Produced by David Garcia, Larry B. Harrison, David E.
Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net









BILLY TO-MORROW




_By the same Author_


  THE IRON WAY. A Tale of the Builders of the West. With four
  illustrations by John W. Norton. _Fifth edition._ Large 12mo, $1.50.


A. C. MCCLURG & CO.

PUBLISHERS

[Illustration: BILLY]




  BILLY TO-MORROW

  BY
  SARAH PRATT CARR
  AUTHOR OF “THE IRON WAY”

  _ILLUSTRATED BY_
  CHARLES M. RELYEA

  [Illustration]

  CHICAGO
  A. C. McCLURG & CO.
  1909




  COPYRIGHT
  A C McCLURG & CO.
  1909

  Published September 4, 1909


  The Lakeside Press
  R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
  CHICAGO




  To One Boy,
  strong, buoyant, and true,
  generously loved, yet more generously loving,
  this book is affectionately
  dedicated.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                 PAGE

     I. THE LITTLE EARTHQUAKE GIRL         1

    II. THE SATURDAY GANG                 22

   III. THE SURPRISE                      47

    IV. THE TWO-LIGHT TIME                64

     V. “THE FAIR ELLEN”                  82

    VI. “THE TRIUMPH OF FLORA”            96

   VII. THE FIGHT                        112

  VIII. ON STORMY SEAS                   128

    IX. RED GOOSE FLESH                  138

     X. SIR THOMAS KATZENSTEIN           149

    XI. GOOD-NIGHT IN THE FO’CASTLE      156

   XII. THE CIRCUS                       170

  XIII. THE HIDDEN HUT                   185

   XIV. IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE             196

    XV. AGAINST THE FIRE                 207

   XVI. THE BRIDGE TO SAFETY             228

  XVII. BILLY TO-DAY                     240




ILLUSTRATIONS


        PAGE

  Billy                                     _Frontispiece_

  The little earthquake girl                            18

  “What’s the matter with Billy To-morrow?”             44

  Jimmy sprang for her                                  94

  A faint sound caught his ear                         118

  May Nell plays teacher                               140

  “You’re George Rideout Smith’s kid, ain’t you?”      200

  She scudded across the bending board                 236




BILLY TO-MORROW




CHAPTER I

THE LITTLE EARTHQUAKE GIRL


As Billy Bennett wheeled around the corner he saw his mother in the
doorway. Also he saw Jean Hammond across the street speaking with Bess
Carter,--the Queen of Sheba, the children called her, she was so large
and dark and handsome, and had such a royal way, like a sure ’nough
queen, one said. Though why children who had never been out of Vine
County should know so much about queens no one thought to ask.

Billy suspected his mother was waiting for him; he must hurry, he
thought. Yet he couldn’t resist showing off a bit. He bent over his
wheel, went by the girls with a rush and a “Hello!” made a neat turn,
wheeled a figure “8” around a team or two, shouted, “Don’t frame up
anything there!” as he passed a second time, and whizzed through the
arch in his own high hedge with one wheel in the air.

He swung his book-strap in greeting to his mother while rolling more
slowly up the rose-bordered path to the veranda. He thought his
mother’s face looked tired; but the smile there welcomed him warmly,
and he forgot the tired look with her first words.

“I’m sorry to make you late with your mowing, Billy, but I must have
you go out to Mrs. Prettyman’s for some cream she promised me.”

“Do you need it right away?” Billy stood his wheel against the steps
and flung his books on the porch table.

“Not till evening; but there’s the lawn.”

“I’ll mow in the morning. Let me stay and visit Pretty--Harold, I
mean--till sundown; can’t I, mamma?” He patted her cheek with a vigor
that made her wink. “You know you can’t refuse your darling boy,” he
wheedled.

In spite of her smile there was a tinge of gravity in her silent moment
of consideration. “Very well, Billy. You know how short Saturday is,
and that to-morrow you’ll wish you’d cut the grass to-day. Yet I leave
it to you; do as you like.”

The boy gave her a squeeze that made her last words come in jerks.
“That’s a mean trick to play on a fellow,--chuck such a responsibility
on a twelve-year-old. Say I must or I mustn’t, mamma.” He caught her
hand and gently tweaked her fingers.

“You are not a baby, my son; you’ll soon be a man, and it’s time you
did your own thinking. Don’t be late for dinner.”

Billy took the can she held toward him, and made a face that was half
fun, half discontent, yet not unloving. As his mother turned indoors he
noticed again that she was pale, and that her shoulders drooped; and
a sudden heat rose in his heart against the widowhood and poverty that
made it necessary for her to work so hard. When he grew to be a man, he
told himself, he would buy her a diamond ring and a silk dress; and she
should sit all day in the big rocking chair and work no more.

To-day his mother’s words had left a pang. He would soon be a man and
have to “think for himself.” Yes, and work, too. “Gee whiz! It’ll be
tough not to play any more,” he exclaimed under his breath as he bowled
along the tree-lined road that led to the Prettyman farm.

In the hours of joy that followed, joy known only to boys and farms
in conjunction, Billy,--and it was unusual for him,--more than once
recalled his mother’s words; heeded them to the extent of bidding
Harold a reluctant good-bye when the sun was still blazing high above
the horizon. But when, on his way home, he came to the branching of
the road his good resolution weakened. He looked back. The sun was
surely more than an hour high. He would have time to go up the hill
road to the “Ha’nt.” And, beside that, he wished to look at the river
where its divided flow encircled a tiny, shrub-grown island.

A certain wide lawn, starred with white clover and daisies came
unwelcome to his mind. He ought that moment to be chopping off clover
tops.

“Jiminy! I’ll have time in the morning,” he said aloud, and hurried
on, not slackening his speed till he came to a sharp turn that took
the road against the face of a rugged mountain. He hid his wheel and
can in a tangle of rose vine and snowdrop, and stood out on the edge
of the steep bluff that overhung the rushing river. There bloomed
the island. Near the centre a rocky point was aflame with gorgeous
poppies; and Billy could smell the fragrance of the snowy wild
heliotrope,--pop-corn the children called it.

The water would soon be low enough, he decided, though the end of the
suspension foot-bridge hung very near surface. The rains had come in
a sudden flood that year, delaying sport he had planned, in which the
island was to play an important part.

He went on, a little cautiously now, and shortly came in view of
the “Ha’nt,” a sinister though imposing house, built of cut stone,
close against the face of the most picturesque mountain of the range,
bounding Vina Valley. The windows were curtained with cobwebs and
dust. For years the wide front door had been nailed up with the same
sun-bleached boards; and “Keep out!” spoke from every gray splinter.

Billy knew by sight the two Italians who lived there, brothers yet
enemies. Each dwelt by himself in a corner of the great building. Each
cultivated alone his share of the straggling vineyard on the heights
above, too steep and rocky for a plough; though the lush acres on the
river bottom went fallow. If either overstepped his bounds they fought.
Billy had seen one of these encounters; and the fierce fire in their
dark faces, the passion in the foreign words they spoke,--oaths the boy
felt they must be,--sent him flying home, tinged his dreams for many a
night.

He was not more inquisitive than other boys, yet the mystery, the many
uncanny tales told of the old house, fired him with a desire to know
its secrets. Long before he was born a murder had left its stain there.
The owners, suspected but unconvicted, moved away; and for years the
house stared vacantly at passers. The coming of the Italians had only
increased its bad name. Late travellers on the lonely road declared
that shadowy forms and flickering lights passed the lower windows and
down into the cavernous basement; yet no sounds ever came from behind
the barred doors.

Rational people laughed at these stories, declared them the fancies of
brains fuddled by too long a stay at the saloons in town. But Billy was
not so easily satisfied. He wished to see for himself those shadowy
forms; to prove to the small, scared children that, contrary to general
belief, the brothers sometimes had guests. And he had a queer feeling
that some way the house would have a place in his life. He admired
its gloomy grandeur; planned the additions he would make if it were
his own, and the gardens, the hedges of roses, and banks of fragrant
smilax, that should grow there.

Now he crept through the brush by the roadside till he came close under
the west wall. The setting sun blazed red fire at him from the windows,
reminding him sharply of the hour.

“Golly! Wish’t I had time to stay an’ watch. But I won’t, Betsey; I’ll
go right now.”

Billy at work or at play was so absorbed that it was hard for him
to measure time; and he had a queer notion that it was some other
intelligence beside his own will that reminded him, often too late, of
duties waiting. This he named Betsey; and among the children Betsey
came to stand for Billy’s conscience.

Up on the hillside one of the brothers still plied the hoe; and now
the other came from the back door and walked down the road with his
milk can in his hand. Billy had “the creeps” for a minute, and cowered
closer; but no one saw him. Now was the time! He would never have such
a chance again.

“You keep still, Betsey! I’m going to watch!” he exclaimed, as if some
one had spoken.

Cautiously he crept nearer the door, stopping at each step to listen,
to look again at the worker above. He was at the very corner of the
house when voices sounded from within. He started, his breath coming
quicker. He caught no words, but knew by the “ginger” in the tones
that the speakers were angry. Shuffling steps came up the stairway and
turned toward the rear.

The boy scudded lightly across the narrow open space to the shelter of
a manzanita tree, and looked back again; but no one appeared. Did he
still hear the softly quarrelling voices? He fancied so. The sudden dip
of the sun behind a hill darkened the scene threateningly, and brought
a return of “the creeps.”

It was not the hour for ghosts, they must be real people. Billy
encouraged himself with that thought and wished he could wait for
further disclosures. Did the sun ever before go down so fast? He
hastened to find his wheel and can, and set out at his best pace.

As he came into the main road a rosy, wholesome looking girl was
flying by. “Hello, Jean!” he called after her; “that’s going some--for
a girl.”

She turned back and rode up by his side. “Why shouldn’t a girl ride as
fast as a boy?” She had a bright, frank face, and her brown eyes were
as honest as they were beautiful.

“Oh, I s’pose she can, only a fellow doesn’t expect it of her. How came
you out here? I thought you’d be watching for refugees.”

“That’s what I’m hurrying for. Mamma sent me on an errand to Mrs.
Black’s and I want to be back at the station in time to see the train
come in. I wish we were going to have a refugee. Wasn’t the earthquake
awful?”

“Yes. And the fire worse. Why can’t you have a refugee?”

“Our house isn’t big enough.”

“I guess ours’ll be a grown-up chap; but I wish he’d be a boy my size.
How do you guess poor old San Francisco looks to-day?”

“Oh, Billy, don’t ask me. I can’t bear to think of it. But I almost
forgot,--your mother said if I saw you to tell you to go by the store
and get a loaf of bread. There’s the train!”

The whistle shrilled up the narrow valley, echoing back and forth from
the steep green hills that bounded it.

“She’s at Vine Hill--miles away; we’ll beat her if we hurry.” His words
were a bit breathless.

Off they bounded, side by side, through the fragrant spring evening.
The red of the western sky touched to brighter rosiness their glowing
cheeks, tinted Jean’s wind-blown hair with gold. As they neared the
town she shot ahead in a last ambitious spurt, wheeled and faced him as
he came up.

“Anything else you can do better than a girl?” she jeered,
good-naturedly.

“Try a mile with this can and see where you come out in the race.”

“Why have you been away out in the country for milk?”

“This milk happens to be cream. I’ve been wondering what kind of a
dessert will take all this.”

Jean hid a queer little smile that she could not repress.

“I’ll wrestle with you first chance,” he challenged; “but you wouldn’t
have any show, your dress is so long. Why do you have ’em so?”

Jean’s face fell, and she didn’t look at Billy when she spoke. “My
mother says I mustn’t wrestle any more.”

“Why, I wonder? She used to watch us at it and laugh.”

“Yes; but--oh, Billy, it’s awful to have to grow up and be proper. I
begged mamma not to put my dresses down, but I’m past thirteen, and big
as she is. And--”

“That’s no giant. She isn’t bigger’n a kid. Will she let you come to
play? The Gang’s coming to-morrow.”

“Yes, I can come. Shall I bring Clarence, too?”

“Sure. All the kids. But Clarence especially,--he’s my son, you know.”
Billy grinned.

“And just worships you. Is your lawn mowed?”

“No; I’ll do it first thing to-morrow.” He tried vainly to change the
subject. “I--”

“Oh, Billy To-morrow! You won’t have half time enough to play. You’re a
regular Mexican,--always _mañana_!”

When the train snorted into the station the two were there, Billy with
his loaf under his arm, his can dangling. Most of the arrivals were
townsfolk home from visits to the stricken city; but a few, evidently
strangers, descended and stood by themselves.

“That bunch with the tickets, them’s the refugees,” Billy whispered to
Jean. “See? Mr. Patton’s talking to them. Mr. Brown’s going to take ’em
to their places in his hack. I wonder which is ours. Jiminy! See how
hard that poor little kid’s trying to bluff her tears!”

He indicated a fair-haired child, a baby in size, though her face gave
hint of more years than her slender body. She wore woman’s shoes, and
one was torn; a draggled skirt pinned up in front and trailing behind;
and a folded sheet drawn around her shoulders. Yet no incongruity
of dress could disguise the refined beauty of her face, or of her
uncovered hair.

A kindly man held her by the hand, yet he was evidently a stranger to
her.

“Billy, ask Mr. Patton to let her come to your house! There aren’t any
boys.” Jean’s voice trembled with eagerness.

“Sure! Take care of the truck, will you?” He dropped his burdens to
Jean’s willing hands, and darted forward.

Mr. Patton, who “placed” the refugees, was glad of Billy’s request, for
the child’s struggle for self-control had touched him; and he knew no
one would be a kinder mother to her than Mrs. Bennett.

Billy hurried away, and arrived at his home before the hack, bread and
cream safe in spite of threatened dangers.

“Ma! Mamma Bennett,” he burst out as he banged open the door; “she’s
coming,--our little earthquake girl! The cutest kid,--not so big as the
twins, but stylisher in the face.”

Mrs. Bennett was setting the table. She put down a pile of plates, and
a new anxiety came into her careworn face. “A child? I told Mr. Patton
I couldn’t take one.”

“But I asked for her, mamma.” Billy’s voice lost its exuberance. His
mother never had looked so tired, he thought for the second time that
day.

“Oh, Billy, how could you, when mother has so much to do?” It was his
sister, Edith, who spoke, her sweet face clouded with rare disapproval.
Yet she went on with the music lesson she was giving.

“I’ll help a lot. You shan’t have a bit more trouble, sister; nor
mamma, either.” He began to distribute the plates with noisy clatter.

“She’ll be afraid to sleep in the downstairs bedroom,” Mrs. Bennett
reflected, planning rapidly for the unexpected child whom she still had
no thought of turning from her door.

“Put her in my room and give me the Fo’castle; I’ve always wanted to
bunk there.”

“She may come with me, mother,” Edith said, pausing in the lesson with
finger uplifted on the beat; “Billy mustn’t go into that bleak tank
house.”

Mrs. Bennett crossed the room and laid a tender hand on her daughter’s
shoulder. “You’re not strong and need perfect rest. Besides, you
spoil the boy. It won’t hurt him to sleep there, and he must take the
consequences of his own act.”

“Yet let him sleep downstairs,” Edith persisted.

“No, no, the Fo’castle! I--Here they come!” Billy set down some cups
with dangerous haste and ran out.

[Illustration: The little earthquake girl]

In spite of noise and heedlessness there was something fine and true
about Billy; something that made old Bouncer whine when left behind;
something that called the kittens to rub against his legs; that made
the little children at school adore him, and men and women smile
heartily when they greeted him. It was this mysterious something that
brought a wan smile to the small tired face and tired eyes that looked
confidingly into his blue ones. He lifted her carefully down from
the carriage, and led her up the walk to where his mother and sister
came to meet them.

“Your nose is out of joint, Edith! I’ve got a new sister.” But his eyes
belied his blunt words.

“Yes, you shall be our dear little girl.” Mrs. Bennett took the forlorn
child in her motherly arms and kissed her. “You’re tired and hungry,
too, aren’t you?”

“Yes, thank you. But most my heart is hungry. Will you help me to find
my mama?”

The quaint words seemed incongruous for so small a child, as did her
self-control; and the accent on the last syllable of “mama” made her
seem almost foreign to Billy. Yet he admired her anew as she tried to
hold still her trembling lips, to restrain her tears; as she threw up
her head, winked hard, and felt vainly for a handkerchief.

“Here, you poor darling, take mine! And don’t be afraid--you’ll find
your mother before long.” Edith’s words were brave, but her own eyes
were moist.

“First you must eat, and rest, so that you can tell us about your
mother; then we’ll see what can be done.” Mrs. Bennett took the child
into the pleasant living-room where Billy had put a fourth place at the
table next his own.

“Say, little kid, what’s your name?” he asked, merrily, as he routed a
great white cat from his own chair and placed it before the fire for
the child.

“Mary Ellen Smith; but my mama calls me May Nell; and she says--she
says ‘kid’ is vulgar.” The last words were very shy.

“The child may eclipse you in refining Billy’s language,” Mrs. Bennett
said, with a smile, aside to Edith; and went into the kitchen to “dish
up” the dinner.

Edith finished her music lesson, dismissed her pupil, and made the
little girl tidy if comical, in one of her own frocks. And when the
four sat to eat, Billy’s voice rang above the rest in the little song
they sang in lieu of grace.




CHAPTER II

THE SATURDAY GANG


The place Billy called the Fo’castle was a tiny room in the sloping
windmill tower. It was level with the second floor of the house, and a
narrow, railed bridge connected it with a door in his mother’s room.
Under it was the above-ground cellar, overhead the big tank. Still
higher whirled the great white wings that pumped the beauty-giving
water to lawn and gardens.

The little room was rude and bare, but Billy loved it. He thought the
massive beams like the ribs of a ship, and planned to hang between
them all his ship pictures. Anything relating to the sea fired his
imagination. It gave him a sense of manliness to sleep there alone;
and when the heavier gusts of night wind rocked the tower, and each
revolution of the big wheel splashed the water against the tank,
as waves lap a ship’s side, he dreamed himself on the ocean, called
himself “Captain.”

He woke early the next morning. This was rare for him; he usually slept
like a bear in midwinter. Perhaps the creaking of the windmill all
through the night made his slumber light. Another noise had disturbed
him, the sewing machine. Its whirr had come up to him from the open
window of the living-room. He knew mother and sister were sewing hard,
that on the morrow the poor little stranger might be suitably clad.
_He_ had brought upon them this extra work! And this was only the
beginning. If the child’s mother was not found they must buy clothes as
well as food; and this would take a lot of his sister’s money.

“Jiminy! If they don’t let me work this vacation, I’ll have to run
away,” he thought as, through the uncurtained window, he watched the
evening star sink below the western hills. While he was wondering if
people lived in the star he fell asleep; yet waked later to hear the
busy machine.

“Golly! They’re working all night. I--ought to--help--to-morrow. I--”
He slept again with his good resolution half made.

Yet the impression of the night had been deep enough to wake him before
the sun rose. He dressed quickly, astonished the chickens with an early
breakfast; put fresh sand in the coop; climbed the windmill tower to
oil the bearings of the big wheel; and put the lawn mower in order, but
remembered in time that to use it would wake the sleepers.

What more might he do to hasten the Saturday work? He could not chop
the kindling or fill the wood boxes. The weeding! It was behind. Both
mother and sister had reminded him repeatedly, but he had forgotten.
Only yesterday his sister had made tidy the flower beds that flanked
the house; but the melons, the vegetables,--they were not done, and
that would make no noise.

The Bennetts’ was one of the oldest places in town, and the most
beautiful. It was near the heart of the growing village ambitiously
calling itself a city. Level lawns protected by high hedges and shaded
by many trees, spread amply around the house and back to the first
terrace, where a tangle of berry vines covered trellises that shut off
a lower level devoted to vegetables. Beyond this was the chickens’
domain, rock-dotted acres that sloped sharply to where Runa Creek
boiled over its stony bed. Here mother hens fluttered and scolded while
web-footed broods paddled in the edges of the stream.

Once Billy’s attention was fixed he was as earnest at work as at play.
He slaughtered the weeds rapidly, and had several clean beds behind him
when his mother called him to breakfast.

“What happened to you, Billy?” she asked when he entered the kitchen.
“For a second I was frightened when I went to wake you and found you
gone.”

“Thought I’d eloped? I ought to when I’ve brought you an extra mouth to
feed.” He was splashing and spluttering in the lavatory off the kitchen.

“Never mind, son; we expected to take some one.”

“Yes; but some one who could take care of himself. And you didn’t
expect to open dressmaking parlors.”

“No matter, Billy. I think she was sent to us; and we shall find a way.
Are the chickens fed?”

“Yes, long ago. And, mamma, you needn’t ask me that every morning; I’m
going to remember. Truly!” he added, as he came toward her, rosy and
shining, and saw her doubtful smile. “The vegetables are most weeded,
too.”

Mrs. Bennett put down the pan of batter-cake dough and gave him his
good-morning kiss. His head was level with hers. “Thank you, my big
boy. Mother will soon have a man to look to. Go in and get your
breakfast; you must be nearly famished.”

“Yes, I could eat a graven image.”

“I hope my breakfast won’t be quite so--”

“Rocky?” he interrupted. “You bet not. It’ll be just bully, that’s
what!”

“Oh, Billy!” she said, despairingly; and he knew in spite of her smile
that she disliked his words. “The little girl is looking for you. She
is lonely; you must amuse her.”

Billy was suddenly overcome with bashfulness when the child, quite
composed, came forward to meet him. A bath, a shampoo, and new clothes
had transformed her from a tangled, smudged little girl to a lovely
miss with a high-bred air foreign to the childish manners Billy
understood. He recognized Edith’s gown in the pretty frock mother and
daughter had sat late to make over; but the neat ties and hose, all the
little things it takes to make a girl look pretty, where had they come
from?

“Aren’t you going to say ‘Good-morning’ to me, Billy?” She put out the
slenderest little white hand, and looked into his face appealingly.

“Of course I am,” he replied promptly, with a squeeze of her hand that
made her wince. “At first I was scared; I thought you must be a fairy.”

“Oh, no, not a fairy; only Cinderella. Last night I was the poor little
cinder girl; now my fairy godmothers, two, have touched me with their
wands, needles, and I’m so fine even the Prince didn’t know me.”

“Well, the Prince will see that the glass slipper’s tied fast. He’s got
no ‘Ho, minions!’ to hunt for you if you turn Cinderella again.” He
stooped and fastened her tie.

She clapped her hands. “Oh, I’m glad you like fairies, too. Do you know
about Bagdad and Semiramide and Good King Arthur and Ivanhoe, and all
the other beautiful things in the world?” she asked, breathlessly.

“Dear me, mother,” Edith said when Mrs. Bennett came in with hot cakes,
“what shall we do with two children in dreamland?” Edith had not
touched her breakfast, but was waiting on the others.

“Three you should say. Don’t you live in the dreamland of music? Eat
your own breakfast, or you’ll be late for the train.”

“Train? Is she going away?” The small girl’s face grew sorrowful.

“Only for a day, dear. I’ll be back to-night.”

“She has a music class in Loma; and it isn’t dreamland, either,
teaching; but she has to earn grub for me, sister does.” The frank
statement of a truth he had grown accustomed to this morning roused a
feeling of shame, and he gazed steadily at his plate.

“Don’t look so, brother,” Edith said as she kissed him good-bye; “the
‘grub’ is making a fine boy, and I’m proud of him.” Yet as she tied her
veil at the mirror she saw the cloud still lingering on his face.

“Let him play to-day, mother,” she pleaded, when the two stepped into
the hall; “he can be a boy only once.”

“But you work hard, and he should do his part. You are spending your
youth for us, and I’m glad he begins to see it.” They spoke softly, yet
Billy knew partly what they said; and it made him still more thoughtful.

“You and Edith are fairies,” he said when his mother came again to the
room, “to rustle such pretty togs for the new sister in a night.” His
mother was piling his plate again with griddle cakes.

“My conscience! You can’t eat all--” May Nell stopped, conscious of an
unkindness. But the boy only laughed; he was used to comments on his
appetite.

“Good hearts need no fairy wings,” Mrs. Bennett replied to Billy
while she smiled at the little girl. “Jean told her mother about our
May Nell, and Mrs. Hammond came over with a generous lot of outgrown
things.”

“But Jean’s two times as big as May Nell.”

“Yes, now. Once she must have been about the same size, you know.” She
stood behind the child caressing her cheek.

“What is the matter with your hand?” May Nell asked as she drew the
work-worn hand down and patted it. “It doesn’t feel like my mama’s.
And you have only one ring, a plain one. Are your others in the bank?
My mama has ever so many,--diamonds, rubies, and such a big sapphire,
perfectly exquisite! And they look elegant on her hand,--she has a
perfectly beautiful hand.”

“There are other things besides gems, little girl.” Mrs. Bennett smiled
and began to clear the table.

“Her hand would be as pretty as any one’s if she didn’t have to work so
hard,” Billy thought loyally; and promised himself again that the first
money he earned should buy his mother a diamond ring.

“Take May Nell into the garden with you, Billy,” Mrs. Bennett said; “I
shall be busy with the Saturday work, and she will be happier in the
sunshine. And don’t speak of the earthquake,” she warned him aside;
“she must forget that as fast as possible.”

Outside the spring warmth and fragrance enfolded the children as a
mantle, opening their hearts to each other. Billy showed his flock
of pigeons, his white chickens and the house where they roosted and
brought forth their fluffy broods. Old Bouncer barked and capered about
them; and the little girl tried to decide which cat was the prettiest,
white Flash watching for gophers in the green alfalfa, or Sir Thomas
Katzenstein, his yellow mate, basking in the sun. “He isn’t yellow like
any other cat I ever saw; he’s shaded so beautifully.”

“Yes, sister says he’s rare, Persian or something; but I guess he’s
only a plain cat. He’s a lazy thing.”

“Why doesn’t your mama have a man to take care of the grounds?” she
questioned after she had told him something of her parents and home.

“She can’t, you know; she and sister have to work hard to make what we
spend now. I don’t do half enough myself.”

“Giving music lessons isn’t work. I’d love to do that.”

“You bet it’s work! ’Specially when she gets hold of a cub like me.”

“‘You bet’ isn’t nice,” the child chid gently, and waited a moment
before continuing. “My papa won’t let my mama work. He went to South
America to get rich. When he comes back, he wrote in a letter to me, I
shall be as rich as a princess.”

“My father didn’t let my mother work when he was alive; but he--he
died.” Billy bent lower over his weeding, and both were quiet.

It was May Nell who first broke the silence. She had been thinking. “It
isn’t so very bad to have to work, is it? Your mama looks happier than
my mama does. She said she’d rather wear calico and work ever so hard,
and have papa at home, than be the richest, _richest_ without him. She
cries a lot--my mama does. And now--she’s crying--for me.” The last
word was a sob.

“Here, here! You mustn’t do that,” Billy gently coaxed, rising and
taking her hand. “You’ll make me draw salt water, too. And it don’t
help, you know. I’ll tell you what--you can work some, gather the
flowers. I’ll show you how. Mother puts ’em fresh in all the rooms for
Sunday.” He bustled her up the terrace steps, brought scissors and
basket, and, starting her on her pleasant task, began to mow the lawn.

“All over the house does she put them?” the child asked after she had
snipped a fragrant heap.

“Yes. You see, she rents some of the rooms, and she says they must look
extra nice on Sunday so the men won’t mosey off to the saloons.”

“‘Mosey’? Does that mean ‘little Moses’?”

He had hardly recovered from his laugh when two little girls appeared
at the gateway. “There’s Twinnies! Come in, Kiddies, and see my new
sister,” he called, as they hesitated.

“We came--we came to bring these,” one ventured timidly, and lifted one
end of the basket they carried between them.

Billy peeped under the cover, not heeding the little girls’ protest.
“Golly, May Nell! The Queen of Sheba won’t be in it ’long side of you.”

Mrs. Bennett heard anxiety in the voices of the visitors, and came out.

“Mrs. Bennett, you must unpack it alone, mamma said.”

“Alone, mamma said,” came the second voice.

Mrs. Bennett seemed to know exactly what to do. She took out and
displayed to May Nell some of the generous gift of child’s wear sent by
Mrs. Dorr from the wardrobe of the twins, placed the basket within the
door, and introduced the children. Billy wondered what else might be in
the basket that made it “act so heavy; it couldn’t be shoes.” He looked
critically at May Nell’s small feet.

“This is Evelyn Dorr, and Vilette, her sister,” Mrs. Bennett was saying.

Billy laughed. “Mixed again, mamma. This is Vilette,” he drew one
bashful little girl nearer the stranger, “and _this_ is Evelyn, Echo,
we call her.”

Mrs. Bennett smiled at her mistake and went in, while Billy took up his
mower. The girls looked at one another in the mute scrutiny children
bestow on newcomers, May Nell the least embarrassed of the three.

“Are you as old as us? We’re seven,” Vilette said a bit loftily, as she
discovered herself taller than May Nell.

“We’re seven,” came the echo.

“Last November.”

“Last November,” piped Evelyn.

“I was ten in January, the twelfth,” May Nell replied, with no pride in
her tone; she was always older than those of her size. Yet she was not
prepared for the gasps and backward movement of the twins.

“Ten? You won’t think of playing with us, then. Ma thought you’d be
just our age.”

“Just our age.”

The little stranger girl smiled winningly. Her childish companions
had not been numerous enough to justify her in drawing such close
lines; and she liked the sweet, half timid faces that always looked so
earnestly into her own. “Surely, I’ll play with you. I’ll come to see
you some time when Mrs. Bennett says I may.”

A whoop startled her and she turned to see a handsome boy racing up on
a brown pony, also carrying a basket.

“Hello, Billy To-morrow! Why didn’t you do that mowing last night? You
said you were going to.” He dismounted, tied the pony to the post, and
went inside; and one saw that in spite of jeers the boys were friends.

“Something my mother sent yours. You mustn’t touch it,” he warned, as
Billy made a reach for it. “I was to land this safe in Mrs. Bennett’s
hands; and here goes!” He sprang from Billy’s outreached arms, ran into
the house and out again, before Billy had time to resume his mowing.

“Say, it’s a donation party, isn’t it?” Billy did not see Harold wink
at the twins, but picked up his mower and started across the lawn at a
trot.

“Here, let me do that,” Harold commanded; “you go and do the rest of
your work. We won’t get to play in all day. The Gang coming?”

“Said so, but they’re late. We’ve got an addition, the little
earthquake girl.” This last was a sibilant aside.

Harold turned and looked to where May Nell stood with the twins,
sorting her flowers. “Isn’t she a daisy, though? Little--why, she’s
only a baby.”

“Look out! She’s ten, an’ never been to school; but she’s read more
things ’n you ’n me put together, Pretty. Knows ’em, too.” Billy
introduced the two in characteristic fashion and went within.

“Mamma, Pretty’s finishing the lawn for me; can’t I rub the floors
right now? The Gang’s coming and we want to do a lot to-day.”

“Never mind the floors, Billy. You’ve worked hard already; run off and
have a good time.”

Another time he would have gone quickly enough, for he liked work as
little as the average boy, often shirked it; though when he forgot
himself in his task, the joy of doing it well held him to it. But May
Nell’s coming and the added expense still troubled him; and it was a
resolute face he turned to his mother. “No, mamma, you shan’t get down
on your marrow bones to these old floors. It’s only me that needs to go
on the knees, you know.” His eyes twinkled.

He knew it was he and his friends who were never denied “the run of the
house,” that brought in most of the gray film that settled so quickly
on the dark floors; it was not fair to leave this back-aching task
to his mother. He hustled out the rugs, found dusting cloth, wax, and
rubber, and set vigorously at it, working so fast that he was nearly
finished when she returned to the room.

“That’s enough, Billy. Jimmy Dorr and George Packard are coming.” She
was a sensible woman, yet she disliked to expose her boy to Jimmy’s
caustic tongue. But Billy was equal to more than Jimmy.

“Let ’em come. What do I care for Sour ’n Shifty? I’ll never desert
Micawber this near success.” He rubbed on calmly, and the two boys came
in at the open door.

“Hello, Billy! You washin’ floors?” There was a sneer in Jimmy’s voice.

“Sure.” Billy looked up from all fours and grinned. “I haven’t got
two able-bodied sisters like Vilette an’ Echo to work for me; and you
wouldn’t have me see my mother do it, would you?”

Mrs. Bennett did not know, as her son did, that the retort touched a
sore fact. Jimmy’s eyes darkened with the look that had earned for him
the name of “Sour.” Yet in spite of this he had a fine, strong face.

Billy went on with his rubbing, and his next words were comically
resigned. “Besides, I suppose I’ll have to get married some day; of
course she’ll be a new woman; might as well learn housework now.”

Jimmy’s face lost its scorn. Someway the sting of his sarcasm never
seemed to touch Billy, who could always strike back a surer if less
venomous blow. Perhaps that was the very reason why Jimmy, though
larger and older, sought Billy and heeded him as he did no other save
his own stern father.

“You don’t catch Billy asleep,” said George, siding with the victorious.

“We must go right back,” Jimmy declared, turning to the door of the
kitchen and thrusting a package within.

“Tremendous long visit,” Billy taunted; “what’d you come for? Another
donation for my new sister?”

George nudged Jimmy. “Hit again, Sour. Come on.” The two boys went out,
mysteriously embarrassed.

Billy went to the door and looked after them. No one was in sight.
Harold, the twins, and May Nell, too, were gone. What could it mean? He
looked back at the clock. Nearly ten. Usually the Gang gathered earlier
than this, hung around and hurried him with his work, many putting in
lusty strokes, that Billy, the favorite, might the sooner be released.
But now even Jean, his stanch second in all the fun going, was late.
He had expected to be late himself; he always was. But he, who planned
most of the sport in spite of doing more work than any of them, had
this day expected his schemes to be well launched before he could join
in them.

He was standing disconsolate, looking up the street for stragglers,
when his mother came in again.

“What’s the matter, Billy? Why don’t you go and play? You surely
deserve a fine holiday, my big, big son.” She put her arm around
him tenderly; and he saw that she remembered. He would be thirteen
to-morrow. He had been counting the days; but he thought mother and
sister had been too busy to think of it. It was coming--to-morrow,
Sunday! If he didn’t have a good time to-day it wouldn’t be any
birthday at all.

[Illustration: “What’s the matter with Billy To-morrow?”]

“Why doesn’t the Gang come, mamma?” he asked, returning the kiss he
knew was one ahead for his natal day.

“Suppose you go down to the creek,” she replied with a peculiar
smile. “May Nell and the twins went there some time ago. Harold, too.”

Billy ran off full of vague expectation born of his mother’s smile. No
one in all the country round, not even Harold Prettyman, whose father
had the finest farm in Vine County, had such a splendid place to play
as the Bennetts’ back lot that sloped down to Runa Creek. As Billy
slammed the gate and bounded out on a huge boulder that hung over the
creek, a sounding cheer greeted him from below.

“Hooray, Billy! Thirteen to-morrow! But this is the day we celebrate!”

There they all were; those who had come first to the house, and many
others: Jean, Bess Carter, Charley Strong, Max Krieber, Jackson Carter,
the little colored boy, standing aloof, and others, large and small.
All in a line they stood, and shouted up at him:

“What’s the matter with Billy To-morrow? He’s thirteen! Three and ten!
Most a man! He’s all right!”

For a minute Billy stood, dazed, his heart thumping hard. Then he threw
his cap in the air, sang out, “Bully for the Gang! This time it’s Billy
To-day!” and raced down the hill to join them.




CHAPTER III

THE SURPRISE


“Well, what do you want to play?” Billy asked, after the hubbub had a
little subsided.

“Let’s go to the park and play football,” Jimmy responded quickly.

“But the girls and small fry can’t come in on that. Besides, that
little city kid’ll be lonesome if I leave her.”

“Well I’m not going to stay an’ play kid games,” Jimmy retorted
loftily, and turned away.

“Me neither,” George endorsed.

“All right,” Billy acquiesced with a nonchalant tact; “I thought Sour’n
Shifty’d make good surveyors, Pretty; but I guess you can do that an’
your own job too, can’t you?” Billy turned to Harold, while George
watched to see what Jimmy did.

“Surveyors? What’s your scheme?” Jimmy was quickly interested.

“Why, I’d planned a big stock concern, like business men. We’ll build a
railroad, telegraph line--that comes first, though; we’ll have gold and
copper mines, and a wharf. And next we’ll launch the steamer we’ve been
making.”

“_If_ she steams,” Harold put in sagely.

“That big sand pile the kids made last week for a fort can be the
Sierras, and we’ll tunnel, and have a loop, and--”

“But where does our fun come in? Girls don’t build railroads,” Bess
complained.

“No; but you can ask concessions, and buy stocks, and keep hotel in the
shack, an’ board us men. Make more money ’n we do. They always do, you
know; not the fellers that works, but the smart ones that work _them_.
I’m hungry enough to eat May Nell right now!” He snapped his teeth
together with a ferocious grin as the little girl came near; and she
laughed back at him more joyously than her mother would have believed
possible could she have known; for this wholesome out-of-door frolic
was a boon to the child, white from life within brick walls.

They were a happy lot. Each held some high-sounding position, the name
coined in Billy’s busy brain. His box of abused tools came forth; the
much mended wheelbarrow, picks, shovels wobbly from use as well as
abuse, improvised things that only an imagination as large as Billy’s
could have named tools,--something for each one there.

Along the ridge of soft sand left by receding waters Billy let his
first contract to Harold, who immediately marshalled the “kindergarten”
with their broken fire shovels, kitchen spoons, what not, and set them
to digging briskly. “Straight to the line, mind you,” he sang out from
time to time, as he set his pins along the line the “engineers had
run.” Max was superintendent of telegraph construction; and Charley
Strong, “the Strong Man,” and Jackson contracted for the tunnel. They
were to start from each side, meet exactly in the middle in sixty
days,--a minute stood for a day,--or pay five million dollars fine.
And over all Billy kept a watchful eye, cast the glamour of his eager
spirit.

What matter if the telegraph poles that were to be just twelve
feet--that is, twelve inches--fell short or long sometimes.

“Their knifes bin too dull, and she must quick be done,” Max apologized
to Billy on his inspection trips.

“We’ll play there’s a strike in the saw-mills, Dutchy, and this is scab
labor,” Billy excused amiably. And for a fact the white cotton string
carried the messages quite safely from the “Front,” where Jimmy and
George laid out the “line” over wonderful grades, across impossible
gorges; and “wired” back for further orders. Harry Potter was the
operator at the “Front,” and Vilette,--“Women do operate, you know,”
she said,--Vilette was the proud holder of “the key” at Headquarters,
where Clarence Hammond strutted around as Messenger; and because he was
the “son of the Boss,” bullied his Cousin Harry unmercifully.

“Geegustibus! You kids are doin’ a fine job,” Billy encouraged, as he
walked by the line of little bending, sweating backs. “There never
was a railroad built on the square like this. Contractors on time;
men a-workin’ that’s got brains an’ ain’t afraid to use ’em. Jiminy
crickets, it’s fine!”

Every back bent a little lower. Every face flushed a little rosier
under its coat of grime. Praise from Billy was all they asked.

“Well, I must get at my job, too. That’s thinking up things. You
fellers do your work an’ get your money; but I got to rustle that money
or bust.”

“O Billy, it hurts the ears of my mind to hear you say those vulgar
words.” May Nell, playing “man” for the first time in her life, looked
up from the “rod of grade” that she was piling deftly with a broken
shingle. The color from sun and exercise added much to her beauty. She
was neither blowsy nor smudged like the other children, and her lawn
frock was as spotless as in the morning.

Billy looked at her thoughtfully, wondering why her fearless criticism
did not displease him; lifted his battered hat and mussed again his
tousled hair. “All right, Fair Ellen, I’ll try to obey the--”

“Lady of the Lake?” she finished quickly in a question. “Do you know
that, too? I love it.”

  “‘One burnished sheet of living gold,
  Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,’”

she quoted glibly. “I know a lot more of it. Do you?”

A scream from “the shack” stopped further quotations. Billy ran up the
hill to learn the trouble. Only Evelyn was there in the little house
built, half of boards, half of willow twigs woven lattice-wise, against
a huge smooth rock. Beside this rock also ascended a cobble chimney;
and the fireplace, roughly plastered, served its purpose well. Billy
had made it all, and Edith wished the house fireplace would draw as
well.

He found Evelyn on her knees before a hot fire, bravely trying to hold
level one of the several pots that were sizzling there. Her drooping
hair smothered her small hot face, and perspiration stood like dew on
her anxious little upper lip.

“What’s the matter, Kiddie? Gee! Those big girls ought not to leave
you alone with that fire; you’ll be cooked before the grub!” he
grumbled while he mended the fire and propped the kettle. “Yum, yum!
Things a-doin’ here. Makes a feller’s stomach feel like just before
Thanksgiving dinner.”

Evelyn relieved of her fear of the tottering kettle, roused to her
charge. “Go ’way, Billy! Thank you, Billy. You mustn’t stay here!
They’ll scold me. They said for me not to let you come; an’--”

“Why not, I’d like to know? Isn’t this my shack? And shall I let a kid
burn up?”

“But it’s a secret,” she whispered in smothered distress. “Please to
go!”

And Billy seeing sweet potatoes sticking out of hot ashes, and other
luxuries in evidence, concluded that some business was “doin’ among
the girls,” where he wouldn’t be welcome. He went back to the “Front,”
where some of the contractors were having a violent altercation over
the meaning of certain specifications. The Boss soon arbitrated
successfully, and things moved “lively” for a short time, when the
banging of a dishpan announced dinner at “the hotel.”

“Right this way, ladies and gentlemen,” Bess called from the edge of
the far terrace. “A dinner fit for the gods, ambrosia and nectar; gifts
from Flora and Fornax! Come up to the garden of the gods and goddesses
and feast together!”

Bess, though not quite twelve, was a striking girl, larger than most
women; with a mind as unusual as her body. Poetry, music, mythology,
she fed upon these as a plant upon the sunshine. She was not satisfied
with ordinary speech, but continually wove into the most commonplace
events the glamour of romance and poetic words. A wise mother had stood
between her and the jeers of the thoughtless, that she might have
a normal girlhood; and Billy’s mother and sister helped to make it
possible for her to play comfortably with those of her own age. Yet
it was a surprise to the stranger to see this dark-eyed, magnificent
woman-creature in short skirts romping with children.

To-day she was happy. It had fallen to her to general this great feast
that Billy’s mates had planned for the celebration of his birthday. All
had contributed. Not only the girls had cooked--Jean had baked a big
cake, Jackson had made the candy, and Jimmy and George had sneaked up
from the “Front,” and set up the long table in the arbor.

According to plan, Billy’s mother had called and detained him while
the score of laughing youngsters gathered and stood silently around
the table. When he was running across the lawn again, his face washed
and hair combed, matters he thought might well have been omitted when
time was so precious, he was struck by the strange stillness. What had
happened to stop every tongue at once? He ran on faster, through the
trellis gate, and halted, transfixed. A shout greeted him. Each one
waved a small flag, and sang lustily--

  “Where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
  Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?”

He looked at the beaming faces, at the beautiful table with Jean’s
great pagoda cake in the centre, the dates, 1893-1906, in evergreen;
at the flowers everywhere; at the dishes,--they usually ate from vine
leaves at their out-of-door feasts,--at the paper napkins folded
fantastically and hovering over the table like gay butterflies. His
eloquent face told his surprise, his gratitude, his delight. He
opened his mouth to speak some fitting word, but it wouldn’t come. He
tried again, for he felt the occasion called for something formally
appreciative. But only a whimsical idea flitted into his mind; and he
sang back--

            “I’ve not been to seek a wife,
            You can bet your old sweet life,
  For I’m a young thing and cannot leave my mother.”

A gleeful yell greeted his paraphrase. While they ate it all came out,
how they had planned and executed. Harold had peas and strawberries
hidden in his mysterious basket, freshly gathered by his own hands
that morning. George and Jimmy had furnished and dressed the chickens,
and the girls had roasted them--with a little supervision from Mrs.
Bennett--in the Yukon camping stove that belonged to Harry’s mother.
Bess had given the dishes, blue and white enamel, strong as well as
good to the eye, and ready for many another frolic.

Max furnished the milk. “I haf gif mine cow much sugar to make dot milk
sweet for Pilly to-day,” he explained happily to Mrs. Bennett.

And so the story went on. All the wholesome things of the country that
children like had come from one and another. And each had been as happy
in giving as Billy could possibly be in receiving.

Bess, an only child, was usually present at the frequent
entertainments her parents gave, and was familiar with some of the
more formal table customs. She wished Billy’s dinner to have every
dignity, and to this end rose and proposed a toast to him. They drank
it standing, with cheers. And Billy, accustomed to having the largest
voice in every noise, stood and joined lustily; till Jackson, who
helped his father at the catering for lodge banquets, and knew a
thing or two, reached behind Jean and pulled the back of Billy’s coat
violently. “Pst! Set down!” he hissed, tragically.

And Billy, suddenly remembering who was being cheered, slid to his seat
sheepishly, a cold feeling down his back, uncomfortable heat in his
cheeks.

Jean changed the situation by proposing a toast to Billy’s new sister.

“Half-sister, step-sister, persister, or sister-in-law--” Jimmy began,
when Billy’s frown stopped him, and Bess interrupted with, “He thinks
he’s saying something witty: laugh everybody.”

But Jean spoke at once and heartily. “Here’s to our latest addition.
May she never be subtracted from us. Already she’s multiplied our joys,
yet we hope she’ll not have to divide our woes.”

Jimmy was the first to stand and cheer.

May Nell sat still and smiled modestly. Billy stared at her, feeling
still more foolish over his own mistake.

Presently Jimmy and George slipped away and quickly returned bearing a
huge freezer, Mrs. Bennett following. Now Billy knew what she had done
with the cream.

“It’s only your notion, Billy, that mother’s cream is best; but I’ve
been very happy making it for you.” She began at once to serve it.

“Billy, you’re a wise guy. This beats Maskey’s,” Harold declared.

“There isn’t any Maskey’s any more,” May Nell mourned; “just ashes and
old irons where used to be such oceans of goodies in such beautiful
boxes and dishes.”

All were silent for a little. Most of them had been more than once to
San Francisco’s celebrated dealer in sweets.

“Do you know how ice cream is made, May Nell?” Jimmy asked to break the
oppression.

“No; will you tell me?”

“First they feed the cow a barrel of sugar, then they freeze her, after
that milk her; and there you have your ice cream.”

May Nell looked incredulous. “And they feed her strawberries and
vanilla beans and chocolate for flavors, I suppose; but how do you
separate them when you milk? Will you show me the next time you fill
that big bucket?” She nodded her head toward the freezer, and was so
demure that not even Bess, still less Jimmy, knew whether she was
deceived or poking fun.

May Nell was astonished at the country appetites, astonished at her
own; yet the cream also disappeared; after which Bess, the magnificent,
rose, waved her hand theatrically toward Mrs. Bennett, and declaimed,

  “Here’s to our mothers,
  Better than all others,
  Whose feet never tire,
  Whose hearts never--”

Just then mischief took possession of Harry Potter. He dropped a paper
parcel behind Vilette, and a little green snake wriggled out and ran
under the table. Vilette only grinned, but May Nell saw it, screamed
and grew white.

“Oh, oh! It ran--across my--foot!” she gasped, and fell over.

Confusion followed. Harry was struck with a great fear. Was she dead?
He had never seen a girl do so before. Would they hang him?

But May Nell recovered almost before Mrs. Bennett had time to lift
her. “I often do--do--faint,” she apologized, “it isn’t--isn’t ’t all
dangerous.” She smiled at Mrs. Bennett, and the smile, the sweet, pale
little face with her hair a shining golden halo around it, made of her
an ethereal being almost unreal to the awestricken children. Yet she
was soon merry again, apparently as well as ever.

The hours passed in an uproar of fun. The table was dismantled, toys,
tools, and dishes put away, and the feast had sped into the past.

“It’s been the best ever,” Jean said, happily.

“A perfectly gorgeous occasion,” Bess supplemented.

“The bulliest time yet!” shouted Charley from the street.

“Mine stomach ist so full mine head cannot t’ink,” Max stammered to
Mrs. Bennett; “but it vas bravo!”

They all went off, a merry, noisy troop. And the disappearing sun was
the last to say to Billy “Good-night.”




CHAPTER IV

THE TWO-LIGHT TIME


Sunday brought rain, and Mrs. Bennett decided that May Nell must remain
quietly in the house. The only apparent result of her exciting day,
and the faint, was a languor that made her willing to obey, to curl
up by the fire, with Sir Thomas by her side. He was a tremendous cat,
who accepted lazily all the caresses bestowed upon him, while Flash,
his white mate, was shy, and unless forced, would not appear before
strangers.

“They’re great frauds, those aristocratic cats of sister’s,” Billy
explained; “not a bit of use. They won’t fight, and--”

“O Billy, think how many gophers Flash catches, and what gentlemen they
are in the house,” Edith defended. She was chorister for one of the
churches, and was now gathering her music.

“You never give my cats a chance,” Billy complained.

“Yes, we have, Billy,” Mrs. Bennett corrected. “Bring them in now.
Let May Nell see our entire cat family.” She followed him out, and
presently returned with a plate of cut meat which she placed on a
newspaper on the hearth.

“A cat tablecloth!” the little girl laughed.

“That’s for Billy’s cats; mine need none,” Edith declared.

The child reared without pets was delighted with the animal life about
her; the cats, old Bouncer, the white chickens, and pigeons cooing in
the loft.

Mrs. Bennett called. The cats walked leisurely to the hearth, sat down,
one on either side, and began to eat, each from his own side of the
plate. They were as deliberate and dainty as well-bred children.

Billy entered with a cat under each arm. “Geewhillikins,” he
introduced, “the best fighter in town,” and put down a stub-tailed,
gray cat, half as large as the house pets, with “tom-cat” speaking from
every hair of him. “I think mamma’s partial,--she lets sister’s cats
come in the house, but not mine.”

Geewhillikins did not wait for four feet to be on the floor to spring
at the plate. He put his paws on one pile of meat, and began to gobble
the other, growling savagely. The house cats drew back, curled their
tails around their forefeet, and looked at the gorger in calm disdain.

“You haven’t noticed Jerusalem Crickets, yet,” Billy said impressively,
anxious to distract attention from the little drama at the plate. He
placed his second cat on the floor, a gaunt creature, brindled in many
colors, with great scared-looking eyes. “She’s afraid of everybody.
She never had any home till I brought her here, poor thing! Just kicked
from door to door. And Geewhillikins, too--he was a tiny kitten put in
a sack to drown out in the creek. And he was so plucky he just wiggled
to shallow water and hollered for a deliverer. Of course that kind of
cats don’t have manners. How could they?” Billy was a fine special
pleader.

“He was a real little cat Moses, wasn’t he? And you--you must be
Pharaoh’s son instead of daughter.” The child laughed and clapped her
hands.

Meantime Jerusalem Crickets, escaped from Billy’s arm and eye, was
sneaking about for prey; and a clinking sound from the pantry warned
them that she had found it.

“Run, Billy! You left the door open--she’ll get the dinner!” Mrs.
Bennett cautioned, hurrying out herself to reckon the loss.

“It’s only a chop left from yesterday,” he excused on his return.

“It might have been to-day’s roast,” Edith protested, as she took the
snarling Geewhillikins from his feast. “You see why Billy’s cats don’t
come in the house, May Nell.”

“Did you forget their breakfast, Billy?” the child questioned earnestly.

“No, Billy never forgets his cats,” his sister answered for him;
“though the chickens might sometimes suffer but for mamma. Take your
ill-bred felines out, Billy.”

He obeyed, talking whimsically to his pets as he went.

“Flash and Tom wouldn’t touch meat left on the table alone with them
for a day,” Edith said as she replenished the plate, shook and folded
away the paper, and called her cats.

They walked up as before, and ate slowly, piece by piece, neither
touching a morsel on the opposite side of the division line. Sir Thomas
finished first, and looked on while Flash minced more daintily. He did
not eat all, but walked off to the plush-cushioned chair they claimed
as their own. Sir Thomas watched him curl up and rest his nose on his
white forepaws, then quickly finished the rest of the meat and joined
him. And now such a toilet began. Each groomed the other; yet, as
always, Tom tired first while Flash worked on till they both shone like
silk, when he put his long arms about Tom, nestled his head close down,
and both slept.

The little girl forgot herself in watching them, till Billy came in,
smart and almost handsome in his best suit.

“Are your going to church?” she asked, disappointment drawing her lips
to a tremulous curve.

“I have to help sister, you know.”

“But it isn’t ten o’clock.”

“Sunday School comes first.”

“Sunday School, too? How long you’ll be away!”

Billy made no reply. He wondered if he ought to stay at home.

“Do you like it, Sunday School, I mean? I don’t. I like church,
though,--the great booming organ, the beautiful singing. And when the
minister speaks I just float away into fairy-land and never come back
till he says, ‘The-Lord-make-his-face-to-shine-upon-us-amen.’”

“I like Sunday School best ’cause I do things there.”

“What things?”

“I’m sec’etary; and I pass the books, and sing; and I’m--I’m giggle
squelcher.”

“What a funny word! What do you mean?”

“Why, you see,” Billy hesitated, for he was modest, “sister has a
class of us heathen boys, and--well, you see, it’s this way; sister
says,--she’s partial, you know,--she says I have influence; if I don’t
giggle the others won’t, and she gets on O. K.”

“How splendid! You must go, Billy. Do all the boys mind you?”

“All but Sour; an’ sister’s fixed him. He’s crazy over music, and she
got his father to let him take lessons, and that kid’s her slave ever
since. But it isn’t minding, Ladybird; the guys take my cue, and we
tell things we’ve hunted up in the week about the lesson; and sister
tells things, and we’re so busy we forget to be silly.”

May Nell looked at him a minute before speaking. “You like doing
things, but you don’t like work. Isn’t work doing things?”

Billy stooped to tie shoestrings already tidy; he was gaining time for
thinking. “I reckon doing things you don’t like is work, and doing
things you do like is play,” he explained, doubtfully.

“But some people like their work, don’t they?” May Nell persisted. She
was exploring strange country.

“I guess so. Teacher says every live thing that’s happy works; birds,
flowers, children; that those that won’t work shouldn’t eat. He says
the greatest joy is to do the work you like best as well as you can.”

“I’ve never worked,” May Nell said reminiscently; “but there’s one hard
thing I’ve done--I’ve kept very still when mama has her headaches.”

“Gee whack! That’s the hardest work of all,” Billy complimented.

Edith came in dressed for church.

“My conscience! How lovely and stylish you look!” The child, accustomed
to elegant dress, praised with discriminating eyes.

When brother and sister left her, strange thoughts flitted through
her head. She heard Mrs. Bennett beating eggs in the kitchen; saw the
logs Billy had piled in the wood-box. On the wall above the piano hung
Edith’s schedule--time table, Billy called it. May Nell had already
studied it, had seen the fifty or more lessons set for each week;
and needlework on the music table, and books there the child had
discovered were for music study,--these told her what a busy woman
Billy’s sister must be.

Yet it was very strange, they were all happy! Happier, she felt, than
her own mother with maids and money, gems, rich gowns, and her motor
car at command. Why was it? “Those that won’t work shouldn’t eat.”
Could that be true? Then she should not eat, for she never worked. She
wondered how it would seem to work.

Full of her thought she slipped from the couch, and went to the
kitchen. “Mrs. Bennett, haven’t you some work a little girl could do?”

The divining woman looked into May Nell’s beautiful eyes, too deep and
thoughtful for her slender body; drew her close and kissed her. “Yes,
dear, just the nicest sort of work for a little girl. You may hull
these strawberries; and if you eat some for toll I shan’t be looking.”

The child seeing the twinkle in the older eyes, laughed aloud; and,
wrapped in a voluminous apron, began the first task that had ever left
its stain on her pretty fingers.

Her questions brought long and wonderful tales of Billy’s younger life;
of Edith when she, too, was a little girl. The child helped to set the
table, carried in bread, salad plates, and jelly. “It shakes like the
fat woman at the circus when she laughed. How do you make jelly?”

“Next month when currants are ripe you shall see.”

“And help?” May Nell asked, eagerly.

“If you wish to do so.”

Why, it was going to be fine to work! Why had she not known it before?

Services were over before she found time to be lonely. Dinner passed
happily. The cats stayed quietly in their chair till dessert, when they
came, one on either side of Edith, and stood with their forepaws on the
table, their heads and shoulders above it.

“Flash has cake, Sir Thomas cheese,” Edith explained, giving each
his coveted bit. They took the morsels from her fingers, ate them
delicately, and mewed once. “That’s ‘Thank you,’” Edith interpreted.

“It’s a hurry-up order for more,” Billy amended.

“No more, kitties; that’s all that is good for you. Go back to your
chair.”

They looked at her a minute, dropped reluctantly to the floor, and
retired.

“Why, they know what you say--mind!” May Nell exclaimed, admiringly.

“Obedience, thy name is cats,” Billy preached solemnly.

It had stopped raining, but was still cloudy. This was the hour when
Billy usually wheeled long miles by himself, dreaming dreams no one but
a boy knows how to dream. Nothing short of a downpour ever hindered
him; thus mother and sister knew it was genuine self-sacrifice that
kept him beside the little girl through the long afternoon.

All his treasures, pictures, marbles, mineral specimens, what not,
were displayed and explained. And finally came the books, when Billy
discovered that she knew most of his favorites, loved them as he did,
and could introduce him to new ones that promised delight.

So the hours passed. The two women had their quiet rest till five
o’clock when they came down for the usual singing. May Nell had a sweet
voice, surprisingly strong for a child; and when she asked to play her
own accompaniment to a little song unknown to Edith, the latter was
surprised by the child’s skill, and still more by her rare feeling and
expression.

“I can dance, too,” she said with childish pride.

“Sister, she’ll be hunkey for the fairy queen in your Spring Festival,
won’t she? She’s a regular progidy, isn’t she?” Billy’s eyes shone.

“Can he mean ‘prodigy,’ do you think, May Nell?” Edith’s eyes were
mischievous.

“I mix up words that way sometimes, too,” the child excused.

“Bully for you, Ladybird. I’ve got a backer you see, sister.”

“I like ‘Ladybird,’ but not ‘bully,’” the little girl returned shyly.

Supper passed. Edith went to church, Billy to keep an appointment
with his teacher; and the spring twilight settled down over the room.
Mrs. Bennett knew this would be a trying hour, and hastened her work,
inventing some light task for May Nell; hastened also the errand to
her own room. Yet though she was gone but a moment, on returning a sob
greeted her from the cuddled heap on the couch.

She took the child in her comforting arms. “Don’t cry, little one! We
shall find her, never fear.”

“But this is the time my mama needs me,” May Nell sobbed; “Sunday night
in the two-light time, before the stars come out, really, and when the
shadow people creep from the corners and blink at you.”

“We won’t have any shadow people to-night, darling.” Mrs. Bennett
rose and turned on the lights, though it was not yet dark; drew the
curtains, and punched the fire till a storm of sparks sputtered up the
chimney.

“My papa told me to be a very brave little girl, and no matter what
happened to take care of my mama. And now--I’ve l-lost her; and my
braveness is all leaking away.” She covered her face with her hands and
sobbed bitterly.

Mrs. Bennett hugged her closer and patted her cheek softly, but let the
passion of tears spend itself a little before trying the comfort of
words. Then she questioned of the child’s parents, her past life, and
the events just preceding the catastrophe in San Francisco, that she
herself might better understand how to shield and make happy the little
waif that a terrible, heaving earth had cast into her home, her arms.

“Papa went away to South America when I was eight. He told me I must be
very wise and help mama to do what was right,--sometimes she does take
my advice, you know. I’ve tried to be brave so God would bring her back
to me; but my braveness isn’t very strong yet, or I wouldn’t cry so,
would I?” she questioned, with a teary little smile.

Not all at once but slowly, with mother’s tact, Mrs. Bennett won the
little heart to partial peace; and when the gate clicked, and Billy’s
voice was heard, she was almost gay. “I must be laughing when they come
in,” she whispered, “so they won’t see the tears in my eyes and think I
am unthankful.”

The door opened on a smiling little face, though she tried to keep in
the shadow. Still when Billy kissed his mother good-night, caught
his sister in his arms and raced up and down with her, singing
extravagantly a snatch from some opera, May Nell hid her face and cried
again.

Watchful Mrs. Bennett was not far away. She stopped the boy’s noise,
and cuddled the bereft one once more. “What is it, child? You are to be
brave, you know.”

“Y-yes, b-but how can I when I have no one to say ‘mama’ to, only a
Mrs.”

“You have, you have, dear baby! I’ll be your mother, and you can call
me ‘mamma’ as Billy does.”

“And you’re my Ladybird sister,” Billy said, very softly for him, and
threw his arm about them both.

“And, darling, I know how to find your mother,” Edith encouraged,
brushing her own moist eyes, and clasping them all in her round young
arms. “I’ll have your picture taken, and get it in all the papers--”

“Just like a football champion,” Billy interrupted.

“No, like a prima donna,” his sister retorted.

“Rather like a dear little girl, that so will find her mother,” Mrs.
Bennett reassured.

Amid the wealth of love how could the little heart refuse comfort?
Billy tossed her to his shoulder and carried her to his mother’s room,
where both women coddled her and Edith sang her into a sweet sleep.




CHAPTER V

THE FAIR ELLEN


Little by little they learned something of May Nell’s story. Her
mother had intended to start for New York on the morning of the
earthquake, having been called there by her own mother’s illness. Mrs.
Smith, though held to the last by household business, had let her
little daughter go to visit a widowed aunt and cousin, who lived in
a down-town hotel, and who were to bring May Nell to meet her mother
at the Ferry Building the next morning. But where at night had stood
the hotel with its many human lives housed within, the next morning’s
sunshine fell upon a heap of ruins burning fiercely. A stranger rescued
May Nell, though her aunt and cousin had to be left behind, pinned to
their fiery death.

All that dreadful day the man searched for the little girl’s mother,
but their house was early prey to the flames, and he could get no trace
of her. He was only passing through the city; and having fortunately
saved his money and tickets, was anxious to be on his way across the
Pacific. Consequently nothing better offered than to send the child
with other refugees to the kind hospitality of the country.

Edith had quickly put her plan in execution, aided by the willing
newspapers; but so far nothing had come of it, and mother and daughter
feared their charge had lost more than aunt and cousin. South America,
a very definite spot in the child’s mind, was still too vague a
postoffice address for even Uncle Sam’s marvellous mail-carrying; and
so, while encouraging May Nell, the two women tacitly adopted her into
their hearts and discussed her future as if she were their own.

It was a blessing that even her loyal soul must yield to nature’s balm
of passing time; in wholesome companionship and the fragrant warmth
of a country spring she somewhat forgot the grief that would otherwise
have worn to death her frail little body.

“My mama doesn’t believe in public school,” she had announced that
first Monday morning; but had gone obediently when Mrs. Bennett decided
it best. And the new life, the stimulation of study, the competition in
class, her knowledge of books, and the prestige of her story,--these
made school a delight, brought a happy light to her eye, a tinge of
color to her too fair cheek.

Her wardrobe was a heavy drain on Edith’s purse, yet the young teacher
delighted almost as a mother in the dainty garments that won her to
extravagance.

Billy also undertook to do his share. A generous sum of money had been
offered to the best student in the graduating class of the grammar
school; and he decided to try for it. And when Billy made up his mind
to anything connected with books, it was as good as done. For if he
had to study a little harder than some, his perseverance, added to an
unusual facility in telling what he knew, helped him to success.

Mrs. Bennett wished May Nell to be in the open air as much as possible;
and this meant a new experience for Billy, which he accepted with
tolerable grace.

“A girl under foot all the time,” Shifty complained. He had no sister.

“Well, you know the other thing to do if you don’t like it,” Billy
retorted, bluntly. “She’s my sister till her folks are found, and that
isn’t likely.”

“But if your steamer works you don’t want its secrets peddled round;
and girls always blab.”

“You’re the only girl I’m afraid of in that line. Isn’t that so,
Pretty?”

“You bet!” Pretty endorsed, inelegantly.

This conversation took place in Billy’s shop, a room adjoining the
wood-house and given over to his use. Nothing short of the world in the
second verse of Genesis was equal to the chaos of that place. Every
conceivable scrap and job lot of “truck” was there in a jumbled heap;
and Billy was never happier than when mussing it over in search of
“material”; in greasy overalls and crownless hat, whistling merrily,
bringing forth to substance and form the inventions of his busy brain.

The blandishments of soda water fountains, candy stores, and other
boyish temptations, found no victim in Billy. But if Mr. Cooper, the
tinshop man, had driven hard bargains he would have bankrupted the
boy. As it was his weekly allowance suffered in spite of Mr. Cooper’s
generosity and Billy’s free access to a rich scrap heap at the rear of
the big shop where everything, one would say, in tin and iron was made,
from well pipe, tanks, and boilers, to tin wings for Edith’s fairies
in the opera.

Now a steamboat was on hand. At odd times for weeks, Billy, Harold, and
one or two other boys, under secrecy of lock and key, had been slowly
bringing to completion a wonderful structure.

Billy had intended naming it _The Jean_, but Charley had stood for
_Queen Bess_, Harold didn’t like either name, and George and Jimmy had
objected to “girl kid names, anyway.” They had, however, unanimously
compromised on _The Edith_, for Billy’s sister was adored privately
by all of his older friends, adored openly and “tagged” by the
little ones. Edith, since May Nell’s coming, suggested her name. The
little girl agreed if it could be Ellen; Billy added “Fair” with her
permission; and this name he painted over each paddle wheel with no
opposition from the others.

All was now ready for firing. “She” was to be run by oil. They took
her out through the double doors, both swung wide for the first time
in many weeks. It was all the boys could do to carry the heavy thing,
though they went quite steadily across the vegetable garden, not
without some damage to spring lettuce and summer corn, however; but on
the steep, uneven slope below, the _Fair Ellen_ came almost to grief.

“Bear up aft there!” Billy commanded; and “Ay, ay, sir,” came back in
equally nautical language.

“Easy, mates. Kids, belay there, till we launch her!” This to the
gaping youngsters always in the way.

“Wharfmaster, ahoy!” Billy hailed, as they came near the water’s edge.
“Is all ship-shape?”

“Ay, ay, sir,” came this time from two boys who had charge of some logs
lashed together and crossed and recrossed by a hash-like lot of refuse
lumber, and moored with a dog chain.

“Mother, do come and look at the procession,” Edith called cautiously
from the trellises, where she was slyly watching.

Billy heard her, though. “Come on, sister, mamma, too, and see the
fun,” he called, not unwillingly, for he was a bit proud of their work
now that it was out in the light of day. He had reason; it was really
an imposing craft for boys to build from scraps.

A crowd of smaller children momentarily increasing, capered about the
sweating five. Max bounded over the high fence, breathless, fearing he
would be late. Jean and Bess hurried down the hill, each telling the
other she couldn’t spare the time for “just boys’ foolishness.” Jackson
appeared on top of the south stone abutment, halting there till Billy’s
hearty invitation brought him flying down into the inclosure.

Bouncer barked at Billy’s heels. Geewhillikins chased an imaginary foe
down the hill, and Jerusalem Crickets crept stealthily along the upper
support of the side picket fence, trailing a venturesome sparrow.

Even the white chickens followed in a cackling bunch as they always did
when Billy appeared at this hour, for it was almost feeding time. And
the pigeons wheeled and whirred, lighting almost under foot only to be
up and off again, a flash of white and gray.

Behind the two women trotted a chubby baby. “I see Billy boat,” he
cried, shrilly, stumbled, fell, scrambled up again, and repeated his
refrain.

“Why, Buzz Lancaster, how did you get here?” Edith went back and
steadied him over the uneven ground. “Phew! He smells of gasoline!
Where has he been, do you suppose, mother?”

“I comed,” he said, calmly, “I see Billy boat.”

“Hurry up, Buzz!” Billy called as he raced by from the shop, where he
had been for the oil can to fill the boat’s reservoir.

“Shan’t we defer the ceremonies till we can get Charley’s little sister
and Jackson’s two weeks’ old brother?” Jimmy asked, disagreeably.

“Hold your grouch, Sour,” Harold expostulated.

“Please don’t call Jimmy ‘Sour,’” May Nell pleaded. “He’s big and dark
and splendid; and his other name is going to be Roderick Dhu; and he’ll
be kind to all weak things, and fight for the Douglases, and for the
_Fair Ellen_.” She waved her hand toward the steamboat.

Jimmy tried not to look pleased, but failed. Something about May Nell
attracted him, whether it was her beauty, her fearlessness, or her
air of distinction he did not know. It was really her recognition of
something fine in him that his cold and irascible father had almost
whipped out of him.

“All ready?” cried Captain Billy. “Are you ready, Ladybird?”

“Yes, Captain,” she answered, her eyes aglow while she smoothed
refractory frills. She wore a wonderful trailing robe of tissue paper,
“ruffled to the guards,” Billy said. On her head was a towering cap
of the same; and a light wind bellied out her wide angel sleeves like
sails before a spanking breeze.

She stood at the end of the creaking wharf, and one little bare arm
was lifted high. She held a small fruit jar filled with water and beet
juice. It was awkward, but Billy had insisted on the fruit jar,--“So’s
it will be sure to break; it’s the only kind of a bottle that always
will break.”

They fired up. An ominous sizz and clatter began. Five pairs of hands
shoved the smart boat into the water at May Nell’s feet. The children
shouted. The dog barked and the chickens cackled. And above all the din
May Nell’s sweet voice rang out, “I christen thee, O wondrous vessel,
_The Fair Ellen_.” She improvised hastily; for no one had thought to
prepare a speech for the occasion.

The bottle went crash, and a furious yell informed the neighborhood
that the Gang was “up to some new deviltry.”

But another and unexpected crash followed, and a shower of burning oil
shot up and caught May Nell’s flimsy paper frock.

Yet before one could think, almost before the paper had time to burn,
Jimmy sprang to her, seized her in his arms, tearing at the shrivelling
paper, and jumped far out over the flaming boat into a deep pool.

For a horror-stricken moment no one spoke. Even the dumb creatures were
still; and Buzz, thinking it all for his benefit, watched open-mouthed
for the next act in the play.

But Mrs. Bennett, fleet though speechless, was at the water’s edge by
the time Jimmy had risen with May Nell quite safe. She spluttered and
choked a little; but Jimmy had been so quick there was not even a red
spot on her flesh to show the touch of fire.

She was a queer draggled little creature, with her soaked and tattered
dress, and her yellow curls all stringlets. Timidly she touched Jimmy’s
blistered hands, realized what he had saved her from, and when she
looked her gratitude into his dark eyes something awoke in his heart
that never slept again.

“You had very soon to fight for the Douglases, didn’t you, Roderick
Dhu?” she said, as Mrs. Bennett covered her with an apron, and Billy
took her up and went toward the house.

“I thank you, Roderick Dhu,” she called out over Billy’s shoulder with
another little choke, for Jimmy had refused Mrs. Bennett’s offer of dry
clothes and was starting home alone.

[Illustration: Jimmy sprang for her]

So imminent had catastrophe been, that no one thought of the poor small
steamer burning unchecked to the water’s edge while the procession
climbed the hill; no one knew till days afterward that busy Buzz had
entered the open shop and mixed Billy’s cans so that it was gasoline
instead of kerosene that he fed that fated craft. But gratitude for
Jimmy’s bravery and May Nell’s safety supplanted even in the youngest
heart all regret for the boat.

All but May Nell; when Edith and Mrs. Bennett rubbed and warmed her she
declared she didn’t need it, and was so absorbed in lamenting the loss
of the _Fair Ellen_, she could think of nothing else.

“So long as it isn’t you, Ladybird, it’s all right,” Billy consoled;
“we can make more boats.”

But May Nell was not to be comforted, till that evening when she
composed a wonderful ode to “The Wreck of the _Fair Ellen_.”




CHAPTER VI

“THE TRIUMPH OF FLORA”


After the disaster of the _Fair Ellen_, Billy promised his mother to
bar explosives from his play, a promise made readily, for “Betsey has
been giving it to me good an’ plenty for leaving that door open,” he
explained to her. Thus the Alaska trade which the boys intended the
_Fair Ellen_ to wrest from Seattle, thereby transferring some of her
prosperity to California’s stricken seaport, remained with the northern
metropolis; and they sought other outlet for their energies.

Billy organized a real estate syndicate, and sold lots to the Gang,
“with or without liability to assessment, as the purchaser prefers.”
A Board of Trade was organized to which all promised to defer, except
Jimmy, who smiled in disdain. He leased the railroad and did a
thriving carrying trade, timber for fencing and warehouses, dirt for
filling, and so on; and was fast becoming “the millionaire of the
crowd,” when the “Board” met and decided he should cut his tariff in
half or leave the syndicate; and as Jimmy was heartily interested in
the game, he accepted their decision and no longer smiled at the Board
of Trade.

Max, whose father was a gardener, knew wizard’s tricks with seeds and
soils; and as Farmer and Forester to the syndicate, gave his knowledge
right and left with happy importance. He taught the girls how to plan
and plant their flower beds, and started the boys on a career of
vegetable-raising that made them feel rich before they began; talked
trees to Harold and other farmer boys, and astonished his father by the
questions he asked and the work he did.

“I haf learn for gifing avay already, but I feel more as rich dan if
they haf gif to me. How ist dat?” Max asked himself, not knowing, this
little German lad so lately come to America, that he had discovered one
of the profoundest secrets of the universe.

To his mother and sister Billy seemed changed. He stuck closer to his
books. His teacher told them the boy stood at the head of his class.
“Jimmy Dorr may be a rival if he feels like work, which isn’t probable.
Jean’s accident last year put her behind, otherwise the boys would have
to work much harder if either excelled her.” Yet even these welcome
words did not account for some things the mother quietly observed;
Billy’s growing promptness, better attention, and memory for matters
outside of play. He was more silent, too; and there was less hammering
and whistling in the shop.

“Billy, I don’t like the look of your eyes; you’re reading too much
at night,” his mother said one evening when he was helping with the
dishes. “You must go to bed earlier.”

May Nell had learned to use the towel; and the two children usually
“did” the dishes at night; but now she was away with Edith at the Opera
House, and mother and son were alone in the kitchen.

Billy had been reeling off stanzas of his favorite “Lady of the
Lake,”--“by the yard,” Mrs. Bennett said, acting it as he recited,
somewhat retarding the work and endangering the dishes. Now he dropped
his towel, caught up his mother and raced with her around the room. He
was so strong that she was almost helpless in his grasp.

“You little bit of a woman! Do you think I’ll mind you? I’m Roderick
Dhu of Benvenue, the bravest chief of all the crew! I’m Captain Kidd,
the pirate bold, whose treasure, hid, lies yet in mould. I’m the strong
man, the bad--”

A lot more nonsense he rattled off, squeezing and kissing her till she
was breathless with laughter.

“Now you’re Fair Ellen and I’m defending you at Goblin Cave!” He thrust
her behind him, held her tight with one arm, while he flourished the
carving knife and called on Clan Alpine’s foes to appear.

But the moment of frolic passed, and he turned to her with shining
face. “You’re the only mother I ever had--so far as I know--” his eyes
danced; “anyway, you’re the only one in sight, an’ a heap too good for
this guy; I guess--I’ll--I’ll mind.”

His mood grew more thoughtful. He put the dishes away quietly, and
neither spoke again till the work was finished. Then he went and kissed
her on the cheek. “It’s good to have you all to myself, little mother;
to be just chums once more.”

She put back his tumbled hair, looked long into his eyes, realizing
with a shock that she was looking _up_. Her little boy was gone.

“But I don’t wish May Nell away, mother, do you?”

“No, my son.” The answer was more sincere than a few weeks before she
could have believed possible. The coming of the child had taken from
her life many hours of association with Billy, sweet as only mothers
know; yet May Nell’s influence had softened and refined Billy, enlarged
his vision.

He tidied himself, bade his mother good-bye, and followed the girls to
rehearsal.

Sometimes all the small meanness of everyday life is swept away by a
great calamity, and the world forgets to hate, and opens its great
heart of love. Such an event came through the catastrophe in San
Francisco. It inclined every ear, moistened every eye. From all the
world’s pocketbook came the golden dollars; from every soul the longing
to do; and when it was done, disappointment because it was so little.

Vina was no exception. Ball games, church collections, children’s mite
societies, girls sewing, boys running errands, each and all helped with
the relief work.

When Edith planned to turn her pupils’ recital into a great Spring
Festival, for the benefit of the sufferers, all the town applauded, and
asked how it could help.

Edith worked very hard. She called her operetta “The Triumph of Flora.”
The words were her own, written hurriedly and set to familiar though
classic airs. Yet many of the daintiest, most tripping melodies she
wrote herself. The sorrows of humanity had winged her brain and dipped
her pen in harmonies, that she might assuage them.

All went well with the preparation; and on a glorious spring night in
the full moon, the town and countryside jammed the Opera House “to its
eyebrows,” Billy said, looking through the peephole in the curtain to
the high window seats crowded with boys.

The operetta opened with a weird winter scene, when the Sower (Harold)
sowed his grain, and the gnomes and elves set upon him; and evoked
Storm King (Jimmy), Wind (Bess), and Frost (Jackson). He was the
comedy of the little drama; and dressed all in black, covered with
silver spangles and diamond dust, he made a joke that the wine-growers
appreciated, for it is the black frosts of April they fear.

After these followed Jean as Rain. Wherever she passed the singers
bowed their heads and sang more softly, and Frost retreated in haste.

Billy was the sun, dressed in a pale yellow tunic, and crowned with a
fillet of sun-bursts cut from gilt paper. He came but a little way on
the stage from the south for each of his short solos; and the others
pelted him back. Especially did he hide from Rain behind Cloud, a tall
girl in a small ocean of gray tulle.

At the close of the act, in the far, high distance, the Goddess, Flora,
appeared on a hill-crest. This was Edith herself, arrayed in a filmy
gown of pale green, garlanded with snow-drops and buttercups. High,
far, and faint came her song of the dawn of Spring. But the gnomes and
the elves, Storm, Wind, Frost, and Rain, roared and howled; and Flora,
affrighted, fled from view.

The curtain fell on the first act and the house rocked with the noise.
It is probable the audience, predetermined to be pleased, would have
approved anything offered; but so far it was more beautiful than had
been expected.

The second act brought a conflict between elves and gnomes, and the
fairies, when first the earth sprites were victorious, but at last
the fairies. May Nell was the Fairy Queen, and enchanted all with her
beauty, her dancing and singing, and her acting, which was sweetly
childish as well as clever.

Flora came into view, clad in palest pink, and wreathed with almond
blossoms. Wherever she stepped the ground was white with almond snow.
Gnomes and elves peeped from behind gray rocks and tree-trunks, but
fled as she came near, following the ever-beckoning fairies.

Sun, dressed this time in bright yellow satin, and crowned with yellow
gems, was surrounded by fairies, and came more and more boldly forward.
He beckoned to Flora, menaced the earth sprites, and threatened Storm,
Wind, and Frost; and at the close was rewarded by Flora’s rejoicing cry,

  “I come! I come at thy call, O Sun!
  Thy high commands shall quick be done.”

The curtain fell a second time to still heartier applause; and the
long wait between the acts was forgotten in discussion and approval.
The richest people in town had aided Edith with her costuming and
properties, that thus every penny of the receipts might be saved for
the great purpose. They had brought out all their stores of rich
fabric, fine lace, jewels, and ornaments, for the small mummers; and
the effect was entrancing.

The last act exhausted the possibilities of the theatre in light
effects and sylvan scenery; and the curtain rose on a gorgeous scene.
But oh, horror! In the middle of the stage the scene-shifters had left
the ugly truck that moved Storm King’s reservoir of ice and snow. When
used in previous acts, bed and wheels had been hidden by moss, the tank
had been covered by his mantle, and the entire mechanism, moving as he
moved, had seemed a part of himself. Now its secret was disclosed and
it was ridiculous.

Edith in white, half smothered in blush roses, with the fairies and
their Queen, stood ready in the wings. Billy was also waiting his
cue. This time he was to be pulled swiftly in on invisible wheels.
Over his satin tunic was a network of glittering mock gems that must
have included every yellow bead and spangle in Vine County. From his
shoulders floated a cloud of yellow, diamond-dusted tulle; and the
crown of gems surrounded a cluster of small lights, a device Billy
himself had figured out with the aid of the electric light man.

“Oh, Billy, Billy! My beautiful opera is ruined!” Edith wailed, as she
heard the jeers of the small boys in the audience.

“No, it isn’t, sister! I’ve thought of a way out. Keep the kids
straight here--I’ll be back in a minute.”

This act opened with a hidden chorus that lasted two or three moments,
the fairies on the one hand inviting the elves and gnomes to join them;
the others responding. While this was in progress Billy rushed to the
boys’ dressing room and talked furiously but straight to the purpose.

“Say, fellows, business now, and no questions asked. There’s a hitch
on the stage. Storm, wrap that cloak round you--don’t wait for
fixings--and get to your place in the wings, quick! When I say ‘Go,’
take Rain’s hand, crouch low, run to the centre, and between you yank
that snow tank off the stage. _Sabe?_”

Across to the girls’ side he flew. He knew Jean. She would manage
somehow, no matter what the difficulty. And he did not trust her
without reason. She was already in her shining misty robe that was to
change her from Rain to Dew; but she caught the gray mantle, covered
herself with it as she ran, and was in the wings almost as soon as
Billy.

He placed them before him, Rain and Storm, took his great golden horn
of plenty under his arm, stepped on the wheeled board, signalled the
super, and rolled on, driving the crouching pair in front of him with
pelting showers’ of rose leaves, and landing at his station just as the
chorus filed in. The gray pair threw their shrouding mantles over the
truck, and still crouching pushed it out of sight; and the spectators,
believing they had laughed in the wrong place, cheered vociferously,
and never knew the difference.

Rain dropped her gray mantle behind a tree, and reappeared with her
chalice of diamond-dust dew, to touch the fairy chorus to shimmering
beauty. The gnomes, their queer masks and hunched shoulders showing
grotesquely under their gray garb, joined the fairies’ dance. Wind came
floating in as Summer Breeze. Storm was transformed to the Slave of the
Sower; while Black Frost was perched high up at the rear, grinning from
the top of the mountain.

The Sun called to Flora, and she appeared by his side. In front of them
knelt the Sower, crowned with leaves. The Sun bestowed upon him a
cornucopia overflowing with cherries; Flora laid on his other arm long
sprays of roses.

The fairies, gnomes, and elves, danced, sang, and retired; elves and
gnomes crouching close against trees and rocks, the fairies withdrawing
only to reappear one by one as the music went on, here and there, high
in the trees; and each had a tiny light on her brow. But just over
Flora and Sun, poised and upheld by invisible wires, stood the Queen of
the Fairies, crown, wand, and shoulders fire-tipped, her arms waving,
her filmy draperies continually fluttering, fanned by an artificial
breeze. Over all fell a rain of rose leaves.

The scene ended in a crash of music; the curtain fell to a house wild
with cheering. Edith and the principal performers were called again and
again before the curtain. It was a generous, appreciative audience,
giving its heartiest approval by rising.

Late that night when Billy’s mother followed him to the Fo’castle, he
asked, “Are you pleased with it, little mother?”

“It was all splendid; and, Billy, I never dreamed it was in you!
Sister’s operetta would have been a failure if it hadn’t been for you.”

“And Jean and Jimmy, too.”

She stooped and kissed him.

“That’s good enough for me, then,” he said, sleepily. And no one ever
heard him mention again his unexpected addition to the scene.




CHAPTER VII

THE FIGHT


It was a gray, cold day, unusual for May, the kind of day that accords
with ill-nature. It reminded Billy of the incident of the opera when
Rain and Storm, driven by his own insistence, had blown in on the stage
quite out of season, and dragged off with them the remnants of winter.
For the first Sunday since May Nell’s coming he took his wheel after
dinner and went off alone. He was in accord with the sullen sky and
air. In the morning he had answered his mother angrily; because Bouncer
wished to play instead of coming through the gate when called, Billy
had slammed it on his tail, knowing well that in a happier mood he
would have been more careful.

Now he flew off down the county road at a speed that made passers turn;
but he saw no one. He neither slackened nor looked back till he found
himself at the river where the little island rose, flower-crowned.
The poppies were fewer; and where a month before the flame-flower had
triumphed, to-day wild roses perfumed the air.

Billy halted and looked up into the threatening sky. His eyes twitched,
and he noticed wonderingly that his breath was short and his hand shook
on the handle-bar. He dismounted and propped his wheel against the
fence; climbed down to the river and sat on a projecting rock, with his
feet dangling near the water.

There was a strange weight in his left side, like lead. He felt as
if the whole world was against him; and the future looked dark and
terrible. Three days ago life had reached out, a white shining road to
success. Only three days! He looked north to where clouds were shutting
down over the Mountain, gray to-day, not blue. _The_ Mountain, every
one called it, for it closed the valley and towered, a sentinel, far
above all other mountains in view. Billy thought that stood for him; he
was to be chained to this narrow valley all his life; struggle as he
might he should never be free.

If he had been older he would have said he had “the blues.”
Yet probably he would not have known that his mental--and
physical--condition was a natural result of the long strain of previous
weeks. All the children felt it. That morning the cousins, Clarence and
Harry, who loved each other dearly, had come to blows in the Sunday
School room before the teachers arrived, over the question of which one
of them should marry Miss Edith. Clarence received a bloody scratch
the full length of his palm from Harry’s Band of Mercy pin; while
the careful parting disappeared from his own hair, and a red splotch
marred the whiteness of his wide collar. No one can tell what further
calamity might have happened had not the Twins opportunely arrived and
questioned of the quarrel.

“You needn’t fight any more,” Vilette said, loftily; “we shall marry
her ourselves.”

“Yes, we shall marry her ourselves,” Evelyn echoed; while both girls
made childish efforts to rehabilitate the depressed cousins.

The unstinted praise of the children in the operetta, the aftermath of
buzz about the “show” at school,--this excitement lasted for a day or
so; but on this lowering Sunday tired nature put in a claim for her
own; and relaxed nerves were irritably near the surface.

Billy had the excitable musical temperament. He spent his forces
lavishly, and it was because of this that he was a leader; could think
and act quickly in emergencies, as when he saved the operetta from
failure. Edith and her mother knew that he had lived hard through
the past few weeks, that next to Edith herself he had carried the
entertainment, though Jean had been a host also. So it pleased Mrs.
Bennett that afternoon to see Billy start off alone for the country.

Now in the silence and fragrance his tightened springs began to
relax. Presently he found himself in a dream of possibilities of the
island,--Ellen’s Isle, he always called it; of what might be done with
the smooth places in the river, the hills, Sunol Creek not far away,
boiling and tumbling in boisterous beauty; of hidden nooks, piled
boulders, and tiny meadows, vine-enclosed and flower-fragrant.

Had he but dreamed on for an hour or so he would have returned, rested,
refreshed, the cheery boy that helped to make the Bennett house a home.
But a voice in the road above startled him. Only a word was spoken, a
greeting; but it was surly and foreign, Italian.

Billy sprang up. The dark man of the sinister house was passing on his
way to town; had answered a horseman’s salute. The boy could not see
the house; but on the high hill above it he saw the other brother,
regardless of the Sabbath, hoeing his vineyard.

Now was Billy’s chance! The place was alone! He waited till each
traveller was out of view on the curving road, then climbed up, crossed
the dusty wheel tracks, and crept into the brush on the other side.
Once hidden he “snooped” silently through the tangled chaparral, coming
shortly to the mystery-house, so close to it that he could have looked
in at the windows had they been clean enough.

A faint sound caught his ear, as of clinking coins and soft voices.
People there! He had thought it before, now he was certain. Were not
both brothers away?

Billy cuddled down in the low-growing manzanitas, whose screen was
further thickened by a tangle of wild pea vines all a-bloom. Placing
himself so that he could watch both the house and the man on the hill,
he settled to await further disclosures.

All the excited nerves in his body that had been resting were tingling
again. He could feel his temples throb, count the beats of his heart.
For a time nothing happened. He heard no different sounds, though he
strained his ears nervously. The moments passed and seemed hours. He
crouched motionless, but his stillness was not repose.

What if they should find him? Gee! Couldn’t a boy run faster than a
man? Another sound banished these thoughts; wheels on the road, whose
thick coat of dust almost hushed the ring of metal tires. A horseman
before, and now a wagon; this was an unusual amount of travel for that
lonely road.

[Illustration: A faint sound caught his ear]

Billy looked up at the Italian, saw him take a pistol from his pocket,
discharge it in the air, replace it, and go calmly on with his work.
What could that be for? A warning? Yes; for he realized suddenly that
every sound in the house had ceased. The wagon passed from sight. He
could hear the voices of the men as they drove by, see the driver
pointing to the house with his whip; and one of the women on the rear
seat looked back as long as the house could be seen. Then the soft
mysterious sounds began again.

Billy took no heed of time till he saw the man above shoulder his
hoe, pick up his wine jug, and start down the hill. At that Billy’s
heels grew swift. He scurried out of his hiding place, slipped rapidly
through the brush, found his wheel, and bowled off. No languor or
heaviness now in body or mind. Every atom of him was alert as on the
night of the opera, yet not so normally alert; for the evil atmosphere
of the place was in his soul, filling his teeming brain with imaginings
of many crimes.

In this mood he turned into the main road and came upon Jackson
limping, bloody, and crying.

“Jiminy crickets! What’s happened, kid?” Billy asked, slowing up beside
him.

“Sour’s licked me ’cause I’m a n-nigger, ’n gave T-Twinnies some
f-flowers an’ walked with ’em. He’s back there now l-lickin’ the
T-Twins.”

Billy didn’t wait. Like all generous natures that are slow to anger,
the passion once aroused possessed him to madness. He raced down the
turnpike, his face aflame. Ahead he could see the Dorrs’ horse and
buggy standing near the fence. Jimmy was on the ground beside the
Twins; and Billy saw the whip descend more than once before he arrived.
Had he known it the blows were make-believe, for moral effect alone.
Jimmy was giving a lesson that his Southern breeding made him think
necessary, if painful.

Billy heard the pitiful cries of the children, Evelyn’s the loudest,
though Vilette was receiving the blows. Every drop of blood in his
veins was a spark of fire. An unsuspected power came from somewhere,
mysteriously. He felt himself lift, expand, grow strong enough to
battle with an ox. He dropped his wheel, sprang upon Jimmy from behind,
and bore him down. In an instant he had snatched the whip, broken it,
and tossed the pieces into the field beyond. “You bully! You skunk! To
horsewhip girls! Why don’t you take one of your own size?”

Jimmy was taken by surprise. Billy was his favorite play-mate, and the
whip had disappeared before he realized the import of the attack, and
he thus lost any advantage he might have gained while Billy’s hands
were busy. But the words roused Jimmy’s anger. No boy had a right to
interfere between him and his sisters; and he struggled to his feet and
launched some telling blows.

Billy heeded no prize-ring rules, no boys’ traditions of fair play.
Every savage instinct inherited from far-distant ancestors and sleeping
till to-day, rose, conquered the human in him, for the moment made him
brutish. And the sobs of the little girls were as whips of fire.

The struggle was short. When Jimmy resisted no longer, but, after a
fall against the fence with his arm doubled under and back, did not try
to rise, Billy came to his senses. He cleared the dust from his eyes
a little and turned to see why Jimmy didn’t speak. He lay with closed
eyes, motionless!

A chill as from an ice field swept over Billy. His heart seemed to fall
down, down, as far as his shoes. He noticed that things looked darker,
and his head felt light and queer. Another fear assailed him; would
he, too, collapse, leave the little girls alone with the terror of two
senseless boys?

He roused himself sharply; found his handkerchief and rubbed his eyes
a little clearer; bent swiftly over Jimmy, who stirred when touched,
and, to Billy’s intense relief, spoke.

“I think you’ve broke my neck, kid,” he said, feebly, as quaking Billy
helped him to his feet.

“Jimmy, can you stand?”

He winced with pain, reeled, and would have fallen but for the other’s
sustaining hand.

“Here! Sit down on the bank.” Billy himself was trembling so he felt it
safer to see Jimmy sitting. “I’ll get--Twinnies, run, run to the tank
and wet your handkerchief. Quick!”

They were at the dripping roadside tank and back in a trice. Gently
where a moment before he had been ferocious with anger, Billy wiped his
play-mate’s face, or rather, changed the mud from one spot to another,
got him to his feet again, and finally into the buggy with the little
girls by his side.

“Can you drive?” he asked, anxiously, as he unhitched the horse. He
noticed with a second sinking feeling that Jimmy’s face twitched with
pain, that his right arm hung limp.

“If I can’t Vilette can. Old Bob goes by himself, anyway.” He made a
brave though unsuccessful effort to appear as usual.

“Are--are you hurt bad, Jimmy?” came in a quaking voice.

“No worse ’n you, I reckon,” was the rueful response. Billy’s
appearance justified Jimmy’s speech; for freckles were standing out
large and ghastly from one or two very white spots on the younger boy’s
battered face. “Can you get home alone?”

“Yes--go on quick! Here come folks!”

He watched the three drive away, the brother holding the reins in his
left hand; the other he did not attempt to lift; and Billy’s heart
thumped faster as fear grew to a certainty. He brushed himself weakly,
turning his back as a surrey-load of people passed.

“Had a fall, Billy?” Every one knew the boy.

“Yes, Mr. Brown,” he answered, keeping his face from sight.

“Hurt?”

“My clothes mostly,” he replied, hoping he had told the truth, though
a dreadful, big feeling in his head, the humming in his ears, and the
pain in his eyes, made him guess he had told a lie.

The travellers passed on; he righted his wheel and began his slow,
painful way home. It was still cloudy and the welcome darkness setting
in early, shrouded him as he slipped down the least public streets
and alleys to his own side gate. He put his wheel away, fed his
chickens,--though they had gone to roost,--went to the cellar and
brought meat and milk for dog and cats, and reconnoitred the way to the
Fo’castle.

Visitors! He saw them through the window. Every step was growing more
painful,--he must get to his room. The space from the woodshed roof to
the tower room, before so easily surmounted by a swinging jump, looked
now as high and far as Mount Whitney. Back to the window he turned. The
firelight was dancing on the walls. Sister Edith was talking gayly to
neighbors who were standing near the door, and May Nell was snuggled
beside his mother on the couch, the great yellow cat, or a part of him,
sprawling on her small lap.

How sweet and dear they all were! How peaceful it looked in there,--too
peaceful, clean, for a dirty, fighting brute like himself. What could
he do? He shivered in the cold, and the pain in his eyes increased.
Would he fall? Would they find him, have Doctor Carter, learn the
disgraceful truth? If the world had looked dark that afternoon, it was
now Egyptian blackness.

There was a stir in the room. His mother stood--May Nell, too--and the
cat stretched lazily on the couch. Sister Edith followed the guests to
the porch, as did his mother and the little girl--the room was empty!
He opened the kitchen door, tried to hasten noiselessly, yet thought he
clattered like a threshing machine. Into the living-room he crept, and
lumbered softly up the stairs that seemed a mile long.

“It’s time Billy was at home,” he heard his mother say as he opened her
room door; and he stumbled on more hurriedly, across the bridge--at
last, the Fo’castle!

He threw himself on the bed and wept the bitterest tears he had
ever shed in his life, tears of shame. There he lay--hours, he
thought--determined to bear his pain and disgrace alone. Yet it was
only minutes when he heard his mother in her room, coming!




CHAPTER VIII

ON STORMY SEAS


Billy did not lift his face from the pillow; he was striving to steady
throat and voice.

“Billy,” she called.

“Don’t, mother! Mother, don’t come in here! Don’t come in the same room
with me,--I’m not fit for-- O mother, I’ve hurt Jimmy for life!”

Mrs. Bennett caught the despair in his words, and knew this could be no
ordinary trouble to be petted away with a few caresses. Some crisis had
come that must be wisely met. She entered, knelt by the bed, and put
her arms around him. The spring starlight dimly outlined his head on
the pillow but gave no hint of its bruises. “Billy, dear, nothing you
can ever do will be bad enough to keep your mother away from you. What
is it, my son?”

The gentle words, the tender touch, the comfort and hope in her words,
unlocked his lips and he told what he had thought to keep forever
untold.

He kept his hands from hers, and begged her not to touch the
handkerchief he had bound around his head; but before his story was
finished, a growing stain on the pillow had oozed into sight.

“Billy! You said you weren’t hurt, but you are!” Alarmed, she rose and
switched on the light, pulled off the bandage, and turned faint at the
wreck of the bright, clean boy who had left her that afternoon. “My
boy! You’re dreadfully hurt! I must send for Doctor Carter, and--”

“No, no! Don’t, mother! I’ll run away! I’ll--” He groaned and left his
sentence unfinished.

“But you may have broken bones--be seriously injured.”

She took a step, but he caught her hand. “I don’t care if I am, he
mustn’t see--no one must,--I didn’t mean you should. Besides, I walked
home and brought my wheel; I’ll live, I guess,--I’m too mean to kill.”
He put his stiff, swollen hand over his face. “It’s Jimmy that’s in
danger.” A new note of terror came into his voice as he remembered
the pale face and limp arm; he had never seen a fighting boy look so
before. “I’m afraid Jimmy’s hurt inside, mother. What if he should die?”

Mrs. Bennett knew better than Billy how much thumping a boy could live
through; and reassured him while she took off his soiled garments, and
started below for hot water and remedies.

“Don’t tell--must Edith and May Nell know?” he called after her. “Oh,
all the town will--mother!” The anguish in his words halted her.
“Mother, this wasn’t a boys’ scrap at all. I didn’t think of you or--or
anything; an’ something must have squelched Betsey, she never peeped.
Mother, I felt--I felt mad enough to kill him!” He whispered the
awesome words.

“But you don’t feel so now, my son. Jimmy will soon be well; you, too.
Then you can talk with him about it. Rest, now; that is your first
duty,” she comforted, and left him.

Hot water, lotions, a mother’s tender hands, best of all, a mother’s
comprehending heart,--it is wonderful what cures these can make. In an
hour Billy was comparatively at ease. His sore body still ached, and
his eyes “felt like red fire on the Fourth,” he said; but the world
seemed less dark, and he was glad his mother had not taken him at his
word and left him to bear his trouble alone.

Yet he could not long keep his mind from the struggle. “Mother, won’t
you find out soon about Jimmy, how bad he’s hurt? An’ I wish I knew if
Vilette ’n Evelyn ’re all right; it looked awful to see ’em hit with a
horsewhip.”

“I’ll get word from them in the morning. Don’t worry any more, but
rest; sleep if you can. You can’t help them till you have helped
yourself.”

Still, since Billy had broken his resolution of silence, he was
feverishly eager to talk. His thoughts were erratic, now in the
present, again flying back to the past. “O mother, you should be
lickin’ me ’nstead of petting me!” he broke out passionately.

“Why, Billy? I don’t believe in whipping unless all else fails.”

“Well, papa did. If he was alive he’d be giving it to me about now,
good and plenty.”

“Why do you think he would have whipped you?”

“Don’t you remember the first day I went to school, he took me between
his knees,--I was a little kid then,--and said, ‘Billy, if I know
that you ever jump on a boy first to fight him, I’ll lick you. And if
another boy jumps on you first, and you don’t fight back, no matter how
big he is, I’ll lick you then.’”

“I guess he didn’t say ‘lick,’ Billy.”

“Yes, he did. And he said, awfully solemn, ‘Remember, Billy, no one
but a coward strikes his foe in the back. A boy of mine who could do
that,--I don’t think I should wish him to wear this.’ And he pointed to
his Loyal Legion button. O mother, I hit Jimmy first, I hit him in the
back, and I--I kicked him in the stomach! I’ve disgraced papa’s button
forever!” His last words were a groan, and he hid his face.

Mrs. Bennett leaned over him without speaking for a minute, but stroked
his hair softly. “Remember, with One there is no ‘forever.’ As long as
we live we have a chance to retrieve. Rest on that, my child. Now you
must sleep.” She kissed him and was silent, for a drop glistened on
his cheek she knew he would not wish her to notice.

She thought he should be in a warmer room, but he begged so hard to
stay that she yielded. She put a bell near, that he might call her,
and went to him several times before she slept, finding him somewhat
restless, yet too profoundly asleep to be wakened by her light touch.
Outraged nature was in charge now.

It must have been hours past midnight when Billy’s chattering voice
startled his mother. She had heard no bell; the boy himself stood by
her bedside; she could see him dimly against the window.

“I don’t know what’s the matter,--I’m drowned, I guess.” His teeth
rattled, and the hand he put out to her was icy cold.

“Billy! You’re freezing!” She sprang up and turned on the light.

He was a queer figure with his bandaged head, one eye peering out,
and a long, dripping red quilt trailing behind him. “I found the bed
flooded, and put the comfort round me; but someway that’s wet, too.” He
could hardly speak for shivering.

She clapped him into her own warm bed, and incredibly soon things were
sizzling over the alcohol lamp.

“The tank must have run over, Billy. You forgot to shut it off.”

“No, I didn’t forget; the water was low, and I left it running on
purpose. But it’s that west wind; she’s a hummer. She can pump faster
’n the old waste pipe can discharge.”

Friction and mustard, hot water bags without and hot tea within soon
set Billy’s teeth at rest.

“How in the world did you ever sleep through it, Billy?” his mother
asked, coming in from the tank-room where she had been to investigate.
“There is a small flood there. I should think the first drop would have
wakened you.”

“It came to me feet foremost, I guess, and soaked the quilt in
instalments. I had a tough dream, too; couldn’t wake up in the middle.
I dreamed I was on a ship in a bang-up storm, and the vessel lunged
like a bucking horse.”

“Yes, I can see that the wind, the shaking tower, the creaking mill,
would bring such dreams,” his mother said. “Hear the wind howl now!”

“And I thought all the crew were washed overboard like chips,” he went
on; “and I was left alone. And she shipped water in mountains. And I
was cold as the North Pole. And at last she foundered, and I went down
with her. And when I couldn’t choke any more I woke up.”

“Poor little Billy! You’ve had a hard night of it.”

“Kinder rocky.”

He smiled wanly, and her heart ached for him; but she knew sympathy was
unsafe just then. “If you could see that comical, crooked eye of yours
blinking at me, like a chicken asking your intentions, you’d laugh,
Billy.”

He did laugh, yet was sober again. She was tucking the clothes close
about him, preparing to lie down by his side. But he reached his arms
out suddenly and flung them around her neck. “O mamma, the awfullest
thing in the world next to doing a crime, must be not to have a mother.
I must jolly May Nell more. And, mamma--mother, I don’t know why,--”
his voice was very low and shy, “why God’s looked out for me so good;
but anyway, you’re--you’re the whole bunch!”

She pressed him closer and kissed him. And soon he slept.

But his mother watched out the night.




CHAPTER IX

RED GOOSE FLESH


The next morning Billy had a “temperature.” His mother decided
against school for that day. At first he was glad. He didn’t care
if he had forty temperatures. He thought almost anything in the
way of fever was cooler than he would feel if the boys--and the
girls--should see his face. Not that this was the first time he had
been scratched in a fight; before he had not cared who knew. To-day it
was different,--there were things about this fight he wished he could
forget, even though he knew Jimmy was not likely to die.

But a second idea came that made him fidget about the room, lift his
bandage and watch the children on their way to school. His record for
attendance for the year had so far been perfect. He knew that he owed
it partly to his mother’s tireless watch of the clock, and wondered
why he had not realized this before. Now it was to be broken; she would
be as sorry as he could be; and it would have counted well toward the
prize. He tried to calculate how many days he could be absent and still
have left some chance of it. The work was all reviewing, he almost knew
it, anyway. If he only had his books,--but no, they wouldn’t let him
use his eyes.

A gentle rap halted his reflections, a sweet voice asked to come in;
and in a moment there was a rose-leaf touch on his cheek.

“Your mamma said I was to ask no questions, and I shall obey; but I do
wish I knew how I could help you.” She touched the bandage that bound
his head. “Does it hurt you awfully much, Billy? I’m so sorry. My eyes
ache me, too, for looking at you.”

He was pleased with her sympathy; but being a boy, he didn’t like
to show it. “I’ll tell you,” he said, eagerly, and without further
acknowledgment of her kindness, “ask Mr. Brown to give you my books.
Perhaps to-night I can see to study.”

But not that night nor for days after did Billy look at his books. The
second morning the fever was still present, and he told his mother he
was “all over red goose flesh.”

“Measles,” Mrs. Bennett pronounced; and though it was a light case, and
in a day or so Billy felt as well as ever except his eyes, they were
sentenced to a dark room.

[Illustration: May Nell plays teacher]

May Nell had been “through the measles,” yet she shared the quarantine.
Billy resented this at first. It was “no fair.” Afterward he was
grateful; for aside from the cheer of her presence she did him a fine
service. It was her clever brain that proposed to read his lessons
aloud to him; and though he didn’t think much of it at first, he soon
saw that this would make a chance for the prize which in his heart
he had resigned.

She made a quaint picture curled in a big chair under the window,
where a lifted corner of the curtain gave light to the book, but left
the rest of the room dark. It pleased her to play teacher. She asked
Billy numberless questions, coaxed him to explain what she did not
understand. And he soon learned that one must know a thing very well
before he can tell it. He dictated some of the written work, and she
transcribed it in her prim little script.

Yet Billy despaired when he thought of the mathematics; Jimmy-- With
the thought of Jimmy the hot blood rose to Billy’s cheek, and he was
glad the room was dark. It was Jimmy’s right arm that was broken.

But May Nell’s ambition was boundless. “We can do mathematics work,
too. I can multiply, and divide, and other things beside, I can do;
I’ll just be your paper and pencil.”

Billy was skeptical, yet soon convinced, as the little girl slowly and
carefully read the problems, followed his directions, and obtained
correct results. A few problems were too complicated; these the boy had
her mark for attack with recovered sight.

Yet only a part of the long day went to study. They spent delightful
hours rehearsing the stories of favorite books, and otherwise amused
themselves by improvising tales of marvellous adventure. The school
children sent notes, the latest school jokes, and original pictures,
interesting if sometimes not quite clear as to meaning. Clarence
indited his first letter. Here it is:

[Illustration]

The best of all was a letter from Jimmy, scrawled with his left hand.

  “DEAR BILLY,” it read; “Shifty seen the fight. He says it was
  something fierce. He says you looked like a mad bull. He was hiding
  behind the fence. He says he bet on me; but he was glad he didn’t bet
  with nobody, because you whipped. Shifty’s doing some of my written
  work--I’m telling him how, of course. And I’m studying right smart.
  Say, Bill, I don’t lay no grudge. My arm’s getting on fine.

                                                    “Yours truly,
                                                                “JIMMY.”

Billy read the note several times. He knew that Jimmy meant much more
than the words said; it was his offer of the “olive branch.” And Billy,
thinking over that miserable afternoon, wondered again how it had been
possible for him to feel such murderous hate for anything living. And
for Jimmy! His mate at school, in play! The picture came to him of
Jackson crying, of Vilette,--yes, it was not strange he had been angry.
But it was not his duty to punish; even if it had been, he knew he had
forgotten Jackson and Vilette, forgotten everything except the rage of
the fight. Why was it? Older heads than Billy’s have asked in sorrow
that same question after the madness of some angry deed has passed to
leave in its wake sleepless remorse.

The best amusement of the hours of imprisonment was planning for the
performance of “The Lady of the Lake.” Nothing definite, except that it
was to be out of doors, had unfolded till now, when irksome leisure and
May Nell’s quick mind together bore fruit.

“We can play the first canto, ‘The Chase,’ across the river in the
Sunol Creek canyon,” Billy explained, eagerly.

“But there aren’t any deer,” the little girl objected. “What will you
do for

  ‘The antlered monarch of the waste
  Sprang from his heathery couch in haste’?”

“There ’re deer up there, all right; but of course we can’t get ’em.
We’ll have to catch a jack rabbit beforehand and let him loose.”

“O Billy, the poor rabbit will surely be caught; and you know the stag
hid in ‘Trosach’s wildest nook.’”

“Oh, the kids’--boys’ dogs are mostly old or else too fat to run, like
Bouncer. I guess the rabbit can get away,--too soon, perhaps. We’ll
have you for Fair Ellen.”

“Oh, no; she must be Jean.”

“She won’t do it; she said so before. She wants to be Alan-bane.”

“But she’s a girl.”

“That’s the reason. She says a boy will spoil the part; won’t get the
shivers like she will. She thinks a minstrel can’t--can’t minstrelize
properly without the shivers.”

“Yes, that’s true,” May Nell replied, with conviction. “And Queen will
be Lady Margaret; and you are Malcolm Graeme; and who is Fitz-James?”

“Pretty; and Charley will be Douglas, and--”

“And Jimmy is already Roderick Dhu.”

“But Roderick Dhu died from fighting Fitz-James; I hate to give Jimmy a
dying part.”

“Oh, my conscience! That isn’t any matter. All the grandest actors have
the dying parts; and they die gloriously; and the audience claps and
claps and claps; and the curtain goes up, and they all come out alive
again and bow and smile; and you eat some candy and don’t cry any more.”

“That’s bul--dandy.”

“But I don’t like them to do that, Billy. They ought to stay dead till
the play is done. When I see them smiling I feel as if--just as I would
if you made fun of me when I cried for my mama,--it takes all the true
out of the play.”

“As soon as I get out of this,” Billy went on, after a short silence,
“I’ll go over and fix up Ellen’s Isle for you and Lady Margaret. We can
have

  ‘--a lodge of ample size,’

with

  ‘The lighter pine trees overhead,’

but not the strong log house where----” He hesitated, and May Nell
quoted on glibly,

  “‘The sturdy oak and ash unite’;

but I can

                      ‘twine,
  The ivy and the Idean vine.’

If I only had an Idean vine; what is it, Billy?”

“You can search me.” Billy was about to remark further, when a
commotion arose among the school children just passing on their way
home.

May Nell needed no second request to “catch the racket and bring it
in.” She flew downstairs, and presently up again, arriving with a
breathless story. “O Billy, the circus train’s wrecked! There won’t be
any circus next week! Some of the animals are all dead, and the fire
burned some-- Oh, I can hear them scream now, can’t you?” She put her
hands over her face and shivered.

“Don’t feel so bad, Chick,” he comforted; “it won’t bring them to life,
and it hurts you. That’s why you don’t grow faster; your feelings eats
up all your blood.”

She smiled faintly. “Then my feelings must be bloodthirsty, Billy. How
dreadful!”

“Did the little kids take it hard?”

“Awfully hard, Billy. Some of them had ‘grief swimming in their eyes.’”

“Poor little chaps! They’ve been talking circus for a month.”

“Billy! I’ll tell you what let’s do; we’ll make a circus ourselves!”

“Heavens to Betsey! We’ll do it!”

The “Lady of the Lake” was that moment deserted.




CHAPTER X

SIR THOMAS KATZENSTEIN


“Billy, Flash is the cleverest cat ever!” May Nell exclaimed as she
bounded in some days later.

The quarantine had been raised, and at night Billy had “the run of
the house”; though his days were still spent in “the prison cell” as
he called the dark room. It seemed to him that light came in with the
little girl, and all the sparkle and fragrance of the young summer
without.

“What new trick has Flash been up to?”

“You know that bad, old, half-tailed Tom that whips every cat in town
but Geewhillikins and Flash and Sir Thomas--”

“Yes; he’d lick him too, if Flash wasn’t Tom’s body-guard.”

“Well, just listen! This morning your mama set out the meat for their
breakfast. I had Geewhillikins and Jerusalem Crickets in the pound--the
woodshed, you know. Oh, they had a big breakfast before,” she added
quickly, feeling rather than seeing Billy’s disapproval.

“I forgive you,” he condoned.

“In a minute I heard the teentiest little mew. I looked and there was
Tom crouched against the side of the house. He was shivering with
fright, and that old tramp cat was eating up his breakfast.”

“The darned old robber!” Billy started up and walked restlessly toward
the door.

“I took a stick of kindling from the kitchen and crept out to chase the
thief away; but just then Flash trotted around the corner of the house.
He’s been on the front lawn all the morning watching for gophers;
wouldn’t come when we called him.”

“That’s Flash; he always works for his breakfast,” Billy pompously
approved.

“He ran up and touched noses with Tom like a Feegee Islander,--are they
the people that touch noses for ‘How do you do?’”

“I guess so. What else?”

“And Flash mewed just once, very softly. He couldn’t see the tramp cat,
for the big oak tree hid him. But the second Tom answered his mew,
Flash flew like a lightning streak, around the tree and up to that old,
stealing feline cat. And he ran-- O Billy, you’d have laughed an ache
in your side if you could have seen him run,--over the fence, he ran
again, across the street, down the sidewalk,--he never stopped till he
came to the tip top of Mr. Potter’s big locust tree.”

“By heck! Flash is all right.”

“Then he walked back as slowly and dignifiedly as a minister,--isn’t
‘dignifiedly’ an awkward word? I wonder if it is right?”

“Never mind grammar, or spelling, whichever it is; what did Flash do?”

“He went up to Tom--he was still crouching against the house--”

“Like the lazy coward he is,” Billy tartly interrupted.

“O Billy, he’s so beautiful and so clever; and he put his nose up to
Flash _so_ gratefully. Flash just mewed again, low as before, and
walked off round the house. And Tom went and ate his breakfast.”

“Well, old Tom’ll have to be cleverer than I ever saw him to pay for
that.”

“You don’t like Sir Thomas because he’s a little indolent.”

“It’s plain lazy. He won’t even wash himself.”

“Yet he has more mind than Flash.”

“Mind? What do you mean by that? Anyway, you can’t prove it.”

“Yes, I can, right now!” The little girl, full of enthusiasm for her
beloved yellow cat, went over and laid her hand impressively on
Billy’s arm. “You know the dining-room window screen hung from the top,
that has the broken catch on one side?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, Tom jumps up from the outside, hangs on the sill with one
forefoot, and pulls out the edge of the screen with the other till
he gets his nose in, when he can pry out the screen and slip through
easily.”

“Yes, he can do that; I’ve seen him myself.”

“Well, Flash can’t do that.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve watched, and called to him from the inside; but he only stands
and mews. Did you ever see him climb up and open the screen?”

Billy could not remember that he had.

“But, Billy, Tom opens it for him! He climbs up, gets his nose in, and
the largest part of himself; then he crowds along as hard as he can,
and calls to Flash, ‘The way is clear; come’;--you needn’t laugh; he
says it just as plain as words,” she protested. “And Flash springs up,
creeps through, and jumps to the floor, with Tom after him; and the
screen slaps to with a big noise. I’ve seen them do it three times this
week. Isn’t that a wonder?”

“Sure!” Billy assented, heartily. “I take it back about old Sir Thomas;
I guess they’re equal partners, after all.”

“They’re a regular Damon and Pythias, aren’t they? And we’ll have Flash
for the Polar Bear, in the circus, and Tom for the Royal Bengal Tiger,
the baby tiger, you know.”

“Yes; and we’ll have to train the dogs,-- Whoopee! Only four weeks of
school. We’ll have to hurry if we do the circus and “Lady of the Lake”
both before vacation.”

“Before vacation? Why, they’ll be just the things to do _in_ vacation.”

“They’ll have to be done before vacation or not at all,” he answered,
so seriously that May Nell wondered a little; wondered still more
as the moments passed and the dark room grew very quiet. She did not
know what purpose was growing in Billy’s mind, a purpose that largely
concerned herself.




CHAPTER XI

GOOD-NIGHT IN THE FO’CASTLE


The silence was broken a little later by merry voices on the stairway.
For several nights the girls had been gathering in May Nell’s room.
Billy knew “things were doing” there by the sounds; the tap, tap of the
tack hammer, added to much chatter and rustling. Now May Nell caught
him by the hand and pulled him across the hall. A strange pungent
fragrance like burning spice, yet not familiar, met them at the door.
And inside, the dark hangings full of lurking shadows gave the room a
foreign air.

The Queen of Sheba in gypsy dress, and her harum-scarum train buzzing
with gossip and exclamation, flocked in. Bess looked magnificent in a
mass of draperies that included every Oriental thing to be found in
several families.

“Jiminy whiz! Your royal splendor dazzles me!” Billy chaffed.

“I’m the Royal Egyptian Fortune Teller!” Bess announced, in a deep
voice. “This is my desert tent. I shall reveal the past, present, and
future to those only whom my favor shall designate. Slaves, the lamps!”

Clarence and Harry, much wrapped in white about the head, but with bare
little white arms and bare little brown legs, came in solemnly and
placed some red lanterns on the table. Bess posed in a chair decorated
for the occasion, arranged her draperies, pulled nearer the “incense
lamp,” which was her father’s Turkish cigar lighter, laid out her
cards, and bent over them in grave silence.

Her absorption hypnotized the others to wondering stillness. In
a moment her attitude and intensity had transported them to the
mysterious East, and put upon them the spell of ancient superstitions.

At last she looked up and pointed a startling finger at May Nell. “Mary
Ellen Smith, my familiars, who guard the portals of futurity, declare
that you shall be the first honored. Minions, depart! Slaves, guard the
door!”

Jean and the twins, Charley, George and some others, rattled down the
stairs; while Clarence and Harry stood rigid, with wooden scymitars
drawn, one on each side of the door.

Billy hesitated a minute. The dim room, the wicked-looking red lights,
Bess so stern and mysterious,--this might frighten the little girl. He
ought to wait.

“Avaunt, hesitating noddy! The angel child is quite safe!” Bess waved
an arm, partly bare and brown in spots.

“Yes, go away, Billy; I’m not afraid.” May Nell laughed happily. Her
quick mind was delighted with the masquerading.

Yet it was a very quiet little child that crept down to the others a
few minutes later; when asked of her fortune she burst into tears.

Mrs. Bennett came in and tried to learn the trouble; but it was some
time before May Nell could be induced to tell.

“She said, the Queen of Sheba did, that I’d be in danger, and some one
would save me. And I’d have a s’prise, and a hus--husband, and fi-five
c-chil-- children!” She wailed again and hid her face on Mrs. Bennett’s
shoulder.

“Golly! There’s nothing skewgee about that fortune,” Billy commented,
encouragingly.

“Oh, yes; yes, there is, Billy.” May Nell lifted a teary face. “Five
children! If it had been two, or perhaps I could possibly bring up
three; but f-five, o-o-oh!” she wailed again, heedless of the laughter
around her.

Several others were summoned and returned with remarkable reports. At
last two high-pitched little voices called in concert down the stair:
“The Royal Seeress will rend the veil of futurity for William Bennett.”

“That’s you, papa,” Clarence piped, as an anxious post warning.

Artful Bess! Billy had treated it all as a huge joke; but now May
Nell’s depression, the unfamiliar sound of his right name, the dim room
with its shadows and half-suffocating odors,--all conspired to send a
sober Billy into the circle of lurid light that came from the two lamps
gleaming on either side of dark Bess like angry eyes.

A few minutes later the entire Egyptian fortune-telling outfit came
down stairs at Billy’s heels. The hubbub was a riot of fun, and no one
noticed that Billy said nothing about the revelations of destiny made
to him; though later Jean recalled that in the zig-zag journey around
the park that was Billy’s evening exercise, he spoke very little to the
chatterers with him, even forgot to “jolly.”

That night when Mrs. Bennett went into the Fo’castle there was an
unusual note in Billy’s voice.

“Stop and chin with me just a little, won’t you, marmsey?”

“And what’s the ‘chinning’ to be about?” she questioned, sitting on the
bedside; “the fortune?”

Billy looked at her wonderingly for an instant. “You guess everything
that troubles a fellow, don’t you? How do you do it?” He sighed deeply.

“Was it as bad as that?” She smiled, and smoothed back the thick,
tumbled hair.

“Worse! She said soon I’d have to be very brave--that ain’t bad--but
I’m goin’ to be--to be a minister--a preacher!” The last word came with
a woe-begone vehemence that made his mother laugh.

“Why do you think that’s so dreadful?”

“O mother,” he began, excitedly, and stopped. Only lately had he
called her “mother” in his serious moments, and the name gave her pain
as well as pleasure, for it was one more announcement of the coming man.

“Mother,” he resumed, “I know I must freeze to some sort of business,
and that mighty soon, too. But a preacher--why, he can’t be like
anybody. He never has any fun.”

“Do you think fun the first business of the world?”

“Oh, no,” he sighed; “I suppose duty is the first business; but duty
is such a narrow, knock-you-down little word.” His voice was tense and
hard.

Mrs. Bennett continued her gentle, even strokes; bent and kissed him
softly before replying. “Duty looks narrow only when it opposes
inclination, my child. Selfish people hate duty; but those who live
the longest and best lives could tell you that every victory duty wins
brings an ever-increasing joy.”

“O mother, how can there be joy if life is all work and never any fun?”
He took her hand and pressed it against his cheek.

“There’s a little secret about work; with grown-ups it is often their
play; and they like it.”

“Do you _like_ to work?” His tone was insistent; and he lifted his
head and looked hard at her, as if to challenge the tiniest bit of
insincerity that might be lurking back of the words. “_Like_ to work?”
he repeated with added emphasis.

“Billy, I don’t think you could possibly have been happier on your
birthday than I was; yet I was so tired that night that I could not
sleep. The work of that day was play to me.”

Billy threw both arms around her and hugged her.

“And there are many times when the duty itself is disagreeable, yet
doing it brings a finer joy than shirking it ever could bring.”

“Then I’ll be a--a preacher if I ought to. But gee! it’s rocky!”

“O Billy,” his mother laughed, “you need not decide to-night. Besides,
it was all Bess’s nonsense. I can’t quite imagine my heedless boy in a
pulpit.”

Billy thought he detected a touch of resigned disappointment in her
words, and looked up with a sudden wonder widening his eyes, making
them shine even in the dim light of the shaded lamp. “Do you want me to
preach, mamma?”

“Not unless you wish to so much that you will not do anything else,
Billy. The world needs preachers of the right kind sadly; and the right
kind take up the calling reverently, though they know it will bring
them small worldly return and much toil.”

The boy was very still for a little, but burst out presently: “I’m
going to work, mother; as soon as school closes I’ll start.”

He felt his mother start. “You’re too young for hard work, Billy; you
do enough as it is.”

“Yes, when you and sister turn gray getting it out of me. No, I’m
going to do real work that will earn money; and I’m going to take this
never-get-enough grub-basket of mine to a table where my own hands have
earned the grub.”

“Billy! My--boy!” Mrs. Bennett bent over him; and he felt a tear where
her cheek touched his.

“Feel that muscle,” he said a moment later; bending his arm, and
pressing her fingers to it. “That’s got to grow by a broom or hoe,
something besides football!”

His words had a new ring, and his mother was wise enough to respect the
young independence in them. “What brought you to this decision, Billy?”


“You remember that story about a man who died for love of a girl
because he knew he ought not to marry her? I thought that sort kind of
noble, but you said there was nobler. Do you remember?”

“No; I can’t recall what I said.”

“You said, ‘Death is easy. It is much braver to live without the love
one craves, to do one’s duty each day, and smile as the world goes by.
That’s the finest love I know,’ you said.”

“Well?” she questioned.

“I couldn’t understand it then. Now I do. My own sister is that bravest
of lovers.” His words rang with pride as well as love.

“Why, Billy, what has happened to make you think so?”

“Last night I heard something on the Q. T. I didn’t mean to, but I’m
glad I did. I was in the pantry chuckin’ some bread an’ butter under my
solar plexus when I heard Mr. Wright tell sister in the sitting-room--I
guess some door was open a crack--that his law business was growing a
little. I didn’t hear the next words, but there was ‘please’ in italics
in his voice. But sister said, an’ I heard her plain enough, ‘No, Hal,
not till I’ve saved enough to take Billy through school.’ ‘I’ll help--’
Mr. Wright got as far as that when this guy waked up,--knew he’d snuck
information not intended for him. So I made a noise; I scatted the
cat--no cat there--slammed the door, and kicked up a racket generally
so’s they’d know I was there.”

Mrs. Bennett smiled. She thought they could have had no trouble in
locating Billy.

“Then I went in an’ spoke to ’em ’s though I hadn’t heard a word, and
hustled off to bed. I thought ’most all night, and decided that sister
shan’t wait a day longer for me to grow up. I’m going to hustle for
myself, so she can get married.”

“Billy, my little, little boy!” She lifted the tousled head and pressed
her cheek close against his.

“I’m going to work as soon ’s school’s out; it’s for you and May Nell,
too, you know.”

“But your school, my child! You must be educated; you--”

“Yes, yes, marmsey; but there’s night shops where a fellow can gobble
education by the hunk, you know, and--” He paused. Even his own mother
didn’t know the pang in his heart when he thought of Jean and Jimmy,
and the others, going on together through the high school, perhaps the
university.

Mrs. Bennett rose and tucked him in snugly. “Let us drop it till school
closes, Billy. Then we’ll talk it over.”

“All but finding the job, mother. Jobs don’t hunt boys; and mine’s
going to be waiting for me when the school house door shuts: that is,
if I can persuade any man in the town or county that he needs a boy my
size.”

Mrs. Bennett bade him good-night, and left him to the stars and the
quiet night. Her heart was still sore for the little boy of the past,
yet a strange joy came to her; the thoughtful, observant, earnest man
had heralded his coming. She should be very proud of him.




CHAPTER XII

THE CIRCUS


The day was fine. Billy, not long released from his green shade,
wondered if the world was ever so lovely before; the flowers so
sweet, the birds so joyous. Could it be only a few short weeks since
that gray Sunday? Billy’s confinement had quickened him, introduced
him to himself; now he looked on life with wider eyes, with a more
understanding heart.

He was out early wheeling from house to house, where various parts
of the “show” were receiving last touches. One by one he gathered
each “attraction,” and herded them all to Jimmy’s big barn, where the
procession was to form. Some were late, Bess for one; but Billy was not
anxious about her.

It had been hard to persuade her, though her heart was aching to join
the fun. “Huh! Do you suppose I’d be a common snake-charmer?”

“Common?” Billy retorted, “they can’t be common. They have to have
power more’n anybody. And snake charmers ’most always are Egyptian
Princesses, or royalty of some kind,” he added hastily, lest exact Bess
should call on him for a genealogy of his princesses.

The magic name won the day. Bess was ever dreaming of the land of
mystery, whose pictured daughters of old she resembled; and the chance
to masquerade in its atmosphere lured her.

Max was the first to be quite ready with his exhibit. It was a queer
creature that one gradually discovered to be some sort of a bird;
though such a one had never before been seen on land or sea. Max had
arrayed his mother’s big white gander for the occasion. A turkey-tail
fan made a huge breastplate, if one can imagine a breastplate of
feathers. All the long-tailed roosters that had been killed in town
for months, one would guess, had contributed to the coat of sprawling
feathers that was tied over the body of the bird. And no one knew by
what magic the boy had coaxed some one to lend him the magnificent
peacock plumes that rose high above the little wiggling goose tail.

In a cage of wire netting bearing the legend, “The Roc--The Egg,” the
uncomfortable gander swayed and craned his neck; and all but his voice
was satisfactory. In the bottom of the cage a whitewashed stone the
size of a small pumpkin did duty as the egg.

A three-legged rooster appeared. And Sir Thomas Katzenstein, according
to schedule, roamed his box in great agitation, though in fine form,
impressively carrying out the label on his cage, “Baby Royal Bengal
Tiger.”

Lying in silent disdain on his familiar cushion, Flash, as the “Polar
Bear,” did equally well; while Bouncer fretted between the fills of
the home-made, bunting-draped chariot that served as “The Polar Bear’s
Snowy Lair of the North.”

There was a half-grown calf with an artificial hump for the “Water
Buffalo”; and Harry and Clarence were cunningly strapped together for
the Siamese Twins.

“But they are dead,” Jimmy protested.

“But couldn’t another pair have been born in Siam?” May Nell
questioned; and as no one felt sufficiently informed to deny it, Harry
and Clarence continued their strained relations.

The Prettymans’ white cow was ingeniously shaped and caparisoned to
represent “India’s Sacred White Elephant”; and Jackson was the Hindoo
leader. This exhibit caused much controversy. The attendant should ride
on the neck of the elephant, all agreed to that; but the cow objected;
so they compromised by having Jackson walk. The matter of costume
for Jackson was not so easily settled, as the differing pictures of
sacred elephants presented a variation in the attendants’ garb. May
Nell,--who was to be the “Fair Princess of Bombay,”--as soon as she
could get a hearing, ended the dispute amicably by suggesting that
Jackson be allowed his choice in the matter of dress, an alternative
that permitted each disputant to withdraw from the argument with honor.

Jimmy had the trick ponies and the trained dogs. Teaching them was the
chief joy of his life. What if there were only two ponies, and their
spots were painted on? And what if the children had seen all the tricks
over and over again? They were good as new each time. Besides, the
ponies’ one brand-new trick, when at the crack of a whip they stood
on their hind feet in unison, was so effective that it frightened May
Nell. She saw it first in the barn; and when their shod hoofs came down
she thought they would crash right through the floor.

Jean was the Goddess of Liberty; Shifty and another larger boy the
steeds that pulled her car. But boys and box wagon were so smothered in
bunting that only the Goddess was conspicuous, standing, well-balanced,
stately, and fair.

One tall, ambitious girl contributed a unique float called, “Lot’s
Wife Looking Backward.” She had not been certain of the color for the
desert, consequently had made the whole thing, including the wagon, the
boys, and herself snowy white. She had copied an old Bible picture,
carrying out the idea with sheets, and such liberal doses of flour,
that only a heavy dew was needed to turn the float to dough instead of
salt. However, the sun shone, and the addition of diamond dust over all
made a very realistic picture that Billy praised heartily.

Guinea pigs, pigeons, and other and larger live stock, normal or
otherwise, masqueraded as marvellous creatures from foreign lands.

Bess arrived at last. A gorgeous affair was her chariot, the foundation
being Mr. Prettyman’s spring wagon. Bess, with some borrowings,
Charley’s help, and her own quick invention, had made a very good
imitation of a circus wagon. Charley, the Strong Man, held the reins
over old Dom Pedro, the horse she loved, that had once been a racer.
She had discovered some very real looking, jointed snakes that wriggled
and curved in a manner startlingly serpentine; while tremendous boa
constrictors, cut from old circus posters, were disposed about the cage
in alarmingly lifelike positions.

Bess’s coming launched the procession. People in the vicinity who had
not before known of the presence of a circus, knew it now. Everybody
talked at once, and every living thing made its own kind of a noise.
Billy as Master of Ceremonies had his hands full, his voice full too,
one might say.

But at last they got under way and proceeded as quietly as possible
down the back street to the home of Mrs. Lancaster, where Buzz, as the
“Prize Baby of Vine County,” awaited them in his car, which was very
handsome,--one would never have dreamed it was only a large wash-tub
strapped to a coaster; flowers and cloth do make such wonderful changes
if handled with art!

That preliminary march was not without adventure. The “howdah” on the
White Elephant where May Nell rode as the Fair Princess of Bombay,
became loose and threatened to spill its small bit of royalty. And
when Harold cinched the thing tighter the old cow bellowed so the
smaller children broke and ran. However, they were soon back, and the
procession halted at Mrs. Lancaster’s front gate in fair order. But
when she saw the imposing string of wagons, children, and animals,
known and unknown, she was afraid to trust her precious Buzz to them.

“Billy Boy, it’s fine! It’s splendid! But it’s so big I’m afraid Buzz
will be scared.”

“Well, why don’t you go along, Mrs. Lancaster? Don’t prize babies have
attendants?”

“Surely; but--”

“Oh, please, Mrs. Lancaster,” Billy coaxed. “The circus won’t be any
circus at all without Buzz. We’re to have him for a side show after the
performance. We’ve advertised _him_,” Billy pleaded well.

“Well, the lack of Buzz shall not damage your show; I’ll go,” Mrs.
Lancaster yielded.

And Billy did not think of it as strange till Buzz’s grandmother called
from behind the window curtain, “Delia, you surely won’t traipse
through town with that crowd! How you will look!”

“Why, ma, the children are quite respectable; I know all their
mothers.” Buzz’s mamma looked a little mischievous.

“You romp!” came the disgusted voice once more. “You’d better cut your
hair, and your skirts, and be a child again.”

“I’d love to, Billy,” Mrs. Lancaster whispered; “I’ve never liked being
grown up.”

Billy beamed upon her. He adored her, as did every child in town.

Now the band came up, a troop of boys in gorgeous uniforms made of red
calico and tinsel paper. A drum and fife kept tolerable time; but the
wheezy harmonicas and paper-covered combs, the tin horns and clanging
triangles, quite “covered” any tune the fife attempted. Yet what
matter? It was a joyful noise; and even the horses kept step to the
valiant drum.

Flags waved. In spite of Billy all shouted orders at once. The line was
as serpentine as Bess’s snakes that she held high and wriggling above
her snake-entwined head. Oh, she was a very realistic snake charmer!
Buzz crowed and clapped his pudgy little hands; and the Lancasters’
small Chinese boy who pulled the baby’s car almost fell over himself
laughing.

Before they turned into Main Street, however, the procession was in
fair alignment, and the solemnity of the moment hushed all chatter.
Billy’s most personal disappointment was Bouncer, who, unhappy because
he could not caper in freedom at Billy’s heels, let his lovely, bushy
tail, that usually waved above his back in a graceful curve, hang limp
and dusty between his legs; while from drooping head and sad eyes, he
looked reproachfully at Billy every time the latter ran past.

But on the whole Billy was proud. “The kids showed their pluck and
stuck to their jobs,” he told his mother afterward. The White Elephant
bellowed impressively in front of the postoffice; and Jimmy’s ponies
never reared so gracefully as in front of the bank.

All the people came out of their shops and offices and clapped
generously. A light breeze floated out the flags, and made the gold
fringe on the Snake Charmer’s cage wave and look rich and foreign. The
band outdid itself; and as the forward end of the procession turned out
of the street, a great cheer began behind them, grew and swelled, till
even the youngest child knew “folks liked the circus.”

“To the park!” Billy shouted, his heart thumping with joy.

“The children will get too tired,” the Snake Charmer warned.

“No, we won’t!” came a dozen voices.

“Yes, yes; take us to the park, papa,” piped one half of the Siamese
Twins.

“Of course they won’t be too tired! The kids have pluck.”

The Snake Charmer was silenced; for if the children had before this
been tired, not one of them now but swelled with pride and fortitude at
this praise from Billy.

All went well for some blocks. There was a flattering audience at each
front door; a few honored the pageant by following. These were mostly
mothers of the younger children, who knew the possibilities of such an
aggregation of animals and boys.

But just before they were to enter the park Bouncer had his innings. A
rabbit, startled, sprang from under the roadside bushes and ran down
the street toward the open country. Bouncer’s tail went up. He dashed
out of line, overturned the Polar Bear’s cage, and was off after his
quarry, barking wildly, with the fast disrupting cage dangling at his
heels. The Polar Bear, liberated, flew home like a streak of white
light. The trained dogs broke from their struggling boy leaders,
carrying with them gleaming bits of red paper uniform.

The two steeds attached to the car of the Goddess of Liberty, also
deserted their task, and marked their path with bright bits of paper
and bunting.

Old Dom Pedro, scenting fresh excitement, snorted and bolted. The
Strong Man was not strong enough to hold him to line, though he guided
the horse safely to the Carter stable, where Bess appeared suddenly,
swaying alarmingly in her flimsy snake cage.

Half an hour later Charley went back to the disappointed remnants of
the show gathered in Jimmy’s barn, and told them Mrs. Carter had said,
“no more circus this day for Bess.” Buzz and his laughing Chinese had
been hurried to safety. The Roc had shed a part of his false feathers,
and was fast giving himself away as plain gander. The White Elephant
had also become restive, and it was thought best to transfer the Fair
Princess of Bombay from her howdah to _terra firma_. And the Goddess
of Liberty, minus her car, and a part of her draperies, and plus a
big smooch on her cheek, was somehow not very imposing. Various other
livestock became weary or rebellious, and the Siamese Twins had to be
severed to prevent their coming to blows.

It was too bad! There could be no show in the barn. But the band was
still lusty, the trick ponies remained, the boys and girls were eager
to talk it over, and--the procession had been a success!

Presently the little Chinese boy returned, his grin resumed, and a
large basket on his arm.

“Missee Lancastler, she say you heap good show. Now you heap hungly.
You catchee him plenty glub.” With that he uncovered a treat that made
them forget the circus. They munched the sandwiches, the luscious
fruit, candy, and cake, and other good things from Mrs. Lancaster’s
generous pantry, and discussed the procession; voted Mrs. Lancaster a
trump; and decided to have a circus every year.

And the shouts that greeted this fiat shook the old barn and made the
hens in the hay cackle with fright.




CHAPTER XIII

THE HIDDEN HUT


The last week of school arrived. It was almost as good as a holiday,
for those who had made the required percentage during the year
were excused from examinations, and after roll call, released from
attendance; and these included Billy and most of his cronies.

Mrs. Bennett spoke frequently of the change in Billy. He was growing
more thoughtful, observant. He remembered small duties, noticed if
mother or sister looked tired or ill, and volunteered help where
formerly he would not have known help was needed. Perhaps none of them
knew, least of all May Nell herself, how lastingly her example of
watchful kindness had impressed itself on Billy’s heart.

If he was more thoughtful, quiet, at home, his hours of play were more
keenly enjoyed as they grew daily fewer. He had found a “dandy job”
that would not take him away from home; he could still mow the lawn,
and do the chores. He was glad now that he had learned various parts
of the housework, for he was to be janitor and messenger at one of the
banks, a fact to be told his mother as a surprise on the last day of
school.

He went home after the engagement, walking on air and talking aloud to
himself. “Gee! I don’t suppose there’s a squinch-eyed ghost of a chance
for me to win that prize money; but twenty-five a month’ll pay mamma
for what I eat,--and break, I guess.”

Billy didn’t see Doctor Carter passing in his buggy, nor hear his
greeting; neither did he see the understanding smile; the Doctor easily
guessed that Billy was planning fun. And he was; this last week of
school should be the happiest ever. Didn’t work begin next Monday? Real
work! He couldn’t catch up the bankers in his arms, like his mother,
and cajole them into favors. No; it would be all day and every day for
a hundred years! Only Sundays, and they didn’t count; for wouldn’t he
have to go to church just the same? Mother and sister would be hurt if
he “put out to the woods” Sunday mornings. And the bank people, too,
would expect him to go to church; hadn’t they said none but steady,
well-behaved people could remain in their employ?

“Jiminy whiz! This is my very last week of boy; next week I’ll have to
be a man,” he said gloomily.

He was soon at the “lodge of ample size” made the week before, not of
“strong logs” but of old fence-rails and willow twigs. He wondered if
the girls would be able to imagine it a “lodge,” or if May Nell and
Jean, who were to come a little later, could fix it according to the
poem.

He decided to go first on the mountain and set his traps for rabbits;
also to mark the bounds for the “chase,” so that they could gather on
time at the island and go on with the second canto. If they didn’t “do”
two cantos a day they wouldn’t finish; for Friday must be given to
school. As it was some of them had to be at the school house each day
at three to rehearse for the “last day” exercises.

Billy hid his wheel in the same tangle of rose vine, now all pink
and fragrant with bloom, that had sheltered it that earlier Spring
afternoon,--was it years ago? It seemed so. As he crept out of the
brush and turned to the steep tangled mountain, he saw the haunted
house, with the bare space in front. There were the two brothers
fighting fiercely!

Billy slipped quickly to cover again where he could watch unseen. The
men’s faces were black with passion, and their low, intense words
seemed all the more deadly because strange, foreign. A coat split down
the back with a ripping report, and the boy saw the flash of a knife,
and turned away feeling sick.

Was there to be another murder? Ought he to call? If he did wouldn’t
they turn on him--kill him? No matter. Some one might be on the road
and hear. And he could run pretty fast. Anyway he must risk it.

“Murder! Murder!” he shouted with all his strength; and his boy’s voice
reached far up and down the lonely distances.

He saw the men stop, draw apart, and look around. They discovered no
one, but delayed their quarrel and hurried in the direction of the
sound, exchanging short angry speeches as they ran.

With a boy’s cunning and swiftness Billy made a running creep through
the underbrush up the steep mountain side. From a peephole higher up he
stopped, breathless, and watched them beat the chaparral round about
where he had stood; saw them go down into the road, look each way,
turn and scan the mountain; and at last slink off, one to the house,
the other to the vineyard.

Relieved, yet with his nerves quivering Billy plunged into the deep
woods of the higher altitudes. The air was unusually hot and stifling,
and his eyes watered. “Fire in the woods somewhere,” he murmured,
recognizing the odor of smoke.

He had left his traps,--the fight had sent all else flying out of his
mind. No matter. He could set them in some vineyard. Already the short
grass on the hills was brown, and many of the wild flowers were past
their blooming. The rabbits would be seeking the tender green of the
vines, the purpling alfalfa, standing lush and sweet, ready for mowing.

Up, up Billy climbed. On the bare spaces, or balanced on the point of
some slender rock, he stopped frequently to look down on the beautiful
valley below; on little farms laid out checker-board fashion,
dark green squares for orchards, lighter green for vineyards, with
tree-lined lanes running between. Overhead fleecy clouds chased one
another like freshly washed, woolly sheep across the blue pasture of
the heavens. In the north the great blue mountain loomed, all its
opalescent tints and shadows hidden till the setting of the sun should
light them forth.

Billy breathed deep. How he loved this opulent valley which was his
birthplace and home! He longed to see all the world, yet he thought no
other place could be as beautiful.

As he crashed again through the close-grown brush he almost forgot the
ugly scene just enacted below. He had been sorry to leave Bouncer to
come with the girls; now he was glad. It was good to be quite alone up
there with Nature in her less familiar places. A dark ravine lured him.
Well as he knew the mountain he had never explored this gorge. The
delicate fragrance of wild azaleas greeted him; he could see their pale
pink bloom tipping the tall trees that rose out of the chaparral forty
or fifty feet above the stream that tinkled beneath them.

As he climbed down, reaching from branch to branch, very cautiously,
he knew not why, he was suddenly halted by the sound of low voices.
Carefully he crept nearer. A tiny hut came in view, with an open door,
and the glint of fire within. A man was standing outside, smoking a
pipe, yet wearing hat, coat, and gloves, as if about to set off. He was
very large. His clothes were new and showy, too bright in color, too
large of check. His watch chain was massive; the big diamond out of
place with his colored shirt; and the soft silk handkerchief he drew
from his pocket was a brilliant red, and the largest Billy had ever
seen. Another man, in the doorway, was smaller and bareheaded. His
sleeves were rolled up, and his hands were stained.

Billy heard the hatted one say “So long!” saw him start down a path
that followed close beside the stream, perfectly hidden from any one
who might be walking the crests above. The other man brought a pail and
started up the hill.

Billy knew that the man was going to the spring for water; knew where
it was hidden, far in the woods, big and round, deep and clear! It was
more than a hundred yards away at least. He waited and listened till
the noise of snapping twigs was hushed, then crept down and peered into
the hut. The place was so small there was no need of entering; he could
see all the interior from the sill.

What he saw there lent wings to his feet.

He climbed cat-like to the crest again, slid through the brush, dashed
across bare spots, jumped from rocks that jutted in his way, struck
stones but righted himself before falling, truly “hit only the high
places,” as he breathlessly told the girls waiting for him at Ellen’s
Isle.

“No ‘chase’ to-day, girls. I’ve got business in town.”

“Oh, chuck the business,” Jean said impatiently. “Can’t it wait till
noon? I must go home then.”

“No, it can’t wait one minute longer’n it’ll take me to get to town.
Maybe I can come back though.”

“You’ll have to break the record if you get here before noon.”

“Billy, let me plan,” May Nell interposed. “We’ll work hard to fix
up the Lodge before Jean has to go home. I’ll stay and wait for you,
and Bouncer with me; and I’ll search for my Idean vine. I must have
something that will do for that. I wish I could find a real one.”

“I hate to have you stay without Jean,” Billy objected.

“What’s the harm? She’s on Mr. Potter’s land, and the road’s near.”

“And Bouncer’s here,” May Nell added, hugging the dog affectionately.

“All right. I’m off!”

“But you haven’t told us what hurries you so,” Jean called, while Billy
was already sprinting away.

“Can’t stop. It’s private anyway.” He waved his hand, ran across the
foot-bridge and down the road, dodged into the brush for his wheel; and
in a moment they heard his shout as he sped by toward town.




CHAPTER XIV

IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE


The girls worked hard to bower the interior of the Lodge with
evergreen; to spread and hang the rugs they had brought; but before
their task was finished distant whistles warned Jean. She took
Bouncer’s face between her hands and charged him with May Nell’s
protection as if he were human. And Bouncer wagged his tail, and in a
short, sharp bark pledged himself as if he were human.

“Don’t go off Mr. Potter’s land, will you, May Nell? The fenced part, I
mean. Eat some lunch soon; Billy may be gone an hour longer. Good-bye.
Don’t get too tired. I’ll send Clarence if I can find him.”

Jean, too, crossed the little bridge, climbed the fence, mounted her
wheel, and rolled off down the dusty road.

May Nell watched the flying figure turn out of sight around the
mountain; and for a minute the forest grew absolutely still, and the
child began to tremble. But a meadow lark, almost from under her feet
it seemed, sent forth a rippling song; across the river her mate
replied. A flock of white ducks came waddling and quacking from the
opposite field, plunged into the water, and swam about noisily, tipping
their little tails up and their big bills down as they reached for
submerged morsels. Bouncer made a swift circuit of the Lodge, sniffing
now and then questioningly; but came soon and sat down in front of May
Nell; put his paw on her knee and gave her another short bark.

“Good dog! I understand you, Bouncer, and I’m not lonesome any more.”

She opened the lunch pail and gave him a scrap from it; ate a sandwich
herself; and in a moment started off to find the Idean vine. Nothing
appeared that fitted her mind’s picture of that creeper; but she found
a great sheet of delicate wild clematis, covering the tangled roots
of a fallen oak with its pale green tendrils. The earth was soft, the
roots easily lifted; and shortly she had masses of it uprooted and
trailing after her to the Lodge.

Many times she had seen Mrs. Bennett transplant the garden flowers,
had helped; now she put all her lore to use. Patiently she toiled with
brittle sticks and pointed stones till the vine was replanted against
the rude walls; emptied the dinner pail and trudged back and forth to
the river several times for water, to wet the earth above the roots;
and patted it down with muddy little hands.

She was happy and the time passed unnoticed till she had finished, and
put the food back in the pail, when a queer, dizzy feeling came upon
her and she sank down on one of the rugs.

“Why doesn’t Billy come?” she asked of Bouncer; and the dog ran out of
the door and stood on three legs, one forefoot lifted, his eyes fixed
on the spot where Billy had disappeared. But no master was to be seen,
and he went back to May Nell, whined, and put his nose on her knee.

“My stomach’s crying so I’ll have to eat one more sandwich, Bouncer.
It’s a shame when Billy isn’t here. I’ll give you half, old dog.”

She put out her hand for the pail but stopped suddenly, for the dog
growled; and the next instant the room darkened, and a man stood in the
doorway.

May Nell looked at him with wide eyes. She saw that he was not a
vineyard workman, his clothes were too fine. She did not see them in
detail, the large checked trousers, the shiny gloves, and the big
diamond, but she felt instinctively that one who could dress so was
different from the men she knew. And the look in his face made her
cold.

“Well, Miss Smith, are you alone here?”

How did he know her name, she wondered, yet answered more bravely than
she felt. “Yes, sir.” She thought it best to be as polite as possible.
“I’m alone now, but the boys are expected every minute.” She would say
“boys” even if Clarence didn’t come; it sounded more protecting.

“You’re George Rideout Smith’s kid, ain’t you?”

[Illustration: “You’re George Rideout Smith’s kid, ain’t you?”]

“Yes; but I’m afraid my papa’s dead, he’s been gone so long.” How she
hated that word “kid.”

“Well, he ain’t dead; he’s alive and bully, with a wad that bulges. I’m
going to take you to him.”

“Right--now--are you?” The arm that was around Bouncer tightened, and
she thought her “heart would fly right up into her throat.”

“Yes, right now.” He stepped nearer, and Bouncer growled and bristled.

The man swore and looked for a cudgel.

“Oh, please, mister, sir, don’t hurt Bouncer. I’d rather you’d hit
me. He’s the best dog ever lived, and I won’t let you hurt him.” Her
courage grew as she spoke, and he stopped his search and glanced her
way. She looked up, bravely pleading for the dog she hugged harder.

“You’re a plucky kid, all right,” he replied, touched more than he
would have admitted. “I won’t hurt the dog if you do as I tell you.” He
looked for a cord or rope, but found none, and pulled from his pocket a
red handkerchief. “Tie this around his neck; let one end hang down.”

The child obeyed, but her fingers trembled; and Bouncer whined and
licked her hand.

“Pull it tighter.”

That was not difficult, for the soft silk slipped into a knot as strong
as if tied in hemp.

“Bring him here.” The man stepped out and laid his hand on a sapling
that grew beside the Lodge. May Nell followed with the dog.

“Now hold his head between your hands and tell him not to touch me.”

The child was “boiling inside,” yet she believed Bouncer’s life
depended on her obedience. And anyway, Billy would come in a minute.
Oh, why wasn’t he there now!

The big hands in spite of the shiny gloves tied the dog fast and very
close to the tree. “Now give me that dinky ribbon from your hair,” he
commanded, and tied the growling dog’s forefeet together. And May Nell
knew the man’s voice was gruffer when Bouncer was helpless. He gazed
at her reproachfully from eyes that moved though his head could not.
She would never forget those sad eyes that followed her when she was
ordered away.

She glanced down the road, and swiftly around. Not a soul in sight.
Obedience was inevitable.

He held out his hand, but the little girl put hers behind her. “I’ll
come by myself,” she said with dignity. Whatever happened that dreadful
man should not touch her.

He laughed coarsely. “George Smith’s kid, all right. You’ve got the
same high way with you.”

“Where are you going to take me?” she asked, trying to equal his long
stride.

“Where you’ll be safe till I let your father know I’ve got you.”

“But you said you would take me to him. I thought you knew where he is.”

Again he laughed, and patted May Nell roughly but not unkindly. “I do;
but there’s preliminaries before I get you two together. _Sabe?_”

May Nell didn’t understand, but thought it best to answer in the
affirmative. Beyond that she said nothing, but trudged along by his
side till they came to the road and turned toward the haunted house,
when he took her suddenly in his arms and walked on in the deepest of
the dusty ruts.

“I can walk,” she said, struggling to be put down.

“So you can, but I’ll carry you just the same.” His smothering hold
warned her to quiescence; and she did not stir till he set her within
the rear door.

“Do you live here?” she questioned with an irrepressible shudder.

“No; but I stop here sometimes. Are you afraid of ghosts?”

“Oh, no; there aren’t any. Billy says so, and he knows. He knows, too,
that there are other people here beside the Italians.”

The man faced her abruptly. “The devil he knows!”

“Does he?” May Nell stared innocently into the darkening eyes. “I
should think that would make you awfully agitated.”

For an instant he looked as if he would beat her. Then his face broke
into a smile that held no fear for her. “Say, kid, you’re up to the
limit; and I’m on the square with you. In three days, if you obey me,
you’ll jump into your dad’s arms. I’ve got to lock you up now; but
nothing’s going to hurt you, and I’ll see that you’re comfortable.”

Locked up! The child’s heart beat stiflingly; yet she did not cry out;
she thought self-control would win her more favor than tears.

“This isn’t so bad,” he continued, as he led her into a sunny upper
chamber that looked on the mountain in the rear. “And it’ll be all over
in a day or so; you’ll see your father,--on the square you will, little
kid. Do you think you’ll scream? You’d better not.” He put his hand
under her chin to lift her face, and she was glad he wore gloves.

“I’ll not make a noise, and I’ll--I’ll try not to cry; but I’m afraid
I’ll ha-have t-to,” she faltered, struggling to hide her eyes that grew
moist in spite of herself.

Again he patted her shoulder, and this time his voice was more kind.
“You’re a brave little girl, and if I was your dad I’d be dead stuck on
you. Just you don’t be afraid. I’ll bring your supper by and by.”

He went out. May Nell stared after him, dazed and trembling. When the
key turned in the lock she looked around wildly; ran to the window
and tried it. It was nailed down. For a second she stood quite still,
gazing straight before her. Then the horror of her plight swept over
her; she threw herself on the bed, a crumpled little heap, buried her
face in the pillow, and sobbed piteously.




CHAPTER XV

AGAINST THE FIRE


Doctor Carter was not in when Billy arrived at his office breathless
and hatless. He had not foreseen this. All the way to town his thoughts
had raced with his wheel. He had planned how he could tell his story
the quickest; had thought of no other ear for his confidence than
Doctor Carter’s, the kind, all-understanding physician who had fought
valiantly if losingly to save Billy’s father; who had ever since been
the most thoughtful of friends as well as the best of physicians.
He seemed to Billy the only man to trust with his secret. This was
something that could not be told to the best mother in the world, even
not considering the fright it would give her; it was quite out of a
woman’s world.

The boy went into the street again, mounted and rode rapidly round the
corner. His own home was across the way; his mother might see him at
the office and call him. But once out of sight he stopped to consider
what came next. Who was the right man to tell after the Doctor? The
Sheriff!

A shiver chased up and down Billy’s spine. He knew the Sheriff by
sight only; and he was so inseparable from the handcuffs the boy had
seen protruding from a pocket, that Billy felt it would “almost fasten
suspicion on a fellow just to be seen speaking to the officer.”

But a familiar sound came to his ear, and he turned to see the Doctor’s
splendid bays pounding down the street, pulling the buggy almost by the
taut reins. Billy followed quickly and was soon closeted with the man,
who listened, first with a smile, afterward with grave attention.

“My boy, you have done a wonderful thing!” he said when Billy had
finished. “You must come with me and tell your story again. If it
comes out as I think, you’ll earn at least a thousand dollars.”

Half paralyzed with astonishment Billy went with the Doctor to the
Sheriff’s office; but he was out and the deputy didn’t know when he
would return; thought it might be within an hour or so. There was
nothing to do but wait. Billy’s perplexed, baffled face touched the
Doctor. His temples were already gray, but he had not forgotten how a
boy feels.

“You don’t want to see your mother now, do you, boy? No more do you
feel like jabbering with Bess at our table. Come over to the hotel, and
we’ll lunch together.”

“But Mrs. Carter’ll expect--” Billy began, yet stopped, for the
physician was laughing.

“A doctor’s wife gets over ‘expecting’ very young, Billy. They won’t
think I’m dead if I don’t come home to lunch. But your mother?” His
inflection finished the question.

“She’ll be all right. May Nell and me--I--we took our lunch and went
over to Potter’s pasture. Shoot! She’s waiting now! I hope the poor
little kiddie--little girl--eats, don’t wait for me,--she an’ Bouncer.”

“Oh, she’ll eat when she gets hungry, never fear.”

But Billy thought with pride that May Nell was one person he knew
better than the Doctor.

They turned into the town’s finest hotel, just opened.

“I didn’t--I haven’t washed. I’m--” All at once as Billy walked through
the tiled entrance, and felt himself in the midst of splendors he had
viewed only from without, he was overcome with the suspicion that he
looked rather queer beside the immaculate Doctor. He knew his hair
“stood up all ways for Sunday”; and his face must be dirty. “But they
won’t know how dirty,” he reflected; “this is the time them plaguey
freckles’ll get in an’ hide the dust.” Freckles were Billy’s sorest
point.

“Come with me, Billy; I must wash up. I’ve had a dusty drive up Spring
Mountain; you know the roads aren’t watered up there.”

Billy looked the Doctor over and wondered. He was not subtle enough
to suspect the Doctor’s purpose. “Golly! I’d hate to have to wash as
much as a doctor,” he exclaimed, as they stepped into the exquisitely
appointed lavatory. “You look now like you’d just had a Turkish bath.
But I’m glad of the chance for myself.” He surely did look better when
the two came out and crossed to the big dining-room; though there was
a tell-tale streak around his neck, and his crown lock stood stiff and
divided.

At first he could not eat with relish, his mind was so distracted with
admiration of the magnificent room, and impatient to get his worrying
secret off his heart and conscience. But his wise host ordered so
artfully, and filled the intervals of waiting with such delightful
stories and anecdotes, explanations of the decorations, funny facts
or conjectures concerning the hotel and guests, that before he knew
it, Billy had, he told his mother afterward, referring to his stomach,
“loaded her up to the guards, ’nough to make you ’shamed of me, mother.”

When they entered the Sheriff’s office again it was two o’clock. He
was there, and gave Billy a private audience far more graciously than
he would have done had not Doctor Carter’s presence been voucher
for the importance of the matter. When the boy repeated his story,
less confidently, less dramatically than before, yet not needing the
Doctor’s comment to prove its value, the Sheriff drew a long breath and
emphasized it with a blow of his fist on the table.

“That’s the gang we’ve been hunting through five counties. Boy, you’ve
done what the State’s been trying a long time to do. The reward’s a
good lump; if we bag the game you shall have your share.”

Billy looked on wide-eyed, as the Doctor said with a puzzling smile,
“And, Sheriff, if I don’t think you divide fair with my friend here,
you’ve got me to deal with next election. See?”

“All right, Doc,” the other replied a bit gruffly; “suppose we catch
’em before we fight about the divvy.”

It took a very short time to gather the posse, instruct it, and set
out for the mountain. The Sheriff gave Billy an old hat and bade
him to a seat behind the swift horses; and Billy obeyed, feeling a
strange elation as they set out. It was just like a story. Could it
be he, plain Billy Bennett, that was assisting the State to find
long-sought-for criminals? The horses flew, yet Billy thought they
would never arrive at the turn in the road where they would leave
them. He felt as if in some unknown way the man at the hut would surely
know of their coming, would hide, destroy, perhaps carry off all that
would convict him, and the other, the big man,-- Oh, would they never
be there?

But a different and sudden fear leaped in both hearts as they
rounded the shoulder of the mountain. The air had rapidly grown more
oppressive; now they knew the cause, the forest was on fire!

June had been unusually warm and dry, and careless early campers had
already started their annual conflagrations. Now high over the crest of
the mountain the flames came sweeping down; came with the wind from the
valley on the other side where they had raged till fuel was exhausted.

“Great Scott, boy! We’ll have to hurry. We must get up there before the
fire gets down. Do you know the shortest way?”

“Yes,” Billy answered breathlessly as he leaped from the buggy; “but
we’ll have to go in the way I did if you want to catch ’em sure. We can
come out by the trail.”

They tied the horses, and once hidden from the road, shed every
superfluous garment. Billy was quite ashamed of the chill he could not
help when he saw the handcuffs, pistols, and cartridges disposed neatly
and conveniently about the Sheriff’s waist. They looked so vicious,
“disrespectable.”

The heat and smoke increased alarmingly as they went on, the man
puffing at the boy’s pace. In and out, occasionally doubling and
returning but never losing altitude, Billy crashed on. His slender body
slipped through underbrush by way of small apertures that would not
admit the man’s greater bulk; he had to break his way. The boy, also
accustomed to running, climbing, had the advantage of better breath;
though the other could not, Billy still held his mouth shut against
the suffocating smoke, kept his smarting eyes partly closed.

The roar of the flames came dreadfully near. Trees cracked, crashed and
fell, sending up columns of sparks and cinders that dropped about the
panting climbers. Billy began to wonder if he would hold out to the end
of his task. His boy’s agility had easily outdone the man’s; but he had
made the trip once before that day, had ridden from town at a killing
speed; and now his endurance was almost at an end, while the Sheriff
was getting his “second wind.”

They came to the crest of the gorge. “We’ll have to slow up and zig-zag
down carefully or they’ll hear us an’ get away,” Billy suggested.

“They won’t be watching for visitors,” the man answered; “they’ll be
hiding the plant and skinning out of here,--if they haven’t already,”
he added apprehensively. He stood back to the wind and scanned the
opposite bank. “There they are, two of our fellows; the chaps haven’t
escaped in that direction.”

As ordered two of the posse were closing in from the west toward the
rendezvous. A few more steps and the four met. Those who had been
ordered to beat the mountain about the spring were waiting below; the
fire had perfectly policed that territory.

As the four descended the air in the gorge became clearer. They
approached the hut stealthily; and when in full view of the closed
door, the Sheriff told Billy his part of the work was done, and ordered
him home out of the fire.

“Oh, Mr. Sheriff, you won’t send me off now, will you, when the
business is just beginning?”

In spite of the grave situation, the officer smiled at Billy’s
entreating words, remembered suddenly the danger from both fire and
possible lurking desperadoes. “All right. Get behind that tree, and
stay out of the reach of stray shot.”

The three men lined up in front of the closed door, and one of the
deputies quickly threw it open. For an instant the officers stood
motionless with weapons drawn. Billy watched with fascinated eyes;
the moment the door opened forgot orders, ran and crouched behind the
Sheriff, peering under his uplifted arm. There in the lurid firelight
that streamed through the closed window, stood the two men he had seen
before, hands up, rigid, staring into pistol barrels. Floor boards were
torn up; strange vessels, scales, various paraphernalia Billy could not
understand, lay about them; while in a deep hole they had dug, a small,
iron-bound chest was partially covered with earth. The men’s faces were
smutched, streaming with perspiration, and pale with terror.

“Just in time, I reckon,” the Sheriff said facetiously; “pull up that
chest and come along to our party.”

Fight gleamed in the big man’s eye, and for the breath of an instant he
hesitated.

“Come, come! We can’t be cremated while we wait. Mush!”

The Sheriff was a small man with fair, curly hair like a girl’s; but
there was that in his eye that reinforced his pistol, made the big
fellow quail, the other mutter a low warning. The two lifted the chest
by its strong handles and stepped out.

In the short moments that had passed since their coming the Sheriff saw
that the fire had gained perilously. Instead of sparks great flaming
brands dropped all around them; the crests of the ravine were sheets of
fire that swept downward, wrapping every tree and shrub in their path,
making of the pines huge towers of flame.

“There’s a better way,” Billy called, when the deputy leading started
to climb back as he had come. “Follow the creek; there’s a trail.”

“That’s good news. Run ahead, boy, and show us the way. Fly, fly!”

Billy needed no hurrying. He dashed off along a well defined path, free
from hindering branches. It hugged the brawling stream, crossed it
more than once by way of stepping stones, and led on past the already
shriveling azaleas. It must have been long used to be so clear.

Billy ducked his head into the cooling water, filled his mouth, and
ran on. He could hear the painful breathing of the prisoners bearing
the chest. It looked heavy, and he knew it was hard to carry, walking
single file down the steep trail. How awfully they must feel, Billy
thought. It was like the children in the fiery furnace. Did the men see
that this was a tragic beginning of the just penalty for their sins?
Cheats! Robbers! No, not robbers, boldly risking life for booty, but
cunning thieves, stealing from their fellow men, from widows, orphans,
perhaps from his own mother; she had taken a counterfeit piece only a
little while before.

The heat was awful; yet it was growing less, for the fire was nearly
spent, but Billy was so exhausted he did not perceive it. He began to
stumble, to see double. Everything seemed to be on fire,--trees, rocks,
even the water gleaming from overhead flames. His blood felt hot in his
veins; and long afterward he saw red in his sleep. At length his foot
caught in a root, and he fell heavily.

They came upon him a second later, insensible, his head bleeding from
a scalp wound. Hurriedly the Sheriff lifted him close to the brook,
dashed water over his face, washed out the cut a little, and bound it
with his handkerchief, not untenderly if in haste; for Billy had won
something more than his approval.

“Oh, don’t wait for me,” Billy exclaimed, opening his eyes suddenly;
“you won’t catch ’em! The fire’ll get there first! Hurry! Leave me
alone, I tell you!”

The Sheriff smiled at the note of command in the boy’s incoherence.
“Not on your life, sonny,” and his voice softened; “we’ve got to have
you in our business. Help him along,” he said to one of the deputies,
as they came a moment later to where the path broadened; while he
walked behind covering the panting prisoners.

Presently they came to others of the posse, and after that to a
long line of farmers and other citizens, fighting desperately but
successfully against the dying flames.

The clearer air revived Billy, and he was soon walking without help,
coming shortly to the road where the wagons waited; coming in sight of
Ellen’s Isle.

May Nell! Where was she? He had forgotten her! It must be
three--four-- Oh, how late was it? Was she safe? Or had she fainted
from fright; and was she lying there now, helpless? He looked across
the plashing river to the green, blossoming isle, grateful for water
and grass and green shrub, and the sheltering Lodge that would keep her
safe from the fire. Yet the terror of being there alone, of seeing that
awful sheet of flame sweep down the mountain to her very feet,--perhaps
a fainting spell,--that surely must have followed,--with no one there
to revive her, it might be--fatal!

“Oh, Betsey, give it to me!” he whispered in agony of soul. “Don’t let
up’s long’s I live! Maybe I’ve killed her!”

But even as he looked he saw two people coming; his mother and Jean,
crossing the foot-bridge that led to the pasture side of the river. The
throbbing in his head, the stifled lungs, interest in the capture of
the prisoners,--all faded before this terrible dread.

“Let me go, please!” he pleaded. “There’s a little girl, our refugee,
over there, fainted, I think, perhaps--dead.”

The Sheriff wondered at the boy’s vehemence, yet was too busy loading
the wagon to pay much attention to him. “Think you’re fit, sonny? You
look all in. Better ride to town--we’ll send some one for the little
girl.”

“Oh, no, no! I’m fit--I must find her myself--right now!”

The man gave him an affectionate slap. “Go, then. You’re a right game
kid, sure.”

Billy was off, fear lending fleetness to feet that a moment before had
been leaden. He overtook his mother and Jean in the path to the Lodge.
“Have you come for her?” he panted. “Do you think she’s alone still?”

“What has happened to you, Billy?” his mother questioned sharply as she
turned at his voice and saw his damaged head. “You’re hurt, Billy!”

“Not a bit!” His words were strangely impatient. “I’ve got to find
her!” He started past them.

“Wait, Billy! You _are_ hurt, badly. Let me see.” She put out a
detaining hand.

But he was not to be hindered. “It’s only a scratch, mother; you can
fuss it up all you want to later; but you mustn’t stop me now!” He
pulled away from her and bounded up the path.

“It’s my fault, too, Mrs. Bennett; don’t put the blame all on Billy,”
Jean half sobbed; and hurried after him.

But Mrs. Bennett wasn’t blaming any one; she didn’t really know what
the excitement was all about.

Before he emerged from the leafy path Billy heard well-known whining,
and wondered why the dog didn’t come to meet him. The next instant he
saw him straining against his bonds.

Bouncer tied? That red handkerchief! The boy went cold and pale.
Before he looked he knew that May Nell was not there. He turned his
white face to the others as they came up.

“She’s been stolen, mother! But I’ll find her--I know where to look.
Don’t be afraid, mother, I _will_ find her!” he repeated with grave
emphasis, as he whipped out his knife and cut the dog loose.

“Billy! Who could steal our little girl? I cannot think it. She’s gone
with some of the children to watch the fire.” Mrs. Bennett’s words were
braver than her face, for in her heart she felt Billy was right, though
she wondered why.

“They’ve stolen her, all right. I don’t know why, but I know who,--it’s
the Ha’nt people!” Billy panted, coming out of the Lodge.

“O Billy!” Jean gasped, fear for the little, delicate girl in that eery
place lending sympathy to her voice.

“Are you sure, my boy? I’ll go with you--”

“No, no, mother! This is business for only Bouncer and me.” He caught
up the cut handkerchief and called the dog before his mother could
hinder. “Find her, Bouncer! Find May Nell! Sic ’em!” he shouted, and
set off heedless of his mother’s continued protestations, after the
bounding dog.

“You can send some one after us, a man--not you, not either of you,” he
called back over his shoulder, and was soon out of sight.

Jean was for following in spite of Billy’s commands; but Mrs. Bennett,
full of apprehension, insisted that the girl should go with her; and
the two set out in search of help.




CHAPTER XVI

THE BRIDGE TO SAFETY


Neither boy nor dog paused till they came to the dusty road. There
Bouncer stopped and ran excitedly about the spot where the big man had
taken May Nell in his arms; doubled back on his track, stopped again,
and looked up at Billy, perplexity written all over his face. Billy
encouraged him with word and caress; but he came at last, put his nose
against Billy’s knee, and whined apologetically.

“Never mind, Bouncer. I’ve another card up my sleeve!” He patted and
hugged the old dog till his tail waved once more gracefully over his
back. “Here! Try this. Sic ’em!” Billy thrust the scraps of red silk
under his nose; and in an instant Bouncer was off after the new scent.

“I knew it!” Billy panted feverishly. “The Ha’nt!” Heedless of the dog
running with his nose close to the ground, Billy rushed on. His shirt
was torn, his trousers hanging by one suspender, his shoes cut and one
tap turned back. Ashes whitened his hair; though at the back a dark
mat was still damp from oozing blood,--the handkerchief that had bound
it had been torn off by a twitching twig. His smarting eyes watered so
that he could hardly see his way. Yet of all this he was unconscious.
Weariness, pain, his cracked and bleeding lips,--he knew nothing of
them, felt nothing.

It was as if some tremendous force had taken possession of his tired,
stricken body, and carried it on with no volition of his own. Afterward
he remembered, understood; knew it was his own will that rose and ruled
every bodily faculty; knew, and was glad, for that day he stepped into
a realm of power he should never lose as long as he lived.

In front of the stone steps that led up to the barred door he
hesitated; but the dog raced round to the rear. Instantly Billy
followed.

What if the Italians should be there? Impossible. Surely they would
be on the mountain fighting fire. What if the door should be locked?
The thought made him tremble, yet he hurried on and softly tried the
handle. It would not open!

Baffled, yet knowing he had expected it, he ran this way and that,
peering round each corner, scanning the bare, high walls to see if by
chance some window had been left unbarred. Not one less than a dozen
feet from the ground! He ran back to the door, was almost tempted to
shake it, yet knew that would be a foolish trick; some one might be
within guarding May Nell; might at the first noise still more securely
hide her,--they said there were fearfully deep and dark cellars under
that house! She might come to--to some dreadful harm!

In desperation he stood still, gazing at the windows above;
reprimanding the dog sharply when he whined, though his fingers
unconsciously patted away the sting of the rebuke.

The solid rock of the mountain had been cut away from the rear of the
house to form a natural, paved court. At the top was a small chicken
coop, its wall flush with the wall of rock; and near it grew an oak
sapling not larger than Billy’s arm.

It quickly occurred to him to run around and climb up there by the
coop. Perhaps he could see into the windows--perhaps see-- He didn’t
wait to finish his thought, but scrambled frantically up the steep and
came around to the top of the wall. The window opposite and level with
him was bare but not as dirty as the others; and against it he saw a
bed-post. Anyway that room was used by some one besides ghosts, he
thought; and wondered what to do next. Just then Bouncer sprang up and
gave a single short bark, his bark of greeting.

“She’s there, old dog!” Billy caught Bouncer’s nose tight in his hand
to prevent a repetition; and at that instant May Nell herself appeared
at the window!

It took two hands to hold the dog’s mouth shut now; and for a minute
that Billy thought much longer, it seemed as if he never would be able
to make him keep quiet. But he succeeded at last, and turned again to
see May Nell standing in full view with her finger on her lips.

“Are you hurt?” Billy spelled with the hand alphabet every boy and girl
knows.

“No; well,” came the answer.

“Alone?”

“Not in the house; in this room, yes.”

“Who?”

“One of the brothers, hurt.”

“Any one else?”

“I don’t know.”

“Open window.”

“I can’t. Nailed.”

“Break it,--not now; when I tell you.”

“No, no! They’ll kill us!”

From where he stood Billy could see the distress in her face. He must
think of a way to get her, and he must, _must_ hurry!

He ran back a few steps and found a loose board he had climbed over
when coming up. This he carried to the edge of the wall. “When I call,”
he spelled out, “break window, use chair, come across on board.”

She shook her head.

Just then he saw a wagon in the distance rounding the curve of the
mountain. This was his minute. He must get her before that team passed.
Then if any one attempted to prevent him he would have help. He turned
back to May Nell.

“You must do it,” he spelled. His stiffened fingers must have carried
authority, for she nodded; and he saw her get a chair and stand with
it, ready to do his bidding.

He lifted the board, trying its weight. Could he ever get it safely
placed? Higher he lifted it, and began to let it drop; but he saw that
if the other end missed the window sill, it would pull him down to the
court below. Frantic, he stared about for help, for inspiration. He
dared not wait till the passers came in hearing; the sound of his voice
calling might too soon rouse men inside, make them shoot perhaps. As
it was he expected every minute to see a swarthy face appear, a hand
with a knife or pistol. It was not for himself he feared, but for May
Nell, the little girl who for some strange reason was worth something
to these desperadoes, and whose life would be on his soul if he did not
save her.

His boyish knowledge and imagination, equal to many pictures of danger
for the girl, did not extend to her captors. He never stopped to
consider, nor would he have understood if he had, the plight of the
criminals. He knew that two had been captured, one of whom before that
had carried off May Nell; but his small newspaper reading of “gangs” of
counterfeiters had given him visions of dozens of desperate criminals,
terrorizing communities, and equal to any bold crime. Now in his mind’s
eye he could see men skulking in the brush, listening in rooms below,
only waiting to pounce on May Nell the moment she smashed the window.
Oh, yes, he must hurry--hurry!

In his distress his wandering eye discovered a bunch of vine ties,
short pieces of soft hemp rope for fastening vines to their supporting
stakes. They were hanging against the rear of the coop, and a gust
of wind had blown them into view. Like a flash he sprang and caught
them; tied several together in quick, strong knots, and lashed himself
to the little tree. Then he took up the board again, poised it at a
perpendicular, calculated the angle, and slowly dropped it. Would the
end reach the sill? No, it was too short!

He tried to hold it from falling, but could not. It seemed as if his
arms would be pulled out of their sockets. It would fall short--he must
hold on to it, not let it strike below, for the noise would betray them
too soon; and--the men in the wagon were passing!

With a supreme effort he straightened his arms just as the board
reached the level of the sill, pushed it forward with all his might;
and--it caught! Caught by an inch or less!

“Stop!” his upheld warning hand said to May Nell. He found his knife,
cut his lashings, and beckoned to her vehemently. He waited only for
the crash of glass and sash, when he threw himself outstretched on the
ground, and pushed the board hard against the lower edge of the window
frame.

[Illustration: She scudded across the bending board]

“It’s up to you now, my girl,” he panted under his breath. “The board
will bend--you mustn’t be frightened. Fix your eyes on the tree--come
fast.”

Gee! It was a scaly trick for a little girl, he thought; and felt sick.
Would the plank bend too much? Slip? She was such a little thing--if
only she could be a truly fairy for a minute!

“Oh, God, walk with her!” he prayed silently when he felt her weight
first touch the board; prayed as he never had before. It seemed as if
something strange and strong was going out of him right to May Nell.

Yet almost before the prayer was breathed the child with incredible
swiftness scudded across the bending board and stood safe by his side!

He sprang up, caught her hand, and raced with her down the rocky steep,
calling wildly to the men in the wagon as he ran. Bouncer, no longer
watched, vented his pent-up excitement in noisy yelps; and above the
din Billy heard loud angry words in a foreign tongue that he knew were
execrations, commands to return.

It seemed to him that his voice made no sound; that May Nell never ran
so slowly; that the travellers would surely not hear him, not stop. How
could they hear in all the noise?

Yet they had already stopped, turned, and driven quickly to the house,
hurried by the frenzy in the boy’s tones.

“Take her in,” Billy gasped. “They stole her; they’re after--save
her--hurry--” He could say no more, but suddenly collapsed and sank to
the ground; and the last sight he remembered was the dark Italian at
the house corner, talking fast, with one hand in a sling, the other
waving a knife threateningly.

Yes, Billy had fainted for the first time in his life. The two men,
heedless of the Italian, took the boy up gently. One sat in the bed of
the wagon and held Billy as easily as possible, while the other lifted
May Nell to the seat, mounted beside her, and drove rapidly back to
town.




CHAPTER XVII

BILLY TO-DAY


Things happened very fast the next few days. “Something doing every
minute,” Billy put it. Billy had neither been ill nor injured,--only
exhausted. The wound on his scalp had been worse in appearance than
in fact; and a couple of long nights in sleep, and easy days at home
mended him completely.

Was not May Nell safe? Almost recovered from her fright and hours of
imprisonment? Was not the town ringing with her courage and quaint
sayings? For she had told her story more than once; and when she came
to the place where she said, “And I thought, ‘God can see me all the
time; if He means for me to suffer awfully I must have an awful lot of
courage; I must ask Him for it.’ So I did, and I said ‘Now I lay me,’
and lay down on the bed so I could hear God speak--you know you can
hear better lying down--and I waited--”

When she came to this point all her listeners looked for their
handkerchiefs. And May Nell stopped suddenly, smiled, and finished,
“And God heard me; and Billy rescued me.”

May Nell was not taken to her father; he came to her. Edith’s pictures
of the little girl fulfilled their mission; they met him as soon as
he landed from South America. He had been a busy man during those few
days; had found not only his child but his wife, ill in a country
sanitarium; where, for weeks after the earthquake and fire had, she
supposed, swallowed her little daughter, she lingered, praying only to
die. Now with husband and child both saved to her, she was fast growing
well; needed only their presence to complete her recovery.

It was on the first of these busy days in San Francisco that the big
counterfeiter saw at a distance May Nell’s father; saw the child’s
pictures posted in the galleries, hurried back to the “Ha’nt,” and
planned the kidnapping as a chance for “getting even” with Mr. Smith,
who had discharged him years before for dishonesty. But Billy had
thwarted him, brought him safely to justice for all of his crimes.

“I always knew that house had something to do with me,” Billy declared
to Mr. Smith. “The kids call it a wicked house, but it’s only the
people living in it that’s wicked. It’s a splendid old place; and when
I’m a man and have money enough, I’m going to buy it and fix it up
fine, and give it a fair chance.”

Friday came; and May Nell delighted her father with her part in the
exercises. Billy was very proud of her as she stood on the platform,
lovely in her white frock and her fair, curling hair, reciting her
“piece.”

“She’s the swellest looking one in the whole school,” he whispered to
his smiling mother.

“The prize is equally divided between James Dorr and William Bennett,”
the judges announced.

And that night after school, when May Nell’s little wardrobe was all
packed,--not without a slight baptism of Edith’s tears,--and waiting
for the morning train, Mr. Smith came in and put a ceremonious looking
document into Billy’s hand.

“The Sheriff tells me a thousand dollars will be paid to your account
as soon as the State settles, Billy. Here’s something else for you.”

Billy turned the bulky papers over and over as if to gather some hint
of their meaning from fold and stiffness. “What is it, Mr. Smith?” he
asked wonderingly.

“A deed to the stone house, the Ha’nt, May Nell calls it. I was glad
to know of something you wanted; and I’ll furnish the money to redeem
the place to your idea of the beauty it deserves. It is a splendid
location. And Mrs. Bennett,” he turned to Billy’s mother, “you must let
me see Billy through college.”

“Oh, no! It’s too much. We only did what all--”

“Too much?” he interrupted; “is anything I have in this world too much
to give for the life of my wife and child? Didn’t your son save them
both? Save May Nell from--” He turned away and did not attempt to
finish his sentence.

May Nell ran and hugged Mrs. Bennett, and Edith and Billy in turn,
nestling afterward in her father’s arms.

“Surely Billy has earned it, Mrs. Bennett,” Mr. Smith urged.

“And I’m always going to be your little girl, too,” the child pleaded;
“so Billy must be my papa’s little boy.”

Mrs. Bennett looked fondly at Billy, then back to Mr. Smith. “Thank
you,” she said slowly, trying to gather courage for what she was to
say. “Billy must not be paid for doing his duty. With the money he has
earned from the State I am sure we shall be able to help him through a
good schooling; for the rest my husband’s son must win his own way.”

Billy felt his head lift a little higher at his mother’s words; felt a
new standard of honor and independence leap into being. The house was
too small for him. He ran out into the summer evening, down the hill
to the big rock that overhangs Runa Creek. The stars were beginning to
shine, and he could hear the tinkle of the water below. Bouncer rubbed
against him, and Billy hugged him to the peril of the old dog’s breath.

“They shan’t ever again call me Billy To-morrow. It’s Billy To-day,
Bouncer. It shall always be _Billy To-day_!”


THE END




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.