Part 1

Produced by Betty Haertling, Joel Erickson, Michael Ciesielski, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

JILL'S RED BAG

By AMY LE FEUVRE

_Author of "Probable Sons," "The Odd One," etc._

New York Chicago Toronto FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1903, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY (_April_)

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 63 Washington Street Toronto: 27 Richmond Street W London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street

CONTENTS

I. "What Can Be Done with Them?" 1 II. "We're to Have a Governess" 12 III. "The Golden City" 24 IV. "Let's Be Truants!" 37 V. "A Very Solemn Vow!" 53 VI. "God's Cabbages" 67 VII. The Trespasser 80 VIII. "I Must Love First, before I Can Give" 99 IX. Trying to Be "Double Good" 114 X. A Paper Chase 131 XI. A Donkey Ride 148 XII. The Bishop and the Geese 165 XIII. Mona's Tenth 179 XIV. "You and Your Red Bag Are at the Bottom of It All!" 192 XV. "Worn Out in a Good Service" 205

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

_Facing page_

"The birds were screeching and fluttering their wings" title "Good gracious!" he ejaculated "what a scene" 2 "Are these my little pupils"? 22 "Bumps knelt down" 60 "There's my mite towards it" 164 "You're trespassers and thieves" 192

Jill's Red Bag

I

"WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH THEM?"

"Oh, Jack! do let her go! I'll make you if you don't!"

"Get away! She's an early Christian, and I'm seeing if she's a real one."

"It's Sunday, and if she screams much louder, they'll hear in the drawing-room."

"It's a proper Sunday game, and I don't care for anybody in the drawing-room!"

When Jack was defiant, Jill knew it was a hopeless case.

She sat on the back of a cane chair, her feet beating a tattoo on its seat; and a twinkle of amusement succeeded the marked disapproval in her big blue eyes when Jack proceeded to stuff his victim's head into a pillow-case.

Six-year-old Winnie, or Bumps, as she was called, was always a ready subject for her brother's ingenious mischief. She worshipped the ground he trod upon, and would promise to be all that he desired, until the experience of it proved too much for her endurance. She was at present gagged and bound with bedroom towels, antimacassars, and pocket-handkerchiefs combined. She had been rolled over and over on the floor, with Jack on the top of her, and now he announced in an offhand tone--

"She's going to be put into a sack and thrown into the river, and that will be the end of an early Christian."

"Where's the river?" asked Jill with interest.

"The bath-room, of course. Go and fill the bath."

Jill laughed, and started up to obey. The fun of such a prospect before her overcame her scruples. But in her haste she overbalanced herself, and came with a crash to the floor. Her screams united with Winnie's brought two people to the nursery, and the first one to open the door was a young man.

"Good gracious!" he ejaculated, "what a scene!"

He might well say so. The nursery floor was covered with a medley of furniture, toys, and miscellaneous articles that clearly had no business there. In her fall Jill had caught hold of a tablecloth, and swept to the ground the remains of the nursery tea. Broken plates, a stream of milk, and bread and butter were mingled with the entangled bodies of the three children. Bumps had escaped from the pillowcase, but was rolling about screaming lustily; Jack was trying to extricate Jill out of the meshes of the broken chair, and a small terrier puppy was dancing to and fro, and worrying at everything in turn.

"Oh it's you, Captain Willoughby," said Jack, getting upon his feet. "It's a pretty mess, I'm afraid."

"You young scamp! I bet you are the originator of it! Your sister is wondering if the ceiling will withstand your onslaughts. Ah, here she is to speak for herself."

A pretty delicate-looking girl with dark hair and eyes and impulsive manner stood at the door.

"Oh, you children!" she exclaimed. "Where is nurse? And what are you doing? Don't you know you ought not to romp like this on Sunday?"

"Nurse is at her tea. She gave us ours too early."

Jill had struggled to her feet by this time, and was rubbing the back of her head ruefully.

Captain Willoughby was busy releasing Bumps from her bonds.

"It strikes me there has been a bit of bullying going on here," he said, eyeing Jack severely. "Is this the way you generally treat your small sister?"

"She likes it," asserted Jack eagerly. "On my honour she does--don't you, Bumps?"

"Yeth, I does!" sobbed his victim.

"Nurse has no business to leave you," said Mona Baron decisively, as she gave a sharp pull to the nursery bell. "Now, Jill, pick up some of these things at once. Why can't you keep Jack quiet? I don't know which is the worse of you. It is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other!"

She did not speak angrily, for these three pickles always afforded her considerable amusement. But she felt that a limit must be drawn somewhere, and when the nurse appeared, considerably ruffled by her sudden recall from the servants' hall, she was spoken to so sharply by her young mistress that she gave notice on the spot.

Mona went back to the drawing-room with Captain Willoughby.

"That makes the fifth nurse we have had in ten months," she said. "What can be done with them? They are too small to go to school."

"Can't you get a governess?"

"I suppose I must try. But I was made so miserable myself as a small child by one, that I resolved never to give them the chance of such an experience. I must talk it over with Miss Webb."

The nursery party up-stairs soon calmed down. Nurse restored order, and set the three delinquents in separate corners of the room. Her tongue was a powerful one, and she did not spare them.

"I shall be thankful to get out of the house, for never in my life have I seen such bold, owdacious children, and no respectable woman would stand it. Your sister ought to look after you herself, and then she'd know what you were like. She dances out to all her gaieties with that lazy Miss Webb, who's in a field of clover if any one is, and expects me to grind on in this four-walled room without a friend to keep me company. I would as soon be in prison, and I'm not going to stand it. And as for you, with your monkey tricks and your wicked ways, you want to be well whipped and placed in a reformatory. That's the place for the likes of you!"

No one dared speak. She talked on in the same strain for a good quarter of an hour, then dared them at the peril of their lives to move from their seats, and walked down to the servants' hall again.

"Sunday is a _dreadful_ day," observed Jill plaintively. "I wonder what it was made for!"

"I s'pose God thought it would make people good," said Jack; "it may do grown-up people good, but it makes children dreadfully wicked!"

"Yes," assented Jill; "because there's nothing to do after church, and we're always shut up in this old nursery. When I grow up I shall live in a house without any doors, so that I can never be shut up anywhere!"

Jack looked across at his sister meditatively.

"Then what would you do when robbers came?"

"I'd run away, of course, stupid!"

"They'd soon catch you. We'll try it to-morrow. I'll be the robber, and you can leave all the doors open to give yourself a chance, and I'll give you five minutes' start."

"Me too!" exclaimed Bumps, removing her thumb from her mouth, which she had been contentedly sucking.

"Oh, you!" said her brother scornfully. "You can't even be an early Christian without screaming the house down! But you've done one good thing! Nurse is going, and a jolly good job too! Nurses are all rot!"

Jill shook her head doubtfully.

"We shall only have another worse than this one! I wish we could do without them, like the Clarkes. Their mother looks after them."

"That's because they're poor--George told me so."

"What's poor?" asked Bumps.

"It's having no money," explained Jill.

"But we haven't no money," argued Bumps.

"No, you little stupid, but Mona has. I heard nurse say she was an heiress, and that's an awfully grand thing to be, it's next to being a princess in a fairy-book."

"Now we've sat still long enough," announced Jack with a yawn. "We'll have a kind of 'Puss in the Corner.' Our chairs will be the corners. We can easily get back to them before nurse comes."

"It's Sunday," objected Jill again.

"Here's Miss Webb!" shouted Jack.

A stout, pleasant-faced lady came into the room as he spoke, and saved the situation, for restless Jack could never stay quiet for long.

The little Barons could remember neither father nor mother. Their mother had died at Bumps' birth, their father a year after. He had married twice, and Mona was the daughter of his first wife. Miss Webb, a cousin of Mr. Baron's, had taken charge of the household after his death; but when Mona had finished her education she came home, and when she came of age and inherited a good bit of money, Miss Webb still stayed on as her chaperon.

The children were fond of Miss Webb, though they did not see much of her, and their faces brightened at her appearance.

"Your sister asked me to come and see if order had been restored," she said, smiling. "Why, you are as quiet as mice! Now, why can't you always sit still like this?"

"We were just going to finish it," said Jill. "We've been here ages. Do you like Sunday, Miss Webb? We don't."

"I think I used to when I was a little girl," said Miss Webb, taking a seat by the nursery fire, and placing Bumps upon her lap.

Jack and Jill came to her side at once.

"Do tell us about it. What did you do?"

"My mother used to have me down-stairs in the drawing-room in the afternoon, and show me lovely pictures out of some books she had, and talk to me about them. I had no brothers and sisters, and I used to be allowed to dine with her and my father, and sometimes she sang to me. She had a beautiful voice, and she would play hymns for me to sing with her."

"Ah," said Jill, with a long-drawn breath and a wistful look in her eyes; "but then, you see, we haven't got a mother."

"But you have a nice kind sister," said Miss Webb, pity filling her heart for the children who had never realised a mother's love.

"Yes," said Jack; "Mona is very good, but she's always out, and she doesn't make Sunday nice to us."

"May we thing hymns in the drawing-room?" asked Bumps eagerly.

"Yes," said Miss Webb on the impulse of the moment, "you shall. Nurse has made you tidy, so come along, just as you are."

Down two flights of stairs they scampered, delighted at the prospect of leaving the nursery. They found Mona leaning back in an easy-chair by the fire. A butler was removing the tea, and Captain Willoughby was standing, hat in hand, saying good-bye. Mona's other Sunday visitors had taken their leave. She looked up astonished when she saw the children.

"Now, what are you doing, Miss Webb?" she said, laughing. "Bringing them in their right minds to express contrition for their Sabbath-breaking?"

"No," said Miss Webb quietly. "They are going to sing some hymns. I thought you would like to play for them."

Mona elevated her eyebrows.

"Wish I could stay to join you," said Captain Willoughby, "but I've promised my mother to take her to evening church. Au revoir!"

He departed. Mona got up from her seat and went to the piano. Then she twirled round on the music-stool and confronted Miss Webb.

"What new freak is this?" she asked, laughing.

Miss Webb looked at her gravely.

"We were wondering why Sundays should be such a trial," she said, "and Jill solved the problem. She said it was because they have no mother. I reminded them that they had you, and we finally bethought ourselves of hymn-singing down here."

Mona's laughing dimples faded away. She turned to the piano, her little sisters and brother clustered round her, and soon the sweet, childish voices were uplifted in song.

When bedtime came Bumps said ecstatically, "Thinging hymns in the drawn-room is nearly as nithe as thinging them in heaven!"

"When did you sing them there?" demanded Jack.

And Bumps replied promptly, "Before I wath a baby."

II

"WE'RE TO HAVE A GOVERNESS"

"Miss Jill, your sister wants to speak to you."

Jill was curled up on the nursery hearthrug, reading a story-book, and sucking peppermints. She had a slight cold, and had not accompanied Jack and Bumps in their daily walk with nurse. She jumped up with alacrity.

"Where is she, Annie? Not in the drawing-room?"

"No, in the library," answered the nursery-maid.

Jill dashed down-stairs, and burst open the library door very noisily. She drew back when she saw a strange young lady in earnest conversation with her sister; and she was conscious of a rough head of hair, a buttonless shoe that was being trodden under heel, and some very sticky fingers.

Mona turned round.

"This is one of them, Miss Falkner. Shake hands with this lady, Jill."

Jill kept her hands behind her back.

"They're sticky," she said, staring at Miss Falkner in wonder.

"Never mind," said Miss Falkner with a smile. "You are fond of peppermints, are you?"

Jill stared the harder, then she said--

"How did you know? Cook gave them to me. She said they were good for a cold."

"You do look a little object," said Mona, drawing Jill to her, and smoothing her hair as she spoke. "She is the eldest, Miss Falkner, then comes Jack, then Winnie. They are very backward for their ages, I am afraid, but you will remedy that."

Jill's blue eyes scanned Miss Falkner up and down. "Who was she?" she wondered.

"Can you read, dear?" asked Miss Falkner.

Jill nodded.

"And write?"

Another nod.

Mona gave her a little shake.

"Speak properly, Jill. Where are your manners? You are like a little savage this afternoon. I am sure it is high time you had a governess to keep you in order."

Mona did not often speak so crossly.

Jill darted away from her with scarlet cheeks and flashing eyes. "Who is she? and what does she want?" she demanded passionately. "Is _she_ a governess? Because, if she is, I hate her!"

Then flying out of the room she banged the door violently behind her, and raced up-stairs, never drawing breath till she reached the nursery. Here she flung herself down face foremost on the hearthrug, and when a little time later Jack and Bumps rushed in, they found her still muttering angrily to herself.

Jack at once flung himself on the top of her.

"You're in a tantrum! What have you been doing?"

Jill would not answer till she had extricated herself from his clutches. Then she sat up and tossed her long hair back from her flushed little face.

"We're to have a governess!"

"Hurray!" shouted Jack. "Good-bye to nurses, who are rotten rot!"

"And I've seen her," pursued Jill, shaking her head mournfully; "and I was rude to her, I told her I hated her, and she'll never forgive me. Mona was so cross, and then I was, and of course the governess will hate me back, and we'll fight from the very beginning!"

"What was she like?" demanded Jack.

"Like any other person," said Jill crossly.

"Is she coming to tea?" asked Bumps with round eyes.

Jill looked at her small sister scornfully.

"She's coming to breakfast, and dinner, and tea, for ever and ever; she's just like a nurse, only it will be lessons all day long, and punishments."

This depressing view had no effect on Jack.

"We can play truant," he suggested eagerly. "Boys do that when they go to school--at least in books they do. To be sure," he added thoughtfully, "they always come to a bad end and wish they hadn't, but before the end comes, it's jolly."

"Is truant a nice game?" asked Bumps.

Jill's brown eyes began to dance with mirth.

"So we will," she exclaimed. "We'll settle what to do at once. We must save up bits of cake and biscuits, and anything else we can stuff in our pockets, for we must have food."

"But," objected Jack, looking thoughtful, "it's winter, and I think you can only be truants in summer. You always spend a day in the woods and have a kind of picnic, and you must be in the country to do it, and we're in a town."

"What does that matter?" said Jill impatiently. "We'll show how we can truant. I'll think of the most splendid things when I'm in bed to-night."

All her ill temper vanished. Jill's thoughts in bed were the admiration of her brother. His brain was a quick and busy one, but nothing to be compared to Jill's. He laid the foundation for many a mischievous scheme, but it was Jill who took it up and worked it out.

Bumps was at present a nonentity, but she was a sturdy little follower, and would as cheerfully have tried to walk a tight-rope as to eat her dinner, had she seen the others attempt it.

"When shall we start?" pursued Jack--"to-morrow?"

"I don't know when she's coming," Jill replied.

"I think we shall have to do lessons with her one day first," said Jack, "because we shan't be proper truants unless we do."

"Oh yes, and if it's a very wet day we won't go."

It was a great disappointment to them when Mona came into the nursery that evening and called them to her.

"A very nice lady named Miss Falkner is coming to live with us," she began.

"I know!" exclaimed Jack. "She's a governess. Is she coming to-night?"

"Oh dear, no, not for another month, when we go down to Willowlands."

The children's faces fell. Willowlands was their country home, and it was only shut up for three months in the winter. They liked London best, and were always sorry when their time came to leave it.

Mona watched their expressive faces.

"You must try to be very good till she comes," she said cheerfully. "The time will soon pass. Jill, what made you so naughty this afternoon? I was quite ashamed of you."

Jill got very red, and twisted her hands together, as was her habit when embarrassed. Then she looked straight at her sister with a defiant sparkle in her eyes.

"Of course we don't like her," she said. "You've told us how you used to hate your governess, and we shall do it too."

"Oh dear!" said Mona with a smile and a groan. "I'm always so stupid when I talk to you. My governess was very different from Miss Falkner--she was a tall, grim, strict old thing, who never smiled. I've found you a very different kind of governess, and you will all love her, I feel sure."

"I wish she was coming now," said Jill gloomily.

"Why? What a queer child you are."

"It's only," explained Jack hastily, "we've settled to do something when she comes, and we don't like waiting."

"What is it?" asked Mona unsuspiciously.

"Oh, it's a secret," exclaimed Jill; "we aren't going to tell any one."

"I hope it isn't anything naughty. I wish you would try to be good. I can't think why you are always in mischief!"

She left them. Jill was up on the window-seat drumming her fingers on the pane.

"I wish," she said at length, "that the king would pass a law that for one day every child could do exactly what they liked, that they could be just as naughty as ever they wished to be. Why, there are crowds and crowds of things that I'm _longing_ to do, only Mona would think it wicked!"

"And God would too," put in Jack, who in spite of his mischievous rollicking ways had occasional qualms of conscience.

Jill looked at him meditatively.

"I try and think God looks the other way sometimes when we're doing things. That's what I shall do when I have any children. I shall only look at them when they want me to! It's a pity this governess isn't coming soon; but we'll have plenty of time to save heaps of food for our truant day, and I'll think out some lovely things to do on it."

"I think," said Jack, "I'll keep the food in my play-box that locks up. Lumps of sugar will be a very good thing to save up."

"And treacle pudding," put in Bumps anxiously. She was only too eager to bring contributions to Jack's secret store. He kept his box in a corner of the nursery, and more than once had to interfere when Bumps was eagerly putting all kinds of her favourite puddings into screws of paper and attempting to stuff them in with drier and more suitable food.

This hope of "playing truant" did much to comfort them in the dread of possible lessons and punishments. Jill's programme for "truant day" grew more glorious as time went on, and when her imagination sometimes failed before Bumps' eager and original questions, Jack came to her rescue and threw himself gallantly into the breach.

"What shall we do if there are no blackberries or nuts in the woods to eat, and a mad bull has eaten all our food, and the sun has dried up all the ponds and rivers so that we can get no water? Why, you stupid, of course we'll go up to a cottage like beggars, and they'll give us some food."

Bumps nodded contentedly.

"We'll be proper beggarth, with no shoeth and stockingth, and we'll have no hat, and I'll tear a 'normouth hole in my frock!"

The time seemed to pass very slowly, but the month wore away, and then came the move into the country.

For the first few days after their arrival the children ran wild. Nurse was too busy unpacking and arranging things to heed them, and their adventurous spirits led them into every kind of mischief.

Then Mona was appealed to, and she made short work of nurse's complaints.

"I don't care what they do as long as they don't hurt themselves. Miss Falkner is coming the end of the week, and then she will be entirely responsible for them."

And so, after a long and tiring journey, when Miss Falkner arrived at the house, this is what she saw in the hall--

Bumps seated in a large copper coal-scuttle, which was suspended by a rope from the stair-railings above. Her face, pinafore and hands were covered with black coal-dust, for the contents of the coal-scuttle had been hastily emptied into the hall fire-place, and Bumps had taken her place without a thought of consequences.

Jack, with red and hot cheeks, was sitting astride of the balustrade and trying vainly to haul up his heavy load, being in danger of over-balancing himself with his exertions, and Jill, arrayed in all the coats and wraps that she could find, was ambling about on all fours making sudden rushes at the coal-scuttle, which was just high enough to swing over her head. All three children were screaming at the top of their voices, and when William the butler came forward to open the door, nothing that he could do or say seemed to have any result.

It was not till a very bright clear voice spoke that there was a sudden hush.

"Are these my little pupils?"

Jill threw off her disguise and stood upon her feet. Jack scrambled down from his post, and Bumps was the only one that continued her occupation. She swung helplessly to and fro, and puckered up her face as if she were meditating a weep.

"Take me down, Jack," she whined; "I'm thy!"

Miss Falkner lifted her down.

"Now, what game is this, I wonder?" she said. "It looks most interesting; do tell me."

"It's a princess being rescued from a dragon," said Jack eagerly. "And I'm the one who saves her; I'm the prince!"

Miss Falkner smiled, and her smile emboldened Jack still further.