CHAPTER III.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

SATURDAY morning Jack appeared whistling energetically as he triumphantly balanced a box on his left hand, and swung another in his right. He was early, but the three girls were earlier, and had swept the dead leaves from under the apple-tree destined for the office, and had cleared out the hollow which was to hold the box, to the noisy indignation of a woodpecker and his dame who had chosen the tree for a summer residence.

Jack was hailed with a cry of rapture.

"Here's the office!" he shouted, breaking into a run as he saw the little girls; "and this is the drop-box."

So saying he stubbed his toe on one of the many rough places in the orchard, and boy and boxes went headlong in three directions.

"I see it is a drop-box," remarked Trix dryly, getting square on the account of the previous night.

"O Jack, have you broken them?" cried Amy, while Margery stood still in mute anguish.

"Guess not; no, they're all right," replied Jack, gathering up his burdens. "Aren't they just James dandies?"

The girls, who had renounced slang with gum, pronounced them "lovely" and "beautiful." One was a starch-box, divided through the middle into an upper and lower section, the upper partitioned into three pigeon-holes, each numbered, and the lower half made into two divisions, likewise numbered. The box was painted a wood brown, with the words "Post-Office" in white over the top, and the numbers were also white.

Jack had wanted to paint the box red, but Amy had convinced him that it would be in greater danger of discovery in such a bright color, and he had yielded to prudence.

The second box was red, however, for Jack had literally stood to his colors in this case, maintaining that all Uncle Sam's drop-boxes were red, and Blissylvania's must be no exception to the rule.

This had a slit cut in the top large enough for letters to pass through, and was not less admired than the post-office.

"But how shall we get parcels in?" asked Margery, and Jack explained that for this it was only necessary to lift the lid, which would not be fastened. Every one found this arrangement perfectly satisfactory, and the office was nailed into the tree by Jack at the cost of only one bruised finger, while the girls executed a sort of war-dance around him in irrepressible satisfaction.

The drop-box was fastened on a stump ten or twelve feet from the office, which made it still more like a real post-office, for, as Margery explained, the postmistress could play she was a postman collecting and bringing in the mail when she took the things out of the drop-box, and needn't pretend she was postmaster till she began sorting them at the apple-tree.

Nothing could have been more encouraging than the morning operations, but in the afternoon the H. T. C. and the town of Blissylvania narrowly escaped a catastrophe that would have been like an earthquake, sweeping the fair city from the earth.

It all came from the honorary member's generosity.

True to her promise, Miss Isabel hastened down to town in the morning early, and ordered the stamp made for the postmark. It was to be of leaden type, that allowed the changing of date each day, and as the type was already in stock the shopkeeper promised to deliver it that afternoon. Margery's mamma had painted the badges according to the design selected at the first meeting, only substituting a white carrier-pigeon as the device instead of an envelope, because, as Margery explained to the others, "it was more poetical than an envelope and prettier." The badge was of beautiful blue ribbon, the pigeon painted in white, surmounted by the initials of the club--H. T. C. And it may be stated here that unsatisfied curiosity as to the secret moved the other school-children to derision, and Jack, Margaret, Beatrice, and Amy were called the "Highty Tighty Cooing Pigeons," shortened for convenience to "The Doves."

The four were wrapped in admiration over their beautiful badges, when the postmark arrived. Each one tried it in turn, and at every impression the magic circle enclosing the words, "Blissylvania, June 8th, 1896"--for the date was set ready for the first use on Monday--seemed more entrancing. They all repaired to the orchard to see if it worked equally well on the big stone which they had selected for its table, and here the little cloud appeared that rolled up into a storm. It was such unutterable bliss to press the stamp on the ink-pad, and then make the impression on the white paper, that the office of postmaster suddenly seemed to each one the honor most to be coveted in all the world.

"I wonder how we shall decide who is to be postmaster," remarked Trix casually, as she reluctantly gave Amy the stamp to try.

Each face reddened slightly; evidently they had all been thinking of the same thing.

"I don't see how a girl can be postmaster," said Jack.

"Pshaw! We can be postmistress, and it's all the same," said Amy, speaking sharply for her.

"I should think it was more a man's place," continued Jack.

"It's a place for a girl that is strong and quick, and like a boy," said Trix hastily.

"I live right here, where I could look after it," said Margery, bringing the discussion from abstract views on suitability to the personal application they were all secretly making.

"That's the very reason why you shouldn't be postmistress!" cried peace-loving Amy, ruffling her feathers. "You shouldn't have everything."

"Oh, you're no good for it, Peggy!" said Jack, with easy scorn. "It needs a boy, and I'm the only boy; so of course I've got to be postmaster."

"Well, I like that," cried Trix, with eyes flashing like a whole woman's-rights convention in one small body. "Every one knows girls are heaps quicker and smarter than boys. I'd be a better postmaster than any of you, if I do say so."

"You! You're too harum-scarum; you'd lose half the mail!" cried Amy. "I'd be a much better one, and you know it."

"Well, I'd not lose the mail!" said Trix, trembling and stammering in indignation. "You think I'm harum-scarum because you're such a poke."

"Well, there's no good you girls fighting about it, because I'm the boy, and I'm going to be postmaster!" remarked Jack, with such maddening certainty that the girls turned on him in a body.

"You'll be nothing of the sort!" screamed Trix, stamping her foot.

"You won't touch my letters!" cried Amy.

"If you were a gentleman you'd not want to take a lady's place!" said Margery, with withering scorn. "No gentleman ever sits down when a lady hasn't a seat."

"I'd like to know who wants to sit down?" demanded Jack.

"If you felt as you ought, you'd want your cousin to be postmaster," said Margery.

"Well, I don't; so there!" said Jack.

"Who does?" asked Trix, deserting her ally and turning on Margery. "You've got the office in your orchard, and that's enough."

"If I'd known that you'd all have been so selfish I'd never have said have a post-office," said Margery, turning away to hide the tears which always would come when she was angry, spoiling the effect of her most telling remarks.

"You're selfish yourself, because you want it as much as we do, and that is why you think we're selfish," said Amy, with so much truth that Margery could not retort.

"You're the meanest three in the world!" cried Trix.

"That counts me out, for you girls are the three, and Trix is the worst!" shouted Jack.

"If I was half as mean as the rest of you I'd go to some old-clothes man, and try to sell myself," said Amy, the mild.

"You wouldn't get much," said Trix, not realizing her retort was rather against herself.

"I think I don't care about a post-office," remarked Margery, with quivering lips. "I think I'll not be in it, and if you want one you can have it some other place than my orchard."

"I don't want one," said Trix.

"It's a stupid thing anyhow," said Amy.

"No one with any sense would ever have proposed it," said Jack.

"Then we'll give it all up," said Margery, in a low voice. A quarrel was not a little thing to her, as it was to the others, but an awful tragedy. And at this terrible moment Miss Isabel came down the orchard, looking as fresh and calm as if there were no such thing as anger in all the world. It did not require her keen eyes to see the flushed faces and trembling lips, and feel the electricity in the air, but she discreetly pretended to observe nothing.

"Good-morrow, brave Sir Hotspur, noble Lady Catharine Seyton, kind Mrs. Plenty, fair Lady Griselda," she said.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Isabel," responded four melancholy voices, from which joy seemed forever fled.

"I see the postmark came. I was uneasy lest it fail to arrive, and came over to ask about it," continued Miss Isabel cheerfully. "Is it good? Oh, yes; those are very clear impressions you made. Do you know, I like the name Blissylvania much better than I thought I should?"

No answer; the children were beginning to feel dreadfully ashamed, for though they were perfectly at ease with Miss Isabel, they cared too much for her good opinion to be anything but their best before her.

"I brought the stamps," continued Miss Isabel, with persistent, cheerful blindness. "Here they are."

Jack had been digging a hole with his heel ever since Miss Isabel had arrived, and it required his entire attention. Giving an extra deep backward thrust, he said without looking up:

"It's a pity you took that trouble, Miss Isabel, for we're not going to have a post-office after all."

A sob from Margery followed this remark.

"Why, what is the matter?" asked Miss Isabel, looking from one gloomy face to another, and drawing Margery's, which was hidden from her, on her knee.

"Well," said Trix desperately, "we're all mad. We got into a fuss about who would be postmaster, and we decided to give the thing up."

"What do you mean; you couldn't decide who should be postmaster first?" asked Miss Isabel. "Of course you intend to take turns in office?"

Jack, Trix, and Amy glanced at each other, and Margery stopped sobbing to listen. Simple as this solution of the difficulty was, no one had thought of it.

"We didn't mean that; we thought some one would be postmaster all the time," said Jack.

"Oh, dear me, I should think you would get into a fuss if you tried to decide who was to have the fun all alone," laughed Miss Isabel. "And so you were going to give up the whole thing, and cheat me of all the pleasure you promised me because you did not hit on such a simple plan! And last night we decided that Blissylvania was to be a real republic, with every one equal! Look up, little Marguerite; you are a daisy too wet with rain just now. Don't make mountains of molehills, children; it is much wiser to make molehills of the mountains we have to climb in life. Now, I think each would better be postmaster a week at a time, and draw lots for the order of serving. Or, perhaps, it would be better still to have the term of office last but three days, for then the terms will come around quicker."

She did not add that this would give each a second chance to serve in case they tired quickly of the new play, but she thought it.

"Shall we draw lots for turns now?" she asked, reaching for the white paper on which they had been making impressions before the storm broke.

"Yes, Miss Isabel," said Jack and Amy and Trix meekly, while Margery sat up pale and trembling, and began to dry her eyes. The others glanced at her wonderingly; they never could understand why Margery seemed half sick if she had been angry or had cried.

Miss Isabel wrote the numbers, and they drew, Amy number one, Trix two, Margery three, and Jack four.

"Now please show me the boxes. Why, they are very nicely made, Jack; did you do it alone?"

"Yes, Miss Isabel," said Jack, beaming, all trace of anger melted in the sunshine of her presence.

"And look, Miss Isabel, here's the drop-box," cried Amy. "You put letters through the slit in the top, and when you have a parcel you lift the cover and put it inside."

Miss Isabel laughed.

"That is a wee bit like the story of the man who made a large hole for his cat to go in and out, and a small one alongside for the kitten. But it is certainly the nicest kind of a post-office, and I think, perhaps, that I shall get more pleasure out of it than any of you." Which was a much truer prophecy than Miss Isabel herself dreamed. "We are to write letters to-morrow, and begin Monday, are we not?"

"Yes; oh, what fun!" cried Trix, catching Amy around the waist, and waltzing her about the old apple-tree and back again.

No one but Margery seemed to remember "the late unpleasantness;" she stood a little apart, very pale, but trying to smile.

"Do you know, I think it is unusually warm for the sixth of June?" remarked Miss Isabel. "I wonder if I could get any one to walk down to Bent's to eat ice-cream with me?"

Jack turned a somersault at once.

"Don't try if you don't want to succeed, Miss Isabel," he said.

"Come, then, every one of you," she cried merrily, "for I do want to succeed. And I propose that we wear our beautiful new badges, for we are to go in a body as a club."

"Let me pin them on, please," said Margery. She had been longing for a chance to beg pardon, and saw it here. "I'm dreadfully sorry I was so cross, Jack," she whispered, pinning the badge, and at the same time rubbing her cheek on his gray jacket.

"Oh, that's all right, Megsy. You're never much cross," he whispered back, and would have liked to have kissed her little white face, for he dearly loved his cousin.

"Please forgive me, Trix, for being so mean," she whispered, as she reached her, and Trix stared at her for a moment in amazement.

"Why, I forgot all about it," she said. "I was meaner than you anyhow." And she kissed her.

Amy put her arms around Margery before she could speak. "It's all right, Margery; forgive me, too," she whispered.

And so, at peace with all the world and each other, the Happy Thought Club, that had so narrowly escaped destruction, sallied forth to eat ice-cream.