[Illustration: “I’M DOCTOR GARDE’S LITTLE GIRL.”--_Page 11._]
ROCKY FORK
BY
MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK T. MERRILL
_NEW EDITION_
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
_Copyright, 1911_,
BY LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD CO.
_All rights reserved_
_Electrotyped and Printed by
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. DOCTOR GARDE’S LITTLE GIRL 9
II. MR. PITZER 19
III. THE GEOGRAPHY-SCHOOL TEACHER 25
IV. COMPANY 36
V. THE GEOGRAPHY SCHOOL 56
VI. THE NARROWS AND MARY ANN FURNACE 73
VII. MISS MELISSA FURTHER DISAPPROVES OF THE ROCKY FORK 84
VIII. WHICH TREATS OF THUMB-PAPERS 101
IX. THEY CHURN 108
X. MOTHER OUTDOORS DISTURBED 115
XI. BLUEBELL MAKES A POEM 127
XII. “JORDAN STORMY BANKS” 139
XIII. ABRAM HAS A THEORY 152
XIV. BLUEBELL HAS NO THEORY 163
XV. THE FORD 169
XVI. A TRIO AND CHORUS 173
XVII. DOCTOR GARDE LISTENS TO REASON 186
XVIII. BLUEBELL AND TILDY 199
XIX. THE CHILD IN THE BLACKBERRY PATCH 207
XX. THE LAST TIME 215
XXI. THE FIRST RAILROAD TRAIN 230
XXII. MISS BIGGAR 245
XXIII. A DUCK AMONG SWANS 252
XXIV. MISS MELISSA DROPS A FEW HINTS 263
XXV. EVENTS 271
XXVI. MISS BIGGAR’S POSSESSIONS 288
XXVII. DINNER IN DOLL-LAND 297
XXVIII. SOMEBODY ARRIVES 305
XXIX. DOCTOR GARDE’S LITTLE GIRL 312
XXX. TWO LETTERS 319
ILLUSTRATIONS
“I’M DOCTOR GARDE’S LITTLE GIRL” (_page 11_) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
“HERE’S A WAX DOLL FOR YOU” 46
THE PRINCIPAL FIGURES IN A PROCESSION TO THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 110
LIZA STEPPED BACK, DRAWING HER ROLL OFF THE SPINDLE INTO A
LONG WOOLLY THREAD 134
“I SEIZED HIS BRIDLE AND TRIED TO LEAD HIM OUT” 184
THE PERFORMER PLAYED SOME LITTLE MARCH 254
[Illustration: ROCKY FORK]
CHAPTER I
DOCTOR GARDE’S LITTLE GIRL
Many years ago the morning sun looked down among the tall hills of
central Ohio, and saw one little girl patting along a path. The path
wound down through a hollow, and up, up over wood-clothed heights which
she thought nearly touched the sky.
At first glance this little girl appeared to be a large slat sun-bonnet
taking a walk on a pair of long pantalettes. But at second glance
one brown, thin arm escaped from a short sleeve might have been seen
carrying a calico bag by its drawing-string; and under the pantalettes
a pair of stout-shod little feet skipped along.
It was not more than seven o’clock. The tall meadow grass was
glittering, and every bird known to the State was singing with his
morning voice. When she reached the small run which twisted along the
hollow, and put her foot on the first of the stepping-stones which
crossed it, the little girl could not help stopping to gaze in the
water. The minnows played around the stone with a quiver of their tiny
bodies which fascinated the gazer. She stooped cautiously and tried to
catch one in her hand, but sunshine on the pebbles was not more elusive.
“Good-morning, little girl,” said a winning voice; and the little
girl jumped up, reeled, set one foot in the water, and brandished her
reticule in the effort to regain her balance. The sugared butter-bread
and sweet cookies tumbled against currant-pie and cherries, and all
settled to an upside-down condition as she finally got on the bank and
saw a gentleman preparing to trip across the stones.
It was an uncommon thing to meet any one, and especially a stranger, on
that long two-mile path to school. But it was a wonderful thing to meet
such a grand stranger. She dropped a bobbing curtsy, and the gentleman,
having crossed, stopped and smiled. He had glittering black eyes, and
curly hair and whiskers, glittering teeth and boots, fine clothes, and
altogether the look of a “town gentleman.”
“Whose little girl are you?” inquired this town gentleman affably,
rubbing the wet soles of his boots on the grass.
Under the long slat sun-bonnet a round face blushed all about its blue
eyes and quite back to its auburn hair, and a timid voice piped from
the calico funnel: “I’m Doctor Garde’s little girl.”
“Ah! where does Doctor Garde live?”
“Right back there in that big house.”
“And who lives in this house I just passed?”
“Mrs. Banks. Her little girls go to school with me.”
“Yes. And where do you go to school?”
“In the school-house ’way at the other side of the hills.”
“Oho! many children go there?”
“All of ’em in our districk. There’s Willeys, and Pancosts, and
Harrises, and Halls, and Bankses, and Martins, and me, and my little
sister’s going when she gets big enough.”
“Yes. Well, thank you. I may call there in the course of the day. Does
that path lead back to your school-house?”
“Yes, sir. But you must turn to the right at the big sand-banks, and
cross the foot-log over Rocky Fork by Hall’s mill.”
The gentleman nodded, and passed on smiling as Doctor Garde’s little
girl dropped him another curtsy. She skipped across the stones and
hastened up rising ground to the Banks’. Theirs was a weather-beaten
domicile, part log and part frame, with a covered stoop at one door on
which Tildy sat plaiting her long hair preparatory to going to school.
Tildy, it must be confessed, was a raw-boned girl, but with a
low-browed, serious face. Her nature leaned to the solemn side of life,
as her sister Teeny’s leaned towards what was merry. Matilda liked to
sit in the grass and dress her locks, or to watch from the doorstep the
rocks and glooms on each side of her home.
Teeny appeared within, tying her bonnet, the string of her reticule
across her arm. A bunch of old-fashioned pink roses was pinned to her
dress, which hooked in front and was just long enough to sweep her
heels when she walked. Teeny was a big girl who felt quite a young
woman, since she was “going on” fifteen, ciphered in long division, and
had finished a sampler with her name, “Christine Banks,” embroidered
under a beautiful piece of poetry. “We’re takin’ curran’-pie for our
dinner to-day, Melissy,” announced Tildy solemnly as Doctor Garde’s
little girl ran up.
“I got some, too,” she responded with triumph. So little made a triumph
in that region and time.
“’Tain’t sweetened with sugar.”
“’Tis, too! I saw Liza put in heaps.” She sat down on the steps and
explored her reticule. There was rather a sorry mess in its depths, but
the slices of bread were reduced again to their proper basis, and the
other goodies piled carefully on them.
“Why don’t you call me Bluebell?” she suggested with a rather hopeless
accent.
“’Cause that ain’t your name,” said Tildy, strictly.
“I guess my father always calls me that.”
“’Tain’t your name, anyhow. Your name is Melissy Jane Garde, goin’ on
eight years old.”
“It’s just Melissy,” cried the younger, doggedly, as if she would like
to disown that.
“My mother called me Bluebell, too, and she’s gone to heaven. I sh’d
think you might call me what my mother called me.”
“Your name’s Melissy,” repeated Tildy, looking with undisturbed eyes
upon the distance. Here the argument dropped, as it usually did. The
defeated party turned to other things.
“I pretty near fell in the run. The’ was a man come along and scared me
so. He was prettier than my father!” exclaimed Melissa, pausing after
this climax; “that is, dressed up prettier; and he said he was coming
to school to-day. I wonder what he’s coming there for?”
“Prob’ly it’s somebody the directors is sending to whip us,” opined
Matilda with serious resignation. “They say Mr. Pitzer ain’t strict
enough.”
“Oh, do you s’pose it is?” cried the credulous little girl beside her.
“I never got whipped at school yet.”
“Now, Tildy,” exclaimed the pink-faced elder sister, stepping out, “if
you don’t hurry up we’ll go on and leave you.”
“I think I’ll stay at home,” said Tildy, reflecting on the fine
stranger’s probable errand.
“No, you won’t,” cried her mother’s voice from an inner room, making a
pause in the monotonous rattle of a loom; and though it was a plaintive
voice and not very decided, Tildy was moved by it to get her sun-bonnet
and follow the other two. They were making a round of the garden, to
gather pinks, hollyhocks, bouncing-betties, bachelor-buttons, and
asparagus sprays. Having tied up a bunch apiece, they left the house
and began their root-matted and rocky ascent. There were levels above
where the woods made a twilight at noon, where ferns crowded to their
knees, and some stood as high as their waists. Who could help stopping
to inhale that breath which is no plant’s but a fern’s?
“There’s vinegar-balls on this oak,” remarked Tildy, casting her eyes
up as they passed under a dark-leaved tree. So, sticks and climbing
being brought to bear upon the tree, one or two small apple-shaped
bunches were brought down to yield a tart juice to sucking lips.
I do not pretend to say the balls were wholesome. But the same
lips loved the white, honey-filled ends of clover-blossoms, tender
sticks of sweet-briar when stripped of its skin, and they doted on
“mountain-tea,” a winter-green of three rich fleshy leaves, which clung
all over these heights in fragrant mats. The three girls were lovers
of Mother Outdoors. Melissa especially gloried in the woods. The noble
tree arches, the dew, and sweet earth-smell filled her with worshipping
joy. It was so nice to be a little girl with a sun-bonnet hanging off
her shoulders by the strings, and the great woods cooling her face, and
sighing away off as if thinking up some song to sing to her!
In due course they came to three giant ridges of sand. These stood in
a clear place, and nobody in that region troubled himself about the
geological cause of their existence in the heart of the woods. There
they were, too tempting to be resisted. Melissa dropped her reticule,
Tildy seriously followed her example, and Christine forgot her dress
hooking in front and her claims to big girlhood. All three mounted
the dunes, sat down, gathered their clothing close about their feet,
and shot down the sides as if on invisible sleds. This queer sort of
coasting was great fun. When it seemed expedient to adjourn, they shook
the clean sand from their dresses, and the eldest and youngest untied
their low shoes to turn them upside down. Matilda being barefoot and
therefore free from such civilized cares, improved the time by taking
an extra slide, which was too much for the other girls, so they tried
it again.
Thus the morning waxed later. So by the time they crossed the foot-log
over Rocky Fork and approached the log school-house, “books” were
actually “taken up.”
The school-house was chinked with clay and had double doors which
opened close beside a travelled road. The woods and heights rose behind
it, and at one side a sweep of play-ground extended into a viney hollow
where hung the grape-vine swing for which all the girls in school daily
brought pocketfuls of string.