A LOYAL LITTLE RED-COAT

In the introductory chapter of “The History of the People of the United States,” Mr. McMaster announces as his subject, “The history of the people from the close of the war for Independence down to the opening of the war between the States.” It seems at first thought improbable that a history excluding both the Revolution and the Civil War should prove in any great degree interesting, but the first twelve pages suffice to convince one to the contrary. With consummate skill in selection and narration, Mr. McMaster has brought to light information of a singularly novel character. Impressed with this unlooked-for quality, it occurred to me that here was ground that had not been previously gone over—not, at any rate, in a story for children. “A Loyal Little Red-Coat” has been the outcome. Whether I have succeeded in transferring to these pages aught of the peculiar interest of the history remains to be seen. This much may be said, however, that every historical allusion is based upon actual fact. The English Circus, the Captain's letter, Harry's Prison-Ship experiences, Alexander Hamilton's successful defence of a Tory client, the treatment of the Bonifaces at the ball—all find their counterpart in the realities of a century ago. For much of the minor historical detail I am indebted to those rare and quaint old volumes, carefully treasured by our historical societies, which make possible the faithful recounting of the story of bygone days. In my attempt to reproduce the child-life of a time so far removed, I have probably been guilty of some anachronisms. If, however, I have woven a page of history into a story that, by any chance, shall interest the children, for whom it has been a delight to me to write it, I shall be sincerely grateful.

Ruth Ogden.

Brooklyn, N. Y.

A LOYAL LITTLE RED-COAT

CHAPTER I.—ON THE ALBANY COACH

AZEL BONIFACE was a Loyalist, which means that she was a hearty little champion of King George the Third of England, and this notwithstanding she lived in America, and was born there. It had happened to be on a crisp October morning of the year 1773 that Hazel's gray eyes first saw the light, and they no sooner saw the light than they saw a wonderful red coat, and just as soon as she was able to understand it, she learned that that red coat belonged to her papa, and that her papa belonged to King George's army. So, after all, you see it was but natural that she should have been a little Loyalist from the start, and quite to have been expected that she should, grow more and more staunch with every year.

Now it chanced one midwinter afternoon, when Hazel was about six years old, that she came into the city—that is, into New York—on an errand with her father, and that she stood for a while watching a merry party of boys, who were having the jolliest sort of a time coasting down Powder House Hill, and skating on the clear, crystal ice of the Collect. The Collect and Powder House Hill! You never heard of them, did you, and yet may have lived in New York all your life; but you may believe the little New Yorkers of those days knew them and loved them.

The Collect (though where it got its name no one knows) was a beautiful sheet of water connected with the North River by a creek crossing Broadway, where we now have Canal street, and the hill where the Powder House stood was one of the pretty heights that bordered it. Wouldn't some of the little people who live in that crowded part of the city to-day be surprised to know, that only a hundred years ago ponds and hills took the place of the level city streets, and that a boy could start way over east of Broadway, skate under the arch at Canal street, and then strike out across the broad Lispenard meadows straight to the North River? But those boys of the olden time, who were spending their short afternoon holiday there on the ice, were exactly like the boys of to-day, in that they were cutting up the very silliest sort of capers. Hazel, however, thought it all very funny, and longing for the time when she should have a pair of skates of her own, wondered if that boy with the pretty name—that boy the other boys called Starlight—would teach her how to use them. And so one time when he came gliding her way she called out, quite to the surprise of her father, whose hand she stood holding, “Will you teach me how to skate when I grow old enough, Starlight?”

“Bless your heart, yes,” came the answer, as soon as the finest little skater that ever buckled skates on the Collect could put the brakes to his winged feet, “but you must tell me your name, so that I shall know you when you grow up.”

“Hazel, Hazel Boniface,” she replied; “and is your name really Starlight? It's a beautiful name.”

“Yes, Starlight's my last name; my other name is Job; that isn't so pretty, is it?”

“I should think not; I shall always call you just Starlight.”

And Hazel had been true to her word, and had always called Job just Starlight, and Job had been true to his promise, and had long ago taught Hazel to skate, for she was ten now and he fourteen, and they had been the best of friends this long while, notwithstanding Job was as zealous a Whig as was Hazel a Loyalist.

And now, for fear you should not happen to know just what is meant by Whig and Loyalist, you must—there is no help for it if you are to understand this story—put up with a solid little bit of history right here and now. You see Hazel was born in 1773, and as she has just scored a tenth birthday, that brings us to 1783, and 1783 found affairs in New York in a decidedly topsy-turvy state. A great war had been going on for eight long years called, as you know, the war of the Revolution, because the colonies in America had revolted, declaring their determination to be independent, and that King George of England should no longer be their king. And all that while, that is, during those eight long years, King George's soldiers had been in possession of New York, and many of the Whigs—and Whigs, remember, are the people who sided against King George—had fled from their dwellings, and scores of Loyalists, pouring into the city to be under the protection of the English soldiers, had made their homes in the Whigs' empty houses. But now matters were beginning to look very differently. The great war was over, the colonies had been successful, and although the English soldiers were still in New York, they were soon to go, every one of them, and the Whigs were returning in great numbers, and trying to turn out the Loyalists, whom they found living in their homes. Most of these Loyalists, however, were very loath to go, some of them, indeed, avowing that go they would not! No wonder, then, that affairs in New York in 1783 were in a decidedly topsy-turvy state; and this brings us to the real commencement of our story, and to Hazel, sitting alone on the porch of her home at Kings Bridge, and with a most woe-begone expression on her usually happy face. Suddenly a new thought seemed to strike her, and she started on a brisk little run for the gate; but it was simply that, hearing the sound of wheels in the distance, she knew that the Albany coach was coming, and the Albany coach was what she was waiting for. That was long before the days of railroads, and when all the travelling must needs be done in that “slow-coach” fashion.

The Albany stage was generally full inside, and, as Hazel expected, this morning was no exception; but that did not make the least difference in the world to her, for what she wanted was a seat beside Joe Ainsworth, the driver. Indeed, it was not an unusual thing for Hazel to ask for a ride into town, nor for Joe to grant it, so that the moment he spied her standing in the road ahead of him, he knew what it meant, and reined up his four dusty white horses.

Hazel looked very sweet and fresh, no doubt, in the eyes of the wearied travellers, who had journeyed all night in the jouncing stage, and, in fact, she would have looked sweet and fresh in the eyes of anybody whose eyes were good for very much. She wore a quaint little gown and kerchief, as yet without rumple or wrinkle, for it was but nine o'clock in the morning, and breakfast and a quiet little “think” on the porch had not proved in the least damaging to either skirt or kerchief. To tell the truth, Hazel had an intense regard for a fresh and dainty toilet, and somehow contrived to scale the side of the coach without in any way begriming her pretty dress, although she was obliged to make use of one great dusty wheel in ascending. First she planted both feet on its hub, and then by aid of Joe's hand fairly bounded to her seat beside him with quite as much grace as a little deer of the forest, and a “little dear” she was in point of fact, if you alter but one letter in the spelling.

“Well, Miss Hazel,” said Joe, after he had started up his horses, “how are you this warm morning?” for it was early September, and the sun was already shining hotly down upon them.

“Oh, I'm very well then,” after a moment's pause, “No, I don't believe I am very well, either, because, Joe, I feel very blue.”

“Blue!” exclaimed Joe; “you blue! Why, you ought not to learn even the meaning of the word these twenty years yet.”

“Some children learn it very young, Joe,” with a real little sigh.

“But what in creation have you to be blue about, I'd like to know? Perhaps you have gotten a spot on that pretty Sunday frock of yours,” for Joe knew Hazel's little weakness in that direction.

“Joe!” said Hazel, indignantly, and with such a world of reproof in her tone that Joe had to pretend to cough to keep from laughing. “If you think a moment, Joe, I'm sure you will remember that I have reason to feel very, very blue indeed.”

Hazel was so serious that Joe felt in duty bound to put his thinking-cap on, and ransacked his brain for the possible occasion of her depression. Hazel, with childish dignity, did not offer to help him in the matter, and they drove for a few moments in a silence broken only by the creak of the weather-beaten stage, and the regular, monotonous rattle of the loose-fitting harness. Down through the dusty yellow leaves of the roadside trees the sunlight filtered, to the dustier hedges below, and there was little or no life in the air. Indeed, it was a morning when one had need to be very much preoccupied not to feel blue, as Hazel called it, and a discriminating person might have deemed the weather in a measure responsible for her down-heartedness. Meanwhile the horses jogged along at the merest little pretence of a trot, and, missing the customary, “Get-up, Jenny!” and “Whist there, Kate!” subsided into a walk, varied more than once by a deliberate standstill, whenever the “off-leader” saw fit to dislodge a persistent fly by the aid of a hind hoof. “Look here, driver!” called one of the passengers at last, “there's a snail on the fence there, that will beat us into town if you don't look out.” The fact was, Joe had not only put his thinking-cap on, but had pulled it so far down over his ears, that he had quite forgotten all about his horses and Hazel, and his thoughts had gone “wool-gathering,” as old people's thoughts have a fashion of going. “Get along with you,” he called to the tired team, thoroughly roused from his reveries, and spurring them into greater activity with his long whip-lash; then, turning to Hazel, he said—“Come to think of it, I should not wonder if you are blue about that little Starlight matter.”

“Little Starlight matter! Do you think it's a little matter, Mr. Ainsworth, to be kept out of your house and have a lot of soldiers living in it?”

“But they are King George's soldiers; that ought to make it all right in your eyes, Miss Hazel.”

“Oh, the men are not to blame; they have to do as the officers tell them; but I hate that old Captain Wadsworth. Sometimes I think I'll write and tell King George what a dreadful man he is, for I don't believe he knows. But, after all, they say it's an American, our own Colonel Hamilton, that's most to blame.”

“Alexander Hamilton! Why, how's that?” exclaimed Joe, knowing well enough, but wishing to hear Hazel grow eloquent on the subject.

“Well, this is how it is, Mr. Ainsworth,” and Hazel folded her hands and composed herself for what promised to be quite a long story. “You know the Starlights. Well, they've lived right on that same piece of land ever since Job's great-great-grandfather, who was an Englishman, married a Dutch wife and came to live in New York. Why, there weren't more than half-a-dozen houses here when they came, and if anybody has a right to their land and their house, they have. They used to be a very big family, the Starlights did, but now there's only Job left and his Aunt Frances. She's the loveliest lady, Joe, and so very fond of Starlight (that's Job), and Starlight is just as good to her as a boy can be. Well, one night, nearly two years ago, a party of English soldiers (some of them were awful bad fellows, Joe, even if they were the King's men) went about the street doing just about as they pleased, and Miss Avery—that is, Aunt Frances—was very much frightened, as well she might be, and the next day she packed up and took the ferry to Paulus Hook, to stay with some friends of hers, who live over there and own a big farm.”

“You mean the Van Vleets, don't you?” questioned Joe, now wisely dividing his attention between Hazel's narrative and his horses, who were only too quick to detect any lack of vigilance on his part.

“Yes, do you know them, Joe?”

“Know 'em like a book, Miss Hazel. Old Jacob Van Vleet has been over the road with me scores of times.”

“Well, they're very kind people, Joe, and Starlight and his aunt are living there still, only now that the war is over they want to come back.”

“And that's not an easy thing to do, is it,” laughed Joe, “when your house is full of English officers and their men?”

“But the soldiers have no right there, Joe, and the worst of it is, Captain Wadsworth says he is going to resign his commission and stay after his men go back to England, and make it his own home. He says it belongs to him. It was given to him, after Miss Avery left it, by what they call a military order. But, military order or no, Joe, that house belongs to Aunt Frances.”

“Of course it would seem so, Miss Hazel—”

“And if it hadn't been for Colonel Alexander Hamilton she'd be in it to-day, Joe. You see she went to law about it, and they say Colonel Hamilton, who took Captain Wadsworth's side, is so smart and so handsome that he just talked the court into deciding against her.”

“It certainly was mighty queer in Lawyer Hamilton,” said Joe, meditatively, “to turn against his own side in that fashion; but, Miss Hazel, why don't you go and see him about it?”

Hazel looked up a moment with a questioning gaze to see if he Were quite in earnest.

“That is just what I am going to do this very day,” she answered, reassured, “and first I want to see Captain Wadsworth. Let me down at the Starlights' gate, please.”

So a few moments later the Albany coach reined up in front of the Starlight homestead, and Hazel, jumping quickly down from the coach with a “Thank you for the ride, Joe,” swung open the old Dutch gate with an air well calculated to make the heart of Captain Wadsworth quake.

CHAPTER II.—HAZEL SPEAKS HER MIND.

ORE than one pair of ears heard the creak of the clumsy Dutch gate as it swung on its hinges for Hazel, for every door and window of Captain Wadsworth's quarters stood wide open to catch all there was of any little cooling breeze which might bestir itself that close September morning. And more than one pair of eyes glancing in the same direction saw Hazel coming up the path and brightened at the sight of her. They knew her well, all those English soldiers, for she had often accompanied her father when he had come among them on business, and while he was busy here and there, had chattered in her frank, fearless way with one and another. Indeed, owing to her loyalist principles and a little red coat which she was in the habit of wearing, she was familiarly known among the rank and file of his Majesty's service as “Little Red-Coat,” and often addressed by that name. But this was her first visit all by herself, and, to tell the truth, Hazel had some misgiving as to its propriety, and as to her own behavior in running off in this fashion, for she had announced her departure to no one. Her sister Josephine, however, had happened to see her taking her seat on the Albany stage, and wondered what she was up to. But “runaway” or no, the eyes that saw Hazel Boniface did nevertheless brighten at the sight of her, from those of Captain Wadsworth's old body-servant, who was brushing the Captain's clothes very vigorously from one of the dormer-windows in the steep sloping roof, to those of the Captain himself, who sat tipped back in a great arm-chair in a corner of the wide piazza.

“Good-morning, Hazel,” said the Captain, rising to meet her. “Have you come on some errand for your papa, or simply to pay us a nice little visit and cheer us up a bit? English soldiers need cheering nowadays, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Hazel, sympathetically; for, true to her Loyalist sentiments, she felt sorry enough that these same English soldiers had not been successful in the war they had been waging; but her mind was intent at present on her own private business.

“I have come just to make you a little visit, Captain Wadsworth,” she continued, “and to talk to you a little, and I don't believe I can cheer you up at all, because I am pretty blue myself.”

The corners of Captain Wadsworth's mouth twitched at the thought of such a fair and youthful little specimen indulging in the blues; but he succeeded in asking gravely, as he led the way indoors, “Why, how ever can that be? Come right into the office here and tell me all about it.”

“This isn't the office at all,” she said, emphatically, as she took her seat on a little Dutch rocker that had been Aunt Frances's sewing-chair. “This is the sitting-room, and it's dreadful, Captain Wadsworth, to see it so dusty.”

Captain Wadsworth looked decidedly puzzled and astonished for a moment, then he added, slowly, “Oh, I see! I suppose you knew the people who used to own this house?”

“Yes, sir, and I know them now; they're the very best friends I have; and, if you please, this house belongs to them still, and they would like to come back just as soon as you can move your men out, and,” noting a few unfamiliar objects in the room, “your furniture and other things.”

It must be confessed that this was rather a bold speech for a little maid to venture quite upon her own authority, but Hazel had made this visit for no other reason than plainly to speak her mind, and speak it she would, though she did have to screw her courage up to the very highest pitch in order to accomplish it.

“Do you mean to say, Miss Hazel, that you think we have no right here?” questioned the Captain..

“Yes, sir,” Hazel answered warmly, feeling, somehow, that Captain Wadsworth was open to conviction. “You see you really have no right here at all, and I thought that as soon as you understood that you would not stay another minute.”

“But the trouble is, I don't understand it; the law says it belongs to me, you know.”

“Then I guess the law does not tell the truth, Captain Wadsworth, because even the law cannot make a thing so that isn't so, can it?”

“Why, no, certainly not, and it isn't supposed to even try to do that sort of thing, I take it.”

“But that's just what it does exactly,” said Hazel, and in her eagerness she deserted the little rocker and came and leaned on the desk near to the Captain. “You know,” she said, confidentially, “I'm just as true to King George as true can be, and I am awful sorry his soldiers have been beaten, and I don't think a country without a King is any good at all. Sometimes I'm almost ashamed that I was born here; but still, some very nice people, like Miss Avery and Starlight, do not think just as I do, and I think their rights ought to be respected.”

These were pretty big words, and the Captain looked as though he thought so; but even a very little woman, when she is very much in earnest, sometimes finds language at her command quite as astonishing to herself as to her hearers. “Rights ought to be respected”—certainly that did sound remarkable. Hazel herself wondered where she had picked up so fine an expression, and one that suited so well.

“Who is Starlight?” asked the Captain, willing to digress a little from the main point.

“The owner of this house,” said Hazel, not willing to digress at all.

“Why, I thought it used to belong to Miss Avery; the property certainly stood in her name.” The Captain was careful to use only the past tense. According to his way of thinking, that Starlight homestead was just as rightfully his as though he had bought and paid for it.

And so Hazel said, “Good-by, Captain,” and the Captain bowed her out of his office as gallantly as though she had been a little princess. Four or five of the men had gathered on the porch outside, thinking to have a chat with her when she should have finished her errand with the Captain, but Hazel, absorbed in her own thoughts, was about to pass them by without so much as a word.

“Look here, Miss Hazel, aren't you going to speak to a fellow?” one of the men called after her. “Yes, of course I am,” Hazel replied, as though that had been her full intention, and, going back, held out her hand to Sergeant Bellows, the man who had called to her, and then, as it seemed to be expected of her, shook hands in a friendly way with the other men, all of whom she knew by name. But it was easy enough for the dullest among them to discover that her greeting lacked all its wonted cheeriness. Indeed, Hazel had not yet learned the need of disguising her real feelings, and always “carried her heart on her sleeve,” as the saying goes, so that you were at perfect liberty to share all its sentiments, whether of joy or sorrow. So it was not strange that for the third time she was questioned as to the reason for her evident depression. “Feeling a little down this morning, eh?” asked Sergeant Bellows.

Hazel nodded her head in assent. “There's nothing an old sergeant could do for you, is there, Miss Hazel?”

“Nor a corporal?” asked one of the other men.

“Nor a high private?” asked another. Hazel took their offers of assistance in perfect good faith, and would not have hesitated to call upon any or all of them, but she really did not see how they could be of any use to her, and shook her head hopelessly.

“No, I think not. The only man who can help me now is Colonel Hamilton, and I don't expect very much of him. What I came down for was to ask Captain Wadsworth if he would not let the people who own this house come back to it; but he does not think they own it at all any more, and I don't see what they are ever going to do. How would you feel, I'd like to know,” she asked, eagerly, “if you were an aunt and a little boy, and had to run away from your home, and, when you wanted to come back, found an English Captain living in it, who said he was going to stay there?” Some of the men looked as though they could not possibly tell how they would feel if they were “an aunt and a little boy,” but they were saved the embarrassment of being obliged to answer such a difficult question by Hazel's abrupt departure? She had suddenly spied a familiar hat lurking behind the shrubbery near the gate, and was off in a flash. “Good-by,” she called back, “some one is waiting for me.” Some one was waiting for her—some one had been waiting for her quite awhile and had grown rather impatient in the waiting.

“I thought you would never come, Hazel,” said the owner of the hat, as soon as she swept down upon him in his retreat behind the bushes.

“Why, I did not see you till a moment ago. How long have you been here, and when did you come?”

“I came over on the earliest ferry this morning. I pulled an oar and worked my way over. You know, Hazel, I do not like to ask Aunt Frances for money now if I can possibly help it.”

“Yes, I know,” she answered, sadly.

“I can't tell you how it makes me feel, Hazel, to look up at the old house there with all those soldiers in it,” said Job, rather savagely, for, of course, the new-comer was none other than Starlight himself. “I'd just like to rush right in and choke every one of 'em.”

“And I'd like to help you,” Hazel replied warmly.

Starlight looked up astonished. It was something new for Hazel to side against the Red-Coats, and he gave a low whistle of surprise.

“Yes, really, I would,” Hazel reiterated. “If King George's men had beaten you Americans, I suppose you wouldn't have expected to get your home back again; but to think that you have beaten, and yet that Captain Wadsworth says he is going to stay in it, and that a great lawyer, and one of your own officers like Colonel Hamilton, says he has a right to—well, I can't understand it.”

“Neither can I,” said Starlight, indignantly; and both children seriously shook their heads from side to side, as there was no gainsaying that great man. By mutual consent the children had turned their backs on the homestead and their faces in the direction of Hazel's home.

To say that, side by side, they strolled up the Bowery, and that now and then Hazel would pause a moment to pick a plumy spray of asters, growing by the wayside, must sound funny enough in the ears of any one who knows what the Bowery is to-day. Can it be possible that that great busy thoroughfare, with its block after block of cheap shops, crowded tenements, dime museums, and who knows what, less than a hundred years ago was a country lane? and where to-day train after train goes whizzing by on its mid-air track, birds sang in apple-tree boughs and children gathered daisies in spring-time and golden rod in autumn? Yes, my dear, it is possible; for who can measure the great transforming power of even a single century, and Father Time has never wrought vaster or more rapid changes than in the self-same hundred years which lie between the childhood of Starlight and Hazel, in 1783, and yours of to-day.

So, true it was that our little friends strolled up Bowery Lane, for that was the pleasantest way home, and true it was that the lane was skirted with orchards and the gardens of old Dutch homesteads, where almost every variety of autumn flower was blooming, in a blaze of color, in the early September weather.

At the prospect of a visit from Starlight, Hazel had at once abandoned all thought of an immediate call upon Lawyer Hamilton. Even that important matter could be postponed for the delight of companionship with this old friend, a companionship sadly interfered with by all the untoward circumstances of the times in which they lived.

“And Colonel Hamilton says,” Starlight resumed, after five or ten minutes, which had been devoted to a plying of eager questions regarding each others general welfare, “that Captain Wadsworth can stay in our house, does he?”

“I don't know exactly what he says; something like that, I guess; but I am going to find out for myself, and ask him the reasons, too. I was going there this morning if you had not come.”

“You are awfully good, Hazel.”

“I'm glad you think so, Starlight, 'cause I know some people who don't,” and Hazel indulged in a little sigh. “I suppose I shall have a scolding when I get home, this very morning, for I sort of ran away. I saw the Albany coach coming, and I had to hurry so in time to stop it, that I did not think to ask Josephine's leave or anybody's.”

“But Josephine saw you go. That's the way I found you. She saw Joe Ainsworth help you on to the coach, and I thought perhaps you'd gone down to the homestead, for that's where you always used to come on the Albany coach, you know.” It was Starlight's turn for a sigh now, and he drew such a heavy one that it seemed fairly to come from the bottom of his boots.

“Say, Starlight,” said Hazel, suddenly, and, no doubt, with a desire to brighten matters up a bit, “an English circus came to town to-day. They open to-morrow. Can you stay over tomorrow?”

“Yes, till the day after. I heard about the circus. I've never been to a circus in my life, and I'd give—why, I'd give anything I own to go, and if that wouldn't do, I half believe I'd almost hook something.” The question of ways and means was ever present nowadays to poor Job with his sadly depleted pocket-book.

“I don't believe you'll need to hook anything, Starlight,” answered Hazel, with an implied rebuke, which was, of course, quite proper, “I have a little money of my own.”

“Of course, I don't mean I really would, Hazel. I should think you'd know that I'm rather above that sort of thing. If you don't, you ought to, by this time. I only meant that I should very much like to go.”

“Then next time you had better be more careful to say just what you mean, Job.” Whenever Hazel had any little reproof to administer she thought it much more impressive to make use of Starlight's solemn little first name.

CHAPTER III.—THE CIRCUS, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

LOWLY out of the great ocean rose the sun the next morning, shooting his long rays over level Long Island, spanning the East River and touching with rosy light the hill on which Captain Boniface had built his comfortable home. What a wonderful tale, provided his memory is good and his eyesight strong, this same old sun could tell, particularly if he had the moon to help him, for, whether shining brightly, or peering through mists of heavy clouds, between them they have seen most of this world's doings. One thing is certain, however change, change, change would be the theme of all their story. Old ocean alone remains always the same; for even the “everlasting hills” may be pierced by boring tunnels and disfigured by the shafts and engines of unsightly mines. And this that is true of the whole world is true of every inhabited corner of it, and doubly true of that particular corner where we find New York mapped out to-day. Row upon row of dwellings—mansion and hut crowding close upon one another; mile after mile of stores, warehouses, and every conceivable sort of structure, and yet only a hundred years, and lo! there was none of it.

Do you chance to know where St. Paul's Church stands on Broadway, on the block bounded by Fulton and Vesey streets? Then let me tell you that no longer ago than 1784 St. Paul's was on the very outskirts of the city. Just above it were two fine dwellings, which now form part of the Astor House, and a little farther on a highway leading to the right bore the weather-beaten sign, “The Road to Boston,” and another turning to the left, “The Road to Albany,” and Hazel's home was a mile or more out on this Albany road. Beyond were only open fields, with here and there a farm-dwelling or country homestead, and an occasional “mead-house” or “tea-garden,” for the refreshment of jaded travellers, or pleasure-seeking parties from the town. Nearly on the site of the present City Hall stood the almshouse, and in close proximity the jail, while sandwiched in between them were the gallows, not exactly affording what might be called a cheery outlook to the poor unfortunates obliged to seek such food and shelter as the almshouse offered. These gallows were enclosed in a building shaped like a Chinese summer-house, and painted in all the colors of the rainbow, as though trying thereby to overcome any mournful associations which the place might otherwise possess. A platform within this remarkable building supported various contrivances for conveniently “dropping malefactors into eternity.” while a row of hooks and halters adorned the ceiling, so that at least half a dozen offenders might be dispatched by the same method at one and the same moment.

Wall Street, in 1783, was a street of residences. Here was the bachelor homestead of Daniel McCormick, upon whose stoop, on a mild and pleasant afternoon, you were likely to find a goodly little company of cronies and toadies, each and all of whom made it a point never to refuse an invitation to remain to dinner and enjoy his excellent pot-luck.

The court end of the town lay in the region extending from Pearl Street around to the Battery, and up to Trinity Church, while the shops and offices were confined to Maiden Lane. On Great Dock Street, now a part of Pearl Street, lived the widow of John Lawrence, who, during his lifetime, was widely known as “Handsome Johnnie.” There, as Dr. Duer puts it, in his “Reminiscences of an Old Yorker,” the genial widow kept open house for her relatives, or rather her relatives kept open house for themselves, and were entertained in the roll of “transient, constant, or perpetual” visitors. All this and far more could the sun of to-day tell of the sights of the last century; but on the morning of which we are writing, he looked down upon nothing of greater interest to the average boy and girl of all time, than when he flashed suddenly upon the preparations going forward for the circus that had lately arrived from across the water, and because of whose arrival there was a flutter in all the child-hearts throughout the length and breadth of the town. Some were fluttering joyously with actual anticipation, and some with grave doubts as to their gaining even a peep at the wonderful show.

As for Hazel Boniface, she was not only up with the sun, but up before it; as for Starlight, he was dressed, and “trying to kill time” a full hour before breakfast, for it had been settled the previous evening that they were to be allowed to attend the performance, and Captain Boniface had slipped the coins necessary for their admission into Starlight's safe keeping. Josephine, Hazel's older sister, was also early astir, stowing away the most inviting of luncheons within the snowy folds of a napkin, which in turn was committed to the keeping of a little wicker hamper.

Joyous and beaming the children set forth, Josephine accompanying them as far as the gate. “I wish I were going with you,” she said, as she held it open.

“I almost wish you were,” Hazel answered. “Almost, but not quite,” laughed Josephine; “for it would spoil the fun a little, now wouldn't it, Hazel, to have a grown-up sister in the party? But you need not worry, dear, the big sister must stay at home to mind the baby sister; it's only the little middle-sized sister who can roam abroad, and go to the circus, and do whatever she likes all day long.”.

The color came into Hazel's cheeks. She knew she did do pretty much as she wished from week's end to week's end, but that was not her fault. If nobody told her to do “things,” it was hardly to be expected she should do them. “Will you go in my place?” she asked, ruefully, of Josephine, who stood leaning on the gate with a merry, teasing look in her gray eyes.

“No, of course I won't, dearie, and you come straight back and give me a kiss, and know that no one wishes you quite such a jolly time as your own sister Josephine.”

And thus speeded on their way, the children's figures grew smaller and smaller in the maple-shaded distance of the roadside path, and with a little sigh Josephine turned back to her duties within-doors. There was a foreboding of coming evil in her heart, and in Hazel's and Starlight's, too, for that matter. Children though they were, they were still old enough to know, that, now that the war had ended in the defeat of the English, those who had sided with them, as Captain Boniface had done, would have to suffer for it; but for to-day every worry was utterly forgotten. Hazel had no thought for the coming interview with Colonel Hamilton—which, it must be confessed, she rather dreaded—nor Starlight for the soldiers in the old homestead.

Right before them lay all the delights of a wonderful English circus, and with the lightest of hearts they set forth upon their happy expedition. Having strolled along in leisurely fashion, the old town clock struck eleven as they pressed in through the clumsy turnstile which barred the circus entrance, and the regular performance was not to commence until one. But two hours were none too much for the inspection of the wonderful sideshows, and wide-eyed they passed from one to the other, instinctively turning quickly away from two or three human monstrosities in a close, unsavory tent, to spend an hour of intense merriment over the antics of a family of monkeys in a cage in the open air. Indeed, they doled out most of their luncheon to the mischievous little youngsters, actually forgetting that there was any likelihood of their ever being hungry themselves and repenting of such liberality.

A great deal of fuss over a circus, you may be thinking, my little friend, having yourself been so many times to see “The Greatest Show on Earth” but if you had lived in the days of Hazel and Starlight, and never seen a circus in your life, nor a show of any kind—either great or small—then, perhaps, you would have been not a little excited too.

Long before it was at all necessary, and after much consultation and numerous experiments at different angles, the children seated themselves at the precise point which they had concluded, on the whole, offered greatest advantages, and then they impatiently watched the uncomfortable benches become gradually filled, and certain significant preparations going forward on the part of the gayly-liveried lackeys.

At last the orchestra of three ill-tuned instruments struck up a preliminary march, the low, red-topped gates of the ring swung open, and the gorgeous company pranced in, dazzling and brilliant indeed, in the eyes of the children. What did it matter if tinsel were tarnished, and satins and velvets travel-stained and bedraggled. They saw it not. It was all glitter and shimmer to them, and, oh, those beautiful, long-tailed horses with their showy trappings! Hazel silently made up her mind on the spot, that she would be a circus-rider herself as soon as she was old enough, if her father would let her. She changed her mind later in the day, however, owing to certain unexpected experiences, and was thankful enough that she had not openly expressed her resolution of a few hours before.

Midway in the performance, as the clown had announced, for they did not have printed programmes in those days, there was to be some lofty tumbling by the Strauss brothers, and at the proper moment in they came leaping and jumping. They were all attired in the regulation long hose, short trousers, and sleeveless jackets of the professional tumbler, but it was easy enough for any child to detect at a glance that it was quite impossible that they should belong to the same family. They were of all ages and sizes, but the youngest performer did not appear to be more than twelve; he was a handsome little fellow, with a fine dark complexion, and from the first both Hazel's and Starlight's attention centred upon him. He proved himself the most agile of all the brothers, eagerly watching for his turn every time, and apparently enjoying the performance almost as keenly as the audience. But it happened after a while, that when he had just accomplished the feat of turning a double somersault from the top of a spring-board, he did not attempt to rejoin the other leapers and tumblers, but crept from the place where he had landed in the sawdust to the edge of the ring, seated himself, with his little slippered feet straight out before him, and leaned comfortably back against its rail. The spot he had chosen was directly underneath where Hazel and Starlight were sitting, and being in the first row they naturally leaned over to investigate matters. He sat there so comfortably, and his older brothers seemed so indifferent to the fact that he had dropped from their number, that the children came to the conclusion that he was simply taking a little permitted rest.

At last Starlight made so bold as to ask, “Say, Straussie, you didn't hurt yourself any way, did you?”

At the sound of Starlight's voice the little fellow looked up surprised. “Yes, I did,” he replied, “I often slip my knee-cap, or something like that when I take that double 'sault.”

“Does it hurt you now,” asked Hazel, with real solicitude.

“Yes, a little. I can't jump any more to-day. The men know what's the matter with me. I'll be all right in a little while.”

“Do you like being in a circus?” continued Starlight, for it was even more interesting to converse with a member of the troupe than to watch the performance of the troupe itself.

“I like the jumping and tumbling; that's all the part I like,” ending with a sigh.

But it was not easy to carry on a conversation at the distance they were from each other, particularly as the tumblers, as if to add to the excitement, kept up an almost ceaseless hallooing and shouting. Now it happened that the ring, with the exception of the gates of entrance, was formed by a short canvas curtain suspended from a circular iron rail. Observing this, a happy thought occurred to Starlight.

“Look here, Straussie,” he said, in a penetrating whisper, “I'd like to talk with you. Couldn't you creep under the curtain there, and I'll drop down between the seats.”

“Yes, I could,” answered the little tumbler, grasping the situation at once, and suiting the action to the word.

“I wish I could drop too,” urged Hazel, longingly.

“No, you stay where you are. It wouldn't do, Hazel; folks might notice,” and Hazel was sensible enough to see the wisdom of the remark. As it was, every one was by far too much absorbed to take account of the fact that a little fellow inside the ring and a little fellow outside of it had disappeared at one and the same moment. And so it happened that all unsuspected a very important conversation was carried on, and a remarkable scheme planned under the crowded benches of that day's performance. Meanwhile Hazel “sat on pins and needles.” Even “the most educated elephant in the world” failed to rouse much interest in a little maiden who knew an absorbing conversation to be going on almost within earshot and in which she longed to have a hand.

“What is your name?” asked Starlight, as soon as he had dropped safely to the dry grass, and had stretched himself beside the little tumbler, who sat with his knees gathered close to him and his hands clasped round them.

“Flutters,” answered the boy.

“That's not your real name?”

“That's what they call me.”

“You mean the circus people?”

Flutters simply nodded “yes.” Somehow he did not seem at first inclined to be quite as communicative as Starlight would have wished.

“It must be fun to wear clothes like those,” he said, after a pause, eyeing his new friend from head to foot with evident admiration.

“Oh, it's kind of fun for a while, but there isn't much real fun. Everything's only kind of fun, and there isn't any fun at all about most things.”

Starlight couldn't quite agree with these sage remarks, although he had himself of late been seeing a great deal of the darker side of life.

“I guess you're not very well, Flutters,” he said, seriously; “or perhaps you're tired.”

“Oh, I'm well enough, but I'm not over-happy,” answered the boy, who, from little association with children and much with older people, had formed rather a mature way of speaking.

“What makes you feel like that?” asked Starlight.

“Oh, lots of things. There's no one who cares for me 'cept to make money out of me. That's kind of hard on a fellow.

“Don't you get some of the money yourself?”

“Not a penny. You see, I'm 'prenticed to the manager till I'm eighteen.”

“Who apprenticed you?” said Starlight, taking care to speak correctly.

“The manager, I suppose; but I did not know anybody had to 'prentice you. I thought you just 'prenticed yourself by promising to work for your board.”

“Not a bit of it. You oughtn't to have made such a promise. If you were worth anything to the manager you were worth part of the money you earned. Besides, I don't think anybody can apprentice a boy except his parents or his guardian, or some one who has charge of him.”

“Well, nobody's had charge of me this long while.”

“Is that big man with the great black moustache the manager?” asked Starlight.

“Yes, he is, and he's a tough one,” and Flutters pressed his lips tightly together and shook his head by way of emphasis.

“He doesn't look kind.”

“Folks doesn't look things what they never are.”

“Why don't you cut the circus, Flutters?”

“Would you, really?”

“You mean run away?”

Starlight nodded yes.

“Where to?” was Flutters's pointed question.

“Oh, anywhere,” somewhat vaguely.

“That's all very well; but board, you know, and a blanket to roll yourself in at night is a little better than nothing at all.”

“That's so,” said Starlight, and then sat silent a few moments, drawing his fingers, rake fashion, through the dry grass in front of him, and evidently thinking hard.

“Flutters,” he said at last, “if you ran away I believe you'd find a home and somebody to care for you—we'd look out for you ourselves, Aunt Frances and I, till something turned up.”

“Would you, really?” and Flutters leaned very close to Starlight in his eagerness.

“Yes, I'm sure we would. Will you do it?”

“Yes, sir, I'll do it now,” and Flutters got straightway on to “all fours,” as if he deemed that the most silent and effective mode of escape, although the benches were hardly so low as to render it necessary for a boy of his size.

“But you'll be caught in a minute in those—fixings.” Starlight did not think there was enough of them to deserve the respectable name of clothes.

Flutters sat down in despair. “Then there's no use; I may as well give it up if I have to go back for anything.” Flutters stood in such fear of the manager that he felt sure he could read his very thoughts. He honestly meant that he would abandon the whole scheme rather than face Mr. Bradshaw with such a design in mind, and he looked down at his spangled slippers and bedraggled tights in most woe-begone fashion.

“I have it,” said Starlight, after a moment's serious cogitation; “wait here a minute,” and taking hold of a board directly under the seat where he had sat, he pulled himself up to his place beside Hazel. She was ready with a host of eager questions, but Starlight, in the most imperative of whispers, gave her quickly to understand that there was no time for anything of that sort. “Just do as I tell you, Hazel,” some one overheard him say, but more than that they fortunately did not hear.

A moment later Starlight disappeared, and a little red cloak, which Josephine had made Hazel carry with her, had disappeared too.

Not long afterward, but it seemed a very long while to Hazel, the entertainment came to a close with a wild sort of farce, which everybody seemed to think pretty funny, but Hazel did not so much as smile. She had neither seen nor heard what was going on; she had an important little piece of business ahead of her, and could hardly wait to be off and about it. If her seat had not been quite in the middle of the row, so that she would have been obliged to crowd past a long line of people, she simply could not have waited; and now that the performance was actually over, she energetically pushed her way through one group after another, lingering about as if loath to desert the charms of the circus, and was clear of the great tent in almost less time than it takes to tell it. Off she darted down the road—down Broadway one would say today—for the gateway to the circus enclosure was exactly on the spot where Niblo's Theatre has for so many years set forth its varied amusements.

There was only one farm-house in the immediate neighborhood, and thither Hazel flew, bringing up at the threshold of its old Dutch kitchen in a state of breathless excitement. “Mrs. V an Wyck,” she cried with what little breath she had left, as she peered over the half door that barred her entrance.

“In a moment, Hazel,” came a voice from the depths. “I am putting some curd in the cheese press; I'll be up in a minute.”

The minute afforded Hazel a much-needed breathing space, and when a rosy-cheeked Dutch Frau emerged from the horizontal doorway of the cool, clean-smelling cellar, Hazel was able to make known her request in quite coherent fashion.

“Oh Mrs. Van Wyck, will you let me have a pair ol Hanss trousers,' and some shoes and a coat, and please, please don't ask me what I want them for!” for she saw the question shaping itself on Frau Van Wyck's lips; “I'll bring them home safe to-morrow, and tell you all about it.”

The little woman looked decidedly astonished, but the child was so urgent, and withal such a little favorite of hers, that she could but accede to her request, and in a trice Hazel was off again with the coveted articles, in a snug bundle, swinging from one hand as she ran.

CHAPTER IV.—FLUTTERS.

T may seem at first somewhat improbable that Flutters should have been able.. to make his escape from the circus grounds without being noticed, but escape he did under Starlight's cautious guidance. Every one was still intent on the performance itself; outside were only a few straggling employees of the company, and they were too much preoccupied with the special duties assigned to them to pay any heed to the fact that a couple of boys were making their way through the grounds. Indeed, it was decidedly too common an occurrence to excite any suspicion. To be sure, Hazel's cloak concealed neither the head nor feet of little Flutters; but velvet cap and satin slippers were tucked safely away, and the absence of hat and shoes was by no means unusual among the boyish rabble that found their way into the circus. The most dangerous, because the most conspicuous move in their plan of escape, would be the scaling of the high board fence, so they naturally made their way to its most remote corner. It needed but a moment for Flutters to scramble to its top and drop on the other side. Starlight made more clumsy work of it. It was not an easy thing to keep one's hold on the slippery inside posts of the fence, and when he was near the top he heard some one calling at his back, which did not tend to help matters. Astride the fence at last, however, he glanced down and saw a forlorn old man close at his heels, one of the drudges of the circus, whose duty it was to keep things cleared up about the grounds.

Look you there, cried, in a cracked Flutters and Starlight were safe out of sight now, and smiled at each other with supreme satisfaction.

“That's Robbin's voice,” chuckled Flutters, as they walked off through the woods that grew close up to the circus; “he could get over a mountain as easily as over that fence; he has the rheumatics awful bad, and he's very old besides, He's the only one I mind about leaving.” Poor old Bobbin stood gazing up at the fence, and seemed wisely to come to the conclusion that there was no harm in a boy's leaving the circus in that manner if he chose. The harm would be if he attempted to come in that way; and so hobbled off to his dreary, back-breaking task of gathering up the papers and stray bits of rubbish constantly accumulating on every side. It is possible, too, that even if he had recognized Flutters, and guessed his motive, he would not have tried to detain him. He had once been a tumbler himself, and knew enough of the trials of circus life to be willing, perhaps, that a promising little fellow should escape them.

The grove in which the boys found themselves was the only piece of old forest land that remained in the near vicinity of the town, and was fitted up with rude tables and benches for the use of picnic parties.

Starlight led the way to one of these tables, sat down, and comfortably rested his folded arms upon it, as though they had reached their point of destination. Here was where Hazel was to meet them and, while they waited, the boys entertained each other with little scraps of their life histories; but Starlight did not for a moment forget to keep eye and ear on guard for any one approaching. There was a hollow tree just at Flutters's back, into which he could tumble in a flash and be securely hid should it become necessary. But the sound of their own low voices and the occasional fall of a pine cone or crackling of a branch was all that broke the stillness. At last they heard a footfall in the distance, but Starlight knew that quick, short little step, and there was no need for Flutters to take refuge in the tree. Hazel had come with the precious bundle, that was all, and Flutters was straightway arrayed in Hans Van Wyck's clothes, his dark little face not at all agreeing with the Dutch-looking coat and trousers; but they answered the purpose of complete disguise, and what more could be wished for? So the children set out for home at a brisk pace, not by the way they had come, but, so far as possible, by cross cuts and quiet lanes, to avoid observation. That their little tongues moved even faster than their feet was not at all strange, for, of course, they wanted to know all about each other.

“Are you an Italian, Flutters?” asked Hazel, in the course of the cross-questioning.

Flutters smiled, and shook his head in the negative.

“Then I guess you're Spanish,” remarked Starlight.

“No, not Spanish.”

Hazel and Starlight looked mystified. He was certainly neither American nor English with that dark skin of his.

“What kind of people does that sort of hair grow on?” Flutters asked, running his hand through his tight-curling hair.

“On—on darkeys,” answered Hazel, ruefully. “But it does not curl so tight as—as some darkeys,” hoping there might be a mistake somewhere.

“So much the better for me,” Flutters answered, cheerily.

“Are—you—a regular—darkey—really?” questioned Starlight, with a little pause between each word.

“Well, I'm what they call a mulatto; that's not quite so bad as an out-and-out darkey, perhaps.”

“Oh, Flutters, don't you mind?” asked Hazel, who was disappointed enough that the hero of this thrilling adventure should prove to be only a kind of negro. Hazel had an idea as, sadly enough, many far older and wiser than she had in those days—and, indeed, for long years afterward—that negroes were little better than cattle, and that it was quite right to buy and sell them in the same fashion.

“What would be the use of minding?” said Flutters, in response to her sympathetic question; “minding would not make things any different, Miss Hazel.”

It was the first time he had called her by name, and Hazel, born little aristocrat that she was, was glad to discover that “he knew his place,” as the phrase goes—so far, at least, as to put the Miss before her name.

After this the children trudged along for a while in silence, each busy with their own thoughts. Starlight was beginning to have some misgivings as to the course he had taken. It might, after all, become a serious question what to do with Flutters. He began to wonder how Aunt Frances would look when he should go back to the farm-house next day with his little protégé in tow. She would be pretty sure to say, “What are you thinking of, Job dear? It is not at all as though we were in our own home, you know. We cannot allow the Van Vleets to take this strange little boy into their home for our sakes; though no doubt they would be willing to do it.”

Yes, the more he thought of it, the more he felt sure that would be just what she would say; strange that all this had not occurred to him before, and a little sickening sensation—half presentiment, half regret—swept over him. So it was that Starlight trudged along in silence, for, of course, such thoughts as those could not be spoken with Flutters there to hear them.

As for Hazel, she was turning over a fine little scheme of her own in her mind. She was a hopeful little body, and it did not take long for her to recover from the despair into which the discovery of Flutters's nationality had thrown her. “Why, look here,” she thought to herself, “I believe I'm glad he's a darkey after all. It was awful cute to hear him say 'Miss Hazel;' how nice it would be to have him for a sort of body-servant, just as so many officers have body-servants! He could brush my clothes, and groom the pony, and tend to my flower garden, and just stand 'round, ready to do whatever I should wish,” and so it was that Hazel trudged along in silence, for she thought it wiser not to announce, as yet, the exact nature of her thoughtful meditation.

And Flutters—well, it would have been hard to tell about what he was thinking. He was a most sensitive little fellow, and strong and intense were the emotions that often played through his lithe frame, so strong and intense at times as to find no other expression than in a perceptible little tremble from head to foot; it was this peculiarity that had won for him the expressive name of “Flutters” among the circus people. Now, of course, his state of mind was joyous and satisfied. Kind friends and a home in this new land! What more could be desired, and the happiest look played over his handsome face, for Flutters was handsome, and the dark olive complexion was most to be thanked for it; but the light went out of his face when, after a while, he glanced toward Starlight and saw his troubled look.

Instantly he divined its cause. “Are you sorry you took me?” he asked, coming to an abrupt standstill in the brier-hedged lane.

“No, not exactly;” Starlight was betrayed into a partial confession of the truth by the suddenness of the question.

Oh, how that hurt poor little Flutters, with his sensitive temperament!

“It is not too late,” he said, turning and looking in the direction they had come; “I think I can find my way back. They'd never know I'd regular runned away;” but there was a mistiness in the bright little darkey eyes, and an actual ache in the poor little heart.

“Flutters, I am not sorry then,” said Hazel, warmly; and laying a firm hand on each shoulder, she turned him right about face again in the direction of her own home. “Just you trust to me, Flutters, and you'll never be sorry you ran away from that miserable old circus—never.”

And now, so completely was all gloom dispelled by these kind words, that back in a flash came the glad look into Flutters's face, and from that moment he was Hazel's sworn servant. Starlight looked rather ashamed of himself, but, after all, his fears had some foundation, and he was thankful enough thus to have Hazel take matters into her own hands, and more than share the responsibility. The sun was already down as the children neared the house, standing in clear-cut outline against the September sky. There were no clouds, only a marvellous gradation of color, shading imperceptibly from the dark, dark blue of the river and the hills beyond, up into the red glow of the sunset, and then again by some subtle transformation into a wonderful pale turquoise high overhead.

It was indeed a beautiful fall evening, and Captain and Mrs. Boniface and Josephine, seated on the wide, pillared porch, were waiting for the coming of the children, and the exciting narrative that was sure to follow. “Kate, the bonny-face baby,” as they used to call her, was there too, a sunny, winsome little daughter, almost three years old, and Harry Avery besides, Job Starlight's cousin, a good-looking young fellow, and who lately had managed to spend a good deal of time at the Bonifaces. He had sailed over that morning from Paulus Hook (which, by the way, was the old name for Jersey City) with a fine little plan in mind for the day—a plan which he had already promised Hazel should some time be carried out; but the absence of the children had made it necessary to postpone it for at least twenty-four hours. This Harry Avery was the oldest of a varied assortment of little brothers, and his home was in New London, Connecticut. But two years before he had enlisted as a volunteer on board a brig named “The Fair American,” and not one of the little brothers had ever had a sight of the big brother since. He had had a sorry enough time of it, too, for eighteen months of the twenty-four since he left home had been passed in the prison-ship “Jersey,” and he had only been released within the last few weeks, when the success of the American armies compelled the English to discharge all their prisoners of war. The old ship where so many brave men had lost their lives by privation and disease now lay a great deserted hulk in the waters of Wallabout Bay, and what Harry had come over to propose was a sail over to have a look at her. He knew it would interest the children immensely, and he had proposed to Mrs. Boniface that Josephine should go with them, and Josephine, only too glad to fall in with any plan that involved being out on the water, had that morning concocted some very delicious little iced cakes with a view to the luncheon they would take with them on the morrow. Meanwhile, the children were almost at the gate. “Why, there's Cousin Harry!” exclaimed Starlight, whose eyes were good at a long range.

“So it is,” said Hazel, excitedly; and when they had passed a few steps farther on, she added, “Now, Flutters, this is the best place for you to stop, and remember, when you hear me call, come quick as anything.” Flutters smiled assent, and stepped into the deeper shadow of one of the maples that edged the road.

“Well, here you are at last,” called Captain Boniface a few moments later from where he sat smoking in a great easy-chair on the porch.

“Yes, here we are,” answered Starlight, and they marched up the path and took their seats on the porch, Hazel having first kissed the family all round, not at all reluctantly including “Cousin Harry,” for his prison experience made him a wonderful hero in her eyes.

Of course they right away began to give an account, interrupted by a good many questions, of all they had seen and done. Mrs. Boniface thought, and thought rightly, that she detected a little sense of disappointment in their description, but did not know that that was easily accounted for by the insight they had had into the inner workings of a circus. They had indeed been greatly impressed with the velvet and spangles, but only until they had learned through Flutters what heavy hearts velvet and spangles could cover.

Finally, at the close of quite a vivid description on Hazel's part of the grand entrance march, which had proved to both the children the most impressive feature, Harry Avery remarked, just by way of taking some part in the conversation, “that they ought to have brought a bit of the circus home with them for the benefit of people who had not been so fortunate as to see it.” Could there have been a better opportunity for the introduction of Flutters?

“We did bring a bit of it home,” cried Hazel; and then, stepping to the edge of the porch, she called, “Flutters, Flutters,” at the top of her strong little lungs. Of course the Bonifaces looked on astonished at this performance, while Starlight, from suppressed excitement, bit his lip till he almost made the blood come; but in a second, head over heels in a series of somersaults up the path, bounded a remarkable little creature in satin slippers, velvet cap and all, as real a bit of a circus as Cousin Harry or any one else could have desired. The little tumbler was, of course, acting under orders, and brought up at the step of the porch with the most beaming smile imaginable, and a most gracious little bow.

“Come right up, Flutters,” was Hazel's reassuring invitation, and nothing abashed, but still beaming and smiling, so great was his confidence in Hazel, Flutters mounted the steps, swung himself into the hammock that was strung across the porch, and drew the netted meshes close about him, as though conscious of the scarcity of his apparel.

There was a pause for a moment—that is, no word was spoken, but the four pairs of eyes belonging to Captain and Mrs. Boniface and Josephine and Harry were riveted upon Hazel, asking as plainly as words, “What does this mean?” while Starlight's eyes were urging her in an imploring fashion to tell about it all right away. As for Flutters, the complacent, trustful gaze with which he regarded his little benefactress implied that he was sure she would proceed to explain matters to the entire satisfaction of everybody. Meantime little Kate looked on in admiring wonder, but fortunately her pretty head did not need to trouble itself with “explanations of things.” She only knew that that little fellow in the hammock was “awfully funny.” and extended her pretty hands toward him as though she would very much like to touch him.

“Well,” Hazel began at last with much the same air as a veritable showman, “this little boy is named Flutters, and he did belong to the circus, but he does not belong to it any more. He has run away, and we've helped him to do it. Somehow he's quite alone in the world, and he has to s'port himself, so he joined the circus 'cause he found he could do what the other tumblers did, and'cause he heard they were coming to America. But he has not been at all happy in the circus,” and Hazel, pausing a moment, looked toward Flutters for confirmation of this sad statement, and Flutters bore witness to its truth by gravely shaking his head from side to side. Indeed all through her narration it was most amusing to watch his expression, so perfectly did it correspond with every word she spoke. Little folk and old folk have a fashion of letting each passing thought write itself legibly on the face. It is only the strong “in-between” folk who take great care that no one shall ever know what they chance to be thinking about.

By this time Starlight began to show a desire to take a share in the telling of the story, but Hazel would none of it. She thought, perhaps unjustly, that he had proved somewhat of a coward in the latter part of the transaction; at any rate, he himself had pushed her to the front, and there she meant to stay. “No, he has not been at all happy,” she continued; “indeed, the manager has often been very cruel to him; but I will tell you about that another time” (for her eyes were growing a little tearful at the mere remembrance of some things Flutters had told them); “and the way we came to know about it was this: sometimes when Flutters takes a great jump from the spring-board and turns a somersault two times in the air, he slips his knee-cap—that's what you call it, Flutters, isn't it?” (Flutters nodded yes), “and then he has to slip it back again himself, and it hurts a good deal, so that he can't jump any more for a while. Well, to-day he slipped it, and then he crawled over underneath where we sat, and we talked with him a little; then Starlight told him to creep under the benches when no one was looking, and Starlight dropped down between the seats and talked with him some more.”

“And then we arranged,” Starlight now interrupted in such an unmistakably determined manner that Hazel allowed him to continue, “how he should run away, and he didn't even go back for his clothes, because he says that the manager can almost see what a fellow's thinking about, and he didn't dare. So when we had fixed everything I climbed up to Hazel and told her what she was to do, and then I dropped down again, and Flutters put on Hazel's cloak so as to cover him up a little, and we scooted. We came near being found out once, but we got over the great fence safe at last and into Beekman's woods. There Hazel was to meet us with some of Hans Van Wyck's clothes, if she could get them.”

“And I did get them,” chimed in Hazel, for it was surely her turn once more, “and—but, oh!” stopping suddenly, “the clothes! Starlight, do hurry and get them, or some one coming along the road may run off with them.” Starlight obeyed, frightened enough at the thought of the possible loss of the borrowed articles, and quickly returning with them to the great relief of both Hazel and himself.

Then the story went on again, turn and turn about, Flutters gaining courage to join in now and then, till at last, when the twilight had given place to the sort of half darkness of a starlight night, and the fire-flies were flashing their little lanterns on every side, they had told all there was to tell, and three foot-sore little people confessed they were tired and sleepy and hungry, and glad enough to go indoors and do justice to a most inviting little supper, which Josephine had slipped away some time before to prepare.

“Bonny Kate” (as she was called more than half the time, after a certain wilful but very charming young woman in one of Shakespeare's great plays) had long ago fallen asleep, and lay just where her mother, running indoors for a moment, had stowed her away in a corner of the great hair-cloth sofa in the dining-room. One pretty hand was folded under her rosy cheek, and such a merry smile played over her sweet face! She surely must have been dreaming of a remarkable little fellow, in beautiful velvet and spangles, coming head over heels up a garden path.

A Loyal Little Red-Coat: A Story of Child-life in New York a Hundred Years Ago

A LOYAL LITTLE RED-COAT

A Story of Child-life in New York a Hundred Years Ago

By Ruth Ogden

Fourth Edition

Illustrated by H. A. Ogden

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company

1890

PREFACE.