CHAPTER I

DOCTOR GARDE’S LITTLE GIRL

Many years ago the morning sun looked down among the tall hills of central Ohio, and saw one little girl patting along a path. The path wound down through a hollow, and up, up over wood-clothed heights which she thought nearly touched the sky.

At first glance this little girl appeared to be a large slat sun-bonnet taking a walk on a pair of long pantalettes. But at second glance one brown, thin arm escaped from a short sleeve might have been seen carrying a calico bag by its drawing-string; and under the pantalettes a pair of stout-shod little feet skipped along.

It was not more than seven o’clock. The tall meadow grass was glittering, and every bird known to the State was singing with his morning voice. When she reached the small run which twisted along the hollow, and put her foot on the first of the stepping-stones which crossed it, the little girl could not help stopping to gaze in the water. The minnows played around the stone with a quiver of their tiny bodies which fascinated the gazer. She stooped cautiously and tried to catch one in her hand, but sunshine on the pebbles was not more elusive.

“Good-morning, little girl,” said a winning voice; and the little girl jumped up, reeled, set one foot in the water, and brandished her reticule in the effort to regain her balance. The sugared butter-bread and sweet cookies tumbled against currant-pie and cherries, and all settled to an upside-down condition as she finally got on the bank and saw a gentleman preparing to trip across the stones.

It was an uncommon thing to meet any one, and especially a stranger, on that long two-mile path to school. But it was a wonderful thing to meet such a grand stranger. She dropped a bobbing curtsy, and the gentleman, having crossed, stopped and smiled. He had glittering black eyes, and curly hair and whiskers, glittering teeth and boots, fine clothes, and altogether the look of a “town gentleman.”

“Whose little girl are you?” inquired this town gentleman affably, rubbing the wet soles of his boots on the grass.

Under the long slat sun-bonnet a round face blushed all about its blue eyes and quite back to its auburn hair, and a timid voice piped from the calico funnel: “I’m Doctor Garde’s little girl.”

“Ah! where does Doctor Garde live?”

“Right back there in that big house.”

“And who lives in this house I just passed?”

“Mrs. Banks. Her little girls go to school with me.”

“Yes. And where do you go to school?”

“In the school-house ’way at the other side of the hills.”

“Oho! many children go there?”

“All of ’em in our districk. There’s Willeys, and Pancosts, and Harrises, and Halls, and Bankses, and Martins, and me, and my little sister’s going when she gets big enough.”

“Yes. Well, thank you. I may call there in the course of the day. Does that path lead back to your school-house?”

“Yes, sir. But you must turn to the right at the big sand-banks, and cross the foot-log over Rocky Fork by Hall’s mill.”

The gentleman nodded, and passed on smiling as Doctor Garde’s little girl dropped him another curtsy. She skipped across the stones and hastened up rising ground to the Banks’. Theirs was a weather-beaten domicile, part log and part frame, with a covered stoop at one door on which Tildy sat plaiting her long hair preparatory to going to school.

Tildy, it must be confessed, was a raw-boned girl, but with a low-browed, serious face. Her nature leaned to the solemn side of life, as her sister Teeny’s leaned towards what was merry. Matilda liked to sit in the grass and dress her locks, or to watch from the doorstep the rocks and glooms on each side of her home.

Teeny appeared within, tying her bonnet, the string of her reticule across her arm. A bunch of old-fashioned pink roses was pinned to her dress, which hooked in front and was just long enough to sweep her heels when she walked. Teeny was a big girl who felt quite a young woman, since she was “going on” fifteen, ciphered in long division, and had finished a sampler with her name, “Christine Banks,” embroidered under a beautiful piece of poetry. “We’re takin’ curran’-pie for our dinner to-day, Melissy,” announced Tildy solemnly as Doctor Garde’s little girl ran up.

“I got some, too,” she responded with triumph. So little made a triumph in that region and time.

“’Tain’t sweetened with sugar.”

“’Tis, too! I saw Liza put in heaps.” She sat down on the steps and explored her reticule. There was rather a sorry mess in its depths, but the slices of bread were reduced again to their proper basis, and the other goodies piled carefully on them.

“Why don’t you call me Bluebell?” she suggested with a rather hopeless accent.

“’Cause that ain’t your name,” said Tildy, strictly.

“I guess my father always calls me that.”

“’Tain’t your name, anyhow. Your name is Melissy Jane Garde, goin’ on eight years old.”

“It’s just Melissy,” cried the younger, doggedly, as if she would like to disown that.

“My mother called me Bluebell, too, and she’s gone to heaven. I sh’d think you might call me what my mother called me.”

“Your name’s Melissy,” repeated Tildy, looking with undisturbed eyes upon the distance. Here the argument dropped, as it usually did. The defeated party turned to other things.

“I pretty near fell in the run. The’ was a man come along and scared me so. He was prettier than my father!” exclaimed Melissa, pausing after this climax; “that is, dressed up prettier; and he said he was coming to school to-day. I wonder what he’s coming there for?”

“Prob’ly it’s somebody the directors is sending to whip us,” opined Matilda with serious resignation. “They say Mr. Pitzer ain’t strict enough.”

“Oh, do you s’pose it is?” cried the credulous little girl beside her. “I never got whipped at school yet.”

“Now, Tildy,” exclaimed the pink-faced elder sister, stepping out, “if you don’t hurry up we’ll go on and leave you.”

“I think I’ll stay at home,” said Tildy, reflecting on the fine stranger’s probable errand.

“No, you won’t,” cried her mother’s voice from an inner room, making a pause in the monotonous rattle of a loom; and though it was a plaintive voice and not very decided, Tildy was moved by it to get her sun-bonnet and follow the other two. They were making a round of the garden, to gather pinks, hollyhocks, bouncing-betties, bachelor-buttons, and asparagus sprays. Having tied up a bunch apiece, they left the house and began their root-matted and rocky ascent. There were levels above where the woods made a twilight at noon, where ferns crowded to their knees, and some stood as high as their waists. Who could help stopping to inhale that breath which is no plant’s but a fern’s?

“There’s vinegar-balls on this oak,” remarked Tildy, casting her eyes up as they passed under a dark-leaved tree. So, sticks and climbing being brought to bear upon the tree, one or two small apple-shaped bunches were brought down to yield a tart juice to sucking lips. I do not pretend to say the balls were wholesome. But the same lips loved the white, honey-filled ends of clover-blossoms, tender sticks of sweet-briar when stripped of its skin, and they doted on “mountain-tea,” a winter-green of three rich fleshy leaves, which clung all over these heights in fragrant mats. The three girls were lovers of Mother Outdoors. Melissa especially gloried in the woods. The noble tree arches, the dew, and sweet earth-smell filled her with worshipping joy. It was so nice to be a little girl with a sun-bonnet hanging off her shoulders by the strings, and the great woods cooling her face, and sighing away off as if thinking up some song to sing to her!

In due course they came to three giant ridges of sand. These stood in a clear place, and nobody in that region troubled himself about the geological cause of their existence in the heart of the woods. There they were, too tempting to be resisted. Melissa dropped her reticule, Tildy seriously followed her example, and Christine forgot her dress hooking in front and her claims to big girlhood. All three mounted the dunes, sat down, gathered their clothing close about their feet, and shot down the sides as if on invisible sleds. This queer sort of coasting was great fun. When it seemed expedient to adjourn, they shook the clean sand from their dresses, and the eldest and youngest untied their low shoes to turn them upside down. Matilda being barefoot and therefore free from such civilized cares, improved the time by taking an extra slide, which was too much for the other girls, so they tried it again.

Thus the morning waxed later. So by the time they crossed the foot-log over Rocky Fork and approached the log school-house, “books” were actually “taken up.”

The school-house was chinked with clay and had double doors which opened close beside a travelled road. The woods and heights rose behind it, and at one side a sweep of play-ground extended into a viney hollow where hung the grape-vine swing for which all the girls in school daily brought pocketfuls of string.