CHAPTER VI

Miss Hester Meets an Old Acquaintance

ON Tuesday, Billy hied him forth again to the doctor.

When he returned, he had a package carefully tucked under his arm.

It was a mild day and Ruth was sitting on the steps with Stray in her lap. She had pinned a small shawl around him, and was now holding him like a baby, in which position, he seemed most comfortable.

Ruth looked up as Billy came in. "I am pretending that Stray is my child. He is the only doll I have now to play with," she said.

Billy laughed a little gleeful laugh as he stopped to look at the patient Stray whose brown paws hung helplessly outside the shawl. "He ain't got quite such a pretty complexion as your other doll," said Billy. "He's as dark as a Dago. Maybe he is one."

"Oh, no, he's not," returned Ruth, looking down, a little out of conceit with her baby.

"I'd rather play a dog was a dog," said Billy.

"Oh, no, you wouldn't, not if you were a girl and hadn't any doll. What would you do then?"

"I'd get one, with a blue dress on," answered Billy, going into the house laughing.

Ruth felt that this was an unnecessarily cruel taunt, and did not follow him. Great would have been her surprise if she had seen him enter Miss Hester's presence, joyfully holding out his package and crying: "I've got it, I've got it, and I'm goin' to work Saturdays, an hour every Saturday for a month, to pay for it. Ain't that fine? I tell ye Dr. Peaslee is a brick."

Miss Hester held out eager hands. "Let me see, Billy," she said.

He handed her the package which she carefully unwrapped and disclosed to view a doll about ten inches long, dressed in a faded blue frock. What memories it brought back to the gentle woman whose eyes filled with tears as she sat holding the doll in her hand. She said never a word, at which Billy wondered, but at last she drew a long sigh.

"It makes me remember so many things, Billy dear," she said. "I forgot where I was for the moment, for I went back to those old days when my father brought Henrietta and me our dolls, then later on there were so many things, so many things. Never mind, it is all over now. Where is Ruth, Billy? Are you going to give her the doll right away?"

"Yes, don't ye think I'd better? I certainly want to see her when she gets it. She's sittin' out on the steps nursin' Stray. She hadn't an idea what I had under my arm. I'll tell ye what let's do: Let's wait till supper time and then set the doll in her chair. I'll put a pile of books in it, and then won't she stare to see Miss Doll sittin' in her place?"

Miss Hester smiled assent and the two plotted together while Ruth sat outside on the steps watching the sun go down.

A golden afterglow was lighting up the sky when Billy came out to her.

"Supper's ready, Ruth," he said rubbing his hands together in a pleased manner. "Come on, hurry up, we're goin' to have somethin' good."

"Are we, really?" Ruth forgot that she was slightly miffed at Billy's former remark.

Billy nodded, and Ruth, unpinning the shawl from Stray, set him down on the ground where he stretched himself, wagged his tail and started off to find some exciting thing to do, after his hour of rest in Ruth's arms.

The kitchen in which they ate their meals, except on high days and holidays, was a comfortable place. A neat rag carpet covered the floor; there were white curtains at the windows, and, now that Miss Hester had lighted the lamp, there was a cheerful brightness in the room.

"Old Mrs. Perkins sent me a nice pot of apple-butter this morning, and some fresh sausage," said Miss Hester as Ruth came in. "We are going to have some of the apple-butter to-night and some of the sausage in the morning. I don't know any one who makes better apple-butter and sausage than she does. She used to send it to my father who always praised it highly, and now she seems to be keeping up the custom by sending it to me. Come, Ruth."

"Doesn't it look good?" said Billy viewing the dish with hungry eyes, "and it will taste as good as it looks, so spicy and sweet. Hallo, who's that sittin' in your chair, Ruth?"

Ruth, who had been sniffing the apple-butter from the other side of the table, went quickly to her place and gave a little scream of surprise and delight.

"Oh, Billy! Oh, Aunt Hester! Where did it come from? It is my dear Henrietta's twin sister, I am sure. Oh, how did you get her?"

"Ask Billy," said Miss Hester.

Ruth turned a questioning face toward Billy.

"You'll never guess," he said. "Dr. Peaslee got it for me."

"For you? Did you tell him? Oh, you dear Billy. Go on, tell me all about it."

"I got it for ye," said Billy, "and I am goin' to pay for it by workin' an hour on four Saturdays for the doctor. I am to rake leaves for him and do some clearin' out in his garden." He spoke in an off-hand manner. "Isn't she the very livin' image of the other one?"

Ruth examined the doll critically. "Yes, as near as could be. She has just a little different expression, but she is just as lovely. Oh, you dear Billy, how good you are to do this for me. I am so happy. I could never in the world do anything half so nice for you. If only you didn't hate to be kissed, I'd come right over there and kiss you. I'll hug you anyhow."

"Oh, now," began Billy, "that's just like a girl," though any one could see that he was not ill-pleased when Ruth rushed to him and gave him as mighty a hug as she was capable of.

The apple-butter was a thing of small consideration by the side of this wonderful thing that had happened, and Ruth had so many questions to ask about the how and why of it all that she ate very little supper and her eyes constantly traveled to the doll which she had sitting beside her in another chair, and she chattered so constantly about it, that her appreciation was good to see.

"Weren't you 'sprised and glad to see her again, Aunt Hester?" she asked. "I should think you would love to have her back again living in the same house with you. Do you suppose the person you gave her to was very sorry to give her up?"

"Rather sorry, I think," returned Miss Hester with a faint little flush coming to her cheeks.

"Maybe she needed the money more than the doll," Ruth consoled herself by saying. "Of course, as long as she must be a grown person now, she would be likely to want a new bonnet or frock, and that's why she was willing to sell the doll."

"I've a notion it was the doctor himself," said Billy, his mouth full of bread and apple-butter.

"Why, Billy Beatty, what in the world would he want with a doll?" exclaimed Ruth, surprised at such a suggestion. "Did he have it, Aunt Hester?"

"Why, my dear—" Aunt Hester began, when she was interrupted by a knock on the door, and Billy rushed tumultuously to answer, being very anxious to get back to the bread and apple-butter.

It was Dr. Peaslee himself who entered.

"Hallo!" he cried cheerily. "I was driving by and I thought I would drop in and see if this young man got home safely with his purchase. What's this? Apple-butter? I declare that takes me back to the old days, Hester, when we used to come back hungry from our romps in the woods and would make raids on the crock of apple-butter in the pantry. Do you remember how old Polly used to scold us because we always preferred that which Mrs. Perkins had sent and which Polly always reserved especially for the major?"

"And this is some of that very Mrs. Perkins's make," Miss Hester told him. "Sit down, Tom, and have some."

Glad as the children were to see him, and honored as they felt by his presence at their supper table, they were struck with consternation at the amount of apple-butter he consumed and considered that at that rate, the crock would last but a short time.

The doctor, catching sight of Billy's eyes fixed anxiously upon him as he helped himself to a fourth slice of bread which he lavishly spread with apple-butter, threw back his head and laughed.

"You think I've a pretty good appetite, don't you, governor?" he said. "This is positively my last slice. I have had a long ride 'way out in the country to see a sick woman and this is my first bite since breakfast."

He was as good as his word, and when he had finished he turned to Ruth and said, "You haven't told me how you like this young lady."

He picked up the doll and looked at it with such interest that Ruth said, "Was it really yours, doctor? Billy says he believes it was."

The doctor laughed. "Billy is too smart. Don't you think it would be rather funny for an old bachelor to be playing with dolls? Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. The truth is, Miss Mouse, the person to whom it belonged would rather keep the ownership a secret."

Ruth looked a little disappointed; she would like to have had a history of the doll's career since it left Miss Hester's hands. She was too polite, however, to press the question and only said: "I am sure it was very nice of whoever it was to give it up to me, and I am very much obliged to you for getting it for Billy and me. I thought maybe she belonged to a lady who needed a new winter hat and that was why she was willing to sell the doll."

"I need a new winter hat, don't you think so?" said the doctor, drawing attention to his old felt hat the worse for wear, and trying to turn the subject.

"Yes, but you can buy one whenever you want. All you have to do is to go to the bank and they will give you the money."

The doctor laughed. "That's your idea of it, is it?"

"Why, of course. All gentlemen have money in the bank," she answered confidently.

The doctor laughed again. "Then I suppose if I want to keep up my reputation for being a gentleman, I'd better not contradict you," he said.

"What would you name the doll?" asked Ruth, changing the subject to one with which she was more familiar.

"How do you like Little Mascot?"

Ruth considered this very seriously. "I don't think I quite like that," she decided.

Then lest she might be hurting his feelings, she hastened to say: "I think what you call Aunt Hester sometimes is a pretty name."

"What do I call her?"

"Hetty. I'd like to call her that, I think."

"Then suppose you do. I'm sure that will satisfy us all."

And so Hetty was the name decided upon.

"It seems to me she needs a new frock," suggested the doctor.

"A blue one," Ruth agreed.

"Yes, that should be the color. Some day I'll take you down-town and we'll buy the stuff for one, then Miss Hester can help you make it."

Ruth looked at Miss Hester wistfully. "But she has to sew so much," she said, "though now I can wear Henrietta's clothes, there is not so much to do for me, and Billy's overcoat is all done, and it looks fine."

Miss Hester colored up a little and said: "Never mind about that, Ruth."

The doctor grumbled something about its being a crying shame to cheat a woman, and after that, he and Aunt Hester went into the living-room while Ruth and Billy washed the dishes, Hetty sitting well propped up on a chair watching them.

Once in a while the children caught the words, "old Petty" and "Squire Field," and knew that the two in the other room must be talking either about the lost receipt or the government claim.

"When we get back to the old house," said Ruth, as she washed the last plate, "we can have apple-butter every night for supper and the doctor can come and have all he wants, but I wish he had had his dinner to-day," she added.

"So do I," said Billy, with feeling.

"Oh, you dear beautiful love," Ruth turned to Hetty. "You are going to have a lovely new frock some day. Oh, Billy, don't you just love Dr. Peaslee?"

"He's fine," responded Billy. "Maybe I'll be a doctor, Ruth, if I don't keep a store."

"Oh, I'd rather you'd keep the store," decided Ruth, "for then you won't ever have to go without your dinner."

The doctor stayed for an hour or more and then it was bedtime for Ruth. She would fain have taken Hetty to bed with her, but at the dreadful suggestion from Billy that she might roll over on her in the night, she concluded that Hetty would be safer elsewhere, so a bed was made for her on a chair by Ruth's bedside so that she could be near at hand.

"I thought of taking her up to see poor Henrietta," Ruth told Miss Hester, "but then I thought she might feel too badly to see how dreadful she looks after all these years, and so I am not going to let her know where she is. Please, Aunt Hester, I want to say God bless Billy over again. I didn't say it slowly enough, and maybe He'll think I didn't mean it."

So she added to her prayer: "Please God, bless Billy a great deal more than you did before and make him grow up to be like Dr. Peaslee, only let him keep a store, please."

She was not usually so expansive, and Miss Hester realized that her heart was very full, and that into it she had taken for all time, not only herself, but Billy Beatty and Dr. Peaslee.