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By AMY BROOKS.
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[Illustration: "With the Book upon her Lap, and one Arm around her
Little Sister" Page 24]
RANDY'S SUMMER
A STORY FOR GIRLS
BY
AMY BROOKS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS
1902
Copyright, 1900, by Lee and Shepard.
_All Rights Reserved._
RANDY'S SUMMER.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Randy and the Fairy Tales 1
II At the Brook 16
III Randy at Church 37
IV Prue's Mishap 52
V Helen Dayton's Call 70
VI The Picnic 88
VII Randy Outwits Jason Meade 111
VIII Tableaux 124
IX Callers 146
X The Apple-Bee 173
XI An Unexpected Visitor 199
XII A Wedding Feast 218
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"With the book upon her lap, and one arm
around her little sister" Frontispiece
Randy and Prue started for the brook 23
Prue counts the daisies on Miss Dayton's hat 46
Randy carrying Prue in her arms 58
On the way to the picnic 98
"Nearer to the wall she crept" 115
"There stood Randy as the demure little maid" 139
Prue and Tabby reading the Fairy Book 170
"'Why don't you send the little girl a letter?'" 191
"At the head of a long table stood Helen Dayton" 225
RANDY'S SUMMER
CHAPTER I--RANDY AND THE FAIRY TALES
"Randy! Randy! where are you?" came in shrill, high-pitched tones from
the kitchen.
The girl on the wooden seat just outside the door neither moved nor
heeded, so engrossed in her book was she.
"Ran-dee!" This time there was a rising inflection on the last syllable.
Slowly the girl's forefinger followed along the line which she was
reading. A quick step across the kitchen, and a tall, angular woman
appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her blue-checked apron.
"Why, Randy Weston! Here I've been callin' and callin' to you, and
you're right here at the door and never heard at all, I'll warrant you.
What's that you're readin'?"
"Oh, mother, I'm sorry I didn't hear you," said Randy, her face still
aglow with the thought of the fascinating tale; "but the story was so
wonderful that I never knew you called me."
"Must have been wonderful," said Mrs. Weston, smiling. "What sort of a
book is it, and where did you get it?"
"Why, it's the one I told you I found in the field back of the barn,"
said Randy. "It's all about kings and queens, and princes and fairies,
and goblins, and oh, it's just the most wonderful book you ever saw!"
"I hope it's a _good_ book," said Mrs. Weston, doubtfully; "it sounds
kind of outlandish, and I know one thing, I never have to call twice
when I give you 'Pilgrim's Progress' or Fox's 'Book of Martyrs' to
read."
"But, mother, just see the pictures! Here's the one that shows when the
prince rode on the horse which was shod with golden shoes, and could run
faster than the wind!"
That was too much for practical Mrs. Weston.
"Look here, Randy, that'll do! That shows what kind of a book it is. Who
ever heard of shoeing a horse with gold! Land knows it costs enough to
shoe them with iron; and as for running faster than the wind, why,
anybody'd know better. You give me the book till I ask your father what
he thinks of it. I'll put it up on the mantel, back of the clock, and
show it to him to-night and see what he says."
As Mrs. Weston usually meant what she said, Randy was forced to submit;
but she could not help thinking it a trial to have to do without the
wonderful book until her father should have time to read it.
"Now," said Mrs. Weston, "come in and help me make these pies."
"Oh, yes," said the girl; while she thought, "What a change from the
prince's castle to the hot kitchen and apple pies!" However, she was a
thoughtful girl, and seeing a tired look on her mother's face, she took
a big yellow dish on her lap, and grasping a knife began to pare apples
as if her life depended upon it.
The first she pared rapidly and deftly, the next one took her a little
longer, and the sixth she held in one hand while the knife lay idly in
the other, as she gazed out of the window, wondering if the hot, sunny
road which led to the village could be at all like the high-road over
which the king's huntsmen returned to the castle.
"Randy Weston! I thought you was parin' apples! Bring the dish here and
we'll finish them together. At that rate you wouldn't get them done in a
month!"
Randy started. "Oh, dear! I meant to have peeled them in no time," said
she.
"Well, never mind," said her mother; "we'll do them together, and then
you can get out the things for me to make the crust with."
Soon the apples were pared, cored, and sliced, and away Randy hurried to
the closet, getting the sifter, sugar-bucket and rolling pin, the spice
box, and last of all, a lot of plates.
Running back to the closet she brought out the lard and began to grease
the plates in furious haste, so determined was she to show her mother
that she was really willing to be helpful. How she admired the deft
manner in which her mother rolled out the crust, stretched it over the
plate, and inserted her knuckles to make it fit the hollow of the dish.
Randy watched her as, balancing the crust-covered plate on her left
hand, she swept the knife which she held in her right swiftly around the
edge of the plate, trimming off the extra crust.
"I wish I could make pies as quick as you can," said the girl, "and have
them turn out right every time, too."
Mrs. Weston smiled at the compliment so earnestly expressed.
"Mebbe you can, when you've made as many as I have," said she.
"Now get the broom, Randy, and sweep up the flour I spilled 'round the
table and put the apple peels in the bucket, while I commence to wash up
the cookin' dishes."
Randy got the broom and began to sweep vigorously. "I wonder," thought
the girl, "if princesses have to bake pies, and wash dishes, and sweep
hot kitchens." She could not remember of any mention being made of
either pies or kitchens in the fairy tales which she had been reading,
so she concluded that in those delightful days no such things existed.
"They _must_ have had pies," she said to herself, "so p'r'aps they had
somebody to bake for them, same's Mrs. Hodgkins has Sophrony Brown to
help her about the housework.
"Sophrony Brown doesn't look 's if she belonged in a castle, even to
stay in the kitchen, if it had one," thought Randy. "Her hair's red, and
so are her hands, and they're awful big, too. Everybody in that splendid
book was handsome, and they all had little white hands and tiny feet,
too." Here she stopped and took a long survey of her own feet, encased
in coarse, cowhide boots, with leather lacings.
"The shoes and slippers in the pictures," mused Randy, "have beautiful
bows on the toes, and they have tiny little heels. I wonder how they
ever managed to walk on them." So still she stood, looking down at her
shoes, the broom held listlessly in her hand, that her mother turned to
see where she had gone.
"Why, Randy Weston, what ails you? You've been mooning 'round all this
morning. You do try to help me real good, and then, first thing I know,
you're miles away thinkin' of something or other. I say, whatever ails
you?"
"Nothing," said Randy, "I was only wondering about the fairy tales in
the book."
"Well, more'n ever I think it can't be a good kind o' book to read, that
makes a good, sensible girl so took up with it that she can't think of
anything else."
"But if father says it's all right, I can read it, can't I?" said Randy.
"I suppose so," said the tired woman. "Now go and find Prue. Like enough
she's into something by this time."
Little Prue had a positive talent for inventing mischief, and as Randy
hastened to the door to call her, she remembered that the little sister
had had at least an hour in which to play without supervision. "I do
hope," said Randy, "that she hasn't torn her dress or lost her sunbonnet
while I've been helping mother with the cooking. I'll call first, and if
she don't answer, then I'll hunt for her." So, standing in the doorway,
she called long and loudly.
Such a pretty picture Randy made, all the sweeter because she never
dreamed that she possessed the beauty of which she read in the fairy
book, and for which she so ardently longed.
The kitchen doorway was low, and up on one side grew scarlet runners,
which over the top clasped tendrils with the morning glories as they
clambered up the other side of the door-frame and half covered the
kitchen window.
The cool wind from across the meadow fanned Randy's flushed cheeks, and
tossed back some short brown ringlets from her forehead, for Randy's
hair would curl, as she said, "spite of anything." She did her best with
brush and comb to make it lie smoothly, but the short ends flew back
every time, and curled and rippled in a manner which would have been the
envy of many a city girl who was a slave to "curlers." Her hair was a
soft, light brown, and her eyes were large and gray, bright and
twinkling. She was quite tall for a girl of her age, just fifteen that
summer, and she stood as "straight as a birch," her father said.
Her plain calico gown and coarse apron could not hide her trim figure;
and, judging by her small, shapely hands, and slender fingers, one would
say that with dainty boots instead of cowhides, her feet would be as
shapely as her hands. But Randy had never thought much about beauty or
personal adornment until the finding of the wonderful fairy book. She
had been dressed like the other children in that little country town,
and had never seen a fashion book or a stylishly dressed person in her
life. Mrs. Weston had taught her children to think that to be neat and
clean was to be well dressed, and certainly Randy and Prue were always
dressed in clean gowns and aprons, and stiff-starched sunbonnets. Yes,
Randy was more than pretty. Would she one day know it?
Long and patient calling brought no answering shout from little Prue, so
Randy snatched her sunbonnet from its peg on the wall, and started in
search of her. She looked in every place, both possible and impossible,
and she laughed as she thought of the funny scrapes the little sister
had gotten into. She thought of the day on which their aunt, Miss
Prudence Weston, had come to visit them, bringing three bags and as many
bundles, although she was to stay but a week.
She had always lived in a little town in one of the Western states, and
as that week's stay was her first visit to her brother's home, she was
really a stranger to Randy and Prue. The children had known only that
little Prue was her namesake, and that she was a person well-nigh
perfect.
"Your Aunt Prudence never did that," was a remark so frequently
addressed to little Prue that that lively, mischievous little being
conceived a great dislike for so perfect a person; and, although she
dared not say so to either father or mother, she confessed it freely to
Randy when at night they lay in their little bed in the chamber under
the eaves.
"I think it would be just horrid to live in this house if Aunt Prudence
lived here too, don't you, Randy?" said little Prue in a loud whisper.
"You're good, Randy, and you know I love you, but you can be naughty and
Aunt Prudence can't, that's the difference."
"Oh, hush!" Randy had said. "I most think it's naughty not to like her.
We don't know but may be she's real nice if we knew her."
"Don't want to," whispered Prue, "don't want to, _ever_. If she staid
here I'd--I mean I'd--" but the tired little sister had gone fast asleep
and left Randy to wonder just what she would have done.
Immediately upon her arrival Miss Prudence had removed her wraps, and
had at once taken out her knitting from a voluminous pocket, saying to
the two staring children, as she peered at them over her glasses, "It's
not right to waste time," and as soon as they had made their escape to
the kitchen, naughty little Prue had said, "Randy Weston! If keeping
busy would make me look like that, I'd just do nothing forever and
ever."
Funny little Prue! Aunt Prudence's sharp eyes behind her spectacles, her
"false front," and tall, angular figure, had strengthened the child's
preconceived dislike. Then that day before their aunt had bidden adieu
to the Weston farm, Randy had caught Prue perched upon a chair, which
made her just high enough to see herself in the glass. On her head was
Miss Prudence's best cap, on her saucy little nose the big,
old-fashioned spectacles, over which she peered at herself, saying, in
imitation of her aunt, "I never waste time, no, not a single minute."
Randy had escaped to the barn where, on the hay, she had laughed until
she was tired; all the time feeling guilty, for she knew that, funny as
the sight had been, Prue had been very naughty. Prue was a little
captive in the house that afternoon, a great trial for her, and at night
her father had talked with her and told her that she must always be kind
to every one, especially to old people, and Prue had promised, at the
same time saying that, "if Aunt Prudence was always good, it was easier
for grown-up people to be good."
Around the house and barn, down by the well, and, lastly, into the barn
went Randy, calling, "Prue! Prue! where are you?"
"Here!" called a little voice.
"Where?" shouted Randy.
"Up here!" came the answer, which appeared to come from the loft.
Up the ladder went Randy, and, once at the top, she espied a funny
little figure sitting on the hay. "Why, Prue," said Randy, "what are you
doing up here? Why didn't you come when I called?"
"I couldn't," said Prue; "I'm helping mother, and I've got to stay.
Mother said you could help her make pies, so I came up here and I'm
sitting on some eggs. The old hen's left them, and mother said they'd
just got to be set on."
"Oh, Prue!" said Randy, "you'd ought to know better. If you've smashed
them, won't you be a sight?"
"I ain't smashed them," said the child; but upon Randy's insisting, she
rose from the nest, only to show that not an egg remained whole, as her
pink calico dress plainly showed.
"Well, _I_ never got into such scrapes," said Randy, for once out of
patience.
"Now, Randy," said Prue, "don't you talk that way; that's just like Aunt
Prudence;" and that silenced Randy completely.
Randy's first thought was a longing to shield Prue, but she knew that
her mother wished them always to come to her at once when any mischief
had been done, so, a forlorn little procession of two, they walked
toward the house.