With childish clumsiness Allyn clambered into the buggy. For a time, he was content to jounce rapturously on the cushion and snap the buckle of the reins. Then he too wearied for change.

"Make the horsey go, Teddy," he demanded.

"Oh, no, Allyn; sister mustn't. We must wait for papa."

"Make him go," Allyn persisted.

Theodora hesitated. Like the immortal Toddie, Allyn's strength lay in his power of endless iteration. She foresaw a coming crisis in his temper, and, moreover, his wishes coincided with her own to a remarkable degree. Vigil was becoming uneasy, and a belated gadfly was making continued attacks upon her sensitive skin. Why not drive down the street and around the block, and shake off the annoying guest?

"Will you sit quite still, Allyn, if sister will drive just a little, little way?"

Allyn smiled rapturously.

"Ess," he hissed.

Theodora gave a hasty glance at the house, as she tightened the lines.

"I know he'd think it was the best thing to do," she argued with her conscience. "Vigil is so uneasy she wouldn't stand much longer, and this will quiet her down. Besides, I've always been used to driving."

The gadfly went too. Vigil was fretted by standing, and she quickened her pace. Before she quite realized the change, Theodora was being whirled down the street at a round trot.

"Whoa!" she urged. "Whoa, Vigil! Sh-h-h!"

But Vigil refused to _sh-h-h_. She felt an unfamiliar hand on the lines, and her sensitive mouth a.s.sured her that the hand was shaking a little.

Accordingly, she dropped her ears back, gave an odd little kick with her hind legs, and swung round a corner with the carriage on two wheels behind her.

"Allyn," Theodora said, when they had gone around another corner in the same uncertain fashion; "now you must mind sister and do just what she says." The girl's face was white to the lips; but her voice was steady and brave. "Climb over the back of the seat, lie down flat in the bottom of the carriage, and then roll out on the ground."

"I don't want to," whined the child. "I wants to ride."

"But you must, or sister won't take you again. You may be thrown out and hurt, if you don't mind sister."

"It hurts to roll out," he argued.

"No; not a bit." Theodora felt herself a heartless liar; but she had lost all control of Vigil, and she knew that this was the best chance of safety for her baby brother. "Now hold on tight. I don't believe you can climb over."

All the boy nature inherent in Allyn responded to the challenge. Lithe as a little monkey, he scrambled over the seat, lay down and took the fateful roll. Vigil shied, just then, and Allyn landed in a ball, in a bed of burdocks. His wails followed the flying horse; but they were wails of temper, more than of physical injury, and Theodora's main anxiety was relieved.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEODORA WENT FLYING ACROSS THE ROAD.]

Two blocks farther down the street, the buggy collided with a hay wagon.

There was a crash, the horse broke free, and Theodora went flying across the road, landing in an indiscriminate, dusty pile just in front of the Farringtons' carriage.

That evening, the doctor came into the library, where his wife sat alone in the fire-light. He looked tired and worried, as he threw himself down into an easy chair. His wife came forward to his side.

"You poor old boy!" she said tenderly, as she stroked his hair.

He smiled wearily.

"I wouldn't have had it happen for any amount of money, Bess," he said, as he reached up and took her hand. "It's smashed the buggy, and demoralized my favorite horse, and b.u.mped Allyn, and given us all a scare."

"How is Theodora?"

"Badly frightened and very meek. Her bruises don't count; but I don't think she'll do it again. I gave her a plain talk, while I was looking over her wounds, and I think she knows I mean what I say. It is a miracle that both children weren't killed; but Allyn is all right now, and Teddy will be, in a day or two. She will be rather stiff, to-morrow, but I'm not sure that I'm sorry."

"Poor Teddy!" his wife said, laughing.

"Poor me!" he answered. "And poor you! You will think I have brought you into an undisciplined horde of savages, Bess. I feel like Job, myself, for one thing follows another. I shouldn't have left the horse with Teddy, in the first place, if Miss Hulburt hadn't come to me with a tale of woe about Phebe."

"What about Phebe?" In spite of herself, Mrs. McAlister laughed.

"Some school sc.r.a.pe or other. Phebe is naughty as she can be, and, worst of all, she is sly. That's not like Teddy. Ted hasn't a dishonorable pore in her skin. She is headstrong and impetuous; but when she has done wrong, she comes forward and tells the whole story and takes the consequences. She has made me more trouble, one time and another, than all the rest of them put together, and yet--" he hesitated, then he went on; "and yet, I honestly think she's the flower of the flock."

"A climbing rose, not a violet," Mrs. McAlister suggested.

"A snapdragon, if you will. She has character and force and brains enough for a dozen; and if we can provide a safe outlet for her extra vitality, I think she will make us proud of her yet."

"You're right, Jack," Mrs. McAlister answered heartily. "The girl has splendid possibilities. As you say, she only needs some sort of an outlet for her energy. She's a motherly, womanish child, too, as much so as Hope, in her way. She's got to have something to love, and to fuss over, and to fight for. I sometimes think that Will Farrington may supply a certain something that she needs."

The doctor rose and stood on the rug, facing his wife. Little by little, his face had lost its anxiety and now, at her last words, he laughed jovially.

"Will Farrington! Then Heaven help him, Bess! 'Twill be six months at least before the boy can walk to amount to anything, and helpless as he is and energetic as Teddy is, she'll be sure to break his neck. If she is going to devote herself to Will Farrington, I'll send for Dr. Parker and a cord or two of extra splints."

CHAPTER SIX

"But where are you going, Hu?"

"What?"

"Where are you going?"

Hubert crooked his hand at the back of his ear.

"Speak a little louder, please. I'm deef."

Phebe flew at him and caught his arm.

"Hubert McAlister, tell me where you are going."

"Oh, is that what you said?"

"You knew it perfectly well. Where are you going to?"

"Over to Billy's."