looked like great animals crouching along the walls. Annie stood in
the middle of the room, as if she were waiting or listening for
something. Then she slipped off her shoes and went to one of the
windows and opened it. I had fastened it, but the catch was old and
she knew the trick of it, of course. In another moment something
black appeared over the low sill; it was a man's head. My heart
seemed to stand still. She helped him, and he got in without making
a sound. He must have climbed up the big elm-tree which grew close
against the house. They stood whispering together for a few minutes,
but I could not hear a word.
"The man was in stocking feet; he had an evil, coarse face, yet he
was good-looking, too, in a way. I thought the girl seemed frightened,
and yet pleased, too; and he seemed to be praising her, I thought,
and once he put his arms round her and kissed her. She went to the
wardrobe and opened it, but he shook his head; then she opened the
great cedar trunk, and he nodded, and measured it and got into it
and sat down. It was so deep that he could sit quite comfortably
with the cover down. Annie shut it and then opened it again.
"I had seen all I wanted to see. I slipped down-stairs as I heard
her move toward the door; when she came down I was stirring my cocoa
on the stove, with my back to her. She came round and showed me a
bundle she had in her hand, and said she must be going now. I kept
my face in the shadow as well as I could, for I was afraid I might
not be able to look just as usual; but I spoke quietly, and asked
her if she had found everything, and wished her good night as
pleasantly as I knew how. All the while my head was in a whirl and
my heart beat so loud I thought she must have heard it. There was a
good deal of silver in the house, and I knew that Mr. Bowles had
drawn some money from the bank only a day or two before, to pay a
life-insurance premium.
"I never listened to anything as I did to the sound of her footsteps;
even after they had died away, after she had turned the corner, a
good way off, I stood still, listening, not stirring hand or foot.
But when I no longer heard any sound my strength seemed to come back
with a leap, and I knew what I had to do. I told you my shoes made
no noise. I slipped up-stairs, through my own room, and into the shed
chamber. Girls, it lay so peaceful and bare in the white moonlight,
that for a moment I thought I must have dreamed it all.
"It seemed half a mile to the farther end, where the great cedar
trunk stood. As I went a board creaked under my feet, and I
heard--or fancied I heard--a faint rustle inside the trunk. I began
to hum a tune, and moved about among the trunks, raising and
shutting the lids, as if I were looking for something. Now at last I
was beside the dreadful chest, and in another instant I had turned
the key. Then, girls, I flew! I knew the lock was a stout one and
the wood heavy and hard; it would take the man some time to get it
open from the inside, whatever tools he might have. I was
down-stairs in one breath, praying that I might be able to control my
voice so that it would not sound strange to the sick woman.
"'Would you mind if I went out for a few minutes, Mrs. Bowles? The
moonlight is so lovely I thought I would like to take a little walk,
if there is nothing you want.'
"She looked surprised, but said in her kind way, yes, certainly I
might go, only I'd better not go far.
"I thanked her, and walked quietly out to the end of the garden walk;
then I ran! Girls, I had no idea I could run so! Strength seemed
given me, for I never felt my body. I was like a spirit flying or a
wind blowing. The road melted away before me, and all the time I saw
two things before my eyes as plain as I see you now,--the evil-faced
man working away at the lock of the cedar chest, and the sweet lady
sitting in the room below with her Bible on her knee. Yes, I thought
of the children, too, but it seemed to me no one, not even the
wickedest, could wish to hurt a child. So on I ran!
"I reached the first house, but I knew there was no man there, only
two nervous old ladies. At the next house I should find two men,
George Brett and his father.
"Yes, Lottie, my George, but I had never seen him then. He had only
lately come back from college. The first I saw of him was two
minutes later, when I ran almost into his arms as he came out of the
house. I can see him now, in the moonlight, tall and strong, with
his surprised eyes on me. I must have been a wild figure, I suppose.
I could hardly speak, but somehow I made him understand.
"He turned back to the door and shouted to his father, who came
hurrying out; then he looked at me. 'Can you run back?' he asked.
"I nodded. I had no breath for words but plenty for running, I
thought.
"'Come on, then!'
"Girls, it was twice as easy running with that strong figure beside
me. I noticed in all my hurry and distress how easily he ran, and I
felt my feet, that had grown heavy in the last few steps, light as
air again. Once I sobbed for breath, and he took my hand as we ran,
saying, 'Courage, brave girl!' We ran on hand in hand, and I never
failed again. We heard Mr. Brett's feet running, not far behind; he
was a strong, active man, but could not quite keep up with us.
"As we neared the house, 'Quiet,' I said; 'Mrs. Bowles does not know.'"
He nodded, and we slipped in at the back door. In an instant his
shoes were off and he was up the back stairs like a cat, and I after
him. As we entered the shed chamber the lid of the cedar trunk rose.
I saw the gleam of the evil black eyes and the shine of white,
wolfish teeth. Without a sound George Brett sprang past me; without
a sound the robber leaped to meet him. I saw them in the white light
as they clinched and stood locked together; then a mist came before
my eyes and I saw nothing more.
"I did not actually faint, I think; it cannot have been more than a
few minutes before I came to myself. But when I looked again George
was kneeling with his knee on the man's breast, holding him down,
and Father Brett was looking about the chamber and saying, in his
dry way, 'Now where in Tunkett is the clothes-line to tie this fellow?'
"And the girl? Annie? O girls, she was so young! She was just my own
age and she had no mother. I went to see her the next day, and many
days after that. We are fast friends now, and she is a good, steady
girl; and no one knows--no one except our two selves and two
others--that she was ever in the shed chamber."
_MAINE TO THE RESCUE_
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! It's snowing!"
"Hurrah! hurrah! It's snowing!"
Massachusetts looked up from her algebra. She was the head of the
school. She was rosy and placid as the apple she was generally
eating when not in class. Apples and algebra were the things she
cared most about in school life.
"Whence come these varying cries?" she said, taking her feet off the
fender and trying to be interested, though her thoughts went on with
"a 1/6 b =" etc.
"Oh, Virginia is grumbling because it is snowing, and Maine is
feeling happy over it, that's all!" said Rhode Island, the smallest
girl in Miss Wayland's school.
"Poor Virginia! It is rather hard on you to have snow in March, when
you have just got your box of spring clothes from home."
"It is atrocious!" said Virginia, a tall, graceful, languishing girl.
"How could they send me to such a place, where it is winter all the
spring? Why, at home the violets are in blossom, the trees are coming
out, the birds singing--"
"And at home," broke in Maine, who was a tall girl, too, but lithe
and breezy as a young willow, with flyaway hair and dancing brown
eyes, "at home all is winter--white, beautiful, glorious winter,
with ice two or three feet thick on the rivers, and great fields and
fields of snow, all sparkling in the sun, and the sky a vast
sapphire overhead, without a speck. Oh, the glory of it, the
splendor of it! And here--here it is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor
good red herring. A wretched, makeshift season, which they call
winter because they don't know what else to call it."
"Come! come!" said Old New York, who was seventeen years old and had
her own ideas of dignity. "Let us alone, you two outsiders! We are
neither Eskimos nor Hindoos, it is true, but the Empire State would
not change climates with either of you."
"No, indeed!" chimed in Young New York, who always followed her
leader in everything, from opinions down to hair-ribbons.
"No, indeed!" repeated Virginia, with languid scorn. "Because you
couldn't get any one to change with you, my dear."
Young New York reddened. "You are so disagreeable, Virginia!" she
said. "I am sure I am glad I don't have to live with you all the
year round--"
"Personal remarks!" said Massachusetts, looking up calmly. "One cent,
Young New York, for the missionary fund. Thank you! Let me give you
each half an apple, and you will feel better."
She solemnly divided a large red apple, and gave the halves to the
two scowling girls, who took them, laughing in spite of themselves,
and went their separate ways.
"Why didn't you let them have it out, Massachusetts?" said Maine,
laughing. "You never let any one have a good row."
"Slang!" said Massachusetts, looking up again. "One cent for the
missionary fund. You will clothe the heathen at this rate, Maine.
That is the fourth cent to-day."
"'Row' isn't slang!" protested Maine, feeling, however, for her
pocket-book.
"Vulgar colloquial!" returned Massachusetts, quietly. "And perhaps
you would go away now, Maine, or else be quiet. Have you learned--"
"No, I haven't!" said Maine. "I will do it very soon, dear Saint
Apple. I must look at the snow a little more."
Maine went dancing off to her room, where she threw the window open
and looked out with delight. The girl caught up a double handful and
tossed it about, laughing for pure pleasure. Then she leaned out to
feel the beating of the flakes on her face.
"Really quite a respectable little snowstorm!" she said, nodding
approval at the whirling white drift. "Go on, and you will be worth
while, my dear." She went singing to her algebra, which she could not
have done if it had not been snowing.
The snow went on increasing from hour to hour. By noon the wind
began to rise; before night it was blowing a furious gale. Furious
blasts clutched at the windows, and rattled them like castanets. The
wind howled and shrieked and moaned, till it seemed as if the air
were filled with angry demons fighting to possess the square white
house.
Many of the pupils of Miss Wayland's school came to the tea-table
with disturbed faces; but Massachusetts was as calm as usual, and
Maine was jubilant.
"Isn't it a glorious storm?" she cried, exultingly. "I didn't know
there could be such a storm in this part of the country, Miss Wayland.
Will you give me some milk, please?"
"There is no milk, my dear," said Miss Wayland, who looked rather
troubled. "The milkman has not come, and probably will not come
to-night. There has never been such a storm here in my lifetime!"
she added. "Do you have such storms at home, my dear?"
"Oh, yes, indeed!" Maine said, cheerfully. "I don't know that we
often have so much wind as this, but the snow is nothing out of the
way. Why, on Palm Sunday last year our milkman dug through a drift
twenty feet deep to get at his cows. He was the only milkman who
ventured out, and he took me and the minister's wife to church in
his little red pung.
"We were the only women in church, I remember. Miss Betsy Follansbee,
who had not missed going to church in fifteen years, started on foot,
after climbing out of her bedroom window to the shed roof and
sliding down. All her doors were blocked up, and she lived alone, so
there was no one to dig her out. But she got stuck in a drift about
half-way, and had to stay there till one of the neighbors came by
and pulled her out."
All the girls laughed at this, and even Miss Wayland smiled; but
suddenly she looked grave again.
"Hark!" she said, and listened. "Did you not hear something?"
"We hear Boreas, Auster, Eurus, and Zephyrus," answered Old New York.
"Nothing else."
At that moment there was a lull in the screeching of the wind; all
listened intently, and a faint sound was heard from without which
was not that of the blast.
"A child!" said Massachusetts, rising quickly. "It is a child's voice.
I will go, Miss Wayland."
"I cannot permit it, Alice!" cried Miss Wayland, in great distress.
"I cannot allow you to think of it. You are just recovering from a
severe cold, and I am responsible to your parents. What shall we do?
It certainly sounds like a child crying out in the pitiless storm.
Of course it _may_ be a cat--"
Maine had gone to the window at the first alarm, and now turned with
shining eyes.
"It _is_ a child!" she said, quietly. "I have no cold, Miss Wayland.
I am going, of course."
Passing by Massachusetts, who had started out of her usual calm and
stood in some perplexity, she whispered, "If it were freezing, it
wouldn't cry. I shall be in time. Get a ball of stout twine."
She disappeared. In three minutes she returned, dressed in her
blanket coat, reaching half-way below her knees, scarlet leggings
and gaily wrought moccasins; on her head a fur cap, with a band of
sea-otter fur projecting over her eyes. In her hand she held a pair
of snow-shoes. She had had no opportunity to wear her snow-shoeing
suit all winter, and she was quite delighted.
"My child!" said Miss Wayland, faintly. "How can I let you go? My
duty to your parents--what are those strange things, and what use
are you going to make of them?"
By way of answer Maine slipped her feet into the snow-shoes, and,
with Massachusetts' aid, quickly fastened the thongs.
"The twine!" she said. "Yes, that will do; plenty of it. Tie it to
the door-handle, square knot, so! I'm all right, dear; don't worry."
Like a flash the girl was gone out into the howling night.
Miss Wayland wrung her hands and wept, and most of the girls wept
with her. Virginia, who was curled up in a corner, really sick with
fright, beckoned to Massachusetts.
"Is there any chance of her coming back alive?" she asked, in a
whisper. "I wish I had made up with her. But we may all die in this
awful storm."
"Nonsense!" said Massachusetts. "Try to have a little sense, Virginia!
Maine is all right, and can take care of herself; and as for
whimpering at the wind, when you have a good roof over your head, it
is too absurd."
For the first time since she came to school Massachusetts forgot the
study hour, as did every one else; and in spite of her brave efforts
at cheerful conversation, it was a sad and an anxious group that sat
about the fire in the pleasant parlor.
Maine went out quickly, and closed the door behind her; then stood
still a moment, listening for the direction of the cry. She did not
hear it at first, but presently it broke out--a piteous little wail,
sounding louder now in the open air. The girl bent her head to listen.
Where was the child? The voice came from the right, surely! She
would make her way down to the road, and then she could tell better.
Grasping the ball of twine firmly, she stepped forward, planting the
broad snow-shoes lightly in the soft, dry snow. As she turned the
corner of the house an icy blast caught her, as if with furious hands,
shook her like a leaf, and flung her roughly against the wall.
Her forehead struck the corner, and for a moment she was stunned;
but the blood trickling down her face quickly brought her to herself.
She set her teeth, folded her arms tightly, and stooping forward,
measured her strength once more with that of the gale.
This time it seemed as if she were cleaving a wall of ice, which
opened only to close behind her. On she struggled, unrolling her
twine as she went.
The child's cry sounded louder, and she took fresh heart. Pausing,
she clapped her hand to her mouth repeatedly, uttering a shrill,
long call. It was the Indian whoop, which her father had taught her
in their woodland rambles at home.
The childish wail stopped; she repeated the cry louder and longer;
then shouted, at the top of her lungs, "Hold on! Help is coming!"
Again and again the wind buffeted her, and forced her backward a
step or two; but she lowered her head, and wrapped her arms more
tightly about her body, and plodded on.
Once she fell, stumbling over a stump; twice she ran against a tree,
for the white darkness was absolutely blinding, and she saw nothing,
felt nothing but snow, snow. At last her snow-shoe struck something
hard. She stretched out her hands--it was the stone wall. And now,
as she crept along beside it, the child's wail broke out again close
at hand.
"Mother! O mother! mother!"
The girl's heart beat fast.
"Where are you?" she cried. At the same moment she stumbled against
something soft. A mound of snow, was it? No! for it moved. It moved
and cried, and little hands clutched her dress.
She saw nothing, but put her hands down, and touched a little cold
face. She dragged the child out of the snow, which had almost
covered it, and set it on its feet.
"Who are you?" she asked, putting her face down close, while by
vigorous patting and rubbing she tried to give life to the benumbed,
cowering little figure, which staggered along helplessly, clutching
her with half-frozen fingers.
"Benny Withers!" sobbed the child. "Mother sent me for the clothes,
but I can't get 'em!"
"Benny Withers!" cried Maine. "Why, you live close by. Why didn't
you go home, child?"
"I can't!" cried the boy. "I can't see nothing. I tried to get to
the school, an' I tried to get home, an' I can't get nowhere 'cept
against this wall. Let me stay here now! I want to rest me a little."
He would have sunk down again, but Maine caught him up in her strong,
young arms.
"Here, climb up on my back, Benny!" she said, cheerfully. "Hold on
tight round my neck, and you shall rest while I take you home. So!
That's a brave boy! Upsy, now! there you are! Now put your head on
my shoulder--close! and hold on!"
Ah! how Maine blessed the heavy little brother at home, who _would_
ride on his sister's back, long after mamma said he was too big. How
she blessed the carryings up and down stairs, the "horsey rides"
through the garden and down the lane, which had made her shoulders
strong!
Benny Withers was eight years old, but he was small and slender, and
no heavier than six-year-old Philip. No need of telling the child to
hold on, once he was up out of the cruel snow bed. He clung
desperately round the girl's neck, and pressed his head close
against the woollen stuff.
Maine pulled her ball of twine from her pocket--fortunately it was a
large one, and the twine, though strong, was fine, so that there
seemed to be no end to it--and once more lowered her head, and set
her teeth, and moved forward, keeping close to the wall, in the
direction of Mrs. Withers's cottage.
For awhile she saw nothing, when she looked up under the fringe of
otter fur, which, long and soft, kept the snow from blinding her;
nothing but the white, whirling drift which beat with icy, stinging
blows in her face. But at last her eyes caught a faint glimmer of
light, and presently a brighter gleam showed her Mrs. Withers's gray
cottage, now white like the rest of the world.
Bursting open the cottage door, she almost threw the child into the
arms of his mother.
The woman, who had been weeping wildly, could hardly believe her eyes.
She caught the little boy and smothered him with kisses, chafing his
cold hands, and crying over him.
"I didn't know!" she said. "I didn't know till he was gone. I told
him at noon he was to go, never thinking 'twould be like this. I was
sure he was lost and dead, but I couldn't leave my sick baby. Bless
you, whoever you are, man or woman! But stay and get warm, and rest
ye! You're never going out again in this awful storm!"
But Maine was gone.
In Miss Wayland's parlor the suspense was fast becoming unendurable.
They had heard Maine's Indian whoop, and some of them, Miss Wayland
herself among the number, thought it was a cry of distress; but
Massachusetts rightly interpreted the call, and assured them that it
was a call of encouragement to the bewildered child.
Then came silence within the house, and a prolonged clamor--a sort
of witches' chorus, with wailing and shrieking without. Once a heavy
branch was torn from one of the great elms, and came thundering down
on the roof. This proved the finishing touch for poor Virginia. She
went into violent hysterics, and was carried off to bed by Miss Way
land and Old New York.
Massachusetts presently ventured to explore a little. She hastened
through the hall to the front door, opened it a few inches, and put
her hand on the twine which was fastened to the handle. What was her
horror to find that it hung loose, swinging idly in the wind! Sick
at heart, she shut the door, and pressing her hands over her eyes,
tried to think.
Maine must be lost in the howling storm! She must find her; but
where and how?
Oh! if Miss Wayland had only let her go at first! She was older; it
would not have mattered so much.
But now, quick! she would wrap herself warmly, and slip out without
any one knowing.
The girl was turning to fly up-stairs, when suddenly something fell
heavily against the door outside. There was a fumbling for the handle;
the next moment it flew open, and something white stumbled into the
hall, shut the door, and sat down heavily on the floor.
"Personal--rudeness!" gasped Maine, struggling for breath. "You shut
the door in my face! One cent for the missionary fund."
The great storm was over. The sun came up, and looked down on a
strange, white world. No fences, no walls; only a smooth ridge where
one of these had been. Trees which the day before had been quite
tall now looked like dwarfs, spreading their broad arms not far from
the snow carpet beneath them. Road there was none; all was smooth,
save where some huge drift nodded its crest like a billow curling
for its downward rush.
Maine, spite of her scarred face, which showed as many patches as
that of a court lady in King George's times, was jubilant. Tired!
not a bit of it! A little stiff, just enough to need "limbering out,"
as they said at home.
"There is no butter!" she announced at breakfast. "There is no milk,
no meat for dinner. Therefore, I go a-snow-shoeing. Dear Miss Wayland,
let me go! I have learned my algebra, and I shall be discovering
unknown quantities at every step, which will be just as instructive."
Miss Wayland could refuse nothing to the heroine of last night's
adventure. Behold Maine, therefore, triumphant, sallying forth, clad
once more in her blanket suit, and dragging her sled behind her.
There was no struggling now--no hand-to-hand wrestling with
storm-demons. The sun laughed from a sky as blue and deep as her own
sky of Maine, and the girl laughed with him as she walked along, the
powdery snow flying in a cloud from her snow-shoes at every step.
Such a sight had never been seen in Mentor village before. The
people came running to their upper windows--their lower ones were
for the most part buried in snow--and stared with all their eyes at
the strange apparition.
In the street, life was beginning to stir. People had found,
somewhat to their own surprise, that they were alive and well after
the blizzard; and knots of men were clustered here and there,
discussing the storm, while some were already at work tunnelling
through the drifts.
Mr. Perkins, the butcher, had just got his door open, and great was
his amazement when Maine hailed him from the top of a great drift,
and demanded a quarter of mutton with some soup meat.
[Illustration: "MAINE HAILED HIM FROM THE TOP OF A GREAT DRIFT."]
"Yes, miss!" he stammered, open-mouthed with astonishment. "I--I've
got the meat; but I wasn't--my team isn't out this morning. I don't
know about sending it."
"I have a 'team' here!" said Maine, quietly, pulling her sled
alongside. "Give me the mutton, Mr. Perkins; you may charge it to
Miss Wayland, please, and I will take it home."
The butter-man and the grocer were visited in the same way, and Maine,
rather embarrassed by the concentrated observation of the whole
village, turned to pull her laden sled back, when suddenly a window
was thrown open, and a voice exclaimed:
"Young woman! I will give you ten dollars for the use of those
snow-shoes for an hour!"
Maine looked up in amazement, and laughed merrily when she saw the
well-known countenance of the village doctor.
"What! You, my dear young lady?" cried the good man. "This is 'Maine
to the Rescue,' indeed! I might have known it was you. But I repeat
my offer. Make it anything you please, only let me have the
snow-shoes. I cannot get a horse out, and have two patients
dangerously ill. What is your price for the magic shoes?"
"My price, doctor?" repeated Maine, looking up with dancing eyes.
"My price is--one cent. For the Missionary Fund! The snow-shoes are
yours, and I will get home somehow with my sled and the mutton."