wondered for a moment who it could possibly be. Then she remembered
hearing that, while she was away in the summer, an elderly English
woman and a little girl had been allowed to take possession of the
cabin in the woods which her father owned.
It was a little house with two rooms, which had been built, long ago,
as a lodge for hunters; but which had for several years stood vacant,
being too far from the factories to be a convenient residence for any
of the hands.
Miss Hurlburt went on a few steps farther, and saw the singer. It was a
pretty picture. A little creature, who looked about five or six years
old, sat in the door-way tending a battered doll. She was almost as
brown as a gypsy, this small waif, but there was a singular grace about
her. Her black hair hung in thick, short curls. She had great, bright,
black eyes; lips as red as strawberries; and teeth as white as pearls.
Miss Hurlburt moved on softly, so as not to disturb her; and the waif
took up her doll, and talked to it wisely and soberly, after the manner
of some mothers.
"Now, Pinky, me love, I have singed you a song. Now you must be good
for a whole week of hours, or I shan't sing to you, never no more. I
mean any more, Pinky. Be very careful how you speak, always; no good
children ever go wrong in their talking."
By this time Miss Hurlburt had almost reached her side.
"Does your child give you much trouble?" she said, in a tone friendly
and inviting confidence.
The mite shook her head, with all its black curls.
"Pinky, me love? No; she only gives me trouble when she is bad. She is
good most always, unless it rains."
"Is she bad then?" with an air of anxious interest.
"Certain she is: who wouldn't be? She has to stay in the house then;
and she doesn't like it. Would you? How can persons be good when they
don't have what they want?"
By this time a nice, motherly-looking old English woman had heard the
talk, and came forward to the door.
"Missy," she said, "always thinks Pinky is bad when she is bad herself;
and Missy is most always cross when it rains."
"What is your name?" Miss Hurlburt asked, bending to smooth the black
curls.
"Berenice Ashford," the child answered, in a slow, painstaking manner,
as if the words had been taught her with care; "but they don't call me
that,--they call me 'Missy.'"
"Is she your grandchild?" was the next question, addressed to the
elderly woman, who had set a chair near the door and asked the young
lady to sit down.
"No, that she isn't, and I would like much to find out whose child she
is. To be sure, I should miss her more than a little, if I had to part
with her: but, all the same, I should like to find her kindred. She
belongs to gentle-folks, and I can't do for her what ought to be done."
A few more questions drew out the whole story. The woman, Mrs. Smith,
had a son in America, who was doing well at his trade of dyeing; and he
had sent for her to come out to him. He had sent money enough for her
expenses, and she had taken passage in the second cabin of a steamer.
Among her fellow-passengers were Missy and her mother,--the latter a
beautiful young lady, Mrs. Smith said, but very pale and sad. She had
complained sometimes of a keen and terrible pain in her heart; but she
had made little conversation with any one. When they were five days
out, she had been found in the morning dead in her berth, with Missy
sound asleep beside her.
There was no possible clew to her history. In her trunk, full of her
own clothes and Missy's, was no scrap of handwriting, no address. The
one or two books which were there, bore on their fly-leaves only the
inscription "E. Forsyth." She had taken passage as Mrs. Forsyth, but
the captain knew nothing more about her.
Mrs. Smith had somehow taken possession of Missy. She had played with
the child and amused her a good deal, before her mother died; and now
the little creature clung to her as her only friend.
There was something over a hundred dollars in the mother's trunk,
but as yet Mrs. Smith said she had not used it. When she reached New
York, instead of being met by her son, an old neighbor came for her
to the steamer, brought her the news of his death, and gave her the
money--nearly a thousand dollars in all--which he had been saving to
make the new home they were to have together comfortable.
It was an awful blow, and she clung to Missy, then, for it seemed as
if the child was all she had left in the world. The captain said that
he would advertise for the little one's friends; but, meantime, he was
evidently very glad to be relieved of the responsibility of her.
"How happened you to come here?" Miss Hurlburt asked.
"I had always lived in the country, miss, and I didn't want to stay any
longer than I could help in New York; and my son had been meaning to
bring me here. It seemed a little comfort, to come where I should have
come with him. He had engaged with Mr. Hurlburt--the one who owns the
big factories--to come here and see to the dyeing; and Mr. Hurlburt was
so good as to give me this little house rent-free, for a while. By and
by I want to get something to do. If I could be housekeeper somewhere
where I could keep Missy, or head-nurse, or something of that sort, it
would suit me,--but there's no hurry."
"Mr. Hurlburt is my father," the young lady said, when she had heard
the story through. "We must see what can be done. Missy, should you
like to live with me?"
The child considered. Then she addressed her doll, inquiringly.
"Pinky, me love, should _you_ like to live with the lady? I guess she's
good. Would you go, if your mother went?" Then she pretended to listen.
"'No, I thank you,' Pinky says; 'she couldn't go without Grandma
Smith.'"
"Of course Pinky couldn't," Miss Hurlburt said, laughing. "Well, then,
I'll come again to see you, and bring Pinky's new gown."
That evening, at dinner, Miss Hurlburt was radiant. She knew her father
liked to see her well dressed, and she made a handsome toilet. She
coaxed him into his very best humor by all the arts only daughters
of widowed fathers are wont to use; and then, when he was seated
comfortably before the open fire, which tempered the chill of the
October evening, she unfolded her plan and her wishes.
The beginning and the end were that she wanted Missy,--she must
have Missy,--and the middle was that she couldn't be so cruel as
to take from Mrs. Smith her one comfort, so she wanted Mrs. Smith.
She represented herself as fearfully overworked, in keeping the
establishment in order. Now how nice it would be if Mrs. Smith could
take all the troublesome details of that off her hands; could see that
the house was clean, and the washing well done, and the buttons on. She
had needed just such a person a long time, but she hadn't known where
to find her; and now here she was, really made to order, as it seemed.
Of course she had her way. The world called Jonathan Hurlburt a stern
man, but it was not often he could say "no" to his motherless daughter.
The very next day Miss Hurlburt went with her proposition to the little
cabin in the wood; and, before a week was over, Missy and Grandma Smith
were duly installed as members of the Hurlburt household.
As for the business part of the experiment, Mrs. Smith proved worth
her weight in gold, as they say. Before three months were over, Mr.
Hurlburt discovered that she saved him five times her wages in money,
and added immeasurably to the household comfort,--indeed, he concluded
that she was, as Eleanor had said, really made to order.
As for Missy, with her quaint ways, her odd, old-fashioned speeches,
and the little songs she sang, she was speedily the delight of the
household. She lost no whit of her affection for Grandma Smith, but it
was Miss Hurlburt who was her idol.
"Pinky, me love," she used often to say to her faithful doll friend,
"did you ever see any miss so nice as our Miss Hurlburt? You had better
not say you did, Pinky, me love; because then it would be me very
sorrowful duty to whip you for telling lies."
Miss Hurlburt's delight in her little waif was unbounded. She dressed
her up, like a child in a story-book. When she drove in her Victoria,
Missy always sat beside her, gorgeous in velvet suit and soft ermine
furs; and at home Missy was never far away.
Before spring, another strange event took place. I will not say
happened, for no chapter of accidents would ever have read so
strangely. A young English manufacturer came over to America. Mr.
Hurlburt had had, by letter, various dealings with the firm which
he represented; and, on hearing of his arrival in New York, wrote,
begging a visit of some length from him. The young man, whose object in
his American journey was partly business and partly pleasure, saw an
opportunity to combine both in this visit, and accepted the invitation.
He amused himself more or less with Missy, as did every one who came
to the house; but he had been a member of the household for several
days before it occurred to him that she was not Miss Hurlburt's young
sister. Under this impression he remarked one night,--
"How curiously slight is the resemblance between yourself and your
little sister, Miss Hurlburt!"
"Oh! Missy is not my sister," was the smiling answer. "She is
treasure-trove, Mr. Goring."
And a little later, when Missy had danced away in search of Pinky, she
told him the whole story. He listened with intense interest.
"And do you know her name?" he asked, at last.
"She says it is Berenice Ashford. You would laugh to hear the slow,
painstaking way in which she pronounces it."
Mr. Goring had turned pale as she spoke.
"Excuse me, Miss Hurlburt, but I truly believe your Missy is my niece.
My half-brother married against the wishes of his family, and I was the
only one of them who ever made the acquaintance of his poor, pretty
young wife. Even when he died, last year, the rest would not have any
thing to do with her. She had a brother in America, and she wanted to
come here, so I took passage for her in the "Asia." She insisted on
coming in the second cabin, because it was quieter, she said; but I
think it was to save expense, as well. Tom had left her nothing; and,
after the rest of the family had rejected her, I could see that it hurt
her pride cruelly to let me help her. She should be all right, she
said, when she reached her brother. She was to write me when she got
there, but I have never heard a word. I confess that the hope to hear
of her was one motive for my coming to this country."
"But she was Mrs. Forsyth," Miss Hurlburt said, in a curiously
bewildered state of mind.
"Certainly: Forsyth was my brother's name. Berenice Ashford is the
child's Christian name. It was the name of Tom's mother and mine."
"But I wonder you did not know Missy at once."
"Of course to find her here was the very last thing I could have
expected. Then I had not seen her for two or three years. I had
communicated with my sister-in-law chiefly by letter; and it was my man
of business, and not myself, who put her on board the steamer."
"But her brother? Why has he never looked for his sister nor her child?"
Goring smiled.
"You are bent on making me prove my title to Missy, as one does to
stolen goods. I think Mrs. Forsyth must have gone on without writing
to him in what steamer she was coming, and he probably did not know
my address. Nor do I think he had ever shown any especial interest
in his sister. It was only her indomitable pride which made her so
determined to go to him, when the family of her husband rejected her.
Now, I think, I have proved property, and I'm ready to pay the cost of
advertising."
Just then Missy's voice was heard in the hall, addressing a solemn
exhortation to "Pinky, me love," on the duty of never being greedy at
table. Miss Hurlburt called her in.
"Missy," she said, "what was your papa's name?"
"I never knew; did you ever know, Pinky, me love? Mamma called him Tom."
"And did you ever hear mamma speak of Uncle Richard?" Mr. Goring broke
in, eagerly.
"You do remember, Pinky, me love. It is wicked to look as if you
didn't. She said we couldn't go to America and find Uncle John, if
Uncle Richard had not given us the money. _I_ remember that, but I had
'most forgotten; so if you forgot, too, I shall not whip you, Pinky,
me love."
"I am your Uncle Richard," the Englishman said with entire calmness of
manner and gesture, but with tears in his voice and his eyes. Perhaps
he expected the child to come at once to his arms; but she stood there,
the same composed, self-poised little mite as ever.
"_Your_ great-uncle, Pinky, me love," she announced,--manifesting an
unexpectedly clear knowledge of degrees of kinship. "I think maybe we
shall like him."
"And you will go with me back to England?" he asked, eagerly; for the
little creature's likeness to his dead brother stirred his heart.
"Does _she_ say I must?" Missy asked, shyly, looking at Miss Hurlburt.
"I will never say you must, Missy."
"Then, please, Uncle Richard, I am afraid going in a ship wouldn't
agree with Pinky; and we'd rather stay here, unless our Miss Hurlburt
will go too."
"Soh, soh!" and Mr. Goring smiled a quizzical smile, "I see I have a
heart to storm."
Whose heart he did not say. But he lingered some time in America,
coming back at frequent intervals to visit Missy, as he said. The
result was that when he returned to England little Missy had become
ready to go with him, even at the risk of exposing "Pinky me love," to
the perils of the sea; and Miss Hurlburt, thinking she needed something
other than masculine oversight, concluded to go with her and take care
of her, having first changed her own name to Mrs. Goring. And they all
said what a fortunate thing it was that Mrs. Smith was there to keep
house.
THE HEAD BOY OF EAGLEHEIGHT SCHOOL.
The boys in Eagleheight school made up their minds before the first
fortnight of Max Grenoble's stay among them was over that he had
no spirit. The truth was, they didn't exactly understand him. They
began when he first came to exercise upon him their usual arts of
torture,--the initiation ceremonies for all new boys,--and found him
practically a non-resistant. They could not, indeed, be quite sure that
they even succeeded in vexing him: he was so imperturbable. At last Hal
Somers, goaded to a degree of exasperation by the quiet calmness of the
new boy, struck him, with the outcry,--
"There, boys, see how this suits the Quaker."
It was a sound, ringing blow; but Max only laughed a laugh which had a
good deal of scorn in it, and said,--
"That's very little to take." Then regarding Hal curiously, "I looked
for a tougher blow than that. To see you, Somers, one would think you
had a good deal of strength in your arms; but a bad cause is always
weak."
Hal would have liked then to "pitch into him" with whatever of strength
he had; but I think he was afraid. So he only turned on his heel,
muttered something about a fellow not worth fighting with, and walked
away. From that time those who did not vote Max Grenoble a coward
pronounced him a mystery. He did not look at all as if he were wanting
in spirit. He was a great strong Saxon of a fellow, with the head of
a young Greek, covered with thick, short golden curls. I wish I could
photograph him for you: he was such an embodiment of fresh, vigorous
life, with his clear, fearless blue eyes, his short, smiling upper lip,
his well-cut features. He was just the fellow to be popular, if only he
had not been misunderstood in the first place, and especially if he had
not happened to incur Hal Somers's enmity.
Hal had been there two years, and was a positive force in the school.
He had a large capacity in several other directions besides mischief.
He had been the best scholar at Eagleheight before Max came to dispute
his laurels with him; a favorite, therefore, with the teachers, who
always passed over his escapades, which were not few, as lightly as
they could. In fact he was a sort of ringleader of the faster boys,
and he found time, in spite of his never failing in class, to plan
out and head the execution of most of the jollifications which were
the terror of the quiet villagers around Eagleheight. He seldom had
any of his offences positively brought home and proven, it is true,
and the faculty of the institution liked him too well to condemn him
on suspicion, or even to try very hard to strengthen suspicion into
certainty.
They, the aforesaid faculty, were not at all too ready to give Max
Grenoble his due when he first came. He was not, like Hal, of their
own training. He had come to them from a rival school, and they were
secretly ill pleased to find in him a dangerous competitor with their
best scholar. But before six months were over they were obliged to
recognize his claims, and had even come to heartily like him. And,
indeed, he was a fellow, as Edmund Sparkler would have said, with no
nonsense about him, and likely to make his own way anywhere.
Whenever he had the opportunity to show his skill he was found to excel
in all athletic sports; but this was not often, for the boys rather
shunned him, and if there were enough for an undertaking without him he
was usually left out of it. He had one friend, however,--a poor little
weakling of a fellow, named Molyneux Bell, who had been friendless
before Max came. Hal Somers and his roystering set had always shoved
poor little "Miss Molly," as they called young Bell, to the wall;
and it opened paradise to him when great, strong, bright, cheery Max
Grenoble took him under his protecting wing. He gave as much as he
received too; for Max had a strongly affectionate nature, and would
have found himself desolate enough without some one to be fond of. Only
"Miss Molly" knew the secret of his friend's non-resistance. One day
Max had carried him in his arms across a stream they came to in one of
their walks, and set him gently down on the other side. Molyneux looked
up gratefully.
"What great strong arms you have, Max! Why, you carry me as gently as
a cradle. I believe you could whip Hal Somers himself, just as easy as
nothing. Honest, now, don't you think you could? O, I _wish_ you would!
The boys wouldn't dare then to call us 'Miss Molly and her sister.'"
Max laughed heartily.
"I shouldn't be much afraid to try it," he said. "The truth is, I have
been awfully tempted to pitch in, sometimes. But last year I made up
my mind that the Bible meant what it said when it forbade us to return
evil for evil and railing for railing. It comes tough on human nature,
though, boy human nature at any rate; but there'd be no merit if there
was no struggle, and we're put here to fight with the old man in us, as
my father calls it."
"But if you'd tell 'em _why_ you never knock a fellow down when he
sauces you."
Max's face crimsoned like a girl's.
"Don't you understand that a fellow _couldn't_ tell such things? at
least, I couldn't. I should feel like the Pharisee in the Bible."
At the end of the school year there was to be a competitive
examination. The credits for conduct and for recitations were to be
taken into account, and the boy who stood highest on the books, and
passed the best examination also, was to be the head boy of the school
for the next year. From the first the field was abandoned to two
competitors,--Hal Somers and Max Grenoble. All Hal's emulation was
aroused. He _would_ succeed. He even forsook his old ways, and for
weeks together engaged in nothing that was contraband. He had really
fine abilities. He learned some things more readily than Max himself,
and he felt that all his prestige depended on his securing this
leadership. Max took the matter more coolly, but still he worked with
all diligence. And so, till within ten days of the examination, they
were neck and neck.
Just then there came a dark night,--a warm, tempting June night,--when
the moon was old, and only the stars shone, like very far-away lamps
indeed, through the dusk. A friend of Hal Somers was night monitor, and
doubtless the temptation afforded by such apparent security was too
much for mischief-loving Hal. It chanced that Max Grenoble had received
permission from one of the tutors to go to the neighboring village of
an errand, and this fact was known only to his own room-mate, Molyneux
Bell. About half-past nine he was returning, and for greater speed
crossed a lot belonging to the president of the institution, which
saved him an extra quarter of a mile of road. Half way across the lot
he met Hal Somers with three other boys behind him, face to face. Hal
carried a small lantern, and a great pair of shears such as are used
to shear sheep. The light from the lantern struck upon the shears with
a glitter which led Max to notice them. In the hands of one of Hal's
followers he saw the long, silvery tail of a white horse, and another
carried a bunch of hair of a similar hue, evidently the mane of the
same animal.
"Hal Somers!"
He spoke in his first moment of surprise, without consideration; but
there came no answer. The lantern was blown out in a moment, and the
boys made the best of their way toward Eagleheight. As Max walked on
more slowly he heard a pitiful neigh, and following the sound, he
found President King's pet horse, utterly denuded of mane and tail. It
was a joke carried a little too far even for Hal Somers's effrontery,
he thought to himself. If there was any thing outside of his school
that President King loved and prided himself on more than another, it
was Snowflake. He gave her something of the fond care a family man
bestows upon his children. Every afternoon she was the companion of his
solitude, to whom he talked, with a sort of grave humor of his own, as
he took his constitutional upon her back. He would not be likely to
have much toleration for the young rascals who had shorn her of all her
glory. Max went on, reported himself to Professor Vane, from whom he
had obtained his leave of absence, and went to bed without hinting what
he had seen, even to his room-mate.
The next morning when the school went to chapel, there was a sense of
thunder in the air. President King had seen his favorite, as those who
were guilty did not need to be told, after one look at his lowering
face. He conducted the devotions with more than his usual solemnity,
and then detained the school a little longer.
He uttered a few withering sentences, setting forth what had been done,
and commenting satirically upon the invention, the gentlemanliness,
the good sense of young men whose brains could originate nothing
more brilliant or entertaining than the disfigurement of an unlucky
quadruped, and an annoyance and insult to a teacher who had at least
this claim upon their respect, that their parents had put them under
his charge. Then he gave them the opportunity to confess their folly,
assuring them that confession was good for the soul, and adding that he
should take it as a favor if any one who knew any thing of the affair,
whether personally concerned in it or not, would give him all the
information in his power. It was not the practice at Eagleheight to ask
any individual boy whether or not he had been guilty. It was one of
President King's notions that to ask such a question of any one who had
not manliness enough to confess his fault voluntarily was only leading
him into temptation, offering safety as a premium for lying.
As the fellows filed out of chapel, Hal Somers said to his chum,--
"It's all up with me about the leadership. Of course Grenoble will
tell, especially now the Prex makes a merit of it."
"Fool if he wouldn't," was the reply, "after the way we fellows have
all treated him, too."
All day Hal was in hourly expectation of being sent for to an interview
solemn and awful in the president's room. But the hours went on and
no summons came. About four o'clock he saw Max Grenoble go into the
dreaded chamber of audience. Now, he thought, all would come out. Of
course Max had gone to tell all he knew. Would he be suspended, or
expelled, he wondered, or would the Prex be satisfied with giving him
black marks enough to put the leadership altogether beyond his reach?
Then a plan came to him. The president's room was on the lower floor,
and over one of its windows grew a grape vine large enough to conceal
him from observation. He would go there and listen. That it was a
very mean thing to do he knew as well as any body, but temptation was
too strong for him, and giving one look to make sure that he was not
observed he hid himself away under the open window. The first words he
heard were in the voice of the president:
"As soon as Vane told me you were out last evening, it occurred to me
that you would know who was at the bottom of the affair, and it seems
you do."
"Yes, sir," firmly and quietly.