"Oh, yes, sir-I would. And I know Prince would like a drink," she told him quickly.

"Go right around to the well in the back yard," said Mr. Parlow. "You'll find a gla.s.s there-and Mandy keeps a pan on the well-curb for the dogs and cats."

"Thank you; I'll go," the little girl said, and started around by the green lane to the yard behind the cottage and the carpenter shop.

She hoped she would see Miss Amanda Parlow; but she saw n.o.body. The well was like the one in the Stagg back yard-it had a sweep and a smooth pole and chain that lowered the bucket into the depth of the shaft.

But it seemed as though somebody must have known the little girl was coming, for a dripping bucket of water had just been lifted upon the shelf, and the pan on the well-curb was filled. Prince lapped up the water from this eagerly.

All the time Carolyn May was getting her drink she felt she was being watched. She gazed frankly all about, but saw n.o.body. The green blinds were tightly closed over the cottage windows; yet the child wondered if somebody inside was not looking out at her. Was it the nice-looking lady she had seen the day before-Miss Amanda, who would not look at Uncle Joe?

She went back to the door of the carpenter shop and found Mr. Parlow still busily at work.

"Seems to me," he said, in his dry voice, after a little while, "you aren't much like other little girls."

"Aren't I?" responded Carolyn May wonderingly.

"No. Most little girls that come here want shavings to play with," said the carpenter, quizzically eyeing her over his work.

"Oh!" cried Carolyn May, almost jumping. "And do you give 'em to 'em?"

"'Most always," admitted Mr. Parlow.

"Oh! Can _I_ have some?" she gasped.

"All you want," said Mr. Parlow, and perhaps that funny noise he made in his throat was as near to a laugh as he ever got.

When Tim's old hack crawled along the road from town, with Aunty Rose sitting inside, enthroned amidst a mult.i.tude of bundles, Carolyn May was bedecked with a veritable wig of long, crisp curls, each carefully thrust under the brim of her hat. And when she shook the curls, Prince barked at her.

"Well, child, you certainly have made a mess of yourself," said the housekeeper. "Has she been annoying you, Jedidiah Parlow?"

"She's the only Stagg that ain't annoyed me since her mother went away,"

said the carpenter gruffly.

Aunty Rose looked at him levelly. "I wonder," she said. "But, you see, she isn't wholly a Stagg."

This, of course, did not explain matters to Carolyn May in the least.

Nor did what Aunty Rose said to her on the way home in the hot, stuffy hack help the little girl to understand the trouble between her uncle and Mr. Parlow.

"Better not let Joseph Stagg see you so friendly with Jedidiah Parlow.

Let sleeping dogs lie," Mrs. Kennedy observed.

CHAPTER VII-A TRAGIC SITUATION

Such was the introduction of Carolyn May to The Corners. It was not a very exciting life she had entered into, but the following two or three weeks were very full.

Aunty Rose insisted upon her being properly fitted out with clothing for the summer and fall. Mrs. Price sent on by express certain of the child's possessions that would be useful, but Aunty Rose declared the local seamstress must make a number of dresses for Carolyn May. The latter had to go to the dressmaker's house to be fitted, and that is how she became acquainted with Chet Gormley's mother.

Mrs. Gormley was helping the dressmaker, and they both made much of Carolyn May. Aunty Rose allowed her to go for her fittings alone-of course, with Prince as a companion-so, without doubt, Mrs. Gormley, who loved a "dish of gossip," talked more freely with the little girl than she would have done in Mrs. Kennedy's presence.

One afternoon the little girl appeared at the dressmaker's (it was only two houses nearer the centre of Sunrise Cove than the Parlow cottage) with Prince's collar decorated with short, curly shavings. This Elizabethan ruff may or may not have caused the dog to look "extinguished," as Carolyn May pointed out, but it certainly made him uncomfortable. However, he endured this dressing-up to please his little mistress.

"I take it you've stopped at Jed Parlow's shop, child," said Mrs.

Gormley with a sigh.

"Yes, ma'am," returned Carolyn May. "Do you know, he's very lib'ral."

"'Lib'ral'?" repeated Mrs. Gormley. "I never heard of old Jed Parlow bein' accused of that before. Did you, Mrs. Maine?"

Mrs. Maine was the dressmaker; and she bit off her words when she spoke, much as she bit off her threads.

"No. I never-heard Jed Parlow-called that-no!" declared Mrs. Maine emphatically.

"Why, yes," little Carolyn May said quite eagerly, "he gives me all the shavings I want. I-I guess folks don't just understand about Mr.

Parlow," she added, remembering what her uncle had first said about the carpenter. "He _is_ real lib'ral."

"It's a wonder to me," drawled Mrs. Gormley, "that he has a thing to do with _a certain party_, Mrs. Maine, considerin' how his daughter feels towards that _certain party's_ relation. What d'you think?"

"I guess-there's sumpin-to be said-on both sides-o' that controversy,"

responded the dressmaker.

"Meanin' that mebbe _a certain party's_ relative feels just as cross as Mandy Parlow?" suggested Mrs. Gormley.

"Yep," agreed the other woman, biting off her answer and her thread at the same instant.

Carolyn May listened, much puzzled. She wondered just who "a certain party" could be. It sounded very mysterious.

Mrs. Maine was called away upon some household task, and Mrs. Gormley seemed to change the subject of conversation.

"Don't your uncle, Mr. Stagg, ever speak to you about Mandy Parlow?" she asked the little girl.

Carolyn May had to think about this before answering. Then she remembered.

"Oh, yes," she said brightly.

"He does? Do tell!" exclaimed Mrs. Gormley eagerly. "What does he say?"

"Why, he says her name is _Miss_ Amanda Parlow."

Mrs. Gormley flushed rather oddly and glanced at the child with suspicion. But little Carolyn May was perfectly frank and ingenuous.

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Chet's mother. "He never says nothing about bein' in love with Mandy, does he? They was goin' with each other steady once."

The little girl looked puzzled.