Carolyn May always spent a part of each Saturday afternoon, unless it
rained, in the neglected graveyard behind The Corners church. One might
think that this was not a very cheerful spot for a little girl--and a
dog--at any time. But the little girl, as a usual thing, carried her own
cheerfulness with her.
Even on this day, when Chet Gormley's ill-advised gossip had so smitten
her with secret grief, she would not let the burden she carried utterly
quench her spirit. She was brave.
She did not tell Aunty Rose where she was going, although she reported
her return from Sunrise Cove to that good woman and explained where she
had stopped for dinner.
"Well, well, with Jedidiah Parlow and his daughter! I would not tell
Joseph Stagg about it, if I were you, child," was Aunty Rose's comment.
Carolyn May had no intention of speaking to Uncle Joe about her visit to
the carpenter and Miss Amanda; yet, having sounded the hardware dealer
on that point before, she did not think he would really mind if she
called on the "pretty lady."
There was something else--something very much more important--that she
desired to talk to Uncle Joe about, and she was thinking very hard over
it as she trimmed the long grass about the three little baby graves in
the Kennedy lot and about the longer grave of Aunty Rose's husband.
"Now I have caught the culprit," said a voice behind her, and Carolyn
May looked up to see the Reverend Afton Driggs smiling down at her.
"It had begun to puzzle me why this little patch of our old graveyard
looked so much better than the rest. I might have known you had
something to do with it," went on the minister.
Carolyn May sighed. "I just wish I could clean up all this cemetery. I
think, maybe, it would please them."
"Please whom?" asked the minister rather startled.
"Why, the folks that are buried here! I suppose they must know about it.
Their spirits, of course--the parts of 'em that keep on living. I should
think it would please 'em if their graves were kept neat."
Mr. Driggs looked thoughtfully about the untidy graveyard.
"It would seem as though 'out of sight is out of mind' in many cases of
old graveyards, Carolyn May. Yes, you are right. Families move away or
die out entirely. The burial lots are left to the mercy of strangers.
"'Brother, keep my memory green!' And we forget the friend who has
really meant much to us--or, perhaps, we beflower the grave once a year.
But that does not keep his memory green; it is only a salve to our own
consciences. Perhaps Memorial Day is of doubtful value, after all."
Probably Carolyn May had not heard the clergyman's comment. Surely, she
had not understood it. But she said now:
"Yes. There's Miss Wade--over yonder."
"Eh?" exclaimed the minister, turning quickly, expecting to see the
person of whom Carolyn May spoke. "There's who?"
"Miss Wade. Or, I s'pose she was a miss. She's not a 'spouse,' or a
'beloved relict,' or 'wife of the above.' So, I guess, she was a maiden
lady."
"Oh!" ejaculated the clergyman. "That old stone in the corner?"
"Yes, sir. That leany one. You know it says: 'Lydia Wade. Died of
smallpox. _Anno Domini_, 1762.'
"I know what _anno Domini_ means. It's after the birth of Christ. I
thought, at first, it was the name of somebody else buried in the same
grave--and that he had smallpox, too.
"It must be dreadful to have smallpox and be buried off in one corner of
the graveyard by one's self. Do you s'pose they did that to Miss Wade
'cause they were 'fraid of other folks here catching it?"
"It might be, my dear," said the clergyman. "But she was buried a long,
long time ago. Probably before there was any church here."
"Well, I guess Miss Wade was buried--poor thing!--so long ago that there
isn't any danger of catching the smallpox from her," sighed the little
girl, yet with relief in her tone. "Anyway, I'm not afraid, for I've
been vaccernated, and it _took_!"
The Reverend Afton Driggs thought this a rather gruesome subject for
Carolyn May; but, with the latter, everything worth talking about at all
could be given a cheerful atmosphere. She got to her feet with a sigh of
satisfaction, and Prince awakened out of his doze in the shelter of the
wall.
"There! I spect this is the last chance I'll have to clean up this place
'fore snow flies. Tim, the hackman, says it is bound to snow soon, and
the frost _has_ burned 'most all the grass."
"I presume winter is almost upon us," agreed Mr. Driggs. "Does the
thought of it make you unhappy?"
"Me? Oh, no, Mr. Driggs! I guess we can be just as happy in winter as in
summer--or fall--or spring. All we've got to do is to look _up_, and not
_down_, all the time. See how blue the sky is! And there are wild geese
flying over, aren't there?" she cried.
"Why, even the wild geese must _look up_, Mr. Driggs. They're looking
for where it's going to be warm weather, with the streams and ponds
open, I s'pose. So, after all, I guess they're wiser than some human
folks, even if they are geese. Don't you think so?"
"I believe you, Carolyn May," cried the minister, taking her little hand
in his own as they walked out of the churchyard.
Tim, the hackman, was a true weather prophet. That very night the first
snow flurry of the season drove against the west window panes of the big
kitchen at the Stagg homestead. It was at supper time.
"I declare for't," said Mr. Stagg, "I guess winter's onto us, Aunty
Rose."
"It has made an early start," agreed the housekeeper. "I trust you have
made everything snug and fast for the season, Joseph Stagg."
"I reckon so," said the hardware dealer easily. "Plenty of wood in the
shed and a full pork barrel," and he chuckled.
Just then Prince whined out on the cold porch and rattled his chain.
Uncle Joe never seemed to notice it!
Carolyn May went to bed that evening in a much more serious mood than
usual. Before going she got a heap of old sacks from the woodshed for
poor Prince to snuggle down in.
This snow did not amount to much; it was little more than a hoar-frost,
as Mr. Stagg said. It frosted the brown grass, but melted away in the
paths. This might be, however, the last chance for a Sunday walk in the
woods for some time, and Carolyn May did not propose to miss it. It was
the one thing Uncle Joe did for her that the little girl could hope was
done because he loved her--"oh, a teeny, weeny mite!"
Of course, uncles and guardians just had to take little girls home and
feed and clothe them--or else send them to a poorhouse. Carolyn May
understood that. But going for a Sunday walk was different. Uncle Joe's
yielding to her desire in this matter awoke the fluttering hope in the
child's breast that she was beloved.
On this Sunday she wished particularly to get him off by himself. Her
heart was filled with a great purpose. She felt that they must come to
an understanding.
They walked to the very glade where they had met Miss Amanda Parlow, and
Prince had killed the blacksnake. Somehow, their steps always seemed to
turn that way. But they had never come upon Miss Amanda in their walks a
second time.
On this particular occasion Uncle Joe sat down upon the log by the brook
where Miss Amanda had once sat. Carolyn May stood before him.
"Uncle Joe," the little girl said, her blue eyes dark with trouble,
"will you tell me something?"
"I reckon so, child, if I can," he responded, looking at her curiously.
"Am--am I just charity, Uncle Joe?"
"Huh? What's that, Car'lyn May?" he exclaimed, startled.
"Am I just a charity orphan? Didn't my papa leave _any_ money a-_tall_
for me? Did you take me just out of charity?"
"Bless me!" gasped the hardware dealer.
"I--I wish you'd answer me, Uncle Joe," went on Carolyn May with a brave
effort to keep from crying. "Isn't there _any_ money left for me--and
Princey?"
Joseph Stagg was too blunt a person to see his way clear to dodging the
question. And he could not speak a falsehood.
"Hum! Well, I'll tell you, Car'lyn May. There isn't _much_ left, and
that's a fact. It isn't your father's fault. He thought there was
plenty. But a business he invested in got into bad hands, and the little
nest egg he'd laid up for his family was lost."
"All lost, Uncle Joe?" quavered Carolyn May.
"All lost," repeated the hardware merchant firmly.
"Then--then I _am_ just charity. And so's Prince," whispered Carolyn May.
"I--I s'pose we could go to the poorhouse, Prince and me; but they mayn't
like dogs there."
"What's that?" ejaculated Joseph Stagg in a sharp tone. "What's that?"
he repeated.
"I--I know you aren't just used to children," went on Carolyn May,
somewhat helplessly. "You're real nice to me, Uncle Joe; but Prince and
me--we really are a nuisance to you."
The man stared at her for a moment in silence, but the flush that dyed
his cheeks was a flush of shame. The very word he had used on that
fateful day when Carolyn May Cameron had come to The Corners! He had
said to himself that she would be a nuisance.
"Maybe we ought to have gone to a poorhouse right at first," stammered
the little girl, when Mr. Stagg broke in on her observation in a voice
so rough that she was startled.
"Bless me, child! Who put such an idea into your head?"
"I--I thought of it myself, Uncle Joe."
"Don't you like it any more here with Aunty Rose and--and me?" he
demanded.
"Oh, yes! Only--only, Uncle Joe, I don't want to stay, if we're a
nuisance, Prince and me. I don't want to stay, if you don't love me."
Joseph Stagg had become quite excited. He stood up, running his fingers
through his bushy hair, and knocking off his hat.
"Bless me!" he finally cried once more. "How do you know I don't love
you, Car'lyn May?"
"Why--why--But, Uncle Joe! how do I know you do love me?" demanded the
little girl. "_You never told me so!_"
The startled man sank upon the log again.
"Well, maybe that's so," he murmured. "I s'pose it isn't my way to be
very--very--softlike. But listen here, Car'lyn May."
"Yes, sir."
"I ain't likely to tell you very frequent how much I--I think of you.
Ahem! But you'd better stop worrying about such things as money and the
like. What I've got comes pretty near belonging to you. Anyway, unless I
have to go to the poorhouse myself, I reckon you needn't worry about
going," and he coughed again drily.
"As far as us loving you--Well, your Aunty Rose loves you."
"Oh, I know she does!" agreed Carolyn May, nodding.
"Hum! How do you know that so well, and yet you don't know that I love
you?"
"Oh--well--now," stammered Carolyn May, "when there isn't anybody else
around but Aunty Rose and me, she tells me so."
"Hum!" Mr. Stagg cleared his throat. "Well, there isn't anybody else
around here but you and me--and the dog," and his eyes twinkled; "so I'll
admit, under cross-examination, that I love you."
"Oh, Uncle Joe!" She bounded at him, sobbing and laughing. "Is it really
so? Do you?"
For the first time Joseph Stagg lifted her upon his knee. She snuggled
up against his vest and put one little arm around his neck--as far as it
would go.
"_Dear_ Uncle Joe!" she sighed ecstatically. "I don't mind if I _am_
charity. If you love me, it takes all the sting out. And I'll help to
make you happy, too!"
"Bless me, child!" came huskily, "ain't I happy enough?"
"Why, Uncle Joe, I don't believe you can be really and truly happy, when
you are always worrying about business. You don't ever seem to have time
to _look up_ and see the sky, or stop to hear the birds sing.
"Seems to me, Uncle Joe," concluded Carolyn May, giving a happy little
jump on his lap, "that if you let your mind sort o' run on--on something
besides hardware once in a while, maybe you would have time to show me
how _much_ you loved me. Then I wouldn't have to ask."
The man looked at her somewhat blankly. Then he turned his head, ran his
hand through his bushy hair, and gazed away meditatively.
The little girl had awakened his heart. And that heart was very, very
sore.