[Illustration: Cover]
THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOLIDAYS
(Trade Mark)
Works of
ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON
The Little Colonel Series
(_Trade Mark, Reg. U. S. Pat. Of._)
Each one vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated
The Little Colonel Stories $1.50
(Containing in one volume the three stories, "The
Little Colonel," "The Giant Scissors," and "Two Little
Knights of Kentucky.")
The Little Colonel's House Party 1.50
The Little Colonel's Holidays 1.50
The Little Colonel's Hero 1.50
The Little Colonel at Boarding-School 1.50
The Little Colonel in Arizona 1.50
The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation 1.50
The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor 1.50
The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding 1.50
The above 9 vols., _boxed_ 13.50
_In Preparation_--A New Little Colonel Book 1.50
* * * * *
The Little Colonel Good Times Book 1.50
Illustrated Holiday Editions
Each one vol., small quarto, cloth, illustrated, and printed in colour
The Little Colonel $1.25
The Giant Scissors 1.25
Two Little Knights of Kentucky 1.25
Big Brother 1.25
Cosy Corner Series
Each one vol., thin 12mo, cloth, illustrated
The Little Colonel $.50
The Giant Scissors .50
Two Little Knights of Kentucky .50
Big Brother .50
Ole Mammy's Torment .50
The Story of Dago .50
Cicely .50
Aunt 'Liza's Hero .50
The Quilt that Jack Built .50
Flip's "Islands of Providence" .50
Mildred's Inheritance .50
Other Books
Joel: A Boy of Galilee $1.50
In the Desert of Waiting .50
The Three Weavers .50
Keeping Tryst .50
The Legend of the Bleeding Heart .50
Asa Holmes 1.00
Songs Ysame (Poems, with Albion Fellows Bacon) 1.00
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
200 Summer Street Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: "AUNT CINDY DARTED AN ANGRY LOOK AT HER SWORN ENEMY."
(_See Page 25_)]
The Little Colonel's Holidays
By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON
Author of "The Little Colonel," "Two Little Knights
of Kentucky," "The Story of Dago," "The Little
Colonel's House Party," etc.
Illustrated by L. J. BRIDGMAN
[Illustration]
BOSTON L. C. PAGE
& COMPANY PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1901_
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
_Twelfth Impression, March, 1908_
TO
"The Little Captain" and his sisters
WHOSE PROUDEST HERITAGE IS THAT
THEY BEAR THE NAME OF A
NATION'S HERO.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE MAGIC KETTLE 11
II. THE END OF THE SUMMER 17
III. BACK TO THE CUCKOO'S NEST 31
IV. TO BARLEY-BRIGHT 46
V. A TIME FOR PATIENCE 60
VI. MOLLY'S STORY 74
VII. A FEAST OF SAILS 91
VIII. EUGENIA JOINS THE SEARCH 105
IX. LEFT BEHIND 116
X. HOME-LESSONS AND JACK-O'-LANTERNS 129
XI. A HALLOWE'EN PARTY 146
XII. THE HOME OF A HERO 164
XIII. THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING 180
XIV. LLOYD MAKES A DISCOVERY 200
XV. A HAPPY CHRISTMAS 216
XVI. A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE 231
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
"AUNT CINDY DARTED AN ANGRY LOOK AT HER
SWORN ENEMY" (_see page 25_) _Frontispiece_
"TO THEIR EXCITED FANCY SHE SEEMED A REAL WITCH" 57
"THE PICTURE PASSED AROUND THE CIRCLE" 103
"THE PLAN WORKED LIKE A CHARM" 130
"SHE BEGAN THE OLD RHYME" 159
THE BUTTERFLY CARNIVAL 183
"'OH, _WHAT_ IS YOUR NAME?'" 208
"THE LITTLE HAND HELD HERS" 226
THE LITTLE COLONEL'S
(_Trade Mark_)
HOLIDAYS.
CHAPTER I.
THE MAGIC KETTLE.
ONCE upon a time, so the story goes (you may read it for yourself in the
dear old tales of Hans Christian Andersen), there was a prince who
disguised himself as a swineherd. It was to gain admittance to a
beautiful princess that he thus came in disguise to her father's palace,
and to attract her attention he made a magic caldron, hung around with
strings of silver bells. Whenever the water in the caldron boiled and
bubbled, the bells rang a little tune to remind her of him.
"Oh, thou dear Augustine,
All is lost and gone,"
they sang. Such was the power of the magic kettle, that when the water
bubbled hard enough to set the bells a-tinkling, any one holding his
hand in the steam could smell what was cooking in every kitchen in the
kingdom.
It has been many a year since the swineherd's kettle was set a-boiling
and its string of bells a-jingling to satisfy the curiosity of a
princess, but a time has come for it to be used again. Not that anybody
nowadays cares to know what his neighbour is going to have for dinner,
but all the little princes and princesses in the kingdom want to know
what happened next.
"What happened after the Little Colonel's house party?" they demand, and
they send letters to the Valley by the score, asking "Did Betty go
blind?" "Did the two little Knights of Kentucky ever meet Joyce again or
find the Gate of the Giant Scissors?" Did the Little Colonel ever have
any more good times at Locust, or did Eugenia ever forget that she too
had started out to build a Road of the Loving Heart?
It would be impossible to answer all these questions through the
post-office, so that is why the magic kettle has been dragged from its
hiding-place after all these years, and set a-boiling once more. Gather
in a ring around it, all you who want to know, and pass your curious
fingers through its wreaths of rising steam. Now you shall see the
Little Colonel and her guests of the house party in turn, and the bells
shall ring for each a different song.
But before they begin, for the sake of some who may happen to be in your
midst for the first time, and do not know what it is all about, let the
kettle give them a glimpse into the past, that they may be able to
understand all that is about to be shown to you. Those who already know
the story need not put their fingers into the steam, until the bells
have rung this explanation in parenthesis.
(In Lloydsboro Valley stands an old Southern mansion, known as "Locust."
The place is named for a long avenue of giant locust-trees stretching a
quarter of a mile from house to entrance gate, in a great arch of green.
Here for years an old Confederate colonel lived all alone save for the
negro servants. His only child, Elizabeth, had married a Northern man
against his wishes, and gone away. From that day he would not allow her
name to be spoken in his presence. But she came back to the Valley when
her little daughter Lloyd was five years old. People began calling the
child the Little Colonel because she seemed to have inherited so many of
her grandfather's lordly ways as well as a goodly share of his high
temper. The military title seemed to suit her better than her own name,
for in her fearless baby fashion she won her way into the old man's
heart, and he made a complete surrender.
Afterward when she and her mother and "Papa Jack" went to live with him
at Locust, one of her favourite games was playing soldier. The old man
never tired of watching her march through the wide halls with his spurs
strapped to her tiny slipper heels, and her dark eyes flashing out
fearlessly from under the little Napoleon cap she wore.
She was eleven when she gave her house party. One of the guests was
Joyce Ware, whom some of you have met, perhaps, in "The Gate of the
Giant Scissors," a bright thirteen-year-old girl from the West. Eugenia
Forbes was another. She was a distant cousin of Lloyd's, who had no
home-life like the other girls. Her winters were spent in a fashionable
New York boarding-school, and her summers at the Waldorf-Astoria, except
the few weeks when her busy father could find time to take her to some
seaside resort.
The third guest, Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis, or Betty, as every one lovingly
called her, was Mrs. Sherman's little god-daughter. She was an orphan,
boarding on a backwoods farm on Green River. She had never been on the
cars until Lloyd's invitation found its way to the Cuckoo's Nest. Only
these three came to stay in the house, but Malcolm and Keith MacIntyre
(the two little Knights of Kentucky) were there nearly every day. So was
Rob Moore, one of the Little Colonel's summer neighbours.
The four Bobs were four little fox terrier puppies named for Rob, who
had given one to each of the girls. They were so much alike they could
only be distinguished by the colour of the ribbons tied around their
necks. Tarbaby was the Little Colonel's pony, and Lad the one that Betty
rode during her visit.
After six weeks of picnics and parties, and all sorts of surprises and
good times, the house party came to a close with a grand feast of
lanterns. Joyce regretfully went home to the little brown house in
Plainsville, Kansas, taking her Bob with her. Eugenia and her father
went to New York, but not until they had promised to come back for Betty
in the fall, and take her abroad with them. It was on account of
something that had happened at the house party, but which is too long a
tale to repeat here.
Betty stayed on at Locust until the end of the summer in the House
Beautiful, as she called her godmother's home, and here on the long
vine-covered porch, with its stately white pillars, you shall see them
first through the steam of the magic caldron.)
* * * * *
Listen! Now the kettle boils and the bells begin the story!