DOROTHY
BY
EVELYN RAYMOND
NEW YORK
HURST & CO., INC.
PUBLISHERS
THE DOROTHY BOOKS
By EVELYN RAYMOND
These stories of an American girl by an American author have made
"Dorothy" a household synonym for all that is fascinating. Truth and
realism are stamped on every page. The interest never flags, and is
ofttimes intense. No more happy choice can be made for gift books, so
sure are they to win approval and please not only the young in years,
but also "grown-ups" who are young in heart and spirit.
=Dorothy=
=Dorothy at Skyrie=
=Dorothy's Schooling=
=Dorothy's Travels=
=Dorothy's House Party=
=Dorothy in California=
=Dorothy on a Ranch=
=Dorothy's House Boat=
=Dorothy at Oak Knowe=
=Dorothy's Triumph=
=Dorothy's Tour=
COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY
THE PLATT & PECK CO.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HOW DOROTHY CAME 1
II. A POSTAL SUBSTITUTE 15
III. AT JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL 33
IV. DOROTHY GAINS IN WISDOM 50
V. DOROTHY ENTERTAINS 68
VI. DOROTHY GOES UPON AN ERRAND 88
VII. AN OFFICE SEEKER AND A CLIENT 103
VIII. TENANTS FOR NO. 77 123
IX. STRANGE EXPERIENCES 141
X. THE FLITTING 157
XI. JIM BARLOW 171
XII. DOROTHY'S ILLNESS 188
XIII. THE PLUMBER AND HIS GOSSIP 202
XIV. THE BITER BIT 219
XV. THE FLIGHT IN THE NIGHT 238
XVI. A GOOD SAMARITAN 257
XVII. A SUNDAY DRIVE 278
XVIII. CONCLUSION 291
DOROTHY
CHAPTER I
HOW DOROTHY CAME
One spring morning Mrs. John Chester opened the front door of her little
brick house and screamed. There, upon the marble step, stood a wicker
baby-wagon with a baby in it; and, having received this peculiar
greeting, the baby screamed, too. Then it laughed, Mrs. Chester laughed,
and, hearing both the screams and the laughter, postman John Chester
hurriedly set down his cup of coffee and ran to the doorway. In another
instant he, also, was laughing. What childless, child-loving man could
help doing so, beholding the pretty sight before him?
For Martha, his wife, had caught the little creature out of the wagon
and was ecstatically hugging it, cooing to it, mothering it, as
naturally as if this little one she was tossing up and down were not
almost the first child she had ever so fondled.
"John! John! O John! _It's meant!_ It's for us! See, see? The little
card on its coat says: 'My name is Dorothy C. I have come to be your
daughter.' Our daughter, John Chester! Oh! what a blessed gift!
Who--who--can have sent her?"
Then John Chester stopped laughing and, laying his hand on his wife's
shoulder with a protesting pressure, said:
"There, little woman, don't go building hopes on such a thing as this.
Doubtless, some of the neighbors have left the little one here for a
joke. If the good Lord has sent us no babies of our own it's not likely
He'd put it into the hearts of others to give us theirs. It'll be called
for before I get in from my rounds. Well, good-bye. Wish I could stay
and play with the kid, but I'm late already. Good-bye."
As he stooped to kiss her, after his accustomed fashion, his cap touched
the baby's cheek, pressed so close to Martha's, and with a frown and a
twist Miss Dorothy C. put up her tiny hand and knocked it from his head.
Then she wrinkled her funny little nose, laughed again, and from that
instant the letter-carrier became her abject slave.
As he sped down the street, to take a car for the post-office and the
morning mail he must deliver, he saw old Mrs. Cecil's carriage drive
slowly around the corner. She was not "Mrs. Cecil" exactly, for there
was more of her name upon her visiting cards: "Mrs. Cecil Somerset
Calvert," and she was one of the proudest of old Maryland dames. But she
was called by the shorter title by all sorts and conditions of people.
She was on John Chester's route and quite often addressed him as
"Johnnie," though Mrs. Martha resented this as being too familiar. In
her own eyes John was the wisest and best man in the world, far too good
to be called "Johnnie" like any schoolboy. The postman himself did not
resent it. He resented very little that befell and simply trotted
through life as he did over his mail-route, with a cheery word and smile
for everybody. Therefore, it was quite characteristic that he should
good-naturedly obey Mrs. Cecil's summons to come to her carriage, that
she had ordered stopped, even though he was just boarding a car and had
no time to waste.
"Johnnie, what was that I saw in your wife's arms, as I drove by?" she
demanded as he came up.
"A baby. The cutest ever was. Somebody's playing a joke on us, leaving
it on our steps."
"I shouldn't like that kind of a joke. Whose is it?"
"I don't know. I'll tell you more when I get round with the mail. Beg
pardon, please, there comes another car," he replied, still smiling,
although he was edging away as fast as he dared, without giving offense
to this quick-tempered old lady.
"Shall you be fool enough to take the youngster in, if nobody calls for
it? What salary do you get?" she continued, ignoring his evident
reluctance to be further delayed.
He answered hastily, raised his cap, and managed to catch the next car,
springing up on the rear platform while it was already in motion and
reckoning that he would have to run, instead of trot, if he made up time
and got his morning letters to those who expected them along with their
breakfast.
As he disappeared Mrs. Cecil nodded her handsome white head a number of
times, in satisfaction over something, and remarked to her poodle:
"Made no mistake. He's a straight man. Well, well, well! The idea of
anybody being simpleton enough to be glad of the care of a squalling
baby!"
Then she drove home to her own fine house, which stood at the junction
of the broad avenue and the narrow street. As old Ephraim turned his
horses into the spacious grounds a thrill of pride ran through his
mistress's heart, while she shouted to her half-deaf coachman:
"Bellevieu never looked finer that it does this spring, boy."
To which the gray-headed "boy" echoed:
"Fine this spring, Miss Betty."
"Had another offer for the place yesterday, Ephraim."
"Dat so, Miss Betty? Grandes' place in Baltimo'," responded the other,
who had heard but little of what she had said, but guessed sufficiently
near to answer sympathetically. Indeed, he was fully as proud of the
ancient estate as its present owner, and of the fact that, while he
dwelt in the very heart of the southern city, his stables and
appointments were quite as roomy as if an open country lay all about
them. His "Miss Betty" and he were the last of the "family"; he
considered Bellevieu as much his as hers; and, from his throne upon the
antiquated Calvert carriage, looked with charitable contempt upon the
drivers of less aristocratic vehicles.
The march of progress had left the mansion and its beautiful grounds
untouched. Entrenched behind her pride and her comfortable bank account,
Mrs. Betty Cecil Somerset-Calvert had withstood every assault upon the
old place, whether made by private individual or, as yesterday, by the
city authorities, who wished to turn Bellevieu into a park. She had
replied to the committee that waited upon her:
"No, gentlemen, thank you. This house was one of the first built in the
town, though it was then what you call nowadays a 'suburban residence.'
Each generation has received it intact from the preceding one, and
intact it will descend to my heirs. What they will do with it remains to
be seen. I have the honor to wish you good-bye," she concluded, with her
grandest manner, yet the familiar local salutation of parting.
The committee felt itself dismissed and bowed itself out; and the old
lady summoned her house-girl to open all the windows and ventilate the
rooms contaminated by commercial presence. Then she consoled herself and
the poodle with the reflection:
"We shall be free from any more 'offers' for at least two weeks. Let us
enjoy our freedom."
Yet Mrs. Cecil's pride did not prevent her taking the liveliest interest
in her neighbors and their gossip. Having been born and passed all her
life at Bellevieu she knew everything which went on anywhere near it.
Ensconced upon her broad piazzas, behind the venerable oaks and
evergreens which shaded them, her bright old eyes watched the outer
world with the zest as of youth and utter loneliness. For alone she
dwelt in the many-roomed house, that had once been filled by her now
vanished "family," and sometimes found her solitude unbearable. Even
postman "Johnnie's" thrice-daily visits were a most welcome diversion to
her, and lest there should be no mail sufficient to bring him so often
to her door, she subscribed for all sorts of publications that she
seldom opened, in order to have something due at every delivery.
This morning she was so anxious to see him again that she had her
breakfast served on the piazza, sitting down to wait for it as Ephraim
drove away toward the stable. It was brought to her by Dinah, grumbling
as usual:
"Laws, Miss Betty, you-all shuah do try a body's tempah. It am puffickly
ridic'lous de way yo' ca'y on. Off drivin' from pillah to post 'fore
breakfast done served, an' you-all not so young an' spry like yo' used
to was. Yeah am dem scrambled aigs done gone hard an' tough, like a
nigger's skin, an' fust off Ah knows Ah'll have yo' laid up wid dat same
old misery in yo' chist. Why-all cayn't yo' eat yo' breakfast in de
house, propah, like a Christian, Miss Betty?"
"Because I don't wish to, Dinah," retorted Mrs. Cecil, exactly as a
spoiled child might have done.
"You-all know how old yo' be, Miss Betty?" demanded the ancient negress,
who had been body-servant to her mistress from the earliest youth of
both and who was still indulged beyond limit in her freedom of speech
and action.
"Yes, Dinah. I am just one year and a day younger than you are. Go tell
cook to scramble me some more eggs; and if I prefer driving before to
after breakfast, that doesn't concern you, girl."
"Beg pahdon, Miss Betty, but it do concern. Didn't Ah done go promise
yo' dyin' ma how't Ah't take ca' of you-all what'd nevah no sense to
take ca' yo'self? Huh! Yo' put dat shawl closeter 'roun' dem purty
shouldahs o' yo's, whilst I go shame dat cook for sendin' up such
no-'count aigs to my young miss!" And away limped Dinah, the "misery"
in her own limbs from her "roomaticals" being very severe.
Meanwhile, in the little house around the corner, Mrs. John Chester was
superintending another breakfast which had the delightful zest of
novelty about it. No sooner had Dorothy C. been taken within doors than
she espied the table which John-postman had so hastily quitted upon
sound of her own laughter and, at once, began to kick and squirm in the
house mistress's arms with such vigor that the good lady came near to
dropping her, and exclaimed, in mingled fear and pride:
"Why, you strong little thing! You're as hard to hold as--as a human
eel! There, there, don't! You've slipped down so far all your clothes
are over your head. Are you hungry? Well, well! You shall have all you
want to eat, for once!"
Then she placed the child on the floor while she filled a tumbler with
milk and offered it; but this was met by disdain and such another swift
toss of the baby arm that the glass flew out of the holder's hand, and
its contents deluged the floor.
Whereupon, Miss Dorothy C. threw herself backward with shrieks which
might mean anger or delight, but were equally confusing to the
order-loving Mrs. Chester, who cried, in reproof:
"Oh! you naughty baby! Whoever you belong to should teach you better
than that! Now, just see. All my nice clean matting splashed with milk,
and milk-grease is hard to get out. Now you lie there till I get a pail
and cloth--if you hurt yourself I can't help it. John said you were a
joke, but you're no joke to me!"
Having just finished her spring cleaning and having had, for economy's
sake, to do it all herself, the housewife's tidy soul was doubly tried,
and she had a momentary desire to put the baby and her wagon out upon
the street again, to take its chances with somebody else. However, when
she re-entered with her pail and cloths, she was instantly diverted by
the sight that met her.
Dorothy C. had managed to pull her coat over her head and in some
unknown fashion twist the strings of her bonnet around her throat, in an
effort to remove the objectionable headgear. The result was disaster.
The more she pulled the tighter grew that band around her neck and her
face was already blue from choking when Mrs. Chester uncovered it and
rescued the child from strangling.
As the lady afterward described the affair to her husband it appeared
that:
"Seeing that, and her so nigh death, as it were, gave me the terriblest
turn! So that, all unknown, down sits I in that puddle of milk as
careless as the little one herself. And I cuddled her up that close, as
if I'd comforted lots of babies before, and me a green hand at the
business. To see her sweet little lip go quiver-quiver, and her big
brown eyes fill with tears--Bless you, John! I was crying myself in the
jerk of a lamb's tail! Then I got up, slipped off my wet skirt and got
her out of her outside things, and there pinned to her dress was this
note. Read it out again, please, it so sort of puzzles me."
So the postman read all that they were to learn, for many and many a
day, concerning the baby which had come to their home; and this is a
copy of that ill-spelled, rudely scrawled document:
"thee child Is wun Yere an too Munths old hur burthDay is aPrill
Furst. til firthur notis Thar will Bee a letur in The posOfis the
furst of Everi mounth with Ten doLurs. to Pay." Signed:
"dorothy's Gardeen
hur X mark."
Now John Chester had been a postman for several years and he had learned
to decipher all sorts of handwriting. Instantly, he recognized that this
scrawl was in a disguised hand, wholly different from that upon the card
pinned to the child's coat, and that the spelling was also incorrect
from a set purpose. Laying the two bits of writing together he carefully
studied them, and after a few moments' scrutiny declared:
"The same person wrote both these papers. The first one in a natural,
cultivated hand, and a woman's. The second in a would-be-ignorant one,
to divert suspicion. But--the writer didn't think it out far enough;
else she never would have given the same odd shape to her r's and that
twist to the tails of her y's. It's somebody that knows us, too,
likely, though I can't for the life of me guess who. What shall we do
about her? Send her to an Orphanage, ourselves? Or turn her over to the
police to care for, Martha dear?"
His face was so grave that, for a moment, she believed him to be in
earnest; then that sunny smile which was never long absent from his
features broke over them and in that she read the answer to her own
desire. To whomsoever Dorothy C. belonged, that heartless person had
passed the innocent baby on to them and they might safely keep her for
their own.
Only, knowing the extreme tidiness of his energetic wife, John finally
cautioned:
"Don't settle it too hastily, Martha. By the snap of her brown eyes and
the toss of her yellow head, I foresee there'll be a deal more spilled
milk before we've done with her!"
"I don't care!" recklessly answered the housewife, "_she's mine_!"