Part 8

"Do you want to go out in the yard a little while?" Miss Tripp was asking the children doubtfully. "It is Norah's afternoon out," she explained to Mr. Hickey, "and I don't like to have them play out of doors unless someone is with them to see that nothing happens. It is such a responsibility," she added with a little sigh. "I had no idea of it when I undertook it; I'm afraid I shouldn't have had the courage to----. Oh, children; wait a minute! Let Aunty Evelyn put on your overshoes--Robbie, dear!"

"Come back here, young man!" commanded Mr. Hickey in a voice which effectually arrested the wandering attention of Master Stanford. "Here, I'll fix 'em up. If I can't, I'm not fit to put through another tunnel! Here you, Miss Flutterbudget; is this your coat?"

Miss Tripp flew to the rescue. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Hickey," she murmured, flashing a mirthful glance of protest at the engineer. "But to array four small children for out of doors on a winter day is vastly more complicated than digging a tunnel. Wait, Doris; you haven't your mittens."

They were all ready at last, and Evelyn herded them carefully out into the back yard and shut the latticed door leading to the street upon them.

"Now I must watch them every minute from the library window," she said to Mr. Hickey. "You've no idea what astonishing things they'll think of and--do. One ought to have the eyes of an Argus and the arms of a Briareus to cope successfully with Robert."

"Bright boy--very," observed Mr. Hickey absent-mindedly. "I--er--am very fond of boys."

"Oh, are you?" asked Evelyn with mild surprise, as she craned her neck to look out of the window. "I hope they won't make their snow-balls too hard. It is really dangerous when the snow is soft."

"--Er--I wish you'd stop looking out of that window, Miss Tripp and--er--give me your attention for about five minutes," said Mr. Hickey, with very much the same tone and manner he would have employed in addressing his stenographer. He told himself that he was perfectly cool and collected, but unluckily in his efforts to visualise his inward calm he succeeded in looking particularly stern and professional. "I--er--called on a little matter of business this afternoon, Miss Tripp, and I--to put it clearly before you--would like to recall to your mind the day--something like a month ago, when you--when I--er--met you and asked you to lunch with me. You may recall the fact?"

Miss Tripp gazed at Mr. Hickey with some astonishment. Then she blushed, wondering if he had found out that she had prevaricated in the matter of a previous engagement.

"I--remember; yes," she murmured.

"It was a great disappointment to me at the time," he went on. "I wanted to talk to you further. I wanted to--er--tell you----" He paused and stole a glance at the pretty worn profile she turned toward him, as she looked apprehensively out of the window.

"The children are--playing very prettily together," she said. "And, see, the sun has come out."

"You--er--have known me a long time," he said huskily. "Once you laughed at me because I was homely and--er--awkward, and since then----"

She interrupted him with a little murmur of protest. "I was hoping you had forgotten that," she said softly.

"I have never forgotten anything that you said or did," he declared, with the delightful though sudden conviction that this was strictly true. "It really is singular, when you come to think of it; but it's a fact. I don't know as I should have realised it though if I--if you----"

She started to her feet with a little cry of alarm. "Something has happened to Carroll!" she said. "I must go out and see."

He followed her distracted flight with the grim resolve not to be balked of his purpose.

"Oh! what is it?" she was asking wildly of the other children, who huddled crying about the small figure of Carroll which was flattened against the iron fence, emitting strange and dolorous sounds of woe.

"Aw--I tol' Carroll he didn't das' to put his tongue out on th' iron fence; an' he did it; an' now he's stuck to it, 'n' can't get away," explained Master Stanford with scientific accuracy. "I don't see why; do you?"

"Oh, you poor darling! What shall I do; can't you----"

"Ah-a-a-a!" howled the victim, writhing in misery.

"Hold on there, youngster!" shouted Mr. Hickey, whose experienced eye had taken in the situation at a glance. "Wait till I get some hot water; don't move, boys! Don't touch him, Evelyn!"

It was the work of several moments to successfully detach the rash experimenter from his uncomfortable proximity to the iron fence. But Mr. Hickey accomplished the feat, with a patience and firmness which won for him the loud encomiums of Mrs. Stanford's Irish Annie, who came out bare-armed to assist in the operation.

"Oh, you're the bad boy entirely!" she said to Robbie, who stared open-mouthed at the scene from the safe vantage ground of the back stoop. "Many's the time I've towld what would happen to yez if you put yer tongue t' th' fence in cowld weather."

"I wanted to see if it was true," said Master Stanford coolly. "You said th' was a p'liceman comin' after me, an' th' wasn't, when I ate the frostin' off your ol' cake."

"If your mother was here she'd be afther takin' th' paddle to yez," said Annie wrathfully. "I've a mind to do it meself."

Master Stanford fled to the safe shelter of the library where Carroll, ensconced on Mr. Hickey's knee, was being soothed with various emollients and lotions at the hands of Miss Tripp.

"I should never have known what to do," she said, looking up from her ministrations to find Mr. Hickey's eyes fixed full upon her. "How could you think so quickly?"

"Because I tried it myself once upon a time," said Mr. Hickey. "It's about the only way to learn things," he added somewhat grimly. "But I wish our young friend had taken another day for improving his knowledge on the subject of the prehensile powers of iron when applied to a moist surface on a cold day."

For some reason or other he felt very much neglected and correspondingly out of temper as Miss Tripp ministered to the numerous wants of her small charges during the half hour that followed. To be sure she poured him a cup of tea (which he detested) and pressed small frosted cakes upon him with the sweetest of abstracted smiles.

"I must go at once," he bethought himself, as he refused a second cup. "I--er--shall be late to my dinner." But he lingered gloomily while she cheered the afflicted Carroll with warm milk well sweetened with sugar.

"You'll find some--some feathers in a box in the hall," he informed her, when he finally took his leave. "I wanted to tell you that I--er--regretted exceedingly that I had injured yours with my umbrella on the day we were to have lunched together and--didn't."

Miss Tripp took the cerise plumes out of their wrappings and examined them in the blissful security of her own room--this after the Brewster children had gone home and the Stanford children were at last in bed and safely asleep.

"How-extraordinary!" she murmured, her cheeks reflecting palely the vivid tints of the latest importation from Paris.

XVII

Having definitely abandoned the unthinking, hit-or-miss method of child discipline practised by the generality of parents, Elizabeth Brewster and her husband found themselves facing a variety of problems. To be exact, there were three of them; Carroll, with his somewhat timid and yielding, yet too self-conscious nature; Doris, hot-tempered, generous and loving, and baby Richard, who already exhibited an adamantine firmness of purpose, which a careless observer might have termed stubbornness. There was another questionable issue which these wide-awake young parents were obliged to face, and that was the entirely unconfessed partiality which Elizabeth cherished for her first-born son and the equally patent yet unacknowledged "particular affection" Sam felt for his one small daughter. More than once in the past the two had found themselves at the point of serious disagreement when the boy and girl had come into collision; Sam hotly--too hotly--upholding the cause of Doris, while Elizabeth was almost tearfully sure that her son had not been in fault. Neither had taken the pains to trace these quite human and natural predilections to their source; but they were agreed in thinking the outcome unsafe. They determined, therefore, to defer to the other's judgment in those instances when special discipline appeared to be demanded by either child.

All this by way of prelude to a certain stormy evening in March when Sam Brewster, returning more tired than usual from a long day of hard work in his office, found his Elizabeth with reddened eyelids and a general appearance of carefully subdued emotion.

"Well! I say," he began, as he divested himself of his wet coat and kicked off his overshoes with an air bordering on impatience; "it's beastly weather outside; hope none of it's got inside. Where are the kiddies? And what is the matter with the lady of the house?"

Elizabeth plucked up a small, faint smile which she bestowed upon the questioner with a wifely kiss.

"I've had a very trying time with Doris to-day," she said; "but I didn't mean to mention it till after dinner."

Sam shrugged his shoulders. "I shall at least have to change part of my clothes, my dear," he said crisply. "I'll hear the catalogue of the young lady's crimes when I'm dry, if you don't mind."

The dinner was excellent, and there was a salad and a pudding which elicited the warmest commendation from the head of the house. He was aware, however, of an unbending attitude of mind upon the part of Elizabeth and an unnatural decorum in the conduct of the children which somewhat marred the general enjoyment. Sam eyed his small daughter quizzically from time to time, as she sat with eyes bent upon her plate.

"Well," he said at last, in his usual half-joking manner, "I hear there have been ructions in this ranch since I left home this morning. What have you been doing, Dorry, to make your mother look like the old lady who makes vinegar for a living?"

The little girl giggled as she stole a glance at her mother's face; then she ran quickly to her father's side and nestled her hand in his. "I'm always good when you're here, daddy," she said in a loud, buzzing whisper. "I wish you stayed at home all th' time 'stead of mother."

Elizabeth bit her lip with vexation, and Sam laughed aloud, his eyes filled with a teasing light.

"That appears to be a counter indictment for you, Betty," he said. "Or--we might call it a demurrer--eh? Come, tell me what's happened to disturb the family peace. I see it's broken all to bits."

Elizabeth arose with unsmiling dignity. "Celia would like to clear the table," she said; "I think we had better go into the sitting-room."

She did not offer either accusation or explanation after they were all seated about the blazing wood fire, which the Brewsters were agreed in terming their one extravagance; for a few moments no one spoke.

"I really hate to go into this matter of naughty deeds just now," began Sam, stretching his slippered feet to the warmth with an air of extreme comfort. "Couldn't we--er--quash the proceedings; or---- See here, I'll tell you; suppose we issue an injunction and bind over all young persons in this house to keep the peace. Well, now, won't that do, Betty?"

"I'm really afraid it won't, Sam," said Elizabeth firmly. "I didn't punish Doris for what she did this afternoon. It seemed to me that it would be better for her to tell you about it herself. Something ought to be done to prevent it from happening again; perhaps you will know what that something is."

Her face was grave, and she did not choose to meet the twinkle in her husband's eyes.

He lifted his daughter to his knee. "It's up to you, Dorry," he said; "I'm all attention. Come, out with it. Tell daddy all about it."

He passed his hand caressingly over her mane of silken hair and bent his tall head to look into her abashed eyes.

Thus encouraged the little girl nestled back into the circle of the strong arms which held her, dimpling with anticipated triumph.

"I was playin' mother," she began, "an' Carroll was my husban', an' Baby Dick was my child. An'--an' Dick was naughty. He wouldn't mind me when I told him to stop playin' with his cars an' come to mother. I spoke real kind an' gentle, too: 'Put down your train an' come to mother, darlin',' I said. But he jus' wouldn't, daddy. He said, 'No; I won't!' jus' like that he said."

"Hum!" commented her father. "And what did you do then?"

"Well, you see, daddy, I was p'tendin' I was Mrs. Stanford; so 'course I was 'bliged to punish Dick for not mindin'. I got mother's butter-paddle an' I whipped him real hard, an' I said 'it hurts mother more 'n it hurts you, darlin'!' Robbie says that's what his mother says when she whips him. He says he don't b'lieve it. But Dick wasn't good after I whipped him. He jus' turned 'round an' pulled my hair an' screamed--with both han's he pulled it an' jerked it; then I--I bit him."

"You--_what_, Doris?"

"I bit him, jus' to make him let go. An'--an' he was softer'n I thought he was. I never knew such a soft baby."

The little girl hung her head before her father's stern look; her voice threatened to break in a sob. "I didn't think--Dick--was--so--so full of--juice," she quavered.

"Did you really bite your dear little brother till the blood came, Doris? I can't believe it!"

Sam glanced inquiringly at his wife; but she held her peace, her eyes drooped upon the sewing in her hands.

"I--I didn't b'lieve it either--at first," Doris said quickly. "I thought it was jus'--red paint."

"Why, Doris Brewster!" piped up Carroll, unable to contain himself longer; "that's a reg'lar fib!"

"Had Dick been playing with red paint?" interrogated Sam gravely, his eyes fixed upon the culprit who was beginning to fidget uneasily in his arms.

"N-o, daddy," confessed the child in a whisper.

Her father considered her answer in silence for a moment or two; then he looked over at his wife.

"Elizabeth," he said. "Isn't it time for these young persons to go to bed?"

She glanced up at the clock. "I think it is, dear," she replied. "But----"

He checked her with a quick look. "I shall have to think this over," he said, setting Doris upon her feet. Then he put his arm about his son and kissed him. "Good-night, Carroll."

Doris, dimpling and rosy, lifted her eager little face to her father's; but he deliberately put her aside.

"Aren't you going to kiss me, too, daddy?" wailed the child, in a sudden passion of affection and something akin to fear. "I love you, daddy!"

"I'm a little afraid of you, Dorry," her father said gravely. "I'm not sure that you are entirely safe to--kiss."

"But I wouldn't bite you, daddy! I _wouldn't_!"

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Because I--because I love you."

"I always supposed you loved Baby Dick," said her father, turning away from the piteous, grieved look in her eyes; "but it seems I was mistaken."

"But, daddy, I do! I do love Dick! I love him more'n a million, an'----"

"Good-night, Doris." There was stern finality in Sam's voice, though his eyes were wet.

Elizabeth led the two children away, Doris shaken with sobs and Carroll casting backward glances of troubled awe at his father who continued to look steadily into the fire.

He still sat in his big chair, his face more sober and thoughtful than its wont, when his wife returned.

"I'm afraid Doris will cry herself to sleep to-night," she said doubtfully.

He made no reply.

"You wouldn't like to go up and kiss her good-night, Sam?"

"Better one night than a hundred," he said, ignoring her suggestion. Then he bent forward and poked the fire with unnecessary violence. "Poor little girl," he murmured.

A light broke over her face. "Do you think this is the natural penalty?" she asked.

A wailing sob floated down to them from above in the silence that followed her question.

"It was, perhaps, one of the penalties sure to follow a similar line of conduct," he said slowly. "She'll remember it, you'll find, better than one of Mrs. Stanford's whippings."

He turned to look at his wife with a smile. "'It hurts mother more than it does you, darling!'" he quoted with a grimace. "I thought that particular sort of cant was out of date. An irascible person who flies into a rage and frankly administers punishment on the spot I can understand. I used to get a thrashing of that sort about once in so often from Aunt Julia; and I don't remember hating her for it. Where did Marian dig up such rank nonsense?"

"At her 'Mothers' Club,' I suppose," Elizabeth told him with a disdainful curl of her pretty lips. "I went once and heard a woman say that she always prayed with her child first and whipped him severely afterward."

"Beastly cant!" groaned Sam disgustedly. "I'm glad you don't go in for that sort of thing, Betty."

"It would drive me to almost anything, if I were a child and had to endure it," Elizabeth said positively.

Both parents were silent for a long minute, and both appeared to be listening for the sound of muffled sobbing from above stairs.

"You--you'll forgive her--to-morrow; won't you, Sam?" whispered Elizabeth.

"Forgive her?" he echoed. "You know I'm not really angry with her, Betty; but if we can teach our small daughter through her affections to control her passions, can't you see what it will do for the child? Perhaps," he added under his breath, "that is what--God--does with us. Sometimes--we are allowed to suffer. I have been, and--I know I have profited by it."

Sam Brewster was not one of those who talk over-familiarly of their Maker. A word like this meant that he was profoundly moved. Elizabeth's eyes dwelt on her husband with a trust and affection which spoke louder than words. After a while she laid her hand in his.

"If you would always advise me with the children," she murmured, "I'm sure we could--help them to be good."

"That is it, Betty," he said, meeting her misty look with a smile. "We cannot force our children into goodness, or torture them into wisdom--even if we can compel them to a show of submission which they would make haste to throw off when they are grown. But we can help them to choose the good, now and as long as we live. And we'll do it, little mother; for I'm not going to shirk my part of it in the future. As you said long ago, it's the most important thing in the world for us to do just now."

XVIII

Perhaps because she had cried herself to sleep the night before, Doris awakened late the next morning to find Carroll at her bedside completely dressed and with the shining morning face which follows prolonged scrubbing with soap and water.

"Has daddy gone?" she inquired anxiously, as she rubbed the dreams out of her brown eyes.

"Not yet, sleepy-head," Carroll informed her; "but he's puttin' on his overcoat this minute an' kissin' mother good-bye. I got up early," he added complacently, "an' dressed myself all by my lone an' had my breakfas' with daddy. I'm goin' to do it every mornin' after this. He likes to have me."

Sam Brewster, in the act of bestowing a final hasty kiss upon his Elizabeth's flushed cheek, was startled by the sight of a small figure in white with a cloud of bright hair which flew down the stairs and into his arms with a loud wail of protest.

"Kiss me good-bye, too, daddy! Kiss me!"

Sam caught the little warm, throbbing body and held it close. "Father's baby daughter," he whispered, bending his head to her pink ear. "She shall kiss her daddy good-bye."

"I'm goin' to be jus' as good to-day, daddy; I'm goin' to be gooder 'an Carroll. 'N'--'n' I'll never, never bite anybody again; never in my world. I promise!"

Sam gazed fondly down at the sparkling little face against his breast. "That's daddy's good girl!" he exclaimed heartily. "Do you hear that, mother?"

"Yes; I hear," Elizabeth said doubtfully. "I'm sure I hope Doris will remember. Sometimes you forget so quickly, dear."

"We all do that, Betty," Sam said gravely, as he surrendered the child to her mother.

His face was thoughtful as he hurried away down the street to catch his car. To his surprise his friend Stanford swung himself aboard at the next corner.

"Why, hello, Stanford," he looked up from a hurried perusal of his paper to say. "I didn't know you were home. When did you come?"

"Last night," said the other, dropping into a seat beside his neighbour. "The fact is, Marian couldn't stand it to be away from the children another day. She was sure Rob would burn the house down with everything in it, including the baby; or that some equally heartrending thing would happen--it was a fresh one every day. It got on her nerves, as she puts it; and finally on mine; so we gave up our trip to Santa Barbara and came home literally post-haste. I was sorry, for I don't know when we shall get another such chance. But you know how it is, Brewster; a woman won't listen to rhyme or reason where her children are concerned."

"I understand," Sam agreed briefly; "my wife is the same way. But of course you found everything in good order--eh? Miss Tripp appeared to be all devotion to the children, and my wife kept a motherly eye on them."

"Oh, everything was all right, of course; just as I told Marian it would be: the children were in bed and asleep and everything about the place in perfect trim. I'm sure we're a thousand times obliged to you and Mrs. Brewster; Marian will tell you so. Er--by the way, our mutual friend Hickey appeared to be calling upon Miss Tripp when we arrived, and Marian insists that we interrupted some sort of important interview by our untimely appearance. She said she felt it in the air. I laughed at her. Of course I know as well as you do that Old Ironsides isn't matrimonially inclined, and while Miss Tripp may be an excellent nurse and housekeeper, she isn't exactly----"

"H'm!" commented Sam non-committally, "there's no accounting for tastes, you know. Hickey's a queer chap; queer as Dick's hat-band; but a good sort--an all-round, square good fellow."

"Sure! I believe you. But I had to laugh at my boy Robert. He's all ears, and smarter than a steel trap. He overheard something of what my wife was saying to me. 'Mr. Hickey doesn't come to see Miss Tripp,' he puts in, as large as life; 'he comes to see me an' baby, 'specially me; he comes most every day, an' he brings us candy an' oranges.' Isn't that rather singular--eh?"

"Not at all," Sam assured him warmly; "Hickey is very fond of children, always has been. He's always dropping in to see Carroll and Doris. Um--did you see this account of Judge Lindsay's doings in his children's court? I've come across a number of articles about his work lately. Seems to me it's mighty suggestive, the way he's gone to work to make good citizens out of material which would otherwise fill the state prisons; and it's all done through some sort of moral suasion apparently. He gets into sympathy with those poor little chaps; climbs down to their level, somehow or other; sees things through their eyes; gets their point of view, and then deals with them as man to man--or boy to boy. I believe he's got the matter of discipline--all sorts of discipline--cinched. We're going to try some of his methods with our children."

Young Stanford stared for a moment at his neighbour, then he threw back his head and chuckled.

"I beg your pardon, Brewster," he exclaimed; "but it struck me as being--er--a decidedly original idea, that of establishing a children's court in your own home. Perhaps it was Mrs. Brewster's notion; Marian tells me she's very--er--advanced, when it comes to disciplining the children."

Sam Brewster's blue eyes rested steadily upon his neighbour.