Part 2

Everybody looked out that could. The mother bear stood off a moment on her hind legs. Then she fell on the cub like an avalanche, and held him in her arms as any mother holds her baby, and licked him from top to toe, and lay down and gave him his dinner. After that, gazing back at the house every step or two with a growl, she lurched off, little Bruin laboriously following. But Pincher declared that the last he saw, as he watched her out of sight, she was up on her hind legs carrying her baby in her arms like anybody.

The twins watched as long as they could see her. Then Essie began to cry. “I wanted to keep him,” she said, “I—I loved him so.”

“So did I,” said Ally, with her arms round Essie. “But I guess, Essie, we’ll have to get along with Bobbo. I wonder how Pincher knew his name was Bruin. Some day we’ll go into the woods, and call ‘Bruin, Bruin,’ and perhaps he will remember us. His mother loved him, you know, Essie. I suppose she was so sorry when she found him gone. Mothers must have their babies, you know, Essie; why, they belong to them!”

“If you foolish children don’t go to sleep,” cried Uncle Billy from some remote quarter, “I’ll call Mother Bear back!”

“Oh! do you believe you could?” answered Ally. “Oh, Uncle Billy! I wish you would.”

V.

TWO LITTLE CONSCIENCES.

THE garret was a great resort for the children whenever they were shut in by storm or chilly weather, the big chimneys making it quite warm enough to play in.

Essie used to go there, every now and then, and sit with Bobbo, Ally’s tabby kitten, in her lap, or with Erminie, the white angora, and dream her dreams among the warm chimneys.

Often Ally would come up, too, with her dolls. Sometimes Will was there, when he had not learned his Latin, sent partly as punishment, and partly that he might study away from disturbances, for at the rate he was going on he would never be ready for college.

But Will was not there that day when Essie had been telling Ally her dreams, and Aunt Susan came up to put something away, not observing them at all, as both sat among the chests, silent for the moment.

Aunt Susan had turned about to go down again, when an old bureau caught her eye. She seemed to hesitate a moment, then stopped, and opened a low drawer. She snatched something up to her lips; and then she sank down upon the floor, and sat there, holding a little yellow shirt to her face, and crying bitterly.

For an instant the two children were frightened to see Aunt Susan cry—that very grave and serene person!

“Oh, it’s her baby’s!” Essie whispered to Ally. But though she would have liked to comfort Aunt Susan, she sat still.

But the next moment little Ally sprang up, ran to Aunt Susan, and threw her arms about her neck, and brought her little face round upon Aunt Susan’s cheek till the tears wet it. “Oh, I know just how you feel!” she whispered. “I’m _so_ sorry for you! was it a dear baby?”

“Oh, _you_ are a dear baby!” cried Aunt Susan, taking her in her arms.

And perhaps that was the beginning of the strong friendship between Aunt Susan and Ally.

For Aunt Susan remembered very vividly that morning in the garret on the day long after—away over near the end of this story—when Ally was found, after the time when she had gone up, as Janet had suspected, to see the Children of the Hill.

But there were sunny days as well as stormy ones, along through that first autumn, and often all the children in the house would be gone out nutting.

At last came the great frost, to open the burrs, and Pincher said next morning that if they didn’t make haste that very day the squirrels would gather all the rest of the nuts.

John and Michael were spared to beat the trees, and down below the children filled baskets and bags. Squirrels ran everywhere, indignant, darting aloft like streaks of light, scolding as they sat with their tails over their heads among the few golden leaves left, and chattering at the children below.

Ally and Essie, as usual, went off by themselves, Pincher following them. “The oxens,” said he, “allus go together, yoke-fellows, same ez you two do!”

“Pincher!” suddenly called Essie, “look here!”

“Oh, Pincher, do!” cried Ally. “Please do look here!”

“Well, that’s what I call luck,” said Pincher, coming up and stooping over the find—a hoard of nuts that some industrious squirrel, whose nest was probably in a hollow of the tree above, had stored among the roots and dead leaves—an enormous quantity.

“Wal, these had orter do ye!” said Pincher. “Ye couldn’t eat more nuts ’n them.”

Ally and Essie scooped up the nuts by double-handfuls into their baskets, and Pincher filled his bag.

“Oh! isn’t this great, Ally?” said Essie. “Just think of the nut-candy!”

“And the nut-cake!” added Ally.

“And the nuts toasted on the end of a hat-pin—oh, we mustn’t lose one!” said Essie.

And full of glee, full of eager greed, too, if it must be told, they didn’t lose one.

Pincher hung the bag on his back, and carried the baskets, and the three hurried home together. Pincher took the nuts up and spread them out on the garret floor to dry. Ally and Essie fenced them off from other stores that might be poured out there later, with a dozen or so of old bricks that happened to be there, Pincher dragging up to one end the big hair trunk full of gold-laced soldier’s jackets; then the twins completed the barricade with a row of old school-books along the front.

The little girls stood up and viewed their possessions like two happy misers, and counted up the good things they would do with them like two great philanthropists—so many to stuff the next turkey for Diane, the cook, so many more for the minister’s wife, and a lot for the old woman in the hollow across the mountain.

Ally and Essie awoke the next morning to find all the lovely breezes and melting weather of yesterday had vanished in a fierce storm that was beating up from the coast, tossing the trees, and lashing the panes with rivers of rain and cold sleet.

Home never seemed any sweeter to the Children of the Valley than it did that morning as they basked in the warmth of the great fire roaring up the chimney, and rosy with well-being, planned out their play over their breakfast of dainty sausages, and buckwheat-cakes and maple-syrup.

It was while making sure of the very last drops of the sweetness on her plate, and looking up, startled by a fresh fury of the rain and sleet against the window-panes, that some sudden disturbing thought struck Essie.

Essie had remembered the little cub, and wondered if his mother had made him comfortable anywhere! And then, immediately, she saw in her mind’s eye a beautiful great squirrel scratching at the big heap of autumn leaves at the foot of his tree, and stopping, full of consternation, to find his winter’s store of food gone, with no dinner to-day—no dinner to-morrow—starvation afterwards! And all his family! Oh! And she had done it! She and Ally had done it! They had robbed him, they had left him nothing to eat all winter! She saw his angry surprise; she saw him scamper up the tree to tell his wife; she heard him chattering over his loss; she saw him sitting dejected and bewildered, not knowing which way to turn, and hungry! And she and Ally had had such a nice breakfast.

Then Essie began to sob; she slipped down and away from the table, and out of the room.

Ally followed her in amazement, calling and trying to overtake her, as she ran up-stairs and up-stairs to the garret itself, and threw herself, sobbing still, on the floor beside the nuts.

“Oh, Essie! what is it? What is the matter?” cried Ally, throwing herself beside her. “Does your tooth ache?”

“Oh, it’s the squirrel! the squirrel!” Essie moaned.

“The squirrel?”

“Oh, Ally! you and I robbed him! We took all he had! Oh, just think of him out in this storm and with nothing to eat, and his wife and the little squirrels—and they’ll all die—they’ll starve!”

By this time Ally felt it too, and sat silent, staring at Essie.

“Don’t you suppose there’s anything we can do?” asked Essie. “I never thought we were so wicked! Oh! don’t you think we might carry the nuts back?” she implored.

Ally sprang up. “Oh, yes, we might, if Pincher helped us! But Pincher’s gone round the mountain to the blacksmith’s with the horses. Uncle Billy is away too. Perhaps—perhaps Old Uncle”—

“Oh, I would be afraid!” said Essie.

“So am I afraid,” said Ally stoutly. “But you stay here, Essie. Oh, I wish Uncle Billy wasn’t always going away!”

There was a noise of discussion in Old Uncle’s office when Ally timidly turned the handle of the door, and paused there, ready to fly.

Old Uncle was looking over some accounts, and taking certain of his head-men to task for their short-comings. “What is it?” he cried sharply, as Ally hesitated.

“I—I—wanted to speak to you,” said Ally, and Old Uncle saw the tear still lying on her cheek.

“Well, then,” said Old Uncle to the two men whom he had been arraigning—some would say blowing up—a moment before, “you go out to the kitchen, and tell Diane to give you some of her buckwheat cakes and maple-syrup—Diane makes a good cup of coffee, too—and we’ll see to this later. But I’m not going to let any such carelessness pass! Now, little one!”

For a moment Ally hung back—and then, like a burst of the gale itself, she ran and climbed Old Uncle’s knee, and threw her arms about his neck, and told him every word of her story, her little face hidden under his chin.

“Well, well,” said Old Uncle, “that is bad. But it isn’t so bad it can’t be mended, maybe. Pretty tough on the squirrel. Yes, Ally, I, too, call it cruel.”

“Oh, it is, it is!” sobbed Ally. “We know it is! And Essie wants to take the nuts back.”

“In this storm?”

“Oh, we wouldn’t mind!”

“But you’d be drenched. And you’d take cold.”

“We’d rather!” persisted Ally, sitting up.

“And have to take medicine, and stay up-stairs in bed all day? And you couldn’t remember the place!”

“Oh, yes we could!” she cried eagerly. “We know the very tree—the old pine that Pincher said was as old as a pine can be, and that has been struck by lightning so often. The squirrel has his nest up there, and the nuts were in a great hollow at the root. Oh, we know the very spot!” And Ally’s smile now was so bright that it made her tears look like sparks of fire.

“And you want to take the nuts back,” said Old Uncle. “What for? Because you took what wasn’t yours, or because you pity the squirrel?”

“Oh, both, Uncle! both! And we haven’t eaten one!”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve found your consciences. Almost all the nuts on the trees and lying on the ground are yours, if you choose to take them. But the nuts that the squirrels have laid away—why, that’s another story! Let’s see. It’s a rather tough storm. Aunt Susan will be sure you’ll be made sick—I tell you what we’ll do. We won’t tell her!” said Old Uncle. “Where’s the bag and the baskets? In the garret? Run up and put the nuts in, and then get on your cloaks and leggings and overshoes, and your hooded waterproofs, and come down here, both of you. Quietly now, quietly.”

Ally danced back to Essie. And presently the twins, and Old Uncle—loaded down with bag and baskets—stole out of the side-door, like conspirators.

They found the hickory-wood without any difficulty, and the old pine-tree on its farther edge, with two scolding squirrels far aloft in it. The children put back the nuts, and joyously pulled and piled over them the wet leaves and moss, scattering about a few particularly fat ones, while Old Uncle pictured to them the bewilderment of Mr. Squirrel when he should find his nuts there after all. He said Mrs. Squirrel would declare they must have been dreaming, or else had a bad nightmare.

Never did rosier and happier little women come dripping out of a storm than Essie and Ally that day.

“Oh!” cried Aunt Susan, meeting them in the hall “where have you three been? I’m afraid you’ve caught”—

“Give them hot baths at once, and let Maria and Aunt Rose rub them down hard, and put them to bed till dinner-time,” said Old Uncle. “They went off without asking you, and must be punished!” But how his eyes twinkled!

“Oh! I just love Old Uncle, don’t you?” asked Essie, as they slipped into the warm bed.

“And I guess he loves us now,” said Ally. And they chattered until they fell asleep, and woke only in time for dinner and dumplings.

VI.

AFTER DARK ON THE ICE.

THE nuts had not been spread a great while, and the crew of loggers had gone up into the woods, when one day, well-clad for cold weather—the girls in their red cloaks and hoods and mittens, the boys in reefers and high boots and ear-laps—Charlie and Will swinging a parcel of glittering steel things led all the little southerners down to the lake.

“Oh!” cried Essie, “your Jack Frost has been here too, and has turned our blue lake into silver!”

“It’s like Achilles’ shield,” said Janet, who was tumbling round by herself, trying to slide.

“What do you know about Achilles?’ laughed Will.

“I’ve heard you reading to Uncle Billy. Perhaps I know as much as you do,” said Janet slyly.

“Well, then you don’t know much,” retorted Will, buckling his last strap.

What witchcraft it seemed to the younger children, when they themselves tottered this way and that, trying to keep their balance, falling and bumping and bruising themselves continually, to see Charlie and Will wheeling in figure-eights, leaning far over on the outer roll, cutting their names in the ice, and sliding off like flying-fish!

“Ho! I can do that!” cried Jack, stamping his skate into the ice. And over he went!

Aunt Rose took Ally and Essie by either hand, and swept off with them, their little feet close together, so that they really thought they were skating!

“It’s most like flying,” said Essie, delight in her eyes, her cheeks like red apples, while Ally, looking straight ahead, was silent with joy, her yellow hair streaming out behind her.

Janet went blundering about alone a long time, somehow, anyhow, and all at once finding herself firm on her feet, and making a stroke. Then the dinner-bell rang, and the skates had to come off. But after the lesson-hour they were out again, for the afternoon—except Will, who was behind with his Greek. And after they had spent all the spare hours of a week’s time on the ice, they were so expert that they felt like a flock of birds.

It was dark early at that time of the year, and one afternoon what was their surprise to see Uncle Billy and Charlie building a fire on the lake. “Oh, they are going to melt the ice!” cried Jack; and all the others echoed his words in alarm, and started for the shore.

“Pooh!” said Charlie. “How thick do you suppose this ice is?”

“An inch? Two inches?” inquired Janet.

“Will measured it at the outlet, and he says it’s twenty-four.”

“I wish Will knew his Greek as well as he knows a lot of other things,” said Uncle Billy.

“I don’t, though!” said Will. “And I don’t know that I want to, anyway. I don’t want to go to college. I want to go logging in the woods.”

“He wants to be a dunce. Would you believe it?” said Uncle Billy. “Essie, what do you suppose we are building this fire for? For fun, Ally? To warm your toes, Janet? Jack, what do you suppose lives under this ice?”

Near the fire Uncle Billy’s big chisel was cutting a hole through the solid floor, and Charlie was cutting another a little bigger.

“The most onluckiest hole ye iver cut, so it is,” Michael said afterward to Charlie.

When the holes were ready Uncle Billy began to bob strings in the dark unseen water. In a moment more Janet was bobbing one too.

“He’ll pull me under! Oh, he’ll pull me under!” she suddenly cried out, as she felt a big twitch on her hook. “Come help me, somebody! He’ll pull me down into the hole!”

Uncle Billy put his hands over Janet’s, and together they brought up a royal fighting pickerel.

All the other children, still flourishing round on their skates, swarmed up then to see the big creature Janet had caught, and to beg for hooks and lines themselves. And in a moment—oh, horror! what was this? Essie had skated straight into the hole Charlie had cut. There was a wild cry from Essie, as she plunged, a wilder one from all the others.

But on the instant Uncle Billy had flung himself across the hole, and with both arms down in the still cold water had caught hold of her. Then crawling away, with Charlie’s help he lifted her to the top and out upon the ice, quite conscious, but terribly scared, and as wet as any seal.

Accidents never come alone, says an old proverb; and it was not to be expected that Ally should not have her share in any dangers going.

Before Essie, shivering in every atom of her, had fairly been set upon her feet, another shriek rang upon the air.

“I’m all afire! Uncle Billy, I’m afire!”

And there was Ally wrapped in a blaze, that made every one, for a single heartbeat, stone still with terror!

For in moving quickly on her skates away from the hole where Uncle Billy was drawing poor little Essie out of the water, Ally had backed straight into the fire, which caught her skirts instantly; and no one knows what might have happened if Charlie had not rushed and thrown her down, and tossed his coat over her, and rolled and pressed and stamped out the flame, although not till it had scorched his good hands and burned poor Ally’s little legs. Perhaps he was not very much helped by Essie’s running and precipitating herself and all her wetness on them both.

“Well,” said Uncle Billy, “here’s a chapter of accidents!” And Essie, wet and freezing, and Ally with her two blistered legs and burned and ragged woolens, were huddled in the greatcoats and mounted one on each shoulder, and Uncle Billy ran with them as if he wore seven-league boots.

“I never cried at all!” exclaimed Ally, while Aunt Susan dressed and bandaged her burns—which, however, were not very severe.

Soon the poor twins were lying snugly in bed, Essie in an extra flannel-wrap, with hot-water bottles all around her, and hot catnip-tea inside her.

“But you screamed, Ally,” said Essie, “if you didn’t cry.”

“And so did you! But that was not crying! I was so exprised. I didn’t scream because it _hurt_. It hurt me more when you went down that hole!”

“And I thought I was afire when I saw you, for all I was so wet and cold,” said Essie. “O Ally! I’m so glad you’re saved all but the backs of your ankles! And they’ll grow again, you know.”

“Isn’t it good we’re both saved?” said Ally cosily. “Oh, Essie, keep your feet right on the hot soap-stone! Only, please don’t touch the back of my legs! They do smart a little. What you going to dream about? Are you awake? I’m going to dream I went into the garden and there—atop of a—big rose—I saw”—And Ally slipped away into dreamland, where Essie had gone before her.

VII.

THE SNOW HUT.

IT was December, but all thoughts of Santa Claus were kept out of mind by the preparation of the blocks of snow for the building of the snow hut in the garden. This structure the children from the south could not actually believe in till they saw it rising. But it was a real hut, with a roof, with a low doorway, with a window of thin ice, with a chimney—a chimney that could have a fire in it! It seemed to the children from the south that they were living in a wonder-world!

But, either owing to the fire in the chimney or to a short season of thaw, the roof of their hut one day fell in. It then, almost immediately, became a fort to attack and to defend over the battlements. The children organized into two parties, for assault and repulse, with soft snow-balls, broken icicles for spears, and baskets for shields.

It was a little hard for them to divide into two parties. It was hard for Ally that Jane took Bobbo inside the fortification—Ally’s cat, you remember. It was just as hard for Janet that Bose and Diamond—her dogs—belonged to the attacking party, and were always its most furious members, their bark as good as a war-whoop. And Essie might not have forgiven Janet at all for belonging to the other side had not it been for the sappers and miners later.

Will and Jack and Janet were the colonists, inside the fort. Charlie and Essie and Ally were the Indians. Puss Bobbo was an Indian captive in the fort. The dogs were allies of the Indians; and the Indians were continually being repulsed with great slaughter, although presently very active again, for dead and wounded.

One morning during the siege, Bose happened to find a rabbit-hole. The snow had been blown or scuffed away from it, and into the little tunnel of frozen earth Bose plunged, and of course Diamond after him; and along it both made their way, scratching and burrowing and yelping with all their might. Suddenly their movements were heard inside the fort, which had been built, it seems, directly over the rabbit burrow. Will gave the alarm.

“Sappers and miners! sappers and miners! The enemy are upon us!”

“Oh! we are lost!” cried the garrison.

And then Bose’s head emerged in the very middle of the snow fort’s floor, and the colonists seized the dogs with tremendous cheering and also, it must be owned, with any amount of hugging, and held them captive.

This unwarrior-like conduct so displeased Bobbo that he sprang upon the battlements and deserted to the enemy on the instant, to the great relief of Ally and Essie.

“Oh, Aunt Rose!” cried Essie, when they went in at night, “do you believe the little Esquimau children in their snow huts have any better time than we do?”

The battles were renewed morning after morning, the weather being bright. Hostilities were sometimes suspended in order that the besieged party might sally out for more snow, after the way in which the Samoan armies borrow ammunition of each other; for, of course, if you want the fun of fighting, both parties must have munitions of war.

“I guess _that_ ball did the work!” cried Jack, as his missile hit the captain of the Indians square in the face. “I put a lot of ’em in the water-butt and then froze ’em, last night.”

“My goodness, Jack!” cried Will. “That’s like poisoning wells in the enemy’s country! It’s as bad as shooting with poisoned bullets! Don’t you know ice-balls might kill people? Ah, it did do the work! See, Charlie’s nose is bleeding!”

At this Jack began to cry. “You’re a fine bawl-baby for a soldier!” said Will then with much scorn. “You going to pity the enemy? Why, I broke a finger once, and never thought of crying! Here they come! Ready now! Aim low! Fire!” And the garrison overwhelmed the assailants with such a shower of snow that they retreated in disorder.

Charlie rallied his men, however, in spite of the gore that reddened the field, and charged again with such vehemence that there was a scream of real pain, and then one of his soldiers fell over and lay still; and it was found that Ally had fainted with a broken arm.

Charlie carried Ally into the house, followed by every one of the poor little people in dead silence after the first exclaiming and crying, all feeling like murderers.

“Oh! is she going to die?” asked Janet, her face buried in the skirts of her cloak, and her sobs making her words something you had to guess.

“People don’t die of simple fractures,” said Old Uncle, who knew something of surgery. “But we will send for Dr. Brent. Keep the arm cool—not cold, remember—till he comes.” And he went for Dr. Brent himself.

The doctor kept Ally quiet, with Aunt Rose, for some days; and everyone forgot the business and battles of the snow hut, and hung about the house, without lessons and without games. Will used his best exertions to commit to memory the names of the Greek ships, and Essie and Janet spent much of the time in tears till Aunt Susan took them into the kitchen every day for Diane to teach them how to make little frosted cakes and tarts.