"Joel--Joel," said Polly.

"Here are some of them," said Mrs. Sterling, "that I told the boys this morning when they were in here. You might cut out the funny things in the magazines and newspapers, the pictures and the stories, and send him. It's so nice to have little reminders to pa.s.s away the time."

"What else?"

"Well, I didn't tell them that, but there are letters you might write him."

"Ugh!" Joel made a wry face. "I don't like to write letters," he said bluntly.

"Joel," said Polly again.

"Perhaps that is the very reason it would be well for you to do it," said Mrs. Sterling, with a smile. "At any rate, it would please Lawrence, I think. Well, then there are conundrums; you can surely think up something of that sort that will amuse him, and puzzles."

Now, strange to say, Jack had a good head for these things, and without thinking where he was, he blurted out:

"I know a lot of 'em."

Joel whirled around on the carpet and stared at him, as did Polly from her cricket. But Mrs. Sterling only smiled.

"That's good," she said in approval, "now you see you can help us out a good deal"--nodding at him.

But Jack, with a wild glance at the door, as he came to himself, was beyond conundrums, as he thought of what he'd done.

"Tell some of 'em, Jack," cried Joel eagerly, emerging from his surprise.

"What are they, Jack? Tell some."

"Not now," said Mrs. Sterling, interposing. "Jack is going to write them out, and they will be sent in as his contribution to Lawrence."

Sent in to Larry Keep's big house, almost as grand as the one Jack sat in now, by him, a little six-penny grocer's son, doing business over at the South End! He couldn't believe his ears, and to a.s.sist them, he lifted his eyes and stared at the person making the announcement. Evidently she meant it, and the more he gazed at her face, the better he liked it. But he didn't dare to stare long, so he concluded to transfer his attention from it to the carpet.

"We are getting on so well," said Mrs. Sterling, and her tone was very cheery, "that I am really quite hopeful that Lawrence may be amused by all that we are to do for him. And now, before we go any further in our plan, suppose we take a little comfort ourselves." And she laughed a gay little laugh that wouldn't have sounded badly as Polly's own. "Gibson," she called.

Out came Gibson from the little room next.

"Will you bring us a tray of some of the nice things you always can get up, Gibson?" said her mistress. "I am really hungry, and I know these young people must be, they run about so."

"I am," declared Joel, in great satisfaction at hearing the tray mentioned, and bobbing his black hair, "awfully hungry."

"Oh, Joel!" said Polly.

"If you knew, Polly," said Mrs. Sterling, with a laugh, "what a pleasure it is to me, to hear a hungry boy say so up here, you would be very glad to let him. You can't think"--looking around on the three--"what good you are doing me. Really your work as a comfort committee has begun already."

XXII

RACHEL'S VISIT TO MISS PARROTT

Rachel ran blindly up the garret stairs of the parsonage and threw herself down on the top, her blue, checked ap.r.o.n over her head.

"Oh, I can't--I can't," she screamed.

"Rachel," the minister's wife called gently after her. But Rachel stormed on, "Oh, I can't; dear me, I can't!"

So Mrs. Henderson mounted the stairs and sat down on the top one, and took Rachel's hands, nervously beating together.

"My child, you must listen to me."

It was said very quietly; but Rachel knew by this time what the parsonage people meant when they said a thing, so she answered meekly in a m.u.f.fled voice because of the ap.r.o.n over her head:

"Yes'm."

"Take down your ap.r.o.n," said Mrs. Henderson.

Down fell the ap.r.o.n, disclosing a face of so much distress, that for a moment the heart of the parson's wife failed her, but it must be done.

"My child," she began very gently, "it is best that you should go to see Miss Parrott. She will be a good friend to you."

"I don't want no friends," said Rachel doggedly, in her distress relapsing into her old tenement-house disregard of the rules of speech; "no more 'n I've got her."

"Ah, child, that is not a wise way to talk," said Mrs. Henderson, shaking her head. "One cannot have too many friends."

"She'd be too many," said Rachel; "that old woman that came the other day in that carriage all full of bones."

"You must not talk so, dear. She is a very fine woman. Now, Rachel, she has asked to have you spend the day there, and we have promised that you shall go."

There was an awful pause. A big blue-bottle over in the corner under the rafters was making a final decision to explore the filmy lace web beneath the window where a fat old spider had been patiently waiting for him, and he gave his last buzz of freedom before he hopped in. This was all the sound that broke the silence. Rachel held her breath, and fixed her black eyes at a point straight ahead, positively sure if she withdrew her gaze she would burst out crying.

"So you will be ready to go at ten o'clock, Rachel, for Miss Parrott will send for you then," Mrs. Henderson was saying. And in a minute more the parson's wife was going down the garret stairs; Rachel, with a heart full of woe, slowly following, leaving the big garret to the fat old spider, who was busily weaving her silken threads in glee over her prisoner.

And Rachel's woeful face was more than matched by the countenances of the two boys of the parson's family, who were not at all pleased that the companion sent to them by Mrs. Fisher, and who had turned out surprisingly just to their liking, should be suddenly torn away from them even for a single day. And they followed disapprovingly around, hanging upon all the preparations for the momentous visit, with a very bad influence upon Rachel's endeavor to control herself. Seeing which, their mother sent them off on an errand to Grandma Bascom.

So, when the ancient carriage, with its well-seasoned coachman who rejoiced in the name of Simmons, made its appearance, there was no one to see Rachel off, save the patron's wife, the minister himself being away on a call lo a sick parishioner.

Rachel went steadily down the walk between the box-borders, feeling her heart sink at each step. Mrs. Henderson, well in advance, was down at the roadside to help her in, with a last bit of good advice.

"Good-morning, Simmons," said the parson's wife pleasantly.

"Good-morning, Madam," Simmons touched his hat, and spoke with the air of state, for he kept his English ways. Secretly, the parson's wife was always quite impressed by them, and she looked at Rachel for some sign to that effect. But the child was scowling, and biting her thin lips, and she suffered Mrs. Henderson to a.s.sist her into the wide old vehicle without any further change of expression. When once in, she gazed around, then leaned forward on the slippery old green leather seat.

"Can't Peletiah come?" she gasped; "there's lots o' room."

"No," said Mrs. Henderson. "Now be a good girl"--all her fears returning as she saw Rachel's face.

Simmons starting up the horses, that, although an old pair, yet liked to set off with a flourish, the movement bounced Rachel violently against the back of her seat and knocked her bonnet over her face. This gave her something to think of, and changed her terror to a deep displeasure. When the drive was ended, therefore, and the brougham, after its progress through an avenue of fine old trees, was brought to a standstill before the ancestral mansion where Miss Parrott's father and grandfather had lived before her, the visitor was in no condition to enjoy the pleasures thrust upon her.

Miss Parrott, in the stiff, black silk gown that she had worn the day when she called at the parsonage, met her on the big stone steps. She put out a hand in a long, black lace mitt, "I am very glad to see you, child," she said, in old-time hospitality.