A Pair of Them

SUNSHINE LIBRARY.

Aunt Hannah and Seth. By James Otis.

Blind Brother (The). By Homer Greene.

Captain’s Dog (The). By Louis Énault.

Cat and the Candle (The). By Mary F. Leonard.

Christmas at Deacon Hackett’s. By James Otis.

Christmas-Tree Scholar. By Frances Bent Dillingham.

Dear Little Marchioness. The Story of a Child’s Faith and Love.

Dick in the Desert. By James Otis.

Divided Skates. By Evelyn Raymond.

Gold Thread (The). By Norman MacLeod, D.D.

Half a Dozen Thinking Caps. By Mary Leonard.

How Tommy Saved the Barn. By James Otis.

Ingleside. By Barbara Yechton.

J. Cole. By Emma Gellibrand.

Jessica’s First Prayer. By Hesba Stretton.

Laddie. By the author of “Miss Toosey’s Mission.”

Little Crusaders. By Eva Madden.

Little Sunshine’s Holiday. By Miss Mulock.

Little Peter. By Lucas Malet.

Master Sunshine. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser.

Miss Toosey’s Mission. By the author of “Laddie.”

Musical Journey of Dorothy and Delia. By Bradley Gilman.

Our Uncle, the Major. A Story of 1765. By James Otis.

Pair of Them (A). By Evelyn Raymond.

Playground Toni. By Anna Chapin Ray.

Play Lady (The). By Ella Farman Pratt.

Prince Prigio. By Andrew Lang.

Short Cruise (A). By James Otis.

Smoky Days. By Edward W. Thomson.

Strawberry Hill. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser.

Sunbeams and Moonbeams. By Louise R. Baker.

Two and One. By Charlotte M. Vaile.

Wreck of the Circus (The). By James Otis.

Young Boss (The). By Edward W. Thomson.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY,
NEW YORK.

“WHY, YES, BONNY-GAY! I’VE COME.” See page [77].

A PAIR OF THEM

BY EVELYN RAYMOND

New York.
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
Publishers.

Copyright, 1901,
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

CONTENTS

A Pair of Them

CHAPTER I
WHERE THE HOUSES ARE BIG

“It’s a queer kind of a name, though it suits you,” observed the Gray Gentleman, thoughtfully. “How came you by it?”

Bonny-Gay flashed the questioner a smile, hugged Max closer and replied:

“I was born on a Sunday morning. That’s how.”

“Ah, indeed? But I don’t quite understand.”

“Don’t you? Seems easy. Let’s sit down here by ‘Father George’ and I’ll explain. If I can.”

The Gray Gentleman was very tall and dignified, yet he had a habit of doing whatever Bonny-Gay asked him. So he now doubled himself up and perched on the low curb surrounding the monument, while the little girl and the big black dog dropped easily down beside him. Then he leaned his head back against the iron railing and gazed reflectively into the face of the big bronze lion, just opposite.

Both the child and the man were fond of the wonderful lion, which seemed a mighty guardian of the beautiful Place, and he, at least, knew it to be a world-famous work of art. Bonny-Gay loved it as she loved all animals, alive or sculptured, and with much the same devotion she gave to Max. The park without either of these four-footed creatures would have seemed strange indeed to her, for they were her earliest playmates and remained still her dearest.

“Now you can tell me,” again suggested the Gray Gentleman.

“It was Easter, too. All the people were going to the churches, the bells were ringing, the organs playing, and everything just beautiful. Nurse Nance began it, my mother says. ‘For the child that is born on the Sabbath Day is lucky, and bonny, and wise, and gay.’ But my father says there isn’t any ‘luck’ and a child like me isn’t ‘wise,’ so they had to leave them out and I’m only Bonny-Gay. That’s all.”

“A very satisfactory explanation,” said the Gray Gentleman, with one of his rare smiles, and laying his hand kindly upon the golden curls. “And now, my dear, one question more. In which of these beautiful houses do you live?”

As he spoke, the stranger’s glance wandered all about that aristocratic neighborhood of Mt. Vernon Place, to which he had returned after many years of absence to make his own home. Since he had gone away all the small people whom he used to know and love had grown up, and he had felt quite lost and lonely, even in that familiar scene, till he had chanced to meet Bonny-Gay, just one week before. Since then, and her ready adoption of himself as a comrade, he had had no time for loneliness. She was always out in the charming Square, as much a part of it as the Washington monument, which the little folks called “Father George,” or the bronzes, and the smooth lawns. She seemed as bright as the sunshine and almost as well-beloved, for the other children flocked about her, the keeper consulted her and the keeper’s dog followed her like a shadow.

With a toss of her yellow locks she pointed her forefinger westward.

“There, in that corner one, all covered by vines, with places for the windows cut out, and the chimneys all green, and I think it’s the prettiest one in the whole place, when it has its summer clothes on. Don’t you?”

The Gray Gentleman’s glance followed the direction of the pointing finger.

“Yes. It is a very lovely home and a very big one. I hope you are not the only child who lives in it.”

“But I am. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Do you hope it?”

“You would be lonely, I should think.”

“Lonely? I? Why—why—I just never have a single minute to myself. There’s my thirteen dolls, and the parrot, and the two canaries, and the aquarium, and my pony, and—Oh! dear! you can’t guess. That’s why I have to come out here—to rest myself.”

“Ah, so! Well, I should judge that you spend the most of your time in ‘resting,’” commented the other. “Whenever I come out you’re always here.”

Bonny-Gay laughed; so merrily that Max lifted his head and licked her cheek. That reminded her of something and she asked:

“Have you seen him get his second dinner?”

“Not even his first!”

“You haven’t? How odd!” Bonny-Gay shook out her skirts and proceeded to enlighten her comrade’s ignorance. She took it for granted, or she had done so, that he knew as much about things as she herself; but if not, why, there was a deal to tell. Max’s history first. She began by declaring:

“He’s the smartest dog in the world. Everybody knows that. He’s lived in the Place nine years. That’s one year longer than I have. All the children’s big brothers and sisters have played with him, same’s we do now. He never lets a tramp come near. He never steps on a flower bed or lets us. If we forget and go on the grass he barks us off. He gets his first dinner at our house. When the clocks strike twelve he goes to the gardener and gets his basket. Then he walks to our back entrance, puts the basket down, stands up on his hind feet and pushes his nose against the ’lectric bell. That rings up the cook and—she’s a man just now—he—she takes the basket and puts in some food. Then Max walks down that side street, about a square, and sits on the curb to eat it. ‘Just like a beggar,’ the gardener says, ‘’cause he likes to feed his own dog his own self.’ I would, too, wouldn’t you?”

“If I owned the ‘smartest dog in the whole world’ I presume I should.”

“Max feels ashamed of it, too; don’t you, dear?”

The dog replied by dropping his black head from Bonny-Gay’s shoulder to the ground and by blinking in a deprecating way from that lowly position.

“Then, in a few minutes, he comes back to the gardener with the empty basket and stands and wags his tail as if he were the hungriest dog that ever was. Then the keeper says: ‘Yes. You may go, Max!’ And off he trots, away down the other way, to some place where his master lives and gets a second basket full. That he brings back here, and the man puts a paper on the ground under the bushes and he eats again. Just like folks to their own table, that time; don’t you, Max Doggie, smart doggie!”

The handsome animal shook his wavy fleece and sprang up, ready for a frolic and evidently aware that he had been the subject of discussion.

“No, not yet, sir. The best thing hasn’t been told. Listen, please, Mr.——”

The stranger waited a moment, then inquired:

“Mr. what, Bonny-Gay? I wonder if you know my name.”

“Not your truly one, but that doesn’t matter.”

“What do you happen to call me, if you ever speak of me when I’m not here?”

The little girl hesitated an instant, then frankly answered:

“Why, just the ‘Gray Gentleman.’ ’Cause you are all gray, you see. Your hair, and your moustache, and your eyes, and your clothes, and your hat, and your gloves, and—and—things.”

“Exactly. Trust a child to find an appropriate nickname. But I like it, little one. Go on, about Max and the best thing yet.”

“That splendid dog has—saved—his—master’s life! As true as true!” cried Bonny-Gay, impressively.

“Indeed! Wonderful! How was it?”

“It was pay-day night and Mr. Weems, that’s his name, had a lot of money. And some bad men knew it. And they came, do you believe, right in the middle of that night, and broke a window in Mr. Weems’s house; and Max heard them and flew—and flew—”

The Gray Gentleman stooped and searched for the dog’s wings.

“Well, ran, then,” laughed Bonny-Gay, “and he drove them all off and they had revolvers or something and one was shot and a policeman caught him and Max was shot and the gardener would have been killed—”

“Only he wasn’t,” interrupted somebody, coming from behind them.

So the child paused in her breathless description of a scene she had often pictured to herself and looked up into the face of the hero of the affair, himself.

“Why, Mr. Weems! you almost frightened me! and you please tell the rest.”

But though the gardener smiled upon her he nodded his head gravely.

“Guess it won’t do for me to think about that just now, or any other of our good times, old Max! Good fellow, fine fellow! Poor old doggie! It’s going to be as hard on you as on me, I’m afraid.”

By this time Bonny-Gay saw that something was amiss. She half fancied that there were tears in the keeper’s eyes, and she always afterward declared that there were tears in his voice. As for Max, that sagacious animal sank suddenly upon his haunches, looked sternly into his master’s face, and demanded by his earnest, startled expression to know what was wrong. Something was. He knew that, even more positively than did Bonny-Gay.

“It’s an outrageous law. There ought to be exceptions to it. All dogs—Well, there’s no other dog like Max. Ah! hum. Old doggie!”

The Gray Gentleman was tempted to ask questions, but the little girl was sure to do that; so he waited. In a few minutes she had gotten the whole sad story from her old friend, the gardener, and her sunny head had gone down upon the dog’s black one in a paroxysm of grief.

A moment later it was lifted defiantly.

“But he shan’t. He shall not! Nobody shall ever, ever take our Max away! Why—why—it wouldn’t be the Place without him! Why—why—the children—Oh! Nettie! oh! Tom!” and catching sight of a group of playmates Bonny-Gay darted toward them, calling as she ran: “They’re going to take him away! They’re going to take him away!”

Tom planted his feet wide apart upon the smooth path and obstructed her advance.

“Take who away, Bonny-Gay? Where to? When?”

“Max! Our Max! He can never come here any more. This is his last day in our park—his very last!” and the child flung herself headlong upon the shaven grass, for once regardless of rules.

Not so regardless was Max, the trusty. It didn’t matter to him that this was Bonny-Gay, his best-loved playmate, or that her frantic sorrow was all on his account. What he saw was his duty and he did it, instantly. From a distance the Gray Gentleman watched the dog race toward the prostrate little girl and shake her short skirts vigorously, loosing them now and then to bark at her with equal vigor.

Presently she sprang up and to the footpath, and again indulged in a wild embrace of the faithful canine. Indeed, he was at once the center of an ever-increasing company of small people, who seemed to vie with each other in attempts to hug his breath away and to outdo everybody in the way of fierce indignation. Finally, this assembly resolved itself into an advancing army, and with Tom and Bonny-Gay as leaders—each tightly holding to one of the dog’s soft ears, as they marched him between them—they returned to the spot where the lion calmly awaited them, and Tom announced their decision:

“We won’t ever let him go. There’s no need for you nor the law-men nor nobody to interfere. This dog belongs to this park; and this park belongs to us children; and if anybody tries to—tries to—to—do—things—he won’t never be let! So there! And if he is, we’ll—we’ll augernize; and we’ll get every boy and girl in all the streets around to come, too; and we’ll all go march to where the law-men live; and we won’t never, never leave go talking at them till they take it all back. ’Cause Max isn’t going to be took. That’s the fact, Mr. Weems, and you can just tell them so.”

“Yes,” cried Nettie, “and my big brother goes to the law school and he’ll suesan them. And my big sister’s friends will help; and if he does have to, I’ll never, never—NEVER—play in this hateful old park ever again. I will not!”

“Whew!” whistled the Gray Gentleman, softly. “This looks serious. A children’s crusade, indeed. Well, that should be irresistible.” And this old lover of all little people looked admiringly over the group of flushed and indignant faces; and at the noble animal which was the very center of it, and whose silent protest was the most eloquent of all. His own heart echoed their indignation and he quietly resolved to make an effort on their and Max’s behalf.

But the dire, unspoken threats of the children, and the silent resolution of the Gray Gentleman, were useless. For when upon the next morning the sun rose over the pleasant Place, and the monument and the lion began to cast their shadows earthward, there was no Max to gambol at their feet, and over the heart of Bonny-Gay had fallen her first real grief.

She was out early, to see if the dreadful thing were true; and the Gray Gentleman met her and scarcely knew her—without the smiles.

When he did recognize her he said, hopefully:

“We’ll trust it’s all for the best, my dear. Besides, you will now have more time for the thirteen dolls, and the parrot, and the two canaries, and—”

“But they—they aren’t Max! He was the only! We loved him so and now he’ll just be wasted on strangers! Oh! it’s too bad, too bad!”

The Gray Gentleman clasped the little hand in sympathy.

“I am very sorry for your sorrow, Bonny-Gay, and yet I can’t believe that Max is ‘wasted.’ No good thing ever is. Besides that, I have a plan in my head. With your parents’ permission, I am going to take you this day to visit your twin sister.”

“My—twin—sister! Why there isn’t any. Don’t you remember? I told you. I’m the only, only one. There never was any other.”

“Nevertheless, I am obliged to contradict you. Very rude, I know, and I shouldn’t do so, if I were not so positive of what I claim. I hope you’ll love her and I think you will. After breakfast I’ll see you again. Good morning.”

With that he walked briskly away and Bonny-Gay saw him enter the big gray house in the middle of the Place. The house where the wooden shutters had always been up, ever since she could remember, until just this spring, when a few of the windows had been uncovered to let the sunlight in.

“My—twin—sister! How queer that is!” mused the watching child.

CHAPTER II
WHERE THE HOUSES ARE SMALL

Mary Jane dropped her crutches on the floor and readjusted the baby. He had a most trying habit of not staying “put,” and sometimes the other children slapped him. Mary Jane never did that. She merely set him up again, gave his cheek a pat or a kiss, and went on about her business.

For, indeed, she was almost the very busiest small body in the world. Besides her own mother’s five other children there were the neighbors’ broods, big and little, with never a soul to mind them save their self-constituted nurse.

That very morning Mrs. Bump had paused in her washing to look up and exclaim:

“I never did see how the little things do take to her! She can do just wonders with them, that she can; and I reckon it was about the best thing ever happened to her, that falling out the top window, like she did. Seemed to knock all the selfishness out of her. Maybe it’s that settled in her poor body. Yes, maybe it’s that, dear heart. Anyhow, her inside’s all right. The rightest there ever was. If this world was just full of Mary Janes, what a grand place it would be!”

Then, after a regretful sigh for this beatific state of things, the mother thrust her strong arms again into the suds, with a splash and a rub-a-dub-dub which told plainly enough from whom Mary Jane inherited her energy.

Just then Mrs. Stebbins thrust her head out of the window, next door, to remark:

“There was fifty-four of them gardens given out. My boy’s goin’ to raise cabbages.”

“You don’t say! Now, ain’t that fine? I wish I had a son to get one, but all my boys is girls, save the baby, and he don’t count. Though he’ll grow, won’t he, mother’s lamb? He’ll grow just as fast as he can and get a playground garden, good’s the next one, so he will, the precious!” chirruped Mrs. Bump, to the year-old heir of the house.

“Gah, gah!” cooed the baby; and emphasized his reply by losing his balance against the wall and rolling over on his face. He was too fat and too phlegmatic to right himself, so Mary Jane hopped back across the narrow room and set him up again, laughing as if this were the funniest thing she had ever seen.

“Pshaw, daughter! If I was you and you was me, I’d leave him lie that way a spell. He don’t ’pear to have the sense the rest of you had, no he don’t, the sweet! Maybe that’s because he’s a boy. But even a boy might learn something after a while, if he was let. Only you’re so right on hand all the time he expects you to just about breathe for him, seems.”

“Now, mother, now! And you know he’s the biggest, roundest—”

“Pudding-headedest!” growled a masculine voice, at the narrow doorway.

Mrs. Bump wheeled round so sharply that her rubbing-board fell out of the tub and scared the baby, who promptly began to scream.

“Why father! You home? It can’t be dinner-time, yet. What’s happened? Anything wrong?”

“Is anything ever right?” demanded the man, sulkily.

“Plenty of things,” answered the wife, cheerfully, though her heart sank.

“One of the right things is my getting kicked out, I s’pose.”

“Father! you don’t mean it! No.”

“I’m not much of a joker, am I?”

“No. That you’re not. But tell me, man.”

With a quiver in the usually cheerful voice, Mrs. Bump wiped the suds from her arms and went to her husband. Laying her hand kindly upon his shoulder she demanded, as was her right, to know the facts of the disaster that had befallen them.

“’Twon’t take long to tell, woman. The company’s cuttin’ down expenses and I was one of the expenses lopped off. That’s all.”

“Is that all—all, William Bump?”

The question was sternly put and the man cowered before it.

“It’s the truth, any way. No matter how it happened, here I am and no work.” With that he dropped his arms upon the window sill and his face upon his arms, and lapsed into a sullen silence.

Mrs. Bump caught her breath, whisked away a tear that had crept into her eye, and returned to her tub. Mary Jane ceased staring at her parents, tipped the baby’s home-made go-cart on end, rolled him into it, righted the awkward vehicle, threw its leather strap over her shoulders, called to the children: “Come!” and hopped away upon her crutches.

Though she paused, for just one second, beside her father and imprinted a hasty kiss upon the back of his bent head. A kiss so light it seemed he could scarcely have felt it, though it was quite sufficient to thrill the man’s soul with an added sense of regret and degradation.

“We’re off to the park, mother, and I’ve taken a loaf with me!” she called backward, as she clicked out of sight.

Again the woman idled for a moment, looking through the open doorway toward the small, misshapen figure of her eldest child as it swung swiftly forward upon its “wooden feet.” The baby’s soap-box wagon rattled and bumped along behind, bouncing his plump body about, and drawn by Mary Jane in the only manner possible to her—with a strap across her chest. She needed both her hands just then to support herself upon her crutches; for her lower limbs were useless and swung heavily between these crutches—a leaden weight from which she never could be free.

Even so, there were few who could travel as rapidly as Mary Jane and this morning she was especially eager to get on. Because down at the pretty park upon which her own dingy street terminated, the children’s “Playgrounds” had been opened for the summer and the small gardens given out. She was anxious to see the planting and seed-sowing, by the tiny farmers of this free kindergarten, and down in her heart was a faint hope that even to her, a girl, might a bit of land be assigned; where she, too, could raise some of the wonderful vegetables which would be her very own when the autumn came and the small crops were harvested.

The hope was so deep and so intense, that she had to stop, turn about, shake up the baby and tell him about it.

“You see, Baby Bump, they don’t give ’em out to just girls. Only I’m not a regular plain kind of girl, I’m a crippley sort. That might make a difference. Though there’s Hattie Moran, she’s lame, too. Not very lame, Baby, only a little lame. She doesn’t have to have crutches, she just goes hoppety-pat, hoppety-pat, easy like. Sophia Guttmacher, she’s a hunchback, same’s me, course, but she can walk. Besides that she doesn’t want a garden and I do. As for Ernest Knabe, his foot’s just twisted and that’s all. Then, too, he’s a boy. He could have one if he wanted. He’d have to dig one, I guess, if it wasn’t for his foot. Oh! Baby dear. Do you s’pose I might—I might, maybe, get one?”

“Goo, goo,” murmured the infant, encouragingly, and vainly trying to bring his own foot within reach of his mouth.

“Oh! you sweet! You can’t do that, you know. You’re far too fat. And I declare, all the other children have gone on while I’ve stood here just talking to you. That won’t do, sir, much as I love you. Sit up, now, there’s sister’s little man, and I’ll hurry up.”

But just then, Baby made a final, desperate effort to taste his toes, lost his balance, and rolled forward out of his box, as a ball might have done.

Mary Jane, burst into a peal of laughter which recalled the other children to the spot and she explained between breaths:

“The cute little fellow was trying to make ‘huckleberry-bread’; I do believe he was, the darling! Well, he’s so round it doesn’t matter which way he tumbles, and he’s so soft nothing ever hurts him. Does it, precious?”

They all lent a hand in setting the infant right again. Several holding the soap-box level, a couple supporting Mary Jane without her crutches which left her arms free to lift and replace the dislodged baby. When things were once more in order the caravan started onward afresh.

By this time the small, dingy houses bordering the narrow unpaved street had given place to open lots and weedy patches, where the sun lay warmly and a fresh breeze blew. To the right of the open space was a railway embankment, and on the left there was the cling-clanging of a mighty steel structure, in process of building. The railway and the monster “sheds” belonged to the same company for which William Bump had toiled—when he felt inclined—and by which he had just been discharged.

Mary Jane had been accustomed to look for him, either along the rails, with the gang that seemed always to be replacing old “ties” by new ones; or else serving the skilled workmen, who hammered, hammered, all day long upon the great metal girders. As she now caught the echo of these strokes a pang shot through her loving heart and for a moment her sunny face clouded. She need look no more, to either right or left, for the blue-shirted figure, which had been wont to wave a salutation to her as she passed with her brood of nurselings.

Fortunately, the baby was on hand to banish the cloud, which he promptly did in his accustomed manner—with a slight variation. For his small charioteer had not observed a big stone in the path, though the loose ricketty wheel of the wagon found and struck it squarely. This raised the soap-box in front and its occupant performed a backward somersault.

“Oh! my sake! Mary Jane—Mary Jane!” shrieked several small voices in wild reproach.

Mary Jane picked up the little one, who smiled, unhurt; and the others helped her shake him back to a normal condition and pose. After which, the park lying just before them, between the railway and the buildings, they scurried into it, and over the slope, and around to a sunny spot where scores of other little people were hard at work or play.

“Hi! Mary Jane! Oh, Mary Jane!” shouted one and another; and the kind-faced “teachers” who guided the wee ones, also nodded their friendly welcome. For well they knew that there was no “assistant” in the whole city who could be as useful to them as this same humble little girl from Dingy street.

“Thirteen, Mary Jane! I’m thirteen! Come see. Cucumbers!” cried Bobby Saunders, dragging her forward so eagerly that the soap-box strap slipped up across her throat and choked her. But she quickly released herself now from her burden, certain that in the midst of so many friends no harm could befall her darling; and once freed from this incubus, she outstripped Bobby in reaching the long rows of well-prepared garden plots, wherein as yet was never a sign of any growing thing.

But oh! how soft and rich and brown the earth did look! How sweet the fragrance of it in Mary Jane’s nature-loving nostrils! And how, for once, she longed to be a boy! As straight-limbed, as strong, as unhindered at her toil, as any of these happy little lads who clustered about, each interrupting his neighbor in his eagerness for her sympathy and interest.

“Fifty-one, Mary Jane!” cried Joe Stebbins, pointing proudly to the numbered stick at the foot of his plot. “Cabbages—cabbages! The gardener’s bringing a box of plants this minute. I’ll give you one to bile when they get growed. Like that?”

“Prime!” answered the girl, her own face aglow.

“But I’m limas, Mary Jane. I’m Seven. Away over here. I’ve sowed ’em and to-morrer I’ll hoe ’em, I guess.”

“And I guess I wouldn’t till they sprout,” laughed she hopping along, at perilous speed, to inspect number seven.

“Don’t go so fast, Mary Jane! I can’t keep up with you. See. I’m right up front—number Three. I’m tomatuses, I am. Like ’em?” demanded Ned Smith, a seven-year-old farmer.

“I’m potatoes. They’re the best for your money,” observed Jimmy O’Brien. “We’ll roast some in the ashes, bime-by. Does the baby like ’tatoes?”

“Don’t he? You just ought to see him eat them—when we have them,” she added, cautiously.

“Oh! you’ll have ’em, plenty. When I dig my crop. Why, I s’pose there’ll be enough in my ‘farm’ to keep your folks and mine all winter; and I might have some to sell on the street,” observed Jimmy, casting a speculative glance upon the diminutive plot of ground over which he was now master.

“Might you; ain’t that splendid!” commented Mary Jane, delightedly. “Why, if you could give us all our potatoes, mother could easy wash for the rent and the bread and things. My sake! I ’most forgot the baby. Where’s he at? Can you see him?”

“He’s right in the middle of the sand-heap and the teacher has give him a little shovel. Say, what you bring him for? this ain’t no day-nursery, this ain’t. It’s a playground farm and one-year-olds don’t belong.”

“Maybe they don’t, but the baby belongs. That is if I do,” said the sister stoutly; “maybe you’ll say next I don’t.”

“No, I shan’t say that. Why, what could we do without you? And say, Mary Jane.”

“Well, say it quick. The girls are calling me to swing on the Maypole. ’Cause that’s one thing I can do without my crutches.”

“Well, in a minute. But, say. Sometimes I used to let you hoe in my garden, last summer. Remember?”

“Course. I helped you a lot.”

“Don’t know about that. But you might this year. That is, maybe. If we went partners, you see; and if the teacher didn’t get on to it; and if there was a medal give and you let me have it, ’cause I’m the one has the farm, course. What you say?”

“I say we couldn’t do such a thing without the teacher knowing and I wouldn’t if we could. And you’ll never get a medal, you’re too lazy. But you’re real gen’rous, too, and I’ll be so glad to help. Oh! I love it! I just feel’s if I could put my face right down on that crumbly ground and go to sleep. It’s so dear.”

“Huh! If you did I s’pose you’d get earwigs in your ears and—and angleworms, and—things. Maybe snakes. But I’ll let you,” concluded Jimmy, graciously.

Then they turned around and there was—what seemed to the beholders, a veritable small angel!

Mary Jane was so startled she dropped her crutches and, for an instant, quite forgot all about the baby. The apparition was clothed in white, so soft and fine and transparent that it seemed to enwrap her as a cloud; and above the cloud rose a face so lovely and so winning that it made Mary Jane’s heart almost stand still in ecstasy.

CHAPTER III
HOW THE PAIR MET

But when things cleared a little, it was only Bonny-Gay! and the Gray Gentleman was supporting Mary Jane without her crutches—though she didn’t realize that, at first. Afterward she was able to look up into his face and smile a welcome, because he and she were already quite close friends.

What had happened was this: the Gray Gentleman had sent his elderly black “boy” with a note to the vine-covered house in Mt. Vernon Place and had requested “the favor of Miss Beulah’s company upon a drive, that morning. He intended to visit one of the ‘Playgrounds’ in the south-western part of the city, and he felt that the little girl whose society he so greatly enjoyed would find much to interest her, if she might be with him.”

To this he had signed a name which was quite powerful enough to secure Mrs. McClure’s instant and delighted assent; and she had at once returned a very graceful note of acceptance by the “boy.”

Then at ten o’clock precisely, the Gray Gentleman’s carriage had gone around for “Miss McClure,” and she had been lifted into it and to a seat beside her friend. A half-hour’s drive followed; through streets and avenues which Bonny-Gay had never seen before, and which continually grew narrower and more crowded. Even the houses seemed to shrink in size, and the little girl had finally exclaimed:

“Why, it’s like the buildings were so little that they just squeeze the folks out of them, upon the steps and through the windows. I never, never saw! Will they get to be just playhouses, by-and-by?”

“No, Bonny-Gay, I’m sure you never did. Yet it’s the same city in which is your own big home, and they are just the same sort of human beings as you and I.”

“Are they? It doesn’t—doesn’t just seem so, does it? And why do they all stare at us like that?”

“Because we do at them, maybe; and it’s not a common thing to see carriages with liveried attendants pass this way. I suppose you, in your dainty clothes, are as much a ‘show’ to them as they to you in their coarse attire, or rags.”

Bonny-Gay looked thoughtfully at her frock. She would have preferred to wear a simpler one; and a comfortable “Tam” instead of the feathered hat which adorned her sunny head. But her mother had decided otherwise; since the Gray Gentleman had done her the honor of that morning it was but courtesy to show appreciation of it by a good appearance.

After a moment she looked up and observed:

“It’s the queerest thing! I feel as if I ought to get out and walk; and as if I should give this hat to that little girl who hasn’t any.”

The Gray Gentleman smiled.

“That would be going to the other extreme, my dear, and would help neither you nor them. Besides, this is not all we came to see, and here we are!”

Then the street had suddenly ended and the carriage had turned in at a big gate, to roll almost silently onward till it stopped before a “Mansion,” with ancient wooden shutters and a clematis-draped porch. This was natural and quite suggestive to Bonny-Gay of her own beloved Druid Hill, wherein she was accustomed to take her stately drives in her father’s own carriage; and when she heard the shouts and laughter of children from the tree-hidden “Playgrounds,” her spirits rose to the normal again and she laughed in return.

Dancing along beside him, with her hand in his, she had demanded eagerly:

“Is it here I am to see my ‘twin sister?’ Oh! I want to find her—quick, quick!”

“Yes, it is here, and this is—she;” answered her guide, as they paused behind Jimmy and Mary Jane, toward whom he silently nodded.

This was how the pair met; and while Mary Jane saw what she fancied was an “angel” that which Bonny-Gay saw was a girl of her own age, with short, limp legs, very long arms, and a crooked back. But the dark head above the poor humped shoulders was as shapely as the “angel’s” own; the dark eyes as beautiful as the blue ones; and from the wide, merry mouth flashed a smile quite as radiant and winning.

As soon as she saw the smile Bonny-Gay began to understand what the Gray Gentleman had meant, and she telegraphed him a glance that said she did. Then she laughed and held out her two hands to Mary Jane.

“I guess you’re the girl I’ve come to see: my ‘twin sister!’ How-de-do?”

“How-de-do?” echoed Mary Jane, too astonished to say more.

The Gray Gentleman quietly slipped her crutches under the cripple’s arms, and seizing Jimmy’s hand walked swiftly away.

Both girls looked after him with regret but he neither glanced back nor expected them to follow. Then they regarded each other with curiosity, till Mary Jane remembered she was the hostess.

“Let’s sit down,” she said pointing to the grass.

Bonny-Gay hesitated, and, seeing this, the other whisked off her apron and spread it for her guest. “You might spoil your dress, that’s so. Salt and lemon juice’ll take out grass-stain. My mother uses that when there’s spots on the ‘wash.’”

“Does she? I wasn’t thinking of my frock, though, but of that;” answered the visitor, pointing to a “Keep Off” sign behind them.

“Oh! that? Nobody minds that. You see, this is our park now. We play where we choose, only on the terraces and slopey places. You’d better use my apron though, it’s such a splendid dress. Your mother would feel bad if you smirched it.”

“I suppose she would. She’s very particular.”

“So’s mine. They say she’s the very neatest woman in Dingy street. The neighbors say it.”

“And our cook says mine is the ‘fussiest’ one in the Place. That might be some of the ‘sister’ part, mightn’t it?”

“It might. Only, course, he’s just fooling.”

“I don’t believe the Gray Gentleman ever fools. He means things. He’s made us children think a lot. More’n we ever did before. And he says things mean things, too, every single one. Even ‘Father George,’ and the lion, and Max, and—and everything.”

After this exhausting speech Bonny-Gay removed her hat and laid it upon the grass, where Mary Jane regarded it admiringly. It was so pretty she would have liked to touch it, just once. The hat’s owner saw the admiration, and remarked:

“Put it on, Mary Jane. See if it will fit you.”

“Oh! I daren’t!” gasped the other. “I might hurt it.”

Bonny-Gay lifted the hat and placed it upon the cripple’s dark head, which was held perfectly motionless, while the face beneath the brim took on an expression of bewildered happiness.

“My! ain’t it lovely! I should think you’d want to wear it all the time!”

“I don’t, then. I like my ‘Tam’ better, and nothing best of all. You can wear it as long as I stay, if you wish.”

“That’s good of you. Some of the other girls wouldn’t even let me touch their best hats, they wouldn’t.”

“Must be selfish things, then. How old are you, Mary Jane?”

“How’d you know my name? and what’s yours?”

Bonny-Gay stated it and explained:

“I heard that Jimmy boy call you. How old did you say?”

“I didn’t say, but I’m eight, going on nine.”

“Why, so am I. I’m a ‘Sunday’s bairn’.”

“And I!” cried Mary Jane, breathlessly.

After that confidences were swift; and, presently, each little girl knew all about the other; till, in one pause for breath, the cripple suddenly remembered the baby. Then she caught up her crutches, swung herself upon them, and started off in pursuit of him.

Bonny-Gay watched her disappear in the midst of the crowd of children, who had all shyly held aloof from herself, saw how they clung about her and how some of the tiniest ones held up their faces to be kissed. She saw her stoop to tie the ragged shoe of one and button the frock of another; saw her pause to listen to the complaint of a sobbing lad and smartly box the ears of his tormentor. Then another glimmering of the Gray Gentleman’s meaning, when he called these two “sisters,” came into Bonny-Gay’s mind.

“She has to take care of the children down here just as I do in our park. I suppose we two are the only ones have time to bother, but how can she do it! Her face is so pretty—prettier, even, than Nettie’s, but I dare not look at the rest of her. I just dare not. Poor little girl, how she must ache! Supposing I was that way. My arms stretched way down there, and my feet shortened way up here, and my back all scrouged up so! Oh! poor, poor Mary Jane! It hurts me just to make believe and she has it all the time. But here she comes back and I mustn’t let her see I notice her looks. I mustn’t, for anything. It’s bad enough to have her body hurt, I mustn’t hurt her feelings, too.”

However, there was no sign of suffering about the little cripple as she returned to the side of her guest, dragging the soap-box wagon behind her and recklessly rolling the baby about in it, so eager was her advance. There were tears in Bonny-Gay’s eyes for a moment, though, till she caught sight of the baby and heard Mary Jane exclaim:

“Did you ever see such a sight? What do you s’pose mother will say? The teacher set him in the sand-box and somebody gave him a stick of ’lasses candy, and he’s messed from head to foot. But isn’t he a dear?” and dropping to the ground she caught the little one to her breast and covered his sandy, bedaubed countenance with adoring kisses.

“He’s the funniest thing I ever saw!” laughed Bonny-Gay, so merrily that the Gray Gentleman drew near to join in the fun. After him trailed an army of young “farmers” and in another moment the visitor had ceased to be a stranger to anybody there.

“Let’s see-saw!” cried Joe Stebbins, seizing her hand and drawing her to the playground. Then somebody swung Mary Jane and the baby upon the beam beside her, some other girls took the opposite end, and they all went tilting up and down, up and down, in the most exciting manner possible. Then there was the Maypole, furnished with ropes instead of ribbons, from the ends of which they hung and swung, around and around, till they dropped off for sheer weariness. And here Bonny-Gay was proud to see that Mary Jane could beat the whole company. Her arms were so long and so strong, they could cling and outswing all the others; and when she had held to her rope until she was the very last one left her laughter rang out in a way that was good to hear.

“Seems to me I never heard so much laughing in all my life!” exclaimed Bonny-Gay to the Gray Gentleman when, tired out with fun, she nestled beside him as he rested on a bench.

“Yes, it’s a fine thing, a fine thing. And you see that it doesn’t take big houses or rich clothes to make happiness. All these new friends of yours belong to those tiny homes we passed on our way down.”

“They do! Even Mary Jane, my sister?”

“Even in an humbler. Dingy street is just what its name implies. But we’ll drive that way back and what do you say to giving Mary Jane a ride thus far?”

“Oh! I’d love it! She’s so jolly and friendly and seems never to think of her—her poor back and—things.”

“You’ll like her better and better—if you should ever meet again. She won my heart the first time I saw her, over a month ago. I met her dragging home a basket of her mother’s laundry work, in that same soap-box wagon she utilizes for the baby. The family chariot it seems to be. I was taking a stroll this way, quite by myself, and thinking of other things than where I was walking when I stumbled and my hat flew off. Then I heard a rattle and squeak of rusty small wheels, and there was Mary Jane hopping up to me on her ‘wooden feet’ and holding out my hat, with the most sympathetic smile in the world. ‘Here it is, Mister, and I do hope it isn’t hurt; nor you either,’ said she; and in just that one glimpse I had of her I saw how sweet and brave and helpful she was. So I’ve been proud to call her my friend ever since.”

Just then arose a cry so sudden and boisterous it could have been uttered by no lips except the baby’s. For a teacher had tapped a bell, and somebody had cried ‘Luncheon!’ and he knew what that meant as well as anyone.

So Mary Jane swung round to where he lay upon his back in the sunshine and set him up against a rock, and thrust a piece of the loaf she had brought into his chubby fists, and cocked her head admiringly while she cried out:

“Did anybody ever see so cute a child as he!”

Then she remembered the visitors and with the truest hospitality proffered them the broken loaf.

“I ought to have given it to you the first, I know that, but he’d have yelled constant if I hadn’t tended him. It’s wonderful, I think, how he knows that bell!”

“Wonderful!” echoed the Gray Gentleman, as he bowed and gravely broke a tiny portion from the small stale loaf.

Bonny-Gay was going to decline, but when she saw the Gray Gentleman’s action, she checked her “No, I thank you” unspoken and also accepted a crumbly crust. After which Mary Jane distributed several other bits among some clamorous charges and finally sat down with the last morsel to enjoy that herself in their presence.

“I think dinner never tastes so good as it does out-doors here, in our park,” she remarked with a sigh of satisfaction.

“Dinner!” cried Bonny-Gay and looked into the Gray Gentleman’s face. But from something she saw there she was warned to say no more; and she made a brave effort to swallow her own crust without letting her entertainer see how distasteful a matter it was.

After this the Gray Gentleman saw a cloud arising and though he did not fear a shower for himself he was anxious that Bonny-Gay should take no harm from her unusual outing. So he called the coachman to bring up the carriage and had Mary Jane and the baby lifted in. Then Bonny-Gay sprang after them, and the master himself made his adieux to the teachers and followed, watched by the admiring, maybe envious, glances of many bright eyes.

However, one carriage, no matter how capacious, cannot hold a whole kindergarten, and neither could it carry the pleasant “Playgrounds” away; so if there was any envy it did not last long. Which was a good thing, too, seeing what happened so soon afterward.

The landau had not progressed far toward Dingy street and Mary Jane was still wearing the feather-trimmed hat, which her new friend had persuaded her to put on just to surprise Mrs. Bump, when there came a rush, a bark, a series of shrieks, and the high-spirited horses were off at a mad gallop; which grew wilder and wilder, and soon passed quite beyond control of coachman or even the Gray Gentleman, who had promptly seized the reins as they fell from the driver’s hands, but had been powerless to do more than retain them in his tightly clutched fingers.

It seemed an age that the frantic beasts sped onward, following their own will, before the crash came and they tore themselves free, leaving the hindering vehicle to go to ruin against the great post, where it struck. But it was, in reality, not more than half a moment, and when the reins were wrenched from his grasp the Gray Gentleman looked anxiously about him to learn if anyone was hurt.

Mary Jane and the baby were on the floor of the carriage, safe and sound. The terrified footman was clinging to his seat behind; the coachman had either leaped or been thrown out, but had landed upon his feet; but where was Bonny-Gay?

A white, motionless little figure lay face downward in the dust, a rod away, and over this bent a black, shaggy dog, whining and moaning in a way that was almost human.

“Max! Max! Was it you, was it you! Oh! wretched animal, what have you done!”

Max it was. But, at the sight of his silent playmate and the altered sound of a familiar voice, a cowed, unhappy Max; who crouched and slunk away as the Gray Gentleman lifted from the roadway the limp figure of his own beloved Bonny-Gay.

CHAPTER IV
MAX REAPPEARS

There was neither drug store nor doctor’s office near, and the Gray Gentleman’s instant decision was to carry Bonny-Gay to Mrs. Bump’s house. Strong man though he was he felt almost faint with anxiety as he sprang from the carriage and without losing an instant of time lifted out Mary Jane and the baby. Then he dropped her crutches beside her and ran to the child in the roadway.

Five minutes later, Bonny-Gay was lying on Mrs. Bump’s bed, and the Gray Gentleman had gone away in pursuit of aid, leaving a last injunction behind him as he disappeared:

“Do everything you can for her, I beg, but keep useless people out.”

Thus it was that, though curious faces peered in at the window, no person save Mrs. Stebbins crossed the threshold of their neighbor’s house, and the two women were left unhindered to minister to the injured child as best they knew how. They were not able, indeed, to restore the little girl to consciousness; but they had cleared the soil of the street from her face and clothing and had placed the inert figure in an easy posture, long before there was heard the rattle and dash of another approaching vehicle, and a doctor’s phaeton drew up at the door.

The surgeon’s examination showed that one of the child’s legs was broken but this did not trouble him half so much as her continued unconsciousness. But he worked diligently to restore her and to prepare the injured limb for removal to her own home.

From a low seat in the corner and hugging the baby tight, to keep him quiet, Mary Jane watched the little sufferer upon her mother’s bed, with wide, dry eyes and heaving breast.

“Oh! if I could only take it for her!” she thought, helplessly. “It wouldn’t have mattered to anybody like me, ’cause I’m all crooked anyhow; but her! She was that straight and beautiful—my sake! It mustn’t be—it mustn’t! And she didn’t mind. She let me wear her hat, me. Well, that didn’t get hurt, any way. It just tumbled off all safe. I had to wear it home, else I couldn’t have dragged the baby, and I don’t know not a thing whatever became of his wagon. Never mind that, though. If she only would open her eyes, just once, just once!”

But they had not opened even when, a half-hour later, another carriage paused before the Bumps’ tenement, and a tall, pale lady descended, trembling so that she had almost to be carried by the Gray Gentleman who supported her.

This was Mrs. McClure and she had just been stepping into her own vehicle for a morning’s shopping when he reached her door, bringing his unhappy message. So there was no time lost in securing a vehicle and the mother was soon at her child’s bedside. At any other hour she might have shrunk from entering so poor a place but at that moment she had, for once, forgotten her own high station and thought only of her darling.

One glimpse of the lovely face, so still and unresponsive, banished the mother’s last vestige of strength and she would have fallen where she stood, had not Mrs. Bump slipped an arm about her and motioned Mrs. Stebbins to bring the one sound chair the room could boast. The doctor held a glass of water to her lips and the faintness passed.

“Is—she—alive?”

“Yes. She is still alive,” answered the physician, gravely, and Mrs. McClure turned faint again.

“Of course, she’s alive, lady; and what’s more it won’t be long, I reckon, before she’ll be asking a lot of questions all about what’s happened her. Oh! yes indeed. I’ve seen ’em a sight worst than she is, and up and around again as lively as crickets. Why, there’s my Mary Jane—”

But the cripple held up a warning finger and Mrs. Bump ceased speaking. Though not her helpful ministrations; for with a whisk to the stove she had seized a coarse brown teapot and poured from it a hot draught into a cup that had no handle, indeed, yet could serve as well as another to refresh an exhausted creature.

“Here, honey, just sip this. Strong, I know, and not the finest, but ’twill set you up, quick. I know. There, there.”

Moved by the same instinct which had made Bonny-Gay accept her crust dinner, Mrs. McClure drank the scalding liquid and did, indeed, revive under it. Then the doctor and the Gray Gentleman lifted the injured child and placed her gently upon the carriage seat.

Seeing which, the mother hastily rose and followed, supported still, though unnoticed on her part, by the strong arms of the other mother whose sympathetic tears were now silently flowing; even while her cheery voice reiterated, much to the surgeon’s disgust:

“Never you fear, dear lady. She’ll be as right as a trivet. Aye, indeed; she’ll be talking to you before you get to your own house. Yes, indeed. We poor folks see many an accident and mostly they don’t amount to much; even my Mary Jane—”

But there was Mary Jane herself just as the carriage door was closing, thrusting something white and feather-trimmed into the pale lady’s lap.

“Her hat, lady. Bonny-Gay’s best hat!”

Mrs. McClure was as kind hearted as most, yet at that moment she was already unstrung, and the glimpse she caught of poor Mary Jane’s deformity shocked her afresh. Without intending it she did shrink away from contact with so “repulsive” a child and Mrs. Bump saw the movement. Her own face hardened and she withdrew her arm from supporting the stranger to clasp it about her own child.

But Mary Jane saw nothing, save that Bonny-Gay was being carried away without her beautiful headgear, and again she thrust it eagerly forward.

“Her hat! Her lovely hat! She mustn’t go without her Sunday hat!”

It was the sweetest, most sympathetic of voices and almost startling to the rich woman, coming as it did from such a source. It made her take a second look at the cripple and this time, fortunately, the glance rested upon the child’s fine, spiritual face. An instant regret for the repugnance she had first felt shot through Mrs. McClure’s mind and leaning from the carriage window she dropped the hat upon Mary Jane’s dark head.

“Keep it, little girl, as a gift from Bonny-Gay. It will delight her that you should have it. Quick now, coachman. Swift and careful!”

Then they were all gone and Mary Jane, bedecked in her unusual finery, stood leaning upon her crutches, crying as if her heart would break. Her mother glanced at her hastily but thought it best to let “her have her cry out. She cries so seldom it ought to do her good,” she reflected. Besides, there was the baby rolling on the floor, in imminent danger from a wash-boiler full of steaming water; and a whole hour wasted from her own exacting labors.

Presently, the hunchback felt something cold and wet touch her down-hanging hand and dashed the tears from her eyes to see what it might be. There sat a great black dog beside her, so close that he almost forced her crutch away. His eyes were fixed upon her face in a mute appeal for sympathy, and his whole bearing showed as much sorrow as her tears had done. Her first impulse was to shrink away from him, even to strike at him with the crutch, as she indignantly exclaimed:

“You’re the very dog did it! You jumped into the wagon and scared the horses. If it hadn’t been for you she wouldn’t have been hurt. Go ’way! Go away off out of sight! You horrid, ugly, mean old dog!”

Mary Jane’s vehemence surprised even herself and she shook her head so vigorously that the feather-trimmed hat fell off into the dust.

Then was a transformation. Max—it was, indeed he!—had already dropped flat upon his stomach and crouched thus, whining and moaning in a manner that betokened such suffering that it quickly conquered the cripple’s anger; and now, as the hat fell right before his nose, he began to smell of it and lick it with the most extravagant joy. A moment later he had sprung up, caught the hat in his teeth, and was gambolling all around and around Mary Jane, as if he were the very happiest dog in the world.

“My sake! How you act! And oh—oh—oh! I know you, I know you! You must be that Max-dog that she told me about. That she’d known all her life and wouldn’t be let come any more to her park! I guess I can see the whole thing. I guess you run away from that man the gardener gave you to. Maybe you went right back to where ‘Father George’ and the lion are; and maybe you saw Bonny-Gay and the Gray Gentleman come away; and maybe you followed them. Maybe it was because you were so glad, and not bad, that you jumped into the carriage and scared the horses. Oh! you poor doggie, if that is how it is!”

Which was, in fact, exactly what had happened; and it seemed that the intelligent animal, who had loved Bonny-Gay ever since she was first wheeled about the beautiful Place in her baby-carriage, had now a comprehension of the damage his delight at finding her again had done.

So Mary Jane hopped back into the house and called Max by that name to follow her. He did so, readily, and sat down very near to the foot of the bed on which she carefully placed his little mistress’ hat.

“Well, daughter, this has been a morning, hasn’t it? Now, these handkerchiefs are ready to iron and I’ve fixed your high seat right close to my tub, so whilst I wash you can iron away and tell me the whole story and all about it. Here comes father, too, and it’ll pass the time for him to hear it. And, oh! William! you never could guess whatever has happened right here in this very kitchen, this very morning that ever was! But, I must work now, and Mary Jane’ll talk.”