HALF-A-DOZEN HOUSEKEEPERS

A Story For Girls In Half-A-Dozen Chapters

By Kate Douglas Wiggin

Illustrated by Mills Thompson

Philadelphia Henry Altemus Company

1903

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HALF-A-DOZEN HOUSEKEEPERS

CHAPTER I--BELL WINSHIP's EXPERIMENT

|MARCH had come in like a lion, and showed no sign of going out like a lamb. The pussy willows knew that it was, or ought to be, spring, but although it takes a deal to discourage a New England pussy willow, they shivered in their brown skins and despaired of making their annual appearance even by April Fool's Hay. The swallows still lingered in the South, having received private advices from the snow-birds that State o' Maine weather, in the present season, was only fitted for Arctic explorers. The air was keen and nipping and the wind blew steadily from the north and howled about the chimneys until one hardly knew whether to hug the warmth of the open fire or to go out and battle with the elements.

Little did the rosy girls of the Wareham Female Seminary (girls were still “young females” when all this happened)--little did they care about snow and sleet and ice. Studies went on all the better with the afternoon skating and sliding to look forward to. What joy to perch in the window-seat with your volume of Virgil, and translate “Hoc opus hic labor est” with half an eye on the gleaming ice of the pond, or the glittering crust of the hillsides! What fun to slip on your rubber boots, muffle yourself in your warm coat (made out of mother's old mink cape), and run across the way to the Academy for recitations in mathematics or philosophy!

These joys, however, with their attendant responsibilities, duties, and cares, were to be suspended for a while at the Wareham Seminary, and the “young females” who graced that institution of learning were not inconsolable.

Bell Winship, an uncommonly nice girl herself and a born leader of other nice girls, had sent out five mysteriously worded notes that morning, five little notes to as many little maids, requesting the honor of their presence at ten a. m. precisely, in Number 27, Second floor.

Where Bell Winship wished girls to be, there they always were, and on the minute, too, lest they should miss something; so there is nothing remarkable in this statement of the fact, that at ten o'clock in the morning, Number 27, Second floor, of the Wareham Female Seminary seemed to be overflowing with girls, although in reality there were but six, all told.

The wildest curiosity prevailed, and it was very imperfectly controlled, but, at length, the hostess, mounting a shoebox, spoke with great dignity in these words:

“Fellow-countrywomen: Whereas, our recitation-hall has been burned to the ground, thereby giving us a well-earned vacation of two weeks, I wish to impart to you a plan by which we can better resign ourselves to the afflicting and mysterious dispensation. You are aware,” she continued, still impressively, “that my highly respected parents are both away for the winter, thus leaving our humble cottage closed, and it occurred to me as a brilliant, if somewhat daring, idea, that we six girls should go over and keep house in it for a fortnight, alone and untrammeled.” Here the tidal wave of her eloquence was impeded by the overmastering enthusiasm of the audience. Cheers and applause greeted her. Everybody pounded with whatever she chanced to have in her hand, on any article of furniture that chanced to be near.

“Oh, Bell, Bell! what a lovely plan!” cried Lilia Porter; “a more than usually lovely plan; but will your mother ever allow it, do you suppose?”

“That's the point,” answered Bell, gleefully. “Here is the letter I have just received from my father; he is a good parent, wholly worthy of his daughter:”

Baltimore, March 6th, 18--.

My dear Child:--We do not like to refuse you anything while we are away enjoying ourselves, so, as the house is well insured, you may go over and try your scheme. Your mother says that you must not entirely demolish her jelly and preserves. My only wish is that you will be careful of the fires and lights.

I hope you won't feel injured if I suggest your asking advice and suggestion of Miss Miranda and Miss Jane, who are your nearest neighbors. They will take you in charge anyway, and you might as well put yourself nominally under their care. Your uncle will, of course, have an eye to you, perhaps two eyes, and I dare say he could use more than the allotted number, but Grandmamma will lend him hers, no doubt.

Write me a line every day, saying that the household timbers are still standing.

Your weakly indulgent but affectionate

Father.

“Isn't he a perfect darling!” cried the enraptured quintette.

“I think,” said demure Patty Weld, “that before we permit ourselves to feel too happy, we had better consult our 'powers that be,' and see if we can accept Bell's invitation.”

“I refuse to hear 'No' from one of you,” Bell answered, firmly. “I have thought it all over; spent the night upon it, in fact. You, Alice, and Josie Fenton, are too far from home to go there anyway, so I shall lead you off as helpless captives. Your mother is in town, Lilia, so that you can ask her immediately, and hear the worst; you and Edith, Patty, are only a half-day's journey away, and can find out easily. I know you can get permission, for it's going to be perfectly proper and safe. Grandmamma lives nearby, the Sawyer spinsters are the village duennas, and Uncle Harry can protect us from any rampaging burglars and midnight marauders that may happen in to pay their respects.”

So the “Jolly Six,” as they were called by their schoolmates, separated, to build many castles in the air. Bell, it was decided, was to go on to her country home in advance, and, with the help of a neighboring farmer's daughter, prepare and provision the house for an unusual siege.

The girls had determined to have no servant, and their many ingenious plans for managing and dividing the work were the source of great amusement to the teachers, some of whom had been admitted to their confidence. Josie Fenton and Bell were to do the cooking, Jo claiming the sternly practical department best suited to her--meat, vegetables, and bread--while Bell was to concoct puddings, cakes, and the various little indigestible dainties toward which schoolgirl hearts are so tender. Alice Forsaith, the oldest of the party and the beauty of the school, with Edith Lambert, as an aid, was to manage the making of the beds, tidying of rooms, and setting of tables, while Lilia Porter and Patty Weld, with noble heroism and selfsacrifice, offered to shoulder that cross of an old-fashioned girl's life--the washing and wiping of dishes.

On a Wednesday morning the two maiden ladies living nearly opposite the Winship cottage were transfixed with wonder by the appearance of Bell, who asked for the house-key left in safe keeping with them.

“Du tell, Isabel!--I didn't expect to see you this mornin',--air your folks comin' home or hev you been turned out o' school?” asked Miss Miranda.

“Oh, no,” laughed Bell; “I'm going to housekeeping myself!”

“Good land! You haven't run off and got married, have you?” cried Miss Jane.

“Not quite so bad as that; but I'm going to bring five of my schoolmates over to-morrow, and we intend to stay here two weeks all alone, as housekeepers and householders.”

“Land o' mercy,” moaned the nervous Miss Miranda. “That Pa o' yourn would let you tread on him and not notice it. How any sensible man could do sech a crazy thing as to let a pack of girls tear his house to pieces, I don't see. You'll burn us all up before a week's out; I declare I sha'n't sleep a wink for worrying the whole time.”

“You needn't be afraid, Miss Sawyer,” said Bell, with some spirit. “If six girls, none of them younger than fourteen, can't take care of a few stoves and fireplaces, I should think it was a pity. Everybody seems to think nowadays that young people have no common sense. The world's growing wiser all the time, and I don't see why we shouldn't be as bright as those detestable pattern-girls of fifty years ago.”

“Well, well, don't get huffy, Isabel; you mean well, but all girls are unstiddy at your age. Anyhow, I'll try to keep an eye on ye. Here's your key, and we can spare you a quart of milk a day and risin's for your bread, if you're going to try riz bread, though I don't s'pose one of ye knows anything about flour food.”

“Thank you; that'll be very nice, and now I'm going over to begin work, for I have heaps to do. Emma Jane Perkins has come to help me, and Grandma's Betty will come down every afternoon. By the way, can I have Topsycat while I am here?”

“Yes, I s'pose so,” said Miss Jane, “though it's been an awful sight of work gettin' her used to our ways, and I'd never have done it if Mis' Winship hadn't set such store by her. She pretty near pined away the first week, and I've baked ginger cake for her and buttered her fritters every mornin'.”

“I won't borrow her if you think she will be more troublesome afterward,” Bell answered, “but you know it's almost impossible to keep house without a cat and a dog. Bobs came over from Uncle Harry's the moment I arrived, and is waiting at the gate now.”

“I don't agree with you,” said Miss Miranda. “'Blessed be nothin', I say, when it comes to live stock. We disposed of our horse, the pig went next, and the cow's turn's comin'. Even a cat is dreadful confinin'. If you have a cat and two hens you're as much tied down as if you had a barn full of critters.”

The day was very cold, and both Bell and Emma Jane shivered as they unlocked one frost-bitten door after another.

“We shall freeze as stiff as pokers,” said Bell, with chattering teeth; “but we can't help it; let's build a fire in every stove in the honse and thaw things out.” This was done, and in an hour they were moderately comfortable. The weather being so cold, Bell decided upon using only three rooms, all on the first floor--the large, handsome family sitting-room, the kitchen, and Mrs. Win-ship's chamber. This being very capacious, she moved a couple of bedsteads from other rooms, and placing the three side by side, filled up the intervening spaces with bolsters, thus making one immensely wide bed.

“There, Emma Jane, isn't that a bright idea! We can all sleep in a row, and then there'll be no quarreling about bedfellows or rooms. I certainly am a good contriver,” cried Bell, with a triumphant little laugh.

“It looks awful like a hospital, and the bolsters will keep fallin' down in between and it'll be dreadful hard mak-in' 'em up of a mornin',” rejoined Emma Jane, who was no flatterer, being New England born and bred.

The sitting-room coal stove had accommodations, on top and back, for cooking, so Bell thought that their suppers, with perhaps an occasional breakfast, might be prepared there. The large bay-window, with its bright drugget, would serve as a sort of tiny diningroom, so the mahogany extension-table, with its carved legs, pretty red cover, and silver service, was carried there. This accomplished, and every room made graceful and attractive by Bell (who was a born homemaker, and placed photographs, lamps, sofa-pillows, fir-boughs, and bowls of red apples just where they were needed in the picture), she went over to her Grandmother's, where four loaves of bread were baking and pies being filled, in order that the young housekeepers might begin with a full pantry.

“Oh, Grandma,” she exclaimed breathlessly, tearing off her cloud and bringing down with it a sunshiny mass of bronze hair, “it does look lovely, if I do say it; and as for setting that house on fire, there's no danger, for it will take a week to thaw it into a state in which it would burn. I have made up my mind that I sha'n't be the one to build the fires every morning, even if I am hostess. I don't want to freeze myself daily for the cause of politeness. Has the provision man come yet!”

“Yes,” said Uncle Harry, “and brought eatables enough for an army--more than you girls can devour in a month.”

“You'll see,” said Bell, laughingly.

“You don't know the capacity of the 'Jolly Six' yet. Now, Betty, please take the eggs and potatoes and fish and put them in our store room. I've just time to make my cake and custard before I drive to the station for the girls. Do you know, Uncle Harry, I am going to do the most astounding thing! I've borrowed Farmer Allen's one-seated old pung,--the one he takes to town filled with vegetables,--and I am going to keep it for our sleigh-rides. It will hold all six of us, and what do we care for public opinion!” said she, with a disdainful gesture.

CHAPTER II--IN THE FIRELIGHT

|TWO hours later you might have seen the old pung drawn by Mr. Allen's Jerry, with Bell and Alice Forsaith on the seat, and four laughing, rosy-cheeked girls warmly tucked in buffalo robes on the bottom. Even the sober old sun, who had been under a cloud that day, poked his head out to see the fun, and became so interested that, in spite of himself, he forgot his determination not to shine, and did his duty all the afternoon.

When the girls opened the door and saw Bell's preparations,--the cozy sitting-room, with dining-table in the bay-window, three sofas in a row, so that on snowy days they might extend their lazy lengths thereon, and finally a fir-covered barrel of Nodhead and Baldwin apples in one corner,--there arose bursts of happy laughter and ecstatic cheers loud enough to shock the neighbors, who seldom laughed and never cheered.

“I know it's an original idea to have an apple-barrel in your parlor corner,” said Bell; “but the common-sense of it will be seen by every thoughtful mind. Our forces will consume a peck a day, and life is too short to spend it in galloping up and down cellar constantly for apples.”

“Bell Winship, you are an inhospitable creature,” exclaimed Lilia Porter. “Here I am, calmly seated on a coal-hod with my hat on, while you are talking so fast that you can't get time to show us our apartments. Shelter before food, say I!”

“Apartments!” sniffed Bell, in mock dudgeon. “You are very grand in your ideas! Behold your camp, your wigwam, your tent, your quarters!” and she threw open the door of the large chamber and waved the party dramatically in that direction.

“Bell, you will yet be Presidentess of these United States,” cried Edith Lambert. “Any girl who can devise two such happy combinations as an apple-barrel in a parlor corner and three beds in a row, ought to be given a chair of state.”

“Might a poor worm inquire, Bell,” asked Patty, “why those croquet mallets and balls are laid out in file round the beds?”

“Why, those are for protection, you goose, supposing anybody should come in the piazza window at night, and we had nothing to kill him with!”

“Yes, and supposing he should take one of the mallets and pound us all to a jelly to begin with?” Patty retorted, being of a practical mind.

“That would be rather embarrassing,” answered Bell, with a reflective shudder; “I hadn't thought of it.”

“What could one poor man do against five girls banging him with croquet mallets, while the sixth was running to alarm the neighbors?” asked Alice, “and to put an end to the discussion I suggest that the cooks start supper;” whereupon she threw herself into an arm-chair, and put up a pair of small, stout boots on the fender.

The unfortunate couple referred to exchanged looks of unmitigated discouragement.

“I have my opinion of a girl who will mention supper before she has been in the house an hour,” said the head cook.

“Josie, I foresee that they are going to make galley-slaves of us if they can. However,” turning again to Alice, “it isn't to be supper, but dinner. The meals at this house are to be thus and so: Breakfast at 9 a.m., luncheon at 12 m., dinner at 5 p.m., refreshments at various times betwixt and between, and all affairs pertaining to eatables are to be completely under the control of the chefs, Mesdemoiselles Winship and Fenton. We cannot have you 'suggesting' dinner at all hours, Miss Forsaith. If time hangs heavy on your hands, occupy it in your own branches of housework.”

“If we are to be ruled over in this way, life will not be worth living,” cried Patty Weld, in comical despair. “I dare say we shall be half starved as the days go on, but do give us something good to begin on, Bluebell!”

Judging from the scene at the table an hour later, it would not have made much difference whether the repast was sumptuous or not, so formidable were the appetites, and such the merriment.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Bell, dismally, to the assistant cook, “I will throw off all disguise and say that this family is a surprise and a disappointment to me. When a person cooks twenty-seven potatoes, with the reasonable expectation of having half left to fry, and sees a solitary one left in the dish, with all its lovely companions both faded and gone, she is naturally disheartened. Any way, we have finished for to-night, so the Dish Brigade can marshal its forces. We will take our one potato into the kitchen, Jo, and see if we can make it enough for breakfast. Look in the corner bookcase; bring Mrs. Whitney's 'Just How,' Marion Harland's 'Cook Book,' 'The Young Housekeeper's Friend,' and 'The Bride's Manual.'”

At nine o'clock that evening Uncle Harry passed through the garden, and noticing a pair of open shutters, peeped in at the back window of the sitting-room, thinking he had never seen a more charming or attractive picture. Pretty Edith Lambert was curled up in an armchair near the astral lamp, her face resting on her two rosy palms, and her eyes bent over “Little Women.” Bluebell, her bright hair bobbed in a funny sort of twist, from which two or three venturesome and rebellious curls were straying out, and her high-necked blue apron still on over her dark dress, was humming soft little songs at the piano. Roguish Jo was sitting flat on the hearth, her bright cheeks flushed rosier under the warm occupation of corn popping, and her dark hair falling loosely round her face, while Patty Weld with her shy, demure face, was beside her on a hassock, knitting a “fascinator” out of white wool. These two, so thoroughly unlike, were never to be seen apart; indeed, they were so inseparable as to be dubbed the “Scissors” or “Tongs” by their friends. Alice and Lilia were quarreling briskly over a game of cribbage, Lilia's animated expression and ringing laugh contrasting forcibly with the calm face of her antagonist. Alice was never known to be excited over anything. It was she who carried off all the dignity and took the part of presiding goddess of the party. The girls all adored her for her beauty and superior age; for she had attained the enviable pinnacle of “sweet sixteen.”

“Come,” said Jo, breaking the silence, “let us have refreshments, then a good quiet talk together, then muster the Hair-Brushing Brigade, and go to bed. I think I have corn enough; I've popped and popped and popped as no one ever popped before, and till popping has ceased to be fun.”

“Pop on, pop ever; the more you give us, Jo, the more popular you'll be,” laughed Bell.

“She is a veritable 'pop-in-J,' isn't she?” cried Lilia.

“Now Lilia,” said Edith, “let us get the apples and nuts, and we'll sit in a ring on the floor, and eat. I shan't crack the almonds; the girl that hath her teeth, I say, is no girl, if with her teeth she cannot crack an almond. Lilia, you're not a bit of assistance; you've tied up the end of the nut-bag in a hard knot, upset the apple-dish, put the tablecloth on crooked, and--oh, dear--now you've stepped in the pop-corn,” as Lilia, trying desperately to cross the room without knocking something over, as usual, had hit the corn-pan in her airy flight. “You have such a genius for stepping into half-a-dozen things at once, I think you must be web-footed.”

“Well, that's possible,” retorted the unfortunate Lilia; “I've often been told I was a duck of a girl, and this proves it.”

“Do you realize, girls,” said Edith, after a while, “that we shall all be visited by ghosts and visions to-night, if we don't terminate this repast? I'll put away the dishes, Bell, if you'll move the sofas up to the fire, so that we can have our good-night chat.”

So, speedily, six warm dressing-sacques were slipped on, and then, the lamps being turned out, in the ruddy glow of the firelight, the brown, the yellow, and the dark hair was taken down, and the housekeepers, braiding it up for the night, talked and dreamed and built their castles in the air, as all young things are wont to do.

“Girls, dear old girls,” said Alice, softly, breaking an unusual silence of two minutes; “isn't this cosy and sweet and friendly beyond anything? How thankful we ought to be for the happy lives God gives us! We have been put into this beautiful world and taken care of so wisely and kindly every day; yet we don't often speak, or even think, about it.”

“It is trouble, sometimes, more than happiness, that leads us into thinking about God's care and goodness,” said Edith, “although it's very strange that it should. Before my mother's death I was just a little baby playing with letter-blocks, and all at once, after that, I began to make the letters into words and spell out things for myself.”

“What a perfect heathen I am,” burst out Jo. “I can't feel any of these things any more than if I were a Chinaman. Or, perhaps, it is as Edith says, I am still playing with blocks, although I cannot even see the letters on them. I wonder if I shall ever be wide awake enough for that!”

“Look out of the window, Jo,” said

Bell, who was leaning on the sill. “Don't you think if God can make out of all that snow and ice, in three short months, a lovely, tender, green, springing world, He can make something out of us! Isn't it a wonderful thing that He can wake up the life that's asleep under the frozen earth?”

“Well,” rejoined Jo, dismally, “there's something to begin on out there, but I don't think I have much of a soul; any way, I have never seen any signs of it. You always say things so prettily, Bell, that I like to hear you sermonize. You'd make a good minister's wife.”

“I think you have plenty of 'soul material,' Jo,” said Lilia, confusedly struggling to make a figure of speech express her meaning. “There's lots of it there, only it wants to be blown up, somehow.”

“Thanks for your encouragement,” said Jo, amid the laughter that followed Lilia's peculiar metaphor. “I think if you'll try to handle the spiritual bellows, you'll find it's harder work than you imagine. Now don't laugh, girls, because I really do feel solemn about it, only I talk in my usual frivolous way.”

“You always make yourself appear wicked, Jo,” said her loving champion, Patty, “but I happen to know a few facts on the opposite side. Who was it who gave every cent of her month's allowance to Mrs. Hart, the poor washerwoman who scorched her white skirt; and who stayed away from the church sociable to take care of that horrid room mate of hers who had a headache?”

“Patty, if you don't desist,” cried Jo, with a flaming face, and brandishing a hair-brush fiercely, “I'll throw this at your dear, charitable little head. Now, Bell, you know we all agreed to tell a story of adventure each night before going to bed, and I think you, as hostess, ought to begin. If the entertainment is delayed much longer it will find me asleep with fatigue and over-feeding in the front row of the orchestra.”

“Dear me, I can't begin!” cried Bell, “Nothing ever happened to me except going to California and having a double wedding in the family. That's the sum total of my adventures.”

“Make up something then, or tell us a true story about California. Oh, you do have such a good time, and funny things are always happening to you,” sighed Lilia. “You never seem to have any trials.”

“Trials!” rejoined Bell, sarcastically. “I should think I hadn't. Perhaps I haven't a little scamp of a brother and an awfully fussy old aunty! Perhaps I'm not such an idiot that I can't multiply eight and nine, or seven and six, without a lead-pencil; perhaps I wasn't left at school while my parents toured in the South! Don't you call those afflictions?”

“Yes, I do,” answered Lilia, joining in the general laugh; “and I'll never allude to your good fortune again. Now tell us a California story,--that's a dear,--for I'm getting sleepy as well as Jo.”

“Oh, well,” said Bell, walking about the room absent-mindedly, until her eyes rested on the cabinet, “I'll tell you the story of these;” and she took up a string of dusty pearls which were seamed and cracked as if by fire. “Now open your eyes and lend me your ears, for I shall make it as 'bookish' and romantic as possible.

“Last summer Mother and I were living in a beautiful valley a hundred miles from San Francisco. It was near the mining districts, where Father was attending to some business. Of course, a great many Mexicans and Indians, as well as Chinamen, worked in these mines, and we used to see them very often. Mother and I were sitting under the peach-trees in the garden one afternoon. It was so beautiful sewing or reading in that California garden, for the fruit was ripe and hanging in bushels on the trees, as lovely to look at as it was luscious to eat; some of the peaches were a rich yellow inside and others snow-white, except where the crimson stones had tinged their sockets with rosy little spots.”

“Don't,” cried Jo; “you'll make us discontented with our New England apples!”

“We were chatting and eating peaches,” continued Bell, “when the gate opened, and an Indian girl with an old squaw came in and approached us, The girl could speak English, and told me her name was Eskaluna. I had heard about her, and knew that she was the beauty and belle of the tribe, and was going to marry the chief's son when the next moon came; for our Indian cook was as gossipy as a Yankee, and was forever telling us tales. She was the most beautiful creature I ever saw: lovely black hair, not so coarse as is usual with them, brilliant dark eyes, good features, and the prettiest slim hands and graceful arms. She was dressed gaily and handsomely in the fashion of her tribe, and on her lovely, bare, brown neck was this long string of Mexican pearls, which we noticed at once as being very valuable. She stayed there all the afternoon under the fruit-trees, and really grew quite confidential. Mother, meanwhile, had gone into ecstacies over her beautiful pearls, and had taken them from her neck to examine them. At sunset, when she went home to her wigwam, she slipped the necklace into mother's lap, saying, with her sweet trick of speech, 'I eatie your peachie, you takie my beads.' Of course, mother could not accept them, and Eskaluna departed in quite a disappointed mood. I remember being sorry that the pretty young thing was going to marry the disagreeable, ugly chief. He was just as jealous and ferocious as he could be--wouldn't let her talk to one of the warriors of the tribe, and had shot one man already because he fancied Eskaluna admired him.”

A chorus of “Oh's” and “Ah's” interrupted Bell, and Alice's eyes grew round with interest, for she was sixteen and had been called a “cruel coquette” by a young student at Wareham.

“In a few days our Indian cook came home at night from the mines, saying that he wanted a holiday the next morning to go to a funeral. We had heard that in some tribes they burn the bodies of the dead, and wondered whether his were one of them, so we asked him the particulars, of course, and were terribly shocked when we heard that it was the funeral of poor Eskaluna, who had visited us so lately, in all her dusky beauty. Nakawa told us the whole story in his broken English, and a sad one it was. Her lover, the chief, as I have said, was always jealous of her, and on the afternoon she came to our house, he had heard from some crafty villain or other (an enemy of Eskaluna's, of course), that she was false, and, instead of intending to marry him, loved a handsome young Indian of another tribe, and was planning to run away with him.

“This fired his hot blood, and he rushed off on the village road determined to kill her. He climbed a large sycamore tree on a lonely part of the way, and there waited until the shadows fell over the mountain sides, and the sun, dropping behind their peaks, left the San Jacinto valley in fast-growing darkness. At last he saw the gleam of her scarlet dress in the distance, and soon he heard her voice as she came singing along, little thinking of her dreadful fate. He took sure aim at the heart that was beating happily and carelessly under its cape of birds' feathers; shot, and so swift and unerring was his arrow that she fell in an instant, dead, upon the path. Then, leaving her with the helpless old squaw, he escaped into a canon near by.

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“The next day we went over to the Indian encampment, and reached the place just after poor Eskaluna had been burned on the funeral pile. We went close to the spot and could hardly help crying when we thought of her beauty and sweetness, and her sad and undeserved death. Up near the head of the pile where that lovely brown neck of hers had rested,--the prettiest neck in the world,--lay this charred string of pearls she had worn in our garden. Mother asked for it as a remembrance, and the old squaw gave it to her. Eskaluna's brother is on the war-path after her murderer, I believe, to this day, if he hasn't killed him yet; for he was determined to avenge her. Now, isn't that romantic, and tragic at the same time, girls? Poor Eskaluna! I don't know that her fate would have been much easier if she had married the chief; but it is hard to think of her being so heartlessly murdered when she was so innocent and true; and that's the end of my story. Who comes next?”

“Not I, at this hour,” yawned Jo, “but it was a good tale!”

“Nor I, after that thrilling experience of yours!” said Alice, admiringly.

“I can think of no story half so delightful as the dreams we shall have if we go to bed,” murmured Edith from her cozy corner. “Come, it is after ten, and the wide bed calls loudly for occupants.”

In a half-hour all six were asleep, and the bright-faced moon, looking in at the piazza window, smiled as she saw the half-dozen heads in a row, and the bed surrounded by croquet mallets and balls.

CHAPTER III--AN EMERGENCY CASE

|THE next morning broke clear, bright, and sparkling, but bitterly cold. I cannot attempt to tell you all the doings of that indefatigable and ingenious bevy of girls during the day. Miss Miranda, their opposite neighbor, had kept to her post of observation, the window, very closely, and had seen much to awaken scorn and surprise.

“Wa'al, Jane!” said she, excitedly, in the afternoon, “there they go ag'in! That's the fourth time the hoss has been harnessed into Allen's pung to-day; and now they've got their uncle. Whatever they find to laugh so over, and where they go to, is more'n I can see. They haven't done up their dinner dishes, I know, for I've been watching of 'em and they hain't had time to do 'em so quick as this, though Bell Winship is as spry as a skeeter when she gets a-goin'.”

Miss Miranda's organs of vision were better than magnifying glasses, for, aided by a lively imagination, they could dart around corners and through doors with great ease. Bell avowed confidentially to Patty that morning, when she met her neighbor's eyes fixed on the pantry window, that she believed Miss Miranda could see a fly-speck on top of a liberty-pole.

The girls had made the day a very long and lively one, and in the evening, their spirits still high and their inventive powers still unimpaired, they gave an impromptu concert. The audience was small but appreciative. Grandmother was in a private box--the high-backed arm-chair in the cosiest corner; Uncle Harry sat on a hastily-erected throne made by perching a stool on the dining-table, and being given a large pair of goggles, was requested to serve as dramatic and musical critic for the morning newspapers. Two or three of the boarders from Mrs. Carter's famous Winter Farmhouse on the hill, the young schoolmaster (a Bowdoin student earning his college course by odd terms of teaching), and Hugh Pennell, his chum and classmate, home on a brief holiday, made quite a brave show when seated in three rows, while the unaffected laughter, the open mouths, and the staring eyes of “the help,” Emma Jane Perkins, Betty Bean, and 'Bijah Flagg, who were grouped at the hall door, helped in the general merriment.

Bell had a keen sense of the ridiculous and a voice like a meadow-lark. Jo was capital, too, as a mimic, so together, they gave some absurdly funny scenes from famous operas. Bell had thrown on an evening dress of her cousin's, which happened to be left in the house, and this, with its short sleeves, showing her round, girlish arms, and its long train, made her such a distracting little prima donna of fifteen, that Hugh Pennell quite laid his boyish heart at her feet. She sang “The Last Rose of Summer” with all the smiles, head-tossings, arch looks, casting down of eyelids, and kissing of finger-tips at the close, which generally accompany it when sung by the stage soprano, and she was naturally greeted with rapturous applause. Then Jo, as the tenor, in dressing-gown and smoking-cap for male attire, sang a fervent duet with Alice Forsaith, rendering it with original Italian words and embraces at the end of every measure.

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Tableaux showing scenes from well-known novels, and thrilling historical events depicted in pantomime, came next, and the company was invited to name them as they followed one another in quick succession,--Eliza crossing the river by leaping from ice block to ice block, the bloodhounds in hot pursuit; Pochahontas saving the life of her noble Captain John; Rochester, holding Jane Eyre spellbound by the steely glitter of his eye; and the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers, landing on a stern and rock-bound coast, ably represented by the dining-room table. As Uncle Harry sat on the table he was obliged to be the center of this thrilling scene, which was variously surmised by the audience to be the capture of a slave-ship by pirates, the rescue of a babe from a tenement-house fire, the killing of Julius Cæsar in the Roman Senate, or an impassioned attempt to drag Casabianca from the burning deck.

After bidding their visitors goodnight, Bell and Jo went into the kitchen to put buckwheat cakes to raise for breakfast.

“I believe I'll chop the meat hash for a half-hour while the kitchen is warm,” said Jo. “Emma Jane is right about the knife; it is dull beyond words!”

“If it is any duller than Emma Jane herself, I am sorry for it,” rejoined Bell.

“It's a poor workman who complains of his tools, Jo,” said Patty, looking in at the door, with a superior air; “Columbus discovered America in an open boat.”

“He would never have discovered America with this chopping-knife,” quoth Jo, bringing it down with vicious emphasis on the unoffending meat.

“Did you notice Emma Jane's expression as she stood in the doorway to night?”

“I did,” replied Bell, as she bustled about her last tasks at closet, cupboard, and sink. “Not a penny of my money shall go to the heathen in other lands until I have done some missionary work with her. In ten days I propose to make her stand straight, hold her head up, keep her mouth closed when not occupied in conversation or eating, stop straining her hair out by the roots, tie the ends of her braids with ribbon instead of twine, give up her magenta hood, and a few other little details.”

“I don't see how you dare advise her at her advanced age,” responded Jo. “I suppose she is thirteen, but she appears about thirty. Look, Bell, can this hash be safely trusted now to the pearly teeth of our parlor boarders, or are the pieces too large for their 'delicate sensibilities'?”

“I think that it may escape criticism,” laughed Bell. “Cover it with a clean towel and a platter, and one of us will give it a last castigation before it goes in the frying-pan.”

“I never had such a good time in my life, never, never!” sighed Lilia, as she blew out the lamp, and tucked herself on the front side of the bed, a little later. “I have only two things to trouble me. First: my wisdom tooth feels as if it were going to ache again. Second: it is my turn to build the kitchen fire in the morning.”

“Console yourself with one thought, my dear,” murmured Bell, drowsily, yet sagely. “Both these misfortunes can't happen to you, for if your tooth chances to ache, we shall not have the heart to make you build the fire.”

“Don't tell her that,” urged Jo, with a prodigious yawn, “or she will be feigning toothache constantly.”

Lilia's fears had good foundation, however, for in the middle of the night, Jo, who slept next the front side, wakened suddenly to find her slipping quietly out of bed.

“What's the matter, Lilia!” she whispered.

“Nothing; don't wake the others, but that miserable tooth grumbles just enough to keep me awake, and my temple aches and my cheek, too. Where is the lotion I use for bathing my face, do you know?”

“Yes, where you put it this morning, on the back of the wash-stand; sha'n't I light the lamp and help you?”

“No, no, hush!” said Lilia. “I can put my hand on it in the dark. Here it is! I'll bathe my face a few minutes, and then try to go to sleep.”

So, she anointed herself freely, put the bottle and sponge under the head of the bed lest she should need them again, and, finally, the pain growing less, fell asleep.

In the morning, Bell, who wakened first, rubbed her eyes drowsily, glanced at Lilia, who was breathing quietly, and uttered a piercing shriek. This in turn aroused the other girls, who joined in the shriek on general principles, and then, blinking in the half-light, looked where Bell pointed. One side of Lilia's face was swollen, and of a dark, purple color, presenting a truly frightful appearance. At length, hearing the confusion, Lilia awoke with a start, and her eyes being open, and rolling about in surprise, she looked still more alarming.

“What on earth is the matter, girls?” she asked, sitting up in bed, smoothing back her hair and rubbing her heavy lids.

Thereupon Edith and Alice began to tremble and nobody answered her.

“K-k-keep c-c-calm,” said Bell. “Lilia, dear, your face is badly swollen and inflamed, and we're afraid you are going to be ill, but we'll send for the doctor straight away. Does it pain you very much?”

Lilia jumped up hastily, and, looking in the mirror, uttered a cry of terror, and sank back into the rocking-chair.

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What can it be! Oh, take me home to my father! It must be a malignant pustule--or spotted fever--or something dreadful! What shall I do? Bell, you are a doctor's daughter; do find out what's the matter with me! I am disfigured for life, and I wasn't very good-looking before.”

“Girls,” said Bell, “let us dress this very instant, for we can't be too quick about a thing of this kind. You, Jo, build the kitchen fire, and, Alice, make a blaze on the hearth in here; then, after we've made her comfortable, Edith can run and tell Uncle Harry to come.”

“Put on the kettle,” added Patty, “and heat blankets; they always do that in emergencies.”

“Don't frighten me to death,” wailed Lilia, “calling me 'a thing of this kind' and an 'emergency.' I don't feel a hit worse than I did in the night.”

“She had neuralgia in her face,” explained Jo; “that must have had something to do with it. She put on some of her liniment, and then dropped off to sleep. Come, darling, let us tuck you in bed again; try to keep up your courage!”

Then there was a hasty consultation in the kitchen 'midst many groans and tears. Bell was an authority on sickness, and she said, with an awestruck face, that it must be a dreadful attack of erysipelas in the very last stages.

“But,” cried Alice, perplexed, “it is all very strange, for why does she have so little pain, and how could her face have turned so black from mortification in one night?”

“Blood-poisoning is very quick and very deadly,” said Patty, who had heard about such a case in her own family.

“Goodness knows what it is,” exclaimed Bell, wringing her hands in nervous terror. “What to do with her I don't know; whether to put bricks to her head and ice to her feet, or keep her head cold and heat her 'extremities,' as father calls them--whether to give her a sweat or keep her dry, or wrap her in blankets, or get the linen sheets. Jo is with her now. If you'll go and wake Uncle Harry, Edith, it is the best thing we can do. Run along with her, too, Patty, and you won't be afraid together.”

Alice and Bell went back presently to Lilia, who looked even worse, now that the room was bright with the glow of the open fire and the pale light of the student lamp.

“You patient old darling!” cried Bell, falling on her knees beside the bed. “We have sent for Uncle Harry and the Doctor, and now you are sure to be all right, for we've taken the thing in good time. Good gracious!! what bottle have I tipped over under this bed!”

“It's my neuralgia liniment,” murmured Lilia, faintly. “I bathed my face in it last night, and put it under there afterward. Don't spill it, for I can't get any more here.”

“Your neuralgia lotion!” shrieked Bell, first with a look of blank astonishment, and then one of excitement and glee mixed in equal parts. “Look at it, girls! Look, Alice and Jo! Oh, Lilia, you precious, blundering goose!” and thereupon she dragged out from beneath the bed valance a pint bottle of violet ink, and then relapsed into a paroxysm of voiceless mirth. Just then the hack door opened, and in hurried Uncle Harry, Edith, and Patty, much terrified, for they had heard the shouts and gasps and excited voices from outside, and supposed that Lilia must at least have fallen into convulsions.

“Let me see the poor child immediately,” cried Mr. Winship. “What is the trouble with you, Bell? are you demented? and where is Lilia?” looking at the apparently empty bed, for Lilia had wound herself in the sheets and blankets, disappeared from view, and was endeavoring to force a pillow into her mouth in order to render her shame-faced laughter inaudible. “Are you trying to play a joke on me?” continued he, with as much dignity as was consistent with an attire made up of an undershirt, a pair of trousers, overshoes, a tall hat, and a gold-headed cane which he had quite unconsciously caught up in his hasty flight from his chamber.

“The fact is,” answered Bell, between her gasps, and trying desperately hard to regain her sobriety,--“the fact is--Uncle Harry--we made--a mistake, and so did--Lilia. There were two bottles just alike on the wash-stand, and in the night she bathed her face for five minutes in the purple ink! Oh, oh, oh!!”

Uncle Harry's face relaxed into a broad smile as he realized the joke.

“Oh, Mr. Winship, you should have seen her!” sighed Jo, lifting her head from the sofa-pillow, with streaming eyes. “All her face, except part of her forehead and one cheek, was covered with enormous dark purple blotches. She looked like a clown, or a Fourth of July fantastic, or anything else frightful!”

“Well,” said Edith, slyly, “Bell said mortification had taken place. I don't think Lilia has ever been more mortified than she is now; do you?

“Puns are out of place, Edith,” said Bell, severely. “Don't hurry, Uncle Harry. Don't let any thought of your rather peculiar attire cause you embarrassment.”

But before Bell's teasing voice had ceased, the last thud, thud of his rubbers, and click, click of his gold-headed cane were heard in the hall, and he thought, as he tried to finish his early morning nap, that it would be a long time before he allowed those madcap girls to rout him out of bed again at five o'clock on a winter's day.

As for the girls themselves, they did not even make a trial of slumber, but first scrubbed Lilia energetically with hard soap and pumice, and then made molasses candy, determined that the roaring kitchen fire should be used to some purpose.

Having gained so much time by the unusual way in which they had started the day, they were enabled to look back at nightfall on an unprecedented number of activities, some of them rather unique and original. There was a call upon Emma Jane's mother, another upon Mrs. Carter at the Winter Farm, a sleigh-ride with Geoffrey Strong, the vehicle being a truck for hauling wood, an hour's coasting down Brigadier hill, and a trip to the doctor's for courtplaster and arnica and peppermint and cough lozenges. Then directly after luncheon Bell and Jo made a private and confidential call upon Grandma Win-ship's pig, leaving with him as evidences of regard several samples of their own cookery. This call they hoped was unnoticed, but an hour afterwards the other four girls were espied coming from the Winships', all clad in black garments of one sort or another. When questioned as to the meaning of this mysterious piece of foolishness they merely remarked that they, too, had called upon the Winships pig, but that it was a visit of condolence and sympathy.

CHAPTER IV--A WINTER PICNIC

|YOU may think that Lilia's “mortification” was quite an excitement in this enterprising young household; yet I assure you that never twenty-four hours passed but a ridiculous adventure of some kind overtook the girls. The daily bulletin which they carried over to Mrs. Carter at the Winter Farm kept the worthy inmates in constant wonderment as to what would happen next. Sometimes there was a regular programme for the next day, prepared the night before, but oftener, things happened of themselves, and when they do that, you know, pleasure seems a deal more satisfying and delightful, because it is unexpected. Uncle Harry was in great demand, and very often made one of the gay party of young folks off for a frolic. They defied King Winter openly, and went on all sorts of excursions, even on a bona-fide picnic, notwithstanding the two feet of snow on the ground. The way of it was this: On Friday, the boys--Hugh Pennell, Bell's cousin, Jack Brayton, and the young schoolmaster--turned the great bare hall in the top of the old Winship family house into a woodland bower.

By the way, I have not told you much about Geoffrey Strong yet, because the girls of the story have had everything their own way, but Geoffrey Strong was well worth knowing. He was only eighteen years old, but had finished his sophomore year at Bowdoin College, and was teaching the district school that he might partly earn the money necessary to take him through the remainder of the course. He was as sturdy and strong as his name, or as one of the stout pine-trees of his native State, as gentle and chivalrous as a boy knight of the olden time; as true and manly a lad, and withal as good and earnest a teacher, notwithstanding his youth, as any little country urchin could wish. Mr. Win-ship was his guardian, and thus he had become quite one of the Winship family.

The boys were making the picnic grounds when I interrupted my story with this long parenthesis. They took a large pair of old drop curtains used at some time or other in church tableaux, and made a dark green carpet by stretching them across the floor smoothly and tacking them down; they wreathed the pillars and trimmed the doors and windows with evergreens, and then planted young spruce and cedar and hemlock trees in the corners or scattered them about the room firmly rooted in painted nail-kegs.

“It looks rather jolly, boys, doesn't it?” cried Jack, rubbing his cold fingers, “but I'm afraid we've gone as far as we can; we can't make birds and flowers and brooks!”

“What's the special difficulty?” asked Geoffrey. “We'll borrow Grandmother Winship's two cages of canaries and Mrs. Adams' two; then we'll bring over Mrs. Carter's pet parrot, and altogether we'll be musical enough, considering the fact that the thermometer is below zero.”

This suggestion of Geoff's they accordingly adopted, and their mimic forest became tuneful.

The next stroke of genius came from Hugh Pennell. He found bunches of white and yellow everlastings at home with which he mixed some cleverly constructed bright tissue-paper flowers, of mysterious botanical structure. He planted these in pots, and tied them to shrubs, and behold, their forest bloomed!

“But we have finished now, boys,” said Hugh, dejectedly, as he put his last bed of whiteweed and buttercups under a shady tree. (They were made of paper, and were growing artistically in a moss-covered chopping-tray.) “We can't get up a brook, and a brook is a handy thing at a picnic, too. Good for the small children to fall into, good for drinking, good for dish-washing, good for its cool and musical tinkle.”

“I have an idea,” suggested Jack, who was mounted on a step-ladder busily engaged in tying a stuffed owl and a blue jay to a tree-top. “I have an idea. We can fill the ice-water tank, put it on a shelf, let the water run into a tub, then station a boy in the corner to keep filling the tank from the tub. There's your stagnant pool and your running streamlet. There's your drinking-water, your dish-washer, your musical tinkle, and possibly your small child's watery grave. What could be more romantic?”

“Out with him!” shouted Geoff. “He ought to be drowned for proposing such an apology for a brook.”

“I fail to see the point,” said Jack; “the sound would be sylvan and suggestive, and I've no doubt the girls would be charmed.”

“We'll brook no further argument on the subject,” retorted Hugh; “the afternoon is running away with us. We might bring up the bath-tub, or the watering-trough, sink it in an evergreen bank and surround it with house plants, but I don't think it would satisfy us exactly. I'll tell you, let us give up the brook and build a sort of what-do-you-call'em for a retreat, in one corner.” After some explanations from Hugh about his plan, the boys finally succeeded in manufacturing something romantic and ingenious. Two blooming oleanders in boxes were brought from Uncle Harry's parlor, there was a hemlock tree with a rustic seat under it, there was an evergreen arch above, there was a little rockery built with a dozen stones from the old wall behind the barn, and there were Miss Jane Sawyer's potted scarlet geraniums set in among them, all surmounted by two banging baskets and a bird-cage. With nothing save an airtight stove to warm it into life (the ugliness of the stove quite hidden by screens of green boughs), the cold, bare hall was magically changed into a green forest, vocal with singing birds and radiant with blooming flowers.

The boys swung their hats in irrepressible glee.

“Won't this be a surprise to the people, though! Won't they think of the desert blooming as the rose!” cried Hugh.

“I fancy it won't astonish Uncle Harry and Grandmother much,” answered Jack, dryly, “inasmuch as we've nearly borrowed them out of house and home during the operation. Old Mrs. Winship said when I took her hammer, hatchet, chopping-tray, house plants, and screw-driver, that perhaps she had better go over to Mrs. Carter's and board. The girls will be fairly stunned, though. Just imagine Bell's eyes! I told them we'd see to sweeping and heating the hall, but they don't expect any decorations. Well, I'm off. Lock the door, Geoff, and guard it like a dragon; we meet at eleven to-morrow morning, do we? Be on hand, sharp, and let us all go in and view the scene together. I wouldn't for worlds miss hearing and seeing the girls.”

Jack and Hugh started for home, and Geoff went downstairs to run a gauntlet of questioning from Jo Fenton, who was present in Grandmother Winship's kitchen on one of the borrowing tours of the day, and extremely anxious to find out why so much mysterious hammering was going on.

While these preparations were in progress, the six juvenile housekeepers were undergoing abject suffering in their cookery for the picnic. It had been a day of disasters from beginning to end--the first really mournful one in their experience.

It commenced bright and early, too; in fact, was all ready for them before they awoke in the morning, and the coal fire began it, for it went out in the night. Everybody knows what it is to build a fire in a large coal stove; it was Jo's turn as stoker and tirewoman, and I regret to say that this circumstance made her a little cross, in fact, audibly so.

After much searching for kindling-wood, however, much chattering of teeth, for the thermometer was below zero, much vicious banging of stove doors, and clattering of hods and shovels, that trouble was overcome. But, dear me! it was only the first drop of a pouring rain of accidents, and at last the girls accepted it as a fatal shower which must fall before the weather would clear, and thus resigned themselves to the inevitable.

The breakfast was as bad as a breakfast knew how to be. The girls were all cooks to-day in the exciting preparation for the picnic, for they wanted to take especially tempting dainties in order that they might astonish more experienced providers. Patty scorched the milk toast; Edith, that most precise and careful of all little women under the sun, broke a platter and burned her fingers; Lilia browned a delicious omelet, and waved the spider triumphantly in the air, astonished at her own success, when, alas, the smooth little circlet slipped illnaturedly into the coal hod. Lilia stood still in horror and dismay, while Bell fished it hastily out, looking very crumpled, sooty, shrunken, and generally penitent, if an omelet can assume that expression. She slapped it on the table severely, and said, with a little choke and tear in her voice:

“The last of the eggs went into that omelet, and it is going to he rinsed, and fried over, and eaten. There isn't another thing in the house for breakfast. There is no bread; Alice put cream-of-tartar into the buckwheats, instead of saleratus, and measured it with a tablespoon besides; Miss Miranda's cat upset the milk can; the potatoes are frozen; and I am ashamed to borrow anything more of Grandmother.”

“Never,” cried Alice, with much determination. “Sooner eat omelet and coal hod, too! Never mind the breakfast! there are always apples. What shall we take to the picnic? We can suggest luncheon at high noon, and no one will suspect we haven't breakfasted.”

“Let's make mince pies,” cried Jo, animatedly, from her seat on the wood-box.

“Goose,” answered Bell, with a sarcastic smile. “There's plenty of time to make mince-meat, of course!”

“At any rate, we must have jelly-cake,” said Lilia, with decision, while dishing up the injured omelet for the second time. “We had better carry the delicacies, for Mrs. Pennell and the boys will be sure to bring bread and meat and common things.”

“Oh, tarts, tarts!” exclaimed Edith, in an ecstacy of reminiscence. “I haven't had tarts for a perfect age! Do you think we could manage them?”

“They must be easy enough,” answered Patty, with calm authority. “Cut a hole out of the middle of each round thing, then till it up with jelly and bake it; that's simple.”

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“Glad you think so,” responded Edith, with an air of deep melancholy and cynicism, as she prepared to wash the cooking dishes and found an empty dish-water pot. “I should think the jelly would grow hard and crusty before the tarts baked, but I suppose it's all right. Everything we touch to-day is sure to fail.”

“Oh, how much better if you said, 'I'll try, I'll try, I'll try,'” sang Bell, in a spasm of gayety.

“Oh, how much sadder you will feel when you've tried, by and by,” retorted Edith. “Is there anything difficult about pastry, I wonder? Look in the cookbook. Does it have to be soaked over night like ham, or hung for two weeks like game, or put away in a stone jar like fruit-cake, or 'braised' or 'trussed' or 'larded' or anything?”

“No,” said Patty, looking up from the 'Bride's Manual,' “but it has to be pounded on a marble slab with a glass rolling-pin.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Bell, “Tarts are nothing but pie-crust. This village is situated in the very middle of what is called the New England Pie Belt, and the glass rolling-pin and the marble slab have never been seen by the oldest or youngest inhabitant. I know that bride. When she makes pastry you can see her diamond engagement ring flash as she dips her turquoise scoop into her ruby flour-barrel. Look up soft gingerbread, Patty.”

“Four cups best New Orleans molasses--”

“The molasses is out,” said Jo; “find jelly-cake.”

“Jelly all gone,” said Bell; “where, I can't think, for there were seventeen tumblers.”

“The boys are awfully fond of it with bread,” said Alice, reminiscently. “How about doughnuts?”

“All right,” Bell answered, “of course you'll go to the store for more eggs and a pail of lard. We're out of molasses, eggs, lard, ginger, jelly, patience, and luck.”

Over an hour was spent in futile excursions through the cookery books, vain rummagings of the pantry and larder, frequent trips to the country store, and nothing was a triumphant success. Things that should have been thin were fat and puffy; those that should have risen high and light as air were flat and soggy; pots, pans, bowls, were heaped on one another in the sink until at one o'clock Alice Forsaith went to bed with a headache, leaving the kitchen in a state of general confusion and uproar. I cannot bear to tell you all the sorry incidents of that dreadful day, but Bell had shared in the blunders with the rest. She had gone to the store-room for citron, and had stumbled on a jar of frozen “something” very like mince-meat. This, indeed, was a precious discovery! She flew back to the kitchen, crying:

“Hurrah! We'll have the pies after all, girls! Mother has left a pot of mince-meat in the pantry. It's frozen, but it will be all right. You trust to me. I've made pies before, and these shall not be a failure.”

The spider was heated, and enough meat for three pies put in to thaw. It thawed, naturally, the fire being extremely hot, and it presently became very thin and curious in its appearance.

“It looks like thick soup with pieces of chopped apple in it,” said Lilia to Bell, who was patting down a very tough, substantial bottom crust on a pie plate.

“We-l-l, it does!” owned the head cook, frankly; “but I suppose it will boil down or thicken up in baking. I don't like to taste it, somehow.”

“Very natural,” said Lilia, dryly. “It doesn't look 'tasty;' and, to tell the truth, it does not look at all as I've been brought up to imagine mince-meat ought to look.”

“I can't be responsible for your 'bringing up,' Lill. Please pour it in, and I'll hold the plate.”