"Well, you--you hain't asked 'em to, yet; have ye?" he questioned.

"No. Mother 'spressly stip'lated that I shouldn't say anything about their stayin' always till their visit was over and they saw how they liked things."

"Shucks!" rejoined Bobby, his face clearing. "Then what ye cryin' 'bout?

You ain't bound by no contract. You don't have ter divvy up."

"But I ought to divvy up."

"Pooh! 'Course ye hadn't," scoffed Bobby. "Hain't folks got a right ter have their own things?"

Margaret frowned doubtfully.

"I don't know," she began with some hesitation. "If I've got nice things and more of 'em than Patty has, why shouldn't she have some of mine?

'Tain't fair, somehow. Somebody ain't playin' straight. I--I'm goin' to ask mother." And she turned slowly away and began to walk toward the house.

Not once, but many times during the next few days, did Margaret talk with her mother on this subject that so troubled her. The result of these conferences Bobby learned not five days later when Margaret ran down to meet him at the great driveway gate. Back on the veranda Patty and the others were playing "housekeeping," and Margaret spoke low so that they might not hear.

"I _am_ goin' to divvy up," she announced in triumph, "but not here."

"Huh?" frowned Bobby.

"I _am_ goin' to divvy up--give 'em some of my things, you know,"

explained Margaret; "then when they go back, mother's goin' with 'em and find a better place for 'em to live in."

"Oh, then they are _goin'_ back--eh?"

Margaret flushed a little and threw a questioning look into Bobby's face. There seemed to be a laugh in Bobby's voice, though there was none on his lips.

"Yes," she nodded hurriedly. "You see, mother thinks it's best. She says that they hadn't ought to be here now--with me; that it's my form'tive period, and that everything about me ought to be just right so as to form me right. See?"

"Yes, I see," said Bobby, so crossly that Margaret opened her eyes in wonder.

"Why, Bobby, you don't care 'cause they're goin' away; do you?"

"Don't I?" he growled. "Humph! I s'pose 'twill be me next that'll be sent flyin'."

"You? Why, you live here!"

"Well, I say 'ain't' an' 'bully'; don't I?" he retorted aggressively.

Margaret stepped back. Her face changed.

"Why--so--you--do!" she breathed. "And I never once thought of it."

Bobby said nothing. He was standing on one foot, digging the toe of the other into the graveled driveway. For a time Margaret regarded him with troubled eyes; then she sighed:

"Well, anyhow, you don't live here all the time, right in the house, same's Patty and the rest would if they stayed. I--I don't want to give _you_ up, Bobby."

Bobby flushed red under the tan. His eyes sparkled with pleasure--but his chin went up, and his hands executed the careless flourish that a boy of fourteen is apt to use when he wishes to hide the fact that his heart is touched.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "FOR A TIME MARGARET REGARDED HIM WITH TROUBLED EYES."]

"Don't trouble yerself," he shrugged airily. "It don't make a mite o'

diff'rence ter me, ye know. There's plenty I _can_ be with." And he turned and hurried up the road with long strides, sending back over his shoulder a particularly joyous whistle--a whistle that broke and wheezed into silence, however, the minute that the woods at the turn of the road were reached.

"I don't care," he bl.u.s.tered, glaring at the chipmunk that eyed him from the top rail of the fence. "Bully--gee--ain't--hain't--bang-up! There!"

Then, having demonstrated his right to whatever vocabulary he chose to employ, he went home to the little red farmhouse on the hill and spent an hour hunting for a certain book of his mother's in the attic. When he had found it he spent another hour poring over its contents. The book was old and yellow and dog-eared, and bore on the faded pasteboard cover the words: "A work on English Grammar and Composition."

CHAPTER VIII

Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, and the twins stayed at Five Oaks until the first of September, then, plump, brown, and happy they returned to New York. With them went several articles of use and beauty which had hitherto belonged to Five Oaks. Mrs. Kendall, greatly relieved at Margaret's somewhat surprising willingness to let the visitors go, had finally consented to Margaret's proposition that the children be allowed to select something they specially liked to take back with them. In giving this consent, Mrs. Kendall had made only such reservation as would insure that certain valuable (and not easily duplicated) treasures of her own should remain undisturbed.

She smiled afterward at her fears. Tom selected an old bugle from the attic, and Peter a scabbard that had lost its sword. Mary chose a string of blue beads that Margaret sometimes wore, and Clarabella a pink sash that she found in a trunk. Patty, before telling her choice, asked timidly what would happen if it was "too big ter be tooked in yer hands." Upon being a.s.sured that it would be sent, if it could not be carried, she unhesitatingly chose the biggest easy-chair the house afforded, with the announcement that it was "a Christmas present fur Mis' Whalen."

For a moment Mrs. Kendall had felt tempted to remonstrate, and to ask Patty if she realized just how a green satin-damask Turkish chair would look in Mrs. Whalen's bas.e.m.e.nt kitchen; but after one glance at Patty's radiant face, she had changed her mind, and had merely said:

"Very well, dear. It shall be sent the day you go."

Arabella only, of all the six, delayed her choice until the final minute. Even on that last morning she was hesitating between a marble statuette and a harmonica. In the end she took neither, for she had spied a huge chocolate-frosted cake that the cook had just made; and it was that cake which finally went to the station carefully packed in a pasteboard box and triumphantly borne in Arabella's arms.

Mrs. Kendall herself went to New York with the children, taking Margaret with her. In the Grand Central Station she shuddered a little as she pa.s.sed a certain seat. Involuntarily she reached for her daughter's hand.

"And was it here that I stayed and stayed that day long ago when you got hurt and didn't come?" asked Margaret.

"Yes, dear--right here."

"Seems 'most as if I remembered," murmured the little girl, her eyes fixed on one of the great doors across the room. "I stayed and stayed, and you never came at all. And by and by I went out there to look for you, and I walked and walked and walked. And I was so tired and hungry!"

"Yes, yes, dear, I know," faltered Mrs. Kendall, tightening her clasp on the small fingers. "But we won't think of all that now, dear. It is past and gone. Come, we're going to take Patty and the others home, you know, then to-morrow we are going to see if we can't find a new home for them."

"Divvy up!" cried Margaret, brightening. "We're goin' to divvy up!"

"Yes, dear."

"Oh!" breathed Margaret, ecstatically. "I like to divvy up!" And the mother smiled content, for the last trace of gloomy brooding had fled from her daughter's face, and left it glowing with the joy of a care-free child.

Not two hours later a certain alley in the great city was thrown into wild confusion. Out of every window leaned disheveled heads, and in every doorway stood a peering, questioning throng. Down by the Whalens'

bas.e.m.e.nt door, the crowd was almost impa.s.sable; and every inch of s.p.a.ce in the windows opposite was filled with gesticulating men, women, and children.

Mag of the Alley had come back. And, as if that were not excitement enough for once, with her had come Tom, Mary, Peter, Patty, and the twins, to say nothing of the beautiful lady with the golden hair, and the white wings on her hat.

"An' she's all dressed up fit ter kill--Maggie is," Katy Goldburg was calling excitedly over her shoulder. Katy, and Tony Valerio had the advantage over the others, for they were down on their knees before the Whalens' window on a level with the sidewalk. The room inside was almost in darkness, to be sure, for the crowd outside had obscured what little daylight there was left, and there was only the sputtering kerosene lamp on the table for illumination. Even this, however, sufficed to show Katy and Tony wonders that unloosed their tongues and set them to giving copious reports.

"She's got a white dress on, an' a hat with posies, an' shoes an'

stockings," enumerated Katy.