What Two Children Did Part 15

"I'll get mine out to-day," said Ethelwyn, "and we'll see whether she can or not. When will she come home, mother?"

But mother was reading Aunty Stevens's letter, and did not hear.

"The Home is getting on beautifully," she said presently. "There are ten pale little children out there now. d.i.c.k is quite well and strong again, and helps with the work in every way. They are very anxious that we shall come on this summer."

"O let's; for my birthday," said Ethelwyn. "Can't we, mother?"

"I will see. But Grandmother Van Stark would like one of you to come out and stay with her for a few days. Peter is coming in this afternoon and will take one of you out."

"O me!" they cried at once.

"Let's pull straws," suggested Ethelwyn; so she ran to find the broom.

It was she who drew the longest straw, and Beth drew a long breath, saying with cheerful philosophy, "Well, I am thankful not to leave mother. I'd prob'ly cry in the night, and worry dear grandmother." So every one was satisfied, and Ethelwyn, dimpling delightfully under her broad white pique hat, bade them good-bye, and took her place beside Peter in the roomy old phaeton.

"Are you any relation of St. Peter's?" she asked politely, after they were well on the way.

"n.o.body ever thought so," said Peter, looking down at her with a twinkle in his eye.

"Well, I didn't know," she said. "I thought I'd like to ask you some questions about him if you were. We have had a good deal about him at Sunday-school lately. I'm studying my lessons nowadays for a prize; they are going to give a sacrilegious picture to the child that knows her verses the best by Easter, and I think maybe I'll get it, for I'm only about next to the worst now."

"How many are there of you?"

"O, a lot; but if I do get it, I shall ask for a goat and cart instead.

We have plenty of pictures at home, but we are much in need of a goat and cart."

Peter had a peculiar habit, Ethelwyn afterwards told her grandmother, of shaking after she had talked to him awhile, and gurgling down in his throat. She felt sorry for him. "He was prob'ly not feeling well; maybe what Aunt Mandy calls chilling," she said.

She found grandmother making pumpkin pies, for the minister and his wife were coming to dinner the next day. Grandmother was famous for making pumpkin pies, and never allowed any one else to make them.

"It's my grandmother's recipe," she said, and Ethelwyn nearly fell off her chair trying to imagine grandmother's grandmother.

"I shouldn't suppose they would have been discovered then," she said, after a struggle. "Pumpkin pies don't go out of style like clothes, do they, grandmother?"

"Mine never have," said grandmother proudly. "I suppose Mandy never makes pumpkin pies."

"Yes she does, but they don't grow in yellow watermelons; they live in tin cans."

"Pooh!" said grandmother, "they can't hold a candle to these."

"No, but why would they want to?"

"Hand me that j.a.panned box with the spices, please, dear. Now you'll see the advantage of doing this sort of thing yourself; here are mustard and pepper boxes in this other j.a.panned box, but I know just where they always stand, so I could get up in the night and make no mistake."

Just then grandmother was called away from the kitchen.

"Don't meddle and get into mischief, will you, deary?" she said. And Ethelwyn promised.

She intended to keep her word, but while she was smelling the spices, it struck her that it would be a good joke to season the pies from the other box. "Like an April fool," she thought; so she took a spoon and measured in a liberal supply of mustard and red pepper; then she went out into the yard.

It was fortunate that the minister and his new wife were not coming until the next day. Ethelwyn, however, spent a very unhappy afternoon.

That night she woke up sobbing, and crawled into grandmother's big bed.

"What's the matter, child?" said grandmother, sitting up in bed with a start. "Are you sick?"

"Yes, grandmother, awful! You'll never like me again, I know." And then she told her about the pumpkin pies.

"Well, child, I am thankful you told me," said grandmother with a sigh, "for when you are as old as I am, and have a reputation for doing things, it goes hard to make a failure of them, and I should have been much mortified. Fortunately there are plenty of pie sh.e.l.ls, and there is more pumpkin steamed, so that I can season and put them together in the morning. But I am glad, dear child, that your conscience wouldn't let you sleep comfortably until you had told; be careful, however, never again to break your word. Remember the Van Starks' watchword, 'Love, Truth, and Honor.' Now cuddle down here and go to sleep."

Ethelwyn, feeling much relieved, slept in the canopy bed with grandmother, until long past daylight. When she came down-stairs, the great golden pies were coming out of the oven, and the minister and his wife violated propriety and made Grandmother Van Stark proud and happy by eating two pieces each.

_CHAPTER XVII_ _Out at Grandmother's_

Grandmother's house, I tell you most emphatic, Is full of good times from cellar to the attic.

There came to Grandmother Van Stark's one day, a forlorn black tramp kitten, mewing dismally.

Ethelwyn, who loved kittens devotedly, was melted to the verge of tears by his wailing appeals in a minor key; so she cuddled him and fed him on Lady Babby's creamy, foamy milk. In the intervals of eating, however, he still wailed like a lost soul.

"The critter don't stop crying long enough to catch a mouse," said cook, eyeing the disconsolate bundle of grief with strong disfavor.

"He almost did this morning, Hannah," said Ethelwyn in his defense. "I saw him watching a hole, and he's so little yet, I grabbed him away.

Besides, I don't like mice myself, and I was so afraid I'd see one or two."

"No danger; his bawling will keep them away," said Hannah, grimly.

"O, well then, his crying is some good, after all," returned Ethelwyn, triumphantly. "That's a good deal nicer than killing the poor little things."

"Humph!" said Hannah.

But Grandmother Van Stark had given orders that Johnny Bear--so named from one of Ernest Thompson-Seton's ill.u.s.trations, which Ethelwyn thought he resembled--was to be treated tenderly and fed often, because Ethelwyn loved him, and she herself loved to feed hungry people and animals.

But one morning there was a great commotion over the discovery that a mouse had been in Grandmother Van Stark's room.

"This is a chance for Johnny Bear to make a reputation as a mouser,"

said grandmother. "We will take him up-stairs to-night and he shall have a chance to catch that mouse."

"O grandmother, I'm sure he will," said Ethelwyn, earnestly; so she talked to him that afternoon about it.

It had rained in the afternoon,--a cold drizzly rain, so Nancy had lighted a little snapping wood-fire in Grandmother Van Stark's sitting-room. Into this opened the sleeping room in which was Ethelwyn's small bed, and the big mahogany tester bed, where Grandmother Van Stark had slept for more years than Ethelwyn could imagine.

Ethelwyn put Johnny Bear and his basket in front of the grate. It was so "comfy" that he stopped yowling at once and began to purr.

"How does middle night look, Nancy?" said Ethelwyn, as she lay in her little bra.s.s bed, watching the dancing shadows on the wall.