But even to himself this did not ring true. Mrs. Clayburn, who was known as a social climber, had said that if she took Carol, she wished it distinctly understood that Sylvia need have nothing to do with the others, who were so like that impossible man whom the mountain people had called Pine Tree Martin.
Poor Mr. Clayburn held the trembling hand in a firm clasp as he said warmly: “There now, little girl, don’t be worrying any more than you can help. You’ll be surprised how fine things are going to turn out. Good-by. I’ll come after Carol when you say the word.”
As soon as the banker had driven out of the dooryard, Dixie threw herself down in the big grandfather’s chair and sobbed as though her heart would break, but at last she rose, washed her face, tidied her hair, and began setting the table for supper. The other three would soon be returning, and the little mother of them all would have to be the one to be brave, outwardly at least. But oh, how the heart of her yearned for the father whose strong arms had always been her haven of refuge! But now she, Dixie, must be haven for the other three.
“Here they come,” she told herself. “Now we’ll talk it over, and Carol may make her choice.”
When the three children entered the big living-room of the old log cabin, Ken was the first to notice that Dixie had been crying.
“I knew it, I just knew it!” the boy blurted out. “You’re sick or something, Dix. That’s why you looked so pale, and why you didn’t want to go for a walk like you always do Sunday afternoons.”
“No, Ken, it isn’t that,” the oldest girl said. “Get your hats off and come and sit here a while. I want to tell you all something.”
Dixie lifted little Jimmy-Boy and held him crushingly close. Then she hid her face among his thick yellow curls, that Ken might not see the rush of tears to her eyes, for she had suddenly thought, “The next thing I know, somebody will offer to take my baby away from me, but, oh, they can’t have him, not if I work my fingers to the bone to keep him!”
Luckily Ken remembered that the pig, three hens, the goat, and Pegasus must be fed before dark, and, as it was dusk, he hastened to the barnyard. Carol had climbed to the loft bedroom to put away her one treasure, a hat with a pretty flower-wreath on it, and so Dixie had time to dry the telltale tears before they returned.
“Fire ahead, Dix,” was Ken’s boyish way of announcing that he was ready to listen. He whirled a straight-backed chair about and straddled it as he spoke.
Dixie had not planned what she should say. She left it to the inspiration of the moment. What she said was: “Mr. Clayburn has been over while you-all have been away, and he said his wife would like to have Carol go to Genoa and live with them and be a sister to their Sylvia.”
If Dixie had hoped that Carol would say that she would far rather live in the log cabin with them, she was doomed to disappointment, for Carol’s pretty face glowed joyfully, and, clapping her hands, she cried: “Oh, Dix, how wonderful that will be! Just think of the pretty clothes I’ll have. That old ruffly dress of Jessica Archer’s will look like poor folks by the side of the dresses I will wear. Why, Sylvia Clayburn had on a pink-silk dress at the fair. I’d be the happiest girl on earth, Dix, if I could have a silk dress and have Jessica Archer see me wearing it.”
Ken had not spoken, but he was watching both of his sisters very closely, and the slow anger of Pine Tree Martin was mounting in his heart.
Suddenly he blurted, “Let her go, Dix, and be glad to get rid of her, if that’s all the thanks she’s got to give, after the scrimping and going-without you’ve done to buy her things.”
“Don’t, Ken, dear,” Dixie cried. “Carol’s not as old as we are, and—she’s different.”
“I should hope I am different,” the younger girl replied, tossing her curls. “I am a Haddington-Allen through and through, my mother often told me so, and you two are—are—”
“Don’t you dare say it!” Ken warned, and Carol, after a quick glance at her brother, thought best not to complete her sentence.
The boy had whirled the chair away and was standing. Looking steadily at the now shrinking younger girl, he declared, “Dix and I are proud, proud, proud, that we are children of our father.” Then there was a break in his voice that made even Carol ashamed of herself.
“Oh, I don’t see why we need be mad about it,” she said in a wheedling voice, “and I should think you two would be glad to have me living where I could have nice things and won’t have to dust and—”
Again Ken blurted out with, “Yes, you’re quite willing Dix should go on doing all the work and bearing all the burden. We’ll be well rid of you, I say, and the sooner the better.” At that the boy turned and left the house, closing the door with a bang.
The next day Dixie sent word to Mr. Clayburn, and the following Sunday noon, true to his promise, the banker reappeared.
Carol wore her best clothes and had nothing to carry. When it came to the moment of saying good-by, Dixie, to outward appearances her own cheerful self, kissed her little sister tenderly, and Ken said, “So long,” not knowing whether he was glad or sorry. Then Carol stooped to kiss little Jimmy-Boy, who suddenly threw his arms about her neck and held her close. “Jimmy loves Carol,” he prattled, as he put his dewy mouth up to be kissed.
For one brief moment the little girl hesitated, then, unfastening the clinging baby arms, she ran and climbed into the waiting buggy and sat beside Mr. Clayburn. Then she smiled and waved. Little Jimmy, not in the least understanding what was happening, began to sob and reached out his chubby arms.
Dixie caught him up and held him as she waved his small hand at the disappearing wagon. Then, with a sigh, the little mother turned back into the log cabin, feeling very much as though there had been a death in the family.
To the very last she had hoped that Carol loved them all too much really to leave them; but Ken was calling to her, and so, holding fast to Baby Jim’s hand, she went out to the barnyard to see what he wanted.
The evening of the day when Carol had ridden away from her log-cabin home to live in the handsome colonial residence of the banker of Genoa, Ken and Dixie sat up later than usual. Ken had a slate on the table in front of him.
“The taxes are twelve dollars a year,” he was saying, “so, just as soon as the money comes each month, we must put one dollar in a safe place.”
Dixie nodded and then glanced at the tall grandfather clock. It was nine. She wondered if Carol had remembered to say her prayers before she went to bed, and would she miss Dixie’s good-night kiss. Perhaps not that very first night. She’d be so excited and interested, everything being so new and strange. Never before had the older girl spent even one night away from any of her little brood. She supposed that she might get used to it in time, sleeping alone in the loft.
“Dix, you’re not paying the least mite of attention to what I am saying.” Ken’s voice was patient, but he was a little vexed, for he knew that he, who had always been a faithful brother and friend, was being neglected while Dixie was yearning for their vain, selfish sister, Carol.
“I heard what you said, Ken, dear, honestly I did! You were saying it would take two dollars to buy a sack of dry beans, and another two dollars for potatoes that we need right now. That’s five dollars out of this month’s interest, and there’ll be another for extra things like salt and sugar. It doesn’t look as though there’d be enough to buy a coat for Jimmy-Boy, does it? And the cold winter will soon be here.”
The brow of the lad was wrinkled, and unconsciously he tapped his pencil on the slate as he thought. Then suddenly he rose with a look of determination that was so like his father’s. “Dix,” he said, “I’m not going to school any longer. I’m going to work, that’s what. I’m fourteen years of age now, and the law lets you stop then.”
The girl also had risen, and, placing a hand lovingly on the arm of her brother, she said, “Kenny, you know that your heart’s set on going away to school some day to learn how to make roads and bridges and things like that.”
Ken nodded. “I know,” he said. “Maybe later I can go to school again, but just now we need money.”
The lad had been twelve years of age the year that the State road had crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He had been a frequent and fascinated visitor at the camp where the civil engineer lived, and Frederick Edrington, isolated from people of his own kind, had really enjoyed the companionship of the intelligent boy, and had taught him many things, leaving in the heart of the lad an unwavering ambition some day to become a civil engineer.
When the camp of the road-builders had been moved farther and farther west, Ken had managed to visit his friend until the distance became too great, and at last he had to say good-by to Frederick Edrington, who had been a greater influence for good in the boy’s life than either of them at that time realized.
Now and then a letter or a picture postcard had come from the engineer, who had been promoted to a government inspecting-position which took him to many out-of-the-way places. One of Ken’s dearest desires was to meet again this friend whom he so admired.
“Don’t stop going to school yet, Ken, dear,” Dixie was saying. “Let’s wait till we get close up to trouble’s stone wall, and then, if we can’t find an opening in it, we’ll turn back and do something else.” That had been a favorite saying of Grandmother Piggins. “Trouble ofttimes seems like a stone wall ahead, but when you get right close up to it you find there’s an opening with sunshine and gardens just beyond.”
Ken whirled about and caught his sister’s hands. “I’ll make a bargain, Dix,” he said. “If you’ll promise not to grieve about Carol, I’ll promise to keep on going to school until we come to the stone wall and find there isn’t an opening.”
Dixie smiled. “I ought to be glad,” she said, “because Carol is to have so nice a home.” Then she added wistfully, “I’m going to be glad, honest I am, just as soon as I get over being lonesome.”
Ken turned away and shook the stove. “Girls are queer,” was what he was thinking, but it was with unusual tenderness that he kissed his sister good-night.
It had been a very excited little girl who had driven in between the high stone gate-posts and had realized that the imposing white mansion-like house set far back among fine old trees, and surrounded by wide velvety lawns and gardens, where a few late flowers were still blooming, was to be her future home. Since the little lass was very like her mother, it was not strange that Carol truly believed that she was receiving only that which it was her right to have.
Little Sylvia Clayburn she knew not at all, and Mrs. Clayburn she remembered vaguely as being a very richly dressed woman who had stopped her at the fair to ask whose little girl she might be, and, as usual, Carol’s reply had been that she was a Haddington-Allen of Kentucky. Later, when Mrs. Clayburn had heard the story of the four orphans from her husband, she had said that she believed this little Carol would be the right child for them to adopt, since they had decided that their precious Sylvia was being spoiled growing up alone.
Nor were they wrong, for Sylvia, pale, thin, and fretful, indeed was very much spoiled. Whenever she cried, her mother gave her candy, and then, of course, she had no desire for plain, healthful foods.
“Sylvia has such aristocratic taste,” the proud mother would say. “She scorns such plebeian food as bread, and will eat nothing but cake.”
No wonder that the child of such a mother should be spoiled and sickly.
It was late afternoon when Mr. Clayburn led Carol into the luxuriously furnished library, where Mrs. Clayburn, reclining on a divan, propped up with many silken pillows, was reading aloud to a small girl who was dressed in the pale pink silk that had so aroused Carol’s envy and admiration.
Languidly the woman lifted her eyes and closed the book when the newcomer approached. “Wife, here is little Carol who has come to pay us a good long visit, I hope,” the kind man said. Then to his own little daughter he added, “Sylvia, won’t you come and shake hands with your new sister?”
Mrs. Clayburn protested. “Samuel,” she said, “haven’t I told you time and again that hand-shaking is effete, obsolete? It is not done now in the best families.”
Carol, wishing at once to impress Mrs. Clayburn with the fact that she, at least, was of a “best family,” was making a graceful curtsy, and Sylvia, having received a prompting push from her mother, did likewise.
“As you wish, my dear,” said Mr. Clayburn, smiling as though he were much amused.
“As long as this little lady is welcomed into our hearts, I’ll not be a stickler as to what outward form is observed,” he thought. Then to Sylvia he said, “Miggins, trot along upstairs and show your new sister where to put her bonnet and things.”
“I don’t want to,” the small girl said, again seating herself by the divan. “I want Mother to read to me.”
“Of course you needn’t go if you don’t want to,” Mrs. Clayburn told her.
Then she said to her husband: “Ring for Fanchon. Poor Sylvia is thin enough as it is without wearing herself out needlessly climbing up and down that long flight of stairs. We really ought to have a lift installed. They are now putting them in the homes of the b—”
But Mr. Clayburn had gone. Good-natured as he was, he was becoming extremely tired of hearing what was done in the best families.
There was a button in each room in the house, which, when touched, rang a bell in the kitchen, and the indicator informed the maid where her presence was desired, and so it was that a moment later a buxom young woman in black and white appeared in the library door. Her rosy countenance suggested that she was Irish, and in fact, when the banker’s wife had engaged her, the maid’s name had been Norah, but since the best families were employing French maids whenever they could be procured, the name had been changed to Fanchon. However, Mrs. Clayburn had warned her not to speak within the hearing of a guest, as her delightful brogue could never be mistaken.
Carol followed the silent Fanchon up the long flight of stairs that seemed velvety soft, and into a large, beautifully furnished chamber where there were twin beds. The small girl clasped her hands in delight. This, to her thought, was the kind of home in which she belonged. How happy she was going to be there!
“Will you be after changing yer dress now, colleen?” the Irish maid said pleasantly. “This here’s the one as the mistress said ye were to be wearin’ for dinner to-night.” As she spoke she took from a closet one of Sylvia’s dresses. “That child took a dislikin’ to it,” the maid went on to inform the small listener, “and not once would she be puttin’ it on. Ye’re in luck, colleen, changing this quick from gingham to red silk.”
The “blue-blooded” little girl looked with horror at the dress. It was silk, but how she had always hated bright red. She actually drew herself up as she said: “I don’t wish to wear it. I wish a blue silk dress.”
Now it happened that Mrs. Clayburn, on second thought, had decided to climb the stairs and see just how the little orphan liked her new surroundings, and so, holding the hand of Sylvia, she had just entered the room unseen as this most ungrateful remark was being uttered.
“Indeed, Miss Martin?” she said in a tone of mingled iciness and sarcasm. “What can you, a mere charity orphan, be thinking of to tell what you wish to wear? You ought to be humbly grateful that you are being taken out of that tumble-down log cabin and permitted to live in a house as handsome as any belonging to the best families.”
For one brief moment a spark of Martin pride flamed up in the heart of the small girl. Their log cabin was not tumble-down. Only that summer an artist from the East had said that it was the most picturesque home that he had seen in the whole State of Nevada. That was when the crimson rambler had been a riot of bloom.
Wisely she said nothing, but meekly permitted the maid to put on the hated red dress.
The swish of the silk was something after all.
Poor little Carol had not started out well, and she was to find that, although she was living in a rose-garden, it was not one without thorns.
The dinner was one of many courses, and there were two very formal guests, and, to Mr. Clayburn’s mortification, as well as Carol’s, the hostess, wishing to impress the fashionable Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis Burrell, from Reno, with her philanthropic generosity, told in detail the story of Carol’s life, beginning when her mother was a stranded actress in the year of the big strike over at Silver City.
The kind man glanced often at the small girl whose face was becoming as scarlet as a peony. He well knew that he would be publicly rebuked by his wife if he remonstrated or attempted to change the conversation, and yet were it not better that he should bear the brunt of it than this mere child who had been invited to come to their home? But, before he had time to decide just how best to intervene, Mrs. Clayburn had reached a point in her narrative which necessitated a description of the father, who, she informed them, had been a no-account rancher, called by the mountaineers “Pine Tree Martin.” She said no more, for the small girl, with flaming eyes, had risen so suddenly that her chair fell back with a crash. “’Tisn’t so!” she cried, her small hands clenched. “’Tisn’t so, at all!” She had whirled to face the visitors. “He was the kindest, best father there ever was to Dixie, Ken, Baby Jim, and me.” Then, bursting into tears, she ran from the room and groped her way blindly up-stairs and into the room to which Fanchon had first taken her.
She was pulling at the buttons in the back of her red-silk dress when she heard a step outside the door. It was Mr. Clayburn who entered.
“Carol,” he said, placing a kindly hand on the curly head, “don’t be hurt, little girl. Mrs. Clayburn is thoughtless, but she can’t be really as cruel as she seems. You sit here in this comfortable chair by the fire and I’ll have the rest of your dinner sent up to you.”
He started away, but he turned back to say, “You were right, though, little Carol. I knew your father well, and he was the finest and most upright of men. Any girl might be proud to be his daughter.”
Then he left the child alone in the room that was but dimly lighted, and as she sat there waiting the coming of Fanchon, for the very first time in her life she felt a real love and loyalty for that man whom the banker had just praised. How kind he had always been, and how gentle. If—if this cruel, wicked, Mrs. Clayburn was “best families,” she’d rather, oh, a hundred times rather, have her own dear, good father, whatever he was.
Fanchon entered, bearing a tray, and placed it on a low table. “Poor little colleen,” she said with understanding sympathy. “I’m not after envyin’ you much, and that’s the truth. I can be leavin’ any hour I choose, as I’d like to, after next pay-day; but I’m supposin’ you’ll have to stay here to the end of time.”
Then she went away, and Carol sat staring into the fire, thinking of what she had just heard. Did she have to stay there for ever and ever? Ken wouldn’t want her back, and, after all, did she want to go back? Maybe things would be better after that night, and it was something to be able to wear silk; even red silk was better than gingham. The dessert was a delicious concoction, and Carol, as she ate it, decided that perhaps she had been partly to blame that things had started out so all wrong. Just then Fanchon reappeared and she was leading Sylvia by the hand. That little maid looked with big-eyed wonder at the newcomer.
“You’re a very bad, bold girl; that’s what my mother says you are; and I’m not going to speak to you again till you say you’re sorry; and I shall hate you always.” Then she closed her thin lips tight and did not speak again while the buxom Irish maid was undressing her. Later Fanchon unfastened the buttons of the red-silk dress, helped Carol to prepare for bed, and then turned out the light.
There had been nothing said about prayers. Carol had never in all her short life gone to bed until after prayers had been said. When Pine Tree Martin lived, he had gathered his children about him in the warm kitchen and had led in the evening prayer, and had read to them from the big Bible. Ken did the reading now, in memory of his father.
When Carol was sure that Sylvia was asleep, she crept from bed, and, kneeling in the moonlight, she said the little bedtime prayer that Dixie had taught her, and then asked a blessing for each of the three who were in the log-cabin home over in the mountains.
Then she crawled back into bed, feeling somewhat comforted, but she never, just never, could forgive Mrs. Clayburn; she was sure of that. Suddenly she sat up, thinking. What was it that Dixie had taught her? Never to let the sun go down on her wrath. But the sun had gone down, and the moon was up. Oh, what ought she to do? After all, maybe she had seemed ungrateful. Dixie wouldn’t want her to go to sleep without asking to be forgiven.
Creeping out of bed, she stole down the wide, velvet-soft stairway, holding her long white nightgown in one hand, while she grasped the banister with the other. The guests were just departing when they looked up and saw the small girl descending. Mrs. Clayburn was horrified.
“Go back to bed this instant, you bad, bold child!” she commanded, and so, too frightened to speak, Carol did turn and go back, to sob softly into her pillow until, at last, just from weariness, she fell asleep.
So ended the first day of Carol’s life in the home of one of the “very best families.”
The next morning Sylvia was unusually fretful, and little wonder, for she had had two helpings of the rich, creamy dessert the night before, and would not eat the wholesome breakfast which was served to her in bed.
Carol was told to remain in her room that morning as a punishment for the manner in which she had misbehaved the night before. This message was brought with her breakfast by Fanchon. To the surprise of the maid, the small girl was up and had on her own old dress that buttoned down the front.
“Oh, I just wanted to put it on,” the child said, when the kindly maid expressed her surprise.
“Poor little colleen, I guess ye’re homesick, and I wouldn’t wonder at it if you are,” was what Fanchon was thinking, but aloud she made no comment, as the pale-blue eyes of her little mistress were watching her from the bed where she sat propped among downy pillows.
All the time that Carol sat at the low table eating her mush and milk, she, too, was wondering if she could be homesick. Almost unconsciously her eyes roamed over the creamy net curtains and rose-silk draperies, at the bird’s-eye maple furniture, and at the wide window-seat heaped with rosy cushions.
Then her thoughts wandered to the little loft bedroom which she and Dixie always shared together. There was one small window, with a turkey-red curtain, a very old-fashioned chest of drawers, and in one corner sat her doll, Peggotty Ann. Of course she was too old now to play with dolls, for would she not be nine the very next month?
She glanced at the little brass bed in which she had slept. It was covered with creamy net, lined with rose-colored silk. Spread over the four-posted bed at home there was a many-colored piece-quilt that her grandmother had made when she was a bride.
Somehow that loft-room seemed more homey after all. Fanchon had come to take the trays. She asked Carol if she wished to put on one of Sylvia’s pretty morning-dresses.
“No thank you, not yet,” the child replied. She walked over to the window and looked out. It was a gray, gloomy day. If she were looking out of a window at home, she would probably see Ken digging around somewhere in the garden and whistling. What a jolly whistler Ken was!
Just then Sylvia, unable to longer remain unnoticed, said fretfully, “Carol Martin, I was just falling asleep, and you made so much noise you woke me right up, and my mother said I was to sleep all of this morning because I am sickly.”
Carol felt that this was very unjust, for a little mouse could not have been more quiet. She sat down in a chair by the window, trying hard not to cry. Sylvia spoke again, “Well, as long as I can’t sleep, you may bring me my best doll, and be sure you don’t drop her.”
Carol looked in the direction indicated and saw a beautiful French doll that was nearly as big as she was. “Oh, what a beauty,” she exclaimed.
Very carefully she lifted it and took it to the little girl in the bed. Then she turned away and was far across the room when a shrill scream from Sylvia was followed by a crash. Sylvia had let the doll slip from the bed.
“You did it, you horrid beggar-girl,” she cried, “and now my beautiful doll is broken.”
The door burst open and Mrs. Clayburn appeared. She had hastily thrown on a velvet lounging-robe and her hair was down her back.
“Mother,” Sylvia fairly screamed, “she made me drop my doll.”
Again the just wrath of a Martin was in the heart of Carol. “You know you’re fibbing!” she said almost scornfully. “I’m not going to stay here another moment. I’m not! I’m not! I’m going right home to-day where folks live who are honest, and who l-love me, and I’m not going to say I’m grateful ’cause you brought me here. I’m not! I hate you. I just hate you both!”
Dashing to the closet before the astonished woman could realize what was happening, the girl snatched her best hat from a hook and ran from the room.
The bell for Fanchon sounded through the halls. “Stop that child before she gets out of this house. Then lock her up in the coal-room,” was the imperatively given command.
“Yes, ma’am. Which way was she after goin’, ma’am?” the maid lingered to inquire.
“How can I tell, stupid! She can’t unlock the front door, so she is probably there this minute, trying to get out.”
Mrs. Clayburn was right. That was where the Irish maid found her, but instead of taking her to the dark, windowless basement-room, Fanchon quickly unlocked the front door and set her free.
“Poor little darlint,” the maid thought, as she glanced anxiously up the long flight of stairs to be sure that she was unobserved, “it’s me as is wishin’ I had a log-cabin home in the mountains I could run away to.”
Mrs. Clayburn, at an upper window, saw the small figure flying across the lawn. She went at once to the telephone and called up the bank.
“Samuel, have that child caught and brought back here at once. She’s got to beg my pardon and be properly punished before she can leave this house.”
But the banker was busy, and he failed to send any one to search for the little runaway, and so, though Mrs. Clayburn watched and waited, at noon the culprit had not been returned to her. Several hours later her husband called to say that he was going into the country on business and would not be home to dinner.
“Poor little Carol,” he thought as he started driving toward the mountains, “she probably has tried to walk home, but her little legs will tire out long before she gets there, and no one living along the way except the Washoe Indians.” Mr. Clayburn hastened the pace of his horse as he thought of this. Meanwhile Carol, on leaving the home of the banker, had slipped unobserved through side-streets until she came to a highway on the outskirts, which she believed led in the direction of her log-cabin home.
She had been to Genoa but once before, and that was when she was six years of age, and though she knew that she must follow one of the side-roads toward the mountains, she was not sure which one to take.
On and on she trudged. The houses were very far apart now, and at last there were none at all. The child looked very small indeed as she crossed the desert-like stretch of sandy waste where only sagebrush and a few twisted trees were growing.
At last she reached a crossing, and to her joy, a sign-post informed her that Woodford’s was but six miles away over in the mountains. At least it was a comfort to know that she was going in the right direction. The pine trees grew bigger and denser and the road began to ascend.
The child’s feet were very tired, and, at last, she was so weary that she felt that she just could not take another step, and so she sank down on a boulder to rest. How silent it was, save for the moaning of the gentle breezes in the pines. The only living thing that she saw was a great wide-winged vulture that was swinging around overhead in circles. Never in her life had the child felt so alone in the world, but she was not afraid. The children of Pine Tree Martin had never learned fear.
“I must hurry on,” she thought, as she again arose and trudged bravely up the rough mountain road. With feet that would lag, however eager she might be to go on, she slowly climbed, but, with five miles still ahead, the small girl realized that she could walk no farther. Sinking to the ground, she curled up under a pine tree and began to sob softly.
Suddenly she sat up alert, listening. She had heard the pounding of a horse’s feet around the curve that she had just passed. Some one was coming!
She hid behind the trunk of a tree that she might see without being seen, and then watched and waited. Soon a horse and rider appeared. After one glance the small girl, with a glad cry, leaped out into the road. It was Tom Piggins riding on a big dappled work-horse. He had been to Genoa on an errand for his father, and was returning to the Valley Ranch. Never before had Carol been so glad to see any one.
Running out into the road, she waved and shouted, “Tom! Tom! Please give me a ride!”
“Why, Carry Martin, what you doin’ here?” For once the small girl did not resent being called by that much-hated name. The long, lank boy continued: “Ken was over to our place last night, and he was sayin’ as how you’d been adopted by a rich banker. He said he was sort of glad of it, you being so selfish and hard to live with, but Dixie, she’s been sniffling ’round ever since you left, and the little kid keeps askin’, ‘Where’s Carol? Jimmy wants Carol.’”
Upon hearing this, the small girl sobbed afresh.
“Oh, Tom,” she cried, “I don’t want to be adopted. Please, please take me home.”
The blunt boy was nevertheless kind, and so he helped the small girl up on the big horse in front of him, and, as they rode along, Carol told the whole story to sympathetic ears.
“Gee-crickets!” the boy exclaimed admiringly. “I’m certain glad you had some of your pa’s spunk.” Then he added hopefully, “Maybe you’re goin’ to change, and get to be more like Dixie. Ken’ll like you heaps better if you do.”
Carol said nothing, but in her heart she resolved that she would try to be so much like Dixie that folks wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
It was noon when Tom helped the little girl to the ground in Woodford’s Cañon, and, after having thanked him, she started walking slowly down the trail toward the log cabin, for a dreadful thought had come to her. What if she wouldn’t be welcome. What if Ken should say, “You left our home and now you can stay away.”
The window nearest the trail was open, and Carol thought she would look in before going to the door.
Within the cabin the three children sat about the table, eating their midday meal. Carol at the window heard Ken say: “Dix, this is the second day that you haven’t eaten one bite. If you get sick, how on earth’ll Baby Jim and I get along?”
The girl turned from the table and began to sob. “I’m sorry, Ken,” she said, “truly I am, but I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to eat again unless Carol comes home.”
“Well, I sort o’ wish she’d come, too,” Ken declared, blinking very hard.
There was a sudden warm glow in the heart of the little listener. After all, she would be welcome. Even Ken wanted her! With a glad cry she ran in the open door and threw her arms about her sister. Then she pounced upon Ken and kissed him.
“I’m home,” she cried, “and please, please let me stay forever and ever.”
Baby Jim was clamoring for attention, and he was caught in a crushing hug while he waved his spoon and uttered joyous little squeals, although he did not understand Carol’s home-coming any more than he had her departure only the day before.
After a time, in which tears and laughter blended, Carol cried, “Dixie, I’m ’most starved with that long walk and not eating much breakfast. I’m so glad you’ve got fried potatoes and baked beans.”
“I’m hungry, too, now that I take notice of it,” the older girl said, her freckled face beaming.
“Well, I thought I’d had enough, but I guess I could take another helping,” Ken declared. And so they all sat down, and a merry meal it was.
Oh, how much nicer her own home was, Carol thought, where even Baby Jim could talk if he wished and not be told that only grown-ups should converse at table. Carol didn’t tell all that had happened. In fact, she didn’t seem to wish to speak of her recent experience. She inquired with interest about the well-being of the pig and the three hens as though she had been away a year.
Then she asked what had happened at school that day. None of them had attended. They hadn’t had the heart to do anything, but on the morrow all of them would go.
After the dishes were done, Carol climbed to the loft. For some reason that she could not explain to herself, she wanted to see her old doll. She hadn’t played with it for a year, not since Jessica Archer had made fun of her and called her a baby for playing with a doll.
How cosy the loft bedroom seemed, the small girl thought as she reached the top of the ladder. Those turkey-red curtains, with the sunlight shining through them, were very cheerful looking. Peggotty Ann was probably the most surprised and the happiest doll in the whole State of Nevada, when, a moment later, she was caught up and kissed by her little mistress.
Ken entered the kitchen, and, going to the table where Dixie sat sorting the mending, he said very softly, that the girl in the loft might not hear: “Dix, something’ll have to be done, now that Carol’s back. We can’t make ends meet on nine dollars a month, and one to be laid aside for taxes.”
Dixie looked up brightly. “There’s still two dollars and thirty cents in the sock, Ken,” she said, “and we haven’t reached trouble’s stone wall yet.”
“Dix,” the boy declared admiringly, “you’re a brick!” Then he added, with a mischievous grin, “and I don’t mean because you’re red-headed, either.”
A moment later when Carol, with her doll in her arms, looked out of the small window in the loft, she saw Ken digging in the garden and heard him whistling, and, for the first time in her young life, she realized something of the contentment and joy contained in that one word, “home.”
Being very, very tired, after an almost sleepless night and a long walk, the small girl curled up on the husk-filled bed to rest, her doll held close. Soon she was asleep, and so she did not hear a horse and buggy stop at the door. In fact, she never knew that Mr. Clayburn had called, but Dixie knew, and what that kind man told brought joy to the heart of the little mother.
The banker said that he was glad to inform her that he had succeeded that very morning in loaning her father’s small principal in a way that would bring fifteen dollars a month interest.
He did not tell her that he had loaned the money to himself, as he knew that no one else would pay so high a rate of interest, and he was determined that the wolf should be kept from the door of the four little orphans who were too proud to accept charity.
When he was gone, Dixie ran out into the garden.
“Ken! Ken!” she called, and the boy thought that never before had he seen her face so aglow. “We’ve reached trouble’s stone wall, and there was an opening through and on the other side is a garden that’s all sunshine.”
The next morning Miss Bayley’s glance wandered often to the corner of the room in the old log schoolhouse where sat the four little Martins. She wondered why they all looked so beamingly happy. Little did she dream of the exciting events of the day before. Not only had the small prodigal returned, but their monthly income had been increased, and no longer need the little mother scheme, plan, and contrive just to make ends meet. Little Jimmy-Boy’s much-needed warm coat now could be purchased as soon as the money came, and that would be at least two weeks before the really cold weather set in. In fact, there were years when November was as pleasant as October, and where, in all the world, could one find more beautiful autumn weather than in Nevada?
When Dixie, as usual, led the opening song, her voice rang out with lilting joyousness, and when she stood up to read, Miss Bayley was charmed with the expression with which she interpreted the little story. In fact, so pleased was she that she forgot to stop Dixie at the end of the second page, as was the custom, but permitted her to read the entire story of “The Three Bears.” It delighted her to note how Dixie’s voice changed when Papa Bear or the Baby Bear spoke.
Then, when the little reader had finished, the teacher exclaimed with real appreciation: “Dixie, you read that splendidly! You surely have a gift.”
Then it was that she recalled that the mother of the Martin children had been an actress, and a very audible sniff also reminded her of the fact that she was praising some one who was not a daughter of the board of education.
The sniff had come from the front seat, center, and the sniffer was, of course, the haughty little Jessica Archer. That maiden had risen, and, with a toss of her corn-colored curls, she announced, “Miss Sperry, our last teacher, said I was the best reader in this school, and my father said yesterday that she was the best teacher we’d ever had in Woodford’s.”
Miss Bayley was indignant, and yet, if she wished to remain, she must be politic, and now that she was so interested in the Martins, more than ever did she want to stay.
“You read very nicely, Jessica,” she told the irate little maid, “especially when you are thoroughly acquainted with the text. You may now read the entire story of ‘Henny Penny.’”
Somewhat mollified, Jessica Archer read the tale which she knew by heart, forwards or backwards, with more expression than was her wont. She did not intend to have those no-account Martins win more praise than was given to her.
With an inward sigh Miss Bayley assured Jessica that she had never before heard her read so well, which indeed was true, and then she called upon Ken to do an oral problem in arithmetic.