LOVE'S (VERY) YOUNG DREAM.
Cissy found our hero in a sad state of depression. Prissy had gone off
to evening service, and had promised to introduce a special petition
that he might beat the Smoutchy boys; but Gen'l Smith shook his head.
"With Prissy you can't never tell. Like as not she may go and pray
that Nipper Donnan may get converted, or die and go to heaven, or
something like that. She'd do it like winking, without a thought for
how I should feel! That's the sort of girl our Priss is!"
"Oh, surely not so bad as that," said Cissy, very properly
scandalised.
"She would, indeed," said Hugh John, nodding his head vehemently;
"she's good no end, our Prissy is. And never shirks prayers, nor
forgets altogether, nor even says them in bed. I believe she'd get up
on a frosty night and say them without a fire--she would, I'm telling
you. And she doats on these nasty Smoutchies. She'd just love to have
been tortured. She'd have regularly spread herself on forgiving them
too, our Priss would."
"I wouldn't have forgived them," cried the piping voice of Toady Lion,
suddenly appearing through the shrubbery (his own more excellent form
was "scrubbery"), with his arms full of the new brass cannons; "I
wouldn't have forgived them a bit. I'd have cutted off all their
heads."
"Go 'way, little pig!" cried Cissy indignantly.
"Toady Lion isn't a little pig," said Hugh John, with dignity; "he is
my brother."
"But he kept all the cannons to himself," remonstrated Cissy.
"'Course he did; why shouldn't he? He's only a little boy, and can't
grow good all at once," said Hugh John, with more Christian charity
than might have been expected of him.
"You've been growing good yourself," said Cissy, thrusting out her
upper lip with an expression of bitter reproach and disappointment;
"I'd better go home."
"I'll hit you if you say that, Cissy," cried Hugh John, "but anyway
you shan't call Toady Lion a little pig."
"I like being little pig," said Toady Lion impassively; "little piggie
goes '_Grunt-grunt!_'"
And he illustrated the peculiarities of piglings by pulling the air up
through his nostrils in various keys. "Little pigs is nice," he
repeated at the end of this performance.
Cissy was very angry. Things appeared to be particularly horrid that
afternoon. She had started out to help everybody, and had only managed
to quarrel with them. Even her own familiar Hugh John had lifted up
his heel against her. It was the last straw. But she was resolved to
not give in now.
"Good little boy"--she said tauntingly--"it is such a mother's pet! It
will be good then, and go and ask Nipper's pardon, and send back
Donald to make nice mutton pies; it shall then----!"
Hugh John made a rush at this point. There was a wild scurry of
flight, and the gravel flew every way. Cissy was captured behind the
stable, and Hugh John was about to administer punishment. His hand was
doubled. It was drawn back.
"Yes," cried Cissy, "hit a girl! Any boy can beat you. But you can hit
a girl! Hit hard, brave soldier!"
Hugh John's hand dropped as if struck by lightning.
"I never did!" he said; "I fought ten of them at once and never even
cried when they--when they----"
And the erstwhile dauntless warrior showed unmistakable signs of being
perilously near a descent into the vale of tears.
"When they what?" queried Cissy softly, suddenly beginning to be
sorry.
"Well, when they tortured me," said Hugh John.
[Illustration: "'HIT HARD, BRAVE SOLDIER.'"]
Cissy went up suddenly and kissed him. It was only a peck which
reached land at the top corner of his ear; but it made Hugh John
crimson hotly, and fend Cissy off with his elbow as if she had been a
big boy about to strike.
"There, now," she said, "I've done it. I promised I would, and what's
more, I'll say it out loud--'I love you!' There! And if you don't mind
and behave, I'll tell people. I will, now then. But all the same, I'm
sorry I was a beast to you."
"Well, don't do it again," said Hugh John, somewhat mollified,
slightly dropping the point of his defensive elbow. "Anybody might
have seen you, and then what would they think?"
"All right," said Cissy soothingly, "I won't any more."
"Say 'Hope-you-may-die!'"
Cissy promptly hoped she might come to an early grave in the event of
again betraying, even in private, the exuberance of her young
affection.
"Now, Hugh John," said Cissy, when peace had been restored in this
manner, and they were wandering amicably across the back meadow where
they could not be seen from the house windows, taking alternate sucks
at a stick of brown toffee with crumbs stuck firmly on it, the
property of Cissy, "I've something to tell you. I've found the allies
for you; and we can whop the Smoutchies and take the castle now--any
time."
The eyes of General Napoleon Smith glistened.
"If that's true," he said, "you can kiss me again--no, not now," he
added hastily, moving off a little, "but after, when it's all over,
you know. There's a good place behind the barn. You can do it there
if you like."
"Will _you_ say 'I love you, Cissy'?"
But this was more than Hugh John had bargained for. He asked time for
consideration.
"It won't be till the Smoutchy boys are beaten and the castle ours for
good," pleaded Cissy.
Hugh John felt that it was a great price to pay, but after all he did
want dreadfully to beat the Smoutchy boys.
"Well, I'll try," he said, "but you must say, 'Hope-you'll-die and
double-die,' if you ever tell!"
Again Cissy took the required oath.
"Well?" said he expectantly, his mind altogether on the campaign.
Cissy told him all about the gipsy encampment and the history of the
meeting with Billy Blythe. Hugh John nodded. Of course he knew all
about that, but would they join? Were they not rather on the side of
the Smoutchies? They looked as if they would be.
"Oh, you can't never tell a bit beforehand," said Cissy eagerly. "They
just hate the town boys; and Bill Blythe says that Nipper Donnan's
father said, that when the town got the castle they would soon clear
the gipsies off your common--for that goes with the castle."
Hugh John nodded again more thoughtfully. There was certainly
something in that. He had heard his father say as much to his lawyer
when he himself was curled up on the sofa, pretending to read
Froissart's "Chronicles," but really listening as hard as ever he
could.
"You are a brick," he cried, "you are indeed, Cissy. Come on, let's go
at once and see Billy Blythe."
And he took her hand. She held back a moment. They were safe behind
the great ivy bush at the back of the stables.
"Couldn't you say it now?" she whispered, with a soft light in her
eyes; "I wish you could. Try."
Hugh John's face darkened. He unshipped his elbow from his side to be
ready for action.
"Well, I won't ask you till after," she said regretfully. "'Tain't
fair, I know; but--" she looked at him again yet more wistfully, still
holding him by the hand which had last passed over the mutual
joint-stock candy-stick; "don't you think you could do the other--just
once?"
"What other?" grumbled Hugh John, sulking. He felt that Cissy was
taking an unfair advantage.
"Oh, _you_ know," said Cissy, "what I did to you a little while ago."
"'Twasn't to be till after," urged our hero, half relenting. Like a
woman, Cissy was quick to see her advantage.
"Just a little one to be going on with?" she pleaded.
Hugh John sighed. Girls were incomprehensible. Prissy liked church and
being washed. Cissy, of whom he had more hopes, liked kissing.
"Well," he said, "goodness knows why you like it. I'm sure I don't and
never shall. But--"
He ran to the corner and looked round into the stable-yard. All was
quiet along the Potomac. He walked more sternly to the other corner,
and glanced into the orchard. Peace reigned among the apple-trees. He
came slowly and dejectedly back. In the inmost corner of the angle of
the stable, and behind the thickest of the ivy bush, he straightened
himself up and compressed his lips, as he had done when the Smoutchies
were tying him up by the thumbs. He felt however that to beat Nipper
Donnan he was ready to undergo anything--even this. No sacrifice was
too great.
"All right," he said. "Come on, Cissy, and get it over--only don't be
too long."
Cissy was thirteen, and tall for her age, but though fully a year
younger, Hugh John was tall also, so that when she came joyously
forward and put her hands on his shoulders, their eyes were exactly on
a level.
"You needn't go shutting your eyes and holding your breath, as if it
were medicine. 'Tisn't so very horrid," said Cissy, with her hands
still on his shoulder.
"Go on!" said Hugh John in a muffled voice, nerving himself for the
coming crisis.
Cissy's lips just touched his, rested a moment, and were gone.
Hugh John let out his breath with a sigh of relief like an explosion;
then he stepped back, and promptly wiped off love's gage with the
sleeve of his coat.
"Hold on," cried Cissy; "that isn't fair. You know it ain't!"
Hugh John knew it and submitted.
Cissy swept the tumbled hair from about her eyes. She had a very red
spot on either cheek; but she had made up her mind, and was going
through with it properly now.
[Illustration: "'WASN'T IT SPLENDID?'"]
"Oh, I don't mind," she said; "I can easily do it over again--for
keeps this time, mind!"
Then she kissed him once, twice, and three times. It was nicer than
kissing Janet Sheepshanks, he thought; and as for Prissy--well, that
was different too.
A little hammer thumped in his heart, and made it go "jumpetty-jump,"
as if it were lame, or out of breath, or had one leg shorter than the
other. After all Ciss was the nicest girl there was, if she did behave
stupidly and tiresomely about this. "Just once?" He would do it after
all. It wasn't much to do--to give Cissy such a treat.
So he put his arms about her neck underneath her curls, pulled her
close up to him, and kissed her. It felt funny, but rather nice. He
did not remember doing that to any one since he was a little boy, and
his mother used to come and say "Good-night" to him. Then he opened
his arms and pushed Cissy away. They walked out through the orchard
yards apart, as if they had just been introduced. Cissy's eyes were
full of the happiness of love's achievement. As for Hugh John, he was
crimson to the neck and felt infinitely degraded in his own
estimation.
They came to the orchard wall, where there was a stile which led in
the direction of Oaklands. Cissy ran up the rude steps, but paused on
the top instead of going over. Hugh John was looking the other way.
Somehow, do what he would, his eyes could not be brought to meet
hers.
"Are you not coming?" she said coaxingly.
"No," he answered, gruffly enough; "to-morrow will do for Billy."
"Good-night," she said softly. Her voice was almost a whisper.
Hugh John grunted inarticulately.
"Look here!" she said, bending down till her eyes were on a level with
his chin. He could not help glancing up once. There was a mischievous
smile in them. It had never struck him before that Cissy was very
pretty. But somehow now he was glad that she was. Prissy was
nice-looking too--but, oh! quiet different. He continued to look at
Cissy Carter standing with the stile between them.
"Wasn't it splendid!" she said, still keeping her shining eyes on his.
"Oh, middling," said Hugh John, and turning on his heel he went into
the stable without even saying "Good-bye." Cissy watched him with a
happy smile on her face. Love was her fetish--her Sambo Soulis--and
she had worshipped long in secret. Till now she had let the worm
concealment prey upon her cheek. True, it had not as yet affected her
appetite nor kept her a moment awake.
But now all was different. Her heart sang, and the strangest thing was
that all the landscape, the fields and woods, and everything seemed to
be somehow painted in brighter colours. In fact, they looked just as
they do when you bend down and look at them through between your legs.
You know the way.