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>be there, and shame him by showing that little girls had had to do what

he ought to have done.

 

Cousin Ann broke into the discussion by asking, in her quiet, firm

voice, “Why do you want ‘Lias to know where the clothes come from?”

 

They had forgotten again that she was there, and turned around quickly

to stare at her. Nobody could think of any answer to her very queer

question. It had not occurred to any one that there could BE such a

question.

 

Cousin Ann shifted her ground and asked another: “Why did you make these

clothes, anyhow?”

 

They stared again, speechless. Why did she ask that? She knew why.

 

Finally little Molly said, in her honest, baby way, “Why, YOU know why,

Miss Ann! So ‘Lias Brewster will look nice, and Mr. Pond will maybe

adopt him.”

 

“Well,” said Cousin Ann, “what has that got to do with ‘Lias knowing who

did it?”

 

“Why, he wouldn’t know who to be grateful to,” cried Betsy.

 

“Oh,” said Cousin Ann. “Oh, I see. You didn’t do it to help ‘Lias. You

did it to have him grateful to you. I see. Molly is such a little girl,

it’s no wonder she didn’t really take in what you girls were up to.” She

nodded her head wisely, as though now she understood.

 

But if she did, little Molly certainly did not. She had not the least

idea what everybody was talking about. She looked from one sober,

downcast face to another rather anxiously. What was the matter?

 

Apparently nothing was really the matter, she decided, for after a

minute’s silence Miss Ann got up with entirely her usual face of

cheerful gravity, and said: “Don’t you think you little girls ought to

top off this last afternoon with a tea-party? There’s a new batch of

cookies, and you can make yourselves some lemonade if you want to.”

 

They had these refreshments out on the porch, in the sunshine, with

their dolls for guests and a great deal of chatter for sauce. Nobody

said another word about how to give the clothes to ‘Lias, till, just as

the girls were going away, Betsy said, walking along with the two older

ones, “Say, don’t you think it’d be fun to go some evening after dark

and leave the clothes on ‘Lias’s doorstep, and knock and run away quick

before anybody comes to the door?” She spoke in an uncertain voice and

smoothed Deborah’s carved wooden curls.

 

“Yes, I do!” said Ellen, not looking at Betsy but down at the weeds by

the road. “I think it would be lots of fun!”

 

Little Molly, playing with Annie and Eliza, did not hear this; but she

was allowed to go with the older girls on the great expedition.

 

It was a warm, dark evening in late May, with the frogs piping their

sweet, high note, and the first of the fireflies wheeling over the wet

meadows near the tumble-down house where ‘Lias lived. The girls took

turns in carrying the big paper-wrapped bundle, and stole along in the

shadow of the trees, full of excitement, looking over their shoulders at

nothing and pressing their hands over their mouths to keep back the

giggles. There was, of course, no reason on earth why they should

giggle, which is, of course, the very reason why they did. If you’ve

ever been a little girl you know about that.

 

One window of the small house was dimly lighted, they found, when they

came in sight of it, and they thrilled with excitement and joyful alarm.

Suppose ‘Lias’s dreadful stepfather should come out and yell at them!

They came forward on tiptoe, making a great deal of noise by stepping on

twigs, rustling bushes, crackling gravel under their feet and doing all

the other things that make such a noise at night and never do in the

daytime. But nobody stirred inside the room with the lighted window.

They crept forward and peeped cautiously inside … and stopped giggling.

The dim light coming from a little kerosene lamp with a smoky chimney

fell on a dismal, cluttered room, a bare, greasy wooden table, and two

broken-backed chairs, with little ‘Lias in one of them. He had fallen

asleep with his head on his arms, his pinched, dirty, sad little figure

showing in the light from the lamp. His feet dangled high above the

floor in their broken, muddy shoes. One sleeve was torn to the shoulder.

A piece of dry bread had slipped from his bony little hand and a tin

dipper stood beside him on the bare table. Nobody else was in the room,

nor evidently in the darkened, empty, fireless house.

 

[Illustration: He had fallen asleep with his head on his arms.]

 

As long as she lives Betsy will never forget what she saw that night

through that window. Her eyes grew very hot and her hands very cold. Her

heart thumped hard. She reached for little Molly and gave her a great

hug in the darkness. Suppose it were little Molly asleep there, all

alone in the dirty, dismal house, with no supper and nobody to put her

to bed. She found that Ellen, next her, was crying quietly into the

corner of her apron.

 

Nobody said a word. Stashie, who had the bundle, walked around soberly

to the front door, put it down, and knocked loudly. They all darted away

noiselessly to the road, to the shadow of the trees, and waited until

the door opened. A square of yellow light appeared, with ‘Lias’s figure,

very small, at the bottom of it. They saw him stoop and pick up the

bundle and go back into the house. Then they went quickly and silently

back, separating at the cross-roads with no good-night greetings.

 

Molly and Betsy began to climb the hill to Putney Farm. It was a very

warm night for May, and little Molly began to puff for breath. “Let’s

sit down on this rock awhile and rest,” she said.

 

They were halfway up the hill now. From the rock they could see the

lights in the farmhouses scattered along the valley road and on the side

of the mountain opposite them, like big stars fallen from the multitude

above. Betsy lay down on the rock and looked up at the stars. After a

silence little Molly’s chirping voice said, “Oh, I thought you said we

were going to march up to ‘Lias in school and give him his clothes. Did

you forget about that?”

 

Betsy gave a wriggle of shame as she remembered that plan. “No, we

didn’t forget it,” she said. “We thought this would be a better way.”

 

“But how’ll ‘Lias know who to thank?” asked Molly.

 

“That’s no matter,” said Betsy. Yes, it was Elizabeth-Ann-that-was who

said that. And meant it, too. She was not even thinking of what she was

saying. Between her and the stars, thick over her in the black, soft

sky, she saw again that dirty, disordered room and the little boy, all

alone, asleep with a piece of dry bread in his bony little fingers.

 

She looked hard and long at that picture, all the time seeing the quiet

stars through it. And then she turned over and hid her face on the rock.

She had said her “Now I lay me” every night since she could remember,

but she had never prayed till she lay there with her face on the rock,

saying over and over, “Oh, God, please, please, PLEASE make Mr. Pond

adopt ‘Lias.”

CHAPTER IX

THE NEW CLOTHES FAIL

 

All the little girls went early to school the next day, eager for the

first glimpse of ‘Lias in his new clothes. They now quite enjoyed the

mystery about who had made them, and were full of agreeable excitement

as the little figure was seen approaching down the road. He wore the

gray trousers and the little blue shirt; the trousers were a little too

long, the shirt a perfect fit. The girls gazed at him with pride as he

came on the playground, walking briskly along in the new shoes, which

were just the right size. He had been wearing all winter a pair of cast-off women’s shoes. From a distance he looked like another child. But as

he came closer … oh! his face! his hair! his hands! his finger-nails!

The little fellow had evidently tried to live up to his beautiful new

raiment, for his hair had been roughly put back from his face, and

around his mouth and nose was a small area of almost clean skin, where

he had made an attempt at washing his face. But he had made practically

no impression on the layers of encrusted dirt, and the little girls

looked at him ruefully. Mr. Pond would certainly never take a fancy to

such a dreadfully grimy child! His new, clean clothes made him look all

the worse, as though dirty on purpose!

 

The little girls retired to their rock-pile and talked over their bitter

disappointment, Ralph and the other boys absorbed in a game of marbles

near them. ‘Lias had gone proudly into the schoolroom to show himself to

Miss Benton.

 

It was the day before Decoration Day and a good deal of time was taken

up with practising on the recitations they were going to give at the

Decoration Day exercises in the village. Several of the children from

each school in the township were to speak pieces in the Town Hall. Betsy

was to recite Barbara Frietchie, her first love in that school, but she

droned it over with none of her usual pleasure, her eyes on little

‘Lias’s smiling face, so unconscious of its dinginess.

 

At noon time the boys disappeared down toward the swimming-hole. They

often took a swim at noon and nobody thought anything about it on that

day. The little girls ate their lunch on their rock, mourning over the

failure of their plans, and scheming ways to meet the new obstacle.

Stashie suggested, “Couldn’t your Aunt Abigail invite him up to your

house for supper and then give him a bath afterward?” But Betsy,

although she had never heard of treating a supper-guest in this way, was

sure that it was not possible. She shook her head sadly, her eyes on the

far-off gleam of white where the boys jumped up and down in their

swimming-hole. That was not a good name for it, because there was only

one part of it deep enough to swim in. Mostly it was a shallow bay in an

arm of the river, where the water was only up to a little boy’s knees

and where there was almost no current. The sun beating down on it made

it quite warm, and even the first-graders’ mothers allowed them to go

in. They only jumped up and down and squealed and splashed each other,

but they enjoyed that quite as much as Frank and Harry, the two seventh-graders, enjoyed their swooping dives from the spring-board over the

pool. They were late in getting back from the river that day and Miss

Benton had to ring her bell hard in that direction before they came

trooping up and clattered into the schoolroom, where the girls already

sat, their eyes lowered virtuously to their books, with a prim air of

self-righteousness. THEY were never late!

 

Betsy was reciting her arithmetic. She was getting on famously with

that. Weeks ago, as soon as Miss Benton had seen the confusion of the

little girl’s mind, the two had settled down to a serious struggle with

that subject. Miss Benton had had Betsy recite all by herself, so she

wouldn’t be flurried by the others; and to begin with had gone back,

back,

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