PARTINGS
Oriole might have become as panic-stricken as the fleshy Lyddy Ann,
only at this moment a rasping voice hailed them from the street, and a
tall and lank figure strode into the yard.
"Is that Oriole Putnam I see there? Say, gal, what do you know about my
boy's pet sheep? He says you stole it on him and wouldn't give it back.
I want to know what sort of actions that is?"
"Oh, I never!" cried Oriole, instantly indignant and so quite
forgetting her fright. "I wouldn't touch that old Jingo."
"You _did_ touch it, didn't you?" demanded the man shrewdly. It was Mr.
Enos Crabbe and it was quite plain that he was angered. "Shaddy says
you tied Jingo with a rope and then when he went back into Payne's yard
for it, you had led it away."
"Oh, I never!" cried Oriole again. "Anyway, I never led it away. I
wouldn't dare."
For the moment Lyddy Ann's attention was attracted from the "ghost."
She turned a scornful look on Enos Crabbe.
"Ought to have led it to the pound--that's what she ought to have done.
What are you Crabbes trying to do to Oriole _now_?"
Mr. Crabbe ignored the fleshy housemaid. He still stared accusingly at
Oriole.
"You have a bad name in this town, gal," he declared, bitterly. "I
wouldn't put stealing sheep past you--no, sir!"
"Oh!" gasped the girl, hurt to the quick.
"Now you stop that, Enos Crabbe!" shouted Lyddy Ann. "Somebody ought to
hit you _hard_ for talking so."
Mr. Crabbe had advanced upon the fleshy woman and Oriole, with the
lantern in her hand, who stood at the end of the clothes-drying yard.
Their backs were now turned to the gyrating sheet at the far end of
the line. But Mr. Crabbe suddenly beheld the strangely behaving sheet
charging up the yard.
"Wha--what's that?" he cried out, shrinking in apparent size and
courage. "Keep off! Help! He-e-lp!"
With this wail he turned and ran for the gate. The motive power of the
charging sheet took his flight as a challenge. It started after Mr.
Crabbe, and although Lyddy Ann, moaning and weeping, backed to the
steps and sat down with a thud, the "ghost" gave her no attention.
The streaming sheet passed Oriole too, and made for the gate after Mr.
Crabbe. Oriole fortunately guessed what the thing was. When it passed
through the gateway all possible misunderstanding was removed.
The sheet caught on either post and was torn from the sheep's horns.
Jingo, in wandering around the neighborhood, had come in contact with
Lyddy Ann's wash. But the sheet did not blind him to Enos Crabbe's
retreat.
Jingo burst from the enfolding sheet and shot out into State Street.
The driveway was empty but for the fleeing storekeeper and councilman.
There was little dignity in the method of Mr. Crabbe's attempted
escape. There was less when Jingo managed to catch up with him.
The head of the angry ram landed just in the bend of the long-legged
man's knees. The shock threw Mr. Crabbe to the hard roadway and he
uttered a terrified shriek, while Jingo ran right over him, never
stopping to see whether his victim recovered or not.
But the victim did recover! Lyddy Ann likewise had recovered her feet
when she was convinced by her own eyesight that it was not a ghost
running through the yard. She stared in evident satisfaction at Mr.
Crabbe when he scrambled up again and turned to run away from the
disappearing sheep.
"For the good land's sake!" she gasped, "I never expected to live to
see such a sight as Enos Crabbe beaten up by that nuisance. It--it's a
pleasure!"
"Oh, Lyddy Ann!" Oriole murmured.
"Don't waste your sympathy on the likes of him," said the housemaid
energetically. "And 'twasn't a ghost after all! Well! But look at that
sheet! I don't know what Becky Joy will say."
"I--I wonder what will happen to Shedder?" said Oriole. "His father is
going to be awfully angry with him about that old Jingo."
This query was quite sufficiently answered by the forlorn appearance of
the redoubtable Shedder the next day at school. He stirred uneasily on
his seat in the schoolroom, too, sitting down and getting up gingerly
as though he bore physical reminders of his father's indignation. It
was noised about, too, before the week was out, that Shedder's pet ram
was made into mutton.
"And the town folks will buy it out of that Enos Crabbe's store and
eat it!" exclaimed Lyddy Ann. "Ain't that a shame? You can't beat that
Crabbe family. If they were Feejees they'd invite the whole tribe to a
dollar-a-plate banquet if their great-grandfather died."
"Oh, Lyddy Ann! that is awful," murmured Oriole, who heard this.
She was by this time, however, so much interested in the plans for her
great change that she could not worry much about the Crabbes' affairs
or Lyddy Ann's comments thereon. It had been fully decided that she
should go West with Harvey Langdon and the twins, Sadie Brown, the
nurse, being a member of the party. And the start would soon be made.
News of her departure for the West spread among the young people of the
town like wildfire. Naturally she was an object of envy to most of the
boys and not a few of the girls; for the Western movies are the delight
of the younger element irrespective of sex. There is an attraction in
out-of-door life for all young folks. The open plains, the mountains,
the broad rivers, the forest and the canyons and gorges of the Rockies
in contemplation make local matters seem tame indeed to the Eastern
youth.
These young people, used only to the shore and the sea that lapped
it, thought of the land to which Oriole was going as a much freer
and wilder locality. When they could they gathered around Mr. Harvey
Langdon and begged him to tell them of his ranch ("farm" some of
them called it) and the wonders of Montana. But the ranchman was wont
to smile broadly when he saw their interest and repeat for them some
doggerel verses which he called "The Western Boy's Lament" and which
began:
"I wish't I lived away Down East
Where codfish salt the sea,
And where the folks have punkin pie
And apple-sass for tea."
"All the boys out my way," he said, "hanker to come East just the same
as you folks want to go West."
Oriole Putnam had many good-byes to say. First of all she must separate
from her school friends, and she found that this was something of a
wrench, although she had only attended school in Littleport three or
four months. In spite of May Rabey and her clique, Oriole had plenty of
friends at school, including all the teachers with whom she had come in
contact.
Flossy and Minnie Payne and some of the Busy Bees determined to show
their liking for Oriole in an unmistakable way. They arranged with Mrs.
Joy and Lyddy Ann to give Oriole a surprise party in the great Dexter
Mansion on State Street on the following Saturday.
Meanwhile Oriole had gone to the island where Nat Jardin and Ma
Stafford lived (the ice still held) and had spent half the week with
the old people. It might seem that there would be few interests in
common between the lightkeeper and his housekeeper and Oriole Putnam.
But the girl had lived very close to the old couple during the first
months after her arrival from South America. She bore all their sorrows
and interests in her heart. No matter where she might go in the future,
she could never forget the lightkeeper and Ma Stafford.
And could they forget Oriole? Not likely!
"Just you remember, child, that we air thinking of you and praying for
you all the time," said Ma before Oriole came away from Harbor Island.
"I'm only a-hoping none of them cattle of Mr. Langdon's trample on
you--or them cowboys do you any harm. They are rough men, and it's a
wild country."
"I cal'late," said Nat Jardin in his drawling way, "that 'twon't be
many years before them cowboys might be in danger from Oriole, 'stead
of t'other way 'round. She's getting to be a big gal now, for a fact!"
But this speech was enigmatic to Oriole. She had not visualized herself
yet as grown-up. No, indeed! She was just a healthy, moderately happy
girl; and the chance of change after all delighted her.
Nothing more had been heard of Teddy Ford. He had not appeared at the
island again and one of the men from the life saving station told
Oriole that the boy had gone away as he said he would, and had not
returned with the coasting vessel on which he had sailed.
"I do hope he has started back for Montana!" Oriole told herself. "And
if he goes there, won't he be surprised to find me at Mr. Langdon's
ranch?"
The parting came from the old folks on the island, and from Payton Orr
and his wife and the baby. Oriole could scarcely see for tears when she
started on her new skates for the port late that Saturday afternoon.
But she was quite cheerful again by the time she climbed off the ice at
Griffith's dock.
As she went up past the hotel she saw the twins playing in the yard
connected therewith. Abel Hubbard, who was general factotum about the
Brick hotel, as well as liveryman, was renewing the tar-paper strips
on the trunks of the trees in the yard, and Myron and Marian were very
much interested and had asked all about the operation and the reason
for it.
"You see, Oriole," explained Myron earnestly, "when spwing comes and
the fwost isn't in the gwound any more, bugs an' other insects cwawl
up out of the gwound and eat the twee-leaves and buds. But Mr. Abel
stops 'em fwom cwawlin' up by tying _that_ awound the twees. Ain't it
wunnerful?"
"I don't like bugs and things," shuddered Marian, as she and her
brother ran out to join Oriole on the street. "If they cwawl on
_me_--ugh!"
"Never mind. They don't begin to cwawl this time o' year, Mawyann,"
Myron said soothingly. "They are all fwoze up now."
"I wish they'd stay fwozed," declared the little girl. "Oh! See there,
Oriole. Look at that man."
A stranger in the town--evidently a traveling man--was coming out of
Enos Crabbe's store and to him the little girl pointed.
"Just see his arm, Oriole," exclaimed the excited Marian. "He's got
one, too."
"He's got what?" demanded Myron, staring.
Oriole saw immediately what the little girl meant. The stranger wore a
band of crepe about his left arm signifying that somebody near and dear
to him had recently died.
"Oh!" gasped Myron.
"See?" questioned Marian of Oriole quite innocently. "What's to keep
them from cwawling up his other arm?"
This story, told at the surprise party that evening, added much to the
gayety of the occasion. The twins were at the party, too, although Mr.
Langdon took them back to the hotel at an early hour.
Mrs. Joy had seen to it that the plans of the Busy Bees were developed
in such a way that no party for young folk in Littleport that winter
would be longer remembered than this given in Oriole Putnam's honor.
And there was not a person in the house that Oriole did not love!
May Rabey and her crowd had been ignored. Left to choose for herself,
Oriole would undoubtedly have invited all her schoolmates and "played
no favorites." But the Busy Bees were abetted in their desire to make
the affair one exclusively by Oriole's real friends, for Mrs. Joy too
did not admire "Maria Rabey's girl" and her set.
Therefore the party was bound to be a happy time for all who attended.
Lyddy Ann, forewarned in time, had baked for two days and added her
delectable cakes and cookies to the ice-cream and sherbets sent down
from Salem by the caterer. They played games; they danced in the big
"museum room" which was cleared for the occasion of all but the curio
cases. For the last time Oriole led in a "dress-up" pageant, finding
the ancient garments in the mansion garret a treasure-store for
masquerade.
It was, altogether, the nicest party Oriole ever remembered--even
better than the New Year's affair Mr. Langdon had given her. But there
was bitter with the sweet of it too.
When she kissed each girl and shook hands with every boy as they
filed out of the house at eleven o'clock, Oriole knew that this might
be the last opportunity she would have of speaking to them for many
months--perhaps for ever.
For on Monday forenoon Oriole Putnam, with Mr. Langdon and the twins,
who had returned from their short trip to Maine, left Littleport on the
train to meet Sadie Brown at the Junction, and from thence to travel
westward.