CHAPTER VIII

ORIOLE'S OWN TROUBLES

School began again and Oriole Putnam was glad, after all, to meet the boys and girls who, previous to the holidays, had been inclined to scoff at her because of their suspicion that Oriole had stolen Mrs. Joy's ancient jewel-casket.

Although she had borne this trouble courageously, the suspicion of some of her schoolmates had made the girl very unhappy. Her mind was completely freed of this. But all her mates were not inclined to welcome Oriole kindly.

May Rabey, whose widowed mother was one of the jealous relatives of Mrs. Rebecca Joy and feared Oriole's influence with that eccentric woman, was quite as "snippy" as ever. And Shedder Crabbe had evidently not been entirely cured of what Lyddy Ann called "his mean streak" when Oriole had aided him one day out in the open harbor.

"A crab is a crab, no two ways about it," declared Mrs. Joy's maid-of-all-work. "They'll always travel sideways and be as onsartain as a cross-eyed man. And that Shadrach!"

Further expression of her opinion of Shedder was beyond Lyddy Ann's speech. And it was quite beyond Oriole's speech, too, after the first meeting of the Busy Bees which was held after the vacation.

Minnie and Flossy Payne, who lived on State Street too, but not quite so far out of town as Mrs. Joy's house, where Oriole lived, invited the dolls' sewing society to their home for this meeting. There was a sun parlor on the south side of the Payne house. And behind the Payne premises, on the next street, was the home of the president of the Town Council, Mr. Enos Crabbe--the two properties adjoining.

That Shedder was so near a neighbor perhaps was one reason why the Payne girls disliked him so very much. And it must truthfully be said that he made himself very annoying to all the girls in Oriole's set.

He was half afraid of Oriole, for she always seemed to get the best of him in the end. And Shedder respected Oriole's muscle and determination. Several times she had proved herself to be more than his equal.

In fact, only once had the son of the storekeeper and councilman managed really to get the best of Oriole. That was when he had removed the ladder to the loft of the old cottage on Harbor Light Island and thus left Oriole marooned in the cupola on the roof of the exposed structure.

But Shedder got wind of this meeting of the Busy Bees and learned that the girls were going to sew in the conservatory, as it was warm there with the sun lying full upon its many windows until sunset.

The end of the room faced the dividing fence between the Payne yard and that of the Crabbe property. And in this fence was a low gate.

Before Enos Crabbe had bought the place behind Mr. Payne's, the then owner's family and the Paynes had been the very best of neighbors and friends. Both families had used the communicating gateway in the high board fence. When Enos Crabbe had come to live here he had fulfilled the promise of his name and nailed the gate shut.

"Not that we ever wanted to be friendly with those Crabbes," sniffed Flossy Payne. "Only our father wouldn't be so impolite as to nail up the gate that everybody used."

It seemed, however, that Shedder had drawn the nails. The gateway offered a handy means of egress for him to State Street when he chanced to want to go that way.

Like most boys, Shedder had pets--a rabbit hutch in the back yard, a pair of bantam fowls, a squirrel in a cage which Tabby, the house cat, was quite as much interested in as was Shedder himself. But the boy's chief possession was a well-grown male sheep named Jingo.

Jingo had been a cosset lamb, and for once Enos Crabbe had been prevailed upon not to turn Jingo into money at the proper time.

Now Jingo was four years old, well-grown, with curled horns as hard as iron and "as vicious as sin," the neighbors all declared. Whenever Jingo got loose in the streets of Littleport even the most savage dogs made for instant cover.

On this afternoon Shedder, knowing the girls of the Busy Bee society would soon arrive for their sewing party, slipped through the gateway in the fence and hung the poster-picture of a shaggy, bearded goat standing rampant on a barrel, across the lower windows in the end of the conservatory, the sills of which were not more than a foot above the ground. The girls did not notice the three-sheet poster outside the windows. They gathered chatteringly to their party and the sly Shedder watched them through a crack in the fence till he was confident the girls were settled to their work and gossip.

Then, giggling delightedly in anticipation of the trick he was about to play, the Crabbe boy opened the gate in the fence and released from confinement the ram that was as crabbed of temper as though he had really been born into the Crabbe family.

Jingo wore a broad leather strap about his neck, and by this Shedder urged him along to the opening. There were patches of snow on the ground, and they were just crusting over again, for it had been mild at noon. Jingo's hard little hoofs clattered through this snow-crust to the gate. He recognized Shedder as his master, and the boy could control him when nobody else could.

Now Jingo pushed his black muzzle through the gateway and looked about the Payne premises. Almost instantly the rampant goat on the poster caught his eye. It looked enough like another ram to Jingo to rouse in him the desire for battle.

Jingo stamped his hoofs and shook his head in no uncertain way. Shedder snickered with delight and urged the big sheep through the gateway.

"Go to it, Jingo!" he yelped. "Go it!"

Once on the Payne side of the fence and with his supposed enemy right before him, the big ram wasted no time. He needed no further urging. Head down and bunching his four feet under him, he charged with an angry blare of his sharp voice.

"Whee!" yelled Shedder, and almost fell to the ground he laughed so.

With a crash that startled the ram as much as it did the girls inside the sun parlor, his horns smashed through paper and glass and the beast appeared half through the window. Only his thick wool kept him from being badly cut by the broken glass.

His nose was scratched a little, and as he stood there, half in and half out of the sun parlor, with the remains of the poster and part of a window frame hung about his neck, the girls might have been highly amused had they not been so frightened.

To Shedder's vast delight they expressed their emotions by screaming and running. All but Oriole. She was as startled as any of her friends when Jingo crashed through the glass; but she immediately realized what it was and who was at the bottom of the trick.

"That mean Shedder Crabbe!" she ejaculated as Minnie and Flossy and the other girls ran from the place. "This is his Jingo--Oh! The dreadful thing!" for Jingo made a lunge for her but could not get farther into the room.

There were heavy curtains at the inner door of the sun parlor looped back by thick cords and tassels. Oriole ran to the door, pulled out the knot of one cord and ran back with it to the stamping sheep. He could only shake his head at her and threaten with his horns, after all.

Oriole drew an end of the cord through the sheep's collar and tied him fast to a brace under the window sill. When he finally backed out he could not get away.

Shedder's head popped through the hole in the fence and he bawled:

"You let that ram alone! Here, Jingo! Jingo! That's you, Oriole Putnam! I see you. If you hurt that sheep I'll tell my father on you."

Oriole opened the outer door of the conservatory and told him emphatically that "she didn't care whom he told."

"Just wait till Mr. Payne comes home and sees what you did with your old ram. Your father will have to pay for this glass."

At that Shedder disappeared. He had not thought of that possibility. He hoped nobody else had seen him at the gate but Oriole. He determined to deny that he had set the ram free.

But Oriole left Jingo tied and went back into the house to tell the other girls. Mrs. Payne chanced to be out that afternoon and Flossy and Minnie were afraid of the sheep and allowed him to stand there in the cold.

But the incident broke up the sewing party and Oriole went home. To her surprise she found Mr. Harvey Langdon talking with Mrs. Joy in the "museum," as Oriole always called the big sitting room.

"Oh, Mr. Langdon, nothing has happened to the twins, has there?" the girl cried anxiously.

"You see?" the ranchman said to Mrs. Joy. "She is quite given over to the children. And they think more of Oriole than they ever did of Sadie Brown." Then to the girl he replied:

"Myron and Marian are all right. It is your personal affairs I must talk about. I have some news."

Instantly Oriole's face flamed and her lips parted.

"My dear, dear mother!" she cried. "You have heard from her and from father?"

"No." He said it bluntly and shook his head with gravity. But his expression of countenance was very sympathetic. "I have heard from neither of your parents, my dear Oriole. But I believe we have heard of them."

"Oh!" the girl gasped, and then went speechless. She could just stare at him pleadingly.

"I was in Boston yesterday. I went there because of something I read in the Boston paper. It was an account of the rescue of some seamen from a rocky island off the coast of British Guiana."

"Oh! Castaways?" cried Oriole. "Not my mamma and father?"

"They claim to have been members of the crew of the _Helvetia_; but none of the passengers had been of their party," Mr. Langdon said, much moved by the girl's anxiety.