Chapter 10

We communicated that fact to them, but it didn't seem to make any difference; off they went on the same fruitless hunt, and left us to do what we might, to make ourselves happy.

The next day, Lib and Dora and I told them we would go into the woods with them and see what the charm was. Lib was the eldest of us three, and had read a great deal, and she said:

"May be we shall find the robbers' cave, and if we say, 'Open Sesame,' the great stone doors will slowly swing open, and we can go in where the chains of flashing gems and the heaps of golden coin are."

"I think you'll get into places where you can't get out; 'open sesame' will never lift you out of a marsh hole," said William Pitt Gaylord, our eldest brother.

"Mollie, you can find somebody to have a talking match with, for there are lots of chipmunks over in the grove," remarked Hugh.

"I've seen snakes in that very woods, too, and if you'd holler, Lib, at that end of the pond, as you do at this end of the tea-table, you wouldn't catch any fish," said William. This caused an uproarious laugh on the part of the boys.

We listened quietly to their sarcastic remarks, knowing they were prompted by an unreasonable desire to monopolize the delights of the woods to themselves.

William Pitt remarked that "Girls had no business to meddle with boys' sports, and they'd come to grief if they did; you'd see!"

Next morning the August haze lay soft on the landscape, but in a short time it went off, and Father, learning that we girls were going to spend a part of the day in the woods, quietly told the boys that they must escort us to the pleasantest place, and not wander very far off. They pouted considerably, and had a talk at the corner of the barn; they then came back, smiling, and apparently good-natured.

Our brothers did not intend to be unkind, but they had the common failing of humanity--selfishness. But Lib matched them in a dozen ways with her good-humored retaliations; and many a tilt she had with William Pitt since we had arrived at the farm. In the city she was abreast of him in all his studies; and I noticed that Lib could get out her Latin, and write a composition much faster than he, and often he had been obliged to come to her for aid. It nettled Lib not to be able to hunt and fish. We two younger ones modeled after her; she was the leader, and when she said we would go with the boys, we went.

"Hello Fred," said Hugh, as a neighboring boy, a city boarder, came through the gate, attired in base-ball cap and knickerbockers, "we can't go to Duck Inlet to-day. Father says the girls must have a good time, too, and that we must devote one day to them, at least."

"All right," said Fred, "can I go with you? I'll go and get my butterfly net, and we can go over to Fern Hollow mill, the winter-greens and berries are as thick there! Gracious! you can get a quart pail full in no time. The mill-wheel is a beautiful sight," said Fred, turning to Lib, "and you can sketch it, Miss Gaylord."

Lib looked upon Fred with a little more toleration, after he had said "Miss Gaylord," and went and ordered an additional ration to be put into the lunch basket. We were glad to have Fred along with us, for he was very funny, and made jokes on every thing.

Lib would allow no one to carry the lunch basket but herself, as she remarked, "It is safer with me."

We started, and were tempted to loiter at all the little nooks on the leaf-shadowed road, and investigate the haunts of the curious dwellers in the rocks and bushes, and especially were we interested in the ducks on Fern Hollow creek. Dora insisted upon feeding them a piece of bread. "Calamity," the dog, was along, of course, and as he belonged to William Pitt, who called him "Clam," he was always in that boy's company. It was, "Love me, love my dog," with William; and as he was a professional of some kind, he was greatly prized by the boys.

We reached the woods and the old mill early; I think I never was in a more delightful place. Every thing seemed to grow here. Winter-greens, with their crimson berries, shining in the moss, and blueberries, where the sun came; tall, white flowers that grew in clusters in the shade, sent their perfume all about. Back of the mill, on some sandy ledges, grew pennyroyal and spearmint; raspberries and blackberries grew everywhere.

The boys went off to gather a quantity for lunch, and Lib and Dora and I hunted for a pleasant place to set out our dainties. We found it. A natural bower, between four trees; one being a giant of a pine, right at the doorway. The wild grape-vine and the woodbine had inclosed the space so completely, that Lib, who had thoughtfully brought along a scissors to cut off stubborn plants, could make two windows in the green wall; one looking into the woods, the other off at the distant pond. The grass was fine in here, and the sunbeams dropped down in little round spots, on the pine needles that covered the floor.

"This is certainly the fairies' dining hall," said Lib.

"I'll tell you what," said I, "this is not far from home, and we can bring things, and have a little parlor here. I can make a couple of curtains out of that figured scrim, for windows, and that old square rug in the carriage-house will do for the floor. You can bring your rocking-chair, Lib, and Dora can bring her tea-set."

"I'll bring our Christmas and Easter cards, and we can fasten them all about, on the walls," said Lib, who had fallen in immediately with the plan.

"I'll bring Mrs. Snobley, and all her children, and the dining table," said Dora.

She had reference to her large doll, and a whole dozen of little ones, that were always brought forward in any play that Dora had taken a fancy to.

We were in such haste to put our scheme into operation, that we dispatched the lunch in short order, and told the boys of our plan. They thought it was capital. Any thing that would release them, after they had eaten all that was to be had, would, of course, be received with acclamation. They acknowledged the same, in a very neat speech, which Lib said, "did very good for Hugh."

She fell in immediately with our fun, and helped us to a number of nice things, to furnish our greenwood bower. We worked tremendously that afternoon, and after Betty had washed the dinner dishes, she helped us. Before sun-down every thing was complete. The boys, who had taken themselves a mile away, to hunt, came round to visit us on their way home. They agreed that it was just perfect, and inquired if we hadn't put in an elevator, to reach the second story, with numerous other inquiries, intended to be funny; and then asked where we kept our cranberry tarts.

"We're not going to allow any boys in this play-house after to-day," said I; "your feet are muddy, and you're so big, you fill it all up."

Our visitor, Fred, looked at his feet, and blushed. "Not after to-day? How are you going to keep any one out?" inquired William Pitt.

"We will draw this portiere across the doorway, and no _gentleman_ would think of entering," said Lib.

"No, they wouldn't, sure enough," said Hugh. "How are you going to prevent our looking in the windows?"

"Only rude boys would look in windows," said Fred, "and I don't know of any hereabouts."

They laughed at this, and Lib laughed too, and made the sly remark, that "Hunting on the duck-pond transformed some people mighty soon."

Fred said he'd try to be on his good behavior if we'd let him make a formal call on us the next afternoon. We consented to this; then they all said they'd call.

The next day we busied ourselves in preparing a spread of good things for our reception, and Betty took it over, and on returning, said every thing was just as we had left it. We dressed ourselves up in our best, to receive the gentlemen, a little time after dinner. The woods were never so lovely, we thought, and to add to our personal charms, we made wreaths and garlands of ferns and wild-flowers to adorn our persons and hats.

I had sauntered along considerably in advance, and as I approached the bower I was not a little surprised to see from a distance that the door-curtain was drawn half open. I stopped to listen, but there was no sound, only a wild bird piping its three little notes, down by the mill. I cautiously went up, and peeped into the little window, and there stood a man on the rug! He seemed to be looking about. I think I never was so frightened. I ran back, and whispered to the rest the dreadful state of things. They looked horror-stricken. Lib changed color, but just stood still. Then she said,--"There's plenty of help over at the mill."

"Oh, let us go no nearer, but get home as fast as we can," I said.

Lib raised her hand in warning for us to keep still, and we crept along, softly, behind the bower; and when we had gotten so far, we all turned around and ran for dear life into the woods again.

"This is nonsense," said Lib. "You were mistaken, Mollie, I'm sure."

I said I'd go back with her, and she could see for herself. We crept to the back of the bower, and Lib leaned over and looked in. Lib turned pale, caught hold of my hand and Dora's, and ran quite a distance toward the mill. Then she stopped, and said, as true as she was alive, there was a man in there; he stood with a large stick resting on his shoulder, upon which was slung a bundle, tied up in a red handkerchief, his clothing was ragged, and his hat was very dilapidated.

"Oh, Lib, I'm going to run for it," said I.

"Wait a minute," said she. "I don't hear any noise. Let's think; if we didn't have to go right in front of the door, we could get to the mill."

All this time we were edging ourselves as far away from the dangerous precincts as we conveniently could. She stood again, perfectly still. "I won't go another step," she said. That moment's reflect had re-instated her courage. "He don't come out; I should say that was making an informal call when the ladies were out. He's a beautiful-looking specimen anyway," said Lib, with fine irony; and as she said this, she frowned, and put her head back.

No sound was heard, and no demonstrations from the interloper were made. The sight of the mill-wagon, going slowly down the road, gave us heart, and Lib said:

"I'll go and order him out, be the consequences what they may. Mollie, you're good at screaming, you can bring the miller here if we have to get help."

"Don't! Don't! I would rather he stole all our things; let him have the tarts and the cocoanut cake, and the jam, and the pickles, and the cheese, and the sandwiches! Let him have them in welcome! I'm going to fly home!"

"I want Mrs. Snobley!" sobbed Dora.

Lib never said another word. She walked up to the entrance, and pulled aside the curtain, and there stood the semblance of a man. In his extended hand was a card, on which was very badly printed:

"_I'm a poor b'y,--I want a home._"

"_References exchanged._"

"_I'll scrape the mud off me boots, if ye'll let me in._"

Lib called, "Come here, Mollie, it's a trick of those boys."

We went in, and there we found the interloper to be a scarecrow from a neighboring field, ingeniously arranged so as to appear very human.

At that moment, a loud laugh above our heads betrayed the presence of the boys in the trees, who clambered down with hilarious expedition, and fairly rolled themselves upon the ground with delight. They had seen all our perturbation; had heard my cowardly cries and expressions; Lib's looking in the window, and her fearful hesitation and scamper behind the fairy bower! The best thing to do was to laugh, and that we did right heartily; we girls, were internally thankful that the intruder was only a scarecrow after all.

We ordered the boys take their silly joke out, and to come in like gentlemen, and make a formal call, and probably they would be invited to take some refreshments.

This news caused them to work with great alacrity. They were dressed up too; Fred having chosen to wear his school uniform, with a gorgeous crimson sash and his sword.

We were never so delighted with any thing as with that afternoon's adventure. For hours we chatted and laughed, and ate our refreshments, until the western light began to take on a ruddy hue, and we closed our little bower and proceeded homeward.

What was our surprise, when we reached there, to find that three young friends from the city with their servant had come to visit us. Merryvale was not dull after that, I can assure you.

AUTUMN LEAVES, AND WHAT KATIE DID.

ALEX DUKE BAILIE.

"Oh, Bessie! I've such an idea, _such_ a good one, and _so_ sure, you can't think how it came either, if you guessed and tried for a week!"

"Child, you are always having ideas, but they amount to nothing; you have enough to do at home, without continually fretting your head about what you cannot carry out."

"But, Bessie, this is _just splendid_, and it came to me all of a sudden, and I'm sure as sure can be that it is a real _good_ idea. Now wont you listen!"

"I suppose I must, if I want any peace; but I'm very tired, so if it is like your latest--to catch fish and sell them in the town, or to have your curls cut off and let some city hair-dresser pay you for them--there will be no use to tell it to me."

"Tain't neither, Bessie dear, it's a real clever idea, and I know you wont say 'no' to it. I was looking over some of the old picture papers this morning, and I found a funny picture of a gentleman that had gone fishing with, oh! the greatest lot of lines, and a fine rod, and a basket swung at his back, and he looked ever so nice; but he hadn't caught any thing and he was ashamed to go back to the city with an empty basket; and then there was another picture where he was buying a great string of fish from a bare-footed little country boy, that had caught them all, and had only a rough old pole and an old line on it."

"So it _is_ the fishing idea, again," said Bessie, "but the present variation does not improve on the last."

"No, it just ain't the fishing idea any more; it's this: you know all the excursion parties that come up here, are coming all the time now; well, the ladies all gather autumn leaves, lots and lots, handsful and handsful of them. But they get tired of carrying so many after a while, and by the time they get ready to go back to the cars, their leaves are thrown away, and they are empty-handed. Now just listen! If I go to work and pick out the _very_ prettiest leaves and do them up in the _very_ sweetest bunches, and tie them so they are easy to carry, and meet them when they are starting to go home, I'm _sure_ they will buy them, just like the gentleman did the fish from that boy. Now, ain't that a _real good_ idea?"

"I believe there is something in it, Katie," answered the eldest sister.

"I knew you would," cried Katie, joyously, "and may I try it?"

"If you will be very careful and not talk too much to the people you know nothing of, I have no objections; it can do no harm, at all events," and poor, tired Bessie sighed as she looked at her bright young sister and thought of the time when she too was young and full of hope and gay spirits.

There was quite a family of these Wilsons in the little house at the foot of the mountains, in Pennsylvania. The widowed mother, sickly and almost blind; Bessie, a young lady, the eldest daughter, aged twenty-three, who taught a very large school for very small pay; then Katie not quite twelve, and Robbie, the baby, the pet, the boy, who was only five.

Three years before, their father had been living, and they had enjoyed all that wealth could bring them. Suddenly he sickened and died, and then came the dreadful knowledge that he left nothing for his family; he was deeply in debt to his partner, with whom he had worked a large coal-mine, and this Mr. Moore was what all people called a "hard man," he was old and crabbed, and always wanted and would have every cent coming to him. Bessie was to have been married to his son, Philip, but when poverty came to her, the old man refused to let Philip see her more, and the girl was too proud to go into a family where she was not wanted, and, beside, she had her poor mother, who had given up and failed fast after her misfortunes, she had her to look after. So Bessie taught school; Katie attended to the little home into which they had moved from the great house on the hill, a noble little housekeeper she was; Robbie did about as he pleased and was well content with life, except when neat Katie would seize him and wash his face with plenty of soap in his eyes, and comb his tangled curls with a comb that "allus pulled," as he cried.

It was hard for them to pay the rent, to get food and the many delicacies Mrs. Wilson had always been used to, and now needed more than ever. Bessie's small wages from her school were taken, every cent, for these, and Katie was continually bothering her young head with "ideas" as to how _she_ could make money to help them all. The autumn leaves were the latest, and it really did seem as though there were something in it.

The next day was Saturday, Bessie was free from school duties, and so her little sister had more time at her disposal. Friday evening she and Robbie gathered a great quantity of bright-colored leaves; the next morning, bright and early, they were out again; the little back porch was filled with them.

With her own natural good taste, aided by Bessie's more cultivated judgment, they made up many neat, beautiful bunches of those bright-colored droppings from the forest trees. These she placed in a large but pretty basket that once had been sent, filled with rare fruit, to Bessie, from Philip, and the older girl sighed when she gave it to her sister.

Then Katie started, leaving Robbie behind crying; and with a trembling heart and a big lump in her throat, but bravely as a little soldier, she made her way to the path by which the excursion parties would have to return to the cars. Soon they began to come along, all tired, trying to be merry ladies and gentlemen.

Katie stood with her basket on her arm. She did not know how pretty she looked, with her brown curls floating out from beneath her big sun-bonnet, her pure white apron, her dark dress which Bessie had made from one of her own, with delicate bits of lace at the wrists, a bright bit of ribbon about her throat and a plain little breast-pin clasping it. Her big black eyes looked longingly at the passers-by, her red lips tried, many times, to utter some words that would help her sell her wares, but she could not speak, she could only up her hand and _look_ her wants.

"What lovely leaves!" cried a young lady, "these of mine seem all faded by the carrying, and I'm tired of the great load anyhow," and she threw away a great lot tied round with her handkerchief, and hastened toward the little merchant.

"What a pretty girl," said the young man with her.

"How much are these?" inquired the lady.

Bessie had not thought of what she would ask for her bunches, and now, between pleasure and fright, she could not think of any price to put upon them.

"Whatever you please, Miss," she faintly murmured.

"How lovely they are," said the lady, and taking three bunches, she gave two to the young man with her, telling him: "Harry, you must carry these, and pay the child," the third one she kept in her own hand.

The gentleman put his hand in his pocket, drew it out, and dropped into Katie's basket a silver dollar.

The tears almost blinded the little girl--tears of joy over her first success--she could hardly see what the coin was, but when she picked it up she managed to stammer that she "had no change."

"Don't want any, little one," said the young man pleasantly, "the sight of you is worth all the money and more." Then the couple hurried away.

But their stopping had attracted many more, and a dozen bought of Katie, and, though few were as generous as her first customers, she soon disposed of most of her stock at ten cents a bunch, having gained courage to fix and state her price. Quite a number gave her more than that sum, and she began to feel a very rich little girl, indeed.

More than half her stock was sold, when an old gentleman and a young lady came along. The lady, as usual, was the first to admire the bright bunches, she took two, the old gentleman giving Katie fifty cents and telling her that "was right." He seemed a cross old man, but still spoke pleasantly.

"What's your name, child?" he asked.

"Katie Wilson, sir," replied the little girl, faintly.

"Um! um! Come along Helen," said he, hastily, and hurried away.

These were the last of the excursion parties, except an elderly lady having in charge a dozen children, all dressed alike; little ones from a soldiers' orphan school, for whom some kind person had provided a day's pleasure. They were tired and worn out with romping, and dragged along slowly; they looked at Katie's bright face and longingly at the pretty leaves in her basket. The girl's heart was touched; timidly she held out a bunch to a little boy who half stopped in front of her, he took it eagerly; in a moment the others were about her. By good fortune, she had enough to give on to each and an extra bunch to the lady.

With the thanks of these poor children in her heart, an empty basket and a happy jingle in her pocket she ran nearly all the way home, burst in on Bessie, put her arms about her neck and sobbed for happiness.

When the elder sister at last succeeded in calming her, she told the whole story of her afternoon's work.

Together they counted the money--three dollars and eighty-five cents--just think of it!

If ever there was a happy, excited little girl, it was Katie that night. She could not sleep or eat. When she _had to_ go to bed, she lay awake long, long hours, thinking how _she_ would buy back the big house, how mother should have doctors and every thing she needed, how Bessie should stop teaching and have a horse and little carriage, and pretty dresses, and a piano, like she used to, and how Robbie should go to school and college and grow up to be a great man and finally be President. She never thought of herself, except that _she_ was to do all this, and when she fell asleep she dreamed the whole thing over again, and that it had turned out just as she planned.

All through the excursion season Katie sold her leaves, and though she never made as much as on the first day, yet when people stopped coming she had over one hundred dollars in Bessie's hands, all made by herself, all made by being up early and attending to her household duties and working hard so as to have her bunches ready by the time that visitors were returning to the train.

She was brave, and true, and unselfish, and her reward was great.

It was one chill November evening, toward Thanksgiving day, that she and Robbie had wandered out among the mountain paths; the little fellow was wild as a colt and ran here and there until it was all Katie could do to keep track of him. Finally she caught him; both were tired out, and when she looked around, to her great terror, she could not make out just where they were. They wandered along and at last came to a road, but she did not know which way to go. Robbie was cross and sleepy; she could not carry the heavy boy, and he _would_ lay down; at last she let him rest. He dropped by a fallen log and in a moment was asleep. She covered him with a little cloth cape she wore, and sat down beside him; her eyes were heavy, she nodded, and very soon was as sound as he.