"Drop nothing!" was the very un-savant like retort. "You'll break both your legs. Hold on till I can get up there," and the would-be rescuer darted within the stable.

How she managed it no one could quite grasp, but there was a flutter of skirts, a swing, and Jean was in a little heap upon the soft turf.

Springing lightly to her feet and dusting the gra.s.s from her palms, she said:

"h.e.l.lo, Nonnie! I got _him_ out of the way long enough to hug you without having him watch how it's done. Reckon he'll learn soon enough without me to teach him. Come on into the house, quick. He'll find out that I'm not killed when he looks out of the window."

If Mrs. Carruth seemed resigned, Constance quite convulsed and Eleanor unduly rosy, Jean seemed oblivious of those facts.

CHAPTER VI

THANKSGIVING.

With the happier outlook resulting from Constance's success in her candy-making, it had been deemed advisable to send Jean to the private school from which Eleanor had graduated. Consequently, that autumn Jean had been enrolled among its pupils, and her place in the public school at which she and Constance had been pupils knew her no more, and Jean was much divided in her mind as to whether she was made happier or otherwise by the change. In the old school were many friends whom she loved dearly, and whom she missed out of her daily life. In the new one was her boon companion, Amy Fletcher, and also a number of the girls whom she constantly met in the homes of her mother's friends. But Jean was a loyal little soul, and her interest in her fellow-beings a lively one. She could hardly have been her mother's daughter otherwise.

Naturally in the public school were many children from the less well-to-do families of Riveredge, and not a few from those in very straitened circ.u.mstances. Among the latter were three girls very near Jean's own age. They were sisters, and were ambitious to complete the grammar school course, in order to fit themselves for some employment.

There were other children older and other children younger; in fact, there seemed to be no end to the children in the Hodgeson family, a new one arriving upon the scene with the punctuality of clockwork. This fact had always disturbed Jean greatly.

"If there only _would_ come an end to the Hodgesons," she lamented to her mother. "The trouble is, we no sooner get settled down and think we've reached the end than we have to begin all over again. Those babies keep things terribly stirred up. Don't you think you could make Mrs.

Hodgeson understand that she could get on with fewer of them, Mother?

You see, the clothes never do hold out, and as for that last baby carriage you managed to get for her, why, it's just a wreck already. The other day, when I went by there on my way to the Irving School, I saw Billy Hodgeson riding the newest and the next newest, and the _third_ newest in it, and the third newest had a puppy in his arms. No carriage could stand all that, could it?"

"I'm afraid not, dear. Perhaps we had better ask some other friends if they have a carriage they no longer need."

"Oh, no, don't! Please, don't! If you do, Mrs. Hodgeson will think she's got to get a brand new baby to put into it, for the old babies wouldn't match, you know. No, please, don't."

"Very well; we must let them get on with the old ones, both babies and carriage, I see," Mrs. Carruth answered, much amused.

"Yes, I really would; but here is something that's bothering me," and Jean snuggled close into the encircling arms of the big chair in which she and her mother sat for this twilight hour conference.

"What are they going to do when Thanksgiving Day comes? No turkey on earth would be big enough to go 'round, even if they could buy one, which I don't believe they can. I was talking to Mrs. Hodgeson about it just the other day, and she said she was afeered her man couldna buy one nohow this year; they was so terrible intortionate in the prices,"

concluded Jean, lapsing unconsciously into the slipshod Mrs. Hodgeson's vernacular.

"I think she must have meant extortionate," corrected Mrs. Carruth.

"Perhaps she did; I don't know. But I'll bet five cents they won't have a thing when the day comes around, and I think that's awful."

"We are sending out a number of baskets from the church, and I have asked that one be sent to the Hodgesons," was Mrs. Carruth's hopeful reply. It was not welcomed as she antic.i.p.ated.

"That won't do a bit of good," answered Jean, with a dubious shake of her copper-tinted head. "Not a _single bit_, for when Mrs. Hodgeson said she reckoned they'd have to get along without a turkey I said right off that I thought I could manage one all right, 'cause you could get one sent to her. My, but she got mad! And she told me she guessed she could get along without no charity turkey; that Hodgeson always _had_ managed to fill up the young ones somehow, and if he couldn't do it on turkey this year he could do it on salt pork. Ugh! Wouldn't that be awful? Why, Mammy won't have salt pork near her except for seasoning use, as she calls it. No, we've got to do something else for those everlasting Hodgesons."

Mrs. Carruth thought the term well applied, even though she did not say so; they were everlasting. But she was hardly prepared for Jean's solution of the problem with which she had seen fit to burden her youthful shoulders.

Mrs. Carruth's Thanksgiving guests were Hadyn Stuyvesant and Homer Forbes. Her table was laid for six, and a pretty table it was, suggestive in its decorations of the day. According to her Southern traditions, the meal was ordered for two o'clock instead of the more fashionable hour favored by her Northern friends. Her guests had arrived, and Charles, the very personification of the old family servitor, had just announced with all the elegance and mannerism of which he was capable:

"De Madam is sarved."

Upon this day Mammy had taken affairs strictly into her own hands. No one except herself should prepare her Miss Jinny's Thanksgiving dinner.

The other servants might a.s.sist Charles in serving it, but the actual preparation and cooking must be done by her own faithful hands.

Consequently all the marketing for this occasion had been personally looked to by Mammy and Charles. In their chariot of state, drawn by Baltie, they had driven to South Riveredge, selected every article, and carried it home in their own baskets. Once that lordly turkey had been scientifically poked and pinched by her and met with approval, she was not going to let it out of her sight "an' have no secon'-rater sont up to de house instid." Mammy had small faith in Northern tradesmen. So to her cabin all had been sent, there to be prepared and cooked by her on "de fines' range in de worl'!" as she confidently believed her own to be, and truly it was a wondrous feast which now stood ready for Charles'

serving, the two maids to dart like shuttles between Mammy's cabin and the great house.

It was Hadyn Stuyvesant who with graceful bow offered his arm to Mrs.

Carruth, while Homer Forbes turned to the two girls. As she rose to accept Hadyn's arm Mrs. Carruth paused a moment, doubt and indecision in her eyes, and asked:

"Where is Jean?"

"She left the room just a short time ago, mother. Shall I call her?"

asked Constance.

"Yes, do, dear. We will wait just a moment for you."

Constance left the room, to return in two minutes with consternation written upon her face.

"Where is she and what-?" asked Mrs. Carruth, resignation to any possibility descending upon her.

"She has just come in, mother, and-and-" the words ended in a laugh as Constance collapsed upon a chair.

"What is it, Connie?" demanded Eleanor. "What has Jean done now?"

"Where's my little sister?" asked Hadyn. "You can't make me believe she has broken all the laws of the Medes and Persians."

"No, not those old fogies, but, oh, dear, what do you suppose she has done?-invited, sans ceremony, Victoria Regina, Mary Stuart, and Adelaide Elizabeth Hodgeson to dine with her!"

"Constance! Never!" cried Mrs. Carruth.

"She has. They are up in her room this very minute putting the finishing touches to their very unique toilets."

"Go get 'em. Fetch 'em on. We'll entertain 'em right royally! I know that National bird is a bouncer, and big enough to feed a dozen Hodgesons as well as all present," was Hadyn's laughing command.

"Oh, Hadyn, we can't," protested Eleanor, whose dignity and sense of propriety were continually receiving slight jars from this friend of the household.

"Why not? It will be the experience of their lives-an education by practical ill.u.s.tration of manners polite. How can you hesitate, Eleanor?

I thought you were a strong advocate of settlement work, and here you are overlooking an opportunity sent to your very door. Who was it I heard talking about 'neglected opportunities' not long since? A most edifying dissertation, if I recollect aright, too."

"I second the motion. Such a zest to a meal may never again be offered.

Yes, Mrs. Carruth, you've got it to do. It is clearly a duty brought to your door," added Homer Forbes. "Moreover, it will give me a wonderful opportunity to pursue my psychological studies. Didn't know I was knee-deep in them, did you, Eleanor? Fact, however. Human emotions as the direct result of unsuspected mental suggestion, etc. Bring on your subjects, Constance."

"I give in. Do as you've a mind to, you incorrigible children, only bear this in mind-you are _not_ to tease those girls and make them miserable.

Jean has made one wild break, but there shall be no more if I can prevent it. Since she has brought them here, and you _will_ dine with them, so be it; but you are not to tease them, you madcap men," was Mrs.

Carruth's final dictum.

"Not a tease, not a smile out of order," agreed Hadyn, though his twinkling eyes half belied his words.

"You just watch us entertain 'em," insisted Homer.