"Yes, this is an everyday frock that dear Mrs. Calvert had made for me and gave me. She is my father's friend and is sorry for him, and does things for me, I reckon, just to help him. Of course, I wear shoes – when I have them!" laughed Dorothy, carefully refraining from looking at Alfaretta's own bare feet.
"What you laughing at?" demanded that observant young person, already joining in the mirth without knowing its cause.
"I was thinking how I was once allowed to buy a pair of shoes for myself and picked them out so small they nearly crippled me. And I have been barefooted, too, sometimes, when I was trying to escape from the truck-farm;" and once started upon the subject, Dorothy did not hesitate to complete the narrative of her adventures and, indeed, of all her short, simple life, as already related by me in another book called, "Dorothy Chester." – how she had been picked up on the doorstep by Mrs. Chester and brought up as that lady's own child – how she had been kidnapped and taken to the truck farm – how honest Jim Barlow had proved her best friend – and how at last the rich Mrs. Calvert had restored her to her foster parents at this picturesque if rather dilapidated home in the Highlands of the Hudson.
Alfaretta was likewise confidential, and with each passing moment and each fresh remembrance the liking between the two little maids strengthened. Finally, with a trifle of gloom, the country girl disclosed the fact:
"Pa he's the scolder to our house, but ma she's the licker. She says she ain't going to spoil her children by sparing rods when our 'upper lot' is full of 'em. The rods, I mean. She doesn't, neither. That's true as preachin'."
"Why, Alfaretta! Are you ever whipped? A big girl like you?"
"Huh! I may be bigger 'n you but I ain't much older. When's your birthday?"
"The second of April."
"My heart! If that don't beat the Dutch! Mine's the first. So we must be next door to twins. But lickin's! You just come to Cat Hollow any Saturday night, 'bout sundown, and you'll be in the nick of time to get a whack yourself. Ma says she's real impartial, 'cause she takes us in turn. One week she begins with me and the next time with Claretta. Diaretta ain't old enough yet to fall into line, and the boys were let off soon as they went to work and fetched in money. Ma says all of us need a lickin' once a week, anyhow, and she don't have time to bother with it only Saturday nights, after we all get washed. When do you get licked, yourself, Dorothy C.?"
"When? Never! Never in my whole life has anybody struck me. I – I wouldn't bear it – I couldn't!" cried Dorothy, indignantly. "But I mustn't stop here any longer. We've more than enough berries for breakfast and I'm so hungry. Besides, we're out of sight of the house and my father John will worry. He said last night, when he had me in his arms again after so long and so much happening, that he meant to keep me right beside him for the rest of his life. Of course, he didn't mean that exactly, and he was asleep when I came out. I waked up so early, with all the birds singing round, and oh! I think this wonderful old mountain is almost too beautiful to be true! Seems as if I'd come to fairyland, sure enough! I'm going now."
Dorothy said this with a faint hope that her visitors might depart without taxing Mrs. Chester to provide them a meal. She knew that no food was ever wasted in mother Martha's frugal household and but sufficient for three ever prepared, unless there was due warning of more to partake. Twice three would halve the rations and – at that moment, with appetite sharpened by early rising and the cool mountain air – the young hostess felt as if she could not endure the halving process.
However, her hope proved useless, for with a shout and bound, Baretta started for the cottage and Claretta kept her a close second, both crying loudly:
"I'm hungry, too! I'm hungry, too!"
Alfaretta was off with a rush, carrying the pail of berries and bursting in upon the astonished Mrs. Chester, with the announcement:
"We've come to spend the day! We're Mis' Babcock's children. See all the berries I've picked you? Is breakfast ready? 'Cause we are if it ain't!"
"Where – is – Dorothy C.?" questioned the housemistress, recognizing the extended pail as her own, wondering how it had come into this girl's hands, and failing to see any sign of her daughter, no matter how closely she peered outward.
"Why, sakes alive! Where is she?" echoed Alfaretta, with great surprise, also searching the landscape. "A minute ago she was tagging me, close, and now she isn't! My heart! What if she's gone and got herself kidnapped again!"
CHAPTER II
AN UNFORTUNATE AFFAIR
But nothing so dire had happened. Crossing the grassy stretch before the cottage Dorothy had caught sight of Jim Barlow's familiar figure, coming along the tree-bordered lane which led to Deerhurst, and had hurried to meet him. The shrubbery hid her from view of Mrs. Chester and the Babcock girls, and for a moment mother Martha's heart sank with the same dread she had known while her beloved child had been absent from her. "Kidnapped!" If Alfaretta had tried she couldn't have hit upon a more terrifying word to her hearer.
"O Jim! Did ever anybody see such a beautiful, beau-ti-ful spot as this? Let me hold Peter's chain – the darling dog! No, he won't get away from me! I shan't let him. You can lead Ponce – but why did you bring them? Did Mrs. Calvert know? How do you like Deerhurst? Are you going to be happy there? Shall you have a chance to study some? Must you work in the garden all the time? Oh! I want to know everything all at once and you are so slow to talk! But, Jim dear, just stop a minute and look – look! Isn't our new home lots prettier than the little brick house where we used to live – 77 Brown Street, Baltimore! Do stop and look – please do!"
Obedient Jim did pause, for this small maid could always compel him to her will, though he felt he was half-disobedient to his real mistress, Mrs. Cecil, in doing so. She had sent him with a basket of fruit from her own fine garden for the family at Skyrie and had bidden him take the Great Danes along to give them their morning exercise. They were wild with delight over the outing, and their vigorous gambols not only threatened to upset the basket hung on his arm but made him caution:
"Look out, Dorothy Chester! That there dog'll get away, an' then what'll happen?"
"Why – he'll get away, silly! You just said so yourself! But I won't let him – Quiet, Peter, bad dog! Down, sir, down! No, I'm not one bit afraid of you now, even if once you did nearly kill me and scared me out of my senses! O Jim! I'm so happy – so happy! Almost too happy to live. If my precious father were only well! That's the one thing isn't just perfect."
In her joy Dorothy gave her tall friend a rapturous pat on the shoulder, and though a swift flush rose to his sunburned cheek he shook off her caress as he would the touch of a troublesome insect. In his eyes this little maid whom he had rescued from her imprisonment on Mrs. Stott's truck-farm was the most wonderful of human beings, with her dainty, graceful ways and her lovely, mobile face. All the same – she was a girl, and for girls, as such, James Barlow had a boyish contempt.
But she did not resent his action, indeed scarcely noticed it as, whirling about to suit her movements to those of Peter, she still pointed to her new home:
"They say the man who built that house was queer, but seems to me he was very wise. All of stone, so, it looks almost like a big rock and part of the mountain itself. Such cute little, tiny-paned windows! Such a funny stairway going up to the second floor on the outside! There's a little one inside – so narrow and twisted, Jim, that even I can hardly walk straight up it but have to go sidewise. Then the back of the house is even with the ground. I mean that the biggest, best room of all, which is father John's, opens right on the garden. Two stories and a cellar in front, only a wee low story behind! Like a piece of the hillside it's on. Then the vines! Did you ever see such beauties? Oh! I love it, I love it, already, and I've only been here one night. What will it be when I've lived a long time there!"
"Huh! You'll get sick enough of it – 'fore long too. S'pose you hain't heard it's haunted– but I have, an' 'tis!"
"Jim Barlow! How ridiculous and – how delightful!