Carolyn of the Corners Part 28

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Carolyn May. "My papa and mamma might have been just like that," she added. "Of course, we don't know whether they got off the steamship at all."

"Aye, aye!" the sailor said. "Pretty tough on you, little miss."

Miss Amanda had come back into the room, and she stood listening to the old man's talk. She said:

"Carolyn May, I think you had better go downstairs now. We mustn't let our patient talk too much. It won't be good for him."

So Carolyn May shook hands with the old sailor and started downstairs ahead of Miss Amanda. The latter lingered a moment to ask a question.

"What was the name of the steamship you were wrecked on?" she asked.

"The one you were just telling about."

"She was the _Dunraven_-the _Dunraven_, of the Cross and Crescent Line,"

replied the mariner. "Didn't I tell you that before, ma'am?"

CHAPTER XVII-WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE?

Again it snowed all night. "My goodness me!" sighed Carolyn May the next morning when she arose, to find all the paths filled up again. "Don't it _ever_ stop snowing till springtime comes around again, Aunty Rose?"

"Oh, yes," answered the housekeeper, smiling quietly. "But I thought you loved the snow?"

"I do," the child responded. "Anyway, I guess I do," she added. "But-but couldn't they spread it out a little thinner? Seems to me we must be getting it all at once. Why, I can't see any of the walls or fences!"

That was true enough. Uncle Joe had even to dig Prince out of his house that morning. After that, when it stormed, Prince was allowed to lie by the kitchen fire-certainly a great concession on Aunty Rose's part.

This was really the heaviest storm of the season, so far. When Carolyn May floundered to school, with Prince going in front to break the path, there was a huge bank of snow piled against one corner of the schoolhouse. This quite closed up the boys' door, and only the girls'

entrance could be used.

But the boys got to work at recess and tunnelled through the great drift, so that there was a pa.s.sage to their door. The wind had packed the snow hard, and the crust had frozen, so there was a safe roof over the tunnel through the snow.

At noon some of the girls went through the pa.s.sage, too; and among them was Carolyn May. As she went down the steps she laughed gleefully, crying:

"Oh, it's like going into the subway, isn't it?"

"What's the subway?" asked Freda Payne instantly. "You don't mean to say you have snow tunnels like this in the city, do you? You said men carted the snow all away in wagons, or melted it. Can't be much snow where you come from, Car'lyn May."

"Oh, no; not snow tunnels," the city child explained. She had to do a good deal of explaining these days. "The subway's just a hole in the ground, and you go down steps into it, and it's all-all marble, I guess, 'cause it's white and shiny. And trains come along, and you get on, and you ride all the way from One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street down to papa's office, and--"

"Oh, Car'lyn May Cam'ron!" shrieked Freda.

"Trains under the ground?" demanded another of her schoolmates.

"Yes," said the little city girl.

"Trains of _cars_? Like our trains up here?"

"Ye-es," said Carolyn May slowly, feeling that her tale was disbelieved.

"My mercy!" declared the black-eyed girl. "That's the biggest story you've told us yet. I'm going to tell my mamma about that. She says you've got such a 'magination. But I know _this_ is just plain fib, and nothing else-so there!"

It hurt Carolyn May sorely to have her word doubted. She had begun to shrink from telling her little friends about any of the wonders which had been such commonplace matters to her when she had lived in New York.

They simply could not believe the things the city child said were so.

It was on this very day, and at noon time, when Mr. Stagg was returning to the store, that a most astounding thing happened.

Had Mrs. Gormley seen it, that good woman would have had such a measure of gossip to relate as she had not enjoyed for a long time. It was, indeed, a most amazing occurrence.

Mr. Stagg was walking briskly towards Sunrise Cove in his big felt snow-boots, such as all men wore in that locality, and was abreast of the Parlow shop and cottage-which he always sought to avoid looking at-when he heard a door open and close.

He tried not to look that way. But his ear told him instantly that the person who had come out was Miss Amanda, rather than her father. Knowing this, how could he help darting a glance at her?

For more years than he cared to count, Joseph Stagg had been pa.s.sing back and forth along this road. Sometimes, in his secret heart, he wished the Parlow place would burn down, or be otherwise swept from its site. It was an abomination to him. Yet he was always tempted to steal a glance as he pa.s.sed, in hope of seeing Miss Amanda. He often saw Mr.

Parlow staring from his shop at him, his grey old face puckered into a scowl, but the carpenter's daughter was seldom in evidence when Mr.

Stagg went by. She might be, at such times, behind the front-room blinds peering out at him; but he did not know that.

It had not always been so. As Chet Gormley's gossipy mother had told Carolyn May, time was when the hardware dealer-then having just opened his store in Sunrise Cove-and the carpenter's daughter were frequently together.

Often when Joseph Stagg came in sight of the Parlow residence Amanda was at the gate. She sometimes walked to town with him. He even remembered-but that was still earlier in their lives-pulling her on his red sled. There had never been any other girl Joe Stagg cared for. And now--

He ventured another quick glance towards the Parlow side of the road.

Miss Amanda stood on the porch, looking directly at him.

"Mr. Stagg," she called earnestly, "I must speak to you."

Save on the Sunday when Prince had killed the blacksnake, Miss Amanda had not spoken directly to the hardware merchant in all these hungry years. It rather shocked Joseph Stagg now that she should do so.

"Will you come in?" she urged him, her voice rather tremulous.

There was a moment of absolute silence.

"Bless me! Yes!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the hardware man finally.

He turned in at the path to the gate, opened the latter, and reached the porch. He was quite himself when he arrived before her.

"I a.s.sure you, Mr. Stagg," Miss Amanda said hurriedly, "it is no personal matter that causes me to stop you in this fashion."

"No, ma'am?" responded the man stiffly.

He was looking directly at her now, and it was Miss Amanda who could not bring her gaze to meet his. Her face had first flushed, and now was pale. The long lashes, lowered over her brown eyes, curled against her smooth cheek. Like Carolyn May, Mr. Stagg thought her a very lovely lady, indeed.

"I want you to come in and speak with this sailor who was hurt," she finally said. "Carolyn May has told you about him, hasn't she?"

"The whole neighbourhood has been talking about it," returned Joseph Stagg grimly.

"Yes, I suppose so," Miss Amanda said hastily. "There is something he can tell you, Mr. Stagg, that I think you should know."