Kate Hallock was drawing near to Mrs. Dobson’s house in the lane. “Dear
grandma!” she called, “I’m just perishing with hunger! I’m starved
nearly to death! I’ve had no breakfast yet! Will you give me a piece of
your rye bread and butter?”
The dear old lady’s curls were bound about with a muslin kerchief, for
it was her morning for churning, and the stone jar, with its little
wooden dasher, was waiting her hands when Kate’s plaint broke upon her
hearing.
“Hungry! starving! no breakfast! What does it mean, Kittie Clover?”
“It means,” said Kate, “that I gave my breakfast to a poor fellow who
had none, or next to none, nothing but plain bread.”
“Plain bread is good, Kittie; quite good enough for tramps. Do you
suppose that the tramp would give up his breakfast for you?”
“It wasn’t a tramp, Grandma Dobson.”
“Who then?”
“Please don’t ask me another word. O, I am so hungry. Will you let me
help myself?”
“Sit right down here, poor child, and eat all you want.”
Kate seated herself beside the pine table, scrubbed to its best estate
of cleanliness, and Mrs. Dobson placed upon it a whole loaf of bread, a
three-pound roll of butter, and a four-quart pan of milk.
“I’ll tell all the tramps I meet where to come,” said Kate laughing, as
she proceeded to cut the loaf.
“Josh knows a tramp the instant he sees one,” said Mrs. Dobson, “and I
always have to feed them outside the gate.”
“Where is Josh this morning, grandma?”
“He has gone down to the shore with Harry; it’s most time for them to
get back now. We will have the clams they fetch home for dinner, if you
will stay.”
“This is my dinner and breakfast together, thank you,” said Kate.
“Besides, I must hurry home; for father and mother have gone away
to-day.”
“And where is Frank? I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“O, he is at home,” said Kate carelessly; “only,” she added, “I don’t
think he feels very well nowadays”; and then Kate, to give Mrs. Dobson
no opportunity to ask a question, began to put away the large remains of
her feast, and to return her very expressive thanks for the same. “Now,
Grandma Dobson, it isn’t one bit polite, I know, to eat and run away;
but kiss me, and I’ll go home.”
“See here, Kittie Clover, something is the matter at home, and you will
not tell me. However, I will kiss you, and when you are ready, come and
tell me all about it.”
“Some time you shall know every single thing,” said Kate—more than half
persuaded to tell it all out on the instant; but she did not, for her
quick hearing caught the sound of coming, made by Josh, in the lane.
Kate hurried away. She wished to see Harry, and to urge him to find time
to go and talk to Frank. Kate herself, after breakfast, had begged her
brother to ask her forgiveness.
“I have not the least objection to doing it, Kate—do forgive me!”
“You know I did long ago, Frank. How I wish father and mother were here
now—then you could come right out! you’ll—ask me—won’t you?—when they
come.”
“I don’t think I will, Kate,” Frank had said; and poor Kate had run away
around the corner in bitter disappointment.
After thinking the matter over, she had come to the conclusion that if
anybody could persuade her brother to do right, Harry Cornwall could;
and to him she had come.
Harry heard the story, and promised to be over some time in the
afternoon. Kate went home rejoicing all the way, very certain now that
the trouble would soon be over. She had not been long at home when Frank
called to her that he wanted something to read.
“Fetch me _Young Folks_,” he said.
That magazine had been received the evening before. Kate was herself in
the midst of a most entertaining story at the instant the call came. She
went to the window adjoining Frank’s.
“Bub!” she said softly. Kate never called Frank “Bub” except in a tone
of endearment.
He put his head out from the open window.
“Here I am, Kate. I’ll catch it.”
“I’m just reading the loveliest story, Frank! I’ll be through in a few
minutes.”
“I want it now. I’ve called you a hundred times since breakfast.”
“Frank,” said Kate, “if I give this to you now, will you please ask my
forgiveness just as soon as they get home. If you will, you shall have
it, right away.”
“Give it to me quick, Kate. It’s as much my magazine as ’tis yours.”
“And it is just as much mine as ’tis yours, too, Master Frank, and I
won’t give it to you, unless you will promise.”
“Keep it then, and see what you will get for it,” returned Frank,
dropping the window-sash heavily to close further negotiations.
Kate’s eyes grew dim with tears. Here she was, after trying so hard to
conciliate her brother, at open variance with him.
She returned to her seat, opened the orange-tinted covers, sought out
the place where she had left off reading, and tried to recover interest
in the story, but in vain. There, right beyond the wall of her room, was
her brother, and he was angry at her.
Foolish Kate! She closed the _Young Folks_, trod softly to Frank’s door
and whispered through the keyhole, “Here is the magazine. You may have
it.”
No response.
“Frank! open the window and I’ll give you _Young Folks_.”
Silence.
“Frank, won’t you please take it?”
“No.”
“Do! why won’t you?”
“Don’t want it.”
“Frank, Harry Cornwall is coming to see you some time this afternoon.”
“Who said so?”
“He told me so himself.”
“I won’t see him. Tell him, when he comes, that I’ve gone away.”
“Tell a lie, Frank!” ejaculated Kate. “I won’t do it, not even for you.”
“Tell him just what you’ve a mind to, then. I don’t care what you tell
him.”
“I have told him all about it,” cried Kate, “and I just wish you were
like Harry. He is never cross and unkind to me.”
“I know you like him ever so much more than you do me. I dare say you
wish I was dead.”
“O, Frank! Frank!” cried Kate, and for a long time Frank heard her
sobbing at the door, and then all was still.
The dinner-bell rang just as usual.
Kate went down to her solitary dinner. There was but one plate laid at
the table, and after a few minutes, Sallie, the little maid, placed the
bell by her side, and left the room. This was the opportunity sought by
Kate.
It took but a minute or two to secrete food enough from the table for
Frank; having done which, Kate sat demurely at the dinner until a
reasonable time was past, before summoning Sallie. This time she was
able to secure a basket, and to rap at Frank’s window and pass it in to
him.
“There was only one plate of pudding,” she said, “and that I’ve put in
the basket for you; but there’s a good lot of hard sauce on it—cook
knows I like hard sauce.”
“Kate,” said Frank from the window a few minutes later, “you are a
brick!”
“O, Frank! you know mamma can’t bear to hear you talk that way; please
don’t do it.”
“I dare say she wouldn’t bear to have you fetch me, on a broom handle,
this jolly good dinner. Wish you knew how good it tastes to a fellow
shut up all day. I say, Sis, help a fellow out awhile this afternoon.
Fetch the light ladder; it will reach to the lower window-cap, and I can
let myself down by holding fast to the blind. Do now, and I’ll see Harry
if you will.”
How nice it seemed to hear Frank talk to her again, and to be called
“Sis” by him, and to know that he depended on her! O, how Kate Hallock
did long to run and fetch the light ladder and let him down!—but she
knew she ought not to do it.
“Come, now—there’s a good Sis.”
“Frank Hallock, you know better! I’m ashamed of you!” cried a breezy
voice from under the window—and there was Harry Cornwall!
Kate drew her head in quickly, and disappeared from sight and sound;
while Frank glowered down at Harry’s earnest face, upturned to meet his
angry stare.
“Frank,” said Harry after a moment’s peering cautiously about, lest he
be overheard—“now, Frank, neither you nor I think well of a coward, do
we?”
“Who calls _me_ a coward?” retorted Frank.
“Frank Hallock will call himself one if he will see himself as others
see him. I overheard you asking Kate to fetch you a ladder for you to
climb down on, when you know perfectly well that she ought not to do
it.”
“Who cares for your ought-nots? Go home—get off these premises!” cried
Frank, trembling with rage, and hurling down at Harry the plate that had
recently held the pudding.
Harry dodged, and the plate fell, apparently unharmed, upon the grass.
Harry picked it up, and walked away with it in his hand.
“Frank Hallock, you’re just the meanest boy alive, and I do wish you
were not my brother!” were the next words that reached Frank; and then
all was silence and stillness in and about the house until the nearing
wheels were heard that brought home Mr. and Mrs. Hallock.
All day long their hours had been saddened by recollections of Frank in
his disobedience and his punishment.
“Poor fellow! he will be very willing to ask Kate’s pardon to-night,”
said his mother as they drew near home.
“I hope we have been wise in our decision,” said Mr. Hallock, for, that
day, they had determined to send Frank to a boarding school in New
Haven.
Kate was rejoiced to see her father and mother again. Her flash of anger
against Frank was all gone, and she was eager for the moment of
reconciliation to arrive.
“Here, Kate,” said Mr. Hallock, “here is the key. Go and liberate your
brother and tell him to come to me.”
Kate ran up joyously, a candle in one hand, the key in the other. The
key she thrust in at the place, turned it with a jerk, and the door flew
back. “Come, Frank! Come, Bub! Papa is waiting for you, and there is all
sorts of good things, an out and out feast for supper, to-night.”
Frank sat moodily by the window, unstirring and speechless.
Kate went near him—“Dear Frank,” she said, “I’m real sorry I said that,
about wishing you wasn’t my brother—I’m ever so glad that you are—won’t
you forgive me, Frank? Come down, do!”
Frank never moved.
Kate kissed his cheek—the very ear part of it, was all that she could
touch.
Frank never stirred.
Mr. Hallock, listening, had heard Kate’s words.
“Frank!” he called.
“Sir!” responded Frank, never turning his face from the window.
“If you are willing to ask your sister’s pardon, come down!”
“O, Frank, Frank, do come,” pleaded Kate in his ear, in the sweetest,
tenderest of whispers, but Frank gave no response.
Mr. Hallock entered the room, led Kate away, and locked the door again.