CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A HAPPY REUNION

Within the cabin the three children sat about the table, eating their midday meal. Carol at the window heard Ken say: “Dix, this is the second day that you haven’t eaten one bite. If you get sick, how on earth’ll Baby Jim and I get along?”

The girl turned from the table and began to sob. “I’m sorry, Ken,” she said, “truly I am, but I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to eat again unless Carol comes home.”

“Well, I sort o’ wish she’d come, too,” Ken declared, blinking very hard.

There was a sudden warm glow in the heart of the little listener. After all, she would be welcome. Even Ken wanted her! With a glad cry she ran in the open door and threw her arms about her sister. Then she pounced upon Ken and kissed him.

“I’m home,” she cried, “and please, please let me stay forever and ever.”

Baby Jim was clamoring for attention, and he was caught in a crushing hug while he waved his spoon and uttered joyous little squeals, although he did not understand Carol’s home-coming any more than he had her departure only the day before.

After a time, in which tears and laughter blended, Carol cried, “Dixie, I’m ’most starved with that long walk and not eating much breakfast. I’m so glad you’ve got fried potatoes and baked beans.”

“I’m hungry, too, now that I take notice of it,” the older girl said, her freckled face beaming.

“Well, I thought I’d had enough, but I guess I could take another helping,” Ken declared. And so they all sat down, and a merry meal it was.

Oh, how much nicer her own home was, Carol thought, where even Baby Jim could talk if he wished and not be told that only grown-ups should converse at table. Carol didn’t tell all that had happened. In fact, she didn’t seem to wish to speak of her recent experience. She inquired with interest about the well-being of the pig and the three hens as though she had been away a year.

Then she asked what had happened at school that day. None of them had attended. They hadn’t had the heart to do anything, but on the morrow all of them would go.

After the dishes were done, Carol climbed to the loft. For some reason that she could not explain to herself, she wanted to see her old doll. She hadn’t played with it for a year, not since Jessica Archer had made fun of her and called her a baby for playing with a doll.

How cosy the loft bedroom seemed, the small girl thought as she reached the top of the ladder. Those turkey-red curtains, with the sunlight shining through them, were very cheerful looking. Peggotty Ann was probably the most surprised and the happiest doll in the whole State of Nevada, when, a moment later, she was caught up and kissed by her little mistress.

Ken entered the kitchen, and, going to the table where Dixie sat sorting the mending, he said very softly, that the girl in the loft might not hear: “Dix, something’ll have to be done, now that Carol’s back. We can’t make ends meet on nine dollars a month, and one to be laid aside for taxes.”

Dixie looked up brightly. “There’s still two dollars and thirty cents in the sock, Ken,” she said, “and we haven’t reached trouble’s stone wall yet.”

“Dix,” the boy declared admiringly, “you’re a brick!” Then he added, with a mischievous grin, “and I don’t mean because you’re red-headed, either.”

A moment later when Carol, with her doll in her arms, looked out of the small window in the loft, she saw Ken digging in the garden and heard him whistling, and, for the first time in her young life, she realized something of the contentment and joy contained in that one word, “home.”

Being very, very tired, after an almost sleepless night and a long walk, the small girl curled up on the husk-filled bed to rest, her doll held close. Soon she was asleep, and so she did not hear a horse and buggy stop at the door. In fact, she never knew that Mr. Clayburn had called, but Dixie knew, and what that kind man told brought joy to the heart of the little mother.

The banker said that he was glad to inform her that he had succeeded that very morning in loaning her father’s small principal in a way that would bring fifteen dollars a month interest.

He did not tell her that he had loaned the money to himself, as he knew that no one else would pay so high a rate of interest, and he was determined that the wolf should be kept from the door of the four little orphans who were too proud to accept charity.

When he was gone, Dixie ran out into the garden.

“Ken! Ken!” she called, and the boy thought that never before had he seen her face so aglow. “We’ve reached trouble’s stone wall, and there _was_ an opening through and on the other side is a garden that’s all sunshine.”