"But they're a jolly lot. They save a great deal of strength in not worrying. And they know Dele is trusty. She's a smart girl, too."

"Well, I wouldn't want any of my sons to marry girls brought up as those Whitneys."

"Hear that, Jim. You are fairly warned."

Jim turned scarlet.

"Jim will have to be in better business many a year than thinking of girls," subjoined his mother decisively.

The little girl didn't seem very hungry. She ate her bread-and-milk and talked over the delights of the afternoon, and her enjoyment mollified her mother a good deal. Jim considered at first whether it wouldn't rather even up things if he went without his supper, but the biscuits and the boiled beef were so tempting, and in those days boys could eat the twenty-four hours round. People were wont to say they had the digestion of an ostrich. But I think if you had tried them on nails and old shoes the ostrich would have gone up head.

"Oh, do you see how late it is? I know Hanny will be sick to-morrow! And Jim, you'll have the doctor's bill to pay."

"Oh, no," said Hanny with a smile, "Joe has promised to doctor me for nothing."

Mrs. Underhill lost her point. Jim wanted a good laugh, but he thought it would hardly be prudent.

Of course something ought to have happened to impress their wrong-doing on the children. But it didn't. They were all well and bright the next morning. Mr. Theodore Whitney took occasion to say that he hoped the Underhills wouldn't feel offended. It was just a young people's caper, and he thought it rather amusing.

Mrs. Whitney said in the bosom of her household: "Well, I wonder that Mrs. Underhill has an ounce of fat on her bones if she's worried that way about her eight children! I always felt to trust mine to Providence."

Jim "gave away" the thing at school, and was quite a hero. But some of the boys had crawled under a circus tent. And a circus was simply immense!

Lily Ludlow said, out of her bitterest envy, "I shouldn't have thought you would let a girl take you out, Jim Underhill!"

"She didn't take me! I bought my own ticket. And there was her cousin----"

"Well--if you like _that_ style of people--and red hair--and Dele Whitney has no more figure than a post! I wouldn't be such a fat chunk for anything! And her clothes are just wild."

"Of course you're ever so much the prettiest. And I wish _we_ could go to the Museum together, just us two." Jim thought it would be fine to take out _one_ girl.

That mollified Lily a little.

"And I just wish you lived up by our house. It seems so easy then to come in. And when you once get real well acquainted--intimate like--well, you know I like you better than any girl in school;" though Jim wondered a little if it was absolutely true.

"Do you, really?" The eyes and the smile always conquered him. She made good use of both.

"Oh, you know I do."

Chris didn't see why she couldn't get acquainted with Margaret. She wanted her mother to call, but Mrs. Ludlow said, "I've more friends now than I can attend to." And Miss Margaret seemed to hold up her head so high. Then Mr. Stephen was going to marry in the Beekman family. And Chris wondered why Mr. John didn't go in some store business instead of learning a carpenter's trade.

Hester Brown was out of school a week. Mrs. Craven had begged the girls not to tease her, but after a few days she announced that a mistake had been made in the calculation--some people thought three years--but the end was sure. However three years seems a lifetime to children.

CHAPTER X

A MERRY CHRISTMAS

George Underhill came down and made a nice long visit. He felt he liked his own home people a little the best, but his heart was still set on farming. Thanksgiving came after a lovely Indian summer, such as one rarely sees now. Then each State appointed its own Thanksgiving, and there were people who boasted of partaking of three separate dinners.

After that it was cold. The little girl had a good warm cloak and hood and mittens, and it was nothing to run to school. She studied and played, and knew two pretty exercises on the piano. Jim and Benny Frank grew like weeds. But Benny somehow "gave in" to the boys, and two or three of the school bullies did torment him.

"I'd just give it to them!" declared Jim. "I wouldn't be put upon and called baby and a mollycoddle and have that Perkins crowding me off the line and losing marks. I'd give him such a right-hander his head would hum like a swarm of bees."

It was not because Benny was afraid. But he was a peace-loving boy and he thought fighting brutal and vulgar. His books were such a delight. He liked to go in and talk to Mr. Theodore, as they all called the eldest Whitney son. Mr. Theodore in his newspaper capacity had found out so many queer things about old New York, they really called New York that in early 1800. He had such wonderful portfolios of pictures, and nothing in the Whitney house was too good to use.

Hanny often went in as well. And though Dele was such a harum-scarum sort of girl, she was good to the children and found no end of diversions for them. Nora was a curious, grave little thing, and her large dark eyes in her small, sallow face looked almost uncanny. She devoured fairy stories and knew many of the mythological G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. They had a beautiful big cat called Old Gray. It really belonged to Mr. Theodore, but Nora played with it and tended it, and dressed it up in caps and gowns and shawls and carried it around. It certainly was a lovely tempered cat. Hanny was divided in her affection between the Deans' dolls and Nora's cat. The play-house was too cold to use now, and Mrs. Dean objected to having it all moved down to her sewing-room. But Mr. Theodore's room had a delightful grate, a big old lounge, a generous centre-table where the girls used to play house under the cover, and such piles of books everywhere, so many pictures on the wall, such curious pipes and swords and trophies from different lands. You really never knew whether it was cleared up or not, and the very lawlessness was attractive.

Sometimes they sat in the big rocker, that would hold both, and they would divide the cat between them and sing to her. Occasionally kitty would tire of such unceasing attention, and emit a long, appealing m-i-e-u. If Mr. Theodore was there--and he never seemed to mind the little girls playing about--he would say, "Children, what are you doing to that cat?" and they would no longer try to divide her, but let her curl up in her own fashion.

"Oh, mother!" said the little girl, one rainy afternoon when she had to stay in, "couldn't we have a Sunday cat that didn't have to stay out in the stable and catch mice for a living? Nora's is so nice and cunning and you can talk to it just as if it was folks. And you can't quite make dolls, folks. You have to keep making b'lieve all the time."

"Martha doesn't like cats. And Jim would torment it and plague you continually. And you know I wouldn't let Jim's little dog come in the house."

"But so many people do have cats."

"There's hardly room with so many folks. You wait until Christmas and see what Santa Claus brings you," said her mother cheerily.

There came a little snow and the boys brought out their sleds. For two days the air was alive with shouts and s...o...b..lling, and then it was like a drift of gray sand alongside of the street gutter. But winter had fairly set in. Stoves were up.

In the back room at the Underhills' they had a fire of logs on the hearth, and it was delightful.

Ben was tormented more and more. The boys knocked off his cap in the gutter and made up rhymes about him which they sang to any sort of tune.

This was one:

"Benjamin Franklin Underhill, Was a little boy too awfully still: Forty bears came out of the wood, And ate up the boy so awfully good."

"Come out from under that hill," while some boy would reply, "Oh, he da.s.sent! He's afraid his shadder'll meet him in the way."

One day he came home with his pocket all torn out. Perkins had slipped a crooked stick in it and given it what the boys called a "yank."

"Go in and ask your mother for a needle and thread. You'll make a good tailor!" he jeered.

"What is all this row about?" asked his mother, who was in the front bas.e.m.e.nt.

Ben held out his jacket ruefully, and said, "Perkins never would leave him alone."

Jim had complained and said Ben always showed the white feather. Mrs.

Underhill couldn't endure cowards. She was angry, too, to see his nice winter jacket in such a plight.

"Benny Frank, you just march out and thrash that Perkins boy, or I'll thrash you! I don't care if you are almost as tall as I am. A great boy of fifteen who can't take his own part! I should be ashamed! March straight out!"

She took him by the shoulder and turned him round, whisked him out in the area before he knew where he was. She would not have him so meek and chicken-hearted.

Ben stood a moment in surprise. Jim had been scolded for his pugnacity.