Harper's Round Table, August 6, 1895 Part 4

"Why don't you try and make the best of things? I always do. It doesn't really pay to do anything else."

"Very good philosophy. But if you have come out merely to lecture me on my duties as a step-daughter, I think we may as well turn round and go home again."

"Oh, come off, Edith! You're a nice girl in the main, and I think it's a howling shame for you to make yourself so mighty offish and disagreeable to Hessie. Why, if any one ought to mind it--her marrying, I mean--I'm the one. It makes a big difference to me."

"Will you let me get out and walk home, if you have not the grace to drive me there? You have no manner of right to talk to me this way."

"I know I haven't, and I'm awfully sorry if I've offended you. I'm afraid I have. You'll forgive me, Edith, please! Don't go home. I've put my foot in it, like the great awkward fellow I am. But I hate to see things all at sixes and sevens the way they are, and I thought perhaps if I told you what Hessie really is you would feel differently. If you only knew what a good sister she's been to me! You know our father and mother died when I was a little duffer, and Hessie's been an A1 sister ever since. Our grandmother didn't take much stock in me because I was a boy, but Hessie always stood up for me. It's natural I should take her side. I hate to see any one dislike her. But I see it's no use, and I'm sorry I spoke. But, say, you will excuse me, Edith. You don't like it, and I ought not to have said anything, and I apologize."

This was Neal in a new light. Edith was astonished. She had supposed that he was only a rollicking boy, too lazy to amount to anything, and too fond of a joke to think of the more serious side of life.

She hesitated. She was very angry with him. Of course he had no business to speak to her on this subject, but he was evidently sorry. His brown eyes looked very repentant, and there was not a shadow of a smile in them.

"Come now, Edith," he urged, "do it up handsomely, and forgive and forget. Give me your hand on it."

And Edith did so, and with difficulty repressed a shriek at the hearty squeeze that was given it. And just as they had reached this point in their conversation there was a sudden crash. Off went the wheel, and down went buggy, Edith, and Neal in a heap.

Fortunately the horse stood still. They were in the depths of the wood, two miles from any house. A few startled birds fluttered among the trees, and a gray squirrel paused in his day's work to view the scene.

Neal and Edith crawled out from the debris.

"Here's a pretty how-d'y' do," said Neal, surveying the wreck. "Edith, I greatly fear you'll never drive in that buggy again."

He unhitched the horse, and then removed the remnants of the vehicle to the side of what road there was, and partially hid them in the bushes.

"On that rock we split," said he, solemnly, pointing to a big stone that rose high above a rut. "If I hadn't been so busy apologizing, Edith, we wouldn't have gone to pieces. However, perhaps now you will use the surrey."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEN THEY STARTED HOME, CARRYING THE CUSHIONS BETWEEN THEM.]

It was a dangerous speech, but Edith tried not to mind it, and she helped Neal to clear away the stuff. Then they started for home, Ned leading Robin, the old horse, while together they carried the cushions and a lap-robe that had been under the seat.

Neal, his spirits raised by the accident, was in his gayest humor, and the quiet air rang with his laughter as they trudged home in the heat.

Edith quite forgot her previous displeasure, and was so like her old self that Neal in his turn was surprised, and thought she was almost as nice as Cynthia. He had never seen her in this mood before.

When Neal abruptly deserted the children in his pursuit of Edith they were at first too much amazed to do anything but stand perfectly still and watch him. Then, as the back of the buggy disappeared behind the trees, their wrath found words.

"Mean old things!" exclaimed Janet. "They've gone off and left us, an' I tickerlarly wanted Neal to tell us a story."

Bob joined the group, his tail disconsolately lowered. His master had been very harsh and unfeeling to leave him at home, he thought. The trio stood in a row on the top step of the piazza. Then, with a feeble and melancholy wag of the tail, Bob again stretched himself on the gra.s.s and prepared to make the best of a bad bargain.

The others were not so easily appeased.

"We've got nuffun' to do," grumbled w.i.l.l.y. "I wish we could play wif de chickens."

"We can't do that," said Janet, decidedly. "We can't touch those chickens if we don't want a terrible spanking. You know what papa said."

The chickens presented a powerful fascination for w.i.l.l.y. He was revolving in his mind the question as to whether it would or would not pay to be spanked for the sake of having some fun with the chicks.

"No, no," said Janet, who had no fancy for a whipping. "We've got to do somethin' else." She paused. Slowly a gleam of mischief came into her eyes, and a smile broke over her round and rosy face. "w.i.l.l.y, we'll play barber."

"How do we do it?"

"I speak to be barber. Don't you remember when papa took you to have your hair cut? Well, you be papa an' you bring Bob, an' we'll cut his hair. Neal said it was turrible hot for him. Neal'll be glad when he comes home an' finds it all nicely cut."

"Course he will. Only I'd like to be barber, Janet."

"No, I will. It is my game, so I can be barber. Get the hat and be papa."

w.i.l.l.y obeyed, and presently returned in a large straw hat that had once been his father's farm hat, and was now relegated to a back closet for use in the children's games. Janet, meanwhile, had found a large pair of scissors in Edith's basket, unfortunately left on the porch, with which she was viciously snipping the air.

"We'll have some fun even if they did go off an' leave us," said she.

"Bring along Bob. Here's the chair."

But Bob refused to be brought. He lay stretched on his side, now and then weakly wagging his tail in response to their commands, but otherwise not stirring. It was too hot to move for any one but his master.

"We'll have to do it there. We'll pretend he's a sick person that has to have his hair cut off. They do sometimes, you know," said Janet, with an air of superior knowledge. "You can be my 'sistant. Here's a scissor for you"--extracting another pair from the too convenient basket.

In a moment they were both hard at work. Snippity, snip, clip, clip, went the two pairs of scissors. Bob's beautiful long black hair, the pride of his master's heart and the means of securing a prize at the last dog-show, lay in a heap on the gra.s.s.

"That's nice," said Janet, surveying the result with satisfaction. "He must feel lovely and cool. Now let's do the other side."

But that was not so easy. Bob still refused to stir. They pulled and punched and pushed, but he would not turn over.

"Well, we'll just have to leave it an' do it 'nother time," said Janet at last, with a parting clip at ear and tail. "Let's go down an' play in the brook."

And flinging the scissors on the gra.s.s, these two young persons deserted the scene of their labors, and were soon building a fine dam across the brook in the pasture. There they remained until the sound of the bell on the carriage house, rung to summon to dinner the men at work in the distant fields, warned them that it was twelve o'clock and almost time to go in themselves.

Edith and Neal plodded slowly homeward. It was very warm, for though it was not sunny in the woods, the trees shut off the air. They turned in from the lane and walked up the avenue, Robin's hoofs falling regularly on the gravel with a hot, thumping sound.

"Jiminy, this is a scorcher!" said Neal, wiping his forehead. "Here comes Bob. He doesn't seem to mind the weather. No, it isn't Bob, either. What dog is it? Great Scott, Edith, it _is_ Bob! What has happened to him?"

He dropped the reins, and Robin trudged off alone to his stall.

"Why, Neal, I never saw such a sight!" cried Edith.

Bob, bounding merrily over the gra.s.s, overjoyed at seeing his master return, was quite unconscious of the effect he produced. On one side he was the same beautiful, glossy-coated creature he had ever been; on the other, through stray, uneven bunches of hair gleamed touches of whitish skin. His ears, which had measured a proud eighteen inches from tip to tip, flapped on either side in ungraceful scantness; and his tail, from which so short a time before had waved a beautiful raven plume, now wagged in uncompromising stubbyness.

"Bob, Bob, what has happened to you? You look as if you had been in a fire!"

Edith, with an awful foreboding in her heart, hurried towards the house.

Yes, her fears were realized! Two pairs of scissors and a ma.s.s of black hair told the tale. She sank down on the steps and covered her face.

"The children have done it," she murmured. "Oh, Neal, we ought never to have left them!"