Heart of Gold

CHAPTER IV

"Yes," the doctor admitted. "But I am afraid now that it is her only chance. However, it is perfectly agreeable to me if you wish to consult other authorities. I myself would be glad to hear the opinions of specialists."

So it happened that a few days later a strange doctor bent over the white bed in the Flag Room, and when he had punched and poked to his heart's content and Peace's abject misery, another physician took his place.

"Dr. Coates said I hadn't cracked a rib," moaned the unhappy victim tearfully, as she saw the second unfamiliar face above her, "but I'll bet that man who just went out has cracked the whole bunch for me. Is that your business, too?"

"No, my dear," tenderly answered the big, burly specialist, beginning his examination with such a gentle, practised touch that Peace scarcely winced throughout the long ordeal. "My business is to mend cracked ribs—also cracked backs. Does yours feel very badly cracked?"

"All splintered up sometimes," the child promptly admitted. "It gets so bad in the night when there's no one here to rub it that I can't help crying once in a while. I tried to rub it myself the other night, but it took all my breath away and I could hardly get it back again. The bed is so hot! Dr. Coates said ages ago that I could get up in two months, but it's more'n that now and he shakes his head every time I ask him."

"Are you then so anxious to get out of this dear little crib?"

Peace stared hard at the kindly face so near her own, and then ejaculated, "'Cause it's a dear little crib doesn't make it any cooler nor any easier to stay tucked in when you are just crazy to be dancing about. Why, it's June now! They told me I'd be well so's I could plant the pansies on my Lilac Lady's grave, seeing as Allee had to set out all the vi'lets without any of my help. And now Hicks has had to transplant the pansies 'cause they will soon be too big."

"Tell me all about it," urged the specialist, as if every minute of his time was not worth dollars to him; and Peace poured her heart full of woe into his sympathetic ears. When she had finished he abruptly asked, "Supposing Dr. Coates told you that an operation would be necessary before you could get well, would you let him perform it?"

"What's a noperation?" asked Peace inquisitively.

"There is something out of place in your back, caused by your fall. It is pressing against the spine and must be lifted up where it belongs before—you can ever—get well."

"And can Dr. Coates lift it up where it b'longs?" Peace was breathlessly interested.

"Yes,—we think so,—we hope so," stammered the doctor, startled by the eager tone of her voice and the quick light in her big eyes.

"All right then, we'll have the noperation. I'd most begun to think I was going to be like my Lilac Lady. My legs don't feel any more, and she said hers didn't."

"God forbid," muttered the man, who had already lost his heart to the little invalid, and was deeply touched by the pathos of the case; and gathering up his glittering instruments, he hurried from the room.

That night a cooling rain washed the fever from the air and the world awoke refreshed from its bath. The hot wave had broken, but to poor Peace the cool atmosphere brought little relief. The injured back hurt her cruelly and she could not keep the tears from her eyes.

"I knew that first doctor would crack a rib," she sobbed wildly, as the distracted President strove in vain to ease her pain. "Why doesn't Dr. Coates come and noperate? O, it does hurt me so bad, Grandpa!"

Laying the child back among her pillows, the stalwart man hastily fled down the stairway, and when he came back Dr. Coates and a sweet-faced, white-capped nurse were with him. The room across the hall was stripped of its furnishings and scrubbed with some evil-smelling stuff until the whole house reeked with it. Then the walls were draped with spotless sheets, and the next morning Peace was borne away to the improvised operating room, where only Dr. Coates, the kindly-faced stranger physician, their young assistant and the nurse were allowed to remain.

Peace looked about her curiously, murmured drowsily "I can't say I admire your dec'rations," and fell asleep under the gentle fumes of the ether.

It seemed hours later when she awakened to consciousness and saw about her the white, drawn, anxious faces of her loved ones. "Then I'm not dead yet," she exclaimed with satisfaction. "That's good. Did you get my back patched up, Dr. Coates?"

The horrible strain was broken. With stifled, hysterical sobs, the family hurriedly withdrew, and the nurse bent over the bed with her finger on her lips as she gently commanded, "Hush, childie, you mustn't talk now. We want you to get some sleep so the little back will have a chance to heal."

"Can I talk when I wake up?" Peace demanded weakly.

"Yes, if you are very good."

"All right. You can go now. I don't like folks to stare at me when I'm asleep. It d'sturbs my slumber." Closing her eyes once more, she fell into a dreamless sleep, and the doctors departed, much pleased with the result of their operation.

The days of convalescence were busy ones in the Campbell household, for it required the combined efforts of family, nurse, doctor and friends to keep the restless patient's attention occupied. St. John and Elizabeth came often to the big house, bringing Glen or Guiseppe or Lottie to amuse the prisoner; Miss Edith laughingly declared that she was more frequently found in the Flag Room than in her own home; Ted and Evelyn vied with each other to see which could run the most errands, read the most stories, or propose the most new plays during the long vacation hours; and even busy Aunt Pen found opportunity occasionally to steal away for a brief visit with the brown-haired sprite who had brought so much joy into her own heart and life.

For a time the operation seemed a decided success, the back appeared to be stronger, the pain almost disappeared, and the nurse was no longer needed in the sick room. One day a wheel-chair was substituted for the bed where Peace had lain so many weeks; and for the first time since the accident, she was carried out under her beloved trees, where she could watch the flowers bud and blossom, smell their perfume on each passing breeze, and listen to the nesting birds in the branches overhead. But the crutches she had so fondly dreamed of, which were to teach her to walk again, were not forthcoming, and with alarm she saw the summer slip rapidly by while she lay among the pillows in the garden.

When she spoke of it to the older sisters, they answered cheerily, "Be patient, girlie, it takes a long time for such a hurt to heal," and turned their heads away lest she should read the growing conviction in their eyes.

"It's so hard to be patient," she protested mournfully. "You bet I'll never climb another roof."

"No," they sighed sadly to themselves, "I am afraid you never will."

But the cruel truth of the matter was broken to poor Peace at a most unexpected moment. She was resting under her favorite oak, close to the library window, one warm afternoon, planning as usual for the day when she could walk again; and lulled by the drowsy hum of the bees and the soft swish of the leaves above her, she drifted off to slumberland. A slanting beam of the setting sun waked her as it fell across her face, and she sat up abruptly, hardly realizing what had roused her. Then she became aware of voices issuing from the library beyond, and Allee's agonized voice cried out, "O, Grandpa, you don't mean that she will never, never walk again? Must she lie there all the rest of her life like the Lilac Lady and Sadie Wenzell until the angels come and get her? Grandpa, must she die like they did?"

With a startled gasp, Peace leaned forward in her chair, then sank back among the pillows with a dreadful, sickening sensation gripping at her heart. They were talking about her! She strained her ears to catch the President's reply, but could hear only an indistinct rumble of voices mingled with Allee's sharp sobs. So the angels had carried Sadie Wenzell to her home beyond the Gates! Idly she wondered when it had happened and why she had not been told. It had been one of her dearest plans to visit Sadie some day and see for herself how she enjoyed the scrapbooks which had cost Peace so much labor and lament. Now Sadie was gone.

"Grandpa, Grandpa, why couldn't I have been the one to fall and hurt my back?" wailed the shrill voice from the open window. "'Twouldn't have made so much difference then, but Peace!—O, Grandpa, I can't bear to think of her lying there all the long years—"

Again the voice trailed away into silence, and Peace lay stunned by the significance of the words. All her life chained to a chair! All her life a helpless invalid like the Lilac Lady! The black night of despair descended about her and swallowed her up.

They thought her asleep when they came to wheel her into the house before the dew should fall; and as she did not stir when they laid her in the white swan bed, they stole softly away and left her in the grip of the demon Despair.

So this was what the Lilac Lady had meant when she had said so bitterly, "You will turn your face to the wall, say good-bye to those who you thought were your friends, build a high fence around you and hide—hide from the world and everything!" The words came back to her with a startling distinctness and a great sob rose in her throat.

"What is it, darling?" asked a gentle voice from the darkness, and Peace, clutching wildly for some human support in her hour of anguish, threw her arms about the figure kneeling at her bedside, and cried in terror, "O, Grandma, I can't, I can't!"

"Can't what?" asked the sweet voice, thinking the child was a victim of some bad dream, for she never suspected that Peace could know the dreadful truth.

"I can't stay here all the rest of my life! I wasn't made for the bed. My feet won't keep still. I must run and shout. O, Grandma, tell me it isn't true!"

But the gentle voice was silent, and the woman's tears mingling with those of the grief-stricken child told the story. Clasping the quivering little body more tightly in her arms, the silvery-haired grandmother sobbed without restraint until the child's grief was spent, and from sheer exhaustion Peace fell asleep.

Then, loosing the grip of the slender hands, now grown so thin and white, she laid her burden back on the bed, and as she kissed the wet cheeks and left the weary slumberer to her troubled dreams, she whispered sadly, "Good-night, little Peace,—and good-bye. We have lost our merry little sprite. It will be a different Peace who wakens with the morrow."

CHAPTER V

"Peace, are you awake?" persisted the pleading voice, for the brown eyes stared unblinkingly straight ahead of her, and not a muscle of her tense body moved. "May I come in and sit beside you?"

"No!" screamed Peace in sudden frenzy, almost paralyzing the little petitioner on the threshold. "Go away! You can walk and run and jump, and I never can again. You've got two whole legs to amuse yourself with and mine are no good. Get out of here! I don't want to see anyone with legs today—or tomorrow—or ever again!" Jerking the pillow slip over her eyes she sobbed convulsively, and Allee, with one terrified look at the quivering heap under the bed-clothes, rushed pellmell from the room, blinded by scalding tears.

Peace had sent her away! Peace did not want her,—would not have her any more! It was the greatest catastrophe of her short life to be banished by Peace; and stumbling with unseeing eyes down the hall, she ran headlong into the arms of someone just coming up the stairs.

"Why—" began a husky, rumbling voice, and Allee, thinking it was the President on his way to the sick-room, sobbed out, "O, Grandpa, she sent me away! She says she never wants to see a pair of good legs again. You better—"

"It's not Grandpa, little one," interrupted the other voice. "It's I,—St. John. Do you think she will let me in? Because I have come especially to see her."

But a sharp, imperative voice from the Flag Room answered them. "Come back, Allee, I'm sorry I don't like the looks of legs today, but I want you just the same,—legs and all."

For an instant Allee looked unbelievingly up into Mr. Strong's eyes, as if doubtful that she had heard aright; then as the minister gave her a gentle push toward the door, she bounded lightly away, and when the Hill Street pastor reached the threshold the two sisters were locked fast in each other's arms.

All at once, through the tangle of Allee's curls, the brown eyes spied the form of her beloved friend hesitating in the doorway; but instead of looking surprised at his presence, Peace pushed the little sister from her and demanded fiercely, as if his being there were the most natural thing in the world, "Make faces at me, St. John,—the very worst you know how."

"Why, my dear—" stammered the young minister, as much amazed at his reception as he could have been had she dashed a cup of water in his face. "Why, Peace, I don't believe—"

"Of course you know how to make faces!" she interrupted scornfully. "Do you s'pose I've forgotten that day in Parker down by the barn? Make some now,—the most hijious ones you can think of."

There was nothing to do but to comply with her strange whim; so, rumpling up his thick, shining black hair, he proceeded to distort his comely features into the most surprising contortions imaginable. But with the heavy ache in his heart and a growing lump in his throat at the pitifulness of her plight, he was not real successful in diverting her unhappy thoughts, and with a mournful wail of woe she burst into tears.

"My child!" he cried contritely, and in an instant his strong arms closed about the huddled figure, and he held her fast, crooning softly in her ear as a mother might over her babe, until at length the convulsive gasps eased, grew less frequent, and finally ceased.

There was a long-drawn, quivering sigh, a last gulp or two and Peace hiccoughed, "It's no use, St. John. I can't coax up a ghost of a smile from anywhere. I've thunk of all the funniest things that ever happened to me or anyone else; I've scratched my brains to 'member the funny stories I s'lected for Sadie Wenzell's bunch of scrapbooks; I've even pretended the funniest things I could imagine, but it won't work. I knew if there was a sign of a laugh left inside of me, your horrible faces would bring it out. It did in Parker, when I thought I never could smile again. But this time—get your legs out of sight,—under the bed,—anywhere so's I can't see them. I don't like their looks!"

Had the situation been less tragic, he could not have refrained from laughing at the ludicrous way she bristled up and snapped out her command; but mindful only of the great trouble which had suddenly overshadowed the young life, he hastily tucked his long limbs out of sight under the edge of the bed, slumped as far down in his chair as he possibly could, and fell to energetically stroking the brown curls tumbled about the hot, flushed face, as he vainly tried to think of some comforting words with which to soothe the rebellious, sorrowful child.

From below came the sound of a voice singing softly, and though the words were indistinguishable, the three occupants of the Flag Room caught snatches of the tune Peace loved so well, the Gleaners' Motto Song. Recalling the days when the brown-eyed child had made the little Hill Street parsonage ring with this very melody, the preacher unconsciously began to chant,

"Well, don't it beat all?" exclaimed Peace wearily.

"Doesn't what beat all?" mildly inquired the pastor, as she made no effort to explain her words.

"How some folks will wear a tune to a frazzle," was the disconcerting reply. "There's Faith, now, she hasn't played anything for days 'xcept 'Carve-a-leery-rusty-canner!' And when it ain't that it's 'Nose-arts Snorter,' or those wretched archipelagoes. I'm so sick of 'em all that I could shout when she touches the piano. As for that song you were just droning,—why, everyone in this house seems to think it's the only thing going. There is nothing left of it now but tatters."

The preacher had abruptly ceased his humming, and as Allee crept quietly from the room to hush the singer below, he suddenly remembered a commission given him by his wife; and fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a small book, daintily bound in white and gold. "Elspeth sent you this booklet, dear," he ventured, somewhat timidly, for after two such rebuffs as he had received in his endeavor to cheer the sufferer, he was at a loss to know what to say or do next. "She could not come today herself, but she thought this little story might please you."

"Thanks," replied Peace, dropping the volume on the pillow without a spark of interest in face or voice. "I'd rather have seen her. She has got some sense. Books haven't. I've been stuffed so full of stories, I am ready to bu'st." Then, as if fearing that she had been rude to this dearest of friends, she added hastily, "But I s'pose there is room for one more. It must be good or Elspeth wouldn't have sent it. What is it about?"

"It's the story of a little girl named Gwen, who fell from—"

Peace stopped him with a peremptory wave of her hand. "That will do for the present," she said coldly, in such exact imitation of Miss Phelps that no one who had ever met the teacher could possibly mistake her tone. "I don't like the name. It sounds like 'grin'."

The minister rubbed his head in perplexity. Never in all his acquaintance with Peace had he seen her in such a mood. Was this child among the pillows really Peace, the sunbeam of this home, the sunbeam of every home she chanced to enter? Poor little girl! What a pity such a terrible misfortune should have befallen her! She stirred uneasily, and he hurriedly asked, "Would you rather I should go away and leave you alone?"

"No! O, no!" She clutched one big hand closer with both of hers, and a look of alarm leaped into her eyes, so heavy with weeping. "It's easier—the pain here," laying one thin hand over her heart, "it's easier with you here. I wish you had brought Elspeth."

"She will come some other day," he answered gently, glad to see a more natural expression creep over the white face, though his heart ached at the sorrowful tone of her voice. "What would you like to have me do? Talk?"

"Yes, if you've anything int'resting to say," she murmured drowsily.

"And if not?" For he saw that it would be only a matter of minutes before she would be in the Land of Nod again.

"Then just hold me. I'm tired," she answered wearily.

So he sat and held her on her pillows until her regular breathing told him that she was fast asleep, when, laying her back upon the bed, he left her with a heavy heart.

"I never dreamed that a child so young could take it so hard," he confided to his wife in troubled tones when he had told her the whole sad story. "She seems to have grown old in a night."

"Poor little birdie," Elizabeth tenderly murmured, stroking the dark hair from her sleeping son's forehead as she laid him in his crib for his nap. "Why did they tell her so soon? The family themselves haven't grown accustomed to the meaning of it yet."

"No one knows how she learned it, Elspeth. She was asleep under the trees when the President came home with the sad news. He had been to consult that famous specialist about the child's condition when the surgeon told him that the case was hopeless, so far as her walking again is concerned. He was so unmanned by the verdict that he blurted it out to Mrs. Campbell immediately upon his return home, and the girls overheard it. But Peace was out-of-doors all the while. She didn't waken for dinner; but when everyone was in bed, Mrs. Campbell heard her crying, and went to discover what was the matter. They are terribly broken up about the whole affair. It seems wicked to say so, but had the accident happened to any other of the sisters, it would not have seemed so dreadful. What is Peace ever going to do without those nimble, dancing feet?"

"Our Peace will surprise us yet," prophesied the little wife hopefully. "This experience won't down her, hard as it seems now, if she is made of the stuff I think she is."

But as the days rolled by in that afflicted household, it really seemed as if they had lost their engaging, winsome little Peace for all time, so changed did the invalid grow. Nothing suited her, everything annoyed. The girls talked too much or were too silent; the servants were too noisy or too obviously quiet; the President's shoes clumped and his slippers squeaked; Mrs. Campbell always pulled the curtains too low or not low enough. The dogs' barking fretted her, the singing of the canary made her peevish, even the cat's purring brought forth a protest; but as soon as the unreasonable patient discovered that all the pets had been banished on her account, she demanded them back. However, the long-suffering members of the family could not find it in their hearts to chide, and they redoubled their efforts to make their little favorite forget. Those were gloomy days in the Campbell household, for they sadly missed the merry laughter, the gay whistle, the unexpected pranks and frank speeches of this child of the sunshine and out-of-doors. At first they had tried to be cheerful and full of fun in the sick-room, hoping to win back the merry smile to the white lips; but Peace resented this attitude, and straightway they ceased their songs and laughter, only to have her demand them again. Unhappy, capricious Peace!

"Why don't you play on the piano any more?" she inquired of Faith one afternoon, when it was that sister's turn to amuse the invalid for an hour or two.

"Do you want me to?" cried Faith eagerly, for her fingers were just itching to glide over the ivory keys.

"Of course,—s'posing you play something pretty."

So Faith took her place at her beloved instrument and dashed into a brilliant, rattling jig which had always been a favorite of the brown-haired sister.

But she had played scarcely a dozen measures when a shrill, imperious voice from above shrieked, "Don't play that! O, stop, stop! Can't you see it's got legs?"

"Legs?" wondered Faith, her hands poised in mid air, so abruptly had she ceased her playing.

"There's a million pair of legs to that tune and every one of 'em can dance. Play something without legs."

The utter ridiculousness of the complaint did not occur to Faith, but with an unusual display of patience, she tried air after air, hoping to find something which might satisfy the childish whim of the lame sister, only to be rewarded at last by a peevish call, "You may as well give it up, Faith. They've all got legs."

The entire family was at their wits' end. No one had a sane suggestion to offer, and their hosts of friends were in the same predicament. When it seemed as if something must surely give way under the strain, Peace suddenly subsided into a state of utter indifference to her surroundings, more alarming to her loved ones than had been her peevish, unreasonable demands. Nothing interested her, books she loathed, conversation bored her, neighborly calls from her dearest friends wearied her, she no longer yearned for the sunshine and flowers of the garden; indeed, she showed no desire to be out-of-doors at all, but lay day after day in the wheel-chair by the balcony window, staring with somber, unseeing eyes out over the river. Nothing family or friends could do roused her from her apathy, and despair descended upon the household. Must this little life which they loved so dearly fade away before their eyes, and they helpless to prevent?

"O, Donald," sobbed Mrs. Campbell, clinging desperately to her husband's strong arm, "I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it! She takes it so hard! It is torture to watch her suffer so. Our precious Peace!"

"If only her St. Elizabeth could come to her!" sighed the baffled President.

But it was not her beloved saint of the parsonage who saved the day. It was her Lilac Lady, now sleeping under the sod of the wind-kissed hillside, and Aunt Pen was her messenger.

It was a breathless, sultry afternoon in late summer when the sweet-faced matron of Oak Knoll turned in at the President's gate and sought out the invalid lying motionless under the oak trees where the fierce heat had driven her. The little face among the pillows was no longer rosy and round; blue veins showed at the temples, the lips were colorless, the eyes hollow; the hands, once so brown and strong, were thin and waxy-white; the whole body lay inert,—lifeless, it seemed; and a pang of fear gripped the gentle heart brooding so tenderly over the poor wrecked life.

"Are you asleep, darling?" she whispered softly, touching with light fingers the clustering rings of dark brown which covered the shapely head.

The mournful eyes opened dully, and Peace murmured parrot fashion, "Good afternoon, Aunt Pen. I hope you keep well these hot days. You must take care of yourself, you know."

Secretly amazed, the woman merely stooped and kissed the white face, as she settled herself comfortably in a nearby chair and cheerily answered, "Yes, I am well, dear, and all the little birdlings are, too. I intended to bring Giuseppe and his violin this afternoon, but—"

"It's just as well you didn't," interrupted the other voice in lifeless tones. "Prob'ly his music has legs, too, and I haven't any use for such things these days."

"But he had promised to play for a dear old lady at the Home," continued Aunt Pen, as if she had not noticed the interruption. "So I brought you—"

"Some more magazines," again broke in Peace, perceiving the gay covers in the woman's hand.

"That was very kind of you I'm sure, but I have a whole libr'y at my—at my de-mand. So you put yourself to a lot of trouble all for nothing."

"This is a different kind of magazine from any you have," replied the woman soberly, though sorely tempted to smile at the stilted, unnatural tones of her little favorite.

"Is it?" Just a spark of interest flickered in the somber eyes. "Why, I thought I had the whole c'lection already. Folks seem to think I don't want to do anything but read, and they keep the house pretty well filled up with magazines, old and new. Last week I had Allee telephone to the Salvation Army to come and get them. But it didn't do any good,—we've had as many more brought in since."

"This is the one your Lilac Lady was reading when she—fell asleep," said Aunt Pen gently, a little catch in her voice as she thought of Peace, doomed to spend the rest of her days in a wheel-chair, just as that other girl, the Lilac Lady, had done.

"Oh! And you brought it to me! I sh'd think you would want to keep it yourself."

"I did, dearie. I laid it away among my treasures, but today I chanced upon it, and in turning the pages, I caught a glimpse of a slip of paper written on, in her handwriting. I had not examined the book since the day I picked it up from the floor beside her chair; but this morning I drew out the scrap she had written and found a little message for you—"

"For me?" Incredulous surprise animated the white face.

"Yes, dear. Some verses she had written that last hour,—not even complete. I know she intended them for you. Perhaps she felt that she would be—asleep—before you came, so she wrote a little message for you, Peace, but I never found it until today. Would you care to have me read it to you?"

"Let me read it, please." Peace snatched the paper eagerly and with jealous eyes scanned the simple stanzas penned so many months ago for just that very moment.

Once, twice, three times she read the lines. Then turning puzzled, wondering eyes upon Aunt Pen, she whispered eagerly, "What does it all mean, please? Did she really feel that way, Aunt Pen? Did I scatter sunshine after all? Was she happier when I was with her? O, did I—make her—forget?"

"More than you will ever know," answered the woman warmly, squeezing the thin fingers lying across her knee. "You brought back the sunshine she thought had gone out of her life forever. You gave her something to live for, something to do, made life seem worth while. O, my little Peace, it is just as the poem tells you,—you gave her hope!"

For a long time the child lay lost in thought, and only the faint rustling of the leaves overhead broke the stillness. Then she said sadly, glancing down at the useless feet in their gay slippers, "But I had my legs then."

"You have your smile now. A happy heart is worth more than a dozen pair of legs, dear. It was your merry voice, your gay laughter, your joyous nature that cheered your Lilac Lady. Surely you didn't lose all those when you lost the use of your feet!"

Peace smiled ruefully. "You'd have thought so if you had lived with me since I got hurt," she confessed.

"I don't believe it," Aunt Pen vigorously contradicted. "Our real Peace, our little sunbeam has just been hiding under a dark cloud all this while. She is coming back to us her own gay self some day,—soon, we hope."

"Do you b'lieve that?" Peace eagerly demanded.

"I know it," the woman answered with conviction.

"But s'posing I have really forgotten how to laugh and—and whistle, and be nice?"

"Pshaw! As if you could have forgotten all that, dear! But even then, it is never too late to learn, you know."

"That's so. And maybe after a bit it would be easier. I—guess I'll—try to learn—again, Aunt Pen. May I keep this little poem so's I won't forget any more? It's really mine, for she wrote it for me, didn't she?"

"Yes, indeed, darling. That's your message. You helped your Lilac Lady, and now she is going to help you."

CHAPTER VI

It was just a week since Aunt Pen's visit to the President's house, but already a remarkable change had come over the little invalid in her wheel-chair prison. The dull indifference had disappeared from the thin face, the hopeless look from the somber eyes; and though there was still a sadly pathetic droop to the once merry mouth, she seemed to have shaken off the deadly apathy which had gripped her for so long, and to have taken a fresh hold upon life again. True, it was hard work to smile and look happy with the dreadful knowledge tugging at one's heart that one must be a helpless cripple for the rest of her days, but the first smile had made it easier for the second to come, and gradually the old merry disposition came creeping back. Aunt Pen was right,—her real self had only been in hiding, and with the lifting of the cloud the sunshine of that gay spirit burst forth again.

She was tired of being idle, and with characteristic energy that very morning had surprised and delighted the whole household by demanding something to do,—some real work with which to fill the long hours. And Miss Smiley had promptly suggested Indian baskets, spending many precious minutes of a busy forenoon teaching the weak fingers how to weave. Peace was a-tingle with pride over her accomplishment, especially when she was told of its possibilities and scope; and straightway began planning to send her first finished product to the State Fair which was to open its gates soon.

So as she wrestled with the damp raffia sad willow sticks after Miss Edith had left her, she so far forgot her trouble that the old, familiar laugh bubbled up to her lips, and once she paused in her work to answer a trilling bird in the branches overhead. She was all alone on the wide, shady lawn, and so engrossed in her own thoughts that she never heard the chug-chug of a motor-car gliding up the river road, nor saw the black-frocked figure leap nimbly from the machine and scurry up the walk to the kitchen door, as if in too big a hurry to enter the house in the proper manner. But she did hear the boisterous shouts of Cherry and Allee a few moments later, as they burst through the screen door and raced through the short, sweet clover toward her, each clamoring to tell her the news which stuck out all over them.

"I reached her first!" Allee repeated, waving the older sister off.

"Pig!" returned Cherry. "You always—"

"Tut, tut," interrupted a voice from behind, in tones of mock severity. "Are you girls quarreling? I'm ashamed of you. Peace, what is it all about?"

Mr. Strong, light of step and radiant of face, appeared on the scene by another path; and Peace, flinging down the raffia basket which her busy fingers were weaving, stretched out eager arms in welcome. "It's something they both wanted to tell me, St. John, but they stopped to scrap about it, and I hain't heard what it is yet."

"Bet you meant to steal my thunder, didn't you?" He turned merry, accusing eyes upon the pair of culprits, and they flushed guiltily. "But you just aren't going to do it this time. I shall tell her myself. It is my news, you know."

Both heads bobbed solemnly, and Peace, excited and not understanding, cried imperiously, "Tell me quick. I'm half dead with curiosity. Has old Tortoise-shell got some more kittens or—Say, you haven't put Glen in pants yet?"

"No," he laughed delightedly and the two sisters giggled in glee. "Guess again. It happened last night."

"Somebody sent you a present?"

"The most wonderful gift!"

"Two of 'em," put in impatient Allee, but the minister held up a warning finger, and she quickly subsided.

"Two!" repeated Peace, much mystified. "What can they be? Oh, I know—monkeys!" For ever since the day that Peace had brought the sick, half-dead monkey home to the parsonage, it had been Glen's fondest dream to own one himself.

"No!" Mr. Strong and the other two girls exploded in a gale of laughter.

"Give it up then," Peace promptly retorted. "I mightn't guess in a hundred years and I'm fairly bu'sting to know."

"Well, girlie, the angels brought us two little babies last night for our very own. Two! Think of it!"

"Twins!" gurgled Allee, ecstatically hopping from one foot to the other.

"Both girls!" added Cherry, hugging herself from sheer joy at being part bearer of the glad tidings.

"Truly, St. John?" asked Peace, almost too amazed for words.

"Truly, my lady."

"Well, what do you think of that! I bet you were s'prised. Now weren't you? What do they look like? Are they pretty?"

"I can't say they are very beautiful to look at yet," admitted the fond father. "They resemble scraps of wrinkled red flannel more than anything else just now. But they will improve. Glen did, and he was a caution to took at when he was a day old."

"Are they big or little?"

"Neither is very large, but one is tinier than the other,—weighs only four pounds. She isn't such a brilliant scarlet as her sister, and we think she will have dark eyes and black hair. The reddest one has blue eyes now, is bald-headed, and possesses a most excellent pair of lungs. The Tiniest One has cried only once so far, but its twin makes up for it."

"What are their names?" The three girls hung breathlessly on his answer.

"That's one reason I am here now," the minister replied gravely. "Elspeth and I couldn't discover any suitable names for the twinnies, so she sent me down here to consult with Peace—"

"O—ee!" squealed the girls.

"Mercy!" whispered Peace in awed amazement. "Does she really want me to name her babies?"

"Shouldn't you like to?"

"O, so much! But most mothers would thank other folks to let them do their own naming. Or, if the mothers didn't mind, prob'ly the children themselves would kick when they grew up. There was our family, for one. Grandpa Greenfield named the most of us, and see what a job he made of it. He went to the Bible for us, too."

The minister's lips twitched, but Peace was so very serious that he dared not laugh; so, after an apologetic cough behind his hand, he suggested politely, "Then suppose we arrange it this way,—if the first names you select don't suit, we will tell you so, and you can pick out some others."

"O, don't I have to think them up today? I s'posed you would want 'em right away. Grandpa named us the first time he looked at us, Gail says."

"Well, we needn't be in such a big hurry as that, girlie. It took us a month to decide what we should call our boy, and if you want that long a time, take it."

"I don't think I shall," she replied, viewing her unusual and unexpected privilege with serious eyes. "Not being a mother or a father, I don't expect it will take me more'n a few days to find very pretty names." Then, as if struck by an important thought, she asked, "But how will you Christian them, s'posing I don't hit on some likely names before a month is up?"

"Christian them!"

"Yes. Like they did Tommy Finnegan's baby brother. He was only seven days old, but he had to have a name before the priest could Christian him."

"Oh!" Mr. Strong was enlightened. "There is no set time in our church for christening babies, dear. We call it baptizing in our church, and sometimes parents don't have their children baptized until they are old enough to understand for themselves what it means."

"Then you won't be having the twins chris—baptizzened for some time yet!"

"No, probably not until Children's Day—"

"Why, that's already gone by! There won't be another until next summer!"

"Next June. But that is usually the time we perform that ceremony in our church, although any other time is just as good."

"Well, I'll have your children named by that time,—don't you fret. Allee, won't you bring me 'Hill's Evangel' from the Library? I 'member that has strings of names in it."

"'Hill's Manual,'" corrected the preacher, picking up his hat and preparing to depart.

"Is it? St. John says it is 'Hill's Emanuel,'" she called after the fleeing sister. "It's a big dirty-red book and you will find it in the furthest corner of the bookcase on the next to the lowest shelf. Why, St. John, must you hustle away so soon? You've hardly got here yet. Perhaps I could have some names ready for you to take home with you if you'd wait a while longer."

"Thanks, Peace," he bowed courteously. "But I must hurry home and mind the kiddies. There is no one there to look after them and Elspeth except the nurse and Aunt Pen. I told them I shouldn't be gone but a few minutes, and here it is almost an hour. Good-bye, Peace. Good-bye, Cherry. I'll come again soon."

"Good-bye, St. John, and next time bring the twins with you."

"O, Peace," gasped Allee, who was just returning with the heavy book in her short arms, and overheard the sister's parting admonition; "they're too fresh yet. Grandma says it will prob'ly be several weeks 'fore they get taken anywhere."

The preacher, convulsed with laughter, glanced back over his shoulder and seeing the look of disappointment in the brown eyes, rashly promised, "This shall be the first place they visit, girlies, and we'll bring them just as soon as they are old enough."

So he swung out of sight down the driveway, and Peace turned to her delightful task of finding suitable names for the little strangers at the parsonage.

"They ought to begin with the same letter," suggested Cherry, wishing it had fallen to her lot to name a pair of twins, "like Hazel and Helen Bean."

"Or else rhyme with each other," put in excited Allee, thinking it a most wonderful privilege which had been granted Peace, "like Pearl and Beryl Whittaker."

"Or they might suggest the same thing," ventured Hope, who had heard the good news and had come out to see what progress the favored sister was making. "For instance, Opal and Garnet Ordway. The opal and the garnet are precious stones, you know."

"These twins are precious babies," interrupted Peace in decided accents, "and we shan't call them such heathenish names as stones. This book, now, has a long line of names,—here it is,—and there ought to be some pretty ones amongst them, though I can't say the a's sound very nice. There is only one decent one in the bunch and that's Abigail."

Hope, leaning over the back of her chair, scanned the list beginning with a's and thoughtfully read aloud, "Abigail, Achsa, Ada, Adaline, Addie, Adela, Adelaide, Adora, Agatha, Agnes, Alethea, Alexandra, Alice, Almeda, Amanda, Amarilla, Amy, Angeline, Anna, Annabel, Antoinette, Augusta, Aurelia, Aurora, Avis,—that last one isn't so bad—"

"It isn't so good, either," Peace retorted. "It sounds like the thing you fall into when you tumble off a steep mountain. I wouldn't want a baby of mine called that."

"Abyss, you mean," suggested Hope, when the other sisters looked mystified. "No one else would ever think of such a thing."

"No one else needs to. I'd do thinking enough for all if I tacked such a name on a little baby that couldn't help itself."

It was very evident that Peace had taken a deep dislike to the name, so Hope said no more, and they turned their attention to the next letter with no better success. Peace was too critical to be easily satisfied, and when the whole list had been thoroughly considered several times, she sighed, "There is only one nice name on the page."

"And that is—?" Hope ventured.

"Elizabeth."

"But that is Mrs. Strong's name!" all three chorused.

"Don't I know it? And can't a baby be named for its mother? Gail was. The only trouble is there is no other pretty name to go with it. Nothing rhymes with it, and none of the other e's are nice enough."

"Hasn't Mrs. Strong a sister named Esther?" asked Cherry, consulting the list again.

"Ye—s, but since I knew Esther Kern, I've lost my liking for that name. I can't bear to think of one of those lovely twins growing up into such a pug-nosed, freckle-faced sauce-box."

"Well, here is 'Evelyn,'—that is pretty enough, I'm sure."

"And Evelyn Smiley would say the baby was named for her. I'd sooner call it Peace, and be done with it."

"Then how about Edith, for Miss Smiley?"

"It's too short. Elizabeth has four pieces to it, and it wouldn't be fair to give less than four to the other one."

So the search for a name went on, and each succeeding day found Peace no nearer her goal. Whenever the busy pastor appeared for a brief chat, she had to own defeat, and beg for a little more time. One day a brilliant thought occurred to her, and the next time the preacher's shining black head appeared at the gate he was greeted with the excited yell, "What is Elspeth's middle name? It isn't right to call one baby after its mother and the other after nobody."

"Elspeth has no middle name—"

"Neither have I," sighed Peace. "When I marry, my middle name will be Greenfield, but until then I haven't got any."

"That's the way with Elizabeth."

"I was afraid it would be, but I hoped she would be more fortunate than me."

Another idea buzzed through her brain.

"What's your middle name? Maybe we could make something out of that."

"I am afraid not," he smiled. "I was named John Solomon, after my two doting grandfathers."

"Solomon!" she echoed in great disappointment. "Mercy! I wouldn't name a cat that!"

"Neither would I," he agreed quite cheerfully, and Peace returned to the much thumbed 'Hill's Manual' once more to consider the list of e's.

"I've a notion to call the Tiniest One Evangeline," she mused. "It's exactly as long and almost as pretty. Only it sounds so much like these preachers that get up and rage and dance all over the pulpit while they are trying to think of what they meant to say. I should hate to think of either twin growing up to be a woman preacher, 'specially the Tiniest One. I always wanted to call her Elizabeth, 'cause she is so much gooder than the Tiny One, but St. John says she has dark eyes. Elspeth's are blue, so it ought to be the blue-eyed baby that's named for her, I s'pose, even if it does cry more. Mercy, in another two days the month will be up, and I must have those names by then. It's hard work always to say the Tiny One and the Tiniest One."

Again she fell into a brown study, but two days later found her as undecided as ever, and she concluded to ask for just one more week in which to make up her mind. However, when Mr. Strong appeared for his brief visit that morning, his face looked so sadly grave as he bent over the crippled child to give her his usual kiss of greeting that she cried apprehensively, "What's the matter, St. John! Has anything happened to the twins?"

"One of them—the Tiniest One—flew away with the angels last night," he answered simply, turning his face away that she might not witness his grief.

For a moment his reply dazed her; then she threw both arms about his neck, and burst into tears, sobbing as if her heart would break, while he dumbly sought to soothe her sorrow, by cuddling her head on his shoulder and rubbing his quivering cheek against hers, for he could not trust his voice to speak.

The first outburst of grief over, Peace shook the tears from her eyes, loosened her strangling grasp about his neck and gulped, "Well, that makes the naming of them easier, doesn't it, St. John! I was so fussed up to find something nice enough to go with Elizabeth, but now we'll just call the Tiniest One 'Angel Baby' and be glad that God didn't lug off both twins. But oh, I do wish He had waited a little while longer until I could have seen the two live twins."

So they comforted each other, and when the grave-eyed minister left her a few moments later, she was smiling ever so faintly, while the heaviness of his heart had lifted a bit, and he felt better for the child's sympathy.

Sitting alone in her chair under the trees after the tall, black-frocked figure had disappeared down the avenue, Peace suddenly heard the voice of Mrs. Campbell through the library window saying in troubled tones, "I really ought to go up to the parsonage myself and see Mrs. Strong in person. She would appreciate it more than anything else, but it is utterly impossible to go today, with that Board Meeting to attend to. I suppose I might write a little note of condolence now and make my call tomorrow, but such things are so stiff at best—"

Abruptly Peace remembered that she had sent no message by St. John to her sorrowing Elspeth, and with feverish eagerness she caught at her grandmother's suggestion of a note, turning to the table beside her chair where lay the dirty-red book which she had consulted so often during the past few weeks.

"I'll write her, too," she decided. "There are some lovely corndolences in this 'Manual,' and I wouldn't for the world have her think I didn't care terribly bad because one of her babies has died."

With impatient fingers she turned the worn and ragged pages until she found the section she was seeking. Then pulling out pen and paper, she laboriously copied one of the stilted, old-fashioned epistles printed under the title of "Letters of Sympathy," and despatched it, hidden under a beautiful spray of white daisies and fern, to the little parsonage on the hill.

Elizabeth herself received the badly blotted missive, and with startled, mystified eyes, read the incongruous words penned by that childish hand.

"My dear Friend,—I realize that this letter will find you berried in the deepest sorrow at the loss of your darling little Angle Baby, and that words of mine will be intirely inacqueduct to assawsage your overwhelming grief; yet I feel that I must write a few words to insure you that I am thinking of you and praying for you. If there can be a coppersating thought, it is that your darling returned to the God who gave it pure and unspotted by the world's temptations. The white rose and bud I send (Jud says there haint any in blossom, so I'll have to take daisies) I trust you will permit to rest upon your darling's pillow.

With feelings of deepest symparthy, I remain, dear friend,

Yours very sincerely,
                Peace Greenfield."

On the other side of the inky sheet were scrawled a few almost illegible lines, "My darlingest St. Elspeth, I have neerly squalled my heyes out because St. John says your Angle Baby has flewn back to Heaven and I wanted it to stay. But I am glad you have got another twin so the little crib St. John told us about won't be all empty and you will still have one reel live baby to rock to sleep besides Glen. This note of corndolence on the other page is the best I could find. All the others were too old. This one fits pretty well, but I had to change it a little, and even now it is stiff like Grandma says all notes of corndolence are. But I guess you will know I am as sorry as can be, for I love you and want you to be happy.

Your Peace."

And Elizabeth, looking with tear-dimmed eyes from the bungling little note to the lovely, snow-white daisies in the box, was strangely comforted.

CHAPTER VII

"Why, don't you 'member the letter Hope got last Christmas asking her to write five more just like it and send them to friends of hers?"

"Well, but that's only five letters."

"Yes, 'twould be if it stopped there, but each of those five people had to write five letters more and give them to their friends. Five times five is twenty-five, and then those twenty-five would write five letters. Don't you see how it would keep growing till there would be hundreds and hundreds of letters written?"

Allee nodded solemnly, and Peace fell into a brown study. Presently she announced decidedly, "I b'lieve I'll do it. I like the scheme."

"Do what? What scheme?" inquired Allee, somewhat absently, as she critically surveyed her brilliant splotch of color, and wondered if she had added enough red to her sunset.

"I'll start an endless chain myself."

"What do you want silk scraps for?" Allee's brush fell unheeded from her hand, and the blue eyes shot an amazed glance up at the figure in the wheel-chair.

"I don't want any silk scraps, but I can ask for something else, can't I?"

"What shall you choose?" Allee was now alive with curiosity.

"Well,—I don't really know—just yet," Peace was obliged to confess. "It wouldn't be right to ask 'em each for a dime, like Hope's letter did, to endower a hospital bed, 'cause I haven't got the bed, and anyway I don't need money. Grandpa's got enough for us all. Now if we'd just known of this plan in Parker, p'raps we could have paid off our mortgage without any trouble."

"But then Grandpa wouldn't have found us, and we prob'ly would still be living in the little brown house on that farm," responded Allee, with a frown.

"That's so. I hadn't thought of that. Well, it can't be money that I'll ask for, and I don't want silk scraps. Just now I can't think of a thing I want real bad which Grandpa can't get for me,—'nless it is buttons."

"Buttons!" repeated Allee, wondering if Peace had lost her senses altogether. "What do you want buttons for? What kind of buttons? Ain't your clothes got enough buttons on 'em now? Grandma—"

"Sh!" Peace cautioned, for in her surprise Allee had unconsciously raised her voice almost to a yell. "I don't mean that kind of buttons. I mean fancy ones just for a c'lection."

"But what good will a c'lection of buttons be?" demanded Allee, more puzzled than before. "What can you use 'em for?"

"What can you use any c'lection for?" sarcastically retorted Peace, exasperated at the little sister's stupidity. "What does Henderson Meadows use his c'lection of stamps for? Just to brag about and see how many more kinds he can get than the other boys."

"But—I never heard of such a thing as a c'lection of buttons," persisted Allee, privately worried for fear Peace was going crazy. "No one that I know has got one."

"They will have as soon as I get mine started," the other girl stoutly maintained. "You wait and see."

Allee shook her head doubtfully and slowly reached out her hand for her gorgeous sunset which strongly resembled a rainbow in convulsions.

"You don't seem to like the plan," suggested Peace, more than ever determined to make the venture, just to prove to this skeptical creature that she knew what she was talking about.

"I—don't think—it will work," replied truthful Allee.

"Well, I'll show you. Miss Edith said when she was a girl it was a fad one winter to see who could get the biggest and prettiest string of buttons, and when I was telling Grandma she laughed and said they had the same thing a-going when she was a girl."

"But I don't see any sense to it," protested the younger sister, still unconvinced.

"I never saw a c'lection yet that had any sense to it, when it comes to that," Peace reluctantly admitted. "What sense is there in saving up a lot of dead bugs like Cherry's been doing all summer, or a bunch of horrid, nasty, dirty old pipes, like Len Abbott was so proud of; or even all those queeriosities that Judge Abbott kept in his library and said was worth so much money! I ain't a-going to do it for the sense there is in it, but it'll be awful lonesome for me when you girls go back to school this fall, 'specially as the doctor says I mustn't have a teacher of my own yet, and I can't do any real studying all by myself." Privately, Peace was much pleased with this verdict, but she thought it unnecessary to say so. "That's why I thought it would be a good plan to get something like this started which would help fill up the time while you and Cherry were shut up in school, and Grandma was too busy to pay attention to me."

Allee's antagonism and skepticism vanished as if by magic. She had opposed this beautiful plan which would mean so much to her crippled sister! In deepest contrition she enthusiastically proposed, "Let's write the letter now and send it off so's your answers will begin coming in as soon as they can. I guess I didn't 'xactly see what you meant at first. I think it'll be a nice plan."

"All right," Peace replied, quick to take advantage of favorable circumstances. "You get the paper and ink. I've used mine all up out here. And say, s'posing we keep this endless chain plan a secret among our two selves. You can have half the buttons that come in; but if Cherry should know, she would prob'ly want a share, too."

"Maybe 'twould be better," Allee agreed, as she ran away to the house for writing materials.

Then began the task of composing a letter which should cover their wants; but so many obstacles presented themselves to the inexperienced writers, that the afternoon had waned before a satisfactory epistle had resulted.

"There," sighed Peace at length, "I guess that will do. It is short enough so's it won't take anyone long to make five copies, and it's long enough so's no one can be mistaken about what we mean. I wish I knew whether Hope kept the one she got. Maybe we could have gone by that and made a better letter of ours. This one in the magazine didn't help very much 'cause it talks about the Ladies' Aid, and we couldn't use that, for everybody would know a Ladies' Aid would want something besides buttons in their work. Do you think ours will do?"

"Yes, it's perfectly elegant," the younger child replied, lovingly fingering the inky page of tipsy letters which she had just finished. "Now who are you going to send them to?"

"I've been thinking of that all the while we were writing, and I've already got a list of more'n five."

"Who?"

"Well, there's Lorene Meadows for a starter. She lives in Chicago and is acquainted with slews of kids which we don't know. Then there's Mrs. Grinnell in Parker, and Hec Abbott and Tessie and Effie and Jessie and Miss Dunbar and Annette Fisher and Mrs. Bainbridge and Mrs. Hartman and oh—all the Parker folks."

"Then s'posing we write more'n five to begin with."

"I hadn't thought of that. There's no reason why we shouldn't. Let's make it ten,—that's all the stamps I've got."

"All right."

Both girls set to work laboriously scribbling the ten copies of their chain letter, then sealed and addressed them, and Allee dropped them into the mail box on the corner just as the dinner bell pealed out its summons to the dining-room.

School began the next Monday. The following day the first link in the endless chain was received from Lorene, who enclosed twelve handsome buttons and asked full particulars about the button collection, as she desired to start one for herself, and could Peace send her twelve buttons in exchange for hers? This was an unforeseen development, but Peace was so delighted with this first dozen that she set Allee to hunting up stray buttons about the house with which to satisfy the demands of any other youthful collectors. On Wednesday two more answers were received, one from Mrs. Grinnell, containing forty of the oddest looking buttons the girls had ever seen; and one from a stranger in Chicago, probably a friend of Lorene's, for she, too, asked for buttons in return.

Peace sighed, divided the contents of the two packages with an impartial hand, and remarked, "It's lucky Mrs. Grinnell don't want forty in exchange. We had only thirty-six to begin with, and Lorene's twelve and this girl's eight leaves us only sixteen, s'posing we get many more answers asking for some."

Fortunately for her peace of mind, however, only one other letter made such a request, but a new dilemma arose. Packages began to arrive with insufficient postage, and the crippled girl's pocket money vanished with alarming rapidity. The letter carrier always delivered the daily budget of mail to the little maid under the trees when the weather permitted of her being at her post, and it chanced that for a fortnight after the answers to her endless chain began pouring in, she received her own mail, so no one but Allee knew her secret, and there was no one but Allee to help her out with her heavy postage bills.