Part 5

Daddy didn’t ask about reports. Mamie Bates decided to wait and give the bad news out when she herself was a little more used to it. Perhaps next day, she could do it. Of course, seventy-six would promote one into the next grade, but it wouldn’t give the pony! If Miss Kennedy had been there, she would have explained to Mamie Bates all about her mistakes, but the substitute kept the papers. She didn’t seem to think much of anybody’s mark--but substitutes never do seem to care. Mamie hoped Miss Kennedy would come back next day. She’d explain everything.

And the next day, sure enough, there was Miss Kennedy at her desk, smiling. As Mamie came in and passed her, she smiled. “Mamie,” she smiled, “I’m glad about your arithmetic. Are you?”

Mamie hung her head. “It wasn’t good, Miss Kennedy,” she stated, trying hard not to cry. “I thought I was doing it right but I must have been careless. I really knew about everything!”

“Let’s see your paper,” asked Miss Kennedy--but the substitute had the paper. Miss Kennedy didn’t know of any very bad trouble. “Let’s see your card, then,” she asked.

Mamie took it out of her book where it was hidden, unsigned as yet by daddy. “It’s too bad,” she sighed. “There can’t be any pony at all now!”

“No pony? Why not?” And then Miss Kennedy saw the seventy-six percent upon the report card! “Why, why, Mamie Bates!” exclaimed Miss Kennedy. “Your mark is ninety-six, not seventy-six! I’ve just seen it in the teacher’s book. That must be a mistake! Wait a minute and I’ll see.” Off she dashed to get the examination papers in the next room. Mamie Bates’s heart went pit-pat. She was sure Miss Kennedy was right--oh, _the pony_!

Yes, of course, it was a mistake--a mistake made by the substitute. She had mixed the marks of the two little Bates girls, who were no more alike than their arithmetic marks!

Mary Bates said she didn’t care so long as she passed, so perhaps the change of her mark didn’t matter so much. It was really Mamie Bates who had worked hardest, anyhow.

But the really lovely thing that happened, happened at the close of school that day. When Mamie Bates came out of school, there was a pony and a pony cart waiting by the curb and daddy was in the cart! He--how did _he_ know about the arithmetic reports being all right? But it didn’t take Mamie Bates long to claim the pony! She wanted to know if he had a name and when daddy said he didn’t think so, he was called Arithmetic right then and there. Miss Kennedy came out to see him and had the first ride behind him.

_Arne’s Fourth of July Battle_

_THE JULY SURPRISE_

_The July pocket that came first was opened on July third at noon. It held a wee American flag. The story pocket came later and it held a Fourth of July story. They read it sitting in the hammock on the porch. It was called, “Arne’s Fourth of July Battle.”_

_IX_

_Arne’s Fourth of July Battle_

Arne drove the white horse, Christopher, into Danville every morning to take the milk to the creamery. He started from the farm as soon as the milk was in the cans, just as Lyman or Leslie--whichever it might happen to be--took the cows to the wood pasture. It was a long drive over the Prairie Road into Danville Creamery. Most usually it was uneventful. And every day, now that the last of June had come, grew warmer and warmer. Some days it was decidedly hot on the Prairie Road, even though Arne and Christopher started so early of a morning.

There were almost always errands to do in Danville, after having been to the creamery. Afterwards, Arne and Christopher had to hurry back to the farm because there was work to do there, too. The men needed Christopher in the fields, and Arne, too. There never was any time to idle along the road. It seemed to Arne that work never ended. He wanted some fun--that’s what he wanted. The other boys didn’t have to work all the time in summer--but then, it wasn’t all of them that owned thrift cards. Arne did. He already had earned ten stamps. When he thought of that, then he was rather glad he had the work to do for his father. His father gave him a thrift stamp every week that work was well and satisfactorily done--and without shirking. So far, Arne had only missed getting his stamp once. That was when he slipped off one day to go to the swimming-hole with Jimmy Smith when he was supposed to be working in the hay-field, raking. That was last week.

As Arne reflected upon these things and Christopher jogged into Danville that day that was the very last day of June, he slapped the reins and decided that he would lose no more thrift stamps. He wore his knot of red, white and blue ribbon pinned on his blue shirt and he was “doing his bit” quite as much as anybody, even though the other boys did have more chance to have fun. Then he looked up and saw--the circus poster!

Right then and there, he stopped Christopher and sat gazing at it. The circus was coming to Danville on the Fourth of July--twenty-five cents admission. The picture showed all manner of lovely ladies dancing on the backs of black horses. It showed elephants that played hoop; it pictured funny clowns and monkeys riding dogs--in short, everything that a circus ought to be seemed suggested by the big circus poster. “I’m a-goin’,” Arne resolved aloud. “Sure, I’m a-goin’ to it, somehow!” Then he clucked to Christopher and the wagon rattled onward toward the creamery. Just that one afternoon was the circus coming. It was a splendid kind of Fourth of July treat. “I guess my father’ll let me go,” he mused. “I guess so.”

When he reached Danville, all the lads who were waiting for cans to be emptied had gathered in a knot near the creamery door. Everybody was talking about the circus. Everybody was going.

Harold Sniffin’s cans were ready first. He and Arne came the same road so he waited to go home with him. They tied Christopher to the back of Harold’s cart and the two sat together and talked as they rode home over the Prairie Road. Harold’s father let _him_ buy his own thrift stamps. Harold was going without his weekly stamp and was going to buy his circus ticket with the twenty-five cents. As Arne had no money, Harold suggested this method of getting a ticket. Fourth of July did not always bring a circus. This year there had been no spring circus at all. Circuses couldn’t travel well on account of the railroads needing the cars now. This circus, it seemed, had gone from town to town upon its own feet and in its own circus wagons.

They had decided to go together and start early when the road of Harold’s turning came. Then they unhitched Christopher and Arne whipped up and came clattering into the red barn at home. “There’s a circus coming to Danville on the Fourth,” he laughed. “Guess that’s a fine way to celebrate a _Safe an’ Sane_ day!”

Only four more days to wait! Hooray! All that afternoon, Arne sang happily as he ran around the farm doing chores. He reflected, as he hoed his patch late in the afternoon, that farm work was really patriotic work and that he, right there hoeing, was doing his bit as much as if he were buying a thrift stamp. Of course he was!

That night when he was coming from the barn, after having fed the calves their bran mixture, he met his father. He explained about the circus. He wanted the money instead of the stamp, he said.

“All right,” said father. There the matter dropped. He did not ask about the circus at all.

But Arne talked a great deal about it to his mother. He talked about it to Lyman and Leslie, who were helpers at the farm. When it was dark and chores were done, he sat on the flat stone at the doorstep and watched the stars come out while he thought about it some more--only four more days!

The morning of the first of July, Christopher trotted into Danville at a pretty rapid pace. Indeed, he was rather white around the collar when they at last reached the circus poster on the road to Danville. But he earned his rest, for there Arne stopped and gazed at all the wonderful things. The circus poster promised many, many more than were pictured there. It said a thousand thrills would be felt by everyone who witnessed the daring tight-rope walking. It spoke of the Wild West and Indians that were a feature of the performance. It was only a big poster but one felt after looking at it, that one could hardly wait three days more before the Fourth should come! And going home from Danville, Arne again sat beside Harold while Christopher jogged behind. Again they talked. Again they planned. Again they undid Christopher from the rear of Harold’s cart. Again at the crossroads, they parted till the morrow. And again on the morrow, the very same thing occurred.

Only one day more before the Fourth! In the country few have firecrackers. Arne was thinking chiefly about that circus. He and Harold planned to go in time to see the parade in the morning. Only one day more--

Then the next day it rained. It rained unexpectedly in the afternoon when the hay was all ready to pitch. They had to hurry out, even in the rain, and stack it. Arne went with the others. He was wet through when he came in but his spirits were undampened by the shower. Only one night more--and then, Fourth of July and circus! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Tomorrow! _Tomorrow!_

After he had fixed the bran mixture for the calves that night, Arne hung around the barn where Lyman and Leslie were milking. He liked to hear them talk and joke together. Tonight, he himself felt that there was only one big subject of conversation and he broached this as he came through with the empty pails that had held the calves’ supper. “I’m goin’ to the Danville circus tomorrow,” he chirped. “Be you goin’ too?”

“You’re lucky, kid,” replied Leslie. “How’d you get the money?”

“My week’s wages,” answered Arne. “The thrift stamp money.” When he said it, somehow, it sounded queer. It sounded--yes, it sounded unpatriotic. But Arne felt it only a second. He lifted himself with a jump to the side of the hay-cart that stood near-by and dangled his bare feet from denim overalls, “I’m goin’ with Harold,” he amplified. “We’re goin’ to hitch by the creamery an’ see the parade.” He swung his legs and whistled. The tune was _The Star-Spangled Banner_.

“I used to think more of firecrackers an’ that kind of thing when I was a kid,” said Leslie. “But I guess all them firecracker jiggers went over the other side when the war come. ’Tain’t patriotic to spend money for ’em now, these days. There’ll be bangin’ enough to suit everybody this July Fourth, I reckon, without firecrackers. We’re fightin’ for freedom in the same old way but our firecrackers are bigger’n they used to be an’ it takes our boys in the trenches to handle ’em. Just as soon as I’m old enough, I’m goin’ over there to help, I am!”

“Me too,” said Lyman. “It’s all right doin’ one’s bit here on a farm but I’m goin’ to help ’em win the war!”

Leslie laughed. “Sounds as if you was goin’ to do the whole of it,” he chuckled.

Arne laughed. “Wish I could go, too,” he smiled. “I’d like it--oh, I’d like to be in a big battle an’ hear the noise an’ see the guns an’ get right at the enemy an’ plant a flag where it’d wave for victory! _It’d be great!_ I’d rather fight in this war than any other that ever was--more’n Bunker Hill or Lexington, I would.” He stopped. Across his mind there flashed the phrase he had so often seen, “Help win the war.” It was on so many posters that the government used, and weren’t the thrift stamps helping to win the war? Surely they were!

Lyman broke in upon these thoughts. “You couldn’t go for a long time, kid,” he teased. “You’re just a colt. You don’t have to work in the field a-gettin’ that hay fixed tomorrow! There’s circuses for you yet. It’s work for us men, though, double-time work, too. We’ll be doin’ our bit in the field on Fourth of July. It mayn’t seem glorious as a celebration but it’s all we can do till we’re at camp for trainin’.”

No circus for Lyman and Leslie! Work in the field on Fourth of July! Arne stopped swinging his feet and looked thoughtful. Maybe he wasn’t living up to the colors, after all! How about the money for that thrift stamp? Suppose every boy and girl should buy a circus ticket instead of a thrift stamp--how about Uncle Sam’s helping to win the war with that money?

Nobody knew that there was a battle going on. Nobody heard it. Nobody saw it. The battle was between Uncle Sam’s need and Arne’s love of fun. It was a hot battle. Sometimes it went a little in favor of Arne’s love of fun and then, again, it came back to Uncle Sam’s need. Arne slid down from the hay-wagon quietly and slipped off to the house. He was quiet at supper time. At sunset, he went out to take in the flag. It always waved from the white flag-pole in front of the house. As the colors touched his hands, Arne knew which had won. It was Uncle Sam, of course!

He jogged into Danville creamery on the morning of the Fourth of July with Christopher’s reins flapping hard as they passed by the big poster. He met Harold. He told him. “I guess this year I won’t go to the circus, after all,” he explained. “I want to help Uncle Sam win this war--’tain’t much I can do but I _can_ give the money for the stamp.”

And when he rattled into the big red barn afterwards, he was whistling _The Star Spangled Banner_. “I’ll bet we win this war!” he shouted to Lyman who was bringing in a load of hay. “I’m goin’ to work with you men today--I’m not a-goin’ to any kid circus, I ain’t!”

_The Blackberry Adventure_

_THE AUGUST SURPRISE_

_Ever since the Surprise Book had come to Marjorie, she had been wondering what was in that first very lumpy big pocket that was marked for August first. She had felt of it repeatedly and guessed all manner of things that Dotty said weren’t at all right. Indeed, it would have been hard to guess for Dotty had put the first August surprise into a flat box. When the box was opened, there lay a bright penny. Whoever would have guessed it! That was a splendid surprise! The August story was directed to be opened_

“_On a warm summer afternoon._”

_As there were no other directions, Marjorie opened it upon the first of August. That truly was a hot day--a day to make one wish to sit still and read of the happy adventures of the little girls who went berrying in “The Blackberry Adventure.”_

_X_

_The Blackberry Adventure_

They came upon the old house one day when they were out blackberrying in vacation time. It was the kind of house that people used to build long ago. It had a long, sloping roof behind and the roof ran down almost to the ground. The house was very weather-beaten and out of repair. It looked battered and forlorn. Of course, it had long been deserted. Weeds grew rank in its front yard. It was far away from any neighbors. Solita and Sue had wandered far from the village. They hardly knew just how they had reached the place where so many berries grew, but they knew it was far from where they were boarding that summer.

Nobody seemed to have lived in the house for ever so long. Creepers covered the fence and what was once a roadway, leading toward the rear, was all overgrown. There were blackberry bushes thick everywhere.

At first Solita and Sue didn’t think much about the house, though it was rather a surprise to have come upon it suddenly. They had explored the different roads in the country near White Farm but never a deserted house had they found yet. At first both Solita and Sue did not observe it because they were all-absorbed in berry-picking. It was wonderful how fast the pails filled up with big, juicy, ripe fruit!

Solita had her pail full and was picking more berries to fill her white canvas hat. She didn’t stop to think that the berries would ruin it--she just wanted to get as many berries as possible! The hat was all she had to use. Sue was racing with her and her basket was nearly full. There must have been at least three quarts. It was much more roomy than the tin pail or Solita’s hat.

The rest of the children who had started from White Farm with Sue and Solita were lagging along the roadside in the rear. Just how far away they were, the two leaders did not bother to consider. There was Albert, the baby, and he was bound to go slowly with Matilda. Probably some of the children were just fooling in the brook or sitting by the wayside. It was not everybody who was as energetic as Sue and Solita that hot day!

So Solita and Sue, proud to outdo all the others, picked fast and furiously and did not stop. Step by step they had progressed to this wonderful, wonderful berry patch beside the old house. All of a sudden, Solita shouted, “I’ve won!” She made her way with difficulty through the tangle, holding her hat, piled high. The tin pail hung upon her arm and dropped berries at every step.

“Let’s see?” Sue questioned. “I don’t believe it; you come here an’ we’ll compare.”

So the two floundered around in the high growth of weeds and made for the first clear space that there seemed to be. They met at the stone doorstep of the old house and put their load of berries down there upon its broad, flat tableland.

My! But they were a sight! Solita’s pink gingham dress was torn in several places and her arms were a sight to behold--all red scratches. Her fingers were stained and grimy and her cap, too, was a sight. As for Sue, her green chambray was purple with berry juice, although she seemed to have escaped the rents from thorny creepers. But the two were happy and they didn’t care much how they looked. They simply dumped all the berries on the doorstep and compared the two piles. These seemed even, so the two thought they would rest for a while and then start back to tell the lagging children behind and urge them to hurry up.

But Solita decided that it was no use to go away back on the road to call the others. They might be a mile or more back, she said. “No, don’t let’s do that! Let’s try to pick all there are and then go home and surprise everybody.”

“But, Solita,” Sue suggested, “we haven’t anything to put all the berries in. How could we do that?”

“I could gather up my skirt,” Solita volunteered. “We could pick into that. It’s already all ruined so I don’t mind using it--it’s an old last year’s frock.”

“Mercy me, Solita! What would your mother say to that!” Sue exclaimed, aghast. “The very idea! No, we’ll have to find something else.”

“Do you suppose there’d be anything to hold them if we were to look around here?” questioned Solita. “Maybe we might find something--an old pail or cooking pan that has been thrown away.”

“There might be something inside the house,” Sue mused. “That’s very likely, but I don’t know if we could get in or not. We can try. I’m going to push the door. Do you suppose we can get in?” They had prowled around the house to what must have been the back door. But that back door wouldn’t give at all. It was tight.

The windows seemed shut fast, too. Sue said it made her feel like a burglar to try them, but since the house had been without a tenant for so long, of course it was not burglaring, she said.

After they had investigated many nooks and found nothing in the near-by shed, either, Solita suggested that they try the front door. “People always leave things behind when they move,” she declared. “I’m sure, if we could get in, we’d find a box or a pan or a basket. Even an old sack might answer--anything that is like a bag could be used.”

But when the two came to the front doorstone where the two big piles of berries lay, Solita sat down on one side and did not try the door.

“You open the door, Sue,” she said.

“No, _you_ try it!”

“You’re afraid something will jump out at you!”

“No I’m not!” retorted Sue. “What’s there to be afraid of, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said Solita. “But it’s kind of spooky, I think. Let’s go home.” But with that Solita rose and pretended to try the door. She didn’t push it at all.

“Oh, I can get it open! You’re not pushing,” Sue exclaimed. “We’ll do it together. You turn and I’ll push--what’s the use of backing down? Let’s go in.” So the two together pushed and pulled and the door suddenly yielded. Its latch must have been very old and rusty indeed!

The opening of the door came as a real surprise, and it swung back against the wall inside the house with a loud bang that echoed through all the lonely darkness of the hallway. There was only a little light that came from the slats of broken blinds here and there in the open room that was just off the hall.

Sue took the lead. Solita followed, ready to run back at any minute. It was certainly an adventure, this entering in upon the solitude of that deserted house, long closed. “I don’t think it’s at all nice to go into people’s houses while they’re away,” she urged. “I’m going back. I think we ought not to have come in here at all--it’s ever so dark. I can’t see anything--Where’re you, Sue?”

“I’m not a scare-cat,” replied Sue. “You were the one who wanted to find the basket for the berries. Come ahead! It isn’t dark--this is lots of fun!”

“I’m going to use my dress, anyhow,” protested Solita. “I don’t want any basket.” But for the sake of company chiefly, perhaps, she followed Sue, who was investigating the empty house. Here and there she poked under dusty furniture and into old, vacant closets. There seemed to be no basket--not even an old box or tin pan, rusty from disuse. “Come ahead, Solita,” she kept saying. “Nobody’s going to eat you up. If anybody comes for such a purpose, they can begin and eat up the blackberries that are on the doorstep.” So she kept on hunting. Really, after a while, when they were used to the noise that their feet made and to the echo of their voices in the dim, closed rooms, it was rather interesting. All they found was a rusty hammer downstairs, so Sue decided to go above and look some more.

Everything there was rickety and the stairs squeaked and frightened Solita but she laughed--indeed, she was beginning to get over her timidity and enjoy the quest.

The chambers opened into the hall upstairs so that it looked like one big room except at one end of the rear room where the roof sloped. There was a real little bit of a room that must have belonged to some child. There were two little broken toy dishes in it on the floor. They were all thick with dust, so Sue did not pick them up. Solita was safely in the rear near the stairs. She declared from time to time that there was no basket and that they’d better go home but Sue kept on. It isn’t every day that one can have a real adventure. She enjoyed the creepy feeling that came with exploring dim corners.

“When my great-great-grandfather was a little boy,” she mused, “he must have lived in a house like this. Father told me a story about how he used to slide down the roof and land on the grass below just for fun. Fancy doing a thing like that!”

Solita didn’t appear much interested. But Sue went on, “It was during the American Revolution that he and my great-great-grandmother lived. He fought in it--I mean his father, I guess,” rambled Sue. She hardly knew what she was saying but she was chiefly trying to keep Solita from deserting the quest. “We might find a treasure in one of these closets,” she suggested. “Wouldn’t that be fine?”

“Nobody goes off and leaves a treasure in an old house,” Solita snapped.

“But it might have been hidden here by somebody and left till we came--”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, yes, it might!”

“Where--not up here!”

“Oh, maybe down cellar,” replied Sue, who had about finished her explorations upstairs. She had been peeping out of the window of the wee little room at the back of the house and had opened its window wide to let in the sunlight and fresh air. It was only a little window.

“You’re not going to get me to go down cellar with you,” declared Solita. “I’m going home. There wouldn’t be any baskets or treasure there at all and there might be rats and mice or other things--and I won’t go!”