[Illustration: 9124]
TARLIGHT,” said Hazel, seriously, next morning, as they sat side by side
on the porch, “I've been thinking.”
“Yes,” said Starlight, dryly; “most people do.”
“I've been thinking, Starlight,” Hazel continued, “that perhaps I am not
doing quite right by Flutters.”
“You're doing mighty kind by him, I'm sure, and he thinks so, too. You've
given him a home and clothes and plenty to eat, and all he has to do is
to wait on your ladyship and take charge of the pony. I shouldn't call
that work, nor Flutters doesn't, either. He says it is all just fun,
and if there's a finer family anywhere than the Bonifaces he'd like to
see'em, only he knows he never shall see'em, because there isn't such a
family.”
“Are you making that up, Job Starlight?”
“Well, I guess not. Flutters says something of that sort every
time we're left alone together. It seems as though his heart was so
overflowing that he just had to ease it whenever he got a chance.”
“Well, it's certainly very pleasant to have him feel like that.”
“Why, he just worships the ground--”
Starlight paused to shy a stone at a guinea hen that was encroaching on
one of the flower beds--“your _mother_ treads on.”
Starlight knew well enough that he ended this sentence quite differently
from what Hazel had expected; but Hazel was wise enough not to show her
surprise, and besides, if there was any worshipping to be done, she was
about as glad to have Flutters worship the ground her mother trod on as
that over which her little feet had travelled.
“No, but I've been thinking,” she said, resuming her own line of
thought, “that, for all we know, Flutters may be a regular little
heathen, for I have an idea that the mulattoes are a very savage tribe.
Did you ever hear him say a word about religion, or what he believed,
and things like that?”
Starlight scratched his head, by way of helping his memory. “Never a
word, come to think of it.”
“Well, now, Starlight, that is very strange, and I believe I'll take him
to church this very morning, and see how he acts.”
“Yes, let's,” said Starlight, taking most kindly to the project. “If
he's never been in one, it will be awful fun to see how he takes it.”
“People don't go to church to have awful fun. If that's what you're
going for, you had better stay home.”
Starlight clapped his hand over his mouth, as though to suppress a most
explosive giggle. “My gracious, Hazel! What has come over you?”
“Nothing has come over me, and you know it. I always love to go to
church, and I love everything they do there; and I think it's beautiful
where they sing, 'Lord, have mercy upon us,' after the commandments, and
everybody keeps their head bowed.”
Starlight did not answer. It was evident Hazel was launching upon one
of what he called her “high-minded moods;” and, indeed, child though she
was, Hazel did have times when she thought very deeply--times when the
soul that was in her seemed to reach out after things eternal. It was
not at all an unusual experience. It does not always need even ten round
years to bring a child to a point of knowing for itself that there is a
longing that this world, all wonderful and beautiful though it be, does
not fully satisfy. Such a knowing does not make a child less a child,
or rob it of an iota of its joyousness, only sometimes lends a sweet and
earnest depth to the little God-given life. But to matter-of-fact
Job Starlight, it must be confessed that such a mood was not at all
satisfactory. He did not comprehend it, and standing in awe of Hazel's
“high mindedness,” always endeavored to bring her down to his own level
as quickly as possible by means of some diverting subject. This time
he fortunately spied it in the shape of two prim little maidens,
Prayer-Book in hand, who came demurely walking, side by side, down the
path that skirted the roadway.
“Why, there come the Marberrys,” he remarked.
“Sure enough,” said Hazel, flying to the gate. “Are you going to church?”
she called over it.
“Yes,” answered the little Marberrys simultaneously; indeed, they were
a pair of simultaneous children. In the first place, they were twins;
in the second place, they were as alike in appearance as peas in a
pod, and, in the third place, one little brain seemed to be the perfect
fac-simile of the other. It was no uncommon thing for them to utter the
same thought, in the same words, at the same time; and when this did not
happen, one would generally echo what the other had said. They had been
christened Mathilde and Clothilde; but Milly and Tilly had been the
outcome of that, and of course the similarity in the sound of the two
names led to much confusion, since the initial letter was all that
distinguished them.
Hazel had come to the wise conclusion “that, so far as possible, it was
best just to say things that would do for both, because, like as not, if
you meant to say something to Milly--it not being so understood--Tilly
would answer, and _vice-versa_.” But these two little Marberrys were
warm friends of hers, and in those days, when so many people were
estranged from the Bonifaces, she set a specially high value upon their
friendship. Not that the Marberrys were in any sense Tories; only, as
Dr. Marberry was rector of St. George's, they felt it their duty, as a
family, to be kind to everybody in the church. Besides, it would have
caused the twins a real pang to have been parted from Hazel, for, as
they frequently asserted in the presence of less favored playmates,
“Hazel Boniface was the cutest and nicest girl they had ever known.”
Starlight's announcement of “Here come the Marberrys” had suggested
to Hazel the idea of joining forces and all going along together. The
children were delighted with the plan, as with any plan of hers, and
sat down for a friendly chat with Starlight, while Hazel hurried away
to summon Flutters. She found him feeding some withered clover heads to
Gladys, as he sat comfortably on the top rail of the fence, enclosing
the meadow where Gladys was allowed to disport herself on high days and
holidays. She waited till she got close up to him, then she announced,
“Flutters, you are to go to church with me this morning.”
“To church!” he said, surprised, for he had not heard her coming.
“Yes, go put on the other suit, and meet me at the gate quickly.”
She did not say “your other suit,” feeling, naturally, a certain sense
of personal ownership, as far as Flutters's outfit was concerned.
“All right, Miss Hazel,” he answered, moving off with the alacrity of a
well-trained little servant.
“Perhaps you will not care to go with me, girls,” Hazel remarked, as she
came down the path, some five minutes later, and looking very pretty in
her dark red Sunday dress. “You see I am going to take Flutters.”
“And why should we mind that?” chirped Milly Marberry in a high musical
little key, and Tilly remarked, “Yes, why should we mind that?”
“Because I have no idea how he will behave. When I told him just now
that he was to go to church with me, he said, 'To church!' as though he
was very much surprised and had never been in one in his life.”
“I suppose he'll sit still, though, if you tell him to,” said Milly.
“Of course he will not speak if--” but Tilly's sisterly echo was
interrupted by a significant hush from Hazel, and the next second
Flutters was with them. Then the little party set off, the boys ahead
together, and the girls behind.
“Where does Flutters come from, anyway?” asked Tilly.
“Yes, where from?” piped Milly.
“From England,” Hazel answered, softly, “but he's a mulatto.”
“A what?” simultaneously.
“A mulatto. They're a kind of negro tribe.'
“Goodness gracious!”
“Gracious goodness!”
“Are the mulattoes wild and dangerous?” asked Milly, tremulously.
“Yes, I believe so; but then, of course, Flutters isn't so now.
Civilization has changed him.”
The Marberrys looked at Hazel with admiration; these occasional big
words of hers constituted one of her chief charms in their eyes.
“But the truth is,” Hazel continued, “I do not know very much about
Flutters. He does not seem to like to talk about his history, and mother
says I have no right to pry into it.”
“I shouldn't think anybody who had been wild and savage could speak such
good English,” said Tilly, thoughtfully.
“Neither should I,” said Milly.
“Well, that is queer,” and Hazel looked puzzled. “I hadn't thought of
that; but I'm certain his grandfather, if not his father, must have been
wild and savage. I'm very sure the mulattoes used to be very ferocious.”
“Where do the mulattoes live?” asked the Marberrys.
“I don't know,” was Hazel's truthful answer. The fact was, as you have
discovered, Hazel did not know what she was talking about. She had
a trick of mounting an impression, and then of giving rein to her
imagination and letting it run away with her, so that the first thing
she knew she was telling you something she really quite believed was
fact, but which was nothing of the sort. As a result she was sometimes
credited with fibbing, and got into many an unnecessary scrape, but, you
may be sure, Mrs. Boniface was doing all that she could to correct this
unfortunate tendency.
Meantime the boys walked ahead, conversing with no little earnestness
as to the comparative merits of two tiny sloop yachts, one of which was
taking shape under Starlight's hand, and the other under Flutters's,
and whose same comparative merits were to be put to the test, when
completed, by a race on the waters of the Collect. At this point in
their walk a turn of the road brought St. George's into sight.
“Ever been to church, Flutters?” Starlight asked, quite casually.
“Oh, yes, often.”
“Episcopal?”
“Ye' ep,” was Flutters's unceremonious answer; “but how large are
you going to make your foresail?” not willing to be diverted from the
all-engrossing subject.
“I shall give her all the sail she can carry, you may be certain.”
Starlight did not intend to furnish this rival yachtsman with any exact
measurements. And so they talked on till they reached the little stone
church, where service had already commenced. The Marberrys walked
straight up to their pew, the very front one, but before they reached it
each little face flushed crimson. At one and the same moment their two
pairs of blue eyes met their father's, for he was leading the General
Confession, and did not need to have them upon his book. Judging from
the crimson on their faces, the look must have said, “There is no excuse
for this, my little daughters; I am ashamed that you should be so late.”
Hazel and Starlight and Flutters had the Boniface pew to themselves,
but Hazel allowed Starlight to precede them into it, while she detained
Flutters in the vestibule for a little seasonable advice. She had
intended to administer it slowly and forcibly by the way. Now she had
to compress it all into one hurried little moment. In her excitement
she seized hold of Flutters's brown wrist, as she whispered, hurriedly,
“Flutters, this is a church, where people come to worship. You will have
to sit very still and not speak, only get up and sit down when I do,
because part of the time it's wrong to sit down. So, Flutters, watch me
very closely. I will find you the place in the Prayer-Book, but you had
better not say the things that are written there, even if you can read
them, 'cause they're probably things you do not understand at all, and
don't know anything about, so it would be best not to say you believed
them. You can sing the hymns, though; there won't be any harm in that,
only sing very softly, for fear you don't get the tune right. Now that
is all, I believe,” putting her finger to her lip in a meditative way,
and with an anxious frown on her face, as if fearing she had overlooked
some important instruction. “Yes, that is all; now follow me in;” and
Flutters following her, took his seat with a most decorous air, and
without staring about with such gaping astonishment, as might, perhaps,
be looked for in a boy of fourteen, who had never seen the interior of a
church before, so that Hazel at once felt much relieved. Her first duty,
of course, was to furnish him with the proper page in the Prayer-Book,
and her second to anticipate all irregularities in the order of service,
by taking the book from his hands in ample time to supply him with the
right place at the right moment. Now it must be confessed that all this
was accomplished by Hazel in rather an officious and patronizing manner,
but, unfortunately for her, there came a time when she herself was at a
loss.
She did not know which Sunday it was after Trinity. Flutters _did_, and
seeing her confusion anticipated Dr. Marberry by whispering, “_It's the
eighteenth Sunday, I think._”
[Illustration: 0130]
Hazel thrust Flutters's Prayer-Book back into his hand, giving him one
look, and such a look! It was dreadful to think that a thorough-going
little church-woman could _ever_ look like that, much less while the
service itself was actually in progress.
Flutters felt “queer.” He saw how much there was in that look of
Hazel's, and wondered if he had been greatly to blame in the matter.
Starlight, of course, witnessed the whole proceeding, and heard
Flutters's whisper (as did every one else in the neighborhood), which
betrayed his familiarity with the service, and Starlight himself
wondered how he managed to be quite so well up on the subject.
But it was an awfully good joke on Hazel. When they had been discussing
the matter, and he had said, “It would be awful fun to see how Flutters
would act in church, provided he had never been there,” Hazel had, of
course, been quite right in saying that “People did not go to church to
have awful fun,” but he could not help thinking that he had had a little
fun all the same, only at Hazel's expense, and not Flutters's.