AMONG THE LINDENS

By the Same Author.

THE LITTLE LADY OF THE HORSE.

Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.

THE MUSHROOM CAVE.

Illustrated by Victor A. Searles.

A CAPE MAY DIAMOND.

Illustrated by Lilian Crawford True.

Square 12mo. Cloth, extra. $1.50.

THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE.

Illustrated by Victor A. Searles.

Square 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.

Bearing in her arms the basket of chrysanthemums.

Among the Lindens

BY
EVELYN RAYMOND
AUTHOR OF
“THE LITTLE LADY OF THE HORSE,” “THE MUSHROOM CAVE”
“A CAPE MAY DIAMOND,” “THE LITTLE RED
SCHOOLHOUSE,” ETC.

Illustrated
By VICTOR A. SEARLES

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1898

Copyright, 1898,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

FROM DRAWINGS BY VICTOR A. SEARLES.

AMONG THE LINDENS.

CHAPTER I.
A KINDLY DEED.

“LOOK out! Oh, look out, sir!”

“Is the man senseless?” cried a second voice.

“This way, sir—this way—quick! Dear me! Are you hurt?”

The school-girl who had uttered the first exclamation darted suddenly forward into the midst of the crowd, and pulled from under the very hoofs of the horses, attached to a heavy dray, the queer little old gentleman who had occasioned her outcry.

Every New Yorker knows how thronged is that particular point, at the southwestern corner of pretty Madison Square, where Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and Twenty-third Street—all favorite thoroughfares of the shoppers—meet to shake hands, as it were; while each adds its complement of humanity on foot and humanity in vehicles to swell the current eddying about the corner.

A gay and lively place it was, on that early afternoon. All the curbstone merchants had come out with their mechanical toys, forever getting under the pedestrians’ feet, tripping them up, and threatening more than one with mischance.

Among such was an old gentleman whose dress was quaint and out of style, while his manner was that of one unused to scenes of confusion. For some moments he had stood upon the sidewalk, watching with curious interest what went on about him; but when a papier-maché monkey gave a realistic spring from the end of an elastic cord, and clasped his ankle, he stepped boldly forth into the whirlpool of wheels. For half the short distance between curbs all went well; then he slipped upon the slimy pavement, and just where hoofs and wheels were in most hopeless tangle, he fell.

There was an outcry of horror from many throats.

The policeman piloting a party of women over the crossing turned hurriedly, just in time to see what had happened, as well as a slim girlish figure spring to the rescue.

“Stop! That’s dangerous! Why should two be killed?”

There were groans and execrations from the drivers of carts and carriages, the swiftly forming blockade which follows any break in the routine of city transit, and the patrolman was back, seizing the old man’s shoulder and demanding why he should make so much more disturbance than was necessary by tumbling down in that ridiculous manner. Or if the policeman did not put his inquiry in just those words he made it distinctly evident to Mr. Philipse Chidly Brook that visitors who could not conduct themselves any better than he had done might likely find themselves at the station-house, to be cared for at the public expense.

“Come this way with me, will you? Come this way just for a moment!” cried the old gentleman, and seized upon Bonny’s hand so forcibly that, whether she would or no, she had to follow where he led. This was into the flower-shop close by, and she obeyed readily enough, after all; for she loved an adventure dearly and therefore—so her sister declared—was always meeting with one.

Isabelle, who had been with her all along, now interposed: “Bonny! What are you doing? You must not go anywhere with a stranger. Come away at once!” and she laid her hand in firm remonstrance upon thoughtless Beatrice’s shoulder.

“Yes, Belle; directly. But I must see if he is hurt. Come along, too.”

“Yes, certainly; come along, too,” repeated Mr. Brook, turning toward the elder miss.

“Thank you. It is impossible. Come, Bonny.”

But fun-loving Bonny had already followed the man into the shop; where, with a smile of gratitude upon his very muddy face, he asked: “Who are you, my dear?”

“Oh! no matter about that, sir. Are you hurt?”

“Not at all, I think. Time will tell. I might have some cracked bones about my anatomy somewhere, and yet not know it, amid all this whirl and racket. Five-and-twenty years since I set foot in the streets of New York before, and I find them greatly changed. But I must know your name, please. I must know to whom I am indebted for my life. I should have been killed but for your courage, my dear; or have been arrested and sent to the lock-up, than which I would almost think death preferable.”

“Bonny! Bonny Beckwith! Come at once! Mother would be very much displeased! The idea of your following a stranger about in this way!” cried Belle, now opening the door of the shop, and looking threateningly at her sister.

“Directly, dear. Now, sir, can you tell me where you are stopping? If you are such a stranger here, I should think you would better take a carriage to your home—or hotel. After twenty-five years the town must seem like a new world to you, or, I mean—”

“Bonny!”

“Can I serve you, miss?” asked a clerk, coming forward, and Miss Beatrice interpreted his tone to mean: “If I can I wish to do so at once. If I cannot I would like to have the store vacated. This is no rendezvous for adventurers.”

“No, I need nothing,” said Bonny, and moved to the door, nodding her head brightly toward her old gentleman, but casting rather wistful glances at the counters full of beautiful blossoms as she passed them on her way.

“Wait a moment! Wait a moment, my dear! I have heard your name, you see. Your sister spoke it. Here is my card; and if you will not tell me where you live that I may call and thank you, at least let me give you a posy before we part. Pick out what you like. Pick out what you like, my dear, and I will pay for it. Here is my card,—Philipse Chidly Brook, New Windsor, New York. Everybody thereabouts knows me, as everybody hereabouts used to know me half a century ago,

‘When I was young as you are young,
And love-lights in the casement hung.’”

Bonny dropped her hand from the door-knob. “Why, that is Thackeray, sir! So you know him, too?”

“Beatrice Beckwith! Will you—or will you not—come? I—am—going!” cried the indignant Isabelle, moving slowly away from her ill-conducted little sister. She was greatly shocked and mortified by Bonny’s readiness to take up with anything and anybody, and was quite justified in her feeling; for in most cases there is danger in any girl following a stranger, for even so slight a distance as Bonny had done, in a great city like New York.

But this time she happened to be safe enough. Old Chidly Brook was a gentleman if ever one lived; and queer and quaint as he now appeared, time had been when he was a great favorite even in the most exclusive circles of New York’s best society.

“My dear, my age is sufficient guaranty of my honor. Do allow me to give you a little bouquet of some sort. No? Then—have you a mother?”

“Certainly. I have a dear, dear mother, who will be troubled if I stay from home longer. Good-by.”

“Her name? Her number? I must be allowed to call and pay her my respects!” In his eagerness, which was almost childish, the old man laid his thin hand upon Bonny’s wrist.

She glanced down upon it; its delicacy and refinement appealed to her; she longed to know more of its owner, and replied: “My mother is Mrs. Rachel Beckwith, Number Blank, Second Avenue.” Then she darted out of the shop and tried to look defiantly into the vexed face of her pretty sister Belle.

But it was of no use. The defiance faded soon, and a whimsical humility took its place. “I’m sorry, I’m awfully sorry, dear, that I didn’t mind you. I’m sorry I didn’t let the dear old fellow lie there to be hurt. I— No, I don’t mean that. But I’ll try to behave next time. I truly will.”

“H’m-m!” replied Isabelle; and vouchsafed nothing further till they had reached their home, a cosey if small and plainly furnished “flat” at the location which Bonny had given Mr. Brook.

That old gentleman, left in the flower-store after his young rescuer had departed, turned at once to the clerk. “I saw the child cast her eyes rather longingly, I thought, upon that vase of salmon-colored artemisias. Are they for sale?”

“Certainly,” replied the attendant, and moved the vase forward upon the counter. “They are the same thing as artemisias, sir, but the popular name is chrysanthemum. These are prize flowers, from the late show. A rare color. One of our own originating.”

“H’m-m, h’m-m. Very pretty, but roses suit me better. However, she looked at these more than she did at the roses and pinks, and I’ll take them. How much are they?”

“Seventy-five cents each.”

“W-h-a-t? How—much?”

“Seventy-five cents each. Chrysanthemums are the fashionable flower now. All the people at the horse-show—”

“That’s what I came into town to see. Thinks I to myself, Old fellow, brace up yourself a bit and take one more look at life before you step behind the curtain. A great town, young man, and full of pitfalls.”

“Yes, sir,” respectfully. “Will you take more than one of the blooms, sir?”

“More than one! What do you think of me, lad? If you were going to send a posy to a pretty little girl, would you send her a pitiful, solitary blossom? If you would you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

The salesman laughed pleasantly, and awaited directions, which came promptly.

“Pick me out the prettiest and biggest basket you have in the shop. Then fill it with these artemisias—if there are enough. If not, finish out with white ones. She looked just like a pretty pink and white blossom herself, with her rosy cheeks and white teeth. And what eyes she had—did she not? Yes, yes; a big basket of posies is a small price to pay for old bones saved from breaking! It must be of the best.”

“How will this please you?” asked the attendant, showing a pretty willow affair, shaped like the baskets seen in old-fashioned “Annuals” as held by the hands of high-coiffured dames with sloping shoulders and simpering mouths.

Mr. Chidly Brook was charmed directly. “That’s it! That is just the very thing! Some of the good old notions have survived these silly later fashions, then? Glad to hear it! I am exceedingly glad to hear it. Now, young man, will you lend me a pen and paper, if you have such a thing handy?”

“Certainly. Will you, please, step to the desk?”

“Just to write a little note, you know. A sort of billet-doux, as we called them in the old days. I was a hand—I was a master hand at writing billet-doux then. Let me see. Number Blank, Second Avenue. A most aristocratic neighborhood, is it not?”

“Well—sir—I don’t know. It might be. It was once, they say. I—”

“Enough. I hate these eternal ‘was onces’! No matter. What will do for a home for that little girl must be a pretty sort of place any way. On our farm, my uncle’s, it was just above that grand street of millionaire residents— Fourteenth— What are you staring at, sir?”

“Nothing. Nothing whatever, beg pardon. But you must have known New York for many years. Fourteenth Street is now a synonym for a street of cheap lodging-houses and such; that is, the resident portion. The business part is fine enough. It will take about forty-three or five chrysanthemums to fill this basket. But we have smaller ones, sir, of the same shape. Will you look at them?”

“I said the biggest. I didn’t mean the smallest. Thank Heaven, Philipse Chidly Brook is still able to pay for a decent basket of posies for his little lady, I should hope! Thank you. I will have the note written by the time the basket is filled. And I wish to have especial care used in the delivery of the same. The billet-doux is important. I would not have it lost.”

“It shall not be. But the filling of the basket will take some time, a half-hour at least.”

“No matter. I am not pressed for time. Yet. I will wait.”

He did wait, with what those better acquainted with him would have considered an unusual amount of patience; but the truth was that the old fellow had had a pretty severe shaking-up, and now that his excitement over the accident began to ebb, he was more and more conscious of pains and bruises.

Finally, when the basket, perfect in its beauty, was tendered for his inspection, he rose very stiffly and barely looked at it.

“Here is the bill, sir. Forty-three chrysanthemums at seventy-five cents, thirty-two dollars, twenty-five cents; one basket, five—”

“The amount, lad! The amount! I hate detail.”

“Thirty-nine dollars, twenty-five cents.”

“All right. Two twenty-dollar pieces. Keep the change and buy one posy for your girl!” And with this fine sarcasm, as he considered it, the old gentleman left the flower-shop, entered the cab which a cash-boy had called for him, and gave the direction: “Astor House. At once.”

CHAPTER II.
PINK PETALS AND BRIGHT VISIONS.

“YES, Mother; if you cannot persuade Beatrice to behave herself upon the street, I really think she should not be allowed to go out. Her goings on are very mortifying to me, and she is sure to get us into some dreadful sort of scrape yet, worse than that small-pox scare last week—”

“Sweet maiden, all severe! Don’t! That is a sensitive point with your unfortunate sister! The less said upon it the more agreeable!” interrupted Bonny, skipping across the narrow parlor of the Beckwith home, whither they had just returned, and catching the tall Isabelle around the waist with a persuasive little hug.

“What have you been doing now, Beatrice?” asked the gentle little widow, looking up from a piece of wonderful embroidery, and fixing a half-amused, half-apprehensive gaze upon the younger girl’s face.

“Nothing, dear Motherkin, but a simple act of charity. I happened to see a funny old gentleman tumble down in the middle of the street, and I pulled him out of harm’s way. Isn’t that a right sort of thing to do?”

“But that is only the beginning,” added Belle. “She was not contented with a really kind and brave rescue, but she must go off with her protégé into a store and tell him all about ourselves, and—”

“Isabelle! Not ‘all.’ I merely told him where we lived. And it was really an act of charity to ourselves. He will make a delightful and very salable model for Motherkin’s embroidery. Lend me your pencil, dear. Let me show you!”

“Beatrice, have you done this foolish thing? Did you go with any stranger into a shop?”

“Please don’t interrupt the flow of art, Motherkin!”

“If you did, you must never do so again. Leave the person you have assisted to go his way and you go yours. And of all people to get into such affairs you are certainly the most unfortunate child I ever knew.”

“I’ll try to be good, Mother dear. Only it will be very difficult. He was a nice old man. This looks very like him. You must do his legs in burnt sienna. See? And his coat—his coat was like a ‘picter.’ All tight down the back and very high-shouldered as to sleeves, which also were very long and narrow. Do his coat in Prussian blue. His ‘weskit’ was yellow ochre, touched up with umber; and his hat—alas! his hat had disappeared! His face—Motherkin, he had a nice face. A good face, a—”

“Like the tramp you let into the house, while we were out, to steal our last half-dozen silver spoons! He, I remember, ‘had a good face, a really intellectual face’!” remarked Belle, gibingly. Her good nature was now quite restored by the pleasure of finding some excuse for teasing Beatrice, who liked to tease them all.

“There, Motherkin! Isn’t that ‘sweetly pretty’? Can you not work him into a landscape of trees and cows and clouds and other country things?” demanded Bonny, ignoring her sister, and laying the really clever little sketch in her mother’s lap.

“How do you get on with your singing, dear?” asked that lady, smiling, and taking time from her work to pat the soft cheek of her merry daughter.

“Badly. There is a terrible discrepancy between my chest notes and my head notes. When T try to stretch one up and the other down, something appears to give way—cr-r-rick-crac-c-k-screech! Shall I illustrate, Mother dear?”

“No, no, I beg! My nerves are in bad condition to-day. But if you’ll sing something without nonsense, I shall be glad to hear you. It would rest me, I think.”

Beatrice’s gay face sobered instantly, and Isabelle laid down her book. “Are you so tired, Motherkin?”

“Oh! no, indeed! Only it is a bit monotonous stitching, stitching all day with nobody to talk to. Never mind. Here comes Roland. I wonder why so early.”

The inquiry was in her eyes as she raised them to meet her son’s when he entered, full three hours before his usual time of home-coming. But she saw instantly that he was not ill, and, that anxiety allayed, she smiled brightly upon him. “Well, my boy! what good fortune has given you a holiday?”

“Ill, not good fortune, Mother. I—I have been discharged. I have lost my place.”

Then, indeed, did a significant silence fall upon the family group. Lost his place! Could anything have been more unfortunate!

“Why, ‘Laureate,’ have you been writing more soap-poetry?”

“No, Bonny; but I had a row with the boss, and he talked to me so rudely that I made up my mind no gentleman would stand it. So I bolted. That’s all. I was going to leave, anyway, after the holidays.”

“Oh, you were, eh? Going into soap-poetry for a business? If it pays as well as your first venture—”

“Be still.”

“Yes, my dear. But I’ll just make a note of your new words. You will have quite a vocabulary if you keep on. ‘Row,’ ‘boss,’ ‘bolted,’ will rhyme admirably with ‘cow,’ ‘toss,’ ‘moulted.’ I shall take to writing for soap-prizes myself soon. I’ve always had a notion that my genius would develop in a direction not at present suspected by my family. Mother thinks I am an embryo prima-donna; Belle knows I am a fine dressmaker; Bob is sure I was born for no other purpose than to make boys’ kites, and Roland must acknowledge he never would have won the soap-poem prize if I hadn’t furnished at least one missing rhyme. But—”

“Bonny, do keep still! If I were as fond of talking as you, I’d—”

“Talk! Hark! There goes the door-bell. I hope nobody has come to call, for—” The chatterbox did not wait to express her inhospitable reasons, but darted down the narrow passage to answer the summons, and was back almost directly, bearing in her arms the basket of chrysanthemums which Mr. Brook’s messenger had just brought.

“Beatrice!”

“For mercy’s sake!”

“What in the world!”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the delighted girl, dancing about so that nobody could get more than a glance at her burden of lovely blossoms, until she finally dropped in a little heap at her mother’s feet and placed the basket on the drawing she had laid upon her mother’s knee. “Such a handy table your lap makes, Motherkin!” she often remarked; but the truth was that everything must be shared with this sympathizing woman or it lost in value.

“Isn’t it lovely, lovely?”

“Lovely, indeed! But it cannot possibly be meant for you, dear. Where did it come from? How did you get it?”

“Of course it is meant for me. It came from the store I visited in company with my old gentleman. And I took it out of a messenger boy’s hand. Oh! the beauties! the darlings! Now, Miss Isabelle Beckwith, don’t you wish you had not been so impatient? Maybe his royal highness—he must be that, at least, or he couldn’t afford such a gift—would have sent you one wee blossom all for yourself.”

“But I do not understand. I do not know that it is right for you to keep it, dear,” remarked Mrs. Beckwith, between the rapid exclamations which fell from the lips of all three young people.

“Now, Motherkin! Of course it’s right! It’s the very prettiest compliment I ever had in all my life. Don’t go for to spoil it with your proper notions, that’s a good Mother! But—see here! Here’s a billet-doux! or I’m a sinner!”

If Mr. Philipse Chidly Brook could have witnessed the delight with which his offering was received, and could have heard the running comments bestowed upon it, he would have been repaid a thousand times. For when his courtly little note, with its old-fashioned writing, was read aloud, even the careful mother had no further reproof for her adventure-loving Beatrice, not all whose chivalrous escapades ended as comfortably as this.

Fair, Kind, and Most Respected Miss,—Allow me to present you with this slight token of my gratitude; which I hope to express more fully when I call, this evening, to make my regards to your Mother and her family.

I have the honor to subscribe myself

Your Obedient Servant,
Philipse Chidly Brook.

Of New Windsor, N. Y., November Twenty-third, Eighteen hundred and eighty-one.

To Miss Beatrice Beckwith.

“My obedient servant! My blessed old Prince of Givers! That’s what he should have signed. Seventy-five cents each, Motherkin mine! All lavished on your troublesome girl!”

Mrs. Beckwith did not immediately reply. She took the note from Bonny’s hand and gazed at it musingly, as if trying to clear some confusion of memory. “I have heard that name before—somewhere—besides in history. Let me think!”

“I hope you will hear it again—‘somewhere’! Here comes my ‘Humpty-Dumpty’! I was wishing he could enjoy this.”

“Hello! Bon! What the dickens is that?”

“Hello! Bob! It’s chrysanthemums, not dickens!”

“Whose is it?”

“Mine!”

“Stuff! That can’t be yours! Where did you get it?”

“It can be mine, it shall be mine, it is mine. It is a reward of merit, the first instalment of many I hope to receive.”

“Tell a feller!” pleaded the eight-year-old boy, who was very like Beatrice, only that his hair was a little rougher, his dark eyes even brighter, his general appearance a trifle more dilapidated.

“I have told a ‘feller,’ and if a ‘feller’ can’t believe I am not to blame.”

“Don’t bother! Tell the hull concern!”

Beatrice slipped her arm around the little chap as affectionately as if his costume were not plentifully bedaubed with street mud, and kissed his retroussé nose squarely on its tip; after which she gave him a history of the afternoon’s incident, told as only Bonny would have told it.

“Jimminy-cracky! He must be richer’n thunder!”

“Robert! Where do you learn such talk? Why will you use such words?”

“Dunno, Mother. They seem to grow somehow. Say, Bon! That basket is worth a heap of money!”

“My brother, you should not look a gift horse in the mouth!”

“You’re doing it yourself, aren’t you? I saw you counting all the time you were talking. So was I. But some of ’em seemed to get away. I bet they is more’n forty. S’pose they cost much as five cents apiece?”

“Five cents! Seventy-five is the price of that particular shade everywhere. Think of it! Do it,—a nice little sum for a nice little boy for a nice little girl who pulled a nice little man out of a nice little crowd on a nice little corner of a nice—”

“Bonny, Bonny! Don’t be silly! But, indeed, I don’t wonder! The sight of so much beauty has raised my own spirits till I feel able to fight the world afresh—for you, my children! But Bonny is right; don’t, don’t ‘count the teeth’ of this lovely ‘gift horse,’ dears. Put the basket on that white cloth I just finished embroidering, right in the centre of the table. Then let us gather about it and study it. We will all work the better for the lesson.”

“Motherkin! you are the dearest, wisest body in the world. Here’s your chair—right up front. And say! let’s every one tell what she or he sees in the flowers. I suppose that present represents something different to each; don’t you?”

“I suppose with all your practical sense you are still a fanciful child!” responded Mrs. Beckwith, smiling fondly upon the active Beatrice, who was, indeed, her mother’s “right hand” of dependence in their every-day life.

“Well, if I am, I think it is a case of heredity—like I was reading about in last night’s paper. When you were left to make faces at fortune, with four troublesome youngsters pulling at your skirts, you might have dropped your mouth-corners and put on a doleful expression—but you did not. You just rolled up your sleeves and put on your thimble and shut your eyes to the old dame’s frowns and went to work. I remember, Motherkin, once when ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ was in the cradle, and I was rocking him to sleep, you sang so loud and so long that I told you I wouldn’t rock him any more if you didn’t keep still; and you turned on me with such a look! Your eyes were full of tears and your lips were trembling; but yet you were smiling as brave as could be. ‘I dare not stop, darling!’ you said; ‘if I did I should cry!’ I tell you, Motherkin, I never forgot that, and I never will! But what do you see in the ‘posy,’ dear Mother?”

“I see an old-fashioned garden, with an old-fashioned dame walking in it. An old-fashioned gentleman is bending before her, and presenting her with chrysanthemums—of just this shade. It is early winter—or late, late fall. There is hoar-frost on the dead leaves in the path, hoar-frost upon the hair of these two people, and a touch of winter’s cold has nipped their thin cheeks. Yet they smile and are lovingly courteous still. They know that the chrysanthemums will fade; that the hoar-frost will change to ice on which they must slip downwards over the dead-leaf path—out of sight. But they will be brave and beautiful to the end; and their memory will be like the strange and spicy fragrance of their chosen flowers.”

“Oh, how pretty, Mother! Call the picture ‘Artemisias.’ That is the old-time name for ‘Mums.’ And I hope when it is done some rich, rich person who has leisure to study the meaning of beautiful things will buy your drapery and hang it on a wall alone, close to a cheery wood fire; and that he will sit down before it many times and learn all that you have put into it.”

“Belle, next! What says the basket to you, Miss Beauty?”

“I see a big, big ball-room. It is filled with handsome women and gentlemanly men. They are all, like Bonny’s ‘rich one,’ at leisure and at rest. They say courteous things to one another, and they feel them. The women have never known what it means to wear patched shoes and soiled gloves. They have travelled everywhere. They know everything that happy mortals need to know. They have never heard that there was poverty in the world which they could not relieve, nor suffering they could not soothe. They have never had their tempers spoiled and their faces lined by want of any sort. I am there in the midst of them, as care-free, as beautiful, as soft-spoken as any of them. As happy, too. I wear a lovely gown of just that chrysanthemum shade, but no jewels. I have the blossoms in my hair, on my corsage, in my hands. I love them. I am wholly, wholly content. I have nothing left to wish for.”

“Happy mortal! Come, ‘Laureate’! But cut it short. Because, you know, my poet, you are inclined to be a little long-drawn-out sometimes.”

“Hush! impious spirit! Fright not the muse away!” retorted Roland, in a very unpoetic tone. “I am in Japan. There are lovely fountains, perfect gardens, beautiful maidens—and lots of time! I don’t get up in the morning till I choose. I write soap or even stove-polish poems, unrebuked by my irreverent sister. I have plenty of money to buy my mother gowns covered with embroidery which she doesn’t have to do herself, and to fill the cupboard with food which she doesn’t have to cook. There are wonderful kites which Bonny does not make, but which ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ does fly, from the top of a funny little house as tall as a table, into a blue sky which rests on the top of his head—”

“Enough! Now, Bob?”

“Oh! I dunno. No school, fer one thing. No grammar talk when I get home. Plenty of fire-crackers an’ pistols an’ guns an’ turkey an’ everything I want! Say, Bonny Beckwith! Ain’t we never a going to have any supper?”

“At once, small sir. It is a matter of economy to feed you immediately you feel the need of being fed. The longer the delay the greater the cavity. Now, dreamers, all move back, please. Your humble servant has the floor, and must have the table, seeing that it is the only one the house of Beckwith possesses.”

With a smile they all pushed back; but the gentle widow laid her hand caressingly upon Beatrice’s shoulder with the question: “Had the chrysanthemums no visions for your eyes, sweetheart?”

“Heaps of ’em, Motherkin! But some other time.”

“No fair, no fair, Bon! What do you want?”

“A home in the country!”

“Whew! I reckon I’ll get my Japanese tour first!” said Roland, as he placed the basket of flowers upon the top of the sewing-machine amid a pile of unmended stockings. “Gracious! How much depends upon surroundings! That isn’t half as suggestive up there!”

“Hark! What’s that row in the street? Hear that awful thumping!” cried Bob, seizing his hat and bounding down the stairs, two steps at a time.

Bonny also hurried to the window, but turned from it in instant dismay.

“For the goodness’ sake! It’s my old gentleman, and a policeman has him by the collar!” And before anybody could interpose she had followed her small brother.

CHAPTER III.
A CHRYSANTHEMUM DINNER.

A SECOND time in one day was Bonny Beckwith destined to come to the rescue of the unfortunate Mr. Brook; for she laid her hand appealingly upon the policeman’s sleeve and cried: “Oh, sir! What are you doing? This gentleman is all right!”

The bright-faced girl was no stranger to the officer, who probably knew all the residents of his “beat,” and he asked, in surprise: “Why, do you know him, Miss?”

“Certainly. He is a friend of ours.”

“Then you’d better give him some lessons in conducting himself on the street; that’s all.” With this the roundsman loosened his hold of his victim, and flourished his hand to disperse the crowd of urchins and sight-seers who had gathered on the spot.

“What did he do?”

“Thumped on the door of —— as if he were trying to break it in. Why didn’t he ring if he wanted to, instead of creating a disturbance?”

“Were you looking for us, Mr. Brook?”

“Of course I was. And I should like to know how in the world you get into these houses. There is no bell, and the door-knob won’t turn, and I’d stood here as long as I dared with the wind blowing forty miles an hour. I sent cabby off to walk his horses up and down, and he’s disappeared entirely. I left my man at the hotel, in bed with the rheumatism; and—if there’s any way of getting into this prison and if you really live here, I should like to be admitted.”

“Certainly. Beg pardon for keeping you so long. See—this is the way. Touch one of those little knobs, the one opposite the card with ‘Beckwith’ on it and the door will open almost immediately. Electric bells, you know.”

“Unluckily, I didn’t know! I hate these new-fangled ‘conveniences’ that are ten times as much trouble as old-fashioned things. I’m not quite a fool, my dear, though I may have been presented to you in that light on both occasions of our meeting. I simply did not know how to get in; but I concluded that if I made noise enough somebody would hear and answer,” said Mr. Brook, smiling merrily, now that the door had opened noiselessly, as if by spirit hands, and a hallway with orthodox stairs was revealed.

“And somebody did!” returned Bonny, quite as gayly; while Robert, who had slipped up and thrown his arm about his sister’s waist, laughed outright.

“Humph! Who are you, sir? You were one of the boys who jeered the loudest, if I’m not mistaken,” said the visitor, turning with a savage frown toward the lad.

“I’m her brother.”

“Yes. My brother Robert. He isn’t as bad as he looks, Mr. Brook. Perhaps you would better wait a moment and get your breath. It is pretty high up—on the fifth floor.”

“Good gracious! Is this one of those ‘flat’ houses I hear about?”

“Yes.”

“Some of the finest old houses in the city stood here a quarter of a century ago. It is a shame, a perfect shame.”

“Yes, I suppose so. There are some beautiful residences still left in the neighborhood, and we often look at them and try to imagine the lives that used to be lived in them. But a fifth-story flat is all we can afford, so you must prepare yourself for a plain little place.”

They had ascended as far as the fourth floor, and Mr. Brook had paused on each landing to regain his wind; but Bob, at a nod from Beatrice, had sped upwards to announce the coming of the guest.

“Ah! plainness does not disturb me, my dear; and you are a little gentlewoman, no matter where you live. I hope I have not chosen an inopportune hour for my call.”

“You have given us all a great, great pleasure by your beautiful gift which came this afternoon; and we are glad to have you come and receive our thanks, whenever it suits you best.” Bonny did not add, as she might, that if he had deferred the call for one hour longer their simple dinner might have been gotten out of the way, and the home made ready for his reception.

The first thing that greeted the old gentleman’s eyes as he entered the room, which was dining-room and parlor in one for the Beckwiths, was his own basket of chrysanthemums replaced upon the snowy cloth in the centre of the table, with the soft glow of a shaded lamp falling upon it. If Mrs. Beckwith had arranged this with a view to blinding stranger eyes to the bareness of the room otherwise, her ruse succeeded, for Mr. Brook gazed upon the flowers and for a space saw nothing more.

“My mother, Mr. Brook,” said Bonny, bringing forward the one really strong chair which the room afforded.

“Your humble servant, madam. I consider myself honored in making your acquaintance. You are the mother of a most charming daughter. Daughters, I should say;” for at that instant Isabelle moved gracefully forward, with a friendliness meant to drive any awkward memories from the guest’s mind, and extended her slim hand in greeting.

At which “Humpty-Dumpty,” from a point behind Mr. Brook’s back, contorted his freckled face and rolled his black eyes so horribly that Bonny was forced to smile.

“We have much to thank you for, and must consider that a fortunate accident which resulted in our receiving so delightful a gift,” answered the hostess, placing herself near her visitor, “unless your fall of this afternoon resulted in some injury to yourself. I hope it did not.”

“No, oh! no. That is, nothing to mention. A few bruises and scratches, and a bit of stiffness. But I thank you. I should not have been alone, only Dolloway, my man, has the rheumatism and I couldn’t think of taking him out in the cold. He stayed at the hotel. If he had been with me he would have prevented my making an exhibition of myself. However, ‘all’s well that ends well;’ and I have been congratulating myself ever since that I may have been thus led to trace an old friend. Did you ever hear of one Conrad Honeychurch Beckwith?”

A responsive smile illumined the widow’s pale face, and the last misgiving she had about thus receiving a stranger into her home vanished. “There could be but one Conrad Honeychurch Beckwith, I think. Such was the name of my husband’s father.”

“I thought so! I thought so! Your husband is—was—”

“Charles Honeychurch Beckwith. The only son of Conrad who grew to manhood.”

“Madam, your hand again! We are old, old friends! Or we should be. Conrad was the chum of my youth, the Damon to my Pythias. We even went ‘Forty-Nining’ together; but he soon left California and returned to his dying wife in New York. I stayed—awhile. He wrote me a few times, then ceased to even answer my letters, which after a while I ceased to write. From that day to this I have never heard of him. I have hunted Beckwiths without number, till people have thought me Beckwith mad; but my Conrad was never among them, and I had given him up. How strange, how strange, and also how fortunate, that I stood gaping at the sights till I was knocked down and Conrad’s grandchild was sent to pick me up! Come here, my dear! Come here and let me look at you!”

Mr. Brook’s excitement communicated itself to all the household, always alert to anything which varied the monotony of their pinched lives. Roland came forward and gazed wonderingly upon the man who, fast slipping out of life, yet remembered so faithfully the friend of his youth. Belle felt the elation of a real romance; Bonny was dancing with delight; and Robert, the “terrible,” was eagerly speculating whether this was the sort of an old gentleman one read of in story-books, duly appreciative of small attentions and liberal as to tips.

But the mother understood best the desire of the old man’s heart to learn all there was to tell, and set herself to gratify it. “My dears, suppose you go on with the dinner-getting. I am sure Mr. Brook will pardon our necessity, and I hope will share our meal. You see, we are rather cramped for room; so, while table is being made ready, those of us not engaged in the task generally retreat to this corner and call it the ‘withdrawing room.’ But maybe you know the inconveniences of a small city flat?”

“No, indeed. Thank the Lord, I live in the country. Even in my best days I would get out of town nearly every night to sleep at home; though I was a beau here, when I first came back from the coast with my pockets full of nuggets. I used purposely to have my name in the papers as often as might be, hoping that thus, if I could not find Conrad, he would find me. But it was of no use. Five-and-twenty years ago I left the town for good. I never meant to come back. But of late a terrible uneasiness has possessed me, and I finally yielded to it. I understand what it meant now.”

They had moved to the corner which Mrs. Beckwith had designated, and though the guest appeared to notice nothing of what the young folks were doing, he was, nevertheless, very watchful; and while his hostess related all the simple history of two discouraged men, her husband and his father, yielding to a fate which seemed too hard for them and dying, each in his prime,—ay, even before what most would call the prime,—the wise old visitor read between her periods the tale of her own bravery, and wondered how best he could second her efforts.

“And that is all. I am sorry we have not better entertainment to offer, but such as we have I see is ready.”

The widow rose as she spoke, and it was not many paces Mr. Brook need follow her before he reached the table.

With a commendable view to eking out a short supply, Bonny had placed the basket of flowers again upon the board, though she had had to substitute a coarse tablecloth for the daintily embroidered fabric which was intended for a richer household; and, at the first glance, the guest almost believed that the posies were to be their only repast.

However, this was not the case. There were roasted potatoes, bread, butter, and a fragrant cup of tea; the last a luxury, and the one addition which had been made to the regular fare. Now tea was an abomination to the palate of Philipse Chidly Brook, and potatoes he never ate, when he could help himself; but this being an occasion when he evidently could not, he put a brave face on the matter, and accepted them as if they were the rarest of delicacies. Suddenly he looked up from his plate, and beheld the dark eyes of Robert fixed upon him with critical attention.

“Well, my lad! Out with it! A penny for your thoughts.”

For once the graceless boy was scared. The prospect of possible tips depended upon his present behavior, and he choked back the remark that had almost escaped his lips. “I—I haven’t any. I—I mean—I dassent tell ’em.”

“Not for the penny?”

“No, sir, not fer a nickel.”

“You needn’t. I can guess them. In any case I never go above the traditional price of thoughts.”

“I bet—you can’t guess ’em!”

“How much will you bet?”

“Robert!” remonstrated Mrs. Beckwith, while Belle began “talking eyes” at her most rapid rate, certain that the boy was about to disgrace them all.

“I’ll bet all I’ve got. Two cents ag’in two of yourn, if you say so.”

“Mr. Brook, our little brother attends the primary department of a highly esteemed parish school. Hence the elegant language which you must have observed,” remarked Bonny, hoping to divert attention from the subject of “thoughts” to education.

“He is well enough. For a boy. He looks like you.”

“Motherkin says I behave like her, too,” asserted Bob, triumphantly; and Beatrice felt her effort worse than wasted.

“H’m-m. You were wondering how old I am. Wasn’t it so?”

“Ginger! How did you know?”

“I was a boy once.”

“What did you use to do? Did you play marbles? Er fight?”

“I played marbles and I flew kites. When I could get any money to buy them with, or coax my mother to make them. And I used to drive the cows when I visited my uncle, on his farm, not far from here. It may be that I have trotted barefooted over the very spot on which this house now stands. Seventy years ago, that was; seventy years ago! Then I was a child like you.”

“My gracious! An’ you’re alive yet!”

“Not only that—I am happy yet! Doubly happy now that I have found somebody who may become like a little grandson to me; for I have none of my own.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Probably because I never had a wife. I would like to ‘adopt’ my Conrad’s grandson, in a way, if he will let me.”

“Who’s him?”

“Yourself.”

“Pooh! You wouldn’t want me, I guess. An’ I know ’bout ’doptingness. They was a woman in this house, she ’dopted a baby, an’ it squalled. Nen she got tired of it. Nen she wanted to give it back an’ the folks wouldn’t take it. Nen she put it in the Norphan ’Sylum. An’ it’s there yet. I’m too big, anyway. I’m going on nine. Ain’t I, Mother? When will I be as old as nine?”

“Next Fourth of July, dear. You certainly are too old for adoption, as you mean it. But if Mr. Brook hasn’t any odd, small people to make him both glad and sorry, all in a minute, you might supply the deficiency.”

“H’m-m. I guess I’d better not. I ain’t very good. I don’t have time to be.”

“Indeed? What keeps you busy?” asked the amused old gentleman.

“Folks. An’ fun. Bonny ’most wears me out, some days. She sends me to do things. I sell papers; an’ I hold horses, when I can get ’em to hold. Some men say I ain’t big ’nough, an’ I think that’s mean. I’m as big as I can be, ain’t I?”

“Quite!” answered the unwise Beatrice, who did her daily best to spoil the child by alternate teasings and pettings.

“Nen I get mad. Nen Motherkin’s heart acts up. An’ they is a gen’ral miscomfort in the house, so I go outdoors. I learn bad words outdoors, an’ I come home an’ say ’em, an’ get ’proved. But we get along. Hello, Motherkin! What’s the matter? Ginger! There she goes ag’in! It’s one of her sick times, I s’pose! Oh! Mother! You’re dead—you’re dead!”

Unobserved by all but her small son, Mrs. Beckwith had fallen gently forward till her colorless face rested upon the basket of chrysanthemums, and the guest thought the boy had spoken the sorrowful truth.

CHAPTER IV.
A GENEROUS CONSPIRACY.

“DON’T, Robert! Remember, it is best to be quiet!” said Isabelle, with an admirable self-control which not only gave Mr. Brook a new idea of her character, but the knowledge that this could not be the first time such a trouble had befallen the household.

And, a moment later, Beatrice had taken time to whisper in the little fellow’s ear: “It is no worse than usual, darling. Mother is reviving.”

Then the child heard a trembling question, eager and low: “Has she ever been like this before? Is it my visit that has caused it?” and looking up through his fingers he saw the disturbed face of their guest bent close above him.

“Yes. No. ’Tain’t your visit. She’s this way often. But she always looks like dead, an’ the doctor-man says she will die if she don’t stop sewin’ an’ live outdoors. But she can’t let the sewin’ go, ’cause we have to eat an’ wear clothes. We don’t eat any more’n we can help, but we’re always hungry. We try not to be, but we are. So she has to ’broider the things an’ sell ’em, you see.”

The two were quite alone then in the little parlor, for Roland had, at the first instant, lifted his mother in his arms and carried her into the small bedroom which was her own, and had stationed himself beside her to chafe her face and hands and administer the medicine which Isabelle had promptly prepared. They were evidently accustomed to such emergencies; but Bonny had disappeared in pursuit of a doctor, though she knew this action to be against her mother’s wish, expressed in view of such an event as this.

“But how can I help it!” argued the girl, dashing down the long flights of stairs two steps at a time. “How can I see her suffer so and not try to get somebody who knows more than we do to relieve her! Even though it will take her many hours of hard labor to pay for the physician’s visit.”

Meanwhile Robert led Mr. Brook into the corner, dignified by the name of “withdrawing room,” and the old gentleman laid his hand affectionately upon the boy’s shoulder. “My dear, I would like to help you all, if I can. I do not wish to ask you anything which your mother would not be willing you should answer; but anything that you can tell me about your affairs, anything which your conscience does not warn you had best be kept to yourself, I wish you would tell me. Remember I was the friend of your grandfather, and try to feel as if you were talking to him.”

This speech was better suited to the ears of the elder son than to those of “Humpty-Dumpty,” and in the first case would have been answered judiciously; but judgment and reticence were qualities unknown to this small boy, and he now made as clean a breast of family matters as he was capable of doing. If there was anything he did not tell, it was something he had forgotten.

Mr. Brook listened with sympathy and some compunction; and as soon as the physician whom Beatrice had summoned pronounced Mrs. Beckwith “out of danger for the present,” took his leave, hunted up the long-suffering cab-driver who had brought him thither, and returned to his hotel.

There he burst rather excitedly into his own apartments, with the exclamation “I’ve found them, Dolloway! The Beckwiths, at last!”

“You don’t say so!” returned the other old fellow, who had left his bed for a cushioned chair close to a grate fire, and who had the name of being Mr. Brook’s servant, but was, at times, his master—through rheumatism, which mastered both.

“But I have. That must be what my anxiety to see the horse-show meant. Else why, after all these years, should I have been suddenly rendered too uneasy to abide at home, and must needs not only put myself out but you as well? How goes it, Dolloway?”

“Bad, sir; about as bad as it can be. But a body must expect that who goes a trapesing off after will-o’-wisps, at our time of life, leaving good, respectable feather beds to sleep on boards in a barn of a place like this.”

“Not boards, Dolloway. The best mattresses the city affords, the manager assures me; and comfortable enough to those who like them. Yes, yes, yes. In some ways it is a pity. Yet—it is the most fortunate thing. Had any supper, Dolloway?”

“Don’t want any, sir. Thank you.”

“Pooh! I do. They had what they called supper, I suppose, poor things! And I’m ashamed to mention it; only I feel hungrier than if I hadn’t eaten anything; so, since you have not, take a cup of coffee with me, man, and lay aside formality for once. What will we have besides the coffee, Dolloway?”

“I couldn’t eat a bite, sir.”

“But you’d not refuse to please your old master, would you, lad? When we have taken all this trouble we want to make our holiday seem a bit like old times. Eh? In the old days, Dolloway, you could out-eat and out-drink me. Yes, yes, you could, indeed! What shall it be?”

“Well, if I must I must, and I’m obliged to you, sir, though I only do it to please you. I heard one of the waiters saying there was a lot of nice venison come in from the West, sir. If it were not spoiled in the cooking a venison steak—done to a turn, sir, done to a turn, as you like it yourself, Mr. Brook—might relish a little. Eh?”

“The very thing, lad, the very thing! I will ring and order it immediately.” Without waiting to be served by his servant, who remained composedly in his arm-chair, Mr. Brook pulled the rope, which he preferred to any modern “button” for bell-ringing purposes, and gave an order for a meal that would have made the Beckwith family’s eyes open in astonishment.

“A fine thing to have such an appetite as ours, Dolloway, at our age! A very fine thing, indeed. Eighty I shall be on my next birthday, and you but two years younger. And I warrant me there are no two other old chaps in this town who will sit down to this kind of a dinner with the relish we will. Eh? That’s the best of using gifts and not abusing them. And my waist measures no more than it did in my youth, lad; which shows I have not been a gourmand, though the truth is I like good living. I like good living immensely. I would like to tell you what a pretty family of five had prepared. Potatoes! nothing but potatoes, except, of course, the inevitable bread and butter and the detestable tea. I don’t wonder the woman had heart-failure, poor thing! And the air of that ‘flat’—it was enough to stifle a body. After our air at home, man.”

“Humph! Then I suppose I am not to know anything about Mr. Conrad’s folks, save what you choose to tell me in driblets, sir,” remarked Dolloway, in the injured tone of one suffering ungratified curiosity.

“You shall know all that I do myself, old fellow; but let us take it over our dinner. I want your advice, too. I am sorry to say that Conrad left his people poorly off.”

“Mr. Beckwith is dead, then, sir?”

“Dead this forty years, lad. Dead for forty years—that boy!” And Mr. Brook sank into a chair opposite his companion, and at the same time into a reverie so deep that even the highly privileged Dolloway dared not interrupt the current of his master’s thought.

Small Robert was in bed and should have been asleep; but Beatrice, listening, heard a forlorn little yawn and knew that the excitement of the evening or the tea-and-chrysanthemum dinner had been too much for his nerves. This suited her exactly; and watching her chance she stole into the room, or bed closet, known as “the boys’,” and perched herself on the pillow where Roland’s head would repose somewhat later.

“Hello, Bob! Asleep?”

“You know I ain’t. What’s up?”

“I am. I’ve something to say to you.”

“I hain’t done nothin’. What have I done?”

“Nothing but goodness, small sir. Bonny doesn’t scold, does she?”

“Sometimes,” answered the truthful child.

“Well, she isn’t going to now. She wants your assistance.”

“I’m goin’ ter sleep.”

“Pooh! I don’t want you to do anything to-night. I want to consult with you. Bob, are you awake?”

“If it ain’t nothin’ ter bother a feller at night, I be.”

“Sit up in bed. Here, put my jacket around you. I’ve a scheme—a splendid scheme!”

“Don’t like your schemes. Last one didn’t turn out worth a snap.”

“This one will. I see how you and I can make some money. Sit up.”

“I am sitting up. How can we make it?” asked the cash-greedy child, interested at last.

“You know those chrysanthemums?”

“Yep.”

“Well; here, let me whisper. We—can—sell—them! And make a lot of dollars—maybe. Make something, anyway. Enough to pay for the doctor’s visit.”

“Beatrice Beckwith! They was give to you!”

“Don’t speak so loud. Mother is asleep, Roland is writing, Belle studying. Only you and I are to know about this. Yes, I know they were given to me. To me, understand. That is why I dare do this thing. And don’t reproach me for parting with them. It breaks my heart to do it; only it don’t break it into such little bits as it gets broken into every time I think of Motherkin and how hard she works. To come to the point. I want you to get up with me early to-morrow and go on the street and try to sell the flowers. Will you?”

“Gracious! Would you—you yourself?”

“I would—I myself. I would do anything rather than be so idle. The flowers are mine. We have all enjoyed them. They did us good that way; now I want to make them do us good some other way.”

“Humph! How much will you give me fer my share?”

“Mercenary little wretch! not a cent! I want every single cent for Motherkin. You wouldn’t take anything away from Motherkin, would you, Bob?”

“Not that way. I wouldn’t no quicker’n you would. But if I had a little ‘capital’ I could sell papers like the other kids do on Fourteenth Street an’ round.”

“Robert, you are not a ‘kid.’ You are a well-born boy. I thought you did sell papers, anyway, almost every day.”

“Fer the other fellers, that’s all. I don’t make my livin’. If I had enough I could make a pile.”

“Well, we’ll see. But those chrysanthemums. Think of the value. Forty times seventy-five cents! Forty times porterhouse steaks all round the family. About one hundred and twenty tip-top oyster stews. Potatoes, galore. Bread—bread enough to pave the street from here to Union Square. And six weeks’ rent. Think of it, ‘Humpty-Dumpty,’ and cease to wonder that I can hardly wait till daylight to set about the business. Will you help me?”

“Yep, if Mother’ll let me.”

“You blessed little stupid! Mother is not to know a word about it, till it is past forbidding. Else she has such peculiar ideas about politeness that she might stop us. If you do as I want, as well as you can, I’ll give you all you can make out of the best flower in the lot.”