"You try it, Amos," ordered Freda, handing him the cup.

"Yes," said Carolyn May coolly. "You're a boy, and boys don't mind messing into things. Just taste it, Amos."

"Go on, Amos," added Freda. "I dare you. I double-double dare you!"

Of course, Amos, boylike, could not take a dare, so he dipped the tin cup into the yellow, foamy ma.s.s and took a good big swallow. Then the trouble began.

He dropped the cup into the barrel, where it immediately disappeared from sight, while Amos hopped about, sputtering, coughing, crying, and generally acting like a boy distracted.

"Oh, I'm pizened! I'm pizened!" he bawled. "And you girls done it!

I'm-I'm goin' to tell my mother!"

His shrieks brought Mrs. Lardner from her kitchen.

"What under the sun are you children up to?" she demanded. "Amos Bartlett, behave yourself! What is it?"

Amos could not tell her. All he could shriek was that he was "pizened."

He burst out of the shed, ran through the shop, and so home to his mother. Carolyn May was too frightened to speak, but Freda said shakingly: "We only got him to taste the mola.s.ses."

"What mola.s.ses?" demanded the blacksmith's wife, startled.

"Why-why-_that_," said Freda, pointing.

"My mercy me!" gasped the woman. "That soft soap that Hiram just made for me? I don't know but the boy is poisoned."

Mrs. Lardner rushed after Amos, to see if she could help his mother.

Carolyn May and Freda crept quietly home, two frightened little girls.

But Amos was not poisoned. The doctor brought him around all right.

Freda suffered an old-fashioned spanking for her part in the performance; but Aunty Rose, who did not believe in corporal punishment, did not at first know what to do to Carolyn May.

"She should be punished, Joseph Stagg," the housekeeper said to the hardware dealer. "I've put her to bed early--"

"Not without her supper?" he asked in alarm, dropping his own knife and fork.

"No-o," she admitted. "I couldn't do that."

Mr. Stagg chuckled. "I reckon children are children," he observed. "I don't know as Hannah's Car'lyn is any different from the rest."

"I know one thing, Joseph Stagg," said Aunty Rose severely. "If you ever have children of your own they will be utterly spoiled."

But Mr. Stagg still seemed amused.

"If you had anything to do with 'em, I'd have plenty of help in spoiling 'em, Aunty Rose," he declared.

Carolyn May took the matter somewhat seriously. She tried to make it up to Amos Bartlett by lending him her sled, giving him candy when she had it, and otherwise petting him.

"For he _might_ have been poisoned," she stated; "and then he'd be dead, and would _never_ grow up to fit his nose."

Carolyn May's acquaintance broadened constantly. She made friends wherever she went, and the wintry weather did not often keep her in the house. Uncle Joe would not hear of her going into the woods again, unless he was with her, but she could go where she pleased among the neighbours.

At Sunrise Cove there were many people who loved Carolyn May Cameron.

Her most faithful knight, however, was homely, optimistic Chetwood Gormley. Mr. Stagg declared that when Chet saw "Hannah's Car'lyn"

approaching he "grinned so wide that he was like to swallow his own ears."

And they would have been a mouthful. Even Mrs. Gormley, who could see few faults in her son, declared that Chet "wasn't behind the door when ears were given out."

"Chet's got a generous nature," the good woman said to Carolyn May one day when the latter was making the seamstress a little visit. "It don't take his ears to show that, though they _do_. He'd do anything for a friend. But I don't know as he's 'preciated as much as he'd oughter be,"

sighed Mrs. Gormley. "Mr. Stagg, even, don't know Chet's good parts."

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Gormley, I think Uncle Joe knows all about Chet's ears.

He couldn't hardly miss 'em," the little girl hastened to observe.

"Humph! I didn't mean actual parts of his body," Mrs. Gormley replied, eyeing the little girl over her spectacles. "I mean character. He's a fine boy, Car'lyn May."

"Oh! I think he is, too," agreed the child. "And I'm sure Uncle Joe 'preciates him."

"Well, I hope so," sighed the seamstress. "You can't much tell just what Mr. Joe Stagg thinks of folks. There's him and Mandy Parlow. Somebody was tellin' me Mr. Stagg was seen comin' out o' the Parlow house one day. But, shucks! _that_ ain't so, of course?" and she looked narrowly at her little visitor.

"Oh, I wish he _would_ make up with Miss Amanda," sighed Carolyn May.

"She's _so_ nice."

"And I guess he thought so, too-once. But you can't tell, as I say. Mr.

Joe Stagg is a man that never lets on what's in his mind."

Just then in burst Chet, quite unexpectedly, for it was not yet mid-afternoon.

"Oh, dear me! Mercy me!" gasped Mrs. Gormley. "What _is_ the matter, Chetwood? Mr. Stagg hain't let you go, has he?"

"Let me go? Well, there, mother, I wish you warn't always expectin'

trouble," Chet said, though smiling widely. "Why should Mr. Stagg discharge me? Why, I'm gettin' more and more valuable to him ev'ry day-sure I am!"

"He-he ain't said nothin' yet about-about a partnership, has he, Chetwood?" his mother whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"My goodness, maw-no! You know that'll take time. But it's almost sure to come. I seen him out the other day, across the street, looking up at the sign. And I'll bet I know what was in his mind, maw."

"I hope so," sighed the seamstress. "But you ain't told us how you come to be away from the store at this hour."

"That's 'cause of Car'lyn May," responded Chet, smiling at the little girl. "He let me off to take her slidin'. The ice ain't goin' to be safe in the cove for long now. Spring's in the air a'ready. Both brooks are runnin' full."

"Oh, Chet! _Can_ we go sliding?" cried Carolyn May. "I brought my sled!"

"Sure. Your uncle says he knowed you wanted to go down on the ice. I'll put on my skates and draw you. We'll have such fun!"

Carolyn May was delighted. Although the sky was overcast and a storm threatening when they got down on the ice, neither the boy nor the little girl gave the weather a second thought. Nor had Mr. Stagg considered the weather when he had allowed Chet to leave the store that afternoon. He was glad to get Chet out of the way for an hour; for, if the truth be told, he sometimes found it difficult to make any use of young Gormley at all.

"I might as well lock up the store when I go home to dinner and supper,"

Mr. Stagg sometimes observed to himself. "If the critter sells anything, it's usually at the wrong price. He wants to sell wire nails by the dozen and bra.s.s hinges by the pound. I dunno what I keep him for, unless it's for the good of my soul. Chet Gormley does help a feller to cultivate patience!"