"She ain"t going to shake me." It was now so low that scarcely any one could hear it.
"And you mustn"t ask Mother to send her back," said Peletiah again. "She"s going to stay here just for ever and ever."
There was something in his tone that made Ezekiel hasten to say:
"Oh, I won"t."
"And I won"t shake you," said Rachel, flying out from behind her hands and up to him, "if you"ll only let me stay here; just let me stay," she cried, hungrily.
"Well," said Ezekiel, with a great deal of condescension, "if you won"t shake me, you may stay at our house."
So the children went back to the flat door-stone to talk it over, Peletiah saying:
"Maybe you can go to school with us next fall."
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Rachel, with wide eyes, and clasping her hands, "I"ve got to learn a lot first."
"Yes, my father"s got to teach you first," said Peletiah.
"Where"s he going to do it?" Rachel leaned over to get a comprehensive view of his face.
"In his study," answered Peletiah.
"Where"s that?"
"That"s where he writes his sermons in, that he preaches at people Sundays," said Ezekiel, finding it very pleasant to be communicative, now that he was quite sure the new girl would not shake him.
"Oh, how nice!" breathed Rachel. "That"s scrumptious!"
"That"s what?" asked Peletiah critically.
"Scrumptious. Haven"t you ever heard that? Oh, what a nin--I mean, oh, how funny!"
"And it ain"t nice at all to have my father teach you," said Peletiah, with very doleful ideas of that study.
"Why?" asked Rachel, with gathering dread.
"Oh, he makes you learn things," said Peletiah dismally, drawing a long sigh at the remembrance.
"But that"s just what I want to do," cried Rachel, with sparkling eyes; "I"m goin" to learn an" learn, till I can"t learn no more."
Peletiah was so occupied in edging off from her that he forgot to correct her speech.
"Yes, I"m goin" to learn," exclaimed Rachel, in a glad little shout, and, springing to her feet, she swung her arms over her head. "I"m goin" to read an" I"m goin" to write, an" then I can write a letter to my Phronsie."
She ended up with a cheese, plunging down on the gra.s.s and puffing out her gown like a small balloon.
"You can"t do that," she said, nodding triumphantly up at the two boys.
"I don"t want to," said Peletiah, sitting still on the door-stone.
"Well, you can"t, anyway, "cause you haven"t got a frock. Well, now, let"s play," and she hopped to her feet. "Come on. What"ll it be?"
"I"ll show you the brook," volunteered Ezekiel, getting up.
"What"s a brook?" asked Rachel.
"Hoh--hoh!" Ezekiel really laughed, it was so funny. "She doesn"t know what a brook is," he said, and he laughed again.
"Well, what is it?" demanded Rachel, laughing good-naturedly.
"It"s water."
"I don"t want to see any water," said Rachel, turning off disdainfully; "there"s nothing pretty in that."
"But it"s awfully pretty," said Peletiah; "it runs all down over the stones, and under the trees and----"
"Where is it?" cried Rachel, running up to him in great excitement. "Oh, take me to it."
"It"s just back of the house," said Ezekiel; "I"ll show you the way."
But Rachel, once directed, got there first, and was down on her knees on the bank, dabbling her hands in the purling little stream, half wild with delight.
And when the parson and his wife got home from Miss Bedlow"s funeral, they found the three children there, perfectly absorbed in the labor of sailing boats of cabbage leaves, and guiding their uncertain craft in and out the shimmering pools and down through the tiny rapids. And they watched them un.o.bserved.
"But I dread to-morrow, when I give her the first lesson," said the parson, as they stood unperceived in the shadow of the trees; "everything else is a splendid success."
"Let us hope the lessons will be, too, husband," said Mrs. Henderson, a happy light in her eyes.
"I hope so, but I"m afraid the child is all for play, and will be hard to teach," he said, with a sigh.
But on the morrow--well, the minister came out of his study when the lesson hour was over, with a flush on his face that betokened pleasure as well as hard work. And Rachel began to skip around for very joy. She was really to be a little student, Mr. Henderson had said. Not that Rachel really knew what that meant exactly, but the master was pleased, and that was enough, and all of a sudden, when she was putting up some dishes in the keeping-room closet, she began to sing.
Mrs. Henderson nearly dropped the dish she was wiping.
"Why, my child!" she exclaimed, then stopped, but Rachel didn"t hear her, and sang on. It was a wild little thing that she had heard from the hand organs and the people singing it in the streets of the big city.
Just then old Miss Parrott"s stately, ancestral coach drove up. The parson"s wife hurried to the front door, which was seldom opened except for special company like the present.
"I heard," said Miss Parrott, as Mrs. Henderson ushered her in, "that you"d taken a little girl out of charity, and I want to see you and your husband about it."
"Will you come into his study, then?" said Mrs. Henderson. "Husband has gone out to work in his garden, and I will call him in."
Miss Parrott stepped into the apartment in stately fashion, her black silk gown crackling pleasantly as she walked, and seated herself very primly, as befitted her ancestry and bringing-up, in one of the stiff, high-backed chairs. And presently the parson, his garden clothes off and his best coat on, came in hurriedly to know his honored parishioner"s bidding.
"I will come to the point at once," said Miss Parrott, with dignified precision, as he sat beside her, and she drew herself up stiffer yet, in the pleasing confidence that what she was about to say would strike both of her hearers as the most proper thing to do. "You have taken this little girl, I hear, to educate and bring up."
"For a time," said the minister, hurriedly.