Part 1

THE CHILDREN OF THE VALLEY

BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD

_New York._ _Thomas Y. Crowell & Co._ _Publishers._

THE CHILDREN OF THE VALLEY

BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD AUTHOR OF THE “HESTER STANLEY” BOOKS, “A LOST JEWEL,” ETC.

FIFTH THOUSAND

NEW YORK: THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY T. Y. CROWELL & CO.

CONTENTS.

I. PAGE ALLY AND THE CHILDREN OF THE HILL 5

II. ALL THE PEOPLE 9

III. WHAT THE TWINS FOUND 15

IV. MOTHER BEAR’S CALL 21

V. TWO LITTLE CONSCIENCES 26

VI. AFTER DARK ON THE ICE 35

VII. THE SNOW HUT 41

VIII. A WILFUL BOY 49

IX. THE NIGHT-STORM IN THE WOODS 57

X. THE CHRISTMAS TREE ON THE CLIFF 63

XI. AUNT ROSE AND THE CHILDREN 68

XII. THE FLIGHT ON THE STREET CAR 71

XIII. SALLY’S VOYAGE 75

XIV. SALLY’S HILL JOURNEY 78

XV. THAT DAY WHEN ALLY WAS LOST 85

XVI. AUNT SUSAN’S BABY 89

The Children of the Valley.

I.

ALLY AND THE CHILDREN OF THE HILL.

ALLY was lost—the little blue-eyed dear! That is to say, she was nowhere to be found. And of course there was commotion in the Valley. Michael, the gardener, was going one way; and John, the house-man, another; and Pincher, one of the loggers, was making for the hills with Uncle Billy in one direction, and Old Uncle and Will and Charlie had gone up in another; and Aunt Rose and Aunt Susan were hunting through the house; and Janet and Essie were running this way and that—and it was noon, and still they hadn’t found her.

Will was sure Ally would be found in the strawberry-patch on the farther edge of the intervale across the river, and as the boat was on the other side he had offered to swim over and fetch it.

Charlie had been equally sure that she was looking for bear-cubs again in the hollow half-way up Blue Top.

Aunt Susan was convinced that she had fallen asleep somewhere under a bush, when she could not be found in the house.

Aunt Rose thought she might have been taken to drive by people passing through the Valley—sometimes some of them were—and they would bring her back.

“Of course,” said Old Uncle, “they’ll bring her back! Ally’ll turn up all right—she makes more noise, when she sets about it, than all the rest of you put together!” Nevertheless, Old Uncle—who believed in whipping, at least he said he did—was making for the hollows of Blue Top as he said it. For Ally was really the darling of the household, always bright and sweet-tempered, and daring and ready for anything.

Essie, who was Ally’s twin, felt indignant with Old Uncle for talking so when no one knew what had become of Ally; she gave it as her opinion that the fairies had taken her into their own invisible country—the fairies who haunted the Valley, as every one knew, or else why should they be seen sailing away on the early breeze in chariots like cobwebs, leaving their coverlets, long spreads of jewels, shining on the sides of all the slopes of Blue Top and Green Ridge. But Essie was always imagining something that wasn’t so, Will said.

Janet said nothing. In her own mind, although she didn’t like to speak of it, she believed Ally had gone up into the clouds round Blue Top to find Aunt Susan’s baby who, they understood, had been taken away by the Children of the Hill. Janet knew that Ally had carried a sore spot in her tender heart ever since that day last fall when Aunt Susan was up in the garret, and not knowing that the twins were there, had kissed the tiny shirt. Janet was a little older than the twins, and she was not quite sure that they had understood correctly what Aunt Rose had said one day after Aunt Susan had come home from a long walk, trying to hide that she had been crying—Aunt Rose had whispered that Aunt Susan had been up to the Children of the Hill. Yes, plainly, to Janet’s mind, Ally had taken it into her own hands to discover if they were right or wrong. For it was brave little Ally who, if there was anything to adventure about, always adventured. It was Ally to whom things were always happening. If there was a scrape round, Ally was always the one sure to get into it, although she usually contrived to come out on top—except on those two dreadful times of which you shall hear—for she had a courageous little spirit and a loving little heart. And it was this courageous spirit, and this loving heart full of childish sympathy for Aunt Susan, that had taken Ally away now all by herself. She loved everything so much that she had no thought of being harmed by anything.

So Janet reasoned.

And when, by and by, you learn where she had really gone, and what it was she brought home, perhaps you will think that the result of this particular adventure of Ally’s was one of the pleasantest things that ever befell the Children of the Valley.

II.

ALL THE PEOPLE.

THE children had not always lived in this northern valley.

Janet and Jack and Essie and Ally had come from the far south—where no snow fell, and the only ice they ever saw was made by a machine—to the home of Old Uncle and Aunt Susan, who had lost all their own children. Uncle Billy and Aunt Rose had journeyed down to bring them, after their father and mother had gone into the country from which they never came back. Uncle Billy was a great comfort to them at that time; he was Old Uncle’s brother, and Aunt Rose was Old Uncle’s sister. Aunt Rose was young and pretty—at least as young and pretty as grown people can be, and wherever she was she made everything bright and happy.

It was a queer thing, that although Ally had great blue eyes, and fluffy yellow hair, and dimples all over her rosy face, and Essie had brown eyes, and dark smooth braids, and was a trifle the taller, people should always be taking them for each other, and often had to stop and think: “Oh, no, oh, no, the brown-haired one is the other one!”

Janet’s hair was the most beautiful thing you ever saw; although if you heard anyone call it red, you might not think so till you saw that really there was no red about it. She wore it in long braids, and when it was combed out, it fell round her like a cloud of chestnut overlaid with gold; and her eyes were the very same color. “It isn’t healthy,” said Old Uncle. “That hair really ought to be cut.” But it never was cut.

Jack’s hair was short enough to make up for it, however, for it stood up like a stiff hair-brush above his honest little freckled face. Poor Jack, in those days, was usually to be seen going round with a string tied to one of his front teeth, which he was going to fasten to an open door and then slam the door, so that the tooth would come out quickly—just as soon as he could make up his mind to it.

The four children from the south had missed their own dear people exceedingly at first; Ally and Essie crying themselves to sleep in each other’s arms, and Janet getting up several times to see that they were covered, like a little mother herself, and Jack creeping into Will’s bed, because he had a lump in his throat, he said.

But the novelty of new surroundings had gradually worn away their sorrow and homesickness. Charlie and Will were very condescending and kind—they were Aunt Susan’s nephews, and had lived here ever since they became orphans—and Aunt Susan had said that where there was room for her people there was room for all of Old Uncle’s. Michael was delightful with fairy stories out of Ireland. Pincher told them of blood-curdling happenings in the woods. And the maids were very choice people. Aunt Susan always had sweeties and dainties for them. Uncle Billy was great fun when he chose.

It was only Old Uncle who was a drawback. For _this_ sound disturbed Old Uncle’s nap, and _that_ sound hindered Old Uncle’s work, and the _other_ sound irritated Old Uncle’s nerves; and the children tiptoed and held their breath as they went past his office-door, and everybody hushed them down and hushed them down on account of Old Uncle, until Jack said one day, “They don’t really like children here at all!”

“It is very unfortunate to be children, anyway,” said Janet, with a sigh.

“Yes,” said Ally. “They always send you to bed if there’s anything going on; and they say it isn’t good for you if there’s anything nice to eat; and they send you out of the room if there are secrets, or else they spell or talk French or something.”

“They say, ‘Do-grey they-grey hear-grey,’” said Essie.

“And ‘Do-hoolty they-aylty hear-ealty,’” said Janet.

“It’s very, very exsulting to children,” said Ally.

“But we can’t help being children,” said Jack.

“And they can’t help not liking children,” said Essie. “I suppose the reason we’re called children is because it gives people a cold chill to hear us coming.”

“Well,” said Janet, repenting, “I suppose we could _make_ them stop not liking us. I suppose we _could_ be so careful and so quiet that they’d think it lovely to have us round.”

“Let’s, then!” cried Ally.

But Jack said Janet was too good to live.

However, for a little while they all went about softly, till Michael called them to see a little furry brown bat clinging to the under-side of an apple-bough, at which strange sight, and with subsequent endeavors to capture the sleepy thing that woke and fluttered just a bough higher every time, the little knot of southerners forgot their good resolution.

There was always a time of comparative peace, though, after breakfast, when Aunt Rose kept school, and also another hour, after their dinner. But when the restraint of lessons was removed, they poured forth to play again with such a joyous outcry that Old Uncle always rose and closed his door.

There was another rapturous season of peace,—on Sunday mornings when they were waiting for the carryalls to take them to church. Janet stepped about the gardens, with the others at her heels, getting as pale and delicate a zinnia as she could find, to pin in the ruffle of her pretty white gown, and a stem of thyme for Jack, and a sprig of southernwood for Will, and a bit of citronella for Charlie; the twins foraging for themselves among the late honeysuckles and early cosmos.

They enjoyed the drive to church. They went in the carryalls, drawn by the three span of farm-horses in the driving harnesses. Janet felt it was like a picnic when they drove away from the piazza in the three carriages, one after the other. It was wrong of Janet, no doubt, to think of a picnic on a Sunday morning; but there certainly was a gala air about the little procession, with so many children in their flowers and ribbons, and their beautiful hair.

They enjoyed the day at church; they enjoyed seeing the people; they enjoyed rambling in the old neglected, bramble-covered graveyard near by, if they arrived too early; they enjoyed tuning up their own little pipes in the singing of the hymns.

There was room for them all in Old Uncle’s big square pew, but part of them sat across the aisle. Six children were too many for one pew. Six turning young heads! six pairs of knocking young heels! twelve restless elbows! It was not to be thought of. Old Uncle sat in one pew with three of them, and Aunt Susan across the aisle with the rest. Uncle Billy and Aunt Rose sat farther back, and were able to report on the general behavior when all reached home.

III.

WHAT THE TWINS FOUND.

THE mountains had been a great source of interest at first to the children, who had never before seen anything but boundless savannas. The vast blue and purple shapes seemed to be some strange sort of great live creatures lying crouched against the sky; and they had a little awe if not fear of them.

Even when they became familiar enough to perceive that one pasture led to another up their sides, and to know various of the tumbling black and white brooks by name, they still felt that the mountains were alive, in some mysterious way. And the fact that there were bears and panthers in the caves and recesses of the purplest of the hills, lent a shivery sense of danger, particularly for Essie; for, reasoned Essie, how could the mountains be kind to bears and wolves, and kind to children also? Yet at the same time the fact that Old Uncle owned great tracts of their heights and depths, and had his logging teams and men in the forests in winter getting out the lumber, gave the children a cosy feeling as if they, too, had a sort of proprietorship in them, and even in the remote wild beasts.

The late summer of their first year north had brought the little people a great deal of pleasure. More than once Uncle Billy had taken them all in a skiff down the river, slipping along on the current, and then poling in shore. They had kindled a fire on the bank, and joyously cooked their own dinner. Uncle Billy had caught trout, and Aunt Rose had broiled them, while they picked the berries. After dinner they had burned the remnant, and washed the dishes together.

They had gone up the hills, too, on so many picnics, and seen what had looked so blue and so far turn into woods and fields and lonely farms that they had left off expecting to see a big bear reach over their shoulders for their bread and honey. In fact, by this time they almost wished they might see one, and Essie and Ally had many a delightful bear-talk with Pincher.

One day Ally and Essie were out by themselves gathering autumn leaves, which had come as a great surprise to their southern eyes; first making them think the woods afire, and then that the world would not be a green world any more.

They had a large basket with them, with a handle at either end, so that they might lay in twigs and small branches as well as single leaves; and afterwards they were glad that they had brought that peculiar, particular basket.

They had it nearly half filled when they began to feel tired. They had been over the ground before and so were familiar with it; and Ally pointed out their favorite resting-log, and they made their way to it and sat down. It was covered with thick, velvet-green moss, and Ally sank into the deep cushion with a luxurious coo.

At the same moment she felt her feet touching something very soft. It was a dim, shady place, and she peered down curiously. The next minute she was on her knees in the grassy hollow, and Essie saw her with both arms round the very dearest, softest, hairiest little creature alive!

“Oh, Essie,” cried Ally, “just see what we’ve found! Oh, what do you suppose it is?”

“Oh, oh!” cried Essie, “isn’t it a dear!”

“Isn’t it a dear!” echoed Ally. “I just love it!”

“So do _I_ love it! Let _me_ feel it!” cried Essie, down in the hollow too, and half crowding Ally away, to get her own arms round the little animal. “Do you think it is a little fox?”

“Oh, no! Essie—foxes are yellowish. And it can’t be a wild-cat—wild-cats have blazing eyes, and they scratch. This is a soft sleepy baby, and it isn’t a panther—it isn’t anything cruel—oh, isn’t it cunning?”

“Perhaps it’s a quite new sort of animal,” said Essie, “and we have found it first of anybody; maybe it is one of the Bible animals—a leviathan, maybe, Ally.”

Ally didn’t answer. She was holding the little warm flat foot in her hand, and looking the little creature over. “I guess it’s a baby bear, Essie,” she said. “Bears don’t have tails, you know, and this hasn’t. Uncle Billy’ll know. Essie, if it is a bear, it’s our very own bear, and we can have it.”

“Yes, we can, and take it home! Oh, _dear_ little bear!” cried Essie.

The children sat down by the little fellow in the leaves, and gave themselves up to perfect delight. They examined his ears, and his paws with the long claws, and they smoothed and poored his thick fur, and put their faces down to his; and then they rubbed his little stomach while he lay on his back with his feet curled up in the air, enjoying it all, winking and blinking—the most lovable little brown rogue ever to be seen! Sometimes he lay still, then again he moved in the leaves, sleepy, snuffling, nuzzling.

“Is he too heavy for us to carry?” asked Ally. “If I stoop, and you put his arms round my neck, and I take him pick-a-back?”

Essie shook her head. “I don’t believe he would like to be carried that way. What if we put him in our basket? He’d like lying on the leaves.”

“Why, yes,” said Ally. “He’s always lying on leaves and grass. Let’s do it. We oughtn’t to let him stay out here in the woods all night, all alone.”

“Of course not,” said Essie. “What a bad mother he must have had to go and leave him here!”

“Perhaps some hunter shot her,” said Ally.

Pitiful, the twins stroked him again and put their dear little faces close to his; and the little bear cuddled and snuggled and uttered a soft sound of pleasure.

But the soft sound quite changed its character when they began to try and lift the little fat lump into the basket. “Oh, Ally! he’s growling!” Essie cried. “Hear him!” and she went off in gales of laughter; it really was amusing—that little ineffectual growl.

The children tugged and lugged and lifted and hauled him till they had him on the side of the half-tipped basket, then they tipped it back, and he rolled in, on the leaves. Next they stripped off their aprons and tied them across the basket so that he might neither spill out nor jump out.

It seemed as if they never would get home. One on each side they took the basket a little way, and then they sat down to rest. Again they lugged and tugged it a short way farther; and sometimes the little creature inside made queer, uncouth sounds, and they had to stop and soothe and stroke him.

“Oh, he’s sucking my fingers,” suddenly said Ally, snatching her hand away.

“That’s how Pincher teaches the calves to drink,” cried Essie, joyously, “and we can give him his dinner just that way.”

Again and again it seemed as if they never would reach home. Fortunately it didn’t occur to them that there might be any mother-bear alive to follow them through the wood, and express her fear and anger in savage sort, with great cuffs of tremendous paws and cruel, murderous hugs. Cheerfully they dragged their burden along under the warm noonday sun, pink and perspiring, every now and again stopping for breath and strength, and taking a peep under the aprons. As for the little animal, he spent his own time sleeping for the most part. He seemed so warm in his fur, that seized with a sudden fear lest he should suffocate, they uncovered him, just as they came out at the foot of their lawn.

IV.

MOTHER BEAR’S CALL.

MARIA, from an upper window, spied the children coming, tugging the basket along.

She called down to Old Uncle and Aunt Susan on the piazza.

“If them children ar’n’t bringing home a cub!”

Old Uncle stirred in his hammock. Aunt Susan went down the steps. “What will they do next?” said Old Uncle. As the twins came up with a joyful outcry, to exhibit their treasure, he rose and peered into the basket. “’Tis a cub surely,” he said. He looked at the children from under his shaggy eyebrows. “Will you fetch in a catamount to-morrow?” he asked sternly.

“We—we thought you would be pleased,” Essie faltered.

“Why, Uncle,” cried Ally, “why, Old Uncle, don’t you love a baby bear? I just want you to see him suck my fingers! You can’t help loving him!”

“I love you,” teased Old Uncle, catching her up to a place in the hammock beside himself. “But you can’t keep him alive on your fingers, even if he only sucked up one a day.”

“You’re just funning!” said Ally. “Pincher knows how to feed him, and so does Michael. I reckon Essie and I could too.”

“Old Uncle, we won’t let him be a bit of trouble,” said Essie.

“Of course he won’t be any trouble,” said Aunt Susan. She and Aunt Rose had brought a bottle of warm milk with a rag over the top of it. They put it into the little bear’s mouth, and the whole family gathered round to see him take his dinner. His grunts of satisfaction were very funny. At last the little fellow let go the bottle, stretched himself, and rolled over on the grass, and looked so good-natured you would almost have said he was laughing; and Aunt Susan said, “A little bear is a little dear!”

The cub must have been pretty tired with all the attention and endearments he received that day, not to say anything about Master Will’s efforts to make him stand on his hind legs, when he tumbled over every time like a mould of jelly.

But at last, and after his supper, he was put to sleep in the shed on a little truss of hay, under an old blanket, where, as soon as he was alone, he began to whimper for his mother. But the children did not hear him; they had trooped up-stairs to their own beds, all of them as tired as the cub himself, and were presently sound asleep.

The great moon rose white and solemn above the hills, and poured her silver over the forests, and the whole world seemed asleep too.

It was just in their first sweet slumber that everyone in that house was waked by the strangest, the most melancholy, the most frightful sound they had ever heard. Now it was loud, high, and shrill. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” it came. Now it was a long, low growl. Now again it was a series of sharp cries like barks. Now it was a roar; and something was knocking about the chairs on the piazzas, scratching at the windows, lumbering down the steps and plowing and plunging over the grass—something with heavy jaws and coming clap, clap, along the front of the house. Finally it made off clumsily in the direction of the shed, and raised such an uproar there that the sky rang with it.

Every one was out of bed and at the windows. The twins, half hiding behind the curtains in fright, shivered as they saw plainly in the moonlight a big creature standing erect, cuffing away at the side of the shed, and whining and growling all the more when a little whine and a little yelp answered from within.

Pincher saw the children, and laughed. He was standing at the window at the other end of the long hall.

“It’s Mother Bear,” he called. “Hear her! ‘Where’s my little bear?’ she’s askin’. ‘Where’s my baby? You folks, give him back or I’ll eat _your_ babies. Little Bruin, I’m a-hearin’ of ye. Ye want your mammy, don’t you? She’s smelled ye all the way here. How ’m I goin’ ter fetch ye out blest ef I know! But I’m _goin’_ ter fetch ye! I say! Give me my little bear! He’s a dreffle bright bear! Ef you folks only seen him eatin’ of blackberries you’d know how smart he wuz. Say, I jest can’t lend him! I’ve got to get him real fat ’fore we go into winter quarters. How’d ye get here, any way, ye little scamp? Can’t I leave ye five minutes? Ye was safe asleep in a soft holler, an’ then w’en I was wadin’ inter the river with a bee-hive in my arms, so’s to drown the bees an’ git the honey, off ye go! Don’t ye know little bears should mind their mother? Oh, somebody tuk ye. Br-r-r! I won’t leave so much as their aprons if I can lay paws on them! that is, onless so be it’s Ally and Essie. But I’ll hev to box their ears for ’em, I guess. I say, now, folks! Br-r-r! Br-r-r! I’ll tear the place down if ye don’t give me my cub!’”

“Oh, Pincher! does she say all that?” asked Ally.

“Pincher! would she tear the house down?” cried Essie.

“The poor mother!” Aunt Susan was exclaiming, hurrying into her dressing-gown and slippers. And then she and Old Uncle ran down the back way, followed by Pincher; and they took up the cub, and opened the shed-door a crack, and pushed him through, and banged and bolted the door behind him.