At the Little Brown House Part 3

"Ten dollars!" gasped the astonished girl, examining the dingy bill with excited curiosity. "Someone must have lost it--"

"And pinned it to the gatepost so's we could find it?" demanded Peace.

"Well, I guess not! Bet that tramp left it. He surely must be a prince.

What shall you do with it, Gail?"

"Show it to mother and ask her advice," promptly answered the oldest girl, smiling down at the excited group of sisters; and they hurried away to the house with the precious find--all but Peace.

A wild, daring thought had suddenly sprung into her active brain, and as her sisters vanished within doors, she flew madly up the road through the summer twilight towards the little village, clasping a shining half dollar tightly in her fist. In a surprisingly short time she returned, breathless but triumphant, bearing a huge paper sack in her arms, just as an anxious group came around the corner of the house.

"Peace! Where have you been?" cried Gail in relief, as the panting form flew in at the gate.

"We've been hunting all over the farm for you," added Faith, severely.

"Thought you might be searching for some more money," laughed Hope.

"What's in that big bag?" demanded Cherry.

"Cakes!" gasped Peace, proudly. "Faith said Mrs. Waddler would be nasty if we didn't take something to eat this time, so I spent the tramp's half dollar for some of those marshmallow cakes with nuts on top. They are dandy good, and they cost a lot, but they weigh light, so you get a big bag full for fifty cents. Not many people have money enough to buy them very often, and Mrs. Waddler can't say a word about our bringing them instead of a cake. Have one, Gail and Allee, 'cause you aren't going to the reception. And take one up to mother. Maybe she'd like them, too."

"But, Peace," Faith began, sharply, then stopped at a warning glance from Gail, and with sudden gentleness she took the bulky sack from the small sister's arms and started off for the church where the reception was to be held.

They were somewhat late in arriving, and the little building was already well filled with a laughing, light-hearted crowd, gathered to welcome the new minister into their midst. Glancing hastily about her, Faith saw one empty chair in a dim corner, and pointing it out to Peace, she said, "Sit down over there, and remember not to talk except when you are spoken to. Above everything else, don't get to romping. Hope and Cherry are to help Miss Dunbar pa.s.s the cake, so they are needed in the kitchen. Remember, now!"

"Yes, I will," was the unusually meek reply, and Peace obediently curled herself up in the corner to watch proceedings, thankful to be one of the gay company, but wistfully wishing that she might join in the merrymaking. It wasn't so bad when the program hour came, for everyone sat down then and listened quietly to the music and speeches, but it was very lonely in the dim recess, where Peace was almost hidden from sight, and she longed to have someone to talk to. Everyone was so busy introducing themselves to the young minister and his pretty, sprightly little wife, or gossiping among themselves, that no one paid any attention to the somber, brown eyes peering so eagerly from the corner.

"Oh, dear," sighed Peace at length, "I might as well have stayed at home like Faith said, for not a single soul has said a word to me since I came in, and I don't s'pose I will even get a chance to speak to the new minister. My, but he's got an awfully pretty wife! Wish she would smile at me like that. There come the 'freshments. Like as not they'll skip me, off here by myself. If Cherry forgets, I'll shake her good when I get home. A piece of cake is dry eating when all the rest have lemonade, but I'd rather have that than nothing. There, that man is going to play again--Faith is pulling out the stops of the organ. Doesn't he look funny?"

She laughed aloud at a sudden ludicrous fancy, and her laugh was echoed so close beside her that she nearly jumped out of her chair. Recovering herself, she whirled around to find the strong-faced young pastor looking down at her.

"What do you find so funny to laugh at, hid away here in this dark corner?" he asked, in a cheery, hearty voice, as he drew up an old stool and sat down beside her.

And, forgetting her fright in the friendly glance and tone of this new preacher, Peace giggled out, "I was just thinking s'posing we were all gra.s.shoppers, how funny we'd look hopping around here instead of walking. We'd have to shake feet instead of hands, and if we wanted to go across the room all we'd have to do would be to take a big jump."

For a fraction of a second the minister was dumb with amazement at the unexpected answer; then he threw back his head and laughed uproariously, as he gasped, "What ever put such a thought in that little noddle?"

"That man with the big fiddle," was the prompt reply. "Doesn't he look like a gra.s.shopper with that long-tailed coat and all that shirt front?

If he just had feelers on his head, he'd be perfect. Don't you think so?"

Again the young man laughed, for Peace's picture was not overdrawn--the tall, angular cellist in evening dress certainly did resemble a gra.s.shopper. But, of course, it would never do for him to say so, and he sought to turn this unusual conversation by inquiring, "Aren't you one of the Greenfield girls? You look amazingly like two or three who have been introduced to me this evening. Isn't the organist a sister of yours?"

"Yes, that's Faith."

"And the blue-eyed one just coming in the door?"

"That's Hope."

"And there is a third one here somewhere, is there not?"

"Yes, Cherry. Her real name is Charity, but that is such a long name for a little girl that we call her Cherry."

He smiled at the diminutive maiden with her grown-up air, and said musingly, "Faith, Hope and Charity. Then you must be Mercy."

"Oh, mercy, no!" was the horrified exclamation. "That would be worse than ever! I am Peace. Faith says I ought to have been called 'War and Tribulation'--it would have been more 'propriate; but I am not to blame for my name, if it doesn't fit. I would have been something else if I'd had my way about it. Unless babies are named pretty names I think their folks ought to wait until they can pick out their own names. Grandpa named me--all of us but Gail and Allee. If I just hadn't been born for two weeks longer maybe I'd have had a pretty name, too, for grandpa died when I was only thirteen days old. You see, grandpa was a minister--papa used to be a minister, too--and he never had any other children but papa, so he didn't get a chance to do much naming in his own family.

Papa named Gail; her real name is Abigail. And then grandpa came to live with us. He liked Bible names, so the rest of us were picked out of the Bible--except Allee, and she wasn't born then. Mamma named her."

She paused for breath, and the amused, amazed preacher found opportunity to murmur, politely, "But I am sure you all have good names--"

"Oh, yes, they are good enough! The trouble is, they don't fit, except Hope's. She is our sunbeam, always doing and saying something pretty, and _meaning_ it, too. Now, Gail isn't a gale at all, but just the bestest kind of a sister; while Faith is usu'lly cross as two sticks unless things go just as she wants them; and Cherry doesn't stand around on corners d'livering _tracks_ and worn-out clo's to the needy poor, like Charity always does in the pictures. But mine is the worst misfit.

Still, I'm thankful it isn't any worse. Just s'posing I had Irene for a middle name--that's my favorite, and Olive is Hope's choice--then my 'nitials would have spelled P. I. G. and hers H. O. G.; and the school children would never have called us anything else. I know, 'cause they call Nort Thomas Nettie. His whole name is Norton Edwin Thomas, but he always signed his 'nitials on his 'rithmetic papers, and the boys took to calling him Nettie. It makes it all the worse 'cause he is a regular sissy boy. Have you got any children?"

"No."

"Well, I s'pose you will have some day, and if I was you, I'd name them something pretty, or else wait till they got big enough to choose for themselves. And whatever you do, don't let your church people raise 'em."

"Wh--at?"

"That's just what they'll _try_ to do. They did with our family, and when they got us all spoiled, they said we were the worst children in town--that ministers' children always were. Why, Mrs. Waddler--her name is Wardlaw, but she is so big and fat that I call her Waddler--that's her over there feeding cake to that sc.r.a.p of a man--he's her husband--well, she told Mrs. Grinnell once that I was possessed of seven devils. I asked mother what that meant, and she was dreadfully mad. It takes a lot to make mother mad, too. When we first moved here to Parker, Mrs. Wardlaw thought I was the cutest little girl she had ever seen--she told me so lots of times--but she doesn't any more. Now she says I am a hoy-ena--no, that isn't the word. It means tomboy, anyway. That is what Mr. Hardman calls me, too. He's the _imbecile_ who lives on the farm next to our place."

"The wh--at?"

"Well, he is! He says so himself. He doesn't b'long to any church, and hardly ever goes, and he says r'ligion is all tommyrot."

"Oh, you mean infidel," suggested the pastor, trying hard not to laugh again.

"Maybe. His name is really Hartman. I nicknamed him 'cause he won't let us have the hazelnuts in his pasture, and he stole my pet chicken,--leastwise, he let it stay in his flock so now I can't coax it back; and he chased us out of his apple trees one day when we were just climbing after one pretty red one way up high out of reach. We did knock off quite a few, but we never meant to carry them off with us. He doesn't like girls, and says if he had a family of six like us, he'd--"

"Are you six girls all there are?"

"Isn't that enough? Seems to me it's a pretty big family. When I was little, Cherry and me used to pray that the angels would never bring any more babies to our family, 'cause the pieces of pie were getting awfully little, and, of course, they got littler every time there was another baby. But they brought us Allee anyway. That was just after mother's onliest uncle died and left her some money, and she made papa take it and buy our farm and bring us out here to live after he had been sick a long, long time with _tryfoid_ fever, and had lost all his pretty hair."

"Didn't you say your papa was a minister?"

"I said he used to be."

"What is he now?"

"An angel."

"Oh!"

"You see, papa went right on acting like a preacher even after the bad people in Pendennis made him sick; and when Old Skinflint--I mean Mr.

Skinner--most folks call him deacon, but I guess it's just 'cause he is so different from a truly deacon, and is always blaming the Lord for everything that happens--well, when he got cold and had pneumonia, papa helped take care of him. The deacon is so ugly that hardly anyone else would have anything to do with him; and one rainy night papa was soaked going up to Skinner's house, and he had to sit up 'most of the night in a cold room, 'cause the deacon wouldn't have anyone in his room where the fire was. So papa caught cold, too, and he never got well. The angels came and carried him away."

"Oh!"

"Yes, and I heard Mrs. Abbott tell a lady one day that she thought mother would soon be an angel, too. Do you s'pose she will?" The big, brown eyes had suddenly grown wide with fear, and Peace piteously searched the strong face above her for some comforting a.s.surance.

Just a moment he hesitated, and then answered, tenderly, "We shall all be angels some day if we are good."