"10.45!" Tim saw visions of Mrs. Simmons speeding down upon him in hot pursuit, kindled by Gay's disappearance into an appreciation of her charms.

The tears stood in his eyes as Gay clambered out of the basket, and danced with impatience, exclaiming, "Gay wants to yide now! yide now!

yide now!"

"Did you want to go sooner?" asked the man, who seemed to be entirely too much interested in humanity to succeed in the railroad business.

"Well, as you seem to have consid'rable of a family on your hands, I guess we'll take you along. Jim, unlock that car and let these children in, and then lock it up again. It's a car we're taking up to the end of the road for repairs, bubby, so the comp'ny 'll give you and your folks a free ride!"

Timothy thanked the man in his politest manner, and Gay pressed a piece of moist cooky in his hand, and offered him one of her swan's-down kisses, a favor of which she was usually as chary as if it had possessed a market value.

"Are you going to take the dog?" asked the man, as Rags darted up the steps with sniffs and barks of ecstatic delight. "He ain't so handsome but you can get another easy enough!" (Rags held his breath in suspense, and wondered if he had been put under a roaring cataract, and then ploughed in deep furrows with a sharp-toothed instrument of torture, only to be left behind at last!)

"That's just why I take him," said Timothy; "because he isn't handsome and has n.o.body else to love him."

("Not a very polite reason," thought Rags; "but anything to go!")

"Well, jump in, dog and all, and they'll give you the best free ride to the country you ever had in your life! Tell 'em it's all right, Jim;"

and the train steamed out of the depot, while the kind man waved his bandana handkerchief until the children were out of sight.

SCENE IV.

_Pleasant River._

JABE SLOc.u.m a.s.sUMES THE RoLE OF GUARDIAN ANGEL.

Jabe Sloc.u.m had been down to Edgewood, and was just returning to the White Farm, by way of the cross-roads and Hard Scrabble school-house. He was in no hurry, though he always had more work on hand than he could leave undone for a month; and Maria also was taking her own time, as usual, even stopping now and then to crop an unusually sweet tuft of gra.s.s that grew within smelling distance, and which no mare (with a driver like Jabe) could afford to pa.s.s without notice.

Jabe was ostensibly out on an "errant" for Miss Avilda c.u.mmins; but, as he had been in her service for six years, she had no expectations of his accomplishing anything beyond getting to a place and getting back in the same day, the distance covered being no factor at all in the matter.

But one needn't go to Miss Avilda c.u.mmins for a description of Jabe Sloc.u.m's peculiarities. They were all so written upon his face and figure and speech that the wayfaring man, though a fool, could not err in his judgment. He was a long, loose, knock-kneed, slack-twisted person, and would have been "longer yit if he hedn't hed so much turned up for feet,"--so Aunt Hitty Tarbox said. (Aunt Hitty went from house to house in Edgewood and Pleasant River, making over boys' clothes; and as her tongue flew as fast as her needle, her sharp speeches were always in circulation in both villages.)

Mr. Sloc.u.m had sandy hair, high cheekbones, a pair of kindly light blue eyes, and a most unique nose: I hardly know to what order of architecture it belonged,--perhaps Old Colonial would describe it as well as anything else. It was a wide, flat, well-ventilated, hospitable edifice (so to speak), so peculiarly constructed and applied that Samantha Ann Ripley (of whom more anon) declared that "the reason Jabe Sloc.u.m ketched cold so easy was that, if he didn't hold his head jess so, it kep' a-rainin' in!"

His mouth was simply an enormous slit in his face, and served all the purposes for which a mouth is presumably intended, save, perhaps, the trivial one of decoration. In short (a ludicrously inappropriate word for the subject), it was a capital medium for exits and entrances, but no ornament to his countenance. When Rhapsena Crabb, now deceased, was first engaged to Jabez Sloc.u.m, Aunt Hitty Tarbox said it beat her "how Rhapseny ever got over Jabe's mouth; though she could 'a' got intew it easy 'nough, or raound it, if she took plenty o' time." But perhaps Rhapsena appreciated a mouth (in a husband) that never was given to "jawin'," and which uttered only kind words during her brief span of married life. And there was precious little leisure for kissing at Pleasant River!

As Jabe had pa.s.sed the store, a few minutes before, one of the boys had called out, facetiously, "Shet yer mouth when ye go by the deepot, Laigs; the train's comin' in!" But he only smiled placidly, though it was an ancient joke, the flavor of which had just fully penetrated the rustic skull; and the villagers could not resist t.i.tillating the sense of humor with it once or twice a month. Neither did Jabez mind being called "Laigs," the local p.r.o.nunciation of the word "legs;" in fact, his good humor was too deep to be ruffled. His "cistern of wrathfulness was so small, and the supply pipe so unready," that it was next to impossible to "put him out," so the natives said.

He was a man of tolerable education; the only son of his parents, who had endeavored to make great things of him, and might perhaps have succeeded, if he hadn't always had so little time at his disposal,--hadn't been "so drove," as he expressed it. He went to the village school as regularly as he couldn't help, that is, as many days as he couldn't contrive to stay away, until he was fourteen. From there he was sent to the Academy, three miles distant; but his mother soon found that he couldn't make the two trips a day and be "under cover by candlelight;" so the plan of a cla.s.sical education was abandoned, and he was allowed to speed the home plough,--a profession which he pursued with such moderation that his father, when starting him down a furrow, used to hang his dinner-pail on his arm and, bidding him good-by, beg him, with tears in his eyes, to be back before sun-down.

At the present moment Jabe was enjoying a cud of Old Virginia plug tobacco, and taking in no more of the landscape than he could avoid, when Maria, having wound up to the top of Marm Berry's hill, in spite of herself walked directly out on one side of the road, and stopped short to make room for the pa.s.sage of an imposing procession, made up of one straw phaeton, one baby, one strange boy, and one strange dog.

Jabe eyed the party with some placid interest, for he loved children, but with no undue excitement. Shifting his huge quid, he inquired in his usual leisurely manner, "Which way yer goin', bub,--t' the Swamp or t'

the Falls?"

Timothy thought neither sounded especially inviting, but, rapidly choosing the lesser evil, replied, "To the Falls, sir."

"Thy way happens to be my way, 's Rewth said to Naomi; so 'f gittin'

over the road's your objeck, 'n' y' ain't pertickler 'baout the gait ye travel, ye can git in 'n' ride a piece. We don't b'lieve in hurryin', Mariar 'n' me. Slow 'n' easy goes fur in a day, 's our motto. Can ye git your folks aboard withaout spillin' any of 'em?"

No wonder he asked, for Gay was in such a wild state of excitement that she could hardly be held.

"I can lift Gay up, if you'll please take her, sir," said Timothy; "and if you're quite sure the horse will stand still."

"Bless your soul, she'll stan' all right; she likes stan'in' a heap better 'n she doos goin'; runnin' away ain't no temptation to Maria c.u.mmins; let well enough alone 's her motto. Jump in, sissy! There ye be! Now git yer baby-shay in the back of the wagon, bubby, 'n' we'll be 's snug 's a bug in a rug."

Timothy, whose creed was simple and whose beliefs were crystal clear, now felt that his morning prayer had been heard, and that the Lord was on his side; so he abandoned all idea of commanding the situation, and gave himself up to the full ecstasy of the ride, as they jogged peacefully along the river road.

Gay held a piece of a rein that peeped from Jabe's colossal hand (which was said by the villagers to cover most as much territory as the hand of Providence), and was convinced that she was driving Maria, an idea that made her speechless with joy.

Rags' wildest dreams of squirrels came true; and, reconciled at length to cleanliness, he was capering in and out of the woods, thinking what an Arabian Nights' entertainment he would give the Minerva Court dogs when he returned, if return he ever must to that miserable, squirrelless hole.

The meadows on the other side of the river were gorgeous with yellow b.u.t.tercups, and here and there a patch of blue iris or wild sage. The black cherry trees were ma.s.ses of snowy bloom; the water at the river's edge held spikes of blue arrowweed in its crystal shallows; while the roadside itself was gay with daisies and feathery gra.s.ses.

In the midst of this loveliness flowed Pleasant River,

"Vexed in all its seaward course by bridges, dams, and mills,"

but finding time, during the busy summer months, to flush its fertile banks with beauty.

Suddenly (a word that could seldom be truthfully applied to the description of Jabe Sloc.u.m's movements) the reins were ruthlessly drawn from Lady Gay's hands and wound about the whipstock.

"Gorry!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Sloc.u.m, "ef I hain't left the widder Foss settin' on Aunt Hitty's hoss-block, 'n' I promised to pick her up when I come along back! That all comes o' my drivin' by the store so fast on account o' the boys hectorin' of me, so 't when I got to the turn I was so kind of het up I jogged right along the straight road. Haste makes waste 's an awful good motto. Pile out, young ones! It's only half a mile from here to the Falls, 'n' you'll have to get there on Shank's mare!"

So saying, he dumped the astonished children into the middle of the road, from whence he had plucked them, turned the docile mare, and with a "Git, Mariar!" went four miles back to relieve Aunt Hitty's horse-block from the weight of the widder Foss (which was no joke!).

This turn of affairs was most unexpected, and Gay seemed on the point of tears; but Timothy gathered her a handful of wild flowers, wiped the dust from her face, put on the clean blue gingham ap.r.o.n, and established her in the basket, where she soon fell asleep, wearied by the excitements of the day.

Timothy's heart began to be a little troubled as he walked on and on through the leafy woods, trundling the basket behind him. Nothing had gone wrong; indeed, everything had been much easier than he could have hoped. Perhaps it was the weariness that had crept into his legs, and the hollowness that began to appear in his stomach; but, somehow, although in the morning he had expected to find Gay's new mothers beckoning from every window, so that he could scarcely choose between them, he now felt as if the whole race of mothers had suddenly become extinct.

Soon the village came in sight, nestled in the laps of the green hills on both sides of the river. Timothy trudged bravely on, scanning all the dwellings, but finding none of them just the thing. At last he turned deliberately off the main road, where the houses seemed too near together and too near the street, for his taste, and trundled his family down a shady sort of avenue, over which the arching elms met and clasped hands.

Rags had by this time lowered his tail to half-mast, and kept strictly to the beaten path, notwithstanding manifold temptations to forsake it.

He pa.s.sed two cats without a single insulting remark, and his entire demeanor was eloquent of nostalgia.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Timothy disconsolately; "there's something wrong with all the places. Either there's no pigeon-house, like in all the pictures, or no flower garden, or no chickens, or no lady at the window, or else there's lots of baby-clothes hanging on the wash-lines. I don't believe I shall ever find"--

At this moment a large, comfortable white house, that had been heretofore hidden by great trees, came into view. Timothy drew nearer to the spotless picket fence, and gazed upon the beauties of the side yard and the front garden,--gazed and gazed, and fell desperately in love at first sight.

The whole thing had been made as if to order; that is all there is to say about it. There was an orchard, and, oh, ecstasy! what hosts of green apples! There was an interesting grindstone under one tree, and a bright blue chair and stool under another; a thicket of currant and gooseberry bushes; and a flock of young turkeys ambling awkwardly through the barn. Timothy stepped gently along in the thick gra.s.s, past a pump and a mossy trough, till a side porch came into view, with a woman sitting there sewing bright-colored rags. A row of shining tin pans caught the sun's rays, and threw them back in a thousand glittering prisms of light; the gra.s.shoppers and crickets chirped sleepily in the warm gra.s.s, and a score of tiny yellow b.u.t.terflies hovered over a group of odorous hollyhocks.

Suddenly the person on the porch broke into this cheerful song, which she pitched in so high a key and gave with such emphasis that the crickets and gra.s.shoppers retired by mutual consent from any further compet.i.tion, and the b.u.t.terflies suspended operations for several seconds:--

"I'll chase the antelope over the plain, The tiger's cob I'll bind with a chain, And the wild gazelle with the silv'ry feet I'll bring to thee for a playmate sweet."

Timothy listened intently for some moments, but could not understand the words, unless the lady happened to be in the menagerie business, which he thought unlikely, but delightful should it prove true.