"Take care," warned Candace. "Oh, my soul and body!" she mourned, "dey're all mussed up."

"You can comb it out," said Joel, longing to comfort, and forgetting it was wool from Candace's own head.

"And what'll Mis' Cabot and Mis' Alstyne say?" groaned Candace. Then she sat right down on the gra.s.s and began to pick at the dolls discontentedly.

"W'y couldn't you 'a' looked whar you're goin', Mas'r Joel?"

"Have Mrs. Alstyne and Mrs. Cabot bought those dolls?" cried Joel, pointing a brown finger at them. "Oh, dear me!" He just saved himself from exclaiming, "Those horrors!"

"Yes," said Candace, smoothing a woolly head in great distress, "but I dunno's they'll want 'em now, dey've been shook up so and spilt on de groun'--oh, dear me!"

"Joel, aren't you coming with that letter bag?" and, "Joel Pepper, hurry up!" The cries were now so insistent that Joel dashed away, stopped, and rushed back tumultuously. "Oh, Candace, I'm so sorry!" He flung himself down on the gra.s.s by her side. Distress was written so plainly all over his hot face that Candace stopped in her work over the dolls to turn and regard him.

"Bress yer heart, honey," she cried, now as much worried over Joel as she had been about the dolls, "dey ain't hurt a mite--not a single grain," she added emphatically.

"Oh, Candace, are you sure?" he exclaimed delightedly.

"Not a mite," protested Candace, bobbing her own woolly head in a decided fashion. "Dear me! now I'm afraid I dis...o...b..rated my turban, an' it's my spick an' span comp'ny one Mr. King give me for this yere berry occasion,"

and she put up both black hands to feel of it anxiously. Joel jumped to his feet and ran all around the big figure to get the most comprehensive view.

"It's all right, Candace," he reported, in great satisfaction.

"Sure, honey?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yes, yes," declared Joel quickly, prancing up in front of her. "I like you, Candace; you're just as nice as can be."

"Den gimme your hands!"--she laid the rag dolls carefully on the gra.s.s, and put out both of her black ones--"and hoist me up, honey, dat's a good chile."

So Joel stuck out his brown hands, and Candace laying hold of them, he tugged, very red in the face, till finally she set her ample gaiters on the ground and stood straight.

Up rushed Van.

"They're complaining at the post office," he squealed. "You've got to give me your bag. Folks can't get their letters. Give me the bag." He thrust out both hands.

Joel turned on him in a fury,

"You aren't going to have my bag," he screamed.

"I am, too; you're so slow, and don't give out the letters," said Van, delighted to find some chance to get the best of Joel, and quite important to be sent with a message to such an effect.

"You shan't either; I ain't slow," cried Joel, answering both statements at once, and whirling around in an endeavor to keep the bag at his back. But Van flew for it, disdaining to waste more time over arguments.

Candace stretched out a large, black hand. "See here, now, Mas'r Van, leggo dat bag." She seized him by the jacket collar with such a grip that he dismissed all thoughts of the mail bag, his one concern now being to get free from Candace.

"Ow!" he screamed, wriggling violently. "I don't want the mail bag; let me go, Candace, do!"

"See," cried little d.i.c.k, half across the lawn, to a merry party of ladies and gentlemen, who turned to follow the pointing of the small finger toward Candace and her capture.

"Oh, let me go," cried Van, very red in the face at this, and trying to duck behind her big figure, "_please,_ Candace."

"Let him go," begged Joel, just as much distressed; "he won't touch the bag, I don't believe, again, Candace."

"Oh, I won't, I won't," promised Van wildly. "I don't want the bag; do let me go, Candace."

"Yer see, Mas'r Joel was a-helpin' me," said Candace, slowly releasing Van's jacket collar, "an' 'twarn't none 'o his fault dat he stopped kerryin' de letters." But Van was off from under her open fingers and shot across the green in the opposite direction from little d.i.c.k and his party.

"Now I'll take my dolls to de ladies," observed Candace, bundling them up in her clean, checked ap.r.o.n. She sent a satisfied glance after Joel, making quick time toward the post office, then waddled off.

"Boy!" called a fine, imperious voice, as Joel dashed by a group of ladies and gentlemen. As there wasn't any other boy in sight, he might be supposed to be the one wanted; but Joel by this time was frantic to get to the post office, and with his mind filled with mortification and distress at his delay from his duty, he paid no heed to the call, now repeated more insistently.

"It's a lady," then said Joel to himself, "so I must go back. Oh, dear me!"

He wheeled abruptly, and, hot and red-faced, plunged up to the group.

"What is it, ma'am?" Then he saw to his disgust that it was Mrs.

Chatterton. She was surrounded by friends whom she had met abroad.

"Why didn't you come when I bade you?" she exclaimed arrogantly. "Don't you know it's your place to serve me?"

"No, ma'am," said Joel bluntly, his black eyes fixed on her face. One or two of the gentlemen turned aside with a laugh.

"What, you little beggar!" Mrs. Chatterton said it between her teeth, furious at the amus.e.m.e.nt of her friends, but Joel heard.

"I'm not a beggar," he declared hotly, and squaring his shoulders. By this time he forgot all about the mail bag. "And you haven't any right to say so"--with flashing eyes.

Mrs. Chatterton, now seeing him worked up, recovered herself and smiled sweetly. She leaned back in her garden chair and swung her parasol daintily back and forth.

"Oh, yes, you are," she declared; "we all know it, so there is no use in your denying it. Well, you get us some ices and be quick about it." She dismissed him with a wave of her beautiful arm, in its flowing, lace drapery.

But Joel did not budge.

"You don't know it." He swept the whole group with his black eyes. "It isn't as she says, is it?"

"No," said one of the gentlemen who had laughed, whirling around to bring a very sharp pair of eyes on Joel's face, "it isn't, my boy."

"Well, I must say," protested Mrs. Chatterton, an angry light coming into her cold eyes, and turning around on him sharply, "that this isn't very friendly in you, Mr. Vandeusen, to pit that upstart boy against me. Now there will be no managing him hereafter."

"Well, but, Mrs. Chatterton," broke in one of the other gentlemen, in a propitiatory voice, and leaning over her chair, Mr. Vandeusen turning calmly on his heel to survey the distant lawns through his monocle, "a beggar, don't you know--well, it isn't the pleasantest thing in the world to be called that, don't you know?"

"Particularly when one isn't a beggar," said a young lady hotly. Then she turned to Joel and laid a hand on his arm. "Don't you mind it," she said.

"And as for you, Miss Tresor, I should consider it wiser for you to be silent." Mrs. Chatterton turned on her with venom. "What do you know about these miserable Peppers that infest my cousin's house, pray tell?"

"I like them," declared Miss Tresor decidedly, not turning her head. "Don't mind it, my lad."

"I don't, now," said Joel. Then the gentlemen laughed again.

"Oh, I must go." All his long neglect of his letter-carrier duties, made so much worse by this delay, now surged over him. He raised his chubby face, over which a smile ran, and bounded off.

"Isn't he a dear!" exclaimed Miss Tresor impulsively.