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   :PG.Id: 38835
   :PG.Title: Black-Eyed Susan
   :PG.Released: 2012-02-11
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Roger Frank
   :PG.Producer: the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
   :DC.Creator: Ethel Calvert Phillips
   :DC.Title: Black-Eyed Susan
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1915
   :coverpage: images/cover.jpg
 
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         BLACK-EYED SUSAN
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   This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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   included with this eBook or online at
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      Title: Black-Eyed Susan
      
      Author: Ethel Calvert Phillips
      
      Release Date: February 11, 2012 [EBook #38835]
      
      Language: English
      
      Character set encoding: UTF-8

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      \*\*\* START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK-EYED SUSAN \*\*\*

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      Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

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       :alt: “I’m here,” said the voice. “I’ve come. I’m Phil.”

       “I’M HERE,” SAID THE VOICE. “I’VE COME. I’M PHIL.”
       
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   |
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   | :xlarge:`BLACK-EYED SUSAN`
   | 
   | BY 
   |
   | :large:`ETHEL CALVERT PHILLIPS`
   | 
   | AUTHOR OF “WEE ANN” AND “LITTLE FRIEND LYDIA”
   | 
   | WITH DRAWINGS BY HAROLD CUE
   | 
   | HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO BOSTON & NEW YORK
   | 
   | BLACK-EYED SUSAN
   |
   |

.. contents:: Table of Contents
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   | :big:`BLACK-EYED SUSAN`
   
CHAPTER I—BLACK-EYED SUSAN OF FEATHERBED LANE
=============================================

A pair of black eyes, a head covered with
short brown curls, two red cheeks, and a tip-tilted
nose—that was Susan. A warm heart,
a pair of eager little hands always ready to
help, little feet that tripped willingly about on
errands—that was Susan, too.

“The best little girl in Putnam County,”
said Grandfather, snuggling Susan up so
close that his gray beard tickled her nose and
made her laugh.

“My little comfort,” said Grandmother,
with a hand on Susan’s bobbing curls that
simply couldn’t be made to lie flat no matter
how much you brushed and brushed.

Susan herself didn’t say very much to this,
but oh, how she did love Grandfather, from
the crown of his big slouch hat to the toes of
his high leather boots that he delighted to
wear both winter and summer!

As for Grandmother, who could help loving
her, with her merry smile, her soft pink
cheeks shaded by a row of little white curls,
and her jar of cinnamon cookies on the low
shelf in the pantry? Yes, her jar of cinnamon
cookies on the low shelf in the pantry, for,
somehow, in Susan’s mind, Grandmother and
the cinnamon cookies were pleasantly mingled
and together made up the love and comfort
and cheer that to Susan meant home.

The house Susan lived in with Grandmother
and Grandfather Whiting and Snuff
the dog was a broad, low, white house that
stood far back from the road at the end of
Featherbed Lane.

Susan thought this the funniest name she
had ever heard.

As she and Grandfather, hand in hand,
would carefully pick their way over the stones
that covered the road from house to highway,
she never tired of asking, “Grandfather, why
do you call it Featherbed Lane? It’s not a bit
like a feather bed. It’s as hard as hard can
be.”

“Because there are just as many stones in
this lane as there are feathers in a feather
bed,” Grandfather would answer gravely.
“Some day you must count them and see.”

“But how many feathers are there in a
feather bed?” Susan would ask. “You must
count them, too,” was Grandfather’s reply.

At the end of the lane, on the roadside,
stood a little house with three windows, a front
door, and a pointed roof with a chimney. This
was Grandfather’s law office, and here he was
to be found at work every day, coming up to
the house only at meal-time. Inside there was
one big room, not only lined all round with
books, but with books overflowing their
shelves and piled upon the chairs and tumbled
upon the floor. Grandfather’s big desk was
drawn up close to the windows, and as Susan
passed in and out of the gate she never failed
to smile and wave her hand in greeting.

If Grandfather were not busy, he would
invite her in, and then Susan on the floor
would build houses of the heavy law books,
using Grandfather’s shabby old hassock for
table or bed as the case might be.

One cool May afternoon Susan climbed
upon Grandfather’s lap as he sat in front of
the coal fire that burned in the office grate
every day that gave the least excuse for it.

Grandmother had gone calling in the village,
and Susan was staying with Grandfather
until her return. Susan cuddled her head down
on Grandfather’s broad shoulder.

“Say ‘William Ti Trimity’ for me,
please,” said she coaxingly.

So Grandfather obediently repeated,

  | William Ti Trimity, he’s a good fisherman;
  | Catches his hens and puts them in pens.
  | Some lays eggs and some lays none.
  | Wire, briar, limber lock,
  | Three geese in a flock.
  |   One flew east, and one flew west,
  |   And one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Susan gave Grandfather’s cheek a pat by
way of thanks.

“Sing to me now, please,” was the next
command.

Obligingly Grandfather tuned up and sang
in his sweet old voice—

  | It rains and it hails and it’s cold stormy weather.
  | In comes the farmer drinking up the cider.
  | You be the reaper and I’ll be the binder,
  | I’ve lost my true love, and right here I find her.

This was an old favorite, and it never failed
to delight Susan to have Grandfather in great
surprise discover her as the lost true love
“right here” in his arms.

“Now, ‘Chickamy,’” said Susan, smoothing
herself down after the vigorous hug she
felt called upon to bestow.

  | Chickamy, Chickamy, crany crow,
  | Went to the well to wash his toe.
  | When he came back the black-eyed chicken was gone—

said Grandfather in a mysterious voice.

“Can’t you remember any more of it,
Grandfather?” implored Susan. “Don’t you
know who Chickamy was, or who stole the
black-eyed chicken? I do wish I knew.”

“No, I can’t remember,” said Grandfather
regretfully. “You know all I know about it,
Susan. Only I do think Chickamy was a foolish
fellow to wash his toe just at that minute.
Why didn’t he take the black-eyed chicken
with him or leave somebody at home to take
care of him?”

“Yes, it is a pity,” sighed the little girl.
“Or why didn’t he wash his toe in the tub at
home? Well, anyway, Grandfather, now tell
about the time I came to live with you.” And
Susan re-settled herself comfortably as
Grandfather slipped down in his chair and
stretched out his feet toward the low fire.

“It was a cold winter night,” began
Grandfather, with the ease of one who has
told his story many times, “and the ground
was covered with snow. All the little rabbits
were snuggled down in their holes in the
ground trying to keep warm. All the little
birds were cuddled together in their nests under
the eaves. All the little boys and girls
were sound asleep tucked in their warm
beds—”

“All but one,” interrupted Susan.

“Yes, all but one,” agreed Grandfather,
“and she was riding along in a sleigh, and
the sleigh-bells went *jingle jangle, jingle
jangle*, and the horses’ feet went *crunch,
crunch, crunch*, through the snow.”

“Now, tell was I cold,” prompted Susan,
as Grandfather paused to spread his silk
handkerchief over his head to keep off the
draught.

“The little girl wasn’t one bit cold,” went
on Grandfather smoothly, “because she was
dressed in fur from head to foot. She wore a
white fur coat and a white fur cap that came
so far down over her face that all you could
see was the tip of her nose.”

“And that was red,” supplied Susan.

“And she had a pair of white furry mittens
on her hands, and her feet were wrapped in a
white fur rug.

“Well, by and by the horse turned in a lane
that was so packed with snow that you
couldn’t tell whether it was a Featherbed
Lane or not. *Crunch, crunch, crunch*, went the
horses’ feet, *jingle jangle, jingle jangle*, went
the bells until they were almost up to the
white house at the end of the lane.

“Now in that white house there sat a grandmother
and a grandfather before the fire.

“Presently the grandmother laid down her
knitting.

“‘I think I hear sleigh-bells in the lane,’
said she.

“The grandfather put down his book.

“‘I think I hear horses’ feet,’ said he.

“Then the grandmother rose and looked
out of the window.

“‘I see a lantern,’ said she, peering out
through the snowflakes, for it had begun to
snow again.

“At that the grandfather flung open the
door and in came—”

“Me!” exclaimed Susan. “And I didn’t
cry one bit. Did I?”

“Mercy, no,” said Grandfather, opening
his eyes wide at the very thought. “You just
winked and blinked in the light, and when I
held out my arms you came straight to me.”

“And what did you say, Grandfather?”

“I said, ‘My little black-eyed Susan.’”

“And that has been my name ever since,”
said Susan with an air of satisfaction. “Now,
tell what Grandmother was doing.”

“Grandmother had both arms round your
father who carried you in, for once upon a
time he was her little boy,” concluded Grandfather.

“And you were so glad to see me that
night because my mother had gone to heaven,
weren’t you?” mused Susan. “And then my
father went away to build a big bridge, and
then he went to the war and he never came
back.”

A silence fell for a moment upon Grandfather
Whiting and Susan as they gazed into
the fire, and then the little girl stirred and
spoke.

“I think I will go and play with Flip
awhile, Grandfather,” said she.

She slipped down from Grandfather’s lap,
and, leaving him to fall into a doze, proceeded
to set up housekeeping with Flip, her rag doll,
behind a pile of books in a corner.

Flip and Snuff, the shaggy brown setter,
were Susan’s constant playmates, for the house
in Featherbed Lane stood a little way out of
the village and there were no children living
near by.

The other side of the Lane, on a little knoll,
perched the old Tallman house, empty since
last autumn when Miss Eliza Tallman had
gone down to the village to live with her niece.

Across the way and up the road stood the
deserted little old schoolhouse, long ago abandoned
for the new brick building in the heart
of the village.

But, although Susan had no near neighbors
and often longed for some one her own age to
play with, still she dearly loved the lively Snuff
who could outrace her any day, who played a
skillful game of hide and seek, and who returned
tenfold the strength of her love with all
the might of his affectionate pink tongue, his
briskly wagging tail, and his faithful little
heart.

As for Flip, it is hard to say what Susan
would have done without her. She was a long
thin wobbly rag doll, with a head flat like a
turtle’s, and not a single spear of hair on it.
But to Susan, her brown eyes were the tenderest
and her rosy lips the sweetest to be found
anywhere, and it was into Flip’s sympathetic
ear that Susan poured her griefs and troubles,
great or small. She was Susan’s bedfellow,
too, lying outside the coverlid where her little
mother might easily put out her hand and
touch her in the night.

Susan had other good friends, too. There
was the newel post opposite the front door at
home. Susan had never thought anything
about the newel post until one day, playing
“lady come to see” with a shawl on for a long
skirt, she had tripped and bumped her head
against the post. Now, this was fully six
months ago, and when Susan was only a little
girl, as she would have been sure to explain,
and so she did what other little girls have done
before. Feeling the newel post to blame for
her fall, she pounded it with both hands and
kicked it with both feet. And suddenly, in the
midst of the pounding and kicking, Susan
spied a big dent in the side of the post. Had
she done that? Oh! what a mean, a cruel girl
she was! She hurried upstairs for her new
hair-ribbon, which she tied round what she
called the newel post’s neck, and sitting down
she tried to smooth out the dent and soothe the
newel post’s hurt feelings at the same time.
Perhaps Grandmother could have explained
that dent as made by a trunk carelessly carried
upstairs, but Susan always believed that she
had made it. She rarely passed the newel post
without giving it a pat, and, sitting on the
stairs, she and Flip and the newel post often
had many a pleasant chat together.

And there was Snowball, the rubber cat,
that had been Susan’s favorite toy when she
was a baby. Snowball may once have deserved
her name. But now she was a dingy gray that
not even frequent scrubbings with soap and
water could freshen. She had lost her tail, she
had lost her squeak, but Susan was loyal to
her old pet and still lavished tender care upon
her.

Then, too, there was the shawl dolly. Most
of the time the dolly was a plain little black-and-white
checked shawl spread over
Grandmother’s shoulders or neatly folded on the
hatbox in Grandmother’s closet. But whenever
Susan was a little ailing, Grandmother
folded the shawl into a soft comfortable
dolly, who cuddled nicely and who never failed
to give to Susan the comfort needed.

Just now Susan was playing school in the
corner. She was the teacher, and Flip and the
hassock, who this afternoon was a fat little
boy named Benny, were the scholars.

“Flippy, who made you?” asked the teacher.

“God,” answered Flippy promptly.

Susan made her talk in a squeaky little voice.

“Benny, how much is two and two?” was
the next question.

But Benny didn’t answer. Perhaps he
couldn’t.

“Benny, how much is two and two?” repeated
the teacher loudly.

Still no answer.

This was dreadful, and Susan felt that she
must be severe. Shaking her finger warningly
at disobedient Benny, she went to Grandfather’s
desk to borrow his long black ruler,
and, glancing out of the window, she saw a
big red wagon toiling slowly up the road.

“It’s the circus!” exclaimed Susan.
“Grandfather, wake up, the circus is coming.”

Grandfather woke himself up with a shake
and peered out of the window, over Susan’s
head.

“No, that is not the circus,” said he.
“That’s a moving-van. Somebody’s furniture
is packed inside that wagon. Hello, they’re
turning in at the Tallman place. Liza must
have rented it.”

And Grandfather and Susan, with great
interest, watched the heavy van turn and jolt
along the driveway that led to the house next
door.

“Here comes another van,” called Susan,
whose sharp eyes spied the red wagon far
down the road.

This van bore what the movers call “a
swinging load.” On the back of the wagon
were tied all the pieces of furniture that
couldn’t be crammed or squeezed into the van
itself.

The horses pulled and strained up the little
hill until they were directly opposite Susan’s
gate, and then, with a crash, something fell off
the back of the wagon.

“Look, look!” cried Susan, hopping up and
down. “Look, Grandfather, it’s a rocking-horse!”

Sure enough, a dapple gray rocking-horse,
with a gay red saddle, was rocking away in the
middle of the road as if he meant to reach
Banbury Cross before nightfall.

“There will be somebody for me to play
with!” cried Susan, climbing up on Grandfather’s
desk in her excitement. “Maybe I
will have a ride on that rocking-horse. Won’t
there be somebody for me to play with, Grandfather?”

And Susan, her eyes shining, put both arms
around Grandfather’s neck and gave him a
great hug.

“It looks that way,” said Grandfather, as
soon as Susan let him breathe again. “It looks
as if that rocking-horse was about your size,
too. But here comes your grandmother.
Perhaps she has heard something about it in
the village.”

Like a flash Susan was off down the road,
and by the time Grandfather had put on his
hat and shut the office door Susan had learned
all the news that Grandmother had to tell.

“Grandmother knows all about it,” called
Susan, flying up the road again. “Miss Liza
Tallman has rented her house for a year. And,
Grandfather, there is a little boy as old as me
and his name is Philip Vane.”

CHAPTER II—OVER THE GARDEN WALL
===============================

Philip Vane! The words flashed into Susan’s
mind as soon as she opened her eyes the next
morning, Philip Vane—the new little boy
next door! And Susan jumped out of bed and,
running to the window, peered eagerly over
at the old Tallman house.

Yes, some one was already up and stirring,
for smoke was pouring out of the kitchen
chimney, but there was no sign to be seen of
any little boy.

Breakfast over, Susan hurried through her
daily tasks about the house, and then ran out
to the chicken-yard, with her bowl of chicken-feed
under her arm. She waited until the fowls,
with their usual squawkings and cluckings,
had gathered about her feet, and addressed
them solemnly.

“I’ve a piece of news for you,” said
Susan, “and you are not going to have one bite
of breakfast until I’ve told you. There is a
little boy coming to live next door, and his
name is Philip Vane. We are going to play
together and be friends. Aren’t you glad?”

Old Frizzly, so named because her feathers
grew the wrong way, could no longer restrain
her impatience at this delay of her meal. She
uttered an extra loud squawk and flapped her
wings wrathfully. But Susan accepted it as an
answer to her question.

“Old Frizzly is the only one of you with
any manners at all,” said she reprovingly.
“You are greedy, and you are rude, and you
don’t care a bit whether I have any one to
play with or not.”

And, hastily emptying her bowl, Susan
departed to station herself upon the low stone
wall that separated the Tallman house from
her own. She saw heads pass and repass the
open windows, sounds of hammering floated
out upon the sweet spring air, rugs were vigorously
shaken on the little back porch. The
butcher’s cart rumbled noisily past on the
main road, and a slim lady, with fair hair and
a long blue apron, stepped out on the porch
and, shading her eyes with her hand, gazed
down the driveway as if she were expecting
some one.

But, in spite of these interesting sights and
sounds, Susan felt disappointed, for not a
single peep did she have of the new little boy.

“Did Miss Liza say there was a little boy,
Grandmother?” asked Susan, coming into the
house at dinner-time so low in her mind that
she dragged patient Flippy along by one arm,
her limp feet trailing on the ground behind
her.

“Why, yes,” answered Grandmother, gazing
into the oven at a pan of nicely browned
biscuit. “I told you yesterday what she said,
Susan. ‘A little boy about the age of your
Susan,’ said she. Now run to the door for me
and see whether Grandfather is coming. I
want him to carry over this plate of biscuit to
Mrs. Vane to show ourselves neighborly, and
you shall go along with him if you like.”

Susan needed no second invitation. She
skipped ahead of Grandfather as they went
through the low place made in the stone wall
for Grandmother and Miss Tallman to step
through easily. But when they reached the
doorway, and Mrs. Vane stood before them,
she shyly hid behind Grandfather’s great
leather boots.

She listened to the grown-up talk with ears
wide open for some mention of a person her
own age, but it was not until Grandfather
turned to go that she felt bold enough to slip
her hand in his and give it a little squeeze as if
to remind him why she had come.

“Oh, yes,” said Grandfather, understanding
the squeeze perfectly and so proving himself
to Susan the wisest man in the world.
“This is my little granddaughter Susan, Mrs.
Vane. She was very much interested in a
rocking-horse that fell from one of your vans
yesterday.”

“That was Phil’s rocking-horse,” said
Mrs. Vane, smiling kindly down into Susan’s
big black eyes, at this moment half friendly
and half shy. “Philip is my little boy, and he
will be so glad of a next-door neighbor. He
has had no one to play with in the city, and he
has been very ill, too, but I know he will enjoy
himself here where he can run and shout as
much as he likes, and I’m sure he will soon be
well, now that he can play out in this good sun
and air.”

Susan looked all about her in search of a
little boy running and shouting as much as
he liked, but Phil’s mother met her glance
with a shake of the head.

“No, he isn’t here yet,” said she. “But I
expect him any minute. His father is going to
bring him up from the city this morning.”

Filled with the hope of seeing Phil arrive,
Susan hurried through her dinner, but as she
left the house and started toward the garden
wall, the sight of Snuff limping dismally
along on three legs drove all other thoughts
from her mind.

“Grandfather, Grandfather, Snuffy’s
hurt,” she called, and, putting her arms
around her shaggy playfellow, she tried to
help him up the back steps.

Snuff whimpered a little to gain sympathy,
but he bore the pain without flinching when
Grandfather gently pulled the cruel splinter
from his foot, and washed and bound up the
wound. Susan, remembering Snuff’s sweet
tooth, begged a bowl of custard from Grandmother,
and she was enjoying Snuff’s pleasure
in the treat when a voice fell upon her ears.

“I’m here,” said the voice. “I’ve come.
I’m Phil.”

Susan sprang to her feet and faced the
thinnest little boy she had ever seen.

“He’s as thin as a bone,” thought she,
borrowing an expression from Grandmother.

But the thin little face owned a pair of
honest blue eyes, and a smile so wide that you
couldn’t help smiling back even if you happened
to be feeling very cross. And, as Susan
didn’t feel cross in the least, you may imagine
how broadly she smiled upon her new neighbor.

“Is this your dog?” asked Phil, eyeing
Snuff’s bandage with respectful interest. “I’m
going to have a dog and a cat and maybe some
hens and chickens, too.”

Susan related Snuff’s accident, and the invalid,
feeling all eyes upon him, dropped his
head heavily to the ground with a deep sigh
and a mournful thud of his tail. Then he
opened one eye to see the effect upon his
audience.

Susan and Phil broke into laughter at such
sly tricks, and Snuff, delighted with his
success, beat his tail violently upon the piazza
floor.

“I brought over my Noah’s Ark,”
announced Phil, taking from under his arm
the gayly painted little house upon which
Susan’s eyes had been fixed from the first.
“We’ll play, if you like.”

And Susan and Phil, with the ease of old
friends, proceeded to marshal the strange
little toy animals in line, two by two, behind
Mr. and Mrs. Noah and their stiff and stolid
family.

“Now you sing a song,” said Phil. “Do
you know it?” And without waiting for
Susan’s shake of the head he burst loudly into
tune:

  | “They marched the animals, two by two,
  |   One wide river to cross—
  | The elephant and the kangaroo,
  |   One wide river to cross.”

“But you see the kangaroo won’t stand up, so
I have to put the tiger with the elephant. Then
you sing it this way”

And he took up the chant again:

  | “They marched the animals, two by two,
  |   One wide river to cross—
  | The elephant and the tigeroo,
  |   One wide river to cross.”

“Do you like it?” asked Phil, looking up
into Susan’s face with a smile.

Susan nodded with an energy that set her
curls a-bobbing.

“There’s Grandmother in the window,”
said she. “Let’s go in and see her.”

Grandmother put down her knitting to
welcome Philip, and bade Susan pass the cinnamon
cookies.

“I know my mother likes me to eat them,”
announced Phil, silent until he had disposed of
his cooky, “because she wants me to grow
fat.”

“Perhaps she would like you to take
another one,” said Grandmother, hiding a
smile and passing the plate again.

“I was sick,” went on Phil, whose tongue
seemed loosened by the second cinnamon
cooky. “I was sick so long I nearly all melted
away. My father calls me Spindle Shanks. But
I’m going to grow big and fat now—if I eat
enough,” he added with his eyes on the plate
of cakes.

Each with a cooky in hand and an extra one
in Phil’s pocket, Susan escorted her new
friend down Featherbed Lane in the hope that
Grandfather would invite them into the office.

He was writing busily, but when Susan and
Phil, clinging to the window-sill, all but
pressed their noses against the pane,
Grandfather put down his pen and motioned them to
come in.

“How do you do, sir,” said Grandfather as
Phil shook hands in true manly fashion. “So
you are my next-door neighbor. I hope we
shall be good friends.”

“Oh, he will, Grandfather,” said Susan,
speaking up for her new acquaintance, who,
standing speechless, allowed his gaze to travel
from the high boots up to the quizzical brown
eyes looking so pleasantly down upon him.

“Well, neighbor, we shall have to fatten
you up a little, I’m thinking,” remarked
Grandfather heartily, observing thin little
Phil in his turn.

“Yes,” agreed Phil, finding his tongue at
last and taking a nibble of his cooky as if to
begin the fattening process at once.

“I mean to eat and grow fat. My mother
wants me to; she said so. My father calls me
Spindle Shanks,” he added, as if rather proud
of his new name.

“Is that so?” said Grandfather with interest.
“Now I shouldn’t have thought of
calling you that. But I might have called you
‘Pint o’ Peanuts’ if any one had asked me.”

Phil and Susan went off into a fit of laughter
at this funny name, and when they recovered
Grandfather remarked gravely:

“The best thing to do in a case like this is to
build up an appetite. Susan, you go with
Philip up to his house and ask his mother if
she will let him take a little drive with Parson
Drew and you and me over to Green Valley.
Be sure to tell her it’s to work up an appetite.
Then cut across and tell Grandmother we are
going to the Green Valley Court-House and
that we shall be home by five o’clock.”

Grandfather was forced to stand on the
doorstep and call the last part of his directions
after Susan. For at the first mention of a
drive she had caught Phil’s hand and started
on a run up the driveway leading to his house.

Mrs. Vane hastily polished off her son with
a corner of the kitchen roller towel, snuggled
him into a warm sweater, and sent word to
Grandfather that she was very glad to have
Philip go driving, though he didn’t need to
work up an appetite she was sure.

Grandmother made Susan hunt for her
straw hat which, strange to say, was not to be
found upon its accustomed nail. Grandmother
and Phil searched downstairs, while Susan ran
about frantically upstairs, so afraid they
would be late that she could only half look.
But at last she discovered her hat upside down
under the bed, with rubber Snowball taking a
nap in it, just as Susan had put her to bed the
day before.

In spite of this delay the children were in
good time, and with Susan wedged tightly
on the seat between Grandfather and the
minister, and Phil standing between the
great leather boots with either hand on
Grandfather’s knee, they drove off in fine
style.

Mr. Drew was the village minister, a
young man with a pleasant manner and a
twinkle in his kind blue eyes. He and
Grandfather were special friends. They liked
to talk together, though they rarely agreed,
and sometimes became so excited in their
talk that you might almost think they were
quarreling. But of course Susan knew
better than that.

Grandfather’s horse, big bony Nero, had
hurt his knee and had been turned out to grass
to rest and recover. So this afternoon Mr.
Drew held the reins and chirruped gently to
his little brown Molly as she carried them
briskly along the road.

As the grown-up talk rumbled on over her
head, Susan peered out like a bright-eyed
bird, and at every interesting landmark or
familiar spot she called, “Look, Phil, look!”
until from its frequent turning there was
some danger that Phil’s head might snap
completely off its frail little neck.

“There is the old schoolhouse, Phil,”
called Susan. “We can play house on the
doorstep.

“And here is the row of cherry trees. By
and by we will come here with a pail.

“And, Phil, the crossest old cow lives in
this field. Don’t you ever come here by
yourself. Once I only climbed up on the
fence to look at her, and she put down her
head and ran at me. And how she did moo—as
cross as anything.”

“I’m not afraid of her,” said Phil stoutly,
as, safe behind the shelter of Grandfather’s
boots and bowling swiftly along the road, he
cast a defiant look at the surly bossy securely
fastened by a rope to a stout stake in the
ground. “Maybe I’ll take you there sometime.
I won’t let her hurt you.”

But the cow was left behind them, and
Susan called Phil to look at the poultry farm,
with its ducks and geese, its hens and chickens,
cackling cheerfully and running about in
amiable confusion.

Now they were nearing the town of Green
Valley, and down the hill and over the bridge
they rumbled to stop before the imposing
stone Court-House, with its parking-space
for automobiles and its row of hitching-posts,
to one of which was tied little brown
Molly.

Susan danced impatiently up and down as
Grandfather descended heavily to the sidewalk.

“Oh, Grandfather,” said she, catching hold
of his hand, “I want to take Philly to
Madame Bonnet’s. May I? Please say ‘yes.’”

“To be sure,” answered Grandfather,
feeling in his pocket as he spoke. “It will be
a good place for you to wait. Here’s ten
cents apiece. Spend it carefully, and be sure
you don’t get lost on the way.”

Susan laughed as she caught Phil by the
arm and dragged him off. Lost on the way
to Madame Bonnet’s! when every one in the
world knew it was just across the street from
the Court-House.

Once safely over the crossing Susan stopped
and pointed:

“Look, Phil,” said she. “It’s the nicest
place you ever knew. Here it is. Here’s
Madame Bonnet’s shop.”

CHAPTER III—MADAME BONNET’S SHOP
================================

Madame Bonnet’s shop was so small that if
you hadn’t known it was there you might
easily have walked past it and never seen it at
all.

It was one story high, with a low front door,
and panes of glass in the one window so tiny
that it was difficult to see the wares that
Madame Bonnet had for sale. But if you shut
one eye and pressed the other close to the
glass, you were well repaid for your trouble,
for Madame Bonnet kept a toy shop the like
of which was not to be found anywhere,
though you traveled the world over in search
of it.

It was not that the shop was large, because
it wasn’t. It was not that Madame Bonnet
had many toys for sale, because she hadn’t.
But the children said you could buy at
Madame Bonnet’s what you couldn’t buy
anywhere else. And though the grown people
sometimes stated, and perhaps truly, that
Madame Bonnet hadn’t bought a penny’s
worth of new stock in twenty-five years, the
children were well satisfied, and no doubt that
is the true test of a toy shop, after all.

“Oh, Phil,” cried Susan, pressing one eye
against the window, “do look at the china
doll carriage, and the little doll’s lamp with a
pink shade and all, and that beautiful pair of
vases that would just go on the mantel in my
doll’s house. I mean if I had a doll’s house,”
added Susan truthfully.

But Phil, twisting and turning and almost
standing on his head, was calling out:

“Look at the china boy rowing in the boat—with
all his bundles, too. What do you
think is in them, Susan? Do tell me. What is
in that yellow striped bundle? What do you
think is in that one?”

“Something for him to eat, I guess,” said
Susan sensibly. “Let’s go inside and look
around.”

Madame Bonnet was comfortably knitting
in the rear of the shop, and didn’t think of
getting up to wait upon her customers.

“Well, Susan Whiting,” said she, gazing
at the children over her spectacles. “How do
you do? Is your grandmother well? And so
your grandfather is going to call by for you.
I suppose he came in to the Court-House on
business. And this is the little boy who has
come to live next door to you, is it? Well, my
dears, I hope you will find something you like
here. Just walk around, and if you want to
know about anything bring it to me. My knee
has been so bad with rheumatism that I don’t
get up if I can help it.”

And Madame Bonnet returned to her
knitting, apparently forgetting the children,
who walked about on tiptoe eyeing the toys
and handling everything within reach.

Madame Bonnet had been born and
brought up in the town of Green Valley and
had never journeyed farther away than fifty
miles. People were somewhat surprised,
therefore, when, one fine day, the girl they
had always known as Mary Bonnet had
opened her little shop, and had raised over
the front door a sign which boldly read,
“Madame Bonnet.”

“There is French blood in me somewhere,
I’m sure,” said she. “And I don’t see why I
shouldn’t call myself ‘Madame,’ if I like.”

And now that Madame Bonnet was an old
lady with white hair and spectacles, most people
had forgotten that she had ever borne any
other name.

“Phil,” said Susan, standing entranced
before a low shelf, “won’t you come and
look at this doll?”

In the center of a large square of cardboard
was sewed a bisque doll, whose long
flaxen braid hung over one shoulder and
reached to the tips of her dimpled toes. Surrounding
her, also sewed on the card, was her
wardrobe, consisting of a pink dress, a pink
hat, and a pair of pink kid boots, a similar
costume in blue, a Red Riding Hood cape,
and a green silk umbrella.

Susan fairly held her breath before this
vision of loveliness. But Phil was spellbound
at the other end of the shop—and no wonder.

In a long glass tube, full of water, was a
little red imp, even to horns and tail, and, instructed
by Susan how to press upon the rubber
top, Phil soon learned to make the imp
execute a gay dance or move slowly up and
down in his narrow, watery prison.

“Come along,” urged Susan, tugging at
Phil’s arm. “There are lots more things to
see. Look at this little piano. It has four keys—*tink-a-link-a-link*!
And here’s a swimming
boy—how pretty he is!” And Susan carefully
lifted the light little figure, who lay
with rosy hands and feet outstretched all
ready for a splash.

“I like the animals.”

And Phil paused before a table laden with
small trays on each of which reposed a family
of tiny bisque animals. There sat demure
Mrs. Pussy and her five tortoise-shell kittens.
Four timid little lambs huddled close to the
Mother Sheep as if asking protection from a
herd of big gray elephants, who, in turn,
trumpeted silently with upturned trunks, at
the disgrace of being placed next a placid family
of black-and-white pigs. There were ducks
and chickens, camels and donkeys, cows and
horses—sitting, standing, and lying side by
side in a peaceful and united frame of mind
not often to be met with in this world.

Phil carried a tray of fat snub-nosed little
animals back to Madame Bonnet to find out
what they were.

“Land sakes!” exclaimed Madame Bonnet.
“Don’t you know what they are? They’re
dogs, pug dogs. Didn’t you ever see one?
Susan, didn’t you ever see a pug dog? Well,
I don’t know as they are as common as they
used to be. Ladies used to like them for pets.”
And Madame Bonnet shook her head over
the way times had changed since she was a
girl.

The children wandered round and round,
entranced afresh at each table and shelf.

There was a small wooden clock, like the
timepiece in Susan’s kitchen at home, whose
pendulum swung gayly to and fro if only you
helped it a little with your finger. There were
dolls’ hats made by Madame Bonnet herself,
that varied in style from a knitted tam-o’-shanter
to a strange turban-like affair with a
jaunty chicken feather in the top. There was
sheet after sheet of paper dolls that surely
belonged to the days of long ago, for the
ladies wore their hair in a way that Grandmother
would have recognized as a waterfall,
and the little girl dolls had droll pantalettes
hanging below their skirts.

There was a beautiful sawdust and china
doll, whose wavy black china hair was piled
high upon her head, whose strapped china
boots gracefully took “first position” when
she was held upright, and whose rosy lips
smiled sweetly in spite of the fact that her
bright green silk dress was neatly pasted on,
so that it wouldn’t come off, no matter what
the emergency. Perhaps the fancy gilt paper
trimming on dolly’s frock kept her cheerful.
Perhaps Susan’s open admiration warmed
her chilly little china heart and helped her
to forget any discomfort she might suffer.

At any rate, Susan passed reluctantly
from her side to view the doll’s furniture, and
there she entered into such a delightful wilderness
of chairs, beds, tables, and sofas as
would be difficult to describe. Parlor sets
with red and blue velvet trimmings; bedroom
sets quite complete, down to the cradle rocking
comfortably away beside the mother’s
big bed; rocking-chairs; baby’s high chair;
a bookcase filled with tiny paper books; a
stove with lids that really lifted off.

“Oh, I can’t go home!” cried Susan,
when Grandfather opened the door and,
stooping low to save his head, came into the
shop.

“Five minutes more,” said Grandfather,
as he sat down for a little talk with his old
friend Madame Bonnet.

“Oh, Phil, only five minutes more.” And
in that five minutes Susan flew around like a
distracted hen, making up her mind what her
purchase should be.

Phil had been absorbed for some time in a
pile of paper books with gay red-and-white
pictured covers, and he now came forward
with his selection. “The Story of Naughty
Adolphus,” read Grandfather, and gazed
with interest upon the picture of Adolphus,
to whom “naughty” seemed a mild word
to apply. For not only was Adolphus dancing
up and down in a fit of temper, and all but
striking his meek and shrinking little nurse
who stood terror stricken close by; but it was
very evident that Adolphus refused to have
his hair brushed, his face washed, or finger
nails trimmed. All this the picture showed
quite plainly, and innocent Phil gazed at it
with a virtuous air, for, in his worst moments,
he felt sure he had never even approached
“Naughty Adolphus.”

“It looks interesting,” announced
Grandfather soberly. “I think you’ve made a good
choice. Susan, are you ready?”

“Look,” murmured Susan, faint with admiration.
“Look what I’ve found.”

It was a white china egg, and, lifting off
the top, there lay a little dolly, as snug as
could be.

“It’s beautiful,” said Susan. And bold
with gratitude, she stood on tiptoe and placed
a kiss upon Madame Bonnet’s wrinkled
cheek.

“Well!” said Madame Bonnet, taken
aback for the moment, but liking it nevertheless.
“If I had a good knee I’d step down
cellar for a bottle of my raspberry vinegar
to treat you all. How are your knees, Mr.
Whiting?”

“Young as a boy’s,” returned Grandfather,
rubbing them as he spoke. “But
here’s Parson Drew. Suppose we let him step
down. He doesn’t know that he has any
knees.”

So Parson Drew, as fond as Susan of
raspberry vinegar, obligingly “stepped down
cellar,” and brought up a tall rosy bottle the
contents of which, under Madame Bonnet’s
careful eye, he poured into thin little glasses
with a gold band about the top.

“Well,” said Grandfather, after he had
actually turned the bottle upside down to
prove to Susan and Phil that there was not
a single drop left in it, “I’m afraid the
time has come for us to go.”

And after many good-byes and messages
for Grandmother, the party moved toward
the door.

Parson Drew led the way, and, as he
opened the door, something from outside,
with a clatter and clash, darted into the shop,
whirled down the aisle, and subsided with a
jangle into a dark corner at the back of
the store.

Madame Bonnet, completely forgetting
her bad knee, mounted her chair in a twinkling
and stood holding her skirts about her
feet, calling—

“Help! Help! Help!”

Susan, clutching tight to her eggshell
baby, tried to climb up into Grandfather’s
arms, while Phil, making himself as small as
possible, hid under a convenient table.

Grandfather was peering into the dark
corner where the clattering object, now silent
and motionless, could be faintly seen.

Suddenly Grandfather put back his head
and laughed.

“It’s a cat,” said he; “a poor forlorn little
gray cat. And we were all afraid of a cat.”

He gave a second look, and then he spoke
in a different tone.

“Tut, tut, tut,” said Grandfather, as if he
were angry.

He gently moved toward the trembling
pussy, but before Madame Bonnet could
step down from her chair or Phil come out
from under the table, in from the street
walked Mr. Drew, whom no one had missed
until now. He held by the coat-collar a
freckled, red-headed boy, and he was pushing
him along in no very gentle way.

“This is the boy who did the deed,” said
Mr. Drew, and he sounded angry in the same
way Grandfather did. “I thought I would
catch him enjoying his fun if I stepped outside,
and, sure enough, there he was, doubled
up with laughter and slapping himself on the
knee at the joke. A fine joke,” added Mr.
Drew, giving the boy a little shake, “a fine
joke—tormenting a poor cat.”

“The other boys were in it, too,” whined
the culprit, squirming, “only they ran
away.”

“That doesn’t excuse you,” answered
Mr. Drew sternly. “I have a notion to tie
the tin can on you. ‘It’s only for a joke,’
you know. That is what you told me.”

“No, no,” whimpered the boy, jerking
and twisting about. “Let me go. I’ll give
you five cents if you do. I’ll give you ten
cents if you let me go.” And he pulled from
his pocket a handful of coins and held them
out on his grimy palm.

“Is it yours?” asked Mr. Drew. “Is it
your money?”

The boy nodded.

“Good!” said Mr. Drew. “Then I’ll take
it.” And he coolly slipped the coins into his
pocket.

“Now,” said he to the boy, tightening his
grip on his collar, “you come with me, and
we will spend this money on a treat for poor
pussy. And you shall watch her enjoy it,
too.”

When Mr. Drew returned with his unwilling
companion, he found Madame Bonnet
composedly knitting in her chair, the rest of
the group eyeing pussy, still motionless in
her corner.

“Now, Tim,” said Parson Drew cheerfully,
to his sulky, red-haired friend, “you
shall have the pleasure of giving pussy the
milk and the cat-meat which you bought for
her with your money.”

Tim silently spread the feast and retreated
a few steps.

“Come, puss, puss,” encouraged Madame
Bonnet in her comfortable voice, “drink your
milk.”

And pussy timidly put out her pink
tongue and drank the milk thirstily.

“You needn’t be afraid to leave her to
me,” observed Madame Bonnet to Grandfather,
who was looking at his watch. “I like
a cat, when I know it’s a cat and not a whirlwind.
I’ll take off the can when she is more
used to me, and I’ll keep her here a bit till I
find her a home.”

Outside the shop, the party halted once
more.

“Don’t play any more tricks like this, will
you, Tim?” asked Mr. Drew. “And shake
hands.”

Tim nodded and thrust out his hard little
hand. He grinned cheerfully up at Mr.
Drew, and was off down the street, whistling
shrilly between his fingers as he ran.

“When I get home,” confided Susan in
Grandfather’s ear, as she sat on his lap on the
homeward ride, “I’m going to tell Snowball
all about it, and about that bad boy, and then
I guess she will be glad that she has lost her
tail. Don’t you?”

CHAPTER IV—THE SQUASH BABY
==========================

Susan was very unhappy. She stood by her
bedroom window, kicking the wall, and at
every kick she said, “mean, mean, mean.”

It was all about a little berry pie. Grandmother
had made for Susan’s dinner a saucer
pie. It was juicy and brown and had fancy
little crimps all about the edge. It looked
almost too good to eat.

But instead of being pleased and thanking
Grandmother, Susan had scowled up her
face at sight of it, and had muttered,

“I don’t like the little pie. I want a piece
of the big one.”

Now, there is no telling why Susan acted
in that way. I don’t believe she could have explained
it herself. The words seemed to pop
out of her mouth, her face seemed to snarl
itself up, and, for no reason at all she suddenly
felt very angry at the poor, pretty
little saucer pie.

And after this dreadful speech, nobody
spoke.

Susan felt Grandfather looking at her
over his spectacles. She saw Grandmother
take the saucer pie and set it aside. And
then, somehow, nobody seemed to remember
that Susan was at the table at all. She sat
there, the lump in her throat growing bigger
and bigger and with a strange prickly feeling
in the end of her nose, until the tears began
to chase one another down her cheeks.
And then Susan slipped from her chair and
ran upstairs.

On the floor near the door lay innocent
Snowball. Susan pushed her to one side with
such force that Snowball flew under the bed
and struck the wall with a thump. Then Susan
threw herself on the bed beside Flip and
clasped her in her arms.

First she cried until she couldn’t cry any
more, and then she whispered the whole
story into Flip’s ear. “Nobody loves me but
you, Flippy,” finished Susan with a gasp. Already
she felt comforted, for, no matter
what happened, Flippy was always on her side.

After a little, she rolled off the bed, and
stood looking out of the window into the
hot garden below. There was not a breath
of air stirring. The leaves of the fruit trees
scarcely moved, the sky seemed to swim
and dance before her eyes, and the only
sound to be heard was the shrill singing of
the locusts in the trees.

It was then that Susan said, “mean,
mean, mean,” and she meant Grandmother,
and Grandfather, and every one in the
whole round world except Flippy Whiting.

Susan twisted the shade cord and sniffed,
and tried to think of all the cross and disagreeable
things Grandmother and Grandfather
had ever done to her.

But there was something strange about
those thoughts. They were as contrary as
Susan herself. For all she could remember
were the times when Grandmother and
Grandfather had been kind and patient and
good, and little by little quite a different
feeling came over her.

“Grandfather always takes me driving
with him when he can,” thought she. “And
Grandmother made the new dress for Flip;
and she brought me a paint-box yesterday
from Green Valley.”

And suddenly Susan began to cry again.

“But this time it is sorry tears. The other
time it was mad ones,” thought she to herself,
for Susan was quite as sharp as are
most little girls to know when she was
in the right or in the wrong.

Downstairs she flew, and flung her arms
about Grandmother.

“Oh, oh, oh,” moaned Susan, burying her
face in Grandmother’s neck. “Oh, Grandmother,
Grandmother.” And if she had stood
upon the church steps and shouted, “I’m
sorry,” to the whole village, she couldn’t have
said it more plainly.

Grandmother understood her quite well,
and all she said was:

“I couldn’t believe that my Susan would
be so rude to me.”

“I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it,”
whispered Susan, and, sealing the peace with
a kiss, she went in search of Grandfather.

He sat on the porch, reading his paper, and
he must have heard all that she said, for he
opened his arms, and without a word she
snuggled down upon his lap. With both hands
she pulled his face round to hers and placed
a kiss upon what she called “my very own
spot,” none other than the tip of Grandfather’s
nose.

“Promise you will never let any one else
kiss you there,” Susan had once begged.

“I promise,” Grandfather had answered
with a laugh. And no doubt he kept his word.

But now, he put his hand into his baggy
coat pocket and pulled out a plump summer
squash.

“I thought this would make a nice dolly
for you,” said he. “I picked it up after dinner
in the garden.” And with his knife he deftly
cut eyes and nose and mouth, and handed
over the simpering orange-colored baby to
the delighted Susan.

“Now we will go down to the office,” said
he, “and let Grandmother have a nap this
afternoon. I have to see a man on business,
but you can play around the schoolhouse
while I’m busy.”

At the roadside gate they stopped a moment
“to catch the breeze,” said Grandfather,
pulling off his hat and mopping his brow.

A man, whistling a lively tune, came up
the road, and surely he felt the heat but little,
for he wore a brown velveteen jacket and had
knotted about his throat a bright red handkerchief.
His face was brown and his soft hat
showed dark curling hair underneath the brim.

Grandfather eyed him shrewdly, and, as
the man passed the gate, he spoke.

“Sarishan,” said Grandfather.

The man stopped short and looked Grandfather
straight in the eye.

“Sarishan, rye,” answered the man.

Grandfather Whiting laughed and shook
his head.

“No, no,” said he. “I’m no rye, and ‘sarishan’
is all the Romany I know. But I wanted
to see whether you would answer me. There
are not many Romanies to be seen about here
nowadays. Are there?”

The man shook his head and moved on.
After a pause, he began his whistling again.

“What is it, Grandfather?” asked Susan.
“What were you saying? Who is that man?”

“He is a gypsy,” answered Grandfather,
watching the man out of sight, past the
schoolhouse and round the bend of the road.
“I thought so when I saw him, so I spoke to
him in Romany or gypsy talk. I said, ‘Sarishan.’
That means, ‘good-day.’ I’m surprised
he answered me. They generally pretend not
to understand.”

“Sarishan,” repeated Susan. She liked the
soft pretty word. “But what did he call you,
Grandfather?”

“He called me ‘rye.’ That means a gentleman.
A Romany rye is a gypsy gentleman.
Some people like gypsy life, Susan, and know
and understand the gypsies better than others
do. Sometimes they slip away and live with
the gypsies for a time. And this man thought
I was one of them because I spoke to him in
Romany.”

Susan wanted to ask Grandfather what
gypsy life was like. But the man Grandfather
was to see on business drove up just then,
so she slipped across the road to the deserted
schoolhouse, and, bringing out her own little
broom which she kept under the porch, she
proceeded to give the steps and the walk a
thorough sweeping.

This housewifely task ended, she seated
herself on the steps, for she thought the
squash baby needed an afternoon nap. Tied
round the handle of the broom was a little
blue cloth that Susan used for a duster. It
was new and clean, so she fastened it round
the neck of the squash baby as a cloak, and
so rocked the baby to and fro and hummed a
little song.

It was quiet on the schoolhouse steps. The
shadows crept silently across the road, so
silently that they did not disturb a little head
pillowed on the hard boards of the porch.

The flowers and grasses in the neglected
yard stirred and rustled in the afternoon
breeze, just beginning to spring up, but all
they murmured was “Hush! Hush!” The
bees hummed and buzzed busily about among
the flowers, one inquisitive young fellow,
who knew no better, actually lighting on Susan’s
gay hair-ribbon, as if he thought it a
new kind of blossom. But the little mother
did not stir, for the very song the bees sang
was a lullaby.

So that Susan’s nap was long and refreshing,
and when at last she woke and stretched
her stiff little arms and legs, she discovered
that she was hungry.

“You stay here, baby,” said she, firmly
planting the ever-smiling squash baby upon
the steps. “I’ll be back in a minute with a
cooky for you.”

Susan trudged leisurely up Featherbed
Lane. Near the end she halted, and, leaning
on the garden wall, stared with interest over
at the Tallman house.

The sound of crying was plainly to be
heard floating out upon the air. The dismal
wails grew louder, and then the door opened
and Phil’s father appeared.

He walked with a determined air to the
big lilac bush near the foot of the steps, and,
pulling out his pen-knife, carefully selected
and cut off a stout little branch.

“It’s a switch,” thought Susan, terror-stricken.
“Oh, me, it’s a switch.”

At this moment the door was flung open
again, and out upon the porch darted a little
figure. Its face was red, its arms were whirling,
it was dancing up and down and crying
all at once. But, nevertheless, as Susan
peered closely, she saw that it was Phil.
There was no doubt about that.

His friend on the other side of the fence
held her breath at the sight. Oh, how sorry
she was for him! She knew just how badly
he felt. She, too, would have been dancing in
a frenzy if, a little earlier that afternoon,
she had seen Grandfather cutting a switch.

But, finally, Phil found his voice. “No,
no!” he shrieked; “I’ll be good! I’ll be good!
I’ll be good!”

His father turned and looked at him.

“Stop crying,” said he.

Phil sobbed and capered about a moment
longer, but at last his sobs died away and he
stood still.

His father eyed him a moment longer. Then
he shut his pen-knife with a snap and dropped
the switch in the grass.

At this welcome sight Phil vanished into the
house, and his father slowly followed him.

“What a horrid day,” thought Susan.
“Poor Philly! But I won’t tell I saw. I mean
I won’t tell any one but Grandmother and
Grandfather and Flip.”

Armed with her cookies, Susan traveled
back to the schoolhouse. On the little stone
walk she stopped and stared. The schoolhouse
steps were bare!

Where was the squash baby? Surely she
hadn’t walked away by herself. Neither had
she rolled off, toppled over by her own weight,
for Susan searched carefully in the grass
about the steps. She shook the schoolhouse
door. It was firmly locked. She peeped in the
window. The same familiar scene met her eye:
rows of old-fashioned benches, rusty stove,
dingy maps upon the wall, tin dipper left
upon the window-sill.

To Susan’s relief she saw Grandfather’s
business friend drive away, and she hurried
across the road to tell of the mysterious disappearance.

“Too bad,” said Grandfather, as hand in
hand they walked up to the house. “But I’ll
make you another baby. Some mischievous boy
has passed by and taken it. There is not much
travel on this road, though, and you never lost
anything before, did you? It’s strange.”

Over on the Tallman steps sat Phil alone.
He was spick and span in a clean starched
suit, his hair was brushed to a gloss, and he was
turning the leaves of a picture-book in a way
that any proper and well-behaved child might
imitate. At this moment, whatever may have
been true earlier in the day, there was not the
slightest suggestion of Naughty Adolphus
about little Phil.

But he seemed dispirited, and
Grandmother, who had sharp eyes and ears as well
as a warm heart, and who had guessed something
of Phil’s unhappy afternoon, looked
from the drooping little figure on the steps to
the red-rimmed eyes of her own Susan.

“Susan,” said she briskly, “it’s a long
while to supper-time. You run over and ask
Mrs. Vane to let Philip come back here with
you. Tell her I have a little treat for you two.
I hope I won’t give them bad dreams,” Grandmother
added to herself, as Susan gladly sped
over the garden wall and across the green lawn
on her pleasant errand.

Back came the children, hand in hand, already
looking brighter, and when they saw the
little saucer pie, neatly cut in two, they broke
into broad smiles.

“Chew it well,” instructed Grandmother,
“and when you have finished, be sure you run
around the house three times.

“But I believe their pleasure is worth one
nightmare,” reflected she, “though I don’t
know that Mrs. Vane would agree with me.”

“It’s good,” announced Phil, his own
cheerful self once more, as he joyously ate
berry juice with a spoon.

“It’s the best pie I ever tasted,” said Susan,
twisting about in her chair to smile at
Grandmother. Never, never again would she
be rude to Grandmother; of that she was sure.

“But I do wish,” said Susan, looking round
at every one, “that I knew who took my
squash baby.”

CHAPTER V—DOWN AT MISS LIZA’S
=============================

“Here is your tin pail, Susan. Try not to lose
the cover, child.”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

“And I’ve put your slippers in this little
bag. Be sure to bring them home again with
you.”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

“And tell Miss Liza she is to start you
home at half-past three.

“Tell her I said so. She will have had quite
enough of you children by that time, but she
is so good-natured she would let you stay till
Doomsday if you liked.” And Grandmother,
straightening Susan’s hat, smiled down into
the expectant little face looking up into hers.

“Yes, Grandmother,” answered Susan for
the last time, and ran off to join Phil, who,
also provided with a pail and a pair of bedroom
slippers, stood waiting in the lane.

“Isn’t this nice?” asked Susan as, clashing
their pails cheerfully, they moved briskly
along the road. “I do love to go to Miss
Liza’s. When she lived in your house I used to
go over every day, and sometimes when she
was baking she would let me help. She had
little wee cake pans of a fish, and a leaf, and
a star.” And Susan smiled at happy memories
of Miss Liza’s baking-days.

“Will we make cakes to-day, do you
think?” inquired Phil, who, invited with Susan
to spend the day at Miss Eliza Tallman’s,
was making his first social call of the season
and was not quite sure what was expected of
him. For all he knew to the contrary, it was
customary to carry a tin pail and bedroom
slippers when going visiting for the day.

“I don’t believe so,” returned Susan doubtfully.
“Miss Liza doesn’t live alone now. She
lives with her niece, Miss Lunette. And Miss
Lunette can’t bear the tiniest bit of noise.
That’s why we brought our slippers. We
have to put them on the minute we get there,
and walk on tiptoe, and just whisper.” And
Susan’s voice sank mysteriously as she related
their programme for the day.

Phil looked downcast. The prospect of
whispering and walking on tiptoe was not in
the least pleasing to him.

“Is Miss Lunette sick?” he inquired soberly.

“Oh, yes,” Susan assured him, “she is. I
heard Grandmother and Miss Liza talking.
No one knows just what is the matter with her,
but she must have good things to eat, and some
one to wait on her, and not one bit of noise.
And I heard Grandmother and Grandfather
talking, too,” went on the “little pitcher.”
“Grandmother said, ‘Liza’s a saint on earth,’
and Grandfather said, ‘In my opinion, all
Miss Lunette needs is a little hard work!’ I
don’t know just what they meant. But, anyway,
we are going to fill our pails with currants
and raspberries. Miss Liza said so.”

Phil brightened for a moment, but his face
clouded again and he stopped in the road.

“Can’t we shout before we get there, Susan?”
he asked plaintively. “I feel just like
shouting to-day.”

“I do, too,” agreed Susan willingly. “Let’s
shout now where there is no one to stop us.”
And putting down their bundles so that they
might swing their arms as well, the children
opened their mouths and shouted until they
could shout no more.

On either side of the road lay a dense little
wood. The noise of the shouting woke the
echoes and startled the birds who rose in the
air with a whirr of wings and then settled
down again. There was the crackling of
underbrush and the rustle of leaves, but
neither of the children saw a cautious little
figure, with brown face and tumbled black
hair, peering at them from behind a tree. His
hungry eyes traveled to their pails and
stopped there.

“I’ll race you!” shouted Phil suddenly.
And he was off, with Susan close behind, their
empty pails swinging as they ran.

The little brown figure turned and disappeared
among the tree-trunks.

Miss Eliza Tallman stood waiting for her
guests on the steps of the white cottage that
was separated from the street by an old-fashioned
flower garden, now glowing in its
prime.

Miss Liza herself was as wholesome and
sweet and crisp as the row of pinks that bordered
the walk and sent their spicy odors out
upon the warm summer air. Miss Liza was
round and plump. Her crinkly brown hair,
with only a few threads of gray, was drawn
into a round little knob at the back of her head.
Her eyes, round and blue, looked out pleasantly
from behind round gold spectacles. She
stood, absently smoothing down her stiffly
starched white apron, until she caught sight
of the children, and then she waved her hand
in greeting.

“I’m glad to see you,” she called softly.

And something in the quiet voice made Susan
remember to close the gate behind her
gently instead of letting it swing shut with a
slam.

“Sit right down here on the porch steps and
put on your slippers. Miss Lunette feels right
well to-day, and she wants you to come up and
see her before dinner.”

And Miss Liza smiled so warmly at little
Phil that he cheered up immediately. Going to
see Miss Lunette couldn’t be very dreadful if
Miss Liza looked so pleasant about it.

Up the steep stairs they toiled softly, and
were ushered into a room so darkened that,
coming from the glare of the sun outside, it
was at first difficult to see anything.

But Phil at length made out a figure,
wrapped in a shawl this warm summer day,
seated in a cushioned rocking-chair, and felt a
cool, slim hand take his own for an instant. He
looked timidly into the face above him and saw
with a lightened heart that Miss Lunette was
not dreadful at all, that she didn’t look in the
least as he had expected and feared to see her
look.

And in the fullness of his heart, little Phil
spoke out.

“Why, you are pretty,” said he to Miss
Lunette.

Miss Lunette’s pale, thin face flushed with
pleasure, and she laid a hand lightly upon
Philip’s head.

“I feel so well to-day,” said she graciously,
“that I want to show you children
some toys that I’ve been making. Some day I
mean to sell them in the city, but it won’t do
any harm, I suppose, to show them to you beforehand.
It is what we call wool-work,”
added she carefully.

On a table, drawn close to Miss Lunette’s
chair, stood a group of animals made of
worsted. There were yellow chickens standing
unsteadily upon their toothpick legs. Lopsided
white sheep faced a pair of stout rabbits
evidently suffering from the mumps. A dull
brown rooster suddenly blossomed out into a
gorgeous tail of red and green and purple
yarn.

For a grown person it would be difficult to
imagine who, in the city, would purchase these
strange specimens of natural history, but such
a disloyal thought did not occur to the children.
They admired the toys to Miss Lunette’s
complete satisfaction, and they had their reward.
For Miss Lunette took from the shelf
under the table a book, a home-made book, between
whose pasteboard covers had been
sewed leaves of stiff white paper.

“As a special treat,” said Miss Lunette
sweetly to her round-eyed audience, “I am
going to show you my book.”

She paused for an instant to allow Susan
and Phil to feast their eyes upon the book in
silence.

“This is the cover,” said she at last, “and I
made the picture myself.”

The picture was that of a rigid little boy, in
a paper soldier cap, stiffly blowing upon a tin
trumpet. The picture was carefully colored
with red and blue crayons.

“Oh, it’s pretty,” said Susan, in honest
admiration. She meant to make a book herself
as soon as she reached home.

“What’s inside?” asked Philip. He felt
sorry for that little boy, who, as long as he
lived with Miss Lunette, might never make a
noise.

“I think the cover ought to be bright and
gay, so that it will attract the children,” went
on the authoress. “Don’t you think so, too?”

Yes, Susan and Phil thought so, too.

“But what’s inside?” asked Philip again.

How was that little boy going to play soldier,
and never once shout or fire off a gun?

“The name of the book is ‘Scripture for
Little Ones,’” continued Miss Lunette. “I
will read parts of it to you if you like.” And
opening at page one, she began to read.

  | A is for Absalom who hung by his hair
  | From a tree—How painful to be left swinging there.
  | 
  | B is for Baalam—He had a donkey who spoke—
  | If we heard it to-day we would think it a joke.
  | 
  | C is for Cain—His brother Abel he slew—
  | He was a murderer—May it never be true of you!
  | 
  | D is for Daniel who, in the lion’s den,
  | Suffered no harm from beasts or from men.
  | 
  | E is for—

But whom E stood for the children never
knew, for Miss Liza appeared in the doorway
bearing a tray.

“Here is your dinner, Lunette,” said she
gently. “Children, you creep downstairs now.
You don’t want to overdo, Lunette,” she
added, as she placed the invalid’s substantial
dinner before her. “You’ve been talking for
an hour now.”

Downstairs Miss Liza closed the stairway
door that led up to Miss Lunette’s room.

“Now you can talk out as loud as you like,”
said she, “and you won’t disturb any one.
What’s the news up at your house, Susan?
Have you and Phil found the buried ten cents
yet?”

No, Susan had forgotten all about it.

So, as she stepped about putting their dinner
on the table, Miss Liza told Phil the story
of the buried ten cents.

“You know, Phil,” said she, “you are living
in my house,—the house I was born and
brought up in. And one day, when I was a
little girl eight years old, my uncle, who had a
farm a mile or so away, drove past our house
and saw me in the road.

“‘Here’s ten cents,’ said he. ‘Five for you
and five for Jim.’ Jim was my brother. Now I
was a selfish little thing,” said Miss Liza,
shaking her head, “and what did I do but dig
a hole under the kitchen window and put the
ten cents in it. Some day, when Jim was out of
the way, I meant to dig it up and spend it all
on myself. But do you know, I never have
found that money from that day to this. I
dug, and Jim dug, and Susan here has dug,
and I suppose you will try now. If you find it,
be sure you let me know.”

“I will find it,” said Phil, excited. “I will.
You see.”

Miss Liza nodded wisely.

“That is what Susan thought,” she answered.
“Now draw up to the table. I hope
you are hungry.” And Miss Liza smiled hospitably
round at her guests.

They were hungry. The good dinner disappeared
from their plates like magic, but the
crowning touch came when the little cakes
shaped like fish and leaves and stars appeared
upon the table.

“I told Phil about them,” Susan repeated
over and over; “I told him, I told him.”

After dinner, Susan and Phil went into the
garden to fill their pails with currants and
raspberries. It must be admitted that they
picked more raspberries than currants, and
that they put almost as many berries into their
mouths as into their pails.

They were hard at work when Miss Liza
joined them.

“It’s half-past three,” said she, shading
her eyes with her hands and looking up at the
sky. “And if your Grandmother meant what
she said, you ought to start for home. But
what I’m thinking of is the weather. It’s
clear enough overhead, but low down there are
black clouds that look like a shower to me. I
don’t know whether you ought to set out or
not.”

The clouds looked very far away to the children,
and, now that their pails were almost
full, it seemed a pity not to stay a little longer.

But Miss Liza took one more look round at
the sky and made up her mind once for all.

“You must go right along,” she decided,
“and hurry, too. I shan’t have an easy moment
till I think you are safe at home. Here
are your hats and slippers. Miss Lunette is
napping, now, so I will say good-bye for you.
Hurry right along, children, and don’t stop to
play by the way.”

And all in a twinkling Susan and Phil
found themselves walking down the village
street, with Miss Liza at the gate, waving
good-bye with one hand and motioning them
along with the other.

The sun was shining as they left the village
and turned into the country road that led past
home, but there were low mutterings and
rumblings and Phil stopped to listen.

“There’s a wagon on the bridge,” said he.
“Maybe they will give us a ride.”

“It’s thunder,” returned Susan, more
weather-wise than he. “Listen. It’s getting
dark, too. I wish a wagon would come along.”

But there was no sound of wheels; only
rumblings of thunder growing ever louder,
the rustle of leaves in the rising wind, and the
call of the birds to one another as they
hastened to shelter from the coming storm.

“It’s blue sky overhead, anyway,” said Susan.
“Let’s run.”

“It’s raining,” announced Phil, heavily
burdened with slippers and pail. “I hear it on
the leaves. I can’t run. Let’s sit down under a
tree.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Susan, seizing his
hand. “Come on! It’s blue sky overhead. I
want to get home to Grandmother. I don’t like
it in the woods in the rain. Come on! Do hurry—Run!”

The tiny patch of blue sky upon which Susan
had pinned her faith had been rapidly
growing smaller. Now it was altogether out of
sight. There was a sharp flash of lightning, a
loud clap of thunder, and down came the rain
like the bursting of a waterspout.

“Oh, run, Philly, run!” called Susan, darting
to the side of the road. “Come here with
me under the trees.”

A flash of lightning and long roll of thunder
came just at that moment, and put to
flight all Phil’s small stock of courage. He
was frightened and tired, and he could endure
no more. He dropped his pail of precious
berries to the ground, he let fall his slippers,
and, standing in the downpour, he lifted up his
voice and wept.

“Mamma, Mamma!” wailed Phil. “I want
Mamma!”

Poor Susan was distracted. Her lip trembled
and her eyes filled with tears, but she
bravely ran out into the road again and caught
Phil by the arm.

“Come, Philly, come,” entreated Susan.

But Phil, bewildered by the dazzling flashes
of light and peals of thunder, was beside himself
with fear. He jerked his arm away and
ran screaming up the road, splashing through
puddles as he went.

“Oh, Philly! Oh, Grandfather! Oh, Grandfather!”
wailed Susan. She felt that the end
of the world had come.

But deliverance was at hand.

Out of the woods appeared a man and a boy.
The man easily overtook Phil and lifted him
in his arms.

“Don’t be afraid, missy,” called he to Susan
above Phil’s screams. “Come along with
me.”

The boy had gathered up the scattered bundles,
and he now grasped Susan’s hand, and
so, dripping with rain, the little party vanished
into the shelter of the woods.

CHAPTER VI—THE GYPSIES
======================

Susan sneezed twice, coughed, and looked
about her.

She stood in a tent, round like a circus tent,
and the air was heavy with smoke from a fire
smouldering on the ground. There were no
doors or windows in the tent, and but little
light entered on this dark afternoon through a
half-dozen rents in the roof.

But Susan made out in the gloom not
only the man and boy who had brought her
there, but a plump, dark woman, with gold
hoops in her ears, who was gently wiping
the rain from Phil’s face, three or four
ragged children dressed in bright reds and
yellows, staring intently at her with big
black eyes, and a dog or two, discreetly
lurking in the dim background.

Susan sneezed again, and the woman
turned from Phil and spoke.

“It’s the smoke, dearie,” said she kindly.
“You’ll be used to it in a moment. Tell
your little brother not to be afraid. He is
among friends. We wouldn’t hurt a hair
of your heads. Tell him that.”

“I want to go home,” said Phil, with
under lip thrust out. “I want to go home.”

“And so you shall,” said the woman
briskly, “as soon as it stops raining a bit,
and my man can find out where you live.”

“Straight up the hill,” said Susan quickly.
She, too, was eager to be at home. “I saw you
at my gate,” she added shyly, to the man.
“My grandfather said ‘Sarishan’ to you.”

Susan knew the brown velveteen coat,
though the red tie was hidden under the upturned
collar.

The man looked at her a moment, and
then he smiled.

“True enough,” said he. “I remember.
I’ll take you home. I’ll harness the ‘gry’
and take them in the van,” said he to his
wife. “It’s still raining hard. They shall
know that the gypsies are good to deal with,
and that the worst of them is not James
Lee.”

And, whistling his gay little tune, Mr.
James Lee lifted the tent flap and went out
again into the rain which still pattered
musically on the canvas roof.

Susan began to enjoy herself. Now that
she knew she was going home shortly, she
looked about her with fresh pleasure.

“It would be fun to live in a tent,” she
thought,—“so different from home. No
beds, no chairs, no table. The gypsies must
eat sitting on the ground, and sleep,
perhaps, on that great heap in the corner.”

That it was not very clean, and was very,
very crowded, smoky and dark did not
enter Susan’s mind.

She smiled at the children still staring
silently at her. Besides the big boy who,
with back turned, seemed busy in the corner,
there were three little girls, two of whom,
with coarse black hair and bold eyes, smiled
back at Susan and then fell to giggling and
poking one another. One of them darted
forward and jerked at Susan’s scarlet hair-ribbon.
The other stole slyly behind her and
twitched her dress. They were mischievous,
trixy children, and Susan felt uneasy with
them. She was relieved when their mother,
seeing the rough play, exclaimed, “Clear
out, you young ones,” and drove them away.

The third little girl, who was scarcely
more than a baby, remained in her place,
staring solemnly at Susan. She did not look
like the other children; indeed, she did not
look like a gypsy at all. She was a slender
little creature with pale brown hair, large
gray eyes, and a tiny hooked nose that gave
a strange air of determination to her baby
face. She held something behind her back,
and suddenly she stepped forward and
showed it to Susan.

It was the lost squash baby!

Susan knew it instantly. It had even the
bit of blue rag tied about its neck.

“Why, it’s my squash baby!” said she,
in surprise.

“Yours, is it?” said Mrs. Lee, coming
forward. “My man picked it up in the road
and gave it to Gentilla. Give it back,
Gentilla. The little miss wants it.”

“No, no, I don’t want it,” said Susan
hastily. “Let her keep it. Is her name
Gentilla? She is a nice little girl.”

“Gentilla Lee, a good gypsy name,”
returned Mrs. Lee. “She is an orphan. She
is my husband’s brother’s child. You might
think I had enough to do with three children
of my own. But no, I must have one more.”
And Mrs. Lee lifted the tent flap and
moodily looked out into the still falling rain.

Susan smiled at Gentilla, who looked
soberly back and then moved closer to
Susan’s side and began stroking the visitor’s
dress with a tiny hand that was far from
clean. Suddenly she slipped her hand in
Susan’s, and, swinging round on it, smiled
up into her face.

It seemed a good beginning of a friendship,
and Susan was sorry when Mrs. Lee
turned round in the doorway and said:

“Here comes my man with the van. You
will be home in no time now.”

Through the woods stepped Mr. James
Lee leading a bony gray horse, which was
drawing a gypsy van, gay with bright red
and green and black paint. He opened the door
in the back of the van and helped the
children in.

“My pail,” said Phil, clutching his slippers.
“I’ve lost my pail.”

Mrs. Lee disappeared into the tent, and
came out in a moment with Phil’s pail—empty!
No wonder the big boy, busy eating
Phil’s berries, had turned his back in the
corner of the tent.

“Don’t cry, Phil. You shall have half my
berries. Don’t cry. We’re going home.” And
Susan waved vigorous good-byes to Mrs.
Lee and Gentilla, held back by her aunt
from following Susan into the van.

Mr. Lee carefully led his horse through
the woods to the muddy road, and then,
sitting up in front, drove his old “gry” up
the hill toward Featherbed Lane.

In the meantime Susan and Phil were
looking round the van in surprise and delight.

“It’s like a little playhouse,” said Susan,
squeezing Phil’s hand. “Oh, I wish I lived
in a gypsy van all the time.”

Opposite the door, in the very front of the
van, were two beds, one above the other like
berths on a ship, and broad enough, each
one, to hold three or four gypsy children at
once, if need be, and as, in fact, they very
often did. There was a little cookstove,
whose pipe wandered out of the side of the
van in a most unusual way. And alongside
the stove was a table, hanging by hinges
from the wall. A high chest of drawers and
two chairs completed the furniture of the
van, which looked very much like a state-room
and felt somewhat like one, too, as it
swayed over the hillocks and ruts in the road.

Up Featherbed Lane bounced the van,
and there on the porch stood Grandmother
and Miss Liza, both with white cheeks and
anxious faces, while Grandfather came
hurrying from the barn where he had been
harnessing old Nero with a speed that quite
upset the dignity of that staid Roman-nosed
beast.

“Where were you, children?” cried Miss
Liza in greeting, twisting the corner of her
apron as she spoke. “I ran up here in all
that downpour, and I didn’t see a sign of
you on the way.”

“My berries are gone,” called Phil. “The
big boy ate them. And I was afraid. And
we were inside a tent.”

“They are gypsies,” said Susan in a low
voice to Grandmother, who was carefully
feeling her all over. “They live in a tent.
And, inside, that van is just like a doll’s
house. Their name is Lee. I wish I lived in
a van; it’s better than a tent, I think. And
they have the nicest little girl you ever saw.
Her name is Gentilla Lee. She likes me, I
know she does, Grandmother. I want to go
see her again.”

“You are wet in spots, child, and damp
all over,” was all Grandmother replied.
“Come straight in the house and let me put
dry clothes on you.”

Grandfather and the gypsy had been
talking together all this time, and now
Grandfather put something into Mr. James
Lee’s hand that made his white teeth gleam
in a smile, and caused him to drive first to
the store in the village before returning to
his hungry family in their tent in the woods.

Then Phil was escorted home; Miss Liza
was driven back to Miss Lunette, who might
be worried sick by her absence, Miss Liza
thought, but who proved to have slept
soundly through the storm; and Susan, her
tongue wagging, was put into a hot bath
and dressed in dry clothes from head to foot
before Grandfather returned.

“I want to go back and see the gypsies,”
Susan teased the next day. “I want to see
Gentilla. Please, Grandfather, take me to
see the gypsies.”

So Grandmother baked a cake in her
largest tin, and at the village store Grandfather
and Susan purchased several yards of
bright red hair-ribbon. With these offerings
they made their way to the gypsy tent,
and received a hospitable welcome.

The van, with all its conveniences, was
willingly displayed, and Grandfather was
invited to test with his hand the softness of
the beds, the like of which, Mrs. Lee
declared, was not to be found in kings’
palaces. Privately, Grandfather believed
this to be true, but, of course, he didn’t say it
aloud.

To-day, with the sun shining, and the dogs
gnawing a bone at a safe distance in the
grass, the tent seemed to Susan even more
attractive than before. She thought with
scorn of her own white little room at home, and
wished with all her heart that she had been
born a gypsy child. Even the two bold little
girls seemed pleasanter, and indeed, delighted
with their new hair-ribbons and
awed by Grandfather’s presence, they were
more quiet and well-behaved, at least during
Susan’s call.

The big boy silently devoured his share of
Grandmother’s cake, and then, with a
hungry look still gleaming in his eyes, gazed
so longingly at the crumbs remaining that
Grandfather took pity upon him. With a
turn of his hand he flipped a piece of money
at the lad so that, with sure aim, he struck
the boy’s bare foot.

“Go buy something to eat with it,” commanded
Grandfather.

Pulling at his tangled hair in a rough bow
of thanks, the boy, waiting for no second
bidding, vanished among the trees and was
seen no more by his family that afternoon.

Mr. James Lee entertained Grandfather
as one gentleman should another. He had
many stories of adventure to tell, and he
even brought out his fiddle from under the
beds and played several lively gypsy tunes.

“Shall I tell the little miss’s fortune?”
asked Mrs. Lee, with a half-sly look, and
she laughed outright when Grandfather
shook his head with a smile.

“I believe in your fortune-telling just
about as much as you do,” he answered.
“My granddaughter seems perfectly happy
this moment. She doesn’t need any better
fortune than she has.”

Nor did she, for she and Gentilla, still
carrying the squash baby, had become good
friends and were enjoying their play together
equally well. They walked off, hand
in hand, Susan helping Gentilla over the
rough places and mothering her to her
heart’s delight. She washed her new baby’s
face and hands in the brook and dried them
upon her own handkerchief. She told her
about Flip, and Snowball, and Snuff, to
which Gentilla listened with a roll of her big
gray eyes. She, herself, didn’t talk very
much, but Susan quite made up for this
lack, and had begun to teach her “Two little
blackbirds sat upon a hill,” when she heard
Grandfather calling and knew that she
must go.

“I don’t want to leave Gentilla,” said
Susan, as she joined the group before the
tent. “Do you suppose I can come and play
with her to-morrow?”
“Perhaps Mrs. Lee will let Gentilla come
and play with you,” answered Mr. Whiting,
who thought Susan better off at home than
in the gypsy camp.

So it was settled that Mr. James Lee
would bring Gentilla to-morrow to spend
the day, and Susan went home with a happy
heart, chattering to Grandfather about her
new-found friends.

“Wouldn’t you like to be a gypsy,
Grandfather?” asked she. “Wouldn’t you
like to live in a tent? Why isn’t everybody
a gypsy? It’s such a nice way to live.”

“Well, Susan, most people think it
better to stay in one place instead of
wandering over the face of the earth,”
answered Grandfather. “And among other
things, they want their children to go to
school and to church, too.”

“I don’t care so much about going to
school,” said Susan, honestly. “I know I
would like to live in a tent and ride around
in that van.”

“It seems pleasant enough now, while it
is warm weather,” admitted Grandfather.
“But what about cold, and rain, and snow,
and not any too much to eat?”

“They were hungry, weren’t they?”
pondered Susan. “How they did like
Grandmother’s cake!”

That night at supper Susan looked round
the pleasant, well-lighted room, with its
table spread with good things to eat. She
thought of the tent in the woods, the trees
standing tall and black about it, and the
near-by brook gurgling over its stones without
a pause. It seemed dark and dreary and
lonely, and with a little shudder Susan
bent down and whispered to Snuff:

“I wouldn’t have us be gypsies, Snuff,
for anything in the world.”

And when she went to bed, she astonished
Grandmother by saying in the midst of
her prayers:

“Thank you, God, for not making
Grandmother a gypsy, because then I
wouldn’t have any apple sauce for my
supper.”

CHAPTER VII—IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE
==============================

Susan and Gentilla were at play in the
garden, walking Indian fashion up one path
and down the other between the rows of
summer vegetables. The little girls held their
arms outstretched to keep their balance, and,
now and then, with shrill little screams, one
or the other would almost, but not quite,
topple over.

Occasionally Gentilla, unsteady on her
feet, made a misstep among the beets and
peas, and once she sat down upon a cabbage.
But, as she was as light as a feather, it certainly
did the cabbage no harm, and perhaps a
great deal of good for all we know to the
contrary.

“Gentilla,” said Susan, struck with a
happy thought, “let’s go play on the schoolhouse
steps.”

“Yes, let’s,” said Gentilla agreeably. She
did not know where the schoolhouse steps
were, but she would have gone as willingly
to the North Pole if Susan had suggested it.

She and Susan had become warm friends.
Gentilla spent almost every day at the house
on Featherbed Lane, and Grandmother and
Grandfather and even Miss Liza had grown
fond of the little gypsy girl because of her
happy disposition and loving little ways.
Gentilla was not a great talker, but she
made smiles and a dimple and funny little
bobs of her head take the place of speech.
She liked to steal up behind you and place a
kiss as soft as thistledown in the palm of
your hand. She rubbed gently up against
one as a little kitten would, and by her pats
and what Susan called “smoothings” told
you how much she loved you without a
single word.

“She is a good child,” said Grandmother.
“I can hardly believe that she is a real
gypsy child. She doesn’t seem like one
to me.”

“She does wind herself round your
heart,” confided Miss Liza. “If I lived
alone I would almost think of adopting her,
though I don’t know whether her people
would be willing to part with her.”

“Mr. Whiting says they are a little jealous
because we do so much for Gentilla, and not
for their own little girls. He thinks we
haven’t been very wise,” answered Mrs.
Whiting. “And now that you have made
Gentilla these aprons, I don’t know what they
will say.”

From the shady back porch, where
Grandmother and Miss Liza sat rocking and
sewing together, it looked as if two Susans,
one large and one small, were walking down
the path toward them. For Gentilla wore,
fitted to her small person, a dress Susan had
outgrown, and on her feet a pair of Susan’s
shoes, the toes well stuffed with cotton.

“Grandmother, we are going to play,”
called Susan. “And I want to whisper in
your ear.”

“Can’t you say it out loud?” inquired
Grandmother mildly. “It isn’t polite to
whisper, Susan.”

“I only wanted to ask if I might pack a
lunch in my little basket for us,” said Susan.
“It isn’t a secret. I just as lief have Miss
Liza hear.”

Susan reappeared in a moment, basket in
hand, carrying Snowball and Flip.

“Let me see what you took, Susan,”
said Grandmother.

In the basket were two molasses peppermints
and two lumps of sugar. “Just
enough for Gentilla and me,” said Susan
contentedly. “Phil has gone to Green
Valley with his mother.”

Down the lane they started, Gentilla
carrying Snowball, Susan with Flip and
the basket of lunch.

“There is no use looking in there to-day,”
announced Susan, waving her hand toward
the office. “Grandfather has gone fishing,
and Snuff has gone with him. This is good
weather for fishing. Grandfather said so, and
he knows everything.”

“Everything,” echoed Gentilla loyally.

“Yes, he does,” Susan chattered on.
“When I was little, I used to wonder why
he wasn’t a king. There are always plenty of
kings in fairy stories, but there don’t seem
to be any round here. Did you ever see
a king?”

Gentilla shook her head solemnly, but
Susan was not looking at her.

“Gentilla,” said Susan, staring at the
schoolhouse door, “it’s open!”

Never before had Susan seen the schoolhouse
door unlocked. Many times had she
shaken it and rattled the knob, and all of no
avail. But now the door actually stood ajar,
and, with a push that sent it wide open,
Susan, followed by Gentilla, stepped over
the threshold.

The air in the schoolroom was close and
warm, and dust lay thick upon the floor and
danced in the beams of sunlight that filtered
through the grimy window-panes.

Susan walked about, surveying the battered
desks covered with scratches and ink-spots
and ornamented with initials cut into
the wood. The door of the rusty stove stood
open, and within lay a heap of torn papers.
The faded maps were not interesting, and
Susan began to think the schoolroom more
attractive when peeped at from the porch
than when actually within it.

“Let’s go outside,” said she to Gentilla,
who had followed her about like Mary’s
lamb. “Then we’ll sit down and eat our
lunch.” The lunch basket, guarded by Flip
and Snowball, had been left on the porch
steps.

Susan turned the knob of the schoolhouse
door, which had swung shut behind them,
and pulled. The door wouldn’t open. Susan
tugged until she grew red in the face.

“You try, Gentilla,” said she.

Gentilla obligingly gave a pull, and toppled
over backward upon the floor.

“Don’t cry,” said Susan, helping her to
her feet. “We will just climb out of
the window.”

But the windows, swollen and stiff, were
no more accommodating than the door.

Susan climbed up on the window-sill, and,
covered with dust and dirt, pushed and
pulled until she was quite out of breath.

“I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t open it.
What shall we do?”

Gentilla’s face puckered up at sight of
Susan’s distress. She ran back to the door and
beat upon it with her soft little fists.

“You open, you open,” called Gentilla,
in a pitiful little pipe that would have
moved a heart of stone.

Susan wanted to cry. There was a big
lump in her throat, and it was only vigorous
winking and blinking that kept the tears
from falling down her cheeks.

But Susan was repeating to herself
something she had overheard Grandmother
say to Miss Liza that very afternoon.

“Susan is a real little mother to Gentilla,”
Grandmother had said.

And, at the time, Susan had thought, “If
Gentilla ever falls into the fire or tumbles
down the well, I must be the one to
pull her out.”

And she had almost hoped that something
of the kind might happen, so that she might
show how brave she was, and how devoted to
her little friend.

Surely now the time had come. Perhaps
they would have to stay forever in the
schoolhouse. Without anything to eat they
would grow thinner and thinner and thinner
until there would be nothing left of them at
all. At this doleful thought, one tear rolled
down Susan’s nose and splashed on the dusty
boards. But only one! For she swallowed
hard, gave herself a little shake, and then
took Gentilla by the hand.

“Come,” said she, drawing her gently
away from the door. “We will stay by the
window, and when anybody goes by, we will
knock and shout and call, and some one
will let us out, I know.”

So the two little girls stationed themselves
by the front window and looked longingly
out at the sunny road, the dancing leaves,
and oh, cruelest of all, the lunch basket on
the porch steps, still guarded by the faithful
Flip and Snowball.

Susan, her face streaked with dirt, polished
off the window-glass as best she could
with her pocket handkerchief.

“Grandmother will find us,” said she
hopefully. “Or else Grandfather will. Don’t
you be afraid, Gentilla.”

But in her heart she thought:

“Grandfather has gone fishing, and
perhaps he won’t be home till black night.
And I didn’t tell Grandmother where we
were going; I know I didn’t tell her where
we were going.”

These sad thoughts were interrupted by
the welcome sound of wheels.

“Knock and scream, knock and scream!”
called Susan excitedly.

And they fell to work with a will, Susan
redoubling her efforts when she saw that it
was Mr. Drew, hastening home behind
little brown Molly.

But the *clip*, *clap*, *clip*, *clap*, of Molly’s
hoofs drowned all the noise they made, and
Mr. Drew, with not a glance toward the
schoolhouse, drove out of sight.

Susan looked blankly at Gentilla.

“Oh, what a long time we’ve been here,”
said she forlornly. “It must be nearly
night.”

“Nearly night,” echoed Gentilla.

She sat down on the floor with her back
against the wall, leaving Susan alone on
guard. She shut her eyes, her head nodded
once or twice, and when Susan next glanced
at her she lay on the floor sound asleep.

“Oh, Gentilla, wake up! I’m afraid to
stay here alone. Wake up!” began poor
Susan, who at that moment would have
welcomed the company of even a fly buzzing
on the window-pane. But the thought of
Grandmother’s speech silenced her.

“I won’t wake her up, and I won’t cry
either,” thought she. And pressing her face
against the window, she bravely watched
the empty road for a five minutes that
actually seemed to her two hours long.

All kinds of dreadful thoughts began to
come to Susan’s mind. Were there bears in
the woods, and at nightfall would they come
lumbering out, and, pushing the door open,
squeeze her and Gentilla to death in a mighty
bear hug? What if Grandfather had made a
mistake and the Indians had not all gone
away years ago! Suppose they should carry
her off and stain her brown with berry juice,
like the little girl in her story book, so that,
even if Grandfather should see her, he would
never know that it was his black-eyed Susan,
but would think she was a real true little
Indian girl.

Susan gave a start of horror and almost
screamed out loud. Up the road this moment
there came prowling a big dark animal.

“Gentilla, Gentilla, here’s a bear!” called
Susan in a frenzy. “Wake up and help me!
Here’s a bear! Oh! Oh! He’s coming after
us! Gentilla! Gentilla!—Why, it’s Snuffy!
Snuffy! Snuffy! save me!”

And Susan’s cries of fright changed into
those of joy and hope as soon as she saw that
the great brown bear was none other than
shaggy, comfortable, homelike Snuff.

Snuffy’s bright eyes caught sight of his
familiars, Snowball and Flip, seated in
lonely state upon the schoolhouse steps. The
little basket, which, in days gone by, had
often held goodies, as he well knew, excited
his curiosity. Up the steps tripped Master
Snuff to sniff delicately at the refreshments,
and then, to the joy of the prisoners, he saw
their faces and heard their knocks and calls.

He barked furiously, and leaped up at the
window. He ran to the door, scratching and
whining to be let in, then back to the window
where he echoed their cries for help by barkings
so frantic that Grandfather, trudging
leisurely along with his string of fish,
wondered what Snuff had cornered on the
old school porch.

Snuff was wise enough to know that something
was wrong, and that Grandfather was
needed to set it right.

Susan held her breath for fear he was
leaving them to their fate as he galloped down
the walk, but it was only to circle round
Grandfather and back again to the steps,
where he halted, waiting for his master to
join him.

“You rascal,” called Grandfather. “I
suppose you think I ought to carry those
dolls up to the house for Susan. Come along
with me, sir.”

But when Snuff recommenced barking
and leaping at the window, Grandfather
Whiting followed him up the walk, and a
second later the treacherous door was flung
open and Susan was in his arms.

“My own Susan, what is it? What are you
doing in here?” asked Grandfather tenderly,
as a very dirty little girl clasped him tight,
and sent a hot shower of tears down the
back of his neck.

“The door wouldn’t open, and I didn’t
wake her up, and I was afraid of bears and
Indians,” sobbed Susan. “But I knew you’d
come, I knew you’d come! And Snuff shall
have all the lunch, every bit, because
he saved us.”

And breathing hard, and winking fast,
and holding tight to Grandfather’s hand,
Susan gladly rewarded Snuff, who devoured
his treat in two bites, and then, waving his
tail jauntily, ran on ahead to prepare Grandmother
for their coming.

Halfway up the lane, the party met Miss
Liza, homeward bound.

“Let me take Gentilla,” said she, when
she had heard the story. “I’ll leave her at
the camp. She is too little to understand, but
Susan has had quite a fright. They weren’t
gone from home an hour, though,” she
added, “but I suppose it seemed long
to them.”

Of course it did. Susan could never be
made to believe that she and Gentilla had
not been imprisoned in the schoolhouse for
hours and hours, perhaps half a day.

When she reached home, she enjoyed telling
the story over and over. Grandmother
was sympathetic, and gave Susan a lecture
upon going into strange places and shutting
the door behind her. Grandfather was concerned
with the fact that the door was open
at all, and wanted to know who had been
tampering with town property.

Phil was the most satisfactory audience of
all, for he bitterly regretted having missed
the adventure, and listened again and again
to Susan’s account of it with undiminished
interest. She was able to brag and boast
to him as she could to no one else, and before
they separated for the night neither one was
quite sure whether or not real bears and
Indians had come out of the woods and
been driven away by Susan single-handed.

“We’ll play about it,” said Phil, rising
slowly from the steps as he heard his mother
for the third time call him to come home.
“We’ll take turns being bears and Indians.
We can play in my woodshed and we’ll play
it the first thing—”

“Phil!” came his father’s voice.

Phil skipped down the path toward home
with the speed of a grasshopper.

“To-morrow!” he called back as he hopped
over the stone wall.

Something so exciting was to happen
“to-morrow” that, for the time being, this
adventure was to be cast in the shade. But
Susan went to bed that night feeling quite a
heroine, and knowing there was no one in the
world Phil envied so much as herself.

CHAPTER VIII—SUSAN’S PRESENT
============================

The next morning early, before breakfast,
Susan ran out on the front porch to view the
new day. Grandfather had suggested that she
go look for “fairy tablecloths” in the grass,
but Susan more than half suspected that he
wanted her out of the way while he finished
shaving. She couldn’t help whisking about
the room and it did make his hand shake.

Susan watched two rosy little clouds grow
fainter and fainter in the pale blue morning
sky, and then disappear. She leaned over the
porch railing and stared down into the bed of
gay portulaca that Grandmother tended with
such care both night and morning.

“Grandmother’s flowers,” thought she,
smiling at the bright little cups, all wet with
dew. “They are awake and I am awake. I
guess everybody is awake now. But where is
Snuff? He’s always the first one up.”

Susan turned to go in search of her playmate
when a flutter of white caught her eye.
On one of the porch posts a slip of paper had
been fastened with a common white pin. In a
twinkling Susan was on the rail and down
again, paper in hand.

“Grandfather, Grandfather, here’s a letter,”
she called, and, running through the
house, she gave the paper to Grandfather,
just settling himself at the breakfast table.

“Hum,” said Mr. Whiting, when he had
read the slip and studied it backward and
forward. “This is a strange thing. It’s for
you, Susan. Look at this, Grandmother.”

On a jagged slip of wrapping-paper,
printed in uneven letters that slanted downhill,
were the words:

“A pressent for the little miss on the school-house
steps.”

“A present for me?” said Susan, delighted,
as Grandfather read it aloud. “I’ll go
straight down and get it. Shall I?”

“No, no. Eat your breakfast first,” answered
Grandfather, who was not nearly so
pleased at the idea of a present as Susan
thought he ought to be.

In fact, over Susan’s head, he and Grandmother
exchanged glances which seemed to
say they did not altogether understand what
had happened.

But Susan saw nothing of this, and, breakfast
over, she and Grandfather started at once
down the lane to see what her mysterious present
might be.

“Grandfather, where is Snuff?” asked
Susan. “I haven’t seen him this morning.”

“No more have I,” answered Grandfather.

He whistled again and again, and Susan
called, but no Snuff appeared in answer to
these familiar signals.

On the school porch lay a dark bundle. It
was a large bundle, and it moved slightly from
side to side. As they drew nearer they heard a
wail, and Susan immediately recognized the
cry.

“It’s Gentilla,” she called out. “It’s Gentilla
crying.”

Yes, it was Gentilla, so securely wrapped
in a big gray shawl that had been wound
tightly about her and pinned in place that she
could move neither hands nor feet, and could
only rock herself from side to side as she lay
on the hard boards of the porch floor.

Grandfather and Susan helped her out of
the blanket, and Gentilla tried to tell her
story, but all she could say was:

“All gone away,—riding.”

She rolled her big gray eyes and waved her
tiny hand, and that was the best that she could
do to explain her presence there so early in the
morning.

There was a strange look on Grandfather’s
face, and he thrust his hands in his pockets and
pursed up his mouth as if to whistle as he
stared at the little schoolhouse. For from
every window the panes of glass had been
neatly removed, and a glance within showed
that the old stove had disappeared also.

“You take Gentilla up to the house, Susan,”
said he. “I’m going down the road a
ways.”

“Yes, I will,” said Susan. “But, Grandfather,
where is my present?”

“Perhaps Gentilla is the present,” called
back Mr. Whiting, already striding down the
hill.

And half an hour later when he returned to
the house, Grandfather sank into a chair, put
the tips of his fingers together, and began to
laugh.

“Do tell me what it is all about,” said
Grandmother, coming out on the porch,
duster in hand. “The children are over at Mrs.
Vane’s, and they came up here with such a
story that I don’t know what to think:—Gentilla
wrapped in a shawl, and panes of glass
gone, and I don’t know what all.”

Grandfather nodded in agreement as she
spoke.

“Yes, sir,” said he. “They told the truth.
The glass is gone and the stove is gone from
the schoolhouse, and what is more, the gypsies
themselves have gone from the grove. They
have cleared out bag and baggage, and have
left Gentilla to us.”

“Do you mean to tell me that they have deserted
that child?” demanded Grandmother.
“What kind of people are they, anyway, to
do such a thing as that?”

“Gypsies,” answered Grandfather tersely.
“She wasn’t their own child, you know. And
they were always jealous of the way we
treated her. I suppose they argued that, if we
were so fond of her, we would be glad of the
chance to take care of her. I’ve telephoned, so
that people will be on the lookout for them,
but the chances are we shall never hear of them
again.”

“I wouldn’t want Gentilla to go back to
them after the way they have treated her,”
said Grandmother indignantly.

“No, except that she is one of them, after
all,” answered Mr. Whiting. “Well, we will
keep the little girl for a time. We needn’t be
in any great hurry to decide what to do. At
any rate, Susan will enjoy a visit from her.”

And that Susan proceeded to do at once.
She and Phil and Gentilla spent a long and
happy day together.

But that night, with Gentilla tucked snugly
in the big spare-room bed across the hall, Susan
was so excited she couldn’t sleep. She
twisted and turned and tossed, and at last
pattered downstairs for a drink of water.

In the kitchen, to her surprise, she found
Grandfather feeding Snuff, who had been
missing all day. Snuff ate his good supper as
if he were starving. He was covered with mud,
an old rope was tied round his neck, and he
was so stiff and lame he could scarcely hobble.

Susan waited until Grandfather had seen
Snuff safely at rest upon a comfortable bed
of straw in the barn. Then upstairs they went
together, and Grandfather lay down on the
outside of Susan’s bed beside her and took her
hand in his.

“Where do you think Snuff was all day,
Grandfather?” began Susan. “I wish he
could talk and tell us.”

“So do I,” said Grandfather heartily,
“Did I ever tell you about a dog I had when
I was a little boy—”

“Yes, you did,” interrupted Susan.
“Thank you, Grandfather, but I know all
about him. His name was Nick and he was
black all over with not a white spot anywhere.
Grandfather, do you think Mr. James Lee
took the stove from the schoolhouse?”

“I think he did,” answered Grandfather
briefly.

“And the glass out of the windows?”

“And the glass out of the windows.”

“What will he do with them?”

“Sell them, I think,” said Grandfather.

“But they didn’t belong to him?” questioned
Susan.

“No; they belonged to the town.”

“Then he stole!” exclaimed Susan, pulling
her hand from Grandfather’s so that she
might shake an accusing finger in his face.

“It looks that way,” admitted Mr. Whiting.

“But you wouldn’t steal.”

“I hope not,” returned Grandfather. “But
you must remember, Susan, that the gypsies
don’t go to school or to church, and so they
don’t know the difference between right and
wrong as well as the people who do.”

“They ought to go,” said Susan morally.
“I go. Everybody ought to go. I’ll tell you
what I’m going to do. I’m going to teach
Gentilla Bible stories right away to-morrow.
How long will she stay here? Forever?”

“No, not forever. I don’t know how long.
Now you must go to sleep, or Grandmother
will be up here after us.”

“I will,” promised Susan drowsily. “But,
you know, Grandfather, I think they took
Snuffy, too, and that is where he was all day.
Don’t you?”

Grandfather nodded in the darkness. He
had been thinking the same thought, but he
tiptoed out of the room without another word,
and a moment later Susan fell asleep.

Early the next morning she began to train
Gentilla. She made her say “thank you,” and
“please,” and “excuse me,” until the poor
little visitor was so bewildered that she
couldn’t answer the simplest question. She
forced her to listen to Bible stories which she
didn’t know very well herself, so poky and
long-drawn-out that, if Gentilla hadn’t had
a happy way of falling into little cat-naps
whenever the story was too dull to bear, I
don’t know what would have become of her.

In her own behavior Susan was so moral
and proper, and so unlike her own lovable little
self, that Grandmother, though she didn’t
say a word, couldn’t help thinking, “If this
keeps up, I shall have to go away on a visit.
Only I know it won’t last.”

And it didn’t last. It was too unnatural. Of
course it didn’t last.

After dinner Grandmother asked Susan to
go to the store for two spools of black thread.

“Your Grandfather has torn the pocket in
his coat,” said she. “Gentilla will wait with
me until you come back, for she walks slowly
and I am in a hurry.”

“Yes, Grandmother,” said Susan, primly,
hoping they were admiring her manners.

She walked quickly, and was back in a short
time with two spools of *white* thread.

“But I told you *black*,” said Grandmother.
“I can’t mend your Grandfather’s coat with
white thread. I will keep these spools, but you
will have to go back for black ones. Remember
what I want it for, and then you won’t make
another mistake.”

Gentilla, really enjoying herself alone with
Grandmother, sat on the shady porch, comfortably
holding Flip.

The sun was hot, and the road was dusty,
and it is not pleasant when one is trying to be
an example to be told that one has made a mistake.
Susan felt aggrieved.

“You said white spools, Grandmother,”
she answered bluntly. “I know you said
white.”

Now this was not at all like Susan (perhaps
the strain of being an example was beginning
to tell) and Mrs. Whiting stared at her in surprise.

“Do you mean to be saucy, Susan?” she
asked, after a pause. “Go on your errand at
once, without another word.”

Susan turned on her heel and swallowed
hard. She wanted to scream, or throw something
at somebody, but she didn’t dare do
anything but walk slowly down the lane on her
errand.

When she returned, Grandmother took the
spools and went into the house. Gentilla, still
cuddling Flip, looked up with a smile, but she
received a black look in return.

“You can’t hold Flip,” said Susan, glowering
at her. “You may have Snowball, but
Flip is mine.” And she roughly seized Flippy
to pull her out of Gentilla’s arms.

But Gentilla was not a gypsy child for
nothing. If Susan could pull and slap, she
could scratch and kick. So when Grandmother,
at sounds of the scuffle, looked out of the window,
she saw the model teacher and her pupil
engaged in a hand-to-hand battle, with innocent
Flip nearly torn in two between them.

“Susan Whiting!” called Grandmother.

And at the sound of her voice, with a
mighty push that sent Gentilla backward upon
the floor, Susan wrenched Flip from her
grasp, and turned and faced the window.

“Put down your doll,” commanded Grandmother.
“Now, go upstairs to your room and
wait there for me.”

It was a miserable Susan whom Grandmother
joined a few moments later. Without
a word, Mrs. Whiting washed the hot face and
hands, and helped Susan make ready for bed.

Downstairs she put Gentilla into the hammock,
she herself lay down on the couch, and
the afternoon quiet was unbroken as they all
refreshed themselves with a long nap.

When Susan woke, and saw Grandmother
standing by her bedside, she stretched out her
arms and laid her penitent head upon Grandmother’s
soft shoulder.

“I don’t know what did it,” said Susan at
last, when she had whispered for several moments
in Grandmother’s ear. “I meant to be
good. I was trying so hard.” And Susan pensively
put out her tongue and caught a tear
rolling slowly down her cheek.

“Well, Susan, take my advice,” said
Grandmother sensibly, “and don’t try to
train Gentilla any more. It is all most of us
can do to take care of ourselves, and we think
Gentilla is a nice little girl just as she is now,
don’t we?”

Susan nodded soberly. Much nicer than Susan
Whiting, she thought, as she remembered
slapping and pushing and knocking Gentilla
down.

But she brightened when Grandmother
added:

“Hurry now and dress yourself. We are all
invited over to Mrs. Vane’s for tea, Grandfather
and all. And you are going to wear
your new dress with the little pink flowers. I
put the last stitch in it for you not five minutes
ago.”

CHAPTER IX—HICKORY DICKORY DOCK
===============================

It was a stormy autumn afternoon, and Phil
sat in his rocking-chair before the red coal fire
watching the clock upon the mantelpiece. He
hoped it would strike soon and tell him what
time it was, for he was expecting company,
and he felt that he had already waited quite
long enough.

He looked round the nursery and saw that
everything was in its place, spick and span
and ready for visitors, too. The big dapple
gray rocking-horse stood in his corner, his fore
feet impatiently lifted and an eager gleam in
his brown glass eye. No doubt he was anxious
to do his part by giving the visitor as many
rides as she wished.

The tin kitchen, with its gay blue oven, was
polished until it sparkled and glittered like
precious stones. The kitchen was a favorite
toy with Phil. He never tired of making
strange little messes of pounded crackers and
water, that smelled of the tins they were
cooked in, and tasted no one but Phil could
say how, for no one but he would eat them.

His big electric train, running on real
tracks, a present from Great-Uncle Fred, was
nicely set up in the middle of the floor, and
looked as if it could take you to Jericho and
return in one afternoon. Little black Pompey
in a red-and-white striped minstrel suit, high
hat on head, looked anxiously from the cab of
the engine, for, as engineer, was he not responsible
for the safety of a whole family of
paper dolls who occupied an entire passenger
car and who seemed not at all concerned at
the delay in starting?

The nodding donkey, the dancing bear, the
flannel rabbit with only one ear, stood stiffly
on parade. The box of tin soldiers and sailors
lay invitingly open.

Yes, everything was ready, even to the big
sailboat that leaned against the wall, canvas
spread to catch the first salt breeze. And best
of all, there stood the low nursery table covered
with a spotless white cloth, a sight which
promised such a pleasant ending to what was
sure to be a pleasant afternoon that Phil
treated himself to a violent rocking as a way
of working off his emotion.

For Phil had been ill in bed, and this was
his first taste of fun in two whole weeks. He
had looked forward mightily to this very moment,
and his mother’s promise that he should
have a party as soon as he was well had helped,
more than anything else, to make the big
spoonfuls of black medicine go down without
a struggle.

Phil’s cheeks were white and his face was
thin, and he wore for warmth his manly little
blue-and-white checked bathrobe, since only
last night his cough had been croupy again.
Not that Phil called it his bathrobe. In admiring
imitation of his father’s lounging costume
he called it his “smoking-jacket,” and he had
even had the daring to slip a match or two into
the deep side pocket, in which he fervently
hoped no one might pry. If Phil’s mother had
even suspected such a thing, he and the
matches would have parted company speedily,
he well knew. He meant to slip them safely
back as soon as the party was over, and no one
would be the wiser or harmed in the least by
what he had done, he thought. He smiled to
himself as he fingered the forbidden objects
that nestled so innocently in his pocket and
gave him such a jaunty grown-up feeling.

And, in Phil’s secret heart, there was another
reason why he was happy this afternoon.
Gentilla had gone away.

It was not that Phil didn’t like Gentilla,
for he did. He had played happily with her
and Susan through the long summer days that
the little girl had spent in Featherbed Lane.
He had enjoyed, he thought, the long stay
Gentilla had made with the Whitings when
her gypsy relatives had disappeared in the
night and had never been heard of from that
time to this.

But at last Gentilla’s visit had come to an
end. Mr. Drew knew of a Home for little children
who needed some one to love and care for
them. And so, one bright October day, the
good minister took the little gypsy girl to her
new home where she would lead an ordered,
comfortable life quite different from the
rough-and-tumble days she had known in
gypsy van or camp.

At parting, Phil had presented Gentilla
with his treasured Noah’s ark because she
loved it so. He would willingly have given her
his express wagon, in which he had treated her
to many a ride, if his mother hadn’t explained
that it would not go into Gentilla’s tiny trunk
which her kind friends were filling for her with
a neat little outfit. He stood upon the station
platform, loyally waving his hat until the
train was quite out of sight.

And it was not until then that he learned
how pleasant it was to have an undivided Susan
for a playmate once again, a Susan who
was always glad to see him, who never whispered
secrets and wouldn’t tell, who never ran
away from him, and who, in short, was to be
the chosen guest of honor that very afternoon.

“It must be most supper-time,” grumbled
Phil. “I wish the clock would strike, or Susan
would come, or something would happen.”

The clock on the mantel began a whirring
and creaking that caused Phil to spring to his
feet and fasten his eyes upon the little Roman
soldier in helmet and shield, who stood alert,
both day and night, atop the clock, ready to
strike the hours as they came. The whirring
grew louder. Slowly the little Roman soldier
raised his arm and loudly struck his shield
once, twice. Two o’clock!

“Time for Susan,” said Phil joyfully.

He dragged a low cricket to the window,
and, standing upon it, looked out at the sodden
brown lawn, the leafless trees rocking in a
late October gale, and the gray windswept
sky. Big raindrops hurried nowhere in particular
down the window-pane, and Phil amused
himself by racing them with his finger. And
presently he spied Susan.

“Come on, come on!” he shouted, knocking
on the window, quite careless of the fact that
Susan couldn’t possibly hear him. “I’ve been
waiting forever. Come on!”

The little figure in blue waterproof cape
and hood, Susan’s pride, hurried down to the
stone wall, through the gap, and across Phil’s
lawn. Here was a puddle, and the blue waterproof
hopped nimbly over it. Just one peep
into the empty dog kennel, and Phil heard the
side door shut, and knew that Susan would be
there in a moment.

He waited impatiently, his eyes at the crack
of the nursery door, since the cold halls were
forbidden him. He heard Susan and his
mother talking, and at last up she came, a box
under her arm.

“See what I’ve brought,” said Susan.
“Grandmother sent it. And your mother gave
me some, just now, too. We will each have a
long string of them.”

Susan sat down on the hearth-rug and
opened the box. It was full of buttons, large
and small, dull and bright, white and colored,
and these she poured out in a little heap upon
the floor.

“Grandmother sent a long thread for each
of us,” and Susan pounced upon a small parcel
at the bottom of the box. “She told me how
to do it, too. You string the buttons, as many
as you like, and one of them is your ‘touch
button.’ You must never tell which one that is,
because who ever touches that button must
give you one of his. Do you see?”

“But won’t you even tell me, Susan?”
asked simple Phil, who wanted to share all
things with his friend, even to dark mysteries
like “touch buttons.”

“Why, yes,” said Susan generously, “if
you will tell me yours.”

Phil nodded and rummaged in the button
heap.

“These are good ones,” said he, ranging
them on the floor before him. “I’m going to
begin to string.”

Phil’s taste was severe. He had chosen several
large, dark, velvet buttons, a brass military
button, a useful black button or two that
might have come from his father’s coat, a flat
silver disk as big as a dollar, and, as a lighter
touch, all the buttons he could find covered
with a gay tartan plaid gingham.

Susan uttered cries of delight as she rapidly
made her selection.

“Look at these blue diamonds,” she exclaimed
rapturously over some glass buttons
that had seen better days. “And here is one
with beautiful pink flowers painted on it. Here
is a white fur one off my baby coat, and these
little violet-and-white checks are from Grandmother’s
gingham dress. I know they are.”

“Now this is the grandmother,” she went
on, taking up a fat brown doorknob of a button.
“I’ll put her on my string first of all, so
that she can take care of the rest of them. And
next I’ll put this little green velvet one so
that it won’t be lonesome.”

“Which is your touch button?” asked Phil,
after working busily in silence for a whole
minute.

“Shh-h-h!” warned Susan, looking
carefully about her before answering, as if a spy
might be peeping through the keyhole or even
hiding behind the one-eared rabbit. “This one.
It’s my favorite, too.” And she touched a
hard little rose-colored ball that looked uncommonly
like a pill. “Which is yours?”

Phil proudly displayed the military button,
and whirled away from Susan just in time to
keep the secret from his mother who entered
the room, bearing a tray.

“Are you ready for your refreshments?”
she asked, setting her burden down upon the
table. “Oh, let me see your button strings.”

She took both strings in her hand to look
them over, and to the delight of the children
she touched both of the charmed buttons.

“Touch! Touch!” they cried, capering
about like wild Indians. “You touched the
‘touch button.’ You owe us one now.”

“So I do,” said Mrs. Vane, laughing. “I
had forgotten all about ‘touch buttons.’ I shall
be more careful after this. You won’t catch me
again. Now, Phil, there are your refreshments,
so draw up to the table whenever you are
ready. I must go look for buttons to pay my
debt!”

Mrs. Vane, still laughing, took the tray and
went downstairs.

Susan and Phil found themselves ready for
the refreshments and made haste to set the
little table with the green-and-white china tea-set.
The dinner plates were quite large enough
to hold the sponge cakes, and if the tea-cups
seemed a trifle small, think how many more
times the brimming pitcher of lemonade would
go round.

Phil set out four plates instead of two.

“We will each ask one company to come to
the table,” said he. “I want the rocking-horse,
he looks so thirsty, and your grandfather
always stops to give Nero a drink when we go
riding.”

And Phil dragged his steed over to the
table, where he rocked back and forth for a
moment bumping his nose against the edge of
the table each time. Indeed, with his open jaws
and bright red nostrils, he looked as if a whole
trough of lemonade would be needed to slake
his thirst.

“I’ll take the bunny because he has only
one ear,” said tender-hearted Susan.

As she stooped to pick up the rabbit, she
uttered a scream and sent poor bun flying half-way
across the room. A small brown object,
far more frightened than Susan, sped like a
streak of lightning along the wall, and disappeared
into the big closet where Phil kept his
toys.

“What is it? What is it?” cried Phil, for
Susan was jumping up and down with her
hands over her ears.

“It’s on me! It’s on me!” cried Susan,
shuddering and shaking. “It’s a mouse! It’s
a mouse!”

“It isn’t on you,” said Phil. “Don’t cry,
Susan. I saw him go in the closet. I’ll fix him,
you see.”

With a bravery worthy of a better cause
Phil opened the closet door, struck one of his
precious matches, threw it into the closet after
the mouse, and firmly shut the door.

“There now,” said he. “I fixed him.”

“What did you do?” quavered Susan,
opening one eye. “Are you sure he isn’t on
me? Look.”

“I killed him,” returned Phil briefly.

“How?”

“I burned him up,” answered Phil in a deep
voice.

“Really?” said Susan, awed. “But won’t
it set the house on fire?”

“No,” said Phil stoutly. “It won’t. I mean
I don’t think it will. Maybe we had better look
and see. You look, Susan.”

On the floor of the closet stood an open
Jack-in-the-box, and it was upon poor Jack’s
hat that the match had alighted. Jack had
bushy white hair, and an equally bushy beard,
and he was blazing merrily, grinning like a
hero all the while, when Susan opened the
door.

Susan’s heart stood still. Oh, if Mrs. Vane
were only there!

“Run, Phil!” she called. “Run for your
mother!”

And then with a presence of mind that,
when he heard the tale, Grandfather considered
remarkable, she picked up the pitcher
of lemonade and emptied it over the blaze.

Phil ran screaming downstairs.

“The house is on fire and the mouse is
burned up! Mamma, Mamma, come quick!
The mouse is on fire and the house is burned
up!”

When Mrs. Vane reached the nursery, she
found the fire out, the closet floor covered with
lemonade, Jack-in-the-box burned to a crisp,
and Susan, with shining eyes, not knowing
whether to laugh or cry, but able after a moment
to tell her story.

“But, child,” said Mrs. Vane, when she had
made sure that the fire was completely out and
that the only article damaged was the unfortunate
Jack-in-the-box, “which one of you
had matches, and what has become of Phil?
Who had the match, Susan?”

Ah, that was the question that Phil dared
not face, and that had caused him to hide himself
securely behind the big sofa in the parlor
where no one went in cold weather except for
a special reason.

But at last he was found, and, standing before
his mother, listened with drooping head
to the truths his own conscience had already
told him.

“I think you have found out for yourself,
Phil, why a little boy should never touch
matches,” said Mrs. Vane soberly. “If it
hadn’t been for Susan, our house might have
been burned to the ground. I’m sure I don’t
know what your father would say if he were
here.”

Phil’s eyes grew glassy at the very thought,
but he said nothing. Indeed, there was nothing
he could say in excuse.

“You have spoiled your party, and ruined
your Jack-in-the-box,” went on his mother.
“And, now, after hiding so long in that chilly
room, you will have to go straight to bed so
that you won’t take cold.”

At this Phil’s tears burst forth, and Susan
was moved to pity.

“Oh, dear,” said she, with an arm about
Phil’s heaving shoulders, “he will never touch
the matches again, will you, Philly? Tell your
mother you won’t.”

“N-n-no,” blubbered Phil dismally.

Mrs. Vane smiled down at the small sinner’s
comforter.

“It seems too bad that Susan shouldn’t
have her refreshments,” she remarked,—“especially
since she put out the fire.”

And in a very few moments Susan was sitting
on the edge of Phil’s bed, and both were
drinking hot chocolate and eating the party
sponge cakes.

“Hadn’t you better thank Susan for putting
out the fire and saving our house from
burning down?” asked Mrs. Vane, as, a little
later, she helped Susan into her waterproof.
She wanted to drive the lesson home, and impress
upon Phil’s mind the danger they had so
narrowly escaped.

“Thank you, Susan,” returned Phil obediently.
“But I’m going to do something nice
for you to-morrow,” he added. “I’m going to
give you my ‘touch button,’ you see.”

CHAPTER X—THE VISIT
===================

Grandfather and Susan were going on a
visit to the Town of Banbury.

They were to stay at the house of Grandfather’s
friend, Mr. Spargo, and Susan was
delighted at the thought, for once Mr.
Spargo had spent a whole week at Featherbed
Lane and with him had come his little
daughter Letty, just Susan’s age.

Susan remembered the good times they
had had together, and now she could scarcely
wait for the day to come when she would see
Letty Spargo again.

They were going to Banbury, she knew,
because Grandfather had a “case” at the
Banbury Court-House. Susan thought of
this “case” as a big black bag something
like the suitcase Grandfather was to carry
on the visit. Sometime she meant to ask why
he kept a “case” so far away from home in
Banbury; but now that question must wait,
for she was very busy deciding just which of
her belongings she would take with her on the
journey.

Susan didn’t trouble her head about
dresses; Grandmother would attend to that,
she knew. Her difficulty lay in making up
her mind which of her toys to take with her, and
Grandmother looked with dismay at the pile
on Susan’s bed, a pile which, as Susan ran
blithely up and down stairs, grew larger
with every trip.

“Susan, child,” said Grandmother, “what
are your washboard and tub doing on the bed
here, and this box of blocks, and your flat-iron?
Are you thinking of taking them to
Banbury? You will need a Saratoga trunk, if
you keep on.”

“I thought Letty would like to see them,”
faltered Susan, halting with an armful in the
doorway.

“So she will, when she comes to visit you,”
answered Grandmother. “It is your turn now
to see her toys. And I should leave Flip and
Snowball home, too, if I were you. You will
be gone only four or five days, a week at the
most, you know.”

“I am afraid they will miss me,” said
Susan, coming forward to look wistfully at
her pile of treasures.

“No, they won’t,” said Grandmother, shaking
her head with decision. “They will be all
the more glad to see you when you come home
again. And they will be company for me, too.
You don’t want to leave me entirely alone,
do you?”

“Oh, Grandmother!” cried Susan, her
tender heart touched. “I don’t want to leave
you home alone at all. I won’t go. I won’t go
one step.” And she caught Mrs. Whiting’s
hand and patted it gently against her cheek.

“Nonsense, Susan,” answered Mrs. Whiting,
smiling down upon her granddaughter.
“How do you suppose Grandfather would
get along without you to take care of him? And
I expect to be too busy to be lonely. I hope to
finish my braided rug while you are gone.”

So Susan decided that, after all, she would
go with Grandfather, and that Grandmother
must be left in Flip and Snowball’s special
charge.

“Take good care of Grandmother, and be
good children yourselves,” whispered she a
day or so later, as she ran into the little
sewing-room to bid them good-bye. Flip and
Snowball had been placed on top of the sewing-machine
so that they might easily guard
Grandmother as she braided her rug. “Kiss
me good-bye and look at my new hat.” And
Susan stole an admiring glance in the mirror
at her new squirrel cap.

She felt very proud of her cap, with tippet
and muff to match, and once on the train she
sat up stiff and prim hoping some one
would say:

“Who is that good little girl in the squirrel
furs?”

But after waiting a whole minute to hear
the flattering comment which did not come,
Susan turned to look out of the window, and
sensibly forgot about herself and her furs as
she gazed at the world whirling past.

She was so interested in all she saw that the
journey seemed a short one, and she could
scarcely believe it was over when Grandfather
folded his paper and lifted down the suitcase
from the rack over his head.

But there on the platform stood Letty,
smiling shyly and holding fast to her father’s
hand, and, what seemed really wonderful to
Susan, Letty wore a little squirrel cap and
tippet and muff like her own.

“We are twins!” cried Susan in an ecstasy
of joy, as arm in arm they walked up the
street behind Grandfather and Mr. Spargo.

Her eyes were glancing hither and thither
as she surveyed the neat red-brick houses,
with white front door and glistening white
doorstep, each in its own spacious garden plot,
that made up street after street in Banbury
Town.

“We are real twins,” agreed Letty, her blue
eyes shining and her yellow curls dancing as
she nodded eagerly at Susan. “And we are
going to sleep together; Mother said so. And
I asked Annie what was for dinner to-night,
but all she would tell me was ‘Brussels
sprouts’ and ‘Queen of Puddings.’ You like
Queen of Puddings, don’t you?”

Susan admitted that she liked Queen of
Puddings. She had never before heard of
“Bussels sprouts,” but, if asked, she would
willingly have said that she liked them too, so
happy was she to be in Banbury and visiting
Letty Spargo.

“But I haven’t told you the nicest yet,
Susan,” went on Letty, squeezing her visitor’s
arm as she talked. “There is going to be a
Fair in our church two days after to-morrow,
and there is going to be a Blackbird Pie.
Mother is going to have it, Mother and Miss
Lamb. Miss Lamb is my Sunday-School
teacher. And they are making the curtains
for it now, red curtains with big blackbirds
flying all over them. Now aren’t you glad you
came to see me?”

Susan’s head was whirling. What was a
blackbird pie, and why should a pie have
curtains?

At dinner, Susan discovered that “Bussels
sprouts” were like baby cabbages, but it was
not until later in the evening that Mrs. Spargo,
seeing Susan’s bewilderment at Letty’s talk
of the Blackbird Pie, made clear the mystery
to her.

“It is not a real pie, Susan,” said she. “It
is going to be the largest dishpan we can buy,
covered with paper to look like a pie and filled
with little articles and toys that cost five or ten
cents each. You will pull a string, and out of
the pie will come something nice. And the
blackbird curtains are to drape the booth.
Do you understand?”

Susan smiled up into Mrs. Spargo’s face.
Already she felt at home with Letty’s mother.
And she liked Letty’s baby, too, a fat, good-natured
blue-eyed baby, not quite two years
old, who poked his fingers into everything and
who never cried no matter how many times he
sat down hard on the floor with a thump.

“He is a little bit banty because he is fat.
That is why he sits down so hard. But I like
babies to be banty,” said Letty loyally.

“I do too,” agreed Susan. “They are much
nicer that way.”

The next morning before sun-up, Letty and
Susan were awake, both very much surprised
to find themselves side by side in bed.

“I knew I was here when I went to sleep,”
said Susan, rubbing her eyes and staring
round, “but when I woke up I thought I was
home.”

“No, you are here,” said Letty, sitting up
on top of her pillow as if it were a stool and
speaking earnestly. “Now I’ll tell you what
I thought, Susan. You know the Fair is only
one day after to-morrow now. Don’t you think
we ought to begin to save right away so that
we can have lots of pulls at the Blackbird Pie?
And there will be ice-cream, too, and other
good things, I know. Have you any money?”

Susan was as business-like as Letty.

“Yes, plenty,” she answered, slipping
out of bed.

And a moment later, she and Letty were
gazing into the depths of her little green handbag
where shone three bright new ten-cent
pieces.

“Good,” said Letty. “Just think how much
we can buy with that. Now I haven’t any
money at all. But Father comes home to lunch
every day, and we will be there to meet him
when he comes up the street. I will ask him for
some money then, and when he goes back to
the office after luncheon I will ask him for
more. He will never remember,” said Letty,
with a confidence born of experience. “He is a
very absent-minded man. My mother herself
says so.”

Susan was charmed with this idea.

“Shall we keep it all in my pocketbook?”
she asked. Already she could see its green
sides bulging with riches.

Letty twisted a curl and pondered.

“No,” she decided at last, “for you might
take it out in the street with you and lose it.
I’ll show you where we will keep our money.”

And on tiptoe for fear of waking the baby,
she crept into the nursery next door and back.

“Here! just the thing,” said she, displaying
a little round white jar decorated with a
bunch of scarlet holly berries and prickly
green leaves.

“We can keep our money in this, because it
is mine. No one will touch it. And we will put
it on the end of the mantelpiece in the nursery,
up high where the baby can’t reach it. Shall we
do that?”

In answer, Susan shook her three ten-cent
pieces into the jar, and with head on one side
admired the effect.

“But if any one looks in he will see the
money, and maybe ask what it is for. Then we
can’t keep it a secret,” she objected.

Letty, with finger on lip, tiptoed into the
nursery again, and returned with a doll’s
brown-and-white checked sunbonnet in her
hand.

“It belongs to the baby’s doll, Lolly,” said
she. “I just snatched up the first thing I could
find. We will stuff it into the jar on top of
the money, and if people see it, they will think
we have left it there careless-like.”

The sunbonnet was tucked into the jar, and
the little girls felt perfectly sure that no one
would suspect the presence of money under it.

“It does look put there careless-like,
doesn’t it?” repeated Letty.

She liked to use those words which she had
borrowed from Annie the cook. Many times
had she heard Annie say, “I think I’ll toss
off a pudding, careless-like, for dinner,” or,
“I’ll give the room a little dusting, careless-like,
before your mother comes home,” and
she admired the turn of expression.

At noon that day, on his way home to
luncheon, Mr. Spargo was warmly greeted by
Letty and Susan halfway down the block and
escorted to his own door. Upon Letty’s
whispering in his ear, he slipped two ten-cent
pieces into her hand.

“One for each of you,” said he, good-naturedly
tweaking Letty’s nose, red in the
sharp November wind.

When he came out an hour or so later, he
was in a hurry, and in answer to Letty’s
murmur he dropped a handful of small coins
into her outstretched palm, and hastily
departed without waiting for the chorus of
thanks that followed him down the street and
round the corner.

“Four pennies, two fives, and a quarter. As
sure as I live, a quarter!” counted Letty. “Oh,
Susan, Susan!” And flinging their arms about
one another, the little girls hopped joyously
about until Susan tripped and went down
in a heap.

The girls found it hard to keep away from
the little holly jar. The money was taken out
and counted over and over each time the
nursery was found unoccupied save by placid
Johnny, who innocently played with his shabby
Lolly or ran unsteadily about the room, bumping
down and picking himself up undisturbed.

“Only to-day, and then to-morrow is the
Fair,” said Letty the next morning. “We
must be sure not to miss Father at noon.”

But to-day, of all days, Mr. Spargo did
not come home to luncheon at all. He and Mr.
Whiting were both busy with the mysterious
“case” at Banbury Court-House.

Letty and Susan consoled themselves by
counting the money and planning what they
would buy with it.

“And there is still to-morrow before we go
to the Fair,” suggested Susan hopefully.
“When are we going to tell, and show the
bowlful? Maybe Grandfather will give us
more when he hears about it.”

Susan enjoyed having a secret with Letty,
but she wanted to share it with Grandfather,
too.

“We will tell when we are ready to start for
the Fair,” answered Letty firmly, “and not a
minute before. You never can tell what will
happen.”

But this plan was not carried out. Letty
little knew how truly she spoke when she said
“you never can tell what will happen.”

The next day, the great Day of the Fair,
the money was counted the first thing in the
morning, as soon as Johnny had had his bath
and Mrs. Spargo had left the room.

“Five tens, one quarter, two fives, and four
pennies!” Susan and Letty had said it so often
that they could repeat it backward. It had
grown to be a chant that rang in their ears.

Half an hour later they stole back to
count it again.

“Look,” said Susan, stooping in the middle
of the room. She held out the little brown-and-white
sunbonnet that had hidden the money so
“careless-like.”

Letty ran to the mantelpiece. The jar was
gone!

For an instant she and Susan stared at one
another. Then they ran wildly about the room
looking in every nook and corner for the missing
jar, much to baby Johnny’s entertainment.
He sat on the floor sucking his fingers, and he
laughed and chuckled and kicked his heels up
and down as he watched the exertions of his
sister and her friend.

“Here it is,” called Letty at last. “By the
doll’s bed.” And from under the bed, where
slumbered Lolly face downward, out rolled
the little holly jar.

“But where is the money?” demanded
Letty. Her first fright over, she was
growing angry.

“There is something in Johnny’s mouth,”
announced Susan.

With a practiced hand, Letty put her finger
into the baby’s mouth and out came the quarter.

“Oh, you! You!” cried Letty. Her face
grew pink and she gave Johnny a shake that
sent him backward upon the floor.

Treated so unkindly and robbed of his new
plaything, Johnny burst into a wail that
brought his mother hurrying to his side.

While she listened to Susan and Letty, who
both talked at once in their excitement, Mrs.
Spargo was feeling carefully in Johnny’s
mouth and, when at last she spoke, she said:

“The first thing to do is to find the money,
for until we do I shall be afraid that Johnny
has swallowed some of it. Do you know how
much you had?”

“Five tens, one quarter, two fives, and four
pennies,” answered Susan and Letty in
a breath.

Mrs. Spargo smiled.

“Here is the quarter,” said she. “Now we
must all hunt for the rest of the money.”

“How did Johnny reach up to the mantelpiece?”
demanded Letty. “We have to
stretch and stretch, and we put the jar there on
purpose because it was so high.”

Mrs. Spargo pointed to a chair, and Johnny,
taking the hint, in a short time, in spite of his
bandy legs, had hitched and pulled himself up
until he stood upon the seat. He laughed and
clapped his hands and made a sudden spring
at his mother who caught him just in time to
save him from a fall.

“Rascal,” said she, patting him on the
back as he clung to her. “That is how he did
it. Now we must all look for the money.”

It was surprising the number of places
Johnny Spargo had contrived to hide the
money.

Four ten-cent pieces were found in Letty’s
doll carriage; three pennies were under the
rug; one five-cent piece was on the window-sill;
the other in the express wagon. But one
penny and a ten-cent piece were still missing.

“Oh, Johnny, did you swallow them?”
asked Mrs. Spargo.

But Johnny, not being able to talk, only
laughed and hid his face in his mother’s neck.

Susan and Letty were crawling about the
floor on their hands and knees when Mrs.
Spargo had a bright thought.

She unbuttoned Johnny’s little brown shoe,
and there, tucked in the side, was the penny.

“Now only the ten cents is lacking,” said
Mrs. Spargo. “How happy I shall be if we
find it and I know he has not swallowed it.”

But it seemed as though the ten-cent piece
was not to be found. Everything was turned
upside down and shaken, furniture was moved,
corners were brushed out, but no piece of
money came to light.

At last Susan and Letty dismantled the
doll’s bed, and vigorously shook and flapped
each little sheet and blanket. Letty fell upon
the pillows and beat them violently, while
Susan rescued poor Lolly from under foot,
and, holding her out of the baby’s reach,
danced her up and down to Johnny’s great
delight.

He stretched out his hands for his dolly, and
just then Susan gave a cry of joy.

“I’ve found it! It’s here! It’s inside Lolly.
Feel! Feel! It’s here!”

Sure enough, through a hole in poor old
Lolly’s back Johnny had poked the ten-cent
piece, and there it lay embedded in dolly’s soft
cotton inside.

“I’m so glad,” said Mrs. Spargo, “and so
relieved. I felt that it simply must be found,
and now here it is. My precious Johnny! You
didn’t swallow it after all.”

And Mrs. Spargo hugged Johnny as if he
had done something very wonderful indeed,
instead of turning his nursery topsy-turvy for
half an hour.

“I feel the same way,” confided Letty to
Susan in a low voice, “for I didn’t know what
kind of a time we would have at the Fair to-night
if we didn’t find that ten-cent piece.”

CHAPTER XI—HOW THE MONEY WAS SPENT
==================================

It was the night of the Fair.

Letty and Susan, on tiptoe with excitement
and carefully carrying the green leather bag
between them, walked to the church behind
Mrs. Spargo and Miss Lamb, whose Blackbird
Pie was all ready and waiting for customers.

In the green pocketbook reposed the “five
tens, one quarter, two fives, and four pennies.”

“See that star, Letty?” asked Susan, holding
tight to Letty’s arm as she gazed up at the
moon, half hidden in the clouds, and at a single
star that shone near by. “Let’s wish on it.”

  | “Star light, star bright,
  | First star I’ve seen to-night,
  | I wish I may, I wish I might
  | Have the wish I wish to-night”—

recited the two little girls in chorus.

There was silence for a moment, and then
Susan whispered:

“What did you wish, Letty?”

“Will you tell me if I tell you?” was
Letty’s reply.

Susan nodded, and bent her ear invitingly
to her friend’s lips.

“I wished that we would have a good time
at the Fair,” whispered Letty.

“So did I!” cried Susan, opening her eyes
wide. “So did I! Isn’t it strange that we always
think of the same thing? We must be
really truly twins.”

“We are,” answered Letty with conviction.
“I do wish you weren’t going home to-morrow.
I wish you could stay here forever.”

Here Mrs. Spargo and Miss Lamb turned
in at the church gate, gayly illumined to-night
for the Fair by a colored lantern, and the
“twins” followed close on their heels down a
narrow stone walk and through a side door
into the lecture-room of the church.

“This is the Sunday-School room,” whispered
Letty. “There is my seat over in the
corner. Oh, look, look! There is the Blackbird
Pie.”

And, sure enough, in the very corner where
Letty sat every Sunday morning in company
with four other little girls and Miss Lamb,
stood a booth draped with scarlet curtains over
which winged a gay flight of blackbirds. And
best of all, there was the Blackbird Pie in the
midst, so enticing with its profusion of strings,
so mysterious with its hidden treasure of “toys
and small articles for five and ten cents,” that
Susan and Letty made a bee-line in that direction
determined to spend all their wealth on
that particular attraction.

“Give me your hats and coats, girls,” said
Mrs. Spargo. “And if I were you, I would
walk around the room first and see what there
is for sale before I spent my money here.”

“Oh, just one pull, just one pull,” clamored
the little girls, gazing at the fascinating Pie
with eager eyes.

Mrs. Spargo laughed.

“Red strings are five cents, white ones are
ten,” said she. “Pull away!”

The green pocketbook was opened and the
bankers peered inside just as if they didn’t
already know the contents by heart.

“There are the two fives,” said Letty who
thought herself quite a business woman. “Let
us spend them now and get rid of them.”

So, after studying the Pie from all angles,
two red strings that seemed especially desirable
were chosen; and, grasping them firmly
and shutting their eyes, Susan and Letty each
pulled on her own string and out came two
little parcels, neatly wrapped in scarlet paper.

“Look, look!” called Susan, poking a small
plaid box, that held four colored pencils, in
Letty’s face.

“See mine, see mine!” answered Letty, returning
the compliment by thrusting under
Susan’s nose a tiny doll’s pocketbook, just big
enough to hold a cent.

“I like mine best,” said Susan contentedly.

“I do too,” responded Letty.

And, thoroughly satisfied, they set off hand
in hand on a tour of the room.

The handkerchief-and-apron table they
passed by with scarcely a glance. That booth
might be interesting to grown people, but they
didn’t intend to spend any of their money
upon such useful, everyday articles.

The fancy table came next in their wanderings,
and Susan and Letty, though admiring
the embroidered sofa cushions, the lace table-covers,
and the satin workbags, knew that they
could never afford such splendors.

“They must cost a hundred dollars,” said
Letty, who, since it was her church and therefore
her Fair, so to speak, felt that she must
supply Susan with information.

“Maybe we can find a little present here for
your mother and for Grandmother,” said the
country mouse to the city mouse in a low voice.

The city mouse nodded in reply and stood
on tiptoe for a better view. It had been decided
before leaving home that a present should be
bought for Mrs. Spargo and one for Mrs.
Whiting.

“There seem to be little things down at
this end,” announced Letty. “Come on. I’m
going to ask.”

And, catching the eye of one of the ladies in
charge, she piped up:

“Please, have you any presents here for
about ten cents? We want one for my mother
and one for Susan’s grandmother.”

“Ten cents?” said the lady, shaking her
head. “I’m afraid not. But let me look about
and see.”

Presently she returned with a handful of
articles which she placed before her small customers.

“I’ve nothing for ten cents,” said she
kindly. “But here are several articles for
twenty-five and thirty and fifty cents.”

“Oh, Letty, I want that for Grandmother,”
said Susan, forgetting both her shyness and
her manners as she pointed a forefinger at an
object which she felt sure would delight
Grandmother beyond words.

It was a pale-blue stocking-darner with a
little girl painted on one side and a little boy
on the other, and Susan knew in her heart that
she would never be happy again unless she
could carry it home to-morrow and place it in
Grandmother’s hands.

“That is twenty-five cents,” said the lady,
and she waited patiently while Susan and
Letty put their heads together and consulted
whether they ought to spend so large a sum.

At length Letty decided it.

“We will,” said she recklessly.

So the stocking-darner was wrapped and
tied and handed over to Susan, who, without a
single qualm, watched Letty take the precious
quarter from its resting-place in the green
pocketbook and hand it across the counter. It
was money well spent, she thought.

“Now we must buy something for my
mother,” said Letty. “How do you like this,
Susan?”

It was a long purple box covered with
bunches of violets and scrolls of gilt. In it
were three cakes of strongly scented violet
soap.

“I like it,” said Susan, sniffing vigorously.
“The box is pretty, too. Maybe your mother
will give it to you when it is empty.”

“I will take this, please,” said Letty, with
the air of an experienced shopper.

And so easy and so delightful is it to form
the habit of spending money that Letty and
Susan didn’t even blink when they heard the
price, “thirty cents.”

They moved on, laden with their bundles,
their eyes glancing hither and thither as they
missed nothing of the gay scene about them.
The Fair was now at its height. Every one was
either buying or selling or walking about,
laughing and talking, and all displaying their
purchases in such a holiday mood, that Susan,
at least, felt that she had never been in such a
festive scene before.

They had halted near the despised apron
table when, glancing up, Susan spied above
her head a doll made of Turkish toweling.

“Letty,” said she, pulling at her friend’s
dress, “can’t we buy that doll for Johnny? I
know he would like it, and his old Lolly has a
hole in her back.”

So Letty, as spokesman and guardian of the
pocketbook, bought and paid for the soft little
dolly which fortunately proved to cost only
ten cents.

Near the apron table was a half-open door
which led into the church kitchen. In the kitchen
stood the high freezers that supplied the
popular ice-cream table, and, busily washing
dishes with her back turned to the door, stood
hard-working Swedish Mrs. Jansen, who was
glad of the money that the church cleaning
and any odd jobs might bring to her.

Her little girl Emmy, no older than Letty
and Susan, stood at her elbow, ready to act as
errand girl. And just at the moment that Susan
and Letty caught sight of her, Emmy was
in disgrace, for her mother turned angrily
upon her and with her hard fingers snipped
the sides of her flaxen head. Then she resumed
her dish-washing, and Emmy slunk away to
the door, where she stood rubbing her sharp
little knuckles in her eyes and peeping out at
the gay scene in which she had no part.

“Did you see that?” asked Letty indignantly.
“Wasn’t that the meanest?”

“Wasn’t it?” answered Susan, her eyes
round with sympathy. “Let’s buy her a present.”

Present-buying, if Susan had stopped to
think, seemed to be somewhat like running
downhill—not so easy at the beginning, but,
once started, the simplest thing in the world.

And Letty was of one mind with her.

“Ice-cream,” she decided. “And we will
watch her eat it.”

Glowing with patronage and generosity,
and feeling as important as if they were
treating a whole orphan asylum, Letty and
Susan led the astonished Emmy across the
room to the ice-cream table.

“The best ice-cream that you have for ten
cents,” ordered Letty largely.

And in a few moments they had the pleasure
of seeing Emmy devour, in luscious
mouthfuls, a large saucer of the pink-and-white
frozen sweet.

“When are we going to have ours?” asked
Susan, who began to think it would be fully as
pleasant to sit down and eat ice-cream herself
as to stand with hands full of bundles and
watch some one else enjoying the treat.

“Right now,” returned Letty, with an air
of authority.

She opened the pocketbook as she spoke, but
after a glance inside she turned a dismal
countenance upon her friend.

“We’ve spent it,” she faltered. “We’ve
spent it all but four cents.”

And she held the pocketbook, now woefully
empty, so that Susan might see the sad truth
for herself.

Susan stared blankly from the pocketbook
into Letty’s face.

“Won’t we have any ice-cream at all,
then?” she asked piteously.

Resourceful Letty turned and led the way
down the room.

“We will just ask mother for some money,”
said she airily.

But alas for their plans! The Blackbird Pie
was so popular, and both Mrs. Spargo and
Miss Lamb were so occupied, that they did not
even see Susan and Letty, who tried in vain to
gain their attention.

They wandered back to watch Emmy finishing
her ice-cream, quite innocent of the fact
that her benefactors’ feeling toward her had
undergone a change.

“Greedy thing,” said Letty spitefully.
“See how she gobbles.”

“She’s spilling it,” murmured Susan.
“Look at her. Even Johnny wouldn’t do
that.”

“Look, look!” gasped Letty. “Did you
ever?”

For poor Emmy, to whom ice-cream was a
rare treat, had lifted her saucer in both hands
and was polishing it off with her little pink
tongue, for all the world like a pussy-cat.

“Come along,” said Letty impatiently.
“We can buy some candy, anyway, with our
four cents.”

At the candy table another disappointment
awaited them. They looked scornfully at the
two squares of fudge which was all their four
cents would buy for them.

“I never knew anything like it,” scolded
Letty, with her mouth full. “You can do a
great deal better round the corner from home.
It’s only a penny a square and much nicer
than this.”

“Good-evening, young ladies,” said a voice
over their heads, “I hope you are enjoying the
Fair to-night.”

The little girls looked up into the face of the
new minister, Dr. Steele, and Susan hastily
licked off her finger-tips so that she might
shake hands politely, while Letty choked on a
large crumb of fudge and burst into a spasm
of coughing.

“I hope you are both enjoying the evening,”
repeated Dr. Steele, pulling out his
handkerchief and offering it to Letty, whose
eyes were streaming with tears and who had
left her handkerchief in her coat pocket. He
and Letty were old acquaintances, but it was
Susan who answered his question, since Letty
was unable to speak.

“We did have a good time,” said Susan
frankly, “until we spent all our money. But
now we aren’t having a good time, for our
money is all gone and we haven’t had a bit of
ice-cream; not a bit.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” burst out Letty,
who had recovered her voice. “I think everybody
charged us too much for everything, and
that is why we haven’t any money left.”

Dr. Steele’s eyes twinkled.

“I have heard that complaint before about
church fairs,” said he. “Suppose you show me
what you bought, and I will tell you whether I
think you have been overcharged.”

So Susan and Letty spread their purchases
out upon a bench, and Dr. Steele sat down to
look them over.

“The pencil box and the pocketbook were
five cents apiece,” began Letty. “But they are
all right because Mother sold them to us. Then
Susan bought a stocking-darner for her
grandmother. Show it to Dr. Steele, Susan.
That lady in a blue silk dress made her pay a
quarter for it, and I think she asked too much.
And she made me pay thirty cents for this
present for my mother. I think she ought to
give us some of the money back.” And Letty
shook her head wrathfully at the broad back
of a placid, fair-haired lady who stood behind
the fancy table.

Dr. Steele glanced at the lady and smothered
a laugh. It was his own wife, Mrs. Steele,
whom Letty had not recognized without a hat.

Dr. Steele admired both presents and looked
at the price tags still tied to them.

“No,” said he at last. “They are marked
twenty-five and thirty cents. I don’t think you
were overcharged here. I think you have good
value for your money. And you spent ten
cents on a doll for the baby, and ten cents to
treat a little girl to ice-cream, and four cents
on candy for yourselves. No,” repeated Dr.
Steele soberly, shaking his head, “I think you
have proved yourselves excellent shoppers,
and that you have spent your money to very
good effect. And I now invite both you young
ladies to be my guests at the ice-cream table.”

Dr. Steele rose, and escorted Susan and
Letty across the room. He sat down between
them, and, though he was able to eat only one
plate of ice-cream while they easily devoured
two apiece, he seemed to enjoy the treat quite
as well as they.

When they had finished, there stood Annie
in the doorway, waiting to take them home.
Mrs. Spargo would stay until the Fair closed,
and that would be too late for the little girls
to be out of bed.

“Good-night,” said Dr. Steele, shaking
hands. “And remember what I told you. That
you are excellent shoppers, and that you have
good value for your money, very good value,
indeed.”

CHAPTER XII—THANKSGIVING IN FEATHERBED LANE
===========================================

It was the morning of Thanksgiving Day,
and Susan woke, sat up in bed, and looked
about her. Beside her, on the quilt, lay the
black-and-white shawl dolly, and, if you remember
that she came out to play only when
Susan was ailing, then you will know, without
being told, that Susan had been ill.

Yes, for three whole days Susan had been in
bed. But to-day she meant not only to be up
and dressed, but to go downstairs as well, for
to-day was Thanksgiving Day, and to stay in
bed on such an occasion was something Susan
didn’t intend to do.

Four days ago Susan and Grandfather had
come home from Banbury. They had arrived
late in the evening, and Susan, tired out, had
fallen asleep in her chair at the dinner-table,
and had been carried up to bed without telling
Grandmother a single word about her visit or
even presenting her with the stocking-darner
which she had carried in her hand all the way
home from Letty’s house.

Of the next two days all Susan could remember
was a sharp pain and a big black
bottle of medicine, with occasional glimpses
of Grandmother and Grandfather tiptoeing
about the darkened room.

But yesterday Susan had felt more like herself.
She had enjoyed cuddling the shawl
baby, she had eaten a plate of milk toast for
her dinner, and she had given Grandmother a
complete history of her visit from the moment
she left Featherbed Lane until her return.

She had asked to see Flip, but Grandmother
had said mysteriously that Flip, in her turn,
had gone visiting, and that she wouldn’t be
back until dinner-time Thanksgiving Day.

“When is Thanksgiving Day?” Susan had
asked.

“To-morrow,” Grandmother had answered,
and Susan had sprung up in bed with a cry.

“Won’t I be well to-morrow?” she asked
imploringly. “Won’t I be well for Thanksgiving
Day?”

Grandmother at this moment was shaking
the big black medicine bottle. It did seem to
Susan that it was always medicine time,
though Grandmother said it was marked on
the bottle “To be taken every two hours.”

Mrs. Whiting smiled at her tone of despair.

“I think so,” said she encouragingly.
“That is, if you take your medicine nicely,”
she added, approaching the bed with a large
spoon in one hand and the bottle in the other.

Susan shut her eyes and opened her mouth.
Down went the medicine, and, without a
whimper and with only a wry face to tell how
she really felt, Susan smiled bravely up at
Grandmother.

“A good child,” said Grandmother approvingly.
“I’m sure you will be downstairs to-morrow.”

Now to-morrow had come, and Susan, slipping
out of bed and into her warm rosy wrapper
and slippers, trotted downstairs in search
of some one.

She found Grandmother quite alone, save
for a delicious smell in the air of roasting
turkey. Grandmother was busy baking, but
she stopped long enough to help Susan dress
and to answer a few of the questions that tumbled
pell-mell from Susan’s lips.

“Where is Grandfather? Gone to Thanksgiving
service at church. You slept late this
morning, Susan. When will Phil be home? Not
for two weeks. They have all gone to his
grandfather’s for Thanksgiving, and they
mean to visit his Great-Uncle Fred, who gave
him his electric train, on their way back.”

“Is any one coming here for Thanksgiving,
Grandmother?” asked Susan, delicately eating
a bowl of bread and milk for breakfast
from one end of the table on which Mrs. Whiting
was stirring up a cake.

“Miss Liza is coming,” answered Mrs.
Whiting, stopping her work and putting
down her spoon. “I may as well tell you now,
Susan, I suppose. Miss Lunette is married.”

Susan looked at Grandmother for a moment
without speaking. How unkind of Miss
Lunette to have a wedding while she was
away!

“Didn’t she save me any cake?” she asked
at length. “Did Phil go to the wedding?”

“There wasn’t any wedding, Susan, or any
cake,” answered Mrs. Whiting. “No one was
invited but Miss Liza. They stood up in the
parlor and Mr. Drew married them. Then they
went off to Green Valley, where her husband
lives.”

“Maybe she will ask me to come to see her
there,” said Susan hopefully.

“Perhaps she will,” said Grandmother. “It
may be the making of her, Susan,” she went
on, half to herself. “She certainly was full of
whims and crotchets, and would try the patience
of any one but a saint like Miss Liza.
Your Grandfather always said that all she
needed was hard work, and I think she will
have it now, for her husband was a widower
with three children and an old mother, too. It
may make a woman of her. I hope so, I’m
sure. I know things won’t be so hard for Miss
Liza, and I’m glad of that.”

And Grandmother beat her batter with such
determination that her cheeks grew pink and
her little white curls bobbed up and down in
time with the beating.

“Is Flip coming with Miss Liza?” asked
Susan.

“Um-um,” was all Grandmother answered.

So Susan put away her little bowl and went
into the front hall to call upon her friend the
newel post.

“You ought to be dressed up for Thanksgiving,”
decided Susan, stroking her friend’s
bulky form. “Which do you like best, pink or
blue? Pink, did you say? Then Snowball shall
wear a blue ribbon and you shall have a pink
one on your neck to celebrate the day.”

Susan spent some time selecting and arranging
the ribbons to suit the taste of all concerned.
She then found the table set for
Thanksgiving dinner, so she posted herself in
the front window where she could look all the
way down the lane to the gate and report to
Grandmother the moment old Nero’s Roman
nose was visible.

She watched and watched, and at last they
came jogging along, Miss Liza well wrapped
up against the cold November air that had a
“feel” of snow in it, and Grandfather wearing
his fur-lined gloves for the first time this
season, Susan observed.

In came Miss Liza, while Grandfather
drove on to the barn, and to Susan’s delight
Miss Liza carried a big bundle which she
placed in the little girl’s outstretched arms.

“It’s Flip,” Susan repeated joyfully. “I
know it’s Flip. It’s my Flip.”

Yes, it was Flip, but a Flip so changed, so
beautified, so transformed that only the members
of her own family would have known her.

In the first place, her face and hands, which
had grown a dingy brown, had become several
shades lighter, producing a fresh, youthful
appearance heretofore sorely lacking. Her
bald head had blossomed out in a beautiful
crop of worsted hair, in color a rich garnet-brown.

“Miss Lunette always used that color for
her worsted hens,” Miss Liza explained,
“and I thought it would make real pretty-looking
hair for Flip.”

Susan was delighted with the effect. She
smiled radiantly at Miss Liza. But when she
examined her child’s complete new wardrobe,
she put Flippy down on the couch, and flung
her arms first around Miss Liza and then
about Grandmother’s neck.

For Flippy wore a new set of underwear,
even to a red flannel petticoat trimmed with
red crocheted lace. She wore a brown cloth
dress, elaborately decorated with yellow feather-stitching.
But, most beautiful of all, about
her sloping shoulders was a dark-blue cape,
lined with scarlet satin and edged with narrow
black fur; upon her head was tied a dark-blue
fur-trimmed cap to match, from under which
her garnet worsted hair peeped coyly; and, oh,
crowning touch! about her neck upon a ribbon
hung a black fur muff.

Susan’s excitement and delight were such
that even Thanksgiving dinner seemed of
little importance compared with this unexpected
trousseau of Flippy Whiting. Susan
did manage to sit still in her chair at the table,
but she turned every moment or two to smile
happily upon Flip, who returned her glances
with proud and conscious looks.

“One square inch of turkey for Miss Susan
Whiting,” announced Grandfather, when at
last her turn came to be served, “and a thimbleful
of mashed potato, one crumb of bread,
and an acorn cup of milk. And that is all the
dinner you get, if I have anything to say
about it.”

And Grandfather brandished the carving knife
and looked so severe that Susan went off
into a fit of laughter in which every one joined.

“Were there many out at church this morning?”
asked Grandmother. “Was Mr. Drew’s
sermon good?”

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Grandfather,
“that I have to go out this afternoon. I
promised Parson Drew that I would take
something to eat down to the Widow Banks.
The Young People’s Society gave her five
dollars to buy a Thanksgiving dinner for
herself and her six children, and if she didn’t
go spend the five dollars on a crepe veil and
a Bible.”

Grandfather gave a chuckle as he thought
of the surprise that the Widow Banks had
given the Young People.

“I don’t blame her,” said he stoutly. “She
probably takes more pride and pleasure in
what she bought than we can imagine. The
neighbors won’t let her starve. You fix up a
good basket for her, won’t you, Grandmother?”

And that Mrs. Whiting did, though she
shook her head over what she termed “extravagance
and shiftlessness.”

A little later, Susan and Mr. Whiting, who
carried a large basket, the contents of which
would mean far more to the six hungry Banks
orphans than would a crepe veil and a Bible,
started down Featherbed Lane on their charitable
errand.

“The air will do Susan good,” Grandfather
declared. “And if she is tired, I will carry her
home. It isn’t far, anyway.”

Susan enjoyed both the walk and the short
call they made at the dingy little white house
in the Hollow.

Mrs. Banks, a thin, tearful wisp of a woman,
with pale-blue eyes and untidy hair, gratefully
accepted their offering; and the six
sorrowful little Banks cheered up immediately
when word went round as to what the basket
held, so their visitors made haste to be gone,
that they might be kept no longer from their
Thanksgiving feast.

While Mr. Whiting talked to Mrs. Banks,
Susan gazed round the poor little room, and
eyed the Banks orphans standing in a row like
steps, who, to do them justice, quite as frankly
eyed her in return. The crepe veil was not in
evidence, but on the mantelpiece lay the new
Bible, black and shiny, and smelling powerfully
of leather.

“Yes, six of them,” said Mrs. Banks in her
melancholy voice, waving her hand at the line,
which looked more dejected than ever when
attention was thus directed to it. “And not
one of them old enough to do a stroke of work
or to earn a penny.”

“This is Richie,” she went on, pointing to
the tallest son of Banks, who dug his bare toes
into the floor in an agony of embarrassment.
“He’s the flower of the family. He will
amount to something. He never opens his
mouth for a word. He’s like me.

“And this is Mervin. He eats like a fish.
And his brother Claudius is not far behind
him. I gave them their names, for I do like a
rich-sounding name. Mr. Banks wasn’t of my
way of thinking. He was all for plain, commonsense
names. He named the next two,—Maria
and Also Jane.”

“‘Also,’ did you say?” inquired Mr.
Whiting, who was thoroughly enjoying his
call. “That is a name new to me.”

“It was a mistake,” explained Mrs. Banks
dolefully. “The two girls were christened together,
and, after Maria was baptized, the
minister turned to Jane and, says he, ‘Also
Jane Banks,’ and ‘Also Jane’ she has been
to this day, for her father wouldn’t go against
the minister’s word for anything in the world.”

“What is the baby’s name?” asked Mr.
Whiting, preparing to depart.

“Her name is a compromise,” answered
Mrs. Banks, pulling out her damp
handkerchief to wipe the baby’s eyes which had
instantly overflowed at hearing herself called
a “mean name,” as she whimpered into her
mother’s ear. “To please me we named her
Cleopatra, but we always call her Pat, her
father was such a one for plain names.”

When Mr. Whiting and Susan reached
home they found Grandmother and Miss Liza
rocking placidly before a roaring fire, and
room was made for Grandfather’s chair with
Susan on a cricket at his feet.

“Now, we will tell what we are most thankful
for,” said Grandmother, when the story of
the call at the Banks’ had been related, and a
way of helping Mrs. Banks support her six
children had been discussed. “You begin,
Miss Liza.”

“I’m thankful,” said Miss Liza, without a
moment’s hesitation, “for good friends, for
health, and a home.”

“I’m most thankful,” said Grandmother,
“for Grandfather, and Susan, and a peaceful
life. I couldn’t live in strife with any one.”

Grandfather thrust his boots out toward the
fire and pulled his silk handkerchief from
his pocket.

“I’m thankful,” said he, carefully spreading
his handkerchief over his head, “I’m
thankful for my home, and that means Grandmother
and Susan, and I’m thankful, too, that
I have my own teeth. I mean it, I’m not
joking.” And he soberly snapped his strong
white teeth together without a smile.

“I’m thankful,” piped up Susan, glad her
turn had come, “for Grandfather, and Grandmother,
and Miss Liza, and Snuff, and Flip,
and Nero, and—”

Grandfather caught her up from the cricket
and held her in his arms.

“My black-eyed Susan,” said he, tenderly.

Susan looked round with a smile.

“I think,” said she,—“I think I’m thankful—why,
I think I’m thankful for just
everything.”

THE END

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