Treasure Valley Part 6

Miss Arabella stood gazing after the trim figure. She sighed enviously. "She's the lucky girl," she whispered, "but it's awful queer she don't want to go on with her singin'."

A smart vehicle turned out of a gate farther up the street and came whizzing past. The young man driving raised his hat with an air of deference as he pa.s.sed the girl by the roadside. Miss Arabella leaned farther over the gate.

"He looked at her awful pleased like," she said; and then her face grew pale with a sudden thought. "I'll give it to her," she whispered, choking down a rising sob. "He'll marry her, I'm sure he will, and if he does I'll give it to her, and I won't be foolish any more, so I won't." The prospect of speedy wisdom seemed a very doleful one, and Miss Arabella's figure drooped and shrank as she moved indoors.

"Arabella!" called a sharp voice over the fence, "have you got your place all red up yet?"

"Not quite, Susan," was the apologetic answer. "I've jist to do the back stoop."

"Well, don't be so long, for pity's sakes. I'm goin' up to see what sort of a baby Jake and Hannah's got, and you can come along jist as soon as you're done."

"All right, Susan." The little woman returned to her task meekly. Her small, slim hands and her frail body did not look at all suited to heavy toil, yet no one in the village worked harder than the little lilac lady. For when her own house was set in order, and brushed and swept and scrubbed, exactly as Susan demanded, Miss Arabella crossed the orchard and washed and baked, and sewed for her brother's children.

She had just finished the lowest step of the porch when she was startled by a tremendous uproar in the Sawyer orchard, and the next moment something came hurtling over the fence and landed with a splash in the pail at her feet. It was a round object, brightly colored and s.h.i.+ning.

"Oh, Lordy, ain't we havin' a slow time!" screamed Polly, most inappropriately.

"Save us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Arabella.

The Sawyer orchard was separated from Miss Arabella's garden by a high board fence, further fortified by Miss Arabella's long, neat woodpile.

Hitherto, the place had been used exclusively as a parade-ground for Isaac and Rebekah, and the Sawyers' hens; but now it seemed to have been suddenly populated by all the children in the village, shrieking, scolding and laughing. Could the orphan be big enough to run at large?

And had the McQuarry and the Cross and the Williams children all met to celebrate its arrival?

"Save us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Arabella again, "they must 'a' got a noisy one!"

There was a scrambling, tearing noise on the other side of the fence, and a head arose above it, followed by the figure of a boy. It was a queer, wasted, tiny figure, with one shoulder higher than the other.

The face was pinched and weird-looking, with that strange mixture of childishness and age that is seen in the countenances of the unfortunate little ones who are called out too early into the battle of life. A long, claw-like arm reached out, and a finger pointed at the object in Miss Arabella's pail.

"That there's our ball!" said the elf sharply. "Give us a throw!"

Miss Arabella stared, motionless.

"Are--are you Jake Sawyer's orphant?" she asked incredulously.

The boy grinned, a queer contortion of his wizened little face with more mischief in it than mirth.

"Naw, I'm just the tail of it," he answered enigmatically. "Say, when did the folks in that there house adopt you?"

Miss Arabella was too much astonished and abashed to reply; and just at that moment a second object appeared on the woodpile. It arose from the Sawyer orchard like the first, swinging itself up feet foremost in some miraculous fas.h.i.+on. This time it was a girl, larger and more robust than the boy, but plainly younger. Her eyes were wild, her face was bold, and she had a mad mop of bushy black hair. She perched herself astride the top board of the fence and gave back Miss Arabella's stare with interest.

"Where on earth did you come from?" cried Miss Arabella.

"None o' your business!" was the prompt retort. "Hand over that there ball!"

Miss Arabella had no time to obey, for a third apparition arose out of the Sawyer orchard, feet first, and perching itself astride the fence, commanded, "Histe over that there ball!" It was another girl, exactly like the first, except that her mad mop of hair was yellow instead of black. Miss Arabella rubbed her eyes, and wondered, in dismay, if she had been gifted with a new kind of double vision.

"Oh, my land alive!" she whispered. "Has Jake Sawyer been and gone and brought home all the orphant asylum? Mercy me! Is the yard full o'

ye?" For still another head was struggling to make its appearance above the fence-top. It was a fiery red head this time, covered with crisp little curls. It belonged to a very small boy, the youngest of the quartette. His round, impish face was full of delighted grins.

His dancing eyes radiated laughter and good-nature.

The four surveyed Miss Arabella's evident consternation with great enjoyment, while that startled lady stood and stared at the array with something of the feelings that Cadmus must have experienced when he beheld the fierce warriors rise from the planting of the dragon's teeth.

"We're the Sawyer orphant," said the eldest imp, with apparent relish.

"An' if you don't hand over that there ball mighty quick we'll all come after it."

Galvanized into action by this threat, Miss Arabella flung the toy far among the orchard trees, and with shrieks the four small figures disappeared. Miss Arabella darted around to the front porch in a panic, and carried her parrot into the comparative safety of the house.

Fortunately the noise had scared the bird into silence. But if those four wild things should once get into her garden, she reflected, what ever would become of Polly?

She ran out again, but there was no sign of the newcomers, and the noise was retreating in the direction of Jake's stable. She flung off her ap.r.o.n, and running to an opening in the woodpile, proceeded to climb the fence. She must go over to Hannah's immediately; yes, even if Susan objected, and see what was the meaning of this sudden inundation of orphans.

She was balanced on the top of the fence when the doctor's landlady appeared, walking leisurely up the street to buy a pound of b.u.t.ter at Long's store for the doctor's dinner.

Any other woman in the towns.h.i.+p would have expressed surprise at Miss Arabella's remarkable position, and evident perturbation, but the silent Mrs. Munn looked at her unconcernedly.

"Somethin' awful's happened, Harriet!" cried Miss Arabella. "Hannah's got her orphant, an' what d'ye s'pose it's like?"

"It's got red hair," ventured Mrs. Munn, undisturbed.

"Red hair! It's got red hair, an' three other kinds. An' it's got four heads!"

"What!" shrieked Mrs. Munn, shaken out of her accustomed indifference.

"Arabella! You don't mean----"

But here Miss Arabella's hold on the fence relaxed, and she disappeared into the orchard. Mrs. Munn turned her back on Long's store and hurried up the street in the same direction. New doctor or no new doctor, this crisis must be met at once. The innocent and facile character of the Sawyers had long been a problem in Elmbrook, but who could have dreamed that, even in their weakest moment, Jake and Hannah could have been decoyed into adopting a four-headed monster!

Mrs. Munn's heart was heavy with dread as she hurried up the lane.

Miss Arabella had already arrived, and nearly all the other women of the village were there. As she reached the door a chorus of shouts and screams broke from the enclosed yard at the back of the house. Mrs.

Munn s.h.i.+vered. They had evidently tied up the fierce creature in the stable, where it was exercising its four pairs of lungs all at once!

But the next Instant the stable door flew open, and four figures, two mop-headed little girls in abbreviated skirts, a small, red-headed toddler, and a queer, limping boy, the fleetest of all, were precipitated into the yard. They flung themselves over the fence and went, shrieking, away across the field. Mrs. Munn drew a great breath; there was relief in it, and yet terror. It was not quite so bad, but bad enough. What was to become of Elmbrook if the Sawyers had adopted four orphans?

Mrs. Sawyer was sitting in the middle of a wildly disordered kitchen, surrounded by her neighbors. She had the air of a child who has done wrong, and knows it, but hopes for mercy. Evidently the orphans had refused to be displayed to the visitors, for their foster-mother was apologizing for their non-appearance. "They're kind o' wild yet," she explained meekly, "not ever bein' out of a big city in their lives.

But Jake says jist to let them loose, an' they'll kind o' tame down all the sooner. There ain't no use callin' after them," she added resignedly, as Mrs. Winters made a threatening movement toward the door. "It jist makes them run all the harder, an' mebby they'll get as far as the pond. We'd better jist let them be."

"Well, go on wi' your story, Hannah," said old Miss McQuarry. "What possessed ye to take all the bairns, wumman?"

Mrs. Sawyer folded her hands in her lap and continued:

"It kind o' came on us gradual like. Jake an' me jist couldn't help it. Ye see, his idea was always for a little boy with red hair, like our Joey would 'a' been, an' I was always wantin' a little girl with yellow curls. Well, Jake, he knowed what I wanted, and he said if we seen a nice little girl with curly hair we'd take her; but I knowed his heart was set on a red-headed boy all the same, an' I stuck out for a boy. We talked about it so hard all the way there that we near forgot to get off when we got to the station, an' only that Minnie Morrison's aunt was there, we'd 'a' never moved. As it was, we forgot the basket with the pound cake and the cookies and the home-made cheese--and--and the crock o' b.u.t.ter," she faltered, with a contrite glance toward Harriet Munn.

"Oh, my, what a pity!" groaned Miss Arabella, remembering all she had suffered in toiling down the lane with the basket.

"It don't matter much, though," continued the narrator placidly. "Jake said somebody'd get them that likely needed them worse than Minnie Morrison. Well, in the afternoon, after we'd visited a while, Jake hired a livery rig an' we drove out to the orphant home. We talked quite a while to the lady that's head over all--the matron they call her; an' then she took us into a room near as big as our mill, an'

there was about two dozen or more children playin' 'round. And the very minit we got inside that door Jake he hollers out, 'Oh, geewhittaker!' An' I seen his eyes were s.h.i.+nin' like a cat's in the dark. An' there he was, starin' as if he'd found a gold mine, at the wee, red-headed fellow we've got. An' no wonder, either; for he's as like our Joey would 'a' been as two peas. The matron she saw Jake was took with the wee fellow, an' she calls him over, an' Jake says, 'What's your name?' An' he says, as cute as cute, 'It's Joey.' An'

with that, Jake grabs him up, an' the little fellow climbed up to his shoulder an' crowed like a little rooster, an' Jake looked near ready to cry, he was that pleased. 'Well,' I says, 'I guess we've got our orphant all right,' an' Jake says, 'Oh, Hannah, but your girl!' 'Never mind the girl,' says I, 'this one was made for us, an' his name, too.'

Well, we jist turned 'round to tell the matron, when I sees a wee girl, with curly hair, standin' straight in front o' Jake an' starin' at him, with her lip quiverin'. That's the fair one o' the twins. An' she says in a wee, wee voice, as if she was tryin' fearful hard not to cry, 'Are ye goin' to take our Joey away?' she says. 'Is he your brother?'

says I. She jist nods her head. An' she says again, in a whisper, 'Are you goin' to take him away?' Well, Jake he looked at me, an' I looked at him, an' we could both see we were thinkin' the same thing.

'She's the kind of a girl you want,' says Jake, 'an' mebby she'd help take care o' the wee chap.' 'D'ye think we can afford it?' says I; an'

then she kind o' sidles up to me, an' says she, 'Aw, you won't take Joey away, will you?' An' then the matron says, 'She's a good little girl, Mrs. Sawyer; you won't ever regret it if you take her.' An' I thought how lovely I'd make her hair curl, an' tie it up with a pink ribbon, an' jist then she ups an' puts her two little arms around my neck, an' she whispers, 'We couldn't get along without our Joey,' jist awful pitiful like. An' I looks at Jake, an' Jake looks at me, an' he nods, an' I says, 'All right.' It was the only thing to do, now, wasn't it?"