CHAPTER I

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

PEGGY STEWART

NAVY GIRL

AT HOME

BY

GABRIELLE E. JACKSON

AUTHOR OF "SILVER HEELS," "THREE GRACES"

SERIES, "CAPT. POLLY" SERIES, ETC.

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY

NORMAN ROCKWELL

1920

THIS LITTLE STORY OF ANNAPOLIS IS

MOST AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO

H.W.H.

WHOSE SUNNY SOUL AND CHEERY

VOICE HELPED TO MAKE MANY AN

HOUR HAPPY FOR THE ONE HE CALLED

"LITTLE MOTHER"

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. SPRINGTIDE

II. THE EMPRESS

III. "DADDY NEIL"

IV. IN OCTOBER'S DAYS

V. POLLY HOWLAND

VI. A FRIENDSHIP BEGINS

VII. PEGGY STEWART: CHATELAINE

VIII. A SHOCKING DEMONSTRATION OF INTEMPERANCE

IX. DUNMORE'S LAST CHRISTMAS

X. A DOMESTIC EPISODE

XI. PLAYING GOOD SAMARITAN

XII. THE SPICE OF PEPPER AND SALT

XIII. THE MASQUERADERS' SHOW

XIV. OFF FOR NEW LONDON

XV. REGATTA DAY

XVI. THE RACE

XVII. SHADOWS CAST BEFORE

XVIII. YOU'VE SPOILED THEIR TEA PARTY

XIX. BACK AT SEVERNDALE

CHAPTER I

SPRINGTIDE

"Peggy, Maggie, Mag, Margaret, Marguerite, Muggins. Hum! Half a dozen of

them. Wonder if there are any more? Yes, there's Peggoty and Peg, to say

nothing of Margaretta, Gretchen, Meta, Margarita, Keta, Madge. My

goodness! Is there any end to my nicknames? I mistrust I'm a very

commonplace mortal. I wonder if other girls' names can be twisted around

into as many picture puzzles as mine can? What do YOU think about it

Shashai!" [Footnote: Shashai. Hebrew for noble, pronounced Shash'a-ai.]

and the girl reached up both arms to draw down into their embrace the

silky head of a superb young colt which stood close beside her; a

creature which would have made any horse-lover stop stock-still and

exclaim at sight of him. He was a magnificent two-year-old Kentuckian,

faultless as to his points, with a head to set an artist rhapsodizing

and a-tingle to put it upon his canvas. His coat, mane and tail were

black as midnight and glossy as satin. The great, lustrous eyes held a

living fire, the delicate nostrils were a-quiver every moment, the

faultlessly curved ears alert as a wild creature's. And he WAS half

wild, for never had saddle rested upon his back, girth encircled him or

bit fretted the sensitive mouth. A halter thus far in his career had

been his only badge of bondage and the girl caressing him had been the

one to put it upon him. It would have been a bad quarter of an hour for

any other person attempting it. But she was his "familiar," though far

from being his evil genius. On the contrary, she was his presiding

spirit of good.

Just now, as the splendid head nestled confidingly in her circling arms,

she was whispering softly into one velvety ear, oh, so velvety! as it

rested against her ripe, red lips, so soft, so perfect in their molding.

The ear moved slightly back and forth, speaking its silent language. The

nostrils emitted the faintest bubbling acknowledgment of the whispered

words. The beautiful eyes were so expressive in their intelligent

comprehension.

"Too many cooks spoil the broth, Shashai. Too many grooms can spoil a

colt. Too many mistresses turn a household topsy-turvy. How about too

many names, old boy? Can they spoil a girl? But maybe I'm spoiled

already. How about it?" and a musical laugh floated out from between the

pretty lips.

The colt raised his head, whinnied aloud as though in denial and stamped

one deer-like, unshod fore-hoof as though to emphasize his protest; then

he again slid his head back into the arms as if their slender roundness

encompassed all his little world.

"You old dear!" exclaimed the girl softly, adding: "Eh, but it's a

beautiful world! A wonderful world," and broke into the lilting refrain

of "Wonderful world" and sang it through in a voice of singularly,

haunting sweetness. But the words were not those of the popular song.

They had been written and set to its air by Peggy's tutor.

She seemed to forget everything else, though she continued to

mechanically run light, sensitive fingers down the velvety muzzle so

close to her face, and semi-consciously reach forth the other hand to

caress the head of a superb wolfhound which, upon the first sweet notes,

had risen from where she lay not far off to listen, thrusting an

insinuating nose under her arm. She seemed to float away with her song,

off, off across the sloping, greening fields to the broad, blue reaches

of Bound Bay, all a-glitter in the morning sunlight.

She was seated in the crotch of a snake-fence running parallel with the

road which ended in a curve toward the east and vanished in a thin-drawn

perspective toward the west. There was no habitation, or sign of human

being near. The soft March wind, with its thousand earthy odors and

promises of a Maryland springtide, swept across the bay, stirring her

dark hair, brushed up from her forehead in a natural, wavy pompadour,

and secured by a barrette and a big bow of dark red ribbon, the long

braid falling down her back tied by another bow of the same color. The

forehead was broad and exceptionally intellectual. The eyebrows,

matching the dark hair, perfectly penciled. The nose straight and clean-

cut as a Greek statue's. The chin resolute as a boy's. The teeth white

and faultless. And the eyes? Well, Peggy Stewart's eyes sometimes made

people smile, sometimes almost weep, and invariably brought a puzzled

frown to their foreheads. They were the oddest eyes ever seen. Peggy

herself often laughed and said:

"My eyes seem to perplex people worse than the elephant perplexed the

'six blind men of Hindustan' who went to SEE him. No two people ever

pronounce them the same color, yet each individual is perfectly honest

in his belief that they are black, or dark brown, or dark blue, or deep

gray, or SEA green. Maybe Nature designed me for a chameleon but changed

her mind when she had completed my eyes."

Peggy Stewart would hardly have been called a beautiful girl gauged by

conventional standards. Her features were not regular enough for

perfection, the mouth perhaps a trifle too large, but she was "mightily

pleasin' fer to study 'bout," old Mammy insisted when the other servants

were talking about her baby.

"Oh, yes," conceded Martha Harrison, the only white woman besides Peggy

herself upon the plantation. "Oh, yes, she's pleasing enough, but if her

mother had lived she'd never in this world a-been allowed to run wild as

a boy, a-getting tanned as black as a--a, darky."

Martha was a most devoted soul who had come from the North with her

mistress when that lady left her New England home to journey to Maryland

as Commander Stewart's bride. He was only a junior lieutenant then, but

that was nearly eighteen years before this story opens. She had not seen

many colored people while living in the Massachusetts town in which she

had been born and her experience with them was limited to the very few

who, after the Civil War, had drifted into it. Of the true Southern

negro, especially those of the ante-bellum type, she had not the

faintest conception. It had all been a revelation to her. The devotion

of the house servants to their "white folks," to whom so many had

remained faithful even after liberation, was a never-ending source of

wonder to the good soul. Nor could she understand why those old family

retainers stigmatized the younger generations as "shiftless, no-account,

new-issue niggers." That there could be marked social distinctions among

these colored people never occurred to her.

That generations of them had been carefully trained by master and

mistress during the days of slavery, and that the younger generations

had had no training whatever, was quite beyond Martha's grasp. Colored

people were COLORED PEOPLE, and that ended it.

But as the years passed, Martha learned many things. She had her own

neatly-appointed little dining-room in her own well-ordered little wing

of the great, rambling colonial house which Peggy Stewart called home, a

house which could have told a wonderful history of one hundred eighty or

more years. We will tell it later on. We have left Peggy too long

perched upon her snake-fence with Shashai and Tzaritza.

The lilting song continued to its end and the dog and horse stood as

though hypnotized by the melody and the fingers' magnetic touch. Then

the song ended as abruptly as it had begun and Peggy slid lightly from

her perch to the ground, raised both arms, stretching hands and fingers

and inclining her head in a pose which would have thrilled a teacher of

"Esthetic Posing" in some fashionable, faddish school, though it was all

unstudied upon the girl's part. Then she cried in a wonderfully

modulated voice:

"Oh, the joy, joy, joy of just being ALIVE on such a day as this! Of

being out in this wonderful world and free, free, free to go and come

and do as we want to, Shashai, Tzaritza! To feel the wind, to breathe it

in, to smell all the new growing things, to see that water out yonder

and the blue overhead. What is it, Dr. Llewellyn says: 'To thank the

Lord for a life so sweet.' WE all do, don't we? _I_ can put it into

words, or sing it, but you two? Yes, you can make God understand just as

well. Let's all thank Him together--you as He has taught you, and I as

He has taught me. Now:"

It was a strange picture. The girl standing there in the beautiful early

spring world, her only companions a thoroughbred, half-wild Kentucky

colt and a Russian wolfhound, literally worth their weight in gold,

absolutely faultless in their beauty, and each with their wonderfully

intelligent eyes fixed upon her. At the word "Now," the colt raised his

perfect head, drew in a deep breath and then exhaled it in a long,

trumpet-like whinny. The dog voiced her wonderful bell-like bay; the

note of joy sounded by her kind when victory is assured.

The girl raised her head, and parting her lips gave voice to a long-

drawn note of ecstasy, ending in a little staccato trill and the same

upflinging of the arms.

It was all a rhapsody of springtide, the semi-wild things' expression of

intoxicating joy at being alive and their absolute mutual harmony. The

animals felt it as the girl did, and surely God acknowledged the homage.

Such spontaneous, sincere thanks are rare.

"Let's go now."

The horse's slender flanks quivered; his withers twitched with the

nervous energy awaiting an outlet; the dog stood alert for the first

motion.

Resting one hand upon those sensitive withers the girl gave a quick

spring, landing lightly as thistledown astride the colt's back, holding

the halter strap in her firm, brown fingers. Her costume was admirably

adapted to this equestrian if somewhat unusual feat for a young lady. It

consisted of a dark blue divided riding skirt of heavy cloth, and a

midshipman's jumper, open at the throat, a black regulation neckerchief

knotted sailor-fashion on her well-rounded chest. Anything affording

freer action could hardly have been designed for her sex. And a bonny

thing she looked as she sat there, the soft wind toying with the loose

hairs which had escaped their bonds, and bringing the faintest rose tint

into her cheeks. It was still too early in the spring for the clear,

dark skin to have grown "black as a darky's." "On to the end of

nowhere!" she cried. "We'll beat you to the goal, Tzaritza. Go!"

At the word the colt sprang forward with an action so true, so perfect

that he and the girl seemed one. The dog gave a low bark like a laugh at

the challenge and with incredibly long, graceful leaps circled around

and around the pair, now running a little ahead, then executing a wide

circle, and again darting forward with that derisive bark.

Shashai's speed was not to be scorned--his ancestors held an

international fame for swiftness, endurance and jumping--but no horse

can compete with a wolfhound.

On, on they sped, the happiest, maddest, merriest trio imaginable, down

the road to the point where the perspective seemed to end it but where

in reality it turned abruptly, leaving the one following its course the

choice of taking a sudden dip down to the water's edge or wheeling to

the right and leaping "brake, bracken and scaur." The girl did not

tighten her single guiding strap, she merely bent forward to speak

softly into one ear laid back to catch the words:

"Right--turn!"

Just beyond was a high fence dividing the lane where it crossed two

estates. It was surmounted by a stile of four steps. There was no pause

in the colt's or dog's speed. Tzaritza cleared it like a--wolfhound.

Shashai with his rider skimmed over like a bird, landing upon the soft

turf beyond with scarcely a sound.

Oh, the beauty of it all! Then on again through a patch of woodland

which looked as though a huge gossamer veil had been laid over it. If

ever pastelle colors were displayed to perfection Nature here held her

exhibition. Soft pinks, pale blues, silver grays, the tenderest greens

with here and there a touch of the maple buds' rich mahogany reds, and

above and about the maddest melody of bird songs from a hundred throats.

As the horse swung along in his perfect gait, the great dog making

playful leaps and feinted snaps at his beautiful muzzle with a dog's

derisive smile and sense of humor, and if any one doubts that dogs have

this quality they simply don't know the animal, the girl sang at the top

of her voice.

They covered the ground with incredible swiftness and presently the lane

grew broader, giving evidence of more traffic where a wood road crossed

it at right angles. Just a little beyond this point an old gentleman

appeared in sight. He was walking with his hands clasped behind him and

his head bent to examine every foot of the roadway. Evidently he was too

absorbed to be aware of the trio bearing down upon him. He wore the

clerical garb of the Church of England, and his face would have

attracted attention in any part of the world, it was so pure, so

refined, so like a cameo in its delicacy of outline, and the skin held

the wonderful softness and clearness we sometimes see in old age. He

must have been over seventy.

Just then he became aware of the colt's light hoofbeats and looked up.

He was tall and slight but very erect, and his face lighted up with a

smile absolutely illuminating as he recognized his approaching friends.

The girl bent forward to say:

"One bell, Shashai." Whereupon her mount slackened his gait to the

gentlest amble, but the dog went bounding on to greet the newcomer.

First she dropped down at his feet, burying her nose in her forepaws as

though to make obeisance, but at his words:

"Ah, Tzaritza! Good Tzaritza, welcome!" she instantly sprang up, rested

her forepaws upon his shoulders, and looked into his face with the most

limpid pair of eyes ever seen; eyes filled with something deeper than

human love can ever summon to human eyes, for those have human speech to

supplement their appeal.

"Tzaritza. Dear, faithful Tzaritza," said the old man in the tenderest

tone as he caressed the magnificent, silky head now nestling against his

face as a child's might have nestled. "Good dog. Good dog. But here are

Peggy and Shashai. My little girl, warm greetings," he cried as Shashai

came to an instant statue-like standstill at Peggy's one word, "Halt!"

and she slid from his back, braced at "attention" and saluted in all

gravity, the clergyman returning the salute with much dignity. Then in

an instant the martial attitude and air were discarded and springing

forward the girl slipped to his side, caught one hand and by a quick,

graceful motion circled his arm about her waist and laid her head upon

his shoulder just where Tzaritza's had but a moment before rested, her

face alight with affection as she exclaimed:

"To meet you 'way, 'way out here, Compadre!"

"'Far from the madding crowd,' Filiola. Five miles to the good for these

old legs of seventy-four summers. They have served me well. I have no

fault to find with them. They are stanch friends and have carried me

many a mile. But you, my child? You and Tzaritza and Shashai? Come

hither, my beauty," and the free hand was extended to the colt which

instantly advanced for the proffered caress.

"Ah, thou bonny, bonny creature! Thou jewel among thy fellows. Ah, but

you possess a masculine frailty. Ah, yes, I've detected it. Oh, Shashai,

Shashai, is thy heart reached only through thy stomach?" for now the

colt was nozzling most insinuatingly at one of the ample pockets of the

old gentleman's top coat. Never had those pockets failed him since the

days when he had ceased to be nourished by his dam's milk, and his faith

in their bounty was not misplaced, for a slender white hand was inserted

to be withdrawn with the lump of sugar Shashai had counted upon and held

forth upon the palm from which the velvety lips took it as daintily as a

young lady's fingers could have taken it.

Three was the dole evidently for when three had been eaten Shashai

gravely bowed his head three times in acknowledgment of his treat and

then turned to nibble at the budding trees, his benefactor returning to

Peggy.

"So this is heyday and holiday, dear heart, is it? Saturday's

emancipation from your old Dominie Exactus when you may range wood and

field unmolested, with never a thought for his domination and tyranny."

"As though you ever dominated or tyrannized over me!" protested the

girl. "I'd do anything, ANYTHING for you--you know that, don't you?"

There was deep reproach in her voice. Then, it changed suddenly as she

asked:

"But where is Doctor Claudius?"

"In his stall, eating his fill. I wished to use my own legs today,"

smiled her companion. "His are exceptionally good ones, but my own will

grow stiff if I do not use them more."

Just then Shashai suddenly raised his head and stood with ears alert and

nostrils extended. Tzaritza rose from the ground where she had dropped

down after greeting Dr. Llewellyn, and stood with ears raised, though

neither man nor girl yet heard the faintest sound.

"Some one's coming and coming in a hurry," said Peggy quietly, "or THEY

wouldn't look like THAT."

As she spoke the dull thud of hoofs pounding rapidly upon soft turf was

borne to their ears, and a moment later a big gray horse ridden by a

little negro boy, as tattered a specimen of his race as one might expect

to see, came pounding into sight. With some difficulty he brought the

big horse to a standstill in front of them and grabbing off his ragged

cap stammered out his message:

"Howdy, Massa Dominie. Sarvint, Missy Peggy, but Josh done sont me fer

ter fin' yo' an' bring you back yon' mighty quick, kase--kase, de--de

sor'el mar' done got mos' kilt an' lak' 'nough daid right dis minit. He

say, please ma'am, come quick as Shazee kin fotch yo' fo' de Empress,

she mighty bad an'--"

"What has happened to her, Bud?" interrupted Peggy, turning to spring

upon Shashai's back, but pausing to learn some particulars. The Empress

was one of the most valuable brood mares upon the estate and her foal,

still dependent upon her for its nourishment, was Peggy's pride and joy.

"She done got outen de paddock and nigh 'bout bus' herself wide open on

de flank on dat dummed MAS-CHINE what dey trims de hedges wid. She

bleeged ter bleed ter death, Joshi say."

Peggy turned white. "Excuse me, please--I must go as fast as I can.

Home, Shashai, four bells and a jingle!" she cried and the colt swept

away like a tornado, Tzaritza in the lead.

"Golly, but she's one breeze, ain' she, sah?"

"She is a wonderful girl and will make a magnificent woman if not

spoiled in the next ten years," replied Dr. Llewellyn, though the words

were more an oral expression of his own thoughts than a reply to the

negro boy.