MABEL FINDS A FAMILY
Mabel, with a long afternoon before her and tempted by the pleasant day,
decided to take a walk in the grove. Perhaps she could find a hickory
nut. On the veranda she overtook little Lillian Thwaite, obviously
waiting for some one to walk with.
“Come on, Lill,” said Mabel. “Let’s go down to the grove.”
“Can’t,” returned Lillian, shrugging her small shoulders. “I’m going in
to practise my duet.”
“Then why did you put your things on?” demanded Mabel, suspiciously.
“Just for instance,” returned Lillian, pertly.
Mabel discovered Grace Allen poking among the leaves in the grove.
“Hello, Grace!” said she, hopefully. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I’m going back to the house in a minute.”
“Come along with me—it’s nice out.”
“Don’t care to,” returned Grace, snippishly.
Mabel found the deserted grove rather gloomy and uninteresting. Beyond
it the sunny prairie stretched for miles and miles with just one visible
break—a small house with a tumble-down fence far off toward the south.
It was out of bounds of course. Still, the girls _had_ wandered out on
the prairie and not one of the Rhodes family had said a word. It looked
like an entirely safe and harmless place. Mabel looked speculatively at
the faraway little house.
“I wonder if I couldn’t walk there and back before it gets dark. I’d
have something to tell the girls. It would be fun to peek over that
fence. Perhaps there are nuts under those trees by the gate. I wish
Marjory and Bettie were here, but they had letters to read and this is
Jean’s day at the gym. Maude’s too. Anyhow, I’m going a _little_ way.”
It proved a splendid day for walking. Mabel’s brown eyes brightened, a
fine color glowed in her cheeks and, for the moment, all her troubles
evaporated. She even forgot her danger of becoming a boarding school
orphan. Presently she looked back and was pleased to find herself quite
a distance from Highland Hall. The school looked quite imposing, on top
of its own little hill.
“I can get to that cottage quite easily,” said Mabel, trudging along
cheerfully. “Perhaps there are chickens and things in the yard—I hope
there isn’t a goat. Too bad the ground is all brown. There isn’t
anything left to pick.”
The trees, when Mabel reached them, were apple trees; but all the apples
were gone except a withered one. There _were_ chickens in the yard; and
a woman who was peering anxiously down the road that began at her
gateway and wandered off toward the southwest.
“Say,” said she, catching sight of Mabel. “Would you mind coming in and
staying with my children until Lizzie McCall gets here? She’s due any
minute and I’ve got to get over to the trolley—I’m late now. I have a
job cleaning cars over at the Centerville Station, this time every day,
and Lizzie always stays with the kids—they’d tear the house down if I
left them alone.”
“If you’re sure Lizzie is coming—”
“Oh, yes, she’s never missed yet. Just go in and see that they don’t
meddle with the fire. Lizzie’ll be right along.”
The woman hastened away. She looked what she was, an honest working
woman with many family cares. Mabel went inside. Four small children
stared at Mabel, as she entered. A boy of four, two small girls
evidently twins, aged three, and a toddling baby of perhaps a year and a
half. A delightful family to take care of for ten minutes but certainly
not the kind of family to leave for very long to its own devices; for
the twins were reaching for the sugar bowl and the boy had already
discovered the poker and was poking the fire.
“Let’s all watch out the window for Lizzie,” suggested Mabel. “Stand on
these two chairs.”
Watching for Lizzie proved more of an occupation than Mabel had counted
on. They watched and watched with all their eyes but no Lizzie appeared.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes. No Lizzie.
“Does Lizzie _always_ come?” queried Mabel, now decidedly uneasy.
“Sure,” replied the small boy.
“Where is your father?”
“Haven’t any. Him all gone on choo choo cars. Far away.”
“Does your mother come home to supper?”
“No. Lizzie makes our supper. Lizzie puts Tommy to bed and Susy to bed
and Sairy to bed and Jackie to bed.”
“Well,” remarked Mabel, crossly, “I wish she’d come right now and _do_
it. I ought to be a mile from here this very minute. I shouldn’t have
come in. And now I don’t know _what_ to do. It isn’t right for you to be
left by yourselves and it isn’t right for me to stay. Now what does
_anybody_ do in a case like that? I must be back by six o’clock; but I’d
be wicked if I went away—and it’s awfully wrong of me not to go.”
“_Don’t_ go,” wheedled Tommy. “You is nicer than Lizzie.”
“Nicer ’an ’Izzie,” echoed Susy.
“Nicer ’an ’Izzie,” echoed Sairy.
Mabel peered anxiously down the road. The days were short and already it
was growing darker. For another half hour Mabel, pressing closer and
closer to the window, watched the road. By that time it was really dark.
There was a lamp with oil in it on the kitchen table; Mabel discovered
matches on the shelf and managed to light it.
“What do you have for supper?” asked Mabel. “I suppose I’ll have to feed
you.”
“Oatmeal,” said Tommy. “It’s in the kettle on the stove. And milk—in the
cupboard. And bread.”
“What do you have for breakfast?”
“Oatmeal and milk and bread.”
“Where do you get them?”
“My muvver cooks ’em.”
“Hum,” said Mabel, investigating the cupboard, “there’s just about
enough bread for two meals so I guess I’d better not eat very much if I
have to stay to supper; but I hope I don’t.”
But she did. Lizzie still remained mysteriously absent; and before long
the children began to beg for food. Mabel arranged their simple supper
under Tommy’s directions and the friendly infants appeared pleased with
their new nurse.
It was lonely in the solitary little house; but Mabel didn’t mind that
as long as the children were awake. But very soon after supper they
began to nod. Tommy, very sweet and drowsy himself, showed Mabel where
the other little people were to sleep. The baby was fretful; he had
eaten very little supper and now his heavy head felt hot against Mabel’s
cheek as she rocked him to quiet his complaining little cry. Presently
he was asleep, so she tucked him very tenderly into the old
clothes-basket that Tommy assured her was the baby’s bed. Then the
chubby, yawning twins were tucked into their crib, for which they were a
tight fit; and in two minutes, _they_ were asleep. After that, Tommy
removed all his clothes except his shirt and climbed into the double
bed.
“You can sleep by me,” invited Tommy, “until my muvver comes. Lizzie
does sometimes, after she washes the dishes.”
That at least was something for a worried and lonely young person to do.
Mabel washed the tin spoons and thick saucers and put them neatly away.
By this time it was exceedingly dark outside.
“Even if Lizzie were to come,” said Mabel, “I’d be afraid to go home
alone. Dear me, I suppose I’ll have to stay all night. By this time
everybody will know I’ve been out of bounds and goodness only knows what
Doctor Rhodes will say to me. But I’ll skip home as soon as it’s
daylight and ask that nice fat cook to let me in at the kitchen door.”
The bed was not particularly inviting but at last Mabel locked the outer
door and climbed in beside Tommy, who was fast asleep. She hoped that
the baby was all right; he seemed restless and made little moaning
noises and tossed uneasily in his basket. She was sure that she herself
wouldn’t be able to sleep for a moment in that strange place, so far
away from her own friends; but presently she was slumbering quite
peacefully. It was broad daylight when she awoke.
And still no Lizzie.
“Tommy,” demanded Mabel, sitting up in bed, “when does your mother get
home? Who cooks your breakfast every day?”
“My muvver does. Where is my muvver?”
“Well, that’s what I’d like to know. I suppose I _could_ take you all
over to the school—no, I couldn’t carry that heavy baby all that way
even if the twins could manage to walk so far. If it was just _you_,
Tommy, I know we could do it. And I _don’t_ like that baby’s looks.”
“He’s getting another toof,” said Tommy, wisely.
The baby was sick, there was no doubt about that. There was barely
enough food for breakfast, there was no doubt about that, either. To be
sure there were potatoes, turnips and cabbages in the cellar. Thanks to
her play-housekeeping in Dandelion Cottage, Mabel knew how to boil
potatoes but she also knew that potatoes were hardly a proper food for a
sick infant.
By noon the children were hungry so Mabel fed them potatoes and gave the
baby a drink of water; but the supply of wood was getting low and Mabel
could see no way of replenishing it.
“I suppose,” said she, bitterly, “that woman just wanted to get rid of
all these children; and here I am! Four of them on my hands and nothing
to eat. One of them sick and getting teeth! It’s just my luck. I’ll keep
away from strange houses after this. I don’t believe there ever _was_ a
Lizzie. But we must have a fire—perhaps there’s something in that shed
that will fit that stove.”
There wasn’t, but there _was_ a large and clumsy baby carriage.
Mabel examined it hopefully.
Two hours later, at least half of the inmates of Highland Hall, greatly
exercised over Mabel’s mysterious disappearance, beheld a strange sight.
A twin baby carriage, containing three infants and propelled by a plump,
sturdy and perspiring young person, was rolling up the broad walk toward
the school. A small boy trudged along behind.
“It’s Mabel!” gasped Jean.
“It’s Mabel!” shrieked Marjory.
“Mabel, Mabel, Mabel,” cried Bettie, Maude and Jane Pool. Mabel’s
friends rushed down to greet her. The girls who were not her friends and
who had been saying unkind things about her hung back; but they looked
and listened.
“We might have known,” said Bettie, “that she’d bring _something_ home
with her—she always does.”
“But this time,” laughed Jean, “she’s outdone herself.”
Doctor Rhodes, stern and disapproving, eyed Mabel, coldly. To say the
least it was unusual for a pupil to vanish for twenty-four hours and
then turn up unexpectedly with a family of four. It certainly needed
explaining.
Mabel, however, was too much out of breath to do any explaining. She
beamed at the girls—it _was_ pleasant to see them again after that long,
anxious absence—and then glanced at Doctor Rhodes.
Horrors! How was anybody to explain things to a man who glared like
that! Mabel stood still, her smile frozen on her plump, perspiring
countenance.
“Leave those children right where they are,” said Doctor Rhodes,
sternly, “and go into my office. I want to know what this conduct
means.”
“Ye—yes, Sir,” faltered Mabel, toiling up the steps. Marjory skipped
along beside her, to impart a bit of news.
“We missed you at supper time,” breathed Marjory, in an undertone; “but
Doctor Rhodes didn’t know until about an hour ago that you were lost. We
knew _you_ so we were sure you’d do some queer thing like this and would
get home all right if we just gave you a chance, so we kept still. If
you’d only come just a little sooner we could have kept the secret. Miss
Woodruff got after us and found out. I must skip, now—he’s coming.”
“Now,” demanded Doctor Rhodes, “where have you been?”
“I went for a walk,” said Mabel, dropping into the chair that was
reserved for culprits. “I—I’ve always had the habit of bringing things
home with me—cats, dogs and once an Indian baby. But—but this is the
worst I’ve done yet.”
Doctor Rhodes turned suddenly to look out the window. The disappearance
of a pupil from the school was a serious matter; but there was something
about Mabel’s rueful countenance, her dejected attitude and her
apologetic tone that was provocative of laughter.
“There was a woman,” pursued Mabel, earnestly, “and she _said_ there was
a Lizzie. I believed her at first but now I don’t. She asked me to stay
with her children until Lizzie came and Lizzie _didn’t_ come. I _had_ to
stay. It wasn’t safe to leave them with a fire in the stove. Today there
wasn’t any fresh milk for the baby and I couldn’t split the wood. But
there _was_ a twin baby carriage and it’s taken us more than two hours
to get here.”
“Where was that house? In the village?”
“Oh, no,” returned Mabel, wearily, waving her hand toward the south.
“Way over that way across the prairie.”
“What! that small house that we can just see from the upper veranda?
What were you doing away over there?”
“Just taking a walk—I thought I’d be back by six. I knew I was going
pretty far; but my feet just kept going.”
“And what do you propose doing with all those children?”
“I thought we’d feed them,” said Mabel, “and then find somebody that
knows them. There’s a vacant room across from mine. I’ll take care of
them for the night. The baby is getting a tooth.”
“A teething baby!”
“And twins!” added Mabel. “And a boy named Tommy. But I got them all
here alive and that was something.”
“Of course I shall have to punish you for going out of bounds. But the
rest of your—your behavior is so unusual that I don’t know just how to
meet it. I’ll have to think about it awhile. Now take those children to
the room you mentioned and I’ll have one of the maids send up some
supper—”
“Milk and oatmeal and bread,” pleaded Mabel, wearily.
An hour later, the mother of the forsaken children appeared at the
kitchen door. She had followed the wheels of the baby carriage all the
way to Highland Hall.
Charles was peeling potatoes, the two neat maids were helping him. At
sight of the woman in the doorway, Charles rose suddenly to his feet,
dropped his pan of potatoes and turned as if to flee. But the visitor
rushed across the room and threw her arms about his neck.
And then tall, lanky Charles, with a sheepish glance at the two
astonished maids, returned her kiss.
“He’s my husband,” said the woman. “I thought he’d gone to Detroit to
get work. And here he is, not three miles from home!”
Charles explained blushingly that he had temporarily deserted his wife
because he found it so pleasant to be considered a bachelor.
“The ladies,” said Charles, waving a hand toward the fat cook and the
two neat maids “make so much of a single man. And I _like_ being made
much of—any man does.”
“And where,” demanded Mrs. Charles, “are my children?”
The neat maid who had carried the milk upstairs was able to lead her to
her family; and Mabel learned that Lizzie had sent a note explaining
that she couldn’t come; but the messenger had failed to deliver the
note. Mrs. Charles had been later than usual in starting her cleaning
work on the train and the train had started, carrying her to Chicago.
“And I thought,” said she, “I might as well make the most of a free ride
while I was about it; so I went all the way, bought my provisions in
town and got the noon train back.”
Charles hitched the school horse to the school wagon. With his sharp
elbows sticking out and his sandy hair on end, he perched on the front
seat and drove his family home that evening. He remained in the employ
of Doctor Rhodes, but the two neat maids no longer “made much of him.”
As for the fat cook, she told him exactly what she thought of a man who
deserted a good wife and four fine children for the sake of flattering
attentions from other ladies. And crestfallen Charles promised to mend
his ways.