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AT THE LITTLE BROWN HOUSE
BY RUTH ALBERTA BROWN
Author of "Tabitha at Ivy Hall," "Tabitha's Glory," "Tabitha's
Vacation," etc., etc.
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
_MADE IN U.S.A._
COPYRIGHT, MCMXIII
By THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
[Illustration: "I should say it sounded like a plain robber story," said
Faith bitterly, while Gail sat white-faced and silent with despair.]
CONTENTS
I. A MORNING CALLER
II. THE MINISTER'S RECEPTION
III. SHOES AND STRAWBERRIES
IV. LITTLE FLOWER GIRLS
V. SACKCLOTH AND ASHES
VI. THANKSGIVING DAY AT THE BROWN HOUSE
VII. PEACE SURPRISES THE LADIES' AID
VIII. A MYSTERIOUS SANTA CLAUS
IX. FAITH'S AWAKENING
X. COMPANY FOR SUPPER
XI. GARDENS AND GOPHERS
XII. THE RASPBERRY PATCH
XIII. PEACE GETS EVEN
XIV. PEACE, THE GOOD SAMARITAN
XV. PEACE COLLECTS DAMAGES
XVI. THE STATE FAIR CAKE
XVII. THE CIRCUS AND THE MISSIONARY
XVIII. THE HAND-ORGAN MAN
XIX. HEARTBREAK
XX. AT THE BROKER'S OFFICE
XXI. SURPRISES
AT THE LITTLE BROWN HOUSE
CHAPTER I
A MORNING CALLER
It was a glorious morning in early June; the dew still hung heavy on
each grass blade and leaf, making rainbow tapestries that defy
description, as the waking sunbeams stole into the heart of each round
drop and nestled there; the fresh, cool air was sweet with the breath of
a thousand flowers; a beautiful bird chorus filled the earth with
riotous melody as the happy-hearted songsters flitted from tree to tree
saying, "Good morning," to their neighbors. Through a mass of rosy
clouds in the east, the sun struggled up over the hilltop and smiled
down on the sleeping village of Parker as if trying to coax the dreamers
to arise and behold the beauties of the dawning day. In the barn-yards
of the little farms scattered around about the town roosters were
crowing, hens were clucking, cattle lowing, and horses stamping and
neighing, eager for their breakfast.
Old Towzer, from his bed on the porch of the little brown house, almost
bidden by tall maples and wide-spreading elms, stretched and yawned,
perked up his ears, listened intently, then rose stiffly, shook his
heavy coat and leisurely descending the steps, circled around the place
to see whether anyone was yet astir. The door slammed at the green house
on the farm adjoining, from the little red cottage across the fields
came the sound of a busy ax, and down by the creek some early riser
whistled merrily as he went about his morning work. All this old Towzer
heard, and strolling back to his place on the porch, he looked up at the
chamber window above him and barked sharply. The drawn curtain flew up
with a flirt, a small, tousled head appeared behind the screen, and a
childish voice in a loud whisper commanded, "Keep still, you old Towzer!
It isn't time to wake Gail yet. We've got to get those flowers and she
wouldn't let us if she knew."
A second small face joined the first at the window, followed by still
another, all blinking sleepily, but eager with excitement. "Oh, Peace,"
whispered the oldest of the trio, in an awestruck voice, "isn't it a
beau--ti--ful day? I've a notion to call--"
"Don't you dast!" quickly interposed the first speaker. "You know Gail
never'd let us go. Just see how wet everything is!"
"Did it rain?" asked the third child, the youngest of them all,
critically examining the trees and porch-roof, and then lifting her
great, blue eyes to the bluer sky above as if expecting to see her
answer there.
"No, goosie, it's just dew, but it must have been awful heavy. Get your
clothes on, Allee, or Gail will wake before we are started. Aren't you
ready, Cherry?"
"'Most," came the muffled reply from the corner where a struggling
tangle of clothes, hands and feet proclaimed that Cherry was hurrying.
"Then come on; we will have to fly. I'll button your dress when we get
outside, Allee. Never mind your other shoe, Cherry; you can put it on
downstairs. Have you got your basket?" Giving her directions in sharp,
imperative whispers, Peace led the way into the hall, leaped onto the
banisters, boy-fashion, and slid quickly, quietly to the floor below,
where she waited in a fever of impatience for her less daring sisters to
creep backward down the creaking stairs. "Skip that one, it squeaks like
fury--oh, Allee, what a racket! There, I knew you'd do it! Gail's awake.
Sh! Girls!"
They held their breath, huddled close in the darkest corner of the hall,
and waited.
"Peace!" again came the call from above.
A happy inspiration seized the small culprit, and she snored vigorously.
Cherry and Allee clapped both hands over their mouths to stifle their
giggles, but Gail was evidently satisfied, for she did not repeat her
summons; and after another moment of hushed waiting, the half-dressed,
dishevelled trio tiptoed down the hall, cautiously unlocked the kitchen
door and slipped out into the sweet freshness of the early day.
There was a quick scampering of little feet down the walk, a subdued
click of the gate, and the three children, holding hands, raced madly
along the dusty road until a thick hedge of sumac and hazel bushes hid
them from the little brown house. Then Peace slackened her gait
somewhat, but did not cease running, and kept looking behind her as if
still fearing pursuit or discovery.
"Oh, Peace," gasped Allee at last, stumbling blindly over sticks and
stones as her older sisters dragged her along between them, "my dress is
coming off, and my breath is all in chunks. Do we have to run the
_whole_ way?"
Peace looked back at the small, perspiring figure, saw the plump
shoulders from which the unbuttoned dress had slipped, caught a glimpse
of flying shoestrings, rumpled stockings and naked legs, as the little
feet were jerked unceremoniously over humps and hollows of the rough
road-way, and stopped so abruptly that her companions were thrown
headlong into the dust, creating such a commotion that a weary slumberer
on the opposite side of the thicket was rudely startled out of his nap,
thinking some great catastrophe had overtaken him. As he sat up and
rubbed his eyes, looking around him in bewilderment for the cause of his
sudden awakening, he heard an angry voice sputter shrilly, "Well, Peace
Greenfield, I must say--"
"Don't stop to say it now," interrupted another childish voice. "I never
meant to dump you over like that. You shouldn't have been running so
fast. S'posing you had been a train and tumbled into the ditch! Reckon
all your passengers would have got a good jolt. I stopped so's we could
finish dressing. Cherry, where is your other shoe? You have run all the
way down the road with only one on. Just look at your stockings!"
"Where's yours? You haven't any stockings at all," retorted the first
voice, still sharp with indignation.
"In my pocket. I was afraid Gail would hear as 'fore we got gone. There,
Allee, your dress is done. Fasten up your shoes while I put on my
stockings. We'll have to hurry like mischief, 'cause I don't think Gail
will go back to sleep again."
There was a subdued rustling for a moment or two beyond the dense hedge,
and then the listening man heard the sound of hurrying footsteps in the
road, and the children vanished without his having caught a glimpse of
them. But he was now thoroughly awake, and as soon as the steps died
away in the distance, he rose from his bed among the leaves, shook out
his gray blankets, rolled and strapped them into a bundle, threw them
under the overhanging shrubbery, and slowly made way through the trees
to a wide, sparkling creek, whose tumbling waters made sweet music in
the woods.
"What a glorious scene this is," he murmured aloud, gazing in rapt
admiration at the wooded hills, the singing stream, the bright flowers.
"Why can't we be content to live in such places instead of building
great, smoky, sooty cities? You little creek, you sang me to sleep last
night. Wish I could take you back home with me. What a pretty flower!
Little bird, you will split your throat if you try to pour out all your
melody at once. Better give us a little at a time. Of course you are
happy! Who wouldn't be on such a wonderful day? Oh, what sentiments for
a tramp! Campbell, have you forgotten what you are?"
He was near the road now, and suddenly a baby voice piped shrilly, "Yes,
here is the bridge and there is the sun. Oh, just look at the sun! It's
way up high now. Ain't it big and fiery?"
"S'posing it was a frying-pan," spoke up a second voice, which the
startled tramp recognized as belonging to Peace; "and we could have all
the buckwheat cakes it would cook. My! wouldn't that be nice?"
They came slowly into view through the shrubbery,--three queer, dripping
little figures, with hair flying, dresses wet and rumpled, shoes soaked
and muddy, but literally loaded down with masses of late columbine and
sweet wood violets. And they made a pretty picture with their bright,
rosy faces and excited, sparkling eyes.
The tramp, in the shadow of the trees, caught his breath sharply, then
laughed to himself at Peace's supposition and Cherry's horrified
exclamation, "Why, Peace Greenfield, what ever put such a crazy idea
into your head?--supposing the sun was a frying pan?"
"I bet it would make a good one, and I'll bet the cakes would be dandy,
too! Um--m--m! I can smell 'em now. I am starving hungry, and it does
take so long for the girls to cook pancakes in our little frying pan.
Hurry up! It must be breakfast time already. I wish I had wings to fly
home with. S'posing we were birds, we would be there in a jiffy."
"Let's play we were," suggested Allee. "That will make the way seem
shorter."
"All right," the sisters assented; and with their great bouquets
flapping wildly in the wind, the trio sped swiftly out of sight up the
road, leaving the tramp again to his thoughts.
"Pancakes! Makes me hungry, too. Guess I better wash and be moving on in
search of a breakfast. I wonder if those youngsters live near here."
He knelt beside the clear stream and ducked his head again and again in
the cool water, finally drying his face on a clean handkerchief, and
running his fingers through his bushy gray hair in place of a comb. His
toilet done, he set out briskly down road the children had taken,
whistling under his breath, and keeping a careful lookout for
farmhouses on the way.
At the first place he approached, the watchful housewife had loosed a
vicious-looking bulldog, and the tramp wisely passed by without
stopping. The next house was deserted, the door of the third place was
slammed in his face before he could even make known his wants, and he
was beginning to wonder if he must go breakfastless when a shrill,
childish treble rang out clearly on the still morning air:
"'The Campbells are comin' Oho, Oho,
The Campbells are comin', Oho, Oho.'"
So sudden was the discordant burst of song, and so close by, that the
tramp stopped in his tracks and stared in the direction of the voice.
"Well, of all things! That announcement quite took my breath away!" he
ejaculated, hurrying forward once more. "The voice sounds like 'S'posing
Peace.' I wonder if it can be she."
It was, indeed. Another rod and he found himself in front of a gate, on
the high post of which was perched a diminutive, bare-legged girl in
a soiled, damp frock, superintending the drying of three pair of
mud-covered shoes arranged in a row on the picket fence, while she
issued orders to the two sisters sitting in the middle of the gravel
walk busily sorting flowers.
"As true as you live, I don't believe these shoes will ever be dry by
school time. S'posing we have to go barefooted, and this the last day of
the term! Cherry, you've got too many columbines in that horn. They look
pinched. Put some in Allee's boat."
"Allee's boat?"
"Well, she is fixing it for Miss Truesdale, even if she ain't a
sure-enough scholar yet. Don't make such little, stingy bunches of
violets. We picked plenty. I can't coax your toes to shine, Cherry. I'm
scared that the blacking won't do any good. You shouldn't have worn your
best ones."
"I haven't any others. My old pair is all worn out, and--Why, who--"
Cherry had caught sight of the shabby figure at the gate, but before she
could finish her sentence, Peace, following the direction of her eyes,
wheeled about on her perch, surveyed the man with big, almost somber,
brown eyes, and poured forth an avalanche of questions: "Are you a
tramp? Do you want some work, or are you just begging? Can you chop
wood? Do you know how to hoe? Are you hungry--"
"Yes, miss, I'm hungry," the tramp managed to stammer. "Could you give
me a bite to eat?"
"Not unless you will work for it," was the firm reply. "We don't b'lieve
in feeding beggars, but we are always glad to help the deserving poor."
The man's shrewd, deep-set eyes twinkled with amusement at her grown-up
tone and manner, but he answered with seeming meekness, "I will be only
too glad to do anything I can for a breakfast--"
"There's wood to be chopped. Gail ain't strong enough to do such work,
and our man is lazy. Reckon we'll let him go as soon as the garden is in
shape. There's a heap of vines to be trained up on strings 'round the
porches, and there are all the flower beds to be weeded, this grass
needs cutting, and the roof of the hen house has to be fixed so's it
won't leak, the hoop has come off the rain-barrel, the back step is
broken, and--oh, yes, there are three screens that we can't get on the
windows, and Mike never finds time for them."
Peace stopped for breath, and the tramp took advantage of the pause to
say, "Which one of those jobs will you have me do?"
"Which one?" echoed the child in round-eyed amazement. "Why, all of
them, of course! You don't expect us to give you breakfast unless you do
something to earn it, do you, after I've told you we never feed
beggars?"
"No, miss. I am willing to work. But you better find out what your ma
wants me to do first, so I can begin."
"Mamma's a ninvalid," Peace responded promptly. "But I will ask Gail.
She will know, and, besides, she is cook here."
She leaped nimbly to the ground and disappeared within doors, where some
sort of an argument evidently waged warm and furious for a time, judging
from the sound of voices heard in the garden. Finally Peace put in
appearance again; not the jaunty, self-reliant young lady who had
interviewed the tramp a few moments before, but a very sober-faced,
dejected-looking child, who twisted her dress into knots with nervous
fingers, and at length stammered in embarrassed tones, "Gail says you
can have some breakfast if you will split a little wood for her first,
but she says it is a nimposition to expect you to do all I said you
should. I don't see why. There's a heap of work around here to be done
and no one but Mike to do it. There! Faith told me not to say anything
about not having any men on the place. Mike is only a boy, you know, and
he doesn't b'long here. We haven't got any--"
"Peace Greenfield!" The voice was sharp with exasperation, and Peace
retired hastily indoors once more, calling back over her shoulder,
"You'll find the ax by the woodpile, if Mike hasn't got it in the
meadow, or it isn't in the shed or the barn. I'll come out and tell you
when to quit. Yes, Faith I _am_ hurrying! Be sure you cut a lot,
'cause--" The voice trailed away into indistinctness, and the tramp,
with a smile on his lips, went to hunt up the missing ax; and soon
sharp, ringing blows told the occupants of the house that he was hard at
work.
Rapidly the huge pile of heavy knots diminished in size, and just as
rapidly the heap of split stove-wood grew, while the perspiration rolled
in great beads down the worker's crimson face. At last he paused a
moment to rest his back and wipe the moisture from his hot forehead, and
as he drew his handkerchief down from his eyes he saw Peace standing
before him, holding a platter in her extended arms while she surveyed
the result of his labor with approving eyes.
"You've done splendid!" she breathed, enthusiastically. "The last tramp
who cut wood for us piled it up so it looked like there was an awful
lot, but after he was gone we found he had heaped it around a big hole
in the middle and there wasn't hardly any split. Faith said she bet you
would do the same way, but I watched you from the window, while Cherry
and me were washing the dishes, and you never tried to hide a hole in
the middle at all. Here is your breakfast. Gail cooked it, else you
wouldn't have got much. It is Faith's turn to get the meals today, but
she is baking a cake for the minister's reception tonight, and is
crosser'n two sticks, so Gail fixed it.
"You see, we were all through breakfast when you got here, or you might
have had more. I don't know, though,--Faith says if she had her way
about it, she'd send every single tramp who comes here marching down the
street with the enemy in pursuit. That means Towzer, but he wouldn't
bite anyone. Faith is cross every time she makes a cake. You might have
eaten in the kitchen if it hadn't been for that. She sends us all
out-doors when she is baking, so's we won't make her cakes fall. She
does make fine things, though! Um! but they are good! Never mind, the
kitchen is hot anyway, but it's nice and cool out here under this maple.
This is my maple. Papa built that bench for me and Allee before he went
to heaven. You can sit on the ground and play the seat was your table,
or you can sit in the seat and hold this platter in your lap. Which'll
you do?"
The tramp smiled broadly, relieved the small maid of her heavy load, and
dropped wearily onto the wide bench, saying gratefully, "This will do
nicely, thank you. What a fine breakfast you have brought me! Gail must
be a good cook. Is she your sister?" As he spoke, he picked up an egg
and carefully broke it on the edge of his plate.
"Yes, Gail's the oldest of us--Oh, Mr. Tramp, just see what you have
done! I was afraid Gail hadn't given you breakfast enough and that you
might get hungry before noon, so when she wasn't looking I put on a
whole lot of extra toast and four eggs and some matches to cook them
with, and you've gone and smashed a _raw_ egg all over everything!"
He stared in dismay at the broken yolk streaming over his creamed
potatoes, and then, seeing the consternation in the big, brown eyes of
his small hostess, he laughed heartily and said, "Never mind, little
girl! I'm hungry enough for even raw eggs this morning. Doctors often
make their patients eat such things. Here goes!"
Peace watched him in silence a moment and then observed, "You don't look
like any tramps we ever had here before. They always shovel in their
food with their knives, but you use your fork. You can work, too. Why
don't you get a job somewhere and earn some money instead of loafing
around begging for your meals?"
The man paused, with his fork half way to his mouth, surprised at the
child's keen observations. Then he answered, lightly, "I do sometimes,
but a feller can't work all the time, can he?"
"Well, most folks have to, though I never could see why they all can't
have vacations like we do at school. This is our last day until next
fall."
"Is that what you and the kids gathered the flowers for?"
"Yes, and for the minister's reception tonight. We went early this
morning 'fore the rest of the folks were up; and mercy, but didn't Faith
scold when we got back! She said we ought all of us to be whipped and
sent to bed. Faith is real ugly when she's making cakes. We did get
awfully wet,--I had no notion it would be so bad. But we got the flowers
anyway. We made some baskets yesterday out of birch bark and moss. Here
comes Allee with them now. She doesn't go to school yet, but sometimes
she visits with Cherry and me, and today is one of the times. Ain't the
baskets pretty?"
"Scrumptious!" was the admiring answer, as the man clumsily lifted one
of the dainty boats filled with dog-tooth violets and drank in its
perfume with the delight of a child. "What wouldn't city people give for
these little nosegays from the woods! They would go like hot cakes."
"What do you mean?" asked mystified Peace, failing to understand what
connection her beloved flowers could have with hot cakes.
"Why, in big cities, at almost any of the important business corners,
you will see little boys and girls selling sweet peas and daisies
and--yes, they sometimes sell cowslips and wood violets, but only in
bunches--never in such cunning little baskets. Why, tucked down in that
damp moss, your flowers will keep fresh for hours; while a bunch from a
city flower-seller's stock withers as soon as it is taken out of water."
"Would folks in Martindale buy them?"
"Yes, indeed! They are a breath from the woods, and lots of people would
be glad to get them. You see--"
"Peace Greenfield, it's time to start! Do you want to be late the last
day of school?"
"That's Cherry. I must go. I wish I could stop and talk some more. When
you finish your breakfast, just take the dishes around to the kitchen
steps, and--if you have time and want to do it--you might weed those
flower gardens in the front yard and the onion patch behind the shed. If
you don't, I'll have to, and you 'member I gave you some extra lunch
that you wouldn't have got if it hadn't been for me--and a few matches.
Promise you won't light a fire till you get a long way from our house,
will you? Gail won't give tramps matches for fear they will set the
buildings on fire. And say, the lawn-mower is right beside the front
porch, if you should happen to want to cut the grass--just the little
piece fenced in, you know. The rest is for hay. And the ball of twine
for stringing up Hope's vines is stuck in the hole of the porch railing
nearest the door--you can find it easy enough. The rain barrel is behind
the house, and--yes, yes, Cherry, I am coming this very minute! I hope
you have liked your nice breakfast, and will come some other time and
split more wood for us. Good-bye, Mr. Tramp, I've _got_ to go."