All too soon for Anne, came the day that was to take her to the city.
Generous Mrs. Collins insisted on slipping into Miss Dorcas's trunk a
liberal supply of Lizzie's clothes, and she gave Anne one of Lizzie's
best frocks to travel in and a muslin hat that flopped over her face.
Disguised in these, she was to be smuggled away on a night train to
prevent her being discovered and taken back to the asylum. They were the
more concerned about the matter because Mr. Collins heard at the
blacksmith shop new inquiries about the lost child. Miss Dorcas charged
Charity and Richard, who trudged the long eight miles to visit their
"precious baby child," not to mention having seen Anne. Richard brought
on his shoulder a great bag full of things "for Marse Will Watkins's
child"--apples, popcorn, potatoes. For days Mrs. Collins had been baking
cakes and pies and selecting sweetmeats, preserves, and pickles from her
store. The supplies were so liberal that after a barrel was packed and
repacked and re-repacked there were almost as many things left out as
were put in. Mrs. Collins wanted to put them in another barrel, but Miss
Dorcas said that the supply already packed would more than fill her tiny
pantry.
Mrs. Collins consoled herself as best she could. "Christmas is coming,"
she said; "it's slow but it's on the way. And when it do get here, I'll
send you a barrel packed to show you what a barrel can hold."
The morning after Anne's regretful farewell to her old home and her new
friends, found her eagerly examining her cousin's small apartment in
Georgetown. The house was a red-brick mansion built for the residence of
an early Secretary of the Navy, and now made over into cheap flats. The
stately, old-fashioned place was surrounded by small shops and cheap,
dingy houses. "It makes me think," Miss Dorcas said with a sigh, "how
Jefferson would look to-day in a Democratic party meeting or Hamilton
among modern Republican politicians."
Anne didn't know who Hamilton was but she thought Jefferson, whose
picture hung in the sitting-room, looked as if he might have lived here.
It was a place still full of charm. In the rear of the mansion was an
old-fashioned flower garden with box-bordered gravel walks dividing the
formal beds and leading here to a stone seat, there to a broken
fountain. In the centre of the garden, was a sun-dial which a century
before told the shining hours; now, its days went in shadow under the
crowding trees,--a coffee-tree from Arabia, a mulberry from Spain, and
other relics of the wanderings of the long-ago secretary. Anne felt
like a bird in a nest as she sat on the roomy, white-columned porch
overlooking the garden, catching glimpses through a leafy screen of the
broad Potomac and the wooded hills of Virginia.
"Ah! when the leaves fall it is beautiful, beautiful," said her cousin;
but Anne was sure that it could never be more beautiful than now, in the
green-gold glory of a late summer afternoon.
After a few idle days, Anne was enrolled in the city free school. Miss
Dorcas mourned over the fact that she was unable to send her small
cousin to a select private school, and urged her to study hard, behave
well, and, above all, never to have anything to do with 'the common
herd' of other children. Anne obeyed the last command very unwillingly.
It would be dreadful to be "contaminated,"--which she supposed to mean
infected with a bad kind of measles,--as Cousin Dorcas said she would be
if she played with her grade-mates; but it was hard to sit primly alone
instead of joining the recess games.
At first some of the children tried to make friends with her but, being
met coolly, they left her to lonely dignity.
"It's goot," wonderingly explained Albert Naumann, a sturdy, blond
little German, when she refused a bite of the crimson-cheeked winesap
apple that he offered.
"Why not?" asked merry-faced Peggy Callahan, when Anne declined her dare
to a foot-race. "You're not sick, are you?"
"No, indeed!" answered Anne.
"Oh! you look sorter like I feel when I've a pain in my stomach," said
Peggy, running off in reply to a playmate's call.
Anne looked after her longingly. Peggy was a bright, merry, friendly
child with whom she would have liked to play, but for being sure Cousin
Dorcas would object. Peggy was certainly one of the 'common herd'--her
clothes ragged or patched and her person rather dingy.
Anne was lonely.
"It's worse than being all by myself," she reflected soberly, "to see
the other children's good times and be out of them all."
She consoled herself as best she could with Honey-Sweet, disagreeing
stoutly with Miss Dorcas who thought that she was too large a girl to
play with dolls.
"Honey-Sweet isn't just a doll--not like those in shops," Anne
explained. "Dear Mrs. Patterson made her. And she's been everywhere with
me. And, Cousin Dorcas, she really is useful. I study all my lessons
with her. That's how I learn them so good--making believe I'm teaching
them to Honey-Sweet. And she helps me keep still. You know you do like
me to be quiet, Cousin Dorcas."
"Yes. I don't want to seem severe, but I cannot bear a noise. I am so
worn out when I come from the office. It seems each day my head aches
worse than it did the day before." Miss Dorcas sighed. "And if it isn't
a downright ache when I come home, it begins to pound as soon as I look
at this book--" she eyed the account-book open before her--"I hoped you
could have some new shoes this month. Those are downright shabby. But
there isn't any money for them. I don't see how I am going to pay the
gas bill unless we stop eating. It costs so much to live!"
"Perhaps Miss Santa Claus will give us something," suggested Anne.
"Perhaps so," answered Miss Dorcas, absently, poising her pencil above a
column of figures in her account-book.
'Miss Santa Claus' was the name that Anne had given to a gentlewoman in
the apartment below. Anne had a smiling acquaintance with her and was
deeply interested in glimpses of her visitors. Miss Santa Claus's real
name was Margery Hartman. Her fair hair was growing silvery, but her
cheeks were pink and soft with lingering girlhood and the spirit of
eternal youth looked from her clear blue eyes. She was the district
agent of the Associated Charities, and worked untiringly with kind heart
and clear head to aid and uplift the poor around her.
One September afternoon, Anne, running up-stairs, bumped against the
Charities lady.
"Oh! I beg your pardon, Miss Santa Claus," she exclaimed.
The lady laughed. "That's a new name for me," she said.
Anne reddened. "It just slipped out. I don't know your other-folks'
name. And I call you Miss Santa Claus to myself because you are always
giving people things. I don't mean to listen," she explained, "but I
can't help hearing them ask you for coal and shoes and grocery orders."
"You are my little neighbor on the floor above, aren't you?" asked the
lady.
Anne assented.
"It's a nice name you've given me--very much nicer than my own real
name which happens to be Margery Hartman. I know your name. I heard
Albert Naumann call you Anne Lewis."
"You gave Albert shoes to wear to school," said Anne.
"Yes. That is my business--to give things to people who need them. Kind
people provide money for me to help the poor. Isn't that good of them?"
"It's very good," said Anne, earnestly. "Do you give them--shoes, I
mean--to all the children that need them?"
"Not all." Miss Hartman smiled and then she sighed. "I wish I could."