Honey-Sweet Part 20

"Her hair's gray and her skin is white and wrinkly. And she wears long black dresses. That's all I know."

"I want to see her. Let's sit at the head of the steps and watch for her to come out," suggested Anne.

They sat there what seemed a long time but as the little old lady did not appear, they finally ran off to play with Honey-Sweet and Nancy Jane.

While they were thus engaged, Mr. Collins came from the mill. He shook his dripping hat, and hung up the stiff yellow rain-coat that he called a 'slicker.'

"I come by the station, wife," he announced. "And what you think? Thar's a gre't big sign up, 'Lost child.'"

"Sho! Whose child's lost?" inquired Mrs. Collins.

"It's Anne," was the reply. "The printed paper give her name and age and all. And it tells anybody that's found her or got news of her to let them 'sylum folks know."

"As if anybody with a heart in their body would do that!" commented Mrs.

Collins. "I bound you let folks know she was here. If you jest had sense enough to keep yo' mouth shet, Peter Collins! That long tongue of yours goin' to be the ruin of you yet."

"I ain't unparted my lips," a.s.serted her husband.

"Now ain't that jest like a man?" Mrs. Collins demanded of the clock.

"'Stead of trying to throw folks off the track, saying something like 'What on earth's a lost child doing here?' or 'n.o.body'd 'spect a lost child to come to my house!'"

"I wish you'd been thar, Lizbeth," said her admiring husband. "You'd fixed it up. Well, anyhow, I ain't said a word, so don't n.o.body know nothin' from me. All she's got to do is to lay low till this hub-bub's over."

In that out-of-the-way place there seemed little danger of Anne's being discovered. Mrs. Collins, however, made elaborate plans for her concealment.

"Anne," she said, "would you mind me callin' you my niece Polly?"

Anne looked at her in questioning surprise.

"If so be people from the 'sylum was to look for you, you wouldn't want to go back thar, would you?"

"Oh, no! I'd much rather stay here," answered Anne.

"Bless your heart! and so you shall," exclaimed Mrs. Collins. "I'll trim your hair and part it on the side and call you my niece Polly. And can't n.o.body find out who you are and drag you back to that 'sylum. You shall stay here forever."

"Goody, goody!" cried Anne. Then she said thoughtfully, "I do wish I had some of my things from there. It doesn't matter so much about my clothes. Lizzie's are most small enough and I s'pose I'll grow to fit them. But I do wish Honey-Sweet had her dresses, 'spressly her spotted silk and her blue muslin. And there are some other things. Uncle Carey said they were my mother's and I don't want Miss Farlow to keep them always."

"When you are grown up, you can go and get them," suggested Mrs.

Collins.

"Oh, so I will," said Anne. "And please, may Lizzie go with me?"

CHAPTER XXIII

A day or two later, Anne wandered alone into the old-fashioned garden.

She had just recalled--bit by bit things from the past came back to her--a damask rose at the end of the south walk that was her mother's special favorite. It was bare now of its rosy-pink blossoms and Anne gathered some red and yellow zinnias to play lady with. The red-gowned ladies had their home under the Cherokee rose-bush and yellow-frocked dames were given a place under the clematis-vine; then they exchanged visits and gave beautiful parties.

Presently a slim, black-robed lady sauntered down the box-edged turf walk and stopped near Anne.

"What are you doing, little girl?" she asked.

Anne looked up at the lady. "How do you do, cousin?" she said, scrambling to her feet and putting up her mouth to be kissed. It was one of the cousins, she knew, and it was the most natural thing in the world to see her come down the box-edged walk to the rose-arbor; but whether it was Cousin Lucy or Cousin Dorcas or Cousin Polly, Anne was not sure.

It was Cousin Dorcas and she stared at the child for a moment, too amazed to speak.

"It cannot be little Nancy!" she exclaimed at last. "Child, who are you?"

"Why, of course, I'm little Nancy," Anne laughed.

"What are you doing here? Where did you come from?"

"I am playing flower dolls." Anne answered the questions gravely in order. "I got off the train because I wanted to come home. I thought Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard were here."

Miss Dorcas Read sat down on a rustic seat and questioned her small cousin until she drew forth the story of the child's wanderings.

"I am glad I have found you," the lady said when Anne's story was finished. "You ought to be with your own people, of course, and I am your near kinswoman. Your great-grandmother and my grandmother were sisters. It is little that I have, but that little I shall gladly share with you. I must take you with me when I go home next week."

"Where is your home?" asked Anne.

"In Washington City. I am one of the little army of government clerks,"

Miss Dorcas explained. "I come back every summer to spend my vacation here. I walk in the dear old garden and read the dear old books and live again in the dear old days. You do not understand now, child; but some day, if you live long enough, you will understand."

Lizzie wailed aloud when she learned that Anne was to leave 'Lewis Hall,' and in her heart Anne preferred her old home to her old cousin.

"You shouldn't never have gone to a 'sylum," said Mrs. Collins, wiping her eyes with her ap.r.o.n. "But when one of your blood-kin lays claim to you, that's diff'rent and I ain't got no call to interfere. I got sense enough to know my folks ain't like yo' folks. Yours is the real old-time quality folks and you ought to be brung up with your own kind. Now, we is a bottom rail that's done come to the top. My chillen's got to be schooled and give book-learnin'. Some day they'll forget they was ever anything but top rails, and look down on their old daddy and mammy."

"I ain't, mammy; I ain't never gwi' look down on you," declared Lizzie.

"That's all right, honey," answered Mrs. Collins. "I want you to be hotty and look down on folks. I never could l'arn to do it. I was always too sociable-disposed."

"No one can ever look on you except with respect, dear Mrs. Collins,"

Miss Dorcas insisted. "Certainly, Anne and I shall always regard you as one of her best friends. She will want to come to see you next vacation, if you will let her."

"Let her! and thank you, ma'am," exclaimed Mrs. Collins. "Now I'm going to unload them pantry shelves. You shall have sweetmeats and jam and preserves and pickle for yo' snacks, Anne, and I want you to think of Lizbeth Collins when you eat 'em."

Before Anne and Cousin Dorcas went to Washington, it was resolved that they should visit Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard, who lived on a plantation eight miles from 'Lewis Hall.' Mrs. Collins doubted the wisdom of the plan, fearing lest some of the 'sylum folks on the lookout for Anne would be met on the public road. Miss Dorcas, too, was a little uneasy. It was finally decided that Anne should wear one of Lizzie's frocks and her sunbonnet and that if they met any one on the road, Miss Dorcas was to say in a loud voice, "Lizzie!" and Anne was to answer, "Yes, ma'am."

Mr. Collins brought out an old buggy with an old horse called Firefly and helped Miss Dorcas in, explaining carefully, "This ain't no kicker and it ain't no jumper. It's jest plain horse with good horse-sense. If you don't cross yo' lines, you can drive him anywhere."

"I don't know much about driving," confessed Miss Dorcas. "That is, I've been driving a great deal but I've never held the lines.--Whoa! get up, sir!" She gave a gurgly cluck, and flapped the lines up and down on Firefly's back, with her elbows high in air. Firefly started meekly off on a jog trot. Mr. Collins looked after them.

"Dumb brutes is got heap more sense than humans," he exclaimed. "They understands women. Now, Miss Dorcas she's whoain' and geein' and hawin'

that horse at the same time, but somehow he knows what she wants him to do and he's gwine to do it."

Firefly followed the winding of the river-road mile after mile, along meadows, fields, and wooded hills, fair in the hazy sunlight. How many times Anne had travelled this road on visits to the numerous cousins!