First, of course, Carolyn May thought she would run away--she and Prince.
She could not eat any dinner, although Aunty Rose called her twice and
she did feel a little faint, for she possessed a hearty appetite. But
the child knew that the very first mouthful she tried to swallow would
choke her--and then she would cry.
Perhaps Aunty Rose understood this, for she did not trouble the little
girl again. Carolyn May sat for a long time under the tree beside the
sleeping dog and thought how different this life at The Corners was from
that she had lived with her father and mother in the city home.
If only that big ship, the _Dunraven_, had not sailed away with her papa
and her mamma!
Carolyn May had been very brave on that occasion. She had gone ashore
with Mrs. Price and Edna after her mother's last clinging embrace and
her father's husky "Good-bye, daughter," with scarcely a tear. She had
watched the huge vessel sweep off from the dock and out into the stream,
carried by the outgoing tide and helped by a fussy tug, which latter she
had thought preposterously small to be of any real service to such a
huge craft as the _Dunraven_.
They had run to the very end of the pier, too; so as to see the last of
the outgoing ship. Of course, the faces of her father and mother were
lost to her vision in the crowd of other passengers, but her mother had
waved her pink veil, as agreed, and Carolyn May could see that for a
long while.
Of course, she had been brave! Mamma would return in a few weeks, and
then, after a time, papa would likewise come back--and, oh! so rosy and
stout! No more cough, no longer a feeble step, no longer breathless
after he had climbed the two flights to their apartment.
These things the little girl, left behind, had fully understood. She
looked forward confidently to the happy return of both her parents.
And then, in two weeks, came the fatal news of the sinking of the
_Dunraven_ and the loss of all but a small part of her crew and
passengers. The steamer had gone down quickly, and in the night, with
the dim coast of Africa far, far to the southward and many, many leagues
of troubled sea between her grave and the Spanish coast.
The two warring vessels--which one had caused the sinking of the
_Dunraven_ would probably never be known--had not even discovered till
daylight that there was a remnant of the _Dunraven's_ company adrift on
the sea. These were finally rescued by the victorious combatant, and in
a heavy fog. The exact spot where the _Dunraven_ had sunk was not known.
Vaguely these facts had become known to Carolyn May. She never spoke of
them. They did not seem real to the little girl. After all, she could
not believe that her father and mother had gone on so long a journey
that they would never again return to her.
But now, sitting beside the condemned Prince--her companion and only real
comforter during these weeks of her orphanhood--the little girl felt
bitterly her loneliness and grief.
If Uncle Joe did as he had threatened, what should she do? There seemed
to be no place for her and Prince to run away to. She did not know her
way about Sunrise Cove and The Corners. During the weeks she had lived
here she had learned to know nobody well enough to fly to for
protection, or of whom to beg shelter for herself and her dog.
She knew Mr. Stagg to be a very firm and determined man. Even Aunty
Rose, who in most things guided affairs at the Stagg homestead, could go
only so far. What Uncle Joe really determined to do, not even the
austere housekeeper could balk. No, there seemed no escaping the awful
tragedy that was to be. And if Prince had to die----
"I'm quite sure I don't want to live," thought Carolyn May dismally. "If
papa, and mamma, and Prince are _all_ dead--why! there aren't enough
other folks left in the world to make it worth while living in, I don't
believe. If Prince isn't going to be alive, then _I_ don't want to be
alive, either."
[Illustration: _She had watched the huge vessel sweep off from the
dock_]
By-and-by Prince began to get very uneasy. It was long past his dinner
hour, and every time he heard the screen door slam he jumped up and
gazed eagerly and with cocked ears and wagging tail in that direction.
"You poor thing, you," said Carolyn May at last. "I s'pose you _are_
hungry. It isn't going to do you a bit of good to eat; but you don't
know it. I'll ask Aunty Rose if she has something for you."
She got up wearily and went across the yard. Aunty Rose stood just
inside the screen door.
"Don't you want any dinner, Car'lyn May?" she asked.
"No, ma'am. I guess I'd better not eat," said the child.
"Why not?"
"'Cause my stomach's so trembly. I just _know_ I couldn't keep anything
down, even if I could swallow it. But Prince'll eat his, please. He--he
don't know any better."
"Tut, tut!" murmured the woman. "He's the most sensible of the two of
you, I declare."
But she did not urge Carolyn May to eat. There was a platter of broken
meat and bread for the dog, and Prince ate with apparent thankfulness.
"But you wouldn't gobble that down so, if you knew what was going to
happen to us, you poor dear," Carolyn May whispered.
Later she took Prince around the premises on his leash. She led him
along the edge of the brook. The Stagg place bordered on both sides of
the stream, and on the farther side were hayfields. Uncle Joe did not
till any land save the garden in which the unhappy Prince had done such
damage.
The little girl found, she believed, what must be the deepest hole in
the brook. It was not far beyond the great, widely spreading tree on the
knoll where she loved to sit. The water was brown and cloudy in this
pool, and a trout jumped there and left a wake of bubbles behind him
where he dived again with the luckless fly he had snapped out of the
air.
"I wonder if that trout will stay there if you are drownd-ed right where
he lives?" Carolyn May asked of Prince.
Prince wagged his abbreviated tail and yawned. Really, he seemed very
little impressed by the tragic fate that overhung him. Perhaps Carolyn
May's feelings would have been less desperate had she been blessed, as
Prince was just then, by a full stomach.
Nevertheless, the tragedy was all very real to the child. She saw Aunty
Rose sitting in one of her stiffest and most straight-backed chairs on
the porch, knitting. Carolyn May would not go near her, for she knew she
would burst out crying at the first kind word.
She had learned to love Aunty Rose. The old lady always waited for
Carolyn May to say her prayers now, when bedtime came. And the child had
a well-grounded suspicion that before Mrs. Kennedy sought her own bed
she crept into Carolyn May's room and kissed her softly and saw that she
was tucked in.
She felt that she would be sorry to leave Aunty Rose. And there was the
woman whose husband kept the store on the other corner from the Stagg
house. _She_ had given Carolyn May a stick of candy one day.
"I expect she'll be sorry not to see me again," the little girl told
herself. "And there's Mrs. Gormley--and Chet. They'll think it funny I
didn't bid them good-bye. And, then, there's Mr. Parlow."
After all, there seemed to be quite a number of people Carolyn May
knew--"just to be acquainted with." But she had never yet seen the
fulfilment of her strong desire to become acquainted with the
carpenter's daughter, Miss Amanda Parlow.
All these thoughts shuttled back and forth in Carolyn May's brain. The
minutes of that afternoon dragged by in most doleful procession. There
was no idea in the little girl's mind that Uncle Joe might change his
intention and Prince be saved from the watery grave promised him. When
she saw the hardware dealer come into the yard almost an hour earlier
than their usual supper time she was not surprised. Nor did she think of
pleading with him for the dog's life.
The little girl watched him askance. Mr. Stagg came directly through the
yard, stopping only at the shed for a moment. There he secured a strong
potato sack, and with it trailing from his hand went halfway up the
knoll to where there was a heap of stones. He stooped down and began to
select some of these, putting them in the bag.
This was too much for Carolyn May. With a fearful look at Uncle Joe's
uncompromising shoulders, she went to the tree where Prince was chained.
Exchanging the chain for the leather leash with which she always led him
about, the little girl guided the mongrel across the yard and around the
corner of the house.
Her last backward glance assured her that the hardware dealer had not
observed her. Quickly and silently she led Prince to the front gate, and
they went out together into the dusty road.
"I--I know we oughtn't to," whispered Carolyn May to her canine friend,
"but I feel I've just _got_ to save you, Prince. I--I can't see you
drownd-ed dead like that!"
Prince whined in sympathy. Perhaps he felt, too, that life held much
that was good and beautiful to his doggish soul.
Carolyn May had no idea where they should go to hide from Uncle Joe.
This venture was the result of a sudden and unpremeditated
determination. Her only thought at first was to get out of sight of the
Stagg premises.
So she turned the nearest corner and went up the road towards the little
closed, gable-roofed cottage where Aunty Rose had lived before she had
come to be Uncle Joe's housekeeper.
Carolyn May had already peered over into the small yard of the cottage
and had seen that Mrs. Kennedy still kept the flower-beds weeded and the
walks neat and the grass plot trimmed. But the window shutters were
barred and the front door built up with boards.
Carolyn May went in through the front gate and sat down on the doorstep,
while Prince dropped to a comfortable attitude beside her. The dog
slept. The little girl ruminated.
She would not go back to Uncle Joe's--no, indeed! She did not know just
what she would do when dark should come, but Prince should not be
sacrificed to her uncle's wrath.
In the morning she would walk to the railroad station. She knew how to
get there, and she knew what time the train left for the south. The
conductor had been very kind to her all the way up from New York, and
she was sure he would be glad to take her back again.
She and Prince! They were both happier in that small Harlem apartment,
even with papa and mamma away, than they ever could be at Sunrise Cove.
And, of course, Prince could not be happy after he was "drownd-ed dead!"
So it all seemed to the heart-hungry child sitting on the doorstep of
the abandoned house. A voice, low, sweet, yet startling, aroused her.
"What are you doing there, little girl?"
Both runaways started, but neither of them was disturbed by the
appearance of her who had accosted Carolyn May.
"Oh, Miss Mandy!" breathed the little girl, and thought that the
carpenter's daughter had never looked so pretty.
"What are you doing there?" repeated Miss Parlow.
"We--we've run away," said Carolyn May at last. She could be nothing but
frank; it was her nature.
"Run away!" repeated the pretty woman. "You don't mean that?"
"Yes, ma'am. I have. And Prince. From Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose," Carolyn
May assured her, nodding her head with each declaration.
"Oh, my dear! What for?" asked Miss Amanda.
So Carolyn May told her--and with tears.
Meanwhile the woman came into the yard and sat beside the child on the
step. With her arm about the little girl, Miss Amanda snuggled her up
close, wiping the tears away with her own handkerchief.
"I just _can't_ have poor Prince drownd-ed," Carolyn May sobbed. "I'd
want to be drownd-ed myself, too."
"I know, dear. But do you really believe your Uncle Joseph would do such
a thing? Would he drown your dog?"
"I-I saw him putting the stones in the bag," sobbed Carolyn May. "And he
_said_ he would."
"But he said it when he was angry, dear. We often say things when we are
angry--more's the pity!--which we do not mean, and for which we are
bitterly sorry afterwards. I am sure, Carolyn May, that your Uncle Joe
has no intention of drowning your dog."
"Oh, Miss Amanda! Are you pos'tive?"
"Positive! I know Joseph Stagg. He was never yet cruel to any _dumb_
creature. Go ask him yourself, Carolyn May. Whatever else he may be, he
is not a hater of helpless and dumb animals."
"Miss Amanda," cried Carolyn May, with clasped hands, "you--you are just
lifting an awful big lump off my heart! I'll run and ask him right
away."
She put up her lips for Miss Amanda to kiss, but she could not wait to
walk properly with her new friend to the corner. Instead, she raced with
the barking Prince back to the Stagg premises. Mr. Stagg had just
finished filling in with the stones the trench Prince had dug under the
garden fence.
"There," he grunted. "That dratted dog won't dig this hole any bigger, I
reckon. What's the matter with you, Car'lyn?"
"Are--are you going to drownd Princey, Uncle Joe? If--if you do, it just
seems to me, I--_I shall die_!"
He looked up at her searchingly.
"Humph! is that mongrel so all-important to your happiness that you want
to die if he does?" demanded the man.
"Yes, Uncle Joe."
"Humph!" ejaculated the hardware dealer again. "I believe you think more
of that dog than you do of me."
"Yes, Uncle Joe."
The frank answer hit Mr. Stagg harder than he would have cared to
acknowledge.
"Why?" he queried.
"Because Prince never said a word to hurt me in his life!" said Carolyn
May, sobbing.
The man was silenced. He felt in his inmost heart that he had been
judged.