A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
“Oh, Jerry, Jerry, how did you get in there?” cried Cassy. “Can you get
out?”
“They fastened the door. I’ve banged and banged, but I couldn’t budge
it. Gee! but I’m glad you came. The door is ’round at the other side.”
Rock was already on his way to it, and after climbing a fence he was
able to get it unfastened and to set the prisoner free. Cassy waited
impatiently at the gate, till Jerry with a mite of a puppy in his arms,
came out. The boy was battered and dirty, and bore the marks of a hard
fight.
“Oh, you poor dear,” Cassy exclaimed, “how long have you been in there?
Oh, Jerry, you have been fighting.”
“Of course I have,” he said grimly; “I wasn’t going to let a parcel of
great big lunks set upon one poor little puppy without trying to take
his part.”
“Good for you!” cried Rock, putting his arm across the shoulders of the
smaller boy. “Tell us all about it, Jerry.”
“Billy Miles and the other fellows were stoning this poor little chap,
and I went for ’em. They chased us into this cellar, and I managed to
fasten the door on the inside, for I knew if they once got hold of the
dog they would kill it to spite me; so then they fastened the door on
the outside and left us there.” Jerry told his story in a few words,
stroking the mite of a dog meanwhile.
“How long ago was that?” asked Rock.
“Not long after I came home from school.”
“You’ve had a long wait,” Rock remarked. “I’m glad we found out where
to look for you. Now we’ll go along, and I’d like to see those boys
bother you.” He threw back his head and there was a resolute look in
his eyes.
“They’d better not try it,” said Jerry, looking up confidently into the
bigger boy’s face.
“Do let me carry the puppy,” begged Cassy. But the puppy, now that it
had escaped from its safe retreat, felt itself to be in the land of
the Philistines, and had confidence in no one but the sharer of its
imprisonment; therefore Jerry carefully hid it under his jacket, and
they traveled back to where Mrs. Law was anxiously watching for them.
At Rock’s suggestion they stopped to get some milk for the puppy, and
then Rock left them safe at their own door.
“You will let us keep the puppy, won’t you, mother?” the children
begged.
“If it should get away, and anything should happen to it, you would
grieve for it, and you know those spiteful boys would be only too glad
to hurt it,” she told them.
Cassy burst into tears; the evening’s excitement and anxiety had been
too much for her.
“How can they be so cruel!” she cried. “What harm could a poor little
dog do? If they would only kill it outright it wouldn’t be so bad, but
to stone it and make it suffer for days is so dreadfully, dreadfully
wicked.” She crouched down on the floor where the little dog was
hungrily lapping its milk, and her tears fell on the rough gray coat,
as she tenderly stroked the little creature.
The picture she drew was too much for Mrs. Law’s tender heart, and
she said: “You may keep it for a few days anyhow, and in the meantime
perhaps we will be able to find a better home for it.”
Cassy smiled through her tears, but she sat looking very soberly at the
small animal.
“I saw some wicked, wicked girls, one day, mother,” she said presently;
“girls, not boys,—and they were swinging a poor little kitten around by
one paw, and then they would let it go up into the air and fall down on
the ground as if it had no feeling, but some lady came along and made
them stop, and she carried the kitten away with her. I was so glad she
did, and I wanted, oh I did want to take those girls up to some high
place and do the same thing to them as they were doing to the kitten;
I wonder how they would like it.” There was a vindictive expression on
Cassy’s face that her mother did not like to see.
“Why Cassy,” she said gently, “you must not be so spiteful; that would
be doing as wickedly as the girls did, and you would know better,
whereas they probably did not think they were hurting the kitten; I
doubt if any one had ever told them that it would hurt a cat to do that
to it, though it would not hurt a doll.”
“I can’t help it,” persisted Cassy; “they were wicked and they ought to
be punished, and I would like to be the one to do it.” She now had the
puppy in her lap, the comfort of which seemed to appeal to the little
thing, for it snuggled down comfortably. “It is so cunning,” Cassy
murmured in a soft voice very unlike the one she had just used. “See,
Jerry, it is going to sleep.”
If anything, Jerry was the more interested of the two, for had he not
snatched him from a dreadful fate? And the two children vied with each
other in paying this new member of the family such attentions as they
could.
With her flowers and the puppy Cassy was very happy for the next few
days. The existence of that garden, too, which she might expect once
in a while to visit, was another source of delight, and though she
generally had kept more or less aloof from her school-fellows, she now
did so more than ever. Very often they would pass her sitting in some
corner at recess, and she would hear them say: “There’s Miss Oddity. I
wonder what she’s mooning about now.”
“Snakes or spiders, or some old thing like that,” she once heard the
answer come, and she smiled to herself. They were never able to get
over the fact that she was not afraid of mice, and that once she had
spent the whole of her recess watching a colony of ants.
“What do you suppose Cassy Law has been doing?” one of the girls said
to the teacher who had come out to watch the class as they returned to
the school-room.
“What?” asked Miss Adams sharply, keen to discover some misdemeanor.
“She’s been playing with ants; she won’t play with us.” And the girls
around giggled.
“She is an oddity,” Miss Adams had replied, and the girls, catching
the name, thereafter applied it to Cassy, so that now she was always
Miss Oddity. A girl who preferred to play with ants to romping with
her schoolmates was something unusual, so they avoided her, and she,
feeling that they had little in common, withdrew more and more.
Although she longed for a real playmate, a girl after her own heart,
none came her way, and finally she invented one.
It was a great day when her imagination created Miss Morning-Glory.
It was the day when her first morning-glory seed popped a tiny green
head above the earth, and in her exuberance of joy over the fact, Cassy
started to school with a great longing for some girl companion who
could understand her love for green growing things and for helpless
little creatures. Then came the thought, “I’ll make believe a friend,
and I’ll call her Miss Morning-Glory,” and forthwith she started up
a conversation with this imaginary comrade, to whom she was talking
animatedly when several of the schoolgirls passed her. They stopped,
stared, and nudged each other.
“She’s talking to herself,” they whispered. “I believe she’s crazy.”
But Cassy’s lessons that day were those of a very intelligent little
girl, and the others were puzzled.
After this Cassy was not lonely. What could not this new friend say and
do? there were no limits to her possibilities. She was always ready
when Cassy wanted her. She never quarreled, never objected to any play
that Cassy might suggest, and moreover loved and understood all about
animals and growing plants.
On the day of the discovery of this new friend Cassy came home with
such a happy face that her mother asked: “What has happened, daughter?
You look greatly pleased.”
Cassy went over to the window-sill and peered into the box of brown
earth where several new blades of green were springing.
“They are coming! they are coming!” she cried.
Her mother smiled, and then she sighed. “How you do love such things,
Cassy,” she said. “I wish you could live in the country.”
Cassy came over and put her arms around her mother’s neck. “I don’t
mind so much now that I can go to the beautiful Dallas place, and now
that I have Miss Morning-Glory. Oh, mother, it is so lovely to have
her.”
“Her? You mean them, don’t you? I think there will be many Miss
Morning-Glories in that box before very long.”
Cassy shook her head.
“No, I mean her.” She spoke a little shyly. “She is a new friend. I
made her up like—like a story, you know, and she likes all the things
I do. She is here now; she walked home with me, and she plays with me
at recess. She likes to watch the ants, and the flies, and the bees.”
Her mother looked a little startled. She was not quite sure if this
imaginary friend was a wise companion for her little girl, yet since
she did exist in Cassy’s world of fancy, there was nothing to do but
let her stay there.
“I call her Miss Morning-Glory,” Cassy went on. “She wears the same
colored dresses the morning-glories do. To-day she has on a pink one.”
“What does she look like?” inquired Mrs. Law, thinking it would be best
not to discourage the confidence.
“She isn’t a bit like me,” Cassy replied. “She has lovely blue eyes and
pink cheeks and golden hair all in curls, not tight curls, but the kind
that angels have.”
“What do you know about angels’ curls?” her mother asked, laughing.
“Why, the pictures tell,” Cassy returned, surprised at such a question.
“You know the Christmas card I have with the angel on it; that kind of
curls I mean.”
“And what is Miss Morning-Glory doing now?”
Cassy glanced quickly across the room. “She is over there holding the
puppy. She says she wishes you would let us keep him and name him——”
she paused a minute, “name him Ragged Robin.”
Mrs. Law laughed again. “That’s a funny name for a dog.”
“Well, you know, they are shaggy like he is. Mr. McClure showed me a
picture of them, and doggie is a kind of blue.”
“So he is. I think he is what they call a Skye-terrier, but I wouldn’t
name him if I were you, for we have found a good home for him in the
country.”
“Oh!” The tears sprang to Cassy’s eyes. “Jerry will be so sorry; he
loves the dear little fellow.”
“I know he does, and I wish we could keep him, but you know, dear, the
little milk he drinks is more than we can afford, and as he gets bigger
he will require more.”
“Yes, I know,” said Cassy, faintly.
“Wouldn’t you rather he should go where he can have all he wants to eat
and drink, and where he will have plenty of room to run about?”
Cassy gave a long sigh. “Who is going to take him, mother?”
“The milkman. You know he brings his milk direct from his farm, and
he is a kind man who has children of his own, and I know they will be
good to the little doggie. I think it would be better that he should go
before you and Jerry become too fond of him, for you see he has only
been with you such a short time that you will not miss him as you would
if you waited longer.”
“I know,” Cassy repeated, but the tears still stood in her eyes.
She had hoped that the puppy might be allowed to stay altogether,
although from the first her mother had declared that it could not.
Jerry was scarcely less distressed than Cassy when he was told that
the puppy must go. He did not say much, but he carried the little
fellow off to his room and when they came out again Jerry’s eyes were
very red, and if any one had taken the trouble to feel the top of the
puppy’s head he would have discovered a wet spot upon it, caused by the
tears that Jerry had shed.
“If we only lived in the country,” said the boy, “we might keep him,
but if anything was going to happen to him on account of our keeping
him I would rather have him go and be safe. He won’t get any more tin
cans tied to his tail, I’ll bet.”
Cassy nodded emphatically.
“Yes, I’m glad, too, for him, but I’m dreadful sorry for us.”
“I declare,” said Mrs. Law, “I have been so taken up with the thought
of the puppy that I nearly forgot to tell you something very pleasant.
Who do you think was here this morning?”
“I can’t guess. The rag man? Did you sell the rags? Then we will have
something good for supper,” for the visit of the rag man always meant
an extra treat, a very modest one, to be sure, but still one that the
children looked forward to.
“No, it wasn’t the rag man; it was some one much nicer, and he brought
an invitation for you.”
“For me?” Cassy’s eyes opened wide.
“Yes, an invitation to spend the day on Saturday.”
“Oh, mother, tell me where. Hurry, hurry and tell me.”
“At Mr. Dallas’s.”
“Oh! oh! a whole day in that lovely place! Was it Mr. McClure?”
“No, it was Rock Hardy. A little girl is to be there for a few days,
and Mrs. Dallas thought it would be nice for some one to come and play
with her.”
“And they asked me. Oh, how perfectly fine. I hope she is nice and
friendly and isn’t stuck up.”
“If she is like Rock Hardy I don’t think you have anything to fear.”
“No, indeed, and did you say I could go mother?”
“Yes.”
“I wish Jerry could go, too.”
“Jerry is going in the afternoon.”
Cassy clapped her hands. “Good! I am so glad. I wish he would come
back so we could tell him,” for after his farewell to the puppy, Jerry
had not seen fit to remain within sight and hearing of him. “I don’t
feel so bad about losing the dear doggie now,” Cassy went on to say. “I
must tell Miss Morning-Glory about it!”
She had not told her brother about this new friend, for Jerry was of
too practical a turn to appreciate the fancy, and Cassy had asked her
mother not to tell him. “You understand, mother,” she said, “’cause
mothers always can understand better than boys, and I don’t want Jerry
to laugh at me. Do you know,” she told her mother, “that it was Rock
Hardy who made me think of that name; he called me by it.”
“Did he? I suppose Miss Morning-Glory will not go with you on Saturday.”
“I don’t believe she will want to,” returned Cassy, easily. “She
wouldn’t go without being invited,” which adjusted the matter very
satisfactorily.
“Did Rock say what was the name of the little girl?” Cassy asked.
“Her name is Eleanor Dallas,” Mrs. Law told her; “she is Mrs. Dallas’s
niece.”
“I hope she is as nice as Rock,” said Cassy, a little uneasily.
THE VISIT