"Pitcher of George Washington! if that ain't a smart dog, I never see one," gasped Tim, panting and blowing. "Air ye hurt, Car'lyn May?"

"I-I guess not, Mr. Timothy," answered the little girl.

"I never seen the beat of this in all my born days," declared the man.

"And that dog--"

"Prince is just the very _best_ dog!" Carolyn May affirmed. "Oh, Mr.

Timothy, take me down, quick! Poor Princey is all b.l.o.o.d.y; he must be hurt!"

"He is hurt some. That lynx raked him once, I 'low," returned Tim. "But he'll be all right when ye git him home and put something on the scratches. My goodness! what an exciting time! I never did see the beat of it!"

This statement Tim continued to repeat all the way to The Corners. He set Carolyn May back on the load again and hoisted Prince up with her, but he walked himself beside the team.

"Ain't goin' to take no more risks. Pitcher of George Washington! I guess not. Dunno what your Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose'll say to me."

The story lost nothing in the telling when Tim, the hackman, and Carolyn May both related it at the Stagg homestead. And poor Prince's wounds spoke louder than words.

"Ain't been a wildcat in this county afore in five year," declared Tim.

"And I'm sartain sure there never was one here more savage."

When Uncle Joe saw Tim in the village and heard about the adventure he hastened home to make sure that his little niece had received no injury.

Prince was enthroned on an old quilt beside the range.

Aunty Rose had herself washed his wounds-though she admitted being afraid of his savage-looking teeth-and had put some healing balsam on them. The dog, evidently enjoying his role of invalid, looked up at Mr.

Stagg and slapped his tail on the floor.

"If it hadn't been for that dumb creature, Joseph Stagg," said Aunty Rose, still quite shaken over the incident, "we wouldn't maybe have our little girl unhurt. If Timothy tells the truth--"

"I guess he tells the truth, all right," snorted Mr. Stagg. "He don't know enough to tell anything but truth. Howsomever, if he'd stopped his team, he could have licked that old lynx to a fare-ye-well. I wouldn't trust Hannah's Car'lyn with him again-not even to go to church."

"Why, Uncle Joe," said Carolyn May, "you can't really blame Mr. Timothy for being scared at that awful wildcat. I was scared myself."

CHAPTER XX-THE SPRING FRESHET

Since Joseph Stagg had listened to the rambling tale of the sailor regarding the sinking of the _Dunraven_, he had borne the fate of his sister and her husband much in mind.

He had come no nearer to deciding what to do with the apartment in New York and its furnishings. Carolyn May had prattled so much about her home that Mr. Stagg felt as though he knew each room and each piece of furniture. And, should he go down to New York and make arrangements to have his sister's possessions taken to an auction room, he would feel on entering the flat as though the ghosts of Carolyn May's parents would meet him there.

Mr. Price had written him twice about the place. The second time he had found a tenant willing to sublet the furnished apartment. It would have made a little income for Carolyn May, but Mr. Stagg could not bring himself to sign the lease. The lawyer had not written since.

After listening to Benjamin Hardy's story, the hardware dealer felt less inclined than before to close up the affairs of Carolyn May's small "estate." Not that he for one moment believed that there was a possibility of Hannah and her husband being alive. Five months had pa.s.sed. In these days of wireless telegraph and fast sea traffic such a thing could not be possible. The imagination of the practical hardware merchant could not visualise it.

Had the purser's boat, in which the old sailor declared the Camerons were, been picked up by one of the Turkish ships, as the other refugees from the _Dunraven_ had been rescued by the French vessel, surely news of the fact would long since have reached the papers, even had circ.u.mstances kept Mr. and Mrs. Cameron from returning home.

The Mediterranean is not the South Seas. A steam vessel could reach New York from the spot where the _Dunraven_ had sunk in a week.

No, Mr. Stagg held no shred of belief that Hannah and her husband were not drowned.

Carolyn May did not speak of the tragedy; yet it was continually in the child's mind. Her conversation with the sailor regarding the sufferings of drowning people only touched a single phase of the little girl's trouble.

She was glad to be a.s.sured that her parents had not lingered in agony when they met their fate. She accepted the sailor's statement regarding drowning quite at its par value. Nevertheless, neither this interview with Benjamin Hardy at the lumber camp nor Aunty Rose's copious doses of boneset tea cheered the little girl. The excitement of the adventure with the lynx lasted only a few hours. Then the cloud returned to Carolyn May's countenance and she drooped once more.

Miss Minnie noticed it. By this time the sharp-eyed young teacher looked through her spectacles very kindly at the little girl.

"What is the trouble with you, Carolyn May?" the teacher asked on one occasion. "You used to be the happiest little girl in The Corners school; and you were brightening up everybody else, too. I don't like to see you so glum and thoughtful. It isn't like you. What about your '_look up_' motto, my dear? Have you forgotten it?"

"I haven't forgotten that-oh, no, Miss Minnie. I _couldn't_ forget that!" the child replied. "I 'spect my papa would be 'shamed of me for losing heart so. But, oh, Miss Minnie! I _do_ get such an empty feeling now when I think of my papa and mamma. And I think of them 'most all the time. It just does seem as though they were going farther and farther away from me ev'ry day!"

Miss Minnie took the child in her arms and kissed her.

"Faithful little soul!" she murmured. "Time will never heal heart wounds for her."

Miss Amanda understood Carolyn May, too. When the child went to the Parlow house she found sympathy and comfort in abundance.

Not that Aunty Rose and Uncle Joe were not sympathetic; but they did not wholly understand the child's nature. As the winter pa.s.sed and Carolyn May grew more and more quiet, the hardware dealer and the woman who kept house for him decided that there was nothing the matter with Carolyn May save the natural changes incident to her growing up. For, physically, she was growing fast. As Aunty Rose said to Mr. Stagg, she was "stretching right out of her clothes."

But Carolyn May did not always keep out of mischief, for she was a very human little girl, after all was said and done. Especially was she p.r.o.ne to escapades when she was in the company of Freda Payne, her black-eyed school chum.

Trouble seemed to gravitate towards Freda. Not that she was intentionally naughty, but she was too active and too full of curiosity to lead a very placid existence. Wherever Freda was the storm clouds of trouble soon gathered.

Carolyn May and Freda were playing one Sat.u.r.day afternoon in the long shed that connected the blacksmith shop with Mr. Lardner's house, and Amos Bartlett was with them.

Carolyn May did not often play with little boys. She did not much approve of them. They often played roughly and it must be confessed that their hands almost always were grubby. But she rather pitied Amos Bartlett because he had been endowed with a nose so generous that the other children laughed at him and called him "Nosey." He snuffled, and he talked nasally, which made Carolyn May shudder sometimes, but she was brave about it when in Amos' company.

The three were playing in Mr. Hiram Lardner's shed, which was half storeroom and half workshop. Back in a corner the inquisitive Freda found a great cask filled with something very yellow and foamy and delicious to look at.

"Oh, mola.s.ses, I do believe!" exclaimed Freda eagerly. "Don't you s'pose it's mola.s.ses, Car'lyn May? I just love mola.s.ses!"

Carolyn May was fond of syrup, too; and this barrelful certainly looked like the kind Aunty Rose sometimes put on the table for the griddle cakes. The little girl liked it better than she did maple syrup.

"I believe it is mola.s.ses," she agreed.

"Here's a tin cup to drink it with," put in Amos.

"O-oh! Would you dare taste it, Car'lyn May?" cried Freda.

"No. I'd rather not. Besides, it isn't ours," Carolyn May returned virtuously.

"But there's so much of it," urged Freda. "I'm sure Mr. Lardner wouldn't care-nor Mrs. Lardner, either."

"But-but maybe it isn't mola.s.ses," Carolyn May suggested.

"I bet it is m'la.s.ses," declared Amos with a longing look.