"Oh! Sheba! You'd oughtn't not to have did that!" reproved Dorcas, severely. Then she stumbled over a brier. She had watched her sister too closely to see where her own feet fell, and one little cl.u.s.ter of grapes rolled to the ground.

"I guess that was 'cause I was lookin' for 'the mote in your eyes' 't I got a 'beam' in mine so's I couldn't see right smart," observed this Scripture-taught child, in keen self-reproach.

"Did you get a beam? I didn't. I can see real good. Say, Dorcas, 'twouldn't not do to give mamma grapes what have fell into dirty gra.s.s, would it? Mamma hates dirt so much papa laughs hard about it.

And--and it isn't not nice to waste things. Mamma says 'waste not want not.' I ain't wantin' them grapes but I can't waste 'em, either. Mamma wouldn't like that. These ain't our kind of wild ones, we get in the woods. These are real ones what grew on a vine."

They paused to regard the fallen fruit. How the sunlight tinted their golden skins. They _must_ taste--Oh! how doo-licious they must taste!

As the elder, and therefore in authority, Dorcas stooped to lift the amber fruit; and, losing hold of the burdock leaf sent the whole dinner to the ground.

Then did consternation seize them. This was something dreadful. If mamma hadn't been so terrible neat! If she'd only been willing to "eat her peck of dirt," like papa said everybody had to do sometime, they could pick it all up and squeeze it back, nice and tight on the big green leaf, and hurry to her with it. But----

"Yes, sir! There is! A yellow wiggley kittenpillar just crawled out of the way. S'posing he left one his hairs on that chicken? Just suppose?

Why, that might make mamma sick if she ate it! You wouldn't want to make poor darling mamma sick, like the Geraldy boy, would you, Sheba Stillwell? Would you?"

Poor little Sheba couldn't answer. She was in the throes of a great temptation. She hadn't the strength of character of Saint Anne. She didn't at all like that suggestion of a "kittenpillar's" hair and yet--what was one hair to such a wicked waste as it would be if they left all that fine food to spoil, or for the guinea-hen to gobble.

"The guinea-hen eats a lot. She eats kittenpillars right down whole;"

pensively observed Sheba, when she had reached this stage of thought.

"She shan't eat this, then!" declared Dorcas, promptly sitting down and dividing with great care all this delectable treat.

"Why, little ones, what are you doing? Why aren't you back yonder with the rest? I don't see Saint Augustine there, either. Do you know where he is?"

As this simple question interrupted them the conscience-stricken children began to cry. One glance into their mother's troubled face had aroused all their love for her and a sense of their own selfishness.

"Why, babies dear, what's the matter? Have you hurt yourselves?"

"Yes, mamma, we have. We've hurted the very insides of us, in the place where mutton-taller can't reach an' you can't kiss it well again. Your dinner was sent to you and--and--_we've et it up_!"

Dorcas delivered herself of this statement in a defiant att.i.tude, her arms folded behind her, but her little breast heaving. And she could scarcely believe her own ears when the only reprimand she received was:

"Say 'eaten,' darling, not 'et.' I do wonder where my boy is! In some mischief, I fear, the precious little scamp!"

But she was still wondering when that day's sun went down.

CHAPTER XIII.

WHAT LAY UNDER THE WALKING FERN.

For once Gerald was neglected, and for once he was glad of it. Mrs.

Stillwell and Jim had both come in, on the afternoon before, in a high state of excitement. They had demanded of him if he had seen Saint Augustine, the mischievous child with the peculiar name. He had retorted, angrily, that of course he had seen n.o.body, neither child nor grown-up. He might lie there and die for all anybody would bother!

He'd get up, he declared he would, dress and go away at once. Never before had he stayed in such a wretched place as this, and yes, he surely would get up and leave. If he could find his own clothes. Did anybody know where his clothes were?

Even in the midst of her terrible anxiety, his faithful nurse and hostess had smiled, encouragingly, saying:

"You couldn't do better. When a sick person gets to your state of mind and nerves, he's usually well enough to go out. All you brought with you is in that parcel under the bed. You can leave Corny's shirt--anywhere."

She caught her breath with a sob and went swiftly out of the cabin. He heard her calling her children and directing them:

"Wesley and Saint Anne, little brother has run away. He's done that before, so don't be frightened. He's always been found--he will be now. But mamma may not be back by sundown and you, Wesley, must do the milking and lay the fire ready for lighting in the morning. Saint Anne, my precious little care-taker, see well after the others and give the sick boy his supper of cream and oatmeal which was sent.

Don't feel lonely because both papa and mamma are away. The dear G.o.d is right here with you, you know, in your little bedroom and close outside the window. No harm can happen where G.o.d is, you know, and now good-bye."

She had kissed them all around and only Saint Anne noticed her lips trembled. Then she had gone swiftly away in one direction which they knew well. It was toward the little whirlpool in the woods, caused by the sudden meeting of two small streams and named Tony's Eddy, because a man named Tony had been drowned there.

It was a spot all the cabin children, except Saint Augustine, greatly feared. He liked it because "papa does," and was never happier than when Corny took him on a ramble thither. Lucetta had protested against these visits to the dangerous place, but her fear had been laughed down by her light-hearted husband.

"Fall into the Eddy? Why, woman dear, he will scarcely look into it when I try to make him. Just shivers in a silly way, and makes up all sorts of queer yarns about it. The Eddy fascinates him but scares him, too. He believes that bad fairies live in it and if he should go too near they'd come out and drag him down with them to destruction. Oh!

you needn't worry about Tony's Eddy."

Alas! for her peace of mind, now that Saint Augustine had disappeared, "The Eddy!" was her first and only thought.

Jim searched in an opposite direction.

"I believe he's gone to find the monkeys. He was talking of them almost the last thing. Horrid things! I wish they'd never been heard of. They've made more trouble than human beings could, try their best!

Or, maybe, child like, he's gone to dig that wonderful 'treasure' out of the ground and to buy you the silk dress he'd heard about. Dear little kid! He was as earnest as a man, almost!" said Jim, trying to comfort the mother-heart that suffered so.

"You look. I'll look. He must be found. I can't meet Corny's eyes and tell him that our boy is lost," she had answered quietly enough, but with agony in her expression.

When they had gone Gerald got up and dressed. He was rather shaky in the knees but felt far better than when lying on the hard bed which had been given up to his use. How his hostess had managed he had not even thought, until that moment Jim had lain on the bench across the room, upon a bag of fern leaves he had gathered for himself in the woods near-by, with his rag-carpet blanket to cover him. He hadn't complained and Gerald had given no thought to his comfort, his own being his first concern as it had always been.

Now the house seemed desolate. Saint Anne came timidly in with his light supper and started back in affright. He looked like a stranger to her in his own clothes, having seen him only as "the sick one" in bed. But he called her and she dared not disobey her mother's command to give him his supper. Somehow, for the first time, the child's face appealed to him and he thanked her for her attention. This was more astonishing than to see him fully dressed in his white duck suit, that had been laundered by Lucetta on the day after his arrival.

In a flutter of excitement, Saint Anne retreated to the inner room and the safe presence of her family; and when, after a moment she regained courage enough to open the door between--the lad was gone.

"He was here and he isn't here. He was all in white, like mamma says the angels wear, and Dr. Jabb's little Eunice. She had on clothes all flyey-about and thin--looked like moonlight. She had a hump in her shoulders where mamma thinks maybe her wings are starting to grow.

Mamma knows her mamma a right smart while, and she says Eunice is a perfectly angelic child. Mamma wouldn't say that if she didn't know.

Maybe the sick boy's turned into a angel, too, or is turning! Just supposing! Maybe G.o.d sent him to stay with us, because papa and mamma had to go away. Maybe!"

There was no radiance from the moonlight now upon the eager little face, and indoors was dark; but it was delightful to think of angels being about, until Wesley remarked, in his matter-of-fact way:

"If he was _sent_ he ought to have _stayed_. I don't believe he was a truly angel. I guess he was just one them changelings, papa tells stories about, that the fairies over in the Ireland-country carries 'round with 'em. If a baby or a boy is terrible cross--like the sick one was, yesterday, the fairy just s.n.a.t.c.hes him up and whisks him off somewhere and puts a good new one in his place. Peek and see, Saint Anne!"

"Peek yourself, Wesley. I'm--I'd rather have an angel than a changeling. Anyhow, I'm going to sleep. G.o.d's here, taking care, so it don't matter."

Happy in the faith that had been instilled into their minds from their earliest consciousness the deserted ones fell fast asleep, though not till Dorcas had slipped into Saint Augustine's place in the boys' bed a little willow whistle Jim had made for her and which she had refused to give her brother.

As for the angelic Gerald he was weakly trudging on his way toward the cross-cut lane, which he had seen from the cabin window and had been told led outward to the main road, running past Deer-Copse. How often he had wished to be upon it, and now he wondered why he hadn't started long before. Though it grew steadily dark, he kept as steadily on, though his strength was sorely tried and he wished he dared stop and rest. He was afraid to do this. He knew if he lay down on the ground, that looked so tempting a bed, he wouldn't have the energy to go on again. After a time his steps grew automatic. His feet lifted and fell with no volition of his own, it seemed, and a curious drowsiness came over him.

"I believe I'm going to sleep, walking!" he thought, and wearily closed his eyes. But he opened them again with a start.

"What's that? What is it? Sounds like--I must be out of my head--I don't know where I am. I can't see. Ah! the lane! I'm there at last.

Now I can lie right down and rest and somebody'll find me--sometime."

Yet once more into his drowsing ear fell a peculiar sound.