"I jist nachly hate a person that talks as tho' he'd bin
measured fer a harp."--Old Cy Walker.
Chip's arrival in Greenvale produced astonishment and gossip galore. It
began when the stage that "Uncle Joe" Barnes had driven for twenty
years started for that village. There were other passengers besides
Martin, his wife, and Chip. The seats inside were soon filled, and Chip,
seeing a coveted chance, climbed nimbly to a position beside the driver.
"Gee Whittaker," observed one bystander to another, as Chip's
black-stockinged legs flashed into view, "but that gal's nimbler'n
a squirrel 'n' don't mind showin' underpinnin'. I wished I was
drivin' that stage. I'll bet she's a circus."
Uncle Joe soon found her a live companion at least, for he had scarce
left the village ere she began.
"Your hosses are fatter'n Tim's hosses used to be," she said. "Do
ye feed 'em on hay and taters?"
Uncle Joe gave her a sideways glance.
"Hay and taters," he exclaimed; "we don't feed hosses on taters down
here. Where'd you come from?"
"I used to live at Tim's Place, up in the woods, 'n' we fed our
hosses on taters, 'n' they had backs sharp 'nuff to split ye."
This time Uncle Joe faced squarely around.
"I know all about hosses," she continued glibly, "I used to take keer
on 'em 'n' ride one ploughin', an' I've been throwed more'n a
hundred times when we struck roots, an' ye ought to 'a' heerd Tim
cuss. I used to cuss just the same, but Mrs. Frisbie says I mustn't."
"Wal, I swow," ejaculated Uncle Joe, realizing that he had a "case."
"What's your name, 'n' whar's Tim's Place?"
"My name's Chip, Chip McGuire, only 'tain't, it's Vera; but they
allus called me Chip, an' Tim's Place is ever so far up in the woods.
I runned away 'cause dad sold me, an' fetched up at Mrs. Frisbie's
camp, 'n' she's goin' to eddicate me. My mother got killed when I
was a kid, 'n' my dad killed 'nother one, too; he's a bad 'un."
Uncle Joe gasped at this gory tale of double murder, not being quite sure
that the girl was sane.
"Hain't they ketched yer dad yit?" he queried.
"No, nor they won't," Chip rattled on, as if such killing were a daily
occurrence in the woods. "He's a slick 'un, they say, an' now he's
got Pete's money, he'll lay low."
"Worse and worse, and more of it," Uncle Joe thought.
"You must 'a' had middlin' lively times up in the woods," he said.
"Did yer dad kill anybody else 'sides yer mother 'n' this man?"
"He didn't kill mother," Chip returned promptly; "he used to lick
her, though, but she got killed in a mill, 'n' I wisht it 'ud bin him.
I wouldn't 'a' bin an orfin then. Say," she added, as they entered
a woods-bordered stretch of road, "did ye ever see spites here?"
"Spites," he responded, now more than ever in doubt as to her sanity,
"what's them?"
"Why, they's just spites--things ye can't see much of 'ceptin' it's
dark. Then they come crawlin' round. They's souls o' animals mostly,
Old Tomah says. I've seen thousands on 'em."
Uncle Joe shifted his quid, turned and eyed the girl once more. First,
a wild and wofully mixed tale of murder, and then spookish things! Beyond
question she had wheels, and he resolved to humor her.
"Oh, yes, we see them things here now 'n' then," he said, "but it
takes considerable licker to do it. We hain't had a murder, though, for
quite a spell. This is a sorter peaceful neck o' woods ye're comin'
to."
But Chip failed to grasp his quiet humor, and all through that
twenty-mile autumn day stage ride she chattered on like a magpie.
He soon concluded she was sane enough, however, but the most voluble
talker who ever shared his seat.
"I never seen the beat o' her," he said that night at Phinney's
store,--the village news agency,--"she clacked every minit from the
time we started till we fetched in, an' I never callated sich goin's
on ez she told about cud ever happen. Thar was murder 'n' runnin'
away, 'n' she got ketched 'n' carried off 'n' fetched back, 'n'
a whole lot o' resky business. She believes in ghosts, too, sorter
Injun sperits, 'n' she kin swear jist ez easy ez I kin. It seems
the Frisbies hev kinder 'dopted her, 'n' I guess they'll hev their
hands full. She's a bright 'un, though, but sich a talker!"
At Aunt Comfort's spacious, old-fashioned home, where Chip was now
installed, she soon began to create the same impression. This had been
Angie's former home, and her Aunt Comfort Day had been her foster-mother.
This family, in addition to the new arrival, consisted of Aunt Comfort,
rotund and warm-hearted; Hannah Pettibone, a well-along spinster of
angular form and temper, thin to an almost painful degree, with a
well-defined mustache; and a general helper on the farm, and a chore
boy about Chip's age named Nezer, completed the list.
Once included in this somewhat diverse group, Chip became an immediate
bone of contention.
Aunt Comfort, of course, opened her heart to her at once; but Hannah
closed hers, almost from the first day, and in addition she began to
nurse malice as well. There was some reason for this, mainly due to
Chip's startling freshness of speech.
"I thought ye must be a man wearin' wimmin's clothes, the first time I
see ye," she said to Hannah the next day after her arrival, and without
meaning offence. "It was all on account o' yer little whiskers, I
guess. I never see a woman with 'em afore. Why don't ye shave?"
This was enough; for if there was any one thing more mortifying than
all else to Hannah, it was her facial blemish, and a mention of it she
considered an intentional insult.
From this moment onward she hated Chip.
Nezer, however, took to her as a duck to water, and her story, which
he soon heard, became a real dime novel to him, and not content with
one telling, he insisted on repetition. This was also unfortunate
for--blessed with a vivid imagination and sure to enlarge upon all
facts--he soon spread the story with many blood-curdling additions.
These stories, with Uncle Joe's corroboration, resulted in a direful
tale believed by all. Neighbors flocked in to see this heroine of many
escapades, villagers halted in front of Aunt Comfort's to catch a sight
of this marvel, and so the wonder spread.
Angie was, of course, to blame. More impressed with the seriousness of
the task she had undertaken than the need of caution, she had failed to
tell Chip she must not talk about herself, and so a wofully distorted
history became current gossip.
When Sunday came, the village church was packed, and Parson Jones
marvelled much at the unexpected increase of religious interest. He
had heard of this new arrival, but when the Frisbie family with Chip,
in suitable clothing, entered their pew, the cynosure of all eyes,
this unusual attendance was accounted for.
And what a staring-at Chip received!
On the church steps a group of both young and old men had awaited her
arrival and gazed at her in open-eyed astonishment. All through service
she was watched, and not content with this, a dozen or so, men and women,
formed a double line outside, awaiting the Frisbies' exit.
Angie also failed to understand the principal cause of this interest. Her
last appearance at this church had been as a bride. Naturally that fact
would produce some staring, and so the curious and almost rude scrutiny
the family received, was less noticed by her.
But Chip's eyes were observant.
"I don't like goin' to meetin'," she said, "an' bein' stared at
like I was a wildcat. I seen 'em grinnin', too, some on 'em, when we
went in, an' one feller winked to another. What ailed 'em?"
Her vexations, however, had only just begun, for Angie had seen and made
arrangements with Miss Phinney, one of the village school-teachers, and
the next morning Chip was sent to school. And now real trouble commenced.
Not knowing more than how to read and spell short words, and unable to
write, she, a fairly well-developed young lady, presented a problem
which was hard for a teacher to solve. To put her in the class where she
belonged was absurd. She must sit with older girls, or look ridiculous.
If she recited with the eight-year-old children, the result would be
the same, and so a species of private tuition with recitations at noon or
after school became the only possible course and the one her teacher
adopted.
This also carried its vexations, for Chip was as tall as Miss Phinney
and a little larger. Not one of that band of pupils was over twelve.
To join in their games was no sport for Chip, while they, having heard
about her thrilling experiences, with a hint that she wasn't quite right
in her head, felt afraid of her.
"I feel so sorry for her," Miss Phinney explained to Angie, a week
later, "and yet, I don't know what to do. She is so big the children
won't play with her, or she with them. I am the only one with whom she
will talk, and she seems so humble and so grateful for every word. I
can't be as stern with her or govern her as I should, on account of her
temper and size.
"Only yesterday I heard screaming at recess, and going out, I found
that Chip had one of the girls by the hair and was cuffing her. It
transpired that this girl had called her an Indian and asked if she had
ever scalped anybody. I can't punish such a pupil, and I can't help
loving her, so you see she is a sore trial."
She also became a trial to Angie in countless ways.
Of a deep religious conviction, and believing this waif needed to be
brought into the fold, Angie set about that task at once. But Chip was
impervious to such instruction. By no argument or persuasion could
Angie force her protegee to renounce her belief in the heathenism of
Old Tomah, or convince her that God and the angels were any different
from his collection of spirit forms, or that heaven was anything more
than another name for his happy hunting-grounds. Old Tomah had been her
wise and only friend, so far. She had seen all the ghostly forms he had
described, had felt all the occult influences which he said existed,
and neither coaxing nor derision served to make her disown them.
Of course, Angie took her to church regularly. She sat through services
and bowed as all did. Sabbath-school instruction would have been forced
upon her but for the reason that made her a class of one under Miss
Phinney, and Parson Jones's attention was finally enlisted.
He spent an hour in pointing out her heathenish sins, assured her that
Old Tomah was a wicked reprobate and an ignorant savage combined, that
all influences so far surrounding her had been the worst possible,--a
self-evident fact,--and unless she confessed a change of heart, and
soon, too, all her friends here would desert her and the devil would
overtake her by and by, and then closed this well-intended effort with a
prayer.
Chip sat through it all, mute and cowering. The parson's white hair,
sharp eyes, and solemn voice awed her, and when he had departed, she
began to cry.
"I don't see the need o' makin' me say I don't believe suthin' when
I do," she said. "I've seen spites 'n' I know I've seen 'em, an'
nobody can make me believe Old Tomah a bad man, if he is an Injun. He
runned after me when I got ketched, 'n' near got his eyes scratched
out"--a logic it was useless to contend with.
"You're jest a little spunky devil," Hannah said to her later on with
a vicious accent, "an' if I was Mrs. Frisbie I'd larrup ye till ye
confessed penitence, I would. The idee o' you settin' thar a-mullin'
all the time the minister was tryin' to save ye! It's scand'lus!"
And that night Chip was back in the wilderness with Old Cy and Ray in
thought, and so homesick for them that she cried herself to sleep.