Chapter III (2)

"And that," said First Sergeant Price, "means getting to the party about four hours late. Baby-talk and nonsense! By that time they might have burned the place and killed all the people in it. Let's see, now: there's a railroad bridge close along here, somewhere."

They scouted till they found the bridge. But behold, its floor was of cross-ties only--of sleepers to carry the rails, laid with wide breaks between, gaping down into deep, dark space whose bed was the roaring river.

"Nevertheless," said First Sergeant Price, whose spirits ever soar at the foolish onslaughts of trouble--"nevertheless, we're _not_ going to ride twenty miles farther for nothing. There's a railroad yard on the other side. This bridge, here, runs straight into it. You two men go over, get a couple of good planks, and find out when the next train is due."

The two Troopers whom the Sergeant indicated gave their horses to a comrade and started away across the trestle.

For a moment those who stayed behind could distinguish the rays of their pocket flash-lights as they picked out their slimy foothold. Then the whirling night engulfed them, lights and all.

The Sergeant led the remainder of the detail down into the lee of an abutment, to avoid the full drive of the storm. Awhile they stood waiting, huddled together. But the wait was not for long. Presently, like a code signal spelled out on the black overhead, came a series of steadily lengthening flashes--the pocket-light glancing between the sleepers, as the returning messengers drew near.

Scrambling up to rail level, the Sergeant saw with content that his emissaries bore on their shoulders between them two new pine "two-by-twelves."[72-1]

"No train's due till five o'clock in the morning," reported the first across.

"Good! Now lay the planks. In the middle of the track. End to end. So."

The Sergeant, dismounting, stood at John G.'s wise old head, stroking his muzzle, whispering into his ear.

"Come along, John, it's all right, old man!" he finished with a final caress.

Then he led John G. to the first plank.

"One of you men walk on each side of him. Now, John!"

Delicately, nervously, John G. set his feet, step by step, till he had reached the centre of the second plank.

Then the Sergeant talked to him quietly again, while two Troopers picked up the board just quitted to lay it in advance.

And so, length by length, they made the passage, the horse moving with extremest caution, shivering with full appreciation of the unaccustomed danger, yet steadied by his master's presence and by the friend on either hand. As they moved, the gale wreaked all its fury on them. It was growing colder now, and the rain, changed to sleet, stung their skins with its tiny, sharp-driven blades. The skeleton bridge held them high suspended in the very heart of the storm. Once and again a sudden more violent gust bid fair to sweep them off their feet. Yet, slowly progressing, they made their port unharmed.

Then came the next horse's turn. More than a single mount they dared not lead over at once, lest the contagious fears of one, reacting on another, produce panic. The horse that should rear or shy, on that wide-meshed footing, would be fairly sure to break a leg, at best. So, one by one, they followed over, each reaching the farther side before his successor began the transit.

And so, at last, all stood on the opposite bank, ready to follow John G. once more, as he led the way to duty.

"Come along, John, old man. You know how you'd hate to find a lot of dead women and babies because we got there too late to save them! Make a pace, Johnny boy!"

The First Sergeant was talking gently, leaning over his pommel. But John G. was listening more from politeness than because he needed a lift. His stride was as steady as a clock.

It was three hours after midnight on that bitter black morning as they entered the streets of the town. And the streets were as quiet, as peaceful, as empty of men, as the heart of the high woods.

"Where's their mob?" growled the Sergeant.

"Guess its mother's put it to sleep," a cold, wet Trooper growled back.

"Well, we _thought_ there was going to be trouble," protested the local power, roused from his feather bed. "It really did look like serious trouble, I assure you. And we could not have handled serious trouble with the means at our command. Moreover, there may easily be something yet. So, gentlemen, I am greatly relieved you have come. I can sleep in peace now that you are here. Good-night! _Good_-night!"

All through the remaining hours of darkness the detail patrolled the town. All through the lean, pale hours of dawn it carefully watched its wakening, guarded each danger-point. But never a sign of disturbance did the passing time bring forth.

At last, with the coming of the business day, the Sergeant sought out the principal men of the place, and from them ascertained the truth.

Threats of a jail delivery there had been, and a noisy parade as well, but nothing had occurred or promised beyond the power of an active local officer to handle. Such was the statement of one and all.

"I'll just make sure," said the Sergeant to himself.

Till two o'clock in the afternoon the detail continued its patrols. The town and its outskirts remained of an exemplary peace. At two o'clock the Sergeant reported by telephone to his Captain:--

"Place perfectly quiet, sir. Nothing seems to have happened beyond the usual demonstration of a sympathizing crowd over an arrest. Unless something more breaks, the Sheriff should be entirely capable of handling the situation."

"Then report back to Barracks at once," said the voice of the Captain of "A" Troop. "There's _real_ work waiting here."

The First Sergeant, hanging up the receiver, went out and gathered his men.

Still the storm was raging. Icy snow, blinding sheets of sharp-fanged smother, rode on the racing wind. Worse overhead, worse underfoot, would be hard to meet in years of winters.

But once again men and horses, without an interval of rest, struck into the open country. Once again on the skeleton bridge they made the precarious crossing. And so, at a quarter to nine o'clock at night, the detail topped Greensburg's last ice-coated hill and entered the yard of its high-perched Barracks.

As the First Sergeant slung the saddle off John G.'s smoking back, Corporal Richardson, farrier of the Troop, appeared before him wearing a mien of solemn and grieved displeasure.

"It's all very well," said he,--"all very well, no doubt. But eighty-six miles in twenty-four hours, in weather like this, is a good deal for any horse. And John G. is twenty-two years old, as perhaps you may remember. _I've brought the medicine._"

Three solid hours from that very moment the two men worked over John G., and when, at twelve o'clock, they put him up for the night, not a wet hair was left on him. As they washed and rubbed and bandaged, they talked together, mingling the Sergeant's trenchantly humorous common sense with the Corporal's mellow philosophy. But mostly it was the Corporal that spoke, for twenty-four hours is a fair working day for a Sergeant as well as a Troop horse.

"I believe in my soul," said the Sergeant, "that if a man rode into this stable with his two arms shot off at the shoulder, you'd make him groom his horse with his teeth and his toes for a couple of hours before you'd let him hunt a doctor."

"Well," rejoined Corporal Richardson, in his soft Southern tongue, "and what if I did? Even if that man died of it, he'd thank me heartily afterward. You know, when you and I and the rest of the world, each in our turn, come to Heaven's gate, there'll be St. Peter before it, with the keys safe in his pocket. And over the shining wall behind--_from the inside_, mind you--will be poking a great lot of heads--innocent heads with innocent eyes--heads of horses and of all the other animals that on this earth are the friends of man, put at his mercy and helpless.

"And it's clear to me--over, John! so, boy!--that before St. Peter unlocks the gate for a single one of us, he'll turn around to that long row of heads, and he'll say:--

"'Blessed animals in the fields of Paradise, is this a man that should enter in?'

"And if the animals--they that were placed in his hands on earth to prove the heart that was in him--if the immortal animals have aught to say against that man--never will the good Saint let him in, with his dirty, mean stain upon him. Never. _You'll_ see, Sergeant, when your time comes. _Will you give those tendons another ten minutes?_"

Next morning John G. walked out of his stall as fresh and as fit as if he had come from pasture. And to this very day, in the stable of "A" Troop, John G., handsome, happy, and able, does his friends honor.

MYRA KELLY

Friends[B] [77-1]

"My mamma," reported Morris Mowgelewsky, choosing a quiet moment during a writing period to engage his teacher's attention, "my mamma likes you shall come on mine house for see her."

[B] From _Little Aliens_, copyright, 1910, by Charles Scribner's
Sons. By permission of the publishers.

"Very well, dear," answered Miss Bailey with a patience born of many such messages from the parents of her small charges. "I think I shall have time to go this afternoon."

"My mamma," Morris began again, "she says I shall tell you 'scuse how she don't send you no letter. She couldn't to send no letter the while her eyes ain't healthy."

"I am sorry to hear that," said Teacher, with a little stab of regret for her prompt acceptance of Mrs. Mowgelewsky's invitation; for of all the ailments which the children shared so generously with their teacher, Miss Bailey had learned to dread most the many and painful disorders of the eye. She knew, however, that Mrs. Mowgelewsky was not one of those who utter unnecessary cries for help, being in this regard, as in many others, a striking contrast to the majority of parents with whom Miss Bailey came in contact.

To begin with, Mrs. Mowgelewsky had but one child--her precious, only Morris. In addition to this singularity she was thrifty and neat, intensely self-respecting and independent of spirit, and astonishingly outspoken of mind. She neither shared nor understood the gregarious spirit which bound her neighbors together and is the lubricant which makes East Side crowding possible without bloodshed. No groups of chattering, gesticulating matrons ever congregated in her Monroe Street apartment. No love of gossip ever held her on street corners or on steps. She nourished few friendships and fewer acquaintanceships, and she welcomed no haphazard visitor. Her hospitalities were as serious as her manner; her invitations as deliberate as her slow English speech.

And Miss Bailey, as she and the First Readers followed the order of studies laid down for them, found herself again and again, trying to imagine what the days would be to Mrs. Mowgelewsky if her keen, shrewd eyes were to be darkened and useless.

At three o'clock she set out with Morris, leaving the Board of Monitors[78-1] to set Room 18 to rights with no more direct supervision than an occasional look and word from the stout Miss Blake, whose kingdom lay just across the hall. And as she hurried through the early cold of a November afternoon, her forebodings grew so lugubrious that she was almost relieved at last to learn that Mrs. Mowgelewsky's complaint was a slow-forming cataract, and her supplication, that Miss Bailey would keep a watchful eye upon Morris while his mother was at the hospital undergoing treatment and operation.

"But of course," Miss Bailey agreed, "I shall be delighted to do what I can, Mrs. Mowgelewsky, though it seems to me that one of the neighbors----"

"Neighbors!" snorted the matron; "What you think the neighbors make mit mine little boy? They got four, five dozens childrens theirselves. They ain't got no time for look on Morris. They come maybe in mine house und break mine dishes, und rubber on what is here, und set by mine furniture und talks. What do they know over takin' care on mine house? They ain't ladies. They is educated only on the front. Me, I was raised private und expensive in Russia; I was ladies. Und you ist ladies. You ist Krisht[79-1]--that is too bad--but that makes me nothings. I wants _you_ shall look on Morris."

"But I can't come here and take care of him," Miss Bailey pointed out. "You see that for yourself, don't you, Mrs. Mowgelewsky? I am sorry as I can be about your eyes, and I hope with all my heart that the operation will be successful. But I shouldn't have time to come here and take care of things."

"That ain't how mine mamma means," Morris explained. He was leaning against Teacher and stroking her muff as he spoke. "Mine mamma means the money."

"That ist what I means," said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, nodding her ponderous head until her quite incredible wig slipped back and forth upon it. "Morris needs he shall have money. He could to fix the house so good like I can. He don't needs no neighbors rubberin'. He could to buy what he needs on the store. But ten cents a day he needs. His papa works by Harlem. He is got fine jobs, und he gets fine moneys, but he couldn't to come down here for take care of Morris. Und the doctor he says I shall go _now_ on the hospital. Und any way," she added sadly, "I ain't no good; I couldn't to see things. He says I shall lay in the hospital three weeks, may be--that is twenty-one days--und for Morris it is two dollars und ten cents. I got the money." And she fumbled for her purse in various hiding-places about her ample person.

"And you want me to be banker," cried Miss Bailey; "to keep the money and give Morris ten cents a day--is that it?"

"Sure," answered Mrs. Mowgelewsky.

"It's a awful lot of money," grieved Morris. "Ten cents a day is a awful lot of money for one boy."

"No, no, my golden one," cried his mother. "It is but right that thou shouldst have plenty of money, und thy teacher, a Christian lady, though honest--und what neighbor is honest?--will give thee ten cents every morning. Behold, I pay the rent before I go, und with the rent paid und with ten cents a day thou wilt live like a landlord."

"Yes, yes," Morris broke in, evidently repeating some familiar warning, "und every day I will say mine prayers und wash me the face, und keep the neighbors out, und on Thursdays und on Sundays I shall go on the hospital for see you."

"And on Saturdays," broke in Miss Bailey, "you will come to my house and spend the day with me. He's too little, Mrs. Mowgelewsky, to go to the synagogue alone."

"That could be awful nice," breathed Morris. "I likes I shall go on your house. I am lovin' much mit your dog."

"How?" snorted his mother. "Dogs! Dogs ain't nothing but foolishness. They eats something fierce, und they don't works."

"That iss how mine mamma thinks," Morris hastened to explain, lest the sensitive feelings of his Lady Paramount should suffer. "But mine mamma she never seen _your_ dog. He iss a awful nice dog; I am lovin' much mit him."

"I don't needs I shall see him," said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, somewhat tartly. "I seen, already, lots from dogs. Don't you go make no foolishness mit him. Don't you go und get chawed off of him."

"Of course, of course not," Miss Bailey hastened to assure her; "he will only play with Rover if I should be busy or unable to take him out with me. He'll be safer at my house than he would be on the streets, and you wouldn't expect him to stay in the house all day."

After more parley and many warnings the arrangement was completed. Miss Bailey was intrusted with two dollars and ten cents, and the censorship of Morris. A day or so later Mrs. Mowgelewsky retired, indomitable, to her darkened room in the hospital, and the neighbors were inexorably shut out of her apartment. All their offers of help, all their proffers of advice were politely refused by Morris, all their questions and visits politely dodged. And every morning Miss Bailey handed her Monitor of the Goldfish Bowl his princely stipend, adding to it from time to time some fruit or other uncontaminated food, for Morris was religiously the strictest of the strict, and could have given cards and spades to many a minor rabbi[82-1] on the intricacies of Kosher law.

The Saturday after his mother's departure Morris spent in the enlivening companionship of the antiquated Rover, a collie who no longer roved farther than his own back yard, and who accepted Morris's frank admiration with a noble condescension and a few rheumatic gambols. Miss Bailey's mother was also hospitable, and her sister did what she could to amuse the quaint little child with the big eyes, the soft voice, and the pretty foreign manners. But Morris preferred Rover to any of them, except perhaps the cook, who allowed him to prepare a luncheon for himself after his own little rites.

Everything had seemed so pleasant and so successful that Miss Bailey looked upon a repetition of this visit as a matter of course, and was greatly surprised on the succeeding Friday afternoon when the Monitor of the Goldfish Bowl said that he intended to spend the next day at home.

"Oh, no!" she remonstrated, "you mustn't stay at home. I'm going to take you out to the Park and we are going to have all kinds of fun. Wouldn't you rather go and see the lions and the elephants with me than stay at home all by yourself?"

For some space Morris was a prey to silence, then he managed by a consuming effort:

"I ain't by mineself."

"Has your father come home?" said Teacher.

"No, ma'am."

"And surely it's not a neighbor. You remember what your mother said about the neighbors, how you were not to let them in."

"It ain't neighbors," said Morris.

"Then who----?" began Miss Bailey.

Morris raised his eyes to hers, his beautiful, black, pleading eyes, praying for the understanding and the sympathy which had never failed him yet. "It's a friend," he answered.

"Nathan Spiderwitz?" she asked.

Morris shook his head, and gave Teacher to understand that the Monitor of the Window Boxes came under the ban of neighbor.

"Well, who is it, dearest?" she asked again. "Is it any one that I know?"

"No, ma'am."

"None of the boys in the school?"

"No, ma'am."

"Have you known him long?"

"No, ma'am."

"Does your mother know him?"

"Oh, Teacher, _no_, ma'am! Mine mamma don't know him."

"Well, where did you meet him?"

"Teacher, on the curb. Over yesterday on the night," Morris began, seeing that explanation was inevitable, "I lays on mine bed, und I thinks how mine mamma has got a sickness, und how mine papa is by Harlem, und how I ain't got nobody beside of me. Und, Teacher, it makes me cold in mine heart. So I couldn't to lay no more, so I puts me on mit mine clothes some more, und I goes by the street, the while peoples is there, und I needs I shall see peoples. So I sets by the curb, und mine heart it go und it go so I couldn't to feel how it go in mine inside. Und I thinks on my mamma, how I seen her mit bandages on the face, und mine heart it goes some more. Und, Teacher, Missis Bailey, I cries over it."

"Of course you did, honey," said Teacher, putting her arm about him. "Poor, little, lonely chap! Of course you cried."

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am; it ain't fer boys they shall cry, but I cries over it. Und soon something touches me by mine side, und I turns und mine friend he was sittin' by side of me. Und he don't say nothings, Teacher; no, ma'am; he don't say _nothings_, only he looks on me, und in his eyes stands tears. So that makes me better in mine heart, und I don't cries no more. I sets und looks on mine friend, und mine friend he sets und looks on me mit smilin' looks. So I goes by mine house, und mine friend he comes by mine house, too, und I lays by mine bed, und mine friend he lays by mine side. Und all times in that night sooner I open mine eyes und thinks on how mine mamma is got a sickness, und mine papa is by Harlem, mine friend he is by mine side, und I don't cries. I don't cries never no more the whiles mine friend is by me. Und I couldn't to go on your house to-morrow the whiles I don't know if mine friend likes Rover."

"Of course he'd like him," cried Miss Bailey. "Rover would play with him just as he plays with you."

"No, ma'am," Morris maintained; "mine friend is too little for play mit Rover."

"Is he such a little fellow?"

"Yiss, ma'am; awful little."

"And has he been with you ever since the day before yesterday?"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am."

"Does he seem to be happy and all right?"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am."

"But," asked Miss Bailey, suddenly practical, "what does the poor little fellow eat? Of course ten cents would buy a _lot_ of food for one boy, but not so very much for two."

"Teacher, no, ma'am," says Morris; "it ain't so very much."

"Well, then," said Miss Bailey, "suppose I give you twenty cents a day as long as a little strange friend is with you."

"That could to be awful nice," Morris agreed; "und, Missis Bailey," he went on, "sooner you don't needs all yours lunch mine friend could eat it, maybe."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she cried; "It's ham to-day."

"That don't make nothins mit mine friend," said Morris, "he likes ham."

"Now, Morris," said Miss Bailey very gravely, as all the meanings of this announcement spread themselves before her, "this is a very serious thing. You know how your mother feels about strangers, and you know how she feels about Christians, and what will she say to you--and what will she say to me--when she hears that a strange little Christian is living with you? Of course, dearie, I know it's nice for you to have company, and I know that you must be dreadfully lonely in the long evenings, but I'm afraid your mother will not be pleased to think of your having somebody to stay with you. Wouldn't you rather come to my house and live there all the time until your mother is better. You know," she added as a crowning inducement, "Rover is there."

But Morris betrayed no enthusiasm. "I guess," said he, "I ain't lovin' so awful much mit Rover. He iss too big. I am likin' little dogs mit brown eyes, what walks by their legs und carries things by their mouths. Did you ever see dogs like that?"

"In the circus," answered Teacher. "Where did you see them?"

"A boy by our block," answered Morris, "is got one. He is lovin' much mit that dog und that dog is lovin' much mit him."

"Well, now, perhaps you could teach Rover to walk on his hind legs, and carry things in his mouth," suggested Teacher; "and as for this new little Christian friend of yours----"

"I don't know _be_ he a Krisht," Morris admitted with reluctant candor; "he ain't said nothin' over it to me. On'y a Irisher lady what lives by our house, she says mine friend is a Irisher."

"Very well, dear; then of course he's a Christian," Miss Bailey assured him, "and I shan't interfere with you to-morrow--you may stay at home and play with him. But we can't let it go on, you know. This kind of thing never would do when your mother comes back from the hospital. She might not want your friend in the house. Have you thought of that at all, Morris? You must make your friend understand it."

"I tells him," Morris promised; "I don't know can he understand. He's pretty little, only that's how I tells him all times."

"Then tell him once again, honey," Miss Bailey advised, "and make him understand that he must go back to his own people as soon as your mother is well. Where are his own people? I can't understand how any one so little could be wandering about with no one to take care of him."

"Teacher, I'm takin' care of him," Morris pointed out.

All that night and all the succeeding day Miss Bailey's imagination reverted again and again to the two little ones keeping house in Mrs. Mowgelewsky's immaculate apartment. Even increasing blindness had not been allowed to interfere with sweeping and scrubbing and dusting, and when Teacher thought of that patient matron, as she lay in her hospital cot trusting so securely to her Christian friend's guardianship of her son and home, she fretted herself into feeling that it was her duty to go down to Monroe Street and investigate.

There was at first no sound when, after climbing endless stairs, she came to Mrs. Mowgelewsky's door. But as the thumping of the heart and the singing in her ears abated somewhat, she detected Morris's familiar treble.

"Bread," it said, "iss awful healthy for you, only you dasn't eat it 'out chewin'. I never in my world seen how you eats."

Although the words were admonitory, they lost all didactic effect by the wealth of love and tenderness which sang in the voice. There was a note of happiness in it, too, a throb of pure enjoyment quite foreign to Teacher's knowledge of this sad-eyed little charge of hers. She rested against the door frame, and Morris went on:

"I guess you don't know what iss polite. You shall better come on the school, und Miss Bailey could to learn you what iss polite and healthy fer you. No, you couldn't to have no meat. No, _sir_! No, _ma'am_! You couldn't to have no meat 'till I cuts it fer you. You could to, maybe, make yourself a sickness und a bashfulness."

Miss Bailey put her hand on the door and it yielded noiselessly to her touch, and revealed to her guardian eyes her ward and his little friend. They were seated _vis-a-vis_[89-1] at the table; everything was very neat and clean and most properly set out. A little lamp was burning clearly. Morris's hair was parted for about an inch back from his forehead and sleeked wetly down upon his brow. The guest had evidently undergone similar preparation for the meal. Each had a napkin tied around his neck, and as Teacher watched them, Morris carefully prepared his guest's dinner, while the guest, an Irish terrier, with quick eyes and one down-flopped ear, accepted his admonishings with a good-natured grace, and watched him with an adoring and confiding eye.

The guest was first to detect the stranger's presence. He seized a piece of bread in his teeth, jumped to the ground, and walking up to Teacher on his hind legs, hospitably dropped the refreshment at her feet.

"Oh! Teacher! Teacher!" cried Morris, half in dismay at discovery, and half in joy that this so sure confidant should share his secret and appreciate his friend. "Oh! Teacher! Missis Bailey! this is the friend what I was telling you over. See how he walks on his feet! See how he has got smilin' looks! See how he carries somethings by his teeth! All times he makes like that. Rover, he don't carries nothin's, und gold fishes, they ain't got no feet even. On'y Izzie could to make them things."

"Oh, is his name Izzie?" asked Miss Bailey, grasping at this conversational straw and shaking the paw which the stranger was presenting to her. "And this is the friend you told me about? You let me think," she chided, with as much severity as Morris had shown to his Izzie, "that he was a boy."

"I had a 'fraid," said the Monitor of the Gold Fish Bowl frankly.

So had Teacher as she reviewed the situation from Mrs. Mowgelewsky's chair of state, and watched the friends at supper. It was a revelation of solicitude on one side, and patient gratitude on the other. Morris ate hardly anything, and was soon at Teacher's knee--Izzie was in her lap--discussing ways and means.

He refused to entertain any plan which would separate him immediately from Izzie, but he was at last brought to see the sweet reasonableness of preparing his mother's mind by degrees to accept another member to the family.

"Und he eats," his protector was forced to admit--"he eats somethin' fierce, Missis Bailey; as much like a man he eats. Und my mamma, I don't know what she will say. She won't leave me I shall keep him; from long I had a little bit of a dog, und she wouldn't to leave me I should keep _him_, und he didn't eat so much like Izzie eats, neither."

"And _I_ can't very well keep him," said Miss Bailey sadly, "because, you see, there is Rover. Rover mightn't like it. But there is one thing I can do: I'll keep him for a few days when your mother comes back, and then we'll see, you and I, if we can persuade her to let you have him always."

"She wouldn't never to do it," said Morris sadly. "That other dog, didn't I told you how he didn't eat so much like Izzie, and she wouldn't to let me have him? That's a cinch."

"Oh! don't say that word, dear," cried Teacher. "And we can only try. We'll do our very, very best."

This guilty secret had a very dampening effect upon the joy with which Morris watched for his mother's recovery. Upon the day set for her return, he was a miserable battle-field of love and duty. Early in the morning Izzie had been transferred to Miss Bailey's yard. Rover was chained to his house, Izzie was tied to the wall at a safe distance from him, and they proceeded to make the day hideous for the whole neighborhood.

Morris remained at home to greet his mother, received her encomiums, cooked the dinner, and set out for afternoon school with a heavy heart and a heavier conscience. Nothing had occurred in those first hours to show any change in Mrs. Mowgelewsky's opinion of home pets; rather she seemed, in contrast to the mild and sympathetic Miss Bailey, more than ever dictatorial and dogmatic.

At a quarter after three, the gold fish having received perfunctory attention, and the Board of Monitors being left again to do their worst, unguarded, Morris and Teacher set out to prepare Mrs. Mowgelewsky's mind for the adoption of Izzie. They found it very difficult. Mrs. Mowgelewsky, restored of vision, was so hospitable, so festive in her elephantine manner, so loquacious and so self-congratulatory, that it was difficult to insert even the tiniest conversational wedge into the structure of her monologue.

Finally Miss Bailey managed to catch her attention upon financial matters. "You gave me," she said, "two dollars and ten cents, and Morris has managed so beautifully that he has not used it all, and has five cents to return to you. He's a very wonderful little boy, Mrs. Mowgelewsky," she added, smiling at her favorite to give him courage.

"He iss a good boy," Mrs. Mowgelewsky admitted. "Don't you get lonesome sometimes by yourself here, huh?"

"Well," said Miss Bailey, "he wasn't always alone."

"No?" queried the matron with a divided attention. She was looking for her purse, in which she wished to stow Morris's surplus.

"No," said Teacher; "I was here once or twice. And then a little friend of his----"

"Friend," the mother repeated with a glare; "was friends here in mine house?"

Miss Bailey began a purposely vague reply, but Mrs. Mowgelewsky was not listening to her. She had searched the pockets of the gown she wore, then various other hiding-places in the region of its waist line, then a large bag of mattress covering which she wore under her skirt. Ever hurriedly and more hurriedly she repeated this performance two or three times, and then proceeded to shake and wring the out-door clothing which she had worn that morning.

"Gott!" she broke out at last, "mine Gott! mine Gott! it don't stands." And she began to peer about the floor with eyes not yet quite adjusted. Morris easily recognized the symptoms.

"She's lost her pocket-book," he told Miss Bailey.

"Yes, I lost it," wailed Mrs. Mowgelewsky, and then the whole party participated in the search. Over and under the furniture, the carpets, the bed, the stove, over and under everything in the apartment went Mrs. Mowgelewsky and Morris. All the joy of home-coming and of well-being was darkened and blotted out by this new calamity. And Mrs. Mowgelewsky beat her breast and tore her hair, and Constance Bailey almost wept in sympathy. But the pocket-book was gone, absolutely gone, though Mrs. Mowgelewsky called Heaven and earth to witness that she had had it in her hand when she came in.

Another month's rent was due; the money to pay it was in the pocket-book. Mr. Mowgelewsky had visited his wife on Sunday, and had given her all his earnings as some salve to the pain of her eyes. Eviction, starvation, every kind of terror and disaster were thrown into Mrs. Mowgelewsky's wailing, and Morris proved an able second to his mother.

Miss Bailey was doing frantic bookkeeping in her charitable mind, and was wondering how much of the loss she might replace. She was about to suggest as a last resort that a search should be made of the dark and crannied stairs, where a purse, if the Fates were very, very kind, might lie undiscovered for hours, when a dull scratching made itself heard through the general lamentation. It came from a point far down on the panel of the door, and the same horrible conviction seized upon Morris and upon Miss Bailey at the same moment.

Mrs. Mowgelewsky in her frantic round had approached the door for the one-hundredth time, and with eyes and mind far removed from what she was doing, she turned the handle. And entered Izzie, beautifully erect upon his hind legs, with a yard or two of rope trailing behind him, and a pocket-book fast in his teeth.

Blank, pure surprise took Mrs. Mowgelewsky for its own. She staggered back into a chair, fortunately of heavy architecture, and stared at the apparition before her. Izzie came daintily in, sniffed at Morris, sniffed at Miss Bailey, sniffed at Mrs. Mowgelewsky's ample skirts, identified her as the owner of the pocket-book, laid it at her feet, and extended a paw to be shaken.

"Mine Gott!" said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, "what for a dog iss that?" She counted her wealth, shook Izzie's paw, and then stooped forward, gathered him into her large embrace, and cried like a baby. "Mine Gott! Mine Gott!" she wailed again, and although she spent five minutes in apparent effort to evolve another and more suitable remark, her research met with no greater success than the addition:

"He ain't a dog at all; he iss friends."

Miss Bailey had been sent to an eminently good college, and had been instructed long and hard in psychology, so that she knew the psychologic moment when she met it. She now arose with congratulations and farewells. Mrs. Mowgelewsky arose also with Izzie still in her arms. She lavished endearments upon him and caresses upon his short black nose, and Izzie received them all with enthusiastic gratitude.

"And I think," said Miss Bailey in parting, "that you had better let that dog come with me. He seems a nice enough little thing, quiet, gentle, and very intelligent. He can live in the yard with Rover."

Morris turned his large eyes from one to another of his rulers, and Izzie, also good at psychologic moments, stretched out a pointed pink tongue and licked Mrs. Mowgelewsky's cheek. "This dog," said that lady majestically, "iss mine. Nobody couldn't never to have him. When I was in mine trouble, was it mans or was it ladies what takes und gives me mine money back? No! Was it neighbors? No! Was it you, Miss Teacher, mine friend? No! It was that dog. Here he stays mit me. Morris, my golden one, you wouldn't to have no feelin's 'bout mamma havin' dogs? You wouldn't to have mads?"

"No, ma'am," responded her obedient son; "Missis Bailey she says it's _fer_ boys they should make all things what is lovin' mit cats und dogs und horses."

"Goot," said his mother; "I guess, maybe, that ain't such a foolishness."

It was not until nearly bedtime that Mrs. Mowgelewsky reverted to that part of Miss Bailey's conversation immediately preceding the discovery of the loss of the purse.

"So-o-oh, my golden one," she began, lying back in her chair with Izzie on her lap--"so-o-oh, you had friends by the house when mamma was by hospital."

"On'y one," Morris answered faintly.

"Well, I ain't scoldin'," said his mother. "Where iss your friend? I likes I shall look on him. Ain't he comin' round to-night?"

"No ma'am," answered Morris, settling himself at her side, and laying his head close to his friend. "He couldn't to go out by nights the while he gets adopted off of a lady."

HAMLIN GARLAND

A Camping Trip

It was the fifteenth of June, and the sun glazed down upon the dry cornfield as if it had a spite against Lincoln Stewart, who was riding a gayly painted new sulky corn-plow, guiding the shovels with his feet. The corn was about knee-high and rustled softly, almost as if whispering, not yet large enough to speak aloud.

Working all day in a level field like this, with the sun burning one's neck brown as a leather glove, is apt to make one dream of cool river pools, where the water snakes wiggle to and fro, and the kingfishers fly above the bright ripples in which the rock bass love to play.

It was about four o'clock, and Lincoln was tired. His neck ached, his toes were swollen, and his tongue called for a drink of water. He got off the plow, after turning the horses' heads to the faint western breeze, and took a seat on the fence in the shade of a small popple tree on which a king-bird had a nest.

Somebody was galloping up the road with a regular rise and fall in the saddle which showed the perfect horseman and easy rider. It was Milton Jennings.

"Hello, Lincoln!" shouted Milton.

"Hello, Milt," Lincoln returned. "Why ain't you at home workin' like an honest man?"

"Better business on hand. I've come clear over here to-day to see you----"

"Well, here I am."

"Let's go to Clear Lake."

Lincoln stared hard at him.

"D'ye mean it?"

"You bet I do! I can put in a horse. Bert Jenks will lend us his boat--put it right on in place of the wagon box--and we can borrow Captain Knapp's tent. We'll get Rance to go, too."

"I'm with you," said Lincoln, leaping down, his face aglow with the idea. "But won't you go up and break it gently to the boss? He's got his mind kind o' set on my goin' through this corn again. When'll we start?"

"Let's see--to-day is Wednesday--we ought to get off on Monday."

"Well, now, if you don't mind, Milt, I'd like to have you go up and see what Father says."

"I'll fix him," said Milton. "Where is he?"

"Right up the road, mending fence."

Lincoln was so tickled he not only leaped the fence, but sprang into the plow seat from behind and started on another round, singing, showing how instantly hope of play can lighten a boy's task. But when he came back to the fence, Milton was not in sight, and his heart fell--the outlook was not so assuring.

It was nearly an hour later when Milton came riding back. Lincoln looked up and saw him wave his hand and heard his shout. The victory was won. Mr. Stewart had consented.

Lincoln whooped with such wild delight that the horses, swerving to the right, plowed up two rows of corn for several rods before they could be brought back into place.

"It's all O.K.," Milton called. "But I've got to come over with my team and help you go through the corn the other way."

From that on, nothing else was thought of or talked of. Each night the four boys got together at Mr. Jennings's house, each one bringing things that he thought he needed. They had never looked upon a sheet of water larger than the mill-pond on the Cedar River, and the cool face of that beautiful lake, of which they had heard so much, allured them.

The boat was carefully mended, and Rance, who was a good deal of a sailor, naturally talked about making a sail for it.

Lists of articles were carefully drawn up thus:

4 tin cups 4 knives and forks
1 spider 1 kettle, etc.

At Sunday School the campers became the center of attraction for the other small boys, and quite a number of them went home with Lincoln to look over the vehicle--a common lumber wagon with a boat for the box, projecting dangerously near the horses' tails and trailing far astern. From the edges of the boat arose a few hoops, making a kind of cover, like a prairie schooner.[100-1] In the box were "traps" innumerable in charge of Bert, who was "chief cook and bottlewasher."

Each man's duty had been assigned. Lincoln was to take care of the horses, Milton was to look after the tent and places to sleep, Rance was treasurer, and Bert was the cook, with the treasurer to assist. All these preparations amused an old soldier like Captain Knapp.

"Are you going to get back this fall?" he asked slyly, as he stood about, enjoying the talk.

"We'll try to," replied Milton.

Yes, there the craft stood, all ready to sail at day-break, with no wind or tide to prevent, and every boy who saw it said, "I wish I could go." And the campers, not selfish in their fun, felt a pang of pity, as they answered, "We wish you could, boys."

It was arranged that they were all to sleep in the ship that night, and so as night fell and the visitors drew off, the four navigators went into the kitchen, where Mrs. Jennings set out some bread and milk for them.

"Now, boys, d'ye suppose you got bread enough?"

"We've got twelve loaves."

"Well, of course you can buy bread and milk, so I guess you won't starve."

"I guess not--not with fish plenty," they assured her.

"Well, now, don't set up too late, _talkin'_ about gettin' off."

"We're goin' to turn right in, ain't we, boys?"

"You bet. We're goin' to get out of here before sun-up to-morrow mornin'," replied Bert.

"Well, see't you do," said Mr. Jennings, who liked boys to have a good time. "I'll be up long before you are."

"Don't be too sure o' that."

It was delicious going to bed in that curious place, with the stars shining in and the katydids singing. It gave them all a new view of life.

"Now, the first feller that wakes up, yell," said Bert, as he crept under the blanket.

"First feller asleep, whistle," said Lincoln.

"That won't be you, that's sure," grumbled Rance, already dozing.

As a matter of fact, no one slept much. About two o'clock they began, first one, and then the other:

"Say, boys, don't you think it's about time?"

"Boys, it's gettin' daylight in the east!"

"No, it ain't. That's the moon."

At last the first faint light of the sun appeared, and Lincoln rose, fed the horses, and harnessed them while the other boys got everything else in readiness.

Mr. Jennings came out soon, and Mrs. Jennings got some hot coffee for them, and before the sun was anywhere near the horizon, they said good-by and were off. Mr. Jennings shouted many directions about the road, while Mrs. Jennings told them again to be careful on the water.

To tell the truth, the boys were a little fagged at first, but at last as the sun rose, the robins began to chatter, and the bobolinks began to ring their fairy bells, and the boys broke into song. For the first hour or two the road was familiar and excited no interest, but then they came upon new roads, new fields, and new villages. Streams curved down the slopes and ran musically across the road, as if on purpose to water their horses. Wells beside the fences under silver-leaf maples invited them to stop and drink and lunch. Boys they didn't know, on their way to work, stopped and looked at them enviously. How glorious it all was!

The sun grew hot, and at eleven o'clock they drew up in a beautiful grove of oaks, beside a swift and sparkling little river, for dinner and to rest their sweaty team. They concluded to eat doughnuts and drink milk for that meal, and this gave them time to fish a little and swim a good deal, while the horses munched hay under the trees.

After a good long rest, they hitched the team in again and started on toward the west. They had still half-way (twenty-five miles) to go. The way grew stranger. The land, more broken and treeless, seemed very wonderful to them. They came into a region full of dry lake-beds, and Bert, who had a taste for geology, explained the cause of the valleys so level at the bottom, and pointed out the old-time limits of the water. As night began to fall, it seemed they had been a week on the way.

At last, just as the sun was setting, they saw a dark belt of woods ahead of them and came to a narrow river, which the farmers said was the outlet of the lake. They pushed on faster, for the roads were better, and just at dusk they drove into the little village street which led down to the lake, to which their hungry eyes went out first of all.

How glorious it looked, with its waves lapping the gravelly beach, and the dark groves of trees standing purple-black against the orange sky. They sat and gazed at it for several minutes without saying a word. Finally Rance said, with a sigh, "Oh, wouldn't I like to jump into that water!"

"Well, this won't do. We must get a camp," said Milton; and they pulled the team into a road leading along the east shore of the lake.

"Where can a fellow camp?" Bert called to a young man who met them, with a pair of oars on his back.

"Anywhere down in the woods." He pointed to the south.

They soon reached a densely wooded shore where no one stood guard, and drove along an old wood road to a superb camping-place near the lake shore under a fine oak grove.

"Whoa!" yelled Milton.

All hands leaped out. Milton and Lincoln took care of the horses. Bert seized an axe and chopped on one side of two saplings, bent them together, tied them, cleared away the brush around them, and with Rance's help drew the tent cloth over them--this was the camp! While they dug up the bedding and put it in place, Rance built a fire and set some coffee boiling.

By the time they sat down to eat their bread and coffee and cold chicken, the grove was dark. The smoke rose in a billowy mass, vanishing in the dark, cool shadows of the oaks above. A breeze was rising. Below them they could hear the lap of the waves on the bowlders. It was all so fine, so enjoyable, that it seemed a dream from which they were in danger of waking.

After eating, they all took hold of the boat and eased it down the bank into the water.

"Now, who's goin' to catch the fish for breakfast?" asked Bert.

"I will," replied Rance, who was a "lucky" fisherman. "I'll have some fish by sun-up--see if I don't."

Their beds were hay, with abundant quilts and blankets spread above, and as Lincoln lay looking out of the tent door at the smoke curling up, hearing the horses chewing and an owl hooting, it seemed gloriously like the stories he had read, and the dreams he had had of sometime being free from care and free from toil, far in the wilderness.

"I wish I could do this all the time," he said to Milton, who was looking at the fire, his chin resting in his palms.

"I can tell better after a week of it," retorted Milton.

To a boy like Lincoln or Rance, that evening was worth the whole journey, that strange, delicious hour in the deepening darkness, when everything seemed of some sweet, remembered far-off world--they were in truth living as their savage ancestry lived, close to nature's mystery.

The pensiveness did not prevent Milton from hitting Bert a tremendous slap with a boot-leg, saying, "Hello! that mosquito pretty near had you that time."

And Bert, familiar with Milton's pranks, turned upon him, and a rough and tumble tussle went on till Rance cried out: "Look out there! You'll be tippin' over my butter!"

At last the rustle of the leaves over their heads died out in dreams and the boys fell asleep, deliciously tired, full of plans for the next day.

Morning dawned, cool and bright, and Bert was stirring before sunrise. Rance was out in the boat before the pink had come upon the lake, while Milton was "skirmishing" for some milk.

How delicious that breakfast! Newly fried perch, new milk with bread and potatoes from home--but the freedom, the strange familiarity of it all! There in the dim, sweet woods, with the smoke curling up into the leafy masses above, the sunlight just dropping upon the lake, the killdee, the robin, and the blue jay crying in the still, cool morning air. This was indeed life. The hot cornfields were far away.

Breakfast having been eaten to the last scrap of fish, they made a rush for the lake and the boat. There it lay, moving a little on the light waves, a frail little yellow craft without keel or rudder, but something to float in, anyhow. There rippled the lake six miles long, cool and sparkling, and boats were getting out into the mid-water like huge "skimmer-bugs,"[105-1] carrying fisherman to their tasks.

While the other boys fished for perch and bass for dinner, Lincoln studied the shore. The beach which was their boat-landing was made up of fine, varicolored bowlders, many of them round as cannon balls, and Lincoln thought of the thousands of years they been rolling and grinding there, rounding each other and polishing each other till they glistened like garnets and rubies. And then the sand!

He waded out into the clear yellow waters and examined the bottom, which was set in tiny waves beautifully regular, the miniature reflexes of the water in motion. It made him think of the little wind waves in the snow, which he had often wondered at in winter.

Growing tired of this, he returned to the bank, and lying down on the grass gave himself up to the rest and freedom and beauty of the day. He no longer felt like "making the most of it." It seemed as if he were always to live like this.

The others came in after awhile with a few bass and many perch which were beautifully marked in pearl and gray, to correspond with the sand bottom, though the boys didn't know that. There were no large fish so near shore, and they lacked the courage to go far out, for the whitecaps glittered now and then in mid-water.

They ate every "smidgin'" of the fish at dinner, and their larder looked desperately bare. They went out into the deeper water, all feeling a little timorous, as the little boat began to rock on the waves.

Lincoln was fascinated with the water, which was so clear that he could see fish swimming far below. The boat seemed floating in the air. At times they passed above strange and beautiful forests of weeds and grasses, jungles which scared him, for he remembered the story of a man who had been caught and drowned by just such clinging weeds, and besides, what monsters these mysterious places might conceal!

Other boats came around them. Sailboats passed, and the little steamer, the pride of the lake, passed over to "the island." Yachts that seemed to the boys immense went by, loaded with merrymakers. Everything was as strange, as exciting, as if they were in a new world.

Rance was much taken by the sailboats. "I'm going to rig a sail on our boat, or die tryin'," he declared.