Carolyn of the Corners Part 23

"All lost, Uncle Joe?" quavered Carolyn May.

"All lost," repeated the hardware merchant firmly.

"Then-then I _am_ just charity. And so's Prince," whispered Carolyn May.

"I-I s'pose we could go to the poorhouse, Prince and me; but they mayn't like dogs there."

"What's that?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Joseph Stagg in a sharp tone. "What's that?"

he repeated.

"I-I know you aren't just used to children," went on Carolyn May, somewhat helplessly. "You're real nice to me, Uncle Joe; but Prince and me-we really are a nuisance to you."

The man stared at her for a moment in silence, but the flush that dyed his cheeks was a flush of shame. The very word he had used on that fateful day when Carolyn May Cameron had come to The Corners! He had said to himself that she would be a nuisance.

"Maybe we ought to have gone to a poorhouse right at first," stammered the little girl, when Mr. Stagg broke in on her observation in a voice so rough that she was startled.

"Bless me, child! Who put such an idea into your head?"

"I-I thought of it myself, Uncle Joe."

"Don't you like it any more here with Aunty Rose and-and me?" he demanded.

"Oh, yes! Only-only, Uncle Joe, I don't want to stay, if we're a nuisance, Prince and me. I don't want to stay, if you don't love me."

Joseph Stagg had become quite excited. He stood up, running his fingers through his bushy hair, and knocking off his hat.

"Bless me!" he finally cried once more. "How do you know I don't love you, Car'lyn May?"

"Why-why-But, Uncle Joe! how do I know you do love me?" demanded the little girl. "_You never told me so!_"

The startled man sank upon the log again.

"Well, maybe that's so," he murmured. "I s'pose it isn't my way to be very-very-softlike. But listen here, Car'lyn May."

"Yes, sir."

"I ain't likely to tell you very frequent how much I-I think of you.

Ahem! But you'd better stop worrying about such things as money and the like. What I've got comes pretty near belonging to you. Anyway, unless I have to go to the poorhouse myself, I reckon you needn't worry about going," and he coughed again drily.

"As far as us loving you-Well, your Aunty Rose loves you."

"Oh, I know she does!" agreed Carolyn May, nodding.

"Hum! How do you know that so well, and yet you don't know that I love you?"

"Oh-well-now," stammered Carolyn May, "when there isn't anybody else around but Aunty Rose and me, she tells me so."

"Hum!" Mr. Stagg cleared his throat. "Well, there isn't anybody else around here but you and me-and the dog," and his eyes twinkled; "so I'll admit, under cross-examination, that I love you."

"Oh, Uncle Joe!" She bounded at him, sobbing and laughing. "Is it really so? Do you?"

For the first time Joseph Stagg lifted her upon his knee. She snuggled up against his vest and put one little arm around his neck-as far as it would go.

"_Dear_ Uncle Joe!" she sighed ecstatically. "I don't mind if I _am_ charity. If you love me, it takes all the sting out. And I'll help to make you happy, too!"

"Bless me, child!" came huskily, "ain't I happy enough?"

"Why, Uncle Joe, I don't believe you can be really and truly happy, when you are always worrying about business. You don't ever seem to have time to _look up_ and see the sky, or stop to hear the birds sing.

"Seems to me, Uncle Joe," concluded Carolyn May, giving a happy little jump on his lap, "that if you let your mind sort o' run on-on something besides hardware once in a while, maybe you would have time to show me how _much_ you loved me. Then I wouldn't have to ask."

The man looked at her somewhat blankly. Then he turned his head, ran his hand through his bushy hair, and gazed away meditatively.

The little girl had awakened his heart. And that heart was very, very sore.

CHAPTER XIV-A FIND IN THE DRIFTS

Before the week was over, winter had come to Sunrise Cove and The Corners in earnest. Snow fell and drifted, until there was scarcely anything to be seen one morning when Carolyn May awoke and looked out of her bedroom windows but a white, fleecy mantle.

This was more snow than the little girl had ever seen in New York. She came down to breakfast very much excited.

"What are we going to do about all this snow?" she asked. "Why! there isn't any janitor to shovel off the walk, and no street cleaners to clear the crosswalks! How am I ever going to get to school?"

"I reckon you'll get to school, all right, if the men get through with the ploughs before half-past eight. And if Miss Minnie gets here,"

chuckled Uncle Joe.

He went out and fed the fowls for Aunty Rose and did the other ch.o.r.es.

But when he started for the store, promising to send Chet Gormley up to dig the paths, he had to wade through drifts higher than the top rail of the fences.

"Don't-don't they shovel up the snow and put it in carts and carry it all away?" asked Carolyn May of Aunty Rose.

"Who ever heard the like?" returned Mrs. Kennedy. "What kind of a way is that to do, child? And where would they cart it to? There's just as much snow in one place as there is in another."

"Why, in New York," explained the little girl, "there's always an army of men at work after a snowstorm-poor men, you know. And lots and lots of wagons. My papa used to say the snow was a blessing to the poor who wanted to earn a little money.

"Of course, lots of the men that shovel snow don't have warm coats-or mittens, even-or overshoes! They wrap their feet in potato sacks to keep them warm and dry."

"Well, well," murmured Aunty Rose. "So that's what they do with snow in the city, is it? Live and learn."

Uncle Joe had shovelled off the porch and steps, and Prince had beaten his own dooryard in the snow in front of his house. For he had a house of his own, now-a roomy, warm one-built by Mr. Parlow.

It must be confessed that, although Uncle Joe paid for the building of this dog-house, it never would have been built by Jedidiah Parlow had it not been for Carolyn May. At first the grouchy old carpenter refused to do the job.

"I ain't got to work for Joe Stagg's money-not yit, I guess," growled the carpenter. "Tell him to git somebody else to build his house."