GETTING ACQUAINTED
The squawking of the yellow hen served as an alarm-clock for the late
sleepers in Dolittle Cottage the next morning. Peggy who was up, but was
loitering over her toilet, in a most un-Peggy-like fashion, scrambled
frantically into her clothes and went flying down-stairs. As she threw
open the kitchen door, a gaunt dog seated on the top step, greeted her
with a courteous waggle, quite as if he were the head of the
establishment and bent on doing the honors.
"He wouldn't let me come no nearer," said a lanky, grinning individual
who stood at a respectful distance, with a basket on either arm. "Looks
like he'd adopted you."
"Yes, it does rather look that way," returned Peggy, and bestowed an
appreciative pat on the dog's head. It might have been her imagination,
but she fancied that a few hours of belonging somewhere, had wrought a
marked change in him. If he had been human, she would have said that he
seemed more self-respecting. He neither cringed nor cowered, but
scrutinized Farmer Cole's hired man with an alert gravity, as if
demanding that he show his credentials.
"Mis' Cole sent you over this here truck," Joe explained, "and she says
she'll have Annie bring the bread, after she's through baking. Where
d'you want this hen?"
Peggy led the way to the woodshed, improving the opportunity to sound
Joe on the subject of raising chickens. And that unsophisticated youth,
who in the beginning of the interview had seemed as painfully conscious
of his hands and feet, as if these appendages were brand new, and he had
not had time to get accustomed to having them about, lost his
embarrassment in view of her evident teachableness, and fairly swamped
her with information.
The eighteen eggs for the setting were in a little basket by themselves.
Peggy hung over them breathlessly, and saw in fancy eighteen balls of
yellow down, teetering on toothpick legs. Then her imagination leaped
ahead, and the cream-colored eggs had become eighteen lusty,
pin-feathered fowls, worth forty cents a pound in city markets. Peggy's
heart gave a jubilant flutter. Many a fortune had started, she was sure,
with less than that basket of eggs.
The work dragged in Dolittle Cottage that morning. It was not that there
was so much to do, but there were so many distractions. Peggy's business
enterprise had been the occasion of much animated comment at the
breakfast table, and when Peggy mixed some corn meal and carried it out
to the woodshed, the girls dropped their various tasks and came flocking
after her. The yellow hen was already on her eggs, and she ruffled her
feathers in a hostile fashion at the approach of her new owner. Peggy
placed her offering conveniently near the nest, raised a warning finger
to the chattering girls, as if there had been a baby asleep in the
soap-box the yellow hen was occupying, and then tiptoed off, with an air
of exaggerated caution.
"You see, she's very excited and nervous," Peggy explained, in a subdued
voice. "But Joe said she was hungry, and I guess she'll get off the eggs
long enough to eat. Sh! She's coming now!"
The yellow hen had indeed yielded to the temptation of Peggy's
hasty-pudding. She popped out of the box, gobbled a little of the corn
meal, took one or two hasty swallows of water, and then rushed back to
her maternal duties. The girls broke into irreverent giggles.
"I shouldn't call her a beauty," Ruth declared, as the yellow hen
settled down on her eggs, spreading out her feathers till she looked as
large as a small turkey.
"Her legs remind me of feather dusters," Amy remarked pertly.
"It looks to me as if she were trying to revive the fashion of
pantalets," suggested Priscilla.
Peggy was forced to join in the general laugh. "Her legs may not be much
to look at, girls," she admitted, "but those feathers are a sign of
Breed." And with this master-stroke she led the way back to the kitchen,
the dog, who had followed them into the woodshed, with every appearance
of being at home, stalking at her heels.
"Peggy," Priscilla inquired suspiciously, "have you fed that dog again
this morning?"
"He's a splendid watch-dog," replied Peggy, evading a direct answer. "He
wouldn't let Joe come near the house."
"I suppose that means you've decided to add a dog to your menagerie."
"I don't think I've been consulted about it," laughed Peggy. "He took
matters into his own hands,--or, I should say, teeth."
"Probably you've named him already."
"Of course. His name is Hobo," answered Peggy on the spur of the moment,
and Priscilla replied with dignity that he looked the part, and returned
to her cooling dish water.
"It really isn't safe picking up a strange dog that way," Claire
murmured, sympathetically, as she reached for a dish towel. "He might
turn on us at any minute." Priscilla whose criticism had been only half
serious, found the implication annoying, and when, under her stress of
feeling, she set a tumbler down hard, and cracked it, the experience did
not tend to relieve her sense of vexation.
"Girls," Ruth, who was sweeping the porch, put her head in the door,
"there's a boy here who wants to know if we'd like some fresh fish."
Various exclamations sounding up-stairs and down, indicated that the
proposition was a welcome one, and Peggy stepped out of the back door to
interview the dealer. A boy in nondescript costume, with a brimless
straw hat on the back of his head, held up a string of fish without
speaking.
"Yes, I think I'll like them if they're fresh and cheap," said Peggy
firmly, resolved to be business-like.
It appeared that the fish had been caught that morning and the price
impressed Peggy as extremely reasonable. She was about to conclude the
bargain when Priscilla's echoing whisper summoned her to the screen
door.
"Peggy, tell him we'll buy fish of him several times a week if he'll
clean them. Fish scales are so messy and awful."
Peggy thought well of the proposition, and the young fisherman offered
no objection. With a grunt of acquiescence he seated himself on the
steps, pulled out his pocket knife and began operations. Then as Hobo
took his stand where he could view proceedings, the boy turned abruptly
to Peggy. She saw that his brown eyes were keen, and his features
clear-cut. "Why, if he'd only fix up a little," she thought with
surprise, "he'd be quite nice looking."
"That your dog?" the boy was demanding, and Peggy hesitated, then
laughed as she remembered her conversation with Priscilla.
"He seems to think so," she acknowledged. "He followed me home last
night, and he doesn't have any intention of going away, as far as
anybody can see."
"That dog hasn't had a square deal," said the boy with sudden heat.
"Dogs don't have as a rule, but this one's worse off than most. He used
to belong to some folks who lived on the Drierston pike, raised him from
a puppy they had, and he saved one of the kids from drowning, one time.
More fool he, I say."
Peggy gasped an expostulation. The boy silenced her with a vindictive
gesture of the hand that held the knife.
"You wait till I tell you. Their house burned down and they moved off
and they just left the dog behind, as if he had been rubbish. That was
more'n a year ago. And ever since he's been sneaking and skulking and
stealing his victuals, and been stoned and driven off with whips, and
shot at till it's a wonder he don't go 'round biting everybody he sees."
It was evident that Hobo's lot had been a hard one, and that through no
fault of his own. "Poor fellow," Peggy said, resolving to atone, as far
as a few weeks of kindness could, for that dreadful year of
homelessness. "You seem to like animals," she remarked, finding Hobo's
champion oddly interesting.
The boy cut off the head of a fish with a crunch. "I'd ought to," he
returned grimly. "I've got to like something and I don't like folks."
"What folks do you mean?"
"Don't like any folks," the boy persisted, and slashed on savagely.
Peggy was not prepared to believe in such universal misanthropy on the
part of one so young. She guessed it to be a pose, and resolved that she
would not encourage it by appearing shocked. "I don't think you show
very good taste," she observed calmly, "disliking everybody in a lump
that way. There are as many kinds of people as there are birds or
flowers."
"You ask any of the folks 'round here about Jerry Morton," the boy
exclaimed. "They'll tell you what a good-for-nothing lazy-bones he is.
They'll say he isn't worth the powder and shot to blow him up with."
Peggy did some rapid thinking. "Are you Jerry Morton?"
"You bet I am." His tone was defiant.
"Oh, I see," said Peggy to herself. "People don't like him, and so he
fancies that he doesn't like people." This explanation which, by the
way, fits more misanthropes than Jerry, resulted in making Peggy sorry
for the boy in spite of the unbecoming sullenness of his face at that
moment.
"Well, Jerry," she said gently, "if your neighbors think that of you,
I'm sure they are as much mistaken as you are in what you think of
them." She counted out the change into his hand. "This is Thursday,
isn't it? Can you bring us some more fish Saturday?"
"Yes, I'll bring 'em," said the boy in a more subdued fashion than he
had yet spoken. He dropped his earnings into his pocket uncounted, and
went away without a good-by. Peggy carried the fish indoors, and was
greeted by mocking laughter.
"You've added one tramp to the establishment," said Priscilla, shaking a
warning finger in her friend's absorbed face; "don't try to annex
another."
Peggy was too much in earnest to notice the banter. "That poor boy! He
thinks he hates everybody, and I guess the trouble is that he wants to
be liked. I'm going to ask Mrs. Cole or some other nice, motherly person
about him." Then her eyes fell upon the clock and she uttered an
exclamation of dismay.
"Girls, where does the time go to? I meant to suggest that we go
berrying this morning, but now we've got to wait till after dinner. I
hope there are no naps to be taken this afternoon. I'm going berrying if
I have to go alone."
"You can count on me, darling," Amy cried, flinging her arms about
Peggy's neck. And Dorothy chimed in bravely, "An' you can count on me,
Aunt Peggy. But--but what are you going to bury?"
While Peggy was explaining, Claire laid her hand on Priscilla's arm, and
looked tenderly into her eyes.
"We're going for a walk, you know. You promised last evening."
Priscilla looked up in surprise.
"Why, I know I said we'd take a walk. But this will be a walk and a lot
of fun beside."
"But, don't you see," Claire leaned toward her and spoke rapidly, "it
can't take the place of strolling through the woods just with you alone?
There are so many of us girls that I'm simply hungry to have you to
myself. I've just been living on the thought of it ever since you
promised me last night."
"Very well," said Priscilla compressing her lips. She resolved to be
very careful what she said to Claire, if any casual remark could be
construed into a binding promise. With dismay she realized that it was
not yet twenty-four hours since their arrival, and already Claire's
demonstrations of affection were becoming irksome.
If she had cherished the hope that Claire would relent, she was destined
to disappointment. An early dinner was eaten, and the dishes washed with
an alacrity in agreeable contrast to the dilatory methods of the
morning. Then the party divided, Claire and Priscilla going off in the
direction of the woods--Priscilla walking with more than her usual
erectness--while the others took the route to the pastures where the
raspberries grew, Peggy having ascertained their exact location in her
talk with Joe that morning.
The array of tin pails with the berrying party suggested the probability
that the occupants of Dolittle Cottage would eat nothing but raspberries
for a week. Aunt Abigail and Dorothy had insisted on equipping
themselves with the largest size of pail, though it was noticeable that
when they were once in the pasture, most of the berries they gathered
went into their mouths. And in this they were undoubtedly wise, for a
raspberry fresh from the bushes, warmed by the sun, and fragrant as a
rose, with perhaps a blood-red drop of fairy wine in its delicate cup,
is vastly superior to its subdued, civilized self, served in a glass
dish and smothered in sugar.
It was not long before Aunt Abigail and Dorothy were taking their ease
under a tree and placidly eating a few berries which had found a
temporary respite at the bottom of their pails. Ruth picked with
painstaking conscientiousness, and Peggy with the enjoyment which
converts industry into an art. As for Amy, she wandered about the
pasture always sure that the next spot was a more promising field of
operations than the nearer. She was some distance from the others when
her search was rewarded by the discovery of a clump of bushes unusually
full.
"There!" exclaimed Amy triumphantly, as if answering the argument of her
almost empty pail. "I knew I'd find them thicker. Peggy--oh, Peg--"
Her summons broke off in a startled squeal. There was a rustle on the
other side of the bushes, and Amy took a flying leap which landed her on
her knees with her overturned pail beside her. She screamed again, and a
girl in a gingham dress and sunbonnet of the same material, ran out from
behind the leafy screen.
"Oh, I'm sorry if I frightened you," she exclaimed. "I hope you're not
hurt."
Amy scrambled to her feet with a sigh of immense relief.
"No, indeed, and I shouldn't have been scared only I thought it was a
cow."
The grave young face set in the depths of the sunbonnet broke into a
smile that quite transformed it.
"Even if it had been," the girl suggested, "it wouldn't have been so
very dangerous, you know."
"Maybe not." Amy's tone was dubious. And then as Peggy and Ruth came
hurrying to the spot, she turned to give them an explanation of the
scream which had summoned them in such haste. All four laughed together,
and the girl in the sunbonnet had an odd sense of being well acquainted
with the friendly invaders.
"I suppose introductions are in order," Amy rattled on, "but, you see, I
don't know your name."
"I'm Lucy Haines."
"Well, this is Peggy Raymond, our mistress of ceremonies, and this is
Ruth Wylie, who thinks everything that Peggy does is exactly right, and
I'm the scatterbrain of the lot."
Lucy Haines looked a little bewildered as she met the girls' smiles,
when Peggy came to the rescue. "A crowd of us are in Mrs. Leighton's
cottage for the summer, and this is our first berrying. Don't you think
I've had good luck?" She tilted her pail to show its contents, and Lucy
Haines admired as in duty bound.
"Let's see how you've done," suggested Amy, and Lucy brought from the
other side of the raspberry bushes a large-sized milk-pail so heaping
full that the topmost berries looked as if they were contemplating
escape. The girls exclaimed in chorus.
"You don't mean that you've picked those all yourself," cried Amy,
remembering the scanty harvest she had spilled in her tumble.
"Your family must be very fond of raspberries," observed Ruth.
"Raspberry jam, I suppose," said the practical Peggy, but the sunbonnet
negatived the suggestion by a slow shake.
"No. It's not that. I pick berries for pay. I send them into the city on
the express train every night as long as the season lasts. I want to go
to school," she ended rather abruptly, "and I'm ready to do anything I
can to make a little money."
"And did you really pick them all to-day?" persisted Amy, eyeing the
milk-pail respectfully. "It would take me a year, at the least
calculation."
Lucy Haines smiled gravely at the extravagance. "I've been doing it all
my life," she said. "That makes a difference."
"Then you've lived here always?"
"Yes, and my mother before me, and her mother, too. When I was a little
girl I used to love to hear grandmother tell how one time she was
picking blackberries in this very pasture, and she heard a sound and
peered around the bush. And there sat a brown bear, eating berries as
fast as he could."
"I'm glad Dorothy isn't around to hear that story," Peggy cried
laughing; "she'd be sure it was bears whenever anything rustled." But
Amy's face was serious.
"That's worse than cows!" she exclaimed. "The next time I hear a noise
on the other side of a bush, I shan't even dare to scream."
Lucy Haines shifted her pail from her left hand to her right. "Well, I
guess I'll call my stint done for to-day. Good-by!"
"Good-by," the others echoed, and Peggy added, with her friendly smile,
"I suppose we'll see you again some day. I hope so, I'm sure."
She repeated the wish a little later, as the sunbonnet went out of sight
over the brow of the hill. "Because she seems such a nice sort of girl.
I'm going to like this place, I know. There are such interesting people
in it."
"Oh, Peggy," Amy cried with a teasing laugh, "you know you'd like any
place, and you find all kinds of people interesting." And then because
the sight of Lucy Haines' full pail had made them somewhat dissatisfied
with the results of their own efforts, they all fell to picking with a
tremendous display of industry.
Priscilla and Claire were on the porch when the others came home laden
with their spoils. Claire wore a noticeable air of complacency, but
Priscilla looked a little tired and despondent. All through their stroll
Claire had harped on the joy of being by themselves at last, and had
insisted on walking with her arm about Priscilla's waist, which on a
narrow path was inconvenient, to say the least. Priscilla was rather
ashamed to acknowledge even to herself that she found Claire's devotion
wearisome. Of course, Claire was a very sweet girl, but it was so easy
to have a surfeit of sweets.
"I hope you left a few on the bushes," she said rather resentfully, when
the berry-pickers had recounted their experiences with an enthusiasm
which gave to the expedition through the pasture the glamor of real
adventure, "I'd like the fun of picking some real berries myself."
"We might go to-morrow," Claire suggested in a careful undertone.
Priscilla's face flushed, and Peggy seeing her look of annoyance,
created a diversion by springing to her feet.
"Time to get supper. I'm as hungry as a wolf, now that I stop to think
about it. How does cornbread and fried fish strike the crowd?"
"O Peggy," Priscilla forgot her vexation in the importance of the
announcement to be made, "the frying-pan has been borrowed!"
"Borrowed!" Peggy stood motionless in her astonishment. "But who--but
why--"
"It's a woman who lives down the road a way. I suppose she's what you
call a neighbor up here. What did she say her name was, Claire?"
"Snooks. Mrs. Snooks."
"Oh, yes. And she was very much interested in everything about us, and
asked all kinds of questions. But she came especially to borrow the
frying-pan. Can you get along without it, Peggy?"
"Why, if you can't have what you want, you can always make something
else do," returned Peggy, unconsciously formulating one of the axioms in
her philosophy of life. "But a frying-pan seems such a strange thing to
borrow, Priscilla. She must have one of her own, and it's not a thing
one's likely to mislay. However," she added hastily, as if fearful of
seeming to blame the over-generous lender, "we'll get along. Well just
forget that we ever had a frying-pan, and that it was borrowed."
But, as Peggy was soon to learn, it was not going to be an easy matter
to forget Mrs. Snooks.