"If she went once, I see no reason why she shouldn't again," said Mr.

Minturn.

"Course she'll go again!" triumphed Malcolm. "I'll make her, when she comes."

"Yes 'when' she comes!" jeered James. "She won't ever live here! She wouldn't think this was good enough for Lucette and Gretchen! And she gave away our house for the sick children, and she hates it at grandmother's! Bet she doesn't ever come again!"

"Bet she does!" said Malcolm instantly.

"Would you like to have mother come here, Malcolm?" interrupted Mr.

Minturn quietly.

"Why----" he said and shifted his questioning gaze toward Aunt Margaret, "why--why--well, I'll tell you, father: if she would wear boots and go see the birds and the flowers--if she would do as we do----Sometimes in the night I wake up and think how pretty she is, and I just get hungry to see her--but of course it would only kick up a row for her to come here--of course she better stay away--but father, if she _would_ come, and if she _would_ wear the boots--and if she'd let old slapping Lucette go, and live as we do, father, _wouldn't that be great?_"

"Yes I think it would," said James Minturn conclusively, as he excused himself and arose from the table.

"James," said Malcolm, when they went to their schoolroom, "if Mr.

Dovesky goes to shutting us up in the study and won't let us play while we learn, what will we do to him to make him sick of his job?"

"Oh things would turn up!" replied James. "But Malcolm, wouldn't you kind o' hate to have him see you be mean?"

"Well father saw us be mean," said Malcolm.

"Yes, but what would you give if he _hadn't?_"

"I'm not proud of it," replied Malcolm.

"Yes and that's just it!" cried James. "That's just what comes of living here. All of them are so polite, and if you are halfway decent they are so good to you, and they help you to do things that will make you into a man who needn't be ashamed of himself--that's just it! How would you like to go back and be so rough and so mean n.o.body at all would care for us?"

"Father wouldn't let us, would he?" asked Malcolm.

"He wouldn't if he could help it," said James. "He didn't used to seem as if he could help it. Don't you remember he would tell us it was not the right way, and try to have us be decent, and Lucette would tell mother, and mother would fire him? I wonder how she could! And if she could then, why doesn't she now? I guess he doesn't want to stop her party to bother with us; but if she ever conies and wants to take us back like we were, Malcolm, I'm not going. I _like_ what we got now.

Mother always said we were to be gentlemen; but we never could be that way. Father and Mr. Tower and Mr. Dovesky are gentlemen, just as kind, and easy, and fine. When we were mean as could be, and acted like fight-cats, you remember father and Mr. Tower only _held_ us; they didn't get mad and beat us. If mother comes you may go with her if you want to."

"I wish she'd come with us!" said Malcolm.

"Not mother! We ain't her kind of a party."

"I know it," admitted Malcolm slowly. "Sometimes I want her just awful.

I wonder why?"

"I guess it's 'cause a boy is born wanting his mother. I want her myself a lot of times, but I wouldn't go with her if she'd come today, so I don't know _why_ I want her, but I _do_ sometimes."

"I didn't know you did," said Malcolm.

"Well I do," said James, "but I ain't ever going. Often I think the queerest things!"

"What queer things do you think, James?"

"Why like this," said James. "That it ain't _safe_ to let children be jerked, and their heads knocked. You know what Lucette did to Elizabeth? I think she hit her head too hard. She gave me more cake, and said I was a good boy for saying the ice made her sick, but all the time I thought it was. .h.i.tting her head. I wouldn't be the boy who said that again, if I had to be shot for _not_ saying it, like the French boy was about the soldiers. 'Member that day?"

"Yes I do," said Malcolm shortly.

"You know you coaxed her off the bench, and I pushed her in!" said James, slowly.

"Yes," said Malcolm. "And I kicked her. And I wasn't mad at her a bit.

I wonder _why_ I did it!"

"I guess you did it because you were more of an animal than a decent boy, same as I pushed her," said James. "I guess I won't ever forget that I pushed her."

"Pushing her wasn't as bad as what I did," said Malcolm. "I guess ain't either one of us going to feel right about Elizabeth again, long as we live."

"Malcolm, we can't get her back," said James, "but if any way happens that we ever get another little sister, we'll take care of her like father _wanted to_."

"You bet we will!" said Malcolm.

Next morning the boys had the car ready. They packed in all their bird books, their flower records, and botanies, and were eagerly waiting when the call from Mr. Dovesky came. At once they drove to his home for him, and from there to a music store where a violin was selected for Malcolm.

Mr. Dovesky was so big, the boys stood in awe of his size. He was so clean, no boy would want him to see him dirty. He was so handsome, it was good to watch his face, because you had to like him when he smiled.

He was so polite, that you never for a minute forgot that soon you were going to be a man, and if you could be the man you wished, you would be exactly like him. Both boys were very shy of him and very much afraid his entrance into their party would spoil their fun.

When they left the music store, Malcolm carefully carrying his new violin, Mr. Dovesky his, and a roll of music, the boys with anxious hearts awaited developments.

"Now Mr. Tower," said Mr. Dovesky, "suppose we drive wherever you are likely to find the birds you have been practising on, and for a start let me hear just what you have done and can do, and then I can plan better to work in with you."

When they reached the brook they stopped to show the fish pools and then entered an old orchard, long abandoned for fruit growing and so worm infested as to make it a bird Paradise. Cuckoos, jays, robins, bluebirds, thrashers, orioles, sparrows, and vireos, nested there, singing on wing, among the trees, on the fences, and from bushes in the corners.

Malcolm and Mr. Dovesky secreted themselves on a board laid across the rails of an alder-filled fence corner, then the boy began pointing out the birds he knew and giving his repet.i.tion of their calls, cries, bits of song, sometimes whistled, sometimes half spoken, half whistled, any vocal rendition that would produce the bird tones. He had practised carefully, he was slightly excited, and sooner than usual he received replies. Little feathered folk came peeping, peering, calling, and beyond question answering Malcolm's notes. In an hour Mr. Dovesky was holding his breath with interest, suggesting corrections, trying notes himself, and when he felt he had whistled accurately and heard a bird reply, he was as proud as the boy.

Then a thing happened that none of them had mentioned, because they were not sure enough that it would. A brown thrush, catching the unusual atmosphere of the orchard that morning, selected the tallest twig of an apple tree and showed that orchard what real music was.

The thrush preened, flirted his feathers, opened his beak widely and sang his first liquid notes. "Starts on C," commented Mr. Dovesky softly.

"Three times, and does it over, to show us we needn't think it was an accident and he can't do it as often as he pleases," whispered Malcolm.

Mr. Dovesky glanced at the boy and nodded.

"There he goes from C to E," he commented an instant later, "repeats that--C again, falls to B, up to G, repeats that--I wish he would wait till I get my pencil."

"I can give it to you," said Malcolm. "He does each strain over as soon as he sings it. I know his song!"

On the back of an envelope, Mr. Dovesky was sketching a staff of music in natural key, setting off measures and filling in notes. As the bird confused him with repet.i.tions or trills on E or C so high he had to watch sharply to catch just what it was, his fingers trembled when he added lines to the staff for the highest notes. For fifteen minutes the blessed bird sang, and at each rendition of its full strain, it seemed to grow more intoxicated with its own performance. Finishing the last notes perfectly, the bird gave a hop, glanced around as if he were saying: "Now any one who thinks he can surpa.s.s that, has my permission to try." From a bush a small gray bird meouwed in derision and accepted the challenge. The watchers could not see him, but he came so close singing the same song that he deceived Mr. Dovesky, for he said: "He's going to do it over from the bushes now!"

"Listen!" cautioned Malcolm. "Don't you hear the difference? He starts the same, but he runs higher, he drops lower, and does it quicker, and I think the notes clearer and sweeter when the little gray fellow sings them, and you should see his nest! Do you like him better?"

"Humph!" said Mr. Dovesky. "Why I was so entranced with the first performance I didn't suppose anything could be better. I must have time to learn both songs, and a.n.a.lyze and compare."

"I can't do gray's yet," said Malcolm. "It's so fine, and cut up, with going up and down on the jump, but I got the start of it, and the part that goes this way----"

"This is my work!" cried Mr. Dovesky. "Is there any chance the apple-tree bird will repeat his performance?"