CHAPTER VII
THE COTTAGE BESIEGED

“It doesn’t seem fair when you have to stand hours in the hot sun picking, and all they have to do is to set the boxes where folks will see them, and they sell like hot cakes. Wouldn’t it be nice–” Peggy stopped abruptly, and gave herself up to formulating a delightful, and as it seemed to her, a perfectly feasible plan, namely that a part of Lucy’s berries at least, should be shipped directly to Friendly Terrace, and sold at the market price, Lucy to receive the entire proceeds less the expense of transportation.

Tired as she was after the exertions and excitement of that eventful picnic, Peggy could not sleep till she had written a letter to her mother describing her brilliant scheme in detail. Two days later, the Rural Free Delivery wagon brought encouraging news. Dick had canvassed the houses on both sides the Terrace, and nearly every housekeeper had fallen in with Peggy’s plan. Every one seemed pleased at the prospect of getting berries picked only the day before, and Dick, in spite of his responsibilities as first baseman for the Junior Giants, readily undertook to see that the fruit reached its various destinations safely.

But even now Peggy was not satisfied. “You see, girls,” she explained to the interested circle around the supper-table, “it’s just preserving time, and the Terrace folks will be glad to buy more berries than Lucy can possibly pick. Let’s have a bee and help her out. She took a day off to drive us to the picnic, and it’s only fair that we should take a day to work for her.”

It was not necessary for Peggy to use her persuasive arts to induce the others to agree to the plan. Berry-picking as an occupation had lost its charm for most of them, but berry-picking with the generous purpose Peggy had suggested, was quite another matter. After they had calculated Lucy’s probable profits for a single day, if she could be sure of five or six volunteer helpers, enthusiasm ran high. Claire’s pensive hope, voiced with a sigh, that it wouldn’t be too blisteringly hot, was passed over without comment.

It was decided to carry a picnic luncheon to the berry pasture and have the hearty meal of the day after their return. Aunt Abigail though heartily approving the plan, begged off from joining the party. “Dorothy and I are not quite old enough yet to be of much assistance,” she said with a funny little grimace. “We lack the patience that will come with years.”

“But, Aunt Abigail,” Ruth protested, “you couldn’t stay here all by yourself. You’d be lonely.”

Aunt Abigail’s laugh indicated derision. “It’ll be a pleasant sensation. Why, you chatter-boxes keep things in such an uproar that I haven’t had a chance for quiet, connected thought since I landed here. Go along. I shall be glad to be rid of you.”

The season for the red raspberries was nearly over, but the blackberries were ripening fast. “My, but I’m glad they’re not blueberries,” Amy confided to Peggy. “Think of picking a six-quart pail full of shoe-buttons, or what amounts to that. Now, blackberries count up.”

The adage that many hands make light work was never better exemplified than on that July day in the berry pasture. Even Lucy lost a little of her air of stern resolution and found herself curiously observant of her surroundings, as if she were regarding them through the unaccustomed eyes of girls who were city bred. She even joined, though with all the awkwardness of a novice, in the gay chatter which went on about the laden bushes. Lucy had always looked on picking berries as a serious business, like life itself. She was a little astonished to see these girls turning it into play, leavening it with laughter. Lucy had been brought up on the saying, ‘duty first, pleasure afterward,’ though in her particular case, duty engrossed the day so completely that pleasure was of a necessity postponed to some indefinite future. It was a new idea to her that the two might be blended without injury to either.

Hobo who had insisted on joining the party against Claire’s protests, for she rather boasted of the fact that she was afraid of dogs, divided his attention equally between Peggy and Dorothy. Peggy he adored, but he had an air of feeling responsible for Dorothy, and as she scampered about the pasture, Hobo followed her, not with any pretext of devotion, but much as a faithful nurse-maid might have done. The girls laughed at his conscientious air as they laughed at everything Dorothy said. It seemed to Lucy she had never seen people who found so many things to laugh about. She wondered how it would seem if gaiety were the habit of life instead of the rare exception.

But though the berry-picking went on with none of the relentless haste which would properly characterize contestants in a Marathon race, though blackened lips gave convincing testimony that all the berries had not found their way into the shining pails, though the incessant talk and almost incessant laughter were suggestive of a flock of blackbirds, and though luncheon turned into a protracted feast, which left only crumbs for the ants and squirrels, yet the pails filled up before Lucy’s eyes. And when the declining July sun intimated that he for one had done about enough for a day, the little group in the berry pasture had reason to be well satisfied with their efforts.

“Can’t you smell the blackberry jam cooking on Friendly Terrace day after to-morrow?” demanded Peggy, as she stood beaming over the full pails. “Haven’t we done splendidly?”

All the others were in a mood equally jubilant. Lucy Haines looked from one glowing face to another, and felt a queer tightening in the muscles of her throat. It was not so much their help that touched her. She had been helping other people all her life, in her grave, conscientious fashion. But she had always thought of sympathy as a rather sombre thing, extended when some one died in the family or on like sorrowful occasions. That day she saw it in a different guise, smiling, radiant, something for which one could not say thank you, but which warmed one’s heart through and through, nevertheless. She almost forgot to count up what that berrying-bee would mean to her in dollars and cents, it had meant so much more in other things.

It was a noisy, talkative file of girls who having escorted Lucy to her home, and left the back doorstep covered with berry pails, turned their faces toward Dolittle Cottage. The day spent in the open air had made them hungry. Peggy was invited to divulge her intentions concerning supper and her proposed menu aroused enthusiasm.

“I wonder if Aunt Abigail has missed us?” remarked Ruth, who hated above all things to be left alone for five minutes, so that her thoughts had invested Aunt Abigail’s solitude with a pathos which the independent old lady would have instantly resented.

Amy took it on herself to answer. “No, indeed. That’s the best thing about Aunt Abigail. She likes people and she’s always happy in a crowd, but she’s never lonely when she’s by herself. If there’s something around to read she wouldn’t mind if she didn’t have anybody to speak to for a week.”

Dolittle Cottage was in sight by now. The girls’ eyes scanned the porch for a lounging figure absorbed in a book or magazine. “She isn’t outside, is she?” remarked Peggy. “I hope she isn’t trying to get supper.”

“I hope so, too,” agreed Amy fervently. “I’ve tried Aunt Abigail’s cooking once or twice.” Whether it was due to the hope of arresting Aunt Abigail’s supper preparations, before they had gone too far, or because of some other undefined anxiety, the line advanced on the double-quick.

As they drew nearer the cottage, something peculiar in its appearance gradually became evident. It had a forsaken look, such as it had presented on the day of their arrival. Peggy was the first to discover the explanation of the mysterious change.

“Why, she’s got all the shutters closed!”

Peggy was not mistaken. As a rule, every door and window in the cottage stood wide open, except during heavy storms. Now its tightly shuttered windows and closed doors gave it the look of being unoccupied.

Surprise, and perhaps a vague, unformulated anxiety, had quickened the lagging feet of the girls, so that when they came up the gravel walk leading to the door of the cottage, they were almost running. Peggy who was a little in the lead, was the first to reach the door. She turned the knob quickly, pushed till she was red in the face, gave the door a sharp shake and then stood staring blankly. “It’s locked!” she exclaimed.

“I’ll try the back door.” Amy started for the rear of the cottage, but the nimble Priscilla was ahead of her, and when Amy came panting to the back doorstep, met her with the startling news, “This is locked, too. Do you suppose she’s gone away?”

“I don’t know where she’d go unless it was to borrow something of Mrs. Snooks,” Amy though puzzled was not really anxious, as she was only too familiar with Aunt Abigail’s eccentric possibilities. “We’ll knock as hard as we can,” she suggested. “Maybe she lay down to take a nap and overslept.”

A vigorous tattoo began forthwith on the back door, to be reinforced presently by the ringing of the front door bell. Had Aunt Abigail been a rival of the celebrated Seven Sleepers the combined tumult would have been pretty sure to arouse her. Priscilla and Amy at length desisted, and returning to the front of the house, met the other girls coming to the rear. By this time every face was anxious.

“There’s just a chance that the woodshed door is open,” said Peggy. “Though she’s locked everything up so carefully that I don’t think it’s likely.” A moment’s investigation showed that this door, too, was firmly bolted, and Peggy returned to the sober girls grouped under the dining-room window. “She must have gone somewhere,” Peggy said. “Do you suppose she could have got tired of staying here all day by herself, and tried to find us in the pasture and lost her way?”

The suggestion struck a little chill through the listeners. The locked house, the setting sun, the mystery of Aunt Abigail’s disappearance had all combined to dissipate their previous cheerfulness. In addition to their anxiety about Aunt Abigail, certain unformulated doubts regarding their chances for supper and bed, weighed upon their spirits.

“Look!” cried Amy suddenly. “Look!” and pointed a directing finger upward. The shutter of one of the bedroom windows was conducting itself very strangely, now opening a trifle, and then slamming to as if it had suddenly changed its mind. But presently it opened sufficiently wide to give the watchers below a glimpse of snowy hair, arranged in a rather elaborate combination of coils and puffs.

“Aunt Abigail!” Amy shrieked, “oh, Aunt Abigail!” Her cry was echoed by the voices of the others, Dorothy’s treble sounding clearly above the rest. The shutter opened again, and an unmistakable Aunt Abigail looked down.

“Who’s there?”

“Why, it’s us!” Grammatical accuracy ceases to be important when people are tired and hungry, and, if the truth must be confessed, a little out of temper. “Do come down, and let us in.”

“Are you sure there’s nobody else.”

The girls looked over their shoulders. The gathering dark began to seem unfriendly. Dorothy hid her face in Peggy’s skirts.

“Why, of course there is nobody else here.” It was Amy who gave the answer, though her statement ended in an interrogative upward note as if it asked a question.

“Then come to the front door.” Aunt Abigail’s head disappeared and the shutter closed. A minute or two later the front door opened just far enough to admit one girl at a time, and when a subdued procession had filed in, it closed sharply, and was locked and bolted without an instant’s delay.

Every one realized that the situation was serious. “What’s happened?” exclaimed several voices with anxious unanimity, while Peggy hurried to light the lamp, the dreariness of the shuttered house proving depressing to the spirits, as well as a practical inconvenience.

“Girls!” Aunt Abigail spoke with the air of one who realizes the importance of what she has to tell. “I have had a very singular experience this afternoon. I am not a timid woman, but I must confess I feel quite upset.”

“Oh, dear! I felt all the time as though we shouldn’t go off and leave you by yourself,” cried Ruth, and the old lady patted her hand as if grateful for the impulsive outburst.

“I got along very well the early part of the day. I found some interesting books in the garret and read till nearly two. Then I made myself a cup of tea, and after luncheon I thought I would take a nap. The screened doors were shut and hasped, but the windows were all open. Any one could have entered without difficulty.”

Even on the memorable evening when she had entertained her listeners with ghost stories, Aunt Abigail’s tones had not been more blood-curdling. The girls listened with open mouths.

“I was dreaming that I was captured by pirates, and one of them had put me in a chest, along with some of their booty, and was nailing down the lid. When I waked I could still hear the hammering, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was. Then I realized that some one was knocking and I went to the window, and called, ‘Who is it and what do you want?’ And instantly two tramps appeared.”

The girls uttered an exclamation. “If only we’d left you Hobo,” Peggy cried.

“I’m afraid he wouldn’t have been much protection against two such ruffians. Each one of them carried a heavy stick, and I dare say they were armed beside. As soon as I saw them, I called for them to go away, that I had nothing for them, but they were bold enough to stay and argue the point.”

“What did they say, Aunt Abigail?”

“Don’t ask me. I kept my self-possession perfectly, but at the same time I was excited, and didn’t understand what they were saying. I presume they were demanding food and money and I kept declaring that I would give them nothing. At last they gave up and went off in the direction of Mrs. Snooks, and then I rushed down-stairs and locked everything up just as you found it.”

It was clear that Aunt Abigail had found her experience trying. She was pale and seemed very unlike her usual composed self. Conscience stricken over having left her by herself, the girls petted her and asked innumerable questions, few of which Aunt Abigail was able to answer. But she described her unwelcome callers in detail, and Peggy found herself thinking that they bore more than a superficial resemblance to the desperadoes of Treasure Island. She could not help wondering if Aunt Abigail’s lively imagination, excited first by her reading, and then by her vivid dream, had not added some touches to the picture.

“Well, girls,” Peggy said at length, in a tone surprisingly matter-of-fact considering the circumstances, “I guess supper is the next thing in order. After we’ve had something to eat–”

She stopped abruptly. A loud knocking at the back door echoed through the cottage. Amy uttered a scream, clapping her hands over her mouth instantly, to stifle the sound. The others instinctively moved closer to one another, exchanging frightened glances. Hobo growled softly, the hair on his neck bristling and giving him a peculiarly savage appearance.

The knocking broke off for a moment, and then was resumed. “They’ve come back,” said Aunt Abigail.

“Why, perhaps it’s only Mrs. Snooks come to borrow something,” Peggy was beginning hopefully, when out at the rear of the cottage somebody laughed. Whatever the cause of the unseemly merriment, Mrs. Snooks was not responsible for it. Peggy’s sudden anger went to her head. She felt as if she had forgotten the meaning of fear. “I’m going to tell them,” she exclaimed, “that if they don’t go away, I’ll set the dog on them.”

She marched out into the kitchen, Hobo following, and as she reached the door, the knocking began for the third time. “If you don’t go away,” shouted Peggy through the keyhole, “my dog–”

A burst of laughter interrupted her. “Oh, come off, Peggy Raymond,” cried a voice outside. “Open this door quick, if you know what’s best for yourself.”

Peggy’s cry of joy was echoed by a rapturous shriek from Ruth, for the girls had courageously followed Peggy, as she advanced to hold parley with the besiegers, with an air of resolute determination worthy of Joan of Arc. Peggy fumbled at locks, bolts and catches, for Aunt Abigail had neglected no precaution, and the instant the door was opened, Ruth threw herself into the arms of a tall young fellow who walked in with the air of thinking that it was high time for him to be accorded the privilege.

“Oh, Graham, I never was so glad to see anybody! Some tramps scared us almost to death.”

“Tramps! Oh, nonsense!” returned Graham, with a collegian’s instant readiness to belittle the fears of his feminine relatives. “Come on in, Jack. It seems to be safe. You know Jack Rynson,” he added over his sister’s shoulder to Peggy, who nodded and turned to shake hands with another young man, who seemed a little uncertain as to his welcome.

But unmindful of her manners, Ruth was protesting. “It isn’t nonsense, Graham. It’s true. Two tramps were here this afternoon, shouting all kinds of threats at Aunt Abigail.”

“Tramps,” repeated Graham, and glanced at his friend. “What sort of looking chaps were they?”

“Oh, perfectly villainous. And each one had a great club of some sort and a bundle on his back.”

Graham broke into a roar of laughter, in which Jack Rynson joined, though it should be reckoned to the latter’s credit that he was making an evident effort not to seem amused.

“Talk of the journalistic imagination,” shouted Graham. “Why, Jack, you newspaper fellows could get all sorts of points from these girls. We were the tramps, Ruth. So much obliged for your kind comments on our personal appearance.”

Gradually Graham’s incredulous listeners were driven to accept his assurance. The arrival of the two young men when Aunt Abigail’s thoughts were full of the horrors of her dream, had led her to see the good-looking boys, equipped with packs and walking sticks, in a most sinister light. The “tramps” were taken into the front room and introduced, Hobo, who had all of a dog’s intuitive suspicion of old clothes, sniffing disapprovingly at their heels.

The laugh was against Aunt Abigail as she herself owned. “I would have taken my oath,” she remarked reflectively, “that one of you had only one eye, and a scar that ran the length of his cheek. It shows that even if I’m not as young as I was, my imagination is still active. But you had packs on your backs. What has become of the clubs and packs?”

Graham explained that they had taken rooms at a farmhouse a little way down the road, and had left their belongings there. “We’re out for a long tramp,” Graham explained. “We mean to make several stops of a few days each, and we didn’t know any better place to begin than right here.”

“Are you staying with Mrs. Cole?” asked Peggy, and Graham shook his head. “No, the name wasn’t Cole. It was–let’s see.”

Jack Rynson helped him out. “Snooks, I believe.”

“That’s it, Mrs. Snooks,” agreed Graham, and then looked about him astonished, for the entire company, including Aunt Abigail, was helpless with laughter.

“She’ll borrow your walking stick for a clothes pole,” said Peggy, when she was able to speak, “and your pack for a footstool. She’ll borrow everything you’ve got, and then be provoked because you haven’t more.”

It is a question whether anybody would have thought of supper if it had not been for Dorothy, who retired into a corner to weep. Questioned regarding her tears, she replied that she wanted her mother. “Homesick,” some one said significantly.

“Hungry!” cried Peggy, with one of her flashes of intuition. “And what wonder! Just look at the clock! Girls, let’s see how quick we can get something ready.”

The meal though less ambitious than that which Peggy had originally planned, was satisfying. And it was not till the next day that the girls learned that the two young men who did such abundant justice to the bounty of Dolittle Cottage, had eaten another supper at Mrs. Snooks, a little over an hour earlier.

CHAPTER VIII
HOBO TO THE RESCUE

“I never could get on with swells,” said Jerry, with his customary frankness. “Let ’em fish out of your cistern. Them city dudes will catch as much there as anywhere.”

Peggy restrained her laughter with difficulty. It seemed rather hard that Graham and Jack, attiring themselves in garments so old as barely to be presentable should yet be designated by a term of such unbounded contempt. Privately, Peggy thought Aunt Abigail had come nearer the mark, and that the boys bore a more striking resemblance to tramps than to city dudes.

Wisely she made no effort to defend her friends. “Of course, if you are too busy,” she said indifferently, “we can make some other arrangement. Perhaps Mr. Cole would spare Joe–”

“Oh, I’ll take ’em,” interrupted Jerry, still sulkily, though he looked a little ashamed of himself. “I’ll show ’em where the fish are, and if they come home with nothing but their tackle, don’t blame me.”

But the fishing excursion was more successful than Jerry’s gloomy hints gave ground for anticipating. The boys brought back so many fish that thrifty Peggy racked her brains to find ways of disposing of them all. Jerry, for his part, carried home a new idea of “city dudes” and their ways. These clear-eyed, clean-minded young fellows had not treated him as an inferior, nor had they committed the offence still less pardonable, from Jerry’s standpoint, of condescending to his level. As fishermen, too, they had showed no mean skill, and from dislike and mistrust, Jerry had at length been brought to grudging admiration and reluctant respect.

The favorable impression was not all on one side, however. As Graham cleaned his fish–the girls lightening his labors, by sitting around in an appreciative circle–he suddenly checked his operations to exclaim: “Say, do you know, that fellow’s a wonder!”

“Who? Not Jerry Morton?” Ruth’s tone was rather scandalized, for Ruth did not share Peggy’s faculty for finding all kinds of people interesting, and had a not uncommon weakness for good clothes and conventional manners.

“Yes, Jerry. Why, he’s a walking encyclopedia! He knows everything about the trees and plants growing around here, except their scientific names. And it’s the same way with birds. He’s learned it all first-hand, instead of out of books, you see. His eyes and his ears too, are as sharp as an Indian’s! Pity that there isn’t a better prospect of his amounting to something.”

Peggy was delighted with the opportunity to discuss Jerry’s case with some one inclined to appreciate the boy’s good qualities. “He’s got started wrong,” she explained. “He’s not really lazy, but he seems lazy to the people here. They think he’s worthless and he resents that, and so he fancies he hates everybody. You see, he hasn’t any father or mother. He lives with his grandmother and she–”

“Dear me! How do you pick up so much about that sort of people?” demanded Claire, suppressing a yawn rather unsuccessfully. Claire found such topics of conversation far from entertaining, and was perfectly willing that Peggy should realize this fact. But Peggy herself was too interested to suspect that Claire was bored.

“Oh, I asked Mrs. Cole about him,” she replied. “Graham, I wish you’d talk to him if you get a chance, and try to wake up his ambition. It’s a shame for such a bright boy to grow up with the reputation of being a loafer.”

Graham shook his head. “Guess I wouldn’t be much of a success as a home missionary. You’d better try your hand on him yourself, Peggy.”

“Me? Oh, I do,” Peggy answered simply. “But, perhaps he’d think more of it coming from a boy.” And Graham reaching for another fish, reflected that a girl like Peggy Raymond could not even go away for a summer vacation without framing innumerable little plots for helping people, with or without their coöperation. Ruth had told him of the berrying-bee, and mentioned casually that Peggy was going to give Lucy Haines lessons in algebra. At the same time she was puzzling her head over the possibility of turning the good-for-nothing of the community into a useful citizen. Humility was not Graham’s dominant characteristic, but for the moment the popular young collegian had a queer and uncomfortable sense of amounting to very little.

Dorothy rescued him from this unwonted self-depreciation by bursting on the scene with eyes distended to their widest. “Aunt Peggy, your old hen’s scolding–and scolding.”

“Now, Dorothy, you mustn’t go near her nest.”

“I stood ’way off by the door and jus’ looked at her an’ she talked as cross as anything.”

“Oh, I wonder–What day is it, anyway?” Peggy disappeared through the open door of the woodshed, to have her jubilant suspicions instantly confirmed. The yellow hen was in a mood of extreme agitation, and a shrill peeping from beneath her ruffled feathers furnished the explanation of her disquiet.

Peggy herself was hardly more composed, and her excitement was contagious. All plans for the remainder of the afternoon were instantly forgotten till Peggy’s chickens should be ushered from their egg-shell prison-houses into the world of sunshine. Peggy had fortified herself against this hour by asking advice of Mrs. Cole and Joe, and all the other experts in the neighborhood, but now she realized the appalling gulf between theory and practise. The demeanor of the yellow hen convinced her that everything was going wrong, and she felt pathetically unequal to doing ever so little toward making it come right.

Yet, in spite of Peggy’s forebodings, one chicken after another was rescued from beneath the wings of the perturbed foster-mother, and placed in a carefully prepared basket set behind the kitchen stove. The girls, eager for a peep at the new arrivals, failed to wax enthusiastic after their curiosity had been satisfied. Amy voiced the general disappointment when she said regretfully, “I hadn’t an idea they looked like that to start with. I thought they’d be fluffy and cute, like the chickens on Easter cards.” Peggy, who had herself found the appearance of the wobbly, shrill-voiced mites a distinct shock, said bravely that they would undoubtedly be prettier when they were older.

After six chickens had been placed in the basket, silence reigned in the nest. The yellow hen settled down on her remaining eggs, emitting, at intervals, an agitated cluck. Peggy vibrated between the woodshed and the covered basket behind the stove, like an erratic pendulum. The other girls, weary at last of waiting for more chickens, trooped to the living-room, and Graham, who like many young gentlemen of twenty, could on occasion conduct himself like a boy half that age, sought to create a diversion by tickling his sister.

Ruth was agonizingly sensitive to this form of torture. A forefinger extended with a threatening waggle was sufficient to rob her of every vestige of self-control, while the play of her brother’s fingers over her ribs reduced her instantly to grovelling submission. To do Graham justice, he was quite unable to appreciate the fact that this pastime cost Ruth real suffering. He would have put his hand into the fire before he would have struck his sister, yet he frequently subjected her to misery compared to which a blow would have been welcome.

With a sudden freakish reversion to the prankishness of a growing boy, Graham pointed his finger at Ruth, who instantly screamed. The girls looking on, laughed, and there was some excuse for their amusement. The spectacle of the sensible Ruth, shrinking and shrieking over nothing more alarming than an agitated forefinger, was ridiculous enough to be funny. Graham, encouraged by the laughter, took a step toward his sister who instantly burst into incoherent appeals and protests.

“Oh, Graham, please, Graham! Oh, dear! Oh! Oh! Oh!”

Hobo, lying on the porch outside, leaped to his feet. Hobo keenly felt the responsibility of the family he had adopted. He subjected all new arrivals to a careful scrutiny which marked him sufficiently as the guardian of the household. But never before in his three weeks of domesticity, had the need for his services seemed as urgent as now.

Barking excitedly, Hobo ran to the nearest window, raised himself on his hind-legs, his forepaws resting on the outer sill, and looked in. The scene which met his eyes confirmed his worst suspicions. Ruth, standing in the middle of the room, cowered and pleaded, while the teasing brother prolonged the fun by touching her lightly now and then, finding her writhing protests eminently diverting.

Outside, Hobo barked his warning. The girls turned to the window and the laughter broke out afresh. The dog’s eyes shone with a bluish light, like burnished steel. The hair on his neck bristled threateningly. As Graham looked up, Hobo’s upper lip drew back in a menacing fashion, showing his teeth.

“That dog would be an ugly customer in a fight,” remarked Graham casually, not averse to teasing a barking dog as well as a screaming girl. He caught Ruth by the arm as she edged away, and tickled her again. Ruth’s responsive shriek was ear-splitting.

Hobo’s head disappeared from the window. The dog ran back, crouching for a spring. Unluckily the screen had been removed from that particular window the previous day, when Peggy had discovered a break through which the flies were entering, and the window itself had been lowered till the necessary repairs could be made. Just as Graham was beginning to think that the fun was losing its zest, a heavy body launched itself against the glass.

Hobo was a large dog, and since he had become a member of the family at Dolittle Cottage the hollows of his gaunt frame had been filling out rapidly. With such a projectile hurled against a window, the result could not be in doubt. There was a startling crash. Pieces of glass flew in all directions, and Hobo, bleeding from several wounds, struggled through the splintered aperture made by the force of his spring, and leaped at the young man who had disturbed the peace of the cottage.

For all Hobo’s injuries, there was plenty of fight in him yet, and the consequences might have been serious if Peggy had not arrived upon the scene at the critical moment. Her stern command, “Down, Hobo! Down, sir!” emphasized by stamps of her foot had a magical effect. The poor, bleeding, bewildered creature, who had stopped at nothing to protect a member of the household which commanded his fealty, recognized in Peggy the ultimate authority. The tense muscles, bent for a spring, instantly relaxed. The lip dropped over the bared teeth. With a whimper the poor brute crouched at Peggy’s feet, and Peggy saw with sickened dismay that the blood was oozing from gashes in the dog’s neck.

“Graham!” she gasped. “Oh, Graham! He’s hurt! He’s bleeding dreadfully!”

Graham’s temporary lapse into the sins of his youth was over. He was again a young college man, and thoroughly ashamed of himself. The amusement he had found in teasing Ruth suddenly seemed inexplicable, in view of this tragic culmination. Flushing and awkward, he stood looking on while Peggy bent over the wounded dog, unable to restrain her tears. But when she attempted to remove a splinter of glass from the gash for which it was responsible, Graham uttered a startled protest.

“I wouldn’t try that, Peggy. He’s likely to bite you.”

“Oh, he won’t bite me,” Peggy returned confidently. “He knows I’m his friend, don’t you, poor old fellow?” Hobo, realizing that the loved voice was addressing him, even though the trend of the question was beyond his comprehension, gave a feeble flop of his tail, and raised to Peggy’s face eyes full of loyalty and trust.

The living-room became a hospital forthwith. Those of the girls who were affected with unpleasant qualms at the sight of blood, fled precipitately, while the others lent aid to Peggy, who had taken upon herself the double rôle of operating surgeon and chief nurse. Several ugly splinters of glass were removed from the bleeding neck, and the wounds bathed and bandaged. Graham’s usefulness in the operation was confined to offering advice; for once, when he had extended his hand to assist Peggy, the light of battle had again kindled in Hobo’s eyes, and a low, rumbling growl had voiced his objections to any ministrations from so objectionable a source.

When Peggy’s patient was swathed in bandages, till he looked as if he might be suffering from a severe attack of sore throat, Peggy called him out into the woodshed, where an inviting bed had been made ready for him. Hobo stretched himself upon the folded rug with a groan startlingly human. It was clear that the loss of blood had weakened him, and his gaze directed to Peggy was full of pathetic questioning and dumb appeal.

“I believe I’ll run over to the Coles, and ask them if there is anything more we can do,” Peggy said, looking as unhappy as she felt. “They know so much about all kinds of animals. I’ve taken care of Taffy in his attacks of distemper, and once he had a dreadful fight with another dog, and came home all torn. But he didn’t bleed like this.”

“I’ll walk over with you,” said Graham, only too ready to show his penitence, and Dorothy, who had an innate antipathy to being left behind, also proffered her services as escort.

Accordingly the trio set forth, Dorothy declining to follow the path but circling around the others, like an erratic planet, revolving about twin suns. Graham, who felt personally responsible for the shadow clouding Peggy’s bright face, lost no time in apologizing.

“Peggy, it’s a shame for me to upset things so. You’ll all wish that we had got discouraged over Mrs. Tyler’s reception, and gone on without stopping.”

“Why, no, Graham,” Peggy protested. “Nobody could have dreamed that anything like this would happen.”

Graham was not in a mood to spare himself. “Perhaps not, but there wasn’t any excuse for teasing poor Ruth almost into hysterics. It’s the kind of fun a red Indian might be expected to enjoy.”

Peggy was so inclined to agree with this diagnosis that she found it impossible to be as comforting as she would have liked. “I often wonder how it is that we all think teasing is fun,” she said. “Girls are just as bad as boys. In fact, I think their kind of teasing is even more cruel sometimes. It’s queer, when we stop to think of it, that anybody can get real satisfaction out of making some one else miserable, or even uncomfortable.”

“It’s beastly,” Graham declared with feeling. “I’m going to stop teasing Ruth, that’s sure. It seems so ridiculous to have her scream and wriggle if I point my finger at her, that I can’t realize that it isn’t all a joke. But, I suppose, it is serious enough from her point of view, and I’m going to quit.”

The walk to Farmer Cole’s, enlivened by similar expressions of penitence and good resolutions, was a very edifying excursion, and Peggy, in her sympathy for Graham, almost forgot her anxiety concerning Hobo. She was further relieved when the case was laid before Farmer Cole.

“Oh, he’ll get over it all right,” said that authority encouragingly. “Being a cur dog, that way. Now, if you buy a highbred animal, and pay a fancy price, it goes under at the least little thing. Never knew it to fail. But to kill a cur, you’ve got to blow him up with dynamite.”

“But they do die,” objected Peggy, who found it difficult to accept the farmer’s optimistic view, much as she wished to.

“Old age,” said Farmer Cole. “That’s all. A few scratches like that ain’t going to hurt a cur. But I paid through my nose for a blooded colt a few years back, and ’twarn’t a week before he cut himself on barbed wire, and bled to death.”

“It won’t do any harm for her to use some of the salve,” said Mrs. Cole, and went to her medicine closet in search of the remedy. Rosetta Muriel smoothed her hair, with a motion that set her bracelets jingling, and cast a provocative glance at Graham. Rosetta Muriel admired Graham extremely. In spite of his shabby clothing, there was about him the indefinable air which Jerry had recognized and which had led him to classify the young man as a “city dude.”

“I should have thought that Raymond girl would have put on something more stylisher,” reflected Rosetta Muriel, casting a disapproving glance at Peggy’s gingham. “I haven’t seen her in a nice dress yet.” Had she been in Peggy’s place, she would have known better how to improve her opportunities, she felt sure.

Owing to Hobo’s injuries, the event which up to the time of the accident had seemed to Peggy so tremendously important, had been quite cast in the shade. She recalled it as Mrs. Cole brought out the salve. “Oh, I didn’t tell you. My chickens have hatched.”

“Turned out pretty well, did they?” asked Mrs. Cole, smiling at Peggy benevolently. Peggy was an immense favorite with the good woman, a fact which Rosetta Muriel recognized with irritated wonder. She asked herself frequently why it was that folks got so crazy over that Raymond girl, “with no style to speak of.”

“There’s only six hatched yet. I’ve put them in a basket just as you said. The old hen is on the other eggs.”

“Maybe six will be all,” said Mrs. Cole. “That thunder-storm day before yesterday was pretty rough on eggs ’most ready to hatch.”

Six chickens, instead of eighteen! An air-castle fell with such a crash that it almost seemed to Peggy as if the little group about her must be aware of its downfall. Then she took a long breath. “Well, even six, at forty cents a pound, won’t be so bad for a start,” said Peggy to herself.

Mrs. Cole looked admiringly after the young people as they took their departure, Dorothy and Annie racing on ahead. “They’re what I call a handsome pair,” she exclaimed.

Rosetta Muriel objected. “He’s awful swell, but she ain’t a bit. Look at her gingham dress.”

“Seems to me that her gingham dress is just the thing for running around in the woods and fields,” said Mrs. Cole, who did not often pluck up courage sufficiently to oppose her own opinions to her daughter’s superior wisdom. “I’ve seen her fixed up in white of an evening, and looking like a picture. But, as far as that goes,” she concluded resolutely, “there’s so much to her face, just as if her head was crammed full of bright ideas, and her heart of kind thoughts, that you get to looking at her, and forget what she’s wearing. An’ I guess that young man thinks so, too.”

The closing sentence silenced the retort on Rosetta Muriel’s lips. Her mother had voiced her own suspicions. As a rule, the sophisticated Rosetta Muriel had very little respect for her mother’s opinions, but, in this case, her views happened to coincide with some inward doubts of her own. Rosetta Muriel wondered if it were possible, after all, that sweetness and intelligence written in a girl’s face, might count for more than some other things.

Farmer Cole’s optimism regarding Hobo was justified. For that very evening as the young folks ranged themselves in a semi-circle for the flash-light picture, on which Amy had set her heart, Hobo appeared, looking very interesting in his big collar of bandages, and squeezed himself into the very front of the circle, with a dog’s deep-rooted aversion to being left out of anything. Poor Hobo! He was inexperienced in the matter of flash-lights, and that eventful day was to end in still another shock. For when the powder was touched off and the room was illumined by the lurid glare, high above the inevitable chorus of screams and laughter, sounded Hobo’s yelp of terrified surprise. He left the room with his tail between his legs, and never again, while the summer lasted, could he be induced to face Amy’s camera.

CHAPTER IX
RUTH IN THE RÔLE OF HEROINE

They had been sitting around the fire in the front room when Graham made the announcement, and forthwith it was unanimously decided that the closing day of the boys’ visit must be a red-letter occasion in the annals of the summer. Enough suggestions were offered to provide a week’s entertainment for people who object to taking their pleasures strenuously. In addition to outlining plans for the morrow, it had been tacitly agreed to make the most of the present, and this had resulted in their sitting up very late and clearing among them several platters of fudge, which Amy had thoughtfully made ready. It was that fudge which Ruth recalled about five o’clock the next morning,–recalled with an aversion which by rapid degrees became loathing.

“I ought to have known better,” thought poor Ruth, failing to find any especial consolation in the reflection that she herself was responsible for her present misery. “I didn’t eat half as much as Amy, though.” She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples and groaned. “It’s Graham’s last day, and I’m going to be sick and spoil everything.”

She entertained herself for some moments by picturing the consternation with which her announcement would be received. “You’ll have to go without me to-day. I’ve got such a headache that I can’t do a thing.” But, of course, they would not go without her. They would sit on the porch and discuss regretfully the good times they would have had if nothing had interfered.

All at once Ruth came to a magnificent resolve. She would not spoil the pleasure of Graham’s last day. She would not allow the shadow of her indisposition to cloud the enjoyment of the others. She would bear her sufferings in silence. The resolution was such a relief that she almost fancied that the pain in her head was a little easier. She turned her pillow, pressed her hot cheek to its refreshing coolness, and proceeded to enjoy contemplating herself in the rôle of a heroine.

After two wretched hours in which the only alleviating feature was her heroic resolve that her suffering should affect no one but herself Ruth fell asleep. And almost immediately, as she thought with indignation, she was waked by Peggy, who stood over her, holding fast to her shoulder and shaking her vigorously at intervals, as she cried: “Oh, you sleepy-head! Aren’t you ever going to get up?”

“Don’t, Peggy!” Ruth’s tone did not reflect the cheeriness of Peggy’s greeting. She jerked away with a feeling of aggrieved resentment. To be shaken awake was something she had not bargained for, in mapping out her course of action. How her head did ache, to be sure. If Peggy had only let her sleep a couple of hours longer in all probability she would have felt much better.

But Peggy had no intention of letting anybody sleep. “Get up this minute, both of you,” she insisted. “We’ve got oceans to do to-day, and everybody must hustle.”

Ruth reluctantly obeying the summons, clutched the bed post to steady herself. Her head swam. The pain was fiercer, now that she was standing. It was all very well for Peggy to talk of hustling. Probably if her own head ached distractingly she would be satisfied with a less strenuous word.

“See you later, but not late, if you please.” Peggy shot out of the room, and the door slammed to behind her breezy departure. Ruth started and shuddered. She had a feeling, which she would have recognized as unreasonable if she had stopped to analyze it, that she would have expected more consideration from Peggy.

But worse was coming. The boys had been invited to breakfast, in order that the day’s festivities might begin as early as possible, and so ardent had been their response that Peggy found them on the porch when she came down-stairs. She threw the door open and gazed at them commiseratingly. “Hungry?”

“Starved,” Graham looked at his watch and sighed. “We’ve been here a trifle over two hours.”

“Nothing of the sort, Miss Peggy,” exclaimed Jack. “It’s hardly half an hour.”

“Half an hour is bad enough. We all overslept. If you’d like, you may hurry things by setting the table, while I mix the griddle-cakes.”

Graham smacked his lips. “Maple sirup?” he asked insinuatingly, and at Peggy’s nod, he indulged in frantic demonstrations of delight. Jack looked at him disapprovingly. “From your actions I should judge you to be about eight years old.”

“’Tis the griddle-cake doth make children of us all,” parodied Graham recklessly, not at all abashed by his friend’s criticism. “Come on, Jack. I’m going to set the table, and I shall need your housewifely aid.”

When the girls came flocking down, the table was set, although not altogether in the conventional fashion, and from the kitchen issued the odor of frying pan-cakes, agreeable or otherwise, according to one’s mood. Graham sniffed it as ecstatically as if it had been the fragrance of a rose-garden. Ruth hastily found her way to the open door, and tried to think of something beside food.

“Ruth!” It was Peggy’s voice sounding from the kitchen. Ruth looked resolutely ahead, and did not move. There was Amy and Priscilla and Claire to choose from. If she didn’t answer, Peggy would of course summon another assistant.

“Ruth!”

“Don’t you hear Peggy calling you, Ruth?” Graham asked peremptorily. And again Ruth’s mood was resentful. How unkind and unfeeling everybody seemed. The tears started to her eyes as she crossed the room. In the kitchen Peggy was turning cakes on the smoking griddle, her cheeks glowing from her exertion over the blazing fire.

“Here, Ruth. Watch these cakes, will you, while I see to the hash? I wonder if those boys have got enough dishes on the table to eat out of. And push back the coffee pot please. The coffee’s done, anyway.”

“Is breakfast nearly ready?” Graham put his head through the door. “I told you I was starving you remember, three-quarters of an hour back. Now the pangs of hunger are less cruel, but I’m gradually growing weaker.”

“You’re a pathetic figure for a famine sufferer,” scoffed Peggy. “Oh, Ruth, that cake is burning.”

“Upon my word, Ruth,” exclaimed Graham, with mock severity, “that’s inexcusable. Burning up a perfectly good pan-cake when your brother is suffering from hunger.” It was of course, in keeping with the nonsense he had been talking all the morning, but to poor Ruth it seemed as if he were really finding fault.

“I’m doing the best I can,” she replied rather sharply, and Peggy noticed the suppressed irritation of her tone and wondered. Then, as Graham advanced into the kitchen with the intention of helping to carry in the breakfast, Ruth backed into a corner and screamed.

“What on earth is the matter now?” Graham knew the answer to his question, even before he asked it, and was irritated. If it was amusing to make Ruth scream by pointing his finger in her direction, when he was in a teasing mood, it was extremely annoying to have her suspect him of such intentions when his conscience was altogether clear, when indeed, with Peggy as a witness, he had solemnly renounced all such diversions forever. “What are you making such a fuss about?” he insisted, as Ruth did not answer.

“You were going to tickle me.”

“Nothing of the sort. Oh, say! The rest of those cakes are burning up. Peggy, you’d better get somebody to help you who will attend to her business.”

Peggy saved the situation by telling Graham he could take in the hash, and that there was so much batter that a few scorched cakes would never be missed. “You carry in the coffee,–will you, Ruth?” said Peggy, and improved the opportunity to resume her former position by the griddle. Ruth understood the manœuvre, and her heart swelled. Evidently Peggy thought she couldn’t do anything right, not even turn a griddle-cake when it was brown. And Graham was actually cross. She began to think it did not pay to be heroic in order to spare the feelings of such inconsiderate people.

Poor Ruth could not eat. She sipped her coffee and played with her fork, expecting every moment that some one would notice that her food had not been touched and inquire the reason. To tell the truth, Ruth had reached the point where she would not have been averse to such an inquiry, and the attendant necessity of explanation. It was much pleasanter, she had decided, to have people know you were feeling sick, and trying to be brave about it, than to suffer in heroic silence, sustained only by your own sense of virtue. But, to her surprise and disappointment, no questions were asked. The gay party surrounding the breakfast-table was too engrossed with satisfying clamorous appetites, and discussing the day’s program, to notice that one of the number was not eating. This confirmed Ruth’s impression, that it was, after all, a selfish, if not a heartless world.

“Now, Peggy,” began Priscilla, when the last plate of golden-brown cakes had failed to melt away after the fashion of their predecessors, “nobody can eat another thing. As long as you got the breakfast, Ruth and I will wash the dishes.”

“And Claire and I will make the beds,” said Amy, “while Peggy attends to the menagerie.” Amy had always continued the disrespectful custom of referring to Peggy’s poultry yard as the menagerie.

“It won’t take me ten minutes to attend to the chickens and Hobo, too.” Peggy left the table, and went blithely out to the small coop, shaped like a pyramid, with slats nailed across the front, where the yellow hen exercised maternal supervision over six chickens. Whether or not the thunder-storm was responsible, Mrs. Cole’s foreboding regarding the other nine eggs had been justified by the outcome. But to make up for this disappointment, the six chickens which had hatched had turned out to be as downy and yellow and generally fascinating as the chickens favored by the artists who design Easter cards, and this agreeable surprise had enabled the optimistic Peggy to take an entirely cheerful view of the situation.

It was a shock to the others when a wailing cry came to their ears from the vicinity of the chicken coop. Priscilla, who was just filling her dish-pan with steaming water, set the kettle down so hastily as narrowly to escape scalding herself, and ran to the scene of the excitement. The others followed with the exception of Ruth, who was glad of the opportunity to drop into a chair and press her hands to her throbbing temples.

The cause of Peggy’s cry of distress was at once apparent. She stood beside the coop, a motionless ball of down on her open palm. Below the yellow hen scratched blithely and clucked to her diminished family.

“She did it herself,” cried the exasperated Peggy. “She deliberately stood on top of it and crushed the life out of it. When I came out it was too far gone to peep, and she was looking around as if she wondered where the noise had come from. But by the time I could make her move, the poor little thing was dead.”

It was the general verdict that the conduct of the yellow hen was reprehensible in the extreme. The comments passed upon her would have been sufficient to make her wince, had she been a hen of any sensibility. But regardless of the disapproval so openly expressed, she continued to scratch and summon her brood, with every indication of being perfectly satisfied with herself.