AT THE CASTLE OF THE OGRESS
There was a buzzing in Dorothy’s ears; it seemed as though she could
not be herself, but must be somebody else. “Herself” was still out in
that dreadful snowstorm--sinking to a fatal sleep in the soft drifts.
Yet all the time she heard--distantly, but sufficiently distinct--the
clatter of Mrs. Ann Hogan’s tongue, and the gasping, interrupted speech
of little Celia Moran. At first Dorothy thought her rescue must be a
dream.
“Take off her shoes--do ye hear me, ye little nuisance?” commanded the
big woman. “Sure, ’tis jest about done for, she is. Cely! Cely Moran!
did ye bring the eggs as I told ye?”
“Oh, dear, me, Mrs. Hogan,” said the little girl. “I _was_ that
scared----”
“Thim eggs!” exclaimed the woman. “Where be they?”
“I dropped the basket when I heard the lady holler----”
“Go for thim! They’ll be froze in another minnit--an’ eggs fawty-two
cints th’ dozen at the store! Mind, now! if ye’ve broke thim, I’ll
wallop ye.”
Dorothy knew that the door was opened again, for a blast of cold wind
came in. But she could not open her eyes. The lids were too heavy. Mrs.
Hogan was rubbing her hand’s between her own--which were as rough as
nutmeg graters!
“Here ye are,” declared the woman, still kneeling before the settee on
which she had laid Dorothy. She spoke to the child. “Are they broke, I
ax ye?”
“No, ma’am! No, ma’am, Mrs. Hogan,” stuttered Celia’s shrill little
voice. “Oh, I didn’t break none; but the hulls come off two or
three----”
“Little nuisance!” snapped the woman. “And ye’d lie about it, too. Put
’em careful on the shelf--or I’ll be the death of ye! Lit another egg
be broken----”
The unfinished threat seemed to fill the child with terror. Dorothy
heard her sobbing softly. Then she crept to Dorothy’s feet again and
continued to unlace the bigger girl’s shoes. When they were drawn off
Mrs. Hogan began to rub the girl’s feet. They were so cold and stiff
that it seemed to Dorothy as though they would be broken right off in
the woman’s hard hands.
She forced her eyes open, and saw the big woman on her knees. Celia’s
wondering little face was close to her own. Dorothy sat up with sudden
energy.
“Oh! oh! oh!” whispered Celia. “It is my dear, dear young lady!”
“Why, Celia----”
“Is it knowin’ aich other ye bes?” demanded Mrs. Hogan, suspiciously.
Dorothy was half afraid of this muscular Amazon. She thought it best to
tell the whole truth.
“I saw Celia in the Belding station the day you brought her home from
the city foundling asylum, Mrs. Hogan,” she said, simply.
“Arrah! the little baggage!” grumbled the woman. “An’ she niver said a
wor-r-rd about it--bad ’cess to her!”
“I expect she was afraid you would not like it,” observed Dorothy,
quietly. “It was not Celia’s fault. I spoke to her myself. No, Mrs.
Hogan! never mind rubbing my feet any more. Thank you. They will be
quite warm in a minute.”
Somehow she did not want the great, coarse woman to touch her.
“Well, now,” said Mrs. Hogan, rising to her feet, and standing with her
hands on her hips and her arms akimbo, “well, now, will ye be tellin’
me where ye come from, young leddy?”
“From Glenwood Hall school. I am Dorothy Dale.”
“Indade! And do they know where ye be?”
“Why, I didn’t know myself where I was until I heard Celia’s voice,”
declared Dorothy. “She told me she was going to live with you. But--but
I don’t really know the situation of this farm, Mrs. Hogan. You see, I
got lost in the woods, and in the storm. It came on to snow so fast and
so suddenly.”
“Yis--I see,” grunted Mrs. Hogan. “I kin tell ye how far ye air from
the highway. ’Tis eight mile, if it’s a step.”
“Oh, dear! I must have been wandering farther and farther away from the
highway all the time.”
“Thrue for ye! Well, ye want to retur-r-rn, I make no doubt--as soon as
ye can?”
“Yes, indeed,” said the girl, quickly. “I am getting nice and warm. It
was silly of me to almost lose consciousness----”
“In a short time ye’d been dead in the snow,” declared the woman,
bluntly. “And ye can thank yer stars I found ye. Yis, indeed. Yer
friends will doubtless thank me, too,” and she spoke grimly.
Dorothy was remembering more clearly now. She had heard the woman say
something about being paid for taking care of her--she could easily
believe that Mrs. Hogan would do no kindness save through a mercenary
motive.
“Do you suppose I can get back to school to-night, Mrs. Hogan?” she
asked, rather timidly.
“And in this stor-r-rm, is it?”
“But Mrs. Pangborn will be worried.”
“Who’s she--the head teacher, is it? Well! Now, do yez think yez could
find yer way alone, Miss?”
“Oh, I am afraid not,” admitted Dorothy, looking at the snow banking
against the windows of the farmhouse kitchen.
“Nor ye couldn’t walk it, not even if I went with ye?”
“Oh, Mrs. Hogan! You wouldn’t attempt such a thing?”
The grenadier shook herself. She was more than six feet tall, and her
shoulders were wide and her arms long. She was really a giantess.
“Sure, I’ve tackled har-r-rder jobs,” she said. “But mebbe I kin get
Jim Bentley to put the hosses t’ th’ pung. But ye’ll pay for thim?”
“I’d gladly pay what you ask----”
“Tin dollars, then,” said the woman, quickly. “’Tis wuth it, to take ye
home through the snow this night.”
“I--I’ll pay it, Mrs. Hogan,” said Dorothy, faintly. “At least, Mrs.
Pangborn will pay it. I haven’t the money.”
“Well! I’ll see Jim--Is he out to the stables, Cely?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the child, who had been gazing at Dorothy all
this time with wide open eyes. “But one of the hosses is down, ma’am.”
“What’s that? What’s that ye tell me?” exclaimed the woman, turning on
Celia, angrily. “Down in the stall, ye mane?”
“Yes, ma’am. I saw it. And Mr. Bentley, he was sayin’ nawful things
about it----”
“Sayin’ _what_?” demanded Mrs. Hogan.
“He was swearin’ jes’ awful,” pursued the little girl, in an awed
whisper.
“Swearin’; was he? What do ye know about swearin’, plague o’ me life?”
said the woman. “Till me what he said?”
“Oh, Mrs. Hogan! I couldn’t,” gasped Celia, shaking her head. “It--it’s
wicked to swear.”
“You tell me----”
“I couldn’t,” repeated Celia. “But you say over all of the very baddest
cuss words you know, Mrs. Hogan, and I’ll tell you when you come to
’em--jes’ what Mr. Bentley said.”
Dorothy suddenly wanted to laugh, although she was half frightened
still of the ogress. Mrs. Hogan raised her hand as though to box the
little girl’s ears; but then she thought better of it.
“Can ye bate that, Miss?” she demanded of Dorothy. “’Tis allus the way.
The young ’un is as smart as a steel trap. ’Tis the way she be allus
gittin’ the best of me.
“Well, now! ’tis not to the school ye’ll get this night, then. Ye can
see that?”
“Oh, Mrs. Hogan!”
“And the stor-r-rm is bad, too. Aven with two hosses we might not win
through aisy. And with only wan--Arrah! ye’ll haf ter stay the night
out, Miss. I s’pose ye’ll willin’ly pay for it?”
“I am sure, Mrs. Hogan,” Dorothy said, “you will lose nothing by giving
me shelter.”
“I dunno. Rich folks ain’t as lib’ral as they might be. And ye’d never
cra’led--not on yer han’s an’ knees--to the next neighbor. Mind that,
now!”
“I am quite sure,” said Dorothy, humbly, “that I should have fallen in
the snow had not your house been near.”
“Well! I’ll make ye somehow comferble. Till marnin’ anyhow. Thin we’ll
see. If it kapes on snowin’ like this, though, Miss, ’twill be a
blizzard an’ no knowin’ when ye’ll git back to that school.”
“If only Mrs. Pangborn--and Tavia--and all the others--won’t be scared
about me,” murmured Dorothy.
“They’ll be sure ye warn’t fule enough to go on, and on, when it began
ter snow so,” grunted the woman. “’Tis lucky our frinds think better
av our sinse than we desarve. They’ll be sure ye wint into some house
when it began to storm so hard, me gur-r-rl.”
Meanwhile Dorothy had removed her hat and coat and Mrs. Hogan hung
them to dry behind the big cookstove which set well out from the
chimney-piece. She advised her guest to sit up to the stove and dry the
bottom of her skirt, while she herself got into a man’s storm-coat and
gloves, lit a lantern, and sallied forth, as she said, “to see what
that ormadoun, Jim Bentley, was doing to the hoss.”
The moment she was gone Celia ran into Dorothy’s open arms. The child
clung around the neck of Dorothy, and whispered:
“Don’t you be afraid, lady. She won’t hurt _you_.”
“Does she hurt you, Celia?” demanded the older girl. “Does she whip
you?”
“Oh, no! Not unless I’m real _bad_. But--but she doesn’t like little
girls--not a little, teeny bit. I--I wisht I lived with somebody that
liked little girls, lady.”
“Don’t call me that, dear,” said Dorothy, hastily, and wiping away her
tears. The little one was dry-eyed as she had been that day in the
railroad station. “My name is Dorothy--Dorothy Dale. Can you remember
that?”
“Oh, yes! It’s so pretty,” said Celia, smiling up at her wistfully.
“And please, can I ask you a question, Dorothy Dale--please?”
“All you want to, dear,” cried her friend.
“Oh!” cried Celia, clasping her little, clawlike hands, “have you found
Tom Moran yet? Have you found my brother?”