Chapter IV: Part 4

It was just as well that Sarah Jane did not know it at the time. She had enough to bear--her own distress over the loss of the doll, and the reproaches of Serena and her mother. They agreed that the loss of the doll served her right for her disobedience, and that nothing should be said to Joe West. They also thought the affair too trivial to fuss over. Lily Rosalie even in her designer's eyes was not what she was to Sarah Jane.

"If you'd minded me you wouldn't have lost it," said Serena. "I am not going to make you another."

Sarah Jane hung her head meekly. But in the course of three months she had another doll in a very unexpected and curious way.

One evening there was a knock on the side door, and when it was opened there was no one there, but on the step lay a big package directed to Sarah Jane. It contained a real bought doll, with a china head and a cloth body, who was gorgeously and airily attired in pink tarlatan with silver spangles. The memory of Lily Rosalie paled.

There was great wonder and speculation. Nobody dreamed how poor Joe West had driven cows from pasture, and milked, and chopped wood, out of school-hours, and taken every cent he had earned and bought this doll to atone for the theft of Lily Rosalie Violet May.

Sarah Jane's mother declared that she should not carry this doll, no matter whence it came, to school, and she never did but once--that was on her birthday, and she teased so hard, and promised not to let any one take her, that her mother consented.

At recess Sarah Jane was again the centre of attraction. She turned that wonderful pink tarlatan lady round and round before the admiring eyes; but when Joe West, meek and mildly conciliatory, approached the circle, she clutched her tightly and turned her back on him.

"I'm not going to have Joe West steal another doll," said she. And Joe colored and retreated.

Years afterwards, when Joe was practising law in the city, and came home for a visit, and Sarah Jane was so grown-up that she wore a white muslin hat with rosebuds, and a black silk mantilla, to church, she knew the whole story, and they had a laugh over it.

SEVENTOES' GHOST

"You needn't waste any more time talkin' about it, Benjamin; you can jest take that puppy-dog and carry him off. I don't care what you do with him; you can carry him back where you got him, or give him away, or swap him off; but jest as sure as you leave him here half an hour longer, I'll call Jimmy up from the hay-field and have him shoot him. I won't have a dog round the place, nohow. Couldn't keep Seventoes a minute; he's dreadful scart of dogs."

"Grandsir--"

"Take that puppy-dog and go along, I tell ye. I won't have any more talk about it."

Benjamin Wellman, small and slight, sandy-haired and blue-eyed, stood before his grandfather, who sat in his big arm-chair in the east door. Benjamin held in his right hand an old rope, which was attached to a leather strap around a puppy's neck. The puppy pulled at the rope, keeping it taut all the time. He also yelped shrilly. He did not like to be tied. The puppy was not a pretty one, being yellow and very clumsy; but Benjamin thought him a beauty. He had urged to his grandfather that there would not be a dog to equal him in the neighborhood when he was grown up, but the old man had not been moved.

There were tears in Benjamin's pretty blue eyes, but his square chin looked squarer. He tried to speak again. "Grandsir--" he began.

"Not another word," said his grandfather.

Benjamin looked past his grandfather into the kitchen. His mother sat in there stemming currants. He went around to the other door and entered, dragging the puppy after him.

"Mother," he said, in a low voice, "can't I keep him?"

His grandfather in the east door looked around suspiciously, but he could hear nothing; he was somewhat deaf.

"No; not if your grandfather don't want you to," said his mother; "you know I can't let you, Benjamin."

The puppy was whining piteously, and Benjamin seemed to echo it when he spoke. "I don't see why he don't want me to. It ain't as if Cæsar was a common puppy. You ask him, mother."

"No," returned his mother; "it won't do any good. You know how much he thinks of Seventoes, and the dog might kill him when he was grown."

"Wouldn't care if he did," muttered Benjamin; "nothing but a cross old stealing cat; don't begin to be worth what this puppy is."

"Now, Benjamin, you mustn't talk any more about it," said his mother, severely. "Grandsir does too much for you and me for you to make any fuss about a thing like this. Take that puppy and run right along with it, as he tells you to."

Grandsir's suspicions suddenly took shape then. "Benjamin, you run right along," he called out; "don't stand there teasing your mother about it."

So Benjamin gathered the puppy up into his arms with a jerk--it was impossible to lead him any distance--and plunged out of the house. He gave two or three little choking sobs as he hurried along. It was a hot day, and he was tired and disappointed and discouraged. He had walked three miles over to the village and back to get that puppy, and now he had to walk a mile more to give it away. He had no doubt whatever as to the disposal of it; he knew Sammy Tucker would give it a hearty welcome, for there was an understanding to that effect. Benjamin had been a little doubtful as to the reception the puppy might have from his grandfather; but when Mr. Dyer, who kept the village grocery store, had offered it to him three weeks before, he had not had the courage to refuse. Sammy Tucker, too, had been in the store, buying three bars of soap for his mother, and he had looked on admiringly and enviously. When Benjamin had mentioned hesitatingly his doubts about his grandfather, Sammy had pricked up his ears.

"Say, Ben, you give him to me if your grandfather won't let you keep him," he had whispered, with a nudge. "Father said I might have a dog soon as there was a good chance, and Mr. Dyer won't want it back. He's giv away all but this, and he wants to get rid of 'em. They're common kind of dogs, anyhow. I heard him say so."

Benjamin had looked at him stiffly. "Oh, I guess grandsir'll let me keep this puppy, he's such a smart one," he had answered, with dignity.

"Well, you ask him, and if he won't, I'll take him," said Sammy.

But Benjamin had not asked his grandfather. He had not had courage to run the risk. He had waited the three weeks which the store-keeper had said must elapse before the little dog could leave its mother, and then had gone over to the village and brought it home, without a word to any one, trusting to the puppy's own attractions to plead for it. It had seemed to Benjamin that nobody could resist that puppy. But Grandfather Wellman had all his life preferred cats to dogs, and now he was childishly fond of Seventoes. Benjamin's mother often said that she didn't know what grandsir would do if anything happened to Seventoes.

Benjamin, going out of the yard with the puppy under his arm, could see Seventoes sitting on the shed roof. That and the ledge of the old well behind the barn were his favorite perches. Grandfather Wellman thought he chose them because he was so afraid of dogs. Benjamin looked at him, and wished Cæsar was big enough to shake him. He had named the puppy Cæsar on his way home from the village. There was a great mastiff over there by the same name. Benjamin had always admired this big Cæsar, and now thought he would name his dog after him. It was the same principle reduced on which Benjamin himself had been named after Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin trudged down the road, kicking up the dust with his toes. That was something he had been told not to do, so now in this state of mind he liked to do it. The sun beat down fiercely upon his small red cropped head in the burned straw-hat, and his slender shoulders in the calico blouse. The puppy was large and fat for his age, and made his arms ache. The stone-walls on both sides of the road were hidden with wild-rose and meadowsweet bushes; the fields were dotted with hay-makers; now and then a loaded hay-cart loomed up in the road. Many boys no older than Benjamin had to work hard in the hay-fields, but Grandfather Wellman was too careful of him; he would not let him work much in vacation; he had never been considered very strong. But Benjamin did not think of that. One grievance will outweigh a hundred benefits. He hugged the struggling puppy tight in his arms and trudged on painfully, brooding over his wrongs.

He muttered to himself as he went, "Wanted a dog ever since I was born. All the other boys have got 'em. 'Ain't never had nothing but an old cat. Sha'n't never have a chance to get such a dog as this again. Wish something would happen to that old cat; shouldn't care a mite." He stubbed more fiercely into the dust, and it flew higher; a squirrel ran across the road, and he looked at it with an indifferent scowl.

When he reached Sammy Tucker's house he saw Sammy out in the great north yard raking hay with his father. Sammy looked up and saw Benjamin coming.

"Holloa!" he sang out, eagerly. Then he dropped his rake and raced into the road. His black eyes winked fast with excitement. "Say, won't he let you keep him, Ben?" he cried.

"No; he won't let me keep nothing."

"Going to let me have him, then?"

"S'pose so."

Sammy reached forth his eager hands, and took the kicking puppy from Benjamin's reluctant arms. "Nice fellar--nice little fellar," said he, tenderly.

"I've named him Cæsar," said Benjamin.

"That's a good name," assented Sammy. "Hi, Cæsar! Hi, sir!"

Sammy's father came smilingly forward to the fence; he was fond of dogs. He also took the puppy, and talked to it. Benjamin thought to himself that he wished his grandfather was more like Sammy's father. He looked on gloomily.

"Hate to give it up, don't you, Ben?" said Mr. Tucker, kindly.

"Sha'n't never have such a chance again."

"Oh yes, you will; your grandfather'll let you have a dog some time."

"No; he won't never let me have nothing."

"Oh, don't you give up yet, Ben."

Benjamin shook his head like a discouraged old man, and turned to go home.

"Sammy'll feed him, and take real good care of him, and you can come over here and see him," Mr. Tucker called after him, as he went down the road.

Benjamin thought to himself that he should not want to, as he marched wearily homeward. His arms were lightened of the puppy, but his heart seemed heavy within him. Two boys whom he knew sang out to him from a load of hay, but he gave only a grim nod in response. "_They've_ got a dog," he muttered; and indeed the pretty shepherd dog was following after the load.

Benjamin, when he came in sight of home, thought he would take a short-cut through the orchard. He meditated stealing up the back stairs to his chamber, staying up there, and saying that he did not want any supper; he was not hungry. They had not cut the grass in the orchard, and he plunged through clover, feathery grass, and daisies to his waist. He felt pleased to think how he was making a furrow through his grandfather's hay. He emerged from the orchard, and went on towards the barn; directly back of it was the old well. When he reached that he stopped short. There was Seventoes--beautiful great yellow cat--stretched in the sun, all his wonderful seven-toed paws spread out. The ledge of the old well was a strange place for a cat, but Seventoes was fond of it, and stayed there much of the time when he was not on the shed roof.

Benjamin walked close to the well and looked at Seventoes. His small face was burning red with the heat; his blue eyes gleamed angrily. "You lazy old cat," said he. He stood a second longer; then he thrust out his right hand and gave Seventoes a push. There was a piteous yawl and a great clawing, and Seventoes was out of sight. Benjamin ran. He gasped; a white streak was settling around his mouth. He was well versed in Bible stories, and he thought of Cain. What had he done? What would happen to him? Could he ever get away from his guilt, run fast as he would? Benjamin ran as he had never run before, his heart pounding, although he did not know clearly what he was running for. He tore around the barn, through the pasture bars, towards the house. When he came in sight of the shed a great qualm of guilt and remorse forced him to glance up at the place where poor Seventoes had so loved to sit, and where he would sit no more. Benjamin glanced, then he stood stock-still, fairly aghast with awe and terror--_there sat Seventoes_!

All the red faded out of Benjamin's cheeks. He had never been encouraged in superstitious beliefs, but he was an imaginative child, and just now bewildered and unstrung. He stared at the shed roof. Yes! he saw Seventoes there, and Seventoes was at the bottom of the old well. Had he not seen him fall, clawing, down?

Benjamin rushed staggering into the kitchen. "Oh, grandsir! oh, mother!" he wailed--"oh, I've pushed Seventoes into the old well and drowned him, and his ghost's sitting on the shed roof! Oh, mother!"

Grandfather Wellman was confined to his chair with rheumatism, but he arose. "Pushed Seventoes into the well," he repeated, while Benjamin's mother turned as pale as her son.

"I have--I have," sobbed Benjamin. "I didn't know I was going to, but I have. And he's in the well, and he's sitting on the shed roof too. Oh!"

"What do you mean?" his mother gasped. "Stop acting so, and tell me what you've done."

"I pushed Seventoes into the old well. I didn't know I was going to, but I did; and he's dead in there, and he's on the shed roof. Oh, mother!"

"You 'ain't pushed that cat into the well?" groaned Grandfather Wellman. "If you have--" He was trying to limp across the kitchen with his cane. He, too, was pale, and trembling from head to foot. "Hannah," he said to Benjamin's mother, "you come right along quick, and see if we can't get him out. I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that cat."

Benjamin's mother started. Benjamin, sobbing and trembling, was clinging to her. Just then _Seventoes walked in through the east door_, his splendid ringed tail waving a little uneasily, but not a hair of him was hurt. A frightened cat can run faster than a guilty little boy, and Seventoes had found his unusual number of claws of good service in climbing a well and retarding his progress towards the bottom.

They all looked.

"Is it--Seventoes?" gasped Benjamin, with wild eyes.

"Of course it's Seventoes," growled his grandfather. "I'd like to know what you've been cutting up so for. Pussy, pussy, pussy."

Benjamin's mother took him over to the sink, and put some water on his head, and made him drink some. "There's no such thing as a ghost, and you're acting very silly," said she; "but I don't wonder you are scared, when you've done such a dreadful thing. It scares me to think of it. It was 'most as bad as killing somebody. I never thought a boy of mine would do such a thing. Grandsir good as he is to you, too."

"I--won't ever do so--again," sobbed Benjamin, all trembling. "I'm sorry; I _am_ sorry."

Benjamin was not whipped, the scourging of his own conscience had been severe enough, but he sat pale and sober in the kitchen, while grandsir, with Seventoes on his knees, and his mother talked to him.

"If you ever do anything like this again, Benjamin," said his grandfather, "I shall be ha'sh with you, ha'sher than I've ever been, and you must remember it."

"I guess he must," said his mother. "It was a dreadful wicked thing, and he should be punished now if I didn't think he'd suffered enough from his own guilty conscience for this time, and would never as long as he lived do such a terrible thing again."

"I won't--I--won't!" choked Benjamin.

At supper-time, when the new milk was brought in from the barn, Benjamin filled a saucer with it and carried it to the door for Seventoes. He filled it so full that he spilled it all the way over the clean kitchen floor, but his mother said nothing. Seventoes lapped his milk happily; Benjamin, with his little contrite, tear-stained face, stood watching him, and grandsir sat in his arm-chair. Over in the fields the hay-makers were pitching the last loads into the carts; the east sky was red with the reflected color of the west. Everything was sweet and cool and peaceful, and the sun was not going down on Benjamin's childish wrath. His grandfather put out his hand and patted his little red cropped head, "You're always going to be a good boy after this, ain't you, sonny?"

"Yes, sir," said Benjamin, and he got down on his knees and hugged Seventoes.

LITTLE MIRANDY AND HOW SHE EARNED HER SHOES

By the 1st of June Mrs. Thayer had the sun-bonnets done. There were four of them, for the four youngest girls--Eliza, Mary Ann, Harriet, and Mirandy. She had five daughters besides these, but two were married and gone away from home, and the other three were old enough to make their own sun-bonnets.

There were four Thayer boys; one of them came next to Mirandy, the youngest girl, the others ranked upward in age from Harriet, who was eleven, to Sarah Jane, who was sixteen. There were thirteen sons and daughters in all in Josiah Thayer's family, and eleven were at home. It was hard work to get enough from the stony New England farm to feed them; and let Mrs. Thayer card and spin and dye and weave as she would, the clothing often ran short. And so it happened that little Mirandy Thayer, aged six, had no shoes to her feet.

One Sunday in June she cried because she had to go to meeting barefooted.

"Ain't you ashamed of yourself, a great big girl like you, crying?" said her mother, sternly. "You go right over there, and sit down on the settle till father gets hitched up, and Daniel, you go and sit down 'side of her, and teach her the first question in the catechism. She'd ought to find out there's something else to be thought about on the Sabbath day besides shoes."

So Mirandy, sniffing between the solemn words, repeated them after Daniel, who was twelve years old, and knew his catechism quite thoroughly. And when the great farm wagon, with the team of oxen, stood before the door, she climbed in with the rest without a murmur.

But sitting in the meeting-house through the two hours' discourse, she drew up her little bare feet under her blue petticoat, and going down the aisle afterwards, she crouched, making it sweep the floor, until her mother dragged her up forcibly by one arm.

"Ain't you ashamed of yourself?" she whispered. "A great big girl like you!"

Mirandy was in reality very small for her age, and everybody called her "little;" but she got very few privileges on account of her youth and littleness. In those days, and especially in a family like Josiah Thayer's, where there were so many children that each had to scratch for itself at an early age or go without, six years was considered comparatively mature, and the child who had lived that long was not exempt from many duties.

So Mrs. Thayer did not think herself in the least severe when she said to Mirandy after meeting: "If you want some shoes so bad, you'll have to work an' earn 'em."

Mirandy looked up inquiringly at her mother.

"You can pick berries an' sell 'em," replied her mother. "You're plenty big enough to."

Mirandy said nothing, and soon her mother set her to rocking Jonathan in his red wooden cradle; but as she sat, with her small bare foot on the rocker, ambition expanded wider and wider in her childish soul, and she resolved that she would earn some shoes.

The berries were not ripe before the middle of July. She had some five weeks to wait before she could fairly begin work. But not a day passed that she did not visit the pastures to see if the berries were ripe. She brought home so many partially ripe ones for samples that her brothers and sisters remonstrated. They, too, were vitally interested in the berry crop in behalf of shoes and many other things. "She won't leave any berries on the bushes to get ripe if she picks so many green ones," they complained, and her mother issued a stern decree that Mirandy should not go to the berry pasture until the berries were fairly ripe.

But at last, one hot morning in July, the squad of berry-pickers started. There were four Thayer girls and two Thayer boys, besides Jonathan, the baby, whom Eliza dragged in his little wooden wagon.

"If you go berrying this mornin', you've got to take Jonathan with you," Mrs. Thayer had said. "Dorcas is weaving, an' Lyddy an' I have got to dye. You'll have to take him out in the pasture with you, an' tend him."

The berry pasture whither they were bound was about a half-mile from home. The two boys scurried on ahead, the four yellow sun-bonnets marched bravely on, and Jonathan's wagon rattled behind.

"The berries are real thick," said Harriet; "but they say the bushes are loaded with 'em over in Cap'n Moseby's lot, an' they're as big as walnuts."

"He can't use quarter of 'em himself," returned Mary Ann. "I call it real stingy not to let folks go in there pickin'!" She nodded her sun-bonnet indignantly.

When they reached the berry pasture, they fell to work eagerly. Jonathan's wagon was drawn up on one side, under the shade of a pine-tree, and Mirandy was bidden to have an eye to him. Nobody had much faith in the seriousness of Mirandy's picking, and they thought that she might as well tend Jonathan and leave them free.

But Mirandy stationed herself at a bush near Jonathan, and began with a will. They all had birch baskets fastened at their waists to pick into, and they had brought buckets to fill. Mirandy had hers as well as the rest.

The yellow sun-bonnets and the palm-leaf hats waved about among the bushes, and the berries fell fast into the birch-bark baskets. Mirandy stayed close to Jonathan, as she had been bidden, and she struggled bravely with her berry bush, but it was too tall for her; the bushes in this pasture were very tall. Mirandy tugged the branches down, and panted for breath. She was eager to fill her basket as soon as anybody. She heard Harriet and Mary Ann talking near her, although she could not see them.

"Cap'n Moseby's pasture is right over there. You get over the stone-wall, and go across one field, and you come to it," remarked Harriet.

"I s'pose the berries are as thick as spatters," said Mary Ann, with a sigh.

"Dan'l says the bushes are dragging down with 'em."

"Well," said Mary Ann, "nobody would dare to go there, for he keeps that great black dog, and I've heard he watches with a gun."

"So've I. No; I shouldn't dare to go. I s'pose it would be stealing, anyway."

"I don't s'pose 'twould," rejoined Harriet, hotly. "I guess if anything is free, berry pastures are. Who planted berry bushes, I'd like to know?"

"I s'pose the Lord did," said Mary Ann. "Mebbe it ain't stealin', but anyhow I shouldn't dare to go there."

"I shouldn't," agreed Harriet; "an' I know Dan'l and Abijah wouldn't."

Mirandy listened; she thought both Harriet and Mary Ann very wise. She trusted to their conclusion that it would not be stealing to pick Cap'n Moseby's berries, but she privately thought she would "dare to."

Mirandy did not know what fear was; dogs did not alarm her in the least; and as for Cap'n Moseby and his gun, she knew he would not shoot her; once he had given her some peppermints.

She pulled her bush down painfully, and thought the berries were not very large, and how fast those in Cap'n Moseby's pasture would fill up. Harriet's and Mary Ann's voices grew fainter. Mirandy let the bush fly back, and pushed softly through a tangle of blackberry vines to the stone-wall; a narrow stretch of rocky land lay between it and the other which bounded Cap'n Moseby's land. Mirandy stood on tiptoe, and peered over; then she looked at Jonathan asleep in his little wagon, his yellow lashes on his pink cheeks, his fat fists doubled up.

Mirandy was loyal, although she was so young, and she had been bidden not to leave Jonathan. She looked at him, then at the stone-wall; it was manifestly impossible for her to lift him over that. She took hold of the little wagon, and pushed it carefully along. She remembered that she had seen some bars a little farther back.

When she reached the bars, she shook Jonathan until he woke up. He stared at her in a surprised way, but never cried; he was a good baby.

"Put your arms round sister's neck," ordered Mirandy; and Jonathan obeyed.

Mirandy tugged him out of his little wagon, and they both rolled over under a berry bush. Still Jonathan did not cry. He only gurgled a little, by way of laugh. He thought Mirandy was playing with him.

The bars were close together, and Mirandy could not stir one. Jonathan gurgled again when his sister rolled him, like a ball, under the lowest bar, and then rolled under herself. But it was harder for her to tug Jonathan across to the other bars which guarded Cap'n Moseby's berry pasture; he could only toddle feebly when led by a strong hand. It was quite a puzzle for six-year-old Mirandy, but she got him across and under the other bars; then she set him down in a sweet-fern thicket, and bade him keep still; and he fell asleep again.

Mirandy picked until she had filled her bucket and rounded it up. Her heart beat faster and faster; her face was flushed and eager; she looked a year older than when she started that morning. She had seen no great black dog, and Cap'n Moseby, with his gun, had not appeared. In the distance she could see the hipped roof and squat chimney of the Moseby house; but nobody molested her.

When her bucket was full, she tugged Jonathan across the field again. This time he rebelled; a blackberry vine had scratched his little legs, and his peace was too rudely disturbed. Mirandy tugged him into his little wagon, and he lay there kicking and screaming. She flew back across the field for her bucket of berries. She had been forced to leave it while she brought Jonathan over, and the bucket was gone. She had set it close to the bars, and there could be no mistake about it.

Mirandy went back across the field; Jonathan wailed louder than ever. Her four sisters were gathered about his little wagon, and Daniel and Abijah were coming through the bushes. Then they all turned on her.

"Now, Mirandy Thayer, I'd like to know this minute where you've been?" demanded Eliza.

Mirandy jerked her head backward.

"You 'ain't been over in Cap'n Moseby's pasture?"

Mirandy nodded.

"She's been over in Cap'n Moseby's pasture," announced Eliza to the others.

They all stared at Mirandy, and paid no heed to Jonathan's wails.

Suddenly Mirandy flung her little blue apron over her face and began to weep.

"Did you get scared?" asked Harriet.

"Did the dog chase you?" asked Mary Ann, very excitedly.

Mirandy shook her head, and sobbed harder.

"Did you see Cap'n Moseby with his gun?" asked Daniel.

Mirandy shook her head.

"I wouldn't be such a baby for nothing, then," said Daniel.

"I've lost my bucket!" sobbed Mirandy.

"Lost your bucket!" repeated Eliza. She was the oldest sister there.

Mirandy nodded.

"You're a wicked girl!" Eliza said, severely. "I don't know what mother'll say. Here's Jonathan all scratched up, too. Did you take him over there?"

"Yes," sobbed Mirandy.

"You're a dreadful wicked girl! Didn't you know 'twas stealing?"

"Harriet said--it wasn't," returned Mirandy, in feeble defence.

"It was. I shouldn't think you'd said such a thing, Harriet."

"Of course it's stealing," said Daniel, soberly.

"Here you've been stealing," scolded Eliza; "and your bucket's gone, and Jonathan is all scratched up with blackberry vines. I don't know what mother'll say."

She took Jonathan out of his wagon and hushed him, and then they had a consultation as to what was best to be done. Mirandy related, with tearful breaks, the story of her well-filled bucket and its mysterious disappearance.

"Of course Cap'n Moseby was watching out there with his gun and took it," said Daniel.

It was finally agreed that they would all go in a body to Cap'n Moseby's, and try to recover Mirandy's bucket, that she might not have to face her mother without it. When they reached the Moseby house the doors were closed and the windows looked blank. They knocked as loudly as they dared, and there was not a sound in response. They looked at one another.

"S'pose he ain't at home?" whispered Harriet.

"Dan'l, you pound on the door again," said Eliza.

And Daniel pounded. Abijah pounded, too, and Eliza herself rattled away on one panel, with her freckled face screwed up, but nobody came.

"If he's there, he won't come to the door," said Daniel.

Suddenly the silence within the house was broken. Then came a volley of quick barks, and the children all fell back in a panic, and scurried into the road.

"He's in there," said Daniel; "an' he's been keeping the dog still, but he can't any longer."

"Just hear him!" whispered Harriet, with a shudder.

The dog was not only barking and growling, but leaping at the door.

Mary Ann began to cry. "I'm going home," she sobbed. "S'pose that door should break;" and she started down the road.

Eliza grasped the handle of Jonathan's wagon. "I guess we might just as well go," she said. "I don't b'lieve he'll come to the door if we stand there a week. I don't know what mother'll say when she finds that good bucket's gone. I guess Mirandy'll catch it. An' when she finds out she's been stealing, too, I don't know what she will say."

The sorry procession started. Jonathan's wagon creaked; but Mirandy stood still, with a stubborn pout on her mouth, and her brows contracted over her blue eyes.

"Come along, Mirandy," called Eliza, with a foreboding voice.

But Mirandy stood still.

"Why don't you come?" Harriet said.

"I ain't coming," said Mirandy.

"What?"

"I ain't coming till I get my bucket."

Then the whole procession stopped, and reasoned and argued, but Mirandy was unmoved.

"What are you going to do? You can't get in," said Eliza.

"I'm going to sit on the door-step till Cap'n Moseby comes out," answered Mirandy.

"You'll sit there all day, likely's not," said Eliza. "What do you s'pose mother'll say? I'm a-going to tell her."

"She'll send me right back again if I don't stay," said Mirandy.

And there was some show of reason in what she said. It was indeed quite probable that Mrs. Josiah Thayer would send Mirandy straight back again to confess her sins and get the bucket.

"I don't know but mother would send her back," said Eliza; and Daniel nodded in assent.

"I'll stay with you," said Mary Ann, although she was still trembling with fear of the dog.

"Don't want anybody to stay," protested Mirandy.

Finally she sat on Cap'n Moseby's door-step, and watched them all straggle out of sight. The creak of Jonathan's wagon grew fainter and fainter, until she could hear it no longer. The dog was quiet now. Mirandy sat up straight in front of the panelled door.

She waited and waited; the time went on, and it was high noon. She heard a dinner-horn in the distance. She wondered vaguely if Cap'n Moseby didn't have any dinner because he lived alone. She began to feel hungry herself. There was not a sound in the house. She wanted to cry, but she would not. She sat perfectly still. Once in a while she said over to herself the questions she had learned from the catechism, and she reflected much upon the two boys in the _Pilgrim's Progress_. She had eaten a few of the Cap'n's berries as she filled her bucket, and she wondered that they did not make her ill, as the fruit did the boys.

Nobody passed the house, the insects rasped in her ears, she thought her forlorn childish thoughts, and it was an hour after noon. She did not see a curtain trimmed with white balls in a window overhead pulled cautiously to one side, and a grizzled head thrust out; but this happened several times.

About two o'clock there was a sudden puff of cool wind on her back; she glanced around, trembling, and there stood Cap'n Moseby in the open door, with his great black dog at his heels. His old face was the color of tanned leather, and full of severe furrows; his shaggy brows frowned over sharp black eyes. He leaned upon a stout oak staff, for he had been lamed by a British musket-ball.

"Who's this?" he asked, in a grim voice.

Mirandy arose and stood about, and courtesied. She could not find her tongue yet.

"Hey?" said Cap'n Moseby.

"Mirandy Thayer," she answered then, in a shaking voice that had yet a touch of defiance in it.

"Mirandy Thayer, hey? Well, what do you want here, Mirandy Thayer?"

Mirandy dropped another courtesy. "My bucket."

"Your bucket! What have I got to do with your bucket?"

"I left it out in--your berry pasture."

"Out in my berry pasture! So you have been stealing my berries, hey? What about your bucket?"

Mirandy's little hands clutched and opened at her sides, her face was quite pale, but she looked straight up at Cap'n Moseby. "You took it," said she.

Cap'n Moseby looked straight back at her, frowning terribly; then, to her great astonishment, his mouth twitched as if he were going to laugh. "You think I took your bucket, and you have been waiting here all this time to get it back, hey?" said he.

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't you feel afraid that I'd set the dog on you, or shoot you out of the window with my gun?"

"No, sir," said Mirandy.

"Well," said Cap'n Moseby. He paused a minute, his mouth twitched again. "You have got to come into the house and settle with me if you want your bucket," he continued, and his voice was still very grim.

Mirandy stepped up on the threshold, and the black dog growled faintly.

"Be still, Lafayette!" said Cap'n Moseby. "I'm going to settle with her. You lay down."

She followed Cap'n Moseby into his kitchen, and he pushed a little stool towards her. "Sit down," said he.

And Mirandy sat down. Directly opposite her, on a corner of the settle, was her berry bucket, and near it stood the gun, propped against the wall. She eyed it. There was a vague fear in her mind that settlement was in some way connected with that gun; but she never flinched. She was resolved to have that bucket.

Cap'n Moseby went to the dresser and got out a large china bowl with green sprigs on it, and a pewter spoon. He filled the bowl with berries from Mirandy's bucket, and then poured on some milk out of a blue pitcher. Mirandy watched him.

He carried the bowl over to her, and set it in her lap. "Eat 'em all up, now, every one," he commanded.

Mirandy looked up at him pitifully. Her courage almost failed. She thought of the boys and the stolen fruit in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and she almost felt premonitory cramps.

"Eat 'em," ordered Cap'n Moseby.

And Mirandy ate them, thrusting the pewter spoon, laden with those stolen berries, desperately into her mouth. Never berries tasted like those to her. There was no sweetness in them. But she kept thinking how her mother could give her boneset tea if they made her sick, and she was determined to have the bucket back.

Cap'n Moseby watched her as she ate. He emptied the remaining berries out of the bucket into a large bowl. Then he sat opposite, on the settle. Lafayette lay at his feet.

Mirandy finished the berries, and sat with the empty bowl in her lap.

"Finished 'em?" asked Cap'n Moseby.

"Yes, sir."

"Now, Mirandy Thayer, I'm going to ask you a question." Cap'n Moseby's eyes looked into hers, and she looked back into his. "If you hadn't been a little gal, Mirandy Thayer, what would you have been?"

Mirandy hesitated.

"Hey?" said Cap'n Moseby.

"One of my brothers," said Mirandy, doubtfully.

"No, you wouldn't. I'll tell you what you would have been. You would have been a soldier, and you would have gone right up to the redcoats' guns. Well, you must tend to your knittin'-work and your spinnin'. Now what did you steal my berries for, hey?"

"To earn my shoes," faltered Mirandy; she felt a little bewildered.

"Earn your shoes?"

"Yes, sir; I 'ain't got any to wear to meetin'."

"Have to go barefoot?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, they went barefoot at Valley Forge; that's nothing. You wait a minute, Mirandy Thayer."

And Mirandy waited until Cap'n Moseby had limped into another room and back again. He had a pair of little rough shoes dangling in his hand.

"Here," said he, "these belonged to my Ezra that died. He had some grit in him; he'd have done some marchin' in 'em if he'd lived. They'll jest about fit you. It's a pity you're a little gal. Well, you must tend to your knittin'-work and your spinnin'. Now you'd better run home, an' don't you ever come stealin' my berries again, or you'll run faster than they did at Lexington."

And so it happened that Mirandy went home, about three o'clock of that summer afternoon, carrying her new shoes in her berry bucket, and Cap'n Moseby limped along at her side. Mirandy did not know that he went to explain matters to her mother, so that she should not be dealt with too severely, but she was surprised that she received so small a chiding.

"Don't you ever let me hear of your doing such a thing again," said her mother; and that was all she said.

The next Sunday Mirandy went up the aisle clattering bravely in little Ezra Moseby's shoes, and she could not help looking often at them during the sermon.

A PARSNIP STEW

Ruth stood by with a dish and spoon, while her mother stirred the stew carefully to be sure that it was not burning on the bottom of the kettle. Her sister Serena was paring apples and playing with the cat, and her father and her uncles Caleb and Silas sat before the fire smoking, sniffing the stew, and watching solemnly. The uncles had just come in, and proposed staying to dinner.

Mrs. Whitman squinted anxiously at the stew as she stirred it. She feared that there was not enough for dinner, now there were two more to eat.

"I'm dreadful afraid there ain't enough of that stew to go round," she whispered to Ruth in the pantry.

"Oh, I guess it'll do," said Ruth.

"Well, I dun know about it. Your father an' Caleb an' Silas are dreadful fond of parsnip stew, an' I do hate to have 'em stinted."

"Well, I won't take any," said Ruth. "I don't care much about it."

"Well, I don't want a mouthful," rejoined her mother. "Mebbe we can make it do. Caleb an' Silas don't have a good hot dinner very often, an' I do want them to have enough, anyway."

Caleb and Silas Whitman were old bachelors, living by themselves in the old Whitman homestead about a mile away, and their fare was understood to be forlorn and desultory. To-day they watched with grave complacency while their sister-in-law cooked the stew.

Over on the other side of the kitchen the table was set out with the pewter plates and the blue dishes. The stew was almost done, Mrs. Whitman was just about to dip out the slices of pork into the dish that Ruth held, when there was a roll of wheels out in the yard, and a great shadow passed over the kitchen floor.

"Mother, it's the Wigginses!" said Ruth, in a terrified whisper.

"Good gracious!" sighed her mother; "they've come to dinner."

Everybody stared for a second; then Mrs. Whitman recovered herself. "Father, you go out an' help them put the horse up. Don't sit there any longer."

Then she threw open the door, and thrust her large handsome face out into the rain. "Why, how do you do, Mis' Wiggins?" said she, and she smiled beamingly.

The wagon looked full of faces. On the front seat were a large man and two little boys; out of the gloom in the rear peered two women and a little girl. They were Mr. Wiggins, his wife and three children, and his mother. They were distant relatives of Mrs. Whitman's; they often came over to spend the day, and always unannounced.

Mr. Whitman came out clumsily and opened the barn doors, and Mr. Wiggins led the horse into the barn. "I hope you 'ain't got wet," Mrs. Whitman said. Nothing could have exceeded her cordiality; but all the time she was thinking of the parsnip stew, and how it surely would not go around now.

Ruth had not followed the others out to greet the guests. She stayed by the kettle and stirred the stew, and scowled. "I think it's downright mean for folks to come in this way, just dinner-time," said she to the uncles, who had not left their chairs. And they gave short grunts which expressed their assent, for neither of them liked company.

They watched soberly as Ruth stirred the stew, but they did not dream that there was not enough to go around.

When her mother and the guests entered, Ruth turned around and bobbed her head stiffly, and said, "Pretty well, thank you," and then stirred again. Serena helped the Wigginses take off their things. She untied old Mrs. Wiggins's pumpkin hood, and got her cap out of her cap basket and put it on for her. She also took off little Mary Wiggins's coat, and set her in a little child's arm-chair and gave her a kiss. Little Mary Wiggins, with her sober, chubby face and her rows of shiny brown curls, in her best red frock and her scalloped pantalets, was noticed admiringly by everybody but Ruth.

As soon as she could Ruth cornered her mother in the pantry. "Mother, what _are_ you going to do?" said she.

"I'm goin' to do jest the best I can," she whispered, severely. "I'm goin' to tell father an' Caleb an' Silas they mustn't take none of that stew; they can have some bread an' apple-sauce. I guess they'll git along."

"Well, I don't care," said Ruth, in a loud voice. "I think it's mean and a downright imposition on folks, coming in this way, just dinner-time."

"Ruth Whitman, if you care anything about me, you'll keep still. Now you get the salt-cup an' go out there, an' put some more salt in that stew. It tasted dreadful flat, I thought. I jest tasted of it when they drove in. I've got to get out the other knives."

Ruth caught up a cup with a jerk. "Well, how much shall I put in?" she inquired, sulkily.

"Oh, quite a lot. You can tell. It was dreadful flat. Taste of it."

But Ruth did not taste of it. She scattered the contents of the cup liberally into the stew, gave it a stir, returned to the pantry, and set the cup down hard. "Well," said she, "I've put it in, and now I'm goin'."

"Ruth Whitman, you ain't goin' off to school without any dinner."

"I don't see as there is anything for dinner but bread and apple-sauce, and I'm sure I don't want any."

"I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself, actin' so."

"I think there are other folks that ought to be ashamed of themselves. Before I'd go into folk's houses that way--"

"Ruth Whitman, they'll hear you!"

"I don't care if they do. I've got to go, anyway. It's late. I couldn't stop for dinner now if I wanted to."

She went through the kitchen, where Serena now tended the stew, only stopping to take her shawl off the peg.

"Why, you going?" Serena called after her.

"I've got to; it's late," replied Ruth, shortly. She faced about for a second and gave a stiff nod, which seemed directed at the stew-kettle rather than at the Wigginses. "Good-bye," said she. Then she went out.

It was raining with a hard, steady drizzle. Ruth had no rubbers nor water-proof--they were not yet invented. She sped along through the rain and mist. She had to walk half a mile to the little house where she taught the district school, and before she got there she felt calmer.

"I suppose I was silly to act so mad," she said to herself. "I know it plagued mother."

It was early in the spring; the trees were turning green in the rain. Over in the field she could see one peach-tree in blossom, showing pink through the mist. "I suppose Mr. Wiggins couldn't work out to-day, and that's how they happened to come. They could have the horse. But they ought to have come earlier," reflected Ruth. "There are a good many of 'em for Mrs. Wiggins to get ready," mused Ruth. "There's old Mrs. Wiggins and Johnny and Sammy and Mary and Mr. Wiggins."

By the time Ruth was seated at her table in the school-room, and the scholars were wriggling and twisting before her on their wooden benches, she saw the matter quite plainly from the Wiggins side. She made up her mind that she would behave just as well as she knew how to the Wigginses when she got home. She planned how she would swing little Mary out in the barn and play with the boys, and how she would help her mother get tea.

When school was done and Ruth started for home the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. The rain-pools in the road glittered, and she noticed a cherry-tree in blossom. When she reached home Serena met her at the door.

"Oh, Ruth Whitman!" she cried, "we have had such a time!"

Ruth stared. "What do you mean?" said she. "Where are the Wigginses?"

"They've gone. Mrs. Wiggins and old Mrs. Wiggins were dreadful mad. Oh, Ruth, you didn't do it on purpose, did you?"

"Do what on purpose?" said Ruth, pushing into the house, and looking around the empty kitchen in a bewildered way. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you know what you put into that parsnip stew?"

"No; I don't know of anything I put in but some salt, just before I went to school; mother told me to. Why?"

"Oh, Ruth, you put in--saleratus!"

"I don't believe it."

Ruth flew into the pantry, and came out with a cracked blue cup. "Here," said she--"here's the salt-cup, and this is the one I got it out of, I know."

"Taste of it," said Serena, solemnly.

Ruth tasted. "It _is_ saleratus," said she, looking at her sister in horror. "Did it spoil the stew?"

"It was--dreadful."

"I don't see how it happened," Ruth said, slowly, puckering her forehead, "unless mother dipped out some saleratus in the salt-cup to bring out in the kitchen when she mixed the sour-milk cakes for breakfast. I don't know anything about it, true's I live and breathe. I hope they didn't think I did such a mean thing as that on purpose."

"Well, I don't know as they really thought you did, but you know you did kind of jerk round, Ruth, and the Wigginses saw it."

"What did they say?"

"Well," said Serena, "we all sat down to the table, and mother had put on the bread and apple-sauce for the rest of us, and she helped the Wigginses to the stew. There wasn't more'n enough to go around, but she kept the cover over the dish so they shouldn't suspect, and all the rest of us said we wouldn't take any.

"Well, Mrs. Wiggins she tasted, and old Mrs. Wiggins she tasted. Then they looked at mother. Mother she didn't know what it meant, and she kept getting redder and redder. Finally she spoke up. 'Is there anything the matter with the stew?' says she.

"Then Mrs. Wiggins she pushed over her plate for mother to taste of the stew, and the first thing we knew they were all talking at once. Old Mrs. Wiggins said she'd noticed how we acted kind of stiff, and as if we wasn't glad to see them, the minute she come, and Mrs. Wiggins said she had, too, and she'd seen you put the saleratus into the stew, and she thought from the way you switched around you were up to something. Mother she tried to excuse it off, but they wouldn't hear a word. They said it didn't look very likely that it was an accident, and they noticed none of us took any of it, and mother wouldn't tell them the reason for that. So they just got up and put on their things, and Mr. Wiggins backed out the horse, and they went home. Mother asked them to come again, and she'd try and have a better dinner, but they said they'd never set foot in the house again if they knew it."

"Didn't anybody eat the stew?"

"Nobody but Sammy Wiggins; he ate his whole plateful, saleratus and all, before anybody spoke."

"Oh dear!" said Ruth; "I suppose mother feels dreadfully. Where is she?"

"She's gone over to Lucy Ann's to help her take care of the baby; he was real sick last night. I don't believe she'll come home till after supper. She felt dreadful."

"The Wigginses are dreadful touchy folks, anyhow."

"Course they are. It don't seem as if anybody with any sense would get mad at such a thing. But they're always suspecting folks of meaning something."

Ruth looked sternly reflective. She took off her thick dingy shawl, and got from its peg a bright red and green plaid one that she wore in pleasant weather.

"Where are you going?" asked Serena.

"I'm going over to the Wigginses'."

"What for?"

"I'm going to ask them to come over here to-morrow and spend the day."

"Why, Ruth Whitman, ain't you afraid to?"

"No, I ain't afraid. I'm going to carry over a jar of the honey--mother 'll be willing--and I'm going to tell Mrs. Wiggins just how it was."

"She won't hear a word you say."

"I'll make her hear."

"They won't come a step."

"You see."

The Whitmans kept bees, and their honey was the celebrated luxury of the neighborhood. Ruth got a jar of clear white honey out of the closet, put it under her shawl, and was off. First, though, she instructed Serena to go out in the garden and dig a good supply of parsnips and clean them for the next day's dinner.

It was a mile to the Wigginses', and it took Ruth over an hour to accomplish her errand and return. When she got home she found Serena getting supper, and her father was washing his hands out in the shed; her mother had not returned. On the kitchen sink lay a tin pan with four or five muddy parsnips. Serena looked up eagerly when her sister entered. "They coming?" said she.

"Yes, they are," replied Ruth, with a triumphant smile.

But Serena walked over to the sink and extended her arm with a tragical gesture towards the parsnips. "Well, you've gone and done it now, Ruth Whitman," said she. "There's every single parsnip that's fit to eat that I could find in the garden."

"H'm! I guess I can find some."