Miss Bayley noticed that the small goat had not been introduced. Ken, believing that the moment for the presentation was at hand, took the leading-rope from his sister, and, stepping forward, he said, almost shyly: “Miss Bayley, teacher, we fetched along Star-White as your present. We thought maybe you’d like him for a pet.”
It had been said of Miss Josephine Bayley that she could rise to any occasion without evidencing surprise or dismay, and she surely did at this moment. Luckily, her practice-work on the East Side in New York had taught her to expect the most extraordinary gifts from her pupils.
The four pairs of eyes watched anxiously for a moment. Would “new teacher” like their present?
Their doubts were quickly put to flight, for Miss Josephine Bayley stooped and caressed the long-legged, rather startled kid as she said with a ring of real enthusiasm in her voice: “You dear Star-White, you’re as nice as you can be. I just know that I’m going to love you.” Then, rising, she held out a hand to the two who were nearest, but the others were included in her smiling glance as she said: “Thank you so much, dears. It was ever so kind of you to want to make me happy.” Then, a little helplessly, she appealed to the older boy as she asked, “What shall we do with Star-White now?”
“I’ll tie him up in the shed back o’ your cabin, Miss Bayley. He’ll be all right in there.”
The lad skipped ahead, the kid in his arms, but returned in an incredibly short time.
The procession had continued on its way, and Ken soon remarked, “There’s the schoolhouse, teacher, down the piney lane, and I think there’s folks waiting to see you.”
Miss Bayley turned and saw, back from the road and on a short lane, a log schoolhouse half hidden by great old pines. In front of it stood a very fine carriage drawn by two milk-white horses. At their heads a stocky man with a stubby red beard and a keen, alert, red-brown eye awaited her. He was the “board of education,” of that Miss Bayley was sure, while on the back seat of the vehicle, with her bonneted head held high, sat no less a personage than Mrs. Sethibald Archer, and at her side, also with her head held high, was a much-beruffled young girl, aged eight years, who was of course the prettiest and smartest child in the school. Miss Bayley assured herself that she mustn’t forget that, not for one moment, if she wanted to stay, and, oh, how she did want to stay and get acquainted with the wonderful mountains, and the Martins, and maybe even with the Indians who lived down in the creek-bottom!
All this she thought as she walked up the little lane toward the old log schoolhouse.
Mr. Sethibald Martin advanced with what he believed to be a dignified stride. Without removing his hat, he said, “This here is Miss Josephine Bayley, I take it—her as has credentials to teach correct speakin’ and figurin’.”
A voice from the vehicle was heard. “You’d better look at ’em, Sethibald, to make sure. I don’t want no teacher that can’t learn my Jessica correct speakin’, such as will fit her for the high sphere she is to fill as the daughter of a sheep-king.” The speech had been planned, that the new teacher might at once be impressed with the importance of the Archers in that mountain community.
The stubby gentleman seemed actually to puff up a bit, “as a toad might,” the newcomer found herself thinking, but, remembering his present mission, he explained the duties and requirements of the position, then added, as he glanced almost scornfully at the silent, listening group of four children and a burro, “It sure is onfortunate. Miss Bayley, that the pupils from these here parts are so no-account, my own Jessica bein’ exceptionated.”
His glance turned with pride to the snub-nosed child in the buggy. Then, in a whispered aside: “It’s lucky for you that you’ve got one promisin’ pupil like my daughter, Miss Bayley. ’Twould be dull work teachin’ if you didn’t have nothin’ but dumb young ’uns like those Pine Tree Martins.” He paused, seeming to expect comment. This, then, was Miss Bayley’s moment for being diplomatic.
“I am sure that I shall find your little daughter a very receptive pupil, Mr. Archer,” she said graciously. This time it was certain that Mr. Sethibald had puffed. He had never heard the word “receptive” before, but it had a most complimentary sound.
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Bayley, you’ll find the little sheep-princess all that an’ more, much more, ma’am.” He was unctuously rubbing his hands as he spoke. Then going to the side of the vehicle and holding out a bediamonded hand, he added, “Come now, Jessica, darlin’, and meet the new teacher, her as is goin’ to teach you lots of nice things.”
He lifted the small girl to the ground, and Miss Bayley advanced, her hand held out, but the little “sheep-princess” drew back and clung to her father.
The teacher found herself comparing this lack of manners with the natural graciousness of Carolina, but the father evidently considered his daughter’s behavior as being praiseworthy.
“Shy little thing,” he commented in another of his quite audible asides. “Not bold like that Carry Martin.”
Then the unexpected happened. The little girl referred to darted forward with catlike swiftness. “My name is not Carry Martin,” she cried. “It’s Carolina, and my folks are—” She was drawn back and quieted by poor Dixie, who looked her misery. Teacher, quite at a loss what to say, glanced at the shy and model Jessica at that moment and saw her sticking out her tongue and tilting her nose at the Martins.
Miss Bayley sighed. There were evidently snags ahead, but Mrs. Archer was speaking. “Sethibald,” she said, with a desire to impress the new teacher with her own great importance, “it’s time now that you were a-drivin’ me over to Genoa, where I have to speak in front of a mothers’ meetin’ on how to bring up the young.” Then, turning to Miss Bayley, she added condescendingly, “Me and you’ll be great friends, I’m sure, bein’ as we’re both sot on upliftin’ folks in this here neighborhood from shiftlessness and ignorance.”
Before the astonished young teacher could reply, the stubby, reddish gentleman had climbed up on the front seat, and the restive white horses had started off down the pine-edged lane at a brisk speed, and Josephine Bayley, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, led the way into the large bare room of the old schoolhouse, where she was to spend many a day finding new problems and new pleasures. There were ten pupils in all. Two of them, Mercedes and Franciscito Guadalupe, had but recently come to that mountain country from Mexico.
Their father was the new overseer at the Archer ranch, and as yet they had not learned one word of English.
They were brightly dressed, dark-skinned little creatures, and each time that the new teacher spoke to them, their reply was the same, “Muchas gracias, Senorita,” which sounded very polite, but how was Josephine Bayley to teach them reading and spelling if neither knew the language of the other?
Two of the remaining pupils were equally hopeless, being the most forlorn little mites, children of a trapper who lived somewhere over toward Lake Tahoe, but, as Miss Bayley was to find, these pupils only came now and then, when their trapper-father could spare time to bring them, one in front and one back of him, on his horse.
Maggie and Millie Mullet were twins, aged six years, and Miss Bayley found as the weeks went by that although, after an hour of earnest effort, she might teach them to spell such words as “cat,” “bat,” “rat,” “mat,” when questioned the next day their minds were as blank as though they had never heard the words.
The tenth pupil was a very large boy, sixteen years of age, who was the only son of the burly blacksmith over at Woodford’s. He studied diligently, and when he once learned a thing he seemed never to forget it, and so of him Miss Bayley had a little more hope. However, his father, the powerful Ira Jenkins, Senior, thought “larnin’” unnecessary, but the mother, having learned to read, pored over novels, even when preparing meals, and she had decided that her overgrown son should be a preacher like the one who came once a month from Genoa and held “meetin’s” in the parlor at the inn.
As Miss Josephine Bayley looked over her little class that first morning, she felt desperately at a loss to know how to begin. Each child, it seemed, was studying something different from all the others, and, to add to her discomfort, the new teacher realized that the eyes of Jessica Archer, which were like her father’s, were watching her every move as though she had been admonished by her elders to observe and report all that happened.
The one bright spot was the corner where the wide-awake, intelligent young Martins sat, and Josephine Bayley found herself actually glad that they were “blue-blooded.”
Just as the new teacher was becoming almost panicky at the newness of everything, the slim, freckled hand of Dixie Martin appeared on high, and when Miss Bayley nodded, that small maiden arose, and, going to the desk on the platform, she said softly, “Please, teacher, we usually begin with singing. We all know the ‘Good-Morning’ song. I’ll lead if you want me to; I often do.”
“Oh, I’d be ever so grateful if you would.”
And so Dixie turned around and began to sing, in a clear, bird-like voice, a simple little melody that the older pupils knew and sang with her. There were four stanzas, and when the song was finished, the hand of Jessica Archer went up, and, rising, she said that as she was the smartest pupil in the school, she was always asked to read first.
“Very well, Jessica. My pupils, I am sure, will all be glad to help their new teacher to-day by making suggestions. Now, if you will read where you left off last term, I shall better understand how to class you.”
“Oh, I am class A,” the small girl said proudly, “and Dixie Martin and Ken and Ira Jenkins are class B, and the rest are class C.”
“Indeed!” was all the new teacher said, but she was thinking that her predecessor had evidently succeeded in fulfilling all the requirements of the board. But why, then, had she left? Oh, she did recall that Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly had said that the last teacher had married a prospector, who, for a time, had been in the mountains near Woodfords.
Romance was something that interested Josephine Bayley, aged twenty years, not at all. She had never been in love and never would be, she was sure of that. She was going to be wedded to her profession. She had never even met a lad who could interest her, and surely if she had failed to find one in the city of New York, where she had many delightful friends, she would not find him in this wild, rugged mountain country.
And all the while these thoughts were idly passing through the brain of Josephine Bayley, her “smartest” pupil was stumbling and stuttering through a short story in the Fourth Reader. It was not until the little girl sat down and was casting a triumphant glance over toward the Martin corner that the new teacher, with a start, awakened from her reverie.
Dixie Martin read next, and with so much expression that Miss Bayley was both amused and interested. She believed, and truly, that the mother’s yearning to be an actress had descended as real talent to at least this one of her children.
“Dixie,” the new teacher said, “I wish you would remain in at recess. I want to speak to you.”
If there was a jealous tilt to the curly head of Jessica, Miss Bayley did not notice it. When the others had filed out, for fifteen minutes of freedom, the new teacher took the hand of Dixie and said earnestly: “Dear, why are you reading in a Third Reader? Here is a Sixth Reader. See if you couldn’t read that.”
The gold-brown eyes were glowing. “Oh, yes, ma’am, Miss Bayley, I could. I love reading. After supper every night I read to the children ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ and the Almanac. That’s all the books we have.”
There was a firmer line about the mouth of Josephine Bayley. She had in that moment decided that she would tutor at least this one of the Martins, out of school-hours. Over her free time, surely, the board would have no jurisdiction.
It was Saturday, which was the busiest of the whole week in Woodford’s Cañon, for it was house-cleaning day in the old log cabin which was guarded by two spreading pine trees, but this Saturday was especially busy.
“Carol, please do stop frittering,” Dixie called as she turned from the stove which she was polishing with as much care as though it had been a piano. “Don’t you know who is coming to call this very afternoon, and I’d feel just terrible, I certainly would, if Miss Bayley sat on dust, and that’s what she’s likely to do if you skip places at dusting, as you usually do, and I haven’t time to-day to rub them over and see.”
The younger girl, who had been leaning far out the window, supposedly to shake a duster, but who had continued to linger there, watching two squirrels playing tag among the dry pine needles, returned reluctantly to the task she so disliked.
“O dear! it’s just mean-hateful being poor folks the way we are,” she complained, “and having to do our own work with our own hands. I’ve heard my beautiful mother say so time and again. When she was a girl she had two little darkies to wait on her. She never had to pick up anything, if she dropped it. She didn’t have to even lift a finger.”
Dixie straightened up to rest her tired shoulders, for polishing a stove was hard work at best, and almost unconsciously she glanced down at her own fingers that were jet-black just then, and for a bit of a moment she sighed, and was half tempted to think that, maybe after all, it would be nice to have nothing to do but sing and read, or live in the out-of-doors that she so loved. But a second later she was her own optimistic, practical self. “Carol Martin,” she announced, “just for that, now, we’re going to count our blessings. You begin! One?”
“O dear!” the other little maid sighed as she knelt to dust the rungs of an old grandfather’s chair. “I ’spose I ought to be thankful that I’m beautiful, like my mother.”
Dixie laughed as she whirled about, her expressive freckled face at that moment being far more attractive than that of her prettier, younger sister.
“Of course you should,” she declared good-naturedly, “and I’m thankful that I have Jimmy-Boy, and here he comes this minute to ask me to give him some bread and molasses.”
The door burst open and the small boy ran straight to his little mother, but it was not of bread and molasses that he spoke. “Dixie, dear,” he said, and his brown eyes were wide with wonder, “Buddy Ken is in the old barn an’ he won’t speak to me or nuffin’. I fink he is crying.”
“Mercy, no, not that! A big brave boy like Ken never cries.” However, in the heart of the girl who was far too young to be carrying so much burden, there was a sudden anxiety. She had noticed, for several days, that Ken had acted preoccupied, almost troubled. She had not mentioned it, for perhaps he was just figuring how he could sell the apple-crop to the best advantage. Yes, surely that must be all that was the matter. Dixie went on with the polishing. There was just one lid to do and then the task would be finished.
“Run away, Jimmy-Boy,” she said in her singing voice. “Play until Dixie is through, and then you shall have your nice bread and molasses.”
“Don’t want bread; want Buddy Ken to fix my wagon and he won’t speak to me. He’s crying inside of him, Ken is.” At this the small boy burst into tears.
The last rub had been given to the stove, so Dixie washed her hands, and, kneeling, she kissed the small boy as she said: “James Haddington-Allen Martin, I guess it’s time to ask you to count your blessings. Now, sir, begin. Blessing one is—” She paused, but she didn’t have long to wait. The clouded face brightened and throwing his arms about his “little mother,” he cried, “You!”
The girl held him in a close embrace. Then she said: “Carol, dear, please give Jimmy-Boy his ten-o’clock bite while I hunt up Ken. I’m afraid he’s worrying about the apples.” Carol was glad of anything that would relieve her from the hateful dusting.
Catching her sunbonnet from its place by the door, Dixie went in search of her brother who was her confidant and dearest friend. If he were keeping something secret from her, it would be the first time. Then she smiled as she thought, “Maybe even Ken needs to count his blessings.” Singing to cheer herself, she went down the path that led to the old log barn.
“K-e-n! K-e-n! Where are you, brother?” There was no response, and since it would be impossible for the lad to be in the barn and not hear the cheery voice that had called, Dixie’s anxiety increased. She entered the wide, front door and glanced about. At first, coming as she did from the dazzling sunshine the girl could not see the boy, who was seated in the farthest, darkest corner. His hands were over his ears, and that was why he had not heard her approach. Truly, he did look the very picture of despair. Instantly Dixie knew that her surmise had been correct. Something had gone wrong about the apples.
Hurrying to his side, she slipped an arm over his shoulder and laid her cheek on his thick, red-brown hair. “Brother, dear,” she said, as she sat beside him on the bench, “here’s Dixie, your partner. Please let me carry my share of whatever it is.”
The boy reached out and grasped the hand of his sister and held it hard. When he looked up, there were tears trickling down the freckled face that was so like her own. “Did you go to town this morning, Ken?” was the question she asked.
The boy nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I went before sun-up. I heard the apple-buyer from Reno would be at the inn to-day, and I wanted to be on hand early. I took along a basket of apples to show, and I thought they were fine, b-but, Dixie, they w-weren’t fine at all. W-when I saw the apples from the Valley Ranch, I knew ours were just a twisty little old cull kind. Tom Piggins was there from the V.R., and he said our apples are the sort they feed to their hogs. I didn’t stay to show them to the buyer, I can tell you. I just lit out for home, b-but now there won’t be any money for you to buy a new stove.”
“I don’t need a new stove,” Dixie said emphatically. “My goodness me, come to think of it, I wouldn’t have a new stove for anything, now that I’ve spent two hours and twenty-five minutes polishing the old one. It looks so fine. I’m sure it will feel heaps more self-respecting, and I shouldn’t wonder if it would bake better, too.” Then her eyes brightened with the light of inspiration. “Ken Martin, we’ll give it a chance to show what it can do right this very minute. You fetch in that basket of apples you had for a sample, and I’ll make an apple pudding, the kind you like so much, and we’ll celebrate.”
“Celebrate? For what?” Ken looked up curiously. Was there no end to the cheerfulness of this sister of his?
Dixie was groping about in her mind for something over which they might rejoice. “Oh, we’ll celebrate because we have a new teacher,” she announced triumphantly, and the next thought made her clap her hands joyfully. “Ken Martin, if it’s what you’d like to do, I wish you’d go right over to the inn and invite Miss Bayley to lunch.”
Their beautiful mother had always called the noon meal lunch, although Pine Tree Martin could never remember, and had always called it dinner.
Ken rubbed his sleeve over his eyes and looked up eagerly. “Then you really aren’t so terribly disappointed about the apples?”
“Disappointed? Goodness, no! I’d feel sort of mean selling that old stove of ours that’s been so faithful all these years just for scrap-iron, and, what’s more, I feel sure all this is a blessing in disguise.” Dixie had risen and was smiling down at her brother, who also rose.
“Say, Dix,” he said, “you’re as good as a square meal when a fellow’s hungry.” Then he laughingly added, “But, if not selling the apples is a blessing, it sure certain is well disguised.”
“Most things are blessings soon or late,” Dixie said. “Now, Ken, you go and tell Miss Bayley we’re sort of celebrating, and we’d feel greatly honored if she would come.”
Then into the house Dixie bounced to share her joyous plan with Carol. “Oh, how I do hope teacher will come,” that little maid said. “Then we’ll be first to have her, and won’t I crow over that horrid Jessica Archer though?”
“You’d ought not to feel that way about anybody, Carol, dear,” the older girl admonished as she sat on the doorstep and began to pare apples. “If folks are horrid-acting, they are to be pitied, because they can’t be happy inside. Now, if you like, you may set the table with the best cloth and china while I make the pudding and put some potatoes in to bake.”
The violet-blue eyes of the younger girl were shining. It was a great treat to her to be allowed to open the big old-fashioned cupboard that held the set of china that had been their mother’s. When Ophelia had first come to the log cabin, there had been only the thickest and most serviceable kind of ware, but when Pine Tree Martin found what a hardship it was for his wife to use it, he had sent to Reno and had ordered the choicest set they could procure. This was kept carefully locked in the great old cupboard, and used only on rare occasions.
Jimmy-Boy had been placed in his crib, which was in the lean-to room, where also was the big four-posted bed in which Ken slept. The two little girls chatted happily as they prepared for the great event.
“What if teacher can’t come?” Carol paused every now and then to say, and dozens of trips she took to the open door to look up the trail toward the cañon road. At last she gave a triumphant squeal.
“Here comes Ken, and teacher is with him. Oh, goodie, goodie, good!” Carol was pirouetting like a top. “Won’t I brag it over Jessica, though!”
Then, as the two drew nearer, the small girl called excitedly, “Dixie Martin, whatever is that thing that Ken’s carrying? It’s wriggling so he can hardly hold it. Whatever can it be?”
The two girls ran out to meet their most welcome guest, the new teacher. Ken, who for the moment had stepped behind the massive trunk of one of the great old pine trees to hide, then appeared, and Carol gave a shout as she said: “Why, Ken Martin, if you haven’t got a little pig! Oh-o, don’t let it get away. I’m terribly scared of pigs.”
No one, looking at the shining, freckled face of the boy, would have dreamed that only an hour before that same face had been the picture of misery.
“It’s that blessing in disguise, Dix,” Ken said, as he triumphantly held up a rather skinny and very young member of the porcine family.
“Why, Kentucky Martin, wherever did you get that pig?” the older sister inquired. “I didn’t know you had one penny left after you’d bought your high-topped boots.”
“I didn’t buy him, Dix,” Ken declared. “I had him given to me.”
Here was indeed an astonishing statement, for pigs were valuable. This one, though, was an unusually skinny-looking specimen. The boy, believing that he had sufficiently aroused the curiosity of the girls, went on to inform them:
“Well, as I was going up toward the inn I heard an awful squealing over in Ira Jenkins’s pen, and I ran to see what was the matter. Seems that their old sow had always disliked this little pig, and wouldn’t let it nurse with the others, and so Mrs. Jenkins had been keeping it in the house behind the stove; but the blacksmith tripped over it this morning, and he said it would have to go back in the pen where it belonged, even if the mother-sow ate it up, bones and all. Ira had just put it in the pen when I came along, but the old sow had made for it and in another moment the little pig would have been dead, certain-sure. Ira just leaned over the fence doing nothing, and I said, ‘Aren’t you going to save that little pig’s life?’ And he answered: ‘No. What’s the use? It can’t live in our house, and it seems like it can’t live in its own, so it might as well be dead.’ Then he grinned and said, like he thought I wouldn’t dare, ‘If you can save that little pig, you can have it.’”
Dixie’s eyes were wide. “Ken Martin, I hope you didn’t get right into that pen where an angry old sow was. Don’t you know they will turn on a boy just as quick as anything?”
Ken nodded, and then looked down at his overalls that plainly showed that he had not escaped without a muddying.
“Yes, I know,” he said, “but I took a chance, and I’m glad I did, for now we own a pig. I’ve always wanted one, and, oh, Dix, I’m almost glad we didn’t sell the apples.” Then, as he held the squealing little creature up to be admired, the boy added, “I’ve named him already.”
Carol sniffed. “I shouldn’t think a pig would need a name,” she said.
Ken chuckled. “I’ve named him ‘Blessing,’ and now if you’ll excuse me, Miss Bayley, I’ll go and build him a place to live. Carol, will you come along and hold him while I’m putting up a fence for his pen?”
“Me, hold him? I should say not!” and the dainty little girl held back her skirts as though the very thought of touching the creature was contaminating.
“Maybe I can help,” Miss Bayley surprised them all by announcing. “I never did hold a pig,—we don’t have very many of them in New York,—but there’s always a first time for everything.”
The boy’s eyes plainly showed his admiration, and down toward the barn these two went, while the girls returned to the house to put the finishing touches on the lunch. Half an hour later Carol called from the door, and a returning shout from Ken carried the message, “Come on down, first, and see the pen.”
Hand in hand Carol and Dixie darted down the path, and how they laughed when they looked over into the very small yard that Ken had fenced off. Too, there was a large box, open at one side, with fresh straw on the bottom, that would make a fine bed.
The skinny little pig looked up, almost fearfully, at the four laughing faces that were peering over the top rail at him. “After lunch let’s get some apples and feed him,” Carol suggested.
Suddenly Dixie thought of something. “Why, Ken Martin, we can’t feed your little pig apples yet; he’s still taking milk.”
“That’s so,” said the boy, snapping his fingers. Then he added: “I say, Dix, couldn’t you find the bottle Jimmy-Boy used to have? I can feed him with that, like as not.”
“I believe I know just where it is,” the little mother said, “but come now or the apple pudding will be done too much.” And so, promising the small pig that he would soon return, Ken leaped the fence and they all went up to the cabin.
A merry lunch it was, and the apple pudding was done to a turn. Indeed, never before had the old stove baked so well, and it seemed to shine with pride. Miss Bayley declared, and she meant it, too, that she could not remember when she had so enjoyed being guest at a luncheon party, and when, at last, she announced that she must go, as there was a letter to be written before the stage came, they all trooped with her to the top of the cañon road.
When they were home again, Dixie declared: “There now, Ken, you said this morning that you couldn’t think of anything to celebrate about, and just see what a wonderful day we’ve had. It’s always that way, I do believe. When a person feels gloomy, if he’d just up and prepare to celebrate, even if there’s nothing to celebrate about, something will turn up, certain-sure.”
“You’re right, Dix. You always are,” her brother declared warmly. “Two things turned up, the pig and Miss Bayley.”
But a harder problem to solve than that of a poor apple-crop was just ahead of brave little Dixie.
It did seem as though some little imp of mischief was trying to worry poor Dixie Martin. She had been far more sorry about the failure of their apple-crop than she had confessed, for, although the old stove would do for another year or two, the little mother knew that Carol’s best dress was actually shabby, and that night, after the small pig had been fed with a bottle, to the great delight of Jimmy-Boy, and after he and Ken were asleep in the lean-to, and Carol in the loft, Dixie sat up in bed and listened, to be sure than no one was awake.
The light of the full moon streamed in at the small window of the loft, and so she did not need to light the candle. Lifting the corn-husk-filled mattress at one corner, she drew forth an old woolen sock that had belonged to Pine Tree Martin. Nobody knew how the girl, who had inherited so many of his courageous, optimistic qualities, treasured that and every other little thing that had belonged to the man whom she so loved. Indeed, as Carol’s admiration had been all for her mother, very much of Dixie’s had been for her father, which was not strange, for she had been old enough to see how selfish were the demands of the rather weak, though truly beautiful, woman, and how constant were the willing sacrifices of her father.
The money in the stocking was Dixie’s savings for the entire year, and she knew, even before she emptied the few dimes and nickels out upon the counterpane of her bed, that there was nowhere near enough to buy Carol a store dress, and even if there might be enough for material, who was there to make it? Kind old Grandmother Piggins on the Valley Ranch had made them each a dress two years before, the ones that buttoned down the front, but now she was dead, and there was no one to care for them.
Slowly Dixie counted. There was just two dollars and thirty cents, and Jimmy-Boy ought to have a warm coat before winter, that is, if he were to go to school. When he didn’t go, the other three children had to take turns staying at home with him, and when one only went to school two days out of every three, one couldn’t make as much headway as one desired, that is, not if one were as ambitious as Dixie. With a sigh that would have been perfectly audible had any one been awake to hear it, the dimes and nickels were replaced, the sock again knotted, and Dixie was about to put it under the mattress when she suddenly held it close to her, and, looking up at the sky, she sobbed under her breath: “Oh, Dad! Dad! You’d know just what I’d ought to do. How I wish you were here to tell me!”
Just then Carol turned over, and, fearing that she might waken, Dixie slipped the precious sock into its hiding-place and climbed back into bed, but not to sleep, for her thoughts kept going over the problem without finding a solution.
Ever since her father had died, Mr. Clayburn, the kindly banker over at Genoa, had sent Dixie twelve dollars a month, which, he said, was interest on money that her father had left there for his children. The principal, he had assured Ken and Dixie, was invested in good securities that would probably continue to provide for them the princely income of twelve dollars a month.
During the summer it was not hard for Dixie to manage, for Ken raised many things in his garden, but in winter, when there were warm clothes to buy and no garden to help provide, the little mother found it very hard to make ends meet, and now it was October and there was only two dollars and thirty cents in the sock.
“Well,” she thought at last with a sigh, “Carol’s old dress will have to do, and Jimmy’ll just have to stay at home from school when cold weather comes.”
It was very late when Dixie Martin closed her eyes in restless slumber, but even then the little imp of mischief was not satisfied, for, when the girl’s gold-brown eyes opened wearily, it was on a day when a still greater problem was to confront her.
It was noon of the day following the luncheon party, and as it was the one Sunday of the month on which the Reverend Jonathan Cressly held a religious meeting at Woodford’s Inn, the little Martins had been attending the Sunday school.
The text had been, “Little children, love ye one another,” but the kindly old man departed in his rather ancient buggy, drawn by a shambling old white horse, with a feeling that his talk had not been entirely successful, for he had heard one little girl, who was very much dressed up, making fun of the Martin girls because they wore dresses that buttoned down the front.
“Those Martin children are certainly a problem in the parish,” Mr. Cressly had told the Home Missionary Society in Genoa, and the women had collected clothing that they thought might fit, and had sent a brimming barrel over to the log cabin in Woodford’s Cañon. That was soon after the father died, but, to their unutterable amazement, the same driver had brought it back on his cart, saying that Miss Dixie Martin wished him to thank the ladies, as she knew they meant it kindly, and that although she and her sister and brothers weren’t needing charity, she was sure there were many families in the mountains that did—the Washoe Indians in the creek-bottom, if no one else.
“Whew-gee!” Lin Crandel, the expressman, had ejaculated. “That red-headed gal stood up like she was the president’s darter, she sure did, but it was the purty curly-headed one that spieled the most about how blue-blooded they were. Didn’t folks know as they were Haddington-Allens of Kentucky? Whew-gee! I kin tell you I felt like apologizin’ for offerin’ ’em that barrel.”
Of course, after that the ladies of the Home Missionary Society did turn their energies in other directions.
The four little Martins were at home again, and Dixie was setting out a cold dinner, for, true to the teaching of his orthodox mother, Pine Tree Martin had insisted upon one thing, which was that Sunday should be kept holy, and that no work that was not absolutely necessary should be done on that day. Since his wife had never worked very much on any day, this had been no hardship for her.
After the simple meal, Ken said that he was going to walk over to the Valley Ranch, and that they all might come along if they wished. Jimmy-Boy was delighted, for if there was one little pig in their home sty, there were a hundred at the Valley Ranch. Carol liked to go, for Susie Piggins, aged fifteen years, went to a boarding-school in Reno, but came home for the week-ends. Dixie usually enjoyed hearing Sue tell of her experiences, but to-day she said that if the others didn’t mind she would like to just stay at home and rest.
Ken’s understanding brown eyes gave one quick glance at his comrade-sister, and noting that she was pale and that she leaned back in the big grandfather’s chair as though she were unusually weary, he decided that it would be doing her a kindness to take the other two children away for the afternoon. Little did he dream that the paleness came from long hours awake in the night.
The three had been gone for some time when Dixie was awakened from a light slumber by some one calling: “Whoa, there! Here we are, Dobbin.”
Leaping to her feet, though still feeling a little dazed from having so suddenly awakened, Dixie opened the door, to see on the path the kindly banker from Genoa. At once there was panic in the heart of the girl. Why was he coming in the middle of the month, or indeed why was he coming at all? For the past year he had sent the money the first of every month by Ira Jenkins, who did his banking over at Genoa, and was glad, in his gruff way, to do a good turn for his little neighbors, the Martins.
Samuel Clayburn climbed out of the buggy and smiled at the girl. She invited him to enter the cabin with a dignified little manner that she had inherited from Pine Tree Martin, who had stood as straight and erect as one of the trees that he so admired.
“Won’t you be seated, Mr. Clayburn?” Dixie asked, wondering why her knees were shaking so that she could hardly stand.
“I can’t stop but two jiffs, little girl, but I thought I’d rather tell you myself than write; seemed like a more humane thing to do, as I am a father myself.”
“Oh, Mr. Clayburn,” the child leaned forward eagerly. “Has something happened to the money? Is it all gone?”
Dixie was sitting on the very edge of a straight-backed chair, and her folded hands were tightly clenched. Mr. Clayburn was plainly at a loss to know how to begin. He had not supposed it would be so hard to tell a small girl that—
“Little Miss Dixie,” he suddenly exclaimed, after having tried in vain to think of some way to lead gradually up to the matter of business upon which he had come, “please don’t take what I am going to say too much to heart.” Then his kind, florid face brightened as an inspiration came to him. “I have a fine plan,” he assured her, “a very fine plan which will make it all right in the end. I am sure of that.”
“In the end, Mr. Clayburn? The end of what?” Poor little Dixie remembered, just then, that that was what had been said when Grandmother Piggins was dying—“It’s near the end now.”
She gave a little dry sob, and the good man took out his big red handkerchief and mopped his brow. Then, coughing to clear his throat, he began on a new tack. “Dixie, my wife has taken a great liking to little Carol. She saw her last month over at the county fair, and she said then that she’d like to adopt her to grow up twins with our little Sylvia. It’s bad for a child to be brought up alone, you know,—makes them selfish,—and we’re afraid our little daughter is beginning to be spoiled, and so we’ve had it in mind for some time to adopt another little girl if we could find a real nice one who needed adopting.”
For a moment the listener sat as one dazed. She could hardly comprehend what the kind man was saying, but, when he paused to mop his brow again, Dixie exclaimed: “Oh, but Mr. Clayburn, I couldn’t give up my little sister, Carol. She surely wouldn’t want to leave Ken and Jimmy-Boy and me”; but even as she spoke, Dixie feared that she was wrong. Carol would be eager to go, probably, and what right had Dixie to keep her pretty younger sister in a log cabin when she might be living in that fine big white-pillared house in Genoa that was surrounded with a wide lawn and beautiful gardens?
Then it was that Dixie thought of something, and a little of her father’s keenness appeared in the thin, freckled face as she said, “Mr. Clayburn, you didn’t come all the way from Genoa on a Sunday just to say that, did you?”
The banker confessed that that had not been his original purpose for making the journey. “You are right, little Dixie,” he said; “I came to tell you that there has been a depreciation; that is, the securities in which your father’s small principal is invested, are not as valuable as they were, and hereafter your monthly income will only be nine dollars instead of twelve, but, don’t you see, dear child,” the kind man leaned forward and took her hand, “if Carol comes to live with us, the nine dollars will go even farther than the twelve did with four of you?”
Dixie nodded miserably. Each member of the little brood was infinitely dear to her, and she was so proud of Carol, who looked just like their beautiful mother.
Looking up with tear-brimmed eyes, she said tremulously, “I oughtn’t to stand in her way if she wants to go, and more than likely she will. She likes pretty dresses and things that I can’t get for her, ’specially now, that there’ll only be nine dollars a month.”
The heart of Mr. Clayburn was deeply touched and he hastened to say, “Little Miss Dixie, don’t you want me to write just once more to your aunt down South?” He arose as he spoke.
There was a flash of pride in the eyes of the small girl. “No,” she said. “Never again. We’re not going to push ourselves in where we’re not wanted.”
“You’re right in one way, Dixie,” the banker agreed, “but it’s my opinion that your aunt doesn’t know that you exist. She has never opened even one of the letters. They have been returned just as they were sent.”
“Then she won’t have the trouble of returning another.” The little girl also had risen, and, as the banker started toward the door, she impulsively held out her hand as she said, “Mr. Clayburn, thank you for being so kind,—I mean about Carol,—and if she wants to go to you, shall I send you word by Mr. Jenkins?”
“Yes, yes,” the portly gentleman said. Then, as he placed a fatherly hand on the red-brown head of the girl, who somehow seemed smaller than he had remembered her, he added cheerfully: “It isn’t as though you won’t be able to see your little sister often. You and Ken and the baby can come and have nice visits at our house, and Carol can come here.”