CHAPTER XVIII.

ROBERT’S OCCUPATION GONE.

It was such an absurd answer that Isabelle laughed. In the laughter much of her fear, and all of her anger against her sister, vanished. With the quick rebound of her loving nature she clasped her arms about the neck of the sleepy Beatrice and kissed her heartily.

The disturbed secretary sat up and demanded: “What is the matter, eh? Oh, I remember. Well, I’m sorry, Belle. It was horrid of me, though I didn’t intend to do it. I’d make you some more custards if Mother would let me; but I suppose she would say we could not afford so much luxury twice in the same week.”

It does not matter what the elder girl replied. The reconciliation was complete, and once more two young hearts were beating high with aspirations after better things, although, it must be confessed, Bonny’s ideas were rather vaguely exalted, owing to her drowsiness; but Belle was keenly self-reproachful, and exclaimed earnestly: “I wonder why we never learn to be what we mean to be. It seems as if life were one long season of acting hatefully and trying to make amends. Why can’t we be good?”

“Give it up.” Yawn. “And, dearie, I’m so sleepy I don’t know what to do with myself. Aren’t you?”

“I dare not go to sleep, I expect we have been robbed of everything we possess!” As the recollection returned to her of the real cause for her present visit, Isabelle felt her timidity also return, and, shaking her sister to keep that drowsy one’s eyes open till she could tell the whole story, repeated what she had already tried twice to make the somnolent secretary comprehend.

“Ye-es. H’m-m!” Yawn. “Well, we’re--all--right, aren’t--we?”

“Don’t you understand? Won’t you understand? We have been robbed! B-u-r-g-l-a-r-s!” cried the other, spelling the terrible word letter by letter.

“Yes, that’s right. I used to--spell it--l-e-r-s. I spelled-- ‘Coleoptera’--with a K; and Mr. Brook nearly had a spasm. I--I--won’t do it again, I promise you.” Yawn.

“Goodness! She’s asleep already! I don’t believe she will remember one single thing of this in the morning. I wonder if I ought to tell Mother! But Roland is the one, I suppose; only--”

The thought entered the girl’s mind, what if she told nobody, but kept her knowledge to herself and watched for more evidence before she aroused the weary sleepers? Wouldn’t that be the more unselfish way? And if she were really in earnest about trying to be as noble as her mother desired, was not unselfishness a bottom principle, and might she not begin then as well as later?

She answered her own questioning by casting one more smiling glance upon the sleeper before her, and, by the light of the shaded lamp, which was always kept burning in the central hall from which all their bedrooms opened, making her way noiselessly back to her own apartment.

There she listened critically; but all was silent without, save for the peaceful sounds of insects in the trees and the plashing of the river at the foot of the bluff. Then she carefully dressed herself and sat down to await developments.

“Dear me! Nothing does happen, after all! And how cold it seems sitting about alone in the night-time! I--I believe I’ll just creep inside the bed covers and watch there! It would be safer as regards taking cold, and fan more comfortable!”

Deluded girl! As she crept into bed in her full, every-day attire, and the strength of her brave resolution, she put herself deliberately in temptation’s way. Nature revenged herself, and in less than three minutes the burglar watcher was as sound asleep as Beatrice across the hall. When she was aroused again the sunlight of another day shone through her little skylight, and Bonny was shouting from below stairs: “Hurrah! hurrah! Isabelle! Is-a-belle! Wake up and come down! Glory--magnificence--Hurry! No matter about clothes! Come!”

Next an onrush of small limbs up the winding staircase, and Robert bounded into the room to precipitate himself headlong upon his sister’s bed. “Why don’t you come, Belle? Here we’ve all been yelling at you like ever’thing! They’s-- My jimminy, Belle! Do you go to bed with your clothes on? I bet, if my mother knew that, she’d punish you! Eh? What’s the matter? What makes you stare so?”

“Clothes? Why, is it morning?”

“Is it morning? I should say it’s most noon! An’ a wagon-- But I won’t tell. Only-- Mother! Belle went to bed in her clothes, an’ they’re all wrinkly up!”

“Go downstairs at once, Robert!” commanded the sister as sternly as she could, and dragged herself to the window. But from that side of the house nothing unusual was to be seen, and, beginning to think over her last night’s fright, she smiled at her own plight. “Mother will be sure to ask why I did this, and my freshly ironed gown is sadly tumbled, after all. Humph! I wonder if I dreamed the whole thing!”

Ten minutes later, after a hasty toilet and freshening of her garb, she descended to the lower floor only to find it deserted and the whole family congregated on the west side of the house, gazing with surprise and perplexity upon a shining “express wagon” which stood there.

“Why, folks! what’s all this?”

“That’s exactly what we wish to find out,” returned Mrs. Beckwith, turning a very smiling face toward her belated daughter. “Some fairies must have been at work here during the night, and we cannot guess who they are. Rather, we may guess, but I do not feel at all sure. See! isn’t it really handsome?”

There was no mistaking that the vehicle was intended for one of them; for on the brand-new curtains which covered its sides was plainly painted, “Parcel Express,” and on the box of the wagon, at the back, a modest legend: “Beckwith, The Lindens, New Windsor, N. Y.”

“Of course it’s from the Brooks,” asserted Isabelle, promptly.

“Of course it isn’t,” returned Beatrice, her feet beating a restless tattoo to her joyful thoughts, “because here is a note pinned to the cushion of the seat.” And she tossed the other the paper, which each of the family had scrutinized in turn.

“To whom it may concern: This cart is for the young farmer. It does not come from either Mr. or Miss Brook, but from another well-wisher, who hopes it will be accepted in the same spirit with which it is offered.

“A FRIEND.”

“A friend, I should think so!”

“Isn’t it queer that none of us heard it brought here?” asked Roland, whose eyes were shining even more dazzlingly than the varnish of the “express” in the sunshine.

“But one of us did; I heard it,” said Belle.

“And didn’t tell us?”

“I thought it was burglars.”

“Burglars! Pshaw! If you’d only looked out you might be able to tell who rolled the thing here. I can’t wait to know to whom I am indebted, to thank him or her. Mother, are you sure it isn’t you?”

“Perfectly sure; besides, my son, you have asked me that question already a half-dozen times, and each time I have answered that I knew no more about the matter than you do. I wish I did; I don’t quite like--”

“Now, Motherkin! Of course you will let us keep it! I know what you are thinking; but if my Laureate has enough sense to be willing to drive an ‘Express Parcel’ or a ‘Parcel Express’ for the good of the house of Beckwith, I hope you won’t put rocks in his road!”

“It is from somebody who knew how much I wanted it; that is plain. It _must_ be from the Brooks!”

“No, dears; I do not think they would stoop to a falsehood even to confer a kindness. At least, if they would, I am disappointed in them.”

“Wull, wull, ain’t we never goin’ ter eat our breakfasses?” demanded Robert, suddenly.

“Yes, yes, indeed. For work-a-day folks we are very late. But, Isabelle, what is this about your sleeping in your clothes?”

“Oh, Mother, it seems awfully silly to tell!”

“No secrets in this household, Belle!” cautioned Bonny.

Thus adjured, the whole story came out, and it was many a long day before Isabelle heard the last of her going to bed to watch burglars.

Everybody would turn her or his chair at table so that the new possession was in sight, and their tongues wagged so continually that the meal was long protracted; and before it was through Mr. Dolloway had come across fields to pay his regular morning call. He had an unexpressed opinion that the “new family” would come to griefs indescribable if he did not keep a protecting guard over them.

“Hoity, toity! What’s this? What--in--the--world is this? Must be getting millionaires over here!” exclaimed the old man, in apparently intense surprise.

“Oh! Mr. Dolloway! Do _you_ know anything about it?” cried Bonny, running to the window and leaning eagerly out.

“I never saw the thing in my life before.”

“You didn’t? Then away goes my last idea! Of course, if either Mr. or Miss Brook had given it, you would have known!”

Mr. Dolloway did not comment upon this opinion. He merely began to walk about the new vehicle and examine it with the eye of a connoisseur in express wagons. “H’m-m! ’Pears to be purty well put together.”

“Well put together!” exclaimed Roland, joining their visitor. “It’s perfect. Whoever picked it out knew what was what!”

“Humph! I should like to know what you, a city feller, know about wagons!”

“Well, if I never owned one I have seen them by the thousands, yes, the millions, I suppose; and I know this looks exactly like those the dry-goods’ houses send out. And the one at the last store I worked in might have been first cousin to the ‘Beckwith.’”

“H’m-m! Sounds kind of top-lofty, don’t it? You, a little, ign’runt sprat, a comin’ into a town an’ a settin’ up a business that never was set up there afore!”

Roland was in too good humor to resent the unpleasant candor of his old neighbor, so he merely whistled a bar from the “Mikado,” and went on to call Mr. Dolloway’s attention to the various merits of his new possession.

“Humph! Hain’t hitched her up yet, have you?”

“No; but I will, right away. Unless-- Mother, is there anything I can do for you before I go to work?”

“Nothing, thank you, my son.”

Roland thereupon turned stableward, and his old friend walked with him, smiling grimly.

“I s’pose you don’t never forget to ask that question, do ye?”

“Not often. I don’t like to let my mother do any lifting if I can help it, and now that Bonny is away so much she might if I didn’t look after her.”

“H’m-m! That’s right. An’ I reckon you’re a purty level-headed kind of a chap, after all, if I do take you to do now and again; yes, yes, I do. So you hain’t _no_ notion who gave you the wagon?”

“Unfortunately, no. Though, despite the neatly written note which declares to the contrary, and my mother’s faith in its assertion, I think it must be one or other of the kindly Brooks. You see we know nobody else hereabout who would trouble to be kind to us.”

“Hey, diddle diddle! You don’t, hey? Well, I guess them folks hain’t got a monopoly of all the goodness there is in the world!”

“That sounds as if you resented my thinking it was a gift from them!”

“An’ I do, lad, I do. I hain’t a claimin’ no superiority to your ma’s jedgment when I say that she is old enough to look further than one family afore she gives up findin’ out.”

“Well, we mustn’t quarrel over it, anyway. Somebody, I do not know who, has been very, very generous to us; and I am too grateful and happy to question very deeply into the matter now. It is sure to come out, sooner or later. So I think, and I shall watch as sharply as I can for indications of the giver. Hello, Nan! You’re in luck to-day! You’re to try a brand-new business!”

There was a loud houp-la! and Robert had joined them. “Say, Mr. Dolloway! Don’t you s’pose my chickens ’ill be out to-day?”

“Humph! I don’t s’pose anything of the sort. But I am so everlasting tired of hearing about them that I fetched you over a brood already hatched out. What do ye say to that?”

“Gol--I mean--hurra! Did you? Honest Injun?”

“I ain’t give to makin’ no statements I don’t mean.”

“Where are they?”

“Where’s the place for chickens, anyway?”

Off bounded the delighted lad, but half-way to the poultry-house turned and ran back again. “Will you come with me, Mr. Dolloway?”

“H’m-m! Well, I guess I’ll get you taught some kind of manners if I keep on, I really do. In course I’ll come, an’ show you how to tend ’em. But I’ll tell you, first off, I hain’t goin’ to have any tomfoolery with ’em.”

“I--I dunno what you mean!”

“You don’t, hey?”

“No,” answered Robert, so honestly that the old man believed him.

“You may not know _now_, you may have forgot; but you knowed yest’day. What was you a-doin’ with a fish-line in the hen-house, hey?”

“It ain’t your hen-house! I mean--that’s sassy, but--”

“Ha, ha, ha!” chuckled the veteran. “Got caught, hain’t ye? S’posin’ I tell your ma?”

“Humph! I’d jest as soon tell her myself, only I forgot it. I will, the first time I remember. Anyhow, it didn’t do no harm!”

“What is it, Mr. Dolloway?” asked the widow, who made it a point herself to visit the poultry-house immediately after breakfast and see that the fowls were properly fed, and who now joined them there.

“Hello, Motherkin! I--yest’day--I-- Wull, it didn’t do no harm.”

“’Tain’t so easy as you thought, eh, Bubby?”

“Easy ’nough. Yest’day I had some fun with the hens; that’s all.”

“What kind of fun, Robert?”

“Wull, I had a fish-line, an’ you wouldn’t lemme fish, not fer fish; so I fished fer hens, that’s all.”

“Fished--for--hens!”

“Yep. My cracky! you’d ’a’ died a laughin’! I put the hook through a kernel of corn and throwed it to ’em, and they’d gobble at it like anything! Then I’d pull ’em in; but it mostly came out of their mouths before I landed ’em.”

“Robert Beckwith! I can scarcely believe my own ears! How _do_ you learn such cruelty? It must be born in you, though, for you certainly never copied it from your elder brother. In all his life I never knew Roland to wilfully hurt a creature of any kind; but you--”

“Oh, Motherkin! You wouldn’t scold your dear little boy fer a little thing like that, would you? It didn’t hurt the hens, not a bit.”

“No, no! It didn’t hurt the hens; but why, you shaver?” demanded Mr. Dolloway, who greatly enjoyed his small tormentor’s predicament, yet who really was growing very fond of him.

“’Cause a man--he come an’ told me to stop. But I had some more fun ’at he didn’t get onto, afterwards!”

Mrs. Beckwith sighed and dropped upon a bench. There were times when her “dear little boy” tried her very soul.

“What else did you do?” demanded Mr. Dolloway, sternly.

“A boy come along an’ I asked him in. That’s p’lite, wasn’t it?”

“Robert, you are to invite no visitors without my knowledge.”

“Wull, I won’t again, then. But you hadn’t told me, er I’d forgot. An’ he showed me how to put ’em to sleep. You just take a hen er a chicken an’ put its head under its wing fer it, an’ shake it up lively--side to side, like, a keepin’ its head tight under--an’ you can stan’ ’em up in reg’lar rows. When I get a lot I’m goin’ to make ’em play soldier, that way. Soldiers asleep, though, they’d be, wouldn’t they?”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind with any of my hens an’ chickens!” exclaimed Mr. Dolloway, hotly, and picking up the basket which contained the family of fluffy little creatures he had brought for a gift, he started toward the door.

“Please, Mr. Dolloway! I’ll be good! I’ll be as good as I can be! Won’t you leave ’em?”

Mrs. Beckwith knew how one feels to have a gift returned upon one’s hands, and she quietly interposed: “Yes, Mr. Dolloway, please consider the matter for a moment. I assure you that I had no idea my boy was torturing the poor creatures committed to his charge, and I have always overlooked their feeding for myself. But, after hearing what I have just now, only one course is left to me. I now take the poultry away from Robert altogether. He will be allowed no further connection with this business; but if you can trust _me_ with your pretty present, I will do my best to rear the chickens safely. Until a boy learns the first simple rule of ‘doing as he would be done by,’ he is unfit for any post of honor.”

“That is spoke like a lady, as I always found you, Mrs. Beckwith; an’ I think myself ’at Bobby is too young to be let have sech full swing, an’ it’ll do me proud to leave the brood to you.” Saying which, the kind, if gruff old fellow bowed profoundly to the lady, but cast a withering glance upon his worsted foe.

“Mother, Mother! do you mean it? Ain’t I no hen-keeper no more?”

“No, my dear; and it is your own fault that this is so.”