“READY FOR ANYTHING, IN THE SHAPE OF FUN.”

SILVER RAGS

BY
WILLIS BOYD ALLEN
Author of “Pine Cones”

“Like beggared princes of the wood,
In silver rags the birches stood.”

BOSTON
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY
FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS

Copyright, 1886,
BY
Willis Boyd Allen

TO
THE LITTLE PRINCESS
ISADORE

CONTENTS.

SILVER RAGS.

CHAPTER I.
OVERBOARD.

“HELP! Help!”

It was a girl’s voice, clear and sharp with distress. The cry echoed over Loon Pond, and rang through the woods which surrounded its dimpled waters.

In a small, flat-bottomed boat, about fifty yards from the shore, crouched a young girl of perhaps sixteen years, her face blanched with terror as she gazed into the depths beneath and uttered again and again that piercing cry:

“Help! O quick, quick! Help!”

Something dark rose slowly to the surface of the pond, and a small white hand waved frantically in the air a moment, then sank, struggling, out of sight. Again it came up, this time more quietly, and again disappeared, while the occupant of the boat screamed louder, her voice breaking into sobs. The only oar to be seen was floating quietly on the water, almost within reach.

“Help!”

Would no one come? The birches that crowned the hill-top close by shivered in the sunlight; on the farther shore, the pines stood motionless in dark, silent ranks.

Just as the object in the water rose for the third and last time, scarcely breaking the surface, the bushes hiding the nearest bank suddenly parted, and a boy dashed out into the pond which was shallow at this point, with a smooth, sandy beach.

“Hold on, Kittie, I’m coming!” he shouted lustily, splashing ahead with all his might, and making the water fly in every direction.

Presently he sank deeper, and began to swim with such powerful strokes that half a dozen of them brought him nearly alongside the boat.

“There, there, Randolph!” screamed Kittie Percival, pointing to the sinking form.

Randolph gave one look, doubled over in the water, and with a desperate effort dived headlong in a line to cut off the drowning girl before she reached the bottom. After a few seconds which to Kittie seemed days, he reappeared, holding his helpless burden, and clutched the stern of the boat. The poor girl’s head lay back on his shoulder, white, cold, and motionless.

“Haven’t—you—got—an oar?” puffed Randolph.

“It fell out when I wasn’t noticing,” sobbed Kittie, “and floated off. We both leaned over to reach it, and Pet fell into the pond.”

“All right, I’ll swim for it. Here goes.” And allowing his feet to rise behind him, with one arm around the girl and the other hand still grasping the boat, he struck out, frog-fashion, for the shore. Presently he resumed his upright position, but found the water was still over his head. A dozen more pushes, and the second experiment was successful. He announced that he felt bottom under his feet, and presently the bow of the boat grated on the sand. Kittie now jumped into the water beside him, regardless of skirts and boots, and assisted him in raising the unconscious girl, from whose garments and long, bright hair the water streamed as they lifted her tenderly in their arms, and carried her to the shore.

While they were thus engaged, a third actor appeared on the scene, no other than “Captain Bess” Percival herself, whom, with her sister Kittie, the readers of Pine Cones will remember.

“O Kittie, Kittie, what has happened? Did she fall overboard? Is she alive?”

“We don’t know,” panted Randolph, answering her last question. “She was just going down the third time. Where shall we take her?”

“Up to the Indians’ tent,” said Bess. “It’s only a few steps from here. I left Tom and Ruel there, while I came to look for you. Here, let me help.”

“Bring her lilies,” added Kittie sadly. “Poor little Pet, she had only gathered two!”

The mournful procession took up its march through the woods, Bess and Randolph carrying Pet between them. Kittie followed, with the lilies, helping when she could.

Pet Sibley was a girl slightly younger than her companions, who lived near the Percivals in Boston. When the invitation came from uncle Will Percival in June for them to spend their summer vacation, or a part of it, with him and aunt Puss—as the children called his wife—at The Pines, the girls begged permission, which was heartily granted, to bring their friend Pet with them. She was a frank, good-hearted girl, with light, rippling hair, blue eyes, and a sunny disposition which always looked on the bright side of everything and perhaps was a bit too forgetful of the earnest in life. If that, and her evident pleasure in her own pretty face, were faults, they were very forgivable ones; for she was sweet and true at heart, after all. The fun of the whole thing was, that she had never lived in the country. She was a thoroughly city-bred girl; had travelled in Europe when she was a wee child, had lived two or three years in hotels and “apartments,” and knew absolutely nothing of field and forest. A more complete contrast to sober, thoughtful Kittie, and energetic “Captain Bess,” could hardly be imagined. So it came about that, as often happens with people of widely varying dispositions, all three loved one another dearly.

Randolph was in the second class at the Boston Latin School, and had won three prizes that spring, two for scholarship, and one for drilling.

On this particular morning Ruel, a guide, trapper, and man-of-all-work at Mr. Percival’s farm in the heart of the Maine woods, had taken the young folks off for a tramp to Loon Pond, a pretty sheet of water some four miles long by one and a half broad. They had enjoyed themselves immensely—Randolph, Tom, and the three girls—running races along the forest paths, gathering mosses, ferns and queer white “Indian pipes,” or listening to Ruel’s quaint sayings as he talked of birds and wild creatures of the wood, with not a little philosophy thrown in.

At the distance of about a furlong from the pond, they had come out upon a little clearing, on the further edge of which was a rude tent of canvas. In the doorway sat an Indian squaw, with one tiny brown pappoose in her arms, and another playing on the grass near by. The father of the babies she said, on inquiry, was off somewhere in the woods. She had a few baskets for sale, and while Bess and the two boys stopped to look at these and play with the babies, Kittie and Pet had run on ahead, and having reached the shore of the pond, had come upon an old boat, apparently used for a long time past by no one, except perhaps the Indian when he was not too lazy to fish. Into this boat they had climbed, screaming and laughing, girl-fashion, and hastily pushing it off with the one oar which lay in the bottom, had been trying to collect a bunch of lilies to surprise the rest, when the accident happened as Kittie described it.

It took but a few minutes for the mournful little group to reach the camp, though the distance seemed miles. Pet showed not the slightest sign of life and her pretty hair almost touched the ground as it hung over Randolph’s shoulder and swayed to and fro as he walked.

Ruel’s quick eye was the first to catch sight of them, and to take in the situation.

“Bring her here,” he said sharply, springing to his feet and wasting no time in questions. “Now turn her on her face—so—there, that’ll do. Poor little gal! I dunno whether we c’n bring her to, but we c’n try, anyhow.”

“Shall I run for the doctor, Ruel?” asked Tom, trembling from head to foot.

“No doctor nearer’n six mile,” said the guide grimly. “By the time he’d git here we shouldn’t need him, either ways. Bess, you’n’ Kittie take her inside the tent—here, let me lift her—git her wet clothes off an’ roll her in blankets. Grab ’em up anywhere you c’n find ’em. I’ll fix it with the Injuns. Randolph, you’re wet’s a mink yourself. Take Tom with you and run fer home. Mis’ Percival will give ye some hot tea and put ye to bed.”

“But what shall I do, Ruel?” asked Tom again.

“You git a couple of them big gray shawls of your aunt’s an’ bring ’em in the double team to the back road, where this path comes out—remember it?”

“Yes, Ruel, but—”

“Git Tim to put the horses in, and drive. He’ll hurry ’nuff, once git him goin’.”

Tom and Randolph were off like a flash, and Ruel turned to the squaw, who had been standing motionless, after having picked up her pappoose that Ruel had tipped over when he jumped up.

“Say, Moll, can’t ye take holt and help the gals a little?”

The squaw came forward crossly enough, mumbling and grumbling to herself, and, entering the tent, pulled the flap down behind her. Once inside, she worked harder than any of them, with hands as gentle and skilful as those of a hospital nurse.

Fifteen minutes passed. It was a hot day in late June, and Ruel wiped his brow repeatedly as he paced to and fro before the tent. The Indian, he knew, would bear no interference, and her knowledge and experience were invaluable.

“SHE HAD ONE PAPPOOSE IN HER ARMS.”

“Any signs of life?” he asked aloud, when he could bear the suspense no longer.

Kittie put a white face out between the hangings, and said “No.”

Twenty minutes. A thrush from a thicket near by, sang a few notes, and stopped. The air went up in little waves of heat, from the tree-tops. It was very still.

Suddenly there was an exclamation inside the tent; both girls cried out at once, and were hushed by the guttural tones of the Indian.

Another long silence, almost unendurable to the big-hearted man outside, who felt in some way accountable for what had happened.

He hid his face in his hands, and walked slowly off toward the thicket where the thrush had sung.

Again there was a stir within the tent.

“See!” cried Bess joyfully. “She moved her eyelids! She’s alive! She’s alive!”

Soon a new voice was heard behind the canvas—a low, troubled moan, then a pitiful crying, like that of a beaten child. Poor little Pet, it was hard, coming back to life again! She writhed in agony for a few minutes, crying and catching her breath brokenly. But at last her sweet blue eyes opened. “Mamma!” she said, with trembling lips, looking about wonderingly at her strange surroundings.

“O Pet, darling, I’m so glad!” sobbed Kittie, falling on her knees and kissing the pale face again and again. “You’re all safe and alive! It was my fault, taking you out—of course you thought it was like the Public Gardens—oh, dear, and here are your two lilies!” And Kittie burst out crying afresh at sight of them.

While she had been talking, Pet had gazed at her and the dark face of the Indian alternately. Slowly came back the memory of the walk in the woods, the first view of the shining lake, the laughing scramble into the boat, the fair lily faces, looking up at her. Then, the terrible moment when she felt herself falling down, down, with all the world flying away from her, and only the thick, green, stifling water pressing against her face.

She tried to put up her little hands to shut out the picture, but she was too tightly rolled in the blanket. Then she looked up and—laughed! At the same moment the Indian threw back the tent-flap, and beckoned to Ruel, who was hurrying toward her at the sound of the voices. Pet lay swathed in cloths and blankets of all colors, as old Moll had snatched them from bed and floor, so that up to her chin she looked like a gay-colored little mummy. Her head, with its long golden hair, rested in Bessie’s lap; and a smile was on her lips.

“Thank God!” exclaimed Ruel, taking off his woodsman’s cap. Then he dropped into his old-fashioned, easy drawl once more, and commenced active preparations for the homeward trip.

“I—think I—can—walk—” whispered Pet faintly, wriggling a little in her cocoon.

“Wall, I’ve no doubt you c’d fly, ef we’d let ye,” remarked the guide, busying himself in wringing out her wet clothes and rolling them into a bundle; “but I guess we’ll hev the fun of carryin’ of ye, this time. Tom’ll be back soon—”

“Here he comes, now!” interrupted Bess, as the boy hurried forward with his arms full of shawls.

“Is she—is she—?” he stammered, halting a few paces distant.

“She’s all right, my boy,” said Ruel kindly. “She’s ben a laughin’, and is all high fer walkin’ home, ef we’d let her.”

The boy’s face twitched with emotion, and in spite of himself he could not prevent two or three tears from rolling over his cheeks.

“Here’s some cordial,” he managed to say, “that aunt Puss said would—would be good for her. And uncle Will himself was at home, and will meet us at the cross-road with his team.”

Before leaving the tent, Ruel, at Tom’s request, tried to make Moll accept a small sum for her services. But she would not take a cent.

“These Injuns are queer people,” said Ruel, leading the way with Pet in his arms, toward the road. “Sometimes they do act like angels from heaven, an’ sometimes—they don’t! You never know whar to hev ’em.”

“Where does this family come from?” asked Tom, trudging beside Ruel and holding twigs aside from Pet’s face.

“From up North somewhars. They won’t tell who they are, and I shall be glad, fer one, when they leave.”

“I shall be thankful to them as long as I live, for what that woman did for Pet,” said Kittie warmly.

“Wall, that’s so; she was a master hand, an’ no mistake. Give me an Injun fer any kind of a hurt you kin git in the woods.”

Right glad were they all to find uncle Will and his noble grays, waiting for them at the road. Just what the kind old man had suffered, sitting there helplessly for the last five minutes, no one will ever know—except perhaps his gentle wife Eunice—“aunt Puss”—with whom he talked the whole matter over, after the children had gone to bed that night.

In a moment he had Pet in his trembling arms, and with Ruel at the reins they were all soon comfortably disposed in the big wagon, and rattling homeward.

How they drove up to the door of the farm-house, with Pet waving her slender white hand feebly, between Bess and Kittie; how aunt Puss, strong woman as she was, broke down utterly at sight of her, and afterward hugged her, and cried over her, and “cosseted” her, the rest of that memorable day, need not be described. Enough to say that Pet steadily regained her strength, and by night was able to sit with the rest under the broad elms before the house and listen to uncle Percival’s stories.

It was not until bedtime that as the girls were going slowly up-stairs, arm in arm, she stopped suddenly, and exclaimed “My watch!”

“Your watch?” echoed the others. “Why, what’s the matter with it?”

“It’s lost!”

“Lost?”

“I wore it to the pond this morning. It was that lovely little watch that mamma gave me last Christmas, gold and blue enamel, with my name in it. There was a chain, too, and a tiny key. Oh, dear, what shall I do! Where can it be? It couldn’t have fallen out, for ’twas hooked into my button-hole, just as tight!”

“I can tell you what’s become of your watch, Pet,” exclaimed Randolph, from the hall below.

“What?”

“The Indians!”

CHAPTER II.
WHERE IS THE WATCH?

“I ’M afraid,” said Mr. Percival at breakfast next morning, “that your watch will not be recovered, Pet. I sent Ruel over to the pond two hours ago, and he reports that the Indians are gone, bag and baggage. They generally stay only a few weeks at a time in any one spot.”

“I thought I saw a queer look in old Moll’s face when we left,” put in Ruel, joining the conversation with a down-East “hired-man’s” freedom. “You know she wouldn’t take any money, which, with an Injun, is ’nuff to make you suspect somethin’s up.”

Tom was sleeping late, and had not come down to breakfast. At The Pines, one of the comforts was that you could sleep just as long as you wanted to in the morning.

“They’re growing young things,” aunt Puss would say, “and they have to get up early all winter to get ready for school. It’s a pity if they can’t lie abed here, so long’s they’re resting, till afternoon, if they like.”

The real fact was that ordinarily the days were so filled with good times that nobody wished to lose an hour in the morning, and so all hands were up bright and early.

“How much do you think the watch was worth, Pet?” asked her aunt. “Bessie, let me give you another mug of milk.”

Pet sat next to aunt Puss, looking very pale and quiet this morning. It was observed that she started nervously every time she was addressed; but this remnant of yesterday’s fright wore off during the day.

“I don’t know exactly,” she answered, “but I think mamma paid six hundred francs for it in Geneva last year.”

“That’s about one hundred and twenty dollars,” said Mr. Percival. “It would be worth at least a hundred and fifty in America, when it was new.”

“Can’t it have dropped out of her pocket?” suggested Kittie.

“Ruel searched every foot of ground where you went.”

“Why can’t the thieves be pursued?” exclaimed Randolph, starting to his feet. “I’ll join a party, for one, to overtake them and recover the property!”

“Sit down and finish your coffee, my boy,” said his uncle, smiling. “The sheriff and two assistants started on their track half an hour ago. But I fear it won’t be of much use, as they are too cunning to be easily caught. Of course they will deny all knowledge of the watch, probably having hidden it when they heard the officers coming.”

“Will they be arrested?”

“Yes.”

The girls began to look frightened.

“And where will they be brought, sir?”

“Here. I am a Trial Justice in this county,” said Mr. Percival, rising.

Just then Tom entered the room, looking as if he had not slept very soundly, after all.

“Uncle,” he said in a low voice, glancing at the rest as they left their places at the table with a clatter of chairs on the kitchen floor, “uncle, can I see you alone for a moment?”

Mr. Percival patted him on the shoulder. “Better eat your breakfast, my boy, the first thing you do. I have some matters to look after in the barn and you can find me there, if you want to. You must forget about the accident yesterday,” he added kindly, seeing the boy’s pale face. “Pet’s all right now, and we sha’n’t let her fall in again, you may be sure.”

“I know, sir, but—”

Here aunt Puss bustled up with a plate of hot flapjacks, and uncle Will stepped aside with a laugh.

“Eat ’em while they’re hot, Tom,” said Ruel gravely, pausing a minute at the door, “or Mis’ Percival will have her feelin’s awfully hurt.”

So Tom was fain to put off his interview with his uncle, till some better season. Ah, Tom, if you had but spoken a moment earlier, or insisted one whit more strongly! But Mr. Percival went off where his duties called him, and Tom found no chance to see him alone that day, nor the next. Whatever the subject was, it did not seem to disturb him so much after a good breakfast; and he promised himself he would attend to it a little later.

The forenoon was spent quietly in the barn, in the capacious bays of which the mounds of fragrant hay had just been stored, still warm with the midsummer sunshine, and furnishing an occasional sleepy grasshopper, by no means startled out of his dignity by his sudden change of residence. The west wind blew softly in at the open doors, through which one could look, as one lay on the mow, into the sunny world outside, and catch a few bars of an oriole’s call, or of robin’s cheery note. The cattle were all out to pasture. Over the floor walked the hens, in serene meditation, placidly clucking, or uttering a remonstrative and warning “Wha-a-a-t!” as a swallow careened too near them in the bars of dusty sunlight. The only other noise was the occasional bird-twitter from one of the dozen or more nests upon the rafters overhead, and the tapping of bills on the floor as the sober fowls now and then gleaned a stray insect or bit of seed-food.

“I don’t see,” said Tom lazily, gazing up toward the ridge-pole, where a swallow was busily engaged in feeding her clamorous family, “I don’t see what people ever want to live in the city for!”

“If people could spend their time on hay-mows, half asleep, or—Ow!—tickling their sisters’ ears with straws!—”

“Well, that’s all girls do, anyway. A feller might just’s well stretch out here as curl up on a sofa and crochet all day!” Tom delivered this remark with emphasis, expressive of his manly disgust at all fancy-work in general, and “crochet” under which head he classed every home industry connected with worsted—in particular.

“I should like to see a ‘feller’ do Kensington,” remarked Bess calmly. “Seems to me I remember one who wanted to knit on a spool, one time when he was sick, and—”

“O let up, Bess; that don’t count?”

“—And after he had knit two inches and dropped thirteen stitches, gave it up because ‘it made his head tired!’” concluded Bess mercilessly.

When the laugh had subsided, and Bess had emerged from the armful of dried clover and red-top under which Tom had extinguished her, Kittie spoke up, more soberly.

“I guess I know what Tom means, and he isn’t so far out of the way either. We do waste lots of time now, really, don’t we, girls?”

“So do boys,” said Bess, stoutly.

“I know; but boys have something hard and useful to do, ’most every day,” persisted Kittie, whom the five Justices of the Supreme Bench couldn’t have diverted from her point. “Boys go to school until they’re ready to work or enter college. Then they never stop working, till they die.”

“Yes,” said Tom solemnly, “that’s what uses me up so; it’s just hard work.”

“You look like it!” exclaimed Randolph, burying Tom in his turn. “I’ll tell you what it is, girls,” he added, as he gave Tom a final shot, “there’s a good deal in what Kittie says. But work is good for us, anyway; and besides, when we do get in a little play, betweenwhiles, we have a glorious time, I can tell you!”

“But I know lots of boys, and young men too,” put in Pet eagerly, “who just go to parties and don’t work hard at all.”

“O, I don’t count those things boys,” said Kittie. “They’re just dolls; and if there’s anything I always despised, it’s boy-dolls.”

“What do you think girls could do, Kittie?” asked Bess, “when they don’t have lessons to get, I mean.”

“I think they could make useful things to give poor people,” answered Kittie, her gray eyes sparkling with earnestness. “If we put the same amount of time into making up nice, plain clothes for poor people—special poor people, I mean, that we could find out about, ourselves—that we do into ‘crochet,’ as Tom says—what a lot of things we could make and give away in one winter!”

“I never could bear to sew,” sighed Pet, surveying her pretty, plump fingers. “It seems just old ladies’ work, pulling over rag-bags and ‘piecing’ together. It’s dreadful, trying to save.”

“It depends on what you do with the rags,” said Randolph. “My grandmother had one of those bags that she was always using out of, and yet ’twas always full of rags, just crammed, so you couldn’t pull the puckers of the bag together at the top.”

“What ever did she make with them?”

“Mats and carpets, mostly. That is, she didn’t make ’em herself, but used to hire poor people to make ’em, after she’d showed them how. She’d always arrange it so’s to help two at once. ‘It’s better,’ she used to say, ‘to feed two birds with one crumb, than kill them with a stone.’”

“Why, how did she do it?” queried practical Bess, much interested.

“She’d find out through the city missionaries generally, some woman that was awfully poor, and she’d send for her and say, ‘I know a family down in such a street that are very poor; they earn just enough to live on—not enough to walk on, for they haven’t any carpets on their bare floors, this cold weather.’”

“Well?”

“Well, then she’d show the poor woman, the first one, how to ‘pull’ a rag mat, and would hire her to make one, giving her enough rags from that bag. When ’twas done, she’d praise it up and say how pretty ’twas, ’specially this row, or that flower, and so on; and then pay her for the work.”

“And did your grandmother give the first poor woman’s carpet to the second poor woman?” asked Pet, knitting her brows over the algebraic difficulty of the problem.

“Not herself. She sent it by the first poor woman so’s to let her have the pleasure of giving.”

“How lovely!” exclaimed Pet. “I’m going to have a rag-bag of my very own this winter—with nothing but plush in it!”

“No,” said Bess, “that won’t do; plush catches dust.”

“Who’s up in my hay-mow!” The voice was deep and strong, but entirely pleasant, and so nearly underneath them that the girls jumped.

“O uncle Will,” they all cried at once, “do come up here—it’s just perfect—and tell us a story!”

“If it’s ‘just perfect’ already, I don’t think I’d better come!” Nevertheless the good-natured old man mounted the steep ladder, and was at once allotted the breeziest and softest seat.

“Well, well,” he said, baring his head to the gentle west wind, “this is comfortable. How many times I’ve lain on the hay here, when I was a boy, and dreamed what I would do—sometime!”

“You never dreamed yourself such a dear uncle as you are,” said Bess softly, stroking his hair.

“Now you are trying to spoil me! What story shall I tell, I wonder? It must be short, because I may be called away at any moment. Let me see—how would one of my younger day scrapes do?”

PET.

“Splendid! splendid!”

“Well, this wasn’t much of an adventure for youngsters like you who travel about over the country, a hundred miles a day. But to us, Fred and me, it seemed a good deal at the time. Fred always loved mountain-climbing. He went to Europe while still a young man, and only last week he sent me a paper containing an account of his ascent of one of the loftiest among the Bernese Alps.”

“Is he the stout gentleman that we saw here last summer, uncle, and who told us so much about Switzerland?”

“The same one, Kittie. ‘Frederic Cruden, Esq., F. R. S.,’ he is now. But in those days he was just a slim, fun-loving boy, and the only ‘Fellow’ he was, was a very good fellow indeed. Well, while we were both in our teens, our two families made up a party and visited the White Mountains.”

“There was no railroad through the Notch then?”

“I should say not! If one wished to see the grandest localities of the White Mountains, he must either foot it or ride over the rough roads in the big, jolting stage-coach which often carried more outside than in, and occasionally tipped its passengers out upon the moss-banks beside the road. Bears, too, were more abundant than now, and that’s saying considerable; for in many of the little New Hampshire towns of Coos County, farmers are to-day prevented from keeping sheep by the inroads of Bruin, who loves a dainty shoulder of mutton for supper only too well. I saw by the papers recently that the selectmen of one township during last year paid bounties on eleven bears and two wolves!”

Here Tom uttered a series of ferocious growls, but was covered with hay and sat upon by his cousin until he promised to behave himself.

“We were stopping at the fine, new Profile House,” continued Mr. Percival, “Fred and I, with our fathers and mothers, as I said. Being of nearly the same age, we were always planning some sort of excursion together. One day we had begged to be allowed to ascend Mount Lafayette, a peak about twenty miles southwest of Mount Washington, and only second to the latter in point of interest. A guide-book which we had procured told of a fine house on the summit, and we would just stop there long enough to cool off after our walk, before coming down by the ‘well-worn bridle-path.’ We were sturdy little fellows, and though we had never yet accomplished such a feat as the ascent of a five thousand-foot mountain, felt quite equal to the task.”

“How old did you say you were, uncle?” asked Randolph.

“About fourteen, but large of our age. We started off at about two o’clock in the afternoon, with many injunctions to be back by tea-time, and on no account to linger by the way.

“It was in the highest of spirits that we strode away on the level road, up the valley, toward the peak that lay so softly brown against the blue sky just beyond. Before long we struck into the bridle-path, which was exceedingly muddy near the base, and became constantly more steep and slippery as we ascended. Boy-like, we were quite heedless of the lapse of time, and often stopped to gather birch bark, climb after squirrels’ nests, or take a bite of the sandwiches we had stuffed into our pockets at the last moment. The forest, I remember, was singularly silent, no breeze among the stiff tops of the hemlocks, no merry singing of birds; only now and then the muffled gurgle of a brook among the mossy stones beside the path, or the single, plaintive whistle of a thrush, far away on the mountain-side.

“When we had stopped for breath, about half-way up, a descending horseback-party passed us. We asked them about the house on the summit, but they only laughed, and said it had good walls and a high roof. This disturbed us a little, but we soon forgot our apprehensions, and pressed forward. Half a mile beyond this point, we came to that strange, nameless pool of water, seeming half cloud, half dream, hanging like a dew-drop on the slope of the mountain. As we stamped our feet on the moss which composed its banks, the whole surface of the ground, for rods away, trembled as if with an earthquake, and made us feel as if we were walking in a nightmare. It occurred to us that it would add to the glory of our exploit if we could catch some dream-fish out of this strange, unreal pond among the clouds; so we spent an hour or more in useless angling in its clear depths.

“Then Fred looked up at the sky, and uttered an exclamation. I followed his glance—and dropped my pole. The sun was almost resting on the edge of the mountains in the west, and it was plain that it would be dark in less than an hour.”

“And all those bears!” murmured Pet, gazing at the narrator with round eyes. “O, I should think you would have been scared!”

Mr. Percival smiled. “If I had been as old as I am now, I should have said ‘Fred, we’re caught this time by our own thoughtlessness. We can go down in half or quarter of the time it took us to climb up; and once on the main road in the valley, we shall be all right.’ But a boy of fourteen doesn’t reason in that way. We were tired and hungry. We thought of the welcome we should receive from the people on the summit, and of the good things they would doubtless have for supper.”

“‘Besides,’ said Fred, ‘we must be nearly up now. The trees don’t last much longer—they aren’t higher than our heads here. It’ll be all rocks pretty soon, and then we shall be right at the top, just like Mt. Washington.’

“So we started up again, with, we afterward confessed to each other, uncomfortable misgivings in our breasts. It was really my fault, though, for I was the older of the two, and ought to have known better.

“Well, in ten minutes the sun was out of sight behind the hills, and I tell you, boys, the shadows felt cold. It was like walking into a running brook in the middle of a hot day, and we shivered and buttoned our jackets tight around our throats as we clambered along over the rocks, panting in the thin air, and stopping for breath every few rods.

“It was tough work, especially as the wind began to rise and dodge at us from behind great bowlders, cutting like knives with its chilling breath. Darker and darker it grew, so that we could hardly distinguish the path, that was now a mere series of scratches over the rocks. In vain we strained our eyes for a friendly twinkle of light from the windows ahead. All was still, silent, dark. I confess, Pet, I thought of the bears, and halted half a dozen times, with beating heart, at sight of some dark rock that crouched behind the path. We were just thinking, Fred and I, of curling up for shelter under some overhanging ledge, and so spending the night, when a queer object caught our eyes. It was like a tree, stripped of every branch, and standing grimly alone there in the rocky desert, like a solitary Arab. A few steps more showed us what it was, and, at the same time, the tremendous mistake we had made, from the very outset of our plan, flashed upon us. It was clear that we were at last standing upon the very tip-top of Mount Lafayette, lifted in the air nearly a mile straight up, above the level of our home by the sea-shore. But alas, where was the inn, with its longed-for fires, its well-spread table, its comfortable beds and friendly hosts? The little weather-beaten flag-pole (for such was our naked tree), stood stiffly erect beside a blackened and crumbling stone wall, which enclosed a small space partially floored with charred boards, partially choked with rubbish that had fallen in long ago.

“‘Seems to me I remember something about its being burned up once,’ said Fred, faintly. ‘I s’posed of course they built it again!’

“Yes, there were the openings, where windows and door had been set, and which now looked out into the dreary night like eyeless sockets.

“There was no time to be lost. The air was growing colder every moment, and the bitter wind was driving up a huge bank of clouds from the east. Although it was early in September, we afterward learned that ice formed in many places through the mountains that night. Such cases are by no means rare, and, indeed, in some of the ravines and gorges of the White Mountain group, snow and ice may be found the whole year round.

“Entering the roofless walls, and placing our sandwiches in a small niche which probably had once served for a cupboard, we set vigorously to work, ripping up the pieces of boards that still remained, and piling them in one corner where the wall was highest. In five minutes we had a roaring fire, by the light and warmth of which we constructed a rude shelter in the form of a ‘lean-to,’ against the rocks, and crept under it to sup off our scanty provisions, and reflect.”

“Were you frightened, sir?” asked Tom slyly.

“Well, I suppose there was no great danger, Tom, but to boys who had spent their lives in comfortable homes, surrounded by care, and gentle, watchful attentions from those they loved most, it was a thrilling experience. There, alone on the mountain-top, high in air, far above any trace of vegetation save a few frightened Alpine flowers that huddle together under the rocks for a few weeks in summer, the darkness about them like a shroud, the wind rising and moaning over the bare ledges, and a storm creeping up through the valleys to assault their fortress at any moment. At last it came. Like a tornado, an icy blast rushed upon us with a howl and a roar, blowing our fire out in a moment while the red flames leaped back to the glowing brands only to be hurled off into the darkness again and again.

“And the rain! In less time than it takes to tell it, we were drenched to the skin, and pinched and pulled by the fingers of the storm that were thrust in through a hundred little crannies in our almost useless shelter. The thunder crashed, the rain rattled on the loose boards, the fire hissed feebly and turned black in the face, and the night closed in about us colder and drearier than ever. All we could do was to lie still, and shiver, and hope for morning.

“A little after midnight the tempest abated, and, tired, healthy boys as we were, we dropped into a troubled sleep. At the first glimmer of daylight, however, we stretched ourselves with groans and moans, and crawled stiffly out into the open air. It was bitter, bitter cold; so that I remember it was a long while before I could manage my fingers well enough to light a match.

“What did we do for kindling? Why, I forgot to say that when it first began to rain, I took out all the birch bark I had gathered on my way up, and tucked it under my shoulder; so that for the most part the inner strips were pretty dry, and sputtered cheerily when I touched them off. I believe nothing ever did me so much good as that fire. Under its influence, we were so much cheered that we actually walked out to see the sunrise, which was glorious.

“It didn’t take us long to descend that mountain, I can tell you; and we reached the Profile House in season to tell the whole story to the family (who, in truth, had slept little more than we) over the breakfast-table.”

Just as the story was completed, a rattle of wheels was heard in the driveway leading to the house. Presently a wagon drove up, containing—besides a short, thick-set man whom Randolph recognized as the sheriff, and the two young fellows who served as deputies—an Indian half covered in a blanket, a squaw, and two dignified brown pappooses. It was easy to recognize them as the Loon Pond campers.

CHAPTER III.
THE TRIAL.

IT was decided to give the Indians their dinner before examining them. Mr. Percival knew they would be more likely to tell the truth if well-treated; and all he wanted was to obtain the watch, not to punish the thieves. Accordingly they were conducted to the kitchen, and there, under charge of the sheriffs, they were provided with a bountiful meal by aunt Puss.

The captors meanwhile explained that they had found their prisoners encamped about ten miles down the road. They had been very angry at first, but the sheriff, who was really a good-natured farmer living about three miles from Mr. Percival’s place, had managed to pacify Sebattis, the father of the family, and he kept Moll in good order. They all, added Mr. Blake, the sheriff, had denied any knowledge of the watch, from first to last.

After dinner, to which the Indians did ample justice, the whole party were conducted to the sitting-room. Mr. Percival took his seat beside a table, at one end of the room, and asked Sebattis to hold up his right hand. He then administered the oath to the prisoner with a dignity and solemnity which impressed the young people, and which were specially admired by Randolph, who had several times seen the ceremony flippantly performed in the city courts.

The magistrate now proceeded with the examination.

“What is your name, sir?” he asked gravely but pleasantly.

The Indian, gratified by the title given him, answered with promptness: “Sebattis Megone.”

“That is your wife with you?”

“Yis. She Moll Megone.”

“Where have you been camping for the last month?”

Sebattis hesitated a moment, then glanced at his wife and replied, “Tent down by Loon Pond. No good. Bad place. Me leave him.”

“What was the matter with the place?”

“No fish. Water bad drink.”

“Then why didn’t you go away before?”

Again the Indian paused, scowled slightly, and threw his blanket across his shoulder with a gesture not without dignity.

“Me go when like; stay when like.”

Here Moll gave a sharp look at her husband, which Randolph was just in time to catch. Seeing that her glance was noticed, she made the best of it and spoke up boldly.

“We go sell baskit,” she said. “Plenty folk in big town to buy ’em—”

“Wait a moment,” interrupted Mr. Percival. “You shall tell your story in a moment. Eunice, you give this woman a comfortable place in the kitchen with her babies, will you?”

Both Indians seemed inclined to resent this move, but the magistrate was evidently not a man to be trifled with, and Moll sullenly withdrew, bearing a pappoose on each arm.

“Now,” continued Mr. Percival once more, “did you, Sebattis, see any of these young people yesterday?”

“No. Me hunt on furder side Loon Pond.”

“Did your wife tell you about it when you came back to the tent at night?”

“When me come wigwam, Moll say girl-with-gold-hair fall in pond, come near drown. Ver’ hard make alive ag’in. That all.”

“Didn’t she show you something she had found?”

“Yis.” And the Indian gravely held up his hand, making a circle with his thumb and forefinger.

“What was it?”

The children leaned forward expectantly, Pet’s eyes sparkling.

The Indian never showed by the movement of a muscle nor a glance of the eye the irony with which he had purposely led his questioners to this point.

“Half dollar,” he replied, in his slow, guttural tones. “Moll find it where white hunter, that man,” indicating Ruel, who was standing near, “drop it in bushes when he go pray.”

All turned and looked at Ruel, who flushed to his hair, but stood his ground.

“How do you know he prayed?” asked Mr. Percival gently.

“Wife find where he two knees go down on moss. Half dollar drop out. Wife say no keep. I say yis, keep him for work an’ wet blankit.”

Mr. Percival smiled in spite of himself at the man’s confession; nevertheless he looked troubled.

“Do you mean to tell me, Sebattis,” he said sternly, after a moment, “that you have never seen this girl’s watch? If half a dollar fell out of a pocket, so could a watch. Come, my man, own up and give it back, and I’ll let you go this time.”

The Indian’s brow darkened, and he drew himself up to his full height.

“Sebattis no see watch. Know nothing ’bout him.”

He delivered himself of this remark with more emphasis than he had yet used; then sat down, pulling his blanket around him; and not another word would he speak, save a few guttural sentences in his own language to his wife, who was now called in once more. The scowl remained on his forehead, and Kittie whispered to Bess that she saw him eying the windows and their fastenings.

Moll was now sharply questioned, but with no better result. She had seen the gold watch-chain, she admitted, when the girls first reached the tent. It was dangling from her pocket—pointing to Kittie!

“O,” cried Kittie, “but that’s impossible, for I haven’t any watch nor chain myself, and I never even touched Pet’s but once, and that was the day we all got here and she was showing it to aunt.”

Mr. Percival looked grave; the sheriff shut one eye knowingly; the girls edged off, half-scared, after Kittie had spoken. Moll alone appeared to retain her perfect self-possession.

“It was in that one’s pocket,” she persisted, using much better English than her husband. “I was ’fraid pappooses grab it, and break. Maybe she take it,” she added, with a malicious look at poor Kittie.

“Silence!” said uncle Will sternly. “Answer my questions, and nothing more. When did you say you saw this chain?”

“When gal first come.”

“Not after they returned from the pond?”

“No. Forget all about it. Too much drown,” said the squaw grimly. “Didn’t see him no more.” And no other answer nor admission could be obtained.

Ruel, Randolph and the girls were now asked a few questions each, to bring out their story in the hearing of the Indians. The latter denied nothing, and admitted nothing.

Mr. Percival looked perplexed. To him the guilt of the Indians seemed plain, especially after the palpable falsehood of the squaw. Nothing could have been easier, in the excitement of the restoration of the half-drowned girl, than to draw the watch from her cast-off clothes, and conceal it. The ground over which the party had passed had been scrutinized inch by inch, as well as the smooth, hard bottom of the lake where the accident had occurred; and by eyes that were as sharp as those of the Indians themselves. When Ruel said quietly after his morning search, that the watch was not in the woods nor the lake, that possibility was dropped, as settled beyond doubt. There had not been much ground to examine, for Pet distinctly remembered, and in this she was corroborated by Randolph, that she had taken out her watch and named the time of day, just before they first reached the wigwam.

Still, the magistrate could not commit the prisoners without some shadow of real proof; and he was obliged to admit to himself that there was none whatever. He called Mr. Blake aside, and held a consultation with him in low tones. The attention of the others was for the moment taken up with the pappooses, who were indulging themselves in various grunts and gasps and queer noises, accompanied by energetic struggles as if they were attacked by some internal foe, such as occasionally invades babyland. Moll sat holding them, sullen and silent.

“It must be a pin—” began aunt Puss, with a sympathetic movement toward the baby whose uncouth wails were the wildest; but she did not finish her sentence. A crashing of glass close at hand startled everybody in the room; and one glance at the shattered window-sash told the whole story. Sebattis, watching his opportunity, and seeing both doors of the room blocked by his persecutors, had sprung through the lower half of the window, carrying glass and all before him, and in an instant was out of sight in the forest.

The babies, strange to say, had become perfectly quiet and no one having seen the quick gleam of triumph in the squaw’s eyes, she was not suspected of having been the cause of their previous outcries, by various sly pinches under the blanket.

The officers of the law at once sprang toward the door, but Mr. Percival checked them. “It’s of no use,” he said. “The only real misdemeanor that can be proved against the fellow is assault and battery on my window,” he added, gazing ruefully at the ragged edges of the glass. “It rather relieves us, Blake, of the necessity of a decision in the watch matter, for you might scour the woods for a month without finding an Indian who wanted to keep out of the way.”

“I only hope,” said the sheriff, “that he won’t lay it up against us, round here. These chaps are ugly enough to burn a barn, if no worse, for sheer revenge.”

Here Ruel whispered to Mr. Percival, who proceeded to act at once upon what was evidently the guide’s suggestion.

“Moll,” he said to the squaw, who had watched the faces of the men with hardly concealed eagerness, “I’m sorry your husband ran away, for I should have let him go, anyway. Now these men will carry you back to your tent. If you ever find that watch,” he added meaningly, looking her full in the eye, “bring it to me and you shall have twenty dollars reward.”

Without a word the woman rose, and passing out, seated herself once more in the wagon, which drove off rapidly down the road in the direction of her wigwam. The trial was over, and the prisoners discharged; but the vexed question still remained, Where was the watch?

In the afternoon, while Ruel and Tim repaired the broken window—for panes of glass, putty and carpenter’s tools were always ready at hand in the workshop—the boys walked over to the pond and examined the path and its vicinity carefully for themselves, and even took turns diving to the bottom of the pond, in a vain search for the missing article. Wherever it might be, it clearly had been carried off by some human agency. Pet’s father and mother were at this time stopping in a large hotel near Boston, and had written for her to come up for a day or two, as there were friends visiting them from the West whom they were particularly anxious for her to meet and help entertain. She could return to Mr. Percival’s, her mother wrote, by the middle of the following week.

With a sad heart, both at leaving her friends, and because she felt she was abandoning all hope of her watch, she started off early on the morning after the trial, with Ruel as driver, for the Pineville Station where she was to take the cars on a Branch of the Maine Central Railroad, for Boston.

All the young folks except Tom, who unexpectedly declined to go, on the plea of a headache, accompanied Pet to the station, telling her about their “Camp Christmas” of the preceding winter, and waving hats and handkerchiefs until the train rounded a curve and crept out of sight.

Meanwhile Tom languidly rose from his bed, as soon as he heard the laughing wagon-load drive away; went down to breakfast with a sulky face and red eyes, as if he had been up late the night before, or had been crying—and hardly waiting to reply to his uncle’s cheery good-morning, walked off with his hands in his pockets, in the direction of Loon Pond. After an absence of a couple of hours, he returned, looking tired out, and passed the rest of the forenoon in the barn, lying on the hay-mow with a book. But if you had peeped over his shoulder, you would have seen that the pages were upside-down, and that now and then a tear rolled slowly over the boy’s cheeks, while his lips twitched nervously. Tom was evidently, on this bright June day, one of the unhappiest of boys. What could have happened?

CHAPTER IV.
FIRE!

“I WONDER if they are so different!” Pet Sibley found the summer hotel very pleasant. She was fond of gayety and pretty dresses and music; and of these she found a plenty at the “Everglades.” The hotel was within a half-hour’s ride of Boston, but was situated in the very heart of a beautiful, shadowy grove of pines, whose breath made the air sweet all through the long hours of the languid summer day. If the trees were more civilized and conventional in their appearance than the wide-branching, free-tossing pines in Uncle Percival’s upland pastures and hundred-acre wood-lot, Pet was not yet enough waked-up to know the difference; in fact, found it rather nice to be able to stroll about the well-kept grounds of the “Everglades,” without fear of tearing her skirts in the underbrush, or losing her way if she left the path. There was no underbrush here, and it was pretty much all path.

Within a few minutes’ walk, and bordering the grove on the further side, a river wound pleasantly and peacefully through a bright strip of meadow-land. On this river the Sibleys kept a boat, with carpet and cushioned seats—not much like the rough little affair which had tipped Pet over into Loon Pond.

Life at the Everglades flowed softly and calmly, like the river; and on the surface floated, like its radiant lilies, the fair ladies, young and old, who fanned and smiled and danced away the summer, without a thought of the suffering thousands in the hot city, fifteen miles away.

Without a thought? Yes, there were some who thought, and who brought poor and ailing children out to a Country Home near by; but these were few.

Pet Sibley, I am glad to say, was one of those who remembered the narrow streets of the North End, and the swarms of ragged men, women and children who panted, dog-like, on curbstone and doorstep, along the foul streets as the sun went down each night.

The people from the West, Pet learned, were relatives, and though their views of life hardly agreed with her own—if, indeed, she had any views—she found the new-comers very pleasant. On the third day after her return, her cousin Mark, whose home was in Chicago, and with whom already, in the free intimacy of hotel life, she felt well acquainted, had taken her out on the river.

A half-hour had slipped by, during which her cousin had instructed her how to sit safely in a boat, and even how to row a little. Just as they turned a bend in the stream and floated into a cove where birches and wild grape-vines afforded a grateful bit of shade, the girl stopped rowing, and looking up at Mark, who sat indolently in the stern of the boat, made the remark with which this chapter began:

“I wonder if they are so—different!”

Pet’s pretty young forehead had a puzzled little wrinkle as she leaned forward, with the oar-blades rippling through the water, and the muslin sleeves falling back from her brown wrists.

“Are they so different, cousin Mark?”

Her companion gave an impatient twitch to his straw hat.

THE PIAZZA AT “THE EVERGLADES.”

“Why, of course! They are not like you, Pet. They are ignorant and poor and—and not clean, you know. They were born to it and they like it.”

“But it doesn’t seem right. I heard a lady on the piazza this morning say something about ‘those creatures’ in such a way that I thought she was speaking of rats or snakes. It turned out she meant the convicts who attacked their keepers at the prison last July.”

Pet spoke warmly, as she was apt to do when she once took up a subject. If she was yet a gay young creature, very fond of “good times,” and ready for any sort of fun, she yet was one of those girls with whom shallow young men at summer hotels are rather shy of entering into conversation. She was only fifteen, and one by one the terribly real problems of the day were marshalling themselves before her. She would not pass them by with a gay laugh, after the prevailing mode of her merry companions. She felt somehow that it belonged to her to help the world and make it better, as well as to the missionaries and other good people upon whose shoulders we so willingly pack responsibilities.

For this childish enthusiasm she was smiled on indulgently by her friends. Kitty and Bess knew the best there was in her, and loved her for it.

Pet gave two or three quick strokes, and paused.

“Isn’t there any way to help these poor people, Mark? It must be the way these people live and are brought up that makes them so rough and bad. Isn’t there any way to help them?”

“None that amounts to much. Besides, that isn’t our business. There are men enough who do nothing else—are paid for it—missionaries and the like. And you can’t make everybody rich, you know. The Bible itself says, ‘Ye have the poor always with you.’”

“Perhaps that doesn’t mean that we ought to have them,” replied Pet, slowly.

“Well, they’re here, and we may as well make the best of it.”

“But what is the best? That’s just it.”

“What is the use of your thinking about it? You can’t do anything, and you don’t even know the kind of people we’re talking of; the North-Enders, for instance. You have never seen and touched them; and if you should meet them face to face, I don’t believe you would care for any further acquaintance. They’re simply disgusting.”

Pet said no more on the subject, and just as the sun dropped into the arms of the waiting pines on the hill they reached the little wharf on the river-bank, moored the boat, and walked up to the hotel. She went straight to her mother’s room, and, after her fashion, as straight to the point.

“Mother, I want to go into the city right away, and spend the night with aunt Augusta.”

“But, my child, it’s tea-time already, and there’s a hop this evening. You had better wait till morning.”

“Mother, I so much want to go now. The train leaves in fifteen minutes. I don’t care for the hop, anyway; it’s too warm to dance. Please, mother?”

Of course impulsive little Pet had her way, and was soon whirling along toward the city, with a strong resolve in her mind.

“I’ll walk up to auntie’s from the depot, and to-morrow I’ll go down to North Street with uncle.”

The train stopped at all the small stations, and was delayed by various causes, so that it was quite dark when she started on her walk. She was glad, after all, to find the streets well-lighted, and filled with respectable-looking people.

On reaching Washington Street, however, everything appeared weird and unnatural. The sidewalks along which one could hardly pass in the daytime, for the crowd, were nearly deserted. All the spots that were bright by sunlight, were now dark, and all the ordinarily dark places light. It was exactly like the negative of a photograph, and gave Pet a sense of looking on the wrong side of everything. Once she saw something move behind the broad plate-glass windows of a railroad agency, on a corner that in the daytime was a business centre. She approached, and was startled to find the object a huge rat, trotting silently about, over the polished engravings and placards, behind the glass, a very spirit of solitude and evil. It was all like a nightmare, and she began most heartily to wish herself back at the Everglades, dancing the Lancers with cousin Mark.

Coincidences happen; not in stories simply, but in real life. The vessel is wrecked in sight of port; the day the owner dies; the man we meet on the steamboat at the headwaters of the Saguenay River, has, unknown to us until then, ate, drank, and slept in the next house all winter, within ten feet of us; the dear friend we have known so long, is at last discovered to be intimate with that other dear friend we love so well, and finally it comes out that all three of us were born in the same little town in New Hampshire.

Now the coincidence that happened on this particular evening was as follows:

While Pet was making her way along Washington Street in the dark, another girl about thirteen years of age, named Bridget Flanagan, was standing on the third gallery of the Crystal Palace, in the same good city of Boston, looking down into Lincoln Street. Like Pet, she was wondering whether anything could be done to aid the poor. Not that any such words passed through her mind. Dear me, no! I doubt if she would have even known what “aid” meant, that word being in her mind associated solely with lemons of a shrivelled and speckled character. If she had spoken her thoughts, which she sometimes had a queer way of doing, she might have said something like this: “Don’t I wish I could git out o’ this! An’ the rich folks wid all the money they wants, an’ nothin’ to do but buy fans an’ use ’em up. My! ain’t it hot?”

It was hot. There was a man playing on a bag-pipe in the street below, and not only had a crowd of children and idlers surrounded him as he stood before a brilliantly lighted (and licensed) liquor store, but the long rickety galleries which run in front of each floor in the “Palace” were full of half-dressed, red-faced women and children, who leaned on the dirty railing and listened to the music, just as the guests at the “Everglades” at the same time were listening to their orchestra of a dozen pieces.

In the gallery overhead Bridget heard two women dancing and shouting noisily. Somewhere in the building a child was crying loudly in a different key from the bag-pipe. Bridget didn’t notice these things particularly; she was used to them. Only there came over the young human girl-heart which was beating beneath the rags and in the midst of this wretchedness a sick longing for—what? Bridget did not know.

“It’s the hot weather it is,” she said to herself; “it’s usin’ me up intirely. I’ll jist go an’ have a bit av a walk.”

Accordingly she issued forth, shortly afterward, with a broken-nosed pitcher in her hand, and made her way to one of the shops across the street. There were plenty to choose from—the city had looked out for that. Their licenses were as strong as the Municipal Seal, stamped on one corner, with its picture of church steeples and clouds, and heavens above and pure, broad sea beneath, could make them. Nearly every second house in the street beckoned with flaring lights to its pile of whiskey barrels and shining counters; the dark intervals along the street, between these shops, were the ruined homes of those who went in at the lighted doors.

Opposite, the Crystal Palace, then at its filthiest and worst, reared its ugly shape like a fat weed, watered day and night by whiskey and gin.

[Within the last twelvemonth this building has been torn down, and Lincoln Street largely reclaimed from the squalor and wretchedness which marked it on the evening of which I am speaking; but within a stone’s throw of the same spot, the same sights may be witnessed any night in the week. The district is popularly known as the “South Cove.”]

As Bridget pattered along the sidewalk with her bare feet, a coarse-looking woman in front of her threw something down on the bricks and laughed hoarsely. The “something” resolved itself into a kitten, which picked itself up and walked painfully over to a burly, broad-shouldered man who was sitting on the steps of a basement alley, so that his arms rested on the sidewalk. The kitten curled up beside him. The man put out his big, red hand and stroked it once, then went on with his smoking. The kitten was purring and licking its aching feet as Bridget, who had paused a moment from some dull feeling of compassion, went on her way.

Leaving her pitcher at the bar, with the injunction that it should be filled and ready for her return, she passed out of the store and walked slowly down Lincoln Street toward the Albany Station. The street was full of children running to and fro with shouts and screams of laughter or pain; some of them going in and out of the shops with pitchers and mugs, some lying stupidly in the gutter. The air was stifling, and as Bridget reached the corner she saw the groups of belated people hurrying out to the Newtons and Wellesley, where they might cool themselves in the pure air, with whatever means of comfort money could purchase.

Pet Sibley and Bridget Flanagan both reflected upon this as they unconsciously drew nearer and nearer together. Pet was tired, and was beginning to look for a horse-car to take her to her aunt’s house. The little Irish princess had turned and left her “Palace” until she was now near the head of Summer Street.

Ten steps further, and they met upon the corner, with the great gilded eagle’s wings outstretched above their heads. Both paused for a moment. Pet was dressed as she had been in the boat—all in white, with a pretty fluffy ostrich feather curving around her broad straw hat, and a fleecy shawl thrown over her shoulders. Bridget’s shawl was not fleecy, and her dress was not white. Nor did she wear lawn shoes.

What either would have said I do not know. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps their lives, just touching at this point, would have glided farther and farther apart, until there was no room in this earth for them to meet again. But at that moment something happened.

“Look o’ that!” cried Bridget.

“See!” cried Pet at the same moment; and they both pointed to the third story of a high granite block across the street. One of the windows was slightly open, and through this narrow space a delicate curl of blue smoke floated softly out, laughed noiselessly to itself, and disappeared. They could hardly have seen it at all, but for the powerful electric light upon the corner. Another puff of smoke, and another; then a steady stream, growing blacker and larger every moment. A faint glow, reflected from somewhere inside, shone upon the window panes.

“What shall we do?” cried Pet; “it’s all on fire, and nobody knows!” Instinctively she looked at Bridget for an answer. Somehow the difference between herself and the ragged little Irish girl did not seem so great just then.

The fire had broken out near the place where the great fire of 1872 started. Each of the girls could remember dimly that awful night of red skies and glittering steeples. The massive blocks had been rebuilt, business had rolled through the streets once more, property of value untold lay piled away in those great warehouses on every side, and only these two slender, wide-eyed girls knew of that ugly black smoke, with its gleaming tongues of flame, gliding about over counter and shelf, as Pet had seen the rat, a few minutes before.

“Sure we must give the alar-r-m,” said Bridget, hurriedly, gathering the faded shawl about her neck.

“But I don’t know how. Do you?”

“Don’t I? You jist come along wid me—run, now!”

They almost flew down the street, dainty shoes and bare brown feet side by side.

“Here’s the box,” panted Bridget, pausing suddenly before an iron box attached to a telegraph pole. “Can yer read where it says the key is?”

Pet read: “Key at Faxon’s Building, corner of Bedford and Summer Streets.”