"Daphne," he called out to the cook, who was beating biscuit in the adjoining pantry, "Daphne, what"s dem chillun alluz racin" down to de spring-house fo" in de snow? Peah"s lak dee has a heap o" business down yandah."
Daphne, who had just been coaxed into filling a basket with a generous supply of cold victuals, pretended not to hear until he repeated his question. Then she stopped pounding long enough to say, sharply, "Whuffo" you alluz "spicion dem boys so evahlastin"ly, Unc" Henry? Lak enough dee"s settin" a rabbit trap. Boys has done such things befo".
You"s done it yo"se"f, hasn"t you?"
Daphne had seen them setting rabbit traps there, but she knew well enough that was not what they had gone for now, and that the food they carried was not for the game of Robinson Crusoe, which they had played in the deserted cabin the summer before. Still, she did not care to take Unc" Henry into her confidence.
The food, the warmth, and the night"s rest had so restored the bear that it was able to go through all its performances for the boys"
entertainment, although it limped badly.
"Isn"t he a dandy?" cried Keith; "I wish we had one. It"s nicer than any pets we ever had, except the ponies. Something always happened to the dogs, and the monkey was such a nuisance, and the white rabbits were stolen, and the guinea pigs died."
"Haven"t we had a lot of things, when you come to think of it?"
exclaimed Malcolm. "Squirrels, and white mice, and the c.o.o.n that Uncle Harry brought us, and the parrot from Mexico."
"Yes, and the gold-fish, and the little baby alligator that froze to death in its tank," added Keith. "But a bear like this would be nicer than any of them. As soon as papa comes home I am going to ask him to buy us one."
"Jonesy"s nearly done for," said the tramp, pointing to the boy who lay curled up in the hay, coughing at nearly every breath. "We ought to stay here another day, if you young gen"lemen don"t object."
"Oh, goody!" cried Keith. "Then we can bring Ginger down to see the bear perform."
"Yes," answered the man, "we"ll give a free show to all your friends, if you will only kindly wait till to-morrow. Give us one more day to rest up and get in a little better trim. The poor beast"s foot is still too lame for him to do his best, and you"re too kind-hearted, I am sure, to want anything to suffer in order to give you pleasure."
"Of course," answered both the boys, agreeing so quickly to all the man"s smooth speeches that, before they left the cabin, they had renewed their promise to keep silent one more day. The man was a shrewd one, and knew well how to make these unsuspecting little souls serve his purpose, like puppets tied to a string.
Miss Allison was so busy with preparations for the party that she had no time all that day to notice what the boys were doing. When they came back from reciting their lessons to the minister, she sent them on several errands, but the rest of the time they divided between the cabin and the post-office.
Every mail brought a few valentines to each of them, but it was not until the five o"clock train came that they found the long-looked-for letters from their father and mother.
"I knew they"d each send us a valentine," cried Keith, tearing both of his open. "I"ll bet that papa"s is a comic one. Yes, here it is. Papa is such a tease. Isn"t it a stunner? a base-ball player. And, whoopee!
Here"s a dollar bill in each of "em."
"So there is in mine," said Malcolm. "Mamma says we are to buy anything we want, and call it a valentine. They couldn"t find anything down on the coast that they thought we would like."
"I don"t know what to get with mine," said Keith, folding his two bills together. "Seems to me I have everything I want except a camera, and I couldn"t buy the kind I want for two dollars."
They were half-way home when a happy thought came to Malcolm. "Keith,"
he cried, excitedly, "if you would put your money with mine, that would make four dollars, and maybe it would be enough to buy that bear!"
"Let"s do it!" exclaimed Keith, turning a handspring in the snow to show his delight. "Come on, we"ll ask the man now."
But the man shook his head, when they dashed into the cabin and told their errand. "No, sonny, that ain"t a tenth of what it"s worth to me,"
he said. "I"ve raised that bear from the time it was a teeny cub. I"ve taught it, and fed it, and looked to it for company when I hadn"t n.o.body in the world to care for me. Couldn"t sell that bear for no such sum as that. Couldn"t you raise any more money than that?"
It was Malcolm"s turn to shake his head. He turned away, too disappointed to trust himself to answer any other way. The tears sprang to Keith"s eyes. He had set his heart on having that bear.
"Never mind, brother," said Malcolm, moving toward the door. "Papa will get us one when he comes home and finds how much we want one."
"Oh, don"t be in such a hurry, young gen"lemen," whined the man, when he saw that they were really going. "I didn"t say that I wouldn"t sell it to you for that much. You"ve been so kind to me that I ought to be willing to make any sacrifice for you. I happen to need four dollars very particular just now, and I"ve a mind to sell him to you on your own terms." He paused a moment, looking thoughtfully at a crack in the floor, as he stood by the fire with his hands in his pockets. "Yes," he said, at last, "you can have him for four dollars, if you"ll keep mum about us being here for one more day. You can leave the bear here till we go."
"No! No!" cried Keith, throwing his arms around the animal"s neck. "He is ours now, and we must take him with us. We can hide him away in the barn. It is so dark out-doors now that n.o.body will see us. It wouldn"t seem like he is really ours if we couldn"t take him with us."
After some grumbling the man consented, and pocketed the four dollars, first asking very particularly the exact spot in the barn where they expected to hide their huge pet.
Unc" Henry, coming up from the carriage-house through the twilight, thought he saw some one stealing along by the clump of cedars by the spring-house. "Who"s prowlin" roun" dis yere premises?" he called. There was no answer, and, after peering intently through the dusk for a moment, the old darkey concluded that he must have been mistaken, and pa.s.sed on. As soon as he was gone, the boys came out from behind the cedars, and crept up the snowy hillside. They were leading the bear between them.
"We"ll put him away back in the hay-mow where he"ll be warm and comfortable to-night," whispered Malcolm. "Then in the morning we can tell everybody."
While they were busily scooping out a big hollow in the hay, they were startled by a rustling behind them. They looked into each other"s frightened faces, and then glanced around the dark barn in alarm. An old cap pushed up through the hay. Then a weak little cough betrayed Jonesy.
He had followed them.
"Sh!" he said, in a warning whisper. "I"m afraid the boss will find out that I"m here. He started to the store for some tobacco as soon as you left. He"s been wild fer some, but didn"t have no money. _Don"t you leave that bear out here to-night, if you ever expect to see it again!_ That wasn"t true what he told you. He never saw the bear till two months ago, and he sold it to you cheap because he"s a-goin" to steal it back again to-night, and make off up the road with it. He went off a-grinnin"
over the slick way he"d fooled you, and I jes" had to come and tell, "cause you"ve been so good to me. I"ll never forget the little kid"s givin" me the coat off his own back, if I live to be a hundred. Now don"t blab on me, or the boss would nearly kill me."
"Is that man your father?" began Keith, but Jonesy, alarmed by some sudden noise, sprang to the door, and disappeared in the twilight.
The boys looked at each other a moment, with surprise and indignation in their faces. There was a hurried consultation in the hay-mow. A few moments later the boys were smuggling their new pet into the house, and up the back stairs. They scarcely dared breathe until it was safe in their own room.
All the time that they were dressing for the party, they were trying to decide where to put it for the night, so that neither the tramp nor the family could discover it. What Jonesy had told them about the man"s dishonest intention did not relieve them from their promise. They were amazed that any one could be so mean, and longed to tell their Aunt Allison all about it; still, one of the conditions on which they had bought the bear was that they were to "keep mum," and they stuck strictly to that promise.
By the time they were dressed, they had decided to put it in the blue room, a guest-chamber in the north wing, seldom used in winter, because it was so hard to heat. "n.o.body will ever think of coming in here," said Malcolm, "and it will be plenty warm for a bear if we turn on the furnace a little." As he spoke, he was tying the bear"s rope around a leg of the big, high-posted bed.
"Won"t Ginger be surprised?" answered Keith. "We"ll tell her that we have a valentine six feet long, and keep her guessing."
There was no time for teasing, however, as the first guest arrived while they were still in the blue room.
"I hate to go off and leave him in the dark," said Keith, with a final loving pat. "I guess he"ll not mind, though. Maybe he"ll think he is in the woods if I put this good-smelling pine pillow on the rug beside him."
"Oh, boys," called Virginia from the hall down-stairs. "See what an enormous valentine pie Aunt Allison has made!"
Looking over the banisters, the boys saw that a table had been drawn into the middle of the wide reception-hall, and on it sat the largest pie that they had ever seen. It was in a bright new tin pan, and its daintily browned crust would have made them hungry even if their appet.i.tes had not been sharpened by the cold and exercise of the afternoon.
"What a queer place to serve pie," said Malcolm, in a disapproving undertone to his brother. "Why don"t they have it in the dining-room? It looks mighty good, but somehow it doesn"t seem proper to have it stuck out here in the hall. Mamma would never do such a thing."
"Aw, it"s made of paper! She fooled us, sure, Malcolm," called back Keith, who had run on ahead to look. "It is only painted to look like a pie. But isn"t it a splendid imitation?"
Virginia, pleased to have caught them so cleverly, showed them the ends of twenty-four pieces of narrow ribbon, peeping from under the delicately brown top crust. "The white ones are for the girls, and the red ones for the boys," she explained. "There is a valentine on the end of each one, and those on the red ribbons match the ones on the white.
We"ll all pull at once, and the ones who have valentines alike will go out to dinner together."
The guests came promptly. They had been invited for half-past six, and dinner was to be served soon after that time. The last to arrive was the Little Colonel. She came in charge of an old coloured woman, Mom Beck, who had been her mother"s nurse as well as her own. The child was so hidden in her wraps when Mom Beck led her up-stairs, that no one could tell how she looked. The boys had been curious to see her, ever since they had heard so many tales of her mischievous pranks. A few minutes later, when she appeared in the parlours, there was a buzz of admiration. Maybe it was not so much for the soft light hair, the star-like beauty of her big dark eyes, or the delicate colour in her cheeks that made them as pink as a wild rose, as it was for the valentine costume she wore. It was of dainty white tulle, sprinkled with hundreds of tiny red velvet hearts, and there was a coronet of glittering rhinestones on her long fair hair.
"The Queen of Hearts," announced Aunt Allison, leading her forward. "You know "she made some tarts, upon a summer day," and now she shall open the valentine pie and see if it is as good as her Majesty"s."
The big music-box in the hall began playing one of its liveliest waltzes, the children gathered around the great pie, and twenty-four little hands reached out to grasp the floating ends of ribbon.
"Pull!" cried the little Queen of Hearts. The paper crust flew off, and twenty-four yards of ribbon, each with a valentine attached, fluttered brightly through the air for an instant.
"Now match your verses," cried her Majesty again, opening her own to read what was in it. There was much laughing and peeping over shoulders, and tangling of white and scarlet ribbons, while the gay music-box played on.