Chapter 11

"There, we did get here!" they chorused gleefully.

"Yes, yes, I see, I see," murmured Mrs. Clayton, and signaled to Ethel to hurry into the kitchen and give the alarm to the cook. "Then you--you did n't write?"

"Write? Why, no, of course not! We were n't to, you know, if we could come."

"Yes--er--I mean no," stammered Mrs. Clayton, trying to calculate just how long it would take the maid to put three rooms in order.

At half-past six the family, with their guests, sat down to a dinner that showed unmistakable signs of having been started as a simple one for six, and finished as a would-be elaborate one for ten. To the faces of Mr. Clayton, Ethel, and James the cloud of the morning had returned. Mrs. Clayton, confident that the missing letter contained nothing worse for her than its absence had already brought her, looked comparatively serene.

After dinner, as by common consent, Mr. Clayton and his elder son and daughter met in a secluded comer of the library.

"Hang it all, dad, _now_ whose letter do you suppose that was?" began James aggressively.

"It's mine," groaned the father, with a shake of his head. "I know it's mine."

"But it might n't be," demurred Ethel, with a hesitation that showed a fear lest her suggestion meet with prompt acceptance.

"I tell you I know it's mine," retorted Mr. Clayton, and Ethel sighed her relief. "I did hope 't was your mother's," he continued; "but I might have known better. It's mine, and--and it means dollars to me--hundreds of them."

"Why, father!" The two voices were one in shocked surprise.

"Well, it does. Dennison was going to drop me a line here if certain things happened. And if they have happened, and I don't sell my P. & Z. before to-morrow noon, it 'll mean--well, there 'll be something to pay. On the other hand, if those certain things have n't happened, and I do sell--it 'll be worse."

"Well, well," laughed James in a surprisingly buoyant tone, considering the gloom on his father's face. "I guess the letter was yours all right. I should take it so, anyhow, and go ahead and sell."

"Yes, so should I," tossed Ethel over her shoulder as she tripped happily away.

"After all," mused James, slowly crossing the hall, "it could n't have been my letter. May would n't have written so soon; she 'd have waited until nearer Thursday. She would n't let me have the 'yes' quite so quickly. Not she!--the little tease of a sweetheart!"

On Wednesday morning, at half-past eight, the maid brought in the mail and laid it at her master's plate. There were a paper and two letters.

"Hm-m," began Mr. Clayton, "one for you, Julia, my dear, and--by Jove, it's Dennison's letter!" he finished joyfully, thrusting an eager thumb under the flap of the other envelope.

Twenty minutes later, with head erect and shoulders squared, the senior member of the firm of Clayton & Company left his home and hurried down the street. Behind him, on the veranda steps, were a young man and a young girl looking into each other's faces in blank dismay.

"You--you said _you_ were expecting a letter, did n't you?" began Ethel hopefully.

"Well, so were you, were n't you?" The tone showed quick irritation.

"Why, yes, but--"

"Well, don't you think it is yours?"

"Why, I--I don't know. It might be, of course; but--"

"You _said_ you thought it was yours, the very first thing."

"Yes, I know; but--well, perhaps it is."

"Of course it is," asserted James, as he ran down the steps. And Ethel, looking after him, frowned in vague wonder.

Thursday morning's mail brought four letters, and Ethel blushed prettily as she tucked them all in her belt.

"But they aren't all yours," protested her brother James.

"But they are!" she laughed.

"All?"

"All."

"But _I_ was expecting a letter."

"Oh-ho!--so you were, were you?" teased the girl merrily. Ethel could afford to be merry; she had recognized a certain bold handwriting on one of the envelopes. "I really don't see, then, but you 'll have to go to Rover. Perhaps he can tell you where it is."

"Confound that dog!" growled James, turning on his heel.

"I'm going to accept Fred's invitation," soliloquized Ethel happily, as she hurried into her own room. "I shall read his first, so, of course, that will be the first one that I get!"

The noon delivery brought no letters for any one. James Clayton fidgeted about the house all the afternoon instead of going down to the golf club to see the open handicap--the annual club event. He felt that, in the present state of affairs, he could take no chances of seeing a certain young woman who was just then very much in his thoughts. If she _had_ written, and he should meet her as though she had not!--his blood chilled at the thought; and if she had not written, and he should meet her as though she had!--To James Clayton, at the moment, the thought of her precious letter lost forever to his longing eyes was only a shade worse than that there should have been no letter at all.

Five o'clock came, bringing the last mail--and still no letter. In the Clayton residence that night dinner was served at a table which showed a vacant place; James Clayton was reported to be indisposed. Yet, two hours later, after a sharp peal of the doorbell and a hasty knocking at his chamber door by the maid, James Clayton left the house; and one who met him on the steps said that his face was certainly not that of a sick man.

It was after breakfast the next morning, before the family had dispersed, that Ethel rushed headlong into the dining-room.

"Oh, James, James!" she cried breathlessly. "It _was_ your letter that Rover had, and here 't is!"

"But it was n't," retorted the young man airily. "I got mine last night--special delivery."

"But it is yours. Teddy found it in a hole under the barn. See!" crowed Ethel; and she thrust into his hand a tattered, chewed, bedraggled envelope whose seal was yet unbroken.

"Well, by George--'t is for me," muttered the young man, as he descried his own name among the marks left by dirt-stained paws and sharp little teeth. "Humph!" he ejaculated a moment later, eyeing the torn and crumpled sheet of paper which the envelope had contained.

"Well?" prompted several voices.

"It's an advertising letter from the Clover Farm kennels," he announced, with a slight twitching of his lips. "Do you think we--er--need another--dog?"

The Indivisible Five

At the ages of fifty-four and fifty, respectively, Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth found themselves possessed of a roomy, old-fashioned farmhouse near a thriving city, together with large holdings of lands, mortgages, and bank stock. At the same time they awoke to an unpleasant realization that many of their fellow creatures were not so fortunate.

"James," began Mrs. Wentworth, with some hesitation, one June day, "I've been thinking--with all our rambling rooms and great big yards, and we with never a chick nor a child to enjoy them--I 've been thinking--that is, I went by the orphan asylum in town yesterday and saw the poor little mites playing in that miserable brick oven they call a yard, and--well, don't you think we ought to have one--or maybe two--of them down here for a week or two, just to show them what summer really is?"

The man's face beamed.

"My dear, it's the very thing! We'll take two--they'll be company for each other; only"--he looked doubtfully at the stout little woman opposite--"the worst of it will come on you, Mary. Of course Hannah can manage the work part, I suppose, but the noise--well, we 'll ask for quiet ones," he finished, with an air that indicated an entirely satisfactory solution of the problem.

Life at "Meadowbrook" was a thing of peaceful mornings and long, drowsy afternoons; a thing of spotless order and methodical routine. In a long, childless marriage Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth's days had come to be ordered with a precision that admitted of no frivolous deviations: and noise and confusion in the household machinery were the unforgivable offenses. It was into this placid existence that Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth proposed to introduce two children from the orphan asylum.

Before the week was out a note was sent to the matron of the institution, and the prospective host and hostess were making their plans with unwonted excitement.

"We 'll rise at six and breakfast at seven," began Mrs. Wentworth.

"And they must be in bed by eight o'clock," supplemented her husband.

"I did n't say whether to send boys or girls, and I forgot to say anything about their being quiet; but if they 're boys, you can teach them gardening, James, and if they 're girls, they can sew with me a good deal."

"Hm-m--yes; I really don't know what we shall do to entertain them. Perhaps they might like to read," suggested Mr. Wentworth, looking with some doubt at his big bookcases filled with heavy, calf-bound volumes.

"Of course; and they can walk in the garden and sit on the piazza," murmured Mrs. Wentworth happily.

In the orphan asylum that same evening there was even greater excitement. Mrs. Wentworth's handwriting was not of the clearest, and her request for "two" children had been read as "ten"; and since the asylum--which was only a small branch of a much larger institution--had recently been depleted until it contained but five children, the matron was sorely perplexed to know just how to fill so generous an order. It ended in her writing an apologetic note to Mrs. Wentworth and dispatching it the next morning by the hand of the eldest girl, Tilly, who was placed at the head of four other jubilant children, brushed, scrubbed, and admonished into a state of immaculate primness.

At half-past nine o'clock the driver of the big carry-all set five squirming children on to their feet before the front door at "Meadowbrook," and rang the bell.

"Here you are," he called gayly, as Hannah opened the door. "I've washed my hands of 'em--now they're yours!" And he drove briskly out of the yard.

Hannah neither moved nor spoke. She simply stared.

"Here's a note," began Tilly, advancing shyly, "for Mis' Wentworth."

Mechanically Hannah took the note and, scarcely realizing what she was doing, threw open the door of the parlor--that parlor which was sacred to funerals, weddings, and the minister's calls.

The children filed in slowly and deposited themselves with some skill upon the slippery haircloth chairs and sofa. Hannah, still dazed, went upstairs to her mistress.

"From the asylum, ma'am," she said faintly, holding out the note.

Mrs. Wentworth's eyes shone.

"Oh, the children! Where are they, Hannah?"

"In the parlor, ma'am."

"The parlor? Why, Hannah, the parlor is no place for those two children!" Mrs. Wentworth started toward the door.

Hannah coughed and uptilted her chin.

"They ain't two, ma'am. There's as much as half a dozen of 'em."

"What!"

"There is, ma'am."

"Why, Hannah, what--" The lady tore open the note with shaking fingers, and read:

_My dear Madam_: You very generously asked for ten children, but I hope you will pardon me for sending only five. That is all we have with us now, owing to several recent adoptions from our ranks--you know we are never very large, being only a branch of the Hollingsworth Asylum. The children were so crazy, though, at the idea of a trip to the country, that I am sure each child will have fun enough--and make noise enough, also, I fear--for two, so in the end you may think you've got your ten children, after all. You must be fond of children to be willing to give so many a two-weeks' vacation, but you don't know what a lot of good you are doing. If you could have seen the children when I read them your note, you would have been well repaid for all your trouble. I wish there were more like you in the world. Yours respectfully,

AMANDA HIGGINS.

"Hannah," faltered Mrs. Wentworth, dropping into her chair, "they did n't read my note right. They--they've actually sent us the whole asylum!"

"Well, it looks like it--downstairs," returned Hannah grimly.

"Sure enough, they _are_ downstairs, and I must go to them," murmured Mrs. Wentworth, rising irresolutely to her feet. "I--I 'll go down. I'll have to send all but two home, of course," she finished, as she left the room.

Downstairs she confronted five pairs of eyes shining out at her from the gloom.

"Good-morning, children," she began, trying to steady her voice. "There is--er--I--well--" She stopped helplessly, and a small girl slid to the floor from her perch on the sofa and looked longingly toward the hall.

"Please, ma'am, there's a kitty out there; may I get it?" she asked timidly.

"Please, have you got a dog, too?" piped up a boy's voice.

"An' chickens an' little pigs? They said you had!" interposed a brown-eyed girl from the corner.

"An' there's hammocks an' swings, maybe," broke in Tilly; "an' please, ma'am, may n't we go outdoors and begin right away? Two weeks is an awful short time, you know, for all we want to do," she finished earnestly.

Four pairs of feet came down to the floor with a thump and eight small boots danced a tattoo of impatience on the parlor carpet--the small girl was already out in the hall and on her knees to the cat.

"Why, yes,--that is--you see, there was a mistake; I--" Mrs. Wentworth stopped suddenly, for as soon as the "yes" had left her lips the children had fled like sheep.

She stepped to the front door and looked out.

A boy was turning somersaults on the grass. Three girls had started a game of tag. Watching all this with eager eyes was a boy of eight, one foot tightly bound into an iron brace. It was on this child that Mrs. Wentworth's eyes lingered the longest.

"Poor little fellow! Well, he shall be one of the two," she murmured, as she hurried out to Hannah.

"When they going, ma'am?" began Hannah, with an assurance born of long service.

"I--I haven't told them; I--well, I waited for Mr. Wentworth," confessed her mistress hastily. Then, with some dignity: "They can just as well have to-day outdoors, anyway."

It was nearly noon when Mr. Wentworth drove into the yard, gave his horse into the care of Bill, the man-of-all-work, and hurried into the house.

"Mary, Mary--where are you?" he called sharply. Never before had James Wentworth broken the serene calm of his home with a voice like that.

"Yes, dear, I 'm here--in the dining-room."

Mrs. Wentworth's cheeks were flushed, her hair was disordered, and her neck-bow was untied; but she was smiling happily as she hovered over a large table laden with good things and set for six.

"You can sit down with them, James," she exclaimed; "I'm going to help Hannah serve them."

"Mary, what in the world does this mean? The yard is overrun with screaming children! Have they sent us the whole asylum?" he demanded.

Mrs. Wentworth laughed hysterically.

"That's exactly what they have done, dear. They took my 'two' for a 'ten,' and--and they did the best they could to supply my wants!"

"Well, but--why don't you send them home? We can't--"

"Yes, yes; I know, dear," interrupted the woman hastily, the happy look gone from her eyes. "After dinner I am--that is, you may send all but two home. I thought I 'd let them play awhile."

"Humph!" ejaculated the man; "send them home?--I should think so!" he muttered, as his wife went to call the children to dinner.

What a wonderful meal that was, and how the good things did vanish down those five hungry throats!

The man at the head of the table looked on in dumb amazement, and he was still speechless when, after dinner, five children set upon him and dragged him out to see the bird's nest behind the barn.

"An' we found the pigs an' the chickens, Mister, jest as they said we would," piped up Tommy eagerly, as they hurried along.

"An' a teeny little baby cow, too," panted the smaller girl, "an' I fed him."

"Well, I guess you could n't 'a' fed him if I had n't held him with the rope," crowed Bobby.

"Or if I had n't scared him with my stick!" cut in Tilly. "I guess you ain't the only pebble on the beach, Bobby Mack!"

"Good Heavens!" groaned Mr. Wentworth, under his breath. "And have I got to keep two of these little hoodlums for a whole fortnight? Er--children," he said aloud, after the bird's nest had been duly admired; "er--suppose we go and--er--read."

Into the house trooped the five chattering boys and girls in the wake of an anxious, perplexed man. Some minutes later the children sat in a stiff row along the wall, while the man, facing them, read aloud from a ponderous calf-bound volume on "The Fundamental Causes of the Great Rebellion."

For some time Mr. Wentworth read without pausing to look up, his sonorous voice filling the room, and his mind wholly given to the subject in hand; then he raised his eyes--and almost dropped the book in his hand: Tommy, the cripple, sat alone.

"Why, where--what--" stammered Mr. Wentworth.

"They've gone out ter the barn, Mister," explained Tommy cheerfully, pointing to the empty chairs.

"Oh!" murmured Mr. Wentworth faintly, as he placed the book on the shelf. "I--er--I think we won't read any more."

"Come on, then; let's go to the barn," cried Tommy. And to the barn they went.

There were no "Fundamental Causes of the Great Rebellion" in the barn, but there were fundamental causes of lots of other things, and Mr. Wentworth found that now his words were listened to with more eagerness; and before he knew it, he was almost as excited as were the children themselves.

They were really a very intelligent lot of youngsters, he told himself, and the prospect of having two of them for guests did not look so formidable after all.

From the barn they went to the garden, from the garden to the pond, from the pond back to the yard; then they all sat down under the apple trees while Mr. Wentworth built them a miniature boat; in days long gone by James Wentworth had loved the sea, and boat-making had been one of his boyhood joys.

At four o'clock Mrs. Wentworth called from the house:

"James, will you come here a minute, please?"

A slow red stole over the man's face as he rose to his feet. The red was a deep crimson by the time he faced his wife.

"How are you going to send them home, dear?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"But it's four o'clock, and we ought to be thinking of it. Which two are you going to keep?"

"I--I don't know," he acknowledged.

For some unapparent reason Mrs. Wentworth's spirits rose, but she assumed an air of severity.

"Why, James!--have n't you told them?" she demanded.

"Mary, I couldn't; I've been trying to all the afternoon. Er--you tell them--do!" he urged desperately. "I can't--playing with them as I have!"

"Suppose we keep them all, then?" she hazarded.

"Mary!"

"Oh, I can manage it! I 've been talking with Hannah--I saw how things were going with you "--his features relaxed into a shame-faced smile--"and Hannah says her sister can come to help, and we 've got beds enough with the cots in the attic."

He drew a deep breath.

"Then we won't have to tell them!" he exclaimed.

"No, we won't have to tell them," she laughed, as she turned back into the house.

What a fortnight that was at "Meadowbrook!" The mornings--no longer peaceful--were full of rollicking games; and the long, drowsy afternoons became very much awake with gleeful shouts. The spotless order fled before the bats and balls and books and dolls that Mr. Wentworth brought home from the store; and the methodical routine of the household was shattered to atoms by daily picnics and frequent luncheons of bread and butter.

No longer were the days ordered with a precision that admitted of no frivolous deviations, for who could tell in the morning how many bumped heads, cut fingers, bruised noses and wounded hearts would need sympathetic attention before night?

And so it went on until the evening before the two weeks were completed; then, after the children were abed and asleep, the man and his wife talked it over.

"Well, this ends to-morrow, I suppose. You must be tired, Mary; it's been a hard time for you, dear," he began.

"Not a bit of it, James," she demurred. "Hannah and Betsey have done all the work, and you 've been with the children so much I 've not felt their care at all."

The man stirred uneasily.

"Well, I--I wanted to relieve you as much as possible," he exclaimed, wondering if she knew how many boats he had built for the boys, and how many jackknives he had broken in the process.

"Do you know?--I think I shall be actually lonely when they are gone," declared Mrs. Wentworth, without looking up.

The man threw a sharp glance at his wife.

"So shall I," he said.

"James, I've been wondering, could n't we--adopt one of them?" she suggested, trying to make it appear as if the thought had but just entered her head.

Again the man gave his wife a swift glance.

"Why--we--might--I suppose," he returned, hoping that his hesitation would indicate that the idea was quite new to him--instead of having been almost constantly in his thoughts for a week.

"We might take two--company for each other, you know!" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Hm-m," he agreed pleasantly.

"The only trouble is the selecting, James."

"Yes, that is a drawback," murmured the man, with a vivid recollection of a certain afternoon under the apple trees.

"Well, I'll tell you"--Mrs. Wentworth leaned forward in sudden animation--"to-morrow you pick out the one you want and ask him--or her--to go into the parlor for a few minutes at nine o'clock in the morning, and I will do the same."

"Well, maybe," he began a little doubtfully, "but--"

"And if there are two, and you are n't real sure which you want, just ask both of them to go, and we 'll settle it together, later," she finished.

To this, with some measure of content, her husband agreed.

The next morning at ten minutes before nine Mrs. Wentworth began her search. With no hesitation she accosted the little cripple.

"Tommy, dear, I want you to go into the parlor for a few minutes. Take your book in there and read, and I 'll come very soon and tell you what I want."

Tommy obeyed at once and Mrs. Wentworth sighed in relief. At that moment Tilly came into the garden.

What a dear little woman those two weeks of happiness had caused Tilly to become! How much she loved Tommy, and what care she took of him! Really, it was a shame to separate them--they ought to be brought up together--perhaps Mr. Wentworth would n't find any child that he wanted; anyway, she believed she should send Tilly in, at a venture.

A moment later Tilly was following in Tommy's footsteps. On the piazza steps sat Bobby--homely, unattractive Bobby, crying.

"Why, my dear!" remonstrated Mrs. Wentworth.

"Tommy's gone! I can't find him," sobbed the boy.

Mrs. Wentworth's back straightened.

Of course Bobby cried--no one was so good to him as Tommy was--no one seemed to care for him but Tommy. Poor, homely Bobby! He had a hard row to hoe. He--

But she could n't take Bobby! Of course not--she had Tommy and Tilly already. Still--

Mrs. Wentworth stooped and whispered a magic word in Bobby's ear, and the boy sprang to his feet and trotted through the hall to the parlor door.

"I don't care," muttered Mrs. Wentworth recklessly. "I could n't bear to leave him alone out here. I can settle it later."

Twice she had evaded her husband during the last fifteen minutes; now, at nine o'clock, the appointed time, they both reached the parlor door. Neither one could meet the other's eyes, and with averted faces they entered the room together; then both gave a cry of amazement.

In the corner, stiff, uncomfortable, and with faces that expressed puzzled anxiety, sat five silent children.

Mrs. Wentworth was the first to recover presence of mind.

"There, there, dears, it's all right," she began a little hysterically. "You can call it a little game we were playing. You may all run outdoors now."