Chapter VII: Part 7

"Let well enough alone," said Mrs. O'More, glad to have Billy so completely taken off her hands; "folks can't afford to be different to their own, unless they've got the price. I've made her a good dress out of a remnant of bright plaid I bought, so next week she can shell off them shabby black duds that give me the shivers every time I see them. Maybe fixin' up like other girls 'll bring her to and liven her. She's queer though, sure enough, don't give no sass, and it ain't natural; I never seen a girl her age before that didn't talk back, and sometimes it riles me to see her keep so close shet when I up and let fly."

In September school began, but this brought further disappointment, for Bird had hoped to find a friend at least in the teacher. She was, however, graded according to her size and age, not ability, as if she had been a wooden box, and found herself in an overcrowded room, a weak-eyed little Italian, with brass earrings, seated on one side of her, and the Polish sausage-seller's daughter on the other, her dirty hands heavy with glass rings, which caused her to keep whispering behind Bird's back as to her lack of jewellery and style; while at the first recess this little Slav told the astonished Bird, "If yer tink to get in vid us, you'll got to pomp you 'air; dis crowt, we's stylish barticular--ve iss."

As to the teacher in trim shirt-waist, with pretty hands and hair, to whom the class recited in chorus, Bird longed to speak to her, to touch her, but she fled to a purer atmosphere as soon as school was out, and was remote as the stars.

As the weather grew cool, the fire-escape arbour was abandoned; they could spend less time out of doors, and Bird felt caged indeed. The engine-house now was the limit of their walks, for it grew dark very soon after school was out. Still they never tired of seeing the horses dash out, and Billy called Big Dave "my fireman," and used to shout to him as he passed in the street. So the autumn passed.

* * * * *

It was a clear, cold afternoon a little before Christmas; the shops were gay with pretty things, and the streets with people. Billy was in a fever of excitement because his father, who had left home on a business trip a few days before, had promised him a Christmas tree, and Bird had gone out to buy the candles and some little toys to put on it, at a street stall. Billy, however, did not go, for he was not to see the toys until Christmas Eve.

Bird wandered across to Broadway at 23rd Street, and then followed the stream of shoppers southward. Was it only a year since last Christmas when she had helped trim the tree at Sunday-school in Laurelville and had sung the treble-solo part in--

"Watchman! tell us of the night;
What the signs of promise are."

Would there ever again be any signs of promise for her? Somehow she had never before felt so lonely for her father as in that merry crowd. She wondered if he saw and was disappointed in her, and what Lammy was doing. Going up on the hill probably with the other village children to cut the Christmas tree and greens for church.

Not minding where she went, she followed the crowd on past and around Union Square and down town again. Then realizing that she was facing away from home and had not bought her candles, she looked up and saw on the opposite side of the street a beautiful gray stone church. At one side and joined to it was what looked like a house set well back from the street, from which it was separated by a wide garden. People were going in and out of the church by twos and threes.

A voice seemed to call Bird, and she too crossed Broadway and timidly pushed open the swinging door.

At first she could see nothing, as the only lights in the church were near the chancel. Then different objects began to outline themselves. There was no service going on, the people having come in merely for a few quiet moments.

Bird stood quite still in the little open space by a side door back of the pews; it was the first really peaceful time she had known since the day that she and Lammy carried the red peonies to the hillside graveyard, and as she thought of it, she seemed to smell the sweet spruce fragrance of those runaway Christmas trees that watched where her parents slept.

A flock of little choir boys trooped in from an opposite door for the final practice of their Christmas carols and grouped themselves in the stalls. Next a quiver of sound rushed through the church as the great organ drew its breath and swelled its lungs, as if humming the melody before breaking into voice. Then above its tones rang a clear boy-soprano.

"Watchman! tell us of the night
What the signs of promise are."

and the chorus answered--

"Traveller! o'er yon mountain height,
See that glory-beaming star."

The answering echo quivered in Bird's throat, suffocating her, and as, unable to stand, she knelt trembling upon the floor the odour of spruce again enveloped her, and groping, she found that she was really leaning against a pile of small trees that had been brought there to decorate the church for Christmas Eve, and as the door opened, men came in bringing more--dozens and dozens of them, it seemed.

Bird picked up a broken twig, and in spite of its sharpness pressed it against her face, kissing it passionately, never noticing that she was directly in the passage between the door and aisle, where presently a gentleman coming hurriedly in stumbled over her.

He was about to pass on with a curt apology, but glancing down, he saw that it was a little girl, and that though comfortably dressed and not actually poor, her face showed signs of distress and tears, so he stopped.

"What is it, my child?" he said. "Have you lost your way, or what? Come here and sit in this pew while you tell me about it. I've a daughter at home only a couple of years older than you, and she doesn't like to have any one sad at Christmas time."

It was months since any one had spoken to Bird in the gentle tongue that had been her father's and was her own, and though the tears started anew, she made haste to obey, lest he should suddenly disappear like all her pleasant dreams.

He was an alert, middle-aged man of affairs. He had a fine presence and keen eyes and, without making her feel that he was prying, succeeded in drawing out the bare facts of her story, nothing more, so that he had no idea that the trouble was more than a country-bred child's homesickness at being shut up in the city, and having to go to school instead of reading all day long and trying to paint flowers.

"So you used to live in Laurelville?" he said; "why, I have a country place near there, not far from Northboro, my native town, where I built an Art School, and I have little city girls come to us there every summer for a playtime. If you will remember and write, or come to me when the next summer vacation begins, you shall be one of them. Meanwhile keep this, my address." He handed her a card and passed on, for he was a good man and rich, with many people to make happy at Christmas time, and to be both rich and good in New York one must work very hard indeed.

Going out into the street again, Bird read the name on the card before slipping it into her pocket. Wonder of wonders! it was Clarke, the same as that of the wall-paper manufacturer whose manager had asked Terry to make designs for him. Of course he must be Marion Clarke's father. The address was different from the one of the factory, but Bird knew enough of the city now to guess that this number on the card was of his house, and she now remembered that people had said that he conducted many various manufactories.

So he had built the School of Design at Northboro that she had dreamed about ever since she went there with her father to look at an exhibition of drawings! Could it be that this card was the Christmas sign of hope and promise to her? She almost flew homeward after buying the candles and little toys, and laughed and chatted so cheerfully with Billy when she gave him his supper, that her cousin Larry, who had always teased her for being set up, remarked to his mother, "Ladybird is coming down from her perch some; maybe she'll get to be like us, after all." But it was upward, not downward, that the brave, clipped wings were struggling.

* * * * *

Between Christmas and New Year there came a snow-storm, and then bitterly cold weather. In Laurelville snow meant sleighing, coasting, bracing air, and rosy cheeks; in East 24th Street it signified soaked skirts, sodden shoes, and sore throats, while for Billy it brought unhappy shut-in days, for his crutch slipped dangerously in icy weather.

One evening Mrs. O'More was called out to sit with a sick neighbour. She told Bird not to wait up as she might be late, and she would take the key with her, as the boys had keys of their own if they came in first.

Bird was used to thus staying shut into the flat alone, and so after she heard the key turn in the door of their narrow hallway, she amused herself for perhaps an hour by drawing, and then went to bed. She had been dragging Billy about on his sled up and down the street all the afternoon, so she soon fell into a heavy sleep.

It must have been a couple of hours after when she waked up suddenly and tried vainly to think where she was. The room felt hot and airless, and a strange smell of scorched leather filled the air. She managed to get on her feet, pulled on a few clothes, and tried to open a side window, but it stuck fast. Going to the front, she raised the sash, and as she did so, a cloud of smoke poured into the room, while the shouts and clashing of gongs in the street told what it was that had wakened her--the fire-engines! The great sales stables with their tons of hay and straw were on fire, and the house also, while in the street all was in an uproar of frightened horses and men.

Rushing back to her room, she shook Billy awake and, wrapping a few clothes about him, dragged him toward the hall door. It was locked of course, as Mrs. O'More had taken the key. By this time the smoke and flames were pouring in the front windows. Ah, the fire-escape! Through the kitchen she struggled, and out on to the icy balcony, having the sense to close the window behind her.

The back yards were full of firemen, and excited people hung from the windows of opposite buildings. Bird tried to raise the trap in the floor door, but the boxes of frozen earth that had held the morning-glories bore it down, making it useless, and the one below was hopelessly heaped with litter.

Would nobody see her? Billy clung to her, sobbing pitifully, for he was lightly covered, and shivered with cold as well as fear. The window-frame inside was catching, and heat also came up from below. Was this the end? Must the wild bird die in her cage?

Suddenly a great shout arose in the rear; people had seen and were pointing them out. Up came the firemen, climbing, clinging, battering down the obstructions before them. Ah, those wonderful firemen that keep our faith in old-time valour!

A moment more, and an axe struck open the prisoned trap-door, a head came through, and a voice cried, "Good God, it's Bird and little Billy!"

"Dave, my fireman!" sobbed the boy, flinging himself into the strong arms. "Take him," commanded Bird, as the man hesitated an instant; "I can follow." Down the ladder they went step by step until the flames from the lower story crept through and stopped them again, and the slender fire ladder, held by strong arms, shot up to them, and Dave's mate grasped Bird and carried her down to safety. Then the firemen cheered, and tears rolled down Big Dave's cheeks unchecked.

Kind, if rough, people took them in and warmed and fed them, and more kind people guided Mrs. O'More to them when she rushed frantically home. But little Billy had suffered a nervous shock, and lay there moaning and seeming to think that the fire still pursued him.

"He will need great care and nursing to pull him through, for he is naturally delicate," said the doctor the next day when they had moved into a couple of furnished rooms that were rented to Mrs. O'More by a friend in a near-by street until she could pull herself together, as they had lost everything. "He must either go to a hospital or have a nurse," continued the doctor, gravely. But Mrs. O'More could not be made to see it.

"His father'd never forgive me if I put him out o' me hands," she said; "he'll pick up from the fright after a bit, and what with John away, and never saving a cent of cash no more than the boys, and the business all burned out along with us, I've not money in hand for the wasting on nurses."

Bird knew better,--knew that Billy was very sick, and she could not let him die so. Ah! the keepsake, the precious coin! Now was the time to spend it, for there could be no greater necessity than this. What if it was not enough? Even if it was not much, it might do until her uncle got back, and then she knew Billy would have care if his father begged in the street for it.

Going away in a corner, she unfastened the silver chain and detached the little bag from it. With difficulty she ripped the thong stitches, but instead of a coin, out of many wrappings fell a slender band of gold set with one large diamond. As she turned the ring over in surprise, some letters within caught her eye--"Bertha Rawley, from her godfather, J. S."

This was the name of Terence O'More's mother, and the ring had been a wedding gift from her godfather, and the one valuable possession that she had clung to all her troubled life. But Bird knew nothing of this.

What could Bird do with it? She pondered--her city life had made her shrewd; she knew the miseries of the poor who went to the pawn shops, and guessed that any one in the neighbourhood might undervalue the ring, or likely enough say that she stole it.

Mr. Clarke--she would go to him! Now was the time! She borrowed a hat and wrap from the woman of whom the rooms were rented and stole out. In an hour she came back with a triumphant look upon her face, and laying a roll of bills before her aunt, said, "I've sold my keepsake; now we will have a nurse for Billy right away."

After she understood about the money, and found that it was one hundred dollars, Mrs. O'More broke down and cried like a baby, telling Bird that she was a real lady and no mistake. And then adding, to Bird's indignation, "I wonder did you get the value o' the ring, or did he cheat you, the old skin!" But, nevertheless, the nurse came, and not an hour too soon.

Meanwhile a certain rich man sat at his library desk, holding a diamond ring in his hand, saying, half aloud: "I believe the girl's story, though I suppose most people would say she stole the ring, or was given it by those who did. It is healthier to believe than to doubt. I shall investigate the matter to-morrow and keep the ring for the child. It is a fine stone worth four times the sum I gave her, but she would not take any more than the one hundred dollars, nor was it wise for me to press her. Ah! letters inside! Bertha Rawley! She said her grandmother was an Englishwoman. That new superintendent of the Northboro Art School is named Rawley. He studied at South Kensington. I wonder if they could be related. O'More. I think that name comes into that Mill Farm deed mix-up. I will write to Rawley at once and see what is known about the girl in Laurelville, for something tells me that child is 'one of these little ones' who should be helped."

XV

THE BIRD IS FREED

January was half over before it was possible for the Lanes to take their long-promised trip to New York to look up Bird and bring her back, as her uncle had exacted, a legal sister to Lammy.

Moving from the small house into the large one, even though the necessary repairs were to be made by degrees, was more of an undertaking than Mrs. Lane had bargained for. Also it took Lammy a long time to get "the bones back in his legs," though happiness and Dr. Jedd's tonics worked wonders.

Dr. Jedd had suggested that a furnace required much less care than three or four stoves, and so one had been put in. Mrs. Jedd, who had very good taste, and a tactful way of expressing it that never gave offence, suggested to Mrs. Lane that, instead of covering the mahogany parlour set with red plush, the floor with a red-figured tapestry brussels, replacing the small window-panes with great sheets of glass, bricking up the wide fireplace, and then closing the whole room up except, as Joshua said, for funerals, it should be turned into a comfortable living-room.

This suited Joshua, the older boys, and Lammy exactly, and though Lauretta Ann demurred at first, saying, "It didn't seem hardly respectable not to hev a best room," she quickly yielded, and said that it "would be a real comfort to have a separate place to eat in when there was a lot of baking on hand and the kitchen all of a tousle, likewise to set in after meals."

So the old furniture was recovered with a suitable dull green corduroy, and some comfortable Morris chairs added, "that pa and the boys wouldn't be tempted to set back on the hind legs of the mahogany, which is brittle." A deep red rug, that would not have to be untacked at housecleaning times, covered the centre of the floor, with Grandmother Lane's long Thanksgiving dinner-table in the centre, and a smaller round one with folding leaves in the corner, for the entertaining of the friends who were constantly dropping in for a chat and a cup of tea and crullers or a cut of mince pie, for no one in the county had such a reputation for crullers and mince meat, combined with a lavish use of them, as Lauretta Ann Lane.

Next Mrs. Jedd ventured to suggest that the fireplace be left open and some of the big logs, with which Aunt Jimmy had always kept the woodshed filled, simply because her mother had done so before her, used for a nightly hearth fire.

Mrs. Lane said she hadn't any andirons and the ashes would make dust, but Joshua was so pleased with the idea of returning to old ways that she yielded; and when, on the old fire-board being removed to clean the chimney of soot and swallows' nests, a pair of tall andirons and a fender were found, the matter settled itself, and Mrs. Lane soon came to take pride in the cheerful blaze, while the best dishes, which were of really handsome blue and white India porcelain, were ranged in racks over the mantel-shelf.

Then there was a sunny southwest window, and Joshua fastened a long shelf in front of this for his wife's geraniums, wax-plant, and wandering Jew that had shut out the light from the best window in the kitchen, and these brought in the welcome touch of greenery in spite of the particoloured crimped paper with which she insisted upon decorating the pots.

"How Bird will love this room!" Lammy said a dozen times a day, as he remembered how prettily she had arranged the scanty furnishings at the house above the crossroads, and disliked everything that savoured of show or cheap finery, and it seemed to him that Bird's companionship was the only thing necessary to prove that heaven, instead of being a far-away region, at least had a branch at the fruit farm in Laurelville.

The doctor said that Lammy must not return to school until the midwinter term, and so he spent his time in the shop back of the barn, making many little knickknacks for the house, not a few of them being intended for Bird's room, for which he also designed a low book-shelf that made a seat in the dormer window, and a table with a hinge that she could use when she wished to draw or paint, and then close against the wall.

This room was next to Mrs. Lane's, and had two dormer windows and a deep press closet lighted by a high window, under which the washstand stood. It was furnished with a white enamelled bed and a plain white painted dresser, upon which, Lammy said, Bird could paint whatever flowers she chose. There were frilled curtains of striped dimity at the windows, and a quilt and bed valance of the same, for Mrs. Lane despised any ornamental fabric that would not wash and "bile." The floor was covered with matting, but three sheepskin rugs of home raising and dyed fox colour were placed, one at the side of the bed, one before the bureau, and one under the wall table, upon which Bird's paint-box stood close to the leather-paper portfolio that Lammy had made to hold the precious sketches.

He had tried his best to find a wall paper with a red "piney" border, but they told him at the great paper warehouse at Northboro that they had never seen such a paper, so he took wild-rose sprays instead.

Lammy had also filled a small bark-covered box with Christmas ferns, ebony spleenwort, wintergreen, partridge-berries, and moss, for the window-ledge, while fresh festoons of ground-pine topped the windows even though Christmas was long past. In fact, Lammy could hardly keep away from the room, and often when he went in, he met his mother, for whom it had the same attraction, and then they would both laugh happily and, closing the door, come away hand in hand.

It never occurred to a single member of this simple, warm-hearted family, that there was any possibility of there being a slip between cup and lip, and in this faith they presently set out upon their pilgrimage to New York, for which event Lammy wore a high collar and a new suit, his first to have long trousers.

The minister's wife and Dinah Lucky took joint charge of the house while the Lanes were in New York, for they intended staying several days, perhaps a week, as Dr. Jedd said the change was exactly what they all needed after the doings and anxieties of the past eight months, and Mr. Cole, the lawyer from Northboro, gave them the card of a good hotel close to the Grand Central Station, where they would be well treated and neither snubbed nor overcharged. For he well knew that in a New York hotel, Laurelville's Sunday-best clothes looked as strangely out of place as Dr. Jedd's carryall would on Fifth Avenue.

During the past few weeks, Alfred Rawley, the new superintendent of the Northboro School of Industrial Art, had made several visits to the Lanes, at first upon business connected with Aunt Jimmy's legacy, and then because he seemed to like to come. He was a fine-looking man of fifty, and not only a stranger in Northboro, but a bachelor without home ties. He seemed greatly interested in Bird, about whom Lammy talked so constantly that the visitor could not but hear of her, and asked to see the portfolio of drawings in which were some of hers, and he praised them very highly for their promise.

The Lanes arrived in New York just before dark of a Tuesday afternoon, and spent the rest of the evening in looking out of their windows at the remarkable and confused thoroughfare below them that was made still more of a spectacle by the glare of electric lights. Lammy wished to go and look for Bird at once, but his father wouldn't hear of doing so until broad daylight, saying:--

"Sakes alive, it ain't safe. I've been across Hill's swamp without a lantern on a foggy night a-callin' up lost sheep, but that down there with them queer kind o' two-wheel carts that bob along in narrow places like teeter snipe crossin' the mill-dam, I'll not venture it, leastwise not with mother along." So Lammy went to bed to kill time, but a little later curiosity got the better of Joshua, and he spent an hour in the lobby, where he learned, besides several other things, that the "teeter snipe" carts were called "hansome cabs."

To the surprise of the early-rising country folk, it was eleven o'clock the next morning before they found themselves ready to take a south-bound Fourth Avenue car, for the visit to Bird, and Joshua told the conductor four times in ten blocks where they wished to get off, and what they were going for, while Mrs. Lane sat still, smiling and quivering all over from the shiney tips of her first boots (other than Congress gaiters) to the jet fandango atop of a real Northboro store bonnet, and the smile was so infectious that it soon spread through the entire car.

When they got off at 24th Street and made the sidewalk in tremulous safety, they marched east in silence, counting the numbers as they went.

"'Tain't much of a neighbourhood," sniffed Mrs. Lane, wondering at the ash barrels and pails of swill that lined the way.

"Don't jedge hasty, mother," said Joshua; "we mustn't be hard on city folks that ain't got our advantages in the way o' pigs to turn swill into meat, and bog-holes ter swaller ashes what don't go to road-makin'."

"We must be near there," gasped Lauretta Ann, presently. She had been persuaded to have her new gown made a "stylish length" by Hope Snippin, the village dressmaker, in consequence of which she was grasping her skirts on both sides, floundering and plunging along very much like an old-style market schooner, with its sails fouled in the rigging.

"Oh, mother, look there!" said Lammy, with white, trembling lips. He had been running on ahead and keeping track of the numbers, but he now stood still, pointing to a half block of burned and ruined buildings, walled in ice and draped with cruel icicles that seemed to pierce his very flesh as he gazed at them.

For a minute they were all fairly speechless and stood open-mouthed, then Joshua, recovering first, settled his teeth firmly back in place, and laughing feebly, said: "Been a fire, I reckon; thet's nothing. I've heard somethin' gets afire as often as every week in N'York. They must be somewhere, and we'll jest calm down and ask the neighbours over the way--in course they'll know."

But to Joshua's wonder they didn't, at least not definitely, and all he could learn was that the O'Mores had moved somewhere a couple of blocks "over."

"Gosh, but ain't N'York a heathen town," muttered Joshua; "jest think, folks burned out an' their neighbours don't take no trouble about 'em; we might even get knocked down, and I bet they wouldn't be a bit surprised. I'd like to strike fer home."

As they wandered helplessly along block after block, the crowd of workmen and children in the streets coming home to dinner told that it was noon.

There was no use in going they did not know where, and they had not met a single policeman whom they could question. As they stood upon a corner consulting as to what they had best do, a group of girls coming up and dividing passed on either side of them, one bold-looking chit in a red plush hat and soiled gown singing out something about "When Reuben comes to town," and giving Lammy a push at the same time.

As he turned to avoid her, he heard his name called, and breaking from her mates, a slender little figure with big black eyes dropped her satchel and flung her arms around his neck, heedless of the merriment and jeers of her companions. Bird was found at last!

There was no longer any use in trying to keep up the barrier of pride, or of pretending she was happy, and Bird led her friends home to the new flat, wherein O'More had established his family on his return.

That afternoon there was a long powwow in which Mrs. O'More made herself very disagreeable, as she had come to rely upon Bird and did not wish to have Billy back upon her hands, but John O'More stood firm by his promise, saying, even if he'd never made it, Bird should have her choice after the way she'd stood by Billy in time of need. "She stuck by her blood kin, and she's a lady through and through, and we're different, and it's neither's fault that we're a reproach to each other," was O'More's summing up. "If you can keep her, you can take her, but God help little Billy! The doctor says good care a couple o' years more, an' he'll have a chance for his leg. I can pay for care, but it's not to be bought around here."

Mrs. Lane saw the tears in the rough man's eyes, and her big mother-heart throbbed, and to some purpose, as usual.

"Our doctor's wife would take him to board, I guess," she said, after thinking a minute. "She took a little boy from Northboro last summer, and did real well by him, her children bein' grown now and out of hand. Dr. Jedd, he'd give him care besides. I'll take him along with us if you think he'll grieve, and you can write or come up and settle it."

It was only then that Bird's happiness was complete, and little Billy hugged and hugged her, and cried in his piping voice, "Now we're going to fly away out of the cage to your country for _sure_ this time," and Bird answered joyfully and truthfully, "Yes."

"And the sooner we'll fly, the better I'll like it," added Joshua. "This very afternoon would suit me."

But Lauretta Ann had determined upon two things: she was going to buy the material for a black silk gown in New York, also a handsome china jar to contain the remains of the pewter tea-pot and be "a moniment to Aunt Jimmy," in the centre of the India china on the living-room mantel-shelf. Mrs. O'More, sullenly accepting her defeat, and now in her element, which was buying dress goods, offered to conduct the stranger through the mazes of Sixth Avenue department stores; so after a hasty lunch they set out, while her husband and Joshua Lane talked matters over, and the children were in a seventh heaven of anticipation.

"One thing's on me mind,--that ring the girl sold to buy doctorin' for Billy. I only hope she got the worth of it, and that the man's on the square, for she won't give me the name of the gent that bought it, and when I'm picked a bit out o' me trouble, I'd like to buy back the same, for the keepsake is her only fortune. Maybe some day you can coax the name out o' her."

"Likely I can--plenty o' time for that," drawled Joshua, who usually knew more than he appeared to.

* * * * *

The next afternoon five tired but happy people arrived at the Centre and electrified the neighbourhood by hiring a hack to take them to Laurelville, Joshua having only been persuaded to stay two days of the proposed week's excursion.

"I'm goin' to have Hope Snippin up to-morrow morning to shorten my gown," was Mrs. Lane's greeting to the minister's wife when she opened the door in alarm at the unexpected return, while Twinkle leaped into Bird's arms, fairly screaming with dog joy.

It was evident, however, that the sudden return was not wholly a surprise. Somebody had sent a telegram to somebody, and Joshua's manner in the interval before supper cast the suspicion upon him. After Bird had seen her pretty room and coaxed Billy, who was nodding drowsily, to eat his bread and milk and go to bed before the real supper, she came down to the living-room, where the table was spread for the first time instead of in the kitchen, for Dinah Lucky came in a few hours every day now to do the heavy work and give Mrs. Lane more leisure. A stranger was sitting by the fire. He rose and took Bird by the hand very gently and drew her to the lounge beside him, at the same time handing her a letter. She was too much surprised to notice that no one introduced her or told his name. She opened the letter; her keepsake ring rolled into her lap as she read:--

"DEAR BERTHA O'MORE: I know all about you now, and I believed in
you from the first. Here is your ring; wear it about your neck as
before for a keepsake, until some day, ten years or so hence--then
ask the one you love best to put it upon your left hand. With the
respect of your friend,

"MARION CLARKE'S FATHER.

"P.S. The bearer of this letter is Alfred Rawley, your
grandmother's youngest brother!"

In spite of her bewilderment, her first thought was, "So he was really Marion's father!" Next spring she would beg him to give Tessie the holiday that he had offered her that Christmastide in the twilight of the church.

Joshua Lane capered about like a young kid as his wife tried to chase him into a corner, exclaiming, "Now you jest up and tell me how long you've known all this, and not told your lawful wife!"

"Wal, let me see," he said, counting on his fingers; "considerable longer than it'll take us to eat supper," was all the answer she received.

* * * * *

That night Bird opened her bedroom window and looked out into the frosty moonlight, where far away in the distance the runaway Christmas trees were outlined against the sky and the roots of red peony that Lammy planted were waiting under the ground for their spring blooming time to come. Stretching out her arms as she drew in great reviving breaths of the clear, frosty air, then clasping her hands together, she whispered, "Terry, dear, you know it all; you know your Bird is free again, and that she remembers, and now you must help her to fly the right way."

DOGTOWN

_Being some Chapters from the Annals of the Waddles Family, set down in the Language of the House People_

By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

Author of "Tommy Anne," "Birdcraft," etc., etc.

_Illustrated by Portraits from Life by the Author_

=Cloth= =12mo= =$1.50, net=

"The dogs are entirely delightful, made alive and personal as
only the closest intimacy of knowledge and understanding could make
them."--_The Nation._

"It is a book you want for a Christmas present for the child or
grown-up dog-lover."--_American Sportsman._

FLOWERS AND FERNS IN THEIR HAUNTS

By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

_With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author and_ J. HORACE MCFARLAND

=Cloth= =12mo= =$2.50, net=

"The reader of Mrs. Wright's handsome volume will wend his way
into a fairy world of loveliness, and find not only serious wildwood
lore, but poetry also, and sentiment and pictures of the pen that
will stay with him through winter days of snow and ice.... A careful
and interesting companion, its many illustrations being particularly
useful."--_New York Tribune._

THE FRIENDSHIP OF NATURE

_A New England Chronicle of Birds and Flowers_

By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

=18mo= =Cloth, 75 cts.= =Large Paper, $3.00=

"A dainty little volume, exhaling the perfume and radiating
the hues of both cultivated and wild flowers, echoing the songs
of birds, and illustrated with exquisite pen pictures of bits of
garden, field, and woodland scenery. The author is an intimate of
nature. She relishes its beauties with the keenest delight, and
describes them with a musical flow of language that carries us
along from a 'May Day' to a 'Winter Mood' in a thoroughly sustained
effort: and as we drift with the current of her fancy and her
tribute to nature, we gather much that is informatory, for she
has made a close study of the habits of birds and the legendry of
flowers."--_Richmond Dispatch._

Four-Footed Americans and Their Kin

BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN. Illustrated by ERNEST SETON-THOMPSON

=Cloth.= =Crown 8vo.= =$1.50, net=

"It deserves commendation for its fascinating style, and for the
fund of information which it contains regarding the familiar and
many unfamiliar animals of this country. It is an ideal book for
children, and doubtless older folk will find in its pages much of
interest."--_The Dial._

"Books like this are cups of delight to wide-awake and inquisitive
girls and boys. Here is a gossipy history of American quadrupeds,
bright, entertaining, and thoroughly instructive. The text, by Mrs.
Wright, has all the fascination that distinguishes her other outdoor
books."--_The Independent._

Citizen Bird

_Scenes from Bird-life in Plain English for a Beginner_

By MABEL O. WRIGHT and DR. ELLIOTT COUES

Profusely illustrated by LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES

=Cloth.= =Crown 8vo.= =$1.50, net=

"When two writers of marked ability in both literature and
natural history write to produce a work giving scope to their
special talents, the public has reason to expect a masterpiece
of its kind. In the 'Citizen Bird,' by Mabel O. Wright and Dr.
Elliott Coues, this expectation is realized--seldom is the plan of
a book so admirably conceived, and in every detail so excellently
fulfilled."--_The Dial._

"There is no other book in existence so well fitted for arousing
and directing the interest that all children feel toward the
birds."--_Tribune_, Chicago.

Birdcraft

_A Field-Book of Two Hundred Song, Game, and Water Birds_

BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

With eighty full-page plates by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

"One of the best books that amateurs in the study of ornithology
can find ... direct, forcible, plain, and pleasing."--_Chautauquan._

"Of books on birds there are many, all more or less valuable,
but 'Birdcraft,' by MABEL O. WRIGHT, has peculiar merits that will
endear it to amateur ornithologists.... A large number of excellent
illustrations throw light on the text and help to make a book that
will arouse the delight and win the gratitude of every lover of
birds."--_Saturday Evening Gazette_, Boston.

Tommy-Anne and the Three Hearts

BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

With many illustrations by ALBERT D. BLASHFIELD

=Cloth.= =Crown 8vo.= =$1.50=

"This book is calculated to interest children in nature, and grown
folks, too, will find themselves catching the author's enthusiasm.
As for Tommy-Anne herself, she is bound to make friends wherever
she is known. The more of such books as these, the better for the
children. One Tommy-Anne is worth a whole shelf of the average
juvenile literature."--_The Critic._

Wabeno, the Magician

_The Sequel to Tommy-Anne and the Three Hearts_

By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

Fully illustrated by JOSEPH M. GLEESON

=Cloth.= =Crown 8vo.= =$1.50=

"Mrs. Wright's book teaches her young readers to use their eyes
and ears, but it does more in that it cultivates in them a genuine
love for nature and for every member of the animal kingdom. The best
of the book is that it is never dull."--_Boston Budget._

The Dream Fox Story Book

BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

With eighty drawings by OLIVER HERFORD

=Cloth.= =Small quarto.= =$1.50, net=

Mrs. Wright's new book for young people recounts the marvellous
adventures of Billy Benton, his acquaintance with the Dream Fox and
the Night Mare, and what came of it. It differs from the author's
previous stories, as it is purely imaginative and somewhat similar
to "Alice in Wonderland."

There are eight full-page illustrations, showing Billy at moments
of greatest interest, and also seventy drawings scattered throughout
the text. These illustrations are by Oliver Herford, who has entered
thoroughly into the spirit of the text, so that the pictures seem an
integral part of the story.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

Transcriber's note

Text in italics has been surrounded by _underscores_ and small capitals have been replaced with all capitals.

A few punctuation errors have been corrected. Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistent spelling and hyphenation.

End of Project Gutenberg's Aunt Jimmy's Will, by Mabel Osgood Wright