Carolyn of the Corners Part 12

Carolyn May went in through the front gate and sat down on the doorstep, while Prince dropped to a comfortable att.i.tude beside her. The dog slept. The little girl ruminated.

She would not go back to Uncle Joe's-no, indeed! She did not know just what she would do when dark should come, but Prince should not be sacrificed to her uncle's wrath.

In the morning she would walk to the railroad station. She knew how to get there, and she knew what time the train left for the south. The conductor had been very kind to her all the way up from New York, and she was sure he would be glad to take her back again.

She and Prince! They were both happier in that small Harlem apartment, even with papa and mamma away, than they ever could be at Sunrise Cove.

And, of course, Prince could not be happy after he was "drownd-ed dead!"

So it all seemed to the heart-hungry child sitting on the doorstep of the abandoned house. A voice, low, sweet, yet startling, aroused her.

"What are you doing there, little girl?"

Both runaways started, but neither of them was disturbed by the appearance of her who had accosted Carolyn May.

"Oh, Miss Mandy!" breathed the little girl, and thought that the carpenter's daughter had never looked so pretty.

"What are you doing there?" repeated Miss Parlow.

"We-we've run away," said Carolyn May at last. She could be nothing but frank; it was her nature.

"Run away!" repeated the pretty woman. "You don't mean that?"

"Yes, ma'am. I have. And Prince. From Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose," Carolyn May a.s.sured her, nodding her head with each declaration.

"Oh, my dear! What for?" asked Miss Amanda.

So Carolyn May told her-and with tears.

Meanwhile the woman came into the yard and sat beside the child on the step. With her arm about the little girl, Miss Amanda snuggled her up close, wiping the tears away with her own handkerchief.

"I just _can't_ have poor Prince drownd-ed," Carolyn May sobbed. "I'd want to be drownd-ed myself, too."

"I know, dear. But do you really believe your Uncle Joseph would do such a thing? Would he drown your dog?"

"I-I saw him putting the stones in the bag," sobbed Carolyn May. "And he _said_ he would."

"But he said it when he was angry, dear. We often say things when we are angry-more's the pity!-which we do not mean, and for which we are bitterly sorry afterwards. I am sure, Carolyn May, that your Uncle Joe has no intention of drowning your dog."

"Oh, Miss Amanda! Are you pos'tive?"

"Positive! I know Joseph Stagg. He was never yet cruel to any _dumb_ creature. Go ask him yourself, Carolyn May. Whatever else he may be, he is not a hater of helpless and dumb animals."

"Miss Amanda," cried Carolyn May, with clasped hands, "you-you are just lifting an awful big lump off my heart! I'll run and ask him right away."

She put up her lips for Miss Amanda to kiss, but she could not wait to walk properly with her new friend to the corner. Instead, she raced with the barking Prince back to the Stagg premises. Mr. Stagg had just finished filling in with the stones the trench Prince had dug under the garden fence.

"There," he grunted. "That dratted dog won't dig this hole any bigger, I reckon. What's the matter with you, Car'lyn?"

"Are-are you going to drownd Princey, Uncle Joe? If-if you do, it just seems to me, I-_I shall die_!"

He looked up at her searchingly.

"Humph! is that mongrel so all-important to your happiness that you want to die if he does?" demanded the man.

"Yes, Uncle Joe."

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the hardware dealer again. "I believe you think more of that dog than you do of me."

"Yes, Uncle Joe."

The frank answer hit Mr. Stagg harder than he would have cared to acknowledge.

"Why?" he queried.

"Because Prince never said a word to hurt me in his life!" said Carolyn May, sobbing.

The man was silenced. He felt in his inmost heart that he had been judged.

CHAPTER IX-PRINCE AWAKENS THE CORNERS

Camp-meeting time was over, and the church at The Corners was to open for its regular Sunday services.

"Both Satan and the parson have had a vacation," said Mr. Stagg, "and now they can tackle each other again and see which'll get the strangle hold 'twixt now and revival time."

"You should not say such things, especially before the child, Joseph Stagg," admonished Aunty Rose.

Carolyn May, however, seemed not to have heard Uncle Joe's pessimistic remark; she was too greatly excited by the prospect of Sunday-school.

And the very next week-day school would begin!

By this first week in September the little girl was quite settled in her new home at The Corners. Prince was still a doubtful addition to the family, both Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose plainly having misgivings about him. But in regard to the little girl herself, the hardware merchant and the housekeeper were of one opinion, even though they did not admit it to each other.

Aunty Rose remained, apparently, as austere as ever, while Joseph Stagg was quite as much immersed in business as formerly. Yet there were times, when she and the child were alone, that Mrs. Kennedy unbent, in a greater or less degree. And on the part of Joseph Stagg, he found himself thinking of sunny-haired, blue-eyed "Hannah's Car'lyn" with increasing frequency.

"Didn't you ever have any little girls, Aunty Rose?" Carolyn May asked the housekeeper on one of these intimate occasions. "Or little boys? I mean of your very own."

"Yes," said Aunty Rose in a matter-of-fact tone. "Three. But only to have them in my arms for a very little while. Each died soon after coming to me. There was something quite wrong with them all, so the doctors said."

"Oh, my dear! All three of them?" sighed Carolyn May.

"Two girls and a boy. Only one lived to be three months old. They are all buried behind the church yonder. My husband, Frank Kennedy, was not one of us. I married out of Meeting."

The little girl knew that she meant her husband, long since dead, had not been a member of the congregation of Friends. She leaned against Mrs. Kennedy's chair and tucked what was meant to be a comforting hand into that of Aunty Rose.

"Now I know something about you," Carolyn May said softly.