Carolyn of the Corners Part 7

Mr. Stagg shook his head and lost interest in his wedge of berry pie.

"There are inst.i.tutions-" he began weakly; but Aunty Rose said quickly:

"Joseph Stagg! I know you for what you are-other people don't. If the neighbours heard you say _that_, they'd think you were a heathen. Your own sister's child!

"Now, you send Tim, the hackman, up after me this afternoon. I've got to go shopping. The child hasn't a thing to wear but that fancy little black frock, and she'll ruin that playing around. She's got to have frocks, and shoes, and another hat-all sorts of things. Seems a shame to dress a child like her in black-it's punishment. Makes her affliction double, I do say."

"Well, I suppose we've got to flatter Custom, or Custom will weep,"

growled Mr. Stagg. "But where the money's coming from--"

"Didn't Car'lyn's pa leave her none?" asked Aunty Rose promptly.

"Well-not what you'd call a fortune," admitted Mr. Stagg slowly.

"Thanks be, you've got plenty, then. And if you haven't, I have," said the woman in a tone that quite closed the question of finances.

"Which shows me just where I get off at," muttered Joseph Stagg as he started down the walk for the store. "I knew that young one would be a nuisance."

CHAPTER VI-MR. JEDIDIAH PARLOW

Carolyn May, who was quite used to taking a nap on the days that she did not go to school, woke up, as bright as a newly minted dollar, very soon after her Uncle Joe left for the store.

"I'm awfully sorry I missed him," she confided to Aunty Rose when she danced into the kitchen. "You see, I want to get acquainted with Uncle Joe just as fast as possible. And he's at home so little, I guess that it's going to be hard to do it."

"Oh, is that so? And is it going to be hard to get acquainted with me?"

asked the housekeeper curiously.

"Oh, no!" cried Carolyn May, snuggling up to the good woman and patting her plump, bare arm. "Why, I'm getting 'quainted with _you_ fast, Aunty Rose! You heard me say my prayers, and when you laid me down on the couch just now you kissed me."

Aunty Rose actually blushed. "There, there, child!" she exclaimed.

"You're too noticing. Eat your dinner, that I've saved warm for you."

"Isn't Prince to have any dinner, Aunty Rose?" asked the little girl.

"You may let him out, if you wish, after you have had your own dinner.

You can feed him under the tree. But stand by and keep the hens away, for hens haven't any more morals than they have teeth, and they'll steal from him. I don't want him to snap any of their heads off before they're ready for the pot."

"Oh, Aunty Rose," said Carolyn May seriously, "he's too polite. He wouldn't do such a thing. Really, you don't know yet what a _good_ dog Prince is."

Carolyn May was very much excited about an hour later when a rusty, closed hack drew up to the front gate of the Stagg place and stopped.

She and Prince were then playing in the front yard-at least, she was stringing maple keys into a long, long chain (a delight heretofore unknown to the little city girl), and the dog was watching her with wrinkling nose and blinking eyes.

An old man with a square-cut chin whisker and clothing and hat as rusty as the hack itself held the reins over the bony back of the horse that drew the ancient equipage.

"I say, young'un, ain't ye out o' yer bailiwick?" queried Tim, the hackman, staring at the little girl in the Stagg yard.

Carolyn May stood up quickly and tried to look over her shoulder and down her back. It _was_ hard to get all those b.u.t.tons b.u.t.toned straight.

"I don't know," she said, perturbed. "Does it show?"

"Huh?" grunted Tim. "Does what show?"

"What you said," said Carolyn May accusingly. "I don't believe it does."

"Hey!" chuckled the hack driver suddenly. "I meant, do you 'low Mrs.

Kennedy knows you're playing in her front yard?"

"Aunty Rose? Why, of course!" Carolyn May declared. "Don't you know I _live_ here?"

"Live here? Get out!" exclaimed the surprised hackman.

"Yes, sir. And Prince, too. With my Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose."

"Pitcher of George Washington!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tim. "You don't mean Joe Stagg's taken a young-'un to board?"

"He's my guardian," said the little girl primly.

"'Guardian'?" repeated the hackman, puzzled. "You don't mean you're one o' them fresh-airs, be ye?"

Carolyn May was quite as much puzzled by that expression as she had been by "bailiwick." She shook her head.

"I don't think I am," she confessed. "Mrs. Price said I was an orphan.

Is that anything like a fresh-air?"

"Most of them is," the hackman said sententiously. "But here's Mrs.

Kennedy."

Aunty Rose appeared. She wore a close bonnet, trimmed very plainly, and carried a parasol of drab silk. Otherwise, she had not changed her usual attire, save to remove the voluminous ap.r.o.n she wore when at her housework.

"I would take you with me, child," she said, looking at Carolyn May, "only I don't know what to do with that dog. I suppose he would tear the house down if we shut him in?"

"I expect so," admitted the little girl.

"And if he was outside, he would follow the hack?"

"Yes, ma'am," agreed Carolyn May again.

"Then you'll have to stay at home and watch him," said Aunty Rose decisively. "I always claimed a dog was a nuisance."

Between Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose, both of the visitors at the Stagg place were proving to be nuisances.

Aunty Rose climbed into the creaky old vehicle.

"Are you going to be gone long?" asked Carolyn May politely.

"Not more than two hours, child," said the housekeeper. "n.o.body will bother you here--"