AT THE BARNABY RANCH
[Illustration: "MARY WARE in TEXAS"
"Three alert and expectant little figures sat in a row on the steps--"]
THREE alert and expectant little figures sat in a row on the steps of
the gray cottage, and watched for Mary's coming the next afternoon.
Brud, sawing his hatchet blade up and down on the edge of the step below
him, made deep notches in the paint while he waited. Little Sister,
fuming with impatience, sat with one arm around the young hunting dog
which squatted beside her, and made dire threats as to her conduct, in
case the new teacher should refuse to let him go with them.
He was a brown English pointer, with a white vest, and the silver plate
on his collar bore the name by which he was registered among the
aristocracy of dogs. The name was "Uncle August." Strangers always
laughed when they read that on his collar, but as Brud usually began to
explain about that time that he was a "peggydreed" dog, his sister
thought that they were laughing at the way he pronounced pedigreed.
Therefore, she would gravely correct him and add the information that
one of his great gram'pas was the King of Kent and another was Rip-rap;
that he was the finest bird-dog in the United States,--her pappy said
so,--and that he had been to a dog college and learned all that there
was for a dog _to_ know.
The moment Mary appeared, the usual formula was gone through with before
they gave her a chance for more than a bare word of greeting, and she
never knew how much her reception of Uncle August counted in her favor
with the two watching children.
Like everybody else, she laughed when she heard his name, and put out
her hand to shake the brown paw which he gravely offered. But when he
continued to hold it out to her, and plainly showed by every way in a
dog's power that he liked her and wanted to emphasize his friendliness,
she took his silky ears in her hands, and looking down into his wistful
eyes, praised and petted him till he wriggled all over for joy.
Brud immediately gave her his full approval, but Little Sister, while
impressed favorably, was not in a mood to approve anything fully.
According to Meliss, "she'd done got out of bed crosswise of herself
that mawnin'" and had continued so ever since. There was a pout on her
lips when her mother called her in to kiss her good-bye, and there was
a defiant light in her eyes as she listened to the farewell instructions
delivered to Mary through the window. She lagged behind when the others
started briskly off, and halfway down the hill began to drag and scrape
her feet annoyingly through the gravel. Although she hadn't the faintest
intention of turning back, she stood still when they reached the
foot-bridge, and announced with a whine:
"I'm going home! I aren't a having a happy time like mommey said I
would!"
Mary, who was a few steps ahead, never stopped, even to glance back over
her shoulder, and Sister was obliged to follow in order to hear what she
was saying.
"You can hardly expect to enjoy a thing before it _begins_," explained
Mary, politely, in that grown-up tone that was such a novelty to Sister
when employed towards herself. "You've never seen the place where Mr.
Metz has given us permission to build. It's where a branch of the creek
curves up through his place. It's dry now, but it is full of big, flat
rocks where we can build the fire when we get to that part of the
school. Maybe we'll be ready for one as soon as next week."
There was no response save a stifled sniffle and the patter of small
feet which had to move briskly in order to keep up with the procession.
But Brud's questions opened the way for further information which was
not lost on the reluctant follower.
"There's a little spring that comes bubbling out below, so that we won't
have to go far to fill our kettle. He said we might trim off some of the
smallest shoots of his willows, and he marked the trees we could chop.
That's where you will find use for your hatchet. Willow switches woven
together make a fine covering for a wigwam or a Robinson Crusoe shack. I
learned how to weave them the way the Indians do when I first went to
Arizona."
It was the novelty of being talked to in that dignified, grown-up way
that drew Sister slowly but surely along after the others. As they
followed the creek, Uncle August, dashing on ahead, scared a rabbit out
of the underbrush. He was too well trained to give chase to it, so the
frightened little cotton-tail loped away unhurt. It served its mission
in life, however, as far as Mary was concerned, for it reminded her of a
story which she proceeded to tell as they walked along. Sister listened,
suspiciously, expecting a personal application at the end, about a
sulky little girl who never wanted to do anything that other people did.
That was the kind Meliss always told. So did mommey, in vivacious,
kindergarten style, when they had been especially naughty. Sister hated
stories, since those with a moral attached were the only kind she had
ever known.
When this tale turned out to be one of Br'er Rabbit's funny adventures
in outwitting Mr. Fox, and ended with a laugh instead of a personal
application, she was bewildered for a moment. Then she remembered that
this was a surprise school, and determined not to miss anything that
seemed to start out with such promise for further entertainment, she
stopped dragging her feet and took up a more cheerful pace along the
creek bank, in the trail of Brud and Uncle August.
It would have been a determined soul indeed who could have stayed morose
very long, out-of-doors in the perfect weather that had followed the
Norther. It was like late October in Kentucky--sunny, yet with a
crystal-like coolness that made exercise a delight.
It had been such a short time since Mary had stepped out of her own play
days that she found herself stepping into the children's with an
_abandon_ which almost equalled theirs. There was no pretense about her
enjoyment at first. With a pleasure almost as deep and unalloyed as when
she and Hazel Lee built wigwams on the edge of the Arizona desert, she
went about the building of a shack on the side of this Texas creek bank.
The energy with which she brought things to pass was contagious. Brud
and Little Sister worked like beavers to keep up with this rare, new
playfellow, who had something better than a Midas touch,--something
which not only put a golden glamour over everything she said and did,
but turned their little world of mimic sports into a real world of
tremendous meaning and importance. For the first time in his life Brud
found himself where there were things lawful for his hatchet to cut. For
the first time Sister was kept so busy doing delightful things that
there was no necessity for anyone to say "don't."
Before the week was over Mary had opened so many windows for them into
the Land of Make-believe that they began to look upon her resources for
entertainment as boundless. The more she gave, the more they demanded.
They never wanted to go home and would have hung on to her until dark
every evening, had it not been for the alarm-clock which she brought
with her each day. She had no watch and was afraid to accept Jack's
offer of his, lest she should lose it in the woods. It was a little,
round clock, with a bell on top, the dollar and a half kind sold in
country groceries and cross-roads stores.
She always wound the alarm just before she hung the clock on a bush,
muttering over it a mysterious charm that the children listened to with
skeptical grins, yet with furtive side-glances at each other. To her
surprise they accepted the whirr and bang of the alarm-bell at five
o'clock as the voice of Fate, which must be promptly obeyed. She often
wondered why they did. To Mary the muttering of the abracadabra charm
was only a part of the game, one of the many little embellishments which
made her plays more picturesque than ordinary people's, and she had no
thought of the children attaching any superstitious import to it. She
did not take into account their long association with Meliss, who was
wise on the subject of hoodoos. But the fact remained that her
alarm-clock was the only timepiece within their reach which they never
tampered with, and the only one whose summons they ever obeyed.
It was probably because she had set such a hard pace for herself that
first week that she found it so difficult to go on afterward. A surprise
school was a greater tax on her inventive genius than she had
anticipated. She had promised them a different plum in their pie each
day, and she lay awake at night to plan games that were instructive as
well as interesting, for she was conscientiously carrying out her
agreement to teach them as well as to amuse them. By the end of the
second week the strain was almost unendurable.
One evening she went home to find the Barnaby carriage and the gray
mules standing at the gate. Mrs. Barnaby had brought in some venison for
them, and waited to see Mary before taking her leave.
"I'm waiting to hear about those little savages of yours," she said, as
Mary greeted her and sank limply down into a chair. "Why, you look all
tuckered out. They must be even worse than people say."
"No, they're not!" protested Mary, warmly. "I'm really proud of the way
I succeeded. The only thing is, I have to keep them busy and interested
every moment, and they're so hungry for stories they never get enough.
The poor little souls have never heard any before, and it is really
pathetic the way they listen. They'll sit as still as graven images, so
interested they scarcely breathe, till the last word is out. Then
they'll begin, 'Oh, tell us another, Miss Mayry! Just _one_ more!
Please, Miss Mayry!' They cling to me like burrs. We nearly always have
a small campfire every day now, for either we're Indians or gypsies,
cooking our meals, or we're witches brewing spells, or elves gathering
magic fires for our midnight revels. They play so hard that the last
hour they always want to sit down by the embers and listen to stories.
But they've nearly drained me dry now. Sometimes I come home so limp and
exhausted I can scarcely move my tongue. I'm glad that to-morrow is
Sunday, for I've surely earned one day of rest."
"Come out and spend it at the ranch," urged Mrs. Barnaby, hospitably.
"It happens that there is no service to-morrow at St. Boniface, but
James will be coming in for the mail, and will be glad to bring you out
in time for dinner."
Mary had spent two afternoons at the Barnaby ranch, driving out with
Mrs. Rochester, and she enjoyed them so much that she welcomed the
thought of a return to the homelike old place, with its air of thrift
and comfort. Jack had been better the last few days, so she eagerly
accepted the invitation.
Next morning Mr. Barnaby drove in for her himself with the gray mules
and the roomy old carriage. Mary, comfortably stowed away on the back
seat, because it had the best springs, leaned forward to hold the reins
while he went into the post-office. She had risen early and hurried
through as much of the work as she could in order that her holiday might
not mean extra work for her mother. Now with an easy conscience she
settled herself to enjoy a care-free day, and looked forward with keen
enjoyment to the seven miles' drive along the smooth country road.
She had been sitting in a pleasant reverie some four or five minutes,
when a familiar little voice close by the wheel piped out:
"Why, there's Miss Mayry! _Where_ are you going?"
Before she could reply, Brud and Sister and Uncle August came swarming
into the carriage, stepping on her toes, climbing up on the seat, and
showing such joy over having discovered her that it was impossible not
to give them a gracious reception, even though she groaned inwardly at
the sight of them. Their prompt demand for a story the moment they were
seated was followed by the appearance of Mr. Barnaby.
"I can't tell you any stories to-day," Mary explained, pleasantly,
"because I am going visiting. But I'll tell you a lovely one to-morrow,
about Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. You'll have to hop out now. Mr.
Barnaby is ready to start."
"I aren't going to hop out!" declared Sister, winding her arms around
Mary's neck in a choking clasp. Brud immediately threw his arms around
Uncle August and held him tight, regardless of the fact that Mr. Barnaby
was whistling to the dog and motioning him to jump out.
"We are a-going with you," Brud announced.
"But you are not invited," Mary answered, in a provoked tone. "You
surely don't care to go where you're neither asked nor wanted!"
"Come on, Bub. I'm in a hurry," said Mr. Barnaby, kindly. He took hold
of the child's arms to lift him out, but Brud, seizing the back of the
seat with both hands, stiffened himself and began to cry, shrieking out
between sobs, "I want to go with Miss Mayry! _Please_ don't put me out!
Aw, Miss Mayry! _Don't_ let him put me out!"
Immediately Sister added her tearful wails to his. Meliss, sauntering
down the street in search of the children, heard the familiar cries, and
quickened her pace to a run. A crowd was gathering around the carriage.
She came up in time to hear Mr. Barnaby say, good-naturedly, "Oh, well,
if they're going to break their little hearts over it, let 'em come
along. _I_ don't mind!"
"But their mother will think that something has happened to them,"
protested Mary. "She'll be frantic."
Meliss pushed her way through the crowd to the carriage. "No'm, she
won't, Miss Ma'y. She won't worry none. Her haid aches fit to bus' this
mawnin'. I'll tell her _you's_ takin' keer of 'em, and she'll be only
too thankful to you-all for a free day."
"It's Meliss who will be thankful for a free day," thought Mary, still
hesitating. She rebelled at the thought of her own day being spoiled,
and realized that for discipline's sake the children ought not to be
allowed to carry their point. Mr. Barnaby settled the question by
stepping into the carriage and gathering up the reins.
"Tell their mother I'll bring them back before night," he said to
Meliss.
The sobs and tears stopped as suddenly as they had begun. Presently Mr.
Barnaby glanced back over his shoulder, saying:
"This load doesn't seem equally divided. Here, one of you kids climb
over into the front seat with me." At the invitation both children threw
themselves violently on Mary and clung to her, beginning to sniffle
again. He looked back at her with the humorous one-sided smile that she
always found irresistibly droll.
"First time I ever came across that particular brand of youngsters.
Strikes me the old Nick has put his ear marks on 'em pretty plain.
You're crowded back there, aren't you, with that dog sitting on your
feet? Here, sir! Come over here with me!"
With one bound Uncle August sprang over on the front seat, and sat up
beside his host, looking so dignified and so humanly interested in
everything they passed that Mr. Barnaby laughed. He laid a caressing
hand on him, saying, "So you're the dog that's been to college. Well, it
has made a gentleman of you, sir! I admire your manners. It's a pity you
can't pass them around the family."
Charmed by the novelty of the drive, the children cuddled up against
Mary, and were so quiet all the way to the ranch that she felt
remorseful when she remembered how near she had come to depriving them
of the pleasure.
Mrs. Barnaby threw up her hands in surprise when she saw the three
self-invited guests who calmly followed Mary out of the carriage, but
when the situation had been explained in a laughing aside, she said in
her whole-souled, motherly way, "Now, my dear, don't you worry one mite!
We are used to children, and we'll find some way to keep them from
spoiling your day."
Her first step in that direction was to take them out to the kitchen and
fill their hands with cookies, and send them outdoors to eat them. She
also gave them instructions to stay out and play. A low swing and a
seesaw between the kitchen and the garden gate showed where her
grand-children amused themselves hours at a time on their annual visits.
When she went back into the living-room Mary had seated herself in a
rocking-chair with a sigh of content.
"What a dear old room this is," she said, looking up with a smile. "It
makes me think of Grandmother Ware's. I love its low ceiling and little,
deep-set windows and wide fireplace. I could sit here all day and do
nothing but listen to the clock tick and the fire crackle, and rest."
"Well, you do just that," insisted Mrs. Barnaby, hospitably. "I have to
be out in the kitchen for a while. I've got pretty fair help, but she
needs a good deal of oversight, so you sit here and enjoy the quiet
while you can."
The early rising and the drive had made Mary drowsy, and as soon as she
was left alone the deep stillness of the country Sabbath that filled the
room seemed to fold about her like a mantle of restfulness. She closed
her eyes, making believe that she really was back at her Grandmother
Ware's; that the sunshine streaming in at the open door was the sunshine
of a Northern June instead of a Texas January; and that the odor of
lemon verbena which reached her now and then came from an outside garden
instead of the potted plant on the deep window-sill at her elbow. The
old place was so associated in Mary's memory with a feeling of
perpetual, unbroken calm, that she had never lost one of her earliest
impressions that it was the place of "green pastures and still waters"
mentioned in the Psalms.
"Jack always said that I'll have my innings when I'm a grandmother," she
said, drowsily, to herself. "I wonder if I'll ever get to a place where
I can always be as serene of spirit as she was, no matter what happens.
I wonder if she ever had anything as upsetting as Brud and Sister to try
her nerves in her young days."
As if in answer to her mere thought of them, the two children came
racing around the house. They fairly fell into the room, and, throwing
themselves across her lap, demanded that she come out at once and see
the peacocks. Had they said any other kind of fowl she would have
resented the intrusion more than she did, but peacocks recalled Warwick
Hall so pleasantly that she got up at once and went with them. She had
seen none since leaving school. These had not been near the house on her
former visits to the ranch. The stately birds strutted up and down in
the sunshine, their tails spread in dazzling gorgeousness.
"They're Sammy's," called Mrs. Barnaby from the kitchen door. "He takes
the greatest pride in them. That cock took a prize at the last San
Antonio fair."
Mary had met "Sammy" the last time she was at the ranch, and had heard
of him ever since her first conversation with Mrs. Barnaby. He was an
elderly cousin of her husband's who had made his home with them for
years. A few minutes later she came upon the old man in the barnyard.
The children, having once obtained possession of her, had dragged her
down there to see a colt that they had discovered.
Sammy was sitting on the fence in his Sunday clothes, busy with his
usual Sunday occupation of whittling. His bushy gray beard made him look
older than Mr. Barnaby, and the keen glance he gave the children from
under his shaggy eyebrows made them sidle away from him. They, too, had
met him before, under circumstances which they did not take pleasure in
recalling. Only a few moments before he had caught them chasing the
ducks until they were dizzy, and stopped them with a sternness that made
them wary of him. They had had an encounter with him one day in town
also, soon after their arrival in Bauer. They had climbed into the
wagon, which he left hitched in front of the grocery, and had poked
holes into every package he had piled on the seat, in order to discover
what they held. When he came out little streams of rice and sugar and
meal were dribbling out all over the wagon. When he started after them
with a threatening crack of his whip they escaped by darting into the
front door of the butcher shop and out of the back, but they always felt
that it was one of the narrowest escapes they ever made, and that a day
of reckoning would come if he ever got close enough to them to reach
them with his whip.
It was a trifling disconcerting to come across him suddenly on this
peaceful ranch, and they pulled Mary away as soon as they could. She was
enjoying the conversation they had drifted into, starting with the colt.
He spoke with a strong New England twang, and his quaint sayings and
homely comparisons suggested the types and times portrayed in the
Bigelow Papers.
Despite her determination not to have her day taken up by the children,
Mary found herself devoting the entire morning to their entertainment.
Country sights and sounds were so new and strange to them that it seemed
selfish not to answer their eager questions, and when their wanderings
around the place led them to a deserted cabin where the Indians had once
killed two Mexican shepherds, she repeated the thrilling story as she
had heard it from Mrs. Barnaby, with all its hair-raising details. When
they went in to dinner she had been answering questions and entertaining
her pupils for two hours, as diligently as on any week-day.
It was an old-fashioned "turkey dinner" to which they were summoned, and
the variety and deliciousness of the dishes may have had much to do
with the children's conduct. They were so quiet and well behaved that
Mary watched them in surprise. Beyond yes and no and politely expressed
thanks, Brud spoke not at all, and Sister only once. That was to say,
when Mrs. Barnaby addressed her as Sister, "Call me Nancy. I'm trying
that name now."
Seeing the look of surprise that circled around the table, Mary
explained, feeling that Sister, as usual, was enjoying the limelight
that this peculiar custom of hers called her into.
"Hump!" exclaimed old Sammy. "Something of a chameleon, eh? If she
changes her nature to suit her name it must keep her family busy getting
acquainted with her."
"I think it does have some slight influence," answered Mary. "Then she'd
better drop the name of Nancy," said old Sammy, with a solemn wag of the
head. "In an old blue poetry book that I used to read back in Vermont,
it said,
"'Little Nancy would never her mother obey,
But always did choose to have her own way.'
"She came to a frightful end, jumping up and down in her chair.
"'In vain did her mother command her to stop.
Nan only laughed louder and higher did hop,'
till she fell over and cracked her head. The only Nancys I have ever
known have all been self-willed like that."
Garrulous Cousin Sammy was only indulging in reminiscence. He had not
intended to tease the child, but she resented his remarks, and thrusting
out her tongue at him, screwed up her face into the ugliest grimace
possible for her to make. Fortunately the arrival of a huge pumpkin pie
turned his eyes away from her just then, for Sammy Bradford, old
bachelor though he was, had strict New England notions about the rearing
of children, which he sometimes burned to put into practice for the good
of the general public.
After dinner Mr. Barnaby retired to his room for his usual Sunday nap.
Cousin Sammy took his pipe to the sunny bench outside the open door, and
Mrs. Barnaby provided for the children's entertainment by bringing out a
box of toys that had been left behind at different times by various
grand-children. She arranged them on a side table in the dining-room,
with some colored pencils, paper and scissors.
Brud and "Nancy," ever ready to investigate anything new, seated
themselves at her bidding, and began to paw over the games and pictures
with apparent interest. Thereupon Mrs. Barnaby and Mary went into the
next room, and drawing two big easy chairs into the chimney corner, they
settled themselves for a long, cosy _tête-à-tête_. It was the first
opportunity Mary had had to explain to Mrs. Barnaby that she had
undertaken to teach the children in order to prevent her mother from
sewing for other people.
They had had about ten minutes of uninterrupted quiet, when the door
opened and "Nancy" walked in with her hat and coat on. Her lips were
drawn into a dissatisfied pout, and she threw herself across Mary's lap,
whining, "I don't like those old things in there! Tell us about the
Forty Thieves _now_!"
"No, Nancy," said Mary, firmly, hoping to appease her by remembering to
use the new name. "I told you before you came out here that I'd not tell
you a single story to-day."
"But you already have," cried Brud, triumphantly, appearing in the
doorway also in coat and hat. "You told us about the Indians killing the
shepherds."
"Oh, but that was just a true happening that I told to explain about the
cabin we were looking at," was the patient answer. "That was different
from sitting down on purpose to tell you a story, and I shall _not_ do
that to-day."
"Then come and play with us," demanded Sister, seizing her by the hands,
after one keen glance at her to see if she really was in earnest. "Come
on, Brud, and help me pull. We'll _make_ her come!"
"Sh!" warned Mary, attempting to free herself, as they began shouting
and tugging at her. "I came out here to visit Mrs. Barnaby, and I'll not
play with you till to-morrow. If you don't want to make pictures or cut
paper or work the puzzle games you'll have to go outdoors and amuse
yourselves. But you must not make such a noise. Mr. Barnaby is asleep."
"Then if you don't want us to wake him up you've _got_ to play with us
to keep us still!" cried Brud. "Hasn't she, Sister?"
"Call me Nancy when I tell you!" screamed Sister, in an exasperated
tone, stamping her foot. Then, fired by Brud's suggestion, she dropped
Mary's hands and darted across the room to the piano, which was standing
open in the corner. It was an old-fashioned one, its rosewood case
inlaid above the keyboard with mother-of-pearl. The yellow keys were out
of tune, but they had never been touched save by careful fingers, for
it was one of Mrs. Barnaby's cherished treasures. Now she rose as if she
had been struck herself, as both children began pounding upon it
ruthlessly with their fists, making a hideous, discordant din.
"Stop, children! Stop, I say!" she demanded. But her commands fell on
unheeding ears, and they pounded away until she laid vigorous hands on
them and forcibly dragged them away from the piano. Instantly they
struggled out of her grasp, and rushing back, pounded the keys harder
than before. Mary, who had never seen them act like this, was distressed
beyond measure that she had been the cause, even though the unwilling
one, of such an invasion. She started to the rescue, thinking savagely
that they would have to be gagged and tied, hand and foot, and that she
would take pleasure in helping do it.
Old Sammy reached them first, however, his Puritanical soul resenting
both the disobedience and the Sabbath-breaking uproar. With one swoop he
caught up a child under each arm, and carried them kicking and
struggling out-of-doors.
"Here ye'll stay the rest of the afternoon!" he announced, in a gruff
voice, as he put them down. "There's all out-of-doors to play in, and if
you so much as step over the door-sill into that room until I give ye
leave, I'll _withe_ ye!"
It was a mysterious threat, since neither child had ever heard the word
_withe_ before, and he said it in a deep, awful voice that made Brud
think creepily of the Fee-fi-fo-fum giant in his picture-book at home,
who went about smelling blood and saying, "_Dead or alive, I will have
some!_"
For a moment they stood in awed silence, gaping at the only person who
had ever intimidated them; then Sister, in a blind rage, seized his clay
pipe that he had put down on the bench, and threw it with all her force
on the stone floor of the porch.
"You let me alone!" she shrieked, as she darted away from him.
"You--you--you old _Billygoat_, you!" It was the sight of his gray beard
that finally suggested to her choking wrath a name ugly enough to hurl
at him. Then she took to her heels down the grassy lane, Brud following
as fast as possible.
"There's nothing for me to do but follow them," said Mary, starting into
the bedroom for her hat and coat, which had been laid away in there.
"I'd feel so responsible if they should get hurt, and there are so many
things on a big place like this that they are not used to."
"Now, don't you worry," interrupted old Sammy. "I'll keep _my_ eye on
them."
He was quite red in the face with vexation over the loss of his pipe,
which lay in several pieces on the floor, and Mrs. Barnaby, knowing him
well, prevailed on Mary to come back to her easy-chair.
"You leave them to him," she insisted, in a laughing aside. "He's so mad
that he'll watch them like a hawk, just for the pleasure of pouncing
down on them again if they cut up any more didoes; but his bark is worse
than his bite, and they'll be perfectly safe with him."
So Mary allowed herself to be drawn back to their interrupted
conversation, but she could not rid herself of an uneasy feeling that
kept obtruding itself into her thoughts, even when she was most
interested.
If Brud and Sister had deliberately planned a revenge on the old man who
had forced them into exile and temporary obedience, they could not have
chosen anything which would have hurt him worse than their next prank.
Their wild chase down the lane had been brought to a sudden stop by the
sight of the lordly peacock, strutting back and forth in the barn-yard,
his beautiful tail spread wide in the sun. They climbed up on the gate
to watch it, and, hanging over the top bar, admired it in almost
breathless ecstasy for several minutes. The iridescent shimmer of the
gorgeous eyes in its tail started a dispute.
"That's why you can't ever catch a peacock," Brud asserted, "'cause with
all those eyes in its tail it can see you coming up behind it."
"Aw, goosey," contradicted Nancy, "it sees with its two little _head_
eyes. Those feather eyes in its tail can't see."
"They can!"
"They can't!"
The two words were bandied back and forth, the dispute promising to go
on indefinitely, till Brud's triumphant, "Ten million times _can_," was
answered by Nancy's final, "Million billion times _can't_! So there."
"We'll prove it," was Brud's next taunt. "Try and see if you can catch
him."
"All right," was the willing assent. "And if the feathers come out of
his tail as easy as they did out of Mis' Williams' red rooster, won't
that old man be mad!"
In the meantime Sammy had gone into the house to hunt among his
possessions for a certain corncob pipe, to take the place of the clay
one just broken. The mantel-shelf in his room was as crowded as the
corner of an old junk shop, so it took some time for him to find what he
was searching for. He had taken it down and was slowly filling it, when
the sound of a wild commotion in the barn-yard made him hurry to the
door. Turkeys, guineas, ducks, hens,--everything that could gobble or
flutter or squawk, were doing their utmost to attract someone's
attention. And the cause of it all, or, rather, the two causes, were
standing by the watering-trough, comparing the spoils of the chase. They
had crept up behind the peacock, despite his thousand eyes, and caught
him by the tail. Each proudly clutched a handful of long, trailing
feathers, and the bird, miserably conscious that his glory had been torn
from him, had taken refuge under the corn-crib.
"You outrageous little Hittites!" roared old Sammy, coming upon them
suddenly and seeing the feathers. Then a real chase began.
A little while later, Mary paused in the middle of a sentence to say,
"Listen! Didn't that sound like the children crying or calling?"
Mrs. Barnaby, who was slightly deaf, shook her head. "No, I think not.
Anyhow, Sammy is looking after them. He won't let them come to any real
harm. What was it we were talking about? Oh, yes! Those heirloom
candlesticks."
More than an hour afterward a shadow darkened the doorway for an instant
as Sammy strode past it on his way across the porch.
"Mr. Bradford," called Mary. "Do you know where the children are?"
At her call he turned back to the door, holding out a great handful of
peacock feathers which he was taking sorrowfully to his room.
"Those pesky little varmints!" he exclaimed, still wrathful, "They've
teetotally ruined that cock's looks. Yes, I know where they are. I've
had them shut up in the corn-crib till a minute ago."
"Shut up in the corn-crib!" echoed Mary and Mrs. Barnaby in the same
breath.
"Yes, as I told 'em, they haven't any more idea of other people's rights
than weasels, and it's high time they are being taught."
"Well, do you think they've learned their lesson in one dose, Sammy?"
asked Mr. Barnaby, dryly, coming out from his room in time to hear his
cousin's speech.
"That remains to be seen," spluttered Sammy, as he strode on to his
room. "They were sniffling and snubbing considerable when I let them
out. I don't think they'll chase _my_ peacock any more."
The "sniffling and snubbing" changed into out-and-out crying as soon as
they reached Mary's side, and that was followed by heart-broken wails
and demands to be taken home. Nothing comforted them. Nothing could turn
them aside from their belief that they had been abused and must be taken
back immediately to mommey.
After nearly half an hour spent in vain attempts to silence them, Mrs.
Barnaby said in sheer desperation, "Well, James, you'll just have to
hitch up and take them back, even if it is so early. I hate to have
Mary's visit cut short, but they'd spoil it worse if they stayed. If I
only felt free to give them a good sound spanking now--"
She did not finish the sentence, but looked over her spectacles so
sternly that the children backed away, lest a feeling of liberty might
suddenly descend upon her.
As Mary pinned on her hat before the mirror in the bedroom, she turned
to her hostess with a hunted look in her eyes.
"Do you ever get desperate over things?" she asked. "That's the way I am
now. I'm so tired of those children that the very sound of their voices
sets my teeth on edge. If I only could have had this one whole day away
from them I might have been able to go on with them to-morrow, but now
it seems as if I can't! I just _can't_!"
"I don't wonder, you poor child," was the sympathetic answer.
"The worst of it is, I'm utterly discouraged," confessed Mary, almost
tearfully. "I've been pluming myself on the fact that my two weeks' work
had amounted to something; that I'd really made an impression, and given
them all sorts of good ideas. But you see it isn't worth a row of pins.
They are good only so long as I'm exercising like an acrobat, mind and
body, to keep them entertained. The minute I stop they don't pay the
slightest attention to my wishes."
"Maybe you've done too much for them," said Mrs. Barnaby, shrewdly
guessing the root of the trouble. "You told them it was a surprise
school. Let the next surprise be a different sort. Turn them loose and
make them hunt their own entertainment."
"As they did to-day," Mary answered, with a shrug. "They'd run home
howling and their mother would think I was incapable and give my place
to someone else. No, we must have the money, so I'll have to go on and
put in my best licks, no matter how I detest it."
When she drew on her gloves she was so near to tears that the little
bloodstone ring on her hand looked so dim she could scarcely see it. But
it made her glance up with a smile into the benevolent old face above
her, and she stripped back the glove from her finger with a dramatic
gesture.
"See?" she said, brightly, exhibiting the ring. "By the bloodstone on my
finger, I'll keep my oath until the going down of one more sun."
"You're a brave little girl. That's what you are!" said Mrs. Barnaby,
stooping to kiss her good-bye. Only that week she had read _The Jester's
Sword_, from which Mary was quoting, and she knew what grim
determination lay beneath the light tone.
"I guess it will help you the same way it did the poor Jester, to
remember that it's only one day at a time you're called on to endure.
And another thing," she added, trying to put as many consoling thoughts
into their parting as possible, "If you _do_ succeed in teaching them
anything that'll help to snatch them as brands from the burning, it will
count for a star in your crown just as much as if you'd gone out and
converted the heathen on 'India's coral strand.'"
"It's not stars in my crown I'm working for," laughed Mary. "It's for
pence in my purse." Nevertheless the suggestion stayed with her all the
way home. When conversation flagged, she filled the silences with
pleasant snatches of day-dreams, in which she saw herself becoming to
these benighted little creatures, asleep on either side of her, the
inspiration that Madam Chartley was to everyone who crossed the
threshold of Warwick Hall.
"I've just _got_ to do something to make them see themselves as they
look to other people," she thought, desperately. "But the question is,
_what_?"
A hard problem indeed for one who, in many ways, was still only a child
herself.