorothy Hartley," she declared,
and ran abruptly out of the cottage.
" Well, well," Luella shook her head whimsically,
" she's pretty well wrought up, isn't she? Sweet
little thing, too real loveable, I sh'd say. It
don't seem possible he'd be mean to her. But
o' course he wants his breakfast fit to eat, just
the same. I put a place for you, Car'line, 'cause
I know you c'n eat, no matter what time 'tis
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 177
you're 's empty's a bag. There he comes my,
but he's haughty! He looks like somebody in
one o' those novels, don't he, now?"
They came slowly up the path, hand in hand,
like children, her gray eyes on the ground, his black
ones challenging the world. The clear mountain
air carried his words easily to the two in the door :
" Now, dearest, be brave! Remember, we are
right, and we know we are right."
She clutched his hand nervously, but made no
reply.
" Come right in," Luella urged them hospitably,
" you must be 'most starved."
" Oh, no," he assured her, with a loyal glance
at the girl, " I I had a good breakfast, didn't I,
dear?"
But his eyes brightened at sight of the half
chicken and the omelet, glowing in a parsley
wreath, and he had broken one of the puffy rolls
and plunged into a great cup of coffee before he
addressed Caroline.
" You seem to be a valuable person to know,"
he observed, " you and Matthew Arnold or John
Greenleaf Whittier or what-ever-his-name-is.' ?
178 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Caroline looked embarrassed and helped herself
to jelly.
" You have helped my we are very much
obliged to you, I am sure," he turned to address
Luella, who was passing from stove to table,
" aren't we, dearest?"
The girl sat with her hands in her lap, staring
at her plate.
" Yes, of course," she agreed, " certainly."
" If you could come every day they told me
I could find some one to do that it would be a
great accommodation," he went on, with a worried
look at the sad face opposite him, " and anything
it might be worth, I am sure, Mrs. "
"Judd, Luella Judd," she supplied, briskly.
" Now, dear, try to eat a little, do! That omelet'll
do you good. And that's a lovely piece o' breast
I cut you off. It was all right my bringin' it,
for the old gentleman never touches cold meat
and the jelly's my own. There, that's right. I
thought you'd like it, once you began. There's
no need to tempt Car'line and your husband,
is there? But that's all right: young folks
ought to eat I never grudged mine a crumb,
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 179
and the Lord knows they eat me out of house and
home."
The young man, indeed, ate voraciously, and
under Luella's kindly domineering the hostess
herself cleared her plate. The hot coffee brought
the color to her cheeks, and she had even smiled
at Henry D. Thoreau. Caroline had never seen
anyone prettier. She had a great dimple in
either cheek, and her gray eyes smiled with the
sweetest confidence into the black eyes opposite:
any one could see that they loved each other very
much, even if they had " had words."
"Just a little more o' the huckleberry bread,
dear?" Luella urged her. " Pve been sort o'
plannin' out how I c'd manage to get here every
day, and I guess I can, if you'll be content to
wait a little for your breakfast. My old gentleman
don't have anything but a cup o' coffee in the
morning, an' I c'd be over here by ha' past eight,
easy enough, Mr. Hartley, if that suited you "
"Wortley, my name is Wortley," the young
man interrupted, hastily.
Luella looked puzzled.
"Wortley?" she repeated, "why, that's
i8o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
well, never mind, it's none o' my business. I
cert'nly thought she said Hartley, though. Well,
if you'n Mrs. Wortley can wait till ha' past eight "
" Frank, dear," the girl broke in appealingly,
but the young man shook his head.
" No, darling," he said firmly, and then looking
straight at Luella, he went on: ; This lady's name
is Hartley. We are not we are not related."
Luella stared blankly at him a moment, then
turned to the girl. But she, though she got up
from her seat and going over to the young man
seized his hand and pressed it between her own,
did not lift her eyes to the woman's troubled and
accusing gaze.
Luella drew a long breath, took off her checked
apron and rolled it mechanically into a bundle.
Her face had hardened; only the shrewdness was
left in her eyes.
" You might 'a told me so before," she said
briefly, and turned on her heel.
The girl was crying on his shoulder. "Tell
her, Frank, please tell her why," she begged,
through her sobs.
Luella faced her sternly. " He needn't trouble
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 181
to tell me why," she said, " I know more'n you
think, maybe. I know who your father is,
Mr. Wortley, an' I guess I understand pretty
well by now what his troubles are. If he forbade
you marryin' each other, he had his reasons,
I don't doubt, for he's a good man, if he is quick-
tempered, an' "
" He didn't forbid our marrying," the young
man broke in sharply, glaring with ill-suppressed
irritation at Luella, while he softly patted the
girl's shoulder. " He begged us on his bended
knees to marry, though I don't know how you
know him."
Luella paused with her hand on the door.
"What!" she exclaimed sharply. "Then it
was your folks?" She looked at the girl.
"No, it wasn't!" Dorothy lifted her head.
" They b-begged us on their b-bended knees,
too," she sobbed and disappeared again.
" For the Lord's sake!" Luella muttered. Then
turning fiercely on him she took a step forward.
" Do you mean to tell me you're scoundrel
enough " she began, but the young man he
was really only a boy shook his head angrily.
182 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Not at all, not at all," he burst out with a
curious likeness to his father, "I'm no more a
scoundrel than you are, Mrs. Judd, and you'll
oblige me by acting accordingly."
It was so evident that he meant what he said,
he appeared so righteously indignant, that Luella
paused, dumbfounded, twisting the apron in her
hands.
" Wh-why ain't you married, then? " she
demanded.
The young man surveyed her calmly. " Be-
cause I we disapprove of marriage," he said.
Luella turned a brick-red; her mouth opened
vaguely. Though she spoke not a word, he an-
swered her amazed face.
" The conditions of marriage at the present
day," he stated loftily, " are not such as to lead
me to lead us to suppose that as an institu-
tion it has accomplished its purpose. Where
it is not merely legalized "
" Oh, Frank!" the girl moaned softly, putting
her little hand over his opened lips. He kissed
it gently, but removed it.
" To say nothing of the absolute misery you
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 183
can see all about you as a result of a chain that
ought long ago to have been broken, or better
still, never "
" And before that child, too!" Luella burst
out. " Caroline, you get right up and come home.
I never heard anything like it in my life. Come
this minute, now!"
Caroline rose unwillingly; she thought Luella
unnecessarily severe.
" As to that," young Mr. Wortley announced
composedly, " we differ again. The sooner these
matters are discussed frankly before children,
the sooner we shall have fewer unhappy men
and women. There is nothing whatever in my
intentions or Miss or Dorothy's, to shock or
affront the youngest child. I have no children
myself, but "
" Humph!" LueUa sniffed furiously, " I sh'd
hope not!"
" but if I had," he pursued evenly, " I
should teach them precisely "
" Look here," Luella interrupted roughly, " look
me in the face, both of you!"
They turned their eyes full on her, the boy's
184 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
dilated to fanaticism, glowing with obstinacy;
the girl's, wet and pleading, miserable, but full
of love. Luella, with narrowed lids, bored into
those clear young eyes: no shadow of deceit,
no hint of shuffling or double-dealing could with-
stand that relentless scrutiny.
Slowly her face softened, her eyebrows relaxed,
her hold on the twisted apron loosened.
" I guess we better talk this over," she said
decisively, closing the door and seating herself
squarely in the chair nearest it. " How old did
you say you was, Mr. Wortley?"
The forensic expression faded helplessly from
the boy's face. He clutched at it, but it failed
him, and with the air of a pupil addressing his
teacher, he replied: " I didn't say, but I'm twenty-
one.'
Luella nodded. " An' you can't be a day over
nineteen, can you?" she demanded of the girl.
The braided chestnut head shook sadly.
" I thought not. I s'pose you've found out
that your views ain't shared by most o' the world,"
she proceeded, with a fine air of impartiality.
" I we have been very much misunderstood,"
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 185
said the boy stiffly, " but I have never been in
the habit of allowing other people's ideas to affect
my actions."
" You been spoiled, you mean,'* Luella inter-
polated, "I thought so. Spoiled to death, prob'ly."
He bit his lip. " But I hope I we are
prepared for anything anything" he repeated
with emphasis, " that may result from the course
we have taken. I expect the results will be
unpleasant I expect it fully."
" I guess your expectations '11 be fulfilled right
enough," she responded promptly. " And as
for bein' prepared you remind me o* my father,
Mr. Wortley. He used to say he'd been prepared
for death since the age o' seven years, but he did
hope the Lord wouldn't take advantage of it.
Is is she prepared, too?"
He looked lovingly at the girl who crouched
on the floor beside him. " Dorothy and I think
precisely the same in everything," he said proudly,
" don't we, my dearest one?"
Luella's lips twitched; she looked at the flushed
arrogant young face with irrepressible admira-
tion.
i86 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" I reely b'lieve you think so!" she declared,
and as his hand clinched and his eyes flashed
dangerously, she raised her hand with a warn-
ing gesture.
" There, there now, I get enough o' that from
your father!" she admonished him, adding
quickly, " Does he know you're here?"
" I don't know," he answered irritably, " I
never supposed he'd be here. I came up here
because I'd made all my plans to and I never
let my plans be interfered with, if I can possibly
avoid it. I told the man to get it ready for me,
but just before we started he telegraphed that
it was engaged for the season. But I came all
the same, because I knew this little one would
be empty. Father bought it up to protect him-
self. Does he know I'm here?"
Luella looked thoughtful. 4 ' I reely don't know,"
she said slowly.
" It'll come pretty hard on her, doin' her own
work, won't it?" she went on, watching him
curiously. Then, as he started angrily, "Oh,
there ain't nobody here will come, by the day,
or any other way I sh'd s'pose you'd known
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 187
that. And as for any o' the cottage people
heavens an' earth, Car 'line, will you get up an'
go home? I don't know what's come over me
to forget that child she sits so still "
But as Caroline got sulkily from her seat,
cowed by Luella's stern face, Dorothy put out
her hand and caught the child's dress.
" Oh ! Oh!" she cried hysterically, " don't
send her away don't, Frank! L-let me have
somebody! '
" There, you see!" said Luella sadly, " you
see how 'tis, Mr. Wortley. Do you mean to say
you have the heart "
" Dorothy, I don't understand you at all,"
said the young man, with evident self restraint.
" You probably do not realize the very trying
position you put me in. I hope it is not necessary
to explain to you, Mrs. Judd, that if Miss Hartley
wishes to marry me, she has but to say the word,
and it shall be done instantly instantly!"
he repeated with emphasis, " as if," Luella
said later, " he'd had a minister in his side
pocket."
"There, my dear, hear that!" she cried
188 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
triumphantly, " now just tell him what you
want"
" You horrid woman, you ought to be ashamed
of yourself!" the girl broke in furiously. " How
dare you intimate as if I didn't know that
Frank would do anything in the world I asked
him to!"
' Oh, no, dearest," he broke in satirically,
" that's a poor basis for action in this beautiful
world of ours! Catch your man and tie him
tight before he has time to change his mind.
Then he'll be obliged to stay by you you've
got him hand and foot! That is love!"
" It's just as well, sometimes, though," Luella
inserted placidly.
" Do you suppose I would ever," the girl
stormed, " unless I oh, dear, will somebody
understand? Don't you know that my that
Frank has studied this question very deeply,
that it's a matter of principle with us? If you
had read all the dreadful things "
' I am afraid, darling," he interrupted, with
cold dignity, " that if your people and mine
cannot understand the position I take, if we are
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 189
actually obliged to take the matter into our own
hands, and and run away, in fact, in order to
prove our sincerity, you can hardly expect people
of a different of less with fewer
" I know what you mean, Mr. Wortley,"
Luella said gravely. She rose to her feet, beckon-
ing to Caroline, whose waist the girl still clasped.
" I haven't got your education," she went on,
with a simple humility that became her very
touchingly, " we're poor people up here, us
' natives,' and we don't get much time for books,
or when we do, we're too tired to read 'em much.
I don't doubt you've been to college, yourself,
and you've prob'ly learnt a lot about the mis-
takes that's been made in the world a lot that
I wouldn't understand. But I want to tell you
one thing. I'm old enough to 'a been your
mother, Mr. Wortley, my oldest boy'd 'a been
twenty if he'd lived and I've buried two besides
him. You'll know I've seen trouble when I tell
you that I've always thought we'd saved him
and Annie if we could 'a had another doctor
that'd had more experience with typhoid, and
that's an awful thing to feel."
ioo WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
She paused a moment with somber eyes.
" I've worked hard since I was ten years old,
and for the last five years there's been nothin'
but me between the children and the poor house.
You don't know much about that kind o' worry,
Mr. Wortley, an' 'taint likely you ever will. I
was married when I was nineteen " Her
eyes fell on the girl and softened lovingly, " 'an
what that means in the country with seven
children an' no help, an' the winters what they are
here, maybe you can guess a little. But I tell
you this: I ain't had the sorrow, all told, that's
preparin' for that girl, if you keep on like this.
An' I wouldn't change my lot for hers, nor would
she, if she knew."
There was a dead silence in the room. Only
the short, grunting breaths of the sleeping dog
stirred the air. The girl sat as if turned to stone,
her arm hard about Caroline; the boy stared
doubtfully at the woman, studying her plain,
wrinkled face.
c I-I have plenty of money," he said, in a hollow
thin little voice, " she will always "
" Money!" Luella's voice shook with scorn,
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 191
" what's money ? The Lord knows, Mr. Wortley,
I need money more'n you ever will, but let me
tell you there's things money can't buy. Can you
buy children nice children like this one to
play with your children ? Tell me that!"
" I shall never have any children," the girl's
voice came in a husky, strained whisper, " I shall
be too too miserable," she concluded softly,
and utterly to herself; she had absolutely for-
gotton the others, even the boy, whose eyes
turned incessantly from her face to the older
woman's.
Luella's shrewd glance enveloped the strong
young figure. " I never heard 't misery pre-
vented 'em," she said dryly.
The boy seemed unable to move, so intense was
the concentration of his thoughts; his fingers
stuck out stiffly in a purposeless, set gesture.
"If it is true, all that we thought,' he said
slowly, " then no hardship, no merely personal
suffering should prevent . . . the experiment
must be made . . . must inevitably, some-
time. . ,' ;
"But not with her, not her, Mr. Wortley!"
192 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Luella cried. Her expression turned quickly
whimsical.
" You remind me o' me an' my mother one
time, when I was a gill," she cried. " I wanted
to prove that you c'd raise biscuits without the
bakin' powder I was terrible headstrong: I
know what 'tis well 'nough, an' how hard 'tis
to give 'way an' she was tryin' to persuade me.
" ' I think 't least you might let me make th'
experiment,' I says, an' she turned to me I
c'n see her now an',
" * Luella,' says she, 'it's all very well for you
to make th' experiment, but I'm the one that'll
have to pay the bill!' she says.
"It'll be like that with you, Mr. Wortley
you'll make th' experiment, but she'll pay!"
There was another silence.
"We always pay," Luella added thought-
fully, "it don't seem just fair, but we do."
The young man shook himself suddenly, like
a dog fresh from the water.
" I didn't mean to God knows I wouldn't
hurt a hair of her head," he said, in a low voice.
His hands relaxed, his shoulders drooped. " It
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 193
seemed the best thing only this morning is
that what you meant this morning, Dorothy,
when we when we when I went away?" he
asked gently.
She held out her hand to him, still clasping
Caroline, and he knelt beside her, one arm around
her neck.
" I I don't want you ever to do what you
think is is wrong," she said brokenly, but
with a brave effort at steadiness. " I'll I'll
never leave you Frank."
She gazed adoringly into his eyes, her hand
tight in his. Luella's mouth twitched and she
choked as she spoke.
" Oh, Mr. Wortley," she urged, " it isn't that
I don't see what you mean partly. You
think I don't, but I do. There's awful mis-
takes made in marryin', we all see 'em; even
'way back here in the country dreadful things
happen, an' the papers we c'n read 'em, that's
enough an' more'n enough. There's things that
ought to be changed, I know, but not the way
you want to change 'em oh, not that way!
It can't help any, not marryin', don't you see
194 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
folks must just take pains and marry more careful,
'cause we've begun this way and now we can't
stop without somebody gettin' hurt and that
won't be you, nor any other man. Marryin's
all we've got to tie to, Mr. Wortley, us women,
an' we can't quit now!"
The boy looked thoughtfully at her. " I I
think perhaps you are right," he said slowly.
He appeared unaccountably older; small, worried
lines were cutting themselves deep around his eyes
and mouth.
He threw back his head in an attempt to re-
gain the old, masterful manner.
" I hope I am too sincere not to state honorably
that I I feel sure you are right!" he announced,
" that is, in this particular instance. I have no
desire to establish any point at the expense
at the expense. . ."
He frowned into space; his lips tightened
obstinately.
" But it will have to be at somebody's expense!"
he cried irritably. " Shall we always go on like
this, putting off, putting off, letting this shameful,
unsatisfactory state of things continue, just be-
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 195
cause it would be our wives that would suffer. . ."
" I guess that's about it," Luella answered,
seriously.
" Then all I have to say is, we're damned
cowards, all of us!" he cried, with the old flash of
rage.
But it was the last time. Beaten, yet trium-
phant, he stooped for his harness and himself
assumed it, with set teeth.
" I I shouldn't have said that," he said,
gravely. " It's it's a very difficult thing . . .
a man has so many responsibilities. . ."
They waited patiently.
" It seems one must compromise something
anyway," he went on, thinking his way pain-
fully along. " I don't know why it seems so
difficult to me now; . . . they talked enough, all
the others, and of course I shall never speak to
your Aunt Ethel again you may use your own
judgment, Dorothy because there are some
insults. . . ."
He shook himself again and drew the girl to her
feet.
" Dearest," he said, and there was a sad little
196 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
ring in his voice, but a strangely kind one, " I
we have been mistaken. It wouldn't do. I
think " he looked anxiously at Luella
' the sooner we get some one to to a clergy-
man, you know, or a a legal person of some
kind"
" I'll get Mr. Andrews right away," Luella
assured him briskly. " He's Cong'ational, and
he's a real pleasant young man new here. Car'-
line, you run right down cross-lots to that first
white house an' there he'll be, callin' this minute
on the Wilkinses, 'cause she told me he would.
You say Luella Judd wants him right away, an'
he'll come."
"Yes, Luella, I will," said Caroline, but her
eyes were fastened on the girl.
She was in the boy's arms, her head on his
shoulder; she clung to him tightly, shivering a
little, hiding her face.
" You don't mind, darling?" he begged her
earnestly, " you believe I am doing it for the
best ? You won't blame me for changing, after
all I've said?"
She lifted her head and through her loving
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 197
gray eyes looked out at him the woman she would
be in ten years. A little tender smile curved
her lips; she patted his shoulder as a mother
caresses her headstrong, dearest son.
"Whatever you think is best, Frank dear,"
she said, " let's do that."
*****
" I only hope to heaven she don't under-
stand! " Luella muttered nervously, glancing
unguardedly at Caroline.
Caroline stamped her foot angrily. Her sen-
sitive little body had thrilled in the girl's arm;
she had felt all the pathos and dignity of Luella's
appeal, the young man seemed to her mysterious
and noble. And now she was distrusted, grudged
her free part in this exciting afternoon! She
scowled at Luella.
" You must think I'm a baby, Luella Judd!"
she cried irritably. " I understand all about
it, just as well as you do! Didn't we have just
the same thing in the family, ourselves? '
Luella gasped.
" For heaven's sakes, Car'line, wha' do you
mean?" she demanded; " it's perfectly awful
198 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
the things you city children know! I do de-
clare, I don't think it's right!"
" Pooh!" said Caroline grandly. " I should
hope I knew more'n that! Why, my Uncle
Joe's own sister, her man that she was engaged
to, he didn't believe in church weddings, either,
and he told my mother if he had to stand up in
gray trousers with those six girls in pink hats
and the bishop all togged out and the whole town
glaring at 'em he'd run away with Cousin Elizabeth,
and he didn't know whether he'd marry her at
all! And they cried and they begged 'em, and
I was to be a flower girl and wear my white silk
stockings, but still they wouldn't. And Cousin
Elizabeth cried, too, and she said she'd never
feel married in a travelling dress, but Cousin
Richard said he guessed she would. And every-
body was terribly angry with them, but they
just had it in her aunt's house that was paralyzed
and couldn't ever go out, and it was right next
door to Cousin Richard's father's house, too,
just like this! Not one bridesmaid and nobody
had any cake in a box to take away. It was
awful, just like Luella says, but afterwards we
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 199
all forgave 'em. They ran off and did it in the
afternoon there was only her father and that
paralyzed aunt."
She drew a long breath and smiled importantly
at them.
Dorothy put an arm over her fat little shoulders.
" You must be my bridesmaid and my flower
girl, too," she said softly.
" You'll go get your father, o' course, Mr.
Wort ley?" Luella appeared unconscious of the
possibility of any refusal, and though he started,
scowled, and shook his head, her warning glance
in Caroline's direction checked him, and he plunged
out of the door.
* * * * *
" And may God bless you both," the Reverend
Mr. Andrews concluded unofficially, noting with
a certain curiosity, the impeccable riding breeches
of the groom, and the bride's looped-up linen
habit he had never married a couple attired
in precisely that manner, and he scented romance.
" Your generosity, Mr. Wortley, to say noth-
ing of your father " He paused helplessly.
" Mrs. Judd knows what this will mean to us this
200 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
winter," he finished. " No, I thank you, Mr.
Wortley, I thank you sir, but I never touch liquor
in any form. But I drink their health in this
excellent iced coffee, I do indeed."
Caroline slipped around to Luella, who sat
mopping her eyes behind the kitchen door.
" I wish Mr. Wortley Mr. Grumpy Wortley
wouldn't kiss me any more, Luella," she com-
plained, " it prickles my face dreadfully. I
don't see why I can't go with 'em as far as the
Mountain Road I'd love to ride on his horse.
I was bridesmaid why can't I? Do you think
my mother'!! let me keep this pin? What did
you cry for, Luella? What was it he said to
you? He's going to drive me down to the vil-
lage to write some telegrams to New York with
him, after they've started. And then he'll speak
to mother about the pin, but we have to get the
telegrams written first. Why do they always
put it into the papers the first thing, Luella?
When you were married, were there telegrams
about it in the papers, up here?"
Luella tied on her checked apron and attacked
the soiled dishes heaped on the kitchen table;
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 201
her cheeks were deeply flushed and her hands
trembled a little. She smiled affectionately at
Caroline.
" I'll drive down with you, I guess, an' stop
off at your ma's," she answered.
" No, it wasn't telegraphed 'round much when
I was married, but then," with a humorous twink-
ling of her deep-set eyes, " I hadn't never studied
into the marryin' question so thorough as some!"
VI
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE
CAROLINE stopped abruptly at the edge
of the little pine-encircled glade that
edged the pond-lily pond and waved her
hand in warning.
" Hist! there are human creatures there!"
she whispered loudly.
It would be evident to anyone not absolutely
stone blind that she was a fairy. A lace-edged,
snowy nightgown was caught up by a sky blue
ribbon about her hips, trailing gloriously behind
her over the grass; two large wings artfully
constructed of wrapping-paper flopped behind
her surprisingly bare shoulders the nightgown
was decidedly d&ollete, and had been made for
a person several sizes larger than Caroline.
' Hooma keecha da!" crooned the General.
His conversation was evidently based on the
theory that the English language is a dark mystery,
202
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 203
insoluble by system, but likely to be blundered
into fortuitously, at any moment, if the searcher
gabble with sufficient steadiness and persistence.
His costume, consisting merely of the ordinary
blue denim overalls of commerce, would have
been positively commonplace were it not for the
wings of bright pink tissue paper, which he wore
with a somewhat confusing obstinacy, pinned
firmly to his chest. Miss Honey assisted his
wavering footsteps rather sulkily; she longed
for the white and lacy draperies in front of her
and regarded her ballet skirts of stitched news-
paper with bare tolerance. It is true she wore
a crown of tinfoil and carried a wand made of
half a brass curtain rod; but her laced tan boots,
stubbed and stained, showed with disgusting
plainness, and nobody would take the trouble
to make her a newspaper bodice.
" If you don't stop tickling me with that arrow,
Brother Washburn, I'll go back!" she declared,
snappishly.
The fourth member of the crew, whose bathing
trunks and jersey, fitted with surprisingly life-r
like muslin wings, pointed to Puck, though the
204 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
quiver slung across his shoulder woke conflict-
ing memories of Diana, chuckled guiltily and
took a flying leap from the big boulder into the
center of the glade. His wings stiffened real-
istically, and as he landed, poised on one classically
sandalled foot with arms outspread, the picnic
party before him started violently, and one of
them clutched the other's sleeve with a little cry.
"What the oh, it's all right! He's the
real thing, isn't he, now?"
The young man patted the girl's shoulder
reassuringly and chuckled as the rest of the crew
emerged from the pines and peered over the
boulder.
" They're only children," he said.
She dropped her eyes and tightened her fingers
around the shining drinking cup.
"Why, yes, they're only children," she re-
peated carelessly.
Now, each of these picnic people had said the
same words, but it was entirely obvious to their
fascinated audience that the words meant very
different things. For this reason they sidled
around the young lady impersonally, avoiding
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 205
with care the edges of her pale-tinted billowy
skirts, and lined up confidently beside the young
gentleman.
Not that he controlled the picnic. It was
spread out in front of her, bewitching, intimate,
in its suggestion of you and I; two shiny
plates, two knives, two forks, two fringed and
glossy napkins. A dark red bottle was propped
upright between two stones, a pile of thin, triangular
sandwiches balanced daintily on some cool lettuce
leaves, and a fascinating object that glistened
mysteriously in the sun, held the platter of honor
in the middle.
" The Honorable Mr. Puck," suggested the
young man, in the tone of one continuing an
interrupted conversation, " is figuring out how
the chicken got into the jelly without busting
it am I not right?"
Brother grinned, and Caroline moved a little
nearer. Miss Honey stared at the young lady's
fluted skirts and glistening yellow waves of hair,
at the sweeping plume in her hat, and her tiny
high-heeled buckled slippers.
" I am obliged to admit," the young man went
206 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
on, slicing into the quivering aspic, ' that I don't
know myself. I never could find out. Perhaps
the young person in the the not-too-long skirts,
waved her wand over the bird and he jumped
in and the hole closed up?" He slipped a sec-
tion of the bird in question upon the lady's plate
and held the red bottle over her cup.
" There was hard-boiled eggs stuck on those
jelly things at our wedding," Brother remarked,
" on the outside, all around. But they were
bigger than yours."
" I don't doubt it for a moment," the young
man assured him politely. * Have you been
married long, may I ask ? And which of these
ladies"
" Brother doesn't mean that he was married,"
Miss Honey explained, " it was his oldest sister.
She married a lawyer. I was flower girl."
' Ima fow guh," murmured the General, thrust-
ing out a fat and unexpected hand and snatch-
ing from a hitherto unperceived box a tiny cake
encased in green frosting.
' Oh, dear, it's got the pistache!" said the
yellow-haired lady disgustedly.
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 207
Miss Honey fled after the General, who, though
he was obliged to wear whalebone braces in his
shoes on account of youth and a waddling and
undeveloped gait, scattered over the ground
with the elusive clumsiness of a young duckling.
Brother blushed, but scorned to desert his troop.
" He's awfully little, you know he doesn't
mean to steal," he explained.
" Twenty-two months," Caroline added, " and
he does go so fast.' She smiled doubtfully
at the lady, who selected a cake covered with
chocolate and looked at the young man.
"Don't forget that Mr. Walbridge wants to
use the car at six," she said, "and you have to
allow for that bad hill."
He looked a little uncomfortable. "Don't
you want to speak to the children, Tina, dear?"
he asked, dropping his voice; he sat very close
to her.
" They have both spoken directly to you,
you see, and children feel that so not being
noticed. They're trying to apologize to you
for the cake."
She bit her lip and turned to Miss Honey,
2o8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
who arrived panting, with the General firmly
secured by the band of his overalls. An oozy
green paste dripped from his hand; one of the
pink wings intermittently concealed his injured
expression.
"That's all right," she said, "don't bother
about the cake, little girl, the baby can have it."
Miss Honey sniffed.
" I guess you don't know much about babies
if you think they can eat cake like that," she
answered informingly.
" Hush, now, General, don't begin to hold
your breath? Do you want a nice graham
cracker! It's so nice!"
" So nice!" Caroline repeated mechanically,
with a businesslike smile at the General, help-
fully champing her teeth.
The General wavered. He allowed one sticky
paw to be cleaned with a handful of grass, but
his expression was most undecided, and he was
evidently in a position to hold his breath imme-
diately if necessary.
Miss Honey nodded to Caroline. " You've
got 'em, haven't you?" she asked.
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 209
Caroline fumbled at the interior of the night-
gown and produced a somewhat defaced brown
wafer.
" General want it?" she said invitingly. There
was another moment of disheartening suspense.
Brother assisted gallantly.
" They're fine, General!" he urged, " try
one!" And he, too, nodded and chewed the
empty air. Instinctively the strange young gen-
tleman did the same.
The General looked around at them cautiously,
noted the strained interest of the circle, smiled
forgivingly, and reached out for the brown wafer.
Peace was assured.
" If you could only see how ridiculous you
looked," the young lady remarked, wiping her
shining pink finger nails carefully, " you'd never
do that again, Rob. Have a cake?"
He laughed, but blushed a little at her tone.
" I suppose so," he admitted. " No, thanks,
I'll pass up the cake. Isn't there enough to go
'round, perhaps?"
He examined the box.
" By George, there are exactly three left!"
210 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
he said delightedly. " Will the fairy queen hand
one to her brother the big brother and one to
to the angel?"
Caroline moved firmly to the front. ' I am
the Queen," she explained, " but I let Miss Honey
take the crown and the wand, or she wouldn't
be anything. Brother isn't her brother that's
just his name. Brother Washburn. The Gen-
eral's her brother. I'll take that strawberry
one. We're much obliged, thank you."
The cakes vanished unostentatiously and the
young gentleman filled his cup and disposed of
it before anyone spoke.
" We were such a big family, you see," he
explained to the pursed red mouth beside him,
" and I know just how it is. You never get
enough cake, and never that dressy kind. It's
molasses cake and cookies, mostly."
Brother moved nearer and nodded.
" Well, but you can have all the cake you want,
now, thank goodness," said the lady, glancing
contentedly at the tea basket, complete with
its polished fittings, at the big box of bonbons
beside her, and the handsome silk motor coat
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 211
that was spread as a carpet under her light
dress.
" Oh, yes, but now I don't want it," he assured
her, "I want other things." He flashed a daring
glance from two masterful brown eyes, and she
smiled indulgently at him for a handsome, spoiled
bov.
/
" Am I going to get them?" he persisted.
She laughed the light little laugh of the trium-
phant woman.
" My dear Bob," she said, " anybody who can
buy all the cake he wants can usually get the
Other things!"
His face clouded slightly.
" I hate to hear you talk like that, Christine,"
he began, " it's not fair to yourself ''
" How'd you know I was Puck?" Brother
inquired genially. He made no pretense of in-
cluding the lady in the conversation; for him
she was simply not there.
" Oh, I'm not so ignorant as I look," the young
man replied. " I don't believe you could stump
me on anything you'd be likely to be I've prob-
ably been 'em all myself. We were always
212 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
rigging up at home. Didn't you use to do that,
Tina?"
The lady shook her head decidedly.
" If I'd ever got hold of a well, if I'd had a
chance of things as nice as that biggest one's
dragging through the dirt there, I'd have been
doing something very different with it, I can
assure you, Mr. Armstrong ! I'd have been
saving it."
" But at that age " he protested.
" Oh, I knew real lace from imitation at that
age, all right," she insisted.
" But you don't think of those things you
go in for the fun," he urged.
" It wasn't exactly my idea of fun."
"No?" he queried, "why, I thought all
children did this sort of thing. We had a regular
property room in the attic. We used to be rigged
out as something-or-other all day Saturday,
usually."
" What were you? " Brother demanded eagerly.
Unconsciously he dropped, hugging his knees,
by the side of the young man, and Caroline,
observing the motion, came over a little shyly
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 213
and stood behind them. The young lady raised
her eyebrows and shot a side glance at her host,
but he smiled back at her brightly.
" Well, we did quite a little in the pirate line,"
he replied. " I had an old Mexican sword and
Ridgeway that was my cousin owned a pair
of handcuffs,"
"Handcuffs!" Brother's jaw dropped.
" Yes, sir, handcuffs. It was rather unusual,
of course, and he was awfully proud of them.
An uncle of his was a sheriff out in Pennsylvania
somewhere, and when he died he left 'em to Ridge
in his will. That was pretty grand, too, having
it left in a will."
Caroline nodded and sat down on an old log
behind the young man. A long smear of brown,
wet bark appeared on the nightgown, and one
end of the blue ribbon dribbled into a tiny pool
of last night's shower, caught in a hollow stone.
" It was a toss-up who'd be pirate king,"
the young man went on, smiling over his shoulder
at Caroline, " because I was older than he was,
handcuffs or not, and after all, a sword is some-
thing. This one was hacked on the edge and
214 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
every hack may have meant probably did a
life."
He paused dramatically.
"I bet you they did!" Brother declared,
clapping his hands on his knees.
" Weren't there any girls?"
Caroline slipped from the log and sprawled
on the pine needles.
" Dear me, yes," said the young man, " I
should say so. Four of them. Winifred and
Ethel and Dorothea and the Babe about as
big as your General, there, and dreadfully greedy,
the Babe was. Winifred had the brains and she
made up most of the games; I tell you, that
girl had a head!"
"Just like Caroline," Brother inserted eagerly.
" Probably," the young man agreed. " She
was pretty certain to be Fairy Queen, too, I
remember. But Thea sewed the clothes and
begged the things we needed and looked after
the Babe."
" And what did Ethel do?"
" Why, now you speak of it, I don't remember
that Ethel did much of anything but look pretty
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 215
and eat most of the luncheon," he said. " She
used to be Pocahontas a good deal she's very
dark and I usually was Captain John Smith.
Ridge was Powhatan. And Ethel's married now.
Good Lord ! She has twins of all things !
and they're named for Ridge and me."
" I'm glad General isn'f twins," said Miss
Honey thoughtfully, pulling her brother back
from the fascinations of the tea basket and com-
forting him with the curtain-rod wand.
" Still, we could do the Princes in the Tower
with him them, I mean," Caroline reminded
her, " and then, when they got bigger, the Corsi-
can Brothers don't you remember that play
Uncle Joe told about?"
The young man laughed softly.
" If that's not Win all over!" he exclaimed.
" She always planned for Ridge to be Mazeppa
on one of the carriage horses, when he got the
right size, but somehow, whem you do get that
size, you don't pull it off."
" I did Mazeppa," said Brother modestly,
" but of course it was only a donkey. It wasn't
much."
216 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
"We never had one," the young man ex-
plained. " Nothing but Ridge's goat, and she
was pretty old. But she could carry a lot of
lunch."
He turned suddenly on his elbow and smiled
whimsically at the lady.
" Come on, Tina, what did you play?" he
asked.
"Is it possible you have remembered that I
still exist?" she answered, half mockingly, half
seriously vexed. " I'm afraid I'm out of this,
really. I never pretended to be anything, that
I remember."
" But what did you do when you were a young-
ster?" he persisted, " you must have played
something!"
She shook her head.
" We played jackstones," she said indulgently,
after a moment of thought, " and then I went
to school, of course, and oh, I guess we cut
out paper dolls."
Caroline looked aghast.
" Didn't you have any dog?" she demanded.
" I hope not, in a four-room flat," the lady
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 217
returned with feeling. " One family kept one,
though, and the nasty little thing jumped up on
a lovely checked silk aunty had just given me,
and ruined it. I tried to take it out with gaso-
lene, but it made a dreadful spot, and I cried
myself sick. Of course I didn't understand
about rubbing the gasolene dry then; I was only
eleven."
The children looked uncomfortably at the
ground, conscious of a distinct lack of sympathy
for the tragedy that even at this distance deep-
ened the lovely rose of the lady's cheek and soft-
ened her dark blue eyes.
" But in the summer," the young man said,
" surely it was different then! In the country "
" Oh, mercy, we didn't get to the country
very much," she interrupted. " You know July
and August are bargain times in the stores and a
dressmaker can't afford to leave. Aunty did
all her buying then and I went with her. Dear
me," as something in his face struck her, " you
needn't look so horrified! It's not bad in New
York a bit there's something going on all the
while; and then we went to Rockaway and Coney
218 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Island evenings, and had grand times. To tell
you the truth, I never cared for the country I
don't sleep a bit well there. Of course, to come
out this way, with everything nice, it's all very
fine, but to stay in no, thanks."
" I know what you mean, of course," he said,
"but the city's no place for children. I'm
mighty glad I didn't grow up there. And I've
always had the idea the country would be the
best place to settle down in, finally. You can
potter around better there when you're oJd,
don't you think so? I remember old Uncle
Robert and his chrysanthemums "
" Dear me, we all seem to be remembering
a good deal this afternoon!" she broke in.
"Since we're neither of us children and neither
of us ready to settle down on account of old age,
suppose we stick to town, Bob?"
There was a practical brightness in her voice,
and her even white teeth, as she smiled per-
suasively at him, were very pretty. He smiled
back at her.
"That seems a fair proposition," he agreed.
He reached for her hand and for a moment her
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 219
soft, bright coloring, her dainty completeness,
framed in the green of the little glade, were all he
saw. Then, as his eyes lingered on the cool little
pond and the waving pine boughs dark against
the blue sky, he sighed.
" But I'm sorry you don't like the country, Tina,
I am, truly," he said boyishly. " I've had such
bully times in it. And I I rather had the idea
that we liked the same things."
" Gracious!" the young lady murmured, " after
the arguments we've had over plays and
actors!"
" Oh well, I suppose girls are all alike. But I
mean other things "
"Where did you do the Pirates?" Brother
inquired, politely.
"What? Where did I oh to be sure," he
returned good-naturedly. " We had an enormous
cellar, all full of pillars, to hold it up, and queer
little rooms and compartments in it; a milk room
and vegetable bins and a workshop. You could
ride on a wheel all round, dodging the pillars.
There were all kinds of places to lie in wait there,
and spring out. Win told us an awful thing out of
220 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Poe that happened in a cellar, and Thea would
never go there after four in the afternoon.
" It was a jolly old place," he went on dreamily,
" I can't keep my mind off it this afternoon, some-
how, since I've seen you fellows rigged out the way
we used to. And there was a pond back in the
Christmas Tree Lot like this one. Ridge and I
built a raft out there and stayed all day on it. It
was something out of Clark Russell's books, and
Win pushed a barrel out and rescued us. She was
a wonder, that girl."
He chuckled softly to himself.
" We tried to stock that pond with oysters once,
and Ridge and I printed invitations for a clambake
on our handpress, on the strength of them, but it
was a dreadful waste of money. When we found
it wasn't working, Ridge nearly killed himself
diving for 'em, so we could get some good out
of 'em. There they lay at the bottom, show-
ing just as plain as possible, but it was no use-
Poor fellow, he'll never dive any more."
" Is he did he " Caroline had crawled along
till her head lay almost on the young man's knee;
her eyes were big with sympathy.
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 221
" Lost his leg," he told her briefly. " Philip-
pines. Above the knee. He ran away from col-
lege to go. He had the fever badly, too, and he'll
never be fit for much again, I'm afraid. But he's
just as brave about it "
" Oh, yes," Brother burst out eagerly, " I bet
you he is!"
" We had such plans," he said softly, " all of us,
you know, for coming back to the old place and
ending up there. Win says her kids shall stay
there if she can't."
" Where is she?"
" Oh, she's 'most anywhere. Her husband's in
the Navy Asiatic Squadron and she hangs
about where he's likely to strike the country next.
She was in Honolulu the last I heard. So she's not
likely to do much for the place, you see."
" Where's Thea?" Miss Honey inquired.
" Wha tee? " mimicked the General, with an
astounding similarity of inflection.
The young man threw his light cap at the
baby's head; it landed grotesquely cocked over
one eye, and the General, promptly sitting upon
it to protect himself from further attacks, fell into
222 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
convulsions of laughter as the young man threat-
ened him.
" Thea's out West, on a ranch just out of
Denver. She was married first, and her boys have
ponies now broncos. Of course it's fine for them
out there, but she says she won't be happy till they
can get East for a year or two. She wants them
to see the place and grow up a little in it. She
wants 'em to see the attic and poke about the barn
and the stable and climb over the rocks. You see
they're on the ranch all summer and in school in
Denver all winter, and Thea says they don't know
the look of an old stone wall with an apple tree in
the corner. She says the fruit's not nearly so nice
out there."
" Where is the place? Near here?"
" No, not so very. It's in the Berkshires, just
out of Great Barrington. Father's practice was
there, and grandfather's, too. Grandfather built
it."
" That's where Lenox is, the Berkshires, isn't
it?" the lady inquired with a yawn.
" Heavens, its nothing like Lenox!" he assured
her hastily.
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 223
" No?" she moved slightly and scowled.
" My foot's asleep! That comes of sitting here
forever!"
She got up slowly and with little tentative gasps
and cries stamped her prickled feet.
" Aunty has several customers who go to
Lenox" a vicious stamp "it must be grand
there, I think. One of them, a regular swell,
too she thinks nothing of a hundred and fifty
for a dress " a faint stamp and a squeal of
anguish "told her that property was going up
like everything around there. You could proba-
bly" a determined little jump "sell your old
place and buy a nice house right in Lenox."
The young man sat up suddenly. "Sell the
place! " he repeated, " sell the place! '
He had been watching her pretty, vexed con-
tortions with lazy pleasure, noticing through rings
of cigarette smoke her dainty ankles, white
through the mesh of the thin silk stockings, her
straight, slim back, and the clear flush that deep-
ened her eyes. But now his face changed, and he
stared at her in frank irritation.
"Sell the place!" echoed Brother and Miss
224 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Honey in horror, and Caroline's lower lip pushed
out scornfully.
The lady stamped again, but not wholly as a
therapeutic measure.
" Well, really!" she cried, " any one would
think that these children were your friends, and
I was the stranger, from the way you all talk.
What is the matter with you, anyway? What
are you quarreling about, Rob?"
He looked at her thoughtfully, appraisingly.
" I don't think we're quarreling, Tina," he said,
" its only that we look at things differently. And
and looking at things in the same way rather
makes people friends, you know."
He glanced down at the children, close about
him now, and then over appealingly at her. But
she had moved to a rock a little away from them
and now sat on it, her face turned toward the road,
leaning on her pale pink parasol: she did not catch
the glance.
"What became of the Babe?" Caroline sug-
gested suddenly.
" Babe? She's her name's Margaret at
school now. She's growing awfully pretty."
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 225
" And is she going to live at the place, too? "
queried the young lady sharply.
" Babe's going to capture a corporation or trust
or something, and have oceans of money and
build on a wing and a conservatory and make
Italian gardens, I believe," he answered, pleasantly
enough.
" But I'd just as soon she left the gardens alone,"
he went on, " the rest of us like 'em the way they
are. There was one separate one on the west side,
just for Uncle Robert's chrysanthemums. He used
to work all the morning there and then read in the
afternoon. He'd sit on the side porch with his
pipe and Bismarck he was an old collie and he
did tell the bulliest yarns. He helped us with
lessons, too. I don't know what we'd have done
without Uncle Rob. Father was so busy he had
a big country practice and he used to get terribly
tired and we went to Uncle Rob for everything.
He got us out of more scrapes, Ridge and me
" There were tiger lillies in the south garden and
lots of clumps of peonies. Grandmother put those
there. And fennel and mint. Mother used to like
dahlias it seems as if she must have had a quarter
226 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
of a mile of dahlias, but of course she didn't all
colors. That garden ran right up against the house,
and directly next to the bricks was a row of white
geraniums. They looked awfully well against the
red. It's a brick house and the date is in bricks
over the door 1840. Of course it's been rented
for ten years now, but we have our things stored
in the attic and the people are careful and well
they love the old place, you know, and they keep
up the gardens. They wanted to buy when father
died and again after mother
" But Ridge and I just hung on and leased it
from year to year. We always hoped to get it
back. And now to think that I should be the one
to do it!"
" How are you the one?" Brother inquired
practically.
1 Why Uncle Wesley that ran away to sea I
used to have his room, just over the kitchen, and
many a time Pve climbed down the side porch
just as he did, and run away fishing Uncle Wes-
ley died in England, last year, and left me consid-
erably more than he'd ever have made if he'd
minded grandmother and studied to be a par-
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 227
son. It seem sUncle Rob knew where he was
all the time, and wrote him, before he was sick
himself, to leave the money to the family, and by
George, he did.
" Lots of the old stuff is there the sideboard
and the library table and grandfather's old desk
mother kept the preserves in.
" I used to lie on an old sofa in the dining-room
on hot afternoons, waiting for it to get cool, reading
some travel book, eating summer apples, and listen-
ing to Win and Thea practicing duets in the parlor.
Lord, I can hear 'em now! I'd look out at the
brick walls, hot, you know, in the sun, and the pear
tree, with the nurse rocking Babe under it, and
old Annie shelling peas by the kitchen door, and it
all seemed so comfortable "
His eyes were half closed. The children listened
dreamily, huddled against him; low red rays crept
down from the west-bound sun and struck the
little pond to copper, the nickel dishes to silver,
the lady's skirt to a peach-colored glory; a little
sudden breeze set the red bottle tinkling between
the stones. But to the group entranced with mem-
ories so vivid that reality blurred before them, the
228 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
peach and copper glories were ripe fruit against
an old brick wall, the tinkle echoed from an old
piano in a dim, green-shuttered parlor, and the soft
snoring of the General, asleep on the silk motor
coat, was the drowsy breathing of a contented
little fellow in knickerbockers dreaming in a win-
dow seat.
" Did you ever go to Atlantic City?"
The lady's voice woke them as a gong wakes a
sleeper. " Now that's my idea of the country!"
He stared at her vaguely.
" But but that's no place for children," he pro-
tested. He had hardly grown up at that moment,
himself.
She shrugged her shoulders.
" It's not exactly necessary to have six children,
you know," she said, " and then you needn't be
worried over a place for them, and can afford to
think a little about the place you'd like for
yourself."
The sun was in her eyes and she missed the look
in his as he jumped up from the astonished group
and seized her wrist.
" Christine, you simply shan't talk that way!"
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 229
he said. " I don't know what's the matter with
you to-day why are you so different? Are you
trying to tease me? Because I might as well tell you
right now that you're succeeding a little too well."
The pink parasol dropped between them. Her
eyes met his squarely, though her voice shook a
little.
" Let my wrist go, Mr. Armstrong," she said,
" you hurt me. I assure you I'm not different at
all. If you really want to know what the matter
with me is, let me ask you if you saw anything out
of the way before your friends there interfered?"
she pointed to the little group he had left. " We
seemed to be getting on very well then."
His face fell, and she went on more quickly and
with less controlled tones.
"You are the one that is different! I have
always been just the same just exactly the same!
Ask anybody if I've changed ask aunty! ' Tina
has the best temper of any girl I know,' aunty
always says. But its just as she warned me.
Aunty always knows she's seen lots and lots of
people and plenty of swells, too it isn't as if you
were the only one, Mr. Armstrong!"
2 3 o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
He looked curiously at the flushed, lovely face;
curiously, as though he had never really studied it
before.
" Perhaps perhaps it is I," he said slowly, " I
maybe you're right. And of course I know "
he smiled oddly at the pretty picture she made
" that I'm not the only one."
Something in his tone irritated her; she unfurled
the rosy parasol angrily.
" Aunty said from the beginning you'd be hard
to get on with," she flashed out. " She said the
second time you came to the house with Mr. Wai-
bridge for his sister's fitting and asked Kitty and I
for a ride in the machine, ' I'm perfectly willing
you girls should go, for they're both all right and I
think the dark one's serious, but "
" You discussed me with your aunt, then? "
She looked at him in amazement.
" Discussed you with aunty? Why certainly I
did. Why shouldn't I? How do you suppose I'm
to get anywhere, placed as I am, Mr. Armstrong,
unless I'm pretty careful? I've nothing but my
looks I know that perfectly well and I can't
afford to make any mistakes. And aunty said, ' I
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 231
think the dark one's serious, Tina, but I don't
know, somehow, I'd keep in with Walbridge. He
may not have so much money, but he'll be easier
to manage. Armstrong seems like any other gay
young fellow, and for all I know he is he's cer-
tainly generous but I'd rather have you Mrs.
Walter Walbridge and lose the family custom,
than have you tied up to an obstinate man."
" And excuse me, but I'm really interested,"
he asked, " could you be Mrs. Walter Walbridge?"
" Yes, I could," she answered, " he asked me
when he lent you the machine. I suppose he
thought you might," she added simply.
He drew a long breath.
" And you answered "
" I said I'd think it over," she said softly. " I
are you really angry with me, Rob? We're
friends, aren't we? Friends '
Her eyes lifted to his. " You see, Rob," she
went on, still softly, ' a girl like me has to be
awfully straight and pretty careful. It's not
easy to go to theaters and suppers and out with
the machines and keep your head you can't
always tell about men. And I've cost aunty
232 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
quite a lot, though of course, my clothes were
the cheapest, really, all made in the house. I
had two good offers to go on the stage, but she
wouldn't have it. And even if Mr. Walbridge's
mother did make a fuss, she can't help his get-
ting the money. Of course I told him I'd think it
over, but I always liked "
" And now you've thought it over," he inter-
rupted quickly, " and you've found out that your
remarkably able aunt was right. You're a wise
little girl, Tina, for if I know Walter, he will be
easier to manage! He's a lucky fellow always
was. But he'll never get his car at six to-night."
He plucked out his watch and strapping up
the tea basket began to push the things hastily
into it.
She stared ahead of her, her chin shaking a
little, her eyes a little dim and most beautiful.
" I you don't you're not angry, Rob?" She
leaned over him.
" Tina, if you look like that I'll kiss you, and
Walter will call me out!" he said lightly. " Of
course I'm not angry we're as chummy as you'll
let me be. Come on and find the choo-choo car! "
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 233
He slipped his arm through the basket handle
and made for his coat. The children scrambled
off it apologetically; they were not quite certain
where they stood in the present crisis. But he
smiled at them reassuringly.
" We'll have to meet again," he called, already
beyond them, " and have some more of those little
cakes ! Good-by till next time!"
" Good-by! Good-by!" they called, and Miss
Honey, eyeing the pink parasol longingly, ven-
tured, " Good-by, Miss Tina!"
The lady did not answer, but walked slowly
after the young man, shaking out her billowy
skirts. Soon he was behind the big boulder; soon
she had followed him.
Yady go!" the General announced.
: They had a quarrel, didn't they?" Miss Honey
queried. " But they made up, so it was all right."
Caroline shook her head wisely.
: We ell," she mused, " they made it up, but
I don't believe he changed his mind, just the same."
Something puffed loudly in the road, whirred
down to a steady growl, and grew fainter and
fainter.
234 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" There they go!" Brother cried.
He picked up a bit of bark and tossed it into
the little pool.
"I bet you Ridge will be glad to get back to
the Place," he said.
VII
THE PRETENDERS
MIDSUMMER dust lay ankle-deep in the
road, white and hot. The asphalt
sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the
leaves hung motionless from the full trees; only
the breathless nasturtiums flickered like flames
along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in
the glare. Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard
in the relentless heat, spun along on her bicycle,
the only bit of movement on all the long stretch
of the road. The householders had all retired
behind their green blinds; even New England
yielded to August's imperious siesta, and it might
have been a deserted village, empty and myste-
rious, through which she glided.
By little and little she grew to feel this; her feet
moved more and more slowly on the pedals, her
brows knitted as the great idea grew. Her lips
moved, inaudibly at first, but soon began the
235
236 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
sing-song murmur so well known to those who
crept upon her unawares.
" I am all alone; the rest have gone where
have they gone! where could they go? Oh, they're
dead. Murdered! No, the town was besieged,
and we made ropes with our hair, and bowstrings.
. . . And they all marched out, and they closed
the city gates. ..." Slower and slower the
pedals moved: Caroline was pushing uphill. " So
then the Mayor said: ' No, this sacrifice is too
great I can not allow you to make it, my brave
children. Death and worse await you beyond
these walls. Let us die here together.' Her
chin quivered. At the summit of the hill she
paused.
" ' Then die! Die like the dogs you are!'
cried the Captain " with feet perched high she
swooped down the slope, her heart pounding with
excitement, narrowly escaping collision at the
bottom with an empty van, crawling through the
heat, manned by a somnolent, huddled driver.
Its hollow, cumbrous rattling pointed sharply the
loneliness of the silent road, almost bare now of
houses, for they were on the very outskirts of the
THE PRETENDERS 237
village, and in a flash Caroline knew it for what
it was, and shuddered.
" It's the Tumbrel!" she murmured softly, and
to her awed fancy the graceful, slim-necked figures
in flowered gowns drooped dreadfully or stiffened
in a last pathetic defiance as they rolled by.
" Courage, my sister, courage!" whispered the
brave gentleman, while the hoarse crowd shouted.
. . . "And I am Marie Antoinette!" cried Caro-
line in a burst of inspiration.
Dismounting, she walked proudly beside her
wheel; scornfully she held her head above that
vulgar, cruel mob; the driver, poor in illusions,
drowsed stupidly in front of the baleful wagon-load
he knew not of, and clattered down the hill. To
the ill-fated Queen, who followed the curving
line of the twelve-foot iron fence that had sprung
up at her side, ten minutes seemed but one. Lost
in tragic musing, she wandered swiftly on; had
you, meeting her suddenly, asked her where she was
going, there is little doubt that she would have
told you she was escaping to her palace. And
all at once, as she halted a moment opposite a
clear space in the shrubbery and thickly planted
238 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
trees that followed the inside line of the iron fence,
she beheld the palace, high on a terraced knoll.
It was of clean-cut gray stone, rising into a square
tower at one corner, from which the flag drooped
in bright folds of red and blue. The windows
shone like mirrors; trim, striped awnings broke the
severe angles of the long building; brilliant flower-
beds gleamed from the smooth turf and bordered
the neat walks of crushed gray stone. It stood
massively above its terraces, a very castle of
romance to Caroline, who had never before seen
it so polished and beflagged. Wonderingly she
tried the great wrought-iron gate, but it was
securely locked, and a new sign was attached to it:
PRIVATE PROPERTY!
ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED
FROM THE PREMISES!
VISITORS PLEASE RING AT THE LODGE.
Caroline stared at it vaguely. So delicate are the
oscillations of the imaginative imp, that it is hard
to say just where he swings his slaves into deter-
mined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline
severely and demanded of her in the character of
THE PRETENDERS 239
an impatient adult the name of her castle, she
would undoubtedly have informed you that it
was Graystone Tower, a long deserted mansion,
too expensive hitherto for any occupants but the
children who roamed every inch of it for the first
spring flowers and coasted down its terraces in
winter. But no one was there to shake her, and
so with parted lips and dreamy eyes she speculated
as to whether they would fire the cannon on her
arrival and whether she would scatter coins among
her loyal servants or merely order an ox roasted
whole in honor of her safe return.
Soon she reached the smaller gate, but before
she tried the handle the sign warned her that it
would be useless. She frowned: no one could
keep up the spirit of a royal home-coming under
these disadvantages. Suddenly her eyes bright-
ened, she tossed her head, and following what was
apparently a little blind alley of shrubbery, she
plunged into a tangle of undergrowth and dis-
appeared. Only her bicycle, resting against the
fence, showed that some one had passed that way.
Working herself through the screen of leaves, she
emerged into a fairly cleared path that her accus-
240 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
tomed feet followed to its logical climax a deep
depression scooped out under the sharp, down-
pointed iron prongs, worn smooth by the frequent
pressure of small bodies. The fence had lost its
shiny blackness by now and the grass grew rank
and untended around the mouth of the gap.
Wriggling through, Caroline straightened herself
and strolled unconcerned toward the castle, not
so near her now. Soon she reached a newly rolled
tennis court; farther on two saddled horses pawed
beside a little summer-house, impatient for the
start; an iridescent fountain tossed two gleaming
balls high into the air. Caroline moved like one
in a dream; her fancy, grown so overwhelmingly
real, dazzled her, fairly. But it was like the court
of the Sleeping Beauty no one came or called.
At length, wandering on, she came upon a
gardener in a neat gray livery, clipping with a
large, distorted pair of scissors the velvet edge
of a flower-bed. He resembled so undeniably the
gardeners in that ageless chronicle of Alice that
Caroline smiled approvingly upon him.
You are one of my gardeners, I suppose," she
said regally.
THE PRETENDERS 241
" Yes, Miss," he replied, respectfully, touching
his banded cap, " I am that."
" You garden very well," said Marie Antoi-
nette, dizzy with delight at his manner.
" Yes, Miss; thank you, Miss, I'm sure," and the
cap came off.
She walked on superbly. At last it had hap-
pened, and she, Caroline in the flesh, had fought
her way through the prickly hedge of every-day
appearance and won into the garden of romance,
Where dreams were true and anything might
happen.
At that moment there came to meet her from
behind a great beech tree a slender little lady. She
had gray hair puffed daintily and fancifully about
her small, pale face, and knots of pale blue ribbon,
woven in and out of her lacy, trailing gown, re-
peated the color of her mild, round eyes. Half
consciously Caroline muttered: " Here is one of
my ladies-in-waiting," when the little lady rushed
at her, smiling delightedly.
" Are you a queen, then?" she cried in a high,
sweet voice. " How very pleasant. Dear me,
how very pleasant!"
242 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Caroline smiled with equal delight. Very few
persons of this little lady's age had such quick
sense; mostly they had to be taught the game.
" Yes," she answered, " I am. I am Queen
Marie Antoinette."
The little lady fell back a step. Her blue eyes
clouded and she pouted like a big baby.
" Why why, how can you be?" she demanded,
fretfully, " when that is who I am, myself!"
For a moment Caroline scowled; such flexibility
was almost disconcerting. Then her natural good-
humor and the training resulting from many
summers with Miss Honey, who claimed all the
best roles at once and shifted often, prompted her
generous reply:
" All right. I'll be Mary Queen of Scots, then
I like it about as well."
The little lady beamed again.
1 That will be very pleasant," she said. " I
trust your majesty is quite well?"
Yes, indeed," Caroline assured her, adding
airily: " How well the castle is looking this
morning! I think I'll have the flag out every
day, now that I'm back."
THE PRETENDERS 243
Marie Antoinette flushed angrily and pouted once
more.
" You! Your she mimicked. " What have
you to do with my flag? That goes up by my
orders, let me inform you! Here, gardener "
and she waved her little parasol at the man in
gray, who was already walking rapidly towards
them " is that flag in my honor or not?"
" Yes, Miss," he said promptly. " Sure it is,
Miss," and he nodded politely at them both. For
a moment the rival queens confronted each other
fiercely, then her Majesty of France smiled at
Scottish Mary.
" You see," she said, in her high, bright voice;
" you see, I was right. But then, I always am.
I shall have to leave your Royal Highness now,
for I see one of my subjects coming whom I don't
care for at all she is not very pleasant."
Sweeping a low courtesy, the little lady glided
away with a graceful, dipping motion; the white
hand that lifted her trailing skirts was covered
with turquoises.
Caroline looked where her royal sister had
pointed, and saw a tall, handsome young woman
244 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
hurrying toward her. She was dressed plainly
in black, but with a rich plainness that could
not have escaped the youngest of womankind.
Opposite Caroline she paused, her hand on her
heart.
"John! Oh, John! This this is a child!"
" Yes, Miss; sure it is," said the gardener
politely.
" But how did she get here? Surely no chil-
dren come here?" Her hands were trembling.
" Yes, Miss, many of 'em sure they do,"
he said pleasantly, with a good Irish smile.
But it was plain that his good-nature did not
please the handsome lady. She bit her lip
angrily.
" You know very well, John, that you are
not to talk to me in that idiotic way," she said
decidedly. " You know that there is no neces-
sity for it as well as I do."
" All right, Miss," he replied, soothingly.
" And you are lying when you say that child-
ren come here," she went on, controlling her-
self with a great effort, " for they do not."
The gardener scratched his head doubtfully
THE PRETENDERS 245
and walked away, muttering to himself. The
girl turned to Caroline.
" Tell me," she demanded eagerly, her voice
low and hurried, " how did you come here? Are
you with friends? Where are they? What were
you saying to that queen woman?"
" I I we were I was Mary Queen of Scots,"
Caroline stammered, struggling, as the happy
dreamer struggles, not to wake.
The girl started back from her, pale with an
emotion that left her handsome face drawn and
old.
" Good Heavens! it can't be a child! A
child!" she cried. Tears stood in her dark eyes.
" How pitiful!" she said, softly, to herself.
Then, forcing a smile, she leaned coaxingly over
Caroline.
" I am only too delighted to make your Majesty's
acquaintance," she said, her voice a little husky,
but very sweet. " I have read of you often.
But surely your Majesty has not been here long?
I do not recall having seen you before to-day."
4 N no, you haven't," Caroline answered,
a little grudgingly, " I only just came."
246 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Ah!" said the girl, " and how did you come?
Not through the house surely?"
' I came under the fence," said Caroline,
" the gates were locked. I was Marie Antoinette
then, but I changed after she said she was."
' Oh! Oh!" the girl groaned, covering her
face with slender, ringless hands.
" But I'd just as soon," Caroline assured her
" honestly I would. Only you need a Bothwell
for her. I only thought of Marie Antoinette
after the tumbrel went by. I suppose she's
used to Marie Antoinette, prob'ly, and so you
can't get her to change."
She nodded in the direction of the little lady,
now far from them, white against the shrubbery.
The girl drew in her breath in little gasps, as
if she had been running.
" Y yes," she assented, ''she's used to being
Marie Antoinette. Where is the hole you got
through? Is it big enough for for anybody?"
' Oh, yes," said Caroline indifferently, " but
nobody knows about it but me and a few other
k prisoners, I mean; I've used it when I was
escaping before. I think it was a rabbit-hole
THE PRETENDERS 247
first, and then we made it bigger. Isn't that
funny Alice got in by a rabbit-hole, too, didn't
she? I thought of her as soon as I saw the gar-
dener. He's very polite, isn't he?"
The girl pressed her lips together. "They
are all polite here," she said briefly. " Do you
mean that you go in and out of this hole as you
like? Do they know of it? Is it far from here?"
" It's over there," Caroline waved, vaguely.
"Why? Do you want to escape, too? Are
you a queen?"
" No." The girl said it with a slight shudder.
"No, I'm not. I'm I'm Oh, I'm Joan of
Arc: You know about her, don't you, dear?"
Caroline nodded. " Are you trying to escape?"
she repeated, interested at last.
"Yes," said the girl, "I am. But don't tell
any one, will you? Don't tell that gardener,
for instance."
"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, " I won't
tell. Wouldn't he help you?"
The girl laughed, an excited, sobbing laugh.
" No, he wouldn't help me at all," she said.
" Come on, walk a little. He is watching us.
248 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Don't tell him about the hole, will you? Promise
me faithfully." She turned and seized the child's
/
wrist. "Can you keep a promise?" she panted.
" Of course I can."
" And if any one should ask you, could you
oh, could you say you came in by the gate?"
Caroline wriggled free.
" Of course," she said scornfully. " Do you
think I'm a baby?"
" Don't be angry don't," the girl pleaded.
*' I don't mean to frighten you your Majesty,
I mean but I am so excited, and and I don't
quite do what I intend to do or say just what I
mean. 1 am quite all right now. You see,
that gardener he isn't really a gardener." She
watched Caroline narrowly, quite unprepared
for the sudden delight in her eyes.
" Oh, he's pretending, too!" cried Mary of
Scots joyfully. " What is he, really?"
" He's he's one of my jailers," said the girl
somberly. " And the first thing he would do
would be to stop up your hole under the fence."
" Oh!" Caroline stared respectfully at the
gardener, not far from them now.
THE PRETENDERS 249
"Were you ever in chains?" she said, in an
awed voice.
" No," said Joan of Arc, " I never was. I
wouldn't be in this this fortress if I had to be
in chains. This is for well-behaved prisoners."
" Is Marie Antoinette a prisoner, too?"
" Yes," said the girl, wearily, " she is. And
she has kept me one. I should not be here now
but for her. She prevented my escape."
" The mean old thing!" Caroline cried, indig-
nantly, " did she tell?"
" She called that gardener," said the girl, " just
as I was walking out of the little gate. Of course
I had to walk slowly. She is very malicious
poor thing," she added quickly.
They were close to a little arbor now, and not so
far from the castle. Caroline could see figures here
and there strolling on the upper terraces and
sitting on the piazzas. The tinkle of a mandolin cut
the soft air and the new-mown grass smelled sweet.
" I think this castle is lovely, though, don't you,
Joan of Arc?" she burst out.
" It is an abominable castle," said the girl, in
a muffled voice. " Abominable!"
250 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Well, then," said Caroline, practically, " if you
feel that way, you'd better escape."
The girl stared at her.
" Tell me," she said, earnestly, " have you ever
been in this place before? Where do you live?"
Caroline shrugged her shoulders impishly.
' I am Mary Queen of Scots," she replied,
obstinately, ' and I live in Scotland. Of course,
I've been here before. Who are all those other
people in the castle?"
The girl drew a long, worried breath. " I believe
I should go mad if I stayed here much longer,"
she said, to herself. She drew Caroline down
beside her behind the arbor.
" Listen to me, Mary Queen of Scots," she mur-
mured, very low, with anxious glances all about
her.
' I don't know who you are nor where you come
from, but I believe you will help me I believe
you're sorry for me. You know how badly Joan
of Arc's friends felt when she was in prison? I'm
sure you do. Well I have a a dear friend who
would die for me, if it would help me. He has
no idea where I am. He thinks I don't want to
THE PRETENDERS 251
see him. He thinks he must think I'm no
longer his his his friend. If I could only get
to him, I should be safe."
"Why don't you write to him?" Caroline
suggested.
The girl laughed bitterly.
' If you had prisoners in your fortress, and they
wrote letters to their friends to come and get them
out, would you mail the letters?" she demanded.
" I s'pose not," said Caroline gravely. Joan of
Arc gulped.
" My letters never went," she said. " Now
listen: I must go up to my room and get some
money I can't do anything without money. Will
you wait here till I come back and not let anyone
see you if you can help it? And if they do, will
you say that you slipped in at the gate with a
party that came in an automobile? One was here
lately. Ask if you mayn't stay and see the
flowers. And then I will meet you."
She looked hard in Caroline's eyes. " You're
only playing," she said, suddenly. " You aren't
you aren't What is your real name, dear?"
Caroline scowled.
252 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" You better hurry up," she said, " or that
gardener '11 catch us. You're just like Marie
Antoinette," she added irritably. " You think
nobody can be anything but only yourself!"
Without a word the girl turned and left her, half
running. Caroline heard her sobs.
At the same moment she caught the crunch of
footsteps on the stone path that led to the arbor
and crouched low behind it. Two men, talking
idly, entered the spot of shade and sank down on
the rustic bench.
" Look here, Ferris," said one voice, " is she
really dippy that one?"
" What do you mean?" This was a deeper
voice, attached evidently to blue serge legs, for
the speaker leaned to Caroline's eye level to
scratch a match on one of them.
1 Oh, I mean what I say." A gray striped coat
sleeve poked through the lattice work, as the first
speaker leaned hard on it. " If she is, then I am,
that's all. It looks queer to me."
The blue legs crossed themselves tightly under
the seat.
' Look here yourself, Riggs," said the second
THE PRETENDERS 253
voice. ' If you're curious in this matter, I advise
you to ask the doctor. He's boss here, not I
thank God! I obey orders and draw my forty
per, as per contract. The same to you, only it's
hardly forty, I suppose."
" No, it's not," grunted Graycoat. " Not by a
good sight. I see myself asking the old man. I
only asked your private opinion, Ferris, you
needn't get sore about it."
" My young friend," said Bluelegs, slowly,
" there's only one thing you can ask me in this
place that I won't tell you, and that's my private
opinion!"
There was a little pause. Caroline, reveling in
conspiracy, lay quiet, wondering who these people
were and what they were talking about.
" You are perfectly welcome to anything I know
about Miss Aitken," Bluelegs continued, puffing at
a fresh cigarette and throwing the old one through
the lattice at Caroline's feet.
" Her brother was a pronounced epileptic died
in a fit. I have seen the doctor's certificate. She
was greatly worried over his death, and the manner
of it, and showed signs of incipient melancholia."
254 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
* As how?" interrupted Gray coat.
" Don't know," said Bluelegs briefly. " Uncle
said so. Wouldn't speak to anybody; cried all
day; off her feed that sort of thing. Very
obstinate."
"Urn," Graycoat muttered thoughtfully, "so
am I. But I'd hate to be shut up on that account."
" So her uncle," proceeded Bluelegs, " wishing
to save her, if possible, from her brother's fate,
decided to er take steps in that direction and
and here she is."
" So I see," said Graycoat. " Was the brother's
epilepsy hereditary?"
" I believe not," Bluelegs returned. " I believe
the young gentlemen inherited a little too much a
little too soon for his best good, and hit up a rather
fast pace; his constitution wasn't the best."
" Did she know about all this? '
" I believe she did. Thought she might have
saved him if she'd known sooner, her uncle said."
" Ah," said Graycoat. " Why didn't this kind
uncle put his nephew with the doctor?"
' He wasn't his trustee," Bluelegs answered,
quietly.
THE PRETENDERS 255
" Dear me," said Graycoat gently, " how for-
tunate for the nephew!"
" That's as you look at it," responded Bluelegs.
Caroline dozed in the warm shade; in dreams she
chased the French Queen around the iridescent
fountain.
" Uncle any business besides trusteeship?"
asked Graycoat.
" You can search me," said Bluelegs.
" Niece about twenty-one, I take it?" asked
Graycoat.
" Search me again," said Bluelegs.
" Should you think," Graycoat demanded, after
a pause, " that this incipient melancholia was likely
to last long speaking, of course, professionally?"
" Really, Dr. Riggs, I don't know." Bluelegs
replied. " I am not at all in touch with the case.
The doctor has entire charge of it. He mentioned
to me last week that he was sorry to see both in
her and young Dahl evidences of clearly formed
delusions "
" Young Dahl!" cried Graycoat, " why, the boy
is an admitted paranoiac!"
" Really?" said Bluelegs, " you know I don't
256 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
do much but cocaine and morphia, these days.
Did you know the doctor was going to print my
pamphlet?"
" He can afford it, I judge," growled Gray-
coat. " He gets a hundred a week from Miss
Aitken."
Bluelegs got up and sent a second cigarette
after the first.
" Riggs," he said gravely, " if you're aiming
to succeed as a magazine writer, you're beginning
well; if it's your ambition to succeed in this
business, and succeed right here, you're beginning
badly. You were keen enough to get this place.
If you talk much this way, you won't keep it
long you can take it from me. Let's come in
to lunch."
Their tread on the arbor floor roused the sleep-
ing conspirator; she sat up, rubbing her eyes
half afraid that the clipped terraces, the floating,
flag, the inhabited castle, were only parts of her
dream. But even as she peered around the arbor,
Joan of Arc rushed toward her. She wore a
black shade hat and carried a fluffy black parasol
under her arm.
THE PRETENDERS 257
"Be careful!" she panted. "We can't go
yet I was stopped. I had to talk. You say
yes to whatever I say, will you? Then you can
escape with me " she smiled sweetly at Caroline
" a real escape, as they do in story books!
Won't that be fine?" Her hand was at her
heart again; a red circle burned in either cheek.
Caroline nodded eagerly.
" That will be grand!" she said. She had for-
gotten till that moment that she wanted to escape.
"Ah, Miss Aitken! Late for lunch again!"
Caroline started guiltily, for it was the voice
of Bluelegs.
Joan threw her arm over Caroline's shoulder
carelessly.
" Yes, Dr. Ferris, I'm afraid I am," she said.
" I was delayed by this little visitor."
He looked suspiciously at them. "Who is
she?" he asked.
" I don't know." Joan led Caroline along
quickly. " She says she is Mary Queen of Scots."
He stared blankly.
"I found her conversing with Marie Antoi-
nette," she went on easily, " and she seems to
258 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
have slipped in with an automobile party was
there one? Children are so secretive, you know.
She is trying to get out, but she says all the
gates are locked."
" Oh, yes, that was the Dahls they came to
see Frederick," he explained.
" I see. You were left with the chauffeur,
Mademoiselle, and it's easy to imagine the rest,"
he added with a smile. He had a very attractive
smile, and Caroline slipped her hand into his
offered one readily.
" You are fond of children?" said Joan, abruptly.
" Very," he answered simply. " Why not!
And they are fond of me, as you see. My dear
young lady, did you think we are all brutes
because we must obey orders?"
She set her teeth and walked swiftly forward.
" I know you think us cruel," he went on
frankly, " because we can not do for you the one
thing that you want; but, except for that, have
you anything to complain of?"
She smiled scornfully.
"' Except for that'?" she echoed, "no, Dr.
Ferris, nothing in the world but 'that'!"
THE PRETENDERS 259
" And you must remember," he continued,
in his pleasant, soothing voice, " that it may not
be for long, after all. If you continue to improve
as you have " She flung away impatiently.
"Oh, yes, you have improved, you know; you
eat better, you sleep better, your nerves are
quieter. We get good reports of you. Many
are ill longer than you. Do you like the new
masseuse? '
She did not answer.
" Now, this little lady must have some lunch
with us, and then, no doubt, we shall see that
careless chauffeur again," he said easily. " Would
you like to stay?" he asked Caroline.
" Yes, I would."
" Mary was always fickle, you know," he
laughed, glancing at her clinging hand.
And, indeed, Caroline found him far more
winning than the sulky, silent Joan, and leaned
confidingly against him as they climbed the stone
steps and passed through the rich, dark-paneled
hall, hung with bright pictures, filled with bowls
of flowers. Several men, uniformed like the
gardener, stood about the steps and terraces;
26o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
two stood by the door of a large, airy dining-
room filled with hurrying waiters. About a
long silver-laden table some twenty men and
women, cool in lawn and lace and white flannel,
were seated, eating and talking gaily. At the
head was a large, tall man in a snowy vest; evi-
dently the host, by his smiling, interested atten-
ton to everybody's wants. At his right was a
vacant chair, and toward this Joan of Arc directed
her steps. She had caught Caroline's hand in
hers, and, as Bluelegs bent and whispered in
the tall man's ear, she added:
" I think, doctor, if the little girl stays by me
she will feel less shy, perhaps."
" Certainly, certainly by all means. A good
thought, Miss Aitken, a good thought," he answered
in a rich, kind voice. He shook hands with
Caroline warmly.
" So you find our grounds attractive? " he
asked politely.
She nodded, a little shyly. All this company,
so freshly dressed, so ceremoniously served, so
utterly unconscious of her presence, embarrassed
her a little. For not one of the ladies and gentle-
THE PRETENDERS 261
men there were no children paid the slightest
attention to her arrival, even when a place was
made for her by Joan and a mug of milk pro-
cured. They talked, or, as she noticed now, sat,
many of them, listless and silent, playing with
their rings and bracelets, answering only with
monosyllables the questions of the large, cordial
doctor.
"Where is Marie Antoinette?" she whispered
to her friend, who seemed nearer, suddenly, than
these cold table-mates.
" She does not eat with us," said Joan, help-
ing her to chicken and green peas, and beginning
her own meal.
The doctor turned to them, having recommended
some asparagus to the stolid lady at his left.
" I am glad to see your appetite so good, Miss
Aitken," he observed, lowering his voice a little,
" at this rate we shall have no excuse for keeping
you much longer."
" You have had none for six months," she
replied curtly.
" I am sorry you feel so bitterly," he said,
" but you know I can not agree with you there.
262 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
You will think more kindly of me some day, I
hope, when time has freed your mind of its
prejudice."
; When will that be?" she asked, meeting his
eyes full for a moment.
' I wrote only this morning to your uncle,
stating your gradual but steady improvement,
and assuring him that in my opinion subject,
of course, to circumstances it would be a matter
of a few months more only," he said. " Does
not that make your feelings a little only a little
more tender "
" What did you say? " a shrill voice interrupted,
" say that again, please."
Caroline had beguiled the woman next her, a
frail, anemic little creature with pathetic eyes,
into a halting conversation.
" I said," she repeated, buttering her roll
thickly and appreciatively with fresh, clover-
scented butter, " I said that no weather was too
hot for me. I love it."
(" Now, really, I am pleased," the big doctor
murmured to the girl beside him. " Mrs. Du
Long hasn't seemed so interested for days. In
THE PRETENDERS 263
fact, she's been quite silent; I was alarmed about
her. It's the child's influence.")
" Uncle Joe said," Caroline went on, the roll
at her mouth, " and he said I was a regular little
snake."
She heard a guttural, growling sound beside
her, lifted her eyes innocently, and for one flash-
ing, doubtful second beheld the swollen, distorted
face, the bulging eyes, the back-drawn snarling
lips beside her. She did not see the plunging
fork above her head, so quickly did Joan's arm
intervene between her and it; she did not hear
its impact against the big doctor's plate nor the
gurgling voice of what had been the sad-eyed
little woman beside her, for her head was buried
in Joan's stifling skirt.
" Kill the snake! Kill the snake!" some one
or something yelled, and then a grip of iron
caught her arm and the voice of Bluelegs said
sternly:
" Look straight ahead of you don't turn
your head! Don't turn, Miss Aitken you can
do nothing they have her safe. The guards
are here."
a6 4 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
The room, indeed, seemed full of gardeners;
a bell rang noisily near by.
" But the others the others!" Joan gasped.
"They are all right it won't trouble them,"
he answered quietly; and as Caroline and the
girl looked fearfully where they were bidden, they
saw the men and women eating placidly, talking
with each other or sitting listless, staring idly at
four liveried men who fought furiously with one
small, snarling creature. Like the cruel wit-
nesses in dreams, they sat, and the waiters served
them swiftly and handed the dishes between
their shoulders, as deaf as they. And suddenly
they became terrible to Caroline, and the castle
menacing, a thing to flee from.
" Step out this way," said Blaelegs, when the
sounds of struggle had died away, " and take the
child through the grounds, will you, please?
Try to occupy her thoughts, and your own, too,
if you can. This is one of the unfortunate things
that rarely happen, but when they do Yes,
indeed, Mr. Ogden, it was certainly fine asparagus
I am glad you enjoyed it. No, she was only
a little indisposed she'll soon be well again.
THE PRETENDERS 265
The heat of the sun, undoubtedly. Don't be
alarmed, Miss Arliss, she will have every attention."
The gardeners had vanished from the steps
where they went down, and none were seen in
the grounds. Joan of Arc clutched Caroline's
waist.
" Now now!" she said, between her teeth;
" now is the time not to faint! I never fainted
never. Come and show me that hole in the fence.
There is no one about. But don't run."
They hurried across the sunlit, smiling terrace.
" What was the matter?" Caroline queried
fearfully, " was she was she "
"Yes," said Joan brusquely. "Yes. Don't think
about it. Don't run and don't think. Only
find the hole."
They stood beside it. No one was near them;
no one called to them. Silently Caroline slid
under the sharp prongs. Joan of Arc put her
hands under her skirt a moment and a white
ruffled petticoat slipped around her feet. She
adjusted it over her dress and pulled herself
with difficulty through. As she stood erect in
the soiled, stained petticoat, Caroline saw her
2 66 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
knees tremble under it, and she drooped against
the fence, white-cheeked.
" Don't faint," she said severely to Caroline.
With shaking hands she tied the petticoat
under her dress again and they crouched through
the underbrush to the outer walk. Caroline
reached for her wheel and the two peered fearfully
up and down the empty road.
" I can't I can't," the girl moaned, " my
dress is so black they can see it from the hill.
Oh, what shall I do? I thought I could, and
I can't!"
The measured trot of a pair of horses sounded
on the road. An empty station wagon came
rapidly toward them; groom and driver regarded
them curiously.
The girl straightened herself and raised her hand
with a pretty, imperious gesture.
" One moment, please," she said, " but are you
going to the village?"
" Yes, Miss," said the driver, " to the station.
Was there anything "
She opened a bag at her side and took out
carelessly a small gold piece.
THE PRETENDERS 267
' My little friend here," she said, in an even,
low voice, " was showing me this beautiful build-
ing and grounds and I utterly neglected to note
the time. I fear I have lost my train, if we try
to walk back. If you could take us "
" Certainly, Miss," said the driver. " William,
put the young lady's wheel on top. Was it the
express you wanted, Miss? I'm to meet it
the 2.08. Party from Boston."
They climbed in, the bicycle settled noisily
into the trunk-rack on top, and the big chestnuts
pounded down the hill.
Joan stared straight before her. Presently
she drew a pair of black gloves from her little
bag and put them on. Her lips moved steadily,
and Caroline knew from her closed eyes that she
was praying.
They drew into the neat station as the train
snorted itself in. The girl handed the gold piece
to the driver.
" Divide it, please," she said calmly. " I am
much obliged."
She walked to the drawing-room car, and signaled
the black porter.
268 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" I shall be safe to-night," she said softly, to
the child by her side, " and I won't tell you my
name, because it will not be mine much longer.
But what is yours? Tell me quick!"
"All aboard! Next stop One Hund' Twent'-
fifth Street!" some one called, hoarsely.
Caroline looked dazed. She tried to speak
sensibly, but her tongue played tricks with her,
and the tension of her feelings was too much for
her. As the girl paused a second on the platform,
and the train shuddered for its start, Caroline
called above the escaping steam:
"I'm Mary Queen of Scots I am! I am!"
The white face of Joan of Arc broke into a
wavering smile.
" You dear little idiot," she called, chokingly,
" I'll find you out yet! You'll see! Good-by
God bless your Majesty."
And while she might, Caroline ran beside the
window, waving her hand at that tearful, happy
face.
VIII
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT
THE village clock boomed out the first strokes
of eleven. Solemn and mellow, the waves
of sound flowed over the sleeping streets;
the aftertones vibrated plaintively. Caroline
stirred restlessly, tossing off the sheet and mut-
tering in her dreams. The tears had dried on her
hot cheeks; her brows were still knitted.
" Four! Five! Six!" the big bell tolled.
Caroline sat up in bed and dropped her bare,
pink legs over the edge. Her eyes were open now,
but set in a fixed, unseeing stare.
"Seven! Eight!"
She fumbled with her toes for her leather bare-
foot sandals and slipped her feet under the ankle
straps.
" Nine! Ten!" moaned the bell.
She moved forward, vaguely, in the broad path
of moonlight that poured through the wide-open
269
270 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
window, and ran her hands like a blind girl over
the warm sill, lifting her knee to its level.
" Eleven!"
Before the murmuring aftertones had lost
themselves in the night, Caroline was out of the
window. She stole lightly along the tin roof,
warm yet with the first intense heat of June,
dropped easily to the level of the kitchen-ell,
and, slipping down onto the massive trunk of the
old wistaria, fitted accustomed feet into its curled
niches and clambered down among the warm,
fragrant clusters. Steeped in the full moon, it
sent out its cloying perfume like a visible cloud;
her white nightgown glistened ghostlike through
the leaves.
She paused a moment in the shadow of the
vine, and a great tawny cat, his orange markings
distinct in the moonlight, stole to her, brushing
against her bare ankles caressingly. As he curled
and uncurled his soft tail about her little feet,
a sudden impulse caught her, and she started
swiftly through the wide backyard, bending to
a broken gap in the privet hedge, cutting diagon-
ally across the neighboring grounds, and emerging
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 271
into a pleasant country road on the outskirts of
the little village, with sleeping houses sprinkled
along its length, well back, mostly, from its edge,
showing here and there a light.
She struck into the soft, dusty road at a quick,
swinging pace, the fruit of much walking, and the
big yellow cat pattered at her side.
The night was almost windless; sweet, name-
less odors poured up from the heated summer
soil; the shadows of the grasses were outlined
like Japanese pictures on the white roadway.
Except for the child and the cat, no living being
moved, as far as the eye could see; only the bur-
docks and mulleins swayed almost imperceptibly
with breezes so delicate that the leaf tips of the
trees could not feel them.
A great white moth, blundering against a heavy
thistle head, tumbled against Caroline's elbow and
fluttered clumsily into her face. She started,
blinked, drew a long breath, and woke with a
frightened gasp. Before her stretched the pale,
curving road; above her the spangled sky throbbed
and glittered; the earth, drenched in moonlight,
beautiful as all lovely creatures caught sleeping,
272 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
breathed softly into her face and with every breath
put courage into her heart.
She looked down and saw the yellow cat, stop-
ping, with one lifted paw, his green, lamplike
eyes fixed unwaveringly on hers.
"Why, it's you, Red Rufus!" she whispered,
" when did we come here? I don't remember "
A bat whirred by: the cat pricked his ears.
" I don't believe we're here at all, Red Rufus,"
she whispered again. " We're just dreaming
at least, I am. I s'pose you're only in my dream.
If I was really here, I'd be frightened to death,
prob'ly, but if it's just a dream, I think it's lovely.
Let's go on. I never had a dream like this it
seems so real, doesn't it, Rufus?"
They went on aimlessly up the road. Quaint
little night sounds began now to make themselves
heard: now and then a drowsy twitter from the
sleeping nests, now and then a distant owl hoot.
A sudden gust of honeysuckle, so strong that it
was like a friendly, fragrant body flung against
her, halted her for a moment, and while she
paused, sniffing ecstatically, the low murmur of
voices caught her ear.
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 273
The honeysuckle ran riot over an old stone
wall, followed an arching gateway at the foot
of a winding path that led to a lighted house on a
knoll above, and flung screening tendrils over
an entwined pair that paused just inside the gate.
The girl's white, loose sleeves fell back from her
round arms as she flung them up about her tall
lover's neck; his dark head bent low over hers,
their lips met, and they hung entranced in the
bowery archway.
For a moment Caroline watched them with
frank curiosity. Then something woke and stirred
in her, faint and vague, but alive now, and she
turned away her eyes, blushing hot in the cool
moonlight.
The soft tones of their good-night died into
broken whispers; parted from his white lady,
he started on for a few, irresolute steps, then flung
about suddenly and walked back toward the
house, after a low, happy protest. The cooing
of some drowsy pigeons in the stable on the other
side of the road carried on the lovers' language
long after they were out of earshot, and confused
itself with them in Caroline's mind.
274 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
She wandered on, intoxicated with the mild,
spacious night, the dewy freedom of the fields,
the delicious pressure of the warm, velvet air
against her body. Red Rufus purred as he went,
rejoicing with his vagabond comrade. Just how
or when she began to know that she was not
asleep, just why the knowledge did not alarm her,
it would be hard to say. But when the truth came
to her, the friendly, powdered stars had been
above her long enough to accustom her to their
winking; the tiny, tentative noises of the night
had sounded in her ears till they comforted and
reassured her; the vast and empty field stretches
meant only freedom and exhilaration. In a sudden
delirium of joy she slipped between the bars of a
rolling meadow and ran at full speed down its
long, grassy slope, her nightgown streaming behind
her, her slender, childish legs white as ivory against
the greenish-black all around her. Beside her
bounded the great cat with shining, gemlike eyes.
They rolled down the last reaches of the slope,
and all the Milky Way wondered at them, but
never a sound broke the solemn quiet of the night:
the ecstasy was noiseless.
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 275
Her face buried in sweet clover, she panted,
prone on the grass.
" Let's go right on, Rufus, and run away, and
do just as we please!" she whispered to the nest-
ling cat. " If I can't do like the boys do, I don't
want to stay home the fellows laugh at me! I'd
rather be whipped than sent to bed like a girl. I
won't be a young lady I won't!"
Rufus purred approvingly.
" If I only had some trousers!" she mourned,
softly; " a boy can do anything!"
Across the quiet night there cut a thin, shrill
cry: a little, fretful pipe that brought instantly
before the mind some hushed, white room with a
. .
shaded light and a tiny basket bed. Carolijie-
sat up and stared about her: such cries did not
come from open fields. Hardly a stone's throw
from her there was a small knoll, and behind it
what might have been a large, projecting boulder
suddenly flashed into red light and showed itself
for a dormer window; a cottage had evidently
hidden behind the little hill. Curiously Caroline
approached it and walked softly up the knoll.
Almost on the top she paused and peered into
276 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
the unshaded window. These householders had
no fear of peeping neighbors, for only the moon
and the night moths found them out, and the
simple bedroom was framed like some old naive
interior, realistic with the tremendous realism
of the Great Artist.
The high, old-fashioned footboard of the bed
faced the dormer window, and Caroline could
see only the upper portion of the woman's figure
as she leaned over a small crib beside her, her
heavy dark hair falling across her cheek, and
lifted up with careful slowness the tiny creature
that wailed in it. Beside her, as he supported
himself anxiously on his elbow, the broad chest
and shoulders of her young husband rose above
the screening footboard. The mother gazed hun-
grily at the doll-like, writhing object, passed her
hand over its downy forehead, smiled with relief
into its opening eyes, and gave it her breast.
Instantly the wail ceased. A slow, placid smile
and yet, not quite a smile it was rather an
elemental content, a gratified drifting into the
warm current of the stream of this world's being
spread over the woman's face; the man's long
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 277
arm wrapped around his wealth, at once protecting
and defiant; his head flung back against the world,
while his eyes studied humbly the mystery that he
grasped. The night lamp behind them threw
a halo around the mother and her child, and the
great trinity of all times and all faiths gleamed
immortal upon the canvas of the simple room
its only spectator a child.
In her, malleable to all the influences of the
revealing night, fairly disembodied, in her de-
tached and flitting presence, the scene woke dim,
coiled memories of an infancy that stirred and
pained her even as it left her forever, and frightened
longing for the motherhood that life was holding
for her. No longer an infant, not yet a woman,
this creature that was both felt the helplessness
of one, the yearning of the other, and as she pressed
the nestling cat tightly to her little breast two
great, eager tears slipped down her hot cheeks,
and a gulping sob, half loneliness, half pure excite-
ment, broke into the gentle stillness of the lighted
room.
" Who's there?"
The man's voice rang like a sudden pistol shot
2 y8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
in the night; before Caroline's fascinated gaze
the gleaming, softly colored picture faded and
vanished into the engulfing darkness, as the lamp
went out and a dark, scudding mackerel cloud
flew over the moon. Instinctively she fled softly
down the knoll, instinctively she dropped behind
a bush at the bottom. She heard the rattle of
the window pane as the man pushed himself half
out of the window; she heard him call back to the
waiting room behind him!
" It's a cat, dear I saw it, plain. It's pretty
bright out here. But I thought I saw something
white beside it, too. I guess I'll take a look around
outside."
There was a sound of movement behind the
window, and, caught in an ecstasy of terror, Caro-
line turned at right angles from the fields and ran
to the road that gleamed white, far on the other
side of the cottage. Panting, she won it, crossed
it, and fairly safe behind the low growth of wayside
brushes that fringed its other side, she dashed
along, farther and farther from the cottage, more
and more frightened with every gasping breath.
On and on she flew, light as a skimming leaf
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 279
in the wind, the cat bounding in easy, flexible
curves beside her. Now a little brown cottage
in its plot of land sent them into the road for a
moment; now some tiny pond, a mirror for the
sprinkled heavens, broke into their course, and
they skirted it more slowly, peering continuously
into its jeweled depths. With them their hurry-
ing shadows, black on the road, fainter on the
grass, fled ceaselessly, hardly more quiet than
they. A very intoxication of fear, a panic terror
almost delicious, drove Caroline through the night,
though after a while she ran more slowly. Utterly
ignorant of where she was, reckless of where she
might go, she swung along under the streaming
moon, no white moth or whispering leaf more
wholly a part of the night than she.
Whatever idea of going back she might have
had was lost long ago; however little she might
have meant to range so far, she was now beyond
any turning. No wood creature, no skipping
faun or startled dryad dancing under the moon
could have belonged more utterly than she to the
fragrant, mysterious world around her. The
bright, bustling life of every day, its clatter of
2 8o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
food and drink, its smarts and fatigues, its settled
routine of work and play, all seemed as far behind
her as some old tale of another life, half forgotten
now.
Just as her pace subsided into a little skipping
trot, a thick hedge sprang up across their path,
driving them into the road, and continued, stiff
and tall, along its edge. The pure pleasure of
conquering its prickly stiffness sent Caroline
through it, tearing one sleeve from her nightgown
and dragging a great rent in one side of it. Emerg-
ing into a magnificent sweep of clipped turf,
where wide, leafy boughs spread dappled moon
shadows, they made for a whispering, clucking
fountain that threw a diamond column straight
toward the stars, only to break at the top into
a beaded mist and clink musically back to its
marble basin. Its rhythmic tinkle, the four ball-
shaped box trees at either corner, the carved
whiteness of the marble basin, and the massive
pillar-fronted stone house beyond it, all spread
a glamour of fairyland and foreign courts. Caro-
line bowed gravely to the cat, and, seizing his
feathery paws, danced, bowing and posturing,
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 281
in a bewitched abandon around the tinkling,
glistening fountain. The plumy tail of Red Rufus
flew behind him as he twirled, his little feet pattered
furiously after Caroline's twinkling sandals. Stoop-
ing over the fountain, she threw a silvery handful
high in the air and ran to catch it on her head.
As she stood at last, panting and dazed with
her mad circling, she was aware of the low murmur
of a voice, rising and falling in a steady measure,
reaching out of the dim bulk of the great house,
dark and sunk in sleep before her. For a moment
a chill fear struck to the bottom of her little heart:
was some weird spell aimed at her, some malig-
nant eye spying on her? She stood frozen to the
spot, the tiny drops of sweat cooling on her fore-
head, while the droning sounded in her ears.
Then, out of the very core of her terror, some in-
explicable impulse urged her on to face it, and she
crept, step by step, the cat tight in her nervous
grasp, around the corner of the great house,
toward the sound.
This corner was a wing, set at right angles to
the main building, and as she rounded it she found
herself at the edge of an inner court. In the
282 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
opposite wing, looking straight across the court,
was a lighted room with a long French window
opening directly on the shaven turf, and in the
center of this window there sat in a high, carved
chair a very old woman. She was carefully
dressed in deep black, with pure white ruffles at
her neck and around her shrunken wrists, and a
lace cap on her thin, white hair. Her feet were
on a carved foot-stool, and a quaint silver lamp,
set on a slender table at her side, threw a stream
of light across the court. Her face, lined with
countless wrinkles, was bent upon a large book
in her lap; from its pages she read in a low, steady
voice the passionless, almost terrifying voice
of great and weary age:
" Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all gen-
erations.
" Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever
thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from ever-
lasting to everlasting thou art God"
Caroline stared, fascinated, down the path
of lamplight. It marked a bed of yellow tulips
with a broad band; they stood motionless, as
if carved in ivory.
Across the court was a lighted room with a long French
window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high,
carved chair a very old woman.
. :-
\ <V
-l/IS'TVi ' '*'"
A WATCH j ; THE NIGHT 283
" For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yester-
day when it is past, and as a watch in the night"
The grave, steady voice flowed out and mingled
with the silver lamplight; the marble sill of the
long window was white like the sill of a tomb.
" We spend our years as a tale that is told.
" The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet
is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut of,
and we fly away."
The hot excitement of this magic night cooled
slowly; over Caroline's bubbling spirit there
fell a mild, strange calm. A breath from the
very caverns of the infinite stole out along the
path of that silver lamp, and in the grave, sur-
rendered voice there sounded for the child upon
life's threshold echoes of the final tolling.
Entranced by the measured cadences, Caro-
line stepped forward unconsciously and stood,
white against the gray stone, full in the path of
the lamp. The heavy, wrinkled lids raised them-
selves from the deep-set eyes, and the aged reader
gazed calmly at the little figure across the court.
The withered old hands clasped each other.
284 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
' ' J emmy ! O Jemmy!* '
Caroline never moved.
" It is you, Jemmy!"
The faded eyes devoured the little white figure.
" I thought you'd never come, Jemmy but
I knew they'd send you. I'm all ready. Don't
you think I'm afraid, Jemmy: I'm eighty-
fours years old, and I want to go."
Caroline hardly breathed: a nameless awe held
her motionless and silent.
" You see, I don't sleep much any more,
Jemmy," the old, toneless voice went on, " and
hardly any at night. They're very kind, all of
them, but I'm I'm eighty-four years old, and
I want to go."
The ivory tulips gleamed under the stars;
the silver lamp, burned lower and lower: its
oil was nearly gone.
" And you brought your yellow kitty, too,
Jemmy! To think of that! Did they think
I wouldn't know my baby? It's only fifty years,
. . . shall I come now, Jemmy?"
The silver lamp went out. In the starlight
Caroline saw the lace cap droop forward, as the
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 285
the old woman's head settled gently on her
breast. Her hands lay clasped on the great
volume; her deep-set eyes were closed. She
read no more from the book, and the child, awed
and sober, stole like a shadow behind the gray
wall and left the quiet figure in the carved chair.
Her feet fell into a tiny graveled path, and she
drifted aimlessly along it, musing on the meaning
of what she had heard. Almost she had persuaded
herself that the gray stone building was an en-
chanted palace, and herself a fairy messenger
sent to break the spell, when the delight of push-
ing through a tiny turnstile and finding a running
brook with a waterfall in it close at hand, drove
everything else from her mind. The grounds
had completely changed their character by now:
the turnstile marked the end of cultivation, and
the little path, no longer graveled, wound through
the wild woodland. Here and there a boulder
blocked the way; the undergrowth became
dense; great clumps of fern and rhododendron
sent out their heavy, rank odors. Now and again
the spicy scent of warm pines and cedars pre-
pared the ear for the gentle, ceaseless rustle of
286 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
their stiff foliage; little scufflings and chitterings
at the ground level told of wood-people wakened
by the presence of Red Rufus.
A strange whitish bulk that glimmered through
the thinning foreground, too big for even a big
boulder, too symmetrical and quiet for a water-
fall, tempted Caroline on, and she pressed forward
hastily, lost in speculation, when a sudden odor
foreign to the woods stopped her short at the
very edge of a little glade, and she paused, snif-
fing curiously.
A man, bareheaded, with grizzled curly hair,
turned suddenly, not ten feet from her, and stared
dumfounded at her, his twisted, brown cigar an
inch from his lips.
The torn-out sleeve of her nightgown had
bared one side to her waist: the great rent that
slit the lower half of the garment left one slender
leg uncovered above her white knee. A spray
of wild azalea wreathed her dark tumbled hair,
and Rufus, his plumy tail curled around her feet
in the shadow, and his green eyes flaming, might
have been a baby panther. She leaned one hand
on the rough bark of a chestnut and gazed with
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 287
startled eyes at the man; it seemed that the forest
must swallow her at a breath from a human throat.
He lifted one hand and pinched the back of
the other with it till his face contorted with the
pain.
" Then there are such things!" he said softly;
" well, why not?"
He moved forward almost imperceptibly.
"HI were younger, I should know you were
not possible," he muttered, " but now I know
that I have never doubted you really."
Again he took a small step. Caroline, par-
alyzed with fear and embarrassment, for she
thought he was merely teasing her a little before
he punished her his pleasant, low voice and
whimsical manners brought her back suddenly
to the ordinary world and the stern facts of her
escapade shivered slightly, but did not attempt
flight.
" It was this extraordinary night that brought
you out, of course," he went on, again slightly
shortening the distance between them, " you
and the little cub. It was a moon out of five
thousand, I admit. Do you live in that chestnut?"
288 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
With a sudden agile bound he covered the
space between them and seized her by the shoulder.
" Aha!" he cried, " I have good heavens,
it is a child!"
" Of course I am I'm Caroline," she mur-
mured writhing under his grasp.
He pulled her out into the little glade.
"Oh! you're Caroline, are you?" he repeated,
thoughtfully; " dear me, you gave me quite a
turn, Caroline. Where did you come from
the big house?"
" I came from a long way," she said briefly.
" I was I was taking a walk. Where do you
live? Don't you ever to go bed?"
The man chuckled.
' I have been feeling adventures in my bones
all day," he said, " and here they are: a child
and a cat. If you will come with me, Made-
moiselle, I will show you where I live."
He led the way gravely to the dim, white
object, and Caroline perceived it to be a tent,
pitched by the side of a spring that poured through
a tiny pipe set into the rock. The tent flap was
tied back, and she saw inside it a narrow cot,
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 289
covered with a coarse blue blanket, a roughly
made table, spread with a game of solitaire, and
a small leather trunk. On the further side of
the tent there smoked, in a rude, improvised
oven of stones, a dying fire. Above it, under
a shelf nailed to the tree, hung a few simple
utensils; two or three large stumps had been
hacked into the semblance of seats.
To one of these stumps the man led Caroline,
and, seating her, he turned to the shelf above
the fire and fumbled among the pots and pans
there, producing finally a buttered roll, a piece
of maple sugar, and a small fruit tart.
" You must be hungry," he said simply, and
Caroline ate greedily. After he had brought her
a tin cup of the spring water, he selected a brown
pipe from a half dozen on the shelf and began
filling it from a leather pouch that hung on the
tree.
Now let's hear all about it," he said easily.
I am running away," said Caroline abruptly.
At that moment it really seemed that she had
planned her flight from the hour that left her,
tear-stained and disgraced, in her little bed.
u
u
2 9 o WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" They didn't treat you well?" he suggested,
picking out a red ember from the coals on
the point of a knife and applying it to the
pipe.
" I'm not to wear my knickers any more,"
Caroline said, with a gulp, " and my bathing
suit has to have a skirt. I've got to stop p-play-
ing with the b-boys so much, that is," she added,
honestly.
The man turned his head slightly.
" That seems hard," he said; " what's the
reason?"
" I'm 'most twelve," said Caroline; " you
have to be a young lady, then."
" I see," the man said. He looked at her
thoughtfully. " I suppose you would look larger
in more clothes," he added.
" That's it," she assured him, " I do. That's
just it."
" And so you expect to avoid all this by run-
ning away?" he asked, settling into his own
stump seat. " I am afraid you can't do it."
Caroline set her teeth. He regarded her
quizzically.
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 291
" See here," he went on, " I wish you'd take
my advice in this matter."
They confronted each other in the starlight,
a strange pair before the dying fire. The moon
had gone, and the stars, though bright, seemed
less solid and less certainly gold than before.
A cool breeze swept through the wood and Caroline
shivered in her torn nightdress. The man stepped
into the tent and returned with a long army
cloak. This he wrapped round her and resumed
his seat, with Rufus on his knee.
" My name," he said, " is Peter. Everybody
calls me that just Peter. I don't know exactly
why it is, but a lot of people all over have
got into the way of taking my advice. Perhaps
because I've knocked about all over the world
more or less, and haven't got any wife or chil-
dren or brothers and sisters of my own to advise,
so I take it out on everybody else. Perhaps
because I try to put myself in the other fellow's
place before I advise him. Perhaps because I've
had a little trouble of my own, here and there,
and haven't forgotten it. Anyhow, I get used
to talking things over."
292 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
A gentle stirring seemed to pass through the
woods: the birds spoke softly back and forth,
a squirrel chattered. Again that cool wind swept
over the trees.
" Now, take it this week," the man went on,
puffing steadily; " you wouldn't believe the
people just about here who've asked for my advice.
I usually camp up here for a week or so in the
summer the people who own the property like
to have me here and the first day I unpacked,
up comes a nice girl I used to make birch whistles
for her mother to tell me all about her young
man. She brought me that spray of honeysuckle
over the pipes grows over the front gate. She
wants to marry him before her father gets to like
him, but she hates to run away. " Would you
advise me to, Peter?" she says. And I advised
her to wait.
"Then there's my friend the blacksmith. He
lives in a queer little house with dormer win-
dows under a hill, just off the county road. He's
got a new baby, and he was afraid it wouldn't
pull through. He knew I'd seen a lot of babies
black and red and yellow and he wanted my
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 293
advice. * Peter, what'll I do? ' he says.. ' what'll
I do?'
" ' Why, just wait, Harvey. He'll live. Just
wait,' I told him."
Caroline listened with interest. He might
have been talking to his equal in years, from his
tone.
" Then, oddly enough," he continued, " here's
my old friend in the big house up yonder and
she is old and what do you think she's worried
about? She's afraid she won't die! ' Oh, Peter,'
she says to me she's fond of me because I'm
the same age as a little boy of hers that died
* it seems to me that I can't wait, Peter! What
shall I do ? ' she says. And I tell her to wait.
* Dear old friend,' said I to her last night, ' it
will come. It's bound to come. Just be pa-
tient.' "
He paused and knocked his pipe empty.
" Now, as to your case," he said, " I know
how you feel. I'm sorry for you by the Lord,
I'm sorry for you! But what's the use of running
away? You'll keep on growing up, you know.
It's one of the things that doesn't stop. You
294 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
can't beat the game by wearing knickers, you
know. And then, there'd come a time when
you'd want to quit, anyhow."
She shook her head.
' Really, you would," he assured her, per-
suasively. " They all do."
" That's what Uncle Joe says," she admitted,
"and Aunt Edith. She changed her mind,
she says "
"Are you talking about Joe Holt?" Peter
demanded.
Yes do you know him ? He lives in a
big white house with wistaria on the side," Car-
oline cried joyfully.
' I was a senior when he was a freshman,"
said Peter. "Then he's taken the Washburn
house."
"Do you know Aunt Edith, too?" asked
Caroline.
"Yes," said Peter, after a pause, "yes, I
know Aunt Edith or used to. But I didn't
know she they were up in this country. I
haven't seen her them for a good while. Does
does she sing yet?"
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 295
"Oh, yes, but not on the stage any more,
you know," Caroline explained.
"I see. Does she sing, I wonder, a song
about Oh, something about ' my heart '?"
" ' My heart's own heart,' you mean," Car-
oline said importantly; " yes, indeed. It's her
encore song."
" I see," said Peter again.
He looked into the fire, and there was a long
silence. After a while he shook his shoulders
like a water-dog.
" Now, Caroline," he said briskly, " here's
the way of this business. You can't wear knickers
until you're one of the boys, and you can't be
one of the boys until you wear knickers. Do
you see? So you don't get anywhere."
Caroline looked puzzled. She was suddenly
overcome with sleep, and the old familiar names
and ways tasted of home and comfort to her soul.
" You're too nice to be a boy, Caroline," said
Peter, leaning over her and brushing her azalea-
crowned hair tenderly with his lips. " If you
persist in this plan of running away to be a boy,
some boy, growing up anxiously, somewhere,
296 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
will never forgive you! Take my advice, and
wait will you? Say ' Yes, Peter.'
" Yes, Peter," Caroline murmured, drowsily.
" Good girl ! Then I'll take you home with
my little donkey. I don't believe they've missed
you yet. You've come four miles, though, you
little gypsy!"
He disappeared behind the trees, and Caroline
nodded. Later she woke sufficiently to find
herself and Rufus on the blue blanket on the
bottom of a little donkey cart: Peter stood by
the gentle, long-eared head.
" Thank you, Peter," she murmured, half
asleep, " and you'll see Aunt Edith, won't you?"
" I don't believe so," he said, very low. " Not
yet. Tell her Peter brought you back. Just
Peter. But he can't come yet. Get up, Jenny!"
They wound out by an old wood road. A
cool spiciness flowed though the green aisles,
and as the tiny donkey struck into a dog trot,
the man striding easily at her head, a far-away
cock crowed shrilly and the dawn gleamed white.
C
IX
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
AROLINE!" Henry D. Thoreau cocked
one brindled ear cannily and rapped
sharply with his tail on the piazza
floor, but there was no other answer to the call.
" Caroline!" The insistent voice rang louder; it
was a very determined voice. A sleepy Angora
cat scowled reprovingly at its violence; a gray
and pink parrot mimicked its hortatory note, but
after that the midsummer silence settled down
again. Only the bees droned heavily among the
heavy August roses.
" Don't nag her, dear; it doesn't do any good,"
a sleepy contralto, rich as creamy chocolate,
crooned out of a scarlet-fringed hammock.
" That's all very well for you, Edith, you don't
have the responsibility of her. Her father wants
her to read a little history every day, and this is
the best time it's too hot for anything else."
297
298 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Rather hot for history, dear?"
" It's not too hot for the Moonstone, I notice!
She's been at that since breakfast, steadily.
Not a word for any one."
" ' Moonstone ' sounds cool, anyhow," drawled
the contralto appeasingly.
" Oh, Edith! You're as bad as the child her-
self!"
" She's fourteen, dear."
" Fourteen! What is that?"
"Anything but a child, when it's you, Sis.
You talk to her as if she were ten."
" You'd think she was, if you saw her riding
that donkey a great girl like her!"
" There it is, dear! One moment she's a baby,
the next she's a great girl! It's hard on her,
Sis."
" But, Edith that donkey!"
" Poor Rose-Marie! I rode him myself bare-
back and standing up! when I was fifteen at
a circus. Do you remember?"
The voice chuckled unwillingly. " You always
were a tomboy, Deedee! Do you remember Joe's
bull fight?"
Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched abandon,
around the tinkling, glistening fountain.
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Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a
heavy arbor vitae, flat on her stomach.
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 299
" And the lemonade stand!" Contralto cried,
with a rich swoop of laughter. Their voices took
up a happy canon of gold memories; there were
no more cries for Caroline.
She was not a hundred yards away from the
sister aunts, sheltering under a heavy arbor vitae,
flat on her stomach, her nose glued to the repre-
hensible Moonstone: that she had heard the calls
and resented them the scowl between her eye-
brows exhibited. Behind her, patiently at graze,
a small, mouse-colored donkey stood, shifting
a pair of quaint panniers from side to side and
wagging his scarlet ear tassels thoughtfully.
The chapter ended, Caroline rose, peered across
to the piazza, nodded to herself at the flow of
voices and shrugged her shoulders.
" Good old Aunt Deedee!" she muttered, " she
choked her off! Now, for heaven's sake, don't
bray, Rose-Marie, and perhaps we can get away.
I wouldn't dare get over to the house for a
luncheon; we'll have to get along with sweet-
boughs."
She slipped the book into one pannier, a cushion
into the other and threw a worn steamer rug
3 oo WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
over the little beast's back; Caroline was a luxur-
ious lounger and rarely traveled without her
sumpter mule and his impedimenta. She led him
with practiced quiet away from the house and
paused under the gnarled old sweet-bough tree:
the greenish-yellow, almost translucent globes
dotted the lush, warm grass, their languorous sweet
filled the air. Selecting a dozen thoughtfully,
she added them to the donkey's load, and they
went on at a foot pace, through the slowly red-
dening Baldwins and seek-no-furthers, the tiny
lady-apples and the king-of-Tompkins-counties,
through the belt of dead, warped fruit trees, blight-
ed and gray " like those Dore* pictures," she
murmured to Rose-Marie down three, crumbling
brick steps, where the little fellow picked his way
as daintily as a careful lady, and across the dusty
road into a pasture trail that led to a wood stretch,
sparse at first, thicker as one plunged in deeper.
The sun filtered through in delicious diamonds;
here and there a resinous pine, steeped in heat,
threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk
scuttered across their path, clicking nervously,
only to squat on his haunches and stare beadily at
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 301
Rose-Marie, taut with quivering curiosity. Caro-
line scowled at him.
" Rise of the Dutch Republic!" she muttered
angrily. "I think not!"
The chipmunk winked sympathetically.
" Your father says it's as interesting as any
novel " (with startling mimicry of the piazza voice).
" I notice they don't read it!"
The chipmunk's place was empty; only a slight
stir among the leaves marked his path.
Caroline's eyes widened, grew dreamy. She
leaned her sharp elbows on Rose-Marie's hairy
back and threw her weight on him thoughtfully:
he checked and stood like a table.
' Do you suppose there really are regular roads
through the trees, like the monkeys took Mowgli
on?" she queried.
Rose-Marie waved his long, hairy ears medita-
tively, but said nothing.
" I don't mean in any fairy way," she explained
hastily, " but just scientifically. It might be.
Corners and turns and short-cuts why not?
they all know them. He may be running home
by a back way, now, to call his children to look
302 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
at Rose-Marie; it's as good as a whole circus
parade to them, I suppose. And they talk to
each other. ..."
Held in a muse, she leaned against the donkey;
the moments slipped by. She lost all count of
time. Her eyes stared emptily at some sunny
flicker, some dappled pattern of leaf work; her
ears were filled with the forest drone, the mysteri-
ous murmur made up of so many nameless instru-
ments that only the Great Conductor can classify
and number them. Time ceased to be.
At length she woke with a start, shook herself
coltishly, and they pushed on. The wood grew
thicker; now and then Rose-Marie had to force
his way along the tiny trail; his red tassels caught
on the twigs.
" I'll tell you what," Caroline began, suddenly,
" I'm going to try that wood track to-day and see
where it goes, to the very end. It must go some-
where. Where do they haul the wood from, if
there isn't some place at the end? Come on,
Rose-Marie!"
At a point where the trail forked she led the
donkey along the wider and less interesting way.
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 303
It was ridged and rutty, and Rose-Marie sniffed
disgustedly as he slipped among the gnarled roots;
the apples bumped and slid in the pannier. After
a while Caroline stopped under a tree, ate three
of the apples, gave the donkey two, and resting
in an artfully constructed nest of rug and pillow,
dipped refreshingly into the Moonstone.
" That's a kind of luncheon," she remarked
philosophically, " and now we'll start again. I'll
go to the end of this, if it takes all day!"
They settled down to a dogged pace and after
an hour, during which the wood grew thinner by
imperceptible degrees, found themselves on a
relatively easy track that forked suddenly into a
genuine country road, stretching far to left and
right of them. It was a new country to Caroline;
she found no landmarks whatever. The road
glared with heat, the dust was powdery, the
shade nowhere, once they had cleared the wood.
She sighed with fatigue and emptiness; it seemed
a long pull, and the harbor far from worth the
voyage, when all was said and done.
" What did we want to get to this nasty hot
road for, Rose-Marie?" she cried pettishly, shifting
304 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
from one long leg to the other, shrugging a nervous,
bony shoulder. " Oh, what's the sense of any-
thing, anyway?"
Rose-Marie turned a patient, clear brown eye
toward her and shook his head vaguely. Gnats
buzzed about his flexible ears, and with a swishing
fanning motion he displaced them.
" If my back aches," she warned him callously,
" you'll have to take me home, you know! Tired
or not. It feels as if it might, any minute. I
never used to get tired, this way."
A half mile along the road, set off to the left,
among cool trees and behind a great well sweep,
she perceived suddenly a white farm house. It
stood alone, neighborless and well up on a drained,
southerly slope; smoke rose languidly from one
of its chimneys.
" Perhaps they'll give us some milk, Rose-
Marie," said Caroline, " and farms usually have
cookies. If there are any children there, you can
give 'em rides to pay for it!"
Rose-Marie nodded and they went on with some
spirit. As they turned into the deep front yard
Caroline almost wept with comfort and a pathetic
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 305
sense of the wayworn wanderer on the edge of home
and rest, so the place breathed of these. Clear
and white with the faded whiteness of old New
England white shingles, it drowsed under its
elms; a fire of nasturtiums smoldered along the
broken, flagged path that led to it; phlox and
" Bouncing Bets ' crowded up among the once
formal bed of larkspur on each side the sagging
flagstone steps, beneath the simple entrance porch.
Old-fashioned green paper shades hung evenly
half way down the clean windows; the door stood
hospitably ajar.
"Just wait there, Rose-Marie, till I find out
about things," said Caroline, tapping lightly on
the door. The house was perfectly silent. She
tapped again, and it seemed that something heavy
moved across the floor in a farther room, but there
was no answer. Pushing the door open gently,
she stepped in and stood surprised, for she found
herself not in the stiff, unused country " parlor "
she had expected, but a neat bedroom. A quaint
four-poster with a fluted valance, a polished
mahogany chest of drawers, a stand by the bed
with a Bible worn to a soft gray and a night lamp
3 o6 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
on it, some faded photographs tacked to the white
walls this was an odd reception room. She
hesitated, and again the faint rumbling sound
pointed to some person stirring and she went into
the next room.
Here was a clean, kindly kitchen of the best;
a swept floor, a freshly blackened cooking stove,
a row of bright tins. It was carpeted with faded
oilcloth, but rag rugs, washed dim and soft-toned,
lay here and there, and the room was so large that
the spread table, standing in an ell, made only a
pleasant episode in it, a certainty of restoring
food at needful times.
It was evidently a sitting room as well, in the
primitive, clear fashion that groups all domestic
life about the central fire that feeds it; a stand
with books, a sewing basket, oil lamps for evening
reading, all not too far from brick-shaped pans
where unmistakable bread rose under a clean,
folded, red cloth. The whole place seemed waiting,
quietly, hospitably waiting, for just such an empty,
discouraged pilgrim as Caroline.
She sank gratefully into a high-backed arm-
chair, stuffed to just the hollow of her tired back,
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 307
covered with a clean, homely patchwork, and
drew out the faithful Moonstone from under her
elbow.
" Someone'll come soon," she assured herself,
and slipped into the story as a hot swimmer slips
off his sunny rock into the waiting blue. Another
world, a delicious, smooth element Romance
itself received her, and of hunger and heat,
thirst and the fatigue of the road, she knew no
more than the blessed dead themselves. . . .
A sharp tap at the farther door disturbed her,
and instinctively she called, " Come in!"
A swift, swishing step brushed across the bed-
room and a slender, angry-eyed young woman
poised like a gull before her.
" Can I get something to eat here?"
Her voice was at once imperious, irritated,
unsure of itself. It could not be that the owner
of this T voice, dressed with that insolent simplicity
that need not consider the costly patience of the
work- women, ringed like a dowager with great
audacious squares of ruby and white diamond,
booted and hatted as one who wears and throws
away, with a bag of golden mesh on her wrist
3 o8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
to pay the price of any whim it could not be that
she doubted what answer she should receive.
And yet she did did, and had before this: so
much was evident at first sight. She was a
curious gypsyish type, for all her Rue de la Paix
curvings and slim, inevitable folds and pleats;
a full, drooping mouth in a slender dark face,
great brown eyes and heavy waves of black hair.
She looked discontented and ready to make some
one suffer for it.
"Well can I?" she repeated, as Caroline
stared. " I'm ready to pay, of course."
" I don't know I don't live here," said Caro-
line shortly. She felt untidy and badly dressed
beside this graceful thing standing in a faint cloud
of subtle perfume of her own; her sleeves were too
short and her heavy shoes knobby and worn. She
wanted furiously to smell sweet like that; and
the golden bag oh, to feel it, powerful and care-
less, on her wrist!
" Can you find out?" said the girl, eyeing the
room attentively; " my car broke down the man
left it in the road and went to Ogdenville for gaso-
line. I've got to rest somewhere."
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 309
" I don't know anything about it," Caroline
said coldly. " I'm waiting for someone to come,
myself. There's nobody here. I don't live here
at all.
With that, and because she was embarrassed
and cross and hungry, she opened her book osten-
tatiously and affected to read busily. The girl
frowned angrily a moment, then gave a foreign
little shrug of her shoulder and settled herself
in a low rocking chair near the bread, her hands
loose in her lap. The old clock ticked reprovingly
through the hot and conscious silence of the room,
but there was no other sound. Caroline could not
have lifted her eyes to save her life, and the older
girl's lips curled scornfully: her eyelids were
sullen.
After a few moments of this intolerable still-
ness the same low rumbling sound was heard
again, this time moving nearer. Something was
advancing to the kitchen from a farther room,
and as they looked instinctively at the door it
pushed open slowly and a sort of foot rest upon
wheels appeared; two large wheels followed, and
a woman pushed her chair into the kitchen.
3 io WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
She was a large, good-looking woman, middle-
aged, and not weak, evidently, for she managed
her chair easily with one hand; the other held
a slice of pink ham on a white platter in her lap.
Her face, under a placid parting of grayish fair
hair, was rather high colored than of an invalid
pallor, her chest broad and deep, her blue eyes
at once kind and keen. She wore a neat dress
of dark-blue print with a prim, old-fashioned
linen collar and a blue bow, a white apron around
her plump waist almost covered the patchwork
quilt that wrapped her from the hips down: a
shell comb showed slightly above her crisp hair.
As she faced her two angry guests a smile of
unmistakable sincerity and delight greeted them.
"Well, of all things!" she cried eagerly; " how
long, 'you been here?"
Caroline waited sulkily for her social superior;
the girl was undoubtedly a " young lady." Her
errand was soon explained, her question asked.
" Something to eat?" echoed their delighted
hostess. " Well, I should think so! I'm just
getting my dinner. Of course I'm all alone,
this time o' day, but I always say if I'm good
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 311
enough to cook it well, I'm good enough to eat
it comfortable, and I sit down to table just's if
the family was all here. There's some that
believe in a bite and a bit, when the men folks
are out, but I never did. And then " she
blushed shyly like a girl " I always want to
feel ready in case anyone should come. Just
in case. He says it's foolishness, but look at you
two, now! How'd I feel if I wasn't prepared!
And once in April, 'twas a sewing-machine
man came. I had ham then, too."
She beamed on them, frankly overjoyed in
their company, and in the mellow warmth of
that honest pleasure the fog and anger in the room
rolled back like mist under a noon sun, and Car-
oline unbent, named herself, and mentioned her
donkey and their woodland journey.
" You don't say!"
Quick as a flash their hostess was across the
room and peering through the window.
" Well, of all the funny little fellows! I never
saw one before, that I remember. Aren't those
red tossels neat, though! I s'pose he's tame?"
Caroline put him through his paces, as he
3 i2 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
came like a dog at her call, and she of the wheel
chair applauded like a child at a Punch and Judy.
" We saw so many of those in Italy," said the
older girl. " I rode one in the Alps."
The woman's face flushed a deep, quick red;
she gripped the arms of her chair and stared at
the nervous little jeweled creature before her
as if she were a vision of the night.
" Have you been to Italy?" she cried eagerly,
" not really! "
" Me? Oh, yes, I've been all over Europe,"
said the girl indifferently. " Why? Do you like
it?"
Now it was the woman who echoed, "Me?"
She flashed a whimsical look at Caroline; in-
stinct taught her that they were two to one, here.
"Why, dear, I've never been out of Lock-
wood's Corners in my life!"
Simple, rude incredulity pushed out the girl's
lip.
" Nonsense!" she said brusquely, " that's
ridiculous!"
" Maybe it is," her hostess answered quietly,
" but it's true, all the same. I never have."
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 313
Gold-bag did not blush for her rudeness, for the
simple reason that she did not realize it, and Car-
oline suddenly felt less embarrassed by her.
Girls of that age were too old to talk so pettishly
to people not in their own families, and she twid-
dled her fingers too much, anyway, and stared
too much, or else, again, she didn't look at one
enough.
" You've been to New York, haven't you?"
she asked abruptly.
" Never,' said the woman. " I've been this
way since I was seventeen. I'm a pretty heavy
woman, you know, and they couldn't put me on
a train very well. So "
" There's plenty of room in a drawing-room
car.'
" I guess we couldn't afford that," said the
woman simply.
There was an awkward pause; Caroline blushed
furiously. How horrid it all was! But their
hostess brushed it away in a moment.
" And here you are hungry! " she cried; " the
idea! I'll get this ham right on and fry up some
potatoes I'll do them French! I've got some
3 i4 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
fresh raised-doughnuts I got the prize for them
at the county fair, years ago, so I know they're
all right and some summer apple pauce; Hain't
much, with summer apples, but I put in lemon
peel and a taste o' last year's cider it makes a
relish, anyhow; and I've got some fine sweet-
pickled watermelon rind. I could have had sponge
cakes, if I'd only known! Would you care to
try a cut pie? The sewing-machine man said
he hadn't tasted anything like my squash pie in
years. It was cut, too."
With incredible swiftness she rolled from
table to buttery, from stove to larder. As the
pink ham curled and sputtered in its savory
juices, she turned an earnest face to the girl who
watched her curiously.
" Can't you tell us a little about Italy, while
we're waiting?" she begged.
" It's full of fleas," said the traveler care-
lessly, " and moldy old places it's awfully cold,
too. I wore my furs a lot of the time. It smells
bad nearly everywhere. Do you stay here in
the winter, too?"
" I've stayed here forty-five winters" she
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 315
turned the ham capably " and I expect to stay
as many more as the Lord spares my life! I was
born here. So was father. Grandfather was
born right in the Corners. In eighty-eight we
were snowed up a week here. Mr. Winterpine
that's my husband had bronchitis, and he
couldn't get out to tend to the stock. Edgar
that was the hired man's name was only twenty,
and I had to help with one of the cows; I went
out in my chair through a snow tunnel!"
She chuckled reminiscently and her guests
listened, fascinated.
" We were caught in a bad storm outside of
St. Petersburg, once," Gold-bag volunteered.
" If it hadn't been for J. G. we'd have gone out,
probably. As it was, the driver lost a finger."
" St Petersburg, Russia?" the woman in-
quired respectfully, her skillet full of potatoes
colored like autumn beech leaves.
The girl nodded. "J. G. swore at the man,
so he didn't dare die," she continued, with a
hard little grin; " and we just about pulled
through."
"Who is J. G.?" asked Caroline abruptly.
316 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
"J. G. Terwilliger," she answered simply. It
was as if one had said " Edward Seventh ' or
" Adelina Patti " or " P. T. Barnum."
" Who's he?"
" He's my father, for one thing. I suppose
you know who he is as well as anybody else."
" I never heard of him," Caroline said care-
lessly, "are you all ready, now, Mrs. Winterpine?"
" He is the greatest mining expert in the world,"
the girl declared emphatically, " and I don't
know where you've lived not to know it. You "
with a look at the woman, " you know him, of
course?"
" I don't know anybody of that name, no,"
the woman admitted; " but then, you know, we
don't know much, 'way off here, about city people."
" There hasn't been a daily paper for ten days
that hasn't had his name in it," the girl remarked
dryly.
Mrs. Winterpine wiped her face, flanked the
ham with the potatoes, assembled an incredible
array of sweets and relishes in odd, thick little
glass dishes, and with a wave of her hand indicated
her guests' places.
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 317
" We take the Lockwood's Corners Clarion"
she explained pacifically.
They addressed themselves to the meal, a
strange trio. Caroline, usually a hopeless chat-
terbox, fell somehow and inevitably into the
listener's seat. Their hostess could no longer
be denied: her thirst gleamed in her eyes, and
flesh and blood could not have withstood her
plea for tidings of those distant, rosy lands whose
laden wharves she could never see, nor ever
glimpse their tiled roofs under foreign sunsets,
their white spires beneath mysterious moons.
Their clothes: was it true that the French wore
wooden shoes? She had read that men in Italy
walked in gay capes, colored like birds. Was
there water in the streets, and were boats really
their carriages? Did soldiers, red-coated, demand
passports? Had her guest seen the snow tops
of green slopes? Did dogs drag milk carts for
white-capped women?
The girl, sulky at first, yielded finally, and in
quick, nervous phrases poured out of her full
budget. Taken from her convent school in
California at fifteen, she had roamed the world
3 i8 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
with the tireless "J. G." From Panama to
Alaska, from Cairo to Christiania, with her un-
creased Paris frocks and the discontented line
between her dark eyes, she had steamed and
sailed and ridden; she had ridden a camel in
Algeria, a gelding in Hyde Park, a broncho on
the Western plains.
"Why do you call your father 'J. G. '?"
Caroline demanded suddenly.
" Do you like ' Klondike Jim ' any better?
That's his other name," Gold-bag shot at her
defiantly.
Then came strange tales of a flaring, glaring
mining camp: lights and liquor and bared
knives, rough men and rougher words, and in
the midst a thin, big-eyed little creature in
the hand of a burly, red-shirted miner, with
the very gift of gold under his matted hair,
the scent for it in his blunt nostrils, the feel
for it in his callous finger tips. Klondike Jim!
He had made for his Klondike as a blood-
hound makes for the quarry; he could not be
mistaken. Night and day she had been with
him, his first claim named for her the Madeline
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 319
his first earnings a gold belt for her childish
waist!
And then, money and money and more money.
Rivers of it, ponds of it.
"If J. G. said there was copper under Fifth
Avenue, they'd dig it up to-morrow!"
" You must be real proud of him," said Mrs.
Winterpine genially.
" I used to be," the girl answered, with her
mouth a little awry.
" My dear, my dear!"
" Oh, yes," she cried angrily, pushing back her
chair and facing them; " all very well, but who
are we? Who was my mother? Who was my
grandfather? Where did we come from? Will
a sapphire bracelet answer me that, do you think?
Who knows us? 'Miss Maddy Money Bags'!
How long do you think I'd stay in that convent?
Who does J. G. know? Hotelmen and barkeeps
and presidents of things! If you could see the
counts he wanted me to marry! If you could
hear the couriers laugh at him!"
" But think of all the traveling you've done,
dear ! What things to remember ! How happy ' '
320 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
" Happy! I hate it. As J. G. says, I hate it
like well, I just hate it," she concluded, with
propriety, if a little lamely.
Something in the look she cast around the warm,
clean kitchen struck the woman suddenly. " You
don't mean you'd rather live here hereP" she
exclaimed amazedly.
" Don't you like it?" queried Madeline sharply.
Mrs. Winterpine considered a moment. " You
see, it's my home," she began. The girl's dry
laugh interrupted her.
" That's just it. It's your home," she repeated.
"We haven't any. That's the idea. What's
the use of traveling if you can't come home? And
we can't, ever. Unless we go back to the Klon-
dike," she added satirically.
There was a long pause. It seemed that the
girl was slowly undressing herself before them:
travel and money and gold bag and scented linings
slipped from her like so many petticoats and left
her thin and cold between them, warm as they
were in their solid homespun of kin and
hearth. Lean and empty, a houseless, flitting,
little shadow, she had scoured the world and
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 321
sat now, envious, by a kitchen fire. How
strange!
Mrs. Winterpine gathered the dishes with
accustomed hands and piled them by a pan of hot,
soapy water. Caroline, sobered, rose to help her
with the instinctive courtesy of the home-trained
child, but drew back at her shaken head and waving
ringer, and followed her glance toward her other
guest, who stared morosely into the dooryard,
her chin in her ringed, brown hand. She was
evidently not far from tears in a nervous crisis.
" I wonder if you'd help me with these dishes,
Madeline?" said the woman quietly, and with a
start the girl rose, stood meekly while a checked
apron was tied about her waist and received the
moist, shining ware from the plump hands with-
out a word. She appeared to have utterly for-
gotten Caroline.
After a few moments of rythmical click and
splash, a few journeys from sink to dresser, the
tension broke quietly and the air was aware of
it, as when a threatened thunderstorm goes by
above and dissipates in wind. Feeling this, Mrs.
Winterpine began to talk softly, half to herself
322 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
it seemed, for her voice took on the tone of one
who is much alone and thinks aloud.
" All my life I've been crazy for travel. I used
to read my geography book till I wore it out nearly;
the exports and the imports, you know? And
the pictures of those Arabian men with white
turbans, and the South Sea Islanders riding on
surf boards I can see 'em now. There was a
castle for Germany, with the moon behind it and
the Rhine do you know ' Bingen on the Rhine '?
I love the sound of that. And the Black Forest!
Think of it!"
She paused with a platter dripping in her hand,
her eyes fixed; and so strong was the compulsion
of her vision that to Caroline, vibrant as a wind
harp to such suggestion, the splash of the water
in the tin was the very tinkle of Undine's mystic
stream and Kilhleborn, that wicked uncle-brook
dashed in cold floods over the belated knight in
the dark German wood!
" I dreamed once about an Indian temple,"
the woman went on, " and you'd really think I'd
been there, I saw it so plain. Fat priests and
that big idol that sits cross-legged, all made of
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 323
brass, and smiling; and such funny drums and
pipes creepy music. The heathens brought
wreaths and stretched out on their stomachs flat
on the ground. I'd read it somewhere, I guess.
I could smell the flowers, like pond lilies and honey-
suckle."
She poured away the dish water, wiped the pan
and began rinsing her towels and cloths in a
small wooden tub bound with tin. The girl
moved aimlessly about the room, fingering the
worn furniture.
" That clock looks awfully old," she said
abruptly, pausing before a square high Dutch
affair with a ridiculous picture of Mount Vernon,
wobbly-columned, let in at the bottom.
" Goodness, yes! That clock why, that clock
was a wedding present to Lorenzo's great aunt
Valeria she was a Swedenborgian, I believe.
She used to have trances and she could tell you
where things were lost. That chair by the window
was her mother's. It's made with wooden nails,
dowels, they call 'em."
" Did she live here, too?"
" Yes, indeed. The Winterpines are great
324 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
hands to stay in one place. And the way they
come back to die! I'm half Winterpine myself
he and I were second cousins and I well
remember Uncle Milton Winterpine coming home
from Java to die in his bed. He was a sailor, and
how I used to hang around and coax him to tell
me what he'd seen! I remember how he staggered
into the house Mother Winterpine was living
then.
" * Here, Esther, here's a fifty-pound sack of
Old Gov'ment Jawy for ye, green, and fit for the
president's table as soon's it gits ripe,' he says,
' and you won't have to nurse me long; ' and we
got his boots off and helped him to bed. He never
left it. He brought me a parrot, that trip, sort
of indigo color and pink. It used to set me think-
ing of the hot countries and pineapples and natives,
and those tall trees with all the leaves on top
palms, I guess I mean. It seems the stars are
lower, there, and look bigger; did you ever see
the Southern Cross?"
" Oh, yes. It's like any other stars. The first
officer on the P & O line always asks me to come
and see it. Then he proposes. J. G. plays poker
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 325
the whole trip. He can't lose. He says it's
tiresome."
The strange dialogue went on for what might
have been an hour. Far ports and foreign streets,
full sails and thronged inns, the fountains of paved
courts, the market squares of dark and vivid
nations, blossomed from the tongue of this chair-
bound woman in her farmhouse prison; and from
the blind, unhappy voyager came halting, tele-
graphic phrases: climate and train schedules and
over-lavish fees, miles and meals and petty
miseries. No sunset had stained her hurried way,
no handed flowers from shy street children had
sweetened it. And ever and again she returned
insistently to the barnyard interests of the
Winterpines!
" See here!" she burst out suddenly, " I'll
tell you what I'll do! I told J. G. that I wouldn't
go another step with him mascot or no mascot.
He wants to go over the Himalayas to start next
week he has an idea. But if you'll go, I'll take
you! What do you say? My guest, of course:
it don't cost you a penny."
The woman turned utterly white. Where her
326 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
knuckles gripped the arms of the chair they showed
a bluish tinge.
"Me? Me?' she whispered. Her eyes fell
to her helpless knees.
" Oh, you needn't think of that at all," said
Madeline. " I knew a man who didn't have any
legs, even, that went round the world and up the
Pyramids. He had money."
The woman looked wildly about. Her eyes
fell on Caroline and this seemed to bring her into
some sort of focus again; the color came back to
her face.
" That was lovely for you to think of, dear,"
she said, breathlessly yet; " but but for a
moment I forgot. . . . I I didn't think of
Lorenzo!"
"Oh, we'll get a housekeeper for Lorenzo,"
Madeline said lightly; " he'll do very well, won't
he? One man can't be much to take care of
you haven't any children?"
The easy, equal tone, the bright, dry im-
pudence of this little air plant, this rootless,
aimless bubble skipping over the bottomless
deeps of life, brought the dazzled woman quickly
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 327
to herself. She looked compassionately at the
girl.
" No," she said gravely, her hands unconsciously
flying to her deep breast; " we haven't any chil-
dren. And he's not much to take care of for his
wife. But he wouldn't care for a housekeeper."
" Oh!" her eyes fell uneasily. " Then we'll
take him along!" She recovered herself.
Mrs. Winterpine sent her chair with a swift
push close to the girl and laid one hand on her
hot forehead, pushing back the thick hair.
" What a gen'rous little thing you are!" she
cried wonderingly. " But where were you brought
up, child? Lorenzo can't jump and run off to
the Himalaya Mountains like that! It takes
him a long time to make up his mind. He he
don't care for travel, besides. He's a regular
Winterpine. And there's the stock. No. I guess
I'll keep on doing my traveling at home. That
book you said you'd send. . . ."
" I'll send a dozen fifty!" the girl cried im-
pulsively. " I'll bring them up from New York
to-morrow! I'll bring some pictures, too. The
Alps and Venice and the snapshots I took on the
328 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
Nile! You seem to know how they look, well
enough!"
" Yes, I know, I know. , , ." the woman re-
peated dreamily.
" Don't you want to go?" Madeline urged
curiously.
Again Mrs. Winterpine turned white.
" Then why don't you?"
"Child, child!" cried she of the chair,
" didn't I tell you he don't care for travel?
We can't do as we like in this world we
don't live alone. We're placed. There's a
hundred things. . . Where were you brought
up?"
Madeline's face flushed a dark, heavy red.
Her light confidence drowned in it; she dropped
her eyes.
"In the Klondike!" she said suUenly, "I
told you."
A loud, whirring horn cut through the country
quiet. A great rattle of gear and chain stormed
along the road.
"There's the machine!" the girl said sulkily;
" I must go. It's fifteen miles to Ogdenville,
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 329
and a vile road. Good-by I'll be up with the
books in a day or two."
She moved to the door.
4 If I can't come I change my mind awfully
I'll send them just the same, and and "
a curious sense of struggle, a visible effort at
thought for another, an attempt to grasp an
alien point of view, dawned in the defiant dark
eyes " I'll write to you from India, if you
want. Would you like it? I can take snap
shots. ..."
" You're real gen'rous, dear," said her hostess,
and wheeling quickly to her, kissed her warmly.
She was gone in a cloud of dust. Caroline
and the woman sat in silence. At last Rose-
Marie yawned pitifully and his mistress got up
with reluctance.
" Good-bye, Mrs. Winterpine," she said soberly;
" I have to go home. They'll be anxious about
me. But I'll come again."
"Do, my dear," said the other; " this'll be
a wonderful summer for me, with so much com-
pany. Wonderful. He'll be interested. But you
run right on: don't let the folks worry. I never
330 WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
had any children, but I always had my heart set
on a daughter. Good-by."
Caroline and the donkey walked slowly off
toward the wood, which cast cool shadows. They
vanished into its depths, and Mrs. Winterpine
sat and watched them kindly from her chair,
as one watches off the traveler bound for far and
golden countries.
" He'd have liked that young one," she said
softly.
,
- V "
follow-
ing pages
contain adver-
tisements of a
f e w of the
M a c mi 1 1 a n
novels.
NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA'
(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT)
Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50
The Garden of a Commuter's Wife illustrates
" Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that is the proud-
est product of our land, a home where love of books and love of nature go
hand in hand with hearty, simple love of ' folks.' ... It is a charming book."
The Interior.
People of the Whirlpool Illustrated
"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its just perspec-
tive of the true values of things, its clever pen pictures of people and customs,
and its healthy optimism for the great world in general." Philadelphia Even-
ing Telegraph.
The Woman Errant
" The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an interesting
fictional presentation of an important modern question, treated with fascinating
feminine adroitness." Miss JEANNETTE GILDER in the Chicago Tribune.
At the Sign of the Fox
M Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine love of nature,
and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural character." New York
Tribune.
The Garden, You and I
"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too deliciously
torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in Spain. . . . The delightful
humor which pervaded the earlier books, and without which Barbara would
not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its poignancy." Congregationalist.
The Open Window. Tales of the Months.
" A little vacation from the sophistication of the commonplace.*" Argonaut,
Poppea of the Post-Office
" A rainbow romance, . . . tender yet bracing, cheerily stimulating ... its
genial entirety refreshes like a cooling shower." Chicago Record- Her aid.
Princess Flower Hat just Ready
A Comedy from the Perplexity Book of Barbara the Commuter's Wife.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publishers 64-68 Fifth Avenue New York
BY ZONA GALE
Friendship Village
Cloth, izmo, $f.fO
" As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and some-
times both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows
whether laughter or tears are fittest for his emotions. . . . This book
especially makes for higher thinking and better living and emphasizes
the existence of these virtues in lowly places as well as high." New
York Times.
" The characters are like an orchestra, each instrument holding a
part of its own, all interwoven to a harmonious whole ; an orchestra
of strings, be it added, for even the Proudfits' motor fails to introduce
a note of brass. . . . With the wholesome pungency of humor that
pervades it all, the book cannot fail to find a welcome." New
York Post.
" There is not a trace of sarcasm or even grotesqueness ; her villagers
are not caricatures ; they are efficient, useful men and women whose
individualities have been crystallized into distinct outlines by their
limited environments and intimate relations. The book is happily
optimistic, presenting, indeed, the commonplaces of narrow lives but
breathing also the underlying spirit of poetry and romance." Balti-
more Sun.
The Loves of Pel leas and Etarre
Cloth, i2mo, $i.JO
"To all who know the hidden sources of human joy and have neither
grown old in cynicism nor gray in utilitarianism, Miss Gale's charm-
ing love stories, full of fresh feeling and grace of style, will be a
draught from the fountain of youth." Outlook.
"The achievement is unusual for delicacy, subtlety, and the . . .
felicitous tenderness which brood over the book like a golden
autumnal haze which dims the outlines of common things and
beautifies them. . . . The story is indeed unique in this, that it is an
idyl for the aged a romance of seventy." Chicago Tribune.
" It is an ideal book for husband and wife to read aloud together.
... Its picture of steadfast love in old age is the best kind of
idealism." Chicago Record Herald.
PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 Fifth Avenue, New Tork
Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS
Each, cloth, I2tno, $1.50
The Choir Invisible
This can also be had in a special edition illustrated by Orson
Lowell, $2.50
u One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the book out
of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to the very core. . . .
Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American novelists. The
Choir In-visible will solidify a reputation already established and bring into
clear light his rare gifts as an artist. For this latest story is as genuine a
work of art as has come from an American hand." HAMILTON MABIE
in The Outlook.
The Reign of Law* A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields
"Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished as Haw-
thorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual suggestion that
makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are lacking in so many novels
of the period. . . . If read in the right way, it cannot fail to add to one's
spiritual possessions." San Francisco Chronicle.
The Mettle of the Pasture
" It may be that The Mettle of the Pasture will live and become a part of
our literature ; it certainly will live far beyond the allotted term of present-
day fiction. Our principal concern is that it is a notable novel, that it ranks
high in the range of American and English fiction, and that it is worth the
reading, the re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care
for modern literature at its best." By E. F. E. in the Boston Transcript.
Summer in Arcady. A Tale of Nature Cloth, $1.25
"This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It is
artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in its descriptions,
dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents; indeed, a veritable masterpiece
that must become classic. It is difficult to give an outline of the story;
it is one of the stories which do not outline; it must be read." Boston
Daily Advertiser.
Shorter Stories
The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky $1.50
Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales $1-50
The Bride of the Mistletoe $1-25
A Kentucky Cardinal, Illustrated $1.00
Aftermath* A Sequel to "A Kentucky Cardinal" $1.00
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PUBLISHEES, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOBK
Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS
Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each, $l.$O
The Gospel of Freedom
" A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in a
broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed to
American fiction." Chicago Inter-Ocean.
The Web of Life
" It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and
uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought
out." Buffalo Express.
The Real World
"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to
the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man
who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession
of his will only such battles bite into the consciousness." Chicago
Tribune.
The Common Lot
" It grips the reader tremendously. ... It is the drama of a human soul
the reader watches . . . the finest study of human motive that has appeared
for many a day." The World To-day.
The Memoirs of an American Citizen* illustrated
with about fifty drawings by F. B. Masters.
" Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to
reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit
than anybody has yet done." New York Times.
" Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document of
startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is giving us
the American novel." New York Globe.
Together
"Journeys end in lovers meeting," says the old saw; so all novels used
to end in marriage. Yet Mr. Herrick's interesting new novel only
begins there; the best brief description of it is, indeed, a novel about
married people for all who are married.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
c
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