CHAPTER I.

A CREAMERY SHARK.

The crows had come back. With the fashionables of Maine they had gone south for the winter, but now on the third day of March the advance guard of the solemn, black army soared in sight.

They were cawing over the green pine woods of North Marsden, they were cawing over the black spruces of South Marsden, and in Middle Marsden, where the sun had melted the snow on a few exposed knolls, they were having a serious and chattering jubilation over their return to their summer haunts.

"Land! ain't they sweet!" muttered a little girl, who was herself almost as elfish and impish as a crow. She stood with clasped hands in the midst of a spruce thicket. Her face was upturned to the hot sun set in the hard blue of the sky. The sun burned her, the wind chilled her, but she remained motionless, except when the sound of sleigh-bells was heard. Then she peered eagerly out into the road.

Time after time she returned to her hiding-place with a muttered, "No good!" She allowed a priest to go by, two gossiping women on their way from the village to spend a day in the country, a minister hurrying to the sick-bed of a parishioner, and several loaded wood-sleds, but finally a hilarious jingle drew her hopefully from her retreat.

Her small black eyes screwed themselves into two glittering points as she examined the newcomer.

"He'll do!" she ejaculated; then, with a half-caressing, half-threatening, "You'll get murdered if there's a word out o' you," addressed to an apparent roll of cloth tucked among spruce branches a few feet from the ground, she stepped out by the snake fence.

"Hello, mister!"

The fat young man bobbing over the "thank-you-ma'ams" of the snowy road, pulled himself up with a jerk in his small sleigh drawn by a long-legged mare.

"Coronation! Where did that noise come from? Hello, wood-lark," as he observed the little girl peeping at him through the fence, "is there a hawk in your nest?"

"Who be you?" she asked.

"I've got an awful pretty name," he replied, flicking his whip over the snow-bank beside him, "too pretty to tell."

"Who be you?" she asked, pertinaciously.

"Ever hear tell of a creamery shark?"

"I didn't know as sharks favoured cream," she said, soberly.

"They dote on it."

"Be you a creamery shark?"

"No--course not. I'm chasing one. I'm a farmer."

The small, keen-eyed girl looked him all over. He was the creamery shark himself, and he certainly had an oily, greasy appearance befitting his fondness for cream. However, she did not care what he was if he served her purpose.

"Will you gimme a lift?" she asked.

"A lift--where?"

"Anywhere out o' this," and she pointed back to the smart, white village up the river.

"Now what be you?" he said, cunningly.

"I be a runaway."

"What you running from?"

"I'm a-runnin' from an orphan 'sylum."

"Good for you--where you going?"

"I'm goin' to Orstralia."

"Better for you--what you going there for?"

"'Cause," she said, firmly, "they know how to treat orphans there. They don't shut 'em up together like a lot o' sick pigs. They scatter 'em in families. The gover'ment pays their keep till they get old enough to fend for themselves. Then they gets a sum o' money an' they works--I heard a lady-board readin' it in a newspaper."

"A lady-board?"

"Yes--lady-boards has to run 'sylums."

"Course they do. Well, skip in, little un."

"There's another passenger," she said, firmly; "an' them as takes me takes him."

"Have you got your granddaddy along?"

"No, siree, but I've got somethin' mos' as good as a granddaddy, an' I'd thank you to keep a straight tongue when you speak of him."

The young man put the offending tongue in his cheek, and chuckled enjoyably as the small, elfish figure disappeared in the wood. Presently she returned with a good-sized bundle in her arms, that she thrust through the fence.

"Give it a name," said the young man; "why, see how it's wiggling--must be some kind of an animal. Cat, weasel, rabbit, hen, dog--"

"Stop there," she ejaculated; "let it be dog. His name's Gippie."

"Well, I vum!" the young man said, good-naturedly, as she approached the sleigh and deposited her beshawled dog on his knees.

"I guess this sleigh warn't built for two," she said, as she crawled in beside him.

"Right you are; but you don't want to be carted far."

"Gimme that dog," she said, taking the bundle, "an' start off. Prob'ly they're just hitchin' up to be after me."

He clicked his tongue to the long-legged mare, and speedily fences and trees began to fly by them.

"What did you twig me for?" asked the fat young man. "Ain't you had no other chance?"

"Lots," she said, briefly.

"There was an ole boy ahead o' me with a two-seated rig, an' a youngster on the back seat. Why didn't you freeze on to him?"

She turned her little dark face toward him, a little face overspread by sudden passion. "D'ye know what that ole shell-back would 'a' done?"

"He'd 'a' took ye in."

"He'd 'a' druv me back to that 'sylum. He looked too good, that one. You looked like a baddie."

"Much obliged," he said, dryly.

"I guess you've done bad things," she said, inexorably. "You've stole pies, an' tole lies, an' fed dogs an' cats on the sly. I guess you've been found out."

The fat young man fell into a sudden reverie, and they passed several white fields in silence.

"They'll never ketch me," she said at last, gleefully; "we're goin' like the wind."

The young man looked down at her. She had the appearance of a diminutive witch as she sat with one hand clasping her faded hat, the other holding firmly to the bundle on her lap. Her countenance was so much older and shrewder in some phases than in others that the young man was puzzled to guess her age.

"Why, you ain't got any cloak," he said. "That's nothing but a dress you've got on, ain't it? Take the shawl off that dog."

"No, sir," she said, decidedly, "I don't do that."

"Hold on; I've got a horse blanket here," and he dived under the seat. "There!" and he wrapped it around her shoulders.

"Thanks," she said, briefly, and again her bird-like eyes scanned the road ahead.

"Hot cakes an' syrup!" she exclaimed, in a voice of resigned distress, "there's the North Marsden lady-board comin'. They must have 'phoned her. Say, mister, lemme sneak under here. If she holes you up, you'll have to tell a lie."

The young man grinned delightedly as the little girl slipped through the blanket and disappeared under the lap-robe. Then he again went skimming over the snow.

There was a very grand sleigh approaching him, with a befurred coachman on the seat driving a pair of roan horses, and behind him a gray-haired lady smothered in handsome robes.

"Please stop!" she called pathetically, to the approaching young man.

The creamery shark pulled up his mare, and blinked thoughtfully at her.

"Oh, have you seen a little girl?" she said excitedly; "a poor little girl, very thin and miserable, and with a lame, brown dog limping after her? She's wandering somewhere--the unfortunate, misguided child. We have had such trouble with her at the Middle Marsden Asylum--the orphan asylum, you know. We have fed her and clothed her, and now she's run away."

The fat young man became preternaturally solemn, the more so as he heard a low growl somewhere in the region of his feet.

"Did she have black hair as lanky as an Injun's?" he asked.

"Yes, yes."

"And a kind o' sickly green dress?"

"Oh, yes, and a dark complexion."

"And a sort of steely air as if she'd dare the world?"

"That's it; oh, yes, she wasn't afraid of any one."

"Then I've sighted your game," he said, gravely, very gravely, considering that the "game" was pinching one of his legs.

"I'll give you the scent," he went on. "Just follow this road till you come to the three pine-trees at the cross. Then turn toward Spruceville."

"Oh, thank you, thank you. I'm ever so much obliged. But was she on foot or driving?"

"Driving like sixty, sitting up on the seat beside a smooth old farmer with a red wig on, and a face as long as a church."

"A red wig!" exclaimed the lady. "Why, that's Mr. Dabley--he's one of our advisory committee."

"Dabley or Grabley, he's driving with one of your orphans. I see her as plain as day sitting beside him--brown face, faded black hat, sickly green frock, bundle on her lap."

"Farmer Dabley--incredible! How one can be deceived. Drive on, Matthew. We must try to overtake them. Had he one horse or two?"

"A pair, ma'am--a light-legged team--a bay and a cream. He's a regular old sport."

"He's a Mephistopheles if he's helping that child to escape," said the lady, warmly. "I'll give him a piece of my mind."

Her coachman started his horses, and the little girl under the robe was beginning to breathe freely when a shout from the young man brought her heart to her mouth.

"Say, ma'am, was that a striped or a plain shawl she had her dog wrapped in?"

"Striped--she had the impudence to steal it from the matron, and leave a note saying she did it because her jacket was locked up, and she was afraid her dog would freeze--I'm under a great obligation to you, sir."

"No obligation," he said, lifting his hat. "I'm proud to set you on the chase after such a bad young one. That's your girl, ma'am. Her shawl was striped. I didn't tell you she had the nerve to ask me to take her in."

"Not really--did she?" the lady called back; then she added, wonderingly, "but I thought you met her driving with Farmer Dabley?"

They had both turned around, and were talking over their shoulders.

There was a terrible commotion under the lap-robe, and the young man felt that he must be brief.

"If you bark I'll break your neck," he heard the refugee say in a menacing whisper, and, to cover a series of protesting growls, he shouted, lustily, "Yes, ma'am, but first I passed her on foot. Then I turned back, and she was with the farmer. That young one has got the face of a government mule, but I'm used to mules, and when she asked me I said, ''Pears to me, little girl, you favour a runaway, and I ain't got no room for runaways in this narrow rig, 'specially as I'm taking a bundle of clothing to my dear old father'--likewise a young pig," he added, as there was a decided squeal from between his feet.

"Thank you, thank you," came faintly after him as he started off at a spanking gait, and, "You're badder than I thought you was," came reproachfully from the tumbled head peeping above the lap-robe.

"You're grateful!" he said, ironically.

"I'm bad, but I only asked the Lord to forgive the lies I'd got to tell," said the little girl as she once more established herself on the seat. "You should 'a' said, 'No, ma'am, I didn't see the little girl'--an' druv on."

"I guess you're kind of mixed in your opinions," he remarked.

"I ain't mixed in my mind. I see things as straight as that air road," she replied. "I said, 'This is a bad business, for I've got to run away, but I'll be as square as I can.'"

She paused suddenly, and her companion asked, "What's up with you?"

"Nothin'," she said, faintly, "only I feel as if there was a rat inside o' me. You ain't got any crackers round, have you?"

"No, but I've got something better," and he drew a flask from the pocket of his big ulster and put it to her mouth.

Her nostrils dilated. "I'm a Loyal Legion girl."

"Loyal Legion--what's that?"

"Beware of bottles, beware of cups, Evil to him who evil sups."

"Oh! a temperance crank," and he laughed. "Well, here's a hunk of cake I put in my pocket last night."

The little girl ate with avidity the section of a rich fruit loaf he handed her.

"How about your dog?" asked the young man.

"Oh, I guess he ain't hungry," she said, putting a morsel against the brown muzzle thrust from the shawl. "Everythin' was locked up last night, an' there warn't enough lunch for him an' me--see, he ain't for it. He knows when hunger stops an' greed begins. That's poetry they taught us."

"Tell us about that place you've been raised. No, stop--you're kind of peaked-looking. Settle down an' rest yourself till we pull up for dinner. I'll gabble on a bit if you'll give me a starter."

"I guess you favour birds an' things, don't you?" she observed, shrewdly.

"Yaw--do you?"

"Sometimes I think I'm a bird," she said, vehemently, "or a worm or somethin'. If I could 'a' caught one o' them crows this mornin' I'd 'a' hugged it an' kissed it. Ain't they lovely?"

"Well, I don' know about lovely," said the young man, in a judicial manner, "but the crow, as I take him, is a kind of long-suffering orphan among birds. From the minute the farmers turn up these furrows under the snow, the crow works like fury. Grubs just fly down his red throat, and grasshoppers ain't nowhere, but because he now and then lifts a hill o' petetters, and pulls a mite o' corn when it gets toothsome, and makes way once in so often with a fat chicken that's a heap better out o' the world than in it, the farmers is down on him, the Legislature won't protect him, and the crow--man's good friend--gets shot by everybody and everything!"

"I wish I was a queen," said the little girl, passionately.

"Well, sissy, if you ever get to be one, just unmake a few laws that are passed to please the men who have a pull. Here in Maine you might take the bounty off bob-cats, an' let 'em have their few sheep, an' you might stand between the mink and the spawning trout, and if you want to put a check on the robins who make war on the cherries an' strawberries, I guess it would be more sensible than chasing up the crows."

"I'm remarkin' that you don't beat your horse," said his companion, abruptly.

"That mare," said the young man, reflectively, "is as smart as I be, and sometimes I think a thought smarter."

"You wouldn't beat that little dog," she said, holding up her bundle.

"Bet your striped shawl I wouldn't."

"I like you," she said, emphatically. "I guess you ain't as bad as you look."

The young man frowned slightly, and fell into another reverie.