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WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
BOOKS ABOUT CHILDREN
BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
THE MADNESS OF PHILIP
MEMOIRS OF A BABY
BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
THE IMP AND THE ANGEL
SISTER'S VOCATION
TEN TO SEVENTEEN
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
· SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
· MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
WHILE CAROLINE
WAS GROWING
BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
* * * * *
_All rights reserved_
Copyright, 1906, by P. F. Collier & Son
Copyright, 1907, by the S. S. McClure Co.
Copyright, 1909, by the S. S. McClure Co., Benjamin B. Hampton,
P. F. Collier & Son, and by the Phelps Publishing Company
* * * * *
Copyright, 1911, by The Macmillan Company
* * * * *
Set up and Electrotyped. Published March, 1911
Norwood Press:
Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To S. B.
long Caroline's admirer,
from J. D. B.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 1
II. A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 38
III. THE PRIZE 77
IV. WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN 113
V. A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 158
VI. HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 202
VII. THE PRETENDERS 235
VIII. A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 269
IX. THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 297
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portière
and disappeared. 66
"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a vordt!
Mein Gott! but it is marvellous." 74
"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly. 118
Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched
abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain. 274
Across the court was a lighted room with a long French
window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high,
carved chair a very old woman. 282
Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a
heavy arbor vitæ, flat on her stomach. 299
WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
* * * * *
I
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD
Caroline rocked herself back and forth from her waist, defying the
uncompromisingly straight chair which inclosed her portly little
person.
"Bounded 'n th' _north_ by _Mass'joosetts_; bounded 'n th' _north_
by _Mass'joosetts_; bounded 'n th' _north_ by _Mass'joosetts_," she
intoned in a monotonous chant. But her eyes were not upon the map;
like those of the gentleman in the poem, they were with her heart,
and that was far away.
Out of the window the spring was coming on, in waves of tree-bloom
and bright grass; the birds bickered sweetly in the sun-patches;
everything was reaching on tiptoe for the delicious thrill of
May--and she was bounding Connecticut! It was idiotic. What was a
knowledge of the uninteresting limits of her native State compared
to that soft fresh wind on her cheek, that indescribable odor of
brown earth?
Two fat birds descended with a twitter into a crystal rain-pool, and
bathed, with splashes of spray; Caroline's feet itched in her ribbed
stockings. A soiled and freckled boy, bare from the knees, whistled
by the window, jangling a can of bait, his pole balanced prettily on
one ragged shoulder. As he reached the puddle, a pure inconsequence
of good feeling seized him, and he splashed deliberately in it,
grinning around him. Caroline mechanically bent and unbuttoned the
top button of her stout boots. He caught her eye.
"Where you going?" she called through the glass.
"Oh, I d'no--anywheres, I guess!" he answered invitingly. "Want
to come?"
"I can't. I have to go to school," she said shortly.
"And so ought he--you ought to be ashamed of yourself, calling
through the window to that Simms boy!" cried a disgusted voice.
Caroline twitched her shoulder spitefully.
"A great girl like you, too! Why, he's no better than a common
tramp, that boy," proceeded the voice. "Look at his clothes!"
"Nobody wears good clothes to go fishing," Caroline grumbled. "I
wish he had mine!"
"Fishing! He never wears them anywhere. He hasn't got them to wear.
And he'd be glad enough to get yours, I can tell you."
"He wouldn't do any such thing! He told me Saturday he'd rather be a
dog than a girl; he'd get more use of his legs!"
There was a scandalized silence. Caroline waited grimly.
"What are you doing?" said the voice at last. "Studying my
jography," she replied.
"Well, mind you do, then."
"I can't, if everybody talks to me all the time," she muttered
sullenly.
Nevertheless she resumed her rocking and crooning.
"Bounded 'n th' _east_ by Rho _Disland_; bounded 'n th' _east_ by
Rho _Disland_; bounded 'n th' _east_ by _Rho Disland_."
The housemaid appeared just under the window, dragging a small
step-ladder and a pail of glistening, soapy water. Her head was
coifed in a fresh starched towel, giving her the appearance of a
holy sister of some clean blue-and-white order; her eyes were large
and mournful. She appealed instantly to Caroline's imagination.
"Oh, Katy, what a lovely Mother Superior you would make!" she cried
enthusiastically.
"I'm a Presbyterian, Miss Car'line," said Katy reprovingly. "You'd
better go on with your lessons," and she threw up the window from
the outside.
A great puff of spring air burst into the room and turned it into a
garden. Moist turf and sprouting leaves, wet flagstones and blowing
fruit-blossoms, the heady brew of early morning in the early year
assailed Caroline's quivering nostrils and intoxicated her soul.
"Oh, Katy, don't it smell grand!" she cried.
Katy wrung the soapy cloth and attacked the upper sash.
"You've got the nose of a bloodhound," she observed. "I b'lieve
you'd smell molasses cookies half a mile."
Caroline sighed.
"I didn't mean them," she said. "I meant----"
"You'd better be at your lesson; your aunty'll be here in a minute
if she hears you talking, now!"
Katy was severe, but fundamentally friendly. Caroline groaned and
applied herself.
"Bounded 'n th' _south_ by Long Island _Sound_; bounded 'n th'
_south_ by Long Island _Sound_; bounded 'n th' _south_--oh, look!"
Up the neat flagged path of the side yard a spotted fox-terrier
approached, delicately erect upon his hind legs, his mouth spread in
cheerful smiles, his ears cocked becomingly. He paused, he waved a
salute, and as a shrill whistle from behind struck up a popular
tune, he waltzed accurately up to the side porch and back, retaining
to the last note his pleased if painstaking smile.
Caroline gasped delightedly; Katy's severity relaxed.
"That's a mighty cute little dog," she admitted.
Another shrill whistle, and the dog returned, limping on three legs,
his ears drooping, his stumpy tail dejected. He paused in the middle
of the walk, and at a sharp clap, as of two hands, he dropped limply
on his side, rolled to his back, and stiffened there pathetically,
his eyes closed.
Caroline's chin quivered; Katy's position on the ladder was frankly
that of one who has paid for an orchestra-chair; Maggie had left the
cookies and stood grinning in the kitchen door; an aunt appeared in
an upper window.
One more clap, and the actor returned to life and left them, but
only for a moment. He was back again, erect and smiling, a small
wicker basket balanced on his paws. Marching sedately up to Maggie,
he paused, and glanced politely down at the basket, then up at her.
Flesh and blood could not resist him. Hastily tugging out from her
petticoat a bulging pocket-book, she deposited a dime in the basket;
the aunt, with extraordinary accuracy, dropped a five-cent piece
from the window; Katy mourned her distance from her own financial
center, and Caroline ran for her bank. It was a practical
mechanism, the top falling off at her onslaught with the ease of
frequent exercise, and she returned in time to slip six pennies
under the two hot cookies that Maggie had added to her first
contribution. At each tribute the terrier barked twice politely, and
only when there was no more to be hoped for did he trot off around
the corner of the house, the cookies swaying at a perilous angle
under his quivering nostrils.
A moment later a tall young man stepped across the grass and lifted
a worn polo-cap from a reddish-yellow head.
"Much obliged, all," he said, with an awkward little bow. "Good
day!"
He turned, whistled to the terrier, and was going on, when he caught
the heartfelt admiration of Caroline's glance.
"Want to pat him?" he inquired.
She nodded and approached them.
"Shake hands with the lady, William Thayer, and tell her how d'you
do," he commanded, as she knelt beside the wonderful creature.
The terrier offered a cool, tremulous paw, and barked with cheerful
interrogation as she shook it rapturously.
"Those were fine cookies," said the young man. "I had 'em for
breakfast. I'm going to buy a bone for William Thayer, and then
he'll have some, too."
"Was that _all_ you had?" she inquired, horror-stricken. He nodded.
"But I'll make it up on dinner," he added lightly.
Caroline sprang to her feet.
"You go over there behind that barn and wait a minute," she
commanded.
The young man--he was only a boy--blushed under his tan and bit
his lip.
"I didn't mean--I'll get along all right; you needn't bother," he
muttered, conscious of Katy's suspicious eye.
"Oh, do! Please do!" she entreated. "I'll be out there in just a
minute; hurry up, before Maggie gets through those cookies!"
He turned toward the barn, and Caroline ran back to the house.
"Is that man gone? What are you doing, Caroline?" called the
invisible voice.
"Yes, he's gone. I was patting the dog," she answered boldly,
stepping through the dining-room into the pantry and glancing
hastily about. Only a plate of rolls was in sight; the place was
ostentatiously clean and orderly. She sighed and pushed through the
swinging door; the refrigerator was a more delicate affair. But
Maggie's broad back was bent over her ovenful, and Caroline clicked
the door-knob unchallenged.
Two chops sat sociably on a large plate; a little mound of spinach
rested on one side of them, a huge baked potato on the other. She
slid the plate softly from the metal shelf, peeping apprehensively
at Maggie, tumbled the rolls on to the top, and sped into the
dining-room. From a drawer in the sideboard she abstracted a silver
fork which she slipped into her pocket, adding, after a moment of
consideration, a salt-shaker. Stepping to the door, she paused on
the little porch for a hasty survey. The coast seemed clear, and she
sped across the yard, the silver jingling in her pocket. She was
safe from the back, but a flank movement on Maggie's part would
have been most disastrous, and it was with full appreciation of the
audacity of her performance that she scudded around the barn and
gained the cherry-tree behind it.
The young man was sitting on the grass, his head against the tree;
his eyes brightened as she approached.
"Have any luck?" he inquired.
She held out the plate, and, as he took it, fumbled in her pocket
for the fork.
"It's all cold," she murmured apologetically, "but I knew Maggie'd
never warm it. Do you mind?"
"Not a bit," he answered, with a whimsical glance at her eagerness
to serve him. "I always _did_ like greens," he added, as he accepted
the fork and attacked the spinach.
"Here, William Thayer!"
He handed one of the chops to the dog, and stared as Caroline drew
out the salt-cellar.
"Did you--well, by--that's pretty kind, now!"
"Potatoes are so nasty without it," she explained.
"Yes, that's why I don't us'ally eat 'em," he replied.
There was a moment's silence, while he ate with the frank morning
appetite of twenty, and Caroline watched him, her sympathetic jaws
moving with his, her eyes shining with hospitality.
"Nice place you've got here," he suggested, breaking a roll.
"Yes. I _wish_ I'd brought you some butter, but I didn't dare cut
any off; it was in a jar, and it clatters so. ("Oh, that's all
right!") This is nicer than it used to be out here. It _was_ the
chicken-yard, and ashes and things got put here; but nobody keeps
chickens any more, and this is all new grass. They took down the
back part of the barn, too, and painted it, and now it's the
stables, or you _can_ say carriage-house," she explained
instructively.
He threw his chop-bone to William Thayer and drew a long breath.
"That was pretty good," he said, "and I'm much obliged to you,
Miss." Caroline swelled with importance at the title. "I must have
walked four or five miles, and it's not such fun with an empty
stomach. I came from Deepdale."
"Oh, how lovely!" cried she. "By the pond?"
"Yes, by the pond. I gave William Thayer a swim, and I had a little
nap. It's nice and pretty all around there. I cut some sassafras
root; want some?"
He felt in his pockets, and produced a brown, aromatic stump;
Caroline sucked at it with a relish.
"Where are you going now?" she asked respectfully, patting William
Thayer's back while his master caressed his ear.
"Oh, I don't know exactly. There's some nice woods back of the town;
I think I'll look 'em through, and then go on to New Derby. I read
in the paper about some kind of a firemen's parade there to-morrow,
and if there's a lot of people, we'll earn something. We haven't
made much lately, because William Thayer hurt his leg, and I've been
sparing of him--haven't I, pup? But he's all right now."
He squeezed the dog's body and tickled him knowingly; the little
fellow grinned widely and barked. Caroline sighed.
"It must be grand," she said wistfully, "to walk from one town to
another, that way. Where do you sleep?"
"In barns, sometimes, and there's lots of covered wagons all around
the farm-houses, outside the towns, you know. A church shed's as
good a place as any. I don't like the towns as big as this, though;
I like the country this time o' year."
Caroline nodded comprehendingly, breathing deep breaths of the
fresh, earth-scented air.
"I wish there never were any houses in the world--nor any schools,
either!" she cried.
He smiled. "I never was much for schools, myself," he said. "They
don't smell good."
Caroline looked at him solemnly. She felt that the resolution of her
life was taken. In one ecstatic flash she beheld her future.
"I shall never go to school again," she announced. "I shall--" A
wave of joyous possibility broke over her, but modesty tied her
tongue.
"Could I--would you--I'm a real good walker!" she burst out, and
blushed furiously. Who was she to associate with a dog like William
Thayer?
The young man looked curiously at her. A kind of anxiety clouded his
frank gray eyes. "Oh, you mustn't talk like that," he urged, laying
one brown hand on her apron. "That wouldn't do for a young lady like
you. I guess you better go to school. Girls, you know!"
He waited a moment, but she scowled silently. He began again:
"I guess it's different with girls, anyway. You see, you have to get
your education. A young lady----"
"I'm not a young lady," snapped Caroline. "I'm only ten 'n' a
quarter!"
"Well, anyway, it isn't respectable," he argued hastily. Caroline
opened her eyes wide at him.
"Aren't _you_ respectable?" she demanded, appraising unconsciously
his clothes, which were, if not fine, at least clean and whole, his
flannel shirt finished with a neat blue tie, his shoes no dustier
than the country roads accounted for.
He flushed under his thick freckles, and plucked at the grass
nervously.
"N-n--yes, I _am_!" he shouted defiantly. "I know lots of people
don't think so, but I am! We earn our way, William Thayer an' me,
an' we don't want much. I don't see as we do any harm. It don't take
much to live, anyhow; it's coal-scuttles an' lookin'-glasses
an'--an' carpets that cost money. And if you don't want _them_--oh,
what's the use talking? I never could live all tied up."
"Caroline! Caroline!" A loud voice cut across her meditative
silence. She shrugged her shoulders stubbornly and put her finger on
her lip. The boy shook his head.
"You better go," he said soothingly. "You'll have to sometime, you
know. Here, take these," as she jumped up, forgetting the fork and
the salt-shaker. "Be sure to put 'em back where you got 'em, won't
you?"
"Oh, leave 'em here. I'll come back," she said carelessly, but the
boy insisted.
"No, you take 'em right now," he commanded. "I wouldn't want any
mistake made."
"Just wait a minute--I'll come back," she repeated, as the call
sounded again.
"Caroline! where are you?"
The boy stood up, holding out the silver. "You--you don't want 'em
to say I--I took 'em?" he blurted out.
Her eyes opened wide; she looked all the incredulous horror she
felt.
"Steal?" she cried, "with a dog like that?"
He nodded. "That's the way I look at it, but some don't," he said
shortly. "You better go now. Much obliged for the breakfast. If I
come back this way, maybe I'll stop in again, if you'd like to see
William Thayer."
"I think she went across behind the stable, Miss Carrie," Katy
called helpfully.
Caroline thrust the silver into her pocket and turned to go.
"I'm coming!" she cried desperately, and, patting William Thayer,
she took a few backward steps.
"There's a nice brook in those woods," she observed irrelevantly,
"if you should want to take another nap," and, turning her back
resolutely, she rounded the barn and disappeared.
The boy picked up the empty plate and slipped it into a door at the
back of the stable. Then, lifting the dog over the nearest fence, he
climbed it and stepped through the next yard into the street.
"That was a mighty nice little girl, William Thayer," he said
thoughtfully. "She seemed to understand a lot, for such a little
one."
Caroline stalked aggressively into the dining-room, and finding it
for the moment empty, hastily replaced the salt-shaker. The fork she
laid in the pantry. Hardly was her pocket clear of the telltale
stuff when her aunt appeared before her.
"I suppose you know you're late for school, Caroline," she began,
with evident self-control. "If you think I am going to write you an
excuse, you are very much mistaken."
"All right," Caroline returned laconically. "Is my lunch ready?"
"It was nothing in the world but that dog; I cannot understand the
fascination that tramps and loafers have for you! You never got it
from this family. Why do you like to talk to dirty tramps! Some day
a strange dog will bite you. Then you'll be sorry!"
"He wasn't a bit dirty. If you weren't so afraid of dogs, you'd know
William Thayer wouldn't bite!" she retorted indignantly. "I think I
might have three cookies--those are nasty little thin ones. And you
never put enough butter."
Caroline and her namesake-aunt were as oil and water in their social
intercourse.
"Now, that's another thing. I cannot see where you put all the food
you eat! You get more than the boys, a great deal. And boys are
supposed--not that any one grudges it to you, child, but really----"
"I'm getting later all the time," Caroline remarked impartially.
"You needn't cut the crusts off; I like 'em."
Her aunt sighed, and handed her the lunch-basket; a fringe of
red-and-white napkin dangled invitingly from the corner.
"Now run along; what are you going in there for?"
"My jography."
She stood for a moment looking out at the flagstone where William
Thayer had waltzed so seductively, then strolled slowly out, along
the porch and by the house. The lilies-of-the-valley were white in
the sidebeds; their odor, blown to her on quick puffs of west wind,
filled her with a sort of pleasant sadness, the mingled sorrow and
delight of each new spring. She bent her strong little legs and
squatted down among them, sniffing ecstatically. What was it she was
trying to remember? Had it ever happened? Years ago, when she was
very little----
"Caroline! are you trying purposely to be naughty! It is twenty
minutes past nine!"
She muttered impatiently, stamped her foot deliberately upon the
lilies, and ran out of the yard.
It will never be known what Caroline's definite intentions were on
that morning. It is not improbable that she meant to go to school.
She undoubtedly walked to the building devoted to the instruction
of her generation and began to mount the steps. What power weighted
her lagging feet and finally dragged her to a sitting position on
the top step, she could not have told; but certain it is that for
ten minutes she sat upon the text-book of geography, thoughtfully
interposed between her person and the cold stone, her chin in her
hand, her eyes fixed and vague. Behind her a chorus of voices arose
in the melody that accompanied a peculiarly tedious system of
gymnastics; she scowled unconsciously. Before her, clear to the
inward vision, lay a pleasant little pond, set in a ring of new
grass. Clear lay the pebbles and roots at the bottom; clear was the
reflection of the feathering trees about it; clear shone the eyes of
William Thayer as he joyously swam for sticks across it. Great
patches of sun warmed the grass and cheered the hearts of two happy
wanderers, who fortified themselves from a lunch-basket padded with
a red-fringed napkin. Happy yellow dandelions were spotted about,
and the birds chirped unceasingly; the wind puffed the whole spring
into their eager nostrils. Truly a pleasant picture! As in a dream,
Caroline walked softly down the steps and toward the north.
For ten minutes she kept steadily on, looking neither to the right
nor to the left, when the rattle of a particularly noisy wagon
attracted her attention. She caught the eye of the driver; it was
the egg-and-chicken man. He nodded cheerfully.
"Hello, there!" said he.
"Hello!" Caroline returned. "You going home?"
"Sure," said the egg-and-chicken man. "Want a ride?"
Caroline wasted no breath in words, but clambered up to the seat
beside him.
"Startin' out early, ain't you?" he queried. "Goin' far up my way?"
"Pretty far," she answered cautiously, "but not so very."
"Oh!" said he, impressed by such diplomacy. "'Bout where, now?"
"Have you sold many eggs this morning?" she inquired with amiable
interest.
"Twenty-three dozen, an' seven pair o' broilers," he informed her.
"Goin' as far as my place?"
"I s'pose it's pretty cold as early as you get up," Caroline
suggested pleasantly.
The egg-and-chicken man surrendered. "Middling," he answered
respectfully, "but it smells so good and things looks so pretty, I
don't mind. I'm glad I don't live in the city. It's all pavin'-stone
an' smoke. This time o' year I like to feel the dirt under m' feet,
somehow."
"So do I," said Caroline fervently. They jogged on for a mile in
silence.
"I have to get out here," said he, finally, "but don't be scared.
That horse won't move a peg without me. I'll be back in a minute."
But when he returned she was not there.
The houses were thinning out rapidly; one side of the road was
already only a succession of fields, and along a tiny worn path
through one of these Caroline was hurrying nervously. She crossed
the widening brook, almost a little river now, and kept along its
farther bank for half an hour, then left it and struck into the
fringe of the woods.
It was very still here; the road was far away, and only the chatter
of the birds and the liquid cluck of the little stream disturbed the
stillness of the growing things. She walked softly, except for the
whisper of brushing against the spreading branches that choked the
tiny path. The heat of noon was rising to its climax, and the shafts
of light struck warm on her cheeks.
Suddenly a sound disturbed the peace of the woods--a scratching,
rattling, scurrying sound. Something was moving through the dead
leaves that had gathered among the roots and trunks. She started
back nervously, but jumped forward again with a cry of delight, and
caught William Thayer in her arms.
Even as he was licking her cheek, the path widened, the trees turned
into bushes, the underbrush melted away, and the brook, a little
river now, bent in upon them in a broad curve, spanned only by
stepping-stones. It ran full between its grassy banks, gurgling and
chuckling as it lapped the stones, a mirror for the fat white clouds
where it lay in still pools.
In the shelter of a boulder, a lad crouched over a fire, coaxing it
with bits of paper and handfuls of dry leaves. Just as the flames
shot up, the dog barked cheerily, and the lad turned to welcome him.
His eye fell on Caroline; amazement and real pleasure grew into a
delighted laugh.
"Well, if you don't beat the Dutch!" he cried. "How'd you get here?"
"I came in the wagon with the egg-and-chicken man," said she
happily, "and then I walked 'cross lots. William Thayer knew me just
as well!"
"'Course he did. He always knows his friends. Now, see here. You can
stay and watch this fire, an' I'll go over there a ways where those
men are buildin' a fence; I'll bet they'll give us something. You
look after the fire an' put on these old pieces of rail; it was hard
work gettin' dry stuff to-day. We won't be long."
They disappeared between the trees, and Caroline sat in proud
responsibility before the delightful little fire. The minutes
slipped by; from time to time she fed the blaze with bits of bent
twigs, and at the proper moment, with a thrill of anxiety, she laid
two pieces of the old fence-rail crosswise on the top. There was a
second of doubt, and then they broke into little sharp tongues of
flame. With a sigh of pleasure, she turned from this success, and,
opening the lunch-basket, laid the napkin on the ground and
methodically arranged four sandwiches, two cookies, and an orange on
it. Then, with her fat legs crossed before her, she waited in
silence. Between the sun at her back and the fire on her face, she
grew pleasantly drowsy; the sounds about her melted imperceptibly to
a soft, rhythmic drone; her head drooped forward....
"Hello, hello!"
She jumped and stared at the boy and the dog. For a moment she
forgot. Then she welcomed them heartily and listened proudly to his
admiring reception of her preparations.
"Well, William Thayer, will you look at that! How's this for a
surprise? And see what we've got." He balanced a tin pail carefully
between the two crossed sticks in the heart of the fire, and
unfolded from a newspaper two wedges of pumpkin-pie. In William
Thayer's little basket was a large piece of cheese.
"It's coffee 'n milk mixed together; they had bottles of it," he
explained. "William Thayer 'll take back the pail. Are you hungry?"
Caroline nodded.
"Awful," she stated briefly.
"Well, then," he said with satisfaction, "let's begin."
Caroline attacked a sandwich, with shining eyes, and when in another
minute the boy took from his pocket a tin ring that slipped
miraculously out of itself into a jointed cup, and dipped her a mug
of hot coffee from the bubbling pail, she realized with a pang of
joy that this was, beyond any question, the master moment of her
life.
"I take this along," he explained, "so's when I go by, and they're
milking, I can have some warm. Anybody'd give me all I want if
William Thayer dances and drops dead for 'em. It tastes good early
in the morning, I tell you."
She sighed with pleasure. To drink warm milk in the cool, early
dawn, with the cows about you, and the long, sweet day free before!
They sipped turn about; the boy divided the orange mathematically;
the pie was filled with fruit of the Hesperides.
"That was mighty good, that dinner," he announced luxuriously, "an'
now I'll have a pipe."
The pungent, fresh odor of the burning tobacco was sweet in the air;
a dreamy content held them quiet.
He did not ask her whence or whither; she had no apologies or
regrets. Two vagabonds from every law of home and duty, they were as
peaceful and unthoughtful of yesterday's bed and to-morrow's meal as
William Thayer, who slept in the sun at their feet.
For long they did not talk. An unspoken comprehension, an essential
comradeship, filled the deep spaces of silence that frighten and
irritate those whom only custom has associated; and Caroline, flat
on her filled stomach, her nose in the grass, was close in thought
and vague well-being to the boy who puffed blue rings toward the
little river, his head on his arms.
"I put the plate into that door in the barn," he said, finally.
"Did you put those silver things back?"
Caroline grunted assent.
"But they wouldn't think that you--what you said," she assured him
earnestly. "It's only tramps they're afraid of."
He glanced quickly over at her, but she was utterly innocent.
"One came to the kitchen once, and asked Mary for some hot tea or
coffee, and she hadn't any, but she said if he was very hungry she'd
give him a piece of bread and butter, and he said to go to hell with
her bread and butter. So she doesn't like them."
The boy gasped.
"You oughtn't to--had you--that isn't just right for you to say, is
it?" he asked awkwardly.
"What--hell?" Caroline inquired placidly. "No, I s'pose not. Nor
damn nor devil, either. But, of course, I know 'em. Those are the
only three I know. I guess they're about the worst, though," she
added with pardonable pride. "My cousin, the Captain, knows some
more. He's twelve 'n a half. But he won't tell 'em to me. He says
boys always know more than girls. I suppose," respectfully, "you
know more than those three, yourself?"
Her companion coughed.
"A boy--" he began, then paused, confronted with her round, trustful
eyes.
"A boy--" he started again, and again he paused.
"Oh, well, a boy's different," he blurted, finally.
Caroline nodded humbly.
"Yes, I know," she murmured.
There was silence for a while. The river slipped liquidly over the
stones, the white clouds raced along the blue above them, the boy
smoked. At length he burst out with:
"You're all right, now! You're just a regular little chum, aren't
you?"
She blushed with pleasure.
"I never had anybody along with me," he went on dreamily. "I always
go alone. I--I didn't know how nice it was. I _had_ a chum once, but
he--he--"
The boy's voice trembled. Caroline's face clouded with sympathy.
"Did he die?" she ventured.
"No," he said, shortly; "no, he didn't die. He's alive. He couldn't
stand my ways. I tried to stay in school and--and all that, but soon
as spring came I had to be off. So the last time, he told me we had
to part, him and me."
"What was his name?" she asked gently.
The boy jerked his head toward the dog.
"_That's_ his name," he said, "William Thayer." A little frown
gathered on Caroline's smooth forehead; she felt instinctively the
cloud on all this happy wandering. The spring had beckoned, and he
had followed, helpless at the call, but something--what and how
much?--tugged at his heart; its shadow dimmed the blue of the
April sky.
He shrugged his shoulders with a sigh; the smile came again into
his gray eyes and wrinkled his freckled face.
"Oh, well, let's be jolly," he cried, with a humorous wink. "The
winter's comin' soon enough!" and he burst into a song:
"There was a frog lived in a well,
Kitty alone, Kitty alone;
There was a frog lived in a well;
Kitty alone and I!"
His voice was a sweet, reedy tenor; the quaint old melody delighted
Caroline.
"This frog he would a-wooing ride,
Kitty alone, Kitty alone."
She began to catch the air, and nodded to the time with her chin.
"Cock me cary, Kitty alone,
Kitty alone and I!"
The boy lifted his polo-cap in a courtly manner, and began with
grimaces and bows to act out the song. His audience swayed
responsive to his every gesture, nodding and beaming.
"Quoth he, 'Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee'--
Kitty alone, Kitty alone;
Quoth he, 'Miss Mouse, I'm come to thee,
To see if thou canst fancy me.'
Cock me cary, Kitty alone,
Kitty alone and I!"
Caroline swung her hat by its ribbons and shrilled the refrain,
intoxicated with freedom and melody:
"Cock me cary, Kitty alone,
Kitty alone and I!"
She drummed with her heels on the ground, the boy waved his cap, and
William Thayer rolled over and over, barking loudly for the chorus.
Suddenly the boy jumped up, pulled her to her feet, and with
grotesque, skipping steps pirouetted around the dying fire. The dog
waltzed wildly on his hind legs; Caroline's short petticoats stood
straight out around her as she whirled and jumped, a Bacchante in a
frilled pinafore. The little glade rang to their shouting:
"Kitty alone and I!"
He darted suddenly through an opening in the bushes, William Thayer
close behind, Caroline panting and singing as she gave chase.
Through a field, across a little bridge they dashed. He flung the
empty coffee-pail at an astonished group of men, who stopped their
work, their fence-posts in hand, to stare at the mad trio.
Breathless at last, they flung themselves on a bank by the road and
smiled at each other. Caroline laughed aloud, even, in sheer,
irresponsible light-headedness, but over the boy's face a little
shadow grew.
"It won't seem so nice alone after this, will it, William Thayer?"
he said, slowly.
Caroline stared.
"But--but I'm coming! I'll be there," she cried. "I'm coming with
you!"
He went on as if he had not heard.
"Who'll there be to eat our dinner with us to-morrow, William
Thayer?" he questioned whimsically.
Caroline moved nearer and put her hand on his knee.
"There'll be--won't there be me?" she begged.
He shook his head.
"I guess not," he said bluntly.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"But--but you said I was a--a regular little chum," she whispered.
"Don't you like me?"
He was silent:
"Don't you? Oh, don't you?" she pleaded. "I don't _need_ much to
eat, really!"
The lad looked at her with a strange longing. The fatherhood that
lives in every boy thrilled at the touch of her fat little hand on
his knee; the comradely glow in her round brown eyes warmed his
restless, lonely heart. He shook her off almost roughly.
"I guess they'd miss you more'n that salt-shaker," he said grimly.
"I wish I could take you with me--honest, I do. But you better stay
home and go to school. You don't want to grow up ignorant, and have
your folks ashamed of you."
"But you--you aren't ignorant!" she urged warmly, her admiration
shining in her eyes.
He blushed and kicked nervously at the grass.
"I am," he said angrily. "I am, too. Oh, dear, I wish--I wish--"
They looked at each other, troubled and uncertain.
"You're a girl," he began again, "and girls can't; they just can't.
They have to stay with their folks and keep nice. It's too bad, but
that's the way it is. You'd want to see 'em, too. You'd miss 'em
nights."
Caroline winced, but could not deny. "Oh," she cried passionately,
"why do girls have to do _all_ the missing? It's just what that
Simms boy says: 'If I couldn't be a boy, I'd rather be a dog!'"
"There, there," he said soothingly, "just think about it. You'll
see. And you're not exactly like a girl, anyhow. You're too nice."
He patted her shoulder softly, and they lay quietly against the
bank. Her breathing grew slow and regular; raising himself
cautiously on one elbow, he saw that she had fallen asleep, her arm
about William Thayer, her dusty boots pathetically crossed. He
watched her tenderly, with frequent glances up and down the road.
Presently an irregular beat of hoofs sounded around a bend, and a
clattering wagon drew steadily nearer.
The egg-and-chicken man jumped out and strode angrily toward the
little group.
"I've caught you, have I, you young----"
"'Sh!"
The boy put up a warning hand.
"She's fast asleep," he whispered. "Are you goin' to take her home?"
The man stared.
"Oh, I'm no child-stealer," said the boy lightly. "Here, just lift
her soft with me, and I'll bet we can put her in without waking her
up at all."
Without a word, the man slipped his hands under Caroline's
shoulders, the boy lifted her dusty boots, and gently unloosing her
arm from the dog, they carried her lax little body carefully to the
wagon and laid her on the clean straw in the bottom, her head on a
folded coat. She stirred and half opened her eyes, murmured broken
words, and sank yet deeper into her dream.
The man pointed to a book on the seat.
"That's her lesson-book," he whispered hoarsely. It was the despised
geography.
"Her folks think a heap of her, I tell you," he added, still eying
the boy uncertainly. "She's about as bright as they make 'em, I
guess."
"I guess she is," said the lad simply. "She'd ought to have been a
boy. She'd have made a fine one."
The man's face cleared.
"Do--do you want a job?" he said abruptly. "We're short up at my
place, and I wouldn't mind the dog. I remember you, now. You caught
a chicken for me once; my wife gave you a hot supper."
The boy smiled faintly and shook his head. "I remember," he said.
"No, I don't believe I want any job, thank you. I--I'm sort of--I
have to keep along."
"Keep along? Where?"
He waved his hand vaguely.
"Oh, just along," he repeated. "This year, anyhow. Maybe--well,
good-by. Her folks might be gettin' anxious."
He stepped up to the cart and looked once more at the flushed cheeks
and brown hands, then strode off up the road.
The egg-and-chicken man gathered up the reins and the wagon started.
Caroline scowled a little at the motion, but slept on. The boy
whistled to the dog.
"Come on, William Thayer," he said. "I guess it's just you and me
now."
II
A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL
Caroline, Miss Honey, and the General were taking the morning air.
Caroline walked ahead, her chin well up, her nose sniffing
pleasurably the unaccustomed asphalt, the fresh damp of the river
and the watered bridle path. The starched ties at the back of her
white pinafore fairly took the breeze, as she swung along to the
thrilling clangor of the monster hurdy-gurdy. Miss Honey, urban and
_blasé_, balanced herself with dignity upon her roller-skates and
watched with patronizing interest the mysterious jumping of young
persons with whom she was unacquainted through complicated diagrams
chalked on the pavement.
The General sucked a clothespin meditatively: his eyes were fixed on
something beyond his immediate surroundings. Occasionally a
ravishing smile swept up from the dimples at his mouth to the
yellow rings beneath his cap frill; he flapped his hands, emitting
soft, vague sounds. At such times a wake of admiration bubbled
behind him. Delia, who propelled his carriage, which resembled a
victoria except for the rearward position of its motor power, pursed
her lips consciously and affected not to hear the enraptured
comments of the women who passed them.
To the left the trees, set in a smooth green carpet, threw out tiny,
polished, early May leaves; graceful, white-coated children dotted
the long park. Beyond them the broad blue river twinkled in the sun,
the tugs and barges glided down, the yachts strained their white
sails against the purple bluffs of the Palisades. To the right
towered the long, unbroken rows of brick and stone: story on story
of shining windows, draped and muffled in silk and lace; flight
after flight of clean granite steps; polite, impersonal, hostile as
the monuments in a graveyard.
Immobile ladies glided by on the great pleasure drive like large
tinted statues; dressed altogether as the colored pictures in
fashion books, holding white curly dogs in their curved arms; the
coachmen in front of them seemed carved in plum-colored broadcloth;
only by watching the groom's eyelids could one ascertain that they
were flesh and blood. Young girls, two, three, and four, cantered
by; their linen habits rose and fell decorously, their hair was
smooth. Mounted policemen, glorious in buttons, breathing out
authority, curvetted past, and everywhere and always the
chug-chug-chug of the gleaming, fierce-eyed motor cars filled one's
ears. They darted past, flaming scarlet, sombre olive and livid
white; a crouching, masked figure, intent at the wheel, veiled,
shapeless women behind a whir of dust to show where they had been a
breath before.
And everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, a thin stream of
white and pink and blue, a tumbling river of curls and caps and bare
legs, were the children. A babble of shrill cries, of chattering
laughter, of fretful screams, an undercurrent of remonstrance, of
soothing patience, of angry threatening, marked their slow progress
up and down the walk; in the clear spaces of the little park they
trotted freely after hoops and balls, rolled and ran over the green,
and hid, shouting, behind the bushes. It was a giant nursery, and
the mere man who trespassed on its borders smiled deprecatingly, and
steered a careful course among the parasols and tricycles, stooping
now and then to rescue some startled adventurer, sprawling from the
disgusted shock of encounter with this large and rapidly moving
object.
To Caroline, fresh from untrammeled sporting, through neighborly
suburban yards, this disciplined procession, under the escort of
Delia and the General, was fascinating to a degree. Far from
resenting the authority she would have scorned at home, she derived
an intense satisfaction from it, and pranced ostentatiously beside
the perambulator, mimicking Miss Honey's unconscious deference to a
higher power in the matter of suitable crossings and preferred
playfellows with the absorbed gravity of the artist.
"See! General, see the wobblybubble," Delia murmured affectionately.
"(Will you see that child turn his head just like a grown person?
Did you ever see anything as smart as that?) Did he like the red one
best? So does Delia. We'll come over here, and then you won't get
the sun in your precious eyes. Do you want me to push you
frontwards, so you can see me? (Watch him look at me--he knows what
I mean just as well, the rascal!) Just wait till we get across, and
I will. Look out, Miss Honey! Take hold of your cousin's hand and
run across together, now, like good girls."
Miss Honey made an obedient snatch at Caroline's apron strings, and
darted forward with a long roll of her skates. The road was clear
for a block. Delia, with a quick glance to left and right, lowered
the perambulator to the road-level and forged ahead. Caroline, nose
in air, studied the nearest policeman curiously.
"Look out, there! _Look out!_"
A man's voice like a pistol shot crashed behind them. Caroline heard
quick steps and a woman's scream, looked up at the huge, blood-red
bulk of an automobile that swooped around the corner and dashed
forward. But Miss Honey's hand was clutching her apron string, and
Miss Honey's weight as she fell, tangled in the skates, dragged her
down. Caroline, toppling, caught in one dizzy backward glance a
vision of a face in the automobile staring down on her, white as
chalk, under a black moustache and staring goggles, and another
face, Delia's, white too, with eyes more strained and terrible than
the goggles themselves. One second that look swept her and Miss
Honey, and then, shifting, fell upon the General strapped securely
into his carriage. Even as Caroline caught her breath, he flew by
her like an arrow, his blue eyes round with surprise under a whirl
of white parasol, the wicker body of the perambulator swaying and
lurching. With that breath still in her nostrils, she was pushed
violently against Miss Honey, who was dragged over her from the
other side by a large hairy hand. A sharp blow from her boot heel
struck Caroline's cheek, and she screamed with the pain; but her cry
was lost in the louder one that echoed around her as the dust from
the red monster blew in her eyes and shut out Delia's figure, flat
on the ground, one arm over her face as the car rushed by.
"My God! She's down!" That was the man.
"Take his number!" a shrill voice pierced the growing confusion.
Caroline, crying with pain, was forced to her feet and stumbled
along, one apron string twisted fast in Miss Honey's hand. Instantly
they were surrounded by a crowd of nurses, and Miss Honey, dazed and
obedient, was shoved and pulled from one to another.
"Here, get out o' this--don't let the children see anything! Let's
get home."
"No, wait a minute. Let's see if she's alive. Have they got the
ambulance?"
"Look out, there, Miss Dorothy, you just stop by me, or you'll be
run over, too!"
"See! She's moving her head! Maybe she's not--"
Sobbing with excitement, Caroline wrenched herself free from the
tangle of nurses and carriages, and pushed her way through the
crowd. Against the curb, puffing and grinding, stood the great red
engine; on the front seat a tall policeman sat, one woman in the
back leaned over another, limp against the high cushions, and fanned
her with the stiff vizor of her leather cap.
"It's all right, dear, it's all right," she repeated monotonously,
with set lips, "the doctor's coming. It wasn't Pullton's fault. It's
all right."
Caroline wriggled between two policemen, and made for a striped blue
and white skirt that lay motionless on the ground. Across the white
apron ran a broad dirty smudge.
Caroline ran forward.
"Delia! Delia!" she gulped. "Is she--is she dead?"
A little man with eyeglasses looked up from where he knelt beside
the blue and white skirt.
"I don't believe so, my dear," he said briskly; "is this your nurse?
See, she's opening her eyes, now--speak to her gently."
As he shifted a leather-covered flask from one hand to the other,
Caroline saw a strange face with drawn purplish lids when she had
always known two merry gray eyes, and tight thin lips she could not
believe Delia's. The head moved a little from side to side, the lips
parted slightly. A nervous fear seized her and she turned to run
away; but she remembered suddenly how kind Delia had been to her;
how that very morning--it seemed so long now--Delia had helped her
with her stubby braids of hair, and chided Miss Honey for laughing
at her ignorance of the customs of the park. She gathered her
courage together and crouched down by the silent, terrifying figure.
"Hel--hello, Delia!" she began jerkily, wincing as the eyes opened
and stared stupidly at the ring of anxious faces. "How do you
f-feel, Delia?"
"Lean down," said the little man softly, "she wants to say
something."
Caroline leaned lower.
"General," Delia muttered. "Where's General?"
The little man frowned.
"Do you know what she means?" he asked.
Caroline patted her bruised cheek.
"Of course I do," she said shortly. "That's the baby. Oh," as she
remembered, "where _is_ the General?"
"Here--here's the baby," called some one. "Push over that carriage,"
and a woman breathing heavily, crowded through the ring with the
general, pink and placid, under his parasol.
"Lift him out," said the little man, and as the woman fumbled at the
strap, he picked the baby out neatly, and held him down by the girl
on the ground.
"Here's your baby, Delia," he said, with a kind roughness in his
voice. "Safe and sound--not a scratch! Can you sit up and take him?"
And then, while the standing crowd craned their necks and even the
steady procession moving in the way the police kept clear for them,
paused a moment to stare, while the little doctor held his breath
and the ambulance came clanging up the street, Delia sat up as
straight as the mounted policeman beside her and held out her arms.
"General, oh, General!" she cried, and buried her face in his fat
warm neck.
The men coughed, the women's faces twisted, but the little doctor
watched her intently.
"Move your leg," he said sharply. "Now the other. Hurt you? Not at
all?"
He turned to the young man in a white jacket, who had jumped from
the back of the ambulance.
"I thought so," he said. "Though it didn't seem possible. I saw the
thing go over her. Right over her apron--never touched her. Half an
inch more--"
"Please, is Miss--the other little girl--is she--"
This was Delia's old voice, and Caroline smiled happily at her.
"She's all right, Delia--here she is!"
Miss Honey limped across on one roller-skate, pale, but conscious of
her dramatic value, and the crowd drew a long breath of relief.
"You are a very brave girl," said the doctor, helping Delia to her
feet and tucking the General, who alternately growled and cooed at
his clothespin, into the perambulator. "You have undoubtedly saved
the lives of all three of these children, and their parents will
appreciate it, you may be sure. The way you sent that baby wagon
flying across the street...! Well, any time you're out of a job,
just come to me, that's all. Dr. Gibbs, West Forty-ninth. Can you
walk now? How far do you have to go?"
The crowd had melted like smoke. Only the most curious and the
idlest lingered and watched the hysteria of the woman in the
automobile, who clutched her companion, weeping and laughing. The
chauffeur sat stolid, but Caroline's keen round eyes saw that he
shook, from the waist down, like a man in a chill.
"Yes, sir, I'm all right. It's not so very far." But Delia leaned on
the handle she pushed, and the chug-chug of the great car sent the
blood out of her cheeks. The little doctor frowned.