Such was the introduction of Carolyn May to The Corners. It was not a
very exciting life she had entered into, but the following two or three
weeks were very full.
Aunty Rose insisted upon her being properly fitted out with clothing for
the summer and fall. Mrs. Price sent on by express certain of the
child's possessions that would be useful, but Aunty Rose declared the
local seamstress must make a number of dresses for Carolyn May. The
latter had to go to the dressmaker's house to be fitted, and that is how
she became acquainted with Chet Gormley's mother.
Mrs. Gormley was helping the dressmaker, and they both made much of
Carolyn May. Aunty Rose allowed her to go for her fittings alone--of
course, with Prince as a companion--so, without doubt, Mrs. Gormley, who
loved a "dish of gossip," talked more freely with the little girl than
she would have done in Mrs. Kennedy's presence.
One afternoon the little girl appeared at the dressmaker's (it was only
two houses nearer the centre of Sunrise Cove than the Parlow cottage)
with Prince's collar decorated with short, curly shavings. This
Elizabethan ruff may or may not have caused the dog to look
"extinguished," as Carolyn May pointed out, but it certainly made him
uncomfortable. However, he endured this dressing-up to please his little
mistress.
"I take it you've stopped at Jed Parlow's shop, child," said Mrs.
Gormley with a sigh.
"Yes, ma'am," returned Carolyn May. "Do you know, he's very lib'ral."
"'Lib'ral'?" repeated Mrs. Gormley. "I never heard of old Jed Parlow
bein' accused of that before. Did you, Mrs. Maine?"
Mrs. Maine was the dressmaker; and she bit off her words when she spoke,
much as she bit off her threads.
"No. I never--heard Jed Parlow--called that--no!" declared Mrs. Maine
emphatically.
"Why, yes," little Carolyn May said quite eagerly, "he gives me all the
shavings I want. I--I guess folks don't just understand about Mr.
Parlow," she added, remembering what her uncle had first said about the
carpenter. "He _is_ real lib'ral."
"It's a wonder to me," drawled Mrs. Gormley, "that he has a thing to do
with _a certain party_, Mrs. Maine, considerin' how his daughter feels
towards that _certain party's_ relation. What d'you think?"
"I guess--there's sumpin--to be said--on both sides--o' that controversy,"
responded the dressmaker.
"Meanin' that mebbe _a certain party's_ relative feels just as cross as
Mandy Parlow?" suggested Mrs. Gormley.
"Yep," agreed the other woman, biting off her answer and her thread at
the same instant.
Carolyn May listened, much puzzled. She wondered just who "a certain
party" could be. It sounded very mysterious.
Mrs. Maine was called away upon some household task, and Mrs. Gormley
seemed to change the subject of conversation.
"Don't your uncle, Mr. Stagg, ever speak to you about Mandy Parlow?" she
asked the little girl.
Carolyn May had to think about this before answering. Then she
remembered.
"Oh, yes," she said brightly.
"He does? Do tell!" exclaimed Mrs. Gormley eagerly. "What does he say?"
"Why, he says her name is _Miss_ Amanda Parlow."
Mrs. Gormley flushed rather oddly and glanced at the child with
suspicion. But little Carolyn May was perfectly frank and ingenuous.
"Humph!" ejaculated Chet's mother. "He never says nothing about bein' in
love with Mandy, does he? They was goin' with each other steady once."
The little girl looked puzzled.
"When folks love each other they look at each other and talk to each
other, don't they?" she asked.
"Well--yes--generally," admitted Mrs. Gormley.
"Then my Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda Parlow aren't in love," announced
Carolyn May with confidence, "for they don't even look at each other."
"They used to. Why, Joseph Stagg and Mandy Parlow was sweethearts years
and years ago! Long before your mother left these parts, child."
"That was a long time 'fore I was borned," said the little girl
wonderingly.
"Oh, yes. Everybody that went to The Corners' church thought they'd be
married."
"My Uncle Joe and Miss Mandy?"
"Yes."
"Then, what would have become of Aunty Rose?" queried Carolyn May.
"Oh, Mrs. Kennedy hadn't gone to keep house for Mr. Stagg then," replied
Mrs. Gormley. "He tried sev'ral triflin' critters there at the Stagg
place before she took hold."
Carolyn May looked at Mrs. Gormley encouragingly. She was very much
interested in Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda Parlow's love affair.
"_Why_ didn't they get married--like my papa and mamma?" she asked.
"Oh, goodness knows!" exclaimed Mrs. Gormley. "Some says 'twas his fault
and some says 'twas hern. And mebbe 'twas a third party's that I might
mention, at _that_," added Mrs. Gormley, pursing up her lips in a very
knowing way.
Here was another mysterious "party"! Carolyn May wondered if this
"party" could be related to the "certain party" who seemed so familiar
to both of the "dressmaking ladies."
"You couldn't get nothin' out of either Mr. Stagg or Mandy about it, I
don't believe. They're both as tight-mouthed as clams," pursued Mrs.
Gormley. "But one day," she said, growing confidential, "it was in
camp-meeting time--one day somebody seen Joe Stagg drivin' out with
another girl--Charlotte Lenny, that was. _She_ was married to a man over
in Springdale long ago. Mr. Stagg took Charlotte to Faith Camp Meeting.
"Then, the very next week, Mandy went with Evan Peckham to a barn dance
at Crockett's, and nobody ain't ever seen your uncle and Mandy Parlow
speak since, much less ever walk together.
"Now stand up, child, and let's see if this frock fits. I declare, your
uncle is a-fittin' you out right nice."
If the truth were told, Uncle Joe did not agree to the making of all
these "frocks and furbelows" for Hannah's Car'lyn without the filing of
some objections.
"I tell you, Aunty Rose," he said to his austere housekeeper (and it
took courage for him to say this), "I tell you the child will get it
into her head that she can _always_ have all these things. Her father
didn't leave anything--scarcely any money at all. I don't suppose, if I
sell out that flat, I'd get a hundred dollars for it. How are all these
frocks and furbelows going to be paid for?"
"You can stop in at the First National, Joseph Stagg, and draw enough
out of my account to pay for them," said Aunty Rose placidly.
"Huh? I guess not!" ejaculated the hardware dealer angrily. "I can pay
my just debts yet, I hope--and them of Hannah's Car'lyn, too. If there's
money got to be spent on the child, I'm the one to spend it."
"Then don't talk as though you were afraid the sheriff was going to tack
a notice on your store door to-morrow morning," returned the old lady
tartly. To herself she observed, out of his hearing: "It will do Joseph
Stagg good to learn to spend money, as well as to make it."
But Mr. Stagg did not take kindly to this, nor to other innovations that
the coming of Carolyn May to The Corners brought about. Especially was
he outspoken about Prince. That faithful follower of "Hannah's Car'lyn"
he failed to discover any use for or any good in.
Prince was a friendly creature, and he did not always display good
judgment in showing his affection. In his doggish mind he could not see
why Mr. Stagg did not like him; he approved of Mr. Stagg very much
indeed.
One particularly muddy day he met the returning hardware merchant at the
gate with vociferous barkings and a plain desire to implant a welcoming
tongue on the man's cheek. He succeeded in muddying Mr. Stagg's suit
with his front paws, and almost cast the angry man full length into a
mud puddle.
"Drat the beast!" ejaculated Mr. Stagg. "I'd rather have an epileptic
fit loose around here than him. Now, look at these clo'es! I declare,
Car'lyn, you've jest got to tie that mongrel up--and keep him tied!"
"All the time, Uncle Joe?" whispered the little girl.
"Yes, _ma'am_, all the time! If I find him loose again, I'll tie a bag
of rocks to his neck and drop him in the deepest hole in the brook. He'd
oughter been drowned by that man when he was a pup."
After this awful threat, Prince lived a precarious existence, and his
mistress was much worried for him. Never, when Uncle Joe was at home,
could the dog have a run. Aunty Rose said nothing, but she saw that both
the little girl and her canine friend were very unhappy.
Mrs. Kennedy, however, had watched Mr. Joseph Stagg for years. Indeed,
she had known him as a boy, long before she had closed up her own little
cottage around on the other road and come to the Stagg place to save the
hardware merchant from the continued reign of those "trifling creatures"
of whom Mrs. Gormley had spoken.
As a bachelor, Joseph Stagg had been preyed upon by certain female
harpies so prevalent in a country community. Some had families whom they
partly supported out of Mr. Stagg's larder; some were widows who looked
upon the well-to-do merchant as a marrying proposition.
Aunty Rose Kennedy did not need the position of Mr. Stagg's housekeeper
and could not be accused of assuming it from mercenary motives. Over her
back fence she had seen the havoc going on in the Stagg homestead after
Hannah Stagg went to the city and Joseph Stagg's final female relative
had died and left him alone in the big house.
One day the old Quaker-like woman could stand no more. She put on her
sunbonnet, came around by the road to the front door of the Stagg house,
which she found open, and walked through to the rear porch on which the
woman who then held the situation of housekeeper was wrapping up the
best feather bed and pillows in a pair of the best home-spun sheets,
preparatory to their removal.
The neighbours enjoyed what followed. Aunty Rose came through the ordeal
as dignified and unruffled as ever; the retiring incumbent went away
wrathfully, shaking the dust of the premises from her garments as a
testimony against "any sich actions."
When Mr. Stagg came home at supper time he found Aunty Rose at the helm
and already a different air about the place.
"Goodness me, Aunty Rose," he said, biting into her biscuit ravenously,
"I was a-going down to the mill-hands' hotel to board. I couldn't stand
it no longer. If you'd stay here and do for me, I'd feel like a new
man."
"You ought to be made over into a new man, Joseph Stagg," the woman said
sternly. "A married man."
"No, no! Never _that_!" gasped the hardware dealer.
"If I came here, Joseph Stagg, it would cost you more money than you've
been paying these no-account women."
"I don't care," said Mr. Stagg recklessly. "Go ahead. Do what you
please. Say what you want. I'm game."
Thereby he had put himself into Aunty Rose's power. She had renovated
the old kitchen and some of the other rooms. If Mr. Stagg at first
trembled for his bank balance, he was made so comfortable that he had
not the heart to murmur. And, besides, he believed in keeping his word.
He had declared himself "game."
But that had all happened years before. This matter of expense for
Hannah's Car'lyn was an entirely different matter. Moreover, the
mischievousness of Prince, the mongrel, was really more than Mr. Joseph
Stagg thought he was called upon to bear.
Of course, Carolyn May let Prince run at large when she was sure Uncle
Joe was well out of sight of the house, but she was very careful to
chain him up again long before her uncle was expected to return.
Prince had learned not to chase anything that wore feathers; Aunty Rose
herself had to admit that he was a very intelligent dog and knew what
punishment was for. But how did he know that in trying to dig out a mole
he would be doing more harm than good?
The mole in question lived under a piece of rock wall near the garden
fence. When let free for his first morning run, Prince had been much
interested in the raised roofs of the tunnels he found in the sod down
there.
Aunty Rose called the mole "a pesky creature." Uncle Joe had threatened
to bring home a trap with which to impale it. How should Prince know--and
this was the question Carolyn May asked afterwards--that he would not be
considered a general benefactor if he managed to capture the little
blind nuisance?
At any rate, when Uncle Joe came home to dinner on one particular
Saturday he walked down to the corner of the garden fence, and there saw
the havoc Prince had wrought. In following the line of the mole's last
tunnel he had worked his way under the picket fence and had torn up two
currant bushes and done some damage in the strawberry patch.
"And the worst of it is," grumbled the hardware dealer, "he never
caught the mole. That mongrel really isn't worth a bag of dornicks to
sink him in the brook. But that's what he's going to get this very
evening when I come home. I won't stand for him a day longer."
Carolyn May positively turned pale as she crouched beside the now
chained-up Prince, both arms about his rough neck. He licked her cheek.
Fortunately, he could not understand _everything_ that was said to him,
therefore the pronouncement of this terrible sentence did not agitate
him an atom.
But his little mistress held to him tightly, dry sobs shaking her slight
form. Uncle Joe went in to dinner with little appreciation of the horror
and despair that filled the soul of Hannah's Car'lyn, out under the tree
in the back yard.