GIRLS IN BOOKLAND
HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE
[Illustration:
A DEMURE LITTLE CROWD THEY WERE, STANDING PRIMLY, HAND IN HAND
]
GIRLS IN BOOKLAND
BY
HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE
ILLUSTRATED BY
JOHN WOLCOTT ADAMS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1915, 1916,
BY THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To
MY FOUR LITTLE NIECES
UNA, ROSAMOND,
SYLVIA AND JOAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A WORD BEFORE THE STORY
Inside this world in which we live there is another world, a very
wonderful world, that is ours for the taking. Many things in the world
we live in every day are denied to us. Maybe for the reason that we
cannot possibly learn how to make use of them all, even though we think
we want them very much. Lots of us can never hunt lions in Africa or
sail the high seas, or find gold, or herd cows on the wild prairies, or
know a pirate, or run an engine, or become kings or queens or presidents
or the wives of presidents, or anything great and famous like that. We
have to let others do those things, and they again have to let us do the
things we do. We can each only be our kind of boy or girl, man or woman.
But in the world inside this we can be and do anything, not only now and
here, but back in dim ages when knights were bold and castles held
prisoned princesses. We can know intimately all sorts of people, savages
and noblemen, cowboys and bank-clerks, fairies and fisher folk, poor
little children and rich little children, great captains and wicked
robbers, lovely ladies and strange old women, poets and farmers. We can
go on high adventure and find dreams come true. We can be hundreds of
different persons, men and women and boys and girls, beasts and fishes,
clouds and mountains. Once inside that world, anything is liable to
happen to us.
This inside world is the world of books. There, on your bookshelf,
inside the quiet-looking blue and brown and red and green volumes, all
sorts of exciting things are going on, all sorts of people are busy over
all sorts of affairs, talking and laughing, crying and playing, having
marvellous escapes, doing wonderful deeds. If we could just step inside
those books and join in the life going on so busily—lose ourselves in
one book after another! Wouldn’t it be thrilling?
Rose and Ruth were lucky in having the fairy to help them, to be sure.
But even without a fairy much may be done.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HOW IT BEGAN TO OPEN 15
II. THE WINNER OF THE TORCH RACE 25
III. AN ADVENTURE WITH LITTLE WOMEN 45
IV. A LOOKING-GLASS VISIT 61
V. A TOURNAMENT AND A RESCUE WITH ROWENA 83
VI. AFTERNOON TEA IN CRANFORD 107
VII. A LETTER FROM LORNA 125
VIII. LITTLE MAID MARIAN 145
IX. THE ADVENTURE IN GUINEVERE’S CASTLE 163
X. IN THE HIELANDS WITH DI VERNON 185
XI. A SUMMER DAY WITH RAMONA 203
XII. ROMOLA AND THE FLORENTINE BOY 221
XIII. LITTLE NELL AND THE BUN-SHOP 239
XIV. EVANGELINE AND THE BIG BEAR 255
XV. THE LITTLE QUAKER-CITY MAID 273
ILLUSTRATIONS
A demure little crowd they were, standing primly, hand in hand
_Frontispiece_
PAGE
Sappho passed her without a glance 28
They finally reached the cottage 48
“You see,” they both remarked confidentially, “we knew Alice, so
of course we had to choose you” 64
“Room for the Lady Rowena, the Lady Rose, the Lady Ruth, and the
noble Thane Cedric” 86
For there was Peter on the doctor’s horse, with Ruth mounted
behind him 110
“Hush, Lorna. No one shall hurt them. But they must go from here
at once. Two of my boys are saddling now” 128
“Greeting, sweet maid,” he said to Marian 148
The youth, dismounting, walked slowly toward Guinevere 166
“Rob Roy is frae the Hielands come, Down to the Lowland border” 188
The other, slender, youthful, in white, must be Ramona 206
“Father, here are the two friends I told you of,” said Romola 224
“Ladies,” said Dick Swiveller, “I will accept your kind, nay, your
princely offer. Let us drink confusion in this tea—confusion to
dire destiny” 242
So Gabriel climbed in between Ruth and Evangeline, and the little
party hastened on toward the cape 258
GIRLS IN BOOKLAND
CHAPTER I
HOW IT BEGAN TO OPEN
Rose kneeled on the long window-seat and peered through the glass,
occasionally rubbing away the mist that gathered so that she might the
better watch the wild game the snow was playing. It was falling so
thickly that the row of alfalfa haystacks resembled dim giants,
advancing on the house stealthily but surely; the horse barn loomed
darkly behind them and seemed enormous—a grim castle, or a dungeon. And
how the snowflakes whirled and danced, never touching the ground, yet
somehow turning it whiter and whiter. The prairie vanished in the
whiteness, and even at a little distance the sky was all mixed up with
it.
Every now and then Rose could hear a long, wild shriek that swept around
the house and died away slowly. It was the wind, of course, but it
certainly sounded like a cry for help, and Rose wondered if, after all,
it might not be a princess in distress. One couldn’t be quite sure, and
Marmie had said that very morning that it was always the most unexpected
thing that happened.
“And a snow-storm,” thought Rose, “isn’t so unexpected as a princess.”
She turned her head and looked into the big pleasant room. The fireplace
had a fine blaze in it, and lying on the Navajo blanket that covered the
floor right before it, busily reading, was Rose’s younger sister, Ruth.
“Oh, Ruth, stop reading and come and look out. It’s getting blizzarder
every minute.”
Ruth grunted, turned a page, and remarked:
“Wait just a bit, till I finish this chapter.”
Rose looked out once more, just in time to see a man ride round the
corner of the barn and disappear into the flying snow.
“There goes Jim to round up the cows,” she exclaimed. “I guess the other
boys have gone too. Probably we are going to have a sockdolager of a
storm.”
“Marmie said you mustn’t say sockdolager,” chided Ruth, abandoning her
book and joining Rose at the window. “Oh, I wish we could go riding too.
But I guess we won’t any more now, till spring. Don’t you hate to think
of winter coming, Rose? We can’t go out at all most of the time, or just
round the inclosure, and that’s no fun, and we sha’n’t have anything to
do, and we sha’n’t see a living soul for months. That’s what Marmie
said. I wish we had some other little girls to play with. Books are
nice, but they aren’t alive and real—O-o-o see how hard it’s snowing
now! I can’t see the barn any more.”
The two little girls leaned close together, looking out at the storm
that grew more furious as the moments passed. It shook the house, it
blotted out the landscape, it even hid the haystack giants. It made them
feel very small and lonely and far from everybody. The nearest ranch was
five miles away. That didn’t seem much in summer, but now—why, no one
would care to ride there now, and as for the two themselves, they knew
they would not get far from home for months to come.
Presently it began to grow dark, and the sisters returned to the fire,
curling up close together on the long seat with its thick cushions that
stood in front of the hearth.
Rose was a good deal taller than her sister, though they were only a
year apart. Her hair was thick and hung in two long red braids, a real
golden red, and her eyes were golden too, with brown shadows. There were
freckles on her nose, which turned up just a little. Rose was forever
imagining and pretending, and wondering whether she might not be lucky
enough to stumble on a fairy or a gnome, or find a charm or a wishing
cup; and Ruth would listen to the wonderings, and follow her sister
about, hoping that Rose really might have an adventure, and that she
would be in it too.
Ruth was a slender, vivid, dark little thing, with hair that tumbled
round her head in curls, and big, black eyes that opened wide when she
sat listening to Rose’s make-believes. She liked to read better than
anything, and even when they went off on long rides she would tuck in a
book somewhere, and find a chance to read it while they stopped for a
rest or to water the ponies or to chat with the Dillinghams, on the next
ranch.
“Think of all the little girls there are in the world, hundreds and
hundreds and millions, and we don’t know any of them,” continued Rose,
lugubriously. “Wouldn’t it be grand if we had a magic carpet, and could
sit on it and wish we were anywhere and be there in the shake of a cat’s
hind leg.”
“What’s that?” asked Ruth.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just what Jim says when he means a little bit of a
time.”
“Where would we go, Rose?”
“Perhaps to a big school, where lots and lots of girls were playing
together. Or to a fairy island, where all the nicest boys and girls in
the world lived, and went on picnics and had parties. Or maybe we’d go
to a nice big house where there were two other girls as old as we are,
and they were wishing, like us, that they had some little friends to
play with—that would be nicest of all, I think.”
Ruth sighed deliciously, picturing the joy of it.
“I don’t suppose you can _possibly_ find such a carpet,” she murmured.
“N-no—I suppose they are all in Persia or Arabia. Or perhaps they are
all worn out by this time.”
The fire shot up a great plume of sparks as one of the logs fell apart,
and then died down. The room was dark, for the storm had brought night
on earlier than it should have come.
“Well,” said a small, clear voice right beside the girls, “I don’t know
anything about wishing carpets; but I can’t see why you don’t go through
the Magic Gate. If you go through that, you reach places quite as
interesting as those you are talking about—and as for children! Why, it
leads to thousands and thousands of them.”
Rose was too surprised to breathe, and Ruth’s eyes opened and opened.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you know a fairy when you see one?” went on
the clear voice.
The girls looked all around.
“But—but we don’t see anything,” stammered Rose.
“What do you look like?” queried Ruth.
“Can’t see me? How extremely provoking. I’m sitting right here on the
arm of the settee, and I look just like a fairy—what would you have me
look like?” The voice sounded the least bit impatient.
Rose, who was nearest to it, started back a trifle. She wasn’t exactly
frightened,—but it was a little—well, startling—to hear a fairy and then
not be able to see it! Rose had never expected that sort of adventure.
“I—I can hear you,” she said, politely. “Perhaps if you got right in
front of the fire we could see you.”
“The fire won’t help. Why, I have a shine of my own. Come now, look
hard.”
Both girls looked hard at the sound of the voice. But they couldn’t see
it a whit better than they could see the bang of a door or the creak of
a board. They felt very sorry and embarrassed, for they could tell the
fairy was trying her hardest to be seen.
“It’s too bad,” said Rose, at last. And Ruth echoed her sadly. “To think
that there is really a fairy here with us, and we can’t see you!”
“It’s ridiculous,” remarked the voice, “but I suppose it can’t be
helped. You’ll have to get along without seeing me, that’s all. Anyhow,
you seem to be able to hear me, and that’s something. And there’s no
knowing; you might be disappointed if you did see me, and that would
hardly be pleasant.”
“Indeed we shouldn’t!” exclaimed both girls at once. “No one was ever
disappointed in a fairy.”
“Tut-tut,” said the voice, and then gave a little laugh, so sweet and
mellow that it made Rose and Ruth laugh too. “But come, how about that
Magic Gate?”
“Where is it?” asked Ruth, who liked to get straight to essentials.
“You can find it easily enough with me,” returned the fairy. “It’s near
enough—and it’s far enough. Would you really like to go through it?”
“Can we get back again? We couldn’t leave the ranch for too long,”
answered Rose. “Marmie might miss us, and every evening we play games
with Dad.”
“Oh, yes, you can get back. In fact, you can’t stay inside the Magic
Gates beyond a certain length of time. There are rules that have to be
kept, you see.”
“Oh, Ruth, I’d like to go, wouldn’t you?” breathed Rose, excitedly.
“Yes,” replied Ruth, clutching her sister’s arm. “But where does it go,
Fairy?”
“It will lead you to other little girls—little girls who only live
inside the Magic Gates and can’t be reached any other way. All sorts of
little girls, in all sorts of places and all sorts of times.”
“Will they like us to come?”
Again the fairy laughed her silver laugh, that sounded like drops of
rain falling on the roof of an enchanted palace.
“They’ll be delighted, my dears. For they really don’t begin to live
until some one finds the way to them through the gates. They are all
remarkable little girls, too, in their different ways, and I know you’ll
enjoy playing with them. So suppose we start. Since you can’t see me,
each of you must take hold of one of my hands. Do you want to choose
where to go first, or shall I choose for you?”
“You choose,” said the two girls, stretching out their hands. They could
hear the fire snapping as they did so, and the wind in the chimney
seemed to be calling to them. And they felt a slim, strong little hand
clasp theirs, and the clear voice said:
“We might just as well begin in the Golden Age. Have you heard of
Sappho, the Greek girl who wrote wonderful poems after she grew up? She
was a very sweet and merry child, and I know you’ll enjoy playing with
her. So shut your eyes, shut your eyes, shut ... your ... eyes....”
The fairy’s voice trailed away into silence as Rose and Ruth obeyed her.
The two girls had a queer sensation, as though everything they knew was
flying past them ... a sort of whirr ... then a kind of tiny shock, as
if they had suddenly stopped falling, and then....