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   :PG.Id: 35822
   :PG.Title: That Little Girl of Miss Eliza’s
   :PG.Released: 2011-04-10
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Roger Frank
   :PG.Producer: the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
   :DC.Creator: Jean K. Baird
   :DC.Title: That Little Girl of Miss Eliza’s
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1918
   :coverpage: images/cover.jpg

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That Little Girl of Miss Eliza’s
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      Title: That Little Girl of Miss Eliza’s
      
      Author: Jean K. Baird
      
      Release Date: April 10, 2011 [EBook #35822]
      
      Language: English
      
      Character set encoding: UTF-8

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   | :xl:`THAT LITTLE GIRL`
   | :xl:`OF MISS ELIZA’S`
   |
   | A STORY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
   |
   | BY
   | :lg:`JEAN K. BAIRD`
   |
   | ROCK ISLAND, ILL.
   | :small-caps:`Augustana Book Concern`
   |
   |
   |
   |
   | *Printed in the United States of America.*
   |
   | :sm:`AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN, PRINTERS AND BINDERS`
   | :sm:`ROCK ISLAND, ILLINOIS`
   
CHAPTER I.
==========

“The poorest farming land in all the country,” someone
called it. “The best crop of stones and stumps, I ever
saw,” someone else had said. Everyone smiled and drove
on, and Shintown and its people passed from their
knowledge.

“Shintown? Where in the name of goodness
did they get such a name?” the elderly gentleman
in the touring car asked his companion.

“Have to use your shins to get here. It used
to be that Shank’s mare was the only one that
could travel the miserable roads. They were mere
foot-paths. Even the railroads have shot clear of
it. See over there.”

There was truth in the words. Shintown, which
was no town at all, but a few isolated farmhouses,
looked down from its heights on one side upon the
main line of the Susquehanna Valley, five miles
away. On the other side, at a little more than half
the distance, the branch of the W. N. P. and P.
wound along the edge of the river. Both roads
avoided Shintown as though it had the plague.
The name was quite enough to discourage anyone.
Nature had done its best for the place, the people
had done their worst. It stood in the valley, and
yet on a higher elevation than the country adjacent,
the mountain being twenty miles distant.
It was as though a broad table had been set in a
wide country, with the mountain peaks as decorous
waiters standing at the outer edge.

The houses were sagging affairs. They were
well enough at one time, but were now like a good
intention gone wrong. The storm had beaten upon
them for so many years that all trace of paint
was gone. The chimneys sloped as far as the law
of gravity allowed. Gates hung on one hinge, and
the fences had the same angle as an old man suffering
with lumbago.

The corners of the fields were weed-ridden. The
farmers never had time to plow clear to the corners
and turn plumb. The soil had as many
stones as it had had twenty years before. The
whole countryside was suffering from lack of ambition.
Crops were small, and food and clothes
were meager. The stock showed the same attributes.
It was stunted, dwarfed, far from its natural
efficiency in burden bearing, milk-giving or
egg-laying.

There was one place not quite like this—the
old Wells place at the cross roads. The house was
neither so large, nor so rambling as the others. It
stood deep among some old purple beeches, and in
summer it had yellow roses clambering over one
entire side. The color was peculiar, and marked
its occupant and owner just a little different from
other people in the community. Everyone conceded
that point without a question. She was just
a little different. The house was all in shades of
golden brown; brown that suggested yellow when
the sun shone. It was a color that not a man in
Shintown or a painter at the Bend or Port would
have thought of putting on a house. Who ever
thought of painting a house anything but white
with green shutters or a good, serviceable drab?
Golden browns in several shades! Why, of course,
the woman must be peculiar. She did the work
herself too. She arose at daylight to paint the
upper portion and she quit work when travel on
the highway began.

That was another peculiarity which the countryside
could not understand; a woman who could be
independent enough to choose what color she
would, in defiance of all set laws, and yet afraid
to let folks see her climbing a ladder to the second
story.

If peculiar means being different, Eliza Wells
was that. She was thirty, and never blushed at
it. She had even been known to mention her birthdays
as “I was twenty-nine yesterday. How time
does fly!” And she said it after the manner of
one who might have said, “To-morrow I set the
old Plymouth Rock on a settin’ of Dominick eggs.”

But the country folk were kind enough and overlooked
her not being as themselves. There was a
knowing smile now and then, a sage nodding of
the head. Now and then someone went as far as
to say, “That’s Liza’s way. She never did act like
other folks.”

Eliza knew she was peculiar and tried her best
to be like those about her. She had never known
any other kind of people; for she had been born
and bred in the little place. But do as she could,
her own self would break loose every now and
then. In spite of her effort to be like other people,
there were times when she could be nothing but
her own unusual, individual self.

It was not that she admired the ways of life of
the people about her. Had she done so, it might
have been easier to have become like them. But
she argued in this fashion: if all these hundred
souls lived in one way and declared that to be the
right way, then surely she was wrong, and her
ideas had all gone awry somewhere; for one could
not stand against a hundred.

The old Wells place had all the finger-marks of
having a peculiar occupant. Hollyhocks all along
the walk to the milk-house, nasturtiums climbing
over a pile of rock; wistaria clinging to the trunk
of a dead tree; wild cucumber vines on a trellis
shielding the wood-pile and chip yard. In the
recess of the old-fashioned front entrance were
old blue bowls filled with nasturtiums.

The old blue delft had been in the family of
Eliza’s grandmother Sampson for generations.
Everybody knew it; but Eliza paraded them and
seemed as proud of them as though they had just
been purchased from Griffith’s “five and ten.” But
she couldn’t fool the people of Shintown. They
knew a thing or two and they were certain that
the bowls were over a hundred years old.

On hot days, she ate on her kitchen porch, which
she had enclosed with cotton fly-net, and she stuck
a bunch of pansies in a teacup and had them beside
her plate.

That was quite enough to show that she was
peculiar. No one else in the country put flowers
on the table. Indeed, no one raised them. What
was the use? They weren’t good to eat.

But Eliza’s place was not a farm, else she could
not have wasted so much time on worthless things.
Two acres was all she owned, and she kept half
of that in yard and flowers.

She would have had more room for garden if
she would have cut down one or more of her purple
beeches, but she would not do that. When Sam
Houston suggested it to her, saying in his blunt
way, “If you’d plant less of the ‘dern foolishness,’
you’d have more room for cabbages,” she replied,
with a merry glint in her eye, “Sometimes, I think
cabbages is the worst foolishness of all.”

Sam could make no reply to that. A man couldn’t
reason with a woman who had no more sense than
that.

Eliza Wells could afford to be a little different
from anybody else. In the vernacular of the
country, “she was well-fixed.” This meant not
that she had millions, or even a hundred thousand,
but there was money enough out at interest to
bring her in fifteen dollars each month. This, with
her garden truck and home, made her independent.

To have money in the bank was a distinguishing
mark of rank. Not a soul at Shintown except
Eliza could boast so much. Sam Houston was the
only one in the countryside who had tales to tell
of a father and a grandfather who lived on interest
money.

Her financial independence made Eliza’s peculiarities
a little more bearable. They were the idiosyncracies
of the bloated capitalist.

Eliza drove to the Bend the first of each quarter
to draw her interest money. She wore a black silk
dress and a little bonnet. How she hated the stiff
shininess of black silk. How miserably awkward
she felt with the caricature of black lace and purple
pansies, which custom called a bonnet, on her
head. But she had been reared to believe that
black silk was the only proper dress for a woman,
no longer young, and the days after twenty years
were always placed to the credit of age.

So she wore her black silk, although she saw
nothing pretty in it. The women of Shintown envied
her the possession of such a mark of gentility
and declared that Eliza had a good bit of style for
a woman of her age, and after a fashion all their
own were proud of her.

She always drove Old Prince when she went to
the Bend. There was always a little shopping
before she came home. Quarter day fell on the
first of July. The sun was fairly blazing upon
the stretch of dusty road which knew no shadow
of tree.

Miss Eliza was anxious to get home. Her hands
were sweating in their heavy gloves. Not a breeze
was stirring. The stiff black silk was not an easy
or comfortable dress for a hot day. Yet she let
Old Prince take his time. The flies bothered him
considerably, and he shied like a young colt at
every object in the road. He had not been out of
the stable-yard for a week and what energy had
been left to him had been bottled up for this trip
to town.

In his youth, some years before, he had been a
vicious animal which only a man with a steady
nerve and strong hand could manage. But age
had made him tractable. He went home at a
steady gait with the reins hanging loose on his
back, except when Eliza shook them to dislodge
an annoying fly.

As they turned the bend of the road at Farwell,
Old Prince shied suddenly and turned the wheels
deep in the ditch. Eliza steadied herself and
seized the reins. “There, old fellow, go quiet.
There hain’t nothing here to disturb you.”

Her words sounded brave enough, yet she
glanced apprehensively about. The new railroads
had brought their following of tramps, and Eliza
was fearful. She peered into the clump of elder
bushes which grew up along the hillside. It was
a beautiful rather than a fearful sight which met
her eyes. A big woman with great braids of yellow
hair sat in the shade of the underbrush. Eliza
did not notice that her dress was exceedingly
shabby. She did notice, however, that a little
child lay in her arms. Both were sound asleep
as though utterly exhausted by their travels.

They were strangers. Eliza knew that at a
glance. She knew all the residents of the valley.
A small traveling bag lay beside the woman. Her
hand resting lightly upon it, as though even in
sleep she would keep it in custody.

Miss Eliza spoke to Prince who would persist
in frolicking and garotting about like a colt. The
public road was not a safe sleeping place for a woman
and child. Eliza recognized her duty. Leaning
forward, she touched the woman’s hand lightly
with her whip. She did this several times before
the woman’s eyes opened.

“I’ve been trying to waken you,” said Eliza.
“The road is not a safe place to sleep.”

The woman looked wonderingly about, yawned
and rubbed her eyes. It was some minutes before
she could get her bearings. When her eyes fell
on the child, she smiled and nodded back at Eliza
and then got upon her feet and began to put herself
to rights.

“Where are you going?” asked Eliza.

The woman hesitated, puckered her brows and
at last said, “I—I bane gone to Yameston.”

“Foreign,” said Eliza mentally. She had no
idea where ‘Yameston’ was, but it was reasonable
to suppose that the woman was cutting across
country to take the flyer at the Port where it
stopped to change engine and crews.

“It’s no place for a woman to rest. Tramps
are thicker than huckleberries. Climb in and I’ll
drive you and your baby part of the way.”

The woman could not understand, but she did
grasp the meaning of Miss Eliza’s moving to the
opposite side of the seat and reaching forth her
hand to help her get into the carriage.

When they were safely seated, Miss Eliza
touched Old Prince with the whip. At that instant,
the oncoming flyer, as it entered the yard,
whistled like a veritable demon. The two were too
much for the old horse, who had been a thoroughbred
in his time and had never known the touch
of a whip. He reared on his hind feet, and then
with a mad plunge went tearing down the road
which was hemmed in on one side by the hills,
and whose outer edge lay on the rocky bluffs of
the river.

Miss Eliza held to the reins until they cut into
the flesh. Bracing herself against the dash board,
she kept Old Prince to the middle of the road.
Just as she felt sure that she could manage him, the
rein on the hillside snapped. The tension on the
other side turned the animal toward the edge of
the bank. Eliza dropped the useless rein, seized
the child in her arms and held it close to her
breast, hoping by her own body to protect it from
the fall. It was all the work of a second. She
shut her eyes even as she did this.

CHAPTER II.
===========

Eliza never could tell how long it was before
she opened her eyes again. She was conscious
at first of the sun beating down
upon her face. Bewildered she opened her eyes only
to close them again quickly against the unbearable
light of the sky at midday. She tried to move, but
her muscles were bound. A delicious sense of languor
was again stealing over her, when she moved
her hand slightly and felt water running over it.
This aroused her again, and set her thoughts in
motion. Little by little it all came back to her;
her drive, the woman and child and the run-away
horse. She knew now where she was. She need
not open her eyes to see. She was lying at the
foot of the stone wall at Paddy’s Run hill. She
could hear the noise of running water. She thought
of these things in a dreamy, far-off fashion
as though it were something she might have read
sometime. The child! Then she realized the awfulness
of what had happened. Had she killed
them both! She did not dare think of anything
so horrible. She lay quite still, straining every
nerve to listen for some sound of life. She heard
it at last. It was the most beautiful sound she
had ever heard in all her life. A low gurgly coo
and then the touch of baby fingers on her face.

“Pitty ady—det up. Pitty ady, don’t seep so
long.” The laughing dimpled face of the child
looked down at her. It had escaped then. It
was with a delicious feeling of thankfulness that
she closed her eyes, not to open them again for
several hours.

She was back in her own home then, lying on
the old mahogany davenport with all the neighbors
for miles about bending over her. She could
hear Sam Houston holding forth in the kitchen.
She listened, and there came to her in a listless
sort of way that Sam always was a brag.

“I was just settin’ out to walk down to the office,”
he was saying, “and when I came on to the
road, who should I see but that old rascal of a
Prince come walking along with one shaft hanging
to his heels and the reins floppin’ down on his
side. He looked as quiet as a lamb, for all the
world as though he had been put to grazin’ instead
of up to some devilment. I tell you right
here, it didn’t take me long to know that something
was up. I called Jim-boy, and off we started
as fast as legs could carry us, and sure enough
there the hull three of them lay—”

“Three! Three! Three of them!” The words
kept running off in Eliza’s mind. There were
three—herself, the baby and—she could not
remember who the third was. Then she did remember.
Like a flash all was clear. She raised
herself and was about to get up.

“There—there, Liza, you mustn’t.” Mrs. Kilgore
would have forced her back on the pillows.

“I must get up. There’s nothing at all the matter
with me.” Pushing aside the detaining hands,
she stood upon her feet. For an instant she was
a little giddy, but she steadied herself. Her muscles
ached as she moved. Her black silk waist
had been cut open the full length of the sleeve and
she saw that her arm was black and blue. It was
badly swollen. She could move it though, and
bruises will soon heal.

“Where’s the woman—the woman who was
with me?” she asked. She looked about on the
faces. Every woman in Shintown was there.
Old Granny Moyer sitting hunched up in the corner,
using snuff and gloating. Mrs. Kilgore, bustling
about with liniments and medicine bottles,
her face radiant with the happiness of waiting
upon the sick. From the room beyond came the
heavier tones of men’s voices. None of the women
had attempted to answer Eliza’s question. Her
head was whirling so that she forgot in an instant
that she had asked it. She listened to the voices
from the parlor. Then, with all the energy of
which she was capable, she moved quickly across
the room and entered what the countryside termed
‘the parlor.’ This room was one of the things
which Eliza disliked. She never said so. She
never gave her thoughts tangible form even to
herself. She simply avoided the room because she
never felt at ease or comfortable when she sat
within it.

There was a heavy Brussels carpet with bold
design in bright colors. The chairs had backs
as stiff as a poker. They were upholstered in red
plush with ball fringe everywhere it could be
stuck on. The walls were made hideous with
life-sized crayon portraits. Chenille curtains were
draped at the windows and a rope portière impeded
the opening and closing of the door. A large
marble-topped table stood in the center of the
room. It was all hideous enough even if the odor
of camphor and moth balls had not been in the air.
It was an awful example of clinging to customs
which are hideous.

Eliza never could sit there. She always felt
irritated and fussy whenever she put it to rights,
but yet she had not reached the stage of advancement
which seeks the cause and removes it.

Bracing herself against the jamb of the door,
she raised her aching, bruised hand and pushed
aside the rope drapery. The center-table with
its marble top had been removed from its accustomed
place and something else was there.

Eliza stood for a moment to look about her.
Squire Stout stood by, leaning on his cane. He
was a little shriveled-up creature with snowy hair.
His lips were thin and cruel. There was the air
of an autocrat, a demagogue about him. Near
him was Doctor Dullmer, whose face even now
had lost nothing of its helpful, cheery, optimistic
expression. There were other men in the group.
They had all been talking; but they ceased at the
sight of Miss Eliza standing in the doorway.

“You?” exclaimed Doctor Dullmer, advancing
and extending his arm for support. “What do
you mean? You should be in bed!”

“I am all right. Just bruised. That is all.”

She clung to his arm as she moved toward the
little group, which separated to make room for
her as she advanced.

Then she saw why the center-table with its
square marble top had been pushed to the wall
The woman lay there. Her beautiful yellow hair
was coiled about her head like a golden crown.
She looked so smiling and happy that Eliza could
not feel one pang of sorrow for her. She bent
over and smoothed the stranger’s forehead.

“I wonder who she was,” she said at length.

“Don’t you know?” the question came from
every man there and from the group of women
who had packed the narrow doorway. They were
too fearful and too nervous to enter.

“No, I do not,” said Eliza. “I know neither
her name nor her destination.”

“Sit down,” said Doctor Dullmer brusquely,
pushing forward a chair and forcing her, none too
gently, into it. She sat bolt upright and looked at
the men about her. She forgot that her arm was
aching with its bruises, and that a great cut near
her temple, which the doctor had stitched, was
making her head throb and tremble like an over-pressure
of caged steam.

“But she was with you.”—“You were driving
her.” “We supposed right along that she was
some of your kin.”

Eliza shook her head. “I’ll tell you how it happened
so,” she began. “I never saw her—”

“Don’t talk about it now. Better wait until to-morrow,
until you are better,” advised Doctor
Dullmer.

“I must talk now. It’s better to tell about it
at once so there can be no misunderstanding. It
will help me to get it off my mind.”

“Well, just as you please,” said he, but he drew
a chair beside her and watched her closely. He
alone realized that she was on the point of collapse
which might come suddenly upon her. He thought
only of her physical condition. He had not estimated
the power of will which is able to put aside all
physical discomfort and carry a thing through
because it is right to do so.

So Eliza sat bolt upright in the stiff chair, hideous
with its red plush upholstery, and related
all that had happened the several hours before.

The men listened with a question at intervals.
When the story was ended, Miss Eliza got upon
her feet.

“You’ll go to bed now,” said the doctor.

“Send everyone home but Mrs. Kilgore. I cannot
rest with so many about me.”

Mrs. Kilgore had overheard the words and was
already ridding the house of the neighbors.

“You’d better go, Granny. Your old man will
want supper soon.”

“I think your baby would be crying for you,
Mrs. Duden.”

“Hain’t you afraid to leave the twins alone in
the house with matches and oil about?” So by
dint of suggestion, she turned them all homeward
and locked the door.

Miss Eliza went back to the davenport and, arranging
the pillows, laid down her throbbing head
and closed her eyes.

Mrs. Kilgore bustled about, closing doors and
drawing shades. She was as happy as could be.
She was in her element in the sick-room. She
found thorough enjoyment in officiating at the
house of sorrow. She drew down the corners of
her mouth and assumed a doleful expression, but
a pleased excitement showed itself in spite of all.

“Pitty adee—pitty adee.” A few toddling
steps, and the child came close to the davenport
where Eliza lay. Her baby hands rested lightly
against the bandaged head.

“Pitty adee—hurted. Me’s sorry. Me kiss ’ou
an ’ou get well.” Standing on tip-toe, she put her
lips again and again against the bandage.

Miss Eliza trembled. A strange thrill went
through her. She had never known much about
children. She had been the only chick and child
of her parents. She had not realized that a baby
could be so sweet. A strange joy filled her at the
touch of the lips. The term ‘Pretty lady’ found
a responsive chord in her heart which vibrated.
She had lived alone all her life. No one had ever
touched lips to hers. No one had ever found her
attractive or beautiful. For as many years as
she could remember, no one had ever called her
‘pretty’. She did not think whether it were true or
false. She accepted it as something new and delightful.
She was a human being, though she had
always been alone, and she craved affection just
as every one of humanity does.

She drew the child close to her. It cuddled up
as though it had known only love and tenderness
and feared no one. At length it crawled up on
the davenport and nestled close in her arms, with
the little head on her breast. All the while, it
kept up a prattle of sympathy for the ‘pitty adee
who was hurted’ and the baby hands touched Eliza’s
cheek lightly. So both fell asleep.

The news of the accident had spread quickly
enough. Telegrams had flashed over the country
and local newspapers sent reporters at once to
secure particulars. Williamsburg was the nearest
city of importance. *The Herald* was the daily
with the largest circulation. It was always looking
for a “scoop.”

When the telegrams came in telling of the accident,
Morris was the only man in the outer office.
McCoy nailed him at once.

“Get to Shintown as fast as you can. Find out
everything. Write a column or two and get back
before the press closes for the morning edition.”

Morris started. Until this time, he had written
nothing but personals. He was eager to advance.
This looked to him like a rung in the ladder. He
would “make good” for himself and his paper.
There was no passenger train due, but he caught
a fast freight and “bummed” his way to the Bend
and walked from there to Shintown.

He was admitted without question to the parlor
of the old Wells place. The men had departed,
leaving only a watcher beside the dead.

The boy took out his note-book and asked questions
which the man who sat in waiting and Mrs.
Kilgore eagerly answered. He looked at the woman
with her mass of yellow hair about her head
like a crown. He had been brought up inland. He
knew little of that great wave of surging humanity
which yearly seek our shores in search of a
home. He had seen the German type with fair
skin and yellow hair. It did not come to him that
a far northern country had these characteristics
intensified.

The presses closed at midnight. He had four
hours to reach the city and have his copy ready.
He fired questions rapidly, and wrote while the
answers came. Then he fairly ran down the
country road to the Bend where he caught the late
flyer.

It was almost eleven when he began to make
copy. Suddenly he stopped. He had neglected
to ask the sex of the child who had been made
motherless by the accident. He paused an instant.
He had no time to find out. He would use a reporter’s
privilege.

The next morning’s edition of the *Herald* came
out with triple headings on its front page.

.. class:: center

   | Accident at Village of Shintown
   | One Killed—Two Badly Hurt
   | A German Woman Who Cannot be Identified
   | Killed by Runaway Horse. Her Little
   | Son in Care of Strangers.

Then followed an incorrect account of the accident.
The nationality of the woman, her relation
to the child, the sex and age of the latter were so
far removed from the truth, that people hundreds
of miles away read in eager hope, only to lay the
paper aside, disappointed that this was not she for
whom they were searching.

CHAPTER III.
============

No one came to ask concerning the strangers,
and she was laid away in the Wells burial
lot, and Miss Eliza paid the bills that
necessarily followed.

Mrs. Kilgore and Dr. Dullmer, with Squire Stout
standing by and looking on like a bird of ill omen,
went over every article of the attire of woman and
child in the hope of finding some means of identification.
There was a small traveling bag of fine
leather. It contained the articles necessary for a
journey of several days. There was a small drinking
cup, a child’s coat, comb and brush. There
were neither tickets nor checks, nor a cent of
money. This led Miss Eliza to believe that somewhere
there must have been a second purse. She
went with the men over the scene of accident and
retraced every step from the time she had first
seen the woman sleeping in the shade of the
bushes. But nothing was found to help them out
of the unfortunate situation. Still, they believed
that checks and tickets were somewhere. A tramp
might have picked them up, or some dishonest,
careless person found and retained possession of
them. But after a careful search, all hope in that
direction was given up.

The dead woman’s clothes were ordinary. A
coat-suit and shirt-waist of cheap material, underwear
with a bit of hand-made lace of the old-fashioned
kind. Her hat was cheap and rather
tawdry; but everything about her was clean and
whole. All gave the appearance of her being a
self-respecting person in poor circumstances.

Two things belied this, however. The dress
which the little child wore and a second one in the
traveling case were exquisite in quality and handiwork.
The little petticoats were dainty and
showed expenditure both of money and good taste.
The little beauty pins which fastened the dress
were solid gold with the monogram E. L.

In the traveling case was a small box containing
several quaint rings and a brooch.

Miss Eliza knew little of jewelry. The people
with whom she had been reared had never been
financially able to indulge themselves along this
line and had consequently put upon it the ban of
their disapproval. Her experience had been so
limited that she knew no values. The articles
were rings and pins, and were pretty. That was
as far as she gave them thought. They had no
dollar mark attached to them.

There was only one course left to her to follow.
She put every article which the child wore, the
traveling case and all its contents safely away
with the few legal documents and valuables she
possessed. She had the business instinct and forethought
sufficient to mark each one, and to write
a full letter of explanation as to how they came
into her possession.

“You’re taking a heap of trouble,” said Mrs.
Kilgore sadly. She had been following Miss Eliza
over the house, always keeping a few steps behind
her. She put on a big, green-checked apron when
she dressed in the morning, and wore it until she
prepared for bed at night. She never took it off
at other times unless she had an errand to the
store or post-office. Then she merely removed
the work-marked one for that which was fresh
from the iron.

She always had a broom in her hand. She followed
in the footsteps of Eliza and brushed up
after her, or stopped to pick up a thread or bit of
lint, or straightened out a misplaced book, or
flicked away a bit of dust with the tail of her
apron.

This gave the impression that Mrs. Kilgore was
a conscientious, indefatigable housewife who
busied herself from morning until night with duties.
It was all in appearances. Her house was a
litter. Garments hung from parlor to kitchen,
from attic to cellar, at every place where a nail
might be driven in wall, beam or door.

She sighed and looked doleful and “put upon”
every time she stooped to pick up a stray bit of
lint, but deep in her soul she was happy. She was
posing as an over-worked martyr and was not
doing enough to tire herself. She was getting
barrels of credit for a tin cup of effort.

“You’re taking a heap of trouble,” she repeated.
“It’s more than I’d take.”

“I’m taking a little now to save a great deal for
some one when I’m not here. The time may come
when the girl’s own kin may be found. I want
things to be in order so that they’ll not doubt that
she’s their own. I’m of the opinion that she belongs
to folks that are something. Her little white
dress is enough to make me think that. Sometime,
somebody will be coming along to look her up.”

This was a new idea to Mrs. Kilgore. It appealed
to the sentimental side of her nature. In
her mind’s eye, she pictured the child’s kin appearing
in splendor and bearing her away with
them. Another element of the case presented itself
to her. She paused in her “sweeping up” and
looked at Miss Eliza. She looked at her in a new
light.

“They may do a heap for you for being so good
to her and burying her mother decent and respectable
in your own folks’ lot and not in the poor
field. They may do a heap for you.”

“I’m not thinking of that. I had a right to do
what I did. It was the very least I could do, and
I’ve got to provide for the little girl until some one
comes for her. It was my fault that she’s dead.
I hain’t finding fault with myself for asking her to
ride back with me. Any Christian woman would
have done the same; but I didn’t do right to touch
the whip to Old Prince. That’s where I was at
fault; but”—pensively, “who would have thought
that an old worn-out brute like him could have
had so much ginger in him. It was my fault at
not knowing and not understanding a brute animal
that I’d driven for six years. No; I’ll be good to
the child—as good as I can be. I’ve hurt her a
powerful lot by taking her mother from her. I’ll
do what I can to make up for it. It won’t be for
long. Her kin will come to claim her.”

Had Eliza not felt responsible, she could have
been nothing but good to the child. Mothers of
the locality fixed the age of the little girl at about
three. Others placed it as high as five. There she
was dropped in among them without a name or
even a birthday. She was a well-formed, beautiful
child with brown ringlets clinging about her little
plump neck; and eyes matching in color the blue
of the midsummer sky. She was good-tempered
and healthy. She smiled from the time she awoke
until she fell asleep from sheer weariness. She
prattled and hummed little tunes, only a few of
the words of which she could remember. She followed
Eliza wherever the woman went, and
crawled into her lap and cuddled close to her the
instant she seated herself. “Pity adee” was the
only title she knew for Miss Eliza. After a few
days, the name was fixed: “Adee.” The little
girl could not be persuaded to call her foster-parent
by any other name. A child can manage
to thrive and yet have no birthday; but a name it
must have. For several days Eliza referred to the
stranger as “the little girl.” This was not satisfactory.

“She must be called something. It’s simply
heathenish not to have a name of some kind. I’ll
name her myself if I cannot find out what her
name is,” concluded Miss Eliza. She set about
to find the real name. The monogram E. L. on the
pins was the only clue. The child might remember
something. Taking her up in her lap, Eliza began
a system of catechising.

“What shall Adee call you?”

“Baby.” She smiled back at her interlocutor
until the dimples came and went.

“A prettier name than Baby. Shall I call you
Elizabeth—Beth—Bessie?” She pronounced each
name slowly, watching if it might awaken any
show of memory. But it did not. The little girl
smiled the more, even while she shook her head
in negation.

“No, no—Izbeth not pitty name. Baby—‘Itta
one’ pitty name.”

Eliza would not let herself become discouraged.
“Little One” and “Baby” were pet names given
by some adoring fathers and mothers. Perhaps
the child had seldom heard her correct name.
Guided by the letters on the pins, Eliza repeated
every name beginning with E; but it was without
results.

“You must be called something,” she at last
cried in desperation. “It must begin with E too.
Elizabeth will do as well an anything else. It’s
dignified enough for her when she’s grown up,
and Beth or Bess will be well enough for a child.
I’ve just got to call her something.”

So Elizabeth she became. Beth was what Eliza
called her. Adee was the only title that the child
could be induced to give to her foster-mother.

“Some one will claim her before the week
passes,” Eliza had told herself again and again.
She was hopeful that it would be so. A child is a
great responsibility, and the woman had no desire
to take it upon herself. July passed and no one
came. August had come with all the glory of color
and life rampant in yard and field.

Never before had flowers bloomed so luxuriantly
even for Miss Eliza. The nasturtiums were
blazing with burnt orange and carmine. Petunias
flaunted their heavily laden stocks. The scarlet
sages glowed from every shaded nook. There was
braggadocio in every clump and cluster as though
every flower being in flower-land was proclaiming,
“See what we can do when we try.” High
carnival of bloom! Gay revelry of color! Flaunt
and brag! Flaunt and brag through all those
wonderful days of August.

Eliza went from flower to flower and Beth followed.
There was no need to tell the child not to
step upon them or to pluck them ruthlessly. She
picked her steps. Her fingers touched each petal
caressingly. She loved them as much as the woman
herself did.

.. figure:: images/eliza-032.jpg
   :align: center

   With a mad plunge he went tearing down the road.

Eliza was busy weeding. Bending over, she
was patiently removing with the aid of a kitchen
fork the sprouts of chick-weeds which would creep
in among her treasures.

Beth, who had been following her closely, suddenly
proved a laggard. Missing her at last, Eliza
retraced her steps to the east side of the house
where she had last seen the child. There she was
down on her knees at the edge of the pansy bed
and her head bent close over them.

“Whatever are you doing, Beth? Not hurting
Adee’s flowers?”

“No, indeedy. I was ust a tissin ’em. A has so
pitty itta faces. A ast me to tiss em.” There she
was, putting her lips to each purple-yellow face,
and talking with them as though they were real
live babies. Eliza had nothing to say. She would
have done that same thing herself when she was
a child if she had dared. She knew exactly how
Beth felt.

Sam Houston had come around the corner and
had been a witness to the pretty scene. He had
come over to borrow a hatchet and some nails.
A board had come off his chicken-yard and the
hens had destroyed what they could of his garden.

“Laws, Eliza!” he exclaimed. “You’ll not be
able to get much from that child. She’ll not be
practical. Common sense and not sentiment is
what is needed in this world. She’ll be for settin’
out flowers an’ lettin’ cabbage go. I declare to
goodness.” He was yet watching Beth kissing
the pansies. “She’ll be as big a fool as you are
about posies an’ sich like.”

“Do you really think so?” cried Eliza joyously,
her face brightening up as though she had been
paid a great compliment. Sam sniffed, “I’ve come
over to get the lend of your hatchet and some
nails. Those dern chickens got out somehow. The
wimmen-folks must have left the door open.”

During July, Eliza had prefaced the duties of
each morning with the reflection, “Her own kin
will come for her before the week is out.”

During August, she changed her views. “’Tain’t
likely they’ll come this week. The weather is so
uncertain. There might be a downpour any hour.”

But it was not until September set fairly in that
the hope was fixed. She grew fearful that they
would come. Her anxious eyes followed every
strange vehicle which came down the road. She
gave a sigh of relief when it passed her door.

“We’ll have a nice winter together—Beth and
me. ‘Hain’t likely that they’ll come at winter
time.”

So she satisfied her longings and kept the child
with her.

CHAPTER IV.
===========

The months passed. Before Eliza was aware
of it, the winter had passed. They had
been strange months, filled with new experiences
to the woman. When twilight fell, Beth
had always crawled up into her lap and, snuggling
close, demanded a story.

Eliza had never been fed on stories. She knew
absolutely nothing about them. She had never
tried to make up any, for the demand for them
had never come.

“Tory, Adee. Tory, Adee.” There was no resisting
that little appeal. There could be no denial
for the tender caressing hands, and the
sweet rose-bud mouth.

“What shall I tell about?” asked Eliza pausing
for a time.

“Anyfing. F’owers what talk and tell tories;
efefants, and Santa Claus and fings like that.”

Eliza gasped for breath. Flowers were the
only things she knew about. She did her best
with the material on hand. She told a story of a
poppy which was proud and haughty because its
gown was gay and because it stood high above the
other flowers. In its pride it ignored the humble,
modest little violet which could barely raise its
head above the sod. But when the second morning
had come, the petals of the poppy lay scattered.
Its glory was gone; but the violet yet
smiled up from its lowly place and gave color to
all about it.

“I’s booful, Adee. Tell me—a more one.”

Eliza put her off. One story at bed time was
quite enough. A strange sensation of thrills had
gone through her body while the story had been
growing. She had never believed herself capable
of anything half so fine. She had created something.
The sensation of power was tingling
through every nerve and muscle. She did not
know it; neither did the child whose eyelids were
closing in slumber; but with this experience she
had crawled from the shell of dead customs, hide-bound,
worn-out ideas and laws. There had been
a real self hidden away for many years. It had
never found a way for self-expression until now.

The black silk gown had undergone renovation
since the day of the accident. A new sleeve had
replaced the torn one, and the torn breadth in the
skirt had been hidden by a broad fold. It was
quite as good as ever.

The first time Eliza put it on, Beth took exception
to it. The child stood in the middle of the
room at a distance from her foster-parent, and
could not be induced to come near her.

“Ug-e, ug-e dwess. Baby don’t like ug-e dwess.”

“Don’t you like Adee’s Sunday dress?” asked
Eliza. The child shook her head to and fro, and
persisted in calling it “ug-e dwess”.

“Then I shall wear another,” said Eliza. She
made her way upstairs and Beth toddled after her.
Going to the closet, the child began to tug and pull
at a cheap little gown of dimity. Eliza had paid a
shilling a yard for it the season before and had
made it for “comfort”. But she could not keep the
artist soul from showing in it any more than she
could keep it from showing in the living room and
gardens. The neck was just a little low and the
sleeves reached just to the elbow. The ground
was white with sprigs of pale pink roses scattered
over it.

“Pitty dwess—pitty dwess,” Beth kept repeating.
To please her, Eliza took it down and put it
on. She looked at herself in the mirror and was
better pleased with what she saw than she had
been with the reflection of the black-robed figure.
While she was dressing, Beth danced about her,
exclaiming with delight at her pretty lady and the
pretty dress.

So two things became fixed habits in the new
household,—a story before bedtime and the pretty
dresses in place of black.

So the year passed. The Jersey cow, the chickens,
the vegetables from the summer provided for
their needs. They needed little money. Wood
was supplied from the trees on Eliza’s land.

Beth needed clothes; but her dresses were yet so
small that little material was needed, and the shoes
were so tiny that they cost but little.

Eliza made the little dresses. She went to the
Bend for patterns and material. She even bought
a book of styles to see how a child should be
dressed. When she sat in the big living room with
needle and thread, Beth sat beside her sewing
diligently at doll clothes, or cutting fantastic
shapes out of paper.

Beth quite fell in love with the pictures in the
fashion plates and selected the finest ones of all
as Adee.

“’Is is Adee and ’is is Adee,” she would repeat
again and again, laying her finger on the representations
of splendid womanhood shown on the
pages.

Eliza began to look beyond the year. She felt
now that no one would ever claim Beth. She
would have the child always. She was glad of
that. She would need money to educate her. She
would need more each year as the child grew older.
So she watched the pennies closely. She wore
shabby gloves all year in order to lay the money
by.

“We’ll both need new clothes by summer time,”
she told herself. “There’ll not be much. We’ll
get along on little.”

Indeed they needed little. The people about
them had enough to keep them warm—and no
more. So Eliza and the little girl needed, for the
time, only necessities. The flowers which filled
the bay windows; the great fire-place with its
burning, snapping logs; Old Jerry, the cat, who
made up the domestic hearth; Shep, the dog, who
played guard to them, and the stories at twilight
were sufficient to develop the cultural, sentimental
side of life.

During the winter, few callers came. The
roads were not good. Sometimes for days the
drifts would fill them. It was impossible to go out
at night, for no way was lighted. There were
services of some kind each Sunday morning; Sunday-school
and prayer meeting combined. Twice
a month the supply minister came from one of the
adjoining towns and held regular services, yet in
spite of being alone, these two were never lonely.

The following summer, Eliza found that she
would find an unexpected expense in her household
account. The sugar box was emptied more
quickly than ever before. Sometimes, she would
fill a sugar bowl after the midday meal and would
find it empty before supper time.

Yet Beth did not care for sugar. She would not
touch it in her victuals, if it were there in sufficient
amount to be noticeable.

One afternoon, Eliza found Beth standing on a
chair before the shelf which bore the household
supplies. Her little fists were crammed with sugar.

“What are you doing with it, Beth?” asked
Eliza.

“I’se feed’n em. Ey wikes it. Tome and see.”

She made her way out the back door, crossed
the yard and garden to where, at the border of
the woodland, was a slight elevation.

Eliza followed. The slopes of the hill were alive
with ants hurrying to and fro, each carrying a
burden. Round about the entrance to the ant hills,
Beth had made a circle of sugar.

“Ey wike it so. Ey is so very hungry.” Eliza
did not scold her. She herself had been repressed
along such lines when she was a child. Although
she had long since forgotten the experience, the
sympathy and understanding still remained with
her.

Later she explained to Beth about not helping
herself from the household store. She compromised,
however, by promising to fill, and place
where Beth could reach it, a small tin cup of sugar
with which to feed the ants for the day.

Two years passed in such fashion. There came
a time when Beth was undoubtedly of school age.
The township school was a mile or more from the
old Wells place.

Eliza thought little of that. A mile meant little
to one accustomed to walking. She remembered
something of the conditions of the school in her
own childhood. She herself had been of such a
nature that she had not been contaminated. Her
presence had repudiated all that was not pure and
fine. From the standpoint of a woman, she saw
the matters in a different light. She visited the
school several times. Forty children were packed
in one small room. There were classes from primary
to grammar grades. The poor little tots in
the chart class sat on hard seats until their backs
ached. At recess and noon—almost all carried
their dinners—they were turned out to play without
restraint, the rough and boisterous with the
gentle and timid, the vicious and unruly of older
age with the tractable little folks whose minds
were as a sheet of clean paper upon which no impression
had been made.

Miss Eliza decided then that that particular
school was not what she wished for the little girl
she was to train for womanhood. For some
months, she had learned all she could of new methods
of teaching. For the first time in her life, she
knew that the A, B, C’s were out of date and that
children were taught after a different fashion.

The school at the Bend had grown during the
last five years. A supervisor with new ideas, and
trained progressive teachers were making the
grades equal to the best in the country. Eliza
had heard of the work. Because she was interested,
she had questioned and investigated.

The Bend was too far away for a child of
Beth’s age to walk alone, but Eliza was not one to
give up easily.

“If the main road’s closed against me, I’ll find
a foot-path or—I’ll break a way through the
underbrush,” she was accustomed to say. She did
that very thing now.

She visited the primary grades at the Bend.
She sat an entire afternoon drinking in everything
she could about teaching children. When
the pupils were dismissed, she talked long with
Miss Davis.

This teacher, who thought only of the help she
might be to the child, copied the work she had
laid out for the month, gave a first reader and
slate to Miss Eliza, and explained how “Willie has
a slate” should be taught for the first lesson.

Eliza started in her work. At the close of each
month she visited Miss Davis and copied the
teacher’s plan for the next four weeks. So the
second year of Beth’s life with Miss Eliza passed.
The child learned the numbers to twelve. She
knew the stories which the first grade children
should know, and she read the reader through
from cover to cover. Added to this was a vocabulary
of fifty words which she could write.

Miss Eliza was happy. The child had ability to
learn. Eliza had a great admiration for book
knowledge. She had lacked so much in that line
herself. It was the unattainable to her; consequently
she put great value upon it.

Miss Davis and her corps of teachers taught
Eliza more than methods in teaching first grade
work. They were fully as old as Eliza herself;
but they wore gowns which were quite up-to-date.
They arranged their hair to bring out the very
best of their features.

They talked about skating and literary clubs,
and calls, and afternoon teas. One had even gone
out with her pupils and coasted down hill, and not
one was shocked or even thrilled when she related
it.

Eliza listened. She was not a dullard. To use
the vernacular of Shintown, “Eliza Wells was no
one’s fool, in spite of her queer old ways.” Her
queer old way was loving flowers, giving artistic
touch to the dullest places.

She showed her best qualities now in listening
and culling the best from these teachers whose
opportunities were broader and whose lives were
fuller than hers had been.

They found her enjoyable; for she had a quaint
wit, and a refined, gentle manner.

That night when she went home to Beth, she
cuddled her close in her arms.

“What story to-night, Adee dear?” was the first
question.

“A make-believe story which is really true,” she
said.

Beth gave a little sigh of satisfaction. The
make-believe stories which were true were better
even than fairy stories which never can be true.
This was the story she told:

:small-caps:`The Wood Baby`.

Once upon a time, the angels brought from
heaven a little child and placed her in a little house
in the woods and gave her a plain old farmer and
his wife as parents.

The hut in which they lived was small—only
four bare walls, a door and a window. It was
night when the angel carried the child to its new
home. The child was asleep. It lay in slumber
in the arms of its mother. The neighbor folk
came and looked at it, and spoke dolefully of the
cold, unpleasant world into which it had come.

The child awakened, but it did not open its eyes.
It lay and listened.

“It’s only a poor bare hut with smoke-covered
walls that I have to give as a home for my baby,”
the mother was saying.

“It will find only work and trouble here,” a
neighbor wailed. “It’s a hard, hard life.”

The baby heard, and being nothing but a baby
and knowing nothing of the world, believed what
it heard. It grew as the days and months passed.
The time came for it to walk, but it would only
creep upon the floor. It would not raise itself on
its feet to look from the window. It would not
open its eyes. It had never done so since the night
that the angel had carried it to its new home.

Years passed. The baby, now a woman in
years, moved about between the four walls which
its great-grandparents had built. Yet she opened
not her eyes; she never let a ray of light enter.

“What is the use?” she told herself. “Is not the
world dark and miserable and barren? Why
should I look at anything which is so painfully
homely? As to walking, why should I take the
trouble? I cannot go beyond this hut which my
great-grandparents built. Creeping will do very
well.”

Then one morning something happened.——

Eliza paused in her story. She knew what effect
it would have on her listener. Beth immediately
sat bolt upright with her eyes brimming
with interest and curiosity.

“What happened?” she cried. She gave a little
gasp for breath, she could wait no longer.

“Something happened,” continued Eliza. “It
was a beautiful morning, but the woman did not
know it. Suddenly she heard a song of a bird at
her door. She did not know it was a bird; but the
sound was sweet, alluring, enticing. She listened
an instant. Then she got upon her feet and hurried
to the door and flung it wide open.

“A wonderful sight met her eyes. A world, a
glorious world with ripening grain, exquisite coloring
of flowers, soft breezes laden with the most
delicate perfume, and the song of birds everywhere.”

“And then—then what did she do?” asked
Beth.

“For a time, she stood and felt sorry for herself
that she had kept herself blind for so long. Then
she said, ‘But here is all this beauty for me to enjoy—me
and the little song-bird which made me
open my eyes.’ Then she took the bird in her
hand and held it close up to her cheek, and went
with it out into the beauty of the world, and the
little bird sang all the while.”

“O-o-h,” sighed Beth. “That is beautiful. Who
was the baby the angels brought. Who was the
woman? Did you know them?”

“I was both the babe and the woman, and you
the little song-bird that called me out to see the
sunshine and hear the music.”

CHAPTER V.
==========

On some of Beth’s visits to town, she had
made the acquaintance of Helen Reed, a
girl of her own age and lucky enough to
have five brothers and four sisters. They were
the jolliest set imaginable, all packed as close as
matches in a box. Helen’s hair was as yellow as
puffed taffy. Her eyes matched the blueness of
the summer sky. It takes a large check to clothe,
feed and educate ten children. The Reed children
had early learned how to make the most of hair
ribbons, and to trim over hats from the season
before. They dressed plain enough, goodness
knows, but they had an “air.”

Helen when barely seven would cock up a hat
at the side, stick in a quill, slap it on her head and
have the general effect of a French fashion plate.

She was a dear little girl who looked out for
her own rights while she remembered the rights
of others, just as any little girl learns to do when
she has been reared with nine other children.

Helen and Beth fell in love with each other at
first sight. The former, living in a flat in town,
found the yard and trees at the old Wells place
most delightful. Early in June when school was
out, she came up to visit Beth.

“Your trees are pretty, Beth. I think you’d
feel like a queen sitting under them.”

Beth looked at them with new eyes. She had
always had them, and did not fully appreciate
them.

“Let’s play we’re queens,” cried Helen. “Under
that big locust tree on the bank, we’ll build a palace.”

“It isn’t a locust tree. They don’t grow so. It’s
an oak,” said Beth.

“Locust sounds prettier, so I’ll call it that,”
said Helen, who did not know one tree from another.
“It doesn’t matter what kind it is. Let’s
build a palace.”

“I don’t see how it can be done,” said Beth.

“Then I’ll show you.” She was already picking
her way gingerly across the public road. The
girls were in their bare feet and the skin was yet
tender. They stepped as carefully as they could,
for the bits of gravel and sand could be cruel.

“This will be the drawing room,” cried Helen,
moving quickly now that she had gained the greensward
under the trees. “Then we’ll have a wide
hall with a library on one side, a den, and right
here will be the nursery.” She had been jumping
about like a cricket from one place to another, locating
the different apartments of the household.

“I’m not sure where I wish the dining-room.
I’d like to have something pretty to look at while
I’m eating.”

“Have it on this side and we can look at the
trees and Adee’s flowers,” suggested Beth. She
had played second in the game. She could not yet
see how Helen could build such a large and elegant
affair from nothing at all.

“That’s just the thing,” cried Helen. “We’ll
play that the yard is the conservatory. Now, let’s
put up the walls.”

“I don’t see how you can,” began Beth.

“Help me carry up these nice stones from the
beach and you’ll see.”

She started down the bank, and Beth followed
blindly with faith in Helen’s power to make something
from nothing. For an hour they carried up
small flat stones until they had quite a number
piled together under the trees. All the while, their
tongues had kept clacking like the shuttle of a
machine.

“Now we’ll build. It’s going to be a gray stone
mansion,” said Helen.

“I always did like stone houses,” said Beth. She
had never seen one, but she knew at that moment
that she always had preferred them to any other.

Helen had already laid down a line of stones.
“Start at this corner and make a line over to
here.” She laid a stone down to mark the corners
of a large rectangle which was to be the living
room. “Right here will be the door on to the
front porch. Don’t put stones there,—here will
be a large double door into the library. We’ll
leave that open.”

It took a little time to lay the stones around
until the general outline was that of the ground
plan of a large house. The stones were the walls.
Open spaces were the doors and windows.

The little girls stood in the drawing room and
looked about with an air of pride. “It’s all ready
now but the furnishing,” said Helen. “We must
have some dishes, too, for the china closet.”

“I have some saucers and cups without handles.
I’ll get them.” She started toward the house.
Helen gave a scream of horror and clutched at
Beth’s arm.

“Look what you are doing,” she cried. “Do be
careful. Come back,” and she forcibly brought
her back.

“What’s the trouble? What ever am I doing?
I can’t see that I’ve done anything wrong.”

“You’ve stepped over the walls. Who ever knew
any one to leave a room by stepping over the wall.
Do be careful and go through the doors.”

“Oh, I thought the way you screamed that it
was a snake—one of those little green ones.” She
obediently moved through the open space meant
for a door and went for the broken dishes.

By the time she had returned, Helen had furnished
the drawing room. A discarded wash-boiler,
turned upside down, served as a piano. A
shingle resting upon two stones did very well as
a music rest. Helen was down on her knees before
it, singing with all her might and thumping
with her knuckles until the tin resounded.

Beth had learned her lesson and came into the
room by way of the door rather than over the wall.
She surveyed the drawing room with pride.

“Scrumptious, isn’t it?” asked Helen.

“It’s certainly kertish,” replied Beth. Kertish
was a new word to Helen.

“Now what does ker-tish mean, Beth Wells?
You are forever using it.”

“It means scrumptious and a whole lot more,”
said Beth. “I can’t just exactly explain. It means
just what the drawing-room is now.”

“It does look rather nice,” said Helen complacently.
“These chairs in pink velvet and brocade
are certainly scrumptious.”

She pointed to several billets of wood which she
had stood on end to serve as chairs. Then she
seated herself cautiously upon them, for pink
velvet chairs made from a cross-cut on square
timber will wobble sometimes in spite of one.

“They certainly are ‘kertish’,” said Beth. She
had made up that word herself. It expressed all
she had in her mind, and being her very own
word, she could thrust it about to fit any feeling or
any condition. She was moving about the drawing-room
in a dignified fashion, arranging at regular
intervals wild roses on the heavy sod. Helen
watched her.

“The green velvet carpet with pink roses is just
the thing to go with these chairs,” said Helen.
“I must say that in all my travels I never saw
anything more scrumptious.”

“It is the most kertish thing I ever saw,” said
Beth.

“Who are we anyhow?” asked Beth at last. “I
mean who are we besides ourselves.”

“I am Mrs. Queen of Sheba,” said Helen, “and
you can be Mrs. Princess of Wales.”

So it was. Royalty had set up housekeeping
under the shady trees which covered the bank
before the old Wells place.

Royalty is not domestic. Before a second day
had passed, Mrs. Queen of Sheba grew tired of the
monotony of housekeeping.

“Princess of Wales, we will take a trip around
the world,” she said. “The ship is ready.” She
pointed majestically to an old row boat which,
water-logged and unseaworthy, lay abandoned
on the beach. “We will go on board at once.”

“I am ready, Mrs. Queen of Sheba.”

An hour later, they were ship-wrecked and
forced to wade ashore from mid-ocean. A little
accident like this did not deter them. They were
on a voyage of experience and discovery.

“While we are waiting for a ship to rescue us,
let us explore the land,” said the Queen of Sheba.

“It would be the most kertish thing we could
do.”

They proceeded slowly, making their way
around Great Island, which the uninitiated might
have called the big rock lying out well toward
mid-stream. They crossed Knee-Deep Gulf and
came to Cant-Wada Bay where they were forced
to turn back. Along the shore, they had a horrible
experience. Helen screamed and sank down,
pulling Beth with her.

“Look,” she whispered, pointing her finger to
the opposite shore. “There are cannibals. Do
not let them see us, or they will roast us and eat
us alive.”

Beth sank down with a shiver, clutching at
Helen’s bare feet as though to find protection in
them. At length, she found courage to raise her
eyes and look where Helen pointed. “Those—those—cannibals,”
she cried. Her voice was a
mixture of relief and scorn. “They’re only boys in
swimming. That big one is Jimmy—”

“They are cannibals, and that big one is the
chief. Don’t let them see us. Let us creep softly
away.” They crept. It was a horrifying experience.
No one could tell what might have happened,
had not a distant sail appeared.

“A ship! A ship! We shall be saved,” cried
the Queen of Sheba, kicking up her sunburnt legs
and waving her arms with delight.

“A ship! A ship! We are saved,” and Mrs.
Princess of Wales indulged in antics which are
not generally practiced by people of royal blood.

“Put up a signal of distress,” said Mrs. Queen
of Sheba.

“Here is a flag. Put it on the pole,” cried the
Princess of Wales. She promptly stuck her sunbonnet
on the end of a stick and waved frantically
to and fro.

So while the cannibals were shrieking and performing
wild antics on the opposite shore, the
Queen of Sheba and the Princess of Wales crept
on board the water-logged boat and were saved.

These were glorious days. The little girls
lacked for nothing. What was not theirs in actuality,
became theirs by the gift of imagination.
They reveled in motor cars, airships, mansions
and pink velvet furniture. They were billionaires,
with all the possessions and none of the
trouble of taking care of them.

They were happy together for several weeks.
Then Helen invited Beth to her birthday party,
and Beth was heart-broken. Even Adee could not
comfort her for a time.

CHAPTER VI.
===========

“Helen Reed was born on the tenth of July.
When’s my birthday, Adee?”

Eliza had never foreseen such a question.
She could not reply at first.

“When was I born, Adee?”

Eliza was not one given to evasion. To her
there could be but aye or nay.

“I do not know,” she replied.

“Why do you not know, Adee? Helen’s mother
knows the very day that Helen was born. I think
you would remember about me.”

“But, Beth dearest, you were not a tiny baby
when you were sent to me. I do not know how old
you were. I think almost two years old. No one
told me about your birthday.”

“They kept me in heaven longer than most
babies, then,” said Beth sententiously. “Most
babies are just a minute old when they are sent
down on earth. The angels must have liked me
very much. Don’t you think so, Adee?”

“I am sure they did,” Eliza assured her. This
comforted Beth somewhat. It is nice to feel that
the angels feel pleasure in one’s society. Yet it
had its disadvantages too. One could not be
quite sure of one’s birthday; and thereby one
was short of presents and festivities of various
kinds.

“I should think, Adee, that you would have
asked them,” she said after some time. Eliza had
let her thoughts go back to her household duties
and, some time having elapsed between this question
and the remarks which had preceded it, she
had forgotten the subject of conversation.

“Asked what—of whom?”

“My birthday—of the angels when they
brought me.”

“You were not brought directly to me. I am not
your real mother.”

“Not my real one?” Beth dropped her play-things
and came close to Eliza and leaned against
her knee. There was surprise, consternation,
pathos in her face and voice, as she leaned her
head against Adee’s arm.

“Not my real one? I don’t see any different,
Adee. You’re just like Helen’s mother, only
you’re a good deal nicer. She’s a real mother,
why hain’t you?”

“I mean, you are not my child by birth.”

“Wasn’t I born your little girl?”

“No,” said Adee. “When you were born you
did not belong to me.”

There was nothing more to be said. Beth was
quiet—too quiet, Eliza thought, and turned to
look at the child. Beth’s lips were quivering and
trembling, but she was pressing them hard so as
to make no outcry. The tears were very near the
surface, but Beth would not let them fall. One
glance at the brave little face, and Eliza turned
and, throwing her arm about here impulsively,
hugged her tight to her bosom.

“What is it, Beth?”

“I want to be some one’s born child,” she said.
“I want to be your born child.”

Eliza hesitated. What was conventionality in
comparison to the little girl’s peace of mind? She
would put aside her own sense of the fitness of
some things and make the child happy. “You
may be my born child, then,” she said. “You may
be born in my love, in my heart. You may be my
own little girl, exactly as Helen is her mother’s
little girl. Will that please you?”

“Yes, now what about my birthday?” asked
Beth. “Every one of the Reeds have birthdays,
and they are always talking about pulling ears
and what presents they got. They don’t have
their birthdays all the same time. They’ve scattered
them about so that one comes after each
pay-day.”

“Not a bad idea”, said Eliza, “especially when
there is a birthday with candles. You may have
a birthday, too, just like the other girls. You
came to my house the first day of July. We’ll
celebrate that; so far as you and I are concerned
that day is correct.”

Beth gave a sigh of satisfaction. That was the
only trouble she had had in her life. It was nice
that it was disposed of so satisfactorily.

“We’ll have a cake too, Adee, with candles.
How many candles?”

“Seven,” replied Eliza promptly.

Beth had come to the years when a child questions
and begins to reach out for the reason of
things. She was not at all stupid. She was quick
to see how people conducted themselves; how they
spoke and dressed. She was always attracted
toward the refined and gentle. Eliza’s heart rejoiced
at this. She believed that ‘blood would tell’,
and all Beth’s attributes and natural tendencies
were proof that her people were self-respecting
gentlefolk.

Eliza had long since given up wearing black
silk and little bits of bonnets perched on her head,
too small for grace or beauty. Beth had not liked
them. Beth had declared them not ‘pitty’, and
Eliza had accepted her decision. There were
white dresses and cheap thin prints, but they were
artistic and suited Eliza far better than the dark,
somber colors. Perhaps it was easy to follow
Beth’s wishes in regard to the matter of clothes,
for Eliza’s heart had always hungered after daintiness
and brightness. Yet she had never felt herself
equal to going against the conventions and
unwritten laws of the narrow little hamlet; but
with Beth’s encouragement, it was easier to follow
the dictates of her own desires.

Eliza was really a handsome woman, but she
never suspected that herself; nor did the people
of Shintown. Their taste was inclined toward
buxom figures, red cheeks, and black, curly hair.
Years before, some one had declared this the type
of beauty, and the folk of Shintown had accepted
it then, and their grand-children looked upon it as
a matter of course even now. So to them Eliza
Wells was not beautiful. Her broad, white forehead
with the soft, smooth chestnut hair like a
band of velvet; her big, clear, gray eyes, serene
and calm until she was vexed or excited, when they
glowed like embers; her lithe, willowy form, all
this meant nothing to them.

“Eliza’s got a big mouth. Did you ever see the
like of it,” had been Sam Houston’s comment on
her appearance for years, and everyone grinned
then and ever afterward whenever he repeated it.
It was large, perhaps, but it displayed beautiful
teeth, and its curves were exquisite. There was
strength and sweetness both in it. Yet, in Shintown,
she was not even considered fine looking.
It was merely a difference of standards, and somehow
all about her was bigger than their measure.

Beth was arriving at the age when she asked
questions and had thoughts all her own. One
afternoon during the heat of summer, Eliza sat
in the living room, taking a few stitches in her
weekly mending. The room had been darkened
save where she had raised the blinds sufficiently
to let the light fall on her work. Her profile was
distinct against the white draperies of the inner
hangings.

Beth was taking her afternoon nap on the davenport
at the end of the room. It was the same
big old affair of mahogany on which Sam Houston
had placed her when Prince had run away—five
years before. It was big and cozy and comfortable.
Beth had slept soundly and long. When at
last she opened her eyes, she was dazed and just
a little dull. She lay looking at Adee’s profile
against the window draperies.

What was in her mind, what shadow of a far-off
dream had come to her, no one could tell. She
watched her foster-mother, and at last said, “You
don’t wear your hair like you used to, Adee. Why
don’t you? It was prettier, much prettier the
other way.”

“You’re dreaming, Beth, child. I always wore
it just this way—at least, since I have grown
up.”

“No, Adee, I’m sure you didn’t. You used to
have fussy little curls about your face, and you
used to wear flowers—pink rosebuds and carnations.
Don’t you remember, Adee?”

Eliza was startled, but wisely did not contradict
the child. “When did I wear flowers in my hair,
Little One? Was it in this room, or where? Tell
me about it.”

Beth laughed in a lazy sort of way. She was
not fully awake. Was she partly dreaming, or
did some recollections of her babyhood days intrude
themselves? Was a little portion of her
brain opening and bringing to light impressions
of the hours when she had been with someone else
than Adee?

“You’re not one bit of a good ‘rememberer,’”
she replied slowly, dreamily. “You used to wear
your hair all fussiness and have flowers in it,
stuck down over your ear so, and your dresses
would be long in the back. Don’t you remember,
you’d come in my room and pick me up and hug
me and call me Baby—and something else, but
I’ve forgot. What else was it that you called me,
Adee?”

“I’ve forgotten. Go on with your remembering.
The other name will come back after a while.”

Adee’s heart jumped even as she spoke. Perhaps
the child could remember enough that some
trace of her people could be found. There was no
joy to Eliza in this thought. Beth gone! Her
limbs grew cold and her heart felt like ice in her
breast at the mere thought of it.

“Was it a pretty room, Beth, where you slept?”

“Of course, Adee. There were curtains around
the bed. It was shiny and yellow—the bed. You
hadn’t any carpets on the floor. It was pretty,
all right, but not one bit like where I sleep now.
Did you give my little bed away, Adee?”

“You must not ask impertinent questions,” said
Eliza with what lightness she could muster. “You
are such a big girl now. Surely you would not
wish to sleep in a little baby-crib.”

“No, but it would be nice for my dolls,” said
Beth. “If we had it ready, we might get a live
baby to put in it sometime.”

.. figure:: images/eliza-064.jpg
   :align: center

   “Now we’ll build a gray stone mansion,” said Helen.

Eliza took her stitches slowly. Beth must be
dreaming. Surely, the woman in gowns with long
trains and fluffy, fussy hair in which flowers
were fastened were tricks of the child’s imagination.
Eliza had a picture in her mind of the big,
fair woman, shabbily dressed, whom she had
found along the roadside. This woman’s hair had
been braided and coiled tight about her head. It
had been beautiful, but it was not fussy, and it
was straight as hair could be.

It was a question in Eliza’s mind, whether she
should change the subject, or whether it would be
wiser to encourage the child in these remembrances
or fits of fancy, whichever they were. She
concluded that anything was better than uncertainty.

“What about the big woman with blue eyes and
long braids of yellow hair? She used to have it
wrapped close to her head. There were no curls
anywhere. She wore very plain dresses—black
skirts—”

“And big white aprons,” cried Beth, sitting up
suddenly and clapping her hands. Then she
laughed joyously. “That was Bena, Adee. Wasn’t
Bena funny? She had such funny words.” Then
suddenly a new mood came to the child. Getting
down quickly from the davenport, she crossed the
room and, standing directly in front of Eliza,
asked with direct tenseness:

“Where is Bena, Adee? What has become of
her? What did you ever do to Bena? She hasn’t
been here since I was a little bit of a baby. Where
is Bena?”

Eliza shook her head. “I do not know, Beth.
I am sorry, but I do not know.”

CHAPTER VII.
============

There were no playmates at Shintown. The
nearest neighbor, Burtsch by name, was
nearly a mile away. The family consisted
of the father and mother, and Rose who was a
year older than Beth was supposed to be. There
had been half a dozen children before Rose came,
but they had died when mere babies.

Mrs. Burtsch frequently referred to the loss of
her children as “the strange working of Providence.”
She had a thin, high-pitched voice. She
was angular, long-limbed. She wore basques and
straight, narrow skirts. Her hair was in a knob
behind and drawn so tight that the muscles of
her forehead and temple had a habitual upward
tendency. As though to maintain an even balance,
she always directed her glances toward the
earth, and the lines of her mouth went downward.
She was ingratiating, self-depreciating, and presumably
humble. She was always declaring that
she was just as good as Mrs. Somebody-or-other,
if she was poor. It was no disgrace to be poor.
But it was in her case. Poverty was her shame,
for had she and her husband been up and about
their work, making the most of their farm in
place of trying to sustain themselves with the
maxim, ‘Poverty is no disgrace,’ they would have
had all the comforts desirable and might have
been able to help others. Mrs. Burtsch had a
whining voice that got upon one’s nerves after
a time. She made a point of coming in to see
Eliza, and in an insinuating way found out all she
could, suggested where she dared and criticised
in her exasperating way. She brought Rose with
her. While Mrs. Burtsch talked, the children
played, or presumably did so; but Rose’s ears and
eyes were wide open. She never missed a word
that her elders said. She was a skinny, owlish-looking
child who could sit for hours and listen,
but whose tongue could run as long and as easily
as a ball-bearing machine. She knew every bit
of gossip of the country-side, and repeated it
with all the insinuating humility which was characteristic
of her mother.

Rose and Beth were cutting out paper dolls.
Eliza kept at her sewing while Mrs. Burtsch,
rocking slowly, slowly, kept the conversation
going.

“Beth looks stout, Miss Eliza. I’ve noticed
frequently how stout she looks. But then that
hain’t no sign that she is going to live. Her own
folks might have had consumption. You can never
tell. Like mother, like child, you know. Her
mother couldn’t have had a constitution to brag
on when a little thing like falling on a stone killed
her quick like it did. If I were in your place, I’d
be mighty careful of her. Don’t let her breathe no
night air, and keep her housed up well.”

Eliza had long since passed this stage in child-rearing.
When she realized that Beth might be
with her always, she set about at once to learn
something of bringing up a little girl, just as she
had learned all she could about feeding chickens.
She had long since discovered the futility of discussing
any question with Mrs. Burtsch when the
latter had the other view of the case. It was
always a harangue and nothing else.

“She’s healthy enough. She’s never had a cold.
I’m not at all concerned about her.”

“You never can be sure. She’s got a dreadful
color in her cheeks, and her eyes are too bright
for health. I’d worry considerable about her.”

“What good would that do? It would not improve her
condition even if she was in the last
stage of consumption.”

Eliza smiled to herself. Beth, the picture of
health! Her bright cheeks and dancing eyes were
more the result of good, plain food, quiet, happy
home life and fresh air and sunshine. She looked
all she had been breathing in.

“You never can be sure. My William Henry
was as strong a baby as you’d see in a day’s
travel, but he went off like a flash with pneumonia.
You remember, Miss Eliza?”

She did remember. She knew how a sick child
had been left to drag about in wet grass, and left
lying at home, sick with rising fever, while the
mother dilly-dallied over the fields looking for a
weed that the Indians had found infallible for
colds.

Mrs. Burtsch was now well launched on the
subject. She discussed in detail the taking away
of each one of her children. She called their
early death “strange and mysterious workings of
Providence.” It was far from just to put the
blame on Providence when each death had been
the direct result of careless, ignorant mothering,
or lack of mothering.

Miss Eliza listened. She had heard the story
all her life. It had been a quarter of a century
since William Henry had died. There was nothing to
do but listen. One could not have turned
Mrs. Burtsch from the beaten path of her conversation.
The only thing to do was to let her go
on until she had run herself out.

Eliza listened and threw in a “yes”, an “indeed”,
at the proper place; but for the most part
her attention was given to her sewing. It had
required close accounting to make her income provide
for herself and Beth. Each year the expenses
would be greater; Eliza tried to lay a few
dollars of her interest money aside. She believed
in being ready for emergencies. Her trunk had,
hidden in its capacious depth, all the odd pennies
which came her way.

Now, she was reducing her own wardrobe to
fit Beth out. When her shirt-waists were worn
at the collar and cuffs, she took the fronts and
backs and made guimpes for Beth.

Mrs. Burtsch had ultimately spun her story to
a finish. Rose and Beth were yet intent upon cutting
out ladies from a magazine. The former
paid little attention to what her mother was saying.
She had heard it so often that its charm
had worn off. As far as Rose was concerned, it
fell on dull ears.

Suddenly, Mrs. Burtsch leaned forward and,
seizing an end of Eliza’s sewing, took it up critically.
“What do you mean to do with it?” she
asked. “The tucks hain’t so bad, though the rest
does look like it went through the mill. It’s a sin
and a shame to throw it away, ‘Liza. I do hope
you hain’t going to be wasteful. It always cuts
me up to see anything throwed away.”

Her own yard was a waste of weeds. Her
household a waste in every way. Hours and
hours of each day were spent as she was spending
these, at a harangue that did no one any good,
which sapped the energy and left no gain whatever.

“I don’t think I’ll grow recklessly extravagant;”
replied Eliza. “I’ve worn this white dress for
three summers. It’s out at a good many places
and I’ve put on just enough flesh to make it too
tight over the hips. I’m making it over for Beth.
I can get quite a nice little dress for her. The
ruffles are just as good as new.” She held up the
skirt and looked it over. “There’s plenty of
material to make her a nice little dress. I’m relieved
at the thought of it. She does need one
badly enough, and I could not see my way clear
to get her something nice and fine.”

Mrs. Burtsch had been fingering the dress with
a hypercritical air. At Eliza’s words, she leaned
back in her chair and sighed. That sigh spoke
volumes.

“You’re very foolish, Miss Liza. Everyone is
saying so and has been saying so ever since Old
Prince got away from you. I don’t like to tell
you what folks are saying. I never was no hand
at carrying news; but I feel that it’s my duty to
let you know. That’s what a friend’s for, to set
us right when we go wrong. I feel it my duty to
tell you.”

“Don’t put yourself out,” said Eliza, biting off
a thread closely, and with just a little touch of
vindictiveness. “I’ll not treasure it up against
you.” She was not angry. Amused came nearest
to express her state of mind.

“I wouldn’t be doing right,” continued the visitor
in her meek, whining, apologetic voice. “I
never set up to be much. I know I hain’t educated,
and me and John are poor, but that hain’t anything
against us. Being poor hain’t any disgrace,
I’ve always tried to do my duty, as I saw it. If
I’ve failed it hain’t because I hain’t tried. It hain’t
no matter to me how I hate to do a thing or how
disagreeable it is, if it’s my duty, I do it. That’s
the way I feel about telling you. I hain’t going to
shirk my duty by you living alone as you are.”

The meeker Mrs. Burtsch tried to be, the more
“hain’ts” she made use of. They were the negative
expression of herself and her thoughts.
Eliza said nothing at all, but picked her stitches
carefully.

“Folks think that you are clean gone crazy
about keeping this little girl. It hain’t as though
you was a married woman with a man to provide
for you. Of course you’ve got money, put out on
interest, but moths corrupt and thieves might
break in and steal. That means not to count too
much on what you’ve laid by.

“Now, folks say that you have no call to keep
this child and treat her just like she was of your
own family. You’re bringing her up just as fine
as a lady.”

“Why not?” asked Eliza. “She’s a little lady
now and I hope she’ll be a big lady by and by.
That’s what I’m raising her for.”

Rose’s shears had not missed a snip; but her
sharp little eyes narrowed down to slits and her
ears pricked themselves up. This was a new subject
to her. Wasn’t Beth really Miss Eliza’s little
girl after all? The wonder of it was that she had
never found out before. Her mouth fairly watered
for this morsel of news. Yet she never so
much as turned her head or lost one snip with
her shears.

“Well, to my way of thinking it hain’t right.
Every one I’ve spoke to says the same thing. It
hain’t right to take a tramp child and bring her up
as though she was somebody. If you’d train her
so she’s be handy for working out, folks wouldn’t
have so much to say, but you’re spoiling her so
that she won’t make even a good hired girl.”

“I don’t want her to be that, Liza Burtsch.
She’s just a baby yet. I really haven’t thought
much what I’d like her to be. All I think about
now is to keep her sweet and wholesome and
teach her all that other little girls learn in schools.
There’s time enough to think about other things
when ten years more have gone.

“There’s something else, Livia Burtsch, that
we’ll settle right here. Beth is no tramp child
and never was. You have no right to call her
that, and I will not allow it.”

“Seems to me that I’ve got a good bit of right.
Folks hain’t as blind as you’re suspicioning them,
Liza Wells. Tramp child, now what else could
she be called but tramp. Maybe she’s worse for
all I know. You can’t tell me things, Liza Wells.
I’ve lived too long to have the wool pulled over my
eyes. You know and I know that no decent self-respecting
woman what has a home or any folks
is tramping on foot through the country with a
baby. No woman that thinks anything of herself
is walking through a strange country and taking
naps under bushes by the roadside. You can’t
tell me. The child’s mother was nothing but a
worthless scal—.”

“Stop! Not another word.” Eliza’s voice was
low—too low for peace. It was as clear cut
and metallic as a blade of steel. Mrs. Burtsch
was awed by it. For an instant she looked at
Eliza with wide-open eyes and hanging jaw, but
she soon recovered her rigidity of feature and
posture.

“Well, I guess I’ll say what I see fit to say when
it’s the truth. That’s what cuts you, Eliza. It’s
the truth and you know it. Tut, tut, what’s the
world coming to if folks can’t speak what’s in
their mind. Beth’s just a tramp—.”

Eliza had risen. She stood like an offended
goddess before the woman. “Not another word
in my house, Livia Burtsch. Not another word.
You always have been a news-carrier, making
trouble wherever you go. I’ve borne with you a
good many years without saying a word in return.
I’ve put up with it too long. Now, we’ll
understand each other. If you can come in my
home and visit without carrying news, and slandering
everyone in the neighborhood, well and
good; you may come and I’ll make you welcome.
If you can’t be civil and can’t keep from bothering
about my affairs—stay away.”

Mrs. Burtsch had also arisen. She was fairly
trembling with offended pride. She looked at
Eliza as though she had never seen her before.
Indeed, she had never seen such an Eliza before.
She could not say a word. She made an effort,
but it only ended in a clack of her tongue against
her false teeth. With what dignity she could
command, she turned and, jerking Rose up by the
hand, fairly pulled her from the room.

Her tongue was loosened before she reached
home. Rose listened to a storm of abuse against
Eliza and her fosterchild. She learned all the
particulars of Beth’s advent into the Wells home.

When they had gone, Eliza went back to her
sewing. Her hand trembled with nervousness.
Beth came and stood back of her chair. “Adee,
I think I’ll fix your hair like you used to wear
it when I was a baby.”

She loosened the smooth bands until the soft
chestnut locks fell loosely about the high, broad
forehead. The roll of hair was too heavy for
the child to manage, so Adee herself coiled it
loosely as Beth wished it to be.

The child disappeared for a moment, but soon
returned with some sweet peas in a delicate pink.

“This is the way you used to wear them, Adee.”
She stuck them in with her light, easy touch.

“Now, look how sweet you look, Adee,” she
cried. Eliza viewed herself in the big mirror
and smiled. She recognized beauty when she
saw it and—well, she was growing to look like
her own flowers, and her own heart.

CHAPTER VIII.
=============

Mrs. Burtsch remained away all the remainder
of the summer and until late in
the fall. Rose, of course, was prohibited
from visiting Beth. For her own part, Eliza was
better pleased than otherwise with the arrangement
of affairs. She regretted that Beth was cut
off from intimate companionship with those of
her own age, yet Rose had never been the most
desirable acquaintance. Being alone was preferable
to undesirable friends.

Eliza made a point of inviting Helen Reed
from Friday until Sunday evening. The two
little girls had the best of times. There were
bushels of pop-corn and barrels of apples. When
the weather was not too cold, they spent hours
playing in the attic. Eliza had given them each
a play skirt which could trail behind, and they
were happy.

There was a box of antiquated hats in the
attic. Beth and Helen at once set up a millinery
shop and sewed braids and trimmed hats until
their fingers were sore. They had quite a fine
assortment before they had finished. It was only
too bad that they had no customers and were
forced to buy their own goods.

Winter months in the country are never propitious
for visiting unless one is able to keep a
driving horse. The people at Shintown had only
the work horses. During the coldest months these
were taken to town to haul ice from the river
to the big store houses, and so were unavailable.
So the folks of Shintown ploughed their own way
through the snow to church or Sunday-school
which was always held in the school-house.

Eliza caught glimpses of Mrs. Burtsch and
tried to speak to her, but the offended lady would
accept no overtures. She took her place opposite
Eliza and never looked in her direction. When
Beth after services would have run after Rose,
Mrs. Burtsch drew her offspring away with,
“Come, Rose, this instant. Hain’t I told you that
I want you to be particular who you are friends
with.”

Even at the sauer-kraut supper, which was the
annual event for the last week in November,
when money was raised to pay the minister’s
salary, Mrs. Burtsch ignored her neighbors of
the old Wells place. Eliza was washing dishes
and Mrs. Burtsch carrying plates heaped with
pork, sauer-kraut and mashed potatoes.

After several attempts, Eliza gave up and accepted
Mrs. Burtsch’s attitude as a matter of
course. Since the day when Beth had fluffed her
hair and stuck sweet peas in it, Eliza had kept it
so. The garden flowers had all gone. There
were plenty of house plants at the Wells place,
however. The evening of the supper, Beth stuck
a pink geranium in her foster-mother’s hair.

“You’ll be the very sweetest one at the party
Adee,” said Beth.

She was a true prophet. Eliza’s work and the
overheated room had given her cheeks the same
tint as the flower in her hair.

“Eliza Wells haint so bad looking,” said Sam
Houston to some one near him. “It’s wonderful
how she does keep her looks. She’s thirty-five
if she’s a day.”

More than one pair of eyes were attracted
toward her. Mrs. Kilgore sighed when she overheard
some one mention Eliza’s fine coloring.
She shook her head sadly. “I don’t like the looks
of it,” she said. “Old Sally Caldwell, her great
aunt by marriage on her father’s side, had just
such high coloring and she was took off sudden
as could be with galloping consumption. You
can’t tell me. Such things are inherited. Mark
my words, Eliza Wells will be took off before the
year is out. It hain’t natural. A woman ought
to look a little faded by the time she’s Eliza’s
age. It’s only natural that she should.”

“Don’t let that worry you none,” laughed Mrs.
Burtsch in her bitter, cynical fashion. “Those
red cheeks won’t have nothing to do with Eliza’s
going off unless she goes off with just plumb
foolishness. We could all be blooming out and
looking like young colts if we wanted to spend
our money at a drug-store. Pink cheeks! Buy
them at twenty-five cents a bottle at Swain’s
drug-store.”

Sleet set in before the supper was over. It
was almost nine o’clock before the social event
of the season was over and the lights in the
school-house were ready to be turned off. The
weather had moderated and the sleet had become a
rain. The walking was bad. Slush with pools
of water had filled the road.

Old Squire Stout had come over with his three-seated
“carry-all”.

“I’ll carry you and Beth home,” he said to
Eliza. “You’uns folks is farthest out and you
hain’t got no men folks with you. You’d better
ride along.”

“I should like to. Beth’s so tired that she can
barely keep on her feet.”

They were ready to start when Mrs. Burtsch
came out of the school-house with her basket
over her arm. “I most forgot my potato-kettle,”
she explained. “I never could get along without
that.”

“Oh, is that you, Livia,” cried the squire in his
way. “Better climb in and we’ll carry you home.
Always room for one more. Crowd in somewhere.
Let the youngsters sit on the floor.”

Mrs. Burtsch was about to comply when she
saw that the only seat not already crowded to its
full capacity, was occupied by Eliza and the
squire’s wife. They had moved closer to make
room for her.

“Not to-night, but I thank you kindly just the
same, squire. I’ll keep to Shank’s mare yet
awhile. I’ll trot on alone and I’ll be sure to be in
good company.”

“Suit yourself, Livia,” said the squire, touching
his whip to the flanks of the off horse. “It’s a
right fool thing to walk two miles on a night
like this when you could just as well ride. But
I hain’t no way responsible for your foolishness.
You always was plumb set in your ways.”

Later events proved that Mrs. Burtsch was
foolish. Sam Houston brought the news to Eliza.
Sam and his wife had the best intentions in the
world. They were “chock-full” to the throat with
fine theories about how to run a farm and anything
else that came up for discussion. They
meant to put their theories into practice, but
somehow they never got around to it. He knew
when sauer-kraut should be made and just how
it should be made. He got as far in working it
out as to have his cabbage piled on the back porch
with bran sacks over it to keep it from freezing.
His “working germ” took a vacation there. The
week following the sauer-kraut supper, he came
around to Eliza’s back door. He was careful to
“stomp” the snow from his boots before he entered
the kitchen.

“Why—you, Sam?” exclaimed Eliza. “I hope
nothing has happened to Mary Jane.” Sam was
not one to make early calls.

“No, the missis is all right. She just sent me
over to get the lend of your kraut-cutter. You
hain’t using it, I calculate.”

“Mercy, no. I’ve got mine made long ago. The
cutter’s out in the wash-house. You’ll find it
hanging up behind the door.”

“We’re a little slow somehow about making
ours. ‘Pears to be so much to do. There’s
chores, and then I had some carpenter work to
do on the chicken-coop. But last night, the cold
nipped the top layer of the cabbage heads, so Mary
Jane said we’d better make the kraut right off
or it would all be spoiled. She spoke to set up
with Livia Burtsch to-night.”

“Livia Burtsch?” exclaimed Eliza. “What’s
wrong with her?”

“Got water-soaked the night of the church-supper
and took ‘monia’. They’ve had the doctor
from the Bend. The parson’s been to see her.
She’s right bad. Somebody’s had to set up with
her every night now for three days. She gets out
of her head.”

Sam moved on to get the sauer-kraut cutter.
There was no question in Eliza’s mind as to her
duty.

“I’m going over to see Mrs. Burtsch, Beth,” she
said. “I’m not sure that I’ll be back in time for
dinner. You can take some bread and milk. I
don’t want you to fuss with the fire and try to
cook while I’m away. Mrs. Burtsch is sick and
may need me.”

There were more ways than one in which Mrs.
Burtsch would need help. Eliza knew that. Olivia
was not one to “cook up” anything. She was
generally out of bread and never made jelly, or
canned what she called “truck”. Eliza knew how
she would find matters in the Burtsch household,
so she took her biggest basket and filled it with
some fresh bread, some jelly and several bottles
of home-made grape-juice.

She wasted no time in apology or explaining
when she entered the Burtsch household.

“Well Livia, this is too bad that you’re laid up.
Have you had any breakfast yet?”

“Lem did bring me in some, but I couldn’t eat,”
she said.

“A man’s cooking! It wouldn’t be expected of
you. I’ll get something for you.”

The kitchen was not the sight to please the eye
of a housekeeper. Lemuel and Rose had made a
shift at cooking but had made no attempt at cleaning
up. Dishes were piled high on every available
space of the table. The floor was slippery with
grease. The frying pan with bits of what had
been intended for the patient’s breakfast was on
the back of the stove. Eliza sniffed at it. Salt
pork! Scarcely a tempting breakfast for an invalid.

She prepared toast with an egg and a cup of
tea. The neighboring women had been kind, but
they had their families and households to see to,
and had not been able to accomplish all they
wished.

When the breakfast was disposed of, Eliza
cleared away the accumulation of dishes. She
pressed Rose into service. She put the house into
some semblance of order in the very few hours
she had and prepared dinner for Lemuel Burtsch.
She knew what his meals must have been if he
had had the preparation of them himself. She
was a slow, deliberate worker. She could not
rush about and do much in a little time. But she
was not irritating in her efforts. Her serene,
calm way soothed Olivia.

Rose was of little help. She whined and cried
when matters went askew. Mrs. Burtsch worried
about the child’s doing without her meals. Altogether
Rose was of little value in the house.

“Does Rose help you? Is there anything she
can do?” Eliza asked Lemuel as he sat at the
dinner table. He looked about bewildered. He
had never been the head of his own house, and
now with his wife sick, he was like a canoe with
the paddle gone.

“She hain’t much good. She’s not very old yet
Miss Eliza, and her mother always calculated
not to make her work until she was considerable
older.”

“She’s really too much of a baby yet to help
anyone. If she is no help, I’ll take her home with
me and take care of her until Olivia gets around,
or until you can find a good woman.”

“That’s powerful good, Miss Liza. Your folks
was always great hands for helping other folks
out and you’re a chip from the old block. I’ll be
relieved a heap if you’ll sort of look after her.”

It was evident that the child’s mother was
quite as relieved as Lemuel himself.

It was long after the dinner hour when Eliza
set forth with Rose. Mrs. Houston had come over
to “set” for a spell and promised to see to the patient
until the evening when some one else would
relieve her.

Beth was watching at the window. When she
saw Eliza and Rose coming, she ran from the
house and down to the gate to meet them. She
flung her arms about Adee’s neck and then
hugged Rose who stood as stiff and irresponsive
as an iron post.

“I’m dreadful glad, Rose. Now, we can play.
Helen and I made about a million hats. They’re
up in the attic. We’ll play millinery store.”

“Run along and play until I call you to supper.
We’ll have it early. Beth has had only a bowl of
milk since breakfast. Run along; I’ll call you.”

They needed no encouragement. Eliza went to
the kitchen and began her preparation. Meanwhile
the girls had examined the hats in the attic
and commented on the grace and elegance of several.
Rose’s tongue was going clickety-clack. She
talked more freely when her elders were not present.

“Mrs. Kilgore got a new hat before the church
supper. She thought she wouldn’t get it at first.
It cost an awful lot,” and so on and so on, petty
details of other people’s affairs which she had
heard her elders discuss, and which was really
no business of hers, or theirs either.

“Let’s play store. You be selling hats and I’ll
be the Queen of Sheba come to buy,” suggested
Beth. She had learned this particular “stunt”
from Helen Reed who would have no dealings
with anybody but royalty when she played make-believe.

“I’ll have a train. This one is too short and
don’t rustle.” Beth proceeded to pin a half of a
curtain to the tail of her gown. Then she pranced
forward where the gable was highest and trailed
her gown after her.

“You’ll be the shop-keeper and I’ll be the
Queen,” said Rose.

“No, I’ll be the Queen first. You’ve never
played the game and you don’t know how a queen
is supposed to act. They don’t act like just common,
every-day people.” Beth paraded up and
down, spreading her train and looking back over
her shoulder to see the effect. So the discussion
continued for several minutes.

“Much you know about queens. You’d better
play like you was a tramp.” There was more
than childish teasing in the speaker’s voice. There
was the keen cutting desire to hurt which marked
her mother’s conversation.

“I don’t know nothing about tramps. I never
saw one in all my life. Oh, ain’t this train perfectly
‘kertish’?” and she cavorted about to show
off to the best advantage.

“You don’t! You never saw one! Then you’d
better look in the looking-glass. For you’re a
tramp yourself. You were found—”

Eliza had come to bring the little girls to supper.
She caught the last remark. Quick as a
flash, she stepped into the room and, seizing Rose
by the arm, silenced her. She held her thus while
she turned to Beth.

“Go down and eat your supper, Beth, dear.
Rose and I will have a little talk.”

Sending Beth ahead, Eliza held Rose, cringing
and shaking, by the arm and led her to a bedroom
on the second floor, where she took her in
and sat down with her and tried to show how
contemptible and mean her act was.

CHAPTER IX.
===========

Two serious questions concerning Beth’s
rearing presented themselves to Eliza.
After her experience with Rose, she knew
that her foster-child would be forced to bear the
insults and unkind remarks of every ill-bred
person who chose to express themselves.

As for Rose, Eliza felt that she had quieted her
only for such time as she was a visitor at the
Wells home. The child was a sort of leader after
a fashion of her own, and what she did the half
dozen children near her age would do.

It meant simply this. Beth would be the subject
of the caprice, ill-temper or ill-breeding of
the children. The best thing was to put her with
those who had kindness in their heart. She would
be able to teach her for a year more. Then she
would enter her in the schools at Farwell.

So far the matter was settled. The next question
was one of finance. There were several
dollars monthly tuition for pupils who did not
reside in the borough. Eliza had so little to go on.
She determined that she would be ready for the
expense when it came. She would not deny Beth,
but she could and would make sacrifices for herself.
All winter, not a cent was spent needlessly.
She sold her butter close, and studied her chicken
manual and fed her hens so scientifically and
kept the coops so warm and comfortable that the
fowls were under the impression that spring had
come and took to laying at once; this when eggs
were forty cents a dozen.

When Beth was ten years old, she entered the
B grammar grade at Farwell. So far Eliza had
kept in touch with her work and had taught her
all she knew. She had a tug at her heart strings
that first morning in September when she walked
into town with Beth. It seemed to her that there
had come a parting of the ways when each must
walk a little more alone.

Beth was radiant with new tan shoes and stockings.
Her white dress was fresh from the iron.
Eliza felt not a little conscience-stricken whenever
she bade her little girl wear this particular
dress. It had been made from the linen sheets
which Eliza’s grandmother had woven and
bleached. Eliza loved family traditions. She had
thought a long time before she put her shears into
these heirlooms. But she concluded at last that
the welfare and advancement of the living were
to be considered before the traditions of the past.

It was a beautiful morning when they started
forth on the road to knowledge. The way from
the Wells homestead led down a gradual slope.
Here one could go by way of the public road, or
take a little foot-path which wound in and out
through the woods and at length came in just at
the edge of Farwell.

Eliza and Beth had given themselves plenty of
time. The foot-path was enticing. They took it.
Eliza walked slowly, pausing now and then to
look at the scene about her, or to pluck a bit of
golden-rod or wild aster. Beth was flitting from
flower to flower like a butterfly. Yet in the
midst of her excitement and haste, she stepped
carefully on the tips of her shoes so that she
would not scuff them. Tan shoes were not to be
had for the asking.

The slope of the hill stretched to a ravine
through which ran a little stream. In spring, it
was something worth while; but the heat of summer
had dried it up, so that now there was barely
enough of it to make a gurgling sound. Once
there had been fields along the stream. An apple
orchard had stretched over the hillside. The
trees were still there, to be sure, but they had
degenerated until the fruit was hard, small and
bitter.

Portions of an old rail fence were to be seen,
and close under the one solitary forest-oak which
some generous hand had left standing, was a
small house built of square timbers. Wild ampelopsis
were clambering over it everywhere. A
broad stone chimney built for an outlet to the
grate within was standing as intact as the day
its rough stones were laid.

No one had ever lived here since Eliza could
remember. The windows and doors had been
boarded up for years. Nature had softened the
colors and vines and bending branches of oak
had made it a beautiful place. The Oliver place,
people called it; but nothing remained of the
Oliver family but the name of this place. They
had come and gone, and that was all the Shintown
folk could tell of them.

Eliza stopped and looked at the place, as she
did every time she passed it. It had always been
attractive to her, even when she was a child. It
was mellowed in color; it stood aloof from all life,
and suggested sentiment and romance.

Beth had run on ahead. Seeing that Eliza was
not following, she ran back and stood beside her.
There was a moment’s silence, until her mind
grasped what was holding her companion’s attention.

“Isn’t it simply lovely?” she exclaimed. “It
would be simply ‘kertish’ for a play-house. When
Helen brings her cousin over to spend Saturday,
I’ll bring them down here to make a play-house.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Eliza.
“The place may be full of snakes. Old houses like
that are often dens of rattlers.”

“We could kill them, couldn’t we?” asked Beth.

“We’ll not risk it,” said Eliza. “Just stay away.
Then I’ll feel sure that you are on the safe side.”

It was barely eight o’clock when Eliza and her
charge entered the school building. Miss Harmon
had charge of the B grammar grade. Providence
was being good to Beth when she put her in this
woman’s charge. She was a fine teacher. Her
school-room held more than books. Children
were built up, strengthened and made happy. She
believed firmly that one can be happy only by
being of some use in the world. She considered
it sinful to be depressed and blue; for such an attitude
of mind showed lack of faith in God. She
had a part in every good work in town. She
knew every one and had a kindly word of greeting
for each one, from drunken, worthless Jerry Hennesey
to the Judge who stood as a beacon light
of morality and high thinking.

“And Beth is to be with me this year?” she said
after greeting her visitors. “I am glad of that.
We’ll have a lovely time.”

“I shall miss her,” said Eliza. “I’ve been teaching
her up to this time. Of course I had to do
some studying, but I enjoyed it. I’m sorry to give
it up.”

“Why give it up? Why not continue as you
have begun?”

“It would be useless. Two years more and
she’ll take up Latin and Algebra. I’ve never had
them. I know nothing of Botany. I know the
wild flowers here about, but nothing about the
science.”

“You know the finest part if you know the flowers,”
was the reply. “What matters it if Beth begins
Latin! If you keep side by side with her,
could you not begin too?”

“I’m too old. Why, Miss Harmon, I’m thirty—”

“Don’t, please. I don’t wish to know. Years
are not counted any more. Why, you and I are
babies yet with a lot of glorious things to learn.
Mind is not subject to years. It can keep working
as long as there is a body to hold it.”

This was a new idea to Eliza. Somewhere hidden
in her brain had been this same thought; but
she had pushed it back from the light. It had
been so different from what every one else
thought, that she had believed it must be wrong.
She listened to Miss Harmon talk along this same
line. She had little to say; but she did a great
deal of thinking.

“Youth can always dwell in the heart and the
mind. We can find joy in living, spontaneity in
action, and delight in study as long as we live.”

She paused and then laughed softly while a
flush stole over her cheeks. “I am going to be
personal, Miss Wells, just to prove to you that I
know what I’m talking about. I’m ten years older
than you—you have been thinking all the while
that I’m much younger. Do you know why? I
have never let myself think I was too old to learn
anything. I’ve kept my mind and muscles flexible
and they cannot get stiff.”

“I know you are right,” said Eliza at last. “I
used to think a good deal on that line, but I never
could talk of it to any one. It seemed as though
no one thought as I did. They always acted as
though I was just a little peculiar.”

“They called Galileo crazy; Plato was sneered
at because he taught the immortality of the soul
when every one else believed something else. We
can’t depend upon our friends for some things.
Each one of us must be a Columbus and discover
for himself the unfathomed country of his own
soul. There is no knowing how big and glorious
a possession we may have.”

The gong sounded here and the children came
trooping in. Miss Eliza arose to leave. The
teacher came with her to the door.

“You will come again and see how Beth is getting
along? Don’t give up your studies. You’ll
regret it if you do. Some time when I have leisure
I would like to talk with you about our Club.
I know you would be interested and would like to
join.”

Eliza went her way. Already the horizon had
broadened. A Columbus to her own soul! She
grasped what that might mean. No one could
tell her own possibilities, her own capabilities,
until she cast aside prejudice, servitude to customs
which were accepted only because they had
been in existence for centuries, and started forth
to express the sweetness and strength of her own
life.

Eliza hurried along with buoyant step. Her
feet were light and her hopes high. Her white
dress had been mended, but it was the perfection
of daintiness. She was good to look at as she
went her way, a graceful, gracious, smiling woman.

“Slow up, or there’ll be a head-on collision,”
cried a merry voice. “I declare I’m always ‘flagging’
people to prevent a wreck.”

Eliza brought herself to a sudden stop. Doctor
Dullmer, smiling and gracious, stood before her.

“I beg your pardon, I didn’t see you. I was
preoccupied,” she stammered.

“I believe you. Thoughts in the clouds and
heels on the pavements. But I’m not surprised.
That’s the way I’m being treated these days.
Handsome, attractive young women don’t care to
notice a fat, seedy old doctor.”

Eliza laughed at his jest. “It doesn’t matter
though how I’m treated. I’ll not forsake my
friends. To prove it, I’ll walk down to the crossroads
with you. It is unseemly that a young girl
like you should be roaming the streets alone at
this hour.” His expression was quite grave and
his voice as serious as though he were diagnosing
a case.

Doctor Dullmer had a thousand subjects to talk
upon. He flitted like a bee from one to another,
taking out a bit of honey everywhere. When they
came to the corner of Champlain Avenue and
Sixth Street, which was the beginning of the
State Road, Doctor Dullmer pointed across the
river to where the base of the mountains spread
out into a broad level plain, fully a hundred yards
higher than the valley in which Farwell lay. The
view from this elevation must have been magnificent,
for it extended so that the river swept about
it and one could see for miles east and west. Every
little village was in sight, and beyond lay the
magnificent heights of the Alleghanies.

“Notice those workmen over there. That
means something. That means that we are going
to be society. Next summer we take to swallow-tailed
coats and low-cut vests. We are getting on.
We will have a summer hotel there, and the fashionables
will come and tell us what beautiful
mountains we have. As though we didn’t know
that the instant we were able to peep from beneath
our perambulator blankets to look at them.”

He turned to gaze quizzically at Eliza.

“You’ll have to do like the rest of them. You’ll
be cutting off the collar of your frock and putting
a tail to your skirt. That’s the fashionable caper
for women, they tell me—. Here’s my turning-off
place.” He was gone before Eliza could speak.

She stood a moment looking at the swarm of
workmen excavating. She had heard rumors of a
summer hotel being built. It was really true
then!

She smiled as she recalled the doctor’s words
about evening gowns and trains. How ridiculous!

Very strange things happen. Before many
years had passed, Eliza was really trailing after
her a robe of—. But this is anticipating. Why
speak of it now, when she herself never suspected
all the strange occurrences which would follow
from the hotel’s bringing its influx of guests.

CHAPTER X.
==========

Before the year had passed, Beth had
learned many things which were not in
books. The first was that school and
clothes cost money. She gave no hint to Adee that
she had grown wise in this respect. What was
the use of discussing matters and worrying oneself
when no good could come of it? She could
keep her eyes open and look about her, to see in
what way she could help her foster-mother. She
saw, for the first time, a great deal. Adee’s shoes
were patched and her gloves shiny. Having her
eyes opened, Beth saw a great deal. At the first
opening of spring, she had had new shoes and
a new school-dress. The walk was hard on footwear.
A pair of shoes had lasted her but a month.

She looked at her new shoes and decided that
they must last her until the last of summer.
Thereafter when she set out for school, she slipped
around to the front stoop, and when she set forth
again, she had a bundle under her arm. A month
passed. Beth had come home from school. Adee
had met her at the foot of the slope. By some
strange chance, Adee’s eyes fell upon the shoes
the little girl was wearing.

“It’s wonderful how your shoes are lasting.
They are not even scuffed and you have worn
them five weeks. That has been about as long as
a pair lasts you.”

“Yes,” said Beth. Her face grew crimson, and
she turned her eyes away that she might not meet
Adee’s glance.

“Did you bring home a library book?” asked
Eliza, reaching forth for the books under Beth’s
arm. “I hope it is something worth while. We
can read it aloud.” For the first time, she saw
the other bundle under Beth’s arm.

“What is it, Beth?” she asked.

Beth burst into tears. Then with a sudden impulse
she opened the bundle and forced it into
Eliza’s hands. It was nothing at all formidable—nothing
to shed tears over.

“Your old shoes! What are you crying about
them for, and what ever possessed you to carry
them with you? Were they too valuable to leave
at home?”

“I’m crying because I didn’t wish you to know
about it, and now you’ve found out.” Beth dried
her tears. “I saw how many shoes I was wearing
out, and that I always had new ones and you had
old patched ones. I thought I’d save. I put on
these old ones when I get out of sight of the house
and just at the edge of town I put on the good
ones again. I’ve always looked nice in school,
Adee, and I didn’t wear out the good shoes on the
rough road.”

“It’s all right,” said Adee. “But what did you
do with your old shoes while you were in school?
I do hope you did not set them up on your desk
as a decoration.”

Beth knew her own Adee, and accepted this remark
as a humorous sort of pleasantry. She
laughed, “You know I did not. I hid them under
an old log alongside the road. You’re not vexed,
Adee?”

Eliza put her arm around the child and drew
her close to her as they walked up the hill. “No,
I think I’m pleased. Indeed, I am quite sure I am.
I’m glad that you think of some one else. But
don’t worry about your shoes, I want you to look
well in school. If you stand well in your class,
and behave yourself nicely, I shall be satisfied.
Somehow, I think this is all a little girl need do.”

“It’s all right though to save my shoes this
way?”

“Yes, if you wish to. I’ll leave that to you.
You may do as you please. It will save me buying
a new pair for some time.”

So Beth continued this. Her shoes lasted
through the school term which closed the last of
May.

The high school at Farwell was only a district
one of the third class. There was a three years’
course, and the average age for graduation was
sixteen. Beth entered when she was twelve—or,
rather when Eliza thought she was that age.
She may have been eleven or thirteen for all either
of them knew.

The freshman class was made up of pupils
from three grammar grades from different sections
of the town, so that at least two-thirds of
her class-mates were strangers to Beth. She and
Helen had been put in different divisions, and
Beth found herself virtually alone as far as any
friends were concerned.

Several days passed before the girl back of her
spoke to her. Beth already knew her name, having
seen it on the wall slate. It was Tilly Jones.
She was a fat, fair-haired girl—the senior of
Beth by several years. She was rather stupid
about books, and her movements slow and ponderous.
Her father was an ignorant, uneducated
man, yet with a certain skill about molding, so
that he was able to make the sand pattern by
simply having the blue-print before him, and
taking no measurements. He was a genius in
this one line. He was a valuable man in the foundry
and made “big money.” Tilly had ribbons and
furbelows. Her fat, pudgy fingers were covered
with rings; she wore a bracelet and a necklace.

Friday morning, she leaned forward and asked,
“What are you going to wear this afternoon?”

“Wear? Why, this—” replied Beth.

“But it’s Friday afternoon,” was the reply.
Beth could see no reason why this day of the week
would make any difference. Tilly enlightened
her. “Literary society, you know. Everybody
fixed up for that. I’m going to wear a net gown
over a blue lining. It looks just like silk. You’d
never tell until you touched it. My mother paid
Miss Foster six dollars to make it. My dress cost
almost twenty dollars.”

Beth had nothing to say to this. She could not
have said it, had she the words in her mouth, for
the teacher had moved down the aisle and had her
eyes upon the corner from which the sound of
whispering came.

At noon Tilly came up to her in the cloak-room
and explained the customs of the school. She had
failed in her examinations, consequently this was
her second year in the freshman class and she
knew all about the “ins” and “outs.”

“Everybody who is anything dresses up for Friday
afternoon,” she said.

“I can’t,” said Beth. “I don’t go home for
dinner. I bring my lunch.”

“It’s too bad. You’ll feel so embarrassed. Your
hair ribbons are old ones, too. This is the first
time I’ve worn mine. They cost fifty cents a
yard.”

She talked for some minutes, at the end of
which Beth knew how much every article she
wore cost. They were interrupted by the appearance
of two other classmates. Beth knew them
only by name. Carrie Laire was slight, with dark
hair and eyes. Sally Monroe was very fair. She
was slender and wiry. Her hair was drawn
loosely and hung in a thick braid down her back.

“I’m the chairman of the Program Committee,”
began Sally. “Do you recite or write poetry? I
want you to be on the program for two weeks
from to-day. You can select your own work.
You see, I cannot tell what each one does best.”

“I’ll write a story,” said Beth. “A fairy-tale;
will that do?”

“It would be lovely. You’re a perfect dear to
help me out.” She was writing Beth’s name in
her note-book.

“Don’t you live in town?” asked Carrie Laire.
Beth told her where she lived.

“Is Miss Wells your aunt?” was the next question.
Beth had never thought of that.

“No, she isn’t,” she replied and was about to
move away, but Carrie followed her. The question
had made Beth uneasy. Adee was not her
aunt. Why did she live with her then, and
why did she not have a home with brothers and
sisters like other girls?

“Is your father dead?” Carrie continued. “I
suppose he must be, and your mother too, or you
wouldn’t be living with some one who isn’t even
your aunt.”

Sally overheard the questions. She had always
been in Carrie’s classes and knew how prone that
young lady was to ask impertinent questions
about matters which were really none of her business.
She came to the rescue now.

“I’m glad you can write fairy-stories, Beth. It
is so hard to get anyone to do anything of that
sort. The girls will recite and sing, but essays
and stories make them nervous.” Slipping her
arm within Beth’s she led her away, ignoring
alike Carrie’s presence and her impertinent questions.

“I’ll bring my lunch with me, too,” continued
Sally. “I believe you and I could get along very
well. Let us eat together. I haven’t any particular
friend. Mabel Reynolds was, but she is
away. I’d dearly love to have you for a friend.”

“I’d love to be your dearest friend. I never had
a real intimate friend, except Helen Reed, and
she’s in the other division.”

In the joy of these friendly overtures, Beth forgot
Carrie and her questions.

Just before the afternoon session, Tilly came
in breathless. Her fat body was palpitating like
jelly. She wore a net dress made over a lining of
blue near-silk. Her ribbons were new and crisp;
her shoes and stockings white.

“I’ve heard a piece of news,” she began the instant
her eyes fell upon the girls. “There’s a
whole party planning to motor over from Point
Breeze to visit school. They’ll be here for our
program. They’re swells everyone of them. Mrs.
Laurens is one of them. I’ve seen her. They’ve
been all the summer at the Point Breeze Hotel.
Her room costs twenty dollars a week. I’m glad
I’m dressed up. I’m awful sorry for you, Beth.
If I were you I’d sit back so they wouldn’t see me.
They may never notice that you’re in the room.
It’s a good thing that I sit in front of you and that
I could go home and dress. I’m glad I wore this
sash. My mother bought it in New York. It’s
imported. She paid ten dollars for it.”

“Perhaps the visitors will be looking at your
sash and not see us,” said Beth dryly. “Thank
you for your suggestion; but I’ll not sit back
away from your view. If Mrs. Laurens and her
friends do not like my looks, they can turn their
eyes some other way. It is my school and my seat
and my dress. If anything about it doesn’t suit
them, they know what they can do.”

It was rather a fiery speech for Beth. Sally
squeezed her arm to give her a sort of moral support.
Harvey Lackard, the freckle-faced boy
with the crimson topknot, chuckled aloud.

“Give it to her, Beth,” he encouraged. “I never
knew you had so much spunk. You don’t strike
often, but when you do, you give it to them under
the belt.”

Tilly took no offense. She had a good disposition
even though the price mark was attached to
everything she said. She turned toward Harvey
and smiled blandly.

Carrie Laire was quite as excited as Tilly.

“Did you know that Mrs. Laurens is coming
and Judge Creswell and Colonel Evans? Why,
but I’m all worked up over it. I have a piano solo,
and I just know I’ll break down. Do you know
any of them? You may thank your stars that
you’re not on the program. Judge Creswell is
awful famous. Have you any judge in your family?
What did your father do?”

Just an instant, Beth’s face flushed. She did
not wish to make an enemy of Carrie, yet she
could not put up with these questions. She stiffened
her quivering lip and said lightly, “Are you
merely curious, Carrie, or do you wish the information?”
Her companion turned to look at her.
Beth continued, “I’ll take a tablet and write out
all the information about me that you may ever
need—age, height, weight, and everything else.”

“Why, Beth Wells, you are just as hateful as
you can be. You know that I only ask you because
I’m interested in you, and then you turn on
me and say such sharp things.”

The conversation was interrupted by the gong.
The girls moved slowly toward the assembly
room, and were taking their time, when Miss
Hanscom rapped sharply with her ruler. She was
a rigid disciplinarian, who could not discriminate
between the magnitude of offense. She had been
in the Farwell schools for five years. Her work
had been strenuous. She had fought her own
way, against heavy odds. The result was that
she was hard in manner, self-sufficient and not a
little aggressive.

Pupils always spoke of how well she had taught
them, but not one had ever said that she had
awakened sympathy. She was nervous now and
spoke sharply, for from her window she had seen
two touring cars slow up at the curb, and she
knew that visitors were “upon them.”

CHAPTER XI.
===========

Miss Hanscom was nervous when she called
the school to order. Her voice was sharp
and her body rigid as steel. Her state of
mind was felt all over the room. The silence was
ominous. It was not that of a healthy, well-disciplined
set of boys and girls. It was a condition
impelled by fear.

The girls sat bolt upright, not daring to glance
at the door through which the visitors were being
ushered by Miss Ward, the vice-principal. The
boys twisted the tops of the ink wells or sat with
their hands deep in their pockets, trying their
best to appear unconcerned, while their eyes were
anywhere but upon the visitors.

Miss Ward was a wholly different type from
Miss Hanscom. She never thought of herself or
the impression that she might be making. Her
desire was to make everyone about her comfortable
and happy. It follows, of course, that one
loves that person who brings out the best in one.
The instant Miss Ward entered the room there
was a relaxation of tense muscles and a sigh went
over the room. Unconsciously each boy and girl
felt easier. Miss Ward made them feel at ease.
They could do their best if she were presiding in
the school-room.

The guests who were being ushered in were
worth notice. The dignified, stately judge with
his silver hair, and judicial, yet kindly bearing;
Colonel Evans, who bore the marks of military
training in every move, although years were
heavy upon them. Mr. Laurens, a prominent engineer
and construction man who had built the
finest bridges in the world, and who was always
called in for conference whenever any great engineering
feat was in prospect. He was a man in
the forties, perhaps. He was particularly fine
appearing, with no thought of self in his bearing
or expression. Indeed, his whole attitude was
centered upon his wife. He was careful of her
comfort, and most considerate toward her in every
way. She was a dainty woman, slender in
physique, with delicate, exquisite coloring, and
wonderfully expressive eyes. She smiled and
laughed as she talked with Miss Ward, yet her
face, when at rest, expressed only sadness.

Beth’s eyes rested upon her and remained there.
She fairly held her breath. Never in her life had
she seen anything so exquisite as this woman.
Her heart gave a great leap. Beth watched her
while she was talking and until she moved across
the room and took her place with the others before
the school. Then the woman sat silent, and
the peculiar look of wistful sadness came to her
face. Beth felt it. She did not know what had
caused the change in her own feelings; but her
heart sank, and great tears sprang to her eyes.

“She’s so sweet that it makes my heart ache,”
she told herself. “Wouldn’t it be heavenly to be
her little girl. I’d love her to death. I’d hug her
until she couldn’t breathe.”

Poor little prosaic Beth had grown sentimental.
She sat quite still with her eyes upon the woman.
She neither spoke nor moved. She forgot that
there was any one else in the room. As far as
she was concerned, Mrs. Laurens was the only
one.

But the woman’s glance never turned in Beth’s
direction. After that sweet, fleeting glance over
the room, she had let her eyes droop upon her
hands folded in her lap, and she did not raise
them again. Her husband sat near her. He
talked with those about him and seemed a part
of everything, yet it was evident that his wife engrossed
his thoughts, for his tender, yet uneasy
glances were turned upon her. She seemed unconscious
of this and sat quiet as though in deep
thought.

The program began. There was a general
stiffening of spines. Carrie Laire leaned over to
ask Beth if she didn’t think Mrs. Laurens the
most beautiful creature in the world, and if she
was not sorry that she did not have a mother who
would come to visit school. Adee had come and
was sitting up in front among the visitors. Mrs.
Laire was near her.

“I have Adee. She’s better than any mother
I ever saw. She’s the prettiest woman there—except
Mrs. Laurens,” she said.

Tilly Jones was straightening out her hair-ribbons.
She smoothed her sash and drew it over
the edge of the seat that it might not muss. Then
she adjusted her rings and bracelets. Her fussiness
brought the eyes of the visitors upon her.
Tilly was not abashed. She met their glances and
turned to give a loving pat to her sash. Then she
leaned forward to speak to Beth. “Look at Mrs.
Laurens’ motor-coat. Isn’t it simply divine? It
must have cost fifty dollars. Look at the heels of
her shoes. They’re the most expensive shoes that
can be bought. My aunt Tilly—.” She continued
her monologue in a whisper. Beth was not listening
to a word she said. Her eyes and mind were
upon the wonderful woman who sat at the front
of the room.

The fairy-stories and “make-believe” tales between
Adee and Beth had continued all the years
that they were together, so that the child’s native
imagination had been well developed. This would
be such a lovely story. The lady would be the
princess or queen who had had a great sorrow.
Beth thought it all out as she sat there. She
would write about it, and read it at the next meeting
of the Literary Society. She was glad that
Sally Monroe had put her on the program.

The exercises were progressing nicely. Some
one thumped out a solo on the piano. There were
essays on subjects which a sage would have hesitated
to handle. :small-caps:`The High School Daily` was
presented. Harvey Lackard, the red-headed,
freckle-faced boy, was editor-in-chief and read
the edition. There were editorials and poems.
Beth sat up to listen. This was something new
and really worth while. She forgot for a time the
sweet-faced woman sitting before her. She
laughed aloud when Harvey read, “What They
Remind Me Of.” There followed a list of the
pupils with some characteristic appended.

   | Tilly Jones—An Animated Price List.
   | Carrie Laire—The Living Question Mark.
   | Sally Monroe—A Lubricating Oil Can.
   | Beth Wells—The Verbal Pugilist.

Beth laughed as heartily as any at the gibe at
herself. It was a little odd. Only twice in her
life had she spoken sharply. Harvey had been
present. He knew nothing of the thousand times
she had maintained a discreet, though painful,
silence.

She laughed, but nevertheless she was sorry
that Harvey had received such an unpleasant impression
of her.

Tilly Jones was to recite. When her name was
called, there was a little flutter of excitement
about her desk, she straightened her sash and
turned her bracelet about so that the sets might
show. She did this while she walked up the aisle.
All the while she watched the visitors to see how
her elegance was impressing them. They smiled.
She accepted this as a sign of admiration, and,
self-confident, took her stand in the middle of
the platform. There was a moment’s silence.
She twisted her bracelet, put her hand back of her
and coughed. This was followed by a longer silence.
She raised her eyes imploringly toward
Miss Ward. The teacher knew the symptoms.

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf,” repeated
Miss Ward.

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf,” cried
Tilly confidently. Then she paused, coughed, and
brought her hands to the front.

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf,” she
said again. After this, she straightened herself,
changed her weight to her left foot, and caught
the ends of her sash. She bent her head as though
trying to recall the elusive next line. She pressed
her lips and fixed her eyes vacantly upon a picture
at the farthest end of the room.

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf—like
a wolf—”

“Take your seat,” said Miss Ward.

Tilly obeyed. As she passed Harvey Lackard
he whispered, and every one heard: “All price
lists marked down.” Tilly smiled good-naturedly.
She had not grasped the wit of his remark and in
no way thought it applied to her.

Mrs. Laurens’s eyes followed her until she took
her seat. Beth had moved so that her face was in
full view. The eyes of the woman fell upon her.
Then she leaned forward, looking intently at
Beth, studying her face as an artist might study
that of the subject he would put on canvas.

A moment she sat intent, rigid, with her eyes
fixed on Beth’s face. Then turning to her husband,
she laid her hand upon his arm and spoke
to him in a low tone.

He looked startled, surprised. Then he too
looked at Beth with more than passing interest.
He turned to his wife and talked with her. Then
he arose and, offering his arm, led her from the
room.

“Mrs. Laurens has become faint,” he said. “If
you will excuse us, Miss Ward.”

“Miss Hanscom, escort them to the teachers’
room,” said Miss Ward. The younger teacher did
as requested. The rest room was across the hall.
Mr. Laurens found a chair for his wife.

“You are very foolish, Ermann,” he said gently,
”do give up this feeling. Control yourself, please
do.“

“Have I not up to this? I have kept everything
to myself until now. The resemblance was startling.
She looks just like you and your sisters,
Joe.”

“Such resemblances often appear,” he said,
sitting down beside her.

“It might be—strange things happen, you
know. I’ve always had a queer feeling about coming
here. I’ve had a premonition. You know how
I felt. I have not been so eager for anything for
years. She’s such a dear looking child, Joe, and
just about the age that our girl is.”

“Would have been,” he corrected. “You know
we decided over a year ago that we would give
up hope of finding her. We’ll think of her as
dead. That will be a better way of looking at it.”

“I try, but I can’t. Something within me will
not let me think of her but living. Who knows,
Joe? This might be. We might have been led
here.”

“I think it nonsense,” was the reply. “No
doubt the child’s parents live here. You saw that
she was dressed well, and looked happy. She
looked like a child of well-to-do parents.”

“But Joe, you might inquire,” she pleaded. No
one could resist the entreaty of her eyes.

“I will, but make up your mind that the thing
cannot be true. You know how you feel after a
disappointment. I’ll ask, but you must expect
nothing. I’ll not have you ‘fagged.’ Remember
that you have me yet. You must brace up and be
cheerful for my sake.”

“I’ll try, Joe. You’ll ask?”

Miss Hanscom had gone into the class-room adjoining.
Mr. Laurens went to her.

“Who was the little girl who failed in her recitation?”
he asked.

“Tilly Jones. We always expect Tilly to do
that. We never permit her name on the program
when visitors are present. We always have the
same experience with her. Your coming was unexpected.”

He waved her suggested apologies away.

“And the little girl who sits in front of her?”
Walking to the swinging doors, he pushed them
slightly open. “She’s sitting there now. Who is
she?”

Miss Hanscom peeped into the room.

“That’s Elizabeth Wells, or Beth, as we call
her.”

“Ah, yes. Her face attracted me. Does the
family live here?”

Miss Hanscom really did not know, but she
never was at a loss at giving information. She
would not say, “I have been here but a few years
and do not know all the people about here.” Not
to know was to argue herself unknown. So she
straightened her shoulders and set forth impressions
as though they were facts.

“The Wells family have lived here for a century.
Their farm was one of the first cleared.
It’s about two miles out of town. Eliza Wells is
the last of the family, except this little girl who is
her brother’s daughter.”

“If she was a sister’s child, her name would not
be Wells,” thought Miss Hanscom to herself as
she justified her last remark.

Mr. Laurens moved away. “You heard, Ermann?”
he said to his wife who had joined them.

“Yes,” she said dully, as though she had lost
interest in everything about her. “Let us go to
the car. I wish to go home.”

“Yes, Ermann,” he said. He escorted her, half
leaning on his arm, into the main hall. The girls
in the freshman class were preparing for dismissal
and were passing into the cloak room,
which was a division of the main hallway.

Mrs. Laurens dropped her hand from her husband’s
and, erect and intensely interested, watched
them. Suddenly, as Beth came near, she threw
out her arms and hugged the girl to her, kissing
her on brow and cheeks.

“Dear little girl, love me a little for the sake
of my baby who is gone.”

“I do—I did from the first,” said Beth.

“Ermann, dearest,” remonstrated her husband,
“you are making a scene. Come, the car is waiting.”

She loosened her arms about Beth and, without
another word or glance in the direction of the
cloak room, permitted her husband to escort her
to the car waiting below.

CHAPTER XII.
============

Beth did not mention this occurrence to
Adee. She scarcely knew why she did not.
Perhaps for the same reason that one does
not discuss sacred things. In each one’s heart
is a tenderness, a thought which is hers alone and
which she can tell no one. It was this feeling of
delicacy which restrained Beth from speaking of
the matter to Adee. She was very quiet on her
way home. Adee was too, for that matter. There
had been something about Mr. Laurens which had
impressed her. She had a feeling that she had
met him somewhere. His voice had thrilled her,
like a voice she had heard and forgotten. She
found herself trying to recall where she had met
him. She checked herself, however. Her experience
had been limited. She had been but rarely
away from her native town. It was ridiculous to
think for a moment that she had known him.

Without a word, the two walked side by side
until they came to the ravine. Here they instinctively
paused. “Look at the Oliver place,” cried
Eliza. “I wonder who would be foolish enough
to move in there. Tramps, like enough.”

“Tramps.”—Beth came closer to Eliza’s side.
All she knew of them was that she had a dim remembrance
that Rose Burtsch had called her a
tramp’s child and Adee had shaken Rose. A
tramp must be a dreadful creature, so Beth had
reasoned. She drew instinctively closer.

As they walked up the slope, they had a better
view of the log house. The boards had been removed
from the doors and windows which stood
wide open to the breeze. A narrow path had been
cut through the brambles to the public road.
Smoke was coming from the chimney. The sound
of some one whistling came to the ears of Beth
and Eliza. There was the sound of an axe. As
they turned the corner, they saw some one cutting
the old fence rails into proper length for wood.
He paused when he saw them coming up the slope
and leaned lightly against the axe as he rested.
What a fine looking tramp he was. Fully six feet,
with broad shoulders and long, slender limbs.
There were no drooping muscles about him. He
had a white brow with dark hair about it. His
eyes were clear and keen. His mouth was as big
and firm and tender as Eliza’s own. He wore
trousers of khaki cloth and a soft shirt open at
the throat. The sleeves were rolled up, exposing
his arms to the elbow.

“I did not know that tramps were so nice,” said
Beth. “I thought that they were something
dreadful.”

“They are. You can never tell by looks. Hereafter
never go or come this way unless I am with
you, and never come to the woods to pick flowers.”

“I’m sorry he’s moved in there. I had planned
to camp out here next summer. Helen Reed and
Sally Monroe and I intended to camp out and do
all our own cooking.”

Eliza smiled and wondered if the other two
were as ignorant of culinary arts as Beth herself.
The whistling had ceased and a song had taken its
place.

“Just a song at twilight when the lamps are low.”

The words followed them clear up the slope.

“He’s a queer sort of tramp,” said Eliza to herself.
“I should not have believed that they knew
such things.”

She might have said something about this to
Beth, but at their own gate, Jim-Boy, Sam Houston’s
youngest son, met them. Jim-Boy was in
his bare feet. His apparel consisted of a pair of
jean overalls and a hickory-colored shirt which
had belonged to his father. He was a bashful lad,
and braced himself against the post of the gate
before he could find courage to speak. “Say, Miss
Liza, pap wants the lend of your log chain.”

“Dear me. I do not know whether I have one.
It’s been years since I thought of it.”

“Yes, you have. Pap says it’s hanging up in
the old harness room. He’s coming over to look
at your stone-boat. He doesn’t know whether it’s
all right or not. He says it hain’t been used for
years. If it’s all right, he’ll come over and borrow
it off you.”

All this was said as though his father’s borrowing
would be a great favor conferred upon Miss
Eliza.

“The stone-boat. What does your father intend
to do?”

“He’s got a job hauling stone to fix the wall at
Paddy’s Run. The man was up to see him yesterday.
The wall’s bulging out. They mean to tear
some away and build it in and higher than it was.”

Miss Eliza shuddered at the mention of the wall.
It was a retaining wall built to hold the public
road and railroad from the water. At this point,
the river had come so close to the mountain that
the way for the railroad had been cut out. To
make this safe, a high stone wall had been built.

It had been here that Prince had gone over.
That had been ten years before, but even yet Miss
Eliza could recall the sensation of dizziness, of
feeling herself falling, which she had felt then.

“Look for the chain. As to the stone-boat, tell
your father that I’ll sell that to him if he finds he
needs it. I’ll never have use for it.”

Jim-Boy went his way. Eliza and Beth went
into the house and began the preparation of the
evening meal. Beth was not a cook, but there was
a score of things she could do to help Adee. She
arranged the table and did the errands to the cellar
and milk-house.

When the meal had been finished and she sat
with Adee in the living-room, she drew close and
began wistfully, “I want to ask you something,
Adee. One of the girls asked me questions. That
put it in my mind. I couldn’t answer anything
she asked. I don’t know whether I have a father
or mother, or if I ever had one. I do not know if
they are living or dead. She asked me if I was
your niece and I could not tell her. Am I, Adee?”

There was silence. Eliza had nothing to say.
She had known that the time would come when
Beth could not understand and would ask questions.
It had come sooner than she expected.

“Will you tell me, Adee? I do not know what
to say when people ask me, and I feel ashamed
that I do not know. Every little girl in school
has a father and mother and I have none. I cannot
understand it.”

“Your mother is dead. She is buried near my
mother, in our own family lot. I do not know her
name. I saw her but once in my life. I always
feel that I caused her death. This is how it happened.”

Then Eliza recounted the events of that dreadful
day when she had asked the mother to ride.
She described Beth’s mother, her dress and manner.

“That accounts for the dreams I have—waking
dreams, Adee. Do you remember that I told
you once that you did not look like you used to. It
was some one else I remembered. I can see, as
plain as can be, a lady with coils about her head,
and flowers stuck in her hair. She wore dresses
trailing over the floor. I can see her bending
over my crib to kiss me. There was always a man
with her.”

“But the woman who had you did not look like
a woman who would dress so. She was a respectable
person, but poorly dressed and, I am afraid,
not very cultivated. Do you remember what they
called you? Do any names stay with you?”

“No, except Bena and Baby. I remember that
I tried to say those words. Bena must have been
a made-up word. Surely no one was ever called
so.”

“No, it seems hardly possible,” said Eliza.
“We looked over the ground everywhere where
the accident occurred, but could find no purse. We
thought she might have had her checks or name
somewhere in that. I have a dim remembrance
that she had such an article in her hand, but we
could find nothing. I saved everything that you
or the woman wore. You had a little baby pin
with E. L. engraved on it. I called you Elizabeth
for that reason.”

“Have you them yet, Adee? Will you show
them to me?” There was a high-strung, nervous
eagerness in Beth’s voice. She was trembling
from head to foot. There was a sadness because
of the loss of parents she had never known; and
an eagerness to see those things which were part
of her life somewhere else.

“Would it not be better to put it off until tomorrow?”
asked Eliza.

“No, please, Adee, this evening—now.” There
was no denying the eager, trembling request.
Without another word, Adee arose and, taking up
the lamp, made her way upstairs.

“They are packed away in a trunk in the closet
in the spare-room,” she said. Beth ran ahead, and
in the dark had pulled out the trunk on to the
middle of the floor before Eliza appeared.

There was nothing said as they knelt before it
and opened the lid. Eliza had put everything
away so that moths nor air could destroy it. She
slowly removed the papers and covers and at last
laid out all on the floor before them.

“This is what your mother wore—that day.”

Beth’s hands touched the plain black skirt, the
belt and waist.

“I’ll speak plainly, Beth. It is better so, now.
I do not wish you to raise any false hopes about
who your parents were. I really think, child, that
you are as well off, as far as material affairs are
concerned, with me as with them. This is why I
think so. Look at the underwear. It is coarse
and very poorly made. I think your mother was
a very good woman. I’m sure she was. She had
a good face, and she was gentle with you; but I
am quite sure that she was poor and not well educated.
Here are the rings which were in the
traveling bag. I think they are of some value—not
much. I should say ten or twelve dollars.

“I wish you would always keep these until you
find your own people. It may be years from now
when I am gone. I have written the date and all
the circumstances down in this little book, so that
you may have it, if you need it.”

She began to fold the articles. She pinned each
one close in its foldings of paper as carefully as
though it were a most precious thing, and laid
them away in the trunk.

.. figure:: images/eliza-128.jpg
   :align: center

   “Permit me, madam, to present the roses.”

“Some day, we’ll know everything about who
you are,” she said as they were about to leave the
room. She tried to speak lightly but failed. Putting
her arm about Beth’s shoulders and drawing
her close to her, she continued, “But just now you
are my own little girl, and I’m thankful for it.”

The scene was hard for them both. It was well
that an interruption came. A knock was heard
at the living-room door. Beth hurried downstairs.

“Don’t open the door until I come. It might be
a tramp,” Eliza called after her. Beth hesitated.
Eliza came into the living-room with a lamp in
hand. Beth kept close to her while the door was
opened.

It really was a tramp—the same one they had
seen at the Oliver place. But he was good looking,
clean and smiling. He even removed his hat
while he addressed Miss Eliza.

“Good evening; I have come up to ask a favor,”
he said.

CHAPTER XIII.
=============

“I’m to be your neighbor for the winter,”
he said. “My experience as house-keeper
is limited. I set up my Lares
and Penates to-day and forgot that man must eat.
Will you sell me bread and fresh eggs?”

“Lares and Penates,” both Eliza and Beth knew
the meaning of those words. Roman mythology!
A strange tramp, indeed, who could quote this.

“Will you come in?” asked Eliza. Tramp or
not, his clear gray eyes were too fine and commanding
to permit his being kept outside the door.

He entered and took the proffered seat before
the grate in which a few chunks of wood were
smoldering.

“These wood-fires are delightful,” he said. “I
do not wonder that the age of poetry and romance
have passed away. It was one with the open
grate. What mind of man can conceive of poetry
being written before a register or radiator?”

Eliza had nothing to say to this. The conversation
was not just what she expected from a
tramp. She went to the kitchen and counted out
the eggs and took a loaf of fresh bread from the
box. She was sorry for the man. He looked so
fine and interesting. It was to be regretted that
he allowed himself to be a wanderer. Miss Eliza
felt a sense of duty. It grieved her to see one who
appeared so bright and attractive waste his life
wandering upon the earth. When she heard him
sing and whistle in the woods that afternoon, she
had thought him a young man. There was the
joyousness and buoyancy of youth in his looks and
voice. To-night, however, she saw that he was
not a boy, but a man fully her own age. She prepared
his basket for him, while her heart was
heavy.

He arose when she re-entered the living-room
and extended his hand for the basket, at the same
time laying out a dollar upon the table.

Miss Eliza was surprised. “I—I—did not
think of pay,” she stammered.

“Surely,” he said. “You do not think that I
came up to beg. While we are on the subject, I’d
like to settle about getting milk, eggs and bread
regularly from you. I should like plenty of them.
I find they are about the only reliable things one
can find in tramping over the country. All cooks
are not like our blessed Yankee ones.”

“You intend to stay about here?”

“Until spring is fairly settled. I’ve a little
place down here in the woods. I’m sure that I
shall be mighty comfortable there all winter.
When the weather permits, I suppose I’ll wander
forth again to find new experiences. When the
wanderlust takes possession of one—” He
waved his hand as though the subject were not
worth continuing.

“It must be a very unprofitable life,” said Eliza.
“You look so well and strong, I should think you
would settle down to some useful work. You
don’t look a bit like a tramp.”

“Ah—a—h,” the word came from the stranger’s
lips slowly. A peculiar twinkle shone in his
eyes, and for a moment his lips curled into a
smile. He controlled himself, however, and said,
“But what a gay life it is! One can see so much—now
as to the eggs and milk.”

Miss Eliza promised that he could get them
daily.

“My name is Hillis,” he said. Again the
amused expression came to him. “Even a tramp
must have a name, you know.”

He was gone, leaving Miss Eliza wondering
what strange circumstance made such a man a
wanderer upon the face of the earth. Thereafter
he came every morning for milk. During the
week, he had fresh bread and eggs. He always
paid for them as he received them.

In personal appearance he was the most exquisite
tramp that Eliza had ever seen. She laid
it down to the fact that her acquaintance in the
line had been limited. He always sang or whistled
as he came up the hill, and after a while, Eliza
found herself expecting him at a regular time in
the morning and listening for the song which
never failed. Such songs as they were! She
could not have believed that words and air could
be so exquisitely sweet. The tears actually came
to her eyes when she heard, for the first time, his
voice ringing through the woods:

   | “I hear you calling me.
   | Through all the years, dear one,
   | I hear you calling me.”

One afternoon as he was passing, he paused
to speak to Miss Eliza, who was plucking the last
of her chrysanthemums.

“You should see them in Japan,” he said. “We
cannot raise them here as the Japanese do.
There’s something lacking, either in our skill or
our soil. You should see the real Japanese
flower.”

He continued in this strain for some time, during
which Miss Eliza learned about soils, and
chemical compounds and fertilization. She had
lived among farmers all her life, but never realized
that in the fields lay a study for a lifetime,
and that the soil needed as scientific treatment as
a child. It was to be fed, to be rested, to be
worked, all with judgment and science. All this,
she learned from the tramp. She attributed his
knowledge to the fact that he had traveled widely,
and being naturally of a keen mind, had picked
up information from all parts of the globe.

During the winter, he fell into the habit of
bringing magazines to Miss Eliza. They opened
a new world to her—a world of flowers and sunshine;
the world where the artist soul expresses
itself in making the world beautiful in color and
form. He sometimes lingered to explain some
plant or variety of flowers of which the magazines
treated. Beth would sit and listen with open eyes.
Sometimes she took part in the conversation.
Once she laughingly said in connection with some
story of his, “That makes me think of the poppy
story Adee told me when I was a little girl.”

“Tell it to me,” he said, seating himself by the
fireside. “I fancy Miss Eliza would have a story
worth telling.”

For some reason which she could not explain,
Eliza’s face grew crimson at something in his
voice, rather than his words, and hurriedly excused
herself and went into the kitchen.

“Adee always told me stories when I was little.
Because she had never read any children’s stories,
she had to make them up.”

Beth began the story of the poppy, and the
“tramp” listened with interest. When she had
finished, he said simply, “Tell me more that Miss
Eliza told you.”

Beth was only too glad to do so. She began at
once. Eliza was back in the room before she had
finished.

“Where did you get such fairy-tales?” asked
the tramp. “I’ve read all that ever came in book
form, but I missed these.”

Eliza tapped her forehead. “Here,” she said.
“Don’t you think it was a pleasure to get them
out?”

“Have you written them?” It was surprising
how concise, how direct the tramp could be when
he chose.

“Write them? I never thought of such a thing.
I made up the stories simply to please Beth. I am
not an author.”

“You don’t know what you are,” he said. “You
have never found yourself, Miss Eliza. No one
knows how great a thing he may be. In each
soul lies an unexplored country. Be a Columbus
to your own soul.”

He took up his hat and moved to the door. “I
want you to write down these stories Beth told me.
Don’t bother trying to make them fine. Scribble
them. This is not a request, Miss Eliza. This
is a command.”

Eliza had no time to remonstrate. The tramp
was gone before she could reply.

“I would do it, Adee.” Beth smiled whimsically
to herself and added, as she did when she was a
baby, “Please, pretty lady.”

It was impossible to withstand both of these.
Eliza began the very next day when Beth was
away at school. She took tablet and pencil and,
sitting down by the open grate, wrote just as she
had told the stories to Beth. There was no attempt
at fine writing. Her language was simple
as a child’s. There were even quite serious mistakes
in grammar and punctuation. The hours
passed quickly. Beth was home from school before
Eliza realized it. She had been happy all
afternoon—happy in a different way from what
she had been all these years.

“I am expressing myself. I am finding my own
soul,” she told herself. She smiled at her own
egotism, as she added, “What, if like Columbus,
I should find a great undiscovered country?”

She laid the stories away. What simple little
things they were! The story of an ambitious
little seed which was unhappy because it had been
tied up in a paper all winter and then hidden in
the ground. It wanted to do something great. It
did not wish to hide from life and light. But as
the days passed, it crept up from the earth into a
life of whose beauty it had no conception. It cast
shade and perfume on all about it. It burst in a
hundred glorious flowers. Then it learned that
its own way would have made it a failure, that
there is something in one which must suffer and
die before one can be a power.

The following afternoon she wrote again.
There was little chance of interruption, for neighbors
were at a distance, and the people of Shintown
did not give themselves to bodily exertion.

One evening she handed them to the tramp when
he came for his evening supply of milk and eggs.

“Quite a package,” he said. “Is this all you
can think of, or have you more in that head of
yours?”

“More! My head has turned into a veritable
widow’s cruse. The instant I take out one story,
another one slips in to take its place. I do not
know where they come from. I am sure I do not
try to think of them. They just pop in.”

“Let them pop, and keep on writing,” replied
the man. “I came across several books I think
you’d like, and a magazine article on the possibilities
of the so-called worked out farm.”

He laid them on the table, took up his milk-pail
and went his way down the slope. His voice rang
out clear and strong:

   | “Drink to me only with thine eyes,
   |     And I’ll not ask for wine.”

“I wonder where he found all his songs. Hundreds
of them I think I’ve heard him sing this
winter.”

“He must have picked them up tramping about,”
said Beth.

Moving to the table, Eliza took up the books
and magazines which he had left her. The book
was one on the wild flowers and weeds of the
Alleghanies. It was handsomely illustrated and
most comprehensive, dealing with their medicinal
as well as floral values.

“It’s written by Joseph Barnes Hillis,” she said.
“Isn’t it strange that it should be the same name
as the tramp’s? The article in the magazine is by
the same writer. How strange! I’ll—”

She did not finish the sentence, for Sam Houston
and old Squire Stout entered without knocking—one
of the irregularities of social convention
in the locality.

“Good evening, folks,” said Sam. “Eliza, I’ve
come over on strange business. It’s queer how
things do happen.”

The squire took the most comfortable seat in
the room and leaned back in his chair. “It’s certainly
a most curious circumstance,” he said. He
opened his coat and took from his pocket a
weather-beaten, worn old leather purse.

CHAPTER XIV.
============

The squire laid the purse on the table with
an air which spoke volumes. “It certainly
is mysterious how things do work out,”
he said. He was always deliberate in speech, but
fortunately, he said little. His particularly impressive
method of procedure was to look wise.

Miss Eliza glanced at the purse. It was not
attractive. Touched with mildew, soiled and almost
filthy, it was rather repulsive. She had
learned that Sam was not one to be questioned
when he had a story to tell. The only way was to
let him go slowly and interpolate with indifferent
matters of all sorts.

“There ain’t much to tell about the finding of
the purse,” he began. Then Eliza understood.
But she did not reach forward to seize what might
contain something which would reveal Beth’s
identity. It came to her that that meant losing
Beth. For an instant she felt that she could not
give her up.

“We were fixing the old stone wall at Paddy’s
Run,” continued Sam. “The Morris Brothers have
the contract, and Ab Morris came and asked me
if I’d hand—.”

“No use of telling all the details,” said the squire
sharply. “Keep to the point. There’s no use
telling what Ab said to you or you to Ab.”

“Well, no need to cut me short. There’s plenty
of time to tell details, as you call them, and everything
else that pertains to this here subject which
we have in hand. We’ve been a wantin’ to know
these things for ten years and couldn’t. Then
what’s the use of gettin’ in a rush and tell everything
in a minute.”

“There’s no danger of you ever doing those two
things—getting in a rush and telling everything
in a minute. You couldn’t do it, Sam.” The
squire was habitually sarcastic.

“We’ll drive slow. It may be a rough road, and
we’re driving in the dark, so to speak. We were
fixing the wall, anyway. Bill Yothers, he was
knocking out the loose stone, when he stops and
says to me, ‘Sam, that looks mighty like a purse,
that I’ve knocked down there. You’d better get
it.’ Well, I did. I dropped the reins and went
over and picked it up. I examined it carefully
before I opened it, and—.”

Eliza had taken up the purse. No doubt it had
dropped from the carriage when Old Prince took
his mad leap, and had lodged among the stones
in the wall to be hidden away for over ten years.
It had been partially protected from the weather.

Miss Eliza opened it gingerly. It almost fell
to pieces as she did so. The leather flap at the
top fell from it. Within the double compartment
were pieces of paper thick with mildew. These
were intact enough to show that they once were
bills. There was a little silver, and a trunk check
of brass. This was green with corrosion, so that
the number had been effaced.

Without a word, Eliza took it and went to the
kitchen. Beth was close at her side. Neither
could speak, but the atmosphere was fairly vibrating
with suppressed emotion. Eliza took
down her scouring soap from the shelf and began
rubbing the check.

“This will do little good,” she said after a moment.
“I’ll dip it in lye and scour it with ashes.”

“Yes,” said Beth, hurrying into the wash-house
and returning with the can of lye. Eliza put the
check on a saucer and covered it for an instant
with the lye. Then she rubbed it with wood ashes.

The men had grown impatient and had followed her into
the kitchen. They came to the
door just as Eliza had finished her inspection. “It
has Baltimore on it,” she said. “The number is
4536. It’s very plain.”

“Little good it will do you,” said Sam. “That
just shows you that it was checked from there.
It doesn’t show who sent it.”

“It may tell us a great deal,” said Eliza. Keeping
the check in her hand, she led the way back
into the living room. The men followed and seated
themselves. She had been wishing that they would
go. She wanted to be alone and think of the matter.
She could see that Beth was very much
excited, although she sat very quiet.

But the fire was too comfortable for Sam to
leave. He had taken the most comfortable chair
in the room. He put his legs far apart, bent over
so that his elbows could rest on his knees, and his
chin in turn upon the upturned palm. He began
a recital of all the incidents of the day when Old
Prince went wild, and he had first found Eliza
and the child, and he continued telling how strange
it seemed that he should be the one to find the
purse.

“But there’ll nothing come of it now,” he concluded.
“And to my way of thinking, it’s just as
well. The little girl has been well took care of.
Her mother’s dead, we know that. We buried her
out there in the old Wells’ lot, alongside of your
own parents, Eliza. If she had a father, no doubt
he’s gone and married again and has other children.
It’s just as well not to try to hunt ’em up.”

Eliza thought so, too, for other reasons. She
could not give her up. She would be too lonely
without her. She simply could not live without
her. While these thoughts were in her mind, another
slipped in there too. She was not conscious
that it was there. “The tramp would leave in the
spring.” He had said that weeks before. She
never called him that any more, nor had she permitted
Beth to do so.

In her own thoughts she had no name for him.
He was just “he,” nothing more. She told herself
that she would miss his magazines and his help
about her flowers. She had kept up with Beth in
all her studies. She had read Latin, and worked
out Algebra. Now this would be gone. There
would be nothing at all left to her, except her stories,
which she had still continued, and her club in
town. But what would they mean, with Beth and
him gone?

While she thought over these matters, Sam
Houston kept up his monologue. Now and then
Squire Stout flung in a sharp word, but Eliza
heard nothing which was being said.

At length the men rose to go. Sam was yet
busy narrating the events that led up to the find.
The squire led him away. Eliza came to the door
with them and held a lamp high in her hand to
light the way. She heard Sam talking, as the
two men walked on down the slope.

Turning back into the room, she went to where
Beth sat huddled up and took a seat close to her.

“This has disturbed us,” she said. “But it
should not. I think the check will mean nothing
at all. It will make no difference to you or me.
You and I have been happy so far and we can continue
to be. You will always be my little girl.”

“I know, Adee, I know.” The tears would have
fallen, had not Beth by pure force of will kept
them back. Her lips trembled so that she could
not speak. She was silent a moment, until she
was able to control herself. Then she said again,
“I know, I know, Adee, that you will always want
me for your little girl; but it is dreadful to have
no people of your own.”

Eliza could not debate that. It was true, and
could not be disputed. She put her arm about
Beth and drew her close. Thus they sat without
saying a word for a long, long time. The log
in the grate burned out. Then Eliza broke the
silence.

“Go to bed now, Beth. I must attend to some
work before I come up.”

Beth obediently arose, kissed Adee good-night
and left the room. She went to bed, but could not
sleep. She could hear Adee moving about in the
room below. When it grew quiet, Beth closed her
eyes. She was yet wide awake, but she could see
plainly a picture that had come to her again and
again for as long as she could remember. It was
a little white bed in which she herself lay, and a
beautiful woman with flowers in her hair and a
long, soft, shimmering gown stood over her. “That
is something that I saw often before I came to
Adee’s,” she told herself. “It is so clear. Always
the woman’s face slips away. I cannot see it.”

Meanwhile Eliza in the room below strengthened
herself to do her duty. She wanted to keep
Beth—oh, how much she wanted her; but if she
could find out from where she came, it was only
right, for the child’s sake, to do so. If Beth had
kin living, it was Eliza’s duty to do everything to
find them, even if her own heart-strings were torn
to shreds in doing so.

After reaching this decision, she went to her
writing desk and wrote to the baggage agent of
that particular road, at Baltimore. She told him
the circumstances of the check and asked him to
spare no pains to find out where it came from or
where the trunk was now.

“There may be letters or clothing in the trunk
which will lead us to her people,” she told herself
as she sealed the letter.

Neither she nor Beth could sleep much that
night. They were two sorry-looking individuals
the following morning. They were heavy-eyed,
tired and listless. They had little to say at the
breakfast table. They had worn themselves out
with lying awake and letting their minds dwell
on the matters which lay nearest their hearts.

There is an old adage that “troubles never come
singly.” Better change it to suit the new philosophy
of the day, “Joys never come singly.” Sometimes
lives may move serenely on for months and
months, or even years. They are like a broad
stretch of level plain. They would grow monotonous
after a time. The finest are lands interspersed
with valleys and mountains. So it is with
life—here the valley of humiliation, there the
mountain of joyful exultation.

Eliza mailed her letter. She lost no time, but
sent Beth off to the post-office immediately after
breakfast, lest she regret and prove weak enough
to keep it back.

That evening the “tramp” came up the slope
earlier than usual. The ground was white with
snow. The drifts were deep in the ravine, but he
had kept the path broken. He stepped more briskly
than usual. He whistled and sang exultingly.
He carried a milk-bucket and had under his arm
several letters and magazines. In one hand was
a great bouquet of crimson roses, wrapped in
oiled paper to keep them from the biting cold. His
feet were eager to reach the Wells home. He sang
and then laughed aloud to himself. He was a
most peculiar sort of tramp. One could tell that
from the great coat he wore. Rough cloth on the
outside and black, shaggy fur within. Wind and
weather never kept him back. There was something
unusual in the air this night. He was fairly
bubbling over with excitement.

He knocked at Miss Eliza’s door and entered
before she could respond. He came directly to
where she stood, removed the oiled paper and let
a score of crimson roses nod and smile at her.

“I want to be the first to lay my homage at the
feet of the famous one,” he said. “Permit me,
madam, to present the roses to her who is making
her name a household word.”

He thrust the flowers between her hands. Eliza
was confused. His manner was strange. Then,
too, no one had ever offered her homage, or had
bought her roses. Roses with the mercury ten
degrees below zero. Eliza had never seen roses
except in June.

Her face grew crimson. She tried to speak, but
could find no words.

“You’re all at sea. This will explain.” Opening
one of the magazines, he laid it on the table,
holding it with finger and thumb that it might not
close.

“Why—why—it’s our house,” cried Beth.

“And it’s our Adee,” said the man, turning the
page where was a picture of Eliza herself standing
under the trees with the leaves about her.

“I had my camera set for a week before I could
get that,” he cried triumphantly. “I was bound
to get it by fair means or foul.”

Eliza was mechanically turning the leaves with
one hand. The other held the roses close in her
arm. She could not understand. She tried to
read the titles. A few lines, and the understanding
came.

“You have printed my foolish little stories,”
she said.

“The editors did not think they were foolish,”
he said. “You’ll find a number there. Here are
the checks for them. My, my, you’ll become a
bloated capitalist. Poor Beth and I will take a
back seat. It will be awful hard on the nerves,
Beth, to live with a celebrity.”

CHAPTER XV.
===========

Before the week passed, Miss Eliza found
herself the recipient of many honors.
She had been a member of a club composed
of women from Farwell since Beth had entered
school.

These people began to drive out and to call upon
Eliza. There were motors and sleighs in evidence
every day.

Mrs. Laire came out and brought Carrie with
her. She kissed Eliza effusively.

“The idea of your never telling us a word of
this. But as I said right along. It is always
those quiet people who are the geniuses. I knew
from the very first time that you attended our
Club that you were head and shoulders above us.
We women are not intellectual, you know. I can
get the value of a dollar when it comes to managing
a household, but I’d never even dare to think
of writing stories.”

Eliza blushed and tried to disclaim that any
honor was due her, but Mrs. Laire would not listen.
She liked to hear herself talk, which she did
after an airy, dainty sort of fashion, like a bird
picking a cherry.

“When I mentioned coming, nothing would do
but that Carrie would come along. She thinks so
highly of Beth. I’m sorry that she is not at home
now. I wish you would let Beth spend a few days
with us. I’m sure she and Carrie will be great
friends.”

“I have such a lovely new writing-desk that I
wish her to see. How did you ever think about
writing, Miss Wells?” began Carrie. Then, without
waiting for her to answer, she continued, “Did
Beth ever finish the story she meant to write?
She had a fine one last fall for the Literary. I
wonder if she ever wrote the story.”

This was one of the things of which Miss Eliza
had not heard. Beth had planned a story about
the beautiful woman who had visited school and
who had kissed her so rapturously. She had written
it, too, and had it hidden away. She could
not have shown it to anyone.

Mrs. Laire chatted on and Carrie threw in questions.
All Eliza could do was to sit and listen.

This was not the only visitor. They came by
the dozen, and each one chided Eliza for never
telling them, and for modestly keeping her ability
hidden so long. Eliza could not fully explain.
She could not tell them that she herself had never
known that she had a wonderful imagination and
artistic spirit. Could she tell them that a wanderer,
a tramp, had bade her to be a “Columbus”
to her own soul, and he had proved her
Queen Isabelle who made it possible? She could
only listen in silence and to thank them for their
good opinion of her.

When Beth came home from school, she brought
the news that the doctor’s sleigh had just driven
away from the Oliver cabin. Furthermore, Sam
Houston’s little Jim-boy had met her and told her
that the tramp was ill.

“Did he mean Mr. Hillis?” asked Eliza. She
blushed when she said it and let her glance wander
toward the roses which had passed their
beauty and were now but dried leaves. She had
not destroyed them. They were the first flowers
that had ever been given her.

“Well, I thought he was a tramp. You know,
that very day that we saw him months and months
ago, you told me that he was a tramp.”

“I did not know then. He’s a gentleman, and
we will always call him Mr. Hillis and never
think of him as a tramp.”

“I’m very glad to. He never seemed a bit like
such a horrid person. I’m sorry he’s sick.
Couldn’t we take him something to eat, or help
him some way, Adee? It must be awful to be sick
and alone.”

Adee had been thinking of just that thing.
Now, the custom of the country declared it to be
highly improper for an unmarried woman to visit
a man in his home. All the old, trite conventions
were live issues with Adee. On the other hand,
all the laws of Christian charity and gratitude
told her to visit the stranger who had been a
friend to her and who had brought inspiration
and breadth to her life. She considered for a moment
and decided that there were things bigger
and better than convention.

“Yes, we’ll take him something, Beth. Come
and help me prepare it.”

Beth needed no urging. In her heart were all
the gifts of hospitality and kindliness. She ran
to the closet at Adee’s request and brought out the
best currant jelly and a bottle of grape juice.
There was cream and all the dainties a good cook
may have on hand to tempt a sick man. Then
they made their way to the sick man’s house. On
the way, they met Sam Houston. It is strange
that it always happens so. One’s best intentions
are often misunderstood. Adee realized that
when she made up her mind to visit at the log
house and do what she could to relieve the sufferings
of the sick. She was not at all surprised at
Sam’s knowing look and sage wagging of the
head.

“He’s a pretty good-looking fellow, Liza. I
thought he’d take your eye.”

“Did you really think? I’m glad something has
put your brain-cells into play, Sam.”

She was vexed with herself the moment she had
spoken. Because Sam was narrowminded and
misinterpreting her action was no reason why
she should be sarcastic. She should have had
strength and ability to rise above it.

“I’m sorry I spoke as I did, Beth. Nothing is
gained by letting oneself down to that.”

They had come to the hut. Eliza paused at the
door. Since she as a child had come there to pick
wild blackberries, she had not been so close. She
remembered it as a miserable old place. The atmosphere
had changed. The low, broad windows,
close to the roof, swung outward. The logs
formed a wide sill. Here were boxes glorious
with blooming flowers. Outside, the logs had
been covered with a stain or paint which gave
them the appearance of being artistically
weathered. The tramp had heard her footsteps
and called to her to enter.

The interior was divided into two rooms.
Eliza paused on the threshold. The fireplace had
a great oak log. The plank floor was hidden with
skins. The walls had been washed with something
that made them a golden brown. A great
table of some dark wood stretched its length near
the low windows. There was an alcohol-kettle
and chafing-dish of brass. Rough pine shelves of
the same restful hue as the walls were filled with
books. A violin and bow lay on the table. There
were piles of music and magazines everywhere.
The master himself was seated in an easy-chair
by the fireplace. He arose when Eliza and Beth
entered.

“I’m not surprised. I felt that you and Beth
would be here the instant you knew of the doctor’s
visit. I was tramping through the snow and
had an accident, and lay for a while in the snow.
That’s left me with a cold and a touch of fever.”

His cheeks were flushed. Eliza bade him go
back to his chair.

“I will if you will give me a glass of grape juice
at once. You see, Miss Eliza, I know what you
have there without my looking in the basket.
Better than grape juice even will be a cup of good
coffee and a poached egg. I’ll sit here, Miss Eliza,
and let you wait upon me. You don’t know how
good it is to be waited upon. I’ve never had any
of it in my life, and I’ve always wanted it.”

Eliza set about it at once. Beth sat down on a
low, rough footstool at the fireplace. The conversation
drifted on until the man found himself telling
of the foreign cities he had visited. He knew
where the Aztecs had set up their civilization; he
had watched the crocodiles show their ugly jaws
on the banks of the Ganges.

“It must have taken a great deal of money to
visit all those places,” Eliza paused in her serving.

“Not when one is a tramp. The country roads,
thank heaven, are free, and when one has a good
pair of feet—.” His eyes danced merrily as he
looked at Eliza, who found herself blushing and
turned aside that he might not observe it.

But his expression was neither one of amusement
nor merriment, as his eyes followed her
movements. She worked so easily and deftly,
wholly unconscious that she was doing anything,
just as her attitude had been about her story
writing.

“I have always longed to travel,” she said at
last. “I presume every one has the same longing.
I have seen no large cities and I am ashamed to
say that I have never seen a steamer. I should
dearly love to start out with some good friend and
go where I wish and stay until I am ready to
leave.”

The man looked down at the log which was just
about to break in the middle. “I can read your
future and I see that your wish will be fulfilled.
I see in the coals all that will transpire.” He
spoke so earnestly and kept his eyes on the fire as
though he really read something in the embers.
Eliza paused in the act of pouring coffee and let
her glance follow his.

He paused. “Yes,” exclaimed Eliza eagerly,
for she wished him to continue, “Yes.”

“Before the year is out your desire will be realized.
I am a true prophet and I read aright. You
will see great cities. You will view the wonders
of the world. You will be a guest in palaces. You
will be feasted and feted everywhere.”

“It sounds beautiful. I only hope it will come
true.”

“And I will go with you, Adee!” cried Beth,
clapping her hands. “Good, good. We’ll have a
perfectly ‘kertish’ time.”

The man shook his head. “As I read the signs,
you will not be with Adee. I cannot read your
future; but you will not be with Adee—not all
the time.”

“I should not like to go alone,” said Adee, “I’m
very much afraid that would not be pleasant.
Could you not read another story in the coals, and
let Beth be my companion?”

“I cannot change it. It is written there. To be
frank, I would not do so if I could. No fear that
you will be lonely. You will not wish Beth with
you when you start on the journey, for your companion
will be dearer to you than even Beth is.”

“Impossible. Beth is—” Eliza had turned
and looked at the man as she spoke. Words failed
her. Something, she knew not what, kept her
from saying that Beth would always be the dearest
one to her.

The subject was getting too personal to please
her. She turned from the two at the fireside and
poured the coffee and brought it to the sick man.
She did not raise her eyes. She did not look at
him. The silence was constrained. Even Beth,
who could not understand many things, felt that.

“Why is every one suddenly glum,” she cried
at last. “Talking and laughing one minute and
then as quiet as mice. I’ll tell you this, though.
Nothing will keep me away from Adee. If she
goes abroad to see strange sights, I’ll go too.”

“No, I think not.” He shook his head dubiously.

“It’s beyond my power to change what I have
read. You could not go, Beth. A little bit of a
girl as you are. You would not be able to stand
it. It will be a sort of ‘tramp’ trip.” He laughed
and looked toward Eliza, who was drawing on
her great coat. “Come, Beth, it is time to move
homeward,” she said.

CHAPTER XVI.
============

Spring had passed and summer was at hand
before Eliza had her letter from Baltimore.
It would be impossible to trace
baggage from checks ten years old. All goods
were sold after lying unclaimed for a certain
length of time. That was all. Eliza was rather
glad than otherwise. She had done her duty, satisfied
her conscience, and Beth was still hers.

The same mail bore another letter. Miss Good,
the president of the school, had written her, asking
her to be one in the receiving line at the Club
reception which would be held in the parlors of
the Point Breeze. The hotel was filled with summer
guests, many of whom were club members
elsewhere, and the affair was planned that they
might meet each other.

Eliza’s writings were appearing in different
periodicals. She knew not how they got in print.
She wrote them merely. The man at the Oliver
place managed the business and brought the
checks to her. She had won quite a little fame
and her name had become known over the country.
This was the reason that she had been asked
to receive in line. Some of the younger girls were
to act as aids. Beth was popular in school. She
was always sunshiny, and took things as they
were without looking for trouble. She had never
felt a distinction of class or clothes and treated
every one with fairness and justice. She and
Sally Monroe had kept up their intimacy. With
Helen these made a trio as unlike as could be and
as companionable and full of life as any one could
wish.

Carrie Laire and Tilly were friends also, but
never within the inner circle. Carrie was yet the
interrogation point and Tilly the animated price
list.

When the letter asking Eliza to assist in receiving
and Beth to be one of the younger set was
received, the latter executed a war-dance immediately
and cavorted about like a young lamb.

“Don’t be so frolicsome,” cried Eliza. “Really,
Beth, you make me think of the young goats
which we used to watch up on Goat Hill. They
always jumped about in just such fashion as you
are doing now.”

.. figure:: images/eliza-160.jpg
   :align: center

   She stood as transfixed, her eyes upon Beth’s hands.

“I’m capricious, Adee. Capra is really Latin
for goat. Then if one gambols around like a goat,
one is capricious.”

They were both excited and could scarcely eat
their evening meal. There was so much to talk
about.

“Adee, you must have a beautiful dress. Something
soft and shimmery. I’ll fix your hair too
sweet for anything. I’ll put a pink rose in it. I’d
get a soft white dress, Adee. You could—couldn’t
you? You have money enough from the
stories. Haven’t you, Adee?”

“Yes,” slowly, “but a new dress would cost a
great deal. Perhaps, I had better write a note
and tell them I cannot help receive.”

“No, please do not, Adee. You’ll meet the finest
people in the world. Carrie Laire’s mother
buys dresses in Williamsport. The place where
they are sold will change them to make them fit.
You could go and buy a dress. You could easily
get one to fit you. You’re just the right size to
be easily fitted. You could go in one day. I could
stay at home. I wouldn’t be afraid. I could ask
Sally to come over. But then, maybe, I’d better
go with you. You couldn’t see how it would fit,
and I’d tell you perfectly honest. I want you to
look perfectly ‘scrumptious.’ I’m just positive,
Adee, that you’ll be the sweetest woman there.”

“Beth, you are a flatterer. You’d make me
vain as vain could be, if I listen to you. I’ll
promise you this: if I go to Williamsport, you
shall go with me. I’ll consider the matter.”

“It is only ten days, Adee. I would not consider
too long. A soft white dress with a train—”

Beth sighed with satisfaction. In her mind’s
eyes she saw Adee looking like the Princess in the
fairy tale.

Eliza might not have decided in favor of buying
a new gown, had not the man from the Oliver
place come in that evening for his customary supplies.
Beth, who could not keep anything to herself
when she was excited, blurted out immediately
that Adee was to help receive and that Sally,
Carrie and herself were to be present as aids.

“I can scarcely wait. It’s weeks yet,” cried
Beth. “I’ve never been to a really grown-up
party. I know it will be simply grand. I wish it
was this very evening.”

“Nonsense, that would give you no time to get
your party togs. They tell me that for such affairs,
women ‘dike’ themselves out as fine as peacocks.
Gowns with trains coming after them like
an afterthought, gloves up to the elbow. No, no,
Beth, it is well for you that the reception is not
tonight. It takes time to prepare one’s togs for
events as big as this will be.”

Eliza, keen as she naturally was, never knew
why he had spoken so. He knew how narrow and
hemmed-in her social life had been. He would not
have her go dressed unsuitably and made to feel
ill at ease and out of place among other women.
Eliza accepted it as a random remark but profited
by it nevertheless.

“We’re going to look fine,” laughed Beth.
“Adee and I have a plan. We’ll not tell you.
We’ll keep it as a state secret until we burst upon
you in all our glory. You’ll be overcome. I know
you’ll say that we look fine.”

“I’ll believe that you do; but I’ll not be at Shintown
to see you. I’m going away tomorrow. The
boards will go up on the log house again for—I
cannot say how long.”

“Going to leave?” Eliza was foolish enough to
feel a strange sinking of the heart.

“Isn’t this departure rather unexpected?”

“I always take to the woods and roads when
fair weather sets in. I should have gone weeks
ago. Now some of my old friends have warned
me that the time has come to cut loose and show
a good pair of heels. You see, Miss Eliza, not
even a year of happy domesticity can make me
break old habits. I’m starting out to visit old
places. New cities have no attraction for me. By
daylight, I’ll be off.”

He took up his milk-jug and was off. He had
not even said good-bye or thanked Eliza for the
little kindnesses she had shown him. Yet she
felt herself his debtor. He had given her life a
new impulse. He had opened a new line of work.
Her pen would help her provide for her own old
age and educate Beth. More than that, she found
joy in expressing herself. She had gone from the
beaten path, and had found the glorious possibilities
which lay within her own soul, just as they
lie in the soul of each one; though some are never
discovered.

When Eliza and Beth went down the slope the
following day, neither song nor whistling was
heard from the Oliver log house. The windows
and door had been boarded up. Already the place
had an appearance of being abandoned.

“It makes me feel queer—sort of lonesome,”
said Beth. “I wonder if we’ll ever see him again.
I thought he was very nice, Adee. I think I never
met any other man that I liked quite so well. I
wish he had not gone. I wish he would come back
and live here forever. We’ll miss him dreadfully.
Don’t you wish he’d come back to live here always,
Adee?”

Eliza had stopped to pluck a flower and had
nothing at all to say. During the walk to town,
Beth did all the talking.

The time until the reception did pass. To Beth
it dragged. It was as though the little god Time
had hung leaden balls on his feet. Beth counted
the nights between. They passed at last. The
evening of the Woman’s Club reception was at
hand. Adee had yielded to Beth and bought a
soft white gown of embroidered mull. It was
just a little low at the neck and the sleeves ended
in soft lace frills, just at the elbow. Best of all to
Beth’s way of thinking, there was a little sweep
to it. The ruffles of val lace floated about Eliza’s
feet. Beth had put up her hair so that it was
loose about the forehead and in a great coil like a
crown upon her head. A pink rose finished it, to
Beth’s satisfaction.

When all was completed, the girl stood aside
to contemplate her work. “You look like a dream,
a perfect poem. You’ll be the sweetest thing
there, Adee. Oh, I’m glad I belong to you. Put
on your gloves. Sally says to let the tops wrinkle;
not to draw them tight. There.”

Beth wore a simple white frock that had been
made for the senior reception. When she had
finished dressing, she came to the door of Eliza’s
room with a little box in her hand.

“Adee—I’ll have no gloves, you know. The
girls do not intend to wear them; but Sally and
Helen both wear rings. Don’t you think it would
be all right if I would wear these?” She opened
the box, and taking out the rings which she believed
belonged to the woman who had been killed
when Old Prince had taken fright, she held them
up for Eliza to see.

“They fit me, Adee. I’d dearly love to wear
them. They’re rather odd, but I think they are
prettier than the ones the girls wear. May I
wear them, Adee?”

Eliza considered. “The only thing against your
wearing them is that they might be lost. You
may need them sometime if you ever meet your
own people. You know that I have always had a
feeling, Beth, that sometime you’ll find, somewhere,
sisters or brothers; perhaps you have a
father living.”

“It’s strange he did not try to find me. Sometime,
I feel, Adee, that no one but my mother
wanted me. When she was killed, no one came.
If any one had cared, don’t you think they would
have hunted for me everywhere. I’d walk from
town to town until I dropped from weariness.
But no one looked for me, Adee. I’m to be your
girl always and forever, Adee. No one else ever
wanted me, it seems.” She smiled up at Eliza.
She was really very happy and contented. Only
a few times had she permitted herself to think
that she was without kin of any kind. Sometimes
she longed for her mother. She knew that no one,
however kind and lovable, could ever take a mother’s
place. But she loved Adee dearly, and had
made up her mind that she would make neither
her foster-mother nor herself miserable about
that which could not be remedied. She stood looking
at Eliza with an appealing look in her eyes.

“Well, I presume it really will make no difference.
They are your rings and you are surely
old enough now to take care of them. Wear them
if you wish, Beth.”

CHAPTER XVII.
=============

The reception parlors were massed with
ferns, palms and roses. The soft strains
of an orchestra floated through the
rooms. There were men in full dress and women
in soft-tinted gowns, moving about like a swarm
of gay butterflies. The receiving line was made
up of a dozen women. Miss Ellis stood at the
head, next to her was Mrs. Laurens who was an
officer in the National Federation of the Club.
Then came Eliza. They had barely time to take
their places before the guests began making their
way from the dressing-rooms on the floor above.
A colored man, in full evening dress, stood in the
doorway and called out the names of those entering.
The head of the line shook hands, introduced
the person to the next in line, and so each one
passed on. There were so many that the names
became but a jumble to Eliza. “Dr. James Smith,
Mrs. Ellington Roche, Miss Brown,” and so on.
She smiled, shook hands and handed the guest on
to the next. She was performing her duties in a
mechanical sort of way, forgetting name and person
the instant he had passed before her. Suddenly
she started and became very much alert.
Mrs. Laurens was addressing her personally.
“Miss Wells, permit me to introduce Dr. William
Barnes Hillis, the scientist. He has asked to be
introduced. I am surprised that you have not
met before. Dr. Hillis has been in your neighborhood
for a year, living the life of a hermit in
order that he might finish his new book and win
new laurels.”

Eliza extended her hand. Speech failed her.
She looked up into the laughing eyes of the
“tramp.” He was dressed in conventional evening
dress.

“Miss Wells, I am delighted to meet you.” His
smile was radiant. Eliza could not even smile.
She stood quite still and looked at him.

“Beth was right about how fine you would
look.” He spoke so low that no one else might
hear, and then moved along the line.

The greater number of guests had arrived.
There was time for a word between the hostesses.
Mrs. Laurens turned to Eliza. “I’m sure
you will like Hillis—I presume I should say Dr.
Hillis. He is authority on plant life and has
delved deep into all kindred sciences. He shut
himself up somewhere in the wilds the last year
in order to devote his time to writing. He
dropped in upon us last night and demanded that
I give him a card to the reception. He told me
something else. He’s going to make a tour of the
eastern countries. I think he starts early in the
fall. He’s not going alone. He told me that the
prospective Mrs. Hillis would be here tonight,
and defied me to discover her.”

“Yes—how—interesting—romantic.” Eliza
did not recognize her own voice. It was hollow,
stilted, false.

The last guest had been bidden welcome. The
hostesses moved from the reception line, and mingled
with those they were entertaining.

In a room adjoining, the young girls were serving
fruit punch from a side-table. Helen and
Sallie were ladling it from a bowl hidden among
flowers and ferns. Beth and Carrie Laire were
hidden amid masses of cut roses. As the guests
came to them, they pinned a rose upon them.

Mrs. Laurens came up with a group of four.

“Roses presenting roses,” said one of the gentlemen
as Carrie pinned the flower on his coat.
Beth’s face had been turned away. She was selecting
a fine half-blown rose for Mrs. Laurens.
She turned to present it. Her hands with their
peculiar old-fashioned rings were brought into
evidence.

“Will you have a rose?” Mrs. Laurens did not
answer. She stood as though transfixed, her eyes
upon Beth’s hands.

Suddenly she seized them tight into her own.
“Your rings! Your rings! Where did you get
them? They are mine. I’d give worlds to know
of them. They’re mine! They’re mine!”

Her voice rang out clear and strong. Everyone
in the great room heard. Poor Beth was frightened
so that she could not speak. People came
crowding closer. Eliza and Dr. Hillis, fearing
that something had happened to Beth, hurried
forward. There stood Mrs. Laurens clutching
Beth’s hands and crying out, “The rings! The
rings are mine. I must know where you got them,
child.”

Dr. Hillis was the first to understand. He came
to them. “You and Beth come with me into this
little private parlor. We can explain better
there.” Taking them by the arm, he led them
away. “Come with us,” he said to Eliza. She
followed. The door closed upon them, and there
the explanation was given.

Very simple of course it was. Mrs. Laurens
was Beth’s mother, to be sure. It was as clear
as could be when one knew it.

When Beth was a baby, Mrs. Laurens had taken
her to Florida where Mr. Laurens had undertaken
heavy contracts. She had with her Bena
Benson, a Swedish servant who had been with the
family for years and who dearly loved Beth.

Mr. Laurens was taken ill during the winter
and was in the hospital. A few weeks later, his
wife was taken with the same low-running fever.
The physician forbade their being moved north
to their home. The little child could not be left
in a hotel in a servant’s care. There was a risk
in staying in the infected region. The only thing
to be done was to send the child and nurse north
to friends.

Mrs. Laurens wore several rings which had
come down to her from her mother’s people. She
was ill in the hospital. Fearing that the rings
might be lost, she instructed Bena to take them
home with her. At Baltimore, the Swedish
woman had become confused. She asked for information
as to the best way to “Yamestown,” as
she called it. Her pronunciation was foreign.
Instead of selling her a ticket and checking her
baggage to the right destination, the man in his
hurry misunderstood and sent her hundreds of
miles out of her way. She had realized her mistake
when the train reached Farwell. She had left
the train there and was walking to the Lehigh
station in the hope of returning to Baltimore.

Weeks had passed before Mr. and Mrs. Laurens
heard of her. They were too ill to be conscious
of the lapse of time. When they began the
search all trace was lost, even the newspaper accounts
had gone astray.

----

So Miss Eliza lost Beth after all. I think not.
We can never really lose those we love and those
who love us. They are always ours.

She slipped away, leaving the mother and
daughter together. She could not face the people
in the drawing-room. She slipped into the open
corridor, where the palms hid her from view and
the lights were low. Here she stood leaning
against the heavy columns which supported the
ceiling.

“She was glad—so glad for Beth,” she told
herself. She repeated it mechanically as though
she would force herself to believe that she really
was glad.

“I’m glad—for Beth. I’m glad for Beth that
she has a real mother.” It was her lips only
which said it. How could she go back to the
lonely house? How could she sit down to her meals
alone? How could she live without her little girl?

She tried bravely to keep back the tears, but
they gathered in her eyes and fell down her
cheeks. She choked back a sob. She could not reenter
the room and face the people. She would
go home alone. Alone—she could not do that.
She would hang to that pillar all night rather than
that. She could not, she would not go home alone.

“You are troubled, Adee.” It was Dr. Hillis
who addressed her. She controlled herself and
said with what brightness she could, “Not troubled;
lonely. Beth has found her mother. I am
glad. That is, I am trying hard to be glad; but
I cannot help the thought that I will be alone.”

“For that matter, so will I. Strange thing
about this being alone. Just about the time one
gets used to it, one finds that he simply cannot
stand another day of it. I have been alone all my
life, but I never realized it until the day I was ill
and Beth came down to see me.”

He paused. There was nothing at all that Adee
could say to this. Silence was the only thing.
Eliza felt that he was looking at her, keenly, but
she did not raise her eyes.

“You will not be lonely long. You know what I
read in the coals. Fall weather is fine for going
about abroad; going where you want to and not
leaving until you are ready. What do you think,
Adee? Could you let me take Beth’s place? Will
you let the dream in the coals come true?”

“I’ll not let you take Beth’s place,” she spoke
slowly. “You must take your own place.” She
held out her hand. “But I can’t possibly be ready
very early in the fall.”

So it ended like a fairy story. Nay, for it was
far better than a fairy tale. All stories of human
life are.

Beth, or Ermann, as her name really was, divided
her time between Eliza and her own mother.
It would have been a hard matter to decide which
she loved most.

The prophecy concerning Adee which Dr. Hillis
had read in the embers at the old Oliver Place
came true. He and Adee were married and went
abroad, where he was received with ovations because
of the fine scientific work he had done.
Adee was feted and feasted and entertained in
palaces. Beth was not with her, of course.
Strange to relate, Adee was not lonely. Sometimes
her husband would tease her about her
“tramp” friends. They would laugh heartily over
the matter. All the best things of life had come
to Adee because she had sacrificed her ease and
denied herself to take care of a helpless little
child. She might have sent Beth to a foundling
asylum. How narrow, little and petty her life
would have always been, had she done this.

Mrs. Laurens had suffered; but good came
through it after all. After losing trace of her
own little child she had devoted her money and
time to making happy other motherless children.
Through her own suffering, she herself was
strengthened and developed, and hundreds of children
were made comfortable.

Beth, or Ermann, finished a college course and
then offered her services to the Fresh Air Society.
She takes charge of babies who are
motherless, or whose mothers are not responsible.
She realizes what her life might have been if Adee
had sent her away, and tries to give the little ones
in her care the same love and tenderness that she
knew.

So wonderful good came from suffering, because
those who suffered were strong, and fulfilled
their duty nobly.

So ends the tale of Beth, or Ermann, just as
you choose to think of her. But in her own
thoughts, she thinks of herself as “That little girl
of Miss Liza’s,” and so the old residents of the
valley speak of her.

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