"What are you doing, Artie dear?" asked Anne.
He looked up at her with big round blue eyes. He was a quiet, good-tempered little fellow, now perplexed with serious thoughts.
"I'm going to hang up all two my socks," he announced.
"Why, Arthur-boy! that sounds selfish—not like you," exclaimed Anne. "You don't want more than your share of Santa Claus's pretty things, do you? Don't you want him to save some toys and books and candies for other little boys?"
Arthur followed his own course of thought, without regard to Anne's questions. "One sock is for me," he said. "I hope Santa'll 'member and give me what I asked him."
"What did you ask him to bring you, honey?" inquired Anne.
Arthur looked at her gravely. "I'se forgot. Was so many fings. And one sock is for Santa C'aus. I'm going to fill it all full of fings. A apple. And popcorn balls—Marfa made 'em. And my dear woolly dog's for Santa. Will he care if it's foot's bwoke?"
"But, Arthur darling," suggested Anne, "I wouldn't give the woolly dog away. You love it best of all your toys."
"Yes, I do," agreed Arthur. "Old Santa'll love him, too. And I'll give him my wed wose. Mamma wored it to her party las' night. Smell it, Anne; ain't it sweet? And see here,"—he opened his chubby fist. "Fahver give me five cents. I'm goin' to give it to Santa C'aus. And tell him to buy him anyfing he wants wif it."
Anne hugged him heartily. "You dear, cute, generous, precious darling!" she exclaimed.
Arthur drew away with sober dignity. Anne's caresses interfered with his serious occupation. "I was w'iting Santa a letter," he explained. "But I can't w'ite weal good. I'm fwead he can't wead it. Wouldn't you w'ite my letter, Anne?" he asked, gazing doubtfully at his scribbling.
"That I will. I'll write just what you tell me," said Anne. "Give me the pencil. And you may hold Honey-Sweet while I'm writing."
This was the letter:—
"Dear Santa Claus,—I thank you for the presents you gave me last Christmas. I thank you for the presents you are going to give me this Christmas. Santa Claus, the things in this sock are for you. I give you a red rose. And a woolly dog. He can stand up if you prop him with his tail. And five cents to buy you anything you want. I asked Martha to put out the fire so you won't get burnt coming down the chimney. Santa Claus, I wish you and Mrs. Santa Claus a merry Christmas. And good-by.
"Your loving friend,
"Arthur Marshall."
Arthur breathed a sigh of relief when the letter was sealed and the sock containing it and the chosen gifts was hung by the mantel-piece. He lay down on a goatskin rug and looked into the flickering fire, prattling about what Santa Claus would say when he found the gifts. Presently he dropped asleep.
Twilight fell. From the gray skies the snow came down steadily. The small, hard flakes tinkled against the window-panes. A northeast wind shook the elm-tree branches, rattled the windows, and moaned around the house. Anne sat staring out into the gathering night. How bleak it was! how lonely-looking! She shivered and hugged Honey-Sweet close.
"I'm terrible late," said Martha, bustling in and hurrying to draw the curtains and light the gas. "We had to finish putting up the greens. And Master Dunlop did bother so. Nothing would do but he must 'help.' 'Help,' I say! He's one of them chillen that no matter where you turn he's in the way. You shall have tea now, Miss Anne. I know you're starving. And my blessed baby's fast asleep on the floor! Why, Miss Anne! You been crying! What's the matter, dear? Did that Dunlop—"
"Nobody. Nothing," said Anne, turning her reddened eyes from the light. "Perhaps my eyes are sore. Maybe the snow hurts them."
"Oh, ho! You just ought 'a' been with me," said Dunlop, strutting in. "I hanged a wreath in the parlor window. I did it all to myself. Martha she just held it straight and mother tied the string. Martha said I bothered. Martha don't know. Mother says I'm her little man.—Come along, you old Santa Claus! Hurry! Or I'll come up that chimney and take all your toys and your reindeers, too," he shouted up the chimney.
"Don't, 'Lop," remonstrated Arthur who was sleepily rubbing his eyes and opening his mouth, bird-like, for spoonfuls of bread and milk. "Don't talk that way. It's ugly. And Santa C'aus'll get mad and not come. Or he'll bring you switches."
"Mother won't let him," blustered Dunlop. "Mother says she told him to bring me a heap of things—a gun and a 'spress wagon and a engine that runs on a track and lots more things.—Say, Anne, is there really truly a sure-'nough Santa Claus? George Bryant says there isn't not. Tell me, Anne. Does Santa Claus really come down the chimney?"
"You stay awake and see," advised Anne.
"I'm going to. I'm not going to shut—my—eyes—all—night—long," he said emphatically.
"Marfa, don't put on any more coal," begged Arthur. "I so fwead Santa C'aus'll get burnted."
The Christmas saint accepted Arthur's offering in the loving spirit in which it was made and there was a letter of thanks in the sock around which were heaped more pretty things than he had remembered he wanted. Dunlop examined his many gifts with shrieks of delight. His one regret was that he didn't see Santa Claus—if there was a Santa Claus. He knew he didn't go to sleep last night—but he didn't remember anything till Martha was kindling the fire this morning.
By Anne's breakfast plate were several dainty packages,—a copy of Little Lord Fauntleroy, a box of dominoes, an embroidered handkerchief, a box of chocolate creams. And Martha gave Honey-Sweet pink-flowered muslin for a new dress.
Breakfast passed in wild confusion. Martha was imploring Dunlop not to eat any more candy or raisins or oranges or figs or nuts. "You'll be sick," she said. "And goodness knows, Master Dunlop, you're hard enough to live with best of times when you're well. Do—don't blow your horn, Master Dunlop—or beat your drum—or toot your engine—your poor mamma has such a headache."
Mrs. Marshall protested, however, that the dear child must be allowed to enjoy his Christmas. "He is so high-strung," she said, "not like ordinary children. He can't be controlled like them. I can't bear to cross him and break his spirit."
CHAPTER XVIII
Before the early dinner at the 'Home,' Miss Farlow assembled the girls and gave them a Christmas talk. Christmas, she reminded them, is the time for generous thoughts, for kindly memories, for opening our eyes to the needs of others and opening our hands to aid those needs. There is no one so poor, so lonely, that he cannot find some one more needy that he may help.
"Kind friends have remembered you this holiday season," she said. "Each of you has received gifts. Now I hope you want to pass the kindness on. There is a negro orphanage in town, and I happen to know that its funds are so limited that after providing needfuls, food, fuel, and clothing, there is nothing left this year for Christmas cheer. Aren't you willing to share your good things with those poor children? Won't each of you bring some of your old toys to the sitting-room at four o'clock and help fill a Christmas box to send the little orphans?"
The children responded eagerly, Anne among the first. They hurried to their rooms and rummaged busily through their boxes and drawers, collecting old dolls, ragged picture-books, and broken toys.
Anne opened her drawer and then shut it quickly and sat down dolefully on the bed-side, swinging her feet.
"What are you going to give, Anne?" asked one of the other girls.
"Dunno," was the brief answer.
A mighty struggle was going on in her heart. She had no old picture-books, games, nor toys. She had nothing to give—unless—except—there were the gifts she had received at 'Roseland' this morning—the shining dominoes, the dainty handkerchief, the ribbon-tied candy box, the book with fascinating pictures and pages that looked so interesting. It was so long since she had had any pretty, useless things that it put a lump in her throat merely to think of giving them up. But she had promised and she must give something to those poor little black orphans. Which of her treasures should it be? When she tried to decide on any one, that one seemed the dearest and most desirable of all. At last in despair she gathered all her gifts—dominoes, handkerchief, book, candy—in her apron, ran with them to the sitting-room and dumped them on the table before Miss Farlow, with "Here! for the old orphans."
Miss Farlow opened her mouth but before words could come Anne was gone. She crouched down with Honey-Sweet between her bed and the wall and sobbed as if her heart would break.
"I wouldn't mind so much," she explained to Honey-Sweet, "I wouldn't mind so much if I could have taken out one teeny piece of chocolate with the darling little silver tongs. I haven't had a box of candy for months and months. And, oh! Honey-Sweet, I read just three chapters in that beautiful book, and now I'll never, never know what became of that dear little boy."
At teatime Anne, red-eyed and unsmiling, met Miss Farlow on the stairs.
"Ah! Anne Lewis," said the lady, looking over her spectacles. "You are a generous child. I only asked and expected some old toys. It was generous of you to bring your pretty new gifts. But I hardly feel that you ought to give away the Christmas presents your friends selected for you to enjoy. I think you'd better take them back." Anne's face shone like the sun coming from behind a cloud. "Instead, you can give—oh! some old thing—give that rag doll to put in the box for the little orphans." The sun went under a dark cloud.
"Oh!" Anne faltered. Then she hurried on: "Can't no old orphans have Honey-Sweet. You keep the dominoes and the book and the handkerchief and the candy. And they may have my gold beads, too. But not Honey-Sweet. I'd rather have her than Christmas. There—there's a lonesome spot she just fits in."
"You'd rather give away your pretty new things than that old rag doll?" Miss Farlow was amazed.
"A million times!" cried Anne, hugging her baby fondly.
"What a queer child you are, Anne Lewis!" said Miss Farlow. "Well, well! keep your doll, of course, if you wish."
Anne gave her an impulsive kiss. "Thank you, Miss Farlow! You are so good," she said.
The holidays over, the routine of daily life was resumed. The days and weeks and months passed, busy with work and study. Anne welcomed the mild spring days which came at last and allowed out-of-door games. During the autumn, the boxwood playhouse had been a place of delight to her and Dunlop and Arthur. Now, after a spring cleaning patterned after Mrs. Marshall's, she and Honey-Sweet again took up quarters there.
One Saturday afternoon, however, Dunlop came strutting out in an Indian suit which his mamma had just bought him and announced that he was "heap big chief" and was going to have the boxwood for his wigwam.
Anne objected. She had found the treehouse and it was hers; the others were to play there all they pleased; but she would go straight home unless the boxwood was to remain, as it had always been, her "private property," as she proudly said.
For answer, Dunlop fitted an arrow on his bow and rushed in, yelling, "You squaw! This is my papa's place. You get out of my wigwam. Get out, I say."
Without a word, Anne gathered up Honey-Sweet and marched off, with her chin in the air. For a whole long week she did not come to 'Roseland.' Worst of all, on Saturday she played all afternoon with the other girls on the 'Home' grounds, without once looking over the hedge.
Arthur threw himself into Martha's arms. "I want my Anne," he sobbed, "I want her to come back. 'Lop's a bad, bad boy to make my Anne go 'way."
Shortly before teatime, Anne left the other girls and without seeming to see any one beyond the hedge, sat down just out of earshot and began to tell Honey-Sweet a story. This was more than could be borne. Arthur wailed aloud.
Suddenly Dunlop broke his way through the hedge, stopped just in front of Anne, and screamed: "It's your old house. You come on."
Anne looked at him but did not move.
He stamped his foot. "Please!" he shouted fiercely.
"Good and all? Private property?" asked Anne.
Dunlop nodded.
Anne rose. "We better go through the gap," she said in an offhand way. "Miss Emma'll try to have me whipped if we break down the hedge."
Dunlop trotted by her side in silence. As they crossed the hedge, he slipped his grimy hand in hers. "Mamma says we are going to the country next week," he announced; "and I told her you'd have to go, too."
Indeed, Dunlop flatly refused to go away without Anne. He would not yield to coaxing and he scorned threats. His wishes finally prevailed and it was decided that Anne should go with them to spend the week-end and return to town with Mr. Marshall.
The little party left 'Roseland' one warm afternoon in June, and sunset found them all dusty and tired. Dunlop, sitting by his mother, absorbed her attention. Martha was on the seat behind, with Arthur on her lap. Anne, beside her, was looking out of the window with a puzzled air. The willow-bordered river, the meadows and rolling hills, had a familiar appearance; this fresh, woodsy, evening fragrance was an odor she had known before; surely she had heard the names of the stations called by the porter.
"Lewiston!" he shouted at last.
Anne started. It was her own home station. As in a dream, she saw in the twilight the familiar red road shambling over the hills, the dingy little station with men and boys loafing on the platform, the houses scattered here and there among trees and gardens. It all came back to her. This was the route she and her mother had often travelled. A little way off was the water-tank set in a clump of willows by the roadside. 'Lewis Hall' was on the hill just beyond. In the deepening twilight, she could not see the square house among the trees.
A great longing for home possessed her. She slipped past Martha dozing with Arthur asleep in her lap; hardly knowing what she did, she ran to the rear of the car. The train was about to stop at the tank. Anne put her hand on the door-knob. It resisted. A lump came in her throat. Again she tried the knob. This time it yielded to her pressure. She stepped on the platform and closed the door behind her. As the train jerked and stood still, she almost fell but she quickly recovered herself and scrambled down the steps.
She stood in a well-remembered thicket of willows. A few steps away was a footpath—how it all came back to her!—winding among the willows. Clasping Honey-Sweet close, Anne walked a little way down the path. Then she turned and looked back. The train was puffing and panting, lights were gleaming from its windows. There sat Mrs. Marshall, coaxing Dunlop, and there was Arthur cuddled in Martha's lap.
As Anne looked, the train moved slowly away, gathering speed as it went. Its lights gleamed and faded in the darkness. It was gone. She gazed after it, with a queer tightness about her throat. Then she walked steadily down the footpath, across the meadow, through a gate, and along the hillside. On top of that tree-clad hill was her old home. From one well-remembered room, flickered lights that seemed to beckon and summon the homesick child.
CHAPTER XIX
Meanwhile, Anne was the innocent cause of trouble between Pat and his father. Mr. Patterson came back in the early summer to spend a few weeks with his son at the old home in Georgetown before midsummer heat drove them to mountains or seashore.
The mansion was a roomy, old-fashioned house which his grandfather Patterson had built when Georgetown was a fashionable suburb of the capital. As Washington grew, fashion favored other sections, and the stately homes of Georgetown were stranded among small shops and dingy tenements. Some old residents, the Pattersons among the number, clung to their homes.
Mr. Patterson had been little at home since his wife's death. Every nook and corner of the house, her pictures on the walls, her books on the shelves, her easy-chair beside the window, called her to mind. How lonely and sad he was! His son was little comfort to him in his loneliness. Except on their ocean voyage, Pat and his father had not been together for three years and they had grown apart. Pat was no longer just a merry little chap, ready for a romp with his father. He was a tall, overgrown lad, absorbed in the sports and work of his school-world, at a loss what to say to the silent, reserved business man who made such an effort to talk to him.
One day, as they sat together at a rather silent dinner, a sudden thought made Pat drop his salad fork and look up at his father. "When is Anne coming, father?" he asked. "Where's her school? and when is it out?"
"Anne? Anne who?" asked Mr. Patterson, blankly—for the moment forgetful of the child who had been a brief episode in his busy life.
"Why, Anne Lewis, of course—our little Anne," said Pat.
"Oh, that child," answered Mr. Patterson, carelessly. "She is in an orphan asylum in Virginia. I put her there the week we landed."
Pat started to his feet. "In an orphan asylum?" he gasped. He knew asylums only through the experiences of Oliver Twist, and if his father had said "in jail," the words would not have excited more horror.
"Of course," replied his father, viewing his emotion with surprise. "That was where she belonged. We couldn't find any of her own people. Why, son! You didn't expect me to keep her, did you?"
"Mother intended that. She said Anne was my—little—sister." The boy found it difficult to speak.
"Your mother! If she had lived—but without her—be reasonable, Pat. How could you and I—we rolling stones—take charge of a little girl? And now—"
"There is Aunt Sarah," interrupted Pat, refusing to be convinced. "Or school. I thought you had her in boarding-school like me. Where is she?"
Mr. Patterson was just going to tell Pat about Anne and her whereabouts. But now he was provoked that his son put the question, not as a request, but as a demand. He spoke sternly. "You forget yourself, Patrick. It is not your place to take me to task for pursuing the course that I thought proper in this matter. We will drop the subject, if you please."
"But, father, Anne—"
"Patrick!" Mr. Patterson interrupted. "Either sit down and finish your dinner quietly or go to your room."
Pat turned on his heel and went up-stairs, but not to his chamber. Instead, he made his way to a little attic room with a dormer window. There was a couch which his mother had covered with chintz patterned in morning-glories, his birth-month flowers. The book-shelves and the chest for toys were covered with the same design, applied by her dear hands. How many a rainy Sunday afternoon his mother and he had spent in this den, reading and talking together! In the months since his mother's death, he had never missed her as he did now—in these first days at home. There was no one to take away the loneliness. Aunt Sarah was with Cousin Hugh. And now Anne was away—not just for a time but for always. There was no one left but his father, who seemed like a stranger and whom—he said it over and over to himself—he did not love.
The boy threw himself face downward on his couch and sobbed as he had not done since the first days after his mother's death. Where was Anne? Was she with people who were good to her? If only he had written to her long ago! Father would have sent the letter, or given the address. He had begun a letter telling about a big baseball game but he had blotted it; it was in his portfolio still, unfinished. Poor little Anne! The tears came afresh. He could see his mother stroking Anne's fair hair, as she had done one day when he was teasing about Honey-Sweet.
"My son," the gentle voice had said, "you must be good to our little girl. Remember, she has no one in the world but us."
Dear little Anne! What a jolly playmate she was,—brave, good-tempered, affectionate! and what a generous little soul! How she always insisted on dividing her fruit and candies with him when he devoured his share first.
An hour passed. Mr. Patterson came up-stairs, went from his room into Pat's, and then walked down the hall.
"Pat!" he called. "Patrick!" The voice sounded stern but really its undertone was anxiety.
Pat did not speak. He scrambled to his feet and descended the stairs. With set mouth and downcast eyes, he stood before his father.
"Did I not tell you to go to your room, Pat?"
"Yes, father." Pat paused in the doorway. "I want to know where Anne is," he said.
"Patrick!" Mr. Patterson spoke sternly now. "You forget yourself strangely to address me in this way. I refuse to answer."
He turned on his heel and left his son. And he left a breach between them which the days and weeks widened instead of closing. Pat, feeling that it would be useless to question his father any more, did not mention Anne's name again. He picked up his old comrades and went walking, swimming, and canoeing, keeping as much away from his father as possible. Mr. Patterson busied himself with office affairs, looking forward with relief to the end of the so-longed-for vacation. In a few days, Miss Drayton would join them to take Pat with her to the Adirondacks.
At this very time, Miss Drayton, too, was bearing about a disturbed heart. She was fond of Anne and had always regretted her being sent to an orphanage, but the feeling was not strong enough to make her reclaim the child. Anne's uncle was a criminal, after all, and she herself had a strange secret. How could she have acquired those jewels but by theft? Miss Drayton shrank from the responsibility of such a child. Perhaps the strict oversight of an asylum was best for her.
This course of thought was abruptly changed by the receipt of a letter forwarded from Washington to the Maryland village where Miss Drayton was visiting. It was a many-postmarked much-travelled letter, that had journeyed far and long before it reached her. Mailed in Liverpool, it was sent to Nantes, in care of the American consul. It had been held, under the supposition that the lady to whom it was addressed might come to the city and ask for mail sent there for safe keeping. Finally, the unclaimed letter was sent to the American embassy at Paris. There it tarried awhile. Then it fell into the hands of a secretary who knew Miss Drayton, and he sent the letter to the Washington post-office, requesting that her street and number be supplied.
This was done, and the ten-months-old letter reached Miss Drayton one July afternoon. She glanced curiously from the unfamiliar handwriting to the signature. Carey G. Mayo. Anne's uncle!
With changing countenance, she read the letter hastily.
Then she reread it once and again.
"Liverpool, England,
"20 September, 1910.
"Miss Sarah Drayton,
"Dear Madam,—I write to you on the eve of leaving the city, to commend my niece to your care. You have been so good to the child that I venture to hope you will care for her till I can relieve you of the burden. She has no near relative and I am in no position to hunt up the cousins who might take charge of her.
"I told Anne not to tell you about seeing me till you reached Nantes, for by that time, if ever, I shall be beyond the reach of officers of the law. Please keep her mother's rings that I gave to her, unless it becomes necessary to dispose of them to provide for her. If I live, I will replace her money that I squandered.
"Will you leave your address for me with the consul in Nantes? For God's sake, madam, do not betray me to the hands of the law. I am a guilty man, but I am putting myself in your power for the sake of this innocent child. Be very good to her, I implore you. Deal with her as you would be dealt with in your hour of need.
"Respectfully yours,
"Carey G. Mayo."
This was the secret then, this the mystery. How she had misjudged poor little Anne! She would hasten to take the child from the asylum and would do all possible to make up for the lonely, neglected past. She wrote at once to the consul at Nantes, asking him to forward to her Washington address any letters which came for her. Then she hastened her departure to Washington.
"I came before the time I set," she said to her brother-in-law as soon as they were alone together, "because I wish to talk to you about Anne Lewis." Mr. Patterson's brow clouded. "She is in an orphan asylum in Virginia, is she not? We must get her out. At once. Read this letter."
Mr. Patterson held the letter unopened in his hand. "The subject is an unpleasant one," he said. "I've been wanting to tell you about a conversation I had with Pat. It showed me in a startling way how the boy is developing. I don't know what to do with him. In my young days, boys were different. We submitted to our fathers. A year or two of school and camp life has changed my little Pat into a sullen, self-willed, unmanageable youngster." He repeated the conversation between Pat and himself about Anne.
"And you did not tell him where Anne is?" asked Miss Drayton.
"Certainly not," replied Mr. Patterson. "His manner was disrespectful. If he had asked properly, I should have answered him. Of course I had no objection to telling him."
"Ah," murmured Miss Drayton. "I hope he didn't think you meant to keep him ignorant of Anne's whereabouts."
"Of course not," said Mr. Patterson, indignantly.
"Children get queer little notions in their queer little heads sometimes," said Miss Drayton. "I confess, brother, I think you've done wrong. And I've done wrong. We could have given this orphan child a home and care—and we did not."
Her brother-in-law replied that orphan asylums were established to relieve such cases.
Miss Drayton did not argue the question. She said softly: "We failed in the trust that Emily left us—our duty to her little adopted daughter."
Mr. Patterson was silent. He opened and read Mr. Mayo's letter. Then he folded it carefully and handed it back. "I will go to-morrow and get this child from the asylum," he said.
"Suppose you let me go—with Pat," suggested Miss Drayton. "And, brother, talk to him. Explain matters."
But he shook his head. "There is nothing for me to explain. You and I misunderstood things. I am sorry we did not know all this at first. Then we would have acted differently. But it is not for Pat to judge my course. I refuse to defend myself to a young cub."
CHAPTER XX
"What are you smiling at, Pat?" Miss Drayton asked her nephew sitting beside her in the parlor car. They had passed through the tunnel and crossed the beautiful Potomac Park and the shining river. Washington Monument, like a finger pointing skyward, was fading in the distance.
"What amuses you, Pat?" repeated his aunt.
"Can't help grinning like a possum," answered Pat, with a chuckle. "Every mile is taking us nearer Anne. How she'll jump and squeal 'oo-ee'—when she sees us! And—look here, Aunt Sarah—" he glanced cautiously around to be sure that he was not observed, then opened his travelling-bag and displayed a doll's dress—blue silk with frills and lace ruffles. "I bought it in an F Street shop yesterday—for Honey-Sweet, you know," he explained. "Gee! It'll tickle Anne for me to give that doll a present. She'll—" he whistled a bar of ragtime.
Miss Drayton laughed heartily. The gift set aside so completely the lapse of time that she could fancy she saw Anne running to meet them, her tawny hair flying in the wind and Honey-Sweet clasped in her arms.
According to its habit, the Southern train was behind time. Instead of early afternoon, it was twilight when Miss Drayton and Pat reached their station. Dusk was deepening into drizzling night when their cab set them down at the gate of the 'Home.' They were ushered through the prim hall into the superintendent's office. Miss Farlow rose from her desk.
"You are in charge of this institution?" asked Miss Drayton.
"I am Miss Farlow, the superintendent."
"I am Miss Drayton from Washington City. This is my nephew, Patrick Patterson. We are friends of Anne Lewis."
"You have news of her?" asked Miss Farlow, starting eagerly forward.
"News? We have come to see her—to take her home with us—to give her a home," explained Miss Drayton.
Miss Farlow sank back on her chair, and buried her face in her hands. The quiet, reserved woman was weeping bitterly. "If we only had her, if we only had her!" she moaned. "Poor little motherless, fatherless one! Oh, it was my fault. I failed in my duty. I tried to do right by her. God knows I did."
"What is the matter? What do you mean?" Miss Drayton was frightened. Was the child dead? injured? She dared not ask. "Anne—where is she?" she faltered at last.
"I don't know." Miss Farlow was recovering her self-control and struggling to speak steadily. "She started on a holiday trip with some friends. On the way she disappeared. Absolutely disappeared. No one knows where nor when. The nurse saw her last at Westcot, a few stations from Lynchburg. The train was in the city before she was missed."
"We will find her. We must," cried Miss Drayton.
Miss Farlow was hopeless. "Not a stone has been left unturned. That was two weeks ago. The trainmen were all questioned. Telegrams were sent to every station. Mr. Marshall has spared neither trouble nor expense. No one saw her get off. There is no trace of her. None. If the earth had opened and swallowed her, she could not have disappeared more completely. When you came in—strangers—and mentioned her name—my one thought and hope was that you had found her." Miss Farlow sobbed. "I think of her day and night. A little lost child! homeless! friendless! all alone!"
"Don't, don't!" Pat put up his hand as if to ward off a blow. He hurried from the room and crouched down in a corner of the cab, staring out into the wet night. Somewhere in the darkness—in the rain—homeless—friendless—all alone—was little Anne.
Surely there was some clew that they might follow to reach the child. Miss Drayton and Pat went to 'Roseland' to hear the story from Mrs. Marshall's own lips. She could give them no help. She and her husband had done all that was possible. They would have done this for the child's own sake. They were doubly bound to do it for the sake of their sons who were heart-broken about Anne. Arthur was always begging them to let Anne come back to see him. Dunlop understood that she was lost and refused to be comforted.
Miss Drayton and Pat went into the nursery and found the children at supper.
"I know, it's late, ma'am," said Martha, helplessly; "but Master Dunlop he wouldn't let me have it afore. Do eat now, Master Dunlop. Here's this nice strawberry jam."
Dunlop took up the spoon, then paused to ask, "Do you reckon Anne has any strawberry jam for her supper?"
Pat shook his head.
Dunlop's lip quivered. "Then I don't want any. Take it away, Martha," and he pushed aside the spoon.
"Do with Anne wath here," lisped Arthur. "I got her thweater yolled up smooth to keep for her. Whyn't she come?"
No one could tell him.
Miss Farlow wished Miss Drayton, according to Mr. Mayo's request, to take charge of the child's jewels. But Miss Drayton refused.
"You keep them, please," she urged. "If—when Anne comes back, it will be to you. She does not know where we are. Oh, I cannot bear the sight of those miserable jewels," she exclaimed. "The mere thought of them reminds me how I misjudged our poor child."
There was nothing she could do in Richmond and she hurried back to Washington to consult her brother-in-law. How unlike the merry journey of the day before was the silent, miserable trip!
"Don't take it so hard, dear boy," Miss Drayton said, clasping Pat's hand which lay limp in hers a minute and was then withdrawn. "We may find her yet,—well and happy."
She spoke in a half-hearted way and Pat shook his head hopelessly. "She's been gone two weeks," he said, "and no sign of her. I think about her—like that woman said—homeless—friendless—all alone—a little lost child—in the wet and dark, like last night." There was a moment's silence. Then Pat spoke again: "Aunt Sarah, I shall never feel the same to father. It is his fault. He ought not to have put her there. He ought to have told me where she was. If he had told me when I asked him—that was three weeks ago, you know."
Miss Drayton reasoned, coaxed, entreated. "Think of your mother, Pat," she said gently. "How you would grieve her!"
"I do think of her," returned Pat. "She would never have acted so. And she would never have let father send Anne away."
Miss Drayton sighed. Was it not sad and pitiful enough to have that poor little orphan lost? Must her dead sister's husband be estranged from his only son?
Pat stood silent while Miss Drayton told his father the story of their journey. Mr. Patterson listened—surprised at first, then vexed. Now and then, he interrupted with brief, pointed questions. The answers left him anxious, distressed. Presently he took off his eyeglasses and put his hand up as if to shade his eyes from the light. When the tale was finished, there was a brief silence. A gentle breeze rustled the elm-tree at the window. A carriage clattered past. A newsboy shouting "Papers!" ran down the quiet street.
Mr. Patterson dropped his hand. His lashes were wet with tears. "Lord!" he said in a broken voice. "Can I ever forgive myself?"
Pat started forward with tears in his eyes. "Father!" he cried. "Dear—old—dad! We'll find her yet."
Mr. Patterson seized the outstretched hand and held it close. "God grant it," he said. "My son, my son!"
CHAPTER XXI
Meanwhile, where was Anne? Was she as forlorn and miserable in reality as her friends fancied? Let us see.
After she slipped unobserved from the railway coach, she followed the familiar footpath in its leisurely windings across meadow and up-hill. It led her to a tumble-down fence, surrounding a spacious, deep-turfed lawn, with native forest trees—oak, elm, and chestnut—growing where nature had set them. On the crest of the hill, rose a square, old-fashioned house, dear and familiar. Home, home at last!
Anne pushed through the gate, hanging ajar on one hinge, and hurried across the lawn. Even in the twilight, she could see that the microfila roses by the front porch were still blooming—they had been in bloom when she went away—and the Cherokee rose on the summer-house was starred with cream-white blossoms. From the windows of the old sitting-room, a light was shining and Anne hastened toward the latticed side-porch which opened into the room. As she approached the steps, a lank, clay-colored dog came snarling toward her. Two or three puppies ran out, barking furiously. Anne stopped, too frightened to cry out.
The sitting-room door opened and a thick-set man in shirt-sleeves came out on the porch. He peered into the darkness.
"Who's that?" he asked. Anne, fearfully expecting to be devoured by the yelping curs, could not answer. "Who's out there, say?" repeated the man. Anne took two or three steps toward the protection of the light and the open door. The man answered a question from within. "Don't know. It's a child," he said, catching sight of Anne, and going to meet her. "Them pups won't bite. Get away, Red Coat. She'll nip you if she gits a chance. Come right on in, honey. Whyn't you holler at the gate?"
Anne followed the strange man through the door that he opened hospitably wide. It was and was not the dear room that she remembered. There were the four big windows, the panelled walls, the bookcase with diamond-paned doors, built in a recess beside the chimney. But where was the gilt-framed mirror that hung over the mantel-piece? And the silver candlesticks with crystal pendants? And the old brass fender and andirons? And the shiny mahogany table with brass-tipped claw feet? And the little spindle-legged tables with their burdens of books, vases, and pictures? And the tinkly little old piano? And the carved mahogany davenport? And the sewing-table, ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, that stood always by the south window? And the quaint old engravings and colored prints? All these were gone. Instead of the threadbare Brussels carpet patterned with huge bouquets of flowers, there was a striped rag carpet. There were a few rush-bottomed chairs, a box draped with red calico on which stood a water-bucket and a wash-pan, a cook-stove before the fireplace, and in the middle of the room a table covered with a red cloth, on which was set forth a supper of coffee, corn-cakes, fried bacon, and cold cabbage and potatoes. A fat, freckle-faced girl, a little larger than Anne, and two boys of about twelve and fourteen were seated at the supper-table. Beside the stove stood a stout, fair woman in a soiled gingham apron. Their four pairs of wide-open, light-blue eyes stared at Anne.
"Where you pick up that child, Peter Collins?" demanded the woman, neglecting her frying cakes.
"She jes' come to the door," responded Mr. Collins.
"My sakes!" exclaimed his wife. "Whose child is you? Whar you come from, here after dark, this way?"
"Where's Aunt Charity?" asked Anne.
"Aunt Charity? Don't no Aunt Charity live here. This is Mr. Collins's house,—Peter Collins. Is you lost?—Peter, you Peter Collins! I want know who on earth this child is you done brung here. You always doing some outlandish thing! Who is she?"
"How the thunder I know?" muttered her husband, pulling at his beard.
Anne stood bewildered. This was home and yet it was not home. Her lips quivered, she clasped Honey-Sweet tighter, and turned toward the door to go—where? Everything turned black around her, the floor seemed to give way under her feet, and in another moment she and Honey-Sweet were in a forlorn little heap on the floor and she was sobbing as if her heart would break.
"I want home! I want somebody!" she wailed piteously.
Mrs. Collins sat down on the floor and drew the weeping child into her arms.
"Thar, thar, honey! don't you cry! don't you cry!" she said soothingly. "Po' little thing! Le' me take off your hat! Why, yo' little hands is jest as cold! Lizzie, set the kettle on front of the stove. Jake, you put some wood in the fire. Now, honey, you set right in this rocking-chair by the stove and le' me wrap a shawl round you. I'll have you some cambric tea and fry you some hot cakes in a jiffy. A good supper'll het you up. I'd take shame to myself, Peter Collins, if I was you"—she scowled at her husband as she bustled about—"a gre't big man like you skeerin' a po' little thing like that! What diff'rence do it make who she is or whar she come from? Anybody with two eyes in his head can see she's jest a po' little lost thing. You gre't gawk, you!"
"What is I done, I'd like to know?" inquired Mr. Collins, helplessly.
Anne had not realized that she was hungry until Mrs. Collins set before her a plateful of hot crisp cakes. The good woman spread them with butter and opened a jar of 'company' sweetmeats,—crisp watermelon rind, cut in leaf, star, and fish shapes. While serving supper, Mrs. Collins chattered on in a soft, friendly voice.
"I see how 'twas. You knowed this place before we come here. We been here two year come next Christmas. Done bought the place. Fust time any of our folks is ever owned land. Always been renters and share-hands, movin' to new places soon as we wore out ol' ones. I tell my ol' man it's goin' to come mighty hard on him now that he's got a place of his own that's got to be tooken care of."
By this time, the color had come back to Anne's face and she was smiling and stroking the sleek black-and-white cat that had jumped in her lap.
"What is the little girl's name, mammy?" asked Lizzie. Having finished her supper, she was standing at her mother's side, staring with wide eyes at Anne and shyly rolling a corner of her apron in her fingers.
"Sh-sh-sh," whispered Mrs. Collins. "'Tain't perlite to ask questions. You make her cry again.—But, Peter, I'm worried to think maybe her folks is missed her and lookin' for her. You have to take the lantern presen'ly and go and tell 'em she's here."
"Whar is I gwine? And who I gwi' tell?" asked Mr. Collins.
"Peter Collins, you is the most unreasonable man I ever see in my life! You sho ain't goin' to worry the po' little thing and make her cry again, askin' all kinds of questions. You jest got to hunt up her folks. They'll be worried to death, missing a child like this, and at night, too."
But Anne was now ready to explain cheerfully. "I haven't any folks—not any real folks of my own now," she said. "Mother is dead and father is dead. Uncle Carey got lost, I reckon. I used to live here. Mr. Patterson took me to a—a orphan 'sylum, Mrs. Marshall calls it. The name over the door is 'Home for Girls.' This evening I was on the train with Mrs. Marshall and I knew the place when we came to the water-tank. And I wanted to be here. So we came, Honey-Sweet and I. I thought the dog was going to bite me."
"You hear that, Peter Collins?" exclaimed Mrs. Collins. "Now wasn't that smart of her? She knowed the place and got off the train by herself and come right up to the house. And Red Coat might 'a' bit the po' child traipsin' 'long in the dark. You got to shut that dog up nights," she said, as if every evening was to bring a little lost Anne wandering into danger. "To think of puttin' a po' little motherless, fatherless thing in a 'sylum," she continued. "Many homes as thar is in this world!—Le' me fry you another plateful of nice brown cakes, honey, and get you some damson preserves—maybe you like them better'n sweetmeats. Or would you choose raspberry jam?" She had thrown open the diamond-paned doors of the bookcase, now used as a pantry, and was looking over the rows of jars.
"I couldn't eat another mouthful of anything; indeed, I couldn't," insisted Anne.
"I wish you would," sighed Mrs. Collins. "It gives me a feelin' to see yo' po' thin little face—no wider'n a knitting needle."
Anne laughed. "I ate ever so many cakes. They were so good—as good as Aunt Charity's. Please—where is Aunt Charity?"
"Aunt Charity who?" asked Mrs. Collins.
"Our old Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard that used to live here."
"Oh! You mean them old darkies. They moved away the year we come here. They—"
"Mammy, I want to know her name," insisted Lizzie, in an undertone. "And I want to see her doll in my own hands."
"My name is Anne Lewis," Anne informed her. "My doll is named Mrs. Emily Patterson but I call her Honey-Sweet."
"That's a mighty pretty dress," said Lizzie, admiringly.
"I made it, all but the buttonholes," Anne answered proudly. "Martha did those."
"Do her shoes really, truly come off?" asked Lizzie.
"Yes, they do. And her stockings, too. Look here."
The two girls played happily together with Honey-Sweet until Mrs. Collins declared that Anne was tired and tucked her away with Lizzie in a trundle-bed.
"I dunno when I've set up so late," the good woman said to her husband, as she wound up the clock. "It's near nine o'clock. But one thing I tell you, Peter Collins, afore I get a mite of sleep—Nobody's going to send that po' child back to the 'sylum she's runned away from. Tain't no use for you to say a word."
"Is I said a word?" asked Mr. Collins.
"That po' thing ain't goin' to be drug back to no 'sylum," pursued his wife. "She shall stay here long as she's a mind to—till her folks come for her—or till she gets grown—or something. And she shall have all she wants to eat, sho as my name's Lizabeth Collins. I've heard tell of them 'sylums. They say the chillen don't have nothin' to eat or wear but what folks give 'em. Think of them with their po' little empty stomachs settin' waitin' for somebody to think to send 'em dinner! I'm goin' to make a jar full of gingercakes fust thing in the mornin' and put it on the pantry shelf where that child can he'p herself.—Anne, uh! Anne!—She's 'sleep. I jest wondering if she'd rather have gingercakes or tea-cakes dusted with sugar and cinnamon. Peter Collins! I tell you, you got to work and pervide for yo' chillen. I couldn't rest in my grave if I thought one of them'd ever have to go to a 'sylum. I see you last week give a knife to that Hawley boy.—What if he was name for you?—I don't keer if it didn't cost but ten cent. You'll land in the po' house and yo' chillen in 'sylums if you throw away yo' money on tother folks' chillens.—Peter, fust thing in the morning you catch me a chicken to fry for that po' child's breakfast. And remind me—to git out—a jar of honey," she concluded drowsily.
CHAPTER XXII
The next morning, after Anne insisted that she could not possibly eat any more corn-cakes or biscuits or toast or fried apples or chicken or ham or potato-cakes or molasses or honey, Mrs. Collins picked her up and put her in a rocking-chair by the south window.
"Now, you set thar and rest," she commanded, "till Lizzie does up her work and has time to play with you. You Lizzie! Hurry and wash them dishes and sweep this floor and dust my room and then take the little old lady's breakfast to her. It's in the stove, keeping warm."
"Let me help Lizzie," begged Anne. "I know how to sweep and dust and wash dishes. We had to do those things—turn about, you know—at the 'Home.'"
"You set right still," repeated Mrs. Collins, "and let some meat grow on yo' po' little bones. I know how they treat you at them 'sylums, making you work day in, day out. Oh, it's a dog's life!"
"But, Mrs. Collins, they were good to me, and kind as could be. I didn't have to work so hard. I just did the things that Lizzie does."
"Uh! Lizzie!" was the response, "that's diff'rent. She's at home. She works when I tell her—if she chooses," Mrs. Collins concluded with a chuckle, for Lizzie had dropped her broom and was sitting in the middle of the floor pulling Honey-Sweet's shoes and stockings off and on.
Anne went outdoors presently to look around the dear old place. 'Lewis Hall,' a roomy frame-house built before the Revolution, was on a hill which sloped gently toward the corn-fields and meadows that bordered the lazy river beyond which rose the bluffs of Buckingham. Back of the house, a level space was laid out in a formal garden. The boxwood, brought from England when that was the mother country, met across the turf walks. Long-neglected flowers—damask and cabbage roses, zinnias, cock's-comb, hollyhocks—grew half-wild, making masses of glowing color. Along the walks, where there had paced, a hundred years before, stately Lewis ladies in brocade and stately Lewis gentlemen in velvet coats, now tripped an orphan girl, a stranger in her father's home. But she was a very happy little maid as she roamed about the spacious old garden on that sunshiny summer day, gathering hollyhocks and zinnias for ladies to occupy her playhouse in the gnarled roots of an old oak-tree.
When Lizzie came out to play, she and Anne wandered away to the fields. There was a dear little baby brook—how well Anne remembered it!—that started from a spring on the hillside, trickled among the under-brush, loitered through the meadow, and emptied into a larger stream that fed the river.
"Let's take off our shoes and stockings," said Anne, tripping joyfully along, "and wade to the creek. You've been there? Part of the way is sandy. Your feet crunch down in the nice cool sand. Part of the way there are rocks—flat, mossy ones. They're so pretty—and slippery! It's fun not knowing when you are going to fall down."
"There's bamboo-vines," objected Lizzie. "Mother'll whip me if I tear my dress."
"Oh, we'll stoop down and crawl under the vines." Anne was ready of resource. "And we'll dry our dresses in the sun before we go home. Oh, Lizzie! Look at all the little fishes! Let's catch them! Do don't let them get by. Aren't they slippery! Tell you what let's play. Let's be Jamestown settlers and catch fish to keep us from starving. We'll have our settlement here by the brook—the river James, we'll play it is."
"How do you play that? I never heard tell of Jamestown settlers," said Lizzie.
"A big girl like you never heard about Jamestown settlers!" exclaimed Anne; then, fearing her surprise at such ignorance would hurt Lizzie's feelings, she tried to smooth it over. "It really isn't s'prising that you never heard 'bout them, Lizzie. Mother always said this was such a quiet place that you never heard any news here. I'll tell you all 'bout them while we build our huts."
While Anne told the story of John Smith and played she was the brave captain directing his band, they dragged brushwood together and erected cabins. Stones were piled to make fireplaces on which to cook the fish they were going to catch and the corn they were going to buy from the Indians.
"You be the Indians, Lizzie," suggested Anne. "Paint your face with pokeberries and stick feathers in your hair. They're heap nicer to look at, but I want to be the Englishmen and talk like Captain John Smith. All you have to say is 'ugh! ugh!'"
The morning slipped by so quickly that they could hardly believe their ears when they heard the farm bell ringing for noon. After dinner, Jake and Peter went by the settlement, on their way to the tobacco-field, to help build Powhatan's rock chimney. The boys made bows and arrows and became so interested in playing Indian that Mr. Collins came for them. He scolded them roundly and said that no boy who didn't work in the tobacco-field would get any supper at his house that night.
"I'm the play Captain Smith," laughed Anne, looking up at the rough-speaking, soft-hearted man; "but you talk like the real captain. 'I give this for a law,' he said, 'that he who will not work shall not eat.'"
Mrs. Collins said that night that the girls must not play Jamestown settlers any more. They might get ill or hurt or snake-bit; and who ever heard of such a game for little girls? they ought to stay in the house and keep their faces white and their frocks clean and play dolls. Anne and Lizzie, however, teased next day until she relented and even waddled down the hill to see their settlement.
"I told them chillen they shouldn't put thar foots in that ma'sh on the branch, gettin' wet and draggled and catchin' colds and chills," she explained to her husband. "But they begged so hard I told 'em to go on and have a good time. Maybe it won't hurt 'em. They're good-mindin' gals. And I never did believe in encouragin' chillen to disobey you by tellin' 'em they shouldn't do things you see thar heads set on doin'. Don't be so hard on the boys, Peter, for stoppin' awhile to play. If the Lord hadn't 'a' meant for chillen to have play-time, He'd 'a' made 'em workin' age to begin with."
The Jamestown colony, like the great undertaking after which it was patterned, had many ups and downs,—flourishing when Jake and Peter could steal off to be Indians and new settlers, and then being neglected and almost deserted. Anne and Lizzie found the most beautiful place to play keeping house. On the hillside, there were two great rocks, full of the most delightful nooks and crevices. One of these rocks was Anne's home, the other was Lizzie's. In the moss-carpeted rooms, lived daisy ladies, with brown-eyed Susans for maids. They made visits and gave dinner parties, having bark tables set with acorn-cups and bits of broken glass and china. They had leaf boats to go a-pleasuring on the spring brook where they had wonderful adventures.
Rainy days put an end to outdoor delights, but they only gave more time for indoor games with their neglected dolls.
After breakfast one rainy morning, Lizzie asked her mother for some scraps—she didn't want any except pretty ones—to make dresses for Honey-Sweet and Nancy Jane. Mrs. Collins replied that she had no idea of wasting her good bed-quilt and carpet-rag pieces on such foolishness as doll dresses. But when ten minutes later the girls went back to repeat their request, they found Mrs. Collins rummaging a bureau drawer. Thence she produced two generous pieces of pretty dimity,—Honey-Sweet's was buff with little rose sprigs and Nancy Jane's had daisies on a pale-blue ground.
While Lizzie was busy making doll dresses, Anne got a book with pictures in it and gave forth a story with a readiness that amazed Mrs. Collins.
"Ain't you a good reader!" she exclaimed. "You read so fast I can't understand half you say."
"I'm not reading all that," honesty compelled Anne to confess, as she beamed with pleasure at Mrs. Collins's praise. "I read when the words are short, and when they're long and the print's solid, I make it up out of my head to fit the pictures."
"Ah! you come of high-learnt folks," said Mrs. Collins, admiringly. "Now, my Jake and Peter, they can't read nothing but what's in the book and that a heap of trouble to 'em. And Lizzie here, she's wore out two first readers and don't hardly know her letters yet."
Lizzie soon tired of sewing and she and Anne pattered off through the halls to the bareness and strangeness of which Anne could not get used. Where, she wondered, were the people in tarnished gilt frames—slim smiling ladies and stately gentlemen with stocks and wigs—that used to be there? The two girls played lady and come-to-see in the bare up-stairs rooms awhile. Then Anne said, "Lizzie, I'm going up the little ladder into the attic and walk around the chimneys."
"Don't! It's dark up there," shuddered Lizzie.
"Dark as midnight," agreed Anne; "heavy dark. You can feel it. It's the only place I used to be afraid of. I have to make myself go there."
"Why?" asked Lizzie.
"I—don't just know—but I do. You wait here." She came back a little later, dusty, cobwebby, flushed. "I knew there wasn't anything there—in the dark more'n the light," she said. "I know it, and still I just have to make myself not be scared. Whew! It's hot up there. Lizzie, let's go in the parlor. I've not been in there yet."
"No," objected Lizzie. "The little old lady's in there—or in the room back of it. Them's her rooms."
"The little old lady? who is she?" inquired Anne.
"She's the one I take breakfast and dinner and supper to. She comes here in the summer and she sits in there and rocks and reads."
"Doesn't she ever go out?" Anne wanted to know.
"Oh, yes! she walks in the yard or garden every day. You just ain't happened to see her. We've played away from the house so much."
"What kind of looking lady is she?" asked Anne.
"Oh, she's just a lady. Ma says she's mighty hotty. What's hotty, Anne?" inquired Lizzie.
Haughty was a new word to Anne. But she hated to say "I don't know," and besides words made to her pictures—queer ones sometimes—of their meaning. "It means she warms up quick," she asserted. "Tell me about her, Lizzie. How does she look?"
"She ain't so very tall and she's slim as a bean-pole," said Lizzie. "Her hair's gray and her skin is white and wrinkly. And she wears long black dresses. That's all I know."
"I want to see her. Let's sit at the head of the steps and watch for her to come out," suggested Anne.
They sat there what seemed a long time but as the little old lady did not appear, they finally ran off to play with Honey-Sweet and Nancy Jane.
While they were thus engaged, Mr. Collins came from the mill. He shook his dripping hat, and hung up the stiff yellow rain-coat that he called a 'slicker.'
"I come by the station, wife," he announced. "And what you think? Thar's a gre't big sign up, 'Lost child.'"
"Sho! Whose child's lost?" inquired Mrs. Collins.
"It's Anne," was the reply. "The printed paper give her name and age and all. And it tells anybody that's found her or got news of her to let them 'sylum folks know."
"As if anybody with a heart in their body would do that!" commented Mrs. Collins. "I bound you let folks know she was here. If you jest had sense enough to keep yo' mouth shet, Peter Collins! That long tongue of yours goin' to be the ruin of you yet."
"I ain't unparted my lips," asserted her husband.
"Now ain't that jest like a man?" Mrs. Collins demanded of the clock. "'Stead of trying to throw folks off the track, saying something like 'What on earth's a lost child doing here?' or 'Nobody'd 'spect a lost child to come to my house!'"
"I wish you'd been thar, Lizbeth," said her admiring husband. "You'd fixed it up. Well, anyhow, I ain't said a word, so don't nobody know nothin' from me. All she's got to do is to lay low till this hub-bub's over."
In that out-of-the-way place there seemed little danger of Anne's being discovered. Mrs. Collins, however, made elaborate plans for her concealment.
"Anne," she said, "would you mind me callin' you my niece Polly?"
Anne looked at her in questioning surprise.
"If so be people from the 'sylum was to look for you, you wouldn't want to go back thar, would you?"
"Oh, no! I'd much rather stay here," answered Anne.
"Bless your heart! and so you shall," exclaimed Mrs. Collins. "I'll trim your hair and part it on the side and call you my niece Polly. And can't nobody find out who you are and drag you back to that 'sylum. You shall stay here forever."
"Goody, goody!" cried Anne. Then she said thoughtfully, "I do wish I had some of my things from there. It doesn't matter so much about my clothes. Lizzie's are most small enough and I s'pose I'll grow to fit them. But I do wish Honey-Sweet had her dresses, 'spressly her spotted silk and her blue muslin. And there are some other things. Uncle Carey said they were my mother's and I don't want Miss Farlow to keep them always."
"When you are grown up, you can go and get them," suggested Mrs. Collins.
"Oh, so I will," said Anne. "And please, may Lizzie go with me?"
CHAPTER XXIII
A day or two later, Anne wandered alone into the old-fashioned garden. She had just recalled—bit by bit things from the past came back to her—a damask rose at the end of the south walk that was her mother's special favorite. It was bare now of its rosy-pink blossoms and Anne gathered some red and yellow zinnias to play lady with. The red-gowned ladies had their home under the Cherokee rose-bush and yellow-frocked dames were given a place under the clematis-vine; then they exchanged visits and gave beautiful parties.
Presently a slim, black-robed lady sauntered down the box-edged turf walk and stopped near Anne.
"What are you doing, little girl?" she asked.
Anne looked up at the lady. "How do you do, cousin?" she said, scrambling to her feet and putting up her mouth to be kissed. It was one of the cousins, she knew, and it was the most natural thing in the world to see her come down the box-edged walk to the rose-arbor; but whether it was Cousin Lucy or Cousin Dorcas or Cousin Polly, Anne was not sure.
It was Cousin Dorcas and she stared at the child for a moment, too amazed to speak.
"It cannot be little Nancy!" she exclaimed at last. "Child, who are you?"
"Why, of course, I'm little Nancy," Anne laughed.
"What are you doing here? Where did you come from?"
"I am playing flower dolls." Anne answered the questions gravely in order. "I got off the train because I wanted to come home. I thought Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard were here."
Miss Dorcas Read sat down on a rustic seat and questioned her small cousin until she drew forth the story of the child's wanderings.
"I am glad I have found you," the lady said when Anne's story was finished. "You ought to be with your own people, of course, and I am your near kinswoman. Your great-grandmother and my grandmother were sisters. It is little that I have, but that little I shall gladly share with you. I must take you with me when I go home next week."
"Where is your home?" asked Anne.
"In Washington City. I am one of the little army of government clerks," Miss Dorcas explained. "I come back every summer to spend my vacation here. I walk in the dear old garden and read the dear old books and live again in the dear old days. You do not understand now, child; but some day, if you live long enough, you will understand."
Lizzie wailed aloud when she learned that Anne was to leave 'Lewis Hall,' and in her heart Anne preferred her old home to her old cousin.
"You shouldn't never have gone to a 'sylum," said Mrs. Collins, wiping her eyes with her apron. "But when one of your blood-kin lays claim to you, that's diff'rent and I ain't got no call to interfere. I got sense enough to know my folks ain't like yo' folks. Yours is the real old-time quality folks and you ought to be brung up with your own kind. Now, we is a bottom rail that's done come to the top. My chillen's got to be schooled and give book-learnin'. Some day they'll forget they was ever anything but top rails, and look down on their old daddy and mammy."
"I ain't, mammy; I ain't never gwi' look down on you," declared Lizzie.
"That's all right, honey," answered Mrs. Collins. "I want you to be hotty and look down on folks. I never could l'arn to do it. I was always too sociable-disposed."
"No one can ever look on you except with respect, dear Mrs. Collins," Miss Dorcas insisted. "Certainly, Anne and I shall always regard you as one of her best friends. She will want to come to see you next vacation, if you will let her."
"Let her! and thank you, ma'am," exclaimed Mrs. Collins. "Now I'm going to unload them pantry shelves. You shall have sweetmeats and jam and preserves and pickle for yo' snacks, Anne, and I want you to think of Lizbeth Collins when you eat 'em."
Before Anne and Cousin Dorcas went to Washington, it was resolved that they should visit Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard, who lived on a plantation eight miles from 'Lewis Hall.' Mrs. Collins doubted the wisdom of the plan, fearing lest some of the 'sylum folks on the lookout for Anne would be met on the public road. Miss Dorcas, too, was a little uneasy. It was finally decided that Anne should wear one of Lizzie's frocks and her sunbonnet and that if they met any one on the road, Miss Dorcas was to say in a loud voice, "Lizzie!" and Anne was to answer, "Yes, ma'am."
Mr. Collins brought out an old buggy with an old horse called Firefly and helped Miss Dorcas in, explaining carefully, "This ain't no kicker and it ain't no jumper. It's jest plain horse with good horse-sense. If you don't cross yo' lines, you can drive him anywhere."
"I don't know much about driving," confessed Miss Dorcas. "That is, I've been driving a great deal but I've never held the lines.—Whoa! get up, sir!" She gave a gurgly cluck, and flapped the lines up and down on Firefly's back, with her elbows high in air. Firefly started meekly off on a jog trot. Mr. Collins looked after them.
"Dumb brutes is got heap more sense than humans," he exclaimed. "They understands women. Now, Miss Dorcas she's whoain' and geein' and hawin' that horse at the same time, but somehow he knows what she wants him to do and he's gwine to do it."
Firefly followed the winding of the river-road mile after mile, along meadows, fields, and wooded hills, fair in the hazy sunlight. How many times Anne had travelled this road on visits to the numerous cousins!
Firefly turned at last from the highway to a plantation road and stopped at a log cabin. It was a neat, whitewashed little house, with rows of zinnias and marigolds on each side of a walk leading from the road. Over the door, hung a madeira vine covered with little spikes of fragrant white blossoms. Charity, in a blue-and-white checked cotton gown, with a bandanna around her head, was working in her garden beside the house.
"Don't speak to her, Cousin Dorcas," whispered Anne. "Let me s'prise her." She jumped lightly out of the buggy and ran to Aunt Charity. "Boo!" she said.
Charity dropped her hoe with a scream. "Lawd 'a' mercy!" she exclaimed, backing toward the cabin. "My child's ghost in de broad daylight!"
Anne laughed till tears ran down her cheeks. "There!" she said, pinching Charity's fat arm. "Does that feel like a ghost, Aunt Charity?"
Charity seized Anne in her arms and jumped up and down, exclaiming, "My child in de flesh and blood! my child in de flesh and blood!" At last she recovered herself enough to "mind her manners" and help Miss Dorcas out of the buggy.
"You all ain' gwine away a step till you eat a snack," she insisted. "I got a chicken in dyar I done kilt to take to church to-morrow. Ain't I glad it's ready for my baby child! And I'll mix some hoecakes and bake some sweet taters and gi' you a pitcher o' cool sweet milk. My precious baby, you set right dyar in de do'. I can't take my eyes off you any more'n if dee was glued to you."
A table was set under the great oak and Charity, beaming with joy, waited on her guests. "Richard ain't gwi' forgive hisself for goin' to mill to-day," she said. "Dunno huccome he went, anyway. He could 'a' put it off till Monday. But if you gwi' be at de old place till Chewsday, me an' him will sho hobble up to see you."
As the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, Miss Dorcas and Anne started on their homeward journey. Miss Dorcas clucked and jerked the lines, and Firefly ambled homeward, now jog-trotting along the road, now pausing to nibble grass on the wayside.
CHAPTER XXIV
All too soon for Anne, came the day that was to take her to the city. Generous Mrs. Collins insisted on slipping into Miss Dorcas's trunk a liberal supply of Lizzie's clothes, and she gave Anne one of Lizzie's best frocks to travel in and a muslin hat that flopped over her face. Disguised in these, she was to be smuggled away on a night train to prevent her being discovered and taken back to the asylum. They were the more concerned about the matter because Mr. Collins heard at the blacksmith shop new inquiries about the lost child. Miss Dorcas charged Charity and Richard, who trudged the long eight miles to visit their "precious baby child," not to mention having seen Anne. Richard brought on his shoulder a great bag full of things "for Marse Will Watkins's child"—apples, popcorn, potatoes. For days Mrs. Collins had been baking cakes and pies and selecting sweetmeats, preserves, and pickles from her store. The supplies were so liberal that after a barrel was packed and repacked and re-repacked there were almost as many things left out as were put in. Mrs. Collins wanted to put them in another barrel, but Miss Dorcas said that the supply already packed would more than fill her tiny pantry.
Mrs. Collins consoled herself as best she could. "Christmas is coming," she said; "it's slow but it's on the way. And when it do get here, I'll send you a barrel packed to show you what a barrel can hold."
The morning after Anne's regretful farewell to her old home and her new friends, found her eagerly examining her cousin's small apartment in Georgetown. The house was a red-brick mansion built for the residence of an early Secretary of the Navy, and now made over into cheap flats. The stately, old-fashioned place was surrounded by small shops and cheap, dingy houses. "It makes me think," Miss Dorcas said with a sigh, "how Jefferson would look to-day in a Democratic party meeting or Hamilton among modern Republican politicians."
Anne didn't know who Hamilton was but she thought Jefferson, whose picture hung in the sitting-room, looked as if he might have lived here. It was a place still full of charm. In the rear of the mansion was an old-fashioned flower garden with box-bordered gravel walks dividing the formal beds and leading here to a stone seat, there to a broken fountain. In the centre of the garden, was a sun-dial which a century before told the shining hours; now, its days went in shadow under the crowding trees,—a coffee-tree from Arabia, a mulberry from Spain, and other relics of the wanderings of the long-ago secretary. Anne felt like a bird in a nest as she sat on the roomy, white-columned porch overlooking the garden, catching glimpses through a leafy screen of the broad Potomac and the wooded hills of Virginia.
"Ah! when the leaves fall it is beautiful, beautiful," said her cousin; but Anne was sure that it could never be more beautiful than now, in the green-gold glory of a late summer afternoon.