"Gee!" cried Tom, turning sharply toward the track where had stood a moment before the train that brought them. "An' if 'tain't gone so soon!"

"Gone--the bag?" chorused five shrill voices.

"Sure!" nodded Tom. Then, with a resigned air, he thrust both hands into his trousers pockets. "Gone she is, bag and baggage."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," murmured Mrs. Kendall.

"Pooh! 'tain't a mite o' matter," a.s.sured Patty, quickly. "Ye see, dar wa'n't nothin' in it, anyhow, only a extry ribb'n fur Arabella's hair."

Then, at Mrs. Kendall's blank look of amazement, she explained: "We only took it 'cause Katy Sovrensky said folks allers took 'em when they went trav'lin'. So we fished dis out o' de ash barrel an' fixed it up wid strings an' tacks. We didn't have nothin' ter put in it, 'course. All our clo's is on us."

"We didn't need nothin' else, anyhow," piped up Arabella, "for all our things is span clean. We went ter bed 'most all day yisterday so's Patty could wash 'em."

"Yes, yes, of course, certainly," agreed Mrs. Kendall, faintly, as she turned and led the way to the big four-seated carryall waiting for them.

"Then we'll go home right away."

To Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, Arabella, and Clarabella, it was all so wonderful that they fairly pinched themselves to make sure they were awake. The drive through the elm-bordered streets with everywhere flowers, vine-covered houses, and velvety lawns--it was all quite unbelievable.

"It's more like Mont-Lawn than anythin' I ever see," murmured Arabella.

"Seems 'most as though 'twas heaven." And Mrs. Kendall, who heard the words, reproached herself because for four long weeks she had stood jealous guard over this "heaven" and refused to "divvy up" its enjoyment. The next moment she shuddered and unconsciously drew Margaret close to her side. Patty had said:

"Gee whiz, Mag, ain't you lucky? Wis't I was a lost an' founded!"

The house with its great stone lions was hailed with an awed "oh-h!" of delight, as were the wide lawns and brilliant flower-beds. Inside the house the children blinked in amazement at the lace-hung windows, and gold-framed pictures; and Clarabella, balancing herself on her toes, looked fearfully at the woven pinks and roses at her feet and demanded: "Don't walkin' on 'em hurt 'em?

"Seems so 'twould," she added, her eyes distrustfully bent on Margaret who had laughed, and by way of proving the carpet's durability, was dancing up and down upon it.

The matter of choosing beds in the wide, airy chambers was a momentous one. In the boys' room, to be sure, it was a simple matter, for there were only two beds, and Tom settled the question at once by unceremoniously throwing Peter on to one of them, and pommeling him with the pillow until he howled for mercy.

The girls had two rooms opening out of each other, and in each room were two dainty white beds. Here the matter of choosing was only settled amicably at last by a rigid system of "counting out" by "Eeny, meany, miny, mo"; and even this was not accomplished without much shouting and laughter, and not a few angry words.

Margaret was distressed. For a time she was silent; then she threw herself into the discussion with all the ardor of one who would bring peace at any cost; and it was by her suggestion that the "Eeny, meany, miny, mo," finally won the day. In her own room that night, as she went to bed, she apologized to her mother.

"I'm sorry they was so rude, mother. I had forgot they was quite so noisy," she confessed anxiously. "But I'll tell 'em to-morrow to be more quiet. Maybe they didn't know that little ladies and little gentlemen don't act like that."

CHAPTER VII

Five oaks awoke to a new existence on the first morning after the arrival of its guests from New York--an existence of wild shouts, gleeful laughter, scampering feet and confusion. In the kitchen and the garden old Mr. and Mrs. Barrett no longer held full sway. For some time there had been a cook, a waitress, a laundress, and an experienced gardener as well. In the barn, too, there was now a stalwart fellow who was coachman and chauffeur by turns, according to whether the old family carriage or the new four-cylinder touring car was wanted.

Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, and the twins had not been at Five Oaks twenty-four hours before they were fitted to new clothing throughout.

Mrs. Kendall had not slept until she had interviewed the town clothier as to ways and means of immediately providing two boys and four girls with shoes, stockings, hats, coats, trousers, dresses, and undergarments.

"'Course 'tain't 'zactly necessary," Patty had said, upon being presented with her share of the new garments, "but it's awful nice, 'cause now we don't have ter go ter bed when ours is washed--an' they be awful nice! Just bang-up!"

No wonder Five Oaks awoke to a new existence! The wide-spreading lawns knew now what it was to be pressed by a dozen little scampering feet at once: and the great stone lions knew what it was to have two yelling boys mount their carven backs, and try to dig sharp little heels into their stone sides. Within the house, the attic, sacred for years to cobwebs and musty memories, knew what it was to yield its treasured bonnets, shawls, and quilted skirts to a swarm of noisy children who demanded them for charades.

Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, Arabella, and Clarabella had been at Five Oaks two weeks when one day Bobby McGinnis found Margaret crying all alone in the old summerhouse down in the garden.

"Gorry, what's up?" he questioned; adding cheerily: "'Soldiers'

daughters don't cry'!"--it was a quotation from Margaret's own childhood's creed, and one which in the old days seldom failed to dry her tears. Even now it was not without its effect, for her head came up with a jerk.

"I--I know it," she sobbed; "and I ain't--I mean, I _are_ not going to.

There, you see," she broke off miserably, falling back into her old despondent att.i.tude. "'Ain't' should be 'are not' always, and I never can remember."

"Pooh! Is that all?" laughed Bobby. "'Twould take more'n a 'are not' ter make me cry."

"But that ain't all," wailed Margaret, and she did not notice that at one of her words Bobby chuckled and parted his lips only to close them again with a snap. "There's heaps more of 'em; 'bully' and 'bang-up' and 'gee' and 'drownded' and 'g' on the ends of things, and--well, almost everything I say, seems so."

"Well, what of it? You'll get over it. You're a-learnin' all the time; ain't ye?"

"'Are not you,' Bobby," sighed Margaret.

"Well, 'are not you,' then," snapped Bobby.

Margaret shook her head. A look that was almost terror came to her eyes.

She leaned forward and clutched the boy's arm.

"Bobby, that's just it," she whispered, looking fearfully over her shoulder to make sure that no one heard. "That's just it--I'm not a-learnin'!"

"Why not?"

"Because of them--Tom, and Patty, and the rest"

Bobby looked dazed, and Margaret plunged headlong into her explanation.

"It's them. They do 'em--all of 'em. Don't you see? They say 'ain't' and 'gee' and 'bully' all the time, and I see now how bad 'tis, and I want to stop. But I can't stop, Bobby. I just can't. I try to, but it just comes before I know it. I tried to stop them sayin' 'em, first," went on Margaret, feverishly, "just as I tried to make 'em act ladylike with their feet and their knives and forks; but it didn't do a mite o' good.

First they laughed at me, then they got mad. You know how 'twas, Bobby.

You saw 'em."

Bobby whistled.

"Yes, I know," he said soberly. "But when they go away----"

"That's just it," cut in Margaret, tragically. "I wa'n't goin' to have them go away. I was goin' to keep 'em always; and now I--Bobby, I _want_ them to go!" she paused and let the full enormity of her confession sink into her hearer's comprehension. Then she repeated: "I want them to go!"

"Well, what of it?" retorted Bobby, with airy unconcern.

"What of it!" wept Margaret. "Why, Bobby, don't you see? I was goin' to divvy up, and I ought to divvy up, too. I've got trees and gra.s.s and flowers and beds with sheets on 'em and enough to eat, and they hain't got anything--not anything. And now I don't want to divvy up, I don't want to divvy up, because I don't want them--here!"

Margaret covered her face with her hands and rocked herself to and fro.

Bobby was silent. His hands were in his pocket, and his eyes were on an ant struggling with a burden almost as large as itself.

"Don't you see, Bobby, it's wicked that I am--awful wicked," resumed Margaret, after a minute. "I want to be nice and gentle like mother wants me to be. I don't want to be Mag of the Alley. I--I hate Mag of the Alley. But if Tom and Patty and the rest stays I shall be just like them, Bobby, I know I shall; and--and so I don't want 'em to stay."

Bobby stirred uneasily, changing his position.