“Look here, Berty,” he remarked, firmly, “I don’t want to be suspicious, but it’s utterly impossible for a girl of your weight and education to dispose of so much provender at a single standing. You’re up to some tricks with it. Have you got some River Street rats with you?”

“Yes,” she said, smilingly. “Hush, don’t tell,” and, slightly pulling aside the curtain, she showed him four little heads in a clump of syringa bushes outside.

“Newsboy Jim, and Johnny-Boy, and the two girls, Biddy Malone and Glorymaroo, as we call her, from her favourite exclamation,” continued Berty; “they wanted to see something of the Mayor’s marriage, and I let them come. I’ve been handing out ‘ruffreshments’ to them. Don’t scold them, Tom.”

“Come right in, youngsters,” said the young man, heartily. “I’m sure Mr. Jimson is your Mayor as well as ours.”

Without the slightest hesitation, the four grinning children stepped in, and, marshalled by Tom, trotted across the long room to the alcove where Selina and the Mayor stood.

“A River Street delegation,” said Tom, presenting them, “come to offer congratulations to the chief executive officer of the city.”

Selina shook hands with them. The Mayor smiled broadly, patted their heads, and the other guests, who had been bidden, without an exception kindly surveyed the unbidden, yet welcome ones.

The introduction over, Tom examined them from head to foot. The little rats were in their Sunday clothes. Their heads were sleek and wet from recent washing. There was a strong smell of cheap soap about them.

“This way, gentlemen and ladies,” he said, and he led them back to a sofa near Berty. “Sit down there in a row. Here are some foot-stools for you.

“Waiter,” and he hailed a passing black-coated man, “bring the best you have to these children, and, children, you eat as you never ate before.”

Berty stood silently watching him. “Tom Everest,” she remarked, slowly, “I have two words to say to you.”

“I’d rather have one,” he muttered.

“Hush,” she said, severely, “and listen. The two words are, ‘Thank you.’”

“You’re welcome,” returned Tom, “or, as the French say, ‘There is nothing of what—’ Hello, Bonny, what’s the joke?”

Bonny, in a gentlemanly convulsion of laughter, was turning his face toward the wall in their direction.

The lad stopped, and while Berty and Tom stood silently admiring his almost beautiful face, which was just now as rosy as a girl’s, he grew composed.

“I call you to witness, friends,” he said, slightly upraising one hand, “that I never in my life before have laughed at dear Grandma.”

“You’ve been cross with her,” said Berty.

“Cross, yes, once or twice, but Grandma isn’t a person to laugh at, is she?”

“Well, not exactly,” said Berty. “I never saw anything funny about Grandma.”

“Well, she nearly finished me just now,” said Bonny. “I was standing near Selina, when gradually there came a break in the hand-shaking. The guests’ thoughts began to run luncheon-ward. Grandma was close to the bridal pair, and suddenly Selina turned and said, impulsively, ‘Mrs. Travers, you have had a great deal of experience. I want you to give me a motto to start out with on my wedding-day. Something that will be valuable to me, and will make me think of you whenever I repeat it.’ The joke of it was that Grandma didn’t want to give her a motto. She didn’t seem to have anything handy, but Selina insisted. At last Grandma said, in a shot-gun way, ‘Don’t nag!’ then she moved off.”

“Selina stared at the Mayor, and the Mayor stared over her shoulder at me. She didn’t see anything funny in it. We did. At last she said, meekly, ‘Peter, do you think I am inclined to nag?’

“He just rushed out a sentence at her—‘Upon my life I don’t!’

“‘Do you, Bonny?’ she asked, turning suddenly round on me.

“‘No, Selina, I don’t,’ I told her, but I couldn’t help laughing.

“Jimson grinned from ear to ear, and I started off, leaving Selina asking him what he was so amused about.”

Tom began to chuckle, but Berty said, “Well—I don’t see anything to laugh at.”

“She doesn’t see anything to laugh at,” repeated Bonny, idiotically, then he drew Tom out on the lawn where she could hear their bursts of laughter.

Presently the Mayor came strolling over to the low chair where Berty sat watching her little River Street friends.

“Is it all right for me to leave Selina for a few minutes?” he asked, in an anxious voice. “I can’t ask her, for she is talking to some one. I never was married before, and don’t know how to act.”

“Oh, yes,” said Berty, carelessly. “It’s an exploded fancy that a man must always stay close to his wife in general society. At home you should be tied to your wife’s apron-strings, but in society she takes it off.”

“You don’t wear aprons in your set,” said the Mayor, quickly. “I’ve found that out. You leave them to the maids.”

“I don’t like aprons,” said Berty. “If I want to protect my dress, I tuck a towel under my belt.”

“You’ve odd ways, and I feel queer in your set,” pursued the Mayor, in a meditative voice. “Maybe I’ll get used to you, but I don’t know. Now I used to think that the upper crust of this city would be mighty formal, but you don’t even say, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and ‘No, ma’am,’ to each other. You’re as off-hand as street urchins, and downright saucy sometimes I’d say.”

“We’re not as formal as our grandparents were,” said Berty, musingly—“there’s everything in environment. We’re nothing but a lot of monkeys, anyway—see those children how nicely they are eating. If they were on River Street, they would drop those knives and forks, and have those chicken bones in their fingers in a jiffy.”

“Do you ever feel inclined to eat with your fingers?” asked Mr. Jimson, in a low voice, and looking fearfully about him.

“Often, and I do,” said Berty, promptly. “Always at picnics.”

“My father hated fuss and feathers,” remarked Mr. Jimson. “He always went round the house with his hat on, and in his shirt-sleeves.”

“The men on River Street do that,” replied Berty. “I can see some reason for the shirt-sleeves, but not for the hat.”

“Mr. Jimson,” said Walter Everest, suddenly coming up to him. “It’s time to go. Selina’s up-stairs changing her gown, the two suit-cases are in the hall.”

Ten minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Everest, with their children and their friends, stood on the front steps calling parting good wishes after Selina and the Mayor.

There were many speculations as to their destination, the greater part of the guests imagining a far-away trip, as Berty had done.

“You’re all wrong,” observed Tom. “My boat is at Mrs. Travers’s wharf for them to go to Cloverdale, and it’s cram jam full of flowers with bows of white ribbon on each oar.”

Roger Stanisfield burst out laughing. “You’re sold, Tom, my boy, do you suppose the Mayor would trust a joker like you? He has my boat.”

Bonny was in an ecstasy. “Get out, you two old fellows,” he exclaimed, slapping his brother-in-law on the shoulder. “Mr. Jimson is going to row his beloved up the river in my boat.”

“No, he isn’t,” said Walter Everest. “He’s got mine.”

“I believe he’s fooled us all,” said Tom, ruefully. “Did you have any flowers in your boat, Stanisfield?”

“Margaretta put a little bit of rice in,” said Roger, “just a handful, where no one would see it but themselves.”

“Did you trim your boat, Bonny?” asked Roger.

“Yes,” said the boy, “with old shoes. I had a dandy pair chained to the seat, so they couldn’t be detached, unless Jimson had a hatchet along.”

“Whose boat has he got, for the land’s sake?” inquired Walter Everest. “He’s asked us all, and we’ve all pledged secrecy and good conduct, and we’ve all broken our word and decorated.”

“He’s got nobody’s boat, my friends,” said old Mr. Everest, who was shaking with silent laughter. “Don’t you know Peter Jimson better than to imagine that he would exert himself by rowing up the river this warm day?”

“Well, what are his means of locomotion?” asked Tom.

“My one-hoss shay, my son. It was waiting round the corner of the road for him.”

“I say,” ejaculated Tom, “let’s make up a party to call on them to-morrow. We can take the flowers and other trifles.”

“Hurrah,” said Bonny. “I’ll go ask Margaretta to get up a lunch.”

“Will you go to-morrow, Berty?” asked Tom, seeking her out, and speaking in a low voice.

“Where?”

He explained to her.

“Yes, if you will tell me why you laughed so much at what Grandma said to Selina.”

Tom looked puzzled. “It’s mighty hard to explain, for there isn’t anything hidden in it. It just sounded kind of apt.”

“You men think women talk too much.”

“Some women,” replied Tom, guardedly.

“You want them to do as the old philosopher said, ‘Speak honey and look sunny,’ and, ‘The woman that maketh a good pudding in silence is better than one that maketh a tart reply.’”

“That’s it exactly,” said Tom, with a beaming face. “Now will you go to-morrow?”

“Probably,” said Berty, with an oracular frown. “If I am not teased too much.”

“May I come in this evening and see how you feel about it?”

“How long do you plan to stay?”

“Five minutes.”

“Then you may come,” she said, graciously.

CHAPTER XXI.
TO STRIKE OR NOT TO STRIKE

When the picnic party reached Cloverdale the day after the wedding, the Jimsons were not there.

Where Mr. Jimson concealed his bride and himself during his brief honeymoon no one ever knew, for he would not tell, and she could not, being bound to secrecy.

No one, that is, no one except Mr. and Mrs. Everest, and old Mrs. Jimson. To them Selina and the Mayor confided the news that they had been in a quiet New Hampshire village, where they could enjoy delightful drives among hills resplendent in autumn dress, and have no society forced on them but that of their hostess—a farmer’s widow.

As a result of this reposeful life, Mr. Jimson came home looking ten years younger, and Roger Stanisfield, meeting him in the street, told him so.

“I’ve had a quiet time for once in my life,” said Mr. Jimson. “I ought to have got married long ago. I have some one to look after me, and me only now. How is your wife?”

“Well, thank you.”

“And Tom and Berty and Bonny—gracious! I feel as if I had been away a year instead of three weeks.”

A shade passed over Roger’s face. “All well but Grandma and Berty.”

“What’s the matter with Grandma?”

“I don’t know. I am afraid she is breaking up.”

The Mayor looked serious, then he asked, abruptly, “And Berty?”

“Oh, River Street—it’s on her brain and conscience, and it is wearing her body down.”

“She’s doing what the rest of us ought to do,” said Mr. Jimson, shortly, “but, bless me—you can’t make over a city in a day; and we’re no worse than others.”

“I suppose the city council is pretty bad.”

Mr. Jimson shrugged his shoulders.

“Lots of boodle—I say, some of those aldermen ought to be dumped in the river.”

“You ought to get Berty out of city politics,” said Mr. Jimson, energetically. “That is no girl’s work.”

“She’s going to get out, Margaretta thinks,” said Roger, turning round and slowly walking down the main street of the city beside him. “But we’ve got to let her work out the problem for herself. You see, she’s no missionary. She is not actuated by the passion of a life-work. She has come to live in a new neighbourhood, and is mad with the people that they don’t try to better themselves, and that the city doesn’t enable them to do it.”

“She’ll probably marry Tom Everest, and settle down to housekeeping.”

“That will be the upshot of it. I’d be doubtful about it, though, if the River Street people had given her a hand in her schemes of reform.”

“She’s just an ordinary girl,” said the Mayor, briskly. “She’s no angel to let the River Streeters walk all over her.”

“No, she’s no angel,” returned Roger, with a smile, “but she’s a pretty good sort of a girl.”

“That she is,” replied Mr. Jimson, heartily. “Now tell me to a dot just what she has been doing since I went away. She seemed all right then.”

Roger looked amused, then became grave. “Just after you left, she got worked up on the subject of child labour. It seems the law is broken here in Riverport.”

“How does our State law read?” inquired Mr. Jimson. “Upon my word, I don’t know.”

“The statutes of Maine provide that no female under eighteen years of age, no male under sixteen, and no woman shall be employed in any manufactory or mechanical establishment more than ten hours each day. We also have a compulsory education law which prohibits children under fifteen years of either sex working, unless they can produce certificates that during the year they have attended school during its sessions.”

“Well?” said Mr. Jimson.

“Berty found that some old-clothes man here had a night-class of children who came and sewed for him, and did not attend school. She burst into our house one evening when Margaretta was having a party, and before we knew where we were she had swept us all down to River Street. It was a pitiful enough spectacle. A dozen sleepy youngsters sitting on backless benches toiling at shirt-making, round a table lighted by candles. If a child nodded, the old man tapped her with a long stick. Some of us broke up that den, but Berty was furious at the attitude of the parents.”

“I’ll bet they were mad to have their children’s earnings cut off,” observed Mr. Jimson. “Poor people are so avaricious.”

“They were, and Berty was in a dancing rage. She got up a paper called The Cry of the Children. You can imagine what her editorials would be. Then she had the children of River Street walk in a procession through the city. Nobody laughed at her, everybody was sympathetic but apathetic. Now she is in a smouldering temper. Her paper is discontinued, and I don’t know what she is going to do.”

“This is mighty interesting,” said Mr. Jimson, “but there’s Jones, the lumber merchant from Greenport. I’ve got to speak to him—excuse me,” and he crossed the street.

Roger continued on his way to the iron works, and two minutes later encountered Berty herself coming out of a fancy-work store.

“Good morning,” he said, planting himself directly before her.

“Good morning,” she returned, composedly.

“What have you been buying?” he asked, looking curiously at the parcel in her hand.

“Embroidery.”

“For some other person, I suppose.”

“No, for myself.”

“Why, I never saw you with a needle in your hand in my life.”

“You will now,” she said, calmly.

“How’s the park getting on, Berty?”

“Famously; we have electric lights, and the children can stay till all hours.”

“Is your helper satisfactory?”

“She is magnificent—a host in herself. She can shake a bad boy on one side of the park, and slap another at the other side, at the same time. I think I’ll resign my curatorship in favour of her. She only gets half my pay now.”

“Why resign, Berty?”

“Well, I may have other things to do,” she said, evasively.

“You’re going to get married.”

“Not that I know of,” she said, calmly.

“Good-bye,” replied Roger; “come oftener to see us, and be sure to bring your embroidery.”

Berty gazed after him with a peculiar smile, as he swung quickly away, then she made her way to River Street.

At one of the many corners where lanes led down to wharves, a group of men stood talking with their hands in their pockets.

Berty stopped abruptly. Through the women in the street she knew what the chief topic of conversation among the wharf labourers just now happened to be.

“Are you talking of your projected strike?” she asked, shortly.

Not one of them spoke, but she knew by their assenting looks that they were.

“It’s a lovely time for a strike,” she said, dryly; “winter just coming on, and your wives and children needing extra supplies.”

The men surveyed her indulgently. Not one of them would discuss their proposed course of action with her, but not one resented her knowledge of it, or interference with them.

“You men don’t suffer,” she said, and as she spoke she pulled up the collar of her jacket, and took a few steps down the lane to avoid the chilly wind. “See, here you stand without overcoats, and some of you with nothing but woollen shirts on. It’s the women and children that feel the cold.”

One of the men thoughtfully turned a piece of tobacco in his mouth, and said, “That’s true.”

“What do you strike for, anyway?” she asked.

One of the stevedores who trundled the drums of codfish along the wharves for West Indian shipment, said, amiably, “A strike is usually for higher wages and shorter hours, miss.”

“Oh, I have no patience with you,” exclaimed Berty, bursting into sudden wrath. “You are so unreasonable. You bear all things, suffer like martyrs, then all at once you flare up and do some idiotic thing that turns the sympathy of the public against you. Now in this case, you ought to have the public with you. I know your wages are small, your hours too long, but you are not taking the right way to improve your condition. Because the Greenport wharf labourers have struck, you think you must do the same. A strike among you will mean lawlessness and violence, and you strikers will blink at this same lawlessness and violence because you say it is in a good cause. Then we, the long-suffering public, hate you for your illegality. There’s the strong arm of the law held equally over employers and employed. Why don’t you appeal to that? If you are right, that arm will strike your oppressors. You can keep in the background.”

“There’s a machine back of that arm,” said a red-haired man, gloomily, “and, anyway, there ain’t a law standing to cover our case.”

“Then make one,” said Berty, irritably. “You men all have votes, haven’t you?”

“Yes, miss,” said a man in a blue shirt, “all except this lad. He’s just out from Ireland. He’s only been ashore two weeks.”

“That’s the way to settle things,” said Berty, warmly. “I’ve found out that votes are the only things that make anybody afraid of you—you all know how I came to this street. I found living conditions unbearable. In my feeble way I have tried to rectify them. Nobody cares anything for me. The only good I have accomplished is to get a park for the children.”

“And that was a great thing,” said the man in the blue shirt, “and I guess we all think of it when we look at you.”

“I just wanted common necessities,” said Berty, eloquently, “air, light, water, and space—wanted them for myself and my neighbours on the street. I have badgered the city council till I have got to be a joke and a reproach. Nobody cares anything about you down here, because you haven’t any influence. I’ve found out that if I could say to the city council, ‘Gentlemen, I have five hundred votes to control,’ they would listen to me fast enough.”

The men smiled, and one said, kindly, “I’m sure, miss, you’d get our votes in a bunch, if we could give them.”

“I don’t want them,” said Berty, quickly. “It isn’t a woman’s business to go into reforming city politics. It’s the men’s place. You men fight for your homes if a foreign enemy menaces us. Why don’t you organize, and fight against the city council? Drive it out, and put in a good one. Those few men aren’t there to make the laws. They are to administer them. You are the people. Make what laws you please. If they are not workable, make new ones. I’m disgusted with those aldermen. The very idea of their arrogating to themselves so much authority. You would think they were emperors.”

The men smiled again. From him in the blue shirt came the emphatic remark, “We couldn’t turn out the present lot, miss. They’re too strong for us.”

“Oh, you could,” replied Berty, impatiently. “I’ve been going over our voting-list, and I find that the city of Riverport consists of ‘poor people,’ as we call them, to the extent of two-thirds of the population. You poor men have the votes. Now don’t tell me you can’t get what you want.”

“But there’s party politics, miss,” suggested a quiet man in the background.

“Shame on you, Malone,” and Berty pointed a finger at him, “shame on you, to put party politics before family politics. Vote for the man who will do the best for your wife and children. If you haven’t got such a man, organize and put one in. Let him give you equal privileges with the rich—or, rather, not equal privileges—I am no socialist. I believe that some men have more brains than others, and are entitled by virtue of their brains to more enjoyments and more power, but I mean that the city owes to every citizen, however poor, a comfortable house and a decently kept street.”

“That’s sound, miss,” said Malone, slipping still further forward, “but we’d never get it from the city.”

“Put in some of your number as aldermen. Why shouldn’t you in democratic America, when even in conservative England there can exist a city council made up of men who work by the day—masons, painters, bricklayers, and so on. Do that, and you will have a chance to carry out all sorts of municipal reforms. I think it is disgraceful that this ward is represented by that oiled and perfumed old gentleman Demarley, who never comes to this street unless he wants a vote.”

Malone stared intently at Berty, while a man beside him murmured something about the board of aldermen having promised certain reforms.

“Don’t speak to me of reforms from those men that we have now,” returned Berty, with flashing eyes. “When I came to River Street, I used to blame the policemen that they didn’t enforce the law. Now I see that each policeman is a chained dog for some alderman. He can only go the length of his chain. A strapping great creature in uniform comes along to your house, Mr. Malone, and says, in a lordly way, ‘Mrs. Malone, you are obstructing the sidewalk with those boxes; you must remove them.’

“‘And you are obstructing my peace of mind,’ she says, ‘with that old drug-store over there open all hours, and with our young lads slipping in and out the back door, when they ought to be in bed. Haven’t you eyes or a nose for anything but boxes?’

“And the policeman says, meekly, ‘I see nothing, I hear nothing; there must be something wrong with your own eyes and hearing, Mrs. Malone. It’s getting old you are.’ Then he moves on to look for more boxes and small boys. That’s the length of his chain.”

They were silent, and Berty, with increasing heat and irritation, went on. “This city is entirely corrupt. I say it again and again, and you know it better than I do—but I am going to stop talking about it. I had a lovely scheme for setting up a shop to sell pure milk to try to keep the breath of life in your babies a little longer, and I was going to get out plans for model dwellings, but I am going to stop short right here, and mind my own business.”

The men stood looking sheepishly at her, and at themselves, and, while they stood, Tom Everest, in a short walking-coat, and with his hat on the back of his head, came hurrying down the street.

He put his hat on straight when he saw Berty, and stopped to glance at her. He had got into the way of dodging down to River Street if he had any business that brought him in the neighbourhood, or if he could spare an hour from his office.

CHAPTER XXII.
DISCOURAGED

When Berty’s eyes rested on Tom, he came forward hat in hand.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he inquired, calmly, but with inward anxiety as he noticed her flushed face.

“No, thank you,” she said, wearily, “I was just talking to some of my friends here.”

Tom nodded to the men in a civil manner, then said, “Are you going home?”

“Yes, presently,” she returned. “I will just finish what I was saying. I was telling these men, Mr. Everest, that when I came to River Street, and saw how many things needed to be done in order to make the place comfortable, my brain was on fire. I wished to do everything to enable my neighbours to have decent homes and a pure atmosphere in which to bring up their children. But now I have got discouraged with them. They don’t second me. All the rich people say that poor people are shiftless and ungrateful, and I am beginning to think they are right. Here are these men standing before us. They are just as sensible as you are, or as any man in the city, but again and again they will vote for aldermen who care no more for their interests than they do for the interests of the sparrows flying about the city. They can pick up a living the best way they can. The city council has not one bit of care of its children, except the rich ones, and I say to these men here that there is no use for me or anybody to try to help them. They have got to help themselves.”

Tom looked concerned, but made no endeavour to reply, and Berty went on:

“It is all very fine to talk of helping the poor, and uplifting the poor. It just makes them more pauper-like for you to settle down among them, and bear all the burden of lifting them up. They have got to help you, and because they won’t help me, I am going to leave River Street just as soon as I get money enough. I’m disgusted with these people.”

Tom, to Berty’s surprise, gave no expression of relief—and yet how many times he had begged her to turn her back on this neighbourhood.

The wharf-men sank into a state of greater sheepishness than before. One of them, who carried a whip under his arm, shifted it, and, reaching forward, pushed Malone with it.

Other of the men were nudging him, and at last he remarked, regretfully, “I’m sorry to hear you say that you want to quit the street, miss. I hope you’ll change your mind.”

“Well, now, do you think it is a nice thing for me to be constantly running about interviewing aldermen who hate the sight of me, on the subject of the rights of great strong men like you and these others? Come, now, is it work for a girl?”

“Well, no, miss, it isn’t,” said Malone, uneasily.

“Then why don’t you do it yourselves? The ideal thing is to trust people, to believe that your neighbour loves you as well as he does himself, but he doesn’t. He pretends he does, but you’ve got to watch him to make a pretence a reality. For the good of your alderman neighbour make him love you. You don’t want plush sofas and lace window curtains. Bah, I’m getting so I don’t care a fig for the ‘rags’ of life—but you want well-made furniture, and a clean pane of glass to look out at God’s sky.”

“That’s so,” muttered Malone.

“Then for goodness’ sake get to work. Municipal reform can start right here on River Street as well as on Grand Avenue. I have all sorts of lovely papers telling just how model municipal government should be, and is conducted. It’s a living, acting plan in several cities, but I sha’n’t tell any of you one thing about it, unless you come and ask me. I’m tired of cramming information down your throats. Go on and strike, and do anything foolish you can. Let your wives freeze, and your poor children cry for food this winter. In the spring there will be a fine lot of funerals.”

“Oh, I say, Berty,” remarked Tom, in an undertone.

Her eyes were full of tears, but she went plunging on. “And I’ll tell you one thing that may be published to the city any day. I was not told not to tell it. Mr. Jimson wrote me a letter while he was away, and I think he is going to resign the mayoralty. He won’t tell why, of course, but I know it is because the city council is so corrupt. Now if you men had stood by him, and put in a decent set of councillors, he might have stayed in. I haven’t said a word of this before, because I felt so badly about it.”

The men scarcely heard her last sentences. The “River Streeters,” as they were called, took to a man an extraordinary interest in civic affairs, and they fell to discussing this bit of news among themselves.

“Come home, Berty,” said Tom.

“Yes, I will,” she said, meekly. “I’ve said all I want to. Just steady me over that crossing. I’ve got dust in my eyes.”

Poor Berty—she was crying, and good, honest Tom choked back a sudden sympathetic lump in his throat.

“Don’t worry, little girl,” he said, huskily. “You’ve done a lot of good already, and we’re all proud of you.”

“I have done nothing,” said Berty, passionately, “nothing but get the park for the children. I just love the children on this street. I want their fathers to do something for them. It’s awful, Tom, to bring up boys and girls in such an atmosphere. What will their parents say when they stand before the judgment seat—I can’t stand it, Tom—the lost souls of the little ones just haunt me.”

“There, there,” murmured Tom, consolingly, “we’re most home. Try to think of something else, Berty—you’ll live to do lots of work for the children yet.”

CHAPTER XXIII.
GRANDMA’S REQUEST

For three weeks the weather had been chilly and disagreeable. “The winter will set in early,” the oldest inhabitants were prophesying, when suddenly the full glory of the Indian summer burst upon the city.

Berty was delighted. “Dear Grandma will get better now,” she kept saying, hopefully. “This is what she wants—just a little warm sunshine before the winter comes.”

Grandma’s health had for some time been a cause of anxiety to her many friends. All through the autumn she had been ailing, and strangely quiet, even for her. And she had complained of feeling cold, a thing she had never done before in her life. Nothing seemed to warm her, not even the blazing fires that Berty kept in some of the many open fireplaces with which the old house was well supplied.

To-day there was a change. When the warm, lovely sunshine came streaming into her room, Grandma had got out of bed. She had come down-stairs, and, very quietly, but with a gentle smile that sent Berty into an ecstasy of delight, she had visited every room in the house.

The guinea-pigs and pigeons in the wood-shed, the two women working in the kitchen, had been made glad by a call from her, and now she was resting on a sofa in the parlour.

“I feel twenty years younger to see you going about!” exclaimed Berty, delightedly, as she tucked a blanket round her.

“Twenty years!” murmured Grandma.

“Of course that’s exaggeration,” explained Berty, apologetically. “I know that you know I’m not twenty yet. I just wanted you to understand how glad I feel.”

“Go out on the veranda,” said Grandma, “and breathe the fresh air. You have been in the house too much with me lately.”

Berty’s upper lip was covered with a dew of perspiration. She was hot all the time, partly from excitement and anxiety about Grandma, and partly from her incessant activity in waiting on her in the heated atmosphere of the house.

Berty reluctantly made her way to the veranda, where she promptly dislodged from a rocking-chair the mongrel pup, who, after long hesitation, had finally chosen to take up his abode with her.

The pup, however, crawled up beside her after she sat down, and she gently swayed to and fro in the rocking-chair, absently stroking his head and gazing out at the stripped grain-fields across the river.

she was singing softly to herself, when some one remarked in an undertone, “Well, how goes it?”

“Oh,” she said, looking up, “it is you, is it, the omnipresent Tom?”

“Yes, I just slipped up for a minute to see how Grandma is. Won’t this sunshine set her up?”

“You saw her as you came through the room?”

“Yes, but she was asleep, so I did not speak. How is she?”

“Better, much better, and I am so glad.”

“So am I,” responded Tom, heartily; “it makes us all feel bad to have her ill, but, I say, Berty, you must not take it so to heart. You’re looking thin.”

“I can’t help worrying about Grandma, Tom.”

“How long since you’ve been out?”

“Two weeks.”

“That’s too long for one of your active disposition to stay in the house. Come, take your dog and walk back to town with me. See, he is all ready to come.”

Mugwump, indeed, was fawning round Tom in a servile manner.

“He’s liked me ever since he had a taste of my coat,” observed the young man.

“If you won’t take a walk with me, let me row you over to Bobbetty’s Island this afternoon,” pursued Tom.

Berty shook her head, but said, eagerly, “Do tell me how Mafferty is getting on.”

“Finely—he says that’s a first-class shanty we put up for him—the stove is a beauty, and, Berty, another consignment of cats has arrived.”

“Oh, Tom, what are they like?”

The young man launched into a description of the new arrivals. “There are four white kittens—one pair yellow eyes, three pairs blue, for which you should charge twenty dollars to intending purchasers; three black Persian kings, worth thirty dollars, and a few assorted kittens from five dollars up.”

Berty listened in rapt attention. When he had finished, she said, “You’ve been tremendously good about my tramp, Tom.”

“I like partnerships,” he said, modestly; “in fact, I—”

“That reminds me,” interrupted Berty, unceremoniously; “has he had another letter from his wife?”

“Yes, she is coming in ten days.”

The girl clasped her dog so energetically round the neck that he squealed in protest. “Isn’t it just lovely, that we have been able to do something for that man? Oh, do you suppose he will be happy there with his wife and the cats?”

“No, certainly not,” said Tom, coolly. “He’s going to have his bursts, of course.”

“And what are we to do?” asked Berty, sorrowfully.

“Forgive him, and row him back to the island,” said Tom, hopefully. “It’s as much our business to look after him as anybody’s.”

Berty turned in her chair, and stared at him long and intently. “Tom Everest, you are changing.”

“Pray Heaven, I am,” he said earnestly, and something in the bright, steady gaze bent on her made her eyes fill with tears.

“I have learned a lot from you,” he continued, in a low voice. “When I heard you talking to those men the other day, it stirred my heart. It seemed pitiful Berty, that a girl like you, who might think only of amusing herself, should be so touched by her neighbours’ woes that she should give up her own peace of mind in order to try to help them. Then I heard that though you could not move the men, the women of the street were much put out at the thought of your leaving, and so exasperated with the men, that they told them they had got to do something to help their families. I said to myself, ‘I’ve only been giving Berty a half assistance up to this. She shall have my whole assistance now.’”

Berty’s face was glowing. “Tom,” she said, gently, “if we live, we shall see great reforms on River Street.”

“I hope so,” he replied, heartily.

“We shall see,” and she upraised one slim brown hand, “perhaps, oh, perhaps and possibly, but still, I trust, truly, we shall see this our city one of the best governed in America.”

“Oh, I hope so,” returned Tom, with a kind of groan.

“Don’t doubt it,” continued the girl. “Who lives will see. I tell you, Tom, the women are desperate. The River Street houses are growing older and older. What woman can endure seeing her children die, and know that they are poisoned out of existence? I tell you, Tom, the men have got to do something or emigrate.”

“They’ll not emigrate,” said Tom, shortly, “and upon my word,” and he looked round about him, “I don’t know but what I’d be willing to live on River Street myself, to help reform it.”

Berty was silent for a long time, then she said, in a low voice, “You will not regret that speech, Tom Everest.”

“All right, little girl,” he replied, cheerfully, and jumping up from his low seat. “Now I must get back to work. Come, Mugwump, I guess your missis will let you have a walk, even if she won’t go herself.”

The lawless dog, without glancing at Berty for permission, bounded to his side and licked his hand.

“You haven’t very good manners, dog,” said Tom, lightly, “but I guess your mistress likes you.”

“I always did like the bad ones best,” said Berty, wistfully. “It seems as if they had more need of friends—good-bye, Tom.”

“Good-bye, little girl,” he returned, throwing her a kiss from the tips of his fingers. “Maybe I’ll run up this afternoon.”

CHAPTER XXIV.
DOWN THE RIVER

Tom did not get up in the afternoon. However, he came in the evening, and the next morning, and the next.

Margaretta and Roger, Bonny, Selina, and Mr. Jimson also came. Grandma was decidedly better, and in their joy they came even oftener than they had in their sorrow at her illness.

Berty could hardly contain herself for very lightness and extravagance of spirit. It had seemed to her that she could not endure the mere thought of a further and long-continued illness on the part of her beloved grandmother. To think of that other contingency—her possible death—sent her into fits of shuddering and despondency in which it seemed as if she, too, would die if her grandmother did.

Now all was changed. Day by day the exquisite sunshine continued, the air was balmy, there was a yellow haze about the sun. It seemed to Berty that she was living in an enchanted world. Grandma was going about the house with a firm step—a bright eye. She had gone over all her trunks and closets. She had sorted letters, tidied her boxes of clothes, and arranged all her belongings with a neatness and expedition that seemed to betoken the energy of returned youthfulness.

She was also knitting again. Nothing had pleased Berty as much as this. Tears of delight fell on the silk stocking as she handed it to Grandma the first time she asked her for it.

“Dear Grandma,” said Berty, on this afternoon, abruptly dropping on a foot-stool beside her, and putting her head on her knee, “dear Grandma.”

Mrs. Travers, still steadily knitting, glanced at her as if to say, “Why this sudden access of affection?”

“It doesn’t mean anything in particular,” said Berty, pressing still closer, “only that you are so dear.”

Grandma smiled, and went on with her work.

“You are just toeing that stocking off,” said Berty.

“Yes, dear,” replied her grandmother. “This is the last of the six pairs for Mrs. Darley-James. You will remember, Berty, they are all for her.”

“Why should I remember?” asked the girl, anxiously. “You always remember for yourself.”

“True,” said Mrs. Travers, composedly, and, getting up, she went to her writing-desk. Taking out a roll of exquisitely made stockings, she wrapped them in a piece of paper, and with a firm hand wrote, “Mrs. Darley-James, from her old friend, Margaret Travers.”

Having directed the parcel, she left her desk and went to the veranda.

Berty followed her. Grandma was looking strangely up and down the river—strangely and restlessly. At last she said, “It’s a glorious afternoon. I should like to go out in a boat.”

“But, Grandma,” said Berty, uneasily, “do you feel able for it?”

Her grandmother looked at her, and the brightness of her face silenced the girl’s scruples.

“I will take you in my boat, dear,” she said, gently, “if you wish to go.”

“I should like to have Margaretta come,” said Mrs. Travers.

“Very well, we will send for her.”

“And Roger,” said Grandma.

“Roger is at an important business meeting this afternoon, I happen to know,” said Berty, hesitatingly.

“He would leave it for me,” said Grandma.

“Do you wish me to ask him?” inquired Berty, in some anxiety.

“Yes,” said Grandma, softly.

Berty got up and was about to leave the veranda, when Mrs. Travers went on. “Will you send for Bonny, too?”

“Oh, Grandma, don’t you feel well?” asked Berty, in increasing anxiety.

“Just at present I do, dear,” and her voice was so clear, her manner so calm, that Berty was reassured until her next remark.

“Berty, where is Tom this afternoon?”

“Oh, Grandma, he was going to Bangor on business. He is just about getting to the station now.”

“Will you send for him, too?”

“Send for him?” faltered Berty. “Oh, Grandma, you are ill. You must be ill.”

“Do I look ill?”

“Oh, no, no,” said Berty, in despair. “You don’t look ill, your face is like an angel’s, but you frighten me.”

“My child,” said Grandma, “I never felt better in my life; but despatch your messengers.”

Berty left the room. She had a strange sensation as if walking on air. “Bring your boat, Roger,” she wrote, “your family boat. Mine isn’t large enough.”

Her messengers were faithful, and in an hour Margaretta, Bonny, Roger, and Tom were hastening to the house.

Berty met them in the hall. “No, Grandma isn’t ill,” she said, with a half-sob. “Don’t stare at her, and don’t frighten her. She just took a fancy to go out boating, and to have you all with her.”

“But it is so unlike Grandma to interfere or to disarrange plans,” murmured Margaretta; “there is something wrong.” However, she said nothing aloud, and went quietly into the parlour with the others and spoke to Grandma, who looked at them all with a strange brightness in her eyes, but said little.

Tom could not get the fright from his manner. Old Mrs. Travers would not interrupt a railway journey for a trifle. They might say what they liked.

In somewhat breathless and foreboding silence they got into Roger’s big boat moored at the landing, and he and Tom took the oars.

Once out upon the bosom of the calmly flowing river, their faces brightened. Sky and water were resplendent, and they were softly enveloped in the golden haze of approaching sunset.

Here where the river was broadest the shores seemed dim in the yellow light. With the dying glory of the sun behind them, they went down the stream in the direction of Grandma’s pointing hand.

How well she looked, propped up on her cushions in the stern. Her eyes were shining with a new light, her very skin seemed transparent and luminous. Was it possible that, instead of failing and entering upon a weary old age, this new-found energy betokened a renewed lease of life? Their faces brightened still further. Tom at last lost the fright from his eyes, and Berty’s vanished colour began to come fitfully back.

As they sat enfolding her in loving glances, Grandma occasionally spoke in low, short sentences, mostly relating to the river.

“I was born by it—it has been a friend to me. Children, you will all live by the river.”

Upon arriving opposite Bobbetty’s Island, Grandma smiled. Berty’s tramp, Mafferty, in a decent suit of clothes, stood on a rock, surrounded by a number of handsome, dignified cats, who sat or stood beside him like so many dogs. As they passed he waved them a respectful greeting with one of Tom’s discarded hats.

“You will not give him up,” said Grandma to Tom. “You will not become discouraged.”

“I will not,” he said, solemnly.

CHAPTER XXV.
LAST WORDS

“The sun has gone down,” said Margaretta, suddenly.

It had indeed. The huge golden ball had just dropped behind the hills on the western side of the river.

Grandma half-raised herself on her cushions, a restrained eagerness took possession of her, as if she were disappointed that she had not obtained one more glimpse of the king of day, then she sank back and smiled into the unwavering eyes of her youngest granddaughter. The eyes of the others might occasionally wander. Berty’s gaze had not left her face since they came upon the river.

“You wished to see the sun again,” said Berty. “I should have warned you that it was about to disappear.”

“I wished to say good-bye to it,” said Grandma, “a last good-bye.”

“To say good-bye,” repeated Berty, in a stunned voice, “a last good-bye,” and with a heart-broken gesture she put her hand to her head, as if wondering if she had heard aright.

Margaretta was trembling. Since the withdrawal of the sun, the yellow, lovely glow had faded. There was a gray shadow on everything, even on their own bright faces—on all except Grandma’s. That radiance about her was not a reflection of any light in this world; it was unearthly; and she fearfully touched Roger with a finger.

She knew now why they had been brought out upon the river, and, endeavouring once, twice, and finally a third time, she managed to utter, in a quivering voice, “Grandma, shall we take you home?”

“No, Margaretta,” replied Grandma, clearly, and she pointed down the river. “Take me toward the sea. I shall soon be sent for.”

They all understood her now. Their scarcely suppressed forebodings rushed back and enveloped them in a dark, unhappy cloud.

Grandma was repeating in a low voice, “Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.”

Margaretta, leaning over, drew a flask from Roger’s pocket. Then, slipping past the motionless Berty, she knelt before her grandmother.

“Dearest, I brought a stimulant with me. Will you have some?”

“But I have no need of it,” said Grandma, opening wide her strangely beautiful eyes.

It seemed to Margaretta that she could not endure their bliss, their radiance. She turned her head quietly away, and, with a rain of tears falling down her face, sat looking out over the river.

Presently controlling herself, she again turned to her grandmother. Perhaps there was something she could do for her. Her hands might be cold. They were, and Margaretta, taking them in her own, chafed them gently.

Grandma smiled quietly. “Always thoughtful—my dear, you will be a mother to Bonny.”

“I will,” said the weeping girl.

“Do not be unhappy,” said Grandma, pleadingly. “I am so happy to go. My earthly house is in order. I long for my heavenly one.”

“But—but, Grandma, you have been happy with us,” stammered Margaretta.

“Happy, so happy—always remember that. My only trouble a separated family. One half in heaven, the other on earth. One day to be reunited. You will cherish each other after I am gone—you precious ones on earth—Roger?”

The young man nodded, and bent his head low over the oars.

“And Tom,” said Grandma, with exquisite sweetness, “my third grandson, you will take care of Berty?” Tom tried to speak, failed, tried again, but Grandma knew the significance of his hoarse, inarticulate murmur. Then he averted his gaze from the heart-breaking sight of Berty at her grandmother’s feet. The despairing girl had clasped them to her breast. Grandma was more to her than any of them. How could he comfort her for such a loss?

“Come, come,” said Grandma, cheerily, “our parting is but for a little. See, my child, my spirit is growing brighter and brighter. It has outgrown this poor old worn-out body. Berty, lift your head, and look your grandmother once more in the eyes.”

After some delay, Berty, in mute, anguished silence did as she was bid.

“Some day,” said Grandma, firmly, “your own sturdy limbs will fail you. You will fly from them as from a discarded burden, and come to rejoin your mother and grandmother in the sky. Let me hear you speak. Will you be brave?”

Still in dumb, tearless sorrow, the girl shook her head.

“Is this the child I have brought up?” asked Grandma, with some faintness. “Have I been unsuccessful? Where is your strength in the hour of trial?”

Berty clasped her hands to her side. “Grandma,” she said, slowly, and as if each word were wrung from her. “I will be brave, I will not forget what you have told me.”

“Keep your own family together, and keep the welfare of the children of the city next your heart,” said Grandma, with new strength, “so you will be blessed in your own soul.”

“I promise,” said Berty, with quivering lips.

“Give my love to Selina and her husband,” Grandma went on, after a short pause. “They are happy together, and they know their duty. They have no need of words from me. And now, Bonny, my own and last grandchild—the baby of the family.”

The boy stretched out his hands. He was younger than the others, and he made no attempt to restrain his sobs.

“Such a dear baby he was,” murmured Grandma, patting his downcast head. “Such a lovely, beautiful baby.”

Margaretta made an effort to control herself, and resolutely wiped away the tears pouring down her face. “Grandma,” she uttered, brokenly, “would you like us to sing to you?”

Grandma slightly turned her head. She seemed to be listening to something beyond them. Then she said, slowly, “My dears, I never fancied going out of this world to the sound of earthly music. There are strange and exquisite harmonies from another world floating in my ears. Hark, children—I hear it now plainly. I am nearing the sea.”

“Grandma, darling,” said Margaretta, in distress, “we are many miles from the sea.”

“It is the sea,” murmured the dying woman, and a triumphant smile broke over her face, “the sea of glass near the great white throne—and there is a new sound now. Ah, children!” and, raising herself on her cushions, a very flame of unearthly and exquisite anticipation swept over her face, “the new sound is from the harps of gold of them that stand beside the sea. They have gotten the victory, and they sing praises!”

She sank back—with one joyful exclamation the breath left her body.

Who could mourn for a death like that? Who would dare to grieve over the little worn-out body?

Margaretta reverently stooped over, kissed the face so soon to grow cold, then, lightly draping a white wrap about it, she sat down and held out one hand to Berty, the other to her brother.

Tom and Roger turned the boat’s head toward the city. Their hearts were full of grief, and yet, looking at the calm sky, the peaceful river, they knew that time would pass, their grief would grow chastened, in all probability there stretched before each occupant of that boat a useful and happy life.

Grandma had not lived in vain. She had kept her family together, and while her children’s children lived, and their children, her memory would not be suffered to grow cold, neither would her good deeds be forgotten.

THE END.