Part 2

An hour flew by as hours only can in Fairyland gardens.

“Honk, honk!” Tilda jumped to one side quicker than pop, it sounded so near, and Fairy Godmother, standing on the porch with wide-awake Maggie in her arms, laughed outright.

“It is talking to us, Tilda,” she explained, “and says, ‘Come out front.’”

There by the curb stood a splendid great, shiny auto, waiting for Tilda and Maggie.

Out from the front seat hopped a nice big man with a nice big smile to match, to help them all in and get them settled.

“This is ‘Fairy Godfather,’ Tilda,” introduced Fairy Godmother. “He’s heard all about you and Maggie over the ’phone.”

“I’m delighted to meet you, Miss Tilda and Maggie,” he said in a nice big voice as he held out his hand, and Tilda felt almost too magnificent to live.

Norah now came flying out with a mysterious box, which she handed right over to Tilda. Then Fairy Godfather packed in the gocart and away they whizzed for the tenement--by way of the shore.

Two hours later, when tired Mother came home from her long day’s work, a radiant and breathless Tilda met her at the door and invited her to a royal spread.

“Do have some more cake and another cup of tea,” insisted the little hostess gayly. “And just think, Mother, a trip to the country for all of us for two whole weeks! Isn’t it grand? And there’ll be cows and chickens and green grass and flowers, and the rent paid all the while we’re gone! But most the wonderfulest part of it all”--Tilda’s eyes grew starry--“was how Fairy Godmother kept getting gladder ’n’ gladder all the time. And she said ‘thank you’ to me, Mother, and Fairy Godfather did, too, ’s if _I’d_ done anything, when you know positive sure I never did one single thing ’cept lending Maggie.”

“I’m not so sure about that, dear.” And Mother patted the scraggly Dutch cut tenderly, smiling into Tilda’s questioning eyes.

ROBERT’S ADVENTURE

“Good-by, Robert,” called Mother, as she and Father drove off for the city one summer afternoon. “Don’t forget to fill the wood box, dear, and to feed the chickens.”

“Good-by,” answered the boy from the stone wall, without looking up.

Robert was discontented. He was tired of filling the wood box and feeding the chickens every day, and for only five cents a week. Five cents a week! Yes, that was all he had to spend for candy, marbles, and everything, while Timmie Marsh, who lived down the road, had a nickel about every day, and he never had to work at all.

Robert had been thinking and thinking what could be done about it, and at last he had made up his mind. He would go to Blakeville that very afternoon to old Nurse Tucker’s. He could walk four miles easily, and Nurse would be so glad to see him.

“Of course,” he said to himself, “I’ll write to Mother, so she’ll know I’m not drowned or anything. And I’ll tell her how Nurse gives me five cents for candy every day--’course she will--and how I don’t have to do any work, either. Then won’t Daddy come for me quick and say if I’ll only go back with him, I needn’t bring in the wood or feed the chickens or do anything unless I feel like it, and I can have all the money I want, besides!”

And now, as the buckboard vanished in the distance, Robert turned toward the house to carry out his plan. He could hear Mandy, the hired girl, singing at her work as he tiptoed cautiously in at the wood-shed door and up to his room.

After giving his hair one hasty stroke with the brush and putting on his Sunday shoes and stockings, he considered his toilet completed and was soon stealing out of the wood shed again, unobserved by Mandy.

A moment later Robert was skulking through the barnyard, making a bee line for the blueberry lot and the turnpike. But what made the chickens act so queerly? Mrs. Bantam, with her head cocked on one side, eyed him suspiciously as he crept along, while the great white rooster flew upon the coop and screamed right out, so loud that Robert feared the whole village would hear. “_What-you-going-to-do-oo? What-you-going-to-do-oo?_” Robert did not think best to answer, but was only more eager than ever to move on his journey.

He had no sooner struck the blueberry lot, however, than Lady Ann, the Jersey cow, started for him, and, poking out her head, exclaimed in mild surprise, “_Oo-oo! oo-oo!_”

And he had barely reached the road, when, to cap the climax, the sheep from the stony pasture across the way began to chide him. “_Ba-ad! Ba-ad!_” they bleated.

“No, I’m _not_ bad, either!” cried Robert almost in tears. Here he had gone cross-lots purposely to escape the villagers and now the animals were all after him! And, stuffing his fingers in his ears, he began to run.

The summer sun was blazing; still Robert kept on, though with ever-slackening speed, meeting no one but a stray dog or two and an occasional ox-team with its sleepy driver. At length he came to a big sign post which read:

BLAKEVILLE 3 MILES

“P’r’aps I’d better sit down a minute,” he said to himself. “I’m not tired, of course, and my shoes don’t hurt--only just a little bit. I guess there won’t be anybody to catch me ’way out here.” And as he sat rubbing his hands over the shoes that did not hurt, he encouraged himself with visions of the candy counter at Nurse’s village store.

“Why, Robert, little man, what are you doing so far from home?” There was no escaping an answer this time, for it was Mrs. Bronson, the minister’s wife, who stood before him.

“O--er, I’m--er going for a walk, Mrs. Bronson,” he stammered, jumping up; and, taking off his cap, he turned on his heel and started on again, never once daring to look behind.

But the Sunday shoes were soon pinching in good earnest. He could stand them no longer, so he pulled them off, and, swinging them on his shoulder, went on in his stocking feet.

Uphill and downhill he trudged. How hot the sun was! And how tired and bruised his poor feet were getting!

“I guess I’ll take another little rest,” he said as he limped across the road. “It’s nice and shady here by the brook and I _am some_ tired.”

Down upon the sweet green grass he lay. The candy counter at Blakeville was beginning to lose its charm, and--

Robert sat up in a sudden fright. A solemn voice was calling to him from the woods: “_Bubby-gu-hum! Bubby-gu-hum!_”

Robert turned fearfully, and there, on a stone in the brook, sat a great, blinking frog.

“I won’t go home, you naughty frog!” he cried. “I’m going to Nurse’s.” Then, ka-splash! and Mr. Frog had disappeared.

There was a queer buzzing in Robert’s head, and presently he was fast asleep in spite of himself.

The sun set. The little boy slept on. A cool breeze came up, and Robert tried to pull the bedclothes over him, but there weren’t any clothes to pull--and he awoke.

He sat up and looked around. What could it all mean? When finally it dawned upon him where he was, he set up a wail and then stood in bewilderment.

In a moment he started in fresh horror, hearing wheels close at hand.

“Supposing it’s gypsies,” he groaned, “and they should carry me off! Oh dear! Oh dear!”

Nearer came the wheels. There was no way of escape. All he could do was to drop down beside the road and keep so still maybe they’d think he was a log of wood.

Now he heard voices. There might be twenty of them. Twenty gypsies! Could it be they were going by without noticing him? Robert hardly dared to breathe.

“Whoa there! What’s this?”

A big man leaped from the team. Robert closed his eyes and tried to pray. But all that he could think of was, “Now I lay me,” and that would never do.

A lantern was flashed in his face. “Bless my stars, if it isn’t our own Robert!”

“O Daddy, Daddy!” sobbed a frightened little voice.

Two strong arms lifted the shivering little fellow and placed him in the buckboard right beside his own mother.

“Robert, Robert!” she cried tremulously. “How did you ever get way out here at this time of night?--and in your stocking feet!”

“Oh, Mother, I was g-going to Nurse’s and my shoes hurt and I went to sleep, but I don’t want to go there any m-more. I want to go ho-home, and I’ll bring in the wood, and f-feed the chickens every day, and you needn’t give me any m-money at all!”

Then Mother, who was a wonderful magician, understood all about it.

“Oh,” she cried softly, “supposing we had gone home by the other road!”

But Father said, “Let’s see. It isn’t too late yet. Shan’t we turn around and carry him to Blakeville?”

“Oh, no, no!” pleaded Robert, clutching his father’s arm, “I want to go _ho-ome_.”

“Humph! you’ve really changed your mind then, have you? Well if that’s the case, we’ll jog right along. Get up, Daisy.”

And Robert, snuggled there up against Mother, so safe and warm, at that moment would not have changed places with any boy living; no, not even for all the candy in the Blakeville store!

SANDY’S VALENTINE

“Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, Jeanie.”

“Yes, Sandy, I know.” Jeanie turned gently to the little brother, whose face was all swollen with mumps.

“Say, Jeanie, wouldn’t it be nice to have a truly valentine with lace and angels on it, like what’s in the store windows? Do you ’spose I will get one tomorrow?” he asked wistfully.

“Maybe you will, Sandy.” Jeanie smiled bravely, but her heart ached for the disappointment she feared was in store for him. How she was longing for a “truly” valentine herself, she did not breathe to Sandy.

There were many things that sadly puzzled seven-year-old Jeanie. Why should Father have gone to heaven to stay forever when they all needed him so badly? Why did the rent man come so often to take all Mother’s money as fast as she saved it? Why did the grocer never bring a turkey to their house on Thanksgiving or Christmas? And why did the postman never stop at their door, even on holidays, when he had so many packages? It seemed as if one, at least, must certainly be meant for them.

Jeanie was turning it all over in her mind now, as she made Sandy’s bed, this morning before Valentine’s Day, when suddenly a bright idea came into her head, and, darting across the room to a rickety little table, she opened the drawer and pulled out a piece of druggists’ white paper. Smoothing it out on the table, she folded the two short edges carefully together.

“It looks just like boughten letter paper now, don’t it, Sandy? But you mustn’t ask a single question, because it’s a surprise,” she said, settling herself to write. Then for thirty long minutes, Jeanie’s stub pencil crawled painfully over the white surface. It was a hard task for her, especially as Mother wasn’t at home to help with the spelling.

At last Jeanie heaved a deep sigh of relief. “There,” she said aloud, “it’s all ready now but the unvelope.” Whereupon she took from the family Bible a treasured envelope she had picked up in the street one day.

“It’s a perfectly good unvelope, all unstuck same’s a new one,” she said to herself “and a nice green stamp on it. All the matter is, it’s wrote on a little, but I can scratch that out all right.” And soon the second-hand envelope was ready and the letter tucked inside.

“I must go to school now, Sandy!” cried Jeanie, running for her coat and hat. “Mother’ll be home pretty soon. Good-by.” In a moment she was out of the door and hurrying to the mail box on the corner, where, standing on tiptoe, she dropped in the precious missive.

That noon, as Postman Green sat at dinner with his wife, he suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, I ’most forgot my valentine!” and he pulled from his pocket a sorry-looking envelope, directed to “Mister Postman himself.”

“From one of my young admirers on Gregory Street,” he laughed, passing it to his wife.

Mrs. Green tore it open. “Why, it’s a letter,” she said, proceeding to read aloud:

DEAR MR. POSTMAN:

I thort I wood rite you about Sandy’s valuntin; he wants one orful--one of those kind with lace and angels on it what come in unvelops. He has got the mumps and can’t go out, and Mother ain’t got any money to buy a valuntin, and father has been in heaven a long time. Won’t you plees look everywhere around the post-orfice, and in all the boxes on the lamp-posts, and see if you can’t find one for him? His name is Sandy Keith, and we live in the little brown house, number 27 Gregory Street, wher you don’t ever stop, even on Christmus. I will be looking for you at the winder tomorer noon. Plees don’t go by or cross the street this time.

From your frend,

JEANIE KEITH

“Poor little things! They mustn’t be disappointed!” cried Mrs. Green.

“Indeed, they shan’t be,” answered the postman soberly. “I’ve just thought up the nicest little scheme. I’ll tell you how it all comes out tomorrow.”

Late that afternoon Postman Green rang the bell of a fine stone house on Hillside Avenue. The door was opened quickly by a pale-faced little girl, leaning on a crutch.

“Only five of them for you in this mail,” laughed the postman, as she held out her hand, “but here’s a valentine _I_ got this morning I’d like you to see. I’ll call for it tomorrow.”

“Poor little rich girl!” he said to himself, as he went away. “She’ll have something new to amuse her now.”

The next noon Jeanie came home from school in a quiver of excitement. Sandy met her with a rueful face. “It ain’t come, Jeanie,” he cried reproachfully.

“But Valentine’s Day isn’t over yet,” laughed Jeanie gaily. And, dinner dispatched as soon as possible, she took her stand at the window.

At that moment, several blocks away, the postman was again stopping at the door of the great stone house.

“I’m so glad that you showed me your valentine,” the little girl on the crutch was saying, with sparkling eyes, “else I’d never have known anything about them. Thank you so much. It’s the best fun I ever had.”

It seemed a long time to Jeanie, stationed at the window, before the familiar blue coat came in sight.

“Oh, here he comes, Sandy!” she cried at last, clasping her hands tightly together, “and he sees me, and he’s waving something white!”

Jeanie flew to the door and opened it before the postman had time to ring.

“For Master Sandy Keith,” he announced, holding out a great white envelope.

“That’s him, that’s him!” cried Jeanie wildly, pointing to Sandy, who, regardless of mumps, had followed her. “Oh, thank you, Mister Postman! I knew you’d come. But where did you ever find such a big one?”

“For Miss Jeanie Keith,” continued the postman, not seeming to hear, taking from his pack another envelope as big as the first.

“Why, that’s me!” Jeanie caught her breath. “And I wanted one awful. But how did you know?” The postman only smiled.

“By the way,” he said, as he turned to go, “I’ll be stopping again before long. There’s a Christmas box that ought to have been left here nearly two months ago. I’m real sorry I’ve neglected you all this while.” Then he hurried off.

Such valentines were never seen in Gregory Street before as were set up in the window of number twenty-seven that day, nor two such bright faces as peeped out from behind.

“Do you ’spose there’s anybody in the whole world as happy as we are, Sandy?” Jeanie asked a dozen times over.

“’Course not!” responded Sandy indignantly each time.

But they did not know about the little girl on a crutch in the fine stone house, who was brimming over with joy that day because she had adopted two little stranger friends, to be their valentine the whole year round.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Superscripted letters are preceded by a carat character: M^cNally.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.