CAROLYN MAY IS PUZZLED
The closing day of Carolyn May's school was so close at hand that she
could not get to see the pale lady again. There was, too, something
about the Bassetts, whom the little girl knew as "the Lairds," that
made further association with them quite impossible as far as Carolyn
was concerned.
She could not at all understand it. She heard more of the discussion
between her father and mother about the "Lairds" than her parents
dreamed. And she was vastly puzzled thereby.
Carolyn learned that Mr. Bassett, or Mr. Laird, or whatever his real
name was, had done something very wrong indeed. Papa Cameron considered
him unworthy of any help or consideration whatsoever. Nor could Mamma
Cameron, after hearing the report of his interview with the Griffin,
disagree with her husband on this point.
Be that as it may, the little girl could not understand why the pale
lady and the poor little baby should be made to suffer for Mr. Laird's
wrongdoing. Mrs. Laird was in a very bad way and her baby was panting
his life out in those close, hot rooms.
Hannah Cameron had even suggested that evening after Carolyn's friend
had suffered such a serious turn, that the little family be allowed to
occupy the Cameron apartment while she and Carolyn were away in the
country and at the seashore. But after Papa Cameron had interviewed the
father of Joe Bassett, nothing more was said about that.
"I have offered Joseph Laird Bassett the loan of a hundred dollars, if
he will take it, to get his wife and child out of that place and to
send them out of town. That, I think, Hannah, should end our interest
in their affairs. Like enough I shall never see the hundred again. If
he had ten thousand dollars, come by either honestly or dishonestly,
and wasted it gambling in stocks, he is not much to be pitied."
"Oh, the poor baby!" murmured Carolyn's mother.
"I know. But there are thousands of other babies in this city quite as
deserving of pity. And to help a wastrel like Joe, and that woman who
is evidently the cause of his downfall, seems to me to be positively
wrong. Such a fellow as he, is not to be trusted in any particular. I
shall watch him very closely as long as he remains with the _Beacon_.
And unless he shows more promise than he has so far, he won't last
long."
"The poor woman!" murmured his wife.
"As for _that_," said Papa Cameron, "taking all Henry Bassett says
about her with more than a grain of salt, it was her influence that
caused Joe Bassett's downfall. And--well, it makes me wonder now what
ever became of that twenty-dollar note I gave him for the broken
go-cart. We don't know that it was returned to the man who gave it to
Carolyn. Not at all! Of course, it was his wife's to do with as she
pleased. But--but--Well! I am sorry Snuggy ever got acquainted with
her."
"It is what I have always said," declared Hannah Cameron. "Letting her
go about so much alone, with only Prince, as we do, and picking up
acquaintances just as she sees fit, is all wrong."
"Oh, now, Mamma!" exclaimed Mr. Cameron. "Snuggy doesn't often pick 'em
wrong."
This all puzzled Carolyn May very much. The poor little baby! And the
pale lady whom she had last seen so weak and wan! Why should they be
made to suffer if Mr. Laird had been naughty? Why, it was just as
though Prince should be punished because _she_ did wrong!
Faithful as Carolyn May was in her friendships, she could not give her
thoughts entirely to the pale lady and her troubles just at this time.
Carolyn and her particular friend, Edna Price, who lived across the
hall from the Camerons, were having dresses made for graduation day,
just alike. Their mothers had used the same pattern in cutting out the
frocks, the material was the same, the trimming was the same, and the
only difference was in the hue of the broad sashes the little girls
wore--Edna's being cherry-red and Carolyn's blue.
"If we aren't twins," Carolyn observed, "our dresses are. So of course
they must have different coloured ribbons so as to tell 'em apart."
Carolyn May stood well in her classes. She was, indeed, a prize
scholar, and even Johnny O'Harrity had to admit her high standing.
"For Johnny, you know," whispered Carolyn to her mother, as they came
home from the school exercises, "didn't get a prize at all. He only got
horrible mention!"
The very next day Carolyn and her mother and Prince started for the
country. The apartment was made dark for the summer, with covers on the
furniture, and each picture in its own particular fly net.
It seemed too bad that the comparatively cool rooms would be almost
disused while the pale lady and her baby must suffer so in their hot
little apartment. For Carolyn had learned that "Mr. Laird" had refused
the loan of the hundred dollars her papa had offered him.
"I don't know why," Mr. Cameron told Carolyn's mother. "He certainly
can't hope to get more out of me by holding off. I don't understand
the fellow. He seems as proud as Lucifer; yet he certainly cannot be
trusted, according to his own father's story. And the Griffin must know
what he is talking about."
Mr. Cameron was only to sleep in their apartment, taking all his
meals out of the house. Later, when Carolyn and her mother would be
established at the island summer resort where a reservation had been
made for them at a hotel, Mr. Cameron would sometimes spend Saturday
and part of Sunday with them.
This going away for the long vacation was a gay adventure indeed for
Carolyn May. She began to meet people she knew almost as soon as they
started. There was the nice man in the baggage car who had taken Prince
under his special protection when first the little girl and her dog
entrained for Sunrise Cove and the Corners. That time Carolyn had to
ride in the baggage coach a part of the way herself, to keep Prince
quiet.
But the dog was an old traveller now, and he settled down quite
resignedly in the car when Carolyn and her father went back to the
coach where Mrs. Cameron and the little girl were established for the
long ride.
Papa Cameron kissed them and bade them a cheerful good-bye. He expected
to see them at Block Island in a fortnight. The long train, filled
with vacationists for the most part, pulled out of the Grand Central
Terminal. On the platform of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street
station stood Edna Price and her mother and lame Johnny O'Harrity who
had insisted on coming to bid Carolyn May good-bye.
"And it's a wonder that red-haired Sade Gompretz isn't here, too,"
sniffed Carolyn. "I know she _would_ be if she had known about it."
But she waved gaily to her friends as the train quickly started again.
They were really off now. The conductor came through to punch their
tickets, and who should he prove to be but the same conductor who had
been so very kind to Carolyn on a previous occasion when the little
girl had run away from Sunrise Cove, all alone and so very, very
miserable.
All such troubles were ancient history now to Carolyn May. She had,
indeed, almost forgotten about that adventure. But she had not
forgotten any of her friends, however, and late in the afternoon,
when they arrived at the Sunrise Cove station the little girl was all
eagerness to get out and hail those whom she knew so well.
Of course, first of all there was Uncle Joe Stagg, looking wonderfully
young and prosperous, ready to hand them into Tim the hackman's turnout
for the drive to the Corners.
"You're looking well, Hannah," said Uncle Joe. "And if Car'lyn looked
any better we should have to take her to the doctor at once."
"Pitcher of George Washington!" gasped the hack driver, "how that
young 'un has growed! And here's Prince that tackled that consarned
wood-pussy that time. Lively as one of his own fleas, ain't he? Wal,
Hannah Stagg, I admire to see ye. This here model of yourn is better
knowed in Sunrise Cove and at the Corners than ever you was when you
was a gal."
"Yes, Uncle Tim. I fancy Carolyn is more popular up here than I ever
was. But, then, Carolyn May is popular everywhere."
The little girl did not notice this. She rode with half of her body out
of the carriage window, waving her hand and calling greetings to people
whom she knew along the main street.
And when they came to Uncle Joe's hardware store there was Chet
Gormley, one huge and complete smile, standing on the porch beside the
agricultural tools and rolls of poultry netting, and looking, as Uncle
Joe said, almost as fat as a rake handle. He wore a starched white suit
and a flowing red tie and shoes that were very yellow. It was evident
that Chet had dressed for the occasion.
"Oh, Chet," cried Carolyn May, "how nice you look! And you've
gro-o-own--"
"Up and down ways--ye-as," agreed the gangling youth. "They don't make
overalls no longer than I be now. Maw's got to buy bed tickin' and make
'em for me herself if I grow any more."
While Mr. Stagg was in the store for a moment and Hannah Cameron was
speaking with somebody she knew through the other window of Tim's hack,
Chet drew near to Carolyn May and confided to her:
"You see how your uncle trusts things to me now, don't you? Sometimes
I'm here all day by myself. Why, if I didn't know my job as well as
I do, folks might think Mr. Joseph Stagg was neglectin' his business
since he got married."
"Oh, I am sure you are perfectly able to tend the store, Chet," said
the little girl admiringly.
"Of course. I'm ready any time Mr. Stagg wants to change the sign to
'Stagg and Gormley' to do my full share," declared the lanky youth,
nodding his head seriously.
If Chet really was of as much importance as he thought he was to the
hardware dealer, the latter could not have done business when the youth
was not in the store. Nevertheless, Chet was to be commended for his
faithfulness and for the interest he took in his employer's affairs.
It was very surprising to see Joseph Stagg leave the store a full two
hours before supper time and ride home with his sister and Carolyn, as
though such neglect of business was quite a matter of course.
Carolyn was kept busy nodding to people on the way, or calling out
greetings to them. Mrs. Maine, the dressmaker, peered near-sightedly
through her blinds as they drove by, and Carolyn could imagine the
woman biting off her threads and her words together, as she commented
on the arrival of the little girl and her mother.
A few steps beyond the dressmaker's was Jedidiah Parlow's carpenter
shop. And here Tim, the hackman, positively had to stop, for the
carpenter was Mrs. Amanda Stagg's father and one of Carolyn's very
closest friends.
"I declare, Hannah!" Mr. Parlow said, warmly shaking the hand of the
woman he had known as a girl, "you'd be a sight for sore eyes in any
case. But you air twice welcome, comin' as you do with Car'lyn. Car'lyn
May jest about owns us, up along this road, and no two ways about it!"
Carolyn kissed his wrinkled cheek warmly. "I hope you've got lots of
nice long, curly shavings for me and Prince, Mr. Parlow," said the
little girl. "I'm going to bring Freda Payne, too, and we'll play in
your shavings--if you please."
"You shall have 'em," replied the old carpenter, his eyes twinkling.
"If there ain't enough I'll shave up a hull spruce board for ye."
As Tim, the hackman, drove on Mrs. Cameron mentioned to her brother the
change she observed in Mr. Jedidiah Parlow.
"And it's no 'leventh hour conversion, Hannah, that your Car'lyn
brought about in his case--believe me!" said Mr. Stagg energetically.
"He's a vigorous old man yet. He's taken in a worthy woman and her son
to do for him, and keeps on about his work just as he used when Mandy
was with him. Only a sight more pleasant and neighbourly. Mandy says
her father's taken a new lease on life."
Prince was growing more restive as they approached the little hamlet
of the Corners. He was out and in the hack half a dozen times, and
finally, when Hiram Lardner's blacksmith shop and the store and the
church and parsonage came into view, the dog ran barking ahead,
displaying the fact that he recognized the locality.
When Tim's hack stopped before the Stagg homestead they heard a great
commotion among the poultry in the rear--the cackling of hens, quacking
of ducks, the honking of the big gander, the squawking of guinea fowl,
and over all the "Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!" of General Bolivar, the
White Holland turkey.
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Carolyn May, flashing out of the carriage.
"That bad, _bad_ Prince has run to talk to the hens and all, and he
ought to _know_ by this time that they don't like him. And old Bolivar
will chase him and maybe get spanked again, if Aunty Rose hears it."
She started around the house on the run to quell the panic among the
feathered denizens of the rear premises, and to scold Prince. Aunty
Rose did not appear and the little girl thought she must be at her own
little house around the corner from the Stagg homestead. And where
was Aunt Mandy? There was nobody on the back porch to welcome their
arrival!
She heard Uncle Joe and her mother coming around from the front of the
house. The main door of the Stagg homestead was seldom opened, except
when the minister came to call. Carolyn bounded upon the porch, with
Prince crazily barking beside her. And then with her hand upon the
latch she halted, transfixed by a sound from within the kitchen.
"Down, Prince! Be still!" Carolyn May murmured, with a gesture to
silence the dog. She clutched the latch almost as though to keep
herself from falling, and her ear remained close to the panel.
She heard it again--a thin, wailing sound that signalled unmistakably
the discomfort of an infant. Then came the tap, tap, tapping of a
soft-shod foot upon the kitchen floor and the crooning voice of Aunty
Rose.
Carolyn burst open the door. Round-eyed and quite speechless for the
moment, she peered in at the picture there displayed.
The old woman, in her very plain, quakerish garb, sat in a low chair by
the dresser, with a squirming bundle which she was jogging on her knee.
At her elbow was a cup and spoon, and the smell of anise was strong in
the room.
"A baby!" gasped Carolyn May. "Oh, Aunty Rose Kennedy! where _did_ you
find a baby?"
Aunty Rose smiled kindly above the infant's puckered little face.
"Come here, Car'lyn May," she said, "and look at your little cousin.
Her name is Car'lyn, too."