Jean had come about a mile from Riveredge before encountering her unwelcome escort, and a mile for old Baltie was considered a good distance by Mammy who always blanketed him carefully and gave him a long rest after such exertion. The sight of the old woman’s care for her horse had won her more than one feminine customer in South Riveredge and not infrequently they entered into conversation with her regarding him. Mammy needed no greater encouragement to talk, and Baltie’s history became known to many of her customers.
Could Mammy have witnessed Baltie’s wild careerings as he pounded along to escape his tormentors, while Jean strove desperately to beat them off, she would probably have expired upon the spot.
But Baltie’s strength was not equal to any long-sustained effort and his breath soon became labored. The shouting cavalcade had gone about half a mile at its wild pace and Jean had done her valiant best, but the numbers against her had been steadily augmented as she proceeded, and the situation was becoming really dangerous. She stood up in the phaeton, hat hanging by its elastic band, hair flying and eyes flashing as she strove to beat off her pursuers. Most of them, it must be admitted, were good-natured, and were simply following up their prank from a spirit of mischief. But two or three had received stinging lashes from the whip and the sting had aroused their ire.
Jean’s strength as well as old Baltie’s was giving out when from the opposite side of a high arbor-vitæ hedge arose a cry of:
“Gown to the rescue! Gown to the rescue!” and the next second the road seemed filled with lads who had apparently sprung from it, and a lively scrimmage was afoot. The boys who had so lately been making things interesting for Jean and Baltie, turned to flee precipitately, but were pretty badly hustled about before they could escape; he of the stick being captured red-handed as he launched a blow that came very near proving a serious one for Jean since it struck the whip from her hands and landed it in the road. The poor child collapsed upon the seat, and strove hard to suppress a sob, for she would have died sooner than cry before the boys of the “Irving Preparatory School.”
Baltie needed no second hint to make him understand that the time had come to let his friends take up the battle, and bracing his trembling old legs he stood panting in the middle of the road.
“I say, what did this fellow do to you, little girl?” demanded a tall, fine-looking lad, whose dark gray eyes were flashing with indignation, and whose firm mouth gave his captive reason to know that he meant whatever he said. At any other time Jean would have resented the “little girl,” but during the past fifteen minutes she had felt a very small girl indeed.
“He’s a coward! A great, hulking coward!” she blazed at the hapless youth whom her champion held so firmly by his collar as he stood by the phaeton. The other lads who had now completely routed Jean’s tormentors were gathering about her, some with looks of concern for her welfare, some with barely restrained smiles at her plight and her turnout.
“What’ll I do to him? Punch his head?” demanded knight errant.
“No, shake it most off!” commanded Jean. “He nearly made mine shake off,” she concluded, as she pushed her hair from her eyes and jerked her hat back into place. “My goodness just look at the state I’m in and look at Baltie; I don’t know what Mammy will say. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you great big bully, to torment a girl and a poor old blind horse. Oh, I wish I were a boy! If I wouldn’t give you bally-whacks.”
A smile broke over knight errant’s face, but his victim trembled in his boots.
“All right then, here goes, since you won’t let me punch it,” and Jean’s injunctions to shake her tormentor’s head “most off” seemed in a fair way to be obeyed, for the next second its owner was being shaken very much as a rat is shaken by a terrier and the head was jerked about in a most startling manner.
“Now get out! Skiddoo! And if we catch you and your gang out this way again you’ll have a pretty lively time of it, and don’t you forget it either,” said knight errant with a final shake, and Long Stick was hustled upon his way toward his friends who had not paused to learn his fate.
This boy who acted as spokesman, and who appeared to be a leader among his companions, then said:
“I say, your old horse is pretty well knocked up, isn’t she? How far have you come? Better drive into the school grounds and rest up a bit before you go back. Come on!” and going to Baltie’s head the lad took hold of the rein to lead him through the gateway.
Baltie never forgot his manners, however great the stress under which he was laboring, so turning his sightless eyes toward his new friend, he nickered softly, and rubbed his muzzle against him. The lad laughed and raising his hand stroked the warm neck as he said:
“Found a friend at last, old boy? Well, come on then, for you needed one badly.”
“Guess he did!” said Jean. “My gracious, I don’t know what we would have done if you boys hadn’t come out to help us. How did you happen to hear us?”
“We were out on the field with the ball. I guess it’s lucky for you we were, too, for there’s a tough gang up there near Riveredge. We’re always on the lookout for some new outbreak, and we make it lively if they come up this way, you’d better believe. They don’t try it very often, but you were too big a chance for ’em this time, and they sailed right in. But they sailed at the wrong time for we are never happier to exchange civilities with them than when we have on our togs,” ended the lad, as he glanced at the foot-ball suits which he and a number of his chums were wearing.
“Oh, are you playing foot-ball? I wish I could see you,” cried Jean eagerly, all thoughts of her late plans flying straight out of her head.
“Better come over to the field then,” laughed her escort.
“I’d love to but I guess I can’t to-day. I’m on important business. I’m going to South Riveredge,” she said, suddenly recalling her errand.
“South Riveredge!” echoed a lad who walked at the other side of the phaeton. “Why it’s nearly four miles from here. It’s almost two to Riveredge itself. What brought you out this way if you were going to South Riveredge?”
But to explain just why she had turned off the direct road to South Riveredge would be a trifle embarrassing, so Jean decided to give another reason:
“I thought I knew my way but I guess I must have missed it, those boys tormented me so.”
“I guess you did miss it, but I don’t wonder. Well, rest here a little while, and then we’ll start you safely back. Guess one of us better go along with her hadn’t we, Ned?” he asked of the gray-eyed boy.
“If we want her to get back whole I guess we had,” was the laughing answer, as Baltie’s guide led him up to a carriage step and stopped. Baltie’s coat was steaming. “Got a blanket? Better let me put it on your horse. He’s pretty warm from his race and the day is snappy.”
Jean bounded up from the seat and pulled the blanket from it. It was not a very heavy blanket and when the boy had put it carefully upon the old horse, it seemed hardly thick enough to protect him. “Let me have the rug too,” he ordered, and without a second’s thought jerked up the rug and gave it a toss. Up came the box of candy with it, to balance a second upon one end as daintily as a tight-rope dancer balances upon a rope, then keel gracefully over and land bottom-side-up, upon the tan-bark of the driveway, the packages of candy flying in twenty different directions.
Jean’s cry of dismay was echoed by the boys’ shouts as their eyes quickly grasped the significance of those dainty white parcels. A wild scramble to rescue her wares followed, as Jean was plied with questions.
“Are they yours? What are you going to do with them?” “Are they for sale?” “Can we buy some?” “How much are they?” “Lend me some cash, Bob?”
Never was an enterprising merchant so suddenly plunged into a rushing business. Jean’s head whirled for a moment. How much were the packages of candy? She hadn’t the vaguest idea, and circumstances had not made it convenient to ascertain before she set forth. However, her wits came to her rescue and she recalled the little packages which Constance had made for the fair, and which had sold for ten cents each. So ten cents she would charge, and presently was doling out her rescued packages of fudge and dropping dimes into her box to take the place of the packages which were so quickly disappearing from it. Given four dozen packages of exceptionally delicious home-made candy, and twenty or thirty boys, after an hour’s foot-ball exercise, upon a crisp January morning, each more or less supplied with pocket money, and it is a combination pretty sure to work to the advantage of the candy-maker.
Jean’s eyes danced, and her face was radiant. Her business was in its most flourishing stage when she became aware that another actor had appeared upon the scene, and was regarding her steadily through a pair of very large, very round, and very thick-lensed eye-glasses, and with the solemn expression of a meditative owl. How long he had been a silent observer of her financial operations Jean had no idea. His presence did not appear to embarrass the boys in any way; indeed, when they became aware of it two or three of them promptly urged him to partake of their toothsome dainties. This he did in the same grave, absorbed manner.
“Great, aint they, Professor?” asked one lad.
“Quite unusual. Who is the juvenile vender?” he asked.
“We don’t know. She was out yonder in the road with half McKim’s Hollow after her when we fellows rallied to the rescue. She was as plucky as any thing, and was putting up a great standoff when we got in our licks.”
“Ah! Indeed! And how came she to have such a feast along with her. I’ll take another, thank you, Ned. They are really excellent,” and instead of “another” the last three of “Ned’s” package were calmly appropriated and eaten in the same abstracted manner that the other pieces had been. Ned looked somewhat blank and turning toward one of his companions, winked and smiled slyly, then said to the Professor:
“Better buy some quick. They are going like hot cakes.”
“I believe I shall,” and drawing closer to the phaeton the Professor peered more closely at its occupant as he said:
“I say, little girl, I think I’ll take all you have there. They are exceedingly palatable. And I would really like to know how it happens that a child apparently so respectable as yourself should be peddling sweets. You—why you might really be a gentleman’s daughter,” he drawled.
Now it had never for a moment occurred to Jean that appearances might prove misleading to those whose powers of observation were not of the keenest, or that a much disheveled child driving about the country in an antiquated phaeton, to which was harnessed a patriarchal horse, might seem to belong to a rather lower order in the social scale than her mother had a right to claim. So the near-sighted Professor’s remark held anything but a pleasing suggestion. For a moment she hardly grasped its full significance, then drawing up her head like an insulted queen, she regarded the luckless man with blazing eyes as she answered:
“I am a Carruth, thank you, and the Carruths do as they please. You need not buy these candies if you don’t wish to. I can get plenty of customers among my friends—the boys.”
When did unconscious flattery prove sweeter? Those same “friends—the boys” would have then and there died for the small itinerant whose wares had so touched their palates, and who was openly choosing their patronage over and above that of an individual who had now and again caused more than one of them to pass an exceedingly bad quarter of an hour. A suppressed giggle sounded not far off, but the Professor’s face retained its perfect solemnity as he bent his head toward Jean to get a closer view.
“Hum; ah; yes. I dare say you are quite right. I was probably over hasty in drawing conclusions,” was the calm response.
“Mammy says a gentleman can always rec’o’nize a lady,” flashed Jean, unconsciously falling into Mammy’s vernacular.
“And who is Mammy, may I inquire?” asked the imperturbable voice, its owner absently eating lumps of fudge and pralines at a rate calculated to speedily reduce the supply he had on hand, the lads meanwhile regarding the vanishing “lumps of delight” with longing eyes.
“Why she’s Mammy,” replied Jean with considerable emphasis.
“Mammy what?” was the very unprofessional question which followed.
“Mammy Blairsdale, of course. Our Mammy.”
There was no answer for a moment as the candy continued to melt from sight like dew before the morning sun. Then the Professor looked at her steadily as he slowly munched his sweets, causing Jean to think of the Henrys’ cow when in a ruminative mood.
“Little girl, are you from the South?”
“Don’t call me ‘little girl’ again!” flared Jean, bringing her foot down upon the bottom of the phaeton with a stamp. “I just naturally despise to be called ‘little girl.’ I’m Jean, and I want to be called Jean.”
“Jean, Jean. Pretty name. Well Miss Jean, are you from the South?”
“My mother is. She was a Blairsdale,” replied “Miss” Jean, much as she might have said she is the daughter of England’s Queen, much mollified at having the cognomen added.
“Do you happen to know which part of the South you come from?”
“I don’t come from the South at all. I was born right here in Riveredge. My mother came from Forestvale, North Carolina.”
“I thought I knew the name. Yes, it is very familiar. Blairsdale. Yes. Quite so. Quite so. Rather curious, however. So many years. My grandmother was a Blairsdale too. Singular coincidence, she had red hair, I’m told, Yes, really. Think I must follow it up. Very good, indeed. Did you make them? I judge not. Who did? I must know where to get more when I have a fancy for some,” and having eaten the last praline the Professor absent-mindedly put into his mouth the paper in which they had been wrapped, having unconsciously rolled it into a nice little wad while talking.
A funny twinkle came into his eyes when his mistake dawned upon him and turning to the grinning boys he said:
“I have heard of men putting the lighted end of a cigar into their mouths by mistake. This was less unpleasant at all events,” and the wad was tossed to the driveway. The boys burst into shouts of laughter and the ice was broken. Crowding about the phaeton they asked:
“Who makes the candy? Do you always sell it? When can we get some more? Say, Professor, do you really know her folks? Who is she any how?”
“I told you my name, and I live in Riveredge. My sister makes the candy, but she doesn’t know I’m selling it. Maybe she’ll let me bring you some more, and maybe she won’t. I don’t know. And maybe I’ll catch Hail-Columbia-Happy-Land when I get back home,” concluded the young lady, her lips coming together with decision and her head wagging between doubt and defiance. “But I don’t care one bit if I do. I’ve sold all the candy, and I’ve got just piles of money; so that proves that I can help as well as the big girls even if I am too little to be trusted with their old secrets. And now I’ve got to go straight back home or they’ll all be scared half to death. Perhaps they won’t want to scold so hard if they are good and scared.”
“One of us will go with you till you get past McKim’s Hollow,” cried the boys. “Ned can, can’t he, Professor?”
“I believe I’ll go myself,” was the unexpected reply. “I was about to walk over to Riveredge, but I think perhaps Miss Jean will allow me to ride with her,” and without more ado Professor Forbes, B.A., B.C., B.M., and half a dozen other Bachelors, gravely removed the coverings from old Baltie, folding and carefully placing the blanket upon the seat and laying the rug over Jean’s knees. After he had tucked her snugly in, he took his seat beside her.
“Now, Miss Jean, I think we are all ready to start.”
If anything could have been added to complete Jean’s secret delight at the attention shown her, it was the dignified manner in which the Professor raised his hat, the boys as one followed his example, as Baltie ambled forth. “That is the way I like to be treated. I hate to be snubbed because I’m only ten years old,” thought she.
As they turned into the road the distant whistles of South Riveredge blew twelve o’clock. Jean started slightly and glanced quickly up at her companion.
“The air is very clear and still to-day,” he remarked. “We hear the whistles a long distance.”
“It’s twelve o’clock. I wonder what Mammy is thinking,” was Jean’s irrelevant answer.
“Does Mammy think for the family?” asked the Professor, a funny smile lurking about the corners of his mouth.
Jean’s eyes twinkled as she answered:
“She was mother’s Mammy too.”
“Ah! I think I understand. I lived South until I was fifteen.”
“Did you? How old are you now?” was the second startling question.
“How old should you think?” was the essentially Yankee reply, which proved that the southern lad had learned a trick or two from his northern friends.
Jean regarded him steadily for a few moments.
“Well, when you raised your hat a few minutes ago your hair looked a little thin on top, so I guess you’re going to be bald pretty soon. But your eyes, when you laugh, look just about like the boys’. Perhaps you aren’t so very old though. Maybe you aren’t much older than Mr. Stuyvesant. Do you know him?”
“Yes, I know him. He is younger than I am though.” The Professor did not add “exactly six months.”
“Yes, I thought you were lots older. He’s the kind you feel is young and you’re the kind you feel is old, you know.”
“Oh, am I? Wherein lies the difference, may I inquire?” The voice sounded a trifle nettled.
“Why I should think anyone could understand that,” was the surprised reply. “Mr. Stuyvesant is the kind of a man who knows what children are thinking right down inside themselves all the time. They don’t have to explain things to him at all. Why the day I found Baltie he knew just as well how I felt about having him shot, and I knew just as well as anything that he’d take care of him and make it all right. We’re great friends. I love him dearly.”
“Whom? Baltie?”
“Now there! What did I tell you? That’s why you are years and years older than Mr. Stuyvesant. He would’nt have had to say ‘Whom? Baltie?’ He’d just know such things without having to ask.” The tone was not calculated to inspire self-esteem.
“Hum,” answered the man who could easily have told anyone the distance of Mars from the earth and many another scientific fact. “I think I’m beginning to comprehend what constitutes age.”
“Yes,” resumed Jean as she flapped the reins upon Baltie who seemed to be lapsing into a dreamy frame of mind. “You can’t always tell how old a person is by just looking at ’em. Maybe you aren’t nearly as old as I think you are, though I guess you can’t be far from forty, and that’s pretty bad. But if you’d sort of get gay and jolly, and try to think how you felt when you were little, or maybe even as big as the boys back yonder, you wouldn’t seem any older to me than Mr. Stuyvesant.”
The big eyes were regarding him with the closest scrutiny as though their owner wished to avoid falling into any error concerning him.
“Think perhaps I’ll try it. It may prove worth while,” and the Professor fell into a brown study while old Baltie plodded on and Jean let her thoughts outstrip his slow progress. At the other end of her commercial venture lay a reckoning as well she knew, and like most reckonings it held an element of doubt as well as of hope. It was nearly one o’clock when they came to the outskirts of Riveredge. The pretty town was quite deserted for it was luncheon hour. When they reached the foot of Hillside street, Jean said:
“This is my street; I have to go up here,” and drew up to the sidewalk for her passenger to descend. He seemed in no haste to take the hint, and Jean began to wonder if he would turn out a regular old man of the sea. Before she could frame a speech both positive and polite as a suggestion for his next move, her ears were assailed by:
“Bress Gawd, ef dar aint dat pesterin’ chile dis very minit! What I gwine do wid yo’? Jis’ tell me dat?” and Mammy came puffing and panting down the hill like a runaway steam-roller.
Professor Forbes roused himself from the reverie in which he had apparently been indulging for several moments, and stepping from the phaeton to the sidewalk, advanced a step or two toward the formidable object bearing down upon him, and raising his hat as though saluting a royal personage, said:
“I think I have the pleasure of addressing Mammy——Blairsdale.”
The descending steam-roller slowed down and finally came to a standstill within a few feet of the Professor, too non-plussed even to snort or pant, while that imperturbable being stood hat in hand in the sharp January air, and smiled upon it. There was something in the smile that caused the steam-roller to reconsider its plan of action, rapidly formed while descending the hill, for great had been the consternation throughout the dwelling which housed it, and the cause of all that consternation was now within reach of justice.
“Mammy Blairsdale?” repeated the Professor suavely.
“Mammy Blairsdale,” echoed that worthy being, although the words were not quite so blandly spoken.
“I am glad to make your acquaintance, Mammy. I have taken the liberty of escorting this young lady back home. She is very entertaining, and extremely practical, as well as enterprising. I am sure you will find her a successful coöperator. She has done a most flourishing business this morning.”
“B’isness! B’isness! For de Lawd’s sake wha’ dat chile been at now, an’ we all cl’ar ’stracted ’bout her? Whar yo’ bin at? Tell me dis minute. An’ yo’ ma, and Miss Constance and me jist plumb crazy ’bout you and dat hawse.”
The Professor attempted to put in a word of explanation, but a wave of Mammy’s hand effectually silenced him and motioned him aside, as she stepped closer to the phaeton. Baltie had instantly recognized her voice and as she drew nearer, nickered.
“Yas, Baltie hawse, what dat chile been doin’ wid yo’?” she said softly as she laid her hand upon the old horse’s neck. But the more resolute tone was resumed as she turned again to the phaeton, and demanded: “I wanter know wha’ yo’s been. You hear me? We’s done chased de hull town ober fer yo’ an’ dat hawse, an’ yo’ ma done teken de trolley fer Souf Riveraige, kase someone done say dey seed yo’ a gwine off dat-a-way. Now whar in de name o’ man is yo’ been ter?”
“I’ve been out to the Irving School selling your old candy, and your cousins-in-the-Lord, over in South Riveredge, can wait a while for some. You and Connie thought you could fool me with your old talk but you couldn’t; I found out all about it. She makes it and you sell it, and now I’ve sold it—yes every single package—and there’s your money; I don’t want it, but I’ve proved that I can help mother, so there now!” and, figuratively speaking, Jean hurled at Mammy’s feet the gauntlet, in the shape of her handkerchief, in which she had carefully tied the proceeds of her morning’s sale, a no mean sum, by the way. Then, bounding out of the old phaeton, tore up the hill like a small whirlwind, leaving Mammy and the Professor to stare after her open-mouthed. The latter was the first to recover his speech.
“Well, really! Quite vehement! Good deal of force in a small body.”
“Fo’ce! Well yo’ ain’ know dat chile ten years lak I is. She cl’ar break loose some times, an’ dis hyre’s one ob ’em. But I ’spicioned dat she’s done teken dat box o’ candy. Minit my back turned out she fly wid it. An’ sell hit, too? What yo’ know ’bout it, sar? Is yo’ see her?”
“I certainly did, and I haven’t seen such a sight in some time. She’s a good bit of a metaphysician into the bargain,” and in a few words Professor Forbes told of the morning’s business venture, and the lively experiences of the young merchant, Mammy listening attentively, only now and again uttering an expressive “Um-m! Uh-h!” When he had finished she looked at him sharply and said:
“You know what dat chile’ oughter be named? Wal, suh, Scape-many-dangers would fit her pine blank. De Lawd on’y knows what she gwine tu’n out, but hits boun’ ter be one ting or turrer; she gwine be de banginest one ob de hull lot, or she gwine be jist nothin’ but a little debbil. Now, suh, who is yo’?”
The concluding question was sprung upon the Professor so suddenly that he nearly jumped. He looked at the old woman a moment, the suggestion of a twinkle in the eyes behind the big glasses, then answered soberly:
“I might be termed a knight errant I presume; I’ve been guarding a young lady from the perils of the highway.”
“Night errand? ’Tain’t no night errand as I kin see. Can’t be much broader day dan tis dis minute,” retorted Mammy, looking up at the blazing luminary directly over her head by way of proving her assertion. “If you’s on a errand dat’s yo’ b’isness; ’taint mine. But I’d lak ter know yo’ name suh, so’s I kin tell Miss Jinny.”
“Is Miss Jinny the older sister who manufactures that delicious candy?” asked the Professor, as he drew his card case from his pocket and handed Mammy his card.
“No, suh, she’s my Miss Jinny: Miss Jinny Blairsdale; I mean Carruth. My mistis. Dat chile’s mother. Thank yo’, suh. I’ll han’ her dis cyard. Is she know yo’, suh?”
“No, I haven’t the pleasure of Mrs. Carruth’s acquaintance though I hope to before long. (Mammy made a slight sound through her half-closed lips.) My grandmother was a Blairsdale.”
“Open sesame” was a trifling talisman compared with the name of Blairsdale.
“Wha’, wha’, wha’, yo say, suh?” demanded Mammy, stammering in her excitement. “Yo’s a Blairsdale?”
“No, I am Homer Forbes. My mother’s mother was a Blairsdale. I cannot claim the honor.”
“Yo’ kin claim de blood dough, an’ dat’s all yo’ hatter claim. Yo’ don’ need ter claim nuttin’ else ef yo’ got some ob dat. But I mustn’t stan’ here talkin’ no longer. Yo’ kin come an’ see my Miss Jinny ef yo’ wantter. If yo’s kin ob de Blairsdales’ she’ll be pintedly glad fer ter know yo’,” ended Mammy, courtesying to this branch of the blood royal, and turning to lead Baltie up the hill.
“Thank you. I think I’ll accept the invitation before very long. I’d like to know Miss Jean a little better. Good-day Mammy Blairsdale.”
“Good-day, suh! Good-day,” answered Mammy, smiling benignly upon the favored being.
As she drew near the house a perplexed expression overspread her old face. She still held the handkerchief with its weight of change; earnest of the morning’s good intentions. Yet what a morning it had been for her and the others!
“I clar ter goodness dat chile lak ter drive us all ’stracted. Fust she scare us nigh ’bout ter death, an’ we ready fer ter frail her out fer her doin’s. Den she come pa’radin’ home wid a bagful ob cash kase she tryin’ fer ter help we-all. Den what yo’ gwine ’do wid her? Smack her kase she done plague yo’, or praise her kase she doin’ her bes’ fer ter mek t’ings go a little mite easier fer her ma?” ended Mammy, bringing her tongue against her teeth in a sound of irritation.
Meanwhile the cause of all the commotion had gone tearing up the hill and into the house where she ran pell-mell into Eleanor who had just come home, and who knew nothing of the excitement of the past few hours. Constance had gone over to Amy Fletcher’s to inquire for the runaway. Jean was on the border land between tears and anger, and Eleanor was greeted with:
“Now I suppose you are going to lecture me too, tell me I’d no business to go off. Well you just needn’t do any such a thing, and I don’t care if I did scare you. It was all your own fault ’cause you wouldn’t let me into your old secret, and I’m glad I scared you. Yes I am!” the words ended in a storm of sobs.
For a moment Eleanor stood dumfounded. Then realizing that something more lay behind the volley of words than she understood, she said:
“Come up to my room with me, Jean. I don’t know what you are talking about. If anything is wrong tell me about it, but don’t bother mother. The little Mumsey has a lot to bother her as it is.”
Jean instantly stopped crying and looked at this older sister who sometimes seemed very old indeed to her.
“You don’t know what all the fuss is about, and why Mammy is waiting to give me Hail Columbia?” she asked incredulously.
“I have just this moment come in. I have been out at Aunt Eleanor’s all the morning, as you know quite well if you will stop to think,” answered Eleanor calmly.
“Then come up-stairs quick before Mammy gets in; I see her coming in the gate now. I did something that made her as mad as hops and scared mother. Come I’ll tell you all about it,” and Jean flew up the stairs ahead of Eleanor. Rushing into her sister’s room she waited only for Eleanor to pass the threshold before slamming the door together and turning the key.
Eleanor dropped her things upon the bed and sitting down upon a low chair, said:
“Come here, Jean.” Jean threw herself upon her sister’s lap, and clasping her arms about her, nestled her head upon her shoulder. Eleanor held her a moment without speaking, feeling that it would be wiser to let her excitement subside a little. Then she said: “Now tell me the whole story, Jean.”
Jean told it from beginning to end, and ended by demanding:
“Don’t you really, truly, know anything about the candy Constance is making to sell?”
“I know that she is making candy, and that she contrives somehow to sell a good deal of it, but she and Mammy have kept the secret as to how it is sold. They did not tell me, and I wouldn’t ask,” said Eleanor looking straight into Jean’s eyes.
“Oh!” said Jean.
“Mammy has rather high ideas of what we ought or ought not to do, you know, Jean,” continued Eleanor, “and she was horrified at the idea of Constance making candy for money. And yet, Jean, both Constance and I must do something to help mother. You say we keep you out of our secrets. We don’t keep you out of them, but we see no reason why you should be made to bear them. Constance and I are older, and it is right that we should share some of the burden which mother must bear, but you are only a little girl and ought to be quite care-free.”
Jean’s head dropped a trifle lower.
“But since you have discovered so much, let me tell you a secret which only mother and I know, and then you will understand why she is so troubled now-a-days. Even Connie knows nothing of it. Can I trust you?”
“I’d die before I’d tell,” was the vehement protest.
“Very well then, listen: You know our house was insured for a good deal of money—fifteen thousand dollars. Well, mother felt quite safe and comfortable when she found that Mammy had paid the premium just before the house burned down, and we all thought we would soon have the amount settled up by the company and that the interest would be a big help—”
“What is the interest?” demanded Jean.
“I can’t stop to explain it all now, but when people put money in a savings bank a certain sum is paid to them each year. The bank pays the people the smaller sum each year because it—the bank, I mean—has the use of the larger amount for the time being. Do you understand?”
“Yes, it’s just as if I gave you my five dollars to use and you gave me ten cents each week for lending you the five dollars till I wanted it, isn’t it?”
“Yes, exactly. Well mother thought she would have about six hundred dollars each year, and everything seemed all right, and so we came to live here because it was less expensive. But, oh, Jean, my miserable experiments! My dreadful chemicals! When the insurance company began to look into the cause of the fire and learned that I had gasoline, and those powerful acids in my room, and the box of excelsior in which they had been sent out from the city was in the room where the fire started, they—they would not settle the insurance, and all the money we had paid out was lost, and we could hardly collect anything. And it was all my fault. All my fault. But I did not know it! I did not guess the harm I was doing. I only thought of what I could learn from my experiments. And see what mischief I have done,” and poor Eleanor’s story ended in a burst of sobs, as she buried her head against the little sister whom she had just been comforting.
Jean was speechless for a moment. Then all her sympathies were alert, and springing from Eleanor’s lap she flung her arms about her crying:
“Don’t cry, Nornie; don’t cry! You didn’t mean to. You didn’t know. You were trying to be good and learn a lot. You didn’t know about those hateful old companies.”
“But I ought to have known! I ought to have understood,” sobbed Eleanor.
“How could you? But don’t you cry. I’m glad now I did run away with the box, ’cause I’ve found a way to make some money every single Saturday and I’m going to do it, Mammy or no Mammy. Baltie is just as much my horse as hers, and if he can’t help us work I’d like to know why. Now don’t you cry any more, ’cause it isn’t your fault, and I’m going right straight down stairs to talk with mother, and tell her I’m sorry I frightened her but I’m not sorry I went,” and ending with a tempestuous hug and an echoing kiss upon her sister’s cheek, little Miss Determination whisked out of the room.
It need hardly be stated that Mrs. Carruth had passed anything but a tranquil morning. Indeed tranquillity of mind was almost unknown to her now-a-days, and her nights were filled with far from pleasant dreams.
From the hour her old home had burned, disasters had crowded upon her. Her first alarm lest the insurance upon her property had lapsed, owing to her inability to meet the premium punctually, had been allayed by Mammy’s prompt action and all seemed well. No one had given a thought to the conditions of the agreement, and, alas! no one had thought of Eleanor’s laboratory. Indeed, had she done so, Mrs. Carruth was not sufficiently well informed upon such matters to have attached any importance to it. But one little clause in the policy had expressly prohibited the presence of “gasoline, excelsior or chemicals of any description upon the premises,” and all three had been upon it when the house burned; and, fatal circumstance, had been the cause of the fire.
Such investigations move slowly, and weeks passed before these facts were brought to light and poor Mrs. Carruth learned the truth. She strove in every way to realize even a small proportion of the sum she could otherwise have claimed, and influential friends lent their aid to help her. But the terms of the contract had, unquestionably, been broken, even though done in ignorance—and the precautions taken for so many years ended in smoke.
Mrs. Carruth had not meant to let the girls learn of it until, if worse came to worst, all hope of recovering something had to be given up.
But, several days before, Eleanor had found her mother in a state of nervous collapse over the letter which brought the ultimatum, and had insisted upon knowing the truth. Mrs. Carruth confessed it only upon the condition of absolute secrecy on Eleanor’s part, for Constance was in the midst of mid-year examinations and her mother would not have an extra care laid upon her just then. Eleanor had kept the secret until this morning when Jean’s outbreak seemed to make it wiser to tell the truth, and, if the confession must be made, poor Eleanor could no longer conceal her remorse for the mischief her experiments had brought upon them all.
She had gone that morning to her Aunt Eleanor’s home to confess the situation to her, and to ask if she might leave school and seek some position. The interview had been a most unpleasant one, for Mrs. Eleanor Carruth, Senior, never hesitated to express her mind, and having exceptional business acumen herself, had little patience with those who had less.
“Your mother has no more head for business than a child of ten. Not as much as some, I believe. And, your father wasn’t much better. Good heavens and earth! the idea of a man in his sane senses agreeing to pay another man’s debts. I don’t believe he was in his senses,” stormed Mrs. Eleanor.
“Please, Aunt Eleanor, don’t say such things to me about father and mother,” said Eleanor, with a little break in her voice. “Perhaps mother doesn’t know as much about business matters as she ought, and father’s heart got the better of his good sense, but they are father and mother and have always been devoted to us. I don’t want to be rude to you, but I can’t hear them unkindly spoken of,” she ended with a little uprearing of the head, which suddenly recalled to the irate lady a similar mannerism of her late husband who had been a most forebearing man up to a certain point, but when that was reached his wife knew a halt had been called; the same sudden uplifting of the head now gave due warning.
However, Eleanor was only a child in her aunt’s eyes, and, fond as she was of her, in her own peculiar way, she could not resist a final word:
“Well, I’ve no patience with such goin’s on. And now here’s a pretty kettle of fish and no mistake. You’ve taken Hadyn Stuyvesant’s house for a year, and of course you’ve got to keep it, yet every cent you’ve got in this world to live on is twelve hundred dollars a year. That means less than twenty-five dollars a week to house, clothe and feed five people. I ’spose it can be done—plenty do it—but they’re not Carruths, with a Carruth’s ideas. And now you want to quit school and go to work? Well, I don’t approve of it; no, not for a minute. You’ll do ten times better to stay at school and then enter college next fall. You’ve got the ability to do it, and it’s flyin’ in the face of Providence not to.”
Aunt Eleanor might just as well have added, “I representing Providence,” since her tone implied as much.
“Now run along home and leave me to think out this snarl. I can think a sight better when I’m alone,” and with that summary and rather unsatisfactory dismissal, Eleanor departed for her own home to be met by Jean with her trials and tribulations.
Meanwhile Mrs. Carruth had gone in quest of that young lady, for upon Mammy’s return from market, Jean, Baltie and the box of candy had been missed, and the old woman had raised a hue and cry. At first they believed it to be some prank, but as the hours slipped away and Jean failed to reappear, Mrs. Carruth grew alarmed and all three set forth in different directions to search for her. Constance going to Amy Fletcher’s home. Mammy to their old home, or at least all that was left of it, for Jean frequently went there on one pretext or another, and Mrs. Carruth down town, as the marketing section of Riveredge was termed. While there, one of the shopkeepers told her that Jean had driven by, headed for South Riveredge.
Upon the strength of this vague information Mrs. Carruth had ’phoned home that she was setting out for South Riveredge by the trolley and hoped to find the runaway.
But the search, naturally, was unavailing and she was forced to return in a most anxious state of mind. As she turned into Hillside street and began to mount the steep ascent, her limbs were trembling, partly from physical and partly from nervous exhaustion. Before she reached the top she saw the object of her quest bearing down upon her with arms outstretched and burnished hair flying all about her.
Jean had not paused for the hat or coat, which she had impatiently flung aside upon entering Eleanor’s room. Her one impulse after learning of the calamity which had overtaken them was to offer consolation to her mother. The impact when she met that weary woman came very near landing them both in the gutter, and nothing but the little fly-away’s agility saved them. Jean was wonderfully strong for her age, her outdoor life having developed her muscles to a most unusual degree.
“Oh, mother, mother. I’m so sorry I frightened you. I didn’t mean to; truly I didn’t. I only wanted to prove I could help, and now I can, ’cause I’ve got a lot of new customers and made most four dollars. I could have made more if some of the papers hadn’t bursted and spilt the candy in the road. We got some of it up, but it was all dirty and I couldn’t take any money for that, though the boys ate it after they’d washed if off at the hose faucet. It wasn’t so very dirty, you know. And now I’m going out there every single Saturday morning, and Connie and I—”
“Jean; Jean; stop for mercy’s sake. What are you talking about? Have you taken leave of your senses, child?” demanded poor Mrs. Carruth, wholly bewildered, for until this moment she had heard absolutely nothing of the candy-making, Mammy and Constance having guarded their secret well. It had never occurred to Jean that even her mother was in ignorance of the enterprise, and now she looked at her as though it had come her turn to question her mother’s sanity. They had now reached the house and were ascending the steps, Jean assisting her mother by pushing vigorously upon her elbow.
“Come right into the living-room with me, Jean, and let me learn where you’ve been this morning. You have alarmed me terribly, and Mammy has been nearly beside herself. She was sure you and Baltie were both killed.”
“Pooh! Fiddlesticks! She might have known better. She thinks Baltie is as fiery as Mr. Stuyvesant’s Comet, and that nobody can drive him but herself. I’ve been to East Riveredge with the candy—”
“What candy, Jean? I do not know what you mean.”
“Constance’s candy!” emphasized Jean, and then and there told the whole story so far as she herself knew the facts regarding it. Mrs. Carruth sat quite speechless during the recitation, wondering what new development upon the part of her offspring the present order of things would bring to light.
“And Mumsey, darling,” continued Jean, winding her arms about her mother’s neck and slipping upon her lap, “I’m going to help now; I really am, ’cause Nornie has told me about that horried old insurance and I know we haven’t much money and—”
“Nornie has told you of the insurance trouble, Jean? How came she to do such a thing?” asked Mrs. Carruth, at a loss to understand why Eleanor had disobeyed her in the matter.
“She told me ’cause I was so mad at her and Connie for having secrets, and treating me as if I hadn’t the least little bit of sense, and couldn’t be trusted. I am little, Mumsey, dear, but I can help. You see if I can’t, and the boys were just splendid and want me to come every Saturday. Please, please say I may go,” and Jean kissed her mother’s forehead, cheeks and chin by way of persuasion.
It must be confessed that Mrs. Carruth responded to these endearments in a rather abstracted manner, for she had had much to think of within the past few hours.
“Please say yes,” begged Jean.
“Childie, I can not say yes or no just this moment. I am too overwhelmed by what I have heard. I must know all now, and learn it from Mammy and Constance. I cannot realize that one of my children had actually entered upon such a venture. What would your father say?” ended Mrs. Carruth, as though all the traditions of the Carruths, to say nothing of the Blairsdales, had been shattered to bits and thrown broadcast.
“But you’ll tell me before next Saturday, won’t you? You know the boys will be on the lookout for their candy and will be so disappointed if I don’t take it.”
“I can not promise anything now. The first thing to do is to eat our luncheon; it is long past two o’clock. Then we will hold a family council and I hope I shall recover my senses; I declare I feel as though they were tottering.”
Mrs. Carruth rose from her chair and with Jean dancing beside her entered the dining-room to partake of a very indifferent meal, for Mammy had been too exercised to give her usual care and thought to its preparation.