Randy's Summer.

by Amy Brooks.

CHAPTER I-RANDY AND THE FAIRY TALES

"Randy! Randy! where are you?" came in shrill, high-pitched tones from the kitchen.

The girl on the wooden seat just outside the door neither moved nor heeded, so engrossed in her book was she.

"Ran-dee!" This time there was a rising inflection on the last syllable.

Slowly the girl's forefinger followed along the line which she was reading. A quick step across the kitchen, and a tall, angular woman appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her blue-checked ap.r.o.n.

"Why, Randy Weston! Here I've been callin' and callin' to you, and you're right here at the door and never heard at all, I'll warrant you.

What's that you're readin'?"

"Oh, mother, I'm sorry I didn't hear you," said Randy, her face still aglow with the thought of the fascinating tale; "but the story was so wonderful that I never knew you called me."

"Must have been wonderful," said Mrs. Weston, smiling. "What sort of a book is it, and where did you get it?"

"Why, it's the one I told you I found in the field back of the barn,"

said Randy. "It's all about kings and queens, and princes and fairies, and goblins, and oh, it's just the most wonderful book you ever saw!"

"I hope it's a _good_ book," said Mrs. Weston, doubtfully; "it sounds kind of outlandish, and I know one thing, I never have to call twice when I give you 'Pilgrim's Progress' or Fox's 'Book of Martyrs' to read."

"But, mother, just see the pictures! Here's the one that shows when the prince rode on the horse which was shod with golden shoes, and could run faster than the wind!"

That was too much for practical Mrs. Weston.

"Look here, Randy, that'll do! That shows what kind of a book it is. Who ever heard of shoeing a horse with gold! Land knows it costs enough to shoe them with iron; and as for running faster than the wind, why, anybody'd know better. You give me the book till I ask your father what he thinks of it. I'll put it up on the mantel, back of the clock, and show it to him to-night and see what he says."

As Mrs. Weston usually meant what she said, Randy was forced to submit; but she could not help thinking it a trial to have to do without the wonderful book until her father should have time to read it.

"Now," said Mrs. Weston, "come in and help me make these pies."

"Oh, yes," said the girl; while she thought, "What a change from the prince's castle to the hot kitchen and apple pies!" However, she was a thoughtful girl, and seeing a tired look on her mother's face, she took a big yellow dish on her lap, and grasping a knife began to pare apples as if her life depended upon it.

The first she pared rapidly and deftly, the next one took her a little longer, and the sixth she held in one hand while the knife lay idly in the other, as she gazed out of the window, wondering if the hot, sunny road which led to the village could be at all like the high-road over which the king's huntsmen returned to the castle.

"Randy Weston! I thought you was parin' apples! Bring the dish here and we'll finish them together. At that rate you wouldn't get them done in a month!"

Randy started. "Oh, dear! I meant to have peeled them in no time," said she.

"Well, never mind," said her mother; "we'll do them together, and then you can get out the things for me to make the crust with."

Soon the apples were pared, cored, and sliced, and away Randy hurried to the closet, getting the sifter, sugar-bucket and rolling pin, the spice box, and last of all, a lot of plates.

Running back to the closet she brought out the lard and began to grease the plates in furious haste, so determined was she to show her mother that she was really willing to be helpful. How she admired the deft manner in which her mother rolled out the crust, stretched it over the plate, and inserted her knuckles to make it fit the hollow of the dish.

Randy watched her as, balancing the crust-covered plate on her left hand, she swept the knife which she held in her right swiftly around the edge of the plate, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g off the extra crust.

"I wish I could make pies as quick as you can," said the girl, "and have them turn out right every time, too."

Mrs. Weston smiled at the compliment so earnestly expressed.

"Mebbe you can, when you've made as many as I have," said she.

"Now get the broom, Randy, and sweep up the flour I spilled 'round the table and put the apple peels in the bucket, while I commence to wash up the cookin' dishes."

Randy got the broom and began to sweep vigorously. "I wonder," thought the girl, "if princesses have to bake pies, and wash dishes, and sweep hot kitchens." She could not remember of any mention being made of either pies or kitchens in the fairy tales which she had been reading, so she concluded that in those delightful days no such things existed.

"They _must_ have had pies," she said to herself, "so p'r'aps they had somebody to bake for them, same's Mrs. Hodgkins has Sophrony Brown to help her about the housework.

"Sophrony Brown doesn't look 's if she belonged in a castle, even to stay in the kitchen, if it had one," thought Randy. "Her hair's red, and so are her hands, and they're awful big, too. Everybody in that splendid book was handsome, and they all had little white hands and tiny feet, too." Here she stopped and took a long survey of her own feet, encased in coa.r.s.e, cowhide boots, with leather lacings.

"The shoes and slippers in the pictures," mused Randy, "have beautiful bows on the toes, and they have tiny little heels. I wonder how they ever managed to walk on them." So still she stood, looking down at her shoes, the broom held listlessly in her hand, that her mother turned to see where she had gone.

"Why, Randy Weston, what ails you? You've been mooning 'round all this morning. You do try to help me real good, and then, first thing I know, you're miles away thinkin' of something or other. I say, whatever ails you?"

"Nothing," said Randy, "I was only wondering about the fairy tales in the book."

"Well, more'n ever I think it can't be a good kind o' book to read, that makes a good, sensible girl so took up with it that she can't think of anything else."

"But if father says it's all right, I can read it, can't I?" said Randy.

"I suppose so," said the tired woman. "Now go and find Prue. Like enough she's into something by this time."

Little Prue had a positive talent for inventing mischief, and as Randy hastened to the door to call her, she remembered that the little sister had had at least an hour in which to play without supervision. "I do hope," said Randy, "that she hasn't torn her dress or lost her sunbonnet while I've been helping mother with the cooking. I'll call first, and if she don't answer, then I'll hunt for her." So, standing in the doorway, she called long and loudly.

Such a pretty picture Randy made, all the sweeter because she never dreamed that she possessed the beauty of which she read in the fairy book, and for which she so ardently longed.

The kitchen doorway was low, and up on one side grew scarlet runners, which over the top clasped tendrils with the morning glories as they clambered up the other side of the door-frame and half covered the kitchen window.

The cool wind from across the meadow fanned Randy's flushed cheeks, and tossed back some short brown ringlets from her forehead, for Randy's hair would curl, as she said, "spite of anything." She did her best with brush and comb to make it lie smoothly, but the short ends flew back every time, and curled and rippled in a manner which would have been the envy of many a city girl who was a slave to "curlers." Her hair was a soft, light brown, and her eyes were large and gray, bright and twinkling. She was quite tall for a girl of her age, just fifteen that summer, and she stood as "straight as a birch," her father said.

Her plain calico gown and coa.r.s.e ap.r.o.n could not hide her trim figure; and, judging by her small, shapely hands, and slender fingers, one would say that with dainty boots instead of cowhides, her feet would be as shapely as her hands. But Randy had never thought much about beauty or personal adornment until the finding of the wonderful fairy book. She had been dressed like the other children in that little country town, and had never seen a fashion book or a stylishly dressed person in her life. Mrs. Weston had taught her children to think that to be neat and clean was to be well dressed, and certainly Randy and Prue were always dressed in clean gowns and ap.r.o.ns, and stiff-starched sunbonnets. Yes, Randy was more than pretty. Would she one day know it?

Long and patient calling brought no answering shout from little Prue, so Randy s.n.a.t.c.hed her sunbonnet from its peg on the wall, and started in search of her. She looked in every place, both possible and impossible, and she laughed as she thought of the funny sc.r.a.pes the little sister had gotten into. She thought of the day on which their aunt, Miss Prudence Weston, had come to visit them, bringing three bags and as many bundles, although she was to stay but a week.

She had always lived in a little town in one of the Western states, and as that week's stay was her first visit to her brother's home, she was really a stranger to Randy and Prue. The children had known only that little Prue was her namesake, and that she was a person well-nigh perfect.

"Your Aunt Prudence never did that," was a remark so frequently addressed to little Prue that that lively, mischievous little being conceived a great dislike for so perfect a person; and, although she dared not say so to either father or mother, she confessed it freely to Randy when at night they lay in their little bed in the chamber under the eaves.

"I think it would be just horrid to live in this house if Aunt Prudence lived here too, don't you, Randy?" said little Prue in a loud whisper.

"You're good, Randy, and you know I love you, but you can be naughty and Aunt Prudence can't, that's the difference."

"Oh, hush!" Randy had said. "I most think it's naughty not to like her.