Part 4

It was true. There was not always enough. Louisa and Angelina knew it. They could well understand the little brown bird’s joy at finding plenty to eat. It was good to have a hearty meal. Then one day, before it was time to go to school, Louisa and Angelina missed the little brown bird! “Did you see him this morning?” they asked each other. “Maybe he has gone away and is making a nest.”

But the next day came and no little brown bird appeared. Another morning passed and still no little brown bird! On their way home from school that day Louisa whispered to Angelina that she was going to hunt for him. And when Maria was busy, they crept out of the door and, barefoot in the cold mud, they searched for nests by the roadside bushes.

They found none.

The search led them hither and thither on and on up the hill near the brown house and toward a cluster of cottages where the Irish immigrants had formed a colony. Maria, shaking her finger violently, as she did when she wished to enforce a command, insisted always that neither Angelina nor Louisa should make friends or play with the Irish children there. “They throw stones--they are badly brought up,” she declared.

Up to this time, good little Angelina and Louisa had never come so close to these other tenements. But they wandered closer in their search for the little brown bird. It was Angelina who first spoke to the little boys that they met flinging stones there. “Have you seen a little brown bird?” she asked. “It might be our little bird that we have lost. Have you seen one anywhere, perhaps?”

But the little boys simply made up faces and stuck out their tongues. No, they had not seen any brown birds to tell of--nor did they care. They would have thrown stones, had not a little smile from Angelina prevented it. Angelina felt sorry for the bad little boys who were rude.

Louisa drew her away. “Come, Ange, we will look in another place,” she urged. “If he has been hurt we will find him, maybe. I do not think they have hurt him,” she comforted. But in her heart she feared it.

So they pattered back toward home through the black chilly mud, searching the roadside. Quite suddenly Louisa came upon him lying limp and cold under a tree by the way. He would never twitter or chirp again. He would never come to the window or eat from their fingers or build a nest in spring. The two little sisters sat there by the roadside and cried and then they carried the little brown bird home and cried some more. Maria stopped her work and tried to be comforting. There was little to say. She did not scold very hard about the trip abroad in bare feet.

They put him in the beautiful box that was Maria’s treasure--a box with a picture on its cover, a beautiful picture all red roses. They took him to a sunny spot near the roadside and gathered last autumn’s leaves to cover him. One could see the place from the window.

The mornings that came after the little brown bird went away, Ange and Louisa tried to enthuse over paper dolls that father had brought them, cut from a Sunday newspaper--but somehow they always drifted toward the window, even though they knew he would never come again.

And so time passed, long mornings, school and home-coming. It began to be spring. Grass came by the roadside bushes that showed wee buds to break into soft colors. Maria left the kitchen door open of a morning and Angelina sat on the stone before the doorway, thinking. Her eyes rested for a moment upon the place where they had placed the little brown bird under the leaves. She called to Louisa, “Oh, come--come! Let us see what the bird-flower is! We put him under the leaves in the earth, and there is grown from him a flower! It is a bird-flower--a bird-flower, Louisa!”

They ran out to look at the little flower that grew over the spot where the little brown bird had been. “Is it so, Ange?” asked Louisa, willing to believe.

Full of excitement, they ran back to busy Maria. “Our little brown bird is grown to be a bird-flower,” they cried. “Come, Maria, come quickly and see! It is such a pretty flower, all like a star and white!”

Maria shook her head. “There are no bird-flowers,” she declared. But she followed them out to the sunny spot where the grass was growing green over the dead leaves and she thought it a beautiful flower. She let Louisa and Angelina talk of their bird-flower, but she smiled to herself.

But why should not little birds who have been stoned waken, with the flowers, in the spring sunlight? Louisa and Angelina believed in their bird-flower and they wondered, too, if all spring flowers came from little birds. At night when their father came home, they asked him. At first he laughed and did not understand. Maria explained.

“They are children,” she smiled, “and they think a bird is like a bulb or seed. They cannot understand the difference. They watched the little brown bird all winter, and Louisa gave it crusts that she ought to have eaten. And they found it by the roadside where the rude children up the hill had killed it. We put the little bird under the leaves there and now that a flower has come in the place, they call it their bird-flower, father!”

Then he put a hand on each little head. “My little girls,” he said, “is it true--then call it your bird-flower if it comforts you. I will tell you what I think: they say that there are no little birds in heaven, for their souls do not live, they say. Yet I know there are children up there and that wherever the children are there must be birds to sing to them--even the angel children would want them. And I know that your mother would miss them, too, were they not there.”

In the stillness they heard a song sparrow trill from the bushes on the hillside.

“I would like to have our little brown bird sing to our mother,” Angelina suggested softly.

“He might sing of us,” whispered Louisa.

But Maria was still.

“There are many birds left, my children. You too should sing and not be sad, for that is what is best. We will make happiness and brightness, you, my Angelina, and you, my Louisa. We will make a garden there in the place where you have found your star flower! I will get seeds. We will take Maria from her kitchen to help and there will be plenty to do in the early mornings before school then. Such weeds as you will have to watch for, to care for the beautiful flowers that I will plant! Ah, then your mornings will be so glad among the flowers!”

The three little girls smiled.

And the garden that grew up around Ange’s bird-flower all three of them called the garden of the little brown bird.

_Marjorie’s Mystery_

_THE MAY SURPRISE_

_Marjorie’s May surprise was a paper May basket, of course. You know all about that. And the story pocket that came in May, Dotty had labelled:_

“_Open on May Day, too._”

_Marjorie opened it right after the first pocket, but she had to keep the story till afternoon to read. She read it to Dotty after they came home. “I chose it because the little girl in the story was named after you,” smiled Dot. And so they had the funny story of “Marjorie’s Mystery.”_

_VII_

_Marjorie’s Mystery_

Upon Marjorie’s list of good resolutions, not-to-be-too-curious was a failing hard to remember and conquer. In the first place, Marjorie was very wide awake. She always saw everything that was happening. In the second place and in the third place as well as the tenth and thirteenth place, Marjorie couldn’t bear not to know everything that she wanted to know. Sometimes, she went quite too far in her attempts to find out. At any rate, Daddy and Mother and Mark and Dotty made fun of the failing and Marjorie, when she stopped to think twice--which wasn’t so very often--tried hard to overcome unnecessary curiosity. Sometimes it is a fine thing to be curious and again, it’s bad. But upon a very memorable day in May, once upon a time, something mysterious came to pass at Marjorie’s home and this is to be the story of The Great Mystery of Curiosity, Unanswered.

It happened this way: Daddy was away; Mark had gone off since Friday to make a visit at a boy friend’s just out of town a little way; Dotty had also gone away. She spent the night with the little girl next door and had not yet come home. It was a Monday morning and May Day.

Marjorie had prepared a May Day basket for her special friend, Mabel. She had been out in the woods on Sunday afternoon and as soon as she was through breakfast, the bowl of May Day flowers came out--and in arranging them they scattered all over the floor as Marjorie selected the unwilted ones to put into Mabel’s basket.

“Look out,” warned Mother. “Somebody came last night when you were abed. Somebody may be down to breakfast by and by--better pick up, Marjorie! We don’t want a disorderly floor.”

“Oh, did Daddy come home?” questioned Marjorie.

“No, not Daddy.”

“Who?”

“Oh, just somebody who wants to keep quiet this morning and rest.”

Wasn’t that enough to make a person curious! Of course it was! Who? Who could it be? “Is it uncle or aunt?” she insisted. “Who’s ‘company’?”

But Mother only smiled. “You’ll find out sometime,” she said. “Not now. If I told you, you’d run right up to Mark’s room and the person who came last night felt sick and mustn’t be disturbed.”

Hump! The flowers were pushed into the paper May basket and she began to pick up the leaves and buds that had fallen on the floor. “I think you might tell me,” she begged. “I want to know who came.”

But Marjorie got no answer. She knew it wasn’t much use to continue to tease, but she resolved to find out who it was.

At school the question still pursued Marjorie. Would Mark come home and want his room and, if he did, would _he_ know who was there? After school she dashed home and burst through the back door and up the back stairs. Mark’s door was closed. There was a paper pinned upon it. It was Mother’s writing and it said, “Please don’t disturb.”

So Marjorie passed by the door. She went into Mother’s room and found Mother sewing. “Isn’t company ever going to wake up?” she asked. “Am I _never_ to know who is there?”

But she received no answer only a smile.

Dotty was home now. Dotty didn’t know who was in Mark’s room, but she wasn’t curious about things. She was occupied in cutting out paper dolls, sitting on the floor in the sun beside the window.

“What happened at luncheon?” asked Marjorie of Dotty who went to kindergarten and came home at noon. “Did anybody _talk_ in Mark’s room when Mother took up the tray? Did you hear anything?”

Dotty shook her head.

Deary me! Oh, dear! And the door was _closed_! Marjorie decided to walk by it again. She waited and she listened. She heard nothing at all--no, not a sound, _not a sound_! Then the telephone bell rang and she ran down to answer it. The telephone call was from Mabel. Mabel had been at school and she wanted to know if Marjorie had solved the mystery.

“Who came? Who is it?” she asked.

But Marjorie did not know. Mabel suggested that it must be Marjorie’s aunt who came from the West. “Probably that’s it,” she said. “Why don’t you make a May basket and go tie it on the door and--and say something. You could tell from the voice, if it answered you, whether it was your aunt or not.” That was a good thought. Marjorie set about making a paper May basket. She heard Mother go up the front stairs and cross to the back where Mark’s door was. Then, having made the basket, she decided to try Mabel’s suggestion. Mother went into Mark’s room, came out and went downstairs again. Marjorie waited.

Then she went upstairs softly. Mother was in the living-room with Dotty now, playing and helping her cut the dolls out of a big magazine sheet. They seemed occupied.

May basket in hand, Marjorie tiptoed toward Mark’s door and saw that the paper had been taken off it. She hung the May basket on the knob and knocked. There was no answer. “May I come and bring you a May Day gift?” she softly suggested to the closed door.

But right here, _who should appear but Mother_! “I’ll take the basket in for you, dear,” she smiled. Marjorie was quite aware of the wicked twinkle in her eye. “Dotty wants you to help her downstairs,” she said.

So downstairs went Marjorie. She stopped half way as Mother opened the mysterious door and passed in with the May basket. She saw nothing. She heard nothing. Now, wasn’t that just dreadful! Marjorie’s curiosity was much bigger than ever but she went down to help darling little sister, Dotty, cut paper dolls out of the fashion sheet.

But while she cut for Dotty, she kept wondering and wondering and _wondering_. She decided that she’d write a note upon some paper and slip it under the door and say on the paper:

Who are you, mysterious stranger? Please answer? Are you Auntie? If you are Auntie, let me know, please. I want to see you. If you are Mother’s friend, Miss Phelps, please tell me? Mother says you want to be quiet, so I can’t come in, but I want to know who you are--please, please put an answer under your door for me.

MARJORIE.

That was what she did do as soon as the last doll had been cut out. At the time, Mother was busy in the kitchen, getting tea. Dotty was still playing with the dolls. Marjorie slipped upstairs and tucked the paper beneath the crack. As she came to the end of the paper, she gave it a wiggle to attract attention. She hadn’t dared to speak again as Mother said the mysterious person must not be troubled.

As the paper disappeared under the door Mother appeared! She came bringing a napkin and tray with something hot upon it. She was going to take this into Mark’s room.

“Marjorie,” she reproved. “Are you still so curious? Well, run away now.”

Marjorie waited in the hall and heard Mother speaking--but nothing else! She was almost ashamed to pursue the mystery so openly but when Mother at last came out bringing the tray and the empty dishes, she laughingly handed Marjorie an answer to the letter. It said in strange scrawls that betrayed nothing of who had written them:

Please, I feel sick. You’ll see me sometime when I am better. I just want to sleep now. THE MYSTERIOUS MYSTERY.

Marjorie laughed and then she frowned. Now, _why_ couldn’t that person-whoever-it-was have signed a name! Why not!

“How long before the person in Mark’s room will be well?” she asked.

“Oh, soon,” replied Mother. “I hope very soon.”

“What time? Will I know who it is by tea-time?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, deary me!” Marjorie sighed. “Well, I’ve tried every way I can to find out,” she said. “Perhaps I’d better forget about it. I’m going to do my home-work for school so I can forget about it.” And she sat down at the library table with pencil, paper and books. But still, nothing happened!

Then it grew twilight and the light was lit in the dining-room. Marjorie rose and set the supper-table as usual. “How many places shall I set, Mother?” she inquired. “I don’t really mean to be curious any more--but you see, I must know. Mark will be home tonight and there will be Daddy--he’ll be here--and there’s you and there’s me and, I _suppose_ The Mystery will be down, will it?”

“The Mystery will be down,” answered Mother, “but we’ll only need four places.”

But right here into the room came Mark. “Hello,” he greeted Marjorie. “Say, that’s one on you for curiosity, Marj! But the May basket was a peach! I’d have called to you only Mother said I mustn’t else you’d be in and talk to me and I felt pretty sick, I tell you! I got sick at Jimmie’s house and they telephoned home here the night I went away after you were asleep. Mother thought I’d better come right home, if I was going to be sick, so they sent me home late at night in their car--it’s a joke on you, Marjorie. How about a Mysterious Stranger?”

Mother laughed. And so, too, did Marjorie.

_The Two Little Bates Girls_

_THE JUNE SURPRISE_

_The four-leaf clover that came in June’s first pocket was a pressed four-leaf clover marked, “To help in examination time.” The story that came in the other June pocket was “The Two Little Bates Girls” and it was labelled:_

“_Read and open after your arithmetic examination is over._”

_VIII_

_The Two Little Bates Girls_

They were not at all alike and they were not even sisters--those two little Bates girls. One had curly light hair and the other had bobbed-off black hair. One was slender and the other was plump. One had blue eyes and the other had brown ones and both were as different as different could be, though the names of both came upon Miss Kennedy’s school roll one after the other; first Mamie and then Mary.

Mary had light curls that bobbed in a lively way even in arithmetic class, where everything was rather subdued by hard problems that Miss Kennedy set. Mamie Bates had bobbed black hair that had a way of falling over her forehead when she was bending over work--in brief, Mary Bates was lively and Mamie Bates was not. Mamie Bates acknowledged that arithmetic was about the hardest thing in school but Mary Bates said it was easy, even though Miss Kennedy’s blue pencil went over her paper and made big blue crosses that meant “Wrong” as often as they crossed the papers of Mamie in the same way.

It ought not to have been so. Nevertheless the first quarterly report that Miss Kennedy made out for Mamie and Mary Bates ranked them side by side--seventy-six percent! That’s not a high mark; Miss Kennedy shook her head over both marks. It was surely nothing to be proud of!

Mary Bates refused to show her report.

Mamie Bates hung her head woefully and explained that she had tried the best she knew how--which was right. Both of them decided to try even harder next quarter. And they did try. Mamie Bates mounted up to eighty percent, and in one examination, she achieved eighty-three! “Next time,” urged Miss Kennedy, “see if you can’t make it eighty-five!” Mary Bates did not tell her mark. It may have been that she was ashamed of it or it may have been that she did not want to brag. Nobody knew which.

But when Mamie Bates went home, she told her daddy all about that eighty-three percent and her daddy smiled and said, “Well, if you’ll make the next one ninety instead of eighty-five, and if you’ll keep all the other marks above eighty-three after that, by the end of the next quarter you shall have--What do you want most?”

“A pony and a cart,” laughed Mamie.

“A pony and a cart,” repeated daddy. “A real live pony and a basket cart!”

Hooray! Think of it! Think of it--a pony and a pony cart! That was the way things stood with Mamie Bates during the last quarter of the year in Miss Kennedy’s room. The black bobbed hair fell over her eyes more industriously than ever as she bent over her problems in arithmetic. In the margins of Mamie Bates’s examination and test papers each Friday there began to appear such delectable written words as, “Well done, Mamie.” But the big blue crosses didn’t quite disappear--oh, no!

Mary Bates continued to keep her marks to herself. Very rarely did she show any. Those that she did show weren’t so bad as some of the other girls’ papers. But there never seemed to be “Well done, Mary,” on any one of them. Even though there was nothing of this kind, Mary Bates seemed contented with them. She said she had received ninety-five in deportment and that was about the best mark that anybody could ever receive. Miss Kennedy would never give a higher deportment mark. Even Sallie Roberts who was noted throughout the whole class room for being “awfully good” never received a higher mark than ninety-five--but then, only the very bad scholars received less. Mary Bates also said that she had a splendid report in spelling. She didn’t say what, but everybody knew that she could spell. So could Mamie.

And so the time went by each week nearer and nearer to Mamie Bates’s excited anticipation of that pony! The marks, so far, had been all right. Daddy would have to keep the promise! Toward the end of the quarter every girl in the class was wondering if she were going to pass herself. It all depended upon the final tests. Even Mary Bates admitted that she was a little shaky but not much. She thought she knew it all.

Mercy! How Miss Kennedy’s class did drill! Over the old, old stumbling blocks they went with long pieces of yellow scratch paper. It did seem as if everybody must pass the arithmetic test! Then the week of examinations came and with it the worst dreaded of all, _arithmetic examination_!

Over this, Mary Bates shook her curls soberly. Mamie Bates struggled with black hair falling over her forehead. And then the time was up and papers had to be handed in. Mamie Bates gave in her paper reluctantly. Her cheeks were flushed. As soon as it had gone, she asked if she might look at it again, just for a minute. Miss Kennedy smiled. She didn’t let her. “Time’s up, Mamie,” she admonished. “What’s done must stay--it isn’t fair to the rest, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” returned Mamie, “but you see the pony and pony cart depend upon it. The others aren’t working for so much.” But Miss Kennedy passed on. Everybody in the class knew of daddy’s promise and hoped Mamie would win that percent in her arithmetic--everybody.

Mary Bates brought her paper to Miss Kennedy’s desk without even waiting for it to be collected. “I’m sure I got everything right,” she chirped. “It was easy! I think I’ll get ninety-five! There’s only one thing that might be wrong.”

Sallie Overton nudged her neighbor. “I don’t believe it,” she whispered. “She always thinks that she knows everything. I think it was hard, don’t you?”

Oh, dear! Everybody seemed depressed as they left for home that afternoon--everybody but Mary Bates who was _quite_ sure of herself always. Everybody compared notes with everybody else on the way home but nobody seemed sure. One had to wait till the reports came in. It was dreadful to wait--at least dreadful for little Mamie Bates who was thinking about daddy’s promise and the pony. One always made more mistakes than one knew of, somehow, yet she had tried ever so hard. She hoped she was right. She had tried not to get excited. She had tried to stop and think over rules and she thought she ought to have done something she hadn’t done, of course. It was fearfully hard to wait till Monday. On Monday the report cards were to be given out. Almost everybody was expecting some kind of a surprise that day, but the surprise that Miss Kennedy’s class anticipated was one of percents, not of teachers. When the class assembled, there in Miss Kennedy’s chair and right at her desk making out the report cards sat--a substitute teacher! She would tell nobody what the marks were and she just snapped. Really, Miss Kennedy would have told Mamie Bates, at least. _She_ knew about the pony. But the substitute teacher only said that there was no hurry, they’d know fast enough. She didn’t like to be asked questions at all. She said Miss Kennedy might not come back at all--no, of course not! Why should she? (At this everybody looked more worried than ever. All the class loved Miss Kennedy. Sallie Overton had openly said that she didn’t want to pass because if she did, next year, she’d have to leave Miss Kennedy’s room.) But at the end of the study period, before being finally dismissed, the report cards were given out, _at last_!

Mamie Bates grasped hers. She hardly dared to look, but when she did, tears sprang to her eyes and she had to shake the brown bobbed hair over them. There it was _seventy-six percent_! The schoolroom blurred--only seventy-six percent! And how hard she had tried to please daddy--and how she did want that pony! Yet all hope was gone now because the final mark had fallen below! Mechanically she stood to be dismissed. Mechanically she went to the cloak room, and mechanically she walked toward home.

Seventy-six--not even eighty-three! And the pony--the pony!