THE VALENTINE PARTY.
"Now we can tell Ginger about the bear," was Keith's first remark, when
he awoke early next morning.
"But not until after we have seen the man again," answered Malcolm. "You
know we promised him that."
"Then let's go down before breakfast," exclaimed Keith, springing out of
bed and beginning to dress himself. A little while later, the old
coloured coachman saw them run past the window, where he was warming
himself by the kitchen stove.
"Daphne," he called out to the cook, who was beating biscuit in the
adjoining pantry, "Daphne, what's dem chillun alluz racin' down to de
spring-house fo' in de snow? Peah's lak dee has a heap o' business
down yandah."
Daphne, who had just been coaxed into filling a basket with a generous
supply of cold victuals, pretended not to hear until he repeated his
question. Then she stopped pounding long enough to say, sharply,
"Whuffo' you alluz 'spicion dem boys so evahlastin'ly, Unc' Henry? Lak
enough dee's settin' a rabbit trap. Boys has done such things befo'.
You's done it yo'se'f, hasn't you?"
Daphne had seen them setting rabbit traps there, but she knew well
enough that was not what they had gone for now, and that the food they
carried was not for the game of Robinson Crusoe, which they had played
in the deserted cabin the summer before. Still, she did not care to take
Unc' Henry into her confidence.
The food, the warmth, and the night's rest had so restored the bear that
it was able to go through all its performances for the boys'
entertainment, although it limped badly.
"Isn't he a dandy?" cried Keith; "I wish we had one. It's nicer than any
pets we ever had, except the ponies. Something always happened to the
dogs, and the monkey was such a nuisance, and the white rabbits were
stolen, and the guinea pigs died."
"Haven't we had a lot of things, when you come to think of it?"
exclaimed Malcolm. "Squirrels, and white mice, and the coon that Uncle
Harry brought us, and the parrot from Mexico."
"Yes, and the gold-fish, and the little baby alligator that froze to
death in its tank," added Keith. "But a bear like this would be nicer
than any of them. As soon as papa comes home I am going to ask him to
buy us one."
"Jonesy's nearly done for," said the tramp, pointing to the boy who lay
curled up in the hay, coughing at nearly every breath. "We ought to stay
here another day, if you young gen'lemen don't object."
"Oh, goody!" cried Keith. "Then we can bring Ginger down to see the bear
perform."
"Yes," answered the man, "we'll give a free show to all your friends, if
you will only kindly wait till to-morrow. Give us one more day to rest
up and get in a little better trim. The poor beast's foot is still too
lame for him to do his best, and you're too kind-hearted, I am sure, to
want anything to suffer in order to give you pleasure."
"Of course," answered both the boys, agreeing so quickly to all the
man's smooth speeches that, before they left the cabin, they had
renewed their promise to keep silent one more day. The man was a shrewd
one, and knew well how to make these unsuspecting little souls serve his
purpose, like puppets tied to a string.
Miss Allison was so busy with preparations for the party that she had no
time all that day to notice what the boys were doing. When they came
back from reciting their lessons to the minister, she sent them on
several errands, but the rest of the time they divided between the cabin
and the post-office.
Every mail brought a few valentines to each of them, but it was not
until the five o'clock train came that they found the long-looked-for
letters from their father and mother.
"I knew they'd each send us a valentine," cried Keith, tearing both of
his open. "I'll bet that papa's is a comic one. Yes, here it is. Papa is
such a tease. Isn't it a stunner? a base-ball player. And, whoopee!
Here's a dollar bill in each of 'em."
"So there is in mine," said Malcolm. "Mamma says we are to buy anything
we want, and call it a valentine. They couldn't find anything down on
the coast that they thought we would like."
"I don't know what to get with mine," said Keith, folding his two bills
together. "Seems to me I have everything I want except a camera, and I
couldn't buy the kind I want for two dollars."
They were half-way home when a happy thought came to Malcolm. "Keith,"
he cried, excitedly, "if you would put your money with mine, that would
make four dollars, and maybe it would be enough to buy that bear!"
"Let's do it!" exclaimed Keith, turning a handspring in the snow to show
his delight. "Come on, we'll ask the man now."
But the man shook his head, when they dashed into the cabin and told
their errand. "No, sonny, that ain't a tenth of what it's worth to me,"
he said. "I've raised that bear from the time it was a teeny cub. I've
taught it, and fed it, and looked to it for company when I hadn't nobody
in the world to care for me. Couldn't sell that bear for no such sum as
that. Couldn't you raise any more money than that?"
It was Malcolm's turn to shake his head. He turned away, too
disappointed to trust himself to answer any other way. The tears sprang
to Keith's eyes. He had set his heart on having that bear.
"Never mind, brother," said Malcolm, moving toward the door. "Papa will
get us one when he comes home and finds how much we want one."
"Oh, don't be in such a hurry, young gen'lemen," whined the man, when he
saw that they were really going. "I didn't say that I wouldn't sell it
to you for that much. You've been so kind to me that I ought to be
willing to make any sacrifice for you. I happen to need four dollars
very particular just now, and I've a mind to sell him to you on your own
terms." He paused a moment, looking thoughtfully at a crack in the
floor, as he stood by the fire with his hands in his pockets. "Yes," he
said, at last, "you can have him for four dollars, if you'll keep mum
about us being here for one more day. You can leave the bear here
till we go."
"No! No!" cried Keith, throwing his arms around the animal's neck. "He
is ours now, and we must take him with us. We can hide him away in the
barn. It is so dark out-doors now that nobody will see us. It wouldn't
seem like he is really ours if we couldn't take him with us."
After some grumbling the man consented, and pocketed the four dollars,
first asking very particularly the exact spot in the barn where they
expected to hide their huge pet.
Unc' Henry, coming up from the carriage-house through the twilight,
thought he saw some one stealing along by the clump of cedars by the
spring-house. "Who's prowlin' roun' dis yere premises?" he called. There
was no answer, and, after peering intently through the dusk for a
moment, the old darkey concluded that he must have been mistaken, and
passed on. As soon as he was gone, the boys came out from behind the
cedars, and crept up the snowy hillside. They were leading the bear
between them.
"We'll put him away back in the hay-mow where he'll be warm and
comfortable to-night," whispered Malcolm. "Then in the morning we can
tell everybody."
While they were busily scooping out a big hollow in the hay, they were
startled by a rustling behind them. They looked into each other's
frightened faces, and then glanced around the dark barn in alarm. An old
cap pushed up through the hay. Then a weak little cough betrayed Jonesy.
He had followed them.
"Sh!" he said, in a warning whisper. "I'm afraid the boss will find out
that I'm here. He started to the store for some tobacco as soon as you
left. He's been wild fer some, but didn't have no money. _Don't you
leave that bear out here to-night, if you ever expect to see it again!_
That wasn't true what he told you. He never saw the bear till two months
ago, and he sold it to you cheap because he's a-goin' to steal it back
again to-night, and make off up the road with it. He went off a-grinnin'
over the slick way he'd fooled you, and I jes' had to come and tell,
'cause you've been so good to me. I'll never forget the little kid's
givin' me the coat off his own back, if I live to be a hundred. Now
don't blab on me, or the boss would nearly kill me."
"Is that man your father?" began Keith, but Jonesy, alarmed by some
sudden noise, sprang to the door, and disappeared in the twilight.
The boys looked at each other a moment, with surprise and indignation
in their faces. There was a hurried consultation in the hay-mow. A few
moments later the boys were smuggling their new pet into the house, and
up the back stairs. They scarcely dared breathe until it was safe in
their own room.
All the time that they were dressing for the party, they were trying to
decide where to put it for the night, so that neither the tramp nor the
family could discover it. What Jonesy had told them about the man's
dishonest intention did not relieve them from their promise. They were
amazed that any one could be so mean, and longed to tell their Aunt
Allison all about it; still, one of the conditions on which they had
bought the bear was that they were to "keep mum," and they stuck
strictly to that promise.
By the time they were dressed, they had decided to put it in the blue
room, a guest-chamber in the north wing, seldom used in winter, because
it was so hard to heat. "Nobody will ever think of coming in here," said
Malcolm, "and it will be plenty warm for a bear if we turn on the
furnace a little." As he spoke, he was tying the bear's rope around a
leg of the big, high-posted bed.
"Won't Ginger be surprised?" answered Keith. "We'll tell her that we
have a valentine six feet long, and keep her guessing."
There was no time for teasing, however, as the first guest arrived while
they were still in the blue room.
"I hate to go off and leave him in the dark," said Keith, with a final
loving pat. "I guess he'll not mind, though. Maybe he'll think he is in
the woods if I put this good-smelling pine pillow on the rug
beside him."
"Oh, boys," called Virginia from the hall down-stairs. "See what an
enormous valentine pie Aunt Allison has made!"
Looking over the banisters, the boys saw that a table had been drawn
into the middle of the wide reception-hall, and on it sat the largest
pie that they had ever seen. It was in a bright new tin pan, and its
daintily browned crust would have made them hungry even if their
appetites had not been sharpened by the cold and exercise of the
afternoon.
"What a queer place to serve pie," said Malcolm, in a disapproving
undertone to his brother. "Why don't they have it in the dining-room? It
looks mighty good, but somehow it doesn't seem proper to have it stuck
out here in the hall. Mamma would never do such a thing."
"Aw, it's made of paper! She fooled us, sure, Malcolm," called back
Keith, who had run on ahead to look. "It is only painted to look like a
pie. But isn't it a splendid imitation?"
Virginia, pleased to have caught them so cleverly, showed them the ends
of twenty-four pieces of narrow ribbon, peeping from under the
delicately brown top crust. "The white ones are for the girls, and the
red ones for the boys," she explained. "There is a valentine on the end
of each one, and those on the red ribbons match the ones on the white.
We'll all pull at once, and the ones who have valentines alike will go
out to dinner together."
The guests came promptly. They had been invited for half-past six, and
dinner was to be served soon after that time. The last to arrive was the
Little Colonel. She came in charge of an old coloured woman, Mom Beck,
who had been her mother's nurse as well as her own. The child was so
hidden in her wraps when Mom Beck led her up-stairs, that no one could
tell how she looked. The boys had been curious to see her, ever since
they had heard so many tales of her mischievous pranks. A few minutes
later, when she appeared in the parlours, there was a buzz of
admiration. Maybe it was not so much for the soft light hair, the
star-like beauty of her big dark eyes, or the delicate colour in her
cheeks that made them as pink as a wild rose, as it was for the
valentine costume she wore. It was of dainty white tulle, sprinkled with
hundreds of tiny red velvet hearts, and there was a coronet of
glittering rhinestones on her long fair hair.
"The Queen of Hearts," announced Aunt Allison, leading her forward. "You
know 'she made some tarts, upon a summer day,' and now she shall open
the valentine pie and see if it is as good as her Majesty's."
The big music-box in the hall began playing one of its liveliest
waltzes, the children gathered around the great pie, and twenty-four
little hands reached out to grasp the floating ends of ribbon.
"Pull!" cried the little Queen of Hearts. The paper crust flew off, and
twenty-four yards of ribbon, each with a valentine attached, fluttered
brightly through the air for an instant.
"Now match your verses," cried her Majesty again, opening her own to
read what was in it. There was much laughing and peeping over shoulders,
and tangling of white and scarlet ribbons, while the gay music-box
played on.
In the midst of it Virginia beckoned to the Little Colonel. "Come
up-stairs with me for a minute, Lloyd," she whispered, "and help me
look for something. Aunt Allison has forgotten where she put the box of
arrows that we are to use in the archery contest after dinner. There is
the prettiest prize for the one who hits the red heart in the centre of
the target."
"Oh, do you suppose you can hit it?" asked Lloyd, as she and Virginia
slipped their arms around each other, and went skipping up the stairs.
"Yes, indeed!" answered Virginia. "I used to practise so much with my
Indian bow and arrow out at the fort, that I could hit centre nearly
every time. I am not going to shoot to-night. Aunt Allison thinks it
wouldn't be fair."
When they reached the top of the stairs, Virginia went into her room to
light a wax taper in one of the tall silver candlesticks on her
dressing-table. "I think that Aunt Allison must have left those arrows
in the blue room," she said, leading the way down the cross hall which
went to the north wing. "She made the pie in there this morning, and all
the other things were there. Nobody comes over in this part of the
house much in winter, unless there happens to be a great deal
of company."
The taper that Virginia carried was the only light in that part of the
house. When she reached the door of the blue room she turned to Lloyd.
"Hold the candle for me, please," she said, "while I look in
the closet."
It was a pretty picture that the little "Queen of Hearts" made, as she
stood in the doorway, with the tall silver candlestick held high in both
hands. Her hair shone like gold in the candlelight, and her glittering
crown flashed as if a circle of fairy fireflies had been caught in its
soft meshes. Her dark eyes peered anxiously around the big shadowy room,
lighted only by her flickering taper.
Down-stairs, Malcolm and Keith were almost quarrelling about her. It
began by Malcolm taking his brother aside and offering to trade
valentines with him.
"Why?" asked Keith, suspiciously.
"'Cause yours matches the Little Colonel's, and I want to take her out
to dinner," admitted Malcolm. "She is the prettiest girl here."
"But I don't want to trade," answered Keith. "I want to take her
myself."
"I'll give you the pick of any six stamps in my album if you will."
"Don't want your old stamps," declared Keith, stoutly. "I'd rather have
the Little Colonel for my partner."
"I think you might trade," coaxed Malcolm. "It's mean not to when I'm
the oldest. I'll give you that Chinese puzzle you've been wanting so
long if you will." Keith shook his head.
Just then a terrific scream sounded in the upper hall, followed by
another that made every one down-stairs turn pale with fright. Two
voices were uttering piercing shrieks, one after another, so loud and
frantic that even the servants in the back part of the house came
running. Miss Allison, thinking of the candle she had told Virginia to
light, and remembering the thin, white dress the child wore, instantly
thought she must have set herself afire. She ran into the hall, so
frightened that she was trembling from head to foot. Before she could
reach the staircase, Virginia came flying down the steps, white as a
little ghost, and her eyes wide with terror. Throwing herself into her
aunt's outstretched arms, she began to sob out her story between great,
trembling gasps.
"Oh, there's an awful, awful wild beast in the blue room, nearly as tall
as the ceiling! It rose up and came after us out of the corner, and if I
hadn't slammed the door just in time, it would have eaten us up. I'm
sure it would! Oo-oo-oo! It was so awful!" she wailed.
"Why, Virginia," exclaimed her aunt, distressed to see her so terrified,
"it must have been only a big shadow you saw. It isn't possible for a
wild beast to be in the blue room you know. Where is Lloyd?"
"She's up heah, Miss Allison," called Mom Beck's voice. "She's so
skeered, I'se pow'ful 'fraid she gwine to faint. They sut'nly is
something in that room, honey, deed they is. I kin heah it movin' around
now, switchin' he's tail an' growlin'!"
Malcolm and Keith, with guilty faces, went dashing up the stairs, and
the whole party followed them at a respectful distance. When they opened
the door the room looked very big and shadowy, and the bear, roused from
its nap, was standing on its hind legs beside the high-posted bed. The
huge figure was certainly enough to frighten any one coming upon it
unexpectedly in the dark, and when Miss Allison saw it she drew
Virginia's trembling hand into hers with a sympathetic clasp. Before she
could ask any questions, the boys began an excited explanation. It was
some time before they could make their story understood.
Their grandmother was horrified, and insisted on sending the animal away
at once. "The idea of bringing such a dangerous creature into any one's
house," she exclaimed, "and, above all, of shutting him up in a bedroom!
We might have all been bitten, or hugged to death!"
"But, grandmother," begged Malcolm, "he isn't dangerous. Let me bring
him into the light, and show you what a kind old pet he is."
There was a scattering to the other end of the hall as Malcolm came out,
leading the bear, but the children gradually drew nearer as the great
animal began its performances. Keith whistled and kept time with his
feet in a funny little shuffling jig he had learned from Jonesy, and the
bear obligingly went through all his tricks. He was used to being pulled
out to perform whenever a crowd could be collected.
Virginia forgot her fear of him when he stood up and presented arms like
a real soldier, and even went up and patted him when the show was over,
joining with the boys in begging that he might be allowed to stay in the
house until morning. Mrs. Maclntyre was determined to send a man down to
the cabin at once to investigate. She had a horror of tramps. But the
boys begged her to wait until daylight for Jonesy's sake.
"The man will beat him if he finds out that Jonesy warned us," pleaded
Keith. He was so earnest that the tears stood in his big, trustful eyes.
"This is spoiling the party, mother," whispered Miss Allison, "and
dinner is waiting. I'll be responsible for any harm that may be done if
you will let the boys have their way this once."
There seemed no other way to settle it just then, so Bruin was allowed
to go back to his rug in the blue room, and the door was
securely locked.
Keith took Lloyd down to dinner, and his grandmother heard him
apologising all the way down for having frightened her. The little Queen
of Hearts listened smilingly, but her colour did not come back all
evening, until after the archery contest. It was when Malcolm came up
with the prize he had won, a tiny silver arrow, and pinned it in the
knot of red ribbon on her shoulder.
"Will you keep it to remember me by?" he asked, bashfully.
"Of co'se!" she answered, with a smile that showed all her roguish
dimples. "I'll keep it fo'evah and evah to remembah how neah I came to
bein' eaten up by yo' bea'h."
[Illustration: "'WILL YOU KEEP IT TO REMEMBER ME BY?'"]
"It seems too bad for such a beautiful party to come to an end," Sally
Fairfax said when the last merry game was played, the last story
told, and it was time to go home. "But there's one comfort," she added,
gathering all her gay valentines together, "there needn't be any end to
the remembering of it. I've had _such_ a good time, Mrs. MacIntyre."
It was so late when the last carriage rolled down the avenue, bearing
away the last smiling little guest, that the children were almost too
sleepy to undress. It was not long until the last light was put out in
every room, and a deep stillness settled over the entire house. One by
one the lights went out in every home in the valley, and only the stars
were left shining, in the cold wintry sky. No, there was one lamp that
still burned. It was in the little cottage where old Professor Heinrich
sat bowed over his books.